The Tide Knot (29 page)

  I feel sick too. But how can anyone be sick underwater?

  I’m not going to tell  Faro or Conor. Faro will think I’m weak, and anyway, it’s much too late to go back. And if Conor thinks I’m struggling, he’ll try to swim on my other side to support me, and that will mean he can’t hold on to Faro…and then he won’t get enough oxygen…and then…it’s too much to think about. It’s making me even dizzier.

  “Can you get us to Saldowr, Faro?” Conor asks. “Do you know the current we should take?”

  “I hope so.” I’ve never heard Faro sound so unsure, even fearful. “But tonight…Ingo doesn’t feel as she should. The currents have become strangers. The loosening of the Tide Knot has changed everything.”

  “I thought it was going to be so wonderful when Ingo grew strong and we humans grew weak,” observes Conor coldly.

  But this time Faro doesn’t reply. I haven’t got enough energy to think of talking. I’m not even really swimming anymore. I’m still moving my arms and kicking the leg that isn’t injured, but there’s no power in my strokes.

  “We need my sister,” says Faro abruptly. He stops swimming. Conor treads water, Faro balances on his tail, and I hang there, limp, wondering vaguely if I’ll ever be able to move again. The sea booms in my ears like underwater thunder.

  “Elvira?” Even through a fog of pain and weariness, I hear the change in Conor’s voice. He can’t hide his eagerness.

  “Yes. My sister will help yours. Elvira is a healer—that is, one day she will be a healer. She has a gift.”

  “Can you call her?”

  “I’ve been trying to find her with my mind ever since Sapphire was hurt. But the message from Saldowr is so powerful that all I can hear is his voice, telling me to come quickly and to bring you both with me. It leaves no space for me to call Elvira. But Sapphire needs her help.”

  “Could I…” I mumble, meaning could I call Elvira.

  “No. Save your strength. But Conor, maybe you could?

  Can you speak to my sister? Can you ask her to come to us?”

  “How?”

  “Show her what is in your mind. Show her that Sapphire is injured. Show her that you want her to come here.”
That shouldn’t be too difficult for Conor,
I think, with a feeble inner giggle.

  “But I don’t know how,” says Conor. “I’m not like you and Sapphire. I’ve never been able to—to share my thoughts.”

  “Just try,” says Faro impatiently. “Think of Elvira. Come close to her in your mind. Cal her to you. Once you feel that she is listening, show her our predicament. Show her that Sapphire is hurt and that we need her to be healed so that we can get to Saldowr. She’ll come if you can get the message to her. Even if Elvira were at the bottom of the world where the ice mountains live, she would come to my help.”

  “I’ll try,” says Conor.

  A long time passes, or at least it feels like a long time.

  Conor is concentrating desperately, struggling to reach Elvira. I wish I could help him, but a foggy curtain of exhaustion hangs between me and the others. Maybe we’ll never get to Saldowr. Maybe the water will just keep on rising and rising until it gets to the top of the highest hill s in Cornwall . The water is so powerful, and I feel so weak….

  “Sapphire.
Sapphire.
”

  “What is it, Faro? ’M just having a rest—”

  “You’re falling asleep. Wake up, Sapphire! Elvira’s on her way. She’ll be here soon.”

  And then Conor’s voice too, full of relief. “I reached her, Saph! I did it! I kept trying and trying, and it wouldn’t work, and then I just sort of let my mind empty, and then I thought about her, and she was there.”

  “Fantastic, Conor.”

  “Hold on, Saph. She’ll be here as soon as she can.” It seems a long time before Elvira comes. I keep drifting in and out of a dream. I want to stay in my dream, but Conor and Faro won’t let me. They keep waking me up.  

  “Whassamaaer, Con…’m only sleeping—”

  “Wake up, Saph.
Wake up!
”

  And then the dream breaks. Elvira’s here, breathless.

  “I came on the fastest current I could find. Is she still with us?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wish we had more light. I can’t see what’s wrong.”

  “We’ll bring her closer to the surface. Is the moon still strong?”

  “The strongest I’ve ever seen,” says Elvira.

  When Faro said Elvira was going to be a healer, I thought he meant she wanted to be a doctor one day. I expected her to have some kind of Mer first-aid kit with her. But she hasn’t got anything. Only her hands. As soon as she touches me, I understand what Faro meant. Elvira’s hands have got healing in them. I couldn’t have let anyone else touch my leg, but Elvira’s hands don’t hurt. She frowns.

  “She’s got a bad gash, look, there. It’s still bleeding; that’s why she’s weak. And she’s terribly bruised. Oh, Faro, I have no experience of human flesh and blood. I’m afraid of doing the wrong thing.”

  “You won’t,” says Conor, gazing at Elvira.

  I catch Faro’s eye, and he winks. “It’s true that you’re only beginning your training,” he says in a patronizing voice that has an instant effect on Elvira.

  “I’ll do what I can,” she says. Her long dark hair swirls around us like a cloud, making a private world where she and I are alone. She puts the heel of one hand on the cut and presses down with the other. “Look into my mind, Sapphire,” she says very quietly so that no one else can hear. I obey. It’s easy to look into Elvira’s mind. It’s as if her mind is a mirror, showing me myself. Look, there’s the wound on my leg. But it’s not bleeding anymore. It’s healing.

  The edges of the wound are drawing together. The bruises are fading.

  “Look,” says Elvira again, “look deep.”

  I concentrate as hard as I can. I’m not afraid anymore. It’s a cut, that’s all . It’s not so terrible, and I’m certainly not going to die from it. Elvira’s healing flows into me, like warmth from a fire. I’m not dizzy now. I don’t feel as if I’m slipping away into a dream place. My leg still hurts, but not in the same way.

  “There,” says Elvira at last, “that’s as much as I can do for now. You’ll need to see another healer, Sapphire, to stitch your leg, but I think you have enough strength to reach Saldowr.”

  “Will you come with us?”

  “Yes.”

 
T
he Groves of Aleph look as if a hurricane has torn through them. Great underwater trees lie uprooted.

  Boulders are scattered, the white sand piled into heaps. We force our way through a dense mat of weed that has been ripped off the ocean floor. All the colors are dim and muddied. This place was so beautiful, and now it looks as if it’s dying. It’s as much a scene of devastation as St. Pirans.

  At least the sharks have gone. I was so afraid as the current swept us close to the Groves. Saldowr promised that the sharks would know us again, and we would be protected, but I’ve heard too many stories about sharks scenting blood from miles away and homing in on their victim. I was afraid they’d attack me because of the wound on my leg. I could tell  that the others were afraid too, because they closed tight around me.

  We needn’t have worried. There is no sign of a living creature as we drop off the current and swim down to where Saldowr keeps the Tide Knot. Everything is eerily still. The water itself looks lifeless. Dawn is coming up, but it’s a gray, cold dawn that filters drearily down through the water.

  We’re not even sure that we’re close to Saldowr’s cave.

  The whole seascape has changed. Even Faro, who spent so long inside the cave for his healing, isn’t sure where it is.  

  Boulders are almost buried in sand, as if there’s been an underwater whirlwind. The same whirlwind has exposed a long line of fanged black rocks. They look as if they want to reach out and rip us to pieces.

  “Where is Saldowr, Faro? Can you still hear him in your mind?”

  Faro frowns. “He’s close. He knows we’re here. Wait.” And then we see him. He must have been there all the time, watching us. He’s in the shadow of the one remaining tree, wrapped in his cloak, as if a freezing wind had blown over him.

  “Saldowr!”

  “Yes,” he answers, swimming forward slowly, as if movement is an effort. “It was I who called you. But you know that. Perhaps I was wrong to do so, but I had no choice.” I look at him and think at first that his power is broken, but then I look into his eyes and realize that isn’t true. His power is still there, but it has sunk deep inside him. His beautiful cloak is ragged, as if some animal had torn the cloth with its teeth. Saldowr has dark bruises of exhaustion under his eyes. “The tides destroyed everything in freeing themselves,” he says. “I was fortunate. I survived.”

  “Are all the sharks dead?” I ask quickly.

  “The tides took them. Whether they are alive or no, who can say? They would not turn from their duty. They refused to flee, even when I told them I could no longer hold the Tide Knot.”  

  Conor and I glance at each other. We can’t feel as sorry as Saldowr about the sharks’ absence.

  “What—what happened to the Tide Knot?”

  “See for yourselves.”

  He swims a little way, and we follow him. He halts and points into the distance. “Faro, do you see my cave?” There’s no cave left. Its mouth is stuffed with sand. Even the smallest fish wouldn’t be able to wriggle inside. Still, if that’s Saldowr’s cave, then somewhere close, on the seabed, is the Tide Mouth.

  “You are right,” says Saldowr, as if he’s reading my thoughts. “The Tide Mouth is still here, even though the tides have gone. Come.”

  Conor and Elvira are on one side of Saldowr, and Faro and I on the other. Saldowr dives to the seabed, as he did before. Sand swirls around us, clouding the water. But this time there’s no heavy stone for him to lift. Only an open, gaping mouth. The Tide Mouth. There’s no blue light, no sinuous, coiling tides, flexing and turning, flashing like jewels. The Tide Mouth is empty. The tides have gone.

  “But where is the keystone?” asks Conor.

  Saldowr looks at him sharply. “You remember the keystone?”

  “Of course.”  

  “You remember the patterns engraved on it?”

  “Yes, the writing. But where is it?”

  Saldowr sighs. “This is why I called you here. Could you read those patterns?”

  “No. No, but—”

  “I understand you. You saw some meaning in them.”

  “Yes.”

  “Your sister survived the Deep, which has never been known before. You saw those patterns, which no one saw before. I called you here because after everything that has happened here, Ingo needs a new and different power. No one can drag the tides back. They are too strong. They burst the keystone, and it shattered into fifty pieces, like my mirror. Those patterns are words, my children. They are words that have never been spoken since the tides were first sealed into their knot, in the time of our farthest ancestors. Perhaps—perhaps those same words, once spoken, may seal them again.”

  “Do you really think they can?” I ask.

  Saldowr’s somber face lightens a little. “It’s not very likely,
myrgh kerenza
. But all the same, we must try it since there’s nothing else. Nothing else but destruction.”

  “I thought Ingo wanted to grow strong,” Conor challenges him. “I thought the Mer wanted to defeat the power of humans.”  

  “Some in Ingo wanted it, and now they know their error.

  Look around you.” We all stare at the pallid, wrecked, lifeless seascape. “This scene will be repeated a thousand times in Ingo, and a thousand times on Earth, unless the tides return. The balance between Earth and Ingo has failed.

  I have failed.
Guardian of the Tide Knot
,” he says with bitter self-contempt. “What have I guarded? But perhaps my failure can still be redeemed.”

  I don’t think I want to be here. It’s all too sad and fearful.

  What chance is there that we can do anything when someone as powerful as Saldowr is helpless?

  “We’ll try,” says Conor.

  Saldowr holds out his hands to us.  

  Our first task is to find all the scattered fragments of the keystone and gather them together. It looks impossible. So much is buried under sand or masses of weed.

  “We’ve got to have method,” says Conor. “If we all spread out and move inward, we won’t miss any of it. As soon as you find a piece, either mark where it’s lying or bring it to the cave if you can carry it. Saph, don’t try to do too much.” Saldowr seems content to let Conor take charge for now.

  Faro, Elvira, Conor, and I swim backward, separating until we are out of sight of one another. 

“Ready?” calls Conor.

  “Come forward slowly. Mark everything you find. Search everywhere. Plunge your hands deep into the sand. Feel through the weed. Lift every stone.”  

  Saldowr is close to me. I expect him to help with the search, but he does nothing. When I find my first shard of the keystone, I hold it up triumphantly. “Here, Saldowr, this is part of the stone, isn’t it?”

  He nods. “Well done, my daughter. But your brother was right; you must not exhaust yourself. That injury needs care.”

  “But—but, Saldowr, aren’t you going to help us?”

  “I am helping you. Your brother is free to search, isn’t he?

  He can draw in oxygen without Faro’s help?”

  “Yes, I suppose so—I hadn’t thought—”

  “I may be a poor keeper of the Tide Knot, but I am still Guardian of the Groves.” His voice is stern, and I daren’t ask any more questions. Saldowr continues, “Understand me, Sapphire. I am not one of those teachers who ask questions to which they already know the answers. I would not have called you here if I thought I could carry out this task without you.”

  I don’t fully understand, but it’s not the time to ask for explanations. Finding every single fragment of the keystone is what matters, and it’s a long, exhausting task. I keep having to rest, but Elvira, Conor, and Faro work on tirelessly.

  Piece by piece, we bring what we’ve found to the silted-up cave. Some of the pieces aren’t much more than splinters, sharp enough to slice our fingers to the bone if we handle them carelessly. Others are heavy chunks of rock that have to be dragged through the sand by two or three of us. Each piece of the keystone is dense and heavy, far heavier than any rock I’ve ever lifted onshore. The scatter of broken rock is like a jigsaw puzzle in three dimensions. It’s hard to believe that the keystone can ever be put together again.