The Seven Markets (10 page)

When, after a time, they stopped meeting people riding to the Market, and walking to the Market, and stopped being asked if they were going in the right direction, Ellie was grateful for the chance to concentrate more fully on the question of the stable master and what sort of hat might suit him best. It seemed an important question, one with weight. She knew a poor gift would embarrass not only herself and the stable master but her Prince as well.

They stopped for the night. Rossi produced a tent and several warm blankets from his pack. He prepared dinner over an open fire and suggested they rest after their eventful day.

“We’ve a long way to travel tomorrow, mum, if we want to make it back before the Market closes.”

They rode out at first light the next morning, continuing in the same direction. As Ellie had decided on a proper gift for Dhaleb the night before—she envisioned him in a dark, wide-brimmed hat with a thin leather band rounding the brim—she instead took to asking Rossi about himself, about his father, the cook. She was familiar with his father, of course, and had spoken to him on many occasions. This was different, however. In all those other instances, she was either complimenting him on an excellent meal or requesting some special dish for the night, something the Prince had tasted once or dreamed about as a boy.

“No matter what, your father always made it.”

“That’s Da,” Rossi said, smiling. “And before you ask, I can save you the time. No, he never told me.”

“Never?”

“Nope. Never. ‘Trade secret, boy,’ he always said.”

“But weren’t you apprenticing for him?”

The boy nodded. “I was and I wasn’t.”

“Well, which?”

“I wasn’t, I suppose. My Da always said there was a difference between a job and, well, a job. One you do because you have to do something. The other you do because you are compelled.”

“And you were never compelled to cook?”

“I thought I was, but well, he always said he saw more in me. That’s what parents do, though, isn’t it? Look for more in their children?”

They rode until the moon rose, which Ellie confided reminded her of Dhaleb, the stable master, her voice hushed as if he might step out from behind—or over!—a tree at the mere mention of his name.

“I want to get him a fine hat,” she said. “As thanks for his assistance.”

“Yes, that would be a grand idea. What sort?”

The moon continued its journey through the inky blackness as Ellie went over her perceived options and the reality that, wherever they ultimately stopped, there was a marginal chance the hat selection would be quite limited. She found a folded piece of paper in her pocket, yellowed with age and tattered around the edges, and sketched on its blank back. Rossi nodded his approval of her choices and offered to act as a head model, if it would help.

“Oh, it would! Thank you so much!” She was nearly squealing with delight.

When the moon reached its apex, Rossi closed his eyes and said his father’s name once, only once. It sounded to Ellie like a prayer. Like he was saying good-bye.

“You will see your father soon enough,” she said, hoping to reassure him.

He gave her a weak smile and judged it was high past time they made their beds.

“We’ve a long way to travel tomorrow, mum,” he said, the good humor drained from his face. “If we want to make it back before the Market closes.”

Ellie saw three of them, three massive, burly men with filthy hands and untended beards. Rossi marked them at once, alerting Ellie to their lurking presence on the far side of the street. “We should go,” he said.

She nodded and quickened her pace. The sound of her boot heels on the cobblestone avenue brought Ellie to mind of a tinker’s invention they’d seen some years back, traveling overseas.
It’s my doomsday clock,
he’d explained, a raspy laugh present in every syllable.
Counts off the days until your doom. The days you have left.
She had found the idea enchanting, the clock almost too tempting to leave behind.

“I’m a fool,” Rossi said, panting with exertion. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“He’ll watch out for us. I know he will.”

Rossi’s answer was to reaffirm his grip on her hand and urge Ellie along. The ticking clock sped up, doom approaching, footsteps instead of turning gears. She stifled a dry laugh and strained to keep up, cursing her boots, which were fine for show but useless for more than teetering along at her companion’s side. An affectation she hoped she would not regret.

The men pursued, adding their footsteps to hers and Rossi’s. Slap of heavy leather on stone. Slow at first, patient, then speeding up, echoing off the low canyon formed by the high brick buildings on either side. Their murmured voices filled the street, obscuring their whereabouts, turning the sounds into high, mocking laughter.

Rossi swore under his breath, hurrying her along even faster. If they’d dare stop, she would have kicked off the hateful boots and fled barefoot.

“Not much farther, I think.”

“Good,” Ellie said. Shadows danced madly about them. Was it just the three men, or had they somehow become surrounded? The Prince’s wedding gift slipped out from within her jacket and flung itself this way and that as she ran.

She saw light ahead. Not the feeble streetlights that had been, she was convinced, designed not to chase away the gloom but to amplify what darkness there was, but light, real light. Was it their hotel? She dared allow herself to hope. They would make it back in safety. No one would be hurt this night.

Her doomsday clock stopped. All clocks stopped; hers, Rossi’s, the men stalking them. There was a weightless moment when her feet left the ground and Ellie was brought back to that night so long ago when she and her Prince had danced on the air. She became aware of a crushing pain in her throat, a rush of movement, and the sudden pressure of being flattened against the rough brick face of a wall.

“Hello, missy.”

His accent was thick, his hair and beard dark as pitch; his breath was somehow dark as well. Dark and dank and so foul it made her choke. His eyes were tiny black holes punctuating his features, his nose a burning ember of coal. She smelled rotgut and sweat and sawdust and ash.

“It’s early yet, missy. Where were you going in such a hurry?”

He had a laborer’s hands, thick and callused. Ellie could breathe but not speak. She pleaded with her eyes, dug into his fingers with her own, but did not fight back. She didn’t want to make him angry. There was still a part of Ellie MacReady hoping this could be resolved peaceably.

“Please,” she said, gagging.

“This way, boys.” He lifted her up with one hand and, keeping her well collared, carried Ellie off the street, into the alley.

Rossi was nearby. She felt for him with her mind and the telepathy of long acquaintance. There, deep in the alley. One man was bracing him while the other was occupied with delivering blows to his midsection. Ellie shuddered with every punch; she might have been feeling them in her own belly.

“Well, let’s see now. What’ve we caught here, boys?”

He released her throat, and in a single, smooth movement she feared was well practiced, swung her around so she was once again pinned against the wall, this time not by his hand but by his entire weight. He planted his left hand on her shoulder, the palm more than sufficient to hold her fast. His other hand was occupied searching through her mass of skirts for what he and his friends had come for. With stinking breath, he licked Ellie from her neck to her temple.

“Don’t,” she said. “I beg you, sir, don’t.”

He howled with malicious delight. His friends jeered and stamped their feet. The man holding Rossi up decided the girl’s companion had no more fight in him. Husband? Brother? What difference did it make? The pounding they’d delivered, he’d be lucky if he ever walked again.

“‘Don’t,’ she says, boys. Have you ever heard the like? Missy, when we’re through with you, ‘don’t’ won’t be a word you’ll be likely to use again.” He laughed once more and resumed unraveling her undergarments.

“Don’t,” Ellie said, one more time.

And exploded.

It wasn’t light, not exactly, pouring out of her. It flowed from her eyes and her mouth and her hands and the blood-red gem hanging from her neck. It radiated outward, a tide of brilliance consuming everything it touched. Her assailant moved to cover his eyes, blocking the light with hands that turned to cinder before Ellie’s flowing luminescence. Now he howled in pain, falling back, feet scrambling for purchase and finding none. His chest split open like an over-ripened cantaloupe; his guts and viscera could not spill out fast enough to keep from burning up before they hit the ground.

One of the other two men reacted quickly, turning and fleeing deeper into the alley. His wit abandoned him, however, when he saw it ended in a steep brick wall. The light caught up a heartbeat later, and where there had been a man casting a shadow now only the shadow remained, its arms raised as it attempted to scramble up the sheer face of the wall.

The one who’d held Rossi up found his feet rooted to the ground. He watched his friend burn and did not act. Something had frozen in his mind, and it would later occur to Ellie that by that point it was most likely a kindness to let the Prince’s light take him. It snaked up around his ankles, rushed up his legs, hips, and chest, and pulled him down into the ground itself. He came back to himself at the end, clawing and fighting to keep from being subsumed entirely in the wet, dark surface of the alley. His fingernails scarred deep furrows in the ground that claimed him.

Rossi coughed and pushed himself up, using the wall for support. He brushed the dust and ash from his pants, spitting blood into a pile of trash.

“I tried to warn them,” Ellie said, speaking between violent sobs.

“I know,” Rossi said, helping her to stand. “I know you did. I heard you. It wasn’t your fault.”

He wrapped an arm around her and helped her out of the alley. The hotel’s light was closer than ever. They walked to it without making a sound.

Ellie felt every eye in the hotel lobby on her as they stepped inside. She leaned on Rossi for strength, wishing she could shrink to the size of a pea and hide away in one of his pockets. She willed the tears to remain in her eyes until they were safely behind the door of their suite. She told herself none of these people wished her harm; they were nothing but travelers like Rossi and herself. Travelers and nothing more.

She made the mistake of glancing into the hotel’s lounge as they passed.

“No!”

If Rossi hadn’t been supporting her she might have crumbled into a boneless heap on the plush, carpeted floor. The strength went out of her legs and he had to haul her up, a puppet master winding up the puppet’s strings.

“Keep it together, Ellie. Just a little longer.”

She tried to point at the thing in the bar. Her arm wasn’t working. It wouldn’t lift. And her hand, her fingers—they weren’t working either.

“Do you see?”

He turned to look and frowned. “Should I get you a glass of water?”

“No!”

He smiled and made an excuse for her behavior. He repeated it several times to a passing couple, a bellhop, and a rail-thin woman with a smoldering cigarette hanging off her lower lip.

“What is it?” he said, returning his attention to Ellie. There was a tremble in the air before and after he spoke. An audible glamour, masking their words from those around them.

“In the lounge,” she said, tucking into Rossi’s glamour. “The blue man with all the arms.”

He looked again. Rossi shook his head. “I don’t see any blue people. Do you mean the man in the blue suit?”

“No,
the blue man
.” She jerked her head at the mahogany bar. Four patrons sat on high-stooled perches, nursing their drinks. The second from the right looked like he’d be ten or fifteen feet tall if he pushed away and stood on his own two feet. His glass was tall and thin and had a pink umbrella and a sword-skewered piece of fruit hanging over the lip. As she watched he used his many arms to take a sip of the drink, straighten his dark suit, scratch his behind, adjust his hair, turn the page of a newspaper, and tap on the bar to summon the bartender for another round.

“I don’t see any blue people,” Rossi said. She hated him then, could have snatched up an ashtray from one of the guests and bashed that knowing smile off his face.

“It’s not funny,” Ellie said. She moved to point again, and a thing with too many legs to count skittered past. It was close enough to touch, close enough that she could make out the sickly-sweet smell of sugar, mountains of sugar, trailing in its wake.

She stumbled again, nearly slipping from Rossi’s arms. If that had happened, she might have fled. Away from the hotel and out into the night. Better to take her chances with the drunks and the ruffians than risk embarrassing her Prince before his subjects.

A dozen more came into view. A green beast more animal than man, its long, angular snout opening into several rounds of enormous teeth.
He’s made for ripping and tearing, chewing and biting.
She didn’t suppose there was much to come between a creature of this sort and its next chosen meal.