Beneath Ceaseless Skies #155 Read online

  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,

  a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Literary Organization

  Compilation Copyright © 2014 Firkin Press

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