Greg Keyes - Lord of Souls

“Anyone else?”

“He hired a merchant ship and traveled in disguise. I’m sure the name of the ship has been removed from any records.”

“He had to pay for it.”

“He didn’t want the Emperor to know, so he probably paid out of pocket. He’s not without his own wealth.” She looked around. “This is going on too long,” she said. “Is there anything else?”

“Delia Huerc. Where did she live?”

“I don’t know, but I can get that. Look for a message from me.”

“Okay.”

She started to go, but then turned. “Good work,” she said.

“Thanks.”

“Next time, come to my house. Do you know where it is?”

“Yes.”

“Of course you do. Come to the window above the alley and tap it four times. If I’m there, I’ll come. And watch your back. Things are getting very paranoid in the ministry. There are questions where there shouldn’t be.”

“I’ll be careful,” he said.

She nodded and started walking.

“You be careful, too,” he said.

She paused for an instant, but didn’t look back, and then continued on her way.

Annaig stared out at the shimmering green sump and delicate, insectile buildings that climbed and depended from the stone walls of the conical valley at Umbriel’s heart. Above, shining through the glittering strands of what resembled a giant spiderweb or some vast sea invertebrate, shone the sun of Tamriel. The sun she had been born under. It made her feel tight, claustrophobic, to know the light of that sun could illume the flying city, touch her, warm her-but that she could not go up through that sky, be in the wider world that orb washed with its radiance.

“You’ve not been here in a while,” Toel said.

Annaig forced herself to look at him. She had first seen Toel when he and his staff had slaughtered everyone in her former kitchen-everyone but Slyr and her. Even then, surrounded by brutally murdered corpses, he’d been calm, serene really. She had been terrified of him then, and was even more so now. She felt that at any moment he would stand, take her by the shoulders, and push her over the balcony to her death. Afterward, he would never think of her again.

But showing her fear would only get her killed more quickly. Toel had no use for the weak. She had to present him with something else.

“You’ve not invited me,” Annaig replied.

He shrugged and breathed in mist from the long, curved glass tube he held.

“I’m aware of why you haven’t been here,” he said, frost forming on his nostrils. “Are you?”

“You’re disappointed that I asked you to spare Slyr, after she poisoned me.”

“It goes beyond that. I thought you were like me, driven to excel, to rise. But you hold yourself back, and there isn’t anything I can do about that.”

“Then why am I here?” she asked.

“Because still you intrigue me. You invent marvelous things. I hope to reach you, at last.”

The hairs behind Annaig’s ears pricked up at the ominous sound of that.

“I do wish to please you, Chef,” she said.

“Do you?”

“Yes. But in my own way.”

“By definition, you can only please me by catering to my desires.”

Annaig shook her head, tightening her belly to act bold. “That is only the beginning,” she said. “A child’s idea of pleasure.”

“What is a child?” Toel asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” she replied. “My point is that the best chef cooks what the patron never knew he wanted.”

“And what is it that I don’t know I want?”

“That is for me to show you,” Annaig said, trying to sound playful. “And it cannot be rushed.”

“And yet, I feel impatient,” Toel said, “and perhaps a bit condescended to.”

She forced a smile. “But still I intrigue you.”

“I cannot deny it,” he said, inhaling again.

He looked off into the distance for a long moment, and then returned his attention to her.

“There will be a banquet,” he said, “some days hence. It will be for the court of Umbriel himself. Four kitchens have been invited to present a tasting for Lord Rhel, Umbriel’s steward-mine, and those of Phmer, Luuniel, and Ashdre. Whichever kitchen pleases the steward most will cook for Umbriel. I need not tell you that it must be my kitchen that wins.”

“It goes without saying, Chef.”

“Phmer is our chief competition, to my mind. She is known for her creativity. Before Phmer, there were only eight essential savors: salty, bitter, piquant, sweet, sour, ephemerate, quick, and dead. But Phmer found a ninth sensation of taste, which has no name, and all attempts to duplicate it or ascertain how it is created have failed. And so, Annaig, although you may tantalize me with these desires you know I have which I myself do not, this is what I tell you now: You will find this ninth savor for me. If you do not, any other plans you have to gratify me are moot. Do you understand?”

“I do, Chef,” Annaig said. “I won’t fail.”

“Indeed,” he replied. She couldn’t tell if it was an affirmation or a question. “Now you may go.”

“A few questions, Chef,” she said.

“What are they?”

“Do you have a sample of this ninth taste, so that I might know what I’m trying to duplicate?”

“I don’t have any, no.”

“Have you ever tasted it yourself, Chef?”

For a moment his face might have been cast in stone.

“No,” he finally said.

“Can you at least tell me if it is a spiritual or gross substance?”

“We may assume spiritual, as only the highest lords have tasted it.”

“Thank you, Chef.”

Her knees were shaking when she left, and she felt profoundly unreal, as if she were watching this all happen to someone else. She returned to the kitchens, attempting to stay calm, to focus-trying to understand where she had to start.

She was sure she could duplicate anything she could taste, but that wasn’t in the offering. That left her with what seemed an impossible task, but it was pointless to entertain that notion, wasn’t it? She had to assume that it was possible. Phmer had done it, after all. Had it been an accident, or a design?

She went to her private bench, far from the hustle and bustle of the stations, and began idly thumbing through the various powders, liquids, distillations, and ferments in her cabinet. She fiddled with the flow of soul force through the refraxor, but after an hour of that pushed back and placed her face in her palms. Her brain didn’t seem to work at all. Sighing, she went back to her room, but her thoughts flowed no better there, so in the end she gave up and opened a bottle of wine.

She was on her second glass when Slyr entered.

“I’m sorry,” the other woman said. “You’re never here this early in the day. I-”

“No, join me,” Annaig said. “I’m just thinking.”

“Well, I’ve no wish to disturb you.”

“Sometimes talking helps me think.” She pulled over a second cup and poured more wine. “Have a drink, talk.”

Slyr looked uncertain but did as she was told.

“What do you know of Phmer’s ninth savor?” Annaig asked.

“I’ve heard of it,” Slyr said cautiously.

“Before I came to Umbriel, I knew of only four or five essential flavors. When I was taught to cook, I was told that the success of a good dish was in the inclusion and balancing of these sensations. When I came here, you, Slyr, taught me that there were three more, all of a spiritual nature.”

“Quick, dead, and ephemerate,” Slyr supplied.

“So I’m thinking,” Annaig said. “I taste the five gross senses on different parts of my tongue, and I read long ago that the tongue is grown to interpret such flavors. But I cannot, like the lords, taste the difference between quick and dead. I might discern that a wiggling shrimp is alive and a still one dead, but the taste is the same, because my tongue isn’t designed for that distinction. And as for ephemerate, that’s another thing entirely, isn’t it? Those are the ‘flavors’ we make with souls. The tongue doesn’t taste them, although that’s generally how they are introduced, since they’re presented as food. But really, the skin or eyes can taste them equally as well-and ephemerate isn’t a single kind of flavor, but hundreds, thousands, of very different things made possible by the cuisine spirituelle. Like the terror you tasted the other day, or the joy I could create tomorrow. How does that compare with the electric vitality of raw, unrefined soul energy, or the needling pleasure of filple?”