zombie!’
But Lex wasn’t listening to her. He was too busy rushing forwards to help Jesse to his feet, shaking his hand vigorously and saying, ‘I’m so glad you’re not dead! Do you feel all right?’
‘Er… yeah,’ the cowboy replied. ‘I think so.’
‘Perhaps you have a special immunity. Did you get bitten by a lot of snakes, or something, back in the West?’
Jesse shrugged. ‘No more than usual.’
‘Perhaps it’s because it was a baby that bit you,’ Lex said, reaching for the book.
Consultation of the book revealed that this was indeed a difference between the adult octopuses and their young. It seemed that the babies did not have enough venom to kill a man, only enough to temporarily paralyse him. In the meantime, they were supposed to squeal for the mother who would quickly come over and bite the prey up into little pieces, small enough for the babies to swallow-
‘That’s quite enough of that, thank you, Lex!’ Lady Luck interrupted, fluttering her hands in distress. ‘I’m sure poor Jesse doesn’t want to hear such horrible things.’
‘Oh, no, ma’am; I think they’re fascinating little blighters.’
‘But doesn’t the thought of being chewed up into bite-size pieces and eaten by all those octopuses distress you?’
‘Nope.’
Lady Luck looked rather impressed by this, so Lex snorted and said, ‘He probably just doesn’t have the imagination to picture it.’
‘I guess I’ve never been the imagining type,’ Jesse replied amiably.
After reading the book, it seemed that no lasting damage would be done by a baby octopus bite except for the fact that the blue rings would eventually turn into white scars. Lex himself would have been upset about this. The rings were unsightly and rather gross, and it was important to Lex to minimise scars? especially right there on his hand where anyone could see them? but Jesse just shrugged when Lady Luck started fussing about it. It seemed that out in the Wild West they were all rather proud of their scars.
‘I’ll even be able to beat Popcorn-Face Billy with this,’ Jesse said, holding up his ringed hand and looking at it with approval.
‘Yes, well, your petty victories aside,’ Lex snapped, ‘we’re now losing the Game because of you! The medallion was right there in your hand! Why didn’t you give it to me before rushing off to play the hero? Why did you have to drop it right next to Tess East, for goodness’ sake? There’s no place for heroics in these Games and you’d better get that into your thick head right n-’ He broke off, then said, ‘Hang on! Can we claim hero points for it? He did save her life, after all!’
But Lady Luck was shaking her head. ‘It won’t work, I’m afraid. Hero points can only be awarded for the heroic acts of players, not their companions.’
‘But that’s totally unfair!’ Lex protested.
‘I can try and get the rules changed for the next Game but it’s too late for this one. Once a Game has started you can’t change any of the rules.’
Lex was furious about the entire business. He and Jesse were the ones who had done all the work. All Jeremiah had done was to blunder in stupidly at the end with his sword. It wasn’t fair that he should have won the round. He hadn’t even been the one to pick up the medallion; it had been Tess. But it seemed that, whilst companions couldn’t earn hero points for the player, they could win for them, and so there was nothing to be done about it. For the first time, Lex had actually lost a round, and it was a bitter pill to swallow.
The ship set sail for Olaree where they were to spend the next week before the second round. Rooms had been booked for all three players and their companions in an extremely grand hotel. Lex had fully intended to stay on the boat but, when Lady Luck brought him the newspaper headlines the next morning, he soon changed his mind.
He had expected to tear the papers up in a rage at the sight of story after story touting Jeremiah’s victory. But, to his pleasant surprise, he found that the focus wasn’t on Jeremiah’s victory at all, but rather on Jesse’s heroic, tragic death. Once they realised the cowboy was perfectly all right, Lady Luck had been all for rushing straight off to inform everyone, but Lex had stopped her.
‘Use your head for once,’ he’d said. ‘There might be some way we can use this to our advantage.’
If nothing else, it might give Lex a slight edge in the second round if all the other players believed he had no companion. What Lex had said seemed to set the Goddess off thinking, for she promptly disappeared, saying that she must edit the Game footage. The Games were not broadcast to the stadiums live anymore, simply because the Gods preferred to pick and choose what people saw. They wanted their own players to come across as daring and heroic and brave. So any unfortunate moment where a player might? for example? break down in tears, was carefully edited out later.
When Lex watched the footage from the round on his Divine Eye he had to give Lady Luck some credit, for she had done a very fine job of it, despite the fact that they had lost. The battle with the little octopuses looked quite horrific, as did the big fight up on deck. There was much emphasis? complete with music and slow-motion playback? on the moment when Lex and Jesse both ran towards Tess East to save her from the octopus. Lex could practically hear the rapturous applause from the stadiums when Jesse grabbed the little monster off her and flung it out to sea. And then, most deliciously of all, Lady Luck had included the moment when Jeremiah punched Jesse, only she had omitted the part where Jeremiah had spoken and so? to the spectators in the stadiums? the reason for his punching the cowboy would have been completely unclear. Add to that the fact that Jesse apparently crumpled up and died right there on the deck shortly afterwards… Well, it was enough to bring tears to the most hardened eye. Indeed, the Lex in the footage even seemed to have manly tears glimmering in his eyes at the end of the round.
‘Well, ain’t that just touching?’ Jesse said when he saw it, smacking Lex hard on the back. ‘And there I was thinking you were just a selfish brat who didn’t care about no one but yourself.’
‘I am a selfish brat!’ Lex snapped. ‘I’ve never cried for anyone but myself and I don’t intend to change my habit now. Those tears were added in later, during the edit.’
‘Is that allowed?’
‘Of course. The Gods only touch up what is already there.’
On Jeremiah’s footage, Kala had done a good job of making him seem handsome and fearless and bold. But, if anything, this only added to the overall impression the public had of him as a cold, ruthless, selfish git? whilst poor, noble, heroic Jesse Layton had given his life to save Jeremiah’s little sister. The papers were full of what an honourable, decent, practically saintly man Jesse had been, which seemed rather ironic when he was actually an outlaw on the run, with a reward on his head and a noose waiting for him back west for whatever horrible crimes he’d committed there.
Lex might have been slightly annoyed by all the attention Jesse was getting, but the papers were also focusing on poor, grieving Lex Trent. They seemed to have decided that Lex and Jesse had been the bestest, closest of friends for many years and that Jesse’s death had crippled Lex utterly.
‘It says here that I’ve spent every day since my dear friend’s demise walking the deck of my ship and staring out to sea.’
‘ Every day?’ Jesse said. ‘Heck, I only died yesterday.’
Lex shrugged. ‘Time moves slower when you’re grieving. Apparently I’m refusing food, too,’ he said, squinting back at the newspaper.
The papers were full of photos from the feast and the first round of Jesse and Lex together looking companionable, whereas any photo of Jeremiah that appeared tended to veer towards the unflattering side, showing him with his eyes half closed or his mouth half open. Overnight, he had become the villain of the piece despite the fact that he had won the first round. Everyone hated his guts. Lex was smugly satisfied. It was worth losing the first round for a result like this.
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ Lex said when they reached Olaree the next day. ‘I think I might stay at the hotel after all.’
‘What for?’ Lady Luck said. ‘I thought you were going to stay on the ship.’
‘It’s too good an opportunity to pass up,’ Lex replied. ‘I’ve got the part of a grieving friend to play.’
