Chapter
9: Unappetizing Appetizers
Thalia Ausa sighed and looked again at what was on her plate, hoping
she’d been mistaken. Normally,
she liked broccoli, but this had been cooked until it turned an unappetizing
shade of yellowish-green. Accompanying
the erstwhile green veggie was a serving of mashed potatoes that looked as if it
would have served better to cement bricks together than feed hungry students.
Filling up the rest of the plate were chunks of some kind of blackened
meat that probably tasted much like the charcoal that it resembled.
“I thought that we weren’t going to let the first year apprentices do
any of the cooking anymore. Is this
stuff even edible?” she asked, directing her question to the others sharing
her table.
“I... think so,” the girl sitting across from Thalia said doubtfully,
prodding one of the meat chunks with her fork.
“Hey, Thalia, your mother’s the guildmaster.
Maybe you can get her to do something about it,” another girl said
hopefully.
“My mother’s already overburdened with other duties as it is.
I shouldn’t bother her with such trivial matters.
We’ll just have to make the best of it,” Thalia replied.
************************************************************
“Oh, the aroma of good cooking...” Arvad said, making gagging noises.
“I hope the food that they serve here isn’t like this all the time, or you
and I are going to die of food poisoning, Laticia.”
“I’m pretty sure that it isn’t, Arvad.
Everyone looks too healthy for that to be the case,” Laticia said.
“That’s true, but do you see anyone eating that stuff?
They’re just staring at it like they’re afraid it’ll bite back,”
Alicia commented.
“Perhaps we should take matters into our own hands,” Neil said.
“What do you mean, Neil?” Laticia asked.
“I’m saying that we should go in the kitchen and fix our own
meals,” Neil explained. “It can’t be that difficult.”
“You wouldn’t be so confident if you’d ever been in there
before,” a deep voice behind them said.
As one, the four turned to see a boy of about seventeen or eighteen years
of age wearing an apprentice’s robe and standing in the mess hall entrance a
few feet behind them. He appeared
to be just as muscular as Neil was, and that was no mean feat considering his
occupation. He grinned and said,
“Of course, if you’re really intent on trying, I’ll make sure that you
don’t burn the place down or anything. Some
of the equipment tends to be rather... temperamental.”
“Well, I don’t know about you three, but I’m going to go in there
and make something decent. I
didn’t come all the way out here to eat this slop.
I could have done better with just a campfire and a roasting spit. In fact, I have
done better,” Neil said and began walking towards the kitchen.
“Mmm... well, I can’t really cook, but I guess I’d better help.
Otherwise, I might have to eat that crud instead,” Arvad said,
gesturing with one hand towards the serving line.
“Both of us can,” Alicia said, indicating herself and Laticia. “If
we tried, we could probably outdo the meals at the Fall Festival.”
“By the way, Alicia, how much fun did you and Neil have at the Festival
without me, hmm?” Laticia asked, eyes wide with pretend innocence.
Alicia flushed with embarrassment. “I
don’t have to answer that, so I won’t... nosy,” she turned and bolted
towards the kitchen.
************************************************************
Keefe chuckled as he watched Neil try to light the stove. No matter what he did, not a single spark would catch, and
the stove’s innards remained as quiet as a tomb.
‘I guess the fire spirits don’t like him too much... either that or
he has the magical ability of a chunk of iron.
You can’t light a magic stove without some talent.
Should I clue them in to that?’ Keefe wondered.
“Hey, Neil. Let me give it
a try,” Arvad offered. “About how hot are you guys going to need it?”
“At least hot enough to boil water... maybe a little more,” Neil said
and frowned. “Just how am I supposed to measure how hot a flame is, anyway?”
“By the color, of course,” Arvad rolled his eyes.
“I guess that means that you just need your average orange-red type
deal. I’ll have it ready in a
jiffy.”
On his first try, Arvad coaxed a small flame into existence and fiddled
with the controls until he was satisfied with its appearance. Then, he stepped back and said, “Go to it, Neil.
I’ll let the real experts handle the rest.”
Arvad eased himself up onto the countertop beside Keefe, and leaned
against the wall to watch. “That
was pretty good for first try.... Arvad, did you say your name was?” Keefe
asked, thinking to himself, ‘Actually, that was more than good.
It was just shy of a miracle.’
“Yeah, that’s my name,” Arvad confirmed. “I don’t believe you
ever said what yours was.”
“Right. Sorry for being so
rude,” Keefe apologized. “I’m Keefe.
I share a room with Wein Ver Dain over in the east dorm.”
“Okay, Keefe... To tell
you the truth, I’ve done it before. At
least, I think I have anyway. I
don’t remember hardly anything at all about my early years, so I can’t say
for sure,” Arvad shrugged. “All that matters is that I got it to work, not
whether I did it before or not.”
“True,” Keefe agreed. “But you should know that the reason that
there’s charcoal briquettes out there on those plates instead of some decent
meatballs is because a lot of people have a hard time getting the flame ‘just
right’. Are you going to try to
get into the advanced classes or are you just going to settle for entry level
and breeze through it so you can get high marks this semester?”
“Huh? I’m not going to
be an apprentice. I’m your new...
what did Orielle call it? It think
it was ‘Minister of Finance’ or some gibberish like that.
Anyway, I’ve got a head for numbers, so I’ll be taking some of the
paperwork off her hands for her,” Arvad eyed Keefe suspiciously. “What does
‘getting the flame just right’ have to do with taking advanced or entry
level classes? Is there something
that you forgot to tell us about this... equipment?”
“Most of the appliances in here are spirit driven.
Those type of things all depend on magical control or the user’s
affinity with a certain element in order to get them to function properly.
That’s what I meant when I said earlier that the equipment was
temperamental,” Keefe explained.
“Oh. I guess that means
that I have some talent, then. Not
that it really matters. Since I’m
going to be shuffling papers for Orielle, I won’t be able to take any classes
and still have some free time. I
didn’t come here to learn magic, anyway.
I came here because it’s the minstrel’s opportunity of a lifetime to
come up to the Magic City and play. Of
course, I forgot to ask Orielle about the playing part, so I guess I won’t be
doing that either,” Arvad said.
“A minstrel, huh? So, what
do you play, and where’s your instrument?” Keefe asked.
“I play the sitar, and it’s back in my room in the west wing of the
main hall,” Arvad answered.
“The main hall?” Keefe looked surprised. “And the west wing, no
less. It’s the dream of quite a
few of the male apprentices, myself included, to even get a chance to set foot
in there. And Mr. Minister of
Finance, Arvad, gets to live there. Lucky
you.”
“Lucky? How so?” Arvad
wondered.
“Here, let me show you,” Keefe motioned for Arvad to follow and they
peeked out the kitchen door. “You see that girl with the long black hair in
the green robe at the table about halfway down towards the center of the
room?”
“Yeah. What about her?”
“Are you blind? That’s
Thalia Ausa. She’s quite possibly
the lovliest creature ever to grace the land of Lunar, and all you can say is,
‘What about her?’ Oh, brother...” Keefe shook his head. “We need to get
your priorities straight, Arvad.”
“My priorities are just fine,
thank you very much,” Arvad sniffed in mock offense. “I just like to take
the time to find more about a girl than her physical appearance before I decide
whether I like her or not.”
“Hey, Arvad, can I borrow one of your knives?
There doesn’t seem to be one that’s still clean and sharp enough to
cut anything harder than butter around here,” Laticia poked her head around
the corner and asked, “What are you guys doing?”
“Plotting a way to get this good food out of here without being mobbed
in the process,” Arvad replied. “Actually, Keefe, here, was just pointing
out to me some people in the crowd that he knows.
Now, you said you needed a knife, right?
Let me see. Which one would
be the best to do the job?”
Arvad pulled up his right sleeve to reveal one of his numerous collection
strapped in a sheath to his forearm. He
unbuckled it and gave it to her, saying, “Be sure to get this thing back to me
as soon as you’re done. I
wouldn’t want one of my fav knives to be used to cut up culinary delights on a
regular basis.”
Laticia examined the knife’s hilt, which was a falcon with glittering
red eyes. “I don’t think anyone
would mistake this for kitchen cutlery, Arvad, but don’t worry.
I’ll get it back to you,” she promised.
“One of your knives?
Just how many have you got? And
are there any other surprises you’re waiting to pull on me?
Like saying you’ve got the Sword of Althena stashed under your bed or
something?” Keefe asked, staring at Arvad incredulously.
“If there are any more surprises, I don’t know about them, and as for
the knives...” Arvad shrugged. “I lost count somewhere around the two
hundred mark.”
“Two hundred?!?” Keefe
exclaimed.
************************************************************
“Edrea... I’m hungry,”
Conch said.
“Well, you’re not the only one,” Edrea muttered. “I wish that
I’d had the time to change out of my traveling clothes before you decided to
tease Sachiko’s Bronze Dog... I
suppose I’ll just have to head towards the dining hall in this.”
“Ah, what’s wrong with that?” Conch asked. “It looks just fine to
me.”
“You’ve got as little fashion sense as Arvad does...
Come on, the dining hall’s this way.”