[04] Cook For The King!

[Kaden]

The shrill, piercing beeps of Kaden’s PAGER tore away the veil of sleep that had fallen over him. With lethargy weighting heavily upon his hands, he grabbed at the device and lifted it into view. His eyes, still heavy with remnants of much-needed sleep, watched as a message began scrolling across the device’s small display. It took several moments for the parade of letters to gain meaning inside the courier’s mind.

“Event time,” he announced to his vacant surroundings.

On the walkway in front of him, Kaden watched as space was rent, giving way to a portal of swirling blue energies. As he surveyed the unusual means of transportation, he couldn’t help but wonder whether such a feat – splitting open a hole in space to allow transportation – would be possible in the real world, where laws were not subject to the whims of a maniacal teenager.

After a long, loud, intentionally drawn-out yawn, the courier hefted himself onto his feet. The few steps between himself and his portal were taken slowly. Having no idea what potential horrors lay in wait for him in his event, Kaden decided that going in half-asleep would be nothing but detrimental to his chances at survival. Once ready, he threw himself into Gamer’s next event.

On the other side of the portal, Kaden winced against the bright, beating rays of the sun, resting high above him. Turning his head, the courier first took note of his surroundings. He stood in the middle of a thin, winding dirt road, the deep wheel-ruts informing its regular use. Directly before him rose the walls of a massive castle, the likes of which Kaden had only ever seen in story books and cartoons.

To either side of the road, large, sprawling fields of wild grass spread out as far as the eye could see. Whether by design or by coincidence, there was nothing visible upon the horizon, in any direction, other than the odd tree. Turning around, Kaden confirmed that was true no matter where he looked. The only thing waiting for him was the castle. Grabbing the pager from his waist, the courier scanned what little information he had been given for a second time.

“Cook for the King,” he read to himself. “Go to the kitchen, cook some food. Blah blah blah… if he likes it, I get to live. Wonderful.”

It was about what he had come to expect from Gamer. The events themselves didn’t seem to follow any real rhyme or reason, their objectives never the same as last time, but each contestant was compelled to finish them upon threat of apparent death. Worry began to flit through Kaden’s thoughts as he considered past events. Since their time on the sinking Titanic, the courier had not seen Sage once. The same could be said of the young girl driving the go-kart in his most recent event. While he had, admittedly, not been actively searching for their girl, he didn’t like the way that added up.

With the heat beating down upon him, the courier slipped out of his jacket, slinging it over his shoulders. Letting his feet fall between the ruts in the small dirt road, the courier let them guide him towards the castle, stopping only long enough to occasionally wipe the sweat-soaked bangs from his eyes.

With nothing else to think about on his short journey to the castle, the courier turned his thoughts to the objective of his event. Cooking had never really been his strongest suit, though he liked to think he wasn’t awful at it. Having spent the entirety of his “adult” life living on his own, he had been forced to learn to feed himself fairly quickly. Cooking for himself, after all, was much cheaper than eating out. What he would cook for a king who lived in a castle, though, he had no idea. He eventually came to the conclusion that he would have to wait to see what was in the kitchen before determining a plan of attack, so to speak.

Upon reaching, what he thought were, the gates to the castle, Kaden found himself at a loss. The doors looked to be twenty feet tall, and made of solid wood and plenty of metal. When he realized that blowing down the obstruction was the first thing that came to mind, he couldn’t help but laugh. With a shake of his head, he reached out a hand a did what most people did at someone’s door: he knocked.

“Who goes there?” came an immediate response.

“What?” the courier asked, looking up at the source of the voice. “Oh. Hey. Didn’t see you guys up there.”

Standing atop the ramparts, two guards peered down at the lone traveler. The two of them exchanged quick glances and quicker words before turning their attention back to the stranger standing before their gates.

“You seek to trespass?” asked Guard Number One.

“I… guess so?” Kaden’s eyes looked from one guard to the other. “I’m supposed to… cook. For a king.”

“A king,” Number Two chimed in. “Our Lord, appointed by High Priest Shaft himself, rules the whole of the land. We should flay you alive for such an insult.”

“Go ahead and try,” came the courier’s reply. Despite his words, there was no aggression in his voice. He doubted it would be necessary. “See how he feels about you killing his hand-picked cook.”

Both guards physically balked at the idea. Once again turning their attention from Kaden, they conversed for a second before suddenly vanishing from sight. Not entirely sure what to make of their change in behavior, Kaden wiped his brow once more and fanned himself as best he could with the collar of his t-shirt. After what felt like an hour, the massive castle doors opened wide enough for both guards to step through.

Watching their slow approach, Kaden’s eyes moved from their large shirts of chain mail, which rattled softly with each step they took, to the lengthy spears held in their hands, the razor-sharp points glistening in the sun. How they could stand to wear metal beneath the blistering sun was beyond Kaden.

“Release the garb,” one of the guards said, pointing to the jacket slung over Kaden’s shoulder. “And raise your arms.”

Not wanting to dirty his digital jacket, the courier laid it on the ground as gently as he could, then straightened himself and raised his arms to the sky. Both guards continued to step forward, but one of them leveled their spear at Kaden while the other moved to inspect his jacket.

“Look!” said the jacket-inspecting soldier. “It is as the High Priest predicted.”

Kaden winced as he saw the soldier snag his jacket with the tip of a spear and hold it aloft for his partner to see. Both of them seemed to stare in awe at the winged star emblazoned upon the jacket. They conversed with each other for a third time, in whispers that fell just short of the courier’s ears. Finally, they nodded to each other and returned the jacket to its owner.

“We apologize for the delay. You are expected.”

“S’all good,” Kaden shrugged it off and threw his jacket back over his shoulder. “Happens all the time.”

“If you’ll follow us, we’ll escort you to the castle proper.”

“Lead the way.”

Stepping through the massive doors, Kaden’s eyes were met with a surprisingly large town, nestled safely within the walls of the castle. To the courier’s immediate left or right were fields that had obviously been planted after the construction of the castle-town. What was in the field, though, disturbed him greatly.

Tending to whatever crops the fields bore were countless men and women, each of them barely clothed in what Kaden could only call a loincloth. Their bodies appeared weak, their movements so shaky that it was only thanks to the endless repetition that they were able to get anything done. As they turned their backs to him, Kaden could see any number of gruesome scars cut into their skin, what skin there was to be scared. Along with looking weak, they all appeared to be malnourished.

The sight profoundly angered the blonde. As with the events that took place on the Titanic, the idea that any of those slaves could have been a real person was all that filled his head. Whether or not they were real, the travesty that was being committed before his crimson eyes stood glaring in face of the sanctity of life that he believed in. Most of those people would have probably welcomed death, if only to escape their enslavement.

His thoughts continued to stew on those forced to work the fields of the castle-town, Kaden barely realized when they reached the castle itself. Stepping into the torchlit hall, the courier tried to alleviate his frustrations by turning his attention to something else.

“Who was that Shaft guy? You mentioned him a couple times before,” the courier asked the nearest guard.

“High Priest Shaft is the spiritual advisor to His Highness and, as such, everyone within the kingdom. Only the King is more respected than His Holiness. He often predicts great events, such as your coming.”

“A cook arriving is what passes for a ‘great event’ around here, huh?”

“We have arrived,” the other guard announced.

Taking several steps away from Kaden, the guards indicated a door. Unlike most of the doors they had passed throughout the castle, the one the guards nodded towards was incredibly elaborate, torch light dancing off of the intricate gold inlays. Shrugging, Kaden pushed the door open and stepped through into the throne room.

The design of the door could have barely been called a precursor to the elegance of the King’s throne room. Carpets, columns, wall hangings, even the torches all seemed to glitter with gold or jewels. The entire room bathed the courier in a warm, almost ethereal light. While it wasn’t a particularly large room, it was appropriately regal.

The king himself was perched upon his throne, leaning to the side and propping his head upon his hand. If Kaden didn’t know better, he’d say the king actually looked bored. He appeared to be a fairly tall man, and the long white hair that flowed just past his shoulders gave him an air of maturity and wisdom that Kaden had never seen before. The ruler casually sipped from a glass of wine in his free hand, barely acknowledging the man that had stepped into his presence. Before Kaden could speak, though, the door behind him burst open.

Charging through the door came a man wearing a deep blue tunic, white pants, and wielding, of all things, a long leather whip. Whipping locks of dark brown hair dramatically from his eyes, the newcomer had his attention fixed squarely on the king. It wasn’t hard to guess what he wanted.

“Die monster!” the man bellowed. “You don’t belong in this world!”

“It was not by my hand I was given flesh,” the king retorted. Kaden couldn’t help but wonder if the king was aware that he was simply part of Gamer’s world. “I was made king by humans who wish to pay me tribute.”

“Tribute!?!” the whip-wielder seemed thoroughly enraged at the idea. “You steal men’s lives, and make them your slaves!”

“Perhaps,” the ruler seemed to be thinking aloud. “The same could be said of all rulers.”

“Your words are as empty as your heart! Mankind ill needs a ruler such as you!”

“Man?!” the king scoffed. “What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets! But enough talk...”

Standing from his throne, the king hurled his glass of wine at the newcomer’s feet. Readying his whip, the brown-haired, would-be assassin physically tensed his body. It was clear to everyone what was about to happen, and that definitely did not sit well with the courier.

Taking a step towards the brunette, Kaden thrust both hands forward, putting his weight needlessly into the motion. Shocked by the courier’s sudden movements – Kaden wondered if the man had even been aware of his presence – there was no time to react. His eyes only widened in shock, their pupils reflecting the flash of light that illuminated the throne room. For a brief instant, the warm, inviting glow of the king’s throne was washed away by the harsh, aggressive luminescence of the courier’s ki. When it faded, the strange man had been thrown through a rather large column within the king’s throne room.

As rocks crumbled about the man, Kaden’s face betrayed the act in a display of shame. That someone would enslave other people so willingly, and dismiss it with such a flimsy excuse, was truly deplorable. Sadly, if there were no king to cook for, passing Gamer’s event seemed much less likely. Turning his eyes from the smoldering body of the unconscious attacker, Kaden watched as the king looked him slowly up and down.

“Sorry about the pillar there,” Kaden started.

“I concern myself not with material possessions,” the king casually replied. “It is not by my design that such garish trinkets litter my castle. You’ve yet to be introduced.”

“Ah. Right. I’m, uh, here to cook for you, actually.”