“It doesn’t matter,” she replied. “My point is that the best chef cooks what the patron never knew he wanted.”
“And what is it that I don’t know I want?”
“That is for me to show you,” Annaig said, trying to sound playful. “And it cannot be rushed.”
“And yet, I feel impatient,” Toel said, “and perhaps a bit condescended to.”
She forced a smile. “But still I intrigue you.”
“I cannot deny it,” he said, inhaling again.
He looked off into the distance for a long moment, and then returned his attention to her.
“There will be a banquet,” he said, “some days hence. It will be for the court of Umbriel himself. Four kitchens have been invited to present a tasting for Lord Rhel, Umbriel’s steward-mine, and those of Phmer, Luuniel, and Ashdre. Whichever kitchen pleases the steward most will cook for Umbriel. I need not tell you that it must be my kitchen that wins.”
“It goes without saying, Chef.”
“Phmer is our chief competition, to my mind. She is known for her creativity. Before Phmer, there were only eight essential savors: salty, bitter, piquant, sweet, sour, ephemerate, quick, and dead. But Phmer found a ninth sensation of taste, which has no name, and all attempts to duplicate it or ascertain how it is created have failed. And so, Annaig, although you may tantalize me with these desires you know I have which I myself do not, this is what I tell you now: You will find this ninth savor for me. If you do not, any other plans you have to gratify me are moot. Do you understand?”
“I do, Chef,” Annaig said. “I won’t fail.”
“Indeed,” he replied. She couldn’t tell if it was an affirmation or a question. “Now you may go.”
“A few questions, Chef,” she said.
“What are they?”
“Do you have a sample of this ninth taste, so that I might know what I’m trying to duplicate?”
“I don’t have any, no.”
“Have you ever tasted it yourself, Chef?”
For a moment his face might have been cast in stone.
“No,” he finally said.
“Can you at least tell me if it is a spiritual or gross substance?”
“We may assume spiritual, as only the highest lords have tasted it.”
“Thank you, Chef.”
Her knees were shaking when she left, and she felt profoundly unreal, as if she were watching this all happen to someone else. She returned to the kitchens, attempting to stay calm, to focus-trying to understand where she had to start.
She was sure she could duplicate anything she could taste, but that wasn’t in the offering. That left her with what seemed an impossible task, but it was pointless to entertain that notion, wasn’t it? She had to assume that it was possible. Phmer had done it, after all. Had it been an accident, or a design?
She went to her private bench, far from the hustle and bustle of the stations, and began idly thumbing through the various powders, liquids, distillations, and ferments in her cabinet. She fiddled with the flow of soul force through the refraxor, but after an hour of that pushed back and placed her face in her palms. Her brain didn’t seem to work at all. Sighing, she went back to her room, but her thoughts flowed no better there, so in the end she gave up and opened a bottle of wine.
She was on her second glass when Slyr entered.
“I’m sorry,” the other woman said. “You’re never here this early in the day. I-”
“No, join me,” Annaig said. “I’m just thinking.”
“Well, I’ve no wish to disturb you.”
“Sometimes talking helps me think.” She pulled over a second cup and poured more wine. “Have a drink, talk.”
Slyr looked uncertain but did as she was told.
“What do you know of Phmer’s ninth savor?” Annaig asked.
“I’ve heard of it,” Slyr said cautiously.
“Before I came to Umbriel, I knew of only four or five essential flavors. When I was taught to cook, I was told that the success of a good dish was in the inclusion and balancing of these sensations. When I came here, you, Slyr, taught me that there were three more, all of a spiritual nature.”
“Quick, dead, and ephemerate,” Slyr supplied.
“So I’m thinking,” Annaig said. “I taste the five gross senses on different parts of my tongue, and I read long ago that the tongue is grown to interpret such flavors. But I cannot, like the lords, taste the difference between quick and dead. I might discern that a wiggling shrimp is alive and a still one dead, but the taste is the same, because my tongue isn’t designed for that distinction. And as for ephemerate, that’s another thing entirely, isn’t it? Those are the ‘flavors’ we make with souls. The tongue doesn’t taste them, although that’s generally how they are introduced, since they’re presented as food. But really, the skin or eyes can taste them equally as well-and ephemerate isn’t a single kind of flavor, but hundreds, thousands, of very different things made possible by the cuisine spirituelle. Like the terror you tasted the other day, or the joy I could create tomorrow. How does that compare with the electric vitality of raw, unrefined soul energy, or the needling pleasure of filple?”
Slyr took a drink. “So you’re thinking that the ninth savor can’t be ephemerate, then? That it must be a new material flavor?”
“Or something completely different, as different from the ephemerate as the ephemerate is from salty and piquant.”
“How can such a thing be discovered, then? If one knew only piquant, sour, and sweet, how would you guess that salty existed and learn how to make it?”
Something shaped itself in her mind then, a worm that might become an idea.
“Especially if one had no tongue,” Annaig pursued, her thoughts racing. “That is our dilemma.”
“Our?”
“You are still my assistant, Slyr.”
“I know that,” she said. “I only thought-”
“I’m giving you another chance,” Annaig said. “One more, do you understand?”
Slyr nodded vigorously, and then her eyes narrowed.
“You’ve thought of something, haven’t you?”
Annaig smiled. “It’s not what you think.”
“What, then?”
“I think I might be able to hit twice with the same stone,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Toel believes that I am not ambitious enough, that I’m not willing to do what I have to do to survive and get ahead.”
“Yes,” Slyr said. “I’ve heard him say so.”
“I’ll get the ninth savor,” Annaig promised. “And I’ll show Toel just how far I’m willing to go.”
“How?”
“I’m going to steal it from Phmer.”
Slyr’s eyes widened and her mouth parted.
“That’s impossible,” she said.
“Look,” Annaig said, drinking a bit more wine. “We can work for two weeks to invent this thing-and probably fail-or we can go where we know it already exists, and spend that time learning how best to use it to please Umbriel.” She sat back. “I think it’s what Toel intends me to do. I think this is a test he has devised.”
“That does sound like him,” Slyr admitted. “But to invade another kitchen, to pass all their safeguards and survive, much less escape being caught-I can’t imagine how it could be done.”
“I can,” Annaig told her. “I know how to learn secret ways, and I know recipes for concealment that-with a bit of work-ought to keep me undiscovered.”
“I’m not sure you understand,” Slyr said. “Even if you escape-if Phmer finds any evidence that you stole from her, she can demand Toel give you to her, and he must do so. That is the law. Perhaps that is even what Toel has
