Repose of the Eidolon

Welcome to Part 2 of The Cloak of Shrouded Men

2012-02-14T10:24:00.000-08:00

The Cloak of Shrouded Men is the complete story of Cotton Colinaude, the hero at a crossroads after Part 1 of the story. Follow the label links on the right to read the chapters in sequence. Enjoy!

Chapter Twenty-Eight - Dust

2005-11-30T13:03:00.000-08:00

“You’re probably going to want to sit down for this,” Dust said. Cotton decided to take his advice. “Everything has its price. When I first learned I had the ability to turn my body into grains of sand, I thought it was the greatest thing in the world. I was five years old and my parents didn’t find me until the next day, and I was in the backyard, in my sandbox the whole time, sitting there. I didn’t even shift around, I just sat there, reveling in the sensation of this new form. The next day, when I appeared at the dinner table, waiting for my parents to return, I assumed that it had been a dream, and wondered why they were so concerned, why there was a policeman, why there were reporters, why there were so many people with them. I thought it was a good joke. I laughed, and so did my parents. I didn’t understand why they looked so nervous, why they were so uneasy that night, tucking me into bed. Later, I would discover that my father had once been involved in a super-power play between Mindbender and Flower Child, a victim. He had feared my disappearance might have been a product of that experience, which haunted him until the day he died.

“And maybe it was. I never found an adequate explanation for my powers. The next time they manifested, I was twelve, seven years removed from the last time, and so when the dream became reality, I let it get out of control. I was at school, attempting to swing across monkey bars in gym class. My arms began to disintegrate. I fell, but I fell into myself. The class was horrified, until someone jumped into me and started throwing me around. At first everyone thought I was the coolest thing they’d ever seen, but then the fear crept in. They couldn’t understand me. Within a month, my disruptions had gotten me dispelled, and no school in the area would take me again. Within a year, my parents had disowned me as well.

“On my own, I took to self-education, using my talent to earn money at carnivals while reading voraciously, about every subject imaginable. No one had an explanation for the unusual properties of my molecules, how they could transform, eventually at will (and it had been most fun, for myself and others, when it happened randomly), into sand while still leaving my consciousness in there. I had no form at first, while I was sand, and that was what had disturbed my classmates, and had originally thrilled them. In the carnivals, I learned to reclaim the shape of man, having begun to master myself again. I began to wonder if there were more practical uses of my talents, which alone had awakened my curiosity, even at the age of five. So much curiosity, so much to consider. I saw the world as no one else did. And I did not like what I saw.

“Silt was born at the age of twenty-three. The so-called Sand Man, as I had called myself in performances, now dedicated himself to the fight of injustice, using his unique abilities to thwart the criminal element in ways they would never expected, emerging from spaces they would never have conceived. I unlocked possibilities of architecture that the original creators could never have considered, could only have assumed were not there. I found the holes in the wall, because I alone could access them.

“For a time, I was glorious, and I reveled in it. Time went on, the novelty of it wore on. Silt’s adventures seemed hollow, of little more substance than the man himself. He no longer thought of himself as a man. Nick Sanders, though he possessed the ability to do so, ceased living as an ordinary man and instead existed solely in sand form. He had discovered that each transformation had taken something away from him, a part of his ability to identify with humanity, both physically and emotionally. He became withdrawn. Silt’s heroic days were numbered.

“Cotton, Silt no longer cared. He had lost himself. He no longer believed his own hype, no longer cared about it. He withdrew himself. He no longer knew what he was fighting for. He didn’t see the point.

“And then he died. You didn’t realize you were seeing me in my darkest hour that day, did you? Well, let me tell you, dark hours can last for a long time. Mine lasted for fifteen years. You never knew me but by reputation. It wasn’t because I wanted to snub you, but rather because I had lost my motivation. I had heard about you, Cotton. You inspired me. That’s why I told Calypso I wanted to help you, and in more ways than one. Things just didn’t turn out so well for me. I spent months thinking I was dead, in facts, for stretches I couldn’t think at all. I really was gone. Then I came back, and I brought with me a renewed determination, a new resolve. And a new understanding.

“I’m glad you’re seated, Cotton. When I found you in the parking garage, I found you trapped in your own mind. Don’t you see, Cotton? You were Balthazar Romero. You had convinced yourself that you were one of your old aliases, one of your more established ones. The trauma of murdering Rodrigo Ramirez must have caused it. You couldn’t deal with it, so you became someone else, someone who hadn’t murdered the Cad, someone who liked to tell himself that he wasn’t a murderer at all. You lost your mind, but you had another to fall back on. You had a whole other life ready to assume. You even had a wife.

“All this was inside your mind, but you hid yourself from it, from yourself. Cotton Colinaude lay dormant for months, while Balthazar Romero lived his life as normal, until the encounter with Lotus, whose unique abilities included the tampering with memories, which usually meant he would absorb them, but in your case, he couldn’t, because there were two competing sets of memories within you, Cotton. They were fighting. You didn’t surrender to a fantasy, Cotton. You finally allowed yourself to fight a battle you had long ago surrendered to. This was the only way you could.

“In the form I had now found myself, a cloud, and as such I now called myself Dust, I was able to manipulate your mind, to free yourself, but Balthazar remained, so the both of you commenced to pitch your cases, until one finally took back control. Lotus had already assured the victor. Balthazar could not remain, but he would not become the property of Lotus. I had been watching you, Cotton. In a strange way, we had been linked. A part of my had been in you, too, from the instant of my demise in the museum. I knew everything you knew, and took it back in the garage. And I have been watching you since.

“In the time you have been having your reckoning, I have mastered myself, at least to a greater degree than I have in the past, and I have had my own reckoning. I had never accepted what I had become, not on anything greater than a superficial level. I never understood what I should do, and why. I regained the form of a man with great trouble, and made myself Nick Sanders again, too, with great pain. I cannot do that again, at least not soon. I will have to work on that. But I have control of my body again, and now understand the cost. I have centered myself, Cotton.

“And I have found peace, too, because I know it is an illusion. You can keep order, Cotton, but you can’t keep peace. It’s human nature, this struggle we are forced to endure, because we are imperfect, and can only proceed in life imperfectly. To expect peace to eventually come is to wait in vain. We can only hope for order, because order is the closest thing we will ever have to peace. This has always been known, but it has never been understood. We have civilization and rules to live by because we know it. But each of us has our own motivations, our own interests, and these motivations, these interests clash, and will always clash. We call it arrogance, to not care for our fellow man, but it is really individuality asserted, and that’s all there can be.

“You can find your own peace, but you can’t expect to keep it forever, not without a price, or expect you can grant it to everyone. I think that’s what Tekamthi realized, Cotton. He’d found his peace. Denny Hay had found his peace, too. Even Ratbeard.

“You’ve threatened to abandon the Eidolon once already. You can’t. You found your peace. You’ve found that even an attempt at maintaining order is worth it, because the effort is what sustains you. That’s what bothered you, all those years ago, when you couldn’t remember saving Denny Hay. You couldn’t find peace because you couldn’t find order. You became the Eidolon to find order, and then find peace. Eventually you realized you could have no peace, because all you really cared about was order. The Eidolon exists for this sole purpose, not because of guilt or to carry a burden, but to ease a mind that wants to see things as they should be rather than as they are, a mind that sees through the veneer of chaos and understands that what anyone really wants is for things to make sense. There are so many ways to make that happen. Some people make the wrong choices. You’ve decided that it’s your mission to set them straight.”

“All I want is things done right,” Cotton said, “not things simply done.” He spoke in a whisper, as if he didn’t want anyone to hear, not even Dust. “That has never been too much to ask.”

“But it has,” Dust said. “You can’t ask more of people than they’re capable of, more than they’re willing to do. But you can try. All you can do is try.”

“And watch as peace slips away,” Cotton said.

“Because you are busy maintaining order,” Dust said. “It’s hard to accept, that there’s no choice, that one simply isn’t possible. You become willing to tell yourself anything. You become willing to betray yourself. The hard part is accepting that you will have to, because that’s what everyone does, every day. It’s called compromise. If you find that you are incapable of compromising, then you are lost, but you have to understand when it is acceptable, when you will have to take the hit and pay for it later. Cotton, everything we do has consequences. You can’t avoid them, no matter how clever you think you are. If you intend to abandon your life as the Eidolon because Peter Cooley turned out to be Viper, turned out to be your archenemy because he wanted to destroy you, you will have done his job for him. You will have fulfilled your fantasy of following in the footsteps of your hero. There is no retirement in this line. There is always failure, but giving in is the greatest of them.

“You brought the Eidolon back because you thought he was necessary, because of the looming war. The Eidolon is always necessary, necessary for you, and necessary for everyone else. Heroes are a part of the natural order. They’ve always been present, in one form or another. In these times, we’ve just made them more obvious, because we think there’s a more obvious need for them. The need is the same as it’s always been. Don’t romanticize. You will be hurt, you will lose, you will make mistakes, you will not be embraced by all. But you will do what you set out to, and that’s all that matters. Yes, Traverse will burn, but the Eidolon will be there to soften its blow. There is no such thing as an end. Humanity does more than survive. It lives.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven - The Eidolon and Switchblade Together

2005-11-29T13:29:00.000-08:00

The Solomons were always there. Traverse just wouldn’t have been Traverse without them. The funny thing, however, was that it could be really easy to overlook them. Their ambition never matched their activities, and they must have known it. Cotton had never bothered with them, not even him, who had singled out the overlooked threat of the Cad and inadvertently begun a war because of it. Truett Solomon, otherwise known as Cutty, was the current head of the clan, and Cotton had never worried about him. He was, as they say, mostly harmless, with the bark bigger than the bite. But in the new atmosphere of the looming war, he was suddenly king, and even he couldn’t appreciate it. With all of the factions, from Boy Benjamin to Lotus to Viper to the scores of others, some resident and other opportunistic intruders, that colored the battlefield Traverse would soon become, Cutty Solomon alone had the roots to withstand the storm, and roots would ensure survival, if not victory. Survival was all that really mattered. Survival was the credo of the Solomon clan. Survival was an unbelievable source of strength.

Lotus, whether he was aware of it or not, was dependent on the Solomons for his own survival, his unnaturally prolonged life both a product of his own ornate abilities and the support of successive Solomon generations, who saw in him a pawn. It didn’t matter if he was ever a danger to them. Benjamin Russ grew to power in part because he proved to be a useful challenge, and challenge was a natural extension of survival, and so his challenge was tolerated. Viper, why Viper had sprung out of nowhere, and that was another challenge in itself. The Solomons loved a good fight. They didn’t get it, very often, from the heroes, certainly not from the likes of Godsend. Only once, with Switchblade. Cotton had been there, and so had Cutty. Neither Cotton nor Cutty would have remembered seeing each other then, not with those circumstances. The death of a hero tended to distract everyone.

It happened in the days Cotton had been going soft, losing his ideals, in the days the murder of the Cad would have been an absurd suggestion, something Cotton would never have believed himself capable of. Switchblade would have been, oh yes. He didn’t get his name for nothing. He was a villain among heroes. More than once he had been treated as such. Cotton might have done the same if he’d been given the chance, but he never did. Switchblade sought him out, first for a conversation and then for a demonstration, which the visiting hero took in Cotton’s own backyard. Before that, Cotton had never heard of the Solomons. Cutty was still growing into his role, his uncle assuming leadership at the time. This was the time, in fact, that he earned that name, and it was no coincidence. He always enjoyed his share of bravado. He had believed he could take on Switchblade, who was so notorious for leaving his opponents run red with blood. Heroes didn’t do that. Cotton hadn’t believed Switchblade was a hero. He changed his mind even before the tragedy had played out.

The Solomons were engaged in one of their periodic efforts at consolidating power, Rancor being a chief target, through the services of Viper in his comparatively innocent days, before he revealed his own genius, before he revealed to Cotton his betrayal, before he led Cotton directly to the Cad, before he murdered Rancor. Viper had infiltrated the Solomons, an act in a pattern of behavior Cotton had never recognized, and brought help along with him. Having learned of this, Cutty’s uncle was prepared to eliminate the threat by encouraging an indiscriminant massacre within his own ranks. Switchblade’s partner, Manner, was included within those ranks, and she stood a real chance of losing her life, or blowing her cover, and Switchblade did not want to risk either one. He came to see Cotton so he could prevent it, and cut the Solomons down to size at the same time. He would have let the massacre carry on had Manner not lay prone within it.

So instead, he decided to open Cotton’s eyes. Cotton’s immediate interest was the involvement of Viper, who had been as much a thorn in his side as his master, the two constantly battling each other, almost as rivals from the start. Whatever Viper’s original motives had been, he had now long since abandoned them, for a single pursuit. He wanted a war so he could ruin the Eidolon once and for all, and every other hero of his kind. Switchblade had not been much different. He favored objectives over methods, because he prized the objectives above all. He did not want them lost amidst mindless details, which stood every bit to numb the mind as confuse the hero, which he’d perceived as Cotton’s problem. Had he known that he was sending the Eidolon on a path to self-imposed retirement, he might have tried harder, or fought to survive the fight with Cutty. Or perhaps let Cotton die that night.

Cotton had not wanted to listen, when he heard what Switchblade had to say, about his attitude and his direction. Switchblade had no love for Godsend, but Cotton would not let go of his faith, both in his partner and to the advantages of diversity in tactics. The more he listened, though, the more he found a new focus, a new need for determination. He began to believe in fatalism. Switchblade preached the gospel of compromise, that believing in the existence of good, even in evil, was giving in to evil itself. He didn’t believe in good, but rather that all men were inherently evil and that the only way to change this, and he believed change was possible if fought for, was to eliminate rather than accommodate the worst forces of evil. He had tried many times to kill Rancor himself, Rancor who had embodied so much of it, the excess that characterized it so well. In a way, Switchblade only described himself. His war was against himself, and he had made Cotton’s a personal war as well, if it had ever been anything else. Somehow, though, he had found out about Denny Hay, and he stressed that event most of all. He had called Cotton a coward.

Well, Cotton had decided then that he was not afraid, and so he took Switchblade’s challenge and joined him in his crusade against the Solomons, the rescue of Manner, whom Switchblade confessed he would be parting ways with afterward, because she had allowed herself to be compromised. He didn’t seemed phased by arguments that he had just recruited a compromised man. In his eyes, he should not have had to rescue her in the first place, because he did not respect his foes. He said to do so would have been to empower them, and that was the last thing he wanted, was in fact the very thing he fought against. He thought he would be salvaging an entire city by this single act, by taking on the Solomons, the overlooked threat. In Cotton’s later experience, such threats should almost have been left like that. They were less dangerous. To seek out a fight only made the fight worse. He didn’t understand that then. He was under the spell of a maniac, damned if he was going to break it.

Cotton had suggested a subtler approach to their infiltration, but Switchblade insisted it would be a waste of their time, so they invaded the Solomon stronghold with such bombast that they might as well have been invited, so little resistance being possible. Switchblade happened to like explosions as well. He took half the compound down in a single act, and countless lives. Whether Manner might have been lost was immaterial. In the panic, Viper blew his cover, and Cutty had to decide who he was going to fight, to save face. Cutty was already in his fifties, but was remarkably spry for his age, thanks to a lot of pent-up anticipation for a moment like this, where he could begin to prove himself. Switchblade had in fact walked right into a trap. Cutty had struck a deal with Viper, having realized who he was, and Manner was the bait. All he needed to do was decide if he was going to remain loyal to the deal, if he could trust Viper.

He didn’t have the chance to make the decision, because Viper disappeared soon enough, apparently not wanting a piece of this, though he left the rest of his men behind, to die as they pleased. Manner freed herself before Switchblade could for her, and they fought as if nothing was between them, with the Eidolon following their lead. Cutty found his man, stood his ground, and gave what he could, which wasn’t enough, but the confusion was. Between Viper’s men, the Solomon men, and the heroes, the heroes eventually became overwhelmed, first Manner, then Cotton. Switchblade spared him, at his own expense, felled by Cutty’s blade. With his dying breath, he implored Cotton to leave. The implication was that he wasn’t worthy after all.

The event left yet another mark on Cotton, one that scarred with his original heroic motivation, creating something he thought he could never escape. When he finally did, he learned the price was too great to accept. He became overwhelmed again. It seemed all his life he had been overwhelmed into submission, and it was because he had never known peace, not with himself and not with the world. He was restless, and he had thought he could put an end to it in Traverse, finally find himself. As he approached Cutty Solomon again, he wondered if he ever would. The significance of Solomon escaped him, at least until he saw him.

All he seemed to have gained from that day was a nickname and confidence from his clan. Cotton was unmoved. He wanted to know what went through the mind of such a man, if he’d ever given that day a second thought, if he’d known who he killed, if he cared. He wanted to know what Cutty hoped to gain from this war, what he thought survival alone would do for the Solomons. At first Cotton thought he was asleep, but then he realized that Cutty was dead, slumped in his chair, seated at a desk cluttered with strategies for survival. Well, it would have to be someone else’s job now.

“You’re probably wondering how he died,” a voice, low and uncomfortable, said from behind. “You don’t have to. I killed him.”

Cotton turned around and saw, in fragile yet breathtaking form, more elegant than he had ever been, Nick Sanders, the man once known as Silt, but now called Dust. “You,” he said.

“In the flesh,” Dust said. “So to speak. We have much to talk about.”

Cotton heard these words with trepidation, but he no longer let his fear control him. Switchblade had sought to engrain in him the culture of fear, had sought to use the birth of the Eidolon as motivation to steer Cotton back to an acceptable path. He might have been right about that, Cotton straying from the path, but he was wrong about Cotton, what he needed. What he had needed, all this time, was acceptance, not an irrational need to hide from the truth, or distort it, but to embrace it, to embrace reality for what it was and not what he made it to be. All this time he had been running from it, from himself. He could no longer afford to do that. He could no longer live in a world of his own conception. He had brought back the Eidolon, and he was going to make that count for something.

Dust suggested that there were still things he needed to face, and he believed it. He believed that this man, who had gone and come back again, had answers he needed, had something to give that would leave the world with something more than it had without him. Dust promised Cotton Colinaude the meaning of purpose.

Chapter Twenty-Six - Ratbeard's Widow

2005-11-28T11:20:00.000-08:00

Bessie Mueller never intended for it to happen. When she had made her pact with Lotus, it had been under the strict agreement that her husband be strictly off-limits, but that had not been with understanding on her part as to the wider implications of the times and conditions the pact were made under. She knew better now. All too much better. Freddy was dead.

The life he had led, the one he had made no effort to shield her from, because she’d had plenty of experience in it herself, had always threatened such an end, but both of them had believed they could escape it. The memory of Butler still haunted her. It had happened again, and once again she had been the cause. And in a way, Balthazar Romero as well. She and Balthazar had had an affair, Butler had found out, blackmailed Balthazar, and Butler found out how easily Balthazar could have his problems solved for him, by Boy Benjamin, who could always come up with a reason for Balthazar to get what he wanted while giving him an excuse for his conscience. Well, damn and his conscience. He was probably already burning. There had been no affair this time, just jealousy. Bessie had gotten what her sister never could, had given two husbands what Balthazar never got, and never would, with Ashlee dead. Bessie should have felt worse about that. She couldn’t bring herself to. She had her own pain.

She had regret. She was bringing her own calamity onto herself, and she couldn’t feel sorry for hurt she’d caused others because she couldn’t handle the pain she’d brought into her own home, when Lotus made it clear all deals were off, by violating her husband’s corpse in front of herself. In front of her kids. Hansen, twelve years old and as much a reflection of the suave loose-cannon Butler as wiry Freddy, had tried to get his revenge there on the spot, pouncing on Lotus as he sucked her husband dry. Hansen, who’d been thrown and broke his neck, dead. Rose, nine years old and a reflection of her mother, who did not realize her own strength, following suit with her brother’s retaliation. Rose, who broke her neck and died. Lotus was an animal. He did not even glance at Bessie when he was finished. He simply left the house behind.

She couldn’t call the cops. The cops would never believe her, would never trust her. She might even have been arrested on the spot. She just couldn’t take the chance. She left her family behind, left her home behind. All Lotus had wanted from her in the first place was reassurance, that he had her support. He had presumed it meant her family’s as well. He did not know the Solomons, and Bessie had not bothered to clarify the issue. She had not bothered to. She couldn’t believe it. She had wasted her entire life. Her own mother had warned her; she hadn’t listened. “Don’t embrace your father’s life,” she’d said. “It’s my own choice,” Bessie had replied.

Choice. She had made all the wrong choices. She had grown up assuming it was her destiny to have everything she ever wanted, and secretly she had coveted everything, had suspected that if she played her cards right, she could surpass her family, surpass her father, surpass everyone else in Traverse, surpass even the moguls of the world. She had been granted knowledge of how the whole system worked, and had decided she didn’t need it. She was content with her own ambition. Then she crossed the family, crossed her father, marrying Butler Epstein, a pawn of Rancor’s, a rival of the family, of her father. She had been assured that this would not affect her welcome. She should have known that wasn’t enough.

She should have known how naïve she really was. Butler had made her forget her concerns, had told her his only plans for the future were to retire, even though he was a rising star. He had told her he didn’t care. Well, someone did, and not just her. Why hadn’t she just listened to him? Why couldn’t she be content? After his death she seemed to have learned her lesson. Freddy made the same assurances, except his star was fading, his day in the limelight long gone. He was nothing but a snitch now. Again with the family’s disapproval, again with her father’s. Again with those who would like to see her husband dead. She’d made the pact with Lotus to spare him the same fate as Butler. She had been naïve.

Bessie was still a Solomon, still a member of one of the most-established clans in Traverse history. Ancestors had helped found the city, had decided to rein in their claim to it, had fought Sidewinder, had found William Tekamthi’s ambitions contrary to their own, had liked to see the Eidolon go away as well. In every instance they had prevailed. Had she known half the implications of her associations, she would have seen it coming. That Butler’s master, Rancor, had been assassinated in the move that withdrew Eidolon from the scene, that the Eidolon himself was married to her sister, that Lotus lay claim to Traverse because he had been there when the Solomons made their first assumption, that he never had any intention of moving on, let alone sparing Freddy Mueller, captain of a tugboat in the underworld sea of the city, Ratbeard himself. It should have been obvious. It was, too. Bessie had simply chosen to ignore it, all of it. She put herself above all of it, because she had thought it was her right, her destiny. Now she knew that she had been wrong. She had no such claim, no such birthright.

Did she have a future? She didn’t know where to turn. Grovel at the feet of her family, of her father? Her mother died trying to turn the tide of rationality. In a way, she had been Butler’s antecedent, Freddy’s as well. Bessie should have known, all the signs had been there, every way out marked for her, every indication of what was going to go wrong. She made the same mistakes time and again, and still hadn’t learned. What was so different about Lotus? That he had been so brazen, so unearthly, so alien, that he could not be ignored? For a man clouded in mystery, he stood in great relief.

It suddenly came to her, what she should do. She would need the watch that had killed her husband. Oh yes, she had know right away what had happened; she was no fool, certainly not to old tricks. She knew how to do it herself, too. She would spring the same trap. She would send this watch back to Boy Benjamin, and she would be there when it arrived. She didn’t even care if he would be able to recognize what was happening.

Her thought returned to the urn of ashes, of Butler’s father, which had been such a torment for them for so long, and for her after Butler’s death. They knew that Balthazar’s only interest was the torment, and that his father was still alive. When this urn arrived, however, Bessie also knew that it was real, and that it had been sent by Lotus. It had arrived before he did, and she should have understood then what was going to happen. Freddy was still alive, but he hadn’t been showed the urn. Bessie had not wanted to frighten him, had not yet accepted what it meant. She hadn’t been ready. The idea was absurd to her now; it mortified her. Hadn’t been ready?

Everyone in Traverse had known about Lotus, had heard the legends. But no one believed they were true, that such a man could exist, even with so many other fantastical figures about. Precedents did not always prepare people for something so shocking. If anything, they made such things harder to believe, as if they could not, should not be matched again, or excelled. That would truly have been unnatural. Yet Lotus was real. The idea had intoxicated Bessie the moment his existence was confirmed. He represented power, power she wanted a part of. She had believed that cutting a deal with him early would have granted her special privilege, even a piece of his power, more power than she could have ever imagined, because she could never have imagined Lotus himself.

Having arranged delivery of the package, Bessie tried to prepare herself mentally for the task ahead. She would be entering the dragon’s lair. This dragon was not her greatest menace, but he was the most accessible one, and she would settle for that. She no longer had the courage for great things. She despised herself for ever wanting them. They had cost her so much.

She found herself at a local watering hole, Tin Can, seated at the bar. There were very few patrons this evening. Besides herself and the bartender, there was someone playing pool and a professional-looking man on what appeared to be his third bottle. She asked the bartender what the man was drinking. “The Old VM,” he said. “If he keeps this up, he’ll drink us out of it.” She told him she’d have the same.

“Mind if I have a seat?” she said, bottle in hand.

“Why don’tchou?” he said in reply, keeping his hand, almost defensively, on the third bottle. “I’ve been looking this stuff up. It turns out this place getsit, and it’s the only place that getsit. I even found out who put in the original order. Somebody by the name of Locus or something. Sounded biblical. Like the end of the world.”

Bessie gave him a double-take, which he didn’t notice, and decided not to open her bottle, not out of fear, but instinct. “Is it any good?”

“You betcha!” the man said. “I can’t help but drink it, youknow? I haven’t been to work in days. The last article I wrote was about this place. Damn this place. Damn this liquor!”

Yet, Bessie noticed, he didn’t put it down. In fact, he ordered another. The bartender did not look amused, but it wasn’t about this man. Something else was bothering him, something far more personal, far worse than a bum on a bender. It was written in his eyes. He seemed to have lost a friend, and all he needed was confirmation, which was what he feared most of all. Bessie knew that look. She’d seen it on Butler’s face, Freddy’s, countless others’, countless times. She’d seen it in her own face, the day the urn arrived. She was sick and tired of that face. She left the bar immediately. The man would no doubt help himself to her beer.

All she could do was wait for the day the package arrived. She would beat it there, act like it was a social visit, so that Boy Benjamin, if he suspected a thing, would know immediately, like she had known after Lotus had stolen her family away, known that she had lost her unborn child.

Chapter Twenty-Five - Godsend's Reproach

2005-11-27T07:27:00.000-08:00

What struck him about Culver St. was that everyone seemed to have a garage, and that every garage actually housed the cars that had been intended for them. It was unusual to encounter that, especially on such a scale, an entire street. It bothered Cotton, like it was unnatural. It also helped explain, to a certain extent, the phenomenon that was Tekamthi’s portal in the shed. It just wasn’t that out of place, and couldn’t have been coincidental. Yes, Tekamthi had been a clever one. Strange, too, that he was now in the past tense, strange that anything could exist in the past tense, not so much gone as now living in an altered state, the kind that had been the motivating factor in the original birth of the Eidolon. Cotton now suspected that everything man achieved was motivated by trying to compensate for altered states, one way or another. There was no such thing as normal, unless normal was to be construed as a series of abnormalities. In that case, a grown man who still dressed up in a costume was not so outrageous, pretending he was something other than what he really was, pretending he was a ghost.

Except Cotton was exactly that, a ghost. It was not pretension. He was not really there. It was not a psychological pretension, but a constant state of mind, the only way he could keep the Eidolon alive, as would soon be the case again. Cotton wasn’t really there; he would once again assume mastery over perception, for that was what a hero did, impose a view of reality that said what everyone else presumed to be perfectly acceptable, actually wasn’t, what seemed to be perfectly natural, wasn’t. The Eidolon meant to set straight mistakes, draw them out and correct them, while bending the rules of possibility. That was were the super heroic came from, because he went beyond the realm of ordinary possibility, not with power but with pure force of will, his own volition, determination, and skill.

His greatest skill was misdirection, the ability to confuse perception. His archenemy had decided that this was actually Cotton’s weakness, and had in his outing cast aside the importance of it, become its opposite force. Tekamthi, on Culver St, had in a way validated this edict of Cotton’s, misdirection, with the shed, and as he made his way down he found comfort with every step. There were no dogs on this street, which was another thing he found odd, as if every sign of life had been hidden away, like Tekamthi himself. How careful had he been? Had he gone too far? There was almost no risk at all, and that disturbed Cotton most of all. He had found himself living for the challenge, and that most of all had finally convinced him to reclaim the mantle of the Eidolon, which presently sat inside a plastic bag, which he struggled to carry, awkward and heavy as it was. He would shift it, in intervals of minutes, the periodic rate of it almost embarrassing, the frequency of it. Did he possess no strength? And he was a hero? Had he lost that strength, or ever had it?

The shed loomed. It became apparent that the shed had been breached, not in any ordinary way or even an obvious way, but in an unspoken sort of way, like an aura that penetrated it. Cotton could not help but notice; the sensation was all around him, the closer he got, like the shed had been violated and its wound were still fresh. This had not been someone who had know it, but rather a stranger, an intruder. An interloper. They had discovered its secret, which Cotton could still not quite grasp that he knew so easily, without having to be told. Balthazar had somehow bequeathed Cotton his memories, even before his passing. They had become a part of Cotton, even before they left Balthazar. As they left their original owner, and the owner felt them slip away, Cotton could not understand. They were still very much present for him, even more so, almost as if they should be, or had always been, and he just hadn’t known it, or realized it. Balthazar’s death had been a revelation, one he still needed to understand.

The door to the shed was breached, and placing his hand on it Cotton immediately jerked it away again, as in shock. The interloper had left his mark. There was also another presence. There always seemed to be, these days. Nothing was truly alone anymore, like it was all sending Cotton a message he could not help but learn, at last. He did have to be alone. He almost didn’t have a choice in the matter. Inside he noticed an old gardener’s bench, warn down not just by time but by use. Whomever had originally erected this shed, they had tended to their garden constantly, obsessively. Tekamthi tended to his own garden in the same way. Cotton his own, too. Everyone seemed to have their own garden.

By instinct again, Cotton found access to the secret passage, and found his way into the dark tunnel that had so alarmed Balthazar. Cotton produced a light on his keychain, and it helped him navigate his way, his fear. Outside, no one would notice this, no one curious. He could have left the passage unobscured, but he was not that careless. He could never allow himself to be, consciously. Except he knew had had been, in the past. It was what had created his archenemy, almost initiated the demise of the Eidolon. Instead, the hero within him had taken to hibernation. The thought of it was not a pleasant one. Wasn’t a hero supposed to be selfless? What part of the Eidolon had ever been?

In the almost complete darkness, Cotton could not help but reflect, and that may have been by Tekamthi’s design as well. If there was ever to be an invader to his fortress, they would not invade unscathed. Perhaps there had been others, and they had been repelled by this very defense. The interloper still left his mark, everywhere. Cotton could not properly observe them, but he knew there must be walls, and that these walls had known the interloper, who groped them in his own darkness, his despair. The passage continued for what seemed an eternity.

Finally, he knew he had reached the end, and the second presence was there with him. He reached for the light switch, reconsidered it, knowing the mystery would be revealed.. He called out first instead. “I know you are there.”

He didn’t need the light, or a reply, to know who it was waiting for him: Godsend. Revealed, his costume blinded more than the light, the sheen on the purple and gold preternaturally emboldened, which was of course by design, and perhaps unconsciously so. The second half of the Terrific Tandem, a relic of the past that perhaps, too, needed resurrecting continued to stand there in silence, as if expecting only Cotton to speak, as if Cotton alone needed to explain himself. How had Godsend known as Tekamthi’s lair? How had Godsend known of Tekamthi at all? How much had Cotton never truly known of his complimenting force?

“There is much to talk about,” he said. “Isn’t there?”

“There always seems to be,” Godsend said. “With you, that’s all there seems to be. I remember a time when you spent your time in silence.”

“A position you seemed to have assumed for yourself,” Cotton said.

“Every void is filled,” Godsend said. “Perhaps you hadn’t realized that.”

“You replaced me?” Cotton said.

“Don’t take everything so literally,” Godsend said. “The Tandem could never be replaced. I’m surprised you would make the suggestion.”

“I apologize for that,” Cotton said. “I have much to apologize for, don’t I?”

“Do not trouble yourself,” Godsend said.

“That’s what I’ve been doing, all my life,” Cotton said. “You didn’t come here by chance. And you’re not the first ghost of my past to find me today.”

“You could only avoid him for so long, Cotton,” Godsend said. “Did you really think you could avoid him indefinitely? He is your responsibility. I came here because of a different responsibility. You remember Rancor, of course. This war we face is because he is no longer alive. He maintained the balance within Traverse, even when he wasn’t here. His reputation, his activities, his battles with us, all this deterred the rest of the element from this war. Without this figurehead, the element deteriorated. Who could have ever seen that coming? Your friend. Viper.”

“I suppose that makes this my fault,” Cotton said.

“You should have seen this coming,” Godsend said. “Didn’t you tell me that the rest of us were overlooking the obvious? The obvious is what keeps the rest in check. You misinterpreted it, Cotton. We do not blame you, but we do wish you would reclaim your responsibility.”

“No such friendly embrace here,” Cotton said.

“Do not make light of the situation,” Godsend said.

“Says the man who waited in darkness,” Cotton said. “How long did you wait? How did you even know to come here? How did you even know this place existed?”

“Your resource at Humbert Savings,” Godsend said. “She only recently discovered this street’s secret. She knew what to do with her newfound knowledge. She doesn’t know what else to do. Another victim of your folly, Cotton. You haven’t been very careful. Isn’t that what you have always prided yourself on?”

“Since when did you adopt an attitude?” Cotton said.

“Since you forced me to,” Godsend said. “You changed the whole landscape. Congratulations. It may be your lasting achievement.”

“I was like that all along,” Cotton said. “Nothing changed.”

“Everything changed,” Godsend said. “Everything changed because you allowed it to. Everything became worse. You let everything corrupt.”

“Even you?” Cotton said.

“I fight the same battle,” Godsend said. “It never ends. You have actually made sure of it, haven’t you?”

“Tell me what I need to do,” Cotton said.

“You already know,” Godsend said, levitating and flying back down the passage, leaving Cotton alone, Cotton, who realized he still clung to the bag with the costume in it. He needed to put it on again, the costume he had worn only once before, the first time he had become the Eidolon.

Which wasn’t even true. He had become the Eidolon that day in Stonewine Alley, the day he saved Denny Hay, the day he lost himself. He liked to think that he had finally found himself again, that all the years he had obscured himself, even to himself, were finally in the past. But he was still fighting that past.

Later, when he had transformed himself again, Cotton noticed as he made his ascent the red cap that had been discarded by the interloper. The cycle continued.

Chapter Twenty-Four - Viper Sounds the Drums of War

2005-11-26T12:15:00.000-08:00

“You just couldn’t give it up,” a voice said behind him. Cotton knew immediately who it was. He should have known long ago, but because he had heard it in two contexts for so long, even the minor hushes of Peter Cooley should have told him that his archenemy was present, for so long, for all those years. Of course, Viper had not been the Eidolon’s archenemy from the start, or at least not seemed that way. He had calculated his reveal, and it had come the day Cotton killed Rodrigo Ramirez in cold blood. Cotton himself had made the reintroduction. It was the kind of realization Viper had planned for, but he had miscalculated the impact. Cotton no longer cared.

“Whatever you thought I did to you, it was always in your mind, Viper,” he said.

“It was nothing you did to me,” Viper said, “but rather what you represented. After all this time, you still don’t understand. There is a limit to the imposition of will.”

“And you happen to draw the line at costumed heroes,” Cotton said.

“Because they assume too much,” Viper said. “Because they think they can operate out of the system to protect it.”

“So you did the same,” Cotton said, “only on the opposite side.”

“We all make compromises, Cotton,” Viper said. “Turn around. Drop the rags on the ground.”

Cotton did as he was told, even to the point of looking his enemy in the eye, which he had never done before. He was going to make a point of it from then on. “Compromises define us,” he said. “Congratulations on the obvious. But we don’t have to let them compromise ourselves.”

“You don’t know me,” Viper said. “You thought you did, but you didn’t, and you never bothered to try. Peter Cooley was the deaf man who helped you gather information at the Traverse Tracks. Viper was a nuisance. Don’t bother to say otherwise.”

“You were those things to me,” Cotton said. “I freely admit that. You also had my respect, in both identities. But it wasn’t enough. What did you need, Viper?”

“I needed nothing,” Viper said. “That was exactly the point. I needed nothing and you needed everything. I’m doing you a favor. I’m putting an end to your self-serving charade.”

Cotton heard the click on the barrel he knew was mounted to Viper’s wrist, the barrel that had murdered Calypso. He did not look at it, but he knew Viper was lifting it toward his head. “I will not play your games,” he said. “If you want to do that, go ahead. If you want to see this war of yours and live, you won’t. Yes, Viper, I don’t wish to see you dead. Even this calamity you’ve brought upon yourself, I won’t let it collapse around you, if I can help it. That’s all I can do, all I know how to do. If you don’t want me to try, kill me now. You think I brought this on you. You brought it on yourself. This costume is mine. The Eidolon is mine. You may think you can take it away from me, but you are mistaken. You have always been mistaken.”

“Fine,” Viper said, lifting his arm. “I’d like to see you try. I’d like to see what you think you can do in this war. And it isn’t mine. It belongs to the city of Traverse. It brought this upon itself. I will try my best, and while I do so, I will watch you fail. Again.”

Cotton watched as Viper made his exit, with no attempt to obscure his tracks. He had once played that game, but no longer found it necessary. Now everyone knew about him, and he reveled in it. For his part, Cotton determined to stage his transformation in the last ruins of the Dread Poet, the underground bunker on Culver St, long a legend and recently revealed to be fact. Balthazar had as much as told him so, Balthazar who no longer occupied the space in his mind as he had. There was something happening, something neither could understand.

“I did have more to lose,” Balthazar said. “I didn’t think so, but I did. I’m losing my mind. It’s not how I would have imagined it. When someone says they’re losing their mind, it’s to say that they’re becoming less rational. That’s not what’s happening. I feel myself fading away, and I can’t fight it. I don’t even want to try. I know I can’t. I don’t have the strength. It feels natural, somehow, as if this is supposed to be happening. I’m losing strands of myself, like threadwork coming undone, a lifetime uncoiling. I can’t even remember my wife’s name. What was she like? What did I do for Boy Benjamin? What is my earliest memory of him? I can’t remember. It’s as if they were never truly there to begin with, that they were somehow figments of my imagination. I know they were real, but their connection to me, they’re like lies, piercing into me, digging their way out again. I’m still rational, but my life begins to seem less and less so. How am I supposed to understand this? I feel as if I should accept it, and I don’t even know why.”

“I wish I knew what to say,” Cotton said. “You’ve been inside my head. I feel as if I should know, should be able to help you, but I can’t.”

“I’m getting what I should have gotten,” Balthazar said. “It’s finally come. This is the end.”

“Then don’t surrender to it,” Cotton said. “That’s the last thing you should be doing.”

“But I have no other choice,” Balthazar said. “Don’t you understand? That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m sitting here, watching things fall apart, and I feel helpless, and that is not a terrifying thought. It fills me with peace, Cotton. I can’t explain it, but it fills me with peace. I now understand that I have never known such a thing.”

“We’re going to Tekamthi’s bunker,” Cotton said. “That’s all you need to know. He said that he did not keep his memoirs, but he could have just been saying that. We’re going there and from there we will make our stand.”

“It’s very kind of you, to hold out strength for me,” Balthazar said. “But I don’t need it. I have to let this happen.”

“I’m telling you, Balthazar,” Cotton said. “You don’t! You don’t have to let this happen!”

“Believe what you want to,” Balthazar said. “We can go to William Tekamthi’s bunker. We can search through his files. Even if we did that, there would not be enough time. I wouldn’t last long enough. You don’t even have the time. There is so much to see there, and so much for you to do. You made the resolution to reclaim the Eidolon, now you’ve got to live up to that. Traverse needs you, more than I do, more than I ever did, more than you ever needed me. Don’t you understand?”

“We’re going,” Cotton said. “We’ll sort out the rest later. But we’re going. That’s all there is to it. I have to try.”

“Tell me, Cotton,” Balthazar said, “what happened to doing the smart thing? I can feel more of myself fading, as if I was never really here. Lotus took everything from me. He took everything. And now the rest of it is leaving me, what even he couldn’t take. I wonder what he would say? I wonder why he thought he had to do this. I wonder why he thought he had to plunge this city into Armageddon. How tormented a soul is he? Doesn’t he understand we all are?”

“Of course he does,” Cotton said. “We all know that. Some of us just care more than others, some of us can ignore it, because we only care about ourselves. I cared only for myself for so long.”

“You only thought you did,” Balthazar said. “You didn’t understand yourself, Cotton. You only thought you did. And you know what? You never will. You will find peace when you accept that. And that‘s what you‘ve been doing, Cotton, trying to find peace. That‘s all we have ever done.

“Cotton? Who is Cotton? Who am I? I don’t even know anymore. I don’t know anything. I’ve lost everything. I watch it as it fades away. I can follow its trail. It makes a lovely light.”

With these words, Cotton felt Balthazar Romero leave him, for the last time. Once again, Cotton Colinaude was alone, almost as if he had always been that way, and that it was only delusion that told him otherwise. He continued onward, to Tekamthi’s bunker. Thanks to Balthazar, he knew where it was, how he could access it. Such a clever man, Tekamthi had been, to accepted cleverness as the only redeeming quality of man, to understand all that it gave mankind, to realize that it alone gave mankind anything.

He was already failing Balthazar’s memory, for he had no idea what he had been talking about, and could feel nothing in regards to what Balthazar had lost, before he lost himself utterly. He should have felt something, but there was nothing, nothing but emptiness, and it troubled him, this void that Balthazar had created, as if he had been there forever, inside Cotton’s mind, and once gone, had taken a part of Cotton with him. All he could do was continue on, and he was angry with himself for doing so. He had not allowed himself to be angry in ages, and the fact that he was troubled him all the more. Anger led to worse things. He knew this all too well.

So he walked, onward in his torment, as if the walking was his own punishment. He passed the gas station again and noticed that two more cents had dropped. This time he could say that it had finally, unequivocally, fallen below two dollars, and that cheered him a little, like a triumph, even though he had no part of it and would not be in the least bit directly affected. He had no car. Still, he accepted it for what it was. He would have liked to have had that conversation with his father. Just the thought of it cheered him more. He could use all of that, all of the cheer he could muster. As dark as the days were he was finally escaping, darker days yet loomed ahead, darker than he had ever known, had ever expected to know, and nothing like he would ever had expected. This war that lay ahead, it would be like none other, and yet like every other in history. It would bring about devastation, destruction. No one could say what would be lost, but it would be great, incalculable, unfathomable. He could not face it alone.

And he knew who to turn to. It had been so long, like everything else he had once known. But he would have to see the Alabama Lamb, one more time. He would need to ask for one more favor. This time, it would not be personal. He had that much consolation. He wondered if Godsend would listen, if Godsend already knew what was about to happen, and why. He wondered what Godsend would say. He wondered if Godsend was already fighting it.

But first Tekamthi’s bunker, where the Eidolon would be reborn.

Chapter Twenty-Three - Waking the Eidolon

2005-11-25T13:21:00.000-08:00

Something was happening. Balthazar couldn’t quite pin it, but something was happening. Cotton, who seemed to have been absent recently, had appeared again, but they were no longer talking. Cotton was, instead, directing them somewhere, as if they finally had somewhere to go, which was refreshing, but also curious in turn. Had Cotton been scheming? If so, why was he not discussing it, or at least letting Balthazar in on it?

***

When he had made the decision to give up his heroic career, Cotton had burned every last costume, save one. He kept the first he had ever worn as the Eidolon, ostensibly for nostalgic reasons but also, he gradually realized, because he knew if he was ever going to wear this guise again, it would have to symbolize a new beginning, and he could think of no better way to do that than to wear the original garb of the Eidolon, which actually took slightly different form than the others. As the template, it looked a little bolder, even now, years after its creation by Matilda Grenier, friend of his mother in a previous life. The midnight blue that formed the base of the composition was not quite as dark as it would become, while the silver trimmings, from the half-crescent logo on the chest to the belt, visor, boots and gloves were thinner than they later turned out to be. He found he still liked it best, even though he had barely worn it originally, though he could never have explained why. Grenier, and her successors, had made modifications along the way, perhaps in response to work he had commissioned for a traveling stage show featuring a similar design for the lead character of the Begotten Fowl, whom Cotton had conceived as a way to deflect attention from the Eidolon’s own origins. The Fowl reflected a variation on his struggle to gain flight, as it were. Not surprisingly, he would later reflect, that flight became tragic by play’s end, with his Icarus repeating history in very much the same manner the original story had conceived, felled by his own hubris. What had he been trying to escape? His own father’s shadow. In Cotton’s case, his own.

Of course, William Tekamthi had not helped. It was Tekamthi who had given Cotton his copy of the Sidewinder’s memoir, which had so inspired him, both to make Traverse his home and to become a hero himself, as well as warn him of the risk he ran in doing so. At the time, Tekamthi was more engaged in his latter-days activities. On the day Cotton received his public adulation for rescuing Denny Hay, Tekamthi had approached him with the book, and told him to heed it wisely. He had emerged in the daylight, in front of all, had been an official participant in the ceremony, headlined with the mayor, whom Cotton had no memories of other than a photograph he for years kept in his back pocket, until it became too worn, so he threw it away without another thought. The assembly had loved Tekamthi then, still aware of who he was and what he had publicly accomplished. Then he withdrew himself and became forgotten. Even old men couldn’t recall him in later years, and it was exactly what he wanted.

Well, that was not going to be the Eidolon’s fate. Cotton had been thinking about it since Balthazar made him, and there had been so much to consider. He had so much to fear, so much more to lose, and he had all but decided against it when an old friend reappeared. Well, old friend wouldn’t be quite right, but he was at least an old acquaintance, if old were considered liberally enough. He called himself Dust now, but Cotton had mostly known him by reputation in the past, and when he finally met the man, everything fell apart around him, from Calypso’s murder to Dust’s own apparent death…and the assassination of Rodrigo Ramirez, the Cad. They were terrible times indeed, and a bad omen, but Cotton was open to discussion. Discussion just wasn’t what Dust had in mind, though.

He seemed to present Cotton with images for consideration, of past accomplishments as the Eidolon, some he remembered and others he had forgotten, and still more he could never have known about. It was then that he learned the fate of a boy he thought had died, on the day he killed Ramirez, which had had such influence on his actions and thoughts, had plagued him, the failure of it. He could never accept failure, and the Cad had been his greatest failure, when all along he had been telling himself that it would be his greatest achievement, because no one else had been concerned about him. He learned that there were, in fact, those who had been concerned about the boy who had become so entangled in Traverse’s gang culture, shot in crossfire the Eidolon had so desperately tried to disrupt. Besides the EMTs Cotton had not seen arrive to collect him, there was the concerned family, a widowed father and three sisters, all younger, who had given up on the boy, and each other, but who now came together to watch over his recovery, which carried on steadily. Cotton wept to learn this.

Dust, in fact, had nothing to say to Cotton, but he wanted to. Cotton could tell, and he could see that Dust was waiting, although for what Cotton could only guess, perhaps for Cotton himself to be ready. What did he need to do? The decision to resurrect the Eidolon was a pleasing one, a step in the right direction. Even before he had recovered the old costume, the glimmer of thought he’d given it was enough for Dust, who took it as all he needed, departing just as soon, as quickly, as he’d made his appearance.

Resurrecting the Eidolon. There was so much implication in it, so much conceit; Cotton had perhaps avoided it, rejected it for so long, because he really did fear himself, and he began to understand that he had taken on this role, in the beginning, for the same reason. He wasn’t saving others, but rather himself, directing a force he had found within himself that he could not understand, or accept. He became the Eidolon because he did not believed the Eidolon existed, and Rodrigo’s murder had finally convinced him, for a time, that he had been right all along. He really wasn’t a hero. There were no heroes, not really, just pretenders, poseurs. He had come to the conclusion that he had been part of the problem all along because he did not believe in good anymore. It was nothing more than a concept, and an abstract one at that. It was amazing the things one could convince oneself of.

But there was merit to the things he had learned since then, in his explorations, in his time off. He would adopt a new method, sparing himself the rod while he became the ram with greater efficiency than he had ever known before, and he had been a student of efficiency, or so he had always thought, had always told himself. He could no longer allow himself to make mistakes. If he accepted a new burden, it was to carry the memory of his failure with him, as a constant reminder of the path he needed to remain on.

He knew it was impossible, but he was willing to accept that, too, because he had finally found a measure of peace, borne of the peace that dead friends had left behind. Tekamthi had been his friend, whether Tekamthi realized it or not. Hopper’s death, in the way it played out, had validated the course their lives had taken, which was important, because it brought closure to what had ruptured Cotton’s life in the first place. Whereas Hopper had never lost his innocence, it seemed as if Cotton had never truly known his, and that was the greatest loss any individual could bear. Cotton almost hadn’t. He spent most of his life agonizing over it, wondering if it had ever been in his control, if it were ever in anyone’s.

Tekamthi’s life seemed to suggest it wasn’t. As the Dread Poet, he had dedicated the remaining years of his life to anonymity, the theory that good things did not need to be recognized to be understood, or appreciated, but rather that they merely be allowed to be what they were because that was all that truly mattered. In effect, it seemed to work better that way, because it negated the possibility of analysis, which was both mankind’s greatest gift and worst failing. Putting too much thought into anything, whether well-intentioned or otherwise, had an alienating effect, and mankind was not meant to be alone.

To recover the costume, he made his way to Cumberland Cemetery, located in one of the older districts in the city. Most of those buried there had been so for a long time. The recently added needed special claim. Cotton had made a burial plot he thought filled such a need, in the memory of Odin Roy, digging the hole himself and leaving the costume within, filling the dirt again so that no one would have noticed the ground had been disturbed. It was only a grave of sorts, and had no tombstone. He supposed there might have been a possibility that someone might have eventually used the site for a more official ceremony, but it was a slight one and he had been willing to take the chance. Perhaps he had always risked too much. This time, however, the risk paid off.

He noticed that not so far away from his unmarked plot lay the final resting place of Aubrey Oldenburgh, someone who had once shown him kindness. He had nothing to leave for her except his vow to become the man she had always believed he was. Others had already left flowers, and a card. Cotton wondered if he should read it, if he owed her that, too. He no longer knew what he owed the world, but he knew he owed it something, and the Eidolon would be, would continue to be, the method of his repayment. Maybe not everyone had a debt, maybe no one did, but he had chosen to assume his, long ago, and that choice had bound him to itself. He no longer had a choice. This was his consequence, and he would learn to deal with it; he had no other choice.

It was still early in the afternoon. He had time to retrieve his costume and refill the hole once more, and consider where he would make his transformation into the Eidolon. He had once had so many options. They were gone now, as was his past. This was a new beginning, and he was determined to make the most of it. He needed to choose wisely.

Chapter Twenty-Two - Tekamthi Gives Himself Back

2005-11-24T10:40:00.000-08:00

“I’m almost afraid to ask,” Balthazar said. “Where are we going?”

“You’re the one leading,” Tekamthi said. “You always have been.”

“I was afraid you’d say something like that,” Balthazar said.

“Such fear,” Tekamthi said.

“Such expressions,” Balthazar said.

“You must learn to say what you mean,” Tekamthi said. “Be honest with yourself. Be honest with others. It is what you must do.”

“So you’d told me already,” Balthazar said.

“Because you still haven’t learned,” Tekamthi said.

“Maybe it isn’t important to me,” Balthazar said. “Maybe it isn’t really all that important to anyone. It sounds like a pet peeve to me.”

“It sounds like a motto to me,” Tekamthi said. “Tell me, I wonder: What do you honestly achieve by doing things this way?”

“Not everything is about getting things done,” Balthazar said.

“Everything is,” Tekamthi said. “Everything is. You must understand this. Every action has a reaction, which I believe is basic physics. If you went to school you learned this. I know you went to school. You had middling grades, which did not reflect your intelligence, as I understand.”

“Well, grades don’t reflect intelligence,” Balthazar said. “They reflect grades.”

“Very wise,” Tekamthi said. “Yet they also display a lack of concentration.”

“You got me,” Balthazar said. “I could never concentrate in school. You have to understand why.”

“If you couldn’t concentrate in school,” Tekamthi said, “what hope did you have when you left it behind?”

“I think I’ve done okay for myself,” Balthazar said.

“Yet you find yourself in these dire straits,” Tekamthi said.

“Every action has a reaction,” Balthazar said. “I might have brought some of it on myself, but not all of it. Everyone has a hand in this war.”

“An excellent realization,” Tekamthi said.

“I never had a doubt,” Balthazar said. “If I were to go around assuming everything that happened to me was my own fault, I would be very sorry indeed. It would be assuming too much responsibility, for myself, and having too little faith in the rest of humanity’s ability to get their own things accomplished, for better and worse. There are too many forces to think otherwise. It’s not all my fault.”

“This is another thing that you must keep in mind,” Tekamthi said, “because you do not always appreciate it.”

“Yes I do,” Balthazar said. “I don’t have a problem with that.”

“You think you don’t,” Tekamthi said, “but there are many things you do not yet appreciate about yourself, but they will come to you in time.”

“I wish you didn’t mince words,” Balthazar said. “What exactly do you mean? What don’t I understand about myself? Why can’t you just tell me?”

“Because it would not be an accomplishment,” Tekamthi said. “You would not grow. You cannot have everything done for you. This is another thing you seem to understand, but not appreciate. Do you not consider yourself a self-made man?”

“However contradictory it may seem, yes,” Balthazar said, “but that doesn’t mean I can’t seek answers to questions I ask. I see nothing wrong with that. And I grow tired of cryptic men.”

“You grow tired of yourself,” Tekamthi said. “There is nothing so dangerous, I assure you. Once you stop seeking answers to your own questions, you lose everything.”

“Sometimes the search isn’t enough,” Balthazar said. “Sometimes you search and find nothing, and still lose everything. You make the effort, and you fail. It’s what sometimes happens. I can’t be blamed for that.”

“But you can be if you accept defeat for its own sake,” Tekamthi said. “You have thus far managed to outwit defeat, because you have been letting others guide you. How would you manage without anyone?”

“If you can’t depend on others, you’re lost,” Balthazar said.

“If you depend too much on others,” Tekamthi said, “you’re lost. It’s a very difficult rope to walk, isn’t it? Never knowing exactly if you’re doing things right, if you’re about to slip?”

“It’s what life is,” Balthazar said. “It’s what you deal with every day. Shit happens.”

“You can certainly put it so crudely,” Tekamthi said.

“All of this because you think I have to find my own answers,” Balthazar said.

“I don’t think,” Tekamthi said, “I know.”

“Well, no one knows anything,” Balthazar said. They only think they do.”

“Oh, you can know things,” Tekamthi said. “You just can’t fool yourself into thinking you know enough to stop learning, even about things you already know, especially about such things. Once you tell yourself that you can’t learn anything new, you will stagnant. You can imagine, with such a word associated, that it is not a good thing. Tell me, how well do you know yourself?”

“I think I know myself fairly well,” Balthazar said.

“Balthazar, I have known myself for far longer,” Tekamthi said. “I still do not know myself that well.”

“I think I understand myself,” Balthazar said.

“This is not about understanding,” Tekamthi said. “You understand nothing, accept nothing. This is about knowing. You do not know yourself.”

“You’re wrong,” Balthazar said. “You think you know a lot, but in this instance, you’re wrong. Whatever you’re trying to get at, you’re reaching at nothing.”

“Do not close your mind,” Tekamthi said. “Closed minds lead to suffering. This is the essential truth of that.”

“All right,” Balthazar said. “Help me understand. Tell me about yourself. Tell me how you do not understand yourself, what you do not still know, after so many years.”

“I can do that for you,” Tekamthi said. “You already know what I’ve dedicated my life to, and the various means by which I have accomplished it. What you don’t know is why I have done so. You had to have been curious? What kind of a man spends a lifetime on seemingly selfless pursuits? You should know better than most. Such devotion does not come from a pure place. Such devotion comes from pain. Pain itself always has this result, the creation of new resolve. Sometimes it’s for the better, sometimes for the worse.

“My pain can, in its general sense, be felt across this land, in the displaced nature of my people. We had been told that we were not wanted. You know what this did to your friend Hopper already. Imagine that on a grander scale. In my case, I chose to dedicate my life to ignoring the stigma, but the stigma itself still defined me. I could not escape it, not even in pretending that I could ignore it. I still fight it, in fact, tell myself that it’s imaginary, that the only power it possesses is the one I give it. That’s an illusion. The stigma is real, the great Diaspora, real, even if no one ever grieves it but those who were dispersed from their own land, not to any meaningful degree. It is a silent persecution, and even after all this time, we have no sympathy. We have suffered long enough so that we know we deserve it. Some sympathies are earned, Balthazar, because some injustices are profound, no matter if they are recognized or not. We did not ask for this, and yet we were given it, and had it demonstrated time and again that we had no other choice but to accept this defeat. It’s is our great sorrow, and it is a heavy burden.

“All burdens are meant to be cast aside, yet we still do not know how to do that. We still think we need help in doing so. We do not. I took it upon myself to begin the change. That was when I dedicated myself to bettering mankind itself. There is so much to do, and very little that can actually be accomplished. You must choose your approaches, Balthazar. That is the painstaking task I have been at my whole life. It is, in effect, another burden I have willingly taken upon myself, and that makes two I carry. You thought living your dual life was wearying. Try carrying the burden of humanity, twice-fold.

“But my motivations for such greed, and I cannot call it anything else, do not end at my history. Like you friend Hopper, like my people, I was orphaned at a young age, raised by a grandmother who did the best she could. Eventually I would argue that it was not good enough, but I had to learn to appreciate how much of that was her fault and how much of it was my own. I still do not know. She did the best she could, and hers was the first selfless example I came to appreciate. There were others, of course, people who helped me along the way, helping me pay for things when I did not have the money, for example, or who found sympathy for myself when I couldn’t, not when I was looking, mind you, but when I wasn’t. You never find what you’re looking for, Balthazar, until you look the other way. Truth has a way of bringing itself to you. You just have to realize it, accept it. You did not exactly look for me, did you, not to find me, correct?

“Of course not. You simply find me, because you did not know you were looking. That was what I eventually found I needed to do, when I’d gotten past the need to see immediate results. I would never have taken your challenge upon myself, Balthazar, if I expected immediate results, even ones I would ever hope to see for myself. Great things are accomplished in silence. You do not even know it when they happen, not the truly great things. You see what results from them, not the great things themselves. It is something you must learn to appreciate.

“Yet I still do not know myself. In the process of my early work, I took on the notions of many of my collaborators, little knowing at the time. I have frustrations I can’t begin to understand, why I cannot accept them for what they are, why I can’t deal with them more rationally, because I consider myself a rational being. I believe it is my responsibility to help others, but not to show them the way. I suppose in some regards it’s because I believe there is no single way, but I can also appreciate that my aid becomes cryptic, almost self-sabotage, because I am not willing to go as far as I seem to should. Yet I cannot impart anything more important than this, Balthazar: In all things, you most only be concerned with being aware. It does not matter if you understand everything, but rather that you should keep your mind open enough so that if you needed to, you could begin to understand what you needed to.

“There are so many battles to be fought, Balthazar. You must learn to choose which ones are yours and which ones you can allow others to fight for you. If you assume too much responsibility, you are lost, because you will eventually be forced to realize how overwhelmed you really are.

“I can tell you one thing, Balthazar, which you need to know: Do not be comfortable with what you think you presently are. It is an illusion. It does not matter if you do not understand. You must appreciate this advice. You believe you have nothing left to lose, but you are wrong. It will be when you lose everything that you gain everything back again, when you begin to appreciate what you lost to begin with.

“I have another revelation for you, Balthazar. All this time we have been talking, I have been dying, so it has been good that you have allowed me to talk. I am glad that you were wise enough for that. Lotus visited me, not long after you did. He offered me a choice, and I chose what he thought to be the wrong one. I refused to help him, and he decided to take from me my life. I have lived as long as I have, Balthazar, because I still thought I was needed. He showed me that I was wrong. He gave me a wonderful gift, Balthazar. You have no need to grieve. Traverse has no need to grieve. A man in the line of so many others will be gone soon. The world will not preclude it. That is what happens to all men. I leave behind nothing, Balthazar, I want nothing more. I have already received everything I needed. I am giving myself back.”

***

One more loss precious to him, one more loss amidst so many. Tekamthi believed he had more to lose? If that was true, he still could not fathom what it could be. What more could he afford to lose, what more was there?

***

Lincoln Mather, who alone discovered its secret, entered the shed. He stumbled in the dark for what seemed like hours, until he finally found himself. It would be some time before this discovery would mean something to him, but the discovery alone was the greatest breakthrough of his life. It would change his life forever. He took off his red cap and set it aside, in the dark, emerged back from the shed, and went to see his father, who soon enough would die and facilitate his son’s journey.

Chapter Twenty-One - The Body of Hopper

2005-11-23T13:28:00.000-08:00

Tekamthi seemed to know before it even happened. He never rode the subway, never. It was one of the few things anyone who knew him could have told you. Yet Balthazar noticed him right away. With Hopper dead in his arms, Balthazar turned and saw William Tekamthi sitting there, with a look in his eyes that expressed the deepest sympathy imaginable. It was almost an apology.

As for the rest of him, Tekamthi was obviously agitated. He was shaking a nervous leg, a hand clumsily grasping it as if to make an attempt to stop it. The other hand sat on a hip, and Tekamthi sat not entirely on his seat, as if he did not want to be seated at all, and every jolt threatened to grant him his wish. Other passengers noticed him more than they did the dead man, which actually seemed appropriate. He projected gravitas, but the kind that was not self-important, and was thus all the more attractive. He was not a man who would easily be lost in a crowd, unless he wanted to be, a skill he had long ago perfected, but one he did not always bother with, because it was tedious, and Tekamthi was not a tedious man.

“We’re going to have to get that off this thing,” he said, to no disagreement. “When does it stop? That poor soul might be the only one who could tell us.” He was fast warming to the situation, compensating for his own defects and embracing the need that had brought him here, like a second skin. Now he clung to a pole as he inched closer, no longer seeming out of place but rather a native of this jet stream, like the man he was helping mourn. “Don’t let go.”

It seemed the best course to follow. If Balthazar did, Hopper’s death would become apparent even to those who would rather ignore this complication to their day at all costs, even going so far as to tell themselves outright lies they had no intention of actually believing, but rather for the convenience of it. It would have been easier for these people to overlook Hopper if Balthazar made an announcement and had the subway stopped prematurely, because they could have at least written the stunt off as a prank. No, if he let it slump, the body might contort unnaturally. What people most believed in were the strict confines of what they expected. However strange, then, that they found him cradling this body, it would have to continue, until the next stop. Balthazar would just have to bear this weight.

“I don’t envy you,” Tekamthi said. “It must be difficult, especially if you knew this man, even for a moment. It’s gone, isn’t it? Replaced by a perverse echo? He still projects calm, but now it’s the calm of release. He used project containment. They’re so close, yet so different, opposite forces, two sides of a coin. That’s what people fear most of all, about death. They fear what they will leave behind. Will they be remembered for the way they wanted to be, or the way they actually were? Will their absence be regretted, or simply mourned? Will their absence mean anything but absence? What will they have taken away from the world?

“It’s ironic. People spend their whole lives taking things from the world, when what matters in the end is exactly the opposite. You can never truly take anything, but you can give. The giving is the accomplishment of living. Our friend Hopper here gave everything. He kept nothing for himself. He gave us the idea that containment does not have to be negative, does not have to be selfish. It does not even have to be obvious. I’m guessing that you will find this release more troubling as the days advance, because it will mean that much more to you. You will realize how much he gave. We think of life as something we need to fill with accomplishments, but accomplishments are not ours alone. They belong to all of humanity. We alone pass them along from generation to generation, never to a single individual, and never from a single individual. We see men from time to time who happen to have made visible contributions, and call them our great men, but in the end, they did nothing that was so different from any other man. They were not so great. They just happened to win more attention.”

“You’re talking like Cotton Colinaude,” Balthazar said.

“And you’re talking again,” Tekamthi said. “And I see that you did find him. It was easier than you thought, wasn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Balthazar said.

“Of course you wouldn’t,” Tekamthi said. “Ah, Balthazar, you still have a good deal to learn, don’t you? Both about yourself, and the world around you.”

“I know myself,” Balthazar said.

“You certainly think you do,” Tekamthi said. “It’s really quite charming, you know. I applaud you. You are one of the most unique people I have known. That is no small fete. I have known many people in my time, many interesting people. Everyone is interesting, you know, if you take the time to find out. Perhaps I’ve just been blessed with an abundance of that, time, but I have never been misled by this assumption. You could get lost just exploring this notion. Everyone has a story, and it isn’t merely a one-note anthem, but rather something to be explored, and once you do, you will find that it does not resolve itself easily, in your mind. It lingers. We attach ourselves to family, naturally, but you could just as easily form such a bond, if you so chose, with any random person you met. Take that man, for example.”

Here Tekamthi indicated a rather tall man, well-built and dressed in jeans and a polo shirt, drumming his fingers against the window behind him, who did not seem at all aware of Hopper, or the conversation that had sprung around him.

“I wonder what your first assumption would be,” Tekamthi said.

“I would ignore him,” Balthazar said, “because he probably does not have anything of interest for me. Sports, aggression, and all that.”

“You yourself are involved in aggressive activities,” Tekamthi said. “I would not have assumed that from your appearance. In fact, I would assume that you were a relatively indescript office type, if it weren’t for your stubble and weary eyes, though the dead eyes themselves might lend credence to my initial assumption, assuming I did not read into that as well.

“At any rate, why dismiss him even at that?”

“Because I don’t relate to the type,” Balthazar said. “Because the type doesn’t relate to me.”

“Look closer, Balthazar,” Tekamthi said. “Tell me what you see in the way his raps his fingers.”

“I see impatience,” Balthazar said. “Again, nothing I would not have guessed.”

“Tell me what you see in his eyes,” Tekamthi said.

“I’m not going to do that,” Balthazar said.

“Why not?” Tekamthi said. “Are you embarrassed?”

“It’s just…awkward,” Balthazar said.

“You’re afraid,” Tekamthi said. “Tell me, do you have a theory for what he may be doing, where he may be going?”

“No,” Balthazar said.

“That would necessitate intimacy,” Tekamthi said. “Looking beyond the surface. You are not in the least interested to find out?”

“It probably has something to do with his abundance of testosterone,” Balthazar said. “Like I said, I’m just not interested in his type.”

“Which you are still assuming,” Tekamthi said. “Character traits do not create a character. They create character traits. You can define the traits, but not the character, with them. And then you realize you have nothing at all. You cannot tell me a single thing about him, not his past even?”

“That would be impossible,” Balthazar said.

“Every person carries a mark of their life in their appearance,” Tekamthi said. “Our parents gave us the clay. We molded that clay. You’ve already taken a superficial aspect of his appearance to heart. Do you observe anything else? You have never seen him before. Can you not tell me who he is? Can you not read anything into him? Why can’t you?”

“Because it’s impossible,” Balthazar said.

“Nothing is impossible,” Tekamthi said.

“Plenty is impossible,” Balthazar said.

“Within reason,” Tekamthi said.

“Exactly,” Balthazar said.

“And this is within reason,” Tekamthi said. “Try.”

“He’s wearing a polo,” Balthazar said. “I suppose that doesn’t quite fit into my, uh, stereotype. So points to you on that.”

“Dig deeper,” Tekamthi said. “Look into his eyes.”

“He’s wearing loafers,” Balthazar said. “Another point to you. I wouldn’t have guessed that, either.”

“Balthazar,” Tekamthi said.

“All right,” Balthazar said. “His eyes. His eyes. They’re…moist. My god, they’re moist. You knew this all along, didn’t you?”

“We don’t look for what we don’t want to,” Tekamthi said. “You will notice that he’s holding shades in his other hand. He’s not even trying to hide it, even though he could. Tell me how this fits into your stereotype. Tell me how you are not superficial.”

“I feel as I’ve violated him,” Balthazar said.

“You’ve violated yourself,” Tekamthi said. “Not all violations are evil. Some are revelations.”

“You won’t be able to sell that one very easily,” Balthazar said.

“No, I suppose I will not,” Tekamthi said. “But I have been able to distract you long enough. Our ride has ended.”

Balthazar almost didn’t believe him, but it was true. The subway had halted. The man they had been discussing was no longer there. Balthazar had stolen only a few glances at him, yet even those had seemed too many, Tekamthi’s prodding too much. But the old man had had a point, hadn’t he? Another lesson to learn, another one he had not realized was necessary.

They carried Hopper’s body through the terminal and out into daylight again. If anyone had noticed, Balthazar was not made aware of it. They continued on until they reached a resting spot in the park, which was virtually abandoned. Tekamthi suggested they leave Hopper on a bench, which at first Balthazar thought to dismay out of hand, until he thought about it. There was really no other choice. As unceremonious, as undignified as it would be, it was the best option. No one would have expected anything more from Hopper’s death. It was all they would have given him. There was no one to claim his body, not among all the souls he had touched on his journey, because he had given them what they needed and left it at that. He needed nothing for himself, and that was what struck Balthazar as why this would be appropriate. He appreciated Tekamthi’s wisdom, or whatever it amounted to. His experience, as Cotton would have deemed it.

He and Tekamthi left the park behind without another thought. There were still things they needed to do. Tekamthi had yet more to teach Balthazar.

Chapter Twenty - The Universal Motivation

2005-11-22T13:37:00.000-08:00

The fact that it was in the process of his first meeting with Hopper that Balthazar had lost his life did not escape him, yet strangely there was very little dread in repeating the excursion. It might have something to do with the fact that he could still not imagine losing anything else. He continued to travel with Colinaude, because he had little other choice, and on foot, and as he did so he noted that gas prices were now frozen just below the two dollar mark, as if to say it was now good enough, the oil companies had bent enough and should be expected to go any further. Was there really a need? Even if there were, it was no longer Balthazar’s concern, for too many reasons. Yet he found that he did not regret them as much as he thought he should.

“I don’t want to unsettle him,” he said.

“He doesn’t unsettle easily these days,” Cotton said. “Despite what made him what he is now, Hopper is as serene a man as you will ever find. Some would call it contradiction. I call it peace. He’s found peace, in his longing, he’s found a purpose.”

“Still, you can’t help wonder if it’s the best thing for him,” Balthazar said. “You want to talk to him about it. You want to know what he really thinks. It’s very easy to project your own conclusions. But what if the reality is not what it seems? What if we’ve built up a myth around him? But what if we destroy it, if we try to confirm it?”

“You risk everything when you do anything,” Cotton said. “That’s the nature of experience. Every new moment, every new thought brings you further from the moment, the thought that led you to where you already are. For some people, they can manage a remarkable amount of continuity, because their previous moments, their previous thoughts, have not been altered very radically in the process of time and experience. This is neither a good nor a bad thing, it’s simply a manner of experience. Others change all the time. But no one is completely static.

“Do you want to know what kind of boy Denny Hay was? To begin with, he grew up without a family. When I first encountered him, he had just been abandoned by his parents, left behind on the subway, a boy of eight, only just beginning to understand his world. The authorities tried to find the Hays, but they had disappeared, probably adopting new names for their new life, which they got away with, and got away from their burden. Denny was gifted artistically, but I doubt they ever knew, or cared. He didn’t care, eventually, either. He had a trust about him, from the moment I met him, even when he thought he was being led into danger; if he trusted the person that led him he would go right along, carrying his fears with him. He imparted trust too easily.

“Even when he began to see his world crumble around him, he did not lose this quality, even when he was committed. It was only when he emerged again, and searched for his parents himself, that he began to lose it, and take up his ride on the subway, his vigil for a life that he would never know again. I encountered Hopper one day, the trust was still in his eyes. I thought it also looked like recognition, but it wasn’t; that had always been there, too. He was born with the uncanny gift to recognize his fellow man. This gift eventually became his way to be useful again. He became a conveyer of information, one like so many others in Traverse but one set apart just the same. He doesn’t refuse anyone, but they have to find him first. It is almost a test of purity, because he still believes in that, too. In fact, it may be the only things he believes in. Those that find him must, invariably, possess it. You can imagine how unsettling it is for those who realize this. It forces them to believe in purity themselves. He doesn’t trust anyone anymore. He trusts purity. It’s up to us to believe in it.

“Some of us don’t have that in us. Some of us know we don’t.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say,” Balthazar said.

“There are terrible truths, Balthazar,” Cotton said. “Denial of a thing only deepens its control.”

“Belief in a lie does the same thing,” Balthazar said, “makes it stronger, more damaging. If Hopper believes in purity, I am inclined to believe in it, too.”

“Then you are as big a fool as he is,” Cotton said.

“I don’t understand you,” Balthazar said. “There’s such a huge divide between the way you talk and the apparent way you think. I don’t know whether you respect this friend of yours or not.”

“Let me settle it for you, then,” Cotton said. “I don’t. He’s found his peace in the wrong thing. He’s found it in a delusion.”

“So have you,” Balthazar said. “The only difference is, he’s not trying to push his delusion onto others.”

“Yet he still admit to falling under his spell,” Cotton said. “Tell me he doesn’t push it onto others. Tell me he has no influence.”

“You’re crazy,” Balthazar said.

“He’s one of those leaders of example,” Cotton said. “They can be forces for good, and otherwise.”

“I don’t think he sees it that way,” Balthazar said.

“It doesn’t matter!” Cotton said. “It doesn’t matter what his intention is. The reality of a thing is not always the same as the intention of it. Don’t you understand? Everything everyone does has consequences, every thought, every action, and it does not confine itself to any single individual. What we call great men are only those whose influence is immediately obvious, and we should be ashamed that those are the only ones we honor, even the so-called academics and scholars, who continue to consider the obvious even at the expense of what they claim to do, what they claim to represent, what they claim they themselves are. Well, we had had very few great thinkers. Too many have simply continued on where others have left off, rather than truly explore themselves, or what mankind has had to offer. To be thought of as a great thinker, one of your list of accomplishments is to have been well-read. That only makes you a healthy reader. Only so much can be achieved through mere synthesis of existing material.

“There is so much more in our potential, so much more than the connections that place names in history. For every name you could think of, there are ten more that no one has ever heard. So don’t tell me that Hopper has no influence, just because he does not broadcast it. We fail as a whole because we do not think as a whole. We think we have to rely on others.”

“You’re making Tekamthi’s case for him, you realize,” Balthazar said.

“I’m making my own case,” Cotton said. “No one understands what responsibility is, what it truly means. That is our greatest fault.”

“And yet you can’t do anything about it,” Balthazar said. “Can you?”

“No,” Cotton said. “I suppose you can’t. I wonder if there’s any use to knowing what humanity’s real problem is.”

“That’s what makes the notion of free will so wicked, I guess,” Balthazar said. “It’s the biggest catch-22 of them all. And because of it, you can’t fault Hopper for the life he’s chosen.”

“You can,” Cotton said. “Free will is the reason there’s civilization, to create order out of chaos. You force others to realize their responsibility. We are our own brother’s keepers. Don’t you understand? It is our own responsibility, responsibility for each other.”

“Whether they like it or not,” Balthazar said.

“And whether it tears us apart or not,” Cotton said.

“That’s your real problem, isn’t it?” Balthazar said. “You tried to assume too much responsibility, and found out too late how much it really was. And you’ve only been talking yourself out of since.”

“I have my own free will,” Cotton said. “I can walk away. I did walk away.”

“That’s the thing,” Balthazar said. “You didn’t. You only told yourself that you did. You tell yourself too many things.”

“I don’t know what else to do,” Cotton said.

“Maybe you don’t have to,” Balthazar said. “Maybe you just to have learn how to trust in humanity. You’ve laid out the case for that already. You’ve told me how to overcome my own fault. Why won’t you allow yourself to overcome yours?”

“Guilt,” Cotton said. “It’s the universal motivation.”

“Maybe so,” Balthazar said. Maybe we put too much stock in it. Maybe we ought to accept things for what they are, and stop pretending they’re not.”

“Sometimes it’s useful,” Cotton said. Neither seemed to have much more to say at the moment. They walked on all the same, as if it was the walking itself that motivated them, and not a particular destination, or purpose. They were exiles, in a way, cast out from their native land never having truly left it in spirit. They just had to find a way to reenter, and that was the real reason for their journey, a search for a new purpose. They had one already, but it was not what either really wanted. It was a way to pass the time. In a way, both had been on that search all their lives, and their lives had been spent articulating the search, so that in time they better understood it, better understood where they were headed, until when the time arrived they knew where they would end up. That was the mark of life, not to know what you were doing, but what would be the end result. That was when you died. The knowledge of this was the cause for much fear. It was the cause of murder, of unnatural death, of man staking his own claim on the fundamental conclusion to life, just not a life lived, for a life that was lived never truly ended. It merely added to the tapestry of life itself. And every life was lived. There was no way around it, no manner of control that could change it.

For the man who had decided to ignore time, every other illusion had fallen away. It no longer mattered what the realities of his past life had been, what others had believed they were accomplishing. Denny had accepted that his ride had come, and so he took it. His search for his parents was not a literal one, but rather his own sense of closure. He had found peace and moved on, because he lived in that peace, and through it found a lasting impact on humanity, one few others would have ever considered. When Balthazar came back to him, he did nothing but try and help him realize the same thing, but Balthazar was not ready. The thought of a man entered him, and he finally gave in to the peace entirely. He died in Balthazar’s presence, knowing this act would put this man on his own path, and was content with that. It was all he’d ever wanted, and had finally come to see that it had been granted.

***

In his new form, the man who now called himself Dust finally thought he was accomplishing things. Having lost his previous form, he found he’d lost old pretensions as well, but also realized he had use for those yet. He knew they would still be needed, if he could find a way to bring them back. It was in this thought that he found he had his greatest breakthrough to date.

Soon he would share some of them with others, when he was ready. Still, there was more to accomplish before then.

Chapter Nineteen - Ashlee Murdered

2005-11-21T12:28:00.000-08:00

“You could say that I’m in a bad spot right now,” Balthazar said.

“Okay,” Cotton said. “You’re in a bad spot right now. It sucks, doesn’t it?”

“More than you could imagine,” Balthazar said.

“I wouldn’t be that sure,” Cotton said. “I’m the one who killed a man, with my own hands. Believe me, I still haven’t gotten over it. Some people, they think they could, and they could fight in a trial still denying it, because denial is the only resource they have left. Well, it doesn’t matter what lawyers say, what a jury says, what the judge says, what witnesses say, what those interested in the victim might say. It doesn’t matter if no one ever finds out. It matters because you know, and you can’t kid yourself into believing you aren’t a murderer. Some people do it all the time. They kill insects, and it’s easy because they don’t identify with insects. They kill animals, because we eat animals and they figure someone has to do it, and it’s easy because they don’t identify with those particular animals. They might even have pets. They might even have hunting dogs, helping them kill other animals. But everyone knows people, everyone identifies with people. Maybe it’s easier when you have a psychological problem, because you stop identifying, but you still look exactly like the person you kill. It will haunt you the rest of your life. Killers are made. Every killer’s torment is not the victim but what made them a killer. At least that’s the only comfort they have.

“So go ahead and tell me that I don’t understand your pain. If a killer can’t identify with pain, they can’t identify with anything. They don’t identify with life. This is considering after they’ve killed, of course. It’s no small surprise that a lot of killers end up taking their own lives, because they now understand what pain is, better than anyone else. They understand that it takes something away from you, something that can never be replaced.”

“I’m not talking about your troubles, Cotton,” Balthazar said. “With all due respect, I have nothing. I have nothing, and that has nothing to do with your problems. I'm dead. Everything I hold dear is dead.”

“Not everything,” Cotton said. “Don’t you see? You’ve lost everything but yourself. It hurts, it hurts bad, but you can still feel it. You haven’t lost everything. You haven’t lost yourself.”

“I wish it were easy,” Balthazar said, “to find whatever delusion you’ve come into. You’ve lost it, that’s what you’ve done. You couldn’t deal with becoming a killer, like you were just describing. I don’t know what you’ve lost, but whatever it is, you need it back. You don’t know what the real world is anymore.”

“Stop lashing out,” Cotton said. “You can’t find yourself if you look to everything else for blame. You’ve made progress. Don’t quit now.”

“You just don’t understand!” Balthazar said. “I can’t quit now. I have nothing left to lose! I’m already gone!”

“You’re not,” Cotton said. “Don’t you see? You can’t give up. Didn’t you tell yourself you would never truly lose everything if you still had possession of yourself? What happened to all of those resources you prided yourself on? What happened to the self-made man who happened to have most of what he had given to him? What happened to the man who thought he could recover all of it on his own?”

“He died,” Balthazar said. “His wife died. His future died.”

“You let him die,” Cotton said, “and you’re surely dead.”

“I am dead!” Balthazar said. “I can’t lose anything more than my own life!”

“Yet you’re still here,” Cotton said.

“Well, I wish I could explain that, but I can’t,” Balthazar said.

“So you’re just going to quit,” Cotton said. “That’s not the Balthazar I know. Not the Balthazar you know.”

“That world out there doesn’t want me,” Balthazar said. “I can’t do anything. I’m powerless.”

“We’re all powerless, Balthazar,” Cotton said. “We’re all powerless, but some of us compensate. That’s how anything gets done, both the good and the bad. You’ve lived your whole life that way. Why change that now?”

“Because a crisis told me that I was wrong,” Balthazar said.

“You told yourself that,” Cotton said. “Every moment of your life is a crisis, yet you surmount it every time.”

“Well, I’m dead,” Balthazar said.

“You certainly think you are,” Cotton said. “But whoever told you that you needed your own body to live?”

“You’re insane,” Balthazar said.

“Maybe I am,” Cotton said. “There’s something to life, that we think we can label it even when we don’t really understand it. If it’s deadly, we call it bad. If it’s not, but it makes us different, we still call it bad. Because different is bad. Different is the unknown. We have always feared the unknown, simply because we don’t know it. But once we do, we don’t fear it anymore, at least not in the same way. You don’t recognize what you have right now as life, or even as Balthazar Romero, anymore? That’s just fine. Give yourself a new name, if it makes you happy. You’re no longer who you once thought you were. Make it obvious. It’s what you like best, right?”

“You’re not even trying to be rational anymore,” Balthazar said, “are you? Do you want me to think you‘re insane?”

“If it makes you more comfortable, sure,” Cotton said. “Barry? Ishtar? Mr. Eko? Pick a name, any name.”

“You’re really sick,” Balthazar said.

“Yet you have no place to go,” Cotton said. “The truth sucks, doesn’t it? You won’t pick a new name because you don’t like pseudonyms, do you? You don’t like things pretending to be something else? You don’t understand the concept. You want honesty, honesty you can never accept within yourself. You reject it because you reject yourself. I’ve been telling you this the whole time. You must accept yourself. You don’t accept reality because it’s too painful. I’m not the one who’s lost, Balthazar. I never have been. I’ve found my peace. That’s what lost things crave. They don’t even need to return to their familiar entrapments to find it. Don’t you understand? But I must caution you: do not assume that once you find your peace that you will have it forever. You will have to fight to preserve it. Life doesn’t have to be about survival, but survival is what defines life. We complicate it because that’s the only thing we know how to do. What you need to learn is how ease the complications you bring upon yourself. I can show you the way, if you’ll let me.”

Ashlee, or what was left of her, was in his arms. He sat on the floor in the house on Culver St, abandoned now for all intents and purposes. She had, remarkably, a glow about her, in death, the glow that should have accompanied her greatest desire, the one she seemed to have practiced for her whole life, the one that had been so attractive from the start. She had been full of life, but that life had been tainted. She had been forced to live with an unrelievable burden, and her unending labor was a life Balthazar had not allowed her to escape. He had had plans, but plans had not been good enough. Those plans would never be realized, and they were not the only dream to be snuffed out.

“She told me that she was involved already,” Balthazar said. “I didn’t want to believe it, didn’t want to accept it. I knew it was true, but…but I thought I was immune. I was a fool.”

“Even wise men do foolish things,” Cotton said.

“Well it doesn’t matter,” Balthazar said. “It doesn’t matter what wise men do. There are no wise men, are there? Only fools who think they’re wise, and find out too late that they were wrong. Too late for what? I don’t even know anymore.”

“Too late to do anything about it,” Cotton said, “because they thought they were immune. And because they were not truly wise. There’s no such thing as wisdom. Only experience. Some people have a better accounting of their experience than others.”

“Some people have experienced too much,” Balthazar said.

“There’s no such thing as too much experience,” Cotton said. “Some people are just…overwhelmed. They don’t know what to do with what they’ve learned. That’s why most people spend their lives trying to find a purpose. They need an outlet. And that’s why some people die miserable old deaths, because they’ve abandoned their purpose, because they don’t think they need it anymore.”

“You came very close to living out the rest of your life that way,” Balthazar said. “Didn’t you? You gave up after you became a murderer. You couldn’t forgive yourself.”

“I found a way to,” Cotton said.

“But you still abandoned yourself,” Balthazar said, “your calling. You gave up on the Eidolon.”

“I’m not the Eidolon,” Cotton said. “I’m Cotton Colinaude. The Eidolon was a mask I wore.”

“A mask you needed,” Balthazar said. “Isn’t that you were trying to tell me? That people need masks? It doesn’t change who they are; it helps them to see who they really are. There is no identity but the one you allow yourself.”

“Balthazar, Balthazar, Balthazar,” Cotton said. “Don’t ever again tell me that you don’t understand.”

“No,” Balthazar said. “I’ll tell you when I’m ready to accept. There’s a difference. And so much left to accomplish.”

“There’s too much out there,” Cotton said.

“Then we’ll take it a piece at a time,” Balthazar said. “That’s all anyone can do. Don’t become a pessimist on me now.”

“I’m a realist,” Cotton said.

“You’re whatever you think you are,” Balthazar said. “Isn’t that right? Well, I say forget about that. We can’t let that worry us. There’s still things to accomplish. We’ve wasted enough time.”

They left Culver St. behind once more, perhaps never to return. Ashlee was brought to a quiet place and laid to rest. No marker was left behind. None was needed. Her memory did not need it, and neither did Balthazar. He might not have found peace yet, but he was beginning to understand that peace was not possible. It was an illusion, rather, that some preferred to hide behind, because they’d rather believe that they had nothing left to do, and that was far from the truth. There was always something left to accomplish, even after death, even after everything seemed to have been lost. There was a war brewing, and that made the next courses of action clear enough. There were scores to settle, and the need to decide what the means would be, so that the outcome would be softer than the war had intended.

To accomplish this, Balthazar would need the closest approximation he could get to true wisdom, in the forms that were still available to him. He needed to return to the subway, for one last brush with the divine, to get started. He needed reassurance.

Chapter Eighteen - Humbert Savings

2005-11-20T12:25:00.000-08:00

Humbert Savings had something of a baroque design to it, which was out of character with the rest of Traverse, which had been designed for mostly functional reasons, leaving the art to complement the work that was needed rather than to accommodate the art. It left many citizens wearied, made life a little harder to appreciate, and they could never quite say why. Of all the buildings in the city, Humbert most defined it, because it stood out. Like so many other such touchstones, its anomalous status made it the recognizable heart, the most easily identified aspect of Traverse. It gave the city its very identity. Designed in the late nineteenth century by Phillip Hillier, an architect of otherwise obscurity, it had not been erected to general acclaim, and in fact took over a decade to construct because of the continued protests of disgruntled men, some of whom had an obvious vested interest, to avoid losing their own building's status, and others who had only pride to lose, because they'd never thought of it. There were delays of every kind, and even Mother Nature became involved a few times. Mysterious accidents that continually plagued the workers were not so natural. Hillier himself would have abandoned the project if not for the support of William Tekamthi, though no one knew that at the time. It might have been Tekamthi's first gift to the city, and perhaps his greatest, and most facile.

Cotton and Balthazar stood before it, taken in by its obscure grandeur. Balthazar had seen Humbert so many times that seeing it again through Cotton's eyes was a revelation. It was an irony that such a day would finally allow him this, although he could remember a time, long ago, when he'd appreciated it for what it was and not what was held within. He wished he could have said that time was innocent, but he'd never been innocent, not under Boy Benjamin.

"She's up there," Balthazar said. In truth, it was not even the size of the building, the number of floors that gave it that glow. There were only a handful of them.

"You can do this?" Cotton asked.

"Yes," Balthazar said.

Both continued their vigil, as if they had approached a shrine. "Earlier you said that there was treasure everywhere," Cotton said.

"It's a magical world, Cotton," Balthazar said. "Don't you get that from this place? It's a magical world. We're here to explore it. Yes, there's danger, but there's danger to everything. We can't be afraid of that. If my life has proven anything to me, it's that we can't be afraid of it. Maybe I've made mistakes, maybe I've been too comfortable, but I can't deny what I've gained. I think only a fool does that."

"You don't need teachers," Cotton said. "You need peers."

"I have to go," Balthazar said. "Don't I?"

"We're all going somewhere," Cotton said. "You've been blessed to know where you are. Yes. You have to go."

Hillier died in the early twentieth century, having already been an old man when he conceived Humbert Savings, a crowning accomplishment in a forgotten career. Humbert had been a dear friend, a champion of the city in an earlier lifetime. That his memory would live on, in some way, had always been a comfort for Hillier, who did no care for such a thing for himself, though of course he received it. Such was the way it usually happened. In his later years, Hillier became a recluse, embittered by the coldness of the world. He thought he would find warmth. Instead, he wasted away. Humbert Savings was his last design, his last work. He spent his remaining time reading his friend's memoir, and never composed one of his own.

Balthazar and Cotton entered the building, saw the busy throngs accessing their funds in their various ways, absorbed in their own daily concerns. Balthazar noticed, with regret, that he would not have to seek out Amelia Delphi. She presently stood chatting with a client in the lobby, her professional attitude stinging his perspective. How could she be so calm, so ordinary?

"I expected a struggle," he said.

"People expect many things," Cotton said, "just not what usually happens. The truth is too ordinary to imagine. We crave excitement. I've been here before myself. When I was very young. I think my father wanted to exchange some Canadian bills, which I didn't understand at the time. I saved what I could. He never knew. The craftsmanship impressed me then, too."

"I collect coins, too," Balthazar said.

"Yeah, I do that, too," Cotton said.

"Oh," Balthazar said. "I thought you meant..."

"Yeah, we like to read into things," Cotton said. "I think she's about done."

"I was afraid of that," Balthazar said. "And before you say anything, it's just an expression. I can do this."

Still, he took his time doing so. Delphi finished her farewell with the client and was about to turn around, likely to return to her office, when Balthazar finally made up his mind.

"You seem different," she said, noticing him.

"Oh? Oh," Balthazar said. "No, not different.

"Nothing very different here," Cotton said.

"Still," Delphi said. "Well, I suppose we should talk, right?"

"That would probably be a good thing," Balthazar said.

"Let's do that," Cotton said.

"In my office," Delphi said.

"Sure," Balthazar said.

"Why not," Cotton said. So they made their way. The elevator ride was held in silence.

When they arrived, it became clear that Delphi had been waiting to speak. "Roy says hello. He wonders why you haven't called him recently. It's not like you. Roy's hurt. Did you do it on purpose?"

"I was a little busy," Balthazar said.

"Routine shouldn't become a routine," Cotton said.

"That's a funny thing to say," Delphi said. They entered her office, which looked a little more sparse than usual. It might have been Balthazar's frame of mind. "So what brings you here? How did your meeting with the Dread Poet go? Did you find Colinaude?"

"That's a funny thing to say," Balthazar said.

"I'm right here," Cotton said.

"Right, so there you are," Delphi said. Some of her friends called her Sarah. "Like I said, you seem different."

"I've gone through a lot in the past few days," Balthazar said.

"If you don't mind my saying, you seem different, too," Cotton said. "Tell me I'm not imagining it."

"You've found out," Delphi said. "You came here to confront me. What do you think I've done?"

Hillier left behind no pupils, no grieving partners, even ones he might have split from in earlier days. Certainly he had worked with others, in consultation and cooperative efforts, but he had never found someone he would have considered equal enough to his self-assumed genius, unless you counted Tekamthi, but Tekamthi had other interests, and no particular leaning toward architecture in the structural sense as a career. Hillier had believed Tekamthi could have made a splendid one if he’d so chosen, and that he hadn’t was a regret. Lord knew that Hillier had tried to persuade him, so many times. It had almost become a second career. A far more difficult one. Instead, he’d left no heir, and very few reminders of his work. The Humbert lasted, but his name did not. In fact, Humbert himself seemed to have more lasting impact, both from that memoir and his never-ending fame as the hero known as Sidewinder, which the memoir detailed his retirement from. If Hillier had another regret, it was that the Sidewinder’s full story, of which he had played no small part, would never be told. His problem had a name and it was Ego.

***

Delphi sat in her seat, content with her day’s accomplishments. A few hours ago, she had been revisited with ghosts she would rather have forgotten. She had no desire to think about them, so consequently it was all she could do. And they were ghosts, too, ghosts from the past, and present as well. She had no reason to be proud of the things she had done, but she had done them to secure her future, when nothing seemed wrong and everything appeared to be within her grasp. Yes, she was young, but she had dropped out of school too soon, and had been forced to grow up quickly in compensation. At the time it seemed like the right thing to do. Then she learned what kind of life, what kind of compromises she would have to face from that decision. If only she had seen them as compromises at the start. Well, she was no longer so naïve. Instead, she had found her confidence. She was no longer afraid to admit and own up to her failings, because they no longer frightened her.

When she had been first approached by him, Delphi had been taken in by the eyes, captivating, mesmerizing. She didn’t need to know what he said to her, or what she agreed to do for him, but rather that he wanted her. No, that he needed her. It was a silly thing, like he made her feel innocent again, and she liked it, craved its pretense, needed it. When Calypso had first enlisted her, Delphi was thrilled just to learn she could be useful in the greater world. When it dawned on her, the true nature of what she had been doing, she quit, and not by coincidence, so did Calypso. They both went straight, only Calypso gave up the game entirely, at least for a while. Then she took it up again and died, as a hero, doing the right thing. Delphi had tried that, she really had, and for a while it seemed like the perfect fit, at last. Then Lotus arrived. Everything she thought she understood about her life, all of it, melted away. She had a relapse. Then she began to think about it.

She was a conduit of information, as she had always been. That’s all she did for Lotus, all a lot of people did in this city, where information traveled more fleetly than lives, more easily, more usefully. She never helped anyone plan anything, at least not directly. She’d preferred not to think about the harm, or good, for that matter, this information would create. Then she was confronted with a single ramification. She had told Lotus where to find Ashlee Solomon Romero. Even Ashlee’s sister Bessie hadn’t known where she lived. Delphi should have taken that as a hint. She should have taken her friendship, partnership with Balthazar Romero as a counterargument for accepting this assignment. But Balthazar was dead. What harm could it have been? What harm could Lotus have brought to this home? What might his motivation be? There couldn’t have been one.

Of course there was. And of course every other piece of information she had given Lotus had resulted the same way, and it mattered, all of it, mattered even if she’d never known any of the people who would die because of her. Delphi was a killer.

***

By the time they reached Culver St, it was already clear that Balthazar’s greatest fear had been realized. It was as if the killer had left his mark everywhere. His wife was dead. He had no money. He was dead. His life was ruined. Everything he thought to lose, and more. What more could possibly happen? What more could he possibly have to lose?

Chapter Seventeen - Balthazar's New Resolve

2005-11-19T13:32:00.000-08:00

Now they traveled in silence. For all the talk that had gone on between them, Cotton Colinaude and Balthazar Romero appeared to have nothing left to say. Cotton, of course, still felt he did, but he knew that Balthazar was not ready for it. He was beginning to realize what kind of life he'd lived, and he didn't like it. So they continued, on foot, through Traverse, not sure where they were going, but rather intent and content to simply go, because that was what one did in Traverse.

The sun was pounding again. They had passed the night in a motel, with only one bed. There was no restlessness to keep them awake. Cotton turned on the television set and ignored the static, because he did not really intend to watch. It was one of those perfunctory actions, going through the motions because there was little will for anything else. The life had been sucked out from both of them, not just Balthazar. Cotton awoke to more static, and didn't give any thought as he got up and shut the set off again. They paid their bill and continued their journey to nowhere. The desk clerk seemed to think Cotton had paid too much, but he shrugged it off. Money was not a concern.

But it soon would be. Balthazar wanted to withdraw some funds to finance this sojourn of theirs, but when he tried to, the ATM told him that there was nothing in his account. That was ridiculous. Of course there was. He was fiscally responsible, for one thing, and should have had plenty even if he weren't. A whole lifetime had ensured that, both Boy Benjamin and his own initiative. They made their way to Humbert Savings, which was at least an hour away. Neither man held any dismay over this fact, but Balthazar still held court with nervous chatter, which seemed to indicate otherwise. If Cotton hadn't known him, he would have assumed what seemed obvious.

"No funds," Balthazar said. "What a funny thing for a machine to say. You'd think it would be more helpful. Why can't it just tell me why? I mean, I know the obvious reason, but why can't it tell me how it got that way? It's ridiculous. You'd think they'd be able to do that, right? You'd think that someone would try and improve the model. But then it would be like one of those sci-fi movies. No one predicts good things in those movies. The machines always go haywire. You have to wonder. Is it an underlying pessimism, or underestimation? Do people really think there's a technological glass ceiling, one we're really that close to? We're about as far as we can go, and any further is only going to create problems, rather than solve them? It's a terrible thought. Shouldn't the future be about optimism? Then again, what is drama but nihilism, the theory that any subject worth talking about or seeing is directly related to chaos, destruction...death? All the happy moments are sap, right? Who feels good watching that sort of thing, if it's not computer animated? We're told we shouldn't, that we're somehow underdeveloped if we can. But all that leaves is the pessimism. Anything else in between isn't sold as worthwhile. It can't be dramatic enough or funny enough or poignant enough. It's got to be obvious. Well, ATMs should obviously be more useful."

"You can think deeply, then," Cotton said.

"Shuttup," Balthazar said. "I mean, seriously, when did nuance go out the window? When it was perceived as taking itself too seriously? I'm tired of people pretending they stand for it, too. Pretending does no good for no one. Of course, I guess I was a great pretender myself."

"You at least realized it," Cotton said.

"Not until I had it pointed out to me," Balthazar said. "It's too late. I'm dead. I don't even know why I need money anymore."

"You didn't need someone to point it out to you," Cotton said. "You knew already. You just had to accept it. And it's never too late. There's still a point to everything. You're still here, aren't you?"

"Improbably," Balthazar said. "Inexplicably, sure. I can't explain it."

"You don't need to try," Cotton said. "You're here and that's what matters. Go with that."

"Oh, I'm going, all right," Balthazar said. "Delphi has a lot of explaining to do."

"I'm sorry," Cotton said. "Who?"

"Delphi," Balthazar said. "Amelia Delphi; she's an underground connection, works at Humbert, two jobs."

"I know who she is," Cotton said. "Who she was. She used to run with the late Calypso, in Calypso's worse days. I think I know why you've lost your money."

"It might still be a mistake," Balthazar said. "It might still turn out to be a computer glitch."

"Keep telling yourself that," Cotton said. "I'm telling you, Delphi is bad news."

"I worked with her for years, never had a problem," Balthazar said.

"Says the man whose pet lion finally took a swat at him," Cotton said. "Lost his face. That's all."

"You're making me more nervous," Balthazar said.

"No, I'm motivating you," Cotton said. "You've now got to decide how you're going to handle this."

"What are you talking about?" Balthazar said. "I've got my gameplan already. I'm going to walk in there and have a little chat with my friend."

"That's usually your cue to violence," Cotton noted. "You need to think this through. If you're wrong, and I'm right, you're walking into a trap. It doesn't matter what kind of trap, but you know. Don't walk into their hands."

"I'm already dead," Balthazar said. "What else can they do?"

"They can hurt me," Cotton said. "They can hurt Ashlee."

"My god," Balthazar said. "What if they already have? I have no other choice."

"You have every choice," Cotton said. "You don't have to go to Humbert Savings. You do not have to check on your account."

"I have no choices," Balthazar said. "I have been targeted. If I've been targeted, so has my wife. I have to go to Humbert."

"Go home," Cotton said.

"I can't," Balthazar said. "I can't start there. If what you say about Delphi is true, I have to find out for myself. But it can't be. It can't. I trust her."

"Trust is a terrible thing," Cotton said. "It misleads you."

"I can't believe you," Balthazar said. "How can you say that? How can you tell me that I can't trust anything?"

"I can tell you because nothing is absolute," Cotton said. "I've already tried to explain that to you. Everything changes. If I am right about Delphi, how many more examples do you need?"

"If you're right about Delphi," Balthazar said, "you will only have proven an exception to a rule. That's all there is, Cotton. I can't believe you. I have to go to Humbert."

"It's too dangerous," Cotton said.

"There's danger everywhere," Balthazar said. "There's treasure everywhere, and there's danger to every treasure. Why would you tell me that I can't accept that danger?"

"I try to caution you," Cotton said. "There needs to be caution in every decision you make. You need to think about every action."

"Thinking about Delphi won't prove whether or not she's what you say she is," Balthazar said.

"And finding out won't tell you about Ashlee," Cotton said.

"Don't you speak her name," Balthazar said. "You don't know her. You think you know me, and maybe you do, but you don't know Ashlee. Don't pretend like you do. I have only so much patience for you."

"Because you have only so much patience for yourself," Cotton said.

"I've had enough of that," Balthazar said.

"No you haven't," Cotton said.

"Don't tell me what I need!" Balthazar shouted.

"You won't even consider it," Cotton said. "You'll do this for your wife, is that right?"

"Everything I have ever done," Balthazar said.

"I admire you," Cotton said.

Chapter Sixteen - The Gospel According to Benjamin

2005-11-18T12:10:00.000-08:00

Boy Benjamin enjoyed the company of his private gospel choir, usually affiliated with St. Macdalena's but more familiar in this capacity, because he often tasked them to entertain his lonely hours. Presently they performed "Idumea" for him, and all he could do was lose himself in its haunting beauty. The singers were more than up to the task. He had learned this quite unexpectedly, for he was not at all a religious man, but had once been brought to church by his godson, where he found this choir. He knew right away that he needed them. Nothing had ever affected him in quite this way, nothing soothed him quite so deeply. When he listened to them, and especially this song, it was as if there was nothing left for him to worry about.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. This empire he was forging, it had not been a dream of his, but rather something he had inherited, reluctantly, from his uncle, who had seen the effect Benjamin had on people and thought to use it to his advantage. When the older man passed away, Benjamin took over, but his real interest was in trying to discover what had taken his beloved Daniel Russ away. It had not been natural. No one talked about it, but it was evident enough. Someone had murdered his uncle, and everything he had done since was meant to discover who. He never could. For all he knew, those responsible were long gone, but by now he had little other choice in the matter but to continue, both his search and empire building. He owed both to Daniel, whom he imagined would have enjoyed this choir just as enthusiastically. But he wouldn't know. His uncle had always been a personal mystery to him, when he wasn't to anyone else. In time, Benjamin convinced himself that it was because they were so much alike.

In the song he could identify that path his life had taken, both the ease of it and the violence, which he had long ago accepted as a necessity. There was just no way around it. He had become a brutal man, and he didn't mind. Things happened. If he had to be the man who made them happen, so be it. Too many people fooled themselves into thinking they had control of their lives. Benjamin knew he didn't have control, either, at least not all of it, but he had some, so he used it. It's what anyone would have done. There was a greater picture to what he hoped to accomplish, with this power, and not just the search for his uncle's killer. He didn't want to create a new order, because he didn't think it was possible, but he did want as much influence on the order as possible. That's all anyone ever wanted, influence. He was just doing what anyone else would have done. What he did with his influence was made sure things got done. He hated that things could ever be left any other way. He loathed incompetence, and that's all he saw, everywhere he looked.

The choir finished "Idumea," and he contemplated having them sing it again, but he could see in the lead singer's eye that their patience was thin enough. He knew not to push. He asked this song of them too much already, and even if they never wavered in their rendition, they might one day decide to quit him all the same. Not one member of the choir had left, in the five years they'd been performing for him. He suspected it was out of fear, but he never intended them harm. Although he appreciated the respect this indicated. They respected him, out of fear, which was good enough. With a nod, he let Bernard Rose know that the choir could go, but as always, Bernard remained.

"You are as ravenous as always," he said.

"And you are as rapturous as always, Bernard," Benjamin said. "Bravo, etc."

"So I trust you approved," Bernard said, obviously feeling awkward in his robe.

"Make yourself at home," Benjamin said. "How often do you have to come here before you can do that?"

As he removed his robe, revealing a neatly pressed suit beneath it, Bernard remained silent, perhaps considering his response. "You have always been very generous," he finally said.

"I'm not talking about your pension," Benjamin said.

"Neither was I," Bernard said.

"Well, that was awkward," Benjamin said, pulling out a cigar, and then thinking about it, reached for a second.

"I don't smoke," Bernard said.

"Nobody does anymore," Benjamin said, lighting up but leaving the second cigar on his study table, beside the recliner he sat in. Bernard still stood, and held his robe draped over an arm, aware now of all the space in the parlor his choir had previously occupied. It was quite baron.

"I suppose so," he said.

"Well, it's a bunch of hogwash," Benjamin bellowed, his voicing filling the room. His expression turned apologetic. "But that's what people do. They make up their own minds, I suppose. You probably want a chair. Or better still, let's relocate. We should probably do that, unless you want to get going, that is."

"No, no, I can stay a while," Bernard said.

"Good! Good," Benjamin said as he directed them both to a much more comfortable setting, the kitchen, at least one of them, the smallest one. Somehow his cigar was lost along the way, and Bernard could not say when that had happened. It had been a longer journey than he'd expected, and he'd gotten distracted. There were many things to see, but only one portrait. The man within looked nothing like Benjamin. Bernard wondered who it might be, but he wasn't going to ask. He'd never seen the rest of the mansion before, or at least any other room than the entertaining parlor. He wonder why today was different, but he wasn't going to enquire after that, either.

"Tea, maybe?" Benjamin asked, breaking Bernard's revery.

"Yeah, sure," he said.

"Could you turn on the burner?" Benjamin said.

Benjamin found the stove in this kitchen to be something of an antique. He wondered if it would be safe to use, and if his host had any idea if it was, but did not want to say anything. He turned a knob, hopefully, and announced, "Ready for a pot."

"Good," Benjamin said. He was busy locating a box of tea, opening it, and withdrawing a couple of bags. It was the picture of domestication, yet there was something eerie about it, as if it wasn't practiced often. The box was still sealed for a reason. "I'm glad you feel at home. Can you believe that people are actually afraid of me, even intimidated? I don't really understand that."

Bernard watched as his host continue to fumble through the motions, unaware, perhaps, that he was being watched so closely, or perhaps very much so. "You have a nice house," he said.

"It will certainly make due," Benjamin said. "At least until I can afford something nice."

Bernard couldn't help but laugh. The charm was real.

"It's an old joke," Benjamin said. "I appreciate your laughing at it."

"I laugh at funny things," Bernard said. "Let me help you with that."

Benjamin did not look like he immediately appreciated it, but he stepped back and let Bernard reach for the kettle for him. It had been a strain. When did that become a strain? His hair had fallen out of place. He struggled to right it before Bernard noticed.

"Thank you," he said as his guest filled the kettle with water and placed it on the burner.

"It was my pleasure," Bernard said, betraying nothing. Of course he'd noticed.

"Would you like anything else?" Benjamin asked, opening other cupboards, not knowing what he was looking for, but expecting such a search would inspire confidence all the same. "If you want caviar, I could get you that, too."

"No, that's okay, really," Bernard insisted. "I don't need anything else. The tea is fine. I usually drink it alone anyway."

"Okay," Benjamin said. He knew then that Bernard was not going to leave his mansion alive. It made things easier. He was no longer nervous. "Tea by itself. You know, I could regale you with my knowledge of tea leaves right now. It would make for a fascinating afternoon, but I have the feeling you don't want that either. We're going to boil this water and then you can have your tea, and then you can go."

"I've made you uncomfortable," Bernard realized. He usually drank his tea with his morning bagel, poppy, and the tea yin zhen.

"Oh, no," Benjamin protested. "Not at all. I just have a lot on my mind. I'm a busy man, that's all. I was mistaken. I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable. But you haven't made me feel uncomfortable. Don't be absurd!"

The water continued to boil, and when it was ready, everything went as Benjamin had outlined, until the end. Bernard should have paid more attention to his cup. But fine details seemed to escape too many people. It was distressing, more than anything else, and disappointing. So much work for him to do, Benjamin concluded. That's all it meant, just more for him to do. He had his influence, and his interests, and most of the time they helpfully dove-tailed. If any of the choir asked about Bernard, he would say that Bernard had decided to take another position within the empire. They already knew who Benjamin was. They would accept this, and they would continue to come, continue to sing "Idumea" for him. What other choice did they have? None, that he could see. But then, he only saw what he wanted to, or what he imagined. And he could imagine quite a lot. He could imagine a giant web being woven around him. He needed to take out the shears.

Chapter Fifteen - Lincoln Mather

2005-11-18T12:07:00.000-08:00

Gas prices were now holding under two dollars, Cotton, on foot, observed. He couldn't remember when they'd been there last. But he could remember what he father would have said. At $1.99 and the ninety-nine half-pennies, it would have still meant two for him. Cotton prefered optimism. The half-pennies did not, in the end, add up enough. Maybe if he did the math they would, but they were still half-pennies. Still, he'd seen a couple of films, one about a hero and one about office politics, both comedic, where all those half-pennies had in fact added up, significantly. Maybe he should care. But he didn't. The price was $1.99. Not that it mattered to him. He and Balthazar did not have a car. Traverse was condusive to this, however, this alternate, if unpopular, form of transportation. The only people who walked were those who had to. It had been this way for a long time. No one actually wanted to. They could expend their energies training for a marathon, but they couldn't be bothered to take the time to walk. It was just a waste of time. Just not for Cotton.

"I think I'm getting used to this," Balthazar said, "walking. I would call it therapeutic."

"Which is good," Cotton said. "You need the slower pace, the time to think, I'd say. No offense, of course."

"None taken," Balthazar said. "I've been so charged, so busy, so distracted, it would never have occurred to me. The time to think, mind you, not the walking. It can't be too good, though, to think all the time."

"It is and it isn't," Cotton said. "It's good for you, probably not so good for others. They can't keep up, which is the paradox of it. You're moving slower and they can't keep up. Of course, they think it's your problem, that you're the one who can't keep up. But that's the way it always is. The advantage is always in the eye of the beholder, where it rests with a toxic blend of pride and prejudice. Which, byt the way, is a good read."

"And a popular story for film, too," Balthazar said. "They just made a new one. The soccor girl stars in it."

"Who? Oh, you mean the pirate girl," Cotton said. "Lincoln Mather enjoyed her as the warrior Guinevere. I've heard him talk about it."

"Now it's my turn," Balthazar said. "Who?"

"Random Red," Cotton said. "The boy we're on our way to see. You'll understand that there's good reason to. He's been trying to tell you about me for months. If you'd listened, you might have saved yourself some trouble."

"I'm always getting myself into trouble," Balthazar said.

"Which is unfortunate," Cotton said. "I suppose you could say that my new philosophy is that you shouldn't create unnecessary messes. They're a waste of time. If you can take the care to do something right the first time, why do anything else? Because most people could care less. They don't understand that there are consequences, every time they ignore their responsibility. It's not enough to say you'll clean up that mess later, or expect someone else to do it for you."

"Aren't you doing that yourself?" Balthazar said. "Letting others clean up your messes? You've as much as said so."

"To a certain extent," Cotton said. "Like I said, you have to put thought into your actions, so you don't waste time, create unnecessary consequences. Some things take time. More people should learn that. You don't always have to do everything right away, unless you really have to, unless failing to act leads to suffering that cannot be contained for another, more suitable day. My enemy, he waits for me, and he does not wait idlely. I have to understand that, have to accept that."

"It seems to me that you don't," Balthazar said, "that you would only do that because you're afraid."

"Maybe that's how it seems," Cotton said, "and maybe that's how it is. But I don't want to get it wrong again."

"You're only giving him more time to prepare," Balthazar said. "And aiding him. Every moment you spend thinking that you're going to fail, if you 'don't get it right' again, you're letting him win."

"Terrible, I know," Cotton said. "I have to be ready. It's the only way. Events are unfolding that are only going to help me. You know what I'm talking about."

"The coming war," Balthazar said. "But he's above that."

"No one is," Cotton said, "and no one understands that. You didn't. It's the one factor that guarantees the ending will be in my favor."

"This Mather kid," Balthazar said, "why are you indebted to him? Why would he have been trying to bring me to you?"

"I used him," Cotton said. "He was a pawn in the endgame, the one that ended the career of the Eidolon."

"The ongoing career," Balthazar suggested.

"That's still to be seen," Cotton said. "I've broken my commitment to the Eidolon. I no longer believe in him."

"This kid believes in you," Balthazar said.

"So it seems," Cotton said.

"You shouldn't think of it like that," Balthazar said. "With regret. You did the kid a favor, right?"

"No, I didn't," Cotton said. "I thought I was, at the time, but I hurt him. I don't know how much. He hasn't dealt with it very well, and the worst is yet to come, but meeting him will be beneficial, for you, I think."

"I don't really follow you," Balthazar said.

"You will," Cotton said, and so he did. They continued on, as if Balthazar's journey through the passageway to Tekamthi's bunker had never ended, his search for his car, still happening, his ride with Hopper, infinite. Cotton said he could use the time to think, and he was doing just that. Was he really dead? He couldn't tell; he couldn't find any difference in his perception of the world, or himself. It was as if nothing at all had changed, and that disturbed him. There was a brief moment for which he had no memory, in between the time Lotus...killed him, and Cotton's arrival. There had been someone else, or at least some thing else present, like a facilitator, and some of that still lingered. He could feel another life, a fragment of it, within him, and it was filled with pathos, a deeper regret than the one Cotton expressed, or at least admitted to. He could see that these regrets were alike, and understand what they had to do with what Cotton had tried to explain about his new mission.

But he couldn't bring himself to accept Cotton's preaching. It was too much. How could all that be true? They descended deep into the heart of the urban slums, where you only lived if you had to. The life that resulted there reflected that, grim forebearance, and worse. Balthazar began to understand this Mather character immediately. He wanted to tell Cotton to go no further. Mather was an example of the kind of life he had never known, and had never wanted to know, because he had never understood it, not really. He couldn't fathom why someone would allow themselves to sink so low. Cotton suggested if wasn't their choice. How could he be right?

"Are you doing this as a warning?" he asked. "Because if you are, you don't have to. I already get the point. I don't need this."

"You say that," Cotton said. "I'm glad you can. But you have to see it. You have to."

"You have so many things to say," Balthazar said. "I want to believe in you. But you don't even believe in yourself."

"A terrible thing to learn," Cotton said. "I know. You will at least indulge me, though, right?"

"I have little other choice," Balthazar said. "You were meant to be my salvation. I thought I wanted it before. Now I need it. I need you."

"A terrible thing to learn," Cotton said.

"Yeah," Balthazar said. "Mather, so how's this going to work? How am I going to meet him?"

"See for yourself," Cotton said, indicating with his hand a basketball court, where a lone figure tried his luck, which he had none of. Every shot missed it mark, and Mather was obviously frustrated, even angry at himself. He was desperate, like he needed to be able to do this, and wouldn't quit until he proved to himself that he could. It was pathetic. He wore his red cap, which at his age no longer looked appropriate. He looked like he was simultaneously trying to hold onto his past and trying to fit someone else's version of his future.

"I didn't need to see this," Balthazar said.

"It isn't what I brought you here for," Cotton said. "But it's symbolic enough of the turmoil he persists in."

Mather must have become aware that he was being watched, because he shifted his attention, let another missed ball roll where it would as he looked away. "You," he said, calling out, his demeanor changing, his frustration and anger falling away, replaced by confusion. "I know you."

"Hello Lincoln," Cotton said.

"You work at the bar," Mather said.

"Used to," Cotton said.

"No, you still do," Mather said. "You won't listen to me, and suddenly you're here? What're you playing at? Why are you tormenting me? I told you where to find him. You didn't listen."

"You're confused, Lincoln," Cotton said.

"No!" Mather shouted, banging his hands against the fence surrounding the court, small and isolated amongst the grime of the neighborhood, filled with buildings that stood over it. "No, you're him."

"You don't know what you're talking about, Lincoln," Cotton said. "I can get you help."

"Help? I don't need help!" Mather insisted. "I don't need your pity or your denials. And I don't need help. It won't help! Nothing does! Nothing ever helped me! Nobody!"

"I think we should go," Balthazar said.

"You think it's that easy?" Cotton said.

"Nothing's easy, man!" Mather said. "You should, you should just accept that! Leave me alone! I don't need your help!"

Cotton hesitated as Mather stared at him, his hands gripping the chain-link, pleading silently. Should he give the boy what he wanted, or what he needed? He knew what was coming, where the boy was headed. Yet he also knew that the boy was right; he would not accept help, and trying to force the issue, at least in this case, would probably do more harm than good. Right?

"We should go," Cotton said, as he turned his back, Mather still staring at him, pleading, confused.

"I don't understand," Balthazar said as they left Mather behind. "I don't understand any of it. How was that good for me? Good for him? It didn't seem like it was, like it will be."

"The boy needs an outlet," Cotton said. "As soon as he finds one, he'll be better off."

"You could be that outlet," Balthazar said. "Be the one to help him."

"He wouldn't go for it," Cotton said.

"You say that," Balthazar said, "but why do you have to believe it? Make me understand."

"Because he's looking for someone to blame," Cotton said, "and the Eidolon, Cotton Colinaude, has already given him that someone."

"Then fix your own mess," Balthazar said. "Or do you not practice what you preach?"

"He already found his outlet," Cotton said. "Balthazar Romero. You're the one who won't give him the chance."

Chapter Fourteen - Cotton Leads

2005-11-16T13:40:00.000-08:00

Cotton, with the glimmer of Balthazar Romero within him, left the parking garage, on foot. "We've got things to see," he said.

"Take me, oh spirit," Balthazar said.

"Very funny," Cotton said. "But you're the one who's dead, remember?"

"I get a little confused when this happens," Balthazar said. "Being neither here nor there."

"That's where everyone is," Cotton said. "We imagine we're where we think we are, but we're really not, at least in the purely mental sense. We're always thinking ahead, or buried in the past. This is no great revelation. When a coach tells a batter to keep his eye on the ball, he's instructing the player to concentrate, keep himself in the present, so he knows how to react to the pitch, and not to what his team may need, be it a hit, or a sacrifice fly, or take a walk. He needs to know, of course, how he wants to hit the ball, but the batter also needs to calculate his chances based on what kind of pitch he's gotten, what the trajectory of the ball is. If he's not paying attention, he'll lose his chance to make a difference, and that's what he's there for, to make a difference, to either help his team, with an offensive favor, or hurt it. On the other side, of course, the pitcher and the fielders are thinking the same way, only their concern is defensive favor, and the game goes back and forth this way."

"Stupid metaphors," Balthazar said, in protest.

"Well, they may be stupid, but they're relevant," Cotton said. "Baseball is a game that captures the dichotomy of life. There are no good or bad sides, just opposing forces, and teams of various degrees worth rooting for, depending on how you decide to stake your interest, whether by region or individual personalities, or accomplishments. Yet the game forces you to choose favorites for specifically this reason, decide who is good and who is bad, because you can't support both teams in a game. Competition breeds this. And competition is the only thing that makes sense, is the only natural outcome of the rules of the game."

"You're trying to say that's why we have so many problems," Balthazar said, "in this world. Competition."

"Everyone's out to get what's theirs," Cotton said. "Darwin called it survival of the fittest. I don't see it that way. We don't need survival. We need cooperation, yet we get competition because human nature says the self comes before everyone else, even in works of charity. Charity is nothing more than a way to keep the cycle going. It's noble, but it's the same thing as heroics. Heroics are about doing the right thing, but too often heroics end up meaning compensation rather than cooperation. We treat each other as inferiors rather than equals, because it's easier. But it's what causes most of our problems. There will always be problems, because human nature also says we won't always get along, for one reason or another. But some of those reasons could easily be eliminated."

"Yet you still retain a costume," Balthazar said. "Don't you?"

"I do," Cotton said. "I made the decision a long time ago, to become a hero. I took on responsibilities, and those responsibilities had consequences I can't escape. If my absence, while I can still avoid it, causes further suffering, I will have perpetuated a cycle I have rededicated my life against. I already knows some of that waits for me even now. But I will not be the cause of that cycle perpetuating itself."

"It seems to me, if I'm at all capable of following your logic, that you can't avoid that," Balthazar said. "This cycle of yours, you didn't start it. But you can work to make it better."

"That's the general idea," Cotton said. "And you're right, withdrawing myself like this, I'm probably hiding, trying to pretend it isn't my responsibility, when it is, but at the same time, it isn't. It's a collective responsibility. Like you said, I didn't, in all actuality, start it, just another instance of it. I can't allow myself to assume the burden anymore, not as I once did. I've made a conscious effort to remedy my own weaknesses. For the moment, it means that I can't participate in the continuing struggle for which I am partly to blame."

"You talk in circles," Balthazar said.

"Maybe so," Cotton said. "I'm trying to make sense of it all. There's bound to be a few mistakes from time to time, miscalculations."

"I'm surprised you think you can afford them," Balthazar said.

"You shouldn't be," Cotton said. "Like I said, there was a time that the burden I assumed almost crushed me, and cost me more than I was willing to give."

"You're a reactionary," Balthazar said. "You justify your weaknesses."

"I wish it were that simple," Cotton said. "But nothing is. I wish you'd understand that."

"Well, it happens," Balthazar said. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"To see one of my failures," Cotton said. "You're already familiar with him, although you're not happy about it. his name is Lincoln Mather, but he's commonly known as Random Red."

"I'll call him Lincoln, thank you very much," Balthazar said. "Doesn't sound familiar."

"He will once you realize why he's called Random Red," Cotton said. "He wears a red cap. Your problem with nicknames is another thing you need to work on. You prefer things to be what they are, until you're comfortable with them. Stop distancing yourself. It does you no good."

"I hope you realize that telling someone to do something doesn't mean they'll do it," Balthazar said.

"Oh, I do," Cotton said. "The change comes from within. If you're willing to accept it, you will. There's no way to know until you know. But I can always offer advice."

"If only Tekamthi thought the same way," Balthazar said.

"You respect him," Cotton said.

"Yeah, I do," Balthazar. "Because he doesn't just talk. He's done great things."

"And you prefer to have tangible results," Cotton said, "even if the results are second-hand experience, something you were told about. You care about reputation."

"There's nothing wrong with that," Balthazar said. "A man has got to have faith. Or do you think there's something wrong with that?"

"Not at all," Cotton said, "Unless he chooses too carefully where he places that faith. Faith is not something you think about. Faith is something that finds you. You have to understand what faith is. It's the ability to trust, the ability to gain strength. It's not something you can use as a talisman, or further your own goals. You put faith in Tekamthi? Fine. What has that gotten you?"

"A desire to learn from him," Balthazar said.

"Faith doesn't teach you anything," Cotton said. "Try again."

"An example to emulate," Balthazar said.

"That's the same thing," Cotton said. "Try again."

"I don't need to play your games, man," Balthazar said. "Tekamthi is a great man. He's got things figured out. He said that you should do that yourself."

"If that's the case," Cotton said, "why do you need him for anything more?"

"Because I can't do it alone," Balthazar said.

"He said you needed to," Cotton said. "You don't trust him? You don't have faith in him?"

"I'm weak," Balthazar said. "Weak, okay? I didn't even go looking for him to find him. I went to him looking for you."

"And you've only found disappointment," Cotton said. "You weren't looking for anyone. You were looking for yourself, for the strength you need but you found you didn't have, despite what you had always told yourself. You need faith in yourself, Balthazar."

"Don't tell me what I need," Balthazar said. "I know what I need."

"You thought you did," Cotton said. "But then you found out you were wrong. No on likes to find out that they're wrong, Balthazar. Did you appreciate Tekamthi immediately?"

"I thought of him the same way I'm thinking about you," Balthazar said. "I thought he was a crazy old man who played games, who liked to pretend he possessed wisdom, when he didn't."

"You were disappointed," Cotton said. "Then you remembered everything you'd heard about him, and decided you were going to stick with that and ignore the man himself, reshape your experience with him to fit that earlier mode. Blind faith."

"You're wrong," Balthazar said. "I began listening to him."

"I wonder if you could tell me why," Cotton said.

"Because I found him to be honest," Balthazar said. "He didn't let me get away with--"

"Go on," Cotton said.

"My games," Balthazar said. "He didn't let me get away with my games."

"I take it that means something to you now," Cotton said.

"It does," Balthazar said. "My god, I've been playing games all my life. Games, like a little boy."

"We're all little boys trying to see what all the fuss is about," Cotton said. "Little boys are easily frustrated, aren't they?"

"I can't believe it," Balthazar said. "All this time. Why didn't I see it before?"

"We don't see the things we don't want to," Cotton said. "That's how we shape what we do. Early on, it's because we're simply not aware. But later on, it's because we don't want to be. It's easier not to be, because if we are, we have to decide what we're going to do about it. I was forced to long before I was ready."

"Hopper," Balthazar said.

"Exactly," Cotton said.

"That's what drew me to you," Balthazar said. "The trauma of it. And that made you become the Eidolon. Self-loathing. You couldn't accept that you'd actually saved a life."

"The traditional view would seem to contradict that," Cotton said. "But yes, that was the general idea."

"And he still doesn't know," Balthazar said, "Does he?"

"He think he does," Cotton said. "At least subconsciously. "There are many things we know that we do not outwardly accept. They threaten our tranquility, or our search for it. Hopper's tranquility rests in a journey he knows will never end, until he dies. It's what he wants."

"But that's not always what's good for us," Balthazar said. "Is it?"

"No, it's not," Cotton said. "But it's also not always harmful. There's so much to understand about life, but even if you never understand most of it, you'll be fine. That's what makes it so interesting. You can stumble through and be fine. That's what Tekamthi might have tried to tell you."

"I guess so," Balthazar said. "I'm finding, more and more, that just listening can be beneficial."

"It's a hard thing to do," Cotton said. "Especially if your first instinct is to listen only to yourself. You don't need a guide, but you can always use guidance, and find it, if you're looking."

"But damned if it still doesn't suck," Balthazar said, "trying to handle all of it."

"It can suck if you want it to," Cotton said. "You can always work on that, too. You don't have to let the negative outweigh the positive, and that's what you'd be doing, letting it. That's what I've been trying to tell you. You can't let it. You shouldn't."

"It's something to work on," Balthazar said.

"Everything is," Cotton said.

Chapter Thirteen - Balthazar and Cotton Together

2005-11-13T11:12:00.000-08:00

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."

Chapter Twelve - Lotus Leaves

2005-11-12T12:56:00.000-08:00

The attack was merciless. The man known as Lotus, in his methodical way, pounced on Balthazar, taking his gloves off to reveal sharpened nails that he dug into his victim's flesh for a lethal embrace, gripping Balthazar's arms. He opened his mouth and within there were equally fatal teeth, as if he were a vampire, though he wasn't. He was far worse. He found Balthazar's neck all the same, and began to syphon his very essence. This was his whole strategy, and Balthazar had never had a chance to defend himself. He was lost in Lotus's piercing eyes, entranced by them, as if there was no longer another concern in the whole world, not his plans, not his ambitions, and not Cotton Colinaude or any other personal attachment he might have longed for in these final moments. He realized that he had become attached to Colinaude, yes, if not to the man, because he'd never actually met him, then the idea of him, of what he was supposed to represent, what he was going to do for Balthazar, which Balthazar now realized would no longer concern himself. This was the end. He had to accept it, and what's more, he found he wanted to. He had lost the will to continue. This man named Lotus, he must have been the culmination of everything he had brought upon himself, everything he had denied and everything he had accepted and everything he had set into motion as he attempted to forge his legacy. Now there was no legacy; he had never gotten around to cementing it, and he understood why. He was just as selfish as Fred had been, just as greedy, just as manipulative, and just as bad at covering his own path of gratitude, because he thought that he hadn't created one. He had owed so much, but instead had been only concerned with what he thought he had been owed. Everything everyone had tried to tell him - Ashlee, Tekamthi, Fred, Hopper - was true. He should have known all along, but it was too late. Lotus, he knew, was Cutty Solomon's benefactor. Ashlee must have known as well, and probably had tried to warn him. Yes, yes she had, and he hadn't listened, like a fool, which was of course what he had always been. He told himself so many things, and hadn't listened to any of that, either. Why, oh why? There was always a price to pay, and this was his. He should have known. He did, and he thought he could avoid it. He couldn't, nobody could. And he had not prepared. That was the greatest tragedy of it. He had not prepared those he would be leaving behind. Lotus was too thorough. He stopped caring about them, too. He stopped caring about everything, and it was a sweet release. Lotus was better than he knew. Lotus was doing Balthazar the greatest favor. Why was he so generous? Why, oh why?

***

In that lurid embrace, Balthazar Romero met his end, and he was not the least concerned when it came. He welcomed it, while Lotus lingered. Still, no satiation. There could never be. No, never. He was aware that he was still not alone. Why was there still someone there? Had he not accomplished his task, eliminating one more trespasser? He should have, but it now seemed as if he hadn't. Lotus was not alone, as he'd hoped. Someone lurked in the shadows, and perhaps they thought they were not exposed because of it, but he could see them. Oh yes, he could, and he was not pleased, not pleased in the slightest. Who was it that invaded his triumph, threatened to nullify it? If he could see them, his problem would be solved, but he could not see anything. The blue eyes were dull, saw nothing, were in fact made of glass, though his true eyes had carried the same hue, when he still had them, could still see. Those days were long over, and he did not regret their passing. "My beauty would sea," he would often say, not because it made immediate sense or that he was in the habit of doing so, or talking at all, for that matter, but because it suggested what the only thing was that had ever been importent to him. His beauty, and the sea, neither of which he would ever know again. But he did not want pity. He had no time for it, and required it of no one, least of all his victims. There were many, but no one remembered them. And he still more work to accomplish before he was done.

Balthazar Romero? The latest in the long line, and nothing more, a mere pretender, as all the others had been and still were. But there was someone else in this garage, and they were playing his own game. They were cunning, calculating. What was it that they were waiting for? He would remain in place, defiant, until they decided. He had no reason for any other course. He was not afraid, no, not of anyone, or anything. He had no reason to be.

The full white leather of his attire, a gentleman's suit, stood out from the general gloom of the garage, which marked the absence of his antagonizer from his notice all the more. They thought they were toying with him, but they had no idea. This was what he did. They couldn't use his own tricks on him. If they thought they could, they were fools, he did not suffer fools. That would be a waste of time. Instead, he made them understand what they were, which was exactly what they deserved, what they craved, what they needed and wanted beyond everything else. He had ample supply of victims.

What the fool Romero had done to deserve this was among the more egregious. He had presumed a rightful place in the arena Lotus commanded, even to the point that he intended to undermine, further, his own benefactor, a man known as Boy Benjamin but born with the name Benjamin Russ, which somehow sounded more presumptuous. This rebellion had actually posed more of a threat than Benjamin himself, which was why Romero had become a target, especially after he's exposed himself in the media, making a public name for himself through a bar, of all things, which he should have known immediately as the worst compromise and the biggest mistake of his life. He probably had, and had probably made the same mistake as everyone else. He thought he could get away with it.

Now he lay dead, soon to be forgotten, and only a shadow to stand guard over him, a shadow that Lotus was not afraid of, could not be intimidated by; what memory there was, only Lotus himself would retain, before long, for he retained the memory of all his victims, not out of respect or guilt, but because he had absorbed it, and he could not get rid of it again. He was already very old, and had more of these memories than he could keep track of, stockpiled away within the deep recesses of his mind, which he had greatly developed, almost at cost but not one he could not handle. All that untapped potential others had no idea what it might represent. Well, Lotus did. Some might have called him accursed. He called them dead, whether by his own hand or time itself, which was his only true companion.

Except, at the moment, this shadow, this ghost. Romero's memory, he couldn't access it, and though it didn't trouble him, this failure, it did stand as remarkable. Perhaps Romero himself had been more remarkable than Lotus had suspected. It would at least be a pleasant surprise, once the memory surfaced and he could indulge it at his leisure, which he more than enough of. He was always accessing these memories, exploring them, sharing in mock conversations. Anyone else would hold this as a mark of psychoses, but he understood it as perfectly natural, what anyone else would have done with the same abilities. But no one else did, did they? No, he was not accursed, but he was alone, and he very well understood that, which left the memories all the more enticing, as well as the continued collecting of them. He embroiled himself in his own fantasy, just as anyone else, just as Romero had. But his was not a deadly one, just he himself was. He was an agent of death, and he'd found a good way to facilitate that: join those who'd fancied themselves such creatures, but never really had...the right tools for the job.

Speaking of the right tools, Lotus presently slipped his gloves back on. He would not need those particular tools again, certainly not with this ghost, which seemed so persistent in its game. Games were such childish things. He had never played them, not even when he was very young, and he had never once felt as if he'd missed something. All he really needed was amusement, and he gained that easily enough. On his payroll was Ted Geyer, reporter for the Traverse Tracks, who had interviewed Romero. He had also recently arranged for Hopper's parents to visit him, after Romero's own fashion. He had sat directly in their dust, and the fact that he never knew it did not diminish the fun for Lotus. The body of Fred Mueller, the so-called Ratbeard, had still had memory enough, so Lotus had ravaged it, in front of Ratbeard's grieving family. Yes, he had followed in Romero's footsteps for quite some time now, and it had all been very amusing. He had no problem mocking his victims, because he knew it would all be forgotten in time, by everyone but himself, or dismissed as legend. He'd had his own victims in that time, certainly. There were many rich ones, formidable ones, then. not as many now.

Certainly not the ghost who persisted in this garage, as Romero entered rigor mortis, the expression on his face betraying the fear he had always denied himself. Lotus towered over the body and held true to his vigil. Whatever game this ghost had, he was not entertaining it; the ghost was, rather, amusing him, and that was all, and it had better have hoped to maintain that amusement, because Lotus did not suffer fools, in whatever form. He had learned to expel memories, and in that form banish forever those souls. He knew no such thing as mercy. He had no use for it.

Chapter Eleven - A Sudden Twist of Fate

2005-11-11T13:11:00.000-08:00

He couldn't find his car. Whether he was still in a daze or because he'd somehow misplaced it, Balthazar couldn't find his Impala. In fact, he believed he was still in that daze, but he couldn't say how much it controlled him. He was certain, too, that he was looking in the right place, that he was mistaken. The car should be here, in this hold. He feared he would be arrested for public insobriety. He began to panic.

If it wasn't here, where was it? It had to be somewhere. It couldn't have vanished. To the young Denny Hay, so long ago, his parents had vanished, and even once reunited he never believed that he had found them. He became interminably lost, and so did his rescuer, Cotton Colinaude. It was a childhood trauma, like so many others, that had never left them, had gone on to define their lives.

Balthazar had no such experience to fall back on. Boy Benjamin had assured that, and in the process forged a man of determination, who did not want to be smothered, because that was all he had ever known. The spoiled ones were smothered too, but neglected, and the smothering was meant as compensation. All Balthazar had ever known was the smothering, and he grew to resent it, and grew up with the intention to never feel its embrace again. It had started very early. Too early. And he had needed to hide it all away.

Where was his car? Having searched every level of the hold, meticulously, painstakingly, he emerged, confident that it was not there but also certain that it had once been. Even if he had had no memory of leaving it there, Balthazar would still have known it had been there. Its memory permeated the hold, not a distant one but a recent, piercing presence. The car itself was dear to him, and he could not easily overlook it.

He began to canvas the surrounding area on foot. Nothing like this had ever happened to him. Whether it was because of his reputation or his association with Boy Benjamin, he had never been jacked, had never been harassed by the local gangs that thrived in Traverse, where if you're weren't going anywhere you inevitably turned on each other. Balthazar should know; that's what he was going to do to Boy Benjamin. It was the natural course of things, and he was fine with that.

Where was that car? All that time spent on the subway, suddenly seemed a fool's revelry. No matter what he thought he'd gained at the time, he was now losing it, and he didn't care. Whatever magic Hopper possessed, it was temporary, whatever hold, made of quicksilver. Balthazar let it all slide away. He had a new skin to cover himself in, and it was called pandemonium.

Where was the car? He could find it nowhere. He didn't even care if he found it stripped, so long as he did. he could salvage it, bring it back. As long as the heart survived, he could bring it back to form, as if nothing had happened. He just needed to find it. But where was it? Where was his car? He could feel time advance, as if he was costing himself something with every minute this search continued.

Smoke rose up ahead, like a funnel, black like dying embers. There was red, he knew. Something was on fire. He approached the smoke out of fear, with dread in his heart. It was his car. It was the Impala. His Impala was in flames, and he thought he could see its heart in its final throws. It was dying. His car was dying.

There was a crowd gathered about, and nothing useful was being accomplished. No one had a phone in their hand. No one had called the fire department. There were no wails to suggest it was on its way. Balthazar knew there was a fire company nearby. Yet they let his car burn, all of them. He pulled his own phone out, and dialed the department. They wanted to know what he wanted, and it was all he could do to refrain from shouting that it was an emergency. He told them where to look, thought of but did not tell them of the smoke signal, that had called himself here. His car told him a final message. It told him goodbye.

The engines roared in the distance, and Balthazar walked away. By now some in the crowd had realized who he was, at least as far as his ownership of the burning car, and whispered amongst themselves, but did not attempt to restrain him. They let him go. He was back in that daze. Oh yes, he was. He surrendered to it. He didn't know where he was going, just that he was going somewhere, anywhere. He stumbled forward.

His car was no more. Balthazar had lost his chariot. In the daze, he imagined another conversation with Hoppper.

(You are directionless,) this Hopper told him. (You are directionless because you do not have a path. You have attempted to blaze a trail, but have found that you have run out of fuel, and don't know where to reload.)

(Don't speak to me of riddles,) this Balthazar said. (I have had enough of those. Tell me your secrets. Tell me how to triumph where you failed.)

(I did not fail,) this Hopper said. (This is where I was meant to be. I succeeded, and it was a grand triumph, a great success.)

(This was no triumph, no success,) this Balthazar said. (You failed, and you have been wallowing in your failure for years now. Why? Why are you so content with your failure?)

(Failure and success are the same thing,) this Hopper said. (You must understand this.)

(Nothing makes sense to me anymore,) this Balthazar said. (I am lost.)

(Then find yourself,) this Hopper said.

(I don't know how,) this Balthazar said.

(Yes you do,) this Hopper said. (You've simply chosen to ignore it.)

Like the real Hopper, the illusion let his philosophy explain itself, and left Balthazar behind. He found himself back in the hold. He should have been stopped. Why had he not been stopped? Why had he been drawn back to the memory of his dead Impala?

Balthazar slumped down onto the cold concrete. He believed the figmentary Hopper, who'd said he was lost. He lacked a sense of direction, because he himself was his destination. Everything he had ever done was improvisation, because there was no map to follow, at least none he would have ever put stock into. Tekamthi could have helped him, if he'd wanted to, but the old man, the so-called Dread Poet, had told him the journey was discovered personally, and that was the only way it should be. Well, it was easier said than done, and Tekamthi probably understood that. Everything accomplished came with work. The amount of work determined the level of achievement. How committed was he, Balthazar, to his quest? Deadly. The term scared him. He did not want to go like Fred. He believed he was better than that. He had to. He had nothing else, nothing else he wanted to or thought he could depend on. Certainly not Boy Benjamin, who thought he dictated so much, by godfatherly right and otherwise. Balthazar controlled his own fate, for better or worse.

There were other people about in the hold, dropping off their car, picking them up again. Cars, he realized, were much like pets. They came first, whether their owners realized it or not. If they didn't, they died, and their owners paid the price. He had left his Impala behind. He had signed its death warrant. He should have been more careful.

A car pulled up directly beside him, too close, he thought, almost with malicious intent. But would someone really do that? Perhaps they had been stunned to find him there, squatting beside a pole, as if he were guarding it, too stunned to know what they should do, so they parked just the same.

Still, it disturbed Balthazar, rustled him. He stood up, as if he was embarrassed to have been found that way, in here, where a man should have been found like that. It was almost as if he were apologizing, and he had no idea why he should.

The driver had still not emerged from their car, which Balthazar noticed, with trepidation, was an Impala. He couldn't explain the trepidation, either, the dread. At that moment, he wanted the Dread Poet, William Tekamthi, by his side. He was a man who knew how to deal with things. He'd made a living of it. Why would he not help others do the same? It was selfish.

The driver was still sealed in the car, the Impala, which was colored the same deep green Balthazar's had been, before the fire scorched it darker, unrecognizable. He would have believed it was his car, if he'd allowed himself to do such a foolish thing.

The door began to open, slowly, deliberately. Such as it never did under usual circumstances. The dread thickened within Balthazar. None of this was an accident. He tried to think of who his tormentor might be, but he could think of no possibilities. This was theatrical. A hand reached above the door frame, clad in white leather, and gripped it. Balthazar thought of walking away, but he knew he couldn't. There was no running from this monster. A head emerged, sheet white hair, but not the white of age. With no further pretension, the face revealed itself as well. Piercing blue eyes, such that did not naturally accompany that hair, but Balthazar knew it was the reverse. The man with the white hair and blue eyes, silently pulled himself to his full height, staring all the while at Balthazar, closed the car door like an afterthought, and advanced toward him. There was menace in those eyes, and Balthazar understood what it meant. He embraced them.

Chapter Ten - An Encounter with Hopper

2005-11-10T13:10:00.000-08:00

Tekamthi had offered his information on Hopper almost offhand, by the end of Balthazar's visit to his bunker on Culver St. He didn't seem to think it was important, or maybe he had tried making it another lesson. The whole visit had been a lesson, and Balthazar went away feeling as if he had homework. He had never been very good with that sort of thing, and he knew what Tekamthi would have said about that. Tekamthi. Would make a fine teacher.

There just wasn't time, not for Balthazar and not for Tekamthi, who had done all he could to disguise his failing health, which was understandable both for the man mentally and physically. His age had afforded him many gifts. All it asked for in return was his life, and it had begun to cash in. The end was not far away, and Balthazar felt a sort of regret, which he knew Tekamthi would criticize. One man had done what he could do. There would be no loss.

Just too little understanding, and that's what the world really lost, with each death, each loss of life, each time experience became secondhand, because secondhand was never as good as firsthand, second never as good as first, in fact. It was a will to survive, a will that was, ultimately, futile, another mark of vanity, and something Tekamthi lacked. Balthazar had it, and it was a bad thing. He clung to it.

He was kicking himself, though, for thinking Hopper would be so hard to find, when he was really waiting in plain sight. Balthazar had simply not been prepared to look, because he was expecting something else, something somehow grander, than the humble man Tekamthi told him would be waiting when at last he looked. Humble was a thing perhaps admirable, but easily underestimated, overlooked. It's what Hopper somehow counted on. He wanted to be left alone, like Tekamthi, like Colinaude, and so he was, unless he sought attention, like everyone else. Otherwise he simply didn't need it, for whatever reason. Balthazar guessed it wasn't because he didn't want it, but because he couldn't handle it, which made him something of a coward. For the first time in his life, Balthazar did not think poorly of such a trait. he was beginning to understand that the coward had his place in the world as well. He couldn't have explained it, but he knew it was true. It had dawned on him during his last visit with Fred.

On the ride to the subway station, he found himself thinking how odd it was, taking one mode of transportation to another. He didn't need the second one, but in a way he did. He wasn't going anywhere; no, he was never going anywhere. Instead, he was going to find himself, in the form of another man, which he had made a living out of. His destination had always been himself, and wherever he went, whatever he did, it was in the service of better understanding the contours of his own map. He let everything else come to him. Hopper was coming to meet him, and he planned to be a gracious host, because Hopper deserved it, he deserved Balthazar, because he had something Balthazar wanted. He had a connection to another part of him.

Gas prices had continued to decline, he noticed along the way, which was a happy development, considering the days not long ago when it had seemed they had ceased such movement, from the terrible highs they had reached. Now they were returning back to manageable levels, and Balthazar could only be content with that. Still, he didn't need filling at the moment, which came as a wistful thought, as if he should be capitalizing on the good fortune now, even though he could just as well do it later, when prices could be even lower. He would take the chance, and ride it out, and see what the future bore out.

Tekamthi had a real name for this Hopper fellow, too. Denny Hay, it seemed, and he'd been in the papers as a boy, saved by his friend Colinaude, discovered as a protégé on the piano before losing it all and being confined to an asylum for a time, at least a decade. The day he was released he came back to Traverse and began his ride. The last few details, not in the papers, but rather from Tekamthi.

So he'd known Colinaude early on. It was with excitement that Balthazar had learned this. Tekamthi had warned him against such a reaction, but Balthazar ignored him. He know bought his token and prepared to board the subway, knowing that he would soon be very close indeed to Colinaude, to perhaps his best and closest friend. He grooved to someone's gentle guitar beat down the way.

Eventually, and it seemed like forever, Balthazar found himself boarding, after waiting for others to disgorge. He was disoriented, didn't know where he should sit down, if he should stand. He didn't want to stand, but he wondered if he should. How would he find Hopper, Denny Hay?

He discovered soon enough that he'd sat down, and was content with that knowledge. He hadn't ridden the subway in a long time, hadn't needed to. Between the Impala and Boy Benjamin's perks, he had always been covered, and had never had another reason. His business didn't take him to such places. There was nothing to be found on a track to nowhere.

Except today, and it wasn't his usual business, of course. He looked around, aware of an odor penetrating the cabin. Was it indigenous to the cabin, or to someone within? Ordinary people, doing ordinary things. One woman, from the look of it, preparing for a run. Was there a marathon today? No, it would have started earlier. Right? She wouldn't stop talking, but Balthazar didn't mind.

He became aware that the man seated next to him was the most unusual individual in the cabin. His ears were abnormal, too large, and droopy. His eyes were sad, but expectant, probing, inquisitive, coy. His manner of dress, like a homeless man. Did the odor come from him?

It didn't matter. Balthazar had found Hopper. It was all too evident. A man who stood out, but by this very detail and the nature of it was guaranteed to be overlooked, because no one would want to associate with him. Why would they? Waste charity on him?

If they only knew. There was much to gain from him. Balthazar understood that immediately, not even needing to hear a single word from him. What was more, he didn't feel compelled in the slightest to breach that barrier, even though he had worked so hard to do so. It was no longer important. Balthazar felt at peace, perhaps for the first time in his life. He did not want to jeopardize that.

So he rode the subway with Hopper, for hours. In total silence, transfixed by the moment, unwilling to let go. There was nothing else, only the journey, to nowhere, to everywhere. There was such possibility. He was aware that Hopper understood, too, what was happening. he imagined what the traveler must have thought about him, what was happening, or rather what was not. Had this ever happened before? Suddenly, Balthazar realized that this was the only thing of importance to him.

He couldn't understand it, and didn't want to try. This was his new life, this moment he couldn't get out of, and didn't want to. It was tranquility, and he couldn't explain why. This man he sat next to, he had discovered something, perhaps wholly by accident, perhaps by design. Balthazar had tapped into it, had found its magic.

He recognized the tragedy of it, finally, the emptiness, the loneliness. What was gained came with a high cost. Was Hopper so content? Should Balthazar be?

It was all lost, in an instant.

"That happens," Hopper said, unexpectedly. "You looked surprised by it."

Balthazar didn't know what to say. He looked into Hopper's eyes and understood him, and still couldn't bring himself to speak. He had nothing to say, and everything.

"You must have come here for a reason," Hopper said, as if such experiences, Balthazar's accompaniment in all those hours, were perfectly ordinary.

"I-I," Balthazar managed.

"Don't trouble yourself," Hopper said.

"Colinaude," Balthazar said. "Tell me about Colinaude."

"There isn't much to tell," Hopper said.

"Tell me where I can find him," Balthazar said.

"All right," Hopper said. "You probably deserve that. Do you always get what you want?"

"I seem to," Balthazar said. "I've been wondering lately if that is such a good thing."

"Fair enough," Hopper said. "I will make it easy on you. I will have him come to you."

"You could do that?" Balthazar said.

"I need to do something," Hopper said. "If I didn't, I would be useless, wouldn't I?"

The words haunted Balthazar long after he'd left the subway behind. There was so much he couldn't understand about the encounter, which among all the ones he'd had so far, the visits with Fred and Tekamthi, wouldn't let go, couldn't. With Tekamthi, wisdom had reared its head as if Balthazar had never known such a thing. With Fred, knowledge as if he had never understood it. But with Hopper, Balthazar began to understand faith. He had never had a use for it. Why should he? Now he thought he could. In a way, he had already found faith, because he had put it in Cotton Colinaude, and now he had discovered it in his disciple, for whatever else Hopper was, however complicated the relationship, he was Colinaude's acolyte.

He had a use. That's what he'd said. Perhaps he thought that he had nothing else to offer but this beacon of light, perhaps he couldn't bear anything else. But on those slight shoulders shone something Balthazar could not forget. He knew he would need it, too, and he prayed for understanding.

Chapter Nine - The Dread Poet

2005-11-09T13:28:00.000-08:00

"You think you're being clever," a voice, low and gravely, called behind Balthazar. He was nearly at the house, but hadn't yet decided how he was going to approach the secret entrance he'd already found. He didn't want to use the same way twice. Now there was someone who had definitely seen him. He took a gamble and guessed who it was.

"Coleridge?" he asked.

"Twain," the voice replied. "Actually, I'm not very certain on that. The mind is not as sharp as it once was. You're probably wondering if I knew both personally."

"The thought had crossed my mind," Balthazar said. "Do you actually prefer to be called the Dread Poet, or William Tekamthi?"

"Neither," Tekamthi said, "but we don't always get what we want, so it doesn't matter. Follow me."

Balthazar became aware that Tekamthi had turned around, and he decided to take the advice, as there was little reason to do otherwise. He now found himself retracing his steps, away from 22 Culver St, away from the last means he'd taken to the hatch in the woods. "Do you have a better way, or are you leading me away?"

"Maybe you are more clever than you seem," Tekamthi said. "But no, I am not trying to misguide you. There is a better way than the one you found. The hatch is the exit. I am going to show you the entrance. Perhaps you noticed the shed at the end of the street, at the corner?"

"I did, actually," Balthazar said. "I used it to situate myself. Didn't need the street sign on the second pass because of it."

"There's always a reason these old sheds are kept around," Tekamthi said. He walked with a slight limp, Balthazar noticed. "Under a different name, I maintain it for the city. Certainly no other foreseeable reason to keep it around. The neighbors think it's an eyesore. I would agree. Maybe I ought to touch it up."

"But it would reveal your continuing use," Balthazar said. "The city doesn't think a current resident maintains it."

"Clever, yes," Tekamthi said. They had already reached it. "Of course, local boys are always playing around in it. No one to tell them otherwise. They would never discover its secret, Balthazar."

"You know my name," Balthazar said. Tekamthi was headed directly toward the entrance, but Balthazar was hesitating.

"Of course I do," Tekamthi said. "Come on in. If anyone sees us, they will think someone is checking in on it, to make sure no more firecrackers have been stored there. They've been found in it before, you understand. A few have gone off."

"Your safeguards are elaborate," Balthazar said. He followed Tekamthi again, and found the shed dark inside, and not a light fixture to be found. His guide did not have a flashlight. He didn't need one. "Already you are living up to your reputation."

"You impress easily," Tekamthi said, lifting a door in the flooring, with little effort.

"You've made a few remarks of surprise in my case already," Balthazar said. "You didn't think I was clever. I seemed to prove you wrong."

"It's different," Tekamthi called, already disappearing. "Close the door behind you. It isn't a barn."

Balthazar assumed he meant the one in the floor, and not the one to the shed, which had been open when they got there, which the decay of age suggesting it had been, for a long time. Advancing blindly, he followed Tekamthi once more, and did as he was told. "Forgive me for saying so, but I fail to see the difference."

"You need wisdom, Balthazar," Tekamthi said from the darkness. "It may not be what you came to me for, but it's what you need."

"I came to you so I could find wisdom," Balthazar said. "I didn't come to be patronized. I came for information."

"You tell yourself many things," Tekamthi said. "I imagine you even believe some of it."

"We all do," Balthazar said. The floor in the corridor was not made of dirt, but concrete, and so were the walls. It was cold, in this darkness. But then, darkness and cold always went together. "That's what they call the human condition. We don't have any answers, just questions, and newer questions still."

"Oh, there are answers," Tekamthi said. "You need to be able to accept them, is all. You don't like to accept things, do you?"

"I accept what I have to," Balthazar said. The darkness, and the walk, was continuing for longer than he'd anticipated, which was uncomfortable. No light at the end of this tunnel? "I may not like it, but some things I have to accept."

"Don't kid yourself," Tekamthi said. "It's in your voice. You do like it. And you may want to stop walking, or you will walk into a wall."

Balthazar did as he was told, again. "No light in your bunker?" he asked, almost sarcastically, now that he was getting annoyed with his host.

"It comes when I need it," Tekamthi said, and evidently pulled a switch, because the light suddenly appeared, filling his bunker. Balthazar was amazed to find the cavern to be larger than he'd expected, and filled with filing cabinets. "Probably saved more scraps than I should have," his host said.

There was a cot and a table and a chair, but otherwise the space was dominated by the cabinets. "No books," Balthazar noted.

"No, no books," Tekamthi said. "In my case, I think I know as least as much as any library. At least I used to. I don't really need them. I have other concerns. I'll direct you to the notepads in some of the drawers, if you'd like, and the supply of pens in another."

"No food," Balthazar next realized.

"Not here, anyway," Tekamthi said. "Besides, I don't eat as much these days. Age can sometimes produce useful benefits."

"I hope you're writing a memoir," Balthazar said.

"Memoirs and self-help books are items of vanity," Tekamthi said. "You can learn everything you really need to know on your own, if you make the effort. Self-help is for toddlers."

"That's rather cold," Balthazar said.

"It's what you believe," Tekamthi said.

"Maybe," Balthazar said.

"Don't play those games with me," Tekamthi said. "You know and I know. It's a waste of your time. Now, you came to me, hoping to locate a man named Hopper, who rides the Traverse subway."

"You seem to know everything," Balthazar said.

"That's why you came to me," Tekamthi said. "Isn't it?"

"You tell me," Balthazar said.

"I already told you," Tekamthi said. "Play those games with someone else. Stop wasting my time, and yours. But it isn't even Hopper that you want to find. You want to find Cotton Colinaude. If you do, you want to find the Eidolon."

"The Eidolon is gone," Balthazar said. "Some people don't even think he ever actually existed. They say he was a myth. An urban legend."

"Some people are fools," Tekamthi said.

"Maybe so," Balthazar said. "You say you're through with my games. Well I'm through with yours. I don't need riddles."

"I'm not giving you riddles," Tekamthi said. "If all you see are riddles, then I can't help you."

"Fine," Balthazar said. "Which way would you like me to go?"

"You already know that," Tekamthi said. "You would give up that easily? Then you have no hope after all."

"No hope?" Balthazar said, his temper rising. "No hope? Just what is it that you know, old man? What makes you the master? What makes you so superior, that you can hold court over everyone, play games and then tell them not to do it themselves?"

"All this you practice yourself," Tekamthi said.

"I don't need this," Balthazar said.

"You will find that you do," Tekamthi said.

"Are you going to tell me how I can find Hopper?" Balthazar said.

"I can do that, if you still feel it is necessary," Tekamthi said. "I can only do it if you allow me to help you. If you allow yourself."

"I don't like to play games," Balthazar said.

"You do," Tekamthi said.

"Maybe you're right," Balthazar said.

"I am," Tekamthi said.

"All right," Balthazar said. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I like to play games. Is that so wrong? Who does it hurt?"

"You know who," Tekamthi said.

"Okay, I get it," Balthazar said.

"No, you don't," Tekamthi said. "But at least you've calmed down. At least you are thinking rationally again. You are at your best when you allow yourself to do so. Remember that. Let it be your strength. You will find that if you do, you will be better off than you are right now."

"What do you know about how I am right now?" Balthazar said, with honesty.

"It doesn't matter," Tekamthi said. "What matters is that you heed my warning. Take that seriously, and nothing else will matter. Do you understand?"

"If I said I didn't, how would you react?" Balthazar said.

"I would say that you are already on your way," Tekamthi said. "I have faith in you."

"Thanks," Balthazar said. "I really mean it. This life you live, is it what you thought it would be when you decided on it?"

"I still live it," Tekamthi said. "That is all you need to know. And this is something else you need to know: No other conversation I've had since I've taken up this life has gone like this. You should consider that a compliment."

"I suppose I do," Balthazar said. "Why would use two separate means of access, for entering and leaving this place. Isn't one good enough? Doesn't anyone suspect that the man who enters that shed, when he doesn't exit again, might be up to something?"

"My dear boy, very few people would make such an observation," Tekamthi said. "The two in this room already comprise a large percentage of those who would. But you must learn to accept this, too, not as a burden but as your role in all things. We all play roles, Balthazar. I have appreciated learning yours. You play it well."

Chapter Eight - A Moment for Reflection

2005-11-08T10:30:00.000-08:00

He was having a harder time rationalizing Fred's death than he thought. Balthazar considered returning to Tin Can, for a drink, but he reminded himself that he didn't solve his problems that way, but avoided them. He would live with it, and that's all he could hope for. It had been for the greater good. It wasn't his fault. Fred had actually been accepting of it. He must have realized. Being the one to do it, Balthazar had made things easier, had actually found some peace.

In all actuality, he knew he was only kidding himself. So he sat in his Impala for the second time that day, waiting a block away from Culver St. William Tekamthi awaited him there. He wondered if he need bother asking after Hopper, the subway rider, and instead request information on Colinaude himself. It would save him some trouble, would save time, would hasten his search for resolution.

No, he couldn't do that. If Tekamthi knew of Colinaude, Balthazar wasn't ready yet. He wanted to meet someone whom he knew had intimate knowledge of the man. Tekamthi had knowledge, but like any great men, he had wider knowledge, and depended on other men for the finer stuff. He could design, engineer, and oversee great projects, as the social architect of the city, but he couldn't build them himself. He was very much the man Balthazar hoped to become, and the man Boy Benjamin and so many others like him thought they were. But they didn't have loyalty.

He prided himself that even in his final circumstances, Fred had shown him loyalty. That was the kind of mark Balthazar strived for. All true greatness stemmed from it. There was no other way to identify greatness, which was as much imagined as it was substantial, grounded in the real world, which left better things to dust for lack of loyalty, of a following. Balthazar wanted to integrate himself into this religion, where any one or anything could, in such a fashion, be worshipped.

He had heard all the stories, read all the biographies, seen all the early tapes. There was much to know of Tekamthi, before he went into social exile, as Colinaude had. There was the association with the writer James Agee, who would write a famed Depression-era book partly based on Tekamthi's support. Others, Allison, Comer, Sibert, Smith, Underwood, and Washington, all depended on him in one form or another for their lasting contributions to the state of Alabama and the country itself. Some were concerned with natural resources, other economic, and a few social. He helped them all.

His biographies suggested he had passed away, or accorded him a legend. His televised interviews revealed a soft-spoken man and intelligent and succinct speech. Nothing placed him further than the midpoint of the twentieth century, and nothing suggested he had anything to do with violent ways.

Less tangible still were his specific footprints on Traverse itself, but Balthazar understood well enough. Traverse had been Tekamthi's birthplace. He would leave it behind easily. Balthazar wondered if 22 Culver St. had been his birthplace, in a previous lifetime. He sat in his Impala, windows rolled down, and wondered. Perhaps he would ask.

The current residents, he knew, were planning to leave soon for a family excursion to Birmingham, and would likely stay in a hotel overnight. More time than Balthazar foresaw needing, but he didn't mind the certainty that the privacy Tekamthi valued would be guaranteed over himself as well. And he would not expose Tekamthi, even accidently. That was the last thing he would have wanted to do.

The neighborhood was a quiet one. It was early afternoon, and Balthazar could not detect a single soul about. He would still be careful. Surveillance had already revealed Tekamthi's likely means of egress, located within a wooded area in the house's backyard. Balthazar wondered if he should use it. He surmised that the only time the family dog noticed the intruder when he was in fact leaving, which led him to wonder if the dog had been left behind for the trip.

So many questions surrounding Tekamthi, to mirror all the reasons he'd had to visit Fred. This was Balthazar's life, a series of motivations. Not everyone lived this way, at least consciously. Balthazar was conscious of everything. he wondered if he placed the priorities on the right things. There were so many to choose from, and at the center was his ambition, which he knew was what brought all men down, eventually. Fred had insisted on it, and Balthazar dismissed him, even though Fred no longer had a motive to cause him harm, with death imminent. Only self-torture, which came naturally enough.

He marveled at how lucent Fred had been, more self-aware than he had ever been. It must have been the clarity than came when he at last reckoned with his fate. There had been so many other opportunities, so many times he knew he was very close to death. Yet, Balthazar supposed, never such a recognition that there was no longer an escape. Fred had lived his life escaping things, death most especially. He became an informant because he thought it would help others do the same. In too many ways, he and Balthazar had been very similar indeed. But he had been selfish, offering aid because he needed to cancel out other debts he'd created. There was rumor that he offered his assistance to the Eidolon because he had helped create the Eidolon's archenemy, Viper, who'd been the one opponent the hero couldn't defeat. And in his own defeat, the hero had vanished.

Balthazar tried to think how he might have led himself into similar traps. He couldn't think of any, and that was what worried him. Until severing his ties with Balthazar, Fred had probably thought he could outrun his own fate. Was the plan to leave Boy Benjamin behind Balthazar's own omen?

Even if it were, however, he could no longer live this life, under the rules it currently operated. He could no longer distinguish between the man he thought he was and what he really was. Had he tried walking that line for too long? Could he escape?

This was why he needed Colinaude, and why he needed Tekamthi and Hopper, and everything else to fall into place. He had ensured himself a future, but he didn't know if he would make it.

He continued to sit in his car. A slight breeze came through the window, momentarily distracting him from the heat. There was so much to consider, how he would confront Tekamthi; it was paralyzing him, a sensation that he had not truly faced earlier with Fred. What he feared was disapproval from Tekamthi. Fear could be a motivating factor for good, or it could be a hindrance, as it usually was, and that hindrance could be the difference between life and death. It usually meant death.

Balthazar did not want to fear. Fear was weakness, and weakness was anathema for someone with his ambitions. Considering all there was to lose, fear should have crippled him long ago. He knew he had things to lose. He'd told himself he could afford to lose, but he couldn't, not if he wanted to appreciate what he hoped to gain. There was something about taking it all with you that was attractive. There was also the fear that he would leave it all behind, as Fred had.

So much to lose. So much to gain. Nothing in the balance at the moment, just William Tekamthi, a man like any man, to be used. Nothing to worry about. If Tekamthi did not prove as useful as he seemed to, Balthazar will not have lost or gained anything. That was the mindset he wanted to adopt. But there was so much baggage. He knew, sitting in that car, that he was headed toward more than he had bargained for.

He would take the chance. He would put the fear and the doubt aside. It was only a man, a man who could give him information. There were so many more before him, and there would be others after. Fred was just another ghost. Ghosts were nothing to fear, merely afterthoughts that couldn't find their proper place. Balthazar could help him find his, just not right now.

He got out of his car, neatly shut the door behind him, and started his walk toward 22 Culver St. He took a leisurely pace, put his hands in his pocket, even almost whistled. He got a song stuck in his heads and allowed it to take over. It wasn't a distraction, but rather just another thing to occupy the time. That's all anyone could really hope for, after all, finding a way to occupy the time. Perhaps Balthazar was one of those who created rather elaborate means of occupying his time, but he wasn't alone. No, he was not very unique, after all, was he? He was following in well-trodden footsteps, and whatever he accomplished in his lifetime, that would be duplicated, too.

Not so special. Just a man named Balthazar Romero. Off to have a little talk.

He actually did begin to whistle, not very well, but he didn't care to. The pace remained the same. He saw no one. The block might as well have been deserted, for all the secrets it preferred to keep. Culver St. came soon enough, within ten minutes' time. He already knew the house he was looking for. He'd been there already. He was half-disappointed now that the mystery had already been revealed.

Chapter Seven - Ratbeard Goes with a Fight

2005-11-07T17:11:00.000-08:00

"You do think we've become enemies," Balthazar said. "I know you. That's exactly what you think, Fred."

"I have a little trouble imagining why else I'd see you again," Fred said. "I don't know why you've come, but you're here."

"I've come to hear about the Dread Poet, William Tekamthi," Balthazar said.

"That's one of the reasons," Fred said. "Don't take me as a fool now. I may be foolish, but I am not a fool. Give me that much."

"Tell me about the Dread Poet," Balthazar said.

"I already told you I would," Fred said. "I keep my word. That's what I'm good for. Suddenly it sounds like a bad thing. I suppose it's too late. The last time we saw each other, I told you I never wanted to see each other again, unless one of us was dead. If you have a fault, it's that you take things too literally. I'm dead, aren't I? You're going to kill me."

"I am not," Balthazar said. "That last time, remember what I told you?"

"'This ends today, but fate has more yet between us,'" Fred said. "It's one of Boy Benjamin's favorite phrases. I knew what you meant."

"You thought you knew, Fred," Balthazar said. "But that was always your problem. You never bothered to know Balthazar Romero. You only knew your partner, Boy Benjamin's henchman. Do you want to know what I meant when I said that?"

"I'm dyin' to," Fred said. "If you'll excuse the expression."

"I was giving you another chance," Balthazar said. "I was never that fond of B.B. I was never under his spell. He was a means to an end, nothing more. But you never caught on to that. You thought I was loyal. You thought I had nothing else going for me. You didn't understand that all that time, I was working to secure my own future, not Boy Benjamin's. I tried to secure yours, but you weren't interested. I held out hope that it could still work out for you."

"You're using the past tense," Fred noticed.

"Don't you understand? You brought this on yourself," Balthazar said. "If I am a herald of doom, then I am because you made me one. It's your fault."

"I gave as much as I got," Fred said. "You're as much at fault for our soured relations, Balthazar, you let things spiral out of control. Don't you try and pin all this entirely on me. Don't you dare."

"You're still trying to blame me," Balthazar said. "You still don't see how it was your fault. And it was. You didn't appreciate what I had to offer, you never did. We had different methods, we always did, but you never respected mine. You thought you were carrying us. Do you want to know how wrong you were? Do you want examples? I was carrying you, Fred, all those years. You wouldn't be alive today if it weren't for me. Do you understand? If it wasn't Boy Benjamin, then any of the long list of enemies you compiled. You had a flawed approach, and you have the balls to say - the gall to have underestimated me - that I'm the one at fault here? No, Fred. You don't have that right."

"I kept myself together," Fred said. "For all those years, I kept myself together."

"It doesn't matter," Balthazar said. "Don't you understand? It doesn't matter what you did for all those years to protect yourself. Your past eventually catches up with you. It's a simple matter of fact."

"What about yourself, Balthazar," Fred said. "You think you'll emerge from your own life unscathed?"

"I know how to protect myself," Balthazar said. "You never did, and you're only now beginning to understand how much it will cost you."

"You talk about preparations," Fred said. "You can't prepare for the unknown, Balthazar. That's where it always gets you. Maybe I'm just realizing it, but at least I am. You're giving me a warning, if that why you're here?"

"After a fashion," Balthazar said.

"Then I'm giving you your own warning," Fred said.

"I don't need it," Balthazar said.

"Don't be so sure," Fred said. The host for this exchange looked at his coffee, and decided he didn't want it anymore. He got up from the table they had been sitting at and dumped it down the drain. "A vice I took from you. I can give it away again."

"It's an awful gift," Balthazar said.

"Most gifts are," Fred said. "There are only two kinds of gifts: the informed and the uninformed. The second one is the kind you give because you think it'll be good for them. In my experience, it rarely is. It just isn't...appreciated. The giver is the one who receives the pleasure, and the only one who's supposed to. They've done their job. Gifts are a task, just like any other."

"You're getting sentimental again," Balthazar said. "The holidays are a long way off."

"Holidays are for those who can't appreciate life right now," Fred said. "We teach our children that they have to wait, that what they want is something that is to be given to them."

"Silly, I know," Balthazar said.

"No, you don't," Fred said. "You said I didn't know you. I know that you celebrate the holidays every year. Ordinarily, one could make this assumption of anyone, but I know that you did not always. There was a stake-out, one year, on Christmas Eve, during some of Butler's happier moments. You told me that you had nothing better to do and that it was not a new fancy of yours. I remember you using that word, 'fancy.' It impressed itself. We rung in Christmas handing Butler a present he would never forget. Do you remember what it was?"

"His father," Balthazar said.

"Who had not been in that urn that last time Butler saw him," Fred said. "It was a particularly dastardly idea, that one of yours. Butler didn't even believe it for years, and the postcards you sent, only convinced him further. You never even told me if Daddy Epstein was truly dead or not. I assumed he was."

"Those were better times," was all Balthazar would say about it. "For us, anyway."

"Bessie says she still receives those postcards," Fred said. "I saw one just the other day. You can't imagine how upset they make her. And I can never tell her about my connection to them."

"There's nothing to tell," Balthazar said.

"Of course not," Fred said. The doorbell rang. "I'm never expecting callers. But they always come. Maybe there's truth to your theory after all. This is supposed to be private residence."

As Fred went to answer the door, Balthazar began to feel something akin to regret. He had not expected the encounter to go half as well, and in fact was developing newfound respect for his former friend, but not enough. Fred had managed to avoid discussing Tekamthi thus far, despite having assured Balthazar several times that he would.

"It seems I've gotten a package," Fred called from the doorway, with no surprise in his voice. He must have already seen the return address Balthazar had briefly debated he should include. If he could make the decision over again, he would, and not include it. "You've sent me...a gift."

"So I have," Balthazar said.

"This was the point of the visit," Fred said. "Wasn't it?"

"Open the package," Balthazar said.

"Oh, I will," Fred said. "I already know what it is, don't I?"

"Only one way to find out," Balthazar said.

"No, there isn't," Fred said, as he found a letter opener, to cut the tape. "But I'll do it your way anyway, Balthazar."

The next moment, the broken watch was revealed. Fred stared at it for a moment, but wouldn't look at his guest. "Boy Benjamin. He says I'm living on borrowed time. Let's see what I can do to fix it."

"Don't do it," Balthazar said as he watched Fred begin to open the back of the watch with the screwdriver that had accompanied it. "You don't have to."

"It's too late," Fred said. He continued to work at it. The looser the backing became, the more liquid oozed from beneath, from within.

"Fred, please," Balthazar said.

"You've made your choice," Fred said. The liquid was covering his fingers now, and still he continued. "And I've made mine. You want to know how to find the Dread Poet? I'll tell you."

"Fred," Balthazar said. "Think of your wife. Your children."

"She's pregnant, you know," Fred said. No more liquid came forth. The plate was off and now the liquid seeped into his skin, disappearing. "Ashlee wishes she were, doesn't she? Why do you think that is? Because she knows her sister is, and she feels her...biological clock ticking.

"The Dread Poet. He lives a few blocks down from here, on Culver St, No. 22, in the basement of the house. The owners don't even know it. They don't even know they have a basement. He's been there as long as they have. Ten years. And they've never known. Their dog doesn't even know. But they should have. There were signs. There were signs everywhere."

Fred spoke no more. He was dead. Balthazar took his leave. Bessie and Rose and Hansen Mueller were still not even awake. The package had come very early, and now Balthazar had taken a husband and father away from his sister-in-law a second time. Ashlee must have known. She would know about this, too. But he couldn't worry about that. He needed to do bad things, but he did those things humanely. They would think Fred died of a heart attack. It would come as no surprise to anyone who knew him. To those who knew him well, they would know. He had left the box, but removed the return address. He had put it on a sticker, while he was still debating, in case he changed his mind. The postal service could still expose him. But he couldn't worry about that.

He had other things to worry about.

Chapter Six - Requiem for Ratbeard

2005-11-06T06:55:00.000-08:00

The funny thing about inevitability was that you couldn't avoid it. Balthazar had too many reasons now to think avoiding his visit, his last visit, with Frederick Mueller, the man known as Ratbeard, was even a possibility. He sat in his car a block away in the early morning, watching as other cars streamed by on their way to work, knowing the kind of traffic they were headed into, and thought of much simpler times with Fred. They had been partners, virtually inseparable, or so the perception had gone. In truth, Balthazar understood that Fred had never really wanted to be his friend. It was a matter of convenience, and as much resentment as there was on his part to this knowledge, he had never let it color the experiences themselves with Fred, who was fun, as long as he was around, to play off of. Fred had other interests. It was always evident, but he seemed to enjoy Balthazar, too, if not by rote. Balthazar had met his mother. He knew where it came from. He also knew where Fred might have been going next, and there was always the possibility Fred was going somewhere, if he'd had the chance. He'd always had an interest in Japanese culture. Apparently he liked Japan itself as well. There might have been a woman.

The growing light in the sky had yet to fully cast itself, but it had already captured its usual beauty. Balthazar admired it. He hadn't been looking for it, but he happened to notice it, so he took the time to enjoy it. If it was more than a charming display of atmosphere, Balthazar couldn't have said, but he could have cared less. He could invest as much or as little meaning into a thing as he cared to, but he thought reading into things was a waste of time. Some things were exactly what they seemed to be. A lot of time had been wasted throughout history trying to pretend they weren't, though it had produced plenty of cultural relevance. Balthazar appreciated culture, but he wasn't a slave to it. He could not have said how he got his name, or why he should be attempting to follow any particular culture because of it.

Maybe it was a fault of his upbringing. Fred was rather debacherous, and that was what he had always known, growing up as a child of fortune. Balthazar had come to know his roots, and since learning of Boy Benjamin's package had dug still deeper. Fred had a linguistic challenge, a kind of stutter that made him trip over words, that he had conquered in adulthood, but which plagued him in his earlier years. Balthazar heard the testimony from past acquaintances and almost felt pity, but thought better of his former friend for it, to have achieved such a triumph. It made him savor his own impending victory that much more.

He turned on the radio, and found talk.

"--wrecked the foundation of the country," the host was saying. "Owing to this fact, it is our obligation to ensure this latest legislation doesn't pass. Once you erode our values, you erode our very soul, and we can't let that happen. Bad things happen to good people because they let it happen, and because they're not as good as they think they are. Don't listen to those who say bad things are only a matter of chance. Everything happens for a reason, and the reasons have to do with what we allow to happen, what we allow to creep inside our homes. This isn't about moral decay, but personal decay."

Balthazar switched it off again. He didn't need sanctimonious talk. He looked at the clock on the dashboard, and realized he'd been listening to more of it than he'd thought. He should get going. There was much to discuss with Fred, and very little time.

Fred was collecting his newspaper when Balthazar approached, on foot. Dressed in boxers and a t-shirt, Fred seemed to acknowledge him with an indistinct nod, an invitation, with little warmth to it. "You'll be wanting your decaf, won't you?" he called out, scooping up the paper.

"I gave that up," Balthazar said, following Fred into the plain suburban home he kept, on the fringes of Traverse, in a district known as Warner.

"Probably a good thing," Fred said, still walking away, probably to retrieve a robe, inside his house, letting his guest make himself at home. "I always told you it wasn't good for you. But I've taken up the bad habit for myself. I could give you a small cup, if you'd like."

"No, thanks," Balthazar said. In a few moments Fred reappeared, with the bathrobe and cup of coffee, his newspaper nuzzled beneath an arm. His sandy beard was as out of control as always, and he wore reading glasses. His hair was as much a mess, which was normal, too. A prominent belly made itself known as well. Fred continued to be distracted, purposefully.

"You haven't been around in a while," he noted as he scanned the front page. "Heard you'll be in the Tracks soon enough. The bar is doing well, I suppose."

"It is," Balthazar said. "Look, I--"

"You're here for a reason," Fred said. "That much is obvious. We'll get to that later. It's still morning for me, and you know how they are premium."

"You don't have to make this so awkward," Balthazar said.

"I think I've earned that right," Fred said. "You are not in the position to say what this should be like. You're the guest."

"And the host should be more welcoming," Balthazar said.

"If the host knows he will be one, yes," Fred said. "But if he doesn't, he doesn't need to be anything. Don't talk to me about how things should be."

"So things haven't been as easy lately," Balthazar said. "It's what you wanted, isn't it? I had the impression you wanted to severe our ties."

"I don't recall the conversation," Fred said. "Perhaps you could refresh my memory?"

"There wasn't one," Balthazar said. "I took it as an assumption."

"Well, there you have it," Fred said. "You need something again, though, don't you?"

"I never needed anything from you," Balthazar said.

"A funny thing to say," Fred said. "You'll be reminded of it when the door swings 'round your ass."

"There's no reason to be rude," Balthazar said.

"You started it," Fred said.

"Look, just put aside those issues for a minute," Balthazar said.

"I need a compelling reason to," Fred said. "Tell me how you managed to turn the bar around. It was on the verge of boarding its window six months ago, after the robbery."

"The impact of the robbery was inflated, as far as I could tell," Balthazar said. "There was never such danger."

"You purchased it," Fred said. "Care to divulge the financial matters for that?"

"Look, just forget it," Balthazar said.

"You can't say you were just in the neighborhood," Fred said. "I chose this neighborhood because it was out of the way. Wanted to protect the family."

"You have a family?" Balthazar said.

"Not since you last knew, no," Fred said. "It was a package deal, and I was entirely comfortable with it. I believe you know the mother. Bessie Solomon."

"Elizabeth," Balthazar said.

"Ashlee's sister," Fred said. "Truett's daughter. Mother of Rose and Hansen. Widow of Butler Epstein."

"Thanks for the refresher course," Balthazar said. "What're you doing with her?"

"Love," Fred said. The phone began to ring. The portable, Balthazar realized, was in Fred's robe pocket. He answered it immediately. "It's Cutty now. Wouldn't you believe it."

Balthazar watched as a brief conversation ensued, mostly filled with Fred listening to Solomon and offering affirmative responses. Every now and again, Fred would look toward Balthazar, and Balthazar wouldn't like it.

"I apologize," Fred said. "It couldn't wait. Whatever you're here for, I've got my own business, too, you must realize."

"Of course," Balthazar said. "Our line of work is always open for business."

"I sometimes regret that," Fred said, suddenly becoming sentimental. "Especially now. Ashlee is a good girl, Balthazar, but her sister is the keeper. To think Butler was the one who learned that first."

"He was good for a few things," Balthazar said. He believed his wife was the better sister, but could stand humoring Fred, now, in the end. "Okay, you have me pegged. I admit it. I came here for a reason. You've got to tell me something. You know a lot of people. One of them in particular, the one known as the Dread Poet. I need to find him."

"The Dread Poet," Fred mused, sitting back. "I haven't seen him in a long time. But I can help. I can help you, Balthazar. This one last time."

"Just one last time?" Balthazar said. "You intend to sever our ties?"

"Time has been doing that well enough," Fred said. "But it isn't time you should be worried about."

"A threat?" Balthazar said.

"Something like that," Fred said. "Don't worry, I'm not going to kill you. You haven't walked into a trap. You would extend me the same courtesy. I don't wish for your death, but there are those who do. You don't know? You've become a liability."

"Boy Benjamin wouldn't dispose of me so easily," Balthazar said.

"Who said anything about Boy Benjamin? He is not the big kahuna here, the big fish," Fred said. "If you think so, if you've been buying his bullshit propaganda, than I pity you even more than I already do. No, there are bigger fish, and you're still a little fish to fry. You want to know about the Dread Poet? I'll do you the favor. Yeah, I'll do that for you. You deserve that much. That's what former friends are for, right? Friends who haven't become enemies?"

Chapter Five - The Interview with Andy Triplehorn

2005-11-05T13:42:00.000-08:00

As the day wore on, Balthazar became increasingly aware that he did not want to do this interview after all, and he didn't know why. Trouble was, it was ten minutes away and he was already at Tin Can. There did not seem to be any backing out now.

"You look like you're going rounds with the Terror Twins," Andy Triplehorn told him, confidentially, whispering into his ear like it was a conspiracy. Andy was his wingmate at the bar, the guy Balthazar could always depend on. He was in his early twenties, a good ten years Balthazar's junior, and seemed every bit the young man he looked, until he was called upon to serve a drink or otherwise direct a customer's needs. He became the consummate businessman then, the professional who knew exactly what to do, and did it with remarkable flare, like a showman. Other times, he seemed unfocussed, which was why Balthazar was surprised that Andy was paying such close attention at the moment.

"I'm fine," Balthazar said. "Nothing to worry about."

"You're something of a hero, you know," Andy said. "That's why they're here, not because Tin Can is turning silver, which on the whole isn't really that special. I've been to bars more than a hundred years older, in Ireland."

"You've been to Ireland," Balthazar said.

"Yeah," Andy said, "Sure. Who hasn't?"

"People without passports, I suppose," Balthazar said. "People who aren't interested."

"Everyone's interested in Ireland," Andy insisted. "But the bars aren't the reason I went. That would be blarney."

"You kissed it," Balthazar said. "Didn't you?"

"As a matter of fact, I didn't," Andy said. "Didn't get around to it. Not that I wouldn't have liked to."

"Hanging out over a ledge," Balthazar said. "Not my idea of fun."

"Come on, old man," Andy said. "We all know you have a sense of adventure. It's in your eye. Maybe it's just been a while. Kick the cane from under that hand, and you'll be sprite again, I say! Just like the Dahl story. You know, or something."

"Yeah," Bathazar said. "Or something. You've got an imagination, Andrew."

"Andy," Andy said.

"I don't like to use nicknames," Balthazar said.

"You call Max Fischer Greenwood," Andy said, "Don't you?"

"Greenwood is an exception," Balthazar said. "There are always exceptions."

"I'd like to understand that someday," Andy said. "And find out where the heck 'Greenwood' came from."

"Nothing very interesting, I assure you," Balthazar said.

"You have a funny idea about what's interesting, Bill," Andy said. "Oh, I'm sorry. You probably don't like me calling you that."

"It's fine," Balthazar said.

"We're ready for you," an assistant to the Tracks reporter announced.

"Twenty-five years, Mr. Romero," the reporter, Ted Geyer, remarked. "Of course, you haven't been around that long, have you?"

"Has it already started?" Balthazar said. "I thought you'd say 'action' or something."

"Oh, no," Ted said. "Just making friendly banter, to get you warmed up. Yeah! We haven't started yet, old boy."

Ted was another man who happened to be younger than Balthazar, but he spoke as if he were older. Must have grown into the job early. "That's a relief, I guess," Balthazar said.

"I'm sure it is!" Ted boomed. "The place looks nice, like something I'd go to. As I understand, you had a lot to do in the refurnishing."

"Maybe a little," Balthazar said. "Are you sure we're not ready?"

"Deathly," Ted said. "Believe me, I know when to start an interview, fire up the old recorder."

"I'm sure you do," Balthazar said.

"Hot damn! Classic!" Ted roared. His enthusiasm, for this time of the day, was distracting, but it didn't phase any of the regulars, who didn't seem to notice anything was going on. Few things interrupted pub life. They'd have to be more entertaining. Balthazar was well-loved, but he wasn't adored. He took comfort in that as he tried to tolerate Geyer. Andy, from behind the bar, beamed at Balthazar as he poured a draft.

"We may be ready now," Ted said, switching on his recorder.

"Good," Balthazar said. He watched as Ted's demeanor transformed, to something somehow more ebullient.

"Twenty-five years for Tin Can," Ted began, "and I'm sitting in front of Balthazar Romero, bartender for nearly five months here now, the man responsible for one of Traverse's most famous renaissances. What's it like to be at the head of something like this, Bill?"

"Thanks for the gesture, first of all," Balthazar said. There were plenty of other things he might have said. "It's flattering, I guess, to have been able to achieve this. Tin Can has always been a popular establishment. I've only enhanced that popularity."

"Don't be modest," Ted said. "You've almost single-handedly boosted the city's economy. It's quite an achievement. Tell us a little about how you did it."

"I saw what worked and went from there," Balthazar said. "It's really that simple."

"The mayor doesn't hand out keys to the city for minor accomplishments," Ted said. "You've been doing innovative things, just remarkable acts of marketing."

"Networking, really," Balthazar. "But the interest was there already, the fire already stoked, you understand. I planned a few theme nights, opened the doors a little more to the community, capitalized on a few assets. Nothing, really."

"Marty Jennings winning the inaugural World Pool Cup in his hometown right here at Tin Can is no small fete," Ted said, toasting Tin Can with his recorder. A few patrons raised their glasses back, in Balthazar's direction. "Ladies and gentleman, Balthazar Romero, the consummate modest man. They'll be writing philosophy books on you, mark my words."

"I'm sure they will," Balthazar said. "Is that all?"

"It's enough, if you'd like," Ted confirmed, switching off his recorder and pulling out a pad and paper. He obviously planned to capture the mood of the place to pad out the article, get the impressions of the hero and the mood of the bar itself. "You did well. You actually looked concerned earlier. If you don't mind, I'll be sticking around for a bit."

"I guess I was," Balthazar said. "And by all means, go ahead. Plenty to see here, if not the pool champion, who never comes in on Thursdays. Something about prior commitments, when we all know what his true commitment is. Have a drink."

"It'll make a good story," Ted said. "Thanks for having me. One on the house?"

"Sure," Balthazar said, nodding to Andy. At least Geyer didn't seem interested in prolonging the suffering. He'd gotten what he needed and moved on, which was fine by Balthazar, who did not relish the attention, not one bit. If Andy hadn't insisted on it, he would never have consented to the interview in the first place.

Geyer bought himself a drink, an obscure label called Vintner's Rum that someone had once placed an order for which had ushered in an unending supply for no perceivable reason, as Balthazar watched him, eager to see him and his entourage off but mindful enough to let them leave on their own. The Old VM, as it was known, had become a popular staple of the bar, and only moreso since the bar itself had gain newfound popularity, so that the mysterious shipments never came fast enough. Geyer was now enjoying one of the few that were reserved for distinguished patrons. Balthazar also had an open policy that anyone who referenced Colinaude, to himself or any of the staff, received one on the house, but that bargain had thus far gone unfulfilled. The punk with the red cap would have gotten the whole supply if he'd been old enough, though. Balthazar couldn't figure him out. Twice he'd called the cops, and during one of these incidents he'd asked them if they knew Colinaude's whereabouts themselves. They didn't.

The man was a ghost, and like the Old VM, he was another part of the lore. He'd worked there and left not long before Balthazar's arrival, but the months in between appeared to be years in the recollection of those who should have known more. There was Alonzo Poland, but he had not seemed interested in making another friend in the few weeks their mutual employment at the bar overlapped. Poland now enjoyed life in a city called Bowie in Texas. His number was not listed and he returned no letters. In fact, every one of Balthazar's came right back to him. Greenwood was a friend, but Greenwood rarely talked about anyone but Greenwood. Andy? Didn't know anything.

He could care less about accolades. If they were foisted on him, Balthazar would not refuse them, but he had not sought them out. He would rather have avoided them. He wanted to leave Tin Can, slip away from the spotlight, but the place had grown on him. Even as his initiatives had started garnering attention and his instincts kicked in, Balthazar couldn't walk away. It was like home, and the more he did to improve it, the more he found he couldn't leave.

It was like a Chinese finger trap.

"Andrew," he called over to the bar, "if our guests would like to stick around for much longer, no matter how much more, let them. I'm headed out, but I'll be back in a bit."

"You're not even scheduled this week," Andy replied, shaking his head after doing so and laughing.

"I'm never in the books, Andrew," Balthazar said. "You should have realized that by now."

Chapter Four - Chowder with Ashlee

2005-11-04T12:48:00.000-08:00

"Not the red, but the white," Ashlee told her husband, not for the first time. "If you really have to, just remember the Jim Carrey film. He needs to know it for a password, right?"

"Stupid clam chowder," Balthazar muttered, jokingly. Planning meals with his wife was another interest of his, and so was reconnecting with lost elements of his New England upbringing, all eleven years of it. Today he was interested in channeling that interest into the only seafood he voluntarily ate, and he was still confused, because his memory told him that Murray Romero had always prepared the red variety, otherwise known as the Manhattan version. He couldn't get an explanation, either, because Murray had been dead for years, the victim of pancreatic cancer, and no other family member was likely to know. "You're probably right."

"I always am," Ashlee smiled demurely. "Besides, I was at the market today and happened to take a peak."

"You devil, you," Balthazar said, embracing his wife for a well-earned kiss. "This reminds me, there's the little matter of your birthday coming 'round."

"Don't remind me," Ashlee said.

"Too late," Balthazar said.

"So it seems," Ashlee said. "But as long as we're on the subject, you want to know what to serve."

"Never the same thing twice," Balthazar said. "That's all I've got. You know, most people are content with a favorite dish."

"But I don't have one, now do I?" Ashlee smirked.

"It makes you all the more becoming," Balthazar said. "And baffling. Is there nothing you despise? Nothing at all?"

"Nothing at all," Ashlee said. "Well, there was that one time in the Galapagos..."

"We don't need to talk about that," Balthazar. "Bad experiences don't count."

"Nearly turned me off mangos permanently," Ashlee said.

"Which would have ruined your breakfast," Balthazar said. "And which in turn tells me that mangos, after all are your favorite food."

"Sorry to disappoint you," Ashlee said. "Family tradition. Nobody messes with it, just like they don't mess with the Solomons themselves."

"I remember your father saying something to the effect when I asked for your hand," Balthazar said. "I'm still not sure he was joking."

"He wasn't, believe me," Ashlee said, laughing again. She was always doing that. "You don't know the real Cutty Solomon yet, even after eight years, trust me. Truth me told, you probably wouldn't."

"As long as he doesn't interfere in my business, I won't worry," Balthazar said.

"You mean as long as you don't interfere in his," Ashlee said.

"Another joke?"

"No comment," Ashlee said, and let go with another smile. Balthazar didn't care how serious she was being about her father. Cutty wasn't the one he loved. "You went and saw the finance advisor again, didn't you?"

"Business," he said. "You know that. I've got a lot on my plate. Don't worry about it. I was thinking we could take a vacation soon. Definitely not to the Galapagos."

"Changing the subject," Ashlee said. "Sure sign of infidelity."

"Have me investigated," Balthazar.

"Did," Ashlee said.

"And?"

"Clean."

"A relief."

"I also found you wear the same socks two days in succession," Ashlee said.

"That's an awfully personal observation," Balthazar said.

"Well, the observer was being awfully personal at the time," Ashlee said. "Anyway, while you've been doing Boy Benjamin's dirty work and attempting to locate Cotton Colinaude, I've been doing some tracking of my own. Some of my father's old associates. They tell me he's getting into something big. I'm worried about him."

"B.B. tells me that your father is nothing to worry about," Balthazar said. "If he isn't, then you shouldn't."

"It doesn't work like that," Ashlee said.

"Even if it does," Balthazar said. "I don't want you sticking your neck out."

"I stick it as far as it'll go," Ashlee said. "I always have."

"I know," Balthazar said.

"You don't have to protect me," Ashlee said.

"I wish that were true," Balthazar said.

"Well, I protect you, too," Ashlee said. "So you're going with the New England clam chowder, definitely?"

"Definitely," Balthazar. said.

"It's the white one," Ashlee said.

"I know," Balthazar said.

"Good, because that's the one I bought," Ashlee said, pulling from behind her back a can of the chowder. "Personally, I hate the stuff."

"I thought you liked everything," Balthazar said.

"I'll eat anything," Ashlee said. "Doesn't mean I like everything, or that I'll eat something again. Don't worry, I never let you prepare something I've already checked off."

"You've made a list," Balthazar said. "Nutty obsessive."

"Aren't we all? And hey," Ashlee said as she cranked the can open manually, "I eat mangos every morning, too."

"How very tropical of you," Balthazar said.

"One question remains," Ashlee said. "Heat it on the stove or in the microwave?"

"The microwave," Balthazar said. "What are you planning to eat?"

"Catch on quickly," Ashlee said. "Greek salad."

"We don't have any in the house," Balthazar noted.

"No, but I'm sure I'll find some at the mall," Ashlee said. "Nia has some more information on my father."

"You won't quit, will you?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Ashlee said.

"I'm planning to," Balthazar said.

"That's something we could talk about," Ashlee said.

"It's time we move on, is all," Balthazar said. "I'm tired of the old routine. You mentioned that you father is getting into something big, well so is Boy Benjamin, and I wouldn't be the least surprised to find out that both developments are related. Knowing Cutty, if I do at all, and knowing my godfather, which I do, all too well, they're both coming to some bad ends. I don't want anything to do with that."

"You already do," Ashlee said. "You're the reason Benjamin has been so successful. Don't you see? Without you, he wouldn't be in this position. And there are forces out there right now that you don't know about, Balthazar, forces you wouldn't understand. Have you even heard of Lotus? Do you know what he's capable of?"

"I wish you didn't know such things," Balthazar said. "They shouldn't be your burden."

"It's a common burden, Balthazar," Ashlee said. "The sooner you realize this, the better off you'll be. You can't protect me from it anymore than you can prevent it from collapsing. The collapse is coming."

"I hate hearing you talk like this," Balthazar said.

"Well, it's the kind of talk that needs to be heard," Ashlee said.

"It shouldn't be your concern," Balthazar said.

"And it shouldn't be your problem either," Ashlee said. "But it is."

"I've got that interview scheduled for this afternoon," Balthazar said. "Did you want to be there?"

"I already told you, I can't make it," Ashlee said.

"I was hoping for a more sympathetic response the second time around," Balthazar said.

"You never could stand public engagements," Ashlee said. "Still planning a speech this year, at the party?"

"I plan one every year," Balthazar said.

"And never give one," Ashlee said.

"At least you understand why," Balthazar said.

"I wish you could get over it," Ashlee said.

"Well, I could, if it were that simple," Balthazar said.

'It's as simple as you make it," Ashlee said.

"And I can't make it simple," Balthazar said. "I wis I could, but I can't. How much long for the soup?"

"The soup? Oh, it's been ready," Ashlee said, holding up the can. "Oh, it needs to cook first, doesn't it?"

"It would help," Balthazar said. He watched as his wife poured the chowder into a bowl and placed it in the microwave.

"How long does the can say?" she asked.

"Two minutes," he replied, not looking. He already knew.

"All right, then," she said, punching in the time and pressing the start button. The hum of the process filled the silence that had crept into the kitchen. The first minute was passable enough, but as the seconds advanced, Balthazar became increasingly aware that the friction he was imagining became more and more real the closer his meal came to being ready. He reached into the utensil drawer for a spoon, and studied his options. This consumed the rest of the time. "It's ready," Ashlee announced.

"Thanks, darling," Balthazar said, opening the microwave door and withdrawing the steaming bowl.

"I'll be off, then," Ashlee said.

Balthazar put the bowl aside. "I'm sorry," he said.

"Don't apologize," Ashlee said. "There's bound to be stress. Congratulations. You're perfectly normal."

With that, she was gone, leaving her husband behind. He didn't like her last words to him, and he couldn't quite say why. Perfectly normal? Sure, he understood the context, but he knew his wife. That's not all that she meant. She was trying to tell him that he was not so different in other ways as well, even though he had always considered himself an outsider. It had colored his whole life, separating him from his peers on the playground and at the office, as such there was in Boy Benjamin's employ. In a lot of ways, his life had supported this theory, even encouraged it, and Balthazar had never made a real attempt to alter it. It was what he was, and he had always been comfortable with it, so far as anyone could be. Ashlee was suggesting otherwise. He knew that she had never been comfortable with it, but he thought she understood.

Perhaps he was wrong. And maybe she was right, but he didn't have the time for that right now. Too much else to worry about. If he attempted any other life-changing course-changes, he'd lose the course entirely, and that would be disastrous. He couldn't afford it. If he wanted to maintain his balance, he would have to ignore his wife's advice. If that cost him, he would handle it later.

The chowder was as good as he'd remembered. So it wasn't the right version. It was still chowder, and that was good enough. Two minutes hadn't been quite enough, but he didn't have time to worry about it. He needed to be at Tin Can very soon, to get the interview over with. He had more important matters in mind.

Chapter Three - Tekamthi: A Local Legend

2005-11-03T13:02:00.000-08:00

Balthazar spent the few days of anticipation deep in search for his elusive subject, at least the one he had been told could help him find the other. There was a man, rumored to know everything there was to know about the subway system in Traverse. Balthazar found himself increasingly dependent on such things, rumors. This man was known as William Tekamthi. If he had a nickname, Balthazar, naturally, did not care to find out.

From what he had gathered, though, Tekamthi was something of a local legend. Born in the early twentieth century and seemingly impervious to the ravages of age, he knew not just the inner workings of the subway system but the city itself. He was supposed to have helped design most of the developments to come around in the last hundred years, all without crediting himself professionally or financially. His interest in Traverse was not known, but that he had it was beyond a doubt. Tekamthi fought numerous attempts at splintering various districts into their own communities, supposedly because he insisted their spirits, if lost, would irrevocably wound the entire population and doom it into eventual nonexistence. If he had an obvious interest, it was longevity, perhaps for its own sake and perhaps for some greater purpose. He was known as the social architect.

But his whereabouts were themselves unknown. Balthazar found the man all-around intriguing, but he had only one thing in mind as he tracked him down, and that was Tekamthi's knowledge of the subway system in Traverse.

"Tekamthi," he said, "William Tekamthi." Balthazar stood before Amelia Delphi, the underground census clerk, watched as her eyes scanned the PDA she held loosely in her hand. He was in an office in an ordinary building filled with ordinary people doing ordinary things. Delphi did ordinary things as well. She'd just found a way to integrate her true interests with those she needed to maintain as cover, at Humbert Savings Bank. Balthazar, of course, envied her.

"Oh, of course!" Delphi shouted, before containing herself again. "The Dread Poet. He hasn't gone by William Tekamthi in years. I don't know where you heard that name. A bit obscure, really. You should tell me about it some time. I can find the Dread Poet for you well enough, sure!"

"Nickname," Balthazar said.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing," he said. "Never mind. So you can help me find him."

"After a fashion," Delphi said. "He doesn't exactly take visitors. Same with every other celebrity. I don't think he's done any TV appearances, either. But the tabloids have their fun. Last week they were saying he's shed his skin, and had a creepy graphic and everything. Pretty gross, right?"

"Indeed," Balthazar said. "You can find that sort of thing on just about anyone, I guess."

"Anyone of note, sure," Delphi said, still fiddling with her handheld device. "It's just crazy. From what I hear, if you did manage to get an audience, you'd find him to be remarkably personable. They also say you could easily find him, if you were the right type of person. But if you were, you wouldn't be looking for him. He's a real charity buff."

"So I'd gather," Balthazar said. "It seems to be his life's mission, on some level or another."

"Almost every level would be accurate," Delphi said. "Okay, here it is. Here's another contact for you. I promise he will be easier to locate. Someone by the name of Ratbeard. I don't have another alias."

Balthazar betrayed himself.

"You know him, then," Delphi said.

"Unfortunately," Balthazar said.

"Why is that?"

"Until recently, it wouldn't have been," he said. "But these days, it is most certainly so. It would have been far better for you to have found a different name in your database."

"Well, he's also listed as Magoo," Delphi said, "but I'm fairly certain that would not have helped. Ratbeard is far more common, and Magoo, I'm guessing, is not his real name, either."

"I appreciate your efforts, as always," Balthazar said.

"You're looking considerably more grim than usual," Delphi noted. "You're not having domestic issues, are you?"

"Ashlee is not a problem," Balthazar said. "She never has been. God forbid the day. No, I have...other issues, but none that need concern you."

"I'm always available," the cute blonde of the young age said, and if Balthazar were any other man, he would have thoughts of temptation at this moment, would have given those words different meaning.

"Thanks for the offer," he said. "As always."

As if he needed another reason to visit Ratbeard, whose real name he knew well enough. Ratbeard offered a psychiatrical service on the side. He had always insisted on practicing it, saying it would do Balthazar good, but Balthazar politely refused each time. It would be amusing to grant him this wish for this final visit that was proving more fortuitous all the time. Let the analysis happen, find out where and how he could locate Tekamthi, and then watch as Ratbeard opened the package, a final gift between benighted friends.

Balthazar got an update on his account before leaving Humbert Savings, and read with pleasure that the latest deposits had placed him back into the bracket he had recently fallen out of. There was a comfort in seven digits. He might even be able to put money into savings again, which was always nice, the illusion of security. He knew well enough that his security was itself ensured, but that his savings in themselves were not it. He was no longer dependent on Boy Benjamin, after all. He had his own wits, and he could fall on them without concern. That was why he did not fear the future, or his plans, which Ratbeard was helping to facilitate in more ways than he could have ever appreciated. If Ratbeard had ever appreciated their friendship, he would not have needed to bear this burden. Ratbeard appreciated no one but himself, his supposed indispensable worth.

Well, that worth was less than he'd imagined. Balthazar was not much different, in some ways. He appreciated himself above all others, and knew of his indispensable worth, but he didn't make that worth dependent on the gratification of others. He had others work for him. Ratbeard worked for others, and never understood that, but at least he wasn't alone. Boy Benjamin depended on Balthazar more than he knew, but not as much he would learn to appreciate, in time.

Balthazar was feeling a little vengeful these days. He was resentful, too, but not enough to blind himself to the worth of all that he resented. He knew it was a petty thing for him to linger on, but he was ready to start investing in his own interests, and he would start by cleaning house on his old demons. That was what Boy Benjamin thought he was doing with that package, making an example of Ratbeard in the face of his enemies, his competitors, not really caring if a war broke out over it and revealing himself to Traverse. He wasn't worried. He should be. You made yourself vulnerable, exposing yourself. It had to be a thing to be understood, Balthazar knew. He would make sure Boy Benjamin did.

If he helped William Tekamthi reclaim his protective bubble by eliminating Ratbeard, so be it. It was a price he was already willing to pay, and it was a paltry one at that.

Balthazar accomplished this with a few days still to wait, until the package arrived and he made his visit to his old friend. He spent the remaining time concentrated on his wife Ashlee, to whom he was otherwise entirely devoted. It was strange, having so many commitments, so many conflicting allegiances. But they somehow co-existed, contradictory as they were. Each of them was necessary in their own way, so it worked, and Balthazar did not have a problem with it. He had a level head. He didn't know how anyone else could manage it, but then, it probably explained the misery in the world, and the misery it caused, and created. He was not a violent man, but he was forced to be. He never enjoyed it, but it had to be done. He could rationalize it, live with it, and let it go when the time came and he was finally able to. If there was a price to pay, he would be willing to pay it, but he was confident he could work it out by other means. He didn't believe in eternal damnation.

He wanted to go on vacation, someplace remote but not ordinary, or trendy. Ashlee would enjoy it, not to satisfy him, but because she had the same interests as her husband. he had made sure of it, and was forever grateful that he'd been able to. Ashlee meant the world to him, and in the end, was the only thing that really meant anything to him. Balthazar made another mental note, to begin investigating that, too. Life was a constant spin of investigation. Sometimes it went by the name curiosity.

Among his other commitments were an interview for the Tracks on his day job, at a bar called Tin Can which had suddenly become all the rage, thanks to the growing cult of local pool shark Marty Jennings. Balthazar had originally gotten the job because he'd learned Colinaude had once worked there. Another in a long line of false leads, because no one there seemed to know anything about the man, except some punk with a red cap, who had enough of his own problems to deal with as it was. Balthazar chose not to listen to his ravings.

Chapter Two - A Package Delivery

2005-11-02T12:05:00.000-08:00

If Balthazar could go a day without encountering unwanted complications in his life, he would gladly have paid any price, even if money in this instance somehow proved to be an issue. He was tired of dealing with things that he did not really have to deal with, problems that foisted themselves on him like a plague. This was the sum worth of humanity, getting in each other's way. Sometimes it proved useful, other times, and usually, a bother of insurmountable proportions. Great things could be accomplished by great minds, and be undone by small ones, whether deliberately or not. It didn't really matter. Balthazar held no claim to greatness, but he saw how the wheel turned, and that was close enough.

His present concern was the transportation of a package, a small one, which he would have liked shipped in the mail today, but inconsequential matters kept getting in the way, things that needed doing, both his own and others' as well, since most people liked depending on someone else for no other reason than they did not want to bother with every matter themselves. It was irritating, this enforced helplessness. Humanity should have long ago broken the cycle of dependence, but it had decided it didn't want to. It was easier the other way. Balthazar was complacent in his own turn, to be sure. He told himself it was okay because at least he was self-aware about it. That was the difference he cared about.

The package in question was a matter concerning his employment under Boy Benjamin. He could have cared less personally whether it reached its destination, having much more vested interest in tracking down Cotton Colinaude at the moment, but he knew that responsibility was responsibility. It was something he had to do, and he was rapidly running out of time. He wondered if he had enough gas in his Impala, and he couldn't remember. What he could was that gas prices had been steadily declining after a prolonged rush skyward, as if someone had been conducting a test, as all conspiracy theorists and cynics had already assumed. What were they at now? Were they levelling off again, or would he once again be pleasantly surprised, should the need be confirmed? On a recent trek he'd found prices remarkably low on the highway, lower than in town. he wondered if that was still the case, and why that might be, why it would have happened in the first place. Had it always been so?

He caught himself dawdling again. The package needed to get into the mail. That was his main concern, not gas prices or Cotton Colinaude, or even his wife's birthday, which would consume his time soon enough. She expected great things, as always.

The keys, he knew, were in his pocket, so that was one concern he need not worry about, another thing he could not help but feel superior over. It was an all-too common concern for others, but he had never allowed to be one for himself. Why should he? Be aware, he told himself. That was the only thing to be, the only real matter of importance. There was so much to be aware of. He had to choose, categorize importance. He glanced at his watch. He had to go.

The Impala gleamed in his garage, the dark evergreen shining in the hollow space. Aside from the car, there was nothing else, no clutter, inside here. There were spaces he didn't manage so well, but here, Balthazar triumphed. His wife didn't seem to mind. Besides, she favored the bus. The Impala was the only car they owned.

He clicked the Impala unlocked and sat down, admiring the interior for a moment. The car had been a dream. he had always been able to afford it, but he had allowed himself to anticipate it. That, and the wife had brought a few matters to the table one day. Priorities, she said, such as a college fund for the child she was expecting. No, she had not been pregnant at the time, nor gotten so afterward, but she was always expecting to become pregnant. It was her dream. Balthazar's dream fit into it nicely. He wanted to leave a mark on the world, and if having a child and raising it to continue his legacy was a good way to start, then so be it. He wanted to make an impact, a roll in the positive direction. He didn't need glory or fame or even an entry in the Britannica. Those things were out of his control. You didn't seek them out, at least not in every case. Your work did that for you. Balthazar sought work that would do that for him.

Boy Benjamin and this package were not going to do that, but Balthazar would humor them in the meantime. No, Cotton Colinaude would help him. He would continue doing what he needed to do until he he could finally do what he wanted to. If he tried to do it the other way, there would be suffering, and he would not let that happen. He would not be responsible for more of that.

At least more than what he needed to under the direction of Boy Benjamin, but he rationalized that well enough. If he didn't do it, others would, and they would be worse. Balthazar could live with that much. Boy Benjamin's operation was a quiet one, which had benefited from the sudden departure of the Cad from the city. It was not gaudy and it did not make itself obvious. Even under the Eidolon it had managed to thrive, when so many others fell. Rumor had it that the Cad had not so much departed as disappeared, and the coincidental, simultaneous absence of the Eidolon himself since that time made it all the more likely. There was much said about those events, even though no one knew anything.

Which was a good thing, and the usual thing. No one knew anything about Boy Benjamin, and certainly less about Balthazar Romero. Everyone knew about Viper, the new overlord who had once written for The Traverse Tracks under the name Peter Cooley, and Godsend's attempts to bring him down. That was common knowledge, but Cooley had for years worked under the same anonymity the Cad had used so well, and that Boy Benjamin now enjoyed. There were no police files on him.

Balthazar had one, but it was unrelated to his present activities. He was fine with that.

The package, at least, was already wrapped and addressed. All he needed to do was secure postage and insurance. It wasn't going far, not even out of Traverse, and not even outside the Boy Benjamin family. This was a special package meant for a special person. It was a message, a broken watch. Balthazar himself no longer wore one. He didn't need to. He followed the path of the sun, and didn't concern himself with tracking the night. Oh, he was awake then, too. But matters moved about more freely then. It was when he was most busy.

As he drove, Balthazar thought about what he was not doing because of this package. He had been told of a contact on the subway he should be looking into. There had been no other information, nothing about when he should try and catch it or whom he should be looking for. He had spent days now trying to confirm any such details, and had made no progress. Boy Benjamin had become his annoyance. That had never been the case before. Balthazar believed in dedication, even without conviction. To split his priorities, and leave what should have been his main interest behind, would have been unthinkable in the past.

The wind was indeed changing. He was inclined to let himself be carried with it, but he couldn't do that, yet. So he drove in his car with the package of the broken watch, to get this latest task out of the way. He felt a ting of resentment toward his godfather for making him do this. Anyone else could have. Why make him? Especially against a man who had formerly been like a brother to him? Why send him to deliver a message Ratbeard would never know he had a hand in delivering?

Of course. The message was for Balthazar himself. Keep your enemies closer. Boy Benjamin was not so subtle as he would probably have liked to think. Still, Balthazar congratulated the old man silently. It was a far greater gesture than he would have expected.

The end was coming closer than he had thought. He had his own motivations. Boy Benjamin apparently felt obliged to contribute. Nothing brought people together more easily than a path of destruction.

Whatever Ratbeard might have done to Boy Benjamin, he had crossed Balthazar first. Balthazar was inclined to forgive him, if not exactly forget. They had parted ways months ago. Now he had made an enemy of the boss, and that sealed his fate. Balthazar was curious about what might have happened. He made a new resolve for the week, as if he did not already have enough. He would be there when the package arrived.

As it were, he arrived at the post office when the resolution came to him. Gently picking up the package from the passenger seat, he walked in, made arrangements, and told them to make sure it was understood that this was a fragile item they would be carrying.

Chapter One - Enter: Balthazar

2005-11-01T13:23:00.000-08:00

He didn't want to get into it. Balthazar Romero wasn't interested. But he knew that he had little choice in the matter. He also knew that trouble was brewing, and that he wanted nothing to do with it, but that he had little choice in that, too.

He was seated at a card table in a dark room. There were no cards in front of him. Even if there had been, he would not have known what to do with them. He knew no games. No, he was there for other reasons. What light there was came from a reading lamp on a desk in a distant corner. The bulb was dying, and it was the last thing on its owner's mind. No reading was done by it. Balthazar sat across from the other occupant of the room, a balding man in his sixties who combed what hair he had left over his pate in a knowing show of loss defiance, the lock sculpted into a jaunty whisp, too little to offer real resistance, just enough to prove he still had style. The man's name was Boy Benjamin, something he'd caught in grade school and retained since, not because of his features but his demeanor. He had that boy-ish charm, and found long ago that he quite enjoyed its effects, its benefits.

"You can do this for me," Boy Benjamin cooed, "can't you? Just this little thing? What would the harm be? Very little, right? Very little, Bally?"

Everyone he had ever known had tried to convince Balthazar of the necessity of a nickname. He'd never bought it. He relished distinction, and his parents had started that path for him from the start. He especially loathed Boy Benjamin's Bally. The boy-ish charm had never had effect on him, but he had a use in pretending it did. "B.B, you ask for a favor," he said, "and I can do you the honor of accepting. It's the least I can do."

"Good," Boy Benjamin said with obvious glee, shaking his martini and taking a relished sip. "I knew I could count on you."

"Of course you can," Balthazar said. "What more can you expect from a godson?"

"You were always better to me than I deserved," Boy Benjamin said, a hint of melancholy in his voice, but playfulness on his face.

"You never gave yourself enough credit," Balthazar said, though he knew differently, and knew, too, that there was the ego that needed continual attendance. That was all there ever was. "This town wouldn't be what it is today if not for you. Traverse without Boy Benjamin. Just wouldn't be worth the hassle."

"I've made my rounds," Boy Benjamin said. "You will receive all the details you need when you need them, as always. I have always put my full faith behind you. You still enjoy that, you know."

The betrayal, though the attempt was there to hide it, stung the air, moreso than the cigar Boy Benjamin now puffed, his cloud of exhalation piercing the darkness, even with its unfocussed contours. Cast against relative emptiness, even a suggestion made itself bold. Balthazar understood what his godfather meant. Fail him again and that support would no longer be there, and this was not a time to lose it, even if he had never wanted, or felt as if he needed, it. As long as Boy Benjamin believed it necessary, it was so, and that was all that mattered. "I understand," he said, "of course. Thank you for your confidence, Boy Benjamin."

"Don't even mention it," Boy Benjamin said, waving his cigar about. "It's not worth the trouble, and it is trouble, wasting your breath on things that don't need to be said. Save that breath for more useful endeavors. You'll need it soon enough. And I know you save it, too. One so many refused cigars finally sends a message across. You do not care for that sort of thing. Tell me, is it for your health? Do you fear you would lose it by enjoying life?"

"I'm not hiding from life, godfather," Balthazar said, mindful of the old argument, and his asthma. "There are more than enough vices out there to ruin a man. I have my share. We don't need to enjoy them together for their existence to be as real as this room we occupy."

"This room is mine," Boy Benjamin retorted. "I paid for it. It's mine fair enough."

"Its previous occupant might have a different interpretation," Balthazar said.

"Its previous occupant might, if he were still alive," Boy Benjamin laughed, then coughed, a hacking cough that suggested the frailty he liked to ignore. "At any rate, health is an overstated luxury. People hide behind it, either as a defense or a shield. If you ask me, it's an unhealthy obsession."

"So it is," Balthazar said. His godfather never expected to be alive the next day, so he could give himself to such musings with so little concern for their logic. There were priorities in life and then there were distractions, which if not ignored were to be done away with. That was what Balthazar did for Boy Benjamin, and certainly not with any personal conviction. He had his own, convictions that often ran contrary, which he needed constantly to conceal, even if he was not always successful. It was a thrill just to live up to such opposing mindsets. "Tell me what your new obsession is, Boy Benjamin."

The older man sat quietly for a moment, letting his two present vices go to waste as he did so. Saying that they went to waste now was one of the man's convictions. He believed that a thing that went unenjoyed, even for a moment and even if it could still be enjoyed later, was being wasted. The moments he spent undermining this philosophy were the ones he was at his most dangerous. He was going unchecked. "My new obsession? I am collecting, original works of art. I'm not talking about the things you would find in a museum. That's directed anxiety. I collect true art."

Balthazar wished he didn't know what his godfather was talking about, but he did, all too well. "I'm glad for you," he said. "Must be very rewarding."

"You bet it is," Boy Benjamin said, taking another huff from his cigar. "Such form. It's what the Ancients relished, you know, before we imposed our own values on them. The past is a funny thing like that. It is exactly what we make of it. The times create their own version of events, and then we feel it's our privilege to do the same, because we've got that thing, that illusion, called perspective. There's no such thing. There's no such thing as objective thought. We only think there is sometimes when it agrees with our own opinions. The human mind is a judge. It judges everything, and sometimes convinces itself that some of these thoughts are immutable. We may not be around to find out that they are, but it always happens. You know what they say. One man's castle is another man's dump. You say it's bad, I say it's good. It's all relative. Like what Einstein said."

"Something like that," Balthazar said.

"Heck, even a bad thing can be bad and good at the same time," Boy Benjamin continued. "It depends on the perspective. Until you account for all perspectives, you're just blowing smoke up your ass."

With relish in his heart again, Boy Benjamin punctuated his thought with his cigar, and then returned his attention to his martini, which he then began to nurse in earnest. Balthazar watched all of this with the same eye he had had to it for years, twenty of them by now. He'd learned early on, at roughly the age of ten, what kind of man his godfather was, first out of fear and then in acceptance and detachment. It was the only way to cope. Like everyone else, he was a functioning enabler, but there was no other way to go about it. Boy Benjamin was power in this town, with its collected assortment of pretenders to the thrown, some who were allowed to believe they possessed some of it, and others who assumed they had it and whom Boy Benjamin humored, for sport. Balthazar, in turn, believed his godfather understood just as well that there was no real power to be had here, and that he was humoring himself just as well. It was a strange game to play, but Balthazar had learned the rules and enjoyed manipulating them. There was a lot to gain, and very little to lose, if fortune favored him, as it had for so long now.

If there had been cards on the table, and even if he had no idea how to use them, Balthazar would have thrust himself into the pot. He had the money, and didn't fear losing that, either. He was invincible, as much as any man could be in Boy Benjamin's Traverse, and it was not an illusion, or even a delusion. As much as he had rebelled in the past and would again in the future, with his new assignment, Balthazar did not have the faith to care about consequences, because he did not believe in them. There was a man out there who could help him. He knew he needed that, help. He wanted to feel connected, as he had never before in his life. Boy Benjamin had ensured that he was provided for from the moment he was born. He'd already fought to know what it was like to fend for himself. Now he needed the courage to do it, forever. The man he needed was a recluse, had abandoned the world after having been burned by it. The man he needed was called Cotton Colinaude.

This table and this room and this light that was soon to go out, Balthazar Romero, with a new charge to negotiate and a future to reckon with, didn't need any of it.