I discovered this recipe when I was journeying through the Eiglophian mountains of northern Cimmeria. Winter had come early, and the cold wind bit like a knife through my all-too-thin cloak. A red glow in the west told me that dusk would soon be upon me, and my chances of reaching my intended destination, the small mountain village of Sparnuota Mirtis, before nightfall were clearly going to be slim.
I looked about for a place of shelter among the steep and cragged rocks, and initially had little luck. But then fortune favoured me, or so it seemed, for by and by I glimpsed a dark cleft ahead, slightly to the left of the rather rudimentary gravel trail I had been following since the morning. Scrabbling over shattered granite, I found myself at the entrance to a small cave – a welcome spot of shelter for the night.
Welcome, at least, so long as it was unclaimed and uncontested; for I knew well that snow leopards haunted these heights, and I had no desire to face the fierce jaws and talons of one of those swift and powerful beasts. Lighting the elvenlight that had been gifted to me by Lady Fafine Valea at the gates of the faery palace of Sloc Boglach, back in what now seemed an eternity ago, I proceeded cautiously, but saw no signs of prior occupancy.
As I walked farther into the recesses of the cave, however, the walls began to assume the regular angles of masonry rather than the haphazard ruggedness of nature, and I began to suspect that this tunnel had been hewn not by the random violence of the mountain but by the craft of men. My suspicions were confirmed by what seemed to be a doorway at the very end of the cavern, marked with strange runes that ….
[1254 pages later]
… as I climbed hastily up the ladder, for below me I could hear the angry shrieks of the lizard men growing closer. Risking a glance behind me, I saw the entire vast underground city of Lai Koht Teel, still lit by the eerie pale lichen that graced the high-arched ceiling, begin to crumble to dust, its lacy towers cracking and splintering like ice in spring. At last I reached the promised Night Door, and vaulting upward through it I slammed the portal behind me. I found myself in another tunnel much like the one I had entered a year ago, though in this instance the door lay upon the floor rather than being built into the wall. Seeing a large boulder near the door, I not without great effort rolled it onto the door. Soon I could hear the threatening scraping of the lizard men’s claws beneath the door as they hissed in frustration, but they lacked the strength and leverage to dislodge the rock, and at length their sounds faded, as they no doubt returned to the ruins of the fair city that I had, partly through intention and partly through inadvertence, so utterly destroyed.
I made my way to the cave’s mouth and saw the dark forests of Nordheim below me in the morning light, stretching to a far and misty northern horizon, for I had emerged on the other side of the mountains. The gems I had gathered in the great Treasury had been dropped in my flight, so that the only wealth I was able to take away with me from my adventure was my memory of the fabulous meal of Pibijé on which I had dined with the High Priest and Priestess of Fahadalana on the terrace of their lofty stone temple, jutting out over the turbulent subterranean sea as leather-winged zenido birds wheeled cawing overhead. Fortunately, I had committed the recipe to memory, and I am happy to share it with you on my recipe blog today.
Pibijé recipe:
1. 2 slices of bread
2. Some jelly
3. Some peanut butter
4. Some regular butter (optional)
5. Some skulls of your enemies (optional)
Spread regular butter (optional) and peanut butter on one slice.
Spread jelly on the other.
Place the first slice, peanut butter side down, on top of the second slice, jelly side up.
Garnish with skulls of your enemies (optional).
Serve.
