The Eye of Zoltar

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.

The Cambrian Empire