Page 6 of The Chef

“Rosalyn Erch,” Fendle snarled. “What did you do?”

“Not like it’s worth hiding it,” she replied, still laughing. “The amount of destroying angel you’ve already eaten? In six hours,you’ll all be streaming out at both ends. If the severe dehydration doesn’t kill you, in another six your liver and kidneys will shut down. There’s no cure hidden behind a tree, not out here.” Her smile grew as she looked around at them, particularly at the fighters who had started to cry. “My only regret is you realized it too soon, and I won’t be around to watch you suffer.” She ran her tongue along her molars on the right of her mouth, and a second later she clenched her jaw and something crunched. Roe looked directly at Fendle, her smile growing manic. “Randolph says hi.”

Her knees collapsed as her eyes rolled back and a white foam filled her mouth. Her body flopped to the ground, convulsed once, and then went limp.

The clearing returned to silence for a long moment as everyone stared at her body. Then someone whispered, “What do we do?”

Fury. Absolute, boiling fury raged. “How dare you!” Char hissed at Roe’s body. “How could you do that to my food? The spells for drying and powdering mushrooms cause bitterness. You need to combat that with honey! And powders absorb liquids differently! You ruined the texture and the taste! You destroyed my dinner!”

“Trust a level one chef to be more concerned about the taste than the fact that we’re all poisoned,” Jeorgi tried to joke, his voice stifled by the tears wetting his cheeks.

Char switched his glare to Jeorgi. “My food isneverpoisoned.”

“You said it yourself,” Cheryl argued. “There were mushrooms added to your food.”

“Wait,” Fendle cut in, holding out one hand to stop the fight before it could escalate. “Char, what do you mean by that? Doyou mean no one has dared poison your food before, or that poison is rendered harmless?”

Char shrugged. “It’s my passive magic field. If I stir it, cut it, heat it, or otherwise manipulate a dish, I negate the effects of poison. What I can’t do is negate any flavor or texture changes,” he added with a frustrated sigh. “I’m sorry dinner was ruined. It’s my fault. I understand if you want to fire me and leave me behind.”

He had gotten complacent, and he had been rushed, but that was no excuse for not tasting his food before serving it. His professors would fail him immediately. His cousin would rescind his job offer if he knew. Char was an utter failure as a chef.

“Whoa! Fire you? You saved us!” Fendle stated, his tone incredulous. “If you hadn’t been here, we’d all be facing terrible deaths right now. Our mission would have failed, and Namin would have an unmitigated opportunity to attack Toval. You saved all of us, and countless lives in the future.”

“I didn’t taste my food before serving it,” Char forced out, his voice barely a whisper. “If the Chef’s Association found out, I’d be knocked down to level two, or even level three. I’m looking at years of retraining before anyone would consider hiring me in any capacity in any kitchen.”

Fendle dropped his hands onto Char’s shoulders and shook him gently. “You listen to me. You are in exceptional circumstances. They might have taught you how to cook over a fire, or how to make amazing tasting dishes using dried crap, but there is no way your school offered a class on rough cooking while on a spy mission to prevent a potential war. There is no precedence for it, and any review panel might fault you for not tasting your food, but they would never be able to find you guilty enough to demote you. I promise you.”

“It’s our fault anyway,” Ralph added. “We grabbed the food from you before you had a chance to taste it. We’re the ones who broke your protocol. Not you.”

“See?” Fendle continued. He draped one arm over Char’s shoulders and pulled Char into his side in a hug that somehow managed to send warmth through Char’s entire body.

“So, we’re not going to die?” Laurence asked.

Char looked up, finally noticing the rest of the group. Laurence was holding hands with his twin, Laura, and both had tear tracks drying on their cheeks. They weren’t alone, Char realized as he glanced around. Most of the group had cried at some point, or still had pinched looks that said they were fighting not to. Char glanced up at Fendle, but his eyes were dry. His smile at Char was soft and full of relief.

“No,” Char said, replying to Laurence and everyone else. “The fool’s mushroom was neutralized. All you ate was some bad-tasting food, not poison. I promise.”

“Right.” Fendle released Char—leaving behind his warmth and comfort—and clapped his hands. “Char, do you think you could figure out how Roe snuck the poison into our food? And double-check the rest of our supplies to make sure it’s all safe for us to eat without your having to cook it for us? Yaroub, Okenly, get a team together and search the body and Rosalyn’s belongings. Then give her a traitor’s burial. Somewhere far enough away we won’t attract any wildlife to our camp.”

The camp snapped into action. Char headed to the fire where he had left his ingredients and utensils for dinner. He was going to figure out how Roe had snuck poison into his food so no one would ruin his cooking again.

Licking raw potatoes wasn’t how Char expected to spend his evening, but all he tasted was must. He took a pinch from eachof the bags of spices next, but he didn’t find any mushrooms. Char crunched his way through dried vegetables, dipped a finger in the various pots of water, and licked the cutting board where he had minced the meat. No mushrooms. Just a major shot of salt coating his poor tongue. Lastly, he licked the two cast iron pans he had used to combine the prepared ingredients and meld the flavors. He tasted the remnants of the spices—onion and garlic—some salt from the meat, and the starch from the potato, all of which combined into an acceptable, well-rounded palate, and then the sharp bitterness of magically dried and powdered mushroom killed it.

“She dumped it in the pans after I put in all the ingredients,” Char said, his voice an angry growl. “Maybe when I went to gather plates? The powder didn’t have time to fully meld with the flavors, so it wasn’t in there long, I don’t think.”

“So it isn’t likely she put any poison in the individual ingredients?” Fendle asked.

“I’ll double-check anyway, just in case, but the potatoes and everything else I just tested were fine.”

Char stood and looked around the clearing. Roe’s body was gone, a small pile of things from her pockets next to where she had been. All the dishes were gone too—hopefully to be washed rather than dropped down a mountain crevasse—and Ralph came over and took the skillets away too when he saw Char was done with them.

Naomi was waiting by the pack donkey where the rest of the supplies had been pulled out of their bags and laid out on the ground. He joined her and settled in for a long evening of licking and tasting things he’d really rather not.

*

THEY CRESTED Arise around two in the afternoon, breaking out of the trees to see a massive lake spread below. Char could make out some trees on the far side, but he sincerely hoped they didn’t have to swim or row over there since it was quite the distance away. Thankfully, as they started down the hill, the path curved, revealing a wide beach filled with about a hundred tents, many bunched together to show individual camps for the different mercenary groups.

About an hour ago, outside the range of any sentries, Char’s group had stopped and added red and black patches with some sort of crouched catlike animal on it to their clothing. Some of the patches had suspicious reddish-brown stains on them, likely obtained when the previous wearer had been killed. Only Char, as the chef and noncombatant, wasn’t wearing a patch.

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