Jinx's Fire (18 page)

“Rufus doesn't
have
a half of the Urwald,” Jinx snapped. “And neither does Reven.”

Helgur made a shut-up gesture. “I'm telling you what they've planned. When the war's over, Keyland and Bragwood will be much, much bigger, and the border between them will be—” He frowned, and looked at Simon. “I'm not sure where exactly—”

“About right here,” said Cottawilda.

“We've got a map,” said small Silas.

“Don't tell them that!” said Jinx.

Small Silas looked stricken, and Jinx felt bad. “I mean, please don't tell them that. They're not on our side.”

“I wouldn't have brought them through the doorpath if they weren't,” said Maud.

“We certainly are,” said Berga indignantly. “Not because it's
your
side. But we are Urwalders.”

“When did you remember that?” said Jinx.

“They knew it all along,” said Wendell. “Or, well, that's how it seems, anyway. I mean—” He looked at Berga, then looked away in embarrassment because she was nursing the baby. He turned to Helgur instead. “You sold supplies to Reven so that you could get information from his soldiers, right? So that they would trust you.”

It was like Wendell to think the best of people; it was one of his more annoying traits. However, Jinx supposed it
could
be true.

“So when is King Rufus supposed to get there?” said Jinx. “Where is he?”

There were replies from all around the crowded kitchen.

“He was around Mangled Nose Clearing six weeks ago.”

“An ogre ate three of his men when they strayed off the path.”

“He laid siege to Dovecote Clearing, and they had to come through the doorpaths. They're living in Cold Oats Clearing now. They built huts.”

“But where is he right now?” Simon demanded.

“I'll find out,” said Jinx. He saw that everyone else believed Helgur and Berga. He supposed he ought to as well.

He went outside to talk to the trees. They didn't pay much attention to the Restless, and usually couldn't tell him where an individual person or werewolf was. But Rufus the Ruthless was a Terror, like Reven and the preceptors. They kept track of Terrors.

Reven's soldiers looked up as Jinx stepped into the ward tunnel. He could talk to the trees here. He used to have to take his boots and socks off and dig his toes into the dirt to hear the trees, but now he heard them as soon as he entered the forest.

Do you know—
he began.

FIRE!
cried the trees.

An Attack of Wizards

W
hat—
said Jinx.

Death! Fire! Pain! Fire!

It was only partly words. Jinx heard flames roaring up his limbs, felt sap bubbling in his veins, smelled smoke and terror and the loss of all hope.

“Where!” He shouted it aloud by accident. He was dimly aware that the soldiers had gathered beside the tunnel and were staring at him. He ran to the Doorway Oak. The fire was . . . west of here, he thought. It was very hard to concentrate, because the flames were licking at his mind.

He stood in the Doorway Oak and dithered. He could see the Doorways he'd made, dozens of them, as a series of
overlapping arches. Which of them was closest to the fire?

Calm down!
he said.
Tell me where it is!

Pain! Where! Agony! Toward the sun, toward the sun and the summertime!

Southwest?
said Jinx. He showed them the forest near Gooseberry Clearing in his head.

Yes, and toward summer! Fire!

South of Gooseberry Clearing?
he asked.

Flames! Pain! Death!

Jinx found the Gooseberry Clearing Doorway amid the overlapping array, and charged through it.

He strode across the bare ground, clear of any huts since the Bonemaster's attack. He could feel the trees' pain and the enormous power of the fire. He tried to draw the flames into himself, but they were much too far away—miles away. He hurried into the forest.

He ran, and stumbled, and walked, and ran again, tripping over roots and logs and getting scratched by thorns without noticing. Once or twice he thought he heard something following him, but he didn't have time to worry about that. The trees needed him.

He smelled smoke. Then he saw it, pouring through the trees. Trying to block the screams of dying trees, he felt for the leaping flames with his mind. Some of them were close enough to reach, and he drew them into him.

The wind blew more smoke toward him. Choking, he
ran through the surging black cloud, trying to get around to where it wasn't. His eyes stung, his lungs felt on fire. He lurched blindly. Then he found himself free of the smoke at last.

He drew in more fire. But more trees were screaming now. . . . The fire was spreading much faster than he could draw it in. This was too slow.

Reaching out with his mind, he seized the fire and sent it deep underground, down to the Path of Fire, down to the deep tunnels through the rock that led to the nadir of all things.

He grabbed more fire. And more. This was a much faster way to get rid of the flames. The Path had far more capacity to hold fire than Jinx did. Acre after flaming acre of fire went underground.

Twice more, the rolling smoke swept over him and he had to move. Then suddenly the climbing flames burst into life right in front of him. He turned and ran, the flames licking and crackling behind him. He stumbled and fell and saw the flames tower above him. Then a sudden gust blew them back. He got up and ran further from the fire, and sent more flames underground.

Finally there began to be less fire. And then Jinx became aware that he wasn't the only one drawing on it.

With a last heave, he gathered what remained of the flames and shoved them down into the Path of Fire. Then
he staggered forward to look at the devastation.

The ground was black and smoking. Red embers crawled among the ash; Jinx sent them underground too. Blackened tree trunks pointed at the sky, their branches gone. The burnt smell was overpowering, and the groans of the trees filled Jinx's ears.

He could see the far side of the charred area—and there were tiny figures standing at the edges. One of them bounced along in giant leaps, as if using a butter churn.

In fact, there were people all around. And one of them was strolling toward him along the near edge. Jinx blinked his stinging eyes and saw Angstwurm's dirty-white robe and square brown beard.

The wizard handed him a goatskin pouch. “First forest fire, eh? Always bring water.”

Jinx took the pouch. It sloshed. There was nothing untrustworthy in Angstwurm's square, smug thoughts; not about the goatskin pouch, anyway. Jinx uncorked it and took a long, grateful swig.

He handed the pouch back. “Thanks.”

“And never approach from the leeward side,” said the wizard. “You look like you've been bathing in soot.”

“Uh-huh.” Jinx was too distracted by the forest's moans and lamentations to attend particularly to Angstwurm.

“Strange how the fire just went out,” said Angstwurm. “We were trying to extinguish it—”

“You were taking power from it!” said Jinx.

“Of course. That's how we extinguish fires. A method beneficial to both the forest and the magician.”

“The fire spreads much faster than a wizard can—” Jinx's throat couldn't handle any more words. He reached for the pouch again, and took a long gulp.

With a thump, a butter churn landed in front of him.

“Little chipmunks shouldn't question customs that have been around much longer than they have,” said Dame Glammer.

“Witches can't draw power from—” Jinx's voice gave out again.

“Chipmunks don't know what witches can do, do they?” She cackled. “Not a wizard's business to know.”

“I'd certainly like to know what you did,” said Angstwurm. “A lot of wizards were relying on that fire's power, you know. And it suddenly vanished.”

Jinx made a gesture showing his throat was too sore to speak. He could see other wizards approaching, all robes and pointy hats in various colors; beards optional.

There were an awful lot of them. A couple of dozen at least.

“Yes, what happened?” demanded one of them.

Jinx's first instinct was to lie. He opened his mouth to say he didn't know what Angstwurm was talking about. Then an angry impulse overruled him. Lying was what
frightened people did, and why should he be frightened? He'd spent too much of his life being afraid already.

“I sent the fire underground,” he said.

Angry murmurs from the wizards.

“Pretty high-handed, wasn't that?” said a light brown wizard in a dark brown robe.

“Unhelpful,” said a short pink woman in a yellow-orange robe and pointy hat. She looked like an upside-down carrot.

“Wants all the power for himself,” said an elderly wizard with a black robe and a beard even longer and whiter than the Bonemaster's. “I've seen his type before.”

“Haven't we all,” said Brown Robes.

“Mean,” said the Carrot.

“Now now,” said Angstwurm. “It's nice to see young people with magical talent. Of course, it's also nice to see young people who respect the superior magical knowledge of their elders.”

“Right,” said the Carrot.

“And if they
don't
have respect, they need to be taught it,” said the elderly wizard.

Jinx scowled at them. He could see from their thoughts that they didn't intend to hurt him—no, he corrected himself, they didn't intend to
kill
him. But they certainly intended to put him in his place, and he was likely to get banged up on the way.

Suddenly Jinx found himself inside a purple glass prison. It was a cube about as tall as he was. But then the ceiling began to drop, slowly. Jinx got to his knees and felt his way into the spell. The ceiling dropped still lower. Jinx hunched down, and began to be very uncomfortable. The box was a sort of ward spell, only with an odd element Jinx couldn't figure out, and the moving ceiling was—not quite a reverse levitation, because it had more force behind it, but . . . Jinx felt his way into it and stopped the ceiling from dropping. Then he pushed it up again.

“Clever.” The Carrot's voice thrummed through the thick purple glass.

“Simon won't like it if you harm his chickabiddy, dearies!”

“Where
is
Simon, then? Nobody's seen him in years. And this jumped-up apprentice has taken over his house and filled it with his cronies.”

Now the ceiling was getting further away. No, wait; the ceiling wasn't moving. Jinx was sinking into the ground. Angstwurm's leaden-legs spell again. Jinx concentrated on reversing it, and thus missed exactly where the screaming goldfishes came from.

There were hundreds of them, darting at his face, biting his ears. Furiously he batted at them, and tried to work his way into the spell, but was distracted by the fact that his purple prison was filling with a nasty, gluey pink liquid
that smelled like pickles. It was already up to his waist.

He got out of the lead-foot spell and struggled goopily to his feet, flailing his arms to repel the goldfish. He couldn't get a grip on the goldfish spell at all. It was partly illusion, and he'd never been able to understand illusions, and. . . .

The temperature inside the purple cube began to drop. It grew colder and colder. Jinx sent fire into the cold, and was still trying to work out what to do about the pink goo when it began to rain spiders.

“What's going on here? Stop it! All of you.” Simon's voice rang through the glass. “You should be ashamed of yourselves. We're at war, and you have nothing better to do than torment a—”

Don't
call me a child, thought Jinx, whacking a goldfish.

“—mere apprentice,” said Simon. “It's disgusting.”

The goldfishes stopped flying, flopped down into the goo, and dissolved.

“Rats,” said the Carrot.

Jinx looked around hastily in case any had appeared. Nope. The goldfishes had been hers—Jinx could feel the short, carroty print of her magic. He brushed spiders off himself and worked his mind into the pink goo spell, which seemed to have come from the elderly black-robed wizard. Jinx gave the spell a little twist and reversed it.

Simon was still haranguing the wizards. Everyone was
shouting at each other, except Dame Glammer, who was merely watching in amusement. The spiders had stopped falling. Jinx looked at the ones scuttling around his feet and decided not to bother with them. The spell he really wanted to undo was the purple prison.

He felt his way into it. It was complicated. It used deathforce, not from a sacrifice, Jinx thought, but from something that was a twist on a sacrifice—perhaps some contact with the ice that had originated in ghast-roots. He touched the wall—it gave a nasty crackle—and pushed fire into it. It began to melt, slowly.

By the time the purple cube was gone, Simon and the wizards had finished yelling.

“We feared for your safety, Simon,” Angstwurm was explaining. “After all, it wouldn't be the first time an apprentice has—”

“Not
my
apprentice,” said Simon.

“How did you manage to undo my purple prison, Simon?” said the wizard in the dark brown robes, aggrieved. “No one has ever been able to even touch it.”

“That's for me to know and you not to know,” said Simon. “Now, are we done playing childish tricks? Because we're at war—”

“We know that,” said Angstwurm. “We're not fools. We've seen the soldiers.”

“And this is the fifth fire in the last month,” said the
black-robed wizard. “Where've
you
been, Simon?”

“Absent,” said the Carrot.

“Who set this fire?” Jinx demanded. He knew fires were sometimes started naturally, by lightning or firebirds. But not at this time of year.

“One of King Rufus the Ruthless's ruffians,” said Angstwurm, sparing him a glance.

“How do you know?” said Jinx.

Angstwurm smiled a thin little smile. “Your apprentice could stand to listen more and talk less, Simon.”

Jinx gritted his teeth with fury. Dame Glammer gave him a grin that was like a silent cackle.

“How do you know who set it?” Simon repeated levelly.

Angstwurm shrugged. “The fires follow the army. They always start a few hours after the Bragwood army has passed through. I assume they leave someone behind to set them. We've been running our legs off, fighting them—”

“Fighting the armies?” said Simon, with a little blup of surprise.

“Fighting the fires, of course. Dame Glammer”—Angstwurm nodded in her direction—“graciously guides us through the new magic Doorways.”

Jinx worried about this. Every Urwalder should know where the Doorways were. That was the point of them.
But he wasn't sure he liked the idea of all these wizards learning KnIP.

“Why aren't you fighting against the army?” said Simon.

“Well, we've talked that over—” said Angstwurm.

“Discussed it at some length,” said the elderly wizard. “Pros and cons.”

“The need to preserve the autonomy of the individual magician,” said Brown Robes.

“Freedom,” said the Carrot.

“The witches, too, have expressed diverse opinions,” said the wizard in black.

“The fact is,” Angstwurm went on, “we've more or less reached a conclusion that, while wizards don't usually mix with unmagical folk—”