The Tasters Guild

by Susannah Appelbaum

“Is there, perhaps, any other paper there, besides the Epistle?”

  The Taxuses exchanged a tense look.

  “No, Director. Just the Epistle.”

  Verjouce contemplated.

  “Should Truax make an appearance here, I would prefer to carry out my own form of justice upon him,” he began. “I assure you—it is very effective.” Verjouce paused, thinking terrible thoughts.

  “Um, there is the small matter of a reward, Director.”

  “Ah. A reward. Still—I feel this matter should be concluded … internally.”

  The Estate sagged. Their business did not seem to be concluding in their favor.

  Scraping footfalls could be heard, approaching on soft slippers.

  “Ah, Snaith,” Verjouce sighed, even before the subrector appeared.

  Snaith craned his crooked neck about the busy room, but his eagerness to deliver his message was tempered by his surprise at finding the chamber thus occupied. He skittered over to his employer, and as he leaned in, the persistent wasps parted. Verjouce listened, his face expressionless, and when Snaith was done, the Director addressed the Taxus brothers.

  “Taxus Estate, should you somehow produce the other paper you received from the calligrapher—an old and worthless scroll, I assure you, and of no use to you or your family—I might be more amenable to an exchange. I will give you some time to think about it. I am nothing if not generous. Snaith—perhaps the Estate would like a tour of the catacombs? I find it has a way of stimulating the memory.”

  Chapter Sixty-three

  The Chapter Room

  Don’t feel so bad.” Rowan smiled weakly. “I failed Irresistible Meals three times.”

  “I did not simmer the moonstone on the wrong heat!” Ivy protested.

  No matter how she approached it, Ivy could not discuss the topic of scourge bracken, Snaith, or her experience at the final exam. She was seeing that the nature of this particular poison was one that was determined to be deeply private. Greasy-looking fireflies bobbed and reared around her field of vision, but oddly, with their arrival, she began to feel some strength return to her limbs—as if the insects fortified her.

  Snaith and the other scarlet-clad Watchmen had deposited her and Rowan in the Chapter Room—she knew this because Rowan had told her so. He was clearly alarmed. The Chapter Room was in fact a large, carpeted chamber that featured an ancient-looking wooden table scattered with dripping, smoking candles. It served as the Guild’s epicenter, hosting general meetings, demonstrations, and important visitors. It was a place for elders, and Rowan knew it as such, but most of all, Rowan knew it for all its horribleness. For it was also where punishment was meted out, with an audience.

  There were decorative carvings in a banner that circled the entire room. The markings reminded Ivy of much of what she had seen at Dumbcane’s shop. To the casual observer, they were mere woodcuts—stories of foragers and thick forests, patterned leaves, berries. Adorable stray children and woodcutters’ cottages. But the scourge bracken within Ivy called forth the worst of the shadows, and the shapes took on a nightmarish quality: huntsmen brandishing axes and cauldrons boiling unnamable things—tales of madness and disease. Rowan was oblivious.

  In a recess of the room, a lone Outrider stood guard, but as Ivy peeked at him, his cloak and mass of hair spewed a deep, swirling darkness that threatened to overtake the chamber’s dim lights. Watching him, too, was Rowan, and the taster felt the hairs on the nape of his neck rise, but for a different reason. He realized he was seeing his future—captured, he now faced certain punishment. For his crimes he would lose his tongue and be forced to serve the Guild’s most deadly desires.

  “I wonder what will happen to Rue,” he asked, changing the subject. “She disobeyed Snaith—that can’t be good.”

  Ivy nodded miserably. The same thought had occurred to her.

  “I suppose we can congratulate ourselves—in truth, I am surprised we made it this far.” Rowan’s wretchedness was growing. “What hope did we really have of resisting the Guild’s defenses?”

  Ivy tried again to formulate words, but she knew she would simply recite cupboard inventories or obscure Field Guide footnotes every time she opened her mouth. She wanted so badly to comfort and be comforted. She moved closer to Rowan, resting her head on his shoulder, silently.

  Her thoughts turned to Axle. A reunion with him seemed to be such an impossibility, and when she realized this, she sank even deeper into the shadows. Professor Breaux had said Dumbcane was sentenced to drink poison hemlock—what might Verjouce be saving for Axle?

  It was almost a relief to be dragged before the Guild’s Director.

  “Three parts iodine, one part smoke bush, a soupçon of thistle, and a thimble of distilled essence of wanderlust.” Ivy was reciting a favorite potion of hers.

  The only problem was, it was in answer to Vidal Verjouce’s simple greeting:

  Trespasser.

  It wasn’t spoken, this salutation. Instead, Ivy heard his awful voice in her inner ear. The Director sat amid ever more angry wasps and a few new, powerful hornets. The insects seemed energized and patrolled their territory not with their usual laziness but with a vengeance. Beside Verjouce stood the crooked figure of Snaith, triumph and pleasure oozing from his pudgy face. But she saw Axle above them—oddly, crammed into a gilt cage—and she allowed herself a moment of small joy.

  Ivy had her own medley of insects with which to contend. The scourge bracken inside her was attracting not black, barbed things but flying creatures of the night. The fireflies hovered around her head still, and she felt deeply queasy as they bobbed about her field of vision, small stars extinguished and reborn.

  “Nauseas. Three parts bicarbonate, one part nux vomica.” Ivy’s apotheopathic training was present, but she still was not in control of her mouth.

  Now that Rowan’s most dreaded moment was here—now that he faced the Director as a prisoner of the Tasters’ Guild—he refused to allow his knees to buckle. He forced himself to look about the room. Verjouce was a sinister vision of black ink and insects, a shocking one, and his splotched face was turned toward Ivy. Axle caught Rowan’s eye from his caged perch, and they exchanged furtive looks.

  You, Ivy, have dared to taste the Kingmaker.

  Ivy frowned momentarily. Kingmaker?

  And, to my great disappointment, you are still alive.

  Vidal Verjouce turned to the young taster.

  “Rowan Truax,” Verjouce said aloud. His name, spoken by such a revolting voice, was like a rude push. Rowan staggered. The only other time the taster had heard his name uttered by the Director was when he had received his taster’s robes, and that one time was more than enough. “You are quite a disappointment.”

  Rowan swallowed but said nothing.

  “You were a mediocre student. A failure as a taster. You brought shame and dishonor to the Oath. But”—a sinister smile flickered across the Director’s lips—“you have succeeded at one thing. You have delivered me the girl.”

  “Cattail thrushweed nevermore stew!” Ivy shouted pitifully.

  But a shift occurred within the young taster—as if a light now shone on some nether region of his mind. Rowan felt a surge of anger course through him.

  “Dishonor?” Rowan shouted. “You dare to speak of dishonor? Where is the honor in poison? Poison, by its very nature, is cowardly! It is the deceitful tool of the weakling, and you are its master!”

  The wasps closed in tighter, forming an even more distinct crown, bulging and popping into spiky peaks.

  “Hold your tongue—or I shall have the pleasure of holding it for you.” Verjouce’s face was contorted in anger, glowering at Rowan. From the shadows behind him, standing perfectly still, Ivy’s eyes detected what others’ could not—a pair of Outriders like statues on either side of the Director. They emerged now into the grim light—and Rowan went pale.

  “Not afraid yet? You will be the first, then, to walk gallantly as you join their ranks.”

&nb
sp; “Shall I procure my sharpest blade?” Snaith asked evilly.

  Ivy thought sickeningly of the revolting-looking crescent in Snaith’s collection—its jagged edges and ripping teeth—and knew now why it had repelled her so.

  But as Vidal Verjouce stood, detailing explicitly what pleasure he would take in working with Rowan in his new tongueless capacity, Ivy finally noticed Six. Rudely forced from the Director’s lap, the cat had landed on the stone table, and his claws raked the surface with an awful noise.

  “Six!” she called, the word wrenching from her mouth intact.

  She stepped forward to the cat—he was preposterously dirty and covered with murky stains. The room swam about her eyes—the Outriders advanced further into the chamber’s light, flanking their master, alert.

  But the reunion was surprising. Six arched his back in some unknown fury—hissing crazily, fur flying from his large body in distressing clumps, spittle landing in a foamy spray. The fireflies spun dizzyingly about Ivy’s head, and she stumbled back to Rowan’s side.

  “I am his master now,” the Director mused. “Me—and scourge bracken.” Verjouce’s laugh was the sound of a saw being sharpened.

  Ivy managed to quote randomly from the Field Guide’s myriad uses for river mud and swat a few of the lazier insects at her brow. She looked woefully at Six.

  “Cat’s got her tongue,” Verjouce purred to Six, his long fingers scratching the cat’s chin.

  He turned to his scarlet-clad Watchman.

  “Call in the Estate,” Verjouce told Snaith. “Perhaps they are ready to bargain.”

  Chapter Sixty-four

  Breaux’s Bouquet

  As Rowan braced to be turned over to the Estate of his former charge, he allowed himself a moment to think about what life might have been like for him had he been a better taster. Turner Taxus would be alive, for one. Taxus had been a reasonably nice employer, and Rowan’s position in Templar was a pleasant posting. But he was forever tasting food that might be deadly. He was living a life designed by the Tasters’ Guild and the Deadly Nightshades, a life of poison and intrigue. It was not a natural existence. Hadn’t Axle told him on so many occasions that food was life—eating was joy, not sorrow?

  But as the heavy door opened, it was not Snaith who returned with the Estate of Turner Taxus in tow; it was instead Rowan’s favorite Professor, the one who on so many occasions had tried to lead him to the very conclusion he had just formed. And Professor Breaux was carrying over his shoulder a bundle of hay and sticks and leaves, a heavy burden—elaborate and intricate, with several species of flowers poking out at odd angles, many upside down. It was curiously out of place.

  He paused to nod to the captives and, wiping his brow with a wink, emerged into the inhospitable room.

  “Snaith?” Verjouce called.

  “It is I, Director,” Breaux responded. The Professor lifted his load from his bent back and deposited it on the floor before Ivy and Rowan. It was a rudimentary bouquet, tied with a thin rag. He kicked it further in the children’s direction with the toe of his sandal.

  “Delivery,” he whispered at the pair.

  “Professor Breaux?” Verjouce asked.

  “Yes, Vidal.”

  “You have no business here,” Verjouce determined.

  “Ah. I believe I was summoned by your associate Snaith. I fear my granddaughter has gotten into a bit of mischief.”

  As if on cue, the lead Watchman returned, this time with the Taxus Estate.

  The Estate, fully overwhelmed by their stay at the oppressive Tasters’ Guild, were changed men. Gone were their swaggers. Gone, even, were the twinkles in their eyes. They followed Snaith blindly, wishing only to never again visit the city of Rocamadour or its catacombs below.

  For Ivy the room was a dance hall of darkness, shadows popping and surging, her firefly halo disengaging and reassembling dizzyingly on some incomprehensible whim. She was descending into a further layer of shadow when her eyes alighted on Breaux’s odd bouquet. It was a collection of his own particular favorites, and Ivy rejoiced at once in the flowers—they grew, were alive, and were not of the awful, harrowing world of scourge bracken. She peered closer at them, battling the shifting gloom.

  Dog’s mercury, calamint, frogbit.

  Hawthorn, heartsease, mugwort.

  Her dulled mind took in the collection of numerous plants, and then something clicked.

  Flower Code!

  Professor Breaux had laid at their feet an arrangement that detailed exactly where they could find the lost book of the Pimcaux Doorway.

  Chapter Sixty-five

  Flight

  Do you have my property?” Verjouce asked the Estate.

  Quarles’s neck spasmed, and he grew still. The tour of the catacombs had been effective.

  “Good. Then I propose a simple exchange,” Verjouce continued. “Truax here”—Verjouce indicated Rowan, and it was now that the Estate finally noticed him—“for the paper. Are we agreed?”

  The Taxuses were elated. They looked from Rowan to Verjouce and back again. Their brief stay at the Tasters’ Guild had sapped their spirit so effectively that it was their only wish to return to the barbed roadway empty-handed—and to their local tavern—without a backward glance. With shaking hands, Quarles felt in his breast pocket and proceeded to reveal a tattered, ill-kept paper.

  Snaith approached the Estate in his crablike way and extended his arm from a hunched back. The Watchman, having received the crumpled scroll, began to shuffle back to his master while the Taxuses marched over to Rowan and each roughly grabbed an arm. Yet a great curiosity welled up within the Watchman now as he handled the precious document. He paused, unfurling it. He saw the image of a door blazing with a circular knocker, made long ago from inks that infused the work with magic, or mischief.

  The Estate was stalled in a moment of uncertainty. Were they done, free to leave? Caught between them, Rowan’s eyes were drawn to the golden serpent on the page—glimmering, and nearly alive.

  “Snaith?” Verjouce called to his servant. “Bring me the parchment.”

  But Snaith was captivated. There was great artistry before him, and it cannot be said that only the good of heart appreciate true beauty.

  From his perch, Axle, too, had a bird’s-eye view.

  “Ivy!” he called down. “The ouroboros door! The missing page!”

  Many things happened at once.

  Ivy plucked up her remaining strength and flung herself at Snaith. Trails of the fireflies’ deep purple light streaked through her vision and were met by infuriated black wasps. Suddenly the room was alive with the clashing of insects—so many insects—but the glint of the golden ouroboros on the scroll was as bright as the sun, a beacon.

  Snaith’s unfortunate posture and his ruined sense of balance proved a poor combination. He fell, swatting both the mad girl and the stinging swarm, and something worse—much worse.

  “Snaith—what is happening?” Verjouce called out, agonized at the sound of scuffling.

  It was here that Six redeemed himself. Angered perhaps by the mad buzzing of the clashing insects, or urged on by some memory of chivalry, the enormous cat pounced upon Snaith, scratching wildly—a mass of stink and spittle. He raked his claws down upon Snaith’s fat cheeks, threaded his teeth into an earlobe, and kicked at the Watchman as if he were a rag doll. And Snaith reacted as anyone might: he curled up in a ball, a hermit crab retreating into his shell. Still, the wasps stung at him—devouring his face, his crooked spine, his lumpy ankles.

  Ivy stood, dizzy but free. In her hand was the image of a door—the way to Pimcaux.

  Rowan tried to shake loose of the Taxuses’ grip, and nearly did, but suddenly, horribly, the worst happened. Behind him rose the diamond-shaped window, and as he felt the Estate’s hold finally release, he stumbled backward, one step, two steps—had there only been room for a third! Instead, he felt the window shatter about his body, a crackling like boiled sugar candy, and somehow—inexplicably—a bea
utiful chimelike sound accompanied the taster’s exit as he left Verjouce’s chambers, exchanging somber stone for thin air.

  Chapter Sixty-six

  Truax

  Ivy fled down, down, down the spire’s stairs, running, slipping, recovering, all the while with one foot in the shadowy world belonging to scourge bracken and another desperate to escape it. She gripped the stolen parchment in shaking hands while eager fireflies buffeted in her wake. But her mind was on one thing only. Rowan—the image of his fall, his arms spread wide as if to catch the sky.

  Sobbing, she reached the dark stone streets. She raced, following the Flower Code directions Breaux had prepared, knowing the tide of Outriders was not far behind. Lavender and rosebud—taking a left, then right. Another lavender. All she had now, she found herself thinking, was movement—escape. Everything else was gone. If she kept moving, somehow she would get to Pimcaux. Somehow she would cure the King.

  Suddenly fiery eyes blinked amid the shifting shadows, and she suppressed a startled scream. She had stumbled upon the vultures’ fountain, now transformed by the scourge bracken within her into a crumbling, horrid thing. Black slime bubbled from the broken pipeworks, and tattered, dead vines encircled the statues. The great birds reared tall and awful, flapping their wings and letting loose flying embers that sizzled in the fountain’s well. She pressed against the wall, shutting her eyes and forcing herself to breathe calmly, until with a start she realized the doorway she was crouched in looked familiar. An ox head. It led to Snaith’s Irresistible Meals.

  Appallingly, Ivy heard the sound of wings beating above her, and she cringed, covering her head. The bird was very, very close, and truly awful in its size. She felt the wind from its approach and ducked, waiting for the slash of its sharp talons.

  Instead, a familiar hand.

  A warm one, infused with life, not steeped in shadow. In the way that good friends are always the best medicine, the hand pulled her up from the scourge-bracken reverie and seemingly plucked her back into the world of the living. She looked from between her fingers and gasped.