The Southwind Saga (Book 3): Flood Tide

by Kovacs, Jase

  "But I shot you. I shot you in the head and pushed you overboard."

  "And that saved me. A successful melding creates great heat. I would have burned up, like your friend just did. But you pushed me overboard and saved me."

  And that is what finally breaks me. I scream and scream. He looks at me the way he did when I was a child, crying for some childish reason, and he would take my face with his big, strong hands and wiped away my tears.

  His hands now are as big to me as when I was little. But, when he reaches out for me, I flinch away.

  The masalai move to the Green Lord like cowed dogs begging for their master's forgiveness. His terrible face is confused and hurt.

  “So be it.”

  He leaves me in my little pool of light surrounded by darkness.

  ***

  The time between then and when my mind returns is a grey fog. I remember fragments of actions and conversations. But I existed as an observer only, locked behind glass eyes and muffled ears. My motivations and thoughts are beyond me. Even Katie, my constant companion in the long years between my father's death – his supposed death – and my resurrection on the Black Harvest, is mute.

  I remember long periods of empty, damp darkness as I waited in my cell. The door was never locked but I never wanted to escape. Occasionally bowls of food were placed in front of me. When they accumulated untouched, someone took to spooning the grey mush directly into my mouth. I swallowed when urged, but apart from that I made no effort at self-preservation.

  If my mind was adrift, at least my dignity was intact. When I returned to myself, there was no evidence of my baser leavings. I had presence of mind to use the drainage hole in the cell's corner. Although, thinking back upon this time now, I feel a hint of evil amusement, as I knew that this hole fed into the chamber where Rueben's corpse rotted.

  One memory comes clearly through the mists. Jeff lifting a fresh coconut full of milk to my mouth. He tipped it faster than I would swallow, and he cursed me as the juice ran down my chin. "You're so ungrateful. You don't see the gift he's offering. Do you think he's an evil man? Not in this world! You don't even remember the time before, you stupid quim. You stupid— you’re mourning other people's memories. This is all you know and you still judge him for it? He is blessed and all we want is to be blessed like him. To be raised up to sit at his right hand! And you spit on that gift!" He dropped the coconut and stood. The shell hit the ground with a hollow tock and rolled away. "I ought to kill you! I ought to—"

  "You ought to what?" Katya stood at the door. The tiny patches of skin between her scars were flushed pink, and her muscles were as taught as the sheets on a close-hauled genoa.

  "She disrespects our Lord!" cried Jeff. "She spits on us all!"

  "It is not your place to judge, nor condemn. We are the canoes of his armada. Our duty is to carry his blessing. Do not forget your place."

  Jeff lowered his eyes. He sounded meek despite his rage. "I beg forgiveness."

  "You will not be worthy until you can master your anger. Go onto the mountain side and contemplate your sins."

  He scurried away. There must have been no life in my face as she knelt in his place. She took my jaw in her hand and turned my head from side to side, as if inspecting me for minute flaws and imperfections. Then she leant in, so close that I thought she was about to kiss me. But she paused an inch from my face and inhaled. A chill ran down my spine but my face betrayed no emotion.

  Eventually she drew back and sat on her heels. She studied my eyes for a time that seemed endless. Finally, she said, "A fine vessel."

  She sat there unmoving. I thought she was asleep, her eyes open but unseeing. But then she abruptly rose and left.

  ***

  A long sea voyage is a period of great tedium interspersed with moments of intense action. Hours spent alone on watch, when you only have the horizon and the motion of waves for company and the moaning of the wind for conversation. The older folk on Madau talk wistfully of flying. Of jets that would take them halfway around the world in a day. What a luxury that must have been. To enter a small narrow room, sit in a chair for a matter of hours and emerge somewhere entirely different. So much more comfortable than sailing, where I feel every wave that buffets my craft.

  But the tedium and the essentially repetitive, seemingly never ending moment of eternal present where sailors live, is itself a great asset. For when you finally arrive at your destination, all those moments of tedium, of empty horizons and sea sickness and menacing storm clouds collapse into a single memory punctuated by the few notable events of the voyage. When the trip is done, the individual seconds of your journey are inconsequential. All that matter is that you have arrived.

  That strange visit by Jeff and Katya was the opening of a safe harbour. Slowly my thoughts returned to me, as if I carefully edged into the anchorage, sounding out the depths for uncharted rocks before I chose to drop my anchor. My voyage, a long fog of grey weather, was done. The perpetuity of instants collapsed and I surveyed a new shore.

  ***

  It is not my father. My father is dead. He was infected by the plague, and I gave him mercy. It is not my father. It may inhabit his body, much like I once inhabited Voodoo, and it may have access to his memories, as I could read Voodoo's logbooks and the stories of my father's life.

  But it is not my father.

  It is not.

  ***

  I sit in the dark and beg Katie to return. I need to talk. I need my sounding board, her sarcastic wit and acerbic put downs to reassure me that my plan has merit. But she has deserted me. Whatever the Green Lord's reveal has done to my psyche has banished her. Intellectually, I know he ripped away scar tissue and exposed raw emotions.

  This thought leads me to the last sight of my friends; of Fidelio's deck awash with their blood. Of their desperate search for safe harbour. The whole point of my coming here was to buy them time to escape. I sacrificed myself to assure their safety. But now that time has passed and I wonder what I am to do now.

  What finally galvanises me is an earthquake. The hum of machinery from below is a constant shiver that is quickly ignored. But suddenly it leaps up in intensity, screeching like a motor forced out of alignment. The floor shakes and someone screams as a tremor rocks the entire mountain.

  I lie flat and wait for the ceiling to fall. For cracks in the stone, long weakened by the volcano's activity, to give way and the tunnels to collapse and crush me beneath a thousand tons of rock.

  The shaking stops and the quiet returns. The stone is still once more. Nothing can be trusted, I think, no matter how solid it appears.

  I follow the screeching machinery down the stairs to the bottom level. This time, I turn away from the room where Michael was consumed and towards the magazine, below the arming room and the cannon room.

  The passage dips and the water comes up to my knees. A light bobs at the far end of the long narrow room as the radio man works over a paddlewheel. Water pours from a crack in the far wall.

  Artillery shells are stacked like bottles on the shelves. Those on the top shelf gleam under a thin layer of grease. Those closer to the sulphurous water are green with corrosion. I shine my torch down; those below the surface are rust brown.

  "Don't touch anything!" hisses the radio man. He has the torch in one hand and a screwdriver in the other.

  "What are you doing down here?"

  "Checking the power. The quake knocked the gennie out of alignment."

  "That’s an old yacht wind generator? A 400 watt Airpoint, right?"

  "Yeah. I just put a water wheel on it. What, do you know about them?"

  "I've fixed one or two in my time. Do you need a hand?"

  "Nah. I just needed to reset the axle. Now I’m just cleaning the contacts. This water is full of—"

  "Sulphur. Yeah, I know. I'm surprised you haven't moved these shells to a safer location."

  "They're very old... most shouldn't be excited," he says with a casual deadpan. "Anyway, what
are you doing here?"

  "Looking for the Green Lord."

  He pauses as if he is about to question me, before dismissing his suspicion. "He's upstairs."

  I find the Green Lord in the radio room at the HF set, an earpiece held to the side of his head, to the empty holes that bore into his skull. He hums, his eyes closed, as if the static of the dead channel was music that only he can hear. He picks a logbook and offers it to me. His eyes are still closed as he says, "Read it."

  0400 02JUN

  Madau this is zero alpha.

  Zero alpha this is madau station.

  Madau station this is zero alpha you are weak but readable.

  Madau station; you are moderate and clear. The sea patrols have started. We're sending them out south of Woodlark.

  Copy. Next sched is 16JUN0330.

  This is Madau. Copy.

  Zero alpha out.

  0400 16JUN

  Madau this is zero alpha.

  Madau this is zero alpha.

  Madau, this is zero alpha, nothing heard, out.

  0415 16JUN

  Zero alpha this is madau.

  Madau, zero alpha. You're late.

  We're having brown outs here. More batteries are failing and the solar panels aren't as good as they once were. Where is the assistance you promised?

  Zero alpha. We need you to investigate an island called Dalbarade. Local single source reporting indicates that HVT Golf Lima is conducting excavations in order to recover world war two era weaponry. This is as a precursor to hostile active operations against surrounding communities.

  This is Madau. Are you insane? We have a thousand deadies on our doorstep and you want us to conduct... what is it, a fact finding mission?

  This is zero alpha, standby.

  Madau, this is Niner. Is there anything unclear about my instructions?

  NOTE: LONG PAUSE 30+SEC

  Negative.

  Zero alpha out.

  My hands shake as I put the book down. The Green Lord still listens to the static but a horrid smile graces his corrupted face. My stomach churns with a sick fury. Only one man I know calls the masalai 'deadies.'

  "Who the hell is Zero Alpha?" I ask.

  "Hrm..." The Green Lord remains lost as if he was listening to a concerto orchestrated by a great artist. "The void's song. You know, I'm listening to the birth of all things? Static is the echo of that single moment of indefinable pressure from which everything came. And you humans have the audacity to call it an empty channel." He shakes his head, as if he was awaking from a trance and turns to me. Again, his mouth does not move as he speaks. The idea that, if I pried open his jaws and shone a torch within, I would see a smaller mouth speaking in his throat sends a shudder through me. "Zero alpha is an Australian army battalion. Niner is the battalion commander. I'm sure you can fill in the blanks."

  "I don't understand."

  "Don't insult me."

  "This is some scribbling in a notebook. It proves nothing."

  "How do you think I knew you were coming? Am I a psychic?"

  "The chanting – the masalai use it sync—"

  "Christians of old thought the divine spoke in tongues through the faithful. Those afflicted had been touched by God. But then science came along and ruined our fun, as it always does. The chants are just a facade of language. A malfunction of our brain induced by stress." He shakes his head, amused. "I'm not a god, Matai. I just listened to the radio."

  "Don't call me that."

  "Because only your father calls you Matai? I am your father."

  "You're not him. You’re a cancer."

  "Do you know the horror of being unable to share something beautiful? You want to give it to others, to let them have your gift. But it does not... take with them. You act upon your nature and each of your children is born obscene. Ugly. It must be what mothers whose children are... deformed... must feel. Seven billion? Eight? These numbers... One failure is just as bad as a billion. When I woke in... your father — became part of your father — I felt like I had truly come home. For months I waited in that port. I forget the name. Where you left me."

  The cave is cool but I sweat as if I was before a bonfire.. "The town was called BauBau."

  "Yes. I remember now. The others... the ones who came before me. I couldn't take with them. I tried to meld and it... just didn't fit. A square peg. But with your father – it worked. We two became one. Greater than our parts. Then I thought ‘why?’ Why did it work with him and not others? Perhaps because you were at sea when I first came? Like the Pale King. He was at sea and I could meld with him. But he was... troubled. I fear that his mind was unsettled by what he became. I understand it must be challenging to have the veils of your perception lifted. To see the world from a cosmic timeframe." He puts the headphones down. "I admit I struggled. Have you heard of a koru? I learned about them when I met Andy. Aotea was his boat. From New Zealand. He loved the traditional art. The Maori carvings and tattoos. The Koru is the unfurling frond of the silver fern. A spiral. A vortex that symbolises new life. Strength and peace. Beginnings. A perpetual voyage, of movement eternal that always returns to where it began. It... calmed me. The spirals. The carvings and the tattoos. Like the jade. It calms me and those like me. Context is important. It gives meaning. Without it, well..." He gestures to the piles of exercise books. "Read this. A transcript of betrayal. Duncan never told you, did he? Never said he was in contact with the Australians?"

  "We thought... we were all alone."

  "You had only a piece of the picture. And, like a caveman pondering the moon, you leapt to a supernatural conclusion. How many of your decision were based on that assumption? What did I always say assumptions made?"

  "Why would Duncan do this? What would he gain?"

  "Besides solar panels? How would I know? I've never met the man."

  I throw the exercise book away. "This is bullshit. All of it. He would have good reasons—"

  "To send you into harm's way? To let your friends die? For a lie? Why don't you ask him, Matty?" The Green Lord gestures to the radio man's wristwatch on the desk. "The next sched is in ninety minutes. Duncan will have plenty to tell Zero Alpha. How about you join the conversation?" The Green Lord smiles his grotesque grin. "You can't trust anyone, Matai. No one but family."

  "You're not my family. You're a parasite."

  "I'm an evolution. I took your father and made him something more. Stronger. Humanity was the disease. Masalai don't build factories. Don't fill the air with pollution. By taking one species, humanity, to extinction, I've saved all the others. And you can help me."

  "I'll never—"

  "There is something special about your father – about me – that allowed me to meld with him successfully. I tried with others... many, many others. And in only a handful of cases did their minds survive. Become something more than just mindless drones. I want to save you, Matai. I will not force you. I could. Just... anoint you. A drop of blood, a lick of spit is all it will take. But I will not force you. Because I love you, Matai. You are my daughter, and I love you. What is it?!"

  This last statement is directed at Katya, who lingers at the door, wearing a face of thunder. "You told me— to tell you when we had finished loading the canoes."

  "Good. Tomorrow at dawn it is then." He looks back to me and studies me for a minute. He nods, as if disappointed but not surprised by what he finds there, then rises. He pauses at the door and looks back.

  "I will not force you. But I will not wait forever." He glances around the room, taking in the stone walls and ceiling. "Time and tide waits for no man, does it, Matai? We sail tomorrow. Come to me soon. Come and see."

  ***

  The idea is forming. I don't see its shape yet, but I know it comes, like a dark ship looming in the night. But I need more information. I need to confirm some hunches. Some fears.

  I need to troubleshoot this.

  But first I need some tools.

  The upper levels of the base are deserted. The
cannon room, where men were cleaning ammunition, is empty now. The ammunition crates have been loaded onto the canoes. Shouts and commands echo from the docks, where everyone works on the final preparations for departure. But I'm not interested in them.

  Instead I head to the flooded tunnel below.

  ***

  I find Jeff in the arming room. He leans against the far wall, past the table where the shell fuses sit, with his arms crossed and a look of smug satisfaction on his face. "Why, Matty, what could you possibly want in here?" Then he glances to my belt where Rueben's sword now hangs. "You're as unworthy of that katana as you are of our Lord's love."

  "You don't like me."

  He laughs. "Who cares about being liked? Women like. Children like. Men get shit done."

  "You know he has chosen me to be his right hand? Where will you be when we sail to war? Unscarred. Untouched. Unloved. How long have you served him?"

  "Forever." His eyes blaze with hatred, and he spits his word. Years of thwarted ambition boiling over.

  "Were you one of Deborah's people? Did you come to Woodlark?"

  "We came for him. We carried him back here. He showed us where to dig, to find the magazine, the tunnels, the old dock. It had all been sealed after the war. Or perhaps the Japs buried themselves alive rather than surrender."

  "You dug it up?" Intuition hits me like a flash of lightning. "Is... is that why he came to Woodlark in the first place? Because of the old gold mine there? He needed—"

  "Tools? Explosives? Borers and power shovels? All of it. Look at you. You're only just figuring this all out. Of course we needed it. We excavated the tunnels, and we uncovered the old weapon caches the Japs had left. We had no idea that the volcano was still active though; wouldn't have blasted out the tunnels if we had. Heh heh. And now we're ready to go and—" He cuts himself off in mid-sentence and looks at me curiously. "Why are you asking this?"