FORTY-FIVE - Atherton

Things are not as they seem.

The four of them walked in silence almost the entire way across the Barelands towards the caves.  Every one of them was processing the new information�"the hunters from the Outskirts were killing and eating the exiled people.  That means the Hunt knew that people were alive in the Barelands, but never told anyone.  You’d think, in the middle of a food crisis, they would have mentioned something to the King.  If other people can make it outside the city, why couldn’t we?  But really, nothing made sense anymore.

Meridian hadn’t tried to speak to him again since they started their journey back.  He wasn’t sure where he stood with her, even in his own mind.  She lied to me, but so did everyone else.  They did it because they knew how I would react.  And now it seems like most of the people in the city really aren’t worth saving.  She shared her furs with me when I was cold, but I don’t know why.

Saxon and Sephora will be fine for a little while longer.  But as soon as I can, I’m going to get them.  And Esmarine, too.  I don’t think Draven will have a problem with it as long as I present my argument well.

They stopped at the lake for a drink before continuing the journey.  It had been over two hours of walking in complete silence.  Atherton still refused to speak.  He took a drink and sat beside Dragomir, the only person who was sure not to say anything to him.

After a few minutes, Dragomir pointed at Atherton, then to his ear, and then to himself.  Then he smiled with what was left of his mouth.  Atherton made a face that said he didn’t understand, so Dragomir repeated the actions.  Atherton, ear, himself.

“I sound like you?”

Dragomir nodded.

Atherton couldn’t help but smile.  “Thanks.”

Dragomir pulled something out of a pocket inside his cloak.  It was a hunk of meat, wrapped in a skin to keep it protected.  He opened it and broke off a piece, holding it out for Atherton to take.

“I really appreciate it, but I’m not in the mood to eat right now.”

Dragomir shook the meat and held it closer to Atherton’s face, insisting.  Dragomir flexed his muscles to show what would happen if he ate.  Finally Atherton gave up and took the meat.

“Again, thank you.”  He took a bite, and the taste on his tongue was overwhelming.  This is the best thing I’ve ever had.  I guess it has been almost an entire day since I’ve eaten…

Dragomir patted Atherton on the back and got up to join Meridian and Quintessa, leaving him alone with his thoughts again.  He’s not so bad.  Even though he agreed to come on this mission with Draven, knowing full well what he intended to do… he’s not so bad.  Maybe I overreacted.  I still don’t agree with the plan, but there are good people in this group.

“We should keep going,” Quintessa said.  “That should be enough food and water to get us back.  We don’t want to stay here too long, in case a group of Bareland Beasts comes out to get a drink.  There are only four of us… we wouldn’t stand a chance, even against one of the creatures.”

And they trudged onward.  Atherton was still freezing, but he alternated where he held his torch and it helped him to feel as though he weren’t as cold as he actually was.

Okay, I’ve had enough of the silence.  Meridian isn’t as bad a person as I’ve been treating her like she is.  I should apologize.  He got close and jumped up beside her, hoping to catch her off guard like she always did to him.

“I heard you coming the entire time,” she said.  “You’ve got a long way to go before you can startle me so easily.”

“You can always teach me,” he said.

“You’d never be able to learn.”

“Maybe, maybe not.  I’m actually pretty good at learning.  Nobody in the city was ever able to hear me coming.”

“That’s because Xantomians are slow and stupid.  They feel so safe being cooped up behind their wall that they never bother to learn how to survive.  They depend on others so much they’d never live for a day outside.”

“Most of them, sure, but not all of them.  There are actually�"”

“I don’t care.  Let’s not talk about this anymore.”

Well, this isn’t going even half as well as I had hoped.  “Look… I don’t want to argue.  I just wanted to apologize.”

She eyed him suspiciously.  “Why?”

“I’ve been really judgmental of all of you since you told me your true intentions.  I never even gave it a chance.  I’m sure I’ll come around, as long as nothing happens to my siblings.”

“We’ll go back for them.  It just isn’t safe right now.”

She means that.  She actually intends to help me rescue them.

“Why did you kiss me?” he asked.

“Abrupt topic change.”

“Avoiding the question.”

“Why do you care?” she asked.  “I just did it.  It made sense at the time.”

“It just doesn’t seem like you like me very much.”

“I never said I don’t like you.  You’re kind of dumb sometimes, but… I don’t know, it’s cute.  And I didn’t want you to die.”

“Well… thank you.”

“At the time.  I didn’t want you to die.  I don’t care anymore,” she said with a grin.

“Thanks.  That makes me feel a whole lot better.”

She laughed.  “I was kidding!  This is what I mean about you being dumb.  I don’t want you to die.  And why do you think I kissed you?  Such a stupid question.”

He had no idea how to respond to that.

“If you keep talking about it, it’s going to make me think you want me to do it again.”  She turned to look at him.  “Which you don’t.”

He felt his cheeks go hot.  He hadn’t been expecting that.  Did he want her to do it again?  It hadn’t been horrible.  Behind him, he heard Quintessa start laughing.

“Have you been listening in this whole time?” he asked, offended.

“It’s kind of hard not to.  There are only four of us and Dragomir isn’t exactly the best conversation partner.”

Dragomir just shrugged and smiled.

Atherton felt embarrassed, enraged, and excited all at the same time.  It was a very strange mix of feelings and he didn’t understand how they could possibly all be happening inside of him at the same time.  Luckily, he didn’t have to continue the line of questioning, because they had arrived.  It was just a short climb up to the cave entrance and they could inform everyone what happened on the mission.

When they got into the cave, they were greeted with a cheer from the person who saw them first.  She ran up to them excitedly and greeted Quintessa.

“How did it go?  Were you successful?”  Quintessa didn’t acknowledge her, instead walking right past her towards the meeting area, where everyone else would be gathered around their fires and eating their first meals of the new day.  The woman’s tone shifted.  “We have a surprise for you.”

“What surprise?”

“Just keep walking.  It’s waiting for you just ahead, with the others.  Draven is going to be thrilled.”

They entered the larger cavern where everyone was seated.  Nobody seemed to notice when they entered, they were all turned towards something happening in the back.  There was a body.  Whittaker was bent over, saying something to whoever the person was.

“What’s going on here?” Quintessa asked.  Whittaker turned and his face brightened.

“Quintessa!  You’re back!  We have quite a surprise for you and Draven…”

“Draven isn’t with us.  He’s still in Xantom.  Theoretically, everything is going according to plan.”

“Excellent.  We’ll have to go down and collect them shortly.  It’s a long trek across the Barelands, even underground.  In the meantime, come over here and look what we found yesterday.”

Quintessa crossed through the crowd and made her way to the body.  Atherton didn’t move, frozen to his spot, both terrified and curious as to what was going to be revealed.  She peered down at the body and looked back to Whittaker.

“It can’t be.  We heard�"the Hunt said they witnessed his death!”

“When they found him, he was near enough to it, but still alive.  Just had to scare off the Bareland Beast and we had ourselves a prisoner.”

Quintessa sat the body up and aimed it at Atherton, Meridian, and Dragomir.  “Look who it is!” she called.  “It’s our good friend Xanthus!”

Impossible.

“He doesn’t look so good, does he?  We just have to keep him alive long enough for Draven to get back and finish the job.  But maybe, since we have him out here, we can question him a little first.”

“Please…” Xanthus said.  “Let me go.  I don’t want to hurt any of you.”

“That’s a shame, because we want to hurt you,” Quintessa said.  “Unfortunately it doesn’t look like physical pain is going to do it for you.  The Beast took care of that part for us.  So we’re going to have to do something else.  Something worse.”

“No… just let me go!” he was crying, clearly terrified.  His eyes were red and puffy and he blubbered like an injured child.  I never could have pictured him like this… He hardly looks like a King at all.  Like this he just looks like anyone else.  Worse than that�"he looks pathetic.

“Let’s bring him with us to collect Draven.  That will be quite the surprise when we bring down the boulders and they get through.  And while we’re waiting, we can show Xanthus exactly what we’ve done to his precious city.  To the crack!”

There was a unanimous cheer that broke out amongst the exiled people.  Everyone was immediately on board.  He’s bad enough as it is… why add more pain?  We’re already going to kill him… this just feels unnecessary.  But maybe that was the part of him that just wanted to go to sleep.  Crossing the Barelands twice without getting a second of sleep was enough to exhaust anyone, but to follow it up with immediately hiking all the way down to the crack in the Dome?  He wanted to cry.

But he didn’t have that choice.  Everyone was up at once.  A number of people had taken hold of Xanthus and were carrying him forward through the tunnel.  More people pressed forward from behind Atherton, and he was forced to go along with them.  He felt like he had when he was going through the exiling ceremony�"being tossed around from person to person, bouncing off of walls and completely helpless as to where he was going.  He was caught up in the flow and would be seeing what happened next whether he liked it or not.

They made it down through the tunnels, moving so quickly that at times it felt like Atherton wasn’t even walking, it felt like he was simply gliding through the cave and floating down to where the crack was located in the side of the Dome.  It made the journey a lot easier, but it was definitely unexpected.

Then they were there.  It felt a lot faster this time around, partially due to the pace of the group as a whole and maybe also because he had an idea of how long it was going to take.  But it felt as though only a few minutes had passed and they all stood in the large cavern that held the crack.

The crowd passed Xanthus forward until he reached the front of the group.  They set him down on the floor of the cave.  He let out a groan of agony as he landed hard in a small puddle.

“Do you see this?” Quintessa asked him, walking over to the section of the wall that was open to the Dome.  “I asked you do you know what this is?!” she was shouting now.  The crowd of exiled people cheered loudly in response.

Shouts of “answer her!” and “go on, idiot!” were met with laughter and more cheers.  Quintessa held up a hand to silence the group.  She stood perfectly still, staring hard at Xanthus, waiting for a response.

“I’ll fill you in.  This…” she held her hand up to the Dome wall, “…is the Dome.  This is what protects us from the outside.  And this…” she felt along the crack in the center, “…is a crack.”  She paused, waiting for any reaction, but Xanthus gave nothing away.  “Apparently I need to go further.  Outside of this Dome is water.  A whole lot of undrinkable, drywater.  And it’s coming through!  Right now, the water is pouring through this crack and is coming inside the Dome.”

“Where is it going?” Xanthus asked.  It was the first time he had spoken since their initial meeting in the cavern high above them.

“I’m glad you asked that,” Quintessa said.  “The water goes down here…” she pointed at the ground and walked along the path of the water, “…and then it comes all the way over here… and it goes underneath these rocks.  It wasn’t long ago, the water backed up right here and was filling up our caves.  But now it isn’t here any longer, because our people have succeeded in their mission.  Do you know what that was?”  Xanthus shook his head.  “Behind these rocks is a tunnel.  That tunnel goes under the entire Dome, the whole length of the Barelands, and comes out inside your castle.  Draven should be waiting right behind these rocks, having freed the water to cross all the way across the Dome and begin to flood your castle.  That’s what’s happened.  Xantom is flooding.  Everything you’ve ever known and loved is going to disappear.”

“Impossible.”

“It’s not impossible.  I just wanted you to know exactly what’s going to happen to this world after you die.  Things aren’t looking so good for you and your precious city now, are they?”

It all sounds so harsh when she puts it like this.  It’s like they’re deliberately drowning everyone in the city just to punish Xanthus.  I don’t even know if he cares about anyone in the city.  He never seemed to care about anyone but himself until he took in my siblings.  I just hope I can get him alone for long enough after this to ask him about my brother and sister.  I need to know if they’re okay!

The crowd was cheering.  People shouted insults and laughed as they watched Xanthus deal with this new information.  This is all they’ve ever wanted… ever since he exiled them, they wanted to watch him deal with the information that he’s just as doomed as they were.  They’re no better than him.

“Bring down the rocks!” Quintessa shouted.  Dozens of the exiled people ran to the stack of boulders and began trying to shift them.  They struggled against the massive weight, but with all of them combined, they managed to get one of them to budge.  “Bring them down!  We’re coming for you, Draven,” she said quietly.

The shouting got louder and louder until the cavern itself began to shake.  Except… that wasn’t coming from the shouting.  Other people began to feel it, too.  The shouting died down until the only sound was the echo of some sort of rumbling going through the cave.

“Stop!” Quintessa yelled.  “Stop moving the rocks!  The cave is collapsing!”  The people got down and got their distance, running back into the crowd.

What’s happening!?  The cave floor was vibrating beneath them, shaking like the quake from years earlier.  There were ripples in every tiny pool of water, making it look as though the water had come alive.  People began scrambling back towards the tunnel to take them back up to where they had come from, but then something else happened.

A burst of incredibly bright white light came through the crack in the Dome wall.  It was blinding, the brightest thing any of them had ever seen, yet nobody could look away.  They stopped and turned back towards the crack.  It seemed as though the crack itself had come alive.

The sound that was emitting from inside the crack was that of a dying animal, it was a horrifying, squealing sound Atherton had never heard before.  And it was getting louder.  This might be the way that I die.  Suddenly Atherton felt calm, the way he would have felt knowing that everything was coming to an end and nothing truly mattered anymore.  These past few days seem so meaningless now, knowing that we’re all going to die here, together.

Then the crack started to split apart.  Instead of water pouring through, the white light poured out into the cavern, illuminating it.  Everything was so visible.  Atherton looked around and admired every nook and indentation on the walls.  It was beautiful.  The light got wider and wider until the crack was as wide as the piece of cave wall that was missing.  After a moment of adjusting to the light, Atherton saw what was inside.

It was people.  Three of them.  Two men and one woman.  They stood perfectly still, seemingly as interested in the crowd in front of them as the crowd was in the three of them.  They were inside what appeared to be a very tiny room, large enough for the three of them and possibly only a few more people, but nothing more.  The walls of the room were bright white, making the light reflecting off of them even harder for their eyes to adjust to.

For a very long moment, the two groups of people just stared at each other.  Nobody moved, nobody spoke.

At last, the woman inside the tiny room raised a hand.  “Hi,” she said.  “Can anybody point us in the right direction?  We were told we’re supposed to be fixing a leak…”

TO BE CONTINUED IN BOOK 2