Lex Trent versus the Gods

CHAPTER NINE

‘Eat your breakfast!’ Schmidt snapped irritably, thrusting a stale end of bread towards Lex.

‘I’m not hungry,’ Lex said, brushing the bread aside. ‘Worry about your own breakfast.’

He had never been able to eat before stealing, either. It wasn’t nerves so much as a heightened sense of anticipated exhilaration.

‘I’m not concerned about your health, you stupid boy, I simply don’t want to experience another hideously distasteful body swap.’

‘Oh.’ Lex was annoyed with himself for forgetting.

‘Eat your bread,’ the lawyer repeated, throwing over the pathetic crust.

Lex caught it and sat down on the white furs, feeling disgruntled. It was not even light outside yet. They had to be prepared for the dawn when the first round of this gloriously divine Game would begin.

‘So how does this work, anyway?’ Schmidt asked from where he was sat across the bridge, picking at his own slice of bread.

‘What?’

‘This Goddess thing. The Goddess of Luck clearly favours you. That’s how you’re able to behave so disgrace-fully and get away with it.’

‘Spare me,’ Lex sneered.

‘So how far does it go?’ Schmidt continued. ‘I would have thought that even the most gutless, useless person could win a Game if they were lucky enough.’

‘Well, yes, but you must remember that her Ladyship’s brain is so much smaller than the other deities we are playing against.’

Jezra and the Judge, probably two of the most dangerous opponents possible. Dangerous… Lex’s pulse quickened with pleasure just at the thought of it.

‘Luck will take us so far,’ he went on, ‘but a chopped-off head is still a chopped-off head however lucky you might be, and her Ladyship is not always the most reliable-’

He broke off as the ship suddenly began to rise, leaving the now unfrozen sea behind as it shot up into the sky.

‘What are you doing?’ Schmidt demanded.

‘I’m not doing it!’ Lex replied.

In a matter of moments they had burst through the clouds into the streaming sunlight above. Lex jumped to his feet and strode to the window. There was a huge castle looming before them, anchored to a cloud and made — entirely — out of sand.

‘It’s a sandcastle!’ Lex exclaimed.

He turned from the window, ignoring whatever questions Schmidt was firing at him, and ran out onto the deck to get a better view. As soon as he opened the mirrored door, the heat hit him with all the force of a decidedly physical thing.

‘Heetha’s sun,’ he croaked.

‘I’m afraid so, dear,’ Lady Luck said from where she was standing at the railings. ‘It’s the most devilish bad luck. The sun is bad enough on the ground but at this height it could be quite dangerous. You are going to have to be careful.’

‘Well, all the players will be affected just the same by it,’ Lex said, joining her at the rails.

He had never experienced this kind of heat before. It felt like he was inside an oven and it was quickly becoming unbearable.

‘Yes, dear, but I’m afraid that horrible little lawyer is rather going to disadvantage you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Your brother has Zachary, who is merely middle aged and healthier than Lucius is himself. The Judge’s player has Theba, who I understand is a gangster of some kind but you have an old man. Old men struggle more with the heat, you know. I do hope he is going to be able to keep up. I do not intend to lose this Game, Lex.’

It was the first time that Lex had ever heard anything of menace in her Ladyship’s voice. ‘He’ll keep up,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about that. So what is this, anyway?’ Lex asked, motioning at the huge sky castle looming before them.

‘Wait for the others,’ the Goddess said. ‘Jezra and the Judge are coming here. We’re the first to arrive. There’s your brother now.’

Lex looked to where the Goddess was pointing and didn’t bother to stifle the sneer.

‘What is he doing?’

‘He’s trying to land that thing on your ship, I think,’ Lady Luck said happily. ‘This should be most entertaining to watch, Lex.’

Lex grinned as his brother tried to manoeuvre the drayfus onto the deck of the enchanter’s ship. Drayfii looked like shaggy hippos with wings. They were extremely placid and obedient creatures. That was what made them good for farm work. And this one had probably been born and bred on the Trent farm. It did not understand sky castles and enchanted ships and it was clearly scared out of its wits. Lucius was trying to get it to fly towards the great silver ship but the creature was obviously unsure which was worse — the ship or the giant castle — and was hovering uncertainly between them, rolling its eyes in fright.

‘They might drop altogether in a minute,’ her Ladyship said smugly.

Drayfii were not used to long flights, especially with so much weight on their backs and in the glare of such a ferocious sun. Lex turned slightly as the door behind them opened and Schmidt stepped out, gasping at the force of the heat. He managed a stiff bow when he saw the Goddess on the deck and then exclaimed in horror when he joined them at the railings and saw the struggling drayfus. Its long shaggy fur must have been making the beast overwhelmingly hot and it certainly seemed likely that it would drop out of the sky at any moment now.

‘Can’t you do something, my Lady?’ Schmidt asked. ‘They’re going to plunge to their deaths in a minute.’

But just as the beast stopped beating its wings, the most extraordinarily strong gust of wind threw the drayfus and its passengers over the side of the enchanted ship. The animal collapsed in a steaming, wheezing heap and the two people were thrown from its back.

‘Now wasn’t that a fortunate thing?’ the Lady murmured, disappointed. ‘That was cheating, Jezra.’

Schmidt hurried over at once to where Lucius was lying curled on the metal deck. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, grabbing him by the elbow and pulling him to his feet. There was a nasty burn across Lucius’s cheek, down one of his forearms and across the palm of one hand where his skin had made contact with the scorching surface of the steel ship.

‘I’m okay. It’s just… these burns,’ Lucius whimpered, searching round in vain for something cold to press against his blistering skin.

‘Go find him some ice or something, Lex,’ Schmidt ordered.

‘Ice?’ Lex repeated incredulously, gazing around at the heat haze and the towering sandcastle. ‘What do you think I am, a magician?’

‘You’ve explored the ship. There must be something cold in there. At least get them both some water. The heat out here is-’

‘I’m not going to risk missing the beginning of the round,’ Lex said firmly.

‘I don’t think you’ve quite got the hang of this Gaming business, lawyer,’ the Lady said, gazing at him coldly. ‘These two are the opposition. Any misfortune of theirs is beneficial to us.’

Schmidt hesitated, acutely aware of the importance of not angering the Gods. ‘Forgive me, my Lady, but I merely meant to say that-’

‘Morning, friends. What glorious weather with which to begin our little frolic,’ Jezra said breezily, striding across the deck. Lex had not even noticed him arrive. He was dressed in the usual high-necked blue jacket. Like the Lady, he did not ever seem to wear different clothes. In fact, the Gods always looked the same when they took human form. It was also clear that they did not feel the sun as the others did. Jezra was wearing a lot of clothing, but he was not sweating and his long blond hair was dry and hardly moved in the heat haze.

‘Here — you look like you could use a drink,’ he said, reaching out to Lucius with a hand that was suddenly holding a tall glass of lemonade. It looked good. Lex could see the ice piled up inside. There was even a paper umbrella.

‘I’d offer you one, Lex, but you know how these Games are.’

Lex nodded, feeling embarrassed at the spectacle Lucius was making of himself as he pressed the cold glass to the burns on his face and arm, spilling some of the drink in the process. Of course, the lemon in it only agitated the burns even more.

‘What about me, your Lordship?’ Lucius’s companion asked.

He was a large, brawny man, in his forties with hair that was starting to grey. Zachary did not look like an arrogant bastard. But Lex knew that he was one.

‘You’re of no importance to me,’ the God replied.

‘What’s he here for, anyway?’ Lex asked. He couldn’t stop the sneer this time, for all his new-found discipline.

‘In case this one dies,’ Jezra replied, motioning to Lucius with his thumb. ‘That’s what the companions are for; didn’t you know?’

Lex rolled his eyes and said, ‘Of course I know!’ He had, after all, had the whole thing explained to him by his Goddess. But he suspected Schmidt hadn’t known for he noticed out of the corner of his eye that the lawyer was looking distinctly uncomfortable at the revelation. ‘I meant what is he doing here? I don’t want him on my ship.’

‘ Your ship?’ Jezra repeated with a soft laugh. ‘My, my, that’s a little presumptuous, isn’t it?’

‘Don’t be so rude, Lex!’ Lucius said.

‘Oh, go to hell!’ Lex snapped. Then he cursed himself for the lapse of control. There was just something about his brother that was forever rubbing him up the wrong way. And of course, the fact that they were twins was an insult that he was sure he would never quite overcome.

‘The Judge will be here shortly,’ Jezra said. ‘And then the first round will commence and you’re welcome to try and gut each other like fish, if you like. But until then I’m afraid we all have to be civilised for just a little longer. Just out of curiosity, Lex, how did you manage to get this ship?’

‘Wouldn’t you love to know, Jezra?’ Lady Luck said before Lex could answer.

‘I don’t pretend not to be impressed, my Lady, but you must be aware that there will be trouble to pay later. Still it will make the Game more interesting, I suppose.’

Lex turned at the sound of a door closing and realised that his employer was no longer on the deck.

‘Where’s Schmidt?’ he asked.

‘I think the heat might be getting to him,’ Jezra said, smirking at the Goddess. ‘It looks like the scales may yet be balanced after all, your Ladyship. How careless of you not to explain to Trent how the Binding Bracelets worked.’

‘It wasn’t careless, Jezra. The companion backup is merely a technicality in Lex’s case, so it hardly matters who he brought. Not only will he live through the Game but he’ll come through it with barely a scratch on him. You know that he’s a natural, or else you would not have let me trick you so easily into choosing his useless brother.’

Lex felt an immense swell of pride at that. The Gods were bickering over him. After a moment, Jezra gave an almost imperceptible nod. ‘Yes, well, we shall see.’

The swishing, leathery sound alerted them to the prophet’s arrival. Lex looked up and saw a giant desert bat wheeling overhead. They were huge things, with a wingspan of over twenty feet, impervious to the heat, completely blind and yet able to smell water from several miles away. They were, in fact, the perfect creatures for such a climate. But they still could not compare to Lex’s beautiful enchanted ship with its air-conditioned kitchens and bathrooms and wardrobes and he felt an immense sense of gleeful satisfaction at the fact that he was so far ahead of the others before they had even begun. He had been born for this kind of thing! The huge bat had ample room to land on the deck of the gleaming, metal ship, swooping down with an elegance that was in sharp contrast to the drayfus’s botched landing. The prophet slid from the giant thing’s back and stood there in silence, facing them. A thin, rather greasy man, about thirty years old, scrambled off after him and Lex assumed that this must be the prophet’s companion — Theba, the gangster. He certainly seemed like a gangster. Lex didn’t like the look of the shifty, resentful expression in the man’s eyes one bit and made a note to keep an eye on him because he looked just the sort for foul play. And Lex should know, for it takes one to know one.

A bare second later, the Judge appeared beside the other two. He was dressed in the same grey robes and golden mask as before and, once again, he didn’t utter a word to either of the other Gods or even his own player. It occurred to Lex that perhaps this was why the Judge had chosen a prophet — what with having their tongues cut out they were not exactly the talkative types either.

‘Now that everyone’s here,’ Jezra said, stepping forward, ‘we are ready to commence the first round. You shall all be provided with crystal balls for remote transmission during the course of the Game.’

He opened his fist to reveal the pocket-sized crystal ball, which he then held out to Lucius. Lady Luck held an identical one out to Lex and the Judge pressed one into the gloved hand of the prophet.

‘Are we being broadcast to the stadiums now?’ Lucius asked, peering nervously into his own dark ball.

‘Of course not,’ Jezra replied impatiently. ‘We don’t broadcast footage live. Haven’t done for years. It’s better for everyone all round if a bit of editing is done first.’

Lex managed not to snort. He knew it was vanity on the part of the Gods. They all wanted their players to look fearless. They did not want them breaking down in tears in the middle of a Game, so anything like that would… hit the cutting room floor, so to speak.

‘Now, this,’ Jezra gestured dramatically to the looming castle, ‘is a sky castle, as you can see — a relic from the days of heroes. There is a broken mirror inside. I would like you to fix it. The first one to do so, wins.’

Lex said nothing, keenly suspicious of the seemingly simple task.

‘Is that all?’ Lucius asked in obvious relief.

‘That is all,’ Jezra confirmed, spreading his hands and smiling an honest man’s smile that Lex did not trust one bit.

‘Well, that doesn’t sound too dangerous,’ Lucius said, glancing at Zachary who merely nodded.

‘From here on in, the help we can give our playing pieces is limited,’ Jezra said. ‘I trust we all understand that?’

The Lady and the Judge both nodded.

‘After all, if we were to use the full extent of our powers,’ Jezra went on deliberately, ‘we would, of course, easily destroy each other’s players but no one would actually win. And I believe that is why we are all here?’

Lucius was looking quite cheered at this but the distrust and suspicion that was rife in the air was quite obvious to Lex. The Gods were cheaters too, almost by definition.

‘All right. Let it begin,’ Jezra said.

He and the Judge disappeared and, at once, Lucius and Zachary were running towards their exhausted drayfus, and the prophet and Theba were running towards their bat and, after some persuasion on Zachary’s part, the animals were rushing off towards the castle as if this was merely some kind of race.

‘How simple minded,’ Lex murmured.

‘What do you mean?’ the Lady demanded. ‘Don’t just stand there, Lex, get a move on; they’re going to beat you!’

‘Jezra is the God of Wit and Daring, my Lady,’ Lex said patiently. ‘His round would never hinge on such a simple thing as fixing a mirror. There could be anything inside there. I certainly don’t intend to rush in unprepared. ’

‘I suppose you have a point.’

‘Don’t worry, I fully intend to win this round,’ Lex replied, his mind already going back to a story his grandfather had once told him about a huge castle that hung in the sky. Then he turned and sauntered back to the door, relishing the cold air that blew out from within when he opened it. He was a little worried about the heat. His own clothes were damp with sweat from the few minutes that they had been out on deck and he never had liked Heetha’s sun, always doing his best to avoid it and it was even worse at this altitude. The sun could make you slow and sluggish. But the beauty of it was that Lucius was a total pansy when it came to heat and the prophet probably wouldn’t fare too well with all the layers of black clothing he was wearing. He even had gloves for Gods’ sake! The other players weren’t prepared, they didn’t have anything with them. Lex laughed softly. This was going to be all too easy.

‘So what do we have to do?’ Schmidt asked when Lex entered the bridge.

‘Fix a mirror,’ Lex replied briefly. ‘Why don’t you ask Lady Luck if you can stay here?’

‘I’m not staying here!’ Schmidt protested.

‘Why not?’ Lex asked, glancing at him in surprise. ‘It’s hot and dangerous out there, you know.’

‘If you die then I will have to complete the Game by myself!’

‘Oh that,’ Lex said dismissively. ‘Don’t worry about that; I won’t die. I’m going to win.’

‘Convince yourself if you want to, but I’m not staying here. For all you know you might need a second person in there.’

Lex hesitated. It was a possibility. ‘I suppose you’re right. Well, you’d better hurry up and get ready if you want to come.’

‘I don’t want to come!’ Schmidt snapped. ‘But I don’t have any choice, thanks to you! I should be at Lucas, Jones and Schmidt right now preparing for the Johnson case. If you’ve got some kind of death wish… if you want to die, then that’s your business, but I’m absolutely astounded that anyone could be so outrageously selfish as to drag somebody else unwillingly into such-’

‘Oh give it a rest,’ Lex said mildly. ‘I didn’t know how the bracelets worked. I can assure you that I would much rather be playing this Game on my own. But I won’t be slowed down by anyone. Meet me on the deck in fifteen minutes.’

The sky castle had a row of steel rings set into one side. From the deck, Lex could see the drayfus and the desert bat already tethered, at a safe distance from one another, to a couple of these rings. Although they were clearly meant for animals, Lex saw no reason why the ship could not be safely anchored there too and, as they approached, a rather delicious idea occurred to him. He closed his eyes and revelled in the sensation of the boat shifting in response to his thoughts. It made him feel God-like.

‘You’re going too close to the drayfus, Lex,’ Schmidt said from where he was standing beside him. ‘Pull back.’

Lex ignored him but opened his eyes to watch the entertainment. The drayfus had been resting on the platform, but it raised its large head now, watching the impending ship in alarm.

‘Pull back!’ Schmidt ordered.

‘Shut up; you’re ruining the moment.’

‘You’re going to hit it!’

‘I’m only going to scare it. Just watch; it’ll be fun, I promise.’

As the ship got closer, the drayfus at last staggered to its feet and tried to fly away. Unfortunately, it was tethered to a steel ring. But whilst the ring might have been made of steel, the castle was made of sand. Sandcastles, as every small child knows, are not built to have huge slavering beasts tethered to their walls. After some moments of agitated and terrified straining, the ring tore away from the side of the castle in a shower of sand and the drayfus flapped off, probably profoundly relieved to be free.

Lex laughed. ‘I told you it would be fun.’

There were many doors into the castle. Most of them were huge, grand, ornate things. There was one door in particular, around the front, that was clearly the main door and Lex guessed that Lucius and the prophet would have entered via this one. Schmidt headed for it automatically but Lex ignored it and set off round the back in search of the obligatory, innocuous little back door. He smiled when he found it.

‘Are you sure that’s right?’ Schmidt asked, coming up behind him.

‘Oh, no, it’s all wrong,’ Lex replied. ‘They won’t be expecting us to use this door, so hopefully this route will have fewer traps.’

‘Traps?’ Schmidt asked sharply. ‘I thought we just had to fix a mirror?’

‘Yes, but there will be traps, trust me. Keep your eyes open.’

Lex grasped the metal handle and dragged open the door to reveal about twenty people all rushing madly towards them… Well, not quite. None of the people were moving. They were statues — frozen in a desperate rush towards the door, with expressions of abject terror on their carved faces. As if they were being chased…

‘What a curious choice of decor,’ Schmidt remarked.

‘Hmm. Curious,’ Lex responded at once, taking particular care to keep his voice level, for the lawyer clearly did not realise that these were no mere statues but something much, much more sinister.. One might call that an irresponsible attitude on Lex’s part. After all, if Schmidt wasn’t warned about what was in the castle with them then he would not be adequately prepared to defend himself… But they’d be all right as long as they stayed in the cold rooms.

The long sandy corridor stretched away into the castle — the walls, ceiling and floor were made entirely of sand, with wooden brackets on the walls holding flickering torches to provide some light. And there were doors all the way along the corridor — blue or red, which meant that Lex’s hunch had been right. He put down his bag and pulled out two fur coats.

‘Here,’ he said, holding one up for the lawyer.

Schmidt stared at him. ‘What on earth did you bring coats for? The heat would kill us!’

‘Just put it on,’ Lex replied distractedly.

The top, bottom or centre? The broken mirror was bound to be in one of those places. As the top of the castle would be the hardest place to reach, Lex was guessing that it would be there. And to reach the top, they would have to pass through the blue doors, avoiding the red ones very carefully.

Lex pulled on his own coat, swung the bag back onto his shoulders and moved towards the shiny blue door, hardly hearing Schmidt’s complaints in his greedy preoccupation with what treasures he might find in the course of the Game. He pulled open the blue door and Schmidt fell silent as he stared over the top of Lex’s head at the huge icy room before them. Light poured in from the massive windows and cold air rushed towards them, shards of frost clinging to their clothes and hair. The entire room was made of ice, including the huge spiral staircase that curved upwards. Lex smiled smugly at the look of amazement on his employer’s face. ‘Put the coat on,’ he repeated.

‘How did you know?’ Schmidt asked, struggling into the coat as Lex stepped carefully into the room, testing the floor as he went. ‘How did you know the castle would be ice inside?’

‘It’s not entirely. The blue doors lead to ice and the red ones lead to sand and lava.’

‘But how did you know? I don’t remember sky castles appearing in any of the recent Games. You haven’t done this before, have you?’ Schmidt asked suspiciously.

Lex sighed. ‘My grandfather told me, okay?’

Alistair Trent had been a great Chronicler in his day. Fifty years ago, Adventurers were still exploring the Lands Above, but now that enough information had been gathered to create a comprehensive map, people no longer went exploring like they used to, because they could learn about faraway places by reading the Chronicles in the library.

Of course it cost a lot of money to raise an exploratory expedition and so there had only ever been gentlemen Adventurers. The only way for less well-off men to go was by selling their services as a writer, Chronicling the adventure as it happened and then donating the book to the library once it was over. Alistair Trent had been on many different adventures as a young man with several different Adventurers, including the famous Carey East. Lex and Lucius had often delighted as children in the stories Alistair would tell them and, when Lex had first moved to the Wither City, he had spent many an evening in the library reading the Chronicles his grandfather had written, marvelling that the man who’d raised them had really done all those incredible things.

‘Just be quiet and follow me,’ Lex went on. ‘There isn’t time to explain everything to you as we go, so I’m afraid you’ll just have to trust that I know what I’m doing. We need to get to the top,’ he said, pointing to the staircase. ‘Preferably without breaking our necks.’

It wouldn’t be easy. The stairs and balustrade were made of ice. That would make the stairs almost impossible to balance on and the balustrade painful to grip without gloves. Lex reached into his pocket and drew out a pair of the thick gloves that he had found with the coats on the ship.

‘There are gloves in the coat pocket,’ he said to Schmidt, squinting up at the staircase and trying to work out how high it was. Three storeys perhaps? He walked over to the base and gazed up thoughtfully.

‘So what’s your plan?’ Schmidt asked, coming up behind him.

‘What?’

‘How are you going to cheat to get up there?’

‘Cheat?’ Lex smiled. ‘I’m afraid that when it comes to stairs, Mr Schmidt, there is no way to cheat. They just have to be climbed.’

‘But they’re made of ice, you stupid boy.’

‘Yes.’

Lex considered the stairs for a moment longer, trying to think of something that would make the climb easier or, failing that, at least make it possible.

‘Why don’t we fly up?’ he asked at last.

‘Good idea, but for the one obvious flaw.’

‘There’s a desert bat tethered outside, didn’t you see it?’

‘You want to steal the prophet’s bat?’ Schmidt asked, aghast.

Lex wrinkled his nose in distaste. ‘I do wish you’d stop using that word. We would only be borrowing it.’

‘Isn’t it enough that you’ve already lost your brother’s drayfus?’

‘No, it’s never enough, Monty. You wait here, I’m going to fetch it.’

‘It won’t work, anyway. Desert bats have a very low tolerance to the cold. Besides which, they’re incredibly vicious towards anyone who isn’t their handler.’

Lex stopped halfway to the door and turned back around. Schmidt silently cursed himself. Why had he spoken like that? Now the insufferable little know-it-all’s eyes were positively ablaze with curiosity.

‘You’re right. How do you know that?’ Lex asked, walking back to the stairs. ‘I didn’t know that desert bats were required reading for lawyers.’

‘I don’t know, I just assume. It is a logical assumption,’ Schmidt said defensively.

Lex said nothing. But Schmidt realised that he knew he’d just clumsily tried to hide something from him. And Lex knew that Schmidt knew that he knew. What a nightmare this whole situation was!

‘Well, it looks like you’re right,’ Schmidt said briskly. ‘The stairs will have to be tackled the old-fashioned way.’

‘For Gods’ sake, why can’t you keep your damn balance for more than ten bloody seconds!’ Lex snarled, almost tearing his hair out in exasperation.

They were just over halfway up the staircase, about twenty feet above the cold ice floor below. The going had been painfully slow for Lex. There is no fast way to ascend an ice staircase — no fraudster can alter this material fact, no matter how talented he might be. By clinging to the railings, they were managing to stay upright — most of the time — but slipping on the ice was unavoidable and the effort of climbing required the whole body to be constantly tensed. Lex was feeling tired himself but the fuss that the lawyer was making was absolutely disgraceful. He just kept on falling over! And what was worse, he was actually letting go of the balustrade when he did, so that a couple of times he had actually fallen down a few stairs before managing to stop himself.

‘We seem to be taking one step forward for every two steps back!’ Lex exclaimed. ‘Why won’t you just hold onto the rail when you slip? You’d stay upright then. I mean it doesn’t take all that much intelligence to grasp that simple fact, does it?’

The lawyer was out of breath and Lex could tell from the way he was moving that he had hurt himself when he’d fallen. What an infuriating old idiot he was!

‘You’re slowing me down!’ Lex hissed. ‘Stop being so obstinate and hold on to the damned balustrade!’

Lex turned to continue the climb when Schmidt did something utterly unexpected. He pulled a pork pie out of his bag… and bit into it. The body switch was instantaneous. Lex sucked in his breath in startled pain. He was now standing further down the stairs in the lawyer’s body. Every muscle seemed to be on fire.

‘You greedy idiot,’ he wheezed, stifling the familiar distaste at hearing himself talk with Schmidt’s voice. ‘We have to eat together, remember? Get back down here and finish the pie with me.’

‘You think you can do so much better,’ Schmidt said in an odd tone from above him. ‘I’d like to see you prove it.’

Lex looked up, hardy believing his ears. ‘You switched us on purpose?’

‘Yes, I want to learn. Show me how it’s done, Lex.’

‘All right,’ Lex retorted, never able to resist a challenge. ‘All right, I’ll show you how it’s done, old man. Although really, for something so simple, I would have thought that a verbal explanation would have been more than sufficient.’

Lex stuffed the pork pie into his pocket and then gripped the banister in his gloved hand. Or tried to. He glanced down with a frown. The old man’s hands were shaking. Lex silently willed them to stop. It didn’t work. Scowling, Lex struggled his way up a few stairs before his feet inevitably slipped on the ice and, despite his best efforts, he was unable to retain a firm enough grip on the banister to prevent himself from falling over. He swore irritably and dragged himself back upright. After several more minutes, he was getting rather sick of continually bruising himself and called up to the lawyer who was now several stairs ahead of him, ‘Okay, you’ve made your point.’

‘My dear boy,’ Schmidt called back, ‘I haven’t even begun to make it.’

And the lawyer quickened his pace, leaving Lex toiling further behind.

‘Hey!’ Lex shouted. ‘Give me back my body, you bastard!’ When Schmidt continued to ignore him, Lex proceeded to shout insults in the most foul language he could think of before grudgingly deciding to conserve his energy for the rest of what was clearly going to be an exceedingly torturous climb. When he at last reached the top, Schmidt had clearly been waiting for him for some time — he was sitting at the top of the stairs with Lex’s bag at his feet. Lex took a bite out of the half-eaten pie and then passed it to the lawyer. It was decidedly satisfying to see his employer wince on arrival in his own body once again.

‘You made your point,’ Lex growled, standing and picking up his bag. ‘But I wouldn’t do that again if I were you. Trust me, if it becomes a contest, I can make your life much more painful than you could ever make mine.’

‘I believe you,’ Schmidt replied solemnly.

‘Glad to hear it,’ Lex snapped.

He turned away to survey their new surroundings, calmly finishing off the pie as he did so.

‘Well?’ the lawyer asked coldly after a moment.

‘It looks as if I may have made a rather horrible mistake,’ Lex said.

They were standing on a large, circular upper floor. That was all right; Lex had expected some kind of landing. But the problem… the real problem… was that there were no doors.

‘It’s a dead end,’ Schmidt said flatly. ‘We’re going to have to get all the way back down those stairs again.’

‘It was very kind of you,’ Lex remarked, ‘to allow me to finish the climb up here rather than tell me it was a dead end as soon as you found out.’

‘What can I say? I have the soul of a teacher,’ Schmidt sneered. ‘I did not want to interrupt your lesson before it was finished, Mr Trent.’

‘Well, I’m not going back down those stairs,’ Lex declared.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Not after we’ve climbed so high. No way.’

‘But this is a dead end!’

‘Not for long,’ Lex replied.

He put his bag on the floor and started rummaging through it. By the time he had pulled out a sledgehammer, a huge ice pick and a rather bemused-looking penguin, Schmidt was beginning to realise that this was no ordinary backpack.

‘What the hell is that thing?’ he asked.

‘Magic bag,’ Lex said. ‘I took it from the ship. It’s bigger inside than out. Isn’t it cool?’ he said with a grin. ‘Just think, if you hadn’t thrown my old bag away I never would have found it.’

‘Your penguin’s leaving,’ Schmidt said, for want of anything more sensible to say.

Lex glanced up with a frown as the creature shuffled off down the stairs, its feet slapping loudly on the ice.

‘I didn’t pack him. I guess there’s a few things in here that the enchanter left behind.’

‘Look, you’re not seriously thinking about hacking your way through the wall with those things, are you?’ Schmidt asked, gesturing to the ice pick and sledgehammer.

‘Oh, don’t be stupid,’ Lex replied mildly. ‘I was looking for this.’ And he pulled from the bag a tall, pointed enchanter’s hat. It was silver with the usual embroidered moons and stars.

‘That’s what your brilliant mind has come up with, is it? A hat? Thank the heavens, all our problems are solved!’

‘Or soon will be at any rate,’ Lex muttered.

He lifted the hat over his head but froze when Schmidt cried out in alarm, ‘You’re not thinking of wearing it, are you?’

Lex looked puzzled. ‘Why not? Is silver not my colour?’

‘The enchanter will be angry,’ Schmidt warned.

‘What the enchanter doesn’t know,’ Lex replied cheerfully, ‘won’t hurt him.’

And he lowered the hat onto his head, grinning at the way Schmidt flinched as if he was expecting flames to burst from its pointed tip.

‘You worry too much, Monty.’

‘Well, what good will it do you, anyway?’

‘The enchanters keep some of their power in their hats,’ Lex said, glancing at him. ‘Don’t they, sir?’

Schmidt raised an eyebrow. He was testing him! The little brat was testing him!

‘Do they, Lex?’

‘Yes,’ Lex replied. ‘They do. I thought you might have known.’

‘It’s not my business to understand the ways of the enchanters any more than it is yours! But these hats were not made for humans. We are not used to magic the way they are. It might be dangerous to-’

‘Thank you, Mr Schmidt, consider your duty of care towards me discharged. I have been duly warned. Now, let’s see about these walls.’

Lex looked at the curving ice wall that surrounded them on the circular landing. There was no way of knowing what lay beyond. They might be able to break through into another part of the upper castle or they might blast through to find nothing but more solid ice before them or a gaping drop to the floor below. It would be safer to go back down the ice staircase and start again somewhere else. Explosions are never a good idea when the superstructure of a building consists almost entirely of sand.

Lex did not know exactly how to use the hat, or even if he could use it, but it was certainly worth a try before resorting to the ice picks. He held out his hands, palms facing towards the walls, the way he had seen the enchanters do, and spoke the first magic word that came into his mind. ‘ Alakazam! ’

The wall imploded.

Which was ultimately a good thing, but the way the floor trembled was a little worrying. Schmidt and Lex both slipped over on the ice, despite clinging to the banister. A large crack appeared down the middle of the floor and icy dust rose up from it and fell from the ceiling. For a moment, with the ice trembling beneath him, Lex was forced to seriously contemplate the possibility that the entire staircase would collapse. Fortunately, however, moments passed and the staircase remained more or less intact. What was more, it was clear that the explosion had gone right through the wall and out the other side to where they now had a clear view of a long sand bridge. Heat was pouring out from the gap in waves and Lex could see that the icy floor nearest the wall was already beginning to melt. Without speaking to one another, Lex and Schmidt very carefully and tentatively dragged themselves towards the door, wincing as the ice groaned when they passed over the crack down the middle.

When they at last reached the safety of the sandy floor on the other side, Schmidt rounded on Lex, almost foaming at the mouth. ‘Alakazam? Alakazam? Did you have any idea at all what you were doing back there? Take that hat off before you kill somebody!’

‘What’s your problem? It worked, didn’t it?’

But he raised his hands to the hat anyway, intending to remove it. ‘Uh oh,’ he said, tugging at the hat. ‘I, uh… can’t get it off.’

‘Can’t get it off?’ Schmidt repeated, looking horrified. ‘Can’t get it off?’

‘Can’t get it off, yes, that’s what I said!’ Lex replied, feeling irritated and just the tiniest bit alarmed. It must have been because he’d used the magic on it. After all, the hat had come off fine when he’d tried it on before.

‘I warned you not to put it on. Here, let me try,’ the lawyer said, gripping the hat and trying to pull it from Lex’s head.

‘Oh, never mind the hat for now,’ Lex said after several rather undignified moments of pulling and tugging. ‘We’ll deal with it after this round.’

‘I don’t like it,’ Schmidt said.

Neither did Lex but he wasn’t about to admit his discomfort to the lawyer. The truth was that he had only ever expected to be wearing the hat for a few moments. He felt vulnerable with it stuck to his head like this… almost as if the enchanter might be able to sense the fact that he was wearing it. For all Lex knew, the enchanters might indeed possess such a sensitivity. And there was no getting away from the fact that he had stolen the enchanter’s ship. He shivered involuntarily. He had always intended to steal something from an enchanter one day — some tiny little thing that probably wouldn’t be missed for a very long time, if it was missed at all — but a huge, powerful ship stuffed full of valuables was something altogether different and, for an instant, Lex experienced the disquieting fear that he might be in over his head this time. He shook these fears off hastily. What was done was done and he must keep a clear head for the Game.

He turned his attention to their new surroundings. They had broken into one of the sandy rooms and at the moment the heat was making a pleasant change from the frozen iciness before but Lex knew that that would change pretty quickly. They both stripped off their fur coats and stuffed them into Lex’s magic bag. It was a relief to feel sand underfoot again. Unlike the previous room, this one had no windows, but the same flickering torches in brackets were on the walls, just as they had seen in the corridor on the way into the castle. There was a sand bridge stretched across the length of another huge room, suspended some thirty feet in the air with nothing but more sand stretched out beneath them. Lex didn’t particularly like the look of that bridge. There were no railings to hang on to and no obvious pillars supporting it. But they had to get across to the other side somehow and the sand staircase behind them only led back down, not up.

‘Well, at least the sand should be easier to walk on,’ Schmidt was saying. ‘I don’t know why we didn’t just go through the sandy rooms to begin with; anything’s got to be easier than trying to walk on ice.’

But ice is solid, Mr Schmidt, Lex thought. Sand is not. He didn’t speak aloud. After all, that would not have been at all conducive to persuading the lawyer to cross the bridge. Besides which, he had already spotted another couple of stone people down there…