War is a funny thing. We grow so accustomed to it we can sometimes forget how constant a thing it really is. We single out certain wars worthy of our distinction, because they produced such-and-such results, or rallied citizens in such-and-such ways. Some wars create nations, others leave them pretty much as they were, or start them down on paths that would forever alter their future. Sometimes there are so many wars going on, you actually find yourself concentrating on your favorites, not realizing that famous figures from one actually play pivotal ones in others. Some protract for so long, you can’t remember if they’re war-like enough. There was, and continues to be, a centuries-long war in the country Traverse resides in; its gone from hot and cold, clear-cut to muddled, and during most of that time, the victor has always seemed obvious, so that the war has been nothing but one of Clayton Neville’s inevitabilities, and the war nothing but a long-term massacre, a go-away-or-die premise that betrays everything the country was supposedly founded and pivoted upon. For a nation of immigrants, the natives are the least welcome of all. So goes the story for rival founders. The Spanish, who have had the distinction of providing such an extensive new minority in recent years, began that business centuries ago. They slaughtered plenty of their own natives for this honor, and by the time they claimed Mexico, the Americans were just coming around to expanding westward, and in the middle they came across Texas. The most famous battle to be fought there was another massacre, immortalized in the form of a fort modern-day tourists call unimpressive, as drab as the rest of the area.
And yet, this was the stuff the new heroes were born of. The legend of Sidewinder, however misguided in this instance, claims that he alone survived that experience among the able-bodied defenders, and that it was this trauma that eventually undid him, forced him into retirement, as all good heroes cannot do. He had nothing to do with the victory Houston won for the Americans, but his name was still north of the acclaim, right among Bowie, Crockett, and Travis. Never mind how old this would have made him (though period accounts always connected Sidewinder to Houston himself). Heroes had become warriors again, folklore. Other heroes from the period accomplished similarly frontier-sized fetes, rallying points for ordinary citizens, and they were woven into the tapestry of the culture, so that no schoolyard youth could escape knowledge of them. Sidewinder himself, owing to his unusual nature as demonstrated by the mythic tone of the stories that grew around him, such as his survival at the Alamo, came to symbolize the idea of the modern hero because he never championed any single cause, but any number of injustices he would have come across. Forty years later, it’s said, the Sidewinder was active in the Civil War, not as a combatant for either side, for he would no doubt have been subscribed to the losing end, given his geography; but fighting battles that would otherwise have been overlooked in the maelstrom. There is one particular tale that tells of his struggle in a corrupted town called Bowie. Corruption is an aberration as old as civilization, and as such, is mostly overlooked in the annals of heroism.
When the great wars defined a century, the new heroes began to be thrust into greater acclaim. Walker Sanders, the grandfather of Dust, took on the mantle of the Blue Beacon, a champion possessed of extraordinary gumption, usually characterized as Walker’s ability to be fully energized at every moment, preternaturally so, when the Americans entered into the conflict against the Axis and the East, choosing the beaches of islands over that of continents. He was already middle-aged, a father with a son himself old enough to enlist if he so chose, and yet this did nothing to diminish him, or his reputation. But his true conflict was in his mind. Knowing what it was he alone could contribute, Walker felt a powerful pressure to contribute, and even deeply entrenched in fighting, doing what he could, he could not help but be crushed at every casualty report, from his own theater to the other. He was somehow failing, even with every medal, every honor, every life he saved as well as took. He was a new warrior, a hero bred of a time where valor was proved not in the taking of lives, but in the saving. Somewhere in the course of history, great deeds had taken a change of course, so that they were no longer material but mental. While on the surface a tremendous advantage to the evolution of man, it was also a call to raise the stakes. Death was still a part of war; if it was no longer what one man could do to another, it now became what one man could do against many. Tyrants had attempted this in the past, but only the mind of benevolence could imagine the atomic bomb. It was an act of deterrence, a way to end the war. Walker would almost have been fine with it if he knew that it would truly end there. But he knew differently.
As the Blue Beacon, he should have been that symbol, and yet the general public, when he came home, only asked him to perform the same deeds in his own communities as he had in war, on foreign, unknowable soil. He had not achieved a lasting peace. Instead, he became a part of a new war, a race against the clock. He was told he was worthless unless he was able to do the impossible. That was what he supposedly represented, right? The impossible manifest? The Blue Beacon, a champion of war, was reduced to custodial work, all in the name of tireless service. Heroes never lead the glamorous, carefree life we imagine, because we don’t allow them to; they are bound by the very duty they took up, slaves to their own selflessness. Occasionally, they are allowed to relish what small triumphs they may have accomplished, bask in the glow of a temporary victory, but theirs is a tireless, endless effort. That they sometimes stumble, or fail, is not something to criticize or degrade. They are merely participating in a cycle without resolution.
Wars, entities we sometimes forget exist, because we want our world to be better than it is, and yet they are always there. The great wars begat other wars, cold wars and nuclear wars, petroleum wars and ethnic wars. New countries were forged, and somehow their neighbors, their very citizens, had the gall to object, as if every action were always a natural one before then. The solution was to produce death on successively massive scales, so that injustice could not be overlooked. New regimes, old regimes, there never really was a difference, because no one ever got what they wanted, because there were so many voices to be heard. Malcolm Bidd, as the new mayor of Traverse, has made a declaration to his family, that murder will no longer be a key component to policymaking. This has been a problem, because murder has always been a key component, if not the single aspect, of his family’s policymaking. He hasn’t, by any means, forsaken his family, turned against it; he is certainly not siding with the invaders who would dare dictate the new course of the city. He is simply trying to turn a new leaf. He is weary of the old one, ready to move on. He believes in his family’s cause, in the benefit it has not just for those within it but for the city itself. He doesn’t believe that there’s a better way, just that there’s a better way of doing what’s already being done. That was why, he was told, he should run for office, because he thinks like a politician, and while the family has had many illegitimate candidates run and win through the years, holding office like a primitive court, Malcolm is perhaps the first to truly have the business of government in his heart. He wants to see things run smoothly, and so that the best services are in store for those most deserving, and if his family happens to benefit, so much the better. He has no interest in a war, but he is not above entering that fray, too. He has his hands in the proper elements. Clayton Neville, for instance, though he has forsaken his natural calling, is still prone to suggestions from the bureaucracy.
The meeting, behind the kind of closed doors Malcolm’s family knows so well, went something like this:
“For years now you’ve operated on the fringe,” Malcolm says. “You served beyond the strictures of your office. You have ignored every rule you swore to uphold. And you haven’t reported to your agency in fifty-two months. You may begin to understand the concerns that have developed around you.”
“You may not believe this, but I do,” Clayton says. “I have not been a very good agent, and in truth, I believed, despite every fiber of my being telling me otherwise, that I could get away with it. And yet, as a stand here and listen to a mayor, a mayor of all things, talk to me like this, I begin to understand the gravity of the situation. And yet, we both know that you are not an ordinary mayor.”
“I’m grateful that you could acknowledge that,” Malcolm says. “I’m grateful that you respect me enough to say that.”
“It has nothing to do with respect,” Clayton says.
“I admire that you believe that,” Malcolm says. “I admire this because not many people have the courage for such beliefs. Or the courage to say things they don’t believe. Belief is a funny thing, Clayton. Belief is something we create when it becomes convenient for us, because we know things, know what things really are, and yet we want to tell ourselves something else, or tell someone else. It has something to do with the argument of perception and reality. Perception, Clayton, is the idea that we are able to convince ourselves of a thing based on nothing but a misunderstanding, whether deliberate or learned. Perception is something we can have for ourselves. It helps define us as who we are, as individuals. Without perception, we would probably all enjoy the same crappy music. You respect me, Clayton, because you could not imagine doing anything else. You respect me on two levels. One, because you were programmed to, it was a part of your training, which you willingly submitted to, which you were genetically, mentally conditioned to from your earliest days. And two, because you admire my station, how I attained it cleanly. And I may now submit a third: you respect that I was born into the life you have only recently become aware of, not just as an idea you were placed up against, a perception, but as a reality. You found the looking glass, Clayton, and you shattered it. For that, you have my own respect.
“You have the courage to admit what we all know; in this way you have shattered still more glass, whatever pretensions there may have been in the room. Let me join you in this regard. I know what you have been up to, Clayton. I know that you have other names, other guises. I am a forthright man. Bidd is my family name, one that others within it have chosen to abandon, but one I embrace. I am not afraid of it. I know of people, Clayton, who are afraid of my father, who cower at his very name, if not because they have felt his fury firsthand, but because they have heard of it, been intimidated by it, by reputation or by design. I know the list of the dead. I have used my new station to put an end to these tactics, but this does not mean I am above even this. Do you know why I have summoned you?”
Even if for effect, the question is left unanswered, by other party. Clayton is uneasy, though he is not unsettled. He has crossed that line a long time ago. Not even Malcolm’s father could change this now. The word is cocky.
“There is business that needs to be done,” Malcolm says. “You may have noticed the war I am hosting. Hosting is a bad choice of words. This city is not my own, of course. I am a humble man, I serve in this office. I have grown bold, perhaps, but that is what’s needed for a man in such a position. But you know me, I’m the same man you laughed at when he was cut from the varsity football team in high school, on the first day of practice.”
“Not one of your better days,” Clayton acknowledges. “A shame, what happened to your next two replacements.”
Malcolm is now the one who grows uneasy. His resolve is faltering, remembering those days, when he swore he would never become his father. He loses some of his grandeur, his pomp, and Clayton notices. “My father,” he continues, forging ahead, “has done wicked things, but I still believe in him, even when others question everything about him. He built this city on his back. When the Solomons were challenged by the Blue Beacon, he seized the opportunity, investing in the failing businesses that were, then and because of him are still, the backbone of our economy. The city was allowed to prosper thanks to him. He alone, and not some willy in a fanciful costume, saved Traverse, was its champion.”
“I think we all cheered when the Beacon was finally snuffed,” Clayton says, relishing a memory, not just from a file but from his own childhood, a clipping he would hold onto and cherish into adulthood.
“But that was hardly the end of them,” Malcolm says. “Now was it?”
“Traverse alone has been described as swarming with them,” Clayton says. “That’s what, in part, brought me here.”
“And why you stayed,” Malcolm says. “There are new menaces even now. Xenon, who is believed to be connected to the Blue Beacon, is a recent recruit. He is the reason I’ve called you here today. I know what you do.”
“You’re recruiting me, then,” Clayton says.
“That’s not what it’s going to look like, you understand,” Malcolm says, pulling out a folder, which Clayton gladly accepts. He has many folders, and he opens this one like another installment in a favorite series. He already knows what to look for, what interests him.
“Tricky bastard,” Clayton says.
“I will not tolerate this kind of activity,” Malcolm says. “This has always been the policy of the city, and it is not going to change now, not on my watch, and not while there’s a war raging, one they started themselves. You have just been recalled, Clayton. You are to bring this fugitive to justice.”
“I don’t understand how they fancy they’re doing the same,” Clayton. “I’ve never understood. All this time I’ve been watching them, I’ve never understood. They want to see justice, do it within the system. Otherwise, they’re circumventing the very system they claim to honor. We have something that works. And all they do is undermine it. They do more harm than good.”
“You have spent a good amount of time thinking that,” Malcolm says. “You have even justified siding yourself with those like them. You have all but become one yourself.”
“And yet here you are, all but sanctioning me,” Clayton says.
“Don’t mistake a business deal for approval,” Malcolm says. “And don’t think that you are going to be safe from me if I learn that you have done anything but what you already know I would approve of. The relationship I invoked is in effect. This is government work. This is an agreement, off the record, but it is still official business. I want these menaces off the street, but the methods I have to employ are necessarily compromised because of the nature of what needs to be done, the nature of the threat at hand. I am only carrying on the work that others have done before me. There will always be regret, Clayton, because we both know that we are clashing with those who are on the same side as us. Never forget that. They are working toward the same goal as we are. They are simply misguided. They even see themselves as victims, as selfless martyrs. They have the public on their side. Do not underestimate the effect this has on their cause. I have won an election that proves that I, too, have a majority following me, but that support is fickle, and I am only one man. They are countless. Do I have to remind you? Read the paper, read what Xenon has been up to. Can you find fault in that, even though we both know what Xenon doesn’t, that the good he believes he is achieving is coming at a cost, too? Do you understand this world, Clayton? Sometimes I wish I didn’t.”
Clayton would sneer, because he does not, in fact, respect Malcolm, and Malcolm knows this. There is no sneer, because in a way, he actually does respect Malcolm, not in the obvious sense, in that he respects his judgment, respects his rationality, or respects the work the mayor undertakes. But Clayton does respect this man enough to not sneer at him, because he sees a reflection of himself. In private, he is revolted, but here, now, he holds Malcolm in enough regard to respect him. There is also the fact that he is being sanctioned to do what he has already set out to do, as has been detailed elsewhere. He respects being given such an opportunity. He is a soldier in a war, and he has just been told who the enemy combatant is, and that enemy is already an old foe of his. He will relish this.
The Blue Beacon met his fate after coming home from a horrific experience that he managed to survive, a war in which many others died, soldiers who didn’t possess the same gifts he did, the same resiliency, and yet he came home a changed man. When he came home, he became the man he was engineered to be, the hero he had never managed to live up to. Walker Sanders embraced the Blue Beacon in the sense he never could when faced with the only circumstances where it would have mattered, where his actions would never have been questioned. In the community of Traverse, he took on a new kind of enemy, a family of jackals who had nested in a position of power, one they had claimed from centuries of labor others had provided, in other wars no one would ever acknowledge. He tried to recruit a powerful champion to his cause, one who would have understood, who would have been a great ally, but the Dread Poet wanted nothing to do with him. The Beacon found his power eroded, his influence and cultural acceptance waning. He lived long enough to see his son return from another war, still less accepted, until he became indistinguishable from the Poet, who shrank from a public which didn’t understand him.
As a figure so easily identified as a hero, because he had outfitted himself so obviously, Walker lived on as the Blue Beacon despite being told so many times he shouldn’t. He fought for causes he knew to be right, and gave his life for them.
***
The Eidolon now spends all his time reflecting, not because he has retired from his efforts, because it is all he has left. He has been defeated for the last time, not by himself, but by an enemy he saw coming and couldn’t avoid. He is approaching death. And yet, he is comforted, at peace, perhaps for the first time in his life. He has done many things in his life, and in this costume, he has called himself a hero, when everyone around him told him that he was anything but. He embraced a direction that alienated himself from his closest ally, and that may, in the end, prove to be his undoing, but he does not regret it, even now. He has done too much, seen too much, lost so much, gained so much, so that he would be a fool to second-guess himself, at this time. He regulates his breathing still further. That has always been his defining ability as a hero, as the Eidolon. He has been a master of himself, physically and, for most of his life, mentally. He has doubted himself in the past. He became a hero because he doubted accounts of his first rescue. He awaits rescue now himself, but does not cling to the idea. That would be foolish. If he is rescued, then so be it. If he is not, then so be it. He remembers what happened to the man he rescued, the boy. For everything that boy lost, for all the ways his life was warped beyond normal consideration, he still became the most serene man Cotton ever knew. That is what he seeks now.
He can feel the pressure of the Palomar above him. He never appreciated this river before, never respected what it had to offer. He never had a reason to. Now he understands what there was all along, a will, a constant will, unyielding, unchallenged, a true force to be reckoned with. It makes him reconsider his anger, which for so long defined him. What was he so angry about? What had he expected? He understands, too, that it is easy to think such things now, in this moment, because he has so little to be concerned with. He has only himself, for the first time in as long as he can remember. The concerns of the city are no longer his own. He has let go. If he has any further desires, they would concern the life he denied himself, the life he put aside to take on this calling. This was always his destiny, but he had another life, too, one he walked away from, a different part of this country, his native soil. He will no longer have a chance to revisit it, the family he left behind so willingly. This crusade in Traverse consumed him. Now that task is nearing its end. If he has any regrets, they center on this.
He can’t see anything. He doesn’t have any light. He would have never thought he would need it, or want it, in this moment, but he would never have imagined this moment, either. He wants to see himself, one last time. He is dressed as the Eidolon, something Cotton abandoned long ago. He has not regularly taken exploits in this guise for ten years. This war is not his own. But it is of his making. He wants to see, one last time, the man who brought this about. The Eidolon was cursed from the day he was conceived, but Cotton still thinks of himself as unmarked, as pure. He wants to see himself for what he has become, for what has driven him to this point. He has never seen himself as the Eidolon, he realizes. When he looks in the mirror, he sees Cotton Colinaude. What does the Eidolon look like? He imagines, in these modulated breathes, a figure worthy of the myth he has created. But he isn’t sure.
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