The Eye of Zoltar

‘I’ve been up here two hours,’ he said. ‘The top of the mountain is not large and extends about as far as you can see in every direction. I’ve checked the lot. I’m sorry to say there is nothing up here but damp rock, ancient history and disappointment. There are a few human bones but nothing from a Leviathan, not even a tooth. It was a wild goose chase, Jenny. Addie was right after all – it’s all legends, hearsay, old wives’ tales. I should despise you for wasting my time, but hey, at least I got to climb Cadair Idris and see the giant’s chair.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘there is that.’

‘Hello, Laura,’ said Curtis as the Princess stepped out from behind the chair, ‘no hard feelings, eh?’

‘None,’ said the Princess. ‘I’ve never been kidnapped, knocked unconscious or sold before. It was very … educational.’

‘Well,’ said Curtis, checking his watch, ‘you’re all being very sporting over this. I confess I thought you’d be annoyed. But hey, I guess that’s the rough and tumble of the Cambrian Empire. The big adventure, y’know? Perhaps we should meet up for a drink or something when this is all over. Perhaps we’ll even get to laugh about it.’

‘Perhaps we will,’ I said, ‘but not together. Not you and us. Goodbye, Curtis.’

He suddenly looked uneasy. Wary, perhaps, of our apparent relaxed attitude to him and how he’d left us to almost certain death in the Empty Quarter.

‘Okay, then,’ he said, his voice cracking with the briefest tremor, ‘I’ll get going. I should make Llangurig by nightfall. So long.’

‘One more thing,’ I said, ‘I’ve taken the keys to the half-track, so you’re in the jeep.’

‘And if you touch our belongings,’ added Addie, ‘or try to sabotage the half-track or anything I will make it my sworn life’s duty to hunt you down.’

He looked at us all in turn. I think he got the message.

‘Jeep it is then,’ he said.

He turned hesitantly, thought of something, glanced at us again and then walked away and was lost to view in the swirling fog. We listened to his footsteps retreat after we lost sight of him, and heard a rusty clang as he climbed back over the fallen gates. We heard a few steps as he began the long descent, then no more.

‘So,’ said the Princess, ‘any ideas about this Eye of Zoltar thingy? I can’t see a Leviathans’ Graveyard anywhere.’

‘Nor a pirate hideout,’ added Wilson.

‘Me neither,’ I said, ‘but the answer is up here somewhere, I can feel it.’

I asked everyone to search the mountain top to see whether Curtis had missed anything. They all fanned out and I was left by myself next to Idris’ chair to think, for something didn’t add up. If the Mighty Shandar had gone to the trouble of protecting the area with hundreds of drones, then there had to be a secret up here that needed protecting. And with this amount of effort, a seriously good secret. All we had to do was find it.

Perkins’ secret

Perkins was the first to return. He had found nothing except a rock-cut shelter, presumably to offer meagre comfort to any travellers caught up here in bad weather, and it seemed that weather here could be very bad indeed.

‘Bones and gristle and a few IDs,’ he said when I asked him whether there was anything inside, ‘and tattered remnants of luggage, a corroded radio and some water bottles. I also noticed that every surface slopes gently towards the edge of the cliff. A few good rainstorms and this place would be hosed down – almost like it’s self-cleaning.’

‘And the magic?’ I asked. ‘Can you feel it?’

He could, but it wasn’t the buzz of modern wizidrical energy, which is more like the humming of power lines, but the low, almost inaudible rumble of old magic.

‘I can feel it,’ he said, ‘but I can’t pinpoint it. Almost like it’s all around us.’

Addie returned next, then Wilson, followed ten minutes later by the Princess. They too had found nothing but damp rock and a few buttons, coins and shards of bone.

‘Are we done?’ asked the Princess. ‘This place gives me the willies.’

I looked at their faces in turn. Their fate was my responsibility. It was my expedition, my wish to come up here, my need to see what lay hidden at Cadair Idris.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’m really sorry. There’s something up here, I know it. Something that explains all this – the Mighty Shandar, the facility down below, the drones, everything. Even the reason Kevin sent us all the way out here. Problem is, I just can’t see it. Quizzler must have found the Eye of Zoltar elsewhere, which isn’t so unbelievable; it was a legend that linked the Eye with Pirate Wolff, and only a half-legend that linked Woolf with the Leviathans’ Graveyard. And with all clues amounting to nothing, we’re done. We’ll head back as soon as we’ve had a break. You go below the cloud and dry out. I’m staying up here a few more minutes.’

‘I’m going to make some tea,’ said Wilson, practical as ever.

‘I’ll help you,’ said Addie. ‘I don’t like it up here. It all feels wrong. Princess? Come and help. I think Jenny and Perkins need to talk out our options.’