Uncharted: The Fourth Labyrinth

10

Drake woke on Saturday morning surprised not to have been rousted by the police during the night. He was even more amazed when he turned on the television and saw nothing about the violence outside the Queen’s Hotel on the news. Sully had spent the night in Jada’s room, presumably sleeping in a chair-though he might have taken a pillow into the bathtub and curled up there; it wouldn’t have been the first time-and when Drake phoned the room, he answered on the first ring.

“Any cops or reporters down your way?” Drake asked him.

“None. Weird, don’t you think?”

Drake did think. “Does Tyr Henriksen have enough money to pay a restaurant full of people to keep their mouths shut?”

“Either that or pay off the Fayoum City police,” Sully agreed.

“Why would he do that?” Drake asked.

“It’s pretty clear he thinks we know something he doesn’t want anyone knowing. If the cops question us, we might tell them.”

“We wouldn’t. Unless we had to,” Drake replied.

“He doesn’t know that.”

“True.”

“How you doing on your morning beauty regimen?” Sully growled. “Jada’s feeling pretty vulnerable. She doesn’t want to spend a minute here she doesn’t have to.”

“Just Jada?” Drake asked.

“You ready?” Sully replied, ignoring the question. “I’ve got some dates and fuul down here.”

“Watch what you’re calling me.”

“Funny,” Sully said drily.

“I just woke up. Give me twenty minutes. We should check out. Whatever happens today, tonight we find a hotel in Cairo.”

“Agreed.”

Drake didn’t actually make it downstairs until a little more than half an hour later, but Sully and Jada must have only been a few minutes ahead of him because they were at the front desk when he walked up. Once they had checked out and settled the bill, they headed outside to the car, all of them blinking back the sunlight and glancing around for the cadre of local cops they expected to descend on them. Still, nothing happened. It was as if the events of the night before had never taken place.

“Did you ask about Olivia?” Drake said, glancing at Sully and ignoring the sharp look the question earned him from Jada.

“She’s registered. We couldn’t exactly ask if she came back to her room last night, and it’s not likely the same clerk on duty, anyway,” Sully said. “I rang her room, but no answer, and we didn’t feel like knocking on the door.”

Drake nodded. There had been too many surprises lately, and he wouldn’t have wanted to knock on Olivia’s door this morning, either. The way she’d vanished, she was either in on it or in even more trouble than they were.

“So, I take it we’re not going to take spooky-ninja-assassin’s advice and go home?” Drake asked.

Jada glanced at him. “No one’s keeping you here, Nate.”

“Hey,” Drake said, holding up his hands in surrender. “We can’t pretend those guys weren’t intimidating. I’d feel better if I knew who they were and what the hell they were doing saving our asses.”

“ If that’s what they were doing,” Sully said. “Looked to me like they were killing Henriksen’s guys. Was that to save Jada or just because they were Henriksen’s guys?”

“If they were Henriksen’s guys,” Drake said.

“Please,” Jada said, waving a dismissive hand. “Olivia may have confused you guys with her damsel-in-distress thing, but I know her. She’s a part of this.”

“Even if she isn’t, she put the blame on Henriksen, too,” Sully reminded them. “Either she was really afraid of him, which means he’s behind it all, or she’s in on it with him, which still means he’s behind it all.”

“I guess we’re in agreement on Henriksen being behind it all,” Drake said.

Jada punched him in the arm.

He said, “ow.”

“Just drive the car, would you?” Sully said, sighing. “It’s not the morning for goofing around.”

Drake frowned. “People tried to kill us again last night. There were hooded assassins-and I mean really, really skilled hooded assassins. As freaked as I am, I think it’s the perfect morning for goofing around.”

Jada stopped short ten feet from the Volvo wagon.

Sully glanced at her. “Hey. You okay?”

She turned to Drake, stood on tiptoe, and kissed his cheek. “I thanked Sully last night. I don’t think I thanked you. For saving my life, I mean.”

Drake wanted to remind her that she’d done a pretty good job of helping save her own life, but he didn’t want to ruin the moment.

Sully smiled. “Well, that shut him up, at least.”

The clock in the Volvo had given up attempting to tell time sometime before they acquired the car, but Drake guessed it was around half past nine when they arrived in a cloud of dust at the Temple of Sobek. Though the temple had been partially excavated years ago, their interest lay beyond it, on a stretch of crenellated desert that seemed at first glance indistinguishable from any other patch of Egyptian dirt.

Only as they drove past the temple excavation and continued toward the site of the labyrinth dig did the idiosyncrasies of the land become plain. A field of tents had been erected in what looked more like a military operation than a scientific encampment. Jeeps and other vehicles suited for the desert were parked in neat rows, though not a single line delineated appropriate parking spaces. Beyond the vehicles and tents there was a great depression in the land where the desert had settled down on top of the ruins of the labyrinth. The depression hinted at the large circular design.

On the eastern edge of the excavation site, a portion of the labyrinth’s walls had been dug out. Another work in progress had been covered by an awning, but Drake could make out what appeared to be the formidable stone entrance to the labyrinth. A small swarm of workers did the delicate work of slowly revealing the outer wall, but from both of the open sections of the labyrinth, buckets of earth were being carried out one by one and sifted through. Other workers carried wooden beams in through the openings, presumably to bolster the walls and ceilings that were being exposed for the first time in eons.

“It’s bigger than I expected,” Jada said.

“The operation or the labyrinth?” Sully asked.

“Both.”

Drake studied the outline of the labyrinth again. “That may not even be all of it. There are probably lower levels, shafts and traps, other twists. These things are never as simple as they seem.”

Jada glanced at the strange ripples of the desert on top of the labyrinth, indicating its basic design. “It doesn’t seem simple at all.”

Sully agreed. “When they were trying to dig out for the lake they were going to put in-” He pointed at the initial excavation point, the broken wall. “-probably right there, the sand started to pour down into the labyrinth. Looks like the level of the desert sank above it; otherwise we wouldn’t even be seeing this much. But most of the ceilings are still intact, so the dig team isn’t going to assume that the design they’re seeing on top is the actual map of the maze.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Drake replied. “As complicated as it looks, that’s only the start.”

Most of the workers ignored them as they parked the car behind the row of others and got out. There were several vehicles there that obviously didn’t belong: luxury vehicles among the faded old trucks and vans of the workers and the Jeeps of the foremen and archaeologists. Drake took note, but then he saw a pair of men in long blue shirts and loose cotton trousers. One had a beige and blue turban, but neither wore the traditional outer robe, the galabeya, so common among the desert dwellers.

“Excuse me,” Drake said. “Can you tell us where to find Ian Welch?”

The man in the turban went on as if they were invisible and had not spoken, but the other man stopped and studied them, perhaps wondering if they worked for his employers. He chose to be careful about who he ignored, smiling and nodding and gesturing them onward toward a row of tents.

“Dr. Welch the little tent,” he said.

His English was functional at best, but Drake didn’t judge. How could he, when he knew barely a dozen words in Arabic?

They thanked the man and hurried on, cognizant of the sun crawling overhead, the morning burning away. They found Welch in a small tent, drinking from a canteen. The heat was brutal, and the archaeologist already had started to sweat. Drake thought the skinny archaeologist, with his mess of hair and his antic, nervous energy, might be the kind of guy who did a lot of sweating.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Welch said, standing to greet them. He had his glasses slipped into the crook of his shirt collar, but now he slipped them on. “I couldn’t put off going into the dig much longer.”

“Did you see anything strange when you left the restaurant last night?” Sully asked him. “Or anyone?”

Welch frowned. “No, why? Did something happen?”

Sully shook his head. “Never mind.”

Drake studied Welch. “You’re a little twitchy this morning, Ian. What’s troubling you?” Twitchier than normal, Drake had wanted to say, but he chose his words carefully.

“Oh, just a small thing,” Welch said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “The dig’s got a new sponsor as of last night. Care to guess who it might be?”

Jada blanched. “Phoenix Innovations.”

Welch pointed at her. “Got it in one try.”

“Henriksen,” Sully growled, looking around. “Is he here?”

“I’m surprised you didn’t cross paths,” Welch said.

He snatched up a canvas hat and perched it on his head, then led the way out of the tent, leaving them to follow. Drake glanced at Sully, not liking this turn of events at all. Henriksen here? He had figured they would cross paths with the man eventually but had been hoping to get in and out of the dig with Welch before that happened.

“It might not be the worst thing,” Jada said as she followed Drake out of the tent. “He can’t kill us in front of this many witnesses.”

Outside the tent, with sand blowing around them and the sun glaring, Sully had to shield his eyes to give her a surprised look.

“What?” Jada said. “I’m just looking on the bright side.”

“Your bright side is pretty dark,” Drake muttered. Then he smiled. “It’s strangely appealing.”

Jada jabbed him with her elbow as they walked after Welch. The archaeologist led them between a pair of tents and into a place where they could see the entire dig while remaining mostly hidden. A group of men and women were making their way around the outer circle of the depression, a man with a camera filming a woman who was gesturing toward the implied outline of the labyrinth and talking to the camera. The others trailed behind them, including a dark-haired woman in loose clothing and a tall, broad-shouldered blond man in a crisp white shirt and gray trousers. He looked like a politician attempting and failing to dress casually. A man constantly campaigning even if he was not running for office, Drake thought.

“Is that Henriksen?” he asked.

Jada mumbled her assent, staring at the group. She had gone pale despite the flush of the heat, and when he touched her arm to comfort her, she flinched. Her skin was cold.

“The tall woman with the dark hair is Hilary Russo. She’s the director of the expedition, in charge of the whole dig,” Welch said. “I take it you know the blonde.”

Drake said nothing. They did indeed know the woman trailing the rest of the group. Her golden hair had been tied back in a ponytail, and she looked more suited for a safari than an archaeological dig, her clothing the female equivalent of Henriksen’s Lands’ End perfection.

“I guess she’s a better actress than you thought, huh, kid?” Sully muttered, glancing at Drake.

“What the hell are they doing here?” Jada whispered, hugging herself now as if she were in an icebox instead of the desert.

“I told you, Henriksen’s taking over funding the dig,” Welch replied, hands fluttering up to tug at his hat and adjust his glasses, squirrelly as ever. “Phoenix is the sole sponsor now. He’s financing this dig and the next three that Hilary undertakes-years of funding for her and her team, which includes me if you being here doesn’t get me fired-but in exchange he gets control of the disposition of the relics, all media rights, and rights to museum exhibits. All of that. The documentary team is supposedly putting together some footage to prepare for a TV series he wants to make about all of this. Last night you mentioned how big a discovery this is, and you weren’t wrong.”

Drake paced back and forth between the tents. Jada kept staring at the group across the depression from them, but he caught Sully looking at him.

“We’ve gotta get down there before they do,” Sully said.

Drake nodded. He turned to Welch. “What you said about your job. Are you going to bail on us, Ian? We need to know. Luka and your sister’s boyfriend are dead, and we think Henriksen is the guy behind it. But it sounds to me like you’re having second thoughts about helping us.”

Jada turned to watch the exchange, her eyes wide with hurt. It had not occurred to her that Welch might go back on his word.

Welch hesitated, squirming, a man caught between the points of his moral compass. After a few seconds, he gave a small shrug. “Gretchen would kill me if I didn’t help.”

Drake thought how fortunate the man was that Henriksen’s goons had been after Jada the night before and not him. His sister would kill him if he didn’t help, and Henriksen might have him killed if he did. They had to warn him what kind of danger he was in-as soon as he showed them the labyrinth.

“So, how do we beat Henriksen into the labyrinth?” he asked. “They’ll be going inside any minute now.”

Welch smiled, nodding to himself. “Hilary wants to give them the whole tour, make a show of it. They’re supposed to be filming, right? She wants to impress, which means she is going to take them in through the front.”

Drake stared at him. “You’re saying we go through the side door?”

Jada pointed at the larger excavation, the original part of the dig, where the wall of the labyrinth had collapsed. “Can we get in that way? Is it clear?”

“Not only is it clear, it’s a hell of a lot closer to the worship chambers and the anteroom we just started digging out. One of the grad students working down there told me this morning that they’ve started to unearth clay jars and tablets that might be connected to whatever rituals were performed there by the Mistress of the Labyrinth.”

“No one’s going to stop us?” Sully asked.

Welch frowned thoughtfully, then shook his head. “For today, all three of you work for the Smithsonian.”

“We’re already traveling under false identities,” Sully said. “You can use those names.”

If Welch thought this odd, he barely frowned at the revelation. “All right. Hilary’s the only one who’d know we don’t have any visitors from the Smithsonian, and if we play our cards right, we won’t even cross paths with her.”

“I wouldn’t mind crossing paths with Henriksen,” Jada said.

Her hand fluttered toward the small of her back as if she were about to tap the gun she had hidden there to reassure herself of the solidity of its presence and its mortal promise. She hesitated and dropped her hand, but Drake had seen her reaching and found himself hoping they didn’t run into Henriksen at all. Even if Jada managed to kill him, she would only be assuring herself a prison sentence, and the secrets her father had died over might never see the light of day.

They watched as Hilary Russo led the group from Phoenix Innovations under the awning and in through the entrance to the labyrinth of Sobek.

“Let’s move out,” Sully said.

They hustled out from between the tents and across a patch of desert toward the excavation of the collapsed outer wall of the labyrinth. It was a brisk walk so that they would not draw undue attention, but the men working at the dig frowned and wiped their brows as they stared at the newcomers.

There were ladders in the ditch beside the excavated wall, but Drake was surprised to find that the expedition had installed temporary stairs as well, leading down from the edge of the dig to the remaining rubble just outside the shattered wall. He wondered how many tons of sand already had been removed in the excavation. In a dig like this, archaeologists would uncover certain sections, map and photograph and study them, retrieve artifacts, and then fill in the areas they had excavated to prevent them from being damaged by the elements and by entropy trying to catch up with them. But the way Welch had described it to them, much of the labyrinth was being excavated from within instead of uncovered from above; so as long as they shored up the ceilings, they might be able to explore a great deal of the interior maze without ever having to fill it in.

They descended the stairs quickly. A pair of enormous generators growled, one on either side of the entrance. Canvas tarps had been pulled aside from the breach in the wall, and he imagined that at night they hung across the opening to keep sand from blowing back into the labyrinth tunnels. During the day, Drake presumed they needed the breeze too much to worry about the sand.

As they entered the labyrinth, he heard Jada inhale deeply, as if she could breathe in the ancient history in the air. Drake had no such romantic illusions, but even so, he could feel the age of the place. It made him feel like an intruder, but he was used to such a feeling. He had, in fact, made a career of ignoring it, though sometimes it was harder than others. The past held as many secrets as the future-more, in fact-and people would pay incredible amounts of money to unravel those mysteries and maybe own a piece of the ancient world.

Hell, he loved it himself. When he had been a boy, he had read stories of adventure, of archaeological discoveries that stunned the world. He had loved old movies full of mummies or chariot races. But unlike in those antique films, the mummies he had encountered in real life had never come to life. There had been one time, in Karpathos, Greece, when he had been sure one of them moved, but nothing before or since. Still, he found it fascinating to learn how people had lived hundreds or thousands of years earlier.

So though his breath did not hitch as they entered the labyrinth of Sobek, his pulse did quicken a bit.

The walls were a shade of orange, like clay. The line of lights that hung from pegs on the wall explained the generators growling outside. Bulbs inside plastic cages were strung along the tunnel, vanishing around the corners in either direction. A quick glance showed that they were plugged into one another like strands of Christmas lights.

“This way,” Welch said, turning left.

Jada glanced at Sully as if hoping to share the excitement that seemed to have allowed her to forget her grief a moment, but he didn’t notice. When she turned to Drake, he returned her smile and nodded, a confession that yes, he understood. Then they were hurrying along the tunnel, moving from pools of light to pools of shadow, and the orange walls seemed to close in around them, the dry breath of history soft on their faces.

Drake had questions he wanted to ask Welch about the construction of the labyrinth, but they were moving fast and he decided all such questions could wait. They had come here for a single purpose: to find clues to the secrets that had gotten Jada’s father killed before Tyr Henriksen could do the same thing. If there was a fourth labyrinth, with or without treasure inside it, they had to get there first. More important, whatever mysteries were unraveled, they had to let the world know that Luka Hzujak had been the first to discover the truth and that he had died for it.

And if there was treasure along the way, that would be a nice bonus.

The maze turned in upon itself time and again, offering false paths and optical illusions, but the hard work of solving this part of the labyrinth had been done already. The dead ends had been roped off, the correct tunnels given away by the strings of lights, so they never slowed, even when the floor of the tunnel sloped downward or the maze took them through a door with a massive stone lintel overhead that threatened to come crashing down atop them. In many places, wooden beams had been put into place to support the ceilings and walls, hammered together hastily, and left, as if a construction crew had begun to build something and then walked out on the job.

Twice, they had to go around open shafts in the floor that went down forty feet or more into darkness.

“What’s this for?” Jada asked as they circumvented the first one, a flickering lightbulb casting ghostly shadows into the hole.

“It’s a trap,” Welch replied.

Drake smiled but did not give voice to the obvious Star Wars reference. He doubted any of his companions would get it, even Sully, who he knew had seen the movies.

They passed a pair of archaeology grad students who were carrying a large plastic container in which Drake could see things wrapped in cotton batting.

“Dr. Welch,” one of them-a stout Australian with bright eyes-said in surprise. “Melissa said you didn’t feel well. I figured we wouldn’t see you today.”

He looked curiously at Drake, Sully, and Jada, but Welch trotted out his Smithsonian charade and the grad students seemed duly impressed. If they ran into anyone who was part of the upper hierarchy on the project, it might not fly so easily, but Drake hoped they wouldn’t be that unlucky.

Time seemed to stretch inside the labyrinth. Drake wondered how long they had been inside, realizing they must be beneath the sand now, with thousands of tons of desert on top of them, not to mention the ceilings of the labyrinth. How far behind was Henriksen now? Still pretending to be putting together a documentary? Or would he have hurried Hilary Russo along? Drake thought the latter and began to get anxious. The only thing they had going for them was that it would take Henriksen just as long to make his way through the maze as it was taking them.

“I have no idea where we are,” Jada whispered.

Sully growled. “Ain’t that the point?”

“Seriously,” Jada said. “I tried to keep my bearings, figure out what direction we were pointing in and whether or not we were moving nearer the center or away, but I’ve totally lost track.”

“I didn’t even try,” Drake admitted.

“It would be hopeless without some kind of mapping or a GPS that could transmit through the ground,” Welch said. “Daedalus was smarter than any of us. Probably smarter than all of us combined. From this point, if you tried to make it back to the entrance and the lights weren’t there, there are more than a hundred combinations of turns in the maze. Unless you were very lucky, you would be lost for hours. And we’ve postulated that we’ve only been able to access an eighth of the labyrinth. From the center, you might be lost for days. You could die of starvation and thirst before getting out unless you fell down a shaft or were crushed in a trap first.”

“The places you haven’t been able to access,” Drake said. “Did the ceiling collapse?”

“It buckled in a couple of places, allowing sand in from above. In other spots there are places where what appears to be a dead end is actually a continuation of the labyrinth, but with secret doors to hidden passages. There are portcullis blocks in the walls, but the granite framing is cracked, so the series of weights and levers that would have raised those doors are not sufficient. Essentially, they’re stuck. But we’ll get them open.”

Drake and the others said nothing. They were all familiar enough with ancient Egyptian builders to know that the great pyramids were replete with hidden chambers and secret passages. Only recently Drake had been having a drink with an old friend in Thailand and discussing the work being done at the Great Pyramid of Giza to confirm the existence of a hidden corridor beneath the Queen’s Chamber there.

“You’ve gotta be careful with that stuff,” Sully said, reaching into his shirt pocket and pulling out a half-smoked cigar. “Those things are made to be tricky. One of them closes, you don’t want to be caught on the other side.”

“You can’t smoke that in here,” Welch said. “Poor ventilation.”

Jada frowned. “Not that I want to smell the stinky thing, but actually, the air is moving a little.”

“There is some sifting through cracks,” Welch admitted. “But still.”

“I’m not smoking it, Ian,” Sully growled. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

Welch adjusted his glasses, trying and failing to hide his irritation. Drake just smiled. Sully had his charms when he felt like using them. They were all fortunate that he had foregone the typical guayabera today. When he was clothed in his usual wardrobe, nobody would have believed for a second that he worked for the Smithsonian. The Rat Pack museum, maybe, Drake thought.

They heard activity up ahead, and Welch gave them a warning look. Drake was surprised when they turned the next corner and saw that the lights that were wired together had been split off so that one strand went along the tunnel to the left and one jagged to the right and then continued on ahead. They followed the right-hand path and the echoes of work in progress grew louder as the tunnel sloped downward.

If not for the noise, and the lights, and Welch leading them, Drake would have assumed they were heading for a dead end. The tunnel kept going for twenty feet or so past the opening in the wall on the right, a little zigzag that looked as if it went nowhere. The walls narrowed in the zag, and the illusion that there was no passage there at all was very effective.

When they stepped through, they found themselves in a large octagonal chamber, perhaps thirty feet across. Unlike the main tunnels of the labyrinth, which had very few hieroglyphics, the walls here were covered with paintings and raised images and symbols. Three stairs led down to the sunken floor of the chamber. A stone altar-also octagonal-stood at the center of the room. To the left was a narrow doorway capped with a line of ankhs engraved in the stone.

A camera flash came from beyond the doorway, followed by voices.

“All right, Guillermo, put that aside with the others,” a woman said. “Let’s start brushing the sand away so we can free that vase.”

“Melissa?” Welch said.

Some shifting of equipment and clothing could be heard, and then a woman popped her head out of the side room. She had coppery ginger hair and elfin features with bright, intelligent eyes, and her face lit up with pleasure at the site of Ian Welch.

“Ian!” she said, coming out into the worship chamber. “I’m so glad you’re feeling better.”

“Much better,” Welch lied. He looked like he might be about to become sick for real, perpetuating the fiction of their identities. “Melissa, meet Dave Farzan and Nathan Merrill from the Smithsonian.”

Drake stepped forward to shake her hand. “Nate Merrill. Nice to meet you.”

Sully shook her hand as well, taking the cigar stub from his mouth in an attempt at courtesy.

“And this is Jada Hzujak, Dr. Luka Hzujak’s daughter. You might’ve heard that he passed away not long ago.”

Melissa’s face crinkled in sympathy. “Oh, God, no. I hadn’t heard.” She looked at Jada. “I’m so sorry. Your father was here not long ago. He was such a character, he kept us all laughing and fascinated at the same time.”

Jada let out a shuddery breath and nodded. “Yeah. He had that effect on people.”

Drake had been surprised that Welch had chosen to use Jada’s real name, but now he understood why. Melissa would pay less attention to the fact that they were supposed to be from the Smithsonian if she was distracted by Jada’s identity and the tragedy of her father’s death. It was a crass ploy, but it worked.

A skinny, unshaven man with olive skin and dark bags under his eyes stepped out of what Welch had called the anteroom, glancing at them curiously. New introductions were made. Melissa Corrigan was an archaeologist from Colorado, lower than Welch on the ladder of command but above the grad students, including the slender Guillermo and Alan, a baby-faced black man who turned out to be the dig’s photographer.

“Since Nate and Dave are visiting, I thought I’d get a consult on the whole mistress/Minotaur question,” Welch told Melissa. “As you know, it was something Luka had a real passion for, and Jada was curious as well. She’s sort of retracing her father’s steps.”

“A kind of farewell tour,” Jada said, and didn’t have to feign the distress the words brought her.

“Of course,” Melissa said, turning back to Welch. “Do your thing, Ian. We won’t get in your way.”

As Melissa and her team went back to work in the anteroom, Welch showed them the worship chamber. Drake went directly to the altar. Its surface was rough and stained by blood or dye spilled thousands of years before. The base was covered with paintings, many showing crocodiles, the god Sobek, and people kneeling before a robed woman, offering her golden chalices. One painting showed the woman-the Mistress of the Labyrinth, apparently-standing by an altar quite like this one with her hands spread, as if intoning a ritual chant over an array of offerings.

“No doubt about the use of this chamber,” Drake said.

“Look at this,” Jada said.

She had bent over the altar for a closer look at a grouping of lines on the surface. At first glance, Drake had thought it nothing but dirt and a trick of the light, but now he realized there were designs engraved in the stone: three linked octagons, each inside a circle. Drake thought the octagonal shape was very unusual for Egyptian builders, but he didn’t dare ask about it for fear of giving their ignorance away.

“Fascinating,” was all he managed.

“Three octagons,” Jada said, “three labyrinths.” She could get away with such things because no one had claimed she was an expert.

“That was our thinking as well,” Welch agreed.

Sully had been working his way through the room, studying the angles of the joints between stones, searching for any indication of a hidden chamber. This was precisely the sort of place where the Egyptians might have put one-the burial chamber of the Mistress of the Labyrinth, perhaps.

“The mistress-she was a sort of high priestess, then?” Drake asked.

He glanced at the anteroom and saw Melissa moving in there and the flash of Alan’s camera, but no one seemed to think his question absurd.

“We believe so,” Welch agreed. “And yet if she was a priestess of Sobek, what of the other two labyrinths, which had to have been dedicated to other gods? The labyrinths represent the vision of someone thinking much more broadly than a single kingdom or a single theology, but the labyrinth is clearly dedicated to Sobek.”

“Quite a dilemma,” Sully rumbled, cigar stub clenched between his teeth. If these people thought he was some kind of archaeologist or museum curator, they had to be thinking he was a fairly eccentric one.

Drake leaned into the anteroom. “Mind if we take a quick look in here?”

Melissa smiled. “Of course not. Frankly, we were just waiting for the right opportunity to show Dr. Welch our most recent find. But there’s no time like the present, considering the subject matter.”

Welch perked up. “What is it?”

Guillermo stepped back out into the worship chamber to make room. Alan protected his camera as if it were more fragile and valuable than any artifact they might discover, stepping out of the anteroom as well. When Welch, Drake, Sully, and Jada filed in, Melissa had a stone tablet in her hands.

“We found two of these,” she began, looking to Welch for approbation. “Just this morning, in fact. This antechamber seems to have been accessible only to the Mistress of the Labyrinth. So while the paintings and tablets in the worship chamber indicate that the honey was brought to her as an offering-as does the jar we found-these tablets tell a different story.”

Welch took the tablet from her and studied it, surprise dawning on his features.

“What does it say?” Jada asked.

“We’d wondered, my friends,” he said, turning to them with a smile. “And now we know. The honey may have been brought to the mistress, but the offering wasn’t for her. She-I’m not sure if this indicates that she served it, as with a meal, or administered it in some medical fashion to the protector of the labyrinth.”

“That one says something like ‘protector,’ ” Melissa said. “But the other tablet is explicit. The protector was a monster, hidden from the cult of Sobek, known only to those who dared the ‘secret heart’ of the labyrinth and who would never return because the monster would kill them.”

“I take it the ‘monster’ has horns?” Sully asked.

“Like a bull,” Melissa said, nodding happily. “Yes, it does.”

While they continued to marvel over the tablets and translate certain bits, Drake turned to the other side of the antechamber. A single stone block had given way, but given that each one weighed about fifteen hundred pounds, putting it back in place would be a great deal of work. Sand from above had filled in that corner of the room, and he saw the brushes and other implements that Melissa and Guillermo had been using to free the tablets and other artifacts that had been discovered in this antechamber. The walls were covered with glyphs and paintings here as well, but what drew Drake’s full attention was the vase caught in the packed sand.

Melissa and Guillermo had unearthed about half the vase. It was intricately painted, and he knew that without a doubt, the contents of the labyrinth would constitute one of the greatest historical finds of the modern era-perhaps the greatest. The vase was incredibly well preserved.

He picked up a brush and took a closer look. A figure had been partially revealed-that of the Mistress of the Labyrinth, he thought, since it matched the figure on the base of the altar in the worship chamber. She held a jar or chalice in front of her, proffering it to someone whose hands were visible, though the rest of the other figure was covered with sand.

Drake had a pretty good idea who that other figure must be.

He started to brush at the vase. Some of the sand was tightly packed, and though he was careful, he had to brush a bit more vigorously. He needed a little elbow grease, so he leaned his knees against the piled sand, which had remained undisturbed for thousands of years.

“Hey, dude, get away from there,” the grad student Guillermo said angrily, ducking his head back into the antechamber.

Melissa turned to stare at him in annoyance. Drake smiled and held up his hands.

“No harm done. But I think I found-”

The sand gave way. He started to tumble forward and caught himself by planting his hands on either side of the vase, feeling triumphant because he hadn’t damaged it. Triumphant for half a second before the vase and all the sand around it dropped as if sucked into the floor.

Drake let out a yell as he fell after it, spilling into a shaft.

Hands grabbed his legs, then his belt. As the sand sifted around him, trying to suck him down, whoever had hold of him prevented him from falling into the shaft after the vase and the granite block it had sat on and at least a few other tablets that he glimpsed before they were swallowed by the darkness below. He heard something crack and knew he had just broken a piece of history.

“Whoops!” he said.

“You stupid son of a bitch!” Melissa snapped. “What did you think you were doing?”

“Helping?”

The upper half of Drake’s body still hung down inside the shaft. The hands started to pull him out. In the dim reflected light from the bulbs strung in the antechamber, he saw a painting on the wall of a figure that he could not mistake for any other.

“Guys?” he said. “You’re gonna want to take a look at this.”

“What did you find?” Ian Welch asked.

Drake grunted as they dragged him out, and he turned over, lying on the sandy floor, to find them all staring at him. But when he spoke, his focus was on Jada.

“The Minotaur.”