Jinx

by Sage Blackwood

  “Easy, Jinx,” said Reven. “Hold on to the bones, not the ropes.”

  “Do be careful,” said the Bonemaster. “It would make such an unsightly mess if you fell.”

  Jinx did as Reven suggested and held on to the bones, climbing the bridge like a ladder. He wasn’t afraid of heights, really—well, he never had been before.

  At last he saw Elfwyn, just ahead of him, reach the top. Then he did. He crawled off the bridge onto what should have been solid stone. But the ground rocked like a cradle. Jinx stayed on his hands and knees. He couldn’t have stood up if he’d wanted to, because he wasn’t sure which direction was up.

  “Oh dear. Not got a head for heights, I see, Jinx. I fear you may not enjoy your stay in my little abode, then.”

  “Jinx, what’s the matter?” Elfwyn’s voice seemed to echo from far away.

  “It’s just vertigo,” said Reven.

  Just vertigo? It felt worse than anything since the day Simon had taken his magic.

  “You ready to get up? Take your time,” said Reven.

  Jinx let Reven help him and was very relieved that standing didn’t make him throw up. The ground had stopped rocking, and he could see Reven and Elfwyn looking at him with concern. The Bonemaster must be behind him. So was that dreadful bridge.

  The castle loomed. It was made of the same gray stone as the cliff-flanked island itself. Behind it pink-blue ladders of light stretched across the sky—more sunset than Jinx had ever seen. He could see nothing growing except lichen.

  By itself, the castle’s great wooden door creaked open.

  “Welcome to Bonesocket,” said the Bonemaster. “Won’t you step inside?”

  The Bonemaster led them into a great stone hall with a ceiling arching thirty feet over their heads. A fire crackled in the middle of the room, and a table was laid for four.

  The Bonemaster stepped to the head of the table. “Won’t you please be seated.”

  They sat. Jinx was nonplussed. They’d just been taken prisoner, none too gently. He hadn’t expected dinner. The food smelled real. There was roast turkey, and browned potatoes, and candied squash.

  “Is the food real or illusion?” Elfwyn whispered.

  “Can’t tell,” Jinx whispered back. He wondered if it was safe to eat. Now that he was over his nausea, he was really hungry.

  “You must try the candied squash, Elfwyn. It’s my specialty,” the Bonemaster said, passing her the dish.

  Elfwyn took the dish as though it were going to explode and looked at it with alarm.

  “Now, I have everyone’s names except yours, young man.” The Bonemaster looked at Reven.

  Reven stood up and bowed. “Reven. Your servant, good Bonemaster.”

  “What charming manners. Please sit down. Try the turkey.”

  He insisted they put some of everything on their plates. Reven didn’t seem suspicious about the food at all. Jinx watched as the Bonemaster speared a piece of turkey on his knife and ate it. Reven, who had been politely waiting for the Bonemaster to start, spooned up some squash.

  “’Tis most excellent fare, sir,” said Reven.

  Reven didn’t drop dead from eating it, so Jinx figured it was safe.

  The food didn’t taste like an illusion. It tasted real. Jinx had missed Simon’s cooking, but he had to admit that the Bonemaster’s was better. The turkey was a little strange because he hadn’t eaten meat in years, but he got used to it.

  “Do try the wine. It’s a particularly fine vintage,” said the Bonemaster.

  Jinx looked down at the cup beside his plate, which was half full of dark wine. The cup was grayish white, but the rim was of beaten gold. It had three legs. Jinx picked it up and looked underneath. It was rounded on the bottom, with crazed squizzly lines crisscrossing it. Jinx put the cup down without drinking. He looked around the table. The other three cups were the same.

  Reven picked up his cup and took a sip. “A fine vintage indeed, sir.”

  When they were done eating, the Bonemaster led them over to the fire. He waved a hand to move the chairs from the table to the fireside.

  “Now then.” The Bonemaster looked at each of them with his knife-sharp eyes. “I am certainly looking forward to hearing what has brought me such delightful visitors.”

  Jinx looked at Elfwyn. They both looked at Reven.

  “Jinx? Perhaps you will explain,” said the Bonemaster.

  The eyes stabbed at him. Jinx tried to look away, but he couldn’t. He looked into the Bonemaster’s deep blue eyes and the Bonemaster looked into his. The eyes held Jinx in place as if he’d been run through with a sword. It had been stupid to come here thinking he could ask the Bonemaster for help.

  “Tell me, Jinx, how did you escape from Simon?”

  “I didn’t escape from Simon,” said Jinx. “I just left.”

  “Really? You just left? You expect me to believe that Simon permitted you to simply walk away?”

  The eyes were giving Jinx a headache. “I don’t care what you believe.”

  “Ah. I see you have Simon’s manners.” The Bonemaster looked away at last. Jinx closed his eyes and rubbed them.

  “Now, will you tell us what brings you here, Reven?”

  Reven said nothing.

  “Hm. You’re so much more polite than our friend Jinx. Won’t you speak when spoken to? What brings you here?”

  Reven looked agonized.

  “Ah. Interesting.” The Bonemaster turned to Elfwyn. “And what brings you here, Elfwyn?”

  “I followed the boys to try to make them turn back.”

  “Ha. Interesting. And why did you want them to turn back?”

  “Because I thought you would harm them.”

  “Did you. Clever girl. And what made them want to come here in the first place?”

  “Jinx wanted to find out what Simon’s done to him. And Reven thought you could take his curse off him.”

  “Ah. And what is this curse that’s on him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Interesting. Very interesting.” The Bonemaster smiled. “But you have suspicions, perhaps.”

  Elfwyn didn’t say anything.

  “Ah. It has to be a question, does it?”

  “Yes,” said Elfwyn miserably.

  “What do you suspect the curse on Reven is?”

  “That he can’t tell what the curse is.”

  “That much is obvious,” said the Bonemaster with a flicker of irritation. He turned back to Reven. “Can you say who you are?”

  Reven said nothing.

  “Excellent! Who put you under this spell?”

  No answer.

  “Oh, an expert, I see!” The Bonemaster rubbed his hands together. “A challenge. Where do you come from?”

  “King Rufus’s court, in Bragwood,” said Reven.

  “Ah, you can answer that. We’ll assume it’s not really where you come from, then. Where are you going?”

  No answer.

  “Where is he going, Elfwyn?”

  “I don’t know,” said Elfwyn.

  “Lovely,” said the Bonemaster. “Three wretchedly nasty spells. Young Reven can’t say who he is, you are bound to answer any question truthfully, and Jinx here has lost his life.”

  “What?” said Reven.

  “I haven’t lost my life!” said Jinx.

  “He’s still alive, for one thing,” said Elfwyn.

  “Oh, he’s alive,” said the Bonemaster. “But he hasn’t got his life.”

  Jinx thought of the ball of light Simon had put into the green glass bottle while Jinx floated through the ceiling and saw the starry horizon.

  “Would you care for some fruit?” The Bonemaster snapped his fingers, and a bowl of fruit landed in his outstretched hand.

  “Er, no thank you,” said Reven, and Jinx and Elfwyn shook their heads.

  The Bonemaster took an apple and bit into it, then leaned back in his chair, rested one ankle on the opposite knee, and looked from Reven to Elfwyn. “So, you wa
nt these spells taken off you. You realize that may cost you something?”

  “Wait a minute,” said Jinx. “How can I have lost my life? What are you talking about? How can you tell?”

  “I saw it when I looked into your eyes,” said the Bonemaster. “Your life is gone. I assume Simon took it.”

  “But, well, wouldn’t he have had to kill me?”

  “That’s a rather abrupt way of putting it, but at some point in the procedure, in order to take your life, yes. He would have had to kill you.”

  “Simon wouldn’t do that!”

  The Bonemaster smiled. “Young Simon? My good friend Simon? Oh, goodness. I don’t think you know Simon as well as I do, Jinx.”

  Jinx tried to calm down enough to think. He was afraid of the Bonemaster in a way that he’d never been afraid of Simon. But there was no denying that spell Simon had done on him. And the glowing ball that had gone into the bottle. His life?

  “He did a spell with a bottle,” Jinx said.

  “Yes? I’m amazed he managed it.” The Bonemaster smiled. “Such a terrible, terrible thing to do. And do you find, now, that you don’t feel quite whole?”

  Jinx thought of his missing magic and the blank white space in his brain that still got in his way sometimes. He didn’t feel whole at all.

  “Simon is not a good person, Jinx.” The Bonemaster sounded sad to be telling Jinx this news. “Power means too much to him. He’d do anything for new magic, for new knowledge. He’d do anything for power.”

  Was that true? Jinx thought of Simon staying up all night to work on new spells, of Simon driving Sophie away so he could do a spell on Jinx. So he could kill Jinx.

  “Now that he’s got your life, I suppose he thought it was safe to let you wander,” said the Bonemaster. “Though as it happens, he was wrong. I once thought he meant to train you up as a magical minion to do his bidding. But perhaps he found you had no talent.”

  Jinx clenched his teeth to keep from retorting that he had plenty of talent. The fact was, he probably didn’t. Simon certainly hadn’t seemed to think so.

  “I thought he sounded like an evil wizard,” said Reven.

  The Bonemaster swallowed a mouthful of apple. “Oh, he most certainly is that. He opened a way into Samara so that he could study at the university there. Magic is illegal in Samara, or so I’m told—I’ve never been there—but their libraries contain magical knowledge that we’ve never had here. Simon spent years there, learned things the rest of us don’t know.”

  “Learning things isn’t evil,” said Elfwyn.

  “Indeed not. But he keeps what he learned to himself. Knowledge was meant to be free to everyone.”

  Jinx thought of how secretive Simon was, not letting Jinx look in certain books, not letting him into his workroom at first.

  “If the way into Samara was open, then everyone could go there who wanted to, and study,” said the Bonemaster.

  “What is this Samara?” said Reven.

  “I’ll let Jinx tell you,” said the Bonemaster, his eyes glinting.

  “Er, it’s a … a country with no trees in it,” said Jinx. He kept both eyes on the Bonemaster, but he couldn’t see any harm in describing Samara. “And the houses are all close together, and people wear bright colors. And it’s hot.”

  “Ah—so you’ve actually been there,” said the Bonemaster.

  “If there are no trees, then it seems like they would want to establish trade with the Urwald,” said Reven.

  “What? Why?” said Jinx.

  “For trees,” said Reven.

  “I don’t think Urwald trees would grow there.”

  “I don’t mean live trees,” said Reven. “I mean lumber.”

  It was like saying you wanted to sell people for meat.

  “So Simon won’t share the secrets of Samara with his fellow wizards, but he’ll share them with you,” said the Bonemaster. “Tell me, how did you fall into his power?”

  Was there any harm in telling that? “I was lost in the forest,” said Jinx.

  “Ah.” The Bonemaster tossed his apple core into the fire, where it hissed. “Just a life, lost in the forest.”

  Jinx felt he probably shouldn’t have said so much about Samara after all. He was betraying Simon’s secrets. He probably shouldn’t do that. Except that he didn’t owe Simon anything if Simon had—well, killed him. He didn’t know who to trust. He felt miserable.

  He looked across at Reven and Elfwyn, wondering what they were thinking. Elfwyn should have told Jinx that her curse required her to tell the truth. He couldn’t trust her, either. Though when she looked back at him, he could see she felt bad about it.

  “You know about life force magic, I take it? It uses the power in a life, which can be converted into magic,” said the Bonemaster. “Most wizards have only their own lives to draw on. But when a wizard draws on another person’s life, ah, then he’s much more than twice as powerful.”

  The Bonemaster gazed into the fire, thoughtful. “Especially if the owner of the life is still alive.”

  “Why?” said Elfwyn.

  “Because the captured life is still growing, of course. The, ah, liver is still producing power.”

  “Liver?” said Reven.

  “The person whose life it is,” said Elfwyn.

  “Yes.” The Bonemaster stared into the flames. “Naturally, Simon’s power would be decreased if Jinx were to … cease to be alive.”

  A heavy silence followed this remark.

  “What’s deathforce magic?” Jinx asked. He tried to sound nonchalant. He didn’t want the Bonemaster to think he was frightened.

  “Ah, hasn’t Simon told you about deathforce magic?”

  “He says he never does it,” said Jinx.

  “Simon says that? Simon?” The Bonemaster smiled. “Well, well.”

  “So what is it?” Jinx demanded.

  “It’s magic that uses the force of a death as its power.”

  “Is deathforce stronger than lifeforce?” Elfwyn asked.

  “That depends,” said the Bonemaster. He did not elaborate.

  “The Urwald has lifeforce power,” said Jinx. He was just thinking it; he hadn’t meant to say it aloud.

  The Bonemaster chuckled. “Oh, certainly. But it’s not as if any wizard could draw on it.”

  Jinx didn’t say anything. He remembered the power from the trees coming up through his feet.

  “Urwald magic is completely different from wizard’s magic,” said the Bonemaster. “The two can’t be mixed. Well. You want these curses taken off you. But we haven’t yet discussed the question of payment.”

  “Can you really do it?” said Elfwyn.

  “I am a wizard, young lady.”

  Jinx untied the top of his shirt and reached into his secret pocket. He scooped out the contents in one handful. “I have five silver pennies,” he said.

  “You understand I can’t do anything about your problem,” said the Bonemaster. “Your life is gone.”

  “But, well—isn’t there some way to get it back?” said Jinx, afraid of the answer.

  “Not really,” said the Bonemaster. “Simon has it. For the moment, it still exists and you’re still alive.”

  The half of me that’s aboveground, Jinx thought, remembering Dame Glammer’s words.

  He thought about all his years with Simon, when he’d thought that Simon was basically being pretty nice to him, in his cranky way. Had Simon just been waiting for Jinx to grow big enough to have a life that was worth taking?

  “Do people’s lives get more powerful when they get older?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  “So the evil wizard Simon could kill Jinx from afar simply by destroying his captive life?” said Reven.

  “Yes,” said the Bonemaster. He let a long pause settle over this. “It would not be to his advantage to do so, however. A captive life is a great power.”

  Jinx hated them talking about the life he didn’t have. “Well, I’ll pay for their curses t
o be taken off.” He’d gladly pay anything just to get out of the Bonemaster’s castle. He held out his hand.

  “Five silver pennies and—what’s this?” The Bonemaster reached over and plucked the tiny golden bird out of Jinx’s hand. “Gold? Now why would a failed apprentice have gold? Unless you stole it?”

  “I didn’t steal it! Simon gave it to me.”

  “Gave it to you.” The Bonemaster held it between his thumb and forefinger, and it glimmered in the firelight. “Now isn’t that interesting.”

  He brought the bird a few inches from his face and smiled at it. “Hello, Simon.”

  19

  The Insistent Door

  Jinx stared.

  The Bonemaster beamed at Jinx, then went on talking to the bird talisman. “How silly of me to think you’d sent the boy into the Urwald completely free, Simon. That would be so unlike you. You’re keeping an eye on him, aren’t you? Well, he’s here at Bonesocket. He’s alive at the moment. Perhaps you’ll be wanting to stop in soon for a visit.”

  The Bonemaster tucked the bird into a pocket in his robe and smiled at Jinx, Elfwyn, and Reven. “Come. I shall show you to your rooms.”

  The room Jinx had been given had purple velvet drapes. Jinx touched them—the cloth was really there but felt rough and nubbly. Not velvet, then. It seemed like a waste of magic. Simon wouldn’t have approved. Simon. The thought of Simon was like a heavy weight in his stomach.

  Dame Glammer had been right. The Bonemaster had told Jinx a few things about Simon. And Jinx didn’t like any of them.

  He tugged at the window. It wouldn’t open. He tried levitating it, but the Urwald’s power was out of reach, and he couldn’t seem to find the power inside himself. Well, no wonder, if Simon had his lifeforce. And Simon had always scolded him for not being able to draw enough power! Simon. Bah.

  Jinx searched for something else to draw on and immediately became aware of an enormous force. There was a massive amount of power somewhere in this castle.

  Jinx didn’t dare try to use it. It had to be the Bonemaster’s power source, and the Bonemaster might sense him drawing on it.

  There was a knock at the door. Jinx opened it. Elfwyn and Reven came in.

  “Pretty strange, isn’t it?” Elfwyn said when the door was safely closed.