the word mercy. He won’t take pity on you.’
Lex picked up on the tone and looked at him. ‘You know this enchanter, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I know him,’ Schmidt said flatly. ‘I was his servant for two years, so believe me, Lex, when I say you won’t be able to get anything from him. You must stay completely away from him and make sure he never finds out that you escaped.’
‘What do you mean you were his servant?’ Lex asked, staring at him.
Schmidt sighed. ‘Something happened and I had to leave my home when I was a young man. The only way to do that was on board an enchanter’s ship, so I made a deal with him. I agreed to be his lawyer for a year.’
Lex had known from the little things Schmidt had already let slip earlier on in their travels that he must have had some contact with magical peoples. But he’d never dreamt that he had actually once worked for an enchanter. He could be disbarred for that, even now.
‘I’m afraid that, where you always seem to get good luck, I’m often cursed with the opposite. In fact, sometimes I think I must be Lady Luck’s favourite victim. I recognised the enchanter on the docks the morning you stole his ship.’
‘Why didn’t Bessa recognise you?’ Lex asked.
‘She wasn’t his crone when I was with him.’ Schmidt hesitated a moment before going on. ‘After my year of service was up, the enchanter refused to let me leave. He kept saying I had to stay just one more month. By the time two years had gone by I realised he was never going to allow me to go.’
‘But the things you must have seen!’ Lex breathed. ‘Living and working with an enchanter!’
‘The things I saw would make your hair curl!’ Schmidt said sharply. ‘I was barely treated better than his crone. Besides, I became a lawyer to help people, not to swindle, cheat and ruin them and that’s what the enchanter was having me do. The law can be twisted so easily but it’s supposed to be something noble not just another way of destroying people. It sickened me and I knew I had to get out so I managed to convince his crone to help me escape. She’d grown fond of me whilst I’d been living with them, for I showed her more kindness and consideration than her master ever did. So she helped me to run away when we stopped at the Bandy Towns one night. She gave me some magical help that made it easier for me to disappear and after lying low for a while I was able to change my name and start again. But the enchanter banished his crone as punishment for helping me.’
‘How do you know he banished her?’ Lex asked curiously.
‘I met her a couple of weeks ago,’ Schmidt said shortly.
Lex looked at him, puzzled for a moment before he remembered. ‘Matilda?’ he grinned. ‘You really do have bad luck, don’t you?’
‘That’s why she needed to keep the crown,’ Schmidt said. ‘With an object like that she’ll be taken back into the care of an enchanter again, for any one of them would love to get their hands on a royal crown. Crones don’t feel complete without enchanters.’
‘Why did you have to leave your home in the first place?’ Lex asked, quite unable to stop himself from asking the question.
Schmidt hesitated and for a moment Lex thought he wouldn’t tell him. Then, with a sigh, the lawyer admitted flatly, ‘My real name is Marvin Briggs.’
There was complete and utter silence as Lex stared at Schmidt, his mouth hanging open, wondering if he could be dreaming. ‘ Marvin Briggs? ’ he whispered. ‘You almost destroyed a whole province!’
The name of Marvin Briggs was respected by every scoundrel, rogue and good-for-nothing in the Lands Above. The name had even become part of popular culture. To ‘pull a Marvin Briggs’ was to create an unmitigated disaster.
‘Oh, don’t be so stupid!’ Schmidt snapped. ‘Can you see me doing something like that? It wasn’t me. I was set up. Besides, it was a city, not a province.’
Everyone knew the story. Briggs had been a young, opportunistic lawyer in the Leylands who had flooded the black market with Judges’ wigs. Now, Judges’ wigs were in some ways similar to enchanters’ hats except, instead of storing magic, they stored authority. There was something about a Judge’s wig that made anyone who wore it instantly authoritative, so that other people flinched if the wearer so much as raised their voice and almost fell over themselves in their hurry to obey any commands the wig-wearer gave them. As more and more criminal leaders got their hands on Judges’ wigs, the Leylands went through a serious crime crisis and the city almost collapsed altogether. Order was re-imposed only just in the nick of time. Marvin Briggs was exposed by another lawyer but evaded arrest and disappeared. He was never heard of again and no one had the slightest clue what had happened to him.
‘So what happened?’ Lex said. ‘If you didn’t do it, why did you end up taking the blame for it?’
‘It was you!’ Schmidt snarled, looking uncharacteristically vicious for a moment before checking himself. ‘Or it might as well have been. Someone just like you, Lex, except a few years older. His name was Oliver Simp.’
Lex recognised the name from the story and, after a moment, he placed it. ‘The lawyer who turned you in?’
‘Yes,’ Schmidt said, grinding his teeth. ‘We started at the firm at the same time. Oliver was hardworking, industrious, charming… Everyone liked him. I liked him. And then, one day, I discovered what he’d been up to with the wigs. So I gave him the chance to turn himself in. He said he hadn’t known how dangerous the wigs were, that he’d only wanted to make a bit of extra money to pay off his student loans and that everything had just got out of hand somehow. I believed him and said I would help him with any charges that were brought against him. He promised to go straight to the police and thanked me for being such a good friend. The next thing I knew I had police banging on my door shouting for my arrest because Oliver had reported me as the perpetrator! I would never have believed it of him, never, for he was so convincing! A flawless performer, just like you, Lex! That’s how I was able to recognise you for what you were as soon as you walked in the door back in the Wither City. I tried to explain what had really happened, that it was all a mistake, but Oliver had been clever about it — planting evidence to incriminate me and destroying anything that could incriminate him; making sure every tiny little detail was correct. And then giving the performance of his life when I accused him, and acting every bit the hurt, mortified friend who simply couldn’t believe that I would try to shift the blame onto him. People had been injured because of the wigs and all this money had been lost… I was looking at ten years or more. So I fled and took the first means of escape I came across with the enchanter.’
‘What happened to Oliver?’
Schmid shrugged. ‘He got away with it, of course. Last I heard he’d retired to the Bandy Towns with a huge fortune.’
‘Marvin Briggs,’ Lex muttered to himself with an incredulous shake of his head. It certainly explained why Schmidt had loathed him so much if he had once been the victim of a conman himself. ‘All right, I know you don’t have the imagination to make up a story like that. If you say this enchanter can’t be reasoned with then I believe you. I’ll just have to go down to the Lands Beneath and get Lucius out myself.’
Schmidt stared at him. ‘You’re not serious? Lex,’ he said in as gentle a tone as he could manage, ‘it would take thousands of years to climb all the way down the Space Ladders so, even if you were able to get food and water out here, you still wouldn’t have enough years to reach the Lands Beneath.’
‘I’m not going to climb the ladders,’ Lex said. ‘I’m going to use the enchanter’s hat. It’s in my bag. I brought it just in case.’
‘Don’t be a fool,’ Schmidt said softly, cursing himself for the harsh words he’d spoken earlier. ‘Lex, what’s happened to Lucius is tragic and I’m afraid it is your fault and you’re going to have to live with that. But there’s certainly nothing you can do to fix it; it’s too late for that. Heroics will only get you killed as well-’
‘ Heroics! ’ Lex sneered. ‘These aren’t heroics, old man! You don’t stop being selfish just like that. I told you before — I want to die young. It wasn’t just something I made up to shock or impress you; I really meant it. Lucius is the only one I have left. He doesn’t want to die young but I do so I’ve got nothing to lose by going after him. Besides, I’ve always wondered what the Lands Beneath look like. I can’t let Lucius have all the glory by being the only human to see the home of the Gods. I’m highly competitive. You should know that by now.’
He swung his bag off his back and crouched down beside it on the floor, rifling through it in search of the hat.
‘But it won’t solve anything!’ Schmidt said desperately. ‘The enchanter will know you’ve used his hat and if you ever made it back to the Lands Above he’ll be waiting for you. This is why you don’t mess around with enchanters, Lex! There are reasons for playing by the rules!’
