Magic Banquet

by A. E. Marling

  The chalice tipped over. The red elixir flowed out, touched the carpet, then looped back into the air as a liquid snake.

  The drink wriggled back into the cup. Aja gasped, and her bracelets clicked together as she wrung her hands. What was happening? Silver strands in the rug flashed. The chalice righted itself, all the elixir back inside. Aja had never seen magic before, but this had to be the best kind.

  Maybe none of the other guests had noticed the spill. Aja forced her eyes up from the carpet to their faces. They all were staring. Not at Aja, at her upright chalice.

  The empress cried out in a note of delight. She knocked over her own cup, and the elixir circled around her hand in liquid beads on its way back. “Such a loyal drink.”

  The swordsman said, “Didn’t know we’d be eating on a magic carpet. Is the cook an enchantress?”

  “He is many things,” the djinn said. “The Chef will introduce himself when the jewel frogs are ready.”

  The empress tipped her glass over a second time. She tittered and snuck her arms around Aja. “We’re going to be friends, aren’t we? Closer than kittens and fur.”

  Aja squirmed. No one had hugged her for years. Bigger children had only tackled her to take her food. She had needed to kick and shove them away. Her arms tensed.

  “I’m not allowed to see many people my age.” The empress’s touch was so light that she encircled Aja not with pressure, only warmth. “Please say we’ll be friends.”

  Everything rolled about Aja in dizziness. Was this really happening? “Yes, I—I think I’d like that.”

  “Jubilation!”

  “Oh, my name is Aja.”

  “Ahh-ja!” The empress sang the name, and her veil puffed out from her mouth. “It’s perfect.”

  Vibrations ran through Aja’s chest from the empress’s voice. Every muscle in Aja’s body relaxed. She had never met someone with so much song in her. Staying would be worth it to hear her name serenaded again. People often yelled Aja’s name, or jeered her with it. They never just spoke it. Not for a long time.

  The empress’s humming warmth was torn away when she turned to the swordsman. He held out some roc egg. The empress took a crumbly bite. She laughed with him. She talked to the other guests, even the man with the crutches. She embraced them all, told them they must be friends. She never glanced back at Aja.

  That hurt. Like a camel stepping on a toe. But it made more sense to Aja. They weren’t really friends. Aja tucked her knees against her chest and slouched over them. She began to drown in the pattering talk and clink of plates.

  All chatter silenced. The guests paused to gaze into the warehouse’s darkness. Aja held her breath, along with the rest.

  The lamplight weakened. Shadows slid over the corners of the rug. Around the dishes, the insect wings glimmered with the venomous colors of vipers. Aja could tell something was coming, but what? Or who? Five guests had already arrived. One empty pillow remained.

  First Course, Part III:

  The Sixth Guest

  The darkness parted around a man dressed in blood, with a hornet on his chest. No, that couldn’t be true. Aja gulped and looked again. He wore a satin coat with a black orchid tucked into his lapel.

  “Good evening.” His eyes were two points of lamplight. “I apologize for not arriving later, but sometimes punctuality cannot be helped.”

  Old Janny groaned, then chugged her elixir. “One night of bliss, that’s all I wanted. And now it’s ruined.”

  The swordsman flexed his fingers around his hilt. Gripping it, letting go. He pulled the blade half over his shoulder, then rammed it back into place. He sucked his lips between his teeth, thrusting out his chin at the lord.

  “It would be rude to draw your sword at dinner,” the lord said.

  “I’d be rude to you,” the swordsman said, “if it’d do any good.”

  “True. I’m impervious to manners.”

  The swordsman touched the empress’s shoulder. “We should go.”

  “You promised an adventure,” the empress said. She leaned from him to Aja and cupped a hand around her ear. “Do you think the lord recognizes me?”

  “This lord isn’t the Chef, is he?” Aja asked. The man in satin looked powerful enough to command a djinn.

  The lord answered for her. “An insightful question, but like most insights it is wrong.”

  “A wrong insight has to be an outsight,” the empress said.

  The lord tapped a finger to his red lips. Embroidered dragons battled each other over his glove. He winked at the empress.

  She had to be right. The lord knew her. Most of the guests seemed to have met before, even though tales of the Midnight Banquet told of strangers becoming friends. Aja worried she was already the odd one out. The lord had gazed past her even when answering her question.

  The swordsman swung the empress into his arms. He carried her away from the lord.

  “No! No! No!” She slapped at the swordsman’s arms. “I’ll never have another night of freedom.”

  “I forbid you from taking her,” the lord said, “and so impoverishing our dinner conversation.”

  “We’re not going to sit and eat with you.” The swordsman slung the empress over his shoulder, and he reached into the darkness with his free hand. He groped forward, walking out of view. “Now where’d that door go?”

  Aja couldn’t see it either. She propped herself up on one knee. Her muscles tensed. She grabbed a few squares of dried apricot, ready to run after the swordsman and the empress.

  On the other side of the carpet, a figure stepped back into the light, chin first. It was the swordsman, carrying the empress in a veil. He looked surprised to have returned to the Banquet from the other direction. He glanced behind, then swung a glare onto the lord.

  “What did you do?”

  “Me? Nothing.” The lord nodded for them to sit. “I didn’t need to.”

  Aja said, “You must’ve drunk the elixir. Now you can’t leave.”

  No one seemed to hear her. They all listened to the lord.

  “We have no choice,” he said, “but to savor this dinner together. We must each introduce ourselves. Tell a tale of who you are and where you’re from. Strangers are far too polite to each other. We must learn more if there’s any hope of becoming true friends and truer enemies.”

  The empress spoke first. She talked about mercury and cruel mothers. Aja thought the empresses didn’t always make sense, unless it was in a musical way. The other guests told their stories. The swordsman introduced himself while Aja ate a tasty grape with its seeds replaced with anise spice. She missed his name and was sorry for it. He sounded honest, if a bit silly.

  The man with the bad leg never gave his name, not that she heard. He didn’t talk about himself at all, and his voice had a rough sadness to it. Old Janny spoke with coarse jolliness, her bright turban bobbing. The tightness in Aja’s face eased enough for her to grin.

  They all waited for her to speak. What could she say to all these well-dressed, well-fed adults? They would look down on her. Aja turned to the empress and told her about an alley cat named Hyena. The other girl smiled, and the rest of the guests made welcoming noises.

  Maybe this was right. Maybe Aja should stay the night.

  The lord spoke last. He didn’t sound like a good person. Being close to him made all the sweet things Aja had eaten turn cold and rocky in her belly. She mustn’t stay long.

  In a glittery dark glove, the lord lifted his elixir. “A toast for the Midnight Banquet.”

  The other guests raised their glasses. The swordsman frowned, then enclosed his drink in a fist. The empress clasped hers between both hands. Everyone glared at the last chalice on the rug, Aja’s. She scrambled and held it up as they did, but she wouldn’t drink any. Not a drop.

  The lord’s glass cast a slash of red light over his face. “A dinner to die for.”

  First Course, Part IV:

  The Chef

  A blasting hiss surprised Aja. St
eam could’ve been escaping from a pot, or from between a dragon’s fangs.

  Firelight surged within the warehouse’s darkness. A stairway lit up. A door had swung open to a kitchen. Flames clawed from the chinks in a brass stove as if trying to break free. A silhouette of an ogre clomped up the steps, followed by what looked like a child wearing a broad hat.

  Aja set down her elixir and edged away from the kitchen stairway. The glass had sent a chill from her fingers, up her arm, to her heart. The Banquet was dangerous, and she would slip away. After a few more mouthfuls.

  The empress scooted close to Aja. “Which do you think is the Chef? Big one or small?”

  Before Aja could answer, the larger silhouette loomed into view. He was a monument of a man. Not fat but massive, a thickness of flesh wrapped around his chest and limbs. His fingers had the girth of knife handles. An expanse of skin glistened down his open vest to the cummerbund around his waist. His clean-shaven head shone. He appeared to sweat oil.

  The djinn kneeled to him, holding herself to the floor with her fingers. He strode by without a glance. To Aja, he seemed familiar with the djinn but unprepared for the empress. She scurried up and embraced half his torso. Her arms only reached so far.

  “I love you for cooking that egg,” she said. “Eating it, I felt I could grow wings. Thank you! Thank you! My name is Ryn. What’s yours?”

  His black slats of brows angled upward. “Welcome, Ryn. Welcome, all with open minds and hungry hearts. This Banquet I create for you.”

  He lifted the empress back to her pillow with one arm.

  “You wanted my name,” he said. “I am called many things in many lands. Tonight, you may call me the Chef.”

  The lord raised his elixir. “To the Chef, the general of the Banquet. May your every foray bring satisfaction.”

  The Chef bowed his head in recognition. “For this course I steamed dart frogs, the living jewels of the rainforest. Each is stuffed with oracle truffle, the buried treasure of the northern woods.”

  He waved, and the smaller figure shuffled forward from the shadows. It didn’t have a broad hat after all but held a platter above its head. The creature’s face had no features except for bead eyes. Its flesh looked wet and brown like clay. The stumpy hand that carried the platter was fingerless.

  The sight stung like the bite of a horsefly. Aja fell off the back of her pillow.

  “No need to upset your stomach,” the Chef said. “It is only a golem, a servant of clay. Most useful about the ovens. Can carry twenty times their weight, but meek as unseasoned lamb.”

  The lord said, “Quite so. Harmless, until they begin their killing rampage.”

  “I never lose control of my servants,” the Chef said.

  “Then we share that in common,” the lord said.

  An expression flinched over the Chef’s face. Anger or fear, respect or envy. The emotion flared over his face, then vanished.

  “My lord,” the Chef said, “I gather ingredients from across the lands to craft the Banquet’s thirteen courses. No other mortal can match these culinary marvels, from ambrosia to dragon steaks. But I worry the fare will still not satisfy your particular tastes.”

  “I do not dine for food, but for the company.” The lord swept a gloved hand at the guests.

  Old Janny shuddered. The swordsman positioned himself between the empress and the lord. The guest with crutches didn’t look up.

  “So serve on,” the lord said. “Sate my curiosity.”

  The golem’s feet clumped, but the thing held the tray steady, presenting first to the lord. Bright frogs covered the platter. He picked a red one with blue legs.

  The Chef said, “The truffle stuffing adds a depth of flavor to the frog. As well as visions. Oracles eat this fungus to open their minds to the future.”

  The empress clapped her hands in glee. “You mean I’ll see my next presents now?”

  Just how young was the empress? Aja sat up straight next to her. They were about the same height.

  “Perhaps,” the Chef said. “Maybe much more. Each oracle truffle is worth more than an elephant with gold-plated tusks.”

  Aja’s stomach quivered. If she ate something so valuable, no one could say she was worthless.

  The lord cupped his stuffed frog in his palm, staring eye to eye with it. “Mankind esteems the future in every way, except in deed.”

  Aja’s eyes darted between the lord, the empress, and the Chef’s plate of frogs. Just a few bites, and Aja would know if she would be a scholar or an adopted princess. Perhaps even a jeweled enchantress.

  The golem offered the frogs to Old Janny. She picked a yellow one.

  The cripple who sat beside his crutches cleared his throat. He kept his eyes on the carpet as he spoke. “Hunters rub their arrows on frogs like those. That’s why they’re called poison dart frogs.”

  Old Janny yelped, losing hold of her frog. It landed on the paisley patterns of her dress.

  The Chef said, “Dart frogs gain their toxins from the plants they eat in the rainforest. Those raised in captivity are harmless. Feeding them only fruit sweetens their skin.”

  “That’s well enough, then.” Old Janny picked up her frog. “You scared another wrinkle onto my face.”

  “You may choose which courses to eat,” the Chef said. “But you’ll never have a second chance at any of them in this lifetime.”

  “Chef…” The lord picked up a faceted wing from the rim of a plate. It flashed green. “…are these what I think they are?”

  “Yes, faerie wings,” the Chef said.

  The lord arranged a wing on either side of his frog as though it could fly. “Are they to be eaten?”

  The Chef shook his head. “They are a lustrous garnish.”

  Old Janny grasped her face and squeezed the folds of her cheeks forward. “But there’re hundreds of them.”

  The Chef shrugged. “I’ve found no better use for faeries.”

  “Nor is there one.” The lord raised his glass to drink.

  Aja had never heard of a faerie, or a golem. Two discoveries, and the Banquet had only begun. All the newness purred through her. Soon she would get to eat a fruit-sweetened frog, bright as paint. How many people could say they had done that?

  The empress chose a green frog with black spots. “He’s prettier than my jewels. I couldn’t eat him.”

  “Good.” The swordsman lifted a red-speckled frog to his lips. “You should let me taste mine first.”

  She shoved the frog beneath her veil.

  “Ryn!”

  When the plate came at last to Aja, only two frogs remained. One blue frog looked like he had hopped under a scribe’s quill, and ink had dribbled down its back. The other had black stripes and yellow sleeves and pants. Aja would’ve hesitated to eat anything so beautiful, except for their delicious scent.

  She lifted the speckled blue one to her nose and inhaled its perfume. “What is that smell?”

  “The truffle,” the Chef said.

  “Like a yummy cheese.” The empress crunched triumphantly.

  “The smell of rainforest soil,” the man with the crutches said.

  “A basket full of mushrooms.” Old Janny smacked her lips.

  The lord inhaled. He had not yet eaten his frog. “Decadence and mystery.”

  Aja showed her frog to the empress. “Look at the one I picked.”

  “Oh! I’d trade you, but it’s too late.” The empress patted her belly. She turned to the swordsman. “Any prophecy bubbling up in you yet?”

  Friends traded with each other, didn’t they? They ate the same food together. Yes, by the end of the Banquet, Aja thought she could be best friends with the empress.

  Aja’s mouth still burned from the roc egg. Her throat was parched from avoiding the elixir for so long. The frog’s color was the blue of oasis water, and it smelled soothing. She stuck out her tongue and dropped the frog on top.

  The world washed away under the power of flavors.

  When she blinked
back to alertness, the Chef had gone. The empress lay with her head on the swordsman’s knee. He slid her onto the pillow, and she didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes were glassy.

  “What are you seeing?” Aja asked her.

  No one answered. The empress’s eyelids closed and opened again. Her hands trembled and clenched her midsection.

  Aja did the same. Something stabbed inside her, and her chest lurched. Her fingertips tingled. Had they gone numb? She couldn’t feel the carpet when she ran her hand over it. Something was wrong. She had to get away, had to hide.

  Aja crawled off the carpet. Her muscles slackened. She sagged and splayed across the floor. The stone drained her warmth and left her cold.

  Aja saw nothing. Then light crashed over her. The visions began with thunder.

  Wind flowed through her, gusting, chilling, thrilling. Her robes rippled as she lounged in front of glass statues of kings. Glistening men were lit by moonlight.

  Stars above and crackling lightning below. Aja guessed she was on top of a mountain because she went as high as a thundercloud. No, she flew. She soared on winds of joy.

  This was no dream. Most of her nights were full of emptiness and hunger. This flying was new, this wonder, if only it could last forever. The thundercloud rumbled as she lifted a blue star to her mouth. She ate it, and the storm roared.

  A grinding ache of death. Her freedom flattened, and joy turned to terror. She was struck down, pressed back against the warehouse floor. Aja quaked, trying to speak, to move, to escape. It had to end. Please, make it stop.

  Other visions flashed by, darker places, scarier times. They had but one thing in common. Everything depended on Aja. People needed her help, even the empress.

  Am I so important? She hadn’t been anything before the Banquet, before she ate the jewel frog. Staying would let her taste even more treasures.

  The visions parted in a gasp of clarity. The prophecy left her gagging.

  The djinn lifted Aja back onto the carpet, beside a girl in a blue veil, the empress. Aja reached but could not move her arm. The empress’s eyes stared at nothing.

  “If Ryn dies,” the lord said, “I’d have to answer to the empire.” His hands seemed to have warped, his fingers sharpened into spikes. His coat sleeves ended in dripping holes gnashing with black fangs. “If Janny or the sword-head dies, I’d answer to a certain enchantress. I’d rather face the empire.”