Magic Banquet (21 page)

“See?” She pointed downward. “Those arch
roofs cover the bazaar, and there, the line of statues is the
Boulevard of Scholars. It’s so empty at night.”

The empress laughed. “Those towers shine
like spiral-seashell ornaments.”

“They’re the glassmaker workshops,” Aja
said.

The carpet whirled around the towers. It
circled domes. The city tilted, and the night sky skewed as the rug
turned. Not so much as the cheese knife fell off. The magic carpet
kept all safe. Above buildings. Above doubts. Every guest had
survived the dragon course, and Aja didn’t believe the last two
couldn’t be any harder.

“What’s a gorgon?” the swordsman asked. He
peered over the cheese plate, one brow cocked upward in a dash of
wariness.

The lord took up the cheese knife. It was
forked at the end like an asp’s tongue, with circular holes in the
blade. He used it to push one wedge to the side. At the center of
the plate, the design of a woman’s painted face stared up at them,
and the surrounding snakes were her hair.

“Half maiden, half monster,” the lord said.
“Half allure, half terror. Which half is which depends on your
tastes.”

The swordsman scrunched in his neck and
leaned away. “Don’t know which would be more odd. Eating cheese
from a woman’s breast milk, or a half-woman’s.”

“Drinking milk from a cow might be plenty
strange enough if you think about it,” Janny said. “So, don’t.”

Aja wafted air from the cheeses to her nose
but smelled nothing. The gold leaf had to be trapping their scent.
She used the knife to peel off the foil.

The first cheese was speckled and had the
aroma of salt, bitterness, and olives.

Janny sniffed. “Wouldn’t say that smells of
death.”

The second cheese astonished Aja with its
redness. It smelled of nutmeg, pepper, and sharpened blades.

“Heh,” Janny said, “that one doesn’t
neither.”

Aja pointed to the red cheese. “This one’s
on the right, so it’s the cheese of life.”

“No, that’s the left one.” The swordsman
clenched and unclenched his hand on the same side.

“Ah, I see.” Aja turned the plate until the
speckled cheese was now on her right side.

“That’s a problem,” he said.

“Solin must know,” Janny said. “Don’t you,
Mister Big Crutches?”

“Only know everything about dragons,” Solin
said.

“It must be from the gorgon’s point of
view.” Aja rotated the plate until the painted woman faced away
from her. “So the speckled cheese is the right one.”

“And this one, death.” The lord sliced off a
piece of red. It was a brighter hue than the crimson of his coat.
“Men fear nothing more than their own mortality, except the
unknown. To have tasted death and yet go on living, that is
power.”

All the other guests stared. The lord cupped
the cheese between the points of his fingers, drawing it closer to
his mouth. His painted lips curved as he spoke.

“Do we face further ordeals in an afterlife?
Or can we look forward to a blissful nothingness?”

The guests leaned in. The cheese rested on
his lower lip, red on red.

“Not a life goes by without at least once
wishing for death. That final delicacy. That ultimate
temptation.”

Aja rested a hand on his wrist. Cold
pinpricks raced up her fingers. Touching the lord hurt, but she
couldn’t let him die now. They had gone through so many courses
together. “Don’t eat it.”

“Why should a man fear dying?” The lord
glanced to the other cheese. “With resurrection within reach.”

That might be true, but Aja was shivery all
over. The danger here had to come from something else. It wasn’t
even that they flew high over the block-stack buildings. Her dragon
blood would keep her safe from any fall.

“No, I dare not taste of death,” the lord
said, “lest I grow fond of its peace.” The lord thrust the sliver
of cheese away, dropping it onto the plate. “Better to despair of
any escape from the sweet torment of life.”

Aja let out a breath among a chorus of
exhalations. She looked over the guests. Who would reach for the
cheese plate next? The swordsman cleared his throat.

“The priests told me what happens after
death. Don’t need to try it myself.” His long and square face
flinched. “No coward.”

The empress scrambled from beside him to the
front of the flying carpet. “I was dead for hours tonight
already.”

The lord asked, “What was it like?”

She spread her arms. “Soaring.”

The swordsman poked the speckled cheese.
“Wish I’d had this to save you.”

The djinn set a cauldron of silver beside
the cheese plate. “This is the Ocean of Milk.”

“A flea’s ocean,” the empress said.

“It is deeper than it looks.” The djinn held
out a ladle.

Aja had seen bigger cauldrons. Inlays of
cows on its side lounged in regal poses. They carried people on
their backs and also what looked like tiny cities. One cow’s mouth
bloomed with a lotus. The cauldron’s ladle was a cup of tortoise
shell with a silver handle carved like a many-tailed serpent.

“Snakes. Why’d it have to be snakes?” Aja
took the ladle.

“The gods of another land stirred the Ocean
of Milk using a great serpent,” the djinn said.

The milk had an odd sheen. It didn’t reflect
the stars but seemed to glow from within. A liquid moonlight, it
lapped against the sides of the cauldron. Aja dipped in the ladle.
It pulled from her grasp, dragged lower into the milk. She didn’t
know what could’ve grabbed it. A current?

The ladle should’ve touched the inside of
the cauldron, but there seemed to be no bottom. The dipper was
sliding out of sight. Aja caught the tip of its multi-tailed
handle. “It is deep.”

“From the ocean’s abyss arose a soma of
immortality,” the djinn said, “and a poison of death.”

Color welled up within the milk. Blue
tendrils danced in the whiteness. An orange shimmer spread over the
surface before descending. All shifted back to the purity of
milk.

“Disgusting.” The lord covered his mouth
with his five-pronged hand. “The only thing worse than death is
immortality.”

Aja lifted out the ladle, smelled ginger and
milk froth. “Being immortal is one way to survive the Banquet.”

The djinn fanned her flickering hands open
in a gesture of warning. “Only a drop of soma might remain in the
ocean, and it couldn’t make so pitiful a creature...it couldn’t
make a man immortal. That power is for the gods.”

Aja asked, “Then what would happen if we
drink it?”

“If you taste the soma,” the djinn said,
“enlightenment.”

“How tedious,” the lord said.

“I’ve always wanted to glow!” The empress
leaned so close to the ladle that she bumped it with her nose.

Aja lifted the dipper away. “And the poison
would still kill us?”

“Before you could swallow.” The djinn didn’t
meet Aja’s eyes. “But there’s as little death as enlightenment.
Mere drops in the ocean.”

Aja would find the poison in the first sip.
She didn’t doubt it. The Chef wouldn’t have it another way. She
nodded to the speckled wedge on the plate. “But the cheese of life
could bring me back?”

“It might.”

“Unless?” Aja asked.

“The other guests might leave you dead.” The
djinn’s eyes were fire pits. “The next course would be safer for
them if they do.”

That explained it. The danger in this course
didn’t come from the food but from betrayal.

“No!” The empress twined her arms around
Aja. “Friends don’t let friends stay dead.”

Aja lowered the ladle, and she took the
knife. She tapped its blunt side on the speckled cheese. “I don’t
want to die, but I’d like to see this cheese bring someone back to
life.”

The swordsman had saved a life by choosing
the Orange of Health. Aja bet hoarding a piece of the Cheese of
Life would be even better. However the Chef tried to kill them in
the last course, Aja would be ready with the Cheese of Life. She
only had to be sure she had the right one first.

“If you want to try…” The swordsman nodded
to the red cheese. “…I’ll make certain you come back.”

“How courageous of you,” the lord said.
“Giving permission to a girl to die.”

The swordsman lifted the red slice. “Your
piece is still here.”

The lord pushed it away. “I’m too in love
with my obligations.”

Solin swiped the bit of red out of the
swordsman’s hand. Solin lifted the Cheese of Death to his face, to
eat, to die. Aja saw he wished to take all the risk. She grabbed
his hand. Her fingers pressed into his six-sided tattoo.

“No,” she said. “You tried the dragon first.
It’s someone else’s turn.”

The other guest kept quiet. That someone
else would have to be Aja.

Solin started overpowering her, bringing his
hand with the cheese to his mouth. She moved faster, snatching the
red cheese from the plate and biting off the narrow end. Gold foil
crinkled on her teeth.

The gorgon cheese tasted more pleasant than
she had expected, more chewy and more nutty. Its flavor of nutmeg
was the warmth of dying fires and the heat left on the arms and
chest after a hug. Aja was wealthy for having eaten the cheese.
This was it. Never again would she taste something so rich.

Aja lay down on the carpet and cupped her
hands over her belly. It seemed the right thing to do. She closed
her eyes. The night breeze rolled over her in waves of chill. The
stares of the other guests itched her skin.

Her heart pounded. Her jaw throbbed from
clenching. Would there be pain? Waiting was already an agony. Hurry
up, death.

A woman’s voice. “Getting the shakes just
looking at her. Put a knife below her nose, see if it fogs with her
breath.”

“No need for that.” The lord’s words. He had
an eerie calm to his drawl. “She’s not dead yet.”

Worries slashed through Aja.
What if the
other cheese doesn’t bring me back to life? What if they don’t give
me any after I die?
The swordsman had promised, but the lord
might try to stop him. If that happened, Solin could join in a
battle to save her, with guests falling off the carpet to litter
the streets.

Waiting was like lying on coals. Aja surged
upright. The empress screamed a pure note. Janny yelped. Even the
swordsman winced.

“Sorry,” Aja said.

The swordsman asked, “Do you feel at all
dead?”

“I must’ve eaten the wrong cheese.” Aja dug
the knife into the speckled wedge and excavated a square of yellow
with black chunks.

A crutch pinned her hand against the
platter. Solin said, “Don’t.”

“Life and death mixed together?” The lord
licked his lips. “Sounds delicious.”

“Except not.” The swordsman frowned at the
gorgon cheeses. “Die after having both, and I wouldn’t know which
to give you.”

“If I eat both, I won’t die at all. Maybe.”
Aja reached again for the plate.

The swordsman lifted it high above her
head.

The lord sighed. “The young can’t wait for
anything, not even death.”

Aja clenched her throat. “Changed my mind. I
don’t want to—”

The pain started lower than her belly. It
cut upward along her abdomen and sliced through her rib cage. Two
giants might’ve well caught hold of her legs and pulled her apart.
The sensation tore up her spine, into her skull.

Aja was wrenched out of her body.

Twelfth Course,
Part II:

Death’s Caress

Aja gazed down at herself. The master of
crutches was straightening her body. It looked so small. How had it
ever held her? It had contorted for some reason. Pain, perhaps. The
empress held Aja’s hand against her own breast, and a song flashed
across Aja’s vision in waves of silver light, like moonlight
reflecting off an invisible ocean.

The swordsman argued with the lord. They
stabbed fingers toward her, then the cheeses. The outcome would
decide the body’s fate, but Aja could not bring herself to
care.

A velvety peace swathed her. It covered her
with a comforting darkness.

The blackness absorbed her. The total
absence was a freedom greater than wings. She hadn’t a body to
worry about. What had she been afraid of? Never having a family? Of
dying alone and hungry? It all seemed as petty as ants fighting
over crumbs.

Miles and miles of nothingness rushed past.
Years of travel raced by in a blink. She couldn’t say where she was
headed, not that it mattered. Everything was right.

A star exploded ahead of her, and the
blackness crumbled away into a pit of light.
No, a cavern of
light.
Aja must have reached the cave west of the sunset, the
entrance to the afterlife. A priest had told her seven trials
awaited her in the caverns. Or had it been nine? Aja had not paid
much attention. She hadn’t planned on dying.

The radiance within the cave melted her
concern into carelessness. She sunbathed in bliss. The warmth of
lying atop rooftops in midmorning. The light flowed into her. It
hummed with a sound like countless voices calling her name in
welcome.

She reached without arms. She opened herself
to the light, ready to submerge herself. Her new adventure would
begin in brilliance.

Then something pierced her belly. She was
yanked backward, towed from the cave, dragged from eternity, reeled
into the blackness.
Stop! No, don’t, no!
Her scream made no
sound. Struggling did not slow her plunge.

Bitterness grew in her. She tasted it
everywhere, in every part of her. The awfulness of it was a mold
spreading from her tongue down her throat and throughout her
body.

The flavor contracted into one spot, one
corner of her being. That taste, ew! She had a feeling it was the
speckled cheese. The film of it coated her mouth, and if she had a
mouth, she must have a body again. She had been locked back into
life.