Chapter Eight

 

 

The faire was even more extensive than I had thought, when only seeing part of it from the trail. It was so big, in fact, that the burning cluster of tents behind us soon faded from sight, leaving us in the midst of chaos, but a very pleasant chaos. And one full of food!

The vendors’ stalls, drinking tents and entertainment venues were closely packed, with no apparent rhyme nor reason for how they had been laid out. It looked like everyone just set up wherever they liked upon arrival, and latecomers had to squeeze in as best they could. The result was a higgledy-piggledy mess of pens of bleating animals; stalls of vendors selling jewelry, fabric, clothes, furs, spices and dyes; blacksmiths doing repairs on old weapons and hawking new ones; buskers singing, dancing, juggling or telling tall tales; and food and drink purveyors of all types.

I abruptly stopped in front of one of the latter, gaping at the massive amount of meat grilling on an enormous rack over a crackling fire. I could only see the wares intermittently, as billowing clouds of smoke were obscuring the entire booth half of the time and explained why there had been no general uproar at our escape. People probably thought that someone was merely having a bar-b-que.

And someone was, I thought in awe, licking my lips and moving closer to the mesmerizing sight. There were ribs, but not of pork. They were in huge slabs, as if they came from a beast far larger than any pig. Or cow, for that matter, although they looked more like beef ribs, being almost unbelievably meaty and dripping with fat.

They smelled spicy, as if some tantalizing sauce had been spread on them, or maybe a rub. Because they weren’t finished yet, although a pile of cooked ones towered nearby, being chopped up by another ogre, although this one was far smaller and more friendly looking than our guards had been. His bald head was covered in sweat, he had a greasy leather apron covering his clothes, and a bright gold earring in one floppy pointed ear. And he was wielding a cleaver no less capably than any trained warrior, slicing through the meat and divvying it up in hearty chunks for hungry faire goers.

But that wasn’t all that was on offer. Because the little booth also had coil upon fat, meaty coil of sausages, some bright red with flecks of white, some brown and fragrant with spices, some ghostly pale and filled almost to bursting with what was probably fowl. Like the goose-like creatures on hooks in the back of the tent, many still in their feathers, where a harried looking ogre woman was scalding and plucking them as fast as she could. Others, already denuded, were strung on spits over yet another fire for those who liked their lunch whole.

It was hot, to the point that sweat was rolling down my face to match the ogre’s by the time I made it to the front of the queue. And then abruptly remembered that I had no money. The vendor looked at me expectantly, and I looked hungrily back, trying to think how to explain that no, I didn’t want any when I was practically drooling.

“One of each,” Ray said, coming up alongside. And then I guessed he repeated it in the merchant’s cant of the marketplace, because the cleaver started flying once more.

“We have no money,” I reminded him in a whisper, in case anyone spoke English.

“Babe, we got all the money,” Ray said, and flashed me a view of the moneybag which the guard from our old tent had been filling with coins all morning.

“When did you get that?” I asked, surprised.

“When he was distracted with you. I picked his pocket right before I hit him over the head.” He thought for a minute. “I knew you could handle yourself. I woulda been there for you otherwise, even if it meant losing the money.”

Considering how much Ray liked money, that was a high compliment. I smiled at him as the ogre handed over a tray full of meat. “You did very well.”

He grinned. “Yeah. Let’s go have some fun.”

And fun was had.

While I wandered after him, eating the largest part of an unknown beast, and then letting a couple of stray dogs lick the remains off the thin wooden slats of the tray, Ray spent lavishly. He bought me a necklace of varicolored beads of amber that were as big as the end of my thumb and reached almost to my waist. I liked the green ones best, which looked like the color of spring leaves in the forest. The light sparkled through them, showing off all the little flecks and glints, like the dappled sunlight on the forest floor.

He also bought me a thigh-length, fuzzy, poncho-type garment in a hue that almost matched the green of the beads. It was light enough to be comfortable on a warm spring day but would also be cozy at night when the temperature dropped. It had a swishy bottom with a fringe, and I kept walking funny to make it shimmer causing Ray to laugh and draw me farther into the crowd.

He added a pair of sturdy trousers and several tunics to my growing wardrobe, along with a bright blue set for himself that almost matched his eyes. He also purchased a sturdy leather backpack for both of us, and finished off by negotiating for some boots. But he made me choose my own pair.

I stood there for a moment in front of the little craftsman’s booth staring at a wall of leather. There were so many! And size didn’t narrow the selection down as it would have on Earth, as a quick spell would fit any to my feet.

“Take your time,” Ray said meaningfully, as he was using our shopping trip to chat with the vendors, trying to find out where in the massive market Marlowe might have been taken.

That wasn’t going so well, as all anyone could talk about was the upcoming fights, where the Queen’s champion would take on all comers, including someone called The Punisher. From what I understood, the new queen was quite bloodthirsty and her champion even more so, giving the challenger little chance. But that only pushed up the odds, providing an opportunity for real profit should the underdog come out ahead.

It also made everyone even less likely to discuss the fate of a rather battered, ill-tempered, and smelly senator than they might otherwise have been.

Still, I did need boots, as the soft soled, slipper-type things that Ray had acquired for me from our companions on the road were inadequate to trekking about the countryside. I appreciated them, nonetheless, as he had traded an afternoon of hard labor around camp for them. But it seemed that they had been meant as a stop gap.

Leaving me staring at a wall of gradated colors, everything from earth to jewel tones and from plain to highly ornamented.

“The red’s nice,” Ray suggested after a moment, and I obediently reached for them. “Of course, so’s the blue. That tooling is well-done. And then there’s the brown; it goes with everything, don’t you think?”

I shot him a glance; I knew what he was doing. “I like the black,” I said, reaching for a pair of plain, serviceable looking items with reinforced toes. I would have preferred steel, but these were not combat boots. Yet they were good, thick leather and would probably—

I paused, my eyes landing on a light gray, suede pair with green embossing up the sides in vine-like swirls.

A closer look showed that only the vines were embossed. The leaves were different shades of green leather that had been inlaid into the surrounding suede and then sewn in such a way as to suggest veins. They were also painted overtop to make them even more life-like.

My forehead wrinkled.

The boots had soft sides that wouldn’t protect the calves, slouchy tops that would get caught on everything, and the velvety suede would get dirty quickly. Not to mention the excessive amount of ornamentation, which would only draw attention to us. They were dress up boots, the kinds of things you wore to a festival when you wanted to impress.

They were not practical.

I found myself reaching for them anyway, and running my fingers over the supple leather.

I had never chosen my own clothes before. Not even something as simple as a pair of boots. I wore what Dory wore; my taste was her taste. And her taste would have led me to the sensible black pair. They would wear better, be harder to see at night, and the plain sole would leave few prints behind, and those would tell a tracker little, being difficult to distinguish from everyone else’s.

This pair had a design incised into the sole, a ridiculous thing that had no purpose except to leave happy little leaf prints wherever you stepped.

Dory would laugh at the very idea, and rightly so. No one in their right minds would consider them, not in a position like ours. I needed to get the black.

So why did I find myself slipping on the gray instead?

The fey had been right; they fit my feet perfectly, without need for alteration, as if they had been made for me. But unlike the slippers, I could no longer feel the scattered stones under my soles or the cart ridges in the trampled down grass. I switched my weight from foot to foot, and then walked in a little circle, and they were easily the most comfortable boots I had ever worn.

“They look good,” Ray said mildly, and they did.

They matched the gray of the trousers he had bought me and the green of the poncho. And they had a faintly piratical air about them that made me smile. They were not practical, but they were pretty. And not as slouchy as I had thought, now that I had them on.

“We’re running low on cash, and what’s left we need for supplies,” he added. “You gotta choose one.”

“The gray,” I said, before I thought. And the next moment, we were walking away from the booth with the sensible black pair still hanging on the wall.

I looked at them over my shoulder in confusion. What was happening to me? I should go back, should say that I’d made a mistake.

I did not go back. And, suddenly, my feet felt good and so did I. I laughed, and Ray looked at me in slight shock.

“Do provisions include candy?” I asked, and grabbed his hand, towing him toward a cluster of booths devoted to rotting the teeth of all races.

I ate some more, until I was finally, completely full, something that was rare in my experience. Including taffy from a light fey seller whose family was enthusiastically pulling it using metal loops set into the wooden back of their booth. It changed colors as they stretched it, from yellow to pale pink to shocking scarlet, and tasted like it changed flavors in my mouth as I chewed.

I next had a bunch of heavily sauced, fried cheese on a stick, some fish jerky dusted with a spicy coating that crunched like potato chips under my teeth, and a highly spiced soup. I wasn’t sure whether the latter was supposed to be savory or sweet, as it had elements of both, but it burned on my tongue like fire. So, I also acquired a cool drink with many bubbles that floated up out of the glass and exploded in the air in front of me.

It made me giggle, and the bubbles seemed to giggle, too, as if echoing my sounds. It soon had the fringe on my poncho shimmering, by accident this time, as I wove erratically through the crowd. Until Ray took the rest of it away and belted it back.

And then cursed loudly. “What the hell was that?”

Many little bubbles echoed the question as they popped all around us, but I barely noticed. Because I had just noticed something else. Something that made me wonder exactly how strong the feys’ brew had been, since I must be seeing things.

But no. I ran unsteadily over to a cauldron that a bunch of small creatures with wings were stirring through the use of a spell, since none of their tiny hands could have made it all the way around the large-handled stick being used as a mixer. It was nonetheless moving inside of the brew, pushing aside a bunch of flowers that were bobbing about, more of which were laid out on the long wooden table alongside.

And all of which appeared to be trying to gut me.

They were thick like succulents, shockingly yellow, and had long, pointed petals that lunged at anyone that came near. They resembled nothing so much as some fell creature’s paw, opening and closing and suddenly attacking, with the hard pointed bits on the ends of the petals serving as the creature’s claws. That was reflected in the name—Dragon’s Claw—which I knew as I had seen these before.

“Oh, shit,” Ray said, coming up alongside me.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” the little bubbles echoed happily.

“What the devil are those doing here?” he demanded, but I had no answer for him.

Until I realized: they were being boiled down and the juice was being made into candy. Honey and spices had been added to the pot, judging by the smaller containers littered around the table, where more of the outraged, claw-like flowers were stabbing at everyone in sight. The ones in the cauldron were acting similarly, causing the whole brew to froth angrily, and a little of it to spill over the side and run gloopily down the pot until it dripped onto the road.

And onto a small, pale purple flower growing by the wayside.

It had somehow avoided the crush of boots and wheels of wagons, and even the heat from the fire under the cauldron hadn’t phased it. It bloomed on, small, inoffensive, and beautiful. Like the flowers the troll girl had woven into her braids.

Right up until the mixture from the pot fell onto it, that was.

The orange goop, which had been color changed due to the spices, must have been hot, as it had just been boiling and I could still see steam rising off of it. But the flower was not burned. It was, however, changed, and changed by a lot.

I grabbed Ray’s arm and jerked him back.

“What the—” He looked down in consternation as the small flower lunged at his boot. And when it failed to reach it, as he was well out of the way, it picked up its tiny, white roots like an old-fashioned woman gathering up her skirts, pulled them out of the soil, and—

“Don’t step on it,” I said, as Ray proceeded to do exactly that, whilst also dancing about and screeching.

I didn’t blame him. He reminded me of the giant on the cavalcade’s sign, vying with a much smaller opponent. One that had just gotten a thorn into him and yanked it back out, along with a gout of blood. Ray cursed and tried to stomp the little thing, but it was faster and, when he attempted to kick it instead, it latched onto one of his new boots with a thorny embrace and appeared to be trying to rip through it.

Judging by Ray’s squawking, it was succeeding.

The small creatures—pixies, at a guess—who were stirring the pot looked up in annoyance. And then noticed that Ray’s antics had begun drawing a crowd. At which point one of them decided to help the now vicious flower and sent a small stream of magic at it; I could taste it on the breeze as it passed by me but couldn’t stop it.

It hit the little bit of flora full on and, oh, the difference that made!

Ray suddenly found himself battling, not a small roadside weed, but a three-foot tall woody specimen with a head of wild purple blossoms, a dozen arms each capped by a familiar-looking claw, and a forest of pale roots sprawling over the ground and moving so fast that I couldn’t be sure of the count.

“Auggghhh!” he yelled, as I dropped our purchases and leapt for the crazed sort-of tree.

I landed on its back, judging by the fact that it was facing off with Ray on the other side, although it was hard to tell as I received a bunch of blossoms in the face. They smelled divine, so much so that they almost became another defense, distracting me in a cloud of lush perfume for a second. Until Ray screamed again.

And this time, it was a high pitched, panicked note that I had seldom heard from him, and it sounded terrified.

And then flowers were falling everywhere, limbs were cracking and leaves were raining down on the people who were pushing back from the melee that I was not at all sure that we were winning. Which made no sense, as Dragon’s Claw merely transferred attributes from one creature to another. Meaning that the little weed now had some of the abilities of the Dragon’s Claw itself, and of the pixie who had helped to enchant it.

And that was trumping a master vampire and a dhampir?

I snarled and upped the ante, but the creature was regrowing limbs before I could finish severing the things. Probably because all of the pixies were now in on it, I realized, shooting little bursts of magic our way, wanting to keep the fight, which had drawn quite a crowd, going as long as possible. For they were suddenly selling massive quantities of their brew, which they had cooked down into little pastilles and stuffed into homespun bags.

And for what? I thought, as a thorn bedecked limb wrapped around me, and squeezed like a vise. What insanity was this, to sell such a concoction in an area devoted to candy?

But it did not appear to be affecting the local fey nearly so much. I saw a child munch on a pastille, and then grip her friend’s hand and push a pug nose out of her face that looked just like his. The two of them laughed and pointed, while his hair took on the ashen quality of hers in streaks among his natural black.

The effect was muted, then, unless aided by an outside force, which was definitely the case here. The former weed was resisting all my efforts to break its hold; if anything, it got tighter, as if it would like to see what color sap I had. I was already covered in its pale white version, and then in red before I finally broke the stranglehold that had now reached my neck and beat the thing with one of its own, still-flailing limbs.

And then beat the pixies with it as well, since the nasty, vicious things were the cause of our distress. They did not seem to like that, and while some scattered to the winds, small wings whirring, others chose to dive bomb us in between the mad thrashing we were still receiving from the weed. Which was now more like six feet tall!

But it suddenly went up in flames, why I didn’t know unless Ray had gotten a piece of the pot’s firewood onto it. I couldn’t tell as the former weed began even more wild thrashing, and then abruptly made a beeline for the forest, clearing a path through the spectators as it did so. And I took the chance to send the pixies tumbling into each other and rocketing out of sight as I laid about with two of the creature’s still-thrashing limbs.

Finally, they were gone, including the ones at the vendor’s table, who had scarpered for less dangerous parts along with their bags of coins. Leaving me panting and heaving, with my pretty new outfit in tatters and the pixies’ spell light still buzzing over my skin. But I was okay, if bloody and alarmingly sap covered, and so was Ray, who was lying on the ground and staring up at me in alarm.

“It’s okay,” I told him, tossing away a thorny limb and reaching out a hand.

“It’s not okay,” he said, sounding strangled, and shifted his gaze to something behind me.

Something I saw as I turned, but only for an instant.

No, I agreed as I sank to the ground alongside him, after a bolt of far more powerful magic hit me square in the chest.

Probably not okay now.