Once inside, he waited for his eyes to adjust…but they didn’t. The room was pitch black. Toby fumbled against the wall for a light switch, then, finding none, fumbled for the curtains. They were gone. The wall was, too. Goblin laughter echoed through the chamber. When Toby tried to take a step, he found heavy manacles around both of his feet.
“What is this farce?” he cried.
“Touched the velvet curtain, didn’t you?” a sullen voice said in the dark.
“I had to touch it in order to pass through it.”
“That’s how they get you,” the voice replied. “When they say not to touch anything, they mean it.”
“But the sign said this part of the shop was for wizards only.”
“Well, that’s true. It’s an oubliette for wizards. Anybody you have out there has already forgotten about you.”
“That’s foolishness. Who are you? What kind of a joke is this?”
The voice snorted a laugh and murmured a spell: “Leukhtam.”
Toby had to squint at the sudden brightness. After a few moments, he was able to tolerate the light enough to see that beside him sat an aged, spindly man in long blue robes. The wizard, for he had to be a wizard, as he was holding a ball of pure light in one hand, had a most magnificent beard down to his navel and long hair the color of spiderwebs. And he looked exactly like a doll—no, an action figure—Toby had adored as a child.
“It can’t be. Are you…Merlin?”
The old man rolled his eyes. “Oh, yes, well, very fine. They’ve forgotten me out there, but I suppose people in here can remember me all day. Yes, I am he. And this is Glandalf.” He pointed at a gray-robed skeleton manacled to the floor on his other side.
Toby’s heart just about fell out of his butt.
“Then we’re trapped here? Together? Forever?” he asked.
Merlin kicked Glandalf’s skeleton. “Something like that.”
“Well, then. Considering we have nothing but time here, perhaps you could teach me that light spell.”
Merlin looked bored beyond belief. “Sure. Trade you for a spell that magically releases goblin manacles.”
“Er,” Toby said. “My main skills involve making it rain bread.” Overcome with anxiety, he waggled his fingers at the air just above Merlin’s tall blue hat. Raisin buns hailed down, pelting the old man and making him grunt.
“I hate raisins,” Merlin said.
For several moments they just sat there, Toby staring at Merlin, his hero, as Merlin picked apart a piece of his raisin bread and sulkily threw the raisins at Glandalf’s corpse.
“Toby!”
“Did you call me, Merlin?”
“It was not I.”
“Toby? Dark Lord! Here, Dark Lord!”
“He likes to be called crepuscular.”
“I don’t care what you call him; I just want him found before I have to speak to your manager.”
“I am a manager—”
“Find him, or you’ll be a manager-colored stain.”
“I’m here!” Toby screamed. “By the skeleton! Behind the curtain that says WIZARDS ONLY, but don’t touch it or you’ll get stuck here and die.”
“Very optimistic of you,” Merlin noted.
“Ah, there you are.” A powerful hand bit into Toby’s shoulder, lifted him off the ground, and swung him through space. The next thing he knew, he was standing in the middle of Nardstromp’s, staring at a display of harpy brassieres. A large, buff goblin stood before him wearing nothing but a small pin reading STORE MANAGER.
“My lady Grinda, on behalf of Nardstromp’s, I thank you for your continued business, but I am forced to request that you keep a better eye on your charges. Perhaps next time you’d like to borrow one of our complimentary strollers.”
“Of course. It won’t happen again.” Grinda gave Toby what could only be termed a stare of doom. “Will it, Dark Lord Toby?”
Toby looked down at his feet, now free of manacles. “I shall try to restrain myself,” he said through gritted teeth.
The manager backed away, bowing, and disappeared into the rows of goblin-sized tap pants.
“While you were amusing yourself, we were able to purchase all that is necessary for our trip to Songlen,” Grinda said, sounding annoyingly magnanimous. “Waterproof rucksacks, food, silken tents, lotions and potions. The works. Now we just need to visit Ye Olde Mappe Shoppe to plot our course.”
“Grand.”
Grinda stepped close and put a finger under Toby’s chin. “Loosen up, wizard. Adventure expands the mind and—”
“And traps me in a dungeon with some old crazy stranger and a bunch of bones. How were you able to remember me, anyway? Oubliettes make you forget people.”
Grinda’s face collapsed like a flying buttress made of putty. “I…”
“It wasn’t her. It was me,” Gustave said. “I remembered you. Not these guys! They were all, Who’s Toby? What Dark Lord? With what sad excuse for a beard? What kind of ding dong would use magic to make rye bread? That’s all I heard until we were right next to that freaky curtain. And I was like, you guys are under some kind of crazy goblin magic. Grinda wanted to leave, but I found the manager.”
“You mean you pooped on a carefully crafted pyramid of brandy snifters,” Fia said.
“Yes. That’s how I summoned the manager.”
Grinda cleared her throat and pasted on her smile. “Everything worked out for the best then, yes? Let us continue.”
But Toby stopped where he was. A strange feeling slunk into his heart, and he felt as if he were a thousand million miles away from home and comfort and as if all his goals were immeasurably far away. He’d wanted to leave his tower, sure, but only because he’d been so sure that he’d be the ruler of any realm he entered. Smart, moneyed, a little bit magic and hungry for more, the Dark Lord had nowhere to go but up. Or so he’d thought. As it turned out, the real world was a terrifying and ridiculous place where people with little sense made foolish rules that could ruin one’s life with the flick of a curtain.
“I want to go home,” he said very quietly.
“Don’t say that.” Fia bumped him with her elbow, nearly knocking him to the floor. “I felt that way right after I left my village. When I lost my armor and got bitten by a zebra and dropped all my food in the mud. But I kept going. Sometimes that’s what you have to do: just keep going until everything makes sense.” Her gaze flicked to Argabella, and she smiled a secret smile. “Keep moving, and good things will start to happen again.”
“But I was chained next to a pile of human bones!”
“Did you not hear me? I got bitten. By a zebra. Now come on.”
Grinda had reached the gate out of Nardstromp’s, followed by a fleet of goblins pulling and pushing bits of luggage and picnic baskets and a small sled of tent parts pulled by a grimy pegasus, which was more like a Shetland pony mixed with an angry goose. The metal cage was raised, and the guards saluted, and the winged pony snapped at everyone on her way out, and then they were finally alone in the middle of the market with their wares.
The moment he stepped out of Nardstromp’s, Toby immediately forgot why he’d been so angry and sad and terrified. “This beard is doing me some favors,” he said, stroking the extensions sprouting from his chin. “Everything’s coming up Toby!”
“Take your bags and don’t let go, darlings,” Grinda warned. “There are always cutpurses about.”
Poltro pulled out her knife and jumped around a bit to discourage any other thieves in the area, and Gustave sighed and wiggled into the harness of the travois that pulled the tent poles along. Fia shoved an indigo velvet rucksack into Toby’s arms, and he accepted it, staring down at the gift.
“Do I smell…cheese?” he asked hopefully as he flipped back the flap.
Fia gave him a rare smile. “From Hornswo
ggle himself. The ol’ witch is easily talked into deluxe baskets that come with free goblets.”
Moved by this kindness, Toby struggled to pay it forward by caring about someone else. “Is Argabella okay?” he asked.
At that, Fia’s smile grew wider. “She will be. She’s been asking Grinda constantly to reveal that big secret, but the sand witch is slippery. She’ll have a hard time avoiding the question on the road.”
“The sand witch is certainly no hero,” Toby mused, and arched an eyebrow by way of challenge.
“But neither is she a sub-human,” Fia replied.
“Ha! Excellent,” Toby said, and stroked his fake beard, pleased to have punned at Grinda’s expense.
“She ain’t fun on a bun,” Gustave muttered. When they both turned to gape at the interrupting goat, he shrugged his narrow shoulders. “What? I like to be part of whispery conversations, too. We’re here, by the way.”
The party had stopped in front of one of the numerous kiosks generally blocking and disturbing the Goblin Market’s customers. But this one wasn’t sprouting a dozen goblins with clipboards and curling irons; no, it held merely one aged goblin, his face a topography of lines and bumps and strange archipelagoes of skin tags. Before this ancient creature sat a globe that finally satisfied Toby’s yearning to see real magic. The sphere was forged of seamlessly pieced together crystals and stones, with oceans ranging from light blue to an indigo so dark that Toby imagined he could see giant monsters smoothly undulating under the surface and fluffy otters cavorting atop it. The part of the globe facing him showed the western earldoms of Pell, from the verdant pastures of Borix to the mighty swell of Morningwood to the southern shores of Teabring. The Coxcomb of the Korpås Range towered above all, and there might have been some tiny gryphons circling it. Toby longed to set the globe twirling and see what might lay across the entire sphere, but the goblin looked grouchy and implacable, his gnarled fingers protectively splayed across the glittering stone.
“Ah, Grinda. Come to yet again attempt to steal my map?”
The witch clutched her hand over her heart. “Of course not. You’re so silly. I would never!”
“You always.”
“We merely seek news of the way to Songlen. Best route for the current weather and giant feeding grounds, if you please.”
The goblin grunted and held out his lined palm, and Grinda dropped in several jewels that instantly made Toby drool, as he could see the magic throbbing in their depths. The goblin merely opened his cratered maw and tossed the stones in, swallowing audibly.
“Hmm,” he said, running wizened fingers over the globe. “No use taking the southern route to Songlen at Nockney. The giant laborers are striking, calling all travelers union-busting scabs, twisting them into meat pretzels, and eating them with a rather regrettable ketchup made in the Several Macks. You’ll want to circle around far to the east and take the ferry at Pikestaff. Or risk traveling under the mountains through the Catacombs of Yore if you’re feeling brave and didn’t have a particularly horrid childhood.”
“Oh, not again,” Grinda said, crossing her arms and pouting. “Every time we let them out of Yglyk, the giants cause trouble. Why must they continue with this nonsense?”
“Because they deserve to get paid like everybody else?” Fia growled.
Grinda skewered her with a stare. “I do appreciate their right to fair compensation for their labor. You will never understand how much I support that principle. But they are not demanding to be paid like everyone else. They are demanding they get paid in human bones, which they grind into bread.”
Mighty Fia blanched. “Ah. Catacombs it is, then.”
Grinda looked her up and down, which took longer than usual. “You had a good childhood?”
“I meant to say that going east sounds great.”
“East it is, then. Let’s be on our way, shall we?”
“Pleasure doing business with you,” the old goblin said. “Unless anyone would care to trade their first memory or second-born son for a magical gift.”
Toby started to raise his hand, and Grinda shoved it back down.
“He’ll just give you an enchanted hair shirt or a sloth that slowly belches the alphabet,” she warned. “Never trust a goblin.”
“But you’re trusting him! You just let him plan our entire route!”
She looked down her long, slightly melty nose at him. “Yes, but I know what I’m doing. Or would you like to go back to wizard jail and play with your little friends?”
Toby’s shoulders slumped, but he wasn’t sure why. He didn’t know what wizard jail was, but he liked the idea of having friends.
“Catacombs it is,” he said.
The witch smiled a pedantic smile. “Well, actually, we decided to go east.”
Toby decided he never wanted to go to the Goblin Market again.
They stood on a very impressive promontory, laden with junk and more than ready to get on with it in Gustave’s opinion. Grinda had opened yet another door into nothing, and now here they were in the great outdoors, which the goat found deeply comforting. The Goblin Market had been a bit of a disappointment to Gustave, but then again, what did a goat really want in life? Boots and the company of many other herbivores who looked to be fatter, slower, and more delicious than he did, mostly. As he’d passed the shop windows, Gustave had seen room after room of succulent trash, subdivided into specialties: belts, harnesses, aprons, and of course shoes. After a while, he got bored and watched his friends’ reactions. Which made him curious.
As they set off marching after Grinda, who now wore a very expensive pair of delectable hiking boots and a puffy sort of vest, Gustave asked, “Hey, so what did you guys see in the Goblin Market that looked good?”
Poltro sighed. “Cor, what didn’t look good? The sneaky black cape store, the shop full of boots with silence charms on ’em, the boutique absolutely dripping with chicken guillotines. I would’ve gone into that one for sure if not for…” She kind of trailed off, sounding sad.
“Got your purse cut, did you?”
“Them goblin thieves must have the market cornered on silent boots and sneaky capes. Didn’t even feel the weight of it gone. So now it’s chickens, crabs, and goblins, that being the list of things I don’t like, and can you imagine if you combined it all? A goblin riding a crab riding a chicken? Boggles the mind, that does. In bad taste, it is.”
Fia caught up with Poltro, looking concerned. “What? I didn’t see any of that. I simply saw endless armorers, chain-mail craftsmen, swordmasters, martial artists, and shops that sold badly made throwing stars and lots of camouflage.”
“What?” Toby said. “I saw lots of…er, magic stuff. Nothing weird. Just magic stuff. It seemed to change when I confronted it directly, though.”
“What about you, Argabella?” Fia asked.
The rabbit girl kept stomping along, her eyes pinned to Grinda’s well-clothed back. “There was one music shop filled with lutes that filled in the missing words in songs, but most of them were just…forget it.”
“No, what?”
It took a few moments of marching, falling in behind Grinda’s lead, for Argabella to say, “I kept seeing abacuses and ledgers and mirrors that showed me what I looked like before I was a beast. When I was just a normal girl. I’m not saying I was much to look at then, but…I don’t know. I kept feeling like if I just went in the right shop and promised my best memory to the right smirking goblin, I could be me again and possibly earn an associate’s degree in accounting.”
“But this is you,” Fia said gently. “For now. And there’s nothing wrong with you. Your heart is the same either way.”
Argabella shook her head so hard that her ears flapped. “No, I don’t think that’s right. I was different then. I’m not sure what changed, but I feel like I lost something. I want to be all me.”
Fia stood in front of her, stopping her, and Gustave lingered to watch the show. If only he had some old laces to munch.
“Then let’s get answers,” Fia said. “Come on. I’m sick of this.”
Looping her arm through Argabella’s, Fia stomped ahead as fast as her boat feet could carry her and planted herself in the path in front of Grinda. Gustave capered behind them, considering this the most interesting escapade currently on offer. At best, he’d find out how the rabbit girl had become half rabbit. At worst, he’d see Fia turned into something half animal, and maybe it would be an okapi or a narwhal or something really interesting.
“Listen, lady. You owe this girl some answers. So get talking.”
Grinda drew back, one eyebrow up—the usual display of Chronic Resting Witch Face. Her fingers waggled like she was considering reaching into her puffy vest for her wand but wasn’t yet ready to go to such trouble.
“I don’t owe her anything.”
“Er, well, but you do,” Argabella said, spreading her rabbit feet in a powerful sort of stance. “You said you’d tell me today, and it’s today, so get on with it.”
“Time is relative,” Grinda said, fluttering a hand in the air. “And the time is not yet ripe.”
“Oh, it’s ripe,” Fia said, standing slightly to Argabella’s other side. “It’s practically brown and spotty. Fruit flies are interested.”
They were all now in a rough circle around the sand witch, although Gustave had his doubts that Toby and Poltro had really meant to lend their personal placement to such an aggressive arrangement. Just a little farther on, the path led under a stand of tall trees, not quite as impressive and lofty as Morningwood but still thick and sturdy in their own right. Gustave vaguely recognized them as pines, notable for their needlyness and sappiness and the sharp scent they lent the air, not to mention the fact that they were utterly inedible. The path Grinda was following disappeared into this pine forest, lined by blocky orange mushrooms and inhabited by birds that pooped normal poop instead of glitter if Gustave was any judge of that sort of thing, which he was. He was also getting to be a good judge of character, and the bunny girl had it. She deserved answers. For his part, at that point, he planted his four hooves and lowered his horns. It’s not often one gets the chance to ram a sand witch right in the buns.