“Where is the seal?” said Jinx. “How do I get to it?”
The elves ignored him. They were arguing with each other. “And when he dies, where’s your balance?” Neza demanded.
“The Urwald remains,” said Shatter. “It’s been without a Listener for years. Fire is in abeyance, but enough remains for balance.”
“Excuse me, but I remain,” said Jinx. “And I’m talking to you. Do you mind telling me how to get to the flippin’ nadir of all things so I can remove the flippin’ seal, and die in the attempt or whatever?”
The elves regarded him coldly. “Goodness, he understands quite a bit of Eldritch,” said Neza.
“Doesn’t speak it, though,” said Shatter.
“It hurts my throat.” Jinx wanted to get out of here. Elves creeped him out, even when they weren’t talking about killing him. “Where does the path go from here?”
“How would we know?” said Dearth. “It’s your path.” He turned to Neza. “Take him to the Queen.”
“The Queen sees no one,” said Neza.
“Then take him to the Princess.”
“I will ask the Princess,” said Neza.
There was a brief pause.
“Look, all I want to know—” Jinx began.
“Silence,” said Dearth. “She is talking to the Princess.”
Neza seemed to be listening to the empty air. She nodded. “Very well,” she said. “The Princess will see you in the garden.”
A garden, down here? “Will she tell me how to get to the nadir of all things?”
“If she desires balance,” said Shatter.
“Which she doesn’t,” said Neza.
“Which she does,” said Dearth.
“Come along, human,” said Shatter.
Neza and Shatter led Jinx through an ice-glass passageway that opened into a cavern so large that at first Jinx thought he was outdoors.
The garden was dazzling. Clusters of crystals sprouted and spread like shrubberies. There were amethysts blossoming beside the path, and sapphires sprouting from rocks. Jinx stood beside a charming little bed of rubies and topazes, like frozen fire.
“Follow the path. The Princess is waiting,” said Neza.
It seemed the elves were coming no further. Jinx walked alone, a narrow path that twisted between outcroppings of emeralds and under an arbor of peridots and pyrite. There was light from somewhere, and the gems and crystals flickered.
“Welcome, Flame.”
Jinx had to blink several times before he saw the Princess among the crystals. She was sitting on what he supposed must be a seat hidden in the midst of tall spikes of blue-white crystal—if there wasn’t a seat there, she must have been very uncomfortable.
“Hi. My name is Jinx.”
“What an unfortunate name.”
“I can’t help it,” said Jinx, staring at the Princess. Putting aside the fact that she was blue, she was the most beautiful lady he had ever seen.
“Do you like my garden?”
“It’s, er. There’s nothing growing in it.”
“If it didn’t grow, then how did it come to be?” This was apparently a rhetorical question, as the Princess didn’t wait for an answer. “Have a seat on that topaz, and I will tell you about everything.”
Jinx would very much have liked to be told about everything, but the Princess in fact only told him about the gems in her garden, and how they’d grown. He learned quite a bit about rocks, and he figured he’d be able to describe the garden now, if he lived long enough to tell anyone about it.
“So much lovelier than those messy gardens in the world above,” said the Princess. “Don’t you think? No insects, no decomposition.” She wrinkled her perfect nose. “Nothing dies down here.”
“Nothing lives down here.” Jinx had meant to be tactful, but it just came out.
“Exactly.” The Princess smiled at him, and Jinx couldn’t help feeling pleased to be smiled at by such a beautiful person.
But she isn’t alive, he reminded himself.
“I—my mother was stolen by elves,” he said.
“Was she? And is that why you have come down here, Flame?”
“No,” Jinx admitted. “But I would like to know what happened to her.”
“Oh, she’ll have drifted away by now,” said the Princess. “They never stay long.”
“You mean she died?”
“Some silly human custom like that.” The Princess waved a long, graceful blue hand dismissively.
Jinx was relieved. He had been afraid it might have been possible for his mother to become an elf.
“And for that you came down here? Just to ask me this question?”
“No,” said Jinx. “I’m just passing through actually. I’m on my way to the nadir of all things.”
“How dramatic.”
“I could use some help, actually,” said Jinx. “Well, advice.”
“Could you? And why do you imagine that I would give you good advice?”
“Well, I expect you know the Paths better than I do . . .”
“The Path of Ice,” said the Princess. “And thus far, you have walked the Path of Fire.”
“I have?” Jinx was surprised. “But I didn’t burn.”
“Not yet. You brought your fire with you. But further down, of course, the fire burns hotter. Fire, you know, makes beautiful gems. Would you like a few to take with you?”
“No thanks,” said Jinx. “I really need to know how to get to the nadir of all things and—and how to remove a seal.”
The Princess half closed her eyes and half smiled. “Ah. The seal. Yes. We wondered if you would notice that.”
“Of course I noticed it!” said Jinx. “He’s my friend!”
“Your friend?” The perfect eyebrows frowned ever so slightly. “The other wick is your friend?”
“No, the other wick is the Bonemaster,” said Jinx. “The person he’s used to make a seal is my friend.”
He explained to her about Simon, and what he thought the Bonemaster had done to him. He told her about the threats to the Urwald.
He told her about his people, and about the new free and independent nation of the Urwald. If she privately found all this about as interesting as he’d found her lecture on geology, she gave no sign.
“But I don’t understand,” said the Princess. “While you’re down here, the Bonemaster is up there, in the, er, organic mass, making things difficult for all your other friends, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” said Jinx. “But if I can remove the seal, then the Bonemaster won’t have as much power.”
“And you’ll have more,” said the Princess, musingly.
“Well, yeah, I’ll have what I had before,” said Jinx.
“If you return to the world above at all,” said the Princess. “It’s very easy to become lost on the paths.”
“To die, you mean,” said Jinx.
“Oh, I suppose so,” said the Princess. “But also to become lost, which is much more serious. As for your friend, you must realize he won’t have . . . kept his shape. It’s unlikely there’s much left of him that you would recognize.”
Jinx felt cold. He thought of how the Simon in the bottle had grown weaker over time. How he’d spoken to Jinx once, but not again. And he’d said he’d stop the Bonemaster from getting at Jinx through him, but he hadn’t been able to do that, had he?
“And if he’s been made a seal,” said the Princess, “there’s no way he can escape with his life.”
“What about without it?” said Jinx desperately.
“Have you bottled it?”
“Someone else did. The Bonemaster.”
“Ah.” The Princess smiled. “In that case, it might be possible. And then you plan to return to the world above, vanquish the Bonemaster, and reign supreme?”
“I don’t want to reign supreme,” said Jinx. “I’ve never wanted to!”
“Never? Not even for a moment?” The Princess’s eyes glinted like amethysts. “Not even when
the people around you are being impossibly slow and stupid, and you are so much cleverer than they are, and could manage matters so much better, if only everyone would shut up and do as you say?”
Jinx shifted uncomfortably on his topaz. Could she read minds?
“If I ever do want that,” he said, “I know it’s not what I’m supposed to want.”
“And you only want what you’re supposed to want? What an unusual quality.”
“I don’t only want what I’m supposed to want,” said Jinx. “But I don’t want to want stuff that, if I had it, would . . .” He fumbled for the right words. The combination of the Princess and the gems was confusing. “Would mess everything up for everybody. I just want to get Simon out alive, and to stop the Bonemaster. And to save the Urwald.”
“I see.” The Princess rippled icy amusement. Jinx was surprised that he could see any of her feelings at all.
He was surprised by something else, too. He couldn’t help admiring her, because she was, after all, extremely beautiful, and he realized that she was drinking his admiration as if it were a nourishing soup. Feeding on him. It made him angry. He clenched his teeth and looked away, at a thicket of tourmalines.
“You don’t want to reign supreme either,” Jinx told her. “Not even through the Bonemaster. It’s too much work. It involves messy, live things, lots of bugs, and hardly any jewels.”
The Princess looked miffed. “You are rather insulting, young man.”
“Sorry,” said Jinx. “I’m tactless and undiplomatic.”
“Very. And since neither of us wants supremacy, I should help you?” The Princess looked around at the gems in her garden, and then smiled down at Jinx. “Very well. I shall tell you the most important things.
“The first is that you must recognize when it is time to make your own path. The path you see may not be the path you should travel.
“The second is that you must travel both paths. No one who travels only one path can achieve knowledge.”
“I don’t want kn—”
She held up a hand to silence him. “The third is that when you reach the seal, you must touch both paths. This will be difficult for you, because you are so determined to do what’s right. But you must touch the paths as your friend would, and not as you would.”
“Touch the paths like Simon would? But Simon’s . . .” Jinx stopped himself. He didn’t think Simon was evil, exactly. “I’m not going to have anything to do with deathforce.”
“Deathforce? Oh, that’s what you humans call the ice. I don’t know why. It’s merely ice.”
“It’s evil,” said Jinx.
“Death is evil? You all die.”
“Well, ice, then. I’m not going to have anything to do with . . . ice.”
“Then you will not be able to remove the seal.”
Jinx started to argue, then stopped. “Okay. Fine. How do I, er, remove him?”
“By touching both paths.”
“How do we get out again?”
“If you succeed in removing the seal, you will have already destroyed the Bonemaster’s hold on the Path of Fire. Is it to my advantage for you to get out again?” the Princess asked.
“I don’t know,” said Jinx. “It’s to mine, I know that. And Simon’s.”
“Your friend will be without his life.”
“But can’t I put it back in him?”
“That depends on what remains of him. You may need to give him something of yourself, and really, why would you want to do that?” She frowned perfectly. “All I can tell you about getting out again is that you can take nothing with you that you did not bring—”
“Can I take Simon at least?”
“—and that it is seldom possible to walk the same path twice.”
“So you’re saying I can’t get out again.”
“You seem a reasonably intelligent young man. I have told you all that I feel I can. We side with ice, but we do prefer balance.”
She looked up at the distant crystal sky as if listening. “You may go now. Dearth will conduct you to the paths. Are you sure you wouldn’t care for a ruby or two before you go?”
“Something to take out that I didn’t bring with me? No thanks,” said Jinx.
“Well, you are slightly cleverer than you look,” said the Princess. “This has been most amusing. Do drop in again in another millennium or so, if you’re in the neighborhood.”
“Thanks,” said Jinx. “I will.”
Dearth met him at the edge of the garden, and led him through a maze of tunnels. They met no other elves, though here and there Jinx heard the distant gargle and snarl of the Qunthk language.
Then Dearth opened a door, and they were standing at the edge of—
—a field. An endless expanse of grass. It was somehow not quite grass, because it was missing the ripe green chaos of life (untidy stuff) and all the grass was just the same height as itself, and no wind stirred it, and no bird-shadows skimmed across it. Still, it was definitely meant to be a field.
Jinx looked up, and the sky was white and sunless. Quartz, maybe.
“Your path begins here,” said Dearth.
“Er, where?” said Jinx.
“That I do not know.” The elf looked annoyed. “Aren’t you supposed to know these things? It’s your path.”
“Okay, but which direction do I go? You do want to help me, right?”
“The Princess said you were to be helped. The direction is down, if you seek the nadir.”
“Well, the only direction here seems to be across,” said Jinx.
The elf shrugged.
Jinx sighed. “Okay. See you later.”
He started walking.
The grass was deeper than he’d thought. It parted as his feet touched it. Nothing crawled or buzzed in the grass. No insects hopped, no snakes slithered suddenly at his feet, no baby rabbits scrabbled out of his way. Whoever had made this field had missed the finer points.
The grass grew deeper. Soon it was up to his shoulders. But he didn’t have to push his way through it—the path kept appearing at his feet.
Jinx thought as he walked. He thought that what the elves meant by balance was not what Jinx meant. To Jinx, balance meant somehow getting all the creatures—the trees, the humans, the other Restless—to acknowledge each other’s right to the Urwald. The elves were talking about a balance between lifeforce and deathforce, fire and ice.
What did it matter to elves, anyway? he wondered. It wasn’t like life and death were really things they cared about. A human lifespan—or even a tree’s lifespan—must seem awfully brief and fleeting when you were used to farming gemstones.
So why do they bother to steal humans, then?
He thought about the Elf Princess drinking his admiration. Mining it, he thought. They mine us, like we mine iron, salt, and glass. They farm minerals, and they mine life.
He was suddenly very glad to be walking away from them. He walked faster.
Smack into a solid stone wall.
It threw him backward, with a painful shock. It was the same feeling he’d had when he’d touched the slab of ice that the Bonemaster had imprisoned Simon in. Was he getting closer to Simon, then?
He approached it cautiously. The rock was glassy and smooth, like black obsidian. He could feel cold radiating off it.
He looked up. The wall went up further than he could see, into the sunless sky.
One thing was for sure. There was no path through it.
He thought about what the Elf Princess had said.
You must make your own path.
Through that? Unlikely. Jinx walked along the wall, the grass parting for him.
He didn’t get really discouraged till he reached a corner. The wall turned back the way he had come. He had a feeling that if he turned around and went the other way, he’d eventually run into the same problem. He was boxed in.
So, yes. It appeared he was going to have to make his own path through that.
He stared at the wall’s gla
ssy surface. He saw himself reflected in it. During his talk with the Elf Princess it had occurred to him that he had turned into almost the person he wanted to be. He hadn’t been fooled by her beauty or tempted by the gems. He’d done nearly as well as someone in a story.
But he didn’t look like someone in a story. He looked tired, dirty, cranky . . . and still too short.
He sat down and ate some bread. It was getting stale, which was odd because he hadn’t been down here all that long, had he? He put the heel of the loaf back in his belt pocket, next to the golden aviot. He looked at the little bird and wondered if Sophie was watching him through the Farseeing Window.
Well, he had to go through this wall. KnIP? No, KnIP wouldn’t be enough, not when he had only his own knowledge to use.
Fire, then?
He reached for the fire inside him. It seemed to have grown a little stronger since his conversation with the Elf Princess. But strong enough to melt stone? He put his hand out, and sent fire into the wall. The wall melted, a little bit. Rock ran down in solid-looking rivulets. He had made a slight indentation in the wall.
This wasn’t going to work. He saw what he would have to do.
He summoned all the fire he could from inside him, and he walked into the wall again.
It hurt. A lot. There was the ice-hot shock, and there was the solid fact of the stone wall. Jinx remained standing with difficulty. He kept sending the fire into the wall. He took a step forward into solid stone.
He could feel things breaking as he moved—ice and stone. The path was forming as he walked, he could tell that from the emptiness behind him, but all he felt in front of him was stone, ice, and pain.
He wasn’t sure how long this went on.
Finally he burst out of the wall, onto a plain of ice. He flopped down on it, exhausted.
And began to slide. The slope was slight at first, then it got steeper and he went faster and faster.
Below him, he could see a bridge of ice. And on either side of it, a drop-off. Frantically he hit at the ice with both hands, trying to steer himself toward the bridge.
He could see he wasn’t going to make it. He twisted around onto his stomach, trying to swim toward the bridge with his arms and legs. But he was moving too fast. The cliff edge was rushing toward him.
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