Jinx's Magic (14 page)

“Werewolves? Oh, no, of course not. They're expressions of our primeval, wild selves.”

“Oh. Do they talk to each other?”

“Now, that's something that's never been written about. There's not much still left to be written about werewolves, but I believe you've hit on something, young man. Perhaps you should pursue it.”

“I'm
trying
to pursue it,”
Jinx didn't say.

“You certainly speak Urwish very well,” said Professor Night. “Not many young people would devote such attention to an artificial language.”

“What's an artificial language?”

“A language that was invented. Made up. There is no genuine Urwish language because, of course . . .” The professor paused, as if for effect. “There is no Urwald.”

“What?” said Jinx.

“There is no Urwald.”

“Of course there's an Urwald!” said Jinx. “I—um, I've read books about it! Lots of books.”

“The Urwald is a metaphor,” said Professor Night. “For the unfettered mind, which is full of darkness and monsters and fear and—oh, who knows what?”

“Trees,” said Jinx.

“Trees,” said Professor Night. “A very salient point. How could the number of trees that supposedly exists in the Urwald exist anywhere? And in such density? They would block out the sun.”

“But, um, there used to be—like, a hundred years ago, didn't there use to be people who would come here from the Urwald to study?”

“No, no. Now, there was a group of young scholars at that time—nihilists; do you know what nihilists are? These scholars were obsessed with exploring altered consciousness, and learning about magic, and all sorts of frightful things. And they called themselves”—the professor spread his hands dramatically—“
the Urwalders!
But that was just to impress people with how dangerous they were. They weren't actually from there, because the place doesn't exist.”

“But—” said Jinx.

“Take the matter of the Listeners, for example.”

Jinx tried to keep his voice casual. “What about them?”

“Supposedly, they share a sort of unity with the trees, and there's some nonsensical legend about their roots going much deeper than those of the trees—but no doubt a clever lad like you will spot that as a metaphor for the collective unconscious.”

Jinx didn't say that a clever lad like him couldn't understand such gibberish. “Do you know, um . . . anything else about Listeners? At all?”

“Well, it's a symbol that hasn't been used much in the literature. There's some mention of Listeners representing balance, but it's hard to see how they could be both roots and balance, isn't it? Balances move. Roots do not. The metaphor simply doesn't work.”

“What if it's real? What would it mean?”

“If it were real?” Professor Night frowned. “Well, there have been scholars who have posited that the Urwald was real. Urwald Realists, we call them. But on the whole, I think that theory has been adequately refuted. As you get ahead, young man, you will continually learn that what you learned before is untrue.”

“What if
you
get ahead, and find out that what you just said about the Urwald isn't true?” Jinx asked.

“There is no call to be rude, young man.”

“Sorry, I just meant, like—”

“Do not say ‘like' so much, please. It lends an uneducated air to your speech. Any worker bee in the marketplace might say ‘like.'”

“Sorry,” said Jinx again. “But what if you were promoted to preceptor and found out that—”

“I have no desire to become a preceptor,” said Professor Night. “There are only thirteen preceptors, and no one knows how they are chosen. And since they generally cease to study and to write books, I think becoming a preceptor could hardly be regarded as a promotion. Now then, was there anything else you wanted to ask me about?”

“Yes.” Jinx felt suddenly very nervous. He brushed his hands on his robe and realized they were sweating. If Professor Night wouldn't tell him the truth, he didn't know what he would do. “I'm looking for a friend of mine. I wonder if you know her. Sophie Maya Simon. I mean
Professor
Sophie.”

Professor Night looked at the door, as if to make sure no one was listening. He spoke in a low voice. “A friend of yours, you say? Aren't you rather young to be a friend of Sophie's?”

Jinx almost sighed with relief. Professor Night hadn't denied that Sophie existed. “She's a family friend. But we haven't seen her in, like, ages. So you know her, then?”

“Of course I know her. She was a professor in my department. How could I not know her? It's odd, now I think of it, Sophie herself developed an interest in Listeners, three or four years ago. But of course she was unable to pursue it, with so little source material.” Professor Night shook his head. “You have your whole life ahead of you, Zhinx. You could go far—even become a professor yourself someday. Don't ruin your chances by associating yourself with someone like Sophie.”

“Where is she? Is she alive?”

“I've heard nothing to the contrary. She's in prison.”

Jinx felt his heart twist. “Why? What's she in prison for?”

“For consorting with a dangerous wizard.”

“That's all?”

“It's enough, Zhinx. I'm talking about the evil Simon Magus. Have you heard of him?”

“Only sort of,” said Jinx. “I mean the name's familiar. But why—”

“Simon Magus was actually admitted as a scholar at the Temple, if you can believe it. This was some years ago, when there were fewer precautions in place. He used his position at the Temple to steal magical knowledge—possibly for the Mistletoe Alliance—and he murdered a scholar who heroically tried to stop him.”

“But Sophie didn't kill anybody, did she?”

“No, but she
married
him.”

“I see,” said Jinx. “So that's why they put her in jail?”

“No. They actually allowed her to come back to the Temple after that disgraceful behavior. It certainly isn't the sort of indulgence that would have been shown to
most
of us, but Sophie was always a great favorite of the Preceptress Cassandra.”

“What's she in jail for, then?” said Jinx, trying to control his impatience. It was hard to sit still with the thought of Sophie locked up in some prison. She must have been there all the time he'd been in Samara, and he hadn't known!

“A year or so ago, the wizard Simon returned from wherever the Mistletoe Alliance had hidden him. He charged into the Temple, sending firebolts everywhere, and then fled through the marketplace, killing two coffee sellers. I saw it; I was there.”

“Was there anyone with him?” said Jinx, who remembered that day perfectly well, only without the firebolts and dead coffee sellers.

“No. But Professor Sophie disappeared the same day, and wasn't seen for two weeks afterward. When she returned, of course she was arrested.”

“Why?”

“Well, it was presumed that she helped him escape, that she knew where he was, and that she had been hiding him.”

Jinx remembered the first time he had ever met Sophie. She'd said something like “
They don't like me coming here
.” But surely the scholars couldn't know Sophie was going to the Urwald if they didn't even believe the Urwald existed.

“What's going to happen to her?” said Jinx.

“I assume she will, in the fullness of time, be tried for her crimes.”

“And then what?”

“She will be executed.”

“In the fullness of how much time, exactly?”

“That I do not know. The wheels of justice may turn slowly or rapidly, depending.”

“Do they let people into the prison to visit?”

“Zhinx,” said Professor Night. “Forget about Sophie. She can't help you.”

“I was thinking more about whether I could help her,” said Jinx.

“She made her own bed—or heap of straw, rather—and must lie in it. As for you, you have a bright future, if you can avoid sullying it with unfortunate connections. You have the opportunity to go far. But only if you learn to control this adolescent hotheadedness and cultivate the right people.”

“I see,” said Jinx. He had no doubt Professor Night had cultivated Sophie, back when she had been one of the right people.

Sophie was in prison. And they were going to execute her. Jinx remembered how she'd insisted Simon teach him to read, how she'd convinced Simon that Jinx was smart enough to be a wizard. How she'd always—well, very nearly always—spoken kindly to him.

He had to see her. He had to find a way into the prison. He had to get her out.

Wendell would be able to help him.

19

Jinx's Plan

G
oing back to the Hutch was easy. The gatekeepers stepped politely aside for Jinx—scholar robes made a difference. Jinx knocked on the door of room 411.

Wendell stuck his head out. “Oh, it's you.”

Then he did a horrible thing. He bowed.

“Cut it out,” said Jinx. “That's just weird.”

He pushed past Wendell into the room and sat down on what had been his bed.

Wendell sat down on his own bed, and looked at Jinx as if waiting to see what he wanted. There was that orange puff of hurt, and Jinx realized he somehow hadn't gotten around to visiting Wendell at all. He'd meant to.

“So, like, how have you been?” said Jinx awkwardly.

“Pretty well, Questor Jinx,” said Wendell, apparently determined to be annoying. “The classes are fascinating.”

“No, they're not, and you hate them.” Jinx hesitated. It felt rotten to ask Wendell for help right away, when he hadn't even bothered to visit him before.

An uncomfortable silence reigned.

Finally Jinx said, “Look, I need your help.”

Wendell smiled, and the orange puff of hurt vanished. “With what?”

“Do you know where the prison is?”

“Sure,” said Wendell. “You pass through Crocodile Bottom, and over the river, and it's on a hill in the marshes on the other side. Why?”

“I need to get in there.”

“Do magic, then,” said Wendell.

Jinx was startled. Then he realized it was meant to be a joke—do magic, and you'll go to prison. He tried to laugh.

“You remember the friend I was looking for? Sophie?”

“She's in prison?” Wendell was genuinely worried. “Oh, that's bad. Well, obviously.”

“Do you think they'd let me in to visit her?”

Wendell frowned. “I don't know. Normally, no. I mean they don't let worker bees in to visit. Obviously. They wouldn't let me in. But you've got the robe.”

“So they'd let me in?”

“No, I mean not automatically. Well, you don't act right, obviously. You can't be freaking every time someone bows to you—”

“I didn't freak,” said Jinx.

“You kind of have to act like you're a king or something, you know. Look down your nose at people. Like—”

“Like the Preceptress?”

“Exactly.” Wendell looked at Jinx doubtfully. “If you went to the prison and pretended you were on Temple business, and that the preceptors had sent you, and if you acted really important—oh, Grandpa's arse.” He shook his head. “You couldn't do it.”

“I could try,” said Jinx, stung.

“And then if they caught you, you'd be in prison too,” said Wendell. “And they'd, you know, do something awful to you.”

“Like they're going to do to Sophie,” said Jinx.

They sat for a moment in silence, staring at the floor.

“What's she in prison for, anyway?” Wendell asked.

“It's kind of complicated,” said Jinx.

And instantly the orange puff of hurt was back. Gah! Why did Wendell have to be so—breakable?

Then it occurred to Jinx that he was asking a lot of Wendell. He hadn't
asked
him to help get into the prison, but he more or less expected Wendell would, and that meant that Wendell could end up getting arrested too.

“Look, there's a couple things I haven't told you,” said Jinx.

“Seriously? Only a couple?” said Wendell.

“I'm, um, okay, I'm not really from Angara.”

“I know that,” said Wendell. “I may be stupid, but I'm not dumb.”

“Okay. Right. Well.”

Jinx told Wendell nearly everything. It was a relief, actually.

“So wait a minute, you're really some kind of apprentice wizard?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool. So why'd you bother coming to the Temple?”

“To learn stuff. That part was actually true. Well, and to find a book.”

“What'd you want to learn stuff here for? When you could be home learning magic?”

“I'm kind of trying to learn magic here,” said Jinx.

“But it's illegal here.”

“I know.”

“And this place you're from—you're really from the Urwald?”

“Yeah.”

“So this Sophie isn't really a friend of yours—”

“Well she is sort of—”

“—she's actually married to the wizard you work for, and he's the evil wizard Simon Magus?”

“Yeah.”

“And you can really do magic?”

“Kind of.” Not much, with no trees around.

“Can I see some?”

Jinx hesitated. “It's against the law.”

“So is helping you sneak into the prison.”

Good point. Jinx set one of the stray socks on the floor on fire. Wendell jumped, and stared. An unpleasant smell of burnt wool filled the room. It might attract attention, Jinx realized, and he drew the flame out of existence.

“Wow,” said Wendell. “Can everyone in the Urwald do that?”

“No,” said Jinx. “Just magicians.”

“I want to go to the Urwald,” said Wendell. Then his face fell. “But I have to stay in the Hutch.” He shrugged this problem away. “Okay. The first thing we have to do, we're going to have to teach you to act like a scholar.”

“Okay,” said Jinx.

“Maybe Satya can help,” said Wendell, brightening.

Jinx hesitated. “Or not.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I kind of—” Jinx stopped, then plunged on. “Don't really want to trust her with all this, okay? It's sort of secret.”

“Obviously. But we can trust Satya.”

Jinx needed Wendell's help. He was going to have to accept Satya's as well. “Don't tell her the whole story, then. Don't tell her about Simon or the magic. And don't tell her where I come from.”

 

“Think autocratic,” said Satya. “Think superior. Think imperious.”

They were practicing in an upstairs room at the Twisted Branch. There were lots of upstairs rooms, full of people doing things—in one, some people were playing music on instruments made of wood; in another, they were arguing loudly in a language Jinx hadn't heard before.

It had been hard to get Satya to come along, because she really was afraid to go out in the city. But she was enjoying Jinx's acting lessons immensely.

Jinx walked up to Wendell, who was pretending to be a prison guard—

“Don't walk,
stride
,” said Satya.

Jinx
strode
up to Wendell—

“Halt, you!” said Wendell. “No one enters here.”

“Let me in,” said Jinx. “I'm from the Temple—”

“Don't say ‘let me in,'” said Satya. “That's like you're asking him for something. Don't ask him, tell him.”

“I think you should call me ‘fellow,'” said Wendell. “When Professor Night goes into the marketplace, he always calls the worker bees ‘fellow.' Except the women he calls ‘woman.'”

“Right. Think like Professor Night,” said Satya. “He's the Third Truth—
No one has ever been wrong since the world began.
He hasn't.”

“And tilt your head back more,” said Wendell. “Not like you have to look up at me 'cause you're shor—not as tall—but like you have to look up so you can look down.”

“I can never remember all of that!” said Jinx.

“It's acting,” said Satya, flipping her hair. “When you're acting you don't remember stuff, you
become
it. Don't pretend to be an arrogant scholar. Be one.”

Be one. Right. Jinx tried again. He filled his head with rightness and Night-ness. He had never been wrong. It was unimaginable that he could be. Whole worlds didn't exist if he said they didn't. He strode across the room to Wendell, resisted the urge to push him in the chest, and glared up at him as if he was surprised Wendell dared to exist. “Out of my way, fellow!”

Wendell and Satya looked at each other and nodded.

“That was much better,” said Wendell.

“Only I think you should say ‘stand aside,'” said Satya. “It sounds more scholarly.”

“Not all scholars are like that,” said Jinx, thinking of Omar and of Sophie.

“No, of course not,” said Satya. “But you're going to be. Because your life depends on it.”

 

Wendell led Jinx through Crocodile Bottom to the riverbank.

“Not too close,” Wendell warned. “Sometimes the crocodiles come up and drag people in.”

They looked across to the marshes opposite. A high, bald hill rose in the middle of the marshes, and a fifty-foot-high curtain wall surrounded the hilltop. Jinx could see guards in watchtowers.

“There's no door,” he said.

“It's around the other side,” said Wendell. “The road winds around, so they can see anybody that's coming a long time before they get there.”

“Oh,” said Jinx.

“You realize we're not going to be able to break your friend out of there, or anything like that?” said Wendell.

Jinx thought of Sophie, locked inside those stark stone walls. “We have to.”

 

In the intervals of being taught by Wendell and Satya how to act like a scholar, Jinx searched for the Eldritch Tome and worked on learning Qunthk. He searched in vain for anything at all about Listeners, or about KnIP. Rather to his surprise, he had Satya to help him. She was a lot slower at learning Qunthk than he was—she worried too much about the rules of it—but she was very good at libraries. She seemed to be able to zip right through the streets and alleys and come up with the book she wanted every time.

She plopped down next to Jinx with a stack of books. She peered over at the Qunthk book he was reading.

“What's that word there?” she said, pointing.

“‘Roots,'” said Jinx.

“How did you know that?”

“‘Roots' is the only word that makes sense there,” said Jinx.

“But it's talking about a human sacrifice,” said Satya. “This spell you're reading about requires a human sacrifice!”

“The roots are instead of the sacrifice.” When Simon had done the bottle spell on Jinx, he hadn't sacrificed anybody.

“What are they the roots of?”

“A tree, I think,” said Jinx.

“But that's weird,” said Satya.

“What?”

“Well, if it's that easy, if all it takes is roots, then why would anybody bother sacrificing humans? I mean, I'm assuming the humans object.”

“Well, you know—the roots might object, too.”

“How could roots object?”

“Trust me. They could,” said Jinx.

He remembered the roots Simon had used for the bottle spell, and how they had smelled of betrayal.

“What is it that you're looking for, exactly?” said Satya. “You're always searching the shelves.”

She wasn't suspicious. She was eager, a kind of red glow. . . . Satya liked books a lot. And she knew the library better than he did.

“Something about KnIP,” said Jinx. “There's nothing about—”

Silver coils of fear. “Zhinx, don't ask about that. Please don't ask about that.”

“But I need—”

“You haven't asked the librarians, have you?”

“No, but—”

“Please don't.”

Jinx wanted to ask her what she was afraid of, and what she knew. But he didn't want to touch her fear—it was so strong it was scaring him.

“All right,” he said.

“If there's anything
else
you're looking for—”

“A book,” said Jinx. “There's a book that these books mention. But I can't find it.”

“What's it called?”

Could he trust her? There was definitely something odd about Satya. But Jinx
needed
the Eldritch Tome.

He told her the title in Qunthk.

“What's that even mean?”

“The Eldritch Tome.”

No particular reaction showed in her thoughts.

“But I've already looked at all the books in Qunthk,” said Jinx. “It's not there.”

“There are a lot of ways to hide books in a library. If it's here, I'll find it.” She dropped her voice. “After all, knowledge should be free to everyone. Right?”

Where had Jinx heard that before? Suddenly he had a feeling he'd been wrong to trust Satya.

But he nodded and said, “Right. Thanks.”

 

Autocratic. Superior. Imperious. Jinx tried to be all of that. But walking around with his nose in the air just made him trip over his feet.

“It's more like you're
thinking
as if your nose is in the air,” said Wendell. “The only time the Preceptress ever looked at me, she had this expression like I was something stuck to the bottom of her shoe.”

So Jinx tried to look at Wendell like he was something stuck to the bottom of his shoe. Satya and Wendell burst out laughing. He probably wasn't doing it right.

But ready or not, Jinx couldn't put off going to the prison any longer. He was worried about those wheels of justice that Professor Night had mentioned—there was no telling when they might start turning quickly. It was time to go.

Walking alone through Crocodile Bottom, Jinx found it a lot less friendly than usual. It was because he was wearing his Temple robe. Children stared. Adults scowled, and a boy about Jinx's age actually spat at his feet. Jinx turned, ready to fight, and the boy fled down an alley.

Jinx stalked on, enduring the scowls.

There was no bridge across the river. Jinx approached a woman sitting in a canoe at the water's edge.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Could you please take me across the river?”

The woman frowned at him from under the brim of her wide straw hat. “Why are you wearing scholar's robes? You don't sound like a scholar.”

Oops. Arrogant! Right. “I am one,” said Jinx, haughtily. “How much to cross the river?”