The Wizards on Walnut Street Read online

  Killian gave me an analytical gaze, as though trying to determine whether giving me context would be worth her time. The alternative, it appeared, would be to drag a huge ball of over-wound nerves behind her like a wounded puppy. The payoff was worth it, apparently, so she took a deep breath. “So, Wizards need spell components to do the stuff they do. Of course, going out and buying those components is, like, beneath them or something, so they have co-ops like you doing it. You, however, have absolutely no way to defend yourself if someone tries to screw with you, so I’m here to keep you from getting killed.[8] It’s company policy if a co-op is headed to the Market.”

  I took a gulp. Why would something try to screw with me? I still had no idea what kind of dangerous things I might meet at any given time. “The Market?”

  Killian gestured down the street. “Walk. I’ll explain.” I took off, feeling slightly less anxious as I kept up with Killian’s long stride. “The Goblin market,” she explained, “is pretty much the only place to get anything you need for spell components. Stuff has to have levels of purity to meet corporate standards, and your standard department store doesn’t meet those. Goblins, however, refuse to do business by mail-order, so we have to go to them; it’s a Kobolda thing about upselling and doing business face-to-face.”

  “Kobolda are one of the Societies, right?”

  She nodded. “Anything that is innately supernatural and can’t blend into society without a disguise or some other magic is in Kobolda by default. And they govern on a strict meritocracy with archaic codes of conduct. So their word is their bond, and their currency is the art of the deal. It’s called the Promise Code.”

  We crossed another street, ending up on Central, where we stopped to wait for the light to change. I looked at Killian and noticed that her sword seemed to have disappeared. I must have been rather obvious about my gaze as the light changed, because she raised an eyebrow at me. “Either you’re wondering about my sword or you’re checking out my backside, neither of which are your business.”

  “No, I—” I started to protest.

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re fine, it was a joke. Remember what I said about chilling out?” As we reached the far corner, she looked down at my name-card handling from my jacket as she held out a hand to stop me. “Andy. Alright Andy, you need to breathe. I’m not taking you any further until you take a deep breath.”

  She locked eyes with me and gave me a look of impatient, but understanding, concern—like an Aunt who always makes sure you’ve eaten enough and only gives cash for birthdays. I felt the rush of air in my lungs as I did as I was told, and then nodded. “Alright. I feel better.”

  “Good, here we go.” She reached for a nearby bronze-edged door into the corner building but then stopped, pulling her hand away as another thought seemed to occur to her. “Do you know the rules of the Market?” I shook my head. “OK. Rule 1: Never put anything on store credit. Rule 2: Never take anything that’s offered for discount or for free. If they try, always insist to pay. Never pay less than the posted price. Rule 3: If anyone asks if you work for 50 Thousand, you don’t. You work at 50 thousand. That is immensely important. Understand?”

  I nodded again, more confidently this time. Understanding at least a little of the rules was comforting to my anxiety-tangled mind. Killian pushed the door open and led me down a dim hallway to a staircase. She took them two at a time, with me following behind her as we went down a few flights. Finally, at the bottom, we emerged into the Market.

  Situated inside a spacious area much like a convention hall, the Market appeared to be row after row of booths and shop fronts. The corridors between these shop fronts were filled with people of many shapes and sizes. I couldn’t help but stare for a moment, as a large rock-skinned man strode past, gingerly carrying a soft rabbit in his massive hands. Behind him, an old woman was begging him to let her pet it. Several smaller people in black hats swept past me down the stairs and into the crowd. Nearby I overheard an argument between a shopkeeper and customer about whether a gem was a particular shade of blue.

  Each and every shop in the Market was manned by a goblin—tiny, greenish-grey creatures with multiple eyes and many more digits on their hands than seemed completely necessary. One of them spotted me and waved, gesturing for me to come join him at his booth. I politely shook my head and looked desperately toward Killian.

  She held out her hand for the folder, which I passed to her; I felt somewhat more Vulnerable without it, however, and sidled a little closer to her side.

  “Hmmmm…Seems pretty easy. I think I know where you could get the foil…the others would be there too probably… But Calfnot…I’m not sure on that one. You may have to ask someone for that information. Come on.” She handed me the folder back and started off into the crowd. I quickly followed, not wanting to lose my bodyguard in the mess of the Market.

  In a moment we had parted the crowd and ducked into a small dingy booth with a hanging cloth sign that read Dingo’s Din. Inside, I found myself in front of dozens of overflowing shelves carrying all manner of items from toilet seats to jewelry to rubber ducks with demon horns. Before I had more than a moment to take it all in, however, Killian cleared her throat and gestured to the shop’s Goblin, the eponymous Dingo, who sat nearby on an upturned bureau with a sparkly “My name is” nametag. His three eyes all pointed at me while he twiddled his disturbing number of fingers impatiently.

  I took another steadying breath and stepped forward. “Hello, I need to…buy…a few things.” I hoped I sounded more confident than I felt.

  The goblin regarded me for a second and one of his eyes looked from me to Killian and back. “Right, right. What do you need?” He spied my folder. “Got a list?”

  I had barely taken the page from the file folder when it was snatched from my grasp by a hand that had what seemed like eleven fingers. One eye read the list while the other two made darting motions from shelf to shelf. I gave a sidelong glance toward Killian who had leaned against a shelf and was now watching me with crossed arms and a bemused expression.

  The goblin handed the list back and grabbed a bucket before springing into the shelves and digging around, knocking things to the floor as he did so. He seemed to know exactly what he was looking for, however, because he soon returned, the bucket now containing a pack of wooden skewers, gold foil, and a crystal cup. He sat them on the counter.

  “How much?” I asked, unable to contain my smile. This was a lot easier than I had expected.

  The goblin pulled out a large ledger and checked an index. “Let’s see…Crystal cup is fifty…skewers are twenty…and the gold foil…that’s a doozy. Almost a hundred on its own. But I tell ya what,” He looked up with a very sincere smile. “I’ll save you trouble and give you the whole thing for a hundred and fifty bucks.”

  I shook my head. “I’ll pay full posted price, please.”

  The goblin frowned and looked back down at the book. “Aw, you’re no fun. Fine, fine. Full price is one sixty-five.”

  I glanced over at Killian for approval and she gave me a shrug. I furrowed my eyebrows and counted out the money, trying to keep my fingers from shaking. I reached out to hand over the money before I stopped as I watched the goblin gingerly putting the items into a plastic bag. “Wait,” I added. The goblin looked up innocently. “How much is the posted price for the plastic bag?”

  The goblin gritted his teeth, knowing he’d been caught again. I heard a snort behind me and looked to see Killian chuckling under her breath. I wondered vaguely if, had I neglected to pay for the bag, she would have stepped in to correct me or let me get caught in whatever trap had apparently been set.

  The goblin pointed at the book with a finger. “One dollar.”

  I handed over the money and took the bag, feeling a sort of warm confidence building up in my stomach. I thanked the goblin, and we left the shop. “OK,” I said as soon as we were out, “What was that all about?”

  Killian broke into a smug grin. “Goblins look for
any opportunity to have you indebted to them. Discounts, free services, all these things are sort of an implied type of transaction, and they take that really seriously. Oh, they might call on that favor ten years from now, or twenty, but that favor is valid enough that they can make you do something later that you don’t want to do.”

  I frowned loudly. “So I might have some kind of debt I owe and not even realize it?”

  She pointed down the row toward a sort of banker’s cage a few rows down. “The tellers have all the records of every debt, so it’s never a bad idea to go check and make sure every once in a while. Then, you can go to whoever you owe the debt to and offer to repay it on your terms. Honestly, I’m not sure why they haven’t covered this in training yet for you. Did you even read your Handbook—hey, wait!” But I was already gone, heading toward the banker’s cage. I thought had stuck me and any thought of completing my list was gone for the moment.

  Debts…maybe they were a key to finding out what had happened to Dad. Maybe he had been killed over them, and there would be a record…if I was even allowed to find out.

  I reached the teller and put my hands on the counter. The three goblins behind the cage all wore the same gold-flecked, marble-patterned jacket and were shuffling massive amounts of papers back and forth between each other. The one in front of me stopped and peered at me quizzically through its four—no, five—eyes. “LaFayette, A.”

  “Y-yes, that’s me,” I said, suddenly realizing that in my impulse I hadn’t bothered to think about how this teller desk works.

  “No debts recorded.”

  I let out a breath. “Can you look up someone else’s records?”

  It narrowed three of its eyes. “Depends. For a price.”

  I opened my wallet and took out all of my remaining cash. “Is forty…forty-five dollars enough?”

  The goblin gestured to the porthole in the cage and I passed the bills through. After counting it twice, the bills flicking through its fingers—ok, really, that many fingers are just not necessary—it put them away. “What’s the name?”

  “LaFayette, Thomas.”

  The goblin scanned his book and flipped through it, his eyes scanning multiple pages at once. Finding the entry, he looked up at me with a single eye. “Deceased?”

  I nodded.

  “This record is sealed,” he said slowly, “under orders of a Dragon.”

  “What does that mean?” I said, putting my hands up on the cage desperately.

  “It means,” came Killian’s voice behind me, “That a member of the ruling society wanted that record sealed, and only another Dragon can undo it. And please,” she added with a very stern glare, “Don’t run off like that. I am literally here to keep you safe and I can’t do that if you do things like that, alright? Next time you’re going on a leash.”[9]

  “Sorry…I’m just trying to make sense of everything, that’s all.”

  Killian looked like she was ready to unleash a string of profanity at me, but the goblin cut her off. “Fletcher, K,” the goblin said, flipping through his book, “Perpetual debt owed to her by the Gnome Nation—”

  “Oh, shut up,” Killian snapped before turning on her heel.

  I followed, taking out the folder and checking off everything but one. We were still making good time; it was only a quarter to one. “So what’s this ‘Calfnot’?”

  “It’s a plant,” she replied over her shoulder as we rounded a corner past an old goblin woman selling enchanted soaps (with such attractive scents as “Dandelions and Bacon” and “Fresh Corpse”), “We’ll go to the greenhouse. It’s where most magical plants are.” We made another turn and then ended up against one of the side walls of the exhibit area in front of an elevator. We stepped on and Killian pressed the “ROOF” button.

  The doors closed, and I let out a deep breath. “I…I appreciate you helping me out. I’d be really screwed right now otherwise.”

  Killian shrugged and didn’t look at me. “It’s fine. We were all new once. You just really need to relax, listen, and be more cautious. But if nothing else, you’re hella entertaining.” I couldn’t think of a response and just stayed quiet as the doors opened up, and we found ourselves on a rooftop.

  Sprawled out to my right was part of the Cincinnati skyline: Carew tower rising up above the other buildings like a golden middle finger facing the Kentucky border situated just across the Ohio River. The roof we were standing on was paved, and covered with several rows of glass, steamed-up shelters. I could see the shaped of trees and bushes inside, and I looked around for a goblin attendant. I didn’t need to wait long.

  “Hello, hello!” came a voice from inside one of the greenhouses. A smiling, wrinkled old goblin woman came trotting out to meet me. She actually appeared quite pleasant, with a wreath of honeysuckle resting between her gnarled ears. “Don’t you two just look lovely today? What can I do for ya?”

  Killian again stepped back to let me work and I wondered if she was just enjoying watching me be awkward and nervous. “I’m looking for Calfnot.”

  The goblin stroked her chin. “Calfnot, Calfnot…Follow me, I think I’ve got what you need.” She trotted into the nearest greenhouse through a glass sliding door, and the two of us followed.

  “Calfnot…Wizards should learn to use the proper names for things. Calfnot is also called Calves' snout,” the goblin said in a musically informative tone, “Commonly known as ‘snapdragons’. But snapdragons are actually a whole genus called Antirrhinum, and there’s 19 species there this could refer to. But out of those, seven are nonmagical, and of the remaining 12 three are only used in minor enchantments. I’m guessing since you work for 50 Thousand that it’s some kind of curse repellant, which means that only three of those species makes any sense.”

  Killian nudged my ribs from behind; I looked back and she mouthed the words “At 50 Thousand”.

  I cleared my throat. “I work at 50 Thousand,” I corrected.

  The goblin waved a hand dismissively and started picking through rows of pastel-colored flowers of all shapes and sized in a bed of flowering plants sever rows into the greenhouse. “Yes, yes, of course you do. Now of those three species, the first one, Antirrhinum nuttallianum, is native only to California and doesn’t travel well. On the other hand, Antirrhinum vexillo-calyculatum does travel well but doesn’t produce as much consistency in the spells in the summer time, so that leaves us with…” She pulled out a string of purple flowers on a stem, each petal tinged with a yellowish tip, and offered it. “Antirrhum Majora. Should do your Wizard pretty well.”

  I gratefully took the flower. “How much?”

  “Twenty dollars.”

  I reached into my pocket, coming to the sudden realization that I had just impulsively dumped all of my money downstairs on a dead-end chance at information on Dad. How could I be so stupid? My heart immediately started to race and I stumbled over what I would say next. The goblin woman grinned and opened her mouth—almost certainly to offer me store credit.

  But she didn’t have to. Killian reached past me and handed the goblin a twenty-dollar bill. “Come on, you’re going to be late, Andy. You owe me lunch or something.” I gave Killian a grateful look and turned to leave.

  “Andy…not Andy LaFayette, by any chance?”

  I stopped and turned. “Yes?”

  The goblin scratched her chin. “Now that’s interesting, isn’t it? Someone was just here a few minutes ago asking about you. They said you’d probably come by. They wanted me to tell you something.” she gestured for me to come close. I took a step forward and leaned down, the goblin putting her lips up to my ear.

  “Stop searching,” she whispered, “Or you’re next.” I barely had a moment to register the words before a searing pain split my head as the goblin dug one of its fangs into the upper cartilage of my ear.

  What happened next was just a blur, as I was nearly thrown aside by Killian as she placed herself between the two of us, her sword gleaming in her hand and pointed at the goblin�
��s wicked grinning face. Grasping my ear in one hand and my bag of spell components in the other, I stumbled out of the humid greenhouse with Killian backing me up, cursing under her breath.

  As soon as the elevator doors closed behind us she pulled a small pouch from her pocket and took out a tiny jar, from which she drew a cotton ball soaked in some kind of amber liquid. “Put this on your ear.” I did so and tried to calm my rapid breathing as the burning in my ear began to subside. She looked me over, as though checking for other injuries. “Are you OK?”

  I gulped hard to swallow the knot in my throat. “I-I think so. More…surprised, than anything, I think.” I looked at the cotton ball. “I don’t think I’m even bleeding.”

  Killian shook her head as the elevator doors opened to the market ground floor again. “Goblin bites are mostly an intimidation tactic; it probably didn’t even break the skin. Sorry that happened to you…I don’t know what could have provoked that kind of response. What did she say, anyway?”

  I shrugged again. My detective work was getting noticed and I didn’t want to drag someone else into it just yet. As we left the market I took one last look behind me at the people milled about in the vendor hall, going about their business. Was I looking in the wrong place? It was hard to tell.

  Killian barely said a word on our brisk walk back to the office. I asked if she wanted to join me for a cup of coffee before going in, but she declined and told me she was more of a tea person anyhow before slipping past the jade and bronze doors to return to the security desk.

  I dropped the components off with the wizard’s assistant, an older lady with many pictures of cats in frames around her cubicle, before taking a break for lunch. With no one else to go see, I decided to take a walk and find someone to help me make sense of it all.

  Chapter 7

  “So you think the Goblins have something to do with it? Like…all of them?” Apollo took another bite of his vegetarian sushi and chewed thoughtfully.

  Fountain square, situated in Downtown, was definitely a good spot to try and calm one’s nerves, to be sure. The 43-foot fountain splashed water loudly over the bronze statues decorating the massive piece near the center of the square, while high office buildings rose up all around to give the whole plaza almost the sense of being in a clearing among the massive forest of city blocks. Apollo, coming off another morning shift, seemed mildly distracted by the people passing by but tried to listen attentively as I told the tale of my experiences in the Goblin market.