Hero Wanted, Page 2

  Yet in the dingy land of dunghills that is Darnk, there was one clean spot—Whiteswab, a little town several leagues south of Lower Hicksnittle. Whiteswab was clean because the city fathers enforced strict ordinances against littering, loitering, loud noises, offensive body odor, swearing, smoking, belching, and other unseemly practices. The penalty for most infractions was death.

  Whiteswabbers thought themselves better than other Darnkites because they bathed daily in tubs of triple-distilled water while their countrymen avoided immersion except during the annual Pond Plunge. Whiteswab also led Darnk in soap production, in that it was the only place in the kingdom that actually produced soap. For all these reasons, decent Darnkites avoided Whiteswab. But there I might learn some news of this supposed bounty on my head. Inhospitable as it was, the town was a way station for the trickle of travelers between our capital city of Ordure, in the east, and the kingdom’s other city, Offal, to the west.

  Nothing that could be called a road linked Lower Hicksnittle to Whiteswab, a condition satisfying to the inhabitants of both. I spent three days picking my way along a narrow, twisting, overgrown trail thick with thorns, brush, and brambles, while flies swarmed about my head and stinging gnats flew up my nose.

  I arrived at the outskirts of Whiteswab near dusk of the third day. An unsmiling officer of the Sanitary Police stopped me at the edge of town. He was a burly bald man clad in a white tunic and armed with a stout wooden mace. He ordered me to dismount. I complied.

  “Who are you?” he demanded, his manner gruff.

  Thinking it wise to keep a low profile, I lied. “Burlo Stumproot is my name.”

  “Whence came you?” he asked, knowing full well that there was only one village along the forest path.

  I went along with the charade. “Lower Hicksnittle.”

  “What business have you here, Snit?”

  “I’m just passing through. And I believe the appropriate slur is Hick. Snits are from Snitgristle.”

  “Whatever you say, Snot. Now go away.”

  “No, Snots are from Snotwhopper. I’m a Hick.”

  “Fine. Go away, Hick. Your kind isn’t welcome here.”

  “I want only a room for the night and a stable for my horse.”

  The guard scoffed. “A stable for the both, you mean!”

  “Whatever is available.”

  “Got any money, Hick?”

  “Sure.” I jingled Lombardo’s purse. “This purse is full of silver.”

  “Silver? Let me see!”

  I opened the bag. The officer’s eyes widened in disbelief, then narrowed with calculation. He snatched the bag from my hand. “You stole this money, didn’t you?”

  “Well...not exactly. But the previous owner no longer has need for it.”

  “Just as I thought. A murdering, thieving, stinking Snit. You’re all alike.”

  “I told you. I’m a Hick, not a Snit.”

  “Whatever. I’m confiscating these stolen goods. Now beat it!”

  “But I have to get into town.”

  “Didn’t you say you were just passing through?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, you can go around instead!”

  “But I want a room for the night.”

  “Oh you do, eh? Got any money?”

  “You just took it.”

  The officer shrugged. “Then you don’t have it. And if you don’t have money, you’re a vagrant. And we don’t allow vagrants here.”

  “But you took all my money!”

  “Too bad. Now move along.” He wagged his mace at me.

  I turned to mount up.

  “Say,” said the officer. “Where did you get that horse, Hack? It actually looks healthy.”

  “Hick. Hacks are from Hackscribble. And the horse is mine.”

  “That is too fine a horse for the likes of you. Sell it to me. Then you’ll have some coin and I can let you into town.”

  “But then I won’t have a horse!”

  “Well, go on then! Keep your stinking horse! Just trying to do you a favor.”

  I thought it over. I had to get into town to get any information. And I needed information more than I needed the horse. “How much?”

  “Four drecks.”

  “I’m a Hick, not a fool.” A scrawny goat would bring four drecks. “Forty drecks,” I countered.

  “Forty drecks for that nag? Are you trying to rob me? It’s barely worth ten.”

  “You said it was a fine horse.”

  “Roasted on a spit, it might be.”

  “I can’t let it go for less than twenty.”

  “Well, keep it then! I might give you twelve, but not a skank more. I’ve a wife and kids to feed. Can’t afford to be taken by a swindler like you.”

  With all the silver he stole from me, the man could now afford a dozen wives. Still, he had tripled his initial offer. This was probably as high as he’d go. “Sold,” I said.

  He reached into his purse and counted out seven drecks. “There you go.”

  “We agreed on twelve.”

  “Three dreck sales tax.”

  “And the other two?”

  “Dreck a head to enter the town. You and the horse.”

  “But it’s your horse now!”

  “You had to bring it to town to sell it, which means you pay the head tax.”

  “So I’m left with only seven drecks?”

  “No. You’re left with five. You’ll have to bathe before I admit you.”

  I sighed. “Bath tax?”

  “Right you are.”

  He snatched two drecks from my hand and whistled. Two large bald men with smiley face tattoos on their heads emerged from the guardhouse, hoisted me into the air, and tossed me into a small pond by the road. With sadistic grins, they leapt in after me, armed with stiff brushes and cakes of lye soap.

  I was soon half-drowned, but as clean as anyone in Whiteswab. The guard sold me freshly pressed yellow pants and a cheerful yellow shirt for two drecks. The color marked me as an outsider, easy for the Sanitary Police to spot if I caused trouble. I dressed while the bath boys burned my old garments and gleefully stomped the vermin that skittered out of the flames. At the guard’s strong suggestion, I tipped them a dreck each. The guard confiscated my axe as a dangerous weapon and my books as subversive materials before opening a gate in the white picket fence that surrounded the town.

  Left with nothing but the clothes on my back, the dreck in my pocket, and the silver coin hidden under my tongue, I entered Whiteswab.

  The guard tipped his cap to me. “Enjoy your stay, Snit. Be sure to leave by sunrise.”

  “It’s Hick,” I muttered.

  ***

  Whiteswab had near two hundred inhabitants, making it one of the largest settlements in Darnk. The neat white shops and houses of the town stood in tight rows along freshly swept cobblestone streets lined with precisely trimmed thorn hedges and plots of brightly colored flowering weeds. By law, every person in the street wore proper dress and smiled stiffly as they went. I headed for the Tidy Tavern, the only establishment that served non Swabbers. It was across the street from the Whisk Broom Inn, where I hoped to spend the night, but where I would not be welcome in the taproom. Such was the logic of Whiteswab.

  I entered the common room, where two young serving maids in demure green dresses brought the patrons steaming platters of roast pig, fried rabbit, and squirrel nuggets, along with large mugs of rancid tomato juice and bottled mineral water from the famous Burping Springs near Sloshwoggle. Alcohol was banned in Whiteswab, further proof of the town’s insanity. Most of the twenty or so patrons of the Tidy Tavern were farmers and craftsmen from Sludgemump, Cabbagerot, Picknoodle, and other villages more than a full day’s travel away—else they would not willingly spend the night in Whiteswab. Like me, they all craved a warm mug of rutabaga beer. Deprived of that solace, they ate and drank with little enthusiasm, despite their legally mandated smiles. Whiteswab required all visitors to look happy, even if they wer
en’t.

  One man stood out from the rest. He drank alone at a table against the far wall. Olive-skinned and small-framed, he had shoulder-length hair and a neatly trimmed beard, both the color of coal. Odd mirrored spectacles that reflected the light of the pig fat lanterns hid his eyes. He wore a gold jerkin over a dark purple doublet and trousers. A scarlet cloak clung to his shoulders. He was clearly no Darnkite. I approached his table.

  “May I join you, stranger?” I asked with a friendly smile.

  Tilting his head so that the spectacles slid down his nose, he studied me with dark green eyes. The intensity of his scrutiny made me uncomfortable. I wanted to glance away, but couldn’t. He raised his bushy eyebrows, and then frowned thoughtfully, as if seeing something he didn’t understand. He shrugged and gestured for me to sit.

  I beckoned the nearest serving maid as I settled into my chair. “What are you having? I’ll buy you another.”

  He smiled and swirled the light amber liquid in his silver goblet. “I brought my own. Cyrillan Goddess.”

  My eyes widened in surprise. Cyrillan Goddess was the rarest wine produced in the Eleven Kingdoms, pressed from grapes of divine origin that grew only in a certain district of the sun-drenched Kingdom of Cyrilla many hundreds of leagues to the south. Even in Darnk we knew of it, if only as a prop in fairy tales.

  I ordered a large turnip juice.

  “I’m Burlo Stumproot,” I said.

  “Mercury Boltblaster, of Caratha.”

  Caratha! I could not hide my excitement at the mention of the greatest city in all the Eleven Kingdoms. The priests taught that our world of Arden was a wide disk of earth and stone floating in the infinite Void of Space. At the precise center of the disk, beside the deep waters of the Indigo Sea, stood the gleaming spires of Caratha, thus called the City at the Center of the World. Yet Caratha’s centrality was more than merely geographical. Every art was practiced there, every branch of knowledge studied, every product of commerce bought and sold within its confines. People of every nation, race, and tongue passed through the gates of the Shining City by the Sea to seek their fortunes. Surely a man of Caratha could tell me if there was any truth to Lombardo’s outrageous claims.

  “Well met,” I said. “What brings you to Darnk?”

  He shrugged. “I have powerful enemies who have pursued me through the rest of the Eleven Kingdoms. I thought to finish my tour with a visit to the Armpit of Arden.”

  “I see.”

  “Did you know that only five of the Eleven Kingdoms are truly kingdoms in the strictest sense of the word?”

  “I suppose that is so,” I said.

  “It is quite so. The Grand Republic of Zastria, as they style it, put to death their last king two centuries ago. Somber priests rule holy Stive. Caratha elects its prince. In Xornos the Seventeen hold sway—an odd lot, that. Ganth groans under the usurper Myrm Ironglove, who at least had the good form not to crown himself. The Malravians have a loose confederation of tribes. Why then, do we say Eleven Kingdoms?”

  “Well, it would be awkward to speak of the Five Kingdoms and Six Other Assorted Forms of Government, Including a Loose Tribal Confederation.”

  “Significantly less lyric,” nodded Mercury.

  “Perhaps, being so widely traveled, you have heard of a man called Jason Cosmo?”

  Mercury wrinkled his nose in mild disgust. “What of him?”

  I almost choked on my drink at his casual response. I had hoped my name would mean nothing to him, thus proving Lombardo deranged.

  “I hear there is a large price on his head,” I ventured.

  “Large indeed,” said Mercury. “Ten million carats. That is good Carathan coin, the like of which I doubt you’ve ever seen in this poor backwater.”

  “Actually, we’re in Whiteswab. Backwater is about six leagues south of...never mind.”

  “This princely reward has attracted much interest,” said Mercury.

  “I’m sure it has.” It belatedly occurred to me that Mercury Boltblaster might himself be a bounty hunter. “But news that reaches Darnk is often incomplete. We know little of this matter. Tell me, who is Jason Cosmo?”

  “Who is Jason Cosmo?” A hint of a sardonic smile played at Mercury’s lips. “Jason Cosmo is a man who does not exist.”

  “What! How could he not exist?”

  “Not existing takes surprisingly little effort.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I assure you that Jason Cosmo is a complete work of fiction.”

  “He is?”

  Mercury waved his hand dismissively. “An elaborate hoax.”

  “But the bounty?”

  “Oh, that is real enough. But there is no Jason Cosmo.”

  “You’re quite sure?”

  “Do you know otherwise?”

  “Uh, me, Burlo Stumproot? No. No, I don’t.”

  “Then believe me when I say that Jason Cosmo is a product manufactured from misinformation fanned by gossip and greed into a mass delusion of mythic proportions.”

  “How so?”

  “The bounty notices first appeared about a year ago. The rumors soon followed. Since then, the Eleven Kingdoms have been in the grip of Jason Cosmo hysteria. Cosmomania, if you will.”

  “Cosmomania?”

  “Cosmomania. Everywhere. Who is Jason Cosmo? They call him Arden's Archvillain, but no one seems to know why. Some say he is a half-demon warrior who drinks blood like wine and eats live kittens for breakfast. Parents frighten their children by saying Jason Cosmo will get you if you don’t behave.”

  “They do?”

  “Others believe he is a mighty warlord preparing to lead a barbarian horde out of the western wilderness. Or a pirate chieftain from the southern seas. Maybe a mad sorcerer who plots to blot out the sun and plunge the world into eternal darkness so that he can rule all, backed by an army of vampire zombie poodles.”

  “Vampire zombie poodles?”

  “Nasty little buggers, believe me. But these are tall tales all. Nothing more. Rumors. Fables. People see in the blank slate of Jason Cosmo what they want to see. The greedy see a quick path to riches if they catch him. The fearful see someone to fear. Others turn the story to their own ends.”

  “But why?”

  “Human nature.”

  “No, I mean why would anyone post a bounty for a man who doesn’t exist?”

  “To distract attention from the real threat.”

  “What is the real threat?”

  Mercury shrugged. “I have no idea. At any moment, there are dozens of diabolical masterminds, sinister cabals, and would-be conquerors hatching vast evil conspiracies to take over, destroy, or otherwise mistreat the world. One such evidently conceived this Jason Cosmo fable to advance their plans. And an attractive fable it is. Some of the best bounty hunters in the world pursue this phantom.”

  I felt a small bubble of dread form in the pit of my stomach.

  “Like who?”

  “BlackMoon, for one.”

  The bubble floated up into my chest.

  “And the Red Huntsman,” continued Mercury.

  The bubble caught in my throat. I made a squeaking noise.

  “Did you just squeak?”

  “No.”

  “Well you might—were you Jason Cosmo. BlackMoon and the Red Huntsman are in Brythalia now. Perhaps they’ll sweep Darnk next, though this is the last place I’d expect to find anyone of note. Including me.” He took a sip of wine. “Which is exactly why I’m here.”

  I’d heard tales of BlackMoon and the Red Huntsman. They were arch-rivals with reputations for utter ruthlessness in pursuit of their prey. Each would do anything to bring in his man before the other. It was said of BlackMoon that he could see in the dark, move silently as a shadow, and hear a whisper from a mile away. The Red Huntsman employed a pack of huge wolves as his hounds. If Lombardo could find me, so would they. And these were not men I could toss down a well.

  “But enough of that,” said Mercury. “Are yo
u a farmer hereabouts?”

  “Yes. Turnips.”

  “I see. And how is this year’s crop?”

  As I opened my mouth to reply, my companion glanced over my shoulder toward the tavern entranceway. His mouth drew taut. He pushed his odd mirrored spectacles back into place. I turned to see what had caught his eye.

  Three fighting men garbed in black tunics and chainmail stood near the door. The charge on their round shields was a pair of black lightning bolts crossed. The fighters fanned out as they crossed the room, hands on the hilts of their swords.

  Mercury sprang to his feet.

  “Take him!” barked the leader. “His companion too!”

  With a rasp of steel against leather, the trio drew their broadswords and advanced. They shoved a serving girl aside. She screamed and dropped a tray of mugs that hit the floor with a crash. Patrons shouted in dismay.

  “Shield your eyes!” said Mercury, twirling his cloak across my face. A brilliant flash of white light filled the room. It was as if the sun had come down the chimney by mistake, suddenly realized its error, and retreated with a muttered apology. Cries of fear and confusion followed. Everyone else was blind! A dizzying haze of colored spots filled my own vision.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Amid the shouts, the proprietor of the Tidy Tavern pleaded urgently for quiet, not wanting his neck stretched for a noise violation.

  “Sunshades,” said the blurry figure of Mercury Boltblaster. “The lenses absorb sunlight, which can be released at my command. You’ll recover in a few minutes. As will they.” He tucked the sunshades under his cloak. “Let’s go.”

  Magic! This was magic!

  I had never seen magic before. Darnk had rather unprogressive views on things arcane.

  “Are you a wizard?” I asked.

  “Good guess, Burlo. What gave me away?”

  Adding to my sudden unease, Mercury’s clothing turned uniformly black. That was rarely a good sign.

  He took me by the arm. “We’d best be away—they’ll want you too.”

  “Me? Who? Why? What’s going on?”

  “I’ll show you.” We crossed to the door in quick strides, threading our way carefully between the blinded soldiers. They swung their swords wildly, hoping to strike us, but only hitting each other as the rest of the crowd sensibly hugged the floor.