Jinx (21 page)

There was a sudden loud
crack
overhead. Elfwyn and Jinx lunged forward, but Reven didn’t know to run. An enormous tree branch crashed down on the path.

“Reven?” Elfwyn called.

They ran back. Jinx made the torchlight brighter. A branch lay in the path. Standing just in front of it was Reven.

“Forsooth, you told me not to cut limbs off trees,” said Reven. “And here they are throwing them at me.”

“It’s awfully windy,” said Elfwyn. “Maybe we should go back to the tree house.”

“We’ve come too far,” said Jinx. “And we probably couldn’t find it in the dark anyway.”

They hurried on. The wind was picking up. The torch blew out, and Jinx didn’t want to waste time lighting it again. The trees groaned and lashed their branches overhead.

When the next tree branch cracked overhead, Reven ran. He was faster than Jinx and Elfwyn. Ahead along the path Jinx heard another branch break, and Reven yelled, “Ow!”

“Are you all right, Reven? Jinx, light a fire!”

A big dead branch filled the path. Jinx relit the torch. Reven was sitting beside the branch holding his arm.

Elfwyn knelt down beside him. “Where did it hit you?”

“My arm. ’Tis nothing, my lady.”

“It might be broken,” said Elfwyn.

A fierce gust of wind tore through the trees, which swayed and rasped horribly.

Reven got to his feet, wincing. “We’d better keep moving.”

Before the Urwald decides to drop a whole tree on you, Jinx thought. He grabbed Reven’s good arm.

Reven’s face flickered amusement in the torchlight. “I can walk unassisted, good Jinx.”

“The Urwald,” said Jinx, “doesn’t want to kill me.”

He felt quite sure of this. He was the Listener, and the Urwald didn’t want him dead. Why it wanted Reven dead he didn’t know—but none of those three branches had come near him or Elfwyn.

“It’s windy, that’s all,” said Reven.

The torch blew out again.

Jinx couldn’t remember ever being out in such wind before. Branches fell all around—no, only behind them, Jinx realized. And on the path. And the wind howled and blew at their backs, urging them along the path.

“When we get to that canyon the good Dame mentioned,” said Reven, “there won’t be any more of these terrible trees.”

“You’re not going into the Canyon of Bones, are you?” said Elfwyn.

“We have to, to reach the Bonemaster’s house,” said Reven. “And to escape this storm.”

“Maybe the wind will die down before we get there,” said Jinx.

But somehow he didn’t think it would.

The wind did not let up. They walked all night. In the early afternoon they reached a place where the path turned sharply to the right and zigzagged.

“Switchbacks,” said Reven. “We’re coming down into the canyon.”

Elfwyn cast a nervous glance back at the forest, as if she were going to suggest stopping. A furious smack of wind tore through the trees and pushed them onward, forcing them down the switchbacks.

They came out at the top of a steep bank. They heard rushing water below.

They climbed down, using the exposed roots of a tree for a ladder. As Jinx grabbed the tree roots in his hands, he heard the Urwald mumbling that the enemy was trapped.

The river had cut its way deep into solid bedrock, and Jinx couldn’t see the bottom through the rushing water. In front of them the water crested into a wave, and water zipped over the crest faster than Jinx could run.

“We can’t cross that,” said Reven. “The current would grind our bones to powder.”

There were no trees around them now, and they couldn’t feel the wind down here. Jinx looked up and saw that the trees were barely stirring in the wind now.

“We could go back,” said Elfwyn. “It looks like the wind’s died down.”

“It will die back up again if we do,” said Jinx.

Elfwyn nodded.

“Dame Glammer said that we go up the canyon from here,” said Reven.

“Only if we want to find the Bonemaster,” said Elfwyn.

Jinx was undecided. He wanted to go close enough to talk to the Bonemaster, yes. But down here in the canyon, away from any trees, he felt exposed and helpless. It didn’t seem like such a good idea.

But Reven started walking, and Jinx and Elfwyn went with him.

They walked along the flat rock lip a few inches above the foaming river. To their right, hemlocks hooked down from the cliff with half their roots reaching out into the air like hands imploring Jinx and his companions not to go any farther.

Jinx took hold of a root, but the tree spoke only of trying to get a living from the solid rock. It wasn’t concerned about the Bonemaster or about Jinx’s problems.

The chasm walls grew higher on either side of them, steep and sheer. Jinx had never walked so far without trees around him, not even in Samara. The feeling was strange and cold, and he kept looking up to make sure the Urwald was still there, just visible at the cliff tops on both sides.

“It’s so beautiful,” said Elfwyn.

“What is?” said Jinx.

“This place.” She gestured around at the river, the rocks, the multicolored cliff face. Jinx didn’t think it was beautiful.

He couldn’t feel the Urwald’s lifeforce anymore, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to draw on it.

They stopped after a while to rest and eat, and Reven went to get some driftwood for a fire. He brought it back and set it down in a rattling heap, with a funny expression on his face.

“Those are bones,” said Elfwyn.

Jinx picked one up. It was smooth and cold in his hand. A leg bone, maybe—of what? He thought a fire into it. It was much harder to do magic down here away from the trees, even though the fire was inside him. When the bone was aflame, he set it down amid the other bones in the heap.

“Jinx, put that out,” said Elfwyn. “It’s not right.”

Jinx sucked the flame away with a thought. “They might be animal bones.” But he could see her point.

“We don’t really need a fire,” said Reven.

While the other two unpacked the food, Jinx wandered over to look at the rest of the bones. They had all been washed up in a heap, jumbled together. He didn’t see any skulls. With skulls you could tell right away that they weren’t human—unless they were, of course.

He heard footsteps on pebbles behind him. He spun around. It was only Reven.

“They’re not human,” said Reven. He sounded uncertain too.

Jinx poked around in the pile, looking for a hoof or a fang or something to tell him these weren’t human bones.

“I think we should turn back,” he said.

Elfwyn came up beside them. “So do I.”

“Well, at least we’ll go look,” said Reven. “Or I will.”

Elfwyn and Jinx looked at each other. They weren’t turning back if Reven wasn’t.

None of them felt much like eating. They put the food away in their packs and walked on.

“There, that’s the fork up ahead, where the good dame said we’d find him,” said Reven.

It was a high gray bluff, a tall stone island splitting the canyon into a Y. The river came rushing down from the left-hand side of the Y. From the right-hand side it came too, but much more quietly. On the top of the island was a castle.

“I guess that’s the Bonemaster’s house,” said Elfwyn.

“Yup,” said Jinx. “I always heard it was made of bones, though.”

“Maybe you misheard,” said Reven. “Bone, stone.”

Jinx had a cold feeling in his stomach. He wished Reven or Elfwyn would suggest turning back.

“See, there’s a bridge sort of thing,” said Elfwyn. “I guess that’s how you get up.”

Jinx looked where she pointed, up the right-hand fork. It looked more like a rope ladder than a bridge. It started on their side of the stream and climbed upward toward the top of the island. It sagged.

“It doesn’t look like such a bad climb,” said Reven.

“I think it looks horrible,” said Elfwyn. “What if you fell off onto the rocks below?”

They walked up the right-hand fork of the Y and drew closer to the bridge. There were two long ropes strung on either side of the bridge, as railings, with short ropes every few feet to affix them to the bridge. The deck of the bridge was supported on two more ropes and was made of—

“Those aren’t bones, are they?” said Elfwyn.

“It could be an illusion,” said Jinx. “In fact, it probably is. This is the Urwald. Wood is a lot easier to get than bones.”

“Hmm. Perhaps for you, my boy. It depends where you look.”

The voice came from behind Jinx.

He turned around and looked up at the Bonemaster.

T
he Bonemaster smiled. It was a warm smile, and his blue eyes were kind.

“Well, well. Look at this. Visitors—I do love to have visitors. Please come upstairs.”

“We—we’d rather not,” said Elfwyn. “Thank you.”

“And who are you, young lady?”

“Elfwyn of Butterwood Clearing,” said Elfwyn, looking miserable.

“And your friends—ah!” The Bonemaster beamed at Jinx. “I recognize you. Simon’s boy. Now wait, it’ll come to me—Jinx! Well, that settles it, you
must
come upstairs.”

Jinx looked at Elfwyn and Reven in despair. Clearly Elfwyn hadn’t been fooled by the Bonemaster’s warm greeting. Jinx might have been if he didn’t have the memory of those bloody daggers. Reven looked fascinated.

“Perhaps you didn’t hear me,” said the Bonemaster, the knife blades creeping into his voice. “I said you must come upstairs.”

He gripped Jinx and Reven each by a shoulder and dragged them toward the bridge. Jinx tried to struggle free, but the grip became much tighter and more painful. Reven wasn’t struggling at all. Huh. Why
had
Reven insisted on coming here, knowing they’d follow?

“You’d best go ahead of us, young lady,” said the Bonemaster. “Otherwise you might try to run away. And that could make something very nasty happen to your friends.”

“Run away, Elfwyn!” said Jinx.

“You want to die so soon, Jinx?” said the Bonemaster. “Start climbing, Elfwyn.”

Elfwyn stepped forward, gripped the two rope railings in both hands, and took her first step onto the bones.

“Careful—they’re a little slippery underfoot,” she said, and began to climb.

The Bonemaster gave Jinx a hard shove, so that he stumbled forward onto the bridge, shaking it and making Elfwyn rock and slide and nearly fall off. She said nothing, though, and kept climbing. Jinx followed.

If the bones were an illusion, they were a very good one. You could see through the wide cracks if you looked down, to the river and the ground swaying sickly below. Jinx swallowed and looked resolutely upward, at the stone castle. He clutched the ropes so tightly, he could feel little hempen splinters working their way into his hands. He wondered if the bones would break under his feet.

Behind him, he heard Reven and the Bonemaster begin to climb. The bridge rocked more and more. Could it actually hold the weight of four people?

Jinx leaned too hard on one of the rope railings and felt a horrible pitching sensation as he swooped out over empty space. Reven grabbed him and pulled him back.

“Easy, Jinx,” said Reven. “Hold on to the bones, not the ropes.”

“Do be careful,” said the Bonemaster. “It would make such an unsightly mess if you fell.”

Jinx did as Reven suggested and held on to the bones, climbing the bridge like a ladder. He wasn’t afraid of heights, really—well, he never had been before.

At last he saw Elfwyn, just ahead of him, reach the top. Then he did. He crawled off the bridge onto what should have been solid stone. But the ground rocked like a cradle. Jinx stayed on his hands and knees. He couldn’t have stood up if he’d wanted to, because he wasn’t sure which direction was up.

“Oh dear. Not got a head for heights, I see, Jinx. I fear you may not enjoy your stay in my little abode, then.”

“Jinx, what’s the matter?” Elfwyn’s voice seemed to echo from far away.

“It’s just vertigo,” said Reven.

Just
vertigo? It felt worse than anything since the day Simon had taken his magic.

“You ready to get up? Take your time,” said Reven.

Jinx let Reven help him and was very relieved that standing didn’t make him throw up. The ground had stopped rocking, and he could see Reven and Elfwyn looking at him with concern. The Bonemaster must be behind him. So was that dreadful bridge.

The castle loomed. It was made of the same gray stone as the cliff-flanked island itself. Behind it pink-blue ladders of light stretched across the sky—more sunset than Jinx had ever seen. He could see nothing growing except lichen.

By itself, the castle’s great wooden door creaked open.

“Welcome to Bonesocket,” said the Bonemaster. “Won’t you step inside?”

The Bonemaster led them into a great stone hall with a ceiling arching thirty feet over their heads. A fire crackled in the middle of the room, and a table was laid for four.