Hieronymus Jones and the Emperor of the Drowned.: Hieronymus Jones, #4

By Michael Palmer-Cryle

Hieronymus Jones will die in forty-nine days. The Ori Ki'al's seed uttered that massively disturbing sentence, thirty-one days ago. So Hieronymus Jones will die in eighteen days… Hooray.

 

The Fae on the island are having their ability to hide beneath human masks, torn away from them. What does this mean? Hiero and Gerty have their snuggle time seriously curtailed when a group of non-human high-schoolers invade the library. Which frankly is unacceptable.

 

There is more going on than is immediately apparent and Hiero and Gerty have a fairly shrewd idea that it has something to do with the vast, cannibalistic, half-insane, cephalopod nightmare that is coming to kill and consume the world... like a jerk.

 

The Emperor has allies in his quest for the pendant, foul tentacle waggling abominations, not to mention a certain young woman named Lillith, who is rapidly working her way up Hiero's list of things that will probably kill him.

 

Join Hiero and Gerty for the devastating final confrontation with the Emperor of the drowned, where they will lose more than they ever thought possible. They will lose... everything. The countdown has started, brace yourself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Palmer-Cryle
• Release date: Mar 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9780648422495

Michael Palmer-Cryle

Michael Palmer-Cryle began writing at an early age and his first illustrated children's book, "the Punk Puss" was published in the pages of his hometown newspaper when he was ten years of age. it was dreadful and embarrasses him deeply to this day, you will never be allowed to see it... ever. with the mortification of that event behind him, he now focuses on young adult fantasy fiction, as well as illustrated children's books. His debut novel 'Hieronymus Jones and the teacup squid' is available now and book two will be released soon. Michael is an independent (indie) author, publishing under the imprint of Sleepy Goblin Press. Michael lives in Brisbane, Australia with his partner and two cats

Book preview

Chapter One.

image-placeholder

Hieronymus Jones will die in forty-nine days. The Ori Ki’al’s seed uttered that massively disturbing sentence, thirty-one days ago. So Hieronymus Jones will die in eighteen days… Hooray.

The Seed had not spoken since, she just slept in her room, at the library, adjusting her position slightly every once in a while. She had not yet awoken, she had not yet taken her first step and she had not yet explained why Hiero was going to die in less than three weeks.

Hiero had assumed the Seed’s skin was going to be holographic like her mother’s, the Ori Ki’al who died when the ancient Lemurian outpost fell. Hiero was wrong, which is a fairly rare occurrence… not counting situations where Gerty was involved. In those cases, he was wrong, significantly more frequently. The Seed was growing skin, almost organically. Her hands, feet, and face were now completely covered in a skin that was indistinguishable from anybody else’s. Quite the accomplishment considering her epidermis, much like the rest of her body, was comprised, almost entirely, of magically enhanced platinum.

The platinum had been magically treated over the course of two centuries and apart from being fabulously expensive, it was also extraordinarily versatile. The Seed had bones that felt like bone, muscles that felt like muscle, and skin that felt like skin. The platinum had been formed into its new configurations by the Seed’s intelligence, a magical force of will. The bones and muscles that made up her brand new body were a shimmering silver, as were the internal mechanisms that allowed her to function. Her skin was pale, vivid like milk but also slightly ashen. There was an ethereal, pale purple, flow of magic that coursed through her body, like blood through veins. Her magic drove her technology and her technology allowed her magic to exist. A hybrid creature, unique, not organic, but very much alive, the first and last of her species.

The Seed’s mother had been created by Lemurian scientists and mages, that fell to the Squee Sh’eer onslaught, millennia ago. They had forbidden the Ori Ki’als to reproduce, a kind of security measure. They may have reconsidered that rule, if they could see the new life curled into a ball, covering her face, on the cement floor of the library.

The Seed was unlike her mother in that she did not yet possess the capacity to form prophecies. The Ori Ki’al, all of the Ori Ki’als, were visited by every citizen in the Lemurian empire, for one reason, the Ori Ki’als could see the future. They actually couldn’t, but it was a minor distinction. The Ori Ki’als had access to such an immense amount of information, across all aspects of the world, that they could predict future events. Their access to this vast record, of constantly updating information, when combined with a predictive magical engine that made use of quantum mechanics, temporal engineering, and a stochastic algorithm, made their predictions, their prophecies, extremely accurate.

Due to the nature of their calculations, the prophecies became more accurate the further into the future, the end event was prophesied to occur. This was especially unfortunate for Hiero since his death was prophesied, a very long time ago. What was extra, super, unfortunate, was that prophecy had come from the Ori Ki’al he had met in the Lemurian outpost. She had never, not once, had a prophecy fail to come to fruition. Poop.

The Seed had uttered a very small part of her mother’s prophecy, thirty-one days ago. Half remembered, only a fragment of the whole, that had momentarily fallen into the consciousness of the Seed before it was forgotten completely.

image-placeholder

He was an old man, she was an old woman, they had been fishing. They often fished together, it was how they met in fact. Two old folks who enjoyed fishing and renting a small boat, to travel to the deep water between the mainland and the island. They had been fishing when they were taken. Their boat had been dragged at great speed, they first thought that a whale had become entangled in their anchor, but it was not a whale that was dragging them.

When they were almost to the coastline, at the far side of the island, their boat stopped moving. It bobbed along cheerfully on the calm water, as the old pair chuckled nervously and joked about the story they would tell their grandchildren. They stopped joking when the two Squee Sh’eer warriors began hauling themselves up onto the deck of their boat.

The warriors were twins, mirror images of each other, each was the height of a man, but that is where the similarities ended. The twins each had a tangle of deformed tentacles beneath them, which were coiled and twisted into a pair of leg-like appendages. Each stood tall, shoulders back, arms at their sides. The left arm of one twin and the right arm of the other was a tentacle that split into a series of boneless fingers, each finger tipped with a long sharp talon. The opposite arms of each were a little more human, there was bone beneath the flesh, it was wrong and incorrectly shaped, but it was bone, rare for a Squishy to have a skeletal structure.

The twins looked at the human couple, who were clearly and understandably terrified. One twin smiled widely, a display of neatly and uniformly pointed teeth, the other scowled, just as widely, with just as many teeth, though they were more jagged than his brother’s. His brother got the good looks in the family, apparently.

The twins each grabbed a human and dove into the water, carrying their cargo toward the island and the passage that led deep underground. The underground passage was accessible from beneath the waves, but humans need to breathe, the twins took the surface way. They needed the humans to be living when they presented them.

The Emperor of the drowned sat upon his throne. His eyes were closed and flicked from side to side beneath his thick lids as if he were dreaming. He was not dreaming. The Emperor’s breathing was labored, his immense rib cage struggled to take in enough air, not only because the Emperor was used to breathing water. The Emperor was expending a vast amount of energy, it was taking its toll, but it was essential. The task he was embroiled in was nearly finished, he had been working for weeks on this one event. He deserved a break… and a snack.

The twins kneeled before their Emperor, the old couple also fell to their knees. It was fear that drove them down to the rock floor, of the vast cavern they were within. The Emperor turned to face the visitors to his throne room. The throne was torn and carved from the bedrock, it had once been the very place the Lemurians had hidden their pendant. The Emperor enjoyed the irony of being there, in the most guarded room of the once vast Lemurian empire. The Lemurian empire was vast no longer, it was extinct… for all intents and purposes anyway.

The Emperor turned the Lemurian pendant over and over in his hand, the thing was worthless. Worthless now, but it would soon lay the world and every life upon it, at his feet. Alone that pendant could control any Lemurian, absolutely. That was the worthless part since the Lemurians were almost all gone. Once combined with the Squee Sh’eer pendant, however, there would be none who could defy his word. Every human, every Fae, everything, his for the taking.

The old couple held hands, they had enough time to smile at each other before the Emperor stole their lives. They had to watch the face of the person they loved most, turn to dust as their essence was torn from them, and flowed into the Emperor’s gaping maw. The life he stole, would sustain him for hours, three hours, at best. The Emperor closed his eyes and continued with his task.

Chapter Two.

image-placeholder

Gerty lay on her bed, going over the previous days in her mind, as she often did. Actually, she lay on the ground, she found the ground to be preferable to her tiny mattress with the broken spring which kept poking her in the back. She found the ground, especially this patch of ground, to be preferable for many reasons.

Gerty’s awful, awful scum parents had not hurt her, since Hiero struck a deal with them to keep her safe. That deal involved bringing the Lemurian pendant to them, as soon as it was found, in exchange they were not to hurt Gerty in any way. They had, to date, maintained their end of the bargain. Gerty hated that bargain. She hated that Hiero had to strike it. She did not, however, hate Hiero.

Gerty smiled a goofy smile that was so goofy, you would actually get dumber if you looked directly at how goofy it was, without some form of eye protection. It was the smile of a young woman who was happy, accepted, and wanted. Gerty had met Hiero, just over a year ago, a couple of months before her fifteenth birthday. Her life had been a never-ending series of beatings, abuse, and misery. Then he came into her life. He showed her magic, he showed her friendship, and he showed her acceptance.

He didn’t care what she was, didn’t care that she wasn’t human, he just saved her, over and over, and nibbled on her earlobes. He also showed her ‘earlobe nibbles.’ They had kind of shown each other that, discovered that together, discovered many things together. Like how warm another person felt when you held them in your arms. How much the rest of the world did not matter, when you looked into the eyes of the person, who was the most important person, in all the world to you. They also discovered how good the soft skin at the side of each other’s necks smelled… and tasted.

Gerty blushed and bit her bottom lip, she found that she was counting the moments until she could see him again. She did that a lot, measured her existence in time spent apart from and with, Hieronymus Jones. This was perfectly normal behavior since he was her boyfriend. FINALLY, he was her boyfriend. She had spent far too long agonizing over exactly how to ask him to be with her, only her. She had chickened out many times. She had the perfect moment to ask, destroyed, many times, by various horrible things that seemed not to care for her boyfriend acquiring needs. In the end, Hiero had beaten her to the punch. He had taken her to her favorite place, in the middle of the night, and told her, he wanted her, needed her. Told her that she was the only one for him, ever. She had sat on his lap, put her arms around his neck, and told him she wanted him too. Then they had kissed, long and deep… no, no they hadn’t.

No kiss, not then, not now… STILL no kiss. In the month or so since they had begun dating, they had become very close, very snuggly, very nibbly, but there had been no kisses. Sure Hiero had kissed her neck and her shoulder and just below her ear, he had even kissed her belly button several times. He could feel absolutely free to just keep kissing her there whenever he wanted… WHENEVER he wanted, because… damn. Still no kiss, not on her lips. Her earlobes were more nibbled than ever, but she wanted kisses. She wanted to feel those soft pink lips pressed against hers, maybe even feel his tongue, gently touching hers.

Gerty put her forearm to her head and exhaled through trembling, unkissed, lips. She snuggled into the cuff of the coat, Hiero had bought her and pretended it was her boyfriend holding her in the darkness. She lay on her back and waggled her feet, wondering if she was doing something wrong. She cupped her hand over her mouth and checked her breath, concerned that it may smell like a warthog’s butt and she just hadn’t noticed. Nope minty fresh, so why the obscene lack of kisses? Gerty ran her fingertips over her lips, they felt fine, smooth, and pillowy. She rested her arm on her forehead and considered that maybe he just didn’t want to kiss her for some reason.

Gerty would have spent the next few hours, mentally punching her ego in the face, but instead, she got a text from Hiero. The tingle, alerting her to the text, went from the hidden phone at her wrist, straight through her forehead, and into her brain. She still rested her forearm on her forehead, still, after all of this time, knowing what would happen. One could be forgiven for thinking, Gerty enjoyed having her brain irradiated, by super-advanced phone tingles. Probably her brain wasn’t being irradiated, though Gerty was now fairly certain, her latest tingle, had allowed her to smell cookies, being baked in other dimensions.

Gerty shook off the scent of alternate-dimension baked goods and sat up to read Hiero’s text.

Dear Gerty, If you are free tomorrow, I would greatly enjoy spending some time with you at the library. The new couch has arrived and I have avoided sitting on it until we can use it together. If you would like to join me on the couch, please reply in the affirmative. Also, we should probably discuss the Emperor and why that friggen thing has not made an appearance in a month. Sincerely, your boyfriend, Hieronymus Jones.

Gerty smiled her goofy smile and hugged her phone. It was an awesome phone and brought her all sorts of Hiero-related messages, it deserved to know how awesome it was, hence the hug. Gerty had no particular interest in discussing the Emperor since the Emperor was a jerk, but he probably did need to be discussed. Gerty was far more interested in the new couch and exactly how Hiero wanted to ‘use it together.’ She smiled and secretly hoped he wanted to use it for snuggly purposes.

Dear Hiero, are we going to be using the new couch for snuggly purposes? Sincerely, your girlfriend Gerty. Apparently, Gerty’s hopes were not all that secret, after all.

Dear Gerty, I would never presume that you would wish to join me on the new couch, for purely snuggly purposes, however, yes, snuggly purposes were at the forefront of my mind, when I made the suggestion. Sincerely, your boyfriend Hieronymus Jones.

Dear Hiero, I am both deeply offended by your suggestion and extremely pleased that you made it. I will see you in the morning for a full day of snuggles. Also, if we really have to discuss Squishies, then I suppose I can do that too. Sincerely, your girlfriend Gerty.

Gerty lay back on her patch of ground, content in the knowledge that snuggles were coming her way, even if there might not be any kisses. Gerty smiled to herself, not because of hugs, kisses, or snuggles, but because she had a secret. One more thing she was hiding from Hiero, this secret was only a day old and Gerty was proud of it. She looked forward to telling it to Hiero.

image-placeholder

Hiero lay on his bed, it was soft and warm and empty. Everything seemed empty if it didn’t have Gerty in it. He rubbed his hands together, he had just come up from the library, it was freezing outside. It shouldn’t have been at this time of year, should have been much warmer. However the cold was preferable to the heat, so he did not mind the unseasonable temperature. It is always preferable to freeze your extremities off rather than to sweat unattractively from all your crevices.

Hiero had been checking on the Seed, he was certain she would wake up soon, perhaps when she had grown skin all over her body, not just on her hands, feet, and face. Hiero made a mental note to buy her some clothes since she was naked, this was not an issue at the moment as she was a technological construct. However, Gerty might have something to say, if the seed started walking around the library in the nude, especially if she sported a full array of skin. Gerty had been known, upon occasion, to get ever so slightly, jealous.

Hiero chuckled to himself, jealousy is such a negative emotion, but he loved that she cared enough for him, to become jealous. She didn’t have the need, of course, Hiero had been completely honest when he told her, there was nobody else for him. Hiero checked the time and returned his phone to his wrist, only twelve hours until he could see Gerty.

Hiero tossed and turned before kicking off his blankets and returning to the library to work. He barely slept anymore, he had a great many concerns and it was hard to turn his mind off at the end of the day. His newly acquired magical abilities also kept him busy. He found that the healing abilities and extra stamina he gained from the Alicorn’s core, also translated into not needing to sleep very often. If he slept for more than twenty minutes a night now, it was unusual.

Hiero sat at his desk to work, he had intended to spend his time on technological pursuits, but instead formed a small red flame in the palm of his hand. A magical flickering, wild, untamed, and chaotic. Hiero poured his magic into the flame, watching its appearance alter before he closed his hand and the flame blinked out. He looked at his reflection in a small mirror he kept face down on the desk, for just such an occasion. It had happened again, his reflection had… changed.

Chapter Three.

image-placeholder

Gerty had a kind of a love/hate relationship with Hiero’s parents, she absolutely adored them but at the same time, she absolutely adored them. Perhaps it’s more of a love/love relationship.

Gerty always made it a point to greet Abdo and Sophia whenever she visited Hiero, which was often. Abdo would usually tease her about her relationship with his son, which would cause Gerty to blush wildly, which in turn would earn him a smack from Sophia. Sophia would usually fawn over her and chat with Gerty about the kind of things, a mother chatted with a daughter about. Gertrude Green felt more welcome in the Eltayeb’s home than she ever did at her own house.

Good morning Mrs. Eltayeb, did you need some help? Gerty asked quizzically, as she observed Sophia bending down and collecting sticks, fallen from a nearby tree.

Gertrude, how are you hija? No no I’m fine, just choosing sticks. Sophia always made sure to refer to Gerty as Gertrude or hija, the Spanish word for daughter, never as Gerty. That name was reserved just for Hiero, only he got to call Gerty, Gerty. Abdo thought this was weird but adorable, Sophia just thought it was adorable.

Choosing sticks? So this isn’t cleaning the yard? Gerty asked, with a touch of confusion coloring her tone.

Certainly not, cleaning… whoever heard of such a thing. Sophia and Gerty chuckled at the extraordinary unlikeliness of Sophia cleaning anything, ever. The woman was many things, intelligent, powerful, confident, and beautiful, but she was not a tidy kind of person. Neither was her husband, but their son was, so it all worked out. Hiero would likely disagree about it all working out since he was the one who did all of the cleaning. Working on a new piece for the gallery, decided I needed sticks. Found objects are my new favorite thing, until I get bored with that and move on. Sophia stood up and laid down her bundle of sticks. How are you hija? Is everything well… at home? Gerty smiled and nodded.

No problems at all anymore. Sophia smiled and nodded too, for a while now Gerty had not been upset or hurt when she came to visit. Whatever her son had done to help Gertrude, it was working. He was keeping her safe.

So, another day of avoiding the sunshine in the dungeon then? Sophia smirked as she asked.

If all goes according to plan. Gerty raised her eyebrows and nodded knowingly, which made Sophia chuckle.

Well then, you and Hieronymus, be… careful, Sophia stated oddly.

We will, Gerty replied hesitantly, uncertain as to what Sophia was referring to.

Just before Gerty disappeared into the shed, Abdo appeared from the kitchen and waved to her. She waved back, smiled broadly, and descended the hidden staircase to see Hiero. Abdo joined his wife on their front lawn.

You know what they are doing down there, don’t you, my love? Abdo smiled cheekily.

Oh hush you old goat, I told them to be careful. Sophia blushed slightly, which raised the eyebrows of her husband.

I think they are plotting to take over the world, what do you think they are doing, that would put such an expression on your beautiful face? Abdo looked at Sophia in the way someone looks at someone else, whose mind might, very possibly, be in the gutter. She giggled and shook her head.

Exactly that, the world thing, exactly that.

image-placeholder

Gerty put her palm flat against the glamour that hid the internal door to the library and with a complex series, of deftly executed gestures, unlocked it. The library had recently undergone some… renovations. Due largely to an unholy, giant, half-insane octopus and its deeply sad and tragic master, who tore away the foundations, collapsed the floor, and stank up the place with a bunch of corpses and baby Squishies. The baby Squishies weren’t even cute… at all. They looked like they had fallen from the very top of the ‘ugly tree’ and hit every branch on the way down before the tree itself fell on top of them and burst into flame.

At any rate, the ugly babies were gone, having fled into the sea via a long tunnel, which was now sealed. Hiero had created a truly vile-smelling concoction, which foamed wildly, before hardening. He had filled the entire tunnel with that foul-smelling goop, completely sealing the tunnel forever. He claimed the new substance was harder than the bedrock around it. Gerty took him at his word, because he was a super genius who was usually correct and because he had a smudge of dirt on his nose, which made him look cute and she got distracted. Once all of the many repairs were made, Hiero had called upon his new magical abilities to add an extra layer of protection to the library. A barrier of sorts, Hiero explained that only the two of them, plus his parents could enter the library alone. To anyone else, it would be an impenetrable wall, capable of stopping even the Emperor of the drowned… maybe. Possibly… probably not, but it would certainly be able to stop any less powerful Squishies that may come calling. Hiero also did mention that he was using magic from a twelve thousand-year-old manuscript and one mispronunciation would probably turn them to dust… or toads and that they should brace themselves. Gerty simply said I trust you, Hiero and stroked his cheek as she looked into his eyes adoringly. While very sweet, this may not have been great timing, since Hiero was thoroughly distracted with thoughts of perfect green eyes and impossibly cute freckles, while he cast the barrier. As luck would have it, the barrier worked and the pair did not turn to dust… or amphibians, woot. Now they were completely protected from everything, except maybe the giant, un-killable, murder machine from the very depths of hell, that was coming to kill and eat the world, the second it got its creepy, weird tentacle hands on the pendant. Woot again.

Gerty strode into the library and scanned around for Hiero, he did not greet her which was odd. She realized he must be lost in his work, which tended to happen quite a bit. Gerty leaned against the doorway of Hiero’s workshop as she watched him make small adjustments to a metal contraption attached to his arm, hand, and shoulder. She smiled as she watched him, that small frown of concentration across his beautiful face.

Hiero blinked and raised his head, he turned toward the doorway and smiled.

Hello, Gerty. The way he spoke, made Gerty’s knees shake ever so slightly. His tone was warm, almost sleepy, she could have told that he was smiling even if her eyes were closed. The way Hiero spoke to her, the sound of his voice, made it clear, that she was all he wanted and he was hers. Gerty had never heard anything, as truly breathtaking, as the way her Hiero, said her name.

Hiero put his tools on his workbench, his latest invention forgotten, he walked over and put his arms around his girlfriend. He nuzzled the side of her head with his cheek as he hugged her. Gerty had been vaguely annoyed over the lack of kisses, but she