The Seventh Tide Read Online Free PDF Page A

nightmares, tales told in the cold and sober hours of the night, and there were no happy endings to tales like that. Worlds lost to demons did not often come back to the light.
    There was no time to consider the horror of that prospect, for just then the red-haired G, whose face was now practically the same colour as his hair, rushed up with another volume from the encyclopedia, practically throwing it at the Head. The Companionsclustered desperately round as Gladrag flipped pages.
    ‘Kelpies… Kelpies… Kelpie Challenges – here it is – The Seventh Tide ! She ran her eyes down the page, speed-reading. ‘OK… OK… right…’
    She put her finger in the book and spoke to the Companions. ‘What happens is this. Each side has three throws. We could use the beach, from here where the grass starts, on out to sea, to throw on. You need to imagine that as a stretch of time, from the beginning of history, near us, to the far future furthest away.’
    ‘I accept.’
    As one, the three G jumped. They hadn’t remembered what acute hearing Kelpies have.
    I – I beg your pardon?’ stuttered Gladrag.
    ‘I accept your proposal,’ said the Queen. ‘The beach will make an excellent playing field. Now we need to decide on which world.’
    ‘Er…’
    ‘To which world will we send him? I’m sure you wouldn’t want to take any unfair advantage, so this world won’t do. The Kelpie world perhaps?’
    The vortex speeded up visibly and its inhabitants’ excitement grew.
    The three G shuddered and shook their heads.
    ‘Someplace neutral , then,’ purred the Queen.
    ‘The boy is young and can only take human form as yet,’ said Gladrag. ‘Perhaps, then, the human world would be the best choice?’
    The Queen’s smile was slow and satisfied. It made Gladrag wonder if somehow she’d been tricked, but she couldn’t think what other world she could have suggested.
    She turned back to the others and lowered her voice to a whisper.
    ‘So, the lad gets thrown to six different times in human history, staying where we throw him from one turn of the tide to the next. During each Tide, according to the Rules, he may receive one thing –’
    ‘It doesn’t have to be a thing – that’s right, isn’t it?’ interrupted Market. ‘It can be people too – champions – powerful warriors.’
    ‘That’s right – or wisdom, even – anything to help him when it comes to the Seventh Tide. The Final Challenge. When he enters the Dry Heart.’
    ‘He has to go to the Island ?!’
    I told you it was a final challenge…’
    Among all the isles of the G, only one was called ‘The Island’. It was the one place that, when they were birds, they avoided flying over; as creatures of the sea, they never swam the waters round it, or hauled out on the black rocks of its shore. It wasn’t an evil place – not evil the way the Kelpies were, for instance – but it wasn’t a good place either.
    It was just very, very… other.
    ‘OK, OK. What happens there? Inside the Dry Heart, I mean.’
    ‘No one can say,’ said Hibernation.
    ‘What’s that supposed to mean? Are you trying to say… no one comes back?’ quavered Interrupted.
    ‘Oh yes. A few have come back. They just can’t say, afterwards, what happened to them. It has that effect, I guess.’
    ‘Great. So no help there,’ said Market. ‘But there must be some clue as to what the lad’s supposed to be doing ?’
    ‘Oh yes, that’s crystal clear –’ and Gladrag read from the text: ‘You must thread the mazes with no path, pass the rivers with no water, find the Centre and mend the Dry Heart …’
    ‘What?!’ spluttered Interrupted, but Market butted in.
    ‘So it’s not just killing Kelpies?’ he asked.
    ‘No.’ Hibernation shook her head. ‘The Kelpies are in there too, somehow, and they try to kill you, so killing them first is a good idea. But the Challenge is to mend the Heart.’
    All three G looked across to where the pathetic figure of Eo was standing in