The Skies Discrowned by Tim Powers

and I’m serving them chicken curry. Chop a pound apiece of green onions and peanuts and put them in those silver bowls up there. Also, fill two more bowls with chutney and raisins. Then decant six bottles of the Rigby Chablis, which you’ll find in the cooler yonder. Do you think you can handle all that?”
    “Time will tell,” said Frank with false gaiety, hoping it would annoy Pons, as he set out to find the onions and peanuts.
    When the guests had all arrived, the table was set and dinner was ready to be served, Pons strode into the kitchen and grabbed Frank’s arm.
    “I’ve got to keep an eye on things here,” he said. “You serve the dinner.”
    “Me?!
don’t know anything about it! I can’t serve the damned dinner!”
    “Keep your voice down. Of course you can serve it. I’m giving you a chance to … prove yourself under fire, you might say. Here’s the wine. Go!”
    Frank swung through the kitchen doors into the dining room, carrying a silver tray on which were perched two decanters of Chablis and eight glasses, all clinking dangerously. He had to set the tray down carefully on the tablecloth before he dared raise his eyes to the assembled company.
    The first eyes he met were Orcrist’s, who looked both surprised and angry. The two white-haired men flanking him looked amused, and their two thin old women regarded Frank with discreet distaste. Bad business, Frank thought, as he pulled desperately at the crystal stopper on one of the decanters. On the other side of the table sat a slender man with slick, gleaming hair; he winked at Frank. Next to him was a good-looking young woman with deep brown
eyes
and slightly kinky brown hair; very close to her sat a healthy-looking young man who was clearly holding the girl’s hand under the table.
    Some guests, Frank thought. He’d got the stopper out, poured a half inch of wine into one glass and gravely passed it to Orcrist. This may not be correct, he thought, but at least it’s formal.
    Orcrist raised his eyebrows, but took the glass. He sipped it and nodded. Frank filled the glass, and then proceeded to fill all the glasses, moving clockwise around the table. When he had finished he set the decanter in the middle of the table, bowed, and fled into the kitchen.
    “How’d it go?” asked Pons.
    “Not bad. What’s next?”
    “Salad. In five minutes. Put the dressing on it in four and a half minutes.”
    As Frank strode out carrying the salad bowl five minutes later, he felt a premonition of disaster. Pons had thrown a handful of garbanzo beans on top of the salad at the last minute, and Frank, foreseeing them rolling all over the table, thought it an unwise move.
    I’ll serve the pretty girl first, he thought. He walked smiling to her place and, holding the bowl in one hand, reached for the salad tongs with the other. Smooth, he told himself.
    Pons had, earlier, set the bowl down in a puddle of salad oil, and now Franks grip on the bowl slipped an inch. A garbanzo bean rolled off the mound of lettuce and plunked into the girls wine. She squealed. Her escort turned a face of outrage on Frank, who tried to back away and perhaps get a new wine glass.
    “Idiot!” barked the escort as he stood up, shoving his chair violently backward against Franks leg. The greased salad bowl left Franks hand, rolled over in the air, and landed on the brown-eyed girls chest, from there sliding down into her lap. Covered with gleaming lettuce, carrots and garbanzo beans, the surprised girl looked like a tropical hillside.
    “For God’s
sake
, Frank!” boomed Orcrist after a stunned pause. “Go get Pons!”
    Frank hurried into the kitchen. “You take over,” he told Pons, and then went to his room, feeling monumentally inadequate.
    After the guests had left, Orcrist asked Frank to accompany him on a walk. Frank nodded and fetched a coat. They walked for two blocks along an empty stretch of Sheol before Orcrist spoke.
    “Bad show, there, Frank.”
    “That’s true,