cutting through the sea and the smell of the foam. But it had been unnaturally quiet for, of course, this was no ordinary ship — it flew, it did not sail and, as such, there was no sound of water, no white foam trailing in the ship’s wake. Nothing but a slightly unnatural silence. It was a warm night so Lex sat down with his back against the wall, looking out towards the prow. He could enjoy smelling the ocean on the sea breeze, even if he could not hear all that much of it. Lex had always loved ships, especially at night. They were their own little worlds, separate from everyone else, hidden away in the middle of the ocean.
He dug in his pocket for the crystal ball and re-watched the first round. It had been broadcast to the stadiums about an hour after it had actually been completed and now the footage was stored on their individual crystal balls so that they could watch it whenever they liked. Lucius had not watched it even once but Lex had seen it over and over again. It annoyed him that the footage of Lucius climbing the wall of the castle had been edited to look more impressive, with lots of nail-biting shots of how extraordinarily high they were, and all the parts where Lucius had complained, whined or wept had been cut altogether.
The Gods called the little crystal balls Divine Eyes and Lex therefore assumed that they somehow recorded what the Gods saw. After all, there were no cameras in evidence, following them about during the course of the Game, but the Gods had some way of watching everything that went on even though they weren’t physically there. It therefore seemed that, somehow, they also had a way of recording the images they saw so that they could be played back later.
The muted, tinny sound of glorious music came softly out of the little ball when it got to the part where Lex leapt out from behind the statues to freeze the medusa. He could imagine the music booming across the giant stadiums and the cries of awe from the spectators. The grand music, combined with lots of fearsome shots of both the medusa and the minotaur, as well as the fact that this part had been broadcast in slow motion, made the whole thing look even more dashing and courageous than it really had been.
‘It wasn’t as impressive as all that,’ Schmidt had snorted when he’d seen it.
‘That’s easy for you to say,’ Lex replied smoothly. ‘Seeing as you were the one cowering behind the statues whilst I was the one who heroically saved both our lives!’
To his immense satisfaction, Schmidt did not have anything to say to that. But Lex had taken to smugly watching and re-watching the footage in his crystal ball when he was alone late at night up on deck. He wanted to appear careless and nonchalant about it and felt that image would be somewhat ruined if the others saw him vainly ogling himself in the ball over and over again.
Lady Luck had smugly told him that he was the favourite to win already, with both Lucius and the prophet trailing far behind him. The defeat of the medusa and minotaur had created quite a stir and, already, enterprising merchants had produced a limited edition action figure of Lex fighting the monsters. The Goddess had brought him one in delight when she visited the ship yesterday. Lex took the three figures out of his pocket and examined them in the moonlight. Action-figure Lex did not look all that much like him as he was practically the same size as the minotaur — tall and broad and with a brave, fearsome expression on his little plastic face. Lex didn’t mind, however. You knew you’d made it when they turned you into an action figure.
He put them all back in his pocket and gazed out over the dark sea, feeling well pleased with himself. Look at me now, Gramps, he thought. This would be an adventure worthy of your stories. Lucius’s news that Alistair Trent was dead hadn’t particularly saddened Lex for he had known that it must have happened by now and he also knew that his grandfather would have wanted it. He was not a man made for half-lives. He had been a respected Chronicler and had only given it up when he had come home to raise Lex and Lucius after their parents died.
‘Sorry we cut your adventures off short, Gramps,’ Lex had said one day when he’d been about six. ‘You’d have had loads more without us.’
‘Well… some things are more important,’ Alistair replied lightly, running a hand through his thick silver hair as he sat down on the bench. He’d been chopping wood for the last hour but Lex had just brought him a tankard of beer, so he was having a well-earned break.
‘I want to be a Chronicler one day,’ Lex said.
‘Oh no,’ Alistair replied with a smile, picking Lex up with his strong hands and putting him on his knee. ‘You’ll be an Adventurer yourself. Don’t settle for writing the story, Lex. Accept nothing less than actually being the story and maybe one day The Chronicles of Lex Trent will be on the bookshelves next to Adventurers I wrote about myself.’
Lex had almost squirmed with pleasure at the suggestion. ‘You said it takes a certain type of person to be an Adventurer,’ he prompted, hoping for further praise.
‘Yes. You need certain qualities.’ Alistair glanced at his grandson. ‘But you’ve got most of them in spades already, which is damned remarkable considering you’re still only a little sprat. I’m completely confident that you’ll do the Trent name proud one day, my boy… ’
After a while, Lex fell asleep. He started awake some time later feeling cold and stiff and, for a moment, unsure of where he was. Then he remembered and was suddenly filled with the desire to get down below with Schmidt and Lucius where there were warm furs and the comforting sounds of other people breathing. He was about to stand up when he noticed the creature moving about on the deck. It was a moon-goblin — a strange, thin, melancholy creature made from moonlight. Lex froze, hoping the thing hadn’t seen him. Although mostly harmless, moon-goblins could be dangerously unpredictable when they were upset. This one was crying, wandering morosely about the deck, gazing out at the black sea, staring up at the stars and then wandering about again. Lex could hear its muffled sobs as it shuffled around. No one knew why the moon-goblins were such a sad species or what it was they cried about. This one had probably had its curiosity roused at the sight of the enchanted ship flying over the ocean. After a few minutes, it climbed over the outer railings, let go, and was blown away by the wind. Lex lost no time in scrambling to his feet and getting off the deck and back to the bridge as fast as he could, doing his best not to think about lost, twisted children.
It was with relief that he slipped into the bridge, firmly closing the door behind him. The light from the stars and moon shone in through the panoramic windows and illuminated Schmidt, Lucius and the ferret curled up in the warm blankets that had been piled around on the floor. As soon as Lex stepped into the room, Lucius sat bolt upright. ‘Is that you, Lex?’ he whispered fearfully.
Lex cursed inwardly. He knew he’d been quiet. Still, at least Lucius had had the sense to whisper — the last thing he wanted was for Schmidt to wake up and start telling everyone off.
‘Of course it’s me,’ Lex said quietly, tiptoeing over to his own designated sleeping space beside Lucius.
‘Where were you?’ Lucius asked. ‘I was worried about you when you didn’t come back. I thought something might have happened. I thought you might have had an accident or fallen overboard or-’
‘Gods, will you listen to yourself? You’re like an old woman! Shut up and go back to sleep.’
‘I suggested to Mr Schmidt that we make up a search party just in case something had happened to you,’ Lucius went on, unperturbed. ‘But he said that he would never be that lucky.’
Lex chuckled softly.
‘It’s not funny,’ Lucius said huffily.
‘Schmidt knows that I’m controlling the ship with the ivory Swann in the basin over there,’ Lex said nodding towards it. ‘So if the ship is still moving then that means that I am still alive and still on board, all right?’
‘Oh. All right, but I wish someone had told me before. Where is the ship going, anyway?’
Lex groaned softly. ‘Don’t you ever stop talking? You know where the ship is going; the Goddess of Luck said that her round would take place in the Golden Valley.’
‘Well, I don’t see what we can possibly do there,’ Lucius grumbled. ‘There’s nothing there but-’
‘ Wealth,’ Lex said gleefully.
When the Lands Above had at last washed its hands of royalty and the assassinations and bloody feuds that went with it, the last kings had gone to the Golden Valley, taking much of their acquired wealth with them. The western kings took horse-drawn carriages that stretched on for miles, journeying with them across the continent to the promised land where there would be no subjects baying for their blood and no relatives plotting to kill them. The eastern kings did much the same but for the fact that their carriages were pulled by elephants rather than horses. The kings had been allowed to take people with them but strangely they had all chosen to take servants rather than family. Kings had grown to be instinctively distrustful of relatives, especially since many of them had got their own titles by sneaking a drop of poison into Uncle’s brandy one night. So they took gold and servants instead of loved ones. It was said that the Golden Valley did now truly glitter, due to the amassed wealth of the land’s exiled kings.
