by Alex Bell
‘There probably isn’t anything all that dangerous here,’ Lex said. ‘But magical things are unpredictable, so keep an eye out anyway, all right?’ He adjusted the straps of his bag and crept into the dark creepiness of the forest, revelling in the uneasy familiarity of it whilst the distinctly unhappy lawyer followed on behind him.
Lucius fastened Zachary’s halter and made his way up to the top of the ship using the coloured length of string Lex had set up for him. To say that Lucius was feeling miserable would have been to put it very mildly indeed. He had found the Game much easier when Zachary had been there to reassure him. Since his grandfather’s death, Lucius had come to rely very much on Zachary’s help with the day-to-day running of the farm. He would have been lost without him and had found his presence immensely comforting in the first round of the Game. But Lex had taken even that small comfort away in a childish moment of petty spite and Lucius couldn’t help but resent him just a little for that. Lex always had been one to hold a grudge and he would never forgive Zachary for all the bitterness of the past.
Zachary hadn’t been himself since becoming a ferret, even trying to bite Lucius on more than one occasion when he’d gone to stoke him. Lucius didn’t even want to be part of this Game - he had always been rubbish at these competitive things and he was very aware of Jezra’s anger and it worried him. He’d had no choice but to take part or Jezra would have turned him into a wooden chessman - a lowly pawn, knowing Lucius’s luck. The only good thing about the Game was that it had given him the opportunity to see his brother again. He hadn’t realised how much he’d missed Lex until he’d seen him again in Mahara’s Black Tower in Khestrii. He was half hoping that he might be able to persuade him to come home after the Game but even Lucius realised that this was probably a futile hope. Lex was far too set on his own path to be talked off it by anyone.
He opened the door and stepped out onto the deck, revelling for a moment in the beauty of Saydi’s sun and the gentle warmth of the sun drizzle that flecked his skin within moments. But then he froze as he heard Jezra’s voice from the level above. Lucius had no wish for his already disgruntled God to see how late he was, having left at least twenty minutes behind the others, so he started to creep towards the ladder, hoping to slip down over the edge without Jezra noticing, but then he heard his brother’s name being spoken and froze.
‘It can only benefit both of us to get rid of Lex Trent, my Lord,’ Jezra said softly. ‘I beg you to reconsider.’
There was silence for a moment before Lucius heard the Judge. ‘How can you know that Lucius won’t get to the crown first and bewitch himself instead of Lex?’
Jezra gave a contemptuous snort, which seemed to be all he considered necessary for an answer. ‘I accept that I am going to lose this time, my Lord,’ he said. ‘The Goddess of Luck tricked me into choosing Lucius Trent and as such I realise I’m going to be utterly handi - capped for the rest of the Game. All I care about now is seeing her Ladyship lose and I will thwart her any way that I can. So we have a common goal in this. All I ask is that you keep the prophet back in this round and let Lex find the crown first. I managed to bewitch it without Lady Luck’s knowledge. As soon as he puts the crown on, a poison will pass into his system and that will be the end of Lex Trent as far as the Game is concerned.’
Lucius couldn’t help the harsh intake of breath and clapped his hand over his mouth hurriedly. He waited for the Judge to admonish Jezra for such a vile act of cheating, but after a few moments the Judge said, ‘Very well. I will keep my player out of this round. I very much hope your plan works, Lord Jezra.’
Lucius suppressed the squeak of horror that rose in his throat. He draped Zachary around his shoulders and scuttled down the side of the ship as fast as he could, taking great care all the while to ensure the scheming Gods above didn’t see him. Once he was on the ground, he tucked the ferret under his arm and ran down the emerald path towards the Royal Forest as fast as his legs would carry him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE DRAGLINGS AND THE WICKED WITCH
‘You must have some idea where the crown is,’ Lex said to the tree impatiently. ‘Don’t you take any interest at all in what goes on in the forest?’
The grand old tree regarded Lex disdainfully. ‘Little human,’ it said majestically, ‘human crowns are of no importance to us whatsoever. It’s not here; I suggest you look elsewhere.’
‘But you must have seen where the Goddess put it or at least be able to direct me to the general area,’ Lex insisted.
‘Why should I?’ the tree asked lazily. ‘What’s in it for me?’
‘Well, not getting chopped down by me for a start,’ Lex snapped.
‘Lex,’ Schmidt warned.
At Lex’s last words, the trees surrounding them in the dappled green grove seemed to rustle their leaves in a distinctly threatening way and the light from Saydi’s sun became a little darker. No sane person wants to be surrounded by a group of large, strong, rather put-out enchanted trees when they’re lost in the middle of an enchanted forest. It’s not a happy situation.
‘You do not even begin to possess the strength that would be necessary to damage us, little boy,’ the tree said, evidently less than impressed with Lex’s scrawny frame.
Lex frowned, irritated. Okay, so he wasn’t exactly the bulging-with-muscles type and no teenage girl was ever likely to exclaim in delight after ripping his shirt off. But he was clever. He did have that. And you did need to be clever to lie convincingly.
‘I have a magic axe,’ Lex announced, pleased to note the alarmed rustling from the trees.
‘No you don’t,’ the tree scoffed. ‘Only magical people have things like that.’
‘You know that enchanted ship that flew overhead an hour or so ago?’ Lex asked. ‘I stole it. I’m the one who flew it here. I made a list, you see, of things I’d never done before. Escaping from prison was one of them. So was stealing an enchanted ship. I’ve never cut down a magic tree either.’ Lex eyed the tree before him with renewed interest. ‘Do you think if I cut the bark up into little bits I could sell it back in the Wither City?’ Lex asked, turning to Schmidt. ‘Actually, come to think of it, I might be better off cutting down all these trees and taking them back to the ship and just forgetting about the crown altogether. I bet they’d fetch an absolute fortune. I’ll get started,’ Lex said, shrugging the bag off his shoulders and rummaging through it in search of the nonexistent magical axe. ‘You go back to the ship and get the other axe and then come back and—’
‘No, no,’ the tree said hastily. ‘Look, we don’t know exactly where the crown is. All we know is that the Goddess left it due north from here.’
‘How far?’ Lex asked.
‘Towards the middle of the forest.’
‘Thank you. To show my gratitude for your help I shall spare you,’ Lex said graciously.
‘You are most noble, young Adventurer,’ the tree said gratefully. ‘May your Chronicles fill many shelves.’
Schimdt gawked at Lex as he turned and strode due north out of the glade. How did he do that? Schmidt couldn’t help feeling a little envious. It would be nice to be able to wrap anyone around your finger in that way.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Lex said when Schmidt caught up with him. ‘If only I would use my power for good instead of for evil, right?’
‘Something along those lines, I suppose,’ Schmidt said. ‘You could have been a very fine lawyer, Lex.’
‘Because I’m inwardly contemptible, you mean?’
‘No! Because you’re quick thinking. As it is, you’re the kind of person who gives the legal profession a bad name. The law used to be something noble once. It was what separated us from the animals and the magical peoples. We had rules - certain lines we were not allowed to cross. Lawyers were like policemen. We were like guardians. And then people like you came along and started twisting everything so that justice wasn’t what was being aimed for at all any more. It’s a disgrace! It’s an abs
olute disgrace, Lex!’
Lex gazed at the old lawyer in surprise. He could tell that Schmidt was already regretting what he’d said. ‘Well, I never got the chance to twist anything,’ Lex said mildly, ‘seeing as I never qualified. There’s only so much damage you can do to the noble legal profession when all you ever do is file papers and make the coffee. So I can only assume you weren’t talking about me. So what is it, Schmidt? Do you have some dirty, dark little secret lurking in your past? How very mysterious. I shall make it my duty to find out what it is.’
‘You’re letting your imagination run away with you,’ Schmidt said dismissively.
Lex opened his mouth to rub more salt into the raw wound when his nose began to fizz and he rummaged desperately for a handkerchief, only just managing to find it and press it over his face before the ferocious sneeze came. Luckily, Schmidt was already stalking huffily ahead, so he didn’t see the nine or ten nasal lice thrashing around in Lex’s tissue. Lex shook them out onto the ground in disgust and then hurried to catch up with the long-legged lawyer.
Apart from the obvious enchanted trees, the only other things they had seen so far were the deer that lived in the forest and the odd fleeting glimpse of woodland spirits flitting between the trees. Both were gentle and neither were likely to pose any threat to them, but still Lex was watchful. It would be very easy to get lost in a place like this and there were stories about the things that lived in enchanted forests. If Lex lost this round he could still win the Game if he did well in the third round. But this was extra special to him now because of the crown. Not only would he get to see and touch a genuine royal crown, but his temporary royalty would mean that his name would be added to the Royal Monument in the centre of the Wither City. That would be immensely satisfying. It would piss Schmidt off for one thing. And it would earn him a kind of immortality. Children had to memorise the names of kings at school and he loved the thought of being partially responsible for the hair-tearing frustration of that exercise.
The Royal Monument was something of an anachronism in a way but it was tradition and people clung to tradition like leeches because it made them feel safer in changing times. Any man who had been a king, even if only for a few minutes, would have his name inscribed on the Monument and passed down through the years. Hundreds and hundreds of years from now, people would look at the Monument, reading through the names and Lex Trent would be there - set in stone at last. Lex was absolutely determined to have the crown for himself and he was more than happy to cheat to get it. He deserved it because he was the only one who would fully appreciate it. It was not just about winning the round now, it was about tasting royalty just for a moment and the immortality that went with it.
They headed on deeper into the forest, towards the centre. Lex was feeling a little uneasy about the prophet. Everyone knew that prophets were dangerous because they could see the future and so were sometimes able to manipulate it. They couldn’t speak so they couldn’t utter spells or enchantments but it was difficult to outwit a prophet when they could see what you were going to do. And then of course there was Jezra who was even more pissed off than the prophet.
The forest itself was not overly dangerous. But it was maze-like and they kept finding themselves getting turned around. It was as if the forest did not want them to travel too deeply inside. And then there was the whistling. A strange, ominous high-pitched whistling that seemed to be coming from something on the forest floor around them. The sound was making the lawyer look distinctly uneasy so Lex didn’t trouble himself to tell Schmidt that the whistling was in fact caused by harmless duckigs - strange little creatures that looked somewhere between a duck and a pig. Lex knew there wouldn’t be anything overly dangerous in the Royal Forest for although the kings rather enjoyed hunting down gentle, harmless deer, they were not favourably inclined towards being butchered themselves . . .
. . . Now, usually, Lex would have been quite right about that but, to make the round more interesting, Lady Luck had deliberately chosen a day when she knew that the kings were to hold a royal hunt. Although usually they only hunted deer, today they had the extra special treat of hunting a wicked witch. Lady Luck knew this because that morning she had made a gift of the witch to the kings, knowing full well that they would instantly set her loose in the forest to hunt, for - with the possible exception of taking royal mistresses - there is nothing in the whole world that any king loves more than a good hunt and a grisly kill.
Lex and Schmidt had been in the forest for only half an hour when they saw the kings go thundering past on horses, elephants or rhinoceroses depending on the ethnicity of the particular king. Fortunately, they did not notice Lex or Schmidt - who crouched down to watch from behind some bushes where they could get a good view without being disturbed themselves. But Lex’s heart couldn’t help but sink a little. The kings were all waving huge swords and screaming war cries, but they weren’t even the worst part of it - it was what they were hunting with that concerned him. For the kings were preceded by a pack of rabid draglings. The baby dragons were about the size of large dogs and came in a variety of colours from blue to green to yellow to orange. They were all slavering at the mouth - or at the snout - driven half insane by the maddening scent of the evil witch . . .
When the last king - a fat one trailing behind on a huge elephant - had loped noisily past them, Lex turned his head to meet Schmidt’s gaze. He felt just as horrified as Schmidt looked, but couldn’t help breaking into a broad smile at the expression on the old lawyer’s face.
‘Why are you grinning?’ Schmidt snapped.
‘Because you’re not! Don’t worry, sir. I won’t let them get you.’ He reached out to pat the lawyer’s hand comfortingly.
Schmidt snatched his hand away and said irritably, ‘Let’s just get on with it.’
So they got on with it - albeit with a lot more caution, for the forest had just become a much more dangerous place and they realised that without even knowing about the witch.
When the kings split up shortly afterwards, it became practically impossible to move about the forest, for as soon as they took a step in any direction they would see a king thundering through the trees up ahead.
‘I think we’d better find somewhere to hide until they’ve passed,’ Lex said reluctantly. He didn’t want to have a repeat performance of what had happened in the sky castle by getting trapped between kings, for he didn’t know that he’d be able to pull another miraculous escape out of his hat this time.
‘Very sensible,’ Schmidt said approvingly. ‘I agree entirely.’
That almost made Lex change his mind and, indeed, he was right on the verge of saying that perhaps they would continue just a little bit further before finding somewhere to hide when a pack of four draglings burst out of the nearby trees, closely followed by a ferocious-looking king on an even more ferocious-looking rhinoceros. The king saw Lex and Schmidt at once, gave a great bellow of anger and raised his sword over his head, screaming about assassins as the whole lot came charging towards them. Lex and Schmidt turned as one and raced into the forest as fast as they could.
They didn’t have much of a head start and Lex knew that the draglings would be upon them at any moment. Attempting to outrun them was quite, quite hopeless. But, as luck would have it, as they stumbled and slid their way down a leaf-covered slope, Lex tripped on a raised tree root, crashed into Schmidt and sent the pair of them rolling down the hill where they landed right beside the narrow mouth of a cave.
‘In here quick!’ Lex exclaimed, heaving the lawyer back to his feet and dragging him into the cave from where they had a perfect view of the king thundering past a bare minute later.
Fortunately, draglings are unable to detect the human scent and so could not tell that Lex and Schmidt had left the path. They were, in fact, a totally ineffectual animal with which to hunt, which was why the kings very rarely caught anything. They liked the draglings because they were colourful and impressive and the sort of creature a king was expect
ed to hunt with. And it was worth it even if it meant they didn’t catch their prey, for although the kings really loved to finish the hunt with a bit of blood and gore, the main attraction for them was that they got to ride along screaming and waving their swords.
Lex and Schmidt watched as first the scaly, lizardy draglings raced past, slavering madly, followed a moment or two later by the wheezing rhino, eyes rolling in anger at the way the insane king in his billowing royal blue robes was sticking his spurred heels mercilessly into its sides. In another moment they had stumped out of sight and Lex said to Schmidt with a smile, ‘If he carries on like that he’s likely to get impaled on the horn of his own rhinoceros.’
Before Schmidt could reply, a voice from the cave behind them made them both jump. It was a sly old voice, practically dripping with greed.