The Thief Queen's Daughter (7 page)

I
S IT TIME FOR NOON-MEAL YET?” CHAR MOANED, CLUTCHING HIS
stomach. “I gotta have some of that soup.”

“Three more hours,” said Clemency.

“But you can always eat early,” said Ven. “What difference does it make what time it is? We’re in the market. We can do whatever we want.” Saeli nodded in agreement.

Ven’s skin was itching so much that it felt like it would peel off his body. He turned around slowly, trying to take in all the sights.

The brightly colored booths were set up in a series of circles, almost like streets. The pit fires and other places where food was being sold were mostly in the inner circles. Tents and booths with wares for sale seemed to be in the outer circles, some of them flying colorful flags, others with brightly painted maypoles or wooden signs in front. Ven’s eyes were flooded with all the colors.

Just then he heard McLean’s voice in his head.

I imagine it’s a spectacular place, full of bright colors and sweet smells and glorious music. That’s why you must be especially careful, Ven. Outside the Gated City, those things serve to delight the heart. Within its walls, their purpose is to distract the eye. And the mind.

He unbuttoned his shirt pocket and took out his great-grandfather’s jack-rule. It was his most treasured possession, a folding measuring stick with a knife, a magnifying glass, and other tools that had been made in the underground kingdom of the Nain almost a thousand years before. Carefully he extended the lens and looked through it.

Past the circles of colorful booths were buildings surrounding the square. The buildings on the closest street were beautifully kept, with window boxes full of flowers, carefully tended gardens, and neatly shingled roofs. They stood side by side, sharing walls, with occasional alleys between them.

When Ven looked closer, however, past the first row of houses and stores, he could see that the streets and buildings quickly lost their colors, fading into gray. It looked like a mist was hanging around them, making them hard to see. The shutters on the windows were more often broken or missing, the paint on the doors peeling.

What caught his eye most of all, however, was what was
over
the buildings of the Gated City.

Suspended in the air above the streets, attached to the roofs of the houses that stood side by side, was a second sidewalk. Wide ladders led up to it at each alleyway. Above the roofs, people were walking on the elevated footpath, greeting each other in passing as if they were on the ground below. The street in the air stretched all the way into the Market as far as he could see.

Ven was suddenly nervous. He folded the jack-rule and looked back at his friends. Everyone was watching him. They all still had their tokens around their necks, as did he.

“Where to first?” Char asked.

“Let’s go to the center of the square,” Ven suggested. “We’ll start by just looking around to begin with.” He put the jack-rule away and headed into the middle of the Outer Market. The other four children nodded and followed him.

Past the pit fires where the food was roasting were other types of fires, over which other types of pots were hanging.

At one, a tall, thin woman with red hair and a colorful apron was dipping an enormous spoon with a tin cup in its bowl. When she lifted it out of the pot, the cup had been plated in gold. Two men were striking coins in silver, copper, and a strange blue metal in a forge and cooling them in another of the pots. A third pot seemed to be a giant cauldron of medicine. Six men in brightly striped shirts with hair and skin that matched were bottling the contents of that pot, each with a long-handled ladle. Ven noticed that every time one of them poured what was in his ladle into a bottle, the color was different.

Some of the townspeople who had entered the gates with them were wandering around much like they were, taking in the sights with wonder. Others, who had obviously been to the Market before, hurried to certain booths and shops.

All around them the air was filled with delicious smells. Beyond the roasting food there was the scent of heavy spice and rare perfume, making Ven’s head spin. And, as McLean had predicted, there was music playing everywhere, the sweet sounds of flutes and harps with drums keeping time.

Saeli grabbed his sleeve and tugged at it.

Ven looked where she was pointing. In the center of the closest ring of booths was a carpet weaver. Beautiful rugs in all shapes and sizes hung on bamboo frames around his tent. Many of them were tapestries showing great stories of history. Some of them seemed to be changing patterns as the stories progressed. The patterns on others were changing color in the sun. Out in front of the booth a small carpet was hovering in the air.

Flying by itself.

The weaver ignored them as he continued with his work. Sitting on the ground in front of the booth was a strange-looking man with a long black mustache and eyebrows that looked like woolly caterpillars were eating his forehead.

On the ground in front of the strange man were brightly colored balls, sticks, and unlit torches. His hands held long thin clubs, which he started to juggle. Just as he did, the carpet swooped down from the air and started to interfere. It dived at his head, and flew in between his hands, as if it were trying to make him drop the clubs. The man pretended to swat it away, but Ven could see it was all part of the act.

He looked over his shoulder nervously.

As McLean had warned him, many townspeople were around the booth, watching the show, some of them standing very close to him. Mixed in with them here and there were people without tokens. Ven realized they must be inhabitants of the city, rather than shoppers.

In spite of the bright clothing many of the Gated City’s folk wore, there was a raggedness, an edge to them that worried Ven, a sort of toughness beneath the color. He felt for his wallet and was relieved to find it was still within his pocket.

“Come on,” he urged the others. “This is a great way to get pickpocketed. Let’s see if we can find something that looks like the king’s stone. Let’s keep to each of our directions and keep our eyes open.”

They walked farther across the square, where a glistening carousel was being prepared. Instead of horses, however, the figures on it were mythical beasts, beautifully carved, painted, and trimmed with what looked like jewels on their saddles. Nearby were two huge swings, strung with heavy rope and shaped like griffins, their bodies hollowed out for seats. Their red and black wooden feathers gleamed in the morning air. Two men in orange shirts were checking the ropes.

A pretty young human woman with dark brown skin who was polishing a silver dragon on the carousel looked up at them and smiled. She pointed at a ferocious wooden blue-green sea monster with one hand and a golden flying lion with the other.

“Care for a ride, gentles?” she asked sweetly.

“No, thank you very much,” Clemency said quickly, snagging both Char and Nicholas by the shoulders and pushing them ahead of her.

“Clem, what was the point of paying all that money to come into this place if you’re not going to let us have some fun?” said Nicholas, sounding cross.

“Yeah, we’ll probably never get to come back here
ever,
” said Char.

“Aren’t you the one who told me to stay away from this place our first day in town?” asked Ven, amused. “If I recall, you said you never needed to buy anything so badly to risk being stripped of everything you own.”

Char came to a halt in front of another booth, a sort of wooden kiosk with purple draperies that was full of golden cages.

“Well, I don’t have anythin’ I own here, anyway,” he said, staring inside the booth. “’Cept for my clothes, everythin’ on me was paid for by the king. An’ nobody’d want to steal
my
clothes. I think they’re older than all of us put together.”

Each of the golden cages contained animals of some sort, but they were different from any Ven had ever seen. There were snakes that seemed to be made of jewels, except that they were moving, their silver forked tongues darting. Fish swam in round glass bowls, glittering metallically when the light hit them. Turtles with shells that looked like they were formed of marble lazed in the morning sun. A flying squirrel leapt from side to side in its small cage. A white-coated raccoon with a silver mask and black claws appeared to be making a chain out of yarn with its claws. And in the back of the kiosk, a brown bear with an elongated snout and strangely human paws was sweeping up under the cages with a broom, a chain shackled around its ankle.

The smallest of the cages held soft, furry creatures with glossy coats, tiny claws, and large eyes and ears. Their fur was striped silver and black. They were sleeping, curled up together.

In another larger cage was an odd-looking bird. It had a large curved beak and skinny legs that ended in large feet. It seemed to Ven that its torso was, like the bear’s paws, almost human except for being small and covered in red feathers.

In still another cage was a tiny animal that looked like a puffy monkey. The misery in its eyes was unmistakable.

To his left Ven heard a choking sound. He turned quickly and saw Saeli moving closer to the cages, a look of horror on her face.

Within the booth behind the cages was a tall, thin man in a soft-sided top hat with a ratty brim. The man’s similarly ratty hair stuck out from beneath it. His eyes were black and twinkling; his arms and legs seemed to go on forever. He reminded Ven of a spider.

On his shoulder sat an enormous black bird with a blue tint to its feathers. It eyed them suspiciously.

As Saeli approached, the man stood up, stretched out his long limbs, and rubbed his gloved hands together.

“Well, good morning, mates,” he said brightly. “Lookin’ for anything special?”

“Not today, thank you,” said Clem, taking Saeli gently by the shoulders and pulling her back. The small Gwadd girl continue to stare sadly back over her shoulder as they headed down the street. The man touched the brim of his cap, smiled, and returned to the depths of his kiosk.

They walked through the town square, past the circles of booths to the street where the permanent buildings stood, the sidewalks in the air above them. Here there were shops, rather than tents, that shared a long common porch, and each had a pretty wooden sign out front telling what was sold within.