Jinx's Magic (5 page)

“No,” said Reven. “That's not what happened.” He took a deep breath. The lines of his curse were red, and he had to struggle to say anything. “You can cross the Urwald if you stick to the path.”

“Oh yes. Trust an Urwald girl for that,” said the witch. “So, off you go to Keyland. Taking Simon's apprentice with you because Simon's decided to dabble in foreign affairs. And then what do you do? Do you go to the palace and explain to King Bluetooth that you're back now and he'll have to step aside? A problem: you can't explain anything, because of your curse. Another problem: he's still got that sword. What's the plan, eh?”

It was a good point.

“I'm going with him,” said Elfwyn. “To explain to people who he is.”

“And which people did you intend to explain to?” said Witch Seymour. “Because one can't recommend explaining to King Bluetooth. Not from what one's seen of him.”

“We hadn't really planned,” said Elfwyn.

“You don't say.”

“What would you advise, sir?” said Reven.

“Speaking to Dame Franca. If she's still alive.”

“Who's Dame Franca?”

“Well, if you
are
Prince Raymond, she was your nursemaid.”

“Does she live in Keyland?” said Elfwyn.

“She did, the last one heard. She can probably tell you if our boy is really Prince Raymond. Don't go calling her ‘Dame' Franca, mind. Call her ‘Missus.' No point in getting her killed.”

“I'm afraid I don't follow,” said Reven.

“Beheaded. Invited to foxtrot in red-hot iron footwear. Parboiled. Et cetera.”

“For being called Dame?”

“For being a witch. Why do you think one left Keyland?”

“Oh,” said Reven.

“Talk to her, but be careful. We don't necessarily know whose side she's on, do we, Whitlock? If she's still alive, and still in Keyland, chances are she's on King Bluetooth's side, beheadings notwithstanding, and will turn you over to him for his soup of the day.”

“I see.”

“Don't do anything without thinking about it three times first, young man. That's the best advice I can give you. No good waiting till after you're chained to a gridiron, roasting over a slow fire, and
then
wondering if you might have been better off making a plan.”

“Yes,” said Reven. “I see. Thank you.”

They stayed the night at Witch Seymour's house. Jinx didn't entirely like the witch—especially not when he said such unpleasant things about Simon—but the man was an almost bottomless well of information, about Keyland and everything else. They talked long into the night—Jinx, Reven, Elfwyn, the witch, and the goat. Actually the goat didn't speak, but Witch Seymour frequently asked its opinion anyway.

Jinx ended up telling the witch all about how he had come to live at Simon's house.

“Father, killed by werewolves. Mother, taken by elves,” Witch Seymour summarized. “Ever think of going to Elfland yourself?”

“No,” said Jinx. “You can't go to Elfland.”

“Of course you can. There are numerous stories about it, aren't there, Whitlock? Getting there's quite simple. The difficulty seems to arise merely in the matter of coming back. Elves aren't alive, you know, and they're not exactly dead either, and it makes things complicated, transition-wise. But you get to Elfland through the Glass Mountains, if the trolls let you, and, well, then you take it from there.”

“No I don't,” said Jinx. “In all the stories, if people do manage to get out again, they come back and find a hundred years have passed in the Urwald.”

“There are minor inconveniences, yes.”

Jinx had no plans to go to Elfland. But he wondered, once again, why there was something he couldn't quite remember about elves, something snagging the edge of his thoughts.

Well, never mind. He had enough to worry about, getting Reven out of the Urwald.

6

The Edgeland

T
hey walked along the path toward Keyland, and the trees talked about the constant hacking and chopping at the edge of the Urwald. Oh, and they wanted Reven out.

“That wasn't true, what Witch Seymour said about Simon, was it?” asked Elfwyn.

“Um, which part?” Jinx was distracted by the trees.

“About him being the Bonemaster's apprentice.”

“Kind of,” said Jinx.

“And you knew that? Why didn't you tell us?”

“I forgot.”

“All that time the Bonemaster was holding us prisoner and threatening to kill us, you
forgo
t
?”

“I didn't know then,” said Jinx. “Anyway it was kind of an accident, Simon being his apprentice. He didn't know he was evil.”

“He couldn't tell from all those skulls and bones and things all over the place?” said Reven.

“Well they're not really all over—”

“Simon doesn't have that kind of thing around his house, anyway,” said Elfwyn. “And he uses ordinary cups to drink out of, not, you know—” she made a skull shape with her hands.

“There was a skull in his workroom, though,” said Reven.

“Oh, that's just Calvin,” said Elfwyn.

Jinx was surprised that Elfwyn knew Calvin's name.

The closer they got to the edge of the Urwald, the more Jinx felt the pain and terror of the trees. The cutting was going on relentlessly, from first light to sundown.

“The good Witch Seymour seems to think Simon helped the Bonemaster rise to power,” said Reven.

“Well, duh,” said Jinx. The treecutting was really quite painful. “Because the Bonemaster was using Simon's life
for
power, remember? That doesn't mean it was okay with Simon.”

“You keep twitching,” said Elfwyn.

“Well they're chopping u— trees,” said Jinx. He'd almost said
us
, which was crazy, because he wasn't a tree.

“Perhaps you could try not to think about it,” said Reven.

“I can't not think about it! If someone was hacking at you with an ax, do you think you could not think about it?”

“Nobody is—” Reven began.

Jinx grabbed Reven's hand and slapped it against a silver maple growing beside the path. “There! Feel that! Can't you feel what's happening?”

“No,” said Reven.

Elfwyn put her hands against the maple trunk.

“Well,
you
should be able to,” said Jinx.

She frowned. “I can feel something kind of—cold. Like, it's alive. Only alive being cold instead of warm.”

“Really?” Reven put his hand back on the trunk. “I can't feel anything. It just feels like a tree trunk.”

Reven was hopeless. Jinx turned to Elfwyn. “You can't hear anything, though?”

“No. Are you sure you—”

“Yes,” said Jinx.

“It's not that I don't believe you—”

“Good,” said Jinx.

Reven shook his head. “I can't feel anything.”

 

The endless mumbling and muttering of the Urwald's voice had an end after all. There was a blank space in the Urwald's mind, an edge.

“Here's the Wanderers' Bridge,” said Elfwyn. “Cripes, it's bright up ahead.”

Jinx came around a bend in the path and saw the open sky, aglow with golden sunset clouds.

“The Urwald really does end,” said Elfwyn. “I mean, I knew it did, but I sort of didn't quite believe it.” She ran to the side of the wooden bridge and leaned over the railing. “Look at this!”

Jinx looked down, and immediately wished he hadn't. Water rushed by in a brown torrent eighty feet below. He felt ill.

“Oh, sorry. I forgot about you and heights,” said Elfwyn.

Reven walked across the bridge like it was nothing. “The chasm must be why they stopped lumbering here.”

Jinx looked across the bridge and saw what Reven meant.

The clearing on the other side went on and on—an enormous field of tree stumps, weathered silver-blue.

“Looks like they went on cutting north and south from here,” said Reven.

“South.” Jinx gritted his teeth, looked straight ahead, and walked across the exact center of the bridge. He got to the other side and breathed again. “They're cutting twenty miles south of here now.”

The stump field extended forever to the north, and forever to the south. To the east, it stopped after a mile or so. Beyond it were fields and farms and, black against the sky, the distant shape of the city.

“You can see the horizon out here,” said Reven. “You can breathe.” His thoughts were like sunshine bursting through a cloud, or like finding something important that you thought was lost forever.

Elfwyn had come across the bridge too. “Oh, how awful. Who cut down all the trees?”

“Keylanders,” said Jinx. “Anyway. Bye, right?”

He needed to go back and help Simon deal with the Bonemaster.

“Are we going to Keria tonight?” said Elfwyn. “It's kind of late, don't you think?”

“I think we won't.” Reven turned back to the bridge.

“Hey!” Jinx ran to block the way. “Where do you think you're going?”

“Back into the Urwald,” said Reven. “We'll camp there for the night. A person can't just walk into a country and take it over, forsooth. I need to think.”

“You can think out here,” said Jinx. “Which incidentally is still the Urwald.”

Reven looked around at the field of stumps. “You think so, good Jinx? It doesn't look like it.”

“It's just a part that's been murdered, that's all,” said Jinx.

“It's a kind of Edgeland, isn't it?” said Elfwyn. “Or anyway, that's what I think.”

“It can't be the Urwald, because there are no trees and no monsters,” said Reven. He stepped around Jinx and crossed the bridge.

Elfwyn went back across too. Jinx steeled himself, and followed.

“I'll go find some firewood,” said Elfwyn.

Jinx grabbed Reven by the arm. “The Urwald wants you out. You can't come back.”

Reven smiled an annoying smile. “According to who?”

“According to me.”

“You and what army?” said Reven, still smiling.

“Me and the Urwald.”

Reven looked up at the towering trees above them, then across the chasm to the field of stumps. He raised an eyebrow.

And Jinx hit him. He hadn't known he was going to do it, but he did, right in Reven's stupid face, which was some satisfaction, even though a second later Jinx was lying flat on the ground with a very sore mouth. He scrambled to his feet, hit Reven again, and got knocked down again. Jinx became very busy getting hit by Reven, and hitting Reven back as many times as possible.

“What are you doing? Stop it!” Elfwyn cried, and the hitting ceased abruptly. “How dare you hit Jinx? He's younger than you, and littler, and—”

“Hey,” Jinx interrupted, before this description of him could get any worse. “I hit him first!”

“That's true, my lady,” said Reven fairly. “He did.”

“Well, don't do it again, either of you,” said Elfwyn. “Fighting won't solve anything.”

“You don't know that for a fact,” said Jinx.

“Hmph,” said Elfwyn, and began building a fire.

Jinx had a split lip, and one eye was starting to swell shut. He was glad Elfwyn didn't fuss about this. He hated being fussed over. But he was pretty sure if he'd been Reven, she would've fussed.

Reven looked down with concern. “Sorry about that.” He reached out a hand.

“Shut up.” Jinx got up, ignoring Reven's hand. “I
did
hit you first.”

“Yes, but you let me see you were going to. You shouldn't do that. And you should hit through, not at. Like this.” Reven took Jinx's arm and guided it.

Jinx pulled away. “You couldn't have seen.”
He
hadn't even know he was going to.

“You were putting your face like this and moving like this,” said Reven, demonstrating. “You shouldn't ever do that. Don't let your enemy see that you're going to hit him until you do it, and then hit him so he stays down.”

“And until then, just smile and act friendly?” said Jinx.

“Of course,” said Reven. “That's being civilized.”

“This is the Urwald. We're not civilized.”

“You're telling me,” said Reven.

“Could you come light this fire, please?” Elfwyn called.

Jinx glanced over and lit it with a thought. Then he looked back at Reven. “We have magic, though.”

“Are you two done being better than each other?” said Elfwyn. “Because you could help me get dinner.”

“Yeah, in a second.” Jinx looked at Reven, and thought about asking him to show him how to do that hitting-through-not-at thing after all. But he decided not to give Reven the satisfaction. Right now, anyway. He'd ask him later.

Darkness drew in, and they all huddled around the fire. The Urwald muttered and murmured. The Listener had promised to take the Terror out of the Urwald. But the Terror was still here.

 

Several days had passed, and Reven still had not left the Urwald. Well, he'd
left
—they all had, to explore the countryside—but he kept coming back, every night.

The Urwald was growing uneasy. So was Jinx. He needed to get back home. He was worried about Simon and the Bonemaster.

“You could at least camp out where there aren't any trees,” Jinx said. “That Edgeland place.”

“We'd be too visible,” said Elfwyn.

Walking through the field of stumps upset Jinx. He missed the Urwald's vast green lifeforce. Keyland seemed to him to have far too much open space. The farther they walked the more uncomfortable he felt.

There were villages and farms and things. It was so different from the Urwald that Jinx couldn't help being fascinated. How did people live like this, exposed to the sun and to—well, everything? Each other, even?

The houses were square and timbered, like the houses in Butterwood Clearing. Chickens and goats roamed in the dooryards. Gardens, fields, and orchards went on for miles. There was space for them. Jinx wondered if the extra open space was what made Elfwyn's home clearing rich.

Keyland had interesting new things to eat, too—peach preserves, and blackberry pie.

Reven talked to people. Jinx hung back and noticed how
many
people there were, and how they all seemed to move and speak too quickly.

Reven didn't talk about being king. He couldn't, because of his curse. He was just—very friendly. People gathered around, and Reven let them do most of the talking. Elfwyn and Jinx stayed off to the side—Elfwyn to avoid having to tell the truth unexpectedly, and Jinx because he didn't like the whole business anyway.

But now it was evening, and they were back at their camp, eating gingerbread that they had bought in one of the villages. The Urwald was muttering.

You promised to take the Terror to the Edge, Listener.

We're at the Edge,
said Jinx.
He won't leave. What do you want me to do? He's stronger than me
.

Stronger than you? Is he? What sort of strength? What is strength, to the Restless? Strength is power. You have great power, Listener. The Terror has great power also
. This was the trees arguing with each other.

You
have great power, you mean,
said Jinx.
I don't.
Why don't you conjure up a wind and blow him out of here?

A wind is difficult. A wind is seldom possible. A wind must begin somewhere, it must flow from somewhere, it must be guided and strengthened
.

“Jinx, can you show me how to light the fire?” said Elfwyn. She and Reven had made a heap of sticks in the fire ring.

Jinx looked at it, and it lit.

“But I want to do it,” she said.

Jinx put the fire out. Elfwyn stared at the wood hard, then scowled at it. She grunted. Jinx laughed. She glared at him.

“You kind of have to take fire from somewhere first. Here.” He lit the wood. “Now you have to suck it into you. Not really suck it,” he added quickly. “But with your mind, kind of.”

Elfwyn frowned at the fire. The flames went out.

“Mayhap the wood was a little damp,” said Reven.

“It wasn't,” said Jinx. “Now you have it inside you. Put it back, but not all of it.”

She frowned at the charred wood, and flames leapt from it.

Jinx couldn't help feeling jealous. It had taken him ages to learn to start fires. But anyway, he said, “You're kind of good at magic.”

Elfwyn beamed.

Reven looked at Elfwyn in surprise, and Jinx saw the calculating squares change for a moment to bright happiness at Elfwyn's smile.

“You notice we haven't seen a single monster since we've been here?” said Elfwyn. “I think they don't like to come this close to the edge. Monsters like the deep Urwald.”

“They need the trees,” said Jinx.

“Yes,” said Reven. “
Monsters
need trees.”

“Look,” said Elfwyn. “Who's that on the bridge?”