Fortunately, the canyon soon opened out and they left the squawking birds behind, stepping into a large chamber lit only by shafts of weak sunlight that made it through the cracked ceiling. It was man-made, clearly, though it looked far more ancient even than the fort at which they’d encountered Simeon.
Huge square panels coated the walls, each adorned with a single symbol, while four braziers marked the corners of a raised stone dais at the far end of the room.
The centerpiece of the whole chamber, however, had to be a large, bowl-like shape forged from bronze and suspended near the ceiling. It was filled with a fine golden powder, and the stopper wedged at its lowest point suggested that, should someone give the dangling rope a good tug, its contents would swiftly pour out and into a small aperture below.
“Tumbling sands, indeed,” Faizel remarked. “Though I see nothing to suggest a light or a shadow. Do you think we are perhaps supposed to wait until nightfall?”
“Not a chance,” Adelheid said, firmly. “Not when there could be more pirates on the way.” She reached past Faizel, grabbed the rope connected to the bowl’s huge cork, and yanked on it as hard as she could.
As the first grains of sand tumbled through the air and vanished into the darkness, the chamber seemed to transform itself around them. The wall panels, which had previously been little more than unremarkable slabs of stone, began to shine brightly with a number of luminous symbols. Larinna moved swiftly to the center of the chamber along with the others, trying to take it all in as the hiss of the pouring sand intensified. A mountain. A tree. Some sort of lizard. A swirl that could be anything.
Faizel had moved to a stand by a panel with a crown on it, tracing his fingers across the glowing shape to discover that it moved beneath his fingers. He pushed experimentally, and the stone recessed into the wall only to slide back into place the instant he relieved the pressure.
Larinna kept searching the walls, cursing Adelheid’s impatience. Already, the sand had dipped below the rim of the bowl and they were no closer to understanding the meaning of the riddle. If they ran out of time here, she suspected there’d be no second chances. Their quest would come to an abrupt end, and they’d be sailing home shamefaced and empty-handed.
A bird, a wave, a flower, she thought desperately. An eye, a sun, a skull . . . wait.
“I think I’ve got it,” she called, vaulting over the dais to stand by the panel that bore the sun’s likeness. “This symbolizes light, right?” She pushed against the stone, feeling it slide back into the wall with a satisfying click. “Now what about shadow?”
Now it was Adelheid’s turn to stare around at the walls as the last of the sand began to trickle away. Finally, she spotted what she was looking for—a circle divided by a curving crescent, which she could only hope symbolized the moon to whoever had devised this strange test. She lunged across the chamber, almost tripping, and her hands struck the panel just as the last grains of sand dropped out of sight.
All at once, the symbols winked out, and the stone was nothing but stone once more. Larinna didn’t dare speak, let alone move her hands away from the panel she was pushing against. Had they been too late? Was their answer even correct?
There were four low pops, and the braziers around the central dais came to life one by one, their flames precisely matching the colored symbols. Only then did the dais itself begin to glow with the same bright lines as they’d seen on the panels, only far more intricate. Sweeping curves wrapped around complicated squiggles etched in stone, while wavy lines forked and forked again before disappearing.
“It’s a map!” Faizel exclaimed, triumphantly. “A map of this island! Hah! How much more elegant than a piece of parchment! Have you ever seen anything like this, Adelheid?” He began to trace his fingers over the lines and contours, scrutinizing the dais intently.
“Never,” she admitted, “but then this is no mere treasure box we’re going after. This is Athena’s Fortune! It makes sense that it would be well protected.”
“And possibly well guarded,” Faizel mused. “What does the riddle say?”
Adelheid blinked, clearly having forgotten the parchment in her possession. New words were already forming, and she spread the parchment so they could all read the newly added verse.
A fallen titan lies alone
Glory waits upon her throne
To reach the sanctum will require
A gift to match his heart’s desire.
No sooner had Adelheid finished reading this out loud than the images upon the dais began to fade, growing dimmer and dimmer until the detailed map was quite unreadable. Finally, even the braziers snuffed themselves out, and the chamber was quiet and still once more, perhaps forever.
“Wonderful,” said Adelheid, bitterly. “Now we’ll have to scour the entire island, and who knows how many more hidden passages this place has in store?”
“Scour? I think not,” Faizel replied, a mischievous grin on his face. “I shall lead the way, yes?”
“You worked out the riddle already?” Larinna asked, dubiously, dusting off her hands and settling in at the rear of the group. Faizel would not be drawn as to their next destination, however, clearly enjoying being in charge for once. Larinna felt tempted to shake an explanation out of him, given how serious their situation was, but Adelheid seemed content to let him have his fun.
They passed back through the gully of slumbering seagulls and emerged from the cave atop the rocky hillside. They couldn’t see any new sails on the horizon and dared to hope that the other ships might finally have given up their pursuit of the Unforgiven and her crew. But they kept a wary lookout just to be safe having come too far and sacrificed too much to let complacency prove their undoing.
They followed the coastline for a full hour under Faizel’s direction, edging along rocky outcroppings and hopping nimbly from stone to stone to cross a frothing river rapid. Finally, the pathway opened out onto a vast plateau, and the sight was nothing short of breathtaking. Ten enormous statues rose before them, easily over a hundred feet high, carved from the same glassy rock that formed the island’s shores. Each was of a human figure, some male, some female, and each was seated in a high-backed chair with an expression of stern, blank-eyed benevolence on its face.
“Are they kings and queens?” Larinna asked. She had learned very little about royalty growing up. Anyone who might have arrived on her home island wearing a big gold crown and declaring they were in charge would have soon been sent on their way again, only without the crown and whatever else they’d arrived with.
She had to admit that the enormous statues resembled what she’d imagine a king or a queen to look like, though. Even the statue at the far end of the line, which had toppled from its perch at some point in the long distant past, had an untarnished nobility about its weather-worn features. “Wait, this is the fallen titan, isn’t it, Faizel?”
“I should say so, yes!” Faizel clapped his hands expectantly. “And how impressive she is! I would say that they look like gods and goddesses, myself, but I suppose it doesn’t matter one way or the other.” They were standing in the shadow of the statue now. It rose like a high cliff overhead, huge enough that they could have lit a campfire in her palm.
“Athena was a Goddess . . .” Adelheid mused. “But you’re right, Faizel. What was the second line? Something about glory upon the throne?”
One by one, they looked up at the gigantic monument on which the statue had once been seated—a vast lump of rock that rose imposingly into the sky. They made a complete circuit, hoping to find some handholds or other means of purchase, but the edifice was as smooth as glass, sheer and unclimbable.
“We could try the cannon trick again,” Larinna said doubtfully, but Adelheid shook her head. “There’s no way to get the Unforgiven close enough, and even if we could, it’d be like firing you at a wall—funny but wasteful.” She smirked at Larinna’s expression, and added, “Maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way. What if this is about width rather
than height?” To illustrate her point, she stood in the gap between the base of the throne and the cracked torso of the statue and spread her arms out wide.
Faizel clearly understood what their captain was implying, for his eyebrows shot up in surprise. “I know that you have always been the most nimble of us all, Adelheid, but this strikes me as foolhardy even by your unparalleled standards of recklessness. Surely you have not forgotten that unfortunate incident at Devil’s Ridge?”
“Nor have I forgotten that you still owe me five gold pieces,” Adelheid snapped. “I can do this. I’m probably the only one who can do this, unless any of you has a better idea.” She looked from one to the other as if challenging them to speak up, then began to fiddle with the buckles of her coat. Once divested of her heavy outer garments, her feathered hat, and anything else that might weigh her down, Adelheid seemed suddenly a lot smaller and quite a lot younger.
She gave a sardonic bow, for pirates never curtsied, and turned to face the statue. “Be nice to me, lady,” she told it sternly, then stepped right up toward the huge face and began to climb. The statue’s carving, not to mention its collapse, had left a series of small cracks and grooves here and there. Adelheid used these to ascend, wedging her stockinged toes into gaps and clinging stubbornly to the stone with numb fingers. It was slow going, even so, and at one point she had to reverse her course and seek a different route when a promising handhold crumbled away.
At last, she stood atop the statue’s shoulder and took the opportunity for a brief rest, waving merrily down at her crew far below before setting off once again, tracing the outline of one immense limb. Larinna and the others kept pace with her on the ground, losing sight of the distant figure from time to time as it was obscured by a curve of the arm or a sharp fold of the great stone cloak.
Finally, Adelheid reached the point where the body of the broken statue came to an abrupt halt, leaving empty air between her and the throne’s enormous seat. The wind whipped at her hair as she assessed the distance. It can’t be more than ten feet or so, she told herself crossly. You’ve managed that before. You can make this easily. It’s definitely possible. Definitely probable, anyway. Maybe. And a little scary. But everyone’s watching . . .
“Oh, what the hell,” she muttered, and leapt.
There hadn’t been space for much of a run-up, but a life spent leaping about the rigging, bounding between ships during raids, and outrunning anyone who might want their money back had served Adelheid well. Even so, her outstretched fingers were barely able to grasp the ledge that formed the seat of the throne, and she struggled to keep her purchase on the smooth stone as her legs scrabbled.
Inch by inch, muscles screaming in protest, she brought her hands farther and farther onto safe ground, then her forearms, and finally she hauled herself to safety, rolling onto her back and offering silent thanks as she stared up at the reddening sky.
“You alive, Captain?” Ned’s voice echoed up, and Adelheid peered over the side of the throne at the distant figures, giving another wave before clambering to her feet and looking around. There wasn’t much to see, for the plateau was largely featureless save for some sort of raised plinth tucked away in the corner. She ambled over for a closer look, rubbing her fingers to work the feeling back.
It reminded her of the ship’s capstan, and as she got closer she could see that it turned in much the same way. Bracing herself, as the rock beneath her was slippery, she began to spin the contraption clockwise, wondering if anything would happen and how she’d know when it did. She found perspective suddenly shifting, for each turn seemed to lower her down into the stone . . .
Larinna, who was leaning against the base of the throne far below, jumped and spun around as the monument suddenly came to life beneath her shoulders. An imperceptible crack was beginning to widen in what had seemed like a featureless surface, and an entire section of the throne’s base was retracting, swinging open by degrees as Adelheid worked the mechanism far above.
Before long, a wide entranceway revealed itself, and light flared as the pirates peered into the darkness. It was Adelheid’s lantern, for she was perched atop the capstan inside, the mechanism having descended fully into the throne. “Miss me?” she asked glibly, before insisting that they wait for her while she retrieved and replaced her clothing and accoutrements. “Better,” she admitted, adjusting her hat. “Now I feel like a pirate again.”
The passageway beneath the huge throne descended sharply, with flight after flight of stairs spiraling around a treacherous gap. Faizel could not resist dropping a stone down into the shaft, counting the seconds in a low voice and waiting for the echo to come. It didn’t.
They took each step cautiously, for a few were beginning to crumble, and the deeper they went, the more perilous their route became. Before long they were being forced to take exaggerated strides over gaps in the stairway, and finally small leaps to get from step to step.
They were all very grateful when the stairs finally came to an end and another passageway beckoned, for it seemed far more navigable and they were already exhausted. They moved through the gloom for only a few hundred yards, however, before they came across the door.
It was sturdy, made from two huge slabs of carved stone covered from floor to ceiling in yet more markings. It was ornate, with a pattern of diamonds around a large golden key with a hole in its center. And it was, much as Ned heaved and strained against it in an effort to force the stones apart, most definitely locked.
“What now?” Adelheid asked, impatiently. “There has to be some way through, now that we’ve come all this way. Another puzzle, perhaps?” She traced her fingers across the metal of the key shape as if she could somehow force her brain to comprehend it.
Faizel, who had been studying the door for a long while, coughed. “I cannot say for sure, of course, but take a step back. Does the design not seem at all familiar to you?”
Adelheid did as she was asked, pursing her lips and looking for all the world like she was assessing a piece of fine art. “I suppose,” she said slowly. “It looks similar to the crest of the Gold Hoarders. Not that that helps us in any way.”
Larinna had no clue who the Gold Hoarders were, though she vaguely remembered hearing their name mentioned once before, but that didn’t matter. She was running the final lines of the riddle over and over in her mind. Finally, she stepped forward. “Does anyone have any money?”
Adelheid gave her a strange look. “No, because it’s all on the other side of that door,” she snapped, then her expression grew curious. “What are you up to now?”
“I just need a coin,” Larinna persisted. “You mean to say we haven’t got a single gold piece between us?” Looking at the shame-faced expressions of the others, she sighed deeply and reached into her own pockets, finding only a handful of coppers left over from her trade with Wilbur. It felt like a lifetime ago.
Sighing, she sank to the floor and began to tug at her boot, feeling the familiar weight of her last gold piece in its usual resting spot, and tugged it free from between her toes. She held it up for a moment, inspecting it somewhat sadly, before moving forward and placing it in the hole at the very center of the key. This has to work, she thought. What else would be a gold hoarder’s desire?
To her relief, the coin seemed to do the trick. The two stone slabs slid slowly apart with a deep grinding noise, startling a few beetles and revealing yet another passageway. No more words of wisdom from Simeon appeared on the parchment this time, though they stared at it intently. It seemed as though their journey had reached its end.
“Well now,” Adelheid said finally, folding up the parchment for the final time and drawing her sword. “This is where things get exciting.”
RAMSEY
Every pirate knew about krakens. More precisely, every pirate knew another pirate who knew another pirate who swore they’d had a close encounter with one. The descriptions varied wildly depending on the story and who was doing the telling of it, but a few things wer
e always the same.
Krakens were huge behemoths, made even larger by the mass of writhing, squid-like tentacles that surrounded their bodies, with great maws that gaped open at the end of each tentacle. Krakens were ferocious, seeking out passing vessels and the tasty morsels that crewed them in order to drag them down into the deep and feast. Krakens were patient; they would lie in wait for weeks or even months and sleep for so long, incautious sailors would often mistake them for small islands.
For all that Ramsey knew about krakens, and that included sailing his ship through the bones of Old Mother, seeing a living, breathing specimen was like nothing he’d ever imagined. It reared up out of the water, casting its long shadow over the shops and stalls that clustered around the dock. While the beast was only a fraction of the size of Old Mother, whose beak would have been enough to swallow a ship whole, it was still far larger than any of the ships it seemed to be sizing up.
Probably deciding how it wants to tackle the menu, Ramsey thought grimly. He bounded up the gangplank with Mercia in his wake and was gratified to see Rathbone and Shan already loading the cannons. There was no use attempting to outrun the creature, not when the wind was so unpredictable. Besides, if they fled, the beast would surely turn its attention to the outpost, raining down destruction on the boardwalks and buildings and leaving the place in utter ruin. Given how many people Ramsey had invited here tonight, he knew he had to stay and fight—at least, long enough for everyone else to get away.
And if I win, he thought grimly, I’ll hang its skull from my wall. As soon as I’ve built a big enough wall, that is.
Sea of Thieves Page 19
