Chet Williamson - Reign

DENNIS

You're… you're holding it.

THE EMPEROR

The towel? Oh yes. I'm quite capable of corporeality now, no small thanks to you. (He swings the towel about in demonstration.) I owe you a great deal, oh creator of mine. I owe you my very existence, of course, but you knew that. What you don't know is that I also owe you lives. Lives that I, in my imperial power, have taken.

DENNIS

(He is growing tired, continually treading water.) You killed Donna.

THE EMPEROR

I did.

DENNIS

Why? For God's sake!

THE EMPEROR

Why? Surely not for God's sake, but for the sake of the Emperor. You see, my friend, you no longer have the strength of will, the force of character required to hold such high office. It is time, my dear fellow, to abdicate to a higher power. Me.

DENNIS

No! It's a character, just a character! There is no emperor!

THE EMPEROR

(He spreads his arms) There is now.

DENNIS

Why did you let me think you were… harmless?

THE EMPEROR

It amused me to play such a game, to pretend, to perform. After all, was I not born of performance? Born of an actor? Born of artifice? Yet, in a way my… harmlessness was true. My corporeality grew slowly, like a child learning to walk. I pulled the pin that dropped the curtain on that scheiskopf of an assistant stage manager – my first physical act, and it exhausted me. There was no way I could physically destroy one of your sycophants – not then – without great care and happy coincidences. But I could be seen, and I could move objects, were they small enough. (He grins) Like the servant's knife.

DENNIS

Harry… Harry Ruhl…

THE EMPEROR

Yes. The physician was correct, you know. He did perform those.. . surgeries upon himself. But at my direction, and by my will. He had practically none of his own. His brain was like butter. Your wife, I had hoped, would prove a worthier subject, but she was not. I had merely to drop the suggestion that she destroy your mistress, and she was off like a hound on scent.

DENNIS

You told her to kill Ann?

THE EMPEROR

Nothing so crude. I only opened the portal – she rushed through it. A few subtle clues, a hint of perfume, overheard voices, a lost handkerchief – had she never seen Othello? – and vengeance quite o'ertopped her thoughts. I little cared which one perished, though I hoped that only one would, so as to save a treat for later. (He shakes his head.) I had no idea you felt so deeply for the girl. After her death my strength was increased fivefold. More than enough to throttle the woman last night.

DENNIS

Oh my God…

THE EMPEROR

You have no idea of the pleasure of it – to actually hold a life in your hands, and make it ebb away. The strength I felt, the power, the… reality.

DENNIS

Everything then. you've done everything.

THE EMPEROR

I have indeed. Including the peccadillo with the young wardrobe person. That brought you more than a little grief from your aging mistress, I vow. It was an interesting sensation, but all in all I prefer execution more. Mating is only… a little death.

DENNIS

(Near tears) Why? Why have you done this?

THE EMPEROR

For a simple reason – self-preservation. I wish to live, and to keep growing in my existence. In order for all things to grow, they must derive strength from something. And I derive my strength from my creator. As your spirit ebbs, mine grows stronger. Each loss undermines the structure of your life, and makes my dais more solid, my throne more permanent. Soon everyone you love, everyone upon whom you depend, will be taken from you, and Dennis Hamilton will fade away, leaving only the Emperor. And on that day, as Dennis Hamilton became the Emperor, so will the Emperor become Dennis Hamilton.

DENNIS

(In a voice filled with fury) You're a liar.

THE EMPEROR

I beg your pardon?

DENNIS

(Desperately) You're a liar. I don't know what else you are, but I do know that. I don't even believe in you. Sid was right. You're nothing but a figment of my imagination. Maybe you're a part of me, but you're a part of my mind, nothing more.

THE EMPEROR

You know that's not true. You're only denying a reality that you're afraid of, that you feel ultimately responsible for. I can't blame you. It's such a human trait, but one that, under these circumstances, can accomplish nothing.

DENNIS

You don't exist.

THE EMPEROR

So I must prove it. Dear me. (He looks upward, as though hearing something.) Very well then. You wish proof? You shall have it. The little girl. Get out of the pool. Run and see. By the time you arrive it shall be done. Do not think to arrive before me, for you take the high road, while I take the low. (THE EMPEROR vanishes. The towel he has been holding falls to the floor.)

Dennis did not stop to dress nor to dry himself. Barefoot, dripping, clad in bathing trunks, he ran around the corner into the hall, and savagely pushed the button for the elevator. He had thought of running up the stairs, but the elevator would take less time than a trip up the labyrinthine, curving stairways.

He jabbed the button again, and realized that nothing was happening. He heard no whirring of gears, no whine of cables. The bastard! If he had been able to turn the lights on and off with whatever strange powers he possessed, the elevator should be a simple thing to stop.

Dennis cursed, whirled away from the elevator door, and ran toward the steps, his wet feet slapping the carpet beneath. He reached the stairs to the lobby and began to run up them, when the lights went out.

"No!" he shouted, but heard only his voice echoing through the building. One hand in front of him to ward off whatever barrier he might strike, the other clutching the banister, he climbed up the steps in the deep blackness that only cellars can exude. The banister came to an end, dim light was visible, and he knew he was in the first floor hall. In the light that shone through the glass doors from the street lamp outside, he made his way to the door to the lobby, shambled across it, and pushed open the door to a small storage room where, among other things, the ushers' flashlights were kept. He snatched one up, flicked its switch, and ran on, preceded by a weak, yellow beam that he prayed would stay alive.

Up the winding stair he ran to the second floor, then to the third. As he labored up the narrower stairway to the fourth floor, he noticed that the strength of the flashlight's beam was diminishing, and ran faster, so as to beat its imminent failure.

He was not successful. The light winked out just as his foot touched the last step. Surprised, he tripped, banged his shin, stood up, kept moving down the hall, knowing that the costume shop was ahead, that if he kept going straight he would run right into the door. Right hand against the wall, left hand out, Dennis scuffled along, expecting at any moment to bump into the door he sought.

But it did not come, and he thought that perhaps he had taken a wrong turn, or was on the wrong floor, or was trapped in the Emperor's world, in the skewed reality of a mad thing's mind, and that the hall went on forever into the darkness, that there would never be an end to it. Sobbing in frustration and fear, he pushed on, expecting at any moment to feel the floor fall away beneath his feet, plunging him down, down into some nightmare even worse than the one he now inhabited.

And just when he thought he could not bear to move another step, just as he was on the verge of falling, shrieking, crying, surrendering to whatever the Emperor was, his bare toes battered against a wall, and the pain flung him backwards, down, and he fell hard on the floor, hurting, but thinking he was there, oh Christ, he was there at the end, at the door, and he scuttled on his knees to it, fumbling for the door knob, ignoring the sharp pain of his aching foot, finding the knob, turning it, pushing in, the door opening, and the light going on as if on cue, as if someone had been waiting to illuminate the scene.