The Pasha's Lunch

By the time he worked through that week's pilgrims, the day's heat had settled heavy on the desert, a late reminder of the summer that just passed. All of Sand Castle fled to the shelter of thick-walled houses or, better yet, the rock-hewn rooms inside the mesa. Taylor and his two guards, the married pair Alice and Otavio, took the inner avenue nearest the garden and waded through the moist and heavy air surrounding new undergrowth and young palms. They headed back to Bitter Spring's arc, where lunch waited for them.

Their first stop was the Pasha's private room, where spike-haired Milo helped Taylor shed his holy vestments down to a layer of purplish-red cloth wrapped close around his torso, groin, and upper legs. The material was experimental, based on Taylor and Gonzo's investigation of Darkmaw's shell. It had superb resistance to cuts and became indestructible when paired with a durability prayer, but it was too flexible for proper armor when used alone: it wouldn't do anything to protect him from a hammer blow. Still, it was a discrete bit of extra protection.

"We have a length of cloth from Pashtuk that matches our lip color. It'll compliment the under-wrap nicely." Milo offered him the cloth for inspection, which was a long linen dyed amber.

"It's a bit flashy, isn't it? Is there a special occasion?"

"It is the Pasha's luncheon, Young Master. We never know who Anisca might invite."

"A fair point. Wrap it however you like, but leave the right arm bare. Visitors like to see the lightning mark."

Taylor had given up on asking Milo to call him by name when they were alone. 'Young Master' was as informal as he'd go, which was slightly humorous given that Taylor was only a few years younger than him and nearly as tall. He'd met Milo and his cousin Mila in Bricktown, a slum in Lavradio's capital city. Taylor paid to have the cousins tutored, to reward them for their help with a matter of poisoned wells and, perhaps, establish a long-term friendship with the lively duo. He didn't intend to make them into followers but, as he prepared to leave the city on his first mendicant journey, they had practically begged to become his bulwark.

Milo enjoyed his double role as bodyguard and valet because it made good use of his peculiar talent. He had a keener aesthetic sense than almost anyone Taylor had met and blended teas in his spare time. It was an expensive hobby, but Taylor paid for it because he got to drink most of the proceeds. The two of them trained their noses and tastebuds together and kept over two hundred vials of sample materials. Taylor's focus tended toward poisons, while Milo had no focus. He even kept vials of odors most people would count as stenches, like durian and …

"You did Dahabia's lip gloss, didn't you?"

"What did you think?" The valet smirked as he tightened the skirt-like arrangement of cloth.

"I'd like to kiss her again just to taste it. Amazing work."

Milo doubled the running end, twisted it, and draped it over Taylor's shoulder. The arrangement displayed segments of red protective under-wrap against the yellow linen. A red woven belt ran through the cloth to hold strategic parts in place. "She likes you, Young Master. When you're done running around, you two would be a good match." The valet bade Taylor to sit and carefully applied Red Tower carmine to his eyes and amber to his lips. The Nexus Hierarch's loyalty was to Olyon, and he didn't wear garden colors. As Pasha, Taylor wore his garden's colors proudly.

"Let's get through this year before we plan the rest of my life."

The turban came next. It was an elaborate style that layered and twisted the two colors of cloth and had a crowning rim to protect the head from overhand attacks. Milo must have practiced the technique to get all the stripes to turn out so even. The turban was decorated with a cabochon of star sapphire so dark it was nearly black. A wooden star of Olyon and a sword gripped in dark monster bone completed the look, marking him both as a disciple and a garden-dweller.

Aside from some lengths of fine cloth and a collection of lab-grown gems, the only luxury in Taylor's room was a full-length mirror. It showed him a resplendent youth. The sword, brooch, star, and intricate fern-like patterns tattooed along his arm set dark counterpoints to the carmine and amber colors of Red Tower. If Taylor met the person in the mirror somewhere, he'd be careful not to cross the fellow without a reason: he looked dangerous.

"You're ready, Young Master, for whatever Anisca has planned."

"Good work, Milo."

Alice and Otavio followed him to the room that Anisca set aside for these events. Calique meals were normally communal affairs, mainly because it was fuel-efficient to cook for large groups. Men ran the kitchens, aided by packs of children of both sexes. The Pasha and his headquarters staff ate separately from everyone else, for safety's sake. A smaller kitchen was easier to guard, and civilians were far less likely to die by poison meant for Taylor.

Somebody had tried poisoning a curry from a kitchen in Pashtuk's arc, one that Taylor was known to visit for certain meals. By the time he showed up and detected poison in his bowl, scores of innocents had eaten from the same pot. The substance was slow-acting but deadly, and Taylor had to call for all the healers in the city and rush to track down diners before serious damage was done. After the curry incident, he made it his well-known policy to eat only from the kitchen in his headquarters. He could imbibe almost anything and still live, but Taylor couldn't stand the thought of children dying because they ate from the same pot as him.

Anisca ate from the same kitchen as Taylor when she could but, as a doyenne, she had to move in different circles and frequently ate with different people. Mataba assigned a team of female disciples to follow her around, former healers who were especially quick with the anti-poison prayers.

Sand Castle was far from its wintertime peak when nobles, the fabulously wealthy, and famous personalities lingered together in the transit city between their destinations. Most visitors these days were sharp-eyed merchants willing to race an impending war to get their wares to distant markets, or stary-eyed pilgrims come to pray for a Nexus victory. Still, the person of occasional interest did pass through, and Anisca collected them to add to her roster of interesting Calique. Taylor bemoaned the extra change of clothes at first but warmed up to the lunches as they proved to be stimulating. He couldn't quite bring himself to thank Anisca for arranging them, but he stopped complaining about the drain on his time. It was only a couple of hours a week, and it was time well spent. These were not idle hours, after all.

Taylor entered the dining room last, as usual — his insistence on greeting all the pilgrims practically ensured it. Anisca and Dahabia were seated on cushions at one end of a round table, draped in bright red and gold, the feminine equivalent of the men's carmine and amber. Near them were seated Wise Aygerim of Saluja in amethyst and white, with her Maul Erkin in purple and gray. On the other side was a Dace merchant Taylor didn't know, accompanied by a demure-looking female companion. Maul Amadis was after them in his Dagono colors, but his doyenne was conspicuous by her absence. It was Dagono's circle that had lied to Anisca and Taylor, not the maul, and Wise Uzan's continued exclusion was intended as a rebuke.

Nearest to Taylor's seat were three people he recognized but was surprised to see. One was a graceful woman with limbs a tad too long for her body and a voice to stop men's hearts, the famous songstress Bibi. The same Bibi who had given Taylor gold coins to fund his music school. That was going to be an interesting conversation. The second was Rolo, a scout for Baron Fringe.

The third unexpected guest was someone who brought a genuine, and perhaps somewhat goofy, smile to his face. "Laura Sabrosa! I knew I recognized those ears!"

"It's wonderful to see you again, Taylor. Finally." There was a touch of acid in those words, but Taylor was happy to see her anyway. She had gotten taller in their months apart.

Everyone but Ansica rose and bowed or curtsied to him according to their various customs. But Taylor's eyes were reserved for the girl with tall ears and a scut tail who curtsied in a white and blue Lavradian dress trimmed with lace frills. It was nothing spectacular compared to what nobles wore, but her clothes were certainly an odd style choice for the desert. Her jewelry was selected for rarity and value and not, as a Calique might prefer, decorative whimsy. She was the first girl he'd ever kissed, back when he was still new to this world, and a memory of her struck him with startling clarity: Bibi's Salon during the harvest music festival, the two of them dancing, aglow with magical light from the first prayer song. She fell asleep next to him that night, still glowing and humming happily.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

But, she did not look happy now.

Taylor offered them the expected bow and asked them all to be seated.

"You know everyone here," said Anisca as people resumed their places, "except for Vimal Donglar and his wife Shanti."

"I hope you will excuse us being Donglars. One can't help who one's families are, eh?" They were both in silks and gems as if they could impress the Pasha with their wealth. A slight aura of spirit lingered around the wife, who settled by her husband in silence.

"That depends." Taylor found the nearby basin to wash his hands and dried them on a towel offered by Alice. Wife. Spirit. Danger? He signed to Alice while their backs were turned to the table. "Are you here to eat and talk? Or to make an attempt on my life?"

"Phillip!" Exclaimed Anisca, while she tossed a look at Taylor that told him to behave himself. "I apologize. Every week we spend here, he becomes more like a Calique. And you know how mauls are: always pushing the new person around, trying to set the pecking order."

"It's fine," Vimal claimed nervously. "We're aware there's been some unfortunate trouble between Nexus and Enclave." It was a stunning understatement for an organization trying to annihilate Nexus, but Taylor let it pass for the moment. Maybe Vimal was from a secondary Donglar branch and didn't know the true depths of the animosity there.

"Rolo, how are you?"

"Oh good, good. You know, we've missed our chance to climb the passes to the original Enclave. The Yaegour mountains will be impassable soon." Visiting the scriptural birthplace of the Unity religion had been Taylor's plan last year, and he was supposed to take Rolo as a guide.

"I still want to do that. Maybe next year. Bibi, what brings you?" Taylor settled into his appointed cushion, directly opposite from Anisca.

Bibi was the closest thing this world had to a superstar, but today she looked worn down, like the desert didn't agree with her. "There is this small matter of a music school in Girona. Someone put my name on it, and now they expect me to show up and teach for part of the year. I thought I had given money to someone responsible who would run the place for me, but the scoundrel ran away. He had some lame excuse about being exiled from the kingdom."

"That sounds like such a bother," Taylor agreed. He reached for the central platter of food at the same time as Anisca, and they each took what they wanted, signaling the start of the meal. These luncheons were a step up from how they ate most of the time, with more generous spicing and ingredients drawn from other countries. They had pears from Dace, small cold-weather olives from Mialta, a sauce made from a Gallian wine, and other treats. But, there was nothing as sweet as garden dates, served stuffed with spicy appalon cheese.

Taylor had to be cautious when the milk-wine was poured because he knew it marked the end of the meal and the beginning of the real conversation. Up to that point, the talk was mostly about the travelers and what they'd seen or heard most recently while on the road. They had no news to surprise him with. He was already aware of monster sightings, that Kashmar was mustering an army, and the abandoned frontier in Hyskos.

"Nobody can figure it," Vimal was saying, "the mine slaves disappear, take all the gemstones with them, only to scatter them around the countryside. I've heard that farmers are finding priceless gems in ditches. Where's the sense in that, I tell you?"

"Maybe they know the market for gems has crashed," said a disgruntled Laura. She was from the Sabrosa merchant family and had been plying her trade on her own for less than a year. "Someone has been selling off boxes of gems at absurd prices."

"That's what I'm saying!" Vimal finger-tapped the table while his passive wife looked on. The longer Taylor observed her, the more convinced he was that someone else was looking through her eyes. Her head wasn't keeping up with the conversation and her eyes were late to follow who was talking. And yet, their attention didn't waver.

"What's the point of taking gemstones if you're not going to sell them? What's the point of selling gemstones for less than production cost?" Vimal wasn't asking rhetorically; he was asking Taylor.

"Diabolical!" Laura was looking at Taylor strangely. Bibi was sipping warm milk-wine with honey, and seemed to be tuning out the conversation. The rest of the table paid rapt attention.

"Don't ask me. I don't involve myself in trading gems," he proclaimed. It was a true statement: Taylor never touched the stones once they left Black Sanctuary's crystalarium. Calique took raw ores of corundum, topaz, and chrysoberyl from various locations in the desert or nearby mountains, abrasive-class minerals that were easy to dig but useless as gemstones, and stockpiled them at Laggard's Shaft, a dead mine in the desert. The ores were forwarded to Sand Castle in batches, and refined into gems of startling quality. The Black Sanctuary didn't cut or polish the gems but left them raw for the cutters.

Anisca and the doyennes arranged deals with a selection of gem merchants, the less favored kind that normally had to beg for the slimmest of quotas from the Five Families who controlled the flow of precious stones. The doyennes were practically giving the stones away in exchange for promises they'd sell for a third of their usual price. The markets in several countries were forewarned not to overpay for stones because there would be so many of them.

The trade had only been going on for a few weeks, and none of the lab-grown gems went north to Kashmar or Dace. The Firsts didn't know their cash cow had been mortally wounded. But Vimal had just come from Gallia, where cheap stones were flooding into the market, and the families would learn all about it just as soon as he turned north and told them.

"A word to the wise, young Pasha. Leadership uses the church's power to safeguard First Families' interests. They won't stand by and let the market die like this. If there's something Sand Castle can do to fix it, you should."

"Enclave has a hard time with facts, lately. I'm surprised anyone still listens to them." Taylor waved the man's concerns aside with a casual finger.

"You're not hearing me, son. You should listen better. They will do something about this."

"And?" Taylor's attitude had changed to open defiance. Even Bibi was paying attention now. "And?" he repeated. "What will they do? Be specific: what will they do? Because they're already doing just about everything they can. Kashmar is building the largest invasion force the desert's seen in living memory. Do you think we're fools? That we don't know Leadership supports these little invasions? I'm losing count of how many times they've tried to kill me or my people. So please tell me, what incentive do we have to help them with their problems? Will that make them withdraw their support for Kashmar? Will they accept Nexus and stop trying to kill us?"

Vimal looked down at the table and, after a moment of thought, he chuckled. "No. I don't believe it would make any difference."

"Then what are you going on about?" Taylor gave a languid sign that he wanted his nickleharp. "Enclave is committed to destroying Nexus. Kashmar is coming for the gardens with or without their support. The desert will be watered by men's blood and, when enough of them have died, the invaders will go home. But the days are still too hot for marching armies, so let's have some music. Bibi, care to join me?"

"I would love to, but I'm resting my voice. Kashmar had me singing dirges for the princeps for twelve hours."

This, too, was old news to Taylor. "So it's true then, we killed Kashmar's first prince in Satoma. Too bad it won't change anything. From what I hear, the Tyrant has plenty of sons to spend." He laid the instrument across his lap and bowed it experimentally, tuning as he went. He wanted to pull the conversation away from all the stuff he couldn't talk about, especially while a watcher lurked behind Shanti's eyes. He wanted to avoid conversations about Hyskos or his post-invasion plans. There were too many things he couldn't say, and he was a terrible liar. He could manage half-truths all day long, but he struggled with outright lying.

Before Vimal could ask another question Taylor wouldn't answer, he spun into a lively melody set to words from an old Calique poet. Taylor had stumbled on a small volume of Rupka's works when he occupied Pashtuk's garden and borrowed liberally from their library. In the weeks since then, he'd put three of her poems to music with help from Lavradio's royal musicians via sounding board. It was a tune that paced like fast appalons over the desert with their trunks pointed at far azure horizons. He could almost smell the morning blooms and hear the tippi birds awaken.

"May I have that song?" asked a bold Bibi. "It would make up for your abandonment of our students."

"I can't believe you'd hold that against me! I had the kingdom and the church breathing down my neck. I didn't want to go, and it's not like I ran off with the money."

"No, but you did leave. If you allow me to use the song, I'll teach it to your former students and tell them you still think of them." That was a harder offer to refuse, so Taylor promised to have a transcript made before she left. Dahabia helpfully added it to her ever-changing list of tasks and promised she would see it done.

Taylor performed one more song and, knowing they were the odd people out at the table, Vimal and Shanti were the first to leave, with Rolo and the tired Bibi close behind. That left Nexus and Calique people, plus Laura Sabrosa.

"Can I have a minute of your time in private? Or am I too great a threat to you?" Laura's hurt expression stabbed at Taylor, but he didn't know what he might have done to deserve it. Maybe her poor mood wasn't about him.

"I need a quick word with this lot, and then I'm all yours. Can you wait outside for a minute?"

With Laura gone, Taylor sat near Anisca and the visiting doyenne and mauls, and set up a sound barrier. "Someone is using an art to watch through Shanti's eyes. They're probably not Enclave, but it's impossible to tell without obviously countering them. Examine everywhere she goes, and make sure she doesn't drop any strange objects or scratch any symbols anywhere. I don't want her to leave things behind that could be used as targets for divination. I'll have disciples sweep the same areas for unexplained spirit use.

"Second, I encountered a troubling illness today. I can't be sure yet, but it might touch on matters of special interest to the doyennes." His hands formed the signs for Taboo? "I'm be willing to let someone attend when I interview the patients. I hope it's nothing, but it could be a long-term issue you want to know about."

"We'll send J'anan," said Wise Aygerim. "She's from Dagono but don't let that be a factor. Such matters should transcend inter-garden issues."