Magic Banquet

by A. E. Marling

  “You should always be prepared to kill the animals you eat,” the Chef said. “Doing so brings a greater respect for the meat.”

  The swordsman made a stabbing motion toward the tree line. “So, we’re to bring back the first bird we find? A bit dark for a hunt, isn’t it.”

  “Finding the next course won’t be the challenge.”

  Something in the Chef’s tone made the jungle seem to lean in on all sides. The blind blackness of it choked Aja. She wasn’t the only one feeling the change. The empress backed against the swordsman. He handed his skewer to Janny and drew his bigger weapon.

  “These birds,” the Chef said, “are hunting you.”

  Ninth Course:

  TERROR BIRD, DEEP FRIED,

  SERVED WITH SPICED CHOCOLATE

  The jungle boomed.

  The guests startled at the sound, hopping up from the carpet. Aja backed away from them to press herself against the damp coldness of the temple ruins, peering into the reaching shadows of the surrounding trees. What had made that blast? It sounded like a bull’s snort mixed with thunder. Again and again it boomed.

  “That’s no songbird,” the swordsman said.

  “It’s a soul of an evil man.” Solin pointed with a bronze-shod crutch toward the leafy gloom. “Reincarnated as punishment. Into a hulk of feathers and a skull-crushing beak. This is my land.”

  The empress huddled behind her guard. “I’ve always wanted to ride a terror bird,” she said. “Until now.”

  The swordsman turned to Solin. “Have you hunted them before?”

  “There are brave warriors and there are fools. Neither hunt the terror bird.”

  Aja twitched when she saw something in the corner of her eye light up. The djinn floated closer. She held out an anaconda—no—a dead vine.

  “Take this,” the djinn said. “And try not to let a bird pull out your innards. Humans are full of slimy lumps no one wants to see.”

  Aja gripped the end of the vine. She wasn’t sure what the djinn wanted her to do with it. Then the top crackled with fire, and Aja held a torch.

  She turned to thank the djinn, but she disappeared with the Chef into the temple. His voice echoed from the ruins. “We’ll return once you’ve downed your bird.”

  “Aja.” The swordsman beckoned her with a blade emblazoned with gold hieroglyphs. “We’ll need your light in front.”

  She had to hope the shadows cast by the torch hid the shaking of her legs. Aja shuffled between the swordsman and Solin toward the dark place where they had heard the booming. The other guests followed close, with Janny clutching two skewers and muttering.

  “First childbirth, and now this. How’ll my heart take it?”

  A cracking noise in front of them sounded like a small tree breaking.

  “Was that one?” Aja asked Solin. “One of the birds.”

  Solin hacked a path with a crutch into the undergrowth.

  Aja pulled a half-broken branch down from eye level. “You didn’t grow up in the jungle, did you?”

  “Not much chance of that.”

  “You told us about some city.”

  “A city of honey and Purity. Won’t be welcomed back, unless....” He glanced to the empress.

  The wall of ferns and twigs opened into a cavern of trees. Long limbs like the legs of giant ostriches slid out of the blackness. They turned into tree trunks and hanging roots when illuminated. Insects crawled and itched their way up Aja’s ankles. She reached to scratch them off but couldn’t find any on her skin. There was nothing, only an awful feeling.

  The guests found a mound of droppings. It stank like vinegar. Whole bananas and apples were undigested in the heap.

  “That poop is as big as me,” Aja said. Then she wished she had kept quiet.

  “There!” Solin pointed with a crutch.

  Aja swung the torch that way and saw feathers. Blood red, vengeful yellow, and ice blue, a colorful giant sprawled between the trees. Its neck twisted at an unnatural angle. A beak hooked at the end in a cruel spike. The terror bird’s mouth was open, a nose-stinging fluid leaking out. Its purple tongue lay in the dirt. It did not move.

  “Wha-what killed that?” the swordsman asked.

  “Huh,” Solin said. He squinted at the corpse.

  They crept forward. The terror bird was larger than huge. Those stubby wings were like an ostrich’s, but the dead bird’s neck was thicker, its beak broad as an axe. No, Aja could see this was no ostrich. Standing, the terror bird must’ve been closer to a giraffe.

  Big enough to swallow her whole.

  The swordsman said, “Guess the bird we heard left this one for dead.”

  “Doubt it.” Solin eyed the trees looming around them.

  “Well, we have our bird,” the swordsman said. “No fights are the best fights.”

  “I feel so sorry for him.” The empress walked forward, hand reaching out toward the crimson fan of wing.

  Solin said, “Wait—”

  “He’s a king of birds,” the empress said. “He should’ve held court over flamingos and—”

  “It’s a trick!” Solin hooked a crutch under her shoulder and pulled her back.

  The dead bird’s eye popped open. Its bent neck straightened, beak swiping down to close with a “Crack!” The empress’s shawl was torn off, caught on the spike.

  Aja reeled back, lost hold of the torch, and it dropped. Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no! The flame sputtered but stayed lit. Aja fell to her knees, scrounging to pick it up.

  A thumping sound and a snap of feathers. The swordsman was thrown down in front of her. He rolled to his feet in a sweep of scimitar. Gazing past Aja, he bellowed.

  “Behind!”

  Trees ambushed them. One trunk snapped down into the light and became the neck of a terror bird. The plumage of this one was grey and brown, drab and invisible in the jungle. Its black beak engulfed the lord and his glitter of embroidery.

  Those crimson pants kicked as they were dragged into the air. The terror bird tossed back its head. It made a gagging sound as its throat bulged in a jagged puff of feathers. The plumage flattened after the bird swallowed.

  The lord was gone.

  Aja didn’t understand what she had seen. She didn’t want to. Someone killed, eaten alive at dinner. It was awful, even if it had happened to the lord. No time to say goodbye. Not even enough to be sick.

  Scaly stilt legs swung closer. A three-toed foot lifted with knife talons. Aja bared her torch, both arms shaking.

  The empress screamed in a shock wave of discord. The force of it sounded like a troop of women pitching their voices against each other, notes clashing and exploding.

  The bird legs wobbled back. Beaks clacked in the shadows

  In the moment of reprieve, the swordsman charged with his blade on high. He drove one bird off with sweeps of bronze. The feathers of another ruffled overhead, and its leg lifted.

  “It’ll kick him,” someone shouted. Maybe Aja had.

  Everything was a swirl of sticky-hot dimness. She couldn’t let that foot pummel the swordsman and rake him apart with talons. She ran at the terror bird with her torch. Her stomach tried to race the other direction, squirming against her side.

  Janny was nearby, stabbing with her skewers. Tears streamed down her face as she babbled. “He’s too handsome to die. Too handsome to—”

  Aja beat at the bird. Her flaming stick thudded against feathers. “Die! Die forever!”

  A roaring screech came from above. The terror bird set its foot back. A wing lashed out at Aja, hurling her into a whirl of vines and blackness. She knew she had to keep hold of the torch. Hold on! She must’ve hit the ground. That’s where she was lying. By some miracle or magic, the flame stayed alight.

  She stood in the stench of burnt feathers. Solin loped past her on his crutches. She turned to see the terror bird that had played dead. A frill of hatred-orange feathers jutted out the back of its head as it opened its beak to eat her.

  She could not unlock her jaw
to scream.

  A crutch smacked the bird’s head. It reared, angling the spike of its beak to impale Solin. He opened his mouth, but not to cry out. A steam of red power wafted from between his teeth. Magic, he was spitting magic.

  “Leg for a leg.”

  A two-headed snake erupted from Solin’s throat. The translucent fangs of half the serpent embedded into his good leg. The other side of the snake struck the terror bird. The serpent squeezed its two throats to pump red venom. The magical snake shrank as it shot its power into the man and the bird.

  The blue scales of the bird’s leg sloughed off. Smoke seethed from the limb, smelling of death. The bird teetered, fought with its wings for balance. Aja thought it had been hexed, by Solin.

  That must be why they feared a hexer’s magic.

  Solin clopped forward on his crutches. Both his withered legs dangled. Digging one crutch into the ground, he spun and stabbed the other into the bird’s knee.

  The terror bird toppled. It made a warbling roar.

  Before the bird could rise, the swordsman leaped on it with an arcing razor. He landed blade first on the bird’s neck. The roar cut off.

  Booms of outrage sounded from behind. More birds shook the ground. Leaves and bugs rained on the guests, and the empress fell on her bottom.

  Aja braced herself to rush in to save her. Aja’s legs protested, muscles seizing. The birds would kill her. She didn’t even know how many there were.

  Shadows parted beside her, and a man in a red coat stepped out. His gloves glimmered with dragons and sea monsters. Hold up, she had seen the lord been eaten. A person who looked just like him grabbed her torch. He touched the flame to his lips with the panache of a fire breather. Except this was no street performance. The lord spat an inferno.

  A wall of fire surged between the empress and the terror birds. Flames the hue of scarlet satin romped through the jungle. Fangs and claws of fire scraped at the trees, and an outline of a dragon coiled in the blaze. It enclosed her and the other guests along with the decapitated bird. The feathered monster lay still and truly dead this time. The booming of the other birds echoed, but Aja never caught another glimpse of them.

  She squinted up at the man who had summoned the fire, the lord. Aja wavered amid the ring of red flames and shadow smoke. “I thought you—Weren’t you eaten?”

  “Don’t believe everything you see, my sweet cake.” The lord dropped the torch and brushed ash from his sleeve.

  He didn’t sound hurt. She tended to think that meant he hadn’t been eaten. Well, good. The lord had helped her, talked to her, when everyone else had been trying to eat her. Aja could be happy he had survived. The Chef hadn’t killed any of them with this dangerous course. But, then, if the lord hadn’t slipped down the terror bird’s throat, what had Aja seen?

  The lord stood above the feathery carcass. “The intelligence of these birds lives up to legend.”

  “Yeah.” The swordsman wiped his sword on a tree’s bark. “Lured us in pretty good by playing dead.”

  “I meant,” the lord said, “how they ate the most appealing of us first.”

  His gold thread seared Aja’s eyes with reflected firelight. No, she had seen a bird eat him. She remembered the red of his clothes slipping down a beaked throat. But now his coat didn’t have a stain or tear. Something about him wasn’t right, wasn’t true. Maybe nothing of him was.

  Aja glanced up at the fire. “I hope the djinn comes, before the trees start burning.”

  “Please,” the lord said, “nothing will burn without my leave. I’m not an amateur.”

  Sparks whirled upward around the branches. They drifted out of sight. She didn’t know how the lord could be telling the truth. Aja had seen so much of the incredible in these last minutes that perhaps the fire really wouldn’t burn down the jungle.

  Solin had spat out another sort of spell, one with two heads. A hex. Aja found him sitting in front of the wall of flames, his crutches crossed before him.

  “Uncle.” She reached toward his silhouette but did not touch him. “I’m so sorry about your legs.”

  “This one’s whole.” He eased out one leg. It looked sound, like a snake had never bitten it with fangs. “Death in one pries loose the hex in both.”

  Aja eyed the dead bird. One knee had been busted, but its other leg appeared unharmed. A post of blue scales led to a thigh wider than Aja’s chest. As far as she could see, the hex had faded from the man and the bird.

  She could imagine him spitting out another. If Aja gave him the empress’s hair, would he really send an awful snake after her? He had saved the empress from the first terror bird.

  A cheering made Aja look back. The magic carpet fluttered down, carrying the Chef and golems holding trays of cups. The djinn floated after them, balancing a vat on her shoulders. It bubbled with an aroma of cooking oil that weakened Aja’s knees.

  She heard a growling. It was her belly. She was hungry as famine.

  “Solin,” she said, “is it safe to eat a terror bird?”

  “Now it’s just meat. The unsafe part was catching it.”

  Aja could believe that.

  The vat of oil would’ve crushed the djinn were she a woman. Holding it steady on her back, she gestured to the dead bird. Its feathers flew off, then wove together to create a brilliant trellis. Pillars of plumes ascended, and feathers crosshatched overhead into a dome roof. Aja felt blessed to witness such magic. The empress sang in appreciation. Her notes lengthened into a hymn.

  The Chef stalked toward the bare bird with a cleaver in each hand. This, Aja wouldn’t watch.

  She took a cup from a golem. A luxuriant smell steamed from the drink, of pepper’s promise of fire, of bitter sweetness, of forbidden delights. The liquid looked like black velvet.

  She gave the cup to Solin. His dry throat had to be killing him. He clasped the cup. She asked what was in it.

  “A drink for nobles.” Solin croaked the words out. “They call it chocolate.”

  Ninth Course, Part II:

  Crispy and Smooth

  The pepper in the chocolate drink felt like sparks on her tongue. The stings of hotness were soothed by a dark richness, the taste of shade at midday, a delicious cool. Aja stirred the drink with a cinnamon stick. The smell of the spice made her forget the jungle and imagine a home of comfort. The chocolate loosened the clamped muscles in her back, and warmth flowed outward from her belly, into her chest, and down her legs.

  “I love it,” Aja said.

  Janny sat beside her with her own cup and a chocolate mustache. “To think those nobles wanted to keep this drink to themselves. It’s enough to start a revolt.”

  A golem offered Janny a feather from the terror bird. She used it to wipe her mouth.

  The swordsman approached them, scooting over the carpet on one bent knee. “You were all sorts of brave, Aja. And you too, Janny. Didn’t know you had it in you.”

  Janny licked chocolate off her thumb. “I can be brave when the cause is handsome enough, and delicious enough.”

  She handed him his skewer. He took it to the fried bird. No longer terrifying, the bird glistened atop a hill of baked potatoes. Purple potatoes, red potatoes, round ones, long ones, Aja had to hold herself back from diving into them. They would probably singe her. They steamed with a slathering of oil.

  The Chef had bathed the giant bird in the boiling vat until it came out golden. The simmering oil had sounded like applause. The guests were all grins. The Chef cut off cubes of meat, flipping sections of bird in the air and slapping his cleavers together with clangs. The square chunks alternated with the rounded potatoes on a skewer and all were dipped into the bubbling vat. They came out sizzling hot and mouthwatering.

  The swordsman handed the first skewer to Aja. “For helping me save the empress.”

  The next skewer he gave to the blushing Janny. After that, he surprised Aja by offering a kabob to Solin.

  “Saw what you did for the empress,” the swordsman said. “That was
quick thinking.”

  Solin bowed his head and accepted the skewer. His gaze snapped back up when the swordsman offered his hand. Solin took it. The two men sat side by side to eat.

  Yay! Aja smiled so wide she had trouble eating.

  She held one end of her skewer in either hand. The potatoes burned her mouth. Pepper sprinkles covered them, each bite a challenge and a joy. A luxury of salt awaited her when her teeth sank into the fried bird. Its skin crunched. She had to chew the tough meat longer, but that meant all the more time to enjoy its juices.

  This food was worth a fight. Aja couldn’t believe she had thought of leaving the Banquet early, of abandoning all the guests, all her friends.

  Beside her, Janny ate and moaned in delight. She patted the oil from her lips with her feather napkin. “Did you think we were going to die there? Birds the size of trees all around, nothing but beaks and blackness.”

  “I—”

  Janny gave Aja no time to answer, chewing and talking at the same time with equal vigor. “Knew coming to the Banquet might be the end. But thought to myself, Janny, what better way to go? Heroism in the face of food is the best sort. Now look at me. Young as a plum and just as smooth. Feel my cheek. Not a wrinkle. Go on, feel it.”

  Aja held up her greasy fingers in protest. They glittered with salt. Oil ran to her elbows and dribbled down her chin. She glanced around. Would the other guests think her a slob? Everyone else also glistened. Even the lord had taken off his gloves. His hands looked normal, not frightening at all.

  “You’re eating,” Aja said. “You must like these courses more than the first ones.”

  The lord dabbed his lips with a feather. “In truth, my maple muffin, I believe I’ve forgotten the knack of abstaining. I drank more than I should have from the underworld waters. It was too harmful to be long resisted.”

  Aja gazed down at her empty hands. “I think I forgot something important, too.”

  The lord set down his kabob with three chunks of food left on it. He tugged his gloves back on.