Jinx On The Divide (16 page)

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then he remembered that Rhino had gotten away from them again, and his heart sank. He wasn't very comfortable, either; something was digging into his hip. He felt in his pocket, and pulled out the jinx box. This morning it seemed to be covered with skin, and the touch of it welcomed him like a handshake. For a moment, he was tempted to open it -- then he realized that Betony was already up. He could see her scouring the immediate vicinity for her magic carpet. After a while, he saw her coming back, looking despondent, so he put the box in his backpack. Somehow, he knew she wouldn't want anything to do with it.

Fuzzy climbed out of the shelter and shook herself. Then she spread her wings and flapped them a few times. Once again, nothing happened. "I've been hexed," she said finally. "I didn't think it was possible. Brazzle feathers are supposed to act like a shield."

"Even when
not
attached to their owners," said Felix, who had Thornbeak's feather to thank for his current good health. "I've used them to ward off vampreys, too."

"It doesn't make sense," said Fuzzy.

"That hex turned my flashlight red-hot," said Felix. "No idea where the thing is now. I dropped it. It won't work anymore, anyway, not when it's been half-melted."

"I think that might be important," said Fuzzy. "Although, at the moment, I'm molted if I can think why. I don't feel too good."

"Does that mean you can't fly?" asked Betony.

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Fuzzy nodded.

"The hex will wear off, won't it?" asked Felix, worried.

"Of course it will," said Betony. "Nimby had one put on him, remember? They don't last long." She glanced around, as though the mention of his name might help to summon him.

"So we'll just have to walk for a while?"

"Brazzles aren't built for walking long distances," said Betony, scanning her surroundings again. "I was hoping that Fuzzy would be able to see Nimby from high up, with her magnifying vision. We'd better go back to the rescue huts."

"The japegrins are there," said Fuzzy. "With those heavy-duty wands."

"What we need is a sleigh," said Felix.

"And who's going to pull it?" snapped Betony. "Just the two of us, with a brazzle on board?"

Felix grinned. "Have you ever tried pulling a sleigh?"

Betony glared at him. Then she shook her head.

"It's much easier than pulling a cart."

"I may be much bigger than you," added Fuzzy, "but my bones are hollow. I weigh less."

"I think I remember a sleigh parked next to one of the huts, but it was covered with snow," said Felix.

"I bet we could sneak up and nab it," said Betony, perking up. "The japegrins will be inside, keeping warm." She glanced back at the snow-covered landscape, now tinged with lilac and pink. "I wish I could see Nimby."

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They left Fuzzy behind, since she was too ungainly on the ground to make any real progress through the snow. It took longer to get back to the huts than Felix expected -- it had taken only a minute or two to fly the distance the previous night. Walking was harder than it looked. Sometimes the snow was quite firm, and other times they sank down to their knees in it. There was no way you could tell; the surface was crisp and white no matter what it covered. Occasionally, there were patches of bare rock, dappled with bright orange lichen where the wind had swept the snow away, and sometimes there were tussocks of yellowish grass poking through, which also helped.

It was a depressing journey. For just a moment that previous night, things had been OK. They'd found Rhino, and they'd had transportation -- and then everything had gone wrong. Rhino would probably try to sell his gunpowder recipe to someone else now.

Felix could see a wisp of blue-gray smoke curling out of the chimney of the biggest hut, and as they dodged into its shadow, they could hear voices, although they couldn't make out the words. The sleigh was still there.

"We'll have to be really careful about this," whispered Betony. "We need to push it in
that
direction, so that they can't see us through the window."

Felix nodded.

"And before we do it, I think we should go into the other hut and get some supplies."

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Felix nodded again. Betony was so much more practical than he was -- neither of them had had any breakfast, and dried fruit and biscuits would be a lot better than nothing. They sneaked into the hut and grabbed a couple of blankets and a kettle as well. They needed something in which to melt snow to get drinking water. Felix seized a bundle of kindling, too, and Betony nodded her approval.

The next thing they had to do was to clear the snow off the sleigh, which was piled so high with the stuff that it looked like a giant marshmallow. They discovered a brown leather cover, which protected the wooden seat beneath which the cuddyak harnesses and the harpoon were stored. It wasn't going to be the height of comfort, but it was clean and dry. Felix buckled one section of the harness to the shafts -- they needed something they could use to haul the sleigh along, and that was as good as anything.

When everything was ready, they nodded to each other, and each placed a strap over one shoulder. Then they pulled. Nothing happened. They tried pushing. That was no good, either. Then they tried one pulling and one pushing, with the same result.

"Stop," hissed Felix. "The runners are frozen in their tracks."

Betony looked at him, unsure what to do.

"We have to break them out. I read about it, in a book by Jack London. First this side, then that. It's worth a try."

They put their backs against the side of the sleigh, braced themselves, and leaned against it, hard. Then they went

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around to the other side and did the same thing again. There was a cracking sound, and the sleigh seemed to shift slightly. They moved to the back of it and tried pushing it again. This time, it inched forward. They smiled at each other, their faces red and shining from the effort, their eyes twinkling with victory. The sleigh moved very slowly at first, but as the runners freed up, it moved more easily until they could go around to the front and pull it steadily.

The next few minutes were nerve-racking, for at every moment they expected to hear the japegrins call out to them to stop. But as the huts grew smaller and smaller and nobody challenged them, they dared to hope that they'd gotten away with it. By the time they reached Fuzzy, they were feeling very pleased with themselves.

"Smooth," said Fuzzy, looking equally pleased.

"Where to?" asked Felix.

"Yergud, I guess," said Betony. "Unless you've got any better ideas."

"So which way is it?" Fuzzy pointed a wing. Felix looked surprised.

"Brazzles have a really good sense of direction," said Betony. Her face clouded for a moment. "Like magic carpets."

"Let's have breakfast
before
we get going," said Felix, wanting to distract her. "I'm starving."

"I'll preen, then," said Fuzzy. "I don't need to eat as often as you humans do."

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Felix opened his backpack, feeling around inside for the breakfast supplies. His fingers closed over something squashy and furry, and he quickly withdrew them.

"What?" said Betony.

"I think something's made a nest in there."

"Don't be ridiculous," said Betony, and she upended the backpack in the bottom of the sleigh. Dried fruit and crackers tumbled out, as well as some disgusting-looking dried fish and a green velour overnight case, shaped like a hippopotamus.

"Wow!" said Betony. "A river-fatty! You kept that pretty secret." She grinned. "Don't be embarrassed -- I've got a cuddly brazzle in Andria that I take to bed with me." And before Felix could protest that he'd brought nothing of the kind with him, Betony had picked it up and unzipped it. She wasn't used to zips, and she caught her finger in it.

"Hi there," said the jinx box.

"Oh," said Betony, disappointed. "It's you." She put her finger in her mouth. The zip had drawn blood.

"I know some really good words," said the box. "They get amazing results."

"Well, I suggest you keep them to yourself," snapped Betony, sucking her finger.

"Even if they reverse the effects of plummeting hexes?"

Felix pricked up his ears. "Go on."

"They need to be spoken by a mythical creature -- but
wow,
that's not a problem here, is it? I'll list them for you. There's hocus ..."

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"Felix, don't listen to it. You can't trust jinx boxes," Betony interrupted.

The jinx box sighed theatrically. "I'm only trying to help," it continued. "Traveling by fire-breather is an awful lot faster than lugging a sleigh. Your friend will be far ahead of you by now."

Felix gritted his teeth. "Rhino is not my
friend"
he muttered, "but the box does have a point, Betony. We'll never catch up with him like this."

Betony shook her head. "It's nothing but a troublemaker, Felix. Put it away." And before Felix could say anymore she grabbed the jinx box and stuffed it back into the backpack. "We'll ask Fuzzy about it when she's finished her preen," she said firmly. "After breakfast."

But by the time Fuzzy had rejoined them and they had finished their meal, it was as though the incident hadn't happened at all.

Pulling the sleigh was hot work, because when they came to soft patches of snow it was much harder to keep it moving. Felix stripped down to his T-shirt, and Betony put her cloak on the seat next to Fuzzy, who treated them to a few rather rude songs her father had taught her. Eventually, they came to something resembling a road -- a track made by hoofed animals of some sort. Things then got a lot easier, so easy that they were able to take it in turns, with one of them pulling and the other one riding.

Felix felt a bit guilty to begin with, when Betony was

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being the cart horse. It didn't seem very gentlemanly. Felix's parents were extremely particular about manners -- men opening doors for women, and everyone waiting until everyone else was served at the table before starting to eat. It wasn't until Betony made a noise like a cuddyak, pranced a few paces, and called out, "Hey, this is fun," that he felt OK about it and started to take an interest in his surroundings.

And the surroundings
were
spectacular, no doubt about it. After an hour or so, they came to a puddly sort of area, with patches of bare wet rock crusted with yellow and interspersed with tiny lakes. For a moment, Felix didn't understand -- why wasn't the rock treacherous with ice? How come there was water everywhere? They stopped for a rest and some more dried fruit and crackers.

Suddenly there was a loud whooshing noise, and a column of water shot up into the air in front of him. Betony leaped backward, slipped on the rock, and fell over. Felix knew better than to offer her a hand up -- she had to be seriously injured to accept help. The column continued to spurt into the air for a moment or two, giving off clouds of steam, and then it subsided, and everything was quiet once more. Betony stood up, trying to look dignified about it.

"That was a geyser," said Felix. "The water around here comes from underground, and it's hot. That's why it hasn't turned to ice."

"Natural hot water?" scoffed Betony. "You've got to be

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kidding." She dipped her finger in the nearest lake and pulled it out again sharply. "Ouch!" she said. "You're right. But how?"

"We have a subject called geology," said Felix. "The scientific study of the structure of the world. The core of the earth is a lot hotter, and there are faults in the crust called vents and fissures and fumeroles. Water for this geyser probably comes from an underground river, flowing over the hot molten rock deep down below, which superheats it."

"So is it forced through the crack?"

"Yes. The steam comes first, followed by the column of hot water. Conditions underground tend to remain the same, so the eruption will happen at regular intervals. If a geyser suddenly changed its pattern, it could be predicting an earthquake."

"Oh," said Betony, looking at it suspiciously. Felix suspected she didn't know what an earthquake was but wasn't going to ask. She pointed at the ground. "What's that yellow stuff?"

"Sulfur," said Felix, noticing it for the first time. "It's what Rhino came up here to collect, to make gunpowder."

"I wonder where he is now?"

"He'd be a fool to go back to Yergud," said Felix. "There's a price on his head. I don't think we'll find him there. What would
you
do if you were Rhino?" He picked up his section of the harness and looped it over his shoulder.

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"I don't know," said Betony, doing the same.

They got the sleigh moving, and trudged along for a while in silence. Fuzzy seemed to have dozed off. Her eyes were shut, her eyelids as mauve and wrinkly as her skin had been when she'd first hatched.

"More to the point," said Felix, a little later, "what are
we
going to do?"

"Try a crystal ball parlor?"

"They're not very reliable, are they?"

"Not really. They get it right sometimes, though."

"So does sheer chance."

"I know what
I'd
do," said Fuzzy, opening an eye. "What?"

"I'd think about what the fire-breather might decide to do. Has Rhino piloted one before?"

"No," said Felix. "But it's not difficult. All you have to do is tell them where to go. Politely, of course. They may not be able to speak, but they understand everything. Especially abuse. They hate abuse."

"Rhino won't realize that. If he insults it, the fire-breather could simply decide to do its own thing."

"Go back home, you mean, to its stable in Yergud?"

"Perhaps, or it might rejoin some wild ones. Rumor has it that they live in fire craters," said Fuzzy.

Betony gulped. "That's just a story. There aren't any wild ones left. And what would they live on, out here?"