Everworld 05 - Discover the Destroyer by K. A. Applegate

Author:K. A. Applegate
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 1999-01-02T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter

XIV

We passed blacksmiths. We passed butchers. We passed potters. We passed jewelers. Rope makers. Goldsmiths. Weavers.

Cobblers. Armorers. Glassblowers. Coopers, carpenters, upholsterers, locksmiths, tanners, herbalists, fortune tellers, bakers, brewers, and some vendors, quite a few really, who defied any sort of sensible label.

If we'd had enough money we could have bought unicorn colts, rocs' eggs, love potions, flying snakes, eight-legged horses all supposedly descended from the true Sleipnir, whatever that was. I spotted at least three allegedly genuine hammers of Thor.

We could, had we wanted, have paid for prostitutes or bought slaves.

We saw jugglers, mimes, tightrope walkers, sword swallowers, fire-eaters, bear wrestlers, python wrestlers, and troll wrestlers.

We could have dined on everything from corn on the cob to cheese to chickens.

If it existed in Everworld, I suspected it was here.

And if it lived in Everworld it was here, too. Dwarfs, men, elves, trolls, minor gods, a dozen different types of little people, talking animals, giants, Coo-Hatch, and at least three other species of aliens.

And all of them buying, selling, bargaining, threatening, cajoling, dealing, laughing, shaking hands, kissing cheeks, grasping arms, and spitting in palms.

Everywhere, everywhere, fairies in neat, dark blue tunics moved among stalls armed only with leather-bound notebooks on which they took careful notes.

"It's the fairy IRS, man," Jalil said. "They're getting a piece of everything."

Other fairies, fewer in number and wearing black, sauntered along alone or in pairs. It didn't matter that they were four feet tall, or that their skinny legs were enclosed in yellow tights, or that their weapons were half-sized swords and short horn-and-hide bows: They were cops.

We at last reached the center of the maze, beneath the welcome shade of tall buildings that reminded me vaguely of Mardi Gras in downtown New Orleans. Not that I'd been there, I'd just seen pictures. There were balconies running the length of each building, and the trading went on, fairies mostly now, yelling down to elves or men or dwarfs or aliens in the streets below.

This was the nerve center. Here the trades were less tangible.

Here they traded large quantities, thousands of bushels of wheat or hundreds of head of cattle. They were trading options and futures, betting on prices themselves.

"This is the first place in Everworld I've ever thought I could be happy," Christopher said. "See, this is real. This is money. This is business. Damn it, this is America."

"Don't get too comfortable," I said. I spotted a parked, empty wagon. I leaped up onto the back, formed my hands into a trumpet, and yelled, "We're here for the stone, the sword, the spear, and the cauldron of the Daghdha. We'll pay any fair price, and we —"

The black-tunicked fairies appeared from nowhere, moving at a speed that defied belief. They weren't big. But when something not big hits you fast enough, it's big enough.

I was off the wagon, on the ground, head ringing from the impact, sucking wind before I knew what had happened.

Three slender arrows held quivering against three tight-drawn bows were within one foot of my heart.

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