Jinx's Fire (25 page)

And still there were more enemy soldiers, and still they came.

The Urwald talked, telling Jinx that just beyond this battle, another Terror lay in wait.

I know,
said Jinx.
King Bluetooth of Keyland's forces. When we're driven back to Simon's clearing, they'll attack.

Jinx had to pick out individual struggles and figure out who to freeze. Below him, he saw Hilda's friend Nick battling two invaders. Jinx froze their clothes. But one of them toppled and fell behind a tree, out of Jinx's line of vision, and the spell broke. Nick swung his ax at that invader, not seeing another who was coming at him from the side. Jinx froze that one's clothes.

The Terror is elsewhere,
said the trees.
Everywhere. Here. Afar.

I know. You've told me. They're outside every one of the clearings,
said Jinx.
They're ready to move in once we fall.

More invaders were moving through the trees. Jinx mired their feet in pink goo. He could hear the clang and cries of battle around him, but he didn't dare take his attention off Nick.

Three more invaders were attacking Nick. In freezing their clothes, Jinx lost control of the first spell he'd done, and that man was up again. Nick was surrounded.

Listener, you must be willing to kill,
said the trees.

Shut up,
said Jinx.
I'm busy.

Carefully not letting the clothes-freezing spells slip, Jinx started leaden-foot spells on Nick's attackers. At the same time, he sent fire into their swords, making them cry out and drop them. One of his spells slipped by accident, and the invader's clothes burst into flames. The man yelled in anguish and tried to fall to the ground and roll, but couldn't because of the leaden-foot spell. Meanwhile Nick's ax connected with another soldier, and someone stabbed Nick in the leg. Nick went down. Then Gak the troll rushed in, clubbed each of the invaders, and casually bit the head off one of them.

Jinx felt ill. He was about to levitate Nick into the tree when the troll threw Nick over his shoulder and ran back
toward Simon's clearing.

“Don't worry about me!” Nick yelled as they thumped out of sight. “There's a whole battle!”

Nick was right. And Jinx hadn't kept up with it. While he'd been trying to keep the invaders from killing Nick, they'd taken over the ground below Jinx. The Urwalders had fallen back, and below Jinx there were only enemies.

And where was Wendell, and where was Simon? And—well, where was almost everybody Jinx knew and cared about?

He spread more pink goo across the ground. It slowed down the attackers, but others were getting past.

He heated the invaders' swords. But in the time it took him to make one soldier drop his sword, twelve others would struggle free of the goo.

Jinx tried to send more goo after them, but they were quickly out of sight.

The sound of battle had moved further west. Then came a green flash in the sky. It was Elfwyn's signal: Retreat.

And Jinx was trapped. There were invaders all over the battlefield; he couldn't descend. He climbed from the maple into the branches of a neighboring hemlock, and from there to a pine. But after the pine, there were no branches close enough to reach.

He stood there with pine pitch all over his hands and
wondered what to do. In the gathering dusk he could hear voices beneath him, speaking in un-Urwish accents. If he climbed down, he'd be captured by Reven's men or killed by Rufus's.

He could levitate himself, but he couldn't fly.

Listen,
said the trees.

The image of the last Listener appeared below him. A branch of the pine, a branch that wasn't there in the present day (it had broken away in a storm, the pine remembered) bent down at the last Listener's beckoning, and she climbed onto it and rode it upward.

Let us move,
said the trees.

Okay. It was the only way he could get home.

I'm not really sure,
he said.
But I think this must have been how she did it.

He touched the pine's sticky trunk and felt down the tree, into the roots, into the root network that spanned the Urwald. He felt down deeper, deeper than the roots of trees, into the Path of Fire. He felt the source of lifeforce and he drew it upward, and as he drew it he put himself into it, so that when the force reached the pine tree he was able to give it something that he had and it did not: the ability to move.

The pine branch swung gracefully around until it mingled with the branches of an oak tree. Letting go of the trunk, Jinx walked along the limb and stepped into the
arms of the oak. Then he edged out onto a branch on the other side of the oak, and helped it reach a neighboring beech.

And that was how Jinx got home, handed from branch to branch by the trees, sailing above the heads of the enemy.

“Must be a storm coming,” said a Keylish voice far below. “Listen to those branches creaking.”

“I don't like this forest,” said another voice. “It's creepy. Sometimes I think it's listening.”

Double Green Flash

S
ophie did not think Nick would be able to walk again.

Jinx found this out from Hilda, because Sophie was tending the wounded, and Simon was busy amid his section leaders and a mass of detailed area maps that Satya had drawn.

“Sophie said there are surgeons in Samara who might be able to do something, but otherwise . . .” Hilda trailed off in a blue cloud of gloom.

“I shouldn't have been up in the tree casting spells,” Jinx said. “I should have been down there with an ax and—”

“Stop, please, sir,” said Hilda. “It doesn't do any good to talk about it.”

“Sorry,” said Jinx.

He was ashamed of his outburst of guilt. It really didn't help, and he was glad Nick had been too unconscious to hear it. Jinx still hadn't seen Elfwyn or Wendell. He went in search of them. The house was more crowded than it had ever been. Jinx pushed his way through the mob, stepping around the injured and the people tending them.

He finally found Elfwyn outside, serving soup to masses of people. They were sitting and standing all over the garden beds, which were a total loss as far as Jinx could tell.

Elfwyn glowed bright-green delight at seeing him. She handed him some soup, in a cup with a broken handle.

Jinx drank it straight down. He hadn't realized how hungry and thirsty he was. He would've liked more, but he suspected there were more potential soup eaters on hand than soup.

“Have you seen Wendell?” he asked her.

“No.” Elfwyn turned to someone nearby. “Could you take over, please? I need to talk to Jinx.”

“Sure, Truthspeaker.” The man took the ladle from her.

Elfwyn and Jinx walked out of the clearing, into the ward tunnel, and sat down in the hollow Doorway Oak.

“The invaders aren't here yet,” Jinx observed. “I thought they'd be surrounding us by now.”

“No, I expect they don't think they need to,” said
Elfwyn. “They're staying out of reach of our spells. Jinx, you've got to—”

“Are you sure you haven't seen Wendell?” said Jinx. “When was the last time you saw him?”

“Yes. I don't know, before the battle sometime. I'm sure he's . . .” Elfwyn trailed off. “Jinx, how did you get back here?”

Jinx told her.

“You mean you moved the trees?”

“Well, helped them move. Yeah.”

“I
thought
you could do that. Grandma said something once that made me think so.”

“I only just found out myself.”

“Jinx, you've got to get the trees to fight.”

“Get them to—I'm having trouble
keeping
them from fighting,” said Jinx.

“They can't fight without you.”

“It would mean lots of people would get hurt,” said Jinx. “Including lots of us, because the trees can't tell people apart.”

“We could warn our people in advance. We could tell them to get down when they see—I don't know, a double green flash.”

They sat and thought. Elfwyn rested her chin in her hands as she always did when she was thinking. Jinx picked at the sawdust on the ground.

“I don't think it's your decision to make,” said Elfwyn suddenly.

“What!” Jinx was so outraged that he only just managed to make it not a question. “I'm the one who—”

“We could all be dead by tomorrow,” said Elfwyn. “If there's a weapon that we haven't used yet, then everyone has a right to know about it. Everyone should decide.”

“Do you—you realize how many everyones you're talking about! You can't run a war by vote.”

“You can't win a war by refusing to use what you've got!” said Elfwyn.

They had gotten to their feet and were almost yelling at each other.

Suddenly Jinx became aware of another presence in the darkness. Someone had just come through a Doorway.

“Sorry. I didn't mean to barge in,” said a familiar voice.

“Wendell!” cried Elfwyn. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” said Wendell. “Just a little banged up.”

Jinx could only just make out Wendell's form in the dark. “What happened?”

“I'm not sure,” said Wendell. “I was fighting this big red-bearded guy, and then something hit me on the head from behind, and then I think I was unconscious. A little after that people were running on top of me, and then they were gone and I got up and there was this Keylish guy who was kind of seriously injured, so I found a
Doorway and took him home.”

“Home where?” said Jinx.

“Keyland,” said Wendell. “He was from Keria.”

“You took an enemy
home
?”

“To his mother. She was awfully glad to see him.”

“Wendell, tell Jinx how wrong he is,” said Elfwyn.

“Sure.” Wendell turned to Jinx. “You're wrong, man.”

“No, wait,” said Jinx. “Listen to what she wants me to do.”

Wendell listened. Then he listened again as Elfwyn told him.

“Well, Elfwyn has a point,” said Wendell. “It's not entirely your decision to make.”

“Right!” said Elfwyn. “It should be put to a vote.”

“Wars aren't usually run by vote,” said Wendell.

“But this is the free and independent—” Elfwyn began.

“Because if they were, nearly everyone in them would vote to go home,” said Wendell.

“But we're going to lose if he doesn't do it,” said Elfwyn. “We've pretty much already lost.”

“Not while we still have the Urwald's lifeforce,” said Jinx.

“What good is that if you won't use it?” Elfwyn shot back.

“You don't understand how it is,” said Jinx. “It's not you that would be killing everybody.”

“Jinx has a point,” said Wendell. “He shouldn't be
forced to do something he thinks is wrong.”

“Men,” said Elfwyn furiously, “always stick together.”

“He said
you
were right before,” said Jinx.

“Well, you're kind of both right,” said Wendell.

“
I'm
going to go warn everyone,” said Elfwyn. “Then if
you
manage to catch up to your conscience before we're all dead, at least they'll know to duck.”

She marched off. They watched her go.

“I kind of think she has a point,” said Wendell. “Really.”

“Oh, shut up. You think everyone has a point,” said Jinx.

“Well, they do,” said Wendell equably.

The injured were moved to Bonesocket, where Sophie had set up a hospital. Everyone who couldn't fight had gone there to help her.

Witch Seymour and Dame Glammer directed the witches in constructing a phalanx of illusory dragons around Simon's clearing.

Hilda and several other women were practicing their ax swings on the firewood.

Jinx went around to the back of the house, hoping for a little privacy to think. There were people back there sharpening axes.

He leaned against the wall. There was no privacy anywhere.

A window creaked open above Jinx. Simon stuck his
head out and made a come-here gesture.

“Not around the house,” Simon snapped, as Jinx started to walk away. “I mean levitate.”

Jinx levitated his clothes until he was standing in the air beside the window. The noise of ax grinding stopped, and everyone stared.

“Go back to your sharpening,” said Simon, and the grind wheel started again reluctantly. People were still staring.

Jinx climbed onto the window ledge. The workroom was full of magicians, arguing and muttering and poking around in Simon's stuff. Jinx could see that Simon's patience, such as it was, was being stretched very thin.

“Come into the other room,” said Simon.

By which he meant Samara. They seized a second when no one was looking, and slipped through the KnIP door into the Samaran house.

The table and desk in the front room were piled high with things from Simon's workroom, things Simon was hiding from his visitors. Calvin the Skull perched atop a stack of books.

“I can't hold those magicians much longer,” said Simon. “There's a lot of grumbling. They're for the Urwald, but they're for themselves more. I give it another day before Angstwurm or Frank slips out and goes and offers his services to king-boy.”

Jinx nodded. This was more or less what he thought. “Or the Carrot.”

“The—? Oh, you mean Magda. She's hard to read—”

“Because she never says more than one word,” said Jinx.

“But it's mainly those two that worry me,” said Simon.

“It's not just them,” said Jinx. “
Anyone
could bring Reven and his men through the wards.”

“I know that,” said Simon. “So either we wait for that to happen, or we attack.”

“Listen, about Nick—” said Jinx.

“What about him? You want to know if there's a surgeon in Samara who can help him? Maybe, maybe not. Next time someone's attacking one of your friends—” Simon picked up Calvin and hefted him thoughtfully. “Do what you have to do.”

Jinx looked from Calvin to Simon, and then back at Calvin. “Embrace the ice?”

“No,” said Simon. “Don't be an idiot. Use what you have.”

He tossed the skull to Jinx.

Jinx caught it. He looked at Calvin. The skull grinned. Deathforce power radiated from it.

Jinx set the skull back on the stack of books. “I don't need that kind of power.”

“Use what you have,” said Simon. “But use it
now
.
There isn't going to be a battle after this one. What happens next is up to you.”

Jinx looked at the skull. It winked an eye socket at him.

“Yeah,” said Jinx. “Okay.”

“Did you warn everyone?” Jinx asked.

“Almost. There are still people out warning the guards we left in the clearings,” said Wendell.

“And Leisha warned the werewolves,” said Elfwyn. “The cubs and their mothers have all gone to ground in Salt City.”

“And the trolls know,” said Wendell.

“And they're telling the ogres,” said Elfwyn. “And the werewolves are telling the werebears.”

She drew a deep breath, and looked at Wendell.

“We haven't told Reven yet,” said Wendell.

“You don't tell him,” said Jinx. “He's the enemy.”

Wendell and Elfwyn exchanged glances. They'd been talking about Jinx. He could tell.

“We thought you might like to do it,” said Wendell.

“If not, I could,” Elfwyn added.

Jinx started to say something, and then had a feeling that he was being maneuvered. Rather carefully, which hurt his feelings. It wasn't like he was the kind of person that had to be
managed
. They could just say what they meant, couldn't they?

“I don't see why we have to warn him,” said Jinx. “He told me once that I shouldn't let my enemy know I'm going to hit him until I do.”

“You're going to take his advice?” said Wendell.

“Remember when we were prisoners in Bonesocket?” said Elfwyn. “Remember how Reven found a way to climb down? He could have just run away. But he came back for us.”

“I died anyway,” said Jinx.

“But that wasn't his fault.”

“And besides, Reven would make a better neighbor than King Bluetooth,” said Wendell. “Unless you're planning on starting an Urwish Empire and ruling Keyland yourself.”

Jinx took a white napkin to wave this time, because he didn't want to hear any more nonsense about nightshirts.

Reven's army was less than a mile from Simon's clearing. As Jinx walked among them, he realized how terrified they were. They hadn't bargained on fighting magicians, trolls, and werewolves. They didn't like it that Urwalders could appear out of thin air. It horrified them to think that witches might take control of their bodies. These things loomed so large in their thoughts that Jinx could almost taste them.

Reven folded his arms. “Yes? What now?”

Jinx folded his arms too, and glared back. “Your soldiers are very frightened.”

“Oh really? And am I?”

“No. But you feel guilty, now that I've told you. So maybe you're a better person than I think you are.”

“I certainly hope so,” said Reven. “Is that what you came to say?”

“No,” said Jinx. “I came to tell you this. If you see a double green flash in the sky, hit the ground. Lie flat. Close to a large tree trunk if possible.”

“Why?” said Reven.

“Because,” said Jinx. “We've talked it over, and we've decided that we'd rather have you as an ally than an enemy. I don't mean me personally. And I don't mean Elfwyn personally, either. I mean we, the free and independent nation of the Urwald.”

Reven opened his mouth to speak, and Jinx held up a hand to stop him.

“King Bluetooth's army is lying in wait for you,” Jinx said. “They're planning to attack you as soon as you finish us off.”