The quest team spun round. The magic fish tittered and ducked under the water again.
‘Who’s the Tideseer?’ Bertha asked blankly.
‘Never heard of him,’ said Conker.
‘It’s not “him”,’ Spoiler said. ‘It’s “her”.’
Mimi, Leo, Bertha, Conker and Freda stared at him. He fidgeted, blinking at them uneasily.
‘How do you know that?’ Conker demanded.
‘She always called the Tideseer “her”, that’s all,’ Spoiler mumbled. Clearly he was wishing he’d kept his mouth shut.
‘She? You mean the Blue Queen?’ Mimi snapped.
Spoiler nodded sulkily, pulling at his bottom lip.
‘Spoiler, tell us!’ Leo begged. ‘Who’s the Tideseer? What did the queen say about her?’
Spoiler shrugged. ‘The Tideseer knows things,’ he said vaguely. ‘Knows too much, she says. She tried to get rid of the Tideseer when… when we had the Key.’
‘When you had the Key and were letting her use it, you mean,’ Conker snarled. ‘You rotten, slimy –’ He broke off, scowling, as Leo shot him a warning glance and Bertha trod on his foot.
‘Go on, Spoiler,’ Leo prompted, keeping his voice as light and friendly as he could. ‘The queen tried to get rid of the Tideseer – but couldn’t?’
Spoiler nodded, looking hunted. ‘Couldn’t,’ he repeated. ‘Couldn’t get a fix on her. The Tideseer kept giving her the slip.’
‘But how could this Tideseer possibly know when the queen was planning to use the Key on her?’ Bertha asked, very puzzled.
Spoiler shrugged again. ‘Just did,’ he muttered. ‘I told you – the Tideseer knows things.’
‘She sounds like someone we definitely ought to meet,’ Freda remarked.
‘Lawks-a-daisy, yes!’ Bertha breathed.
‘Spoiler, where does she live?’ Leo asked urgently.
‘How would I know?’ Spoiler muttered. ‘It wasn’t me who wanted to get rid of her, was it? Listen, can we get out of here? We’re standing right outside the ogre’s front door, you know.’
There was an irritated bubbling sound from the rock pool. Leo looked over his shoulder and saw that the magic fish had poked its head up again and was watching them crossly. ‘Well?’ the fish shrilled. ‘Didn’t you hear what I said? Don’t you want to ask me about the Tideseer?’
‘Oh, it’s okay,’ said Mimi casually, before anyone else could speak. ‘Our friend here can tell us everything we want to know.’ She jerked her head at Spoiler, who glowered at her.
The fish quivered with annoyance. ‘Flotsam!’ it said rudely. ‘No one can tell you as much about the Tideseer as I can. I’m the official guide to her, more or less.’
‘Oh, really?’ Mimi said politely, and turned back to Spoiler.
The fish seemed to swell. Its beard flapped, and its goggling eyes looked as if they were going to pop right out of its head.
‘You are not to go to the Tideseer’s cave without me!’ it shrieked. ‘I’m the one who knows when she’s in and when she’s out! I’m the one who swims with her when her tail grows! I’m the one who knows the question rules!’
‘Tail?’ Leo heard Freda mutter to Conker dubiously.
‘Oh, we’ll be fine on our own, magic fish,’ Mimi called, without turning round. ‘Thanks anyway.’
‘I’m the official guide, I tell you!’ stormed the fish, beside itself with rage. ‘If you want to see the Tideseer, I have to lead you to her! It’s what always happens!’
Fighting down a strong urge to laugh, Leo cleared his throat. ‘Mimi, we really ought to obey the rules,’ he said, making a huge effort to sound meek and worried. ‘We’d better let the magic fish take us to the Tideseer.’
Mimi sighed heavily. ‘Oh, all right,’ she said. ‘He can take us.’
‘A very wise decision!’ said the fish severely. ‘That will be six worms, please!’
‘We haven’t got any worms,’ Conker snarled.
The fish looked disappointed. ‘What about newts?’ it asked.
Conker bared his teeth.
‘Oh, give it a bit of bread,’ Freda muttered.
‘I don’t take bread,’ the fish said, overhearing. ‘It dissolves too quickly.’
Swearing under his breath, Spoiler fumbled in his skirt pocket and pulled out something grey and crumbly. ‘Here!’ he said, thrusting the thing into Leo’s hand. ‘Give it this.’ It was the chewed remains of one of the ogre’s gigantic meatballs.
‘Ugh!’ Bertha shuddered.
The fish, however, seemed to find the meatball fragment quite satisfactory, and stowed it carefully away in a crevice of the pool while Leo furtively washed his greasy hand in the water.
‘Can we go now?’ Spoiler begged, glancing at the cliff face and showing the whites of his eyes.
‘Follow me!’ cried the fish. It leaped out of its pool, landing with a splash in another one closer to the beach. The quest team and Spoiler hurried after it.
‘Good work, Mimi!’ Bertha whispered. ‘You tricked him again!’
‘It wasn’t very hard,’ Mimi said, but Leo could see that the praise had pleased her.
‘Keep up, please!’ the fish cried importantly, springing from the second pool into the third in line. ‘My time is valuable.’
Freda snapped her beak, but luckily the fish was under the water at the time, and didn’t hear.
Leaping from pool to pool, it led the way to the end of the headland. At last it jumped into the last pool before the rock shelf ended, and stood up on its tail.
‘Very well,’ it squeaked officiously, ‘the Tideseer’s cave is now only a few steps away. At this point, I usually give some instructions. Please pay close attention.’
Conker grabbed Freda’s beak to prevent her from saying anything.
Leo, Mimi and Bertha smiled respectfully and leaned forward.
‘First,’ said the fish, ‘the Tideseer will only see three clients at a time.’
‘What?’ Bertha frowned. ‘But you didn’t tell us that before!’
‘Three clients only,’ piped the fish. ‘And that’s my final word.’
‘Well, I’m not going into the freak’s cave, anyway,’ Spoiler muttered.
‘No one’s asking you to,’ snapped Conker. ‘If only three visitors are allowed, you’d be a complete waste of space.’
‘I’d like to go,’ Mimi said eagerly.
‘Me too,’ Leo put in, feeling more determined than eager.
‘Well, I’m not keen, frankly,’ Freda said. ‘That tail thing was enough to put me off.’
‘I’ll go with Mimi and Leo,’ Bertha offered brightly. ‘After all, here I am on the coast for the very first time since I was a piglet! I should see all the important tourist spots.’
Following the fish’s instructions, everyone moved onto the sand, trudged down to the low tide mark and located the entrance to a cave that apparently stretched beneath the rock shelf. The entrance was gloomy, and ankle deep in water.
‘Oh, lawks-a-daisy!’ Bertha squeaked.
Mimi said nothing, but she looked frightened. Leo wondered if his fear was showing, too.
‘You can’t go in there,’ Spoiler said suddenly. ‘It’s dangerous!’ He sounded as if he really cared about Mimi, Leo and Bertha’s safety. Everyone glanced at him in surprise and his face darkened, as if he was embarrassed to have betrayed himself.
‘Shut up, you!’ growled Conker. But he chewed nervously at his moustache as a wave broke close to shore, and foam ran hissing into the cave entrance.
‘Right!’ chirped the fish, who had jumped into a pool just above them, and was goggling at them over the edge of the rock. ‘Now, here’s the deal. You can ask the Tideseer three questions, and three questions only.’
‘First the Tideseer will only have three visitors, and now she’ll only answer three questions!’ Bertha exclaimed. ‘Why is it always three?’
‘It just is,’ said the fish pettishly. ‘And please note that for every question you ask, a small payment is required.’
‘Payment?’ Conker roared. ‘You didn’t say anything about –’
‘We haven’t got much money,’ Leo said.
‘It’s not a matter of money, sonny,’ jeered the fish. ‘Who do you think you’re dealing with here? What the Tideseer wants is facts. You have to tell her one new fact – a fact she’s never heard before – for every question you want answered. Simple enough, isn’t it?’ He sniggered, and disappeared.
Leo, Mimi, Conker, Bertha and Freda exchanged doubtful glances.
‘If the Tideseer knows everything, how can we tell her anything new?’ Mimi murmured.
‘No one can know everything,’ Leo said. ‘It’s not possible.’ But even as he spoke, he remembered how many ‘impossible’ things had happened to him since he discovered Rondo, and felt a prickle of uneasiness.
‘You’ll have to wing it,’ Freda said flatly.
‘That’s it,’ Conker agreed, still chewing his moustache. ‘Tell her a few things, find out the sort of thing she doesn’t know, and take it from there.’
‘We can’t tell her anything that’s really hush-hush,’ Bertha said in a low voice, turning away from Spoiler so he wouldn’t hear. ‘The barrier plan, for example. It wouldn’t be safe! She is in the business of answering visitors’ questions, after all. But we could tell her that Mimi and Leo are Langlanders. No one’s going to think of asking her about that.’
Mimi nodded. ‘And Leo can easily give her the two other facts. He knows all sorts of useless stuff.’
‘Thanks,’ Leo said.
‘Yes!’ cried Bertha. ‘Like that fascinating fact you told us once about mushrooms being fungus, not vegetables, Leo! And what about moovlies – you know, those Langland moving pictures you told me about when you first came here? I’m sure the Tideseer would find it very interesting to hear about those. I certainly did.’
‘Hoy!’ shrilled a voice from above their heads.
The magic fish had returned. ‘One more thing,’ it said, peering down at them. ‘If you’re going in, you’d better make it snappy. The tide’s turned. The cave will be full of water in an hour. Just thought I’d mention it. Toodle-oo!’ It sprang into the air, somersaulted, and disappeared again.
‘Well, I like that!’ Bertha said, the tips of her ears going red with anger. ‘It didn’t say anything about the tide before! It cheated us! This Tideseer person can’t be very reliable, if she employs an official guide like that.’
‘If you ask me, that fish doesn’t work for the Tideseer at all,’ said Freda sourly. ‘It just likes to look important – and get free food.’
‘Well, at least it showed us where to go,’ Mimi said.
‘I’m not sure.’ Leo eyed the unwelcoming hole beneath the rock. ‘It might be lying to us. The Tideseer mightn’t live in this cave at all. How can she, if it floods when the tide comes up?’
Mimi raised her eyebrows. ‘The fish did say something about a tail, remember,’ she murmured, and gave a nervous little snort of laughter as Leo winced.
Bertha splashed to the cave entrance and peered inside. ‘Yoo-hoo!’ she called in a high voice. ‘Anyone home?’
They all listened intently, but could hear nothing except the slow dripping of water.
Bertha wrinkled her nose and looked back at the others. ‘It looks like you’re right, Leo,’ she exclaimed. ‘That fish made fools of us! It got that piece of meatball by false pretences.’
‘Oh, no!’ Mimi cried in frustration. Without even bothering to pull off her shoes she waded through the shallow water to join Bertha. ‘Tideseer!’ she shouted into the dimness. ‘If you’re there, please answer! We need to ask you some questions! It’s really important!’
‘Enter then, seekers after truth!’ a voice whispered from the depths of the cave.
‘Eek!’ squealed Bertha, jumping back and sitting down with a gigantic splash.
‘Leo!’ Mimi called, beckoning furiously, as Bertha struggled to her feet.
With a last glance at Conker and Freda, Leo tore off his jacket, boots and socks, pulled his trousers up to his knees and hurried to Mimi’s side. The water was cold on his skin. His heart was racing.
‘We can’t stay in there too long, remember,’ he gabbled. ‘Ten minutes at the most. The tide…’
‘Yes, yes!’ Mimi said impatiently, and plunged through the cave entrance without another word.
‘Mimi, wait!’ Bertha squeaked, and hurried after her.
As Leo followed, he found himself stumbling down a gentle slope of silky smooth rock. Water trickled past his feet, pooling a little in a round space at the bottom of the slope, then trickling through a low archway glowing with dim, green light.
Bertha was already disappearing through the archway, presumably in pursuit of Mimi.
I hate this, Leo thought. But there was no turning back now. He set his jaw, splashed his way to the archway and stepped through it, down into the cave beyond.
He had expected something big and impressive, but the cave was narrow, and no larger than his room at home. The sandy floor sloped downward, and was carpeted with the litter of low tide – shells, seaweed, driftwood, feathers, buttons, bottle tops, a pair of spectacles, a draggled sock, many tiny bones, all lying beneath a thin, moving skin of water.
Water dripped sluggishly from the low roof, filling the space with a plinking sound. The walls, smoothed and sculptured by the sea and encrusted with shellfish, glowed faintly green.
Phosphorescence, Leo told himself, absurdly relieved that he’d been able to find the word. He tried not to think about the weight of rock above his head. He pushed away the feeling that the glowing walls were closing in on him. He looked down at the water rippling around his toes. It was being stirred by the slow trickle from the cave entrance – a trickle that would become a torrent when the tide came up.
Panic stabbed at him. His legs tingled with the urge to run – get out – out into the air, and the light. He dug his fingernails into his palms, staring at Mimi and Bertha, who were standing together at the far end of the cave, their bodies masking whatever crouched there in the shadows.
‘Come forward,’ whispered a voice.
Mimi and Bertha both looked around. Bertha was blinking rapidly, and she was breathing hard. Mimi’s face was like a pale disc floating in the weird green light.
Leo forced himself towards them, clenching his teeth to stop them chattering, picking his way through the shells and bones, very conscious of his bare feet. The roof became lower, forcing him to be careful not to bump his head. He reached Mimi’s side, and peered into the shadows.
The Tideseer was sitting on a low, curved seat of polished rock in the centre of a round depression into which water slowly flowed. She was wrapped in a cloak of golden seaweed. Her hands hung down by her sides, trailing in the shallow water that rippled around her throne, her fingers opening and closing rhythmically, transparent as the tentacles of a jellyfish. Her feet, small and perfect as a child’s, were bare.
Feet…
The Tideseer looked up. Leo saw sightless eyes filmed with milky blue. He saw a seamed, ancient face that was as pale as the underbelly of a fish. He saw fine drifts of green and silver scales powdering sharp cheekbones and slanting above eyebrows thin as a pencil line. He saw a veil of fine, bone-white hair spilling over the seaweed cloak, falling to the tiny feet, to waft like bleached weed in the gently moving water.
His breath seemed to stop.
‘So,’ the Tideseer said. ‘Our number is complete. Now, we can begin.’