Jinx On The Divide (17 page)

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"Whatever made this track," said Fuzzy. "I'm hoping we come across a herd of them before too long, because that snagglefang wasn't terribly filling. You could roast a haunch."

A roast dinner sounded wonderful.

"We'd need a fire to do that," said Felix miserably. "The little bit of kindling we've got will boil a kettle of water, and that's about it."

"No problem," said Fuzzy, pointing a wing. "Look."

They had breasted the top of a small incline and were looking down into the valley below. Felix was instantly reminded of stubble burning in a field -- the flames stretched out in a line of warm, bright color against the dull blues and grays of the snow-covered rocks. White smoke rose in a lazy wedge above it, hanging in the still air like a gauze curtain.

"It's one of those fissures I told you about," said Felix. "A crack in the earth's crust."

"It's like a wound," said Betony. "That red stuff..."

"Molten rock."

"It's like blood ..."

"See those dark specks, over to the right?" said Fuzzy. "I've just magnified them. They're nobble-heads."

"Nobble-heads?"

"Just one of them would feed all of us," said Fuzzy wistfully.

"We're forgetting something," said Betony. "Fuzzy can't fly. And if she can't fly, she can't hunt."

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"We can't pull this sleigh indefinitely on dried fruit and crackers," said Felix.

"Oh, right, let's buy some eggs and cheese, then," said Betony sarcastically. "The market is which way?"

"Are you suggesting
we
kill one of those nobble-head things? I've never hunted
anything;
I wouldn't know how." His stomach chose that moment to tie itself into a knot, and then to rumble rather loudly.

"Fine," said Betony shortly, letting go of the harness and picking up the harpoon. "Fine. I'll do it, then."

"Have you used a harpoon before?"

"No. But it can't be too difficult, surely." She cranked back the crossbow, but she couldn't make it go all the way. She scowled and said something under her breath.

Felix held out his hand. "Let me try," he said. And to his astonishment, he was able to cock it. Not only was he taller than Betony now, he was stronger than she was as well. He caught a glimpse of the expression on her face -- outright admiration. Then she noticed him watching and stuck out her tongue.

They left Fuzzy in the sleigh, and set out across the icy volcanic landscape toward the herd of nobble-heads. As they got closer, Felix could make out more detail. They looked a little like a cross between elk and reindeer -- they had the coloring of reindeer, a sort of dirty gray and white, but the antlers of the bucks were more reminiscent of the great Irish elk of prehistory. They were huge spreading hand-shaped

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horns, like exotic plants sprouting from the creature's foreheads. Even at this distance, Felix could tell that they were big animals. They made him feel very puny indeed. He glanced at Betony.

She caught his eye, misinterpreted his look, and gave him a thumbs-up. She clearly thought their roast dinner was just a matter of time.

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***

10

***

As he lay in the snow after he'd fallen from Fuzzy's talons, Nimby realized he was soaking wet. This was very bad news; not only would he be paralyzed until he dried out, but he would lose his voice. He would be no better than a bedspread, or a tablecloth, or that torchlike thing of Felix's, lying dead on the ground nearby. Worse, actually. People would wipe their feet on him -- assuming anyone ever found him out here in this cold, bleak place. He lay in the snow, shivering, hoping Betony would come looking for him. But as the day wore on, he realized that he wasn't going to dry out -- his damp fibers simply froze, and he became as stiff as a board.

He grew more and more despondent. Fuzzy had had sufficient altitude for the fall to be fatal for both her and her passengers -- creatures with backbones were very flimsy compared to carpets, and they broke far more easily. He thought about the hex the brandee had placed on him. There

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had been something very strange about it. The brandee had used the "inky, pinky, now you're mine" hex to bind him, which felt like being hung from a clothesline in thick fog. And, like fog, these hexes never lasted all that long. The Sky-mold hex had been something
far
more powerful. He looked at the flashlight. One end of it seemed to have melted. A scorched torch. He liked the sound of that. Maybe he should have stayed with Turpsik and learned some poetry. That "Mallemaroking" song of hers, now ...

Your mind's wandering, Nimby,
he said to himself.
Careful. That's what happens when things die of hypothermia. Think about the torch thingy. It must have gotten terribly hot to have ended up like that. But how -- and why? It was a scientific instrument...

The solution hit him like a kick from a cuddyak the moment he recalled the conversation between Rhino and Squill. There had been a colossal otherworld explosion in a ragamucky's shack, and there had been a
crystal ball
in there. It had cracked in two -- the magic in the ball had reacted to the science of the firework. The plummeting spell and the torch had done exactly the same thing. The combination of science and magic wasn't as straightforward as thirteen plus thirteen. It was more powerful -- like thirteen
times
thirteen -- or even thirteen
to the power of
thirteen.

Nimby wanted to wriggle with excitement, but he couldn't even move a tassel. Just imagine, a
carpet
coming up with an idea as sophisticated as this. Ironclaw would be

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seriously impressed, the other magic carpets he met would be in awe of him, and Betony would be
so
proud.

And then he heard voices. He wanted to twist himself around to see who it was, but it was impossible. And then someone said, "Inky, pinky, now you're mine; winky, dinky, stay in line."

It really wasn't fair. Why did it always have to happen to
him?
He felt himself lifted into the air, and he got his first look at his new master. It was Catchfly. Once he had a higher vantage point, he could see that he'd landed very close to the rescue huts, and the japegrin had spotted him when he went outside to get some more logs from the woodshed. The hut loomed large in front of him, and the door banged open.

"Thaw him out by the fire," said Catchfly to Pepperwort, throwing Nimby across the room. "And then make us both a hot drink."

Pepperwort glanced around. "There's no kettle," he said.

"Well, go and look in one of the other huts."

Pepperwort went outside and felt instantly uneasy. He wasn't worried about snagglefangs -- they didn't hunt by day. Rumor had it that they turned to stone; no one he knew had ever seen one in daylight. There was something different out here, though, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Something was missing. Perhaps he was still expecting to see the fire-breather. He went into the middle hut and rooted around for a kettle. There wasn't one.
Odd,
thought

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Pepperwort. And the blankets are missing, too. He went back outside, intending to visit the smallest hut -- and then he realized what was different. The sleigh was gone. He could see the tracks of the runners, disappearing into the distance. He could see footprints as well. Two sets, leading to where the sleigh had once been. Then two sets leading away again, although the runners had almost obliterated them. It didn't make sense. He went back to the biggest hut and told Catchfly what he'd seen.

"It's perfectly obvious, simpleton," said Catchfly. "The plummeting spell didn't finish them off after all. But the brazzle can't fly anymore, and they need the sleigh to carry her. I don't see that it's any of our concern, to be perfectly honest. It's Rheinhart we're after."

"Where do you think he is?"

"The fire-breather will head back to Yergud."

"So we're going back to Yergud? Empty-handed?"

"Once that carpet's defrosted," said Catchfly. He kicked the offending object with his foot.

Nimby coughed. He was getting his voice back as pieces of him unfroze and then dried out, and the Magical Objects Bravery Award seemed farther away than ever. It was mid-afternoon by the time he was fit to travel, but the japegrins didn't want to waste any more time. "I can't fly after sunset, you know," he said, his voice still a little hoarse. "I twisty-strip sunlight for energy, like a plant."

The sky had darkened and was now the color of tarnished silver.

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"It's going to snow," said Pepperwort. "I wish we didn't have to go back. Squill will be furious."

"I'll think of something," said Catchfly. "We'll be heroes by the time I've finished my tale."

Ironclaw was getting hungry. The double portions of cadaver a. la carte at the fly-in restaurant had been prepared nicely, with a piquant bittersweet sauce -- but the portions had been a little on the stingy side. Haute cuisine was all very well, but it didn't fill you up. What he needed was a nice meaty carcass. He lost some altitude and scoured the snow-fields below with his magnifying vision -- both for his daughter
and
for something to eat. There were two of those spitfire mountains ahead, and the one on the left was a big one. He could see the smoke curling out of the top of it. A live one, then. No one with any sense would live close to something like that, so finding a roadside eatery and buying a haunch of something was out of the question.

He flew even lower, and when he spotted the herd of nobble-heads, he couldn't quite believe his luck. He'd had nobble-head only once, when he'd taken Thornbeak out for a meal in their courting days, half a century or so before. It had been the most expensive thing on the menu (decorated with a set of antlers), and his suggestion that she pick something else had not been well received. She'd sent back the fertle juice
twice,
and asked to be moved to a perch with a better

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view. Ironclaw had begun to wonder whether she really
was
the hen for him -- then she'd lashed her tail and wiggled her hindquarters, and he'd taken a deep breath and paid the bill without quibbling, even though he'd spotted a small mistake in the service charge.

He went into a long glide, selected his prey, and dispatched it with the minimum of fuss. It tasted even better than he remembered. It tasted so good, in fact, that he ate far more than was strictly necessary. After that, an afternoon nap seemed like a constructive idea -- when he woke up, he'd be in top condition to go off looking for Fuzzy. Thornbeak was being overprotective; Fuzzy would be all right. She had the strongest peck on her of any pullet he'd ever come across. He would have loved to take the credit for that himself, but it was something she was more likely to have inherited from her mother. He yawned and looked around for a likely roost. There wasn't one. All the trees were stunted little things that wouldn't have supported a carrionwing, let alone a brazzle, and there wasn't really any shelter anywhere. Unless ...

There would be a crater in the spitfire mountain. A nice sheltered area, with its own central heating. Just the ticket. He left some of the carcass uneaten -- it really was too big for just one, and when he found Fuzzy, he could offer her a snack. Then he took off and winged his way up to the crater.

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Ironclaw had spent most of his life on Tromm Fell, a rocky outcrop above a temperate forest. There weren't any extremes of climate there -- it didn't snow, and the summers were pleasantly warm. Snow wasn't a novelty, nor was desert -- he'd traveled quite widely for a brazzle, actually. But this fire-and-ice landscape was an unknown quantity.

The geyser came as a total surprise. He was flying low because the temperature was dropping as the altitude increased, and he was right over the top of the geyser when it blew. He found himself shot upward into even colder air by a jet of hot water to his backside. It was a good thing he hadn't been even lower, because the water had cooled down a little by the time it hit him. At least there hadn't been any witnesses; the whole episode was most undignified. Then he came to some bubbling mud, which made belching noises and spat at him, and a flaming fissure that spewed out a curtain of smoke.

The summit of the mountain was wreathed in clouds. He flew on, and the next time the clouds cleared, he was nearly there. A moment later, he was over the lip of the crater and landing on a ledge. The ledge was on the warm side, so he hopped around until he found somewhere more comfortable.

He was just dozing off when he heard wing beats. He opened his eyes, wondering if it was Fuzzy. He hadn't thought to look -- she could have had exactly the same idea and been roosting somewhere close by.

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