Hey, I'm sorry I'm posting this kind if late again, and without answering comments! It is homecoming week here at my school and everything is nuts. I'm thinking of doing an extra chapter on Sunday where I'll be able to sit down and actually respond to all your wonderful reviews...
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Chapter 159: The Goblin Market
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The Goblin Market was noisy and crowded. Ellie had expected that. Whether they were ghostly in nature or not, markets like this usually were.
She had, however, also expected that Iceclaw and the Elysians would be waiting nearby when she came out the other end of the portal.
They were not.
Ellie, urged by the crowds trying to use this end of the Architect's Gate, and what seemed to be a slight speed difference between the Market and the portal, floated away from the portal. She glanced back. On this side, there was only one portal, encased in glass, not a collection of them. She turned away, scanning the three-dimensional array of booths, kiosks, and stores.
Without the constraints of gravity or ground, the Goblin Market grew in all directions, colorful and full of variety. There were red-and-white striped warriors from the Glass City, selling rainbow-hued honey. There was a yuki-onna in flowing white robes, buying goods with crystal coins. An ordinary man sat in a stall festooned with living (un-living?) lanterns. A woman with midnight-black skin sat on a rug, surrounded by books. A perfectly empty stall was labeled bellek in red letters, and a long line wound from its counter into the depths of the Market. A man with a green hat and short beard argued with a rabbit riding a giant centipede, surrounded by wooden debris and purple cabbages.
No giant white yetis, though.
Ellie sucked in her lower lip. Where would they go? Why would they go? Had they been kidnapped? Already?
A very small merchant tugged on Ellie's sleeve, and offered her a platter of tiny pots. She waved him off apologetically, and looked back at the portal.
The cursed thing was moving! She dived after it, not wanting to be separated from Pandora, too. It drifted deceptively quickly, and now Ellie could see the path it had cut through the Market, full of broken things and angry ghosts. Ahead of it, ghosts were pulling their stalls and goods out of the way. A few ghosts had looped ecto-ropes over the box in an attempt to slow it down or stop it. She looked behind her again, and finally spotted Iceclaw and the Elysians, also flying after the box.
Ellie slowed down so they could catch up with her.
"What happened?" she asked.
"I don't know!" said Cynosura. "It isn't supposed to move with respect to the rest of the Market!"
"It stops for a couple seconds when someone is about to come out, then it starts up again," added one of the other Elysians. "It started after Abderus-"
"It could have started before me, too," interjected Abderus.
"And it keeps getting faster!"
"Well," huffed Cynosura, "it doesn't really matter, as long as Lady Pandora can come through properly."
"Yes, it does! How are Enyeus and Meda to get my equipment to Mattingly without it?"
The glass building glowed more brightly momentarily and stopped. A second later, Pandora exited, looking somewhat bemused at all the ropes. In another second, the box jumped forward again, the ghosts pulling at it cursing in a dozen languages.
Pandora flew up to them. "Let's go quickly, before someone blames the portal's behavior on us," she said, voice low and urgent.
They were several rows down from the destruction caused by the rogue portal before Ellie asked, "Why would they blame us?"
"The portal was sabotaged," said Pandora. "Someone meant to close it, I think, to prevent me from coming through."
"But it started acting up for Abderus?" said Ellie.
"Portals cut through both time and space," said Cynosura.
"Quite," Pandora agreed.
"Then someone knows we're here."
"Sadly. That's why we must be swift. The sooner we reach Mattingly, the better."
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Pain knifed up through Danny's chest. It was hot, fiery, inside him, and his sweat was freezing on his skin from all the cold Iceclaw was pumping out. He pulled himself closer to Iceclaw, even though there wasn't any point to that. He was already as close as he could be, without somehow burrowing into Dr. Iceclaw, and... just... gross.
He was getting worse, and it was loud in the Goblin Market. He pressed his hands over his ears, and suppressed a whine. He hoped nothing bad was happening out there, because between the noise, muffling effect of the sling, and not being able to see, he had no idea what was going on.
After a while, the sound began to drop off, then grow more distant. Danny risked poking his head out of the sling. The kingdom of Mattingly loomed high in the air, ringed by double-pointed guard towers that looked both up and down. Danny could see the twinkle of gas lamps in their windows, and from the parapets, the flash of highly polished musket muzzles.
It was good to see that the kingdom was still progressing forward in time, inching closer to the present. Danny wondered where they would finally decide to stop.
Dr. Iceclaw patted Danny. "Almost there," he said. He sounded strained. They were going rather fast. Had something happened to force them to hurry?
Danny looked at the grim faces of his companions, and slipped back into the sling.
They were challenged by guards near the border, but once they recognized Pandora and Ellie, they waved them on, one of them even joining as a kind of honor guard. Danny felt Iceclaw relax, and felt himself relax in sympathy.
He was half asleep again, listening to a murmur of comforting conversation, when Iceclaw shook him slightly.
"You have to get up now, great one," said the yeti.
Danny mumbled in protest, but pulled himself back into wakefulness. "Why?" he asked, sticking his head out.
"Oh, Sir Phantom, it really is you," said the guard. He licked his lips and looked at another guard.
They were standing in front of Dora's castle, in front of the big main doors, and had attracted a small crowd.
"Yes, it's really me. I'm sorry. I'm kind of sick." He coughed slightly. He knew this person, but couldn't remember his name. It was 'Sir' something. Something with an 'L,' maybe. Sir Leo? No, no, Sir Leo actually looked leonine. Sir Luke? No, Sir Luke's skin was bone white.
… Maybe it actually started with an R. Or a Y.
"Is it contagious?"
"No," said Iceclaw.
The guard looked apologetic. "Sorry, I had to ask." He bit his lower lip. "You won't want the audience chamber," he said. He looked around the crowd, and found someone he recognized. "You, Bernal," he pointed at a boy wearing page's livery, "go tell her majesty that Sir Phantom, Dame Phantom, and Lady Pandora will be in the blue receiving room." He turned back to Danny and the others. "I will take you there."
The blue receiving room was painted the color of Earth's sky, and hung with gentle pastoral paintings. It was the very nicest of the private receiving rooms.
Danny hoped he wouldn't throw up on any of the furniture.
Iceclaw took off the sling, and arranged Danny on the couch next to him. Ellie squeezed in next to Danny, radiating as much cold as Iceclaw. Pandora sat down on another seat, and the Elysians stood themselves around as guards.
Dora came with her own retinue only minutes later, and the room became quite crowded. Dora fussed over Danny in a way that reminded him oddly of Jazz, and sent her servants to prepare rooms and fetch her own doctors.
"I was worried something like this had happened," she said, once Ellie had told her the story.
"You were worried I'd swallow Aragon's amulet?"
"Well, no," admitted Dora, wringing her hands, "that never even crossed my mind. But we noticed the amulet was missing. I check it every day," she explained. "He has tried to steal it so often. But this time, we could not find how he had done it, or where he had gone. I am so terribly sorry that you paid the price for our inattention."
Danny shook his head. "I don't think it's your fault. I don't think it's anything you did, I mean-" Danny broke off, thinking about how to express what he wanted to. "The person who did it, I think they can make portals."
"Ah," said Dora. "That is not good, not good at all. We will have to keep you under watch at all times, Sir Phantom."
Danny shifted, uncomfortable at the thought, but didn't object. That sounded imminently reasonable. He shuddered to think that a portal might open up beneath him, and drop him in the Burning Lands all by himself, or somewhere even worse.
"Okay," he said.
Dora nodded. "You said you needed my help to take it out. What can I do?"
This was, apparently, a somewhat complicated question. Iceclaw gave Dora a very short, simple, version of the answer, and then they all fussed over Danny some more, and put him in a room in a soft bed, with lots of ice, and told him to sleep.
"Are you sure you can't take it out now?" asked Danny, plaintively.
"I am sorry, great one. There are preparations we must make first, and I have to tell Danielle and Queen Dorathea what they must do to help."
"Don't worry, Daniel," said Pandora. "I will stay here with you."
"You will?" said Danny, aware that he sounded just a little pathetic. That was fine, right? He'd been through a lot these past few days.
But he wasn't the only one, even if he was the only one stupid enough to swallow a ghostly artifact. This was his own fault and he should stop feeling sorry for himself. At least he was with people he knew, in places he knew, unlike his classmates and parents, who had been pushed into an entirely unfamiliar world.
"Now, now," said Pandora, patting Danny lightly on the shoulder, "you are being quite unfair to yourself, Daniel. You have been forced to deal with a very many difficult things these past weeks. Most ghosts never deal with the kind of core injury you have sustained, let alone fighting off an assault on their lair, a Libran trial, a journey through the Digressed Tower, a mercenary army, and a fight with a dragon all right after one another. Not to mention, bring a group of powerless humans out of it all alive."
Well, when Pandora put it like that, Danny didn't feel as bad. He pulled the bed-sheets up to his chin, and wiggled into the pillows.
"They aren't completely powerless, though."
"Oh?"
"They're picking up more powers. More liminality." He paused. "Valerie shot an ectoblast."
Pandora didn't look particularly pleased about that. Danny understood. It was another unpredictable element for her people to deal with.
"Well, I had something of a talk with young Miss Gray," said Pandora. She shook her head. "What you said to her in the Tower made an impression on her, apparently."
"A good one?"
"I believe so."
"Oh. Good."
