Ambrosia

by Aaron Lee Yeager

  Seeing the coin sitting there, still empty, Agaprei stood up, holding her hands out and praying at the top of her voice.

  “Great Godfather, you have called for beastmen to worship your glory. Well, here I am, willing and ready to worship and serve. I will sing your songs, I will proclaim your glory, I will be your voice. You accept the prayers of my family, but not mine, and I do not understand why. What have I done? What evil have I committed? What fault do you find with me that is not within my kin? Please, I don’t understand. I want to understand. What is wrong with me? I will do anything you ask of me, just tell me what to do and I will do it!”

  But still the coin just sat there in maddening silence.

  Clenching her fists, Agaprei kicked over the stool and lifted her head in song. Her voice was pure, transcendent, as beautiful as her mother’s and as energetic as her sister’s. She closed her eyes and sang the lerí thálassa, a hauntingly beautiful song in the ancient tongue, mournful and defiant.

  The song finished, she opened her eyes slowly in anticipation.

  The coin sat there, as empty as she felt.

  “See? Told you,” Kaia gruffed.

  Agaprei went over to a chest and took out a covered box.

  Kaia clucked her tongue. “Oh, what now?”

  Agaprei uncovered the box, revealing a mechanical instrument within, a spring-driven harmonic drum running along the spine and timed keys that moved the pads on wooden fluted apertures. “I’ve been working on this for a while. Studying the notes you and mom use when you spellcast. Plotting out the pitch and timing. With this, I can now recreate your songs flawlessly.”

  Kaia knelt down and looked at the device. “I seriously can’t believe we’re sisters. I feel like we have nothing in common.”

  Agaprei made a few last minute adjustments. “It’s basically a mechanically driven hurdy-gurdy,” she explained. “These gears are accurate to within a micrometer.”

  “So what? It’s not like math matters.”

  “Of course math matters. In medicine, it’s all about measurements. X amount of something is curative, Y amount of the same thing is poison. Even things like air and water can be hurtful if taken in too large an amount. Trees and plants grow following yadira algorithms. Animals grow based on the template built into each of their cells. You ever look at a sea shell? A perfect logarithmic spiral with a golden ratio The movements of the moon and stars all follow mathematically-based patterns. Even music is mathematical. Pluck a string it makes a note, divide it in half it makes the same note but one octave higher. All the notes from the musical scale come from simple fractions between 2 to 1 ratio. Everything is mathematics.”

  “You’re starting to sound like one of those filthy Alchemists from Erotan. Magic isn’t something you think or measure, it’s something you feel. It’s a part of your soul.”

  “If everyone thought like you, we’d all still be living in grass huts,”

  “I happen to like grass huts.”

  “Of course you do.”

  Agaprei wound up the device. “All right, here we go.”

  She set it down before the altar, and the music box began to chime out its song. It was like a metronome, exacting and mechanical, perfectly timed and flawlessly toned.

  But still, the coin remained quiet and empty.

  Agaprei looked on, shocked. “But…I don’t get it. This was supposed to work. This should work. My box is playing a mathematically perfect song. Nothing is being done incorrectly, why isn’t this working?”

  “Ugh, here, I’ll do it.”

  Kaia swatted aside up the music box and knelt down before the altar, beginning her prayers anew.

  Agaprei sat on the couch, lost in her thoughts as Zaan said his goodbyes and accepted the four coins into the golden chest. Lachan’s coin was particularly bright, a fact Naenia noted with pointed irritation.

  In her mind, Agaprei mapped out the notes in graphs, measured the timing in meters, rated the cadence in volume, and was still unable to find the solution. She had controlled for every variable she could think of, and yet the gods still rejected her prayers, her songs effected nothing but a pleasant tune.

  What am I doing wrong?

  She barely noticed when her parents shooed her sister away and sat beside her.

  “Honey, your father and I need to talk to you.”

  She looked up at her mother with tired eyes. “What about?”

  Naenia and Lachan looked at each other in concern.

  “Sweetie, having dreams is fine and all, but they need to be realistic.”

  “Realistic? But, don’t you see? When I become a champion, you can finally quit your job at the flour mill. Dad can finally leave that horrible job in the marrow mines. We’ll be made-men, our entire family. This isn’t just for me, this is for all of us.”

  “Really, sweetie, what you are trying to do is very sweet, and thoughtful, but…”

  “But you need to understand, you have limitations,” her father added. “We all have limitations, without exception. Just because you set your heart on something, just because you work as hard as you can, doesn’t mean you can get it. You have to be pragmatic and play to your strengths.”

  Agaprei looked down sadly. “Look, I…I know I’ve messed up a lot, and I know I let you down. I know I hurt you when I left school. I took out all those loans from the godfather, and then I just walked away from it. That was my choice, and that was my fault. I am responsible for the consequences of that choice.”

  She looked up and took her mother’s hand. “This is my chance to make it right, to pay the debt I owe you and balance the scales. You guys have been such great parents to me, through all the hard times, you were always there for me. Even when I hurt you, you still loved me. And I haven’t been a good daughter. There’s something wrong with me…there’s always been something wrong with me.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

  “Yes, there is, and this will fix it, I just know it. This is my chance to be there for you like you’ve always been there for me.”

  Her father looked at her regretfully. “If you really feel that way, then you’ll stop this champion nonsense.”

  Agaprei withdrew her hands mournfully. “I can’t believe you two. On the eve of my debut as a potential champion, you’re going to pull the rug out from under me?”

  “We’re not trying to pull anything. The truth is there never was a rug to begin with. Now, we’ve supported you in this quest to find yourself or whatever this is, but this has gone on long enough. It’s time to go back to your medical apprenticeship.”

  “Not yet. You haven’t seen what I can do. The gods haven’t seen what I can do.”

  She stood up and walked over to the sink, running her fingers through her lavender hair. “You should have seen me today. I was incredible. Most of them couldn’t even lay a finger on me. I’m finally ready to make the gods see me for who I really am.”

  As she drew near, her mother’s spell dissipated and the ghostly knives turned to vapor.

  Lachan stood up and came up behind her. “Honey, I’m your father, and you need to hear this, no matter how painful it is to hear…”

  He looked away regretfully.

  “…No god is going to want a siren who can’t use magic.”

  Chapter Eleven

  I looked again and I beheld a great contest in the heavens between the elder gods and Vasiliás, first born of the titans, who had kindled the stars with his light. He locked hands with Sirend, and the heavens trembled with the power thereof. Their words like earthquake, their countenance like thunder, the planet Aster was crushed beneath their feet, scattering round the sun in a great belt of rubble where it remains still.

  But for all their might, neither could prevail.

  Then, Reinala, wife of Sirend, found her way behind the great titan, and plunged her dagger into his neck. He howled at the betrayal, his black blood splattering like great droplets upon the moon, and no longer was it a clear orb without
blemish as it had once been, but a scarred and filthy disk.

  Then Vasiliás fell to the earth, his corpse landing in the continent of Garralos, where his bones bleach to this day.

  - Final Testimony of Yadira the Seer, recorded H.B. 109

  Acantha whittled away at the nearly toppling stack of paperwork in her cramped, dank little office. The only decoration was a single, hand-written note tacked to the wall from the goddess. It read, “I was not wholly disappointed this time.”

  There was a knock at the door and it swung inwards, nearly knocking over a plate of uneaten food from the night before.

  “High Priestess, you have been summoned,” Piers explained.

  She looked up, her reading glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose. “Mmm?”

  Acantha stretched as she walked down the hall, weaving in and out between the scaffoldings and ladders of the countless construction workers expanding the temple. She reached out to run her fingers over the new golden moldings and velvety tapestries. She took a moment to straighten her robes, then opened the doors to the main hall.

  “You summoned me, my goddess,” she said obediently, bowing reverently.

  “Do I look like a goddess to you?”

  She looked up, surprised to see Storgen sitting on the throne, a cluster of guards around him.

  “What is this guttersnipe doing on the throne?”

  Storgen glanced down at his backside. “Sitting, I believe.”

  “Get off of it, you eunuch, get off it this instant.”

  Storgen nonchalantly flipped open the arm of the throne, revealing several blank magical contracts stored within. “I’m keeping it warm for Ambera.”

  Acantha glanced over at Nyfitsa, who was anxiously wiping sweat from his face. “Is this true?”

  “I’m afraid it is. One of the conditions of his contract allows him to sit on the throne to keep it warm.”

  “He fought surprisingly hard for it during contract negotiations with the goddess,” Piers mentioned. “No one really knows why.”

  Storgen took out one of the contracts and stuffed it into his shirt, then settled himself deeper into the satiny pillows. “It’s so soft, you should try it.”

  “You darken this holy place with your filthy presence.”

  “We really need to work on your people skills.”

  Acantha put her hands on her hips. “Where is the goddess? I was summoned.”

  “She didn’t summon you. I did.”

  “You?”

  “Indubitably, I have something for you to do.”

  “Something for me to do?”

  “Yes, a special task, one for which you are specifically skilled and trained.”

  Acantha’s eyes went wide. “Oh no, you mean you want me to…?”

  Storgen leaned back in satisfaction. “That’s right. As champion to the goddess, you cannot deny me.”

  Acantha threw a harsh glance around the room. “Who told him he could order me around?”

  Piers looked away, feigning innocence.

  Storgen leaned forward, a smirk of satisfaction on his face. “Do you remember what you said to me the first time we met?”

  She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I believe I told you that you were a waste of space, that I hate that you breathe the same air that I do, that your value as an individual ranks somewhere between barnacles and blood ticks, that you are the human equivalent of an eyelid boil.”

  “See, that’s what I like about you. You are so refreshingly honest about your feelings. And I never forgot what you said…”

  “Ugh, enough, let’s just get on with it. The sooner this is over the better. I have work to do.”

  Acantha reached up to her golden clasps and prepared to undress.

  “What are you doing?” Storgen asked.

  “What does it look like, you moron? You don’t expect me to do this with my clothes on, do you?”

  “What precisely do you think I am requesting?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? You want to prove you’re not a eunuch by forcing me to sleep with you. You want to show off what an alpha male you are by engaging in intimate worship with the highest ranking female in the temple.”

  Storgen crinkled his nose. “Is that really your opinion of me?”

  “Well, yes of course it is.”

  She looked around, growing insecure. “Why? Is that not what you want?”

  “No!”

  Acantha shook her head in confusion. “Well, then, what am I here for?”

  Storgen reached down for a bundle and threw it at her feet. “I need someone to cover my shift at the pita hut so I can attend my champion classes.”

  Acantha bent down and picked up the crusty fox costume, holding it out in front of herself in horror.

  “You want me…to wear this?”

  “As the High Priestess to Ambera, it’s only fitting that you wear the uniform of the sacred fox. It’s poetic justice, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Acantha stood there, unable to speak.

  Storgen leaned back. “The manager’s name is Ransu. He’ll give you the fliers to pass out. He’s a really nice guy.”

  “But…”

  “Off you go, then.”

  Stunned, the High Priestess slowly walked out of the sanctum.

  As soon as the doors closed, Nyfitsa stepped up to Storgen.

  “All right, Mister Storgen, your shift has been covered to ensure no disruption to your employment; now no more stalling. You haven’t attended a single class yet.”

  “I’m not stalling, these are important matters that you are contractually obligated to respect as legal counsel to the corporation that bears my name.”

  “We fed you a special all-meat meal with specific brizóla meat flown in to satisfy your “religious” views…”

  “I’m a delicious-itarian.”

  “…we let you bathe in a private bathhouse to maintain your hygiene and privacy issues, with custom-made placards to avoid triggering your PTSD…”

  “I identify as an emperor when I bathe.”

  “…we provided ample notice to your next of kin by certified courier to prevent any emotional trauma should they need to contact you during your classes…”

  “Pops really likes singing telegrams with princess costumes.”

  “…we even let you sleep an extended ten hours so that you would be at optimal mental performance. Now, get in that classroom!”

  “I wasn’t sleeping, I was meditating.”

  “You were sleeping, I know the difference.”

  “Hey, these are your bureaucracy rules, why blame me for them?”

  The Justicar tapped his ring and Storgen was again imprisoned in ghostly stocks, the guards lifting him up free from the throne.

  “Wait, there’s one more thing we have to do first.”

  “Oh…my…goodness what NOW?!”

  “I have to use the bathroom.”

  “Just hold it.”

  “And cause abdominal distress and loss of concentration? Not to mention the emotional anguish when I lose control of my bladder in the middle of my instruction. Do you really want to be legally culpable for such an event?”

  “Fine, but just use the men’s room in the hall. No special placards this time.”

  “I am disgusted at your emperor-phobia.”

  “GO!”

  With a twist of the ring Storgen was set free. Two soldiers followed him into the wash room, while another two guarded the door.

  Storgen stepped in and looked around. Beyond the stalls there was a beautiful stained glass window of Ambera being anointed goddess of the harvest by Sirend himself. A construction worker adjusted his painting smock as he washed his hands.

  “Come on, hurry up,” the guard said, pushing Storgen forward.

  “You guys make me feel so safe.”

  As he stepped up to the bathroom trough and gathered the toga material out of the way, the two guards flanked him on either side.

  “You guys have been nice
to me, so I’ll give you a choice,” Storgen said coolly.

  “A choice?”

  Storgen set his clothes back into place and walked over to the sink to wash his hands. “In five seconds I’m going to jump out that window. Now, you can either let me go, or you can get hurt before you let me go.”

  Realizing what he was implying, the guards reached for their weapons.

  Storgen sighed. “Why do they always choose the ‘get hurt’ option?”

  Storgen threw out his elbow, catching the first man in the throat. He crumpled to the ground, clutching his neck as his compatriot drew his weapon and slashed. Storgen ducked below it, side-stepped a dagger thrust, then punched the man in the groin with his cast.

  Outside in the hall, Nyfitsa dug out his handkerchief and dabbed his wet face. “Oh my, I’m usually more composed than that. Something about this man just makes me lose my patience.”

  Piers chuckled. “Yeah, he does that to people.”

  There was a crash inside that startled them all. Piers threw open the door and found two guards unconscious on the floor, the stained glass window smashed through.

  “He’s loose!”

  Nyfitsa almost tripped over himself trying to get a better look. “He’s escaped?! Uh, quick, sound the alarm, track him down immediately!”

  As guards ran in all directions, dodging around the workers and artisans as they rushed outside to pick up his trail. The alarm bells rung out, and armored hoplites filtered out of the guardhouse. The crystal perimeter fences fully energized, crackling with ruinous energies.

  The washroom emptied, Storgen dropped down from his hiding spot among the rafters and adjusted the painter’s smock he now wore. He walked over to a stall where he had hidden the unconscious construction worker, and snatched off the man’s hat before closing the door again.

  Donning the hat, Storgen slipped out into the hall and grabbed some paints, disappearing among the countless workers.

  Winded from waddling through the corridors, Justicar Nyfitsa sat down on his chubby haunches and struggled to remove the lid from a bottle of medication.

  “What’s all this ruckus?”