Chapter Fifteen
“Did I hear your recipe correctly? Are you telling me that you can cook with rocks and boulders and such?"
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“First, I need the aid of my companions,” James said, flipping through his “cookbook,” searching for the perfect spell. Given the high stakes—getting eaten—he wasn’t going to take any chances with his own half-baked rhymes.
“Did you not tie up the elderly gentleman either?” Ferdinand groused, eyeing James’s hands, which were obviously not tied up.
“I thought I did,” Reginald said, stroking his beard. “But I’m too hungry to remember right now.”
“He did,” Archibald said. He had turned from his depressing self-portrait and was studying James with an artist’s gaze. James fervently hoped the giant didn’t decide to draw him next. Might be better to just get eaten than be forever immortalized as a bony potato.
“Let’s be honest, gentlemen. You could have done a better job. For such well-dressed thugs… umm, excuse me, nice men, the knot work was lazy at best.”
“How long will I have to wait for this magnificent recipe you keep telling us about?” Ferdinand asked, his massive blue eyes squinting in James’ direction in frustration.
“I already told you, the best things take time. And where have you put my cow? I mean dragon. If you ate Greenie, I refuse to cook you anything.”
“The sickly looking, round creature that occasionally spurts fire? Reginald brought it over and tied it to that tree over there.” Archibald pointed a thick finger in the shadows, where James could barely make out the form of Greenie, happily eating the grass. She didn’t seem fazed by the kidnapping. “We didn’t want it to contaminate our soup.”
“Good thinking,” James said absentmindedly. He’d come across several dozen spells at this point, but nothing that caught his eye or would suddenly make him a master chef. He wouldn’t have made such an outrageous claim if any of his companions could have repaired the awful state of the “soup” bubbling in front of him, but even Gabriel’s miraculous talents wouldn’t be able to save 450 gallons of toxic sludge.
Not to mention Day’s juggling and Night’s knives. Not really the answer to the current dilemma either.
He glanced up and looked over at his companions. The giants hadn’t untied any of them or removed their gags.
“You can hardly expect me to whip up a culinary masterpiece without my sou chefs,” James said with disdain to hide his slight concern. If he couldn’t find the appropriate spell fast enough, he might end up being added to that awful soup. Just the smell alone was killing him. He couldn’t imagine the stench from inside the pot.
And he’d never make it to Bel’s party then.
Unacceptable.
It was time to roll up his satiny sleeves and get to work.
“Of course, of course,” Reginald said amiably, striding over to Gabriel, Night, and Day and breaking through their bonds with his pinky finger. His tremendous feet made the forest they were in tremble, and James stumbled, almost tripping in the direction of the pot over the fire that was easily the size of a hot tub.
“A little more careful, please! Wouldn’t want to cook the chef,” James yelped, righting himself with his infinitely useful walking stick. Staff. He was willing to cave at this point and call the broom handle a staff. After all, he had leveled an entire mountain range with his paltry rhyming skills. Clearly he had some magical prowess in the strange world of En, where even man-eating giants were immaculately dressed and surprisingly polite.
As soon as Gabriel’s hands were free, he removed his gag with ease and turned to help Day, who was fiddling with the fabric around her mouth and muttering something indistinguishable. Her sharp violet eyes met Gabriel’s blue gaze and seemed to soften. The perfect gentleman, Gabriel removed the woman’s gag gently and helped her to her feet. The slender rogue blushed slightly and thanked him softly before redirecting her attention to the giants, multiple stones hidden in one of her hands. James sincerely hoped she wasn’t planning on chucking rocks at three giants.
Night had finally reached one of his knives and used the blade to quickly remove his gag, revealing a beaming face. He’d probably practiced with the knives for years in secret when he should have been milking cows or whatever people did on farms.
Oh yeah. Plan to not get eaten. Should probably be focusing on that. I’m just so tired though…
Now was not the time to sleep. Even though it was the middle of the night. James was feeling a little bitter about that.
“Okay, let’s get this over with,” James said in his most authoritative voice, mimicking the angry chefs he saw on TV sometimes while visiting Diane.
“Gabriel, you’ll be my sou chef. Night, you’re on sauces. If we end up making any. Not sure what we would make sauce with out here…. And Day… you can do the dishes.”
Before she could protest, he tilted his crooked hat back and winked in her direction. At least he hoped it looked like a wink and not like he’d gotten something in his eyes.
Oh well, he’d tried.
“How can I help, Just James?” Gabriel said, striding over to the old man’s side gracefully.
“I’m still searching for the perfect ‘recipe,’” James said. “Maybe you could talk with our kind hosts while I prepare?”
“Happy to oblige.” The young man did seem happier than usual, which was saying something. Probably because Day hadn’t bitten him when he’d helped her.
“Have any of you ever had salad?” Gabriel said, looking up at the three giants. They were all sitting around the fire and pot now, focused entirely on the blond man.
James, meanwhile, continued to flip through his book, wishing not for the first time that Harold had bothered to include a table of contents. Or even an index. Then James could have looked up “How to not get eaten by giants” or “How to cook when you’re in a life-or-death situation and don’t know how to cook literally anything.” Even just “recipes” would have been helpful.
Well, he had just proclaimed the importance of learning and growing from quests.
Bummer.
“What is a salad?” Reginald inquired.
“It’s filled with green things, like lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, corn, cubed bread, leaves…”
Not my salads, James thought.
“Can I help, High Wizard?” Night asked, startling James’ with the young man’s sudden appearance. Night really did have the makings of a rogue. He just needed to not cart around so many belongings—that really cut down on the stealth factor. But unencumbered, Night was as silent as his nickname implied.
“How fast can you read?” James asked quietly.
“Fast.” The young man grinned.
“Perfect. Take this and tell me when you find anything to do with food,” James said, shoving the tome of mysteries in Night’s hands. James had to stand nearby, given that the book was literally attached to his hip and James didn’t want to try unfastening the knot.
He glanced over at Day to see if she had a biting remark to direct his way, but she wasn’t paying attention to James or her brother at all. Instead, she seemed to be covertly studying Gabriel, maybe admiring his perfect golden hair or broad shoulders. Whatever it was girls liked. James certainly wasn’t an expert on such matters.
“And you’re saying you can roast these… leaves?” Ferdinand asked, reaching up and grabbing an entire tree by the trunk, pulling the entire thing down and delicately removing a single leaf from the top of the tree before letting go. The entire tree swung back into place with a shudder.
“How about this, Just James?” Night said, pulling James’ attention back to the matter at hand.
“Delicate delicacies” the spell was called.
“That’ll do,” James said, taking the book from the young man.
“Sou chef? If you would be so kind,” James said. Gabriel, who had been in the middle of explaining the art of burning leaves, came over to James’ side.
“Do you have a ‘recipe’ in mind, Just James?” the blond man asked.
“I do, young hero. I do. Let me just read the recipe out loud so you and your companions will know how best to assist me,” he said loudly.
Gabriel nodded, Night was almost jumping up and down with excitement, and Day had her eyes on the trio, as if the giants would try to eat their adventuring party the moment she looked away.
“Here goes nothing,” James said under his breath before he began to read.
“When the time for supper is at hand,
And everything you’ve cooked tastes no better than sand,
A delicate delicacy is a must.
For a food you intimately trust,
Stack whatever you have with care,
Teetering towers of comestibles strange or rare,
And enjoy the most delicious feast,
Enough to fill even the most ferocious beast.”
James’ voice was loud and deep enough to rival the three giants, and Reginald, Archibald, and Ferdinand sat up a little straighter, as though sensing the power behind his strange words.
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“Everyone know what to do?” he asked his companions. It seemed simple enough—if they stacked random things on top of each other, it would somehow turn into delicious food and hopefully satiate the giants’ giant appetites. Hypothetically.
James wouldn’t have believed it, but he’d just built a bridge with nothing but water and twigs, so the finer technicalities of magic no longer bothered him. Sure, stacking rocks and leaves and garlic on top of each other would be delicious. Why not?
“Just stack anything?” Gabriel asked. He was already on his way, clearing off a space on the ground to start stacking random things on top of each other. Night was wobbling over, a giant boulder in his skinny arms. Gabriel came to the rescue, lifting the large rock with ease and setting it on the ground, creating a foundation for the strangest dinner yet.
Day just shrugged her shoulders and started rolling another large boulder to join Night’s addition.
Thinking about the spell in retrospect, it did mean more manual labor, which was a shame. But better than cooking Italian cuisine with rocks and forty pounds of garlic.
“Did I hear your recipe correctly? Are you telling me that you can cook with rocks and boulders and such?” Ferdinand asked, hands on his massive hips.
“Only if you’re a master,” James said, waving his hands in the direction of Gabriel, Night, and Day. They had already rolled over or placed multiple boulders in one place together. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to supervise this delicate process.”
The giant tipped his head in acknowledgment and James shuffled his way over to the collection of boulders.
“Anything we can find, add it to the pile,” he said. His plan was to collect as many heads of garlic as he could hold and slowly sprinkle them in among the boulders, filling the cracks between the rocks. Then they could start stacking whatever random things they could find into a teetering tower large enough to feed three giants.
James shuffled over to the treasure trove of garlic, and Night soon joined him, the two of them moving the forty pounds of garlic until they were all nestled in between the boulders. Gabriel and Day had teamed up, and they worked together in perfect unison. Gabriel would collect boulders, bushes, branches, and anything else he could find and bring them over to Day, who was putting her incredible dexterity to the task, stacking the assortment of objects with ease. She was clearly in her element.
James was entertaining himself by watching the two steal glances at the other when they thought the other wasn’t watching. He was also dutifully bringing over anything small he could find, which amounted to mostly moss and leaves. Gabriel was clearly infatuated with the slender young woman, and any time she was focused on balancing a particularly difficult stone or branch, he would shyly glance at her long dark hair or thick eyelashes.
Day, on the other hand, seemed unable to ignore Gabriel’s impressive physique as he carted over boulders and large tree branches with ease.
Night was oblivious to the entire hidden exchange and was gabbing with the giants, who had strong opinions on farming and were questioning Night’s desire to leave the life of a farmer behind, asking him thoughtful questions about produce and the actual value of being a rogue.
“And you hide the knives all over your person? Sounds dangerous to me,” Archibald noted.
“Maybe it helps him move more quietly because he’s so focused on not stabbing himself on accident,” Reginald said in his rumbling baritone voice.
“Or maybe it’s so he can cook on the go if needed,” Ferdinand added. He was taking part in the conversation with the dark-haired man, but his eyes were fixed on the teetering tower slowly being formed by Day. It was obvious he was intensely curious if such a strange method of cooking would work.
James also wondered.
“I think we have enough to work with now, Gabriel,” James said after tripping over countless rocks and branches now filling his path to the delicate delicacy. “Maybe you could help Day stack our dish.”
“I’m not nearly as good as that kind of thing as she is,” he said, but James was confident that wouldn’t stop the young man from trying. He walked over to Day and asked her which object she wanted next. Day pointed to a certain stone that looked like all the rest to James, and Gabriel quickly fetched the rock and handed it to her.
Everything seemed to be in order. The “meal” was shaping up nicely, and the pile wasn’t even teetering too badly yet. Night was entertaining the giants. Greenie was doing what Greenie did best: eating all the grass in sight. Now it was time for James to do what he did best: nap.
He gingerly lowered himself to the ground, leaning up against one of the large boulders Day was stacking “ingredients” on top of, and cocked his head over his eyes with relish.
He’d earned this.
***
“James, you might want to see this.”
Day’s voice roused James from his slumber—which had been bitterly short. Still, better than nothing.
“What is it?” he mumbled. “And if someone could help me up it would be much appreciated.”
Suddenly, a colossal hand reached for James and scooped him up like a dollop of ice cream. A younger man would have panicked, but James didn’t complain. The giant, Archibald in this case, lifted James in the palm of his hand and gently set him down on his feet like a doll.
“That’s convenient,” James noted. “Maybe you and your friends should join us on our quest.”
When none of the giants responded, James was tempted to be slightly offended. That was until he smelled something absolutely divine that captured all his attention in an instant.
“Your sp… recipe worked like a charm,” Day said, her face bordering on a grin. She was pretty when she smiled—maybe Gabriel had good taste after all.
She couldn’t compare to Bel though.
James looked over at the precarious tower of rocks and bushes and blinked.
It was a glorious combination of every Christmas breakfast, Easter dinner, and picnic lunch he’d ever had, with the addition of dishes he’d never seen before but which looked perfect. Flawless.
Where before he’d seen rocks, moss, leaves, twigs, and bark, his eyes were now greeted with honeyed ham, steamed asparagus, pitchers of ice-cold orange juice and what looked like sparkling cider, fresh-baked bread straight from the oven, delicate segments of chocolate mousse, hearty slices of pumpkin pie, heaping bowls of mashed potatoes with butter melting down the sides, paper-thin slices of turkey, a generous platter of homemade noodles topped with Gruyère cheese and fresh marinara sauce, and was that? Yes—his Maryland turkey, complete with a vibrant-red cranberry spread.
“Impressed?” he asked the giants, turning around and facing them with his arms spread wide, his staff in one hand.
“Let’s eat,” Reginald said, grinning so widely James could see every tooth in the man’s cave-like mouth.
“Let’s,” James agreed.
In mere moments, the giant trio had assembled a makeshift table out of a tree they had casually plucked out of the ground and split in half. The company each sat on large stones Archibald had smashed into comfortable shapes with his bare hands. Ferdinand proudly placed a flawless set of silver and fine china decorated with delicate blue flowers in front of everyone. Where he had gotten it, James had no idea.
James had to admit—the world of En threw some fantastic impromptu feasts. If—no, when—he got back to Earth, he would instate this practice with everyone he knew.
He could imagine himself seated across from Bel, passing her a plate of something while she laughed at something he said, her eyes as green as her many plants.
The substantial portion of Maryland turkey sitting expectantly in front of him suddenly didn’t look at tantalizing as it had mere moments before.
Even if James had lost his appetite, his companions, human and giant, had not. Night was making great headway on a large bowl of ice cream, complete with a jewel-red cherry perched on top. Day was fascinated by the pasta and slurping up noodles with wonder. Gabriel was dabbing at his clean face with a napkin after sampling the pasta salad as he marveled at such a strange, wondrous salad creation.
Ferdinand, Archibald, and Reginald all had two shopping cart’s worth of food in front of each of them, and they ate with gusto, occasionally oohing and ahhing after trying a particular delicious dish.
Delicate delicacies had been an absolute success.
But James couldn’t find it in his heart to revel in his success. He had the map of En next to his mostly untouched plate, and it was now obvious they still had so far to go. There was yet another mountain range between them and the next stop on their journey to the Crimson King’s castle. James had been operating under the assumption the king would have taken the Green Queen to his castle the whole time, but as he studied Harold’s map he realized the queen’s palace was directly past the mountains. This range was called the Mountains, and even though James could likely just use the same spell as before and turn them into little more than powder and dust, he wasn’t willing to pollute miles and miles of land right next to the Green Queen’s palace. That seemed less than neighborly. If they did manage to rescue her, she wouldn’t take kindly to an entire mountain range worth of dust coating her domain.
But crossing the mountains on foot, or cow-dragon, would take weeks. Months? James had never traversed an entire mountain range before and didn’t want to start now.
“Is the food not to your liking, Master Chef?” Ferdinand asked James.
“Hmm, what? No, no, it’s delicious, of course. I made it,” he said distractedly, still staring at the map as though looking at it harder would change the sad reality that James still had hundreds of miles to traverse before the king’s silly castle was even in sight.
“But you haven’t even tried it,” the giant pointed out with his spoon that looked more like a shovel.
“I’m a little preoccupied,” James admitted.
“What’s wrong?” Archibald asked, dabbing at his face with a napkin as big as a king-size comforter.
“Me and my friends are trying to reach the Crimson King’s palace in the far northeast. But there’s an extensive mountain range between us and the next stop, the Green Queen’s palace.”
“Why are you trying to go to the king’s stone tower?” Ferdinand asked, his massive blue eyes looking down at the old man in interest.
“We’re on a quest to rescue the Queen of Life,” Gabriel said proudly.
“The queen? We have heard rumors whispered through the very trees that the queen has vanished, and her rejuvenating powers with her. The earth is parched, the trees stumble and falter. The streams sigh in defeat,” Archibald said slowly.
“You can hear the trees?” Night asked, intrigued. He had moved on from his ice cream to a bowl of mashed potatoes, which looked almost the same.
“Certain forests, old, ancient forests, whisper hundreds of unfinished tales,” Archibald said mysteriously.
“We’d like the queen to return to her palace too,” Reginald said. “We ate better when she was around. The forests were full of game, the skies full of birds, the streams full of fish. We ate well in those days.”
“Could I see the map for a moment, James?” Day asked. Her mood seemed greatly improved after eating—or maybe it was because she’d gotten to spend a lot of time with the handsome, talented Gabriel when constructing the bridge and just now when balancing rocks and branches for their magical midnight feast.
“Sure,” he said, pushing the scroll in her direction and picking at his Maryland turkey. Maybe it was time to branch out, find a new favorite. He remembered Bel mentioning something called a fruit pizza on one of their hundreds of walks to their respective apartments.
“Gabriel, could you get me a slice of that fruit pizza?” He pointed at the desired dish with his fork, and Gabriel was quick to comply, handing James a fresh plate with a slice. Studying the fruity food in front of him with skepticism, James took a bite and grinned. It was delicious.
“Ferdinand, would you and your companions be willing to do us a favor?” Day asked, looking up at the faces of the massive men seated at the table with them.
“After a meal like this? You name it,” Reginald said, rubbing at his belly appreciatively. Archibald nodded, and Ferdinand said in his rich tenor voice, “How can three humble giants be of service, my lady?”
***
“Is this what you had in mind?” Night asked, his voice almost lost by the rushing wind.
“Definitely,” Day grinned, her dark hair whipping around her face.
“It’s certainly unlike anything I’ve done before,” Gabriel said, not a single golden strand of hair out of place.
“What do you think, Just James?” Reginald rumbled. Gabriel’s nickname had rubbed off on the giant trio, who now insisted on calling James nothing else.
That was fine with James, especially since the giants were currently striding across the Mountains as though they were taking a stroll through the park after a quaint breakfast.
Which each step, the giants ate up miles, climbing up and down the mountain peaks with ease, even though they were wearing dress shoes.
Wind howled around them as James and his companions each perched on a giant’s shoulder. Night and Day were with Archibald, Gabriel was sitting on Ferdinand’s shoulder, and James was clinging to Reginald’s shoulder. Greenie was under the red-headed giant’s arm like a purse, mooing happily, apparently just as happy as James to not be crossing the Mountains on foot.
“At this rate, we’ll reach the Green Queen’s palace in a few hours,” Gabriel said, doing some mental calculations as the landscape below them rushed by like a watercolor painting.
“Just James, can I help you?” Reginald asked.
“What makes you say that?” he asked, clinging to his crooked hat with one hand while he grasped the giant’s crisp shirt with his other hand.
“You seem like you’re about to fall off,” the giant noted.
“I could use some time to… meditate,” James said slowly.
“Of course, of course. A cuisine wizard like you deserves to rest after cooking such an exquisite meal.”
Without breaking stride, Reginald gently plucked James from his shoulder and placed him in his massive palm.
“Better?” the giant asked.
James’ only response was gentle snoring.