Convergence

Earlier that morning, Jinx's little group had set out to investigate his cabin. Alan was still with the group, though he showed signs of flight. He'd outfitted himself with his hunting bow, in case there was trouble. Tim came along, busily reassuring Jinx that there was probably a simple explanation for everything. Rob had brought along a large metal pole, which he used as a sort of walking stick, though it was obviously not a good one.

"Wouldn't a wooden stick be more useful?" asked Jinx.

Rob heaved the pole along another step. "Hah. Depends how you mean. You think I'm bringing this along for looks?"

"Well- it is shiny."

"That it is, true enough." chuckled Rob. "Pray we leave it at that. I will say this, though- Mick's a good friend of mine. This ain't your usual pole. You may thank me that I brung it."

Jinx considered this, and replied, "Thank you."

"Not now!" laughed the blacksmith. "You'll know when."

As they grew nearer to Jinx's cabin, he became aware of a strange feeling, like a poised tenseness of great energies waiting to discharge, or distant thunder on a clear and sunny day. It was sunny, in fact- the day so bright it glittered, crisp winter air, the quietness of the snowy woods hardly disturbed by their passage. Jinx and Alan moved almost silently, while Rob and Tim clumped along less stealthily than that, but there was no sign anything noticed them, even so. The air stretched out so thin and brittle it seemed like something somewhere had to crack, which Jinx didn't understand. Was it his being King that brought him this dreadful sensitivity, or was it just that he felt threatened by a mysterious something? Ghosts and monsters seemed alarming in the night, but in the glare of daylight, as the four passed the path towards the top of the mountain and the King's Gate, and approached Jinx's cabin, the night terrors seemed no more alarming than the plume of smoke from his fireplace...

The day fractured into deadly edges.

He had not left a fire burning in the fireplace, and the plume of smoke was too great.

Jinx broke into a run, followed by the others, who were quick to realize what was happening. Rob, accustomed to working with heat and flame, understood at almost the same moment as Jinx, but was encumbered by the metal pole- refusing to drop it, he lagged behind Alan, on Jinx's heels, and Tim, slowest to figure out the danger.

They dashed around a last turn in the path, to an astonishing sight. Jinx's cabin was engulfed in flames, roaring and crackling as its wood burned and consumed everything inside, but there was a figure standing before it, arms crossed in satisfaction.

Someone made a noise, and the figure looked around, then whirled in shock and alarm to stare at Jinx and his friends, and Jinx saw his face clearly. It was Carl, the Rover mage, and he wore an expression of horror, as if to say, "You can't be out here! You're dead, in there!"

For a moment, they stared at each other, and then the man's face became grim and drawn, and he raised a hand...

"Jinx, get down!" cried Rob, as the Rover mage fired a very creditable fireball, fueled by his desperate need to dispose of the witnesses. Jinx and his friends hit the snowy ground, grazed by the fireball. As it passed over them, Rob was already up, yelling "Run!"

Alan was already gone, lost amid the trees, the hunter turned hunted. Jinx, Rob and Tim fled back to the main path, and Rob, still dragging his metal pole, gasped, "Make for the Gate! Get help, Jinx!"

Jinx protested, "It's not working!"

"Try it!"

At this, Tim glanced back where they'd come, to see Carl jogging steadily towards them, shaking his hands as if they stung from making the fireball, readying them for another attack. Tim blanched, and ran back towards Full Hollow, shouting "I'll get the fire brigade!"

Rob rasped, "He'll be all right- move!" and the two fled ahead of the determined Rover. Carl seemed to be trying to concentrate and jog at the same time- it had to be difficult to summon magical energies on the run, when they were so scarce outside of Rainmoor anyhow. Jinx noticed Rob flagging, gasping for breath, unable to keep up, and he slowed, glancing frantically at the approaching Carl, who was raising his hand...

Rob turned, almost falling, and grabbed Jinx's hand in his, thrusting the metal pole through the snow and pushing the both of them behind it as he pointed it at Carl. The fireball burst into life from Carl's hands, and roared towards them, even bigger and hotter than before- and just as it was about to incinerate them, it touched the end of the pole, which flared into light. The fireball seemed to elongate and be sucked through the pole, into the ground, and Rob yelped and dropped the pole, which made a loud hiss as it hit the snow-covered ground.

Alarmed, Jinx tried to look at Rob's hand, but the blacksmith was already pressing it against the snow, and he whirled and snarled at Jinx, "He's not after me, you fool! Run, damn you! Run! Now!"

Jinx wasn't at all sure it was safe to leave the man, but Carl was already coming on again- the tiger King hesitated, hissed at the approaching mage with his ears laid flat back, and then fled alone. Behind him, Rob cursed and scuffled around to put the spell-catching metal pole between him and Carl, but the mage didn't pay any attention to him- when Jinx looked back, Carl was pursuing him determinedly and the blacksmith was crawling towards the trees at the side of the path, and hadn't been attacked again.

Jinx fled up the path towards the King's Gate hillside, his own strength failing- his feline body was not made for distance running, but for sprinting. It ached all over, his face felt singed, and the Rover mage just kept on coming, in a steady, ground-eating jog that looked oddly military. They were trained, those Rovers- probably jogged everywhere, probably ran in circles just to be ready for times like these. Jinx had to stay in front for long enough to keep the man busy with running, instead of concentrating. Jinx was fast, very fast, but he couldn't keep it up- the Rover mage was already beginning to close the gap, as Jinx reached the hillside, and began to stagger up it towards where the Gate should be.

He reeled, falling to his catlike knees and then onto his side, just as he reached it, and at that moment he could think of nothing but the threat of Carl, moving in, looking grim, raising his hand as his eyes flashed with concentration...

In a single motion, Alan nocked an arrow, drew, and fired it through the mage's hand.

Jinx lay stunned, not believing his reprieve. Carl yelled in pain, and whirled to look at the hunter, standing defiantly by the tree line at the base of the hill. He had worked out where Jinx would run to, and he had got there first. Just for a moment, the shy woods hunter gazed at the Rover mage with a terrible disdain. Then, as rage overcame Carl and he raised his hands at Alan, the hunter cried, "Go in now!" and dashed for the safety of the woods.

Jinx wasn't going to waste another moment. He willed entry into Rainmoor with all his heart, and directly before him, the King's Gate opened, and Jinx staggered through it.

Everything was different- he found himself staggering across a vast expanse of shiny floor. Some of his friends were talking at the other end, and Elanor gave a shriek as a fireball burst against the edge of the Gate. She tried to rush over to him, but stumbled and fell, breathing heavily and looking desperate, physically unable to rush to his aid.

Jinx made it halfway across the floor, exhausted, before Carl reached the Gate. To the horror of his friends, the tiger King turned, to face his tormentor. Carl was winded, and looked half-mad as he staggered through the Gate, shaking out his hands as if they hurt him.

Behind Jinx, Andrew was cursing foully and Mick was yammering something about a shield and Elanor was crying "Noooo!" piteously because she couldn't get to him, and as the renegade Rover mage, now within Rainmoor, grinned horribly and raised his bloody hand, all at once, Jinx had had enough, and sheer outrage flooded him.

In a moment he felt power crackling through him, power that belonged to him and not just to these humans and this hateful, power-mad magic-user before him- and before Carl could release his fireball, Jinx vented every bit of his fury in his own attack. His ears laid flat back, his voice hoarse with a feline shriek of rage, he lashed out with a clawing gesture from which searing white fire erupted, as if the full force of Rainmoor's magic chose to vent itself with its King's fury. It flashed from Jinx's hand, blinding, hiding the hapless Carl within a maelstrom of energy.

And then, there was silence- and a faint crackling as the charred spot on the floor cooled- and a rather small pile of dust.

Jinx stood there, looking at his hand, in the middle of the silence.

Then he wobbled, and it seemed to break the tension. The next thing he knew, Elanor was beside him, and Peter was on his other side, holding him up, and Mick was saying "...or p'raps he won't be needing one" and somewhere the dragon Vernon was chuckling. Everything spun.

Andrew was before him, saying "Gad, my liege, that was glorious!" and Jinx was beginning to wonder if that meant he didn't have to apologize to the Rovers for killing their mage- when there was a flash of green, and suddenly someone else was there.

It was a man, dressed in emerald-colored finery, and his hand lashed out and grabbed the key from around Andrew's neck, breaking the chain. Lord Andrew took a deep breath, ready to bellow angrily, and then stopped, dumbfounded, for King Adrian was standing before him, hand still raised with the broken chain dangling from the key he clutched, staring him down with the look of an intolerably exasperated King.

Then, King Adrian snorted soundlessly, turned from Andrew as if he was beneath notice, and looked deeply into King Jinx's eyes. Jinx wobbled, feeling as if he'd been dragged through his burning house backwards by the tail, but it didn't seem to matter. Adrian nodded, and placed the key gently in Jinx's hand, and smiled. And, even as he formed the smile, he began to fade, turning ghostly, and not stopping there- and he was gone. Jinx held the key, and realized that he was thinking of a particular place he'd never been- he knew where Adrian's fabled Mail could be found, now.

Exhausted, he slowly sagged to the floor, Peter and Andrew helping him. He sat, his friends sitting around him, Elanor's head in his lap, and he looked around at his strange new home, knowing he could learn to be part of it, that it wanted him. He was home, somehow. He could sort out the details later. For now, he would rest, and then he would think of something.

Jinx scratched Elanor's ears affectionately, and said, "I'm glad that's over."

"Uh!"

Jinx looked at Elanor disapprovingly. "That's not really funn.."

She looked back up at him, terrified, and there was a puddle growing on the floor- and suddenly all was chaos again.

Mick dashed about, fetching inexplicable and intimidating things- Julia stayed with the panicked Elanor, soothing her and rolling her onto her side, while Peter dashed off to fetch towels and Vernon produced a large kettle and carefully directed jets of fire at it until it was boiling. And then, it was a blur of worried voices, Elanor's cries of pain and distress accompanied by Peter and Mick frantically using every trick of magic and midwifery to bring into the world Elanor's one oversized baby, none of which Jinx understood, and he stayed close to Elanor's head and cringed at her shrieks and stared witlessly as the humans coaxed her to push- PUSH- and the fear grew in him until it was crushing, fear that Elanor would die, that the baby would, that it would all go wrong, and deepest of all, fear that it would show him to be nothing more than an...

"Would you look at that?"

It was Mick's voice. Elanor wasn't screaming any more, though she was breathing hard. The humans were busy behind her- she seemed to be sleeping now, perhaps from some kindly spell.

"Jinx! Come and see."

It was Peter's voice, sympathetic. Jinx slowly turned, and looked at the mystery he had produced.

Even after toweling, it was dreadfully icky, but that wasn't what caught his attention. It was black-furred, tiny, and it- no, he- took a breath and released it in a small mewing cry, wriggling feebly and kicking. And as his friends watched, glowing-eyed, King Jinx of Rainmoor reached hesitantly out towards his kitten, his child, with one humanlike finger extended.

And one tiny, black-furred, but very human hand reached out to grip it firmly.

The End