Free The Map by William Ritter Page A

browse a few vendors as well, if you’re in the mood.” He had already pulled his ridiculous knit cap over his mess of dark hair and slung a mismatched scarf around his neck. He plucked his coat and satchel from the battered mannequin in the corner, slipping the long, bulky duster over his scrawny frame. At least the coat and scarf more or less covered his party-cracker bandolier.
    “Are you going to wear those across your chest all day?” I asked, pulling on my own long wool coat.
    He looked down as if he’d forgotten they were there for an instant. “Not all of them, no.” He plucked a bright-red tube from the top and presented it to me. “Come now, Miss Rook,” he coaxed with another grin. “It isn’t every day you celebrate a successful solar revolution.”
    “And thank goodness for that,” I said. “Just one and then we’re off to the market? You promise?”
    “That’s the plan. Now hold tight to your end, and I’ll hold mine.”
    “I suppose one little party cracker won’t be the end of the world.” I slipped on my own wool hat and took hold of the party favor. “Three, two . . .”
    We pulled on “one,” and with a weak crackle, the world came to an end.

* * *
The Zandermacht
    It was a sensation not unlike running backward from a moving train car and landing on the tracks. The whole of the world we had been a part of whipped away behind us, and an entirely new one leapt up to crash into our feet.
    My legs buckled on the landing, and I toppled to my back. The painful brightness of direct sunlight in place of a ceiling whitewashed my vision until a shadow inserted itself in my line of sight. Jackaby smiled down at me in what I have come to recognize as the expression he thinks is reassuring.
    “Calibrating for ground level can be a bit tricky. You all right?”
    I accepted his hand and climbed to my feet. “The cracker?”
    “I told you it wasn’t a standard trifle.”
    My stomach was very gradually coming to a rest. “Yes. You also told me we were going on a simple trip to the market.”
    “And so we are!” He spun with a flourish and gestured toward an old, rusty, wrought-iron gate. It stood in a simple stone arch, and beyond it I could see a small lot overrun with dry weeds.
    “Looks like we’re in the wrong place.”
    “Looks can be deceiving.” Jackaby ran a finger along he top of the gate, as if feeling for a hidden seam. “I’d have brought us directly inside, but recorporalization is strictly forbidden within the market grounds. Now if I can just remember the method to unfasten this barrier. It’s the simple things that often prove most vexing.” He bent himself sideways as he spoke, peering at the imperfections in the metal bars and sniffing the hinges.
    “ Well . . . ” I looked at the old rusty latch that hung unfastened. “We could try opening it.”
    “What do you think I’m doing?” he made a sort of huffing cough that might have been a guffaw. “I only need a moment. I’ m sure I ’ve got a bit of Ariadne’s Twine in here somewhere . . . or perhaps the Jericho Doorbell . . .”
    As Jackaby rummaged in his knapsack I gave the gate a gentle shove. It swung open with a creak. Jackaby closed his pack and looked at me.
    “Your mind is a testament to simplicity, Rook.”
    I chose to take the statement as a compliment and carried on.
    “It’s no real wonder the thing’s unlocked, Mr. Jackaby. There’s nothing here!”
    “Not
nothing
, the
likeness
of nothing.” He took me by the shoulder and we crossed the threshold. “And this market is, indeed,
like nothing
else.”
    An electric tingle sent goose bumps up my arms and put the hairs on my neck on end. With another footstep, the curtain of a bleak terrain fell away, and we were suddenly just inside the grounds of a bustling marketplace thick with stalls and tents and flapping banners.
    The mingling smells of frying meats and sweet perfumes wafted to my nose, and the sounds of haggling and hustling crept into