NOW
"Quit touching me with that," Kuai Liang snapped as Tomas stretched his arm over the pile of potatoes and pointed his peeler at him. It came within a hair of touching his nose.
"I'm not touching you," the eleven-year-old Czech boy replied matter-of-factly, "I'm just holding it in my hand." He loved his friend like a brother, but sometimes, he just couldn't take a joke. And it seemed the older he got, the less fun he got as well, so Tomas would be lying if he said he didn't enjoy annoying the younger nine-year-old just a tad bit.
"Get it away from my face," the youngest Cryomancer retorted as he carefully scraped the peel off a potato. His movements were slow, undoubtedly because his back was still sore from the whipping An Zhi gave him earlier. Tomas' own back smarted as well from the same whipping, the welts stinging and burning and making it difficult to move. He ignored his friend's commandment and held the peeler straight at Kuai Liang's nose until his friend's blue eyes flashed with anger.
"I'm not touching you," he said in a sing-song voice.
Immediately, the other slapped his hand away and knocked the tool from his palm. Then he said, "Tomas, I've been thinking about all the trouble we get into together. Do you know what I think?"
"Uh, not really-"
"I think I'm crazy."
"How so?"
"Why else would I let you keep talking me into stuff that gets me beat? Why would I do that? Honestly?"
"You never complained before. You've had just as much fun as I've had, Kuai Liang."
"That's beside the point," he argued. "And I don't complain."
"Really? Because you sound like a girl right now."
"I don't complain, Tomas. When do I complain about how you always stick me with your chores? Or how your pigsty always finds its way to my side of the room? Or that you always steal my clothes to pull pranks on Jiao-long?"
"Hey, that's a worthy cause, you've got to admit."
"When do I complain about you blowing up a smoke bomb in our room?"
"You thought that was funny!"
"Whatever," Kuai Liang grumbled. "When do I complain about you waking me up in the middle of the night to make pie?"
"Also a worthy cause," Tomas insisted.
"Oh, really? Look where we're at. We're stuck peeling a mountain of potatoes, my father beat us, and we have nothing to show for it. Where's the pie, Tomas? We should've at least gotten pie for this."
"We had fun. Doesn't that count?"
"I want pie!" he yelled. He shot his best friend an angry glare that sent chills down his spine. Kuai Liang had never tasted pie before. It wasn't exactly on the Lin Kuei's list of approved foods because it was a luxury and therefore their natural enemy. Tomas actually felt bad for their failed attempt to make jablecny kolac, a type of apple pie from the Czech Republic. It was one of the most wonderful things in the world, and he'd thoroughly convinced the young Cryomancer of this fact until he had the boy practically drooling in hunger. Tomas felt slightly responsible for this unfortunate turn of events.
FOUR HOURS AGO
"Hey, Kuai Liang, you awake?" Tomas whispered as he shook his friend. The boy had made a cocoon around him from the one sackcloth blanket he owned, and he was snoring softly as he lay half-curled in a ball on his mat. On the other side of the room, Bi-han snored loudly, a heavy sleeper. It sure made it easier to sneak out at night. When the youngest boy didn't wake up, Tomas shook him again, repeating the question.
Slowly, Kuai Liang rolled over and sat up. "I am now," he said tiredly, rubbing his blue eyes. "What do you want, Tomas?"
"We've got stuff to do," he said. "Come on."
"Go back to bed you Czechoslovakian Q-tip." He yawned and curled under his blanket once more.
"Quit being a girl," the other teased. "I'm hungry."
"You're always hungry."
"Yeah, but tonight I'm hungry for jablecny kolac."
It was true. He'd been in the temple for four years now, and although he didn't miss life on the streets in Prague, he did miss that tasty dessert. Back in the Czech Republic, there was a woman, a baker named Ilsa, who took pity on the little boy who ate scraps of food from the dumpsters to survive. She invited Tomas into her shop one evening after closing, and she fed him a hearty piece of the pie, which was almost too pretty to eat. Ilsa had decorated the top with thin scallops of apple, and sprinkled it with powdered sugar. It was like biting into Heaven, a sweet, apple-y Heaven. After that, she grew so fond of Tomas that she fed him pastries whenever he wished, but her jablecny kolac was his favorite. And after years of being deprived of it, he thought he could make one on his own.
"Where are you gonna get that in the middle of the night?" Kuai Liang whispered tiredly.
"We're gonna make it," he said. On the opposite side of the room, Bi-han snorted, coughed, and then rolled onto his belly with a loud groan. His snoring then resumed.
"Now who's the girl?" the younger boy growled as he pulled his blanket over his head.
"Come on!"
"Go away!"
Tomas thought about it. "If you don't come with me now, I'm gonna start singing."
Kuai Liang's blanket flopped down. "Don't you dare," he hissed.
"Are you gonna come?"
"No!"
"Okay, you asked for it." The Czech boy opened his mouth and started singing the most annoying song in the world, a ditty they both learned from Hydro one day when he took them to the market in Tingri: "I'm Henry the Eighth I am, I am, Henry the Eighth I am, I got married to the widow next door-"
"Oh, all right!" Kuai Liang cried softly so as to not wake his brother. He kicked off his blankets and then kicked Tomas in the ribs for good measure.
"Ow!" he yelped as his friend pulled on his blue t-shirt.
"You do realize that if we're caught out of bed, we're dead meat, right?"
"When has that ever stopped us?" he countered as he silently opened the door and slipped out with his friend in tow. Tomas looked at Kuai Liang in the dim candlelight of the hallway, noticing now his disheveled hair. The front looked reasonably straight, but the back was matted and stuck up like a rooster's tail. He smirked. "Nice hair," he chided.
The youngest Cryomancer promptly punched him in the arm. His muscles tightened around the instant charlie-horse. "Nice frog," the other hissed back as Tomas sucked in a pained breath and rubbed the pulsing spasm from his tricep.
The two boys crept silently towards the kitchens. Barefoot, they made no sound as they walked. At this hour, roughly three A.M., it was extraordinarily quiet with nearly everyone asleep in bed, and those who weren't asleep stood on guard duty on the parapets outside. When Tomas and Kuai Liang reached their chosen destination, there were no slaves in sight to interfere with them.
"Okay, so what do we do first?" the younger of the two asked.
Tomas tried to remember how Ilsa made her jablecny kolac. He knew she rolled the crust out first. "We start with the crust," he explained. He immediately pulled a large five pound bag of flour from the giant walk-in pantry. "Get some eggs!" he whispered.
Half-asleep, Kuai Liang shrugged and obeyed. He promptly raided the old-fashioned ice box and found nearly two dozen brown hen eggs inside. "How many do you want?" he yawned.
"All of them!"
The young Cryomancer rolled his eyes and carefully gathered them in his arms. "Are you sure about this?" he asked as he balanced his way towards the worktable Tomas staked out. "That seems like an awful lot of eggs for one pie."
"Between the two of us, who's actually had pie and who hasn't?"
Kuai Liang frowned. "Tomas, I don't know if that means you know what you're doing."
"Yeah, I know you don't know," he replied. "That's why I'm in charge."
"But don't you have a recipe or something?"
"What do I need a recipe for?"
The Cryomancer flashed him a disbelieving look. "For directions," he said.
"I don't need those. I've seen it made enough times."
"But all those times, did you actually make it?"
Annoyance surged through Tomas' heart. He frowned. "Will you just shut up already? I know what I'm doing!"
Kuai Liang rolled his eyes and then leaned against the table with his chin resting on his upturned palms. "Whatever," he sighed. His eyelids drooped.
Tomas quickly found a gigantic wooden bowl stashed in the far corner. It was deep enough that either he or his best friend could curl up inside. Immediately, he dumped the entire bag of flour into it. Then he looked at the Cryomancer, who was trying to doze off where he stood. "Come on, Kuai Liang!" he cried. "We need to start cracking eggs."
His friend handed him some eggs, and then began smashing his while half asleep. "Tomas, I'm tired," he complained. "You know my father made me and Bi-han do two hours of extra calisthenics tonight for arguing. I want to go back to bed."
"It'll be worth it, trust me," he said, not worrying about the stray bits of shell that found their way into the flour. "Jablecny kolac is the best." Tomas started stirring the batter with a large spoon.
The younger boy wrinkled his nose as he looked at the concoction. "It doesn't look like it to me," he replied. "It looks like a giant spit wad. Gross."
"It won't look that way after it's cooked," the other told him. He shook his head. His best friend was such a pessimist.
"But it's so thick," he protested as he scooped a small blob of dough with his finger. "Is it supposed to be like this?"
He had a point. Tomas hemmed and hawed. "Go get me a quart of milk," he ordered. "That should loosen it up. And get some apples and start cutting them."
Kuai Liang shuffled off and returned in a moment with the requested items, plus a knife to slice the apples. Tomas added the milk to his mixture, but it sloshed around the stiff ball at the center of the bowl. Determined to get it smooth, he beat the dough harder until his own arm grew sore from the motion. It didn't get smooth, but rather gluey and full of smaller chunks of unincorporated flour. The globs didn't bother him, though. They gave the dough a more rustic feel.
When he was finally satisfied with his batter, he looked for some pie tins to no avail. There just weren't any to be had in the Lin Kuei kitchens. Tomas wasn't particularly surprised. So he grudgingly settled on a rectangular baking sheet, and then found a rolling pin to shape the dough. He worked beside Kuai Liang silently, fighting with his mixture. Somehow, it was hard, yet it still clung tenaciously to the tabletop. He couldn't get it quite as flat as Ilsa had years ago, but that didn't bother him either. He simply laid his slab, which was approximately two inches thick, over the pan.
"How are those apples coming?" he asked his friend.
The Cryomancer shrugged. "Okay, I guess," he said as he carefully chopped the apples into quarters. He hadn't peeled them though. But Tomas thought that was okay. The skins would give them extra vitamins, he knew. There was no reason such a tasty dessert had to be completely unhealthy, after all. When he was finished slicing the fruit, Tomas immediately dumped the diced apples into his crust, evoking yet another astonished look from Kuai Liang. "Shouldn't you put sugar and spices in that?" his friend asked.
"Oh, you're right!" he said. "I nearly forgot."
Tomas promptly found some sticky brown sugar, but no cinnamon or nutmeg. Probably two more enemies of the Lin Kuei. Well, without the spices, it wouldn't taste quite the same. But with a little bit of sugar, it'd be close enough. He made a heaping mound of brown sugar in the middle of his pie before he spread it over the apples, coating his own fingers in the dark granules. Then he carefully covered his jablecny kolac with the other crust, also a couple inches thick. Finally, he placed his heavy pan on the rack suspended over the fire.
"How long does it need to cook for?" Kuai Liang asked as he watched his friend set the pan in the fire.
"I remember it took a couple of hours to cook," Tomas explained.
"Man!" the Cryomancer whined. "I want to go back to bed."
"Well, while we're waiting, why don't you take a nap on those big sacks of rice?" he replied, pointing to a mound of gunnysacks propped against the far wall. "They're close to the fire so you'll stay warm."
"All right," he said. "But what are you gonna do?"
"I'll join you," he said. "I'm a little tired now myself." It was true. His manic energy was rapidly fading. He quickly set the timer, and then followed his friend to the sacks of rice, claiming one sack a few feet from Kuai Liang's. His best friend was instantly asleep, and it wasn't long before he was too.
A short time later, he heard his friend call his name. "Tomas, wake up!"
"Huh? What?" he said drowsily, not wanting to wake up. He ignored the Cryomancer.
Suddenly, he felt a swift kick to his hip. The pain jarred him awake, and he came up swinging. "What was that for?" he yelled as his vision cleared and he looked at his friend, who was wide-eyed in annoyance and panic.
"Moron!" Kuai Liang yelled. "The pie's on fire!"
Tomas immediately leapt to his feet, now noticing the thick cloud of black smoke wafting through the kitchen. In the hearth, he vaguely saw his jablecny kolac engulfed in orange flames. The acrid smell filled his nostrils as the smoke bit at his eyes and forced out tears. "Oh no!" he exclaimed. He now heard the alarm bell ding loudly from the courtyard.
"The smoke went through the temple!" the Cryomancer shouted. "They're gonna come in here and find us."
"No way. Come on, we're getting out of here!"
"But what about the pie?"
"Let them deal with it," he said. "Like you said, they're coming anyway."
He ducked out of the kitchen with his friend in tow. Both darted behind a statue of Attila the Hun a moment before a troupe of assassins, led by Sifu Hydro, saw them. Oniro and Jiao-long tiredly followed them. Tomas and Kuai Liang waited until they were certain everyone had passed, and then the Cryomancer left the safety of the statue. But Tomas, however, worried about the beating he'd get if he was caught, made himself invisible.
He felt bad when his friend whirled around to make sure he was following, saw he'd vanished, and panicked. "Tomas? Tomas!"
"Kuai Liang, what are you doing out of bed?" a new voice demanded to know. Suddenly, An Zhi stepped into view.
"Uh, I…I…I…" he stuttered in response. Poor kid, Tomas thought. He was always terrified of his father. Kids shouldn't have to live in fear of their parents like that. He felt kind of guilty for throwing his friend under the bus like that, but better one of them take the heat rather than both.
Tomas started to creep by, but An Zhi immediately reached out and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck. "Where do you think you're going, Tomas?" he demanded to know.
The boy reappeared. "How'd you know I was here?" he asked.
"Are you kidding me?" the Master sneered. "You're breathing so loudly a deaf man could hear you. That gift of yours will do you no good if you can't learn to be quiet."
Hydro emerged from the kitchen. "It looks like someone, or should I say someones, were trying to bake a pie," he reported. "But it caught on fire. That's where all the smoke came from. The men are opening doors and windows to air the temple out, and I extinguished the fire."
"Baking?" An Zhi sneered at the two boys. "Are you both aspiring to be women?"
While Kuai Liang shook his head no, Tomas frowned. "Well, if the adults ever let us eat anything good, we wouldn't have to sneak around to make a pie in the middle of the night."
His best friend elbowed him. "Tomas, shut up!"
"I thought I was raising young men," the eldest Cryomancer began, ignoring his sass. "Evidently, I was raising two little girls."
The Czech boy looked at Kuai Liang, who now had a wounded expression on his face. He didn't think anything of being called names by the bully of a man, but he knew his friend still wanted his father to care about him, and such hurtful words cut him to the very core of his being. He looked back at An Zhi. "You're a voleh," he swore at the man. Ordinarily, he didn't like to curse for fear of getting beat or worse, but times like these called for such words.
The Master Cryomancer sneered. "You two girls come with me," he growled.
NOW
After An Zhi whipped them both, he assigned them to work in the kitchen for the slaves, starting with peeling a mountain of potatoes for stew for dinner. As the Tibetan women worked close by, keeping an eye on the two boys, Tomas and Kuai Liang fulfilled their punishment just outside the back door. The middle of winter, and dawn, it was fairly frigid. The Czech boy didn't like how angry his friend was towards him. The other, his cheeks tomato red in fury, seethed in quiet anger. Tomas thought he could use some sleep.
"Hey, Kuai Liang, I know what will cheer you up," he said.
"You mean, besides going back in time to that moment when you decided to wake me up, but at the last second didn't?" the other hissed.
Tomas thought about responding with his own snarky remark, but he sincerely felt bad for making his friend angry with him, so he stifled it. Instead, he grabbed a potato peel and flung it at him. He chuckled when it landed in the Cryomancer's hair, which still resembled a rooster's tail.
"Knock it off," the other snapped.
But he ignored his friend and threw another peel.
"I'm not playing with you," Kuai Liang growled.
Again, Tomas threw a peel.
"Alright, you asked for it!" With that, the younger boy threw the potato he held as hard as he could at his friend. It hit his chest with a painful thud, and he yelped before he threw a potato back. His harmlessly bounced off Kuai Liang's leg, causing his friend to laugh at him.
"You throw like a girl!" he teased.
Tomas narrowed his eyes. "I'll show you!" He grabbed another potato, but this time he injected it with his special powers over smoke, and threw it like a grenade at his friend's feet. Before the Cryomancer could react, it exploded, raining bits of potato over both of them while encircling his friend with smoke and launching him into the air. In a second, Kuai Liang crashed into a nearby snow bank.
"No fair, Tomas!" he yelped, sputtering snow from his mouth. He quickly wiped his face with his coat sleeve. "You're not allowed to use your powers!"
"Mememememememe" he mocked with a grin, making a talking mouth gesture with his hand.
"Alright, fine! You wanna use powers? Let's use our powers!" With that, the Cryomancer scooped up a large ball of snow and packed it into a hard ball. Then, for an added touch, he formed a coat of ice around it before he lobbed it at his friend, catching him directly in the shoulder. Kuai Liang started giggling as it knocked him into the mountain of potatoes, and the whole mound rolled on top of him with a multitude of dull thuds.
Tomas flailed about, losing his footing as the vegetables rolled beneath his feet, but he was grateful when he felt a small hand grip his and yank him up. He saw his younger friend smiling at him. His anger had clearly passed. "Truce?" the younger boy asked.
He grinned. "Truce." He rubbed his hands together to warm them. "Come on, let's get this done. I'm freezing my butt off." He grabbed his peeler and sat on his stool once more, with Kuai Liang following suit.
"It's not that bad out here," he said. The younger boy resumed his work once more.
"Says the kid who can make ice out of thin air," Tomas chided. A new thought occurred to him. He couldn't help it. He aimed his potato peeler at his friend's nose.
"Quit touching me with that!" Kuai Liang cried in exasperation.
"I'm not touching you," Tomas sang as the first rays of dawn broke over the horizon.