The waters were just as warm and welcoming as last time. The same dark blue and purple mix that my gemstone now shared. I was treading water in the center of this large whirlpool, the source of it coming from the kraken spirit that once belonged to Rhea. Its arms swirling around in a calm but powerful way, the waters were nothing more than a plaything to her. Her one large eye locked onto me once more, her form looking weaker and smaller. Something told me this was the last time that we would be speaking.
However she would always be with me.
That I was sure of.
“Do you want to see?” She asked, I didn’t even hesitate before she cupped me in between two of her large suckers and dragged me into the eye of this storm.
Into the heart of another storm. Although I knew it was Rhea, I could feel every movement of her arms. Every time she punched and kicked, how her feet would slip, threatening to send her tumbling overboard. Her hair washed over her eyes, pain filled her stomach. Her gaze grew weaker and weaker as she looked out at the figure who was walking towards her. I recognized her as the woman that had started all of this, the woman that had gotten Rhea and father Adonis in so much trouble. The woman that was not dressed in her regal gown like before, no she was wearing tight pants, dark brown in color, maybe lighter but were soaked from the storm. She had on what looked to be light brown armor, water running down the front. In either hand she held a dangerous looking whip.
“Why are you doing this!” Rhea snapped but then rolled to left barely dodging the whips that came her way. Her feet slipped on the waterlogged wood of this familiar ship. “Stop this madness Kalliope!”
The woman in question smirked as she walked towards me once more. Her feet never slipped as if the wet ship didn’t even affect her. “I am doing what needs to be done you little fool. After all, your father thought he was clever. Clever till his death.” Rage filled Rhea as she ran in towards her, but this woman was the better fighter. She ducked Rhea’s and in a moment had her tied in her whip, like a spider wrapping her prey. She wrapped us up tight and held the whip tightly around Rhea’s neck. “Last chance, either you stop this foolishness, tell me what I know. Take the flogging that is gonna happen from running from Sparta like a coward, or I kill you know and raid this ship.”
Rhea looked up at this evilly smiling woman and then lifted her head proud. “You will not win this war, not in this lifetime or the next.” That was all she before my vision twisted around, as Kalliope snapped Rhea’s neck like it was made of plastic. A heard a rumbling sound as the ship began to crack apart and then I saw this kraken spirit in all of its might. My vision shifted to her’s as this large spirit animal wasted little time in bringing her tentacles down. Not aiming for Kalliope but choosing to destroy this ship instead. Kalliope jumped onto another ship and let out a roar of fury as this kraken spirit dragged this ship under the waters. Her voice much louder than the thunder, sharper than the lighting.
“Hear me daughter of the damned. I will guard this wreckage until the end of time if I have to. You will never get what was meant to stay broken, not until I am long dead and gone.” That was the last thing I saw before I was brought back into the whirlpool. Even in water I felt tears running down my face, blocking my vision. I flouted in front of this large and ancient kraken spirit. “She knew of her death, but knew of the consequences that would happen if she had me kill that monster of a woman. She made me stay away as she fought and told me on that day if she fell and couldn’t escape in time. That I was to sink this boat and stay here to guard against anyone that could use this place for evil.”
“You didn’t guard against me?”
“Because you shared part of me.” She swam forward a bit more, much smaller so she was the same height as me. The whirlpool around us came to a stop, giving us back the calm waters and the tight hug like pressure that I loved. “I thought it was not possible for another kraken spirit to be reborn while I still draw power. I felt the day that your spirit summoned a kraken spirit or was gifted it. I knew one day that you would come and set me free. To carry the mantle and finish what me and Rhea had started.”
“Do you know what we are supposed to be doing?” I asked.
“We never looked at our father’s research, he never let us but we took a peek at what we were being sent to take away. The tower of babel, built for glory but then turned to pride, shattered and dragged away from each other to keep the peace. A weapon was used to help build it and then later taken from them by the Behemoth. His last mission was to drag and destroy the continents to spread the people across the earth. What you are looking for is no longer in Greece, what key to all of this information is in Egypt. Head to the red sea, and you will find the key you need to enter a temple made from the broken stones of the tower. Find the weapon of burden, and either keep it in safe hands or destroy it once and for all. Do not let our enemies that still live through time get their hands on it.”
“W-Why me?” I asked. I had spoken such a big game the last time I saw Helena. A vow to kill her for these actions of her present and sins of her past bloodline. However, that was all just talk built on anger, now that I am calm. I knew that it was just talk and I couldn’t truly do that. “You don’t know me, you don’t know whose shoulders you are putting this all on.”
“I know you more than you think, Xaiver Xhosa.” I looked up in surprise as she knew my true name, the last name I had gotten rid of after I lost Sarah. “And I need you, to remember what your name means, and stop letting one great failure define who you are.”
“You are choosing wrong, I am not bright or a leader anymore.”
“Remember your name, and why it was given to you. I did not pick wrong,” two of her suckers came to wrest on my temple. “This is all I ask of you, Xaiver Xhosa. Do me proud, you hold one of the two uncrowned beasts of the seas. You didn’t get it by chance, you got it because you earned it.” Those were the last words she spoke before she faded away into the water.
As my eyes started to flutter open once more, my gemstone that was resting on the table beside me pulsed and returned my originally dark blue color. She was gone, and she had given me something to handle and in her stead. I let out a sigh as I grabbed my gemstone and rested it against my head. “Did you see all of that too, Oscar?”
“I did,” he answered softly.
“What do you want to do?”
“What do YOU want to do?” He questioned right back. “I know what you want to do my brother, you don’t want to do this cause you are afraid to fail in doing it. That you aren’t gonna live up to these new expectations of you.”
A sad chuckle escaped my mouth as I nodded. “Yeah you know me better than she did I think.”
“I know the person you choose to be, she knows the man that you are supposed to be.” His words stung a bit more and I didn’t like the bit of pride that filled me with hope. “We owe it to her to end this, to make sure her hundreds of years of loneliness aren’t in vain.” Oscar appeared out of his gemstone and hovered in front of me. Two of his arms crossed over his chest. “So the way I see it, you have two choices, keep running or stand up and fight. You were chosen for this team on an equal footing to everyone here, not just to protect our little sister back home. Stop letting one failure keep you from doing good already.”
I closed my eyes and let out a breath from my nose. “It’s not as easy as you seem to think it is.”
“I know, but it is not as hard as you keep making it, so let’s compromise and meet in the middle.” He came to rest on my upper chest. “We are already here, there is no turning back. So let’s at least try to win, instead of accepting defeat.”
Before I could respond to that, the door to my hospital room opened up, revealing Daniel once more. By the look of things he had changed out of his clothes that he had been stuck in since we came here. Now clad in a pair of white jeans and a white shirt that somehow made his hair look darker in comparison. He came inside with a bag and placed it on my bed. “How are you doing?” He asked, taking a seat beside me. In the soft light of the lamp beside me, I could see how tired the boy looked yet he didn’t show it that much. Dark bags surrounded his eyes, his dark red jepei aura not looking anywhere near as strong as normal.
I frowned a bit at this scene as I knew he was using amplification to keep himself awake. He was blessed with amazing control of upper levels of that technique but seemed to not care about the side effects of overusing those techniques. Using our jepei to amplify our body was a gift and a curse, arguably the strongest of the three basic techniques that jepei users used both in combat and in our normal lives. Amplification could strengthen our body, speed up healing, keep us awake, it was like taking caffeine pills or even steroids in some cases. However, with those rewards came risks, you could break your arm if you used too much in it. You could blow out a lung or even your heart if you used too much amplification. You could shatter your leg, and with what he was doing. He could, (and he might), get a sickness that comes from using the technique too much, one that drains your jepei more and makes you sick just from using it as your own body's white blood cells start to fight against the jepei, and start to win against it.
So I moved over in my hospital bed, to make enough room for one other person. “Come on, get over here.” I said firmly.
“Why on earth would I do that?” He questioned with a raised eyebrow.
“Because you have not been sleeping in nearly two days now and the less you sleep the more you use amplification, and the more you do that, the more you risk getting sick.” I reached out and grabbed his hand pulling him closer to me.
“I don’t need to sleep, someone needs to stay awake right now to make sure we are okay.” He grunted trying to hold his ground against me, but the boy was terribly skinny. Most of his shirts while being the right size always looked baggy on him.
I pulled him closer but not into my bed instead I glared up at him, summoning a firmness I only saved for Sarah every once in a while. “Shut up and listen to me!” Daniel's anger turned to shock, probably not expecting me to treat him like this. “Stop trying to be so strong right now, stop acting like you are the only one that needs to suffer. Stop hurting yourself over something that isn’t your fault. Stop slowly walking towards death and just accept life already. As long as you are here with me, I am gonna let you keep slowly killing yourself. So either you can climb in this bed and get some much needed sleep, or I am gonna knock you out so you can sleep that way.”
Daniel stared at me once more and then all of that tenseness in shoulders seemed to fade away, His arm feeling more like a wet noodle, as he seemed to lower his guard and now I could see just how tired he was. “It’s not easy for me to sleep.”
“You're wrong, my annoying little friend..” I smiled up at him. “It is not easy to do it on your own, stop trying and let me help you.” I made a bit more wrong as Daniel willingly climbed ito this bed with me. Really glad that this place had pretty big hospital beds. He was smaller than he looked, the last time I had held him he had been cutting his wrist with a rock. “It’s okay, I am okay and Thalia is gonna be okay.”
There was a quiver in his voice, “How can you be so sure?”
“Let’s just say I have something called faith.” I answered. “Not in myself but in someone much stronger.”
I don’t know why I kept forgetting that so much. I’m not doing this alone, so maybe if I stopped focusing on the failures I had when I was young and alone. Maybe I could finally live up to my last name.
Xhosa.
Leader.
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When I started to wake up that morning. I could hear muffled laughter and softs shushes. “Do not for the love of God wake them up yet.” Olive’s voice was the first one I had heard. My eyes began to open, letting in bright flashes of sunlight with each tired blink. I let an annoyed grunt escape from my lips as I pulled myself up to a sitting position. Careful of Daniel who I was surprised to still find sleeping against my side. Peace spread across his face with each soft breath he took. I rubbed my eyes from this sleep and I found Olive standing beside a blond haired nurse. Olive wearing blue jeans fit snugly around her wide hips, as well as a dark blue shirt, her short hair pulled over the right side of her head like a wave. She was holding her phone out and it took me only a few seconds to realize what she had been doing.
I looked down at Daniel before looking back at the girl who was slightly older than me by a few months. “Do not let Daniel find out about that picture or he will murder us both.” I replied as I swung my legs across the side of the bed. The boy hadn’t moved at all since I started to wake, and I was gonna do my best to keep it that way. I wanted him to sleep as much as humanly possible. I reached over and pulled back on one of my many white tank tops and carefully rose to my feet. I was only an inch taller than Olive at 6’3. “Do you mind if my little…” I was gonna say friend but then stopped and smiled fondly at the sleeping boy. “Do you mind if my little brother stays and sleep a bit more.”
She nodded her head, her eyes locked more on my large arms than my eyes. I shrugged that off before following Olive out of the room as she led me towards another hospital room. A calming beeping noise filled my ears, as my eyes came to rest on the weak but still breathing body of Thalia Drakos’s. I didn’t spend much time with the girl but she had been kind to us, a bit bossy at times and hard headed but she was a friend. Seeing her in this state reignited the anger I had at our enemies. Dr. Drakos looked up from his laptop, the man looking just as tired if not more than Daniel had looked last night. His head was bandaged up, I could see that he needed a cane now as it rested in a chair beside him. The older Greek man rose to his feet and even in his weak state his hugs were just as strong. “It is good to see up and about, young man, gave us all quite the scare.”
“I am glad to see you as well sir.”
The man motioned for us to take a seat in the last two chairs that were in this large room. Without a doctor being near, I choose to take the more comfy computer chair. Dr. Drakos lifted a mug to lips and after one long sip he addressed us. “We have an idea of what they had taken.” He began firmly. “As you both remember, the second we started bringing things up especially when Helena came to try and tempt us with a bribe. We started to make note of what we had, taking as many pictures as we could of everything. Moving those brittle scrolls from their potts to more secure boxes that could better protect them. How those jars and vases did not crack under the water pressure or while the ship was being sunk is still a wonder to even my daughter who is skilled in the art of jepei preservation studies.”
“Your daughter is here?” I asked.
“Yes, she and my son in law arrived late last night. They should be getting us breakfast as I wanted her to get some fresh air.” His eyes wandered over to Thalia once, last time I saw her she was so pale and weak, but now she had a bit of color back. “No parent should have to see their child in such a state. However, we will be okay, the blood transplant worked wonders, doctors say she should be waking up tomorrow morning at the earliest.”
“I am glad to hear that,” Olive said, one of her hands atop Thalia’s as she gave it a gentle rub with her large thumb. “What did they take?” She then asked, getting us back on track.
Dr, Drakos’s disconnected his screen from the keyboard revealing that it was in fact a tablet and not a laptop as i thought and flipped it over. We had a pretty good looking picture at a vase missing a good portion of paint, and a scroll was sitting inside of it. “They took what we can only guess were two relics that told the story of the discovery of the tower of babel’s location. As you can see this is not made in the Greek or specifically sparta way. This is Egyptian in nature.” He dragged his finger across the screen showing us a new picture of the back of this vase that had Egyption hieroglyphics on it. The next picture showed us the inside of the scroll, it was against written in hieroglyphics but also some older looking greek on the sides like someone was keeping notes. “Adonis seemed to find something about this tower, and than Kalliope Blackthorn had him killed and then took down his daughter as well sinking the ship.”
“That is not what happened.” Olive and Dr. Drakos turned and looked at me. “While I have been recovering and even on the night of the attack. I had a dream given to me by Rhea’s spirit animal, that late great Kraken. She let me see through Rhea’s eyes, I saw what happened. It was not Kalliope who had sunken this ship. Rhea had ordered her animal spirit to sink this ship to keep her from getting this information.” I explained everything from my dreams that I could remember, the fight on the boat, the trial in front of the Queen of Sparta. Adonis’s last words he had spoken to his daughter. “If I am right about all of this, we need to head to Egypt where there is a key and then from Egypt we head to Israel.”
Dr. Drakos had a hand on his chin, eyes looking over the pictures on his tablets. “It looks like you are right,” he spoke in amazement. “Adonis had listed here from what I can read, is that these paintings on this vase and his own travels to Egypt were listed as the story of the fall. Whatever you need is gonna be there, and I am sure that our enemies are heading there as well.”
“Then we don’t have much time.” Olive answered. “Dr. Drakos, you have been a great friend and ally to us, and I wish we could have done more for you-”
“Stop that,” he said firmly but he held a smile on his lips. “You helped me in many ways, we couldn’t have gotten anything without you. I owe you a debt for many reasons,” his hand came to rest on his granddaughter’s head. “You all fought when my granddaughter was injured, your quick actions probably saved her life that day. So I thank you, all the information we have gathered is yours to help in your journey. I will make copies and have them sent to the island as well. This new discovery of history is just as important to them as it is to me.”
I shared a look with Olive who smiled and nodded before saying back to the Greek man. “Thank you sir, and we wish your granddaughter a healthy recovery. However, now that Xaiver is able to move. It is time we go and stop them from getting whatever they are after. We are already behind.”
“No we aren’t.” We all turned to see Daniel coming into the room. He looked a thousand times better, his hair as nappy as ever but his eyes looked a bit brighter, the bags under his eyes smaller and not as dark, even his jepei was back at a strength I had never seen coming from the boy before. “That son of hers, I did a number on him, nearly killed him so he has to heal just as we were. We aren’t behind not yet at least.” Daniel’s eyes hovered over Thalia’s and the boy looked away from her. His hands tighten into fists.
“Than I believe it is time that we go our separate ways for now than.” Dr. Drakos said as he rose back to his feet and one by one he shook our hands. “And if you need a more quick way to Egypt. I have something that can help you. Has anyone ever been on a private jet?”
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After one last goodbye to the man we had gotten back into our rental car and began the long drive back to Sparta to go and pack. Dr. Drakos had too many connections if I was being honest, as he said he would have a private jet ready for us in Sparta to take flight tonight. As we drove I looked back at Daniel who much to my surprise had curled up in the backseat and he was asleep again. Maybe one really good night’s sleep was enough to make him chase after even more. It was just me and Olive who had been talking idly about what our plans were. “Can I ask you a question?” Olive asked, one hand on the steering wheel and the other arm hanging out of the window.
“Sure,” I answered.
“You paused when you were telling us your dream, something you didn’t want to talk about.”
I let out a small sigh and nodded. “Yeah, it’s complicated, that old Kraken wants me to take up the mantle to finish what she and Rhea had started so long ago. There is something in the wreckage of the tower that she does not want the dark order to have.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“It’s more that I don’t know if I am the one to carry such a thing.” I looked out of the window at the scenery passing by. “There were a lot of things that have happened to me and when I fought Helene she was right about something she said to me. I am good at things but not great, I am strong but also weak. I hold onto one failure because I can’t let it go. However, this kraken spirit knew my true name, and she wants me to stand by it.”
“Your true name?”
“My birth name is Xaiver Xhosa, or translated to bright leader. I am not a leader anymore, I haven’t tried to be one since I lost Sarah the first time. It is not my place to lead, I am here to support you all however I can. So I will be your support for as many of these adventures that we go on, that is my job I think.”
“Stop cutting yourself short, Xaiver. Being a leader doesn’t mean you have to lead per say or lead in the natural sense. Some lead by yelling orders, some lead by being nice and kind to someone that you want to follow, others like you.” And she smiled at me. “Lead by example,” her gaze looked back to Daniel who shifted a bit and rolled over onto his side. “You have been a good example to him and to me, so try and lead by doing that. We are gonna need you, my friend.” ‘
“Thank you, Olive.” I held my fist out to the girl. “Let’s go and finish this, cause when this is over I want to go and see my little friend again. I can only imagine what trouble she might be causing.”
“I did speak to Emily the other night to tell her of the situation.” Olive answered. “Sarah is fine, a bit mischievous and naughty according to Emily but she is doing fine. I also warned her of the trouble with this Helena person. So she will be fine, we have the most dangerous protector on the planet with her so she is gonna be safe.”
“I can only hope so,” I said.
I could only hope.
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