Fighting with fire

CHAPTER SIX

Lex left soon after that, stuffing a couple of crumpets into his pocket to enjoy with Jesse later and then going back to the ship the way he had come, through one of the tourist boats, taking the opportunity to pinch a few more wallets along the way. He was pleased to find that he hadn’t lost his touch. He barely had to brush past someone and their wallet would be in his pocket. It was ridiculously easy and the reason, as he remembered now, that it had ceased being fun. There was no exciting challenge in it.

That was why he had moved on to daring cat-burglar exploits as the Shadowman, pinching spectacularly valuable things from museums, until he’d got caught up in the last Game and someone had shamelessly stolen his alter ego. He’d therefore been forced to re-invent himself as the Wizard. The tiny enchanter’s hats he now left as his calling card were magical. A little bit magical, anyway. If you said Abracadabra then a small flame shot from the tip. Lex had found a magically refilling cupboard of them on board the enchanted ship and had no idea what they had originally been for, but they worked very well as his calling card now because the fact that they were magical meant that they could not easily be reproduced by copycats. Which meant that Lex got to keep all the glory and notoriety for himself.

He slipped back on to the boat, quickly got changed and then went up to the top deck where Jesse was watching the other ship come in. Lex had noticed its approach from the teashop and had realised then that it was most definitely time to go. It was Jeremiah’s ship. He recognised it by the mermaid rising up along the prow and the painted blue and gold exterior. It was a grand ship in a boring sort of way, he supposed, but it couldn’t possibly compare with the gleaming, silver enchanter’s ship, where even the sails were made out of metal, and ancient, magical black runes were painted all along its sides.

It was fast approaching midday? the allotted time for the start of the round? and even the toffs were no longer showing much interest in their crumpets. They were all lined up eagerly, waiting for the other players to arrive and for things to get interesting.

Finally Jeremiah’s ship pulled in next to Lex’s. Lex couldn’t prevent his lip curling as he saw that it clearly ran on wind and oar power? not on magic. It was really quite pathetic and he felt a glow of smug satisfaction at the fact that Jeremiah had been forced to dock his ship right next to Lex’s and thereby emphasise the fact that the two really were in completely different classes. There was much cheering from the toffs below, though, and Jeremiah appeared up on deck to give them a bow, whereupon the crowd went crazy in quite an over-the-top way, in Lex’s opinion. After all, Jeremiah was only bowing, not throwing fistfuls of money down at them. But he was wearing fancy clothes with shiny buttons again, and had that handsome, noble look, and that sort of thing mattered to some people. Or, at least, it mattered to the stupid people, concerned only with appearances rather than actual talent. Lex wasn’t overly bothered by it, for he had no time for stupid people and never had. And never would, either.

He hadn’t seen Lorella? the enchantress? arrive in the Wither City and so did not know what sort of transportation she was using. He sort of expected it to be another enchanted ship, similar to his own. After all, it was the method of transportation favoured by the enchanters and so it made sense that the enchantresses would use them, too.

But the minutes ticked closer and closer to midday and still there was no sign of an enchanted ship on the horizon, and Lex started to worry that she might not turn up at all. He was aware of Jeremiah looking more and more pleased as the moments crept by but that was because he was an idiot who thought it was only about winning, when actually it was about winning spectacularly, and that was that bit harder to do if the competition was severely reduced before the Game even began. A no-show from Lorella was therefore the very last thing Lex wanted.

At the same time, however, he didn’t want to be shown up by her. And so he was quite annoyed when, five minutes before midday, she finally arrived in a most unexpected way. When the rainbow suddenly appeared in the sky, Lex thought it was something to do with Saydi and her love of all things beautiful, but then he realised that no rainbow? even if it was Saydi’s sun that day? would ever race across the sky quite like that! It was like some sort of glorious shooting star in pink and blue and green, and there were a lot of oohs and aahs from the crowd below as the rainbow spread across the silver sky to finally end right over the pier. And then Lorella materialised from the end of the rainbow? a human shape suddenly forming out of the multitude of colours. There was a figure-hugging, blue velvet dress and masses of long hair that? for a brief moment? sported all the colours of the rainbow before Lorella herself stepped out of it and the multi-colours sparkling about her slowly faded, leaving behind an exceptionally beautiful enchantress who smiled and inclined her head just a little as the crowd of toffs went berserk.

Lex scowled blackly, thinking that both his own and Jeremiah’s arrivals had been most effectively upstaged. The thought made him glance automatically across to Jeremiah’s ship. The same sort of thing was clearly running through Jeremiah’s mind, for he turned his head to look at Lex’s ship at the same time and their eyes met briefly.

But what might have been a shared sympathetic moment was ruined by what had passed between them in the Wither City and they both hastily averted their gazes from one another, glaring back down at Lorella instead and the stunningly beautiful spectacle she was making of herself down on the pier. Well, she certainly knew how to work the crowds, Lex would give her that.

‘Arriving by rainbow!’ Lex scoffed to Jesse. ‘I’ve never heard of anything so grossly over-the-top in my life! It’s pathetic! Isn’t it? Jesse?’

The cowboy shook his head and said, ‘Sexy as all hell was the first thing that came to my mind, kid.’

Lex scowled at him, pointed a stern finger and said, ‘Don’t let yourself get taken in by her… by her feminine wiles! That’s what she wants and I won’t have you messing up the Game for me, is that understood?’

‘A fella can look, can’t he?’ Jesse protested, holding up his hands defensively.

‘No!’ Lex snapped. ‘That’s what everyone else is doing.’ He waved an arm to encompass the noblemen (and women) on the veranda all ogling the enchantress in rather an obvious way. Even Jeremiah was no longer glaring at her. ‘We need to be better than them!’ Lex went on, ‘if we’re to win the Game!’

Just the phrase win the Game sent surges of adrenaline rushing through him and? in that moment, when it was all brand spanking new and just about to begin? Lex practically had to stuff his fist in his mouth to stop himself from shrieking and jumping up and down in uncontrollable excitement at the prospect of what was to come. Another Game! Another Game at last!

Lady Luck was looking quite miffed when she appeared on the deck of Lex’s ship seconds later. No doubt she didn’t exactly appreciate having another player in the Game who seemed to have even more of a flair for the dramatic than Lex did himself.

‘Come on, then,’ she said rather sulkily. ‘Let’s get down to the pier.’

She plucked them from the deck of the ship and a split second later they found themselves standing on the pier alongside Lorella. A moment later, Jeremiah and his companion arrived with Kala and then Thaddeus appeared alongside the enchantress. The crowd fell hushed and the players, companions and Gods all stood looking at each other in a hostile sort of way. There had, after all, been quite a lot of upset and bitterness and the Game had not even begun yet.

Lex couldn’t help nurturing a mild hatred for both Thaddeus and Kala for the petty, cheating way in which they had tried to have him disqualified from the Game merely for being drunk. He found himself feeling unreasonably irritated by Kala’s silly sausage ringlets and little doll-like face? her entire appearance suggesting a sweetness and an innocence that was entirely false. And, as for Thaddeus? why, he practically looked like some sort of actor in a cheap production of a play about demons with that fussy little goatee beard and the OTT long dark cloak. Lady Luck oozed class when viewed beside them, Lex thought smugly to himself, what with her lovely white, toga-like dress and her elegant hairstyle, her masses of blond hair threaded through with strings of pearls. Yes, Lex decided grimly, both he and his Goddess were in an entirely different class from all the others here.

He cast his eye over the companions next. If they’d been at the feast back at the Wither City, he hadn’t noticed them and was not quite sure what to expect. He sort of thought that Jeremiah might have picked a posh fencing instructor with a silly moustache, or perhaps one of his stupid rich friends. What he did not expect to see standing at Jeremiah’s side was a pretty little girl who couldn’t have been more than nine years old. She had lovely long black hair and bright blue eyes. The physical resemblance between her and Jeremiah was undeniable. Unless he had become a father shockingly young, this girl must surely be Jeremiah’s little sister. Perhaps she was the reason Mrs East had looked so miserable. After all, rich people usually got quite excited at the prospect of their handsome, strapping young sons marching off to a noble and glorious death.

Lex stared at the girl. She noticed and stuck her tongue out at him. He grinned, liking her already. And loving the fact that Jeremiah, whether through stupidity, ignorance or accident, had landed himself with a useless companion and a horrible responsibility to have to carry with him through the Game, whilst Lex had practically the most perfect companion imaginable in Jesse? a swarthy, rough-and-ready cowboy. Once again, all the cards seemed to be stacked in his favour before the Game had even begun! When he was so naturally gifted, how could anyone even hope to go up against him and win?

He glanced at Lorella, realising it was probably too much to hope that she would have brought a useless companion, too, but almost half-expecting it just the same. But in fact, when he looked at her, he realised that she did not seem to have any companion at all.

Lady Luck noticed this, too, and said to Thaddeus, ‘Might I ask where your player’s companion is? You do realise she won’t be permitted to play without one?’

‘She has a companion, my Lady,’ Thaddeus replied in a scornful voice before looking at Lorella and saying, ‘Show her.’

The enchantress reached into her pocket and withdrew her hand with her fingers closed around something. When she opened them, everyone leaned forwards a little to see the sprite sitting on her palm. No bigger than the size of a thumb, the sprite wore a tiny pair of dungarees on top of a white t-shirt. Her pointed face and ears were surrounded by a mass of light, feathery hair, one half white and one half blue. A pair of silvery wings were tucked close to her back. And, now that Lex looked closely, he could see a tiny little Binding Bracelet on the sprite’s wrist. Lorella dropped her hand and the sprite fluttered up to sit on the enchantress’s shoulder.

‘The requirements all appear to have been met,’ Kala said. ‘All that remains is for us to distribute the Divine Eyes and then the round can begin.’

She handed a little crystal ball over to Jeremiah; Thaddeus gave an identical one to Lorella and Lady Luck passed one to Lex, who put it straight in his pocket rather than examining it curiously as the others were doing. Divine Eyes were nothing new to him. He’d carried one with him in the last Game. No one was quite sure how they worked but it seemed that they were somehow able to capture the events of the round and could then be transmitted later on to the giant crystal balls in the Gaming stadiums. It seemed to be something to do with the fact that the Gods watched their players and were somehow able to record what they saw on to the crystal balls.

Kala cleared her throat, stood up a little straighter and raised her voice so that the toffs goggling at them from the veranda would be able to hear what she said. ‘The current Gaming champion, Lady Luck, has graciously allowed me the privilege of choosing the first round.’ She paused dramatically for a moment before saying loudly and clearly, ‘For the first round, then, let it be dead ships!’ There were excited mutterings from the crowd and then Kala went on. ‘There is one shipwreck down at the base of the volcanoes that, because of the peculiar way in which it was built, has quite a lot of air pockets left in it. In a moment you will all be sent down there by your respective Gods. The first one to return the captain’s medallion to me, wins.’

Lex was wary, and he could tell that Jeremiah was, too. Lex knew from experience that they all had good reason to be. The first round in the last Game had involved the seemingly simple task of finding and fixing a broken mirror, but it had soon become apparent that the castle in which they were searching had a number of rather horrible traps? including minotaurs and medusas.

‘In order to avoid shrill, hysterical accusations of cheating,’ Kala said, with a dirty look at Lady Luck and Thaddeus that made Lex suspect they had already had words about this, ‘you will all be put in the same part of the ship at the same moment. Ready?’

She was talking to the other Gods rather than the players, who barely had time to take in what was being said before she was counting, ‘One, two, three!’

On the exact count of three, Lex and Jesse, and Jeremiah and Lorella with their companions, all disappeared into thin air, and found themselves hundreds of feet below the surface of the sea in the old galley of one of the sunken ships on the seabed.