Fighting with fire

CHAPTER FOUR

Lex woke up the next morning with a dry mouth, a sore head and sensitive eyes. And, to top it all off, he was in a cell.

‘Howdy,’ said Jesse, who was also in the cell with him.

‘Urghh blurghh,’ Lex replied, unsticking his tongue. ‘Gods, my head!’

The questions what’s going on? and where am I? rose in his throat but Lex refused to ask them because they were… silly. The sort of silly thing silly people said in silly situations. Lex prided himself on always knowing exactly what was going on and exactly where he was. And exactly how he was going to get out of it, too, come to that.

The ‘where’ part was obvious, anyway. Lex recognised a cell when he saw one; after all, he’d been in them before. It was the ‘why’ that took him a moment. He’d been at the feast… with the Gods… and he’d been unwell, suddenly? wasn’t that it? But it hardly seemed fair to lock someone up just because they’d been ill. Lex was just considering the horrible possibility that he had some sort of dire, incurable, highly contagious disease when it all came flooding back to him in rather a sickening way.

‘Jeremiah East spiked my drink!’

‘Yep,’ Jesse replied.

‘I was drunk!’

‘Yep.’

‘I was sick and then…’ The fact that Lex couldn’t remember what had happened after that seemed to be a pretty clear indication of what had taken place.

‘Yep.’

‘Is that all you can say? Yep?’ Lex raged, rounding on him viciously. ‘It’s not even a proper word! That’s the best you can do? Why are you even here?’

The cowboy was sprawled on his bed, leaning back against the wall with his arms behind his head and his ankles crossed, hat tipped back, watching Lex lazily. He shrugged slowly in response to the onslaught of questions and said, ‘Beats me, partner. First time I ever got locked up for someone else getting drunk. Maybe it’s because they don’t want us switching bodies. Or could be because of all this talk of us being disqualified, I guess.’

‘Well, I think it’s an absolute disgrace!’ Lex seethed, imagining the awful scene of his being carried away to prison last night whilst everyone no doubt roared their stupid heads off with laughter. ‘ I’m the victim here! That good-for-nothing, arrogant, snot-nosed brat, Jeremiah East, is the one who ought to be-’ He broke off suddenly to stare at Jesse. ‘What did you just say?’

Jesse shrugged. ‘When?’

‘Just now. You said… You said something about us being…’ Lex could hardly bring himself to say the word, ‘ disqualified! Surely you don’t mean… from the Game?’

Jesse sat up on the bed. ‘Their high-and-mightyships, Kala and Thaddeus,’ he said gravely, ‘are demanding it.’

Lex gaped at him like a landed fish for a moment before managing to croak, ‘ Why?’

‘Underage drinking at an official feast is disrespectful to the Gods, they say.’

‘Since when has any player been disqualified for being disrespectful? Besides, it wasn’t my fault!’

Jesse shrugged. ‘Don’t matter so far as they’re concerned.’

Lex stared at him for a moment longer, trying to get a grip on the awful mixture of panic and rage rising up inside. Then he crossed the cell to grip the bars and shouted as loudly as he

could, ‘I demand to speak to someone in authority right now! Hey! Hey! CAN ANYBODY HEAR ME?’

‘Shut up, kid,’ came the muffled response from behind the closed door that led out to the office.

Lex scowled blackly. How old did he have to be and how many extraordinary things did he have to do before people stopped referring to him as kid?

‘Where the hell is Lady Luck?’ Lex fumed, rounding on Jesse again. ‘Have you seen her?’

The cowboy gave a lazy shrug. ‘Last time I saw her was at the feast.’

‘You mean she hasn’t been here to see me? Not once? Surely she doesn’t think I got drunk on purpose, does she?’

Before Jesse could answer, the office door opened and Lex whirled around expecting and hoping to see his patron Goddess, but seeing Mr Schmidt, dressed in a suit and carrying a briefcase, instead.

Lex stared at him, experiencing an uncomfortable moment of deja vu, for he had been locked up in this very prison right before the last Game and Schmidt had appeared on the scene unexpectedly then as well.

‘You’re not here to testify against me, are you?’ Lex demanded, looking at the lawyer through the bars.

‘The thought had crossed my mind, but no, I’m not. I’m here to help you.’

‘You mean you can get me out of prison and back into the Game?’ Lex asked excitedly, gripping the bars tightly.

‘I can get you out of prison,’ Schmidt replied, ‘but you’re going to have to get yourself back into the Game, I’m afraid.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘There was a special hearing in court today to decide what’s to become of you. Thaddeus and Kala were all for disqualifying you straight out but Lady Luck insisted on there being a hearing.’

‘Why in the name of the Gods wasn’t I there?’ Lex demanded. ‘Surely I deserve a say in the matter, don’t I? I mean, it was my hearing! What about due process? What about habeas corpus? What about the prosecution’s burden of proof? I should have had the chance to tell my side of the story!’

‘The hearing was set early? deliberately early, I should imagine. You weren’t in a? ah? fit state to attend. I volunteered to attend on your behalf.’

Lex pinched the bridge of his nose. He had a thumping headache and all this was not making him feel any better. ‘Did they come to a decision?’

‘The Gods are imposing a penalty round on you. Only if you complete it successfully will you be able to rejoin the Game.’

‘What about Jeremiah? Doesn’t he have to play a penalty round, too?’

‘There’s no proof that he spiked your drink.’

‘But he did spike my drink. He and his friends all did! You saw them!’

‘I saw one young man doing it; I never saw Jeremiah East himself in the act. However, I informed the court that it was my belief Mr East had shared some of the responsibility.’

‘And?’

‘He’s denying it and so the Gods are not prepared to do anything. Lady Luck wanted him disqualified but Thaddeus and Kala refused because there was no eye witness.’

Lex groaned and resisted the urge to shoot his arms through the bars in an attempt to grab the old lawyer by the throat. ‘For once in your life,’ he said between gritted teeth, ‘why couldn’t you just have lied?’

Schmidt gave him a disapproving look. ‘I’m not like you,’ he said coldly.

‘A fact for which I am eternally grateful!’ Lex snapped. ‘Fat lot of good you are! Why did you even go to the hearing at all if you weren’t going to bother to help me?’

Schmidt regarded him in silence for a moment before saying in that same frosty tone, ‘Seems to me that you’ve always managed perfectly well at helping yourself, Lex. So I don’t think I’ll give you this key the warden gave me a moment ago.’ He drew the cell key out of his pocket and held it up to the light. ‘I think I’ll just leave it here and you can get it yourself, and good luck to you.’

Instantly, Lex changed his tone to sound beseeching and repentant but Schmidt had never been taken in by these acts, and he wasn’t taken in now. Calmly ignoring Lex, he dropped the key on the floor outside the cell, just out of arm’s reach, and then turned away towards the exit.

‘You ungrateful wretch!’ Lex shouted after him. ‘How many times did I save your neck during the last Game?’

Schmidt glanced back over his shoulder, pointed at the key on the floor and said, ‘Now we’re quits.’ Then he disappeared through the door and was gone.

‘Of all the contemptible, lowlife, despicable things to do!’ Lex fumed. ‘I’ll get him for this!’

He got down on to his hands and knees and reached one arm through the bars but the key was out of his reach. ‘The way my luck’s going at the moment I might as well shoot myself and have done with it!’

‘Ah well, another couple of hours hanging out here won’t kill us,’ Jesse said calmly. ‘Try and relax.’

‘What’s the matter with you?’ Lex retracted his arm and then turned to glare at the cowboy. ‘Do you want to stay here in this vile cesspit?’

Jesse gazed about as if half expecting to find himself in different surroundings from the last time he looked. ‘Vile cesspit?’ he said. ‘This? Kid, you should see the prisons they got back west. And even then, prison life ain’t so bad. You’re warm and you got a roof over your head. Besides, there’s good eatin’ in prisons.’

‘There’s “good eatin’” on my ship, too! So come over here and give me a hand, you dolt! Your arms are longer than mine; you might be able to reach the key.’

But, although Jesse tried, the key was out of his reach, too, and, although Lex yelled for the guards until he was hoarse, it seemed that they were not in an accommodating mood? after all, they didn’t want to upset Lady Luck, but nor did they want to enrage Thaddeus and Kala. When Gods start squabbling, it is usually best for humans to stay well out of it.

When Lady Luck finally appeared, over an hour later, the first words out of her mouth were, ‘Oh, that dear man! Lex, however are we going to repay him?’

‘Eh? Who? What the heck are you talking about?’

‘Mr Schmidt, of course! We agreed to defer to an anonymous panel of human judges, you see, to make it fair, but I’m afraid I wasn’t doing a very good job of presenting our case and we were on the verge of losing them when the lawyer swept in and asked to be heard and he spoke so convincingly that the judges decided to give you another chance, Lex! Isn’t it wonderful? I shall certainly be sure to send that dear man a bit of extra good luck. We’re greatly indebted to him.’

This little speech only had the effect of annoying Lex even further, especially since Lady Luck had never had a good word to say about Schmidt when he and Lex had been playing in the Game together. It reminded him just how fickle her Ladyship really was and, considering the look she’d given Jesse when she met him, it made Lex nervous.

‘Brilliant! I’ll send him some roses or something once the Game is over!’ Lex said moodily. ‘Perhaps even a fruit basket, too! Now, if it’s not too much trouble, do you think you could see your way clear to passing me that key so that we can get out of here?’

The Goddess picked up the key and unlocked the door to let them out of the cell.

Lex stalked through the open door first, followed by Jesse.

‘Much obliged, ma’am,’ the cowboy said, tipping his hat to her, causing her to flutter girlishly in a way Lex found extremely irritating.

‘Don’t call her “ma’am”!’ he snapped. ‘She’s a Goddess, not some flouncing, gartered, powdered cancan strumpet in one of your cowboy saloons!’

‘Really, Lex,’ Lady Luck said peevishly, ‘you’re the most miserable company when you’re sulking like this.’

Lex scowled but bit his tongue. The truth was that he felt very much like hitting something. The Goddess of Luck left in a huff, saying that she would meet Lex back on the ship later on, when he was in a better mood, to discuss the penalty round.

‘Just get on the ship and start heading for the Jespa Mountains,’ she ordered before disappearing.

So Lex and Jesse made their way back to the ship in silence. Lex regretted being rude to her Ladyship at once, for it meant he had to walk back through the town himself rather than being magically put back straight on to the ship and he was utterly horrified to realise that people they passed in the streets were actually sniggering at him! Him! Like he was some sort of loser! Some no-hoper who was bound to die some horrible death or at the very least suffer some disfiguring accident in the very first round! All because he had let his guard down just long enough for Jeremiah East to spike his drink! It was almost more than Lex could bear and he had never been more utterly determined to beat someone in his life than he was to absolutely thrash Jeremiah in the upcoming Game.

He did his best to ignore the sniggering and pointing, and walked through the town with his head held high. Soon they were back on the ship preparing to depart for the Jespa Mountains. There were no cheering crowds, no screaming fans to see him off at the start of the Game? just a few dockhands dawdling about on the pier, eating their pies and smoking their cigarettes.

Lex threw the ivory Swann of Desareth into the basin on the bridge. With the ship then able to read his thoughts and respond to them, he went up on deck to check that all the griffins were on board before taking off. Unfortunately, Jeremiah was also on the deck of his own ship at that moment and, as the two ships were moored side by side, he was close enough to see Lex appear. The nobleman gave him a wave and called across a cheerful greeting. ‘Hello there, Trenty! Awfully sorry about last night, old chap. Bit of a misunderstanding! But don’t worry? if you faint again, I’ll catch you and earn myself some extra hero points!’

‘I can tell you’re a newbie,’ Lex called back in a voice of ice. ‘There’s no such thing as hero points, you idiot! There are just winner’s points. I’ll get you back for last night, though. Have no fears about that. You’ve no idea what you’ve started.’

Jeremiah just laughed and looked supremely unconcerned. Lex couldn’t stand talking to him a moment longer so he threw out his arms in a dramatic gesture and commanded the ship to rise. It shot up into the sky so fast that Lex’s hair was whipped back from his head. It occurred to him belatedly that he should probably have given Jesse some warning, but it had been worth it to cut Jeremiah’s laughter short and get a glimpse of the startled look that came over his face.

Lex knew? as a cheat and a fraud? that it was always a good thing to be underestimated by people. It was definitely a good thing to be underestimated by a fellow competitor. But for some reason having Jeremiah East look down at him like that hurt his pride. As the enchanted ship sailed up into the clouds, Lex sternly told himself that, not only must he accept Jeremiah’s low opinion of him, but that he must cultivate it and, at all costs, resist the temptation to show off like that again.