Jinx's Magic (10 page)

“Siegfried,” said Jinx.

“Nonsense,” said Simon. “He's not dead, and you'll figure out a way to turn him back eventually. Besides, you didn't do it on purpose, and you didn't do it for yourself. Nothing like the Bonemaster.”

“Oh, great, so I'm not as evil as the Bonemaster.”

“Yes. That was my point. And by the way, this tendency to wallow in self-pity is not your best quality,” said Simon.

“What is, then?” said Jinx, curious.

“You get things done.”

“I get things
done
? That's
it
?”

“What, you'd rather be admired than useful?” said Simon. “Plenty of people are neither.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Now, do we need to stand around here soaking our feet in the snow, or can we go home?”

“We can go home,” said Jinx.

And they did.

12

The Eldritch Tome

“Y
ou can't go after the Bonemaster without me,” said Jinx.

They were in Simon's workroom, and Simon was stacking up books that he wanted Jinx to study.

“No? Am I not old enough?” Simon flipped a book open, frowned at it, and added it the stack.

“I thought we were both going to go after him.”

“Think again,” said Simon. “It's always been my plan to send you to Samara. Anyway, I thought you wanted to go.”

“I did. Before. But there's stuff here I have to do. And you need my help.”

“Yes. Here's the help I need,” said Simon. “I need you to go to Samara, enroll at the Temple—”

“But you need my help to catch the Bonemaster!”

“—and use the library there to find out everything you can about the Qunthk bottle spell.”

“What's Qunthk?”

“The language the spell is in.”

“But you already have a book about the bottle spell.”

“Yes. The Crimson Grimoire. But it doesn't tell enough. It doesn't explain what he's done to his own life . . . that strange bottle you said you saw in his cellar last summer.”

“It wasn't a cellar,” said Jinx. “It was more of a horrible underground-passage kind of crypt thing. And I
did
see it.”

“That's what I said. If we don't figure out what he's done, we can't defeat him. There will be other Qunthk books at the Temple. There's one in particular—”

“Why didn't you look for it when you were there?”

“Because, if it's any of your business, I was more interested in other things at the time.”

“What other things?” said Jinx.

“Finding the healing magic, for one thing.”

“What's the healing magic?”

“I don't know, because I didn't find it,” said Simon.

“Should I try to find it?”

“No, you should try to learn about the bottle spell! And learn everything else about magic that you can. Learn KnIP.”

KnIP—Knowledge is Power. Sophie had told Jinx that KnIP was Samaran magic. “But magic's illegal in Samara!”

“Very. Don't get caught. Now, let's assume I can count on you for that. You're to—”

“Won't they recognize me?” said Jinx. “They all saw me last year.”

“That wasn't even close to all of them,” said Simon. “And I doubt they'll remember you. They don't look at people much.”

“They remembered you,” said Jinx.

“Didn't they just.” Simon added several more books to the pile and frowned at Jinx. “Hm. Well, you've grown, haven't you?”

“Probably not,” said Jinx. “I think I'm shrinking.”

“No one will have really looked at you,” said Simon. “They recognized me because I was there for years. And you won't see much of the scribes in the hall, anyway.”

“What about that Preceptress lady?”

“Oh, you'll probably see her here and there making speeches. Just sit near the back and don't let her get a good look at you.”

This didn't sound like much of a plan to Jinx. “If I came with you to look for the Bonemaster—”

“I said no,” Simon snapped.

“But—”

“Look. Where do you think he's likely to be?”

“I don't know.” Jinx imagined the Bonemaster running through the Urwald from one clearing to another, killing everyone. But wizards wanted power. If the Bonemaster killed all the people in all the clearings, then who would he have power over? “Maybe he'll be back at Bonesocket?”

“That would be my guess also. And where is Bonesocket?”

“In the Canyon of—oh.”

“I assume you can't use your tree power in there among the rocks, or you would have done a better job of escaping from him than you did.”

“I escaped from him!”

“In several pieces, yes. Very impressive. No, you're going to Samara, and I'm going to Bonesocket.”

“If I can't use the trees' power in the canyon,” said Jinx, thinking aloud, “then I couldn't have helped you strengthen the wards anyway.”

“There are ways to move power,” said Simon.

“Then why can't I—”

“Because,” said Simon. “You are going to be in Samara, learning KnIP.”

“You're thinking that you're going to kill him,” Jinx said. “You can't kill him! He's tied your death to his.”

“And? How many Cold Oats Clearings am I worth?”

“But . . .” Jinx was getting seriously upset. He didn't want Simon to die.

“I'll try to imprison him if I can. If I can't, I'll kill him. You, meanwhile,” said Simon, “are going to be in another world, out of his reach.”

“Maybe I'll follow you,” said Jinx.

“Maybe you won't.”

“If
I
killed him, would the curse still—”

“You're not going to kill him. He has undoubtedly bound your death to his as well. He would have taken care of that while you were his prisoner last summer.”

“Oh,” said Jinx.

He had a feeling that the Bonemaster was his responsibility, more than Simon's, but he wasn't sure why. It was all mixed up somehow with his almost-memory of elves.

“If there's a way to undo a deathbinding curse, you'll find it in the Temple libraries,” said Simon. “Probably in a Qunthk book. There's a source some of the other Qunthk books refer to. It's called”—Simon made a sound as if he had a fishbone stuck in his throat.

“It's called
what
?”

“In Urwish, it's called the Eldritch Tome.”

“The Eldritch Tome? And it's in the Temple library?”

“I don't know. But if it is, find it.”

“What if it isn't?”

“Then you won't find it. But you're to stay there until you're sent for.”

“How can I be sent for if you're dead?” Jinx demanded.

“The Bonemaster doesn't want to kill me. I'm worth nothing to him dead. He wants the bottle with my captive life back.” Simon selected a very thick book bound in dragonskin, and added it to the stack. “And he's not going to get that. I expect to survive.”

Jinx looked at the pile of books and felt hopeless. “You know what I think?”

“I can scarcely wait to find out.”

“I think the Bonemaster, well, like, wiped out Cold Oats Clearing because he
wanted
you to come after him,” said Jinx.

“That strikes me as extremely likely.”

“So you'll be walking right into a trap.”

“A trap for him, or for me?” said Simon.

“For you!”

Simon handed Jinx the book. “Put that on the pile.”

The pile had grown too high for Jinx to reach the top. “What's in all these books?”

“Things you have to know to be admitted to the Temple.”

“You mean they might not let me in?”

“They'll let you in. There's a test, that's all.”

“What if I fail it?”

“You'd better not.”

Jinx levitated the book to the top of the pile. The whole stack teetered for a moment, and then it collapsed, sending books cascading everywhere. Jinx ducked a flying volume. All the cats fled the room.

“Your job is to study these books, pass the test, get into the Temple, find the Eldritch Tome, and learn about the bottle spell. And learn KnIP.” Simon turned to go. “Oh, and pick those books up.”

Furious, Jinx levitated all the books with a whoosh and dumped them on the workbench.

 

Before Simon left, he taught Jinx two small spells. One was the word for opening the hiding place inside the thirteenth step in the south tower staircase. The word was
khththllkh
, and Jinx had to practice several times before he said it right.

Simon reached in and took out a green bottle. They both watched the tiny figure of Simon pacing around in a circle at the bottom of the bottle. This was Simon's lifeforce. The Bonemaster had bottled it years ago, when Simon was his apprentice.

Putting Simon's lifeforce back into Simon would require a talented wizard. Jinx was supposed to become that wizard. Someday.

“If—” said Jinx.

“Then you're to smash the bottle,” said Simon.

“But can't I—”

“Not yet, you can't,” said Simon. “You haven't learned enough.”

“I could at least try,” said Jinx.

“No, you couldn't. There are too many ways to mess it up if you don't know what you're doing.”

Simon put the bottle back under the step. Jinx said
khththllkh
backward to lock the hiding place.

The other new spell was the one for watching Reven.

It involved putting another aviot on the stone sill, gazing into the Farseeing Window, and concentrating on Reven's aviot, the one Jinx had planted on him.

It wasn't that hard, as spells went, and Jinx got it right by feeling his way inside it. Reven appeared in the window, walking beside a river in the snow, hand in hand with Elfwyn.

“But where are they?” said Jinx.

“It appears to be Keyland,” said Simon.

“Well, yeah, but what part?” It had been three weeks since Jinx had turned Siegfried into a tree. He knew Reven had left the Urwald, and not returned. The trees would have told Jinx if the Terror had come back. But what was he doing? Had he allied himself with Sir Thrip and Lord Badgertoe? Had he got followers? Had he taken all those abandoned axes as weapons for his revolution?

“The window doesn't really tell you much, does it?” said Jinx.

“Only what it wants to.”

“The thing about Reven is he knows how to . . . work people.” Jinx stared at Elfwyn and Reven, still trudging along in the snow. “Elfwyn said she wanted to learn magic and get her curse taken off her, but instead she's following Reven around and—” Jinx couldn't think how to explain the situation without admitting that he could see thoughts. “Following him.”

“That's her choice,” said Simon.

“But she's being really stupid about Reven!”

“You'll find, as you get older, that there's an area of life in which there are boundless opportunities for stupidity,” said Simon.

“But I told her what he's like!”

“I'm sure
that
went over well. Are we through here?”

“I guess,” said Jinx.

Simon handed Jinx the aviot, and Jinx stuck it in his pocket.

13

Through the Door

“I
expect to reach Bonesocket by dawn,” said Simon. “The Bonemaster could die any time after that, and if he's tied your death to his, I'm not sure what will happen. I want you out of the Urwald by midnight tonight. You'll stay in my house in Samara. Don't come back for any reason. Not even for an instant.”

“What about the animals?” said Jinx.

“Ermentraud will look after them.” Ermentraud was a woodcutter's wife who was their closest neighbor.

Simon dumped a handful of Samaran money on the kitchen table—a couple of gold birds, a bunch of silver snakes, and some copper crescent-moon shapes. “You'll need to buy some Samaran clothes. You can get your food in the marketplace, but stay away from the Temple until the term starts. You're supposed to have just come from Angara.”

Jinx stuck his finger into a coiled silver snake. “Why?”

“Because nobody really knows much about Angara. It's a little backwater country a few hundred miles north of Samara. And they speak Herwa there, which you more or less know. And if you seem strange—which you will—people will put it down to your being Angaran and not very bright.”

He handed Jinx a slim volume called
Sojourn Among Savages
. “Here's a book about Angara. Study it when you're done studying the other stuff.”

“I'm never going to be done studying the other stuff,” said Jinx, looking at the piles of books.

“Just don't take any of those books out of the Samaran house. Don't take them to the Temple with you.”

“Why not?”

“Because books are viewed with great suspicion in Samara.”

“Then why—”

“A lot of things aren't going to make sense,” said Simon. “Just keep quiet and wait until they do. Be polite and don't call attention to yourself. Bow to any scholar above you in rank, which will be all of them. And—”

“I don't want to bow,” said Jinx.

“Do it anyway. You're playing a role. Nobody must find out you're from the Urwald. They don't know there's any way to get to the Urwald, and you're not going to tell them. Oh, and absolutely do not do any magic. At all. Magic is highly illegal and you can be put to death for it.”

“And you're sending me there to learn magic.”

“Yes,” said Simon.

“Wonderful,” said Jinx.

“And watch your mouth. In fact, I can't send you there if you can't watch your mouth.”

Anything Jinx might say to this would be taken as evidence that he couldn't watch his mouth. He glared at Simon.

“Good,” said Simon. “And take this.”

Jinx took it—a letter to Simon's wife. There had been lots of early versions of the letter that had gotten crumpled up and thrown into the air, where they burst into silver flames and then rained down as glittering pink ashes. This final version was sealed seventeen times with enchanted red wax.

“Give it to Sophie immediately,” said Simon. “And don't read it, or—”

“You'll turn me into a toad.” Jinx was looking forward to seeing Sophie again. She'd always been kind to him. Simon was kind too, Jinx supposed—but Sophie was actually nice about it. She never said “
drop the attitude”
or “
because I said so
.”

Besides, he could ask her stuff. Though he supposed he could try asking Simon. “Have you ever talked to a werewolf?”

Simon gave him an odd look. “Of course not.”

“I did,” said Jinx.

“Nonsense. You wouldn't be standing here with all your pieces still attached if you had.”

“But I did,” Jinx insisted. “After, um, Siegfried . . . when I was wandering around, I met a werewolf. He told me I had to figure out what a Listener is.”

“Were you hungry and tired?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“You hallucinated a talking werewolf. And Listeners are just an old legend.”

Jinx tried again. “What about elves?”

“What about them? They're dangerous. You'd better not try talking to them either,” said Simon. “Here's twenty aviots to pay for your tuition at the Temple.”

The gold was cold and very heavy in Jinx's hand. “It costs that much?”

“Yes,” said Simon. “So don't screw up.”

Jinx thought of something Reven had said. Simon
was
rich. Most magicians were merely comfortable.

“Why do you have so much money? And, like, this house and stuff?” Jinx asked.

“I inherited it.”

“But your dad, um, only just died.”

“And wouldn't have left me anything if he'd had it,” said Simon. “It was left to me, if you must know, by the great wizard Egbert Magus.”

“Who was he?”

“A magician who took me in after I left the Bone-master. On his good days, he tried to teach me everything he knew.”

“What about his bad days?”

“On his bad days, he generally thought he was an onion.”

“That's awful,” said Jinx.

“No, it's not. What was awful was when he thought he was a potato masher.”

“Oh.”

“He always said to me, ‘Mildred, one day this will all be yours.'” Simon made a wide gesture, encompassing books, cats, and the door to Samara.

“Er, he called you Mildred?”

“Often as not.”

“Maybe he really meant to leave everything to Mildred,” said Jinx.

“If she ever shows up, we'll talk,” said Simon. “But I think she may have been a dog he once had.”

“Oh,” said Jinx. “Um, was that why you went to Samara to find the healing magic? For Egbert?”

“Yes.”

Jinx was relieved to hear this. He'd been afraid, for a minute there, that Egbert had become Calvin. “So you didn't, like—”

But no, there was a familiar blue glow when Simon spoke of Egbert the Onion. It seemed he had been genuinely fond of him.

“Didn't what?”

“Didn't find the healing magic,” Jinx amended.

“Of course not. They keep it well hidden.”

“Why?”

“Oh yes,” said Simon. “Why. Wait till you get to Samara. Then you'll see.”

“I'm coming back pretty soon, though, right?” Jinx had frantic thoughts of Reven and the Bonemaster.

“You're staying there as long as it takes.”

“To find the Eldritch thing?”

“You're to bring me the Eldritch Tome immediately.”

“But taking the book—isn't that stealing?”

“Wait till you've been there a little while. Then tell me whether you think taking a book from the Temple is stealing.”

“But . . . what if you don't come back?” said Jinx.

“Sophie'll look after you.”

“I don't need to be looked after!” said Jinx. “I didn't mean that.”

“Then you'll look after her. Anyway, you can stay on in Samara. Become one of those Temple things, like Sophie.”

“I can't do that,” said Jinx. There was too much that needed doing here—too many threats. Lumberjacks, Reven, the Bonemaster. Once again he had that odd feeling that the Bonemaster was
his
responsibility.

“Just make sure you're out of the Urwald by midnight,” said Simon. “And don't worry about me. I'll come back.”

 

After Simon left, Jinx began to have second thoughts. He should have insisted on going with him, deathbinding spell or no. It was true that the Urwald's power was making Jinx do frightening, unpredictable things, but he wouldn't mind doing a few unpredictable things to the Bonemaster.

On the one hand, Jinx wondered if he ought to follow Simon and insist on helping him. On the other hand, he had a pretty good idea of how much Simon would appreciate that. On the third—well, moving on to feet, then—it didn't matter whether Simon appreciated it or not. Jinx didn't want Simon to get killed. It wasn't like Jinx could necessarily do anything to
prevent
it, of course, but—

There came a familiar pounding on the door. Jinx groaned inwardly and went to open it.

“Hello, chipmunk!”

Dame Glammer stood there in the deep blue evening, just as she had when Jinx had first seen her many years ago—snow swirling around her butter churn.

“Come in,” said Jinx, standing aside. He didn't want her here, he really didn't, but magicians had to be hospitable. It was a rule.

She took off her wraps and dumped them on him. “Simon here? I'll be staying the night. Where's my granddaughter?”

“Don't you know?” said Jinx. “Hasn't the Witchline told you?”

“Ah, you've been traveling.” She chucked him under the chin, which Jinx hated. “And become such a clever little chipmunk! Know all about the Witchline now, do you?”

Jinx went over and busied himself at the fire, to avoid being chinchucked anymore. “Do you want some—kind of soup stuff?”

Cooking was something he was even worse at than spells. Throwing everything into a pot and boiling it didn't seem to do the trick, somehow.

Dame Glammer sniffed at the pot and wrinkled her enormous nose. “No, I'll whip something up, chipmunk. You go back to your stacks and stacks and stacks of books. Where's Simon?”

“Around. I'll make up the spare room for you,” said Jinx. He didn't want to tell her Simon wasn't here. He found her frightening.

He went to look for blankets. He didn't like the idea of being alone in the house with her. But it was all right, he told himself. Dame Glammer was an old friend of Simon's. And just because she was also an old friend of the Bonemaster's didn't mean—well.

Jinx really wished she wasn't there.

But when he came back out to the kitchen, she'd made some sort of thing with onions and potatoes happen, and an omelet, and there was a smell of apples baking in the oven.

Which did make up, a little, for having to be cackled at.

Jinx pushed some books out of the way, dislodged a cat, and set the table.

“Simon! Dinner time!” the witch called merrily as she scooped fried potatoes and onions onto Jinx's plate. “No, he's not here, is he, chipmunk? He'd never have let me so much as peel an onion if he was.”

That was true. Simon couldn't stand to see other people cook, because they did it all wrong.

“Now, I wonder where he's gone,” said Dame Glammer, as a cat hopped into her lap and another curled around her ankles. “Can he have gone after the Bonemaster?”

“I don't know,” said Jinx. The omelet was pretty decent, and the potato stuff was really good.

“And did my granddaughter stay in Keyland with that very ambitious young chickabiddy? She's as much of a fool as her mother was. Doesn't she want to be a witch?”

Jinx rather thought Elfwyn wanted to be a wizard. But anyway, he could agree she was a fool. “She wants to get rid of her truth-telling curse.”

“Does she?” Dame Glammer cackled.

Annoyed, Jinx added, “And she knows where she got it from, too.”

But that just made Dame Glammer cackle more. “And she still thinks she can get rid of it? Well, I don't know how staying in Keyland will help.”

“
Can
she get rid of it?” said Jinx. “Will you take it off her?”

Dame Glammer grinned. “Why don't you stick to your own concerns, chipmunk? What an awful lot of books you have. Are they magic?”

“No,” said Jinx. They were not, not a single one of them. “You know what the Bonemaster
did
, right? You must have heard about it on the Witchline.”

Dame Glammer frowned, an unusual expression for her. “Magicians don't interfere with each other.”

Jinx clenched his fists. “We can't let him just go around killing people. We have to stop him. We have to all get together and stop him. And Reven—”

He tried to explain to her that the Urwald was being threatened, from within and without, by the Bonemaster and lumberjacks and Reven. But it was just like it had been talking to everyone else.

“Urwalders don't get together,” she said. “We like
space
, dearie. We like to mind our own business, and have others mind theirs.”

She sniffed. “I think those apples are done. Why don't you go get them, chipmunk?”

The baked apples were bubbling with cinnamon. Jinx burned his fingers on them. He dug his spoon into apple mush. “Do you know anything about elves?”

“They're neither dead nor alive, and they're best left alone.”

“Why? What can they do to you?” said Jinx.

“Carry you off to the Eldritch Depths. Turn you into a little crystal chipmunk, and put you in their glass gardens.”

“Would they ever, like, talk to someone?”

“No chipmunk had better talk to them, if he knows what's good for him. Simon doesn't want you turned into a garden ornament, does he? Where
is
Simon, chipmunk?”

“Around,” said Jinx. “So, like, what about werewolves?”

“What about them, dearie? Why do you want to talk to elves and werewolves?” She cackled. “You have enough troubles. More than you know, chipmunk. You don't need to go looking for more.”

She was no help. Well, soon Jinx would see Sophie again. Sophie was a scholar, she'd studied the Urwald and its ways, and she always took Jinx seriously.

She could answer his questions if anybody could.

 

It was almost midnight. Dame Glammer was snoring loudly in one of the north tower rooms. Jinx didn't much like leaving her alone in the house, but at least Simon's bottled life was safe in the south wing. The front door would let in the people it knew—Simon's witch friends, and Elfwyn if she chose to come. And Reven, Jinx realized. But this door that led to the workroom and the secret entrance to Samara was more selective. It knew only Jinx, Simon, and Sophie.

Jinx looked around Simon's workroom. He'd put all Simon's stuff away on the shelves. The only thing left on the workbench was Calvin.