A World Without Heroes

by Brandon Mull

  Importantly, on the first day exploring, Jason also found a bathhouse. Inside, men waded and bathed in scented pools of varying depth and temperature. He went by several times after discovering it but had not yet seen Kimp.

  Although subsequent meals did not display varieties as extravagant as Jason’s feast of welcoming, they retained sufficient quality to delight the most discriminating critic. Beverages and snacks could be obtained all day and night from various locations.

  On the evening of his second day exploring, Jason located a strange room deep belowground where castle guests, lounging on divans and futons, munched on small, individual pies. Pungent incense permeated the air, and in one corner musicians tapped at marimbas and plucked peculiar stringed instruments. Several of the reclining diners were people Jason had seen at his welcoming feast. Others were emaciated wretches, with waxy skin and greasy hair.

  The flat-featured guest with long black hair who had joked about the wizatch relaxed on a nearby divan. He used his fork to motion Jason over.

  As Jason approached, the man swallowed a bite of his pie. “Have you ever experienced lumba berry pie?” he asked quietly, dabbing his lips with a fabric napkin.

  “No,” Jason replied.

  The man offered his fork. Jason declined. “I can get my own.” He could see two attendants carrying trays of pies around the room.

  “My name is Drake.”

  “Jason.”

  Drake took another bite. “One mustn’t overindulge in lumba berries,” he confided, eyes rolling with pleasure. “Their more common name is hunger berries. No other food tastes more divine, or leaves the diner more satisfied. But a person who regularly consumes the berries rarely lasts long.”

  “Why?”

  “Lumba berries do not truly nourish. In fact they rob your body of nutrients. When consumed in significant quantities, they destroy your appetite for any other food. Soon only lumba berries will satisfy, and you blissfully devour them until you starve to death.”

  Jason glanced around the room, paying more attention to the diners who looked unhealthily skinny. “Do you limit yourself?”

  “Sometimes. It can be hard to resist such a pleasurable poison. Lumba berry pies have killed me three times.”

  Jason scowled. “What brought you back?”

  Drake grinned, showing a gold tooth. “I am something of an oddity. I have the dubious distinction of being the only member of the Amar Kabal to accept an invitation to Harthenham.”

  An attendant approached a neighboring patron, an obese man wearing a silk robe. Using pinchers the attendant held out a pie. The man considered for a moment, then held up a hand, stood, and walked away.

  “You’re a seed person,” Jason said.

  Drake nodded. “You strike me as an oddity yourself. I kept an eye on you at the feast. Proud. Vigilant. Pensive. Not characteristics of a young man who has turned his back on the world and surrendered.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You’re clearly here with an agenda. Others have started out that way. If I noticed, Conrad noticed. He doesn’t miss much.”

  Jason didn’t like how much Drake was guessing. “What brought you here?”

  Drake stretched. “Boredom. Weariness. My people lead an austere existence, treasuring simplicity and avoiding addictive indulgences. After enduring many lifetimes I no longer found joy in living. I tried devotion to various causes; I tried love; I tried conformity; I tried creative endeavors; I tried solitude. I contemplated destroying my amar by fire. Then I received an invitation to the feast. I had never fully explored reckless self-indulgence. So I came here to conduct a final experiment.”

  “Any conclusions?”

  Drake smirked. He took a small bite of pie. “My people are right. Indulgence is emptiness. I have probed the limits with food and frivolity. There is no real fulfillment in meaningless rushes of pleasure. You try to conceal the emptiness with more extravagance, only to find the thrills becoming less satisfying and more fleeting. Most pleasures are best as a seasoning, not the main course.” He held up the pie. “However you try to disguise it, you end up feeding without being nourished.”

  “So why stay?”

  Drake studied Jason. “Empty or not, the lifestyle is addictive. It breeds fear of real life. By abstaining for a season, I can restore some of the thrill to certain delights. Outside these walls I am an embarrassment to my people, an enemy to an emperor, and much less able to bury my shame in excess.”

  One of the nearby cadaverous pie-eaters began to cough violently. Thin muscles stood out on her neck. Nobody in the room paid her any mind.

  “Should somebody help her?” Jason asked.

  Drake regarded the coughing fit. “She is in the final stages of starvation. Nobody can help her now. All she can do is keep ingesting hunger berries to distract her from her condition.”

  Drake took another bite.

  “What a waste,” Jason murmured.

  “Eating lumba pie is a dangerous game,” Drake acknowledged. “Sampled in small quantities on occasion, the pie can be a harmless and delightsome diversion. But the more one eats, the more one craves the berries, and the deeper they seem to satisfy.”

  “I get it,” Jason said. “I think I’ll skip the pie. How many lives have you spent at Harthenham?”

  Drake took another bite, holding the food in his mouth, his eyes closed, savoring it before finally swallowing. “Six. Some were quite brief. None were long. But this is the last.”

  Jason raised his eyebrows. “You’re going to destroy your seed?”

  Drake shook his head slowly, setting the remains of his pie aside. “That choice has been taken from me. After my last rebirth my amar did not form properly. Occasionally this defect occurs among my people. Perhaps the reckless living caught up with me.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Most of my seed already fell off. There is no question. This will be the last of my many lives.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  His eyelids drooped. “If anything I should feel sorry for you and your kind. You only live once. Most of the guests here are drowning in gluttony having hardly lived. Shed no tears for me. I have experienced plenty. I brought this doom on myself, poisoning my system through pleasurable excess. I do not ascribe my condition to chance.”

  Jason watched as Drake settled back on the divan. “Don’t you want to make something of your last life?”

  “Let’s not dwell on me. Look to yourself. What are you doing here? Spying? Fishing for information? Planning to redeem some forgotten hero? A word of caution. If you do not mean to stay, you need to leave now, and you need to leave quietly. Whatever your intentions might be, this place will get a hold of you.”

  “I won’t be here long.”

  Drake smirked. “Nearly every person here but me has told themselves the same thing. Be careful what you eat. Lumba berries are not the only perilous delicacies here. Many of the foods and seasonings are deliberately addictive, including wizatch livers.”

  Jason nodded. “I know another seed person.”

  “Who would that be?”

  “His name is Jasher.”

  For the first time Drake looked truly interested. “I know him mostly by reputation. I traveled with his brother for a time.”

  “His brother is dead.”

  “Radolso?”

  “Yeah, that was his name.”

  “In the ground, you mean?”

  “His seed was destroyed.”

  Drake leaned forward, distressed. “How?”

  “I don’t know details. But Maldor did it.”

  “Are the Amar Kabal seeking vengeance?”

  “There was no hard evidence. Maldor claimed the killer was acting alone, and he delivered some displacer to them. A source who Jasher trusts knew the killer was acting under orders, but his people wouldn’t believe him. Your people have a treaty with Maldor. Jasher chose exile, and he’s out for revenge on his own.”

  Drake leaned back and closed his eyes. His voice became mello
w again. “The things one misses when one wallows in ecstasy. Are you working with Jasher now?”

  “I better not say.”

  “Understood, understood. Pleased to meet you. I need to sleep.”

  “Have a good nap.”

  Drake smiled faintly.

  Jason suddenly recalled a detail Rachel had related about her visit to the middle of Whitelake. “Wait a minute. Drake. Did you know a displacer named Malar?”

  Drake raised his eyebrows, but his eyes remained closed. “Sure, sure, the traitor, I knew him.” His voice was dreamy and distant. “Found him, did you? Clever lad. A regular Dinsrel. I need to rest.” His head sagged, and his breathing became regular.

  Jason left the room feeling disgusted.

  The next morning, after a light breakfast followed by a delicious massage, Jason headed for the bathhouse, determined to stay there until Kimp showed up. He had confirmed by talking to other guests that the large man seated near Duke Conrad at the welcoming feast had indeed been Kimp. Jason carried some fruit in a basket in preparation for his stakeout.

  On his way to the facility he noticed Tark sitting on a stone bench beside a row of blossoming rosebushes. It was the first time Jason had seen Tark since the musician had walked out of the welcoming feast.

  “Hello, Tark,” Jason said, coming alongside the bench.

  Tark glanced at him with bloodshot eyes. He grunted a greeting.

  “Mind if I sit here?” Jason asked.

  The short, stocky man shrugged indifferently, then bowed his head, placing his face in his meaty hands.

  “When did you get invited here?” Jason asked.

  Tark looked up. “I suppose I need to face this,” he grumbled in his raspy voice. “I arrived just over a week ago. The temptation overcame me. I figured that since I had caused enough harm to Maldor to get invited to Harthenham, I would quit fighting and spend the rest of my miserable life surrounded by other deserters. Better to die a gluttonous failure than a hungry one. I almost believed the lies I told myself. Then you showed up. I know a sign when I see one. Once again I have betrayed my friends. Just like before, I started off right and then quit when the opportunity arose.”

  He returned his face to his hands and shook with ragged sobs.

  Jason waited politely.

  Finally Tark lifted his tear-streaked face. “You must have been up to some mischief to get in here.” He wiped his leaking nostrils with the back of his hairy-knuckled hand.

  “I do what I can.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I became chancellor of Trensicourt. I also helped kill a bunch of conscriptors, manglers, and a displacer.”

  “I never got a displacer,” Tark said in admiration, sniffling. “Good work.”

  “How did you end up here?”

  Tark brightened a bit. “It all started the day I left you. I felt really good, full of resolve, ready for my penance. As it happened, on my way up the road out of town I was stopped by a conscriptor. He had questions about a fellow who fit your description, and a girl who sounded like Rachel. I acted very compliant, and then I put my knife through his back. His mangler friend came at me, blades whirling, and I was sure I had arrived at the brink of my waterfall, if you take my meaning. But I flung the knife, and it found a weak spot, slaying the monstrosity. I could hardly believe it.

  “I retrieved my knife and raced off into the woods, leaving behind the corpses and the horse. From that day onward I have waged a private war against the minions of Maldor. I sank a barge, burned down some warehouses, even undermined a bridge. In a pass east of here I buried a whole column of conscriptors and manglers in a landslide. I’d wager that stunt was what finally earned me an invitation to the feast.”

  Jason nodded. “Do you plan to remain here?”

  Tark stared at his feet. “I had intended to stay. Not a soul has ever left. They die wallowing in vices, all of them men and women who once bravely defied Maldor. Some expire choking on lumba pie. Others are so fat they can’t leave their beds. I stumbled across Bokar the Invincible my third day here—you know, the great hero from Kadara? Legendary swordsman. A placard beside the door proclaimed his identity. He was lying on his back on an enormous bed like a beached sea elephant, his face drowning in blubber. Attendants were cramming meat pies down his greedy throat. I asked if he was really Bokar the Invincible. He said he was, his mouth full of food. I asked why he gave up. He said he hadn’t. He said he was planning to leave in a couple of weeks. I almost laughed. The only way he was going anywhere was in a really big wagon pulled by a whole cavalry of horses. Strong ones.

  “I decided some undignified end like that would be fitting for a coward like me. But now my mind is mending. I could be convinced to leave. What about you?”

  Jason lowered his voice. “Wait a day or two, and we can leave together.”

  Tark grinned. “My will is reviving. Fate has made you the guardian of my self-respect. Once again I will abandon self-pity. I will join you, Lord Jason.” He pulled out the same heavy saw-toothed knife he had wielded in the Tavern-Go-Round, holding it so the sun glinted on the polished blade. He scrunched his heavy eyebrows. “If you mean to leave so soon, why accept the invitation in the first place?”

  “It’s a secret. But I had a legitimate reason.”

  Tears pooled in Tark’s eyes. “You came to show me the way.” He spoke with amazed realization. He slid off the bench, dropping to his knees. “I knew it. Tell the truth, are you a mortal being or some heavenly apparition?”

  Jason stifled a smile. “I’m a friend. I’ll warn you when I plan to leave. Try to stay out of trouble.”

  Tark blushed, swiping a hand over his nose again. “As you say, Lord Jason. I’ll scout the perimeter. I’ve noticed they tend to keep the drawbridge shut. We’re never permitted beyond the castle wall. They may resist our attempt to depart.”

  “We have to find a way,” Jason said.

  “Aye, we’ll set a new precedent. Perhaps others will follow.”

  “We’ll see,” Jason said, rising. “I need to visit the bathhouse.”

  “On your way.” Tark shooed him. “We’ll talk later.”

  Jason’s fingers and toes had shriveled into pink prunes by the time Kimp appeared. Jason had been in and out of the water all day, watching the servants use heated rocks to adjust the temperatures of the various pools. Count Dershan had come and gone, as had other men Jason recognized from his explorations of the castle.

  Jason was relaxing in a cool, shallow pool when Kimp entered. The man was built like a power lifter, his bulging physique graffitied in green and black ink. Only his face was unmarked.

  Kimp waded into the hottest pool, an almost comical expression of relaxation transforming his gruff face. Transferring to the hot pool, Jason sloshed over to Kimp, the water just above his waist.

  “We haven’t met,” Jason said, extending a hand. “I’m Lord Jason of Caberton.”

  “Kimp,” the hulking man grunted, giving Jason’s hand a limp shake. “This is where I come to unwind.”

  It was an unmistakable invitation to leave him alone, but Jason pretended to miss it. “I haven’t seen you around since the feast.”

  “I stay busy here. I’m the duke’s majordomo. And I tend the dogs. You don’t ever want to upset the duke, friend.”

  “I don’t plan to.”

  Kimp sniffed and twisted, arms raised. Jason heard joints popping.

  “I like your tattoos,” Jason said.

  Kimp cocked an eyebrow. “Do you, now?”

  “They’re really intriguing. Astounding artwork. Where were they done?”

  “All over.” His demeanor became much friendlier. “My back has the best one.” Kimp turned around.

  Jason could not believe his good fortune.

  Just inside the left shoulder blade, beside the mast of an elaborate ship spanning the majority of Kimp’s broad back, inscribed so tiny that Jason had to lean in close, were three letters arranged vertically and spaced unevenly. T
he second syllable was “rim.”

  “The detail is amazing,” Jason said, trying to bottle his excitement. He had the Word!

  “You ever see a jollier picture? My own idea. An artist in Ithilum rendered it. Name of Sgribbs. Only fellow to see for quality work. Took seventeen hours.”

  The sailors on the ship were all women. They climbed the rigging, hauled lines, hefted frothy mugs, and tussled with one another. On the bow stood a disproportionately large woman wearing a captain’s hat and an eye patch, her hands on her rounded hips.

  “That is the most intricate tattoo I’ve ever seen,” Jason said respectfully. “You’re a walking gallery.”

  Kimp turned back around, grinning. “You want one?” he asked, giving Jason a friendly slap on the chest with the back of his hand.

  “A tattoo? Well, I’ll have to think it over.”

  Kimp frowned. “Nothing complicated. Start simple. How about a shark on your chest? I do great sharks.” He lifted a leg with sharks all over the front of the thigh to prove it. They were pretty good sharks. One was devouring a terrified woman.

  “You do tattoos yourself?”

  “I’m an expert. I have all of the equipment. If you don’t like sharks, I can do wolves. How about it?”

  “I’ll get back to you.”

  “Is it the pain?” Kimp asked. “The process only stings a little, not bad at all. Then you have the rest of your life to enjoy it. Nothing could look more lordly.”

  “I’ll get back to you.”

  “Once in a lifetime opportunity.”

  “So is drowning in quicksand. I expect I’ll agree; just let me think it over. Decisions always take me a little time. I’ll get back to you.”

  “You do that.”

  That night at dinner Jason and Tark sat together at the long table. Duke Conrad, Count Dershan, and Kimp were also present, along with many of the guests who had attended Jason’s arrival feast. Drake sat across the table from Jason, not paying him much attention.