Chapter 22: The venue.
This year it was the Newman family that hosted the celebration. Since the capital was not a coastal city, for obvious reasons the maritime minister was often absent, but now not only he was trying to impress the rest of the nobles, it looked like he was going all out.
To Lee the venue looked more like a dinosaur graveyard, though. The spacious wooden structure with two long, sumptuously stacked tables inside, erected near the small lake behind the minister's mansion, was decorated with countless white bones of different shapes and sizes.
Most were fifteen to twenty feet tall with some even taller, and the curved form pointed at them being parts of some humongous creature's rib cage.
Lee wasn't clear how exactly bones were cleaned since they were too big to be simply boiled, but they looked rather fresh, indicating Newman hadn't dug up the remains of an ancient creature.
While the main structure where the feast was held was already impressive, Lee found the small, square shaped stage in front of it much more interesting. It wasn't big, maybe five yards long and wide. But the three feet long, conical white teeth, used as decor around its sides, made shivers run down Lee's spine.
It was clear that the owner of those teeth could easily bite off an elephant's head, and it was hard to imagine someone had the ability to actually kill it. But Lee had seen people of such power, and had an inkling that the emperor might one of them.
"See those big-ass bonfires on the other side of the lake?" Tess woke Lee up from daydreaming, "Looks like General Hardwood decided to help Minister Newman out. It's his land on the other side, you know?"
"Mhm." Lee could only nod.
The sun had already set and the half dozen burning pyres in the dark were surely impressive. Technically they were erected quite far, across the lake, but from the perspective of people sitting at the tables they were behind the small stage. The reflection of fire on the water's surface probably was meant to accentuate the performers that later had to present themselves in front of the elite crowd.