King Tides Curse

by C J Timms

  ‘Let’s see here, good past experience, a strong affinity for the Deep and…Shippies was your focal point? Really?’ The Imperfecta sighed.

  Gale gritted his teeth, ‘I’m not coming with you, I’m no monster.’

  The Imperfecta dispersed the script and shook his head. ‘I’m not asking you to trigger the Worldflood. Just take the throne. What you do with it after that is up to you. Whether or not you can do it with this resume though…’

  The Imperfecta slipped on a couple of floaties onto his arms. ‘‘The Deep and I have an arrangement. Say the word, sign up with me, and everyone walks away to fight another day. I make the Vrachos retreat. Blush falls back, and the students keep their lives. All you have to do is become who you are meant to be, the King Tide, bringer of the Worldflood, Lord of the Deep.’

  ‘You’ve been hit in the head too hard. I’m not becoming the reef-damned destroyer of worlds.’ Gale said. ‘I’ve seen the prophecy.’

  ‘Prophecy is not set in stone. It shifts like the tide. I am the lord of imperfection, in an imperfect world, prophecies can ring false. In an imperfect world, maybe the prophet was drunk when he recorded it. Perhaps someone altered the script for their benefit.

  Serve me, take the job and what the Deep does is up to you.’

  Gale was silent

  ‘Take the opportunity Gale. Take the job. All I’m asking you to do is to take the throne of the Deep, not start the Worldflood. Wouldn’t it be better for you to be in control of it then someone else? Change the system once you are in it.’

  Gale’s brain misfired, it stalled, like a clunky old paddock basher. He was running on fumes. Run down from lack of sleep, pager call outs and stress he tried to make a decision that lives rested on. An infinite line of people stretched before him, blissfully unaware of his decision. The situation was grim. Backed into a corner, he was being offered a chance to save the school, to control the Worldflood. This was the option for the greater good. There was no logical reason for him to refuse.

  What would his dad have done? He would have made the noble sacrifice. And yet…

  ‘I have…just one question.’

  The Imperfecta spread his hands and waited.

  ‘Do you pay overtime?’

  The Imperfecta leaned back, his eyes blinked. ‘Overtime? I’m offering you experience, something profound to put on your script, tremendous power, a job. When someone looks at your script they’ll know you’re a winner. This is a holy crusade. This is about noble purpose and saving the world. Why would you want overtime?’

  Gale looked at him flatly, ‘So you don’t pay overtime. You want me to work without pay? Unpaid overtime!’

  The Imperfecta scratched his head with a plaster cast. ‘I’m offering you ultimate power, and your friends lives are in the balance. Stop quibbling about getting paid. Take the opportunity Gale. Take it!’ He said and shook a fluro life preserver at him.

  Gale - The Turtle wakes

  ‘No overtime pay.’ Gale said. ‘Piss off.’

  Reality snapped back into place. The Imperfecta disappeared, and Red stared back at him. She bared her fangs.

  ‘I wanted to bring you back voluntarily but if I must chain you I will.’

  Thick strands of brimstone erupted from Red, snaking their way around Gales hand and throat. Gale kept a desperate grip on the House Cup. The brimstone was taking its toll on Red. The unholy corona surrounding her had accelerated burnout, and her already burnt skin produced hardened plate. Two cancerous looking growths grew from her head at odd angles, like lopsided horns. Red snarled at Gale, ‘I thought I would find the King of the Deep, but it turns out you’re just a pretty face.’

  High overhead, the flames spread over the cage, and he lost sight of Ash. The pyre lit up the night sky

  The brimstone pulsed around him. It called to him. His Deep script reached to bond with the brimstone, and he held it back by will alone. It would be so easy to reach out, to grab it, and pull it away from Red.

  He could save Ash. He could save her with the brimstone. Scale was already appearing on his hands, his script at its limits. He could use its strength to strike down Red and rescue Ash.

  He would burn out.

  What would his dad do? He would make the noble sacrifice. The father that Gale had grown up without, the father that had never been there to guide him. No, he would not burnout, value yourself first. Find a smarter way to win.

  Gale smiled, ‘Here’s the thing about a pretty face, it can be damn distracting.’

  Red paused, then her eyes flashed downward as her right leg jerked. A rope of water had locked around her ankle, reaching up from the desalination pool. The tendril of water heaved on Red and fell from the balcony towards the desalination harbour below. Gale retained hold of the house cup. With a vengeful look she sliced a crescent of water, not at Gale, but the platform itself.

  The platform cracked and Gale tumbled into the air. He fell, gathering the last of his script he threw Pancakes into the air and yelled. ‘Save her.’

  Pancakes shot upwards in a geyser of water to crash into the burning pyre where Ash lay. He could still do this. He could save the day without burning out.

  He was Gale Knott, and he had a plan.

  Gale plummeted through the air behind Red. Her brimstone fuelled script raged around them, his script gone. In the dark of night they crashed towards the water, surrounded by burning red and black. He thought of the textbooks he and Ash had thrown into the sea what felt like years ago, before his life changed forever. She had been a good friend.

  They struck the water, and black crept in at the edge of his vision. Red’s grip weakened as the desalinator stripped first the brimstone and then Deep script from her. It floated away in a black and red cloud as Blush began to lose consciousness. He had banked everything on the desalinator being able to strip the Salt from her, and he gave a victorious grin.

  Then it started to work on him.

  Gale pushed hard towards the surface, keeping hold of the house cup as he felt the desalinator stripping away his Deep script. He felt his chest clamping down as it tore at him, tore at his Deep bonded power.

  High overhead something crashed into the surface of the water, lighting it up. The electrical current of the desalinator hit Gale hard then. He’d tried to avoid it, but despite his best efforts, it had happened. He held his hand up, seeing the scale had halted. He hadn’t hit the point of burnout. He could pull himself out of this, right? Gale smiled.

  A noble sacrifice was such a dumb way to die.

  Someone grabbed his hand. Someone pulled him to the surface. Someone lit by a halo of light.

  Gale burst through the water and came up onto a small stone platform. He coughed up half his lungs then someone pulled him up to sitting. Ash held him against her, her hand running through his hair.

  ‘I’m sorry I ran off from our date.’ Ash said

  ‘Ah well,’ Gale rasped out. ‘I’ve had worse’.

  ‘Right like the time you took that Vegan to Brazilian BBQ.’

  ‘I thought a Vegan could eat cheese, alright.’

  ‘You’ve never been good at dates or flirting.’

  Gale vomited. He pushed himself back up to sitting, holding a finger to ask for a breather. He dug into his pocket and pulled out a toy figurine, the Aquaman toy from so long ago.

  ‘I spent a lot of time fixing this, but then I realised something.’ Gale threw the Aquaman into the water. ‘Toys are for children, and you are a woman.’

  Then he kissed her and life was good.

  Not perfect, but good. The sort of good built in the real-world, the stolen, half-delirious kiss as you wake up for night shift, the packed lunch that gets you through a crappy day, or the cat meme that makes you laugh. The kind of good that built a two-bedroom apartment with a garden stacked into a tiny windowsill. The type of good that survived the storms.

  Ash smiled at him, ‘I’m glad I saw you one last time.’

  Ash’s smile flickered and was s
nuffed out. Then she clasped her hand to her ears and threw herself away, screaming out into the night.

  ‘The desalinator? It affected you too?’ Gale asked.

  ‘Its more than that, its the song. The siren call, it wants me to change, to join my sisters.’

  ‘Ash no, we can fix this,’ he reached out.

  ‘GO’ She yelled, slapping his hand away. Her voice distorted, her eyes turned black as pitch, like the deepest layer of the Trench.

  Gale felt Swan and Sterling pulling at his shoulders.

  ‘We need to go Gale. The University.’ Swan said.

  Sterling levelled his silver blade at Ash, and Ash hissed at Sterling. Her eyes flashed back to normal for a moment ‘It's alright, this was the price for coming back, and I would pay it again.’ Then she screamed, her eyes darkening once more.

  ‘LEAVE,’ she roared and threw herself into the water.

  Sterling and Swan dragged Gale onto an airship Sterling had brought around. Swan took flight on a….a…platinum pegasus? They lifted off into the night, away from the cathedral.

  With a crack, the desalination pool buckled. Water funnelled into a small fracture that had been rent open in the purified harbour where Red had fallen. The Fracture felt off, distorted. It was wrong, dull somehow, like a black and white film. Then it cracked close, healing itself. How had it done that?

  Sterling punched him in the arm. ‘We’ve got bigger problems right now Gale, but when we get back though we are going to have a serious and I mean an intensive chinwag, do you hear me?’ Sterling said. Sterling glanced over at Swan in her shining armour, crown and new sword.

  ‘Did you do something with your hair?’

  The engine roared up to full throttle, muffling Swan's retort. They shot away from the harbour towards the university. Running on fumes and stress, they readied to fight an abyssal.

  Gale gripped the railing, knuckles going white. The University loomed ahead, the Siren’s Rock still forcing its way through the fracture. Shale ground against the break in reality. Tentacles of rock whipped forward.

  To his right, one of the Titans glowed in the night sky. Gale’s hope soared. Tangerinous’s giant weapons were all she had bragged about for months. One had survived, and this might be their chance.

  The glow dimmed, the ship turned.

  ‘No, that can’t be.’ Gale muttered.

  The Titan, the great ship meant to reclaim the planet, was fleeing the city. The massive airship, instead of bringing its guns to bear on the abyssal, was legging it. The best weapon they had was frakking off. So much for the College. So much for duty.

  Airships punched into reality, fracturing the air around the University. Gale zoomed in on them with his hydrolens. Spur stood atop one called The Chisel. Beside him floated the Fixation, the Alignment and the Bone-Hammer. Battered ships, worn out and patched. Junkers that should have been retired long ago.

  Gale thought he’d never seen anything so grand.

  The airships fired huge fixation nails at the Vrachos Gorgona. The abyssal cried out but kept coming. It retaliated, and a rocky tentacle speared up into the BoneHammer. It’s engine exploded, the ships’ wreckage crashing down towards the sea. Tiny skiffs and lifeboats fled the BoneHammer, abandoning ship. The other airships pulled up to avoid the grasping rock arms.

  ‘Alright old man, you got anything in your textbook for this.’ Gale said.

  Their tiny airship dipped, the engine konking out. Sterling frowned and guided them down towards the University. They skidded to a halt on campus.

  Yip and Titus standing in the wreckage of the golden statue.

  ‘Is that the school statue?’ Gale said.

  Yip shrugged. ‘We thought it would be stronger.’

  Swan landed beside them, dismounting from the pegasus.

  ‘I’m a cowboy, on a steel horse I ride.’ Titus quoted Bon Jovi, gobsmacked.

  It’s no good,’ Swan said. ‘The Siren’s Rock is too big to fix in place. They need to push it back through the fracture and seal it shut, its the only way.’

  ‘I called dibs,’ Titus said. He said it quietly enough that only Gale heard it. It was only Gale, who in that moment, might have stopped Titus Mangrove. Who might have reasoned with him or crash tackled him to the ground. It was Gale who decided to put his trust in the only one of them with pie stains on his armour.

  Titus took off, running down towards the water.

  ‘Titus,’ Swan called out, but Gale grabbed her arm.

  ‘He can do this,’ Gale said.

  ‘Why do you think he can beat that thing? Have you seen it?’ Swan said, shaking Gale by the shoulders.

  Gale brushed her off and held up three fingers. ‘Three reasons.’

  ‘First, that's the man who beat Shane Warne in an arm-wrestling contest at Newcastle Pub.

  Second, I think I finally understand how his magic works. It's all about that book of his, "The Knight and the Sorceror". Have you seen how dog eared it is? He must have read that a thousand times as a child. He latched onto the idea that needing to use magic is unmanly. Buried away deep in his subconscious, he turned the valve to his power tightly shut. Now he’s only able to use it in situations where the action is so manly that it outweighs the negative of using magic.’

  ‘Like fighting a Hydra’ Swan nodded, reflecting on the glow surrounding Titus during the fight on the salt plains.

  ‘And he can use more magic, the more manly the task is. He only got a bit when he challenged the God of Alcohol but more when he fought the Hydra.’ Gale said. ‘Right now, he’s fighting one of the Nine Abyssals, with hundreds of Canuteian monks all around him, not using their pooled magic. How manly do you think Titus Mangrove reckons that is?’

  Swan stared in amazement. ‘Whats the third thing?’

  Gale grinned. ‘The ship that sunk when the island-turtle stopped speaking with us years ago? It was a transport ship full of rum. The island-turtle isn’t ignoring us for our sins. It’s hungover, and they just gave it a hell of a wake-up call.’

  The BoneHammer crashed into the water beside Kulu.

  Kulu, the Giant Turtle, woke.

  Something was trying to drag it down, and something had snapped through one hell of a headache. What had it gotten up to last century, was it Addison who suggested a nightcap? God, he was getting old. Reflexively he bit out at the beast ensnaring him. Tons of force cracked into the belly of the Vrachos Gorgona.

  Gale - The Bogan Knight

  ‘A true man has his mates back.’

  Rule number 1 - The code of Modern Chivalry by Titus Mangrove.

  Titus ran towards the shoreline, his Canuteian marks lighting up like a Christmas tree. Titus spread his arms wide, and the air thrummed with power. He felt for an outlet.

  The trees atop the island-turtle responded. The trees grew, their trunks thickened, limbs spread, and roots burrowed deep. Titus stepped onto a growing trunk, and it grew towards the Vrachos. The thickening trunks twisted and flexed. Then they shot forwards in sinewy ropes of wood.

  The siren’s song faltered as they scattered before Titus’s magic. Diving into the watery depths. Students began to stir from their stupor.

  A fracturesmith who’d abandoned the Bonehammer stared in disbelief. ‘He’s going to get himself killed. He’s mad. He’s a fool’.

  ‘Yes, he’s a fool and a madman’ Gale said.

  Titus rode a large trunk towards the Gorgona, and he wove the reaching tree limbs into one mighty trunk. The trees carried Titus high into the air until they reached above the Gorgona. A writhing mass of wooden limbs.

  ‘He’s a glorious contradiction,’ Yip said.

  The tree limbs formed together. Titus grinned, his flannie streamed behind him like a cape, his trackpants torn and shredded, his thongs somehow gripping to tree bark. A lance erupted from the tree and Titus grabbed it one-handed. The trees formed a massive arm that finished in a fist.

  ‘He’s Titus mangrove, the Bogan Knight.’ Swan said.

 
It punched the Gorgona in the face. The Gorgona shook, its bulk driven back towards the fracture. Titus strained atop it as his lance struck home into the beast’s eye. He pushed the Gorgona just beyond the newly forged break. He pushed the abyssal back into the Deep realm.

  Pain exploded in Gales side, and the House Cup dropped from his hand. Gale reached down to grab his flank, and it was slick with blood. A dagger had pierced his flank.

  Yip rushed past him, holding the House Cup. Yip murky stepped across the harbour, shifting from debris to detritus. Yip reappeared on the edge of the reality fracture, and he floated on the wreckage of the stadium. Gale fell to one knee, his hand held to his side. Yip paused at the edge of the reality fracture and raised a hand in farewell.

  Gale put a hand to his communicator.

  ‘Yip, why?’

  Yip stood on the edge of the reality fracture, holding Canute’s swear jar and looked forwards. ‘I’m sorry, Gale. Take any opportunity.’

  Yip stepped through the fracture.

  Spur - A hammer and a nail

  Rule Number 1: ‘To a man with a hammer, all problems look like a nail’

  Rule Number 2: ‘ If a hammer doesn’t fix the problem, try a bigger hammer’

  Spur’s primer for fracturesmiths 2nd edition.

  Grace crept along the metal girders on the outside of the ship. The scaffolding was cold in the night air, the footing treacherous. One hand gently rocking the pod on her back, the other keeping her balance in the wind. Tangerinous had not been happy, but Grace had been right! So now she was hiding in a construction site, for being right.

  Frak the College.