King Tides Curse

by C J Timms

  Gale kissed her.

  Blush broke away. His Script collapsed.

  ‘Oh,’ Blush said, leaning back. She shuffled backwards, coughing awkwardly. ‘That was…a thing.’

  Gale’s face flushed red, and he screamed internally. What the hell had he been thinking? What was he doing, this was his teacher. She was a ten, and he was…him. She was a fine wine, and he was gas station slushie.

  ‘Sorry it's just that I slipped, I was so sweaty see, and well, yes I slipped.’ Gale spat out. He looked for anywhere to run to, anywhere to hide on the miles of open beach. Blush pulled a towel from the basket and draped it around herself. Blush waved him off, eyes averted. ‘No Gale it's alright, its the Deep Script, it make you more animalistic. More primal. Don’t worry, it was…fine.’

  Fine. That was a real kick in the nuts.

  ‘I…I need to go.’ Gale said. He needed somewhere to run, somewhere to hide. He turned back to where the fracture had sealed itself. The callous was barely formed, only the slightest membrane over reality. He gazed at it, he needed a way out, he grabbed the Deep Script and tore. The fracture responded, and he ripped apart the callous with Script, re-fractured reality, coughing as he did so. He fled the bright sunlit tropical beach looking for a nice cold dark place.

  So he could die of embarrassment.

  Gale - Locomotyr

  The forges burn both day and night,

  And poor old Jack of All,

  His trade built on sleepless might,

  Till they drive him up the wall.

  The furnace roars, the hammer clangs,

  And poor old Jack of All,

  His trade is built on hunger pangs,

  They’ll work him till he fall.

  Oh poor old Jack, Oh poor old jack.

  Why don’t you trade it in?

  I can’t he cries, I can’t he cries,

  I’ll take it on the chin.

  Drinking song from Locomotyr

  He was so frakking awkward.

  He’d tried to pash his teacher, and she’d laughed about it. Like it was funny, the act of a child. She hadn’t even wanted to cancel the training sessions. He’d been too mortified to turn up.

  ‘What are you blushing about Gale?’ Swan asked.

  Gale’s attention snapped back to the room. Team Lighthouse waited around the pager.

  ‘Nothing,’ Gale said. Come on, he thought, staring at the pager. He needed to kick somethings butt, he needed a distraction.

  Sterling paced around the table, rechecking the pager every minute. ‘Come on, Give us some love.’

  Their debt from the monster hunt and their rent were due tomorrow, and they weren’t going to be able to pay it. Hell they wouldn’t even come close. It was all going to come to an end. He’d never track down the fracturesmith who’d known his father. His memories would be wiped, he’d go back to blissful ignorance. Maybe they would have rebuilt the medical school at Bondi by now.

  At least he wouldn’t remember the awkward kiss with Blush. Nothing like ‘oh,’ as a reaction. Really made you feel secure in your manhood. What had he been thinking? She was four years older than him. He was just a gangly acne covered boy.

  The pager lit up with red flashing lights. A high priority call out, triage category two. These paid triple, this was their chance if they could pull it off. Triage category two meant something bad. Only a breakbone fever outbreak was worse.

  Gale slammed the accept button. Yip, Titus, Swan and Sterling grabbed their packs in silent agreement. This was their last shot at paying rent.

  Titus grabbed Gale in a headlock. ‘A quest Gale! A mother flipping quest, what a day to be alive.’

  The five of them collapsed in a pile onto a rock floor. Yip somehow landed on his feet atop everyone else.

  ‘Thank you for coming heroes, I’m afraid it’s quite dire.’

  A young girl, no more than eight, sat atop a large throne holding a pink toy wombat. Her brown hair in pigtails, dressed in a bright sundress. She had the bronzed skin of Locomotyr and blue eyes. She held her posture perfectly.

  The room was made of rock and stone, like a castle. It was filled with fine tables and chairs, functional but well made. Weapons racks hung on the walls.

  Gale shoved himself out from under the others. ‘Thankyou…miss…?’

  ‘Fiore,’ nodded the little girl. ‘Come, we have little time to waste.’

  ‘Oy did you call us out munchkin?’ Titus asked. ‘Aren’t you too young to have a…’ Titus was smothered by Swan’s headlock.

  ‘Princess Fiore.’ Swan said. ‘This is a surprise.’

  Princess? Well princess meant money Gale supposed. If she was old enough to have any.

  Fiore eyeballed Titus, her cheeks flushed red. Then she took some deep breaths and turned to Swan. ‘Jacobian’s daughter. A true scion of Locomotyr in our hour of need. Excellent, isn’t that right, Timothy?’ Fiore said and nodded her wombats head for it. Ah, that would be Timothy then.

  ‘How can we help?’ Swan asked. She swept into what could be loosely described as a bow, keeping the headlock on Titus. Gale emulated her.

  ‘She’s barely tall enough to get into that throne.’ Yip said. ‘ How can we take her seriously.’

  Gale held his tongue. The princess leapt from the chair and strode to a window. Through the window, a rocky landscape was cut by rivers of lava.

  ‘Tonight is the Faultline ball. Where we celebrate those who founded the city in the wake of the Redox. Tonight we celebrate the fact that we live above a giant crack in the earth that could rupture tommorow, or never. Our lifeblood is lava, the lava keeps our forges going, it gives us fertile ground, yet someday it will break us.’

  Fiore nodded Timothy the wombat’s head to emphasise her point.

  ‘One hour ago, I encountered a monster, a hulking fathomless from the deep. But it escaped me and my considerable talents.’ Fiore said. She clasped her hands tight behind her back.

  ‘What and escaped Timothy.’ Yip said. Titus started shaking in Swan’s headlock.

  ‘Yes, a cunning foe indeed.’ Fiore nodded. ‘With me please. We have but moments until the festivities begin.’ Fiore swept out of the room.

  Swan released Titus and shrugged at Gale. Yip tapped his foot.

  Sterling grinned, ‘Money is money?’

  ‘Swan, can this eight-year-old hire us?’ Gale asked in a low voice.

  Swan shrugged. ‘Locomotyr trains its royalty young. Besides, we don’t really have an alternative. Its this or get turfed out on our arses.’

  ‘Swear jar,’ Gale said.

  Fiore led them down a stone passageway. The walls were lined by portraits of hulking men and strong-jawed women. The largest painting showed a goliath of a man, painted with a heart of metal, veins of molten copper extending from the heart into his chest. He carried a smith’s hammer in one hand and wrapped his other arm around three children in a hearty embrace. His Queen looked on beside him with a bemused expression. Something was drawn in the background, flitting behind the Queen, vague shapes in the night sky. Gale leaned into the portrait to get a closer look, he called a hydrolens and zoomed in on the forms. Birds?

  ‘Come on, Gale, stop gawking.’ Swan called back to him.

  The stone passageway emerged to a great cavern. The cavern was filled with platforms, spaced fifty metres apart. Half the platforms floated through the room, the other half affixed to the walls. A river of lava below cut through the cavern and then ran up segments of the wall, defying gravity. The room was frakking hot.

  ‘With me,’ Fiore said and ran at the edge of the platform. Fiore leapt fifty metres through the air to the next stage. Locomotyr Script flared from her, orange and silver. Titus grinned, his tattoos lit up white, and he leapt the chasm. Swan exploded upwards from the floor. Yip murky-stepped across. Sterling charged forwards and ran along the wall sideways with his fine control of raw Script.

  Gale looked over the edge of the platform to the long drop below into lava. He reached
out, and his Deep Script darted away from him. It churned sullenly, almost like it was…anxious? It seemed suppressed, here in the heart of Locomotyr. He looked to the sidewall and spotted an assisted seat. The sort the elderly might use to climb a set of stairs. Gale sighed and sat down, their chance to be heroes indeed. Gale slid slowly up the wall on the safety chair, the grinning faces of the others waiting for him. Fiore tapped her feet and Timothy, the wombat, turned his head away.

  Fiore led them deeper into the fortress until Gale could smell the salt. Two guards lounged in front of a cordoned-off area. The first guard nudged the other in the ribs.

  ‘Ooooohhh she’s back, Pete.’

  ‘No sign of the big monster Trev.’

  Fiore waved them off. ‘This is where I saw the beast, but I have no idea where the fracture was.’

  Gale slipped into the Vibe. Deep blues flickered through the air. There were traces of Deep here, stronger than the rest of the castle. Gale followed the traces back through the corridors. He tracked it to a painting in an alcove. The alcove was lit with bubbling lava contained in spheres of Locomotyr Script. They gave off an orange tint to the room.

  ‘Ha…Lava lamps.’ Titus said.

  Fiore paused in front of a painting. ‘This is our greatest champion, the first king of our people, Cor.’

  Gale stepped up to the painting and ran his hands down the side. It was the same man from earlier, the man with the metal heart. Cor was shown standing in a forge beating upon the metal heart. Then it transitioned to show Cor building a cage, a massive metal cage to trap…something. Something dark and sinuous.

  Gale threw the portrait to the side.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Fiore said and a heat built around her. Her fists balled up, and Script tumbled off her tiny form.

  Gale pointed to the wall. A crack in reality stretched into the wall, leaking Deep Script. Gale took three long nails and realigned the break in reality. Swan smothered the rest of it with Griprock plaster.

  ‘Now can we get paid?’ Sterling asked lounging against the wall.

  Gale raised an eyebrow. Sterling shrugged. ‘Hey I’m the leadership type, I was supervising the whole time.’

  Swan chucked the rest of the Griprock at him, and Sterling spun away. The plaster hit the wall next to a portrait of an old king.

  Swan rubbed the back of her neck. ‘Errr…sorry your highness.’

  Fiore waved it off. ‘Its fine, Lord Atrius was never very popular. Not since the Redox. Now, I require you to stay for the festival and make sure the fathomless does not interrupt things. You will be my personal guards. It is my duty to ensure the success of today. You will of course be permitted to partake in the banquet.’

  ‘Free feed?’ Titus said. ‘Swan did you bring your handbag? We’ll clean out the buffet.’

  Swan elbowed him in the ribs. Gale’s pager beeped at him, responding to the sealing of the fracture.

  ‘Your highness we only have a limited window of time from the fracture’s fixation to get back home via pager. I mean the next minute only.’

  Fiore waved a hand casually. ‘ I will give you access to the Locomotyr growth plate after the ceremony, it will be fine. You will attend me at my seat of honour.’

  ‘Yeah Gale, free feed, she’ll be right.’ Said Titus.

  The children’s table was an experience Gale had thought he would never return to. He held up a wickedly sized slice of fairy bread, fresh from the oven, dripping with butter and coloured sweets. Perhaps it wasn’t all bad. The bread, of course, had no salt but the butter made up for the odd taste. The hundreds and thousands were certainly bang on.

  Gale had never liked dinner parties. He was paranoid he wouldn’t click with the person next to him. Luckily tonight he’d scored Titus on one side who made up for Timothy the wombat on the other. Sparkling conversationalist was Timothy the wombat, a real good listener, never interrupted. At the head of the table, Fiore commanded the children’s table with military efficiency.

  Fiore’s father, King Wratchet, was seated on a high throne at the top of the hall. King Wratchet had a receding hairline and greyed hair at the temples. Despite being only forty, he had the appearance of late fifties. A man worn thin by the weight of the crown. Or perhaps the stress of sitting the molten throne.

  The throne was made of moving lava, pumped from below and contained within layers of Locomotyr Script. Apart from an occasional shift of his posture, there was no sign the heat bothered him. The lava lit up the area around him, so he was almost a silhouette. Gale had heard of hot-desking, but that was ridiculous.

  King Wratchet noted Gale staring and turned his head away, refusing to make eye contact. Nor had he come to speak with them the whole feast. Not even Fiore. In fact, most of the nobility had avoided talking to Fiore.

  The feast hall was a series of long wooden tables, crowded by the nobility. They were dressed in military uniforms or fine suits of earthen colours, the ladies wearing a mixture of suits and dresses. The Queen wore a dress of flowing orange silk that seemed liquid. Rich tapestries covered the walls.

  One tapestry, near to the kid's table, showed a mob of armoured soldiers tearing down a flying burning figure. The angelic figure had been caught in chains and was being dragged to the ground. Wings shorn.

  Yip coughed and tapped his watch. The clock was ticking, and they had to get back to the University to pay rent without arousing suspicion. Gale shifted in his seat.

  Titus clapped a hand on his shoulder. ‘Easy money Gale.’ Titus pulled another croissant from the table and snuck it into Swan’s handbag. Swan’s handbag seemed to have limitless holding capacity.

  ‘Oh Swan, isn’t that your father.’ Fiore said.

  Swan’s head jerked around across the hall. Her eyes darted side to side then she sunk lower in her chair. The result was ineffective. Swan was not made for hiding, she was meant to drive fear into her enemies on the battlefield.

  ‘Don’t you want to go, say hi?’ Gale asked.

  Swan shook her head. ‘Nope, we’ve got a mission right.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ said Titus around mouthfuls of a lamb chop. ‘Oy Mr Swan, oy over here,’ Titus waved the chop bone in the air. Swan grabbed him and clapped her hand on his mouth.

  A man turned from a crowd of nobles and deftly extricated himself from the conversation. He schmoozed his way out of a knot of bigwigs. The man navigated the crowd, shaking hands, punching shoulders and pecking cheeks. He got one or two pinches on the butt in return and a few whispered promises in his ears. He was tall, over six foot, with the muscled frame of a blacksmith bundled into a slimming suit. His hair aligned into perfect shape, moulded like he’d used a spirit level. He saw hints of Swan’s strong jawline and the eyes were the same.

  ‘Jacobian Swan.’ Princess Fiore said. ‘What a pleasure to see you here.’

  Jacobian Swan bowed low. ‘My princess, how could I miss an event with you here.’ Jacobian turned to Jane, who rose out of the slump in her chair.

  ‘Errr…hey dad.’

  ‘MY LITTLE ANVIL!’ Jacobian dropped all pretence and leapt the table, sweeping up Swan in a bear hug. ‘They’ve got you working hard.’ Jacobian dropped Swan to the floor and pulled himself up an undersized kids seat. It creaked beneath his weight. ‘Come introduce me to your friends, these are some fine strapping young bucks. Are you dating any of them?’

  Swan went bright crimson. Jacobian swept over her embarrassment like a wave of lava consuming all in his path. Titus puffed out his chest and stuck out his hand. It was still holding the chop bone, Titus switched it to his other hand and wiped his palm off on his flannie. ‘Titus Mangrove, Mr Swan’s dad sir.’

  ‘Ah Titus, Swan has told me all about you.’ Jacobian gripped Titus hand in a firm grip and clapped him on the shoulder. Jacobian shifted his gaze to Gale. ‘Now this handsome devil must be Gale Knott, the disruptor himself. Anyone who can deal with my little anvil in the mornings is a winner in my book.’

  Gale nearly snorted his drink out. ‘
Oh…no sir, she’s a perfect delight.’

  Jacobian paused at Sterling and stayed a metre back. ‘Sterling…still keeping our deal, I see.’

  Sterling went a very pale white, Gale got a bowl ready in case Sterling threw up. ‘Ermmm…yes sir.’

  Yip had disappeared, faded into the background at some point. Gale hated when he did that.

  ‘How did you get an invite dad?’ Swan asked

  ‘I have worked my back up since the…incident.’ Jacobian winked. ‘The forges work hard on countless new projects. You just keep working on your training, and I’ll keep building our empire. Also maybe find a date, your brother’s hopeless with women and I would just love to have an in-law to torture from time to time.’

  Gale relaxed his vision into the Vibe, thinking of what he’d heard in the salt mines. Jacobian’s Script was a perfectly controlled mask, strong overtones of Locomotyr, his Script of metal, of struts and weapons. Did he know? Maybe it was another member of his organisation?

  Jacobian rubbed his hands together. ‘But enough business chat. I want to hear college stories, let me live vicariously through your adventures. Now that I’m an old boring thing. Tell me all about how things are at House Laurels.’

  ‘House Laurels?’ Titus asked. ‘Nah we’re…’ Swan knocked her drink into Titus’s lap.

  ‘Yeah House Laurels,’ Swan said, ‘You know since we were the best, they let us straight into the best house.’

  ‘Yeah…’ said Gale, ‘…that's us, the best of the best.’

  ‘I’ve been a model good student dad, no funny stories.’ Jane said.

  ‘Well, there was the time she fell into a dinner party.’ Gale said. Jane slumped into her hands.

  ‘Then, in etiquette class, she destroyed a Paramouran high tea, exploded chocolate across half the room.’ Titus said.

  Jacobian roared his laughter.

  ‘Course we got sent to the salt mines for that.’ Titus scratched his head.

  There. In the Vibe. A flicker in Jacobian’s Script. Something about the Salt mines had thrown him. Still, could that just have been a fathers concern for his daughter?