She had started something and she couldn’t stop now. If she cooked the best meal Lord Rhel had ever eaten-if she could impress him beyond measure-then maybe he would make her a chef, give her her own kitchen.
And so she began to plan, and that calmed her down, and finally she slept, and dreamed of cooking.
She met Glim again, this time by the light of the two moons, high up on one of the massive boughs of the trees. She strained to see something of the land below, but mist and clouds obscured almost everything. Glim was curiously silent.
“Are you listening to the trees?” she asked.
“I’m thinking,” he replied softly. He sounded strange-upset.
“I didn’t want to do it,” she said. “I had to.”
“It’s not about Slyr,” Mere-Glim said. “It’s about this new request of yours.”
“It should be easy,” she replied. “Even if the skraws never get past the pantries, they talk to the workers there-I know they do. A little information is all I ask.”
“No, you’re asking for a lot of information. And the skraws have already given you a lot of information-for which they haven’t been repaid.”
“Is that what it’s come to be between us?” she asked. “Glim, I have to know I can count on you. I have to know you’re my friend.”
“I am your friend,” he said. “Of course I am. And I’ve been doing what you ask, haven’t I? All I am saying is-maybe it’s time you helped me.”
“I’m still in no position to manufacture enough water-breathing serum to make a difference,” she said. “I would if I could.”
“I understand that,” he replied. “What I need right now are weapons.”
“What?”
“The tubes that bring processed waste from the midden to the sump are living things. There is a series of sphincters that pass the waste along or hold it back, as needed. I need something that will paralyze the sphincters and an antidote for that. I need concoctions to taint foods, to make them unpleasant or inedible without rendering them poisonous. I need weapons of sabotage for the skraws to wage their rebellion with. I won’t need large amounts of them-just enough. You know how to make these things.”
“I do,” she said. “Let me think a moment.”
She closed her eyes and felt the pull toward the world below, so close, so impossibly far away. So far, none of her experimentation had given her any hope that she and Glim could leave without fading into nothingness. But there was still some chance she could destroy her prison. Glim was giving her an opportunity to learn how to sabotage Umbriel, and a network to do it with. How could she refuse?
“Okay,” she said finally. “But we have to do this carefully. We have to be smart. The first thing is, Toel’s kitchen has to keep running, at least for now. At the same time, we can’t be seen as immune to these attacks, or we’ll draw attention. I think it’s also best that-at first-no one knows the skraws are doing this.”
“I don’t understand,” Glim said. “We’re trying to pressure the lords into doing something about the vapors. If they don’t know it’s us-”
“I really don’t think you know what you’re dealing with,” Annaig told him. “As soon as they suspect the skraws, the kitchens-or worse, I’m sure, the lords-will come after you. I’ve seen what that means.”
“They can’t kill us all.”
“No, but they can kill you. They can find out who the other leaders are and kill them.”
“Maybe.”
“Try it my way,” she urged. “When everything is completely bollixed up, when they see how vulnerable they are, you step in and set things right, asking only that the vapors be replaced by something more humane.”
“What’s your way?” Glim asked.
“Well-at first we make the kitchens think they’re attacking one another.”
“How is that?”
“The banquet, the one I needed the ninth savor for. Umbriel himself will be in attendance. Four kitchens are competing to win the honor of cooking that meal. Would it be so surprising if they started sabotaging one another?”
“Now I’m starting to see,” Glim said. “And of course, your kitchen would in the end benefit the most from this-competition.”
“Yes.”
Glim scratched his arms. “I don’t hate this idea,” he said. “But why do you want Toel to succeed?”
“Because if he succeeds, I succeed. He might get advanced and take me with him.”
“Why do you care about that?”
“Because the closer I am to the heart of things, the more damage I can do. And the more I can help the skraws.”
He nodded. “That makes sense,” he said. “I’ll talk to the others.”
“And I’ll start work on the things you need. Now come on, let’s go back down before we’re noticed.”
“I’m going to stay up here awhile,” he said. “Listen to the trees.”
“I’ll see you later, then.”
She felt stirrings of guilt, because she didn’t like to deceive Glim, but he had lost all sense of things. She loved him, and she needed him-and if she had to, for both of their sakes, and the sake of the world-she would use him.
Toel’s expression began as disgust but quickly became so murderous that Annaig felt a rush of fear. Then she noticed it wasn’t the vaporessence of fermented duck egg she had given him to try that he was reacting to-he was smelling something else more generally in the air.
“It’s the water filters,” she explained. “Sump slurry has them clogged.”
“I know what it is,” Toel said, his voice cold. “Do not presume, you. I know every scent of this kitchen. If a single lampen invades the cilia tubules, my nose aches from the stench. We are sabotaged-again. I will not bear it. I will not bear it!”
“But who would do such a thing?” Annaig asked.
“Phmer possibly,” he snarled. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? It could be her, or it could be Luuniel or Ashdre.”
“Why? Is this kind of thing usual during a competition?”
“Not at all,” he fumed. “It is far outside of the bounds. Very far. Too far.” He slammed the flat of his hand on the table. “This sort of contest happens all the time. We are all of us rivals. But never before has this sort of wholesale sabotage occurred. Now they strike at us, we strike at them-it escalates.”
“Wait,” Annaig said. “We’ve been doing this as well?”
“Well, of course,” he replied. “Once a war is begun, only a fool will not fight. But after our last response to Phmer’s affronts, I should have thought the matter settled. But now she-or one of the others-they come back at us.”
“Why don’t the lords step in?”
“Because there is no law concerning this. Outright invasion is governed by strict rules, but this picking and picking at things… Anyway, even though we’re usually able to discover who has been tampering with us, it’s not enough proof for a lord, you understand. They do not understand instinct and intuition the way we do.”
“Who started it?” she asked as guilelessly as possible.
“Most think it was Ashdre. He had the least chance of winning.” He chuckled a mean sort of laugh. “He has none now. Between Phmer and us, Ashdre’s kitchen is crippled. Luuniel isn’t much better off.”
“That’s good, then,” Annaig said. “It seems we’re faring better than the others.”
“It seems, it seems. But all of the others hate me, you know, because I rose up from below. They disdain me, they pine for my failure. And lesser chefs, they are watching this. Possibly they are even behind some of the vandalism, hoping to see me fall and take my place. And sooner, not later, they will think to come against me together.”
“Have you no protection? Couldn’t you post guards?”
“Post them where? In the sump? In the midden? Below the filters? Even if I had a hundred guards, there would be no way to cover every vulnerable place. No, the only thing we can do is set a harsher example. And that I
