Indiana Jones and the Secretof the Sphinx Read Free Page A

cheek. Indy sucked his lungs full of air and closed his mouth. In another moment the mist had become a trickle, and then a torrent. He grabbed his fedora just as it was swept from his head. Indy dangled from the strap like a leaf trapped in a storm drain. Even above the rush of the water he could hear a set of massive gears churning below him, and he imagined the brittle cracking of bones as they were crushed to splinters between stone teeth.
    Indy could feel the strap weakening against the weight of the water, and although he tried to pull himself up to grasp the stone appendages of the dragon, he could not. When his lungs could stand it no longer he gasped for air, and was punished by a mixture that left him sputtering.
    Then the water subsided.
    He heard the ivory moon land back in the jaws above him. The sound of rushing air slowed and then stopped. Indy allowed himself to relax for a moment, hanging like a wet sponge. He was glad he had been unable to undo the strap from the dragon's claw.
    "Finally." He sighed. "A break."
    Then the strap, which had been tested nearly to failure by the action of the water and the abrasion of the stone, broke. The movement jostled the stone dragon, and the moon fell once again from its jaws into the funnel.
    Indy slipped into darkness and disappeared down the shaft at the bottom of the funnel. The orb followed after. In a few yards the shaft curved, and from the fleeting illumination provided by the electric light Indy saw a tiny trapdoor that was the right size for the miniature moon to pass through. He turned, seized the ivory ball, and clutched it to him like a quarterback facing an overwhelming offense. He knew the trapdoor would trigger the deluge once again and that this time, caught in the confines of the shaft, he would drown.
    He had almost stopped tumbling when the shaft curved downward again, and Indy found himself dumped on his hands and knees in a layer of mud and unidentifiable muck in a new chamber. This layer of soft but disgusting material lined the bottom and sides of a deep pit. Indy got to his knees and examined the palms of his hands. Mixed in with the slime were tiny shards of bone. He wiped his hands on his trousers, snatched the ivory moon up, and placed it in his satchel. He tied the broken strap of the satchel together and slipped it over his shoulder.
    Then he examined the rest of the chamber.
    On either side of him were massive stone cylinders, obviously meant to press together under the force of the water and crush the offender. Above the pit, on a jade throne positioned to oversee such gruesome justice, was Qin. The emperor wore an armored breastplate and ornate helmet. Bits of leatherlike flesh still clung to the skull, as well as some wisps of black hair. At his feet were a half dozen skeletal concubines.
    The ceiling was domed, and in the center was an eight-sided aperture. There was a symbol on each side of the aperture, and Indy recognized them as the eight symbols used in the I Ching, the Book of Changes.
    Indy climbed up over the killing wheels and into the chamber proper, where he paused before Qin and tipped his hat. "What an ego," Indy said. "You must have left yourself an escape route, just in case your corpse came back to life. After all, you were a god."
    Indy searched carefully, then found what he was looking for. On the right side of the throne, within reach of Qin's dead fingers, were five bronze levers. Indy kneeled, then carefully inspected them. Odds were that only one of them would reveal a passage out; the other four were sure to be deadly traps. Even if an intruder reached Qin's throne, there was still an 80 percent chance of not getting out alive.
    Indy stood and gazed into Qin's vacant eye sockets.
    "What were you thinking?" Indy asked.
    Numbers three and five, which Qin and his contemporaries probably considered divine, were the best choices, Indy decided. But which to choose?
    Indy looked at his watch. The crystal was broken and the