TWENTY-SIX - Xanthus VIII

Xanthus deals with a disturbing revelation.

People.

He had been eating people.  Xanthus retched, but there was nothing in his stomach so he just heaved and collapsed to his knees.

I should have concerned myself with the hunt long before now, or remained blind to it.  If I could have died without ever knowing about this, I would have been happy.  It made sense, food supply had been much lower lately and the meat that returned to the city was in smaller pieces and lower quality.  Then there was the fact that the number of Hunters was shrinking at a much more rapid rate, but Willoughby and the others contributed that to other factors.  If he had taken a moment to really think about it, the facts were all there.  But it was monstrous�"horrific.  How could he have assumed that his food and the people gathering it were now one in the same?

“Now you know the truth,” Emeric said.  “How does it make you feel, knowing you’ve been eating the people you were supposed to save?”

“If you say another word…”

“There’s no point threatening me, Xanthus.  You’ve already killed me.  It’ll just take a little more time, now.”

“When did this start?”

Emeric gave a small smile.  “You don’t want to know.”

“This is the true reason you’ve remained so fat.  It’s not your family background, is it?”

“I’ve eaten my fill.  But only the ones who already died… or the ones for who had nothing left to live for.”

“You’re a monster.”

“We do what we have to.  You could have found out any time you wanted.  Asked us about the Hunt, talked to us face-to-face… if you’d even come out of the castle and walked into my house… I wasn’t trying very hard to hide it.  This is what’s been feeding your city.  I made the choice, and I’m the reason you’re still alive.”

Rage built inside Xanthus, but Emeric was right�"there was nothing more he could do to the man.  And then he gasped for air one more time and collapsed onto the ground beside the lake, dead.  His blood was polluting the water, making it undrinkable.  We’ll have to circle around to get clean water to bring back to the city.

Xanthus caught himself.  I’m still thinking about this mission as though there’s actually a way to finish it.  Everything is changed now.  No… I refuse to believe it.  There is food out here somewhere.  Emeric simply gave up and took the easy way out.  If we have to die looking, that’s the way it will be.  But I’m not going to give up.

“There is still more to do, Sir, if we want to prevent ourselves from getting sick,” Zerena said.  He hadn’t even heard her approach, he had been too focused on Emeric’s body and lost in his thoughts.  “Their bodies need to be prepared.”

“No,” Xanthus said.  “I won’t let you.”

“If we don’t clean and prepare the bodies, they will go to waste.  The Dome has given us a gift, it would be stupid to reject�"”

“It isn’t stupid, it’s right,” he shouted.  He turned towards the rest of the crowd, who were watching Xanthus intently, waiting for him to make a decision.  “We don’t eat people.”

“We thought you knew, Sir,” a man spoke.  “Emeric told us that everything had been approved by you.”

“You took his word for it?”  He surveyed the crowd, but nobody said anything.  Nobody made a move.  “I would never have approved this.  All you had to do was come and ask me for yourselves, and I would have�"”

“We couldn’t get in to see you if we tried, not unless we committed a crime.  I doubt very much that you would have listened to us under those circumstances.  And of course we trusted Emeric.  He lived in the city; he was Head of the Hunt.  Surely he knew more than we did.  We protested at first, but Emeric told us�"”

“�"the truth,” Zerena interrupted.  “That we are all here to help one another.  When one of us dies, our bodies are a gift for the others, to help us all survive this trying time in our lives.  The nutrients in our bodies�"”

Xanthus couldn’t listen any longer.  The thought made him sick again and he heaved, this time feeling acid rise up into his mouth.  Surely it was his imagination, but it tasted of human flesh.  He spat onto the ground and rose to his feet.

Zerena had started a chant.  The entire group was speaking in a whisper, “The Dome provides.”  Over and over, like some sort of battle cry.  But not everyone was participating.  One of the men who wasn’t chanting was the man who had spoken earlier.

“Everyone shut up!” Xanthus shouted.  They did as he commanded.  He approached the man.  “What is your name?”

“Alaric, Sir.”

“You aren’t chanting.  That means a part of you agrees with me.  You know this is wrong.  Tell them.”

Alaric turned towards the group.  He opened his mouth to speak but hesitated, clearly uncomfortable disagreeing with everyone.  “I�"I feel that�"”

“Go on, Alaric,” Xanthus said.  “It’s okay.”

“If the King n-never approved it,” he stuttered meekly, “we shouldn’t b-be doing it.”

“If one of you is willing to speak up, surely there are others,” Xanthus said.  “What you’ve been doing is wrong.  You’ve been eating your friends.  Your families.  Husbands, wives, brothers, sisters… Children.”  He watched as a few more people’s faces fell.  One woman began to weep quietly.  They’ve done all of it.  This is even worse than I imagined.  I’ve been so blind…

“We had to, Sir,” Zerena spoke.  “Without their bodies, we would not have survived.  The Dome gave them to us… first as friends, and then as means for survival.  Their deaths gave us sustenance.  Everyone and everything is put under this Dome for a reason, we just may not know what it is yet.”

“Listen to yourselves!  Don’t you realize how crazy this sounds?  You sound insane!  You can’t eat your families!”

“We wouldn’t have had to if you had solved this problem earlier,” Zerena said.  “You’re as guilty as any of us.”

Xanthus stopped.  She’s right.  This is as much my fault as it is Emeric’s or anyone else’s.  “Well I can’t let it continue.  I’m here now to fix the problem.  From now on, we do not eat people.”

“Emeric is right before us, fresh and plentiful meat,” Zerena said.  “If we do not eat him, we are wasting the Dome’s gifts.”

“The Dome hasn’t given you any gifts!” Xanthus shouted.  “Emeric wasn’t put here by the Dome, I killed him.”

Zerena turned to the woman beside her.  “Come, help me clean the body.”  And they began walking towards Emeric.

Xanthus drew his sword.  “If you take another step towards that body I’ll cut you in half.”  Zerena stopped.  The other woman turned and ran back into the crowd.  Zerena opened her mouth to speak, but Xanthus quickly talked over her.  “Don’t say another word, or I’ll have your tongue, as well.”

That shut her up.  A murmur passed through the crowd.  Good.  Let them talk about me however they want.  They do it already, just whenever my back is turned.  Let them see the real me.

“How would you have solved the problem?” Xanthus asked.  “I’m open to suggestions.”  He turned back to the crowd and spoke louder.  “You all blame me for the state of things.  Let me hear the solution that you would have proposed.”  The crowd remained silent.  “I’m listening,” Xanthus added sternly.

And then he waited.  For an uncomfortably long time, no one said a word.  Finally, Xanthus spoke again.  “Then shut up and listen to me carefully.  We do not eat people.  Is that clear enough for you?”

“We have to eat something,” Zerena said.

“Then we follow the new plan.  We venture further into the Barelands.”

The crowd groaned.

“We’ll never make it!” someone shouted.  “And there’s nothing left for us to find.  Emeric said�"”

“�"that there are no Bareland Beasts left alive, I know.  But Emeric also said that I approved the use of human bodies as food.  He was a liar.  He was scum.  And he was only out to help himself, at the expense of all of you.  So I don’t think he knows what he’s talking about.  We’re going to move on, and we’re going to find a Bareland Beast, and when we do, I’ll have proved to all of you that there is hope for the future of Xantom, and that we can do something to survive this famine.  If a Bareland Beast is alive, it’s living off of something.  We’re going to follow it until we discover its food supply.  And once we have that, we have our future.”

When once again nobody said anything in response, Xanthus turned around and kicked Emeric’s body into the lake, where it sank immediately to the bottom.  Without looking back at them, he began walking forward along the edge of the lake.

If they don’t follow me, they’ll die.  They know that.  They’ll follow; they don’t have a choice.  We’re going to find a way out of this mess if it’s the last thing that I do as King of Xantom.  The thought caught him off guard.  It might actually be the last thing I do as King of Xantom.

As he walked, someone ran up beside him.  He turned to look at his new walking companion.  He recognized the man from the crowd, but up until this point the man hadn’t said a word.  He was short, as skinny as the rest of them, with curly jet-black hair and a wide, flat nose and an infectious smile.

“I liked your speech,” the man said.  “I’ve never been okay with what’s been happening out here.”

“Thank you,” Xanthus said.  “But it’s one thing to speak out against something after it’s been done, and another thing to stop it before it happens.”

“At first, I tried to stop them.  When it was my sister, I didn’t want them to eat her, but Emeric had them all brainwashed.  It was me against everyone else.  There was nothing I could do.  When we got back to the Outskirts, Emeric said I’d be next if I ever tried anything like that again.  So I didn’t say anything.  I’m sure there are others like me, but Emeric… he just had too much power.  Now that you’ve killed him… chances are the rest of them don’t like you very much right now.”

“They already hated me.  Whether I had killed him or not, things would be no different.”

“I guess you’re right.”  They walked a few more steps in silence, and then the man extended his hand.  “Valleaux,” he said.

“Valleaux,” Xanthus said, taking it.  “It’s good to meet you.  I’m very sorry for what happened to your sister.”

“It’s okay.  I don’t blame you.  I’m glad you’re here to help us.”

As much as killing Emeric may have turned the people against me, it also seems to have gained me a friend.

“Do you know anyone else… like you?” Xanthus asked.  “People who disagreed with Emeric?”

“No.  They learned not to say anything.  Like I said, the few people who spoke out against him managed to mysteriously end up as our next meal.”

Xanthus fought hard not to get sick again.  Finally he swallowed hard and the feeling passed.  “How long has this been going on?  How long have we been eating our own?”

“I don’t know when it started,” Valleaux explained.  “As long as I’ve been a hunter.”

“Which is how long?”

“Three months ago was my first hunt, but there were rumors in the Outskirts long before that.”

“I’ve been feeding Xantomians to my daughter for months,” Xanthus said plainly.  The words didn’t feel real, even as they were coming out of his mouth.

“We all have.”

“Maybe we’d be better off dead,” Xanthus heard himself say.  “I think my father saw this coming.  Maybe not this, exactly, but something equally terrible.  Maybe this is what he was talking about before he died.  He just didn’t want to see us sink this low.”

He chanced a quick glance behind him.  The others were following, as he knew they would.  There was no telling what had become of the man who died of a coughing fit before Xanthus had pushed Emeric into the lake.  If anyone had stopped to collect the body, they were hiding it from him.  They know better than to let me see it, if they have it.  I think I made myself pretty clear.  They should know not to disobey a direct order from their King.

They walked for an hour, following the edge of the lake.  Men and women were growing weary, and more than a few of them had already collapsed, but Xanthus and Valleaux trudged onward.  We can’t stop.  No matter what happens, we can’t stop.  At least, it seems, I’ve gained a permanent travel companion.  Surely he will end up being useful to me.

Then Xanthus saw a ripple in the water on the lake surface.  There was a steady stream of ripples coming from across the lake.  He stopped to look more closely.  Something had disturbed the water.

“Stop,” he commanded.  The line of people behind him slowed and finally came to a halt.  Xanthus turned and took a torch from the nearest hunter.  He held it as high as he could to see if it would illuminate the opposite side of the lake.  The light spread a little farther, but he still couldn’t see what was causing the ripples on the surface of the water.

He pulled the torch back and threw it as hard as he could.  It spiraled through the air, sending light in a spinning beam across the water.  It neared the center of the lake and landed with a splash, followed by another steady stream of ripples towards the water’s edge.  Something had definitely caused the first batch.

Then he heard something.  Heavy breathing.  The sound carried across the water and was clearly audible to all of them.  Xanthus looked around to make sure he wasn’t the only one.  The other hunters waiting with eyes peeled open, everyone staring at the spot where the sound originated.  Something large was getting something to drink.

“Bareland Beast,” Xanthus said.  “It has to be.”

“We have to get to it before it disappears,” Valleaux said.

“How much farther is it to get around to the other side of the lake?”

“Ten minutes at a quick pace.  But everyone won’t be able to keep up.”

“We won’t take everyone,” Xanthus said.  “Just us and a few others.”  Xanthus turned to the group.  He pointed at the first three large men or women he could find.  “You.  Come with us now.  We’re going to follow the Beast.”