G is for Astronomy

By Jonathan Kilgore

Given his lifetime as a master chef of interplanetary travel, Gurfin knew there was always magic in his ingredients. But this time, he did not know, nor did he really care, where they would land after the wormhole eventually opened.

Some recipes required mastery—others he created simply to taste. The stew before him wasn’t meant to take them to any specific place in the cosmos. Gurfin had made a contract with dark creatures who were now stalking him to ensure he paid them what was due.  This stew was intended to save his soul.

Fresh sprigs of rosemary, several cloves of garlic, various herbs, chunks of a roughly skinned animal, even a set of oblong eyes floated in the bubbling broth. He stirred the weather-beaten cauldron and nervously bit his lip, as he peered out into the darkness.

Dragging his spoon along the bottom, he pulled up the solids so nothing would burn, and then from a satchel, he pinched out seasonings that sparkled in the moonlight.

His traveling companion, Pheznibbet, fed the fire with driftwood and bramble. Phezz’s fur, frazzled by the wind, glinted like flames under the bright moon. He was Xintixa, tall as a garden pail and very much like an overgrown squirrel, but he had a warrior’s heart. The noble red-fur would die to protect his friend, this Gurfin knew, even though the chef had gotten himself into this mess in the first place.

Gurfin could hear the dark things now approaching, their feet squelching in the wet sand. Phezz’s furry ears twitched, He took up his bow and walked several yards toward the offending sounds. He adjusted his helmet and the knives on his belt, and then he returned to the fire.

“We mustn’t run,” he said. “They’ll just continue to hunt you, no matter where we go.”

Gurfin nodded. “We will be prepared either way.” He muttered words plucked from his book on interstellar gastronomy. Then he stirred the pot and imagined that instead of a stew, these ingredients were small planets coalescing into a very particular arrangement, which they now, in fact, had become.

The moon’s reflection danced in the pot, and the stars sparkled above. Smoke from the fire and steam from the stew enveloped them in a blanket of otherworldliness, like a universe shrouded in a cloud of galactic haze. Around their heads a hundred different constellations formed in blues and reds and magentas, with tiny planets of gas and rock floating in the fog and ether.

Gurfin chose a bite-sized planet with a respectable atmosphere, took a nibble, and gave some to Phezz. The planet tasted savory, but gritty—like a sandy biscuit.

The dark creatures closed in, and Phezz nocked an arrow on his bow.

Gurfin called out, “Dark ones, we have heard your steps. We will not go willingly.”

They replied, “World bringer, you have no choice. We own the rights to your emptiness. You have already made the pact. Come from the edge. There is nowhere to flee where we will not find you.”

Stinging pain hit Gurfin, and he held his chest as if at any moment their words might make it explode. Fatigue overwhelmed him. He needed rest and mourned the days when these dark creatures would eventually bend him to their will, but in this moment, the bravery of Phezz strengthened him.

From behind the red-fur and the chef, a portal, running to the new universe that Gurfin had just boiled and brewed, opened. In an instant, the bright fire blazed and then, just as fast, died into a pile of ember and ash.

Phezz flung his arrow at one of the dark beings that emerged into the smoke.

“If you creatures die today,” Phezz said, “there will be no more to the hunt. This, I will ensure.”

Then the red-fur turned to his friend. “But Gurfin, we both know you must live.”

Before Gurfin realized what was happening, Phezz took his bow, swiped the gastro-creator’s legs, and pulled on his cloak, sending him tumbling into the portal.

Gurfin cried out in surprise and attempted to claw his way back, but in a moment, he was gone.

***

Phezz rushed forward and attacked. The monsters’ teeth and talons cut him, but he was too fast and too small to kill so easily.

One by one, the five black giants met the knives of the noble red-fur, and one by one, he dropped them. Finally, when the last had fallen, still groaning in pain, Phezz raised his knife to deliver the final blow, but the dark creature, in one last dying assault, struck him with its mighty, poisonous tail.

The small Xintixa fell against the steaming pot. His shallow breaths seemed hard won in the ever-blackening world. As he lay there wounded and slowly dying, Phezz thoughts drifted.

He recalled a poem Gurfin had shared when they first met, long before their adventures to other worlds, long before Gurfin had made his deal with the darkness:

Victory is not to the large of frame,
But to the heart who bravely defends his name.
Stature and skill is still sweet,
To those who are meek with nimble feet.

Then he dreamed he had finished his battles, and Gurfin had brought him back to the Oaklands with one of his incantations. Phezz managed an inn deep within the forest with his red-fur wife, the fair Regina Nutcake. He could see her clearly in all her frail, young beauty.

And their treetop lodge was immense and full of foodstuffs and celebrations. There were mountains of cheese forged by the goats of the Valley of the Cumbers, and Gurfin worked the kitchen making recipes that took them nowhere but home.

And small Xintixa ran around the lodge welcoming travelers to their journey’s rest far beyond this world of destruction and pain.

And everything was light, and there was no darkness in it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jonathan Kilgore has worked as a writer and editor in the tech and business space for over a decade. He lives with his wife and children in Michigan on a small farm where he raises animals, maintains orchards, and manages woodlands. His first novel, Mythos: Ark of the Chimera, is expected to come out in the Fall of 2005.

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