‘You’ve got an awful lot of arrogance and self-confidence for such a youngster, don’t you?’ Jesse said mildly. ‘Still, anything’s better than getting sent back to hang.’ He folded his arms and looked at Lex through the bars. ‘Well? Aren’t you going to ask me what I did to make ’em send out those reward posters?’
‘I don’t care about what you’ve done,’ Lex replied. ‘All I care about is how you’re going to help me.’
Jesse grinned and then shrugged. ‘Well, all right then. I can tell already that you and I are going to get along just fine.’
Lex had to agree. He may not have trusted Jesse? for he could recognise another scoundrel when he saw one? but he did like him.
‘I do have one condition though,’ Jesse said.
Lex stared at him. ‘You’re hardly in a position to be making conditions.’
‘I dare say not, but I’m making one just the same. My horse, Rusty: he’ll have to come with us.’
‘I’m not sure that’s a terribly good idea,’ Lex replied. ‘You see, I have three griffins and they try to eat just about anything that moves.’
‘I don’t go anywhere without him,’ Jesse replied firmly. ‘I even brought him with me when I fled from the West. I sure as hell ain’t leaving him behind now.’
Lex sighed. ‘All right; I suppose we can keep him separate from the griffins. He was picked up on the road and taken to the city stables earlier today. I’ll pay the release fee to get him out.’ He pulled off his glove, extended his hand through the bars and said, ‘Now, if that’s all, I’d like to make this official. This is your last chance to back out.’
But Jesse looked at his hand for only a moment before clasping it firmly with his own. Instantly, the Binding Bracelets split in half. The black one remained firmly fastened around Lex’s wrist whilst the white one shot off on to Jesse’s. Lex felt a profound sense of smug satisfaction for he was sure he had chosen the perfect companion. Jesse was tough and big and seemed relatively smart for someone with such a lot of scars and stubble. And to think that he had almost chosen one of those wimpy, peanut-fearing writers. He shuddered at the thought of it…
Jesse smiled and said, ‘So are you going to get me out of here or what?’
Lex explained very carefully to Jesse how the Binding Bracelets worked? if they didn’t eat every meal together they would switch bodies and they would stay in each other’s bodies until they managed to find their way back to each other and eat together again.
‘You don’t say?’ Jesse said, examining the white bracelet fastened to his wrist. ‘But I can still drink, right?’
‘Yes. You just can’t eat on your own.’
‘What about chewing tobacco? Will that make us switch?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Lex said, frowning. ‘You don’t swallow it, do you?’
‘Jeepers, kid, ’course I don’t swallow it!’ Jesse said, grimacing at the suggestion. ‘You gotta spit it out.’
‘A disgusting habit,’ Lex replied scathingly. ‘But not one that should make us switch. Chew and spit all you like.’
After collecting Rusty from the stables, Lex and Jesse made their way back to the harbour. Several people shot the cowboy sharp looks, for many had seen him galloping through the town just that morning with the police giving chase behind him. A couple of particularly slow-on-the-uptake people even felt the need to shriek, ‘It’s him! It’s the outlaw, Jesse Layton! He’s getting away!’
‘Oh, give it a rest,’ Lex replied. ‘He’s not getting away, he’s playing in a Game. Look.’ And he grabbed Jesse’s wrist to hold it up and display the bracelet. That promptly made people back off and leave them alone. No one tangles with the Gods on purpose, after all.
‘This is my ship,’ Lex said with a flourish once they’d reached the harbour.
The gigantic, gleaming silver thing was tied up like the rest of the boats but, unlike the ships belonging to the gypsies, traders and tourists, Lex’s ship didn’t bob on the water but floated in the air instead. For it was, of course, a magic ship that Lex had stolen from an enchanter during the course of the last Game. The enchanters were powerful, magical men and so stealing from one of them was extremely dangerous and practically unheard of. Most people were therefore terribly impressed and even a little in awe of Lex when he showed them his ship.
He was therefore less then happy when, after regarding it for a moment, Jesse said, ‘Ugly-looking thing, ain’t it?’
‘ Ugly?’ Lex spluttered indignantly. ‘ Ugly? You’ve got to be kidding! Can’t you see how large and powerful and silver she is?’
Jesse shrugged. ‘Prefer the gypsy boats myself.’
Truth be told, Lex had preferred the gypsy boats too at one time, for they were decorated in many fluttering flags and painted with colourful sea monsters. But whilst they may have looked pretty, they couldn’t fly over land or travel across a frozen sea or soar up into the sky or survive being attacked by sharks or water witches. Plus, anything Lex owned instantly looked all the more beautiful to him for the simple fact that he owned it.
‘I stole it from an enchanter,’ Lex said, just in case Jesse had somehow missed that point.
But the cowboy just nodded. ‘Yep. That’s what I figured.’
It seemed he really was determined to be distinctly unimpressed. It occurred to Lex that a writer would probably have been falling over themselves to congratulate him and tell him how wonderful he was and how heroic and daring and brave and the like. In reality Lex would have been thoroughly sick of this within about five minutes but still he couldn’t help wishing that Jesse would be just a little bit impressed with the ship. He sighed and said, ‘Well, come on then.’
The ship’s gangplank had been destroyed during the course of the last Game so, for much of it, the ship had only had a ladder running up its side. This did not make for happy disembarking, especially when it was raining and slippery. So Lex had had a new gangplank put in. It was only one of many improvements he had made to the ship once he’d known for sure that the enchanter wasn’t coming back for it (on account of being turned into a little doll and imprisoned in a glass bottle).
He had spent some very happy days during his three months back at the family farm working on and improving the ship. There were still a lot of rooms inside it that he’d never been into and these were all marked with a giant X. He’d originally intended to go through them all but, after one slightly unfortunate incident when he tried to remove the rabid, fire-breathing rabbit that had attacked him once before, and the thing got out and… well… set fire to the barn, Lex’s brother, Lucius, had forbidden him from going into any of the other unsafe rooms. Of course, Lex didn’t usually listen to a word Lucius said but, on this occasion, he had to agree. An extremely flammable farm really wasn’t the place to have fire-breathing things running amok in a livid rage. So he had left the doors with strange noises behind them well enough alone. For all he knew, this might mean that he’d have a ship full of dead monsters at some point for, if they were sealed into little rooms with nothing to eat, they would surely starve. But the fire-breathing rabbit had been sealed in the room for at least four months without food and, nevertheless, seemed to be extremely active when it finally did get out.
‘Some parts of the ship are off limits,’ Lex said as he, Jesse and Rusty walked across the gangplank. ‘You can’t go into any room with an X on the door.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I haven’t had the chance to check what’s in there and it’s usually something dangerous that wants to eat you. But the corridors are safe and any room that doesn’t have an X on the door is fine.’