By: Bryant R. Haake, Honors College, Presidential Honors Student, English Major
The tower roof was conical, with most of the inner-section being made of the stained glass, while the outer rim was a ceramic-type material, easier to stand on. Jacob carefully walked over to the edge, looking down at the tower. It was too far of a drop to even the nearest or highest secondary structure for him to be okay with jumping. His tentacles also wouldn’t reach that low.
Jacob brought one of the tentacles around to examine it. The tentacles from his back weren’t any different from his normal tentacles, aside from being much larger and wider. He felt like he could only make around six due to their width, but that should be enough for what he was planning.
“Alright Georgie, hold tight,” Jacob said, pulling one foot back and bracing himself against the roof.
“Wait, what are you–AHHH!”
With a running start, Jacob leapt off the side of the roof. They spun in midair for a moment before he caught his bearings, latching the tentacles around the tower. Its circumference was just small enough for him to completely encircle it, latching each tentacle into each other like grasping hands, or hooks. After taking a moment to catch his breath, he began working each set of tentacles down, unlatching the top and bringing it to the bottom, then doing the next, and the next, slowly but surely.
Georgiana clung to his neck like a barnacle to the underbelly of a ship. He had his arms under her in a bridal carry, careful not to let her drop even a little. He could see the graveyard in the distance, mainly due to the huntress-like focus Georgiana had on the temple. He was pretty sure he knew what her plan was, seeing as what her gift was, but he wasn’t entirely sure how effective it would be. She’d only been able to control red shades in the past, and from what Jacob had seen, those had been the shades that were less-than-admirable in life, like the pirates aboard Captain Leafy’s vessel. How many in the city’s graveyard would be red, if any?
Soon, Jacob had lowered them enough for the guards to take notice. Arrows and spears began flying, most missing, but Jacob made sure those that did get close didn’t touch them. He summoned a tentacle from each of his forearms, using them to deflect the projectiles as they descended.
Finally, when they were close enough to another building, Jacob braced two of his back tentacles against the building and pushed off, flinging the other four around to catch their drop on a roof. Using the two on his forearms and the extra two from his back, Jacob began to fling any remaining guards away from them, careful not to push too hard, but enough to knock them over or just a few feet.
They made their way through the academy like a giant spider, tentacles suctioning onto every available surface and moving them forward faster than either of them could run. At a certain point, they ran out of buildings and had to move through the recovering guards on the ground, left in the wake of Crimson and Quirin.
“I guess Quirin was wrong,” Georgiana yelled over the commotion. “Ballena wasn’t at the front! Do you think that means we’ll have to contend with her at the end?”
“Aye,” Jacob said, “though I’m hoping we won’t have to fight her. She sounds like a powerful mage if what Quirin was sayin’s got any truth to it.”
Jacob wasn’t focused on that though. The guards ahead were recovering quickly, and they still had at least a hundred feet until they could reach the graveyard.
Quirin was battling guards near the gate while Crimson held the closing mechanism up, keeping it from closing fully, but it was evident that she was struggling despite her enhanced shark form. That, combined with the recovering guards, made Jacob nervous. However, there was one part of their stance that gave him hope.
“Georgie, I’m going to try something a little crazy if it’s okay with you.”
Georgiana nodded. “Whatever it is, I trust you. What’s the plan–? AAHHHH!”
“Quirin, catch!”
Just as he was about to barge into the biggest crowd of guards, Jacob tossed Georgiana into the air, caught her with his tentacles, then did a spin and threw her as far as he could at Quirin. He tried to keep her trajectory as close to the ground as he could to make sure she wouldn’t fall too far if Quirin hadn’t heard him, but he didn’t have time to worry about that.
The crowd of guards converged on him at once, swords and spears flashing in the moonlight. Jacob, now with his hands free, summoned as many tentacles as he could possibly grow, conjuring more than a dozen from his arms.
Pain splintered through him as the weapons clashed with his tentacles. He couldn’t fight them off, but there wasn’t much else he could do.
“Ren,” Jacob asked in a panic, “is there anything I can do to fight them off?”
Not something I can teach you in this very moment, but if you’ll allow me to take control for a moment–
“Yes, whatever you have to do, just–”
Before either of them could do anything, panicked yelling interrupted the battle. Jacob could feel some of the guards leaving him, but he couldn’t see what was going on. That is until a red glow began to emanate from under his shield of tentacles.
“Yes! She did it!”
With one final push, Jacob knocked his remaining assailants down, revealing a veritable army of red shades, led by a very pissed-off Georgiana.
Jacob ran over to meet her. “Georgie, how’d you get so many of–oof!”
Georgiana slugged him in the shoulder, not hard but enough for him to feel it.
“You threw me across a battlefield!”
Jacob rubbed his shoulder. It was sore, but he knew from the minor pain that she’d held back.
“I thought you said you trusted me!”
“I do, but not to throw me across… oh, whatever. We don’t have time for this, but don’t do that again unless I tell you to. C’mon.”
She grabbed his hand and began running back towards the gate. Jacob got over his shock and followed, keeping stride with her as well as he could.
Yeah, you did deserve that, Jacobson.
“I know,” Jacob sighed.
I mean, you threw her. You didn’t even explain what you were going to do.
“I know,” Jacob rolled his eyes.
Really Jacobson, it was quite–
“I get it, Ren!” Jacob could swear he saw Georgiana giggle.
Swarms of shades pooled around them, parting like a red sea before Georgiana’s command. None of them had weapons, though a few had pitchforks, rakes, and other gardening or household tools. It clearly wasn’t a force of fighters, but their numbers were enough to give them an edge against the likewise numerous guards.
Crimson was still holding up the gate when they arrived, but her face was almost purple now. Jacob wasn’t one for complicated mechanics, but even he was now able to notice there was a waterwheel running through a river nearby, and the gate was trying to close in on itself using that power.
Quirin wasn’t doing much better. His face was slack with exhaustion and something Jacob couldn’t place. He was lazily looking around at each of the shades, eyes avoiding their faces by a few inches each.
“How did you…” he muttered, trailing off before finishing his thought.
“I’m still figuring it out myself, but right now we need to go!” Georgiana said, barely slowing their momentum enough to grab the hem of Quirin’s cloak.
As the trio ran through the gate, Crimson finally gave one final heave and let the gate slam behind her, forcing any remaining guards from the Academy area to stay where they were. The guards began to shout for the gate to open, but Crimson took her cleaver and broke a section of gate near the top, bending it in a way so that if the gate were to try and open again, it would act as a doorstop.
There were less guards in the city proper, and the few that remained were easily batted away by Crimson or Jacob. Unfortunately, they eventually ran out of the area from which Georgiana could summon the shades anymore, but she still held their reins and was keeping them at work hindering the guards. At some point, Crimson picked up both Quirin and Georgiana, allowing her and Jacob to use their gifts to speed them all up.
“How are we going to get out of the city?” Jacob yelled over at the rest of his group, bounding across buildings and through the streets with his tentacles.
“I’ve got an idea for that, but we’ll need to be closer for it to have the most effect,” Quirin yelled back. “Just know that I’ll need someone to carry me when it happens. Look for the feathered mouse!”
“… What?” Crimson and Jacob said in response.
Georgiana, however, nodded and yelled back, “I get it. Let’s get to the wall!”
Jacob wanted to ask more, but he shook his head and kept going, trying to pick up the pace. Both he and Crimson were showing obvious signs of exhaustion, but there was only about a mile left. However, that didn’t mean they were out of obstacles.
“What did you do, Seraph!”
Ballena—multiple Ballenas—stood in their way as they rounded the next corner. There were at least as many Ballenas as there had been guards at the Academy, many of them lining the streets, tops of roofs, alleys, and every other space where they could fit. Each of them was dressed in the feather, mask, and garb of the original, and it would’ve been impossible to tell which was which if Jacob wasn’t sure the only one shouting at them was the actual Ballena.
Quirin cringed away from his friend. “Ballena, listen to me! It wasn’t our fault–”
“Shut it, Seraph!” Ballena yelled. “Don’t give me that. Dr. Cleary wouldn’t have called for your arrest if you didn’t do anything.” She choked on her words. “By the rules of Athens, you four have been labeled criminals to appear before a judge and jury of your peers. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to–”
Crimson didn’t wait for her to finish, and a split second later Jacob was right behind her, barreling through the copies. Many of them crumbled into a dust like burnt paper upon contacting any blow from either of them, while some of them towards the front kept going after being battered away. Jacob, from his elevated point of view, could see the ocean of copies still growing in the distance, each copy appearing in a burst of fire.
Jacob’s chest heaved with each breath, struggling to allow his lungs to take in air. His greater stamina apparently only affected the use of his tentacles, and he’d been doing enough physical labor with his own body to push himself over the edge. Crimson was doing even worse. Every movement was slow and lumbering, carrying enough force to complete the blow or step, but she was clearly slowed down from the ten or so miles they had just run in under twenty minutes.
“I’m sorry, Ballena,” Quirin said, taking out his book, “but if you won’t listen to us, then you’ve left me no choice. I know you’re out of sigils with this many duplicates, so good luck finding us today.”
With those final words, Quirin tore four sheets of paper from the back of his book and tapped each once, then threw each at Jacob, Georgiana, Crimson, and finally himself. Jacob felt himself change in an instant, limbs morphing into new, foreign shapes. He grew feathers instead of tentacles, a beak instead of a mouth, and wings instead of arms. When he tried to cry out in shock, his voice was laid over with the cawing of a crow. It was still his voice technically, but it was shrill and scratchy.
Having been midair when Quirin transformed him, he had to flap his new wings to course-correct his fall, finding the knowledge of flight already imprinted on his brain. He landed with as much grace as he could muster and took a moment to get his bearings before hopping on over to the edge of the roof.
Down on the street were two more birds, as well as a feathered mouse laying still, chest heaving slowly in the pattern of someone sleeping. The mouse was mostly just black fur, but it had a few scattered, small feathers here and there, as well as a mane of them around its neck like a lion.
The other two were a red and green hummingbird and a red hawk. The hummingbird was trying to pick up the mouse, wrapping its small talons around the mouse’s tail. The hawk was awkwardly lumbering around, but eventually squawked at the hummingbird and wrapped a single talon around the mouse, leaving the hummingbird to fly up and over to Jacob the Crow.
“Jacob, we’ve got to go!” the hummingbird exclaimed in a familiar voice, thin beak opening to let the words out without the need for human lips.
“… Georgie?”
“Yes, now come on!”
Georgiana flew off, trailing behind the red hawk, who Jacob now assumed was Crimson, stopping to hover at a certain point to wait for Jacob.
Jacob shook out his new feathers, noticing for the first time they were the same color as his tentacles, purple and shiny like they had just come from the sea. He flapped his wings experimentally and took off, wobbling a little before letting his bird instincts take over. He caught up to Georgiana and they began to follow behind Crimson, letting her take the lead as they soared to the top of the outer wall.
The flood of Ballena duplicates below them all scrambled to find some way of taking them down, but none of them has a way to do so. Eventually, the bird pirates left the city behind, only the wall showing any sort of sign that they’d ever been there.
The transformation wore off after another thirty or so minutes of flight. They got a bit of a lucky break and could feel the change happening slowly before they began to fall from the sky. The landing was bumpy, but no one suffered any injuries. They were able to rest for a few minutes, but Crimson eventually got them all up and going again.
“I don’t know how this town’s criminal-catching system works,” she explained as she slung the passed-out Quirin over her shoulder, “but I’ve been hunted down after doing something bad in many different towns before. I don’t wanna wait and see what they might try and do to us in that potential scenario. I know a place, so let’s go.”
Without the cart, it took them all significantly longer to traverse the plains. It took them days before in order to get to Athens, and their lack of mounts made Jacob nervous. If the city were to follow them, they wouldn’t be able to outrun them. He’d seen stables near the wall, as well as personally-owned horses in their own smaller stables speckled through the city.
Given the range of animals Quirin had turned people into so far, Jacob wouldn’t be surprised if he could turn them into horses. That sort of plan wouldn’t work until he woke up, though, and so Jacob went along with following Crimson.
The land wasn’t conducive to hiding, but eventually they got to a point where they all needed to sleep, no matter who was chasing them. Jacob offered to take the first watch, which his other two conscious mates agreed to. Despite the fact that Georgiana had done the least physical labor out of them all, Jacob was also the one best suited to keep going without sleep so long as he wasn’t doing anything else. Crimson wasn’t even close to being a viable option.
The other two fell asleep quickly upon making camp. They didn’t set up a fire for fear of being seen, making the night cold and dark. The only thing they did set out were bed rolls, which Crimson somehow still had despite leaving the cart behind. Jacob stayed deathly silent most of the time, only speaking very briefly at the beginning to ask Ren to tell him stories so he wouldn’t fall asleep, something he seemed more than happy to do.
Ren told Jacob about his time before being sealed, explaining the intricate dangers and treacherous terrain at the bottom of the sea, but also described its beauty. He told him about the other monsters, as well, though none of it was quite as intimate as what he’d previously told him about Scylla and Apophis, or even Jörmungandr.
He learned that Megalodon had once attacked a boat that belonged to Triton, the god of sailors, which had then made them bitter rivals. Nereus and Iris, the gods of treasure and rainbows respectively, had made a little land creature called a leprechaun that was said to guard gold using its prismatic magic, though that one sounded especially outlandish to Jacob.
About an hour before he knew he’d have to wake up, he decided to break his silence one more time to ask a specific question.
“Ren,” he whispered so quietly he wasn’t sure the Kraken could hear him, “I want to know something.”
Yes, Jacobson?
“You’ve mentioned before that you’re a god, but I thought you were a monster. What… are you, exactly? I know you said the difference between the gods and the monsters was… meat-a-four-ick-all, but I still don’t get it.”
Ren was silent for a moment. Several moments, really. An uncomfortable amount of moments.
Jacobson… I don’t know if you could understand the meaning behind what I could explain. Before you retort, I do not mean to insult you by saying this. As much as you clearly despise him, Dr. Cleary is one of the most intelligent mortals, possibly the most intelligent, and even he was barely able to grasp the meaning behind it. Nevertheless, I will try to explain.
The concepts of gods and monsters is something which you mortals made up, but it is also something we eventually adopted and made flesh. The concepts themselves, the division between gods and monsters, is not how we were originally known. We were all born as the same types of entities, and while the term “gods” may be the best mortal term to describe what we are, the closer definition is in the old tongue: ko’achag. There is no direct translation into the modern tongue for such a phrase, but the closest is that of powerful concepts. We all represented something, while also being the physical manifestation of that thing. Therefore, so long as that thing exists, even just conceptually or in memory, we cannot die.
I can sense your confusion, so let me explain it in this way. I am what would have been called the god of shipwrecks. Therefore, so long as shipwrecks still exist, I cannot die. If all of the shipwrecks in the world were to somehow disappear, I would still then continue to live so long as someone remembers what a shipwreck is, or so long as they tell stories about shipwrecks. It is where we gods get our immortality.
As for the terms, our strength comes from certain emotions which are tied to our concept, and eventually there grew to be a split between the emotions of you mortals which fueled our concepts. Some, like Neptune, Sobek, and even Davy Jones were all fueled by good emotions, usually either joy or wonder or excitement. The rest of us were fueled by anger, fear, and hatred. I am not evil, but mortals do not see shipwrecks in a good light if you can believe it. No, they fear them. They’re scared that they could happen to them, and that they could die. That is the difference. We are all the same, but you mortals… you have more power over this world than you know. You all were the ones to cause the split in our ranks.
Jacob stayed silent, not wanting to speak again for fear of being heard. Even after such an explanation, as Ren had warned, he was still confused. Still though, it made more sense now than it had before. What he could gather was that the gods and monsters were the same types of creatures, and they were only considered to be different because humans thought they were different. That was enough for him.
After another hour, Jacob shook Georgiana awake and without saying anything, climbed into bed. He still didn’t speak, but he tried to make it evident to Ren that he didn’t want any dreams tonight.
Crimson shook Jacob awake in the morning. A raven was sitting on her shoulder, staring down at Jacob with dark eyes.
“We’ve gotta go, squid kid,” Crimson said hurriedly.
“I did some scouting behind us,” the raven, who Jacob assumed was Quirin, said, “and the Athenian militia is following us. They’ve lost our track, but they’re close enough to make me worry, and the worst part is they’ve brought the dogs. That’ll be a problem if Ballena is doing what I think she’s doing.”
Jacob nodded and quickly packed up his bed roll, giving it back to Crimson for her to put away wherever she was keeping them. Quirin eventually turned back into a human and began to flip through his glyph book again, simultaneously drawing on a sheet. By the time he finished, he’d drawn two sigils, tied together by intricate lines and curves.
“I’ve only got enough in me for two sigils today, and I’d rather not risk passing out again from using a fourth, so this is going to have to work. Who wants to be my guinea pig?”
Crimson instantly volunteered, striking Jacob as odd given her distaste for sigilurgy, but there was no time for questions. Quirin nodded at her and set the sigil down on her forearm, letting it glow for a second before fully activating it in a burst of light. When Jacob’s vision cleared, Crimson had changed. She was now something completely new that Jacob hadn’t seen before. It was like a combination between a shark and a lion, all rolled into one creature. She had powerful-looking legs covered in grey fur, sandpaper-like grey skin, and the disposition of a cocky wasp.
That last part may have just been Crimson.
“Climb on,” Crimson the Sharklion said in a lower, raspy voice.
They all conceded and climbed onto her back. Jacob grew a few tentacles from his back and latched them around her stomach, using them to keep him in place, and upon suggestion from Georgiana, did the same to her and Quirin.
Crimson set off in a sprint, moving faster than anything Jacob had ever rode before. The land moved by in a blur, rocks and olive trees mixing into a single monotone grey-green-brown. The sky above didn’t move with them, but Crimson jostled them so much that it might as well have been spinning in the opposite direction.
It took hours, but eventually the sea began to sprawl out before them. Jacob could smell it before he saw it, and he was instantly put at ease from the saltiness in the air. It smelled like home to him, a place where he could be free from anyone chasing them.
“Crimson, this isn’t Wisdom Cove!” Georgiana shouted over the pounding of Crimson’s feet. Her voice was strained, like she was keeping her teeth closed so as to not bite off her tongue.
“That’s because we’re not headed to Wisdom Cove,” Crimson shouted back.
“Wisdom cove will be covered in guards by this point,” Quirin explained, “and they often hire mercenaries like myself to guard their sister ports. I don’t want to come to blows with any other sigilurgists if I can help it.”
“Well then, where are we?” Jacob asked.
Before he could get an answer, Crimson leapt off the cliffside and into the water, shouting at everyone to hold on. They splashed into the briny water and surfaced a moment later, faces stinging from the impact with the ocean. Instead of continuing out to sea, though, Quirin ended the transfiguration on Crimson, allowing her to become her normal giant shark form. Upon changing her form once again, she shot back in the direction they had come from, into the open mouth of a cave.
Crimson cackled as they swam, passing by ships of all sizes, toting along jolly rogers and all manners of other flags. Eventually the cave opened into a cavern, at the middle of which sat a bustling, floating town, held in place by beams, chains, and other architectural items.
“Welcome to the Owl Den, everyone, home of the–”
Jacob interrupted. “Is that the Forsaken!?”