When it was presented, the Bastich spoke. Would he taste the spell?
“Superior presentation, brilliant sauce, but... slow roasting is one of the most pedestrian ways to serve a bird, flawlessly done though it is. Your competition has been bolder than you, chef.”
The crowd oohed, but I felt sick. If the Bastich hadn’t tasted the spell, what hope did we have? The Emperor was devouring Angwy’s phoenix with every sign of enjoyment.
Last chance. The crème brulee came out of the oven, and I sprinkled the sugar, just as Grammel announced, “For dessert, Chef Angwy has prepared Chocolate Phoenix Tongue Profiteroles.”
And thank the gods I hadn’t stolen that recipe! I summoned fire from my fingertips and played it across the sprinkled sugar.
“Foul!” Angwy strode over and planted herself across the counter from me. “Foul! This is a contest of cuisine, not of sorcery! It’s unfair!”
I almost lost my head, but managed to keep my hiss quiet. “If that’s so, why are you using GMS?”
Angwy whitened. “You can’t prove that!” she whispered.
“Want to ask my boss, the archmage?”
“Well,” roared the Emperor, rising. “Is there foul play or not?”
“Sire,” said Sir Bastich. “I believe your Chef is protesting that magic should not be used, but if I may, broiling a crème should be child’s play for anyone cooking at this level, and it’s hardly a serious violation. I for one am intrigued by Mistress Letzterhoff’s dessert.”
Trembling, I plated it.
“Phoenix liver chocolate crème brulee,” announced Grammel.
Sir Bastich broke the crust. “Perfect thickness. Rich, without being overpowering. Your majesty, you have a very talented young chef here. Were she not already a sorceress, I should offer her an apprenticeship myself. How did you manage to cook phoenix, which until now I have never encountered?”
The Emperor interrupted. “Sir Bastich, are you... do you mean to say that you intend to find in favor of this... of the challenger?”
“Sire, Master Chef Angwy is a brilliant professional; of this there can be no doubt whatsoever. And technically her performance might be superior. But I myself prefer a fresh approach, an exciting approach, and Mistress Letzterhoff has given us that. So yes, my vote is for her.”
I swayed, and Tywin steadied me. Could it be?
“And you, Prime Minister?” the Emperor demanded.
“Oh, Sire, I must vote for Master Chef Angwy. Who could doubt the Royal palate?”
The Emperor looked from Angwy to me. Then at Graam Bastich, who stood there utterly unconcerned, supremely confident in his judgment.
The Emperor opened his mouth.
“No!” screamed Angwy, in rage. “I will not be beaten by a scheming, cheating, bitch of a sorceress! She used sorcery. And that dried up old archmage helped her. Your Majesty, I...”
“Have gone too far at last!” thundered Trelesta, rising. “I was willing to let my apprentice stand or fall by her own merits and mouth,” she intoned. “But I will not see her slandered by a hypocrite! Your Majesty,” she pointed. “Chef Angwy has used GMS upon her main course!”
There was a gasp from the crowd, and a silence. The Emperor’s jaw worked.
And then Trelesta continued. “But that is not the worst of it, is it, Chef?”
Angwy’s eyes went wide. “No! You can’t have! How did you...?”
Trelesta sang a high, clear single note of disenchantment. I could feel the spells in the room break.
“Taste her phoenix again, Sir Bastich.”
Curiously, he did so, chewing thoughtfully. His jaw froze and he spit the bite on his plate. He fixed Angwy with a stare. “This,” he said, “never did taste quite like Mistress Letzterhoff’s phoenix. I wondered. But now the taste is unmistakable. Despite popular lore, chef, everything—let alone phoenix—does not taste like chicken.”
“WHAT?!” cried His Majesty, and Angwy collapsed to the floor.
~o0o~
After Angwy had been dragged away, screaming, by the Imperial Guards, I found myself ushered, politely, to a much more private sitting room, and holding a glass of His Imperial Majesty’s single-barrel bourbon.
“You have quite a future in the gastronomical arts, you know, Mistress Letzterhoff,” the Bastich was saying.
I didn’t answer. I was still getting used to having a future at all.
“The offer of an apprenticeship is sincere, by the way, should you want one. And I’d very much like to buy your secret of hunting phoenix, not to mention your recipes. Shall we say 50,000 royals, in round numbers?”
I nearly spit out my bourbon.
“Come child, it has to be worth that much,” said Trelesta, “if even Angwy had to cheat to comply with His Majesty’s order. No wonder she panicked when she saw you actually cooking phoenix.”
“And you’ll have a position in the Imperial Kitchens when you return,” said His Majesty.
I looked down. “Is that an Imperial order, Sire?” I asked. So much for returning to my beloved sorcery....
“Naturally,” he boomed.
“No, Sire,” the Bastich said, “I advise against. Talent is a great gift, but if the desire of the heart is not there, she will never develop it to the fullest.”
His Majesty hesitated. But he had, perhaps, been enough of a fool tonight. “Oh, very well,” he said.
I nodded gratefully to the Bastich, who winked. He understood. And would get all of Angwy’s stolen recipes for no extra charge.
Temple of Chaos
Marian Allen
Pimchan, a Warrior, faithfully serves the All-Father with a combination of devotion, exasperation, and terror for the risks he sometimes takes. But after seven years spent raising two orphans in the town he “gave” her, she feels more than ready to return to the less-settled life of the Warrior and take on new challenges. The All-Father, however, is devious and very fond of getting his own way.
Marian Allen writes science fiction, fantasy, mystery, humor, horror, mainstream, and anything else she can wrestle into fixed form. Allen has had stories in on-line and print publications, on coffee cans and the wall of an Indian restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky. Her latest books are the Sage fantasy trilogy, her science fiction comedy of bad manners Sideshow in the Center Ring, and her YA/NA paranormal suspense A Dead Guy at the Summerhouse, all from Per Bastet Publications. She blogs daily at http://MarianAllen.com.
Pimchan retreated to her Chaos garden, blissfully hidden from the house by an artificial rise in the land, a curving path, and thickets of flowering bushes. She squatted before the table and bit savagely into the food she’d carried away from the table, a Warrior in retreat.
It had happened, the thing she had feared when the All-Father had “rewarded” her service with a town to protect and to profit from: she had been domesticated. She, whose keenness and quick insight had given her the edge in many a fight and many a negotiation, was now watching her household neophytes and empathizing with their juvenile heartaches.
Tyana brought the writing desk Pimchan had shouted for as she left the house. She also brought a gourd of fermented goat’s milk, placing both on the table with a silent obeisance quite unlike her usual familiarity.
Tyana understands.
And that made Pimchan even angrier. She hadn’t become a Warrior so she could be understood, certainly not by a housekeeper.
She finished her food and washed it down with Tyana’s heady kefir. Paper, ink, copper stylus, and now her thoughts; she was ready to write her letter.
She rubbed her bare head, drawing on the power of the runes that covered her scalp, calling up eloquence and persuasion to help her find the words she would need as she took pen in hand, a hand more accustomed to speaking with a weapon. With every dip of the pen, every scratch upon paper, she laid down a geas of beguilement. She had little doubt it would be detected and successfully resisted, but its presence would signal the desperation of her plea.
Revere
d and Omnipotent Father of All who dwell within your lands, this boon I beg.
This worthless one was placed, by your wisdom, as protector of the town of Mountain Cloud. The town entrusted two children to this worthless one’s care. These children are growing, and one of them is training as a Warrior. Although the tutelage of this worthless one has been of no benefit to him, he feels ready to step forth to do battle in your exalted name against whatever injustice he meets along his way.
Will it please you to grant him your blessing? Will it please you to free this worthless one from her bond with Mountain Cloud so she may accompany her ward into the world, at least for a while?
Your humble servant,
Pimchan of Mountain Cloud
~o0o~
Sealed and directed to the All-Father—wherever he might be when the letter found him—Pimchan’s missive was handed over to the town’s Seeker, along with an ivory bracelet with Pimchan’s name and town inscribed on it. The Seeker could claim whatever shelter and supplies he required in his journey, would collect receipts as he went, and would present them to Pimchan for payment on his return. Given the All-Father’s penchant for wandering randomly around his domain, it could turn out to be a painfully expensive correspondence.
Worth it—worth every bronze penny—if it would free her from this bondage and get her into the field again. To stride for miles and days, eyes on the horizon, senses constantly on the alert, instinct and training always at the ready—this was the life she loved. Only life held by a thread was a life worth holding at all.
~o0o~
Nandan knelt at his place at the dinner table and announced, “I’ve chosen my leading rune.”
Nadia’s mouth opened, quirked lips signaling a tart jest to come, but her expression froze and melted into blankness, her hand fingering the necklace of clay beads she had made for herself. Her eyes weren’t blank, though.
In Nadia’s eyes, Pimchan read the realization that her sole playmate and foster sibling of the past seven years was truly a caste apart, now. Nandan, having trained with Pimchan, would soon be a Warrior. Nadia, having trained with Tyana, was becoming a passable house servant, especially suited to serve in a Warrior’s company. Pimchan read pride in Nadia’s eyes, and a sense of ending. She felt the twin of that pride and that ending throb within her own breast.
She grunted approval. “We’ll have it emblazoned, if you’re ready.”
“I’m ready.”
Movement, as always, caught the Warrior’s attention. A tear trembled on the crest of Nadia’s cheek. Another joined it, and the heavy drop rolled off and onto the young woman’s forearm. Pimchan suddenly remembered her mother’s tears when she came home from her own mentor with her head shaved and her first rune tattooed on her forehead.
Your sweet head, her mother had said. My baby’s precious head, shorn and pierced and stained.
She hadn’t understood that reaction then, and she didn’t understand it now.
“I could do that for you,” Nadia said, voice raspy and thick. “I’d love to drill some sense into that thick skull of yours.”
Nandan’s mouth popped open, but Tyana, household overseer and seasoned companion, interrupted.
“May your runes be the only marks another lays on your body!”
Nandan cast Tyana a beaming smile.
“I’m coming, too,” Nadia said.
Nandan pushed his hair back, rubbing the spot where his first rune would be tattooed, and said, “You’re not. This is for Warriors only.”
Nadia bobbed her head upward in scorn. “Not to that. I’ve been with the Mistress when she’s had runes incised—more times than you have. Better, more powerful runes, at that. I’m coming to see the All-Father. What if he sends you off, right then and there? You can’t go alone. Who would cook your rice? Who would clean your boots?”
Pimchan rapped on the table for the silence and attention a Warrior could always command. “I never had a companion until the All-Father gave me this town to defend. I sometimes walked with fellow Warriors, but we tended to ourselves.”
When, after a count of ten, she had said no more, Nadia was free to reply. To Pimchan’s surprise and approval, the young woman kept her thoughts to herself. The fact that holding back a remark was an obvious struggle made viewing the victory all the sweeter.
~o0o~
Despite Pimchan’s own swagger when she had displayed her own newly shaven head with its first lonely tattoo, despite all the young Warriors she had seen walk away full-tressed and walk back hairless and inscribed, seeing Nandan with his head bare and emblazoned struck her deeply.
The rune he had chosen was Discernment.
Pimchan touched the skin next to the angry red puffiness that outlined the deep blue ink.
“You chose well. You chose wisely. I added Discernment soon after I led with Strength, and often wished I had gone the other way around.”
Nadia burst into tears and ran to her room.
No one went to comfort her; she would have to find what comfort she could within her own heart. When she emerged, a surprisingly short time later, her eyes were red but her head was high.
I concede, her manner said. You’re now on the Warrior’s path. I’m on a path of my own. Childhood is over.
It was, Pimchan thought, a more difficult shift than the one Nandan had made, with no visible change to mark it, no honor accompanying it.
Nadia was quiet after that, and painfully solicitous of Nandan, and uncharacteristically courteous.
Pimchan worked Nandan harder than ever in the training arena. The more subservience Nadia displayed, the more skill and strength Pimchan demanded.
He thrived on it. He bore his scrapes and bruises like additional runes, symbols of his status. If he spoke to his foster sister about her new respect, he did so out of Pimchan’s sight and hearing.
She preferred that. Domestic matters were beneath her.
~o0o~
Barely a week had passed before the Seeker was back.
“I heard the hares were fat and plentiful in the Pink Blossom Valley,” the Seeker said, “so I tried there first. And there he was, with a small hunting party, and enough hares to feed and clothe an army.”
“Or a town,” said Pimchan.
“Exactly. They’re jugging the hares, the All-Father up to his elbows right next to the cook, and they’re bringing them here.”
“Here?”
“Well, near here. They were going to drop them off at the first town they passed until I delivered your letter. Then the All-Father declared he would come and dedicate a feast at the Cloud Mountain Temple of Chaos. He gave me this reply for you.”
Honored Pimchan of Mountain Cloud on Cloud Mountain,
Your letter comes well timed, as I have been thinking of you and your situation. I will be at the Temple of Chaos on the day after the moon is full. Bring your household to the feast I give then, and I will bestow my blessing.
What blessing? The one she had begged, or a different one? Typical of him to appear so generous and open, while promising nothing.
~o0o~
Tyana was waiting outside the practice arena. “He sent word. He’s there. He expects us at midday.”
Pimchan pushed aside the screen to her private quarters, knowing she would find water and clothes waiting just as she wanted them. She had come to expect that Nadia would have arranged water and clothes just as Nandan wanted them, too, but found that the young woman had reverted to her prior irreverence.
“Nadia!” Nandan didn’t even try to suppress his outrage, a lowering lapse on such an auspicious day. “Aaagh!”
Nandan’s water would be too cold or too warm or would have a lotus or a frog in it. There’s nothing like depending on one’s foster sister for service to keep a young Warrior humble.
“Nadia!” Nandan’s second roar had an edge of genuine fury.
Pimchan re-laced the arm shield she had begun to remove and listened more intently.
“Coming, oh great one,�
�� Nadia trilled. “I feared your bath would be too cold, so I bring two buckets of hot water, may it please you.”
Nadia’s bare feet scuffed across the stone floor, borne down by the weight of the water she carried. The wooden buckets clattered against Nandan’s bath barrel.
Nadia said, “You may insert yourself into the liquid, oh great one—Ow!”
There had been no audible slap, so Nandan must have struck the girl with a fist.
Pimchan’s scowl would have prostrated her apprentice into the most abased kow-tow if he had seen it. True, he was within his rights as a Warrior to enact discipline as and when and upon whom he saw fit. Still, to strike a helpless child—
Pimchan had taken but one step when Nandan yelped “Ow!”
“How do you like it?”
Pimchan was, as ever, startled to realize that Nadia was no more a child than Nandan, and only slightly more helpless.
Nandan’s protest sounded less decisive than he probably intended. “A Warrior deserves respect!”
“Our mistress never hit me, and she’s a greater Warrior than you’ll ever be. True Warriors only fight fighters.”
“You poor, fragile innocent. That’s going to raise a knot. Where did you learn that blow?”
“From the butcher’s boy. I’ll teach it to you if you promise not to use it on me.”
Pimchan returned to her bath. Tyana had been right, as usual; the girl was fit to be a Warrior’s companion. Not, perhaps, in the long run, her foster brother’s, but someone’s.
The two nameless orphans, gifts of the town, had blossomed in Pimchan’s keeping until, after seven years, she had named and freed them. Her only disappointment was that Nadia had not shared Nandan’s love of the Warrior’s path.
“Don’t try to pull her after you,” Tyana had counseled. “Anyone can see the girl is a born companion. She keeps her eyes and ears open, her wits sharp and her tongue sharper. She’s not a bad cook, either.”
Pimchan had continued to grumble, but had stopped fighting the obvious will of Chaos.
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