CHAPTER 8

Warka: The Ancient City of Uruk—October 23rd, 1926

The red sun rose between a pair of imposing brick columns, casting long shadows across the desert sand. The columns had once supported a great archway, the southern gate to the city of Uruk—the birthplace of civilisation, now reduced to little more than dust.

Indy and Marion passed through the gate and entered a maze of pathways excavated in the sand. Huge mounds had been cleared to reveal thick clay-brick walls, the remnants of five thousand year old dwellings, arranged neatly across the desert floor.

First explored seventy years earlier by William Loftus' team, the site was enormous—the ruins of the city's once impenetrable walls measured some six miles in circumference, and decades of excavation within those walls had barely scratched the surface.

It was just past six am and eerily quiet. Indy and Marion moved around the remains of a small building—Indy instinctively ducked behind a low wall and pulled Marion down with him.

"Hey!"

Indy peered out. There was a small camp; a few tents and a handful of desert vehicles. No sign of any people.

"Ziegler," Indy spat out the name. He turned to Marion. "Stay here!" Marion was about to protest, but Indy cut her off, holding up his finger. "Not up for discussion."

Indy kept low and moved out toward the first tent. Damn, he wished he still had his revolver.

He gently pulled back the canvas flap and peeked inside. It was empty. As was the next tent, and the third. Where the hell was Ziegler hiding?

Indy entered the third and final tent. There were shelves piled with paperwork and some small artifacts; fragments of clay tablets and pot sherds, nothing to get excited about. There was a flashlight, which Indy slid into his satchel—his own rendered useless after their dip in the Euphrates.

Indy moved to a desk, more documents written in German and a military cap—bearing the insignia of a Reichswehr general—rested beside a map of Warka and the surrounding desert. The camp was marked on the map, and a raised area—west of the camp—was circled.

Indy had a moment of realisation. He hurried from the tent and looked west; a towering mound of sand and earth rose up a hundred or so yards away. An awestruck smile spread across Indy's face. He looked over to Marion and gestured for her to follow him, then he hurried toward the small mountain.

"Jones, wait up!" Marion ran after him. When she reached the mound Indy was already halfway to the summit. Her bare foot landed on a shard of smashed brick. "Owww, Jesus! Jones! I'm not exactly dressed for mountaineering!"

Indy wasn't listening. He reached the top of the mound where the sparse remains of a once great building had been excavated from the sand. The building would have covered some four hundred square yards and the clumps of wall that remained were around three feet thick.

Indy gently ran his hand across the wall; traces of white gypsum coated his fingertips.

"The White Temple." He rubbed his fingers together and the powder was carried away on the breeze. Indy turned to Marion and offered out his hand, pulling her up beside him.

"We're standing on top of the Anu Ziggurat." He could see she wasn't following him. "A great pyramid, built to honour the sky god, Anu."

"A pyramid? Like the one's in Egypt."

"Right, only this one was built a thousand years earlier. Strictly speaking this was a flat topped pyramid, the White Temple was added centuries later, around the time our friend Gilgamesh was supposedly king."

They walked around the wall; a large hole had been dug through the floor of what would—four millennia earlier—have been a truly magnificent place of worship.

Indy paced to the edge of the hole. In its centre a narrow shaft had been revealed. Indy peered down. He could just about make out the bottom, twenty or so feet below—the shaft led straight into the heart of the Ziggurat.

"Ziggurat's are usually solid structures." He looked to Marion, his mind racing with the possibilities. "What the hell were they hiding down there?"

"I guess there's only one way to find out." Marion's eyes twinkled and Indy couldn't help but smile. He loved this girl's spirit.

A rope—anchored to a bolt in the ground—trailed down the shaft. Indy took it and gave it a yank. It was secure. He looked to Marion.

"How are you at climbing? Getting down is the easy part, we'll need to come back up this way too."

"I was the top gymnast in high school." She moved close to Indy, brushing against him as she took the rope from his hands. "I was obsessed, I'd train seven days a week. But it made me nice and... flexible." She tossed him a playful smile and moments later was effortlessly descending the rope.

It took Indy a beat to regather his thoughts.

"Hey, be careful..." he called after her in a low voice, "We don't know who's down there!" But Marion was already at the bottom of the shaft. "Shit!" Indy grabbed the rope, braced his feet against the side of the shaft, and quickly lowered himself down.

Indy's newly acquired flashlight lit a narrow passage, it led to steps leading further down into the Ziggurat. Sealed away from the ravages of time and the elements, the clay brick steps could have been laid months earlier, not millennia.

Indy counted as they followed the steps; every two paces represented another foot descended. After twenty-one steps the passage turned a sharp right, with more steps leading down. Another twenty-one steps and the passage turned right again.

"Why twenty-one steps?" Marion asked.

"It's a multiple of seven," Indy shrugged. "The number seven had some kind of mystical or religious significance to the Sumerians."

The pattern continued; a right turn, then another twenty one steps, then another right turn. At the seventh turn Indy calculated they were around eighty feet below where they'd started.

"We're beneath the Ziggurat now. I'd guess around forty feet under the desert." He could tell by how tightly Marion was gripping his hand that some of her gusto had evaporated.

The steps finally led to a wide, high ceilinged passage, stretching ahead into darkness. The tunnel was elaborately decorated with statues of the Sumerian gods lining one wall and enormous steles carved into the other. Indy's torchlight illuminated the first of these intricate pictures: a king overseeing the construction of a great wall. They continued along and the next stele depicted the same king and another man—half-human, half-beast—battling a monster. The third showed the same pair fighting a great bull, an enraged goddess watching on from the heavens.

"It's the story of Gilgamesh." Indy said.

"You really think he's buried down here?" Marion asked, gazing warily into the darkness, but Indy didn't answer. He continued along, his torchlight falling upon another stele, this one showing Gilgamesh the King standing beside the beast man, laid out on the ground, dead.

"The wild man is Enkidu, Gilgamesh's best friend," Indy continued as Marion hurried to his side. "After Enkidu's death, Gilgamesh went on a great journey."

Another stele showed Gilgamesh pointing a sword at two giant scorpion men. In the next picture the King descended a great staircase as serpents writhed all around him.

"He travelled to the underworld. He wanted to find the answer to eternal life, to 'cure' death and bring back his friend."

A final stele showed Gilgamesh driving his sword into the ground.

"And did he?" Marion asked, "Did he figure out how to live forever?"

"I don't suppose Ziegler would be hunting for his tomb if he had," Indy took Marion's hand again. "C'mon."

The pair continued along the passage.

"The legend says Gilgamesh was buried beneath the river."

"But that's miles from here."

Indy shook his head. "The course of the Euphrates has changed dramatically since Gilgamesh's time, it used to run right by the city. Probably directly above our heads," Indy continued, in awe of their majestic surroundings. "That makes this whole structure even more impressive, well beyond what we believed the Sumerians were capable of."

"Maybe they had some help," Marion said, warily.

Indy's torchlight moved up a towering statue; the supreme god Anu, the 'Sky Father', great feathered wings stretching out from his back.

The tunnel led into a large dome shaped chamber. The walls were painted black, coated with a thin layer of bitumen; the tar-like smell lingering across the millennia.

In the centre of the room stood a tall clay cone, about six feet in diameter at the base. Lines running at intervals around the cone showed that it was actually made up of four sections of equal height. The cone was studded with tiny clear crystals—hundreds of the jewels reflected Indy's torchlight.

"It's beautiful," Marion turned to Indy. "What is this place?"

"I dunno. But it's not a tomb."

Scattered around the room were wooden crates containing flashlights and digging equipment, along with a couple of battery powered lamps on stands. Ziegler's team had been here recently, too.

Indy scanned the room for hidden doors, entrances to other passageways, but there was nothing. They'd reached the end of the line.

Indy turned his attention to the cone. As light from his torch passed over its surface, Indy noticed refracted light shining from the crystals on the other side, casting a beautiful starlike pattern on the black wall beyond.

"It's hollow!" Indy looked closely at the base of the cone. There was a small hole, just big enough to fit his hand. Indy felt around on the inside—he smiled, pieces of the jigsaw were clicking together in his head.

"What is it, what have you found?" Marion asked.

Indy pulled out a handful of dust. "We need something to burn!"

Moments later and Indy had smashed up one of the wooden crates. He doused fragments with lighter fluid and fed the wood into the hole at the bottom of the cone.

"It's a hearth! But the inside is polished metal, probably silver, which would make it highly reflective." Indy retrieved his cigarette lighter, his lucky charm. He flicked out the flame and introduced it into the hole. Moments later a fire was raging inside the cone and bright beams of light shone out through the crystals, casting hundreds of starlike dots on the curved dome walls. A breathtakingly beautiful sight.

Marion was awestruck. "It's like the night sky! Wait... it is the night sky!"

Indy nodded. "It's a planetarium. All the constellations known to the Sumerians."

"Look..." Marion pointed to a familiar star pattern, "It's the bull... the Bull of Heaven."

Indy smiled, impressed. "Right, Taurus," he continued, "But it's position is wrong, it shouldn't be that close to Pisces. In fact... all the positions are wrong. The azimuth lines aren't correct."

"The what?"

"Horizontal lines that separate up the night sky."

Indy looked to the cone, and the four separate sections it was constructed from.

"Of course!"

Indy moved to the cone and grabbed hold of the second section from the floor and attempted to turn it counter-clockwise. It was heavy, but slowly it moved. The stars drifted across the walls as the piece of cone turned through ninety degrees, correctly lining up Aquarius with Pisces. There was a loud clank and the floor juddered.

"What was that?" Marion was starting to panic, but Indy pressed on.

He held the third section of the cone and twisted it through ninety degrees; Orion positioned itself beneath Taurus and there was another clank and another judder of the floor.

"Indy... what is it, what's happening?"

Indy just smiled. "Get ready!"

He twisted the top section of the cone through ninety degrees, it locked into place; the constellations were correctly aligned and the whole room shook. Beneath their feet, the sound of cascading water.

The whole floor began to turn and descend. The cone revealed to be just the tip of a huge screw-like stone column, and the entire circular floor was slowly winding down it.

Marion grabbed Indy. "Please, Indy, what the hell is this?"

"Incredible!" Indy couldn't stop smiling. "This whole chamber is built on top of a huge underground water tank. Locking the cone in place tripped the hydraulics and released some mechanism allowing the floor to be lowered. The water is presumably syphoned into another tank somewhere." He shook his head in disbelief. "The time and manpower needed to construct something like this... it's just incredible!"

As the floor continued to wind downwards, an exit was revealed and a stairway, leading up.

Indy, then Marion, hurried up the steps and entered the most magnificent tomb.

The high ceiling and walls decorated with more intricate steles of Gilgamesh, his great city of Uruk, his people, his friend Enkidu and the gods he now walked amongst. But it was what was contained within the chamber that left Indy and Marion aghast; riches beyond imagination.

Numerous ceremonial daggers, shields and axes cast from gold and decorated with jewels from across the ancient world. Indy counted sixty golden lyres as well as dozens of vases, helmets and pieces of body armour. There were statues of the Sumerian gods, decorated with gold and silver. An enormous golden lion stood in the centre of the room. Before the great beast, a series of steps led over a wide, deep pit and up to an elaborately carved stone casket, decorated with gold and precious lapis lazuli.

"Is that, him? Is that Gilgamesh?" Marion asked.

Indy wasn't sure how to answer. His torchlight illuminated great symbols carved into the stone floor.

"It's cuneiform, the earliest known writing."

"What does it say?" Marion asked.

Indy shrugged. "I'm not sure, few can read it. I only recognise the one symbol." Indy pointed to a flattened cross like marking.

"What does it mean?"

Indy hesitated. "It stands for Irkalla, the Sumerian underworld."

Marion looked a little unnerved, Indy shrugged. "You asked. Don't worry about it." He took her hand and they paced to the steps leading up to the casket.

As they crossed over the pit, Marion glanced down and gasped; dozens of human skeletons lay curled in balls.

"Indy, look!"

Indy nodded. "A death pit. Servants to the King, willingly giving their lives to serve him in the next life, too."

They crossed the pit and approached the casket, it was open topped and inside the great King lay. Gilgamesh. The decomposed corpse was draped in the remnants of fine robes, and wore jewellery of gold, deep blue lapis lazuli and countless other precious stones. A handsome gold mask—presumably a cast of the King's own likeness—covered the skull.

Clasped in Gilgamesh's hands was the most spectacular of weapons. A sword with a handle made from lapis lazuli. The blade gave off an otherworldly golden glow as Indy's torchlight caught the metal—it entranced Indy and Marion. Indy reached out to touch it...

"Spectacular!" A voice came from behind them, Indy recognised the German accent. He and Marion turned.

"A tomb worthy of the finest of kings, wouldn't you agree Doctor Jones?" Ziegler approached, dressed in a dark green German Reichswehr uniform, decorated with the braided silver and red shoulder knots of a general. On his head was the cap Indy had seen in the tent. He was flanked by four German soldiers holding rifles with flashlights attached; all were aimed at Indy.

There was a deep red whip scar sliced diagonally across Ziegler's left cheek, nose and forehead.

"Ouch, that must've hurt!" Indy taunted.

"A small price to pay for victory. Once again you lead me to my prize," Ziegler glanced around the chamber. "And what a prize! Tutankhamen, huh, it is... how do you say... chicken's food!"

"It's chickenfeed, Fritz," Indy shook his head and sighed. "You've been watching us since we arrived in Warka, you wanted me to find a way into the tomb."

"Clearly those idiotic Arabs failed me, so I thought I'd put you to good use," Ziegler went on. "I hoped if I left a few breadcrumbs you would uncover the entrance for us. And you didn't disappoint. A star map! An inspired deduction."

Marion edged her hand toward Gilgamesh's sword; one of the soldiers noticed and aimed his weapon toward her.

"Please, Fräulein, you've been so clever so far, don't spoil it now," Ziegler snapped. "Both of you, down here."

Indy glanced to Marion, then put up his hands and gestured for her to do likewise. Marion raised her hands and walked down the steps toward Ziegler and his men. Indy followed.

"Just leave her out of this Ziegler. She shouldn't even be here."

"Indeed, it appears she barely had time to get dressed."

Marion self consciously pulled at the hem of her nightdress. A soldier's flashlight moved down to her bare legs as she passed; Indy shoved the guy hard. The soldier replied by jabbing the rifle butt into Indy's stomach.

"Please, Jürgen, show our guides some respect," Ziegler sneered.

As Indy recovered from the blow, another two soldiers entered carrying the battery powered lamps from the planetarium chamber. They positioned the lights and switched them on. The full majesty of the tomb was illuminated.

"Glorious, truly glorious!" Ziegler began to pace the steps toward Gilgamesh—the whole chamber juddered, Ziegler stopped in his tracks for a beat, then continued.

Indy noticed water seeping through cracks in the stone wall at the far side of the chamber. Clearly the second—recently filled—water tank was behind that wall, and it seemed the wall wasn't built to hold for long. Perhaps a fault in the design, though Indy doubted it. More likely the wall was supposed to be unstable—making sure whoever gained access to the tomb didn't stick around for long.

Indy took Marion's hand and started backing slowly towards the chamber entrance.

Ziegler stepped before the casket.

"Gilgamesh himself!" he gasped, then looked upon the sword. "Do you realise what this is, Jones?" The German's eyes wide with delight. "The Sword of Irkalla. A gift from the gods."

Indy snorted and shook his head. But Ziegler continued.

"He who wields this weapon holds the balance of all life; and all death."

Indy sneered. "Clearly that didn't work out too well for old Gilgamesh."

But Ziegler wasn't listening, he seized the sword and gasped.

"It's as cold as ice!" He smiled as he turned to the others. The chamber juddered again, the stone wall behind Ziegler started to crack, but Ziegler didn't notice, so enraptured was he by his prize.

He held the sword aloft and spoke aloud the cuneiform words etched into the floor; Ziegler had done his homework.

"Smash open the gates of Irkalla. A million souls will rise! Let them come until they outnumber the living. Let them feast on living flesh!"

The tomb shook again, this time even more violently, one of the lights toppled and smashed. Indy and Marion continued backing toward the entrance.

Water started to spray through the back wall, the soldiers looked around in horror, but Ziegler's gaze remained fixed on the sword which he held up before him.

The German spoke the same words again, but this time in their original language—the most ancient of tongues. And then...

Indy was sure he saw a golden light momentarily pulse out from the sword; and in the same fraction of a second he glimpsed a monstrous, herculean figure behind Ziegler; dressed in robes and golden armour, his fierce eyes burning with rage. King Gilgamesh.

But all this happened in the same instant as the tomb imploded; stone and clay crashed inward, carried on a tidal wave of water that cascaded through the chamber. The great lion was toppled and Ziegler was crushed under an avalanche of rock and gold—the sword sent flying from his hands by the raging torrent. The Germans screamed in horror as they turned to run, but were pulverised by the crumbling chamber.

Indy and Marion were flushed backwards, down the steps and out of the tomb. Indy dragged Marion to her feet, but they were knocked over and separated by the water surging into the chamber.

Indy looked up; high above them sparkled the dome of the planetarium, and their route out of here.

"Try and keep your ahead above water!" Indy called out as they were lifted by the rising water. He tried to swim over to Marion but the churning water was unpredictable, tossing the pair wildly as they were carried upwards, before eventually being spat out into the darkness of the entrance chamber.

The water stopped rising. Indy took a few moments to gather his senses, he heard Marion spluttering, choking, and hurried towards her.

"Marion... Marion?!"

His arms found her and he pulled her close. She was shivering, but caught her breath, coughing into. "I'm fine... I'm fine... is it over?"

"I think so," Indy replied, with a feeling in his gut like he'd spoken too soon.

"Indy..." Marion asked."What's that?"

Beside them a strip of golden light started to cut through the blackness. So faint at first that it could be dismissed as a trick of the mind, but brighter it grew until they could clearly make out the shape of a blade. The Sword of Irkalla.

Soon the light from the sword illuminated the chamber like a flashlight. Indy reached for it, warily taking hold of its lapis handle. The chill from the sword shot up his arm like a bolt of electricity, but he didn't let go.

"What is this thing?"

The chamber began to shake.

"C'mon!" Indy dragged Marion to her feet as the roof and walls suddenly began to crack and cave in.

Using the sword's light as their guide, they sprinted along the chamber as the great steles shattered and the looming statues toppled.

Marion fell and Indy quickly pulled her from the path of Shamash—the sun god—who crashed to the floor behind them.

They dived into the stairwell moments before the chamber collapsed completely. King Gilgamesh, and his treasures, gone forever.

A few minutes later, Indy and Marion pulled themselves up the rope and clambered out of the Ziggurat. They collapsed on their backs, exhausted, as the midday sun beat down on them.

Indy looked at the Sword of Irkalla, lying in the sand, reflecting sunlight for the first time in over four thousand years.

Then Indy turned to Marion. He rolled toward her and pulled her close. He looked into those deep, blue eyes and smiled as she tenderly stroked his face. They laughed, thankful to be alive. Indy kissed her. He realised he'd come close to losing her. He'd put her in harms way, and made a promise to himself that he would never do so again.

St. Martin's Cemetery, Bedford, Connecticut—October 7th, 1965

Marion Jones

Beloved Wife and Mother

1908-1965

The black suits and dresses had long since drifted away. Indy had no idea how long he'd been stood alone by the grave. It didn't matter. There was nowhere else he wanted to be. Nowhere else he could be.

A raindrop ran down his cheek, or was it a tear? No, a raindrop. He hadn't shed a tear, not since... well. The despair had soon turned to emptiness. An all consuming numbness that he couldn't, or wouldn't, emerge from.

Grey clouds rumbled and the day had drifted into dusk without the sun making an appearance.

"Doctor Jones?"

Indy hadn't registered Wells' presence until she spoke. She might have been stood beside him all afternoon for all he knew.

"I toyed with coming to the service, but it didn't feel... appropriate. How are you? I mean... oh God, what a stupid question... 'How are you?' I'm sorry, I'm such an idiot... I suppose what I really wanted to say was..."

Indy looked at Wells as she flailed awkwardly, he almost smiled.

"Never seen you struggling for words before?"

Wells took a breath. "I'm so sorry, for your loss, she was such a lovely lady. I really liked her."

"Yeah. And she liked you too. Said Mutt needed his head checking for letting you slip away."

"Oh God, Mutt... he must be heartbroken."

"Maybe he is, I wouldn't know."

"He wasn't here, today, for the funeral?"

Indy shook his head. "We tried calling, sent a telegram, left messages with his friends. Nothing." Indy sighed. "Guess he's dealing with it the way he deals with everything. By running away or burying his head."

Indy looked to Wells. Her pale blue suit wasn't exactly traditional funeral attire. He could see there was something else on her mind.

"You're not just here to pay your respects, are you Doctor?"

Wells shook her head.

"Go on then, spit it out?"

"It's Professor Cavendish..."

"Your boss? The stiff Brit with the... 'dicky ticker'?"

"Yes..."

"What about him?"

"He..." Wells took a deep breath. "Cavendish, it was Cavendish who stole the sword. He set up the break in at the museum."

Indy was dumbfounded.

"He's responsible for Marion's death."

Indy didn't feel numb any more. He felt something. Something rising up from his gut. Something he'd not felt in a very long time. Rage.

"I'm gonna kill him."