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PART VI

ATLANTIS

"At first, the people of the world had only one language and used the same words. As they wandered about in the East, they came to a plain in Babylonia and settled there... They said, 'Now let's build a city with a tower that reaches the sky, so that we can make a name for ourselves and not be scattered all over the earth.'
Then the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which these men had built, and he said, 'Now then, these are all one people and they all speak one language; this is just the beginning of what they are going to do. Soon they will be able to do anything they want! Let us go down and mix up their language so that they will not understand each other.' So the Lord scattered them all over the earth, and they stopped building the city."
- Genesis 11:1-8

The stone was dry underfoot. "Amazing!" said Indy as he walked up the stone steps into a large interior recess, its dimensions made unguessable in the dim light. "I'm hundreds of feet below sea level, yet there's enough air pressure to keep the water out! How is it possible?" He reached the top of the stairs and peered into the darkness. He scratched his head. Was this Atlantis? Whatever it was, it sure was dark. And quiet.
Amidst his wonder, however, he thought constantly of Sophia. He wondered where she was now, what Kerner wanted her to do, and whether he was getting any co-operation. With a grin, Indy suspected he wasn't.
Indy inched out into the darkness. The ground here was soft, and rugged, like walking on dirt. He walked on for about four metres more, and by now was utterly blind, feeling out with hands outstretched for an obstacle he expected any moment.
Indy wondered just how far this recess went back when he stumbled into a sloping stone wall. He sucked in his breath.
Edging around to the right, Indy hit a ... well, it felt like a ladder. A wooden step ladder. Indy tested the first step, which was strong, and climbed up. After seven steps he was able to climb to the top of the wall, which was now, he realised, an upraised shelf.
This made things tricky - suppose he fell off?
Walking with twice the care, Indy slowly inched forward. It was several feet before his right foot hit a small stone box, though at the speed he was moving it didn't hurt much. Indy reached down, and heaved the top off. The noise was somehow distorted, smothered, by the darkness. He reached into the box and found a metal rod. Indy's first thought was Sternhart's walking stick - the rod wasn't anywhere near as long, but it was about as wide and had the same feel of uncanny balance. Then he felt along the rod and immediately forgot Sternhart as his fingers encountered a carven figurine at the top of the rod. It felt like the head of an animal. And its mouth ... was about the right size for an orichalcum bead.
Indy reached into his jacket pocket for an orichalcum bead. He only had three - this had better work. He grasped one and placed it into the open mouth of the head.
Indy was watching the rod. He didn't see its eyes glow, or feel it start to heat up, or in fact witness it do anything. But immediately light began to fill his surroundings.
Indy stared at the rod, which looked dull and lifeless, as the room around him began to take an appearance. He was aware of the light. He just couldn't work out how.
The walls were now coming into view. This recess extended about thirty feet back from the sub. Whatever colour and shade the original materials were, the main colour now was a sick blue/green, like an infestation of algae. Some diagrams and paintings could be faintly seen - they looked part human, part fish. The floor was worse - he couldn't even see the original surface was under the accumulation of centuries of muck and grime.
The room was now brightly lit, as if by banks of fluorescent lights. Immediately, Indy saw what he'd been seeking in the first place - in the corner of the upraised shelf was a thick bronze door, inlaid with rugged designs. Next to it, a fat humanoid statue with an open mouth and a spindle for the stone disks was standing sentry. It was twice as high as Indy, and had discoloured from its original brown to a splotchy blue/khaki.
Indy tucked the rod into his front jacket pocket, keeping the head visible, and took out the stone disks. Quickly he arranged the disks to their normal positions, and pushed the spindle.
Nothing happened.
Indy was puzzled. He checked the positions, and tried again. Nothing. Then he remembered the relevant passage from the Dialogue:
'Final entrance yielded only to contrary minds.'
He'd puzzled over that entry several times as the salvage boat brought them out. At first, it seemed to fit him and Sophia - if their minds were not completely contrary, they were certainly skewed a bit. But why should two people who can't agree with each other be necessary to gain entrance? Maybe it referred to the way the stone disks should be used when in Atlantis.
Acting on a hunch, Indy rotated each disk through one hundred and eighty degrees, creating a mirror image of the original configuration. He pushed the spindle.
A foot or two above head height, the mouth of the statue dropped open. Small flakes of rust and droplets of mud fell out. The open mouth of the statue contained a small cleft - just the right size for a bead.
An orichalcum bead, which Indy rummaged around for and placed into the cleft, straining his arm to reach.
The bead fell into the cleft, almost too fast - as if it were eaten, rather than accepted. At any rate, a small chain, which ran up through the statue and into the ceiling high above, was pulled down by some noiseless unseen mechanism. The brass doors swung outward, pushing a slurry of mud to one side. They opened on a wide passage, set at right angles.
Indy looked at it, then bent down and picked up the stone disks. He looked one final time back to the docking chamber, and the sickly red light, as if he were a condemned man looking at the sun for the last time. Then he stepped through the brass doors and looked left and right.

To his left, the passage seemed to curve away endlessly in one enormous arc. To the right, the passage did the same, at least until a rockfall nearby blocked any further vision.
Indy looked left again. The passage was not singular - at several points new passages branched off to the right, in the direction the passage curved, though none branched off on the left, where the wall was a uniform conglomerate of decaying bricks, green fungi and mud. The light from the rod, however it was produced, was surely too faint to illuminate such a long distance. That meant Atlantis had its own method of lighting - like the Minoan labyrinth. Only much brighter.
As far as the passages went, Indy knew what was going on. Atlantis was divided into three concentric circles. This must be the outer circle, with the long passageway bending away on either side forming the outer rim. The floor was interesting, though - a wide shallow groove running along the centre, with faint rail markings on either side. It looked, just slightly, like rail tracks. A subway?
Several bright orange crabs were crawling about on the floor. Indy couldn't place the species, but then he wasn't a zoologist. Still, he could recognise the implications. If crabs were getting along happily here, still alive, then that meant there were probably other creatures around. Maybe natives.
"Maybe Nazis," he muttered under his breath as he took the left passage. He came to the first opening, looked in, and saw what he'd been dreading - the whole outer circle was one large labyrinth.
There was a room to his left, a passageway opening to the right, another passageway opening to the right further along, and a final bend to the left as the passage ended. Indy could also hear noise coming from one of the right hand openings - the squelch of someone's boot in the mud, and a slow whistle.
Indy looked down the outer passageway again, which was curving along its long circumference, decided that in was the best way to proceed, and took the right hand turn inward. The squelchy marching noise was getting closer.
Indy entered the door on his left.
The ceiling here was much lower, the brick walls much closer, and the floor much dirtier. It smelt like a stable. But these features were mere periphery to what caught Indy's attention - there appeared to be an operating table against the far wall.
That was Indy's first impression. It stayed with him as he walked over and looked closely at the metal torso laid out on the table. It was a dull green, with tarnished brown stripes at the shoulders and neck and legs, where extraneous limbs seemed to have been removed. Hanging above the torso, which looked something like a spacesuit for supersized humans, were the aforementioned limbs, suspended from chains in the ceiling. Two thick arms, legs, and a bovine head with peaked ears and a fat nose. In fact, the arms sorta looked like legs, too.
How long had this robot (it was the only word that seemed to fit) lain here, dismembered? Had the operation process begun when a sudden unexpected eruption put an end to the proceedings. If so, where were the bodies of the operators?
The footsteps from outside seemed to be passing. Indy looked at the chest of the robot, which had been opened to reveal a bronze spoked wheel, somehow untouched by rust or dirt. Indy reached in and picked it up, because it didn't seem to fit with the remaining contents of the chest, an intricate structure of nuts and levers.
It was small, less than half a foot wide, and surprisingly light. It looked more like part of some ancient machine. Indy pocketed it.
He looked around the room. Apart from the table, the room was unadorned. The Atlanteans didn't seem to have too much truck with decor. There were pillars in each corner of the room, apparently supporting the ceiling. They were etched with the same circular spirals he'd seen in the Mayan pyramid with Sternhart.
There was a bamboo grille set in the base of one of the walls, about two feet wide. Indy walked over and found it was hinged - it opened easily at the first touch. He bent down and looked in. A narrow tunnel, half choked with mud, continued on for twenty feet before making a left turn to who knew where. Several crabs were crawling around in there.
Indy straightened up. No thanks Guv, not just yet.
He left the room, noting that the footsteps had now gone down the left passage at the end, heading clockwise, so Indy decided to head anticlockwise. The twin passages turned and intersected several times, and eventually Indy found himself in a large courtyard space, with doors and passages branching off in all directions.
Indy peered into the closest door. The room was utterly blank, save for a large stone carving on one wall. It looked like a head, with the eyes and mouth occupying a small space at the bottom. The bulk was taken up by a huge bulbous brain, which was lit from within by tiny, circular veins. The light pulsed rhythmically, simulating the flow of blood.
Indy stepped back, and looked elsewhere. There was another doorway nearby, and this one looked larger and more impressive. Indy entered.
It was large and impressive, and extremely brightly lit by hundreds of the strange bulbous heads, seemingly the Atlantean equivalent of a light bulb. What Indy was looking at, somewhat awestruck, was a strange pyramid shaped machine several storeys high. The parts were still now, the machinery silent.
Stone steps set into the pyramid ran from the floor to the truncated top. Strange doglike statues, mouths open, lined the steps. At the top of the pyramid, Indy could just make out what looked like a funnel. It ran into the centre of the pyramid. Between the steps, the bulk of the machine, were a bewildering array of bronze pipes, gears, toothed wheels, cylinders and pistons. The complexity grew as one descended, until finally converging at a large stone wheel, taller than Indy, set on its edge at the base of the pyramid. In front of the wheel, a short, squat statue, with a face reminiscent of the Caswell hall statuette, held a bronze dish in its hands, below its face. It sheltered below a stone arch, which showcased intricate carvings of beetles on either side. A tube ran back from the head of the statue into the bowels of the machine.
Indy scratched his head, shrugged, and started climbing the steps to the top, hoping to find some clue to the operation of the machine. For all that, what did it do?
At the top of the machine, the tip of the pyramid had been cut off to give a square surface about six feet across. Resting on this surface, as Indy had suspected, was a large bronze funnel. It seemed to be encrusted with stone fragments, however, which was even more puzzling.
Maybe you poured lava down the funnel. Indy thought about this, then descended the steps and left the room. Like there were any sources of lava nearby, he thought. Hey, he reconsidered, this is a volcano...
Indy stopped a moment, then dismissed the thought and kept on moving. He crossed the courtyard to the far side, where there was another cluster of doors. He chose one at random, and found a small room. At least, it must have been small once. However, if you took into account the deep chasm which now neatly bisected it, it was probably much larger. On the other side of the chasm, which was about five feet across, was another green and bronze statue, nestled in the corner by wet, dripping clumps of algae. It hulked - it was well built for it, with an ugly, hanging, porcine head, gnarled shoulders and sloping legs. In its arms it seemed to be holding a stone cup.
Indy took a few steps back, ran forward, and leapt the chasm. For a timeless moment he looked down into the chasm, and could see nothing. Then his feet landed in a puddle of mud on the far side, he lost his footing, and crashed into the wall by the statue.
He got up slowly, covered on one side by a brown sheen of mud and grimacing, and looked at the cup. There was no evidence of fine workmanship. No identifying marks. Just a rugged, thick rimmed, unsymmetrical stone cup.
Indy decided to hang on to it. Mainly because he didn't have anything that could hold liquids, and surely that funnel had been designed to accept some form of liquid. Still, he was disappointed. He'd been hoping for orichalcum. He had just one bead left.
Indy stepped back as far as he could, took his run up to avoid the puddle of mud, and this time managed to land safely on the far side.

On his exit from the room, Indy was spotted by a short, blonde Nazi soldier some ten feet away.
"Dr Indiana Jones!" shouted the soldier at Indy, who was standing immobile in the doorway. "Now we've got you!"
Indy stepped forward. "We'll see about that. Where's Sophia?"
The soldier grinned at him and cackled.
Indy sighed. "I'm tired of running. Now it's your turn!" He cocked his fist and rushed.
The soldier had been expecting this, and blocked the first blow on his forearms. He ducked the second and danced away from Indy, who followed blindly with fists flailing.
The soldier stopped, planted his feet, and aimed a swing at Indy's solar plexus. It was off target, but managed to wind Indy, sending him scrambling backward. The soldier followed it up with a right uppercut, which missed because Indy fell backward. The soldier grinned at Indy as he struggled on the ground.
Indy drew his foot back, and kicked him squarely in the gut. The soldier made a muffled "WWHHMMPPHHH!" sound, and doubled over. The force of the blow drove him back from Indy, who rose and followed.
The soldier's face had gone a pale grey colour, and he was still half bent. Now it was his turn to swing blindly, punches which Indy kept clear of easily. His fists fell.
Indy ducked in and punched him in the head, the chest and the head again. The soldier was looking a bit dazed. Indy grabbed his shoulders and slammed him against the wall. The soldier retaliated by attempting a headbutt. It didn't quite come off, but still had enough force to knock Indy back.
The soldier's fist smacked into Indy's cheek. Stars exploded behind his eyes. He collapsed against a grimy wall. The soldier drew back his fist for a final, forceful blow to the head.
Indy ducked to the right, feeling only the breeze as the soldier's fist flew past his cheek and smacked into the wall. There was a wet crunch. Tiny droplets of blood exploded from the soldier's curled fist. The soldier screamed.
Indy spun the soldier headfirst into the wall. He grabbed the blonde locks of the soldier and slammed his head against the stone. Slammed it again. Once more.
The soldier wasn't moving any more. His face was bloody. Indy let go, his chest heaving, and the soldier collapsed onto the ground by his feet. Still breathing, so he must be unconscious. Indy swallowed a couple of times, and held onto the wall for support until the blackness started to recede and his breath came back.
"One down, lots to go," he said shakily. He bent down to the soldier's body and rummaged around in the pockets. In the inside jacket pocket he found a paper bag, containing two bratwurst sausages. Suddenly realising he was very hungry, Indy wolfed these down, and stood up. He tipped his hat to the soldier and walked back to the doors, taking another. This one appeared to be empty, except for another large headlight and a sack of canvas on the floor, apparently home to an enormous number of crabs. The next door opened on something different.
A short, narrow tunnel, sloping downward before curving left. It reminded him of Crete. Indy ducked in and walked down the slope, took the left bend, and marvelled at how there seemed to be an orange glow coming from the next bend. He took it and emerged in a temple.
There were no headlights here casting their comforting white/yellow light. Here, the light was thick and dark orange, casting the bricks in an entirely new light, and it flickered.
There was a reason for this.
At the far end of this room, raised on a stone pedestal, was a towering statue of something looking like a cross between a crab and a rat. Its face had the familiar Atlantean design: triangular eyelets cut from the metal, thick, tubular nose and a wide, open mouth. It glared down from above, its arms spread wide. From the mouth came the source of the light - a steady stream of lava. It bubbled and cracked as it fell down, struck a sloping funnel, ran along a ramped incline into an altar at the feet of the statue, then emerged near Indy from the far side of the altar, from the mouth of a miniature of the statue. This stream of lava fell into a circular pool, falling maybe ten feet before joining the boiling mass below, the depth of which Indy could not even guess. He could barely look into the pit, for the heat and light were close to unbearable.
"What an archaeological find!" he exclaimed as he backed away from the pit. The towering statue at the far wall was more than just decoration: looking closer at the arrangement of the limbs, he could see it was actually a primitive pump, drawing lava from the pool and returning it. Although, the word 'primitive' didn't really seem to apply.
So there is lava, he thought. Now that just left the problem of collecting it. Indy took the stone cup, walked over to the statue, and climbed onto the altar, shielding his face from the heat. It'll never work, he thought as he brought the cup to the stream of lava.
He shoved it under the mouth, keeping his grip on the cup light, then jerked it back. He jumped off the altar, onto the ground, and put the cup down. Then he sucked at his fingers instinctively, but he really didn't have to. They were no hotter than any other part of his body.
Indy looked at the cup, slightly disbelievingly. It was full nearly to the brim with lava. Some lava had run down one side, as he shoved it in and out of the stream. But the outside surface - he confirmed this by once more touching the cup - was cool.
Indy had stumbled across the Atlantean equivalent of a thermos. Making sure to avoid the thin runnel of lava on the outside rim, he picked up the cup - gingerly, out of habit. Then he got up and left.

At the top of the pyramid machine, with the cup poised above the funnel, he held his breath, and poured half the lava. It disappeared with surprising speed into the tube at the base of the funnel. Indy put the cup down and started running down the steps.
A bank of pistons below the funnel began to flash red and churn up and down noisily. Smoke rose from the mouths of the highest pair of dogs. As Indy ran past the wheels below began to spin. Smoke now rose from the top two pairs of dogs. Indy was dashing toward the bottom now. The machine followed, lights blinking red and whistles whistling loudly. All the dogs were smoking now. Indy reached the bottom and looked at the statue. The strangely carved stone wheel behind it was spinning freely, as were the beetle carvings and a small bronze spoked wheel. Then all activity ceased.
Nothing else happened for a few moments. "Well, that didn't quite seem to work," said Indy. He was staring at the statue for a few moments when the answer hit him. He looked at the bronze spoked wheel. It was set on a peg in the machine, on one side of the statue. On the other side, an empty peg. Indy took out his own bronze spoked wheel, and fitted it to the peg. Perfect. The repair done, Indy ran back up the steps to the funnel and picked up the cup, half full of lava. He tipped it in and pelted for the base of the pyramid, this time managing to outrun the activity of the machine as the lava flowed downward. He reached the base as the big stone wheel began to turn. The eyes of the statue were flashing a dark red. The dish it held below its mouth seemed to well with a brilliant, white light.
Small gleaming objects started to drop out of the mouth of the statue - orichalcum beads. They tinkled into the dish. More followed rapidly, dropping from the mouth and bouncing on the bronze surface below.
The wheel stopped spinning. The eyes of the statue darkened. The light from the dish was gone, save from a golden glow which seemed to emanate from the beads. Indy reached in, and scooped out a handful of beads. He put them in the box. He reached in, took the rest of the beads, and put them in the box. There were at least thirty in there now.
"Well, well...more orichalcum beads. Who needs a currency when you've got these fellas?" Indy reached past the statue and picked up the bronze spoked wheel, its duty done. Whistling a little ditty, he left the room.

The bright mood lasted about as long as it took him to return to the courtyard. They still had Sophia. They had the lead. How long before the Germans departed with a subload of orichalcum?
Indy set off for the far side of the courtyard, toward another passage leading counterclockwise. Atlantis! he thought suddenly. Glorious! Prosperous! Socially and technically advanced! Beyond our wildest imaginings!
Indy looked at the dank walls, and slimy floor. Yes, this probably was past his wildest imaginings. But it was more than the dirt and mud which disturbed Indy - surely that was just the effects of time. It had to do with the crabs - what could they possibly be feeding on? And the Atlantean statues, with their horribly distorted faces. Indy hadn't seen a single human statue or illustration yet.
The passage bent a couple of times, left and right, before a door appeared on his left. Indy ducked his head in, and saw another bare room. There was a door set into another wall, blocked by a rockfall. Indy withdrew his head, but as he did so he noticed the smell. It had been there a while, just hovering under his nostrils. Not the dank swampy smell of the mud, though he could smell that too - a pungent, burning ozone smell. It was the kind of odour that put one on edge.
Indy walked on. The mud on his body was beginning to dry and crack. He'd managed to isolate what he thought was giving him problems - walking through Atlantis should have been like walking on a corpse. Submerged for thousands of years, Atlantis should have been a dead city. Expecting an underwater city of marvels was being just a bit too naive, even for Sophia. It was the way that Atlantis was refusing to play dead that was giving him trouble. This Nur-Ab-Sal person, assuming Sophia wasn't just being a little overactive in her imagination. The crabs. The uncanny way that the original structure of the city had been preserved, despite suffering what seemed to be a volcanic eruption.
A crazy thought occurred to him - maybe he, Sophia, the Nazis and all had no say in this. Maybe Atlantis was calling them inexorably to her centre, so that proud Atlantis might once again rule the waves.
Indy shook his head. Ridiculous.
Still, if any city ever possessed its own consciousness, surely that city was Atlantis.
Indy rounded a bend in the passage, and came to another door set into the brick. This one opened on a larger room, at the far end of which was a weird half height statue, looking like the twisted offspring of a fish and bull. One of the many freaks of nature. Resting on the flat head of the creature, and Indy suddenly thought that the designer hadn't been imagining but depicting, was a bronze coil. An eel. Exactly the same as the eel in Iceland.
Indy crossed the room and picked up the coil. What had it done again? Melted itself right out of the ice. He pocketed it - if nothing else, it might make a half decent weapon. Pondering what lay ahead, Indy left and took the passageway further around the outer circle.
There didn't seem to be another courtyard for the passageway to finish at. Instead, it split in two and started interweaving again. The next doorway he came to opened on yet another nearly bare room. Indy couldn't work out what all the floorspace was needed for. On one wall hung a huge stone pictogram, the meaning of which Indy couldn't fathom. He paid little attention to it, because he was looking at yet another operating table, yet another robot.
This one looked even worse than the limbless robot he'd seen before. At least that robot was intact - if in several pieces. This one looked like it'd been dropped from a large height, hit repeatedly with pointy clubs, and caught in a laundry press for good measure. Pieces of the humanoid were strewn on the table, by the table, under the table. "You'd think the Atlanteans wouldn't be such slobs," remarked Indy. He left the robot to its shattered self - nothing here looked remotely salvageable.
Indy returned to the passage. It was starting to widen now. And now, disturbing the silence, he fancied he could hear a slight lapping sound.
The widened passage opened onto an antechamber, leading inward. Here the floor and walls were clear of mud, revealing stone paving and granite, respectively. They were cast in an unusual, blue hue, because in the middle of the antechamber was a pool of clear, light blue water. Light seemed to be welling up from beneath it, so that water ripples were cast onto the surrounding structure. The effect was pleasing - almost soporific.
Behind the pool were a pair of very big, very black, very heavy stone doors. They were shut. What appeared to be holding them shut were a pair of huge sentry statues, either side of the doors. They had the familiar Atlantean style, angular facial features and over-large head: similar to the statues Indy had already seen, only about twice as high. The statues were so high that they actually had to bend at the knees to fit under the ceiling. They held one arm against a door, and the other crossed over the knees. Completing the set was a small beaked fish statue at the front of the pool, looking hungry for orichalcum.
Indy stepped into the pool of water. It was cool, but not cold, and maybe one and half feet deep. It was, he decided, blocking the doors, which looked like they opened outward. For a moment there he could have just plunged into the pleasant cool of the light blue water, but he thought again of Sophia and suddenly knew what to do.
Indy got out of the pool, feet dripping but a bit cleaner, and took out the eel's head. He popped an orichalcum bead into its mouth and quickly tossed it into the water - quickly, though not quick enough to avoid feeling the intense heat as it started to glow red.
It plunged into the water, which immediately began to steam. The eel sank slowly to the bottom of the pool, its colour rising through red to yellow to an unbearably bright white. The surface of the pool was now starting to boil vigorously, copious bubbles rising to the surface and popping. It looked a little like a spa pool, only one that would instantly broil you should you be unwise enough to hop in.
The water level was dropping.
The steam cloud now rising blocked what was going on below completely. Indy backed away a little. If anything, the heaving noises below were getting louder and more frequent.
They reached a crescendo, then immediately dropped. There was a dry hiss.
The steam cloud began to disperse slightly, not so much from any breeze (there was none), but merely through condensing on any handy objects, like the statues, walls, or Indy.
Rising damp, thought Indy, and grimaced. He was getting soaked.
The last vestiges of steam hanging in the air, Indy peered into the pool. It was empty, save for small scraps of mud, and a white heap of slag at the bottom, the composition of which Indy didn't feel like guessing. The doors were now clear to open. But what did they open onto?
This and other questions queued up for the asking as Indy took an orichalcum bead from his box, and placed it into the mouth of the fish statue. Impossibly, the ribbed shoulder of one of the statues began to contract, pulling its arm, and consequently the door attached to it, forward. It creaked to a stop, leaving a gap of about a foot.
Indy held his breath as he walked to this gap. What lay beyond?

When he squeezed through, he was slightly disappointed, and also slightly relieved, to find that what lay beyond was exactly as what lay behind - muddy brick walls and green floors. Indy realised that he was still in the outer circle. Sure, he'd come inward slightly, but, as he was now recalling, the passage behind him had been bending to the right, coming right to the rim.
What Indy saw now were several passages leading forward into another maze. He was still deliberating over which path to choose when he heard voices.
Indy froze, trying to keep his breath as shallow as possible. One of the voices sounded low and gruff. Just another German soldier. Then another voice, louder and petulant, spoke.
"I said, let me out of this cell!"
Sophia! thought Indy with a sudden gladdening of his heart. Kerner hadn't gotten squar from her. He looked around wildly - for all he could tell, her voice might have come from anywhere. Making a choice at random, he took the left passage. He was walking quite a lot faster.
The passage bent right, and took him to a small door. Dead end. The door opened on another bare room, and Indy was about to turn and leave when he realised the voices were louder here. He looked around for the source of the noise, and saw another bamboo grille, set against the floor. Indy knelt down and opened it. It was as muddy as he feared. But whereas the other tunnels only seemed to disappear into darkness, this one seemed to be slightly better lit, as if it opened on another room. It'd make an unusual and unexpected entrance, that was for sure. Still, there was the mud...
Indy deliberated no longer. He got down on his belly and squirmed into the vent.

He soon found (or, at least, as soon as it takes to squirm through twenty feet of narrow muddy tunnel), that his hopes of a dashing entrance were a bit premature. Premature because, at this end, the grille was made from bronze, and appeared to be bolted shut. Indy looked at the statue less than one foot in front of him, and squirmed his head round again, trying to see Sophia.
The statue had given him some early trouble. Rounding the last corner as the tunnel got brighter, he'd found himself almost staring up the nose of a mighty Titan of a warrior, intelligent and evil. Whereas the other Atlantean statues employed large features and straight lines, making their subjects look slightly dim, this statue had fluted, arching eyebrows, smoother arms and more muscular outlines, and actually seemed to possess an expression. One of utter hatred, but an expression nonetheless. Luckily, it wasn't actually staring at the tunnel, or Indy might well have screamed and given his position away. It was actually the profile of the statue which greeted Indy - it was staring to the left, toward the source of the noise.
Indy pressed his face against the grille and tried to do likewise.
He succeeded in bringing into view the German guard, who was a large beefy fellow. The guard was standing in front of what Indy supposed to be a cage of some sort, though he could only make out flashes of bronze. In the cage? It must be Sophia, because Indy could hear her voice quite clearly.
"Ooh, you moron!" she screamed at the guard, who looked amused. "Let me out of here now!" The guard, still smiling, said nothing. He didn't seem interested in carrying out a conversation. "You're meddling with something you can't possibly understand!" The guard smirked.
Indy tried to push the grille forward, even slightly. No good. Even if he could, the statue would just block the exit anyway.
The statue with a bead-sized mouth.
Indy fished around and took out a bead. He looked at it. He looked at the statue. He looked at its powerful arms and its well defined legs.
Indy reached through the grille, and with his fingers stretched to their limit, popped the bead into the open mouth of the statue.
The powerful legs of the statue immediately began to stamp up and down, like a soldier marching. The guard looked around at the first thump. "Achtung!" he cried.
The statue began to march forward, its arms swaying only slightly but its legs taking measured, powerful strides. The expression on the guard's face, before he was lost from Indy's view behind the statue, was one of utter shock. He was rooted to the spot, flummoxed.
Moments after the guard was lost from Indy's view, Indy heard a horrible, gurgling noise. The statue started to march on the spot again, although it no longer sounded like it was marching on stone - more like it was marching through mud. As a final macabre touch, the head of the statue swivelled down so it could see what it was marching on.
Sophia was screaming.
Satisfied with its work, the statue began to turn around - evidently wishing to return to its starting place. However the effects of time had taken their toll, for it lost its balance, tripped, and crashed to earth. Its body broke apart on the floor. Statue parts were scattered in front of Sophia's cage, who had stopped screaming and was now merely breathing in high yips.
"Sophia?" tried Indy, and was slightly alarmed at how much his voice wobbled again. "Hello?" There was no response. He shoved forward at the grille, which was immobile. He turned around and lashed out with his feet. No give.
Sophia still hadn't heard him - she was still breathing like a frightened rabbit. But she was slowing. Indy knew Sophia - she'd be over it in a few minutes and as solid as ever.
Indy turned around in the vent and headed back. The main entrance would be nearby.

It was very nearby - in the very next passage to the one he'd first chosen. Indy passed another massive headlight, and entered the temporary prison/brig proper.
Sophia was trapped in a small alcove, behind a large, heavy bronze grille. There were several such cells in here, apparently the Atlantean prison. Indy suddenly realised why the statue had attacked the guard - it must have been placed here as a sentry by the Atlanteans. The guard was standing in front of the cells, like an escapee, and the statue had assumed as much. Indy grimaced - bet the Atlanteans didn't have much trouble with escapees. And this was an enlightened civilisation?
Sophia's jaw dropped as he came into view. "Indy?" she asked, perhaps not quite willing to believe yet. Indy could credit that. There was still fear on her face, but also a lot of anger - apparently Sophia hadn't lost her spirit, anyway.
"Hi," he said, leaning against the bars. "Did you miss me?"
"Put it this way, Jones, even your company beats this cell." She kicked at a mound of something on the ground, which might have been a clump of mud, or might have been a rat.
"Are you all right?"
Sophia nodded. "I'll feel a lot better once you open this cell."
Hint taken. Indy bent down to the lower bars and grasped them. As he did so, he remarked, "I just called through a mile of mud for you."
"It was a picnic compared to life in this cell," said Sophia, putting things into perspective.
Indy breathed in twice, deep, and jerked the grille upward. For a moment it nearly didn't move at all, then it slowly came up. Indy put more muscle in and managed to lift it as far as his hips. His legs were shaking alarmingly.
Alarmingly to Sophia, certainly. "Are you sure this is safe?" she asked.
Indy gritted his teeth. "Sure, let's go, Sophia." His face was starting to go red.
"I don't know," said Sophia, uncertain. "The door makes me kinda nervous."
The door was making Indy kinda apoplectic. "Just trust me!" he barked. But too late, his hold was already slipping. The door slammed back into the ground, narrowly missing his right foot.
"Not if you're going to yell," said Sophia primly. Indy put one hand against the wall and heaved in great gulps of air. Slowly his chest began to subside.
"Can't you brace it with a rock?" he asked.
"I don't have a rock!" replied Sophia, irritated. "This is an empty cell, Jones, in case you haven't noticed."
Indy thought. This meeting wasn't quite going the way he'd planned it.
He looked around the prison for rocks. None - this area of Atlantis was almost fanatically clear of such debris. Besides, you'd need a pretty large rock anyway. He looked at the statue for a moment, then looked away. The pieces looked way too heavy.
There was one small piece, a geared wheel. Indy picked it up, but as far as its gate bracing abilities went, don't sell your Grandmother just yet.
He looked at the body of the guard. He was dead. A quick search sufficed to show that no, there weren't any keys, and secondly, there weren't any guns either. Indy stood up.
"Come on, Sophia," he implored. "All you have to do is duck under, and you're out!"
"I don't know," replied a doubtful Sophia. "If that's all the time you can hold it up for, then I don't think so."
Indy sighed. "Oh well, guess I'll just have to go look for something to brace the door. See you soon." He tipped his hat, and walked off.
"Don't leave me here, Indy," said Sophia behind him, with a desperate edge to her voice. Indy ignored this, walking resolutely past the dead guard and broken sentry to the doorway. For a moment he was worried, then Sophia yelled out behind him, angry. "JONES!! Don't you dare leave me here, you ... you ... you troglodyte!"

There were two ways to leave the prison - you could head right, and return to the gate Indy came in, or you could head left, inward, to new pastures. Indy chose to head left, where the passage ended in a small doorway. Indy ducked through the doorway, found himself standing on the top of a set of stone steps, and paused for a moment in wonder.
This was a much larger, much taller room. Goodbye to the narrow claustrophobia of the outer circle - here you could comfortably fit four storeys in. The stone steps, which appeared to have been used recently, led you down to the floor several metres below. The floor itself was, in the traditional Atlantean style, bare except for a few scuttling crabs and a pile of bones in one corner. However, it wasn't the floor but what bisected the floor that caught Indy's attention.
It was a canal, maybe ten feet wide. Dark blue water flowed swiftly from one side to the other, and Indy could not guess the depth. It flowed from out of a large tunnel, or a better word is perhaps aqueduct, from one wall and flowed into another on the other side. One the far side of the canal there was a small inlet, which appeared to contain a reed vessel that looked like a cross between a crab and a coracle.
"Plato described waterways like this," muttered Indy to himself. "It must go all the way around the city." If so, their method of transportation around the canals looked remarkably primitive for an advanced civilisation. Where were the boats? The ferries? There was certainly enough room for them.
In any case, the room may have been larger, but it wasn't any cleaner - mud and algae appeared to have done their job here, too. The walls didn't so much have a case of rising damp as damp that had already risen as far as it could go and was now on the downward journey. On one wall, near the crablike craft, was a massive stone circle upon which a face was carved. The face of what, Indy wasn't quite sure - was it a crab? fish? bull? Whatever it was, it looked like possibly the most evil thing ever to have lived. Water flowed from its abundantly wide mouth and into the canal, but this wasn't the source of its evil. It wasn't anything to do with the expression it had, which was in any case unreadable. It was just so ... alien. Not alien in a safe, little green man fashion, but utterly alien to one's experience. Incomprehensible. Indy thought with a sudden stab of fear that if he looked at it for much longer, trying to understand, he would go mad. So he tore his eyes hurriedly away, and descended the steps, feeling rather small beneath its gaze. Maybe it's Nur-Ab-Sal, he thought. It seemed more than possible.
What had the Atlanteans done? Why had it been necessary to destroy Atlantis? What on earth happened here?
Indy reached the bottom and looked at the pile of bones. Similar, in many ways, to the bones in Crete. These bones had also been bent, cracked and shifted by unknown pressures. The only difference seemed to be in the feet - the bones in the feet, near the toes, were split. Bifurcated. Almost as if the feet were developing two distinct claws. Or hooves.
Indy got up, and walked to the canal. Madness. He looked at the crab craft, some twelve metres distant. It would be an easy swim. Presumably it ran on orichalcum - everything here seemed to.
A thick tentacle sprang out of the water and waved about in the air in front of him. It fell back into the water.
Indy backed away, blinking disbelievingly.
More tentacles started reaching out of the water, as if searching for food. They reminded Indy of octopuses - in particular the row of suckers along each side. But no octopus Indy knew of had fifteen foot tentacles that looked to be over a foot wide.
One particular region appeared to be the focus of tentacle activity. The water here seemed more violent, bubbling and heaving. For a moment, two giant eyes, each larger than a teatray, rose above the surface and looked around. Then they fell warily back into the water.
The tentacles continued to break the surface at infrequent intervals. Evidently, he'd disturbed one of their guard animals, which was now, having woken from how many years sleep, pretty hungry.
For an advanced and enlightened civilisation, the Atlanteans sure seemed paranoid.
Now, then. The octopus is hungry, which means it's angry. Which means it wants to be fed. So what can I feed it? Indy looked at the crabs scuttling around the floor. There's good eating on one of those...
He crept over to a small notch in the wall, where crabs seemed to come and go and their leisure. For five minutes he waited there, patient, until a particularly large crab came scuttling out. Indy shot his hand out and grabbed it by the abdomen. The crab clacked and waved its pincers about angrily. It swivelled its eyestalks around to regard Indy as he stood up and walked over to the canal, holding the crab effortlessly. He stopped at the edge, heart thumping, and waited for a tentacle to emerge.
A couple of seconds later a big tentacle curled into the air. Indy tossed the crab toward it, and as it flew to its death he could have sworn the eyestalks of the crab swivelled to face the tentacle. It struck one of the suckers, and the tentacle instinctively grabbed it in a stranglehold. The carapace of the crab broke with a loud crack as the tentacle lowered into the water. There was a pause of about five seconds before a particularly large bubble floated up from below and burst at the surface. A fetid, gassy smell emanated from the region.
Indy waited patiently for five more minutes. No more tentacles appeared. Finally satisfied, he walked over to the aqueduct where the water was coming from, distancing himself from the beast, then, taking his life into his hands, jumped.
The water was warm - surprisingly. Indy broke the surface and swam for the far side. It wasn't long, though it seemed longer, before he grasped the muddy stone on the far side and pulled his shaking body out.
He sat for a moment, recovering his breath, and checked his jacket to see if anything had gotten lost. There was one item - the orichalcum detector. Missing. Indy felt a momentary pang of disappointment - they might have needed it. He looked into the canal, and couldn't see a thing. Probably the best place for it, really.
Indy got up and walked over to the crab raft. From here he could see how strong the craft really was - the reed gave it a look of deceptive weakness. There was a large shallow recess in the centre, looking something like the hollowed carapace of an oversize crab, which looked big enough to fit two. They'd have to stand up, though. As a curious addition, crablike legs trailed down from the craft into the water. Eight of them.
Indy stepped onto the craft. It accepted his weight easily, bobbing up and down in the water. He looked around for the oars, then realised there wouldn't be any - the Atlanteans didn't seem to like using their muscles that much. Set into the head of the craft was a small golden mouth, about the size of an orichalcum bead.
Surprise surprise. Indy reached for another orichalcum bead, the Atlantean currency, and popped it into the open mouth. Immediately, three things happened. The craft rose slightly in the water. It began to vibrate, as if housing a motor somewhere. And the crab legs, dangling in the water, began to thresh back and forth.
Indy stared down in wonder. Automated oars. Once again, the Atlanteans had reached into their bag of tricks and pulled out another white rabbit. Plato wasn't kidding about their advanced state of development. Still, Indy felt uneasy again. If that was the case, why did everything here seem so ... antiquated?
Indy looked around the canal, mindful to avoid the stone carving behind him. On either side, the canal lead to wide wooden gates, barring further passage. Set above each gate, in the stone ceiling, were those unusual concentric lights. He looked down at the craft, still idling in the docking bay. How did you get it moving?
Indy thought about being at one of the gates. Nothing happened, so obviously telepathy was not the answer. Feeling ridiculous, Indy pointed to the gate on his right.
The crab legs immediately began to move in unison. Slowly Indy was taken out of the docking bay, and into the canal. Leisurely they moved toward the gate, the crab legs lazily skimming the water. They were moving against the current, but with consummate ease.
Presently Indy reached the gate, where the crab stopped, waiting for further orders. Indy tested the gate, first pushing and then pulling, and found it didn't feel much like budging. But it didn't seem to matter, because hanging from the concentric veins of light was a stone spindle. For a stone disk.
Indy took the Sunstone from his jacket and held it to the spindle above him. With his other hand he pressed the spindle.
The gate swung open on one hinge. Indy returned the Sunstone to his pocket, and pointed onward. They began to ease through the tunnel, and into the next room.
It was of similar size to the previous room, and almost identical. Here, there were two stone facial carvings on the wall, water flowing from their mouths. Indy kept his gaze averted. On his left, two piles of human bones. Indy focused his gaze on this as they drifted toward the gate on the far side. The feet again had that unusual, cloven look. And the hands - they seemed over-large, simian.
They fetched up against the gate. Indy put the Sunstone to the spindle, pressed it, and nothing happened. Indy thought, then put the Moonstone to the spindle, pressed it, and the gate swung open. He pointed and they passed through.
Here there were no stone carvings on the walls, thankfully. There was, however, a set of stone stairs on his left. Indy pointed to the left bank, and stepped back onto stone. He jogged quickly up the stairs, then remembered caution and slowed down.
The stairs came to a doorway, which opened on ... yet another room, in the oh-so-typical Atlantean style. A stone recess was set into one wall, only this one had a hinged door, giving it the look of a cupboard. In the cupboard rested a crescent shaped bronze gear. It had a similar look to the pieces Indy had already collected. He picked it up. Indy swung the hinged door closed, and stared at it.
"What's this?"
A set of stylised diagrams had been etched on the stone. In the centre, a fish head carving had been placed on top of a spoked wheel. Indy looked at these, and then looked at the Atlantean machinery he had collected. The items were identical.
Around this were four further diagrams, one in each corner. Each contained three figures - a stick carving of a man, a crescent moon, and a sun. The moon and the sun were aligned in various positions around the man, which for some reason caused the man to alternately lower and raise his arms. And, though the similarities were less obvious here, the sun and moon looked a bit like the bronze toothed wheel and crescent gear he'd just collected.
Indy stared at the diagrams for a moment longer, memorising the positions. Finally, he left the room and returned to the canal. He boarded and set off for the next gate.
Here, he didn't bother to try the Sunstone or Moonstone, because he could lay a pretty safe bet they wouldn't be needed. He took out the Worldstone, pressed it to the spindle, and pushed in. The final gate swung open. At least, he hoped it was the final gate. There weren't any more stones left.
But it didn't look like any more would be necessary.
The room beyond was identical, in size at least. It was also cleaner, there being less mud and a lot fewer bones. But what gave Indy hope was the archway on his right hand side, an archway just bound to lead further into Atlantis.
Indy stopped the crab at the shore, and walked to the archway. Stone spirals were carved on each side, and the top of the arch was headed by a lion's head. Indy passed under and followed the passage until, moments later, it emerged at a large bronze gate.
Indy saw the flash of bronze first. But as he climbed the stone steps which lead onto the platform in front of the gate, he saw more. Two headlights, set into the ceiling and casting a white glow over the room. The floor, strewn with rubble. A stone pillar in the middle of the platform. And set next to the gate, an Atlantean statue. It looked similar to the statues which had opened the gate in the outer circle. One arm was attached to a bronze ring which hung in space. Another lead to another bronze ring, firmly attached to the gate.
At least, it must once have been firmly attached. Only now, the ravages of time had eaten away at this arm, and as a result the elbow was missing.
Indy looked again at the stone pillar. Near the top, hung from each corner, were three more bronze rings. They might make useful leverage points. Hanging from one ring was a long steel chain.
Indy noted these, then returned his gaze to what had first caught his attention - the chest of the statue, which was not plated over securely, but only half concealed by a rusting, perforated bronze sheet. Indy pulled at it, standing on the feet of the statue, and it immediately tore lose from the statue. Indy dropped it to the ground, the clunk disturbing the silence, and looked at the statue's innards.
There were large numbers of gears and wheels concealed further in the statue behind countless more bronze plates. Indy wasn't concerned about them. What concerned him was the stone circle set uppermost in the statue's chest. It had a small bead shaped hole in the middle, and four pegs set into the outer circumference.
Was this the stick figure?
Indy thought it just might be. He took the spoked wheel out and found that the centre fitted snugly in the bead hole in the centre. The fish head somehow fit in the middle of the wheel, its edges fitting snugly into the spokes. That gave him a hole in the fish head which would take orichalcum.
The right arm of the statue was broken, so Indy placed the crescent moon on the left two pegs. Somehow, it hung tightly from them. He placed the bronze gear on the topmost right peg.
That was all the pieces accounted for. Indy reached for a bead, and placed it in the mouth of the fish. At once the numerous wheels and gears in the interior began to spin and move. A deep orange glow came from somewhere in the innards. The activity built to a sudden crescendo, and then the left arm of the statue, the one hanging in space, suddenly rotated at the elbow, pointing straight out from the statue.
Which gave Indy an idea.
He walked over to the stone pillar, took one loop of the chain, and went to the bronze door. He looped the chain into the bronze ring on the door, and fastened the latch on the end. Secured. He then took the other end of the chain and pulled it over to the perpendicular arm of the statue, and similarly attached it to the ring. He now had an arrangement whereby the chain left the arm of the statue, went through the bronze loop hanging from the stone pillar, and ended at the bronze gate. This just might work.
In the chest cavity, Indy reversed the position of the gear wheel to pull the statue's arm back to its original position. If the chain were strong enough, it'd pull the gate open at the same time.
Indy popped the bead. Again the statue started its work going. The activity built to a climax and then the arm of the statue began to creak back. Indy was watching the door, which was starting to creak open, but slowly. The chain was hesitantly clanking through the bronze loop on the pillar behind him. The chest of the statue was near to exploding. Then the door finally gave way, opening. In fact it collapsed, the door falling onto the floor behind him and shattering. Air blew past Indy in a sudden cold rush. There was a tinkle as a hinge pin fell from the wreckage, then silence. Stillness.
Now it was open, Indy could see it wasn't a solid bronze gate - only bronze plating, and it must have been pretty thin plating too. He walked over to the fallen gate and picked up the hinge pin. This, at least, looked fairly strong and secure. About two feet long and slightly heavy, like a poker. Indy liked the way it felt in his hand. And that might not be the only thing it was good for...
Indy looked past the gate into the passage beyond. It was dim, and he could only see a brick passage curving to the right. He could have walked on in, and seen Atlantis right then. But truth be told, he wasn't feeling that curious. Right now, he felt scared, as if something had been in the air that blew out when the gate collapsed. Something that now walked amongst them.
Don't be ridiculous, he thought. Which sounded like something Sophia would say. Still, he left the gate and returned to the canal. This hinge pin might just do to brace the gate. And get that recalcitrant princess out.
Indy's feelings for Sophia as he slowly traversed the canals were a complex mixture. On one hand, he'd grown to like her. On the other hand, she could still be stubborn as a mule. Right now Indy was torn between feelings of disappointment, having returned from the unknown still unknowing, and relief, that he hadn't had to go any further yet. Sophia was the ostensible reason he was returning, so right now he was feeling resentment and anger and happiness and contentment toward her. The emotions were still frothing around, threatening to spill.
Indy parked the crab at the foot of the stairs leading to the outer circle. He ascended, holding the hinge pin thoughtfully. Shortly he reached the top, walked around a couple of corners, and found himself at the dungeon entrance. He took a deep breath, and walked on.
Sophia watched his entrance, an expression of mild annoyance on her face. Indy took this as a good sign, and made his way over to the gate.
"Hi, Sophia," he began.
"What kept you?" she asked, and scowled. Indy gave her the hinge pin, fitting it through the bars with no trouble. Sophia took the two foot reinforced steel, and regarded it quizzically. "What am I supposed to do with this?"
By way of answer, Indy bent down, grunted, and lifted the cage door.
"What makes you think this is safer now?" asked Sophia suspiciously. She wasn't looking so much at the cage door, but at Indy, whose legs were again wobbling alarmingly.
"I've got a plan," reassured Indy, in between large gulps of air.
"Which is?"
Come on, woman! Indy nearly screamed. What's with the dense act? What he said, and perhaps some of his anger got through, was "Brace the door with the hinge pin!"
Sophia looked thoughtful. "You know, that just might work!" she said.
Indy didn't have enough energy to nod.
Sophia jammed the hinge pin under the gate, buttressing it against the cage wall. It wobbled slightly, then caught. Indy slowly released his hold on the gate - it stayed open.
Sophia ducked under the gate and joined him on the other side. Indy looked at her, relief on his face. "At last," he said.
Sophia was having none of it. She crossed her arms. "You know, I oughta slug you," she said angrily, and turned her back.
Indy blinked. "Come on, Sophia, don't be angry," was the best reply he could think of.
Sophia turned, and it was immediately clear that she was very angry. There were spots of hectic colour in her cheeks. Her eyes burned. "Angry!?" she screamed. "You left me to rot in this hell hole?"
Indy's instinctive reaction was to yell back. "Well if that's how you feel, maybe you should stay there!"
"Maybe I will!"
"Great idea!"
"FINE!" Sophia turned her back.
"FINE!" Indy turned his.
There was a pause of about three seconds. Indy drummed his fingers. Sophia looked at the floor.
They turned at the same time, as if pivots on some cosmic axis. Indy swept Sophia into her arms and kissed her. The kiss lingered. Sophia waved her arms for a bit, then grasped Indy's shoulders. One foot kicked up, almost involuntarily.
Sophia broke first. She looked a bit surprised. "W-What was that?" She tossed her hair.
Indy ruffled his hat. He looked almost as confused - but the confusion was fading. "Er - I don't know. I think Nur-Ab-Sal made me do it." He didn't know if this was true or not.
"Is that so," said Sophia, a slightly playful expression on her face.
They kissed again, even longer this time. Indy's hands plunged into her hair, a thick red flame. The moment lingered, seemed to exist for eternity.
They broke again, more gently this time, touch gently fading.
"Dangerous fella, that Mr Sal," commented Sophia in a smooth, seductress voice.
Indy was feeling really good. This time, he did more than ruffle his hat - he plunged his hands into his pockets, looking almost like a twelve year old who's gone too far. He rocked on his feet. "Well ... yeah ... we better be going." He pointed over his shoulder to the door.
Sophia nodded. Grateful she understood, Indy turned his attention to the bronze gate, where the hinge pin was still firmly wedged. Indy grabbed it, meaning to pull it out, then stopped when he realised the gate was too heavy for this to happen, and if he did manage to get it out, he'd just get a quickly amputated hand as the gate fell. So Indy gave the gate a quick tug upward. The hinge pin, freed from its load, fell out onto the floor. Indy let the gate crash back to earth, reached down and picked up the hinge pin. "We might need it," he explained to Sophia, who was watching, bemused.
Having seen Indy was finished, Sophia lead the way out of the dungeon. She didn't want to spend any more time here than necessary. Too many bad associations.

Indy lead her around the passages to the canal system. They paused for a moment as Sophia got her bearings in the large system. They hadn't been talking much. Indy was a bit surprised - surely Sophia wanted to know a bit about her beloved Atlantis - she'd been waiting all her life for this. Then again, did she really want to know about the stink, the mud, the decay. Maybe she was just being realistic.
Sophia looked around, dismissively, and started down the steps. Indy followed her, puzzled. She had looked at the stone carving, Indy had noted, then turned her gaze somewhere else, unaffected. Well, maybe it was just him. But surely such a hideous carving - wouldn't it attract even some comment?
Sophia was standing at the edge of the canal, looking at the crab craft with some amusement. Indy joined her. "Wait till you see it move," he said. They stepped on and Indy, hesitant, pointed at the open gate. Sophia managed to suppress a giggle, which turned to an involuntary "Ooh!" as the legs started to paddle in unison. Indy grinned. Sophia grinned back, but the smile didn't last. There was another expression on her face, one Indy couldn't read.
"You know, you should have seen the octopus in here," began Indy, ready to regale her with a story of bravery, cunning and derring-do.
"Spare me the fish story, if you don't mind," said Sophia, who was scanning the surroundings. Indy deflated a little. Sophia looked a little confused, even worried. "You know, this isn't exactly how I imagined the splendour of the Lost City."
Indy could only agree. "Yeah ... Atlantis is an eerie place." They floated along for a few silent seconds. "This must be one of the canals Plato wrote about," he said as they passed under the second tunnel.
"It can't be!" replied Sophia hotly. "Plato wrote of great waterways, stretching as far as the eye could see! This must be one of the sewers." But she sounded uncertain.
Moments later, the crab touched up at the right bank of the canal, the inner doorway mere feet away. "Here we are," announced Indy.
Sophia also seemed to have regained some of her enthusiasm and drive - possibly, she was remembering the Nazis. "Well what are we waiting for? Let's go!"
Indy lead the way through the archway to the fallen door. They stopped. Sophia was looking around - at the wreckage, the statue, and the crabs scuttling along the floor. She seemed to be searching for something.
"Penny for your thoughts," said Indy.
"Can't you hear it?"
Indy looked around. The air here was still, and silent. Nothing.
"An Old King is calling my name," confided Sophia.
"I don't hear a thing," said Indy, bewildered.
Sophia looked annoyed. "Listen harder, Indy!" Indy noticed something else - the uncertainty in her face was gone. It was like, all of a sudden, Sophia knew what to do.
"So, what do we do?" asked Indy.
Sophia was adamant. "We must find my Spirit Guide." There was a note of desperation in her voice.
Indy smiled. "Nur-Ab-Sal still with us, eh? That old codger."
Sophia looked at him.
Indy raised his hands in a conciliatory fashion. "Okay, okay..."
They wasted no more time in heading to the doorway. Clambering over the stone, they were in the passage beyond.
Into the heart of Atlantis. To Indy, that was what it felt like. The passages were growing ever brighter as they penetrated inward. Here, headlights lined the bricked walls, which themselves were muddy and green, but somehow cleaner and more uniform. The light from the headlights, set high on the walls, pulsated smoothly from brightness to a, well, dimmer brightness. Like a heartbeat.
An intent expression crossed Sophia's face - like she was listening. Suddenly she walked forward, briskly, leading Indy on.
"Indy," she whispered sharply, "Nur-Ab-Sal is here! I sense his presence!" She stopped, and waited.
Indy wasn't quite so sure. "Hold on a minute," he began in a no nonsense voice, then paused because he didn't know how to proceed. "Where is he?" he finally asked.
"Right around the corner, I'm sure of it," said Sophia, who was almost bouncing with her eagerness to get moving.
"Sophia, are you feeling okay?"
She looked confused. "Never better. I feel ... ALL POWERFUL."
The last two words were not uttered in her normal voice. It hardly sounded like Sophia at all. For one thing, though Sophia did have a voice that could drill through ice, this voice seemed loud enough to shake the earth. No, Sophia wasn't feeling okay. But she didn't seem to know it yet.
All powerful? Fine. You get rid of Kerner when he finds us. In her present state, Sophia might well try. "You looked kind of lost to me," said Indy, referring to her expression as she rode the canal. Truth told, this cold certainty in her expression didn't look any better.
"I'm not lost," corrected Sophia. "I'm nearly HOME."
Indy looked around at the grime and the muck. Misshapen skeletons by the wall. Remembered carvings of malevolent creatures. Bare rooms. Deformed statues. His mind reeled from the image of Atlantis as home. "This seems homey to you?" he asked, staggered. What's with her? How could she think that?"
Yet somehow Sophia seemed to belong here. She almost seemed to glow golden. "Yes. Very homey."
Indy shivered. He was really concerned now. This game of pretend had been going on too long. "Will you stop with the hokum?" he asked, his voice strong.
"Hokum!!?" screamed Sophia, whose expression had flicked from a stern calm to violent anger. "Are these walls hokum? These lights hokum? Orichalcum? Neither is the King who built them!"
Indy winced, because she had a point. Atlantis did exist. Somehow, orichalcum worked. And that meant Nur-Ab-Sal - probably he was still floating around somewhere. But ... hadn't she seen what Atlantis was like? Didn't she see the cloven feet? There was something wrong here, and Sophia couldn't see it. And wouldn't, until it was too late.
"Whatever you say, babe," said Indy.
"Mock me if you wish, fool," said Sophia. "I say you're a narrow minded moron." She turned and vanished around the corner.
Indy raised his hands, helpless. "Oh, for crying out loud." He followed her around the corner, and suddenly realised why Sophia had that golden glow. It had come from the necklace below her neck. The resting place of Nur-Ab-Sal.
Sophia was waiting by a door set into the left hand wall. "In here," she said angrily, gesturing into the room beyond. A large room. She ducked in. Indy paused for a moment. There was a stone carving set on the wall, directly opposite the door. About his size. It depicted the head of another alien creature, this one contriving to contain elephantine features. Its eyes, hollow triangular slits, stared directly into the room which Sophia had just entered. Guarding it, almost.
Indy followed its gaze, and saw orange light flickering on a ceiling suspended many feet above. He entered the cavern.
It was the only suitable word, Indy found as he stared at his surroundings. It was bright in here, though not from a surfeit of headlights, though many could be seen. What gave illumination to this ancient space was a square pit, perhaps ten feet across, which held within a pool of glittering, bubbling magma. Indy felt the heat from here. The flickering orange combined with the strobing white light to create an aura almost headache-inducing.
The light gave definition to a room perhaps fifty feet by one hundred feet, its ceiling reaching another fifty feet above. Indy, standing by the door, was on an upraised platform with stone steps leading down either side to the pit. The main section of the room was perhaps sixty feet long, and housed the central pit of lava. At the far end of the room, wide stone steps funnelled up to a narrow fissure in the rock, where Indy could see several stone slabs. On them rested skeletons.
There were skeletons everywhere. In large pots by the door, on stones near the lava pit, strewn against the walls, even suspended in the lava. They all had that funny, bent look to them, like a wrong turn down the track of evolution.
Sophia was standing on the far side of the lava pit, at the foot of the steps leading to the ... well, the mausoleum. The expression on her face was one of contentment. That was Indy's first thought as he descended the steps into the primeval heat below. As he drew closer, however, he began to see other expressions. Satisfaction. An unfocused hatred. As he drew even closer, contempt.
This isn't Sophia. The thought materialised in his mind, from nowhere.
"Aah, Dr Jones," breathed Sophia, like a supervillain welcoming the intrepid secret agent into his multimillion dollar doomsday facility and showing him how everything worked. "WELCOME TO MY HUMBLE ABODE!" she boomed. But this wasn't her, was it? Nur-Ab-Sal had finally had his wicked way with her.
Indy tried one last time. "Come on, Sophia, let's get out of here." He pointed at the door.
"NEVER!" boomed Nur-Ab-Sal. "I'm staying right here," said Sophia, effortlessly shifting her voice. "With the Spirit Who Guides My Thoughts."
"Sophia? This isn't you."
"THE WOMAN THAT WAS SHALL NOW BECOME ... THE KING THAT SHALL EVER BE!" answered Nur-Ab-Sal. "Address me accordingly!" said Sophia.
"So are you a girl or a guy now or what?" asked Indy. He no longer had the sense he was talking with Sophia - this was Nur-Ab-Sal. Indy again found himself wondering how long Sophia had held possession of the necklace. It was back in Iceland, wasn't it, where Sophia had found the goods she later dealed on the black market. That was a decade ago. For ten years Nur-Ab-Sal had been nestling under he throat.
"FLESH MEANS NOTHING! I AM THE GREAT SPIRIT INCARNATE!"
"Yeah ... well I'm glad we cleared that up," said Indy. How could he get through to her? "Why are you acting like this?"
"Acting like what?" asked Sophia, puzzled. "Speak your mind, CHURL!"
Indy bridled. He'd been called some things in his time, but never a churl. "Come on, Sophia, get a grip on yourself!" he snapped.
Sophia was unswayed. "I am no longer the one you call 'Sophia,' she proclaimed contemptuously. "I am simply THE ONE WHO RULES."
"Sophia! You sound like you're possessed!" Indy was getting more desperate.
"Possessed?" scoffed Sophia. "HA HA HA" laughed Nur-Ab-Sal. "By whom?" asked Sophia.
Indy knew what it was. "By that stupid necklace of yours," he said, pointing an accusing finger at its wax face.
Sophia leaned back, crossing her arms. "By a bronze trinket?" she asked sarcastically. "And you call yourself a scientist!"
Indy growled. "Can't you see it?" he yelled at Sophia. "Haven't you been paying attention? This isn't how you imagined the Lost City, you said. Well even I wouldn't have imagined anything like this. There's something wrong with this place, seriously wrong! Remember the muck and grime of the passageways? The dungeon? Canals that you thought were sewers? Have you been looking at the statues and stone carvings lately? There's no splendour. No majestic streetscapes. Nothing! Just twisted statues, and skeletons!" Indy pounded up the stairs to the sanctum of skeletons, each laid out on an individual slab. Wonder of wonders, Sophia followed. "'Knowing mortal men would never rule the sea,'" he quoted from the Dialogue, "'they planned a huge colossus which would make them like the gods themselves. Nur-Ab-Sal was one such king. He it was who first put men in the colossus, creating many freaks of nature.'" Indy gestured at the laid out skeletons. "Bones don't grow like this naturally." He noticed another peculiarity - the skulls were shallow and broad, like Neanderthals. Small horns sprouted from above each ear. "Freak show. Don't you understand? This is Atlantis! Here!" He paused to catch his breath, and suddenly a new horror struck. The Nazis. How would they abuse such a hideous power, with their bent for world domination? "God help us," whispered Indy, face ashen.
Sophia didn't seem to catch this. She was looking at the skeletons, and though some part of her seemed to recoil along with Indy, another seemed to welcome them. As friends. "These?" she asked of the skeletons. "These were the noblest creatures ever to walk the earth!"
"Come on, Sophia, hand over the necklace!" demanded Indy.
"Not a chance!"
"It's got you by the throat!" Indy was nearly tearing his hair out. "It's been working on you for years!"
"Don't be ridiculous!" she dismissed. But there was unease on her face, slowly returning.
"Wise up, Sophia, throw the necklace away!"
Sophia looked alarmed at the suggestion. "No, no, no, Nur-Ab-Sal wouldn't like that." The alarm on her face grew, as if Nur-Ab-Sal was her father on a mean streak. "I can't hand over my necklace. For ten years I've never let it out of my grasp. Now I can't even force myself to take it off." Realisation dawned on her face. "Oh, Indy ... I'm doomed!"
"How can I help you?" asked Indy frantically.
"I can't help myself, that's for sure," said Sophia. "My willpower is gone ... replaced by the thing I found and thought I owned. It's all up to you, Indy!"
"What can I do??"
"The one who feeds on fire is always hungry," answered Sophia. She started to say more, but suddenly the voice returned. "BEGONE!" shouted Nur-Ab-Sal. "THE TIME FOR HUMAN FRAILTY IS PAST!"
Indy had a sudden brainwave. "No, it's just come to fruition," he muttered under his breath. The heat was growing ever more oppressive - he'd have to be quick. Indy seized Sophia's shoulders, bent down, and looked closely at the necklace. Sophia struggled momentarily, then stopped, as if she didn't mind Indy looking. More vanity on Nur-Ab-Sal's part, thought Indy.
The medallion looked as he remembered it, nestling several inches below her neck. A wide, square mouth, giving it a stupid, neutral look. The spiral wax casting. And the triangular eyes, only Indy didn't remember them glowing a dull red.
He kept one hand on Sophia's shoulder, and with the other rummaged through his pockets for the golden box. His gaze remained firm on the medallion. He couldn't see what Sophia was looking at - maybe him, maybe the room beyond, maybe staring somewhere Indy couldn't follow. Indy found the gold box deep in one of his pockets, opened it, and turned it upside down. Beads of orichalcum spilled out into the bottom of the pocket. Indy replaced the now empty box, and took a single bead of orichalcum in his right hand. He placed the bead into the mouth of Nur-Ab-Sal.
As it vanished, twin fangs descended from the roof of the medallion's mouth. Its eyebrows narrowed. Suddenly its face possessed an expression of gleeful malevolence. The entire medallion began to burn bright red.
"AHHH!!" cried Sophia in sudden pain. She instinctively reached behind for the clasp, and undid the necklace. She took it in one hand and held it in front of her, letting the medallion dangle in the air. It was starting to glow brighter. "That medallion's HOT!"
"Drop it, why don't you?" suggested Indy forcefully.
"Nur-Ab-Sal won't let me," said Sophia despairingly.
Indy didn't particularly care. With one hand he brought out the gold box and flipped the lid open. With the other he wrenched the necklace from her grasp and tossed it into the box. He flipped the lid shut.
"NNOOOOOOOOOOO!" screamed Sophia/Nur-Ab-Sal, an expression of utter horror on her face. The walls shook with the force of the wail.
"Sorry, Sophia," said Indy, and ran for the lava pit. As soon as he was close enough, he tossed the box in. "So long, Nur-Ab-Sal."
On contact with the lava, red light exploded from the box. As the flash receded, a green streak of energy came from the now sinking box. It reminded Indy of Sophia's apartment - only here, in the bowels of Atlantis, it glowed even brighter. Green streaks of light whirled up from the lava, bathing the room in a green light that was somehow rotten.
Sophia was still at the top of the stairs, now curled on the floor in intense agony.
High above, the green energy was coalescing into a form - an old fashioned spook. Even as it drew together, it began to fade, until finally bursting in a soundless explosion. Small red spots drifted back to the lava pit, and were swallowed.
Indy turned to Sophia, who was slowly getting to her feet. She looked lost and unanchored, as you might after losing to flame a part of you kept close for so long. He climbed the steps to her and she hugged him, small tears now coming from her eyes.
Several minutes passed before Sophia was able to release her hold. "Her eyes were red, and still wet, but she looked a lot better now. "Thanks, Indy. If you hadn't done ... that ... I'd be as dead as that monster."
"Least I could do," said Indy. He looked around the room nervously. "This room still gives me the creeps."
"Me too," confessed Sophia. "Let's get going."
Indy nodded to indicate agreement, but remained staring at the mausoleum. A metal rod had caught his attention, set into a small alcove under one of the stone slabs. There was a cluster of jewels on one end. It looked like a ... sceptre. A king's sceptre. Indy picked it up - it was almost exactly the same length and width as the hinge pin.
Without further words, Indy lead the way up the steps and out into the passage. Indy's eye was caught by a metallic gleam in the floor. He knelt down and found a discarded bullet. "Nazis," he said, loathing in his voice. "Where have they gotten to now?"
"We've got to keep moving and beat Kerner and Ubermann," said Sophia, "before it's too late!"
Indy smiled ruefully. "I knew you were going to say that." He dropped the bullet, and they continued further around the passage.
"Feeling better again?" he asked.
He didn't really need to - he could see it in her face, which, if it were possible, had somehow grown smoother, less lined and age worn. "Yes. For the first time in ten years - I feel like myself again!"
"That long, huh?" They passed a doorway, and a quick peek in sufficed to show that it was another bare Atlantean dwelling.
Sophia nodded.
"Is Nur-Ab-Sal really gone?"
"I think so," replied Sophia. She sounded certain. Indy believed her.
Yet another doorway, leading to another bare room. "Obviously they never had an overpopulation problem," quipped Indy.
Sophia shook her head. "It wasn't that. It's just that ... I think Atlantis vacated itself. People were leaving even before the disaster struck."
"Either that, or they were removed - and fed to that colossus machine." Indy had a sudden insight, which explained a lot of things. "Atlantis wasn't a hidden city - it was a concentration camp!"
Sophia tossed her hair. "Who knows? After the last few hours, I'm about ready to believe anything."
Well now, here was something. The next door was wider, and larger. It had to be, because the room beyond housed Atlantean earth machinery. To be precise, one extremely large, heavy, stone vehicle with a circular stone drill bit taller than Indy set into the front. Behind it lurked tonnes of stone shaped into a low, fat truck perhaps twelve feet high by sixteen feet wide by thirty feet deep. The idea that such an object could even move - even be moved - seemed preposterous. To anyone without much working knowledge of the mystery metal orichalcum.
Indy squeezed around the drill bit and edged deeper into the room. He was struck by how organic the truck looked - how organic most Atlantean machinery looked, for that matter. The body of the truck was segmented, in an insectile fashion, with broad stone feet supporting the weight of each section. Now he was in the, the garage, for want of an Atlantean equivalent, the truck no longer seemed to lurk. Now it hulked, and did it with room to spare.
Indy reached the rear of the truck, where there was some room. Shortly Sophia joined him.
"Any idea what this thing might be?" asked Indy, pointing at the truck - a slightly redundant gesture.
"It looks kind of like a tractor to me," said Sophia. "A burrowing tractor."
Indy looked at the rear wall, and saw two etched diagrams. He looked closer.
"Plato described a city divided into circular rings," said Sophia behind him. "We've seen two - guess it's time we shot for third."
The diagrams were remarkably similar. Each contained a three by three set of dots, and, next to these, a small pictogram. On the first diagram, the upper left and upper right dots were darkened. The pictogram beside it depicted a stylised explosion.
On the second diagram, the middle and right dots of the middle row were darkened. The pictogram showed an arrow spinning aimlessly.
Indy turned and looked at the truck. "Burrowing, eh?" he said, and crossed to the rear, where a column of recesses had been carved into the stone - a crude but functioning set of steps. He gingerly made his way up the steps to a small alcove at the rear of the truck, seven feet above the floor, which went back three feet. Sophia followed, reaching out a hand for Indy to pull up. At the front of the alcove, at hand height, was the Atlantean equivalent of a control panel. A stone carving with an open mouth - that was where you put the bead. Next to it, three vertical slots set into the stone. Three - maybe it had something to do with the diagrams below.
Indy turned, ducked his head, and read the diagrams off the wall, taking care to memorise the positions. He got up, and looked at the slots again. They were about finger width. What did you do with them?
Suddenly Indy knew. He already had the answer. He took the king's sceptre and hinge pin, and held them in one hand. As far as length and width went, they might have been identical. He pushed the hinge pin into the left slot. It went in easily, one quarter disappearing, then fetched up and refused to move any further. He pulled it up, and found it easily rotated up and down. Indy rotated it as far up as it would go - there was the first pin done. It was a moment's work to arrange the sceptre in a similar fashion in the right slot.
"Ready?" he asked Sophia. Sophia nodded. She looked slightly ill at ease, maybe because there weren't any convenient bars or corners to hang on to. Just smooth, flat stone.
He reached for another bead and popped it into the stone carving.
There was immediate, noisy activity. The legs of the truck began to stamp up and down. The drill bit, which Indy could just see over the lip of the alcove, slowly began to turn, but with a growing acceleration that suggested it might soon be threshing metal.
The floor was starting to rattle under their feet, and suddenly Indy found he wanted something to hang onto too.
Moving at running speed, the truck made its way out of the garage. It didn't look like turning either way, but was headed straight for the opposing wall. Which was solid brick.
As far as the truck was concerned, it might as well have been treacle. Thirty feet in front, while Indy and Sophia were still in the garage room, the drill bit made contact with the brick wall. Debris started to fly in a violent storm. The bit was whizzing through the wall, furiously whining and scraping. Dust was rising from the drill bit, which had now bored through the wall entirely. The hole was clean enough, but the bulk of the truck was a lot larger.
Indy and Sophia were now twenty feet from the wall. Weakened by the thrusting of the drill, bricks were starting to rain down from above as the wall started to cave in. They bounced off the stony carapace of the truck, which trundled on unconcerned. The bricks were still falling with the wall only ten feet distant.
"Down!" yelled Indy. He ducked and backed into one corner of the alcove. He noted Sophia doing likewise, looking panicky, then he raised his arms over his head. The rain of bricks was now clattering all around them. Dust and dirt fell, which was strangely ticklish to the touch. A brick glanced off Indy's shoulder. Another hit his foot.
The din rapidly subsided. They were through. Indy got to his feet, brushing himself down. Sophia was also hesitantly rising - she seemed okay. The truck was now, of its own accord, turning right. They were once again in another, slightly dimmer, circular tunnel. Headlights and brick walls. This one, however, did not have side passages leading off to more empty rooms.
This was the buffer between the second and third circles of Atlantis.
The truck had now picked up a fair clip of speed. It didn't crash into the outer rim as it travelled around the circle, but automatically adjusted its orientation to keep to the centre. It knew where it was going.
Indy had to hold his hat on in the fast airstream. Now, to execute the second diagram. He pulled the sceptre down to be seated about middle in the right slot. He then picked up the pin, inserted it in the middle slot, and similarly aligned it.
He was about shout "Ready?" to Sophia when the truck suddenly span on its axis. Indy fell, and was pushed into the corner of the alcove by the torque. Sophia managed to keep her footing, despite the torque pulling her in Indy's direction. She started to slip, and Indy realised there was nothing to grab onto in these trucks which really, really, was something of a design flaw.
The truck completed its three hundred and sixty degree revolution. Astonishingly, it was still travelling the middle arc of the tunnel - it had somehow avoided crashing into the walls. Which was to say nothing for the way it had so callously disregarded the laws of friction.
Having straightened, it continued on for a brief distance, then just as violently spun again, in the same direction. Indy was all right, because the torque forces naturally kept him in place. Sophia, who was more precariously perched, had found a solution - one foot was braced against the hinge pin.
The turn was completed and the truck moved on again. Repeating the pattern, only several feet later the truck again spun anticlockwise. Indy watched over the drill bit as his view span dizzyingly, from one wall to the rear of the tunnel, to the opposite wall, and back to the start.
But it kept spinning, bringing into view the inner wall again. It locked its position with a sudden jolt, then accelerated madly at the wall, kamikaze style. The bit burst through, hardly needing to spin at all, and as Indy saw the empty space beyond he realised what was going to happen.
He grabbed Sophia, and jumped.
The truck, having burst through, sailed past the edge of a vast chasm of dizzying depth. It merrily cartwheeled head over feet as it sailed toward the magma pool below.
Indy and Sophia hit the floor, Indy taking most of the force. Their forward momentum was reduced but still they rolled on, following the path of the truck.
Five seconds later the truck hit the magma pool with a distant thump. Gouts of boiling lava were displaced by the collision. Gradually, the truck sank.
Indy and Sophia rolled to a stop by the lip of the chasm, locked in a bear hug. Sophia gingerly disentangled herself from Indy, noting the sheer fall on her left, and carefully backed away until she fetched up against the rim of the drilled hole. Indy took a few deep breaths and rolled away from the chasm. Only when he was several feet distant did he sit up and look back at the inner circle.
"That was close," he breathed.
"Too close," muttered Sophia, checking her legs for bruises.
Indy said nothing. He was looking out into the emptiness beyond, suddenly marvelling at the sheer scale. He felt very exposed.
Atlantis was, as Plato had depicted and they had discovered, divided into concentric circles. They'd been through the outer two, and here was the third. A gigantic well sunk into the earth, reminding Indy of the main vent in a volcano. Sheer walls fell away on either side to unguessable depths, and Indy didn't really feel like peering over the edge to guess at them. He tried to estimate the distance from this side of the vent to the other, and failed. The red haze from below made such an estimation impossible. The sheer scale defeated him.
But somehow, bridges and ramparts criscrossed the vastness. Not several feet away, a wide tongue of stone lanced out into the centre of the chasm. Staring out at sheer stone, Indy suddenly realised how it was possible. In the centre of the chasm was not the blank space one might expect, but another massive stone pillar. Stone ledges extended from the outer rim (where Sophia and Indy were) to this inner wall at all heights, and at all angles. Indy finally risked a glance over the edge, glimpsing a lake of lava far below, and the cumulative effect of these pathways was to create an impression that one was staring into the innards of a clock.
Indy looked to the bridge which jutted out only twenty feet or so from when they were sitting. The ledge extended to it - forming a pathway they could walk over. And then walk out into space, crossing the bridge to the inner circle where - a second glance confirmed this - there was an arched entrance.
Indy tugged Sophia's sleeve, who was as awestruck as he was. He pointed to the thin tongue of stone. Sophia looked worried, but nodded anyway. They set off, walking in single file - the ledge was too narrow for Indy to be chivalrous. Every now and then his gaze would be drawn down to the lava hundreds of feet below, as if drawn by a magnet.
It seemed longer than it really was before they gained the bridge, set level against the ledge. Here there was room to breathe - in comparison to the narrow ledge, the bridge was over twenty feet wide. There were no lips or rails offering any further assistance, however, just a flat stretch of stone which bent upward slightly. It didn't look built - what it looked like was one cohesive, natural unit.
Indy reached for Sophia's hand, who offered hers gratefully. It helped a little when you felt completely dwarfed by nature. This done, they started for the archway on the far side, fifty feet distant.
They took slow, deliberate steps. The stone didn't seem cracked, or even worn, but it looked dangerously thin. And though the ample width made the comparison a bit ridiculous, Indy's sudden impression was of walking a tightrope over the pits of hell.
They were nearing the far side now, and Indy realised he could actually hear something. A low, throbbing hum. Indy stared through the archway, trying to see beyond, but all there was was more stone and red glow.
Is that all Atlantis has in store for us? he suddenly wondered. Stones and lava and rooms with nothing in them? Well, I'm disappointed. Even after the last few hours, I'm still disappointed.
The archway was much larger now, and a panorama was opening up behind it. Sheer stone walls, high, winding staircases and numerous passages. Finally, they reached the far end of the bridge, passed under the archway, and stood at an elevated position in the room beyond.
The first word Indy thought of was ... moat.
On the far side of this narrow chasm, a narrow circling pathway ended at a sheer rock wall. However, small tunnels set into this wall gave access to the inner sanctum area beyond. The narrow circling pathway might be slightly difficult to reach, however, as it and the assortment of ledges on the far side were separated by a narrow moat of lava, narrow but just too far to jump. On this side of the moat, Indy and Sophia were standing on a narrow ledge, with several staircases leading down to other ledges, terraced pathways and isolated pillars. Indy stared at the melange of stone, and began to work out a way to get down to the moat, a good few storeys below.
"Stick close, kid, this could be dangerous," he said to Sophia. The steps and staircases didn't look in the least stable.
"I'll take my chances," replied Sophia.
"Walk where I walk," said Indy. "Unless I plummet to my death, of course."
He took a narrow, winding staircase which was somehow suspended in the air and descended slowly, Sophia following close behind. At the bottom, he looked left and right, then jumped eight feet down to the ledge below. Sophia nearly landed on him. Here there was a safer set of descending steps, set into the wall, which they now took, conscious of the lava moat growing closer, but somehow not feeling the heat. Something seemed to be shielding them.
They jumped down another few steps, clambered over a rockfall, and Indy learned what it was.
From the top, the moat of lava hadn't been uniform. There were bright patches, and there were dull patches. Indy had dismissed these as temperature differentials. But from here, standing on stone right next to the lava, a far stranger explanation was visible.
The moat was perhaps fifteen feet wide - the floor on this side level with the floor on the other side. And bridging this gap were thin, irregular hexagonal stones tiling the surface of the moat. The tiling was not uniform - in many places a stone tile had crumbled, and fallen into the lava, letting the heat and light poke through. But the rest remained in space, somehow floating on invisible wires - none of the tiles were touching each other, or the sides of the moat.
"What on earth?" wondered Sophia.
Indy wondered if these tiles could support his weight. There was really only one way to find out. He took a narrow leap and landed on a large tile.
"Indy!" exclaimed a shocked Sophia.
Indy had been expecting the tile to sag slightly with his weight. Instead, it remained utterly immobile, as if supported by a pillar rather than suspended in air. Taken by surprise, he wobbled momentarily before regaining his balance. Well, that answered that question.
He looked at the tiled surface in front of him, like a man standing on a white square noting the position of the deadly black squares. There were several gaps in front of him, but the number of tiles far outweighed the number of gaps and there were numerous paths to the other side. Indy took a leap onto the next tile, toward the widest of these.
In the middle of the moat, lava suddenly gouted up under a tile, which crumbled and fell.
Indy jumped forward again. Closer this time, another tile caved in and fell into the lava. It happened as soon as his feet touched the stone.
Mouth dry, Indy looked at the path ahead. His options had narrowed. Only a couple of paths remained which could take him to the far side. He leapt forward to the next tile.
The tile immediately in front of it was struck by a precise geyser of lava. The heat blowtorched into Indy, and was gone as quickly as it came. His heart was starting to thump.
There was a tile next to the newly created gap, and the tile beyond it gave way to the far side of the moat. Indy jumped onto this tile. Another gout of lava, but this one was behind him. Indy jumped forward again, then with a final emphatic leap landed on the far side of the moat.
He got up, turned, and looked at Sophia, who was standing on the other side, having not followed him this time. He'd intended to look at her, at least. But a hissing sound and a flurry of action made him look at the tiles.
The moat was retiling itself. Where gaps had been created in the pattern stone was returning from the depths, slotting itself together and coalescing into another irregular polygon. All over, tiles were reappearing.
Indy's jaw dropped.
The process ended, leaving the moat as it had begun - whole except for a few patches of emptiness.
Indy and Sophia looked at each other. "S-Step where I step," said Indy finally, swallowing. Sophia nodded at him, and jumped onto the first tile, a determined expression on her face. She landed, and jumped again - no pauses for decision here. After several of these hops, Sophia was standing on the stone beside Indy, looking slightly out of breath.
"Nice moves," complemented Indy.
"Thanks."
Indy got up and turned to the sheer wall. Somehow, he had the impression that this was the final barrier. Whatever the heart of Atlantis was, it was encased here.
He walked to the wall, more specifically to a short tunnel set in the base of the wall. The throbbing sound was louder here. He was about to duck under when he noticed a carved diagram on the wall. Three concentric circles. In one, a pictogram of a sun in the SE quadrant. In the middle circle, a pictogram of the moon in the NE quadrant. In the inner circle, a line drawn at the E position.
Indy looked at it while Sophia ducked under and entered the tunnel. For some reason, it reminded Indy of the stone disks. He shrugged, and followed Sophia into subterranea.

The far side of the tunnel opened into another vast space, in which Sophia was standing stock still. Indy emerged and immediately understood why.
In a way it was a replay of the lava well situation they'd been in earlier. Here, there was another central pillar, with passages and bridges running from the outer wall to the pillar at all heights. But there, the similarities ended.
The outer chasm had a natural, worn look, as if it had just occurred naturally, waiting to be occupied. Here the central pillar was not so much a pillar but an inverted spire, growing ever wider and more ornate as the height grew. Indy craned his neck up, and still couldn't see the top. This inverted spire did not look in the least natural. It had a definite crafted look to it, composed of sharp edges, tubes and embossed all over by gigantic versions of known Atlantean pictograms, such as the spiral S, bulls, and some Indy hadn't seen before.
Set into the sheer walls of this construction were green rectangular lights, which pulsated from clear white to a glowing, fluorescent green. They were arranged in vertical lines and synchronised, giving the impression of a green glow flowing from the base to the top. The bridges, too, had a far more technological look with their alternately straight edged and tubular shapes. They actually looked designed to carry people. Or maybe more than people - perhaps trains, or even cars.
It was darker in here - evidently the lava was shielded below, as well. In addition to the green lighting, the dominant shade was a hazy, flickering purple, which grew even darker and blacker as it vanished above. It seemed to be the natural colour of whatever this structure had been built from. Somehow, it didn't look like stone.
Indy was lost in wonder. This skyscraper looked bigger than the Empire State building. And, were it possible, even more technologically advanced.
Indy slowly brought his gaze down, mindful of protesting creaks in his neck. A bridge directly in front of them led out over a plain of stone tiles, muted orange glows seeping through, to the narrow base of the skyscraper. Surely too narrow to be supporting such a huge citylike gantry - somehow the skyscraper must be suspended from the ceiling and supported by the outer walls. Indy had no idea how this was possible.
All around the base, level with Indy and Sophia, bridges extended from the walls to the inner structure, gathering together on a stone ledge extending all around the base of the building. Here, large faces had been carved onto the walls, with arms and hands depicted as if supporting the weight. Below these was just a single room, an oasis of white light in the purple orange haze.
"Here's your shining city," said Indy, still looking at it.
"Not what I expected, that's for sure."
Indy turned to her. "And the place is still humming." Indeed it was - the low throbbing hum had grown louder as they approached. "Maintaining the air pressure after untold centuries!"
Sophia started walking along the bridge to the small room. Indy quickly followed. He looked at the room, but couldn't work out where the white light was coming from. The room itself was small, fairly open, and didn't afford much room to hide a light source. There were other pillars strewn around it, and a thick stone structure by one side, but nothing else. As they drew closer, however, Indy began to see a source.
The skyscraper loomed even higher above, if it were possible. Indy felt antlike, scurrying around down here while the real action was going on hundreds - if not thousands - of feet higher. He also felt horribly conspicuous, crossing the wide open plain to a sanctuary of shelter. For no reason, he was suddenly worried about snipers.
They gained the ledge surrounding the base with no troubles. But it wasn't stone, like he'd first thought. No, the material beneath felt more like a purple baize. They passed under the walls, Indy craning one final despairing look upward, and they were under the skyscraper at last.
In a miniature amphitheatre. The room was fairly wide, and some sections were indeed walled, but as many were not, allowing free access in and out. Indy still felt horribly exposed. Here, in the centre of the amphitheatre, the purple baize gave way to a stone circle perhaps twenty feet wide. This circle grew deeper as the radius decreased, in terraced ledges four feet wide. The final circle dropped down to hidden depths. The light seemed to come from there, which was strange, because it also seemed to be the source of an intense heat. White lava? Anything was possible in Atlantis.
At the edge of the stone pit, opposite one another, were two statues that Indy instantly remembered as being identical to the crab/rat hybrid in the lava room, goodness knew how many feet away in the outer circle. There was also, jutting out over the terraced ledges, a statue of a frog, its mouth held closed. Opposite it, also on a ledge jutting out close to the inner circle, was a stone spindle.
Stone disk time.
Indy noticed Sophia perspiring as she stood on the outer ledge. "Hot enough for you?"
"I'll be all right for a few minutes," said Sophia. Indy nodded - he was getting a bit sweaty himself. He was also feeling a bit confused. Here they were, evidently at the heart of Atlantis, and all there was was a stone pit? There must be something more, surely.
"This must be Nur-Ab-Sal's colossus!" exclaimed Sophia, as if suddenly reaching the conclusion. "I'm just glad he's not here to use it. The colossus would have resurrected him, to full power."
Indy thumbed through his copy of the Dialogue - it was muddy and waterlogged, but still just readable. "'A colossus which would make them like the gods themselves...'" he read. It came to him what the Nazis had come here to do.
"We have to destroy it," said Indy urgently, "Quickly."
"Fine," said Sophia. "Only ... where is it?"
Indy looked at the central circle, a well into the heat below. He couldn't see a thing. Well, maybe you had to activate the colossus first before it appeared. Indy walked around the pit to the stone spindle, and quickly arranged the stone disks as instructed in the Dialogue. He pushed the spindle
Nothing happened. There was no movement. No sound and light show. Indy looked at Sophia, who shrugged her shoulders. He checked the stone disk alignment - it was indeed accurate.
But not correct. Indy suddenly remembered the stone carving on the wall outside. Acting on a hunch, he thumped open the Dialogue again. "'...first put men in the colossus, creating many freaks of nature when the celestial spheres were well aligned...'" he read aloud. Well aligned? Indy recalled the configuration of the diagram, and rotated the stone disks to fit likewise. He crossed his fingers, and pushed the spindle.
Immediately the quality of the white light spilling from the central well changed, deepening through orange to red. The low throbbing hum, which had been at the edge of hearing, grew louder until it seemed the whole room was shaking.
"What did you do now, Indy?" asked Sophia, concerned.
"I think I turned it on," replied Indy ruefully. He looked at the frog statue, and saw its mouth was now open. Ready to create the freaks.
As the light grew redder and the glow from below more vital, the intensity also began to diminish. It was getting darker. Now, from the ceiling, a strange tubular device carved from amber descended toward the central pit. It looked strangely powerful. Likewise, a small stone pedestal rose from the lava to meet it. They stopped, leaving a gap of ten feet. The sound ceased.
Which was the moment when Nazi soldiers appeared around the corner of the walls set at the outer rim of the amphitheatre, guns pointing at Indy and Sophia. Sophia gasped. Now, directly in front of Indy, Kerner and a second Nazi in a white lab coat appeared, dismounting an army motorcycle. He'd never seen the face of the second Nazi, however, who clearly looked like a scientist. Indy gritted his teeth. These idiots. These blundering idiots.
"So you were right, Dr Ubermann," said Kerner, grudgingly, to the short and wizened scientist.
Dr Ubermann seemed quite pleased with himself. He pointed at Indy and Sophia, still standing dumbly by the stone disks. "You see, Kerner? I told you Jones would be of some use to us!"
"Kerner!" said Indy, the disgust clearly visible in his voice. "I knew I smelt a rat." The soldiers had lined up along the outer perimeter of the walls, guns now slung over shoulders, and so Kerner and Ubermann made their way toward the frog statue.
"All I smell, Herr Jones," said Kerner, "is your fear!" Having reached the statue, he moved out to the rim of the jutting ledge, almost standing under the colossus. He drew his pistol. "Don't move."
We're already surrounded by Nazis and he feels he has to draw his gun and say "Don't move"? thought Indy.
Kerner brushed a hand through his hair. Behind him, Dr Ubermann regarded the colossus machinery with rapt fascination. "Mein gott, how beautiful!" he exclaimed. "Congratulations, Dr Jones," he continued, raising his arms to indicate the magnitude of his success. "You've just handed the Third Reich its ultimate victory!"
"It'll take more than a few orichalcum bombs to conquer the world, Ubermann," responded Indy, but he knew better. They weren't really interested in bombs, the Nazis. Too imprecise.
"Bombs?" scoffed Kerner, confirming his chain of thought. "The Gods don't need bombs!"
"Take a look around!" said Ubermann. The orange light from below cast strange shadows on his face. He leered madly. "What else do you think this astonishing machinery was used for?"
"That's a mystery we'll never unravel," said Indy.
"Wrong!" said Ubermann, as if correcting a student in a lecture hall. "As Plato himself well knew, this was a factory for manufacturing higher beings."
"While you've been wandering around," added Kerner in his most contemptuous voice, "we've been stockpiling orichalcum."
"And now we have all we need! Are you ready for the greatest moment in history, Doctor?"
Indy noted this last phrase with some wonderment. Here they were, standing in the heart of Atlantis, the colossus ready for operation, and the Nazis are still able to top the hyperbole. Amazing. "I think the heat in here has cooked your cabbages," he said as these thoughts passed through his mind.
"Scientific discoveries belong to the bold, Jones!" cried Ubermann. "You of all people should understand that!"
Don't try to get on my good side, thought Indy. Don't stand there with your orichalcum and your twisted ideas and try to humour me. You rats. "Do you really believe in this Godhood business?" he asked, but it was an empty question. Nur-Ab-Sal existed, Atlantis existed, and they both knew it.
"Why not?" countered Ubermann. "As a god, I shall know everything! Be everywhere! Rule everyone!"
The Nazi wet dream, thought Indy.
"We Both shall rule, Herr Doctor," corrected Kerner.
"Eh?" The look on Ubermann's face was one of puzzlement. "Don't be silly, Kerner. You're not prepared for this!"
"We shall see," said Kerner.
"Didn't you notice all those hideously deformed bones?" pleaded Indy. "How the skulls have tiny horns? The cloven feet?"
"Experiments gone awry," explained Ubermann condescendingly. "Unworthy, imperfect slaves sacrificed in the name of higher knowledge. Progress has its price, you know," he confided.
"Maybe they were all too human, like you," said Indy.
"Sub-human, you mean!" said Ubermann with utter certainty. "They were destroyed by their physical imperfections when they bathed in the awesome power of this device!"
Kerner took up the narrative. He had some knowledge in this area. "Fortunately, we suffer from no such imperfections," he added, referring to himself and the other Aryan members of the Third Reich. This was something he believed utterly - had believed for over ten years.
"Swell," said Indy hurriedly. "Send me a postcard from Valhalla. He turned, as if making a sudden break for it.
"Stop!" commanded Kerner behind him. Indy turned and faced down the muzzle of his Luger. "One more step and you'll get there first!"
"You can't leave now," said Ubermann. "We're just beginning our experiment."
"Don't let me stop you," said Indy.
"And we can't begin without a guinea pig, can we?"
Indy looked up at the colossus. He swallowed thickly. What Ubermann was offering him - what he thought he was offering him, was Godhood. But the only image Indy saw in his mind was the mausoleum of decayed, mutated skeletons.
Satisfied with the look of fear on Indy's face, Ubermann continued. "Now, if you'll kindly step onto the platform-"
Kerner suddenly whirled, holding Ubermann at gunpoint. "NO!" he ordered in a sudden, loud exclamation.
"What?" said Ubermann, astonished.
"If anyone's going to become a god, it must be me!" barked Kerner. There was a high flush on his cheeks. He holstered the gun, brushed his uniform, and stepped onto the platform to be directly underneath the colossus.
"You?!" derided Ubermann. "Don't make me laugh!"
The colour in Kerner's cheeks jumped. "I'm in charge of this operation, you spineless sausage!" he shouted. He pulled the Luger out again and pointed it Ubermann. "Activate the machine," he suggested.
Yeah, activate it, thought Indy.
Dr Ubermann sighed. "A test is a test," he said mournfully. He walked to the mouth of the frog statue. "Plato suggested ten beads. Let's try that."
"Wait!" exclaimed Indy suddenly, almost involuntarily. A thought had just struck him.
Kerner and Ubermann whirled to face him before he could shut his mouth again. Kerner still held the gun. "What now, Jones?"
"Oh ... er ... go ahead. You could use a little self improvement."
Kerner was not satisfied. "You sound a little too happy about this. Tell me what's so amusing!" The expression on his face suggested he was unlikely to see the joke.
Indy sighed. They'd work it out for themselves, sooner or later. "Most of Plato's numbers were way off target," explained Indy, "what with his tenfold error. Ten beads may give you size ten antlers."
"Hmmm."
"Just a thought," said Indy.
Kerner turned to Ubermann. "He may be right," he said grudgingly. "We should divide by ten! Try one bead."
Kerner reached into a large pocket on the outside of the coat. It was bulging with what looked like a whole heap of small marbles - in other words, beads. He took one out and held it between forefinger and thumb, momentarily admiring the glint of light. "One bead it is." He popped it into the open mouth of the frog.
Instantly the mouths of the twin statues opened and lava came out in a thick stream. It pooled in the stone below, and rolled down gouges and valleys in the terraced ledges until disappearing into the lava pool at the centre. The light grew an even angrier, dimmer shade of red. The low shaking hum at the edge of hearing was back.
Kerner returned his gun to the holster, and brushed a hand through his hair as he and the pedestal began to rise. The colossus dropped lower. The light was fading, unaccountably.
The twin movement stopped, and suddenly lightning flashed, painfully bright, from the head of the colossus to the pedestal, through Kerner. There was an electrical cracking noise. Kerner threw his head back and raised his arms as the lightning continued to travel from the colossus to the pedestal. The frequency of the strikes continued, and now Kerner was slowly rising into the air. He appeared to be laughing.
The lightning ceased, and now green swirls of energy were orbiting the levitating Kerner. "Himmel!" exclaimed Ubermann. "It's working!" Kerner was laughing even harder now, as if he was an evil megalomaniac who held the fate of entire galaxy in his hand. Perhaps he did.
But suddenly the orbiting green energy changed colour to a bright red, and instantly Indy knew something was wrong. But he couldn't see what, because Kerner's face was hidden from him.
Ubermann was watching closely. In the space of a second, Kerner's left eye had closed, swelled, and turned a deep shade of blue. His nose lengthened. The top of his head seemed to be straining to come off.
Without warning, the changes suddenly accelerated. Kerner's body suddenly shrunk several feet. His face had sprouted a thick crop of brown hair. Horns had pushed their way through his skull, still extending. His hands were also sprouting hair, and mutating into claws. As if he'd only just realised that something was wrong, Kerner held his hands to his face and looked at them in horror.
Lightning struck again from the colossus. Kerner was driven to his knees. He was bellowing now, in pain, and though it was still recognisably human, there was another component, alien, which was growing louder.
Kerner at last grasped the reality of the colossus. He stood up, and leapt over the edge of the platform, a last despairing "NOOOOOO!" coming from his lips, or at least his mouth, before he struck the lava, the changes to his body left forever incomplete. Imperfect, you might say.
The colossus and the pedestal drew apart, returning to their original places. The light returned. The mouths of the statues closed again, shutting off the lava. Normality returned, or at least as normal as it ever got in Atlantis.
Ubermann made a tut-tut sound under his breath and looked at Indy, who was still shaken. "A small bead for a small man, eh Dr Jones?" he asked, from one scientist to another. "Now, it's your turn."
Indy shook his head instantly. Like hell it is, he thought. "No thanks," he said emphatically. "Godhood's for egomaniacs like you, cueball."
"Move! Unless you want my men to move you..."
Indy looked at the Nazi soldiers, still manning their posts despite Kerner's sudden accident. They had their rifles unholstered, and pointed at him. Indy said a small prayer, and stepped onto the platform. His veins felt like they were filled with liquid nitrogen, somehow exaggerating every move he made.
"That's better," said Ubermann.
"You don't need orichalcum, you need a miracle. What makes you think you can outdo the old kings?"
"Science, my boy!" exclaimed Ubermann, as if stating a great truth. "We have it, and they didn't." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of beads. "We'll start with Plato's number. Ten beads should do the trick."
"Hang on!" said Indy, desperately.
Ubermann turned. "What?" he croaked.
"Let's talk this over," offered Indy.
"There's no time. How many beads should we use?" He looked inquiringly at Indy, as if he had something to offer on the subject.
"No beads, you crazy old man!"
"Come now, Doctor, where's your scientific curiosity?"
Indy pleaded. "Please, professor, don't make me do this."
"Look on the bright side. You'll be leaving your cares behind."
Indy could feel his grip slipping on the conversation. "Please, professor, I've got classes to teach."
Ubermann was obviously disappointed with the backbone being displayed. "Stop whining, man! Let's not take chances. How does twenty beads sound?"
"No beads! Forget your stupid obsession!"
"Really, Dr Jones. Get a grip on yourself!"
Indy was running out of ideas. How could he make this idiot see the truth? "You know, you'd make a much better god than me," he said.
"That goes without saying," said Ubermann certainly. "But there's no reason to turn up your nose at the chance of becoming one of the lesser immortals."
"It's not too late," said Indy, fast approaching the realisation that it was - at least for them. "Let's call the whole thing off."
"Show some spin, man!" chided Ubermann. "How many beads?"
"No beads! Let's get out of here while we can! We've still got a chance if we leave now!"
"Not yet! Really, Doctor, you must cooperate."
And suddenly Indy had the angle. He pointed an angry finger at Ubermann. "You know, for your sake I hope this doesn't work."
"Why not?"
Indy glowered at him. "Once I'm a God, I'm sending you straight to hell." His eyes flickered down, where Kerner had breathed his last, then returned to Ubermann.
"I'm offering you immortality," said Ubermann in wounded tones, "and this is the thanks I get? What kind of gratitude is that?"
"Ever hear the term 'angry god'?" asked Indy. "Wait till you see me!" He grinned and folded his arms. "Ready when you are."
Ubermann looked confused. He wrung his hands nervously. "Hang on. Perhaps I haven't thought this through." A thoughtful expression crossed his face. "You want to go first! You're scheming against me, in spite of my generosity!" He looked almost hurt. "Well, you won't get the upper hand that way! Stand aside, Jones!"
Indy quickly left the pedestal, more than happy to, and joined Sophia, who gave him an anxious look. Ubermann began to feed beads into the mouth, counting under his breath.
Time seemed to stop still as Ubermann fed the frog. He continued past Plato's number. Past twenty. Thirty. Forty. Fifty. Sixty. Seventy. Eighty. Ninety.
Ubermann fed the hundredth bead into the frog and quickly hopped onto the pedestal. He sneered at Jones as the pedestal rose and the room darkened. "Prepare to feel my wrath!" A squinting, concentrated expression crossed his face.
Indy watched helplessly. At first, it was a reply of Kerner as lightning flashed through Ubermann. Only this lightning was brighter and a lot louder. Indy thought suddenly of the dosage - it was way too high. Surely the machine would overload. What on earth could you do with one hundred orichalcum beads? Blow it up?
Indy wished he hadn't thought that.
Ubermann was now rising in a swirl of green energy. From the green swirls, blue bolts shot inward and struck his skin. Ubermann himself was starting to glow bright green. His body was lost, now a mere shape in the green light.
The shape suddenly stretched, and expanded. The trails of green energy vanished, and behind them stood a creature of pure light, standing nine feet tall. He looked at his yellow green body, uniform except for a gleaming pair of red eyes.
"HA HA HA HA!" it laughed. For a heart-splitting moment, Indy thought Nur-Ab-Sal was back. But no, it wasn't. It was Ubermann's voice, somehow expanded and roughened. The creature stretched its arms upwards, and shutterflashed white. Lightning passed from one hand to the other, held and controlled. There was one final flash of white, and then it imploded. Indy and Sophia were starting to back away from the pit, taking advantage of the diversion.
Now all that remained was a snowflake of transparent red light, spitting off small sparks. Sprite, Indy thought. It started to vibrate, and suddenly the room around and above them was vibrating also. In harmony. The sprite started orbiting the pit, making a high pitched burbling noise. As it passed Indy it suddenly expanded, its wavering form slowly coalescing. A face emerged from the cloud, a face with horned head, thick nose and triangular eyes. It didn't look happy - it looked to be in agonising pain.
The head turned and screamed at Indy, a voice shrill enough to shatter steel. He jumped further back and fell over on Sophia. But the scream seemed to have exhausted the energies of the creature. It sighed and dispersed, until the final spark of energy winked out.
Indy slowly rose to his feet. Was it over?
It wasn't.
Throughout the brief existence of the creature, the rumbling sound had been getting louder, the vibrations in the room getting heavier. Now a section of the floor near the outer rim suddenly collapsed. Two soldiers fell with it, screaming. A wall near Indy and Sophia fell outward.
"Indy!" said Sophia frantically. More pillars were collapsing. Another section of floor broke and fell. The stone pedestal had fallen into the lava. Now the lava was starting to rise.
What could you do with a hundred beads of orichalcum? Bring the house down.
Indy suddenly ran around the stone pit, skirting a thin lip of stone, toward the motorcycle stranded on the far side. There was no rifle fire. Either the soldiers were dead, or they were splitting too.
Indy reached the motorbike, got on, pumped the throttle and revved the engine. Sophia jumped on behind him, grabbing him tightly around the waist.
A giant glob of lava burst from the stone pit. One of the statues slowly toppled forward.
Indy kicked the stand up and brought the motorbike around in the small patch of stone that still stood, to face outward across the stone bridge. Somehow, it was still together.
They burst away into the vast openness as Indy jammed the throttle at full cock. The roar of the motorcycle, though loud, was totally lost in the deafening destruction behind them. Indy risked a quick look around the doomed city. Below the bridge, the plain was in upheaval. Lava was bursting through in hundreds of places, spreading outward from the central structure. The sheer stone wall ahead, and the numerous passages honeycombing it, still seemed to be okay. The destruction was spreading outward - they'd just have to outrun it.
Sophia was staring back at the Atlantean skyscraper: like Lot's wife, compelled to look. High above, she saw one of the many bridges leading outward suddenly break off at the wall. It began to fall, ponderously slow at first but with an unstoppable momentum. Another bridge, even higher, almost directly above them, cracked in half and likewise began its one way journey. And yet the lights on the building were still flashing.
Indy reached the end of the bridge at suicidal speed, braked, and guided the bike toward a narrow, curving passageway. "Duck!" he shouted to Sophia, who was still staring back. Sophia looked forward, and got her head down just as they entered the tunnel. The bike twisted and turned, Indy staring into the darkness ahead. Small pebbles rained on them from the roof.
The bike burst out of the passageway in a cloud of dust and into the next perimeter. Indy put on more gas as they sped toward the hexagonal tiling, which was looking shaky.
But there was no time for anything else.
They roared over the first set of tiles, somehow not breaking through, and Indy pulled a hard right to avoid a particularly large and hot gap. Somewhere nearby another tile collapsed. Indy made another turn, feeling a little uncomfortable from the pressure applied by Sophia, and bulleted off the moat. They weren't even a quarter of the way out yet.
"Hold on!" he shouted to Sophia, who was already holding on as fast as she could. He cut the speed as much as he dared, then guided the bike up one of the shallower set of steps. Sophia's teeth chattered as they bounced up the even steps. The ground was still shaking beneath them. He made a tight turn as the steps winded back on themselves, then roared over a patch of stone stubble.
A clump of stone tiling collapsed into the moat as another geyser of lava burst upward, casting a flickering orange glow over the grim faces of Indy and Sophia. The rest of the tiles were submerged as the lava started to rise, with sudden, shocking speed.
Indy urged the bike ever higher, past further rockfalls and cave ins. They negotiated several more turns, before finally reaching the top ledge. They accelerated out into open space again.
Here, in the open wellspace, they sped over a thin, wide bridge that was looking flaky at the edges. The orange glow was much brighter, more vital, and Indy didn't need to look down to realise that the lava was inexorably rising.
Three quarters of the way across, there was a cracking sound and a sudden emptiness behind them. Sophia looked back to see a five foot section of the bridge, now bifurcated, tumbling down and into the lava. The stone beneath them seemed to tilt upward as this, the smaller of the remaining sections of the bridge, began to do likewise.
Indy gave it even more gas. They lunged forward as the bridge, where it made contact with the outer ledge, cracked. With almost gentle ease the bridge fell.
They soared the last five feet and landed on the ledge with a bone jarring thump. Instantly Indy jammed his foot on the brakes and twisted the front wheel, turning them parallel to the outer wall. They came within a foot of striking it before the momentum of the bike was finally arrested. Before Sophia could even catch her breath, Indy was accelerating forward again, racing around the outer rim. He scarcely dared to turn the handlebars - the pathway was so narrow that it felt like he was racing along the thin rim of a crystal glass.
Hot winds buffeted them, sending the bike dangerously close to the wall. Carried with the winds were high, screeching sounds, like the destruction of spirits. And a thin orange dust.
They had to race around nearly a third of the rim, and by now most of the bridgework had collapsed into the rising lava, before they made it to the hole made by the truck on its final voyage. Boulders of stupendous size were now falling from the roof high above. As Indy guided the bike through the hole and onto a flatter, saner pathway, an eight foot segment of the ledge just in front suddenly collapsed, the rock falling to meet its maker.
Indy pushed the bike to its full speed. The headlights lining the outer walls were throbbing at a stroboscopic intensity. Here too, the light had an orange, earthy quality as the floor beneath began to crack. Indy saw the second hole and bulleted through.
In the second circle, now. The light from the headlights was a dark orange, almost brown, though Indy took no notice of this. He guided the bike around the gently curving passages, bricks beginning to fall from the walls, occupying the centre until a massive crack suddenly appeared in the floor in front. Indy pulled a hard right, toward the wall, and skirted it, even as more stone fell in and the gap widened to reveal a yellow, seething mass.
The sounds of destruction behind them were reaching painful levels. There was a wind at their back, hot and thick, which could only be good.
Indy finally found the collapsed bronze doorway. He shot the motorcycle over the rubble, to the passageway beyond. A quick stab on the brakes sufficed to get them around the corner, and then to ...
Indy moaned - he'd forgotten. The canal! How on earth could they cross it? They emerged at the canal system, still as roomy as ever, and Indy had to bring the bike to a stop.
The passageway collapsed behind him. Rubble blew outward in a heavy cloud of dust. Small stones struck Sophia's back. More cracks were appearing in the stone as lava pushed up from below. Yes, there was the crab craft, lazing idly in a flow of water which was not so much placid as boiling. But it was too slow, and they'd die before they got to the outer circle. As if to underline this, the wall on the far side collapsed, rubble spilling to the edge of the canal.
Suddenly Indy knew what to do. He spied a small rising of rock by the canal, and stepped on the throttle. The bike shot forward, Sophia's hands once more a tight cinch around his waist. As the front wheel struck the rock outcrop and bounced, Indy pulled back on the handlebars as hard as he could.
The bike soared into the air. For one timeless moment it straddled the canal, horizontal but suspended a foot above. Then it crashed once more to earth, somehow surefooted amongst the rubble. Indy accelerated the bike up the rockfall, heading toward the half strength remnants of the wall at kamikaze speed.
Sophia's eyes widened as she realised what Indy was about to do. She opened her mouth to scream.
"-" she began.
The front wheel slammed into the crumbling brick. Rubble fell down, showering Indy. A particularly pointy stone struck his fedora hat. But somehow, they kept going forward. Sophia was now being struck as the path in front of them widened. She ducked her head into Indy's back.
The bike exploded out of the wall and into a muddy, dank passage which continued further before banking right. Indy sped down the passage, following its twists and turns tightly. He could remember this section - they were getting close to the entrance chamber.
The walls around them were starting to shake. Sophia, watching behind, saw the floor cracking and falling into hidden depths of lava. Dust was falling from the roof above in a continuous stream. They took a final bank left and then, at the end of the passage, a set of bronze gates were just visible through the haze, still held open. The bike sped toward them, flying past other passages, and finally the outer passageway, before bulleting through the door onto the narrow ledge suspended above the entrance chamber. With absolutely no hesitation Indy powered the bike over the edge and to the floor six feet below, the front wheel bursting as it struck earth. There was no need for a light stick this time - by one wall the floor was no longer a floor, but merely a gap to a hot, violent mass. Indy guided the bike over several more patches of rubble, the torn rubber on the front wheel flapping against the ground. Both his and Sophia's gaze were firmly held by the narrow rectangle of normal light in front of them, the sub still surfaced in the ocean pool. It was growing larger.
They made it over one final rising, and then the bike passed under this rectangular archway. Indy let it roll to the very edge of the water before cutting the engine. Sophia jumped off, and Indy dumped the bike. They ran for the chamber, which now held the German submarine, floating a couple of feet from the edge.
There was a loud crash and a roar behind them. Another hot gust blew from behind. Indy jumped onto the sub's surface, held out his hand, and grabbed Sophia as she followed. "Can you pilot a sub?" she asked breathlessly.
"Looks like we're about to find out!" yelled Indy as they quickly climbed the ladder to the top of the sub's conning tower. Indy pulled open the hatch and simply dropped to the steel grille below.
There was a Nazi soldier in the captain's room, making measurements. His face, turning toward Indy as he rose, wincing, held an expression of utter shock. Indy's face had an expression of pure, simple, tiredness as he punched the Nazi on the chin. The Nazi buckled, swooned, and then fell as Indy pushed him through the ladder hole. Sophia dropped down at the same time, and the two sounds merged as one.
"Shut the hatch?" asked Indy.
Sophia nodded quickly.
Satisfied, Indy stared at the control console. There was only one obvious control, the rest seemed to be related to the intercom. It was a lever labelled Flugeldufel. Indy yanked it downward, and his heart lurched as they immediately dropped. He had no idea how far they had to go before they reached the bottom - he was piloting blind. The sub was shaking from side to side, as if the seas around them had suddenly grown violent. They almost assuredly had.
After twenty suspenseful seconds, he returned the lever to its level position. He ran for the ladder, jumped down, and ran along the bridge, looking for further controls. He left the Nazi on the floor, moaning and making slight, jerky movements, as if his wires had been cut.
Indy pelted past the sculley and soon came to the main control section.
He located the speedometer control, and pulled it up as far as it would go. The engines of the sub protested, but Indy felt them begin to accelerate, all the same. In actual fact, what he didn't know that had the controls been untouched since they arrived, the sub would have continued in its original direction, namely into the interior of the undersea cavern. The Nazi soldier left to attend to the navigational settings of the sub had in fact flicked another toggle switch, unnoticed by Indy, which reversed the direction of travel, preparing for the journey outward.
Indy wouldn't have much cared if he knew this, anyway.
The buffeting on the sub continued momentarily, but as their speed picked up it abated. Indy exhaled - slowly. It wasn't so much a physical thing, but a mental exhalation: a slow release of all those pent up anxieties. With all the anxieties penting up recently, this exhale might last ten minutes, or more.
He brought the speed throttle down to middling, and returned to the captain's room, where Sophia had remained. She was looking through one of the windows at the terrain they were leaving behind, and Indy followed her gaze.
The undersea feature that Indy had first thought of as a flat hill had really grown in stature. Its peaked tip rose much higher, nearly to the surface of the ocean. Lava still spouted in a slow motion torrent that slowly rolled down the slopes of the mountain like treacle, colour fading from bright orange at the peak, to dusty brown and finally a cracked grey/black. Steam clouds rose from the lava flows, hot enough to kill shoals of fish. Around the volcano, small buildings which had dotted the ocean floor were now engulfed by the flows of lava. A full blooded eruption, all right. Yet even as the volcano rose higher and finally broke the surface, dust clouds from the disturbed sea bed began to hide the massive mountain from view.
Indy stared at the volcano as it slowly began to recede from view. Finally, when it was no more than half the height of the porthole through which they viewed it, Indy climbed down the stairs and back to the control panel. He pulled the throttle back to zero. The sub decelerated as he walked back. He looked at the fallen Nazi for a moment, then dismissed him and climbed back up the ladder to more important things. The Nazi, whose name was Horst, was in any case now unconscious.
In the captain's room, Indy slowly brought their altitude up. Light from the outside world began to filter through the windows - it was still a murky blue, but it seemed to Indy that the shadows lurking in the corner finally began to recede. The water was growing ever clearer and lighter when finally they broke through the water. Indy pulled the altitude lever back, and walked to the ladder. He climbed, opening the hatch, and Sophia followed him onto the conning tower. Indy walked to the handrail and leant on it, staring at Atlantis - the volcano had finally broken through the surface and was disgorging copious quantities of brown smoke. Behind it and slightly to the right, the sun was westering into the sea, casting a reddish glow over the rising smoke. Indy sighed.
"You know," he said to Sophia beside him, "a lot of my discoveries seem like tall tales, even to me." He looked again at the volcano. "At least there's some evidence this time."
As if in response to this phrase, the upheaval of lava and ash suddenly dropped. The smoke was thinning. Further and further the mountain sank, ever decreasing in size, until finally it vanished from view.
"Then again, maybe not," said Sophia. Indy nodded gloomily. Somehow, it seemed appropriate. Atlantis was never really meant to be discovered.
He rummaged in his pockets and drew out the last of the orichalcum beads - five metal pellets that could change the world. They glinted as the last rays of the setting sun struck. Then he threw them over the edge. They fell into the water quietly, not even raising a splash. Then he turned to Sophia and kissed her. They embraced, standing there by the handrail on the conning tower, the sun now setting.
"What was that for?" asked Sophia finally, her voice gently curious.
"To ease the pain," said Indy simply. Sophia nodded, and they kissed again. It seemed like a good reason to her. This kiss ended, too, but the parting was not tinged with regret. There would be many times ahead.
The sun set, and the smoke clouds drifted away. Yet still Indy and Sophia remained on the conning deck, standing at the handrail and staring out over the mellow, drifting sea as the first stars appeared.

THE END

And then the theme music kicked in...