The Seventh Tide (28 page)

It was more of a slither than an actual swan-dive, but it still knocked the breath out of her for a moment.

‘Are you all right?’ Eo shouted, and ‘I’m coming down!’ Adom called, but Jay had already scrambled to her feet again.

‘No. I’m fine. Stay where you are.’ She brushed herself down crossly. ‘You take the high road, sort of thing. It’s too steep here. Maybe it’ll be easier to climb up further in.’

They continued to inch forward on two levels. The boys were soon forced to go sideways, as the ledge became even narrower. Jay crunched along below them, one hand stretched out in the darkness, the other following the line of the wall.

‘You’re noisy enough,’ grumbled Eo. ‘What’re you walking through down there – bones?!’

Jay froze, one foot in the air. ‘
What?!
’

‘Don’t be daft,’ Adom put in quickly. ‘It’s driftwood. Place like this, with the tides and the currents, it’s bound to be full of old driftwood.’

Jay lowered her foot gingerly.

‘Or bones,’ added Eo helpfully.

‘Oh, shut up!’ snapped Jay.

A moment later, Eo spoke again.

‘I’m sorry I said that about bones,’ he said in a peculiar voice.

‘Why?’ said Jay suspiciously.

‘Because the ledge just ran out.’

‘Oh, great. Well, come on down, then – OWW!’

‘What happened?’ the boys called anxiously.

‘I just stubbed my hand – looks like the cave just ran out too.’

‘Well, mind yourself. There’s nowhere we can go from up here – except down there!’

‘Aren’t you glad I’ve got all this nice
driftwood
for you to land on?’

Jay backed up, and with a certain amount of cursing and arguing, the boys slithered down to her level.

‘Now what?’ she said.

‘I don’t know,’ said Eo, rubbing a scraped elbow crossly. ‘I guess we’ll have to go back and try to find another way in.’

‘No, wait! Can’t you feel that?’ said Adom.

‘Feel what?’

Adom moved his head from side to side for a moment and then nodded in the darkness. ‘The wind. There’s definitely a wind.’

He heard Jay sigh. ‘Don’t be a doofus. Of course there’s a wind. There’s
always
a wind around the islands.’

‘Yes – doofus – but they don’t usually come from
inside
, do they?’

‘WHAT?!’

It was true. There was a definite draught coming, not from the open air behind them, but from the rock face that was currently blocking their way. They could all feel
it now, and it was unsettling in a way they couldn’t immediately identify. It felt…
wrong.

Winds off the Atlantic can be many things – freezing, ferocious, hurricane-strong, with thousands of kilometres of uninterrupted run-up at their backs – or chirpy or balmy or foggy or tangy or sweet. But they are
always
cargoed up with water.
This
wind had forgotten what water was. Desert people would call it Mummy-maker, Sirocco, Brickfielder – but to these children of the tides it was nameless and alien, catching at the back of their throats and making their skin itch.

‘Where’s it
coming
from?’

They felt about in the darkness, and almost at once Eo came across a low, narrow slit in the rock. Normally it would have been below water level, accessible only at the most extreme of low tides. Like now.

‘I think we can get through here. What do you think, Adom?’ Eo said.

‘Oh yes, make sure the fat one fits,’ Adom grumbled, but it wasn’t a problem. Sliding in sideways, they all fitted, just, and the tunnel on the other side of the slit was comfortably tall and wide enough. It angled steeply up before levelling off.

‘Hey! I can see!’ exclaimed Jay.

There was a flat, whitish phosphorescence coming from the rocks which made them look even sicklier than the moonlight had. But it was a relief not to have to feel their way.

‘The wind’s coming from further in,’ whispered Eo.

And almost at once, the tunnel opened out into an enormous, astonishing, unbelievable space.

They had come out on a ledge overlooking a huge
circular cavern. Before them was a great terraced amphitheatre: three levels of mazes, threaded by three rivers that appeared and disappeared among the corridors and walls. There was something disconcerting about the rivers, though. They were the wrong colour for one thing – they were white, with an odd sheen to them. And they didn’t
sound
right.

‘It’s like they’re
sighing
,’ said Adom, frowning. ‘Water doesn’t sigh.’

But Eo wasn’t paying attention. ‘Look at the stars!’ he exclaimed. ‘They’re beautiful!’

The roof of the cavern wasn’t a roof. It was an indoor sky, spangled with stars so bright they lit up the entire space. There were constellations and galaxies, recognizable for a moment, then spinning on into new combinations and conjunctions.

And look there,’ murmured Jay, pointing. ‘That’s it, isn’t it?’

There was another source of light in this underworld. A moving something in the centre of the cave shimmered and scattered light without revealing what it was. The three looked longingly towards it for a moment, then returned their attention to the job in hand.

‘OK,’ said Eo. ‘We have the brief. Thread the mazes with no path; cross the rivers with no water; find the Centre and mend the Dry Heart. Let’s get finding.’

‘Gotta thread before you can find,’ said Jay. ‘But from where I’m standing, that shouldn’t be too hard!’

‘What are you on about?’ said Eo. He sounded a bit irritated. ‘Did you bring some sort of maze-reading technology you haven’t told us about?’

‘We don’t need technology. We can
see
the way from here!’

She was right. The whole thing was laid out in front of them, clear as day under the swirling stars: an aerial view of every step of the way.

‘So, all we have to do is make, like, a diagram –’

‘– or just a list of turn left, turn right –’

‘– yeah, and that’ll take us straight to the Centre!’

‘Well, that’s not much of a challenge!’

‘It would be if you didn’t have anything to write it down on, though.’

‘That’s true.’

‘Or if it kept changing,’ said Adom.

‘Well, yes, but –
whafi
!

‘The mazes,’ said Adom in a flat voice. ‘I just saw them move.’

They stared at him, and then looked out over the scene.

There was no arguing with it. The mazes were moving. First here, then there, all over the great labyrinth, walls shifted, corridors became corners, passages became dead ends and dead ends became new routes forward. They tried desperately to see a pattern in it all, something they could use as a guide, but in the end they had to give in.

The shape of the mazes was changing constantly, and the change was entirely random.

The mazes with no path…

‘You know that technology I was kidding you about,’ murmured Eo, ‘could you bring it out now?’

Jay heaved a rueful sigh.

One by one, the three picked their way down the steps
that led to the first level. As the walls of the maze rose up around them, they did not see the Kelpies who had dived into the rancid pool above, appearing now out of a hole in the far wall, leaping on to the top of the nearest wall and starting to run along it. Grinning horribly, they began to work their way inwards.

Moving more slowly, the three children were doing the same. They took turns choosing which way to turn at each junction and let whoever had made that choice lead the way till the next time. It was as good a system as any. That was how it happened that Adom was in front on this particular bit – a corridor with very weird acoustics.

‘Do you hear that?’ said Adom, looking back over his shoulder to speak to the others. ‘That whooshing sound just keeps getting lou–’

He didn’t see the section of wall suddenly swing out until it shoved him sideways. Before he could even turn back, the configuration of the maze had changed once again, leaving him on one side of a blank barrier of stone, with Eo and Jay on the other.

They stared at each other, wide-eyed, unable to believe he was gone.

ADOM!’ they screamed, and then shushed themselves.

‘I’m all right,’ they heard. His voice was faint, coming over the top of the wall.

‘We’ll climb up! We’ll get to you somehow,’Jay yelled, scouting frantically up and down the wall in front of them, feeling for handholds.

‘No,’ Adom called back and then, almost a whisper, ‘This is for me.’

Jay turned to Eo. ‘What did he say? What did he mean?’ When Eo didn’t answer she grabbed his arm and shook it. ‘Eo! What’s happening?!’

The face he turned towards her was almost unrecognizable.

On the other side of the wall, Adom found himself in a square chamber. It was clear now why the whooshing sound had been getting louder.

‘So
that’s
what it was,’ he murmured in amazement.

A stream of whispering white powder, a few metres wide, flowed across the chamber, out from under one wall and disappearing again under the opposite one. The powder was so fine that its movement left an invisible mist in the air, a mist he could taste on his lips.

It was a river of salt.

He could hear Eo and Jay shouting to him in panic.

‘I’m all right,’ he called back – and froze.

He wasn’t alone.

Someone was standing in the shadows on the far side of the chamber. There was no one that Adom could possibly be expecting to see in this strange place, yet the figure seemed eerily familiar. It was tall, and gaunt, and it wore habit and sandals… then, as it stepped forward, right up to the verge of the river of salt, he felt his heart lurch.

‘
Columba?
!’

With part of his mind he heard the others calling again, saying they would come to him. Without taking his eyes off the man, he answered them.

‘No,’ he said. ‘This is for me.’

The saint nodded as if in approval.

‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ Columba said, his voice like the voice of a deep gold bell.

Then he held out his hand.

Adom couldn’t believe this was happening. It was like being given another chance. It was as if all the shame and confusion of the months at the monastery were being wiped away, and the story that started when he was a child was finding its proper ending at last. It was like an answer to prayer.

He stumbled forward joyfully, blindly, but at the last moment he tripped and fell heavily to his knees. The very tip of the fingers of his outstretched hand touched the lip of the river of salt – and something horrible began.

Before he could react, the white powder started to wick up his hand and then his arm. More and more of it swarmed over his skin and his sleeve, as if it were something alive and hungry and searching. And as soon as it made contact with him it began to harden, like an ever-thickening cast on a broken limb. When he tried to pull back, his arm was so grotesquely encased in salt he could barely lift it.

‘Take my hand, boy’ said the voice of the saint. There was an edge to its music now. ‘Don’t make me wait any longer.’

Desperately Adom struggled to pull himself upright, but the swollen thing his arm had become kept him bent double and unable to stand. This couldn’t be happening! He had a chance to make it right, to make it the way it should be, to take the saint’s hand… and it was spoiled. He’d spoiled it. Again.

He would be nothing. Again.

As hopeless tears began to run, one by one, down his face, Adom could feel his cheeks stiffening. The dry air sucked at the moisture, leaving thickening bars of salt behind.

Even holding his head up now was becoming unbearably difficult, but with an enormous effort, he looked over to the figure of Columba one last time.

‘I’m sorry… Father…’ he croaked, then his words dried up too and choked him.

The saint’s face had begun to twist and distort, his whole body contorting until he vomited great gobbets of scornful laughter. As Adom stared in horror, Columba lurched and twitched into another form altogether.

The Kelpie couldn’t be bothered to hold to his disguise any more. He stood before Adom now in his own man-shape and gave himself up completely to a luxury of derision.

Adom let his head drop on to his chest, but nothing could block out the sound of that laughter. He was a fool. There had never been another chance at grace. Columba had never changed his mind about acknowledging him. It was only right that a creature as low as a demon should mock him, because he was so worthless and stupid. He would mock
himself iî
he could only find the strength…

On the other side of the wall, Jay was so bewildered she could barely breathe.

Strangely, gently, the Eo she thought she knew so well was changing before her eyes. He was the same… but he was also broader. Shorter. The magnificent hair shortened and darkened. And when he looked at her
and smiled, it wasn’t a daft G grin she saw but Adom’s slow, sweet smile.

He motioned to her to stay quiet, but she couldn’t have spoken anyway, not to save her life. Then he rummaged in his bag and pulled out the deer-bone pipe MakK had given them.

He began to play.

The notes were tentative at first, as if he were listening to a tune in his head that he couldn’t quite remember. Then they grew in confidence…

The music drifted softly over the wall, at first unnoticed by the Kelpie in his scorn or Adom in his despair. Then, in a pause in the laughter, it made its presence known.

The effect on the Kelpie was immediate. His stance changed dramatically, as he dropped down into the alert crouch of a hunter. He lifted his head and inhaled luxuriously, licking his lips. Then he leapt across the river and began to cast along the wall behind Adom, sniffing, trying to pinpoint the source.

‘Delicious,’ he purred. ‘Fresh. Unsuspecting. It was only my job to secure the one, but what will the Queen say if I salt down the three!’

‘No!’ Adom croaked. ‘It’s just me you want. Me!’

‘You’ll wait. You’re
not going anywhere.’

Adom went cold. Trembling with the effort of holding up his head, he watched as the demon turned back to the river of salt and dipped in first one hand, and then the other.