Issue #155 • Sept. 4, 2014

“No Sweeter Art,” by Tony Pi

“By Appointment to the Throne,” by Alter S. Reiss

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NO SWEETER ART

by Tony Pi

        “Did you see the duel between Monkey King and the Dragon Prince, candyman?” the street-kitchen man asked. “Four nights ago, on this very street, fire magic versus flood! Nine of my customers did.”

        I smiled. “How many of them were drunk?”

        “All sober. Stranger things will visit Chengdu before the lantern fair ends, I’ve money on it. Care to wager?”

        “Tempting, but not while I live from coin to coin.” I paid him for the warm rice ball and left him to hawk his fare. I ate as I strolled down Kitchen Lane. Ahead, a barefoot water-carrier greeted the dawn with song, the buckets on the ends of his bamboo yoke springing in time with his step. Behind him walked Nong the melon-seed seller, who saw me and hurried to join me. “Morning, Ao, been looking for you. A friend of ours wants a chat.”

        “Oh? Who?” I had made the man’s acquaintance only a few days ago. I would cook molten sugar in my pot to draw a crowd from afar with its unmistakable syrup-sweet aroma and hold them rapt with my Tangren art, blowing candy zodiac animals from molten caramel, while Nong would tempt the same spectators with fragrant roasted melon-seeds. Together, we made more money than we would apart. Learning that I was new in Chengdu, Nong had kindly pointed out which were the filchers, toughs, and fierce beggars I’d be wise to avoid. In return, I had warned him of swindles I’d seen on my travels and taught him tunes from the east.

        Nong opened his hand. In his palm lay a yellow jade, carved with the image of a dragon encircling a tortoise.

        The medallion belonged to Magistrate Gongsun.

        Truth was, it was I who had conjured the water dragon on the first night of the festival with my candy magic. I had also helped the judge capture the sorcerer who had called the fire monkey that had set the Deng teahouse ablaze. He was one of the few who knew of my secret talent. When I’ve an errand for you, someone will come to you with this jade, Gongsun had said. Trust him in all things.

        It was an order I dared not refuse.

        I sized up Nong anew. A melon-seed seller was a common sight at the teahouses. One with a sharp ear might overhear a secret or two. “Why didn’t you tell me you work for the magistrate?”

        “You might’ve charmed him, Tangren Ao, but I had to test your worth myself.” Nong lowered his voice. “The judge has accepted an invitation to a riddle contest at the lantern fair tonight. We believe the Ten Crows Sect intends to kill him there. Will you help?”

        “No question,” I blurted. The magistrate was a good and charitable man. “But if Gongsun knows of the plot, why go at all?”

        “He hopes to turn the trap against them.” Nong cracked a roasted melon-seed with his teeth. “The judge will tell you more, by way of the candy snake in his keeping. Rest under that tree, my friend. I’ll watch over you.”

        Gongsun wasn’t asking for a face-to-face audience, then. He wanted me to use the art of sweet possession on the serpent I’d made for him from molten sugar.

        I set down my bundle of stove, pot, and cooling rack beneath the ginkgo tree, sat cross-legged and closed my eyes. A sugar-styler invests much of himself into his candy art: his breath; his flair; his heed; and his pride. Like a spider I crawled that web of invisible ties through the air, eastward towards the magistrate’s yamen. When I found the caramel in serpent shape, I slid my soul into it.

        My snake figurine rested atop a long wooden box, overlooking a half-blank handscroll on the magistrate’s table. Gongsun, a stern giant to the snake’s eyes, was painting a layer of snow onto the image of a riddle lantern. Written on lantern-skin were the words ‘pouch of fireflies, shining snow’ in semi-cursive calligraphy.

        I made to announce myself, but before I could move, an unseen force constricted around me and robbed me of my power to animate. Startled, I tried to pull my mind from the candy figurine, to no avail.

        Nice of you to visit, Tangren Rat, said the spirit of Snake, calling me by my birth sign. Scales crept across my soul. The wheel of blessing and recompense turns, and I seek a service from you.

        The zodiac spirit would not allow me to forget my debt.

        To stop the fire sorcerer, I had petitioned Snake for power without weighing the cost of that. For days after the incident, the likenesses of serpents had plagued me wherever I went. A coil of rope; a sash in the wind; branches reflected in still water. Those illusions slithered, writhed, and tasted light with darting tongues of shadow.

        Gongsun Mingzhong is one of mine, Snake continued, a man with glorious promise. See that he survives this inauspicious night, lest there be consequences.

        That’s why I’ve come, O Snake of Ten-Thousand Years. I know all too well the cost of forfeiting a debt to a shengxiao spirit. Do you remember my father?

        Ah, yes—Tangren Rabbit, whose style is as strong as poison in your art. He had executed some skilful serpent figures, though not of late.

        Nor will he again, I said in sorrow. My father borrowed the Tiger’s might to save me. But when asked to kill a bandit pleading for his life, Father turned coward. Tiger cursed him. Days later, he lost half his fingers to a tiger-hook sword.

        Savage is his way, that Tiger, said Snake. Spite must be served slyly to satisfy. But let me ask you this: if you must slay an assassin to save Gongsun’s life, would you?

        I studied the judge as he dabbed yellow ochre to make glowworms fly within the painted lantern. What was the worth of this man’s life, compared to others?

        Death was no stranger to us pao jianghu, river-lake vagrants on the fringe of society. Sometimes to survive we had to fight and cheat, and I supposed if I was forced to kill to defend myself, or my father, I would. But would I for any other?

        Free me so that I might hear what Gongsun has to say. It is for him to sway me, I told Snake. If I am to weigh one death against another, I will not choose under threat from you.

        Do so at your own risk. Snake loosened his squeeze on me but clung like skin that wouldn’t slough.

        I softened my candy shell and reared up, catching Gongsun’s eye. My darting tongue tasted incense in the air.

        The magistrate washed his ink brush. “Welcome, Ao. I’m glad you decided to stay in town. No misadventures since we last met, I trust? Bow for yes, turn aside for no.” He had remembered that my figurines couldn’t speak.

        I bowed.

        “The Ten Crows Sect has grown strong in recent years,” Gongsun said. “I had executed three of their lieutenants in as many months, and now they want me dead. One of my spies overheard them discuss when and where: tonight, at Madame Tan the matchmaker’s yearly showdown between the Riddle Hands of Chengdu. I intend to win.”

        Riddle Hands were makers of the witty yet confounding riddles that dangled from hundreds of paper lanterns. Why did it not surprise me that the magistrate was one of them? He was a man of contradictions: righteous in the light, yet guileful in the night.

        “They won’t risk an open assault while my men stand guard, but there remain a thousand dishonorable ways to kill. I need eyes and ears from quarters the Ten Crows won’t suspect. Work with Nong to scout the shadows and foil their plot.” Gongsun stroked his beard. “But no dragons. Last thing I need is another sighting to inspire a new cult. Be discreet.”

        I gave a second bow.

        The magistrate took up his brush again and said no more.

        Will you help me save him, O Wondrous Snake? I asked.

        Snake hissed. When a shengxiao spirit tasks a mortal to settle his debt, the onus lies with the mortal alone. ‘Tis forbidden for one to assist in one’s own schemes.

        Forgive my ignorance. I will seek another way.

        With Snake’s leave, I shed his companionship and fled back to my own body.

        Nong sat beside me in the shade, flicking seed after seed at a small stone in the street. He didn’t miss once.

        I flexed my arms, glad to have limbs again. “What else must I know about the Ten Crows Sect, Nong?”

        “They worship the sun-crows of old,” he replied. “Legend tells of the day all ten crows took to the sky, scorching the earth with their heat, until a hero shot nine of them down with his bow. They are kings of burglaries, kidnappings, and hired killings. All we know of their leader is an alias: Red Saint.”

        “I’m no warrior, Nong.”

        Nong sprang up and offered me his hand. His fingertips were crimson with dye from the seeds. “Then play the hero with your own unique skills, as does every troublemaker in Gongsun’s crew.... Ready?”

        I accepted his help and stood. “Show me where.”

* * *

        Madame Tan’s contest would take place on a stage being built here where Market Street crossed Medicine Lane. Nong and I had spent the day watching the crowd, studying the surroundings and crafting a plan. By late afternoon, we had prepared and hidden six candy animals.

        I toured my zodiac spies one by one.

        First, I ensouled a surefooted caramel goat atop the Plum Season Tea-and-Wine Shop on the southwest corner. I climbed the sloped roof tiles, scale-like in their pattern. Below, laborers gossiped as they constructed the stage. Matchmaker Tan promenaded around them, a timeless beauty in a garment of yellow silk embroidered with black narcissus blooms. My father could tell someone’s age with startling skill, saying that a sugar-styler always sold more candy when he could name a customer’s birth-sign. Even he would have trouble guessing her age.

        My soul sunk beneath the platform planks and into a sturdy ox figurine with wisps of cooled caramel for its horns. Light seeped between the wooden ribs overhead, passing through my translucent body to cast an amber shadow, but no strange things waited here.

        As a candy dog I lazed between two street-kitchen buckets. Through the legs of passers-by I glimpsed my real self resting at my stall, where Nong was distracting the crowd with his seed-counting game. A customer would call out a number for Nong to grab from the mound of seeds on his tray in one pass. If Nong didn’t get the exact count, the patron would win the handful of seeds for free. But Nong told me he only ever lost on purpose.

        Next, I animated the sugar-horse. Nong had convinced an herbalist to hang my horse figurine under his ‘running horse’ lamp. I had worried about the flame but needed this vantage point covered, and so dangled the horse a hopefully safe distance under the lantern’s base. As the lantern played its spinning shadow show, I swayed in the breeze and watched the revelers wind through the laneway.

        Nong had lobbed my caramel rooster onto the roof of the Cloud Chariot Noodle Shop on the northeast corner. The aromas of the porkbone soups brewing below wafted up to tempt me. From this perch I watched the riddlemasters’ pupils tie fresh riddle scrips beneath the lanterns.

        The sixth sugar sculpture, a hollow rat with a sinuous tail, stayed hidden in the folds of my clothes.

        I willed myself back to my body. “All’s calm, unless you count Madame Tan,” I whispered to Nong. “Could she be in league with the Crows?”

        He laughed. “They once sent a man to kidnap her, the fools. Madame Tan would have none of it: she dragged her assailant before the judge by his hair. All she’d have for the Ten Crows today is disdain. So, which animal are you making for me?”

        “Monkey,” I replied. “It’s the Year of the Monkey, so carry it on your tray for luck.”

        I rubbed and folded a gob of heated caramel between my hands, made a pouch of air within it, and stretched out a slender spout that would double as the creature’s tail. I began to blow through the candy tube, inflating a bubble that would become its body.

        Snake’s words from before seemed to whisper in my ears: your father’s style is as strong as poison in your art. It wasn’t a compliment. I had always followed Father’s designs. Where was my own inspiration, my own artistry?

        Our trade had a five-word formula: Hand, eye, heart, breath, fire. “Fire warms the sugar,” Father always said. “Constant breath gives it its girth. Patience is the same as a heart at peace, and your eyes will make details exact. But hands–your hands!–give the creation its soul.”

        I always thought we ensouled a piece by making a perfect copy. I wondered if soul really meant being original?

        My musings led me to fatten the monkey’s build beyond its usual size. My pinches pulled spindly limbs for it, but I did not curl them with Father’s method. Instead, I made one paw scratch its head and the other cup its chin. I then molded Nong’s cheeks and grin into the toothsome gold.

        Not my best work, but my own style.

        The last touch I did in secret: blood from a cut on my elbow to ink its eyes. “All yours, Nong.”

        Nong put the monkey in the middle of his tray, then tossed me a pouch of coins. “Get pretend-drunk in the tea-and-wine shop. No one there will care if a drunk passes out at the table.”

        “What, no melon-seeds for me to snack on?” I joked. “I’ll take thirty-two, please.”

        Nong clawed a handful of red seeds from his supply. “I won’t even charge you.”

* * *

        Not long after sundown, Gongsun arrived in the company of his guardsmen, pushing through the throng of gamblers, urchins, and riddle enthusiasts who had come to watch. Madame Tan welcomed him to the stage with much fanfare. The crowd cheered all four Riddle Hands of Chengdu, but their chatter told me they’d really come to see who’d win the painted riddle game: Fanmaker Bai or Magistrate Gongsun. Young Bai had bested the veteran judge last year. Would he triumph again?

        I had unrivaled views of the upcoming match thanks to my rooster, horse, and goat. I flittered from one golden host to another, watching for unusual deeds and suspicious-looking men. On stage, under a net of white lanterns, each Riddle Hand sat at his own table neat with brushes and inkstone.

        Madame Tan raised her voice so all could hear the rules of her painted riddle game. “What challenges the riddlemasters? Not mere words. Give them a verse like ‘horse hooves racing home, fragrant from the crush of petals,’ and bid them draw. Who captures the verse’s soul with greater wit: he who depicts the galloping horse? Or he who paints butterflies lured sweetly to a hoofprint?”

        That was a famous tale she charmed them with, about an Emperor’s test to discover the best painters.

        Seeing nothing odd from the goat’s eye view, I darted back into the rooster on the noodle house roof.

        I froze. Kneeling on the same rooftop not far from me was a masked archer garbed in dirty green. Luckily, he paid no mind to my rooster figurine. The man had not as yet unslung his bow and was staring past the contest into the upper floor of the tea-and-wine shop. My real body was there, head down and cradling a pot of wine.

        What was he staring at? An assassin would be watching Magistrate Gongsun.

        There! A teahouse server paused at the railing and looked up in our direction. He then did a strange thing: he balanced a lidded teacup on the rail and hurried out of sight.

        More than one assassin? And what did the cup mean?

        I didn’t know if I should return to my own body to see where the server went, or stay with the archer. If they hoped to poison the judge, then the archer must have been waiting to strike should the poison plot fail. But what if the server was signaling something else to the archer?

        Too many unknowns with the server, but I had a known threat in the archer. Perhaps if I alerted the magistrate’s men to the rooftop assassin, that would thwart both plots. But how?

        Madame Tan’s voice announced this year’s verse for the painted riddle, taken from a famous poem: “From whose house flies the jade flute’s secret sound?”

        Two servers, including the one I saw, exited the teahouse with cups, kettles, and snacks. They headed for the stage.

        The archer unstoppered a vial and dipped the tip of an arrow into it.

        Could I-as-rooster cut his bowstring? Unlikely. Shout out an alarm? A candy creature had no voice, but I happened to be in the shape of a loudmouth fowl. I could petition the spirit of Rooster for his crowing cry!

        King Rooster, I beseech you, let this ragged one borrow your exalted voice to stop a killer!

        Clucks and chuckles. By my comb and wattle, if it isn’t a candyman scratching for a favor. What payment will you lay before me?

        Before I could think of the right compensation, an arrow jabbed through my candy shell. The unexpected pain sent me into shock. The archer raised me up, a quizzical look in his eyes. He sniffed, likely realizing I was a candy. With a dismissive huff, he pulled me off the arrow and mashed me flat.

        The sudden destruction of my host figurine flung me back inside my true flesh. I startled awake, aching as though every bone in my body had snapped. Why did I stink of millet wine? I shook my head to clear my thoughts. Ah, I had only a sip of the wine, but had splashed my face and clothes to make my deception more convincing.

        So much for my clever plan with the rooster.

        I had to signal Nong; I couldn’t stop both poisoned tea and the archer. If Nong could deal with the tea, I’d find another way to stop the archer.

        I shut my eyes and searched with my mind for the monkey figurine. Nong was walking the fringes of the crowd when I brought the sugar monkey to life. On stage, Madame Tan was playing a nomad song on a wooden flute to inspire the riddlemasters, while the tea servers were mounting the steps. I waved my monkey arms frantically to draw Nong’s attention.

        “What did you find?” he asked under his breath.

        I mimed the drinking of tea.

        Nong looked to the stage. The server was now pouring a cup of tea at Gongsun’s table.

        My friend plucked a melon-seed from his tray. “Leave it to me.”

        I didn’t wait to see what Nong did; back to my body I flew. Once the archer realized that the tea ploy had failed, he would fire his poisoned arrows.

        How could I stop him? The judge had forbade a flying dragon. A water-horse would need a running start to jump the gap over Market Street, and I couldn’t muster the speed, not off of these sloped roofs. The candy monkey could climb up to the archer, but it hadn’t the strength to hobble him or cut his bowstring.

        Think! What could stop a killer?

        Another killer.

        I needed a tiger.

        Though I loathed the thought of dealing with Tiger, I was running out of time. Only a tiger could leap the distance to the other side of the street. Only the tiger could strike fear into the assassin and strike him down. All I needed was a full vat of water, and the teahouse surely had one.

        The sugar rat in my sleeve was the only candy in zodiac shape I had at hand. Could I make it into a tiger somehow? I’d need heat to make the caramel soft. A kettle of tea would do the trick.

        I took the sugar rat out and inspected it. Stalwart legs, noble ears, blooded eyes: expertly executed in Father’s style. I would have to unmake it to shape a tiger.

        But that felt wrong.

        I was born a Water Rat. How could I sacrifice this, my zodiac animal?

        No. I must stay true to Rat.

        We Rats were supposedly born clever; that was my strength. I thought about all things that embodied rodents. Rats couldn’t fly or leap, but rows of lanterns crisscrossed the streets tonight, and rats could crawl across the lines.

        I had never shaped wine before, but how different could it be from water?

        I dunked the caramel figure into the pot of wine, infusing the brew with sugar and my own blood. I placed the jar under the table, laid down my head, and re-entered a possession trance. As the candy rat, I opened myself to the sensation of drowning, so that I might steep the drink with my senses.

        Grandfather Rat! I called. This small grandson begs you grant his strange request. I need a horde of rats to stop a killer.

        A voice whispered on the edge of my hearing. I know you, ratling Ao. You’ve never called on my aid before, so I will tell you this: born of my sign as you are, I am forbidden to ask in return your help in advancing my own ploys. But another’s schemes....

        I understood. Rat would trade favors with another zodiac spirit. Whose debt would I be in?

        Rest easy, candymouse. Monkey’s a kinder taskmaster than Snake or Tiger, though mischievous. What say you?

        Monkey? Given my recent battle where I had destroyed a monkey made from fire, I wondered if he might hold a grudge. However, I had to trust Rat’s judgment.

        I’d be honored to help Monkey on your behalf, Grandfather, I answered. Thank you.

        Rat’s magic imbued the wine, and with it I conjured a rice wine rat: clawed, tailed, and whiskered.

        I-the-rat climbed out of the pot.

        Astonishingly, I found I could shape a second copy and call it forth as well, then a third and a fourth before the jar was empty. My mind seemed to occupy them all at once, like the yoke of a strange drunken stupor.

        Four wouldn’t be enough.

        My creations scurried through the Plum Season, leaving wet pawprints on the floorboards. A drinker spewed wine from his lips when he saw my rat climb onto his tabletop. I plunged into his companion’s cup and scampered out as two wine-made rodents.

        At other tables, I slid into teacups and doubled my liquid selves. A bold customer stabbed a chopstick through a wine-and-tea rodent, but I simply flowed around it and lashed his wrist with a wet tail.

        Eight, sixteen, thirty-two: my plague of wine-pure and tea-bronze rats now raced across the shop, slipping through the railings on the upper floor to scale the outside walls. I had to cross the lantern strings to the archer.

        Anxious, I looked down at Tan’s contest with a hundred eyes. Thrice, Gongsun seemed on the verge of drinking from his teacup, but then he paused to touch more ink to paper.

        The judge was toying with his would-be poisoner.

        Nong had reached the stage. He must have warned the judge.

        Gongsun shouldn’t be so smug! If he didn’t drink his poisoned tea soon, the archer would strike.

        The high lanterns became tightrope roads. I sent half my rats to clamber north over Medicine Lane, and the rest eastward across Market Street. In my haste, two lost their footing and fell. The first splashed against the cobblestones; the second soaked a fortuneteller who glanced up. Each hit sent waves of hurt rippling through all my copies, and I lost five more.

        Half my rats were halfway across the final chasms to reach the archer, but he had already nocked an arrow to his bowstring. I wouldn’t reach him in time. If only someone would look up!

        The lights!

        I allowed nine tea-and-wine rats nearest the archer to fall into bright lanterns, dousing them. The sudden shadows and the stink of snuffed flames drew many people’s eyes to dart in the right direction.

        Even the archer’s. The moment of distraction threw off his aim. His poisoned arrow sailed through the air and struck Fanmaker Bai’s painting dead center. Surprised, the riddlemaster fell backwards in his chair.

        The magistrate’s men shouted the alarm.

        The archer reached for another arrow as the first of my rats succeeded in crossing the lantern-lines. I ignored the commotion brewing in the street and swarmed him with my pack.

        Startled, the archer tried to shake off my rodents even as we climbed his body. Though he smashed and stomped away some of my creations, I made for his head with the rest. He drew back the bowstring, but I-the-rat scratched his eyes with rice-wine claws. He cried out in pain and loosed his arrow, blind. I prayed it didn’t hit anyone.

        He turned and ran north along the sloped roof, but I clung to him with what was left of my pack. Wine still stung his eyes red. That, along with the tiles made wet from wine from my rats, made the archer slip and lose his footing.

        He tumbled off the edge of the roof.

        One of my wine rats rolled off his ankle just in time, but all the others splattered apart when we crashed into a dumpling stand in the street below. Each undoing landed a dizzying blow to my mind.

        I fought to gather my wits.

        The patrons at the dumpling stand screamed and fled. The archer would never do either again, not with his head bent at that angle.

        I turned away, shaken. I hadn’t meant for him to die. He shouldn’t have run, half-blinded.

        But what of the poisoner? If Gongsun was still in danger, I-the-rat couldn’t help him from here. Time for another host, but which?

        Only the ox and the monkey were close enough to Gongsun to help, but ox was stuck under the stage. It had to be monkey. My awareness searched the vicinity for its shape, found it still on Nong’s tray, and flew inside its body.

        The stage was in chaos. All the spectators had fled, save Madame Tan, who tended to a fallen guardsman, and Fanmaker Bai, who cowered under his table. The two tea servers, wielding their kettles like dragonhead hammers, were battling Gongsun and his sole remaining bodyguard.

        Nong flung three seeds fast at the second server, and one of the missiles found the man’s eye. The accomplice cried out and clamped a hand to his face, but that opening proved a costly mistake. Gongsun’s bodyguard fed him a sword through the gut.

        When he saw his partner die, the poisoner threw down a packet that filled the air with choking smoke. The fumes spread fast and stung living eyes, but not my blood-dotted sight. No one but monkey-me saw in which direction he fled: down Medicine Lane towards the city wall.

        I leapt off the tray onto Nong’s shirt and had started the climb down when a voice chattered in my mind. Sneaky, cheeky, Ao! Rat says you’ve agreed to owe me, in exchange for his favor.

        Monkey, Equal of Heaven! I felt his presence coat me like fur. Why now? I leapt to the ground, finding an acrobatic finesse I hadn’t before. It’s true what Grandfather Rat says. I am here to serve.

        Then choose to let that man go. He’s born of my sign.

        I stared at the fleeing figure, aching to chase him down so that he would plague the judge no more. Should I follow, or fulfill my obligation to Monkey? He tried to kill a good man!

        It is not for spirits to deem men good or evil, Ao, said Monkey. What gifts we give are yours to wield. We may scheme to keep our wards among the living, but your choices are yours alone.

        I had saved Gongsun’s life and discharged my debt to Snake. If I did as Monkey wished, I’d be free of obligations, yet I’d be letting a dangerous man roam free.

        But then, many would consider me dangerous. All twenty years of my life, I’d been on the run with my father, because of the magic he and I could do. The rich considered us pao jianghu scum and those who practice sorcery only worthy of death. Some men would have me killed without question and without mercy.

        I would not be one of those who judged another man without heart.

        Mercy tonight, I offered Monkey, for a man cannot seek redemption if he draws no more breath. But never again.

        Monkey bristled, but agreed. This once.

        I allowed the poisoner to vanish from view but noted his unique features should I see him again: drooping earlobes; left eye wider than the right.

        Your will is done, I told Monkey. But should this man stay with the Ten Crows Sect, the judge may well end him.

        Such is his choice to make. Until next time, Ao.

        Monkey faded from my mind.

        I returned to my body. The upper floor of the tea-and-wine shop was deserted. A rat infestation must have seemed bad for business, even on the busiest night of the fair. Though I no longer felt drunk, my head ached as though I’d actually downed the whole pot of wine. Nonetheless, coils of worry fell away and I breathed easier, for I was no longer beholden to Snake. On the other hand, Rat had sold my debt to Monkey, who had used me to help his man escape. Coincidence, or a conspiracy of spirits? Nong would find me here soon. I’d tell him my side of the tale, but not the full story. No one needed to know I’d granted the poisoner his freedom. That was my own decision to make and my own wrong to right.

        I spied a rat lurking between the bamboo chairs. I glowered but tossed him the rest of my fried melon-seeds. “I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?” I asked him.

        The rat devoured the morsels greedily. Silently.

Copyright © 2014 Tony Pi

Read Comments on this Story on the BCS Website

Originally from Taiwan, Dr. Tony Pi earned his Ph.D. in Linguistics at McGill University and now lives in Toronto, Canada. His fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld and Abyss & Apex, among others, as well as twice previously in Beneath Ceaseless Skies: “Silk and Shadow” in BCS #11 and “The Curse of Chimère” in BCS #54. “No Sweeter Art” is the second stand-alone tale in this series (following “A Sweet Calling” in Clarkesworld). Visit www.tonypi.com for a list of his other works.

Read more Beneath Ceaseless Skies

BY APPOINTMENT TO THE THRONE

by Alter S. Reiss

        There’s a rhythm to a kitchen waking up in the morning. The slaughterhouses work at night, and we get the pigs, calves, and turtles maybe an hour after they’re killed and drained. Then the carts pull up: eggs, fruit, vegetables, and so on. Things start slow, but they don’t stay slow. Like most Xac restaurants in Arrat, breakfasts are almost half the business for the Mountain Pine. Xac refugees need a big meal at the crack of dawn, because the jobs they work don’t give many chances to stop and eat.

        Getting up early enough to open a kitchen hurts. Leaving a warm bed before second watch makes your head ache, and you can feel the chill going from the cobbles through your feet and into your soul. When it’s wet on top of the cold, it’s the nearest thing to hell. But once I’m there and I’m in the rhythm, it just moves. I check the carcasses as they come in, kick up a fuss if they try to give us short weight or diseased animals, and then I lift them up, bring them in, and take them apart. Hook and cleaver work for two, sometimes three hours.

        A lot of the Xac refugees working at the Mountain Pine are Sisori, so the hour before dawn, they’ll do their prayers out in the garden. I don’t mind, even though it slows us down when we need to speed up; I’d rather work with people who stop for prayers and stagger through fast days than with children glittering on juice, or gangs, or spirit.

        Just after the Sisori came back from morning prayers one of the dishwashers ran in, bloody and yelling. My first thought was one of the gangs had taken a knife to him. Uncle Cestin owned the Mountain Pine and he paid protection most months, but sometimes not, and gang kids have more glitter than sense. But the washer was bloody, not bleeding, and he was yelling in Xactan about a girl named Meica.

        He’d come from out back, so I went out back. There was a dead girl on the cobbles behind the back door, her guts lying in a tangle between her legs. A couple of the kitchen staff had followed me out, and the egg guy was sitting there in his wagon, trembling.

        “Gods and devils,” I said, in Xactan. I had come over to Arrat when I was eight, so I don’t even think in Xactan much, but there are times when it’s the only language that’ll do. I looked at the staff who had come out with me. “Merinec, Aama, go unload the eggs. Beian, get that washer cleaned up, and then take charge of the kitchen until I’m back.”

        They looked at me like I was insane. “Go!” I yelled, and they went.

        “What do I do?” asked Latan, who was my second in the kitchen.

            I gave a short nod towards the girl, and he went pale. “Get my tools,” I said. “Hook and cleaver.”

        The egg man heard that and started shaking worse. “What is this?” he yelled, also in Xactan, but one of the northern dialects that are almost incomprehensible. “It is forbidden what you do!”

        If he made a run for it, donkey braying and bolting, eggs scattering across the streets, the police would be sure to notice, and we’d all be done for. I went over, put a hand on his shoulder. “We have to,” I said.

        “The police?” he asked. “They are to find criminals.”

        “You have immigration papers?” I asked. “Your family have papers? What about a license for your farm, for the cart? They see a dead Xac, they deport everyone nearby, and assume that they got the killer.”

        He didn’t say anything, just stood shivering in the cold before the dawn.

        “You have, what, two more deliveries to make?” I asked.

        He wanted to leave. He could have left, if he had turned the cart around as soon as he saw the dead girl. Now it was too late. If he ran, and the police got interested in the girl, someone was going to tell them that there had been an egg cart at the scene, and that it had fled. He’d be lucky if he didn’t hang.

        “Yes,” he said. “Two more deliveries. I go to—”

        “Good,” I said. “Latan will go with you, help with the deliveries. He’ll take care of some business at the farm, too.”

        He went paler, turning almost as white as a local. “You can’t,” he said. “There’s no room in the cart for a... they’ll notice legs, arms—”

        Latan came back out. “Are you sure about this, Xan?” he asked, passing me my hook and cleaver. He looked like he was on the verge of vomiting, and I couldn’t blame him. But what else could I do? If the police got involved, we’d all be facing nooses and firing squads, either here or in Xacta.

        “Get him some soup,” I said to Latan. “His cart’ll be ready in a few minutes.”

        They went inside, trying not to see what was lying on the cobblestones behind them. Hell, I wished I couldn’t see what was lying on the cobblestones behind them. I wished like anything that it hadn’t happened, and that the police would help when things happened. But it had happened, and I’d seen the way the looks on the faces of the police when they had to deal with Xac. I’d seen people packed into wagons bound for the border after someone knifed a guy two tenements over.

        Call the police in, I get deported along with half the kitchen. Those of us who didn’t get a shallow grave five feet from the border might last a year or two in a People’s Committee labor camp. Do nothing, same thing happens. I wished I couldn’t see it, but I could, and I was on the spot. So I got to work.

        The Arratap think that the Xactan neighborhoods are pits of violence, and they’re not wrong. There are gangs, and there are people who’ve run out of hope and gone sour with juice and dust and spirit and wine. But before that day I had never seen a dead person close up. I lifted the girl up with the hook and started working with the cleaver. Bones are bones, and joints are joints.

        It didn’t take long. She was lighter than the calves I had been working with, and wasn’t as solid. I took her apart, wrapped what was left in the rags that had cushioned the eggs, and then the cart was ready to go. Nobody would look twice at a couple of Xac headed to a little patch of farm on the outskirts. There, she’d be bone meal and pig slop, and that would be it.

        I went inside, where the kitchen was filled with warmth and cheerful noise, and told Latan what he had to do. He wasn’t happy, but he didn’t argue, and he got the egg man moving. I followed and watched the cart leave.

        I could have let it go there. The first customers were already coming in, and the kitchen was falling behind on the orders.

        I couldn’t do it. That girl was a child, and she had been ripped all to hell, legs spread apart and intestines spilled out between them. I had cut her up and sent what was left of her corpse on its way; no Sisori grave, no Tauki pyre, no nothing. If she had parents, or someone else waiting for her, they’d be in hell, and I was leaving them there. I couldn’t have done anything else. But I had to do more.

        The body couldn’t have been there long; washers and cooks had been coming in, and there were deliveries. Sometimes waitstaff came in early, to pick up a little extra cash working in the kitchen. Or she could have been killed after closing the night before, and just dumped in the morning, or... or anything, really.

        I poked at the rotting bits of cabbage and burdock that had fallen off the cart when the trashmen had made their rounds. The sky was light enough that I could see pretty well. There was blood on the cobblestones, but there was always blood on the cobblestones from the carcasses.

        One of our table knives was glinting in the gutter, handle and blade slick with blood. I picked it up, ran my finger on the blade. It wasn’t sharp, and the cuts in the girl had been ragged. It could have done it. I wiped the knife off and slipped it into my apron.

        What else? Just the usual trash. Juicers had left jars smashed against the cobblestones, and there was a spirit vial in the gutter. The dragon stamp on the vial’s seal was still sharp, not worn down by days of being kicked and trampled.

        I held the vial up to my nose, sniffed, and felt bigger than I was. I could feel the glitter in my eyes. I had expected it to be empty when I had taken that sniff, but that vial was still half full. Two, three doses left, not counting the one I had just gotten. I popped the cork back in, tucked the vial in my apron along with the knife.

        I didn’t know what I was looking for, and I hadn’t looked as long as I could have. But I couldn’t afford to spend the rest of the morning poking around in gutters. I went back into the kitchen with a spring in my step that was spirit and nothing else. I had snorted up a full day’s wages, and I had another two tucked into my apron, easy.

        We were behind, but I took control, and we started catching up. The soup and bread started going out fast enough to meet orders, fishes started getting oiled, cubes of turtle and porpoise went into pans of vinegar and brandy.

        Beian had started work on the star dumplings, and had made a mess of it; he had done a third as many as we needed, and he had made them lopsided, beef spilling out into the broth. I took over, square of dough in my right palm. Half a spoon of meat, quarter spoon of mango and mint, then close the hand to seal the dumpling with a five-pointed star.

        My father had taught me how to make star dumplings, back in Xacta. We had them for the festivals, and I could remember standing on his feet to reach above the rim of the pot, his hand folding around mine as we squeezed the dumplings into shape.

        “Meica was like that,” said Aama from right behind me, and I damn near jumped out of my skin. I don’t go up on spirit much; in addition to everything else, it made me jumpy as hell. Aama was lucky she hadn’t come up on me when I was holding a knife, or I might have had a second dead girl to deal with.

        “Like what?” I asked.

        “She was made into a five-pointed star,” she said, grabbing one of the dumplings from the broth with her sticks. “It’s a Tauki symbol.”

        “Great,” I said. “So there aren’t people out there waiting for stuffed bread? Because if there are, what the fuck are you doing by my station?”

        “Ask him!” she said, gesturing towards one of the dishwashers. “Ask him what he knows!”

        “Stuffed bread!” I bellowed, hopefully loud enough to keep people from thinking too much about what she had said. “And if you use the black tree fungus again, I swear Young Shuan will hear about it.” It was traditional in stuffed bread, but it was far too bitter for modern tastes.

        Aama stalked back to her station, and after a quick glance at the dishwasher, I turned back to mine. He was a skinny fellow, who wore a long jacket all year round, even in the summer when it was too damn hot even when you weren’t in up to your elbows in a tub of hot water. I hadn’t really thought about it before then, but it could have been that he wore the jacket and his checked headband to keep Tauki scarring hidden—some of the Tauki higher-ups had scars and symbols burned into their flesh.

        Could have been that’s why he dressed like that, could have been something else. So long as people got their work done, I didn’t ask questions. He hadn’t given anything away in response to Aama; just looked up when she started yelling about him, then went back to grinding burnt dough off an oven pan.

        If that had ended it, it would have been fine, even though we were limping through breakfast like a three-legged dog. The problem was that Aama was right. Maybe not about the dishwasher, but about the way the girl had been laid out. Arms and legs spread, and that mess of stomach and intestines between the legs. Not just that, but the way she had been opened up. The cuts had been rough, but it was clear enough; a five-pointed star had been cut out of her stomach, and her guts had been pulled out through it.

        The five-pointed star was a Tauki symbol. That’s why we had star dumplings for festivals—Tauki was the royal religion, and the state festivals had all been Tauki. The dead girl had been Sisori. I had seen her at the lunchtime prayers.

        In exile, the Tauki and Sisori mostly got along, but if that girl had been killed as part of a Tauki ritual, we’d see the Sisori Wars fought out in our kitchen. If history was any guide, the ensuing revolution would kill about half of us, a quarter of those left alive would become refugees, and the rest would be under the thumb of a People’s Committee. More to the point, if there was a riot, the police would find out, and I’d swing for what I had done to Meica’s corpse.

        I looked back at the star dumplings and saw what I was doing. They were more or less right, but there was a twist that I had never used, and they were heavier on the mint than I had learned. I remembered my father teaching me how to make them, and I also remembered that my father was the sort of atheist who hated the festivals and never let us make star dumplings.

        The man I was remembering as my father looked a bit like the picture I had seen of my great-grandfather. Hard to tell, because he wasn’t stiffly posed and looking blank, and also because all the memories that came riding in on spirit would’ve been family of one sort or another. I shook my head, tried to clear it of my grandfather, or great-grandfather, or whoever’s spirit I had borrowed, and went back to making the dumplings like I had learned from Old Shuan. Then Young Shuan came in and started yelling.

        When Old Shuan died of winter fever, Young Shuan had been a junior line-cook, and one of the older chefs tried to get Uncle Cestin to put him in charge of the kitchen. Young Shuan didn’t bother with that. He just came in and started running things, and when that other fellow came back, Young Shuan cracked his jaw with a head-butt and chased him out of the kitchen with a cleaver. Hell of a cook, but not the type to let it slide when things were as bad as they were for this breakfast.

        There was spittle in his beard and rage in his eyes when he made it over to my station. I kept making the dumplings, because there wasn’t anything better for me to be doing.

        “You run a kitchen like this?!” he screamed. “Get out. Get out, and don’t come back, you hear?”

        I spent my mornings picking up three-hundred pound carcasses with one hand, and taking them apart with the other. If he tried to throw me out, I’d break him, head-butt or no. “Someone killed a waitress,” I said. “I had to deal with it.”

        For a while, the only sounds in the kitchen were cooking. Young Shuan’s hands clenched and unclenched. He wasn’t used to being argued with, and he wasn’t used to a kitchen running behind, but I hadn’t been wrong to do what I did. “Tell me about it,” he said, finally, and I did, as the clamor of the kitchen picked up again.

        “It’s done,” he said, when I finished. “You can’t waste any more time on this.”

        “But—”

        “It’s done.”

        I didn’t argue, because he wouldn’t listen, but it wasn’t done. Either the Sisori would try to take revenge for Meica’s death by killing a dishwasher, or the Tauki would decide to preempt the retaliation, or someone else would get laid out as a star. And for all that it was Young Shuan’s favorite way of dealing with problems, he couldn’t fire anyone for any reason; give someone a grievance, and maybe they go to the police and start talking about a dead waitress.

        It wasn’t done, but Young Shuan didn’t want to hear it. It wasn’t done, but maybe it’d simmer down rather than flare up. I couldn’t do much about it either way. The problem was, when I tried to work, I couldn’t help thinking about that girl, how she had looked out there on the cobblestones, how she had moved on the hook when I had taken her apart.

* * *

        It had been a hell of a morning, it was a hell of a lunch, and the afternoon wasn’t great either. Young Shuan tried to pretend that nothing was wrong, which left me holding everything together. When people take their breaks, they start to clump up as Tauki or Sisori, so I stopped letting them have breaks—no matter how well run a kitchen is, there’re always gutters to flush and ovens to scrape clean, and so on and so on.

        That didn’t make anyone happy.

        Then there were fights. Two that I broke up when it was still just yelling, and one a proper brawl out back just after lunch. By the time I got out there, Aama and the dishwasher were about to go at it with knives.

        I got behind her, tossed her clear.

        “You idiot!” she shouted. “He killed Meica!”

        “You have proof?” I asked. “You have proof, we’ll deal with it.”

        “Look at his shoulder!” said another of the Sisori. “That scar, those lines—”

        I looked. The dishwasher’s jacket had gotten ripped in the fight, and he had a hell of a lot more tattoos and scars than most Tauki. Great. Some sort of higher-up. “Don’t see any proof that he killed Meica,” I replied.

        “He’s the King of Xacta, you idiot,” said Aama. She surged forward, trying to get at him, and he brought his knife back up, and the whole thing started again.

        “Enough!” I yelled again, but nobody was listening.

        Then the pan I had wedged into place to keep the back door closed got knocked loose, and Young Shuan came out. His lips were pulled back, and he was shaking with rage. I was twice his size and on his side, but I had to fight back the urge to flee or beg forgiveness.

        He was carrying one of the big soup pots. When those were full, they were as heavy as a calf; heavier, because of the way the water sloshed, and he was carrying it like it was full. Young Shuan threw the contents out over the brawl.

        If it had been cats or juicers, he’d have used hot water and scalded them, but judging from their reactions, it was cold water. It did the job. The people out on the cobblestones went from wanting to kill each other to being confused, wet, and cold. Young Shuan pointed at the door, and they shuffled past him, back into the kitchen, like recalcitrant schoolchildren. Maybe the dishwasher was the rightful king of Xacta, but Young Shuan was the king of the Mountain Pine, and it wasn’t wise to forget that.

        I joined the line heading back into the kitchen, but as I passed Young Shuan, he grabbed me by the shoulder. He didn’t say anything, but there were all sorts of things in his look. Rage, fear, confusion, and a plea for help that he could never voice. Young Shuan had an ailing mother and three sisters, and he relied on the job to support them. More than that, the Mountain Pine was his life. It was falling apart, and he didn’t know what to do about it. I didn’t either.

        Most days, during the run-up to dinner, I did more supervising than actual work. A word here, a stir there, that sort of thing. The staff was good enough that most days, even that wasn’t necessary. That day, it was. They needed to know that I was hanging over their shoulder, so they’d keep their minds on the food, not on other things. Me, I was mostly thinking about other things.

        If that dishwasher was the king, it could be that some Tauki had decided to cut up a Sisori in his honor. There were fewer sacrifices in the royal calendar than there used to be, and all of those had been shifted over to animals during the Sisori wars. But there were still old-school Tauki who blamed the fall of the monarchy on the reforms in the Imperial cult, and if one of those had found out where the rightful king was hiding, I could believe a sacrifice on his behalf.

        Or on his orders. I didn’t know a damn thing about this Prince Telac. Propaganda against him poured out of the Xactan Republic, and Xac royalists in exile printed out propaganda supporting him, but neither side was heavy on facts. Smuggled out when he was seven, then disappeared, more or less. Could be that he was just getting along, or could be he had become someone who could see a girl cut all to pieces in the hope of it bringing him luck.

        As I worked my way through the kitchen, I did my best to look over at that dishwasher from time to time. There was a big Tauki who stuck to his side—had been there during the fight, and had knocked a couple of Sisori flat—and I didn’t try to separate them. I didn’t want to see Telac dead before I knew who had killed Meica. And it was Telac. Those bumps on his shoulder... traditionally, the crown jewels of Xacta were sewn into the prince’s body when he was still in swaddling clothes. My father had a yellowing newspaper clipping about that in his collection of ‘idiotic barbarisms that destroyed Xacta.’ That star-shaped lump on his shoulder was either the five rubies, or it was a replica that someone had undergone a lot of pain and effort to produce and then hide.

        Course, just because he was the king didn’t mean that he had killed Meica, or that Meica had been killed for his benefit. Could have been that someone stuck a knife in her, and decided to mock it up like a royal Tauki sacrifice to keep people from figuring out who had done it. Since you needed the king around for that sort of sacrifice, it’d have to have been someone who knew that the rightful king of Xacta was washing dishes in the Mountain Pine, anyway. Otherwise it didn’t make sense.

        None of it made sense, so I decided to see what the dishwasher had to say. He was elbows-deep in water so hot it was almost boiling, trying to get goose fat from the clay pots before it went rancid. His large friend looked up at my approach, hands dipping down into his apron. I gave him a short nod, didn’t make any sudden moves.

        “How many people knew?” I asked.

        “I don’t—” he started.

        “How many knew, before this morning?” I needed to know, and king or not, he was going to tell me.

        He shrugged. “Reitan,” he said, nodding towards his friend. “I don’t think any of the others, but sometimes the headband slips. There is always the chance that someone will see something.”

        I hesitated. Two of the line chefs—Aama and Beian—were watching us, and there were other dishwashers closer, and there were still runners bringing trays of dirty dishes back from the lunch. It was the closest we’d get to privacy.

        “Was this for you?” I asked.

        He was a skinny guy, nose like a beak, and eyes that were older than his face. He recoiled at that, just slightly. “I hope not,” he said, quietly. “Too much has been.... I hope not.”

        Maybe he was lying. He didn’t sound like he was, but living that sort of life, he’d have had to learn how to lie. Hell. I wasn’t even sure why I had asked, anyway—if he’d done it, he wasn’t going to just tell me.

        “You should leave,” I said. Whoever had killed that girl, having the king in the kitchen wasn’t helping things.

        “I can’t.” He shook his head, put the pot he was working on to the side, started in on the next one. “There aren’t enough who can be trusted, and on short notice... it isn’t safe here, but it wouldn’t be safe to run.”

        Maybe that’d be true for some provincial official or former judge, but not the king. Go out into the street in any Xac neighborhood, and half the people you’d meet would be willing to give up their lives for their king. Tauki mostly, but there were plenty of Sisori who blamed the Sisori wars on the king’s advisors rather than on the king. All Xac refugees loved the idea of the king. He was all they had.

        I must have let some of my disbelief out onto my face. He turned away, looked back down at the pot. “Everyone has family,” he said. “People will cross lines for their family.”

        The Prince Telac didn’t have any close family—there had been detailed accounts of the trials and executions in the broadsheets. But I took his point. Everyone had relatives left behind in Xacta, and telling the embassy where to find the king might get a grandfather out of forced rustication, or a mother from a labor camp. Hell, for all that my father had fought against the People’s Army, he’d have a hard time not giving the People’s Committees anything they wanted if it’d get my Aunt Ari out of whatever hell she was in.

        “Besides,” continued Telac. “If I leave, everyone thinks I was involved.”

        That was stupid, but made more sense than the other reasons. He didn’t seem to have anything else to say, so I gave a snort, and turned away. When I got back to my station, I saw what I had done.

        Plum wine vinegar for the marinade, instead of sorghum vinegar. I swore under my breath. It’d take an expert to taste the difference, and it cost five times as much. The last of the spirit. Great-grandfather wouldn’t have used sorghum. It would’ve been worse if that vial of spirit had taken me up with someone who couldn’t cook, but this wasn’t great either. I swore again, louder, slammed my handtowel down on the counter, and went back to the privy.

        Coming down from spirit is like being drunk; like being two drinks past drunk, when the joy has faded but the sick is still there, and you’re not sure if you’re going to puke or not, and your thoughts chase each other around without getting anywhere.

        I squatted over the privy, and I could see the dead girl, head turning to the side as I took a cleaver to her, and I could see the fight out behind the restaurant. I could see it spreading, I could see faces I knew split open by knives, I could see other heads turning to the side, with that same looseness of death in them.

        It didn’t make sense. The king, or whoever’d done it—they’d have to have known that throwing the dead girl out on the cobblestones like that would cause trouble. There was no reason for it. Once they’d done the sacrifice, they could have dumped her in a rain barrel, or in with the trash, or the king’s giant friend could’ve stuffed her in the fire under the big stone oven. They hadn’t even tried to hide her in a corner or anything. Only reason to leave her public like that would be because they wanted someone to find her, to see what they’d done.

        Because people had seen her, the king was going to get killed. Either by the Sisori in the restaurant, or one of them would tell someone else, or something. So, maybe there was a Sisori who wanted to kill the king, and thought killing a waitress was easier than killing a dishwasher. No. Didn’t sit right. Go to the Xactan embassy, tell someone about the king, and he’d die. No need to kill a waitress and hope for the best.

        Not Sisori, and not Tauki. I reached that point where I was sure that I wasn’t actually going to vomit, cleaned myself up, and headed back out.

        I had an idea. Nothing I could prove. Hell, I wasn’t even sure it made sense. But when I went back out into the kitchen, I slipped the spirit that was left in the vial in my apron into the jug of water that Aama kept near her station. If I was wrong, I wouldn’t lose much. If I was right, it still might not do any good. But it was all I had.

        I hadn’t been gone long. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes. But the mood had changed when I came out of the privy. Whatever Young Shuan had accomplished with that pot of water was gone, and what I had been trying to do all day was falling apart. Yeah, they were tired, and yeah, they were working on dinner, but the lines were hardening. Then the Sisori left for their evening prayers, and there was nothing more I could do. If we tried to break those prayers up, even those who weren’t inclined to riot would riot, but if we didn’t, those who were inclined to riot would be ready to break faces when they came back.

        Everyone knew it. A couple of the Tauki left, but most of them weren’t backing down. There were knives tucked into aprons, chair legs rolled up in towels and kept close to hand. It was going to be a goddamn bloodbath if I was wrong, or if my plan didn’t work.

        Aama was still at her station, braiding pastry dough, fig honey, and candied almonds with a sort of dreamy intensity. It wasn’t anything on our menu, but it looked good. I had given her more spirit than I had taken, and I weighed two and a half, maybe three times what she did. That woman was as far up as spirit could take you.

        As the Sisori service came to a close, I drifted over to where Aama was working. “They’re going to kill our king,” I said, as the Sisori came through the garden doors in closed ranks. I tried for an old-fashioned accent, but I don’t think it mattered. Aama nodded, put the pastry down to the side, and walked out to meet the Sisori as they came in.

        They were headed for Telac, and I had to give the little guy credit— he didn’t let it fluster him. He kept on with washing the dishes from lunch, one platter after another, his jacket soaked through and his headband down on his forehead.

        Aama got in between the Sisori and the king. She was unarmed, and there was the glitter of spirit behind her eyes. Could be that they’d just knock her to the side, and the whole goddamn kitchen would wind up drenched in blood, and....

        “How dare you,” she yelled. “You’re still Xac, despite this religious idiocy. In Xacta, or in exile, you are still Xac. How dare you raise your hand against your king? By the scepter and the signet, I order you to disperse!”

        It stunned them. Aama had been the one who had blamed the king for Meica’s death, she had been the one leading them, she had been the one driving them to kill the king. They must have been confused when she hadn’t come in for the prayers, but this was a step further than any of them had expected.

        “He killed Meica,” said one of the Sisori.

        “Him?” she spat to the side, furious. When you’re up on spirit, no matter how high up, you’re still there, even when your ancestors are talking, even when you remember things that you never saw. I could see Aama, underneath the spirit, trying to will herself not to speak. “If he had attended to the sacrifices, none of this would have happened. He’s weak-hearted, and we suffer for it.”

        The leading rank of the Sisori were confused, but the rest were still pushing up behind. They came at Aama, and whoever it was that was talking through her didn’t seem to understand what was happening. “No!” she said, trying to hold them all back, her arms stretched out. “No! He is weak-hearted, but he is all we have left of the blood!”

        “No!” she cried, as she was knocked to the side. “Twenty-three more sacrifices, and he will be strong! Just leave him be, and I will do the rest. Twenty-three more. Meica was willing in the end, I swear it!”

        It wasn’t enough to stop the fight; it had already started, and it was about more than just Meica. But it certainly took the fire out out of the Sisori. Aama had been one of their leaders, and, well, sure if the king hadn’t been there it wouldn’t have happened, but they weren’t willing to start stabbing for that.

        Young Shuan waded in with a ladle and rolling pin, and I helped with pulling the Sisori off the Tauki and the Tauki off the Sisori, and we managed to stop it before anyone got hurt worse than a cracked nose or a broken tooth. Nobody wanted to apologize, but nobody wanted to do anything irrevocable. Once we got them back to work, they all threw themselves into it, doing their best not to look at each other. Not the people who fought with them, not the people who fought against them. Seemed to help the cooking, anyway.

        There were a couple of people who left their stations before dinner. Latan left early, because I sent him to get Uncle Cestin. Cestin owned the place, so I figured he should hear what had happened. Aama hadn’t left on my orders, but I couldn’t say I was upset when I saw that she was gone. She had killed Meica, and tried to get Telac killed.

        If it had just been the spirit, maybe we could’ve found a way to understand. Spirit’s a bad idea, but she wasn’t the first who’d thought it was a way out. Leaving the body like that, that had been her. It must have been hard to kill for the king as an ancestor, and hate him as yourself, but trying to hide her guilt by spreading it around like that... if she had stayed behind, it wasn’t like the police would have listened to our version of what happened. The only thing we could have done would have been to send her out to the chicken farm, or somewhere like that. I should have done it, maybe. Caught her, kept her from leaving, and then dealt with her. I’m glad I didn’t.

        The king didn’t run. His friend ducked out, once it was clear that the Sisori weren’t going to commit regicide, but he stayed at his station through it all, washing the dishes as they came in. My father had a lot to say about monarchy, none of it complimentary, and mostly I agreed with him. But I had to admit that as far as the Prince Telac—King Telac IV, really—went, there could be worse men in charge back in Xacta. In fact, there were worse men in charge in Xacta.

        When the dinner rush slowed, I went over to where he was working. “By the scepter and signet?” I asked.

        “Those were the symbols of the Lord Chancellor,” he said. “That office was abolished seventy years ago, so it must have been someone from before then who came back riding on the spirit. How did you know it was her?”

        “Me?”

        “I saw the spirit vial.”

        Worse men then him were in charge of Xacta, and probably men with worse eyesight.

        I looked up; nobody else was interested. “It had to be,” I said. “Only made sense if a Tauki did the killing, and then a Sisori tried to get you killed. Spirit could explain why those two were working together like that. Had to be a Sisori taking the spirit, and a Tauki ancestor coming back on the spirit, because Sisior hadn’t been preaching long enough ago for a Tauki to have Sisori ancestors. Aama knew that you were the king, so I guessed it was her.”

        There was also the way she cut the bones from pike, the way she kept putting black tree fungus in stuffed bread. No question that she went up on spirit more than was good for her. But no point in mentioning that—maybe he was the king, but he was just a dishwasher; he wouldn’t understand.

        Telac nodded, and turned back to his washing, and I turned to go back to my station. “Don’t leave,” I said, not looking at him. “I know that too many people know who you are, and if you stay here, the embassy will be sending knives after you, but give us a night. Uncle Cestin will... just a night. No more.” Then I left. Either he’d stay or he wouldn’t.

        He stayed. Cestin came in, red-faced, with blue envelopes of cash for Young Shuan, for me, and for the other senior cooks, like it was a holiday or there was a funeral. Then the waiters chased out the remaining customers, locked the doors, and drew the shades over the windows. And then the kitchen staff went out into the restaurant, which we never did.

        The tables were set for us; blue and gold settings, red tablecloths. There wasn’t much call for Xac banquets in Arrat, but even if it’d just been the king showing up for a meal, tradition dictated a full-course affair. As things were, there was more to celebrate. It seemed like Young Shuan had hoped that I’d set things right, and had planned accordingly. Stupid. But he had done it, and they sat me up between King Telac and Uncle Cestin. Tauki and Sisori cooked, and Tauki and Sisori served, and Tauki and Sisori ate together. Young Shuan himself made the five-pepper sauced shrimp, and the rest of the kitchen outdid themselves with steamed and fried turtle, with white porpoise and everything else you could imagine, everything of the best.

        Uncle Cestin was embarrassed and pleased to be sitting at that table, and while I did not know King Telac well, I could see that he was deeply moved. To live as a king and as a dishwasher at the same time—to see what he meant to the Xac in exile, Sisori and Tauki alike—had to have touched him deeply.

        As for me, perhaps I misread Cestin and Telac’s reactions, but if I did, it was because of the tears that I was shedding. I hadn’t really thought about how much the Mountain Pine meant to me, what a proper Xac banquet in Arrat meant, what my place here was and how people saw me. Even then, I couldn’t face it, not without almost falling apart.

        Maybe I should have tried harder to catch Aama. I didn’t, and for all I knew, she’d go up on spirit again, and make more sacrifices. Maybe I should have seen what was happening earlier, headed it off before anyone got sacrificed. I hadn’t. But I had fought for the Mountain Pine, and I had won, and they were honoring me for it.

        There’s a seal that you’ll sometimes see on signs for Xac restaurants. It’s in the old script, which most Xac couldn’t read even in the old country, and it’s become so stylized that even someone who could read the old script probably wouldn’t be able to parse it. It says, “By Appointment to the Throne,” and it is almost always bullshit. A few days later, they put it up on the sign of the Mountain Pine, and that’s the only place I know where it’s nothing but the truth.

        I probably should have left. There were a lot of people in that kitchen who knew what I had done, and there was Aama, who must have figured out that I had been the one who had slipped her the spirit. Any one of them could have said something to the police, or to the Xactan embassy, and I’d have swung for what I’d done, or worse. I didn’t.

        I was Xactan, sure. But I hadn’t grown up there, and while I speak the language, I can’t read it. I wasn’t Arratap, as everyone native to Arrat made sure to let me know. But I guess the cold and damp had gotten into my brain somehow, because despite the immigrant tax and the police and the constantly failing gaslights and everything else, I wasn’t going to leave. There’s not much to love about Arrat, but it’s what I know, and it’s the place I have. Hell, if Telac ever got put back on a throne in Xacta, I’m not sure I’d leave then, either.

        Lifting those carcasses and cutting them apart doesn’t get any easier. There’s the money that we get on holidays and for funerals, there’s the little bit that I can save from my pay, and what my father gets for translations. Could be that it’d be enough for a place in the country, maybe invest the rest to get a living. And I have been looking at investments. Buildings down in the Xac neighborhoods, with good street traffic. Could be someday soon there’ll be another place in Arrat where that seal isn’t bullshit. It’d mean more work than anything, but it’s who I am, and it’s what I do, and once a kitchen gets into its rhythm, it just moves.

Copyright © 2014 Alter S. Reiss

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Alter S. Reiss is a scientific editor and field archaeologist. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife Naomi and their son Uriel, and enjoys good books, bad movies, and old time radio shows. Alter’s work has appeared in Strange Horizons, F&SF, and elsewhere.

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COVER ART

“Pillars,” by Tomas Honz

Tomas Honz is a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, who believes in the traditional approach to art. To him, painting is a science that is necessary to acquire in order to make an art of it. He has years of experience in the entertainment industry as a concept illustrator, but his desire to create his own work, as well as a serious trauma–one of those things that make you reconsider your whole life–led him to leave that career, to open his eyes and soul to the fascinating world around him and shift his attention to traditional painting. View his work at tomashonz.com.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

ISSN: 1946-1076

Published by Firkin Press,

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