fitting. Yes, he did not want to die an old man but neither did he want to die quite yet. There was no doubt in his mind that he had seriously pissed the enchanter off and he could not risk that he might catch up with him. But how else to repair the mirror without using magic?
‘What have you already tried?’ he asked.
‘What?’ Lucius asked, cut off in mid flow.
‘To fix the mirror. What have you already tried?’
‘It’s already fixed.’
‘No it’s not, the glass is all broken.’
‘The pieces were all outside the frame and I put them back. I thought that was all I had to do.’
‘Did Jezra come to tell you you’d won?’
‘No, but I-’
‘Then you haven’t fixed it.’
Of course you had to look quite closely to see that the mirror was in fact broken, for the breaks had all been so clean that only very thin cracks appeared to mark where the pieces joined one another. And there was no obvious way to get rid of those, not without using magic. Lucius had merely repaired the mirror, he hadn’t fixed it. A broken mirror was a broken mirror, however carefully glued together it might be. Any task set by Jezra would never be as simple as that.
‘Did you see the prophet on your way up?’ Lex asked.
‘I think he’s out of the round. He got stuck in some of the quicksand downstairs. I don’t know what happened to Theba.’
Lex sensibly didn’t enlighten him and knelt down by the mirror to tip out the broken pieces.
‘What are you doing?’ Lucius asked.
‘Do you remember what Gramps told us about sandcastles? ’ Lex asked as he rummaged through his bag. ‘He said that the corridors were sometimes guarded by minotaurs. And — if you were really unfortunate — by medusas.’
Lex drew the mirror out of his pocket. ‘I brought a mirror, just in case,’ Lex said. ‘In fact, I killed a medusa with it just a few minutes ago.’ He noted Lucius’s squeak of horrified awe before going on, ‘And — as luck would have it — it seems to be exactly the same size as the one Jezra has left for us.’
Lex brushed away the broken pieces of the first mirror and carefully slotted his own one into Jezra’s frame. It was indeed a perfect fit.
‘So Lex Trent wins again,’ a soft voice said.
Lex glanced up to see Jezra gazing down at him. ‘I always win, my Lord.’
‘Thirty-two minutes,’ Jezra said, gazing coldly at Lucius. ‘Thirty-two minutes you were here on your own before the others arrived and yet you were not able to solve this painfully easy puzzle.’
‘I am sorry, Lord Jezra,’ Lucius tremored. ‘But I had no way of fixing the mirror because I didn’t have a second one like Lex did and I-’
‘Lex,’ Jezra said. ‘Assume for a moment that you had not had that second mirror in your bag. What would you have done next?’
‘I would have thought of some other way, my Lord,’ Lex said promptly.
‘Please demonstrate.’
Lex had had many happy moments in his seventeen years, but this one had to be in the top ten. Top five, even. He had always been something of a show-off at school. Far from being embarrassed, he had actually enjoyed it when the teacher had picked on him to show the other students how something was done. Every teacher’s pet knows that smug, contented glow. It was a thousand times better when a God was asking you to demonstrate your skills. Lex calmly glanced round the room, taking in anything that might be useful.
‘Well, discounting the rest of what’s in my bag,’ he said, ‘my first thought would have been to use the ice.’
‘Use the ice, how?’ Jezra asked steadily.
‘Melt it,’ Lex said: ‘And pour the water into the frame so that the still water created a reflection. Just as effective although my way was quicker.’
Jezra smiled slightly, grasped a fistful of Lucius’s hair and, ignoring the alarmed yelp, forced his head towards Lex so that Lucius was looking straight at his brother.
‘Thirty seconds,’ the God whispered in Lucius’s ear. ‘In less than thirty seconds your brother got what you couldn’t get in more than thirty minutes. An appalling lack of resourcefulness on your part.’
‘I will do better in the second round, my Lord,’ Lucius trembled.
Before Jezra could respond, Lady Luck appeared in the tower and instantly threw her arms around Lex in a suffocating hug. ‘My dear boy, you were phenomenal! Better than I had even hoped! Why, it would hardly even matter if you hadn’t been the one to fix the mirror after the way you defeated the medusa and the minotaur simultaneously!’
‘It was nothing, my Lady,’ Lex replied, airily, as she released him. ‘I only wish there had been more of them. It would have made it more interesting.’
Schmidt rolled his eyes at the conceited bragging but Lady Luck just beamed even wider. In another moment, however, the smirk was wiped off Lex’s face when Jezra spoke to Lucius.
‘If you pay very close attention to your brother over the next few days as his guest then perhaps you will learn something.’
‘Guest?’ Lucius repeated.
‘ Guest? ’ Lex said, in much the same tone as if the God had said ‘sex slave’.
‘On board your great ship,’ Jezra said, turning to Lex, a slightly malicious smile on his face. ‘You frightened away the drayfus. Lucius and his… ’ the God glanced at Zachary, ‘and his ferret will therefore travel onboard your ship with you to the next round.’
‘That hardly seems fair!’ Lex protested. ‘It was Lucius’s fault for leaving the drayfus there! Why should I be punished for his mistake?’
‘Now, now. Play nicely, children,’ Lady Luck said lightly. ‘I have agreed to this arrangement with Jezra, Lex. Lucius will travel with you to the next round.’
‘But that just isn’t fair!’ Lex fumed. ‘I’m the one who stole the ship, I should reap the benefits!’
‘If it makes you feel any better, Lex, the enchanter is after you now that you’ve used his hat. If he catches up with you he will likely punish all persons on board the ship, so I’m afraid that, as well as reaping the benefits, Lucius may also pay the price for what you’ve done.’
Jezra picked up the end of string that was Zachary’s makeshift lead and handed it to Lucius.
‘Have fun,’ the God said to the two distinctly unhappy brothers.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Lucius was clearly afraid of the enchanter’s ship. Of course, Lex had not helped matters when he had described, in great detail, some of the horrible things he had discovered on the lower decks.
‘-and I distinctly heard the rustling of a giant spider coming from one of the rooms,’ Lex went on maliciously. ‘And there are trapped ghosts down below and lost, twisted children and-’
‘Oh shut up, Lex! Just shut up! I don’t care! I haven’t slept or eaten properly in three days! I just want to have some food and then go to sleep for something more than four hours at a stretch! Do you think you could manage that, Lex? I know winning this stupid Game is the only thing you care about right now, but I’m not exactly a threat to you am I? Do you think you could just steer your way clear to sharing some of your food with me and then leave me alone for a few hours?’
‘I seem to recall your saying that you would never ask any favours of me ever again,’ Lex said coldly. ‘I thought that was our new agreement.’
Lucius sighed. ‘I wasn’t hungry then.’
