I make no claims to ownership of the Stargate or Tomb Raider universes, nor any of the material within them. Nor — although the latter fall within fair use — do I make such claims towards characters, situations, or dialogue created by Dorothy L. Sayers, H.G. Wells, J.M. Barrie, Max Ehrlich (via Gene Roddenbury), Steven Spielberg, Anne McCaffrey, Russel T. Davies, P.G. Wodehouse, Charles Stross, H.P. Lovecraft, Jack "King" Kirby, Jane Espension, James Tiptree, Tim Powers, Robert Heinlein, John Lennon (by way of Rob Baker), J.K. Rowling, George Lucas, Herb Caen, Tristan Jones, Ayn Rand (sorry!), George Bernard Shaw, J.R.R. Tolkien, Bart Sibrel (by way of Buzz Aldrin's right hook), Zahi Hawass (some of his dialog is directly cribbed)…oh, yeah, and P. L. Travers, by way of Robert and Richard Sherman.
We're almost done with emperors and alchemists; pretty soon I can wrap up some plot threads, stop info-dumping about 17th-century Europe, and stop feeling like Jack (and Sam, for that matter) are being Aquaman in an episode of the Super-Friends. At least this time I finally came up with some fish for him to talk to.
Hrad Houska, Greater Prague, N50° 6' 30.0024" E14° 20' 58.3656"
It was cold as a tomb in the stony alchemist's chamber dug deep into the rock below the gothic walls of Castle Houska. Of course it was. That was basic geo-thermodynamics. Large masses of stone acted as a thermal sink. Insulated from the direct heat of the sun or other short-lived fluctuations in outside temperature, a cave tended towards the average; warmer than the outside during winter, cooler during summer. The large heat capacity of that same thermal mass also allowed it to conduct heat away from warmer objects — such as its visitors.
Lara rarely noticed cold as such. She'd taught herself long ago not to react to cold, not to let it shake her concentration or push her into rash action. She could rest in new-fallen snow as still as an apex predator (or a sniper); and often enough for similar goals. She'd learned that harsh self-control a long, long time ago.
Their private plane had suffered an engine failure while crossing the Himalayan range in Nepal. The pilots had died in the crash. Her mother had vanished from the ruined temple they crawled into for shelter, and Lara was left alone, faced with the ten-day hike to Kathmandu without supplies or gear.
She had been nine years old.
Moments before the crash, Amelia Croft had told her child she would never have to be cold if she didn't want to be. And from that day on, Lara wasn't. She'd come out of the mountains with a self-sufficiency that let her survive emotionally when her father was away on increasingly marathon expeditions to track down the secrets of his wife's disappearance. Not that it didn't hurt to not have him there while she was growing up. Not that it didn't hurt when he, too, vanished into the mysteries of the past, leaving her alone in the world at fifteen.
Daniel Jackson didn't seem to be noticing the cold, either. He was nose deep in the mouldering manuscripts, completely unaware of the shivers and yawns that came over him at intervals. Which was something else that Lara was unfamiliar with. Her expeditions tended to be rather more, well, expeditious. A lot of running and jumping, really. With only brief pauses to read an inscription here and there. Her experience of archaeology rarely approached the mainstream of months of studying a single artifact. Much less the classic pioneers, pre-photography, who might spend days making meticulous drawings by the light of a candle before retreating to the surface.
Probably another reason she never felt the cold. She was just too active.
"Bored now," Jack O'Neill announced. Again. "Really bored. Bored bored bored. Can we wrap this up and call it a night, people? Now?!"
That had been quite an interesting bombshell the Colonel had dropped on her earlier, Lara reflected. "Mental parasites?" had been her first reaction.
"Wait, that's your first question?" the Colonel had replied. "About the symbiotes, not about Stargates or Egyptian gods?"
Lara had made a brief "been there, done that, got the t-shirt" gesture. And they'd had to leave it at that, because Doctor Rubešova had returned then and as much as the Colonel was willing to let Lara into the club — Official Secrets Act and the good word from the PM no doubt figuring in his calculations — he wasn't willing to divulge to everyone.
And the Colonel had a point now, too.
"Why is this still here?" Jana asked before Lara could speak.
"Eh?" Daniel was too distracted by his reading to be paying attention.
"Why didn't they box it all up and send it to Berlin?"
"In 1944?" Jack drawled. "Healthier to stay far away from Der Fuhrer. Better to be chasing after secret weapons in Mexico or something than to be where you might get sent to the Eastern Front."
"Or shot," Jana agreed.
"Still doesn't explain why they worked here, so far underground," Lara argued. "Obviously they didn't find what they were looking for. Because otherwise we'd have stories of zombie battalions. I mean, more stories of zombie battalions."
"Okay, this one is stumping me." Daniel Jackson had only barely paid attention to their discussion, and was still struggling with one of the various texts the German researchers had been working on. "It's not Western Aramaic like I first thought. There are niqqud, but it doesn't seem to be proper Hebrew either. It almost seems to be using the letters as an alphabet. Best I can make out is the title of this section is stories about a town called 'Chelm.'"
Jana started laughing. "Doctor Jackson, that's not Hebraic — that's Yiddish! Chelm stories are a sort of Borscht Belt humor."
"Oh!" Daniel said. "I don't know why I didn't realize it."
"I think one of those German researchers might have had a sense of humor," Lara said.
"I think one of those 'Germans' might have had a little something to hide," Jana added.
"Right place for it, though," Lara said. "I mean, if you are going to be exploring alchemists and mystics of the time of Emperor Rudolph II, you can hardly leave out Judah Loew ben Bezalel."
"Oh, god," Jana sighed. "I knew that was going to come up eventually. Can't anyone do archaeology in Prague without bringing up the Golem?"
"Gollum?" Jack's ears perked up. "You mean like, 'My Preciousss?'"
"No, Golem," Jana correct patiently.
"That's what I said."
"Think Jewish mythology, not hobbits," Lara tried to help.
"My precious, oy vey?" Jack made a face. "Nope, not seeing it."
"Jack, the golem is a clay man brought to life by magic," Daniel entered the discussion.
"The most famous stories have him created in Prague, by Rabbi Loew," Jana said. "Although those are probably 19th-century literary inventions. Oddly enough, there's an earlier golem story which is set in…Chelm."
"Well, the High Rabbi of Prague did meet with Emperor Rudolph," Lara said. "Although the stories may make more of it than there was, the Emperor was probably impressed by his learning and intrigued by his knowledge of the Kabbala."
"And what does this High Rabbi have to do with the other guy?" Jack asked.
"Which other guy?"
"The guy that made the golem."
"That was Rabbi Loew."
"So who was the High Rabbi?"
"Rabbi Loew."
"Not asking about him."
"Jack!" Daniel cut across the Who's On First routine. "Anyway, he's a historical figure, and stories say he made this man out of clay and set him to defend the Jews of Prague against pogrom."
"A man made out of clay. Doesn't seem too effective."
"Shame!" Jana waved her finger. "And I thought you were an Air Force officer."
"What's that have to do with…?"
Lara grinned. "Colonel, why do you think archaeologists spend so much time collecting potsherds?"
"I dunno," Jack answered. "I guess I thought it was because you," he looked back and forth from Daniel to Lara, "had a really low threshold of boredom."
Lara laughed aloud at this. "Good one. No; it's because clay is practically indestructible. Iron rusts away to a smear, parchments and skins rot, but clay survives the ages. And what Jana was getting at, was that clay — which your Air Force engineers tend to call 'ceramics' — is the high-strength, high-temperature secret weapon in jet engines and Space Shuttles."
"I shouldn't be ashamed of our golem," Jana added, shaking her head ruefully. "It's the prototypical robot. Used as a teaching example in cybernetics classes. See, one of the legends of the golem is that it follows orders to the letter. Tell it to fetch a bucket from the well and it will keep filling buckets until the whole village is flooded."
"Like Mickey in that movie," Jack smiled, obviously remembering a certain anthropomorphic rodent in a tall magician's hat. "I get it. So keep it away from brooms."
They extended their search then, almost physically pulling Daniel up from the magnetic attraction of the first stack of manuscripts that had caught his eye. The first thing of note Lara had found was that under the grime the floor was incised in more astronomical symbols. "Kepler was also a guest of the Emperor," Jana said at this. "I have a feeling Rudolph II may have pressed all of his experts into designing tricks for whatever his ultimate secret was."
The next discovery was Jana's. A painting, this was, styled vaguely after an old work Lara remembered from some gallery of Christ healing a leper. The symbolism on this one was quite obscure. "The figure on the horse is the Emperor," she observed. "The reclining figure…there's something oddly Arthurian about him."
"I think that may be the Fisher King," Jana said. "Part of the Grail legends and stories that were built up over the ages from Chrétien de Troyes through Eschenbach through to, well, Richard Wagner have the idea that the Holy Lance can heal wounds. And that it was used to postpone the death of the Wounded King."
"Yes, I noticed the leaf shape in that weapon the Emperor is holding. Longinus again."
"That's a funny-looking lance," Jack commented. "Almost reminds me of…ah, never mind."
"Well, I see something else," Lara said then. "Look at his left hand."
"Isn't that…well, it looks a little bit like that Horus Jar you were looking for," Daniel said.
"Then Rudolph did have it," Lara pronounced with satisfaction.
The last discovery was made by Jack. It happened suddenly, in a flurry of motion, musty feathers, and a cry a little like a goose with laryngitis. "I just touched the cage and it jumped out at me!" Jack said.
Lara saw the creature run with surprising speed and agility towards the center of the room. It was a scrawny, grey-plumaged bird the size of a large turkey, with a a distinctive and comical down-turned beak. Jack dodged out of the way as the bird veered around the table then shot straight for the plinth. "Keep that thing away from me!" he said. "I don't want to be known as a man who shot a dodo!"
"Nobody is shooting my dodo!" Jana retorted.
"Your dodo?"
"I am the curator of Emperor Rudolph's collection," Jana said, "and that makes it my dodo."
"You can keep it," Jack said. The dodo, ignoring this interplay, hopped up on the table, then a cabinet, then ducked into a protected niche between the legs of the three-headed Hermes Trismegistus statue. There it stayed, watching them with rolling eyes.
"Well, it took three hundred and forty years, but one of them finally learned to be wary of humans," Lara observed dryly.
"Why was it hiding earlier?" Daniel wondered.
"I'm willing to bet it also learned to be wary of wolves," Lara said with grim humor. "Those zombie wolves were probably shut up in here from the moment the SS dynamited the tunnel until Professor Rádsetoulal figured out how to open the door again."
"So what kept it alive? What kept them alive?" Jana wondered.
"Maybe we should ask her," Lara said. The dodo, still cowering from the human presence in the room, was pressed up against the stone of the tall central plinth. "Want to bet there's something inside there?"
Gate Control Room, SGC, 38°44′32.91″N 104°50′54.40″W
General Hammond came up the short flight of winding steel stairs to the Gate Control Room. The shutters were open, giving a good view of the rectangular concrete Embarkation Room and the dark stone ring that dominated it. The Stargate glistened in the work lights, quiescent now but giving an impression of suppressed power nonetheless.
This was Hammond's favorite place to be in his command. It was also one of his least favorite moments. Tech Sergeant Harriman, the Duty Officer, acknowledged him without standing from his post. "SG11 is now an hour late on their scheduled call-in," he reported.
"Thank you," Hammond said. "That's Colonel Singh's team. He is meticulous about such things." Hammond hated this. It was part of an officer's duty to send people into danger. An officer had to accept that some of them wouldn't be coming back. But it didn't make it any easier knowing that some of his people were in trouble.
He looked out over the Embarkation Room and the looming alien artifact that had made this entire facility happen. It only made it worse that his people were literally on another planet. You couldn't get much further from help than that.
"Prep the UAV," he instructed his Duty Officer. "If there's been no contact by twelve hundred hours we'll attempt it from this end."
"Sir…" Walter paused before continuing. "Major Carter joined them last night."
"I know," Hammond said. He didn't play personal favorites, but the young officer was one of the most essential people in his command. She'd been part of the team that got the Stargate working in the first place. Her mind and her skills were almost literally irreplaceable.
He sighed shortly. "Pass the word on to Ferreti and Makepeace. We may need them to prep their teams for a rescue mission."
The Hermes Chamber, Hrad Houska, N50° 6' 30.0024" E14° 20' 58.3656"
"What you said before," Lara suddenly swung on Jana Rubešova. "Rudolph II was far too fond of gadgets and magic tricks. And he certainly had the talent around him to commission a few. Edward Kelly. Rabbi Loew was known for a few miracles here and there, at least in the Prague Stories."
"Natural philosophers and botanists like Charles de l'Ecluse," Jana nodded, "leading scientific instrument makers like Habermel and Schissle. And of course poets and painters like Elizabeth Jane Westen or Giuseppe Arcimboldo, who could hide anything under layers and layers of clever symbolism."
"So of course there's something hidden in this room," Lara said. She and Jana turned back towards the central plinth, the dome painted in elaborate astrological symbology, all lions and waterfalls, spread like a canopy over the statue of the great alchemist himself. "As above, so below," she paraphrased the inscription, "to perform the miracles of…"
"Tycho Brahe," Jana said over her. "Rudolph's Royal Astronomer."
"That's it, isn't it," Lara said. "We need to clear this floor."
With the floor clear the astronomical symbols were clear. "As above, so below," Lara repeated. "But they don't match. The astronomical paintings on the ceiling are different."
"What about that orrery we passed on the way in?" Jack asked diffidently.
"That's the trick." Lara was certain. "We just need to put the planets in the right order. Pity we didn't bring an astronomer."
"I've got it," Jack said.
"Oh?"
"Don't let him fool you," Daniel said. "He's actually a lot smarter than he lets on."
They retreated past the steel doors the unfortunate Professor Rádsetoulal had opened, and across the parquet under the now-disarmed machine guns to the tall-ceilinged gallery where the orrery was hung. And there they found the first problem.
"The handles are missing," Lara sighed. There was an intricate spidery clockwork mechanism tucked into a corner, with cables and rods leading up towards the giant orrery. Lara reflected that this was altogether all too familiar. She wasn't looking forward to exploring each and every gallery off the main passage, rooting through boxes and defusing remaining traps to collect every last control handle.
"Hold on," the Colonel held up a hand. He retreated towards one of the piles of crates the German researchers had left behind, and returned swinging a long crowbar in one hand. "Noticed it earlier," he said. "Just the thing for opening a way. And dealing with close encounters."
"Now all he needs is a beard and a doctorate," Jana said sotto voce.
"Um…" Daniel started. He seemed to be waking up to something. "Are you…are you seriously going to use that on an irreplaceable 16th-century artifact?"
"That was the plan, yes," Lara said blandly.
"Is that what you go around doing? Breaking ancient mechanisms just so you can get at what's inside? We shouldn't be trying to operate any of this thing!" His voice was rising. "These are historical treasures and you want to just start them up like they were an old Volkswagen you found in a cave!"
"Because what we are looking for is important, Daniel," Lara said sharply.
"More important than history?"
"Oh, you are one to talk! You haven't published any of your findings since 1992. You keep the Stargate hidden so deep underground it might as well still be buried under the sands outside Giza. And don't tell me you haven't done just the same to get at some of those alien artifacts I've seen your people waving about!"
"But thats..that's different!" Daniel was turning red, so angry and flustered he couldn't form words properly anymore. "Lives are at stake!"
"Oh, like I've never had similar challenges. I've fought things that you wouldn't believe."
"Oh, what, you saw a Bigfoot once or something? We are trying to stop the Goa'uld from invading Earth!"
"Which is why it is worth pulling a few old levers even if they break from the rust!"
"You! You! You are nothing but a….but a grave robber!"
"Idealist!" Lara spat, dismissively.
"Grave robber!" Daniel had his insult now, and was going to stick with it.
"Academic!"
"THAT'S ENOUGH!"
They both turned, shocked into silence at O'Neill's command voice. "Daniel, go to your happy place," O'Neill said, mildly. "Lara, stop hitting your brother or I'm going to turn the car around right now."
Jana couldn't help it. She started laughing, doubled over with it as she looked from Daniel's face to Lara's.
"She's right and you know it, Daniel," Jack continued in the same mild tone. "If it was important enough to our command to go out here in the first place, it's important enough to risk damaging a few museum pieces on the way." He turned, then. "And Lara? Go easy on Daniel." His voice dropped lower, to a mere murmur. "They have his wife."
"They…?" Lara stopped herself in the middle of her question. Her lips silently formed the words, "the Goa'uld?" and Colonel O'Neill nodded.
Daniel seemed to recognize what the Colonel had just communicated to her. He set his lips in a way that refused to hear any apology from her…but also gave grudging apology for his own outbreak.
Lara went to his side anyhow. "Daniel," she said, placing a hand on his arm. "We will stop them."
She didn't realize, until after he gave a choppy, answering nod, that she had said "we."
In those days, the Holy Roman Emperor, ruler of Bohemia, resided in Prague Castle surrounded by courtiers and scholars, astronomers and alchemists — the latter of whom sought ceaselessly for the Philosopher's Stone, the source of all life, the center of all inanimate and animate, that could change lead to gold or make a man into an immortal.
In those days also, High Rabbi Loew was the head rabbi of Prague, the teacher and spiritual leader of his people. He was a wise and great man, learned in the Torah and in the ways of man.
In those days also were often raised dark suspicions of the Jews. Should a Gentile die within the walls of Prague, someone would make sure the body was found within the Jewish Quarter. Then the rumor of Blood Libel would rise again. So did the Jews of Prague live in fear that the killings might begin anew, and so did they plea with their High Rabbi to go to the Emperor to plea on their behalf.
The High Rabbi left early in the morning, on foot and accompanied only by his son-in-law. As he passed the Old-New Synagogue, however, he found some of his people had already gathered with questions. "Will you tell the Emperor there is no truth to the libel?" they asked him. "Will there finally be peace for us?"
The High Rabbi paused before answering. "I will tell the Emperor only the truth," he said. "And as for peace — it is for no man to know the future, but I will do all I can to improve the present."
The people had to be satisfied with that, and the High Rabbi continued on his way. But inside he was wrought with worry. The Emperor was a polite and willing listener, but he was also a superstitious man. He had much enjoyed the little miracles the High Rabbi had performed from time to time, but each "miracle" made greater his superstitious fear that strange powers were held by the Jews.
The miracle he contemplated now beset him with worry both secular and spiritual. On the one hand, it might frighten the Emperor so much he might close the town of Prague to the Jews, removing them from the home they had known for many hundreds of years.
On the other hand, it was the deepest and most serious undertaking of his career. It was a secret known to only the most learned. The High Rabbi knew too well the story of the four sages who entered the Garden of Eden. Only one came away with his life and his sanity. What Akiba had learned to do, the High Rabbi now completed doing.
He would breathe life into dead clay. And all of his learning could not foretell what might follow.
The crowbar Jack had found could only do so much. Several of the linkages were already gone, or broke away the moment they applied pressure to them. Lara was able to apply body weight to one chain, dragging the attached mechanism around in a groaning of metal and a brief snow of rust.
"That's it," she said, dropping to the floor again. "Moon is in the Seventh House."
Jack checked his notes again. He was actually a decent observational astronomer, with a basic grounding in astrophysics, but astrology had always struck him as useless nonsense. It took all his learning to translate the archaic symbology into useful working terms. "Planets are still off," he said. "Got it. Jupiter…that's the old guy with the crown and the bird, right? And that backwards four thing. Anyhow…you have to align that with Mars."
Mars was easy. It was red, of course. And the symbol was the male of the old male/female thing. And if you got into paintings (which too many of the clues had) it was the God of War in full armor. Two out of three things that made it a very agreeable planet to Jack.
"This will be fun," the Tomb Raider said. And she leapt at the wall again in a way that was starting to get familiar to Jack. It was certainly a different approach to exploration, he mused. Given the right kind of terrain, she could move remarkably fast. He had a feeling more than one of her various enemies had been surprised by where she showed up.
And those were some very tight…um…shorts… Jack made himself look away. He saw the Czech professor was looking up as well, with her jaw nearly on the floor. She hadn't been around earlier for Lara's first gymnastic exploits. Beside him, Daniel was also trying to catch his breath. "I need to get out more," the archaeologist muttered.
"Down, boy," Jack grinned.
"The last time I could climb like that," Jana said in awe, "was when I was twelve. How does she even stay balanced?"
"Okay, people," Jack said firmly. "Let's stay focused." He waited until he had their attention again. "You remember what happened last time someone opened a door," he told them.
Lara had made it to the long arm that held the largest planet in the orrery. It still sagged a little under her weight. Now she was swinging back and forth, kicking out on each swing to push it in the desired direction on hop at a time. The four tiny Galilean Satellites bounced at the end of their own little arms with each hop.
Hrm. Hadn't Galileo just gotten a telescope at that point? Jack was pretty hazy on the Renaissance, but if his instinct was right this sculpture had to date from very close to the end of Rudolph's reign.
There was a "click" easily audible from the floor when the last planet slid into place. And none of them were prepared for what happened next. The whole orrery jarred into motion. Clouds of rust and stone dust cascaded down as the planets went into their own small echo of the stately dance far above. Jack could even see two tiny fragments whirling at high speed in their orbits around Mars.
"Now someone is just messing with us," he muttered. "Hang on, Lara!" he called up.
"That was the general idea, Colonel!" the Tomb Raider called back down. As Jack watched, she swung her body about then, in a display of athletic confidence, she let go of the Jupiter arm, transferring smoothly to the jolly Saturn instead.
Moving outwards through the Solar System wasn't going to work out well for her. Uranus didn't get discovered until well after Rudolph was dead; there were only seven planets in antiquity. But Lara had only made the transfer to work her way closer into the center without getting bashed in the head by Io or Callisto. As Jack watched from the ground, she leapt upwards, catching earth's trailing Moon and swinging her body up onto the rod connecting the Big Blue Marble itself.
The inner worlds were on complete metal disks, themselves outfitted with epicycle-like gears that, at least as far as Jack could figure, translated their Keplerian ellipses into more readily circular mechanisms. Not that any of this was in scale, mind you. He winced again as she ducked through one gear, then another, planets the size of iron beach balls rolling past her.
Then she was able to climb onto the great dome of the Sun itself, and after that it was a (seemingly) simple traverse down the control mechanisms back to the safety of the ground.
"One of these days you are going to kill yourself doing that," Jack told her.
"There's always a first time," she answered drily. "Worth it, though?"
"Yeah. Worth it." All four of them were quiet then, watching the great mechanism dance its intricate ballet above them. "Hell of a sight," Jack added. "Now let's go see if that plinth has opened up."
"Okay, Jack," Daniel said as they walked away. "You were right."
"Oh, don't look at me," Jack replied. "If it was up to me, I'd have just used explosives on the door."
There wasn't anything inside the plinth. Not as such.
The entire plinth had raised up, all but braining the three-headed statue against the domed ceiling of the alchemist's chamber, exposing a narrow circular stairway going down.
"Do you hear Mademoiselle, those musicians of hell?" Jana sung softly as they began the descent.
"Eh?" Daniel asked.
"I can never remember the rest of it," Jana said. "For some reason it seemed appropriate for following a circular stairway into the bowels of the Earth," she added with a shrug.
"We've found the Hole to Hell," Lara observed, looking at the glistening limestone. "This is ancient. Pre-Christian, I'm fairly certain."
"Stay tight," Jack said. "Doctor Rubešova, you watch our six."
"Hole to Hell?" Daniel had to ask.
Jana chose to answer. "Václav Hájek mentions it in his Czech Chronicle; he recounts legends of a crack in the limestone from which came strange beasts. At some point a local duke lowered a condemned prisoner down on a rope. The prisoner got his pardon, but it didn't do him much good; his hair had turned stark white and he had gone entirely mad."
"So when was all this?" Daniel asked.
"Perhaps ninth century. Hájek was writing quite a number of years later. By that time the basis of the current castle had been constructed — that dates from 1270 or so. Not that it looks quite the same today. Ferdinand III had the tower and moat destroyed, and in the 18th century it was remodeled into a sort of chalet. And then left to moulder, of course, through the Communist era. In any case, the original opening to the pit was covered up with limestone slabs and a chapel consecrated to Saint Michael built on top of that. And another odd thing; there's an image of a female centaur in that chapel. Not what you usually see in those sorts of structures!"
"I have no ideas," Daniel shrugged.
"There was a Swedish mercenary captain camped out briefly in the ruin during the Thirty Years War," Jana went on. "A nasty piece of work named Oronto, who had an unsavory reputation as a black magician and was purportedly searching for the secret to Eternal Life. He might have caught wind of the same thing we are after. The locals took care of him like they did Heydrich, but a bit more efficiently; they shot at him through an open window."
"The only centaur that comes to mind is Chiron," Lara said reflectively. "The healer, immortal by reason of his parentage. He was struck by a poisoned arrow from Hercules. Unable to heal himself and unwilling to endure an eternity of suffering, he gave up his immortality."
"Yes," Jana replied, "But this was a Centuaride. There's even less of a clear connection there. Incidentally, she's also holding a bow. Left-handed. Make of that what you will!"
Jack held them up for a moment. He pressed his hand against the wall. "Feel that thrumming?" he said.
"Maybe," Lara replied after trying the same. "The Šárka, perhaps? We've gone down far enough to be close to the water table."
"Hope those ancient Celts knew how to build sump pumps," Jack said. "Hey; it's opening out."
They'd reached the bottom of the staircase. The passage here was wider, but the ceiling was low enough they almost had to stoop. The feeling of the great weight of stone above their heads was palpable, oppressive, not helped at all but the dark wetness of the stone.
"Look at those fallen stones," Lara pointed.
"Not helping," Jack grunted, saying aloud what they had all been feeling.
"I think this opened up to the air a lot further down the side of the gorge," Lara said. "This is limestone cave, water-shaped. The Šárka probably changed course some time in the last thousand years, and natural settling closed off this cave. Then later geology opened a sinkhole from above."
They moved along the roughly-flattened floor of the cave, until it came around a bend and opened up into a larger natural cavern.
"Magnificent," Jana breathed.
Rough niches had been carved into the walls, and large stones set out in a purposeful, regular pattern across the floor. They were carved, the explorers could see in the glow, with intricate series of abstract geometric shapes and spirals.
"Neolithic," Daniel said. "This is ancient."
"Oh, there's some pots for you, too," Jack pointed.
Jana nearly jumped in that direction. "LBK!" she said immediately.
"Linear Pottery Culture," Daniel agreed excitedly. "Best defined neolithic horizon in this area."
"Wait…" Jack said. "You guys love pots so much, you named a whole people after them?"
The others ignored him.
"This is a truly wonderful find," Jana enthused. "Another Únětice. Such a pity it was used as Rudolph's best hiding place and blocked off from archaeology for so long!"
"Um…guys?" Lara had not joined in the general excitement of discovery. "What is causing that glow?"
The cavern was kidney-shaped, with a large bend between larger and smaller portions. Jana, reluctantly, left off studying the pottery fragments and joined the others as they moved cautiously to where they could see the rest of the cavern.
"There it is," Lara said softly.
There was a large crystal container, clear, half-filled with a liquid that glowed. Beside it stood the somewhat surprising presence of yet another Horus Jar; this one slightly larger, in the same dark pitch-like material of the several zat'nik'tel's Lara had now seen.
"Oh, I know that glow," Jack said from beside her.
"So do I," Daniel said.
"That's not a glow I like," Jack continued. "Bad things follow that glow around."
"Naquadah." Daniel nodded.
"Guys?" Lara questioned. "What? I'm pretty sure you aren't referring to the Chalcolithic Predynastic culture of ancient Egypt."
"It's a super-heavy element," Daniel explained. "It's what the Stargate is made of. In its liquid form, it is a power source."
"So, what? Rudolph's alchemists supercharged his Horus Draught with energy from some alien power source? That was the Philosopher's Stone everyone was seeking?"
"Well, they did keep a dodo alive for three hundred years past the extinction of the rest of her species," Jana observed. She was obviously trying to sound dry about it, but it was overwhelming her just a bit, too.
"And where the hell did they get this naquadah of yours?" Lara demanded.
"At a guess," the Colonel said dryly, "I'd say there." He pointed.
"Longinus. Christ," Lara said.
"Well, yes." Jana wasn't so far gone she couldn't snark a little. "Christ. Consistent in many of the legends is the presence of the blood of Christ somewhere on the blade. Plus relics like the Holy Lance in Vienna have a nail from the True Cross wired to them for extra authenticity."
Lara shook her head. "The shape is all wrong. The Holy Lance is usually depicted with a broad, flat blade. That thing is more like the painting we saw upstairs; a leaf-shaped blade."
"Yeah," the Colonel said. "That's because that isn't a Roman lance." They had been moving slowly towards the low stone on which sat the glowing container of what purported to be Elixir of Life. A rough man-shaped sculpture stood in a shallow niche across the stone, the lance in question propped up against it.
"Then what is it?" Lara demanded.
The sculpture moved. "Down!" the Colonel shouted. He pushed Jana down behind cover of one of the low stones, and leapt for another himself. The rough man-shaped sculpture had picked up the lance and pointed it in their direction. Electricity crackled around the tip as the leaf opened up. "It's a Ma'Tok staff!" the Colonel yelled.
"A what?" Lara checked to see the other archaeologist was putting his head down, then she dove for cover herself. The thing erupted in flame, a sizzling bolt shooting across the cavern to explode a shower of rock chips off the Colonel's shelter.
"A Goa'uld Staff Weapon!" the Colonel shouted. "I don't think it's brooms we have to worry about with this golem."
Lara stuck her head up. The Colonel had called it, all right. This could be nothing other than Rabbi Loew's fabled creation, set here as final guard to the Elixir of Life that Emperor Rudolph had apparently decided delivered immortality at too high a cost.
She was shuddering inside. It hadn't hit home with the wolves the SS had experimented on, or even the dodo that Rudolph's alchemists must have doped. She wondered for a moment how many others of the fabulous animals of his collection had ended up facing this strange extended half-life. No; the golem is what did it for her.
Because the golem was obviously human. "He's…he's a bog man!" Lara shouted across to the others. The staff weapon fired again at the sound of her voice. Determined guard the golem might be, but tactically he still had a lot to learn.
"Bogey man?" Jack shouted back.
"Bog!" Daniel shouted towards him. "Peat bog. Natural mummification. Perfectly preserved bodies from as early as the Bronze Age. People started finding them when they first dug up the peat for fuel."
That was entirely too long a speech for the golem. He fired twice in the direction of Daniel's boulder. Lara heard the other archaeologist cry out and bit her lip. She hoped he hadn't been hurt badly.
Lara reached for her pistols. But she was shaking too badly to use them. Because he was human. Because he was a human victim of the Horus Draught. A bronze-age man, condemned to immortality without speech or even the ability to form complex thought. His nervous tissue could not have been in great shape when he was brought back to life, no matter how clever Rabbi Loew and his assistants had been.
She'd been taking the Horus Draught. Was she going to end up like this, suspended in half-life, only shreds of tissue and shreds of instinct left to her? The horror of that thought almost overcame her. She tried to lift her pistols again, but for a long moment wasn't sure if she meant to turn them on the golem…or on herself.
"Lara!" Jack was shouting her name. "We have to flank it. We're sitting ducks like this!"
"I…I can't!" Lara bit out.
"Daniel?" the Colonel demanded.
"Ow, ow, ow, ow," was the only reply from that direction.
"Well, there goes all my golem lore out the window," Jana cursed from behind her own rock. "No shem, no handy 'emet' on the forehead that can be easily altered to read 'met.'"
There was a rumble from overhead. "Oh, this day just got even better," the Colonel said.
"The roof!" Jana screamed.
"This whole place is collapsing," the Colonel yelled. "People, we have to retreat. Now! Daniel, Jana, you move first. Lara and I will cover."
Lara could hear Daniel working his way to his feet, cursing in pain the entire time. "Shit shit shit shit shit," he seemed to be saying.
"Now, Daniel!" the Colonel ordered.
Lara fumbled her way over the top of her own boulder. She fired blindly, trying to cover the other's escape.
"Your turn, Lara," Jack called across to her a few moments later. "Now, Tomb Raider. Get a move on!"
Lara stood and made a run for the next cover, the Colonel's VP70 ringing in her ears. She heard Jack make his own run for it and tried to make herself stand and cover him. The staff weapon was mercifully silent, for once.
"We're retreating," she gasped.
"His programming," Jana said through panting breaths. "We're not after, the Elixir, any more. So he doesn't need, to attack us."
"Without…orders." Lara dragged a hand across her eyes.
The cavern was continuing to shake. Too much. The roof was noticeably lower, now. Slabs of stone were coming loose from the ceiling, crashing into the floor around them.
"We're not going to make it!" Jack said. Already, the gap between the floor and the top of the exit tunnel was barely waist high.
Lara turned. She stood up as fully as she could in the shaking, shrinking cavern, and looked back at the creature who had been guarding it for so many generations. The golem looked back at her. She wondered what could be going through its mind. What a bronze-age man could make of these people from a world so many centuries in his future. What could be shaping in whatever remnants of humanity remained in a robot without any orders.
The golem seemed to shrug. It set down the staff weapon. Then it stood as tall as it was able against the ceiling of the cavern. And braced.
"He's…he's holding it up!" Lara said. She marveled at it. Even with his veins coursing with Horus Draught, how could sinew hold against tons of stone?
"Move move move move!" Jack was in full drill sergeant mode. He pushed at Lara, practically carried Daniel past the narrowing lintel. The stairwell was stable, at least for the moment. Lara crouched there, looked back at the golem that had spent its last free moment making it possible for other humans to reach the light again.
"Joseph!" a voice cried out beside her. Jana. She shouted something in yiddish just before more rocks fell, closing off the neolithic cavern for good.
"You have done God's work tonight," Daniel translated in a rough voice. "He saved us."
The Tomb Raider was the last to exit the long spiral staircase of the Hole to Hell. She did not look back, nor did she look the others in the eye.
"Well, now we know what Rudoph's secret was," Daniel Jackson said softly.
"Yes," Lara said. "Now we do." Her eyes were dark and unfathomable.