Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (PC) playthrough, Pt 3: The Librarian.
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[Indiana Jones and his companion Marcus Brody arrive in Venice]
INDIANA: Ah, Venice!
BRODY: How are we supposed to recognize our contact, Doctor Schneider?
INDIANA: Maybe he'll recognize us.
[a young woman walks up to them]
ELSA: Doctor Jones?
INDIANA: Yes.
ELSA: I knew it was you. You have your father's eyes.
INDIANA: And my mother's ears, but the rest belongs to you.
ELSA: Looks like the best parts have already been spoken for ... Marcus Brody?
BRODY: That's right.
ELSA: I'm Doctor Elsa Schneider.
INDIANA: Oh ... So ... Ah ... could you tell me about my father's disappearance?
ELSA: Of course. We were working in the library when it happened. I'll show you.
BRODY: Why don't you two go ahead without me? I think I'll take a nice relaxing gondola ride.
INDIANA: Very well, Marcus.
[Brody exits the scene]
INDIANA: Doctor Schneider, you lead the way.
[they walk off and enter a large building, where an elderly male librarian is stamping books at the front desk]
INDIANA: It looks more like a church.
ELSA: You couldn't be more right. It was a church during the Crusades ... Now, just before your father vanished, he was muttering something about Roman numerals. He said he'd searched everywhere for them, without success.
[she turns and looks around]
ELSA: The library should be closing soon. I'll make sure we won't be bothered. Then we can take a look around.
[she walks up to the librarian]
ELSA: Excuse me, sir.
[he says nothing, and continues to stamp the books on his desk]
ELSA: Pardon me.
[the librarian says nothing]
ELSA: Hey you!!!
[Indiana walks over to her]
INDIANA: I doubt he'll be much trouble, Doctor Schneider.
ELSA: Hmmph!
[she heads off camera into the stacks, while Indiana checks a plaque hanging on one of the bookshelves near the librarians desk]
INDIANA: It's an Italian proverb ... "A library without bookshelves is like a haphazard pile of books."
[he checks a plaque on another bookshelf]
INDIANA: It says "Donated by Giorgio Lucasi"
[he checks a plaque on another bookshelf]
INDIANA: It's in Italian ... "These are sentimental books, but nevertheless, they move me. G. Galilei."
[he checks the books on the shelf]
INDIANA: These books aren't very interesting.
[he checks some more books on the shelf]
INDIANA: A bunch of "How To ... " books.
[he picks up one of the books]
INDIANA: It's called "How to Fly a Biplane."
[he opens the book]
1. Turn on APU (switch L).
2. Pump oil pressure handle (C) three times.
3. Turn on fuel pump (switch Q).
4. Switch to tank with fuel in it (J).
5. Turn on both magnetos (I), push switch to far right position.
6. Pull throttle out (E).
7. Switch ignition on (O).
8. When APU meter (B) reaches 300, press ignition button (N).
[he walks towards another section of the library, where large Roman numerals are painted on the floor]
INDIANA: Dad searched for Roman numerals everywhere?!?!
[he looks at the stain glass window on the opposite wall]
INDIANA: It looks very familiar to me.
[he looks at the inscription under one of the lion statues in the room]
INDIANA: It's inscribed with these symbols ... "I IV VII."
[he looks at the inscription under the other lion statue in the room]
INDIANA: Someone cut numbers into the stone ... "II III IX."
[he checks the Grail diary left to him by his father, which includes a drawing of the stain glass window]
INDIANA: "Note the particular care taken in drawing the shield, the areas above it, and the angels. The cryptic message below seems to have something to do with Roman numerals and stone pillars ... 'If ye would enter, follow the first on the left'."
[he checks a plaque on another bookshelf]
INDIANA: "Great selection of animal books here, particularly concerning amphibians and avians. Aristophanes."
[he checks a plaque on another bookshelf]
INDIANA: "This plaque intentionally left blank."
[he checks a plaque on another bookshelf]
INDIANA: "It is idyllic here, but everyone tells me to hush! E. Caruso."
[he checks a plaque on another bookshelf]
INDIANA: "Charming town. I was particularly taken with a tradesman I met. W. Shakespeare."
[he checks a plaque on another bookshelf]
INDIANA: "I have a love for these books that transcends passion and sexuality ... there's just no good word to describe it. Plato."
[he checks a plaque on another bookshelf]
INDIANA: "Books like these are my cup of ... tea. Socrates."
[he checks the books on the shelf]
INDIANA: "The Complete Works of Famous Dictators."
[he checks some more books on the shelf]
INDIANA: Fascist propaganda!
[he checks some more books on the shelf]
INDIANA: My father made me read these when I was a boy!
[he picks up one of the books]
INDIANA: It's that book by Hitler, "Mein Kampf." It looks like a first edition.
[he walks towards another section of the library, then checks a plaque on another bookshelf]
INDIANA: "Wonderful place to stop for a visit while travelling. Could use more books on pachyderm care. Hannibal."
[he checks a plaque on another bookshelf]
INDIANA: "Don't look now, but the librarians are plotting against you. N. Machiavelli."
[he checks a plaque on another bookshelf]
INDIANA: "I love the military books here, but they had the gall to divide them into three parts. J. Caesar."
[he checks a plaque on another bookshelf]
INDIANA: "Empires come and go, but a good library is forever! A. Ptoleous, head librarian, Library of Alexandria."
[he checks a plaque on another bookshelf]
INDIANA: Another proverb ... "He who lives by the book, dies in bed."
[he checks a plaque on another bookshelf]
INDIANA: "Great cooking section! L. Borgia."
[he checks the books on the shelf]
INDIANA: Maps of ancient Italy. I could have fun in this section.
[he checks some more books on the shelf]
INDIANA: These might be interesting if I wasn't in a hurry.
[he checks some more books on the shelf]
INDIANA: All about snakes? I hate snakes!
[he picks up one of the books]
INDIANA: It's called "Secrets of the Roman Catacombs."
[he opens the book]
INDIANA: "Deep beneath the city lies the paths to the tomb ... "
[he walks towards another section of the library, then checks a plaque on another bookshelf]
INDIANA: "Is just driving me out of my ... mind! (line 5)"
[he checks a plaque on another bookshelf]
INDIANA: "And my deep indignation (line 4)"
[he checks a plaque on another bookshelf]
INDIANA: "They are clear fabrication (line 3)"
[he looks at the stain glass window on the wall]
INDIANA: It looks just like the picture in the diary!
[he walks towards another section of the library, which looks like all the other rooms (stain glass window, lion statues, Roman numerals on the floor, etc.), except that there is a velvet rope in front of the window]
INDIANA: I'll take this red cordon off first ...
[he removes the velvet rope, then takes the metal post and returns to the previous section of the library (the one immediately after the front desk) where he uses it to smash the floor slab with the "II" painted on it ... which draws the attention of a German soldier]
GERMAN SOLDIER: What was that noise? You there! Don't move!
[Indiana jumps down into the hole, and finds himself in the underground catacombs]
---
From wikipedia.org:
"Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure" is a graphic adventure game, originally released in 1989 (to coincide with the release of the film of the same name), published by Lucasfilm Games (now LucasArts). It was the third game to use the SCUMM engine.
The plot closely follows, and expands upon, the film of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. As the game begins, Indiana Jones has returned to his college, after reclaiming the Cross of Coronado. He is approached by businessman Walter Donovan, who tells him about the Holy Grail, and of the disappearance of Indy's father.
Indy then travels to some of the places seen in the movie, such as Venice and the catacombs, after meeting fellow archeologist Elsa Schneider. In the process he finds his father held captive in the Brunwald Castle, after passing through the mazelike corridors, fighting and avoiding guards. Then Elsa's double role is revealed when she steals the Grail Diary from Indy. After escaping, father and son pass through Berlin to reclaim the Diary and have a brief meeting with Hitler. Then they reach an airport, from where they intend to seek the Valley of the Crescent Moon, by Zeppelin or biplane. There are many action scenes, involving fists, and the biplane sequence above Europe, pursued by Nazi planes.
Several key elements of the movie - such as the Brotherhood of the Grail, Indy's friend Sallah, and the Venice water chase and the desert battle scenes (except for small hidden references) - were not included in the game.
---
From gamefaqs.com:
3-0. Venice
You'll meet your contact, Dr. Schneider, here and after seemingly getting along rather well, will bizzarely find yourself stranded alone in an old church cum library. This bit is just like in the film, except not quite as easy. The church itself is divided into 12 sections and is circular. Walk around it and you will see there is a screen of books followed by a screen with a stained glass window followed by a screen of books and so on, until you find yourself at the entrance again. There are 6 sections of books and 5 sections of windows (plus the entrance makes 12 see?).
Every screen of books has two rows. You can access them from the adjacent window screens (you'll see). Look at the plaques at the end of each row for tons (and tons) of references and jokes (with everything from George Lucas to the Marx Brothers). The books are not especially important, but there are three here you can pick up. Each of them makes the game easier. One shows you maps of the section beneath the library (which is where you are heading). One shows you how to fly a bi-plane, thus allowing you to bypass the entire Zeppelin section later on! While the last is a copy of Mein Kampf which you can give to a tough guard instead of fighting him or use it get past a particular road block. (As usual even after you have picked them up you still have a choice wether to use them or not, which is pretty handy, so you may as well get them.)
How to find the books: (zero IQ points, but can gain a potiential 25 from using them later) Each row of books is divided into 4 columns. On a row with a collectable book, one of the columns will be different from the rest (ie... the first 3 columns are books on Snakes and the column could be entitled "Maps of Ancient Italy"). Having identified the different column you then have to scan each book with the WHAT IS command until 'books' is replaced by 'book'. This is a book you can pick up.
Remember, there are three to find.
One with a Green Cover (how to fy a Bi-Plane aka Manual), one with a Red Cover (Hitlers Mein Kampf) and one with a Brown Cover (Book of Maps).
To progress though, you'll have to find the catacombs under the library. In the film it was simply a matter of finding a big 'X' on the floor and smashing it. In the game however things are never that easy. Through the five window screens (each with 9 Roman numeral slabs on the floor) you have to find the one right slab to smash.
How to get under the Library: (10 IQ points)
The first thing you need is the metal post (if you don't already have it). Keep walking from screen to screen until you see the metal post with a red cordon attatched to it. Pick up the cordon and then grab the post. Next thing to do is make sure you're on the right screen. Click on USE grail diary to see what your Dad has written about it. You'll be shown a picture of a stained glass window and a quotation. Ignore the quote and look at the window. You need to find the screen with that exact window in it. They may look the same, but make sure the angels are facing the right way and the image above the sheild is right (not a grail instead of a sword etc).
After you think you've found it -- double check! They all look pretty alike. Now look at the quotation it should be something like "The Third On The Left". If you look at the screen there are two pillars either side of the window. Each has a plaque on it with three Roman numerals. "The Third On The Left" would mean you should look at the Third Roman Numeral on the Left Column. Got that? After you think you have the right number, locate it on the floor and smash it with the metal post.
If pick the right slab you get yourself (10) IQ points and a rather scary looking room. (If you didn't keep trying until you do!)
This is the entrance to the Catacombs!
3-1. Catacombs
Ok, you've got yourself three doors, lots of skulls and some scary music... what do you do? Well this bit purely down to luck... the correct door changes from game to game. One door will lead to victory (and the rest of your adventure), while the other two lead to instant death and the automatic deletion of all your Indy save game files and any stored IQ points.
Not really.
Pick anyone you like (you'll find yourself in virtually the same spot). Before you go though take a peek at the Book of Maps (should you have picked it up).
From now on it's a top down view through the maze like catacombs. You'll eventually come across different rooms. If you want to do this (lengthy) part of the game yourself just take note that each room is important in some way (either for an object there or a hidden entrance or whatever), it may not be immediately obvious what you have to do in each room, but scan each one carefully and remember what you see. Another good hint is, when you're lost in the catacombs, keep and eye out for different coloured walls. These are nearly always coloured because of light coming from the rooms. (Note: this only works for the 256 colour people, not on any 16 colour versions (sorry Amiga owners!).)
Ok, the rest of you lazy cheaters read this bit: The first room you come across marked (1) on the map above has some dead pirates in it. Remember what I said about each room being important? Well in this one you get the pirates hook aka (hook). Pick it up and move on. The second room (2) has a torch in it. If you try pulling it you'll discover it's caked in dried mud (hmmm). The third room (3) has a useless (for the time being) stone slab in it. The next room (4) is filled with water. Note the plug at the bottom. Keep going and you'll find a fifth room (5). Head towards the grating and you can see the tomb you're heading for, but you won't be able to get there just yet. There's also a manhole cover in the ceiling. Open this and head outside. You'll find yourself in the resturant where you began. Have a look around (there are a few jokes to be seen*). Go over to the lovers on the left and make the guy look like an idiot by trying to pick up the bottle of wine on the table, looking at the label and trying to pick it up again... ho ho ho!
*More Trivia: Apparently the original Lucas crew were big dog lovers, and Indiana really was named after a dog, (George Lucas's to be precise) and so was Chewbacca from Star Wars! Note the line when Indy looks at the cat: "Why would anyone want a cat when they could have a dog?". This debate is also continued in Full Throttle's (massive) end credits sequence!
Now you've got the wine bottle go to the fountain near the library and fill it up with water (you can also use the room filled with water (4) in the catacombs if you want to be a little different). Head back down the manhole and to the room with the torch in it (2). Pour the water from the bottle over the torch to loosen the mud and then pull the torch... whoops!
You're now in the lower level of the catacombs (marked with the yellow 'X' on the map above). Follow the path and you'll soon come to a fork close to the sixth room (6) on the left. Miss this and go right for room seven (7). Note the plug and dripping water... hmmm! Where could this be linked to? Don't mess with the plug just yet, or you could mess your game up big time! Instead head over the bridge and into the cave and have a look at those inscriptions. These are your first clue as to what the Grail actually looks like. Write these down somewhere! There will be the two names of two different accounts of the grail. You have to cross check these with the Grail Diary that came with the game. One of these is the correct account of the Grail, (but you won't know which one until you get to Castle Brunwald), and you'll have to use it to pick the right grail from a load phoney's at the end of the game. Needless to say these accounts change from game to game.
Now you've written down the names of the accounts (you have haven't you??) head back to the room with the dripping plug (7). We are going to drain the room with water in it. Push the hook into the plug and then use your whip on it. Indy will pull the plug, releasing the water and destroying the bridge in the process (like I said you have written those accounts down haven't you?). You'll get (5) IQ points for pulling the plug.
Now we need to get back to the water room (4). To do this go to room (6) (the one you missed a second ago) and climb up the ladder. You'll pop up in the room with the (until now) useless stone slab (3). Head right for the water room. Ta da! It's all been drained. Tumble down those rocks and through the exit on the right side of the screen.
Head left to room (8). In this room is some dormant machinery. You can pull the wheel but none of the machinery moves. You need to tie the red cordon to wheel and then try again. This time the whole machine will come to life and lower a draw bridge in room (10). It saves having to come back if you do it now. Now that's done get going to room (9). In here is another puzzle for you. Look in your fathers Grail Diary and you'll be shown a screen with two diagrams on it. One that shows the correct combination, and another combination labled 'Certain Death'. (In fact 'Certain Death' here means being dropped through a hole in the floor into the manhole room (5), so not too bad then.)
In order to get the right pictures up there's a very simple process you can go through to guarantee you won't have to walk all the way back from room (5). You see, if you push the first plaque it will flip the second one as it goes, and if you push the third plaque it will flick the first one twice. This means sometimes you can iadvertantly cause the bad combination to pop up. In order to make sure this doesn't happen, just follow the steps below:
1) Push plaque two until it has anything other than the bad picture on it. (This will guard against accidental 'Certain Death' while you push the other two.)
2) Push the third plaque until it is right, (don't worry what this does to the other plaques).
3) Push the first plaque until it's correct.
4) Push the second plaque until it is right and - voila! The door should open.
For a little extra help, here the order in which they spin:
KING / CASTLE / HORNED DRAGON
ANGEL / SWORD / HORSE
KNIGHT / CATAPULT / DRAGON
SAINT / FLAG GOAT /BEAST
That should be enough for you to figure it out. You'll get (5) IQ Points for getting it right. Onto the drawbridge room (10). If you put the cordon on the machinery in room (8) you can just stroll over the bridge if not you'll have to go back and do it in order to lower the bridge. In this next bit of catacombs just keep heading left ignoring the passages heading down (they're all dead ends) and make your way to room (11). Yet another little puzzles for you here. Again look at the Grail Diary, but this time you'll be shown a tune that you'll have to play out on the skulls(!). Here's how the bars correspond with the skulls:
Skulls are numbered from LEFT. Each number corresponds with a Note on the musical scale...
(1) =============
(2) -------------
(3) -------------
(4) -------------
(5) =============
(6) - - - - - - -
So if you got the following piece of music in the Grail Diary:
(1) =============
(2) --o----------
(3) ----------o--
(4) ------o------
(5) =============
(6) - - o - o - -
You'd push the 2nd skull (from the Left), followed by the 6th, 4th, 6th and 3rd.
Once you've got this right you'll get (5) IQ Points and an open doorway to the next section of catacombs. This bit is just a little maze, there's no puzzles to do. Just follow the map below and head for the (K). This is the Knights Tomb itself (gulp!).
You've made it! Now all you need to do is open the casket and take a peek inside for another (5) IQ Points. Ummm... I'll meet you outside. Just pull the rusted lock on the grating and head up through the manhole when your done. (Yikes!)
Phew! Now you'll be greeted with a short animated sequence and then it's on to Brunwald Castle!
---
From mixnmojo.com:
Indy and Marcus took a plane - it went through Newfoundland, the Azores, Lisbon, and finally landed on the mainland near Venice. After a short rail trip, and a gondola ride through the canals of the city, they found themselves in the Piazza San Marco, or St. Mark's Square. It was the heart of Venice, home of the Basilica of San Marco, Doges' Palace and Museo Correr. Around them circled the busy canals, and a thousand years of history.
Indy knew that Venice was in decline - quite literally. The land had sunk six feet since Roman times, so that now there were frequent floodings at high tide. But standing here on this bright spring day, a warm breeze blowing in from the Adriatic, walking along the Piazza past picture-perfect flower stalls and outdoor cafes, it felt more like a heyday to Indy and Marcus.
They stopped at an outdoor restaurant, raised twelve feet above the Piazza and overlooking San Marco. The tables were full of lazy afternoon diners. "Ah, Venice!" said Indy.
"Yes," said Marcus, who was still a little worried. "How are we going to meet our contact, Dr Schneider?"
"Maybe he'll recognise us," said Indy. "This is definitely the place."
"Dr Jones?" asked a woman behind him. Indy turned, and was stopped by what he saw. She was young, with blonde hair, attractive features, and intelligent, deep blue eyes. She was wearing a black skirt and light blue blouse.
"Uh, yes?" Indy managed to get out.
"I knew it was you," continued the girl. "You have your father's eyes."
"And my mother's ears," responded Indy with a grin on his face, "but the rest belongs to you." Marcus watched him with a mixture of amusement and concern.
"Looks like the best parts have already been spoken for," said the girl, not taking her eyes from Indy. "Marcus Brody?" she said, now shifting her gaze.
"That's right," said Marcus, looking up from a surreptitious glance at his watch.
"I'm Dr Elsa Schneider," she said.
Indy's grin faded. "Oh... So, ah, could you tell me about my father's disappearance?"
"Of course," said Elsa. She had a faint Austrian accent. "We were working in the library when it happened. I'll show you."
Marcus didn't move. "Why don't you two go ahead without me?" he suggested. "I think I'll take a nice relaxing gondola ride."
Indy nodded. "Very well, Marcus. Dr Schneider, lead the way."
She led him down the steps to the Piazza. Sansovino Library was on the opposite side, so they walked past the statue of Bartololommeo Colleoni; ornate, fluted lampposts; and the Campanile Fountain.
The library, when they finally entered through the huge wooden doors, was quiet, cold, and drafty. Statues sat on the marble floor, and the windows were stained glass.
"It looks more like a church," said Indy in a low voice. Sounds carried in here - they heard footsteps from both sides.
"You couldn't be more right," said Elsa, leading Indy through the second set of doors and into the book collection. "It was a church, during the Crusades." They stopped here, Indy looking around curiously. "Now, just before your father vanished he was muttering something about Roman numerals. He said he'd searched everywhere for them - without success."
"What happened?" asked Indy.
"I left your father working in the library," said Elsa. "He sent me to the map section to fetch an ancient plan of the city. When I got back to the table he was gone." She looked to the main desk, where an aged man was stamping away at a whole pile of books. "I'll make sure we won't be bothered. Then we can take a look around."
Elsa walked to the front desk. "Excuse me, sir," she said politely. The library official didn't look up. "Pardon me," she added, louder.
No response.
"Hey you!!" she shouted, loud enough for every single library patron to hear - but not loud enough for the library official.
Indy came over. "I doubt he'll be much trouble," he said.
"Hmmpph!" said Elsa, and walked away into the library.
Indy grinned, and likewise started to explore the library. He soon discovered its regular structure - basically, the place was a donut. Because it was hard to build curved walls, the general effect was achieved by dividing the place into six segments, or stations, with sharp angles and long lines of bookshelves connecting the segments. The stations themselves were bare - they didn't house any bookshelves, or even reading desks. It was a pity, as the way the afternoon sun came through the stained glass window illuminating each station would have made reading a joy.
Indy, browsing along the bookshelves, came across some interesting books. The first, in a shelf all by itself, was a first edition of Mein Kampf, in very bad condition. The second Indy found while happening upon a section containing Maps of Ancient Italy. It was called Secrets of the Roman Catacombs, and flipping through Indy found maps of catacombs which, the book said, lay directly underneath. "Deep beneath the city," proclaimed the book soberly, "lie the paths to the tomb."
The tomb of the second Knight? wondered Indy. In any case, this book was a real find, so he pocketed it alongside Mein Kampf. His next few steps brought him out into the next station, and suddenly Indy realised the source of the Roman numerals.
He must have been blind. On the tiled floor of the station was a three by three grid. From top left to bottom right, the grid contained the first nine Roman numerals, painted in a fading purple. The multicoloured sunlight coming through the window tended to soften, rather than exaggerate, the contrast.
Indy stared downward. "Dad searched for Roman numerals everywhere?" He felt sure he'd found the source of the numerals - but which numerals? Which station? He looked around for further inspiration, and saw there were two stone columns either side of the window - each about twelve feet high, and supporting a majestic stone lion. Each column, Indy saw with a quickening heart, had numbers etched onto an inscription. On the left column, they were II VIII I. On the right column, V III IV. It was an intriguing clue, but Indy just as quickly forgot about it. He was staring at the stained glass window.
Two angels prayed on either side of the window, facing inward. At the top, the head of John the Baptist on a platter was illuminated by the sun's rays. Underneath John was a shield, intricately etched.
It was teasingly familiar. Quickly Indy pulled out the Grail Diary and flipped through the pages. Almost immediately, he found a double page spread.
Note the particular care taken in drawing the shield, wrote the pen of Henry Jones, the areas above it, and the angels. The cryptic message below seems to have something to do with Roman numerals and stone pillars.
That was the left page. The right page held an illustration of a stained glass window similar to the one Indiana Jones was standing in front of, but differed in a few key areas. The message below read: If ye would enter, follow the second on the right.
Indy remembered that the stained glass windows at the stations were had pretty much the same general design. Almost instantly he was off, striding through the bookshelves and looking keenly at the windows.
He wanted to find Elsa, to tell her his discovery, but she was nowhere to be found. And when Indy came across the matching window, only twenty feet from the entrance doors, he forgot all about her again.
Mouth open, Indy peered at the inscription on the right hand column. The second number was III.
He looked at III, painted on the tiled floor, and he finally realised what his Dad had been up to here. He wasn't looking for a book on the Knight's tomb - he was looking for the tomb itself! And Elsa had said this place was a Church during the Crusades.
Indy tried to grasp the tile around the edge and heave it up. It was impossible. There was a red cordon under the window, held in place by three brass stands. Indy untied the cordon and picked up one of the stands. He thought for a moment, then took the cordon as well.
This was going to make some noise. Indy looked left and right, and listened. It was quiet, and had been so for the last few minutes. The only sound was the stamp of the librarian's, er, stamp, far off in the distance. It was coming as regular as a pendulum, and was just as easy to ignore.
Indy timed the delay between each stamp. Then he stabbed down with the stand, hitting the tile in perfect sync.
The librarian, stamping another volume, was a little taken aback when the sound reverberated violently through the library. He looked at the stamp curiously.
Indy looked down at the cracked tile, waited for the stamping to begin again, and hit it again. The second strike broke the tile. It fell down a fair way before striking bottom, leaving jagged edges poking out into the gap. Cold air and a wet, rancid smell wafted up.
"Bingo," said Indy softly. Grasping the edges, he lowered himself into space.
Indy had been in plenty of dark places before. Very quickly, his eyes had adjusted to the gloom.
He was in a much larger space than he'd expected. The shelf he was on was small, and wet underfoot, but all around it was a large open space, leading to three low tunnels. The walls, curved and adobe-like, countered this impression by containing, at regular intervals, skulls glaring at the centre of the room. The passing of centuries had discoloured them considerably.
Indy knew he didn't have much time before his vandalism was discovered, but for a moment he couldn't move. His sense of professional detachment was, for the moment, mere background noise against the sense of wonder and awe he now felt, being perhaps the first in centuries to walk along the slime-filled tunnels, in the very burial grounds of the second Knight. Indy stepped off the shelf and onto the floor, away from the light coming from the opening. Each movement, every noise he made seemed profane in this deathly stillness.
Quickly, he took a cigarette lighter and examined symbols, carved into the walls between the skulls. His hands brushed away the cobwebs and dirt, working faster and less precisely than usual. Very soon, the origin of the symbols, if not their meaning, became clear. They were Pagan, and roughly 5th or 6th century. If the Christian Crusaders had established their own catacombs here, as Indy was certain they would, they would be further on.
Indy was suddenly very glad he'd found that book. He opened it, flicking briskly through the pages until he found the maps of the Venice catacombs. He moved back toward the opening, staring down at the diagram.
Thirty seconds he spent there, staring at three diagrams - two extremely large, one small. At any moment he might be discovered, but Indy pushed such concerns out of his mind and concentrated on memorising. When he had it, he pushed the book shut and headed for the left tunnel, as fast as his meagre light source would allow.
The tunnel was low and bare, and wet underfoot. It turned sharply right, ran through a crossroads intersection (which Indy, from the map, could safely ignore), and came together with two other tunnels to another open area. On the diagrams Indy had memorised, certain areas were marked with wide circles - these were presumably points of interest. This was the first.
There were two skeletons here, propped up against the wall. One wore the rotting remains of a hat, the other, its head lolling, wore a rusty hook as its right hand. Indy picked up the hook and examined it - it smelt coppery, and could probably give someone a nasty tetanus scare. He took it, and looked around for anything else notable. There was nothing - no tombs, no markers, nothing. Indy shrugged, and moved toward the tunnel on the right. There was simply no time to make a detailed perusal.
This tunnel ran straight for a long distance, finally coming to a T intersection. Indy went right, then right again. He was heading downward, and it was getting wetter - droplets of water would occasionally drop from the ceiling and hit him. Sloshing clumsily, his wet footsteps reverberated far more violently than his gentle pads through the moist dirt. Unconsciously, this made him slow down a little.
This turned out somewhat fortuitously, as it was his slightly lower speed that allowed Indy to see the torch, attached to the inner wall of a gentle curve left. Indy looked at it longingly - he really did need a better source of light than this suspect cigarette lighter. When he tried to pull it from its holder, however, it refused to yield. Examining the metal circle, he saw hard, dry mud was encrusted all over the holder, and the base of the torch. Time had sealed it, rock hard. Disappointed, Indy moved on. With this lighter he could barely see the walls either side of him, let alone anything important.
The tunnel continued onward, kinked left, and at this point was flanked either side by a pair of flaky wooden doors. The doors gave Indy some hope - he was starting to think no-one had built beyond the first few feet. There was a turn left, which Indy ignored, and very quickly afterward the walls widened both sides of him.
On the map, this was the third circle. Indy at last had something to do - following the right wall, he examined the recesses hollowed out of the soil, and the skeletons reclining peacefully within, barest scraps of flesh hanging from their bones. Three deep and three tall these skeletons were arranged along the wall, with nothing to identify them or tell them apart. Indy scanned them all - but saw no shield.
He moved toward the centre of the room, scanning the floor. He saw a huge stone slab set in the ground - remarkably clean, and regular. He knelt down and tried to pick it up, but the sides were too smooth. Undeterred, Indy walked past, to the far side tunnel.
This tunnel branched off left, which Indy ignored, and very quickly branched right. Now, for the first time, Indy had a choice. Straight ahead led to a single black circle, and the right hand turn also led to a black circle, and the remainder of the catacombs. Indy went right, very quickly finding the next point of interest.
Indy realised he really should have thought of this earlier.
The remainder of the catacombs were flooded out. Before him now was a flat, black expanse of water, perfectly smooth. It was almost impossible to make out the far side, but Indy could see the general direction of the ceiling was arching downward. He'd need a spelunking degree to get any further.
He stood there for a few minutes, staring vainly at the opposite wall, trying to see some kind of ground on the other side. His poor lighter wasn't up to the task, and reluctantly Indy finally turned back. At the intersection he turned right - this was his last chance. Soon, he started to feel uneasy.
Bit by bit, odd, anachronistic details were starting to make themselves felt. His weak light source seemed a little more effective. The almost total, womb-like silence of the tunnels was gradually replaced by odd ambient noises, unidentifiable - a constant background hum.
What he actually found at the black circle was completely unexpected and oddly deflating - if he wasn't so disappointed, he would have broken out in laughter.
The tunnel rapidly emerged into a small enclosed space, the size of a living room, the clay soil under his feet now turned to concrete. The space before him was a maze of small steel pipes, concrete slabs and quiet water flows, thrown together with all the organisation of a set of building blocks.
Two exits led from this mess - a steel pipe six feet in diameter which led to a grate door, shut; and, right at the top of the room, reachable by a spiral staircase, a small manhole. Aggressive, bright shafts of light came through tiny apertures in the manhole cover, accompanied by the now recognisable clatter of mechanised vehicles and people talking.
It was a bit deflating to learn that the Venice catacombs were presently being used as a sewer. Indy smiled, but there was no humour to the situation: it was a reflex action, pure and simple. Still smiling, he worked his way through the water - knee deep, far more than he'd encountered in the catacombs - and investigated the steel pipe.
Behind the steel grate was something interesting - confounding his dour predictions. Not more steel pipe, but a huge room hollowed from the ground, and further reinforced with masonry and concrete bricks. The walls alternately held alcoves, occupied by reclining skeletons, or arrays of glaring skulls pointing outward. At the centre of the room, alone, was a huge casket with sloping sides, seemingly made from metal.
But there was no way through the grating. The grating had a lock, and despite being old and rusty it was still able to withstand the best Indy could muster.
He turned back. It occurred to him that this was the second time he'd turned back in ten minutes. For him, it was an almost unheard of failure rate. Walking up the rickety staircase to the manhole, Indy realised he wasn't done in here yet. Not by a long way.
The manhole cover was heavy but well oiled, and came up fairly easily at his first push, squealing its way over the concrete. Indy pulled his dripping, slightly smelly form out into the open, much to the interest of surrounding diners.
He looked around the genteel crowd. This was the outdoor restaurant - exactly where they'd started. There were slightly fewer people around now, and the first tint of orange could be seen in the sky, rapidly filling up with clouds from the south.
Indy wanted an idea. He got the glimmerings of one when he saw two young diners by the archway, dressed up and chatting idly. Standing on the table between the couple was a bottle of wine, open and three quarters full. They seemed to find it pretty funny.
Indy came over. The two diners only had eyes for each other, and so barely saw him until he reached the table. Indy had seen the label - 1924, a very bad year as he recalled.
The young man looked up at Indy, curiously. His partner on the far side stared adoringly at him, hardly seeming to notice this wet newcomer at all.
"Mind if I take this?" asked Indy.
"Of course not," said the man amiably. "It was a dreadful wine."
"Thank you," said Indy, taking the bottle by the neck. He walked through the diners, and took the open steps down to the Piazza. He stopped at the fountain, and, much to the bafflement of those watching from all corners, emptied it into the fountain. Then he filled it with fountain water, and walked back to the manhole.
Walking back along the dim corridors of the catacomb, lighter in his right hand, wine bottle in his left, Indy knew this was a slim-to-none chance. It seemed like the best option - his vandalism in the library would have been discovered by now, and he didn't have enough time to find Elsa or Marcus. But Indy was far from sure.
He had a lot to think about, retracing his steps. Indy found himself recalling his conversation with Walter Donovan, who had in the end been somewhat less than helpful. Indy knew Walter had planned an expedition to find the Grail, and that Elsa and his father were members of his team. But Henry Jones was gone - and who had kidnapped him? Elsa seemed to have no idea. Likewise Donovan.
It could have been another archaeology team, Indy supposed. International archaeology was an ordinarily quiet discipline, not one normally associated with espionage and kidnapping. The Grail, however - that had surely upped the stakes. Visions of glory and honour might compel one researcher to forcibly enlist the world's leading Grail scholar. It was possible.
Indy didn't think it was likely, however.
The next possibility he considered - and it seemed plausible, given the nature of the Grail - was that Henry had been kidnapped by religious fanatics. But who? Henry had been kidnapped without a trace left behind - surely fanatics would at least have disclosed their identity, and their motivations.
Indy lingered on the problem for a while, drawing close to the halfway point of the catacombs, mainly because he could see ahead to the third possibility, and it so filled him with fear that he didn't want to think about that, just yet.
The third possibility was religious fanaticism, of another kind.
It was only several months ago that Indy had found the Ark of the Covenant, only to lose it again in a Pentagon warehouse. He'd been brought a lot closer than he'd cared to Hitler's known obsession with artefacts of power. If Hitler got word of the Holy Grail...
It was a rhetorical question. Indy knew the answer, even as he shied away from it. Thankfully, his objective was finally coming into view. Indy happily left aside these dark thoughts and remembered his plan.
The plan was thin - hardly a plan at all. Simply, Indy was far from sure that the flooded passage he'd seen earlier really was flooded. The light from his lighter gave out before you could see the far side. But the light from a torch - that was another matter.
He was at a tunnel U-turn, where a long neglected torch lay, fastened tight by mud.
Indy lifted the bottle, and gently tipped water onto the brace. With his left hand he massaged the encrusted mud, feeling for it in the total dark. At first it was like gripping concrete, but as the water continued to flow he felt the mud start to give, and then bend in his hands. Soon it was flaking and crumbling from the brace.
He set down the bottle, and flicked the lighter back on. Sure enough, at the first tug the wooden torch fell out.
Simultaneously, a hidden trapdoor underneath Indy's feet fell open. In a hail of water and mud, Indy fell downward, flailing.
He fell about twenty feet, landing awkwardly on more damp dirt. The torch, fortuitously, had fallen through the gap with him and glanced him on the head, landing nearby. He had lost his grip on the lighter, and it had gone out.
Indy lay there for a while, not really hurt, but just stunned and confused. His brain was like a record player stuck in a groove - What? What? What? Occasionally, small particles of dirt rained down on him.
What on earth was that? he finally managed to think. He managed to raise himself to a sitting position. Around him was impenetrable darkness, concealing unknown and untold dangers. He couldn't feel a wall behind him, and had hardly any sensation of his surroundings at all. Indy wouldn't consider himself prone to claustrophobia, but he was having difficulty staying calm right now.
He did his best, breathing slowly and deeply. It was the only sound down here, and it died - there was no echo. Either his surroundings were really tight, or the walls baffled the sound. While he breathed, his hands scrabbled through the dirt, searching for the lighter.
After an age, they felt the metal casing. Indy sighed, relieved, and flicked it on. Light came on, blessed light. It gave him the barest outline of two tunnels, diverging from Indy like a Y, and the wooden torch, lying on the floor just out of reach.
Indy glanced upward, hopefully. He saw nothing but a black hole. The tunnel ceiling was too high for him to get a grip, and probably there was nothing to get a grip on, just a shaft with dirt walls.
Keeping a tight lid on his panic, Indy walked forward and picked up the torch. He wasn't doing anything until he had some better light.
Indy tried setting the head of the torch alight directly, with his lighter. It didn't work.
Sweating but undaunted, Indy leafed through his books. He was a scholar, a book lover, and Secrets of the Roman Catacombs looked too good to waste. He didn't want to touch his fake Grail Diary, either. The first edition Mein Kampf, however - that seemed perfect for what he had in mind. Indy ripped ou t a few pages from the back, and tied them as best he could to the torch. Soon the torch was blazingly brightly, casting healthy strong light around him. Indy felt the last vestiges of claustrophobic stress going. He still had problems, but finally he felt able to cope with them on his level.
Indy started by consulting his handy travel guide, Secrets of the Roman Catacombs. It seemed that he'd fallen into the small section of catacombs he'd been wondering about. Was there a way out? The map wasn't very clear.
He began to walk, along the left tunnel. It came to the same thing in the end - the right tunnel rejoined it, several yards later. It went on some way, twisting right and left (in an almost natural manner), before coming to a T intersection. According to the map, there were two areas of interest here.
Indy went left. He could hear a faint dripping noise from that direction. Shortly, he found it. Water was dripping from the edges of a wooden circle, somehow set in the ceiling.
It wasn't the water, however, which made Indy stop and forget to breathe. The tunnel had suddenly widened out - hugely widened out, and now Indy stood at the opening of a huge chasm. Its widths and depths could only be guessed at - Indy looked left and right and down, but even his upgraded light source couldn't reveal anything.
The tunnel continued on over the chasm as a narrow pathway, arching for twenty feet before reaching the far side. It was narrow - barely three feet wide - and unsymmetrical. It did not look constructed. Where water from the ceiling hit it, it ran in puddles and to the edge of the pathway, before falling into the chasm. Indy could catch no sounds from the bottom, not even the 'plink' of an underground aquifer.
He had no alternative but to edge out onto the narrow bridge, waiting tensely for any sign of weakness. It held. Further out he edged, and air blew up around him from the depths, warm and wet. The opening on the far side was as black as ever, and surely that would be where he'd find the tomb. How better could it be concealed?
But the tiny hollow, barely tall enough for him to stand in, was empty. Nevertheless, holding the torch head high, Indy still found something very interesting.
Writing, carved into the walls. There were three rows of it, the best preserved of these a small inscription, set beside several grinning skulls. Indy bent down, peering at the early Christian symbols.
"Wait a minute," he said softly, running a finger over the carvings, confirming their existence. "These look familiar."
The inscription described the physical characteristics of the Grail. Indy drew in breath, and quickly flipped through the Grail Diary. His father had been right. Checking between the inscription and the Diary, Indy soon narrowed the choices to two. It was either the Welsh verse Taliesin wrote, or Sir Richard Burton's tale, written by Lady Elanora. One of these two was the correct account of the Grail.
Indy jotted this down, quickly, in the womb of the earth many feet underground. This was useful, but only if he knew where the Grail actually was. And the Second Knight's tomb was still undiscovered.
Indy came back out, taking just as much care as he recrossed the chasm. On the far side, however, he paused. A strange idea had occurred to him. He stared up, at the wooden trapdoor in the chasm roof. It was about two metres above the bridge. Indy had a very good sense of direction, and right now it told him that he was under the watery pool which had defeated him before.
It was a very rugged, gnarled piece of wood. It looked ancient. Indy walked underneath it, and fighting vertigo, reached up and touched it. It was wet, and gave alarmingly.
He could rip out the wooden plug now, and cross the pool upstairs. With one problem - standing on the narrow bridge, the water would push him into the chasm, easily. Indy thought about this a while, then hit on an ingenious solution. He took the hook he'd found some while back (it seemed like hours, now), and gingerly wedged it into the wood. Then he retreated back to the side of the chasm.
It hadn't been used for a while, but now Indy's bullwhip was seeing some action. He took it, uncurled it, then lashed it at the hook. It struck, and curled tightly around the metal. Indy took a deep breath, then yanked the whip, simultaneously jumping back.
The trapdoor fell open toward him. With a mighty roar that shattered the silence, a solid wall of water fell out. It neatly sliced a metre long chunk from the bridge, like a hot knife through butter, falling through the depths before finally hitting water, somewhere below. The room of inscriptions was now permanently cut off.
Indy picked himself up and curled the bullwhip. For a full minute water fell roaring through the hole, and soon the ceiling around began to crack and leak water. Indy took the hint and got the hell out.
He ran back down the passage, along the second fork of the T intersection. The noise behind him was constant, until it quickly crescended to a enormous blast which rattled the ground. Then it got quiet again.
The second point of interest, here at the far side of the tunnel, was most unexpected and very welcome. A ladder. It was made from sturdy-looking wood and led upward someway to a stone square in the ceiling. Indy climbed it, ducking around the water (there was an underground stream here, and it seemed to have swelled recently - hardly surprising), and at the top heaved the stone up.
He'd found his way back into the mausoleum. This was the stone square he'd been unable to pick up. Delighted, Indy wasted no time in racing toward the pool of water.
Reaching it, he found more good fortune. The water was gone - completely. The ground was wet and slimy, and led down to a huge gaping hole in the ground. Clustered around the rim of this hole were three horizontal tunnels. Taking extreme care, Indy slid down to the base of the pool and looked around.
Two tunnels were dead ends. The third, however, rose upward some way before coming to a crossroad. Indy consulted his map. Straight on and right both led to the same area, something unspecified on the map. Left, was one of those black circles. Indy went left. What he found staggered him.
A ring of bricks around the tunnel archway signalled entrance into a huge, developed area of the catacombs. Here in this enormous space was a wooden contraption, so huge and convoluted, it nearly took up the size of a house. It had numerous wheels, pulleys and belts, and its purpose seemed to be to get one wheel to make all the other wheels rotate. This one wheel was by the doorway - it resembled a ship's wheel, and was connected by two ropes to the main machine.
Indy didn't know what to do first. What an utterly special find. He contented himself with pulling the ship's wheel. It rotated fluidly in his hands, amazingly greased, and Indy got several revolutions out of it. The machine responded, first with creaks and groans from deep within, and then with two wooden wheels, which started to rotate independently. Everything stayed still - too many belts had decayed.
Indy came over and looked critically at the machine. Undoubtedly its central component was a huge wheel in the middle, ten feet in diameter, around which was curled iron chains, plunging deep into a chamber. It had remained motionless, and wasn't connected by belt or pulley to any other part of the machine. That seemed to be the problem. Indy still had the red cordon, so he tried belting it over the main wheel and another, smaller wheel. Then he returned to the ship's wheel and span it again.
This time the response from the machine was immediate. Everything started to gyrate in position, even the huge main wheel. Iron chain was pulled out of the chamber, and far away Indy heard a clank.
Then it all stopped. The machine fell silent. What it had done, Indy had no idea. He shrugged, and walked back to the tunnel.
He went on from the crossroads. The path forked again, with no indication which way he could take. At random, he went left. This tunnel curved upward, and back around right, until it came to a very interesting diorama.
Set into the stone wall were three wooden bas-reliefs, several feet taller than Indy. By these flat figures was a thick wooden door. Indy stared for some moments at the wooden designs. The leftmost one was that of a old kindly king, holding a bible. In the middle was a towering castle, reachable only by a thin mountain pass. The rightmost statue was a majestic winged creature, serpentine and serene. They looked familiar. Quickly he flipped through the Grail Diary, and soon came across a double page spread.
The first page held similar designs to those before him - the middle and the rightmost figures seemed the same, but the leftmost was an illustration of a saint in holy contemplation. Underneath, Indy read, This configuration is labelled "correct." The right page had different figures. A skeleton, arrayed in mail, armour and holding a sword - did it represent the Second Knight? The middle figure was a standard, waving in a stiff breeze. The rightmost figure was a dragon, reclining on its haunch. The text underneath read, This one is labelled "certain death". How curious!
Indy, the figures memorised, shut the book. It didn't seem so whimsically curious right now. He felt the outlines of the figures, running his fingers over the dry wood. Then he pressed his hands more firmly against the leftmost figure, the one seemingly out of place.
Amazingly, it swung leftward, out of view, and another figure clicked into place. It was the winged saint. However the pattern was spoiled, as the middle panel, too, swung around and into place clicked a new standard - a bright glowing sword, held in a clenched fist.
Hey, thought Indy, a little indignantly. He pushed the middle figure. It revolved, revealing a catapult, mobile and ready. But there was no movement on either side. He could safely alter this panel without the others being disturbed. So he cycled through the figures, through a fluttering standard that was almost a castle, until the actual castle, alone on the hill, returned to view.
On his right was a fearful scraping sound. Indy jerked around to see the wooden door drawn up into the ceiling, into a recess only to be guessed at. The way beyond was now clear - stone steps leading down into the gloom.
Indy groaned - how much further did he have to go down?
Quite a lot further, as it turned out. As he found out soon enough by consulting the map book, he'd found an entrance into the second great catacomb system - on the map, it was as big as the first. Amazingly, he was only halfway through.
Down here, the heat grew more noticeable. The air was worse - thick and cloying, it had lain undisturbed here for centuries, moulding. And Indy had to take deep breaths of it too - the oxygen was minimal down here.
The tunnel work was worse, or else the forces of nature were even more oppressive down here. Regularly he was stumbling through patches of water knee deep, climbing over rockfalls and slides of mud. Keeping his torch dry was a task in itself, for water rained down from above, dripped from the walls, and was kicked up by his feet.
What nature had done to the brick tunnels was bad, but what had happened to the dead was worse. They lay disregarded on the floor, heaped there by flood and tremor. Bones littered the ground, literally everywhere. The water and the heat had somehow conspired to preserve some of them, so that even now leathery scraps of flesh clung to their skeletons. It was a massive feeding ground for the rats, which swarmed down here in large numbers, splashing and chittering incessantly, like a miniature army. Indy was often forced to pick another way around some of the more choked passages. A memory of his Dad brought back a chuckle - he'd never have gotten past the rats! He hates them!
It was lucky Indy had the map, because the layout here below was even more labyrinthine and convoluted. From the stairs, Indy had taken the first turn left, ignoring a huge dead end, passing through a thick matrix of passages before turning left again, making a right turn around a huddle of rats, until he saw an archway in the distance.
Through he went, into an open space that recalled the huge underground chasm. Here on this side was Indy, standing on a wide platform. There on the far side was another platform, leading to an archway out. Between the two platforms was nothing but sheer drop, and a narrow stone bridge looking suspiciously clean and unweathered.
Indy quickly crossed it, trusting to its strength. It held. On the far side he consulted the map again, and was soon thick in the necropolis.
It made a certain kind of sense. After all, on an island city like Venice there wasn't any room for a cemetery. It was either head over to the mainland, or dig down deep. Whatever the impetus, the area Indy now found himself in must once have been a thriving burial spot. The tunnel he walked on was straight and That was its only blessing. Along the right hand wall were tens on tens of alcoves, holding the deceased at their final rest. Many were no longer at their final rest, having been dislodged by forces unknown to the tunnel floor, where they clustered forlornly. At regular intervals tunnels branched off left, spaced close together like a comb. These tunnels were packed full and deep with skeletons, three to every carven alcove in the walls. Scores lay jumbled on the floor, either dumped there by flood or by careless morticians. The smell alone was bad enough, but it seemed the rats had established their nests here, because Indy heard an incessant pattern and chirp from the tiny rodents. Their black bodies were beyond sight, but somehow Indy sensed their motion - a sinuous, writhing black carpet.
Holding his jacket over his mouth, Indy stumbled on. Past five and six tunnels he went, until finally the tunnel widened and banked left. He was past. The tunnel widened further to a room, where the walls were packed full of skeletons, lying peacefully in the walls. Here the chaos had somehow passed over. The floor was clean, and dry. Indy checked his bearings and continued on. He knew there was a large area here could simply ignore, which he did by turning right and right again at the junctions offered to him. Soon the tunnel he followed ran alone, coming to a bulbous opening in the earth. The skeletons were half buried in the walls, and the door at the far side was shut.
Here was the strangest security device Indy had ever seen. A row of skulls topped a strange contraption of metal bars and tight wires. When he pushed the skulls down, different skulls made different notes, flat but with definite pitch. They were arranged in a primitive scale.
Indy wondered what the Grail Diary might have to say about this. Soon he came upon a section Per Hos Sonos Sepulcrum Aperies. Below this heading was a short bar of five notes, apparently taken from a manuscript of Abbes Hildegard of Bingen. Noted Henry, The excerpt uses an obscure musical notation, and I am not sure why it never has more than six notes.
There were exactly six skulls. Doing the best he could with the music, Indy hammered out five notes. Clanking and protesting, the wooden door was drawn up. Indy went through, shaking his head.
He was running out of room. This tunnel went straight on, narrowing slightly, and there was nowhere left to go. He'd run out of map. But here was something. Was it a room?
No.
With a sinking heart, Indy saw the steps lead downward.
Almost he called the whole thing off there. Two levels of catacombs was bad enough, a third would be hell. But he kept going. If it was just an archaeological find he was after, or some famous artefact, he'd have turned back instantly. But he had to find it, because he had to find his father. No one else would.
The tunnel continued downward, then turned sharply left. The ground here was muddy, and far from solid, but mercifully the rats had been left behind. The bulk of the bodies must have been upstairs.
But soon, the tunnel forked. Indy halted. He faced a real danger of getting lost down here. He surveyed the two ways closely. It was just a hunch, but the left tunnel seemed the better option - a little lighter, more open. Indy went along it. It continued straight, a tunnel branching off it to the right, but it was narrow and choked up. Indy went on, curving right as the tunnel curved right.
He hadn't seen a single skeleton down here. That was good in some ways, but bad in others. It felt so lonely down here. Like a corner of the world that everyone had forgotten.
A path branched off to the right. Indy ignored it. This proved to be a mistake, as the tunnel went straight on before landing him at a dead end, in which was a lumpy mass of dirt, stone, and - interestingly - masonry. Indy went back, and took the tunnel. Onward he went, deeper and deeper into the catacombs, like a small splinter working its way into the flesh. Occasionally he came to crossroads or junctions, and took the best way he could. Often the choice was made for him, as one path or another led to a tunnel collapse, or impassable lakes, or staggering chasms. But he kept on, and he did seem to be heading in a definite direction. Down here, of course, he had no idea where that direction was. He was just as likely to be under the centre of Venice as under the sea.
The archways, erected at intervals by the builders of the catacombs, had now been left long behind. It felt to Indy that he was leaving the inhabited regions behind, moving from the constructed to the natural. How long had these tunnels been here? And how much work did the Venetians really have to do?
Left, left, right and left again. Indy staggered over mounds, collapses, crawling through narrow gaps where they presented themselves. His torch had been reduced to half size, and barely gave out illumination. These were the tunnels of the rats - though no rats lived down here. It was inconceivable humans might once have used these. The Second Knight was surely not down here.
But suddenly the tunnel straightened up, and grew taller. Indy lifted himself to his feet, staring open mouthed at the smooth stone walls. He stumbled on, and suddenly staggered into an open space where the air was clean and the walls unstained.
Alcoves in the walls, not a single bone out of place - Indy ignored these details. He was staring at the huge deep freezer in the centre of the room. A heavy, metallic, angular, and impossibly large casket sat there, unperturbed by his arrival.
Now if this wasn't the casket of the Second Knight, Indy would tear his hat off and shoot himself.
He laid his hands on the lid, feeling the run and bump of the contours, then got a firm grip. He heaved. The lid scraped, scraped further, then fell to one side on the ground, gouging a deep hole in the earth. No chance of him putting that back on.
Indy was staring at the Second Knight.
His flesh had rotted, and his body was eaten to the bone. But he was still dressed in his armour and mail, and still clasped the steel shield over his chest. On it were written symbols identical to those of the first marker.
The second marker.
Indy hadn't taken a breath in thirty seconds. He took from his coat a rubbing he'd made of the first marker, at Donovan's. Quickly now he sketched in the missing top half. The last marks were a little blurry and indistinct, because Indy was already getting excited. The ancient city of Alexandretta was mentioned.
The location of the Grail finally specified. His father would be overjoyed. Alexandretta - of course! Alexandretta no longer existed, but the present day city of Iskenderun was built on its ruins. It was perfect.
Indy finished the writing, pocketed it, then looked around. For a moment he was unsure. Surely there must be some secret exit around here leading to the surface? Don't tell me I have to walk all the way back up there...
He did.
The stretch was long and arduous.
Indy's best guess of the time was that it was about midnight. It seemed like a whole day had passed down here, sweating, filthy and nauseous. Passing the rats a second time was the hardest - Indy simply ducked his head and ran, crushing skeletons and, occasionally, rats under his wet feet. Then he was past and pounding feverishly up the stairs, gasping at the cooler air.
Presently he reached the top level, and the sewer room. Filthy as the water was here, it seemed mountain-spring fresh to Indy. He cleaned himself up a little. Amazingly, light was coming through the manhole - it was still daytime. His legs were a little rubbery, so Indy took the stairs slowly. He heaved the manhole aside and levered himself into the open air.
Immediately he tasted it, fresh and inviting, laden with exciting and exotic smells. It was early evening, and though the outdoor restaurant had shut up shop, traffic around the Piazza was heavy.
"Dr Jones!" shouted a female voice as he replaced the manhole. For a moment Indy didn't know who this was. Then he remembered - Elsa! He looked up at her, as she walked quickly toward him, a concerned expression in her face. The sun was setting behind her, and its dying rays had caught the strands of her straw blonde hair as it swayed in the wind, creating a heavenly corona. Indy fell a little in love with her at that moment. "I've been looking all over for you!" continued Elsa, concerned and relieved. She reached him and stopped.
They stared into each other's eyes for several motionless seconds. Indy felt deep currents racing through him, which he couldn't even identify. He saw Elsa shift her head, tilting it slightly. His lips moistened.
"Indy!" shouted another, male voice, close by. The moment was destroyed. Looking around, Indy saw Marcus running along the plaza, now making his way up the steps toward them. Frustrated, Indy saw with some measure of satisfaction that Marcus was soaking wet.
"Marcus!" he hailed.
Marcus barely stopped for breath. "I've found out where your father is!" he said.
All of Indy's ill will toward Marcus evaporated. "Where?"
"He's being held captive in the Brunwald Castle on the Austrian German border," said Marcus, shaking his clothes.
"Great!" said Indy. With that sentence Marcus had released all the pent-up tension which had been accumulating in the catacombs. Indy now had a target -and he was going to hit it hard. "And I found out where the Grail is! It's in Iskenderun!"
"Of course!" said Marcus. "Iskenderun!"
There was a brief pause. Indy, who had regained a lot of his good humour, looked downward curiously at the puddle of water at Marcus' feet. "Uh, Marcus, why are you all wet?" he asked.
Marcus had gone through a lot. After a long, relaxing gondola ride, he'd been attacked by three Turkish men with machine guns. They didn't hesitate to fire them in an open space, and Marcus was only saved by leaping off the pier and into a speedboat. He roared around Venice, through the port, followed by two motorboats. He led them through a steadily narrowing gap between two cargo ships, and one was crushed to splinters. The other roared closer as the engine of his motorboat suddenly cut out. It came aside and one fierce Turk leapt onto his boat. They grappled, being drawn by the current toward the giant, turning propellers of a steamer. Finally, just as their motorboat was being chopped into matchsticks, Marcus was able to convince the Turk they were just searching for Indy's father. The Turk, whose name was Kazim, supplied him with the name of the castle. Marcus was still out of breath.
"Don't ask!" he said.
Indy was itching to get going. "Ok, I'll rescue Dad! You meet me in Iskenderun!"
"Sure!" said Marcus. "No trouble!" He walked away briskly, then stopped. He thought, then turned back to Indy. "Uh... where is Iskenderun?"
---
From wikia.com:
The Librarian worked at the Marciana Library in Venice, Italy in the late 1930s.
One day near closing time, he was working at his desk, stamping books. Several times as he stamped the books, the stamp made a large metallic sound, much more than would be expected from a tiny inkstamp. Puzzled, he set his stamp down.
Unbeknownst to him at the time, Indiana Jones was using a metal cordon post to smash a hole in the marble floor elsewhere in the library, striking at the same time as the librarian was stamping his books.
The role of the Librarian, as a non-speaking role, is not credited in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade."
---
From tripod.com:
ELSA: I left your father working in the library. He sent me to the map section to fetch an ancient plan of the city. When I got back to his table, he'd gone - with all his papers - except for that scrap which I found near his chair.
INDIANA: [reading paper] Roman numerals ...
[EXT. VENICE PIAZZA - DAY]
ELSA: Here is the library.
INDIANA: That doesn't look much like a library.
BRODY: It looks like a converted church.
ELSA: In this case it's the literal truth. We're on holy ground. These columns over here were brought back as spoils of war after the sacking of Byzantium during the Crusades ... Now please excuse me. The library's closing in a few moments. I'll arrange for us to stay a little longer.
[Indiana is looking at the stained-glass windows when Elsa returns]
INDIANA: Three, seven and ten. That window seems to be the source of the Roman numerals.
ELSA: My God, I must be blind!
INDIANA: Dad wasn't looking for a book about the Knight's Tomb ... he was looking for the Tomb itself! Don't you get it? The Tomb is somewhere in the library! You said yourself it used to be a church. Look, three!
[Indiana has discovered that each Column is numbered with a Roman Numeral. Indy hurries away toward Column VII]
INDIANA: Seven! Seven ... ten. And ten. Now where's the ten? Look around for the ten.
[Indiana walks past aisles of book-lined shelves. He stops, turns, then looks down. He climbs a spiral staircase leading up to a loft and looks down at Brody and Elsa. The floor beneath their feet is an elaborate tile design containing a huge "X"-visible only from this higher angle]
INDIANA: Ten ... "X" marks the spot.
[Indiana tries to pry open the tile but cannot. Instead, he rushes to a cordon held in place by a brass stand underneath the stained-glass window. Indiana raises the brass stand and timing his actions, hits the tile precisely as the Librarian stamps a book. The Librarian regards the stamper curiously. Indiana continues to pound at the tile as the Librarian resumes his stamping, still puzzled by the SOUND ECHOING through the library. Finally he breaks the tile]
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