The Seventh Tide Read online

  At no point up till then had anything irrevocable happened. There was nothing actually dangerous about a teacher falling asleep or a pupil skiving. And what came next might seem pretty insignificant too, particularly if you think only big actions have consequences.

  Or that only cruelty on a large scale is actually cruel.

  Eo laid his bag down on a soft bit of the beach, then tiptoed away to look for rock pools. And almost at once he found a beauty. It was a perfect little world of miniature seaweed and red sea anemones like clots of blood, darting transparent fingerlings, at least one small crab, a few snails and a colony of shrimps with their long feelers and their perpetually prissy expressions (Eo disliked shrimps). It was like a little zoo, or his own private collection.

  Eo drew his hair back from both sides of his face, knotted the two pieces behind his head and told it to stay there. One of the convenient things about G hair was that it always did as requested, come high wind or water.

  It was fascinating, for a while, just to watch the inhabitants going about the place, aware that they were unaware that they were being watched. But after a bit, Eo was gripped by the temptation that comes, sooner or later, to all zoo owners and collectors – the temptation to interfere. To find out what would happen if…

  He started with just shifting his weight a little, so his shadow fell across the rock-pool world, cutting off the sun. This made the inhabitants pause for a second, but it was the sort of thing clouds did all the time so they forgot about it almost at once. Then he tried dropping rocks, just small ones, out of the blue on to their heads. That got them agitated! Then he had another idea – he looked about him for a stick…

  Every G had tuition on the dangers of demonic entrance – living where they did, it would have been criminal negligence otherwise. Just because the main pillars of G existence had always been pleasure and the satisfaction of curiosity didn’t mean they were reckless or stupid. They knew better than to walk round a standing stone widdershins, or sleep on a faerie mound, or whistle rudely at sea.

  Eo had very recently been reminded of all this. The lecture from Supernova Tangent was the same one she gave every year. It described – in painstaking detail – the way certain things could combine at certain times, things like phases of the moon, lunar orbit, whether or not an eclipse was imminent, what Festivals of the Dead were near at hand. When even a few of these things happened together, the walls of the worlds became even thinner, and the chances of a rip between one world and another increased. When all of them happened together, it was wise to be very, very careful indeed not to do anything that would attract the attention of the dark realities and the endless hunger of their inhabitants for souls to feed on.

  FAQ 246: I get that demons from other worlds are attracted to the energy in souls, and that’s what they feed on. And that they’re always trying to get into other people’s worlds to find some. But then why is there so much mention of riddles and challenges and forfeits in stories involving demon breakthroughs? When they make it into another universe and then catch somebody, why do they mess around with all that? Why don’t they just get on with their meal?

  HURPLE’S REPLY: You’re right – there does seem to be a practically genetic leaning in demons of all kinds towards gambling. Playing chess with Death, swapping riddles with sphinxes or poems with the Blue Men – there are as many variations as there are stories. (Though obviously victims who are killed immediately wouldn’t get the chance to tell stories.) Some scholars believe that dallying and delaying like this serve a culinary purpose – the sudden upsurge of hope generated in the victims’ souls is thought to intensify the flavour. Others think that it has to do with cosmic balance – if, like cats, demons were not constrained to play with their food, they might wipe out entire populations. Whatever the reason, it certainly adds to the general tension of inter-dimensional interaction!

  But Supernova Tangent was not a thrilling lecturer, and Eo had heard it all before and his attention wandered…

  He didn’t make the connection between what he’d been told, and sitting by a rock pool on a sunny day, casually tormenting the occupants. It amused him to shut off the sun. He enjoyed sending them meteors out of the blue. It made him laugh to create a miniature maelstrom with a stick, to see the little shrimps being swept backwards round and round, waving their tiny legs ineffectually and then staggering across the sand grains afterwards like old women in a high wind until he stirred them up again. He didn’t notice he was stirring the pool counter-clockwise. The word widdershins didn’t even cross his mind. He didn’t notice that the sun really had gone in, though his body shivered a little. He didn’t hear the way the wind was picking up, or see it flinging bits of foam off the waves and shredding them over the expanse of low-tide sand. He was so intent on the captive world before him, so caught up in the exercise of power, that the changes going on behind his back didn’t register.

  Until he suddenly realized that all the sounds of his world had stopped. It was as if a giant bell jar had been shoved down over him, cutting him off. He banged the side of his head, desperate to ease the pressure in his ears, to no effect. He turned, and froze.

  A gigantic whirlpool of powering black water had appeared, towering over him out of nowhere, balanced impossibly on the wet sand. It was black like a hole ripped from a moonless sky, or out of the dark depths of the sea, full of grotesquely swirling women’s faces and the bodies of men and flailing horses’ manes and hooves.

  He noticed that.

  2 The Challenge

  Kelpies!

  Eo felt his heart lurch with dread as he realized what he was seeing. The faces in the vortex were clearer now, too eerie and elongated to be beautiful, yet riveting –animal- and human-shaped, horses, women and men. They swept past, some half-obscured by foamy hair, others pinning Eo with their eyes in the instant before they were whipped away again. They seemed to be crying out to him in the silence, yearning for him, drawing him…

  Eo took a step closer. And another. Then, without warning, the side of the whirlpool split open, vertically, in an explosion of white noise that threw him on to his back and tore all the breath from his lungs. Out of the rip plunged a gigantic white mare, lean as a predator, with muscles that showed like bunched steel as it galloped on to the beach, bucking and screaming and biting the air. Then, just as suddenly, the vortex sealed itself again.

  Wheezing and rasping, Eo pulled himself up on to his knees. He barely registered that the pressure in his head had eased and he could hear again. He no longer noticed the immense column of water whirling its frantic cargo so close beside him. Crazed by terror and Kelpie mesmer, he was utterly focused on the horse.

  The huge mare thundered to the far end of the beach and reared round, flailing its hooves in the air and screaming a triumph. As its front legs hit the sand again, Eo could feel the ground shake, and then it was powering towards him and he had staggered to his feet, and at the last second the horse stopped, stiff-legged, showering him with grit. It stared down at him with black, blank eyes, and spoke.

  ‘So small,’ the Kelpie said. ‘So utterly insignificant. And yet the life in it… luscious! I can almost taste it already…’

  Eo stood there, watching helplessly as the great head began to lower towards him, the lips pulled back to show sharpened white teeth. With an enormous effort he tried to raise an arm to cower behind.

  Flecks of foam flew from the Kelpie’s mouth. Three drops fell on Eo’s bare forearm. He watched in horror as his skin began to blister, as the acid in the spit started eating into his flesh. For a moment he was too shocked to feel anything at all. Then the pain hit and Eo, screaming, collapsed in a heap on the sand.

  All over the island and beyond, in ever-widening circles, G were dragged out of whatever was absorbing them by their awareness of his distress. Sooner than seemed possible they began to arrive, in so many forms – birds, beasts, creatures of the sea – then morphing into human as the seriousness of what they faced became clear.r />
  FAQ 444: What is mesmer and how does it work?

  HURPLE’S REPLY: Mesmer is the ability to slide past a person’s normal defences and go straight for the most scramble-able bits of the brain. These include your memories and your hormones. The resulting mental chaos is overpowering but, fortunately, it doesn’t last all that long.

  Species like the Kelpie (who have learned how to hardwire straight into two basic areas of intense interest in the humanoid brain – love of horses and love of, er, love) use mesmer to devastating effect on their victims, causing them to forget their loyalties, their loves and every scrap of common sense. The question, ‘Why does this totally incredibly overwhelmingly gorgeous stranger want to kiss me?’ should be answered by, ‘Because he/she is a soul-sucking demon and it’s been a long time since his/her lunch.’ But it rarely is.

  That’s mesmer.

  And as they changed, the Kelpie began to change too. Slowly grotesquely… For the G, each shift is a single, continuous, effortless swing into the new form. But this was painful to watch, a horrible lurching, limb by limb, from a horse to a tall, tall woman, pale-maned, with long feet and hands and a skin so white it was almost transparent, like the skin of something that lived in the cold depths of caves and could not imagine the sun. When her transformation was complete, she stood before them all in a woman’s shape, but tall as a thundercloud, merciless as an iceberg, and with a set of mind-boggling curves that defied gravity and several other laws of physics. The G in human form are a spare, slight people. Compared to the Kelpie, they looked like a flock of children, yet they pressed forward, trying to get close to the boy.

  With one white foot she pinned the barely conscious Eo to the sand and swept the G with her dead black eyes.

  ‘I am the Queen of the Kelpies,’ she hissed, ‘and he is mine. He opened the way and his soul is ours to feed on, according to the Rules.’

  Interactions between the worlds were governed by ‘the Rules’. No one knows who first spelled them out in words, or when the species of the various universes agreed to be bound by them. But bound they were. There may be ways to make the Rules work for you – whole encyclopedias had been written on the subject. But the Rules themselves must be followed through to the end. With a sigh, the crowd of G fell back.

  FAQ 1,116: What do the G do about clothes when they’re shifting from one shape to another?

  HURPLE’S REPLY: Feathers, fur, scales and shells are all part of the form a shape-shifter might take, but clothes are not. To deal with the inconvenience of moving to and from a human shape, caches of one-size-fits-all robes are dotted all over the Western Isles. The G themselves are not particularly bothered about nakedness but would be the first to admit that the human shape is extremely badly insulated.

  The Queen laughed. It was a sound like razor shell on roughened rock. Still laughing, she was reaching a long white hand down towards Eo –

  – when a large dog loped up, pushing past the legs of the G. It panted to a halt, dirt all over its nose, tongue hanging out of the side of its mouth. (If Eo had been conscious of anything outside his own pain, the sight of that muddy nose would have made his heart sink. Only the extremely foolish, or the pathologically brave, dared interrupt the present Head of the G while she was digging out rabbits.)

  ‘Rrrr?’ the dog growled.

  One of the G stepped forward and whispered into the animal’s ear. A look of embarrassment crossed its face and it at once began to blur upwards.

  ‘I do beg your pardon,’ it said as she became human. ‘Rude of me not to have changed for company.’

  Someone passed her a robe. With a murmured thanks, she pulled it on over her head, and turned to face the Kelpie once more. Two other G, male, one middle-aged like the Head, the other young, came to stand beside her. (Since no one was much interested in the bother of politics, the adult members of G society took it in turns to form a very basic government – one to be in charge, called the Head, and two to assist, called Designated Companions.)

  ‘I am Hibernation Gladrag, currently Head of the G.’ She gave a slight bow. ‘And these are the Designated Companions – Market Jones and Interrupted Cadence.’

  ‘You name your Lackeys?!’ sneered the Queen. ‘Then you are even more of a fool than you look. I have no interest in your introductions – I’m leaving now. The brat’s mine. Unless…’ A new, slightly mad light flickered in her black eyes. ‘Unless he’d like to choose a Wager…?’

  There was an almost visible shiver in the crowd of G. Everyone knew how addicted the Kelpie were to gambling.

  ‘The boy is in pain,’ Gladrag said firmly, ‘and in no condition to consider that. We will first deal with the damage you’ve done him.’

  ‘Don’t trouble on my account,’ said the Queen. ‘He’s in perfectly good enough condition for my purposes.’

  Hibernation Gladrag continued to gaze calmly at the Queen, waiting, as if the Kelpie hadn’t spoken. The moment lengthened unbearably until, with a tiny shrug, the Queen stepped aside.

  Eo was immediately surrounded by G, shielding him from the Kelpie’s sight and therefore from the full brunt of her mesmer, but it didn’t seem to help. The boy was still broadcasting anguish.

  ‘Why doesn’t it stop?’

  ‘Why isn’t he healing himself?’

  ‘Where’s Abalone?’

  One of the first things Gs learn is medical maintenance – how to shift the shape of any part of themselves if it becomes damaged. Eo should have immediately blocked the pain pathways to his brain and set about healing the wounds the Queen had inflicted.

  But nothing was happening.

  ‘I’m here.’ Pentathlon Abalone was the closest the G had to a medic, and he’d taught practically every member of the crowd their maintenance skills, including Eo.

  ‘Why isn’t he healing?’ came the anxious question from all round.

  Abalone bent over the boy and examined him carefully. He shook his head. ‘These are not natural wounds. Healing them will not be simple. I fear… Eo, can you manage the pain? That at least should not be affected. Try’.

  Abalone had a soothing, familiar voice, and it was this more than anything that got through to Eo in his blind distress. He stopped panting and whimpering, and began to work.

  ‘That’s right. You remember. Start at the source of the pain. Follow the pathways to the door of the brain. That’s it. Now shut the door. You can do it…’

  Every G on the beach felt the relief when Eo succeeded. It was so great for Eo himself that he went wobbly again, falling back into the arms of Abalone in a half-faint.

  The Queen was pacing impatiently. She stopped in front of the Head and snapped, ‘I hope these repairs aren’t going to be lengthy. My people have been abstemious long enough. I’d hate to keep them waiting more than need be.’

  ‘Been having trouble breaking through, eh?’ muttered the G called Market Jones.

  The Queen didn’t deign to look at him directly. ‘Tell your Lackey to mind his manners,’ she snarled.

  Gladrag inclined her head. ‘Market, behave yourself,’ she said solemnly.

  Market made an elaborate bow, and then murmured to the other Companion, Interrupted Cadence, ‘So hard to get good Lackeys these days.’

  The Queen resumed her pacing.

  ‘Souls…’ they heard her mumbling, ‘so many souls… I smell their souls…’

  ‘How vulgar,’ commented Market.

  ‘Are you unwell?’ Gladrag asked politely.

  The Queen swerved suddenly and loomed over the Head of the G. ‘I won’t wait any more!’ she half-snarled, half-wailed. ‘He’s mine – hand him over!’

  She focused her attention and, at once, Gladrag could feel her throat beginning to close up.

  ‘Nggg… ggg,’ she said – and then Interrupted Cadence thrust himself between her and the Kelpie.

  ‘No stomach for that Wager you mentioned? Of course you know you’d lose,’ he snorted. It was only partly a snort – the rest was a sort of
nervous squeak – but at least he’d broken her attention. He could hear Gladrag dragging the breath back into her lungs behind him.

  When he looked round at her, however, she and Market both were gazing at him in dismay. Then the Head rallied.

  ‘Er, yes, that’s right,’ she croaked, trying to give an impression of calm, while behind her back she was making wild open-handed gestures. ‘Why don’t you, um, make my day.’ A ginger-haired G clutching a book (entitled Encyclopedia of Demonic Entrance: The Rules, and How to Make Them Work for You, Volume One) pushed through the crowd and succeeded in thrusting it into the Head’s flailing hands. Gladrag heaved a silent sigh of relief. ‘If you’ll excuse us for just a moment…?’

  The three went into a huddle. Market and Interrupted immediately began to squabble with each other in low voices.

  Are you out of your tiny mind?’

  ‘I didn’t see you doing anything – that was your Head she was strangling, or didn’t you notice?!’

  Gladrag was leafing through the book with what was meant to look like only casual interest, but was in fact becoming more and more of a desperate trawl. The others paused, watching anxiously as the blood drained from her face.

  She waved the book at them. ‘It only goes up to J!’ she hissed.

  ‘What!?’

  ‘What I said – this book stops at J. “Kelpie” starts with the letter K, or had you forgotten!? The information on Kelpie Challenges must be in Volume Two!’

  She turned and mimed frantically at the G who’d brought the book. He blanched, and fled in search of Volume Two.

  ‘But…’ Interrupted was whispering to Market, ‘it’s not a problem, is it? Because we all know that stuff. We were tested on it enough as kids. Right?’