Predictably, Lex had scoffed at the words of caution and set out to explore or — more accurately — to loot the ship. Who knew what manner of valuable, dangerous, beautiful things he might find on such a vessel? He was disappointed to discover that many of the rooms were similar to Bessa’s cabin — nothing more than tiny little marble boxes. He did find a wardrobe, though, and amused himself there for a while, trying on the enchanter’s tall, pointed hats. He also took some white fur coats to make the hard-surfaced bridge more comfortable. He found a bathroom too and the kitchen by following the grey cat, which seemed to appear from nowhere, watching Lex warily with narrowed, yellow eyes. The creature gave Lex the creeps and he was sorely tempted to drop the wretched thing overboard. But he had some vague notion that cats on ships were supposed to be good luck or something and it ran off when he tried to approach it, so he shrugged and left Piewacket to himself.
Schmidt had steadfastly refused to eat a thing that Lex had found on board in case the food was enchanted, preferring instead to eat what they had brought with them from Jani’s Tavern. But Lex had sampled some of the pantry’s supplies and found the food to be very good indeed. He had continued his systematic exploring of the ship until he had some idea of its layout. Any conman knows that it is important to have escape routes very firmly fixed in your mind in case the worst should happen.
Lex knew how to get out on deck and he knew how to escape into the bowels of the ship to hide if need be. But he had not been inside all of the rooms. His natural explorer’s instinct had been somewhat curbed after opening an innocuous little door to find a rabid rabbit on the other side that almost roasted him with a blast of flame from its foaming mouth before lunging for his feet. The thing had chewed halfway through his boot before he managed to kick it off and slam the door shut. Lex had no idea what it was there for — it might have been a pet, a magical experiment gone wrong or the enchanter’s breakfast for all he knew — but he marked the door with a big X to make sure he didn’t go in there again and when Schmidt asked him where the scorch marks had come from, Lex told him that he had discovered a small dragon down below. It sounded better than rabid bunny rabbit.
But the incident made him wary of opening any closed door too readily. Furthermore, he had a sneaking suspicion that some of the rooms sometimes changed size. Or moved. He was almost sure that he had been near the bottom of the ship the first time he encountered the ferocious, fire-breathing rabbit and yet, the next day, he saw the same door on the top floor just outside the bridge, the X he had drawn on it still there, undisturbed.
Lex had since drawn X’s on several of the doors just on the basis of the strange sounds he had heard coming out of them. There had been a decided munching, crunching kind of sound from one and from another Lex was sure he had heard the rustle and tap of some many-legged creature walking about on the mirrored floor. So, in spite of his initial bravado, Lex had decided, after all, that he would sleep on the bridge with the lawyer that night. He wasn’t scared of the ship. Not at all. He just liked being able to see the sea going by and the only windows in the whole ship were on the bridge. The wall-to-wall mirrors everywhere else did not allow any portholes and that gave the ship a stifling, claustrophobic air, especially considering the ease with which one could get lost.
Bessa had said that the ship read the mind of the key holder and so Lex had assumed that it was heading for Khestrii. His hope was confirmed when they began to catch sight of other enchanted boats the next day, heading in the same direction as them. The boats never strayed too close to each other and Lex could only assume that they could somehow sense each other and keep on separate courses.
They arrived at the great metal harbour an hour before sunset. Lex had worried about this moment. Khestrii was the home of the enchanters and it would never do for them to see Lex and Schmidt getting off the ship — they would immediately suspect foul play for no enchanter would willingly allow his ship to be used by non-magical people. As it was, the ice storms let in by Mahara’s sun had driven the enchanters away from the harbour and, as they had no midnight markets here, the port was deserted. Besides which, the white fur coats that Lex had found effectively shielded them from any suspicious glances and, with the hoods pulled up over their heads, it was not obvious that they were not enchanters anyway. The only thing that gave them away was their height. Lex in particular was not tall enough for the coat and the end of it dragged in the snow in a most irritating way. He would just have to hope that if anyone did notice this they would assume that he was a lucky crone with a kind master who had graciously allowed her to wear one of the coats, although that in itself was unlikely.
But although the ice storms worked in their favour in emptying the harbour, they did not make it very easy to disembark the boat. Their rather brutal departure from the docks at Gandylow had broken off the gangplank, so the only way to disembark the ship was to have it hover just over the docks and then climb down the ladder that ran down the side.
Lex was agile and quick and had little trouble in making his way to the bottom of the frozen ladder. Schmidt, however, did not find it so painless. The ship was immensely tall and the ladder was at least five storeys high. Then there was the fact that the rungs were frozen solid, and cold metal, as Lex had found out when he tried to lick the ice from a frozen pole as a child, was painful to the touch and stuck to the skin if you weren’t careful.
It took the lawyer an age to descend the ladder and his hands were trembling by the time he stepped onto the harbour, both with the cold and with the strain of having to navigate a frozen ladder down the side of a giant ship in the midst of an ice storm. He hadn’t complained, hadn’t voiced his fears at any time but, now that he was standing on the harbour, the sight of his trembling hands irritated Lex, reminding him of another old man and reawakening that terrible fear of being old and unable to control your body… or your tongue
…
‘You took your time!’ Lex snapped. ‘We’re going to be late!’
Old age… Lex was never growing old. He had made that promise to himself a long time ago, after he had seen what the years could do to a person… what they could take away from you. No — one way or another, Lex fully intended to leave this life before any such thing could happen to him. Notoriety was something to be worked towards when you fully intended to end your days in the hangman’s gallows.
‘Late for what?’ the old lawyer said, glaring at him.
‘We need to be at Mahara’s Tower before nightfall,’ Lex replied.
‘Why?’ Schmidt said, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.
‘Because that’s when they’re going to announce the Game,’ Lex smirked.
He would have liked to be able to linger more over this delicious revelation, relishing Schmidt’s horror, but time prevented it. Still, to his immense satisfaction, Schmidt looked like someone had just kicked him in the gut. ‘ Game? ’ he croaked.
‘We’ve been chosen, sir,’ Lex said with his sweetest smile. ‘By Lady Luck herself. Come on, we need to get moving.’ And he turned away and strode off.
Although Lex had never been to Khestrii before, he was familiar with the Black Tower of which Lady Luck had spoken, for it was a famous landmark on the Globe. It was said to have been created by Thaddeus, God of Illusion and the enchanters’ patron deity, for his poor sister Mahara after she declined immortality for the sake of her human lover. The couple had been rejected by Gods and humans alike for their sacrilegious union and had lived together in isolation in the tower Thaddeus had built for them — some said out of compassion and some said out of spite — a prison or a haven? At any rate, upon the eventual death of the couple, Thaddeus had sealed the tower and no one had been inside since.