Alex Bell - Fighting with fire

‘The requirements all appear to have been met,’ Kala said. ‘All that remains is for us to distribute the Divine Eyes and then the round can begin.’

She handed a little crystal ball over to Jeremiah; Thaddeus gave an identical one to Lorella and Lady Luck passed one to Lex, who put it straight in his pocket rather than examining it curiously as the others were doing. Divine Eyes were nothing new to him. He’d carried one with him in the last Game. No one was quite sure how they worked but it seemed that they were somehow able to capture the events of the round and could then be transmitted later on to the giant crystal balls in the Gaming stadiums. It seemed to be something to do with the fact that the Gods watched their players and were somehow able to record what they saw on to the crystal balls.

Kala cleared her throat, stood up a little straighter and raised her voice so that the toffs goggling at them from the veranda would be able to hear what she said. ‘The current Gaming champion, Lady Luck, has graciously allowed me the privilege of choosing the first round.’ She paused dramatically for a moment before saying loudly and clearly, ‘For the first round, then, let it be dead ships!’ There were excited mutterings from the crowd and then Kala went on. ‘There is one shipwreck down at the base of the volcanoes that, because of the peculiar way in which it was built, has quite a lot of air pockets left in it. In a moment you will all be sent down there by your respective Gods. The first one to return the captain’s medallion to me, wins.’

Lex was wary, and he could tell that Jeremiah was, too. Lex knew from experience that they all had good reason to be. The first round in the last Game had involved the seemingly simple task of finding and fixing a broken mirror, but it had soon become apparent that the castle in which they were searching had a number of rather horrible traps? including minotaurs and medusas.

‘In order to avoid shrill, hysterical accusations of cheating,’ Kala said, with a dirty look at Lady Luck and Thaddeus that made Lex suspect they had already had words about this, ‘you will all be put in the same part of the ship at the same moment. Ready?’

She was talking to the other Gods rather than the players, who barely had time to take in what was being said before she was counting, ‘One, two, three!’

On the exact count of three, Lex and Jesse, and Jeremiah and Lorella with their companions, all disappeared into thin air, and found themselves hundreds of feet below the surface of the sea in the old galley of one of the sunken ships on the seabed.

The air was cold and damp and old and musty. It smelled funny? of salt and seaweed and fish. It felt even funnier when Lex took a breath and inhaled the cold air into his lungs.

Of course, being so many fathoms under the sea, the ship should have been in complete darkness, and would have been had it not been for the starfish. They were all over the place? both inside the ship and stuck to the portholes outside, as well. These were sunrise starfish and Lex knew them at once because of the way they were glowing? although it was more of a luminescent greenish-blue than the colour of the sun. He’d seen them before, although never alive. The midnight market back at the Wither City sold a vast array of food on sticks? most of which consisted of the creepy-crawly, long-leggedy, beasty variety? but they also did sunrise-starfish kebabs, and you could always tell what area of the market they were in for, even dead, the starfish still emitted a greenish glow. Lex thought it was gross, himself, but some people seemed to really love munching away on starfish, and they were even considered something of a delicacy back in the city.

The soft green light emitted by them was just enough to illuminate the large room. There were four long rows of tables with a lot of wooden chairs nailed into the floor, all covered with copious amounts of thick, slimy seaweed. There were several paintings on the wall, all depicting a huge, monstrous octopus. Everything was damp and the portholes looked straight out at the cold, black sea. It was a weird feeling to know they were so far under water.

After the six of them appeared in the galley, there were a few odd moments of almost embarrassed uncertainty, for no one was too sure what to do next? not even Lex, who’d done this all before. After all, in the previous Game, for various different reasons, the players had all started the rounds at slightly different times or in different places. They had not all been dumped at the starting line at exactly the same moment like this, in each others’ pockets, as it were, and getting under each others’ toes. It seemed to be a toss-up between making a mad dash for it or trying to knock the other two over the head with something really heavy. Indeed, it looked like Jeremiah was already reaching for the sword at his belt when his little sister piped up. ‘There’s three doors out of here and three of you. Why don’t you each just pick one?’

‘Shut up, Tess!’ Jeremiah snapped. ‘What did I tell you about talking during the Game?’

Tess pulled a face at him but said nothing. It seemed that Lorella wasn’t prepared to stand around discussing the matter and strode away in the direction of the nearest door. She pulled it open, walked through and was gone. Lex decided to do the same. He picked up a starfish that was resting on the floor? just in case there weren’t any in the next room and he needed the light? then turned and walked in the direction of one of the other doors at the same moment that Jeremiah turned to walk in the direction of the last one.

Jesse was close behind Lex as he pulled the door open and stepped through, drawing it shut behind them. And immediately something wet and slimy fell from the ceiling, landed on Lex’s head, and wrapped long slippery things around his neck. And that was the moment that Lex first discovered that he did have a phobia after all. It transpired? most unfortunately? that Lex was absolutely terrified of octopuses.

Of course, he didn’t realise that it was an octopus at first. He just started screaming and staggering around, dropping the starfish in his panic, knocking into things and causing them to fall over. It was most unlike Lex to lose his head in this manner. But, even before he knew that the thing on his head was an octopus, he detested the cold, slimy feel of the tentacles wrapped around his neck, squeezing his throat, making his skin prickle with revulsion. When he lifted his hands in an attempt to drag it off, he detested the soft, slimy, squidgy feel of the thing latched on to his head. And he detested the weird smell of it and the horrible high-pitched noise it was making.

He couldn’t see where he was going and, somehow, managed to fall over on to his back on the floor. No matter how he tugged and hit and pulled, he didn’t seem to be able to get the thing off. There was nothing he could do to stop it from choking him to death. The horrible, dreadful, awful, ghastly, horrific, unimaginable thought crossed his mind that perhaps he? he? Lex Trent!? was the one who was going to die in the first round this time, when suddenly a strong hand shoved his shoulder back hard on to the floor, pinning him there. A split second later there was a squelching noise and then a sort of wheezing and the grip around Lex’s neck suddenly went slack. Then the thing on his head was gone and both his hands clutched at his throat as he gulped in air.

The first thing he saw was Jesse standing over him with a little octopus? a pale fleshy colour with blue rings all over it, about the size of a cat? impaled, long tentacles dangling, on the knife the cowboy held in his hand.