King Tides Curse

by C J Timms

  They needed the money.

  Gale whistled long and nodded his head. ‘Why excellent pick ma’am. This could have got well out of hand if you hadn’t been so vigilant.’ Gale pulled a tuning fork out and dinged it on the rock. ‘Why look at this Yip the reverberation is helter-skelter.’

  Crivenwix nodded. ‘Of course, do you know my neighbour Griselda says it's like a sixth sense I have.’

  ‘Yip please apply a four-layer cast with a…a triple twist.’ Gale said.

  ‘Oh a triple twist, do you think we could make it quadruple?’ Crivenwix asked, eyes lighting up.

  ‘But of course, see to it Yip.’ Gale said.

  ‘Do it yourself.’ Yip muttered. Gale stepped on his foot, and Yip hopped to it. Ah leadership, thought Gale, it suited him like a glove.

  ‘Just curious ma'am, what was the small job?’

  How are you even supposed to move in this blouse? Swan pulled at the shoulder hem, adjusting it again. There weren't even any pockets to put her things in. She couldn’t even strap the slagblade to the back.

  ‘There are standards to uphold.’ Swan mimicked Professor Giltynan. Giltynan didn’t have to wear a blouse. He got a comfortable coat with dozens of pockets. Pocket with pockets inside. The slimy bastard probably even built dimensional pockets inside those pockets.

  The palace was huge and getting round ‘to the back,’ took them on a long course through the water gardens. Shimmering cloudrock was overlaid with climbing vines and plants. Loose rocks underfoot kept trying to turn her polished boots.

  Titus pulled up short. She bumped into him and stumbled. Titus held up a hand, clenched his fists and a faint glow lit up his Canuteian marks. Swan summoned the Slag blade and held it ready.

  A reality fracture had broken in a wall of cloudrock. The blue smoke of Penumbra rolled into the white swirls of cloud. Swan smelled earth and burning coal. She heard the groan of bending metal and felt raw heat blaze through the hole in reality. Locomotyr, she thought.

  An armadillo-like creature with three long tails stuck its head up over the wall. The beast had vibrant yellow and purple stripes. Its three tails flicked out behind it, crackling with purple energy.

  ‘Titus don’t move.’ Swan whispered. The creatures tails whipped towards her.

  “Why? Don’t tell me you’re scared of this little wimp.’ Titus boomed out. Two of the tails pointed back at Titus.

  ‘Keep your voice down. It’s a rawhide.’ Swan said.

  The rawhide looked back and forth, its three tails twitching.

  ‘It's from Locomotyr, a scavenger. It feeds off armoured plants and animals.’

  Titus grinned. ‘What this tiny little possum. What's it gonna do?’

  Titus’s jumped at the rawhide. The rawhide fired off a shot from its tail and grazed Titus’s arm. The rawhide skittered away across the rocks. Titus tucked and rolled.

  Titus came up, patting at his arm. His suit was gone from the shoulder down, his shirt and arm untouched.

  ‘Oy, it broke me duds.’ Titus said, testing out his arm.

  Swan grimaced. Rawhides scavenged off the more heavily armoured creatures in Locomotyr. Their tails let them destroy dead shell or fibres, layer by layer. Then they left the living tissue intact so another predator could make the kill. In this case, however, it meant destroying their clothes.

  The rawhide skittered across the wall. Swan reached for a short nail, and it caught on her blouse. With a curse, she threw the nail, and it clanged into the wall, embedded deep.

  Larc said.

  ‘Not now,’ Swan muttered, ‘Can’t you be useful.’

 

  Titus dived for the creature again and tripped on his oversized suit pants. The rawhide shot him again. Titus fell back into a garden pond.

  Swan pulled a Longnail and pumped Script into her limbs. She charged at the creature but was forced to pull back as its tail fired again. She leapt back to a distance of ten metres.

 

  Swan ground her teeth. She couldn’t get in close enough to seal it without taking a shot from the tails. Her long-distance throws weren’t accurate enough. How would a hero do this?

  Titus flopped onto the shore of the garden pond. He pushed himself up to standing, his suit vaporised. Briefs and a singlet thankfully remained covering up the important bits. His formal shoes gone, he wiggled his toes against the bare ground and grinned. ‘Too bloody right, this is more like it.’

  Titus’s tattoos fired up.

  ‘Take the hit and keep moving.’ Swan said.

  The rawhide sniffed the air, puzzled. It turned to Swan and shot her.

 

  Swan let the purple energy crackle over her. Her blouse and clinical wear dissipated into motes of purple. She rolled out her shoulders and levelled the slagblade.

  Titus’s winked at her. ‘A Pokemon bra Swan?’

  ‘Stop looking ya mug,’ Swan said, cracking her knuckles. Of course, today was the day she’d gotten to the bottom of her underwear drawer. It was hard to find time to do the washing with all the extra duties. She had thought Pokemon were quite cool for a while. A bra with Charmander on it had seemed a great idea. Inertia had kept her from throwing it away, and it was very comfortable.

  ‘Alright I get it, I mean I’m a Bulbasaur man myself, but I get it…gotta catch em all.’

  ‘Charmander was clearly the best starter pokemon.’ Said Swan.

  The rawhide cackled, slapping its belly. Swan summoned the slagblade, and Titus flexed his muscles. The rawhide’s cackling slowed.

  Gale kept a very straight face. ‘A rawhide?’

  Crivenwix pulled her dressing robe tighter around them. ‘Yes, it cost me my most expensive Jacqui-T dress.’

  Gale sprinted towards the back of the palace. He darted past a busted water garden, past a cloudrock wall embedded with nails. Down the garden path, the trail led him.

  A rawhide skittered over a neatly trimmed hedge wall. Swan exploded through the hedge hurling long nails. Like a Norse valkyrie, hair billowing behind her, slagblade held in one hand, she charged past them.

  In her undies.

  Gale and Yip just paused. Life was full of surprises.

  ‘Ridiculous,’ Gale said. ‘Squirtle was clearly the best starter Pokemon.’

  Yip rolled his eyes. ‘Keep it busy.’ Then he murky stepped into the shadows.

  Titus leapt over the garden wall. Gale breathed a sigh of relief. He’d imagined Titus was a commando sort of guy. Instead, he had a pair of flannelette briefs. Gale sighed and started removing his jacket and pants, and he touched the copy of ‘Lifting Great Weight’ in his pocket. He recalled a line he’d read this morning. ‘Just as you don’t do your weights in a yoga studio, you should choose the terrain that best suits your battles. Prepare for your fights just as you prepare for your workouts.’

  Gale started pulling off his pants.

  The rawhide skittered up and over a massive cloudrock fence. Swan threw long nails into the wall, making a series of steps. She slammed Script into her limbs and leapt up over the wall. She flew through the air and came crashing down into a three-point landing. The earth cracked under her fist, dust blown outwards. She raised her head.

  A series of paramouran ladies in formal wear stared back at her. In her pokemon bra. A table of desserts had been flipped over, some hovered in the air, suspended in slow orbits around a castle-shaped cake. She’d landed right into a tea party.

  ‘Oh my goodness is that you Swan.’ Said a lace encrusted girl she recognised from class. What was her name, Caucophony? Something ridiculous like that. ‘My goodness, what are you wearing?’

  Titus belly-flopped into the ground beside Swan. Gale landed atop him. Gale was down to his briefs now too. He had a tattoo on his left shoulder. Strange symbols written over his deltoid in a forgotten foreign language.

  S
wan snorted. Probably spelt out dickhead.

  The rawhide scrambled across the dessert table, scattering cream and chocolate. The ladies scattered away from the creature. The rawhide reached the end of the table and slapped its belly again, grabbed a sponge cake and shovelled it down its gullet.

  Yip erupted from the shadows under the table, crossbow cocked. The rawhide blanched, its ears turning down, its tail curling up. Titus crash tackled the rawhide. ‘Swan, do it now!’

  Swan cracked a flask of sealing plaster. Good old grip-rock. The dry powder in her hands, she looked for water, she needed liquid. She grabbed a bowl of chocolate fondue and dumped the plaster in. She swung the bowl, and the plaster flew threw the air covering the rawhide…and Titus.

  The plaster locked into place with crack and both of them stopped moving. Titus was covered from the neck down and the rawhide completely locked in. Swan pulled out a series of shortnails.

  ‘Alright, Titus stay very still.’

  With a crack, the last shortnail fixed in the rawhide and it realigned with Locomotyr. It became ghostly, starting to fade back into its realm. Blue flickers of Penumbra danced around its outline.

  Yip shouldered his crossbow, looked over at Swan and gave her the faintest of nods. ‘Pikachu was the best starter Pokemon.’

  Swan rolled her eyes and started breaking Titus out of the grip-rock. Living up to its name, it hung on to Titus, gripping, set hard as a rock.

  ‘You have ruined my party and my dress!’ Caucophony screamed at Swan. About half a Victoria sponge had coated Caucophony. Her various guests were fleeing.

  Swan squared her hips and puffed her chest out. ‘We stopped a monster from running free, and we sealed the rawhide back in Locomotyr. We did what you asked.’

  Caucophony looked her over, down to the scarred shoulder. ‘Burnt slag.’ She said.

  Swan clenched her fists and stepped forward. Gale’s hand grabbed her.

  ‘This is outrageous!’ Crivenwix’s nasal voice drew here attention ‘Darling do you know these brigands?’

  Swan groaned. Of course, Caucophony was Crivenwix’s daughter.

  ‘They ruined my party, mum and my dress.’

  Crivenwix stared down her nose at them. ‘I’m not paying you. I’ve half a mind to lodge a formal complaint.’

  ‘NOW HOLD UP.’ Swan said readying the slagblade.

  ‘Now ma’am that wont be necessary,’ Gale said. ‘All part of doing our duty. Don’t hesitate to call us if you need anything else.’

  Crivenwix harumphed, put her arm around Caucophony and lead her back to the mansion.

  ‘What’s wrong with you Gale, we bled for that money, we had to ‘borrow’ sealing plaster, and we’ll need to buy new clinical clothes.’ Swan said, thumping him in the chest. Gale, in his boxer briefs, spread his arms wide.

  ‘We have to fly under the radar Swan,’ Gale said. ‘One complaint, just one and someone will start asking why first years have a pager. We’re lucky Caucophony didn’t think too hard about it.’

  He offered Swan his suit jacket and put his pants back on.

  ‘It's not all bad Swan,’ Titus called out rummaging through the table. ‘Look, they have pies. I reckon its time for a victory pie.’ With a crunch, Titus bit into the pie and then spat it back out. ‘Blargh…fruit mince.’

  The pager’s lights lit up

  ‘He’s right. This was a victory. Whether or not we came out of it with our pants on.’ Gale grinned.

  Then cracked a smile. ‘But we should celebrate our first successful hunt, drinks at the Beach House?’

  The four of them stepped into a circle around the pager, pants off, covered in dessert and poorer than they’d started.

  Not a bad first shift.

  Spur - The cafe at the end of the world

  The fracturesmiths (frackers) were created to fix fractures in reality. Holes in the realms like holes in a ship. Yet there are some fractures in the world that will never fully heal. Fractures that run old and deep. Fractures that happened to the world when humans were still crawling out of the primordial ooze. These fractures through the growth plates of the world are the highways we use to travel. They are points where the realms mix and realities blur. We do not know what caused these breaks in the barely formed bones of the universe but we have given it a name. We call it…the Imperfecta.

  Spur’s Primer for fracturesmiths 2nd edition.

  Markwell stood watch atop a snow-capped Himalayan peak. Well, sat watch would be more accurate. Markwell wore simple monks robes but had a full head of hair, the heat loss from a bald scalp was horrific. He had kind brown eyes and a body that had been stripped lean by life in a place where even goats struggled to thrive. Before him stretched the magnificence of the peaks, any number of which had been named ‘white mountain’ by poor translation to explorers. His monastery lay below him, constructed in one of the most remote regions of the world, eking existence out of hardship. Nothing moved within.

  Yet it was not any of these wonders which had caught his regard. It was the hipster coffee shop that had appeared nestled atop the peak known as traveller’s lament. A small blackboard was parked outside it, scratched in chalk was the line ‘A yawn is the body’s desperate cry for coffee.’

  Spur stepped through the break in reality. A younger woman followed him with a child strapped to her back in a clear bubble-like capsule, filled with toys. Grace had grown so much.

  ‘Practically indestructible, climate-controlled and oxygen recycling.’ Grace jerked her thumb at the capsule. She pulled her cloak tighter around her. ‘Why can’t they build one for me then.’

  Jason giggled on her back. Spur followed her and shrugged. ‘They can’t make them any bigger, the pocket dimension collapses. Also the materials are rare as hens teeth.’

  ‘I feel like Yoshi carrying Baby Mario.’ She said.

  Spur sat by Markwell. The monk held out a hand, to forestall Spur’s questions. ‘First, we must have a pot of tea. It is tradition.’

  Spur nodded, it was important to keep up the old ways. Markwell poured them both tea into two massive mugs the size of soup bowls though Spur regarded it with distaste. Not a coffee bean in sight.

  Markwell raised the bowl-sized mug of tea, and in one long pull, he downed it. Steam flew from his nostrils. Spur tapped the ground impatiently. Warmed breath billowed from the monks nostrils, and Markwell placed the cup down. His eyes flicked downwards, and his hand stirred the leaves. Spur shook his head, raised a takeaway cup to his mouth and sipped. It was important to keep up tradition, but this was his morning coffee.

  Markwell raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that a hint of turmeric I smell?’

  ‘’I understand its all the rage in Paramoura.’ Spur replied. An insect buzzed around his coffee lid and he shooed it away. A dragonfly again, had the frakking thing followed him from Volkstorm? How else would it be on a snow-capped mountain? Would he ever be able to have his coffee in peace?

  Grace posed behind them, balancing a small nail on her fingertip, her arm outstretched, her leg extended behind her and Jason clapping along in his bubble. The fine balancing act was made more difficult by the biting wind and unstable snow under their boots.

  ‘Practicing?’ Markwell asked.

  ‘Things are escalating. She needs to be ready soon. Also, you must have some nice boys around here I can set her up with.’

  Markwell tilted his head to the side and looked around at the frozen landscape, the quiet monastery.

  ‘Actually,’ Said Spur, ‘I was thinking of one boy in particular. Things are moving faster than expected. I need to see Concord. I need to secure…Himinglaeva.’ Spur said.

  ‘My apologies, ever-parched,’ Markwell said. ‘The boy ran off.’

  ‘Ran off.’ Spur said, staring over the lid of his coffee, eyes narrowed.

  Markwell shrugged. ‘Perhaps a girl was involved, he is at that age. Still, the tea is good is it not, I have finished mine already.’ He gestu
red to his cup. His hand tremored slightly. Perhaps from too much caffeine? Some people just couldn’t hold their coffee. He probably had to pee every five minutes.

  Spur’s temple spasmed. ‘You know how much was sacrificed to retrieve the boy. Who was lost to retrieve that boy.’

  ‘I do remember, the question is Spur, how is it that you remember? Charlemagne wiped the memory of every Dredger.’ The monk replied, stirring his tea rather pointedly.

  ‘Charlemagne’s a prick.’ Spur said.

  ‘True, but he does still hold the record for the fastest sculling of a yard glass of beer at Westminster.’ The monk replied.

  Spur nodded. He’d lost that record by one second. One frakking second.

  ‘You know me, Markwell, I’m a stubborn bastard, hate to change.’ Spur paused. ‘She stirs, the Deep is more active than I have seen in the last eighteen years. If the Worldflood comes, no-one will be spared, even high in these mountains.’ Spur’s pager beeped, and he cursed. ‘There’s a fracture. I need to fix it. At least tell me if you hear from him, you owe me that much Markwell’.

  He leaned in with his final words to emphasise his point. The pattern of Markwell’s tea leaves in the cup leapt out at him as he did so

  The tea leaves spelled out a single word.

  Trap

  Spur looked up at Markwell, hesitated, then called out. ‘Grace.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Excellent opportunity for a practice exam.’

  The snow around them exploded as five arctic fathomless, permafrozts, launched out of the ice. Their black hides tinged with glacial blue, their reptilian scales overlaid on thick layers of blubber.

  ‘Crack on with it then.’ Spur said, remaining seated.

  Occam’s Razor sprang into Grace’s hand. She cleaved the first permafrozt from the air, her glowing scythe ripping through hide and bone like tinfoil. Grace spun the scythe and pinned second into the ground through the torso. The creature howled in pain and a block of ice-like cracks expanded around the Razor locking it in place. She cursed and banished the Razor before the permafrozt could lock it down.