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  REIGN

  By Chet Williamson

  First Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press & Macabre Ink Digital

  Reconstructed from scans and copy-edited by David Dodd

  Copyright 2010 by Chet Williamson

  LICENSE NOTES:

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  OTHER CROSSROAD TITLES BY CHET WILLIAMSON:

  NOVELS:

  Ash Wednesday

  Soulstorm

  Lowland Rider

  Second Chance

  UNABRIDGED AUDIOBOOKS:

  As author & Narrator:

  Ash Wednesday

  Soulstorm

  Lowland Rider

  Second Chance

  As Narrator:

  Blood: A Southern Fantasy – by Michael Moorcock

  Fabulous Harbours – by Michael Moorcock

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  "For Chief and D, and Fred and Lee, and everyone with whom I've walked the boards. And most of all to Laurie, for her incomparable performance in supporting roles through the years."

  Of all arts, the most difficult was the art of reigning.

  Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

  Here we may reign secure, and in my choice

  To reign is worth ambition though in hell:

  Better to reign in hell than serve in heav'n.

  Milton, Paradise Lost

  In that tyme . . . reygned a grete pestylence.

  Caxton's Caton

  OVERTURE

  Watch, Dennis. Watch.

  Dennis Hamilton watched. He had no choice. He was once more a captive of his dream, a slave of the very emperor he had himself been for the last quarter of a century, the character he had created. And now that character came to life before his eyes, stood there grinning as nakedly as if the skin of the face were transparent, revealing the skull beneath.

  Watch.

  Who, Dennis wondered, would the Emperor kill tonight? Which of the people he loved? His wife? His son? John, his manager, or Marvella, his costumer, or Curt, his stage manager? Night after night, he had taken them all in dreams, killed them all by grasping their necks in his left hand, which seemed as huge and monstrous as the necks seemed thin and frail, and shaking them until those pencil-necks snapped with the sound of cracking twigs, and the bodies had fallen like empty sacks, and the grin had widened until it threatened to raven the world, and Dennis would awake with tears in his eyes, and turn and clutch Robin's warmth, waking her to comfort him.

  Who tonight? Who? He saw her then, dimly at first, as through a fog, or a gray-tinted window, but he recognized her immediately. Though twenty-five years had passed, he knew her, for he had never forgotten, never stopped feeling what he had felt when he was so young, when emotions had been taut as wires, sensitive as exposed flesh in winter.

  Ann.

  She was older, but still as lovely as he remembered. Her honey-blonde hair was shorter than it had been, but still long, falling to her shoulders like a veil. She wore a dress — or was it a gown? — of white. She seemed, Dennis thought at first, dressed for a wedding.

  But when the Emperor stepped into the frame of his sight, he knew instead that she was dressed for a sacrifice.

  Watch.

  Ann's neck did not change, did not diminish and thin as the others had. And the Emperor's hand, when he grasped her, no longer grew in size. A hand it remained, though one with great strength. It squeezed, and Dennis saw Ann's face go white with pain, though there was no fear in her eyes. She looked, not at her attacker, but at him, and in her gaze was mingled a plea and a longing, both emotions mirrored in his own thoughts.

  He moved toward her as he had with all the others, to save and to protect. But unlike before, when the thick and fluid bonds of dream held him back, now he flew forward with a dazzling speed that blinded him, and when he could see again, he knew that it was his hand that was clutching Ann's throat, his eyes that were blazing into hers, those green spheres clouded with approaching death.

  He gasped, and tried to release his grip, loosen the fingers that dug into the flesh so deeply that the tips were hidden.

  He could not. The fingers, his but not his, pressed harder. The eyes refused to obey his demand to close, the mouth, rebel to his will, grinned with teeth he could not see, and Ann faded away as she had on that day long ago, from his sight, from his love, from his life . . .

  From life.

  Ann.

  ~ * ~

  Dennis Hamilton awoke weeping. His body was slick with sweat, and he felt hot and cold at once.

  "Dennis?" Robin's voice, full of love and concern, echoed in the darkness. "What's the matter? What's wrong?"

  He grasped at her, and when he felt her arms go around him, he let himself go completely, let the sobs shake his body.

  "The dream?" she asked. "The same dream again?"

  "Yes," he said. "The same." It had come at irregular intervals, unpredictably and unexpectedly, for nearly a year.

  "Who this time?"

  He didn't answer right away, and he could sense her curiosity in the dark. To give him time to decide what to say, he reached up and turned on the dim reading light over his side of the bed.

  "You're sweating," Robin said. "Do you feel all right?"

  He nodded. "It was you," he told her. "I dreamed that he was hurting you . . . choking you."

  She looked so young in the rose-colored light. Her dark hair cupped her face like a pair of gentle hands, and the edge of the sheet was draped over her waist, exposing her full, round breasts. Dennis felt desire trying softly to usurp his previous apprehension.

  "It's just a dream," she said, reaching out and smoothing the damp hair back from his forehead. "Dreams can't hurt you."

  "But it frightens me," he said, taking her hand and pressing it to his cheek. "It seems so real, and I worry about . . . about what it might mean."

  "We've talked about this before," she said with a sigh, "and you're not angry at me, darling. You're not angry at any of the people you've seen hurt in your dreams, even if you are the one who's doing the hurting."

  "I'm not the one," he said. "It's the Emperor, I told you that. It's him every time, not me."

  She touched his cheek. "After tomorrow there won't be any emperor anymore, will there? You can replace him with another dream — a dream you've had for so long. One that's going to come true."

  He smiled at her, remembering. "Yes," he said finally. "I guess it will."

  "Can you sleep now?" she said. "It's going to be a big day. A very big day. Shall I call Sid? Have him fix some warm milk to help you sleep?"

  "No. No thanks. It's all right." He turned off the light and put his head on the pillow. Robin leaned over and kissed him.

  "Sleep well," she said. "Sweet dreams now. Or no dreams at all. I love you."

  "And I love you," he said, meaning it. But he went back to sleep remembering Ann.

  ~ * ~

  Morning came, and then the night. The last performance was glorious.

  ~ * ~

  He sat before the mirror, gazing at the man within. The face was older now. Nearly twenty-five years had passed since he first saw the Emperor insi
de him, twenty-five years since that first night, that night in 1966 that set the pattern of his life as firmly as heredity.

  Had the audience dozed, had the critics been unkind, had he been in poor voice, or nervous, or forgetful, his life would have been very different. But those things had not happened, and he had been crowned Emperor of the Theatre, and had remained so for a quarter of a century, longer than many real emperors, or kings, or popes. Until tonight. Until this warm April night, on which they roared out their acclaim for a voice still young, still as strong as ever, roared for the full, rich, velvet baritone with which he had enthralled audiences across the country, around the world. His world. His circumscribed and loving world, girdled with his talent, governed by his persona, ruled by the Emperor.

  Still, Dennis Hamilton thought, looking into the mirror, it was not the voice that really mattered, was it? It could have been aged and withered, made harsh by the nicotine he never inhaled, pickled by the alcohol he seldom touched, constricted and parched by the cocaine that floated all around the New York theatre scene like a gritty cloud but which he had never even tried. No, it was not the voice, but the presence.

  He still had the presence. He could go on. His friends begged him to go on; his fans, who made up much of the civilized world, begged him to go on. To them he was the Emperor, and always would be.

  The stance was enough to tell anyone that. The stance at the beginning of Act I, Scene 6, when the change came. The hands locked commandingly behind the back, the thrust of the jaw, lengthened by the beard, that long Ruritanian beard that he had never shaved off, dashed now with specks of gray not yet visible from the audience. He could have dyed it, but that would have been vanity. Besides, they all knew he was no longer twenty, and it would not have diminished their love. No. The world knew that he had based his life on artifice, and the world had made him a rich man because of it.

  He heard them outside his dressing room door now. It was late. The show itself ran, as always, three hours with the intermission, and tonight's curtain calls had lasted another half hour. They could have lasted longer, he thought. They could have lasted until morning.

  But no, it was good that Curt had brought the curtain down and the house lights up when he did. Always leave them wanting more — the theatre's golden rule.

  Dennis smiled at the memory of the applause continuing long after the curtain had come down for the final time and the auditorium was fully lit. Five years ago, three, even six months ago he might have interpreted Curt's ending the curtain call as insolence, and given him a tongue-lashing for it. But tonight he felt not even mild aggravation. Leaving the Emperor behind was indeed, he thought, a consummation devoutly to be wished.

  There was a knock on his door, and he heard Robin's voice calling, "Dennis? Dennis, the party?"

  "I'll be there," he called back. He had not yet removed his costume or his makeup, and the Emperor still stared at him from the mirror. The medals flashed, the gold braid gleamed like chorus girls' hair. The lines in his face were invisible beneath the makeup and the powder. It was, if not a young man's face, then the face of a man whom the years had touched but lightly. He knew that he could not stay there forever, that people and the rest of his life were waiting for him. The thought made him smile, and he spoke to his image in the glass, encompassed by soft, naked bulbs, "Well, your majesty, it's time to leave you. Leave you for good." He shook his head. "I can't stay here forever."

  It was as if the image told him that he could. The carmined lips did not open, but he heard the voice inside his head.

  You can, it said.

  "What . . ." he whispered so quietly that an ear next to his mouth would not have heard.

  You can, it said again, then became silent.

  Dennis Hamilton shivered, and the conceit that he had considered, the intention to leave on his costume and makeup, to remain the Emperor for one final night, suddenly oppressed him. He pulled the uniform jacket open so quickly that the snaps seemed to pop simultaneously, and yanked the garment from his body as though it were lined with barbs. Then he reached for the jar of cold cream as a drowning man reaches for a spar, and slathered it over his face, rubbing it in and wiping it away with handfuls of tissue, desperate to escape the Emperor.

  And when he looked in the mirror again, the Emperor was gone. In his place, dressed crisply in a dinner jacket, was Dennis Hamilton. The beard, reddish-brown and trimmed to perfection, was the only thing that remained, for the eyes, the brow, the mouth were all gentle, with not a trace of imperiousness in their slants, their turns, their attitudes.

  Dennis sighed in relief, walked to the door, grasped the knob, and looked back at the mirror, expecting for a moment to see an image still framed within. But the glass only reflected the silken curtains, the red brocade wallpaper of his dressing room. He looked again, as if some mistake had been made, then turned and opened the door upon the crowd, upon the world. Hands reached out for him, kind words assailed him, and the door closed upon the mirror.

  It sat there, blank. And, in a while, an image returned.

  ACT I: INTERPRETER

  All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be.

  —C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

  Scene 1

  Six months after Dennis Hamilton's farewell performance of A Private Empire, on a October night whose chill pushed thin ribbons of cold between the cracks in the casements of the old farmhouse windows, Ann Deems, newly widowed, sat in the large family room and watched Entertainment Tonight on the projection TV. She had been working on the details of the estate all day, and a thick sheaf of papers still lay, awaiting her attention, on the teak coffee table.

  She ignored them now, her feet tucked comfortably under her, her gaze fixed loosely on the images that blurringly danced across the giant screen. She made a mental note that one of the first things she would do would be to get rid of the damned thing and buy another regular TV. She hated the way colors bled into each other, the lack of sharp detail that phosphor dots provided. She had complained to Eddie about it time and again, but all he had said was, "You'll get used to it, Annie. I mean, look at the size of it. It's like being in a goddamned theatre, isn't it?"

  Yes, she had told him. Yes, I suppose so, thinking all the while that it was like a theatre in which the projectionist was drunk and the lens was smeared with Vaseline. Still, Eddie had loved it. It was his toy, just like all the other toys he had bought and played with and gotten bored with through their twenty-odd years of married life.

  She didn't begrudge him the things. After all, he had worked hard for them, had always worked hard since the day he had gotten out of law school and gone into practice with his father's firm. And even if he hadn't worked hard, they still would have had the money. Henry Deems always saw to that. The only son of the senior partner in one of the oldest law firms in Philadelphia would want for nothing, and neither, Ann thought with an odd mixture of satisfaction and distaste, would his widow or his daughter.

  She shrugged off the thoughts and tried to turn her attention back to the TV. This kind of empty-headed pseudo-journalism was exactly what she needed now. Mind candy, popcorn for the brain. It seemed as though she had been thinking about Eddie every minute since his death three weeks before. She was afraid she would always think about it.

  It left a tremendous void in her life, as though someone had come and pulled up their house in one piece, so that only a pit remained where the basement used to be. If they had been older, it might have been easier to take, even though the ties would have been still deeper with years. But you just don't expect someone to die of a heart attack at forty-four. Cancer maybe, or a car crash, but not a heart attack, not for someone who never smoked, got a lot of exercise, ate right, was a walking public service spot. Not Eddie. And not the way it happened. She wondered if, after everything was over, the estate settled, Eddie's things stored away or distributed among the many charities that Ann did volunteer work for, she could forget that night. She wond
ered, if she met another man and fell in love with him, if she could ever make love again.

  A commercial came on the huge screen, and Ann looked away, closed her eyes, and remembered once more. There was nothing to see, for it had been in darkness. No, there was only the sound and the feeling of him, of Eddie over her, filling her, the two of them pressed together, moving as one toward a climax, and her coming first, the warmth moving up from groin to stomach to breasts, and feeling the spasmodic heat inside her, knowing that Eddie was with her, part of her. And then the horror began.

  It was as if someone had struck him with a sledgehammer. He died on top of her, inside her, in an instant. A sharp intake of breath, and the weight of him pressing her down, smothering her, not the weight of passion spent, but the terrible, awesome weight of life fled. Dead weight. Dead.

  She blinked back tears and looked at Eddie's goddamned, mammoth screen again. It was the stuff of stupid, dirty jokes, dying like that, and she felt furious at him for doing it, knowing full well that it had not been his fault, that he did not choose where and when to have his fatal attack. Still, his death had savaged her above and beyond the already harrowing experience of losing a husband, a friend, a man to whom you had given all your love for nearly a quarter of a century. Despite her friends, her family, despite Terri, she felt terribly alone.

  “. . . Dennis Hamilton . . .”

  The words from the stereo speakers on either side of the screen sent a shot of adrenalin through her, and her head snapped back to the glowing, watery images. One of the show's vapid correspondents, golden-haired and red-lipped, was holding a mike and talking at the camera. Behind her, some twenty yards away, was a wall of gray stone decorated with bas-reliefs. Ann listened.

  “. . . who purchased the Venetian Theatre with the intention of making it a showcase for new American musical comedy. Though we were unable to talk to Hamilton himself, we were able to visit with his business manager, John Steinberg."