Christopher Golden - Uncharted - The Fourth Labyrinth

Drake kept his head above water all the way to the other side of the cavern. He kept his breathing steady, calming his heart, and then he ran out of room. The tide had lowered the water level in the cavern, but it wasn’t low enough that he wouldn’t have to swim underwater to find an exit.

He took a deep breath and went under, stepping away from the wall and letting his boots drag him down. With the flashlight out in front of him, he kicked forward, swimming as best he could despite the light in his hand and the weight of his clothes and boots. He blinked his eyes against the sting of the salt water, and only then did he realize how hot the water was. It came from the sea, pushing in and dragging back out again, but the volcanic vents underwater heated it while it churned in these caves.

As long as he didn’t boil or drown, he figured he’d be fine.

Kicking off the walls and bottom of the crevasse he had entered, Drake waved the flashlight left and right. Cave fish, unused to the light, darted away from the beam. He saw silver eels rippling in the ebb and flow of the current that tugged him along. For once, fortune was with him. The tide was still going out. He only hoped it did not turn before he went back to get the others.

What are you thinking? Just hope you make it back to them.

He could almost hear Sully’s gruff voice in his head, telling him to focus. His anger returned full force, and he had to tamp it down to stay calm and hold his breath.

Ahead, the dark water seemed to lighten, and he let himself hope. Clicking off the flashlight for a moment, he confirmed the glow, but as he swam toward it, he saw the gloomy luminescence came not from daylight but from cracks in the floor of the cave. As he swam over the pair of volcanic vents, he could feel the heat from below, and again he wondered how the people of Santorini could knowingly make their lives on the rim of an active volcano.

His lungs began to burn. Clicking the light back on, he kept swimming even as he began to realize that he would have no choice but to turn around. Searching upward with his free hand, he hoped to find an air pocket where he could get a sip of oxygen, but there was no space between water and stone.

Drake cursed the weight of his boots, wishing he had risked taking them off. They had slowed him, and now they felt heavier than ever. He wondered if they would be the death of him, if he would be able to make it back even if he turned around now. Though his thoughts had turned sluggish, he tried to figure out how far he had come, how far the cavern with the ruined worship chambers might be from the outside, but he knew it was foolish even to wonder. Any guess would be nothing more than that.

The pressure built in his head, and he felt his chest constricting with the need for air, and suddenly he understood that he’d come too far, that turning back was no longer an option. Forward was his only chance.

Even as the thought struck him, he saw light ahead yet again. It might have been more vents, but this time, when he clicked off his flashlight, he realized the glow luring him forward came not from below but above. Desperate for air, he swam another ten feet, then fifteen, and finally twenty-five, and then he could stand it no longer.

Chest burning, mind screaming, he kicked for the surface and emerged with a wheezing gasp into a much narrower cavern, perhaps as little as eight or nine feet in width. The afternoon sunlight that streamed in came from a crevice another twenty yards ahead, but beyond it, he could see a sliver of deep blue sky.

A grin split his face.

And then he realized he had to swim back and let Jada and the others know and then lead them through the underwater passage. His lungs hurt just from thinking about it. But they would be out, and that meant the real search could start. He would find Sully, and together they would expose the secrets of the hooded men to the world so that the murderous bastards couldn’t get their hands on anyone else. He thought about the paintings in the Chinese worship chamber, the hellish images of torment in Diyu, and he felt more determined than ever.

Drake clung to the wall, catching his breath for the swim back.

This time he would take off his boots.

He couldn’t help but wonder if, when they finally got back up to Akrotiri village, the taxi driver would be waiting.

Turbulence jostled Drake from an unsettling dream. He had been standing in the rain at Sully’s funeral, the only person without a black umbrella. Among the sea of faces he could see through the veil of dream and rain were many of the less savory characters he and Sully had encountered over the years. Thieves and cutthroats, smugglers and corrupt politicians-all of them had gathered to pay their respects. Jada stood by the grave, her magenta bangs now dyed a bloody crimson, and the priest who stood at the head of the gathering, one hand on the coffin, was Luka Hzujak.

The priest had looked at him, dry beneath his huge black umbrella.

“When you lie down with snakes, you’ve gotta learn to hiss,” the priestly Luka had said, his voice like a whisper in Drake’s ear. “But that doesn’t mean you have to slither.”

He had laughed then, and the entire gathering of mourners had laughed with him, their voices the shush of rain pattering on umbrellas. Drake, soaked to the skin, had not found it funny. Sully had used that line about snakes with him ten years earlier, the morning they had paid a ship’s captain in Valparaiso to carry them and their cargo home to the States. The man had had a huge cache of drugs on board, also headed for the USA, and Drake had needed to be persuaded not to throw them overboard. Sully had reminded him that if they didn’t want the captain to interfere in their business, they couldn’t interfere with his.

When he woke from the dream, he found Tyr Henriksen watching him.

Drake sat up, groggily reaching for his gun.

Henriksen nodded. “It’s all right, Mr. Drake. Your weapon is still there and still loaded.”

Drake’s hand closed on the butt of the gun, but he didn’t take it out of his waistband. The guttural drone of the engine made him blink, and only as he glanced around did he remember that they were on an airplane chartered by Henriksen for the journey from Greece to China. Out the oval window beyond Henriksen the sky was dark. He wasn’t sure how long they had been flying or how long he’d been sleeping, but it was still night.

The plane Henriksen had chartered was of a sort he rarely had been inside: a private jet with seating for twelve in the center and a cabin for business in the rear, complete with a narrow conference table. Henriksen, Olivia, and Corelli had been in the back when Drake had fallen asleep, and it disconcerted him to wake with the man studying him as if he were some kind of exotic pet.

“You slept soundly,” Henriksen said. “You snore.”

“Back off, pal. You’re freaking me out.”

Feeling something sticky on his chin, Drake wiped his mouth and realized he had been so deeply asleep that he had been drooling a little. Henriksen had had the good grace not to mention it.

“I guess I was more tired than I thought,” Drake said.

Henriksen leaned back in his seat. “We all were. I dozed for several hours myself. Jada is still sleeping.”

Drake craned his neck to look back along the aisle and saw her stretched out in her wide, fully reclined seat, a blanket over her. She looked peaceful, and Drake felt happy for her. Peace had been hard for Jada to come by of late. Only sleep offered any respite from her grief and the fears and tensions of recent days. Olivia and Corelli were nowhere to be seen, which he assumed meant they were still in the rear cabin. Whether they had gotten any sleep, he didn’t know. Not that he had a lot of concern for their well-being.