King Tides Curse

by C J Timms

  Gale flourished his hand and bumped a lantern on the roof. The lantern fell from its hook and shattered on to the floor. Gale rubbed the back of his neck, then dropped off the table to clean up the glass. Yip pushed him aside and started sweeping. Yip’s pile of packaging was folded neatly and colour-coded in his corner.

  Swan snorted. ‘This Lighthouse hasn’t been needed since the University parked within the reefwall thirty years ago. Ever since Kulu, the giant turtle stopped listening to orders, they’ve slacked off. I’m surprised it still runs at all.’ Swan tapped her wrench on the wall inducing another cascade of dust. Then her eyes lit up. ‘We should have a look at the beacon. I can probably break it up for parts to sell.’

  ‘Its old magic, don’t touch it.’ Yip said without stopping his sweeping.

  ‘Let me have a crack at it. I can put it back together, I promise.’ Swan said.

  ‘Look but don’t touch,’ Gale said. ‘Don’t let Urms see you either.’

  They had seen little of Professor Urms since they’d arrived. He’d said nothing to explain why he volunteered to be the head of their House. He’d carried in a small plain bag and blockaded himself in an upstairs room near the beacon. Occasionally a TV blared underneath the doorway of his room. It often seemed to be playing old Australian tv re-runs, Neighbours, Round the Twist, Home and Away. Occasionally the tune of ‘Have you ever, ever felt like this, how strange things happen, are you going round the twist?’ would drift down from upstairs. Gale had grown up reading ‘Round the Twist’ by Paul Jennings. He hadn’t brought any copies with him though. He needed spiritual counsel, not light entertainment here.

  Swan flared her Script and lifted a massive desk above her head. She threw it, like a child’s toy, up the stairs to her room. A resounding clang came from where it hit the wall.

  ‘Little bit of finesse Swan, you’ll break something.’ Gale said.

  ‘Don’t be such a wet blanket Gale. This place is built solid as a rock.’ Swan said and banged the basalt with her wrench again. Another lantern dislodged from the ceiling. Yip narrowed his eyes at her and then began sweeping up the new mess.

  ‘Besides we could have been in a house with its own chef. The least we can do is enjoy its very few advantages’ Swan said.

  ‘How come you are so strong, anyway?’ Gale asked.

  Swan chuckled, ‘Would you believe spin class?’

  Gale snorted.

  ‘Check out my Script.’ Swan said.

  Gale relaxed his focus into the Vibe. Metal lining reinforced Swan's resume and a heat emanated from it. The resume seemed viscous, like slow-moving lava. There was something else, a missing seal, still to be stamped?

  ‘I grew up on Locomotyr, spent my life around forges. I can use Locomotyr Script for strength, even more so than regular Script. Unlike regular Script, I can use it to project force into things.’ Swan clicked her fingers and Yip and Titus shot up to the ceiling. With a wet splat, one of Titus’s pies was squashed in his jacket.

  Swan raised an eyebrow at him.

  ‘Emergency pie.’ Titus said.

  ‘Put us down,’ snapped Yip.

  ‘Not to mention, I’m not half bad at making weapons.’ Swan’s eyes flicked down to the Slagblade as she said this, just for a second. She rubbed the burn mark on her arm.

  Click.

  Yip aimed a crossbow at Swan from the ceiling. ‘Down if you please.’

  Swan narrowed her eyes. ‘I could deflect the bolt you know.’

  Yip drew a second-hand crossbow from his cloak. Swan rolled her eyes, and they fell to the ground. Yip trained the crossbows on Swan for a very long moment. Then he went back to his unpacking, Titus crash tackled Swan and tried to put her in a headlock. Swan broke free and reversed the hold. ‘Weren’t you listening ya bogan. Locomotyr Script. Makes me a right Hercules.’

  Titus grinned, and his Canuteian markings started to glow white-hot. Swan’s headlock broke, and Titus grappled her.

  ‘Thanks anyway.’ Gale said, looking down and scratching at his chest.

  ‘What, speak up, mate.’ Titus said, getting distracted, his ears still covered by Swan.

  ‘Thank you.’ Gale said, louder, ‘for choosing to join me here.’

  ‘Rule number one,’ Titus said. ‘I was obliged.’

  ‘What’s rule number one?’ Gale asked.

  ‘Oh, you’ll work it out if you are a true man.’

  ‘We’d never have afforded it.’ Yip piped up from across the room, putting the last of the glass into a bin.

  ‘What?’ asked Titus.

  ‘Living in another house, we’d never have afforded it. I didn’t make some noble sacrifice for you Gale. I joined the Lighthouse for me.’ Yip said. ‘Do you know what the annual rent is at Solvent or Laurels for non-alumni? Getting in is just the beginning of the culling process. Oh, they let us in, but they don’t have to keep us here if we can’t pay tuition, rent fees, lab fees and food expenses. I went through the records before I came. After all the grand talk of equal opportunity, only two people have ever graduated from the Lighthouse. Zasterix and Addison, two brothers who nearly broke the world. More than two-thirds of graduates from the University are alumni given a free ride in House Laurels.

  Most students drop out or get worked so hard trying to pay for it they fail. It's no better than trying to rent in Sydney on a students wage. But you already knew that didn’t you Gale?’

  Gale nodded. ‘The rent here is cheap as chips, they may think that they forced me into the Lighthouse, but I was counting on it. Urms was a surprise, though.’

  ‘So what, how much dosh do we need?’ Titus asked and emptied a pile of five and ten cent coins onto the table. ‘I’ve got some shrappers.’

  Yip held up three fingers, ‘There are three Semesters in the year. At the end of each semester, we have to pay rent and pass an exam. The first exam we get sent out on a monster hunt, we’ve got to fix a fracture or track down a creature. The second exam we get thrown into the Splinterpoint Gate. Its an old fracture site, a growth plate. You can end up anywhere in the nine realms, and you have to find your way back. The third and final exam is a battle royale. The top fifty students move on, and anyone else is booted. The payment for each semester goes up exponentially. We need to start building our money pile now.’ ‘Let me break down the Lighthouse for scrap.’ Swan repeated. ‘Bits of it are falling off anyway.’

  ‘What, doesn’t dad have a war-chest of coin for you.’ Yip said.

  Swan gave him the middle finger then shrugged. ‘My family’s had some recent poor investments. I need to pay for the semester on my own, so frak you.’

  ‘Now Swan…we’re going to have to get you a swear jar.’ Titus interrupted, ‘A lady should speak with grace and poise’. Swan rolled her eyes and threw a bucket of pegs at him. Titus brushed off the pegs and started moving a drumkit from his boxes to go upstairs. Gale and Yip flashed each other a look. They rushed to grab the room furthest away from Titus. Yip murky stepped ahead of Gale, leaving Gale in the room next to Titus. Gale paused at the door to what was now Yip’s room.

  Yip pulled what looked like a Rubik's cube from his pocket. Within seconds he had solved it and placed it precisely in the middle of the room. The cube unfolded, then unfolded again and again. A thousand times the tiles expanded outward in a rippling cascade. They flowed around Yip to fill the room. The tiles travelled vertical and formed a chair, a bed and even a shelf stacked with books. The books were fantasy novels and guides to role-playing games, tabletop games and model building. An occasional trashy romance novel lay on the shelves. A ship in a glass bottle emerged on a shelf, intricately detailed.

  Gale felt drawn to the ship, he entered Yips room and looked over the details of the ship, the tiny planks of wood, the painted hull and iron armoured sides. Spread across the bow, read the words 'The Arghost.'

  ‘What's this, Yip?’ Gale asked.

  Yip looked up at the ship with a thousand-yard stare. ‘A reminder.’

  The ti
les settled, and a whole room unpacked mechanically. Yip moved around the room, measuring items with a ruler. Here and there he tweaked the position of things. The room was mostly utilitarian with a plain desk and chair, sterile bed linens and hypoallergenic pillows. Several small tabletop figurines were a gesture to personalisation. Yip picked one up and examined it in the light. It was a space marine from Warhammer 40k.

  Gale noted old scars on Yip’s hands, criss-crossing the palms. He wondered what injury had done that to him. It probably wasn’t his business. No, there were more immediate concerns.

  ‘I need to know what you can do Yip, to plan.’

  Yip looked at him, writing something in his journal. ‘I’m not ready to put all my cards on the table yet Gale. I don’t trust you that much. Right now this benefits both of us so its a good deal. I’ll hold my own, just don’t fall behind.’

  ‘Damn Yip. I’ll at least try to pull you up if you fall.’ Gale said.

  Yip shook his head. ‘Then you’re a fool. Any opportunity Gale, I’ll take any opportunity to get through this year. This year's going to be hell. They are culling us down from two hundred to fifty, and we’re already the best of the best. One in four. How many of us here in the Lighthouse?’

  Gale didn’t respond. Yip stalked up to him, all towering four feet came and poked him in the abdomen with a finger. ‘Tell me how far your good intentions get you when you are lying burnt out and tossed away in the streets.

  Any opportunity Gale.’

  Yip turned back to setting up his room. Gale scratched his chin and went to unpack his boxes manually, like a chump. He didn’t have much, some clothes from the Ironchurch, a promotional hoodie for Ironchurch’s protein shake ‘Full body conditioner’ and a box of said conditioner. He stripped the old sheets from his bed and prodded it with his foot. The bed collapsed on one side in a heap of dust. Gale sighed and unrolled his swag instead.

  He prodded the ancient shelf in his room. Judging it stable, he placed a small toy Aquaman on the top level. He paused and stared at his hand. A single patch of scale had appeared on his hand, erupting through the sunburnt red. He had come close to burnout, far too close.

  He ripped off his shirt and checked the rest of himself over in an old dusty mirror. Looking over his burnt skin, he found no other scale. The single scale should retreat with time. His tattoo from Thailand was unfortunately still present on his shoulder. Though blistered red and raw it had persisted.

  He took a single worn letter on sky blue paper and placed it on the shelf. He read the words as he’d done a thousand times before.

  My dearest Gale, I know you’ll do this world some good. Mum.

  Like his self-help books he carried this most places with him. He was lucky he’d had it when he was booted into Ionhome. He put his self-help books up on the shelf, “Awaken the giant within,’ ‘The seven habits of highly effective people,’ and ‘The barefoot investor’ amongst others. He put fifteen books up on the shelves that he’d scrounged copies of in Ionhome. The final work was the special edition of ‘Lifting Great Weight’ Ironchurch’s self-help book and thumbed through it. He paused on a random page.

  ‘Mind over muscle is dumb, listen to what your muscles tell you. The people who don’t listen to their muscles, you know what they get? Rhabdo. They get Rhabdomyolysis.

  A gut feeling is often as good as a well thought out plan.’

  He looked around the ancient room. It was definitely not medical school. ‘Do some good. Get paid to do it,’ he muttered.

  Swan wolf-whistled from behind him. ‘If you’re done flexing in the mirror?’

  Gale blushed and threw on a shirt. ‘Thanks for joining us, Swan. Sorry about the gryphon, white is a good colour on you at least.’ Crap he was no good at complimenting girls. Honesty, perhaps he could do. Brutal honesty seemed to fit Jane Swan. ‘I get why Yip did and probably why Titus is here. What changed your mind?’

  Swan paused, and her hand drifted down to the Slagblade. ‘You seem strong Gale, and we’re going to need strength to get through this year, not massages and gift baskets. We’re good but are we top fifty good? Force gets things done, not pretty trinkets or symbols.’

  Swan fidgeted in the doorway, her fingers drumming on the stone. ‘Do you know what they do to people from Earth who fail in their training?’

  Gale shook his head.

  Swan took a deep breath and gripped the door frame tight. ‘If you fail, the University believes the risk of returning you to Earth without proper control of your magic is too high. They wipe your memory with Penumbra and block out your Script.

  Be strong Gale. You won’t like being weak.’

  Gale unpacked the rest of his stuff in a funk. He collapsed exhausted into his bed. His burns wouldn’t let him sleep. If he misstepped, if he stumbled, they would take everything. He’d already seen one dream crumble. He wouldn’t go back to flipping burgers not even realising what he’d lost. He wanted answers about his parents, and the Rust Knight was out there.

  He tossed and turned until he threw back his sheets and got out of bed at midnight. He put his shoes on to go for a walk, walks by the beach always calmed him. Gale left the Lighthouse and followed a path down the cliffside. He found his way down to a beach on the island, parts of the island had become so overgrown with terrain that they were indistinguishable from parts of the island-turtle. Gathering loose driftwood, he kindled a small fire to keep himself warm while he thought.

  He skipped rocks across the waves as he tried to work out his frustration. A faint glow of the miniature reefwall stretched out from the University’s Lighthouse. Gale started trying to hit it with his rocks. Far in the distance, a massive statue of Canute with a lighthouse held up a corner of the reefwall. The Titan ship floated above it, under construction.

  He started getting close to the reefwall with his throws. Finally, he threw the perfect rock and watched it skim across the water, on track for success.

  A hand emerged and caught it. Another hand appeared and gestured with the universally recognised stop symbol. Gale stared as the hand moved closer. He jumped back falling into a sparring stance. A fathomless shouldn’t be able to get this close to the Academy. Gale went to run when a familiar voice called out.

  ‘Oh no, you don’t. Do you know how long it took me to find you.’

  Gale squinted into the water, and someone emerged in a two-piece bikini.

  ‘Ashley?’

  Ashley took a seat beside him on the beach, warming her hands by the fire. She didn’t show any sign of fatigue at having emerged from the frakking ocean. The last he’d seen of her, a fathomless had dragged her into the waters. The last time he'd seen her, his life had upended.

  ‘Well, care to explain?’ Gale asked.

  ‘Not a hello? No hug?'

  ‘I’m serious Ash, I need some answers, and I already have guesses.’ Gale said.

  ‘Guesses?’ Ash replied in a low voice, bringing her hands to her cheeks.

  ‘Educated guesses,’ he said, then rolled his eyes. ‘Serious though Ash, you knew shit was up. You knew those were fathomless and you even knew that Rust Knight. Time to fess up. I could use some help here.’

  A frown creased Ash’s brow. ‘Alright, let's start with the basics. You’ve worked out what your lung disease is right? It's your Deep Script trying to assert itself, that why it feels like you can’t breathe when you use it. It’s magic more suited to gills than lungs. Its partly why I was in your clinic, but we’ll get to that.

  The next question is where it comes from, Deep magic is a rare gift, even more so on Earth. In humans on Earth, only one in a hundred thousand might possess it. So the question is where…did…you..get..it?’ She punctuated the last sentence with jabs of her finger into his arm.

  ‘If I had to guess…I’d say my parents had something to with it?’ Gale said.

  ‘Good you’ve still got that sharp mind, you’re going to need it.’ She paused and bit her lip. ‘This might be easier to understand if you know
what I am first.’

  ‘Does it explain how you just emerged out of the sodding ocean. What, did you swim from Ionhome in your togs?’ Gale asked

  ‘Well see that's the thing, it wasn’t a problem for me because it's my natural environment.

  Gale, I’m a mermaid.’ Ash said.

  Gale waited for her to crack a smile or tease him. When she just looked at him, he flicked his eyes down to double-check that her legs were still there.

  She stuck out her tongue. ‘Alway the first thing you lot do, check for the tail, we only have that after the change. I’m a mermaid from the Deep realm, and we’re not all bad, there are those among us who would even prefer peace.’

  ‘Right, so where does this leave me with my parents.’ Gale’s back had gone up a bit at the mention of the Deep. This was Ash, so he was giving her the benefit of the doubt. Still, everything he had seen said the Deep was a destructive force, hellbent on the annihilation of humanity. His mind flitted back to the times Ash had lost her temper. They were few but terrifying.

  ‘Most Deepborn have siren blood somewhere in the family history. That's why the Inquisition used to burn them at the stake. If I had to guess that means your mother was a mermaid, well, technically a siren. That makes you siren spawn, siren son, if you want to be politically correct’.

  ‘Siren son, okay,’ said Gale taking a deep breath. ‘So you’re a mermaid, I’m probably the son of a siren, and if I step out of line, I’m liable to take a long walk onto a short pyre.’

  Ashely nodded, ‘Puns, great, keep that up. No one will want to burn you at the stake for puns. Look I’m trying to be serious here, your mother's death, your father's disappearance, they both happened at the same time the Deep nearly flooded the Volkstorm islands. A hundred leagues north of here the Deep broke the largest fracture in a thousand years right when your family disappeared.

  You are tied up in something big. Something to do with the Worldflood.’