Jinx's Fire (6 page)

The Price of Iron

“A
ngstwurm
Magus
,” said the wizard. “And you're that overreaching, jumped-up apprentice I keep hearing about, aren't you? The one who wants to be a king?”

“No,” said Jinx, getting to his feet. “I'm Jinx.”

“That's the chap I mean.”

“And I don't want to be a king!”

“Supreme ruler, then. Emperor.”

“I don't—” Jinx began hotly.

“What's become of Simon Magus, eh? We've all been wondering.”

“So have I,” said Jinx. “And I don't want to be an emperor.”

“Oh, come now.” The wizard made a
tut-tut
noise. “You've obviously done something with him. It must have taken clever spellwork, too, since I'll wager you had to get around a deathbinding curse.”

Jinx clenched his fists. “I would never hurt Simon. He's one of my favorite people.”

“You can't have met many people, then,” said Angstwurm. “And now you're trying to set up your own empire, at the age of what—twelve?”

“Fourteen and a half,” said Jinx, and immediately wished he'd left off the half. It smacked of trying too hard. “I'm not setting up an empire. I'm trying to actually help people! Because I'm not the kind of magician that goes around putting up flimsy wards and then charging people money for my ‘protection.'”

That angered the wizard—a little red flash, which didn't show on his face. “But I see you are the kind of boy who sits around daydreaming, off the path, without a thought of what might come along and harm him. Are you sure you wouldn't care to step back
on
the path?”

Jinx took the wizard's meaning. On the path, the Truce would apply, and Angstwurm couldn't hurt him.

“No, thanks. I'm fine where I am,” said Jinx.

He felt for the Urwald's lifeforce. What a time to find out it wasn't behaving as it should.

The wizard certainly knew more magic than Jinx did.
Jinx braced himself and waited to see what Angstwurm was going to do, and how much it was going to hurt.

“And now I'm hearing that you want my iron,” said Angstwurm. “To make weapons to arm your minions.”

“I don't have any min—”

“And you're offering more money than the Wanderers pay.”

“The Wanderers aren't coming,” said Jinx. Summoning patience was harder than summoning the Urwald's power. “They don't trade with nations at war, and we're at war. And I don't see how—”

He stopped himself. Wendell would probably say that now wasn't a good time to tell Angstwurm the iron belonged to the people who mined and smelted it, not to Angstwurm.

Angstwurm's thoughts flashed amusement. Jinx struggled valiantly against losing his temper. He explained to Angstwurm about the need for the Urwald to unite against threats from without and within—Reven, King Rufus the Ruthless, and, of course, the Bonemaster.

“Ah, the Bonemaster,” said Angstwurm. “He went bad, that wizard.”

“You think?” said Jinx.

“You'll want to be careful that you don't do the same,” said Angstwurm. “I don't think even the Bonemaster started so young.”

Just then Jinx became aware of a cold, heavy sensation. He looked down. His feet weren't there. No, that wasn't it—they'd sunk into the earth.

He tried to pull them out. His legs strained and ached with the effort. It was as if his feet weighed a ton. He couldn't move them.

Angstwurm was more amused than ever.

Jinx felt his way into the spell. He saw how it worked. He started to summon the Urwald's power, to throw the same spell back at Angstwurm.

Wait. Not a good idea. Angstwurm would retaliate with a different spell, probably something Jinx had never seen before and wouldn't have time to figure out. Jinx could set Angstwurm on fire, but the wizard would easily put that out, and the battle would escalate.

And that wouldn't help Jinx get the iron that the blacksmiths needed to make axes so the Urwalders could defend their country.

It occurred to Jinx with a sudden, horrible certainty that diplomacy meant he had to lose this fight.

He took a deep breath.

“And then there's the Blacksmiths' Clearing,” he said. “They need the iron because—”

He went on explaining, and sinking. He was calf-deep in the ground now. He told Angstwurm about Witch Seymour's cottage—an attack on a fellow magician might seem
more heinous to Angstwurm than attacks on mere clearings. He talked about Reven's army. The ground was up past his knees.

And that was really quite far enough. Jinx felt his way into the spell, and reached for the Urwald's power. The power was there, slippery and hard to tug at. Jinx was able to grab just enough to drag into the spell. He stopped himself from sinking.

He thought about pushing back, making himself rise again. No—he had to keep Angstwurm listening.

“We need magic to fight back,” said Jinx. “It's the one thing we've got that those kings don't.”

“So you're trying to bring the magicians into your empire as well?” said Angstwurm. He frowned, and sent more power into the spell.

Jinx used more power, and was able to keep from sinking further. “It's not an empire. It's just us Urwalders, fighting to protect our country. That's all.”

“You say we have magic, and the kings don't. But what about the Bonemaster?” The wizard sent yet more power into the spell. Jinx would have sagged to his knees from the force of it, if his knees hadn't been underground.

Jinx summoned more strength from the Urwald. “Well, yeah, the Bonemaster's got magic. But not more than all of us magicians put together.”

There was a pink bubble of concern—Angstwurm didn't know why his spell wasn't working. The Urwald's
power had stopped slipping away, and Jinx saw how he could reverse the spell and get himself out of the ground. But he needed to keep Angstwurm talking to him.

“I know you don't approve of the Bonemaster.” Jinx could see that quite clearly.

“The Bonemaster is a terrible man,” said Angstwurm.

“He's wiped out three clearings,” said Jinx.

“Yes, I know.”

“It's our responsibility to stop him,” said Jinx. Angstwurm's thoughts gave an unpleasant twitch at the word
responsibility
, but Jinx soldiered on. “There're plenty of people that're willing to fight him”—well, at least fifty or so—“but they don't really stand a chance without help from magicians.

“We
are
being invaded. Go ahead and find out for yourself. I'm sure a”—he took a deep breath, steeled himself, and went on—“powerful wizard like you has all kinds of ways to find stuff out.”

There was a sound of voices coming along the path. Jinx recognized Wendell's voice, then Hilda's, then Griselda of the hoe.

Well, enough was enough. Jinx wasn't going to have everyone see him stuck in the ground, losing a magical battle. He summoned the Urwald's power, reversed the spell, rose up, kicked dirt off his feet, and jumped quickly onto the path.

Angstwurm looked at him thoughtfully. “Interesting.”

Wendell, Hilda, and Nick had explained the doorpaths. The Deadfallers agreed to let Jinx use their knowledge.

Jinx made two doorpaths, one to the Doorway Oak, and one to the Doorway just outside Blacksmiths' Clearing. He told the ward around Blacksmiths' Clearing to let in the Deadfallers. But not Angstwurm. He didn't trust that wizard.

They spent the rest of the day moving iron to Blacksmiths' Clearing. When it was time to go home, Nick and Hilda announced they weren't going.

“There must be more clearings in the west we can contact,” said Nick. “We'll follow the path and find them.”

“But you won't be able to make doorpaths and wards,” said Jinx.

“You can come do that later, sir,” said Hilda. “After we've explained everything to them, you can doorpath through to Deadfall Clearing and we'll take you to the clearings we find.”

“What about small Silas, though?” said Jinx.

“Other people will look after him,” said Hilda. “Besides, it's really you he'll want to see, sir.”

“He thinks the world of you,” said Nick.

Jinx was surprised by this view of things. He thought small Silas was a small nuisance.

“What you really think,” he said, “is that I don't have
enough tact or diplomacy or whatever to talk to people.”

“It's not that, sir,” said Hilda. “It's that most people are a little nervous around magicians.”

Jinx hmphed. He could tell she was using tact on him.

“It's just that you're very, um, Urwish,” said Nick.

“So are you Urwish! So is everyone Urwish! Except Wendell,” Jinx added.

“Don't mind me,” said Wendell. “It's just that you're a little—”

“Don't be tactful at me!” Jinx snapped.

Wendell stopped, and looked thoughtful. “I'm not sure of the Urwish word. Overbearing?”

Nick and Hilda nodded.

“But not in a bad way,” Wendell added.

Jinx's hands were sore from carrying the rough iron blooms. And he hadn't had a bath since he'd left home. And he was hungry. So was Wendell. So they went first to the kitchen to see what there was to eat (cold baked sweet potatoes and some inhospitable bread), and then into the south wing.

Sophie was in the workroom. And so was Elfwyn.

Jinx had been afraid he'd never see Elfwyn again. He had imagined a thousand things the Bonemaster might do to her, all of them awful. He was delighted to see her.

He felt a bit awkward.

And so did she, Jinx saw. She didn't run up and hug him, like she used to. There was that familiar green glow, which meant she was glad to see him, but there was something different about her as well. Something sort of—sore, Jinx thought. Raw and red, like his hands from handling the iron blooms. She'd seen bad things.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” said Elfwyn.

“Wendell, you remember Elfwyn,” said Sophie.

“Sure,” said Wendell. He smiled, and Elfwyn smiled at him, more warmly than Jinx thought was necessary.

“You've left the Bonemaster then,” said Jinx. “Permanently, I mean. Like not going back to him. Like, ever. Right?”

Elfwyn nodded.

“Good,” said Jinx.

“I . . . figured stuff out,” said Elfwyn. “And then I had to leave, because he might ask me. And if he knew that I knew, he would probably . . .”

She trailed off. There was a kind of sad blue cloud that was most un-Elfwyn-like, and Jinx wished he could think of something to say to make it go away.

“What did you—” Jinx stopped himself.

“He's been spending time in Samara,” said Elfwyn.

“What!” said Jinx. “But he can't!”

“He's away a lot,” said Elfwyn. “And when he comes
back he brings books in another language, and I think it's Samaran. I kind of worked out a little of it.” She turned to Wendell. “Door, onion, aquifer,” she said in Samaran.

“That's very good,” said Wendell.

“But there's no way to get to Samara except through this house,” said Jinx. “All the ancient portals were closed.”

“There is the portal you made last year,” said Sophie.

“Yeah, but . . .” Jinx thought. The KnIP portal was the biggest spell he had ever done. It had taken much more knowledge than the doorpaths, because it breached a dimension. It went from the prison in Samara to the Urwald.

He'd put up a ward to protect it. And he'd gone back to check on it frequently. Well, as often as he could, anyway. Maybe not so much lately. He'd been busy.

“The ward should have stopped him,” said Jinx.

“As I understand wards,” said Sophie, frowning, “they require very specific instructions.”

“I told it to stop the preceptors,” said Jinx, with a sinking feeling.

“So the Bonemaster could have gotten through,” said Sophie.

“If he did, he'd just find himself in the prison,” said Jinx.

“I'd bet the prison guards had orders to summon the
preceptors if anyone just appeared out of nowhere,” said Sophie. “Anyway, couldn't the preceptors have made a new portal?”

“I think not,” said Jinx. “Because they don't really
know
the Urwald. They know how much money it's worth, but they don't know that it's all one”—he put his hands together, intertwining his fingers—“thing. They think it's just a bunch of trees.”

“Er . . . it isn't?” said Sophie. “I mean I know it's the people, too, but—”

“No, there's this whole . . . thing,” said Jinx. “Like, there's this, well, lifeforce, and that's the Urwald. The trees and the people and the werewolves and stuff are all part of it but you can't look at them and
know
the Urwald if you don't know that it's all . . .” He hooked his fingers together again. It was too hard to explain.