Finally, he held out his palm as if to shake hands, and extended the thumb. Then he passed his index finger over the tip of the thumb. A tiny flame appeared.
“Flint and steel, good for lighting campfires,” he said.
“Whoa,” Char whispered, his eyes wide.
Mr. Coates took off the gauntlet and set it down on top of the display.
“That’s only a few of the functions,” he said as he put his keys back in his pocket. “You’re welcome to examine it—you can’t trigger the knives or the flame unless you are wearing it.” He went back behind the counter and returned to his work.
The boys turned the glove over and began to check out each of the joints, while Saeli and Clemency looked at cases filled with oil lamps, saddles, books, dolls, and hair ribbons, each apparently deadly. Ven could find the slits where the knives had emerged, but Mr. Coates was correct—there were no visible trigger mechanisms that he could see.
He decided to look closer. He unbuttoned his pocket and took out his great-grandfather’s jack-rule.
His father’s voice rang in his memory, words Pepin Polypheme had said to him on his fiftieth birthday, and later in a letter telling him to follow his dreams.
Magnus was the youngest in his family, you know. As was my da, as am I. So it’s only right that his jack-rule go to you now, Ven. The youngest may be at the end of the line for everything from shoes to supper, but often we are at the head of it for curiosity and common sense. Use it well—it was calibrated precisely to the Great Dial in the Nain kingdom of Castenen, and so it will always measure truer than any other instrument could. It also contains a small knife, a glass that both magnifies and sees afar, and a few other surprises—you will just have to discover those for yourself. If you see things as they appear through its lens, you are taking measure of the world correctly.
Ven extended the magnifying glass and peered through it at the gauntlet.
He was examining the slit in the gauntlet’s wrist when he noticed Mr. Coates was standing over him again, looking at him intently.
“Is that a Nain jack-rule?” the merchant asked softly.
“Ye—yes,” Ven answered.
“May I see it?”
* * *
I didn’t know what to do. Ever since my birthday, when my father put it in my hand, it had never been off my body, except once to save a tangled kite, and then only for a moment. I had not let it out of my control at any moment. Not while I was floating, shipwrecked, on the sea, or in jail, or even in the presence of the king. I felt sick in the pit of my stomach at the thought of handing over one of my family’s greatest treasures to a maker of weapons in a market of thieves.
But I also knew as surely as I knew anything that if Mr. Coates wanted my jack-rule, he could take it, whether I refused to give it to him or not.
* * *
“Please be careful,” Ven said awkwardly as he handed the tool to the merchant.
“Of course,” said the dark-eyed man. He opened the measuring tool slowly and examined it, turning the hinges with ease and familiarity. He extended the telescope and the tiny knife, then folded it up again and handed it back to Ven.
“I don’t suppose you want to sell it, by any chance?” Coates asked, but with a chuckle in his voice that showed he already knew the answer.
“I couldn’t,” Ven said. “Family heirloom.”
“Of course,” said Coates. “It’s a thing of beauty. I’ve never seen a real one before, just drawings in books and a few fakes.”
Ven blinked in surprise. He had no idea humans had ever heard of Nain tools. He watched Mr. Coates look out the window again. “Well, we had best be going,” he said. “Thank you for showing us your weapons—they are amazing.”
“You’re welcome,” said Coates.
“Just out of curiosity—how much is the gauntlet?” Ven asked, knowing that the answer would be far more than he would ever have.
* * *
Especially now that I no longer had a job.
* * *
“Are you looking to trade?” Coates asked, amused.
“No,” Ven said quickly.
“Didn’t think so,” said Coates. He glanced out the window.
“Why do you keep doing that?” Char demanded. “What’s goin’ on outside that you’re looking at?”
Even as the words were leaving his lips, it was clear that Char regretted them. The shop suddenly went silent. Ven, Nick, Clemency, and Saeli all held their breath in shock.
Coates turned around and regarded Char thoughtfully. He walked slowly over to the cook’s mate, who started to tremble, and patted him on the shoulder. Then his hand went a little farther down Char’s back.
When he took it away, there was a small black circle of felt on his smallest finger, no bigger than his fingernail.
“What’s that?” Ven asked.
Coates exhaled. “A mark. You have one, too, no doubt. Turn around.”
Ven tried to look over his shoulder as he spun, but saw nothing. Coates reached into the folds of his shirt collar and removed another felt circle, this one white. Nick and Clemency examined each other’s backs, removing similar circles.
“They must have thought you had something especially valuable,” said Coates to Saeli. He held up two he had taken off her.
“What does this mean?” Clemency asked, her voice shaking.
Coates sighed. “That the people who go about the market, marking the, er, guests, guessed you had something worth stealing,” he said. “But white marks are minor; if you had a red one, now, then you would be a prime target.”
“An’ how about black?” Char asked.
Coates laughed. “That means they determined you had nothing of value to steal.”
“See?” Char said, turning to Ven. “I told you nobody’d even want my clothes.”
“I thought someone might try to pickpocket one of us,” said Ven. “But I didn’t expect it would be this bad.”
Coates went back to the front of the counter, stepped over Munx, and came back a moment later with a handful of black circles.
“You’re in a market of thieves,” he said. “What did you expect?” He stuck one on Ven’s back, then turned Nicholas around and affixed one to his shirt. “Why are you here, young’uns? Beggin’ your pardon, but it doesn’t make sense that children who have little or no worldly goods are able to come up with the scratch to buy a token.” He patted the ribbon around Clemency’s neck as he put a black felt circle on her back.
* * *
I wanted to trust him. I wanted to believe that this kind man with the gentle dogs was a good man, someone who could help me find the answer to the king’s question about the translucent stone. He certainly had been polite. But then, so had the woman at the carousel, and the man with the weird animals, and virtually everyone else we had met in this strange, magical, threatening place.
A place where unseen strangers had marked us for theft
I had no idea what to think. I was less sure of anything in the Gated City than I had been before I came.
Then I remembered what my father had said.
If you see things as they appear through its lens, you are taking measure of the world correctly.
Trust that curiosity, and your instincts, the king had told me. They will both serve you well.
I decided to give it a try.
* * *
Ven opened the jack-rule once more and took a look through the glass.
He tried not to be obvious, looking at the gauntlet one last time before casually lifting the lens and training it on Mr. Coates. He aimed it for his eyes, and when he looked through it, he thought he could see something deep within them, something simple and plain, without reflection or cloudiness hiding secrets. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought the look in those eyes was very much like the expressions he saw in the eyes of his parents, or the captain, or Mrs. Snodgrass, or the king.
He wasn’t certain why, but it seemed enough.
Ven drew
forth the king’s stone and handed it to Mr. Coates.
“Do you know anything about this?” he asked.
The weaponsmaker took the glowing oval and examined it for a long time. Finally he handed it back.
“Not really,” he said. “If I were a jeweler, or an alchemist, I would say it looks like an instrument used in an assay, to measure or weigh something of value. But to me the markings look like a map of some kind.” He went back to the window and looked out again.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Ven admitted.
“What do you see when you look at it through the jack-rule?” Coates asked.
Ven looked at Char, who shook his head. “I—er, haven’t tried,” he said. “Yet, that is.”
Coates nodded, still looking out into the street. “Well, you might want to.”
Quickly Ven extended the magnifying lens and held up the stone to the light. He examined the strange cracks within it.
For a moment they looked like nothing more than flaws in the stone. Then, just as he was about to put the jack-rule away, Ven blinked. In his mind he saw the image of dark tunnels, twisting and turning in many directions. It made his head hurt.
Then the picture faded.
“I saw tunnels,” he said. “Seemingly endless. Does that mean anything to you?”
Mr. Coates came back to the middle of his shop.
“No,” he said. “The only tunnels I know of in the Outer Market are the ones that lead out to the harbor.”
“You know about those?” Ven asked, amazed.
“Of course. Everyone does.”
“Well, then what’s the point of the wall around the city? If anyone can get in or out at will, why all the guards and the locks?”
Coates’s expression grew serious. “You’re leaping to a lot of conclusions, young’un. There are many layers within any prison; remember that. It all depends on who’s guarding what. Not just anyone can go at will out of the harbor tunnels, believe me. If they could, I—” He stopped, then coughed. “I’m sorry I can’t help you further, and I wouldn’t just be asking anyone about that stone if I were you, unless you don’t mind losing it. Perhaps you should go to Madame Sharra, if you can find her, and see if she tells you anything about it.”
The children looked at each other.
“Who’s Madame Sharra?” Ven asked.
“She’s a seer, a fortune-teller of sorts,” said Coates. “A Reader, I think she is actually called. You can’t always find her when you want to, though many try, believe me. Her deck is one of the most powerful means in the world of predicting the future, finding the past, or seeing your way clear in the present, or so I am told. She might see something about that stone if she does a reading for you.”
Ven exhaled. “So I can trust this Madame Sharra? I could ask her about the stone?”
Coates’s eyes grew blacker. “You can trust no one in this place, lad. No one. Remember that.”
“Not even you?” Clemency asked softly.
Coates looked suddenly tired. “No one,” he said to Clem. Then he turned back to Ven. “I would not ask Sharra anything, lad. A lot of people do, and I imagine she learns a great deal more than she needs to that way. I would see what she has to say to you first before you tell her too much. If you can find her. She’s found only when she wants to be. Her booth is across the square, by the fountain, between the toymaker and the dream seller.”
“Did you say dream seller?” Char asked. “How can you buy a dream?”
“You can buy anything in the Gated City, lad,” said Coates. “If you are willing to pay the price.” He glanced out the window one last time. “I think it’s probably all right for you to go. Those that mark the guests should be done by now. If you keep the black circles on your backs, the second team won’t pay any mind to you.”
“Thank you,” said Ven sincerely. “I appreciate all your help.”
Mr. Coates smiled. He picked up the gauntlet and looked at it for a moment, then held it out to Ven.
“Here,” he said. “Take this. I suspect you will find a use for it someday.”
“I couldn’t,” Ven said. “I can’t pay for—”
“It’s a gift,” Coates said. “For showing me the jack-rule. But don’t wear it—put it in your pack. It’s a tool, and a piece of protective garb. But it’s also a weapon. You don’t want to be carrying a weapon, visible or otherwise, in this place. Even the youngest infant who lives within these walls is better with any weapon than you would be. You should never look more ready for a fight than you are, young’uns. It’s the best way to get yourselves killed.”
He went behind the counter and came back a moment later with a piece of burlap and a length of string, with which he wrapped and tied up the gauntlet. Then he handed it to Ven.
“That’s good advice,” Ven said. “Thank you—and thank you for the gauntlet. We will try to use it well.”
“I have no doubt,” said Coates. “Good luck to all of you.” He walked over to the door and opened it.
Ven, Nick, Char, and Clem started through it; then Clem turned quickly around.
“Where’s Saeli?” she asked.
“Here,” came the rough voice that they almost never heard come out of the small Gwadd girl. The children looked into the back of the shop, from where it had come.
Saeli was sitting on the floor, one arm around Munx, rubbing Finlay’s stomach in much the same way Mrs. Snodgrass had rubbed Murphy’s the night before. Finlay had pulled the blue ribbon from her hair with his teeth and was playing with it, making the little Gwadd girl giggle.
“Seems my doorbell is broken,” said Mr. Coates. “All right, miss, off with you now. A few more pats and both of them will be of no use ever again.” He smiled as Saeli leapt up and hurried through the doorway, then called one last piece of advice as he closed the door behind the children.
“Stay together, and watch your backs.”
Ven lingered on the porch step long enough to hear the words the weaponsmaker muttered to himself once the door was closed.
“Everyone else in this place certainly is.”
9
The Fortune-teller’s Tent
WHEN THEY STEPPED BACK OUTSIDE INTO THE MORNING SUN- light, the Market was in full swing. The shops were busy, all the booths now fully open. Bright music filled the square, and the colored banners flapped merrily in the breeze. Over the laughter and chatter of excited voices came loud shouts.
“Pearls from the deepest depths of the ocean, perfectly round, perfectly white!”
“Ambergris, frankincense, sandalwood, myrrh, sweet perfumes to sweeten your dreams! Get ’em here!”
“Spidersilk! For anything you need to trap. Step up, now!”
“I think this place has an unfairly bad reputation,” said Clemency, looking around in wonder. “Look at all this amazing stuff! And the people aren’t anywhere near as bad as they’ve been made out to be.”
“You’re cracked, ya know that?” Char muttered, stopping to look at the booth of a candy seller in the middle of the square. Great billowing clouds of spun sugar were twirled on sticks next to lollipops that sparkled in colors they could almost taste. “One o’ the first lessons they teach you in Don’t Be An Idiot School is you can’t trust anybody in a thieves’ market. Didn’t you hear Mr. Coates?”
“Well, if you can’t trust anybody, what about Mr. Coates?” demanded Clem. “He seemed very nice, and very honorable.”
“I thought so as well,” said Ven. He understood what Clem meant—there was an excitement in these colorful streets he had never experienced, a fascinating display of exotic things that seemed almost as if they had come from his dreams. And the people were beautiful, polite, and kind. His curiosity was burning like wildfire, making him want to investigate every booth, every shop, every alleyway. At the same time, he was listening in his head to all the warnings he had been given. “But Char is right. Even Mr. Coates told us to be on our guard.”
“Potions!” shouted the man in the
booth next to them. “Tonics for all occasions and needs! You, young folk! What sort of elixirs can I interest you in?”
Saeli stopped in front of a long table that was just below her nose. The rest of them came to a stop as well.
From one end to the other was a tablecloth of sky-blue silk embroidered with gold thread ending in sparkling tassels. Set out on the table was a vast array of bottles, in all shapes and sizes, some clear glass, others solid. The clear bottles all seemed to contain different colors of liquid, some of them with tiny specks of silver or what looked like pearls floating in them.
“What do you have?” Clemency asked, looking like she wished she hadn’t.
The potion seller, a bald man with a thick black beard, opened his hands wide.
“Ah, now, miss, as you can see, we have just about anything you could imagine and your heart might desire. You want to be taller, thinner, more beautiful? You want to be stronger, sleep better at night, or go without sleep at all? You want to be able to speak to animals and have them understand? You want to grow a third hand, or an eye in the back of your head, or sprout wings on your feet? You want to make your enemy’s ears seal shut, his nose grow a foot long, or his mouth vanish? You want to find something that you lost long ago, have a wish come true, find true love?” His dark eyes sparkled. “Everyone wants that one. Can I interest you in a fine potion to make someone fall in love? It can work on anyone, no matter how reluctant.”
“Really?” asked Clem.
“Yes, indeed,” assured the man. “Would you like one?”
“Maybe for Char,” Clem said, poking him in the ribs. Char scowled at her.
“Char doesn’t need that,” said Ven merrily. “He’s already got Felitza.”
“Not for him,” Clemency said. “For her.”
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