The Seventh Tide

by Joan Lennon

  ‘He hit me! He hit me!’ he kept squeaking, until Adom turned on him.

  Are you trying to tell me no one ever hit you before?!’ he asked incredulously. ‘How do you learn anything?’

  ‘I bite him from time to time,’ Hurple offered.

  Adom shook his head. The G world sounded too good to be true. In the meantime…

  ‘Here, you can help.’ He cobbled together another brush out of sapling branches and handed it to Eo. ‘The sooner this is done, the sooner we can be ready to grab just the right moment and ask Columba for help.’

  Hurple took one sniff of the stuff and retreated to the edge of the trees, while the boys got on with the job. And the reason they both needed to completely wash themselves and their clothes in the sea afterwards had everything to do with their zeal for labour, and nothing at all to do with any silly tallow-flicking fights…

  The afternoon was wearing on when the first of the brothers started to return to the shore. The mood they brought with them was cheerful. Two people had been healed on the spot and several others were expected to get better soon.

  ‘He should be coming down as well any time now,’ Adom whispered to Eo and the ferret. ‘Now, you must speak to him as soon as he’s here – before he wants to get into the boats – he hates to hang about.’

  But it was easier said than done. At first Brother Drostlin had the Holy Father’s ear and no one else dared approach. When the monk was finally finished, a crowd of latecomers rushed up to Columba, begging his blessing before he left. Then there was a homily – far too short to be a proper sermon, which was expected to go on for several hours, but still long enough to be eating up a lot more of the remaining time. The two boys tried to work their way up to the front of the listening congregation, but were caught by Brother Drostlin, who dragged them away by the ears.

  ‘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, ho
wever, 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

  ‘Look, we know you can do better than this!’ Her father waved the report in Jay’s face, barely missing her nose. ‘You just have to make an effort. You just have to pay attention’

  Her mum took the report disk from him by one corner, as if it might bite.

  ‘Look, darling,’ she said calmingly ‘you know you have to work harder than other people. It’s not a punishment – it’s just a fact!’

  ‘It’s not like we don’t know how that feels, Jay!’ her father waded in. ‘Your mother would never have got her job as a neural technician without higher marks than the competition.’

  ‘Substantially higher,’ murmured her mum.

  ‘That’s right. And the same for me. Let’s face it – there are only so many jobs available to people like us – unless you want to be somebody’s minder? Is that what this is about? You’ve decided on the noble career of making sure somebody important gets to work on time? Is that it?!

  Jay shook her head sullenly.

  ‘We’re O-class, Jay! And in spite of a lot of rubbish to the contrary, that’s always going to be a major disadvantage.’

  ‘Which can be overcome,’ prompted her mum.

  ‘Which can be overcome, yes – but not the way you’re going about it, is all I’m saying!’

  Of course, it wasn’t all he was saying. The lecture was only beginning. But that was all that Jay actually heard. This was the stage at which she normally stopped listening.

  ‘Now, let’s not say any
more about it,’ said her mum at last.

  If only. Jay heaved a weary sigh to herself.

  ‘Your father’s on rotation at the forest and I have my neuro-tech conference – and I want you to promise me you’ll work hard while we’re away. At least three units a day. You need to be caught up by the time term starts again. Right?’

  Jay said she would. She said she’d be good. Her parents left, trying to look as if they believed every word, her father to his work for the Kelp Forestry Commission and her mother to the Annual Convention of Neural Technicians. Jay then got as far as opening a homework file titled ‘World Government Section A(a)(i)’ before giving it all up as a bad lot. She grabbed a bag and headed out into the Tubes of Greater Glasgow.

  Greater Glasgow was huge, but it didn’t cover much ground. This was because the vast majority of this vast city was underwater. The monumental rise in sea level was ancient history, and the world’s enormous population had been almost exclusively sub-aquatic for generations. Living quarters, industry, food production, transportation – everything that used to happen on land now happened beneath the waves.

  At school, they were taught about the centuries of climate in turmoil, the millions dead, the extinction of species – but it was just words. The human population had more than recovered its numbers by Jay’s time, and society had adapted to the restrictions of living in an element that was basically hostile. And if some of the old images of chaos and death did come back to haunt you in the night, they were easily patched away. Anxiety, anger, sorrow, over-excitement – they were all managed by tranquillizer patch. With people living so closely packed together, it was argued that there wasn’t room for a lot of uncontrolled emotion. Breaking a window in a fit of rage didn’t just mean an unexpected glazier’s bill – living underwater meant that if someone decided to let off steam with an axe, it was quite likely to end in drownings.

  There was no shortage of statistics for the levels of violence in the olden-day societies, and all those land-based cities just seemed to be willing to accommodate it. In the twenty-fourth century, things were tighter, cities more densely packed, and their inhabitants surrounded by an element for which they hadn’t exactly evolved –well, it made sense to keep a lid on things.