Magic Banquet (22 page)

Squishy, smelly, noisy life.

“Yuck,” she said.

The voices of the other guests clanged and
grated. Only the empress’s could be listened to.

“Aja, did you get to bathe in the light of
creation?”

“No.” Aja covered her eyes. The squalor of
the stars made her gag. Tears heated her face. “You bullies pulled
me back before I could reach it.”

“Did I give her too much life cheese?” That
sounded like the swordsman, surprisingly high-pitched for his
size.

“We did only as you asked.” The rasping
voice belonged to Solin.

“I know. I know,” Aja said.

She squinted out at the world. Her arm
flopped around until she grasped the speckled cheese.

“So, I was right then.” While lifting it to
show the guests, she broke off a morsel. “This is the Cheese of
Life.”

“Then that’s the only one for me.” The lord
accepted the cheese and sawed off a piece dotted with olives.

Aja took the cheese she had palmed and
folded it into her robes. She knotted the fabric around the tidbit
just like she had often done with a skirt to hide away food. If
anyone died in the next course, the Cheese of Life would save them.
“That cheese tastes—Ehhh!” Aja scraped her grimy tongue with her
top teeth. “I need to rinse my mouth.”

Solin lifted the ladle of milk to her lips.
“Fear no poison. It couldn’t kill you for long.”

Aja tasted a white coldness, a relief, a
quiet moment of refreshing waves flowing over the tongue. She
swallowed, and muscles in her throat squeezed, then relaxed. A
whiff of ginger rose up into Aja’s nose. In her mouth remained only
a cool peace.

“Aja.” Solin tipped his crutch toward the
lord. “He wanted us to stuff more death in your mouth. He told us
to kill you.”

“Not at all.” The lord did not whirl, but he
suddenly was facing them. A bit of the Cheese of Life was poised
halfway to his mouth. “I was only trying to make good your heroic
sacrifice. These jealous peasants denied you that honor.”

“I forgive you,” Aja said. The milk was a
calm coolness at her center. “You only thought someone else would
die, if not me.”

“Only heroes deserve to die, and none more
than you, Aja. Pass the ladle, we must have one last toast
together.” The lord tossed a piece of cheese into his mouth. “May
we all escape the doom of enlight….”

The lord dropped the ladle. He gripped his
throat. The pristine calm of his face shattered in an eye-bulging,
tongue-curling fright.

“The cheese,” Solin said, “he must’ve eaten
death.”

Aja pointed to the gorgon cheese remaining
on his plate. “He’s choking on the Cheese of Life.”

The lord hunched forward, silent but with
tongue flailing. Stars behind him blacked out. Shadows flooded the
city, and tendrils crawled up the towers. The buildings warped,
curving toward the flying carpet like stone horns. Or fangs. A
tearing, screeching doom fell toward Aja. The night sky twined
around itself into spears of darkness. They would pierce her and
everyone on the carpet. The spears couldn’t be seen in the
bristling gloom, but they were coming.

His magic was terrible, and she sensed he
was losing control. She couldn’t let the lord die, or they would
all die with him.

“We have to save him.” She slapped him on
the back.

“Don’t.” Solin pulled her away with a
crutch. “One person has to die, that’s what he said. Better him
than you.”

“But....” Aja glanced up at the nearing
doom. The spears hissed closer. The towers reached with their
pointed domes.

“It’s illusion.” Solin spoke into her ear.
“That’s his magic.”

“Real enough.” Janny huddled, knees and
elbows knocking together on the carpet.

“No one is dying tonight.” Aja tugged at
Solin’s grip. She called to the other guests. “Save him.”

The swordsman made fists, then sat on them.
The empress hugged herself. Janny trembled upright to stand before
rocking onto her heels. She shook her head. Aja saw they wouldn’t
do anything, and she was trapped in Solin’s arms.

Wrinkles spread from the lord’s eyes and
down his cheeks. He aged in seconds. His skin sagged and
discolored. A tattoo appeared on his brow in a black triangle. It
looked like a death mark.

Aja shouted again. “He saved us with fire.
We have to help him.”

Someone bounced past Aja, Janny of all
people. She swung herself behind the lord. All the while she
muttered, “You ought not, Janny. You ought to. Ought not. Ought
to….”

Janny wrapped her arms around the lord. Her
hands she kneaded together and pumped into his stomach. A bit of
white flew by Aja.

The lord wheezed in a breath.

The night cleared and brightened. Stars
winked into view. The towers straightened, and the city spread
below them like an intricate carving.

The lord had fallen to his hands and knees.
He pushed himself upright. A mask of beauty had returned to his
face. He spoke to Janny.

“You despised me at first sight. I should’ve
known one day you’d save my life.”

“Probably wrong to save a scorpion.” Janny
straightened her dress. “But you did pass me my Apple of
Youth.”

“You saved me from death.” The lord offered
Janny the dropped ladle. He shook his head at the Cheese of Life.
“And what’s worse, from irony.”

Solin moved between them and Aja to face
her. He had a slice of cheese balanced in his hand. It was red.

“Oh no! You’re going to taste death, too?”
Aja asked.

“Seems fair. Sent enough people that way.”
Solin chewed on the cheese. After swallowing, he said, “I must’ve
been wrong to stop you from helping the lord.”

He sounded more sure than she felt. “I know
you only wanted to protect me.”

“But can Purity ever come from Strife?”

Aja didn’t know how to answer that. She cut
off some of the speckled Cheese of Life. “I’ll bring you back.”

“If you think it right.” He lay down,
holding the neck of a crutch in each hand.

The carpet below him banked around a palace
dome where tiles of different colors overlaid each other in a
pattern of flower petals. Windows whisked by. Aja glanced in a
lighted room to see a girl by an oil lamp reading. Blue ribbons
wove through her sleek hair. She looked up from her book, and their
eyes met.

Aja and the carpet sped away. The girl in
the window would’ve seen six people sitting among platters all
flying through the night. What she would tell her friends tomorrow,
Aja couldn’t guess.

Aja was holding some of the Cheese of Life.
She slid on her knees to Solin, and she tucked the speckled piece
into his mouth. The man was sick with some kind of sorrow, but he
was good and deserved to live. They had to be close to the end of
the Banquet. When everyone survived, it would be the Chef’s turn to
choke on surprise.

Solin gasped back to life in a rattle of
crutches. Sweat sheeted down his face. Some of the droplets may
have even been tears.

Aja dabbed his cheeks with her sleeve. “It’s
hard coming back, isn’t it?”

His wide pupils focused on her. “Did you
journey through darkness?”

“And toward light.”

He clutched her hand, and his fingers blazed
with the blood of dragons. “It cleansed me of Strife. For a moment,
I was free. And I saw we were one. Deep down, everyone is
Pure.”

Well, Aja supposed that must mean something
to him. The journey to death and back had moved him. The cheeses
had given him that experience. The Chef had made a meal that could
end lives but also change them. Aja would do something so grand
someday. Hopefully with fewer deceptions and servings of deadly
pâté.

Aja crumbled off another
piece of Cheese of Life for herself. She still had some hidden in
her robes, but she wanted to see how it tasted when she wasn’t
being wrenched back to life.

It was like olive oil ladled over bread,
moist and springy between her teeth. Her mouth stung from the
saltiness. After she swallowed, an aftertaste of regret squeezed
her stomach. Still, the Cheese of Life wasn’t so bad after all.

The carpet under her rippled when Solin
heaved himself back to lie down, his arms outstretched with a
crutch in each. He gazed at the night sky. “Now I see. Even if we
don’t deserve forgiveness, we must seek it.”

Aja wasn’t certain if he still spoke to her.
In a quiet voice, she asked, “Forgiveness for what?”

He started, coughed, and then focused on her
for a moment before looking away. “I killed someone I shouldn’t
have, a woman.”

“Why?” Aja wrung one of the carpet’s tassels
between her hands.

“I was foolish. My friend was angry. We’re
each to blame.”

Aja wanted to hear more, but Solin might
need time to himself. It sounded like he could begin healing the
wounds he kept inside. He had turned back to the stars. Their light
faded to the east of the city. The nearing dawn tinted the night
with a drowsy grey.

The carpet swung lower, whooshing beneath a
bridge that crossed between two roof walkways. Once Aja had thought
walking the streets at night was scary. She now skimmed over alleys
and under arches and couldn’t help but grin.

She counted the guests, making certain they
were all still there.
...four, five, and me too makes six.
The djinn was a seventh, and she guided the carpet into a familiar
warehouse. The sliding door was open, the same Aja had gone through
at sunset to grab a few bites of the Midnight Banquet.

The carpet flattened itself on the floor.
Its tassels stretched out, then rested still.

The lord stood. “All things must end with
their beginning.”

“It is time,” the djinn said, “for the last
course.”

Thirteenth Course:

DESSERT

The Chef came empty handed. “Tonight’s will
be a Banquet like no other.”

The djinn had unlocked the door to the
kitchen with her ornate key. She had returned with the Chef,
neither carrying any food. Not so much as a muffin. Aja looked past
them, waiting for golems lugging trays piled high with sweets. None
came.

The kitchen doorway flickered, but the
hissing roar of cooking pots was gone. Only a murmur of bubbling.
Aja could smell nothing but warehouse dust.

“For the first time,” the Chef said, “all my
guests have eaten with due diligence. Aja especially has the
makings of a gourmand.”

She glimpsed the glint of the Chef’s eyes
before his low-lidded expression covered them again. He had
accepted her. She’d helped achieve something remarkable, and he had
singled her out for it.

His breadboard of a hand gestured to the
other guests. “Never have I served so many powerful men and women.
My lord, the empress, a spellsword, a hexer, and an ambitious eater
and drinker….” He pointed last to Janny. “All six guests have
earned their dessert. I prepared a special treat.”

A grin pinched open his eyes and mouth. His
teeth looked small in so large a body.

Aja tensed, and her fingernails dug into her
palms. She didn’t trust his look. Maybe being singled out by the
Chef wasn’t a good thing.

“But everything’s been special.” The empress
chewed on her pinkie and hid half her face with her hair. “What
happens if you go further than extraordinary? Past amazing? Your
‘special treat’ must be another cook’s normal. Will it be a honey
cake for each of us?”

The Chef tilted onto his heels. “So you’re
wise as well as musical. Yes, there’s no magic in this final
course, except that of baking and sugar.”

The guests traded looks of disbelief. Aja’s
stomach still clenched, and by the way the empress nestled against
the swordsman, she was also nervous.

Aja asked, “Is there anything dangerous in
the dessert?”

The Chef’s face firmed. “Nothing that would
harm a hungry child. I used only common recipes and ingredients
that could be found in the better bakeries across the Lands of
Loam. You may relax during this last course and eat whatever you
please.”

“That’s a relief,” the swordsman said. “Had
my fill of not eating things.”

The empress rolled up a corner of the rug.
“Where have you hidden the dessert?”

“Why, outside.” The Chef swept his hands
toward the warehouse door. It was shut.

The djinn illuminated the exit. She braced
her fingers against the brass-shod planks, and a shimmer ran over
the door. Light leaked from the chinks.

Aja shuffled to her feet, ready for the door
to be opened. The Chef must have hidden the dessert somewhere in
the city, a grand pastry hunt.

The swordsman set his feet in a runner’s
stance. Janny clutched her hands together and chortled. Solin
drummed his fingers against his crutches. The empress linked arms
with Aja.

“We’re afraid,” the empress said. “You and
I. Me and my tummy. But we’re hungry, too, for dessert. Will you
make certain none of us eats anything we shouldn’t?”

“I will,” Aja said.

The Chef had told them this course would be
safe to eat. The danger might come from something besides the
dessert, maybe some guardian monster, but what did Aja have to
fear? She had come back from death. Her veins still flickered under
her skin from the dragon she had eaten.

The djinn flung the door open. Daylight
streamed in.

Aja shielded her eyes. Before she could see
anything, she smelled it.

Sugar breezed into the warehouse and filled
it with warmth. The sweetness stole Aja’s tension. She breathed
deeper than she ever had in her life. The scent was as heady as if
she had stuck her nose into a basket of candy. The aroma carried a
hundred flavors, each of them delicious. A whiff of chocolate, a
tickling of peppermint, a welcome of cinnamon, fruity, flowery, and
many others Aja could only guess.

She did not want to guess. She needed to see
and to gobble. Aja ran arm and arm with the empress outside.