Uncharted The Fourth Labyrinth - By Christopher Golden Page 0,113

grim-faced brunette woman, who hurried forward, slid off her pack, and pulled out a set of folding bolt cutters. In thirty seconds, she had the chain cut, and Perkins caught it so that it wouldn’t clank when it hit the ground. The gates screeched a little as they were dragged open, and then they were pouring two by two into the tunnel.

Absent the wind, they were swallowed by the ancient stillness of the place. Footfalls, no matter how stealthy, seemed to scrape the walls all around them, echoing off the floor. Drake glanced at Jada and saw the anticipation on her face. His heart raced, and he knew that hers must be hammering. It was still possible that they might be wrong, that the labyrinth would not be found beneath the emperor’s tomb, but he felt the rightness of it and a certain menace in the air. It might have been the menace that truly convinced him they had reached their goal.

Flashlights searched the darkness at the end of the tunnel, where it ran into the base of the Soul Tower, underground. Four of the mercenaries guarded their flank, lights and guns aimed back toward the entrance.

“Mr. Drake,” Henriksen said, gesturing for him to come forward.

Drake and Jada joined Henriksen and Olivia at the horn-shaped opening in the base of the Soul Tower, then slipped through and into a small oval chamber. The walls were constructed of stone blocks, unmarred by paintings or engravings, and the chamber was small enough that with the four of them inside it felt claustrophobic.

Flashlight in one hand, Drake started testing every block with the other hand. He pressed edges and crevices, and Henriksen followed suit. Jada and Olivia joined in. Olivia tried setting her shoulder against a wall, perhaps thinking the whole thing might move. They found no trace of the genius that had gone into using counterweights and perfect balance to create hidden doors and secret passages in the other labyrinths. Unless they were missing something, it was just a room.

“Damn it,” Olivia muttered. “I was so sure.”

“We all were,” Henriksen said.

Jada shook her head. “No. We’ve got to be missing something. Otherwise what purpose does this chamber serve? It’s no ritual space. They built a tunnel to get to it. It’s absurd to think there isn’t something we’re missing.”

“The geomagnetic survey showed crevices in the mound and in this tunnel,” Henriksen said. “Maybe there’s an entrance near one of those. Whether the labyrinth is here or not, there’s no question the emperor’s tomb is, so we’ve got to find a way in.”

Drake shined his flashlight along the base of the wall, all around the chamber, frowning deeply. He examined the floor, which had been made of the same stone blocks as the walls. Some of the stones seemed to go beneath the walls, as though they continued on the other side, which made sense if the entrance was in one of the walls.

He got on his hands and knees and ran his fingers along the crease between floor and wall on the north side of the small room. The wall definitely sat on top of the stone blocks that made up the floor. Flashing his light around, he realized that the same was true on the eastern and southern walls.

“You’ve got something,” Jada said. “What is it?”

Drake stood and rushed from the tiny chamber, nearly colliding with Corelli, who had been standing just outside, watching the proceedings.

“Watch yourself, moron,” Corelli growled.

“Back up,” Drake snapped at him. He waved his light at Perkins and the goon squad. “All of you, give me room.”

They obliged, and he stood just outside the room, using the flashlight to study the horn-shaped entry and the walls around it. The stones just above the point of the horn were a variety of shapes, as if they were remnants of quarried rock put into place solely because they would fit together. But six inches above the point was a stone that had a roughly octagonal shape. It wasn’t perfect, but studying it now, he felt sure the shape could not be an accident. At first none of them had noticed because they had been searching for an engraving, as they’d found in the other labyrinths.

Drake looked into the chamber again, stared at the floor, and gestured toward Jada.

“Come out of there,” he said. “All of you.”

Jada and Henriksen did as he asked, and he stood aside to let them pass. Olivia frowned. She didn’t seem to like the idea