Uncharted The Fourth Labyrinth - By Christopher Golden Page 0,77

his head—the picture of relaxation.

“I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks,” he said.

“So we’re not going to Therasia tomorrow, I take it?” Jada asked. “Ian seemed so sure that the reference to Therasia on that jar meant that’s where the labyrinth must be. And you’ve gotta admit, there was logic to that.”

Drake went to the French doors and looked out at the moonlit water of the caldera. “There still is. But it’s been awhile. What’s called Therasia now is not the same as what was called Therasia then. We can’t know until we look, but if you think about Knossos and Crocodilopolis, the labyrinths there were not in the city or next to the temple; they were a short distance away. That fits with the location of the fortress.”

“Which would mean the labyrinth was underground,” Sully said. “Built right into the hill. That would’ve taken a hell of a long time.”

Drake ruminated on that a minute, then glanced at Jada.

“Your father thought it was under Goulas.”

Jada came up beside him, and together they stared out at the water for a moment. Then she smiled and turned to Sully.

“That’s good enough for me.”

14

The sun had started its leisurely crawl across the sky shortly after Drake hauled himself out of bed. Now the clock on the dashboard of their taxi ticked toward nine a.m. as the Greek cabbie steered around the potholes on the road to Akrotiri village.

The first sight of the village made Drake wonder if they somehow had ended up in the wrong place, but the taxi driver explained that the tourists who made the trip out to see the ruins didn’t bother to stop in the village and that that was just how the villagers liked it. The place reminded Drake of little American towns that had dried up and blown away when highways were built that took most of the traffic off the byways of earlier days.

Other than the single blue dome at the center, the rest of the village that sprawled around the base of the hill looked like a scattering of child’s blocks, painted white and left to fade in the sun. Rising in the middle of that ordinariness was the hill Sully had read about, and atop it the Goulas—the tower—and the fortress around it.

As the taxi wound its way through the narrow streets of the village, people paused to watch them pass, eyes narrowed with curiosity, some of their expressions not at all welcoming. People worked here, going about their lives with no interest in the more commercial concerns of the rest of the island. Driving through Akrotiri village, Drake felt as if they were slipping back in time.

The driver took them up the hill as far as he could manage, past the single blue-domed building, and then in toward the crumbled wall of the fortress, but there he had to leave them off. Drake paid him double his asking price and promised twice as much if he would retrieve them at five o’clock. He took the cab company’s phone number along with the driver’s promise and then watched the man drive off, raising a cloud of dust with his departure. He spotted several other, smaller clouds in the distance—vehicles on the road, either to the village or, more likely, to the dig site.

“You think he’ll come back?” Jada asked, standing beside him and watching the shrinking dust devil that indicated the retreating cab.

“We can hope.”

They had eight hours before the taxi driver returned—if he returned. Drake figured that gave them plenty of time to explore the ruins. If the labyrinth was there and there was a way in, they would find it. And if they came up empty-handed, he could always call and try to get the taxi driver to return sooner, though he worried that they could end up with a lot of walking ahead of them.

Drake unzipped his pack and took inventory, making sure he hadn’t forgotten anything vital: water, fruit, and cheese from the hotel, rope, flashlight, gun. They all carried the same essential supplies, but Drake hoped they wouldn’t be down there long enough to require the use of anything but the flashlights.

“Nice place,” Sully muttered, looking up at the fortress. “We should convert it into a bed-and-breakfast.”

“I feel like I’m in some Greek version of Dracula,” Jada said, gazing up at the fortress. “We’ve got the remains of a castle and the little village of people who stare at you as you go by. All