The Eye of Zoltar

The sky pirate’s tale

‘Surprised?’

‘Just a little,’ I said, looking around. I was still in cloud but sitting on a small, gently undulating platform that I soon figured was the distinctively broad flat skull of a Leviathan, and what’s more, that it was floating in mid-air and supporting my weight. I knew the Leviathan was lighter than air, but I had not taken the next logical step to suppose the bones would remain so after death. To one side of me was a spiral staircase, made of Leviathan bones, which vanished upwards into the gloom, and on the other side of me was the man who had hauled me to this strange new world within the clouds. It was Gabby, the very same as I had seen him last. Youthful, sleeves rolled, still wearing his backpack.

‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.

‘Hiding. I’m not always wanting to be found. But when you took that leap, well, I wasn’t going to let you die.’

‘For the second time.’

‘Fourth, actually, but who’s counting?’

‘You are.’

‘Agreed. But you didn’t see me the other times. In my line of work, being seen can raise difficulties.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘No, few do – let me show you around.’

And so saying, he led the way up the creaking spiral bone staircase. We didn’t have to go very far before we broke cloud, and emerged into the sunlight. I looked around. My mouth, I think, may even have dropped open.

We were standing on what I can only describe as a floating platform of massive Leviathan bones, all lashed together, and constructed on several different levels. There were walkways, stairways and even rooms, passageways and a main hall, the framework of each built solely of lighter-than-air Leviathan bones.

‘The legendary Leviathans’ Graveyard,’ I breathed, for here indeed were the remains of perhaps hundreds of Leviathans, their bones used to make a hideout of crude beauty. Despite the lashed-bone construction there was elegance in the haphazard structure, and a certain recycled charm, for among the framework of bones was the booty of the aerial pirate – parts of aircraft stolen on the wing and adapted to make the hideout more like home. Wings became roofs, aluminium fuselage panels became footways, aero-engines as generator sets and winches. We were standing at what appeared to be a dock, ready to accept a Cloud Leviathan, with a large leather harness all set to strap a wicker balloonist’s gondola on the creature’s back, with harpoon guns on swivelling mounts, grappling hooks and cutlasses at the ready.

But for all this apparent readiness, the hideout was long abandoned. Everything was old, worn and weathered. Any exposed metal was corroded and the leather strips that held the Cloud Leviathans’ bones together had begun to rot. There were bodies, too, or rather, partial bodies. The closest pirate to us had died while fighting as his arm was still holding a cutlass embedded in the handrail, but although most of him was now little more than skeleton half held together with dried gristle, his arm, half of his chest and head had been preserved at the moment of death – but as a dull grey metal.

I tapped the grey metal, and stared uneasily at the look of grim determination stuck permanently to the dead pirate’s features, then tested the metal for softness with my fingernail. There was no mistake – he had been changed partially to lead.

‘The Eye of Zoltar,’ I breathed, ‘it’s here – or was here.’

I looked around to see whether there were other bodies, and there were, all of them either partially or completely changed to lead. It looked as though there had been a fight – and the pirates had lost.

‘However did this place come about?’ I asked as we followed the trail of dead pirates towards the main hall, the walkway flexing beneath our feet as we moved.

‘The Cambrian species of Leviathan has always lived on Cadair Idris,’ explained Gabby. ‘It is hatched here, breeds here, roosts here overnight and will eventually return here to die. Once dead, it floats in the air until it rots away, and its bones rise to form a mass about twenty thousand feet above the summit – and usefully become the nest where it lays its eggs. It’s thought the first sky pirate tamed a Leviathan and then established a base in what was once the Leviathan’s nest.’

‘We’re not at twenty thousand feet,’ I said, noting as we walked past how another pirate was lead from the waist down.

‘Agreed,’ said Gabby, ‘and it would be too cold to live up there. We think that much of this aircraft scrap – the engines and undercarriage and whatnot – is really just for ballast, to keep it hovering just above the mountain’s summit. One of their first acts of piracy was to kidnap a sorcerer to ensure that the nest – now built into pretty much what you see now – was permanently obscured by cloud.’

‘Which explains why the summit can never be seen.’

‘Precisely. As the years went by the pirating business moved from captain to captain but was always fairly low key – until Sky Pirate Bunty Wolff took over. She had no qualms about plundering the biggest airliners quite literally on the wing – she would attack anything if there was rich booty to be had.’

‘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.’