Magic Banquet (2 page)

The djinn lifted her hand toward a brass oil
lamp. It hung on chains reaching up into the darkness. Her finger
touched the end of the lamp’s nozzle, and a flame lit. The
flickering light revealed a feast.

Aja’s breath caught. She crossed her arms
over her thudding chest. Her mouth stung as saliva began to flow.
She had never seen such a paradise of food.

First Course,
Part II:

The Others

Platters covered a lavish carpet. A giant
egg on a tray caught the light. Its shell twinkled. The tiptop of
the egg reached Aja’s waist. Another dish boasted orange squares
that smelled of spring sunlight. Aja was shaking with hunger. What
should she eat first? Watermelons were carved into lion faces,
whiskers of green rind and fangs of crisp red. A wealth of
macadamia nuts was heaped in bowls along with polished grapes.

Aja’s knees gave out, and she dropped onto
one of many pillows. Beside her on the carpet, a globe of
blueberries and greenberries looked like a round map. She snuck a
few berries. They were little balls of honey and tartness.

The next one stuck in the back of her throat
as a lump. Aja saw she was the only one eating. Did that mean she
would die for certain? No, other guests would come. They would have
to.

She reached next for a platter with
lizard-shaped delicacies. The outside was sweet and the inside
meaty. “What are these?”

“Eyeless newts, coated in chocolate,” the
djinn said.

They didn’t sound as good as they
tasted.

The edges of the platters were adorned with
insect wings. They might have been plucked off dragonflies. Aja
thought it odd, and a little sad. The lamplight rippled over them
with a dazzle of aquamarine and fuchsia.

The djinn led another guest to the feast, an
old woman who bounded to her pillow seat. Six pillows for six
guests. Aja remembered there were always six, in the tales. The old
woman introduced herself as Janny, but she had no eyes for Aja,
only the food.

Before more guests could arrive, Aja stuffed
her face with watermelon. After the third drippy bite she stopped
herself. She didn’t have to gobble the food. There was enough for
all. How strange to have time to savor eating.

The djinn led in another pair of guests. The
first wore a veil. The second towered above. He had a huge sword
belted over his shoulder.

Old Janny bounced back to her feet, but she
didn’t look frightened at the swordsman. She grinned. “You too?
What’re the chances?”

“How’d you recognize me?” He pointed to his
face. He had a short beard. Maybe it was new.

Old Janny jiggled as she hugged the
swordsman. She turned to the smaller guest. “And who is Miss
Veil?”

The girl laughed with pure tones that
sounded like silver bells dancing. Her veil was a sweep of yellow
over a shawl of glaring blue and interlocking square patterns. Aja
couldn’t guess why the girl had veiled her face. Women at the
bazaar almost never did that. What secret was she hiding?

The dyes on her clothes were so bright they
had to be new. The hem had no street stains, and the robes fit
better than what the djinn had given Aja. Tailored then, Aja
supposed, and never worn before. The girl had to be wealthy. Was
she the daughter of a sultan? A princess?

Nothing beat stories of royalty coming to
the Midnight Banquet. In Aja’s favorite, a sorrowful king went on a
pilgrimage for his son. The boy had died of fever. Losing family
had to be the worst. The king stopped in the city and chanced upon
a dark passage with a bright feast. There he ate and laughed for
the first time in months. He met a young man of such good spirits
and strong appetite that the king adopted him. The boy had become a
prince.

Aja could be an adopted princess. An adopted
sister. An adopted anyone, really, would be good enough. She
kneaded her pillow against her chest. Please, please, let the
veiled girl sit nearby.

“I’m not supposed to tell anyone my name,”
the girl said to Old Janny.

The swordsman beside the girl stiffened, and
his scimitar’s hilt jutted up over his shoulder. “No, you’re not.
Here, have some—”

“I’m Ryn.” The girl spoke like a chime.

The man shook his head. Was he her
guard?

And that voice. Aja had heard something like
it today in the parade. Straining her neck to see over shoulders,
Aja had glimpsed the empress. The young ruler of the empire had
visited the city for the first time. Even the alley dogs had seemed
excited to see her. A gemstone-bird necklace had glittered over her
chest, and she had worn a crown of blue.

The girl who had skipped into the Banquet
wore no crown. Her veil covered her face from the nose down, but
the skin around her eyes sparkled when she turned in the light. The
empress’s face had also glittered, like she had been sprinkled with
gold dust. Aja bet it had been too hard to rub it all off.

The veiled girl had to be Empress
Nephrynthian. Aja wouldn’t doubt it. Why would she want to? It all
was so right.

The empress gestured to the platter with the
giant egg. “I could curl up in there and dream. How many songbirds
must share love to make an egg so huge?”

“That is a roc egg,” the djinn said, “and
you had best enjoy it to the limits of your senses. I had a frantic
flight capturing it.”

The djinn returned with another man, this
one on crutches. She offered him no help to his seat, and he swung
himself down, one leg stiff.

“You may even eat the eggshell.” The djinn
drifted back into the gloom. “The Chef reshaped it out of rice
cracker. You couldn’t break the real one.”

Aja reached for the roc egg, then pulled her
hand back. Dragonfly wings sparkled over the platter. Pulling wings
off bugs was mean. What sort of person did that for decoration?

The empress nudged the big man, the one with
the scimitar sword. His eyes stretched with awe at the dishes. He
shook himself, then broke off a piece of shell. Steam wafted from
inside. The egg he scooped out was cooked and seasoned with reds
and greens.

“Smell that? I’ve never imagined eating roc
egg before,” the empress said, “but I’ve waited my whole life to
taste it.” She lifted her veil to her chin. Between her shawl and
flowing robes, the gemstone wing of a bird amulet reached around
her neck.

The empress’s necklace! Aja had been
right.

“I ought to….” The swordsman stopped
speaking to crunch on the egg and its cracker shell.

Aja’s hand darted to the egg. She would eat
everything the empress ate. With eggshell bowl in hand, Aja scooted
on her pillow away from the others. The food tasted so rich, so
spicy with peppers, so well-seasoned with tomato sauce. Her mouth
burned with pleasure, and nothing could have been more perfect with
it than a cool drink. Aja reached for a crystal chalice filled with
bubbling red.

She pressed the drink to her lips. It
smelled of hidden places, of caverns lined with purple crystals,
and of pomegranate.

The elixir.
The djinn had warned Aja
about drinking that. The power in it would trap Aja. She slammed
down the chalice, then shoved it away. She pushed too hard, and the
glass tilted. Oh, no! The elixir would spill onto the rug. The
silver thread was embroidered in the pattern of the city skyline
with its onion-domed towers. The carpet would be ruined.

She would be scolded, laughed at, and
ignored for the rest of the meal. Aja thought she might as well
leave now. Spilling her drink was the worst thing that could have
happened in the first minutes of the feast.

Did guests from past nights die of
embarrassment?

The chalice tipped over. The red elixir
flowed out, touched the carpet, then looped back into the air as a
liquid snake.

The drink wriggled back into the cup. Aja
gasped, and her bracelets clicked together as she wrung her hands.
What was happening? Silver strands in the rug flashed. The chalice
righted itself, all the elixir back inside. Aja had never seen
magic before, but this had to be the best kind.

Maybe none of the other guests had noticed
the spill. Aja forced her eyes up from the carpet to their faces.
They all were staring. Not at Aja, at her upright chalice.

The empress cried out in a note of delight.
She knocked over her own cup, and the elixir circled around her
hand in liquid beads on its way back. “Such a loyal drink.”

The swordsman said, “Didn’t know we’d be
eating on a magic carpet. Is the cook an enchantress?”

“
He
is many things,” the djinn said.
“The Chef will introduce himself when the jewel frogs are
ready.”

The empress tipped her glass over a second
time. She tittered and snuck her arms around Aja. “We’re going to
be friends, aren’t we? Closer than kittens and fur.”

Aja squirmed. No one had hugged her for
years. Bigger children had only tackled her to take her food. She
had needed to kick and shove them away. Her arms tensed.

“I’m not allowed to see many people my age.”
The empress’s touch was so light that she encircled Aja not with
pressure, only warmth. “Please say we’ll be friends.”

Everything rolled about Aja in dizziness.
Was this really happening? “Yes, I—I think I’d like that.”

“Jubilation!”

“Oh, my name is Aja.”

“Ahh-ja!” The empress sang the name, and her
veil puffed out from her mouth. “It’s perfect.”

Vibrations ran through Aja’s chest from the
empress’s voice. Every muscle in Aja’s body relaxed. She had never
met someone with so much song in her. Staying would be worth it to
hear her name serenaded again. People often yelled Aja’s name, or
jeered her with it. They never just spoke it. Not for a long
time.

The empress’s humming warmth was torn away
when she turned to the swordsman. He held out some roc egg. The
empress took a crumbly bite. She laughed with him. She talked to
the other guests, even the man with the crutches. She embraced them
all, told them they must be friends. She never glanced back at
Aja.

That hurt. Like a camel stepping on a toe.
But it made more sense to Aja. They weren’t really friends. Aja
tucked her knees against her chest and slouched over them. She
began to drown in the pattering talk and clink of plates.

All chatter silenced. The guests paused to
gaze into the warehouse’s darkness. Aja held her breath, along with
the rest.

The lamplight weakened. Shadows slid over
the corners of the rug. Around the dishes, the insect wings
glimmered with the venomous colors of vipers. Aja could tell
something was coming, but what? Or who? Five guests had already
arrived. One empty pillow remained.

First Course,
Part III:

The Sixth Guest

The darkness parted around a man dressed in
blood, with a hornet on his chest. No, that couldn’t be true. Aja
gulped and looked again. He wore a satin coat with a black orchid
tucked into his lapel.

“Good evening.” His eyes were two points of
lamplight. “I apologize for not arriving later, but sometimes
punctuality cannot be helped.”

Old Janny groaned, then chugged her elixir.
“One night of bliss, that’s all I wanted. And now it’s ruined.”

The swordsman flexed his fingers around his
hilt. Gripping it, letting go. He pulled the blade half over his
shoulder, then rammed it back into place. He sucked his lips
between his teeth, thrusting out his chin at the lord.

“It would be rude to draw your sword at
dinner,” the lord said.

“I’d be rude to you,” the swordsman said,
“if it’d do any good.”

“True. I’m impervious to manners.”

The swordsman touched the empress’s
shoulder. “We should go.”

“You promised an adventure,” the empress
said. She leaned from him to Aja and cupped a hand around her ear.
“Do you think the lord recognizes me?”

“This lord isn’t the Chef, is he?” Aja
asked. The man in satin looked powerful enough to command a
djinn.

The lord answered for her. “An insightful
question, but like most insights it is wrong.”

“A wrong insight has to be an outsight,” the
empress said.

The lord tapped a finger to his red lips.
Embroidered dragons battled each other over his glove. He winked at
the empress.

She had to be right. The lord knew her. Most
of the guests seemed to have met before, even though tales of the
Midnight Banquet told of strangers becoming friends. Aja worried
she was already the odd one out. The lord had gazed past her even
when answering her question.

The swordsman swung the empress into his
arms. He carried her away from the lord.

“No! No! No!” She slapped at the swordsman’s
arms. “I’ll never have another night of freedom.”

“I forbid you from taking her,” the lord
said, “and so impoverishing our dinner conversation.”

“We’re not going to sit and eat with you.”
The swordsman slung the empress over his shoulder, and he reached
into the darkness with his free hand. He groped forward, walking
out of view. “Now where’d that door go?”

Aja couldn’t see it either. She propped
herself up on one knee. Her muscles tensed. She grabbed a few
squares of dried apricot, ready to run after the swordsman and the
empress.

On the other side of the carpet, a figure
stepped back into the light, chin first. It was the swordsman,
carrying the empress in a veil. He looked surprised to have
returned to the Banquet from the other direction. He glanced
behind, then swung a glare onto the lord.

“What did you do?”

“Me? Nothing.” The lord nodded for them to
sit. “I didn’t need to.”

Aja said, “You must’ve drunk the elixir. Now
you can’t leave.”

No one seemed to hear her. They all listened
to the lord.

“We have no choice,” he said, “but to savor
this dinner together. We must each introduce ourselves. Tell a tale
of who you are and where you’re from. Strangers are far too polite
to each other. We must learn more if there’s any hope of becoming
true friends and truer enemies.”