The Seventh Tide (23 page)

Jay picked him up and gave him a pleased hug. ‘I’m so glad to see you again,’ she whispered, but his attention was focused on Eo and the Lady. Well, just the Lady really.

Circe was not a tall person, but Jay noticed how she’d set herself uphill from Eo, so that he was looking up at her. She was asking him questions and listening intently to what he had to say. Then he was obviously asking her something, because she kept shaking her head and gesturing with her hands.

Then, suddenly, for no reason they could guess, they saw the Lady look up. Of course
they
all looked up too, but there was nothing there to see – nothing but the sky. Nevertheless, for a long moment Circe gazed intently into the air at something only she was aware of.

Then the moment passed and her attention returned to Eo. She asked him more questions and took particular notice of the sores on his arm. She handed him something, small and wrapped up in a bit of cloth, which he put into his bag. Then she pointed behind him, further along the shore, as if explaining where something was.

‘What’s she showing him?’ wondered Adom.

‘I don’t know – Hey where’s she going?’ said Hurple. ‘She’s not
leaving
, is she?’

Without taking any further notice of them at all, the Lady turned on her heel and walked away. To Jay, it felt like a slap in the face. Another one.

‘Well!’ exclaimed Hurple, as Eo came back to them. ‘What was
that
all about?’

Eo looked a bit shell-shocked.

‘Um,’ he said.

He cleared his throat and tried again.

I, um, told her, about the Challenge, you know, and everything. But she said she couldn’t help – that there were many Underworlds, each with its own rules, and her experience wasn’t with the one I was talking about. Though
generally speaking, she said, getting in was easier than getting out again. She muttered something about the blood of a ram and a ewe and some field of asparagus –’

‘Asphodel!’ corrected Hurple.

‘– yeah, but how none of that really applied.’

‘Well, what did she
give
you?’ asked Adom. ‘Was it something for the Challenge?’

‘Just some herbs,’ Eo answered, looking suddenly cagey. ‘For my sores.’

‘But what was she
looking
at, that time she was staring up at the sky?’

‘No idea – but she did tell me where they keep the boat. It’s not too much further down that way, in a cave she told me about. She said if we leave now, we should be in position in time.’

‘Suits me,’ snapped Jay. ‘The sooner the better.’ She hadn’t taken part in any of the questioning. She didn’t seem to want to talk about the Lady at all.

‘At least she healed you, Jay’ said Adom. And she didn’t organize a diving competition for us, so I guess we’re still ahead on this one.’

Jay looked at him in amazement. ‘Where
did you
learn about diving competitions?’ she asked. ‘I can’t believe that’s a monk thing!’

Adom pointed proudly at the manky remains of his wrist computer. ‘Came across it in my enchanted arm,’ he said, ‘and did you know…’

As the others set off in the direction of the boat cave, Adom happily telling Jay things she already knew, Eo held back a moment to speak privately with Hurple.

He seemed troubled.

‘What is it, lad?’ asked the ferret.

‘Well, it’s – you know I said the herbs she gave me were for my arm, but that’s not what really happened. When I asked if that’s what they were for, to heal my sores, she gave me this strange look and said, “Only indirectly.” And then she said, “They’re for the girl.” She said, “When push comes to shove.” And then she said not to say anything. I didn’t understand most of what she was saying, really. And then, when she started staring up at nothing in the sky like that – none of it makes sense.’ Eo looked completely bewildered.

Hurple shrugged. ‘These mythological women! Just do what she told you, boy, and look for sense someplace else.’

Eo nodded thoughtfully. But there was a little more.

‘Professor?’

‘Yes?’

About that… You know that thing you said, about the hero Odysseus and the, you know, dog?’

‘Yes?’

‘I understand now. What you meant.’

13
The Throw of Lackey Two

On the G beach, Interrupted Cadence was staring out to sea. It looked as if he were intently watching for the return of the Traveller, while considering the successfulness or otherwise of the last Tide and assessing whatever slim possibilities still remained. Actually, though, he wasn’t. Instead, his mind was full of that one brief glimpse he’d had of the Lady.
She had sensed him looking at her.
They’d all been bent over the viewing disc, but she’d looked at
him.
She’d looked up and into his eyes, and he felt he
knew
her, even from that tiny moment. She seemed to him so almost G and yet so utterly alone. She needed to be surrounded with understanding, and comforted, and set free from her responsibilities even if only a little. If only…

He sighed. He was tired of feeling young. He tried to concentrate on the task in hand – he didn’t plan on being the only one not to manage to catch the Traveller on its return!

There is a special light that falls across the islands sometimes, a little like heather honey, a little like molten gold – impossible to describe, really, but unforgettable nonetheless. This was the light that washed the end of the long afternoon, just before it merged gently with the blue dusk.

Interrupted sighed again. The beauty of the scene, like the beauty of Circe, seemed so sad.

‘Courage!’ murmured Hibernation Gladrag as she came up beside him.

‘That’s right!’ said Market Jones, joining the others. ‘Never let them see you bleed, Double or Nothing, that’s what I always say.’

‘You’re an idiot, Market.’

‘No doubt. No doubt.’

Hibernation shook her head at him in mock disapproval as she consulted the Calculating Device.

‘Here it comes!’

They’d become almost used to the suddenness, the speed and the shrinking act, and Interrupted caught the Traveller quite neatly. In fact, it nestled into his hands almost as if it were glad to see him – then the Queen’s voice shrilled unexpectedly in his ear.

‘That’s it, then – your last chance over – “out of your hands”, is that the expression?’

‘I wish you wouldn’t sneak around like that!’ snapped Interrupted. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but it really is quite disconcerting!’

The Queen didn’t answer, but he got the impression she was rather pleased. She walked away with a leisurely insolence and pointed once more into the great vortex.

For some reason, the Lackey who stepped out on to the sand did not affect them the way the other icy Kelpie had done. This one was tall, perhaps too tall, and too thin. It was almost as if he’d been in the whirlpool for so long he’d become permanently stretched. He seemed to sense immediately that there was no future in playing the allure card and he ignored the G completely. Instead he fawned round the Queen, making placating gestures with his long hands until even
she’d
had enough. She took him by the ear with her razor nails and dragged his head down level with her own. Then she
stared
at him.

‘What’s she plotting?’ muttered Market.

Interrupted found himself horribly distracted. Even from where he stood, he could see the blood that dripped from the Lackey’s ear. It was
black.
It was the same colour as the Kelpies’ eyes, and the sudden grotesque idea that they had been watching him all this time through eyes filled with blood made him shudder uncontrollably.

Gladrag patted him absent-mindedly without losing her focus on the demons.

The Queen now released the bleeding Lackey and, delicately licking the stain from her fingers, gestured him over to the G. As the creature approached, it was all Interrupted could do to drag his eyes away from that ripped ear. Still, he managed to hold out his hands and pass the Traveller over.

The Lackey grinned. He seemed to find the G’s horror amusing, if the strange noise he was making was, in fact, laughter.

It wasn’t.

Before Interrupted’s revolted eyes, the Lackey hawked
up a gob of acid and let it dribble down on to the sand at his feet. The Kelpie’s grin widened as he held the Traveller over the acid and began to open his strange, long hands…

What happened next was a bit of a jumble. Both Market Jones and Gladrag realized at the same instant what the Kelpie was about to do, and lunged forward to intervene, just as Interrupted was stepping backwards in disgust. Since the force of two G accelerating in a given direction is invariably greater than the force of one G accelerating in the opposite direction, the three of them stumbled wildly forward and knocked the Kelpie’s arm, so that instead of dropping the Traveller directly into the puddle of acid spit, it landed on the sand a short distance away, and promptly disappeared.

The Queen screamed in rage. The Lackey screamed in terror. Interrupted screamed because he’d fallen heavily across the spit and the acid was eating into his shoulder. The only reason Market and Hibernation were silent was that they’d had the breath knocked out of them. They were still in the process of trying to sort themselves out when the Queen stopped shrieking, took the Lackey’s neck in her two hands, and snapped it. Then, with a snarl, she flung his body on to the sand and stalked off to the other end of the beach.

In the sudden silence that followed, only Interrupted’s whimpering could be heard. The Kelpie’s crumpled corpse had already begun to disintegrate. The acid within it (no longer kept in check) made quick work of his remains. By the time Interrupted’s wound had been cleansed in sea water and bound up, there was nothing left but an unpleasant black patch on the ground.

Interrupted looked at the other two. He was sore and exhausted and confused, and just about at the end of his patience.

‘I have absolutely no idea what just happened,’ he said peevishly.

‘I’m almost certain the children are OK – they must be.’ Gladrag rushed over to the viewing disc, peered into it, then leaned back with a shaky sigh of relief.

‘They’re fine,’ she said. ‘Well past the worst.’

‘The worst of what?!’ Interrupted’s voice rose to a small shriek. ‘
What worst?!
’

‘Steady,’ murmured Market.

‘She was planning to kill them
all
this time,’ said Gladrag. ‘If she’d succeeded, there was no guarantee the two humans – or Hurple – would have come back.’

Interrupted stared. ‘What are you talking about? Eo died
already
and
he
got over it!’

‘That’s right, that’s right – the Challenger must survive – but there’s nothing in the Rules about the
companions.
’

‘As far as I know, it’s never arisen before,’ added Market. ‘Who knows what put the idea into her horrible head
now.
And to send them
there. I’d
never have thought of it!’

Before Interrupted could explode again, Gladrag hurried to explain. ‘She was sending them to the beginning of earth’s time. When its surface was all lava and volcanoes and the sea was a sort of hot, acidic soup and there was only ammonia and nitrogen to breathe.’

Market shook his head. ‘I guess we just weren’t thinking
Kelpie
enough!’

‘No,’ said Gladrag. ‘It was only when I saw that blob
of acid that I suddenly realized. She’d already tried to drown them in the future and freeze them in an Ice Age – this time she was aiming to
incinerate
them!’

‘Instead of just getting them shot, the way
I
did,’ muttered Market bitterly.

‘Now, now,’ the other two reassured in unison.

‘So
that
could have been
them
,’ said Interrupted, pointing at the blackened patch, which still smoked a little. ‘But it isn’t. We’re sure of that, right?’