King Tides Curse

by C J Timms

  ‘Fucking cheat’ Gale cursed. If Gale tried that shit, he’d be booted or grafted. No one would even look twice at the Police Chief’s son.

  Professor Herlov clapped his hands together. ‘Righto with security a concern on campus, your training schedule has been accelerated. None the less, we still expect perfection.’

  Yip was furiously flipping through floating binders, a bead of sweat running down his brow. Yip was a master of preparation, his planning for the initial entrance exam had featured three binders of flow charts, reams of information on each candidate and ten spreadsheets. Not that Gale could talk, his research had been extensive. Gale was much more flexible with plans than Yip though. Yip struggled to incorporate new elements quickly, preferring to plan for every eventuality, so he didn’t have to think on his feet.

  Herlov gestured to the Gate. ‘The second test is different from the first. During the entrance exam, you were in a pocket dimension of our control. The University could have pulled you out at any time. During the first test you were protected by your Safeguards, ‘ Gale remembered the vests and the interference Dumpy had created.

  ‘For this test, you’ll be entering Splinterpoint Gate, a natural conduit to other realms. This break is old, a growth plate fracture. It’s one of the reasons the University moored here. The Splinterpoint Gate will enhance your Script and resonate with a compatible realm. Your personality, your genetics, the choices you make…they will all affect which realm you are drawn to. You will not be allowed to take Safeguards. The Gate does not tolerate them. Remain resilient! This is sink or swim. But you know what I say, victory at any cost!’

  ‘Victory at any cost,’ yelled the House Laurels students. The rest of the students glanced around. Could people die taking this test?

  ‘Now, unless there are any questions.’ Herlov said.

  A hand shot up. Bella from House Solvent pushed her way to the front and unfurled a giant poster. The poster showed a castle made of crystal that flew through the clouds. The castle was surrounded by promises of drinks packages and three-course meals. ‘Winter Formal tickets are on sale from House Solvent for one hundred gold apiece.’

  ‘Yes, yes Bella, now if you are done spruiking we have a solemn test to take.’

  ‘Discounted rate for group purchase…’ she called as she was escorted off stage.

  House Laurels shrugged off their support teams and began entering the portal one by one. House Solvent members hung back and moved through the crowd conferring with students. Gale grabbed Bella as she moved through the crowd selling tickets.

  ‘Twelve to one on…oh hi Gale.’ Bella said. Gale hadn’t seen her since the monster hunt.

  ‘What are you offering odds on?’

  ‘Oh, nothing…’ Bella said, putting something behind her back.

  ‘It's the odds on people coming back alive.’ Yip said beside him, holding a stack of tickets.

  ‘What are the odds on me returning alive?’ Gale asked.

  ‘Thirty to one,’ Yip answered in synchronous with Bella.

  ‘Yip. Did you make a bet?’

  Yip nodded thrusting multiple tickets in front of him.

  ‘And did you bet on me coming back alive…or dead.’

  Yip paused, ‘Well…it's just…my simulations showed your odds being so much worse than thirty to one Gale. We wouldn’t have to do a pager job for weeks.’

  ‘Or you could buy winter formal tickets.’ Said Bella shoving the poster in their faces.

  ‘This isn’t gambling, its just maths.’ Yip said.

  ‘How did you get a pager?’ Bella asked, ‘We aren’t supposed to get one till the second year.’

  ‘Just lucky,’ Gale said, dragging Yip aside.

  ‘Bit of hush on the pager ay Yip?’ Gale said under his breath. Gale looked side to side to see if anyone was listening.

  ‘What are the odds on the others?’

  Yip showed him a ticket stub. ‘Titus did alright, ten to one, Sterling six to one and Swan got four to one.’

  ‘What about you?’ Gale asked.

  ‘No one was willing to crunch the numbers on me.’

  Ranked last in the House Cup ladder, the Lighthouse had to stand and wait. The other teams entered the Gate one by one. Gale tapped the copy of ‘Lifting Great Weight’ in one pocket and Simon Sinek’s ‘Start with why’ in the other. He was prepped as he would get.

  Hotaru and Bella were one of the last members of Solvent to go through the Gate. They’d stuck around to sell tickets to the winter formal and take bets till the last minute. Bella and Hotaru stepped up together, Gale just behind them.

  ‘After you sis,’ Hotaru gestured. ‘You came into the world first, I’ll follow you through.’ Bella grinned and dived through the portal.

  ‘We’re getting closer, like real fracturesmiths now.’ Hotaru whispered to Gale.

  ‘Yeah…I guess so.’ Gale said, thinking of the pager call-outs he’d been on. This couldn’t be tougher than those right? ‘Look after yourself Hotaru.’

  ‘I’ll be fine. I’m resilient! Good luck Gale, I made a large bet on you.’ Hotaru winked at him and charged into the portal.

  ‘Which way did you bet?’ Gale called. There was no answer. Last to go, team Lighthouse marched through the portal like ants in a line, one by one.

  ‘Hurrah,’ Gale muttered.

  Gale swallowed, wondering if he would be dragged into a less tranquil part of the Deep Realm. Standing beside the portal were Blush and Giltynan, weighing him. He hadn’t talked with Blush since he’d summoned his tempest. Since their beach trip.

  ‘Don’t embarrass me, pretty face.’ Blush said and leaned in close. ‘Need a kiss for good luck?’

  Gale coughed and stumbled. Blush winked and stepped back. Looking for anywhere to flee, Gale turned towards the portal. His foot crossed the threshold, and he heard a familiar song.

  ‘Steady your ship, take heart, my love and find your courage deep. The waters cool and my hearth is warm, down by the Devils Reef.’

  Gale glanced around, and everyone else seemed oblivious. Was he being tempted, did part of him want to follow that song into the dark? It was intoxicating, flowing sweet like honey.

  ‘Scared Knott? Feel free to drop out at any time.’ Giltynan sneered.

  Gail squared his shoulders, gave Giltynan a one-finger salute and stepped through.

  Yip sat up slowly, holding a pounding head. He was in a country town bowling club, a bowlo. A small group of locals were already on the turps with half-empty schooners mid-morning while the doggies ran on the screens. A scattered group of elderly patrons put numbers slowly on bingo cards. With dulled, practised movements they wrote the results as numbers appeared in bright explosions of colour on the TV. Yip staggered over to a table and flicked through his binder of notes.

  This was not the test he had expected.

  ‘I was once so much more than this.’

  An older man had appeared at Yips side, slowly picking bingo numbers on a stamp card. Yip jumped back from the table, drawing his hand crossbows and firing. The bolts clanked off a raised metallic shield. No, not a shield, a cast. Both his arms were in casts up to the shoulders. The left arm was in a plaster cast, but the right was in a gold and silver mechanical contraption with rotating cogs and an occasional hiss of steam. His legs were also immobilised, the left in a simple cam boot, the right in a mechanical, platinum cage. The man had scars crisscrossing his face. One eye was a brilliant blue, and the other was a mosaic of colours, like a jigsaw puzzle. He stamped another number on the Keno card, hindered by his casts. He fumbled the stamp, and it dropped off the table. He swiped with his hand ineffectually.

  ‘Well that's my afternoon gone,’ He said. ‘Sit down. You might bring me luck.’

  The man slid a bingo card across to Yip with a series of numbers pre-selected.

  ‘Luck is for those who fail to plan.’ Yip replied, tapping the bingo card with one finger.

  The man grinned. ‘Ah, the youth of today. Chance m
y boy, its both more and less than it used to be. More people bet on chance then ever before and yet its become nothing more than pre-determined algorithms, spitting out dimes on the dollar. We watch electronic horse races rather than real thoroughbred derbies, less shit to shovel, I suppose. Smartphone apps are letting you bet on everything from who will be the Prime Minister to which sports commentator will fart the loudest. Don’t even want to pick your numbers, just push a button and our algorithms will do everything.’ The man snorted.

  ‘Gambling had more meaning when it wasn’t masked by cute animated mascots who would rob you blind, when you wouldn’t slide into crippling debt via mediocrity but via a high stakes game of chance. People used to go down in a blaze of glory. Now they just whimper into nothingness.’

  Yip looked at the bingo screen. ‘Debt is debt, and gambling is gambling to those who lose their money and can’t feed their family.’

  ‘Those ticket stubs in your pocket? They just for decoration?’ The man said.

  Yip ran a thumb over the receipt for the bet on Gale. ‘Risk mitigation. Not gambling, just a good insurance policy.’

  The scene flickered, and they were at the MCG in Melbourne. A crowd of 1930’s Australian cheered as a batsman pounded a ball to the boundary line. A group of English tourists watched on with dismay.

  ‘Donald Bradman, perhaps the greatest sportsman of all time, a test batting average of 99.94, they used to call his team ‘The invincibles’. Paul Kelly wrote it best, ‘fortune used to ride, in the palm of his hand’. A bet on Bradman was a winning bet. A champion of the people.’

  Booing came from the crowd. A ball struck the body of Bradman.

  ‘The English team adopted a strategy of only bowling bodyline to him. They were targeting him instead of trying to bowl him out. A mugs tactic in a game of gentlemen. What was it they said after the match. ‘There are two sides out there today, and only one of them’s playing cricket.’ There is no chance if you don’t play the game.’

  The scene flickered, and he sat in an old western saloon. Two cowboys threw cards down onto a table and pulled guns on a third man with a straight flush.

  ‘I was once so much more alive. I was an intoxicating last roll of the dice.’

  The scene flickered, and two knights duelled for the outcome of a man’s life in a trial by combat.

  ‘I was the double or nothing, the hail mary, the last refuge of the desperate.’

  The scene flickered again, and Yip found himself in the inner sanctum of a casino, exclusive blackjack tables and craps tables around him. The elderly gentleman sat at a desk, casts still on, on a chair made of poker chips and gold coins. He was now dressed in a suit. He looked like a man who had gotten to the top by breaking elbows and rules. A single bingo ball lodged in the throne to the side.

  ‘I was the necessary flaw in the system, that gave the ordinary man a chance at greatness. I kept the dream alive. I prevented the masses from breaking under the burden of monotony. Some may call this the realm of the desperate, but I see it as the realm of opportunity. Random chance is incorruptible. There is no fair, and there is no unfair. There is only me.

  Imperfect chance.’

  He grinned and flipped Yip a coin. It bounced off Yip shoulder, and he brushed his cloak off where it had struck.

  ‘Random chance or no…any outcome can be predicted with enough data. Any point to point transfer of energy can be calculated with the right tools. The gambling house always stacks the bet in its favour, and your incorruptibility is no comfort to a man with no money to feed his family.’ Yip said back.

  The man leaned forward, a gold tooth glinting in his mouth. ‘So you wouldn’t care for a wager then? Something that could fix all of your debt in one roll of the dice.’

  Yip looked around the room. The domain of this creature of chance, of flaws and imperfection. Not a frakking spreadsheet amongst it.

  ‘I’m not Titus Mangrove, go tempt someone who doesn’t read the fine print.’ Yip turned and walked away. A hand in a cast laid on his shoulder, it was rigid plaster, yet it gripped him firmly. He hadn’t heard the man move, how was that possible?

  ‘All men come to me eventually, in desperation, in your darkest hour…I am there. When the time comes, you will strike a deal.’

  A single scratchie floated in front of Yip. It had five scratchable panels, one for each of the limbs and one for the head. A grinning cartoon pirate gave Yip the thumbs up. ‘Dead man’s bones,’ was scrawled at the top.

  Yep held up a finger and flicked around in the air. The terms and conditions on the back were somehow ten times the size of the space on the front. Yip rubbed his hands together with glee.

  ‘Now we’re talking.’ Yip grabbed the scratchie and started highlighting sections. The scene flickered back to the cricket ground, and the man watched cricket as Yip read.

  ‘Fortune used to ride in the palm of his hand.’ Yip muttered as he twirled a pen. How had Paul Kelly put it, ‘more than just a batsman he was something like a tide.’

  Titus awoke and in a trendy looking grocers. A yellow and green side above him read ‘Organic Farm’ with a picture of a knobbly looking imperfect avocado giving him a thumbs up. Titus looked around, aside from the shop, the area around him was nothing but tidal flats. Small mangrove plants scattered the area surrounding the shop. He reached out and touched one, and it responded to him, coming away more vibrant, growing in size.

  He had no tools or weapons on him. Then again, he always had the only two weapons he needed. He held up his two fists and stepped forward into the store. Titus grabbed a red shopping basket and strapped it to his forearm like a shield, hooking his forearm through the handle.

  Organic produce packed the shelves, knobbly potatoes, lumpy tomatoes and irregular zucchinis. Fresh mushies and goats cheese. Capsicum and lettuce. Titus sighed, not a pie in sight.

  The store carried a supply of potted plants. Each one rough, no trimming or careful sculpting. Just hacked from the dirt and put in a pot. Titus reached out his hand to the potted plants, and they swayed towards him, one growing in size to reach out towards him. One of his canuteian marks brightened just a little, then muted.

  ‘Did you bring your own bags, we’ve got a planet to save.’ Said a husky voice from the cash register. The grocer was a rough sort of rugged. A once handsome man who life had beat up. A reset broken nose, a scar down his left cheek. His arms and legs were in casts. The right side were mechanical contraptions and the left simple plaster.

  Titus shrugged, then slapped his forehead. Of course. He pulled his flannie off and tied it into a sack. He was an environmental genius, and nothing could hold more weight than a quality flannie. He grinned back at the grocer. The straight-faced grocer’s lips trembled just a bit.

  ‘Titus mangrove isn’t it.’

  Titus slapped his chest. ‘That’s right, bloody pleasure to meet you.’ Titus stuck out his hand to the grocer. The grocer moved a mechanical cast and fold Titus's hand in the gadget. He shook hard.

  ‘Ah, Titus but you fascinate me, such wasted opportunity. Always striving for a false perfection of chivalry, manliness.’

  Titus gripped the other mans hand as hard as he could. ‘What’ da ya mean false manliness? I’m picture perfect. Top-notch.’

  The grocer let go of his hand and gestured to a pile of fruit. ‘Well now, we have a sale on our odd bunch apples today. Did you know a tremendous amount of fruit is simply left to rot just because of minor blemishes and imperfections? Is it manly to waste Titus? Is it manly to discard something with potential because of its quirks?

  Don’t they deserve a chance?'

  Titus scratched his head and looked at the apples. ‘Don’t suppose you could do the example with pies?’

  The grocer tilted his head slightly, and a stand erupted from the floor carrying a selection of hot, flaky pastries. Misshapen, some burst at the seams, some burnt around the edges. One had utterly exploded coating the others around it in gooey gravy.

  ‘So
me of these are half baked, some overcooked, picking one is a complete lottery.’ The grocer said.

  Titus took a pie in each hand and bit into them one after the other.

  ‘Righto, ya have my attention.’

  Sterling stepped through the Splinterpoint Gate and fixed in his head Celesta Firma. He visualised the noble warriors of the past. He thought of Zasterix, cutting down Addison. He focused on Canute, standing against the Deep. He would have a golden sword to smite his enemies. They would write about him in history until it became legend.

  White splinters of light flashed around Sterling. The world spun, falling up, then dragged sideways like a cheap carnival ride in a small town driven by a guy with a rats tail. He puked up his breakfast, and it spun in the air around him, pulled by the same forces.

  Please don’t let it hit me in the face, Sterling thought.

  There, in the gap of spew and splintered white light, a realm of golden spires. Celesta Firma, realm of champions. Sterling stretched his arm outwards. Then something smacked him down. A flickering shadow darted around him, a tiny imp made of shadow, no larger than his hand. He tumbled, straining back towards his goal, reaching for the heavens.

  He crashed to the ground, and the air flew from his lungs. ‘Mother-frakker,’ he wheezed out.

  Sterling’s diaphragm kicked back into gear, and he took a rattling breath. He pushed to his hands and feet, his clothes covered with ash grey sand. He spat it from his mouth and wiped it from his eyes. Breathe, he thought.

  No golden swords met him, nothing to carve his way into the history books. A mist wreathed, ash grey beach stretched to either side of him, dark water in front and murky shadows behind him. Mist rolled in off the shore. Bodies lay upon the sand and sea, fallen soldiers mixed with the bodies of fathomless. Fathomless lay broken, armoured knights split in two as though by a massive cleaver. This was not Celesta Firma.

 

  Sterlings head jerked around, that voice had come in his mind. How hard had he hit his head? A flicker of shadow darted behind one of the bodies. Sterling crouched down to one of the armoured knights and took up their blades. He took up a short sword and dagger, stained with lampblack and soot. Most of the men’s armament had rusted, but a few remained. The remaining armour was engraved with a symbol, a burning pyre.