The Lavender Tavern

Gallants in Distress: Just as there are damsels in distress, there are gallants in distress. Hamlyn the street-ale vendor is about to find out how knights track down these distressed men.

The Next Town Over: The Collective has forsworn violence. But how then to deal with the People, who have not?

Written by: Jonathan Cohen for the Lavender Tavern.

Narrated by: Ben Meredith

A Faustian Nonsense production.

The King's Cup-Bearer: For five years, the king and his cup-bearer have been trapped in the king's chambers. Now, finally, his servant is going to venture forth and find out what is really going on in the kingdom...

The Merchant of Dreams: Every day Dimitri sold dreams to anyone who asked, but he could not dream himself.

Written by: Jonathan Cohen for the Lavender Tavern.

Narrated by: Ben Meredith

A Faustian Nonsense production.

There was one place where there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of magical ley lines that gathered and writhed like snakes. It was destiny that this should be the greatest city ever built: Frostford.

Meet Myer, an absentminded young mage who works for the Ministry in Frostford. Now meet Myer's helping hand: Stepwise, the daemon he creates so that he can find the things he misplaces. Myer is about to discover that giving humanity the ability to search for anything, at any time, can lead to catastrophe.

Part 2 of 2.

Written by: Jonathan Cohen

Narrated by: Trevor Schechter

A Faustian Nonsense production.

To read the full transcript of this episode, go to https://thelavendertavern.captivate.fm/episode/myers-helping-hand-part-2

Transcript

According to Myer’s tracking spell, there were now nine Stepwises – eight of them outside of his control. Now it was time to panic.

Myer tried to slow his breathing and thought of his lesson on Runaway Magic. How could he not think of it? It was the highlight of every Ministry student’s first year of study. The magister who taught the course showed them how a magic spell that simply doubled objects would lead to disaster. He started with a copper coin and kept doubling it with a simple incantation. The single coin became two coins, then four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and by the tenth doubling the magister showered the podium in copper and told the students that there were now over a thousand coins...before he made all but one of them disappear with a flourish.

Any magic that was not properly cast could lead to runaway magic. There were rumours that this was one of the reasons the Ministry had been formed in the first place, but the magister would neither confirm nor deny this. He had scraped the chalk across the large slate at the front of the class, then tapped each syllable, emphasizing the word: “Cat-tas-stro-phe!”

Myer re-read the spell he’d written to conjure the first daemon. There were no flaws that he could see. No, Stepwise had been copied by human means, at least at first.

He bit his lip. “Stepwise, double yourself,” he said with some dread.

Stepwise stretched and split down the middle. Now there were two Stepwises in front of him. Eleven red spots on the line symbol. Cat-tas-stro-phe.

He could duplicate enough Stepwises to catch the other Stepwises now, but since at least one other person knew how to duplicate the rogue daemons, there was no stopping them.

And each daemon used a tiny bit of manna...unnoticeable at first, but once it became a case of Runaway Magic, the manna would start adding up.

Myer was a clever young man. He often had many clever ideas and brought these clever ideas to Alastair or the lower magisters. This time, he felt that the cleverest thing he could do was to...say nothing.

It would have been simple to deconstruct the Stepwises. All Myer needed to do to make them disappear was to reverse the spell inscribed on the sheet of parchment he now kept locked in the bottom drawer of his chest of drawers. He could even tear the parchment into pieces, if he did not mind the thought of every Stepwise suddenly deconstructing violently.

But the moment Myer broke the spell, all of the accumulated manna that animated the daemons would instantly flow back into the manna reservoir at the end of the street, and from there into the neighborhood’s ley line. The Ministry would not fail to notice an *increase* in the supply of manna...especially when a young, clever minister resided only a short walk away.

The next morning Myer noted with a dull resignation that there were fourteen red dots on the symbol. On his walk to the Ministry, he spotted at least two Stepwises flitting about the buildings above him: one had a hammer in its mouth, and the other carried an apple.

If Alastair suspected anything, he remained mute. Sueanna claimed to be busy with solstice preparations. Even Getty was busy with what he called “temple business.”

Raven, Myer noticed, had started to make elementary mistakes in the work room: using agate instead of tourmaline, trying to undo a spell by drawing a sigil in a clockwise rather than counter clockwise direction, even cracking her jade wand on the edge of her table as she attempted a particularly difficult incantation. She seemed newly preoccupied. Or, Myer thought, a bit ashamed, she had been preoccupied for a while and he had only now started to notice.

Raven usually stole away every midday on their break, leaving Alastair and Myer to eat hand meals and commiserate. On one break, Myer followed Raven at a distance, and saw her enter the narrow winding staircases that flanked the tower. When he stepped into the staircase, he saw her some flights above, huffing and puffing her way up. Then she suddenly reversed direction and...

In the small town of Wolfwater, every door was always open to Finn, except for one...

Finn can go through any door in the town of Wolfwater except one...because he's too fat to fit through it. But Finn is determined to find out what's behind the golden door. No matter what.

Part 2 of 2.

Written by: Jonathan Cohen

Narrated by: Joe Cruz

A Faustian Nonsense production.

Content warning: disordered eating, body image

To read the full transcript of this episode, go to https://thelavendertavern.captivate.fm/episode/the-golden-door-part-2

Transcript

Finn got little sleep that night as he paced the kitchen, taking notes and writing down ideas, and cooking and tasting bits and samples of food. Eating the food helped him to think, to sharpen his mind.

He missed Celine, missed her laughing, dancing conversation and how she challenged him to be better than he was. She was ambition personified, unusual for an inhabitant of Wolfwater. Celine had been a singer since she was a child, but now she was famous in the town, and fame meant performances and planning and trips to other towns and villages.

He took one night off from planning his feast and went to hear her perform at an alehouse in the center of town. It was a shabby, disreputable place propped up by drunkards and slatterns, and Finn was surprised that his childhood friend should sing at such a venue.

But when Celine came out from behind the curtains onto the small raised stage, he forgot about the stale smell of ale and the acrid tobacco haze that hung in the air. She wore a simple black shift as if it was a grand dress from a distant city. Her hair was done up in curls, and gleamed in the lights of the stage. She elevated the alehouse and those who were in it, and Finn was glad to have come.

Celine spotted him as she took her place; he saw the smile of recognition, the little nod. And then he forgot everything, and listened to her song.

Finn wondered later if she had decided to sing that song once she had seen him: it was a song of being different, of not belonging, a black swan among a bevy of white ones.

But no, Finn realized, that song was not for him alone. It was for Celine as well. She was as much an outsider to the town of Wolfwater as he was. His difference was obvious to all who saw him, but hers lay hidden on the inside. She could pass as one of them on the street, but when she opened her mouth to sing...

“It was wonderful,” Finn told her afterwards, as the bartender stood protective guard over Celine while she drank water to refresh herself. “I heard the message in your words.” Then he added, “We do not belong here in Wolfwater.”

Her smile was as sad as always. “Oh Finn,” she said. “We belong wherever we go. It is not for others to accept us, but for us to accept them.”

He slept and dreamed of song and meals, and come dawn, he tied his apron and walked to Finn’s Inn to continue planning his feast.

Valery was waiting at the door. Somehow, he had persuaded Abriel to let him go out, or so Finn thought. He clearly was not a prisoner of the temple. Finn stood back and let him into Finn’s Inn, which Valery looked over with great interest.

Part of Finn’s mind cringed, seeing the tall, elegant Valery stooped under the low roof of the Inn. “What do you think?” Finn asked at last. He wished he had not asked it, but he had seen Valery’s anticipation when Finn had been about to eat his food behind the golden door, and he knew the desire to be judged by another.

“It reminds me of you,” Valery said. His smile was warm and genuine. He is the enemy, Finn thought. A man who serves terrible food and sees more patrons in a day than I do in a month.

“Wide and squat?” Finn laughed, and then wished he hadn’t said that, either.

Valery shook his head. “You are not wide,” he said, passing his left hand just over the space where Finn’s belly had once been.

“Let me show you what I’ve been up to,” Finn said, guiding Valery over into the kitchen. “I’m planning a feast.”

Now he saw the difference in Valery’s eyes; where they were curious and challenging before, now they were cool and analytical. Finn made no secret of his menu. He knew that Valery would not copy him. It was not within Valery’s power to cook like Finn, just as it was not possible for Finn to construct meals shaped like baskets and towers and children’s blocks.

“Here, try this mutton,” Finn said, lifting a large chunk to Valery’s mouth. Valery took the tiniest bite, frowned, then nodded, wiping his lips.

“A strong gamey taste underneath,” Valery said. “And the sauce?”

“If you took a larger bite, I imagine you would be able to identify the ingredients yourself,” Finn said with a smile.

Valery looked down at his slim body with a glance that Finn took as uncertai...

In the small town of Wolfwater, every door was always open to Finn, except for one...

Finn can go through any door in the town of Wolfwater except one...because he's too fat to fit through it. But Finn is determined to find out what's behind the golden door. No matter what.

Part 1 of 2.

Written by: Jonathan Cohen

Narrated by: Joe Cruz

A Faustian Nonsense production.

To read the full transcript of this episode, go to https://thelavendertavern.captivate.fm/episode/the-golden-door-part-1

Content warning: disordered eating, body image

Transcript

In the small town of Wolfwater, every door was always open to Finn, except for one.

​

Finn – or Phineas, as his parents had named him – went from a hefty, cherubic smiling baby to a husky, inquisitive child, a large and awkwardly-private teenager, and then into his current incarnation as a broad-faced, wide-shouldered, large-bellied man.

​

He was fat. Fat – the word was fat. He hated the terms the townspeople and even his parents were forever using to get around saying “fat”: husky, big-boned, full-figured, large. No, he was fat, and they were not.

​

Wolfwater had been through a terrible crop failure and famine in the year when Finn had been born, and the memory had imprinted a certain asceticism on the town and the townspeople. They rushed from task to task, ate light, simple food, and poured their energies into tilling the fields and harvesting the crops so that there would never be another famine.

​

But Finn...sometimes he thought that the famine had imprinted itself on him in another way, as he lay in bed at night, hands clasped over his belly. He liked to eat, to savour the elements of a meal. Even the simple meals his mother prepared over the fire. Though they were too simple, with few spices, and often overcooked or underdone.

​

When he turned twelve, he insisted on helping her with the meals. “You can sit and relax,” he said, “while I make supper for the family.” Anna, his mother, was a tall and thin nervous type who could not relax. But she used the time while he cooked to fret over him. He could not pull a plow or stack sheaves, or carry wood – it was simply too much for his body in the heat of the summer.

​

But Finn could cook. Even though Anna told him not to use up the spices, to make the dishes smaller, to leave some for later, he baked vast meals from the simple meat and potatoes and root vegetables they had available. Finn would try to draw his parents into conversation over the dinner table, but his father Marin was hungry from the fields and ate whatever Finn put in front of him. Anna was too worried about gaining weight to eat much. Look at Finn, she thought; look at Finn. So he was usually left alone to eat the remains of the dinner, staring thoughtfully out the window and thinking of an infinite number of dinners, a myriad of fantastic meals made from ingredients he’d only ever heard about.

​

Even though he could not work the fields, people liked Finn. He had a broad, easy smile, and was quick to pitch in with whatever non-physical help he could provide. The housewives and househusbands appreciated his advice on recipes and how to stretch a meal when there wasn’t much food.

​

All the doors in Wolfwater were open to him – from the town’s gathering chamber to the shack that sat by the lake and held paddling boats and oars. All the doors, except for one.

​

In the temple, at the back of the main room, there was a golden door that led...somewhere. Finn did not know where it led, and he could not find out. Because Finn could not physically fit through it.

​

The door was as narrow as his mother – as narrow as all of the other townspeople, actually. Finn would have used his hands to take its measure, but Abriel the priest did not like people fiddling with the golden door. It could not be more than a hand’s breadth in width. The other townspeople could only fit through by turning sideways, taking a deep breath, and wriggling their shoulders until they popped through into...somewhere.

​

When Finn had been a child, like the other children, he hadn’t cared about the temple or the golden door. He had heard the stories, knew that it led somewhere, but it was a mystery, like why the birds left towards the end of every year and came back every spring.

​

Instead, as a child, Finn always dreamed of cooking, and dreamed of having his own tavern and inn. Anna – for she was less nervous back then – joked with him that they would have to call it “Finn’s Inn,” and he laughed and laughed.

​

Then he grew older and laughed less. The others his age started to wonder what was behind that golden door, and he did too. Only, at some point they were able to cross the threshold, and he was ...