King Tides Curse

by C J Timms

  Alisdair looked Swan up and down. Alisdair licked his lips. He walked over to Swan and put a familiar hand around her shoulders. Swan stiffened but let him lead her over to Yip.

  ‘We’re just putting things back in their place. You get it, Swan, yeah? That's why you left these freaks in the Lighthouse. You might not have any noble blood but at least your a true citizen, not like this thing that washed up on the tide.’

  Swan looked down at Yip scrabbling over the floor. Alisdair kept his arm around her shoulders, and he poured a full glass of red wine over Yip. Yip ignored it and kept trying to piece together the glass mosaic. The crystal floor showed his twisted reflection, covered in muck, monstrous.

  ‘You get it don’t you Swan? You ditched this mongrel and his crew for a respectable house. You understand now, don’t you?’

  Swan looked down at Yip and back at Alisdair.

  ‘Yes, I think I understand now.’

  Alisdair held out a glass of red wine to Swan and took another for himself. ‘Here, come and make friends. You know what you have to do to get through training.’ Alisdair’s hand drifted down Swan’s back. ‘You need us to get through training.’

  Swan looked again at Yip on the floor, and Yip could feel his cheeks burning, his shame settling in his chest like a lead weight.

  ‘Yes, I see how the system works now.’ Swan drained her cocktail then took the glass of red wine. She look down at Yip who could only see her in his peripheries. There was too much broken glass, and he’d never put it back together. Things would never be alright.

  Alisdair held his glass out over Yip. ‘Come Swan, a toast to your new career, to seizing every opportunity. This is where flotsam from Volkstorm belongs.’ Alisdair kicked Yip in the ribs hard, knocking him over. ‘At the feet of his betters.’

  A plastered fist crashed into Alisdair jaw. Alisdair’s jaw cracked, and he flew sideways into a table of canapes. Fried shrimp and chicken kebabs spattered the ground. Alisdair passed out.

  Swan strode to Alisdair, breathing heavily as a crack ran up her plaster cast. The cast broke in half and fell to the floor. Swan held her right hand out and caught a kebab as it flew back to earth and took a bite.

  ‘Well, would you look at that, all healed up.’ She bit down and ripped all the chicken off the kebab in one go. Around a full mouth of food, she said. ‘Here’s to doing what’s needed.’

  Swan turned on Even and Rahul, she gestured her chicken skewer like a sword. ‘Piss off, or I’m coming after you next’. Evan and Rahul fled into the gathering crowd.

  Swan bent low to Yip. ‘Here let me help you.’

  Swan started clearing up the glass. Yip didn’t stop cleaning but whispered back.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘MISS SWAN!’ Roared Professor Giltynan.

  Swan glanced around at the shattered glass and Alisdair out cold on the floor. ‘Oh for frak's sake…well, in for a penny in for a pound.’

  So it was that Professor Giltynan found Swan posed with one foot atop the prostrate form of Alisdair taking a photo with a polaroid camera.

  Gale staggered back to the balcony and gripped it tight. He took deep breaths, hunched over.

  Ash was the Blood Knight. How?

  He’d known her since she was a child, but had he ever really known her? She’d hidden the truth from him for fifteen years.

  Pieces began to slot in to place. Ash had pushed him to learn the Deep magics. She’d helped him make a Tempest. She'd wanted him to find the King Tide. She’d been there when the Rust Knight first found him.

  He’d thought he was so very clever, that he was the spider at the heart of a web. He'd thought he was a genius, the man in control, and the guy who always had a plan.

  Gale felt a gnawing pain in his stomach. Sweat beaded on his brow, dripped down his back. His chest grew heavy, and his breathing sped up. He felt like the ocean was bearing down on him. He was drowning.

  He gripped the balcony tight and forced his breaths to calm. Slowly he looked up and focused onto the cloudscape. He summoned Pancakes and patted the seahounds head. Pancakes had grown, he was not a pup anymore. He grabbed the beer he’d put down earlier and took a long pull from the schooner. His breathing slowed, he looked out from the floating castle, beer gripped loosely in one hand. Life had led him to a strange place.

  Inexplicably at this altitude, a group of butterflies streamed alongside the castle. In a cloud of yellow, green and pink wings, they flitted through the moonlight. Low torchlight glowed along the balcony.

  ‘The party is happening downstairs, you know.’

  Blush stepped onto the balcony. Her red gown vibrant in the low light of the torches, contrasting with her pale complexion.

  ‘I suppose I could head down,’ grunted Gale. He relaxed his grip on the balcony. He’d left finger-sized dents in it.

  Blush pulled a champagne bottle from behind her back, ‘Well you wouldn’t leave me to drink this alone, would you?’ Blush quirked an eyebrow up, and Gale shrugged. He was such a charmer. Some day, he would be good at flirting.

  Gale discarded the lukewarm beer, tipping it over the edge. Bitter beer spilled into the magnificent cloudscape. Pancakes waddled over to Blush, tongue panting. Blush patted Pancakes on the head, and he nuzzled her hand.

  ‘Curious beasts, said to reflect the owners,’ Blush said. Pancakes bounded back to Gale. She slipped onto the balcony beside him.

  ‘Do you have a tempest?’ Gale asked.

  Blush winked, ‘A lady has to have her secrets. You haven’t told anyone ours have you?’

  ‘No,’ said Gale. ‘I’m grateful for the help you’ve given me.’

  ‘What happened to your date?’ Blush asked as she moved next to him on the balcony. She leaned in towards him to hand him his glass. Her hand brushed his. The champagne glowed in the glasses, the bubbles lifted from the champagne flute and drifted up into the sky like floating golden lanterns.

  ‘Oh you know….women,’ he said.

  Blush raised one eyebrow, then checked him playfully with her bare shoulder. She looked out from the balcony to the endless cloud. ‘It’s a gorgeous night, a night of potential, of things that could be. Celesta Firma always puts me in a happy mood.’ She paused with a wicked smile. ‘Or maybe that's just the champagne.’

  Gale sipped the champagne. It was the good stuff.

  ‘But its a fleeting beauty.’ Blush said. ‘This whole realm is a crystal chandelier just waiting to come crashing down. They no longer believe anyone would dare to attack them. They put themselves first but lost sight of those below.’

  ‘You keep telling me to put myself first. Are you such a heartless monster? Is there nothing you put ahead of yourself?’ Gale teased.

  ‘You should put yourself first Gale so that you are strong. You must be strong to protect your family. Family is everything. You can’t defend your family if you fall.’ Blush swirled her champagne and drunk it down in one go. ‘What will the father do to feed his starving child? Heck half the convicts sent to Australia were there for stealing a loaf of bread. Never forget your family.’

  One of the butterflies had drifted from the pack and landed on Blush’s arm. Gale reached out, entranced by its wings, the delicate patterns interlaced. Like everything in Celesta Firma, its beauty seemed too fragile to last. It stepped gently onto his hand, and he brought it closer to his face to study.

  ‘Its beautiful isn’t it.’ he said.

  Blush’s mouth quirked at the side. She leaned in further, towards his hand, and blew gently. The butterfly took off and rejoined its pack.‘Beautiful yes, but liable to be crushed by a good storm. Beauty is nothing without strength.’ She paused her face turned back to his. Very close to his.

  ‘You should not need to be afraid to crush something beautiful simply by holding it. Beauty should be strong. True beauty does not flit away when threatened, leaving you alone in the dark. After all, there are hungry things in the dark.’

  Gale stared down at her lips, her hand drifti
ng up his arm.

  ‘GALE I BROUGHT BEERS!’ roared Titus. Titus clapped a hand on both of them, and Gale’s forehead smashed into Blush’s. ‘There are whole cases of beer down there, and people aren’t even touching the stuff.’

  Titus jammed a beer into his hand. ‘That'll put hairs on your chest...oh sorry did you bang your noggin?’

  Blush was at arms length, chuckling. Gale’s head rang, but she seemed unaffected.‘Far be it for me to interrupt beers with the boys. Think on what I’ve said, Gale. Find someone strong and beautiful, not just a pretty face.’ Blush walked off, with a wicked sway to her hips. Gale dragged his eyes from her departing figure back to Titus.

  Titus had somewhere found two bean bags in the party below. He kicked back into one and put his feet up. He gestured for Gale to join him and with a sigh Gale did.

  ‘What happened to Ashley anyway?’ Titus said,

  ‘Ran off’, said Gale, ‘I’ve been on worse dates I guess.’

  Titus nodded ‘Like that one where you pretended you lived in the opposite direction, so you didn’t have to walk a girl home.’

  Gale nodded, rolling his eyes.

  ‘Or that time you took a Vegan girl to an all you can eat Brazillian BBQ.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Or that one…’

  ‘Anything interesting happening downstairs?’ Gale interrupted.

  Titus smacked his head with a palm. ‘Oh, right, I wanted to find you. Swan knocked out Alisdair. She and Yip got thrown in the brig for a bit.’

  Gale grinned, ‘I would have liked to see that.’

  ‘Might leave us a bit short for the Frisbee match though, still, rule number one.’ Titus said and leaned back into his bean bag.

  ‘You gonna tell me what rule number one is?’ Gale said.

  ‘You know it already Gale. You just don’t know that you know it, see? You’re already thinking it, so you don’t notice you’re thinking it.’ Titus said, tapping his finger on his temple.

  ‘We can try to get them out before the match in three days...somehow….Sterling didn’t get thrown in there as well did he?’ Gale said.

  ‘No, he disappeared with Jean the Lioness into a side corridor to discuss the finer points of frisbee strategy.’ Titus put finger quotes up for the last bit.

  ‘She’ll eat him alive,’ grinned Gale.

  ‘Aye mate, remind you of anyone’. Titus said with a wink. Gale cheeks reddened, ‘I’m not that wise to the ways of women mind you, but I know a man-eater when I see one.’ Titus tipped an imaginary hat to him.

  ‘Where’d the Bookwyrm go?’ Gale asked, trying to shift the topic.

  ‘Her dragon sitter called, Monticore got sick, so she had to rush off. Can’t remember what she called it dragon pox or dragonlice or something. Sounded made up.’ Titus scrunched his brow in thought, ‘I probably should have walked her home. Ah well, she’ll be right, but I guess I’m no genius when it comes to women either.’

  Gale nodded leaning back into his bean bag. He held his beer out to Titus.

  ‘To ignorance,’ he clinked their beers.

  ‘Blissful ignorance.’ Titus returned.

  ‘Guess I figured you’d have women a little more worked out.’ Gale said, ‘I thought it would be one of your codes of the modern knight, something about being a man and all that.’

  ‘I never claimed to understand women, hell I’m still working out what it means to be a man. I know I shout about it all the time but its mainly coz I’m still working things out.’ Titus said and looked away.

  ‘I didn’t get much out of my parents before I was on the streets. The rest I picked up from some old books on chivalry, the internet, the Canuteian religion and whatever people yelled about in the papers.

  Do hold the door, don’t hold the door, protect a ladies virtue, let her defend herself…I keep yelling about what it means to be a man hoping I can drown out the other voices. I don’t know what it means to be a man in modern times or a woman or gender neutral, gender fluid. I’m just a simple bloke Gale, I ain't got things any better worked out than you, really a bit of a show is all I’m putting on. In the meantime, I just try to show a little respect to everyone ya know.

  Most days I just try to do some good.’

  They stared out onto the cloudscape and finished their beers.

  Gale and Titus returned downstairs to a party that had petered out. The lights were back on, and everyone was heading for the exits.

  ‘Well we’ve both made errors tonight Titus, but there’s one thing I think we can rescue from this night.’

  Gale gestured to the unused slabs of beer. ‘Free beer, as much as we can carry.’

  Titus nodded solemnly. Some things were not for mucking around.

  Swan - The brig

  Well, of all the people she thought she’d take home from the formal, Yip had not been top of the list. He’d not even been top ten. Sterling maybe in some strange timeline where he wasn’t such a pretty-boy, Gale perhaps if he ever got his act together and did some weights. Then there was Jean…Swan shivered.

  More to the point she hadn’t taken him ‘home’ as much as been thrown in the brig. Swan paced the length of a rocky, spartan room. Her bootprints tracked through the dust of the brig. The bootprints circled the three rock walls, a single wall of bars, a locked door and a hole in the floor. The brig lay in the depths below House Laurels. Somewhere high over them, a golden palm tower soared.

  Yip was catatonic, and a single journal floated in an erratic circle above his head. She’d removed Yip’s suit jacket, cleaned up the wine stains and laid him against the wall. Poor bloke had hid the compulsions well this year. Masked them as being a neat-freak, being detail-oriented.

  Swan eyed the single hole in the floor then turned back again to the cell bars. She gripped them with both hands and heaved, her muscles strained, her feet scrabbled on the brig floor. Grimacing, Swan tried to melt the metal bars. She heaved on them.

  Nothing happened

  ‘It didn’t work the first seven times.’ Yip said, cracking a single eye. ‘Why would it work the eighth?’

  Not so catatonic then.

  ‘I have to pee, and I’ll be damned if I’m using that.’ Swan said and flung her hand at the single hole in the floor.

  She banged on the cell bars, ‘Oy assholes, I need to pee.’

  No guards appeared. She shook the cell bars harder.

  ‘I wouldn’t pull too hard on that, unless you want to blow us up.’ Yip said, his journal floated over to examine the bars. It stuttered and started, jerking through the air towards the bars.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Swan asked.

  Yip pushed himself to stand and hobbled over to the cell bars, holding his ribs. He tapped a single knuckle on them then ran a fingernail down one, producing a dissonant note. He put an eye to black bars riven with white cracks. The bars had barely visible holes in them, like a porous rock.

  ‘Strong, magically resistant and in its raw form, explosive. This is Reefstone.

  This stuff is everywhere on Volkstorm. It was leftover from the flood that came with the Arghost. Salt from the eighth layer of the Trench. Part of the reason its been so hard to rebuild on Volkstorm is because magic doesn’t work on half the island. Not to mention as it degrades, it turns into a land mine.’

  Yip turned and slumped back against the wall.

  Swan stared hard at the cell bars and then back at the hole in the floor, then crossed her legs. She tried to summon the Slagblade, and something blocked her. Her Script felt just out of reach, like it was behind a glass wall. She scrabbled at it with her fingernails and then cursed.

  Strength wasn’t going to work. She flexed her wrist where the cast had come off. She was strong, wasn’t she? Power had gotten her here, hadn’t it? Larc’s silence was deafening. No quips or snarky comments.

  She slumped back down in the cell next to Yip. ‘Yip, you’re well…

  Yip raised an eyebrow.

  ‘A sneaky bastard. Can you pick the
lock?’ Swan asked.

  ‘Maybe…if I had a lock pick.’

  Swan grunted. ‘They took all my metal, and this Reefstone is blocking my Script.’

  Yip started a slow laugh, ‘Probably wasn’t a smart idea to punch the Police Chief’s son.’

  Swan looking straight ahead at the Reefstone bars and nodded. There was silence in the room for a time. Swan looked back over at Yip, hunched, clutching his broken ribs. The tattered white shirt stained and the tie hung loosely around his neck.

  ‘You know, my brother used to get compulsions,’ Swan said. ‘After my mother separated from my father, I think it was his way of coping with the anxiety. I don’t know what's happened with you Yip and I don’t need to...but if those fuckers mess with you, well, I’ve got your back.’

  The silence stretched out, broken only by the sound of water dripping on rock. Swan crossed her legs tighter and looked over at the hole in the floor. A true fracturesmith learnt to hold their bladder. Should get Titus to add that to his list of rules.

  ‘What was your brothers name’ Yip asked.

  Swan stared at the bars holding her back, making her weak again. ‘Joseph.

  Listen, Yip, I’m not feeling great about your chances in the match but are they going to be able to do that in battle or the Frisbee match, break some stuff just to distract you?’ Swan said. Internally she felt her guilt screaming at her. Tell him the truth it shrieked. Tell him why you know they’ll fail.

  Tell him what you did.

  Yip shook his head slightly. ‘I can ignore it in high-pressure situations like battle or competing. That’s why I haven’t had trouble fighting through the messes we’ve been in before. If there's nothing to distract me though, well, it comes on strong.

  You’re in House Laurels now Swan, do you think they’ll use Salt to give themselves a boost?’

  Swan shook her head. ‘They might. They’re dumb fracks ay. I’d never use it though.’

  ‘Why not?’ Yip asked.

  Swan stared ahead and rubbed her arm where the cast had come off. ‘Salt rusts, salt corrodes, it gnaws at our sharpest blades. That is why my family builds our forges at the heart of Locomotyr.