The Eye of Zoltar

There was nothing I could do to respond, so I folded the message up and placed it in my top pocket. I wasn’t happy. Did Moobin mean ‘all other considerations secondary’ in the same way that Wilson had described it in his story? ‘To use whatever means available to carry out his task’? And a ‘leap of faith from the shoulders of giants’? What was that all about? Giants died out years ago and had long ago been consigned to Grade VI legend status, the same as dodos: ‘Once existed, but now proved to be extinct’.

I lay quite still for a while, the events of the past day going through my head while by the light of the fireberries I could see Ralph sitting sentry on a rock, flint knife at the ready. I tied my handkerchief around my head to guard against yawning, then tried to get comfortable against the remains of the seats in the abandoned scout car. It was chilly and after the day’s events I thought sleep would be impossible. In less then five minutes I was proved wrong.

The morning feeding

I awoke with a chill in my joints. The air was cold, and a thick layer of fog had draped the land in a soft milky blanket. I coughed and looked up. It was early, and I could see Wilson fast asleep close by. Ralph was still perched on the rock where I had seen him the previous night, but he was now hunched over, fast asleep. Gabby was nowhere to be seen, and as I looked around and stretched I was suddenly aware of a distant whistling noise, like the wind that sings through the tassels of a fast-moving flying carpet.

The noise appeared to be coming from the north, and what’s more, seemed to be getting louder. In another second Gabby came running into the campsite while wrestling to put on his backpack, and with a worried look on his face.

‘Hang on to something!’ he yelled. ‘Leviathan on a feeding run!’

Wilson was still asleep so I flung myself on top of him and wedged myself – and him – with both feet in a corner of the vehicle and my arms wrapped around the bent steering wheel. Gabby did the same, but around a door pillar.

The whistling increased and a breeze seemed to blow up – the fabled ‘squall line’ that preceded a low-level feeding run, intended to stir anything capable of flight into the air. A moment later and the air was flooded with birds of almost every description, eager to outrun the predator. I saw gulls tear past us, sparrows, a hawk, three herons, a pelican and two dozen starlings, all grouped together for protection. Many of them alighted in the wreckage of the vehicle and, momentarily unafraid of us, tucked themselves into any crevice they could find. Three puffins snuggled inside my coat and assorted sparrows, choughs, curlews and a woodpecker desperately attempted to wedge themselves beneath the armoured car’s hull.

The whistling increased in strength and the wind in the squall line increased. My ears popped, and all of a sudden a cloud of insects moved past, tumbling and fluttering in the wind. Butterflies and bees, wasps, ladybirds and myriad others gathered together in a confused and erratic swarm, all in a vain attempt to escape. Dust and dirt and small stones and clumps of grass were lifted and whipped and whirled into the air by the wind. I looked up to see whether I could see the Cloud Leviathan – you’d have done the same, I assure you – and that’s when I noticed Ralph. He was standing on his rock, flint blade in hand, peering at the colossus that was fast approaching. I could see the Leviathan now, or rather, I could see parts of it, the most obvious being the mouth – an oval gaping maw twenty foot wide and ringed by pearly-white teeth the size of artillery shells. The rest of the Leviathan seemed indistinct; more like a wobbly pattern in the air. In another few seconds the Leviathan was upon us, and as it went thundering overhead with the sound of a gigantic hoover, I caught a glimpse of Ralph jumping into the attack. Perhaps he thought a lone Australopithecine could bring down a Leviathan. Perhaps he wanted to be the first one to try. Perhaps deep down, the risk-averse loner that had once been Ralph D. Nalor wanted to end it all on the most daring endeavour of all. I don’t know, but Ralph managed to sink his dagger into the leathery hide of the beast as it moved past, and was then carried away as the Leviathan continued on its feeding run, seemingly untroubled by its passenger.

The armoured car in which we’d sought refuge lurched as the Leviathan went over, and then all was still. The wind subsided, and the birds all hopped from their hiding places, rubbed their beaks and then flew off, apparently unperturbed. Gabby and I watched as the Cloud Leviathan, or at least the shimmering shape where we thought the Leviathan might be, reared vertically upwards, venting air from the twin rows of vectored nostrils on its underbelly.

‘Isn’t that Ralph?’ I asked.