Sunday, November 13, 2005

Chapter Thirteen - Balthazar and Cotton Together

The ghost Lotus observed in the garage was, in another life, known alternately as Nick Sanders and Silt, the Sand Man. He had met an untimely end in strictly corporeal form some time ago, having from then on been reduced to a cloud of dust, formed from the drying mud that had marked the end of his heroic career, when he had failed the Eidolon, and Calypso, fatally. For so long afterward, he would let himself drift about, as if he was no longer tethered; of course he no longer was, because the body he had ruined exploiting his powers was no longer. Nick Sanders had finally escaped, and yet he found when he had that there was, really, no such thing. he was still here, and he could no longer anticipate his ride home in any meaningful way. He had died and remained captive yet to the earth that had forged him, in its own image, from a man who had now lost everything he once was. There was no Nick Sanders, no Sand Man, because indeed there was no longer a man. He was Dust, and Dust alone. In biblical terms, he had come full circle, but that was no comfort. It was, rather, confirmation of his curse. With a great gift came great commitment, and that commitment was for a lifetime, however long it proved to be. He had never desired immortality, at least in the physical sense. Perhaps his hubris, in his heroic conceit, had caught up with him. He did believe in karma. Perhaps he was karmic dust.

As Lotus continued his vigil over the body of Balthazar Romero, Dust watched over Lotus, who could sense him but not comprehend what he sensed. His curiosity knew limits, however, and soon, aware that nothing was going to come of this presence, Lotus left Romero behind, and Dust as well. The vigil Dust himself had kept, over the museum Nick Sanders had met his end in, had lasted long enough so that he could be sure he had not been mistaken, that everything he had known was indeed lost. In this new form, even his memory faded, of what he had been. He still retained knowledge of his previous form, his previous identities, but every external fact seemed to fade, as if it did not have further use for him. Everyone he had known, he no longer knew. If he'd known Lotus, or Balthazar Romero, he could not say. They were interesting figures, ones he could know by intersecting with them, dead or alive, but never know if he'd known them before. Lotus had many memories, many secrets. Balthazar did, too.

***

Cotton Colinaude knew he had been too late. Romero was gone, Colinaude too late from Hopper's alert to have intervened on his behalf in the brief struggle with Lotus. Though he did not know him, Colinaude mourned, until, that is, he became aware that Romero was not gone all the way. The dead man returned, in his mind, as if a light had been turned on.

"You came for me after all," Balthazar said.

"Of course I did," Cotton said. "I was told that you needed me, and there was no other choice."

"And I was told that you had withdrawn yourself," Balthazar said.

"And it seemed as if you were gone," Cotton said, "that I was too late. That would have been unfortunate."

"So it would have been," Balthazar said. "This is awkward."

"Many things, my friend, are," Cotton said. "Sometimes you have to learn to deal with that and move on. I wish I had been able to before it was too late."

"Too late?" Balthazar said. "What happened to you?"

"There is something you should know," Cotton said. "Something that will make things easier to understand. In the past, I would never have done this, as it is the cardinal compromise. I was the hero Eidolon."

"Tekamthi knew," Balthazar said. "He knew. It wasn't a riddle. Why couldn't he have just told me?"

"You wouldn't have listened," Cotton said. "That is your basic flaw. You listen and you hear but you choose what you believe."

"It's what everyone does," Balthazar said.

"But to the extremes you take it? I doubt it," Cotton said. "You have an extraordinary mind, but you've chosen to use it in a very limited way."

"You talk as if you know me," Balthazar said.

"Better than you would understand," Cotton said. "I may have withdrawn myself, but I have stayed in touch. I know what happens in Traverse, but I have allowed others, as it was possible and practical, to handle matters. There was a time when I took the entire burden on my shoulders, and I was forced to learn how heavy it was. The cost was too steep. I couldn't handle it, so I walked away. It was the best decision I could make."

"But it goes against your philosophy," Balthazar said. "If you'd taken so much onto yourself before, you must have realized that a part of the responsibility was still yours, that if you gave it up entirely, you were only causing more damage to yourself."

"You say such things," Cotton said, "not because you mean them but because you are trying to jockey control of the situation. I learned that such control was an illusion. It was ego. Those who put themselves on the frontlines are noble. That cannot be denied. But those who work to eliminate those lines in the first place? that is the greater calling. I had already recognized that, at the height of my dementia, but I still believed the best way to combat evil was to attack the symptom, and not the illness itself. And then I realized the nature of the illness was human nature itself. Do you know what you do with human nature? You guide it."

"But there is so much a hero can do," Balthazar said.

"So much to do before you ruin yourself," Cotton, "before you realize that you've become the very thing you fight, because you operate on their terms, and not yours. I respect purity of motivation, and all the good it does, when it's on the defensive. When it becomes a matter of offense, however, it becomes morally ambiguous."

"There's nothing wrong with moral ambiguity," Balthazar said.

"You should know," Cotton said. "You've been fighting your own battle for years. Well, there's a war on the horizon, because of people like you, who felt they could compromise themselves, deal with acceptable losses, and handle whatever trouble came their way because of it."

"I have a hard time believing that a man who once practiced violence on a regular basis could so easily cast it aside," Balthazar. "Embrace a new philosophy."

"It's not a new philosophy," Cotton said. "It's the same one, refined. I set the foundation when I was still following the same rules as everyone else, following the cycle of cause and effect. I chose to end that cycle, for myself. When you create trouble, you have to deal with the consequences, eventually. You murdered Fred Mueller, whom I knew as Ratbeard, and expected to leave the services of Boy Benjamin and live by your own devices, successfully, but you have to have understood that one or both of these events would come back to haunt you. Lotus has already planted evidence that links you, conclusively, to Fred's death, as well as Hopper's parents. What, you didn't know? And he's killed Harold Epstein for you, and sent his ashes to those who would still be affected by them. These were things you brought on yourself. You would tell me you never killed a man yourself, that you spared lives Boy Benjamin would have killed. Well, you didn't spare Fred's life. Do you want to know how many other deaths you've caused throughout the years?"


"I think I already know," Balthazar said.

"You do," Cotton said. "You always did, but you constantly denied those deaths to yourself, to help you sleep at night. Don't tell me what a hero does, how he should do it. Then again, you never considered yourself a hero. Well, let me tell you. There are no heroes, Balthazar. Just people doing the right thing, while there are others who do the opposite. How these two sides interact is a matter of choice. Neither one can ever eliminate the other, no matter what they convince themselves of, but they can limit their effects. It's happened time and time again, throughout history, periods of relative good, periods of relative evil. There is no middle ground. The best I can hope to achieve is help initiate one of those periods of relative good, when the balance stands for those who do the right thing. It doesn't even matter if they do it for the right reasons, because motivation is the mind's delusion, what you construct for yourself, to help you sleep at night. Do you want to know if you were doing the right thing, Balthazar?"

"I think I already know the answer," Balthazar said.

"You don't like it, do you?" Cotton said. "Do you think this knowledge would affect how you would then continue? Would you change your course?"

"I have no choice," Balthazar said. "I am dead."

"You only think you are," Cotton said. "You are not gone. Your concerns aren't gone, are they?"

"No," Balthazar said. "I want to protect Ashlee."

"You can still do that," Cotton said. "You still have that obligation. In fact, every obligation you once had, you still possess. You must still confront Boy Benjamin."

"I can't," Balthazar said. "You have said I shouldn't."

"It doesn't matter," Cotton said. "You have made it necessary. Boy Benjamin is on the brink of war, a war you helped create. You must confront him. You owe it to him, and to yourself."

"You said it could be done differently," Balthazar. "You've got to make sense!"

"I have made sense," Cotton said. "You have once again chosen to not accept it. Boy Benjamin is your responsibility. Who else will know what to do with him? Who else understands him? Who else understands what you have done?"

"No one," Balthazar said.

"Exactly," Cotton said. "You want to avoid this, but you can't. Inevitable things are a fact of life, just as human nature is. You can try and avoid them, but once you've set them in motion, you have to be prepared to accept your responsibility. That's all you really have. You can't avoid it, unless you want others to pay the price for you. Again."

"You understand so much," Balthazar said.

"So it seems," Cotton said. "No one has all the answers, but everyone has some of them. We must choose how we are to use them. That's the collective responsibility of the human race, our collective burden. We exist to help each other along the way."

"Where does the way lead?" Balthazar said.

"Nowhere," Cotton said. "And everywhere."

"You don't know," Balthazar said.

"Everyone does," Cotton said. "We each understand it in our own way, but in the end it can be understood as this: a reward."

"Seems like a cheat," Balthazar said.

"That's because it is," Cotton said. "It's a cheat because some people don't want to understand that all life is is what we make of it. There are many things to accomplish. We learn early on that it is our responsibility to nurture. Some just take it more seriously than others, and others choose to ignore it, because there are easier things to do. But as long as we're doing things, they ought to be worthwhile. We can't save humanity, but we can do the next best thing. Save each other, a moment at a time, relieve some of the burden it takes to survive. Survival shouldn't be an issue, Balthazar. We make it one because it entertains us."

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