The Eye of Zoltar

Friends reunited

‘Heigh-ho!’ said Addie cheerfully as she walked into the clearing. ‘How are my tourists?’

I must say that I have rarely been so glad to see someone safe and well. Perkins, that was, and Addie a close second.

‘Hey, Jenny,’ said Perkins, and he gave me a long hug, taking the opportunity to whisper in my ear how much he’d missed me. I returned the compliment gladly and unconditionally, but I must confess that his increased age – he’d put on ten years with Ralph’s Genetic Master Reset, remember – was not something I was going to get used to quickly.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked. ‘Not harmed in any way, I mean?’

‘I’m fine,’ he said, ‘but I can’t say the same for the kidnappers.’

‘Dead?’

He didn’t say anything, but just looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

‘Hail, fellow,’ said Addie to Gabby, grasping his hand and shaking it warmly, ‘good to see you again.’

‘You know each other?’ I asked, surprised, but unsure why I should be.

‘He’s my secret weapon,’ said Addie. ‘Everyone should have a Gabby to look after them.’

‘You sent Gabby to keep an eye on us?’ I asked.

‘Only to remain on standby in case anything happened.’

I looked at Gabby, who shrugged.

‘I should have said something, I suppose,’ he said, ‘but I didn’t know until two minutes ago that Addie was okay, and, well, I’m just in it for the rescuing.’

I thanked him, and Addie quizzed Gabby further. Safe jeopardy tourism – any tourism, actually – I had decided, was all about information. The more of it you have, the better the decisions you can make.

‘I found them two clicks north-west of the pod poles,’ said Gabby when Addie questioned him. ‘They’d lost their transport and were about to be emptied by a Lifesucker. I brought them here by way of the Dragon’s lair.’

‘Was that wise?’ asked Addie.

‘Perhaps, perhaps not,’ said Gabby, ‘but we made it without loss.’

‘Except Ralph,’ I said, ‘who tried to attack a Cloud Leviathan while it was on a low-level feeding run. I think he had an exciting ride while it lasted.’

‘And the others?’

I explained that Curtis had stolen the half-track with my ‘handmaiden’ on board and Addie agreed Curtis would be heading towards Llangurig, almost certainly to sell Laura, as Wilson suggested.

She didn’t yet know, of course, that Laura was anything but a handmaiden – but for now, while an odd one, she was a handmaiden nonetheless. I also told her Ignatius was dead.

‘Flesh-eating slugs?’ she asked. ‘He never was a fast mover.’

‘He tried to escape to the border in a rowing boat and was shot down by anti-aircraft fire.’

‘Wow,’ said Addie, ‘I would never have seen that coming.’

‘Neither did he.’

‘If you don’t need me for anything more,’ said Gabby, ‘I’ll be off. I’ve got some raw recruits to train in the risk management business. Staff turnover is savagely high these days.’

We all shook hands. I thanked him again and after politely refusing an offer of breakfast, he was off at a brisk walk and was soon lost to view over a rise.

We sat on the warm grass, and a picnic breakfast never tasted so good. There was tea in a billycan, too, boiled up over the residual Thermowizidrical energy emanating from the runic markings on the fallen marker stones.

‘So what’s the deal with Gabby?’ I asked.

‘He’s exactly what you see. Someone who assesses risk of death, and steps in to intervene if the right conditions prevail.’

‘Why didn’t he save Ralph if he works for the insurance companies? Someone like that wouldn’t come out here without adequate life cover.’

‘Ralph wasn’t human,’ said Addie, ‘and Gabby’s instructions are clear. If he was rescuing non-humans, where would he draw the line? Tralfamosaurs? Rabbits? Ladybirds?’

‘He was definitely a rum cove,’ added Wilson thoughtfully. ‘He never ate or drank, and I didn’t see him sleep last night. He was still awake as I nodded off, and awake before me.’

‘And me,’ I said. ‘And he never took off his backpack. I only saw him struggling with it once, when he returned to camp this morning.’

‘Listen,’ said Addie, ‘Gabby is what Gabby does and it’s best not to ask too many questions. There are some things out here that defy ordinary explanation, and Gabby, well, he’s one of them.’

‘So … what about the kidnappers?’ I asked, helping myself to another bread roll, but this time with peanut butter. I saw Perkins and Addie exchange looks.

‘If you’d rather not—’ began Wilson.

‘No, we should tell you,’ said Addie. ‘I tracked them to a camp about five miles from Cambrianopolis,’ she continued, taking a sip of tea, ‘and then waited until dawn before walking into their camp. I told them my word of death was in the steel I carried, and that they could stay there alive if they relinquished Perkins, or stay there dead if they did not. I knew they wouldn’t give him up, but it’s traditional to offer some sort of deal.’

‘Three against one?’ I said. ‘No offence or anything, Addie, but you’re not even half their size. Did you think you had a chance?’

‘What I lack in weight I make up for in savagery,’ she said, ‘and no offence taken. I weighed my chances in at about seventy/thirty in my favour. It would have been a hard hand-to-hand struggle, but I would have won out eventually. I would have left them to the flesh-eating slugs, set free their Buzonjis, and returned with Perkins. They knew I would have to do this when they took him. They would have expected me to come for them.’

‘Did it pan out that way?’ I asked.

‘It would have,’ said Addie, ‘but for your friend here.’

I turned to Perkins.

‘What did you do?’ I asked him.

‘She turned up and, yes, did the whole dopey tribal honour speech,’ replied Perkins, ‘which was quite stirring in a simplistic, barbaric and pointless-death kind of way, and I said that if she killed them I wouldn’t come with her.’

‘I told him he didn’t have a choice,’ said Addie, staring into her teacup, ‘that I would bind him like a hog and return him whether he liked it or not.’

Wilson and I looked at Perkins expectantly.

‘So,’ said Perkins, ‘I told her I would pop myself if she laid so much as a finger on any of them.’

I raised my eyebrows. ‘Popping’ was the last resort for a wizard, a simple spell that caused a haemorrhage in the brain. Unconsciousness would be instantaneous, and death would soon follow.

‘That put me in a quandary,’ said Addie, ‘for it would be a treble failure. I would still have to kill the bandits as threatened, the Silurians and the Oldivicians would go to war, and the trophy in the argument – Perkins – would be lost too. There were no winners. So I did something I’ve never done before. I told them that I would not be killing them as there was no good reason for it, and that I would lose my honour in order to keep the peace between our two tribes.’

‘I’m getting really confused over this whole honour thing,’ I said. ‘Isn’t a willingness to die and to kill for an abstract concept of dubious relevance a bit daft?’

‘I’d be the first to admit that it is,’ said Addie. ‘Honour is kind of what you get when you weaponise manners, but if you’re brought up in a system where honour is valued more than life itself it makes a lot more sense. Some. A bit. Anyway: they attacked me as they were honour bound to do, and I defended myself as I was bound to do, but killed them in self-defence. I think it was what Gareth had planned. He had dishonoured himself by kidnapping Perkins in the first place and causing our tribes to fall out, then been the cause of me dishonouring myself, which then brought dishonour upon himself. By attacking me, he allowed me to restore my lost honour by killing him, and, odd as it might seem, his honour as well. He died with honour, and I thank and respect him for it. We didn’t leave them to the slugs at all, and instead buried them with tribal honours, which is why we were kind of delayed. The ground was hard and we had to ride for miles to find a shovel.’

‘I’m totally lost,’ I said.

‘Me too,’ said Wilson.

‘And me,’ said Perkins, ‘and I was actually there witnessing it.’

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘what happened then?’

‘We got to the pod poles long after you had left, found your note and followed your trail as far as the Hotax-attacked Range Rover. By that time is was late afternoon, so, we decided to find a hotel in Llanidloes.’

‘So the plan is now …?’ I asked.

‘Same as before, pretty much,’ said Addie. ‘We’ll head into Llangurig and see if we can retrieve your handmaiden, the half-track and get some payback on that idiot Curtis.’

‘And then?’

‘See what Able Quizzler has to say for himself, I guess – and take it from there.’

This seemed the best plan, and after Addie had instructed her Buzonji to head on home, she led us towards a path that led downhill.

‘Any news from home?’ asked Perkins. I showed him the latest note from the homing snail, and watched his reaction to the part that read ‘all other considerations secondary’. I saw a look of consternation cross his face, but it was soon gone.

‘They’re keen to keep the Princess safe,’ he said, ‘and the Eye is still our number-one priority.’

‘Maybe so,’ I said, ‘but if Able Quizzler hasn’t any information about the Eye of Zoltar, I’m pulling the plug. We’ve lost two people already, and hunting Leviathans and a legendary pirate across Cadair Idris sounds like a fool’s errand.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Perkins.

He pointed at Moobin’s note again.

‘What’s all this about a “leap of faith”?’

‘No idea,’ I said, ‘and why did Moobin want to tell you “all other considerations secondary”? Are we in some kind of trouble?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Perkins. ‘Perhaps he wanted to impress upon me just how important this mission was.’

Just then we came to a thin line of beech trees on the ridge, and Addie pointed towards a town on the valley floor.

‘Behold,’ she said in a dramatic tone of voice, ‘Llangurig.’