The Seven Swords of Diya: An Indiana Jones Fan Fiction - Part 2

Chapter 325: Underground Temple Passageway, City of Diya, 1960

Underground Temple Passageway

City of Diya

Cave

Kamchatka Wilderness

Soviet Union

1960

The smoke was getting thicker. Indy and Emily lay close to the ground, between two rows of towering flames, ash and smoke choking what little air they had left. They rested on a thin layer of pumice cobblestones, the loose rocks sliding on a thin layer of volcanic glass. It was the only layer between them and a cauldron of boiling liquified rock.

Above them was a massive ziggurat - the Temple of the Apkallu Watchers in the city of Diya. They had opened the pyramidal structure, while behind them, flowing into the city was lava.

Indy held Emily's compact mirror trying to use his supernatural sight to find a way out of their dire situation.

In the frame of the mirror, Lizavet sat alone on a large round stone. The stone glowed as she touched it. She seemed safe, and he couldn't see if she had any apkallu threatening her. "Lizavet!" Indy called.

The woman in the image turned to him. And Indy saw it -

Indy jerked and suddenly snapped the mirror shut.

"Dad?" Emily asked, fighting pain.

"Snakes," he lied. "Just snakes. I'll look again." He opened the mirror and watched the horrors of hell unfold around him. He'd seen war. But this was something more horrific. This wasn't a battle of freedom - this was enslavement in a quest for a remaking of paradise. Humanity deceived a second time. And there would be no one to stop the apkallu if they failed. Indy realized the stakes as his hand trembled. "If you're out there, Treasure Guardian - you're gonna have to show me. Can't solve this on my own. Not like that. Not after what I just saw. I can't take that leap of faith. Nobody survives that leap of faith - "

Indy blinked the soot and ash from his eyes, coughing and crouching lower to the ground. "We're gonna run out of air soon."

"Will that make the flames go out?" Emily asked.

"Yeah - but it'll be too late for us," Indy replied. He stared at the mirror, his eyes burning as the smoke swallowed their last bit of oxygen. The embers of the fire lines on either side of them began to glow an eerie bluish flame.

Indy stared at the vision in the mirror. "Standing stones, just like Edo's camp. Just like the markings on the outside of the pyramid. Standing stones - boundary stones."

"Like the ones you met the apkallu at first? At the museum that started all this?" Emily leaned closer to the pumice stones that were scraping and burning her skin.

"That's right, Em." Indy wasn't going to tell her the rest. He could barely believe the worst part of it. He crawled forward, taking her hand. "This way, Em. Hold the mirror - we're looking for something bronze."

"What exactly?"

"I'll know it when I see it."

A shadow reared its head, suddenly shimmering in the flames amid the gathering smoke. Emily yelped. Indy froze.

A massive bronze serpent towered above them.

"Easy, Em... it's a throne guardian."

"Probably for the apkallu," she muttered.

Indy was quiet for a moment, searching the supernatural for threats. "Throne guardians guard sacred space. I should have guessed it - Bulls and snakes are the favorite throne guardians of the ancient world. The head priest in the Temple of Doom was running around with horns on his ritual clothing. The Ark was guarded by snakes - because the Egyptian pharaohs considered them as protective. Wasn't expecting it here."

"Lizavet's people had connections with bears. They wouldn't have known cattle - unless there were some wild cattle left over from the ice age," Emily mused.

"It's a little cold here for snakes too," Indy considered. "But the imagery..."

Emily looked at the rearing serpent daring to raise her head off the floor and peer through the shroud of thick smoke. "Dad - it's not a snake. It's a worm. We're in the realm of the dead - worms always win."