“When nations do battle,” he continued, “it is their culture and ideas that are in dispute. Obviously, we Assyrians know that our beliefs are superior, and we invade other countries to prove it.”
I was at a loss. Trickery is the art of finding and exploiting an opponent’s weakness, but Baryoom’s system of beliefs was rigid and unyielding, with few cracks. How could I argue with someone who believed that whatever he thought was law simply because he had a large army? I glanced at Zahra, who shrugged imperceptibly. “Surely we can at least discuss terms?” I asked.
He let out a huge burp that rained spittle onto his chest. “I tire of this.” He glanced at the nearest black-clad soldier. “Kill them.”
“Wait,” I bellowed. I held my hand out as if it alone could halt all activity in the room. “Wait!”
He hesitated, and his bodyguards also hesitated, some with swords in mid-air. Zahra looked from them to Baryoom, her fists in a defensive position.
Finally, the Assyrian general waved his guards aside. I lowered my guard and Zahra slowly relaxed.
“You said that the men of your country settle disputes through combat. Well, I have a dispute with you, and I challenge you.”
He made to speak, and I knew that he would either deny my request outright or name some champion to fight in his place, neither of which would end well for me. I cut him off. “ – not with anything so crude as swords or spears. I challenge you to an eating contest.”
Baryoom blinked as if struck. “You think you can out eat... me?”
“No,” I said. I forced my voice to sound lower, more relaxed. “No. I’m saying that I can create a dish so special that you will renounce all others.”
The Assyrian general surveyed the vast sea of food that was arrayed before him. He reached for one idly and then, instead of eating from it, he overturned it and watched green curry spill out of it. “Why should I accept? You are as accomplished a fighter as I have ever seen, equal to perhaps a dozen of my finest warriors. But there are twenty thousand men outside that gate. Eventually you will succumb.”
“Because you have no choice.”
He suppressed a laugh. “Do I not?”
“If you do not accept my challenge, if you have me killed, you will always wonder what exotic dish the strange warrior from the North might have prepared. You’ll try to dismiss the thought from your mind, but it will return in your dreams. You’ll imagine my dish, but the image you conjure will be indistinct and the smells muted because you simply don’t know what it would have looked like, how it would have smelled, and that will haunt you. Every new dish you sample you will compare to the one I might have cooked, and you will find it lacking because your mind is so much better at creating new flavours than your tongue. Years from now, when you have conquered the known world, when you sit on your throne of skulls, when you have sampled every dish known to Man but one you will curse this day, because merely by accepting a challenge you could have saved yourself from that terrible fate.”
I could not read meaning into Baryoom’s stare until he spoke. “It sounds like I have no choice but to accept.”
I straightened. “Your Majesty, you do not.”
A bead of sweat trickled down Baryoom’s brow. “Very well. I’ve eaten your northern foods before. Your dishes are as crude as the men who cook them. I accept your challenge. You will have full access to the palace’s ingredients but only one day to prepare your dish. I will not have you drawing out this challenge by demanding some ingredient that must be retrieved from the four corners of the Earth.”
“I accept.” I said.
Baryoom’s laughter followed us as we left the throne room under guard. The kitchens were nearby, placed there by architects deliberately to avoid the possibility of serving a cold dish to a palace guest.
“What are you doing?” asked Zahra quietly in the language of Kush. Our guards were regular infantry from Assyria. They might know Egyptian, but they certainly would not know the language of Zahra’s native land. Of course, she couldn’t possibly know that I spoke it also. She was gambling that my powers included the ability to speak and understand strange tongues, which was not a poor bet seeing as how I was a northerner in a stranger land.
“Did you not see the man eat?” I asked. “Baryoom was like a beast for the length of our audience. It’s my guess he even eats in his sleep. Wetiko is a hungry god that eats whatever is placed before Him, and that craving for food has manifested itself in his chief disciple. It is a weakness, and I specialize in taking advantage of the weaknesses of my enemies. The last time I confronted Wetiko I fed him to bursting. I don’t believe that trick will work again, so I need to try something else.”
“Do you intend to poison him?” she asked.
I glanced at our escorts. There was, after all, no guarantee that one of them did not speak Kushian. “What makes you think that?”
“‘A dish that will make you renounce all others’?” she said with a wry smile. “You were not exactly subtle. He will suspect you. He has a tester who will taste the dish before he even gets near it. You will have to eat from the same pot he does.”
I frowned. “I know.”
“What do you plan to do about it?” she pressed.
“I don’t know,” I said with a sigh.
The palace kitchen was a long wide room divided by a stone table. Rich dishes destined for Baryoom’s throne room left through one door and empty dishes entered through another at the far side of the room. Platters made from wood or lead were scrubbed with sand, while golden dishes were rinsed carefully with water that was later used in a stew destined for the servants. The head chef was a large man named Ahmose who, it was apparent from his size, tasted of his own cooking quite liberally. The captain of our escort took him aside and explained our purpose. Ahmose’s expression swiftly changed from anger at this intrusion into curiosity about what I would prepare.
When Baryoom’s captain finished his explanation, he set men to guard both doors and then left us in Ahmose’s care.
“I admit that I do not understand the ways of our Assyrian masters,” Ahmose said, “but I have been told to give you any ingredient you desire, no matter how expensive and outlandish it is. If you need cooks, I am to provide them.” He looked over his domain with a worried expression on his face. “But this kitchen serves more than just Baryoom and I have no wish to anger the Assyrians. If you do not object to letting the cooks that you do not require continue their work, I will help you myself.”
“Agreed,” I said, sympathetic to his cause. He was Egyptian, and as worried about the invaders as anyone else. He was still alive because he performed a valuable service for the Assyrians. He needed to keep performing that service if he valued his skin. “I need a sheep’s bladder, an acidic solution, copper wire, a lodestone, and table salt. And vermilion powder.”
“You want me to bring red dye?” he asked.
It amused me that he did not question the far more exotic items I’d requested and focussed on the food colouring. “I do.”
“It will... take some time to assemble such a list,” he said reluctantly.
“Move quickly, then. Time is one thing we do not have.”
I turned to Zahra. “Do you know how to make a stew?”
Though her mask remained impassive, she shook her head. “A stew? I can make Melokhia, but that is a peasant’s dish.”
“Done! Ahmose, please add whatever Zahra requires to that list.”
Of the ingredients that were not readily available, the copper wire was the first thing to arrive. I wound it around a wooden cylinder, and then lashed the lodestone to an axle which I placed inside it. The acidic solution Ahmose brought had been extracted from citrus fruit, but it served its purpose. I stretched the sheep’s bladder across the bottom of the cylinder and placed some salt and vermillion power inside. I then immersed the cylinder in the acid bath and asked two of Ahmose’s cooks to spin the axle as fast as they could.
All of this activity attrac
ted a lot of attention from the other cooks and Ahmose had to beat them back to work with the back of a wooden spoon. However, he himself was not immune to curiosity. “Are you a wizard, sir?”
“Not a wizard, no. Nor an alchemist, though an untrained observer might describe what I’m doing as belonging to that art. I am a simple chef, like yourself, and I am creating a spice that General Baryoom will not be able to resist.”
Melokhia turned out to be more of a soup than a stew. It had a slimy green texture and smelled like garlic and peppers. When it was done, I dismissed the two cooks who’d been spinning the axle and retrieved the cylinder from the acid bath. I took it to an open window and tipped it as if I were pouring out a liquid, but green gas emerged instead. It was heavier than air and sank into the courtyard below where it dispersed.
I returned to the soup which Zahra had served into a deep bowl and poured the remaining contents into the dish. All that remained were white crystals much larger than salt and a few specks of leftover vermillion powder.
“It is done,” I said, quite pleased with myself. I could almost feel Zahra’s bafflement beneath her expressionless mask, but I ignored it.
Suddenly Ahmose spoke. “May I taste it?”
I choked with surprise and then glanced hastily at him. “No.”
“Let him taste it,” barked the Assyrian captain in crude Egyptian.
Ahmose’s face creased with fear and he stepped away from the bowl. “I think I’ve lost my appetite.”
The officer drew his sword and crossed the room with surprising speed. The blade halted inches from Ahmose’s neck. “Taste it.”
Ahmose’s hand shook so badly that he fumbled to retrieve a silver spoon from a nearby table. Exasperated, the captain snatched it up and shoved it into the cook’s hand.
All activity in the kitchen had ceased. Cooks let their dishes burn as they stared at what was playing out in the centre of their workplace.
Zahra’s mask swung towards me as Ahmose’s spoon dipped towards the bowl and her eye slits bored into me. If that dish was poisoned, as she had to suspect, Ahmose would die and we would be caught. If I didn’t stop them, the cook’s death would be on my head.
Ahmose filled the spoon halfway, but a grunt from the captain forced him to fill it all the way. It still steamed and he took his time blowing it cool. If his life wasn’t on the line, it would have been comical. At last, the Assyrian officer lost his patience and made Ahmose quickly pop the utensil into his mouth. The chef closed his eyes and gulped it down.
When, after a full minute, nothing happened, he opened them, and we all began to breathe again. “It tastes fine. Not great. Just fine,” he said.
Activity resumed with a clatter as cooks raced to save their dishes. The officer held us there for nearly twenty minutes to see if Ahmose might still keel over, but he seemed to be in better spirits than when we’d entered. Almost as if he had a new appreciation for life.
Finally, I argued that if we did not return to the throne room now, the soup would be too cold and I’d have to make another batch. The officer relented and we left the kitchens, our dish in tow.
Zahra must have been bursting with questions and she walked stiffly beside me. She knew better than to ask, even in Kushian. There was no sense in giving away whatever plot I was hatching at this point.
Baryoom had not stopped eating while our dish was being prepared, but because our work had slowed the kitchen, several of his dishes had not been replenished and he was surrounded by a sea of empty serving ware.
“The soup has been tasted. It is not poisoned,” said the captain. A waiter bowed and then carried the dish towards Baryoom.
“Wait,” he said. He stared at me, taking my measure. “We have, among our ranks, fanatics who would die for their cause. I do not believe that you are such a man. There is too much life in you.” He leaned into his bed of pillows. “Try the soup.”
“Swear that if I win,” I said, mustering my courage, “if you never crave another dish, that Zahra and I will be allowed to depart unharmed and your troops will leave Egypt.”
His only response was a grunted “Fine.”
“Swear it!”
He rolled his eyes and found the captain in the back of the room. “Unless I command otherwise, you will let them leave unharmed.”
I knew not to press any further, but I held his gaze as I walked over to the waiter and picked up a golden serving spoon. Baryoom looked on greedily as I dipped it into the bowl. I filled it generously, angled it so that he could see that it was full, and brought it to my lips. His face fell as I swallowed, as if he’d expect me to refuse and been disappointed.
“Fine,” he said with a scowl. “Bring it here.”
The waiter approached and then carefully climbed the mountain of pillows, displaying an impressive mastery of the tray. During the entire audience, I had never seen Baryoom use a utensil and he did not use one now. Instead, he grabbed the bowl and tipped it into his mouth, slurping as he gulped it down.
He wiped his lips and then they cracked into a smile. He began to laugh. “That? That is your famous northern dish? That’s Melokhia! You even over-salted it!” His laughter shook the mountain of pillows and several dishes clattered to the ground. The waiter tried to mask his terror, but he retreated as fast as he could.
Baryoom’s laughter continued for a long time. Several soldiers shifted uncomfortably and exchanged looks, but still Baryoom laughed. Tears streamed down his cheeks and dripped from chin to chin before they merged with the sweat on his chest. Suddenly, he sneered and one side of his face relaxed hideously. Then his jaw went slack and he slowly toppled forwards. He slammed to the floor in a ripple of flesh and remained there, unmoving.
“We’re leaving,” I said quickly, grabbing Zahra’s gloved hand.
“What happened?” she asked in wonder.
A guard blocked our path, but I looked at the Assyrian captain. Emotions warred on his face, but he obeyed Baryoom’s last order. He waved us through and we were free.
We didn’t stop until we were safely out of the palace. It wasn’t until its walls disappeared behind two buildings that Zahra dared to ask me a question.
“How are you not dead? How did the cook not die?”
“Mercury chloride,” I said. As we walked, my eyes scanned nearby buildings, looking for a farrier where we could buy or steal some horses. “Vermillion is made from quicksilver and I was able to extract chlorine from table salt using the centrifuge I built. If you put those two substances together you get a deadly poison. I learned to make it during my time in China.”
She grabbed my shoulder and spun me with surprising strength. “But you ingested the same soup!”
“Quicksilver is a metal and therefore heavier than the soup. It sank to the bottom of the bowl. Ahmose did not know that, but he was afraid and so only scooped from its surface. I knew about the poison and did the same. Baryoom, on the other hand, is a slave to Wetiko and eats whatever is put in front of him. When he finished the bowl, he ingested my poison. Now help me find some horses so we can return to Thebes and I can get my mask.”
But I did not get my mask. When we finally returned nearly a month later, word had run before us that the Assyrian army was retreating and that Egypt was saved. There were celebrations in the streets, but Horus had disappeared. When we were finally admitted before the Pharaoh, he told us that his deity had been so overwhelmed by the news of my victory that he’d wept for joy. He was no longer needed in Egypt, he told them, then transformed into a hawk and flew south to help more of his people throw off the yoke of oppression.
Horus had fled.
We left Thebes soon after and hunted Horus through Kush and east over the ocean to a set of islands that would later come to be called the Seychelles. From there, we travelled to India and chased down a variety of Hindu legends he’d created. Many of that religion’s ten thousand gods were my former high priest in disguise.
It was in Mumbai that Zahra finally asked me to
stop.
The Kushian albino had travelled by my side for four decades. She’d grown old.
When she took off her mask I noticed crow’s feet at the corner of her eyes. Her face looked shrunken and she moved slowly and carefully with a hunch in her back. She was tired.
I spent years in Mumbai with her, forgetting for a time about the god who bore my name and wielded my powers. There was only Zahra and me.
When she passed, I spent several years in mourning and erected a statue in that city which can still be found today if you know the way.
The First Pyramid
by Gama Martinez
Imhotep kept his face to the ground, prostrate before his Pharaoh, Djoser, and his god, Ra. He'd been that way for at least an hour. His back hurt, and the rough stone scratched his nose. The only light in the room came from the face of Ra, though Imhotep had never seen it. No one was permitted to look on the face of Ra, not even Imhotep, his high priest. He felt sweat dripping from his face. The request he'd made to these divine rulers was not small, and it would require a significant amount of resources, but it was for the glory of Egypt. He hoped that would be enough. As soon as Imhotep had presented his proposal, the two had started discussing it without giving him leave to depart.
"No," Djoser said. "We don't have enough men."
Imhotep's heart was racing. It would've been better if they'd said no right away. Now, he had wasted an hour of their time. They may well demand his life for such an infraction. He waited for them to call the guards, sure that it would be any second.
The Book of the Emissaries: An Animism Short Fiction Anthology Page 7