Lex Trent: Fighting With Fire

by Alex Bell

  In the soft glow of light, they could see the tree much better. At first, Lex thought it must be dead, but then he realised it was just black, from the tip of its roots to the end of its leaves.

  The humongous trunk, some distance away, looked like it was made up of several trunks that were twisted and knotted together. Branches spread out from the centre in all directions. Wooden walkways were lashed to them with thick coils of rope; rope ladders led from one level to the next and rope bridges ran between branches. There was a complete network of paths, bridges and ladders all around the tree.

  And everywhere were books. There were shelves attached to some branches and carved into others. Periodically, giant roots thrust down to the ground from the branches like pillars and these all seemed to have been hollowed out and filled with books, too. There were only leaves at the very top of the tree and these were black.

  The tree loomed over them like a grim, sinister guardian. Something about it seemed alive despite the fact that it was completely still. The breeze didn’t even rustle the leaves at the top − they just stayed motionless, like they’d been glued there.

  ‘Well, bless me if that ain’t the strangest darn tree I ever saw,’ Jesse said. ‘Looks like it oughta have a pack of vultures peckin’ at it.’

  It did look dead, or burnt, or something. But there was a rich, damp, earthy smell in the air that spoke very much of living plants and there didn’t appear to be any vegetation around except for the tree. The ground was covered in roots and crisp black leaves.

  In amongst all the black bark were the occasional splashes of colour. Several large birdcages hung from the branches and in these Lex could glimpse colourful feathers. There seemed to be some sort of songbird in them and they were all warbling away. It was not an unpleasant noise − even if it was unlike normal birdsong − but Lex was sure that the birds were probably some kind of alarm system. Their singing was no doubt alerting someone − or something − to the fact that they were there.

  ‘Come on,’ Lex said, starting forwards.

  The others were probably only a minute behind them and they could not afford to waste time. They needed to find some way on to the tree. This, as it turned out, was fairly easy, for the nearest pillar-like root stretching down to the ground had a rope-ladder attached to it.

  Lex clambered over the roots that were raised up out of the ground to get to the ladder. He shot up it and stepped on to the wooden platform. It felt sturdy and strong, and took his weight without so much as a creak. Whilst Jesse climbed up after him, Lex rummaged about in his bag until he found what he was looking for. By the time the cowboy was standing beside him on the platform, Lex had a large pair of cutting shears in his hands.

  ‘Here,’ he said, passing them to Jesse. ‘Cut the rope ladder whilst I have a look at this page.’

  ‘Cut the ladder?’ Jesse replied with a frown. ‘Do you reckon we should?’

  ‘I don’t want the others following us up this way,’ Lex said. ‘It will slow them down a bit to have to look for their own way on to the tree. Do it quickly; they’ll be here any minute.’

  So Jesse started work on the ladder whilst Lex examined the page Thaddeus had given the players. It was a copy of a handwritten title sheet from a book entitled: Black Magic For The Darkling Hour. The author was one Erasmus Grey. Lex gaped at the page in astonishment. He knew who Erasmus Grey was. Everyone did. He’d been a black mage long ago − one of the most famous and powerful mages of them all.

  People thought the enchanters were powerful now but, really, they were just a pale shadow of the sorcerers and the black mages who had been before them. After all, the enchanters relied mostly on props − their hats and their staffs − to store their magic and to help them wield it. Without those things, what would an enchanter be but a cantankerous old git in a silly robe? In addition, the enchanters tended to keep themselves to themselves. They were very possessive and generally a mean old bunch, but they were not ambitious. They didn’t possess delusions of grandeur or pressing needs to take over the world or impose evil dominion over everyone. Sorcerers and black mages, on the other hand, had been another matter entirely. They were all about evil plans and dark magic and wicked deeds. They didn’t need props for their magic − a wave of their hand was all it took. They’d killed each other off in the end so that only the comparatively mild enchanters remained. And now Lex was holding a page to a book that Erasmus Grey himself had written! No doubt it was full of black secrets and old powers and lost spells!

  Lex tore his eyes from the page and looked at the nearest row of books, lined up on a huge wooden shelf that was attached to a branch at shoulder height. They were dusty old things that looked like they might fall apart as soon as you touched them. Most of them were bound in leather but Lex noticed a couple that appeared to be bound in wood. Every single volume seemed to have the word ‘forbidden’ or ‘dangerous’ or ‘secret’ in its title. There were about twenty books on the shelf beside Lex. Similar-sized shelves stretched down the entire length of the long branch, supported by root pillars below. There must have been two hundred books at least along the branch they stood upon. There was probably the same number on each of the other branches on this level. And, above them, the branches stretched up so high into the sky that they couldn’t see the top through the walkways and foliage.

  ‘There must be thousands of forbidden books here!’ Lex exclaimed in almost a whisper.

  A familiar, powerful surge of greed rushed through him and it was all he could do not to open his bag and start stuffing books into it. Lex knew that knowledge was power − especially knowledge he had that no one else did. The Gods didn’t want people reading these books, which only made Lex want to read them all the more. His fingers itched to grab the nearest book, open the cover and start devouring it.

  But he had a round to win and pinching books would only slow him down. He couldn’t afford to be slowed down − not this time. Not when it was so important that he win spectacularly in order to teach Jeremiah East a lesson he wouldn’t forget in a hurry. Lex would have given up all the forbidden books in the entire world to beat that insufferable snob. Once he found the correct book, returned the page and won the round, then maybe there would be time to steal a book or two on the way back.

  In the meantime, wandering about the tree blindly wasn’t going to work. There were simply too many books to hope to just stumble across the right one by chance. Lex was lucky, but even he wasn’t that lucky. And he certainly wasn’t prepared to rely only on luck when winning this round was so important.

  ‘Let’s get to the main trunk,’ he said, feeling that the best place to start would be the centre.

  As he spoke, the other players and their companions came into view. Lex was pleased to see that they both looked miffed already. To make them even more miffed, he pointed at the rope-ladder on the ground and said, ‘You’d better hope there’s another way up!’

  They looked up and glared at him.

  ‘You’d better hope so, too, if you ever want to get down from there!’ Jeremiah snapped.

  Lex shrugged − exaggeratedly to make sure he’d see it. ‘What do I care, so long as I win the round?’

  Then he turned on his heel and set off down the walkway towards the trunk, leaving Lorella and Jeremiah to find their own way on to the tree. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Jesse to point out any more rope ladders he saw so that they could cut those down, too, but then he decided against it. They would waste too much time that way. Lex was happy with a bit of sneaky sabotage only so long as it was convenient and didn’t take too long.

  They went on along the walkway − carefully, as there were no railings to speak of − and soon found themselves at the huge trunk. The walkway went all the way around it, branching off in seven different directions. It was like a giant cart wheel with the trunk being the centre and the branches being spokes. As soon as they reached it, Lex realised that knowing where to look for the correct book wasn’t going to be a problem
since a map of the library tree was drawn on the main trunk at intervals. It appeared from this that the tree was about twenty-five levels high. Neat labels on the map spelt out which books were kept where. It seemed that they were grouped according to author. Clearly, if you wrote one forbidden book, you wrote a whole bunch of them. Even so, there were many, many names on the map. The authors didn’t appear to be ordered alphabetically but Lex found Erasmus Grey instantly by looking at the top of the map. The book was bound to be at the top of the tree − the Gods wanted to get their money’s worth after all.

  Erasmus Grey’s name was, indeed, at the top. Right at the top, in fact. The tree thinned as it got higher and it seemed that Grey had the whole of the top level all to himself.

  There was no time to waste. The others would find a way on to the tree in no time, what with the ladders that were everywhere. Lex and Jesse started to climb, both keeping a sharp eye out as they did so. After all, this was a tree full of forbidden books − it had not been built for people to come in and browse. And yet there were maps and walkways. Someone walked around these books from time to time. And, presumably, they fed the strange birds in the cages, too.

  Before long, Lex and Jesse passed quite near one. It was the strangest-looking bird Lex had ever seen − somewhere between a songbird and a vulture − and twice as large as any bird had a right to be. It had a bald, ugly head and its large wings were hunched about it gloomily as it warbled softly to itself. It was a colourful thing, with feathers of blue, orange and green. It looked sad rather than aggressive but Lex kept his distance, anyway. From the size of it, it could probably have his hand off if it wanted to.

  Climbing the tree was not particularly difficult because there were ladders and book-lined walkways everywhere. The only thing that became progressively less pleasant was climbing the ladders as they got higher and higher up the tree. Resolutely refusing to look down helped but, the higher they got, the more everything seemed to creak in an unpleasant sort of way. The other difficulty, of course, was the fact that the walkways had no railings. Whilst not too much of a problem on the lower levels, as they got higher this started making Lex and Jesse a little uneasy. Or, rather, it made Jesse uneasy. Lex wasn’t bothered − in fact he quite liked heights. He liked heights and thrills and anything that made him feel truly alive. He loved the sense of adrenaline that coursed through his veins when he knew he could fall to his death at any moment.

  ‘Hurry up!’ Lex said. ‘What are you slowing down for?’

  ‘I don’t want to fall off.’

  ‘But the pathways up here are just as wide as they were down there.’

  ‘Yeah, I know that. But it’s psychological, ain’t it?’

  ‘Wow − five syllables. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say such a long word before. Stop being such a pansy and keep up with me!’

  But even Lex began to slow his pace a little when they got beyond a certain height. They were, after all, running around a gigantic tree with no safety gear whatsoever − no harnesses, no hard hats, no life lines . . . It was inevitable that they should become more physically tense, especially when climbing the rope-ladders.

  They’d been on the tree for about twenty minutes when Lex spotted Lorella down below them. She was climbing a rope-ladder but having some difficulty due to the clothes she was wearing. The grey dress might have enhanced her figure in a very pleasing way but it was not the ideal apparel for climbing, especially as the players all had to drag themselves bodily up on to the wooden platforms when they reached the top, which called for a certain amount of undignified wriggling. In addition, whilst Lorella’s long blue hair might have been striking and beautiful, having it falling loose down her shoulders like that was extremely stupid, for it kept getting in her way. She even jerked her own head back once when she put her hand on the next rung and tried to pull herself up only to find that her fingers were clamped down over her own hair.

  Lex laughed − loud enough to be sure she would hear. The enchantress glared up at him, her sapphire eyes icy cold with anger.

  ‘Get a haircut!’ Lex called down to her, grinning. ‘That’s my advice.’

  Lorella opened her mouth to hiss something back at him but, before she could do so, a grey man appeared on the platform above her. At the exact same moment, an identical man materialised before Lex. Presumably, a third one appeared before Jeremiah, too, wherever on the tree he happened to be.

  On first glance, the grey man appeared human but, on the second, it was quite clear that he was not. He was a bit too tall and a bit too thin. Everything about him was grey: his hair, his eyebrows, his eyes. The fine suit he wore was grey and so were his shoes − right down to the laces. Everything about him was immaculate − his tie was completely straight and his hair was combed back so neatly it looked like he’d used a ruler to do it. His skin was pale, his cheekbones were unusually high and there was a cool, superior expression on his face.

  ‘Oh my Gods!’ Lex said in mock horror. ‘You’re a lawyer, aren’t you?’

  ‘We are the Librarians.’ The two grey men spoke the same words at the exact same moment. ‘We are bound to protect the forbidden knowledge in this tree and to ensure that it never falls into the hands of the lowly and the ignorant. Do not test our resolve. We would sooner burn this tree to the ground than let you remove a single book from its branches.’

  ‘We’re not here to remove a book,’ Lex said. ‘We’re here to put a page back. You don’t object to that, surely?’

  ‘Trespassers on this tree will not be tolerated, whatever the pretence,’ the Librarian said. ‘Leave now or remain at your own peril.’

  ‘Listen—’ Lex began.

  But, at that moment, the Librarians disappeared. Lex was rather annoyed about that. He’d hoped that they would try to waylay them physically. He was confident that he would have been able to give his own Librarian the slip, but Lorella surely would have had more difficulty, clinging as she was, halfway up a rope-ladder.

  ‘That,’ Jesse said, eyes narrowed, ‘was too easy.’

  ‘Yes, it was,’ Lex replied. ‘I suppose they’ll be sending things after us now.’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘Beats me. They’ll definitely be nasty things, though, so keep an eye out, all right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE VULTURES AND THE FLYING TREE SNAKE

  The first thing that alerted them to the fact that something was happening was the groaning creak of metal hinges. The sound seemed to be coming from all over the tree. A few minutes later, Lex began to have a horrible suspicion as to what exactly that sound might have been when he caught, out of the corner of his eye, a flurry of feathers.

  ‘They’ve stopped singing,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The birds,’ Lex replied. ‘They’re not singing anymore. When did they stop?’ They looked at each other. ‘I think they’ve been let out of their cages,’ Lex said.

  It was impossible to know exactly how many birds were on the tree, but Lex had counted seven already and they had only explored a small proportion. They were big things and no doubt had sharp claws and beaks. If a few of them ganged up together, they would probably be able to peck a person to death if they wanted to.

  Lex strained his eyes in the half-light. The little lanterns dotted about the tree were hung on long chains from the platforms above. They gave out enough light to illuminate the walkways but not enough to pierce the darkness beyond. But sometimes there was the occasional draught of air − like something large had just swooped by somewhere close. Or there was a rustle of feathers or a blur of movement detectable only out of the corner of the eye.

  ‘Let’s just keep moving,’ Lex said.

  They made it to the next level − about three quarters of the way up the tree − before one of the vulture birds flew through the branches and landed with an inelegant thump on the walkway right in front of them. Lex and Jesse stopped and stared as it picked itself u
p, shook itself and gave a dismal squawk before turning its baleful gaze on them. It really was an ugly beast. Its green, blue and orange feathers were rumpled and its wrinkly head was bald but for a few wisps of white hair that stuck out at angles. Its beak curved down, giving it an almost comically morose expression, and its eyes were a bloodshot grey.

  ‘That’s gotta be the ugliest darn bird I ever saw,’ Jesse said softly.

  Lex had to agree with him. But it did not seem particularly aggressive. It was just sitting there in a hunched up sort of way on the path ahead.

  ‘I suppose it’ll probably tear our throats out as soon as we try to walk past it,’ Lex remarked.

  ‘Ain’t got the right kind of beak for that,’ Jesse said.

  ‘Well, get your pistol out, anyway. You can’t be too careful.’

  Lex tried shooing the bird away but that didn’t work. It just sat there blinking at him miserably.