Chapter 15: Gluttony

Fin called the sixth trial and the wall opened on its own.

The room behind it was long and low and lit by candles.

There was one table down the middle of it, and the table went on past where I could see.

It was laid for a feast. Everything you could want.

Roast. Bread. Wine in glass jugs. Fruit I didn't have a name for.

The smell hit us at the door and half the crowd moved toward it.

"Stop," Fin said.

They stopped.

"Gluttony," he said. "The table takes whatever you give it."

"Takes what," the QA man said.

"Whatever you put on it. Food. Money. Time. People."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one you get."

We went in.

The chairs were pulled out. There was a place for every one of us.

I counted. Forty-one places and thirty-five of us.

The six who had gone at the table in the last trial had places too.

Nobody sat.

"Stand at your place," Fin said. "Don't touch anything."

We stood.

The candles burned down and the food didn't cool.

I stood there and watched the man from sales.

He was two places down from me and he hadn't stopped looking at the bread since we walked in.

His hands were shaking.

"Don't," I said.

He looked at me.

"It's food," he said.

"It's a trial."

"I haven't eaten in a day."

"Neither have I."

He looked at the bread again.

Then he picked it up.

Nothing happened.

He took a bite.

Nothing happened.

He took another bite and sat down and started eating properly, fast, with both hands.

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