Uncharted The Fourth Labyrinth - By Christopher Golden Page 0,135

all friends here, ’cause I want to live. If you folks don’t want to be richer than sin, that’s your business. Me, I have no objection to treasure.”

Drake could have told him that the flowers they had passed upon first entering the labyrinth and seen many times since were worth more than all the treasure in the vault combined. But he doubted Suarez would believe him and didn’t much want to share the information, anyway. For her part, Olivia knew all about the white hellebore, and Henriksen had suggested she would not hesitate to do as he’d planned and sell it to the highest bidder, but it was clear that gold was her first priority.

Olivia took out a heavy Egyptian necklace of beaten gold and put it around her throat, smiling like a little girl playing dress-up in Mommy’s closet. She stepped on top of the golden crocodile and glanced around, shaking her head as if it were too much for her to take in, and then her gaze locked onto the gold statue of the Minotaur with its ruby horns. She jumped down and ran to the pedestal where it stood.

As she reached for the statue, Drake felt a surge of shame. He glanced over at the dying Minotaur, an old man ravaged by poisons and physiological side effects his entire life, and saw the monster lower its head and turn away. Perhaps it was not entirely blind, but what, Drake wondered, did it not want to see?

Drake turned and stared at Olivia, firelight and shadows playing across her slim body, and as her fingers touched the gold and ruby statue, somehow he knew. He broke away from Jada and Sully and ran toward her even as she hefted the statue from its pedestal, admiring its shine.

A wide octagonal stone began to rise out of the top of the pedestal. The statue had been a counterweight, and now it had been removed. Loud grinding noises filled the walls, the thunking and crashing of stone blocks shook the room, and Drake turned and ran.

“Get out of here!” he shouted at Sully and Jada.

Suarez looked at him, and the man’s eyes went wide. He didn’t know what had just happened, but he saw their panic and turned and started to limp toward the three stairs.

“Where the hell are you—?” Olivia screamed after them.

A huge block of stone in the wall of the cave pushed inward, falling onto the coin jars. They shattered, spilling coins all over the floor, just as a torrent of water rushed in through the hole the block had left behind. The rumbling and grinding went on. Another block slid from the wall, then a third and a fourth, and water crashed in, filling the vault with all the power of the river. So much water flooded in so quickly that in moments it began to rise around them.

Jada reached the stairs first, helping Suarez out of the rising water, which already had reached the second step. Drake and Sully were right behind them, but Sully turned to look back into the vault.

“What about her?” he said.

Drake turned to see Olivia in the middle of the maelstrom formed by the half dozen raging torrents coming through the walls. Treasures were flooded, knocked over, swirling and sinking, and Olivia screamed not in panic for herself but in anguish over the loss of the gold. She clutched the Minotaur statue to her chest as if it were her child, trying to keep it above the swiftly rising water.

“Come on, damn it!” Drake shouted, wading back toward her.

“Nate!” Sully called.

“Just go,” Drake snapped, waving him on. “I’m right behind you!”

The water had risen with stunning speed, washing around his waist now and still churning into the vault.

“Olivia! Drop the statue and swim!”

She glared at him with such hate that it stopped him cold. Olivia struggled to hold the heavy statue and forge her way through the maelstrom inside the vault. Drake swore and pushed toward her again, the river still flooding higher.

Something underwater must have tripped her, because she went down with a splash, submerging instantly. Drake thought she would drop the statue then, but there was no sign of flailing arms until suddenly she surfaced twenty feet to his right.

But Olivia was not alone. The dying Minotaur held her from behind, its gauzy white eyes shining in the light from the chandeliers above. The floodwater had knocked over the braziers and put them out, but the candles still burned. At