The Seventh Tide (8 page)

‘This isn’t
working
!’ hissed Hurple through his teeth, as they huddled disconsolately by the boats. ‘How can we ask him if we can’t
get
to him? The tide is practically on the turn, the Traveller is going to be back to drag us away any minute and we’re still without a Gift to take with us.’

It was Adom who came up with a plan.

‘If
you
can’t come to
him
,’ he said, ‘then what we need is for the Holy Father to come to
you.
’

‘How?’

‘When the demon thing rises up out of the Otherworld to claim you, all you have to do is call out to Columba
to save you –
and he will.
I know he will! How could he resist? It’s not as if it’s the first time he’s dealt with Kelpies. Ask anyone, they’ll tell you. And can you think of any
better
way of getting his attention? Not even Brother Drostlin could distract him if something like that was happening!’

‘Well…’ said Hurple.

‘It might work,’ said Eo thoughtfully. ‘I know he’d be our champion if only he knew we needed one.’

‘It’s cutting it very fine, though,’ said Hurple, rubbing an ear with his paw. And what if he refuses to help? What if he just stands there and says, “Not today. I’m not in the mood”?’

Eo stared down at him. ‘You’ve met him. Can you seriously imagine him saying anything like that?’

Hurple looked embarrassed. ‘No. No, I can’t.’

‘Then that’s what we’ll do,’ said Eo firmly. ‘It won’t be long now.’

Which was when Adom realized, suddenly and with a great sinking of the heart, that it was about to be over. The G boy and the talking beast were going on to face unimaginable dangers and excitements and strange new places and times. And
he
was going to go back to rowing and Brother Drostlin and the horrors of the written word…

They’ll be in good hands
, he thought, though the words tasted sour.
For such important affairs they need the best.

Hurple was becoming more and more agitated now, wreathing round Eo’s neck like a hoop.

‘It’s coming! It’s coming!’ he squeaked.

Columba had his back to the boats, saying a final prayer. Adom and Eo edged closer, ready for the moment
when he turned round, casting nervous glances over their shoulders, fearful of what would come out of the sea.

But Columba didn’t turn round. He went on praying, and the crowd stayed kneeling before him, heads bent, unseeing. Only Adom and Eo and a frantic ferret had eyes for what was about to happen to the peace of the afternoon.

First the pressure came, so that the far fringes of the crowd shifted uneasily, while nearer the epicentre, penitents clutched the sides of their heads and moaned. Even the tall figure of the saint swayed a little. Then…

‘What’s that?’ whispered Adom, squinting against the sun. ‘Is that
it
?’

There was… something… a disturbance in the bay… It was growing, and beginning to move. It was heading towards them – it seemed full of purpose – he could see it more clearly now –

The Traveller. How could something so silent seem to scream? It was the height of a man and moving at a tall man’s pace and aiming straight as an arrow. At the slight figure of Eo.

‘RUN!’ shrieked Adom, shoving him hard up the stony beach. ‘Columba will save you!’

But Eo couldn’t hear him. Everything seemed to be happening at once. The vortex speeded up and clipped Adom as it passed, flinging him aside like a bit of unwanted junk. He landed hard on his side, and a sickening pain in one arm tried to tell him he’d done himself serious damage. But there was no time to listen. He scrambled to his feet and set off after Eo, trying to
scream at the praying man to turn around, to
save him –
but making no sound.

Eo was sprinting forward in panic, his hands stretched out towards the saint – he was almost there – but the stones underfoot were treacherous and he slipped, still moving forward as he fell.

Suddenly, there was a grinding wrench of perspective in Adom’s head. He saw, with horrible clarity, through
Columba’s
eyes as the man swung round to face the shore. An impossible unnatural maelstrom had appeared, spiralling towards him from the water, and it had spawned a creature, claw-handed, open-mouthed, that lunged forward, trying to catch hold of his robe, catch hold of him and drag him down into a whirling hell…

With a silent roar of holy defiance, Columba struck, sweeping aside what he thought was a demon. Then, raising his arms and his voice, he tried to pray, fighting against the deafening silence that threatened to choke him.

Eo landed some distance away on the hard pebbles and lay there, winded. Columba didn’t see how the vortex swerved away from him, seeking only Eo, but Adom saw…

He threw himself forward, ignoring the screaming protest from his damaged arm, reaching for Eo to pull him back, to bring him to safety…

It was too late. His hands met Eo’s as the G boy’s body was dragged into the Traveller.

Adom could have let go – he should have let go – but he didn’t. It had all gone wrong – it was all his fault –

What Columba saw was horribly impossible. First the demon and then the boy were stretched and thinned as
the vortex pulled them inside. The last thing to be seen were the soles of Adom’s worn sandals, sucked from the stones and into the wall of water. At the same instant, the vortex itself blinked out of sight, and there was nothing left.

‘God help us,’ whispered the saint in horror.

5
The Throw of the Kelpie Queen

Back on the G beach, Gladrag, Jones and Cadence were struggling. Using the viewing disc was like looking down a hole into another world, and at first the three kept lurching back and clutching each other every time they tried, feeling as if they might be about to fall in. The viewpoint appeared to be hovering a few metres above Eo’s head, showing anything that came within a circle of a couple of metres centring around him. Everything was oddly foreshortened from that angle, of course, and they got to know the different characters that entered the circle mainly as clumps of hair with noses sticking out the front.

What they were able to
hear
also centred on Eo, though the audio range extended further, beyond the circle of what they could see. What was peculiar, however, was the way they could only hear something when Eo was paying heed to it. When his attention wandered, the speaker’s words blurred into white noise. It was an
interesting insight into the selective hearing of the young, but maddening for the G on the beach. The words, ‘Why can’t the boy
pay attention
!?’ were heard on more than one occasion, with a range of adjectives added on.

They knew the exact instant the Queen realized Hurple wasn’t just a collar – there was a furious hiss and the look she threw in their direction was pure venom. She didn’t actually say, ‘You’ll pay for this!’ but there was no doubt that was what she was thinking.

The G shivered, and returned to their vigil.

It was impossible not to get excited when Columba was mentioned, though, like Eo and the ferret, they were worried about how old he looked.

‘He’s got white hair!’ whispered Gladrag. She sounded devastated. ‘I threw too far!’

‘Don’t let
her
know,’ muttered Market urgently, tipping a nod towards the Queen. ‘Act like the thing landed
exactly
where we wanted it to.’

So, as the day wore on, the G did their best to appear confident and chipper. They were successful to some extent – the Kelpie Queen was clearly irritated and suspicious – but they would have been more convinced themselves if Eo had managed to wrest an actual
commitment
from the saint.

‘We’re not getting everything, of course,’ they reassured each other. ‘We can only see what’s immediately in the wretched little circle. There may be all sorts of things we don’t know about going on where we
can’t
see!’

Then the afternoon was nearly over, and out to sea there was a last golden light on the water, and the white flash of gull wings on the wind, and a few high clouds. Where
they
stood, though, it was different. The tall vortex
dominated the beach, drawing the eye and oppressing the spirit. The waves fell heavily at their feet, as if the effort to do so were almost too much.

Suddenly, without warning, there was nothing to see on the viewing disc any more – it had blurred over into blank greyness just before Eo was reclaimed by the Traveller. The last thing they saw was the boy reaching out for Columba, desperate for the saint’s help…

The three G stepped back from the disc and stared at each other. Then, as one, they looked out to sea.

‘Is it time yet?’ whispered Interrupted. ‘Is it the turn?’

Hibernation Gladrag pulled an odd-looking device out of her robe.

‘I’ll check,’ she said.

Market’s mouth dropped open. ‘You have a Tide Turn Calculating Device?
With
you?!’ he said, amazed.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. I borrowed Sanskrit Macmahonney’s when I was speaking to everybody back there,’ said Hibernation absently, twiddling another knob and then squinting at the much too tiny display screen.

The turn of the tide is like the furthest point in the swing of a pendulum – a time of weightless pause before gravity and movement kick in again. Surprisingly, this pause is not entirely uniform in length. It can vary slightly from one tide to another, so if, for some reason, it is important to know the exact second… then it is essential to own a Tide Turn Calculating Device.

(Kelpies, and indeed most species of faeries, demons and the eldritch, don’t need them. They are instinctively aware of these moments because they are part of the
ebbing and strengthening of the barriers between the worlds, a pattern of change –
and opportunity –
which goes on all the time.)

‘Not yet…’ Gladrag muttered.

‘But what’s going to happen?’ twittered Interrupted Cadence. ‘When does the next throw happen –
how
does it happen…?’

The answer exploded out of the sea and flicked towards them at terrifying speed. It was disorienting, the way the Traveller got smaller as it came closer, so that it seemed to be moving towards and away from them at the same time. Both Market and Interrupted shrieked and ducked, but Hibernation forced herself to stand firm. Letting the Calculating Device drop to the sand, she lunged – and grabbed the vortex out of the air with both hands.

‘Gotcha!’ she crowed.

Market and Interrupted clustered round, trying to see what was in it. Tiny faces showed, moving so fast they were gone before the eye could focus. Bodies came behind them like the tails of comets, elongated round the curve of the vortex.

‘There’s definitely two of them in there now.’

‘We did it! Did we do it?’

‘Does the second one look like a Celtic saint monster-slayer?’

‘Well, who else could it
be
?!’

‘It
must
have been Columba –’

‘My throw.’

They hadn’t heard the Queen move, but suddenly there she was, right behind them, smiling her slow, predatory smile. All three jumped like guilty children,
and then tried to pretend they hadn’t, which widened the smile by several teeth.

‘My throw,’ she repeated, holding out her hand. It was long and white, and there were no lines on the palm.

Without a word, Hibernation gently tipped the vortex on to her outstretched hand. She made no attempt to steady it; nevertheless it spun without a wobble, balanced as if rigid with fear on its point. The two faces could still be glimpsed, whipping round and round, tantalizmgly distorted. The G forgot about the Calculating Device, the moment of the turn,
everything
, in their desire to read the Traveller. With a private sneer, the Queen watched them squinting, leaning closer, closer, until –

– with a spurt of sharp sand, she spun round on her heel and threw the Traveller, up and over the inter-tidal waters, far, far out to sea.

‘Struth!’ said Market Jones.

The Queen sneered, a study in smug satisfaction, and strolled away.

The G were appalled.

‘Are there still champions that far into the future?’ gasped Cadence.

‘Are there still
people
that far into the future?’ said Market Jones.

Gladrag scratched her ear, only remembering at the last moment not to use a hind foot, and stared out to sea.

‘Where
are
they?’ she murmured frantically.

Where, indeed?

Inside the Traveller…

Colder than a stone cell, and even a starless night wasn’t as dark as this. Adom could only pray he still had the boy Eo in his grip, for his frozen fingers felt nothing. And then he didn’t pray for that any more, as all his soul was caught up in longing for one thing, for the motion to stop, the sickening whirling, make it stop, dear God in heaven, make it stop…

6
The Second Tide