Indiana Jones and the Hollow Earth

by Max McCoy

Sparks bit his lip.

  "Maybe it has to do with the order of the stones," he said, and sat down cross-legged in front of the stones.

  "The message on the Thule Stone," Indy remembered. "It said, 'I am all colors and I am none. Circle me backward and you are undone.' Does that suggest anything to you?"

  "Should," Sparks said.

  "Don't say that," Indy told him. "Think!"

  "You're making me nervous."

  "You're making us dead," Indy said.

  Sparks reached for the stones.

  "Maybe if we just randomly—"

  "No." Indy caught his hand. "You have to be sure. Get it backward, and it will be bad."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean bad," Indy said. "You don't mess around with these types of warnings. Now, the white crystal obviously is in the right place, because that spot was vacant. What do we do with the other five?"

  Gunnar called out.

  Indy could hear the sound of boots approaching.

  "You've got about thirty seconds," Indy told Sparks. "I'm going to leave you alone. Do it."

  Indy returned to Ulla and cradled her in his arms.

  "I know what it is," Sparks cried. "It's the spectrum! Arrange the stones according to their visible light frequencies. Clear goes at the top, because all color is contained in white light."

  "Good!" Indy shouted. "Do it!"

  Sparks began moving the stones.

  Gunnar was on his feet, slapping himself in the face, preparing to fight. He ignored the pain in his broken arm. Blood gleamed at the corners of his mouth.

  Indy could hear Reingold scream for the troops to move quickly. They were almost to the last bend in the passage. Indy pointed the Webley down the passage, waiting, but his hand was shaking badly.

  "Don't die," he whispered to Ulla. "Please. Hang on."

  Her blond hair, where the ends brushed against her blouse, was stained a strawberry color, and to Indy the color seemed eerily like Alecia's. Her skin had turned ashen and her lips were tinged with blue. Her breath was ragged and accompanied by a sickening gurgle.

  "Jones," she whispered.

  "Don't try to talk," Indy said, and wiped his eyes with the back of his gun hand. "Save your strength."

  "Be a man," she rasped.

  Indy blinked hard.

  "What color is between red and green in the spectrum?" Sparks asked calmly.

  "Yellow!" Indy shouted. "Hurry up! They're almost here."

  "I told you," Sparks said. "Don't make me nervous."

  "You're doing great," Indy said encouragingly. He could hear Sparks beginning to rearrange the stones, each making a sharp clicking sound as they fell into place.

  "Let's see. White at the top. Then—clockwise, right?—red, yellow, green, blue, and violet."

  The room suddenly became hot, unbearably so, and the air felt like molasses in Indy's lungs. Then the hair on the back of his neck stood up.

  "Do you feel that?" Sparks asked. "Static electricity. The air has become supercharged. I don't know why."

  The Nazis were nearly upon them.

  Ulla opened her eyes and looked over Indy's shoulder at the blank wall beyond. Her eyes widened and she wetted her blood-flecked lips.

  At that moment the Nazis burst into the chamber and spread out, their guns trained on Indy. Gunnar sprang at the nearest soldier and wrestled him to the ground, hands around his throat. Two others grasped Gunnar's arms and pulled him back, but he threw them off like rag dolls.

  Reingold walked over and placed the barrel of his Walther at the base of Sparks's neck.

  "Stop this nonsense," he ordered.

  Gunnar stopped fighting, but Indy kept his gun trained on Reingold.

  "Lower your gun," Reingold said.

  "Go to hell," Indy spat over the wavering gun barrel.

  "It seems we are already there," Reingold said, tugging at his collar.

  The chamber had become suffused with a crimson glow, and the heat was stifling. A deep rumble shook the floor, and behind them they could hear stones crashing down to the floor of the narrow passage. The shadows on the wall, Indy could now see, were more than shadows—they were bas-reliefs of gargoyles and skeleton men, all looking as if they were about to step down from the walls.

  "It's becoming a little crowded in here," Sparks said anxiously.

  The skeleton men were stepping down from the walls, moving slowly but determinedly, wielding swords and axes. One of the skeletal warriors wore a helmet from ancient Greece, while another had a Roman breastplate and sword. A creature in a doughboy helmet and wielding a wicked-looking stone bayonet hopped down, apparently more eager than the others for combat, and his jawbone clacked rhythmically as he repeated the words: "Hun! Hun! Hun!"

  Another hobbled across the floor using his cavalry saber as a cane. His left foot was missing. Atop his skull, at a rakish angle, was a Civil War kepi. Behind him was a Viking skeleton swinging a double-bladed stone ax.

  Other warriors were from periods that Indy had never seen before, much less identify, including a skeleton twirling some sort of hand weapon in the shape of a five-pointed star.

  After all of the warriors had descended, the gargoyles and chimeras came to life, flapping their gray wings and gnashing their stone teeth.

  "Don't be alarmed!" Reingold announced to his men. "These creatures cannot be real. It is some kind of trick. Hold your ground!"

  Sergeant Liebel screamed when a bony hand seized him by the shoulder. He emptied the magazine of the machine gun into the rib cage of the apparition, but to no effect. The skeletal warrior dragged him across the floor, stepped back into the wall, taking the hapless Liebel with him. As the others watched in horror the soldier's skin and uniform turned to stone in front of their eyes. He, too, had become part of the bas-relief, complete with steel helmet and machine gun.

  "Sparks, this is what I meant by bad," Indy shouted.

  The Viking warrior had Sparks by the feet and was starting to drag him away from the stones. "Indy, I got it backward," the boy cried while trying to keep his hold on the crystals. "I should have gone the other way."

  Meanwhile the four remaining Nazi soldiers dropped their weapons and ran for the passage, but found it blocked by a giant stone. The gargoyles and skeleton warriors advanced, and each Nazi was seized and dragged toward the walls.

  Reingold backed away from a particularly hideous-looking creature, a skeleton that carried a samurai sword in one hand and its head in the other. He fired blindly with the Walther as the creature used the point of the sword to back him toward the nearest wall.

  Then Indy felt the clawlike fingers of a gargoyle grip his own shoulder. He smashed the monster with the butt of his gun, but to no effect.

  "It's like hitting a piece of rock," he yelled.

  Gunnar broke away from the gargoyle holding him and then grappled with the skeleton at Sparks's feet while the teenager desperately tried to rearrange the stones so that the sequence of colors around the circle was reversed. He was almost finished when the skeleton got a grip on both of them and began dragging Gunnar and the boy toward the wall.

  The four Nazi soldiers were already a part of the hideous tableau, and Reingold had disappeared in the wall up to his waist.

  "Indy!" Sparks shouted. He still had the red stone in his hand. "Do something!"

  "Throw me the stone!"

  Indy was on the floor, with the stone gargoyle on top of him, and the thing was so heavy he couldn't breathe. Then he managed to bring his knees up and push the nightmare back. Sparks tossed Indy the stone.

  The gargoyle snarled and bared its fangs, then rushed. Indy instinctively swung the double-terminated crystal like a knife and caught the creature in the face, knocking some of the granite teeth from its mouth.

  Indy scrambled over to the circle and placed the red stone in the open spot.

  The glow in the chamber changed from red to blue. At the sound of a trumpet, the monsters all stopped. The skeleton men slowly released thei
r prey and returned to assume their original positions in the walls, while the gargoyles snapped and snarled a bit longer before retreating. Even back in the wall, the doughboy's mouth kept repeating, "Hun! Hun! Hun!" But it slowed and eventually stopped, frozen agape.

  "Help me," Reingold pleaded. The skeleton with the samurai sword, who was now back on the wall, had left him buried up to his chest.

  Indy and Gunnar each grabbed an arm and tried to pull the SS captain out of the wall, but they could not budge him. Reingold began to scream, his face turning purple with pain.

  "It's agony," he said. "Don't leave me this way."

  "There's nothing we can do," Indy said.

  "Kill me," Reingold pleaded as he squirmed.

  Gunnar grasped Reingold's head beneath his left arm and gave a sharp twist, snapping his neck. Sparks looked away. Reingold's body shook convulsively. Then his eyes rolled back, his arms went limp, and his head fell forward.

  Reingold's silver cigarette case fell from his tunic.

  Indy picked it up and looked at the inscription, which was the SS motto: Meine Ehre heisst Treue.

  "My honor is pure," Indy translated.

  Gunnar looked at Indy and shrugged.

  Indy shrugged back.

  Then he returned to Ulla and knelt beside her.

  Her eyes fluttered open.

  "I must be dead," she gasped. "The Valkyries are here. My God, but they are beautiful."

  Indy glanced over his shoulder.

  Behind the circle of stones, a doorway had opened in the once-blank wall. A pleasant breeze wafted from the opening. A trio of shimmering beings of pure light wafted into the room. They floated and wove around one another in the air like butterflies, and as they hovered over Ulla they became almost too bright to look at.

  Ulla held out her hand toward them.

  At that moment a tall, athletic-looking man in his mid-fifties appeared in the doorway. He had a long, thin nose, his hair was cropped close to his head, and his beard was neatly trimmed. He wore a turtleneck sweater and had an air of command about him.

  Flanking the tall man were a pair of what appeared to be Tibetan monks in flowing yellow robes.

  "Bring her in," the man commanded in English.

  The monks took Ulla in their arms and carried her through the doorway into the brightness beyond.

  The tall man waited in the doorway with his arms crossed.

  "Well, are you coming or aren't you?" he asked.

  "Yes, sir," Sparks said, and hurried for the doorway. Gunnar followed, and as Indy passed the circle of stones he picked up the piece of Icelandic spar.

  "The lapis exilis," the tall man commanded. "I'll have that."

  "Roald Amundsen, I assume?" Indy asked as he handed over the stone.

  "The same," the tall man answered.

  The doorway closed behind them as the monks, leading the way, took Ulla to a black casket-shaped trough. They laid her gently inside of it.

  They were on a vast columned balcony overlooking a mist-shrouded sea, and peering over the railing Indy could see that the balcony was only part of a huge complex of buildings whose architecture seemed faintly Egyptian. High in the sky was a ball of light that swirled with the colors of the aurora. Across the sea there was an island, and Indy could see a forest of jeweled spires reaching up through the mist.

  "Welcome to Ultima Thule," Amundsen said.

  "Or Agartha?" Indy asked.

  "Whatever one wishes to call it," Amundsen said. "There was once an outpost on the rip of the volcanic peak you came down, but I'm afraid the world has gotten too small for that now."

  The monks worked feverishly now, pouring jugs of a glowing liquid substance into the black trough. Indy walked over and peered into Ulla's face, but she seemed quite dead.

  He started to put his hand in the liquid, then stopped.

  "May I?" he asked.

  Amundsen nodded.

  The glowing green liquid felt like nothing Indy had ever experienced before. When he scooped some of it into his hand and held it up to examine, the liquid passed right through his palm and dribbled back into the trough.

  Indy wiggled his fingers. His hand felt energized.

  In the trough, the color was coming back into Ulla's face.

  "Vril?" Indy asked.

  Amundsen nodded.

  "Curious stuff, isn't it?" the tall man asked. "You can do just about anything with it—build cities, or destroy them. Technically, it is the fourth state of matter—plasma. It was forged in the interiors of stars eons ago, and is a type of ionized gas. It floats through space until attracted by earth's magnetic field, then is brought down here with the aurora, where the Aesir collect it."

  "Those shimmering things we saw?"

  "Yes," Amundsen said. "What they call themselves can't be translated into human speech, so that's the name I employ. It's the collective name of the old Norse gods. They could not live on the surface, you know—the air is much too thin. They wouldn't survive."

  "Are there more humans here?" Indy asked.

  "Of course," Amundsen said. "But not many. Mostly they are ones that the Aesir trust, like the monks, or people like me, who stumble down here by accident. I must say, they didn't think much of you. They were afraid that you were as bad as all the rest, going around shooting things up and delighting in the deaths of your enemies. They were touched by your obvious affection for the dead woman and the boy, but they would have been just as happy to let you become part of the wall out there."

  "Is this a dream?" Indy asked.

  "Oh, this is quite real, Dr. Jones," Amundsen said. Then he held up his hand. "Yes, I know all of your names. And I know the sorry state of the world above, so you needn't fill me in on the last seven years. The world is as it has always been, preparing for war."

  "Do you have any technical material on any of this?" Sparks asked. "Especially Vril, and how the earth's magnetic field collects it?"

  "Technical material?" Amundsen repeated, and laughed. "I'm afraid not. But don't worry. You won't remember any of this when you get back to the surface, I'm afraid."

  "Why not?" Sparks asked.

  "Well, you have a choice," Amundsen said. "You may stay here in peace and harmony and glimpse the secrets of the cosmos, or you may return to the world above. But if you return, you won't remember any of what you have witnessed. It will be like a dream you had long ago. What will it be?"

  "We don't get to think this over?" Sparks asked.

  "No," Amundsen said. "The more memories you accumulate here, the harder it is to send you back. Stay more than an hour, and we have no choice but to keep you."

  Ulla sat up in the trough. She brushed back her hair, which glowed with the luminous stuff, then felt for the bullet wound beneath her shirt. It was gone.

  "Is this Valhalla?" she asked.

  "No, my dear." Amundsen smiled benevolently. "You are still among mortals, I'm afraid, though you came very close to passing to the other side."

  "Once a person's dead, then, it's not possible to bring her back?" Indy asked.

  "No," Amundsen said. "I'm sorry."

  Indy nodded sadly.

  "It's so beautiful down here," he said as he looked over the railing at the city beyond the sea. "Who would have dared to dream?"

  "Our imaginations are really quite limited and centered on what we already know," Amundsen said. "You teach your students that human civilization on this planet goes back, what, five thousand years? Ha. At least a hundred major human civilizations have come and gone in the last twenty thousand years, and that's not counting the communities of nonhuman intelligences. One day it will all be clear—but not today. Your time here is so short that it would only confuse you."

  The monks motioned for Gunnar to bring his broken arm over to the trough. Ulla reassured him in Danish, and he reluctantly approached and dipped it into the plasma.

  "Does life continue after death?" Indy said.

  "How should I know?" Amundsen asked. "I'm not dead ye
t. But I know what the Aesir tell me—that everything in the universe is connected, that it's all happening at once, and that the passage of time is just an illusion of human consciousness."

  "So love is eternal?"

  Indy was thinking of Alecia.

  "Love, friendship, compassion, joy—what is death compared to these things?" Amundsen asked. "Now, I must have an answer from each of you. Do you stay or do you go?"

  Gunnar looked up. He had been inspecting his healed arm, but he knew the tone of a question. Ulla translated for him.

  He jerked a thumb upward.

  "I agree with Gunnar," Ulla said. "There are still things to accomplish above."

  "Dr. Jones?"

  "Back," Indy said emphatically.

  "Nicholas?" Ulla asked.

  Sparks thought for a moment.

  "Wow," he said. "What a choice. But I don't think I can leave my mother alone up there. But thanks for everything—you've been swell."

  "Yes," Indy said. "Particularly for bringing Ulla back to us."

  "She was deserving," Amundsen said. "Or so they tell me."

  "Thank you." Ulla leaned over and kissed Amundsen on the cheek. "You have been a hero of mine since I was a little girl. You are like a Viking god in my hometown, and I am sorry that I cannot bring them news of your good health."

  "I miss all of Scandinavia," Amundsen said. "And the wild places on the surface. But I needed new worlds to explore. I am beginning to find out that, like the Bible says, the world is without end."

  "Say," Indy interjected. "Are you sure that we won't remember any of this?"

  "You'll remember up to the part where you came through the door," Amundsen said. "But nothing of what has transpired after."

  "Hey, Sparks," Indy said. "Remember when I promised to tell you what my real name was if we got through this? Well, now's the time. It's Henry, but my dad always called me Junior."

  "Dr. Jones," Sparks said. "You're a rat."

  "Now," Amundsen said, "it is time for you to leave. Please follow the monks. And, farewell."

  "Good-bye," Indy said, and shook Amundsen's hand.

  They followed the monks along the balcony to an altar placed between two great columns. The star-shaped construction was made from a translucent blue material, and a set of steps led up to it. The rays of the aurora cascaded down onto the altar from a channel high above them, and then trickled like water down a series of broad marble steps to the multicolored sea below.