walls were splendid in pink and cream; the glass chandelier was resplendent and unbroken, garlanded with dozens of perfect, translucent flowers that speckled the entire room with pink and blue light. The Sword of Life hung above the white marble fireplace looking all the more impressive for the fact that it was no longer covered in the dust and grime of a hundred years.
The table in the centre was also restored. The white cloth and lace doilies were spotless and the silver tea service gleamed. Set daintily on a round plate in the middle were some of the prettiest cakes that Lex had ever seen.
But the thing that really caught Lex’s attention was that there was a giant fox, dressed in a smart waistcoat, sitting in one of the chairs at the table? cup and saucer in hand, drinking tea and watching Lex with intelligent brown eyes.
‘Good day to you,’ the fox said cheerfully when he saw Lex looking at him. He had a warm, mellow voice, and spoke with a refined accent. ‘So kind of you to join me for tea. My name is Plantagenet. Do draw up a chair.’
Staring like his eyes were about to pop out of his head, Lex slowly got to his feet. Only then did he realise that he was no longer the same himself. He’d been wearing cowboy clothes that were covered in dust and blood before. Now he seemed to be wearing the clothes of a gentleman? dark trousers and a waistcoat, not unlike the one the fox was wearing. He could also feel how neatly brushed his hair was.
‘What is this?’ he demanded.
Plantagenet looked at him. ‘What is what, dear boy?’
‘All this.’ Lex waved his arm to encompass the room. ‘The parlour going back to the way it was; these clothes; you! You’re a giant, talking fox. You’re not real!’
‘Well, not in the strict sense of the word, perhaps,’ the fox said, pouring tea out into the second cup. ‘Do you take cream and sugar?’
‘I don’t want any tea!’ Lex replied. ‘I want to know what’s going on!’
‘Sit down and drink your tea and I’ll tell you,’ Plantagenet said mildly.
Still feeling unsure, Lex pulled up a chair and warily sat down across from the fox.
‘That’s better,’ Plantagenet said, pushing the cup and saucer towards him. ‘Help yourself to dessert, by all means. The lumpy bumpy cake is excellent.’
‘I don’t want any lumpy bumpy cake!’ Lex snapped. ‘This room was in ruins! Everything was broken! A chandelier fell on my head! Oh dear; I’m not dead, am I?’
The fox laughed. ‘Gracious me, no! You’ll be fine. You know who I am, of course?’
‘You’re the imaginary talking fox Nathaniel East thought he could see.’
‘Yes, indeed.’ Plantagenet sighed and said, ‘Poor dear Nathaniel. A most amiable companion, he was. He could see the future, you know. He told me the cowboy king would come for the sword one day.’
‘And that’s me, is it?’ Lex said, feeling faintly surprised. It did, after all, seem unlikely that Slow Sid could really be anyone’s idea of a cowboy king.
‘You’re masquerading as a cowboy, aren’t you?’ Plantagenet said.
‘Yeah.’
‘And are you not also a king?’
‘What?’
‘King Lex Trent I?’
Lex thought back to his crowning during the course of the first Game. The royalty had been temporary, and Lex had only been a king for a few seconds, but his name was inscribed on the Royal Monument back in the Wither City.
‘Er… sort of,’ he said.
‘There you are, then,’ Plantagenet said happily. ‘You’re the cowboy king, come for the sword as Nathaniel foretold that you would. You’ll have to catch up with it, though, I’m afraid? the sticking spell doesn’t apply to the sword, you see. Listen.’ The fox put down his teacup and leaned forwards across the table slightly, his voice taking a more serious tone as he went on. ‘Here’s a word of advice for you. Take a smoked trout along on the next round of the Game. It saved Nathaniel’s life once, and it’ll save yours, too. Best make it a pair of trout, just to be on the safe side. Don’t forget, now. Good luck. And maybe I’ll see you again one day.’
And, with that, Plantagenet vanished. And so did everything else.
Lex opened his eyes to a lot of dust and pain. Now he was in the right place. Coughing and spluttering, he propped himself up on his elbows and opened his left eye. Then he rubbed the dried blood from his right eye so that it was no longer glued shut. The first thing he noticed was that the Sword of Life was gone. So was the black Swann. And so was Jesse.
‘That bastard,’ Lex said thickly. ‘That bastard! I’ll get him for this!’
He staggered to his feet, his head throbbing savagely. He had no idea how long he’d been there, or how long Jesse had been gone. He was going to have to find out, and quickly, too.
But first things first. Lex needed to get a smoked trout. That was what Plantagenet had said. He was the talking fox after all, so he ought to know. To Lex’s slightly muddled mind, getting the trout seemed like the task with top priority. So he left the wrecked tea parlour and zigzagged his way round to the kitchen. It wasn’t much of a kitchen to speak of, really. After all, they mostly just served tins of beans. But there had been fish for breakfast a couple of times. Lex must have been quite an odd sight, bursting into the kitchen, covered in dust, with a bleeding head and screaming for trout.
‘Want a glass of milk, Sid?’ the barman said with a smirk. ‘Calm you down a treat.’
‘Listen, Mack,’ Lex snapped, grabbing fistfuls of the barman’s collar in both hands. ‘I ain’t Slow Sid anymore, see? One more blow to the head and I’m back to my old self. This is Sid the Kid you’re dealing with now. And if I hear just one more crack about milk then you’ll be using your hat to pick up your teeth. Got it?’
It was all hot air, of course? after all, Lex was half the size of the barman. But the man shrank back, anyway. Doubtless it was the shock of it. Like a small, soppy dog turning suddenly vicious. Plus, the genuine anger in Lex’s eyes, as well as the blood smeared down one side of his face and crusted in his hair, did make him look a little deranged.
‘Smoked trout!’ Lex barked. ‘Give me two, right now!’
‘All right, Sid,’ the barman said, holding up both hands in a placating gesture. ‘Whatever you want.’
He rummaged in the larder and, a moment later, produced two large smoked trout. Lex snatched them from him.
‘Where,’ he growled, ‘is Jesse?’
‘I dunno,’ the barman replied.
Lex pushed past him impatiently and went to the bar to question the cowboys there. As soon as he entered the room, he grabbed his pistol from its holster, raised it above his head and shot a bullet right into the ceiling, causing plaster to shower down upon the floor. Everyone fell silent and turned to stare at him.
‘Listen up,’ Lex said in a hard voice. ‘Slow Sid is gone for good. As soon as I find Jesse Layton I’m gonna string him up by his neck till he’s dead. Five gold pieces to the first man to tell me where he is.’
‘He rode out about an hour ago,’ one cowboy piped up. ‘In a right hurry, he was, too. He went due west.’
‘Due west isn’t a location!’ Lex snarled. ‘Can’t anyone do better than that?’
The words were barely out of his mouth before Lex realised that he didn’t actually need to know where Jesse was. He could find out at any time just by eating something. The Binding Bracelets would cause them to switch then, and Jesse wouldn’t get his body back until the two ate together again.
Lex was just looking at the uncooked trout in his hand, and about to force himself to take a bite out of one of the raw fish, when a new cowboy entered the bar. The first words out of his mouth were, ‘Hey, Sam, did you hear about poor old Jesse?’
‘What about poor old Jesse?’ Lex snapped, whirling round to face the newcomer.
‘Captured,’ the cowboy replied. ‘Seems his old gang heard he was here. I guess someone recognised him from the reward posters. They’re gonna hang him at noon, so they say.’
All thoughts of swapping places with Jesse disappeared instantly from Lex’s mind.
‘Say, and there’s another thing,’ the cowboy said. ‘There’s some posh fella walkin’ round the town telling everyone that there’s an impostor here at Dry Gulch House. He’s even giving out posters, look. Says it’s really some
