She grunted, challenging as ever, but Hark wouldn’t back down. She could smoke those wherever in the Wild World she pleased, but the kitchen was his kingdom and he’d be damned to let Kai’nese tobacco into it. After a moment he heard her crush the butt in the sink and felt her eyes on the back of his neck. “There’s a carafe of peach and raspberry tea in the icebox if you’re looking for something to fiddle with. This is going to take some time.”
She pulled out the carafe and poured a glass. “Hollowed don’t like to wait.” She slurped tea with the delicacy of a street urchin in finishing school; Hark bit the inside of his cheek. Four years they’d been working together, and there were still some days he wanted to throw her into the ocean.
“They’ll have to,” he replied, tasting sand and seaweed in the back of his throat. He patted the thoroughly spiced cut of godmeat with admiration. “She was one of the oldest, and she’ll take a long while to cook. To eat the Sea Mother raw would destroy them, their gullets breaking with storms, their blood boiling with salt.” He turned to smile at her, his sun-sharp grin unwavering in the face of her sternness. “They’ll let me take my time, or they’ll simply drown in the air.”
She shrugged, left her dirty glass on the counter, and walked out of the kitchen, weapons jangling against her hips.
Hark sighed, but didn’t let her immaturity distract him from the meal. Turning back to the godmeat, he placed it with care inside a circle of salt, lily petals, and steel shavings and set a timer, one of those fussy new clockwork pieces from across the Spidered Sea.
As he reveled in the satisfactory ticking of the copper mechanism, a pressure grew behind his eyes. He didn’t have time for this; there were side dishes to prepare. But he closed his eyes all the same.
In the darkness of his mind, a light grew. As his vision adjusted to the brightness, Hark stood before the Hollowed, seated in their gnarled thrones of wood, bone, and glass.
They numbered nine, and when they’d first approached him, they’d been little more than the idea of ghosts, fragile clouds pinned to a harsh sky. Now they were more than hale. Myriad Hells, they were practically robust. Skin had yet to solidify on all of them; rich flashes of crimson muscle and webbed veins ran through them, and Hark did his best not to stare. But the past four years of divine consumption had invested in them a very true sense of existence, and they were beyond eager to cement themselves back onto reality.
Where they came from exactly, Hark didn’t know, and he wasn’t stupid enough to ask. They’d introduced him to Spear, who he assumed was in it for the same reasons he was, and sent them off into the Wild World.
They’d sworn fortune in success, torture in failure, and so far they hadn’t backed down from either end of that promise. All it took in exchange was four years of murdering ancient godbeasts who kept the laws of reality in place, and serving them up for sumptuous dinner.
It only gnawed at Hark’s conscience in the beginning; concerns fell away once he began to revel in the art of the meal. Pride always had a way of replacing fear throughout his life.
In the center sat their leader, jawline red and exposed. The Golden King opened his crimson mouth, and his breath was a dry, foul wind in the psychic space.
“Where is our meal, chef? We hunger for the Sea Mother.” Every sound he made was a fat black fly tickling Hark’s nose. He shivered, as he always did.
The other Hollowed murmured their agreement, and Hark couldn’t stop his eyes from wandering across their thin bodies, their red muscles, their empty eye sockets: Mother of Knives, Fisher Knight, Father Flame, Hunter of Screams, Sister Rapture, the Visionary, Heart’s Crown, and Cloudbreaker. Each claiming to be a god, each hungry to be filled up again with the divine potential they once possessed and usher in a new age of the Wild World, each a nightmare to behold.
But he’d be damned if he was cowed by a gathering of impatient, hungry patrons who wanted him to skip to the end simply because their bellies were rumbling. To Hark, it didn’t matter if he was making a soup of fresh tomato, basil, and cream or a seared steak of the finest divine beast: he would serve when it was ready, and not a moment before.
He cleared his throat and folded his arms, staring into the empty eye sockets of the Golden King in what he hoped was a humble but imperious manner.
“Look here, my lord. It has been four years since you hired Spear and me to produce for you all the divine ingredients necessary for your actualization in the physical world. And have I even once, even for but the breath of a moment, served any of you your meal before it was ready?” The Hollowed sat still as syrup, and Hark could feel very real sweat leaking into existence on his forehead. But he had to forge ahead; you couldn’t very well stop churning the butter halfway through, could you?
“Your demands do not respect me. Your ignorance of the work I do continues to grate on my professionalism, and your aggression only demeans me as I work well beyond the methods of my culinary career in preparing that which you have asked of me.” He took a deep breath as each of the Hollowed sat taller in their chair, their bones rattling with rage. “Please know that I have no intention of dishonoring any of you, your positions, or your needs, but you must remember that while I am mortal, the work I do is divine and needs the proper patience. Else you’re wasting my time, Spear’s time, and, most importantly, your time.” He tried an old smirk on for size, one he used to give his line cooks when they would mouth off at him. “Or did you all think that you were immortal just yet?”
Their silence crawled over Hark. It would be insane for them to kill him, yes? Their contract was almost up, just one more after the Sea Mother, and—
Hark blinked, and found himself back in reality. A whisper in his ear, and a sensation like a wasp landing on the nape of his neck: Get it done and serve us.
Hark let out a shaky breath. His hands were gripping the marble counter with an intensity he reserved for cutting root vegetables. Then, a flat voice from the other room: “I told you they wouldn’t be happy.”
“Shut up, Spear.” He snatched up a rag and mopped his brow.
A sizzling to his left interrupted his terror. He looked up to see that the steel shavings, the salt, and the lily leaves had burnt away to a fine pink powder that pulsed like morning light on ocean stillness.
He sighed with relief, happy to throw himself back into his work. He lifted the cut of godmeat, scooped the bright powder into a glass vial, and went back to preparation. There were still hours to go before the Sea Mother was ready for consumption, but Hark didn’t mind. This was his calling, and he answered it gladly, even if the Hollowed did not respect it.
He hummed a song to himself as he worked and tried to forget that the world was one meal closer to ending.
The Hollowed may have had the ability to act like spoiled children, but they truly knew how to appreciate a meal when it reached their table.
Spear and Hark stood at attention while each of the Hollowed took a fair portion of the Sea Mother’s fillet; even from where he stood, Hark’s mouth watered at the smell of the steak, his eyes drinking in the velvet line between rare and medium-rare, his nostrils screaming at the scent of woodsmoke, sea salt, and hibiscus that lingered around the meal like swaddling robes. But the Sea Mother was not for him, and though it tantalized every aspect of his appetite, to taste of the godbeast would drive him mad.
As one, the Hollowed feasted, savoring every morsel of the ancient goddess that graced their palates, the taste of ages caramelizing in their mouths like apple butter, every bite releasing torrents of rainwater and storm winds into their stomachs, the long history of the Sea Mother playing out like an orchestra between their teeth. Coils of white lightning arced between the Hollowed as they ate, and in their eye sockets pulsed the night-blue light of hurricanes.
When the meal was finished, Hark watched the Golden King work his now full jaw back and forth, skin the color of midnight fully drawn over it, taut. Only his eyes remained empty, the sockets flashing the blue of the deep, as th
e power of the Sea Mother ran through him.
“Visionary,” he said, his voice booming like tidal waves crashing to the sand. “Tell me what you glimpse with the Sea Mother’s gaze.”
The Visionary’s nine eye sockets, arranged in a diamond across his copper face, all glowed with the hue of the ocean, and he sucked in a strangled breath of glee. “Ships, I see them! Numbering twelve, bedecked with cannons and steel, usurping the gift of wind do they travel on the Haljredan Strait, to make war upon their neighbors.”
The Golden King’s grin was infectious. “Father Flame. Speak to me of the sky.”
Father Flame’s fingers burned with the trembling spark of barely held lightning. His gums glowed like newborn embers on a fire and lit his smile from behind. “The clouds are swollen with heat. Oh, how they wish to dance!”
One by one, the Golden King questioned his brethren. With every answer he received, he only laughed, until the echoes around Hark made him sick to his stomach. He and Spear had not moved an inch, and dared not turn from the exultation of the Hollowed.
The Golden King held up a fist as dense and sharp as coral. “Her power is ours. The Sea Mother lives on in us, and so does her strength.” Hark could feel the Golden King warping the air in the room, increasing the pressure around them all in his corrupt joy. “Cloudbreaker! Pummel ships with hurricane winds. Father Flame! Strike coastlines alight with your lightning. Mother of Knives, corrode fisherman’s steel with salt. Fisher Knight, encircle boats with sharks and squids.” One by one, the Golden King commanded his brethren, smiling, as across the Wild World ships drowned, coasts were ravaged, cities were hammered by lightning, metal rusted away, and children were swept out to the deep.
The Golden King purred, satisfied, a lion among sheep. “Teach the Wild World that we are coming back.”
Hark heard a rattling sound. Turning his head just so, he glimpsed Spear. She stood at attention, her ankles pressed together, her arms behind her back. Her eyes bored ahead with a focus Hark envied. But when he looked closer, he could see that she shook, ever so slightly, her knives and daggers trembling with her. Hark saw the tightness in her jaw, the muscles in her neck bulging, her eyes only just wider than normal, and he realized: she was afraid.
Finally, he thought. Something I understand.
“Chef. Attend.” The Golden King’s voice was a hook in Hark’s lip, dragging him back to attention. “Do not for a moment think you may shirk focus simply because our contract is almost at an end.”
Hark bowed slightly from the waist. “Of course, my lord.”
“Delivered unto us have you eight Great Beasts of the Wild World. Through our veins flow their strength over its seas, its mountains, its creatures, its skies . . . ours to will, and to shape, and to crush.”
Hark couldn’t help but recount them, the Beasts he’d watched die, the dishes he’d made, had been happy to make. No other chef in all the Wild World had done what he had done. I melted the Sunsword into a soup. I sliced open the heart of the Iron Hound and boiled it for a pudding. I cracked the ribs of the Mountain Worm and garnished them with flowers. I baked the head of the Firestag and broke its antlers over my knee. I grilled the Sea Mother’s hide. Hark felt proud, and wondered for a brief moment what else sat within him just then, the ghost of an emotion that did not wish to speak its name but whose shape he knew and feared. He stuffed it down inside, deep and away. Now was no time for introspection.
“Our contract is almost fulfilled, hunter. Our contract is almost up, chef. There is no doubt in your minds as to who we seek to eat for the very last, is there?” The Golden King’s voice curdled hearts as it did milk, and Hark struggled to swallow the bile in his throat.
“The Messenger, my lord. The Great Beast of Death.”
The Hollowed sat and nodded, smiling at each other like small children, eager to have dessert. “Once we have consumed death, then no longer will death have the chance to consume us. Not again. With our immortality secured, we shall release you both.” The Golden King’s eyes narrowed, as though finally finding prey. “Though how long you survive in this world we make, that will be a mystery.”
Thank the dead Beasts for Spear, who filled the silence with a question. “The Messenger, then. Where does it speak now?”
The Golden King gestured to his siblings.
Cloudbreaker’s halo caught the candlelight, and when she glanced toward the sky, her brow shone like a broken mirror. Her empty eye sockets glazed over with golden light, letting the power of the Sunsword hawk fill her. After a moment she spoke. “South and south again, across Lament’s Rush and Once Mighty Drazbaadinmar, south, even further, pushing through the breast of Haddikstant and across the Iron Plains! The Messenger followed the scent of war horns and rattling sabers, drinking the carnage of clashing spears and skins. Now the Beast resides in the heart of the Ruined Lights, supping on the souls of the haunted wood.”
Cloudbreaker’s beatific smile did nothing to offset the sharpness of her teeth. “You’ll find the Beast there, bloated on the blood and smoke of the Plains. I await your concoction, chef.” Cloudbreaker snapped her jaws playfully.
The Golden King raised a hand. “Bring us death’s head on a platter and you will both know riches and sweet reward, to be enjoyed in the beautiful moments before our return. Come back with anything less and you’ll both know damnation. Are we clear?”
Spear jerked her head up, a sneer slicing her face. “I know how threats work. We’ll get it done, and then you’ll leave us alone.” Spear grabbed Hark’s arm and pulled him back with her, both of them tumbling out of the psychic space.
Hark broke his arm free of Spear’s grip. “They’ve killed people for less, Spear!”
Spear glowered at him, unblinking. She spat on the floor and got to her feet. “And I’ve killed people for less than that. They don’t scare me,” she said, as though she wasn’t just trembling before them. She started to walk toward the supply pantry, which doubled as her armory. “C’mon. Let’s do this, then.”
Hark grabbed a handkerchief from the counter and wiped away Spear’s spittle before getting to his feet and following.
Thanks to reality-bending Persuasion Workers, the pantry was almost fifty feet deep, and on each wall, their tools; Hark had the right wall for his utensils and Spear had the left for her weapons. Already she was running her fingers across the steel that waited, tracing the edge of a sword, testing the heft of a flail. Hark stood at the other wall, his neuroses making his fingers itch. He always got antsy whenever Spear picked her weapons; it reminded him of the old days, when he’d smack wrists and crack knuckles, expecting perfection of the young charges in his restaurant as they learned to sharpen knives, learned which blade worked for which cut. That he didn’t know anything of her tools made him anxious.
After a few moments Spear turned to face him, already done. She had her arms crossed and an eyebrow raised; with the sheer amount of weapons she’d strapped to her body, she resembled nothing less than a steel porcupine.
“Are you really going to need all of those?” Hark asked, regretting it immediately. She glowered, and he was reminded of just how little he knew of her. Neither of them were very friendly people, and whatever polite inquiry he made into her past she tamped down like a stray spark, as though a friendly question could make her catch fire. Though if he were honest with himself, if she bothered to ask him anything, he’d probably do the same.
“I was thinking of bringing nothing, but then I remembered I’m hunting the Great Beast of Death, which has been around since the inception of the concept of the Wild World, so I reconsidered.”
Hark scowled, running a hand across his stubbly scalp; shaving his dreadlocks cut down on how much gray he saw each day. “Fine, be a bitch. What do I care? After you murder this thing and I cook it into art, we’ll be rid of each other.”
At this point she’d normally shove past him, go to the rune in the foyer, and be gone, leaving him to prepare the recipe and side dishes until she ret
urned with the Beast in tow. Instead she stood there and would not look away from his eyes, ringed as they were with wrinkles and creases. “What are you looking at?” he said, his heart turning stony and cold at the attention of such a hard-bitten woman.
She scowled, picking her nose and then moving the same finger behind her ear. “I’m looking.”
Hark folded his arms and crouched his chin into his chest, embarrassed suddenly, and feeling oddly petulant. “For what? My coin purse, no doubt, you mongrel woman. I bet you’ll never be satisfied, even after you’ve murdered the last Great Beast and are awash in gold and steel!”
Spear snorted, and then in a sudden motion took Hark around the shoulders and pulled him close, into a hug, tight; he could feel various weapons poking him in places he did not wish to be poked. “There it is! Oh, there it is, Hark. I see it now. Sometimes you hide it, but I know it’s always there.”
His heart leaping at the physical contact, he recoiled and shoved out of her embrace, almost knocking over a cart of bowls and utensils. “What in the Myriad Hells are you talking about? Are you drunk? Did you sneak into my wine cellar when I wasn’t looking? I bet you did!”
She laughed again, higher, and Hark sensed a mania he did not like. Spear’s eyes shone with a sinister light, and Hark began to fold in on himself as she advanced, her shadow falling across him. “I guess you could say I drank madness and developed a taste for it. It’s easy to go mad when you have nothing left to live for.” She sidled closer, leaning down until her hot breath danced by his ear. “I used to have a lot to live for. But the Hollowed saw to that: reached right through reality and burned it all down with everyone inside. So I’d rather just fucking work for them and die than try to pretend I have anything left to live for; let them crumble the world to cinders. My own world is already ash.
“But you?” she hissed. “I know all about you; I’ve read up on you. You don’t want the world to end because you hate it. You don’t even care about the world. You’re just bored and beaten down. Bitter. Arrogant. Lonely. And the Hollowed gave you a challenge. Who cares if you help bring about the apocalypse? You’ll have done something no one else has done. You’ll be able to step on the necks of all those who told you that you’d fail.”
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019 Page 45
