‘I have a theory about that,’ said Wilson. ‘The Cambrian Empire has suffered a servant shortage for the past three decades, and it’s not just handmaidens. Footmen, cooks, pastry chefs and even bootboys are in short supply. He probably wants to sell her in Llangurig and I dare say he’d get a good price.’
‘He’d best be careful,’ I said. ‘Laura was trained in the art of silent assassination.’
‘That might be a relief,’ said Wilson, ‘but if she kills him, can she drive a half-track?’
‘Almost certainly not,’ I said, reasoning that Curtis – who was strong – would not need much effort to overpower the Princess while she was in Laura’s smaller and weaker body.
I sat down on a boulder by the side of the road and rubbed my face with my hands.
‘This trip is getting worse and worse.’
‘We might be able to buy her back,’ added Wilson thoughtfully, ‘unless she’s good at ironing – a well-ironed shirt out here is as valuable as gold.’
‘I’ve got a feeling the Prin— I mean, Laura’s not that good at ironing,’ I said, guessing that she’d not be able to identify an iron in a line-up of fruit. ‘How far is it to Llangurig?’
‘By road, about thirty miles,’ replied Wilson, ‘half that if we cut across country. But one thing’s for certain—’
‘We don’t want to spend a night in the open.’
‘Right.’
I walked to the other side of the road, picked up a stone and chucked it as far into the Empty Quarter as I could in a pointless display of anger and frustration.
I had entrusted the care of the expedition to a twelve-year-old who had lost Perkins to a group of bandits and then failed to rescue him, leaving Perkins at the mercy of Emperor Tharv and a possible – no, probable relaunch of his Thermowizidrical Device project. I had lost the Princess entrusted to my care and then woefully underestimated Curtis’ greed, and given him a reason to abandon us to our deaths in the middle of the Empty Quarter, the most dangerous place in the Cambrian Empire, which is, in turn, the most dangerous place in the unUnited Kingdoms.
Terrific.
I think Ralph and Wilson sensed my anger and frustration, for they held back on the other side of the road for five minutes, then walked over to join me.
‘Well now,’ said Wilson, who seemed to have an overwhelming capacity for optimism in the face of unrelenting failure, ‘I expect a lift may be along soon.’
‘Between when we stopped last night and right now,’ I asked, ‘how many vehicles have passed us?’
‘Well, none,’ said Wilson, ‘but that’s not to say they won’t. And although the Empty Quarter is the most dangerous place to be, we’re not actually in the most dangerous place in it. Or at least, not quite. And we should count our blessings that we’re still alive.’
‘Whoop-de-doo,’ I replied sarcastically, staring at the ground, ‘happy days.’
‘Dan-jer!’ said Ralph in a sharp, urgent tone. I looked around but could not see where the danger lay. But Wilson could.
‘Don’t move,’ he whispered.
‘Hotax?’
‘Sadly, no. Something much worse. Remember a second ago when I said we should count our blessings that we’re still alive?’
‘I remember that, yes.’
‘I … I might have spoken too soon.’
A brush with death
I stared in the direction in which Ralph and Wilson were staring, but could see nothing. The Empty Quarter was living up to the ‘empty’ part of its name surprisingly well.
‘I can’t see anything,’ I whispered.
‘Moribundus carnivorum,’ said Wilson in a low voice, ‘moving in from the north-west.’
‘Mori … what?’ I whispered back.
‘Moribundus carnivorum. A Lifesucker. It is nourished not by the energy and proteins, fats and starches within life forms, but the very essence of life itself.’
I looked again. There was nothing visible in the direction Wilson was pointing except a rabbit, nibbling the grass about thirty feet away, and steadfastly ignoring us.
‘You mean the rabbit?’
‘The rabbit? No, of course not the rabbit. I mean behind the rabbit.’
‘I can’t see anything behind the rabbit. Except …’
My voice trailed off as I saw the Lifesucker. Or at least, I didn’t actually see it, but the effect it had on the grass as it slowly crept up on the rabbit. Where all around us the grass was bright and green and lush, there was a trail of brown and withered grass advancing slowly towards the rabbit like a gravy stain on a tablecloth. The brown stain of death was no more than six inches wide, and as the rabbit stopped nibbling and looked around cautiously, the encroaching area of dead grass stopped and waited.
‘I see it now,’ I whispered, ‘it’s stalking the rabbit.’
‘It usually takes bigger prey than that,’ Wilson whispered back. ‘Must be hungry – it will take one of us if it picks up on our scent.’
‘We can outrun it, surely?’
‘Outrun death?’ said Wilson, eyebrows raised. ‘I think not.’
I turned my attention back to the approaching patch of dead grass behind the rabbit. When the Lifesucker was about a foot away from the unwitting creature, it pounced. The rabbit didn’t know what was happening at first. It seemed shocked and made to run, but then faltered, convulsed for a moment, tipped on its side and twitched a few times before lying still.
‘Sh-ook,’ said Ralph, who, like us, was staring intently at the now-dead rabbit. The Lifesucker didn’t only steal life, though, it seemed to strip away many of life’s associated functions: warmth, moisture and beauty. In less than a minute the rabbit had aged and withered until it was nothing more than patchy fur stretched tautly across a dry skeleton.
‘I’ve not seen anything like—’
‘Shh!’ said Wilson. ‘It’s strongest when freshly nourished. It will be hunting for more prey – I’ve seen one take an entire herd of sheep before finally collapsing into a gorged stupor. If you can push anything charismatic and life-confirming to the back of your mind and fill your head with thoughts of utter banality, now’s the time to it.’
‘How do I do that?’
‘I usually start with daytime TV, and then work my way down through celebrity biographies to international road aggregate trade agreements.’
Despite Wilson’s advice, it’s hard to think of boring thoughts when requested, especially when there is death lurking nearby, so I instead attempted to relax, and I could see Wilson and Ralph do the same. The area of dead grass moved at a slow walking pace in our direction, then stopped a few feet from Ralph. The Australopithecine sensed the danger, remained utterly still and stared absently into the middle distance, his mind apparently blank. The dead patch of grass remained in one place for what seemed like an age, then moved on and past Wilson towards me in a slow, purposeful manner. I’d faced down death a couple of times, but never like this.
I stayed as still as I dared until the Lifesucker was barely a yard from me, and that’s when Wilson stamped his feet.
‘Heigh-ho!’ he yelled in a forced tone tinged with fear. ‘Boy, am I feeling terrific today. So full of life. So much to do, so much to see! Everything in the world is there to witness, and I am the one to breathe in its many varied splendours!’
For a moment, it seemed to work. The dead patch of grass stopped, paused for a moment, but then carried on in my direction.
‘Ook, ook!’ said Ralph as he joined Wilson and danced an odd dance while making a strange trilling noise that, while not exactly musical, might become so given a few hundred millennia.
I hurried to get away, stumbled on a rock and fell heavily to the ground.
‘Ha, hoo!’ yelled Wilson as he moved closer to try to draw the Lifesucker away from me. Ralph joined him, but it wasn’t working. Death was after me, probably because I was the youngest and had more of life left in me. A small frog died instantaneously as the patch of dead grass moved over it, and
I found myself attempting to flee in an undignified rearward floundering movement while still lying on my back. I panicked, and just as Wilson was about to jump forward and put himself between the Lifesucker and me, a bellow rent the air.
‘HOLD!’
I stopped. Wilson and Ralph stopped. Death, ever the opportunist, stopped as well – perhaps in case a tastier snack might suddenly have come within easier reach.
The newcomer was standing less than a dozen paces away. He wore walking breeches, stout boots, a checked shirt rolled up to the elbows, and carried a large rucksack. He had an agreeably boyish face, even though I guessed he was in his thirties, and his thick brown hair was tied up inside a red bandana, and he regarded me through the most piercing blue eyes I think I had ever seen. They didn’t so much look at you as look into you.
He was weighing a stone up and down in his hand, presumably to ensure accuracy when it was thrown. I wondered whether you could kill death with a stone, until I realised it wasn’t for death. It was for me. He swung his arm around, there was a sudden blaze of light and everything went black.
The name’s Gabby
‘Her life-force positively glows,’ came an unfamiliar voice out of a darkness that was punctuated only by flashing stars. ‘I can see why the Lifesucker homed in on her. Have you known her long?’
‘Since yesterday,’ said a familiar voice. ‘Her party rescued me from some kidnappers. I think she’s somebody big in the magic industry.’
‘No kidding?’ said the unfamiliar voice, which sounded impressed. There was a pause, then: ‘Where did you find the Australopithecine?’
‘His name’s Ralph. He had a Genetic Master Reset.’
‘I’m not sure what that means,’ came the unfamiliar voice again.
‘To be honest,’ said Wilson – for that’s who it was, I realised – ‘I’m not really sure myself. I think it’s a kind of magic.’
‘There’s not much round here that isn’t. Does it trouble you that his thing is showing?’
‘No, we’re kind of used to it by now.’
‘Ook.’
I opened my eyes to find Wilson, Ralph and the stranger staring at me. Wilson was holding a damp handkerchief to my head.
‘Am I dead?’ I asked.
‘If you were,’ said the stranger, ‘would you choose this place as heaven?’
I looked around. I was still in the Empty Quarter, leaning up against the Range Rover’s wheel. If this had all been a bad dream, I was still in it.
‘Sorry I had to knock you out,’ said the stranger with a boyish smile, ‘but your heart was belting out a funeral march so loud every Lifesucker on the planet could hear you.’
I looked at the handkerchief in Wilson’s hand. There was only a smallish amount of blood.
‘Thank you …?’
‘The name’s Gabby,’ said the stranger amiably, ‘a traveller like yourselves.’
‘Jennifer,’ I said, shaking his outstretched hand, ‘and this is Wilson.’
‘I’ve heard of you,’ said Gabby to Wilson. ‘Been here a while. A lot of close scrapes, but you always got away.’
‘I will die out here,’ said Wilson. ‘I’m choosing my moment – and I’ve been lucky.’
‘I’m not so sure luck has much to do with it out here.’
‘What, then?’ I asked.
‘Fate,’ he said, ‘and chosen moments winning out over lost moments. But we don’t choose those moments – those moments choose us.’
‘I’m not sure I understood that,’ said Wilson slowly. ‘Jennifer?’
‘Not really, no.’
Gabby shrugged.
‘Actually, me neither. I heard it from a smarter guy. Was this your transport?’
He nodded towards the Range Rover, and I explained that up until an hour ago we had had a half-track but it had been stolen, along with all our luggage and a handmaiden.
‘Llangurig, eh?’ said Gabby after Wilson had explained where we were heading but not why we were heading there. ‘Me too. We’d better get going if we’re to have even a hope of finding a safe place to spend the night.’
‘The Lifesucker,’ I said with a start, suddenly remembering. ‘Is it still around?’
‘It’ll always be around,’ he said, ‘and eventually return for you, as it will for us all. Death cannot be avoided for ever, but it can be postponed – in that respect it’s very like the washing-up. Now, we must leave before the batteries run down.’
‘Batteries?’
The reason for death’s sudden lack of interest in me was that Gabby had coaxed it away by means of a small tape recorder that had the sound effects of a party in full swing. The joyous laughter and unrelentingly upbeat chatter of happy humans were considerably more attractive than unconscious me, and the patch of dying soil was currently circling beneath a tree into whose branches the tape recorder had been placed, in the same way that a dog might pace angrily about a tree when seeking a squirrel. The tree was now quite dead, of course, as was the ground beneath it where death paced angrily, but better it than me, I figured.
With nothing else for it, we began to walk along the empty road to Llangurig, keeping a watchful eye out for peril, with Ralph moving about like a spaniel on a walk, sniffing a plant here, scrabbling under a stone for a beetle or two there.
‘What are you doing out here?’ I asked Gabby. ‘You don’t look as though you’re on holiday.’
‘I collect information on death likelihood for a major player in the risk management industry.’
‘Can you explain that in simple terms?’
‘Everything we do has an element of risk to it,’ he said, ‘and by identifying the potential risk factor of everything humans do, we can decide where best to deploy our assets to avert that risk.’
‘You work for an insurance company?’
‘Our data is used in the insurance industry,’ he said, ‘but we also freelance. As you can imagine, a place as dangerous as the Cambrian Empire offers a unique opportunity for studying risk. For example, if two people are confronted by a Tralfamosaur, which of them is more likely to be eaten first? The one who panics, the one who runs, the one who looks most dangerous or the one who looks the juiciest? There are many factors.’
‘I’m guessing “juiciest”.’
‘Yes, me too – it’s not a good example.’
‘You must know the Empty Quarter very well.’
‘I can’t stay away from this place,’ he confessed with a smile, ‘and studying people as they weigh up the risks involved in their various decisions is fascinating. Did you know that you are statistically more likely to die driving to the airport than you are on the flight you are going there to catch?’
‘You’ve never flown by JunkAir, clearly.’
‘There are always exceptions to the rule,’ conceded Gabby.
No traffic came our way in the next hour, except two Skybus lorries, presumably taking aircraft parts out of the Empire. The lorries swept past, ignoring our attempts to get a lift even if it was in the wrong direction, and were soon lost to sight. The day grew warmer, and we spoke less as we walked. Wilson, usually fairly voluble and optimistic, fell silent, and even Ralph, who had earlier dashed around like a mad thing, seemed to be keeping a keener lookout. With Llangurig now twenty-five miles or so away by road it was not possible to get there before darkness, and a night in the open seemed inevitable. Although Gabby was confident he could deal with most dangers during the day, he could not guarantee our safety at night. Calculating risk required one to be able to first accurately sense it, and there were, by current estimates, over sixteen life forms out here that could kill before you were even aware of them.
‘I think we should turn back,’ said Wilson when we stopped for a rest. ‘At least that way we’ll have somewhere to stay for the night, and it’s always possible a tourist party may chance along.’
He took off a boot and stared sadly at a blister, one of several.
‘That might not be for a week or more
,’ I said, ‘and I’ve got Perkins, a half-track and a handmaiden to retrieve.’
There was a rubber Dragon and the Eye of Zoltar to consider, too.
‘We could cut across the Empty Quarter,’ said Gabby thoughtfully. ‘I know a Hotax trail that would take us direct to Llangurig past the Lair of Antagonista, the Dragon who once ruled these Dragonlands.’
‘Cut across the Empty Quarter on foot?’ asked Wilson in an incredulous tone.
‘Sure,’ replied Gabby. ‘The Dragon lived here so long that local animal memory evolved to include it – the Dragon’s been dead almost half a century, and still nothing goes near. I calculate the risk factor on sleeping near the old Dragon’s lair as no more than four per cent.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ I said, since Dragons held no real fear for me. ‘Ralph? What do you say?’
‘Yoof,’ said Ralph, staring at me curiously. His response might have meant ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or almost anything in between – but I felt I should ask him anyway.
‘What the hell,’ said Wilson with a shrug. ‘Lead on and let’s get it over with.’
And so it was agreed. About half a mile farther on we left the road to take a narrow path close to a roadside memorial to ‘An Unnamed Tourist’ who was ‘Dissolved but not forgotten’, but from the state of the half-buried headstone, probably was.
And after taking a deep breath and exchanging nervous glances, we struck off across the open country of the Empty Quarter.
The old Dragonlands
The Hotax path was easy to follow among the tussocky grass, but the going was slow. We encountered a jumble of boulders carved by the wind into curious and frightening shapes that had to be carefully negotiated, then gaping sinkholes, marshes and the occasional flaming tar pit littered with the charred bones of large herbivores.
We passed a herd of Elephino who were staring thoughtfully at their feet, as was their habit, then a Giggle Beetle migration, where a constant line of yellow-spotted carapaces stretched into the distance in both directions, chuckling constantly. We stepped across this, walked through a long-deserted village, then found an abandoned road, which was paved with large flat stones carved with curious markings.