CARNACKI: The New Adventures Read Online Free

stone chest, giving the carvings there the impression of swirling movement. And I felt it again —the tug in my mind, the call to the dance in the deeps.
    “My defenc es held; I had no compulsion to answer that call, and was able to watch, almost rationally, as black ooze seeped from the bottom corner of the box and spilled across the planks of the hold floor.
    “Stout chap though he was, Gault gasped and took an involuntary step backward. I only just stopped him from stepping on the lines denoting the innermost circle.
    “‘Don’t move, old man,’ I said, even as the black ooze spread in a fan towards us. ‘If you break the circle now, we might both be dead . . . or worse . . . in seconds.’
    “He nodded and pulled himself together, although I saw fresh doubt in his eyes as the ooze came within inches of our protection. The pentacle’s valves flared, lighting the whole length of the hull. I heard the sound of waves crashing on some distant shore, a noise that was taken up and amplified, crashing and echoing around us, filling the hold with all the operatic fury of an open sea gale.
    “I called to mind a Babylonian binding ritual. As ever, I knew it was the rhythm of the thing rather than the words themselves that were of import. As I chanted, the valves flared and dimmed in time.
    “‘The priest of EA am I, The priest of Damkina am I.
    The messenger of Marduk am I, My spell is the spell of EA.
    By the magic of the word of EA, And Marduk, son of Eridu,
    Let the Incarnation of Oannes of the Deeps never be unloosed.’”
    Of course you all know from our association over the years that I don’t hold with the notion of gods or demons. I know for a fact that all are just manifestations of denizens of the Outer Dark. Our less enlightened forebears knew no such thing . . . but they did know the efficacy of the correct sequence of sounds. And that was what I was banking on now. The chant was old, once of the oldest ever inscribed by the hand of man.
    “And it seemed to work— at first. The ooze stopped its spread, even retreated somewhat in the face of my chanting. But as I brought the verse to an end, the blackness crept forward and the roar of the sea began to assert itself once more. The tug in my mind, the call to the dance, got stronger, more insistent.
    “‘Follow my lead,’ I said to Gault, and launched into the chant again, putting more into it this time, raising my voice to a shout. The first time round I was on my own, and although I once again stopped the ooze in its tracks and caused the noises and rage of the storm to abate, I did not do enough to banish them entirely. But when I started from the beginning the next time round, Gault’s strong baritone joined me, and our combined voices ec hoed and rang the length and breadth of the hold. The black ooze retreated.
    “Then it started to fight back. I felt it first in my head, a rushing, tearing, sensation, like a retreating surf tu mbling pebbles across a rocky shore. The noise in the hold, where our chant fought against a resurgent roar of a gale, became deafening. The hull began to roll and yaw, port then starboard, then back again, as if the boat itself were now being tossed in that selfsame gale.
    “Gault’s chant faltered. The boat seemed to surge b elow us, and a fresh roll almost knocked us both from our feet.
    “‘She’s broken her moorings,’ he shouted, struggling to make himself heard above the roar and cacophony that surrounded us. ‘I have to get up top.’
    “If I wanted to stop him, I would need to stop my own chant, and I felt the beast in my head, waiting for the opportunity to pounce. I could not relax, could not prevent Gault as he carefully stepped out of the circle and headed at a run for the stairs.
    “I was left alone in the hold, and the ravenin g beast was stronger than ever.
    *
    “The black oozed surged across the deck, heading after Gault. I did the only thing I could think of on the spur of the moment that might