by C J Timms
‘Tell them to stop the activation.’ Grace yelled to the comms operator.
‘Belay that,’ Tangerinous said. ‘Get her the frak off my bridge.’
‘No you don’t understand, the fuel, the Salt, it's laced with raw Reefstone. It looks like Salt but its frakking explosive.’
The security paused, looking at Tangerinous. The comms operator held the radio ready. Another officer had been found to help activate the ship, and Deb was nowhere to be seen. Jason started crying on her back.
Tangerinous looked out at the skyline at her fleet, her moment, her chance to rise to glory. ‘It seems you’ve lost your nerve, Grace. Hysteria has no place in my fleet. It seems it was too soon for you to return from maternity leave. There is no way someone messed with my fuel supply. Tell them to start their engines. Security get this failure from my sight. A reef-frakking promotion for anyone who can get an officer up here to start the engine in the next ten minutes.’
Tangerinous was calling out Grace for being a mother? Frakking Jacqui Tangerinous, author of ‘Mother of the Fleet’. Champion of working mums everywhere. Frak her.
Two security guards grabbed Grace. She couldn’t let them hit the switch. They’d all die. Grace broke free from the two security guards, summoning Occam’s Razor. She leapt onto the console, swinging the blunt side at Tangerinous. Tangerinous caught it with her blade.
Their eyes connected over crossed blades.
‘You think you know better for my children than me?’ Tangerinous spat in her face.
An explosion rang out into the night.
Gale - The Reefwall burns
‘I have made pilgrimage to the Volkstorm Islands of Ionhome. I have seen the floating wreck in the sky. I have walked beneath its shadow.
It was there that I began to grasp the depth of my failures.’
The Journal of Grimace the Heretic.
The Titans fell.
A mighty crack came from their engine cores. Light and flame punched through their sterns. The Titans tilted, and the support scaffolding bent and tore. Construction crews scattered away in small ships or clung by their fingertips to floating platforms.
The Titans fell towards the statues of Canute, the beacons that formed the reefwall. They gathered speed, flaming lances that cut through the sky, plunging into the chest of the statues. The lighthouses cracked open, their beacons flaring with a defiant flash. Then they flickered out.
Gale held his breath.
A tiny gap appeared in a segment of the reefwall. It spread outwards. Like a reverse jigsaw puzzle, in pieces the radiant barrier protecting Ionhome became permeable, breaking apart into smaller parts that crashed into the sea.
Two points of light remained in the darkness. Two of the Titans had not been started and their statues still projected segments of reefwall.
Above the Membranous Cathedral, a ghostly ship floated, riven by cracks of burning reality. A ship Gale recognised from the Deep beach. The Arghost.
A piercing song, a lament, rose from the depths of the ocean and beneath the island-turtle, shadows filled the water. Another fracture rent open in the middle of Ionhome Harbour, a fracture the size of a skyscraper.
‘Not possible’ Gale said, eyes wide, trying to grasp the scope of such a fracture. He felt desperately at the shortnails in his belt, what could they possibly do?
A shape darted through the fracture and a humanoid figure streaked beneath the waves. In the middle of the harbour, a hauntingly beautiful woman breached the surface. Her hair was a sandy brown and her eyes jet black.
She began to sing.
Dark shapes darted through the water, a swarm passing through the gate. Female and male sirens broke the surface of the water. They called to the people on the land. With breathtaking voices, they sang of lost love, of cruel fate and escape from the bleakness of reality.
‘Sirens,’ Gale cursed.
The song swelled, and men, women and children watched the singers, with glazed expressions, their faces lit by the final light from the crashing reefwall.
The University’s Lighthouse was still dark. They had never replaced the beacon that he’d stolen. He’d told himself it wouldn’t matter, that they’d never actually needed the University reefwall. That the Ionhome reefwall was unbreakable.
Frak he’d been a muppet.
The song he’d heard all year hadn’t been his inner demons, and it hadn’t been him losing control to the Deep. He’d been hearing the sirens as reality became more porous.
It had always been near to a fracture. First, the attack in Sydney. Then the attack at the Ironchurch and then at the testing portal. Every time he'd heard it, he'd been close to a weak point in reality. He’d heard the sirens massing, pushing at reality and he’d been such a muppet he hadn’t realised. Beside him Alisdair was stunned dumb. Gale slapped Alisdair in frustration who just stared ahead blankly.
‘Hey asshole, can you hear me?’ Gale yelled at him. Like Alisdair, the crowd around him was wide-eyed colleagues, struck deaf and dumb. They ignored him. Gale was alone, unable to get help in a sea of the smartest, strongest people he’d ever met.
‘Well…this is a right gee-up.’ Titus said, breaking through the crowd. He was dragging Sterling and Swan behind him. Sterling and Swan clutched their ears, and they seemed less affected by the siren song.
‘The communicators’, Gale said, ‘crank the filter up.’
They did so and peeled their hands off their ears. The siren song dimmed to a dull buzz.
‘We’re the only ones.’ Swan said, looking around, terrified. The sirens continue to press at the barrier reef, that protected the island.
‘Gale…’ spoke a broken voice in his ear. ‘House cup…attack…’ Static broke up the voice of Yip from the communicator in his ear.
‘Yip, can you hear me?’ he yelled. Only static responded.
‘Do we have more communicators?’ Swan said.
‘Yip only made enough for us, frak.’ Gale said, trying cupping his hands around Alisdairs ears to no effect. This was his fault. He’d removed the Lighthouse beacon, and he had to fix this. He felt his chest tighten, and his breathing getting shallower.
‘What are they waiting for,’ Gale said, staring at the sirens lurking in the water. The crowd was immobilised. Why hadn’t they struck?
The top of House Laurels exploded. Two figures careened down the golden palm tree that was the tower. The burning branches at the end of each limb threw strange shadows onto the wall of the building. The figures ricocheted off of the golden branches of the tower. Their descent slowed by the collisions.
‘Gale, the water,’ Sterling said, wrenching his attention back to the ocean.
The blue, green phosphorescence of a phyton swarm snaked through the reality fracture. Tentacles whipped out of the ocean to grapple with the island-turtle’s shell. Then with a shift of the ground, the Island turtle sank a metre into the water. Frak, they were going to drown them.
‘I’ll go figure that mess out’ Gale pointed to House Laurels. ‘You three see what you can do with all of this.’ He gestured to the frozen students and Professors. It was, he reflected, not the best plan he’d ever come up.
Gale charged across the headland towards the base of House Laurels. The two figures collided with the ground. The first was a murky brown beast, crouched on four limbs, with long claws and fangs. The creature had a bear-like torso at its front where its bulk concentrated on the shoulders and impossibly spindly hind legs. Its neck was as long as the rest of its body and ended in an eyeless circular mouth.
The second figure was Blush.
Covered in wounds, with blood running down her arms, Blush had taken a beating. A laceration from her forehead had covered the right side of her face in crimson. Strapped to her back, however, was the House Cup. Blush kicked the beast off her and staggered to her feet.
‘Gale! That thing wants the House Cup, tore up half the bloody tower to get it.’ Blush said.
The beast stalked in a half-c
ircle around the two of them. Gale put his back to hers and readied his harpoon. He could feel her chest heaving, taking ragged breaths.
‘What the frack is it?’ he asked. His eyes never left the creature of the Deep. It stalked them, low to the ground, ready to pounce.
‘I don’t know. It…it…tore Yip apart,’ Blush said.
Anger swelled up within him, a roaring tide that blocked out whatever Blush said next. Yip was a gunner, and he was a number cruncher and a terrible roommate. He had tricked him out of money and saved his arse this year.
Yip had been his mate, and Gale had let him fall behind.
‘Pancakes’ Gale roared, and water erupted around him like spears. Gale rushed forward at the beast. Blush flanked it, drawing cutting waves of water around herself. The creature bared its fangs in the last of the dusk light, its matted fur caked with blood.
Gale came in fast and ducked low. The beast swiped at him with vicious-looking claws. The haft of his harpoon caught the momentum of the paw and turned with it, the harpoon coming up in a wicked arc. The point caught the beast across the left side of its face, running up the angle of the mandible. Blush hammered into it with waves of water. Gale brought the harpoon up for a finishing blow.
The beast melted, it collapsed a puddle of murky brown water. The water streamed away and re-coalesced thirty metres behind them. Its wounds still present but healing before their eyes.
Blush spat a tooth out, ‘Regeneration.’
The creature stalked them in a wide arc, waiting for something.
‘Don’t suppose you know what’s happening.’ Gale said, his anger roiling inside him. This thing had killed his friend.
‘The Deep, I’ve been feeling it rise, but even I didn’t expect a full out assault.’ She shook her head.
‘You know what,’ Gale said ‘I don’t fucking care.’
Gale spun the harpoon and leapt into the air. He crafted discs of hard water to jump off and ran in a spiral at the beast. He lunged forward with the harpoon, but the beast smashed him aside with its paw. Gale tumbled across the ground.
He turned the tumble into a roll, flicked his wrist and sprang to his feet. He planted the harpoon, like a pike, in the direction of the beast. The mongrel, however, had not followed him to deliver a death blow. It had turned on Blush.
The mongrel was pushing her back with vicious swipes of its paws. The beast seemed fixated on Blush? Or maybe the House Cup on her back? Gale ran forwards and his harpoon folded back into the ether. Gale jumped, grabbed the house cup from Blush’s back and tumbled to the ground.
He now had the monster's full focus.
‘I’ve got a plan’ he yelled at Blush then dashed away.
‘Come on you bastard...I’m gonna take you down.’ Gale cursed under his breath.
Gale charged across the headland, looking for the promontory where he did his training with Blush. The beast snapped at his heels. Gale skidded to a stop in front of the giant blowhole. The creature barrelled into him, and he twisted, plunging them both into the blowhole.
They plunged into darkness. They hit the bitter cold, hidden depths and chaotic currents. A familiar home.
Gale pulled the surging water to throw the beast against the walls. The monster kept trying to dissolve away but got swamped. Hard for any other magic to work down here. Finally, Gale found what he was looking for, a black cunjevoi. He lined the black cunjevoi up at the beast and struck the cunjevoi with his fist.
Darkness rolled out in a wave, the cold, dark of the Trench. It devoured the beast, tearing new wounds open and reopening old ones. A new wave set exploded through the blowhole, carrying them both upwards. They shot back onto the promontory.
Gale stood slowly, leaning on his harpoon. The beast flickered, its wounds failing to heal. It slowly tried to drag itself towards Gale. Gale stood ready to deliver the killing blow with his harpoon. Hunt, he thought.
Blush caught up, coming to stand beside him and placing a hand on his shoulder. ‘Finish it, Gale. Defend your family. Family is everything.’
The beast beneath him tried to raise its claws for a swipe but instead could only bring them together feebly.
It made the sign of a Z.
A ragged voice, from a mouth not used to speaking, came from the beast. ‘Sma…shed…Avo...’
Gale paused, his harpoon held high. ‘Blush…why exactly were you in the tower?’
The beast coughed up blood and started shrinking, its form collapsing on itself. A tiny figure, a figure in rags and covered in marks. A figure clutching its books and spreadsheets. A figure who’d fallen behind.
‘Gale…’ Yip coughed out, ‘Run…’
Gale twisted, and a red trident cut along the right side of his torso. He rolled onto the ground and Blush appeared over him, trident raised. Blush sighed, and her face changed. Crimson Script flowed over her torso. Blood red plates of shell armour popped into reality, a sharks helmet forming on her face, the visor up. Her eyes filled with a smokey red light. Her hair caught the fire of the setting sun.
‘You, you’re the Blood Knight?’ Gale said.
Blush grinned, bearing fangs.
‘Why, Blush?’ Gale yelled. ‘Why are you doing this?’
Blush cocked her head. ‘The one you call Blush isn’t here right now. I’m her…better half.
You can call me Red.
I’m the hunger that she has to feed. I’m the Blughada, the red foam, the blood wave, and Blush…’ She tapped the side of her head. ‘She’s not here right now. Why am I doing this? I’m calling for the King Tide. This Gale, this, is my siren call. A call to arms.’
She stretched out her arms to the swarm of sirens filling the ocean. ‘I fight for my blood, for my family and my family is starving.’
Blush glanced over at Yip taking ragged breaths, bleeding out. ‘Your friend is smarter than he looks. Found me trying to take the Cup while everyone was at the match. I don’t think he even realised what it was, but he knew I wanted it. Foolish child tried to stop me. A good plan, by the way, sneaking Yip into the tower using the match as a distraction. Just a shame I couldn’t have seen you perform, pretty face.’ Blush winked.
‘It's just a bloody trophy. It’s rent money to me. Why do you want it? Why kill for a trophy?’ Gale said.
Blush, the Blood Knight, leaned down over him and ripped the House Cup from his back.
‘This is not just a cup. This iseverything. A great weapon hidden in plain sight. A relic, heavily guarded without people realising its value.’ She squeezed her fist over the cup, and blood-stained water dripped over it. The House Cup shimmered, distorted and took the form of a pottery mug with an inscription in old Canuteian.
‘This is the King Tide’s Curse.’
Gale stared at the pottery mark. The inscription swirled before his eyes, and he felt like he could almost read it. Blush held it up triumphantly.
‘This is my doomsday weapon, my arc of the covenant. This is my…’
‘Does it sayswear jar?’ Gale interrupted.
Blush twitched and coughed into her hand. ‘Short story…yes. This is one of the nine reservoirs of Canute’s corona that he left behind. It seems he had a habit of putting scraps of his corona into swear jars. Swear jars carried by his nine generals. The nine noble knights.’
‘But why do you want his corona, didn’t he turn back the Worldflood?’
‘Ahhh and there’s the secret. The part that history glossed over.
Canute was the first King Tide.
Canute could open the Floodgates, and his Script can do the same. With this, I can open the Floodgates. This is one of the nine keys to open the Floodgates and unleash the Deep. I took a job at the school so we could find this, it's magic masks it, it took me months to be sure where it was. Of course, during that time, there is the problem that I have certain cravings.’
‘You’ve been killing all these people for a swear jar!’ Gale roared.
‘You don’t see the beauty of my plan Gale,’ Blush
said. ‘Everything I’ve done since arriving has been to weaken the walls of reality with the Deep. This area’s reality is already porous since the University has been stationary here for so long. I trained you so there would be another pulling on the thread of the Deep. I even got dozens of the students hooked on Salt. Then finally I used the Arghost’s break to give reality a final push. Everything to weaken the walls of reality. To rip a hole to the Deep, and this is a fraction of what the Floodgate will do.’
‘But you saved me when the fathomless attacked me in the harbour, well Blush saved me?’ Gale asked, mind reeling.
Red looked at him with a catlike grin, ‘I allowed Blush’s actions as they contaminated the bay with the blood of the fathomless. What do you think that did to the barrier between the realms? But rest assured, Blush is no friend of yours either, she serves the Deep just as I do, perhaps less willingly but a servant none the less.’
Frak, that traitorous bitch. Wait but if Blush was the Blood Knight then…
‘Ash, what happened to Ash?’
Red winked. ‘She has her part to play still.’
A ragged cough came from nearby, and Yip tried to drag himself towards them.
Red frowned. ‘Corrosyv has plans for you, Gale Knott.’ She strapped the swear jar, which had re-concealed itself as the House Cup, to her back. A web of blood-red water and foam snapped up around Gale, immobilising him. Then she simply carried Gale along beside her in her net. Gale raged against his restraints, but they wouldn’t budge.
‘Now some loose ends to tie up.’ Red said, she brought her blade out and turned back to Yip. Yip was gone.
Two blades came at Red from the sides, soot and slag. Red caught them both on her trident, spinning it in a circle.
‘He can’t go. He still owes us rent money.’ Swan said, her fist slammed into Red’s side.
‘He…stilll…has…dirty…dishes…in…the…sink.’ Sterling said, emphasising each word with a blow from his blades.