The two put their hands on their hearts and each took one end to open the box together and see the contents that could change their fate and that of the entire ship.
But the fate of the damned was not so easy to change, inside the box one could find 4 rotten human heads. All the heads had a hole in it through which the brain was removed. The ears, noses, eyes, and tongues of all the heads seemed to have been bitten off.
"This must have been Lucas' doing, right?" Ricardo asked, somewhat uncomfortable because his hopes were completely extinguished with the opening of this box.
"They all have the symbols of Poseidon on their foreheads…" Taras said, gathering strength to speak each word, he seemed to be thinking of something as he looked at the boxes.
Ricardo proceeded to grab one of the heads for a better inspection, but the hand was snatched up by Taras before touching the heads.
"Could they be cursed?" Ricardo asked when he saw the strange attitude of Taras.
"I doubt it, but look how they were placed, they all point to the same direction..." Taras said, trying to discover the clues of the ritual.
"West... Where the sun hides, the path of the dead to the spiritual world and the nameless throne" Ricardo said how little he knew from the rumors of the island about him.
"A farewell to the deceased or is he looking at the throne?... could it be something else, I don't know much, you were a fisherman for many years, Taras, do you know what it could mean?" Richard asked.
"Yes, the nameless throne is a play on words, the nameless king is the living god who currently rules the seas and the throne is the one that places him as the ruler of the seas, that is, the throne of Atlantis " . Taras answered, while he inspected the box and the heads.
"Lucas is a follower of Poseidon because of the symbols on the foreheads of the heads and on Paulo's body, so putting the symbol facing the Throne may be an offense to the current King... Or it could be something else, such as considering Poseidon as the King looking at his throne, but that would be weird..." Taras said with doubts of his words, if he had the skills to fuck the ritual, he could get the obsession out of his head, but playing with gods was never something that a sane would.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Ricardo looked at Taras with some doubt about his words and asked:
"Why would it be weird? … It is logical for us to see your god as the king, in my family we treat Venus as the queen of the stars …"
"They are different things, the stars have no throne, Atlantis exists in the world of the living, or so they say, Poseidon was assassinated a long time ago, I do not know practically any humanoid who currently considers him king …"
"Poseidon is the first of the Galleon and also the most ignored, nobody worships a god who does not serve, who does not listen, that makes it even more strange..." Taras said, looking with many questions at the heads in the boxes and Paul's body.
"They are useless? Are they like the treacherous human gods? The ones who were expelled from the Pantheon?" Ricardo asked, trying to associate him with a cult that he did know.
"Yes, it's the same... No matter how much ritual you do to Poseidon, he should just ignore you, but this time he heard or at least 'something' I hear for him... Because what is happening on this ship is not normal, of Paulo's body is not normal and this head is not normal either..." Taras said, now grabbing a sailor's head and looking at it more closely with attention.
"Boy, do you remember this face…?" Taras asked with doubts in his heart.
"It's complicated, if I'm honest, it's very difficult to recognize any of these 4 dead, they're missing their eyes, ears, nose, and they're rotting." Ricardo said, with great sorrow.
Ricardo knew that Taras had the spirit of a fisherman, for which he was quite unsociable and lonely, if it were not for the fact that his life is now at stake, he would never have gotten along so well with many sailors on the ship.
Therefore, for the young cabin boy, if he could not identify the head, it would be difficult for a lone wolf like Taras to do so, he only remembered a few officers by name even though they had traveled for years together, in fact with Ricardo himself it was the same.
He knew that Taras called him boy, young man, boy, it was because he had trouble remembering his name and when he did, it was because he was struck by a spark or because he filed his brain looking for it.
"It sounds familiar to me... his head is not as rotten as the rest, and it's cold, that's the strangest thing" Taras said looking at the head in his hand
"Do you think it's Marco who died last night...? But if so, Lucas is still alive!" Ricardo asked with some doubt.
"I know, that's why I want to know who he was... But if he died yesterday, he wouldn't be so cold" Taras said trying to remember Marco's face.
"It could have been the ritual" Ricardo said asking Taras for her head, with her head in his hand he began to impress her, he looked everywhere, he even opened his mouth to see her teeth trying to recognize something.
"Hey, look, he has a piece of paper in his mouth!" Said Ricardo, happy to advance the investigation.
"It must be the wish of the ritual, what did Lucas ask of Poseidon?" Taras asked expectantly.