point.’
‘My dear boy,’ Schmidt called back, ‘I haven’t even begun to make it.’
And the lawyer quickened his pace, leaving Lex toiling further behind.
‘Hey!’ Lex shouted. ‘Give me back my body, you bastard!’ When Schmidt continued to ignore him, Lex proceeded to shout insults in the most foul language he could think of before grudgingly deciding to conserve his energy for the rest of what was clearly going to be an exceedingly torturous climb. When he at last reached the top, Schmidt had clearly been waiting for him for some time — he was sitting at the top of the stairs with Lex’s bag at his feet. Lex took a bite out of the half-eaten pie and then passed it to the lawyer. It was decidedly satisfying to see his employer wince on arrival in his own body once again.
‘You made your point,’ Lex growled, standing and picking up his bag. ‘But I wouldn’t do that again if I were you. Trust me, if it becomes a contest, I can make your life much more painful than you could ever make mine.’
‘I believe you,’ Schmidt replied solemnly.
‘Glad to hear it,’ Lex snapped.
He turned away to survey their new surroundings, calmly finishing off the pie as he did so.
‘Well?’ the lawyer asked coldly after a moment.
‘It looks as if I may have made a rather horrible mistake,’ Lex said.
They were standing on a large, circular upper floor. That was all right; Lex had expected some kind of landing. But the problem… the real problem… was that there were no doors.
‘It’s a dead end,’ Schmidt said flatly. ‘We’re going to have to get all the way back down those stairs again.’
‘It was very kind of you,’ Lex remarked, ‘to allow me to finish the climb up here rather than tell me it was a dead end as soon as you found out.’
‘What can I say? I have the soul of a teacher,’ Schmidt sneered. ‘I did not want to interrupt your lesson before it was finished, Mr Trent.’
‘Well, I’m not going back down those stairs,’ Lex declared.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Not after we’ve climbed so high. No way.’
‘But this is a dead end!’
‘Not for long,’ Lex replied.
He put his bag on the floor and started rummaging through it. By the time he had pulled out a sledgehammer, a huge ice pick and a rather bemused-looking penguin, Schmidt was beginning to realise that this was no ordinary backpack.
‘What the hell is that thing?’ he asked.
‘Magic bag,’ Lex said. ‘I took it from the ship. It’s bigger inside than out. Isn’t it cool?’ he said with a grin. ‘Just think, if you hadn’t thrown my old bag away I never would have found it.’
‘Your penguin’s leaving,’ Schmidt said, for want of anything more sensible to say.
Lex glanced up with a frown as the creature shuffled off down the stairs, its feet slapping loudly on the ice.
‘I didn’t pack him. I guess there’s a few things in here that the enchanter left behind.’
‘Look, you’re not seriously thinking about hacking your way through the wall with those things, are you?’ Schmidt asked, gesturing to the ice pick and sledgehammer.
‘Oh, don’t be stupid,’ Lex replied mildly. ‘I was looking for this.’ And he pulled from the bag a tall, pointed enchanter’s hat. It was silver with the usual embroidered moons and stars.
‘That’s what your brilliant mind has come up with, is it? A hat? Thank the heavens, all our problems are solved!’
‘Or soon will be at any rate,’ Lex muttered.
He lifted the hat over his head but froze when Schmidt cried out in alarm, ‘You’re not thinking of wearing it, are you?’
Lex looked puzzled. ‘Why not? Is silver not my colour?’
‘The enchanter will be angry,’ Schmidt warned.
‘What the enchanter doesn’t know,’ Lex replied cheerfully, ‘won’t hurt him.’
And he lowered the hat onto his head, grinning at the way Schmidt flinched as if he was expecting flames to burst from its pointed tip.
‘You worry too much, Monty.’
‘Well, what good will it do you, anyway?’
‘The enchanters keep some of their power in their hats,’ Lex said, glancing at him. ‘Don’t they, sir?’
Schmidt raised an eyebrow. He was testing him! The little brat was testing him!
‘Do they, Lex?’
‘Yes,’ Lex replied. ‘They do. I thought you might have known.’
‘It’s not my business to understand the ways of the enchanters any more than it is yours! But these hats were not made for humans. We are not used to magic the way they are. It might be dangerous to-’
‘Thank you, Mr Schmidt, consider your duty of care towards me discharged. I have been duly warned. Now, let’s see about these walls.’
Lex looked at the curving ice wall that surrounded them on the circular landing. There was no way of knowing what lay beyond. They might be able to break through into another part of the upper castle or they might blast through to find nothing but more solid ice before them or a gaping drop to the floor below. It would be safer to go back down the ice staircase and start again somewhere else. Explosions are never a good idea when the superstructure of a building consists almost entirely of sand.
Lex did not know exactly how to use the hat, or even if he could use it, but it was certainly worth a try before resorting to the ice picks. He held out his hands, palms facing towards the walls, the way he had seen the enchanters do, and spoke the first magic word that came into his mind. ‘ Alakazam! ’
The wall imploded.
Which was ultimately a good thing, but the way the floor trembled was a little worrying. Schmidt and Lex both slipped over on the ice, despite clinging to the banister. A large crack appeared down the middle of the floor and icy dust rose up from it and fell from the ceiling. For a moment, with the ice trembling beneath him, Lex was forced to seriously contemplate the possibility that the entire staircase would collapse. Fortunately, however, moments passed and the staircase remained more or less intact. What was more, it was clear that the explosion had gone right through the wall and out the other side to where they now had a clear view of a long sand bridge. Heat was pouring out from the gap in waves and Lex could see that the icy floor nearest the wall was already beginning to melt. Without speaking to one another, Lex and Schmidt very carefully and tentatively dragged themselves towards the door, wincing as the ice groaned when they passed over the crack down the middle.
When they at last reached the safety of the sandy floor on the other side, Schmidt rounded on Lex, almost foaming at the mouth. ‘Alakazam? Alakazam? Did you have any idea at all what you were doing back there? Take that hat off before you kill somebody!’
‘What’s your problem? It worked, didn’t it?’
But he raised his hands to the hat anyway, intending to remove it. ‘Uh oh,’ he said, tugging at the hat. ‘I, uh… can’t get it off.’
‘Can’t get it off?’ Schmidt repeated, looking horrified. ‘Can’t get it off?’
‘Can’t get it off, yes, that’s what I said!’ Lex replied, feeling irritated and just the tiniest bit alarmed. It must have been because he’d used the magic on it. After all, the hat had come off fine when he’d tried it on before.
‘I warned you not to put it on. Here, let me try,’ the lawyer said, gripping the hat and trying to pull it from Lex’s head.
‘Oh, never mind the hat for now,’ Lex said after several rather undignified moments of pulling and tugging. ‘We’ll deal with it after this round.’
‘I don’t like it,’ Schmidt said.
Neither did Lex but he wasn’t about to admit his discomfort to the lawyer. The truth was that he had only ever expected to be wearing the hat for a few moments. He felt vulnerable with it stuck to his head like this… almost as if the enchanter might be able to sense the fact that he was wearing it. For all Lex knew, the enchanters
