Only when they had reached the safety of Flitter Wood, and Conker and Freda had disappeared into the undergrowth to bury the dragon’s heart, did Leo begin to feel the full effect of his almost sleepless night and long, action-packed morning. As his tension drained away, his eyes began to prickle, and his brain seemed to slow down to half speed. Feeling as if he were in a waking dream, he sat down with Mimi and Bertha at the fireside and mechanically drank the cup of soup that Tye pressed into his hands.
The soup was good, and its warmth was comforting. By the time Leo had drained his cup he had revived enough to register that Tye had sat down on the other side of the fire, and was gazing at him, Mimi and Bertha with something approaching awe.
‘Hal tells me you saw the Tideseer,’ she said to him as their eyes met.
Leo nodded slightly and looked down at his empty cup. He could hardly bear to think of his time in the Tideseer’s cave. His stomach churned whenever he thought of those blind, milky eyes, those slowly moving hands, that whispering voice.
‘I cannot believe it,’ Tye murmured. ‘All my life I have thought the legend of the Tideseer was a tale invented by the old ones to explain how good and evil, truth and lies, can exist in the same world. And yet… the Tideseer is real! You have seen her! You have seen the Blue Queen’s enemy sister with your own –’
‘Sister?’ Bertha squeaked, jerking her head up from her second bowl of soup.
Mimi leaned forward. Her eyes were shining in fascination. ‘Tell us, Tye!’ she begged.
Tye glanced over her shoulder. ‘Later, perhaps,’ she said quietly. ‘Hal and the others are returning, and there are more important things to be discussed.’
As Conker, Freda and Hal joined the group at the fire, Leo blinked around the circle, and suddenly realised that someone was missing.
‘Where’s Spoiler?’ he asked.
‘Locked in the hut,’ Hal said, nodding at the little shelter. ‘He said he was going to sleep, but I suppose I should check. I don’t want him overhearing us.’
‘I’ll go,’ Leo said hurriedly. He scrambled to his feet and reached for a spare soup cup from the stack by the fire.
‘I’ve already given him some soup, Leo,’ Hal said with a tired smile. ‘What do you think I am?’
Leo nodded, feeling his face grow hot. He backed away from the fireplace and walked quickly to the hut. He could hear the others muttering behind him, and guessed that Conker, Freda and Mimi were commenting on his new, protective attitude towards Spoiler, the man he used to despise.
They don’t get it, Leo told himself angrily. I still despise him. It’s just – he’s helpless now. He’s helpless and scared and pathetic, and I can’t help…
Telling himself to stop apologising for something that in his heart he knew was right, he quietly unbolted the hut door, and peeped in.
Spoiler was lying curled up on a narrow camp bed that stood against the wall opposite the doorway. His thinning hair straggled damply over his forehead, his eyes were closed, and he was breathing with small, puffing snores. The loose shirt and rough trousers he was wearing showed how much weight he had lost during his time on the road. His bulky Dame Dally garments lay discarded on the floor beside the bed, tangled up with his shoes, a bread crust, a bottle of water and an empty soup cup.
Hal lent him some clothes, Leo thought, and felt suddenly ashamed to have assumed that he was the only one capable of treating an enemy with humanity. Hal could have left his brother feeling uncomfortable and looking ridiculous, but he hadn’t.
It’s more than Spoiler would have done for Hal, if their positions had been reversed, Leo told himself. Spoiler would have enjoyed seeing Hal look stupid. He would have laughed at him and left him as he was. But maybe… maybe he’ll learn something from all this. Maybe the fact that I’ve helped him, and Hal’s helped him, will make him see that he can turn over a new leaf, and start to act decently, if he wants to.
He stepped into the hut and bent to retrieve the empty soup cup, which was half-covered by a red flannel petticoat. As he pulled the cup free, something round and hard rolled from a hidden pocket in the petticoat and knocked against his hand.
It was Brewer’s jar of No-Fail Hair-Gro. Spoiler had stolen it from the shop counter on his way out.
Leo smothered a snort of laughter. So much for his hopes of Spoiler’s reforming. He picked up the jar and the soup cup and withdrew from the hut, closing the door silently after him and making sure the bolt was firm before going back to the fire.
‘Spoiler’s asleep,’ he told the others as they looked up enquiringly. He sat down and tossed the jar of Hair-Gro to Conker with a grin. ‘That was in his petticoat. I wonder if Brewer’s noticed it’s gone, yet?’
Conker made a disgusted sound and stuffed the jar into one of his jacket pockets. ‘If he has, he’ll be on the rampage,’ he growled. ‘Oh, my liver and lungs, as if we don’t have enough to think about without returning Spoiler’s stolen goods!’
‘It was unwise to bring him here,’ Tye said, her husky voice throbbing with disapproval. ‘He is not to be trusted.’
‘Which is exactly why he’s locked in the hut, where he can’t see or hear anything of importance,’ Hal said wearily. ‘We had to bring him, Tye. He already knows too much for us to let him out of our sight. He knows about the queen’s potion. He knows about the Tideseer. He knows about the dragon’s heart –’
‘That couldn’t be helped,’ Conker said defensively. ‘I told you –’
Hal held up his hands. ‘I’m not criticising, old friend. You’ve worked wonders – you’ve all worked wonders. You found out what we needed to know. And now…’
His voice trailed off. He ran his fingers through his hair.
Hal’s exhausted too, Leo thought. He was up all night talking to the witches and wizards, planning the attack on the queen, waiting for news from us…
‘Now there’s nothing to stop us from carrying out the barrier plan, is there?’ Mimi asked tensely.
‘Nothing whatever!’ Conker exclaimed, banging down his empty cup and leaning forward. ‘And we should act as soon as we can, while the queen’s still searching for the last two ingredients of the Great Potion. We can’t risk waiting a minute longer than we have to.’
‘It could be done tonight,’ Tye said, with a sideways glance at Hal. ‘The plan is made. The Flitters have almost finished the web. The Seven are preparing themselves, awaiting our signal. We have only to alert the witnesses –’
‘Witnesses?’ asked Bertha.
Hal sighed. ‘Last night the Seven all agreed that their shutting spells would work more quickly, and would have a greater chance of success, if trusted witnesses added their concentration and will to the task. Seven witnesses for each witch and wizard – forty-nine witnesses in all.’
Again he fell silent.
‘Hal is unwilling to risk the lives of so many,’ Tye said. She paused, glancing at Hal again. ‘I believe that this is a risk we must take,’ she added.
‘Oh, my aching brain, of course it is!’ Conker growled. ‘The prize is worth any risk. If we can seal off the queen forever –’
‘If we can!’ Hal said sharply. ‘That’s the point. What if we rouse her fury, and in the process sacrifice Rondo’s best witches and wizards – our only defence against her – and forty-nine other souls, including ourselves – for nothing?’
‘The Seven obviously thought the plan would work,’ Freda argued. ‘They wouldn’t have agreed to try it if they didn’t.’
‘They can’t guarantee it,’ Hal said.
‘In my experience, witches and wizards never guarantee anything!’ Bertha retorted. ‘Personally, I think they just like to keep everyone in suspense.’
‘We could try to gather the rest of the ingredients and make the Great Potion ourselves,’ Leo suggested desperately. ‘Tye has Ancient One memories. Brewer has some male dragon’s heart. If we increased the power of our four wizards by seven times –’
‘We’d have long grey beards by the time we’d collected even one spoonful of diamond dust, let alone four,’ Conker said gloomily.
‘And we would still not have the power to defeat the queen in battle,’ Hal snapped.
‘Well, I don’t see why the plan shouldn’t work perfectly as it is, as long as we take the queen by surprise,’ Bertha declared. ‘The longer we delay, the more chance there is that she’ll find out what we’re doing, or finish the Great Potion, and our chances of success… oh, lawks-a-daisy!’
Her eyes bulged. She swung round to stare at Leo and Mimi, her mouth hanging open.
‘What?’ Leo asked stupidly.
‘The Tideseer’s prophecy!’ Mimi gasped at the same moment.
Bertha nodded and swallowed. ‘If treasured plans are long delayed, their chances of success will fade. Those were her very words!’
Tye hissed and leaned forward.
‘What’s this?’ Hal asked sharply.
‘What prophecy?’ Conker bellowed. ‘You never told us about any –’
‘We were waiting till – till we were all together,’ Bertha squeaked in confusion, her ears very red. ‘To tell you the truth, I’d forgotten all about it till just now. It was so hard to understand at the time. A lot of it could have meant anything.’
‘But the first lines – the ones Bertha just said – are fairly easy to understand now, aren’t they?’ Mimi said flatly, glancing at Hal.
Leo felt his cheeks burning and knew they must be as red as Bertha’s ears. He had totally forgotten about the Tideseer’s prophecy too. Maybe, he thought uncomfortably, he’d put it out of his mind because he didn’t want to think about it.
But Hal was waiting. He’s depending on me to give him the facts, Leo told himself. Desperately he tried to make his fuzzy mind focus.
‘The Tideseer is not a fortune-teller,’ Tye said slowly.
Leo nodded. ‘She told us that, right at the beginning,’ he managed to say. ‘She said that she could only predict what would probably happen, given what she knew. Her prophecy was full of “ifs”. She said the tide could turn either way, depending on – on the choices people made.’
‘Especially one particular choice that a Langlander would have to make,’ Mimi put in, her eyes fixed on Hal’s frozen face. ‘She said everything depended on that.’
‘What exactly was said?’ Tye prompted urgently. ‘You must try to recall it – as best you can.’
Mimi stared into the fire, and suddenly, to Leo’s amazement, began repeating the Tideseer’s rhyme, softly but without hesitation. To his even greater amazement, he found himself speaking the words along with her, and heard Bertha saying them too.
With evil, truth cannot abide
But dies like weed left by the tide.
If treasured plans are long delayed,
Their chances of success will fade.
If faith is placed in debts repaid,
Faith will surely be betrayed.
If stolen magic is regained,
Light will break where darkness reigned.
A Langlander who must decide,
May thrust old ways and thoughts aside
Or may instead refuse to break
The chains that fear and weakness make.
But if that choice is as I see,
The end will follow faithfully.
The enemy will act, and lose
A gift she never cared to use,
And in the flame of battle fires,
Will gain the prize she most desires.
The grim final words still sour in his mouth, Leo blinked across the fire. Conker, Freda and Tye were gaping in shocked dismay. Hal had bowed his head.
‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ Freda muttered at last.
‘It’s a bunch of old dot-mush!’ Conker blustered, recovering a little. ‘They must have got the words wrong.’
‘No.’ Mimi bit her lip. ‘The Tideseer said, “Hear and remember” before she gave us the rhyme. It must have been some sort of spell to fix the words in our minds. She wanted to make sure we could repeat them when – when we needed to.’
‘As you have,’ said Hal, and there was such an odd note in his voice that everyone looked at him anxiously.
He raised his head. His face was deeply shadowed, but his eyes were steady. ‘I don’t pretend to understand every part of the prophecy,’ he said. ‘But the first lines, and the last, seem quite clear. The Tideseer based her predictions on what she knew, and Tye tells me that the Tideseer learns everything, sooner or later. The Tideseer therefore knows that I, for good or ill, have been forced to take the lead in our battle against the Blue Queen, and that I’m the one who must decide whether we go ahead with our plan, or not.’
Soberly he looked around. ‘She also knows,’ he went on deliberately, ‘that my natural habit of mind is cautious, that my instinct is to defend rather than to attack, and that I fear, above all things, causing harm to others by my actions. On this knowledge she’s based her final prediction. Weighing all the odds, she’s decided that I’ll hesitate till the chance of success has slipped through our fingers, and that as a result the queen will in time complete the Great Potion, and subdue Rondo forever.’
There was silence around the fire. Hal had just said exactly what Mimi, Conker, Freda, Bertha and Tye had been telling him all along, each in his or her own way. But now that he admitted it himself, none of them could bear to say a word. And Leo’s heart went out to him.
Hal hadn’t asked for leadership. It had been thrust on him, because he was good at organising, and the only person the Seven and the Flitters would trust. Now he was being blamed for hesitating, for thinking twice, for being what he was.
‘The Tideseer might be wrong,’ Leo heard himself saying. ‘She doesn’t know what’s going to happen. She can only predict what will probably happen.’
‘Quite so,’ said Hal, and suddenly grinned so broadly that twenty years seemed to drop from his face. ‘And she’s in for a surprise. She should have taken her own prediction into account. Hearing it has helped me break my chains. I’ve realised that the time for caution is over. The plan will go ahead – tonight.’