Part 10 of Indiana Jones and the Ring of Ra...
Previous parts: I / II / III / IV / V / VI / VII / VIII / IX

Indy almost dropped the torch in surprise. The transportation rings had moved him into an antechamber. The walls were black and shiny, clad in some sort of metamorphic stone. They weren't bare limestone, like the chamber in the pyramid.

The only thing in the room that wasn't black and shiny was a circle of what looked like marble, set into the floor. Presumably the workmen this end had decided to mark where the rings were. Perhaps there had been something similar in the other room, once. The people who'd buried the Stargate might have destroyed everything to do with it. After all, they'd even buried Catherine's amulet.

For a moment he thought about Catherine. She'd be wondering where he'd gone. She'd be all alone in the dark. But she was a tough girl. She could find her way back up to the plateau. Meanwhile, he was underground, stuck, unless the rings worked both ways. Which they might well do. Unfortunately, he didn't know how he'd activated them in the first place.

For the moment, he didn't care about getting out. He walked forward, the torch creating a halo of light around him. He walked through the narrow doorway, into the main chamber. And he gasped.

The chamber was huge.

The walls were clad in the same granite-like rock, but they weren't featureless. Standing all around the walls were statues, figures with the heads of hawks. Figures of Horus. They were much taller than men, and they gazed towards the centre of the room. They gazed at some steps with a groove in the top. A groove big enough to take a Stargate.

He explored, throwing light into every corner of the room. Eventually his search revealed what he'd been looking for: the dialling device. That HAD to be what it was. It had all the symbols on it that the Stargate did, and a red jewel in the centre. The trouble was, now that he'd found it, what should he do? Even if he could move the device, it wouldn't fit through the doorway into the antechamber, let alone through the transportation rings and up to the surface.

He looked up. The light didn't reach all the way to the ceiling. Presumably the Ancient Egyptians had pulled the Stargate up, out of the roof. It must have taken an incredible uprising to defeat whoever had controlled the Stargate. It was a complex designed to be defensible. It was so hard to reach the Stargate, with all the narrow passageways. All that it was really practical to send through was people.

There was no alternative but to go back through the rings. If he had to, he could return and bring explosives to destroy the device. At least then the Nazis wouldn't get hold of it.

Assuming he could make the rings work.

He stood in the circle, and did exactly as he'd done the time before. He held the amulet, and he asked Ra for help.

The rings worked.

posted by Fiery Fred @ 9:58 AM