by Alex Bell
Schmidt staggered to his feet and joined Lex at the window, gasping in horror at the damage that had been done.
‘My God, Lex, don’t you care anything for the safety of other people?’
Lex waved a hand dismissively. ‘I’m sure no one was hurt,’ he said, stepping over the sprawled crone to the basin and looking in at the Swann resting on the bottom.
After that sudden shock of movement the boat seemed remarkably calm considering the speed at which it was travelling. There was no rocking on the waves as there had been on the gypsy ship for this magical boat was hardly sailing at all; it was flying over the restless ocean, not even touching the water.
‘How do you get it to stop?’ Lex asked the crone.
But even as he spoke the words, the ship slowed rapidly until it had come to a complete halt, hovering over the waves, the harbour now some way behind them.
‘Aha,’ Lex said with a slow grin.
‘It reads the mind of the key holder,’ Bessa said miserably.
‘What are you stopping for anyway? I thought you were all eager to be away?’ Schmidt asked.
‘Yes, but we don’t want any unwanted passengers, Monty,’ Lex said, smiling horribly at the old crone.
Half an hour later, Bessa was sat hunched up in her basket, which was floating on the surface of the ocean next to the great ship. They’d lowered her down over the side with ropes, having been forced to use the basket in the absence of any lifeboats.
‘It seems to be floating well enough. What did I tell you?’ Lex said to the lawyer.
Schmidt gazed back at him coldly. The old crone was still screaming for her bloody cat, which seemed to have disappeared into the ship somewhere.
‘She’ll be able to row back to shore all right with that, she’s got an oar. And she has her cane. What more does she need?’
‘You’re the most selfish person I’ve ever met,’ Schmidt said coldly. ‘You really don’t care about anyone at all, do you? She will be punished by her enchanter.’
‘She’ll be in more trouble if she stays with us. And, like you said, we are only borrowing the boat.’
‘Yes,’ Schmidt replied with a horrible smile. ‘So I know you won’t mind leaving her with a deposit. As you fully intend to bring the ship back.’
‘Deposit? What dep-?’
Lex broke off in pure horror as the lawyer suddenly grabbed his bag which had been lying on the deck and threw it overboard where it landed with a splash next to the crone, who promptly pulled it into her basket, crowing with glee at the valuable nature of the things inside.
‘How dare you!’ Lex hissed, rounding angrily on the lawyer. ‘How dare you! Do you know how long it took me to collect all those beautiful things? Do you know how hard I had to work to get them?’
‘It hurts, doesn’t it, Lex? Losing things that are important to you? Good, I’m glad you’re upset.’
Discipline, Lex told himself. He’s baiting you. Don’t rise to it
… Don’t rise to it… After all, he still had his money belt — not that Schmidt needed to know anything about that…
‘I’m not upset, Mr Schmidt,’ Lex said with exaggerated politeness. ‘Just a little concerned about how we’re going to finance our journey now that you’ve given away all my valuables. After all, I have no money now and there will be travelling expenses and food expenses and things… but that’s okay because you still have your wallet, don’t you? I must say it’s very sportsmanlike of you to agree to pay for all this out of your own pocket, Mr Schimdt,’ Lex gloated, noting with relish the distinctly unhappy expression that was now on his employer’s face.
‘Didn’t think it through, did you?’ Lex asked, with sudden coldness. ‘It takes practice, you know, swindling people. You really shouldn’t try it unless you’re absolutely sure it won’t backfire on you.’
He glanced over the edge of the ship. ‘You know, Monty, I have the sneaking suspicion that you might have overpaid her.’
The old crone was paddling for the shore as fast as her oar would take her, one arm still crooked around Lex’s bag.
CHAPTER EIGHT
LEX AND LUCIUS TRENT
Mahara was a dead Goddess. She had died, they said, for love. For the love of a mortal man. She had given up her immortality for him. And now her abandoned sun was cold and useless, its light shedding no warmth so that it was unable to prevent the ice storms from sweeping in, blowing snow across the land and freezing the ocean solid. It was a problem for the gypsies and the fishermen, for their boats would become stuck on the frozen sea. But, to an enchanted boat, Mahara’s sun was no obstacle. The ship flew over the solidifying ocean and sliced through the gales, the shards of ice shattering harmlessly against the steel prow where they would have punched straight through a wooden gypsy boat.
Lex and Schmidt had taken to using lengths of rope to guide themselves round the mirrored boat. They feared that, without something to guide them back to the bridge, they might become permanently lost within the vast, winding, reflecting corridors. Schmidt had warned Lex not to go poking around. The bridge seemed harmless enough, as had Bessa’s little cabin, but who knew what might be lurking elsewhere within the ship?
Predictably, Lex had scoffed at the words of caution and set out to explore or — more accurately — to loot the ship. Who knew what manner of valuable, dangerous, beautiful things he might find on such a vessel? He was disappointed to discover that many of the rooms were similar to Bessa’s cabin — nothing more than tiny little marble boxes. He did find a wardrobe, though, and amused himself there for a while, trying on the enchanter’s tall, pointed hats. He also took some white fur coats to make the hard-surfaced bridge more comfortable. He found a bathroom too and the kitchen by following the grey cat, which seemed to appear from nowhere, watching Lex warily with narrowed, yellow eyes. The creature gave Lex the creeps and he was sorely tempted to drop the wretched thing overboard. But he had some vague notion that cats on ships were supposed to be good luck or something and it ran off when he tried to approach it, so he shrugged and left Piewacket to himself.
Schmidt had steadfastly refused to eat a thing that Lex had found on board in case the food was enchanted, preferring instead to eat what they had brought with them from Jani’s Tavern. But Lex had sampled some of the pantry’s supplies and found the food to be very good indeed. He had continued his systematic exploring of the ship until he had some idea of its layout. Any conman knows that it is important to have escape routes very firmly fixed in your mind in case the worst should happen.
Lex knew how to get out on deck and he knew how to escape into the bowels of the ship to hide if need be. But he had not been inside all of the rooms. His natural explorer’s instinct had been somewhat curbed after opening an innocuous little door to find a rabid rabbit on the other side that almost roasted him with a blast of flame from its foaming mouth before lunging for his feet. The thing had chewed halfway through his boot before he managed to kick it off and slam the door shut. Lex had no idea what it was there for — it might have been a pet, a magical experiment gone wrong or the enchanter’s breakfast for all he knew — but he marked the door with a big X to make sure he didn’t go in there again and when Schmidt asked him where the scorch marks had come from, Lex told him that he had discovered a small dragon down below. It sounded better than rabid bunny rabbit.
But the incident made him wary of opening any closed door too readily. Furthermore, he had a sneaking suspicion that some of the rooms sometimes changed size. Or moved. He was almost sure that he had been near the bottom of the ship the first time he encountered the ferocious, fire-breathing rabbit and yet, the next day, he saw the same door on the top floor just outside the bridge, the X he had drawn on it still there, undisturbed.
Lex had since drawn X’s on several of the doors just on the basis of the strange sounds he had heard coming out of them. There had been a decided munching, crunching kind of sound from one and from another Lex was sure he had heard the rustle and tap o
f some many-legged creature walking about on the mirrored floor. So, in spite of his initial bravado, Lex had decided, after all, that he would sleep on the bridge with the lawyer that night. He wasn’t scared of the ship. Not at all. He just liked being able to see the sea going by and the only windows in the whole ship were on the bridge. The wall-to-wall mirrors everywhere else did not allow any portholes and that gave the ship a stifling, claustrophobic air, especially considering the ease with which one could get lost.
Bessa had said that the ship read the mind of the key holder and so Lex had assumed that it was heading for Khestrii. His hope was confirmed when they began to catch sight of other enchanted boats the next day, heading in the same direction as them. The boats never strayed too close to each other and Lex could only assume that they could somehow sense each other and keep on separate courses.
They arrived at the great metal harbour an hour before sunset. Lex had worried about this moment. Khestrii was the home of the enchanters and it would never do for them to see Lex and Schmidt getting off the ship — they would immediately suspect foul play for no enchanter would willingly allow his ship to be used by non-magical people. As it was, the ice storms let in by Mahara’s sun had driven the enchanters away from the harbour and, as they had no midnight markets here, the port was deserted. Besides which, the white fur coats that Lex had found effectively shielded them from any suspicious glances and, with the hoods pulled up over their heads, it was not obvious that they were not enchanters anyway. The only thing that gave them away was their height. Lex in particular was not tall enough for the coat and the end of it dragged in the snow in a most irritating way. He would just have to hope that if anyone did notice this they would assume that he was a lucky crone with a kind master who had graciously allowed her to wear one of the coats, although that in itself was unlikely.
But although the ice storms worked in their favour in emptying the harbour, they did not make it very easy to disembark the boat. Their rather brutal departure from the docks at Gandylow had broken off the gangplank, so the only way to disembark the ship was to have it hover just over the docks and then climb down the ladder that ran down the side.
Lex was agile and quick and had little trouble in making his way to the bottom of the frozen ladder. Schmidt, however, did not find it so painless. The ship was immensely tall and the ladder was at least five storeys high. Then there was the fact that the rungs were frozen solid, and cold metal, as Lex had found out when he tried to lick the ice from a frozen pole as a child, was painful to the touch and stuck to the skin if you weren’t careful.
It took the lawyer an age to descend the ladder and his hands were trembling by the time he stepped onto the harbour, both with the cold and with the strain of having to navigate a frozen ladder down the side of a giant ship in the midst of an ice storm. He hadn’t complained, hadn’t voiced his fears at any time but, now that he was standing on the harbour, the sight of his trembling hands irritated Lex, reminding him of another old man and reawakening that terrible fear of being old and unable to control your body… or your tongue
…
‘You took your time!’ Lex snapped. ‘We’re going to be late!’
Old age… Lex was never growing old. He had made that promise to himself a long time ago, after he had seen what the years could do to a person… what they could take away from you. No — one way or another, Lex fully intended to leave this life before any such thing could happen to him. Notoriety was something to be worked towards when you fully intended to end your days in the hangman’s gallows.
‘Late for what?’ the old lawyer said, glaring at him.
‘We need to be at Mahara’s Tower before nightfall,’ Lex replied.
‘Why?’ Schmidt said, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.
‘Because that’s when they’re going to announce the Game,’ Lex smirked.
He would have liked to be able to linger more over this delicious revelation, relishing Schmidt’s horror, but time prevented it. Still, to his immense satisfaction, Schmidt looked like someone had just kicked him in the gut. ‘ Game? ’ he croaked.
‘We’ve been chosen, sir,’ Lex said with his sweetest smile. ‘By Lady Luck herself. Come on, we need to get moving.’ And he turned away and strode off.
Although Lex had never been to Khestrii before, he was familiar with the Black Tower of which Lady Luck had spoken, for it was a famous landmark on the Globe. It was said to have been created by Thaddeus, God of Illusion and the enchanters’ patron deity, for his poor sister Mahara after she declined immortality for the sake of her human lover. The couple had been rejected by Gods and humans alike for their sacrilegious union and had lived together in isolation in the tower Thaddeus had built for them — some said out of compassion and some said out of spite — a prison or a haven? At any rate, upon the eventual death of the couple, Thaddeus had sealed the tower and no one had been inside since.
Even through the ice storm and the dimming light from the rapidly-setting sun, Lex could see it. Ice and frost had turned the tower’s tip white; icy fingers reaching halfway down its length before relinquishing their hold back to the black marble. Lex hardly noticed the buildings and streets as he strode towards the tower. The sun had almost set and they could not be late. There might be a penalty or something if they were.
When he at last reached the towering turret, Schmidt wheezing along behind him, Lex was a little concerned that her Ladyship was not there to meet him. The Black Tower stood upon a huge, perfect circle of ice, with a black marble path leading straight to the door set at its base. Instinctively feeling that this was what he must do, Lex made his way across the black path, slipping and sliding where the marble had frozen over. Schmidt did not follow him, perhaps uncertain of his legs on such a treacherous surface, but stood watching at the edge of the ice circle. As Mahara’s dead sun disappeared over the edge of the horizon, Lex lifted the golden knocker and slammed it hard into the black marble door. The echoes rang back to them across the surface of the ice before they were plucked from the ground by the Gods and taken to the top room of Mahara’s Black Tower.
Lex stared round in wonder, still buzzing with the exciting alien sensation of having been transported in such a way. In contrast to the tower’s exterior, the interior was made entirely of white marble. The Goddess of Luck looked most appropriate there in her white dress; her mass of blond hair piled up on top of her head, threaded with pearls.
The top of the tower was an unusual shape, being formed of three circles placed in a triangle so that the outer walls were curved and there was a triangular space in the centre, about ten feet across, beneath which there was no floor and you could see all the way down to the centre of the ice circle over two hundred feet below. The strangely curved walls around them reached above their heads to form a perfect point, confirming Lex’s impression that they were at the very top of the tower. And suspended directly above them was a large crystal ball, rather like a smaller version of the ones Lex had seen in the gaming stadiums.
‘Well done, Lex. I thought you weren’t going to make it in time for a minute there.’
‘By the skin of my teeth, as usual, my Lady,’ Lex said, bowing graciously.
‘ L–Lex? ’ came a voice from behind them. ‘Is that you?’ Lex froze at the sound of the familiar voice. He, Schmidt and the Goddess of Luck were standing in one of the three white circles. Others stood in the remaining two, although Lex had not yet had time to take them all in. But he knew that voice instantly, even though it had been more than a year since he’d heard it, for it was an exact copy of his own. Slowly, he turned round to face his twin brother.
‘Hello, Lucius.’
Not a flicker of surprise or displeasure crossed Lex’s face although, at that moment, he felt both in equal measure. Lucius Trent stared at him across the length of the circular chamber and said nothing. He looked pale and a little sickly. Lex had always been the healthier of the two. Lucius’s brownish-blond hair was longer than Lex’s, reach
ing down almost to his chin and curling slightly at the ends. Even though Lex had only been with his brother for all of thirty seconds, he could already feel his lip curling in that old expression of contempt. He stifled the impulse quickly. He was disciplined now — he did not let his emotions show on his face any more… It was just that Lucius was so wet. In every sense of the word. So much so that Lex had often found it insulting that they shared the same genetic makeup.
It would have been nice to say that Lex and Lucius had got on once. That the things that happened later were what drove the two of them apart. It would have been nice to say it, but it would have been untrue. Lex and Lucius may have been identical twins, but they were at opposite ends of the personality scale. And that was why they did not get on — and nor had they ever.
‘What are you doing here?’ Lucius asked, looking miserable.
‘Getting ready to play the Game,’ Lex replied with an easy shrug. ‘Or should I say, getting ready to win it? What are you doing here?’
‘I was-’
‘Shut up, Trents. I’m going to announce the Game, now.’
Lex looked at the speaker, who was standing beside Lucius, and his mouth fell open in shock, for it was Jezra — the God of Wit and Daring! Lex had, of course, seen him in paintings and statues, and he had glimpsed him from afar once in the Gods’ box at one of the stadiums, but he’d never seen him up close in real life before. His straight blond hair was shoulder length and he had a rather hawkish nose and very intelligent blue eyes set beneath fair eyebrows. He was wearing his customary pale blue high-necked jacket and stood with a kind of gangly grace. Although he was not good looking — for his nose was too long and his eyes too sharp — he was clever. He was conniving and scheming and shrewd and devious. He was, in fact, everything that Lex had ever tried to be. And to see him standing beside his useless brother put a bad taste in Lex’s mouth beyond all description.