1 Soul Bound
1.2 Taking Control
1.2.4 An Artful Carnivale
1.2.4.11 Goedzak
Through the doors from the kitchen entered a stout blond man, with pride beaming from his face. His narrow moustache, which extended at least 10 cm beyond his cheeks and seemed animated with an independent life of its own, was quivering with excitement.
He bowed, as though before an audience and the gnarled senior server announced in a loud voice: “The Special!”
Next a team of four servers entered, carrying between them a single enormous round platter, nearly the size of a tabletop, and two more behind them, arms piled high with trenchers, tankards, and many other small items.
The procession made its way to their table, which the group hastily cleared, and the platter was ceremoniously placed before them.
Goedzak introduced the dish in a fond voice, as he would a beloved daughter: “Visrif van Goedzak”
The creation before them bore the same relation to fish fingers on spaghetti, as the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel bore to a kid’s stick figure painting of their parents. It was a reef, made of capellini al dente, with waving coral fronds composed of a fresh leaf salad. In the center was the lobster she’d selected. The chef tapped it lightly with a long handled spoon, causing it to split exactly in two, revealing it had been cooked then reformed.
Goedzak: “Grilled astice blu in the half shell.”
He carried on pointing and naming the various sea foods artfully half-hidden within the reef, everything from crab to scallops, as the servers handed out lemon wedges and small jugs of melted herbal butter. He kept going, even after the servers retreated, revealing surprise after surprise. She stood.
Kafana: “Master Chef Goedzak, I am in awe. You are amazing, a wonder of the world. If you have the time, would you do us the honour of joining us to partake of this feast?”
He glanced towards Lazarillo, who nodded, then crowed with delight.
Goedzak: “I would like nothing better!”
He leaned towards Kafana and confided, in a jolly voice: “Never cook a meal you wouldn’t want to eat yourself. You have to put your heart into every dish, try each time to do even better than before. Cooking is life!”
Suiting action to words he tucked in, and everyone else joined him avidly, even Alderney.
Lazarillo: “It is true. I knew him back when he was the ship’s cook on the Piramide Eterna. A demon in the kitchen and the laziest man alive everywhere else. How he avoided flogging I’ll never understand. But every year I think he can’t possibly improve, and every year he does.”
Kafana watched him, fascinated. His fingers were long, and had the grace of a concert pianist as they used cutlery to dissect a slice of roast salmon stuffed with walnuts and caprino fresco. He concentrated totally as he ate, his moustaches showing his opinion of each mouthful, either twitching up in bliss or drooping in profound disappointment.
What dedication. That jogged her memory.
Kafana: {Sys, please send a message to the Japanese cook from CraftySquId I met at the volleyball tournament: Jeiji, if you’re still looking for an apprenticeship, I think I’ve found a perfect match for your passion - Master Chef Goedzak at the Lobster Pot tavern in the fish town part of the Arsenal.}
She examined the food with her new Truesight skill, focusing on the cooking aspect, but allowing it to be informed by the magic analysis, physics and chemistry aspects she’d picked up from the other wombles. Goedzak had used ingredient improvement with a light touch, doing little more than returning each creature to the freshness of something caught just minutes ago. But there was other magic present too, concentrated on the salad leaves and coils of thin pasta strands.
Kafana: “I am at a loss where I would start, to achieve a display such as this. It should take half a day to place each piece of coral individually. Can you give me a clue?”
Goedzak: “For a fellow cook? Anything! Now, watch carefully.”
He cast his eyes around the table, spied Alderney’s triskelion and placed it in front of him, next to a plate full of lemon wedges. They all watched as he carefully took one slice of lemon and used it to drip three drops onto the lines of the design. Then he took his long-handled spoon, poured earth and order mana into it and waved it three times over the design, his eyes wide and his moustache ends curling into tiny spirals themselves. Thirty seconds later, the lemon wedges had repositioned themselves on the plate into a passable replica of the new Adventurers Guild logo.
He sagged a bit, and took a long swig of white wine to revive himself.
Jeiji: {Kafana-sama! If it is you who recommends him, I accept without reservation. Please tell him I will be there within a day. I would come sooner, but I am currently deep in a cave, surrounded by man-sized centipedes who think their venom is a match for my daisho. I shall prove them wrong, but it will take some little while - their shells are like rock.}
Goedzak: “Phew, it does take it out of me, though. You like it? Do you need another example?”
Lazarillo: “Goedzak, you ninny, how many times have I told you not to give stuff away? You have given our young mage here some valuable mentoring, but has she paid you for it? No. And since you set no price, most likely she won’t. You trust too much.”
Goedzak: “Many times, my friend. But I cannot live my life that way. It is too stressful. I would rather live a poorer but happier life. Does that extra money get you more food? No, it leads you to argue instead of eat.”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
And with that, Goedzak turned back to eating, unworried, leaving Lazarillo screwing his face up in frustration.
Lazarillo, growled out: “That is why you ended up forfeiting ownership of nearly half your business to the Saints, rather than argue that you didn’t need their protection.”
Hmm, if they managed to do a favour for Leggera, could they swing getting her to return all the shares to Goedzak?
Kafana: “Lazarillo, you are right: not demanding a price will result in some people ripping you off. But Goedzak is right too: he gets to live without confrontation doing what he loves, and sometimes, just occasionally, the deities reward those who are generous in spirit.”
Lazarillo: “Ha, priest talk. When has a priest ever done something useful?”
Kafana: “I have contacted an Adventurer I know. He is a cook who left those he knew to come to Torello purely because of the seafood here. He is looking for an apprenticeship, and will be willing to work without pay in return for Master Chef Goedzak’s teaching. He is extremely good with a sword, and has enough magic that he can power Goedzak’s spells, giving him rest. His name is Jeiji, and he will be here within a day for an interview. I promise you that he will show the greatest of respect, is an apt student and will deal strictly with any bullies.”
Lazarillo sounded guarded: “Well, sounds a useful chap. There are too many bullies and deceivers about. Why, even Captain Cuniberti got pestered last week by some masked chap, wanting to take silent part ownership of the Valorosa. That introduction is fair payment for the lesson you received, I guess. But then again, you’re not a priest.”
Not a priest? Not a priest! Just who did this doubting Thomas think he was?
Offhandedly she turned to the chef: “Goedzak, please may I borrow your spoon a moment?”
Mystified but obedient, Goedzak handed it over to her and she walked across to where the ship’s bell hung.
She checked the rings on her fingers, like a showy BattleChick checking her weapons before a duel, then added her Ceremonial Stole and Broach of Virtuosity, before munching some buff food. Behind her the Wombles ducked beneath the table, though Bungo had the presence of mind to grab two plates of delicacies first. It didn’t stop her from drawing them into her gestalt and ruthlessly using their mana and adding their attunements to her own. Other customers started to pay attention, not sure what was happening.
She started off with a stealth performance to buff herself, the only cue to those forced not to pay attention to the singing being the increasing strength of glow about her, and the coloured runes that started to crawl over her skin as she reached the safe buff limit. With her Truesight fully extended to all senses, she thought she felt the presence, the attention, of deities listening to her. Leggera looked ready to cast spells in defence of her captain at any moment. Time to start.
Kafana: “Good sailors of Torello, I am going to sing you a song. A song from another world, sung by the Phoenicians who were the greatest sailors of their time, in a sea much like yours. It was sung in the palaces and the docks, by those in need of redemption and protection, sung to a bountiful deity more than 3000 years ago. I give you the Hurrian Hymn.”
She didn’t have a lyre, couldn’t play one if she did, but she produced her violin and used plucking rather than the bow, to imitate the sound.
> For one who lives their life in humility
>
> Preparing food in offering and sacrificing it in front of me.
>
> Their sacrifice for health and wealth is well received, here in my abode
>
> By the symbol of my sword of justice I accept them
>
> I will forgive but not forget those sins they reveal without denial
>
> If they come with the intent to be reconciled in love
>
> Through honourable participation of this ritual beneath my Aegis.
She’d first studied it as part of her third year project back at UCL, linking linguistics and musicology. She’d been itching for a chance to make use of it. Hopefully she’d changed the words sufficiently, when customising it for this occasion, that it wouldn’t make her traceable.
She visualised calling upon the deities to demonstrate their worth by protecting the vulnerable but worthy Goedzak and, when she’d finished singing, she took up his spoon and used it to project one carefully calligraphed word onto the bell, a letter at a time:
“ P E A C E “
She wrote it in letters of fire, then again in swirling water, in light and shadow, in ordered lines and in chaotic curves. Eight times she wrote it, feeding in each of the types of mana and calling upon that specific deity via its rune and the impression of its personality she’d picked up during long discussions with Isabella.
Imperiously she summoned Goedzak forwards with a wave of her hand, and he came as though in a daze. How effective was her Aura of Power, when fully boosted like this? She handed him back his spoon.
Kafana: “Goedzak, place a dish of food beneath the bell. It doesn’t have to be large, just something you have put your heart into.”
He complied, taking with confidence a dish from one of the watching servers.
Kafana: “Goedzak, in your mind visualise calling upon the deities to protect this place. The soil that grows the crops, the warmth that nurtures them, the sun that feeds them, the water that rains upon them, the fish and other creatures that live in this world and the air they breathe. All the deities you owe gratitude to.”
His brows furrowed in concentration, like when tasting food, and his moustaches rotated pointing at things until they were as coiled as corkscrews.
Kafana: “Goedzak, using your spoon, tap once, lightly, upon the Bell of Peace.”
She drew upon her link with Alderney, who swung Tianzi in synch with Goedzak’s swing. At the moment of contact, Goedzak’s moustaches uncoiled and sprang straight upwards, narrowly avoiding his nostrils.
The sound produced was like a tuning fork except instead of fading away, it slowly grew louder and louder until the very walls vibrated and tables inched across the floor.
The sound stopped abruptly, and the bell momentarily distorted in her Truesight vision, like it had acquired an additional dimension and, at the same time, become more solid. She felt faint, and quickly drew upon her mana storage ring to replenish herself. Seeing Bulgaria looking slumped too, she worked out how to reverse her previous drain and replenish her fellow Wombles too, feeling rather guilty. She really ought to have asked first. This rage driven response of hers was going to get her into trouble, sooner or later. Or should that be “again”? She just hoped she didn’t end up hurting her friends.