By: Bryant R. Haake, Honors College, Presidential Honors Student, English Major
Preface
From now on (Chapter 12 and onward), the titles will no longer be named after famous quotes, as I wish to create my own chapter names in order to fully recognize the content of each chapter. I only started doing the previous chapter titles because I was expecting a bit more of a serious tone from this book, and there will still be plenty of serious content, but the current and ongoing tone is much lighter than I had anticipated, a welcome change from my expectations, but one I must account for. The previous titles will also be changed in the official release of my book for sure.
- Bryant Haake
Chapter 12: An Angel’s Arrival
“All hands on deck!” Crimson yelled over the crashing waves. “Sweet cheeks, get the Crimson Crew ready for more giant waves! Squidy, we’ve gotta reef the sails; they’re gonna rip to shreds if they stay up.”
“Aye aye!” Jacob confirmed.
He swung himself around the main mast, untying the ropes holding the sails to the boom. The seas fought back against him, but this weather wasn’t anything new. All manner of sailors had to contend with “Cthulhu’s Yawn” every now and then, though he’d hoped they wouldn’t have to deal with one on Georgiana’s first excursion. His first time as a small child had been terrifying, though each successive time was much less so to the point where he was basically numb to the fear at this point. Most ships were built with them in mind, implementing genius ways for water to escape from the boat without sinking it, as well as release mechanisms for the sails.
Jacob finished taking down the sail and summoned a few more tentacles to assist him in moving the large canvas below deck. By the time he had resurfaced, Georgiana had taken the shade reins back and was manually controlling the actions of some of the shades. Crimson held her by the shoulders and directed her commands. The ship was rocking terribly, but no worse than the Forsaken ever had under such mighty winds and waves.
With nothing left to do, Jacob sidled up to Georgiana and Crimson and put a hand on each of their shoulders, a daunting task for the shortest crew member. He then wrapped a tentacle around each of their arms and then used the suction cups on a third, larger tentacle to stick them all to the boat, keeping them in place as Georgiana commanded her shades.
The storm lasted for hours, during which the trio barely moved at all. Ren took the time to tell stories, mainly tall-tales he’d made up for himself in his years of entrapment. Jacob did try to focus on them for the first half hour or so, but eventually the whistling wind, crashing waves, and roaring thunder drowned them out, leaving Ren to enjoy his stories by himself.
Something he was able to notice through the storm was the intense glow Georgiana’s eyes shone over the deck. Despite their usual amber coloration, the light coming from them was red like the shades, though brighter than they were by a longshot. The more effort she seemed to put into directly controlling their actions, the brighter her eyes seemed to glow.
Captain Vexx’s eyes had done something similar when he used his powers, which had given him the nickname “Sunspot” among the crew, which eventually spread to a few other people as it was used more regularly. Jacob started matching and mixing words together to create something similar for Georgiana, more to distract himself from the storm and staring at her than for any other reason.
Eventually the storm began to die down, letting out a long, continuous sighing noise as they exited its reach. That sound is what gave those storms their name. Jacob released Georgiana and Crimson and detached himself from the deck. Georgiana told the shades to continue their course to Wisdom Cove and released their reins, letting both her and Crimson off the hook.
The rain was still coming down, but the worst of the storm had passed, leaving only dark clouds and the sting of drops on their heads. One of the benefits of the ghost crew was that they didn’t complain, nor were they at all affected by the rain and wind.
Jacob slung himself up to the crow’s nest, taking a spyglass he’d found in the captain’s quarters with him. He extended it and put it to his eye, seeing nothing to their sides but a small blip at the edge of his vision looking forward.
“We’re almost there!” he yelled through the storm. “Stay on course and we’ll be there before nightfall… whenever that is,” he finished, looking at the darkened sky.
Georgiana nodded up at him and yelled the same to Crimson, who popped her head back out from the kitchen and grinned.
“Finally,” she exclaimed. “And to think I was worried we’d run into some more monsters or sum’ with our luck! You two must be lucky charms, or I’m just that good of a captain.” She laughed heartily and ducked back into the kitchen, and the sound of her knife hitting the cutting board began to cut through the thunder and lightning.
Jacob began working to reattach the sail, threading the ropes into the right places to hold it tight. He didn’t unfurl it due to the rain and winds, which would still make it difficult to keep the ship on track, but at the very least they wouldn’t damage it anymore if it was furled. The lack of wind power made their journey frustratingly slow, even with the Crimson Crew working tirelessly to keep them on track.
The darkened day droned on for hours more, most of which Jacob spent in the crow’s nest. Every now and then he would pop up to check how close they were to the port, a practice he’d seen Deighly do dozens of times. Being older than even the Captain gave Deighly some leeway on the ship to do a few less laboring tasks, especially when they knew they were closing in on whatever their destination had been, and so he’d stayed up in his perch most of the time, keeping his one good eye out for land or danger, whichever came first.
Jacob knew someone had to watch out for danger here, as well. The sea was a dangerous place, made even more so by the monster attacks. While not every monster was one of the Monsters of legend, like Kraken and Apophis, they’d bred plenty of offspring and made many beasts to fear. Some were thought to possibly be even worse than some of the original monsters, though Jacob personally thought those stories may just be wild fisherman’s tales.
The closer they got to land, the more uneasy Jacob became. They’d so far traveled without incident aside from the storm, and he could remember very few times in his career on the ocean where the Forsaken hadn’t encountered at least some small bit of monstrous trouble on the seas. Heilyn had suspected it may even be because of Jacob and Captain Vexx, as if their gifts somehow had always drawn monsters to them, though he had very little evidence for such an occurrence.
The ship was roughly 500 yards out from shore now, approaching slowly but surely. Georgiana climbed up the mast and squeezed into the crow’s nest next to Jacob, steadying herself on the bucket’s railing. She had blankets wrapped around her arms, unfurling them to wrap around them. The blankets soaked through quickly, but it wasn’t a bad feeling to Jacob, almost like sleeping underwater, and not in the deadly way.
As they crept another few inches towards the port, something rocked the boat more than a simple wave. Jacob, steadying himself against the crow’s nest, peered over the edge of the boat. Something darted through the water below, just barely disappearing into the deeper waters before he could get a good look at it.
“Crimson, Georgie, we’ve got company!” he yelled, slinging himself from his perch.
“Aye, no kiddin’, kiddo,” Crimson yelled back, staggering at the helm she’d taken from one of the shades. “Sweet cheeks, get yer’ shades ready for a fight. Shoulda known we wouldn’t get a fully calm trip. Can ye see what’s at us, squido?”
The boat rocked again, giving Jacob a slightly clearer look at their assailant.
“It’s a serpent of some type. Can’t tell which one, though! Too deep right now.”
Crimson surrendered the helm back to the shades and drew two large cleavers from scabbards at her hips, an odd but topical weapon for someone like her.
“Whatever it is, it won’t be pretty. Watch out fer-”
“There it is!” Georgiana called out as she carefully glanced over the side of the boat.
The boat rocked again, and Georgiana just barely stayed aboard thanks to the help of her shades. Jacob quickly ran to the side and glanced over to get a better look. He kept missing the head, but from down here he could see multicolored scales glistening like a rainbow only a few yards below the surface. He cursed.
“It’s a blasted tiamat,” he muttered, then yelled louder for Crimson to hear.
“Argh, shoulda known,” she yelled back.
The waves roared up behind her. The sky darkened as the tiamat rose up to challenge them. Its eyes were pure black, complementing the pure black scales which spread around its eyes before merging back with the rainbow of other colors, glistening. Electricity sparked at its maw as it unhinged its jaw to let out an ear-shattering hiss.
Hmmm, a monster not created by one of the monsters. Ren tsked. How ironic that it would find you two.
Jacob ignored that interesting bit of information and instead yelled, “How do we beat this thing?”
Crimson’s muscles bulged as she once more grew twice her size, her answer given in a roar as she jumped from the ship onto the monster’s back.
“I’ll distract this thing while you two get to port,” she yelled over the sound of its thrashing. “It can’t kill me, so go!”
It absolutely can kill her, Ren added. So yes, absolutely go.
Jacob stared up at the tiamat, then to Crimson, then to Georgiana, who was staring intently at the tiamat as well, hands fidgeting with her alchemy bag. Without warning, he flung himself up the mast, using his tentacles to then slingshot himself off the boat and up onto the serpent’s head.
“Jacob,” Georgiana yelled, “you idiot, at least take me with you!” She glanced around for a moment and began to bark orders to her shades.
Jacob turned his full attention to the snake. It was hard to keep his footing due to the slippery scales, but not too terribly difficult to find handholds. He began to fling tentacles around the beast’s mouth, creating reins of sorts through the gummy inner mouth. The tiamat’s two front fangs sparked, sending jolts of energy through its saliva and into his tentacles, nearly causing him to lose his grip from the pain.
Crimson finished her climb and grabbed onto his tentacles, using her strength to jerk the beast’s head back. It hissed in protest and went to dive before an icy explosion turned the water below it into a large iceberg.
The tiamat hissed again, looking back towards the coast. A man stood on the dock, now roughly 200 yards away, holding a rifle and quickly trying to reload it. The serpent tried to move, but the ice had frozen its side to the hull of the ship, locking it in place.
Crimson took the opportunity to leap from the back of its head onto its long, narrow snout, digging in a cleaver while slashing at the thing’s eye with the other. The tiamat was thrashing furiously, but seemed to only grow irritated. Its eye was bleeding, but aside from the small cuts and bruises, it was doing fine.
Suddenly a cannon shot rang through the air, the loud BOOM ringing in Jacob’s ears. then another, and another. Five total shots flew from the ship, three actually impacting the tiamat. Jacob could see a red glow emanating from the gunports.
The tiamat thrashed in anger, this time throwing both Jacob and Crimson off, the latter losing grip of one of her cleavers in the process. They splashed into the water below with a loud crack, knocking the wind from Jacob. Instinctively he gasped for air, filling his throat with water as he coughed to no avail.
Crimson fared much better, turning almost her entire body into a reddish, larger-than-life black-tipped shark more than twice her size. Only the hand holding the last cleaver remained, sticking out gruesomely from a partially transfigured, arm-thick fin.
Crimson swam quickly over to Jacob and grabbed his shirt with her teeth, careful not to cut into his skin, and dragged him back to the surface. He breached the water and began to cough furiously, vomiting water back into the sea.
The tiamat paid little attention to the two of them, finally wrenching itself from the ice and diving back underwater. Jacob could see through bleary eyes that it was heading for the man onshore. The man was nearly done loading his rifle again, but Jacob could tell he wouldn’t finish by the time the tiamat reached him.
As Jacob tried to regain his composure, the tiamat did just that, lurching back up above the water and leering down onto the man, fangs bared. The man dropped his rifle and slung a pistol from his waist instead. Despite the distance between them, Jacob could somehow see a glowing light-blue circle made up of different shapes and rings appear in front of the barrel, circle and bend before finally releasing a loud BOOOOM that rocked the ship and hurt his ears.
The bullet impacted the tiamat, sending it flying back into the water with a shockwave of sound. The tiamat did not rise back up, instead groggily slithering back through the shallows out to its home in the depths once more.
Jacob slung himself back to the deck of the ship and looked at the dock, but the man had disappeared. Instead he hurried below deck, passing multitudes of shades. He pushed into the room which held a line of cannons and there, standing amongst clouds of smoke with gunpowder stained on her skin and dress, stood Georgiana, smiling widely.
“Did you see that, Jakey?” she asked giddily. “I got them to use the cannons. We drove back that serpent!”
Jacob nodded and pulled her into a hug. Ren goaded him on in his head, but Jacob ignored the Kraken, instead grabbing Georgiana by the hands.
“Are you okay? Did anything happen to you?”
“Nope, I’m fine!” she nodded. “Are you okay though? I saw you fall into the water. It looked like it hurt.”
“Aye, I’m okay. Knocked the bloody winds outta my lungs, but I’m fine. Saved by the man on shore, whoever he was.”
“Who?”
“You didn’t see him?” Jacob asked, surprised. “He just fired at the damned tiamat, blasting it with ice and thunder n’ all that.”
Georgiana looked at him in confusion, not asking any questions for the moment and instead nodding slowly. Jacob was glad she didn’t ask, because he didn’t have an answer for how that man could do what he could do. There weren’t any gifts he could think of which would allow him to augment his weapons with elemental effects such as thunder and ice; ice wasn’t exactly a very common thing in nature anymore nonetheless. There wasn’t a god or goddess, or even a monster, which had anything to do with the stuff.
The duo met back up on deck just as Crimson was pulling herself back on board, cursing like a… well, like a sailor.
“Is… everything okay, Crimson?” Georgiana asked.
“The damned thing took my bloody cleaver!” she screamed in outrage. “It’s still stuck on its nose!”
She flopped onto the deck and scrambled to her feet, throwing down her other cleaver and heading back towards the side of the boat.
“I’m gonna go get that thing back if it kills me!”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” chided a voice from behind them.
All three turned to see a raven resting on the side of the ship. It cocked its head at them and nodded.
“Yes, I said that,” the raven cooed with an open beak, as if merely repeating something it had heard. “I can talk, and I really don’t think you should do that. The tiamat is one of the more fearsome creatures plaguing our port as of late, so much so that even I struggle against its might. The storms it brings are a real pain, as well.”
“Jacob,” Georgiana started hesitantly, “the bird… is talking, right?”
“Aye, Georgie, I think it is.”
“Oh, for River’s sake-” the bird huffed. “Fine, but you have to take me back after this. I can’t do any more sigilurgy today!”
The raven hopped down onto deck and with a flash of light transformed into the cloaked man from the dock. An intricate silver mask covered his entire face, displaying images across the sides like many eyes, all of which surrounded the actual eye holes. The nose curved into a small raven’s beak, and the frowning mouth was carved as if it were made of feathers. The only part of his face which was visible were the multicolored eyes peering at them through the slits. The hood covering the rest of his head was black, but had a pair of intricate gold-and-silver wings on either side.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” the man said with a deep, theatrical bow and flourish of his black cloak. “My name is Seraph, master of sigilurgy, entertainer to the downtrodden, and protector of this port for as long as they pay me, or until I decide to leave. And you all are…?”
“I’m Captain Crimson,” Crimson said after a moment, “and this is my crew, squido and sweet cheeks.”
“Georgiana and Jacob,” Georgiana added in helpfully as Jacob rolled his eyes. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Are you the man who saved us from the tiamat?”
“That I am, little miss!” Seraph proclaimed, voice betraying the hidden joyous emotions behind his mask.. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard of me before? I’m fairly new to the business of course, but I’ve some great deeds under my feet.”
All three shook their heads, and Jacob could swear the mask looked sadder.
“Well then, I must reintroduce myself in that case!” Seraph proclaimed once more. “Mortals know me as the Angel of Life, monsters as the Angel of Death. To some, a hero, and to others, an outlawed criminal bounty hunter. To all, however, I shall be the world’s most famous of entertainers, a savior to all, even those who despise me! If not, then my name isn’t Seraph!”
Seraph bowed deeply, earning some polite clapping from Georgiana and Jacob. Crimson crossed her arms.
“Thanks for the help back there, but I had that, feathers. So, thanks, but no thanks.”
“Oh, but you certainly did not have that,” Seraph retorted. “In fact, I’m fairly certain you would’ve died had I not intervened, so for that you are welcome!”
Crimson scoffed but didn’t argue.
“Well, we best be back off to port!” Seraph persuaded. “As I said, you’re my ride back since you made me de-transform. No more sigilurgy today, I’m afraid. I’m much too tired of it now. Three in a row is certainly a difficult feat!”
Georgiana nodded and pulled on the reins, giving the order to pull into port.
“So,” she asked, “what exactly is sigilurgy? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“It’s a bunch of shark jerky is what it is,” Crimson interjected. “It’s even more rare to find a sigil than it is to find Krakenstone or Neptune’s Gold, so what’s the point?”
“Well, that it is,” Seraph said jovially, “though it does get a bit easier after the first time. You see, sigils have to choose you, and when one sigil chooses you, and you begin to show real skill with it, more sigils will be inclined to choose you, as well. It’s rather simple, really.”
“No, it’s not,” Crimson said. “It’s a hack form of magic that just happens to be a bit flashier than most gifts we mortals can get. It doesn’t make it more powerful or better or more special or any of that malarkey.”
“A point of which she is correct!” Seraph added, still seemingly oblivious to Crimson’s mocking and harsh tone.
“What do you mean a sigil chooses you?” Jacob asked, not giving any attention to the fact they were almost docked already.
“Well, sigils have a sort of sentience to them is what I’ve been told,” Seraph explained, “and my own research seems to back it up. It’s not like they’re going to talk to you or anything, but once you can only encounter one by it choosing to reveal itself, a process which normally takes quite a bit of effort and research to show one’s devotion to the craft.” The boat rocked as it came to a stop, jerking them all a little with the rough landing. “Ah, but it seems I am out of time for now to explain my craft. More later if you are in town for very long. Meanwhile, might I welcome you to our cozy little town of Wisdom Cove!”