![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
"Even a Crooked Stick"
"Even a Crooked Stick Can Draw a Straight Line"
9/3/2022
I.
"This is weird," Bane said out loud. His surroundings made no sense at all. White mist swirled up to his shins, completely obscuring whatever surface he was standing on. Overhead was a wildly intense night sky with blazing stars crowding each other more closely than any sky he had ever seen. The effect was an eerie twilight. It was chilly but not unbearably so. The air felt brisk and refreshing
Looking down at himself, the Dire Wolf saw he was wearing what had been his trademark uniform all his adult life... black slacks, turtleneck and sports jacket. But the matched silver-bladed daggers were not sheathed to his forearms, which alarmed him. He never left his house without them. All the concealed pockets and slits built into his clothing were empty, too. Bane pulled up his shirt and felt bare skin beneath it. He didn't have the silk-thin Trom armor on, either. The situation made less and less sense the more he took it in.
Jeremy Bane turned slowly around, but there was nothing in sight other than the mist on the ground. No horizon as far as he could tell. Really strange. His prosaic, matter-of-fact mind immediately began ticking off possibilities. The last he remembered had been stretching out on the living room couch in his Forest Hills home. So, was he dreaming? Could be. There had been a few times where he had been aware of being in a dream just before it ended. Or was this one of the adjacent realms? Not one he had ever heard of, but then even Midnight War scholars admitted there were realms which had been forgotten over the ages and of which even the names were no longer remembered.
What other possibilities could there be? Maybe this was an illusion of some kind? Either a sorcerer using gralic magic or some spy group with advanced technology was putting this in his head while he was in a trance or coma or something. That had happened a few times to him and to members of his KDF team. Once, Karl Eldritch had put him into an artificial reality that had seemed completely real, one of the worst experiences of his life. He should resist the illusion and try to snap out of it.
Bane's survival training had included using constellations to determine his location and what time of the year it was. The sky was totally unfamiliar. He couldn't find any star groups he recognized, not even from the viewpoint of the Southern Hemisphere or the Arctic. Okay, then this had to be an illusion of some kind. He dismissed the vague thought that he had somehow been transported to another galaxy or something as so far-fetched it wasn't worth considering. His life in the Midnight War had taken him to bizarre realms but travel into outer space had never even been hinted at.
So far, he hadn't come up with anything useful to do about the situation. Instead of raw terror or panic, Bane felt annoyed.
Where had Nebel come from? Suddenly, the familiar form of the blind mystic was walking toward but Bane had no idea why he hadn't seen the man before. Maybe nothing would make sense wherever they were. Nebel was wearing the blue cotton pants and long-sleeved tunic of a Tel Shai student. Presumably he had on the soft black slippers as well, but the ground mist hid them. They hadn't seen each other in person for a few years. Nebel's hair was completely white now at seventy, his long solemn face more gaunt than ever. And the eyes with their opaque pupils still had the unsettling habit of moving as if he could see.
"Hi, Garrison!" Bane said. "You're exactly the one person I'd want to see turn up under these circumstances. Where are we anyway? Is this real?"
"It is more real than the mundane world you see around you every day," replied the Sorcerer of Truth. "You are getting a glimpse beyond the illusion of the world."
"If you say so. Honestly, you know I'm not a deep thinker. Whatever is going on is probably going to be beyond what I can figure out."
Nebel smiled and nodded, his voice reassuring. "You are what you are meant to be, Jeremy. I can not explain this test and must leave you again. All I can suggest is that you speak honestly and from the heart to the three visitations."
"You lost me already," the Dire Wolf admitted. "This is a test? Who's giving it? And what are the rules?"
The blind mystic reached over and rested a comforting hand on Bane's shoulder. "It is a classic rite of passage, old friend. You will experience three visitations who will reveal much you have forgotten or have not yet learned. I have faith you will do well and we will meet again one final time." Then, without a sound, Nebel was gone.
II.
The small, slightly built figure of an elderly man appeared not far ahead of the Dire Wolf. Not more than five feet nine, wearing an old-fashioned three piece suit with vest and narrow lapels, the man regarded Bane warily and approached no closer.
"Oh, come ON!" yelled Bane. "This is just cruel. Whoever is doing this, I swear I'm going to find you and you won't like how I'll pay you back."
The visitant sure seemed to be Kenneth Dred, though. Everything from the aged face to the way he stood with his thumbs tucked into his belt, was familiar. "Jeremy," said the gentle voice that Bane remembered so well.
"You are not Kenneth Dred, okay?" Bane went on. "He died more than forty years ago. I found his body that September morning, cold and completely lifeless. The autopsy said it was simple heart failure and since Mr Dred was nearly eighty, I accepted that. What are you trying to pull? If Mr Dred was alive, he'd be a hundred and twenty years old today."
With his feet and shins concealed by the white mist, the apparition remained where he was and repeated, "Jeremy. I had hoped never to tell you this but I understand now that you deserve to learn the truth. We need to talk."
The Dire Wolf readied himself to yell in anger but stopped with great effort. Nebel had advised him to speak honestly and from the heart. The blind mystic had always been a good guide in how to behave in weird occult situations. Taking a deep steadying breath, Bane managed to keep his voice even. "Okay. I'm listening. Go ahead."
"When we met, you were barely twenty years old," the image of Kenneth Dred said. "You had been a street orphan and that unforgiving life had hardened you under a shell of emotional armor. When we met, you trusted absolutely no one and you fought the world alone. I took you in and hired you as my assistant in the Midnight War."
"And? What's the point of telling me that?" Bane snapped.
"For three years, I told you that I had seen a spark of a decent young man still flickering in you," the spirit went on, "And that I thought that you could be redeemed. It was not too late for you. I gave you more responsibility and came to rely on you more. I kept telling you that you were proving yourself. But that wasn't what I was really thinking."
A strange sinking feeling gathered heavy in Bane's chest. "Go on..."
"The truth is that I expected you to go completely bad sooner or later. I kept you close at hand to be ready for when you made your move to kill me and take over my house with all its wealth, especially the treasures in my vault. Rare books worth tens of thousands of dollars each, talismans like Hellspawn and the travel crystals, even the original oil paintings and statuary I had collected. I was sure that sooner or later, you would be so tempted by the prospect of being a millionaire you'd murder me one night."
"I don't believe this for a second," Bane insisted. "You're wasting your time and mine. In.. in the years after Mr Dred died, I read through his journals and letters and notes. There was never a single word about this. Mr Dred really did believe in me and I proved he was right."
"No, Jeremy. I am speaking the truth now that I did not feel you could handle then. The list of contacts you found on my desk? Leonard Slade, Michael Hawk, Larry Taper? That was for me. I planned on asking them to keep an eye on you. When you inevitably gave in to your greedy and bloodthirsty nature, they were men who would be able to take you down."
"Yeah? Well, it didn't work out that way, did it?" demanded Bane. "After Mr Dred died, I asked those three men to join the team I was assembling. And I brought in Cindy and Ted and Khang, too. We protected Humans from the creatures of the night, from criminal masterminds, from the Darthim and the Nekrosim and the Snake men. We did a good job, our record speaks for itself. If Kenneth Dred did expect me to act the way you said..and I doubt it!... then I proved him wrong. I was the crooked stick that drew a straight line."
The gnomish, deeply lined face smiled with relief. "That's the correct response." With that, he blinked out of existence.
III.
All he wanted was to get this over with. The Dire Wolf stood with feet well apart, fists on his hips in the most defiant pose imaginable and watched as two figures suddenly appeared about twenty feet away. They were mere black silhouettes with light streaming from behind them. All he could make out was that they were a tall man and a slender woman. "Let's get going. What's your stories?"
"We never saw you in life, Jeremy," came the female voice, husky and with an Eastern Europe accents.. Russian, probably from Georgia.
"How about some names?" demanded Bane.
"We cannot do that," the man said. "It's up to you to provide us with names and in all your life, you have resisted doing that. We are the great mystery that drives you."
It took a second for Bane to figure out the clues. "You're my parents? I wasn't expecting this."
"You never tried to find out who we were," the male voice continued. "In fact, you resisted the attempts by your friends to do so. You showed no respect to our memories."
"Wrong, wrong. You don't understand. Every time I wondered about my early years, something in my mind warned me to drop it. A strong warning, and I learned that listening to my instincts about danger meant survival. I would have been killed lots of times as a kid if I hadn't sensed when I was in real danger."
The outline of the woman raised both hands palms forward in supplication. "Your earliest memories are from when you were ten. How can you not have fierce curiosity about where you came from? Why were you a child with no family at all, no home, no friends? Yet you spoke English and you could read."
Despite his best efforts, Bane's self-control broke. "What is the point of all this? Obviously, you're not my parents. I don't even think you're their ghosts or immortal souls or anything like that. I bet you're some psychic illusion designed to fool me. Or at best, you're gralic force manifesting to act out my so-called inner conflict. I don't want to play this game. Let's get it over, I have work to do in the morning."
The man's voice remained patient and gentle. The faint Scots burr was distinctive. "Some of your friends have tried to point you to the truth, Jeremy."
"Oh, that again. Fine. I'll play along. Yes, there is circumstantial evidence that I'm the son of Mark and Sonia Drum. My best estimate is that I was born around October 1957, within the target range that Sonia Drum was scheduled to deliver. Both Sonia and her child died during birth, not that rare a thing back then. I saw the gravestones myself. And of course I know what happened to Mark Drum. He was mortally wounded in an ambush and barely hung on in a coma for years until Jordyn resurrected him as Khang. And Khang didn't have memories of his life as Mark Drum, I know, I certainly tried to prod him into remembering."
When the spirits did not respond, Bane made an exasperated snort "You want more? Okay. I checked newspaper and hospital records in October 1957 and yes, they confirmed that Sonia Drum and her infant son died during a tragic delivery complicated by excessive bleeding. The burials in the Kingston cemetery were properly documented. I thought that was enough proof. I certainly didn't have any legal justification to get an exhumation order or obtain some DNA samples. What else? It's true there's a certain resemblance between Mark Drum and myself, similar faces and both of us have black hair and grey eyes. But come on! If I presented sketchy coincidences like this to a court to claim they were my parents, the judge would fine me for wasting his time."
"Deeper than proof, more true than evidence, what do your instincts tell you?" asked the female shade.
"What do... Oh, hell. I admit it, yeah, deep down I think I'm the son of Mark and Sonia Drum. Maybe I want to believe it because he was such a major Midnight War hero in his era. Or maybe because they both died when I was an infant and so I wouldn't feel like they abandoned me. Who knows? It might be just wishful thinking on my part." Realizing he had slumped his shoulders and dropped his head, Bane drew himself upright again. "But really, what difference do it make at this point? I'm sixty-seven. It's not going to change anything."
"Who is buried in that infant's grave?" asked the male spirit.
"Probably no one. Or some rocks to weight it down. I'm not going to sneak out there in the middle of the night to find out either. Are you two satisfied now? Can I wake up back in my bed and laugh at what a crazy dream this was?"
The two dark silhouettes clasped hand and took a step backward. "Only one piece needs to be recovered before the puzzle is solved and can be put away, Jeremy. You have told yourself you don't care about your missing childhood. But missing memories of the first ten years of your life have left an aching hole which will not heal by itself."
"We have faith in you, Jeremy," added the female spirit. "Once you decide to solve a mystery, you have never yet given up before learning the truth. This time the stakes are higher than ever before. We know you will succeed."
With that, they were gone. There was only the swirling damp mist around his legs and the brilliant stars blazing overhead. "Great," the Dire Wolf grumbled to himself. "Still not done!"
IV.
There was no way to calculate how long he stood there waiting under the star-filled eternal night. Bane realized his hands were trembling. He clasped them together behind his back and drew on Tel Shai calming techniques. Drawing in a deep slow breath, holding it, then exhaling just as slowly and deeply. Over and over, each time visualizing the vital oxygen sweeping up the front of his body with each intake and then swooping down his back to exhale at the base of his spine. The technique did not work as well as it should have. His mind was still agitated and his concentration scattered.
Facing Kenneth Dred had been painful. Yes, it could only have been a detailed likeness but that simulacrum had looked and sounded so realistic that Bane had felt wounded at its presence. The one man who had shown faith in that brutal young street fighter, who had placed increasing trust in Bane, who had actually cared about him. It didn't matter what the image had said about Dred regarding Bane as an unruly wild dog who might go entirely bad, that had surely been a psychological trick to see how Bane would react. Being told that his defiance was the correct response had proved it.
And the shadowy images claiming to be his parents had been hard to deal with, too. To get rid of them, Bane had spoken out loud what he had banished from his thoughts... that he was the son of Mark and Sonia Drum. Why did it upset him so much? What possible difference could it make at this last stage of life?
Stalking toward him came a final visitant and this really made Bane furious. It was himself. Maybe fifteen years older, with receding white hair and a face creased with furrows, bent slightly, walking stiffly but unmistakably him. "Whoever is doing this, you're getting on my nerves!" Bane shouted. "What's the point of this nonsense? If you want to teach me some deep moral lesson, just come out with it."
"I made it to eighty," his double said in a thinner, more uncertain voice than normal. "Looking back, I ask myself what did I fail to do?"
"Fine, fine, we'll play this game. Go on. Lay some amazing insight on me."
"Mr Dred left me slightly more than one hundred million dollars, wisely invested and secure. There was the building on 38th Street, with thousands of rare books which could be sold for an equal amount, there was the gallery of original oil paintings and sculptures, there was a vault of priceless occult talismans such as the Eldar travel crystals, Hellspawn, the Yellow Shield. "
"Like I don't already know all this?" demanded Bane. "Come on, get to the point."
"I grew up in rags, stealing food, sleeping in doorways or under cardboard sheets. But when I became wealthy, I did not fund homeless shelters. I did not contribute to soup kitchens or free clinics. I could have eased the misery of many others who suffered as I had, but I failed to even try."
The Dire Wolf jabbed an imperative finger at his older self. "Now I know for sure you haven't tapped my memories somehow. Or you'd know I argued with myself for a long time about doing all that. But I put everything I had into fighting the Midnight War because it was a threat no one else could handle. Charities and relief organizations are great for what they do but they don't know about the creatures of the night or the other Races who prey on Humans. That was my mission. When I was accepted at Tel Shai, I swore to turn the tide of the Midnight War... AND I DID! After I'm dead, after Sable retires, I'll be leaving a trust fund to keep the KDF running for another generation. There will be new Tel Shai knights to take over, maybe some who aren't even born yet. That's something no one else in the world was in a position to do. And I would do it all over again if I had to."
When the apparition made no response, Bane continued, "Well? Was that the right answer? Do I pass your little test?"
"It is enough," said the visitant before winking out of sight to leave only the diamond dust glitter of the stars.
V.
Nebel appeared again to assure Bane that he did well in confronting his ghosts.
"I know you love being all cryptic and enigmatic and all that," Bane said. "You're not going to change. But if you know who's behind all this, come on and tell me. Is it sorcery or hypnosis or Mad Science or what?"
"This has been a process of self-examination," replied the blind mystic. "Every sentient mind experiences this rite of passage near the end of its allotted time. You needed to clear your conflicts as your higher self realizes it is nearing the time to move on."
"Wait, what? Are you saying I did this to myself somehow? And what the Hell do you mean by 'the end of its allotted time?' Are you predicting I'm going to die soon? Nice way to let me know, Garrison!"
"You will understand more as it sinks in," Nebel said. "Do not be sad for me, Jeremy. We will meet again beyond the horizons we have known."
As Nebel vanished again, the thick diamond dust of the stars overhead also winked out to leave only a black suffocating void.
Bane snapped out of it to find himself sitting up on his couch. Early morning sunlight showed in the windows. He noticed his pants cuffs were damp. From the mist he had been standing in while undergoing that weird spiritual hazing? Yanking the Link from his belt, he called Nebel but heard only a message saying that number was no longer in service. More uncertain than ever, he sat there numbly. He was sure he could make sense of everything if he could just get the right perspective. The Link was still in his hand when it chirped to alert him of an incoming call from Sable. Bane thumbed the screen and said, "Hello."
"Jeremy, hi," came the familiar voice of one of his best and oldest friends. "Sorry to buzz you so early in the morning but I think you'd want to know. I was just contacted by the hospital near Bearsville. Early last night, Garrison Nebel passed away. They told me it was peaceful."
'Yes," Bane answered quietly, "I'm sure it was."
10/10/2022
9/3/2022
I.
"This is weird," Bane said out loud. His surroundings made no sense at all. White mist swirled up to his shins, completely obscuring whatever surface he was standing on. Overhead was a wildly intense night sky with blazing stars crowding each other more closely than any sky he had ever seen. The effect was an eerie twilight. It was chilly but not unbearably so. The air felt brisk and refreshing
Looking down at himself, the Dire Wolf saw he was wearing what had been his trademark uniform all his adult life... black slacks, turtleneck and sports jacket. But the matched silver-bladed daggers were not sheathed to his forearms, which alarmed him. He never left his house without them. All the concealed pockets and slits built into his clothing were empty, too. Bane pulled up his shirt and felt bare skin beneath it. He didn't have the silk-thin Trom armor on, either. The situation made less and less sense the more he took it in.
Jeremy Bane turned slowly around, but there was nothing in sight other than the mist on the ground. No horizon as far as he could tell. Really strange. His prosaic, matter-of-fact mind immediately began ticking off possibilities. The last he remembered had been stretching out on the living room couch in his Forest Hills home. So, was he dreaming? Could be. There had been a few times where he had been aware of being in a dream just before it ended. Or was this one of the adjacent realms? Not one he had ever heard of, but then even Midnight War scholars admitted there were realms which had been forgotten over the ages and of which even the names were no longer remembered.
What other possibilities could there be? Maybe this was an illusion of some kind? Either a sorcerer using gralic magic or some spy group with advanced technology was putting this in his head while he was in a trance or coma or something. That had happened a few times to him and to members of his KDF team. Once, Karl Eldritch had put him into an artificial reality that had seemed completely real, one of the worst experiences of his life. He should resist the illusion and try to snap out of it.
Bane's survival training had included using constellations to determine his location and what time of the year it was. The sky was totally unfamiliar. He couldn't find any star groups he recognized, not even from the viewpoint of the Southern Hemisphere or the Arctic. Okay, then this had to be an illusion of some kind. He dismissed the vague thought that he had somehow been transported to another galaxy or something as so far-fetched it wasn't worth considering. His life in the Midnight War had taken him to bizarre realms but travel into outer space had never even been hinted at.
So far, he hadn't come up with anything useful to do about the situation. Instead of raw terror or panic, Bane felt annoyed.
Where had Nebel come from? Suddenly, the familiar form of the blind mystic was walking toward but Bane had no idea why he hadn't seen the man before. Maybe nothing would make sense wherever they were. Nebel was wearing the blue cotton pants and long-sleeved tunic of a Tel Shai student. Presumably he had on the soft black slippers as well, but the ground mist hid them. They hadn't seen each other in person for a few years. Nebel's hair was completely white now at seventy, his long solemn face more gaunt than ever. And the eyes with their opaque pupils still had the unsettling habit of moving as if he could see.
"Hi, Garrison!" Bane said. "You're exactly the one person I'd want to see turn up under these circumstances. Where are we anyway? Is this real?"
"It is more real than the mundane world you see around you every day," replied the Sorcerer of Truth. "You are getting a glimpse beyond the illusion of the world."
"If you say so. Honestly, you know I'm not a deep thinker. Whatever is going on is probably going to be beyond what I can figure out."
Nebel smiled and nodded, his voice reassuring. "You are what you are meant to be, Jeremy. I can not explain this test and must leave you again. All I can suggest is that you speak honestly and from the heart to the three visitations."
"You lost me already," the Dire Wolf admitted. "This is a test? Who's giving it? And what are the rules?"
The blind mystic reached over and rested a comforting hand on Bane's shoulder. "It is a classic rite of passage, old friend. You will experience three visitations who will reveal much you have forgotten or have not yet learned. I have faith you will do well and we will meet again one final time." Then, without a sound, Nebel was gone.
II.
The small, slightly built figure of an elderly man appeared not far ahead of the Dire Wolf. Not more than five feet nine, wearing an old-fashioned three piece suit with vest and narrow lapels, the man regarded Bane warily and approached no closer.
"Oh, come ON!" yelled Bane. "This is just cruel. Whoever is doing this, I swear I'm going to find you and you won't like how I'll pay you back."
The visitant sure seemed to be Kenneth Dred, though. Everything from the aged face to the way he stood with his thumbs tucked into his belt, was familiar. "Jeremy," said the gentle voice that Bane remembered so well.
"You are not Kenneth Dred, okay?" Bane went on. "He died more than forty years ago. I found his body that September morning, cold and completely lifeless. The autopsy said it was simple heart failure and since Mr Dred was nearly eighty, I accepted that. What are you trying to pull? If Mr Dred was alive, he'd be a hundred and twenty years old today."
With his feet and shins concealed by the white mist, the apparition remained where he was and repeated, "Jeremy. I had hoped never to tell you this but I understand now that you deserve to learn the truth. We need to talk."
The Dire Wolf readied himself to yell in anger but stopped with great effort. Nebel had advised him to speak honestly and from the heart. The blind mystic had always been a good guide in how to behave in weird occult situations. Taking a deep steadying breath, Bane managed to keep his voice even. "Okay. I'm listening. Go ahead."
"When we met, you were barely twenty years old," the image of Kenneth Dred said. "You had been a street orphan and that unforgiving life had hardened you under a shell of emotional armor. When we met, you trusted absolutely no one and you fought the world alone. I took you in and hired you as my assistant in the Midnight War."
"And? What's the point of telling me that?" Bane snapped.
"For three years, I told you that I had seen a spark of a decent young man still flickering in you," the spirit went on, "And that I thought that you could be redeemed. It was not too late for you. I gave you more responsibility and came to rely on you more. I kept telling you that you were proving yourself. But that wasn't what I was really thinking."
A strange sinking feeling gathered heavy in Bane's chest. "Go on..."
"The truth is that I expected you to go completely bad sooner or later. I kept you close at hand to be ready for when you made your move to kill me and take over my house with all its wealth, especially the treasures in my vault. Rare books worth tens of thousands of dollars each, talismans like Hellspawn and the travel crystals, even the original oil paintings and statuary I had collected. I was sure that sooner or later, you would be so tempted by the prospect of being a millionaire you'd murder me one night."
"I don't believe this for a second," Bane insisted. "You're wasting your time and mine. In.. in the years after Mr Dred died, I read through his journals and letters and notes. There was never a single word about this. Mr Dred really did believe in me and I proved he was right."
"No, Jeremy. I am speaking the truth now that I did not feel you could handle then. The list of contacts you found on my desk? Leonard Slade, Michael Hawk, Larry Taper? That was for me. I planned on asking them to keep an eye on you. When you inevitably gave in to your greedy and bloodthirsty nature, they were men who would be able to take you down."
"Yeah? Well, it didn't work out that way, did it?" demanded Bane. "After Mr Dred died, I asked those three men to join the team I was assembling. And I brought in Cindy and Ted and Khang, too. We protected Humans from the creatures of the night, from criminal masterminds, from the Darthim and the Nekrosim and the Snake men. We did a good job, our record speaks for itself. If Kenneth Dred did expect me to act the way you said..and I doubt it!... then I proved him wrong. I was the crooked stick that drew a straight line."
The gnomish, deeply lined face smiled with relief. "That's the correct response." With that, he blinked out of existence.
III.
All he wanted was to get this over with. The Dire Wolf stood with feet well apart, fists on his hips in the most defiant pose imaginable and watched as two figures suddenly appeared about twenty feet away. They were mere black silhouettes with light streaming from behind them. All he could make out was that they were a tall man and a slender woman. "Let's get going. What's your stories?"
"We never saw you in life, Jeremy," came the female voice, husky and with an Eastern Europe accents.. Russian, probably from Georgia.
"How about some names?" demanded Bane.
"We cannot do that," the man said. "It's up to you to provide us with names and in all your life, you have resisted doing that. We are the great mystery that drives you."
It took a second for Bane to figure out the clues. "You're my parents? I wasn't expecting this."
"You never tried to find out who we were," the male voice continued. "In fact, you resisted the attempts by your friends to do so. You showed no respect to our memories."
"Wrong, wrong. You don't understand. Every time I wondered about my early years, something in my mind warned me to drop it. A strong warning, and I learned that listening to my instincts about danger meant survival. I would have been killed lots of times as a kid if I hadn't sensed when I was in real danger."
The outline of the woman raised both hands palms forward in supplication. "Your earliest memories are from when you were ten. How can you not have fierce curiosity about where you came from? Why were you a child with no family at all, no home, no friends? Yet you spoke English and you could read."
Despite his best efforts, Bane's self-control broke. "What is the point of all this? Obviously, you're not my parents. I don't even think you're their ghosts or immortal souls or anything like that. I bet you're some psychic illusion designed to fool me. Or at best, you're gralic force manifesting to act out my so-called inner conflict. I don't want to play this game. Let's get it over, I have work to do in the morning."
The man's voice remained patient and gentle. The faint Scots burr was distinctive. "Some of your friends have tried to point you to the truth, Jeremy."
"Oh, that again. Fine. I'll play along. Yes, there is circumstantial evidence that I'm the son of Mark and Sonia Drum. My best estimate is that I was born around October 1957, within the target range that Sonia Drum was scheduled to deliver. Both Sonia and her child died during birth, not that rare a thing back then. I saw the gravestones myself. And of course I know what happened to Mark Drum. He was mortally wounded in an ambush and barely hung on in a coma for years until Jordyn resurrected him as Khang. And Khang didn't have memories of his life as Mark Drum, I know, I certainly tried to prod him into remembering."
When the spirits did not respond, Bane made an exasperated snort "You want more? Okay. I checked newspaper and hospital records in October 1957 and yes, they confirmed that Sonia Drum and her infant son died during a tragic delivery complicated by excessive bleeding. The burials in the Kingston cemetery were properly documented. I thought that was enough proof. I certainly didn't have any legal justification to get an exhumation order or obtain some DNA samples. What else? It's true there's a certain resemblance between Mark Drum and myself, similar faces and both of us have black hair and grey eyes. But come on! If I presented sketchy coincidences like this to a court to claim they were my parents, the judge would fine me for wasting his time."
"Deeper than proof, more true than evidence, what do your instincts tell you?" asked the female shade.
"What do... Oh, hell. I admit it, yeah, deep down I think I'm the son of Mark and Sonia Drum. Maybe I want to believe it because he was such a major Midnight War hero in his era. Or maybe because they both died when I was an infant and so I wouldn't feel like they abandoned me. Who knows? It might be just wishful thinking on my part." Realizing he had slumped his shoulders and dropped his head, Bane drew himself upright again. "But really, what difference do it make at this point? I'm sixty-seven. It's not going to change anything."
"Who is buried in that infant's grave?" asked the male spirit.
"Probably no one. Or some rocks to weight it down. I'm not going to sneak out there in the middle of the night to find out either. Are you two satisfied now? Can I wake up back in my bed and laugh at what a crazy dream this was?"
The two dark silhouettes clasped hand and took a step backward. "Only one piece needs to be recovered before the puzzle is solved and can be put away, Jeremy. You have told yourself you don't care about your missing childhood. But missing memories of the first ten years of your life have left an aching hole which will not heal by itself."
"We have faith in you, Jeremy," added the female spirit. "Once you decide to solve a mystery, you have never yet given up before learning the truth. This time the stakes are higher than ever before. We know you will succeed."
With that, they were gone. There was only the swirling damp mist around his legs and the brilliant stars blazing overhead. "Great," the Dire Wolf grumbled to himself. "Still not done!"
IV.
There was no way to calculate how long he stood there waiting under the star-filled eternal night. Bane realized his hands were trembling. He clasped them together behind his back and drew on Tel Shai calming techniques. Drawing in a deep slow breath, holding it, then exhaling just as slowly and deeply. Over and over, each time visualizing the vital oxygen sweeping up the front of his body with each intake and then swooping down his back to exhale at the base of his spine. The technique did not work as well as it should have. His mind was still agitated and his concentration scattered.
Facing Kenneth Dred had been painful. Yes, it could only have been a detailed likeness but that simulacrum had looked and sounded so realistic that Bane had felt wounded at its presence. The one man who had shown faith in that brutal young street fighter, who had placed increasing trust in Bane, who had actually cared about him. It didn't matter what the image had said about Dred regarding Bane as an unruly wild dog who might go entirely bad, that had surely been a psychological trick to see how Bane would react. Being told that his defiance was the correct response had proved it.
And the shadowy images claiming to be his parents had been hard to deal with, too. To get rid of them, Bane had spoken out loud what he had banished from his thoughts... that he was the son of Mark and Sonia Drum. Why did it upset him so much? What possible difference could it make at this last stage of life?
Stalking toward him came a final visitant and this really made Bane furious. It was himself. Maybe fifteen years older, with receding white hair and a face creased with furrows, bent slightly, walking stiffly but unmistakably him. "Whoever is doing this, you're getting on my nerves!" Bane shouted. "What's the point of this nonsense? If you want to teach me some deep moral lesson, just come out with it."
"I made it to eighty," his double said in a thinner, more uncertain voice than normal. "Looking back, I ask myself what did I fail to do?"
"Fine, fine, we'll play this game. Go on. Lay some amazing insight on me."
"Mr Dred left me slightly more than one hundred million dollars, wisely invested and secure. There was the building on 38th Street, with thousands of rare books which could be sold for an equal amount, there was the gallery of original oil paintings and sculptures, there was a vault of priceless occult talismans such as the Eldar travel crystals, Hellspawn, the Yellow Shield. "
"Like I don't already know all this?" demanded Bane. "Come on, get to the point."
"I grew up in rags, stealing food, sleeping in doorways or under cardboard sheets. But when I became wealthy, I did not fund homeless shelters. I did not contribute to soup kitchens or free clinics. I could have eased the misery of many others who suffered as I had, but I failed to even try."
The Dire Wolf jabbed an imperative finger at his older self. "Now I know for sure you haven't tapped my memories somehow. Or you'd know I argued with myself for a long time about doing all that. But I put everything I had into fighting the Midnight War because it was a threat no one else could handle. Charities and relief organizations are great for what they do but they don't know about the creatures of the night or the other Races who prey on Humans. That was my mission. When I was accepted at Tel Shai, I swore to turn the tide of the Midnight War... AND I DID! After I'm dead, after Sable retires, I'll be leaving a trust fund to keep the KDF running for another generation. There will be new Tel Shai knights to take over, maybe some who aren't even born yet. That's something no one else in the world was in a position to do. And I would do it all over again if I had to."
When the apparition made no response, Bane continued, "Well? Was that the right answer? Do I pass your little test?"
"It is enough," said the visitant before winking out of sight to leave only the diamond dust glitter of the stars.
V.
Nebel appeared again to assure Bane that he did well in confronting his ghosts.
"I know you love being all cryptic and enigmatic and all that," Bane said. "You're not going to change. But if you know who's behind all this, come on and tell me. Is it sorcery or hypnosis or Mad Science or what?"
"This has been a process of self-examination," replied the blind mystic. "Every sentient mind experiences this rite of passage near the end of its allotted time. You needed to clear your conflicts as your higher self realizes it is nearing the time to move on."
"Wait, what? Are you saying I did this to myself somehow? And what the Hell do you mean by 'the end of its allotted time?' Are you predicting I'm going to die soon? Nice way to let me know, Garrison!"
"You will understand more as it sinks in," Nebel said. "Do not be sad for me, Jeremy. We will meet again beyond the horizons we have known."
As Nebel vanished again, the thick diamond dust of the stars overhead also winked out to leave only a black suffocating void.
Bane snapped out of it to find himself sitting up on his couch. Early morning sunlight showed in the windows. He noticed his pants cuffs were damp. From the mist he had been standing in while undergoing that weird spiritual hazing? Yanking the Link from his belt, he called Nebel but heard only a message saying that number was no longer in service. More uncertain than ever, he sat there numbly. He was sure he could make sense of everything if he could just get the right perspective. The Link was still in his hand when it chirped to alert him of an incoming call from Sable. Bane thumbed the screen and said, "Hello."
"Jeremy, hi," came the familiar voice of one of his best and oldest friends. "Sorry to buzz you so early in the morning but I think you'd want to know. I was just contacted by the hospital near Bearsville. Early last night, Garrison Nebel passed away. They told me it was peaceful."
'Yes," Bane answered quietly, "I'm sure it was."
10/10/2022