The Eye of Zoltar (30 page)

‘So was the attack on Cloud City Nimbus III and the loss of the
Tyrannic
her after all?’

‘Absolutely. She always made sure there were no witnesses.’

‘She sounds like a monster.’

We had arrived at the main hall. We stepped across another half-lead pirate holding a musket, and opened two doors that looked as if they too had been salvaged from an aircraft. The hall had been made up of an entire Cloud Leviathan ribcage covered with a patchwork of aircraft fabric, still with registration numbers and the names of almost every airline I could think of. It would have been used as a meeting place, for meals and grog and shanties – or whatever it is pirates sing.

‘Three out of four missing aircraft can be attributed to Sky Pirate Wolff,’ said Gabby as we walked across the creaking floorboards, some of which were missing, revealing the swirling clouds below, ‘and she did very well out it. Murderous thug, of course; nothing glamorous in pirates – they’re criminals, pure and simple.’

‘Have you heard of something called the Eye of Zoltar?’ I asked, as Gabby seemed to know a lot about a lot.

‘No, but I presume it’s related to Zoltar the sorcerer?’

‘A pink ruby about the size of a goose egg,’ I said, ‘which seems to dance with an inner fire. It can be used as a conduit – a
concentrator
of wizidrical energy. But it’s dangerous, too. In the wrong hands, it will—’

‘Turn a person partially to lead?’ asked Gabby as we passed yet another pirate who had suffered a similar fate to the rest.

‘Wholly, sometimes,’ I said, recalling Able Quizzler, who must have been entirely lead to have the energy to bury himself when he hit the ground.

‘Nasty way to go,’ said Gabby, ‘but in pirating, an unpleasant death is very much an occupational hazard. You seek this jewel?’

‘That we do,’ I said, ‘and all the clues point towards Sky Pirate Wolff.’

‘Then you’d better meet her,’ said Gabby, ‘she’s in here.’

Gabby opened an inner door from the main hall and we entered Sky Pirate Wolff’s private cabin. The room was panelled with an interior stolen from the first-class lounge of a flying boat somewhere and once must have looked supremely elegant – before the rain had managed to gain access, turning parts of the panelling black with mould.

Sky Pirate Bunty Wolff had been completely turned to lead. It was a similar effect to being transformed to stone. Every pore of her skin, every muscle sinew, scar, blemish and hair, was perfectly preserved. She was dressed in traditional pirate uniform, although with a battered flying helmet in place of the tricorne hat. Her clothes had rotted badly, and a pair of pistols were still stuck in her waistband. One of her lead hands was resting on the tabletop, and the other was empty and held aloft, the fingers open as though showing us an apple or something. Upon her features was a look of shocked surprise. Her enleadening moment had not been expected.

‘Is your Eye of Zoltar anywhere here?’ asked Gabby.

‘Certain to say it once
was
,’ I replied with a sigh, checking an open safe behind Sky Pirate Wolff that was stashed with jewels, sadly none the size of a goose’s egg, and nothing that was ‘dancing with inner fire’. The Eye, I knew, would be unmistakable.

‘Do you know when all this happened?’ I asked.

‘Six years ago,’ said Gabby, ‘give or take. We rarely intervene when it comes to pirates.’

I returned to Sky Pirate Wolff and looked at her hand, the one that was being held aloft. Looking closer, I noticed that her soft lead fingers had been bent apart. When she had been turned to base metal, she had been holding something – and it wasn’t an apple.

‘This is where the Eye of Zoltar was,’ I said, pointing at her hand. ‘Sky Pirate Wolff was holding it. She was talking to someone who was seated right here.’

I dropped into the seat opposite the lead statue, and immediately the pirate’s dead eyes stared into mine.

‘They were talking. The person sitting here uses the Eye to change Pirate Wolff to lead, then makes a run for it. The “people into lead” spell must be the Eye’s default spell, or a gatekeeper or something.’

‘It would explain the trail of partially leaded pirates all the way out,’ observed Gabby. ‘Whoever took the jewel used the lead transformation spell to cover their retreat.’

He was right, and I swore softly to myself. The trail, sadly, had long ago turned cold. If this all happened six years ago, the Eye could be anywhere on the planet. I searched Sky Pirate Wolff’s room, then the main hall, but could find nothing that might have told us who took the Eye, let alone where it was now. Kevin Zipp had been right about the Eye’s whereabouts – it was just his timescale that had been at fault.

We walked back the way we had come.

‘Do you know who took it?’ I asked.

‘Sadly, I do not,’ said Gabby, ‘but it would have to be a sorcerer of some sort.’

‘The Mighty Shandar is skilled enough to tap the Eye’s power,’ I murmured, ‘but sending me to find something he already has doesn’t make much sense.’

‘And there’s a good reason why Shandar wouldn’t want you poking around out here,’ said Gabby, ‘and it has nothing to do with the Eye of Zoltar.’

I frowned and thought for a moment.

‘The Skybus facility below?’ I suggested.

Gabby nodded.

‘What are they making?’ I asked. ‘And why do the empty lorries coming
in
weigh more than the ones coming
out
?’

‘Because … they’d have to be.’

I stared at Gabby for a moment, trying to figure it out. We had by now arrived at the top of the bone spiral staircase. A few steps down and we’d be in the all-obscuring cloud again. I reached out to one of the Leviathan bones and scratched off a small amount, which, once released, drifted upwards.

‘Shandar’s harvesting Cloud Leviathans?’ I said, and Gabby smiled.

‘Ever wondered how those huge jetliners seem to hang in the air on those tiny wings?’ he asked. ‘How Skybus lead the world in efficient aircraft that can fly twice as far on half the fuel? Ever wondered why Shandar has made so much money through Skybus, and how Tharv can afford for all his citizens to have free universal healthcare?’

‘Tharv and Shandar are partners?’

‘Very much so. The whole jeopardy tourism thing might sound like a long and very complex joke, but without it, Tharv and Shandar would not be as stupendously rich as they are. All those tourists in the Cambrian Empire snatched from the jaws of certain death, hundreds of times a day, month in, month out.’

And that was when it hit me. The answer had been staring me in the face the whole time. The Cloud Leviathans’ lighter-than-air capability was not due to magic, nor some natural process. Prince Nasil had even mentioned it before he left: the same thing that keeps a flying carpet in the air also keeps up a Leviathan.

‘Angel’s feathers,’ I said in a soft whisper. ‘We were nearly hoovered up by the Leviathan the night before last. They do that feeding run every morning, sucking up not just the birds and bugs, but also many of the Variant-G angels who are constantly employed in the Cambrian Empire. They are then digested to make the Leviathan lighter than air. jeopardy tourism is there for a purpose. High risk of death, high concentration of guardian angels.’

I paused, and looked at Gabby, who nodded.

‘But,’ I added, ‘that’s not the end of it, is it?’

‘No indeed,’ said Gabby. ‘The higher-than-normal concentration of ingested angel’s feathers leads to an excess, which is then expelled as all animal waste is expelled. The drones working in the facility below gather up the Leviathans’ droppings with nothing more complicated than shovels, then extract the angel’s feathers using Shandar-supplied magic. They then ship it out in the Skybus lorries. The refined material is known in the aeronautical industry as Guanolite, and is stuffed inside aircraft wings to assist with lift. That’s what’s going out in the Skybus trucks.’

‘Which must explain,’ I said slowly, ‘why the trucks are lighter on the way out.’

‘Of course. Fill a two-ton truck with concentrated Guanolite and the upward force will ensure it weighs effectively no more than a golf buggy.’

Gabby beckoned me to follow him as I fell silent for a moment, digesting this new information as we began the climb down the staircase. As I entered the cloud I felt the damp and clamminess touch my face and hands, and pretty soon we were standing on the Leviathan skull, the spot where I had first entered this strange place.

‘
Who are you?
’ I asked. ‘You know about this place, but you’re not dead – you come and go as you choose.’

‘You might say I have a version of “access all areas”,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘As I think I explained, I collect information on death likelihood for a major player in the risk management industry.’

‘I remember,’ I said, ‘and by identifying the potential risk factor of everything anyone does, you decide where best to deploy your assets to avert those risks.’

‘That’s pretty much it,’ said Gabby. ‘We save lives … when lives need to be saved.’

‘It’s not an insurance company, is it?’

‘Not really, no. It’s sort of … fate management. It’s of vital importance that you – or anyone, in fact – do not die until you have fulfilled your function in the G-SOT.’

‘G-SOT?’

‘The Grand Scheme of Things. Bigger than me, bigger than you, and all are to play a part. It might be something simple like opening a door, encouraging somebody to do something, or even, as in Curtis’ case, simply giving people a focus of someone to dislike. But sometimes it’s for good – like bringing a tyrant to their knees and leading an enslaved nation to freedom.’

‘Then my function in the Grand Scheme is still ahead of me?’ I asked.

‘It is. And Perkins, too.’

‘He’s going to burn himself out battling the drones on our return, isn’t he?’

‘To have a function is the right of all sentient beings,’ said Gabby, touching my shoulder, ‘to have a
vitally important
function is an honour not often bestowed.’

He smiled, then added:

‘For operational purposes we like to maintain our Grade II legendary status: “No proof of existence”. I can rely on your discretion, yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. Time to go, but I calculate the jump from here back to the top of the stone chair has a 79.23 per cent Fatality Index – here.’

Gabby tossed a rope over the side and I heard the end fall on to the damp stone below. I thanked Gabby for his time and help, then slid down the rope. After a few more seconds my feet had touched the damp stone of the semicircle around Idris’ chair, and I found a very astonished-looking Perkins.

‘Okay,’ he said, ‘that was kind of strange, and I’m a sorcerer, so should be used to it. You jump into the cloud, vanish for half an hour and then return down a rope. What did you find?’

‘Answers,’ I said, ‘but not the ones we’re looking for. Let’s find the others.’

He started to move, but I caught his arm, moved him around and kissed him. It was my first, and I think his too. I’d been meaning to do it for a while, but only with Gabby’s words did the whole thing seem that much more urgent. He returned the passion, and it felt good – far better than I’d thought – and made me feel tingly in all sorts of places.

‘What was that for?’ he whispered as I rested my head on his shoulder and held him tight.

‘Because.’

‘Because what?’

‘Just because.’

We both knew he’d be burnt out soon, and we attempted to get as much of a lifetime’s worth of hugs as possible in the time available.

‘Okay, then,’ I said, and we avoided each other’s gaze as we separated, ‘let’s find the others.’

We walked down from the summit and out of the cloud, where we found Addie, the Princess and Wilson, who had made some tea.

We rested for an hour while I told everyone what I had found, but without mentioning Gabby. I told them about Sky Pirate Wolff’s hideout and her fate, that someone else had beaten us to the Eye of Zoltar years ago, and it could now be pretty much anywhere. I told them how the facility far below us was simply positioned where the sole remaining Cloud Leviathan roosted at night, and they scraped up the droppings each morning to process them into Guanolite.

‘I can see why they have drones do the job,’ said Wilson, ‘it must be rotten work.’

‘I’d say it was more to do with secrecy,’ I replied, ‘which also might explain the Cambrian Empire’s no-fly zone. The last Leviathan is worth so much money it would be foolish to have it damaged in a collision with anything – or even discovered at all.’

‘So all our careers in jeopardy tourism were simply there to facilitate the manufacture of angel-feather-fortified Leviathan droppings?’ asked Addie. ‘Hell’s teeth, you just couldn’t make this stuff up, could you?’

‘Magic’s like that,’ I said.

There was a pause.

‘So what now?’ asked Perkins.

‘We came out here to find the Eye, and we failed. So we’re going home.’

‘Past the Hollow Men?’ asked Wilson.

‘Yes,’ I said, swallowing down my emotion and avoiding Perkins’ gaze. ‘We’ll think of something, I’m sure.’

So after packing up and trying the conch for the umpteenth time without success, we turned to leave. It was with a heavy heart that I descended the steep steps, but I was consoled by the fact that I had it on good authority that Perkins’ life would not be in vain – and I now had a pretty good idea what Gabby kept in his rucksack.

The first thing we noticed when we returned to the base of the mountain was Curtis. He had somehow decided not to leg it back to Llangurig straight away, and was instead standing at the edge of the empty scrub that separated us from the safety of the forest, a mile away. He had a deep frown etched upon his features.

‘Did you see them?’ I asked.

Curtis said nothing, and continued to stare off towards the woods, and safety.

‘They’re called Hollow Men or drones,’ I explained, ‘
Cavi homini
. Nothing more than the personified evil will of the Mighty Shandar: empty vessels bidden to kill us, without thought, malice or guilt. It’s why no one ever comes back from Cadair Idris.’