Christopher Golden - Uncharted - The Fourth Labyrinth

But the selfish, entitled bastard was right. It was an argument that could wait. The only thing that really mattered at the moment was finding Sully.

Drake lowered his gun. After a moment, he slipped it back into his waistband and nodded toward Henriksen.

“We’ll settle our differences later.”

Henriksen smiled. “I look forward to it. But for now-” He turned toward Jada’s stepmother. “Olivia, what can you tell us?”

Olivia paused in her photography. “Not a lot yet. The writing is ancient Chinese, but we’ll need to transmit these pictures to Yablonski for translation. No idea what the flower motif is meant to represent, but it’s all through here, an addition to the same repetitive imagery we’ve seen in the other chambers.”

Drake frowned and glanced at Jada. If she seemed surprised that her stepmother was the expert on Henriksen’s team, she didn’t show it.

“Any idea what god this chamber is dedicated to?” Drake asked. “The paintings over by the door look like something out of Dante’s Inferno. ”

Olivia stared at him. Drake thought about the way she had come into the restaurant in Egypt the other night, pretending to be the damsel in distress from some film noir. Olivia might not be as evil as Jada had made her out to be-she hadn’t murdered her own husband, at least-but that didn’t mean she wasn’t a manipulative bitch and a hell of an actress.

Now though, Olivia seemed to deflate a little, and most of the remaining tension in the chamber dissipated. They were all there together, hundreds of feet underground, sweating from the heat of volcanic vents, and they shared a goal. If they were going to work together, now was the time.

“I’m not as familiar with ancient Chinese mythology as I’d like to be, and as I said, I can’t read this. So I’m not sure of the name of the god.”

“But?” Jada asked.

Olivia took another photograph, then grabbed Nico’s wrist to aim his flashlight at the hideous paintings Drake had seen before of men and women being flayed and tortured. They were arrayed in a curling, descending pattern, the torment growing gradually more horrific and explicit toward the bottom of the wall.

“In Chinese mythology dating back to the twelfth century B.C., after death, tainted souls were taken to a subterranean hell called Diyu, where they were punished until they had atoned for their sins. According to the legend of Diyu, they existed in a cycle of torment, enduring gruesome torture until they died, only to have their bodies restored so the punishment could start again.”

“I didn’t even know the Chinese believed in hell,” Jada said.

Olivia shook her head. “It’s not the Christian hell. Diyu was said to exist underground and be composed of many levels, each with its own ruler. But above them all was a kind of king.” She snapped another picture. “I wish I could remember his name, because I’m guessing he’s the god this chamber is meant to worship.”

Henriksen had been studying the paintings on the walls more closely while she talked, but now he turned.

“Don’t worry about that. Yablonski will figure out what all of this means,” he said. “Let’s just get it all photographed and take our leave. The police have been well paid to stay away, but I would rather not be discovered in the presence of men who have been murdered.”

Drake saw Nico flinch at that, but the old Greek kept his grief to himself.

“We’ll bring our own people out, of course,” Henriksen continued. “And see to it that they’re properly buried.”

Jada sneered at him. “How noble of you.”

Olivia snapped one last photograph of a jar the short man held, then gestured for him to return it to the shelf. She turned to regard the rest of them.

“There’s something else,” she said.

Drake didn’t like the smugness of her tone. “Just spill already.”

Olivia traced her finger over one of the most repulsive paintings of the Chinese hell.

“I told you that Diyu was believed to be underground,” she said, a thin smile forming on her lips as she glanced at Henriksen. “According to the myths, it was also a maze. ”

“You’re not saying you think this place actually existed?” Drake asked, the idea of such tortures in the real world making him sick.

“Some real-life version?” Olivia replied. “I think we have to conclude that it did. Look at all of the evidence around you. What does it say, Mr. Drake?”

Jada pushed her hair from her face and wiped sweat from her eyes. “It tells us that Diyu was the fourth labyrinth.”

“Exactly,” Olivia replied.

“Hell?” Drake said, turning to Henriksen. “We’re saying hell is the fourth labyrinth?”

“Hell or something like it,” Henriksen replied. “And when Crocodilopolis was abandoned and the volcano destroyed Thera, where do you think Daedalus and his followers brought all of their accumulated wealth? What better place to hide it than an underground maze where the people believed they were already dead? It’s insane, but what other conclusion can we draw?”

Speechless, Drake had no reply. He turned it over and over in his head, examining it from every angle, and he couldn’t deny that it felt like there were at least shards of truth to the theory, as crazy as it sounded. The frescoes on the wall said as much.

“How did my father know?” Jada asked, her gaze locked on her stepmother.

Olivia managed to look sad at the mention of her late husband, but Drake knew that might well be just part of the mask she wore.

“In researching the historical origins of the myths connected to the labyrinths, he developed the theory that King Minos of Crete and Midas were the same man-”

“We got that much,” Drake interrupted. “But the archaeologist at the labyrinth of Sobek thinks it wasn’t Midas who was the alchemist. It was Daedalus.”

Olivia narrowed her gaze, smirking. “Aren’t you clever.”

Jada scoffed. “No such thing as alchemy.”

Henriksen leaned against the wall, wincing at the pain from his wound. “Then where did all that gold come from?”

“Not from magic,” Jada said. “Or even some pseudo-science. You can’t make gold.”

“Maybe not,” Olivia replied. “Probably not. Your father believed that Daedalus must have been some kind of charlatan, but he kept an open mind because he had no other explanation. And the more he researched Daedalus and alchemy, the more he began to see other connections that defied explanation. There were stories of the ancient alchemist Ostanes-”

“The Persian,” Drake said. “Sure, there were similarities in his background. Same with St. Germain and half a dozen others. They were all alchemists. Half of what they did was about creating the illusion that they had abilities they didn’t have to give them that mysterious, mystical aura. They all claimed to be immortal. Fulcanelli even claimed he was St. Germain.”

“What if he was?” Olivia asked.

“Seriously?” Drake scoffed. “You are an entire jar of nuts.”

Henriksen started to speak up, but he hadn’t gotten half a word out when there came a boom and rumble from far above them and the whole chamber began to shake. A jagged crack raced across the ceiling. Dust and debris rained down, and a jar fell to shatter on the floor.

Olivia screamed and pressed herself against the wall as Drake grabbed Jada and ran toward the doorway. Nico’s son looked around in fear and surprise but did nothing to stop them as they joined him in the corridor. They froze there, unsure what to do. The rumbling continued, a grinding roar from far off but loud enough that the muffled noise reached them despite how far they had come into the subterranean maze.

Olivia staggered toward Henriksen, and he put a protective arm around her.