Read Online Ocean Of Fear (Book 6) by William King - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: William King
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know what curiosity did to the cat,” said the captain. He turned to the marines. “Break out the lanterns and torches, you sea-dogs. We’re going below to find this bloody pirate and make him give an accounting for his crimes. And then we’ll give a different sort of accounting to the Chancellor when we collect the bounty on the Kraken’s head.”
Tired as they were the men did not object. Kormak suspected they found the idea of facing pirates less intimidating than spending the night in the open atop the giant ziggurat.
The torches flickered. The air stank of damp. Mould blotched the walls and ran like snot from the huge nostrils of the carved amphibian heads. The Elder Sign hanging against Kormak’s chest was warming up. He glanced over the banister than ran down the side of the ramp. A long way below him lights glittered. The sound of distant dripping water rippled through the building.
More statues stood on hexagonal plinths. They resembled the Triturids, with enormous eyes and nostrils and long spindly limbs. Some of them carried multi-faceted gems, some of them brandished long spears tipped with serrated blades. Others carried blowpipes. All of them had great crested head-dresses attached to their brows. Long tongues protruded from some of their mouths.
The statues put the marines on edge. They made Elder Signs over their breasts and offered up prayers to the Sun. They believed they were looking at demons, and they might not have been far wrong.
The party emerged onto a landing.
Torchlight revealed flecks of colour on the wall, tiny glittering parts of a great mosaic, made from gems and glass. Terves pried a stone loose with his dagger. “Glass,” he said in a tone somewhere between disgust and wonder.
Kormak inspected the mosaic. It depicted a towering six-limbed amphibian locked in conflict with a tentacled giant. Around their feet squid-faced humanoids battled a horde of Triturids in a number of settings; atop hexagonal ziggurats, in the churning waters of the sea, under the eaves of a great forest.
One mosaic depicted the tentacles of a gigantic monster erupting from the waves and smashing the walls of a city.
The images were all distorted, much broader and rounder than they should have been, as if produced by a being with sight that worked differently than a human’s. Colours were subtly wrong although that might have been just the light.
“Gods at war,” said Zamara, nodding at the mural.
“It must have been something like that,” said Frater Jonas. “The Old Ones devastated kingdoms with their conflicts. They unleashed powers that twisted the world, that slew immortals, that laid waste to continents.”
The monotonous drip, drip, drip continued. The air grew colder as it got moister. It was chilly in the depths of the pyramid in a way it had not been outside.
“What was this place?” Zamara asked. “The population of a small kingdom could live in here.”
“Perhaps it has no function we would understand,” Kormak said. “The Elder demons did not think like we do.”
“This was the biggest structure in the city, it seems fair to assume it was a palace or a god’s house,” said Jonas. He was speaking just to disagree, to find an outlet for his nervousness. Kormak had seen men bicker this way before.
Something rippled and flowed a long way below, reflecting their lights and lights from elsewhere. A smell of rot filled the air. There was an oily taste on his tongue he had come to associate with the presence of blight.
Memories of the great pyramid of Forghast flooded back, a structure constructed to channel magical energy according to the principles of geomancy. Perhaps this place followed the same principles. The captain and the priest still debated.
“We need to get moving again,” Kormak said. “If we are going to find the Kraken before he gets what he came here for.”
They reached the bottom of the ramp. It disappeared into blackish, stagnant water that
Tired as they were the men did not object. Kormak suspected they found the idea of facing pirates less intimidating than spending the night in the open atop the giant ziggurat.
The torches flickered. The air stank of damp. Mould blotched the walls and ran like snot from the huge nostrils of the carved amphibian heads. The Elder Sign hanging against Kormak’s chest was warming up. He glanced over the banister than ran down the side of the ramp. A long way below him lights glittered. The sound of distant dripping water rippled through the building.
More statues stood on hexagonal plinths. They resembled the Triturids, with enormous eyes and nostrils and long spindly limbs. Some of them carried multi-faceted gems, some of them brandished long spears tipped with serrated blades. Others carried blowpipes. All of them had great crested head-dresses attached to their brows. Long tongues protruded from some of their mouths.
The statues put the marines on edge. They made Elder Signs over their breasts and offered up prayers to the Sun. They believed they were looking at demons, and they might not have been far wrong.
The party emerged onto a landing.
Torchlight revealed flecks of colour on the wall, tiny glittering parts of a great mosaic, made from gems and glass. Terves pried a stone loose with his dagger. “Glass,” he said in a tone somewhere between disgust and wonder.
Kormak inspected the mosaic. It depicted a towering six-limbed amphibian locked in conflict with a tentacled giant. Around their feet squid-faced humanoids battled a horde of Triturids in a number of settings; atop hexagonal ziggurats, in the churning waters of the sea, under the eaves of a great forest.
One mosaic depicted the tentacles of a gigantic monster erupting from the waves and smashing the walls of a city.
The images were all distorted, much broader and rounder than they should have been, as if produced by a being with sight that worked differently than a human’s. Colours were subtly wrong although that might have been just the light.
“Gods at war,” said Zamara, nodding at the mural.
“It must have been something like that,” said Frater Jonas. “The Old Ones devastated kingdoms with their conflicts. They unleashed powers that twisted the world, that slew immortals, that laid waste to continents.”
The monotonous drip, drip, drip continued. The air grew colder as it got moister. It was chilly in the depths of the pyramid in a way it had not been outside.
“What was this place?” Zamara asked. “The population of a small kingdom could live in here.”
“Perhaps it has no function we would understand,” Kormak said. “The Elder demons did not think like we do.”
“This was the biggest structure in the city, it seems fair to assume it was a palace or a god’s house,” said Jonas. He was speaking just to disagree, to find an outlet for his nervousness. Kormak had seen men bicker this way before.
Something rippled and flowed a long way below, reflecting their lights and lights from elsewhere. A smell of rot filled the air. There was an oily taste on his tongue he had come to associate with the presence of blight.
Memories of the great pyramid of Forghast flooded back, a structure constructed to channel magical energy according to the principles of geomancy. Perhaps this place followed the same principles. The captain and the priest still debated.
“We need to get moving again,” Kormak said. “If we are going to find the Kraken before he gets what he came here for.”
They reached the bottom of the ramp. It disappeared into blackish, stagnant water that
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