‘Is an ogre bigger or smaller than a giant?’ asked the Princess.
‘Human, ogre, giant, Troll,’ I said, reciting the order of magnitude of the bipedal species, ‘but there’s sometimes a bit of overlap.’
‘Ah,’ said the Princess, ‘good. That always puzzled me.’
The climb was hard work and in several places the stairway had broken away so we had to scramble across an empty patch where a precipitous drop led to the ground far below. The path took us up in a zigzag fashion so our view of the drones’ manufacturing facility hove in and out of viewpoint as we climbed to the summit. From our lofty viewpoint the facility’s use was no easier to divine, and after a while we had climbed so high that it looked like a few boxes, and we paid it no more heed. There was plenty of fresh water streaming out of the rock, which we all agreed was about the best that any of us had tasted, and even though the edges to the side of the path were vertiginous in the extreme, none of us felt at all nervous and instead experienced a certain sense of mountain elation, a sort of magic that glowed from the rock, a lingering after-effect of the giant Idris.
There were two rockfalls as we climbed up. One was a small torrent of rocks dislodged by a stream as it cascaded down, with gravel, small stones and weed, but the second was larger and potentially fatal. A large section of rock dislodged from above and came bouncing down the mountain, so we pressed ourselves flat against the rock face and watched as the boulders hit the face above us and actually bounced farther out, leaving us unscathed. The path did not come off so well, and another large chunk was torn out of the stairway. I looked up when the rocks stopped, and for a fleeting moment saw a figure that looked like Curtis peering down, and none of us were in any doubt it was he who had deliberately caused the rockfall. We spent the rest of the journey with at least one person keeping an eye out for any other skulduggery, but there were no more attempts on our lives.
We stopped for a bite at two, and then struck off with renewed vigour for the summit, eventually finding ourselves moving into the cloud at about four in the afternoon. The air felt damp and clammy, and fine droplets of water began to form on our clothes. There was not a shred of vegetation to be seen anywhere, and pretty soon the rocks themselves seemed to ooze water like leaky sponges. A few minutes later a pair of large stone gateposts loomed out of the cloud, with a pair of once ornate and now very rusty gates collapsed between them. We climbed over, the small group now subdued and quiet. Although we were still in cloud and visibility was poor, we knew we had reached the summit. We walked along a rock-cut walkway, under an archway and entered a paved semicircular area about a hundred yards in diameter. Around this semicircle were delicately carved reliefs of strange creatures battling with men in ancient armour, and in the centre, right next to the cliff edge where a slip would have one tumbling into space, was a chair carved from solid rock. The seat was at least five feet from the ground – it was a chair for a giant.
‘The Chair of Idris,’ said Addie, ‘where he would have sat and considered questions of existence, and stared into the heavens.’
‘This would once have been a full circle,’ said Wilson, looking around. ‘Half of this area has already fallen away.’
‘In a few years the chair will go too,’ came a familiar voice, ‘so count your blessings you have witnessed even this.’
Curtis walked out of the grey fog towards us, grinning. He had shown little remorse when Ignatius died, treated Ralph like an animal once he had devolved and left us to die in the Empty Quarter. He had also kidnapped the Princess, sold her in Llangurig and then tried to kill us with a rockfall. I should have hated him, but somehow, given the circumstances, I hardly felt anything at all. He would not escape back to civilisation either; the drones would cut him down before he’d gone twenty paces. It struck me as ironic that he knew nothing of his fate, but was the only one of us who vaguely deserved it.
‘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.