Releasing the Dragon Read online

  “Please enjoy this murk roassst,” Slo’vv hissed from the head of the table. “Prepared in the true Shade tradition and ssserved extremely well done.”

  Well done? More like burnt to a crisp! Annie thought. It looks disgusting. From the carefully-guarded looks of the other masters at the table, she was pretty sure she wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Nevertheless, they all picked up many-tined forks and strange cutting implements that looked like mini circular saws and started gamely sawing away. Soon the air was filled with the high, mechanical whine of the tiny saws and chips and flakes of the black murk roast flew everywhere.

  Dru did as everyone else, though he whispered a warning for Annie to sit back while he cut the meat.

  “I don’t want any shards flying into your eyes,” he murmured which made Annie think of charcoal again. The outer layer of the meat crumbled and the interior lump that he cut off looked as tough as leather but Dru popped it in his mouth and began to chew anyway, his strong jaws moving with the effort.

  Annie didn’t ask for a piece this time. Instead, she made herself as scarce as possible, trying to shrink back behind the cushion, hoping that Slo’vv wouldn’t notice her. But as before, he seemed to be watching her.

  “Come, Drugair—do not keep the meat course all to yourssself. Give sssome to your little pet!” he exclaimed.

  Wordlessly, Dru carved off the smallest piece he could and held out the many-tined fork to Annie. His eyes warned her not to say anything as she accepted the bite and started to chew…and chew…and chew.

  To say the meat was as tough as leather was an insult to leather, Annie thought. And while its flavor wasn’t nearly as unpleasant as the “soup,” it still tasted faintly fishy, like shrimp beginning to spoil. It was fairly awful and Annie was glad to get a sip of water to wash it down when she finally finished chewing the tough lump and swallowed.

  Dru kept cutting the meat into smaller and smaller chunks, though he never ate more than one or two. All around them, the other dinner guests were doing the same, Annie saw. Sawing the meat into tiny pieces and pushing it around their plates. She wondered if Slo’vv noticed this. A quick glance at the Shadow-being showed that he did. She could see him watching from those yellow eyes of his with apparent satisfaction as he ate his own food with gusto.

  He knows what he served us is inedible, Annie thought indignantly. He knows it and he doesn’t care. In fact, I think he likes the fact that no one at the table likes it. He wants to make all his guests uncomfortable. Why?

  She also wondered why the people at the table put up with it. From Dru’s earlier warning she knew this kind of dinner wasn’t unusual at the Shadow Palace. So why did the masters come, bringing their sex-pets with them?

  Probably for power, she decided, looking around. Clearly Slo’vv could do a lot for someone if he took a liking to them. He was able to grant wealth and favors and apparently the other masters at the table were willing to put up with his awful food to gain his good will.

  The inedible meal continued, the next course being a dingy gray sorbet that looked like a ball of dirty snow. At Slo’vv’s insistence, Annie tasted it and worked hard not to make a face. It was leathery and salty and grainy.

  Like licking a boot that stepped in slush, Annie thought.

  After the slush course, there was a pile of long, black stringy things that might have been pasta or might have been worms—Annie was too afraid to ask. They looked like a shiny tangle of licorice laces on Dru’s plate and tasted like burnt toast and blood. Even the salad course consisted of wilted maroon and gray leaves that tasted like library paste. It was uniformly awful.

  Which was why Annie was so surprised when the dessert course arrived. When the servers whisked the lids off, she saw a candy-colored confection that seemed to be some kind of cake. It consisted of several brightly colored geometrical shapes balanced on top of each other. There was a cube about as big as Dru’s large fist on the bottom with a sphere sitting on top of it. The sphere had a slightly smaller pyramid balanced on it and the tip of the pyramid supported another, smaller cube.

  But the most interesting thing about the dish, in Annie’s estimation, were the colors. The sphere and cubes and pyramid were as bright and vivid as the other courses had been dull and dark. Also, the colors kept changing. As she watched, the bottom cube went from lime green to hot pink to banana yellow and the other shapes changed as well. It was enchanting! Especially after the meal they’d just had which was like something out of a Tim Burton movie.

  A delicate, pastel steam emanated from the shape-cake, as Annie was starting to think of it, as though it had just come out of the oven. It curled enticingly sky-ward instead of slinking over the side of the dish in the way the weird black vapor from the Shadow broth had.

  “Oh, it’s gorgeous!” she breathed, leaning closer. As the steam reached her, a heavenly scent tickled her nose—it smelled like walking into a candy shop. Cinnamon and chocolate…caramel and strawberries…vanilla and marshmallows and other sweet things she didn’t even have a name for all called to her.

  Sugar and spice and everything nice, Annie thought, her stomach rumbling. After the horribly unappetizing meal they’d just had, the brightly colored dessert made her mouth water.

  She didn’t have to be told to try a bite this time—she eagerly accepted a spoonful of the shape-cake from Dru and practically begged for more.

  “You seem to like this, teeska,” he murmured, smiling at her eagerness.

  “It’s delicious,” Annie whispered back. “It almost makes up for the rest of the meal. What is it?”

  “I do not know—I haven’t had it here before,” he confessed. “It does have a very agreeable taste.”

  “Anything would after everything else we’ve eaten here,” Annie breathed. But she was careful to keep her voice low, for his ears alone. She could still feel Slo’vv watching her with those creepy yellow eyes he grew from his blank oval face whenever he was interested in something. Ugh!

  Everyone at the table was eating eagerly for the first time that night. Everyone except Zar’ren, Annie suddenly saw. For some reason, he hadn’t touched his shape-cake—nor had he given any to his x’aan-chows. She stopped chewing for a moment and frowned. What was going on with that? Did he just not have a sweet tooth? But how could he resist the shape-cake when it smelled so damn good?

  She nudged Dru and nodded at Zar’ren.

  “Look—why isn’t he eating?”

  Dru frowned and put the bite of cake he’d been about to raise to his own lips down.

  “I do not know.”

  Slo’vv suddenly rose—more like floated—up from the cushion he’d been sitting against.

  “I hope you are all enjoying thiss fine dessert,” he hissed, causing everyone to stop in mid-bite. “It has a sspecial ingredient given to usss by my good friend, Zar’ren.” He grew an arm out of his chest and gestured at Zar’ren who nodded gravely back. “He has asssured me that while it will have no effect on the mastersss in the room, it will greatly affect your x’aan-chowsss, so be certain to sssave them a bite or two.”

  “What? What effect?” Annie looked up, startled, and Dru was frowning too.

  “I expect to see all of you come join me in my private salon for after-dinner drinks and smoke-tubes,” Slo’vv said without answering the question. Then he drifted away like a black cloud on the wind.

  Annie looked around for some explanation but Zar’en’s place was empty. He and his two pets had somehow slipped away while she was preoccupied with the wonderful cake. The cake which she now didn’t trust at all.

  She looked up at Dru. “What’s going on?”

  “I do not know.” He sounded grim. “But I don’t believe we ought to eat anymore of this confection.” He pushed the plate away and turned to her more fully. “Do you feel all right, Annie? Slo’vv said the effects—whatever they may be—would be to the females.”

  “I think I’m okay,” Annie said slowly. “I don’t feel faint or dizzy o