Uncharted||His Love [Book 3]

Chapter 8 - I Love You

"...so then guy says 'well, you'd better tickle mine too, 'cause now I gotta catch the goddamn thing'!" Sully tells his story. Chloe sits on the windowsill, laughing with the cipher disk in her hand and Cutter hands the two their drinks.

Nate sits away from them, looking through the book and the map. (Y/N) sits opposite Sully at the table and picks up her cup. "Cheers."

"To a job well done." Sully adds and the three raise their drinks.

"Are you going to join us, darling?" Cutter asks Nate, making (Y/N) chuckle.

"Yeah, yeah..." he closes the book and picks up the map, coming to join them. "Well, the map proves it." He says, laying it on the table. "Drake didn't screw around in the East Indies for 6 months. He sailed straight through and headed to Arabia."

"Right." Chloe states.

"But here's where it gets interesting. See this mark." Nate points to the marking at the bottom corner of the map. "This is John Dee's signature."

"Who the hell's John Dee?" Sully asks.

"John Dee. One of Queen Elizabeth's closest advisors. Everybody knows that." Cutter answers before either Nate or (Y/N) could have a chance.

"Yeah, yeah, he was a great mathematician and navigator. Way ahead of his time." She adds and Nate points at the disk in Chloe's hands. " Probably invented that."

"Seriously into the occult. I mean like, in a really creepy, dark way." Cutter says.

"See, he signed all his letters to the Queen with this symbol - meaning he was her 'eyes'." Nate carries on.

"The original OO7. You see, look-" Cutter points at the signature. "Not really that relevant." Nate cuts him off, seemingly annoyed.

"So, it was John Dee who sent Drake to Arabia?" Chloe pipes up.

"Yeah it looks that way - Dee and Elizabeth." Nate says. "And Walsinghan." Cutter adds, making Nate sigh.

"Great, but what for?" Sully questions.

"Well, that's the million dollar question, isn't it?" (Y/N) replies.

"Exactly, and this is where T.E Lawrence comes in." Nate says, opening the journal back up. "See, before Lawrence became Lawrence of Arabia -"

Cutter cuts him off: "great film."

(Y/N) laughs, turning it into a cough at the frustrated expression on Nate's face. "-he was an archaeologist." He finishes, holding up a photo of Lawrence on a site, placing it on the map. "Even when he was just a kid, he was obsessed with history, everything to do with knights and the Crusades. He travelled all over, documenting every Crusader site he could find. It's all in here."

"All right, you've lost me completely, kid, what the hell has this got to do with Drake?" Sully inquires.

"I'm getting to that. See, after the war, Lawrence said that if he were ever to go back to Arabia, it would be to search for this place he called 'The Atlantis of the Sands'. Now the legend crops up over and over again under different names: Ubar, Iram of the Pillars, the City of Brass... but the story is always the same."

Nate hands the book over to Sully who begins reading: "Oh, 'A city of immeasurable wealth, destroyed by God for its arrogance, swallowed forever in the sands of the Rub' al Khali desert'."

"Right here." Nate points to where it is on the map.

"Well, I like the immeasurable wealth part, anyway." Sully says.

"And you think this is what Elizabeth and Dee sent Drake after." Cutter states.

"Oh yeah. And more importantly, it's what Marlowe is after." Nate replies, and (Y/N) takes a sip of her drink.