Lex Trent versus the Gods

CHAPTER NINETEEN

They were put back in the same place that Lex and Schmidt had left, just above where the dead griffin lay, not too far from the top. Lex expected Lucius to start cringing in terror at actually being on the Space Ladders but he seemed to have used up his fear for the day whilst in the Lands Beneath. As they still had some way to climb, Lex rummaged about in his bag for the first-aid box he’d brought and handed the ferret to Schmidt whilst he bandaged his twin’s arms.

‘Thanks,’ Lucius said softly.

‘No problem,’ Lex replied. He glanced over at the ferret hanging hopelessly in Schmidt’s hands and felt an uncomfortable pang of guilt. ‘Look, Lucius, I’ll change Zachary back tomorrow, okay? The hat isn’t safe for humans and I’ve already used it once today so-’

‘Lex! The hat!’ Schmidt said in sudden alarm.

Whilst they’d been in the Lands Beneath there’d been no danger from the enchanter, but now that they were back on the Space Ladders, there was the very real danger that he would be coming after them. And by this time, it was probably safe to say that he would be very, very pissed off indeed. Lex hastily took a deep breath and held it for twenty seconds until the hat fell off.

But it was too late. The enchanter appeared on the platform above them and anger seemed to be emanating from him in palpable waves of wrath. There was no mercy or hesitation in his cold blue eyes and Lex could tell just by looking at him that the enchanter wasn’t even going to shout or gloat or taunt first — he just wanted Lex dead.

Without thinking about it, Lex jumped onto the platform below and slithered down several ladders to get to where the dead griffin lay. He had some vague idea that he might be able to get to the sword that was still buried in Zoey’s chest and use it to defend himself. If not then at least he had drawn the enchanter away from the others.

He quickly ran to the griffin’s side and pulled the glittering sword from her body, but it was so heavy that it was all he could do to hold the thing. When he turned around, the enchanter was standing on the platform behind him, although Lex hadn’t heard him come down the ladders.

‘Lex Trent,’ the enchanter said coldly. ‘I thought you would be taller. Older. Capable of holding a sword.’

The sword was so heavy it was making Lex’s arms tremble. It was quite clear to both of them that he wouldn’t be able to do any damage with it. So with a shrug, Lex let the sword fall to the ground with a clatter. You couldn’t beat an enchanter with a sword anyway. The magician linked his long fingers around his staff and said, ‘How would you like to die?’

‘I get a choice?’ Lex asked in as bright a voice as he could manage. ‘Look, I’m sorry about the ship. We didn’t make any mess. I’d

… I’d be happy to pay you a-’

‘No one steals from an enchanter! I can promise you that you will suffer dearly for what you’ve done.’ He took a step closer to Lex, towering over him in a distinctly threatening manner. ‘Now, what death do you fear the most?’

Although he automatically put up his hands to shield himself, Lex was unable to prevent the magician from placing long fingers alongside his temples. Then there was a brief, but unpleasant, slideshow of images that ran through the air above their heads as the enchanter rifled through the unwanted memories in Lex’s head.

Lex tried as hard as he could never to think of his grandfather as he’d been in the last few years of his life, for that old man hadn’t really been Alistair Trent. Alistair had loved his grandsons and he would never have shouted at them or lashed out at them. He would not have attacked Lex late one night, thinking him to be an intruder in their home; he would not have almost drowned them both one day when he became agitated in the bath, and he would not have refused to eat dinner with his grandsons one evening because he was waiting for his son to come home with Lex and Lucius…

‘Adam is coming for dinner soon with his wife and their sons,’ Alistair protested agitatedly when Lucius tried to persuade him to sit at the table. ‘I don’t know who you are but you’ve got to go. My family will be here soon.’

‘Adam is dead!’ Lex exclaimed as he pushed food round his plate with his fork. ‘A waterwitch sank their boat, Gramps, remember?’

‘Dead? Adam’s not dead, he’s coming for dinner. He’s… ’ Alistair trailed off for a moment before suddenly gripping Lex’s arm hard, making him drop his fork as he twisted him around to face him. ‘What about the boys?’ he asked desperately, shaking Lex a little in his fear. ‘Are the boys all right? My grandsons, Lex and Lucius, do you know where they are?’

Lex could do nothing but stare at him. There was a very special kind of misery in having someone you loved look at you without any hint of recognition whatsoever.

‘We’re right here, Gramps,’ Lucius said, trying to prise his fingers from Lex’s arm. ‘Please just sit down at the table and eat your dinner.’

Lex had never been able to decide which was worse: those moments or the very few occasions when he spoke in a different voice — hesitant and stumbling over his words as if unsure of how to use them. When Alistair had mistaken Lex for an intruder one night, he’d managed to hit him several times with an old wooden bat before Lucius and Zachary, roused by the noise, had managed to drag him away.

‘What did you do to him?’ Zachary asked as Lex picked himself up off the floor.

‘I did nothing,’ Lex replied, not even having the heart to snarl as he spoke.

As Zachary persuaded Alistair to get back into bed, Lucius tried to help his brother but Lex pushed him away and went to the bathroom on his own. He had managed to duck most of the blows so that there was nothing more serious than some bruising on his ribs and a small cut above one eye, but it was the shock of the experience itself that hurt more. Lex knew that fifteen year olds shouldn’t cry but, thinking everyone else was back in bed, he sat down on the edge of the bathtub, covered his face with his fingers and tried not to make any noise. He would pack a bag and leave. Now. Tonight. He couldn’t stay here another day longer.

He jumped when someone spoke his name hesitantly from the doorway. When he lifted his head and saw his grandfather standing there he fell off the bath, an unpleasant and totally alien tremor of fear shooting through him at sight of the man who had raised him. But this time there was concern in Alistair’s eyes rather than aggression.

‘Lex,’ he said again. His mouth worked silently for a moment and from where he lay, sprawled on the floor, Lex could see the frustration on his grandfather’s face as he valiantly tried to piece the words together. ‘Are… you… okay?’ he managed at last.

For some reason that one sentence hurt Lex almost as much as the physical blows had done. Alistair Trent was still in there somewhere — they just couldn’t get to him.

‘Yes, Gramps,’ he said, getting up from the floor. ‘I’m fine. Let’s get you back to bed… ’

‘Stop it!’ Lex cried, pushing at the enchanter as hard as he could. ‘ Stop it! ’

Those memories were making him feel sick. It wasn’t the fact that Alistair Trent had died — for everyone had to die sometime — it was the time it had taken and all the bitterness that had had to come first.

‘The soulless wake?’ the enchanter asked, removing his fingers at last. ‘An interesting choice.’

Lex glared at the enchanter, hating him. Over his shoulder he could see Lucius wringing his hands on the platform above and Schmidt rummaging through Lex’s bag beside him.

‘You don’t have the power to curse someone with the soulless wake,’ Lex said to the enchanter, desperately hoping that that were true.

‘Watch me,’ the enchanter said softly. ‘Just watch. I told you you’d suffer for crossing me.’

The words: ‘ I beg you ’ rose up in Lex’s throat, but he couldn’t say them. A mixture of shame and fear stopped him from speaking them aloud. Lex Trent beg? He’d see himself dead first! The defiant thought made him raise his chin just a little. It was easier to be proud and defiant when he knew full well that begging the enchanter for his life would have no effect whatsoever. The worst was going to happen and there was nothing he could do to stop it. And that knowledge sent a sudden icy calm through him so that when he looked the enchanter right in the eye and said a couple of choice expletives that would have got him into a huge amount of trouble if his grandfather had heard him, his voice didn’t even shake.

The enchanter simply smiled coldly as he raised his staff and prepared to punish the thief who’d stolen his boat and made a fool out of him.

Whilst Lucius had stood wringing his hands uselessly on the platform above, Schmidt had stuck his hand into Lex’s bag in the wild hope that his fingers would come into contact with something, anything, that might be helpful. Things had been thrown out all over the place, including at one point a whole flock of doves that had fluttered off nervously into the maze of ladders.

But then, at last, the lawyer’s hand came out of the bag clutching a small, fat bottle. Schmidt could hardly believe his eyes and the thought shot through his brain that Lex Trent really must be the luckiest person on the Globe.

As the enchanter pointed his blue staff towards Lex, who couldn’t stop himself from backing away even though he had nowhere to go, Schmidt drew back his arm, took aim and threw the little bottle down at the enchanter where it shattered against his back. The enchanter glanced over his shoulder, looking mildly annoyed, but when he saw the broken bottle on the floor all the colour drained from his face and he looked up sharply, recognising Schmidt at once despite the many years that had passed since they’d last met.

‘ Briggs! ’ he hissed in one venomous whisper.

That word was all he had time for, however, before the little bottle on the ground suddenly became whole again and, although the enchanter raised his staff in an effort to protect himself, he was suddenly and violently sucked into the bottle, staff and all, shrinking into what appeared to be a small, stitched enchanter doll. Lex blinked and bent down to pick up the bottle.

‘Lex, are you okay?’ Lucius called from above, his voice echoing in the new-found silence. ‘Are you all right? Did he hurt you? Lex, are you-’

Lex tore his eyes away from the bottle impatiently. ‘Lucius, do I look like I’m hurt in any way?’

‘No, but-’

‘I’m fine.’

He turned his attention back to the bottle, examining it whilst Schmidt and Lucius slowly made their way down the ladders towards him. The little enchanter inside was no more than a few inches tall. His white beard was made out of cotton wool and his coat and hat even had little white stars stitched onto them. It was rather a good likeness although he was, perhaps, a little overstuffed so that his arms and legs stuck out from his body at rather odd angles.

‘What did you do?’ Lex asked when the others stepped onto the platform beside him.

Schmidt took the bottle from him and examined the doll inside with a distinct look of satisfaction. ‘This,’ he said, holding up the bottle, ‘is living proof that you really are the luckiest person in the world, Mr Trent. It’s a faery bottle — technically for catching faeries to turn them into dolls for children but it works on any magical person, even if they’re bigger than the bottle. You just have to break the glass on them and they get sucked in. They’re very rare,’ Schmidt said, glancing at Lex. ‘The enchanters destroyed most of them because they’re just as dangerous to them as they are to faeries. But this enchanter obviously decided to keep one for his own use and I found it at the bottom of your bag.’

‘Well, I suppose I should thank you for saving my life,’ Lex said.

‘I suppose you should.’

There was a little silence. ‘Thank you,’ Lex said.

‘You’re most welcome.’

‘I bet it made you feel good after having to serve him like a slave for two years.’

‘It does give me something of a warm glow,’ Schmidt agreed, putting the bottle in his pocket.

‘Do you think this means I can keep the ship?’ Lex asked.

Schmidt rolled his eyes at him and started to climb the nearest ladder back to the Lands Above. Lucius made to do the same but Lex stopped him. ‘I realise this doesn’t make much difference now,’ he said. ‘But if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t leave. It seemed easier to be selfish at the time but… now I wish I’d stayed and had those last months with him. You were much braver than I was. I’m sorry I left you to do it by yourself.’

‘I understand why you left,’ Lucius replied. ‘It doesn’t matter now. Look, will you come back to the farm with me? Just for a little while?’

‘Sure,’ Lex replied. ‘For a while. Schmidt certainly seems eager to get home,’ he remarked, looking up to where the lawyer was now clinging from a twisting rope ladder some way above them.

‘Well, I’m just glad it’s over and we all survived,’ Lucius said. ‘Now we can go home and just try and forget this ever happened.’

He moved over to the nearest ladder and put his foot on the bottom rung but when he glanced back over his shoulder he realised Lex hadn’t followed him. His eyes widened in fascinated horror as he saw what his brother was doing. ‘Er… do you think you should really be doing that?’ he called.

‘Their mother was killed because of the Game,’ Lex replied, picking up another griffin egg and placing it carefully in his bag. ‘They’ll die out here on their own.’

‘Yes but, Lex, you don’t know anything about looking after-’

‘I’ll learn,’ Lex replied, placing the last of the eggs in his bag and standing up. ‘Keep this under your hat, though, okay? I don’t think Schmidt would like it very much.’

When they climbed up the last ladder onto the Lands Above once more, Jezra and Lady Luck were waiting at the perimeter for them. Jezra was holding a trophy and a medal and wearing a smug smile but this was wiped off his face when Lucius climbed out from the ladders after Lex and Schmidt. He stared from one to the other, trying to work out which was which but they really did look identical now and in the end he was forced to address them both, ‘Which one of you is Lex?’

Lex raised his hand. ‘I am, Lord Jezra. Sorry but as she’s very graciously indicated that she’d be willing to have me back, I’ve decided to return to Lady Luck so I’m winning this Game for her now, not for you.’

‘But why?’ Jezra asked, looking baffled.

‘You told the enchanter Lucius was me and got him sent to the Lands Beneath,’ Lex said, raising an eyebrow. ‘Lady Luck saved all our lives.’

Jezra gave an impatient shake of his blond head. ‘But I did that to save you,’ he protested. ‘Would you rather I’d sent the enchanter after you instead?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, tough! I wanted you to win the Game. Lucius is of no use to me.’

‘But he’s of use to me,’ Lex said. ‘Occasionally.’

‘I clearly underestimated you,’ Jezra said coldly. ‘I thought winning the Game was the most important thing in the world to you and yet you jeopardised it all because of your useless, gutless twin.’

‘Yes, but I still won,’ Lex said calmly. ‘Where’s the Judge gone anyway?’

‘Back to the Lands Beneath,’ Lady Luck said. ‘I’m afraid he’s more suited to those simpler, more logical glass Races. He’s quite good at them, apparently, but he doesn’t understand humans, you see. And when his prophet was killed he didn’t think there was much point in sticking around. He always was a sore loser.’

‘So do I get my trophy now or what?’ Lex asked, greedily eyeing the large golden cup in Jezra’s hands.

‘Yes, come on, Jezra,’ the Goddess said, clicking her tongue impatiently. ‘Hand me the trophies so I can present them to my winner.’

Jezra scowled blackly and thrust the trophy and medallion moodily towards the Goddess.

‘Give me your crystal ball,’ she said to Lex.

He dug it out of his pocket and handed it to her. As she held it in her hand it seemed to get bigger so that eventually she had to put it down on the ground and it became as tall as she was. Lex saw the image of a stadium inside it. He thought he could practically smell the popcorn and the hotdogs as the roar of hundreds of spectators came through to him. They were watching the footage from the final round. Not only had Lex Trent obtained the griffin’s feather, but he had also been down to the forbidden Lands Beneath and lived to tell the tale before defeating an enchanter on the Space Ladders! The crowd was going wild — they had never, in the whole history of the Games, seen anything like this before.

Of course, the footage did not make it clear that it was Lex’s fault Lucius had been sent down there in the first place. Nor did it make it obvious that Schmidt was the one who had thrown the faery bottle at the enchanter and not Lex. All in all, the edited footage made him look even more dashingly daring and courageous than he really was. Lex Trent was the greatest player anyone had ever seen. He had won every round. He had defeated a medusa and a minotaur simultaneously; he had escaped from mad kings and draglings by the skin of his teeth; he had thwarted a wicked witch; he had climbed the Space Ladders; been down to the Lands Beneath and won the Game almost effortlessly. Lex’s ego swelled even further at the sight of the picture being painted of him. But — at the end of the day — wasn’t it all true? Had he not, indeed, done all of those things and more? What an extraordinary person he was!

Then the footage caught up to where they all were in real life — passing straight over the quarrel between Lady Luck and Jezra to the part where the Goddess of Fortune was standing ready to present the trophy to Lex. She nodded at him and he took the by-now-rather-squashed griffin feather out of his pocket and handed it to her. The gold medallion she held had a big, bold 1 ^ st engraved on it and shone impressively in the light from the sun. It was on a golden chain and as Lex bent his head for the Goddess to put it around his neck, the applause of the crowd ringing in his ears, he took a mental snapshot of the moment so that he could take it out and look at it for that special sense of smugness whenever he wanted to in the years to come. As the medal was placed around his neck and the trophy pressed into his hands, the Binding Bracelets on Lex and Schmidt’s wrists both fell off at the same time, signalling the fact that the Game had at last come to an end.

That evening, when the three humans and the ferret were settled on the bridge, eating dinner as the magical ship flew over the waves, Schmidt looked up and said to Lex, ‘You realise that if I ever see you in the Wither City again after this, I’ll have to have you arrested?’

Lex raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Does that mean you’re not going to keep chasing me?’

Schmidt made a hopeless little gesture. ‘It’s more than my life is worth to try and chase you. I really don’t want to know what kind of things you’re going to get yourself involved in next. Anyway I’m tired. I want to go home.’

‘Well, I’m turning over a new leaf anyway,’ Lex replied. ‘I’m not going to steal, lie or cheat any more. Once we’ve dropped you at the Wither City, I’m going back to the farm for a while with Lucius.’

This was true… in a sense. He was going back to the farm with Lucius. But he did not intend to stay there long. There was still the Shadowman to consider, and the fact that some copycat thief thought they could steal Lex’s notoriety. He had played the Game as Lex Trent but now it would be good to get back to the Shadowman (or some new, improved, superior version of him) for a little while before it was too late. Before — perish the thought — he forgot how to do it.

‘No more Games then?’ Schmidt asked, watching Lex intently.

‘Nope,’ Lex lied easily. ‘I’ve got my trophy. Now I’m going to try and do something constructive with my clever mind. Perhaps I’ll become a lawyer after all in one of the other provinces. From now on, Mr Schmidt, I’m on the straight and narrow.’