Jinx On The Divide (4 page)

33

The brandee rolled Nimby into a sausage and stuck him under his arm. "Where is the scientist's dwelling?" he asked.

Felix was finding the lie harder and harder to sustain. "This way," he said, hoping something would turn up. They started to walk away from the square, but although they saw lamplight in the windows and heard the occasional low buzz of voices, they saw no one. Night was falling fast; the clouds were gone, and the sky was spangled with stars. It was colder than ever.

The houses in the village ( welcome to vattan, supplier of fish to the aristocracy ) were made of logs, and they had steeply sloping roofs that were iced with snow. All the window frames and the balcony rails were carved and painted, and glittery with frost. There were sleighs parked outside the houses, the way cars would have been in Felix's world, and some of them had lanterns fixed to the handrails. It wasn't a big village. Felix could see that the houses were petering out -- before long, the road would be winding between fields and woods, and his lie would become evident.

He was just wondering what to do next when he heard the jingling of bells. A sleigh rounded the corner, pulled by two cuddyaks. They were unmistakable, with their shaggy brown coats, their painted hooves, and the horns on their noses. The driver was almost completely submerged beneath layers of fur, although his ginger hair was just visible beneath his hat, and his green eyes were on the squinty side. A japegrin, then. Oh, dear.

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The brandee turned on Felix, his face contorted with fury. "We are back in
my
world!" he screamed. "That driver is a japegrin! You have tricked me!" He dropped Nimby, drew his dagger, and lunged at Felix.

Then a lot of things seemed to happen at once. The japegrin reined in his cuddyaks, and Nimby unrolled himself with the speed of a whiplash. Betony launched herself at the brandee, her bravery as automatic and selfless as ever, her blond hair streaming out behind her as her hood fell back. The japegrin leaped out of his sleigh and landed with a soft thump in the snow. The brandee was a creature of the desert, however, and he wasn't used to ice. His feet slipped out from under him and he crashed to the ground, losing his grip on both the dagger and the lamp. The lamp skidded across the steeply sloping road, rolled downhill, and tumbled into a ditch.

The japegrin retrieved the dagger with a deft swoop of his hand, but the brandee was up and away before there was time to use it. Felix took a deep, shuddering breath. He'd forgotten what life in Betony's world was like. His own world was dull and boring and uneventful by comparison -- he was out of practice as far as adventures were concerned.

The japegrin fingered the dagger thoughtfully, and then he looked at Felix. "Blue eyes. What are you doing in Vattan, freak, with a brandee of all things?"

"Sightseeing," interposed Betony quickly.

The japegrin laughed. "I don't think so. People only come

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here for the fish. But if you're looking for somewhere to spend the night, there's only one inn. The Pink Harpoon. It's pretty empty at this time of year. They
might
rent you a room."

"Why
might}"

"This is japegrin country, this is. If you were a ragamucky or a diggeluck, you wouldn't have a hope. Tangle-folk are just barely acceptable."

"OK," said Betony, but both the tone of her voice and her stance made it clear that the conversation had gone as far as she wanted. She held out her hand for the brandee's dagger. The japegrin hesitated, but he gave it back to her. After that, he climbed back onto his sleigh and drove off.

Felix walked across the road and started to look for the lamp. He spent a few nerve-racking minutes before he eventually retrieved it from its snowy bed in the ditch, a good fifty yards from where he'd thought it should have been. He was lucky to have found it at all; a tree had shed a branchful of snow over it, so it was half buried. There were some little footprints nearby.

"What made those?" asked Felix.

"Nut-nibbler," said Betony. "Rub the lamp and get it over with. If it brings the brandee back to us, we're no worse off than we were before."

"Hang on," said Felix. "He tried to kill me!"

"You know what he's like," said Betony.
"So
emotional. He won't try it again, not if he remembers that you might be able to get him what he wants. And if rubbing the lamp

36

summons Rhino, so much the better. We can simply leave the lamp here and head back to the Divide on Nimby."

Felix ran his fingers lightly over the icy metal, undecided. To his dismay -- and before he'd even started to rub it for real -- the brandee reappeared beside him from among the pine trees. He didn't speak. He just glared balefully at Felix, relieved Betony of his knife, sheathed it, turned to gas, and streamed back into the lamp.

"That's a nuisance," said Betony.

"Just a
nuisance?"
snapped Felix. "How about a complete and utter disaster?"

"Oh, don't be so melodramatic."

Felix turned the spout toward him and listened. The brandee was shouting, his voice thin and distant and tinny. Felix put the spout right up against his ear.

"Call yourself a hostage?" The brandee was yelling. "You're not allowed to just
vanish,
it's against the rules! Where
are
you?"

"Complete and utter disaster was right, as it happens," said Felix, lowering the lamp. "Rhino's disappeared."

37

***

3

***

Fuzzy's first sight of Yergud was a surprise. It was a
hodgepodge
of a town -- strips and wedges of closely packed wooden buildings painted in pastel colors and laced with a network of frosted roads beneath a brilliantly blue winter sky. It was very cold. There were patches of open snow-covered ground, across which drifted shape-shifting clouds of steam from geothermal springs. She swooped lower, looking for somewhere to land. There was a quarry on the outskirts of the settlement. A triple-head was moving big blocks of stone from one place to another, and diggelucks were breaking them up with sledgehammers. A couple of japegrins shaded their eyes and looked up at her. A third one picked up a stone and threw it at her.

Fuzzy was shocked to the hollows of her bones. Nothing like that had ever happened to her before. Throwing stones at an intelligent being in flight was unthinkable. Perhaps Thornbeak hadn't been exaggerating about brazzles being

38

unwelcome after all. She gained height again as quickly as she could and headed away from the town, looking for the perching rocks. The Andrian rocks, back home, were considered by all to be very fine -- they were located in a sheltered hollow and placed in a large isometric grid, fifty flaps apart, for a nice secluded roost.

The Yergud perching rocks turned out to be very down-market. They hadn't been mathematically positioned by a trained rock designer; they were simply a natural feature of the landscape. They hadn't been cleaned for a while, either, and they were far too close together. Every single perch was vacant.

Fuzzy circled down and selected a roost. A ragamucky came bustling out of a ramshackle little hut and demanded a week's rent in advance. Fuzzy handed over a silver coin, wondering if she'd brought sufficient funds with her.

"And you can't perch there," snapped the ragamucky. "That rock's out of order. Go to number thirteen."

"Why? They're all empty."

"Because you're a brazzle," said the ragamucky. "Carrionwings get the pick of the perching rocks." She stomped off and disappeared back into her shack.

Carrionwings?
Fuzzy could hardly believe her ears. Carrionwings disposed of magical garbage. They were probably smelly, and they spent a lot of time shrieking. Brazzles commanded far more respect.
"Gizzards to you,
you crazy old ragbag," she muttered. Then she flew over to the nearest

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patch of snow and made patterns in it with her feet. After that, she found an icy slope she could slide down, and then she found a really deep snowdrift she could plummet into. Snow was squawking good fun, the smoothest thing ever.

"What's a magic lamp like on the inside?" Felix asked Betony, as they stood in the middle of the main road out of town, which was completely deserted (you are now leaving vattan, purveyor of fish to the monarchy ). The cuddyak hoofprints and the runner ruts from the japegrin's sleigh were already filling up with snow.

"I've no idea," said Betony. "Try lifting the lid."

"It won't budge. Do you think Rhino really
has
disappeared?"

"The brandee wouldn't make it up. What's the point? He's lost his hostage -- I bet he's sorry he shouted out the news for everyone to hear. He's got no bargaining power left. The question is, did Rhino vanish
inside
the lamp or
outside
it? The only thing we can do is summon the brandee again and ask him what happened."

Felix groaned. He was so cold now that he couldn't even think straight. "You've turned blue," said Betony. "I think we ought to find that inn, thaw out next to the fire, and get something hot to eat."

"No money," said Felix, his teeth chattering again.

"I've got some, silly," said Betony. "Come on, let's try the Pink Harpoon."

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The inn was easy to find. A couple of lanterns illuminated a garish painting of a cross-eyed fish with a harpoon through it. The sign swung from a balcony, creaking in the wind like something from a horror movie, although the coral-pink clapboard was pure PlaySkool. A veranda ran around the outside, although it was hard to imagine the weather ever being good enough to sit out on it. A path to the door had been dug through the snow, and once inside, Felix felt a lot better. The room was filled with rough wooden tables and benches, and there was a huge roaring fire at one end. Betony left Nimby rolled up in a corner, and they found themselves a secluded little alcove where they could watch the goings-on without being conspicuous. The clientele consisted almost entirely of japegrins, although the cook was clearly a lickit. He took a long time to come over with the menu.

"Fish, fish, or fish," mused Betony. "What a decision. I think I'll have fish."

She ordered the blubber sole with squirtled pondweed. Felix didn't fancy the fluorescent-green sauce, so he had river pudding. It took a long time to arrive.

"If you summon the brandee, we could buy
him
a drink," said Betony. "Maybe that'll make him a bit more friendly."

"Isn't that kind of risky? He doesn't have to obey us any longer, does he?"

"Remind him you're his only hope of ever finding a real scientist," said Betony. "You see, he can never actually
refuse
to come out of his lamp or go back into it -- it's in his

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nature, as automatic as breathing. It's just what he does while he's out of the lamp that's the problem. Even then ... if you had the instruction booklet and knew the right words She trailed off, wishing she'd paid more attention to the subject at school.

Felix sighed and rubbed the lamp. The brandee streamed out of the spout as usual, looking solemn, and sat down next to them in the alcove. Although no longer murderous, he was clearly sulking. Felix decided to leave the subject of science alone for now.

"Have some squirtled pondweed," said Betony.

The brandee's eyes flashed with annoyance. "I
can't
eat, can I? I'm a magical being, not a real one."

"How come you say things like 'as disappointing as liver without onions,' then?" asked Felix.

"You don't have to go to a desert to know it's hot," snapped the brandee. "And you don't have to eat a dessert to know it's sweet. I read a lot. But I can't eat, can't drink, can't do a lot of things. I want to be a human being so that I can
really
enjoy myself. Immortality's not much fun when you can't even savor a fricassee of fish guts. Rhino thought I was joking when I asked him if he'd tried it. He's no gourmet, is he?"

Betony took a sip of her drink. "So where
is
Rhino?"

"I don't know."

"Could he have gotten lost
inside
the lamp somewhere?" asked Felix.

"It's possible. There are two doors. One leads to my office,

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another to the greenhouse, which is as mysterious as a sand dune."

"You didn't try looking in there?"

"Of course. But some days the greenhouse is like a forest, and other days it's no bigger than a vegetable patch."

"Suppose," said Felix, "that you took
me
into your lamp. I could go and look for him."

Betony sat bolt upright and tried to say so many things at once that she ended up not saying anything and choking on a piece of pondweed instead. Felix thumped her on the back. The japegrins at a neighboring table got to their feet and asked to be moved somewhere else.

"Why should I do that?" asked the brandee.

"Because I
have
to find Rhino and take him back to my world," replied Felix. "For all I know, he's promising the japegrins chain saws and machine guns -- scientific things, which shouldn't
be
here. / did enough damage, introducing printing. Supposing I trade you a visit inside your lamp for some books from my world?"

The brandee looked interested, and considered this for a moment. "I'd like some science books," he said eventually. "The stuff about solids and liquids and gases."

"No problem," said Felix. "We've got loads of those."

"How are you going to get them from your world to mine?"

"Betony can bring them," said Felix. "When she comes back from her vacation."