Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6"Some 3500 years ago, a cataclysmicevent wiped out the flourishing Bronze Age Civilisation on Crete in the Aegean sea. The obvious culprit is a volcano on the island of Santorini, which is known to have erupted at that time.
The eruption on Santorini must have been one of the biggest bangs in history...The most destructive eruption in modern times occurred in Indonesia in 1883, when a volcano on the island of Krakatoa exploded. But the crater left behind at Santorini is four times as large as that on Krakatoa. Vulcanologists estimate that the ancient volcano ejected 2 to 3 times as much ash and rock.. Parts of the Cretan coast experienced waves up to forty metres high..."
- New Scientist
Not much further inland, Indy came to a set of stone steps leading upward to a plateau overlooking the pier. He walked up the stairs, which gleamed white in the early sun. He had reached the ancient city of Knossos.
So this was where the Nazis were searching. Indy had to admit it was as good a place as any to start. Knossos was founded around 3500 BC, and quickly became the principal city of Crete. Its renown spread across the Mediterranean, as one of the principal cities of the Aegean civilisation. The culture of Crete at that time was the Minoan culture, one of the most enduring of the Mediterranean cultures.
Knossos was the palace city of the legendary King Minos, son of Zeus, who featured heavily in Greek mythology. Greek legend had it that at Knossos, King Minos had Daedalos build a labyrinth underneath the palace. Inhabiting the labyrinth was a fierce man-beast with a bull's head and a man's body, who killed all who entered. Legend also had it that this creature was the result of the union of King Minos's wife, and an animal, a punishment from the Gods intended for Minos. Zeus, king of the Gods, was himself held to have lived in a cave known as Dictaeos, near Knossos, for most of his youth.
Indy had, during his career, studied the Greek mythology and, as had many others, concluded that the legend of King Minos had its grounding in fact, as Crete was supreme amongst the civilisations of the Aegean region. The Palace of Knossos was an example of this, enhanced as it was by brightly painted frescoes of people, landscapes and animals.
The rise of Knossos continued, until the year 2000 BC, when it was the principal city in the lands of the Aegean sea. Only three hundred years later, however, a massive earthquake levelled the city and caused massive damage to the Palace. This date, 1700 BC, also marked the end of the one phase in the history of Crete. Though the original palace was virtually destroyed, the new dynasty work began almost immediately on the next. The rebuilt Palace of Knossos was created to a far more elaborate scale: it rose three or four stories high and contained many extensive rooms and passages, including a luxuriously decorated throne room. Curiously, many of the paintings and murals that dotted the palace depicted the sport of bull-leaping, a precursor of bullfighting. The Minoans of this age were well educated, with a complex mathematical and philosophical base of knowledge.
The destruction of Knossos came at the hands of the warmongering Mycenaean civilisation of Greece in 1400 BC. The rest of Crete soon followed as Minoan civilisation collapsed. Knossos was no more.
Several things had led probably led the Nazis to Knossos. The first reason was that the hole in the Crete mural had been centred on Knossos. Also, Knossos was simply the finest, most advanced of all the cities of Crete - so where else would you look to find influences of Atlantean culture?
The second was the chronology of Knossos. Plato gave a figure for the Lost Kingdom existing ten thousand years ago, but as Hermocrates wrote in his introduction, this could be either one thousand or one hundred thousand years ago. The former figure fitted in well with the history of Knossos, given its rise in 3000 BC and eventual fall in 1400 BC. In particular, the earthquake which levelled the palace in 1700 BC was interesting - could it have been an aftershock of the destruction of Atlantis?
The third, which the Nazis probably hadn't thought of at all, was the admittedly slim connection between 'tall horns', and the obsession of Knossos with bullfighting, and indeed the Minotaur legend. Indy thought about this now, going over his Greek mythology. He'd had always held that if you sifted through the soil of legend, you found grains of truth. It was a tenuous link, to be sure, but tenuous was better than none at all.
The last reason was that Knossos was still a city of mystery to archaeologists. The site was first excavated in 1900 by Sir Arthur John Evans, who uncovered the Royal Palace. He and later archaeologists discovered up to three thousand stone tablets, containing scripts of a language named (by the archaeologists) Linear A and Linear B. Neither language had been deciphered, making the contents of the tablets a complete mystery. Did the tablets contain the distilled wisdom of Atlantis? Sophia would say yes. Indy wasn't so sure.
The labyrinth of King Minos had not, yet, been discovered. Legend had it that the layout of the labyrinth was based upon a mural upon the floor of the Palace. This mural had been found, but not the labyrinth itself. Sir Arthur John Evans worked the site from 1900 to 1906, and continued his work in the area until early 1935. Now the Nazis were here, only two months later.
He came to the top of the stone steps, and found himself in the remains of an open air courtyard. To his right were several large thick slabs set into the hillside. Indy caught a glimpse of a stone spindle. To his left, a dirt path led the way to the ruins of Knossos. Sea breezes blew at salt shrubs by the path. In front, on the far side of the courtyard, the land sloped down again to the coastline, and a small pier. The sea beyond was calm, pale blue and inviting. Indy decided against taking the dirt path. That way led to Evans' excavations of the palace of King Minos. Indy didn't have time for it - by all accounts Crete was the Greater Colony, and Indy had the Sunstone and Moonstone - all you needed for entrance to the greater colony. And that spindle in the paving, in front of the three stone slabs, was interesting.
Indy slotted the Sunstone and the Moonstone onto the spindle, aligning the diagrams in accordance with the Dialogue. He pushed the spindle.
The central stone slab swung outward, grinding noisily against the paving. "What do you know?" said Indy. "A secret door." His excitement was tempered by the knowledge that, secret door or not, the Nazis were bound to have been here first.But it seemed they weren't here now. So as Indy picked up the Sunstone and Moonstone, his heart was lightened somewhat. Still, he wasn't completely sure. Something told him they weren't far away.
The Sunstone and Moonstone nestled snugly in his jacket, a comforting weight. He looked up and into the passage behind the slab. Leading down into grey darkness was a set of stone steps. Indy had a new mission now: a rescue mission.
Was he ready for the labyrinth?
Was he ever. Indy stepped boldly into the darkness.
The stone steps led down into the deeps. Indy kept count of about fifty before the passage began to level out. It continued in this vein for a short distance, before Indy came out in a small antechamber, emerging wide eyed. Once he was satisfied there were no Germans around, he started to relax.
Indy looked around - the chamber led to an open brass door. Through it, Indy could see passages branching off left and right. Indy started - he could see them. How? Where was the light coming from? It was lighter than a night of full moon down here.
He ruffled his hat, confused. So, the legend of a labyrinth under the ruins of Knossos was true! Hardly anyone reputable put credence in that hoary myth. The legend of Atlantis wasn't any more far fetched. Its truth was starting to seem more and more possible.
Where was the last stone disk? Where was Atlantis? Waiting for him behind that door?
Indy looked around the room. To the right, the floor seemed to have fallen away completely. Indy thought about looking over at the chasm, then decided against it. By the main passage, some stone from the outside courtyard was strewn about. Indy was still having trouble with where the light was coming from - maybe cracks in the ceiling?
No way. They were too far down.
Indy looked left, and down, at a stone slab by the floor. Now what were these? Nestled on the stone slab, the main items of interest, were what looked to be three stone heads. From where he was, and in this light, which was admittedly poor, the carving looked to be of a fairly low quality.
Indy was crouched down and looking at the three stones. The busts looked familiar. "I think I recognise these. Yes! They're Greek gods!" He pointed at the bearded head on the left. "That one there is Zeus, that one is Apollo, and that one on the right is Ares." He looked thoughtful. Maybe this wasn't the Labyrinth. Maybe it was Dictaeos instead.
Well, whatever it was, it needed stone disks for entrance, so there must be some Atlantean connection. It didn't look good at the moment, but he'd find something before too long. If the Germans weren't ahead of him.
He picked up one of the heads, to test its weight, and was somewhat surprised when the stone slab rose slightly.
The brass door rattled a little, and lowered slightly.
Watching the door intently, Indy picked up Apollo. The door rattled again, and fell, this time slightly lower. Indy put Apollo and Zeus back.
A counterweight door system! These Minoans were surprisingly advanced. Most evidence pointed to counterweight systems being unknown until 300 BC.
Indy knew the answer to that conundrum. This wasn't Minoan. It was Atlantean.
Hopefully there was more to show for it than a door. He gave one last look at the three Greek Gods, then walked over to the brass door. The ground under his feet was dusty, and slightly damp. And there was a faint smell, wasn't there? Not brass, but something more organic.
Out in the passageway beyond, Indy could immediately see there would be problems. There was a passage to his left, a passage to his right, and a set of stone steps leading to another passage above. Each looked as likely as any other.
Indy hesitated only a moment. "Right."
He headed over to a low archway, which appeared to have been dug out of the stone and then propped up by stone slabs, like the ones in the courtyard outside. Indy ducked his head as he passed through, and emerged into a small antechamber, about four metres wide and five metres high.
"Dead end," he said, disappointed. He looked at the far wall - it appeared to have been bricked up. He walked over and looked at the mortar. Testing its strength, he couldn't even get it to scratch. They may as well have never dug out the passage to begin with.
That left two, thought Indy. He retraced the way back out and to the left passage. The archway here was higher - he could walk through at full height.
And there was noise - a thin, running sound. Indy emerged into the wider cavern, and saw a small underground stream, running from an outlet high in the left wall to a small hole directly in front of them, about five metres away. The smell here was stronger - almost putrid.
Indy walked over to the hole and peered down, curious. He could see nothing. It was curious - presumably the Germans were down here somewhere, but he couldn't see head nor tail of them.
He got up again, and walked past the stream to a passage at the far end of the cavern. He was slightly put off by the displaced majesty of the place. The cavern was large, nearly twenty metres high, the kind of place that dwarfed your presence. It was clearly man made. And there must be hundreds of places just like it, if this really was the Labyrinth of Knossos. Yet for all the signs of occupation, it might have well just been a natural cave system.
Indy entered the darker connecting passageway. There was something wrong here - and Indy couldn't place what it was. Traps? Ravines?
Who needed them when you had the Minotaur?
Indy paused in the next stone room. There was a narrow passage on the far side, and steps leading up to another level of tunnels. Absurdly, he was fearful, of something far older than Nazi terror. On reflection, you couldn't really blame him. Indy had believed for a long time that Atlantis, King Minos, the Labyrinth, and so on were all myth. The Minotaur was myth. Was it true too?
For the first time, Indy wished he'd brought Sophia along. He imagined how the conversation might go: "So, where do you think the Minotaur is?" he would ask, in a confident, jokey voice.
Indy could picture the reaction clearly, even in the dim light. Sophia would give him a hard Look. "Minotaur? Don't tell me you believe that old fairy tale."
"Fairytale?" Indy would respond loudly. "You've been prancing on about Atlantis for weeks and suddenly the Minotaur is a fairy tale?"
"Well, obviously," Sophia would say. "Punishment from the Gods for not sacrificing a bull - bull! The Atlanteans never demanded sacrifice from the other Aegean civilisations. They were above such superstition."
"Oh good," Indy would say happily. "I'm very reassured."
The imagined conversation was not much comfort. He wondered where Sophia was now, and what she was doing.
He walked over to the far passage, and peered through. Apart from a small, dark blue pool of, well, it looked like water, there was nothing else of interest. Another dead end.
Indy shrugged, and walked over to the stairs. The echo of his footfalls on the smooth stone rang out sharply, clearly distinguishable. Indy winced with each step he took. But there was no sign of human occupation, and nothing came to the noise, man or beast.
Here at the top of the stairs, another passage led out. Indy strode through the arch. The tunnel widened here, and there was a door set in the side. Unlike all the other doors he'd come to, this one was emphatically blocked by a heavy stone block. For this reason, Indy immediately knew he had to get through.
He shoved the door. It sure was heavy. He pushed it several times, each time getting a maddeningly faint response, so that he was never sure if he'd moved it any or not. He shoved; did he just hear it groan in protest? Indy pushed again. This time, there was definite movement. A small crack on the doorframe was exposed to air. Indy leant and pushed with all his might. Come on, fall over!
Screaming with effort, he finally toppled the door. "Bingo!" said Indy, as it hit the ground with a heavy thud that must have been heard throughout Crete. But no-one came.
Indy stepped through. He was disappointed. This room had three sections. The far side and the near side were fine, both with doors leading away. The middle, however, was a stone chasm three metres wide that neatly separated the two.
There was no hope of him jumping that. Indy hesitated, then turned back. He resumed his original path.
As he emerged on the far side, he stopped in his tracks. There were no passages leading off from here. The room was not that deep, maybe five metres in total. But only two of those had floor. Indy looked down. In front, and to either side, the stone dropped away sharply, into a chasm of unguessable depths.
He drew in breath sharply. The Minoans couldn't have built this. Not in a thousand years.
That wasn't what worried Indy, though. What really had caught his attention was the first signs of real human habitation. A chunk of crumbling stone masonry. And a clump of bones by the doorway. Indy knelt down and examined the bones. He could see two skulls. They weren't fully intact - indeed, one appeared to have been crushed by unthinkable pressure.
Very few of the other bones appeared to be intact. Some were even bent into wholly knew shapes, which had only the most passing resemblance to Homo sapiens.
"Dead end," said Indy humourlessly, turning a skull over in his hand, then returning it to the ground. He wasn't in the mood for Shakespeare. Bones of previous explorers, no doubt. No doubt at all.
Indy turned and started retracing his steps. He could already feel the adrenaline in his system.
Before too long, he made it back to the first chamber. There was no internal discussion of which way to go this time - they only alternative he had was up.
The passage at the top of these stairs was different. Not propped up by stone blocks, but circular, as if tunnelled out by giant man eating gophers. Indy had a fleeting image of a giant man eating gopher gnawing its way through the Labyrinth, and despite himself, had to laugh. The sounded strange in the dead air, but not unwelcome.
The room this chamber led to was small. Several stone pillars stood in one corner, marked with strange symbols. Indy walked over to them and looked at the images. As far as he could tell, and the images were unfamiliar, it appeared to be some sort of calendar. And at the top, the stylised image of a bull.
Indy was looking at the options. A passageway on the left, which lead off into an even dimmer area. And the ground sloping down to a passageway on the right, and the hint of a large open space beyond. Looked like right again.
Through the tall passage he went. Looking at the ground, it may have just been his imagination, but the path seemed to be worn somewhat.
Emerging from the far end of the passageway, Indy whistled. No wonder. He appeared to have emerged in a multi-level plaza. The air smelt cleaner, and the floor looked almost swept. From here, the top floor, two more passages lead away. A lower second floor lead to another passage. And at the bottom, three more passages. And, standing slightly higher than a man, what appeared to be a statue. Intrigued, Indy walked over. Yes, it did appear to be a statue. A marble carving of the head of Jupiter was set onto a slab of granite three metres high. Set against the granite was a marble slab, at about Indy's height. There was a slit in the granite, which appeared to be designed to allow the marble slab to move up and down.
Indy looked at this, and then he looked at the passageway beside it. It was blocked, by a bronze grilled door - exactly the same door as at the entrance to the Labyrinth.
The doorway was another counterweight. And this was just a rough guess, but Indy felt pretty confident it had been set to operate at the same weight as the entrance door." He grasped the grills of the door and tried to lift it anyway. Nothing.
Indy let go and looked at his hands - they were free of rust flakes. Curious. It looked like he'd have to head back to the start and getting the busts. Those things looked like fifty pounds each, and he still hadn't explored as far as he could. And he couldn't put it off, because sooner or later the Nazis would get them for him.
Indy looked at the other two passages. He might just check what was through here first. He walked over to the right passage.
When he emerged at the far side Indy looked up, gasped with shock, and fell over.
It was certainly bull like, you could say that. Whatever its creators had been thinking of, bulls were certainly high on their agenda as they set about their masterpiece. It was tall and intimidating, maybe four metres high and one metre wide, and that was before you took the stone pedestal it stood on into account. It had the head of a bull, the body of a man, and it was made entirely of stone.
Gradually Indy realised he was not in any immediate danger. He pulled himself up, face red despite there being no-one around to see. Now he was glad Sophia wasn't along - he could just imagine her hearty laugh. All the same, he was pretty glad about the non-existence of the Minotaur. For all he knew, this was the original Minotaur.
He'd seen it was a statue even before he hit the floor, but the nervous reaction was faster. He looked at the statue a bit closer, now that he could do so without losing his footing. Mind you, it still looked pretty fearsome. If Indy was a superstitious type of person, this was a statue he'd go out of my way to make an offering to.
Indy walked over to the Minotaur, climbing the steps so he was directly underneath. He used to wonder why Minoans were so obsessed with bull headed figures. Looking at this heavy beast, Indy still wondered. He craned his neck to look at the head. It looked heavy - very heavy. And slightly loose.
Needing something manly to do to restore his ego, Indy uncurled his bullwhip and whipped it at the neck of the statue, releasing all his pent up anxiety and aggression. There must have been more there than he thought - the neck of the statue proceeded to crack, and the crack spread in a most alarming manner.
The head of the Minotaur wobbled, and fell forward.
Indy ducked to one side as the massive head slammed into the stone step beside him. There was a massive booming sound, as of a cannon firing. Indy felt the shockwave up his spine.
The head didn't explode in thick shards. Instead, it somehow held together as it bounced up, presumably out of a thick patch of dirt, and clunked its way down the steps. Bouncing off the last step, the head proceeded to land on the stone below, and come to a rest. The floor sagged.
Indy walked over, curious.
The impact of the stone head seemed to have defined a stone slab within the ground, about two metres by two metres. But if this was sagging, what was the stone resting on?
Indy thought of the bronze door. He thought about it carefully, then stepped onto the stone slab.
There was a grinding noise of stone on stone as the slab beneath him shook, and then began to grind its way downward
"A primitive elevator of some sort," noted Indy, his head already sinking below floor level. The foot of the elevator was opening into a cavern much larger than the room above. And there was a rushing sound - Indy looked to his right, and saw an underground stream - possibly the underground stream, as seen earlier. By now his head had passed through the stone shaft and he could see clearly into the cavern. The elevator was supported by stone columns on either side of the slab.
It was Mr Otis who was generally credited with inventing the elevator, Indy remembered as he neared the bottom. With a jolt, and a crushing sound from below, the slab came to a stop. Well, this was his floor. He stepped off the elevator. The ground here was softer, and slightly wet. It was springy beneath his boots.
Indy felt a rush of air behind him, and turned to see the elevator returning to the surface. "Hey, wait! That was my ride!" he cried. The elevator continued to rise. "Oh, darn," said Indy. He had a look around his new home.
There was something not far away.
A skeleton. A skeleton, moreover, dressed in khaki shirt, brown pants, woollen socks, shoes, and safari hat. A skeleton still possessed of fragments of flesh and skin. This was a recent explorer. Indy suddenly had a nasty suspicion who it was.
Before he had even reached the body, he knew. His old friend Professor Sternhart. It looked like he starved to death. Indy felt slightly sick. He knelt down at the thin corpse, which appeared to be holding a note in its right hand.
Professor Sternhart knew a lot more than he'd let on, but it hadn't been enough. Indy's predicament was brought home sharply. He'd starve too if he didn't find a way out of here.
Indy reached out and gently took the note from Professor Sternhart's hand. He peered down at his thin, neat handwriting, hard to read in the gloom. He read Sternhart's final words out loud.
"'I am convinced the Map Room is somewhere among the upper chambers. I believe that static electricity will respond to orichalcum, but since I'm trapped down here I'm not sure if I have all the pieces for a makeshift detector or not."
Indy shivered. Too bad for Sternhart. He'd come a long way. Indy placed the note on the ground, and looked at the ground around Sternhart.
Three things. Firstly, a thin walking stick on Sternhart's left. Indy reached over and picked it up. It was eerily regular. On Sternhart's right, what had once been a bright red woollen scarf was now brown with dirt. It was scuffed, perhaps from Sternhart's attempt to generate static electricity.
Indy picked it up. It might be useful. As he did so, he felt a irregular, bumpy object inside the scarf. He fumbled around, and drew out a rubber comb.
String, string... Indy patted his pockets. He was pretty sure he still had some of the clothesline from the sub. He found it, and tied it to the comb. There you had it - his very own orichalcum dowser.
Indy rubbed the comb with the scarf then hung it, experimentally. The comb swung around, spinning lazily counterclockwise. It didn't stop, or point to anything in particular. Either there was no orichalcum around, or Sternhart was talking bullshit. Indy put his makeshift orichalcum detector away, for the time being.
The last item was at Sternhart's feet, and the hardest to spot. It was a grey stone circle, which blended well into the background. Indy had been staring in its general direction for some time before it suddenly leapt into the foreground.
It was the Worldstone Sternhart had swiped in Tikal. Indy grasped it and stared at the designs, all around the thin rim. While he examined the engraved images, Indy finally heard the background noise he'd been exposed to for several minutes. It was coming from his right, near the elevator, and sounded like running water.
Indy walked over to the elevator and looked at the waterfall. Its thin strands of water had a soothing, hypnotic effect. Indy stared at it for several minutes before he saw the chain hanging behind the waterfall. He immediately put two and two together. "The elevator counterweight!" he said softly.
There was a small space behind the falling water. It was just large enough for Indy to fit through. Pausing for a moment to consider his options, Indy stepped through the water.
A sheet of ice cascaded over him and he was soaked before he got through the other side. "I hate getting wet," said Indy, shaking the water off. He looked at the chain. It was damp, but not overly so. He looked upward. The shaft extended seven metres up, where the chain disappeared over a clump of rocks on the shaft wall.
Indy got a handhold on the chain, and leapt upward. Taking care to keep a firm grip, he slowly winched himself upward. A minute later, Indy was scrabbling at the top for purchase. Any hope of getting up the counterweight shaft dry had long since, for lack of a better term, evaporated. He was soaking wet. And very cold. Finally, after much cursing, he was able to pull himself up into a narrow horizontal passageway. Dragging himself through the narrow tunnel, he pushed aside some small rocks to emerge once more in the temple of the Minotaur. It looked a lot less impressive without its head. And there it was, sitting on the elevator, which had returned to its rightful position.
Indy stood there for a moment, catching his breath. For a moment he didn't know what to do. It seemed all of his options were finally used up. Then he remembered the gate, and returned to the plaza area.
Indy looked at the bust of Jupiter. Now what's behind there? he wondered. We'd been planning to open the gate, hadn't we? Were those the upper chambers, concealed behind the gate?
Indy looked at the third level door, assessing the possibilities. It wouldn't be as hard as he'd thought to find his way back, mainly because his footprints were still visible in the still dust, as if deposited on some lunar surface. But what if the Nazis had come back?
He decided to go for it. Nothing good ever comes of brooding.
Fifteen minutes later, a warmer, nay hotter Dr Jones stretched his trembling muscles to hoist Apollo onto the shelf with his mates, and as his fingers broke contact the bronze gate swung up. Indy looked through into a dim passageway, which then turned right to new pastures. Small trails of dust blew over his feet.
In the entrance room, with the sea just audible from above, Indy was relieved to find not a soul in attendance. The stone heads turned out to be lighter than expected, and he was able to carry all three back in the one journey.
Now, Indy walked into the open passageway, around the corner, and came to a Y junction. The path on the left sloped upward, and was slightly larger. The path to the right continued on at a level. Indy chose to go left. He was now using Sternhart's walking stick, and marvelling at how well it balanced his motion.
The path curved left, and right. In one corner, another set of bones. Another unlucky explorer? Who else knew about this place? Indy bent down to examine the loose collection. The bones crumbled even as he touched them.
Indy shrugged, and kept walking to the far side of the tunnel. Here, there seemed to be a doorway. Indy walked through and ... was surprised again.
No Germans (where were they?). Directly in front of him, the ground was split by a stone shaft plunging into the darkness. Its shape was regular, almost square. And hanging above the shaft, looking like the meanest punching bag ever devised, was a stone counterweight. Indy, taking a closer look, saw that a chock of wood had been wedged to hold the counterweight in place.
This wasn't the only notable feature of the room, however. For a start, this really was a room, not just a natural cavern or cave. Indy could see bricks set into the walls on either side. There were also decorations. Set into the walls were numbers of carven mosaics, featuring what else, but bulls. Sixteen sets of eyes glared down on Indy from their elevated place in the centuries.
But even these failed to hold Indy's attention for long. What had really caught his interest, from the moment he walked through the arch, was a small stone table on the far side. On the table, gleaming dully in the dim light, was a small golden box. Behind it was just a tunnel, leading to a large open door. Indy wasn't interested in that, he was caught by the box. It almost seemed to be casting a faint golden glow on its surroundings.
He looked at the chasm. It was just, just, too long to jump. Maybe if he freed the counterweight... Using Sternhart's walking stick, Indy poked at the chock, which popped free and tumbled down into the darkness. There was a faint echoing clank as it hit the bottom not soon after.
Indy was looking at the counterweight. It shook slightly, the chain creaking as it supported the movement, and was still. No elevator magically appeared from below.
"Shoot," said Indy. The bulls looked at him disapprovingly. "But ... hey, what if..."
Indy turned briskly and left the room, powering his strides with the walking stick. Maybe, that other path at the Y junction led to the bottom of the shaft. Maybe it did. And if it did, then that meant ... well, he'd work out what it meant when he got there.
Having reached the junction, Indy took the lower path and was pleased to find it sloping down gently. Once again, Indy was wondering ... natural or man made? He still couldn't tell.
Another low stone arch, and suddenly Indy emerged at what had to be the bottom of the stone shaft, because he could see the base of the counterweight hanging above. Below and next to the counterweight, a smooth and regular stone square. The elevator. Right next to the elevator, a stone head about four metres high.
Indy was taken aback. Looking at the piece, it did appear similar to the Minoan work he'd seen at the dig site. The statue was a carving of a young, almost boyish face, with a straight nose and bald head. The eyes, each about the size of Indy's arm, had no pupils. The mouth appeared to be pursed shut, except for a small cleft right in the centre. Indy knelt down and peered into the hole, and saw nothing.
The head was positioned so as to be looking right at the elevator. Obviously he had to do something with it, but what? Indy picked up Sternhart's stick and poked it around in the mouth, hoping to trigger something.
He did more than that. Pushing the stick as far as it would go, there was a sudden crack sound as the end was seized by unknown hands inside. Indy's hold on the stick was broken as it was pulled into the mouth with sudden force. There were further crunching sounds. Splinters sprayed out of the small opening.
"Hey!" said Indy, annoyed with the loss of the stick. Then a low throaty rumble came from the statue. With sudden, effortless ease, the elevator began to rise.
Indy looked up, and saw the counterweight falling beside him. The shaft was shorter than he first thought ... maybe six metres high. They were rising quickly, too - he could already see the room above, and the gold box casting its faint glow over the surrounds.
The elevator stopped. Like that. Smooth. Flush level with the floor on either side. Indy cared little for this, he was walking slowly toward the box.
Indy's face began to glow golden as he came closer. From here, he could now see the tiny filigree carvings on the edges of the box, which was perhaps half a feet in width and length. Now against the table, Indy reached out hesitant, trembling hands toward the box. His fingers grasped the edge, which felt almost slick.
Indy gently, slowly, carefully, raised the box, which was a comfortable, hefting weight. Nothing seemed to happen. Indy opened the box, and looked inside. Nestled in the interior of the box, which seemed to have been lined with lead, were two orichalcum beads. The significance of the lead lining didn't escape Indy. He remembered Sophia talking about a German quest to smash the atom. Sophia... Indy was getting really worried about her. He wasn't finding anything down here, Atlantean or German. He was thinking about her a lot, these last few hours. And he thought about that necklace she wore, the one with the orichalcum residue.
Indy tucked the box into the folds of his jacket. He walked on, away from the elevator. There was a doorway back here.
It opened onto a small room, with some kind of stone machine lying squat on the floor. It looked a little like the statue Kerner stole, except that where the head of the statue went was a set of heavy circular blades, like a drill bit for digging holes in walls.
At the other end of the machine, a hatch was open. Indy peered inside. Amongst the complex arrangement of pulleys and levers, a part seemed to be missing. It had a familiar shape.
Indy pulled from his jacket the statue he'd found in Algeria. He placed it into the innards of the machine, where it clicked into place. Now he had a place to put in an orichalcum bead.
He placed the bead into the open mouth of the statue. Would this start up the microtaur here?
The statue swallowed the bead. It sparked, bathing the innards of the machine in white light. Suddenly the microtaur started to vibrate, then accelerated toward the nearby wall, its drill bit spinning furiously.
It cut cleanly through the stone, making a horribly loud squeal. Stone and dust radiated from the circular hole created by the machine, but the rest of the cave around Indy held firm.
Soon the noise cut out, almost instantly, and the vibrations stopped. It had reached the far side.
Indy got down on his hands and knees, and crawled into the narrow tunnel. Its surfaces were hot and smooth. Straight on it went for ten feet, like the barrel of a gun, before emerging in another labyrinth room. The microtaur sat motionless just in front of the tunnel, a trail of broken rock behind it.
Indy got up, and stared around in wonder. A map, divided into three concentric circles, was illustrated on the floor in front of him.
There were many, many rooms in the Labyrinth. Though Indy had encountered less than two score, he was right when he thought there might be hundreds of rooms, tunnels and passageways.
No longer were all of these accessible. There was a time when every room in the Labyrinth could be reached from any other room. Now, much of the Labyrinth has been shut off by tunnel collapses, and other such rock movements. Many others are kept secret behind massive boulders. These rooms and many more lie undiscovered, forever containing their unknown secrets.
One such room was the Map Room. There are larger rooms in the Labyrinth, so large that even 'cavern' perhaps falls a bit short. There are more impressive rooms. But the Map Room is alone in its design.
The Map Room is about ten metres square. Four doors branch off from it, though we are not interested in them, nor indeed was Indy interested in them now. What interests us is the floor.
There is, in a circle about eight metres in diameter, a small, intricate model of a city. Actual houses, buildings and even trees are all laid out in carven granite. It is a most unusual city, separated as it is into three concentric circles, each isolated from the other by a flat moat. One might gaze in wonder a long time at this city, so detailed is it. But one's curiosity would be immediately piqued by the centre of the city, where there is not one building. Only a raised stone circle one metre in diameter, with a stone peg at the very centre. Perhaps, one thinks, that's the sundial.
Indy wasn't thinking any such thoughts at all. The similarities to Plato's Atlantis were astonishing. He ruffled his hat. Either Atlantis was a lot smaller than he thought, or he'd found some kind of map, or scale model. Laid out in three concentric circles, just as Plato described.
"Amazing," said Indy, looking at the city. He saw the spindle, at the centre of the city. "Looks like a job for the stone disks," he said as he walked over, careful to avoid stepping on anything fragile.
Let's see, it was morning light on tall horns, full moon above noon sun, and ... hmmm, dying orbs plummeting into the eastern sea. That's east sea above setting sun...
Indy pushed the spindle.
Green light. Indy turned, and saw a statue by the edge of the city. It looked like the statue in Caswell Hall. Its eyes were glowing a bright green, and it started to speed around the perimeter of the city. As it passed, buildings rose and fell in its wake.
Indy watched, stunned.
The statue had completed two circuits when it stopped and span on the spot. A door behind them suddenly opened. The statue died.
Indy looked at the door. Another tunnel. Where did this one lead? Indy knelt down to pick up the stones, then walked over to the door. Was he ready?
He walked on.
It was, he had to admit, disappointing. The door opened on a tunnel which twisted and turned a bit, then came to another doorway. All this doorway led to was another path, this one bisected halfway by a thin stream of water falling from above.
Indy walked along the path, skirting the stream of water, to the doorway on the far side. It led him to an outcrop of rock, which overlooked a deep chasm. There was nowhere left to go.
He looked around a while. Maybe this was where he needed the orichalcum detector. He didn't have any better ideas, so he took out the comb rig and rubbed it vigorously with the scarf. He hung it from the string and waited for action.
The comb didn't swing lazily counterclockwise this time. It swivelled, as if pulled by some force, and abruptly stopped.
Indy followed the line of the comb. It was pointing almost directly down, to a skeleton on the floor in front of him. Indy rummaged around in the bones and found two orichalcum beads. He put them in the box.
He'd been hoping for more. Indy walked back toward the waterfall. Perhaps he should try the orichalcum detector here as well. He rubbed it, suspended it, and again the electrified comb rapidly chose a direction and stuck. It pointed toward a patch of stone by the waterfall. The stone looked to be crumbling a bit.
That was all Indy needed. He put away the comb and pulled out his old friend the entrenching tool. He started to dig.
Behind the wall was another room, only a few feet away. The stone Indy dug away was so loose and brittle it only took him five minutes to dig enough stone away to reveal a doorway, blocked up by a stone slab. Indy pushed the slab over, without much effort, and stepped through.
There was an orichalcum bead on the ground just in front of him. Indy picked it up and put it in the box, but he was looking past to something larger and far more impressive.
A smooth, rectangular tunnel stretched away into the distance, as far as Indy could see. It was wide and tall enough for two buses to pass side by side. The floor was grooved in the centre, and nestled in this depression was something as large as a train carriage.
It was built from stone, with a front inlaid with bronze and carved into a likeness of some kind of cat, or pig. Open to the air, the carriage held several rows of stone seats, all empty.
This was the alternate route from Crete to Atlantis. The Atlanteans had their own subway. Indy shook his head with disbelief and walked to the front of the car.
There was a bright circular patch between the eyes of the car, and the mouth, down around Indy's knees, was open wide. It looked hungry for more orichalcum.
Indy took out a bead. He really wanted some way to put it into the mouth without standing in front of this carriage, but there was none. He shrugged, and popped in a bead.
The patch between the eyes of the car lit up, casting a yellow beam forward into the darkness. A headlight. The car started to rumble, so Indy jumped out of the groove and hopped onto the carriage. He sat down and held on tight.
Just in time. The carriage leapt forward, somehow gliding over the ground in a perfectly frictionless way. The stale underground air blew at Indy as they pushed forward, gaining ever more speed. Supports, set into the wall at frequent intervals, whizzed past ever more frequently. On they sped, along a tunnel set straight as a die.
Indy held on his hat. Atlantis, here he came.