Once he was on a level with her, he truly realised how big she was. Even Lex, who had never felt humbled by anything in his life, couldn’t help being just a little bit aware of his own insignificance when he looked at her. Behind her, back within the shelter of the ladders, he could see what was very clearly a glimmering golden nest. Lex knew that griffins were said to make their nests out of gold, but he couldn’t think where Zoey had managed to find so much of it out here in space.
Even more lovely than the nest itself were the three agate eggs inside it. They were all striped in different shades of white and silver. It was a mark of just how affected by the sight Lex was that he did not even think about stealing them.
‘You’re every bit as beautiful as Gramps said you were,’ Lex said softly, bowing lowly to her. ‘Zoey, I’ve come to ask for one of your feathers.’
He straightened from the bow, but remained where he was whilst the griffin watched him. He couldn’t go any closer to her — she might see it as an invasion of her space and feel threatened. He had to wait for her to come to him. After twenty slightly tense seconds the griffin slowly moved towards him, the large paws of her back legs making deep tracks in the space frost that covered the planks. The unbelievable thrill of it raced through Lex like electricity as she padded softly over and stopped in front of him. She was so large that Lex’s head only just reached past the top of her chest.
This surpassed even the royal crown! He was close enough to touch her! He was close enough to see the dusty space frost that lightly covered her feathers and fur; close enough to see the movement of her chest as she breathed and close enough to sense the restrained strength of her majestic, powerful body.
She lowered her head a little so that her long neck was within Lex’s reach. Her half-closed eyes glimmered liquid gold in the light from the three suns below them. Lex took a deep breath for the sake of the moment. Here it was — he was about to win the Game, beating Lady Luck and the Judge himself, winning for Jezra and making an immortal name for himself in the Chronicles yet to come.
He reached his hand up and laid it on the griffin’s neck. He had not expected the feathers to be so soft. His hand ran lightly down to grip the single black feather at her shoulder and prepare to pull it out. He was very aware of the cold, the suns below them, the stars around them and the utter silence of space…
Then there was a shing that sliced through the silence, whistled past Lex’s outstretched arm and buried itself deep into the griffin’s chest. She gave an awful cry of anguish and reached up one clawed foot to try to remove the huge sword from her chest before she collapsed to the ground, making the wooden platform tremble. Lex looked up and saw Schmidt staring down at them with a look of horror on his face. And to the right and slightly below the lawyer he saw the prophet.
Lex dropped down beside the dying griffin, almost unable to believe what he’d just seen. Killing a griffin was… well, it was almost like killing a God. The griffins were worshipped on the Globe.
‘Oh, Zoey,’ Lex muttered, running his hands helplessly over her bloodstained feathers. ‘I’m so sorry — I don’t know how to help you.’
Lex knew nothing about medicine. He didn’t know whether he should try to remove the sword or whether he should simply leave it there. He didn’t know whether there was anything at all he could do to help the griffin or ease her pain. But in another moment she was dead. From above, Schmidt shouted a warning but it came too late for Lex to dodge the blow entirely, so the prophet’s stick clipped the side of his head, knocking him back on the wooden planks of the platform whilst the prophet stepped past him and calmly plucked the black feather from the dead griffin.
His head still ringing, Lex shot out an arm as the prophet walked past him, tripping him up so that they sprawled on the planks together, the feather still clutched in the prophet’s hand. Lex tried to wrestle it away but, although blind, deaf and dumb, the prophet was much larger and stronger than him.
‘Lex!’ Schmidt shouted from above. ‘Let him go! For Gods’ sake, just let him have the feather!’
In another moment, Lex realised why Schmidt had been trying to make him stop, as they both rolled right off the edge of the platform, freefalling terrifyingly. They crashed through several wooden ladders before they landed on another, larger platform. Realising that the feather was in his hand, Lex pushed the prophet away, jumped up and ran to the edge of the platform where a metal ladder led up to a series of wooden ones. He put his foot on the first rung and shot up it like a monkey.
But before he could climb up to the wooden ladders, he became aware of a low groaning sound as the planks beneath his feet began to tremble. Within moments the noise had increased in volume so intensely that it seemed to pierce Lex’s eardrums. It went through him with all the force of a physical thing, knocking him down onto his knees, his hands clapped tightly over his ears.
As the planks continued to tremble beneath him, he thought for one wild moment that the Space Ladders themselves must be collapsing. But then something moved into his line of vision and he realised that the noise he’d heard had not been the Space Ladders collapsing — it had been the groan of orbiting planets. Everyone knew that the Globe was the centre of the universe. The suns passed above and beneath it and the other planets in the galaxy orbited around it. Their nearest neighbour was Plenrii — a water planet for the dead. The Globe was the only living planet in the galaxy and the others that orbited it were all said to be underworlds. There were so many other planets out there because there were always more and more people who were dying and the Gods had to keep creating more planets to provide space for them all.
The prophet, Lex and Schmidt were all motionless on the ladders as the underworld came into view like a gigantic blue marble going directly past them on its cold, solitary elliptical orbit of the Globe. Lex could hardly believe his eyes. As far as he knew, this was the first time in the history of the Globe that any living human had ever set eyes on an underworld.
The deafening roar of the orbiting planet caused no problem for the deaf prophet. He took his chance to grip the ladder below and start climbing up towards Lex, who lowered his hands with the idea of climbing to the next platform, but he realised at once that there was no way he could hold onto the ladder and leave his ears unprotected. Nor could he climb the ladder without using his hands, for the way they were shaking and trembling he would have fallen off within seconds. Still on his knees, Lex stared around the small platform, desperately wondering what to do, for the prophet was sure to be upon him at any moment. He staggered up and walked unsteadily to the edge of the shaking platform, intending to kick at the prophet when his head appeared over the top. But his head never did appear. Just moments later there was such a savage jolt that Lex fell over on the boards, narrowly avoiding toppling over the edge. The prophet was not so lucky. He lost his grip on the shuddering ladder, his hands slipped from the rung. Desperately, he flailed to regain his hold but it was too late. In another moment he was freefalling out into the vast, black coldness of space.
Lex couldn’t help but stare — both mesmerised and horrified by the sight of the black figure tumbling over and over, unable to utter so much as a whisper of fear. Twenty minutes went by before Lex and Schmidt were able to remove their hands from their ears and by that time the prophet was long out of view.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Lex slowly climbed the ladder back up to the griffin’s platform where Schmidt stood waiting. They both looked sadly down at the griffin in silence. It seemed a terrible waste just for the sake of a game and Lex found it hard to summon up any regret for the fact that the prophet had just fallen to his death. Served him right.