An important lesson

We turned it loose in the Wild Lands. The Lands are large: many days of travel from end to end on horseback at full gallop.

It could run for weeks, blunder its way through the underbrush, kill and eat anything it liked. No bother would befall any person it met, because it would not meet any.

The hunting party is a long-standing tradition among those of our standing. Only the King has access to the Wild Lands, for it is his own right. We ride to horse and hound, and are tireless. The longest hunting party ever recorded was also very recent; three years ago, my compatriots, my King, and I rode for nearly eight months. That one had proven to be devilishly tricky to catch and had required many tricks to herd it away from the border, and only the savvy of the King's Cabinet and heir had saved the kingdom from falling into ruination as we rode.

Kings are foolish people. My father had a saying: "The scum rises to the top." This man, through his pedigree, had had thousands of years to rise, and had thousands more to go. His only real skill was improving the hunt through endless wasted opportunities engendered by both his ineptitude and social protocol. One does not loose until one is commanded to do so. Still, I reveled in it, as did my comrades--as far as we were concerned, it was mere capering with the prey, the false security before the lunge.

Two days after the game was given its head start, we began to ride. It was just after dawn. It had rained in the night, and left everything glossy with dew. We were in the heart of a gentle valley, and the morning mist clung to the ground still.

The hounds were being given their scent, and I took in my own. Dawn, rankly sweet on the wind. Then came the first baying, and we were off.

My nephew asked me the other day why I hunted something defenseless. How could I describe it to him, so inexperienced? The valley air, the sleepy gold that nestled in the hills, the first sound of belling, the horse underneath? Even the stink of sweat and shit and decay left behind by the fleeing prey?

Kings have always hunted harmless beasts--deer, birds, bears, the large mammals of Africa.
---
Things had changed. The hounds were less sure now, here on the shore of a large lake. Midday had come, and the wind was crisp. While we followed the trail, we had risen to a higher altitude, the floor of the valley sloping up into the foothills of the King's Mountains. On the other side the lake lay the mountains themselves, sharp-edged.

While the trail was being decided, I jostled with my fellows, wagering various sums on whether our quarry had chosen to go even higher, whether it circled the lake or swam, whether we had been following the wrong scent this time.

A cry went up. The Cloud-Duke had discovered a track. Northwards we rode. The beast had, so far, come up against the mountains and been deflected to the north. A good choice; the mountains required several days to pass on foot, and were too harsh to survive unprotected. Even if it had broken through, it would encounter plains, vast rolling plains that continued east for hundreds of miles. Open ground.

Inwardly, I praised the animal. Picking him off across the plains would have been too easy; letting the mountains kill him would have robbed us of satisfaction. The hunt would continue.
---
In the end, though, I had only this to say to my nephew: "Have you ever come up against someone who was your equal in chess, or tennis?"

"Yes," he said.

"And did you enjoy beating them?"

"Yes, very much."

"And being beaten by them?"

He looked surprised. "Of course. It doesn't matter who wins or loses. A good, hard game is what matters."

"You see?"

"That isn't the same."

"Isn't it?"
---
Two died yesterday. One was a cousin. In truth, they were all related to me in some way, but this one's family had split off from mine only two generations ago. The other was a foreigner, someone who had come from the south and married a distant relative on my father's side. Both had had their throats opened while they slept, and their hands had been taken, which was a boon to us.

It was getting hungrier as it went. And it had left a trail. Our cousins' blood and bones pointed the way for four hours, until I picked up the last and gave it to our doctor, who added it to the necklace he had made from the rest. Both left hands, reassembled, would be given to the widows at the end of the hunt. Both right hands would be added to the Hunters Gate.

As has always been done.

...

"That's no excuse," my nephew argued. "We're a species that likes change. You just have to look at the last four thousand years for proof of that."

"Yes," I said. "And we're also a species that detests unknown quantities. You just have to look at us for proof of that. We're a stable society whose conduct with other nations follows set rules that were written a thousand years ago. The hunting party is a right to which we are contractually entitled. It's been practiced for as long as our state has existed. Our longevity should provide you with a clue to the success of this method."

"There's another word for 'stability,' you know," he said.
---
One of our watchers picked up the animal, slightly more than a mile ahead on the next foothill. We had been following it north along the King's Mountains for a week, but the trail had been getting fresher. It had slowed down. The bylaws dictated up to five head starts if required within the first month of hunting.

It wasn't until we were a half-mile away that another watcher announced that it had stopped altogether. It took another hour to conclusively determine that it was not dead, merely resting and foraging.

While we waited, the King's logistician loaded a tent, table, chairs, tobacco, and a banquet onto the hillside. A fine luncheon was had by all.

Much of the prevailing chatter concerned rumors of a merger with Aztecago and sensational speculation on the effect that my southern cousin's death by prey would have on foreign relations. The doomsayers claimed Aztecago would instead attempt a hostile takeover, citing the hunting incident. However, a general question to all nobility regarding the acceptance of a merger with Aztecago was received with near-unanimous "ayes." When the proposal was officially made, it would be accepted.

"But enough of business," someone shouted, and was met with cheers.

At sundown, a sentry reported that the prey had apparently fallen asleep, so the logistician loaded the King's traveling castle. One more meal filled with flames and carousing, one particularly ribald joke circulating about the rape of the Glass Canyon plutarchy by the Window Kingdom. One man didn't laugh. My mood wasn't merry, so I sat next to him.

He was the Duke of Trujillo, a major industrial district near the heart of the Kingdom. His pedigree connected him to half the continent by blood or marriage, including Glass Canyon and the Windows.

I leaned in to him. "You're brooding, you know."

He waved his hand negligently. "Hunting's a good opportunity for introspection."

"You shouldn't concern yourself with Canyon-Window relations, you know." He looked at me. "Every family has its problems."

A soft scoff. "We don't have that sort of internecine fighting here."

"Well," I said. Took a swig of my beer. "We're the Kingdom of a Million Eyes. We're different."
---
"How?" my nephew asked. "What makes us different?"

"We're collaborative," I said. "Everyone has a stake in the Kingdom."

"Not equal stakes. The King has more than you do. And not everyone."

"Who, then?"

"The workers."
---
"I wonder how they feel," the Duke said. "When we finally run them to ground."

"They're animals," I said.

"They can think."

I laughed suddenly, softly. "I've had this conversation before. With my nephew. He thinks the hunting party is wrong."

The Duke looked at me. "How do you know it isn't?"

...

When the bugle rang the next morning, we gathered in the great hall of the King's traveling castle. The quarry had begun moving away under cover of darkness. It could no longer be seen--and the morning dew had fallen, obscuring the scent. A new challenge.

Out of protocol, we waited for the logistician to shut down the castle and rejoin the King before moving forward.
---
"What's wrong with the workers?" I said. "They're fine, aren't they?"

"But, Uncle," he said, and trailed off. "... we are their descendants," he said softly.

"Men didn't coddle their ancestors," I said. "They ate them and put them in zoos."
---
It had been a long day's ride. A smaller group had already split off, heading first west, then north at top speed. The game was getting too close to the Window Kingdom's borders, a historically hostile nation. Our King was currently on good terms with the Tsar, but a border crossing could put an end to that. The Windows were notoriously rigid about contact with outsiders; they had strange ideas about property and how to keep it. To prevent that, our western group would outrun the prey to the borderlands, circle around and herd it back to us in a pincer movement.

Or it could run west. Try to make it to the ocean. It had pulled us a long way north out of the desert and close to the giant forest, where the Tsar of Windows dwelled. Still, they were good lands close to the coast, many fertile valleys. Assuming it stayed out of our grasp, the prey would arrive at the ocean in fairly good health.
---
"Weren't we supposed to be better?" my nephew said.

"How do you mean? We are."

"Are we, Uncle?" He lunged at me suddenly, his eyes fiery. Taken by surprise, I took a step back. "That's how a worker reacts, you know. I've tried it on one of them. You looked just like him then."

I slapped him.

"You know," I said, rubbing my hand as the red marks faded, "I know you understand our history. Perhaps, though, you don't understand my position on it." I turned around. "Sit down."

I pulled up a chair and sat down in front of him. "The workers are, yes, related to us. We are cousins, descended from the same species, though their evolution has not experienced the same acceleration. Whether you in particular will accept it or not, they've been bred over a thousand years, both deliberately and through sheer happenstance, adapting to the environment we created for them. In this, we are similar to them; we've also bred ourselves."

"Yes, Uncle, I know," my nephew sighed, but he was cut off when I flung my arm behind me, pointing at the window.

"You see that city outside?" I said. I turned to look myself. "Those spires, the proportions of the dome...my ancestor and yours designed this place, wrote the code for perfection, loaded this city onto the land the first Million-Eyed King conquered after the quake." I pointed up at the painting behind my nephew. "Both men were virtually indistinguishable from workers, and they played a part in what you see before you. Our great-grandfather was awarded stock for the magnificence he built, and his children received the augmentations, and, through the centuries, birthed us."

I leaned back in my chair. "And you want to tear down the tradition he built. You want to leave his brothers to fend for themselves. We feed, shelter, and clothe them. We provide them with health care. We work so they can live in a better world. And all they have to do is work for us. I would say it's a fair trade."

He cast down his eyes. "With respect, Uncle, I disagree."

"I see."
---
The horn sounded. The prey had been sighted, a small blot on the distant shore. We were higher up the valley, and had moved around to the north, while another party had split off and were circling to the south.

Finally, we emerged from behind the valley's rim, and I saw the flash as its face turned to us, and the shift in color as its expression changed, and how it immediately turned and fled in the opposite direction, only to be stopped in its tracks by the line of men that lay in that direction.

It was cornered.
---
"That's a pity."

He shrugged. "I've heard the Window Kingdom is ferrying workers to the Shield lands, where they can stake a homestead and live as free men."

My eyes snapped to his face. "That's not possible."

He laughed bitterly. "According to whom? My cloistered elitist of an uncle?"

My gaze drifted back forward. "What matters it? Our workers number in the millions. A few to bleed off here and there may actually be healthy."

"I'm leaving tomorrow, you know, for the Window Kingdom," he said.
---
We closed in.

It backed into the water, frothing in a panic. The waves reached to its hips.

We clustered together in a long arc, ensuring no possibility of escape without drowning. If it stayed in the water, either that or hypothermia would ultimately kill it. Not ideal.

We waited. It turned blue and finally made its way forward. Standing in the center of our hemisphere, it glanced from face to face, as though searching for sympathy or mercy, any faint gleam of hope. It found none--until it lighted on me.

It spoke, its words rattling in its attenuated throat. "Uncle, please--"