This little speech only had the effect of annoying Lex even further, especially since Lady Luck had never had a good word to say about Schmidt when he and Lex had been playing in the Game together. It reminded him just how fickle her Ladyship really was and, considering the look she’d given Jesse when she met him, it made Lex nervous.
‘Brilliant! I’ll send him some roses or something once the Game is over!’ Lex said moodily. ‘Perhaps even a fruit basket, too! Now, if it’s not too much trouble, do you think you could see your way clear to passing me that key so that we can get out of here?’
The Goddess picked up the key and unlocked the door to let them out of the cell.
Lex stalked through the open door first, followed by Jesse.
‘Much obliged, ma’am,’ the cowboy said, tipping his hat to her, causing her to flutter girlishly in a way Lex found extremely irritating.
‘Don’t call her “ma’am”!’ he snapped. ‘She’s a Goddess, not some flouncing, gartered, powdered cancan strumpet in one of your cowboy saloons!’
‘Really, Lex,’ Lady Luck said peevishly, ‘you’re the most miserable company when you’re sulking like this.’
Lex scowled but bit his tongue. The truth was that he felt very much like hitting something. The Goddess of Luck left in a huff, saying that she would meet Lex back on the ship later on, when he was in a better mood, to discuss the penalty round.
‘Just get on the ship and start heading for the Jespa Mountains,’ she ordered before disappearing.
So Lex and Jesse made their way back to the ship in silence. Lex regretted being rude to her Ladyship at once, for it meant he had to walk back through the town himself rather than being magically put back straight on to the ship and he was utterly horrified to realise that people they passed in the streets were actually sniggering at him! Him! Like he was some sort of loser! Some no-hoper who was bound to die some horrible death or at the very least suffer some disfiguring accident in the very first round! All because he had let his guard down just long enough for Jeremiah East to spike his drink! It was almost more than Lex could bear and he had never been more utterly determined to beat someone in his life than he was to absolutely thrash Jeremiah in the upcoming Game.
He did his best to ignore the sniggering and pointing, and walked through the town with his head held high. Soon they were back on the ship preparing to depart for the Jespa Mountains. There were no cheering crowds, no screaming fans to see him off at the start of the Game? just a few dockhands dawdling about on the pier, eating their pies and smoking their cigarettes.
Lex threw the ivory Swann of Desareth into the basin on the bridge. With the ship then able to read his thoughts and respond to them, he went up on deck to check that all the griffins were on board before taking off. Unfortunately, Jeremiah was also on the deck of his own ship at that moment and, as the two ships were moored side by side, he was close enough to see Lex appear. The nobleman gave him a wave and called across a cheerful greeting. ‘Hello there, Trenty! Awfully sorry about last night, old chap. Bit of a misunderstanding! But don’t worry? if you faint again, I’ll catch you and earn myself some extra hero points!’
‘I can tell you’re a newbie,’ Lex called back in a voice of ice. ‘There’s no such thing as hero points, you idiot! There are just winner’s points. I’ll get you back for last night, though. Have no fears about that. You’ve no idea what you’ve started.’
Jeremiah just laughed and looked supremely unconcerned. Lex couldn’t stand talking to him a moment longer so he threw out his arms in a dramatic gesture and commanded the ship to rise. It shot up into the sky so fast that Lex’s hair was whipped back from his head. It occurred to him belatedly that he should probably have given Jesse some warning, but it had been worth it to cut Jeremiah’s laughter short and get a glimpse of the startled look that came over his face.
Lex knew? as a cheat and a fraud? that it was always a good thing to be underestimated by people. It was definitely a good thing to be underestimated by a fellow competitor. But for some reason having Jeremiah East look down at him like that hurt his pride. As the enchanted ship sailed up into the clouds, Lex sternly told himself that, not only must he accept Jeremiah’s low opinion of him, but that he must cultivate it and, at all costs, resist the temptation to show off like that again.
CHAPTER FIVE
Lady Luck caught up with them on the ship later that evening and told Lex the penalty round was that he must retrieve one of the giant mountain eagle’s golden eggs from one of their mountain nests: difficult and dangerous for most normal people, but not too much of a problem for Lex because the fact that he had a magic flying ship meant that he could start right at the top of the mountain rather than climbing up it by foot. Clearly Thaddeus and Kala either didn’t know about his ship or they’d forgotten it. Without it, it would have taken Lex days? possibly weeks? to get to the top, and by that time he would have missed the start of the Game. No doubt, that was what they’d intended.
But, as it was, he was not overly worried about the penalty round. After all, it wasn’t even a race between him and the other competitors this time, it was just a question of completing the task, and Lex had complete confidence in his own capabilities. He’d get that blasted egg, he’d jump through hoops if they wanted him to, and it would only make his eventual glory and triumph all the sweeter…
Lex and Lady Luck were sitting in the squishy armchairs on the bridge. Jesse was there, too, sprawled on the floor with his back against the wall because he said he found it more comfortable than sitting in the chairs or perching on the window seat. To Lex’s irritation, Silvi? the female griffin? had settled herself down next to Jesse and was currently sleeping with her head on his lap.
‘You do realise she’s dribbling on you, right?’ Lex said, hoping that the cowboy would push Silvi away and that she’d then go over to him instead.
But Jesse just gave a lazy shrug. Lex hated it when Silvi dribbled on him but that was because he was an absolute stickler for cleanliness whereas Jesse did not seem at all bothered. After all, he was a rough-and-ready cowboy, sorely in need of a shave and a haircut, so what was a bit of griffin drool to a person like that?
When he first sat down, Jesse had lit up a thin, vile-smelling cigarette but Lex ordered him to put it out, on principle. If Lex was going to learn how to be a cowboy then he was going to have to get used to the disgusting scent and taste of tobacco but he was damned if he was going to allow his bridge to smell like an ashtray.
‘You smoke outside or not at all,’ he told Jesse sternly, whereupon Lady Luck had simpered that she’d always liked a man with a cigar.
‘It’s not a cigar! It’s a weedy cigarette; a disgusting habit and a mark of gross stupidity! Don’t you know those things kill you?’ Lex demanded.
But Jesse just said, ‘We all gotta go sometime, partner.’
Lex felt his lip curl in derision at the obtuseness of that statement. It was a sign of an amateur not to think things through and Jesse’s remark clearly showed that he didn’t know what the heck he was talking about. Lex knew everyone had to die sometime, but he did not particularly fancy dying slowly from some Gods-awful disease of the lungs, coughing and spluttering in agony all day and night, wishing to the Gods that he’d smoked a few less cigarettes and done a bit more exercise. Lex loved reckless adventuring so much that he was absolutely determined to continue it for as many years as possible. There was therefore no way on earth that he was smoking so much as one single cigarette, not even to achieve the scam of convincing other cowboys that he was one of them. He would find some way around it. He would find some way to cheat. He wasn’t going to poison his own lungs for anyone or anything.