In her senior year of high school, Natalie Hope reunites with her friends, Adam and Barbara, at the funeral of the fourth member of their once-close gang, Jake. They remember the made-up superhero game they played as kids called "the Astronites," wh...
Aleph's hours of cooking resulted in a grand display for his colleagues to behold. The dinner was going to be held in the deans' den, located in the heart of the High Auctor's cardinal tower. It was a well-carpeted room with a marvelous fireplace in the shape of a lion's head. The mountain's natural ore served as silver pillars, but as impressive as they were, the pièce de resistance was a thirty-foot long chandelier whose handcrafted glass stems and multi-colored petals dangled and sparkled in the firelight. Oldear students that were lucky enough to enter the deans' den swore the chandelier grew new flowers as the semesters went on.
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The menu for the night included eight-foot king salmon from the Kostoffor Kingdom salted, buttered, and baked with a special type of dill; lamb chops topped with quarter-moon onions; white couscous; basmati rice; salad; and mashed potatoes. But no dinner of Aleph's would be complete without his famous Eleph chicken. According to a recipe that had been concocted by Alastar Eleph (one of Aleph's distant ancestors), Aleph coated twenty chicken thighs with sauces from the bazaars of Bezlar and the markets of Hagmar. The addition of garlic, dried parsley flakes, half a lemon, and brown sugar produced a delectable liquid moist with flavor. For dessert, Aleph baked a lemon meringue pie and sun-spotted cake. Once everything was prepared, he enlisted Lord Benbeit and the kitchen staff to assist him in transporting the food, as well as a few bottles of Matarian wine from Oldear's cellars and pitchers of lemonade and water.
At precisely eight o'clock, Oraclian arrived with the deans of Memorium and Sentium Studies: Cordice Surrus and Tengar Cohnshon.
Cordice was the favorite of many Oldear students. None of them would have guessed that she was in her sixties. They were too stupefied by her keen intellect and heartwarming smiles. Her style of teaching involved giving little homework but expecting much from the students when it came to presenting final projects or conducting research assignments. As could be expected from the dean of Memorium Studies, Cordice remembered the most minute details of the day. That was why none of her students argued with her about anything.
Cordice proceeded into the den dressed in her customary marigold robe. Sunflowers, her favorite flowers, had been explicitly sewn onto them at her request.
"Aleph, it's always an honor to be your guest for dinner," she smiled.
"Then I should start charging you extra," he quipped. He turned to the dean of Sentium Studies. "Tengar, I hope you saved room for dessert."
"You know I try, Aleph," replied the dean of Sentium Studies.
Tengar Cohnshon was the youngest of the deans, which didn't mean much in terms of age (he was only in his late forties.) He always kept his black hair in a neat ponytail and trimmed his nose hairs, eyebrows, and eyelashes to the exact millimeter of his choice. Standing at six-and-a-half feet tall, he bowed down to shake Aleph's hand. His slender, clover-green robe tightened around his body as he straightened up. He had handprints imprinted on them from the neck down — his unique way of symbolizing feelings. Aleph considered Tengar the perfect embodiment of sense. There was no double meaning, hidden entendre, or false truth that snuck past Tengar's mental faculties. Aleph looked forward to hearing Tengar's opinion regarding the Child of Time Prophecy, in addition to Cordice's thoughts about the prophecy's origins.
