A Wok of Infinite Light
The Kitchen God's Masterpiece
"Did you hear that?" asked Vahgner, looking around the vast chamber for the source of the Wonder Chef's voice. He was out there, somewhere, and no Dark Chef could hear those tones without trembling a little.
"I did. He called Regal the God of the Kitchen once before, when he first defeated a Dark Chef... but I hadn't understood until now," said Raine.
Regal had frozen as soon as he touched the fork, and a bright spectral aura had wrapped around him like the smoothest white chocolate. The golem chef was also frozen, but seemed almost to be in pain in the glare. It had bent over, and was covering its face with its arms the way Lloyd often did when Raine made curry (or anything else, to be honest).
"Hadn't understood what?" asked Vahgner, who was edging towards frantic.
"In Mizuho and its ancestral cultures, there are gods for every part of the house, watching over those who live there," said Raine, who couldn't have been more relaxed– teaching always had that effect on her. "And the Kitchen God is the most important, the head of the house. At the start of a new year, he makes a report on the residents' activities and–"
"The point, the actual point!" Vahgner prompted her.
"Well... I think Regal is taking on some kind of... guardian mantle. But what house could be under his protection...?" Raine wondered.
"Regal? Master Regal, are you down here?"
George quietly descended the stairs, looking into the corners as he came. The old kitchen in the basement of House Bryant was always kept clean, but behind barrels, crates, ovens, and cupboards, there were plenty of hiding places. Today the castle was especially empty, with so many servants still at home until the confusion had settled down. George didn't have any other home to go to, and so he found Regal's absence all the more obvious.
"Master Regal?" The boy –young man, but not by many years– was nowhere to be seen, but there was a faint wheezing, somewhere in the warm cellar. George followed it to a corner nook, behind one of the roasting ovens, where Regal was sitting with his legs close to his body, head on his knees.
The young Duke Bryant looked up with red-tainted eyes, and struggled to breathe steadily. "...You should be home, George. N-nothing's happening today."
"Master Regal..." George whispered, crouching beside the last remaining member of the family he had pledged to serve. "I'm so sorry... Your parents were grand people..."
"You... don't have to be," said Regal, putting his head down again. "You can go home now."
"This is my home, Master Regal."
He realised this was the wrong thing to say too late to change it, as a part of the youngest Bryant's misery became anger. "It's mine!" he snapped. "You're not family, George, and you don't have a place here any more!"
George took a step back, not wanting to give any more offence than he already had. "I have nowhere else to go, Master Regal, but I shall restrict myself to the upper chambers, if you prefer." He bowed slightly, maintaining as much of his professional air as possible. Regal would have to learn to toughen himself, but there was no need to press the matter today, and not in front of her. "I merely thought you might wish to see Miss Combatir...?"
Regal tilted his head around the corner of the giant oven, and whatever minor order there might have been to his emotions before was blown away by the presence of Alicia, standing meekly by the staging table. "Alicia!"
"Regal," she said, as he stood and tried to clear any signs of distress from his face. "When I heard the news, I knew I had to come..." He did not so much hug Alicia as let her hold him, wishing he could raise his arms and return the gesture. They swayed slightly at his sides, feeling almost numb.
When she let him go, Regal saw that she didn't look to be in much better condition than he was. "Your parents were so kind to me," she said, smiling behind the sparkle of tears. "I owe them everything... not least for you."
"I've seen to it that your father will retain his post as Royal Woodsman," Regal murmured, staring at the floor.
She almost said that he didn't have to do that, or that Regal had more important priorities right now, but she knew that neither was true. It was Regal's nature to watch out for others, and if he hadn't made certain of his mother's appointment of Sieg Combatir as the official sacred wood harvest, it would have been a sign –to others, and to himself– that his orphaning had changed him for the worse.
"Thank you," she decided.
"I'll..." George began, but he stopped when Regal turned to look at the attendant. "Master Regal, I shall leave you in peace." He started towards the stairs, but after the new duke and Alicia shared a brief glance...
"George!" Regal called. He stopped, obligingly. you show me how to make your cream stew?" The old man looked surprised for only a moment, but then smiled and joined them again.
"Can I help?" asked Alicia. "It sounds like something Presea and dad would like."
"The more the better, as I'm sure Regal will tell you. When he was younger, his favourite story was about cooking. Weary soldiers came upon a village struck by famine, and so began to boil water..."
The white aura around Regal was roiling now, and swirled around his body like a stardust hurricane. Vahgner reached out to touch it, but Raine slapped his hand down quickly. Her elven blood sensed the mana charging, and she didn't dare interfere until the world felt less volatile.
"Come on, Regal, find what you need..." she whispered.
"The hell're you doin', ye dandy?"
"Knock it off, Gerr. He's cookin' for the old man."
Regal was bent over the weak flames, wishing fervently for oil. It was hard enough for him –and a mystery to everyone else in the Meltokio jail– to build even the smallest fire, and then keeping the food from burning was a task and a half. But Levin had been in the coliseum today, and with only the sort of gruel that was common to those jailed, the eldest prisoner wouldn't make it through the cold night.
"You've... got a lot of talents... Chef Regal," said Levin.
"Hush, Levin," said Regal. "I'll be ready in a moment."
"It will," Levin corrected him. "You, Regal, seems to me you're ready all the time, but you'll never get a chance to do anything in your state."
"What do you mean?" asked Regal.
"You've been shackled for all of two months now? Hah, I bet it seems like a lifetime to you." Levin tilted his head back, resting it on the rough-hewn bricks of the wall he sat against. "But if you get to be my age, you'll know what a lifetime really is. And without training, you'll never be my age."
"I still don't understand," said Regal. He shook his head and focused on the food.
"I hear they tossed you out in the coliseum last week. Hear you nearly got crushed by an ogre, but you ended up strangling it with your cuffs. That's clever, right enough, but it's luck, too. And luck runs out some time or another. Only has to happen once, and then you'll never get another chance, as they'll have already buried you in a blank grave behind the coliseum, where no one sees."
"How have you survived, then?"
"Me? Ha, I'm too stubborn to die. More than that, these aren't any more than decorations when they put me out there," said Levin, raising his cuffed hands. "It's called the Traubel style. You'll learn to think on your feet and fight on your back, and always be the last man standing."
Regal stared at the flames for a moment. Someone who knew more about his life than any of the nearby prisoners might have thought he was deciding if he deserved to live any longer than fate decreed. "...You can teach me?" he asked at last.
"Of course. The question is whether or not you can learn." Then he cackled, that manic laugh mastered by all elderly people who know more than those around them.
"In the morning, then," said Regal, pouring the stew into a bowl and placing it in Levin's hands. "And keep in mind that I will not accept the teacher's death as an excuse for missing my first lesson."
"Oh. One of those sorts of bargainers," said Levin, grinning.
When the God of the Kitchen opened his eyes, he couldn't help noticing how his clothes had changed. Uniform and apron in pristine white, a ridiculous colour to wear in this dank cave, had replaced his more durable adventuring garb.
"That happens a lot, does it?" asked Vahgner. "Chef's clothing coalescing out of blessed auras?"
"It's not done yet," Raine observed, and Regal didn't have to look at anything but their faces to know that the faint new weight on his head was a tall, cylindrical hat: the toque, the cook's crown. "What do we do, Regal?"
Bryant's mind was abuzz, too full of thoughts that didn't seem to be his own. Command all. Serve all. Be the head and the legs. Give joy where you can, and nurture no matter what. Waste nothing, not even potential, not even risks. Know your limitations and mock them regularly. Know that this is not your power, but an older art working through you. Know that the feast is greater than the sum of its parts.
The statue of the Wonder Chef had also been released from its enchantment, and was a much simpler thinker. One boulder of a fist hurtled down to crush Regal. He raised the fork, and seemed completely unsurprised when it stopped the attack like a roof stops rain, without even jarring Regal's tenuous grip.
"What a fascinating disturbance of physical laws," Raine remarked, and then cleared her through to indicate that whatever she had just said hadn't happened. "What now, Regal?"
Zelos had vanished, leaving only himself, Vahgner, and Raine. Chefs of light, dark, and absolute catastrophe. Yes, he knew what to do. "Vahgner, get to that table of ingredients. Take your favourites, and place them in the Wok. You must be clear– do not follow any recipe you know."
"Yes sir!" said Vahgner, saluting, immensely relieved that someone was ordering him around again. His brief taste of rebellious leadership had convinced him that it was for other people.
"Raine, do the same, but be random. Use no logic whatsoever in your choices."
"I hope you know what you're doing..." she said, and jogged off toward the heaped ingredient table. The Dark Chef started to go, but hesitated, still worried by the vagueness.
"I don't want to go in the wrong direction, is the thing," said Vahgner. "What are we making?"
Regal smiled, still holding the chef-golem away with his fork. "Soup."
While the two of them went to prepare the Wok of Infinite Light, Regal knew his task was to keep the resurrected statue at bay. And so he did, leaping out from the fist's path a half-second before the fork's binding also stopped working, and so the briefly-frozen motion continued down, sending shards of broken tiles in all directions.
Regal lashed out with the fork, but while it cut surprisingly well into the stone hand, it was impossible to use properly while shackled. Instead, when the hand rose up again, Regal dashed in, planted the fork, and used it as a pivoting axis to deal a powerful sideways Crescent Moon to its ankle. The statue staggered sideways, and Regal took a defensive stance, ready to spar as long as they needed.
"Tomatoes, yes, and garlic's never wrong... ooh, I didn't know we had reggiano parmesan – do you think this beef looks leaner than the chicken? And what's that?" asked Vahgner, loading his arms.
"It's bok choy," said Raine. "I just thought some green might be complementary."
"Bok choy and chicken!" Vahgner said happily. "Red peppers, too– good one, wouldn't have thought of... okay, now you're joking, right?"
"There's nothing wrong with fibrous vegetables," Raine said defensively.
"No, there isn't. But that's a pumpkin."
"Your father's the one who asked for it to be here. Besides, Regal insisted on random–"
"All right, all right, just grab those carrots and radishes on your way. We have chopping to do."
While Vahgner oversaw several stocking trips to the Wok and back, Regal and the golem chef rampaged around the chamber, often making Regal quite happy that Raine was distracted by her mission. The golem appeared to have some kind of grudge against the other statues, and his iron whisk-mace demolished quite a few of them.
In his defence, Regal was too busy to protect any of the figures. He rolled under the falling wreckage of one and continued his dive between the giant's legs, leaping to his feet and slashing backwards with the fork. The chef statue turned surprisingly quickly and Bryant was sent running again, briefly sprinting up one wall –with the fork as a sort of super-sized piton– and then leaping off into empty air.
It didn't remain empty for long, with the statue looming behind him, but Sylph's Opal proved its worth yet again, giving Regal the power to drive the chef back with the Super Swallow Dance. He couldn't dodge the chef's furious retaliatory swat, but managed to lock his legs between its fingers, rather than be hurled against the far wall.
"We're ready!" came Vahgner's welcome shout, and with senses stronger than ever before, Regal smelled a culinary miasma wafting from the Wok. By Origin, he thought, is that pumpkin?
Bryant let go of the statue's fingers as its hand neared the hard tiles, breaking his fall with expert precision and rolling upright as though rising from a feather bed. ...Possibly a very reddish-dusty featherbed, but still his uniform remained perfect white, and the hat couldn't be shaken off. Regal ran flat-out, sprinting across the wide chamber to circle around the Wok's far side.
"Ready? This isn't ready!" said Raine. "One thing I've picked up for certain is that soup requires water."
"That I can handle," said Vahgner, and he pressed a part of the altar down. Three vents opened in the ceiling, and freshly-tapped spring water rushed down until the Wok was mostly full. They watched it flow, her startled (edging towards fascinated) and him smug. "The people who built this place might have been crazy, but they knew how to make a kitchen."
"Regal!" shouted a voice when the duke was only a third of the way around from the altar. He looked up to faintly see Zelos, apparently standing in nothing but shadows.
"What are you doing up there?" he called.
"It's a balcony," said Zelos quickly. "Hands up!" Regal reluctantly dropped the fork and raised his arms, glancing back just once at the approaching giant statue. "Hell Pyre!" A flare erupted in the darkness, Zelos leapt, and the Last Fencer hurtled down, a sharp meteor from the void. Regal's shackles burst like spaghetti under a hammer, and he ran on, retrieving the fork as he went. "...You're welcome," the Chosen muttered.
"Thank you!" Regal shouted back, making Zelos briefly wonder what on Tethe'alla had happened to the duke's ears.
Raine and Vahgner leapt out of the way, clearing the altar just in time for Regal to take his place. The statue, which had followed him with single-minded fervour, was still directly across the Wok. It stopped, realising its predicament, and simply stared at him with its fiery gaze.
"This is your utmost, mortal chef?" it growled. "The Imperial Cordon Bleu of old would have been deeply disappointed."
"Perhaps," said Regal. "But they would have been wrong, as well. I suspect that is your deepest flaw– an inability to learn."
"What use have I for learning? I am a the chef of master chefs!"
"Yes," Regal said sympathetically. "I suppose you are."
"And yet you seem to have some thought of creating a dish of such power as to rival my own," it observed, pointing at the flooded vegetables and other ingredients. "I do not know this one."
"You wouldn't. You can't. No one can," said Regal. "This is the Ultimate Recipe, the dish for which there are no directions." He wielded the fork more easily with his hands free, and dipped its prongs into the water, which rippled for a moment and then began to boil.
"The Ultimate Recipe is a myth, as my people have long known. Why should I fear this falsehood?"
"Because it is incomplete," said Regal. His plan was working perfectly– the golem chef was too interested in arguing and proving its confidence to consider attacking or moving away from the Wok. "And all Recipes of Power call out to those things that are key to their completeness."
"You are bluffing."
"Y'know," said Zelos' voice from the shadows, "pretty much any villain who's ever said that hasn't lived to regret it. But if they had lived, I'm pretty sure regret would have come up eventually."
"Then tell me the name of this creation," said the statue of the Wonder Chef.
"It is the result of unity, rather than a single virtuoso chef at work. None can know the recipe, but every living soul in the world knows a part, and the more that gather, the greater its glory." Regal raised the fork, making Raine wonder if he realised he was taking the pose that the real Wonder Chef had used dozens of times. "It is Stone Soup!"
The statue seemed to freeze for a moment, and then its eyes burned brightly with fear and revelation. Regal drew a pouch out of his apron pocket, threw it into the air, and slashed it apart with the fork. His favourite spices, white and red satay, drifted down to mix with the soup. The sides and edge of the Wok began to shine with runes long-forgotten (Raine tried to memorize as many as possible, wishing she had brought a notebook), and its power shone in all directions.
That power pierced the statue, calling to the stone that made its body, demanding completeness. It stood as firmly as possible, resisting the pull, but Regal's Ultimate Recipe was as stubborn as his sense of justice, and probably less patient. When a call, a summons, and a tug would not work, it reached out and yanked.
The statue toppled forward into the radiant pool with a suppressed splash. Pure water can't be heated above the boiling point under normal conditions, nor should it erode granite very easily, but within the depths of the Wok, the statue shattered and crumbled into thousands of stones no larger than a fist. Now sated, the soup's surface turned mirror-calm again, except for the occasional floating broccoli floret or chunk of potato.
Vahgner sighed so deeply that he nearly collapsed. Regal turned away from the Wok to see Raine, drawing runes in the dust with the end of her Phoenix Rod. Somewhere on a side wall, Zelos finished his climb down the side of a terracotta chef and dropped the last ten feet to the floor.
Where the Wonder Chef had managed to sneak in was a complete mystery, but he was definitely their at Regal's side, his eternal grin as strong as ever. "That just about does it, Regal Bryant. Not one person in more than four thousand years has discovered the secret of the Ultimate Recipe."
Regal decided it wasn't worth asking how he had arrived. "Out of curiosity, what would you have done if I hadn't heard the story of stone soup as a child?"
"Given you a different hint, I should think," said the Wonder Chef. "Maybe told you to seek wisdom from the lessons of those who have not yet learned cynicism. And that's just off the top of my head."
"The Wonder Chef!" Vahgner shouted. He was a little behind current events.
"Down, boy," said the Wonder Chef, waving his archenemy (in theory) away. "I'm a little disappointed that you didn't find the information leak. We may be a bit safer, now that the true Ultimate Recipe is known again and it's impossible to use for evil, but I doubt the Dark Chefs are gone. All we need is one stubborn one, like the Darkest Chef, or... Dior?!"
Zelos had arrived with a thoroughly-bound Dior slung over one shoulder, radiating smugness strong enough to tan the unprotected. "You know her?" he asked, dropping her with polite gentleness on the floor.
"I wish I didn't," she growled, wondering if her bonds would be any easier to chew through with some purple satay.
"She's my sister," said the Wonder Chef.
"Hah!" Dior scoffed, but stopped there, because Zelos had retrieved the Last Fencer from the tiles.
"So I get to be part of the legend too, right? You know, to be honest, I think I'd look better in that hat than either of you," said the Chosen.
The Wonder Chef apparently took no offence at this. "If you want your chance, then go out and cook, my friend! And one day you may attain the title of Gourmet Prince." He turned to regard the last Dark Chef standing, who was wishing right now for a large mythril cutting board to hide behind. "You. Vahgner."
"AGH! ...I mean... yes?" he corrected himself.
"Your methods are heartless, but I don't think you are. If you wish, I will take you on as my personal apprentice and we'll see what you're really made of."
"If the way I feel right now is anything to go by, I'd guess structurally unsound trifle. Possibly overcooked ramen." His eyes flickered away for a moment, as if he was reading a checklist on the inside of his head. "...Sir."
"First off, could you go into the outer temple and see about rounding up any of the other Dark Chefs out there? Deception is your friend in this case– try to lock them in one of the warmer storage rooms so they're not freezing or starving when the rest of my family arrives." Vahgner listened carefully, saluted, and ran off. "...The hardest thing to teach him," the Wonder Chef observed, "is going to be how to think for himself."
"Whoa, hey, I thought you were going to teach Regal or something," said Zelos.
"And what do I know that he doesn't?" asked the Wonder Chef. "If you could take my sister out of here and wait for us aboveground, I'd be forever grateful." Zelos considered the angry woman currently lying at his feet, the now-suffocating heat and humidity of the cavern, and the new day that would be outside. Pulling Raine away, the three of them also left the temple of the Wok.
"That goes beyond coincidence," said Regal. "Only the two of us remaining in this place, all others sent purposefully or casually away?"
The Wonder Chef grinned, walked up to the edge of the Wok, and sat beside the altar, watching the currents in the soup.
"What do you know that I don't?" Regal went on.
"Will you be the next Wonder Chef?" he asked, as though Bryant had said nothing.
"No."
"I'm glad to hear that." The Wonder Chef's voice changed, losing some of its flamboyant brightness. He still sounded younger than Regal, which was surprising, but he spoke with solemnity for the first time. "I don't think I could do this to anyone else. You don't deserve it. I'd like to think I don't, either."
"I have a guess," said Regal. "With your fork in hand, my senses were magnified many times. And I remembered a friend who once gained the same power..."
The Wonder Chef stood and turned to face Regal again, silhouetted by the ethereal glow of the Wok and its stone soup. His jacket hung open, just enough to see the part of his chest below the collar, where almost any clothing could hide it. A golden crest and a sphere that shone a prismatic silver.
"Mine," said the Wonder Chef, "was one of the first Cruxis Crystals ever created on this world. Where it came from, even I have never discovered, as any historian would now tell you that they were invented accidentally, by the father of Mithos Yggdrasill, using his mother, some centuries after mine."
"Is there any limit to your power?" Regal murmured. He had guessed correctly, but the revelation was still surprising.
"Yes. Of course. Human limits. I'm nothing more than what you could become, Regal Bryant." He grinned again. "If you were four and a half thousand years old." He fastened his uniform again, and the celestial light faded cooperatively.
"And Dior? Your sister?"
"Only by tradition. My bloodline lives on– I didn't lie when I said my family endeavours to defeat and restore the Dark Chef Alliance, which is nearly as old as I am. They weaken, even vanish, but someone leaves behind a dark recipe book, or hides their great-knife in a forgotten tower... or builds a giant temple to gods of cooking... and fifty years later it's all starting over again."
"It's finished now, though," said Regal.
"Finished? Do you think this is the only ancient city in the world? Have you ever scoured the Fooji mountains on a moonlit night during the autumnal equinox? You can't move for evil altars and demonic libraries and dark towers. ...So. Why don't you want this power?"
Regal held out the fork. "Because it isn't my purpose. This was my greatest moment as a chef, and I have taken my place in their prophecies. Now I must find my next quest." The Wonder Chef took his fork back, and the shared power went with it. The raiment of the God of the Kitchen vanished, except for the hat, which Regal folded and placed in a hip pocket. "My last question... why didn't you help us?"
"With Yggdrasill and the Eternal Sword, you mean?"
"That particular near-apocalypse, yes."
"Didn't I?" said the Wonder Chef, walking away from the Wok. Regal followed. "I suppose Colette never saved Lloyd with cream stew in Torent Forest, then? And a hastily prepared batch of rice balls didn't actually make the difference between victory and painful death at Rodyle's ranch, when the dragons attacked? It's a good thing that the Gnomelettes didn't demand spicy food for passage into the–"
"You didn't teach us that," Regal pointed out. "Tabatha had the curry recipe."
The Wonder Chef looked at Bryant as though he had just eaten a lemon whole and asked for wasabi to follow. "And who did you think taught her?"
"I'll have to bring a team from Sybak to help me properly excavate," said Raine. She was sitting on a stack of lumber in a corner of New Palmacosta, behind the site of the old academy, where they had found the entrance to the catacombs.
"Sure thing, Raine," said Zelos, who was standing watch over Dior, although her only real escape route at that moment would have been to dive into the water and swim to Flanoir.
"Why in blazes would anyone want to marry you, anyway?" the Dark Chef growled.
"Who wants to what Zelos?" Raine exclaimed, shaken out of her archaeological reverie.
"Um," said Zelos.
"That's the Turquoise Ring, isn't it?" said Raine, picking out the jewellery with scientific precision. "I knew that Lloyd was allowed to keep Origin's Diamond, but I've been wondering about all the rest. A very practical use for it, I suppose."
"What is?" asked Regal, emerging from the once-hidden subterranean staircase.
"The ring," said Raine, before Zelos could stop her.
"Oh, of course. The alliance," Regal realised, before Zelos could distract him.
"The alliance?" Raine repeated, watching Wilder squirm.
"The forging of an alliance between Meltokio and Mizuho. I've been asked to attend," said Regal.
"Alliance by marriage, a good and ancient tradition. Will Sheena be there?" asked Raine.
Zelos gawked, or possibly goggled. "What? Of course she'll be there!"
"That's good. People can get so offended when they're not invited–"
"She wasn't invited!" Zelos blurted. He realised that Regal and Raine were both now watching him intently, and probably weren't going to let him leave until he said it. "IaskedSheenatomarryme. Now where's the Wonder Chef?"
"Getting on with things," said Regal pleasantly. "Who feels like spaghetti?"
Zelos turned to make sure he hadn't hallucinated the horizon. It was, indeed, the only bright part of the sky, or the rest of the landscape. The rest of the sea and the islands were various shades of black, occasionally fading to supremely dark blue and green. "It's five-thirty in the morning, Regal."
"Paella, then."
"...Sure, what the heck. Hey, will you teach me how?"
"Have you got something to chop garlic with?"
Fshink! "Yup."
"Let's start."