Jinx's Fire (12 page)

The Glass Ax

M
althus seemed to have been expecting this question. He looked at Sophie, his eyes glowing golden-green. “It would be necessary to walk the paths, and find out.”

“How do I get there?” said Jinx and Sophie together.

They turned to each other. “I have to—” Jinx began.

“It should be me that—” said Sophie.

“Actually,” said Malthus, “I doubt anyone but Jinx could do it.”

Sophie's thoughts roiled blue-brown; she didn't like this at all. Jinx saw he would have to convince her. He sighed. It seemed unfair, given that he wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea himself. “I have to do it because I'm the other
wick,” he said. “You know that. I'm connected to the fire path.”

“I'd better come with you,” said Sophie.

“Really?” said Malthus. “Forgive me, Scholar, but what exactly do you imagine you could contribute to the operation?”

“
I
could contribute something,” said Elfwyn. “I'm a magician.”

“Magicians burn and freeze as easily as anyone else,” said Malthus. “And I doubt anyone but Jinx or the Bonemaster would be able to locate the seal.”

“What are the paths like?” said Jinx.

Malthus tapped the Eldritch Tome with his pencil. “No figurative language. Fire is fire. Ice is ice.”

“Oh dear.” Sophie looked as tense as Jinx had ever seen her. “I really ought to be the one to—”

“You can't go,” said Jinx, “because you can't do magic.”

“I'm going, anyway,” said Wendell firmly. “At least as far as I can. It's not fire and ice the whole way, is it?”

“Nobody knows,” said Malthus.

“How do I get there?” said Jinx.

“We. I'm going with you,” said Elfwyn.

“So am I,” said Wendell.

“You'll need this.” Malthus reached into the pile of furs and drew out an iron rod, topped with a jagged piece of green glass, like a short pickax.

“We have axes,” said Jinx.

“This is the Glass Ax,” said Malthus. “Very ancient and precious.” He handed it to Jinx. “Try not to lose it, please.”

The ax was cold and heavy in Jinx's hand. The handle was a twisted shaft of wrought iron; the blade was a chunk of green glass, broken off to a point.

“It is our ancient truce symbol. It will show the trolls that you come in peace.” The werewolf tapped a fang thoughtfully. “I hope.”

“Trolls?” said Elfwyn.

“The paths can only be reached through the Glass Mountains,” said the werewolf.

Which was where the trolls lived. The thought of trolls made Jinx's arm ache—the one that had been bitten nearly in half by the troll that used to be his stepfather.

“Like Elfland,” said Elfwyn. “The Eldritch Depths. The entrance to that is through the Glass Mountains too. Witch Seymour told us that, when we were at his house with Reven.”

Sophie roiled blue-brown worry, but didn't say anything.

Jinx thought of Simon. If the Bonemaster had really used Simon to seal the two paths together . . . “So if I go to the Glass Mountains, I'll find a way to get down there?”

“You would have to ask the trolls,” said Malthus.

“
Ask
the trolls?” said Jinx. “It's really hard to ask trolls anything. I mean, I know they can talk, but they prefer to bite heads off.”

“True,” said Malthus. “Then again, some people might say the same of werewolves. With any luck, the trolls will show you the way onto the paths.”

Or they might eat us? Jinx started to say this, but stopped himself. He didn't want Sophie to fuss.

It was a good thing the woman in the marketplace had warned Jinx that Reven was planning to attack. They'd had time to make what preparations were possible—to lay in as many supplies as they could get, and to build a weak ward tunnel to the Doorway Oak.

When they got home from Salt City, they found the clearing surrounded by Reven's soldiers. Several Urwalders were pacing around the inner edge of the ward, axes in hand.

“The Squawks showed up an hour ago,” said Jotun, hefting his ax.

“Squawks?” said Jinx.

“It's the way they talk. Loud and fast. Like a hen yard,” said Cottawilda.

“They're trying to scrape through the ward with their knives,” said Nick.

“Can they do that, sir?” said Hilda.

“No. All they can do is dull their knives,” said Jinx,
loudly enough for the nearby soldiers to hear.

He remembered the woman in the marketplace in Keria. “And don't call them Squawks,” he added, dropping his voice. “They're people too.”

Jotun stepped back and took an experimental swing with his ax. “If we have to remember they're people, how can we kill them?”

“I don't know,” said Jinx, annoyed. You didn't normally get deep thoughts from Jotun. “You could just abandon them in the forest, I suppose, like you did my stepsister. Gertrude.”

“
I
didn't,” said Jotun.

“Really, Jinx,” said Sophie. “Is this the time?”

“Yes you did,” said Jinx, ignoring her. “And you're supposed to be looking for her.”

“We always ask people if they've seen her,” said Cottawilda. “I don't know what else you can expect of us.”

“Jinx, we have to leave
now
,” said Elfwyn, as Reven's soldiers began scraping knives all along both sides of the ward tunnel.

“I'm afraid that's true,” said Sophie.

Jinx looked at the soldiers in dismay. The ward tunnel was not strong at all.

“Hey!” he called. “Is Reven here?”

One of the soldiers looked up. “His Majesty the King, you mean?”

“Whoever,” said Jinx. “Is he here?”

“No,” said the soldier, and went back to scraping.

“Before you go,” said Sophie, “I want you to teach me the aviot spell, so that I can watch you.”

Jinx opened his mouth to say that Sophie's magical skills were abysmal. Not tactful. “We haven't got a bespelled aviot to take with us.”

“There's the one Reven gave back to you,” said Elfwyn. “It's a good idea.”

Teaching Sophie to use the Farseeing Window took nearly an hour. And meanwhile Reven's soldiers were scraping at the ward, and Simon was fading, and who knew what the Bonemaster was doing? But Sophie was determined to learn, and finally she was able to make the window show her Elfwyn, who was downstairs in the kitchen, holding the bespelled aviot.

This meant they had to take the aviot with them on their journey. Jinx wasn't thrilled about this, but he saw that Sophie was hugely relieved.

“And, Jinx,” she said. “If you have to destroy . . . the seal—”

“I won't,” said Jinx. “There's a way around most things in magic.”

“Maybe not around this,” said Sophie.

Jinx couldn't stand those gray clouds of despair. Why did she have to get like this? “I'm going to bring Simon back,” he said.

“If you can't—” said Sophie.

“I can.”

“Do whatever it takes,” said Sophie. “Just break the seal between the paths.”

Just as they got outside, there was a cry of triumph from one of Reven's soldiers. The Urwalders watched in dismay as the man squeezed his hand through the hole he'd made in the ward tunnel and waggled his fingers. Then he pulled his hand out, stood up, and grinned at the Urwalders.

It was lucky that Jinx had already made a doorpath to the Troll-way, which was the closest he'd been to the Glass Mountains. It meant that only he, Elfwyn, and Wendell had to run the gauntlet of the ward-tunnel.

“I'll go first,” said Jinx.

“No, I'll go first,” said Wendell. “I'm faster.”

“Says who?” said Jinx.

“We should all go together,” said Elfwyn.

“I'm going,” said Jinx. And he started down the ward tunnel.

The soldiers rushed at the tunnel. It was weird, running through a tunnel of bodies, all pressed up against the invisible ward, all trying to get through it. Then an arm came through the hole and grabbed Jinx's ankle. He tripped and fell sprawling. He struggled, kicked, and got free. He scrambled to his feet and kept going.

When he reached the Doorway Oak he turned and watched Elfwyn run down the tunnel. To his horror, the
hole where he'd been grabbed now had a sword stuck through it.

Elfwyn ran, jumped, and flew over the sword—almost. It slashed upward and caught the hem of her dress and she fell. Jinx ran toward her. She was struggling out of the way. The sword was poised to strike again. Elfwyn froze the sleeve of the arm that held the sword, and then Wendell came running down the tunnel, kicked the sword out of the soldier's hand, and they all ran through the Doorway that led to the Troll-way.

The last time Jinx and Elfwyn had accidentally found themselves on the Troll-way, their main concern had been getting off it again. Now they were there on purpose, and they started walking.

Late in the morning, when the path was just beginning to climb, they heard a troll approaching. They stopped, and Elfwyn and Jinx made a concealment spell.

The troll lumbered past, leaving a rotted-meat smell in its wake.

“We're going to have to talk to them sometime,” said Elfwyn.

“Yes. Perhaps we should ask the next one we see to conduct us to their leader,” said Wendell.

And that was how they ended up getting captured by trolls.

The Troll Trial

J
inx, Elfwyn, and Wendell were quick-marched up the Troll-way and onto a wide glass plateau surrounded by high glass cliffs. Their captors' names were Heg, Gak, and Blort. And soon they were completely surrounded by trolls. The smell of rotten meat was overpowering, and Jinx had to fight not to be ill. Wendell and Elfwyn looked quite green.

A troll who was bigger than the rest came forward and grunted at them. He was wearing a necklace of what appeared to be teeth.

“This is our leader,” said Blort. “Great leader Sneep.”

“Who're you?” Sneep asked.

“Jinx,” said Jinx. “And—”

“That's him,” said a voice from the crowd. “That's that no-good boy that cut off my arm.”

Jinx fumbled in his coat for the Glass Ax. He held it up.

“Where you get that from? You kill a werewolf?”

“No,” said Jinx, trying to be patient. “The werewolves lent it to us. It's to show we come in peace.”

“In pieces?”

“We need to talk to you,” said Jinx. “About threats to the Urwald. And we need to get to—”

Wendell laid a hand on Jinx's arm. “Er, maybe we should let Elfwyn tell it. That is, if she doesn't mind.”

“Why—” Elfwyn began. “Oh. I see.” She turned to Sneep. “Um, have you heard of, er, a person called the Truthspeaker?”

Mutters and grunts amongst the trolls. To Jinx's surprise, they nodded.

“Heard something about that person,” said Sneep. “She always telling the truth. Like it or not.”

“Oh good,” said Elfwyn. “Well, um, that's me.”

The trolls looked skeptical. “You the Truthspeaker?”

“Yes,” said Elfwyn. “And that has to be the truth, because I can't lie.”

The trolls frowned. They seemed to feel there was something wrong with this statement, logically, but they
couldn't quite work out what it was.

“So now I'm going to tell you what we're doing here, and why we have the Glass Ax,” said Elfwyn.

The trolls grunted.

She cleared her throat nervously. “Right. Well, you see, there are some soldiers from Keyland—”

She explained about the attacks on the Urwald, and about the three kings. Jinx thought she should have talked more about the Bonemaster, but the trolls seemed to be very incensed at the idea of the trees being cut down. They nodded and growled, and now and then let out an anguished roar which, as far as Jinx could tell, meant agreement.

“That's why we got no more Wanderers,” said Heg. “'Cause of war.”

“Yah, 'cause of war. We wondered why they stopped coming,” said Blort. “We never ate any.”

“But why you got to walk the Eldritch Ways?” said Sneep. “How that going to help?”

Two questions. Jinx winced. He knew how much Elfwyn hated being asked questions.

“It's Jinx who's got to walk them,” said Elfwyn. “The Bonemaster's done something to the, um, Eldritch Ways that makes him able to drain the Urwald's lifeforce, and that's making it much harder for us to fight the invaders. But Jinx might be able to undo it.”

Sneep frowned. “This some kind of wizard thing?”

“Yes,” said Elfwyn.

“You all wizards?”

“Not yet,” said Elfwyn.

“Don't like wizards,” said Sneep.

“I'm sorry to hear that,” said Elfwyn. “But the Bonemaster's a wizard, and—”

“Heard about this Bonemaster. Would make a good troll.” Sneep nodded at Jinx. “Supposing we let this wizard boy go down the hole. What good that do?”

“We think he can remove the seal that the Bonemaster's used to connect his power to the Urwald's power,” said Elfwyn.

“You think that, huh. Maybe you not so smart for a wizard girl. Plenty people go down that hole. But nobody ever come back.”

Ripples of dread from Elfwyn. Jinx was annoyed—what did she think was going to happen? Of course no one ever came back.

“Anyway,” said Sneep, “we got other use for this wizard boy. Got to kill him.”

“But we have the Glass Ax!” said Elfwyn. “That's supposed to mean you can't hurt us! Malthus said so.”

“Don't mean we can't try a criminal. He a wanted boy. Cut off poor Bergthold's arm.
And
he set some trolls on fire.”

“Now wait a minute,” said Jinx. “That was self-defense.”

“Don't know nothin' 'bout no fence,” said Sneep. “Know the law, that's all. We have a trial. Kill you or eat your arm off, one.”

Elfwyn, Jinx, and Wendell looked at each other in dismay.

“Can we have the trial after I get back from the Paths?” said Jinx.

“Huh. Think we stupid? Nobody don't never come back from there.”

“Fine,” said Jinx, frustrated. “Have a trial, then.”

The trial was very brief.

“That's him,” said Bergthold. “Cut my arm off. With an ax.”

Sneep turned to Jinx. “That true?”

“Yes,” said Jinx. “But he—”

“Guilty,” said Sneep. “Now we—”

“Wait a minute!” said Jinx. “He tried to bite my arm off last year. He broke it in two places! It still hurts on rainy days.”

“So that the one we eat,” said Sneep. “So's you still got one good arm. Fair enough?”

“No!” said Jinx.

“Also, he set many trolls on fire,” said Bergthold. “Should be we set him on fire, after we eat his arm, right, chief?”

“But I put them out again,” said Jinx.

“So maybe we put you out again, too,” said Blort.

“Excuse me,” said Wendell. He looked at Bergthold uncertainly. “Aren't you the stepfather who abandoned Jinx in the forest when he was six?”

“Huh. Gave him opportunities,” said Bergthold. “Go out into world, seek his fortune. Boy does that, he always ends up rich and married to some kind of princess. What's wrong with that?”

“Well, it was sort of like killing him,” said Wendell. “After all, the children who get left in the Urwald usually die, don't they? I mean, there was Jinx's stepsister, Gertrude—”

Bergthold let out a roar. “What?! What happen to Gertrude?”

“I don't know,” said Wendell. “But the point is—”

Bergthold lunged at Jinx. “What happen to Gertrude?” he howled.

Jinx stumbled back from the smell of Bergthold's breath. “I don't know!”

“That lady abandon her? I know that lady abandon her! That lady a no-good lady!”

“You mean Cottawilda?” said Jinx. “Your wife? Well, I don't like her much either, but it's the same thing that you and her did to me.”

“
NOT
the same!” Bergthold roared. “Gertrude
MINE
!”

Jinx turned to Elfwyn and Wendell. They looked as
perplexed by this development as he was.

“Going to get revenge for this!” said Bergthold. “Abandon
MY
baby! Huh.”

“Instead of getting revenge, maybe you could look for her,” Wendell suggested.

“
Going
to look for her, that no-good lady!”

“I meant look for Gertrude,” said Wendell.

“Yeah,” said Jinx. “That's what Cottawilda's doing, anyway.” Well, what she was supposed to be doing.

“Jinx told her to,” said Elfwyn, apparently thinking this might help. She turned to Sneep. “Anyway, Jinx has to walk the Paths. If he doesn't, we'll have no way to fight the invaders, and you want the invaders fought, don't you?”

Much discussion among the trolls. Shouting, howls, roars. Finally Sneep turned to Elfwyn, who he seemed to have decided was the leader of the human expedition. “All right. He go. You stay here. You and the big boy. Wizard boy doesn't come back, we eat you. Fair enough?”

“Not really,” said Elfwyn.

“Yeah, you said nobody ever comes back,” said Jinx.

“Nobody especially don't come back when we say we going to eat his arm off,” said Sneep. “Take it or leave it.”

Jinx looked around. There were at least a hundred trolls surrounding them. And Jinx wasn't even going to be able to find the entrance to the paths without their help. “I guess I take it,” he said.

“Good. We show you the way to the Paths.”

Jinx had heard tales about people who had to climb glass mountains to win a princess's hand, and presumably the rest of the princess as well. He had always wondered how it was done. Now he saw the answer. There was a stairway, carved into the mountainside. It wound around the mountain, glittering in the sun.

And it wasn't quite wide enough.

“Just don't look down, Jinx,” said Elfwyn.

“I'm
fine
,” Jinx snapped. He didn't appreciate being reminded that there even
was
a down.

They were escorted by several trolls. The company of trolls takes a lot of getting used to. It wasn't just the way they smelled. There was something very disconcerting about the sound of their gnarled, clawlike toenails on the glass steps.

When they finally reached the top of the stairs, there was a translucent platform, just a few feet square. Jinx backed up against the glass wall of the mountain and looked across, not down. The gray-white winter expanse of Urwald stretched on forever, broken here and there by evergreens.

“Do you mind not standing so close to the edge?” he said.

“We're not,” said Wendell, surprised. “Er, I guess this is where we go in, then.”

Jinx turned, not letting go of the wall, and saw a gap.
It was barely wider and higher than he was. “Not ‘we,'” he said. “I'm going alone.”

“Anyway, you our hostage,” said Sneep, tapping Wendell on the shoulder with a gnarled fingernail. “Make sure magic-boy comes back so's we can eat his arm.”

A breath of warmer air came from the gap. Whatever was in there, Jinx thought, at least he wouldn't have to go down the glass stairway.

He looked at Elfwyn and Wendell, and then at Elfwyn again. Seeing how worried they were didn't help.

“I think I could walk the paths,” said Elfwyn. “Because I've—”

“No,” said Jinx.

He handed her the Glass Ax.

She clutched it tightly. “Jinx, remember the stories.”

“Which ones?” Stories were the last thing he needed to think about right now.

“You can't eat anything they offer you, or you'll be stuck down there.”

“Who's going to offer me anything?” said Jinx. “Anyway I've got a loaf of bread in my pack.”

“Elves, maybe,” said Elfwyn. “And then, um, there's the thing about time.”

Oh yes. The thing about time. In stories, when people came back from the land of elves they found a hundred years had passed in the Urwald. “Well, what am
I supposed to do about that?” he said.

Elfwyn looked miserable. “I don't know.”

“Yeah. Me neither.” He looked at Elfwyn and Wendell again. He had to come back, or the trolls would kill them.

“Don't worry about us,” Wendell murmured in Samaran. “I've got a plan.”

If anything, this made Jinx feel
more
worried. “Right. See you later then.” He turned and ducked quickly into the gap.

And could see absolutely nothing. It was pitch dark.

He turned around and saw Elfwyn's and Wendell's heads silhouetted against the gray winter sky. “What's in there?” said Wendell.

“I can't see anything,” said Jinx.

“Some magician, you,” came Sneep's voice. “Can't even make fire?”

“Of course I can make fire,” said Jinx irritably. “But I need something to burn.”

A troll arm shoved through the gap. “Here. Burn this.”

The arm came accompanied by a rancid smell, and Jinx was afraid “this” might be something foul. But no, it was Sneep's walking stick.

Jinx lit it. “Thanks.”

The walls of a narrow chamber glinted glassily in the torchlight. Jinx looked around. Where was the—ah, there it was. A doorway. And black words printed over it, in Old
Urwish. The paint was peeling, and Jinx had to squint to read what it said:

entry not advisable

Well, duh, Jinx thought. “I'm going in,” he called. “Bye.”

There was a stairway, for a while. Then there was a path. The glassy walls were not quite as close as in Jinx's dreams of walking through ice.

Sometimes the path sloped steeply downward and Jinx sat down and slid, which would have been fun if he hadn't been worried about sudden drop-offs and things like that.

At the bottom of one long, steep slide, he found a heap of bones and a skull.

He stared down at it. Then he picked up the long-extinguished torch that lay beside the bones, stuck it in his belt for later, and walked on.

He could have taken a bone to burn, but he found he . . . couldn't. And anyway (the thought came unbidden) there would probably be others later.

It was some time after that that he heard the trees.