Christopher Golden - Uncharted - The Fourth Labyrinth

“He’d have been in a hurry,” Drake said, glancing around. “Nothing too elaborate. Somehow he snuck into this room. He’d have put whatever it is somewhere it wouldn’t be found easily or quickly, but he’d have known that nobody would be searching this room, so it might be he’d put it somewhere he could be sure it would be found eventually.”

“Not the safe,” Jada said. “I’m sure it’s left open before a new guest checks in.”

Sully narrowed his eyes, then turned to look at the air-conditioning unit beside the window. He hurried over to it and knelt down, prying the face panel off the machine. When he removed it, a small bundle fell to the floor.

“Bingo,” Sully said.

He picked it up and tugged off the thick rubber bands around it, and the bundle separated out into a small sheaf of folded pages and a shabby journal of the sort sold in any office supply store in the world. A piece of hotel stationery fluttered to the ground, and Sully snatched it up, gave it a quick, grim scan, and then handed it to Jada, who climbed down from the bed.

Her hand trembled a bit as she took it, but when she read, her voice was steady.

“ ‘To whom it may concern. Upon your discovery of these documents, please contact my daughter, Jadranka Hzujak, and arrange to see them delivered to her.’ ” Jada glanced up at Drake. “He’s got my address here. Nothing more.”

Sully had unfolded one of the papers and now laid it on the bed. The three of them stared down at the map of Crocodilopolis on which Luka had drawn the location of the labyrinth of Sobek and what he suspected were its dimensions and basic design. There were scribblings on the map as well, most of them apparently references to the lengths of corridors but some evidently comparisons to the labyrinth at Knossos on the island of Crete.

“Here. You should be the one,” Sully said, handing Jada the journal.

She opened it and began to read, but immediately her expression turned to disappointment.

“What is it?” Drake asked.

Jada frowned, turning and scanning pages. “Notes, mostly. I was kind of hoping it was a real journal, y’ know? Something that would lay it all out for us. But it’s his notes to himself.”

She moved between them, turning so that Drake and Sully could peruse the pages with her. Drake saw what she meant. There were drawings of labyrinths, some larger and some with more intricate details.

“Is that a trap?” Sully asked, indicating one sketch. “Like something from the pyramids?”

“Looks like,” Drake agreed.

There were scribbles about Daedalus. “Knossos first,” Luka had written. “Then Croc City-and then, where’s number three?”

“So he’s confirming that Daedalus designed three labyrinths?” Drake asked.

“Yeah,” Jada said, flipping two pages back. “It’s right here. ‘Fundamental design of Cretan labyrinth used three times. Honey a constant.’ ”

“Honey?” Sully grumbled. “What the hell does he mean?”

None of them replied. Jada flipped a few more pages, pausing only momentarily to study the small maps Luka had drawn in the journal. They depicted the progress of the dig on the labyrinth of Sobek. One of the maps had another reference to honey: a design that seemed to indicate four separate routes that led into a single location in the labyrinth. Beside it, with an arrow, Luka had scrawled the words “Honey Chamber location differs from Knossos, but command is the same-Mistress of the Labyrinth must be given an amount equivalent to all other gods put together.”

Luka had drawn an arrow to indicate that his thoughts were continued on the next page, one of his habits, if this journal was any indication. With a dry rustle of paper the only sound in the room, Jada flipped the page.

“Amazing,” Luka had written. “In Temple of Sobek-labyrinth of Sobek-but Sobek’s worshippers give Mistress of the Laby. greater tribute than they give to their god? Why?”

“Damn good question,” Sully growled.

“Even better question if we knew what honey he’s referring to,” Drake replied.

“You don’t think he just means regular honey?” Jada asked.

Drake glanced at her. “Do you? I mean, all jokes about anything called a ‘honey chamber’ aside-okay, it sounds like a special room Elvis would take his babes in Graceland-but if the other gods are being offered this honey, too, it’s probably not the Winnie-the-Pooh variety.”

Sully gave him a sidelong glance but ignored the babble. “Jada, didn’t you say the worshippers of Sobek actually decorated living alligators with gold and gems?”

Jada nodded.

“So they’ve got gold and gems,” Sully said. “Enough gold that they can make new-what, armor?-for generations of alligators to represent their god. The gems they can maybe pry off, use again, but if they’re making gold plating for the gators, they might be making a new one each generation.”

“How did they get that much gold?” Drake said. “This place isn’t exactly El Dorado.”

Jada sighed. “We’re not getting any answers from this thing,” she said, flipping another page.

“Maybe not,” Drake said. “But at least we’re getting a better idea of what the questions should be.”

Jada turned another page and hesitated. A note had been scrawled hastily there, and when she quickly flipped ahead, she found that the rest were empty. She went back to the final scribble in the journal. It had been written weeks ago, but in a way it was her father’s last message to her.

“Talk to Welch,” Luka had written. “Golden touch? Maybe Daedalus. Where’d he go? That’s the question. Henriksen doesn’t care about the Three Labyrinths, he’s after the treasure of the Fourth.”

“Fourth?” Drake read aloud. “Didn’t he say, right at the beginning, that Daedalus designed three labyrinths?”

“Welch,” Jada said. “That’s got to be Ian Welch, Gretchen’s brother.”

“Call him, Sully,” Drake said. “We need to see this guy tonight. Henriksen’s trying to kill everyone who might know whatever it is Luka found out.”

“There’s no big secret in here,” Jada protested, waving the journal. “They trashed his room looking for it, but whatever he found, it’s not here.”

“Henriksen must think it is,” Sully said, going to sit at the edge of the bed and picking up the phone.

“Jada,” Drake said softly, “we might not have it figured out, but your father wouldn’t have hidden this stuff if he didn’t think there was something important in what he’s written.”

“You’re right,” she said, crouching down to smooth out the map Sully had opened on the bed. Jada shook her head. “But whatever it is, we’d better figure it out before Henriksen does.”

“If he hasn’t already,” Drake said. “It could be that he already has all the secrets and wants to make sure nobody else does.”

Sully dialed the phone, referring to a scrap of paper he’d pulled from his wallet.

Jada flipped open the journal, turning again to that last page. Drake didn’t like the furrow of her brow.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Just reading it again. ‘Talk to Welch.’ Is that a message to me? An instruction? Or is it a note to himself, like his one-task to-do list? If so, then whatever mystery he unraveled, he might’ve told Ian Welch. It would’ve been right before he left Egypt to head back to New York to continue his research.”

Sully had a quick conversation on the phone, and Jada kept her voice low.

Drake frowned. “You’re saying maybe we can’t trust Welch?”

“I’m saying my father seems to have trusted him, and now he’s dead. I’m saying we should be careful.”

Sully hung up the phone. They turned to look at him.