The Eye of Zoltar

They pulled the glowing Ralph out of the back of the half-track, holding him down by his shoelaces as if he were a helium balloon in a breeze. He was giggling stupidly and mumbling something about camels, and as we watched bright sparks started to fizz out of his ears. He then turned blue, then red, then green, then burped out a large iridescent bubble that burst to produce a flock of brightly coloured butterflies.

I glanced at Ignatius and Curtis, who were themselves now giggling stupidly at Ralph’s predicament, and I suddenly had a terrible thought.

‘Perkins,’ I said, ‘did you leave your bag in the half-track when we went to look at the slugs?’

Perkins hurriedly opened the leather suitcase that would have contained all his potions, balms and one-shot spells written on rice paper. It was, predictably enough, empty. Ralph, like Curtis, must have had a fondness for abusing magic and, finding some spells unattended, had consumed the lot.

Ralph was now beginning to stretch and flex in a peculiar manner, as though a pony were inside him trying to get out. I’d not seen anyone have a magic overdose, but I’d heard about it. The lucky ones turn themselves inside out, and die a horribly painful death. The unlucky ones get to turn themselves inside out for ever.

‘Fun’s over,’ said Gareth to Ralph, who was still floating in the air and now doing some rapid transformations between a piano, a walrus and a wardrobe and then back again, ‘give it a rest and come down here immediately.’

Ralph, predictably enough, ignored him.

‘Blast,’ said Perkins, thumping the side of the half-track with his fist, ‘I’m responsible for this.’

‘No, it’s hard cheese for the idiot whatsisname,’ said the Princess. ‘If he’s stupid enough to consume a bagful of unknown spells, then he can deal with the consequences.’

I looked at Perkins, and he looked back at me, and he sighed. With the skill of Mystical Arts comes a certain … responsibility.

He stood up.

‘It’s me you want,’ he said to Gareth the Bandit. ‘That bloody fool is suffering the symptoms of acute magic poisoning. Do what you want with me, but I need to help him before he bursts.’

Ralph responded by freeing himself from his captors and doing three somersaults in mid-air, braying like a donkey and then momentarily turning into a tiger and back again, all the time giggling uncontrollably. Ignatius and Curtis were laughing too, and cheering him on, and even some of the bandits were beginning to find it amusing. But just then Ralph’s foot expanded explosively to four times its normal size, shredding his boot and covering us with scraps of tongue, laces, leather lowers and man-made uppers. No one was laughing any more.

‘Go on, then,’ said Gareth.

Perkins stretched out an index finger and began to concentrate. Doing a standard Magnaflux Spell Reversal was tricky, but I knew he wasn’t planning on that – it would be too complex given that there were now thirty or forty spells coursing through Ralph’s body. No, he’d be trying the grandmaster of all the reversals: the rarely tried, personally draining and supremely risky Genetic Master Reset.

Ralph stopped giggling as his head swelled to twice its size and then back again, followed by a curious rippling of his skin that morphed his front into his back and then into his front again, which is a lot more unpleasant to behold than it is to describe. Even Ignatius and Curtis grimaced.

Ralph started to scream in pain. Not that ‘stubbed your toe’ sort of pain, but more a kind of ‘detached kneecap’ kind of pain, only with seven simultaneous childbirths, neuralgia and a tooth abscess all mixed in as well, for good luck. The sort you hope you never get to experience.

While Ralph screamed, his ear migrated across his face with a sound like tearing cloth and the tips of his fingers shot off and ricocheted dangerously about the small group, smashing a wing mirror and causing two of the bandits to duck for cover.

And that was when Perkins let fly.

There was a burst of energy from his fingertips and a cold fireball burst out from Ralph which then expanded to a sphere about thirty feet wide, paused for a moment in a wonderful display of crackling light, then collapsed rapidly to a ball of light that enveloped the still-screaming Ralph before vanishing in a twinkling of bright lights. There was a distant rumble and all was quiet. Ralph, such as we knew him, had gone.

It’s an Australopithecine

‘Where’s Ralph gone?’ said Ignatius. ‘And who’s that?’

He was pointing at a small, hairy and very primitive-looking man about four foot high with a flattish face and a protruding upper and lower jaw. He had a mild stoop, long arms and legs and was completely naked. He stared at us all with a furtive manner as Perkins sat back heavily in his seat, exhausted.