The Eye of Zoltar

‘Don’t yawn, anyone,’ I said, pointing to the victims. ‘A “Turning to Stone” defensive enchantment has recombined with a spell intended to be activated by yawning – creating something that is potentially fatal if you become tired or bored.’

They all nodded sagely and we quickened our pace to move more rapidly out of the danger zone.

We reached the outer wall of the lair, which would once have been ten or fifteen foot high and made of large, interlocking blocks like a three-dimensional puzzle. The Dragon’s lair had once been a neat truncated dome, much like a cake, with the vertical edge supported by a twenty-foot-high wall of river stones interspersed with jewels. The lair’s poor state of repair was due not so much to age, but to greed – as soon as the Dragon died people had come in and grabbed what they could. As we walked across the yard, we noticed that covers of rotting leather books lay scattered about, presumably from the Dragon’s personal library. The brightly decorated pages from the ancient manuscripts would have been removed and sold as pictures to decorate anonymous suburban walls. Even those pages without pictures had been taken, the vellum to be scraped and sold and reused.

We walked a little way around the paved circular courtyard, and that’s when we came across the Dragon, or at least, the remains of it. His massive bones were lying in a heap where he had fallen. The jewel was missing from the forehead of his great skull, and we could see the evidence of axe-marks around his jaws where the teeth had been removed long ago – a Dragon’s tooth has a sharp edge that never blunts, and is much prized in the manufacturing industries, and with a price to match. The ground, too, had been churned up over the years by treasure hunters eager to find some of the gold, silver and jewels with which Dragons are wont to line their lairs – the fine tiles that once decorated the floor were broken, spoilt and scattered about.

‘What a mess,’ said Wilson.

‘It’s like vandals stripped anything of value right out,’ said Gabby.

‘Marv-ook,’ said Ralph in a soft voice.

‘I know,’ I said, ‘this place must have been spectacular once.’

As the whole sorry scene unfolded before us I thought of the Mighty Shandar’s role in the Dragon’s destruction, and how the lair of the beast, one of the most powerful and mysterious places on earth, had been stripped like so many others like it for nothing more then souvenirs and cash, the multi-millennia of learning now lost. If Shandar’s threat to make good on his promise to destroy all Dragons had been wrong before, it was trebly wrong now. Colin and Feldspar must survive, must thrive, and must one day inhabit a lair such as this, thinking deep thoughts and living a life in the pursuit of greater knowledge.

‘This place has an inherent sadness stitched into its very fabric,’ said Wilson. ‘Can you feel it?’

‘I can,’ said Gabby, ‘like a heavy damp chill. I think we should pick up the pace.’

‘I agree,’ I said, and with Ralph leading the way, we skirted past the massive bones and towards the back of the lair, and the route beyond.

As we stepped out from behind some fallen masonry Ralph stopped dead. We stopped too. There, bathed in the warm orange light of the setting sun and looking every bit as dangerous as its eight-ton bulk would suggest, was a Tralfamosaur. It was barely fifteen feet away, and was crouched, ready to spring. It cocked its head on one side, regarding us in a dinnery sort of way.

I’d been this close to a Tralfamosaur before. I’d seen the saliva glistening on the razor-sharp teeth and the tiny red eyes, but the previous time there had been the Volkswagen’s windscreen between us, and there had been a plan. Here there was no plan, nothing between us, and the only possible thing acting in my favour was that Ralph was closer, and probably tastier.

Ralph realised it too and, unwilling to become an appetiser without a fight, quietly drew out his flint knife. The Tralfamosaur blinked at us all for a moment and flexed its front claws menacingly. I moved slightly as a precursor to darting right, hoping that if I did Ralph and the others might dart left and at least one or two of us might have a chance.

But as I moved, the Tralfamosaur moved with me. He had zeroed in on me, and it’s not a pleasant feeling. As I was about to make my move to a boulder a dozen paces away a hand rested lightly on my shoulder. The Tralfamosaur cocked its head again, perhaps wondering whether he could take two of us at the same time.

I glanced sideways and realised it was Gabby. He had opened his mouth wide, displaying two perfect rows of fine white teeth. I didn’t realise at first what he was trying to do but soon cottoned on. He was pretending to yawn and I did likewise: large yawns, expansive and pantomime-like. Ralph and Wilson, who had noticed us, also joined in.