Jinx's Fire (2 page)

Bonesocket from Afar

S
ticking to the path won't always take you where you need to go. So Jinx left it, and pushed his way through an elderberry thicket. He crept silently toward the edge of Bone Canyon. He hid in the shadow of a hemlock and looked across at the steep cliffs of Bonesocket Island, and the high walls of the castle, and the spindly bridge of bones that climbed to the Bonemaster's domain.

A few days ago he had seen his friend Elfwyn, a distant figure in a red cloak and hood, walking along the edge of the island. She hadn't seen him.

A twig snapped behind Jinx. He turned quickly. The Bonemaster had a nasty habit of sneaking up on people. But no one was there.

Jinx searched the undergrowth for thoughts or knowledge—he could see such things, if they were close enough. He found nothing. If someone was stalking him, they were keeping their distance.

He left the tree and moved closer to the edge. This was difficult. Heights made him uncomfortable. And he still couldn't see any sign of Elfwyn.

She had gone to spy on the Bonemaster—and be his apprentice—over a year ago. Just thinking about it caused a thick, sick twist in Jinx's stomach. It was bad enough to think of
anybody
being at the Bonemaster's nonexistent mercy. But Elfwyn's truth-telling curse made it a hundred times more dangerous for her.

Another twig snapped, closer this time. And Jinx sensed thoughts and emotions. He reached for the fire inside him, ready to cast a spell. Too late. A hairy, clawed hand gripped his shoulder.

Jinx spun, fists raised. It was only Malthus.

“You sca—startled me,” said Jinx.

“My apologies.” Malthus nodded toward the island. “Werewolves handle these matters very differently, you know.”

Jinx stepped away from the canyon's edge. “I'm worried about her. She thinks she can fool the Bonemaster. But with her curse, he can make her tell him anything. How's she supposed to fool him when she can't keep a secret?”

“You weren't thinking of going over there, I hope,” said the werewolf.

“I would if I thought I could get her out of there. But she doesn't even want to leave.”

“And the Bonemaster would kill you,” said Malthus.

Jinx didn't answer, because it wasn't a particularly heroic thought, but it was true. The Bonemaster used to think Jinx was just Simon Magus's not-too-bright apprentice. He didn't think that now.

“You think he recognizes you as the other wick? The flame that balances the ice?” the werewolf asked.

“I don't know.” Jinx shrugged. “I'm not really sure what all that means anyway. But he doesn't think I'm just something he can use to get at Simon. Of course, he's already
gotten
at Simon.”

“If the Bonemaster knows he's a wick, if he knows you're the other wick . . .” The werewolf tapped a fang thoughtfully. “He may . . . do something.”

“To Elfwyn?” said Jinx, alarmed.

“To you. Elfwyn is not important in the scheme of things.”

“Then I don't care about the scheme of things,” said Jinx.

“You and the Bonemaster are both connected to the Paths. He may try to reach you through them.”

“The Paths of Fire and Ice?” said Jinx. “I thought you
said they were separate. I'm fire and he's ice and the paths don't touch.”

“I hope I was right,” said Malthus. “Have you spoken to the elves again?”

“No,” said Jinx, edging away slightly. He could see the green-gold hunger in Malthus's thoughts, and though he knew that the werewolf was determined not to eat him, he also knew it was always a struggle. “Was I supposed to?”

“No. Elves are to be avoided.” The werewolf took out his notebook, wrote something down, and chewed the tip of his pencil thoughtfully. “You grow more powerful.”

“I guess.”

“Time is running short.”

“For what?”

“Once the Bonemaster recognizes the source of both your power and his, he will act against you. Have you found out what he's done with the wizard Simon?”

The last time Jinx had seen Simon, he had appeared to be frozen into a giant slab of ice in an upstairs room at Bonesocket. According to Elfwyn, though, he wasn't
really
there. But where he
really
was, she didn't know. Neither did Jinx.

“You said Simon doesn't matter,” said Jinx accusingly.

“I may have been mistaken.” The werewolf straightened his gold-rimmed spectacles with the end of his pencil. “Simon may matter very much. Further research is needed.
Unfortunately, I lack resources.”

“What kind of resources?” Jinx was still looking across at the island, in case Elfwyn appeared, and also trying to keep an eye on Malthus, in case the werewolf suddenly decided to eat him.

“Books,” said Malthus. “I have too few books. Particularly, I lack books in Qunthk.”

Jinx was surprised. “You read Qunthk?”

“Passably,” said the werewolf, also surprised. “Do you?”

“Yeah,” said Jinx. “It's a monster of a language. No offense.”

“None taken,” said Malthus. “Might you have read anything that speaks of the Paths of Fire and Ice?”

“You mean the Eldritch Tome?” said Jinx. “I
think
it talks about them. We're—”

“You've seen the Eldritch Tome?” An avid red-gold excitement from Malthus.

“You know about it?”

“Only as a legend. I had no idea it still existed.”

“Well, we, um—” He was about to say
have it
, but the werewolf's hunger was rather nervous-making. Jinx edged away from him, closer to the Doorway that would take him home. “I really have to go now.”

Malthus looked disappointed. “I, too, must depart.”

Jinx watched Malthus slide down into a wolf-shape and then lope away.

Once upon a time, it would have taken Jinx a day and a half to get home from here. But not now. Jinx had made a doorpath. The doorpaths had been his friend Wendell's idea. Jinx had made them using KnIP, Knowledge Is Power, the magic he'd learned in Samara. He could see the Doorway now, a hole in the scenery through which another scene leaked. He stepped into it, and was standing in a hollow oak a hundred yards from Simon's clearing.

He sighed, and went home. Home wasn't quite what it used to be.

According to Simon's wife, Sophie, you could learn a lot from sharing your house with sixty-seven other people. When Jinx asked her what, exactly? she said, “Patience and diplomacy. And perhaps a bit of tact.”

From which Jinx gathered that she thought he was lacking in all of those things.

At least there was the south wing.

Years ago, when he'd first come to live with Simon, Jinx hadn't been allowed into the south wing. Now Jinx didn't let other people in there. And he used the same excuse Simon had—there were dangerous things in there. Which was true.

But the south wing also hid things, like Simon's workroom, and the KnIP door that led to the desert world of Samara.

Sophie sat at Simon's workbench, with three books open in front of her. The first was the Eldritch Tome. In the second book, she was writing out a translation of the Qunthk text into Samaran, and also into Urwish. In the third book, she jotted down what she thought it actually meant.

She kept the green bottle containing her husband's lifeforce in front of her as she worked.

Jinx leaned his elbows on the workbench and tried to look at what she was writing. “Malthus wants to see the Eldritch Tome.”

“That werewolf friend of yours?”

“I'm not sure he's a friend, exactly. Friends shouldn't have to make an effort not to eat you. He said—” Jinx picked up the bottle and gazed into it. Long ago, the Bonemaster had trapped Simon's lifeforce in the bottle. It appeared as a tiny Simon. And lately the tiny Simon had stopped moving.

“Malthus said that Simon might matter a lot,” Jinx finished.

“Well of course he does,” said Sophie.

“Not the way werewolves think. To them, it's the pack that matters. He thinks Simon's got something to do with the Paths of Fire and Ice.”

“Ah.” Sophie's thoughts were suddenly guarded, a dense blue-brown cage of worry.

“So I was wondering if Malthus could borrow the tome.”

“Perhaps when I'm finished studying it,” said Sophie.

“He knows stuff,” said Jinx. “He might be able to help us.”

“I'm not letting this book out of my sight until I'm finished with it,” said Sophie with iron finality. “Does Simon look different to you?”

“No,” said Jinx. Except that he used to be about six feet tall, he didn't add.

“You don't think he's . . . fading?”

Jinx waved a finger behind the bottle. “I can't see through him.”

“But he's losing color.”

“I don't think so,” said Jinx.

They both stared into the bottle. They did this sometimes. They just sat there mutually, mopingly missing Simon. And this was despite the fact that Simon was, when you got right down to it, not a very nice person.

The thing was, he was
their
not very nice person.

“Have you had any more of those visions?” said Sophie.

“No,” said Jinx. “Just that same dream again, where I'm walking along a path between walls of ice. And I always have this feeling that I'm looking for Simon. But he hasn't said anything since that first time.”

“If Malthus is right and you're a—flame, was it?—it
seems odd that you dream you're walking the Path of Ice instead of the Path of Fire.”

“Well, who'd want to walk a path of fire?” said Jinx. “Anyway, if the Bonemaster put Simon somewhere with his spell, maybe I have to use the Path of Ice to get him back because that's what the Bonemaster used to put him there. Because the Bonemaster's the wick of ice, and I'm the wick of fire. According to Malthus.”

Sophie glanced from Simon to the Eldritch Tome. The cloud of worry around her head darkened. Jinx decided not to tell her what else Malthus had said . . . that the Bonemaster was likely to attack Jinx.

He craned to read over her shoulder. “Did you find something else about the paths?”

“Yes. It's a bit different from what your werewolf friend says.” Sophie flipped a page. Jinx squinted to read the tiny words.

Where the paths meet, the paths part. Let ice touch fire, let fire breach ice.

“So it sounds like they aren't really parallel,” said Jinx. “They join somewhere?”

“Maybe.” Sophie closed the book with a sudden thump, as if she didn't want Jinx to read what came next. “Isn't it time we checked on Reven?”

Jinx made a mental note to look at the tome later.

The Free and Independent Nation

J
inx's former friend Reven was supposedly the rightful king of Keyland. But the
wrongful
king of Keyland wasn't interested in giving up his throne. Jinx was keeping an eye on Reven through the Farseeing Window.

The north tower room had at least a dozen people living in it. They crowded around to watch as Jinx cleared away an armload of cats. He laid a tiny golden bird, an aviot, on the windowsill. He thought of the bespelled aviot he'd hidden in Reven's boot.

The view in the Farseeing Window swirled and dove and then showed Reven, sitting on a high seat—a throne, Jinx supposed, but it looked like it was made of branches.

Jinx could see that Reven was speaking to a crowd. Most of them wore swords. They were Reven's army, which he'd raised to rebel against his uncle, King Bluetooth of Keyland. And they were in the Urwald.

“We need to find out exactly where they are,” said Sophie.

“All I know is it's somewhere in the east,” said Jinx. “The trees say the Terror is back in the Urwald. That's what they call him.”

You couldn't hear anything through the Farseeing Window. It wasn't that informative, really. Jinx closed the spell and turned the window back into a window.

Down below, in Simon's clearing, people were hilling potatoes.

A man came up the path, out of the forest. He was a stout man, bald on top except for a chicken. He had another chicken under each arm, and a goat trotting at his heels.

Jinx hurried downstairs and outside to greet him.

Witch Seymour set down the chickens, and nodded at Jinx. “One's been walking for two straight weeks. And the paths are not what they once were. I hope I can rely upon your hospitality, as one magician to another.”

“Sure,” said Jinx. “Um, are you staying long?”

“One must,” said Witch Seymour. “Is it too much to hope there might be a cool drink available?”

Jinx led the witch into the house, goat, chickens, and all. The kitchen was full of people—the kitchen was
always
full of people.

Jinx introduced Witch Seymour to Sophie. Someone poured the witch a mug of cider. Witch Seymour took a long swig, wiped his mustache on the back of his hand, and looked around.

“One had heard something about this,” he said. “Where did all these people come from?”

“Cold Oats Clearing,” said Hilda, a girl a couple of years older than Jinx. She and her small cousin, Silas, had fled that clearing after it was destroyed.

“Gooseberry Clearing,” said a girl.

“Badwater Clearing,” said Nick, who was hovering near Hilda. Badwater Clearing had been destroyed by the Bonemaster a few months ago.

“What's happening in the east?” said Jinx. “Have you been attacked by the Bonemaster too?”

“The Bonemaster?” said Witch Seymour, raising his eyebrows. “Certainly not. I've been attacked by your good friend, the King of Nowhere.”

“Reven? Really?”

Even though Jinx would have liked to think of Reven as evil, it was hard to imagine him attacking Witch Seymour.

“Oh,
he
didn't attack me,” said Witch Seymour, pushing his mug forward for a refill. “No, indeed. Quite the
gentleman is our King of Nowhere. Just passing through, you understand, and won't have a wisp of one's thatch harmed.”

“Then why—”

“But he's just one man, isn't he, Whitlock?” said Witch Seymour, addressing the goat, which had curled up at his feet. “He gives his orders, and then off he goes, and his army moves in.”

“Oh.” Jinx thought of the soldiers he'd seen in the Farseeing Window.

“Hordes of nasty Keylish ruffians,” said the witch. “One knows when one is beaten, I hope. One heard something was happening here. Some sort of banding together. Solidarity and safety.”

“This is the free and independent nation of the Urwald,” said small Silas proudly.

The witch looked around in surprise. “It is?”

“Yes!” said Silas. Several people nodded, and Jinx felt a surge of pride. He'd gotten that across to them, anyway. The Urwald was a country. Although some of them were still a bit confused on the point and thought that Simon's kitchen was a country.

“Then someone's invading your country,” said the witch.

“It's your country too,” said Jinx. “How big is this army, exactly?”

“Thousands,” said Witch Seymour. “One didn't have time to count, in fact, while one's cupboards were being emptied onto the floor and one's furniture broken up for firewood. They carried off most of my hens, and I fear the worst. Speaking of cupboards, is there any chance of a bite?”

Instantly three people set about finding food for the witch. That was one good thing about having a houseful of people. They mostly helped each other. Well, a lot of the time, anyway. When they weren't quarreling.

“Did you actually talk to Reven?” said Jinx. “What's he doing?”

“You think he'd tell one that?” said the witch. “He's a king, isn't he, Whitlock? Or thinks he is. Kings are regrettably lacking in any tendency to gossip. But one surmises he's hiding from King Bluetooth of Keyland, the gentleman he's trying to depose.”

“Hiding a whole army in the Urwald?” said Jinx.

“The Urwald is big enough to hide any number of armies,” said the witch.

“Why didn't you do magic?” said Cottawilda, Jinx's ex–wicked stepmother.

“Because,” said Witch Seymour, “magic has limits. There were at least eighty ruffians, and they dropped in unexpectedly.”

“I thought you said there were thousands,” someone muttered.

“What good is it to be a magician, then?” said Cottawilda.

“Let's stick to the point,” said Sophie. “Where are these ruffians now?”

Witch Seymour shrugged. “One didn't ask for their addresses. One was too busy running for one's life.”

“Haven't the trees told you where this king is?” a woman asked Jinx.

“Yes, go ask the trees,” Cottawilda ordered.

“They've told me,” said Jinx, mustering patience. “He's in the east somewhere. He's not cutting down trees. If he were, they'd know exactly where he was.”

“I expect,” said a woman, “he'll try to get himself a clearing, won't he? No one likes to be in among the trees where monsters might get you.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” said Witch Seymour. “The folk in Blacksmiths' Clearing are making a stand. They want to know if you're with them. They heard some rumor about a nation. They want to know if they're in it.”

“Of course they're in it,” said Hilda.

“We all are,” said Nick. “Anyone who's Urwish. And Sophie of course.”

Hilda and Nick had been among the first people to really understand what Jinx meant about the Urwald being a country.

“Making a stand?” said Sophie. “You mean fighting?”

“Of course I mean fighting.” Witch Seymour put his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “There've been battles.”

“I was afraid it would come to that,” said Sophie. “But we haven't seen any fighting in the Window.”

“Nonetheless,” said the witch.

“Then we need to fight back,” said Jinx.

Witch Seymour looked around the kitchen. “Did one mention how
many
soldiers there are? And they have swords.”

“We have axes,” said Jinx.

“Enough axes?” said the witch. “And where do axes come from, pray tell?”

“And that's why Reven is attacking the blacksmiths,” said Sophie. “We need to protect them. I should go talk to them.”

“
I
should go,” said Jinx. “And I'm going to talk to Reven, too.”

“Why does it always have to be you?” demanded Inga. “You could get hurt, you know, going so far away among strange people.”

Jinx clenched his teeth in annoyance. Inga, who came from Jinx's home clearing and had once held his face down in pig muck when he was little, was thinking pink fluffy thoughts at him. He supposed he should be grateful, because at least it proved that Jinx wasn't someone it was
impossible to think pink fluffy thoughts about. But being Inga's, these pink fluffy thoughts were overlaid with flat grayness. All her thoughts were. Inga was grayly afraid and incurious and just generally, well, flat.

Besides, Inga was at least four inches taller than him. Maybe she entertained some idea that she could still hold Jinx facedown in pig muck if she wanted to. She couldn't, of course. Jinx was a lot stronger than he used to be, and he could do magic now, and anyway there was no way he'd ever let himself, Inga, and pig muck be in the same place again.

Sophie shook her head. “You can't go. You're too—”

Jinx shot her a look, and to his relief she stopped. No one
else
in the room thought Jinx was too young. Reaching the age of fourteen in the Urwald took considerable skill, sense, and luck.

“I should go, because I can make a ward to protect Blacksmiths' Clearing,” he said. “And because Reven might listen to me.”

It was decided that Hilda and Nick would go with him, because they could use the doorpaths. Not everyone could. No matter how many times Jinx explained how to use a KnIP spell, some people still didn't
know
the Doorways were there.

Sophie could use them, too, but she was also the only one who could keep the houseful of Urwalders from quarreling. So she had to stay behind.

Late that night, when he had Simon's workroom to himself, Jinx opened the Eldritch Tome to see what Sophie had been hiding from him.

It was a passage he'd read before.

Let life equal death, and let living leaf equal cold stone. Take leaf to life, and dearth to death, and seal the whole at the nadir of all things.

Jinx had never been able to make anything of this. Had Sophie? He pushed a cat off her notebooks and looked.

In her first notebook, Sophie had translated this into Samaran, and Urwish, and then into Old Urwish, probably to see if it made sense in any of them.

Jinx looked at her second notebook, to see what she thought it meant.

She'd written

Life = death = meeting of paths? Fire and ice? Lifeforce/deathforce?

Living leaf = cold stone = repetition of above?

Dearth/death = ????

Jinx had a sudden memory. He picked up a pencil and wrote in the margin

I once met an elf named Dearth.

He knew what “nadir” meant. It meant the absolute lowest possible point. He thought of what Malthus had
told him . . . that the Paths of Fire and Ice went down, much further than the roots of the Urwald. He turned the page to see what Sophie thought.

On the next page, Sophie had written

seal = Simon????