numbly, he’s gone completely mad. He covered his eyes, cringing in fear at the noise of the thundering hooves of the minotaur running into the room followed almost at once by the hissing medusa. Then the hooves stopped abruptly, the monster was cut off mid-roar and Lex was leaping to his feet, out from behind the protection — such as it was — of the statues.
Schmidt could barely register what was happening. The boy was a goner for sure and Schmidt would soon be next. There was the terrible hiss of fifty or so snakes baring their fangs and then there was utter silence, broken a moment later by the sound of Lex… laughing..
Schmidt slowly lowered his hands, still crouched on the floor amidst the bones, wondering if he was going mad or was perhaps even dead already…
‘You can come out now, sir,’ Lex called nonchalantly. ‘I’ve dealt with the minotaur and the medusa. It’s quite safe.’
Half in a daze, Schmidt picked himself up off the floor and walked round from behind the statues to see Lex looking even smaller than he really was, with the medusa on one side and the minotaur on the other. Both the monsters had been turned to stone.
‘How did you…?’ Schmidt trailed off dumbly.
‘Oh, it was easy, really,’ Lex replied, his voice rich with glee, an insufferably self-satisfied expression on his face. ‘By luring them both here at the same time I got the medusa to deal with the minotaur by turning it into stone. Then I simply jumped out at the medusa behind the mirror, causing her to look right at her own reflection and turn herself into stone as well. It’s easy when you know how.’
Schmidt didn’t know whether to be impressed or livid. After all, it had worked and they were both still alive but… ‘A hundred things might have gone wrong!’ he hissed.
‘Might have gone wrong to other people, you mean,’ Lex replied with a smirk. ‘I’m lucky, Monty. My plans are always flawless. Come on, we can’t dawdle about here. The race isn’t over yet.’
Fortunately, once they walked through the now-empty minotaur’s den, they came almost at once to a winding spiral staircase that led them straight up to the very top of the castle without further incident. They had made good time, without any seriously debilitating accidents to slow them down, and so it was an extremely bitter and entirely unexpected shock to Lex to discover that they were not the first to reach the broken mirror. Lucius and Zachary were already there.
This was one of the ice rooms — although only the floor was ice — the walls and ceiling were made entirely of glass, letting in pools of yellow light that splashed brightly off the ice and the broken mirror in the centre of the room. The other effect of the glass walls was, of course, to act as an uncomfortably effective reminder of how very high up they were. Lucius and Zachary were both sitting on the floor near the mirror and Lex could sense that they had been there for some time already.
‘How did you get here before me?’ he demanded from the doorway. The only apparent route was straight through the minotaur’s den and Lex couldn’t imagine Lucius strolling through that bone-filled place even if he had been lucky enough to be there at a time when the minotaur was not.
Zachary and Lucius both looked up, alerted to his presence for the first time at the sound of his voice. Lucius frowned at him. ‘Why are you wearing that stupid hat?’
‘It makes me look taller,’ Lex said.
‘It makes you look stupid,’ Lucius replied.
‘Well, I think your haircut makes you look like a girl but what can I do?’ Lex snapped. ‘How did you get here before us?’
‘Don’t tell him,’ Zachary said as Lucius opened his mouth to respond.
Lex narrowed his eyes at the farmhand. How he hated the man.
‘Shut your mouth before I shut it for you!’ he snarled.
‘What the hell is your problem?’ Lucius said, scrambling to his feet. ‘Can’t you keep a civil tongue in your head? What do you think Gramps would have said if he’d heard you talking to Zachary like that?’
After the last, slightly scary, incident with the ice, Lex had not intended to use the magic in the enchanter’s hat again. But now he found he couldn’t help himself. He directed his most frosty stare at Zachary and drew himself up as far as he could.
‘If you don’t tell me how you got here within the next five seconds,’ Lex said calmly, ‘I shall turn you into a ferret.’
He raised his hand to point at the farmhand, meaning only to reinforce the point but as a new and inexperienced user of magic with a complete lack of rudimentary control, the mere act of pointing had the immediate effect of turning Zachary Finnigan into a sleek, white, rather weaselly-looking ferret. There was a moment of utter silence before the ferret started to squeal.
‘Oh my Gods,’ Lucius whispered, staring at Lex. ‘You’re wearing an enchanter’s hat, aren’t you? Are you insane?’
Lex ignored the question. He was grinning in pure delight at the animal. What a profoundly satisfying moment it was!
‘Doesn’t it suit him?’ he gloated. ‘You know I always said that Zachary probably should have been born a weasel. In fact I even… thought tha-’ Lex faltered, staggering back a few steps.
‘Your nose is bleeding,’ Lucius said, staring at him.
Lex raised a hand to his face and found that Lucius was right. Suddenly he wasn’t feeling so good. The room seemed to have become very hot, despite the ice.
‘I’d better take a look at this mirror,’ he said, as an excuse to sit down.
‘Are you all right?’ Lucius asked anxiously.
‘Yes,’ Lex said irritably, pressing a tissue to his nose. ‘Stop fussing.’
‘I told you you shouldn’t have used the hat,’ Schmidt said. ‘The enchanter can probably sense you when you’re wearing it. He’ll want it back.’
‘Well, turn Zachary back and then take the hat off,’ Lucius said.
‘How did you get here before me?’ Lex repeated.
Lucius sighed. ‘We climbed the castle from the outside. The side where the shade is. We came in just below this room, okay?’
Lex frowned. That would certainly have been quicker, being much more direct than weaving through the hot and cold rooms, dodging minotaurs and medusas from the inside. And sandcastles were easy enough to climb since hand- and footholds tended to be present naturally and could be knocked in where they weren’t.
‘What about the heat?’ Lex asked suspiciously. ‘And how did you cope with your fear of heights?’
‘With difficulty,’ Lucius sighed. ‘Now turn Zachary back.’
Lex gave a hard laugh. ‘I don’t think so!’
‘But you said if I told you how we got here-’ Lucius began to whine.
‘I made no such agreement. You assumed. An assumption that turned out to be incorrect. But you’re my brother, Lucius, so I’ll tell you what I’ll do… ’ Lex put his bag on the floor and rummaged through it, drawing out a length of string. He then lunged for the ferret, tied one end of the string around its neck and passed the other end to his brother. ‘Just to make sure you don’t lose him,’ he smiled.
‘You can’t leave him like that,’ Lucius insisted. ‘Turn him back!’
‘And risk having some kind of brain haemorrhage? I don’t think so.’
‘Unsatisfactory as this whole situation is,’ Schmidt broke in, addressing Lucius. ‘Considering the danger inherent in using enchanted hats and the fact that this enchanter will be looking for us, it probably would be best if your friend remained… in his present state for now.’
‘I’m glad we’re all agreed,’ Lex said, before turning his attention back to the mirror. It was one of Lex’s highly advanced skills to be able to tune out anything that was being said that was likely to displease him, and he now totally blanked out the irritating sound of Lucius’s whiny voice complaining on Zachary’s behalf — as well as the racket the ferret was making — as he studied the mirror and applied his mind to the problem.
It was quite a small mirror, set in a silver frame and broken into five pieces. The breaks were all clean and the mirror remained resting in its frame. Lex had fully intended to use the hat to fix the mirror but he shrank from that now. The incident a few minutes ago had made him more uncomfortable than he would care to admit. He had felt the magician’s anger. Well, perhaps anger was too mild a word to use — towering rage might have been more
