Jinx (26 page)

“Hm. And what’s behind the door?”

“We couldn’t open it,” said Jinx.

“But the lady said you sensed some great power there.”

“Well, ask the lady then,” said Jinx, irritated.

“We have to get it open,” said Elfwyn. “If we could find out what other power he has, maybe we could destroy it somehow.”

“Did you try pulling really hard on the handle?” said Reven.

“No, we never thought of that,” said Jinx.

“Jinx, be nice,” said Elfwyn. “The door was locked.”

“Magic,” said Reven. As usual, he seemed to think that was an answer in itself.

Another week had passed. Jinx had just been hit by the Bonemaster for putting the dried elf livers in the jar that was meant for the dried nixie livers. Hit and called an idiot. All of this in front of Elfwyn, who at least had the grace to pretend she couldn’t see or hear it. Jinx knew it was grace, but in the mood he was in, he preferred to think of it as indifference.

He stormed out of the castle and stood alone on the barren stone island in the sky. He hated it here. The sky was too big and the trees too far away. Jinx looked across the chasm to the forest on the cliff top opposite. He missed the constant living murmur of the Urwald.

Over here there was only the one lonely hemlock, and Jinx went up and leaned on it. The rough bark against his face was some comfort, but he had realized long ago that this tree couldn’t talk. It had never learned how.

He thought his angry thoughts at it anyway. And he felt its lifeforce, which was so weak compared to the single pulsing flow of life that was the Urwald.

Jinx walked as close to the edge of the island as he could manage without getting dizzy. Twenty feet away. Fifteen, and he felt unsteady on his feet. Ten, and he could almost feel himself falling over. He took several giant steps away from the edge.

The trees on the shores of the river rose high on either side, so most of the day the island was in shadow, but right now, close to noon, it was bright. Looking down the river, Jinx thought he could almost see the horizon.

“Hi.” Reven’s head popped up over the cliff edge.

“Don’t do that!”

“Sorry.” Reven hoisted himself easily up to the island. He stood, looked all around, then came close to Jinx and bent down and said very quietly, “I did it. I found a way down.”

“Great,” said Jinx. He already didn’t like the looks of Reven’s way down.

“There are enough handholds and footholds if you start right here and sort of work your way around. You come out at the bottom of the cliff on the other side of the island. Or at least you do if you don’t fall.”

“You fell?”

“Yes, only about ten feet, going down. Coming up was all right.”

“Why did you come back up, once you’d gotten down?”

Reven looked affronted. “Because you and the lady are here, of course. I think that the lady Elfwyn could make the climb,” he said, looking at the cliff edge. “But you, I fear, would fall. If only I could find the bridge.”

Jinx would have liked to say that he could climb better than Elfwyn could. The problem wasn’t climbing, though. The problem was that there was no way he could get himself to the edge of the cliff.

“I shall simply have to keep looking,” said Reven. “Never give up!”

When Reven told Elfwyn about the route that he’d found down the cliff, she said, “Jinx couldn’t do it.”

“Of course not,” said Jinx. “Jinx can’t do anything.” He was lying on his back on his bed with his head hanging over the side, looking at the room upside down.

“If only I could find the bridge,” said Reven. “Then I could set it up at night—”

“There’s a ghoul patrolling at night,” Elfwyn reminded him.

“Well, I’m sure I could find a way to avoid it. Anyway, what can a ghoul do?”

“Ghouls suck all your blood out through your eyeballs,” said Jinx.

“Oh,” said Reven. “I thought they were like ghosts.”

“No,” said Jinx. “They’re different.”

“Ah.” Reven put his hands to his eyes. “Well.”

“Do you think Simon’s dead?” said Elfwyn.

Jinx felt his heart give a little hiccup. “He wasn’t about to die when I left. And Sophie was taking care of him.”

“Sometimes injuries get infected, though,” said Elfwyn.

“I know that.” Jinx had thought about this already. “I think he’s probably busy quarreling with Sophie and he’s forgotten all about me. Which is fine. I don’t care.”

“Don’t you?” said Elfwyn. “I mean, you know this wizard, I don’t, but didn’t he look after you when you were little and stuff?”

“Just till I was old enough to be worth killing,” said Jinx.

“According to the
Bonemaster
. Did he treat you like the Bonemaster does?”

“Not exactly, but that doesn’t mean anything.” Jinx thought of those rows and rows of dangling dead lives in bottles in the dark.

But Elfwyn wouldn’t shut up. “You’re letting the Bonemaster do your thinking for you. Which is stupid, because he’s not on your side.”

“We don’t want to escape one evil wizard only to be captured by another,” said Reven. “I’m sure the good Bonemaster—”

“He’s not the good Bonemaster!” said Elfwyn. “You haven’t seen all those little people hanging in bottles. And it’s going to be us hanging in bottles pretty soon.”

“I know he’s evil,” said Reven. “‘Good’ is merely a figure of speech. But he does seem rather fond of you, my lady.”

“I’m sure he’s fonder of the power he can get by hanging me up in a bottle.”

“But perhaps we’ll still be alive if he kills us. Jinx is probably hanging in a bottle somewhere, and he’s still alive.”

Jinx sat up, and felt dizzy from hanging upside down. “Don’t you remember what the bridge is made of, Reven?”

“Well, yes. Bones. I’m perfectly aware he’s evil.”

“They must be thigh bones, I think,” said Elfwyn. “Nothing else would be long enough.”

“Hundreds of them,” Jinx said. “The lives are in the bottles, the thigh bones are in the bridge. I wonder what he did with the rest of ’em.”

“Though they could be animal bones,” said Reven.

“Stop trying to think the best of him,” said Jinx. “He’s completely evil and he’s going to kill us.”

“I know,” said Reven.

“The skull cups are definitely people,” said Elfwyn. “Nothing else has a skull shaped like that.”

The Bonemaster had put the cups away when they’d refused to use them, and replaced them with silver goblets. Hospitality was something that magicians took very seriously.

“You must admit he’s been kind to us so far,” said Reven.

“No, I mustn’t,” said Jinx.

“He’s nasty to Jinx,” said Elfwyn.

“Yes, I know,” said Reven.

“You’re the one who found the way down! So you must want to escape!”

“Yes,” said Reven. “I do. Of course I do.”

“So what’s your problem?” Jinx demanded.

“It’s his spell,” said Elfwyn. “He wants his spell taken off him.”

“Oh, right. The spell that means he’s somebody important.” Jinx was in a rotten mood.

“You think that because I’ve lived at King Rufus’s court,” said Reven. “But my stepmother and I always ate at the lowest table, and we were very seldom permitted to attend the royal levee.”

“What about your father?” said Elfwyn.

“I have—had—only a stepmother.”

“Your father’s dead, then?” said Elfwyn.

Reven didn’t answer.

“Why—if you don’t mind my asking, why did the king kill your stepmother?”

It was clear that Reven did mind her asking, but he took a deep breath and said, “Because she spoke of things he preferred not to have spoken of.”

“She told people who you are?”

Reven said nothing.

“So the curse wasn’t on her, then. Or she found a way around it,” said Elfwyn.

“She was a very wise lady. Also good-hearted.”

Jinx couldn’t stand the ragged edge in Reven’s voice. “Stop hassling him, Elfwyn.”

Elfwyn turned on Jinx. “You still haven’t figured out how to get through that door, have you?”

“What door?” Though Jinx knew perfectly well.

“The one with the rest of the Bonemaster’s power behind it. Don’t you know a spell to open locks?”

“No,” said Jinx. “There’s a spell for, you know, doors. Like, the front door of Simon’s house, it knows who to let in, and that’s how it knows whether to be locked or not.”

“Can you make the door think you’re someone it should open for?” asked Elfwyn.

“No,” said Jinx.

“Why not?” asked Reven.

“Because,” said Jinx. “Magic is not something I’m terribly, horribly good at, all right?”

“I thought you were a magician,” said Reven.

“Yeah, so? Someone has to be the worst at things,” said Jinx.

He didn’t want to get through the door. The bottles had been—well, freaky. And whatever was behind the door was probably worse.

The truth was he was afraid of finding out what was behind the door.

“We’ll only make the Bonemaster want to kill us,” he said.

“He already wants to kill us,” said Elfwyn. “I just want to see what the rest of his power looks like.”

“Besides, it might help us escape,” said Reven.

“How?” said Jinx.

“Well, we won’t know till you look,” said Reven.

“Didn’t you hear me just explain that I can’t—”

“What about the Bonemaster’s books?” said Elfwyn. “I bet there’s something in there that explains how the door spell is done. Can you read?”

“In six languages,” said Jinx, feeling he had some lost ground to make up.

“Really? Six?” said Elfwyn.

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s very impressive,” said Reven.

Jinx felt a little better.

“Some of the books the Bonemaster has are in other languages,” said Elfwyn. “I’ve already looked through the ones in Urwish, and I haven’t seen any door spells. There are some interesting potion spells, though.”

“You can read?” said Jinx.

“Of course. Everyone in Butterwood Clearing can read. We’re famous for it.”

“I thought you were famous for cows.”

“Cows and reading,” said Elfwyn.

Jinx saw that he was going to have to try to find the door spell. He felt sure he wouldn’t be able to do the spell, though. He didn’t have the Urwald to draw on, and without it, he just wasn’t much good at magic.

T
hey were at dinner. The food was cooked magically. Supplies—groceries and firewood—were delivered at the bottom of the cliff. They would be there in the morning, unattended, and the Bonemaster would levitate them to the island.

“So, how was the exploring today?” the Bonemaster asked Reven. “Have you found anything of interest?”

“No, sir,” said Reven.

“Been all through the cellars and towers, have you?”

“An it please you, sir,” said Reven. “Yes. Have you found a way to take my curse off me, good Bonemaster?”

“Not yet,” said the Bonemaster. “But I’m studying the matter.”

“And my curse too,” Elfwyn put in.

“Of course, yours too, dear.” He buttered a roll and turned to Jinx. “I would have expected Simon to show up by now. Don’t wipe your plate with your bread like that. Where is he?”

Jinx put down the bread. “I don’t know.”

The Bonemaster turned to Elfwyn. “Where is Simon?”

“I don’t know,” said Elfwyn. “You know that potion we were working on today?”

“A moment, dear. Don’t change the subject. Why hasn’t Simon come here?”

“He’s not well,” said Elfwyn.

“Not well?” The Bonemaster leaned forward. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Somebody stabbed him with a sword.”

“Ha. Not before time.” But the Bonemaster didn’t look pleased at all. “Where did this happen?”

“In Samara.”

Jinx had told her this and was silently cursing about it now. It was stupid to tell Elfwyn anything.

“Was he seriously injured? Is he dying?”

“Yes—no. I don’t know.”

The Bonemaster turned to Jinx. “Well?”

“Well what?” said Jinx.

Then he winced inwardly, because that was back talk. But the Bonemaster didn’t seem to believe in hitting him at the dinner table. Instead he turned to Elfwyn.

“Then—is there a possibility he might be dead?” For some reason the Bonemaster looked really worried.

“I suppose so,” said Elfwyn.

“And this idiot boy left him alone with no one to take care of him?” The Bonemaster’s voice climbed angrily.

“His wife is taking care of him,” said Elfwyn.

“His wife? Simon has a wife?”