Magic Banquet (9 page)

In an embrace with the empress, Aja’s
fingers strayed to Ryn’s shawl, then beneath it. Could Aja really
be a hero for something so easy as stealing a hair? The empress
flitted away before anything could be done.

The eel fluttered in Aja’s belly. Something
popped, a jolt, a spark, and a zinging ripple passed through her.
The next time felt even better. She had to wiggle her shoulders
with the thrill of it.

She stuffed all the caviar she could into
her mouth. Then it was gone. Sprawling on the carpet, she held her
stomach and giggled. Each time the eel tickled her, colors spread
from the hanging lamps like spilled paint. Azure and saffron and
auburn and vermillion.

A lifting sensation, and the carpet swayed
beneath her. Maybe she was floating. Then the lamps slid away, and
she sat up to see it was true. The carpet had risen from the floor.
It carried the guests into the darkness.

“To the next course!” Someone shouted
it.

Aja threw her hands up. “Faster!
Faster!”

She could see nothing. Maybe she should be
afraid. Aja had never liked running blind. But this was all
movement and freedom. The carpet whisked her forward.

Light split vertically from an opening door.
Not the sliding, screeching door of a warehouse but the vaulted
doors of a palace. The djinn threw them open. The carpet flew the
guests inside a ballroom.

The moon was huge in the waterfall windows.
Each star shone close, as if just outside, with four spines of
light. Inside, hundreds of lamps dangled from the ceiling on a web
of gold chains. A fire of amber coated the walls. Gilt and gemstone
sculptures depicted gods eating. Some had animal heads, others six
or more arms with which to hold food.

“Hahaha!” Aja cried out. This was everything
she had hoped.

The carpet settled down beside a table.
There waited the Chef.

Side Dish:

SOLIN’S TALE

Don’t know any stories. None fit for a
kingly meal like this. If I must speak, I’ll tell of where I was
born. Hoathas, the City of Gold.

Every morning the first to wake are the
bees. The sky brightens with their yellow bands. You can feel their
buzz in the stones under your feet. The air throbs with their wings
as they fly from rooftop to rooftop, from garden to garden.

Each home in Hoathas blooms with color.
Flowers cover the roofs. Women sing while gardening. Their voices
match pitch with the bees, then harmonize. No other city is as full
of sound and color.

Men balance jugs on their heads. They pour
water on the garden blooms, return to refill at the Gargantuan
River. The river is so wide that some call it a sea. Boats flock
the piers, and cold coin is traded for our honey gold.

Everyone in the city has their place, their
task. The Purests sing in their walled-off garden and remember the
time before. In these evil days, some women must carry weapons.
They are the stingers. They protect the city.

Men are not allowed to walk the streets
unaccompanied. It would not be right. They carry their jugs through
the undercity, the filthways. There it is cool and wet. After a day
of work, mud cakes up to your chest.

At night, the city turns green from the
light of fireflies. They glow in the street lamps. They twinkle
inside every window. Night is a rich time. To celebrate life. Women
wear their best feather dresses and dance. Laughter tinkles from
the towers. All is peace.

I may never return to Hoathas. My city would
no longer welcome me.

Fifth Course:

FORBIDDEN FRUIT

SERVED WITH LOTUS TEA

“You can choose but one.”

The Chef flourished a hand down the table.
Glass canopies enclosed individual fruits in shrines. Aja touched
the glass protecting a melon. The rind had tiger stripes in shades
of green.

She asked, “What are they?”

The Chef wiped off a finger smudge she had
left on the glass. “That is the Melon of Ferocity.”

He introduced each caged fruit in turn. The
guests crowded around him to see, though Aja stayed well clear of
his column legs.

“The Pear of Love.

“The Cherries of Happiness.

“The Plum of Beauty.”

Was this fruit her answer? Everyone welcomed
the beautiful. Aja leaned so close to the plum she fogged the glass
with a burst of breath. The richness of the fruit’s color made it
dark with a shine of purple satin. Its shapely flesh curved around
its stem to meet at a crease. Aja stretched her fingers around its
crystal cage. She ached, not in her stomach but her heart.

She would’ve cried out to claim the Plum of
Beauty if not for the line of fruit still to be named.
I
shouldn’t choose too soon
.

Above the fruits, flowers abounded in vases.
Their petals glittered with a candy crust. The colors on display
seemed to float above a table of stark black and white. Its inlay
of geometric jasmine and moth patterns had a lavish gloss.

The Chef announced, “The Pepper of
Death.

“The Pomegranate of Fertility.”

The swordsman said, “Wait, what was that
last one? Not the pomegranate.”

“The Pepper of Death?” The Chef gestured at
a fruit long and white like a dead witch’s nose.

“Yeah. I have another question.” The
swordsman scratched the back of his head. The magic in the kraken
meat had unlocked his hands, too.
“Why?”

The Chef looked offended. “A goddess grew
the Pepper to discourage Coyote from stealing from her garden. Now
if I may continue, this is the Banana of Stature.”

Old Janny cackled at that one.

“The Kiwi of Intelligence.

“The Orange of Vitality.

“The Fig of Free Will.”

“But we already have free will,” Aja said. A
scholar had taught her that in school.

“That’s what you think,” the swordsman said,
without taking his eyes off the fig. The dark red pod had the
wrinkled texture of an elephant’s trunk.

“Please show respect to the fruit,” the Chef
said. “Now, this is the Papaya of Liberation.

“The Orange of Health.

“The Melon of Bounty.”

The empress’s voice soared over his. “A
bounty of baby birds? Or ribbons? Or snowflakes? Would they fly out
of my mouth after I took a bite?”

The swordsman stood behind her and crossed
his arms. “You have to tell us what happens when we eat these.”

The Chef glared at him in a way that could
bring water to a boil. “Having dined on kraken is no excuse for
your disrespect. The magic in seafood lowers self-control, but you
chose to eat more than you could manage.”

The swordsman said, “If we can’t control
ourselves, who’s choosing?”

“Concerning this melon,” the Chef said, “a
village suffering from five years of drought sacrificed all their
first-born sons, and a jade-skinned god created the Melon of Bounty
to feed the land.”

Solin rapped his crutch against the floor.
“I know that tale.”

The Chef bore the full weight of his glower
on him. Solin went on speaking anyway.

“They cut the melon, and a flood poured out.
Killed them all. Turned the wasteland fruitful.”

The swordsman took a step away from the
melon, pulling the empress with him. “You mean if we sliced that in
here, it’d drown us?”

The melon had a yellow rind. Aja peered at
it. An inner glow sloshed within. She jerked her head back. Was the
Chef trying to serve them a flood?

He gave no explanation. He stomped to the
next glass alter. “The Dragonfruit of Maturity.”

The Chef moved on. Aja couldn’t look away.
The dragonfruit dazzled with the colors of a fireball, a magenta
shell trailing green leaves. She thought this might be a better
choice than the plum. The beautiful were gossiped about on the
rooftops. People should take Aja seriously.

An itching sensation spread down her back.
The lord leaned behind her in his crimson coat.

“Maturity is appealing at first blush.” He
nodded to the dragonfruit. “But it’s sure to be dry and
unsatisfying.”

She pressed a strand of her hair against her
lips. “Maybe I should choose the Plum of Beauty. But a scholar told
me, ‘Beauty is but the rind of the mind.’”

“Beauty is the only virtue,” the lord said.
“When you’re beautiful, you are also wise, kind, and soulful.
Everyone will be quick to tell you so.”

His face gave no sign of teasing, not that
she could see. Aja looked back to the plum, and her fingers
clenched with her hunger. She decided she was already more mature
than the empress and Old Janny anyway.
This is my one chance to
be beautiful.

She caught up with the Chef in time to hear
about the next fruits.

“The Blueberries of Muse.

“The Apple of Youth.”

“That’s for me!” Old Janny engulfed the case
with her arms. Kissing it, she said, “You’ve waited so long for me,
you rake, but shush now. Momma’s here.”

“A treasure indeed,” the lord said. “The one
thing that doesn’t improve with age is everything.”

“Go eat the killer pepper, you well-dressed
leech.” Old Janny slapped a hand over the glass handle, a sculpture
of an apple tree. Her arm tensed. Adding a second hand to the grip,
she strained. The case did not budge.

“You must wait your turn,” the Chef said.
“The first choice goes to Lord Tethiel.”

“A man should never go first,” Old Janny
said. “That’s as fair as drunk-wrestling a buttered dwarf. I’m a
lady.”

The Chef said, “This Banquet grants due
respect to elders.”

Old Janny’s wrinkles told of a long life
spent smiling. The lord’s face was smooth as a mask. He didn’t look
older, but he smelled faintly of stone tombs, gnarled trees, and
other ancient things.

A sudden pain bowed Aja over.
I’m the
youngest here.
Or, even if she wasn’t, they would never let her
choose before the empress.

Aja would pick last.

Her gaze snapped back to the Plum of Beauty.
She had to touch its dark smoothness, to taste its power. It looked
so exposed, covered only by glass. Someone else would take it. They
would eat it in front of her, and she would have to watch its red
juices dribbling down a beautiful face.

Fifth Course,
Part II:

Choices, Choices

The Apple of Youth filled its crystal case
with a glittering mist. Beads of condensation clung to its gold
skin. The lord caressed its transparent cage, and his fingers left
etching scrawls.

He withdrew his hand. “No, I’m a man of
moderation and will allow myself only one unforgivable excess.”

Old Janny twitched as if stung by hope.

“I choose none.” The lord stepped away from
the table. To Old Janny he said, “Your apple if you wish it, my
dumpling.”

Aja cupped the back of her head. How could
anyone walk away from food so precious? He had to have magic of his
own.

Old Janny trundled forward and touched the
glass handle. The case floated upward in her hand. Her breath came
in ragged bursts while the Chef spoke in a solemn voice.

“The Apple of Youth, plucked by the hand of
a goddess from a garden of frost. Eat only the sweet flesh of this
fruit, and with the reverence due….”

Old Janny slammed the apple in her mouth and
chomped in gushy bites. Her tears mixed with the apple juice
rolling down her chin. The gusto in devouring the fruit didn’t
surprise Aja. They both had eaten of the kraken, and Aja would do
the same when she laid hands on the Plum of Beauty.

All the guests but Old Janny turned to
Solin. With grey in his hair, he had to be the next eldest. He
moved beside the line of fruit, his good foot touching down
followed by two bronze-capped crutches. Their pole ends sank into
the carpet. The silver stitching had become a garden paradise with
explosions of sterling flowers and birds feathered in extravagance.
Aja thought it the best design yet.

Solin approached her plum. Aja told herself
not to fear. She wouldn’t worry. He probably wouldn’t choose it,
though he had passed almost all the fruit. The tiger-striped melon
would be his, or the pear, or the cherries. Yes, the Cherries of
Happiness
.
He needed those.

His crutches stopped in front of the plum.
He swung himself around to face the fruit.

Next he would turn, lean, and reach for the
cherries. He had to.

He removed the plum’s casing.

“No!” Aja reached out.

The Chef said something about the Plum of
Beauty. Solin raised it to his lips. He inhaled as if smelling a
flower.

“Don’t.” Aja had to say something, anything
to make him choose a different fruit. “It…it’ll turn you into a
woman.”

“Could the plum have such power?” Solin
asked.

“No, that’s the Cumquat of Transformation,”
the Chef said. “Was no one listening?”

Solin was gripping her plum. She knew he
would bruise it, waste it. Outrage steamed up Aja’s throat and
seared her tongue.