‘This would have been the Dragon’s route to his lair,’ said Gabby as we picked up the pace on the grass-fringed flagstones. ‘In the pre-Dragonpact days when Dragons roamed freely and had the same prestige as kings and emperors.’
We followed the ancient roadway in a stop-start fashion all afternoon. On one occasion we had to wait for a half-hour while a herd of Tralfamosaur moved through, and another time we paused owing to a strange noise, only to discover it was a small herd of Honking Gazelle, so named because their call is indistinguishable from a car horn. Indeed, a herd all honking in unison sounds exactly like a traffic jam in Turin.
We stopped for a break near a spring of fresh water that bubbled out of the ground and tasted of liquorice – there was probably a seam of the stuff lying somewhere underfoot.
‘Anyone got anything to eat?’ I asked, since I had left everything – food, drink, conch, Helping Hand™, cash, Boo’s twenty-grand letter of credit – in the half-track.
No one had anything, although I noted that Gabby was carrying a full backpack, something he didn’t remove as he sat on a grassy bank.
Ralph, sensing we were hungry, disappeared and returned five minutes later with a dead slug the size of a rat and about as appetising. I knew slugs could be eaten if you were desperate, but ‘desperate’ in this context meant ‘perilously close to death’, and we weren’t quite there yet. Interestingly, since the flesh-dissolving enzyme was on the outside, it had to be turned inside out like a rubber sock and then eaten like a corncob. After our polite refusal, Ralph ate it himself.
We followed the road up a hill, crested the ridge and looked down upon a huge, dish-like depression in the ground about a mile in diameter. At the very centre of the depression was a large grass-covered dome, surrounded by a high wall that had partly collapsed. Nothing seemed to be growing near the abandoned lair and even from this far out there seemed to be a dark, almost oppressive feeling about the place. The breeze seemed to grow chillier, and high above, despite the grey overcast, a circle of clear blue sky could be seen directly above the grass-covered dome.
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘we should be cautious. Long-unused spells may have recombined in unusual ways.’
As we walked, the strangeness of the redundant strands of magic did indeed manifest themselves in odd ways – the grass in the cracks between the paving stones seemed to shift underfoot as we walked, and once, when I looked back, the grass we had trodden upon had become nourished and healthier by virtue of our life-force. Stranger still, to either side of us and partially hidden by the scrubby grassland were what appeared to be statues carved from a reddish sandstone. One was human and three were Hotax – like a human only stockier, and with a broader, flatter head, I noted – but most were of animals. Several Buzonji, a Snork Badger, a pair of ground sloth and even Elephino, Honking Gazelle and a juvenile Tralfamosaur. They weren’t statues, of course, but real creatures enchanted to stone, and it wasn’t difficult to see the one factor that linked them all: each was caught in the middle of an expansive yawn.
‘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.
Yawns are, oddly enough, quite infectious. Once one person in a room yawns, then others are likely to follow. And since we were only pretending to yawn and not actually yawning, I figured the spell would not affect us. The question was: would the Tralfamosaur join in the yawn we had started
?
The answer was ‘not really’, and as we opened our mouths and pretended to yawn in a manner that would win no amateur dramatic prizes anywhere but would win gold in the ‘Desperate Measures Challenge Cup’, the Tralfamosaur peered at us hungrily and rose on his toes ready to lunge. It was a long shot, obviously, and we were beginning to think of instigating Plan B, which was pretty much along the lines of ‘run like stink and hope for the best’. It was always prudent – and I give you this information for free as it might come in useful one day – when being attacked by a hunger-crazed carnivore the size of a bus to remind yourself that it has immeasurably higher mass, and that it cannot speed up, slow down or change direction as quickly as something considerably smaller – such as us. It was said that lively jumping, dodging and jinking could postpone the inevitable for at least a minute before brute force and speed across rough terrain finally ended the sorry spectacle. Even for the unskilled, the first bite could usually be avoided if you kept your eye on the beast.
So I fixed my eyes on the Tralfamosaur’s, and as I watched, the jaws opened as a precursor to a lunge. I paused, wavered, then shifted my weight as I waited for it to make the first move.
But the move never came. The mouth opening had actually been a vast yawn, complete with the foul stench of rotting carcasses, and the Tralfamosaur had changed instantaneously into a dark granite statue that shimmered subtly as it was caught by the last dying rays of the sun.
‘Ook,’ said Ralph in a relieved tone.
We all looked at one another and burst out laughing – out of relief, I think, and not because it was funny, which it wasn’t. We moved past the now-silent beast without talking and made camp in an abandoned armoured scout car. We found some fireberries and ignited them by twisting the stalks to the left sharply, and settled down for the night. It wasn’t easy. There were snufflings, scratches, clicks and whistles as the nightlife of the Empty Quarter went about its nocturnal business. Thankfully, some distance away.
‘Anything to eat?’ I asked as hunger was beginning to gnaw.
‘Ralph had a hunting look in his eyes as he left the camp,’ said Gabby, ‘but if he comes back empty handed or fails to come back at all, I have a Snickers somewhere.’
Thankfully, Ralph did return, and with a skinned swamp-rat. By using some scrap steel as a frying pan we soon had it cooked, and the rat was about as welcome as any food could be. Wilson and I settled down for the night, huddled in the wreckage of the armoured car with a large blanket of dried grass and heather pulled over us. Gabby sat separate from the pair of us, filling in a report in a leather-bound ledger.
‘Paperwork,’ he explained when I asked. ‘The top floor wants to know everything we get up to down here.’
‘I know the feeling,’ I said, as the magic industry was a stickler for paperwork. As I stared up at the stars, which were bright and clear in the night sky, there was a screeching noise and a homing snail arrived hot and sweaty on my chest. It was muddy and bruised, one of its antennae was missing, and several scratches on its shell spoke of a narrow escape from a predator. It was past seven and since my communication with the conch hadn’t happened – the conch was still in the half-track – Moobin and the others had sent a snail instead. I plucked off the message and read it by the light of the fireberry. The previous evening’s message had been written in a neat hand, but this one seemed more hurried.
Jennifer,
Couldn’t raise you on the conch so hoping all well. Eye of Zoltar more important than ever, and keep a close eye on the Princess. Tell Perkins from me that all other considerations are now secondary, and Kevin says that if you ever find yourself on the shoulders of giants and need to take a leap of faith, go for it.
Moobin
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.
It was. Ralph was clinging to the belly of the beast as it rose several thousand feet into the air, streaming dust, feathers, dirt and grass as it went. Ralph was tenacious, that much was clear – he even had his large ladies’ handbag still in the crook of his arm.
‘Did I miss something?’ asked Wilson, blinking and getting up.
‘Kind of,’ I said, pointing in the direction of the tiny dot that was Ralph, clearly visible on the shimmering outline of the barely visible Leviathan. It looked almost as if he were rising alone, unsupported by anything at all. In a moment or two the Leviathan rolled on to its side to head north, and Ralph was lost to view.
‘Do you think he’s okay?’ I asked.
‘He’ll be fine for about as long as he can hang on,’ replied Gabby.
We stared into the now-empty sky for a few moments in silence.
‘He was a loyal companion to us both,’ I said sadly.
‘And will be missed,’ added Wilson.
‘Friends are always lost here in the Empire,’ said Gabby philosophically, ‘and we’ll lose more before the trip is over, I wager.’
‘Mathematically speaking you may be right,’ I said, thinking of Addie’s predicted fifty per cent Fatality Index, ‘but I hope not.’
‘That Leviathan was low,’ mused Gabby as he unhooked something from the jagged edge of the armoured car’s shattered body. He laid the scrap of leathery material across his arm, where it changed colour to match his skin. He laid it across my skin and it darkened almost instantaneously to match mine.
‘Scraps of Leviathan skin fetch a good price on the Cambrianopolis black market, I’ve heard,’ said Wilson.