‘Lex, are you okay?’ Lucius called from above, his voice echoing in the new-found silence. ‘Are you all right? Did he hurt you? Lex, are you-’
Lex tore his eyes away from the bottle impatiently. ‘Lucius, do I look like I’m hurt in any way?’
‘No, but-’
‘I’m fine.’
He turned his attention back to the bottle, examining it whilst Schmidt and Lucius slowly made their way down the ladders towards him. The little enchanter inside was no more than a few inches tall. His white beard was made out of cotton wool and his coat and hat even had little white stars stitched onto them. It was rather a good likeness although he was, perhaps, a little overstuffed so that his arms and legs stuck out from his body at rather odd angles.
‘What did you do?’ Lex asked when the others stepped onto the platform beside him.
Schmidt took the bottle from him and examined the doll inside with a distinct look of satisfaction. ‘This,’ he said, holding up the bottle, ‘is living proof that you really are the luckiest person in the world, Mr Trent. It’s a faery bottle — technically for catching faeries to turn them into dolls for children but it works on any magical person, even if they’re bigger than the bottle. You just have to break the glass on them and they get sucked in. They’re very rare,’ Schmidt said, glancing at Lex. ‘The enchanters destroyed most of them because they’re just as dangerous to them as they are to faeries. But this enchanter obviously decided to keep one for his own use and I found it at the bottom of your bag.’
‘Well, I suppose I should thank you for saving my life,’ Lex said.
‘I suppose you should.’
There was a little silence. ‘Thank you,’ Lex said.
‘You’re most welcome.’
‘I bet it made you feel good after having to serve him like a slave for two years.’
‘It does give me something of a warm glow,’ Schmidt agreed, putting the bottle in his pocket.
‘Do you think this means I can keep the ship?’ Lex asked.
Schmidt rolled his eyes at him and started to climb the nearest ladder back to the Lands Above. Lucius made to do the same but Lex stopped him. ‘I realise this doesn’t make much difference now,’ he said. ‘But if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t leave. It seemed easier to be selfish at the time but… now I wish I’d stayed and had those last months with him. You were much braver than I was. I’m sorry I left you to do it by yourself.’
‘I understand why you left,’ Lucius replied. ‘It doesn’t matter now. Look, will you come back to the farm with me? Just for a little while?’
‘Sure,’ Lex replied. ‘For a while. Schmidt certainly seems eager to get home,’ he remarked, looking up to where the lawyer was now clinging from a twisting rope ladder some way above them.
‘Well, I’m just glad it’s over and we all survived,’ Lucius said. ‘Now we can go home and just try and forget this ever happened.’
He moved over to the nearest ladder and put his foot on the bottom rung but when he glanced back over his shoulder he realised Lex hadn’t followed him. His eyes widened in fascinated horror as he saw what his brother was doing. ‘Er… do you think you should really be doing that?’ he called.
‘Their mother was killed because of the Game,’ Lex replied, picking up another griffin egg and placing it carefully in his bag. ‘They’ll die out here on their own.’
‘Yes but, Lex, you don’t know anything about looking after-’
‘I’ll learn,’ Lex replied, placing the last of the eggs in his bag and standing up. ‘Keep this under your hat, though, okay? I don’t think Schmidt would like it very much.’
When they climbed up the last ladder onto the Lands Above once more, Jezra and Lady Luck were waiting at the perimeter for them. Jezra was holding a trophy and a medal and wearing a smug smile but this was wiped off his face when Lucius climbed out from the ladders after Lex and Schmidt. He stared from one to the other, trying to work out which was which but they really did look identical now and in the end he was forced to address them both, ‘Which one of you is Lex?’
Lex raised his hand. ‘I am, Lord Jezra. Sorry but as she’s very graciously indicated that she’d be willing to have me back, I’ve decided to return to Lady Luck so I’m winning this Game for her now, not for you.’
‘But why?’ Jezra asked, looking baffled.
‘You told the enchanter Lucius was me and got him sent to the Lands Beneath,’ Lex said, raising an eyebrow. ‘Lady Luck saved all our lives.’
Jezra gave an impatient shake of his blond head. ‘But I did that to save you,’ he protested. ‘Would you rather I’d sent the enchanter after you instead?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, tough! I wanted you to win the Game. Lucius is of no use to me.’
‘But he’s of use to me,’ Lex said. ‘Occasionally.’
‘I clearly underestimated you,’ Jezra said coldly. ‘I thought winning the Game was the most important thing in the world to you and yet you jeopardised it all because of your useless, gutless twin.’
‘Yes, but I still won,’ Lex said calmly. ‘Where’s the Judge gone anyway?’
‘Back to the Lands Beneath,’ Lady Luck said. ‘I’m afraid he’s more suited to those simpler, more logical glass Races. He’s quite good at them, apparently, but he doesn’t understand humans, you see. And when his prophet was killed he didn’t think there was much point in sticking around. He always was a sore loser.’
‘So do I get my trophy now or what?’ Lex asked, greedily eyeing the large golden cup in Jezra’s hands.
‘Yes, come on, Jezra,’ the Goddess said, clicking her tongue impatiently. ‘Hand me the trophies so I can present them to my winner.’
Jezra scowled blackly and thrust the trophy and medallion moodily towards the Goddess.
‘Give me your crystal ball,’ she said to Lex.
He dug it out of his pocket and handed it to her. As she held it in her hand it seemed to get bigger so that eventually she had to put it down on the ground and it became as tall as she was. Lex saw the image of a stadium inside it. He thought he could practically smell the popcorn and the hotdogs as the roar of hundreds of spectators came through to him. They were watching the footage from the final round. Not only had Lex Trent obtained the griffin’s feather, but he had also been down to the forbidden Lands Beneath and lived to tell the tale before defeating an enchanter on the Space Ladders! The crowd was going wild — they had never, in the whole history of the Games, seen anything like this before.
Of course, the footage did not make it clear that it was Lex’s fault Lucius had been sent down there in the first place. Nor did it make it obvious that Schmidt was the one who had thrown the faery bottle at the enchanter and not Lex. All in all, the edited footage made him look even more dashingly daring and courageous than he really was. Lex Trent was the greatest player anyone had ever seen. He had won every round. He had defeated a medusa and a minotaur simultaneously; he had escaped from mad kings and draglings by the skin of his teeth; he had thwarted a wicked witch; he had climbed the Space Ladders; been down to the Lands Beneath and won the Game almost effortlessly. Lex’s ego swelled even further at the sight of the picture being painted of him. But — at the end of the day — wasn’t it all true? Had he not, indeed, done all of those things and more? What an extraordinary person he was!
Then the footage caught up to where they all were in real life — passing straight over the quarrel between Lady Luck and Jezra to the part where the Goddess of Fortune was standing ready to present the trophy to Lex. She nodded at him and he took the by-now-rather-squashed griffin feather out of his pocket and handed it to her. The gold medallion she held had a big, bold 1 ^ st engraved on it and shone impressively in the light from the sun. It was on a golden chain and as Lex bent his head for the Goddess to put it around his neck, the applause of the crowd ringing in his ears, he took a mental snapshot of the moment so that he could take it out and look at it for that special sense of smugness whenever he wanted to in the years to come. As the medal was placed around his neck and the trophy pressed into his hands, the Binding Bracelets on Lex and Schmidt’s wrists both fell off at the same time, signalling the fact that the Game had at last come to an end.