BOOK 5: CHAPTER 2: DILEMMA

“You’re serious?” Maria covered a yawn as she sat up. “I kind of wish you’d woken me up. The look on Claws’s face might have been worth the lack of sleep.”

“I knew you needed the rest after you healed like almost all the prisoners yesterday. You…” I trialed off as I drank her in. “Damn.”

“What?”

“Have you seen yourself? How do you wake up more attractive?”

She rolled her eyes, trying and failing to not give me the satisfaction—the faint blush on her cheeks gave it away.

I heaved an exaggerated sigh, shaking my head.

“What now?”

“I just realized you’re too good for me. What happens when a better bloke comes along?”

Laughter burst from Maria. It was as wild and free and intoxicating as the rest of her. “I know you’re only joking, but let me set the record straight—I don’t want a hint of doubt dwelling somewhere in that overactive head of yours.” All timidity was gone when her gaze met mine, replaced by unerring confidence. “Fischer, if you walked into hellfire, I’d grab your hand and leap in behind you. If you ascended from this realm, I would cultivate for a thousand years for the chance to join you again. You, my darling, are stuck with me until the day one of us dies. Actually, even that might not be enough. If I died first, I’d be tempted to do what those divine gods did.”

“The whole spear-in-the-core thing?”

“Yeeeep.”

“That’s a wild move.”

“Entirely necessary, though. How else would I ensure you don’t find a new Maria? I reckon I’d make a pretty cute spear, too. Would I be the same color as them, or pink because of my chi? A golden tip could be sweet. What do you think?”

“You would make a cute weapon, but aren’t you worried about, I dunno, making me go insane?”

She blew air from her lips. “My inclusion couldn’t be any worse for your mind than you are. If anything, I’d probably add some normalcy.”

“You’ve got a good point there. What do you think, Borks? Can I trust her?”

The goodest of boys had shown incredible restraint so far. He was sitting at the end of the bed, his tail thumping away as he watched our exchange of jokes and love. Being addressed directly ruined his resolve; he sped forward, transforming into a form I’d not yet witnessed in Tropica. He struck Maria’s chest with so much force that if he’d remained a Golden Retreiver, he might have shot her into the next room.

“What is that?” Maria yelled, excited and confused and devastatingly beautiful. “Borks! What are you?”

He was too busy squirming in her grip to answer, a pure-white blur of tiny legs, a smooshed face, and darted licks.

“That, my love, is a Pug.”

She managed to keep hold of him as he rolled around like a crocodile. “Is this even a dog? It’s more like a rat.” Borks froze mid-spin, staring up at her from his back, the whites of his wide eyes making his face more comical than I thought possible. She laughed and pulled him to her chest. “That wasn’t an insult, Borks. You’re adorable. For a rat, anyway.”

His vengeance was swift.

Maria let out a startled yelp as the rodent-sized animal cradled to her torso turned into a mastiff so large it was more horse than dog. The bed’s frame creaked as he squashed her back into her pillow. “I’m sorry! Please! It was a joke! I—”

All three of our heads darted toward the northeast as a pulse of essence washed through our home. It was ancient, of a nature and element we knew well after the events of yesterday.

“Holy frack…” I said. “That was quicker than expected.”

Borks turned back into a Golden Retriever and parked his furred tooshie between us. Maria sat up. “So much for going straight to the meeting…”

“Let’s give them a few minutes.”

“Then we go?”

“For sure.”

My mind started racing with countless possibilities. An option I’d first thought of last night kept returning—it was just too perfect.

“Hang on…” She leaned in front of me, her eyes narrowed into a scowl. “That’s why you want to go?”

“Hey! No peeking into my core!”

“Why am I not surprised?” She put an arm behind Borks’s back and rubbed his head. “Your master is a real goose, Borks.”

Ruff! he agreed, tongue lolled and tail wagging as we all stared to the northeast, focusing not on the blank wall, but the conscious soul beyond.

***

The sun was just cresting the horizon as we dashed across the dunes. Air rushed past our skin, its relative warmth hinting at spring’s arrival and making my chi swirl in excited loops.

We had been unable to stay home a minute longer. We’d told ourselves and each other we could control ourselves enough to travel at a slow clip, giving the others more time alone before we got there—it’d been a lie.

Rise after sandy rise, we chewed through the distance, called ever forward by the ancient essence still pulsing periodically. I nearly missed my footing as we strode over the last hill, realizing a little too late that I probably should have sought permission to approach. An unseen force pulled me closer, answering the question before I could ask it. With a grin, I leaped off, sailing through the air alongside my partners in crime.

I caught us with shifting walls of light that lowered us to the ground so we didn’t spray sand all over those waiting. The kraken arched a massive brow. “That arrival was…”

“Cool?”

“Yes. Cool,” he answered, tasting the word. “I believe that is correct.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” George stage- whispered to his wife.

“I’d have said he was being a show-off.” Even from behind her raised hand, I could see Geraldine’s lip curling into a smile. “I guess our new friends don’t know him well enough to judge his actions accurately.”

“Maria…”

“Yes, Fischer?”

“Mark George and Geraldine down for latrine duties.”

“Right away, God-king.” She leaned toward me, hissing with false urgency, “We don’t have a latrine, sir!”

“Bugger.” I sucked my teeth. “You win this round, kraken riders.”

Beside the dark-skinned octopus of the void, another creature undulated its tentacles, its slitted eyes wandering over us, seemingly unsure.

“I told you they were anomalous,” the kraken said, which earned a slow nod from his brother.

“Uhhhh, octo-pal. Are you aware that you’re both horrors from the deep and that your bro is literally floating in the air? How are we the anomalous ones?”

“We are both oceanic animals, no matter our size and advancement.” The kraken, entirely unperturbed, glanced at his gravity-defying brother. “And he is an earth elemental. Such things are natural.”

I opened my mouth to ask what the frack he was talking about—because why would something related to earth be able to fly—but I let out a sigh instead.

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“I’m proud of you.” Maria patted my back. “That showed great restraint.”

“Right? Thank you. It would have just taken us further off-topic.” I gave George and Geraldine some side-eye, my lips pouted conspiratorially. “Soooo, that little thing you’re drawing into your core and hiding from us. I don’t suppose that’s something for our kraken pal?”

George raised a brow.

Black waves radiated across the kraken’s sclera as he glanced back and forth between us, his confusion clear.

Geraldine leveled an accusatory stare. “Were you poking about in our thoughts while we slept?”

“Nope! So you decided on it before you went to sleep, huh? Interesting. You must be pretty sure of it, then.”

“We are.” George released a fraction of his abyssal power as he prepared to unveil the secret. “Before we voice it though, are you sure you don’t want to—”

“Absolutely not,” Maria interrupted. “He’s already chosen enough of them, and you’ve seen first-hand how that goes.”

“Hey! My names are fantastic, thank you very much! You insult the Brigadier!”

Ruff! Borks added, but not in agreement—he was just happy to be here.

“Names…?” the kraken asked.

“Yes,” George replied. “Forgive us for hiding it from you. We didn’t want to assume…”

Geraldine took a half-step forward and rested a hand on her husband’s back. “Only if you want one. I know George’s ancestors had a name for you, and I also know you haven’t voiced it for a reason. No—you don’t have to reply to that. But, say we did think of a name for you last night… would you want to hear it?”

There was no hesitation. Verbalising it wouldn’t have done his feelings justice, so he answered with a pulse of deepest longing, his core pulling the surface layer of sand inches closer.

Though their chi was that of the abyss, George and Geraldine’s faces lit up like the sun. They both said a single word. It was filled with power and seemed to come from deep within, the noise reverberating as it bounced from their cores and out into the universe.

“Fathom.

”

Every cell in my body and hair on my head vibrated. All at once, the sound-waves were drawn away, disappearing into the void of a newly named being.

“Fathom…” he repeated, his voice and chi infused with awe.

The silence that followed seemed to extend out into the greater world; the otherwise-steady breeze died, no waves struck the shore, and the sparse clouds above ceased their endless march eastward. The universe itself had recognised the importance of the moment—only one man was brave, stupid, and humble enough to interrupt such grave serenity.

“Fathom?” I asked, tasting the word. “Neat. I hate it.”

“What?” Maria’s head rocked back, and she studied me like I was a particularly vexing puzzle. Or a really weird insect. “It’s a nautical unit of measurement, which is perfect for a kraken. And it also means to understand something difficult. Fitting, considering his knowledge and intellect. It’s a double entendre. I don’t—”

“Triple, actually.”

“... What?”

“A triple entendre. His name comes from the Old English word ‘fæthm,’ which literally means the length between someone’s outstretched arms, and Fathom here has a lot of bloody arms. See what I mean? It’s… why are you all looking at me like that?”

George jumped on the bait. “You just said the same word.”

“Fæthm sounds the same, but it has that weird letter that looks like both an A and an E and hurts your brain if you think about it too long.”

“One of these days, Fischer, you’re going to have an aneurysm and no one is going to realize. Anyone nearby will just assume you’re fracking about.”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

He sighed. “I already stepped in it, so I may as well ask the other question.”

“Which one is that, mate?”

“Old English—what is it?”

“Oh, that one’s easy. It’s English but older.”

Geraldine rubbed her temples, a grin still lingering at the corner of her mouth. “Let’s get back on track. If Fathom has three different meanings, all of which are accurate, why don’t you like it?”

“Another easy one. It has no alliteration, no misdirection, and zero cute factor.” I shook my head. “I daresay it might just be the perfect name for a horror from the deep.”

“So it’s perfect?” Maria asked.

“That’s what I said.”

“But you hate it.”

“They’re not mutually exclusive. The name did remove a mental dilemma I’d been stuck on for a while, though… Maybe I don’t hate it.” I tapped my chin. “Mmm. Yes. That reframing seems to be doing the trick. I think I love it after all.”

My verbal onslaught earned blank stares in response. Before I started to question whether I’d taken my shenanigans too far, I plowed onward. “Psst. That was a social cue for someone to ask what the mental dilemma was.”

Again, I was met with silence.

Ruff! Borks borked, wagging his tail so hard that the rest of his body joined in.

“Thanks for asking! I came up with a name last night for our cuttlefish friend, but I felt bad about offering it if Fathom here didn’t have one yet. Now, though…”

Maria groaned. “You haven’t even spoken with him yet! All you’ve done is spout nonsense since we got here! How are you supposed to know his personality well enough to give him an accurate name?”

“Some things supersede personality, my love. Besides—he tried to kill me yesterday morning when he was still a mindless amalgamation of elementals… wait, speaking of, where is the lava slug?”

“The first sister?” my cuttlefish compadre asked.

“Yeah. Her. Wait, was that rude? Sorry. I’m just really excited about your name. Err, if you like it, I mean. And if you want one at all. What was the question again?”

Each tip of the cuttlefish’s tentacles flicked about in confusion. “It was your question. You asked about the first sister…?”

“Ohhhh! Right! Where’s she at? She all good?”

“She has gone to visit someplace close by with Rocky.” His slitted pupils examined me with curious intensity. “Can you not feel her? Your level of cultivation. It’s… immense. Even more than when you were witnessing our memories.”

“I kinda absorbed a bunch more power yesterday. Or maybe it's more accurate to say the land did, which I’m low-key connected to? It’s a lot.

”

“And your senses…?”

“Oh. Right. I’ve been actively working on suppressing my senses. Given how sensitive my soul is, it was straight up knocking me out if I focused on people’s breakthroughs, and that’s not even mentioning the sounds. Or the smells. Talk about a curse. I can hear and smell a coffee bean hitting the ground on the other side of town if I’m not careful.”

“That’s… fascinating, actually. I’ve never met someone that could mute their sense of chi so thoroughly. She’s close. I can’t stop myself from feeling the magma she’s drinking.”

“She’s drinking magma? You know what, never mind. That’s probably fine for her.” I took a deep breath, letting it out with a slow sigh. Man, I loved playing the over-excited fool. “Where was I? Oh yeah. You tried to killme yesterday. That makes us bonded by battle. And then there’s the whole freezing-time-and-going-on-a-spiritual-journey-into-the-past thing. I reckon I know you better than everyone. Other than Fathom, of course. So what do you say, Cal? Want a name?”

“... Cal?” the cuttlefish asked, his core and essence wavering.

My answering grin must have looked predatory. I didn’t care. “That’s right, mate. Cal.”

Maria squeezed the bridge of her nose. “You are so annoying sometimes, Fischer.”

“I know, right? In my defense, I haven’t had a coffee yet.”

“Go on, then. Tell us what it’s short for.”

“How do you know it’s short for something?”

She just blinked at me.

“Okay, you got me. It’s totally short for something.” I looked at the currently nameless cephalopod floating across from me. I reached out with strands of my pure, unaspected essence, showing him the true, non-abrasive version of myself. Despite my antics this morning, I was the same man—the same Traveler—that witnesses his and his brother’s memories yesterday.

Fathom, I thought to myself. Damn. It really is a good name, isn’t it?

It is, the cuttlefish responded, surprising me.

Whoa! We can think at each other?

Apparently.

Neat. To be completely honest, I did send that first one your way, but I didn’t actually expect a response.

I shook my head, returning to the present. “Do you want a name, mate? All jokes aside, I won’t share it unless you want me to.”

“Didn’t you already do that by calling him Cal?” Geraldine asked.

“Nah, that’s just a nickname. The full version has too much power and pizzazz to be chucked around willy-nilly. Again, jokes and shenanigans aside, it is totally up to you. You’ve lived longer than I can comprehend, and I’m sure you’ve been given a whole bunch of names be…fore?”

With both amusement and sincerity swelling in his core, the elemental had raised a tentacle, gesturing for me to stop. “I would be honored, Traveler Fischer.”

“Are you sure?” Maria asked, wincing. “Are you aware of the other names he’s given…”

“I am. I accept the consequences of my actions.”

I grinned at the groan she made, grinned even wider at the anticipation she was actively hiding, then projected the name out toward the heavens. “Calamari! Cadet Calamari! Alliteration, cute factor, and misdirection? Now that’s a name!”

A noise like rock splitting came from Cadet Calamari’s earthen soul. The name rushed in, filling the hairline fissures left behind.