Jinx On The Divide (20 page)

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Fuzzy," he said. He looked in his leg pouch for the pink-and-orange leg ring. "Oh, droppings!" he said. "Left it behind."

"You look a little worse for wear," said Felix to Rhino. His clothes were torn and dirty, and his face was scratched.

"So do you," said Rhino. He was recovering fast from his ordeal. His brothers had used him as target practice for all sorts of horrible things. Bouncing back from adversity was a life skill in
his
family. "Listen," he continued, "I've had enough of all this. That naming dragon was going to make a present of me to its mate, like a box of chocolates. I want to go back to Wimbledon. Wave a magic wand or something and get us there."

"It doesn't work like that," said Felix. "We have to find a Divide, which means going back to the place we arrived at. But that shouldn't be too hard now that we've got
two
brazzles." He glanced at Ironclaw, who was talking animatedly to Fuzzy. "Have you been properly introduced?"

"Get real," said Rhino.

Felix sighed. "I'd advise you to be civil to Ironclaw," he said. "He doesn't suffer fools gladly, and you've been a pretty big one. And tell me how else you're going to get home?"

"Yeah, yeah, all right," said Rhino. "Do the honors, then."

Felix did the honors.

"Yes, yes," said Ironclaw impatiently, which made the whole procedure a waste of time. "But we'll have to wait a little longer for Fuzzy's hex to wear off."

"Isn't there a spell that will speed it up?" asked Rhino.

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"Of course," said Ironclaw. "But I don't fill my head with trivia like that."

They all sat down, and Rhino polished off the last of the roast nobble-head. It was snowing again, but it was warm where they were, and as long as the snow didn't get too heavy, it didn't really matter.

"My cloak stinks," said Felix, taking it off and wrinkling his nose in distaste. There was dried blood on the shoulder, from when he'd carried back the dinner.

"Don't worry," said Betony. "I think I can remember a spell to clean it." She sprinkled some snow on it and recited a little rhyme about washing. Felix's woolen cloak turned into a bunch of flowers. Betony hurriedly recited the countercharm. Then she tried again. This time she got the words right, and the stain faded away.

"The nice thing about magic," said Felix, "is that magic is always reversible."

"Science
isn't
reversible?" Ironclaw looked shocked.

"Some of it is," replied Felix. "At school, we divide science into physics, chemistry, and biology. Physical reactions
are
reversible -- water to ice, ice to water."

Ironclaw looked skeptical. "We call that
stuff studies."

"Chemical reactions are trickier. Some of them are reversible. Manmade glues have solvents, for instance. But other things don't degrade, like plastic bags. You can't get rid of them."

"What's biology?"

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"The study of
living
things."

"Magic
can
do some irreversible things," said Ironclaw. "You can kill someone with a wand, but you can't bring them back to life. You can burn a building to the ground, but you can't restore it to its former state. But most charms
do
have countercharms, and most hexes have antidotes. It's disgracefully irresponsible to release a spell or a potion that doesn't have an
undo
facility, the way Snakeweed did."

"The rules sound similar to the things in the magic lamp handbook," said Felix, opening his backpack and fishing around for it.

His fingers closed over something feathery.
Ironclaw's cataloguing quill,
he thought.
I must give it back to him so he can return it to the library.
But as he tried to pull it out, he realized it was caught in something. Something square but soft and silky at the same time. The jinx box! He'd forgotten about it yet again. Suddenly, he remembered he'd forgotten the magic lamp, too, the last time he'd crossed from Betony's world back to his own. Was that some peculiar property K'Faddle products had? An ability to get themselves carted around all over the place, because people forgot they had them? He tried to separate the jinx box from the feather, but somehow the box ended up outside the backpack, while the quill remained inside.

"Oh, no," said Betony. "I'd forgotten about that."

"Wow," said Rhino, wiping his greasy fingers on his tunic. "A laptop. Imagine bringing that with you."

201

"What on earth are you talking about?" said Fuzzy. "It's a really smooth bangithard, with built-in echo. I've been dying to try one."

"Your eyesight's not back to normal yet, Fuzzy," said Ironclaw. "It's a math book from the other world; it has to be.
Fermat's Last Theorem.
How exciting."

"It's a jinx box," said Felix.

"Oh," said Ironclaw, sounding disappointed.

"What a pity," said Fuzzy.

"What's a jinx box?" asked Rhino.

"A storage facility," said Felix quickly, glancing at Betony. "It was in the brandee's lamp. It looks like whatever you want it to look like. Except when it's playing a practical joke. It's got a sense of humor, apparently."

"You're putting me on," said Rhino. "It's a laptop." He leaned across, slid the catch to one side, and opened it. He did it so quickly that Felix didn't have time to stop him.

Betony's hand went to her mouth in an involuntary expression of dismay, and Fuzzy said,
"Fangs and talons.
That was a pretty craggy thing to do, Rhino."

"Hi, everyone," said the jinx box cheerfully. "Nice to meet you all. Don't shut my lid just yet -- I have information each one of you wants, one way and another."

"I know that voice," said Rhino. "It's the X303/D49 Battle-Monger."

"And I know
you,
Stephen Rheinhart," said the box. "You promised to take me with you if I told you how to get out of

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the lamp, and then you went back on your word. But hey -- I don't carry grudges. I still have something you want."

"I don't think a jinx box could possibly have anything
I
need," said Ironclaw pompously.

"Oh, I've got lots of lovely little puzzles," said the box. "Try this one. There's a boat lying at anchor in a harbor, with a rope ladder hanging over the side. Each rung is one and a half toe lengths apart, and there are eight rungs. The tide is rising at a rate of half a toe length a cuddy."

"What's a cuddy?" asked Rhino.

"A unit of time," said Betony. "As long as it takes a cuddyak to drop a cuddypat."

"How many cuddies will it be before the ladder is submerged?"

"Twenty-four," said Ironclaw instantly.

"No," said Fuzzy, "the ladder won't
ever
be submerged, because boats float."

"Hmph," said Ironclaw. "Trick questions for chicks. Not interested."

"How about Fermat's Last Theorem, then? Picked that up quite recently. Fascinating little problem, stumped human beings for centuries. Or chaos theory. That's my speciality, of course."

The brazzle raised a feathery eyebrow. "Go on."

"The science of nonlinear systems."

Felix knew something about this. "A butterfly flapping in a rain forest, causing a typhoon thousands of miles away," he said.

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"Very good," said the box, sounding surprised. "It's when some tiny event has what seems to be an unpredictable effect -- although, if you had
all
the information, you could, in fact, predict it."

"Go on," said Ironclaw, now hopping up and down with excitement.

"Not just yet," said the jinx box. "The other brazzle -- Granitefuzz?"

"Fuzzy," said Fuzzy. "I only use Granitefuzz on official documents."

"Love the head feathers, Fuzzy," said the box. "Seriously smooth. I do, of course, have the words to some fantastic squawk songs -- in Ancient Brazzle, what's more. Shriek-shriek, whistle-cackle ... Interested?"

Fuzzy ruffled her feathers. "You're a jinx box. What's the catch?"

"The only catch is on the outside of my box, darling."

Betony looked worried. Fuzzy and Ironclaw weren't reacting the way she'd thought they would. "I think we should shut it now," she said stubbornly.

"Not just yet ..." said Fuzzy and Ironclaw together.

"There's nothing
I
want from it," snapped Betony.

"Not even the correct antidote to the spell that froze your parents?" said the jinx box in its oily voice.

The color drained from Betony's face. Then she recovered herself and said, "So what is it that
you
want, box?"

"That would be telling," said the jinx box. "Stephen

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Rheinhart. You want
respect,
don't you? But, my little pachyderm, I'm afraid you'll have to earn it. "

"What do I have to do?"

"Just say a couple of words for me. I'm dying to hear them said in a real flesh-and-blood human voice ..."

"I'm not so sure that's a good idea," said Felix uneasily. The box seemed more menacing than it had previously -- it was uncanny the way it could find the very thing to tempt each one of them. Even Fuzzy and Ironclaw seemed to have been taken in by it.

"What a spoilsport you are, Felix," said the box. "A couple of years ago, it would have been easy to offer you your heart's desire -- the spell to cure you. There's something else you want now, though. Above all else."

"Oh, yes?" said Felix, his chin lifting defiantly.

"Yes. And I'll tell you how to get it if you say
hocus pocus
for me."

"No way," said Felix. "That's a powerword."

"
Open sesame,
then."

"That's another one." He reached out to close the box, but succeeded only in knocking it away from him. It slid a little way down the slope. He got to his feet and started to scramble down the incline after it.

"Fermat's Last Theorem," mused Ironclaw. "There's more to that box than meets the eye."

"It knows some tail-tapping squawk songs," agreed Fuzzy. "In Ancient Brazzle, as well. How awesome is that?"

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"I don't understand any of you," said Betony. "I'm almost certain it's one of the old jinx boxes. The nasty ones."

"They've all been destroyed," said Fuzzy.

"I think this is the last one left, and it's out to wreak havoc."

Fuzzy looked skeptical. "If it is, Betony -- and I don't think for one moment you're right -- we're going to have to be very careful how we dispose of it, because it will try to protect itself. I studied K'Faddle products last semester ... but, er, that seems to be about all I remember of the syllabus ..."

As he scrambled down the slope, Felix was surprised at how far the box had fallen. As he picked it up, it changed its appearance once again. This time it really did look like an open laptop -- a laptop playing a movie. Felix caught a glimpse of himself, straddling the Andrian Divide. Betony was watching him, tears streaming down her face. He took a deep breath and slammed the lid shut. The box became a watered-silk eyeglass case, small enough to put in his pocket. He did precisely that, and climbed back up to join the others. "There's only one person who knows how to deal with this particular jinx box," he said. "The brandee."

"He could be dead," said Betony. "He turned into a gas and merged with the Sky-mold."

Ironclaw looked interested. "Sort of like a green streak in the cloud?"

"Yes. Sort of all swirly."

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"Hmph," said Ironclaw. "There's a crystal ball up there, in a cave in the crater. Not that I set all that much store by them, of course, but just occasionally ... You see, I thought I was just seeing patterns in it. But maybe I wasn't. Maybe it was showing me what happened to the brandee -- and if it was, it might just show me what happened to him after that."

Rhino shuddered. "You're not suggesting we go back up there, surely?"

"If that jinx box is what I think it is, we'll need all the help we can get," said Betony adamantly. "I'm up for it," said Fuzzy. "You can't fly," said Ironclaw.

"Wanna bet?" Fuzzy scrambled to the top of the chimney and launched herself into the air. This time, there was no immediate return to earth. She started to gain height, slowly and steadily, circling in wide sweeps.

"All of you had better stay here," said Ironclaw. "We won't be long."

"Hang on, Ironclaw ..." said Felix, wanting to give him back the quill. But Ironclaw was now thinking solely about Fermat's Last Theorem, and nothing was going to divert him. Felix watched the two brazzles fly off through the snow. What might happen if they didn't come back, he couldn't bear thinking about. Before he had a chance to do much of the not thinking, Betony turned on Rhino.

"This is all your fault!" she shouted. "You really are the