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?”