by Alex Bell
‘I don’t need your help!’ he snapped.
And then the cornucopia of colours started to spin, reminding him of the kaleidoscope he’d had when he’d been small. He lost his balance on the lurching ground as a deafening silence rang in his ears, blocking out all the sound . . .
About twenty seconds later, Schmidt was still bending over Lex trying to work out if he was dead or not when one of Lex’s eyes opened and he squinted at the lawyer in the silver light.
‘Am I dead?’ Lex asked.
‘Not yet,’ Schmidt grunted.
‘Oh good.’ Lex closed his eye and tried to breathe normally, uncomfortably aware of how fast his heart was beating and how cold the snow was beneath him. But after a moment, he couldn’t help a soft, rather breathless laugh.
Schmidt stared at him in blank incomprehension. ‘What in this whole situation,’ he said, ‘could possibly be even remotely amusing?’
‘I got here,’ Lex said. ‘I’m in the Lands Beneath.’ He opened his eyes and grinned at the lawyer. ‘I won’t believe you if you tell me you’re not even the least little bit excited to be here.’
Schmidt sighed and offered his hand to help Lex to his feet. ‘I don’t think you need have any worries about dying young,’ he said. ‘It’s a miracle you’ve survived this long as it is.’
‘I’m lucky,’ Lex replied, dusting the snow off his clothes.
Apart from a slight feeling of nausea, he now felt fine although he was beginning to rather dislike the hat. He considered taking it off now that he was here but decided against it. Although the enchanter could sense him when he wore it, he was most unlikely to attempt to pursue Lex to the home of the Gods. Even an enchanter would fear to do that. So in the meantime, he might as well keep the thing on although even Lex realised by now that if he used it again anytime soon it probably wasn’t going to improve his situation an awful lot. But if nothing else, at least it made him look taller.
‘This place is stunning!’ he said, looking round himself properly.
A hundred different colours dappled about them where they stood on the forest floor - for all the trees were made entirely out of crystal. The trunks and branches were white but the leaves were a mixture of bright colours. In fact, no leaf seemed to be the exact same shade. They ranged from emerald green to saffron yellow to peacock blue. The effect was enchanting beyond anything Lex had ever seen before.
The place was utterly silent. There didn’t appear to be anything or anybody around. Lucius certainly wasn’t there, nor was there any sign that he ever had been. The crystal forest did not move or sway in the breeze - even the smallest leaf was absolutely still. It was cool without a sun but it was not uncomfortably cold, partly because there was not even a breath of wind. The air itself was still and beautifully, wonderfully fresh as if no one had ever breathed it before. It was as if they were polluting it just by being there.
Lex and Schmidt could make out a clearing through the trees so they started to walk and came out of the forest within moments. Lex stared around at the new scenery, sure that his eyes must be almost popping out of his head at what he was seeing. He was used to forests, for there were lots of them in the Lands Above, even if they weren’t made of crystal. So whilst he hadn’t exactly felt at home in there, he had at least not felt as if he were on a different planet altogether. But the forest really had been nothing more than a small glade put there for recreational or aesthetic purposes and they weren’t actually in the countryside at all. They were at the edge of a huge city, the likes of which Lex had never dreamt of.
Towering before them were huge glass skyscrapers that must have been well over a hundred storeys. Considering the fact that neither Lex nor Schmidt had ever seen a building higher than five or six storeys before, this was an awe-inspiring, terrifying sight to them. There was a white monorail running quietly between the tall buildings but other than that there was no sound or movement at all. Gazing up at it all, Lex couldn’t help but feel discouraged. ‘It’ll be a nightmare finding Lucius in that lot,’ he said hopelessly. ‘Especially now that Lady Luck has abandoned me.’
‘She hardly abandoned you,’ Schmidt pointed out. ‘You double crossed her.’
‘Well, it’s the same thing,’ Lex snapped irritably.
He stalked across a snow-swept path leading away from the crystal forest and towards the city. Schmidt hurried after him and, falling into step beside him, said, ‘What’s your plan?’
Lex glanced at him. ‘Why do you always assume I have a plan? I’m just going into the city to see if I can find some Gods.’
‘Is that it?’
‘That’s all I got,’ he said with a shrug.
As Lex had suspected, finding the Gods did not prove to be problematic. Most of the Gods were not omniscient, but they were sharp-eyed, and forbidden trespassers in their realm were not likely to go unnoticed for very long. Lex and Schmidt had only just started to walk down one of the skyscraper-lined streets when two startled-looking Gods appeared in front of them in human form. Lex recognised them from their statues. One was Deryn, God of Music and the other was Saydi, Goddess of Beauty and owner of Lex’s favourite sun.
‘No, no, no!’ Deryn exclaimed in a distinctly whiny tone as Lex and Schmidt automatically bowed. ‘You’re ruining the Race!’
‘What Race?’ Lex asked, straightening up from his bow.
‘This one,’ Saydi said, waving her arm to encompass the city and glaring at them. ‘It’s ongoing! It’s the longest one in our history and you humans are ruining it. You’re not supposed to be down here!’
Lex glanced at the transparent buildings and gasped as he realised, for the first time, that there were people moving about in them and, like the buildings themselves, they were made entirely of glass.
‘Are they alive?’ Lex asked, still staring at them.
‘They’re half alive,’ Saydi snapped, then she paused and stared at Lex. ‘You look just like the other one,’ she said. ‘Except you’re wearing different clothes. And you’re not bleeding so much.’
‘You’ve seen my brother?’ Lex said eagerly. ‘My brother, Lucius? Is he okay? He got down here by mistake. We’ve just come to get him and then we’ll gladly be on our way.’
‘No, no, no; we simply cannot have humans down here; it just won’t do! You must be made examples of,’ Deryn said irritably.
‘What’s the point in separating the Lands Above and Beneath if humans are going to contaminate both? You’re too unpredictable - you ruin the Races,’ Saydi complained. ‘It’s like trying to play chess with chessmen who won’t follow the rules - it undermines the point of even playing at all.’
‘Well . . . what is a Race?’ Lex asked, giving the glass city a puzzled look. If this was a sort of Game then where were the castles and dragons and other mortal perils?
‘It’s a Race of Progression,’ Deryn said. ‘It’s taken our men hundreds of years to get this far. They started out living in caves but just last year they built their first spaceship and started exploring the orbiting underworlds. You humans will never reach such a level because you squabble with each other all the time and it hinders your progress. If one of our glass men comes into contact with you they could be infected with unstable emotions and the entire Race would be in jeopardy then. They wouldn’t do what we told them to any more. They’d start thinking for themselves . Come along. We’ll put you in with the other one.’
And Lex and Schmidt found themselves plucked from the ground by the Gods and deposited some way from the city before a huge, hulking monster of a crystal tree that stood all alone. This was what Lex had seen when he’d had that funny moment out on the Space Ladders. The alarming amount of scarlet blood splattered around the base of the tree was in sharp contrast to the snow, and Lex’s heart seemed to lodge in his throat at the sight of it.
A crystal ladder fixed to a branch near the top joined up with the lowest Space Ladder and led on past the twilight sky into dark space above them. The Lands Above couldn’t be seen beyond the gre
at mass of Space Ladders but they knew it was up there. Unlike the crystal trees they’d seen in the forest with multi-coloured leaves, the leaves of this tree were all golden - pale and beautiful like they’d been painted with sunshine. There were other snow-covered cities in the distance and Lex guessed that other Gods were playing their own Progression Races in these although there was a still, unbroken silence all around them. In the distance was a sparkling crystal mountain where the Gods lived when they weren’t playing Races with the glass men in the glass cities.
Tearing his eyes away from the incredible sights on the horizon, Lex turned back to the tree. The trunk itself was at least twenty feet in diameter and curled up in the middle of this was Lucius, head bent over a bloody ferret that was clutched to his chest and seemed to have gone rigid with fear. In another moment, Lex and Schmidt had been put in the crystal tree with him.
‘Lucius, are you all right?’ Lex asked, striding over to him, trying to work out where the blood on his arms and on the ferret was coming from.
Lucius jumped at the sound of his brother’s voice. After a moment of stunned surprise he scrambled to his feet, clutching the ferret with one hand and flinging his other arm around Lex’s neck in a suffocating hug.
‘Oh, Lex. I hoped the enchanter wouldn’t find you too. I’m sorry he got you but I’m so glad to see you!’
For once Lex allowed himself to be hugged - even hugging Lucius back for a moment before pushing him away and running a sharp eye down him.
‘Who’s bleeding? You or Zachary?’
‘It’s me.’ Lucius awkwardly held out his arms. ‘When I arrived here I fell on the crystal flowers at the bottom of the tree out there.’
Lex glanced out of their tree prison and saw that the blood outside was indeed staining the remains of the broken crystal flowers responsible for the deep cuts on Lucius’s arms. Lex rolled his eyes. It was just like Lucius to fall straight over into the deepest patch of jagged crystal he could find as soon as he arrived.
‘I just put my hands out automatically when I fell,’ Lucius said, looking at his worst arm miserably and turning even paler at the sight of the blood dripping from it.
‘Don’t hold it out like that,’ Lex said impatiently. ‘You need to stop the bleeding. Here, use the weasel.’
Lex took the unresisting ferret out of Lucius’s hand and pressed him over the deep cuts on his brother’s arm.
‘Hold him there,’ he ordered. ‘For God’s sake, Lucius, do you want to bleed to death?’
Lex, Lucius and Schmidt all jumped as Deryn knocked on the glass trunk of their prison. ‘Hey! Humans!’ Although the trunk of the tree was thick, they could all hear the God’s voice as clearly as if he were standing right beside them. ‘We can’t leave you here like this,’ Deryn went on. ‘We don’t know whether to turn you all into glass people and let you stay down here or whether to kill you and send you back to the Lands Above as a warning to the others not to come. Any preferences?’
They all stared at him in horror. ‘There isn’t a third choice by any chance, is there?’ Lex asked. ‘Like, maybe, you sending us back to the Lands Above alive? All in one piece?’
‘No,’ the God said coldly. ‘You’ve got two choices. Pick one or we’ll pick for you.’
When the three humans just continued to stare at him stupidly, Deryn turned away with a sigh and started having a muttered conversation with Saydi.
Lex turned to Schmidt. ‘I’m going to have to use the hat.’
‘If you do, you won’t survive,’ Schmidt said sharply. ‘Give it to me. I’ll do it. You’ve already used it once today.’
‘That’s very noble of you, Mr Schmidt,’ Lex said, smiling. ‘But I don’t think it will work. You’re old and frail, after all, so the hat would be more dangerous to you than to me. And I doubt you’d be able to do any magic with it anyway.’
‘Give it to Lucius then,’ Schmidt said. ‘He hasn’t used it at all yet.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Lucius asked.
Lex glanced at Lucius but he could tell at once that it was no good. His twin was even paler than usual and had obviously lost a fair amount of blood. He probably wouldn’t be able to get them all out even if given the chance. It was going to have to be Lex or no one at all.
It really wasn’t at all fair, he thought, as his eyes lingered resentfully on Lucius cowering with fear and clinging to the ferret as if it were a lifeline. Why should Lex have to die so that Lucius might live? What kind of life was he going to lead anyway? Pottering about on some farm, never doing anything more exciting than riding a tractor? Lex was the one who enjoyed life more - he was the one who relished it, made the best of it, stuffed as many experiences into it as he possibly could . . .
Then the thought occurred to Lex that it might not be so dangerous to transport one person out of the Lands Beneath rather than three . . . He shook himself in alarm. What was he considering? Hadn’t he come down here in the first place to rescue Lucius? It was a gamble and he would just have to take it for there was no other obvious way out. Perhaps it might be okay. After all - Lex was a lucky person even without her Ladyship. So perhaps the hat wouldn’t kill him.
‘It’s got to be me,’ he said, trying to sound grandly self-sacrificing in case any of this made the cut for the final round when it was broadcast to the stadiums. He spread his arms wide and said nobly, ‘I shall save us all or die trying.’
Lex closed his eyes and concentrated in preparation but then hesitated again - cold fear pulsing through him . . .
Do it, he said to himself. Just do it. There’s no other way out of this . . .
But before he could do so, a female voice was speaking in his ear, ‘You surprise me, Lex. I would have thought you’d have jumped at the chance to be made into a glass person.’
Lex opened his eyes and looked at the Goddess of Luck standing before him in the tree.
‘Are these yours?’ Deryn demanded, waving his hand at the prisoners.
‘This one is,’ Lady Luck said, tapping Lex lightly on the head.
‘Well, what are they doing down here?’
‘It was an accident. Please be quiet,’ her Ladyship said, waving the other God into silence. ‘Well, how about it, Lex? Are you sure you want to pass up this chance to be made into a glass person?’
Lex stared at her. ‘My Lady, why in the world would I want to be turned into glass?’
‘Isn’t it obvious, darling? These glass men they make down here - they don’t grow old. They can’t catch illnesses or disease. They don’t die. They just go on and on, progressing all the time. They’re out there, even now, exploring the underworlds in their magnificent glass spaceship. Wouldn’t you like to do that, Lex?’
‘Well, I can’t say that exploring the underworlds in a glass spaceship doesn’t appeal to me,’ Lex admitted. ‘But those glass men have no emotions so life’s wasted on them. They’re just chess pieces - the only reason they’re exploring is because the Gods told them to. It’s just . . . pointless. A farce. I don’t want to live twice as long if it means I can only be half alive.’
‘Well, you’re right, of course. This is a silly sort of Game. I don’t even really see the point of it myself. It’s like being constantly amused with a doll’s house. But you realise that if you were turned into a glass person you would never risk getting the soulless wake?’
Lex shrugged impatiently. ‘I’ll take the risk gladly. There are so many things left that I still want to do,’ he went on, aware that a slightly whiny tone had crept into his voice. ‘I haven’t seen enough or experienced enough. I want to see and do everything before I die.’
‘Are you asking me for help, Lex?’ the Goddess asked, raising an eyebrow. ‘After the way you double crossed me?’
‘I’m sorry for that,’ Lex replied - finding that, for once, he did actually mean the apology. ‘I promise - I solemnly swear - that if you take me back I will never betray you ever again for as long as I live. I give you my word.’
The Goddess regarded him, her head a little on one side, making a show of considering what he’d said. ‘The problem, Lex, is that I don’t trust your word. Not one bit. I know who you are, remember. You’re a liar and a fraud and a cheat. You’d say anything to save your skin. So why should I believe you?’
‘Because we fit together,’ Lex said at once - feeling a little desperate, for it seemed to him that he was losing her. ‘I don’t trust you either, my Lady. But when all your other followers left you because you were too fickle and unreliable, did those traits bother me? Not at all! I joined your church and prevented it from being closed down. I saved it for you single-handedly. You owe me a second chance for that.’
‘Oh, I do, do I?’ the Goddess said.
‘Yes, you do. I demand it!’
Schmidt and Lucius were staring at him with shocked expressions on their faces and, for a moment, Lex even wondered whether the Goddess might be about to slap him. But then she smiled - a dazzling, brilliant smile, and he breathed a sigh of relief.