The Eye of Zoltar (9 page)

‘Thank you, Perkins.’

‘My pleasure. Never been on a quest before.’

‘Hang on a second,’ I said. ‘Let’s all get this perfectly clear – this is
not
a quest. All we’re doing is travelling into the Cambrian Empire to find evidence that Able Quizzler chanced upon the Eye of Zoltar.’

‘Besides,’ said Moobin, ‘all quests need to be approved by the Questing Foundation.’

‘Exactly,’ I said, ‘and we don’t want
them
involved.’

‘So what if we do find evidence of the Eye of Zoltar?’ asked Perkins.

‘Then we carry on, I guess, and see what we can find.’

‘It will be dangerous,’ said Dame Corby, ‘the Cambrian Empire always is. My Uncle Herbert went there to do some mild mega-pike fishing and was stuffed and mounted by the Hotax.’

‘I’m thinking I shouldn’t ask this, but what’s a Hotax?’ asked Perkins.

‘A sort of cannibalistic savage with an unhealthy enthusiasm for taxidermy.’

‘I
knew
I shouldn’t have asked.’

‘Don’t forget to keep your angel traps on you at all times,’ said Prince Nasil, ‘
especially
when imminent death is close by. Did I tell you they liked marshmallows?’

‘Yes,’ said Perkins and I, pretty much at the same time.

‘Here,’ said Moobin, handing me a piece of paper, ‘you’ll need this.’

It was a letter of credit to the Ransom Clearing House. Effectively worth twenty thousand.

‘I’d like to go higher for Boo but that’s all we can spare. Try and knock them down, won’t you?’

I said I’d do my best, and put the note in my pocket.

‘Right, then,’ I said to the group as they got up. ‘The duty roster is posted on the board and don’t forget to fill out your paperwork. Tiger will help you.’

‘Thanks for agreeing to come with me,’ I said to Perkins as the meeting broke up.

‘You can’t go on your own,’ he replied. ‘Besides, Kevin once let slip that I would grow old in the Cambrian Empire. If I’m eventually to retire there, it makes sense to at least visit the place. What’s the plan, by the way?’

‘We drive to the border in the Bugatti posing as a couple going on holiday.’

‘And then what?’

‘And then we improvise.’

‘Sounds like an
excellent
plan.’

‘What about me?’ asked the Princess, who I’d forgotten about, but who must have overheard everything. ‘Shall I be a Tralfamosaur research student from a well-born family who has fallen on hard times but is otherwise treated as her high station befits?’

‘You’re not coming because it’s too risky,’ I said. ‘Besides, we can’t take a princess into the Cambrian Empire without an import licence.’

‘But I’m not the Princess right now,’ said the Princess. ‘I’m an undernourished orphan named Laura Scrubb with unsightly red rashes on my arms and legs.’

‘She’s got a point,’ said Perkins.

I thought for a moment. The King and Queen had told me she needed educating, and a fact-finding mission to the wildly unpredictable Cambrian Empire might be just the thing.

‘Okay, Princess,’ I said, ‘you’re in – but if you blow your cover and get kidnapped, your father will have to mortgage the Kingdom you might one day inherit to get you out.’

‘I’ll take that risk,’ she said with a toss of her head. ‘Now, shall I be a Tralfamosaur research student from a well-born family who is treated as an equal?’

‘No, you’re my handmaiden.’

She thought about this.

‘Will I have to do any ironing?’

‘
Can
you do ironing?’

‘No.’

‘Then probably not.’

‘Okay,’ she said with the first smile I’d seen, ‘game on.’

As soon as our local filling station was open in the morning I checked the oil level and topped up the fuel on the Bugatti Royale. As an afterthought I added a couple of cans of spare petrol to the cavernous boot, then drove the car back to Zambini Towers, where I packed a spirit stove and a billycan for tea. I fetched several cases of ‘one meal’ expanding biscuits from Mabel and an enchanted tent that would swear angrily to itself when self-pitching, and thus save you the effort.

Perkins was the first to appear, dragging a leather suitcase behind him.

‘A few things Moobin and Mawgon put together for me,’ he explained. ‘Potions, spells, temporary newting compound, anti-curse cream, that sort of stuff.’

‘Keep it well hidden,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to spend the next week in prison, trying to convince a judge we’re not dangerous magical extremists or something.’

‘Promise,’ said Perkins, and by clever use of perspective manipulation, tucked his heavy suitcase into the Royale’s glovebox.

Tiger appeared.

‘This is the best guide I could find,’ he said, handing me a copy of
Enjoy the unspoilt charms of the Cambrian Empire without death or serious injury.

‘Not exactly a confidence-inspiring title, is it?’

‘Not really. I got you this one, too.’

He handed me a book entitled
Death and injury avoidance techniques for the discerning traveller in the Western Kingdoms
. I put both guides in the door pocket of the Royale, and, since there was a bit of time, briefed Tiger as best as I could.

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘Lady Mawgon and Moobin will be working on the spell for getting the mobile phone network running again. Keep Patrick of Ludlow confined to earth moving, tree transplanting and other lifting – let Dame Corby and the Prices do the subtle work. The Instant Camera Project will need testing once Mrs Pola Roidenstock has finished perfecting the “develop before your eyes” spelling. She’ll need help thinking up a good name to sell it under, too. The rest of the work you’ll find on the board, but, well, you know pretty much how it works by now.’

‘I can contact you if I have any questions, yes?’

‘Not by the usual channels – the Cambrian Empire has cut itself off from the outside world. Despite that, I’ll call every day at seven in the evening to check in. If you don’t hear from us for forty-eight hours, then alert the King. Do you have the conch?’

Tiger held up his conch shell, I showed him mine, and we touched them together to reinforce the twinning. They were a left and right pair, ideal for long-distance communication. We could have used winkles, which fit easily in the ear, but the reception was poor as limpets used the same bandwidth for their inane chit-chat.

‘And Tiger,’ I added, ‘would you take care of the Quarkbeast? They hunt them for fun in the Cambrian Empire.’

‘Sorry I’m late,’ said a voice, and with a whooshing of wings and a flurry of dust Colin alighted on the pavement beside us, startling some pedestrians, who ran away screaming in terror. ‘I’ve got to open a supermarket this morning so I’ll meet you inside the Cambrian Empire later on.’

‘Good luck with that. What news from Feldspar and the princess-guarding gig?’

‘To be honest,’ said Colin, ‘I’m jealous I’m not doing it. Lots of grub, comfy digs and the castle is superb – just the right amount of ruined, off the coast of Cornwall and with angry seas all around.’

‘Is there a volcano?’ I asked, knowing how these things go in and out of fashion.

‘No, but Feldspar gets Wednesdays off so we’ll be seeing him from time to time, and the princess he’s guarding has a relaxed attitude to being a prisoner, and often nips into Truro to meet friends.’

‘Speaking of princesses,’ said Perkins once Colin had left, ‘I thought ours was coming with us?’

‘I thought so too.’

We waited another five minutes and I rechecked everything was in the car.

‘I left my angel trap behind,’ said Perkins, ‘it just didn’t seem right.’

‘Me too.’

The Princess kept us waiting for a half-hour for the simple reason that it was customary for princesses to never be on time for anything.

We headed west once she had turned up, towards the six miles of frontier the Kingdom of Snodd shared with the Cambrian Empire. The route took us past Clifford, where my old orphanage stood gaunt and dark against the sky, tiles missing from the roof and broken glass in the windows, the shutters askew. Part of the roof was missing, and one of the gable ends of the building had collapsed into a pile of rubble, exposing the interior to the rain. Not much different to when I lived there, in fact. I thought of dropping in to see Mother Zenobia, but we had work to do.

We negotiated the border post leading out of the Kingdom of Snodd without a problem, then drove slowly across the bridge that spanned the River Wye, at this point the border between the nations. On the Cambrian bank there were tank traps, minefields and razor wire, and beyond this were batteries of anti-aircraft guns, and behind
them
, obsolete landships manned by a ragtag collection of Cambrian Army irregulars.

‘Are the fortifications there to keep people in or out?’ asked Perkins as we drove past several Cambrian border guards, who eyed us suspiciously.

‘Probably a bit of both.’

We stopped behind a queue of vehicles once we were off the bridge, and waited to be called forward to the customs post. To our left was a large board reminding visitors of the many items that it was illegal to import. Some of them were quite straightforward, such as weapons, aircraft, record players and ‘magical paraphernalia’, but others were quite bizarre, such as spinning wheels, peanuts, flatworms, Bunsen burners and anything ‘overtly red in colour’.

The Cambrian Empire was a large, ramshackle and lawless nation composed almost entirely of competing warlords, constantly warring tribes and small family fiefdoms, all of whom squabbled constantly. Despite the small fights that were constantly going on, the citizens of Cambria were fiercely loyal to Emperor Tharv, who lived in a magnificent palace within the fashionably war-torn and picturesquely ruined capital city Cambrianopolis.

For one of the largest kingdoms in the unUnited Kingdoms – it was on the site of what was once mid-Wales – there were very few people living here, owing possibly to the aforementioned bickering. Most visitors entered the empire to explore or hunt in the Empty Quarter, a twelve-hundred-square-mile tract of former Dragonlands that had moved seamlessly into the hands of the Cambrian Wildlife Trust upon the death of a Dragon fifty years before. Many asked why Emperor Tharv would do something quite so sensible, but his madness, it seemed, was unpredictable. He once claimed to have trained up a thousand killer elephants with which to lay waste the unUnited Kingdoms, along with devising another plan whereby he vowed to destabilise the yogurt market by flooding the industry with cheap imports. But conversely, he had also instigated the best National Health System in the Kingdoms, along with a robust childcare regime that allows young women to go out marauding, thieving and kidnapping with their husbands.

‘It says here that most foreign currency is earned through jeopardy tourism,’ said Perkins, reading from
Enjoy the unspoilt charms of the Cambrian Empire without death or serious injury
. ‘People after excitement and adventure, even if it means possible loss of life.’

‘I guess that’s where this bunch are going,’ I said, indicating the steady stream of men and women eagerly queuing to cross into the nation.

‘For some it will be for the last time,’ said Perkins. ‘It says here tourism mortality rates haven’t dropped below eighteen per cent in the past nine decades.’

I looked again at the queue of tourists. If what Perkins said was correct, eighteen out of every hundred people wouldn’t be coming back.

‘My father sold Emperor Tharv an option on my daughter for his son,’ said the Princess absently.

‘You don’t have any children,’ said Perkins, ‘and neither does Emperor Tharv. How could Tharv offer the hand of a son he doesn’t yet have?’

‘It’s called “dabbling in the princess options market”,’ she replied, ‘and it’s not uncommon. In fact, a third of the Emperor’s private income is earned on marriage trading options. Only last year he paid fifty thousand moolah for an option on the hand of my second daughter
if
I had one, for his son,
if
he has one. His son doesn’t have to take up the option, but if he does it’ll cost him a further million. Nice little earner for us and good for the palace coffers. For Emperor Tharv, he has now gambled on not only securing a good marriage for his grandson at a competitive price, but also gained a tradable asset – he can sell that option to anyone he pleases. If I actually
have
a second daughter the option jumps in value, and if she turns out to be beautiful, clever and witty, Tharv can make more money from selling the option. Conversely, if my second daughter turns out to be a vapid, airheaded little dingbat, his option value sinks to nothing.’

‘So
that’s
how the options market works,’ said Perkins, ‘and there was I, thinking it was complex.’

‘Is that why queens have so many children?’ I asked. ‘For the option rights?’

‘Exactly so,’ said the Princess. ‘The King of Shropshire managed to build most of his nation’s motorway network by the trading options on his twenty-nine children.’

There was a pause.

‘I don’t suppose,’ began Perkins, ‘you know anything about Collateralised Debt Obligations, do you?’

‘Of course,’ said the Princess, who seemed to be oddly at ease with complex financial transactions. ‘First you must understand that loss-making financial mechanisms can be sold to offset—’

Luckily we were saved that particular explanation as a Skybus Aeronautics delivery truck was allowed out, and they waved us into the border post of the Cambrian Empire.

I pulled forward and wound down the window as the border guard moved towards us. It was only then that I noticed that the Helping Hand
^™
was still firmly attached to the steering wheel. This was illegal magical contraband, and likely to be confiscated. Without time to remove it, I hid my own hand high in my cuff and pretended the Helping Hand™ was my own. The border guard stopped by the driver’s-side window and looked at me suspiciously.

‘Hello!’ I said brightly.

‘Good afternoon,’ he said, looking at me again, then at the car. ‘Is this … a Bugatti Royale?’