A piercing ring sounded as the coin flipped end over end.  It went into slow motion as it tumbled upward, until finally it hung suspended in the air, flaring like a miniature sun.

A great wind rushed past Manny with the force of a hurricane.  Like some giant had flipped him high into the air just as he had flipped the coin.  He tumbled head over heels, the world melting around him.

The ringing of the coin melded with the tolling of the bells and his panicked yell.  The sound became deafening.  He had the gut wrenching sensation of falling, only he was falling upwards, faster and faster.  His vision grew blurry, and he started to fade.

"You there!  Filthy thief!"

The shrill voice snapped him back to consciousness. A host of unfamiliar shapes bustled around him.  A cacophony of strange sounds blasted his ears.  An overpowering miasma of odors assaulted his nose.

"Oh man," was all he managed to say.  He would have fallen on his butt if someone hadn't grabbed his wrist.  That someone was shaking him now.  Hard.  Manny focused on his assailant.

A round-faced man with a large moustache that curled at the edges scowled down at him.  "He's got my purse!  See?"

Dazed, Manny glanced at his own hand.  He was clutching a large, black pouch tightly in his fist.

The man's feathered wide-brimmed hat kept bumping Manny in the head, but he was too busy staring at the man's clothing to do anything about it.  The stranger wore a bright blue doublet and breeches with a lace collar on his shoulders and lace cuffs at his wrists.  They reminded Manny of the cloth napkins his grandmother used to collect.

"Drop my purse at once, you thief!" the man shouted.

Manny blinked and looked around.  He couldn't believe his eyes.  Every year, starting when he was four years old, his parents had taken him to a Renaissance festival.  It was his favorite place in the whole world.  People dressed up like pirates, wenches, beggars, nobles, and cavaliers, and they ran around a huge wooded park filled with stone cottages, small castles, courtyards, and horse-drawn wagons.

That's what Manny was seeing now, except that the buildings weren't small, they towered into the sky, the stone worn and stained.  The streets weren't paths of clay and grass, they were brick and cobblestones.  And there were absolutely no tourists in shorts, t-shirts, and sunglasses anywhere in sight.  Everyone was dressed in costumes.

"Drop my money purse, I said!"  The man continued shaking Manny, his face flushed with anger.  "Or I'll have my man thrash you!"

"Hey!" Manny stammered.  "Quit shaking me.  I didn't take anything."

"No?  Then what have you got in your hand?"

Dropping the pouch, Manny pulled free and backed away.  "This isn't happening," he muttered.  "I'm dreaming.  That's what this is.  It's just a crazy dream."

"You'll wish this was a dream soon enough.  Gunthar, thrash that boy," cried the man, pointing at him.

The creature that stepped forward made Manny's jaw drop.  He was shorter than Manny, probably four feet tall, and had wrinkled, nut-brown skin.  He wore a bright green jacket, yellow pants, enormous black boots, and sported a bright green cap.  A bulbous, ruddy nose as big as a summer squash sprouted from the center of his face, and his dark, wiry beard was braided with beads.  But most alarming of all, he was carrying a wooden club.

"I'll teach you to steal from your betters, you pointy-eared goblin," Gunthar barked.

What did he just call me?  Manny just stared, even more confused.  But Gunthar swung the big club at him and he didn't have time to figure it out.

As the club crashed down, Manny darted aside to avoid the strike.  He had a heartbeat to realize he had moved way faster than he ever had before, then Gunthar swung the club again, this time like a baseball player determined to hit a homerun.  Without thinking, Manny dove away from the blow and rolled clear, coming gracefully to his feet.  He turned and hissed at Gunthar.

Manny blinked and took a step back.  I just hissed.  I've never hissed at anything before in my life.

"You can dance all you want, goblin," growled Gunthar.  "But I'll get you eventually."  He hefted the club to show he intended to have another go.

"You there, sentry!" the man was shouting, waving at someone behind Manny.  "Do your duty, stop this thief!"

Manny ducked away from Gunthar, just as something grabbed at him from behind, tearing at his shirt.  He whirled around to see a huge man standing over him, broad-shouldered, heavily muscled, so tall he had to stoop to reach for Manny.  He wore a rough leather tunic plated with metal rings, and had shaggy hair, gray-tinged skin, and an angry expression.

Then he showed jagged, pointed teeth and growled, like an enormous angry bear.  Trow, something in Manny's head whispered.  That thing is a trow.

The trow grabbed for him again and Manny back-pedaled, dodging another blow from Gunthar in the process.  Manny pointed at him.  "You're a spriggan!"

"He's a sharp one, ain't he?" Gunthar snorted at the trow.

"How do I know that?" Manny said, his voice tight with panic.

People on the street were starting to stop to watch and point.  I've got to get out of here, Manny thought, throwing a desperate look around the street.

Across the way, there was a two-story stone building, with a big window on the second floor sealed by wooden shutters.  A thick beam stood out from the wall just above it, with coiled ropes and a block and tackle attached, for lifting heavy things up to the second story opening.  It looked like the Renaissance Festival version of a warehouse. Manny bolted for it.

The trow charged after him, its growl reverberating in Manny's bones.  Manny leapt atop a barrel next to the closed street door, then jumped toward a wagon laden with hay, and landed on the side of the soft bales.  He scrambled to the top of the pile, looked up at the ropes hanging from the beam.  They were looped up, dangling nearly ten feet above his head; there was no way he could reach it.

Even as he thought that, he crouched and leapt.

He caught a loop of the rope, clutched at the rough coils, and hauled himself up until he could get his foot onto the loop and push.  He climbed up to the beam, scrabbled up onto it, then ran along it until he could jump up to the roof.  It was steeply pitched and he slipped and slid on slate tiles greasy with soot as he ran toward the back of the warehouse.

The roof of the next building was lower down, an easy jump.  The shouts from the street were already fading as he fled from that roof to the next.