The Eye of Zoltar

by Jasper Fforde

  ‘Like that?’ he said, pointing to where a jetty had been built out into the lake, and to which several rowing boats had been tied. All three were floating in the air like balloons, held down only by the ropes that attached them to the jetty. Two of the rowing boats bumped gently in the breeze like inverted wind-chimes.

  ‘Yes,’ said Addie, ‘kind of like that.’

  We had a look around. There were several camping tables, barbecues and what looked like old leather sofas. I was about to sit on one when Addie stopped me. She kicked the sofa a couple of times and it eventually got up in a very fed-up manner and waddled off into the brush.

  ‘Physarum emeffeye metamorphica,’ said Addie, ‘a sort of furniture-emulating slime mould. Annoying more than dangerous. Ten hours’ sleep in one of those and it would digest all the stitching out of your clothes. I’ve seen them transform into Regency card tables, futons and barstools. One example that had disguised itself as an Eames Lounge Chair even got to the first round of bidding at an auction of contemporary furniture.’

  ‘More magical fallout?’ asked the Princess.

  ‘In one,’ said Addie, ‘it’s why we can’t stop here for more than forty-eight hours. These will be your home tonight.’

  She was indicating one of the more obvious features of the campsite: the pod poles.

  To guard against night predation by Tralfamosaur, Hotax, Snork Badger or the Variant-N flesh-eating slug, it was wise to sleep inside a small pod that was situated atop a thirty-foot shiny steel pole that was anchored firmly to the ground. There was a ladder for access, of course, with the first section able to be hauled up out of reach.

  While Curtis and Ignatius went off to find some fireberries for heat and light and Wilson went on a hunt for abandoned stores, Addie and I went to check the perimeter fence.

  ‘Do you think Curtis and Ignatius are safe digging up fireberries?’ I asked, knowing how easily the large, volatile, radish-like vegetable can ignite when handled roughly.

  ‘Who cares?’ said Addie. ‘Hang the wire back on the post, will you?’

  I did as Addie asked, and before long we had the perimeter fence, which was basically lots of tin cans hanging on a wire, back up.

  ‘So what do we do if we hear the cans clinking?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s not a question of if, but when,’ said Addie, ‘and hopefully when we’re safe up our poles. I can only hope the Tralfamosaurs don’t come. They can’t reach us but the hungry smacky noises can keep you awake for hours.’

  There was a mild whompa noise as the first fireberry ignited, and this was followed by several more dull concussions as other fireberries were lit and placed in baskets hung on high poles, for light. When we got back to the camp we found Ignatius had set up an awning attached to the vehicle and held up with two tent poles, and several bits of non-slime mould furniture had been gathered together for us to sit on.

  Once the supper was on, Addie beckoned me aside and lowered her voice.

  ‘I have an … errand to run. Don’t wait up for me, and make sure everyone is up their poles by sundown or the moment the fence jangles.’

  I told her I’d be a lot happier if she didn’t take the half-track, but she just smiled, put two fingers into her mouth and gave out a silent whistle that made Ralph wince. There was a patter of hooves from nearby and an Appaloosa Buzonji approached rapidly from the south-west. I presumed it had been tailing us all day, keeping just out of sight. It trotted up, and tossed its head happily as Addie gave it a carrot. She released the stirrups from the finely tooled saddle, and expertly mounted up.

  ‘If I don’t come back, I’m dead and you’re on your own.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t say things like that. What are you going to do?’

  ‘You don’t want to know. See you in the morning.’

  And she galloped off like a bullet into the evening light, back the way we had come.

  ‘She’s very tough, isn’t she?’ said the Princess. ‘Do you think she’d want to be my bodyguard when I’m a princess again?’

  ‘Please don’t tell her you’re a princess,’ I replied. ‘What with rubber Dragons, Class III legend status amulets, pirates, Leviathans and a missing boyfriend whose age difference is now a teensy-weensy bit inappropriate, I’ve got about all the dramas I need.’

  We sat down to wait while Wilson made supper over an extra-large fireberry that, unlike the smaller, brighter ones, burned slow with a dull red glow. Ralph, newly Australopithecine, was fascinated.

  ‘Ook?’ he said, as I held one of the light-giving variety in my cupped hands, the beams of light spilling out past my fingers.

  ‘Ook?’ he said again, as I placed the fireberry in his small, nut-brown hands.

  Curtis and Ignatius stared at their former friend with a mixture of dread and disgust.

  ‘We can’t take him back to his family like that,’ said Curtis, ‘primitive, barely house-trained and with his thing showing.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Ignatius, ‘it would be kinder to just turn him loose and let nature take its course. We can tell Ralph’s family he fell into a swamp or got eaten by slugs or something.’

  ‘Or we could just put it to S.L.E.E.P,’ suggested Curtis.

  ‘That would be the humane thing, I suppose.’

  ‘Ook?’ said Ralph, who had been listening with a confused expression.

  ‘Wow,’ said Curtis, ‘it’s like it almost understands us.’

  ‘Can you sit farther away?’ I said to Curtis and Ignatius.

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘How about “your lack of compassion disgusts me”?’

  ‘Whatever you say, boss-girl,’ said Curtis sarcastically.

  ‘And,’ I added, ‘if you so much as touch a hair on the head of the Australopithecine, you’ll have me to reckon with.’

  ‘We were just joking,’ said Curtis in the sort of way that suggested they weren’t. But they moved away. Ralph watched them leave but elected to stay with us.

  ‘I don’t like that Curtis fellow one bit,’ said the Princess. ‘He keeps on staring at my whatnots. I mean, I know they’re not the royal whatnots which are protected from prolonged staring by the death sentence, but even so, Laura’s whatnots are whatnots none the less, and he shouldn’t stare at them.’

  I told her I was in firm agreement, having experienced something similar from Curtis myself.

  ‘Shall I kill him?’ said the Princess after a pause. ‘My father insisted I was trained in the art of silent assassination, “just in case”.’

  ‘Just in case of what?’

  ‘Lots of things,’ said the Princess. ‘Doing away with a dopey royal husband to take over a kingdom, for one. It happens more than you think, believe me.’

  ‘Wouldn’t going to marriage counselling be safer?’

  ‘What, and have to discuss our marriage problems with a stranger? Don’t be ridiculous. So, shall I kill him?’

  ‘Absolutely not. You can’t kill someone for staring at whatnots, royal or otherwise – not even if you are a princess.’

  I looked at my watch.

  ‘Hold the fort – I’m going to call home.’

  Speaking on the conch

  Communication conches work best on a relatively clear line of sight, so I climbed a low hill to the west to where the bleached bones of a long-dead Tralfamosaur were lying in the grass. I sat on the skull, waited until the time was precisely seven o’clock and then spoke quietly into the conch.

  ‘Kazam Base from Jennifer Mobile, come in, please.’

  There was a whistling from the large shell, several clicks and a buzzing sound, but nothing intelligible.

  ‘Kazam Base from Jennifer Mobile, come in, please.’

  There was only static, so I said:

  ‘Tiger, can you hear me?’

  There was more buzzing and a gentle warbling sound, then the conch sprang abruptly into life.

  ‘… testing, testing, one two three – is this thing working?’

  It
was Moobin. I responded, gave him a position report and asked how things were.

  ‘Hello?’ said Moobin again. ‘Jennifer, can you hear me?’

  ‘I can hear you.’

  ‘Jennifer, are you there?’

  ‘I’m here.’

  It was soon clear that Moobin couldn’t hear me, probably because the communication spell was being disrupted by the thermowizidrical fallout. Moobin realised this too.

  ‘Hello, Jennifer, it’s possible that you can hear me and I can’t hear you. I’ll be brief because there have been a few developments and we’re kind of busy. Nothing too serious so no need to come home – keep looking for the Eye of Zoltar and take especial care of the Princess. If you’re getting this message, send us your first homing snail to confirm. But remember: defend the Princess and find out what you can about the Eye of Zoltar.’

  He repeated the message, but didn’t elaborate on what ‘developments’ had occurred, and after a while stopped transmitting and the conch went silent. It seemed odd that he was urging me to find the Eye when he had been the one against it, but wizards were unpredictable at the best of times. I took out my pocketbook and wrote:

  Received your message but due to interference can’t transmit. Claerwin tonight, Llangurig tomorrow, Perkins kidnapped, Colin changed to rubber, Bugatti confiscated, have employed excellent guide. Request more information on ‘developments’. Handmaiden well. Weather good, Jennifer.

  I checked the spelling, folded the note up small and then stuck it to the side of the homing snail. I removed the snail’s head-cosy, tapped the shell twice and it was gone in a puff of dust. We were about fifty miles from home, so at homing snail cruise speed it would be there in about an hour, always supposing it could negotiate the heavily fortified border. I’d never heard of a snail being put off by a tank trap, a river and a minefield, but you never know.

  ‘All well?’ I said as I walked back into camp.

  ‘We thought we heard a Snork Badger sniffing outside the perimeter,’ said the Princess, ‘and Ignatius spotted a Hotax encampment two miles away.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Over there.’

  She pointed to the lake, where I could see a floating island of logs and hog-brush and a small wisp of pink smoke rising from a fireberry. Hotax often used floating homesteads as it kept them clear from danger, although quite what they might regard as dangerous, given they were very dangerous themselves, was never clear.

  ‘What exactly is a Hotax?’ asked the Princess as Wilson doled out Omni-rice, which is a sort of camping rice dish with everything in it.

  ‘They’re a primitive and barbaric tribe of humans,’ I said, ‘who have only a rudimentary language, little understanding of the modern world and are cannibalistic, with a curious habit of preserving their victims after death.’

  ‘To assist them on their long journey through the afterlife?’ asked the Princess.

  ‘That would be vaguely honourable,’ I replied, ‘but no, it’s thought they do it for fun. They’d have all been exterminated long ago, but Emperor Tharv thinks they’re good for jeopardy tourism and reputedly has a pet Hotax called Nigel.’

  ‘I wish I’d not asked,’ said the Princess, looking about nervously.

  The Omni-rice was actually quite good. The inclusion of custard and pilchards helped enormously, and we ate in silence for a while, then had marshmallows for pudding. The conversation was quite animated, but only between Wilson, myself and the Princess. Curtis and Ignatius kept to themselves, but their conversation was not hard to follow.

  ‘I’m thinking we just tell his parents it was mule fever,’ we overheard Ignatius say, obviously still referring to Ralph.

  ‘Agreed,’ replied Curtis, ‘but we’ll need to find somewhere for him to stay in case he does go home. I wonder if we can sell him to a circus freak-show or something? At least that way we can recoup some cash.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Ignatius.

  ‘Ook,’ said Ralph.

  Worry of the dangers that lurked beyond the perimeter increased as the light faded, and by the time it was dark, we were all talking not so much for fun, but to stave off the nervousness.

  Ignatius brought out two packs of cards and suggested canasta, but we couldn’t agree on the rules, so someone else said that Addie had a Scrabble set, but none of us thought it would be good manners to rifle through her bag without her around, so we didn’t do that, either.

  We eventually agreed that someone would tell a story but no one volunteered, so we all sat in a circle and I spun a bottle. The bottle pointed at Wilson.

  The naval officer’s tale

  ‘Ooh,’ said Wilson, ‘let’s see now. I could tell you more about the Yellow Helium Pippit, but I can see some of you find ornithological matters of less than passing interest.’

  He looked at Curtis and Ignatius as he said this.

  ‘So I will tell you of a time forty-one years ago when I was barely twenty-two and a communications officer in the port rudder control tower of the S.P.I. Isle of Wight, during Troll War I.’

  I could sense the small party settle quietly to listen. Of all the nations in the unUnited Kingdom, the steam-powered Isle of Wight was the only one that was movable, unless you count some of the marshier sections of the Duchy of Norfolk. While usually moored off the Solent in the south of England, the floating Isle of Wight was fully seaworthy, and in times of peace used to cruise off the Azores to avoid the long damp winters of the British archipelago.

  ‘I went through naval college, and at the time that Troll War I began I was communications officer in the port rudder control room. This was when the island’s engines and rudders were controlled not directly by the command centre at the front of the island, but by a series of secondary control centres which took orders from the admiral via a telephone system. My job as communications officer was to answer the command telephone when it rang and relay the orders to Rudder Captain Roberts, who was one of those implacable naval officers who had made the Isle of Wight such an efficient movable island in peacetime and war.’

  Wilson gathered his thoughts, then continued.

  ‘It was the morning of the first push of Troll War I, and we’d steamed up the coast to Borderlandia the week before on the pretext of full power tests in the Irish Sea. The plan was that as soon as the Troll War began, we were to cruise up and down the coast firing broadsides to divert the Trolls from the main landship advance.

  ‘So there we were, making good headway up the west coast of Trollvania at eighteen knots, shelling the Trolls from about two miles offshore, and from our control tower we could see distant explosions in the wooded landscape of Trollvania. There was a bit of retaliation from the Trolls, but nothing spectacular. A few of their siege engines fired boulders at us, but all fell woefully short – we were well out of range.’

  ‘Do you get any sense of speed while at sea?’ asked Ignatius.

  ‘Not really,’ replied Wilson. ‘When you’re under way the only real sensation you get is the distant thrum of the engines, the plumes of black smoke coming out of the funnels, and the sometimes disconcerting changes in direction of the sun as you go about.’

  Wilson paused for a moment, and then continued.

  ‘As we were turning about for the third run up the coast, the order was given to move to within 750 yards of the coast to more accurately rake the Troll’s positions with high-explosive shells.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you run aground?’ asked Ignatius.

  ‘The waters were well charted,’ said Wilson, ‘and although large, the island has a shallow draught, enabling us to move in close to shore.’

  He gathered his thoughts and then continued.

  ‘We had some initial success shelling their positions, with the main observation tower reporting direct hits upon the Trolls manning their siege engines. Our rejoicing was short lived, of course, for the Trolls had tricked us: they had been firing their boulders purposely short to make us think we were out of range, so now that we had been
enticed closer the Trolls opened up with everything they had. Large rocks the size of cars and buses rained down upon the land, taking out shore batteries, centres of communication and eventually the main observation tower.’

  Everyone was silent, so Wilson took a sip of water and continued.

  ‘Naturally, as soon as the bombardment started we felt the engines increase in power and the order “full hard starboard rudders both” came down the telephone. We immediately complied, but as the combination of full hard rudder and full power kicked in, the island began to tip. Anything loose in the control room slid across the floor. Charts fell from the plotting table, and the tea trolley rolled across the floor and was upended near the stairwell.

  ‘The tilt increased as the rudders bit, decreasing the depth beneath the port side of the island – and the port propeller hit a submerged reef. The one-hundred-foot-wide propeller stopped dead, but with the engine still at full power the prop shaft was twisted like a tube of damp cardboard, effectively putting one engine out of action.’

  ‘Did you know this at the time?’ asked the Princess.

  ‘We pretty much guessed,’ said Wilson. ‘A fearful shudder ran through the entire island. The island rapidly fell back on to an even keel and slowed, while all about the thump thump thump of incoming boulders punctuated the deathly silence in the rudder control room. We all stared at one another, horrified at what was happening.’

  ‘I remember reading something about this,’ said Ignatius. ‘It sounds jolly exciting.’

  ‘Terrifying would be a better word, for things were just about to get that much worse. A well-aimed boulder had destroyed the starboard rudder control tower, communications were down, and the starboard rudder was still stuck hard over to port. We now had one engine out, only one rudder, and the Trolls’ strategy was apparent – the course upon which we were heading would run us aground off the coast of Trollvania, and once there, we could be boarded and overrun by Trolls, who have never been anything but savage in their treatment of humans. Putting the engine full astern wouldn’t help us as the island would ultimately run aground backwards, destroying the second engine, and also placing us at the mercy of the Trolls. The only course of action would be to get both rudders to starboard, but the point was that both had to be moved – one to port and one to starboard would do nothing at all.