Jinx's Fire (16 page)

“No I haven't,” said Jinx. “I don't.”

This was rather a sore point. Jinx actually did grow, in small increments now and then. But everyone else his age seemed to grow in large leaps, all the time.

“How old are you?” said Simon.

“Fifteen.”

“I thought you were thirteen.”

“I was,” said Jinx patiently. “But now I'm fifteen.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” said Jinx. “Completely sure. I was thirteen and then I was fourteen and now I'm fifteen.”

“Hm. Where are we?” said Simon.

“On the Path of Ice,” said Jinx.

“Nonsense.” Simon looked around him. “What would either of us be doing there?”

“It's kind of a long story.”

“It can be as long as it wants, but it won't explain that,” said Simon. “I don't see any ice.”

“I've just melted some of it. The Bonemaster turned you into a seal—”

“What, you mean one of those creatures that swim about in—”

“No, to seal the paths. To bind the fire to the ice,” said Jinx. “He was draining the Urwald's power. Drawing it down through you and up into the Path of Ice.”

“What took you so long? Why didn't you come before?”

“You told me not to come down here at all,” said Jinx.

“Nonsense. When did I say that?”

“Two years ago,” said Jinx. “You appeared to me in this vision, after I broke my arm, and you told me not to come down here.”

“Appeared to you—” Simon narrowed his eyes. “That really happened, then. I was trying to cast a spell, but—” He frowned. “Things faded out. It was just a couple days ago.”

“Nope. Two years.”

Simon swore. “I suppose I should be grateful it wasn't a hundred. And I told you not to come down here, and for
once in your life you decided to do as I said?”

“No,” said Jinx irritably. “I didn't. I'm here. And if I hadn't come down here, you'd still be stuck. Nobody else could have rescued you.”

“Right, true,” said Simon. “Thanks.”

“You knew that?” Jinx was surprised.

“Suspected it,” said Simon. “Some sort of nonsense about Listeners and deep roots. Sophie kept going on about it. What about your arm?”

“What?” said Jinx.

“The one you broke.”

“Oh. It's okay.” Jinx held it up for inspection.

Simon felt it. “It doesn't hurt?”

“Not really.”

“Hm. All right. And you think we're on the Path of Ice now?”

“Yeah. The ice talks to you,” said Jinx. “Says, um, kind of horrible things, actually.”

Simon nodded.

“It's not saying anything now, though,” Jinx added. “You have to talk back to it, and tell it what you really think. Which means you have to kind of, um, figure out what you really think.”

“Yes, yes,” said Simon, making an impatient gesture with the hand that wasn't clutching the blanket. “I know all that.”

“Did the ice talk to you?” said Jinx. “What did—”

“Would you mind making it warmer in here?”

Jinx sent a little more fire into the rock, warming the floor. “What did the ice—”

“Did you bring anything to eat?”

Jinx brought out the remainder of his bread. It was very stale now. He broke it and gave half to Simon.

Jinx gnawed at it, but couldn't make a dent.

Neither could Simon. “Hmph.” He handed the bread back to Jinx, and started walking, his bare feet pluffing against the stone floor of the tunnel.

“The Bonemaster must've had a spell ready for you,” Jinx said. “When you went to battle him. I bet that elf Neza showed him how. He sent you down to the nadir of all things, to seal together the Paths of Fire and Ice, because, um, he could use you for that because you've done deathforce magic. And—”

“So what makes you think we're still on the Path of Ice?” said Simon. “It's not saying anything, is it?”

“I told you. I argued with it.”

“You don't argue with the ice, boy. You change paths.”

“Oh.” Jinx thought about this. “You mean we're on the Path of Fire now?”

“If that's what you chose.”

“The fire doesn't—” Jinx stopped. The fire
did
speak to him. It had told him to send fire into the walls. And
it had told him to get a grip. “I thought you didn't know anything about the paths.”

“Don't take that tone with me. I know deathforce and lifeforce,” said Simon.

“But I wanted to be on the Path of Ice,” said Jinx. “Because I wanted to come out in Bonesocket.”

“What?” Simon stopped walking. “Bonesocket? Are you insane?”

Jinx explained.

“Well, I'm not frozen inside a giant slab of ice,” said Simon. “I'm here. And it's a good thing, too, because I can forbid you to go anywhere near Bonesocket.”

Says who? Jinx thought. He'd spent the last two years not being ordered around by Simon, and as far as he could tell it hadn't done him any harm.

“Where does this path come out if we don't go to Bonesocket?” said Simon.

“In the Glass Mountains,” said Jinx.

“And what season is it out there?”

“Winter,” said Jinx.

“Wonderful. We'll both freeze.”

“Actually, I can get us home pretty quickly,” said Jinx. “But, um, I have to let the trolls eat my arm first.”

“What? Nonsense!”

Jinx explained.

“We'll fight them,” said Simon. “You can freeze their clothes—”

“They don't wear a whole lot,” said Jinx.

“Then you can—have you learned to do an illusion yet?”

“No,” said Jinx. “I'm not the sort of person illusions come naturally to.”

“And you're saying I am?”

“Actually,” said Jinx, “I'm kind of wondering if—I mean, that is. Um.” He took a deep breath, and risked Simon's fury. “You can't do any magic at all, can you?”

The Trolls' Dinner

S
imon stopped walking, and glared down at Jinx.

“What?”

“Well, you didn't—”

“Who's the wizard here, you or me?”

“You,” said Jinx. “But you keep telling me to do magic. Um, melt the ice and dry off my clothes and stuff. And—”

“It's this path thing,” said Simon. “You have some kind of power down here.”

And you don't have any, Jinx thought, with a sinking feeling. At all. “When we get back to the surface—” he began.

“It just takes time to readjust, that's all,” said Simon.
“You try being stuck underground for two years and see how much magic you can do when you have to regenerate yourself—”

“I gave you the power for that.”

“—and there's nothing to eat.”

Jinx wished Simon would stop harping on that. He was starting to get hungry too, although he'd eaten most of the loaf and he'd only been down here . . . had only been down here . . .

“Time is different down here,” he said.

“Yes.” Simon seemed relieved the subject had gotten off his magic. He started walking again.

“I don't know how long it's been since I came down here.” Jinx felt suddenly panicky.

“Best thing to do is come right on up again, then,” said Simon. “Can you make this path end at my house?”

“I don't know,” said Jinx. “Probably not, because, um, it doesn't go there. And um, about your house—”

“What?”

Jinx didn't know where to start. He thought of Simon's kitchen. The kitchen was where Simon had ruled, even more than in the south wing. And now the big stone stove had dozens of people huddled on it every night . . . laundry hung among the dried pumpkins and strings of onions . . . the cupboard drawers had been turned into cradles for squalling babies . . .
meat
was being cooked in Simon's
precious cooking pots. And in all likelihood people were cutting up carrots the wrong way.

Jinx opted for less alarming news. “We're at war.”

“Who is?”

“The Urwald against, er, Keyland. And Bragwood.”

“Oh yes? Whose idea was this?”

“It wasn't really an—”

“You see? This is what comes of making a nation. I told you not to try to make a nation, didn't I, boy?”

“So, what, I was supposed to just let them invade us?” Jinx demanded.

“The Urwald would have taken care of them.”

“It couldn't. The Bonemaster was draining its power. Through you. And anyway, we
are
the Urwald!”

Jinx tried to make the path go to Simon's house. But it twisted and flopped out of his control. It was going, inexorably, back to where he'd started from.

“We're coming out in the Glass Mountains,” he said. “And they're going to eat my arm off.”

“Trolls are easy to deal with,” said Simon.

“They have hostages. They've got Elfwyn and Wendell.”

“Who's Wendell?”

“A guy from Samara.”

“You brought a
Samaran
to the Urwald?”

“That bothers you more than that I'm going to get my arm eaten off?”

“You're not going to get your arm eaten off,” said Simon. “We'll figure something out.”

You can't do magic, Jinx thought. Stop trying to reassure me. You can't do any magic at all. It'll just be me and my magic and Elfwyn and Wendell being held hostage and a few hundred trolls eating my arm.

They had reached the bottom of a set of stairs. It was the first familiar thing that Jinx had seen in his journey underground.

Jinx climbed. It was strange—he had a feeling that he had just come down the stairs a moment ago, and then that it had been years and years—longer than he'd been alive. He reached the top.

“This is it,” he said. He came to the archway that said

entry not advisable

over it. He was surprised to see it said it on this side, too. Though he supposed it was a good description of the Urwald. He stepped through into the cavern. The sky was a brilliant blue slit peering through the crack in the wall. Jinx blinked.

“It's pretty bright, isn't it,” he said, trying to calm himself down and not think about getting his arm eaten.

“Jinx?” It was Elfwyn's voice. “Jinx? Is that you?”

Jinx turned sideways and squeezed through the gap
into white sunshine, which made him blink. He had trouble seeing Elfwyn at first, except as a green glow of happiness. She hugged him, which Jinx would have quite liked if they hadn't been standing on this narrow ledge. And if he hadn't been focused on the immediate prospect of having his arm chewed off. And if Simon hadn't been there.

“Oh, I'm so glad to see you!” said Elfwyn. “I thought you were never coming back.”

“I was only gone, um—”

“Two months,” said Elfwyn.

“Reall—? Er, oh.” Jinx let go of her, with a certain amount of regret. He looked out over the Urwald, and saw, here and there, a yellow wash of leaf-buds on the treetops. He'd removed the seal, and the long, cold winter was over.

A sudden red puff of sadness from Elfwyn. “You didn't find Simon.”

“Yeah, I did. He's right here.”

Jinx turned around, and Simon was
not
right there. Uh-oh. Jinx stuck his head into the cavern. No Simon. He cursed. “‘You can take nothing with you that you did not bring.'”

Elfwyn took his hand, the one that was scheduled to be eaten, and followed him into the cavern. “What does that mean?”

“The Elf Princess said it,” said Jinx. “Drat. I thought
it didn't include Simon, because he'd faced the ice and I'd given him something of myself. But it looks like—”

“You're not making much sense,” said Elfwyn.

Jinx cursed again. “I'm going to go back for him. Wait here. Please,” he added.

He stepped through the archway, and went down the obsidian stair.

He reached the bottom, and found the path very icy and slick. “SIMON!” he yelled.

There was a long silence, and then a call came echoing back to him. “JINX!”

The path went on past the obsidian stair—Jinx hadn't noticed that before. Or maybe it
hadn't
before. Jinx hurried down it, running and sliding on the ice. “Simon! Simon! Where are you?”

“Right here.”

Jinx stopped running, but couldn't stop sliding. He smashed into the wizard, sending him flying.

They picked themselves up. “Was that necessary?” said Simon.

“Why didn't you come with me?”

“When? When you vanished into thin air?”

“I didn't,” said Jinx. “I just went up the stairway.”

“I see. Well, that stairway isn't there for everyone, it seems. It must be your special stairway. Supposing you introduce us.”

They went back to the foot of the obsidian stair. “Can you see it?” said Jinx.

“It seems to be escaping my elderly eyes,” said Simon.

“Well, um, here.” This was awkward. Jinx grabbed Simon's blanket-clad arm, stepped onto the stairway, and pulled.

To his relief, Simon followed. The wizard stumbled onto the first step and looked up, with a little purple blop of surprise. “Why didn't you make this stairway appear a few miles back, and save us all that slogging through tunnels?”

“Because right here is where it actually is,” said Jinx patiently.

They climbed the stairs, Jinx holding on to Simon's arm the whole way to keep him from disappearing. When they got to the archway labeled “Entry Not Advisable,” Jinx was worried that he might lose Simon again, but he pulled the wizard into the cavern and there they were.

And there was Wendell, jumping up from beside a small campfire and bubbling bright blue joy at seeing them.

“Elfwyn didn't wait for me?” said Jinx.

“She did,” said Wendell. “All of that day, and then Sneep and I had to talk her out of waiting all night. We've been taking turns.”

“But I only just ran back down there for—”

“Two days,” Wendell finished. He smiled at Simon.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance. I'm Wendell.”

Simon blinked at him. “From Samara?”

“Angara, actually,” said Wendell. “Oh, and don't worry about the trolls, Jinx. I think I've pretty much convinced them that the trial they had for you was all wrong. It's not how we have trials in Angara.” He frowned. “Well, it actually sort of
is
how we have trials in Angara, so maybe I lied, kind of. But there's this ideal, obviously, and I told them about that.”

“I see,” said Jinx, who didn't. “So I'm having another trial?”

“No,” said Wendell. “I pretty much convinced them that they weren't allowed to do that.”

“You convinced
trolls
that they weren't
allowed . . .
” Jinx trailed off. You really are a lot smarter than I am, he thought. Not just a little bit. A whole lot. But the sort of thing you could say when you were facing the ice somehow wasn't that easy to say to another person, so he just said, “Thanks.”

“No problem.” Wendell turned to Simon. “Would you care for some, er, warmer clothes? I've brought extras from home.”

“You went home?” said Jinx. “But I thought you were a hostage for two months.”

“Well, not all of it,” said Wendell. “There was the silk market, obviously, and I always have a lot of guiding jobs
to do while that's on. Not that I wouldn't have been perfectly willing to be a hostage for two months,” he added, in the tone of one anxious not to offend.

“The trolls let you leave?” said Jinx.

“Sure. They're on our side. They've joined the free and independent nation of the Urwald. Elfwyn talked them into it. She's very convincing,” Wendell added, a little more admiringly than Jinx cared for.

Simon was being uncharacteristically silent. A heavy gray cloud of dismay hung over him, and Jinx had a feeling that the wizard was trying to do magic, and not succeeding. The thought of a magicless Simon frightened Jinx. He couldn't imagine what the thought did to Simon.

Wendell looked at Simon. “Well, I'll just go get you some of my clothes, then.”

A couple hours later, after a terrifying climb down the glass mountainside that Jinx never, ever wanted to happen again, they were sitting around a big trollish bonfire, among a crowd of about fifty trolls and five or six humans, eating a vegetarian stew that had been cooked up in consideration of Simon. Jinx sat beside Elfwyn, and ate, and enjoyed the warmth of the fire and of all the life going on around him.

But the overwhelming smell of troll, and the size of them, made him nervous. It made him even more nervous to see a troll and a woman from Deadfall Clearing
attacking each other with clubs.

“They're just practicing,” said Elfwyn. “The trolls are teaching us their way of fighting.”

The troll raised his club high over his head, ready to smash down, and Jinx jumped to his feet.

“It's all right, Wendell keeps an eye on them,” said Elfwyn.

“Wend—? But he's just . . .” Jinx trailed off. Wendell had stepped in front of the troll, and said something. The troll put its club down and hooted with laughter.

“No one's been hurt yet,” said Elfwyn. “Well, not seriously, anyway. And it is good to have them on our side, even if, well, they're kind of nervous-making.”

“Kind of very nervous-making.”

“I'm getting used to them,” said Elfwyn. “I haven't been home in a couple weeks, actually. I've been here sort of helping them understand what's going on.”

Jinx had a lot of questions about this, but stopped himself from asking them. He leaned back on a glass boulder and listened to Elfwyn tell him. She and Wendell hadn't really been hostages after the first few days, and Wendell had spent some time in Samara.

Elfwyn, meanwhile, had brought a deputation to meet with the trolls—Sophie, and Hilda, and Malthus, and Cottawilda—

“Cottawilda's an idiot!” Jinx objected.

“No she's not,” said Elfwyn. “I mean, I can understand why you don't like her—”

“Because she let me be abandoned in the forest!”

“But she's quite clever, in a sort of limited way. Actually, she's a lot like a troll. But her coming here didn't work out well, because that troll whose arm you cut off—”

“Bergthold,” said Jinx.

“—tried to eat her.”

“Well, they used to be married,” said Jinx.

“And he's angry because of the little girl,” said Elfwyn. “Gertrude, their daughter.”

“Cottawilda is supposed to be looking for her,” said Jinx.

“She asks people, when she remembers to. ‘Did you see a little girl about yea-high in the woods around five or six years ago—'”

“Well, that narrows it down,” said Jinx. He was good with faces, but he didn't think he'd recognize Gertrude. She'd been a baby when he'd last seen her, and babies' faces all looked the same to him.