Lex Trent versus the Gods Page 25

  ‘The enchanter used magic to send him away. So you see how very lucky you really are, Lex. If you hadn’t double-crossed me the way you did then the enchanter would have punished you instead of your brother.’

  ‘Where did he send him?’ Lex asked. ‘I’ll go and get him back.’

  Lucius might have been a wet, whiny wimp but he was the only family Lex had left. And - against his will - he couldn’t help but admit to himself that whatever trouble Lucius was in now was entirely Lex’s fault. His old benefactress, the Goddess of Luck, gazed coldly at Lex for a moment before leaning forwards to hiss, ‘The Lands Beneath.’

  Lex heard the sharp intake of breath from Schmidt beside him. ‘The Lands Beneath?’ he yelped. ‘But that’s absurd! Humans aren’t allowed down there with the Gods!’

  ‘I know,’ Lady Luck smirked. ‘They’ll be very angry with him when they find him.’

  ‘But he didn’t do anything wrong!’ Schmidt exclaimed. ‘He’s not the one who stole the ship. He didn’t even want to be involved in the Game to begin with! My Lady, I implore you,’ Lex heard the crick as Schmidt bent down on one knee. ‘The injustice of the situation is—’

  ‘Is something Lex and his brother will just have to live with, I’m afraid,’ the Goddess sniffed. ‘I know you only ever worry about yourself, Lex. That’s one of the reasons I liked you. But if losing your brother will bring you some small measure of discomfort then I’m glad.’

  And with that she left Lex and Schmidt standing in silence.

  This is a dream, Lex thought to himself. I’m just dreaming, that’s all.

  Lex was going to die young on an exciting adventure. But Lucius was going to live to a ripe old age, doddering around his little farm, gumming his food and reminiscing about the good old days.

  There had been a conversation shortly after the priest had confirmed that Alistair Trent was indeed cursed with the soulless wake. It was still in the early days so Alistair’s memory had not been too badly affected by that point. He had taken Lex aside one day and spoken to him - quietly, calmly and with just the smallest sad hint of regret.

  ‘This is going to get ugly, Lex,’ he’d said. ‘Things are all going to change and I just want to . . . apologise now for the pain I’m going to cause you when I don’t know who you are any more. Try not to hate me for it. I’m sorry to put this on you two boys but . . . you’re strong, Lex, so I know you’ll be okay but you’ve got to promise to look after your brother. Lucius is a good boy. He’s gentler than you, perhaps, and more open-hearted. But he doesn’t have your inner strength and determination. I know you’re not going to stay here on the farm for ever and I wouldn’t want you to. But Lucius will need to lean on you soon and I want you to be there for him for as long as you can.’

  Of course, Alistair Trent had been quite wrong in what he’d said to Lex that day, for Lucius had risen to the occasion when their grandfather’s condition worsened whereas Lex had chosen to run away instead. It had seemed easier to live with cowardliness at the time. Alistair’s illness had brought out the best in Lucius and the worst in Lex. After running away, Lex had realised that he wasn’t the person his grandfather had believed him to be. He wasn’t even the person he’d believed himself to be. But there was no point in moping over it. You couldn’t change who you were or undo past mistakes. Better to embrace greed and selfishness and have done with it than to go on desperately pretending to be brave.

  ‘Do you understand now, Lex?’ Schmidt asked, breaking in on his thoughts. ‘Do you understand that when you break the rules people get hurt, even if it’s not always you? What you did might have cost your brother his life. If Lady Luck won’t help Lucius, you’ll have to ask Jezra—’

  ‘Jezra won’t do anything,’ Lex said. ‘Neither will any of the other Gods.’

  ‘What? Why not?’

  ‘Jezra made sure the enchanter believed Lucius to be me by telling him I was hiding on the ship somewhere. He wants him sent to the Lands Beneath. The other Gods will never interfere in human matters. Lady Luck might come round eventually or she might not but either way it will be too late for Lucius.’

  Schmidt thought about it for a moment before throwing up his hands in defeat. ‘You’re right,’ he said flatly. ‘They’ll never help. You won’t ever see Lucius again. Still, at least you got your feather. You’ll win the Game. And that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Lex said, carefully folding the large feather into his pocket. ‘Well, thanks for the lecture. I’m going to go talk to the enchanter now. Perhaps . . . if I explain what happened he might be prepared to switch us—’

  ‘No! No, Lex, he won’t. He’ll just send the pair of you down there. Trust me, he doesn’t know the meaning of the word mercy. He won’t take pity on you.’

  Lex picked up on the tone and looked at him. ‘You know this enchanter, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I know him,’ Schmidt said flatly. ‘I was his servant for two years, so believe me, Lex, when I say you won’t be able to get anything from him. You must stay completely away from him and make sure he never finds out that you escaped.’

  ‘What do you mean you were his servant?’ Lex asked, staring at him.

  Schmidt sighed. ‘Something happened and I had to leave my home when I was a young man. The only way to do that was on board an enchanter’s ship, so I made a deal with him. I agreed to be his lawyer for a year.’

  Lex had known from the little things Schmidt had already let slip earlier on in their travels that he must have had some contact with magical peoples. But he’d never dreamt that he had actually once worked for an enchanter. He could be disbarred for that, even now.

  ‘I’m afraid that, where you always seem to get good luck, I’m often cursed with the opposite. In fact, sometimes I think I must be Lady Luck’s favourite victim. I recognised the enchanter on the docks the morning you stole his ship.’

  ‘Why didn’t Bessa recognise you?’ Lex asked.

  ‘She wasn’t his crone when I was with him.’ Schmidt hesitated a moment before going on. ‘After my year of service was up, the enchanter refused to let me leave. He kept saying I had to stay just one more month. By the time two years had gone by I realised he was never going to allow me to go.’

  ‘But the things you must have seen!’ Lex breathed. ‘Living and working with an enchanter!’

  ‘The things I saw would make your hair curl!’ Schmidt said sharply. ‘I was barely treated better than his crone. Besides, I became a lawyer to help people, not to swindle, cheat and ruin them and that’s what the enchanter was having me do. The law can be twisted so easily but it’s supposed to be something noble not just another way of destroying people. It sickened me and I knew I had to get out so I managed to convince his crone to help me escape. She’d grown fond of me whilst I’d been living with them, for I showed her more kindness and consideration than her master ever did. So she helped me to run away when we stopped at the Bandy Towns one night. She gave me some magical help that made it easier for me to disappear and after lying low for a while I was able to change my name and start again. But the enchanter banished his crone as punishment for helping me.’

  ‘How do you know he banished her?’ Lex asked curiously.

  ‘I met her a couple of weeks ago,’ Schmidt said shortly.

  Lex looked at him, puzzled for a moment before he remembered. ‘Matilda?’ he grinned. ‘You really do have bad luck, don’t you?’

  ‘That’s why she needed to keep the crown,’ Schmidt said. ‘With an object like that she’ll be taken back into the care of an enchanter again, for any one of them would love to get their hands on a royal crown. Crones don’t feel complete without enchanters.’

  ‘Why did you have to leave your home in the first place?’ Lex asked, quite unable to stop himself from asking the question.

  Schmidt hesitated and for a moment Lex thought he wouldn’t tell him. Then, with a sigh, the lawyer admitted flatly, ‘My real name is Marvin Briggs.’

&nb
sp; There was complete and utter silence as Lex stared at Schmidt, his mouth hanging open, wondering if he could be dreaming. ‘Marvin Briggs?’ he whispered. ‘You almost destroyed a whole province!’

  The name of Marvin Briggs was respected by every scoundrel, rogue and good-for-nothing in the Lands Above. The name had even become part of popular culture. To ‘pull a Marvin Briggs’ was to create an unmitigated disaster.

  ‘Oh, don’t be so stupid!’ Schmidt snapped. ‘Can you see me doing something like that? It wasn’t me. I was set up. Besides, it was a city, not a province.’

  Everyone knew the story. Briggs had been a young, opportunistic lawyer in the Leylands who had flooded the black market with Judges’ wigs. Now, Judges’ wigs were in some ways similar to enchanters’ hats except, instead of storing magic, they stored authority. There was something about a Judge’s wig that made anyone who wore it instantly authoritative, so that other people flinched if the wearer so much as raised their voice and almost fell over themselves in their hurry to obey any commands the wig-wearer gave them. As more and more criminal leaders got their hands on Judges’ wigs, the Leylands went through a serious crime crisis and the city almost collapsed altogether. Order was re-imposed only just in the nick of time. Marvin Briggs was exposed by another lawyer but evaded arrest and disappeared. He was never heard of again and no one had the slightest clue what had happened to him.

  ‘So what happened?’ Lex said. ‘If you didn’t do it, why did you end up taking the blame for it?’

  ‘It was you!’ Schmidt snarled, looking uncharacteristically vicious for a moment before checking himself. ‘Or it might as well have been. Someone just like you, Lex, except a few years older. His name was Oliver Simp.’

  Lex recognised the name from the story and, after a moment, he placed it. ‘The lawyer who turned you in?’

  ‘Yes,’ Schmidt said, grinding his teeth. ‘We started at the firm at the same time. Oliver was hardworking, industrious, charming . . . Everyone liked him. I liked him. And then, one day, I discovered what he’d been up to with the wigs. So I gave him the chance to turn himself in. He said he hadn’t known how dangerous the wigs were, that he’d only wanted to make a bit of extra money to pay off his student loans and that everything had just got out of hand somehow. I believed him and said I would help him with any charges that were brought against him. He promised to go straight to the police and thanked me for being such a good friend. The next thing I knew I had police banging on my door shouting for my arrest because Oliver had reported me as the perpetrator! I would never have believed it of him, never, for he was so convincing! A flawless performer, just like you, Lex! That’s how I was able to recognise you for what you were as soon as you walked in the door back in the Wither City. I tried to explain what had really happened, that it was all a mistake, but Oliver had been clever about it - planting evidence to incriminate me and destroying anything that could incriminate him; making sure every tiny little detail was correct. And then giving the performance of his life when I accused him, and acting every bit the hurt, mortified friend who simply couldn’t believe that I would try to shift the blame onto him. People had been injured because of the wigs and all this money had been lost . . . I was looking at ten years or more. So I fled and took the first means of escape I came across with the enchanter.’

  ‘What happened to Oliver?’

  Schmid shrugged. ‘He got away with it, of course. Last I heard he’d retired to the Bandy Towns with a huge fortune.’

  ‘Marvin Briggs,’ Lex muttered to himself with an incredulous shake of his head. It certainly explained why Schmidt had loathed him so much if he had once been the victim of a conman himself. ‘All right, I know you don’t have the imagination to make up a story like that. If you say this enchanter can’t be reasoned with then I believe you. I’ll just have to go down to the Lands Beneath and get Lucius out myself.’

  Schmidt stared at him. ‘You’re not serious? Lex,’ he said in as gentle a tone as he could manage, ‘it would take thousands of years to climb all the way down the Space Ladders so, even if you were able to get food and water out here, you still wouldn’t have enough years to reach the Lands Beneath.’

  ‘I’m not going to climb the ladders,’ Lex said. ‘I’m going to use the enchanter’s hat. It’s in my bag. I brought it just in case.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ Schmidt said softly, cursing himself for the harsh words he’d spoken earlier. ‘Lex, what’s happened to Lucius is tragic and I’m afraid it is your fault and you’re going to have to live with that. But there’s certainly nothing you can do to fix it; it’s too late for that. Heroics will only get you killed as well—’

  ‘Heroics!’ Lex sneered. ‘These aren’t heroics, old man! You don’t stop being selfish just like that. I told you before - I want to die young. It wasn’t just something I made up to shock or impress you; I really meant it. Lucius is the only one I have left. He doesn’t want to die young but I do so I’ve got nothing to lose by going after him. Besides, I’ve always wondered what the Lands Beneath look like. I can’t let Lucius have all the glory by being the only human to see the home of the Gods. I’m highly competitive. You should know that by now.’

  He swung his bag off his back and crouched down beside it on the floor, rifling through it in search of the hat.

  ‘But it won’t solve anything!’ Schmidt said desperately. ‘The enchanter will know you’ve used his hat and if you ever made it back to the Lands Above he’ll be waiting for you. This is why you don’t mess around with enchanters, Lex! There are reasons for playing by the rules!’

  Lex hesitated, the hat now in his hands. ‘Well, then,’ he said with a slow smile, ‘I’ll go down and get Lucius now and I’ll deal with the enchanter when I get back. All right?’

  He stood up and put the hat on his head.

  ‘Human minds aren’t built for magic,’ Schmidt tried once again. ‘Lex, I’ve told you, you’re just as likely to kill yourself with that hat as you are to accomplish anything with it.’

  ‘Look,’ Lex said impatiently, ‘I’m not arguing with you about it any more. My brother’s down there and I’m going down to get him. Or at least I’m going to try. If all I accomplish by putting on this hat is to blow my own head off, well . . . then at least there’ll be one less rotter in the world, right?’

  ‘If you really mean to go, take me with you.’

  Lex stared at him, shocked into silence for a moment. ‘I’m not making up a picnic of it, Monty,’ he managed at last. ‘I can’t think of a single reason why you’d want to—’

  ‘Employer’s liability,’ Schmidt said promptly.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘You’re a minor and technically still my employee. If I let you go down there and you get yourself killed, I’ll be held liable for your death as your employer and sent to prison. Just because we’re not in a law office doesn’t mean my duty of care towards you is discharged.’

  ‘So fire me.’

  ‘I don’t have the authority to fire you on my own. The other partners would have to approve it.’

  ‘Then I resign.’

  ‘It’s the same thing!’ Schmidt exclaimed in frustration. ‘Your resignation has to be accepted by all the partners before it’s effective. You never know - I might be of some help to you, so just take me - assuming you’re able to get there without killing yourself with magic first.’

  ‘Fine,’ Lex said with a shrug, very aware of how much time had been wasted and unwilling to waste any more. He closed his eyes and spread his hands, the silence of space pressing in on them for a moment whilst Lex concentrated on getting them both to the place of the Gods. Then he drew a deep breath and said loudly and clearly, ‘The Lands Beneath.’

  The stories about the Lands Beneath were all wildly different and had changed constantly since the Great Divide. But most people agreed that there was treasure down there. And monsters. Some people claimed to have seen the Lands Beneath in nightmares but when these accounts were compared th
ey all seemed to be completely lacking in common features.

  Despite his worry over Lucius, and fear at his own unbelievable stupidity in trespassing into the home of the Gods, Lex couldn’t help but feel a sense of excitement at the prospect of getting to see exactly what the Lands Beneath looked like, and mentally prepared himself to be ready for anything. After speaking the words ‘Lands Beneath’ on the Space Ladders there was a brief, slightly worrying moment of insubstantiality before Schmidt and Lex found themselves standing in the snow in . . . in the most beautiful place that Lex had ever seen in his life! It was a forest of crystal, set beneath a silver, star-spangled sky. And the colours! Lex didn’t even know the names of some of them! Sparkling, glittering, twinkling loveliness . . .

  He automatically reached out - to touch, to grab, to close his hands around the beauty that he saw . . . but then his nose suddenly started to bleed. Schmidt said something in a sharp, anxious kind of voice and reached out towards him but Lex pushed him away impatiently.