by C J Timms
Purrfect Pastries was filled with throw pillows, edgy artwork and cats, dozens of cats. A third cat jumped onto Gale joining the two on his shoulders, and he nursed his coffee. How a cat cafe met hygiene requirements, he’d never know. A dog cafe he’d understand, people loved dogs. Dogs were loyal and happy and made you smile. Cats though, lazy bastards.
He fidgeted in his seat, turning the plater of cookies. The cookies were shaped like a cat and decorated with Script so that the face moved. He poked at the cats head cookie, and it hissed.
Gale had turned up early, that had been drilled into him for any other meeting. Were you supposed to turn up early to a date? Turning up early gave you too much time to think. Were they coming? Were they late? Were they going to bail on him? Would anyone else see him sitting by himself in a cat cafe? This wasn’t even a date though was it? He put his head in his hands, this had been a dumb idea.
He was Gale Knott, he could do this. He was confident and a leader of tommorow…and…his kissing was just…fine. He groaned.
A polaroid camera snapped behind him. Ash winked at him, she pulled a photo and waved it in the air.
‘That photo will do as an apology.’
‘Yeah sorry Ash,’ Gale mumbled, ‘I’ve been feeling a bit paranoid with everything going on lately.’
Ash snagged a cat of her own and stroked it. ‘So Mr Bond, I have you where I want you. Shall I tell you my evil plan?’ Ash raised an eyebrow.
‘Yep, I get it, you aren’t an evil genius.’ Gale said, ‘I bought you pastries.’
Ash considered the cat cookies and instead took a bite of a chocolate doughnut. ‘So what did you find, did you work out something about the Flood or the King Tide Curse?’
‘No its more of a question about the Deep. A question aboutTempests.’ Gale said.
Ashley quirked an eyebrow. ‘Who’s been teaching you about Tempests.’
‘Just one of the tutors.’ Gale’s cheeks flushed involuntarily.
‘I see,’ Ash said. 'They’re certainly a big step, and once you pop that cherry, you can’t go back.’
Gale snorted. ‘I know, but I’m not strong enough. I’ve had my butt kicked. I need to be strong to survive, I can’t change the world without strength.’
Ash put the cat down on the floor, ‘I can guide you through it Gale, but there’s a huge risk. Tempests aren’t just frowned upon, to people like the Inquisition they’re one step away from demons. If you get caught…’
Blush didn’t mention that, Gale thought. Maybe because he had interrupted her.
‘I need to do this Ash.’ His eyes looked down at the table. ‘For Ironchurch.’
Ashley put one hand on his, ‘I’ll help you, but we’ll need the right conditions. Unleashing a tempest usually has to be done in tumultuous conditions, the bigger, the better. A cyclone would be ideal, but they’re tough to predict. You could use a huge waterfall, a storm…’
Gale cocked his head. ‘What about a huge ocean wave?’
Ashleigh paused, ‘I suppose somewhere like the Cortes Bank, Teahupooo or even Ghost Tree might work.’
‘I have an idea,’ Gale said.
Ashley and Gale piled out of a beat-up rental van onto a grim coastline barred by a rockslide.
‘Shippies,’ Ashley repeated. ‘You want to summon the focus of your magical potential at Shippies!’
Gale nodded with a grin. Shipstern’s Bluff, Devil’s point or Shippies as it is known to locals, is one of Australia’s most notorious wave. When the southern hemisphere starts to produce truly top-notch swell, Shippies bears the brunt. A recent cliff collapse had stopped some surfers from getting in, so it was just them. Gale and Ashleigh stood beneath a stormy sky.
The sea below was alive.
Spiked floating balls, like sea urchins the size of beach balls, bobbed through the storm. Colliding and bouncing around like the world’s most painful lotto draw.
Ash frowned, ‘I’ve never seen those before. There are many layers to the Trench, and I’ve never been beyond the fourth.’
Gale nodded. There were so many of the little frakkers. Like giant sea urchins, kin to them maybe? He would call them urkin he decided. Hundreds of urkin, he’d brought some short nails but not nearly enough to pin them. Every nail he took down there would weigh him down in the water.
A trickle of Script ran over his hand. It hand been more chaotic ever since the beach date or lesson or whatever it was he had frakked up with Blush. He’d used it to tear open a breach in reality. Could he use his Deep Script to fix these beasties back where they belonged?
Gale had bought a dinged up surfboard they’d hired from a nearby town. ‘Well, surfs up?’ Gale said.
‘Wait, Gale,’ Ash said, putting a hand out on his chest. He felt his heart beat faster, his Script pulled towards her touch.
‘I can help you down there, but this is your fight. You need to prove to the Deep that you are a champion. No free meals. This is going to cost you something.’
Gale nodded. They’d been over the process. Get in the water, find the biggest wave, ride it and tap as much Script as he could. Gale took Ash’s hand and brought it off his chest. He held it for just a fraction of a second longer than needed.
‘Don’t worry, I’m Gale Knot, and I have a plan.’
He breathed in deep.
Gale leapt from the cliff, surfboard in hand. He let his Deep Script flow and pulled on the water beneath him. He called a funnel of water to make a giant slide down into the waves. Damn, but there were some fun bits of this. Something flickered in his periphery, had the cliff moved? Was that just the distortion of the water?
He rode down towards the swarm of Urkin and pulsed his Script outwards. The Script nudged the urkin out of the way, keeping the wicked barbs from him. The creatures didn’t seem to track him, just blown at the whim of the currents. Gale laid down on his board and paddled for his life.
He came to sitting in the middle of the Urkin swarm, gauging the waves. The first wave of the set rolled under him, and he waited, breathing deep. The second and the third came, not enough, not to change the world.
He knew when the final wave of the set came, felt it resonate through him. He felt the wave gathering speed, gathering force. A wave to crash through all his obstacles. Gale laid down on his board.
He paddled into the wave, and it rose underneath him, dropping the nose of his board down. Gale stood to his feet with practised ease, this he knew. This was familiar. This was him.
Gale pulled at his Script, and it flowed through his body. He felt power in him that was…just alright? Okay?
Fine.
The cliff fast approaching, Gale grimaced and pulled out of the wave, his Script dissipating. He dived into the water and tumbled around, pushing Script around him in a bubble to knock away the Urkin. He slammed into the cliff, and the air was knocked from him. He drew in water automatically, filling his lungs and Deep Script pulsed through
He resurfaced and pulled his board towards him, it was broken in half. Ash popped up beside him, batting away one of the urkin. ‘What are you doing, that wave would have been fine to summon your Tempest, just fine!’ Ash yelled at him. ‘I felt you give up.’
‘I can’t do what I need with…fine! I need a bigger wave!’ Gale roared, and he felt the frustration build in him. He pushed his Deep Script out. It tolled out of him like a sonic pulse, a visible blue light that pounded outwards to the ocean.
Gale felt something answer him in kind.
Something built in the distance, a wave, a massive wave that couldn’t possibly be that big. It was going to burst over the top of the cliff. Higher even. Like a skyscraper. He stared transfixed.
Then something stabbed him in the side. Gale slapped a hand to his side, and his hand hit jagged barbs. He screamed in pain and tried to twist away from an urkin that had jabbed him. Gale tried to rip it from his side and found the horrid thing was stuck. His own blood had formed a cement-like adhesive where it was struck by the barbs. With a deep
breath, he managed to rip his hand away.
Blood poured into the water.
Then his hand clotted off. The blood in the water reached two other urkin. When they bumped together, they stuck, his blood like an adhesive. The reef cursed things used his blood like glue. But why? He’d stopped bleeding once the adhesive hardened. He could see tiny mouths opening on the core of the urkin, but they’d only had a trickle of blood as it sealed off. The thing was stuck to him, but it couldn’t feed. It was almost like it was, well, like a tracker for something else.
The cliff rippled.
Rocks fell from the cliff. No not rocks. Like massive bull seals covered with plates of rock. Plates of rock designed to conceal and protect them from larger predators, to preserve them at high-pressure depths. With armour that heavy, they would only be able to move fast in short bursts. The things would have to conserve all their energy until their prey was close and…and…trapped in a net of urkins. The blood triggered some sort of adhesive so that the ur-kin stuck to him and then could feed when the rockseals tore him apart.
More urkins adhered to each other around him. Gale and Ash dove downwards. The Urkins might be a lethal swarm, but only if you stayed still. He watched the rockseals hurtle towards him, an underwater army bearing down on him. He looked to Ash who turned ready to back him up, then he glanced back to the building wave behind him.
If the Deep wanted a deal written in blood, so be it.
Gale summoned his harpoon and Ash nodded. He surged towards the wave building out back drawing the rockseals with him. Gale let them catch up. He fought and twisted, he speared past the armour into their soft underbellies. He dodged tusk and clawed limbs.
The thing had no eyes, they were drawn by the blood produced by the spiked devil urchins. Their nostrils flaring they tracked him. Probably lived at a layer of the Trench in complete darkness.
The giant wave approached, but he was surrounded by rockseals, he couldn’t break free to paddle in.
Ash roared. A soundwave rippled out from her, stunning the rockseals. The things had no eyes, but they sure as hell had ears. He swam for the surface and saw the wave tower above him. Ash looked at Gale without a board. Gale gritted his teeth and pushed Script into a surfboard shape. He leapt onto it, and Ash grabbed the back, they pushed his board through the water. He picked up a tremendous pace.
The rockseal blood mixed with his own had formed the urkins into a vast net. The net of urkins was sucked up into the wave ahead of him. The only path was straight through.
Gale gritted his teeth, and he punched through the net of urkins. Their jagged barbs clawed into his skin, a thousand grim quills signing a contract in blood. Gale let his Deep Script roar and ripped through the net with dozens of urkins trailing off him like spiked tendrils. Gale shot down the wave on his script-board. The water barrelling overhead threatening to crush him, he called out to the Deep.
Is this not the show you wanted. Am I your champion. Am I not?
A voice answered him. A voice that bore down with the pressure of the depths, that surged through him like a current. A voice of silt and shore and Trench.A voice that broke ships, that dragged them beneath the waves and broke them down.
A voice that was…corrosive.
Ash surged out of the wave onto the board in front of him. Ash moved forward and placed a hand on his chest. She leant in close to him. A great chaos rose within him, and a blinding blue light erupted. His Script surged outwards and then back in, drawing in the energy from Ash, the urkins, the rockseals and the blood in the water. It echoed through the towering wave and deep into the ocean. He felt it bore back through his body with a cold burn, a freezing burn that threatened to break him apart.
Something was torn free from him.
Gale was thrown off balance. Gale fell from his board into the merciless wave. He was turned and pummelled back into the ocean. He couldn’t find up. His chest was squeezed by a vice.
He blacked out.
Gale’s eyes snapped open. He coughed up a lungful of seawater.
‘Back from the dead?’ Ash asked. She stoked a campfire beside him, drying off. They were underneath the cliffs at Shippies. The remaining rockseals had retreated. They seemed to defer to him, to avoid him. Like he was their pack leader.
‘I guess so’, he patted himself down, a few bruised ribs but little else. He took a deep breath in, testing them and was suddenly aware of how easy it was to breathe. His chest felt lighter, it expanded more than half again normal. He noted a small surfboard symbol had appeared on his left, left shoulder next to the tattoo he'd gotten in Thailand.
Ash rolled her eyes and opened up the towel, she draped it over his shoulders and leaned against him. ‘Don’t do that again.’
‘Did you drag me out of there?’ Gale asked.
Ashleigh shook her head, ‘Nope, you can thank him.’
A creature halfway between a seal and a puppy bounced across the beach. It waddled up to Gale’s leg and gave it a lick, then wagged its tail. A seal-hound maybe? No, a sea-hound. The creature was made entirely of water but felt firm to touch. It sniffed Gale’s hand. Although it appeared made of partially opaque water, it felt solid, his hand didn’t even come away wet. It turned away from Gale and began digging under rocks on the beach with webbed paws.
‘This is my tempest...the focus of my Deep magic?’ he raised an eyebrow. Had he messed up the ritual by falling off?
‘I wouldn’t dismiss him,’ Ash said, poking the fire. She poured Gale a hot cup of milo from a thermos. The creature bounded around Gale sniffing at him, then turning its attention to Ashley. ‘He swam through currents I couldn’t with ease. He reflects you, he’ll grow as you do.’ Ash bent down as the creature nuzzled up to her leg and she stroked it.
‘Guess he likes me,’ she winked.
Gale coughed, and then the Tempest turned back to him. Bounding over to him, it cocked its head at him with its tongue lolling out. In Gale’s head, a high pitched voice erupted.
Gale dragged himself back through the University at 11pm. The walkways empty apart from him and his Tempest. The sea-hound plodded along beside him, licking different things. That was probably good for him, right? Building up his immunity?
His Tempest cocked its head, sniffed the air and darted to the side. Gale ran after him, catching it sniffing around under a tree. The tree had lost most of its red leaves, fallen to the ground in a thick carpet. The bare branches in the moonlight stretching out like finger bones. His Tempest dug through the leaves, darting around the tree.
Then Gale saw it.
A body strung up on the tree. The arms tied to the side and the head slumped. Twin bite marks. Red curse lines.
Flint, the man of few words, now a man of none. Gale leapt up into the branches and checked the pulse. Weak, thready. The body was cold and clammy. The arms and legs were broken. Flint shuddered a breath.
‘I…can…do it. I…am…strong.’
Gale summoned his harpoon. ‘Hey…anybody?’ Gale yelled, was the Blood Knight still here?
A figure strode out of the darkness.
‘Tempest, hide.’ Gale said. The seahound looked up at him and panted. It clapped its paws together.
‘Hide, damnit.’ Gale said.
The seahound barked twice and shrunk down to palm size. Gale scooped it up and tucked it into his pocket. He gripped his harpoon, knuckles white. This was bad.
A man emerged from the darkness. Potbellied, wearing a black robe and a tie with cats on it. Gale had never been so glad to see Professor Giltynan.
‘Master Knott, it is past curfew. It looks like you need more debt to teach you…’ Giltynan saw Flint, and he stepped into a combat pose.
‘I found him like this Professor, he needs urgent medical treatment.’ Gale asked, silently willing his Tempest to remain hidden.
Giltynan clicked his hands, and magical bonds tied Gale’s hands. Gale was levitated along with Flint. Someth
ing shot out of Giltynan, lighting up Flint. Giltynan rushed them both towards the University, pulling them through the air.
They passed the Lighthouse, and Giltynan battered on the door. He called out to Urms who descended from above. A hurried conversation passed between them. They rushed off with Flint towards the infirmary, accompanied by Urms. Giltynan handed the comatose Flint off to the infirmary team. They nodded gravely and set to putting in IV lines and organised a blood transfusion.
‘It’ll stabilise him, but the transfusion wont wake him up.’
Giltynan and Urms had another heated discussion, and then both nodded.‘This goes to Helios.’
The Chancellor’s office was filled with Deep beasts. Stuffed or preserved, mounted on walls, even contained in thick gelatinous cubes. The space left over was filled with ancient harpoons, fishing rods, hunting gear. Even an old fashioned diving suit with bellows. The trophies of a hunter.
The fathomless in the gelatinous cube was positioned in mid-leap, jaws open. Did its eyes move just a fraction? Was Gale imagining things? A faint twitch of a claw. A tightening of a jaw muscle.
Giltynan sat at his desk in red trackpants and a shirt that read ‘World’s greatest chancellor’. His face still covered with zinc down the nose. His grin dampened and shoulders hunched forwards.
Gale had the time to take all this in because he remained bound. GIltynan relayed what he had found. The Chancellor’s eyes never left Gale, boring into him. Urms said nothing.
Chancellor Helios waved a hand and the bonds holding Gale dissipated. Giltynan frowned but said nothing.
‘Gale, what do you have to say, where were you tonight.’ Helios said.
Gale paused, he couldn’t tell them about Ashley and the Tempest, he’d be thrown out, accused of spying for the Deep. He’d be grafted, the image of blue smoke rolling through his mind. His Tempest wriggled in his pocket, and he swore internally. He needed an alibi, something believable, he couldn’t tell them he was out with Ash…though maybe…the best lies always had kernels of truth.
‘I’d rather not say Chancellor, it's personal.’ Gale muttered looking down.