Archive for July 25th, 2010
2 items.
mature audiences
Jinx’s eyes snapped open suddenly, and he lay there in the dark, certain that something alarming was happening, yet without a clue to what it might be. He lay very still, breathing shallowly to suppress any unnecessary sound, straining his night-vision to see what had alerted him. Surely it couldn’t be wild animals? This was no place for any sort of animal. Those Rainmoor wizards had driven them all away, and there wasn’t an animal within miles of their stinking castle.
Except him, of course, a tiger sort of animal.
No, that wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. He was, after all, half human, though he did not look it, and from his wizard father he’d gotten hands that could hold a sword, and a mind that was as good as a normal human’s (not counting those damned wizards). He was people, even if his father didn’t think so. But then there was the other half, the tigress that was his mother and had given him the form of his body and the savagery and wariness that kept him alive, not to mention the night-vision that he was straining to its limits, trying to see what had jolted him out an uneasy sleep. Humans couldn’t do that, and it was always a problem because he did look like a tiger. Did that make him an animal? His mind ached as it ran over the old dichotomy, and it was then that he noticed the magic eye.
It didn’t look like an eye, it looked like a tiny firefly, but Jinx recognized it and unthinkingly let out a hiss of frustration and anger. He caught himself doing it, and cut it short with his usual sense of shame, and as he held his breath, staring fixedly at it, the Eye wavered and then flew off in the direction of Rainmoor at tremendous speed.
Jinx’s tail lashed nervously as he considered his situation. It had seen him, and it was heading back to its master to report. That much was obvious- it was exactly what a wizard spy thing could be expected to do. Jinx considered idly that his racing thoughts must have identified him as a person, for he knew what these Eyes were- he knew this Eye would have magically compelled any animal to flee. That was its job, and he’d seen the Eyes do it, seen woodland animals running until they collapsed in frothing exhaustion. It wasn’t much consolation that it hadn’t compelled him, because it was obviously fetching its master, doubtless some powerful wizard, and Jinx had no intention of being around when the wizard finally arrived.
Jinx would never know how sorely confused the Eye had been over him. It sensed thoughts to distinguish humans from animals, and it had been unable to decide what Jinx was because his thoughts were fairly intelligent but unmistakably tigerish. It had finally decided in favor of Jinx’s being human merely because his thoughts had become more complex and detailed than any animal’s could be, but the thoughts had never lost their fierce, tigerish flavor, the brittle wariness of a cornered jungle cat. The Eye’s report was destined to give a certain magician a terrible headache from trying to figure out what his spy had spied…
Though Jinx expected the worst from the Eye’s departure, he was nevertheless relieved to see the last of it. He watched it go without making a sound, and when it was lost to sight, he set off at a right angle to it, wary of following it too directly for fear of encountering it again. The fur on the back of his neck still bristled slightly from the experience, and he wondered again how he could have been so stupid as to agree to meet anybody at Rainmoor, even if they did live there and even if they were willing to pay him just to come there. The whole thing was ugly and strange- he’d been minding his own business passing through a town when this rich-looking man accosted him for no good reason at all.
Jinx had developed a finely tuned sense of town and city dangers by sheer necessity, and he’d recognized at once that the man was not an immediate threat. He also spotted that the man was edgy and nervous, but there were any number of possible explanations for that, not least Jinx himself. It seemed that six-foot tigers, even when walking on two legs like humans, made the real people nervous. The sword Jinx carried probably didn’t help, either.
Jinx was used to thinking of humans as baffling creatures that rarely made sense, and for that reason he hadn’t tried to make sense of it when the strange, rich-looking man emerged from the shadows and said “Jinx, I will pay you fifty gold pieces if you will come to me in Rainmoor the next full moon. Can you do that, or would sneaking in be too difficult for you?”
Jinx liked the idea of being paid fifty gold just for meeting the man in the King’s castle. He had been scornful, explaining that he could sneak in anywhere if he wanted to and Rainmoor was no different. Then, after he’d agreed, he’d learned more about Rainmoor and become appalled. The place was nothing but a nest of wizards! The man had even given him a magic rock, which he claimed Jinx would need: Jinx didn’t tell him that he’d rather give up the fifty gold than use the cursed thing. But in the end it wasn’t the money that decided him: he’d said that he could get into Rainmoor easily, and he was damned if he was going to have some wizard laughing at him for giving up. What he was going to do once he got there was a mystery, but that would take care of itself, probably. Besides, there was always the fifty gold pieces to consider. Gold was useful stuff- when he had it, the humans treated Jinx like people, almost.
Before long, Jinx was climbing to the top of a small mountain, the mountain Rainmoor. He figured the castle had to be on the other side of the mountain: it certainly wasn’t on this side. The mountain itself seemed to fit the description he’d heard. It was fairly steep and went up to a point, and bore little resemblance to the hills and valleys around it. Just for the hell of it, Jinx climbed straight up to the point, which was amazingly even and conical, and peered over the top at the castle…
No. There was no castle on the other side. From his lofty vantage point, Jinx could see that there was no castle in any direction. Did he have the wrong mountain? Jinx considered that perhaps the castle was invisible. That would be just like wizards, to do a thing like that. It also explained the stone he’d been given, a guiding stone that would glow when Jinx, holding it, pointed to the man.
Jinx had buried the stone in his pack and tried to pretend it wasn’t there: he’d wanted to throw it away, and had argued about it, lashing his tail agitatedly, but the rich man had insisted he keep it, claiming that Jinx would not be able to locate him without a guiding cantrip, which the stone carried. Now Jinx reluctantly dug it out, holding it gingerly in his furry hand. He began to point back the way he came, and then stopped in haste, realizing the thing was going to be making magic and he’d be touching it. Jinx shuddered, and got a scrap of cloth out of his pack, wrapping it loosely around the stone. He was barely willing to use the thing in the first place: touching it while it did magic was out of the question.
Jinx pointed off to the west, feeling slightly foolish. Nothing happened, so he began to revolve slowly, his arm sweeping gradually over the hills and valleys. Nothing. Jinx considered that maybe he was dealing with a flying invisible castle, and began pointing at the sky, with still no reaction. Could the thing be dodging him? Or did he have to touch the cursed rock to get it to work? He gingerly touched the stone with the tip of one finger, the fur standing up on the scruff of his neck as he did so. Nothing happened, but he’d thought something might. While delicately touching the stone, he once more scanned the horizon, pointing in every direction, and then scanned the sky for good measure. Nothing at all. Jinx’s hand dropped to his side in disgust, and it was then that the stone flared into painful brightness.
Jinx dropped it like it had burned him, though it hadn’t, and it shut off again, landing in the dirt and rolling a few feet. He hardly noticed, for he was starting to tremble as the horrible truth dawned on him. There was no castle to find. Getting into Rainmoor might indeed be difficult, but finding it was not. He was standing on it.
Then he laughed, perhaps a little hysterically, and picked the guiding rock up again. He felt giddy and strange, as if he was dreaming the whole thing, and could not fear the magic stone he held, even as it shone brightly in his hand. How frightening could a magic rock be, compared to Rainmoor itself? He was standing right on top of an entire mountain (granted, a small one) filled with magic and wizards, and he was afraid of a glowing pebble!
Still in the giddy, fey state of danger too great to be taken seriously, he playfully experimented with the glowing rock, pointing it this way and that. It did seem to glow more brightly when pointed at one side of the mountain, but not much. Perhaps he was to go to a particular spot. Then what? Dig, maybe. If only he’d brought a shovel! Jinx giggled nervously at the twisted notion of attacking a stronghold of powerful wizards with a shovel, and began wandering over the face of the mountain, following the glow of the magic rock.
By the time he’d found the spot he was looking for, his fey mood had gone completely, and he’d gone back to holding the rock with a scrap of cloth. He was about halfway down the mountain where trees and underbrush began to encroach upon the smooth conical expanse of the mountain, and it was getting on toward evening: the top of Rainmoor still glowed with the fading light of dusk, but Jinx was in shadow and preferred it that way. He wondered if perhaps his mad amusement had been brought on by standing on the tip of Rainmoor, but thought it was probably a result of being unable to flee. As he’d gotten closer to the surrounding woods, his fear had lessened to the point that he was able to feel it again, something which he could not feel properly thankful for.
He searched hectically among the underbrush, looking for some sort of door, his edgy nerves shown in the way he swiped viciously at the bushes, lashing out as if his hands were paws. He’d cut the lightly furred palm of his hand doing this, but did not notice. The stone said that he was in the right area, but the spot it pointed to moved around within an area of about fifty feet. Human feet, he thought: it would be about a hundred of his feet, unless you counted his lower leg as part of the foot. He snarled under his breath at yet another reminder of the human world, and continued to search.
It occurred to him that if the stone was pointing at the man who’d invited him, and if the man was walking around in whatever dank, gloomy caves they had in there, then the stone was pointing at a spot inside the mountain, not at an entrance. That made sense, and it explained why he wasn’t finding a door anywhere: he was walking around on the roof of the man’s house. Where would the door be? If the door led to a stairway, it might be directly over the man’s location. Jinx couldn’t find one, though. However, if the door led to a passageway, it would be lower on the mountain, leading straight in, and Jinx would have to look farther down and ignore the rock for a moment. That suited him, and he did so.
There was still no door, but Jinx spotted a depression in the ground that looked unnatural. He looked closely at it and realized that it fitted the magic rock perfectly. With a resigned shrug, he carefully placed the rock into the small hole, then jumped back wild-eyed and hissing, ears laid back, for the rock whined shrilly and then exploded with a blinding flash of light and a smell of scorched earth. Jinx crouched tensely, his carefully learned upright posture gone, his blood pounding in his ears as he stared fixedly at the expanding hole in the ground. A shaft of light shone out, blinding his dusk-adjusted eyes for a moment, and then there was a neat square hole in the ground, and the man who’d hired him was standing there.
“I must say, I’m impressed at how quickly you found me…” said the man, and then he asked, “Is something wrong?”
Jinx struggled to regain control of himself, shaking his head as if to clear it and letting out a half-suppressed snarl. It had been a long day, and a scary, uncomfortable one, and that bit with the exploding rock had startled him so badly that he desperately wanted to either flee or attack something. But what? The rock was gone, there wasn’t anything else on the whole damn mountain, and this man before him was going to give him money now. Attacking him would be utterly inappropriate, and fleeing would mean not getting his reward. Jinx was a tense, rigid statue, his adrenaline roaring through his mind, and his mood was all too plain.
The man was no fool. “Damn it, I should have changed the key procedure,” he said. “Did the flash upset you?”
“Jinx hates that sort of thing.” Jinx managed to say.
“I’m very sorry. Had I thought about it, I might have realized that the secondary effects of that key procedure could be disturbing to you…”
He watched Jinx carefully, as if he wasn’t sure this wild beast was safe to allow into his house. Jinx noticed it, and was ashamed. His tiger side had saved his life often, yet it was just as capable of making him into the living image of a dangerous animal. It was horrible when that happened in situations where Jinx desperately wanted to be thought of as a human, because he looked almost exactly like a tiger. He had to make a special point of his having hands, and his being able to talk and think, and he had to walk upright, and even then he knew that there would always be a doubt…
Jinx realized with a shock that he was still in a predatory, feline crouch, lashing his tail agitatedly, the claws on his feet digging into the dirt. In fact, though his hands bore no claws to match the feet, he was trying to dig his fingers into the dirt as if they were claws. Ashamed, he hastily stood up, fighting off the tiger reactions with practiced skill, looking the man in the eye, saying “I feel better now.” in a tone that refused to admit discussion.
The man relaxed visibly. “Do come in,” he said. “You must have had a long day. Come sit by the fire and relax for a while, before we talk business.”
Jinx followed him down the corridor, feigning nonchalance, his tail twitching nervously and revealing his true feelings. He glanced over his shoulder and winced to see the corridor closing itself up after him, but he kept on walking, grimly determined not to act inappropriately. As he entered the man’s house, this resolve was tested severely.
The place was vast, luxurious, and filled with obvious magic everywhere you looked. The ‘fire’ the man had mentioned floated in the air, a big roaring bonfire without wood or smoke. It occupied the center of a clearing fifty feet in diameter, and cast its bright flickering light everywhere. It seemed to be creating more light than a fire should. Overhead was an early evening sky with the stars beginning to come out, which was impossible because there had been no large hole in the top of the mountain. Also, the sky outside had been cloudy and forbidding, and this sky was clear.
Jinx saw all this in a flash, and tried to back away from it all, but the passageway continued to close up behind him, gently pushing him out into the room. Soon he found himself pressed against a perfectly ordinary cave wall, which showed no sign of an exit. Jinx gathered his courage and looked around.
There were doors leading everywhere, but not just to rooms: some opened out on grassy plains, or jungles, and some led to underwater scenes or stormy skies. A few were closed, but the rest hung open, as if the man liked to see all the places he had access to. A fish swam into view in the underwater scene. It looked at Jinx, apparently didn’t like what it saw, charged through the doorway and promptly fell to the ground, flopping around frantically. The man hurried over, deftly picked it up and tossed it back through the door, at which it floated in confusion for a moment, then swam away as fast as it could.
“I must remember to have you around the next time I go fishing.” said the man. “You make a great lure. It’s not easy to find something a fish will go through a Gate after, you know. Oh, are you hungry? I wasn’t thinking.”
“Jinx isn’t hungry.”
“Well, when you are, you’re welcome to anything I have, Jinx.”
Jinx pointed at a closed door. “What’s behind that one?”
The man looked smug. “See for yourself,” he said, and opened it, revealing a roaring inferno that cast a savage, searingly brilliant light over the room. The man closed it again.
“You have a door into Hell?” asked Jinx, wary but fascinated.
“Oh, no!” protested the man. “Only an evil mage would have a gate to Hell. No, it’s the Sun. You probably don’t realize that the Sun is a tremendous fire, very far away. My gate to the Sun is very useful to me.”
“Do you toss people through that door if they annoy you?” asked Jinx.
“Certainly not!” exclaimed the man. “Such an idea! I use it myself, for an energy supply. Really, Jinx, do you take me for an evil warlock? I’m quite offended!”
“No offense,” said Jinx. “Would you be so kind as to close the other doors as well? Jinx finds them… distracting.” The stress of the strange environment was weighing on him, drawing out his old manner of speaking. It had been a long time since he was trained to speak by a kindly human, taught phrases such as ‘Jinx belongs to Sir Irwin. Jinx doesn’t bite.’, yet still the old habit recurred at times.
“Certainly.” said the man, and did so. It wasn’t much help, because Jinx was noticing other things now, such as the starry sky overhead with its constellations marked out by delicate glowing lines, and the disconcerting tendency of the wood paneling to ripple like the wood grain was a river, and most distressing, stuffed animals like hunting trophies dotted here and there. One was a lithe black panther, fullgrown and not that much smaller than Jinx himself. It was beautiful, almost beautiful enough to justify its display in this way, but that was little comfort. Jinx thought that his own body was not quite as shapely, though he was built along the same lines, and he hoped he wasn’t going to end up a stuffed tiger. The black panther crouched stiffly, facing him, and when Jinx looked closer he was shocked to see it looking back at him with a fascinated gaze from clearly living eyes, obviously not dead at all, just frozen by some sorcery. In just such a place, his wizard father had mated with his tigress mother and created Jinx, for no better reason than senseless whim…
“Oh, you’ve noticed Elanor! Don’t worry, it’s not what you think. Here, I’ll let her meet you. Elanor! Thaw!”
The panther began moving stiffly, and then stretched and bounded eagerly over to Jinx with great interest, gazing at him with glowing eyes.
“She’s a watch beast,” said the man. “Elanor is one of my most trusted guards. She roams Rainmoor in astral form, keeping an eye on my enemies. I link minds with her every few days, and if she finds anything dangerous, she tells me, in a sort of crude, animal fashion. She may not use language, but such a beast has very clear imagery when threats are concerned, and the mind-images are very nearly perfect in their accuracy and vividness. She’s a dear girl, even if she is an animal, and very much devoted to me. Although I see she’s taken a fancy to you right away. Perhaps you’d, ah, enjoy her company, shall we say, at times when she’s not working? I’ve regretted, at times, the… ah… limited nature of her life here with me. Seems unfair to the poor girl, somehow, after all the help she’s been. She’s working full-time now, but I could give part of her territory to one of the owls, if you wanted to, ah…”
“Jinx is not an animal,” said Jinx. “Jinx is a person. Jinx is offended at what you’re suggesting.”
He shrank away from the panther, embarrassed at the way she was rubbing sensuously against him. He couldn’t afford to let this man think he was an animal, or he might end up a statue himself, prowling Rainmoor in astral form for the rest of his life, or he might end up being the gigolo for the man’s pet panther. The insulting thing about that was what it implied about him: he wasn’t an animal, he just looked like one. He hoped the man would call off his pet quickly, before she managed to get a reaction out of him that would make matters worse. His sense of smell told him, through instincts he hadn’t known he had, just how interested she was.
“Oh, you needn’t be offended,” said the man. “I wasn’t suggesting anything. Elanor! Go back to work, and freeze!”
The black panther gave the man a reproachful look, and returned to where she’d been, casting glances at Jinx over her shoulder, moving reluctantly and seemingly grudging every padding step. Back in her guard position, she froze in place, and the man continued.
“Don’t worry, the job I’m hiring you for is very different. Besides, you surely know me well enough to realize I wouldn’t compel anybody to do work for me…”
“Jinx doesn’t know you at all. Who are you?”
The man seemed thunderstruck. He sputtered for a moment, then laughed.
“Jinx, my friend! Don’t you know your own King?”
“Jinx doesn’t have a King. Jinx does what he pleases.”
“Ah, but you do!” said the man. “And a good, just King as well, if I do say so myself. I must say, I’m surprised at you. Do you even know my name?”
“No. Should I?”
“Perhaps you can’t read. It’s on all the proclamations. I’m King Thomas.”
“Oh.” said Jinx. “That King.” He’d heard occasional talk of a King Robert, and of a nameless King Of Rainmoor as well.
“The King, Jinx, not ‘that king’. I am the rightful king, sir. The pretenders are, as they have ever been, unworthy scoundrels or fools seeking to usurp the throne, and one in particular has gone too far, making hideous threats and committing murder, and he must be stopped. That’s where you come in.”
“Do you mean King-Robert,” asked Jinx, “or King-of-Rainmoor?”
King-Thomas sputtered a bit, then became very calm and earnest.
“Jinx, they’re not the King. They’re pretenders. Lord Robert is not a problem. He’s hopelessly mad, and he believes that proclaiming himself King is all he must do. Oh, he’s not a bad sort, quite decent at heart, but I assure you, nobody takes Robert seriously. The second one you mentioned is the man I was speaking of, a dangerous, evil man. He killed First Lord Nicholas, or so he says. He is known only through letters and proclamations, and none have ever seen him. He claims to have no name. Some say that is because he’s a demon from Hell, and dares not use his name for fear of being compelled to return to the fiery pit.”
“His name isn’t ‘King-of-Rainmoor’, then?”
“‘King’ isn’t a name, Jinx. King is a rank, the highest rank of nobility.”
Jinx was silent, for he’d never been able to understand what humans meant when they talked about things like ‘rank’ and ‘nobility’ and ‘good’ and ‘evil’, which they seemed to do incessantly. He gathered his thoughts, trying his best to think like people, even remembering to speak like a person instead of speaking like Sir Irwin’s harmless pet.
“So you want me to kill King-of-Rainmoor, but I don’t have to kill King-Robert. Is that it?”
King-Thomas sighed heavily. “I never said I wanted you to kill anybody. To hire an assassin is an evil thing, one I will never stoop to. It is better to be cast down with honor than to cling to the throne by methods so foul that I would become the same as those who would destroy me. I said I wanted you to stop the nameless pretender, or ‘king-of-rainmoor’ as you insist on calling him. I suppose it would do no good to point out that I, I am the rightful king of Rainmoor.”
“If you like.” said Jinx, puzzled. “I thought you were King-Thomas.”
“Never mind. Do you understand? You are to stop him, not assassinate him.”
“Wouldn’t killing him be the simplest way of stopping him?”
“Don’t say such things! I don’t wish to hear about it. What you must do is go among the denizens of Rainmoor, pretend to join his cause, and seek to discredit the nameless pretender. If he doesn’t have a cause, you can try to learn more about him. Perhaps you can learn his name: perhaps you can reveal him as the evil creature he is. I will meet you here periodically, and you will tell me of your progress.”
“Why me?” asked Jinx, utterly confused at the barrage of meaningless concepts.
King-Thomas looked earnestly into his eyes. “I don’t think I could explain it to you. I have searched the outlying provinces for a suitable champion, and I have heard much about you, Jinx. I will say that I was greatly moved by your fearless defense of Sir Irwin, and the way you stood over his dead body while the forces of evil raged around you. Few can boast of such loyalty. Yet I find, now, that you seem unaware of the truth of the political situation and even show disquieting tendencies toward assassination. This troubles me. However, I consulted the oracles and stars, and I am certain that you are the one I need. The magic of Rainmoor itself seems to suggest this. Who can say why? I am not infallible: I was unable to learn more, and the reasons are dark to me. Yet I trust you, somehow, strange creature though you be. I will not quail.”
Jinx was shaken at the King’s mention of Sir Irwin, the man who had saved his life years ago, shortly after he’d been banished from his wizard father’s house. The knight had been astonished to see a young tiger standing on its hind legs and trying to fight off a pack of attacking wolves by throwing rocks at them. Strangely, it seemed to fear him even more than the wolves.
Jinx had taken his attention from the wolves, looking fearfully at Sir Irwin, and as he did a wolf behind him seized him, and when Sir Irwin heard Jinx’s yowl of pain he set upon the wolves with his sword and drove them off. This stunned Jinx, for he’d seen Sir Irwin as another attacking monster even more dangerous than the wolves. He still tried feebly to escape, but hunger and injury had left him too weak to run away. Sir Irwin held him down gently, soothing him with soft words and petting him.
Jinx was baffled, for the man didn’t try to twist his wrist, didn’t kick him or stamp on paws or tail: he just stared at Jinx with a completely unfathomable expression on his face. Sir Irwin was a compassionate man, and the young creature he was hanging onto was as cute as a tiger kitten and quite helpless, obviously injured.
Jinx had nowhere to go and nobody to care for him, and he was not able to resist the kindness of Sir Irwin for long. It was something he had never known, except from his tigress mother, and she was dead. His fear crumbled gradually, replaced by helpless trust and acceptance, and when he dragged himself nearer and laid his furry head in Sir Irwin’s lap, there was no turning back. He became Sir Irwin’s pet, and rapidly became a sort of adopted son. Sir Irwin named him, and, as cat owners will, became convinced his pet was a person and should be treated as such. Since Jinx’s mind was part human, he responded by learning all that Sir Irwin could teach, and soon learned to speak, although other humans tended to think of this as a trick.
Sir Irwin taught Jinx to wield a sword, to eat with table manners, to stand up straight and look people in the eye. Sir Irwin also, unwittingly, taught Jinx to never drop to all fours, to never snarl or hiss, to never knock anything over with his tail or sit curled up comfortably before the fire. Jinx grew up knowing that Sir Irwin cared for him, and that most other humans thought it strange and unfitting for a knight to keep such a pet. There was always an argument, whenever they went among other humans, tried to stay at an inn, joined a group of other knights or attended the court functions of the outlying provinces. Sir Irwin was adamant: it was both of them or neither, and nothing could sway him. He called this honor and decency. Most other humans called it silly, sentimentality or idiocy. Jinx knew only that Sir Irwin would stand up for him no matter how many other humans were against him.
Ever since then Jinx had defended Sir Irwin passionately, only to fail during the battle the King had mentioned. The King’s sources had tactfully omitted the end of the story, about how Jinx, finally realizing that Sir Irwin was dead, had wandered forlornly away from the battle, distraught, caring nothing for the curses and cries for aid of Sir Irwin’s fellow knights. Jinx was shattered by the experience, and had never really gotten over it.
King-Thomas looked at him as if expecting his questions, and Jinx, coming back to the present, realized he had a few.
“Isn’t your home a bad place for Jinx to meet you, if you want Jinx to be a spy? And how much are you going to pay?”
The King, scandalized, exclaimed, “Not a ‘spy’, Jinx! Call it a… you could think of it as a…. I can’t explain. You can call it ‘spying’ if you must. Just remember not to put it that way to anyone else, all right, dear boy?”
“And pay?”
“My dear Jinx, if you carry out your duty well, you are bound to be knighted. Then you’ll be ‘Sir Jinx’. Isn’t that compensation enough?”
Jinx was unimpressed. Why would he want to change his name?
“As for meeting me in my home!” said King-Thomas, beaming. “This is not my only home: in fact, it’s the place I stay at least often. It’s… How shall I put this? Too shabby for a proper King.”
Jinx looked around, mystified. If this was shabby, he didn’t even want to see a fancy place. Too much magic, too big, too strange… Jinx felt uncomfortable just being there. He was not about to consider going anywhere fancier.
“You see, as you’ve no title, no rank, and you’re not a servant, you couldn’t possibly meet me in my home, so we’ll make other arrangements. I will meet you in yours!”
Jinx didn’t get it, and the King spelled it out for him.
“This, Jinx, is your new home. How’s that for payment, eh? Impressed?”
Jinx was, indeed, impressed. He was more than impressed. He was appalled.
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Jinx paced agitatedly around his new home, greatly disturbed. His arguments and pleas had fallen on deaf ears: King-Thomas would not back down, and Jinx couldn’t simply kill him for a number of reasons. First, King-Thomas had not harmed him in any way, and even came up with far more than the fifty gold he had promised. The money seemed to mean nothing to him. Jinx was still trapped, but King-Thomas had never said he wasn’t going to trap Jinx and baffle him with gibberish: he just said he was going to pay Jinx money, and he had. Jinx resolved never again to listen to strange wizards who offered money for seemingly harmless things. He felt, with some justification, that his being trapped in Rainmoor was partly his own fault.
Second, King-Thomas was the only person Jinx knew who could let him out of Rainmoor. The passageway that had closed behind Jinx refused to open again, and King-Thomas refused to let Jinx out, totally confusing him with endless talk about ‘good’ and ‘honor’ and ‘duty’ and such things. Jinx listened politely, understanding about one sentence in six, and gradually stopped asking for explanations, because the explanations were inevitably even worse. The most eloquent and incomprehensible part came when Jinx asked whether being ‘good’ meant trapping people in fancy places and making then do what you want. King-Thomas had spoken passionately, sometimes with noble tears in his eyes, for a solid half-hour: apparently ‘good’ meant that you would do whatever you liked because there were other people who were trying to do things you didn’t like. Jinx considered that, and told the King he was good too, meaning that he was still going to try to escape at the earliest opportunity. The King was much relieved.
Third, King-Thomas was putting everything in the room at Jinx’s disposal, and the sheer amount of it was nagging at Jinx’s curiosity very much. It was the magic stuff that was fascinating him, in spite of his fears. The room had so much magic in it that Jinx wanted to hide. There were five other rooms, each one also filled with astonishing, appallingly magical stuff. It reminded him of when he was very young and was trying to survive from day to day in his father’s dark and empty castle, skulking around trying to find food and a safe place to sleep, gazing in wonder at some mysterious magical undertaking of his wizard father and then being noticed and chased down the hall. Once more, the feeling of being surrounded by strange, mysterious forces was overwhelming. However, this time it was a totally novel experience, because this time the magical stuff was Jinx’s to use. That was a new and scary concept, and hard to get used to, but there was something irresistible about it anyway. Jinx had always thought of magic as the strange and unpleasant thing that had created him different from everybody, and his fear of magic was partly from feeling himself the victim of it. King-Thomas was allowing him to turn the tables and start fooling with it, and Jinx considered the possibilities interesting. Jinx also liked the idea of being able to open a door and throw somebody into a raging inferno if you needed to: you never could tell when you might need a raging inferno to throw somebody into. Jinx had never had one before, and there had been a number of occasions when he could have used one.
Finally, there was Elanor. King-Thomas had told Jinx that he could keep Elanor as a pet if that helped any, and added that she understood language a little bit. He could let Elanor run free around the place, or freeze her if he wanted. She was very intelligent for an animal, said King Thomas, and would make an excellent companion for him in many ways. If Jinx was not going to work for the King, however, Elanor would be much more useful as an astral guard. As the King exclaimed over what a wonderful job Elanor did in the Astral Plane, Jinx noticed her gazing at him with a pleading look in her jungle eyes: he tried to imagine what it was like wandering around as an astral spirit and didn’t think it would be as much fun as the King seemed to think it was.
Jinx asked the King whether Elanor could talk, since she understood commands.
“Well,” said the King, “perhaps you’d better see for yourself. She’s an animal, you see: I communicate with her and learn what she’s seen by a form of telepathy, or perhaps you’d call it empathy. The thoughts make a sort of sense, but I wouldn’t call it language. It’s more in terms of imagery, visual, auditory, olfactory and, er, tactile. I suppose one could call it that. I’m afraid it’s been cruel of me keeping Elanor here when I knew perfectly well of her… needs. However, she has been terribly useful and bears me no grudge for it, that is some consolation. It’s not difficult to communicate with an animal, but one has so little in common with it that there isn’t much to talk about. I’ll set up a link…” and Jinx felt a strange and alarming sensation in his mind, and tensed in fear, but before he could react it was over.
“There you are,” said the King. “Now, all you have to do to link minds with Elanor is touch her, for instance put your hand on her head. If you like, you can have me remove the link later. The same holds for the other animals, too. I’ve also given you the ability to change Elanor’s state, like you saw me do, but the other animals have to stay frozen, and you won’t be able to affect them. Oh, and I’ve told her your name. You’re best off staying here for a while, until I can teach you more about how Rainmoor works: you could get lost quite easily, and I wouldn’t relish the task of finding you again. I must go now, I’ve stayed too long already, but do make yourself at home, and do please go around and have a look at the animals’ minds. I can’t always check them as often as I would like, so you could be a great help to me by keeping tabs on them in that way. Goodbye! I’ll be back tomorrow.”
King-Thomas had left then, with a cheery wave, and Jinx was alone in the room.
Jinx kept pacing, lashing his tail in agitation, and Elanor’s eyes followed him wherever he went, though her head was frozen in place. He stared, frustrated, at the blank wall where he’d come in. Behind it was the world, but the passageway was gone and he couldn’t walk through solid rock. The other animals glanced at him occasionally, and then went back to a distant stare as if they were looking at things far away, but Elanor couldn’t stop looking at him and it made him uncomfortable. She must be in heat, he thought, and she thinks I’m an animal too. I’d better not let her loose for one second. King-Thomas must be crazy to think that I’m going to wander around Rainmoor with a lust-crazed black panther climbing all over me. Doesn’t he understand that I’m trying to behave like a human?
Finally, Jinx started to check out the animals, because his thinking wasn’t getting anywhere and he needed a distraction. He started as far from Elanor as he could, with one of the owls. He touched it, lightly.
(Find people talking. Find people acting like they’re trying to hide. Listen for people saying ‘King-of-Rainmoor’. Hunt.)
That sounded like what the King was telling him, and it also sounded like the bird hadn’t found anything. Jinx moved on to the next owl.
(Found! People talking about ‘King-of-Rainmoor’ in Crystal Gardens!)
That sounded like what the King was looking for! Jinx shrugged, and moved on to the next animal, a ferret.
(Sneak. Find people talking about ‘King-of-Rainmoor’. Kill them. Bite them. Attack bad things.)
Jinx supposed the ferret was for hunting in the gutters of Rainmoor, if Rainmoor had any gutters. He was a little taken aback by the ferocity of the ferret’s thoughts, but figured that was what ferrets were like. Next there was a bear. Jinx was glad he couldn’t let that one loose, even by accident.
(sleep)
Jinx wondered if the King knew that the bear was hibernating. Maybe it was spying on people’s dreams. That would be an interesting way to spy.
There were no animals left… except Elanor. Jinx considered skipping her. What good would it do? Her thoughts were probably animal passion and nothing else, judging from the way she was looking at him. Still, it couldn’t hurt. It might even be entertaining, in a way, to feel the crude waves of lust for him. He touched her head.
(Jinx! If you don’t set me loose this instant I’ll never forgive you as long as I live!)
Jinx staggered back, his mind reeling. Hand shaking, he touched her again.
(Oh, please, please, I’ll be good, Jinx, let me go please?)
(You talk?) thought Jinx.
(Of course I do!)
(Well, none of the other animals talk the way you do. Are you really a panther, or are you people like me?)
(I’m a cat. Like you. The others don’t talk? I talk to them all the time.)
(I am not either a cat! I’m people, or at least I’m almost people, sort of…)
(You’re a cat. I can tell. I could tell from the moment I laid eyes on you. You’re a beautiful cat. I need you, Jinx. If I wasn’t frozen stiff, I’d be weak in the knees just looking at you…)
(None of that! I’m people, not some stupid animal! I’d better not let you go, you are in heat, even worse than I thought.)
(Jinx! Please, please, could you let me go? I just need to make love to you, what’s wrong with that? You’d feel the same way, if you’d been wandering around some lonely place without your body for ten years, and then had a beautiful cat like you show up! Please let me go, it’s lonely in here.)
(Ten years?)
(Something like that. I’m not sure what a year is, but that’s what the man thinks. It doesn’t matter. Please let me go, please? I don’t want to be wandering around this place, now that I have another cat to be with.)
(I am not a cat! I’m people! You’re the one who’s a cat.)
(Oh, really? Then how come you understand everything I’m saying, when the man couldn’t?)
Jinx lifted his hand again, cutting her off in mid-thought. He was horrified. Did that mean he really was an animal, and not people? He paced, upset, lashing his tail agitatedly. He touched one of the owls again, and got the same trivial, unfocused thoughts he had before. Finally he crouched beside Elanor, and laid his hand on her head. Her mind was weeping.
(Oh, please, don’t leave me like that! I can’t bear it! If you’re not going to set me free then just take that sword you brought here and chop off my head! I can’t stand it, knowing that one of my own kind is finally here but doesn’t even want me around…)
(Elanor.)
(Y-yes?)
(You may be right about me being an animal, sort of.)
(Of course I am! Does that mean you’re going to let me go? Please, please?)
(Well, I’m willing to act like people. Are you? And will you leave me alone? I can’t have you lusting after me like that. I’m not like you…)
(I’ll do anything, just anything. Please!)
Jinx took his hand away, and crouched facing her, watching her warily. “Elanor. Thaw!”
Elanor began to move, awkwardly, as if trying to stretch before she was fully unfrozen. She stretched each leg out sensuously, then rolled on her back and wriggled lithely for sheer pleasure at being able to move. Then she turned to face Jinx, with glowing, adoring eyes, and pounced, knocking him onto his back and pinning him to the ground.
(Oh, thank you so much! I love you I love you I love you! Don’t ever make me go back to that place again, ever!)
(Elanor, get off me! Now!)
She got off Jinx, let him get up, and sat a short distance from him, unable to meet his eyes. Jinx studied her. She was trembling dreadfully. “You’re going to be endless trouble, aren’t you?”
She hesitantly reached out a shaking paw, and Jinx knew she wanted to communicate some more. He reluctantly took the paw in his hand.
(Are you mad at me, Jinx? Did I do something wrong?)
(Yes, and yes. You don’t understand language all that well, do you?)
(Sort of. You’re the first person I’ve ever talked with, this way at least.)
(Could you talk with King-Thomas?)
(Not really. I could only give him things like a feeling I’d spotted something, and a feeling of what the place was like. He thinks in gibberish.)
(He’s people, you’re not. You know what, Elanor? It’s gibberish to me, too. At least, a lot of it is.)
(Really? Jinx, a lot of what you think is gibberish too.)
(I doubt it. I’m not human enough to think in gibberish.)
(No, not that way. It’s not gibberish gibberish, it’s doesn’t-make-sense gibberish.)
(What?)
(You’re mad at me, and I didn’t do anything. You got mad when I said you were a cat, and you’re the most beautiful cat I ever saw. You won’t make love to me, and I need you to. Right now!)
(Elanor! Stop that! I warned you!)
(Please don’t be angry! I’m afraid you’re going to freeze me again when you think like that! Look, forget it. I’ll just go over to the other side of the room.)
(You do that. And stay over there, too. I’m going to sleep. This has been a rough day.)
Jinx watched her slink dejectedly away, still trembling. She curled up and lay still, and he could see she was still vibrating tensely, although feigning sleep. He shrugged, curled up himself, and gradually drifted off to sleep.
In the middle of a definitely provocative dream, he woke to feel Elanor’s paw on his flank.
(I can’t sleep.)
(So don’t sleep. Your paw’s shaking, Elanor.)
(I still haven’t stopped shaking, Jinx, and I can’t sleep.)
(What do you expect me to do about it?)
(You can either make love to me right now, or you can stop having nice dreams.)
Jinx looked down. Yes, they were nice dreams, and they had been interrupted. Considering that Elanor was in heat, he could see why she was having trouble getting to sleep.
(I can’t stand it, Jinx. It’s too much to ask of me. If you’re going to torture me like that, then you’d better freeze me facing away from you, because I can’t stop looking.)
Jinx was very sleepy, and didn’t have the energy to argue. Perhaps she’d settle down and be easier to deal with if she got what she wanted. Animals did work that way, and she’d probably get worse and worse if he kept on frustrating her. Nobody was watching. And he had to admit she was sexy: in her excited condition she couldn’t help being sexy, every move she made showed how desperate she was. Also, he could talk to her, and that reassured him for some reason. His objections faded reluctantly away, and he decided to give up and worry about it later. Besides, nobody would know…
“Reeeeowww!”
(Be quiet, damn it! People will hear! And hold still! How do you expect me to….)
“Yowr! Reeowww!”
(Now you’ve run right out from under me! Will you make up your mind!?!)
(Oh, please, don’t stop… Oh! Oh!)
“Reeeeoww!!”
Jinx had never been so annoyed and frustrated. This was worse than he’d feared: it was as noisy and obvious as his worst suspicions, but he hadn’t even been able to begin! Elanor was absolutely frantic, and was incapable of listening to reason, and there was no turning back. Jinx suspected she would attack him if he quit trying, but it was impossible to hold her still. There had to be a better way. Finally, Jinx had a bright idea.
“Elanor. Freeze.”
She shook even worse for a second, and then his problems were over.
When he was quite finished, he wandered back over to where he’d slept, and lay down, and looked at Elanor, still in the tense, frantic pose she’d been in when he froze her. “Elanor? Thaw.” he said, wondering what she would do. She’d been totally incoherent the entire time, but perhaps that was understandable. After all, she’d fainted twice.
As she unfroze, she wobbled a bit, then collapsed in a heap. He watched with interest as she struggled to her feet, which took a few attempts, and came towards him. She stood shakily before him, then drew back a paw with her claws extended, and tried to scratch his face. He jerked his head back, and she missed, and fell over again. The next thing he knew, she was snuggling into his arms. That startled him, but he didn’t resist: it felt good to have her cuddling up against him.
(Oh well, I tried. You shouldn’t have ducked, you deserve a scar after that trick.)
(It’s your own fault for being so noisy and wild. Now are you going to sleep?)
(Yes. I love you.)
(Animals don’t love, people do.)
(Then I must be people, because I love you.)
(No, you’re not. I’m not quite people myself: how could you be?)
(I don’t care. Go to sleep, tiger.)
(Only because that’s what I wanted to do in the first place. I think I’m going to have to trick King-Thomas into thinking you’re a person, otherwise he’ll know I’m not really one myself…)
(Or stay up and think gibberish to yourself, if that’s what you want to do. I’m going to sleep, anyway.)
(You do that. I can’t expect you to understand these things.)
Jinx awoke staring at a foot, and looked up to see King-Thomas, who seemed touched and amused at the sight of Jinx and Elanor curled up together. Startled, Jinx tried to figure out a way to get out of his embarrassing position.
“I thought I’d find you two together, Jinx. Elanor is a dear creature, isn’t she? So affectionate. I think I’ll have to give her to you, you suit each other.” His tone said more than his words did.
(What’s he saying, Jinx?)
(Be quiet. Act like a human.) “She’s people, you know, King-Thomas. You shouldn’t talk about giving her.”
“Oh, no, I don’t think so. She’s a beautiful beast, but there’s nothing human about her, not in the sense that you’re human, anyway. I understand you’re part human by birth. She’s entirely an animal, but there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m sure you have your needs, just as she has. Or would that be ‘had’?”
Jinx bristled at the implication. “She can talk as well as I can, over that mind-link thing.”
“Oh, I think not. I’d have noticed if she had. I imagine she can speak eloquently with her body, though. Such a beautiful creature, and so, ah, affectionate… I’m afraid mind-links keep no secrets, Jinx. I’ve been quite aware of Elanor’s moods. She seems much relieved now, however. I’m happy to see it, as I love her dearly… in some ways, at least… You know, I rather envy you, Jinx, although I doubt a real human has any business saying so. I’ve always thought she was exquisitely lovely. Some of our more decadent nobles wouldn’t have lifted an eyebrow if I’d… soothed her. Lord knows I’ve been tempted, working with her so closely. Though it really wouldn’t do, you know.”
(Jinx! No! Don’t you dare hurt my nice King-Thomas! He likes me!)
(He shouldn’t, at least not that way.)
(What’s that supposed to mean?)
(I’ll try to explain later. Okay, I won’t hurt him. Satisfied?)
(Yes. I’m going to go and play in the other room. Call me back if you want to talk.)
“What do you want?” asked Jinx, vexed by the way King-Thomas was watching Elanor glide fluidly into the other room. She moved with indecent languor, and this was too obvious for Jinx’s liking. Probably many people would not know what it meant, but King-Thomas seemed to know all too well. He looked very pleased at the sight.
“The gift seems to be already given, anyhow…” mused King-Thomas. “I came by to help you make your adjustment to Rainmoor. There are so many things you must learn, before you’ll be ready to go out and start working.”
“Is it dawn?” asked Jinx brusquely. The King seemed unperturbed.
“My dear Jinx, it is nearly noon. I let you sleep in until a shocking hour, out of the kindness of my heart, because when I peeked in at you and saw you sleeping with Elanor, I couldn’t bear to wake you. Perhaps it was her I could not bear to wake. Call me soft-hearted, bout that’s how I felt. It was an endearing sight.”
Jinx bristled further at the thought of King-Thomas peeking in at them. He felt violated somehow, and snarled “Jinx hasn’t woken up enough to deal with you yet.”
“Oh, I understand.” said King-Thomas. “Do whatever you need to get your heart started, and I’ll be by again in a few hours.”
He left politely while Jinx was still trying to figure out if he was being suggestive.
“Elanor?” called Jinx, and she scampered up to him and snuggled up.
(You have no idea how nice it is to be alive again, Jinx!)
(Elanor, King-Thomas looked at us while we were sleeping!)
(Oh? Why does that bother you so? And why were you so angry at him? I didn’t really understand what he was saying, but he was talking about me.)
(I wasn’t able to fool him. He still thinks you’re an animal.)
(But I am, silly! What’s wrong with being an animal?)
(I can’t explain. Take my word for it, being an animal is bad. You have to be a person instead if you’re going to stay with me.)
(Jinx, I’m not! I can’t be a person! They think in gibberish, and they don’t make sense. You must be a person, because you don’t make sense either. Jinx, please, can’t I just be what I am? I love you, and I want you to be happy with me…)
(Well, can you try to act like a person?)
(How? Why?)
(I don’t know! Walk upright, like me. Pay attention to what King-Thomas says and listen to the conversation, and be dignified, not scampering around like an enormous kitten.)
(Jinx, honestly! I don’t know how you walk upright and can’t see why you bother, I barely understand what King-Thomas says anyway, and I’m going to scamper if I feel like it. I was frozen for a very long time, and I have a perfect right to scamper now if I choose!)
(Oh, very well. King-Thomas is coming back, and you’d better get it over with before he sees you doing it, so scamper off and play… kitten.)
As Elanor scampered off, Jinx entered what seemed to be a dining room, and suddenly realized he hadn’t eaten since yesterday. He looked around for the kitchen, but there was no sign of a kitchen, just a small but ornate table to sit at and a much larger table jammed with food. Jinx had no intentions of sitting at the small table to eat, because it was made of that wood that rippled and looking at it disturbed him.
The table piled with food was more normal, but Jinx was baffled by most of the food on it. What was the black guck in a bowl? It smelled fishy, and glistened, and Jinx wasn’t about to risk it. There wasn’t any bread Jinx recognized, but there were small things shaped like a lumpy waning moon that smelled wonderfully like bread. Jinx picked one up, and was startled when his fingers gouged deeply into the thing. He tasted it, because it sure smelled like bread, and then ate it. It was delicious, but it was nothing but air! He wasn’t going to get very far eating those things.
He carefully avoided looking at a hideous thing like a huge, swollen insect: this was difficult, as the thing was bright red and smack in the middle of the other food. Jinx thought he had never seen anything so disgusting in his entire life. There were some mushrooms there as well, of two varieties, neither of which Jinx trusted: one was black and rubbery, and the other seemed more normal, though strangely dried up, but wasn’t any sort Jinx recognized. Jinx knew better than to eat strange mushrooms. He looked further.
Jinx spotted something that looked like meat, and took a piece. On close inspection, it smelled very much like ham but looked like ham that had been in a terrible accident. Still, it smelled so much like ham that Jinx tasted it. Yes, it was ham, sort of, but it tasted too strong and the texture was all wrong. It was like ham that somebody had chewed up already, and Jinx spat it out and moved on, beginning to feel desperate. Didn’t King-Thomas have any normal food?
Jinx’s attention was drawn to an outlandish circular food, that smelled promising. It smelled of tomatoes, which Jinx recognized, and had a crust which was definitely bread, and seemed to be made largely of cheese, a strange sort of cheese, but definitely cheese of some sort. It had spots all over it, and when Jinx picked one of them off he quickly realized it was an incredibly thin slice of some sort of sausage. The cheese clung stubbornly to it, and Jinx tried that and thought it was the most boring cheese he’d ever heard of. However, the overall food seemed quite promising and Jinx managed to finish off more than half of the thing. He thought it was a wonderful food, although there were things about it that annoyed him: he couldn’t figure out how anyone could cut the bread under it into wedges while leaving the cheese a solid mass, and he couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to do this even if they could…
He went looking for something to drink but found that the choices there were just as baffling. First, there was wine, but it was clearish instead of red, and to make matters worse was bubbling as if it were a magic potion. Jinx had always avoided even normal wine, because it did things to his mind. Who could imagine what this strange bubbling stuff might do? Next there was a liquid didn’t bubble or do anything alarming, but looked disconcertingly like urine, only with a greenish tint. Jinx considered that it might have something to do with lemons, for he thought he could smell a hint of lemon in it, and so he tasted it, and hastily spat it out. It did indeed taste of lemons, but it also tasted so strongly of strange, unnatural things that Jinx hunted in a panic for something safe to wash his mouth out with. There was some brown stuff that smelled milky and sweet, and then there was clear stuff that reeked savagely of alcohol, even more than brandy did, and also smelled metallic and sour and generally unpleasant. Then, finally, there was water: Jinx supposed it must be some special sort of water, but water it was. It tasted ever so slightly bitter, but that was perfectly normal for water, especially when you drank from a spring high in the mountains. Jinx rinsed his mouth out with it, and then drank some. Looking back at the food, he noticed with a sense of unease that the round thing he’d eaten had replenished itself. Well, he thought, you should have expected that. At least there’s a thing you can eat and a thing you can drink that’s not totally bizarre and decadent. If it can’t run out, all the better: maybe it’s not the food that’s magical (a thought that made Jinx want to vomit), it’s the table that fetches it…
Jinx heard a frightened squall from the other room, and then Elanor rushed in and cowered behind him, pressing against his legs and shuddering.
(It bit me!)
(What bit you? There isn’t anybody here but us. Was it the ferret?)
(No, no! Some strange thing in that room, the one that’s just full of strange things. All I did was touch it with my nose, and it bit me, really hard! Is it coming? Is it chasing me?)
Jinx listened carefully, but he heard nothing.
(I don’t think so. Show me what bit you. I’ll teach it a lesson.)
Elanor led him to the door of the room she’d been in, and Jinx, after getting his sword, prowled warily in. The room was certainly full of strange, incomprehensible things, but not one of them made a move or showed the slightest indication of being alive.
(Elanor, there isn’t anything alive here! How could any of it bite you?)
(The shiny thing.) thought Elanor, still staying safely behind him. (The thing on the floor that’s all complicated. Oh, Jinx, be careful! It’s growling!)
Jinx started to tell her she was talking nonsense, but then he realized that one of the things was indeed making a noise. He would have called it humming instead of growling, and the humming was disconcertingly steady and unvarying, but it was certainly not just sitting there. Bits of it glowed with a strange, orange light, trapped within tall bubbles of glass. Jinx advanced on it cautiously, drawing his sword. The thing was made of various sorts of metal, and appeared to be partly disassembled, with bits of wire of the sort one used for chain-mail sticking out of it here and there. It seemed that King-Thomas had found this thing somewhere and was experimenting with it for some reason. Jinx noticed that there was a ropelike thing emerging from the back of it, smooth and dull and looking like a thin snake without scales. This ropelike thing faded into thin air at the far end, as if it was the creature’s link to its own plane. Jinx considered this, and then a grin stole over his tigerish face. He was certain that, if he cut the thing’s lifeline, all its power would be gone and it would die. Jinx drew back his sword, and at that moment King-Thomas appeared in the doorway, crying “Jinx! No!”. But Jinx wasn’t about to spare the thing on King-Thomas’s whim. It had attacked Elanor, and it was going to die.
The sword swung down, and suddenly there was a shower of crackling sparks and a cold fire was ripping Jinx’s arm off. His ears went back, and he began slashing savagely at the thing’s life line, knowing that his only hope was to cut it, before the angered creature could pivot and cover its weak spot. The world swam before his eyes as the creature’s attacks shook his body, and Jinx crumpled to the floor, with one last desperate slash of his sword…
He regained consciousness slowly, with both Elanor and King-Thomas bending over him.
(Jinx! Wake up, please! Don’t die!)
“Jinx, you poor fellow! Are you all right?”
“Is it dead?” asked Jinx, fumbling for his sword, which he’d dropped when he fainted.
(You killed it! I’m so proud of you!)
“My dear fellow, it never was alive!” said King-Thomas. “But it was still horribly dangerous! I can’t tell you how sorry I am for not warning you about it. I’m deeply ashamed, honestly!”
Jinx looked at the thing, and listened for its humming. It was silent, and its life line had been severed with his final blow. The severed end had vanished away into whatever space it had come from, leaving behind a wisp of foul-smelling smoke and an air of lightning. His sword was charred slightly, and a tiny spot along its edge was melted from the titanic force of the creature’s blows.
“What the hell was it, anyway?” asked Jinx, shaken.
“Jinx, you were fighting storm elementals! To be specific, you were fighting lightning elementals! Some mages in one of the other planes have learned how to trap them and force the elementals to do their bidding. That’s why I say the device was never alive. It’s a sort of cage, which the lightning elementals inhabit. I’d been trying to learn what the device was for, and I haven’t succeeded, but I did learn that lightning elementals travel through metal, at the risk of my own life! Ah, Jinx, I learned quickly to never allow them any way to get at me: they attacked viciously at the slightest opportunity, and there was no reasoning with them! I suppose one must expect that from the fiercest of the Storm Elementals. I have been terribly careful to wear leather gloves, which they have great difficulty attacking through, and to never, ever touch any metal they might be occupying unless I was wearing the gloves! Even then, they would prey upon me in moments of fear, snapping at my sweating hands! And then, what should I see but you, dear fellow, taking on these dangerous creatures with a metal sword! I tried to warn you, but I was too late. You are indeed lucky to be alive!”
(What’s he talking about, Jinx?)
Jinx tried to figure out how to explain it to her. (It wasn’t really alive, but sort of. It was really, really dangerous, but it’s dead now.)
Elanor gazed worshipfully at him with big, adoring eyes, and that was gratifying. Even if she wasn’t really people, rescuing her from Storm Elementals made him feel important.
“But why on earth did you attack it in the first place? I say,” added the King in alarm, “you haven’t been eating the mushrooms, have you?” He backed away, nervously.
“Jinx hasn’t eaten any mushrooms. Why do you ask?”
“I am inestimably relieved, Jinx. I’d better start explaining things starting with your own home: it hadn’t occurred to me how many dangers I’d left lying about. But why did you attack it, Jinx? It was one of the most dangerous things around here. You couldn’t have known about the lightning elementals, for I didn’t think to tell you. Why?”
“It attacked Elanor.”
“Oh, dear! I should have thought of that. I trusted you to not meddle in things that could be dangerous, but I never thought of the danger of leaving Elanor unattended! I’d better take care of it before she gets in any further mischief. Elanor! Fr..”
“Don’t say it.” rasped Jinx. “I’ll tell her to stay out of trouble.”
“Oh, Jinx, don’t be foolish! You can’t tell her anything, you know. At least let me do it while there are dangerous things around. I’ll make the place Elanor-proof, and then you can have her back. Elanor!”
“I said no!” snarled Jinx, and wondered why he was getting angry over Elanor.
King-Thomas stammered, clearly alarmed. “You’re quite sure you haven’t been eating the mushrooms?” he joked nervously.
“Why do you keep talking about mushrooms?” asked Jinx, baffled. “Jinx never eats mushrooms he doesn’t recognize. Some of them are poisonous.”
“Just checking. They’re one of the things I’m going to have to remove. Jinx, I’m only trying to protect Elanor. You must see that. I can see that the thought upsets you,” continued the King carefully, “but you must understand that Elanor could be hurt or killed by some of the loose ends I’m going to tidy up. Don’t you see that there’s no way to tell Elanor to stay out of trouble? She’s exceedingly bright, for an animal, and very inquisitive. When I start tidying up the place, and getting rid of dangerous things, her attention is going to be drawn to them, and some of these things could kill her in a heartbeat if she poked into them. I implore you, for Elanor’s sake, to let me protect her in this way…”
Jinx was moved by his sincerity, and drew his hand back from his sword in shame, leaving it on the floor where he’d dropped it. He felt Elanor pressing against his leg.
(Please don’t hurt King-Thomas, Jinx! I hate seeing you angry at him, he’s a nice man.)
(Yes, I suppose he is. Wait, I have an idea!)
Jinx crouched before Elanor, holding her head in his hands, and spoke out loud.
“Elanor, I know you can hear me. I’m thinking these words at you as I’m saying them, and I know you understand them. I want you to go take a nap while King-Thomas and I go around and make this place safe. There are things we’ll be doing that could hurt you, and you need to stay out of them…”
“Dear boy!” said King-Thomas, deeply touched. “My poor, dear boy, she can’t understand you!”
(Ha!) thought Jinx.
“And to show King-Thomas that you understand what I’m saying, I want you to get up on your hind legs and walk over to where we were sleeping, and lie down.”
(You want me to what?!?)
(You heard me. It’s the only way to prove I can speak to you.)
(I can’t! I won’t! I refuse to look silly in front of King-Thomas like that!)
(Elanor! You’ve got to!)
(No, Jinx!)
(Elanor, do it! Now!) thought Jinx, desperately, letting her feel the full force of his urgency.
“Oh, my poor, dear boy…” began King-Thomas, and stopped.
Elanor jerked her head away from Jinx’s hands, and glared at him in exasperation. Nobody moved for a second, and then Elanor turned, and stiffly, awkwardly rose on her hind legs. She tried to take a step, and then fell over, having no idea how to balance herself. She shot a angry glance at Jinx, turned her back on him, rose on her hind legs again, and staggered drunkenly out of the room, her front legs stuck out stiffly and waving around as she tried to keep from falling down. Jinx and King-Thomas rushed to the door, to see Elanor stagger to the exact spot she and Jinx had slept at, drop to all fours and curl up as if sleeping. She shot baleful looks at Jinx, then rolled over, her back to him, ostentatiously ignoring his existence, her tail twitching angrily.
King-Thomas was speechless for a moment. Then he turned to Jinx.
“Sir, I owe you an apology.”
“Does that mean you’re going to leave Elanor alone?”
“Indeed it does, Jinx, and more. Just a moment!”
King-Thomas ducked into the other room again, and came out brandishing Jinx’s sword, which Jinx had left behind on the floor.
Jinx panicked, stammering “Jinx is sorry he got angry at you, so put down the sword!”
“No, no! Calm yourself, my friend, I’m going to honor you, not chop off your head! Kneel before me, Jinx.”
Jinx looked down at his tiger’s legs, terribly confused. He didn’t know why he was being asked to kneel, and doubted he was capable of it.
King-Thomas noticed the confused glance. “Oops! Of course you can’t kneel, your legs bend the wrong way. I suppose you could crouch, but why don’t we dispense with that part? Come stand before me, Jinx, and look me in the eye like a courageous, ah, creature.”
Jinx complied, warily. He was reassured by King-Thomas’s pompous tone: in his experience, he’d never seen anybody attack while declaiming in a pompous tone. However, he was still nervous, for King-Thomas was holding the sword outstretched over his head.
King-Thomas lowered the sword, and Jinx winced as it touched the top of his head. Thankfully, it was the flat and not the edge touching him. He stood very still, his eyes locked on King-Thomas’s and warily searching for signs of violence. The King began to declaim, pompously.
“Jinx, to honor your courage in battling the Lightning Elementals, a battle I witnessed with my own eyes, to honor your nobleness and compassion for your… for your consort, and to honor your intelligence at learning to speak even with the beasts of the jungle when no man previously had succeeded at the task: for these reasons, and as an expression of my faith in you, I heretofore dub thee ‘Sir Jinx’. You may stand… Well, you are standing, come to think of it, aren’t you? Stand tall, Sir Jinx!”
Jinx obediently stood on tiptoes for a moment. “Can Sir-Jinx have his sword back now?”
“Of course, Sir! With pleasure!”
“Can Sir-Jinx use his old name still, or is it against the rules?” said Jinx, taking the proffered sword.
“Ah, Jinx! Of course you may. But now, if you like, you can be addressed as ‘Sir Jinx’ and punish any of lesser rank who insult you by omitting your title. Within reason, of course. I can explain the guidelines you’ll have to follow should you want to enforce this.”
“Why would Jinx want to do that?”
King-Thomas sighed. “Perhaps it would be too difficult to explain. Actually, I find you curiously refreshing, my dear fellow, for your lack of concern about these things. You’ve no idea how seriously most people take them. Just be assured of one thing, Jinx: you are Nobility now, and not a mere peasant. I shall make the announcements as soon as I’m done here.”
They went into the dining room, Jinx sneaking a glance at Elanor, who was obviously still affronted and angry with him. King-Thomas muttered some gibberish, and the not-black-and-rubbery mushrooms vanished, to be replaced by tiny fish lying in neat rows.
“Hm!” said King-Thomas. “That’s new!” and tried one, then made a face, discreetly removed it from his mouth, and took a swig of the bubbling wine.
“Were those mushrooms poison?” asked Jinx. “Is that why you were so worried Jinx had eaten them?”
“Oh, no! None of the foods are poison, although one is never sure what one will get. Those, my dear Jinx, were enchanted mushrooms. They taste appalling, but eating them brings on wild and fantastic visions. They’re popular among some of the more, dare I say it, dissolute nobles. I was quite worried that you’d eaten some without knowing their magical nature, and the thought of Elanor eating them was even more alarming.”
Jinx was very, very glad he hadn’t touched them. “These things are popular?”
“As I’d said, among the more dissipated noblemen. You sound quite disapproving, Jinx. Do you have strong feelings about such things?”
“Jinx doesn’t understand why real humans like to make themselves sick in the head.”
“Well, if you feel that way, we may as well change some of the beverages while we’re at it. One in particular wouldn’t suit you at all, this one here.” He indicated the one that reeked of alcohol.
“Jinx agrees. It stinks even worse than brandy.”
“Quite so. It’s also popular with the same crowd, you know. Its effects are so shockingly powerful that I had my alchemist analyze it, and it turns out that it’s not magical, but is composed of alcohol from both grapes and grains, with traces of wormwood, which of course is used in casting debilitating hexes. Surprisingly, although it’s not magical, it seems to show the power of compulsion, and you’ll find it served almost anywhere you go, for some high-ranking nobles like Lord Robert refuse to drink anything else. Since the foods and drinks we discover come without names, we have to name them ourselves if they become popular. This one we call ‘the Hammer’, because of what it does to one’s head.”
“Very nice,” Jinx said. “Jinx hopes you can find a more suitable drink to replace it.”
“It wouldn’t be difficult.” said the King wryly, and muttered more gibberish.
The clear liquid changed to a brown liquid, with a familiar smell, and King-Thomas looked pleased.
“Why, I believe it’s… Yes, it is! There you are, Jinx! Apple cider!”
That suited Jinx reasonably well. It was quite fresh and tasty, and seemed to have a hint of cinnamon in it, and also a fair amount of ginger.
“What about these other things?” asked Jinx.
“Have you tried them, Jinx? They’re all good to eat, you know. Do they not agree with you?”
“Jinx will be happier if you take away the large red insect.”
“Oh, that’s not an insect, Jinx! It’s some sort of crab, although nobody’s ever seen a creature that color before. You don’t have to eat the shell, you know.”
“Jinx doesn’t care what it is, it’s disgusting and turns his stomach.”
“Well, we don’t want that. Did you find anything you could eat?”
Jinx indicated the round food.
“Oh, dear. I apologize for the food, Jinx: I might have known your tastes would be less daring than my own. Here’s what I’ll do.”
King-Thomas muttered intently for a minute, then turned to Jinx with a half-suppressed smile.
“This might amuse you. All you have to do, to replace a food or drink with another one, is touch the container, think of the food you want to get rid of, and say the keyword for the cantrip. I don’t expect you to remember the actual cantrip word, so I’ve changed it for you to a word easier to remember.”
“What word?” asked Jinx, uneasy at the prospect of having to say magic words.
“Yuck!” said the King, and burst out laughing.
Jinx was reassured at that, for ‘yuck’ was just how he felt about most of the foods. He hoped he’d be able to find simple food and drink without too much trouble.
“What does Elanor eat?” asked Jinx, realizing that, as far as he knew, she hadn’t had anything to eat for at least a day.
“Elanor doesn’t have to eat. In order to use a beast as an astral guard, one has to set up a way to sustain it, because it can’t feed itself. That’s a special cantrip, separate from the astral projection, and it’s still in effect on Elanor. I expect she’s forgotten what hunger feels like by now. If you like, I can dispel it, you can find food of some sort that she likes, and I’ll find you some sort of sand-box. Or perhaps you can teach her how to use the privy.”
“I’ll ask her whether she wants to eat or not.” said Jinx. “Nobody likes hunger.”
They came back into the room with the fire. Elanor was still feigning sleep, but her tail wasn’t twitching as irritatedly as before. Evidently she found it hard to stay mad at Jinx for long, or perhaps she just forgot things quickly.
“The dangers in this room are the gates.” said King-Thomas. “Do you expect you’ll be using them?”
Jinx didn’t think King-Thomas would approve of his plans for using the raging inferno, and said “Yes” without going into detail.
“Good lad. It can be a real education to explore the planes with Gates. I must introduce you to Vernon: he’ll be quite helpful. There’s one Gate, however, that I must close: actually, I should have closed it long ago, but I never did get around to it.”
“The fiery one?” asked Jinx, rather disappointed.
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? No. That gate is actually quite safe, for the very simple reason that nobody would ever enter it by accident. You’d have to be totally mad to think you could go through that gate in safety. No, I’m talking about this one. Stand back!”
King-Thomas gingerly opened a door that had been closed since Jinx had been there: it had been closed even when Jinx had first seen it. Jinx braced himself, expecting some horrible nightmare, then gaped in astonishment.
The door opened upon a lovely green field, with pretty flowers and chirping birds. It was a sunny day in early Spring, and the trees glowed with the delicious green that would, all too soon, be replaced by their normal raiment. The cheerful burbling of a stream could be heard, somewhere just out of sight.
“Stand back, I said!” snapped King-Thomas, glancing worriedly back and forth between Jinx and Elanor, who was fascinated. He was clearly ready to slam the door shut at any moment, and his fear conveyed itself to Jinx unmistakably. The contrast between the beautiful scene and King-Thomas’s fear was disturbing. There was obviously something very bad and dangerous about the place, yet it was the picture of innocence and beauty. Was that what humans meant by ‘evil’?
“What’s wrong with it?” asked Jinx. “Is there some terrible monster ready to attack?”
“I’d better show you. Then I’m getting rid of the damned thing, so fast it will make your head spin.” said King-Thomas grimly. He fumbled in his pocket, never taking his eyes off Elanor, who continued to gaze out the Gate with great interest. He produced a gold piece, cursed, then got out a copper piece. “Stand back!”
King-Thomas tossed the coin through the Gate, and there was a deafening report and a blinding flash of colorless light, and the coin was gone. There wasn’t even a wisp of smoke to show where it had been. Stunned, Jinx noticed that the birds had stopped chirping. King-Thomas closed the door, very firmly.
“That, my friend, is an Anti-Plane. Because of the way the Gates operate, you can look through, even stick your head through and look around. I did, when I discovered it. As long as part of you is still in this plane, you don’t exist in the Anti-Plane. The instant you enter it completely, you cease to exist in this plane, and start existing in the Anti-Plane, only you can’t. I don’t know why or how, but you saw what happened to the coin. That copper piece could have been you. Or Elanor, for she certainly liked what she saw. You’d love to go romping among those flowers, wouldn’t you, Elanor?”
Jinx was appalled. “Get rid of it!”
“Quite. I may say that I’ll sleep better at night without it.” King-Thomas muttered his usual gibberish, then opened the door to reveal a extremely boring wasteland. He nodded, and shut the door again.
“Aren’t you going to test it? Throw something through, and see if it explodes.” said Jinx, trying to be nonchalant.
King-Thomas made a sort of twisted grin. “I will if you like, but I’m certain that this new plane is not an Anti-Plane. You wouldn’t know this, but finding that Anti-Plane took weeks of hard work, and I was never able to duplicate the discovery, no matter how I tried. In a way, that’s why I kept the horrid thing around: it was unique. Still, I’m glad it’s gone, for it’s given me nightmares. I honestly think I’d have liked it better if it was a festering swamp. There was something about it being so lovely that had always deeply disturbed me.”
“I still want you to make sure this new place doesn’t explode.” said Jinx. “Please?”
“Oh, certainly.” King-Thomas opened the door again, and tossed a coin through. It landed on the blackened ground and lay there peacefully. King-Thomas stuck his head through, looked around to see if there were any strange creatures about, then walked through and picked up the coin. He looked around again.
“Gad, what an ugly plane.” he said, and came straight back, closing the door behind him.
King-Thomas then showed Jinx the rest of the rooms, explaining as he went. Jinx tried to pay attention, but found it very difficult to understand.
There was the study, filled floor-to-ceiling with books.
“You must remember, Jinx, that each book is a point on several different planes at once, and hence this library contains all books, possibly. I’ll set it for rousing adventures and doughty tales… But you can’t read, can you? That’s easily fixed, and I shall fix it.”
“Please don’t do anything to my mind! I don’t want to be changed!”
“Calm yourself, my dear fellow! I shall do nothing to you. I’d already noted that you feel uncomfortable at the thought of being the subject of magic…”
“Jinx already is the subject of magic, otherwise he wouldn’t have a tail. Jinx wishes to never let it happen again.”
“Quite so. No, what I’m going to do is make the books capable of reading themselves aloud. Have you ever been read to, Jinx?”
“I’m not sure what you mean. Probably not.” Jinx supposed that meant having somebody read out loud. He’d sometimes tried to listen to his wizard father read out loud, but it was useless since he hadn’t been taught language yet, and he got kicked really hard and chased away if he was noticed. That probably wasn’t what King-Thomas meant.
“Well, now you shall. All you need do is open whichever book you choose, and it will speak to you and tell its stories. If you want to read other sorts of books, simply state aloud what sorts of books you wish. I will give you a word of warning, though, Jinx: letting the books read themselves will have precisely the same effect as if you were reading them aloud. I strongly advise you to stick to tales and stories, and not to attempt the reading of grimoires and such. Do we understand each other?”
Jinx wondered what a ‘grimoire’ was. “Yes, King-Thomas.”
“Good.”
The next room was called a ‘vision room’, and Jinx glanced worriedly about for the mushrooms King-Thomas had warned him against. The door opened onto a clearing atop a mountain. It was a dreadfully steep mountain, almost a spire, judging from how it towered above everything else. Jinx noted several huge stone spheres in the middle of the clearing. He tried to walk toward them, curious, but ran into an invisible wall, stopped, and stared at them from a distance.
“What are those things?”
“I’d have thought you’d have heard of them, Jinx. Ah! Perfect timing. If you’d like to know, then turn around and see for yourself!”
Jinx turned, to see King-Thomas looking pleased. Behind him was the door, that still showed the room with the fire: it seemed to be standing in the middle of the air, very like a Gate of some sort. Behind that was the edge of the precipice, and to Jinx’s horror, a titanic bird rose into view just past the edge, beating its enormous wings and fixing him with large, predatory eyes. It must have been larger than a house, and it was less than thirty feet away. Jinx shrank, gasping, against the invisible wall behind him.
Elanor rushed into the room, sensing that something was wrong. She looked over her shoulder, spied the monster, let out a little squeak of terror and rushed straight out again.
Jinx suddenly realized that King-Thomas was laughing. “Dear boy, it can’t see you! In fact, I’m not entirely certain it exists! This is the Vision Room, not a Gate, after all. Gates are easy, but a Vision Room can view anything, whether it’s real or not!”
“It’s not real?” asked Jinx, still quite alarmed. The great bird had passed overhead and was settling down upon the spheres, which were clearly its eggs. Jinx suddenly realized that its wings had not caused any wind. The dust had blown about madly while the thing passed overhead, but it was a trick of the eye.
“I’m not sure. What I do know is that you are viewing a Roc, for that’s what I asked the Room to find. I’ve spent many hours studying the behavior of the Roc, you know: if it turns out to be real, then I shall be well educated from observing it! If it’s merely a figment of somebody’s imagination, then my studies will be useless, but I must admit the fun I’ve had watching it is well worth the time I’ve spent!”
Elanor was peering in the doorway, her fur bristling. She glanced back and forth between Jinx and the Roc, and hesitantly advanced toward it until she bumped into the invisible wall. When she did, she jerked back in alarm, then pressed against Jinx’s leg, trembling.
(Did it hurt you, Jinx? What is it?)
(It’s a very big bird. It might not be real.)
(Why, you’re right, it’s not real, after all!)
(Well, on the other hand it might be.)
(It couldn’t possibly be real, Jinx. It doesn’t smell.)
(That’s true, Elanor, but this place is only for looking at things, not smelling them.)
(What good is that?)
(Damned if I know! I’ve had enough of this place.)
Jinx strode haughtily out of the Vision Room, followed by Elanor and King-Thomas.
“I fear I’ve given you a bad impression of the Vision Room,” said King-Thomas apologetically.
“Oh, no!” said Jinx. “Jinx likes being frightened by giant birds!”
“There is no need to be snide, sir!” snapped the King. “I regret having inconvenienced you. I assure you that the Vision Room is perfectly safe, barring exceptional circumstances. All you need do, to switch its View to some other thing, is speak the name of the thing aloud, and have the desire to change the View in your mind. The Room will do the rest.”
“No offense.” said Jinx. “What is an exceptional circumstance?”
“Should you ever even think you see a basilisk or cockatrice, shut your eyes immediately and change the View to something else. Basilisks are real, and evidently cockatrice are as well. I know this, because one of my untitled mages thought he could view one in safety through the Vision Room. He occupies a position of honor in my Banquet Hall for his sacrifice.”
“Jinx thought such things were death to look at.” said Jinx. “How is it this wizard gets a special seat at the table, if he’s dead?”
“I never said he wasn’t dead. The position I speak of is standing upon a pedestal in the entrance way. By honor I mean that anybody who attempts to hang their hat and coat on him gets stripped of their rank…”
