The Eye of Zoltar

The morning feeding

I awoke with a chill in my joints. The air was cold, and a thick layer of fog had draped the land in a soft milky blanket. I coughed and looked up. It was early, and I could see Wilson fast asleep close by. Ralph was still perched on the rock where I had seen him the previous night, but he was now hunched over, fast asleep. Gabby was nowhere to be seen, and as I looked around and stretched I was suddenly aware of a distant whistling noise, like the wind that sings through the tassels of a fast-moving flying carpet.

The noise appeared to be coming from the north, and what’s more, seemed to be getting louder. In another second Gabby came running into the campsite while wrestling to put on his backpack, and with a worried look on his face.

‘Hang on to something!’ he yelled. ‘Leviathan on a feeding run!’

Wilson was still asleep so I flung myself on top of him and wedged myself – and him – with both feet in a corner of the vehicle and my arms wrapped around the bent steering wheel. Gabby did the same, but around a door pillar.

The whistling increased and a breeze seemed to blow up – the fabled ‘squall line’ that preceded a low-level feeding run, intended to stir anything capable of flight into the air. A moment later and the air was flooded with birds of almost every description, eager to outrun the predator. I saw gulls tear past us, sparrows, a hawk, three herons, a pelican and two dozen starlings, all grouped together for protection. Many of them alighted in the wreckage of the vehicle and, momentarily unafraid of us, tucked themselves into any crevice they could find. Three puffins snuggled inside my coat and assorted sparrows, choughs, curlews and a woodpecker desperately attempted to wedge themselves beneath the armoured car’s hull.

The whistling increased in strength and the wind in the squall line increased. My ears popped, and all of a sudden a cloud of insects moved past, tumbling and fluttering in the wind. Butterflies and bees, wasps, ladybirds and myriad others gathered together in a confused and erratic swarm, all in a vain attempt to escape. Dust and dirt and small stones and clumps of grass were lifted and whipped and whirled into the air by the wind. I looked up to see whether I could see the Cloud Leviathan – you’d have done the same, I assure you – and that’s when I noticed Ralph. He was standing on his rock, flint blade in hand, peering at the colossus that was fast approaching. I could see the Leviathan now, or rather, I could see parts of it, the most obvious being the mouth – an oval gaping maw twenty foot wide and ringed by pearly-white teeth the size of artillery shells. The rest of the Leviathan seemed indistinct; more like a wobbly pattern in the air. In another few seconds the Leviathan was upon us, and as it went thundering overhead with the sound of a gigantic hoover, I caught a glimpse of Ralph jumping into the attack. Perhaps he thought a lone Australopithecine could bring down a Leviathan. Perhaps he wanted to be the first one to try. Perhaps deep down, the risk-averse loner that had once been Ralph D. Nalor wanted to end it all on the most daring endeavour of all. I don’t know, but Ralph managed to sink his dagger into the leathery hide of the beast as it moved past, and was then carried away as the Leviathan continued on its feeding run, seemingly untroubled by its passenger.

The armoured car in which we’d sought refuge lurched as the Leviathan went over, and then all was still. The wind subsided, and the birds all hopped from their hiding places, rubbed their beaks and then flew off, apparently unperturbed. Gabby and I watched as the Cloud Leviathan, or at least the shimmering shape where we thought the Leviathan might be, reared vertically upwards, venting air from the twin rows of vectored nostrils on its underbelly.

‘Isn’t that Ralph?’ I asked.

It was. Ralph was clinging to the belly of the beast as it rose several thousand feet into the air, streaming dust, feathers, dirt and grass as it went. Ralph was tenacious, that much was clear – he even had his large ladies’ handbag still in the crook of his arm.

‘Did I miss something?’ asked Wilson, blinking and getting up.

‘Kind of,’ I said, pointing in the direction of the tiny dot that was Ralph, clearly visible on the shimmering outline of the barely visible Leviathan. It looked almost as if he were rising alone, unsupported by anything at all. In a moment or two the Leviathan rolled on to its side to head north, and Ralph was lost to view.

‘Do you think he’s okay?’ I asked.

‘He’ll be fine for about as long as he can hang on,’ replied Gabby.

We stared into the now-empty sky for a few moments in silence.

‘He was a loyal companion to us both,’ I said sadly.

‘And will be missed,’ added Wilson.

‘Friends are always lost here in the Empire,’ said Gabby philosophically, ‘and we’ll lose more before the trip is over, I wager.’

‘Mathematically speaking you may be right,’ I said, thinking of Addie’s predicted fifty per cent Fatality Index, ‘but I hope not.’

‘That Leviathan was low,’ mused Gabby as he unhooked something from the jagged edge of the armoured car’s shattered body. He laid the scrap of leathery material across his arm, where it changed colour to match his skin. He laid it across my skin and it darkened almost instantaneously to match mine.

‘Scraps of Leviathan skin fetch a good price on the Cambrianopolis black market, I’ve heard,’ said Wilson.

‘If the Emperor’s men find you with this your head will be off,’ said Gabby. ‘It’s better to let it go.’

And so saying, he released the section of skin, which floated off into the air like a helium balloon.

‘Leviathans are lighter than air?’ I said, amazed at what I was seeing.

‘How else do you think something so large could fly?’ asked Gabby, then added: ‘We’d better get going. With a bit of luck we can get to the edge of the Empty Quarter before something considers that we’d make a fine breakfast. And Jennifer?’

‘Yes?’

‘I think you’ve still got some puffins inside your jacket.’

It was true. They seemed to have taken a liking to the pockets, and had to be carefully removed.

We walked in silence for the next three hours or so, now and then pausing to hide from danger, drink from a mountain stream or nibble on some wild radishes. Eventually we came across the now-dormant marker stones that denoted the edge of the Dragonlands and the northern edge of the Empty Quarter. The stones were covered with a thick crust of lichen, and appeared forlorn and forgotten. Llangurig would be only a few miles away.

Gabby called a halt.

‘Any particular reason?’ I asked.

‘Breakfast.’

‘You have some?’

‘No,’ said Gabby with a smile, ‘but they will.’

He pointed towards a stunted oak. The roots had grasped one of the marker stones tightly, and the overhanging branches partially hid a small group of people. A quick leg count told me this was a group of five people and I was suddenly suspicious until I realised that six of the legs belonged to one creature – a Buzonji – and that the other legs belonged to Perkins, and Addie. I blinked away some tears. I had convinced myself I would not see them again.