Jinx's Fire (5 page)

The Wanderers' Code

W
hen Jinx got home there were Wanderers in Simon's clearing.

“There's nowhere for us to camp,” said Quenild, the chief Wanderer.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” said Jinx. “We had to plant more onions.”

“And someone's moved in with the goats and chickens.”

“Yeah, Witch Seymour.” Jinx looked at the shed. The witch had added a window, with blue-checked curtains, and built a chimney.

“I'm afraid we're a little overcrowded,” said Sophie.

Tolliver, a Wanderer boy about Jinx's age, pulled up
a carrot from a patch at his feet and gave it to his donkey.

Jinx looked at the Wanderers' carts. “Is that sugarplum syrup?”

“Yup. Bought it out west,” said Tolliver.

Jinx thought of all the people they had to feed. “How much do you want for it?”

“A hundred and eighty pennies a barrel,” said Tolliver promptly.

“What?” Jinx turned to Quenild, who was more sane.

“That's the Keyland price,” she said. “We bought it for trade to Keyland.” She turned to Sophie. “We had trouble getting here. The paths are overgrown.”

She and Sophie wandered away. Jinx wondered if Sophie would explain that the trees were taking back the paths because they felt the Restless weren't honoring the Ancient Treaty. Probably not. Even most Urwalders didn't believe Jinx when he said that. He heard the front door of the house open.

“What's the price of sugarplum syrup
here
?” he asked Tolliver.

“Same as the Keyland price.”

“How much did
you
pay for it?” Jinx demanded.

“That's our business.”

“Keylanders will really pay that much for sugarplum syrup?”

“Sure. Sugarplum trees only grow in the Urwald,” said
Tolliver. “They need the shade.”

A new thought crossed Jinx's mind. “What else do you get from the Urwald?” He peered into the cart.

Tolliver gleamed suspicion. “Why do you want to know?”

“I just wondered what we're good for.”

“Glass,” said Tolliver. “And sugarplum syrup. That's about it.”

“Glass?” You hardly ever saw any glass in the Urwald. Magicians had windows and bottles, but no one else did.

“Sure. We buy it raw from the trolls. Take it to Keyland to be worked.”

Jinx thought about this. “Glass comes from the Glass Mountains?”

“Wow,” said Tolliver. “You're smarter than you look.”

Jinx decided to be diplomatic and let that pass. “You didn't bring any iron.”

“What do you want iron for?” said Tolliver.

“The people in Blacksmiths' Clearing need iron. To make axes.” He hurried on, before Tolliver could say
wow
again. “They need all they can get. We're practically at war with Keyland.”

“You're at war with Bragwood too,” said Tolliver. “We're getting out of here.”

“What do you mean?”

Tolliver waved an arm in a generally westward direction.
“You're being invaded by Rufus the Ruthless.”

“Excuse me,” said a voice.

Jinx looked up and saw his best friend, Wendell, standing beside the wagon, idly feeding Biscuit another carrot.

“Hey! When did you get here?” Jinx felt instantly more cheerful. He hardly ever got to see Wendell, who had been his roommate at the Temple of Knowledge. Wendell had hated life in the Temple, and was now much happier working as a guide for foreign merchants in Samara.

“This morning. Satya's here too. She's in working on the map.”

“Oh good. I want the Wanderers to look at it,” said Jinx.

“Mind speaking Urwish?” said Tolliver, annoyed.

“Sorry,” said Jinx. “You remember Wendell, right?”

“Sure. Appeared out of nowhere with his hair burned off,” said Tolliver. “Didn't really notice him much because you were busy bleeding all over the dry goods.”

Wendell smiled and nodded, taking Tolliver in stride. “Where does the iron come from?”

“Ask your Urwish friend here. He ought to know.”

“Let's assume I don't,” said Jinx.

“It comes from mines in the west,” said Tolliver.

“The west of the Urwald?” said Jinx. “We have iron mines?”

“Just small, no-'count iron mines,” said Tolliver. “They
hardly produce anything. But if there's Wanderers making the trip anyway, we bring it on over to the Blacksmiths. We didn't go this time because the paths were overgrown.”

There was an uncomfortable shift in Tolliver's thoughts. Jinx could see Tolliver was lying. So there was some other reason for not bringing the iron. What?

“Can you show us where the mines are?” said Jinx. “Come inside and look at the map.”

As far as Jinx knew, no one had ever made a map of the Urwald before. It had been Sophie's idea.

Satya was doing the mapping. Satya didn't speak Urwish, although (or maybe because) she tried very hard to learn. That was all right, Jinx thought: He didn't speak map.

The Urwald was big. That much they could all agree on. The rest was complicated, and had to be drawn in in pencil and argued over.

The map was spread out on the kitchen table, and Sophie, various Urwalders, and the Wanderers gathered around it. Satya was sitting at the south edge, pencil ready.

She was dressed all in black, which made Jinx think she must have just come from some mission that required slipping unseen through the night streets of Samara. Satya was a scholar at the Temple of Knowledge in Samara, mainly so she could steal knowledge and pass it on to the illegal Mistletoe Alliance.

Sophie, too, was a member of the Mistletoe Alliance, although she'd had to flee Samara for her life.

Satya had managed to recover the Crimson Grimoire, a book that Jinx had accidentally left in Samara. But on the way, she'd let the Mistletoe Alliance make a copy of it. Jinx supposed this was okay. The important thing was to keep the book out of the hands of the Bonemaster, who could use it to entrap more people's lives in bottles.

Jinx looked at the map. Simon's clearing was very close to the center of the Urwald. A day's journey to the west was Gooseberry Clearing, where Jinx had been born. Satya had drawn a black square to show that it had been destroyed by the Bonemaster. Cold Oats Clearing, a week's journey to the east, was another black square.

To the north was Bone Canyon. Satya had drawn Bonesocket as a tiny castle on an island.

There was another black square for Badwater Clearing. It had been blasted and burned eight months ago. Since then, there had been no more clearings destroyed. And not so much as a whisper of a rumor about what the Bone­master was up to. Jinx did not find this reassuring.

Dots marked the other clearings . . . which were mostly in the east, because Jinx, who had traveled more of the Urwald than most people, hadn't seen much of the west. All he could point out to Satya in the west was Dame Glammer's cottage, another path that went to Bone Canyon, and,
further south, the Glass Mountains, where the trolls lived.

Now that the Wanderers were here, they could get more information.

“Where are the iron mines?” Jinx asked.

“Right here.” Tolliver pointed to a spot in the far west. “There's a clearing nearby”—he pointed—“called Deadfall Clearing. Nice name.” He looked over the map. “You've got the paths all wrong. And that's not where Blacksmiths' Clearing is.”

“I've been there,” said Jinx.

“Well, when everyone else goes there it's ten miles south of where you found it,” said Tolliver.

He grabbed the pencil from Satya (she scowled) and drew a new Blacksmiths' Clearing.

“Erase that,” he told Satya, pinning the old Blacksmiths' Clearing with his pinky.

Jinx translated.

“I understood,” said Satya, in Samaran. “This boy is very rude.”

“He kind of takes pride in it,” said Jinx.

“And you might as well divide everything right here,” said Tolliver.

He dragged the pencil hard down the middle of the map, making a thick gray line from north to south.

“Hey!” said Satya. “You just made a mess of the whole thing!”

Jinx obligingly translated this.

“That's where King Rufus and the Woodland King have agreed to split the Urwald,” said Tolliver.

“Who's King Rufus?” Satya asked Jinx.

“The king of Bragwood,” said Jinx. He turned to Tolliver. “Who's the Woodland King?”

“That's what they're calling that Keylish guy, the one who's trying to overthrow King Bluetooth.”

“You mean Reven?” said Jinx. “He's not a Woodland King, he's a woodland invader! And nobody can divide the Urwald. It's ours.”

Angry murmurs of agreement from the Urwalders.

“Tough. They've done it,” said Tolliver.

“You'll be getting refugees from the west soon, I think,” said Quenild.

Jinx looked around the crowded kitchen. “Here?”

“'Course,” said Tolliver. “Here's where everyone knows about. Well, you told us to tell them you were starting an Urwish nation—”

“I didn't tell you to tell them all to come here!”

“They will, though, because it's where they've heard about,” said Tolliver.

“This is where your nation is,” said Quenild.

“The whole Urwald is our nation!”

“Your nation is as much as you can defend,” said Tolliver. “I'd've thought even
you
would know that.”

“The Bragwood king is the one they call Rufus the Ruthless?” said Sophie.

“Yup,” said Tolliver. “So you may not get so many refugees as all that.”

“You've got to help us,” said Jinx. “We need all the iron we can get for the blacksmiths to work into weapons. We've got to arm all the clearings so they can fight back.”

There was a heavy silence. The Wanderers looked at each other. They looked at Quenild.

“We can't do that,” said Quenild.

“Why not?”

“It is forbidden by the Wanderers' code.”

“What's the Wanderers' code?”

“Our law,” said Quenild. “All Wanderers are bound to follow it. We can't help anyone who's arming for war.”

“But this isn't a war of conquest,” said Sophie, her voice calm, although Jinx could see her thoughts were angry. “The Urwalders are defending their own homes. They have a right to do that, surely?”

“Since both Keyland and Bragwood claim the Urwald,” said Quenild, “some people would call your war a revolt.”

“It's not
our war
,” said Jinx. “It's Reven's stupid war. He's invading us.”

Quenild shrugged. “That's not for me to say. I'm sorry to tell you that we don't Wander through nations at war. You may not see us again until this is over.”

“If you're still around when it's over,” said Tolliver. There was a worried purple cloud. His thoughts struggled with each other.

“Which you don't think is flippin' likely,” said Jinx. “I thought you guys were on our side!”

There were purple and green puffs of regret among the Wanderers. They all looked to their chief, Quenild. Tolliver gritted his teeth.

Jinx was furious. And there was a time when he would have stalked off angrily, calling Reven every name he could think of and throwing in one or two for the Wanderers. But he couldn't do that now. People were looking at him the way the Wanderers looked to Quenild.

“Right,” he said. “So now we know that. Thanks.”

More ripples of regret. None of the Wanderers would look at the Urwalders directly.

Then Tolliver stepped forward and grabbed a pencil. “You'll have to get it yourself. It's no good your going straight to the iron mines,” he said. “Iron ore is just a bunch of rocks. You'll need to go to the Bloomeries. That's where they smelt the ore into iron.”

He leaned over the map and sketched. “Bone Canyon continues down this way, and then it opens up here, and the Bloomeries are here, beside the river. The path comes up here—”

Jinx looked at the map. He didn't
know
any of the
places Tolliver was drawing, and that meant he couldn't make a doorpath. “Isn't it shorter to walk down Bone Canyon?”

He
knew
Bone Canyon.

“About the same,” said Tolliver. “But you wouldn't be able to take carts into the canyon.”

“We don't have any carts,” said Jinx.

“Then how are you going to carry the iron?”

“We'll figure something out,” said Jinx.

The West

W
hat Jinx wanted to be doing was to find out what the Bonemaster had done to Simon. But the problem of iron for the blacksmiths had to be dealt with first.

“The Bone Canyon doorpath might take you a little closer to the Bloomeries,” said Sophie. “But you ought to go and warn Dame Glammer that there's an invasion coming.”

“
You
could do that,” said Jinx. Dame Glammer made him uncomfortable, and anyway, he wanted to get started. If the blacksmiths didn't get iron soon, the Urwalders couldn't defend themselves.

“All right,” said Sophie. “Perhaps I'll be able to
convince her to come and stay with us.”

Jinx hoped not.

He'd made a doorpath to the witch's cottage months ago. Dame Glammer had quickly understood how doorpaths worked, and had hopped in and out of the Doorway easily in her butter churn—but she didn't like having it so close to her cottage, and she'd asked Jinx to take it away again.

“I can't,” Jinx admitted. “KnIP spells can't be undone.”

“Magic that can't be undone is better left undone,” the witch had said. “Otherwise we're soon in over our heads, aren't we, dearie?”

Jinx shrugged. He'd been in over his head for ages.

Now he watched Sophie vanish inside the Doorway Oak as she went off to visit Dame Glammer. He worried . . . Sophie sometimes seemed to trust the witch too much. Jinx knew for a fact that Dame Glammer talked to the Bonemaster.

Wendell, Hilda, and Nick were coming with Jinx. Wendell didn't have any guiding jobs scheduled at the moment.

Satya had to go back to the Temple of Knowledge—she could never be away for long, for fear the preceptors might notice. If they guessed where she'd gone, she was toast. If they guessed that she was involved in the Mistletoe Alliance, she was toast. There were a lot of ways for Satya to
potentially become toast, which was probably why, Jinx reflected, she spent a lot of time in a state of barely controlled terror.

But you had to admire the fact that she never let being terrified stop her.

She came as far as the Doorway Oak to say good-bye to them. Most particularly to Wendell. Jinx turned away while they did this.

The thing Jinx wondered about—well, sticking your face at someone—was, wasn't it awfully awkward? He'd given the matter quite a bit of thought, and as far as he could see there was no safe way to go about it. What if the person you were sticking your face at screamed? Or bit you?

He supposed he could ask Wendell how it was done, but that would mean admitting he didn't already know.

After a rather squirmingly long time, Satya left. Jinx, Wendell, Nick, and Hilda stepped into the Doorway Oak and out onto the edge of Bone Canyon. It was not the place where Jinx sometimes went to look at Bonesocket, but a place further west, where he, Reven, and Elfwyn had entered the canyon two years ago on their way to see the Bonemaster.

Climbing down to the canyon floor, Jinx felt the loss of the trees' comforting murmur. He looked upriver toward Bonesocket, which was out of sight around several bends. Elfwyn was up there. He hoped she was all right. And
the Bonemaster was up there. Jinx wondered what the evil wizard was planning. When and how would he come after Jinx?

And what had he done to Simon?

They headed off in the opposite direction. The canyon was flattest next to the creek, which rushed along in the deep channel it had cut through a rock slab, so they walked there.

Jinx's magic wasn't nearly as strong this far from the trees.

It took them a week to reach the western end, where the canyon walls gradually became lower, and the river burbled away into the forest. The Bloomeries were a cluster of squat stone ovens. Jinx touched one. It was cold.

“Where are the people?” said Wendell.

“I guess they're in Deadfall Clearing,” said Jinx.

There was a path into the forest. Jinx was relieved to feel the trees' lifeforce around him once again. It didn't feel quite as strong as usual, and that struck him as odd. Anyway the murmur of the trees' voices welcomed him.

It was only a mile to Deadfall Clearing.

It was one of the poorer ones—it reminded Jinx of Gooseberry Clearing: huts that were almost all roof, and leaky roof at that. At the far side of the clearing, people were digging and hoeing.

Hilda and Nick stopped abruptly.

“Ouch,” said Nick, rubbing his nose.

Hilda turned to Jinx. “There's a ward spell, sir.” She always called him
sir
for some reason.

Jinx touched the ward. It was there all right, but with a little concentration, he was able to pass his hand through it, like a thin wall of jelly. He felt into the spell with his mind, and told it to let them in.

They walked into the clearing.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” A woman came toward them brandishing a hoe. “Invaders!”

People came running, wielding hoes and shovels. Jinx tried to draw up a ward around himself and his friends. But the Urwald's power felt all wriggly and hard-to-reach. This had never happened before! Jinx and his companions raised their hands. The people surrounded them.

“How did you get through our ward?” the woman with the hoe demanded.

“I'm a magician. It wasn't a very strong ward,” said Jinx. He could see from the Deadfallers' thoughts that they were likely to attack any moment. He fumbled for the fire inside him.

“It's a perfectly fine ward,” said the woman. “It's always worked till now. It keeps out werewolves and everything.”

“Werewolves don't come into clearings,” said Nick.

“It's part of the Truce of the Path,” said Jinx. Malthus had told him this.

“Rubbish!” said the woman. “If it weren't for our ward, we'd be overrun with werewolves. I know that for a fact.”

“What are you doing here?” a man demanded. “We don't need magicians. We're under the protection of the very powerful wizard Angstwurm Magus, for your information.”

“I never heard of him.” Jinx still had his hands in the air. “We just came for some iron, that's all.”

“We sell our iron to the Wanderers,” said the woman.

“They're not coming,” said Jinx. “And we need—”

“Rubbish! They always come. What would you know about it?”

“They
are
nearly a month late,” said the man, frowning.

Jinx was relieved to see doubt scribbling across his mind. The man lowered his shovel and, one by one, the other people did the same.

Slowly, in case they changed their minds, Jinx put his hands down. “They're not coming,” he said, “because they don't trade with nations at war.”

Utter confusion.

“War?”

“Nations?”

“What?”

Jinx took a deep breath. “King Rufus of Bragwood—”

“Never heard of him.”

“—has declared war against the free and independent nation of the Urwald—”

“Never heard of it.”

“—and we've come to take your iron for—”

The weapons came back up. “Our iron is ours! And we already pay tribute to a wizard. We don't need more magicians.”

Jinx gritted his teeth. “Listen, you idi—”

Hilda grabbed his arm. “Shut up, sir. Please.”

Jinx stared at her. Hilda had never said such a thing to him before.

Hilda turned to the woman with the hoe. “Ma'am, you seem like a sensible woman. Could I talk to you for a moment, please?”

Everyone watched them walk away.

“She told me to shut up,” said Jinx. He still couldn't believe it.

“Yes, it was very shocking of her,” said Wendell.

After a few minutes the woman swung her arm in a come-here gesture. The Deadfallers went off out of earshot, and talked, argued, and shouted in the best Urwish fashion.

Then they came back.

“Right,” said the woman, whom Hilda introduced as Griselda. “We've decided we believe you about the war. A
couple people remember hearing about this King Roofless before.”

Jinx glanced at Hilda to see if she was going to let him talk. “Do you believe us about the Wanderers?”

“We're not sure,” said Oswald. “But they've never been late before—”

“Is it Quenild's group?” said Jinx.

Oswald frowned. “Yes.”

“They've skipped you,” said Jinx. “They were at our place a week ago, headed east.”

The Deadfallers considered this.

“Yes,” said Oswald at last. “I see.”

Jinx sighed with relief. “Good. Now, we've come to take your iron—”

Nick, Wendell, and Hilda all grabbed him. Jinx shrugged them off. “I do know how to talk to people, you know. I've been working on diplomacy.”

“Maybe you could work on it some more,” Wendell suggested, in Samaran. He switched to Urwish. “He means we'll
buy
the iron, of course, if you're willing to sell. How much are the Wanderers paying you?”

“Thirteen pennies a hundredweight,” said Griselda promptly.

Jinx could see that this was a lie, but he didn't feel like having everyone tell him to shut up again.

“The blacksmiths are probably paying twice that,” said
Wendell. “So they'll be glad to give you eighteen.”

Confusion, calculation, discussion.

“If we get eighteen, then Angstwurm gets nine . . .”

“Wait a minute, you mean you pay that wizard—” Jinx began, and Wendell grabbed his arm.

“They're paying half what they earn to a wizard!” Jinx told Wendell in Samaran. “That's extortion.”

“Maybe we could worry about that later,” said Wendell.

One of the Deadfallers shot a suspicious glance at the sound of a foreign language. Wendell gave her a friendly nod.

“They have to see the advantage to themselves, or they're not going to help us,” said Wendell.

“But the Urwald is their country!”

“They don't know it yet,” said Wendell. “You have to be patient with them.”

“I
am
flippin'—”

Hilda turned around. “They've decided to do it, sir. As long as it's all right with the wizard.”

“Why's it any of his—”

“I don't know, sir. It's just the way they do things here. And they want to know how we're going to transport the iron—are we going to send carts?”

“Of course not,” said Jinx. “I'm going to use their knowledge to make a doorpath.”

“I think we'd better not explain that to them just now,” said Hilda.

The Deadfall Clearing people pulled stone blocks from holes at the bottom of the ovens, and hauled out rough, ash-covered lumps of iron.

“How do we know how much those weigh?” said Jinx.

“I'll handle this,” said Wendell quickly.

“Yes, and we'll explain to them about the doorpaths,” said Nick.

Hilda nodded emphatically.

“Fine.” Jinx stalked off, feeling put upon. If it weren't for him, none of them would even be here. Nobody would be trying to unite the Urwald, or getting iron for the blacksmiths, who would probably have been overrun by Reven's army because nobody would have built a ward for them. . . .

Well, they obviously felt they didn't need him. Let them talk things over, and once they finally worked their way around to where they needed a doorpath to transport the iron, well, then perhaps they'd remember that nobody but Jinx could make one.

Fretting and fuming, he marched along the path to Deadfall Clearing.

He didn't want to go there either. He sat down in a bed of thick moss, leaned against a birch tree, and let the Urwald's calming lifeforce wash over him.

But it didn't. Or not like it usually did. Instead of being
a long, green murmur of life that reached downward and outward forever, it seemed to burble, blop, stop, and start. There were interruptions. It was as if the Urwald had hiccups.

What's going on?
he asked.

The question wasn't specific enough for the trees. He tried again.
Something's happening to the Urwald's lifeforce,
he said.
It's not as . . . whole as it should be. It's not as strong.

It drifts downward,
said the trees.
The lifeforce ebbs away. Flows down. No, not flowing. Drawn. Pulled.

By what?
said Jinx.
Or who?

Deep paths. Deep forces. Ice.

Jinx didn't like the sound of that at all.
Is this why you're having trouble summoning monsters? Why you couldn't stop Reven? Does this have something to do with the Bonemaster?

“Ho. Pretty confident, are we? Sitting down and resting off the path?”

Jinx looked up at a man in a white robe. Or, well, probably it had been white once. He had a pointy hat. Underneath that he had a square face and a square, grayish-brown beard. And square, smug thoughts.

“I bet you're Angstwurm,” said Jinx.