by Adam Sidwell
And he’d sent for Guster, across time and taste, without even knowing who he was. Guster had been called, brought here by the only thing that could have found him: Yummy the hunter.
Guster traced the symbols with his fingertip. There was more to be found. The One Recipe was just the beginning.
It dawned on him with the crisp clarity of a summer morning—his search was not yet over. Over mountains and across continents, Guster still had so far to go.
Yummy purred behind him with one short burst.
“That’s right, boy,” said Guster. “I see it now. Thank you for coming so far to find me.”
Guster startled himself. He was talking to the creature—and he’d known in his mind what it had said to him. It hadn’t come in words, but in meanings, like the melody of a song that’s sad, or a harmony that’s full of hope. It had wanted to know if Guster understood.
Yummy grunted twice. Take it with you, it seemed to say. It meant the carved stone shield.
“How?” Guster asked. It was embedded in ice cream that was frozen solid. Even if Guster could pry it free, the stone disc must have weighed a thousand pounds. He’d never be able to haul it across the chasm.
Yummy bent low and nudged Guster’s shoulder with his nose. It felt like a dog imploring his master, so Guster reached up and patted Yummy behind his tiny ears. It seemed like Yummy was actually asking for praise. He was seeking Guster’s approval.
“You’ve done well, big guy,” said Guster. Over all that land and sea, Yummy had found him. He was carrying on Archedentus’s work.
Yummy purred softly again. The deep, rhythmic sound comforted Guster. Yummy had suddenly turned into a friend.
Guster put his hand on the shield. “Can you help me move it?” he asked.
We can, Yummy purred.
Footsteps echoed on the ice. Guster whirled around. There, standing in the narrow passageway was a man in the dark hood. He smelled like pickled ginger.
Fear lodged in Guster’s throat.
The man in the hood clapped slowly, two bony hands emerging from his cloak. And then he spoke in a quiet, rasping voice. “Once again, you’ve found the way for me.”
What had Guster done? He did not know this man. How could he ever have found the way for him before? The voice seemed familiar, yet Guster could not place it.
“I don’t know you,” Guster said, mustering his courage.
The raspy voice laughed to itself. “But I think you do,” he said. The bony hands pulled back the hood and robe. A blood-red apron hung like a snake from the man’s waist. Underneath the hood was a slender, hairless face that ended in a pointed chin. It was scarred where it had once been smooth. The nose was bent where it had once been straight. The man smiled, bearing pointed teeth in the same sadistic smile Guster had seen before.
Palatus. The Chef in Red.
Guster’s heart froze. Here? How? It was impossible. “But I thought you were . . .”
“Trampled? Torn to bits by my own Gastronimatii?” Palatus asked. “Come now, you know better than that. If you never found a body, why would you assume? I made my way out behind the portrait and into the castle’s secret tunnels, just as you had come in.”
He was talking about The Chateau De Dîner—Felicity Casa’s Castle in France. Guster had hoped they’d never meet him again. He’d thought it was over.
“Now you’ve given me another gift, Mr. Johnsonville. The Shield of Seasons.” Palatus stepped toward Guster. He whipped a small tart from the folds of his robe and placed it in the snow, then stepped back.
Yummy leapt toward it and gobbled it up.
“No!” said Guster. But the warning was too late.
The monster bellowed, wobbled on its stout knees, and toppled over to the ground, face smashing into the ice.
“It’s a simple recipe for such a powerful sedative,” said Palatus. “You would do well to avoid it.”
Palatus moved toward the shield. “I have suspected the Shield of Season’s existence ever since our last encounter. I suspected that zere was so much more to the story. I watched the Mayor’s guards sneak their way out into the world, leaving hints and tracks on the soft ground of the gourmet world; they weren’t difficult to spot, clumsy as they were.
“And so I came here.” Palatus sighed. “I’ve been here so long. Searching and tunneling, melting zee city from beneath, to find zis!”
“You set those fires!” said Guster.
“Of course I did. I was ready to tear zis city apart if I had to. So for zis, I thank you, Mr. Johnsonville. You’ve shown me exactly how to find what I was looking for.”
“You can’t have it,” said Guster, defiant. He stepped in front of Palatus, blocking the shield with his body, spreading his arms.
“I think I can,” said Palatus. He grabbed hold of Guster’s jacket and, with surprising strength, threw Guster to the ground.
Guster picked himself up. He wasn’t going to lose so easily. Luckily, the ice cream scoop was still under his belt. He drew it and swung it at Palatus like a club.
Palatus caught it easily. “My, my. Determined, aren’t we?” Palatus laughed. “Where do you think zat scoop came from Guster?” He pushed Guster back again.
“It came from A.G.,” said Guster. “It’s how we escaped.”
Palatus raised an eyebrow. “And who do you think baked that cake? The Arch Gourmand perhaps?”
Guster’s blood boiled. Palatus helped them escape? “But why?” asked Guster.
“So I could follow you here, of course,” said Palatus. “I’ve been hollowing out the mountain underneath the city for months. I don’t know if I ever would have found this without you. You’ve proven useful before, and you have again.”
He’d used Guster. And Guster had fallen for it. He lunged at Palatus.
The chef dodged left, sidestepping Guster easily. Guster landed face first in the snow. Palatus was so strong for such a skinny chef. But no matter what, Guster couldn’t let him win.
Palatus retrieved a phone from his pocket and aimed its face at the shield. Then, with a few clicks, he took several pictures of the Shield of Seasons, and stowed the phone away.
Was that it? What had Guster expected? Palatus to carry off the half-ton rock himself?
And just like that, Palatus turned to go.
“I’ll follow you to every corner of the Earth,” said Guster. “You won’t find what’s on that shield without me lurking in your shadow.”
Palatus hesitated. “Perhaps,” he said. “Or perhaps not. The Mayor is against you. He and his guard are assembled. You are the focus of their hate. I don’t think they’ll let you leave this city alive.”
“You’ve poisoned them against me!” said Guster. It made sense now. Palatus had been whispering in Salero’s ear all along.
Palatus chuckled. “It wasn’t hard,” he said. Then he walked out the narrow passageway toward the crevasse.
Guster scrambled to his feet and rushed to Yummy’s side. The monster had slumped over onto his back. His eyes were closed and his mouth barely open. His chest was heaving up and down in slow, rhythmic breaths.
Guster pressed the palms of his hands into the creature’s fur. “I’m sorry this happened to you,” he said. It wasn’t fair. He didn’t deserve this.
Yummy moaned deep in his throat.
“I’ll get help,” said Guster, though he did not know how he could cross the crevasse alone.
He glanced back at the shield. It would have to wait.
Guster made his way out of the narrow passageway to the edge of the crevasse. It was as empty and wide as it had ever been. A single rope dangled far above him. It jerked in midair as it was pulled upward and out of sight.
Palatus must have rappelled down and then ascended that rope in order to descend into the crevasse. Now he had gotten away.
Gu
ster kicked at a clump of ice. It skittered over the edge and into the darkness below. He should have been able to stop Palatus!
He felt the tips of his ears burn with anger and frustration. All this time, Palatus had been in the city! And Guster hadn’t even guessed.
Now what was he going to do? With Yummy unconscious, there was no way to get across. He was stuck here.
The crevasse felt deeper and more deadly silent than ever before. He imagined that it might be bottomless, the way he never heard the clump of ice hit bottom.
He was absolutely alone.
Chapter 24—The Battle of El Elado
“Psst!” A voice hissed in the darkness from somewhere across the crevasse.
Guster nearly jumped, he was so startled by the sudden sound in the silence. He scanned the wall of ice, searching for the source of the voice.
“Up here,” it said.
He glanced upward, searching in the darkness. Across the chasm, high up on the ledge, a tiny head with short, cropped black hair peered over the crevasse.
Mariah. Guster had never been so glad to see her.
“How did you get way down there?” she asked.
“Yummy,” said Guster. “He’s hurt. We found something, but we’re trapped.”
Mariah smiled. “Not if we can help it,” she said.
“We?” asked Guster.
Mariah’s face disappeared behind the ledge. “Step back!” she called. Her voice echoed between the walls of ice.
Guster hid himself in the passageway. There was a muffled bang, and something shot across the crevasse and slammed into the ice above where Guster had stood a moment before.
He peeked carefully out of the passageway. The Lieutenant was crouched next to where Mariah had been with some kind of grappling hook gun in both hands. A cord stretched across the chasm from the muzzle of the gun to a spike that had embedded itself into the ice near Guster.
“Hold tight. I’m coming down for you, sir,” said the Lieutenant.
He clipped a harness onto the rope with a click and eased himself out over the precipice. He was much higher than Guster, and the rope went taught as he settled his weight on it and began to slide.
He crossed the chasm quickly, sailing over the dark void like a sparrow diving through the night.
To Guster, it seemed to take several frightening minutes, the cable creaking where it had pierced the ice the whole time. Finally, the Lieutenant glided feet-first onto the ledge where Guster was standing and nimbly skidded to a halt. He unclipped the harness.
“How did you get way down here?” he asked.
“Long story,” said Guster. “I’ll show you.” He led the Lieutenant into the narrow passageway.
Yummy was still lying with his back on the ice, his eyes shut and his chest heaving. The Lieutenant took a step back. His hands went to the tranquilizer gun on his belt.
“It’s okay,” said Guster. “They won’t hurt us. He’s a friend.”
The Lieutenant looked confused.
“Trust me,” said Guster. It wouldn’t be easy to explain. There was too much. “We need to take the shield back with us.”
The Lieutenant walked slowly toward it, reaching out his gloved hand as if to touch it. He stopped “We’re going to need reinforcements,” he said, turning back to Guster.
He shook his head, as if waking from a dream. “But first we need to get you back to Ms. Casa. And your Mom and Dad. They’re in trouble,” said the Lieutenant.
Guster felt panic rise in his chest. “What’s wrong?”
“The Mayor, sir. He’s gone mad. He’s on the verge of staging a takeover of the city and waging all-out war against the Princess and the Culinary. It won’t be long before he finally plays his hand. After you showed up this morning, we barely escaped with our lives.”
What did that mean for Mom and Dad and Henry Junior? They were probably caught in the middle of it.
Guster turned back toward the passage. He set one hand on Yummy. “We’ll come back for you,” he whispered. He meant it.
The Lieutenant removed a second harness from his backpack. He gave it to Guster to put on then clipped it to the cable that spanned the chasm. He took two ascenders and locked them around the rope, then clipped himself to Guster. Finally, he lodged what looked like interlocking gears into a crack in the rock and secured the cable to them. “Extra protection,” he said, then, wrapping one arm around Guster, he stepped out over the bottomless crevasse.
Guster felt his stomach fall away beneath him. He tightened his grip fiercely around the Lieutenant’s shoulders as the harness caught his weight and he dangled, helpless, from the cable. The Lieutenant slid the ascenders upward then let them catch on the cable, first one, then the other, inching his way upward at an angle. It was tedious work, and Guster’s extra weight was certainly making it all the more difficult.
The cable wobbled and bounced as they moved, until finally, the Lieutenant hoisted first himself, and then Guster, over the edge of the cliff and set them on solid ground. Guster rested on his hands and knees, panting and trying to slow his racing heart down to a normal speed. The Lieutenant unclipped the harness.
Mariah crouched beside him. “Guster, we have to go,” she said. “Things are bad.”
“Why do you care? I thought you were on Salero’s side,” said Guster. He hadn’t meant to be so angry. It was just that Mariah had been so . . . so sure of herself all the time. She’d sided with them.
The pain in Mariah’s face told Guster he’d said the wrong thing. He was being unfair.
“I was. Until Salero told me he thinks the world is flat,” she said. She shook her head. “What an idiot. He’s really got his logic all twisted up in a knot, you know. I guess I just didn’t want to be on the wrong side this time.”
“Wrong side?” asked Guster.
“Look, after everything we went through last summer, people at school said things. They thought I made up those stories. I was sort of shunned. I was on my own a lot, so I learned you have to be careful when you pick your allies.”
“So you chose the Baconists as friends?”
Mariah shook her head. “Okay. Yes. I did. Fine. Sorry. They just seemed so smart. But when I saw how eager they were for you to get eaten this morning, well, I knew just how far they would go. Sorry, Guster.”
Guster nodded. There would be time for this later.
“Palatus is here,” said Guster.
Mariah’s eyes widened. “In the city? But I thought he was—”
Guster shook his head. “So did I, but I saw him. I know what’s causing the tremors. It’s not natural or magical or anything like that. He set the fires underneath the city. He’s melting it from the inside out, block by block. The quakes and collapses are coming from him.”
Mariah sat back on the ice. She looked shocked, like her whole mind was twisting about this new fact, trying to wrestle it into a place that made sense. “I . . .” she muttered, but never finished. “Stupid Baconists!” She put her head in her hands.
Guster let it go. “What about Mom? And Dad?” he asked.
The cave shook, shards of ice breaking off the walls and falling into the crevasse. After a moment, it stopped.
Mariah drew her lips tight. “We need to go,” she said.
The Lieutenant had gathered up the gear behind them and stowed it into his pack. “Awaiting your orders, sir. But I do suggest we move on the double.”
“Yes. Of course,” said Guster. He still felt overwhelmed and unsure. He’d just seen Palatus. The Chef in Red was here, in the city. And now, even more overwhelming, there were quiet voices in his head, echoes of the pure flavors he’d tasted in those vanilla ice cream floes.
The Lieutenant and Mariah began to run, making their way past the slow, bubbling fountain and up a tunnel in the rock. Guster followed, uncertain where they were go
ing. He could only see flashes of rock and ice cream as the beam from the Lieutenant’s headlamp bounced through the translucent ice of the tunnels.
Something scratched and scuffed against the ice in the darkness. Yummy. His companions were still here, no doubt waiting in the shadows for their fallen comrade to return. A soft, deep rumble sounded in the darkness. They were just snarls and growls in his ears, but in his mind they took on meaning. Our city, our city, the voices echoed in Guster’s head.
Again, he was shocked that he could understand. The reverberations from the pure floe of vanilla he’d tasted were echoing through his head. They had made some kind of connection, like he could taste their thoughts or, in the least, their intent. Like it resonated through him.
These animals were mourning for their city. They were crying for their home.
They ran, twisting and turning along the passage until a pale light glowed ahead. It was only a narrow, horizontal ribbon stretching across Guster’s vision. As they ran, he saw it for what it was: the open air.
“Go!” said Mariah, sprinting as fast as she could toward the light.
The mountain shook again, the fury of the quake taking hold and wrenching the ground beneath their feet. Guster stumbled. Mariah pulled him up.
With an awful scraping sound, a huge slab of ice caved in right in front of them. The Lieutenant skidded to a stop then leapt the slab and kept running. Mariah and Guster scrambled after him, and they dove onto their bellies, scraping their way through the gap that led to the open air.
Part of the cave ceiling collapsed behind them, closing off half the entrance. Then the shuddering stopped.
Mariah slumped down onto the icy ground and sobbed. “We . . . we were almost crushed in there,” she said, tears welling up around her eyes. She’d been so brave that Guster hadn’t expected her to cry now. She’d been the one to pull him to his feet.
Yummy, thought Guster. He hoped they weren’t trapped in there.
“The city!” said the Lieutenant, pointing down the mountain. Below them, at the base of the mountain, the City of El Elado was in ruin. Whole buildings had collapsed, sinking into enormous holes in the street that had swallowed them up. The main tower on Princess Sunday’s castle had fallen over, like a tree felled in the forest. It had crushed the outer castle wall beneath it.