The Eye of Zoltar

‘You know your spells,’ said Miss D’argento with a smile. ‘We run them with the Mandrake Sentience Emulation Protocols disabled to make them less independent. Make no mistake, they are twice as dangerous as real bodyguards for they fear no death.’

She wasn’t kidding. Pharaoh Amenemhat V of the Middle Kingdom was said to have attempted to expand Egypt along the Mediterranean with an unstoppable drone army of sixty thousand. They got as far as what is now Benghazi before Amenemhat V was killed in battle.

I told Tiger and the Princess to wait in the car while the forklift placed the crate in front of us and then reversed away. Almost immediately, several of the lifeless drones unlatched the crate and wheeled the two sections apart to reveal the Mighty Shandar.

But it wasn’t a flesh-and-blood Shandar, it was Shandar as he spent most of his time these days: stone. Every fold in the fabric of his clothes, every pore in his skin, every eyelash was perfectly preserved in glassy obsidian. This was how the Mighty Shandar could still be a power to be reckoned with four centuries after his birth, for in stone, you don’t age.

But spending time in petra was not without dangers. The world is littered with sorcerers who have turned to stone for some reason, only to have an arm, leg or head fall, or be knocked or sawn off. Those that return to life generally bleed to death before they can be saved. But given the right storage facilities and barring erosion, accidental damage or mischief, a sorcerer could live hundreds of thousands of years without a second of their own life having passed.

‘The Mighty Shandar celebrates his four hundred and forty-fourth birthday next year,’ said Miss D’argento, ‘yet in his own personal life he is only fifty-eight. He doesn’t get out of stone for anything less than a million an hour, and at current life-usage rates will live to 9,356.’

She looked at Shandar’s features, unclipped a feather duster from inside the crate, and flicked some dust from the statue.

‘He spent the entire seventeen and eighteenth centuries turned to stone,’ continued Miss D’argento proudly, ‘but that was mainly for tax purposes. Four generations of my family never spoke to him at all.’

‘You must be very dedicated.’

‘Dedication does not even begin to describe our commitment to the Mighty Shandar,’ said D’argento, ‘but enough chit-chat. Read this.’

She passed me a sheet of paper. I scanned the contents, and my heart fell. It was a letter from Representatives of the unUnited Kingdoms to the Mighty Shandar, outlining a case of ‘Breach of Contract’ they had filed with the unUK’s highest court.

‘The thing is,’ said D’argento in a half-apologetic tone as I read the lawsuit, ‘that the Mighty Shandar doesn’t do refunds.’

The problem was this: the Mighty Shandar had been contracted to rid the Kingdoms of Dragons four centuries before, and was paid a lot of money to do so. His plan required the last Dragon to die of old age, something that I personally intervened to ruin. There were now two Dragons left, and that was two more Dragons than the contract stipulated. Unless he rid the Kingdoms of all the Dragons he’d have to return the cash. And it was a lot of cash, paid to him four centuries ago – the interest alone would fund at least half a Troll War.

‘We have the money,’ said D’argento. ‘The Mighty Shandar’s share in Skybus would cover the debt pretty much on its own. No, it’s the principle of the matter. A job was left unfinished, and we’re not keen to make a habit of it. Clients might lose confidence, and in business, confidence counts.’

‘I agree with that,’ I replied, ‘but Dragons aren’t much into eating people any more – it’s probably the last thing on Feldspar and Colin’s mind.’

‘They have names?’

‘Certainly. In the first month of their new life they did a goodwill tour around the world to promote their “not eating people or burning stuff” agenda, and they are at present in Washington, DC, reading the entire contents of the Library of Congress in order to understand a little more about humans.’

‘Admirable, I’m sure,’ said Miss D’argento, ‘but the refund issue still stands. Don’t take my word for it, for you are to be honoured: the Mighty Shandar wants to speak to you personally.’

Miss D’argento checked her watch and somewhere a clock struck two. Almost immediately the statue of Shandar turned from black to grey to a sort of off-white. There was a pause, then Shandar took a deep breath as life returned to his body, and the off-white coating seemed to burst off his skin and clothes like dry skin. He staggered for a moment, shook himself and looked around.

‘Welcome back, O Mighty Shandar,’ said Miss D’argento, beaming and clicking a stopwatch. ‘It’s two o’clock on the afternoon of 14 October 2007. You’ve been in petra for sixty-two days. We’re currently at Madley International Airport in the Kingdom of Snodd.’

She handed him a damp towel so he could refresh himself, then a clipboard and pen.