The eye-holes stared! Then its jaw dropped down. BY ITSELF?
Hamar’s eyes raced up the foot of something tall that was standing in the shadows right behind the helmet!
‘IT!‘
A GIANT GOAT-HEADED MAN!
– with a grey mane and with four horns branching out from his head!
Hamar stared! It peered at him down its snout, – but not really a goat’s head! It had fangs bared in a snarl!
And then he saw its eyes and face were lifeless. Flat grey.
Stone! A statue.
Hamar breathed out hard, his heart hammering and his kneecaps jumping.
Its head was the size of a barrel. He was riveted by the statue’s slanted eyes, its evilly-pleasured smile, driven back by it but unable to look away from it!
He gritted his jaw and forced himself to consider how high its tallest horns were, and he was shaken to see that the dome now soared above them both. In fact the dome was now visible and was grander and higher than the ceiling of Marduk’s temple!
His eyes sped down the walls. All along the sides were tall pillars made of fat coils, and the walls impossibly stretched way beyond the sides of the house.
It was majestic. Awesome. A place of majic!
The carpet twitched under his toes. He instinctively jumped away from any trapped scorpion or snake.
His eyes shot back to the statue, – had the statue tilted its head? – from the corner of his eye, a slight move maybe? He saw that it hadn’t moved, that of course it hadn’t!
BANG, – the door slammed shut!
Dark!
The carpet DROPPED!
HE DROPPED, THE CARPET’S SIDES COLLAPSING ONTO HIM LIKE A CLOSING FIST!
High above him the goat-headed god stayed behind,
leering.
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