Jinx's Fire (27 page)

“Thank you,” he said.

Everyone exchanged worried looks. They weren't used to hearing Simon say such things.

Simon put out his hand, and experimentally, cast a spell. Jinx could see it was a levitation spell. Simon was trying to levitate a fallen log.

And he did. The log flew high into the air. They all looked up as it became a stick in the distance, then a twig, then a dot against the deep October sky.

Then it came plummeting down again. They scattered as it hit the earth, nearly burying itself. It boinged into the air again, then careened off at an angle, smacked into a tree,
ricocheted, and flew toward them. They threw themselves on the ground as the log whizzed overhead. Jinx heard twigs snap as it crashed into another tree.

“Stop it!” said Sophie.

Dame Glammer cackled.

Dame Esper grinned and waved her hands, and the log fell harmlessly to the ground.

“Hm,” said Simon. “Well, I'm sure it will all come back to me eventually.”

Everyone gathered up the bits of magical paraphernalia and headed back to Simon's clearing. Simon and Sophie led the way, arm in arm, with Simon looking preternaturally cheerful and agreeable. Jinx assumed it wouldn't last.

He stayed behind to thank the trees for their help, and to remind them that there was one other important spell he needed to do.

When he got back to Simon's clearing, where the goats and chickens once more wandered freely, he saw the fierce-looking little apprentice witch eyeing the butter churns parked beside the door.

Dame Glammer and Dame Esper were talking to Witch Seymour outside his shed. Dame Esper turned around.

“Gertrude!” she screeched. “Get away from those churns or I'll turn you into a toad!”

The girl scowled. She went into Simon's house, slamming the door behind her.

Jinx went over to the witches. “That girl, Gertrude. Did you find her abandoned in the forest?”

“Find?” Dame Esper frowned at him. “And what if I did? Finders keepers. Anybody that
left
her in the forest had better not think they're getting her back!”

“I agree,” said Jinx. “I just wondered, that's all.”

Dame Esper gave him a mistrustful look and hurried into the house, perhaps to guard her apprentice against any sudden claims.

Whitlock the goat wandered over and chewed thoughtfully on Jinx's bootlace.

Jinx smiled to himself. Well, good. He'd found Gertrude. And she might well be the oldest Urwalder with two living parents. But Jinx didn't intend to tell those parents, because they were Bergthold and Cottawilda. He'd tell his stepsister that they existed. Just in case she wanted to know.

He turned to Dame Glammer. “Why did you, um—”

The two witches were staring at him. Jinx hated being stared at by witches, because it always made him feel that he was being weighed and found ridiculous.

He plunged on. “Why did you say I'd never be a wizard?”

“Not that sort of magician are you, chipmunk?” said Dame Glammer. She tried to chuck him under the chin, but Jinx was ready for that and took a hasty step backward.
“More of a Listener than a wizard, aren't you?”

“I suppose,” said Jinx.

“Why would one want to be a wizard, anyway?” asked Witch Seymour.

Jinx shrugged and went into the house. He might become a wizard. You can't if you think you can't, and Jinx rather thought he could.

Where the Path Begins

J
inx had been avoiding it. He knew he had. But you have to face up to what you've done, including turning people into trees. He shouldered a shovel and walked out into the Edgeland, among the silver-blue stumps and the blackberry canes, until he came to a slender green sapling.

Ash trees grow very fast. The tree was already as tall as Jinx. He curled his fingers around the smooth green trunk and felt the tree's lifeforce. Its roots just touched some of the outer roots of the Urwald, and Jinx's power wasn't as strong here as it would be in among the tall trees.

I'm going to need to dig you up,
said Jinx.

The tree murmured in protest. It liked where it was.

Just to make sure the spell works,
said Jinx.
I want to carry you to where the lifeforce is stronger.

The lifeforce is strong here. I am alive.

I know, but . . . look, Siegfried—

I remember Siegfried,
said the tree.

Well, I've come to turn you back into him. I—

No.

I'm pretty sure I can do it,
said Jinx.
It should just be a matter of—

I refuse,
said the sapling.
I remember Siegfried. I do not wish to be him.

Well, he was kind of obnoxious,
Jinx agreed.
But—

Siegfried always
wanted
something,
said the ash.
And as soon as he had it, he wanted something else. He was never happy with what he had. I am happy. I have everything, and I am the Urwald.

I see,
said Jinx.

He argued a little more, for form's sake. But it was quite clear that Siegfried wished to remain a tree.

Meetings happened. They went on all through the fall and into the winter. There was a lot of shouting, several knock-down-drag-out fights, and a prodigious amount of voting. Then people realized that it was almost time for spring planting, and that new huts were going to have to be built,
and that they generally had other things they'd rather do than stand around arguing.

“We could have a council,” Sophie suggested. “Each clearing could elect someone to the council—”

“What about the werewolves?” said Malthus. “Someone needs to represent werewolves.”

“Yes, of course,” said Sophie. “Each werewolf pack should send someone, and—”

“Trolls,” said Sneep.

“Oh, yes,” said Sophie. “Of course, each, er—”

“Clan,” Sneep supplied.

“Clan of trolls, yes—” said Sophie.

“Magicians,” said the Carrot.

“Right,” said Sophie. “Magicians can, um, send a representative, and—”

“One scarcely cares to be represented by a wizard,” said Witch Seymour.

“Yes, all right, a representative for wizards and a different one for witches, then,” said Sophie.

“Trees,” said Jinx. “The trees need to be represented. There's more of them than of anyone else.”

“Nobody can talk to them except you,” said Sophie.

Jinx sighed. He did hate meetings, but there seemed to be no avoiding them. “All right. So I will.”

“We need to write this all down,” said Malthus. A notebook had appeared in his hand. “We should have a
written document that tells how the council's going to be constituted, and then how the laws are going to be constituted—”

“Who said we need laws?” someone asked.

“We do,” said Malthus. “To protect the rights of the individual.”

Somehow, looking at Malthus's fangs, you did sort of want your individual rights protected.

“For example,” said Malthus, “I was thinking of something along the lines of ‘A well-regulated diet being necessary to the health of a werewolf, the right of the people to eat each other shall not be infringed.'”

“We need a law,” said Jinx, “saying that people can't abandon their children in the forest.”

“Why?” said Cottawilda. “
You
did pretty well out of it.”

“That doesn't matter,” said Jinx. “Most of the kids get eaten.”

“The Urwald hasn't gotten any bigger,” said a woman. “What are people supposed to do when they've got more children than the clearings can hold?”

“Maybe they shouldn't
have
more children than the clearings can hold,” said Jinx.

“Oh, now you've done it,” muttered Simon, who was standing nearby. And the whole meeting dissolved into screaming and shoving, with Elfwyn and Jinx hastily
levitating all the dishes up to the loft so they wouldn't get broken.

Sophie was determined to start a school. Jinx agreed with her. He figured the Listeners had died out partly because Urwalders seldom lived long enough to pass on any kind of knowledge—and Listeners needed knowledge. Knowledge was power. Future Listeners shouldn't have to figure everything out for themselves, as Jinx had.

Besides, it would be nice if people learned to read, and learned about the world outside, and learned to be just a little less afraid of everything.

“I myself would like to teach a course on Urwish history,” said Malthus. “I've done considerable research on the subject.”

“Er,” said Sophie. Jinx could see from the shape of her thoughts that she didn't wish to offend. “I'm not sure werewolves—er—”

“Oh, you can't have a school without werewolves,” said Malthus. “Werewolves can be very helpful in dealing with problem students.”

“What was the last Listener's name?” said Jinx. It bothered him not to know.

“Matilda,” said Malthus promptly. “She closed the portals to Samara.”

“How did she do that?” said Jinx. “A KnIP spell can't be undone.”

“I have a treatise on it in my library,” said Malthus. “I can lend it to you, if you're interested. And if you're careful not to spill anything on it.”

“Thanks,” said Jinx.

“It was the great battle of her time, as this”—Malthus waved a claw vaguely at the forest—“was the great battle of ours.”

“So at least someone remembers her,” said Jinx.

“Oh my yes. She was a hero. There's a song, too. The chorus goes ‘O, Matilda was a brave woman/And she would have been crunchy to eat.'” He tilted his head at Jinx thoughtfully. “It makes sense if you're a werewolf.”

Sophie insisted on calling the school the University of the Urwald. But everyone else called it Bonesocket, because that was where it was.

The Wanderers had come back. Jinx showed them the doorpaths, and explained how their merchandise could be passed through from one Doorway to another.

“What's the point of that?” said Tolliver.

“It saves a lot of time,” said Jinx.

“Yeah? And then what?” said Tolliver.

“Wandering is what Wanderers
do
,” Quenild explained.

Jinx hadn't realized that before. But now he did.

“If the Urwald no longer needs our services—” Quenild began.

“We do!” said Jinx hastily. If nothing else, he realized,
the Urwalders needed to see outsiders regularly. Urwalders were in constant danger of becoming too . . . Urwish. “But we might want to trade through the doorpaths ourselves, just to move the sugarplum syrup to Keyland,” he said. “Because we can sell that for a lot more than you've been paying us.”

This remark set off a hubbub of remonstrance from the Wanderers, which eventually led to meetings, arguments, more meetings, and an enormous amount of voting.

And Satya was right. There had to be treaties. The first one was with Reven—King Raymond of Keyland, rather. And that was mostly a matter of getting Keyland to give up all claim to the Edgeland. Wendell, Sophie, and Hilda—and Nick, on crutches—went to King Raymond's palace in Keyland and worked this out. Jinx didn't really understand how it was done, but for some reason it involved the prices of glass and sugarplum syrup.

The treaty with King Rufus the Ruthless had yet to be made. It was still in the shouting stages.

The preceptors let it be known, via a note posted in the hallway of the Samaran prison and visible through the KnIP portal Jinx had made, that Samara would like to establish diplomatic relations with the free and independent nation of the Urwald. Jinx was almost 100 percent against this. Except that there was the matter of Nick's leg. If
a Samaran surgeon could help Nick—and all the other Urwalders who'd been injured in the war—then maybe it was worth thinking about.

And then he remembered how the preceptors had looked at the trees in the Urwald and calculated how much money they were worth, and he was back to being 100 percent against it.

Well, the new Urwish council would decide the matter. Eventually.

And, of course, there was the treaty with the trees, which was the most important one of all. Jinx told the council what the trees wanted, and then he told the trees what the council wanted. He did a lot of running back and forth. People listened to him. People did listen when you had the ability to turn millions of trees into deadly weapons.

And that was the wrong reason. But it would have to do for now.

And with all of that, a year had come and gone in the free and independent nation of the Urwald. The paths had been restored, for those who needed them. Unfortunately, that seemed to be a lot of people—some folks just couldn't get the hang of the doorpaths. Jinx had taught a course at Bonesocket in how to use them, and he'd be teaching another one soon. He'd found he was pretty good at
teaching, except that he tended to lose patience with his students now and then.

At least people weren't quite as bound to their own clearings as they had been. The war had shaken them up a bit. Jinx and Elfwyn sat in an ancient maple tree a little way off the path, and watched through the leaves. There was actual traffic. A party of Wanderers passed by, their wagon wheels creaking.

“So this Presider they're talking about having, to stop the fights in the Council meetings,” said Jinx. “I guess people want it to be you.”

“I know,” said Elfwyn. “I'm not sure if
I'd
like it, though.”

“Having people ask you questions all the time,” said Jinx.

“Yes,” said Elfwyn. “Although they do that anyway, so in a way . . .” Her thoughts went green and blue and mused around each other. “I might like it.”

“They wouldn't want me to be Presider,” said Jinx.

“Of course not,” said Elfwyn. “You're the most powerful magician in the Urwald. That's kind of scary. Not to me,” she added hastily. “But to people.”

They watched the people walking along the path.

“I hate my curse,” said Elfwyn. “Even if I have learned to use it.” She sighed. “If this was a story that was coming to an end, then my curse would be magically fixed because
everything would have to come out exactly right for everybody. But real life isn't like that, and sometimes you just live with things.”

Jinx looked at her fingers intertwined with his. No, this wasn't a story, and it wasn't coming to an end. If it were a story, he supposed, then the evil King Raymond would have been vanquished along with the other evil kings. Instead, the probably-okay King Raymond owed his throne to the Urwald. And the peace with Keyland might last for years, as long as Reven remembered what the Urwald could do to him.

King Rufus of Bragwood was a bit more of a problem, of course. But at least he was out of the Urwald for now.

And Wendell was still trying to get Satya to quit the Mistletoe Alliance, and Satya was clenching her teeth and refusing. Jinx couldn't guess how that story would end.

“And what about Simon's magic?” Jinx forgot himself and made it a question.

“I don't know. He still might get it under control. And if not, he can just keep busy with his cooking, and bossing people around. And he can look after his baby, once it's born. It's not just Sophie's job, you know.”

“I never said it was,” said Jinx, amused. “But any kid Simon looks after will have to be awfully good at looking after itself.”

“Don't leave the path!”

A tiny child about two years old came careening down the path. Behind it, its mother was yelling.

But the child did leave the path. It veered off into the woods, where it tripped over a tree root and went sprawling. It stared around, stunned, but didn't cry. Urwish children seldom cried.

Jinx jumped down, and went over and picked the child up. Its mother, who had stayed on the path, looked absolutely horrified to see her baby in the arms of a powerful magician.

“Don't leave the path!” she cried again.

Jinx took the child back to its mother. But first, he told it a secret.

“You'll never get anywhere unless you do.”