CHAPTER 16.. THE GATEWAY OPENS.

Smith smiled insidiously at Indy. "Now, gentlemen, the cats if you please." Indy looked innocently at his friends, then at Smith. "We haven't got them!" He exclaimed. Smith grinned, nodding at the large Japanese thug. The mountain of muscle grabbed Marion's arm and drew it up her back, causing her to cry out in pain. Both Indy and Rene started forwards but a bullet ricocheted off the floor near their feet and Indy's heads snapped round to see one of the German soldiers pointing a smoking barrel at his head.

"No heroics, Doctor Jones." Smith said. "Now. The cats." He held out an open hand. Indy looked at Smith with contempt then turned his head and nodded at Sallah. They all turned and watched as the large man lifted his robes to reveal a rucksack strapped to his stomach. He opened the bag and began drawing out the ten, tightly wrapped cats which he passed to waiting soldiers who began unwrapping them. Indy noticed with disappointment that the soldiers were wearing gloves to protect themselves against the poison. Smith noted the look and said, "We're not so foolish, Doctor Jones." Then he motioned to the soldiers and gave an order in German. The troops began placing the cats on the pedestals around the circular dais until all ten were in their rightful place. Indy looked at the pattern and recalled the drawing in Abner's notes of twelve marks in a circle, with a letter 'C' at the centre. There were now twelve cats on the platform, where they had not stood for many centuries. The thirteenth was in pieces in the box in Marcus' possession. The centrepiece. The final cat. Smith smiled at Marcus and said, "Doctor Brody?" Marcus looked at Indy and passed the pieces to Smith who took them without a word or change of expression. He walked to the archway and set the pieces within the carved circle, carefully assembling them until the figurine stood tenuously in one piece at the centre of the dais. Smith stood back, contemplating his handiwork and smiled.

"Just think, gentlemen. We are the first, since Cleopatra's time to see the cats all back where they belong."

"What makes you so sure?" Indy asked, although he too was excited by the possibility. Smith looked very smug.

"I'm sure, Doctor Jones, I'm sure. Am I not right?, Mister Belloq?" Smith turned to Rene for confirmation. Rene said nothing but nodded affirmatively. Smiths face grew suddenly stern and he barked an order at the German soldiers. Four of them shouldered their rifles and pulled Marcus, Robert, Marion and Sallah to one side, binding their wrists, then finally tying them to a huge carved marble statue of what looked like a Roman Centurion, which looked somehow disquietingly out of place. Lengths of ripped cloth were stuffed roughly into their mouths and bound in place with further strips of cloth. Indy looked at Rene. They were obviously both thinking the same thing. Whatever Smith had in mind, they were to be part of it and Indy didn't like the thought. The situation was made worse by the realisation that Rene seemed to be well aware of what was going to happen next.

A cold breeze began to blow through the chamber, almost as if the Gods knew what was happening and were not happy about it. 'The stuff of Movies' Indy told himself. He was feeling distinctly nervous. There was something wrong with all of this, Smiths plan, the translation of the hieroglyphics, even where he himself fitted into the tale. Then there was the Roman statue. For some reason, Indy felt that this was an important part of the riddle but he just couldn't figure it out. Not yet. He stared at the statue, trying desperately to see what it was that was troubling him. A movement at the centre of the dais drew his attention back to the moment and he was amused and surprised to see Smith dressed in ancient Egyptian style high priests robes, lighting black candles and placing them in small holders beside each of the thirteen cats. The German soldiers were looking uneasy and began pacing about the chamber until Smith ordered them to stand still, one behind each of the cats around the dais perimeter. Marcus seemed to notice the slight change in the air first. Then, one by one they all realised that the temperature in the chamber was rising steadily. Then came the sound. Faint, barely perceptible at first, a gentle murmur of voices. Like a conversation that cannot quite be heard. Only there were many voices.

They all instinctively looked around but there was no one else there. Smith moved to the centre of the dais and stood directly in front of the arch. He raised his arms high and called forth in an ancient tongue. "He might not be much good at translation," Indy whispered to Belloq, "But he sure as hell can speak the language." He looked about and saw that there were still five or six guns trained on him. No chance of escape yet, he thought.

Smith continued to half speak, half chant the words and the temperature and the sounds continued to increase. Indy closed his eyes for a second and shook his head. His eyes were playing tricks on him, surely. The archway was growing. Increasing in size, inch by inch as Smith spoke the words of prayer. The tomb walls beyond the arch began to shimmer and change. The dark stone of the walls was turning blue. A pale, almost luminescent colour that looked like, "The Sky!" Indy exclaimed, putting into words what the others had all been thinking. The wall wasn't changing colour, it was somehow disappearing to show the landscape outside. Indy and the others stared incredulously at what was unfolding before them. Still Smith continued. Even the Japanese thug had begun to walk round behind the arch to study the walls. Then, to both Indy and Rene's utter astonishment, as the thug moved behind the arch, he disappeared! Where they should have been able to see him through the archway, outlined against the growing blue of the sky, there was nothing. Moments later he miraculously reappeared the other side of the arch, totally unaware of what the others had seen.

Smith chanted on. The sky through the arch began to move quickly with rolling clouds. They could even feel the hot breeze of the wind. Sand dunes began to appear and in the distance, the gates of a great City. Indy recognised them instantly. It was the same gates as the ones they had all seen several times in the past few days. The gates of Alexandria. But whereas the gates were old, worn and almost obliterated with age now, these gates were new. Brightly painted and well wrought. Even Smith was troubled by what he was seeing. He continued with his prayers but stepped back somewhat from the arch. For a moment his voice caught, getting everyone's instant attention as the cause of his brief pause became apparent. There, gaining in solidity, forming out of the very clouds themselves was a woman. Not just any woman. She was stunningly beautiful, with long raven black hair. She was dressed in white with a gold and topaz neck piece and a fine golden circlet on her brow. the centrepiece of the circlet was fashioned in the likeness of the head of a snake. An Asp.

The woman was Cleopatra.

She seemed to float toward the archway and as she did so she held out her hand, as if beckoning someone forward. Indy felt a dead chill run up his spine. It was plainly obvious that she could see them all.

Smith stopped his chanting and stared, half mesmerised, half afraid of the Queen who was now just the other side of the arch, as solid and as real as any of them. "Why doesn't she come through?" Indy hissed to Belloq. Rene did not answer. He, like Smith, seemed to be in some kind of a daze, almost transfixed by The woman.

Smith spoke again but was shouldered to one side by the huge Japanese thug who seemed to march almost mechanically toward the arch. He held out a hand, as if to help the Queen step through the arch but as he did so, an entire sequence of events unfolded in a matter of seconds that was beyond their control. The Queen looked almost disgustedly at the thug and clapped her hands, looking up above the arch, as if she were seeing something none of them could see from where they were. Instantly, a thin black tendril grew from the centre of the arch, somewhere between Cleopatra and the thug, and snaked out to touch the Japanese crook. He screamed in fear as the tendril grew in thickness at his body, almost trumpet shaped, and somehow attached to him with an irremovable grip. He cried out in terror again, clawing at the tendril but his hands went through it as if it were not there. It was like a black void. A nothingness that was somehow not there and yet attached to him, slowly, inexorably drawing him inside. The thugs screams grew more intense as he seemed to both shrink and turn inside out on himself at the same time. He was being sucked into some kind of invisible vortex, a tunnel, leading to who knew where. Smith, the soldiers, Indy, Rene, all of them; they stood, transfixed in horror at what was happening.

Suddenly, one of the German soldiers lurched forwards, and Indy was not quite sure whether he did so to try and help the thug, or whether he was drawn by some force he had no control over. The screams trailed off into a distant echo, as if the Japanese were a long way away, or even as if the sound was nothing more than an echo from the past. A long dead and distant past. The German soldier cried once, as his hand touched the remnants of the fading black vortex and as if renewed by some surge of energy, the dark mass grew outward once more and sucked the man inside. He was gone in an instant, far faster than the thug had disappeared. Smith stared, transfixed, his mouth hanging, agape. The black tendril closed back in on itself and the archway was a window into the past once more, a view of the desert, the sky and the Queen. Only now, standing behind her, screaming silently at her back, were the thug and the soldier. The Queen looked absently at them and half a dozen Egyptian soldiers seemed to appear from nowhere. The two men were taken, bound and dragged away by the soldiers, their mute screams still echoing in the minds of Indy and the others as they looked on, horrified by what was happening.

Suddenly, four more of The German soldiers ran forwards, two of them firing point blank into the figure of the Queen. Smith leaped at the nearest soldier, hitting him across the side of the head, screaming "NO!" at their actions. The Queen turned a blank, vacant almost unconcerned stare upon them and instantly, like a whip, the black tendril snaked out and pulled the soldiers back into her time. They too were taken fighting and calling silently for help from people who would not even exist for them for nearly two thousand years.

Smith began to back away from the portal, terrified of what he had unleashed. The remaining soldiers raced forwards, firing blindly into the arch as Indy cried, "You're wasting your time. You're shooting at something that happened two thousand years ago!" But even as he voiced the words, the black snake of death leaped out, gathered in the soldiers and pulled them into the arch. With each person who went back over the threshold, the Queen came closer. She was now standing at the very edge of the archway, almost waiting for the final sacrifices that would permit here to cross the centuries into this time. Instinctively, Indy knew that this must not happen.

A kind of eerie silence filled the chamber. Only Indy, Rene, Robert, Marcus, Marion, Sallah and Smith remained. The Japanese thug and the ten soldiers had all gone. Then Marcus whispered from where he, Robert, Marion and Sallah were tied.

"Indy! Look! The cats!" Indy glanced round and saw that the twelve cats were missing. What did it mean? He was puzzled but the vaguest idea of a plan was forming in his mind. The gateway had to be closed and he thought he knew what to do.

Rene turned to look at him. Indy shivered at the look in Belloq's eyes.

"Indiana. Do not do anything. I have prepared for this for longer than you can possibly imagine. Please, I ask you, even after everything that has passed between us. Trust me now."

Indy never had a chance to answer. Rene stepped forward and stretched out a hand toward one of the cats. Smith, anticipating Belloq's action cried, "NOOO!", and barged him sideways, grabbing at the twelfth cat. "IT IS MINE...THE RIGHT....THE HONOUR...." The words trailed off as Smith was sucked into the void and was gone.

Indy stared at the opening and heard Marion yell,

"Indy! Rene....Stop him!" Indy snapped round to look at Marion, nodding frantically toward Belloq who was staggering toward the thirteenth cat. Quick as a flash, Indy's bullwhip snaked out, cracking in the silence, and he yanked the cat out of Rene's fingers at the instant the black void opened to receive the Frenchman. Rene cried out, "NO, INDIANA, YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!....." But it was too late. A sudden streak of black vapour travelled from the void to the cat, up Indy's whip to his hand and amidst the cries of the others, Indiana Jones disappeared into the vortex.