Christopher Golden - Uncharted - The Fourth Labyrinth

Drake nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. For the standards of the time, he was huge. I’ve never seen a sarcophagus big enough to fit him.”

Welch ran his flashlight over the bones. “Nor have I. And there’s something more. His skull is-misshapen.”

“Like, The Elephant Man misshapen?” Jada asked as they all crowded closer to the top of the hidden stairs, trying to see past the crouched Dr. Welch.

“I’m no biologist,” Welch said, shifting aside to give them all a better look. “But something like that, yes.”

The skull seemed inordinately large, with a jutting jawbone and several raised areas that looked rough and pitted.

“This guy was a monster,” Drake said. “Look at the size of him.”

The second the words were out of his mouth, he glanced at Sully.

“Wait a second,” Drake went on. “Are you all thinking what I’m thinking?”

“If you’re thinking this is the Minotaur, then yeah,” Alan said.

“Where are the horns?” Jada asked. “He could just have been big and ugly. Besides, we don’t even know it was a man. It could have been the Mistress of the Labyrinth.”

“Maybe,” Welch said slowly. “Maybe.”

But the weirdness of the skeleton lingered, and Drake knew they were all curious enough to ponder it for a while.

“We don’t have time for this,” he said.

“What?” Melissa snapped, incredulous. “You don’t have time for what might turn out to be evidence of the existence of a man who might have been the historical antecedent of the Minotaur legend?”

Drake shrugged. “Sorry, but no.”

“He’s right,” Welch said. Standing, he began to pick his way down the stairs, careful not to disturb the skeleton on his way down. “We’ve wasted too much time already. We’re being stupid.”

“Wasted?” Melissa asked, and now she laughed in disbelief.

At that moment, they heard shuffling out in the tunnel, a few bumps and thuds, and then Guillermo came carefully around the corner and stood at the entrance to the worship chamber, the ladder under his arm. He looked sweaty and pale from the effort.

“Got it,” he said.

Drake waved him off. “Yeah, thanks. We’re all set.”

Guillermo saw the open stairwell and slumped against the door frame. “Seriously?” he said to no one in particular. “Someone couldn’t have come to tell me?”

“We’ve been a little busy,” Alan said, snapping photos of the skeleton and the open stairwell.

“Holy crap,” Guillermo muttered, coming into the chamber and staring at the bones.

“I know, right?” Alan agreed.

Drake had spotted a rack of industrial flashlights like the one in Melissa’s hand when they had first entered. Now he snapped a couple off the rack and tossed them to Sully and Jada, then took a third for himself. Melissa and Alan stared at him, but neither made a move to stop him, perhaps because it was so clear that he had Welch’s blessing.

He started down the stairs after Welch, and Sully and Jada followed, all of them treading very carefully.

“Ian, please, you have to stop,” Melissa pleaded. “If you do this, I’m not going to be able to cover for you.”

“Trust me,” Welch called back up to her. “You’re better off. Just stay up there. I’m sure Hilary will be along shortly.”

Drake cast a glance over his shoulder and saw Melissa pacing, tugging at a lock of her coppery hair. She wanted so badly to be with them, to see what secrets might lie below, but she knew that if she went any farther, her job might be forfeit. She started for the stairs.

“Melissa,” Guillermo said.

“Shut up!” she snapped at him.

But it stopped her. She cursed loudly, first in general and then down into the darkness at Welch. By then, Drake couldn’t see her anymore and had lost interest. The labyrinth’s secrets awaited.

At the bottom of the hidden stairs was a corridor. Their flashlights threw ghost shadows along its length. Every twenty feet or so there seemed to be another doorway, and for a moment Drake was reminded of the optical illusion created by standing between mirrors. With one in front and one behind, the reflections seemed to go on forever in a diminishing hallway of gleaming frames. This corridor did not go on forever. It ended in a darkness that beckoned them onward, as if hungry for light.

The silence troubled Drake the most. They were underground, in a place that had been a secret even in the age in which it had been occupied. The dry, cool air seemed thick with ominous portent. If he had been a more superstitious man, he might have said it felt as if it had been waiting for discovery, as if-after so many years-it finally had exhaled. But superstitious or not, he wouldn’t have said the words out loud. Unless you’d had too much tequila, he thought. Tequila makes you say stupid things.

He comforted himself with the knowledge that tequila could make almost anybody say stupid things.

“Spooky as hell down here,” Jada whispered.

Sully chomped on a fresh cigar. When he’d smoked the stub of the other one-or lost it-Drake had no idea. But Sully didn’t light up-not down here. They were surrounded by stone, but there was no telling what they might encounter. Drake figured he didn’t want to drop burning ashes on ancient papyrus or the bandages of a mummy.

“How much time do you think we have?” Drake asked Welch. “If your boss gave Henriksen the full tour, I mean?”

“Twenty minutes,” Welch said. “Thirty if we’re lucky.”

Barely time to get back up the stairs and through the labyrinth to the breach in the wall. No one addressed the renewed urgency, but they hurried a bit faster along the corridor. The slight draft Jada had noticed before persisted. It might be no bigger than a mouse could fit through, but there was an opening down here.

And “down” was the operative word. The floor slanted downward, and the four of them followed. Flashlight beams danced on the painted walls and the floor and the unadorned ceiling. Drake shone his straight ahead and saw that they were coming to an opening; a moment later, he realized it was some kind of junction.

“How far does this thing go?” Sully asked.

“It could be quite extensive,” Welch replied.

“You know how these things work,” Drake added. “Whatever they were hiding down here, the Egyptians loved their secret passages and halls.”

“So far it’s just straight ahead,” Jada said. “Not much of a maze.”

“Interesting, isn’t it?” Welch asked. “Part of the labyrinth and yet not part of the labyrinth.”

Unlike a reflection of a reflection, the corridor did not go on forever. They’d followed it for perhaps fifty yards when it opened into a small anteroom that resembled the one above, and they found themselves looking at the entrances to three separate worship chambers. Each had the triple-octagon symbol engraved in the lintel above the doorway, and each had the trio of steps leading down.

“This is different,” Drake muttered. “The lady or the tiger-or the other tiger?”

“I don’t think we should split up,” Welch said quickly.

Jada laughed. “Yeah. Bad idea.”

“No need,” Sully said, flashing his light into the leftmost doorway. “They’re not much bigger than the worship chamber upstairs. Altar. Same layout.”

Then he stopped and glanced back at them. “Except there’s a door on the other side.”

Drake hurried to the central doorway and stood on the threshold, flashing his light across the small chamber. “Here, too.”

He quickly scanned the room with his torch, agreeing with Sully’s assessment. The layout was identical to that of the worship chamber upstairs. He figured the dimensions would be the same. But as he let the light linger a moment on the altar, he froze, brows knitting.