By: Bryant R. Haake, Honors College, Presidential Honors Student, English Major
Crimson stared from Dr. Cleary, to Jacob, back to Dr. Cleary, and back to Jacob again. Jacob had locked eyes with Dr. Cleary as soon as he asked his question.
How is my old friend Kraken doing in that skull of yours?
The words echoed through Jacob’s mind. He hadn’t told anyone about that aside from Georgiana. How did this man know?
“Aight, Imma need an explanation from someone here,” Crimson complained, “and I’m gonna need it quick. What in the Rivers is he talking about, squid kid?”
Jacob didn’t turn his gaze, refusing to say anything. Dr. Cleary, however, smiled and turned to look at Crimson.
“Why, that’s simple. I meant exactly as I said. Your little friend here, the fabled Destroyer of Seas, is a special type of Stoneheart known as a vessel. He’s got the voice of Kraken in his head, and those tentacles aren’t the limit of his gift, either.”
See how he says my name, Jacobson? Ren asked smugly. It’s not hard to get it right. It’s a name, not a title.
Crimson looked dumbfounded, for once without words. Quirin was also staring at Jacob, but his gaze was filled with more interest than any actual confusion. Georgiana was red in the face and trying to hide behind her hands. Jacob noticed Dr. Cleary glance at her and shot him a look that clearly said, If you do that, I’ll shove my tentacles so far down your throat you’ll be having calamari as your last five meals.
Despite the obvious threat, Dr. Cleary’s smile widened. “Of course, he’s not the only special one. There’s also–”
Jacob’s tentacles lashed out on instinct, wrapping around the old man’s throat. Dr. Cleary’s smile didn’t disappear, but his eyes went dark. Jacob pulled him across the table and stared into them; they were like a cat’s eyes, and probably had been at some point. They had that sort of reflective property, and the pupils were dilated, focused intensely on Jacob.
“Tch tch tch,” Dr. Cleary chided. “Now you’ve given me a reason to act. I’ll give you one chance, Jacobson–” the wrong name echoed in Jacob’s brain, “–to release me now, or else I’ll kill you and your friends.”
Jacob gritted his teeth, not moving for a moment, only staring into Dr. Cleary’s eyes. Jacob couldn’t see anything, no emotion of any kind, but he knew the look behind them was older than the eyes themselves. Not only that, but deep behind the reflection, he thought he could see a small pinprick of light, like a single orb not allowed to see the sun. It glowed with its own power, reminding Jacob of an inverse of Captain Vexx’s eyes when he used his gift.
Jacob slowly backed away, releasing the grip of his tentacles. Dr. Cleary reached up with a meaty, pure-black hand and rubbed his throat. He smiled—he hadn’t stopped smiling—and nodded.
“Thank you, Jacobson. Now, as I was saying–”
“I have Apophis in my head,” Georgiana blurted out before Dr. Cleary could say anything.
All eyes went to her this time. Jacob caught her eye and gave her a nod, trying to convey his sympathy. She nodded back sheepishly, not seeming to enjoy the attention any more than Jacob had.
“Why in the Rivers have you two been keeping this from us?” Crimson asked, her voice uncharacteristically calm despite the severity of her language.
“Why in the Rivers do you think?” Jacob retorted. “Would you have believed us if we told you instead of an educated immortal?”
“There you go with your assumptions again,” Crimson gumbled, but didn’t try to rebuke him.
“Grandson, you’ve been quiet,” Dr. Cleary said gleefully. “Don’t you have anything to say?”
“Don’t call me that,” Quirin growled. “And anything I’ve got to say, I can say to them later.”
Despite his words, Quirin’s face wasn’t angry. It was still curious, but had gained a level of contemplation. He kept glancing between Jacob and Georgiana, one hand fidgeting with his spell book while the other turned his mask in circles. He almost dropped it a few times, but caught it by the straps, the whole motion seeming to be fairly absentminded.
Dr. Cleary didn’t seem to notice the motion or his expression. Instead he nodded and patted the back of his chair, fluffing the pillowy surface before sitting back again.
“Well, that concludes the questions I’m allowing from you all. Now, it’s story time.”
This oughta be good, Ren sighed. Be ready for a long talk, Jacobson.
“You all may have noticed by now that Jacobson here has a target on his back. I am unwilling to grant you all the information behind who is running the whole operation, or even what they call themselves–”
“Probably because he doesn’t know and just wants to sound smart and mysterious,” Quirin grumbled.
“–but I can offer some helpful insights into their reasons,” Dr. Cleary finished.
“You mean the prophecy?” Jacob asked, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Yeah, that’s some great idea, but I don’t care.”
“Then why seek me out?” Dr. Cleary asked with a sly smile.
Jacob didn’t have an answer.
“Not to worry, you four, prophecies aren’t what you think. There’s no long stanzas of rhymes and cryptic messages. More often, they come in the form of dreams to prophets, or visions if they’re awake. This specific prophecy was given by a prophet from before even I was born, though not too long before,” he chuckled. “I knew the woman well, and lived in the same town for a few years. I only know this all because I was there when she was telling people. ‘Tis one of the perks of being old.
“The prophecy she saw was one that terrified her, and fascinated me. She said she saw figures emerging from a cave. The first was a man sailing on a ship of his own, no crew to be seen. One was a chimera with sigils flickering around his tail.” Dr. Cleary smiled wickedly as he described that scene. “Everything after that was a monster or god being ridden by a mortal. Each of their names was shouted out as they rode, but she only revealed to her audience the name of the final boy, riding atop the conceptual fear of shipwrecks himself, Kraken. In the old tongue, his name was Chalif S’ara, which translates in the common tongue to Jacob Tempest.”
“I have no last name,” Jacob interjected as soon as Dr. Cleary ended his sentence. “I’m not the man in the prophecy. I have no last name,” he repeated again.
“Jacobson, are you incompetent?” Dr. Cleary asked with a hard smile.
This time it was Georgiana who lashed out, drawing the rapier she had taken off the kidnapper and pointing it at Dr. Cleary, not getting close but making her gesture clear.
“Take that back,” she said with venom. “Jacob isn’t incompetent.”
Dr. Cleary eyed the tip of the blade with a frown.
“We can’t continue to have a civil conversation if you keep threatening me, children.”
“No,” Crimson interrupted, teeth growing on her knuckles, “we can’t have a civil conversation if you keep insulting my crew. Only I get to do that.”
Dr. Cleary threw up his hands. “My apologies. I will refrain from inadvertently insulting you all. However Jacob, you are the man in the prophecy. Think about it. You’re an orphan, and so you never knew your last name. How your crew found out about your first name is a mystery, even to me. However, I do have my own ways of finding information. Your full name is indeed Jacob Tempest.”
Jacob furrowed his brow. “Okay, so? That doesn’t mean I’m the only person that could ever have that name.”
Jacobson, you can’t seriously be denying this right now.
Jacob shook his head, but felt a weight in his gut. He never had believed in prophecies, but he couldn’t deny how similar that sounded. The man in the prophecy had a name that was most likely his, and he had been riding on Kraken. There may not have been many pieces of evidence, but the quality of what he had far outweighed the lack of quantity.
“How did you know I was the vessel or whatever for Pep– I mean Apophis?” Georgiana demanded.
“I didn’t until you revealed that information,” the old man grinned. “I merely made an educated guess from what my informants at Wisdom Cove told me they saw on your ship. Controlling the red spirits of the dead. What a truly remarkable ability, young woman. In fact, I think–”
“Let’s cut past all of that, grandfather,” Quirin interrupted, slamming a hand on the table. “Why did you let us in here so easily? There’s no way the man I’ve heard so much about would just let us in.”
Dr. Cleary sighed. “Fine, fine. Enough about this free information I’m offering you all, I guess. No time for the old man being nice. The truth is, I’ve been offered quite the sum of money for my college here if I’m able to capture anyone from the prophecy. So, imagine how excited I was when I realized not one, but two of them waltzed into my city, free for the taking.”
The old man’s cold, wrinkled smile sent shivers down Jacob’s spine.
I am… sorry to hear this, Jacobson, Ren said in his head. He was always a shrewd man, but I never thought he would go to this extent for something as simple as monetary gain.
“Yeah, he seemed like such a nice guy at first,” Jacob responded with a roll of his eyes.
“So what,” Quirin started, “are we meant to fight you now? I am more than ready to–”
“No, you’re not,” Dr. Cleary said. “You are nowhere near powerful enough to fight me, even if you all did so at once. However, I am not without humor, and it does get boring up here all alone with no one but Circe’s odd visit. Therefore, I am giving you all a chance. You are not to escape from me.”
As he spoke, a loud tower bell began ringing in the distance. Jacob could just barely hear the panicked yelling of students below, and the slamming of doors. Perhaps a protocol for them to go back into their dorms?
“You will be escaping from my city.”
Dr. Cleary had promised not to do anything himself, and they could stay in his tower as long as they wanted, but in exchange the longer they stayed, the longer the guards had to prepare for an attack.
Quirin had immediately tried lunging for his grandfather, causing Jacob and Crimson to hold him back. He had tried reaching for his gun, but Georgiana had taken that. It took some time, but they had been able to convince him to calm down.
Jacob and Georgiana still sat at the table, silently contemplating what they should do. Quirin was also sat at the table, but he seemed more preoccupied with staring daggers at his grandfather, who was now at his own work table reading from a large tome and every so often writing a sentence or two in his own notebook.
The only one moving was Crimson. She was pacing circles around the table, muttering to herself. She’d sometimes turn to say something, but would stop herself and go back to pacing and muttering.
They’d been going like this for an hour. Jacob sighed and sat back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. The sky was beginning to darken as the sun dipped beyond the horizon, bathing the clouds with a burnt orange and dark blue light. Jacob wished there weren’t any clouds. He liked the stars out on the ocean, but he’d never been able to see them this far inland before.
Jacobson…
“What is it, Ren?” Jacob didn’t bother whispering this time. He got a strange look from Crimson, but she ultimately dismissed him.
I just wanted to apologize for putting you in this situation. I really didn’t know…
“I really don’t care right now, Ren,” Jacob sighed. “I really don’t even know what to think of you still. You’re older than humanity. You’ve told me things about you and the rest of your pantheon that no human could even guess to be true. Rivers, you’ve given me more information about our supposed ‘history’ than any history book could ever tell me, even if I could read. And yet, I still don’t know if I can trust you.”
I… that is understandable, Jacobson. I will leave you alone.
Jacob pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut with frustration.
“That’s not what I meant, Ren! I just… how can I even trust you? It’s hard to do that without actually seeing you, ya know?”
Jacob didn’t hear a reply, but he got a sense of understanding, as well as a twinge of… sadness? He didn’t even know Ren could feel that way.
“I’ve got it!” Crimson yelled out of nowhere. “I know how we is getting out of here!”
Georgiana and Jacob looked up at her expectantly, Quirin breaking his stare to do the same.
“Keep it down please,” Dr. Cleary said from across the room, the acoustics carrying his quiet voice. “I am trying to work over here.”
“Shut your elephant-skinned fish trap, Aldus,” Quirin snapped. He’d also recently—in the past thirty minutes—gotten into the habit of calling his grandfather by his first name. It was one of the few things that seemed to genuinely bother the old man, and Quirin seemed to have realized that.
Crimson pointed up. “We go through the glass ceiling. Dr. Animals over there only said we couldn’t hurt him if we wanted to keep his deal. He never said anything about damaging his property.”
Georgiana shook her head. “That would make us criminals, though.”
“We’re already criminals, sweet cheeks, because this son of a sea serpent,” she jabbed a finger at Dr. Cleary, “called the cops on us for no reason. So, what’s it going to be? Submit to whoever he’s wanting to turn us over to so that you two can get killed and angeldust and I can… I don’t know, be their slaves or something? Maybe they’d just kill us, too. Who knows!”
Georgiana opened her mouth as if to say something, but nothing came out. Jacob smiled at her.
“Don’t worry, being a pirate isn’t actually that difficult. At least, I assume it isn’t.”
“Nah, being a pirate isn’t all bad, you three,” Crimson chimed in. “It’s like being a privateer, except instead of just running from and hunting down other pirates, you’re also against the law! Easy and fun if I do said so myself.”
Georgiana didn’t look as if that idea seemed very fun to her, but she nodded slowly anyways.
“I guess I’m kind of resigned to this at this point, aren’t I?”
“Yup!” Crimson said. “You’re stuck with us.”
Georgiana muttered something under her breath that sounded vaguely obscene, but she was smiling anyway. Jacob smiled at her, then looked at Crimson.
“Okay, what’s the plan?”
Crimson grinned, sharp teeth presenting themselves. “We’re gonna have to split up, at least at first. Angeldust, what’s the general number of the town guards who have your whole magic schtick?”
Quirin frowned. “There’s probably a few, but the only one that’s of any consequence is the one you’ve all already met.”
“You mean Ballena?” Georgiana asked. “Will she be against us though? She didn’t seem that mean or anything.”
“She’s not mean,” Quirin explained, “but she is still the captain of the guard. That means she’ll be either holding the gate or right on the front lines depending on what kind of situation they rule this as. My guess is it’ll be the latter.”
“Alright then,” Crimson nodded, “what do we need to look out for when it comes to her?”
“Not a whole lot in theory,” Quirin said, earning a snort from Dr. Cleary, “but in practice, that argument falls apart. Two of her sigils are purely for reconnaissance. It’s her third one we need to look out for.”
“Okay, so what is it?” The tapping of Crimson’s foot echoed slightly through the room.
Quirin took out his book and started quickly flipping through pages. He spoke as he did so, finally pointing to a sigil that looked like three triangles fit into three different circles, all intersecting at slightly off points, as he was still speaking.
“I am honestly a little jealous of this sigil and hope I can find it one day, though there’s almost a zero percent chance that shall happen. Her most powerful sigil, and one of the most powerful I’ve actually been able to encounter and not just read about, is the Duplicate sigil.”
He flipped to the next page, displaying a well-drawn full-body image of Ballena. Two of the same drawings intersected her body, offset to either side in a similar manner to the sigil.
“This allows her to create an exact duplicate of anything she casts the spell on, including people. Like me, she is only able to create three a day, but each of them has their own sigils and can use them three times a day. They’re more fragile than she is, and they are mindless drones that act exactly as she dictates, but that doesn’t make them any less dangerous. They also can’t duplicate her, but can duplicate themselves and each other, meaning each consecutive duplicate is weaker than the last. That does give her a limit, but–”
“How do you know so much about her magic?” Jacob interrupted.
“Oh, well… uh.” Quirin blushed. “We… we used to study together.”
Jacob smiled in that crooked way that looked mean but was meant otherwise.
“Anyways,” Quirin said, “what are we waiting for here? Let’s destroy my grandfather’s tower!”
“Wait, you were serious about that?” asked Dr. Cleary, finally looking up in a panic. “I thought it was a–”
“Sorry, can’t hear you, ya big disappointment!” Crimson yelled over the doctor. In one motion, she removed her remaining cleaver from her back and threw it at the ceiling. The glass exploded with a crash, letting in more moonlight. The windows must have been stained.
As the cleaver fell back down, Crimson grabbed it, already having assumed her giant shark-human hybrid form. She grabbed Quirin and leaped up and out of the tower, the exhilarated screams of the mage falling behind with his plummet. The building shook as they fell, scraping along the side of the colorful brick and mortar.
Jacob held out a hand to Georgiana. “May I?”
“You may, Jakey,” Georgiana replied, putting her hand in his. Jacob swooped her off her feet and thought for a moment.
“Tentacles from my back, huh, Ren?”
Without waiting for an answer, four tentacles, stronger and thicker than the ones from his arms, sprouted from his back, working their way under his shirt and out into the open air. Jacob flexed his back muscles briefly, feeling the tentacles move with him.
“This is… weird,” he muttered. “Time to try it out.”
With a thrust against the ground, Jacob and Georgiana shot into the air, nearly losing their balance as they did so. While they didn’t quite go high enough for them to reach the ceiling, Jacob was able to latch two tentacles to the walls and hoist them up. As they emerged from the tower room, the city sprawled out before them. Under normal circumstances—as normal as one could get from standing atop a tower that was normally inaccessible to the public, especially the roof—the city might’ve been beautiful. Instead, all they could see were rows and rows of guards littering the floor, the inner wall, and even some rooftops. They were all dressed in that same armor from before, and most of them had spears or bows of some kind. A few carried long swords that looked better suited for cavalry fighting, or metal nets.
Unfortunately for them all, Crimson didn’t seem to care much about what weapons and armor they had. She had replaced her cleaver on her back and was running straight through the middle of the roads, tossing guards left and right as spears and arrows bounced off her tough hide. Quirin, who had replaced his mask at some point, clung to her back, gun in hand but not firing. The one arm he was using to hold himself in place could barely fit around half her neck, and he constantly looked to be in danger of falling.
“We’re not going to have the same luxury of rushing through the crowds like that,” Jacob noted. “Any ideas, Georgie?”
Georgiana scanned the city, snake-like eyes glinting with light from the full moon. With a green flash and a quick smirk, she nodded.
“I think so. Get me to the graveyard.”