Beneath the Palomar is a body, but it’s not the one it was supposed to be, but the answers are still there. Trapped inside the coffin is a man trapped, in turn, inside his own head, forever reliving his greatest failure, the moment that was his most curious murder, that of Balthazar Romero, whom he would in time discover to be the psychotic representation of a far more dangerous man, Cotton Colinaude, the Eidolon. Balthazar had been an identity established to process some of the Eidolon’s trickier business, to infiltrate where Cotton couldn’t go, and where the Eidolon meant merely to observe. He married a Solomon in this guise, the only human connection of the kind he was ever able to manage, to discover that his original purposes were easily lost. When he had lost his mind as Cotton, he took on the preexisting life of Balthazar, until Lotus came and meant to murder this man, as he had done countless others without any difficulty or consequences.
But this time, Lotus reawakened a dormant mind, and brought the two identities back into focus, until they were able to fold once more into a common mold. Two souls became one again, except a portion of both split off, and became a part of Lotus. In this way, he opened a window into this new mind, until it threatened to overtake him, too. That moment arrived when Xenon made his stand. In the waking dream-state, Lotus became Cotton himself, and he had no ability to fight it. All he could do was watch, and watch is what he did as this life propelled him from one disaster to another, until he found an end to this, too, beneath the Palomar.
And yet, in all this, he was not alone. There was a third mind, not within him but aware of all his thoughts, controlling the actions of his new alter ego, and Lotus was aware of this the whole time, and it was another element he could do nothing about. He was aware of thoughts that dominated his body, even as he continued in his own thoughts, powerless to act on them, and powerless to block out all the torment of reliving, again and again, that accursed moment when his world had been turned upside down. The thoughts, he knew, belonged to the true Cotton Colinaude.
And what was this man up to in all this time? What was he doing, if the Eidolon running about, and eventually trapped beneath the Palomar, were not the original Cotton, but Lotus? Lotus had the answer for that. He was about the city, operating through the war, in another identity, another name with another purpose, yet the same one he had always had. Lotus grew to understand all the ways he had been wrong in his unnaturally extended life, his vampiric existence in which he gained life through the life-forces of others. How he loathes that power now. He sees all the ways he has misused his gifts, even as another assumed the same burden without the benefits Lotus has always had, how this mere human sacrificed himself to achieve one of the greatest victories in history. Cotton Colinaude had willed the fictional Clayton Neville to life, and as Barracuda, won a lasting peace that he could have never won otherwise. And he did it because of that chance blunder on the part of Lotus, the misguided Viper, and all who would, as he knew, fall into their places within the city he had adopted.
Lotus hasn’t been an ordinary man in centuries, and in a way, that has been a sacrifice, too. He hasn’t known family, and has been a slave to his impulses, rather than a guiding hand, for longer than he can remember. What has been the price of the life he assumed so long ago? The loss of the self. He can even remember his own name anymore. Now it is more irrelevant than ever before. He is Lotus, and he is Cotton Colinaude, and he is the Eidolon, condemned to a watery grave that will cease supporting him in time, ending the dream only to end his life as well. He will welcome it, and he will miss the world he has left behind, for the first time in ages.
This war leaves it in a different place. There will be changes; already, a century of conflict has been put aside, as the Solomon clan, so long bent on its own method of control, makes peace with a city it no longer claims; three generations of the Alarmist’s descendents are dead, Benjamin, his sons Malcolm and Odin, and Malcolm’s son Lincoln, and with them are gone another form of inherited entitlement; Godsend, the living embodiment of the public trust, has been slain; the Eidolon is finally laid to rest, no matter in what form, in what will be left behind. There will be no more fighting, no more plotting, in Traverse, and in turn around the world. Ulysses Kincaid, who held Godsend as his hated foe, has recently embraced his son, Catalyst, as friend. The city, and the world, view their heroes, their champions with greater suspicion than before. Their days are coming to an end, their need. That is what Cotton Colinaude wanted, to end the need. He called out the prejudices, the pretensions, and the prowess of heroes, and of villains, and witnessed, and took part in, the final war between them, so that all could see what there had been all these years in the age of heroes. He called down the lightning and struck them down, because that was the judgment, that was the kingdom come, for the world to see what all these divisions had come to. In the end, he fought the final battles, between children who would have been friends if not for all they had set between them, what their parents had done to warp their perspectives, and what he had done to try and set them back on sturdier paths.
This victory, for which neither side of the conflict can claim, for so much was claimed to achieve it, is by no means a final one, and it is by no means the only why Cotton could have done it. Lotus sees this. He sees how Cotton truly had given up, how all the elements he would use to accomplish this had existed in their own right, as their own threats and portents, and how they would have led to this anyway. He did not make his friend betray him, he did not create the government agents who feared heroes as much as villains, and he did not set out to gain and lose, gain and lose, countless allies and foes through the years, so that he knew more about this life than anyone could have ever been cursed with. Lotus sees, and he knows. It has been such a burden on Cotton, and what he has done with it can be seen as evil, and it can be seen as good. Will future days, in which Cotton will have no part, finally taking on a retirement that so repulsed him, yet he had seen in two epic careers before him, see a permanent solution take hold? Only as much as those previous generations saw them. The Sidewinder, in the nineteenth century, lived through border wars and civil wars, and eventually set up a financial institution that would fund better lives than those it had cost to establish it. The Dread Poet, in the twentieth century, built a fountain of knowledge after leading a life in which the modern age had been thrust upon the world, at cost that still cannot be comprehended. And the Eidolon? What will his legacy be?
There are so many answers for that, and no answers at all, only more questions. Lotus will ask them for the rest of his life, however longer that will be, because that is all he has left, after so many years of assuming whatever it was he wanted, this is all there is left for him. He embarks on one final, grand voyage, among the houses of the dead, as the living linger and accept for themselves what truths there are, what opportunities there are to seize, no matter what they will seem. He sees his life now for what it was. He had become a villain, just as the Eidolon will forever be known as a hero. And what is a hero? A hero is, simply, someone who makes a journey despite whatever cost it may require, because the destination will justify and reward all great toils.
There is great power in the Palomar, and great mystery. Who were these warriors whose name honors these waters now? William Tekamthi, the Dread Poet, is said to have been the last of them. What will be remembered of Lotus? Will this body, which will outlast, in some form, whatever souls inhabit it now, persist, will this coffin be opened, and will those who peer in know what they find? Will they understand? He always thought that someone would eventually come, before it was too late, before the end came. Would any of the fallen have come? Or had Cotton slain them to prevent it? Did he fear what they would say? Lotus, who has shared the mind of this man, can’t answer this, and it is the most damning question of all. He wants to know this most of all, to know the man known as Cotton Colinaude. He wants to set out once more. He wants to know if even one life he has come across has been affected in any meaningful and positive way, as he now knows is all Cotton has ever wanted. He wants to know that in all the harm he brought, all the chaos, if he has helped forge the links of order, if in all the confusing journeys there has ever been clarity brought to them, a sense of purpose.
He imagines that he sees cracks in his grave, but he knows that this is impossible. He has been blinded. He could never have seen light, nor the costume he has found himself believing in, even while it has become a matter of antiquity, a notion of the every-consuming past. And yet he believes in the light, in the thought that someone has come. He can feel the pressure relieving, even though he has felt no motion to indicate his freedom from the Palomar. He breathes a precious lungful of air, and it is sweet, so sweet that he coughs, as much from embarrassment as from necessity. And he laughs, because he can’t help himself, Lotus laughs. He can’t remember when he last laughed, but in this moment, he feels enveloped in it. He’s rolling, even as he tries to get up. It’s no use. He falls back down, and it feels as if its an enormous distance, back to the bottom of his coffin. He feels its welcome embrace, and breathes a sigh of relief. He’s home.
And somewhere, an old lady is crossing the street, passing a stop sign that gleams in the morning’s bright rays. She pauses for a moment to appreciate a dandelion, which a little girl has taken into her hand, ready to pluck its petals. There are no cars on the road today. Everyone seems consumed by some other activity. She watches as her shadow elongates on the road, and can’t help but wave at her familiar friend.
FIN
No comments:
Post a Comment