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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Roger" data-source="post: 3067714" data-attributes="member: 17420">[SIZE=+2]Be Not Afraid[/SIZE][SIZE=+1]by Roger Carbol[/SIZE]Jack Zarko was sitting alone in his apartment when the phone rang.  Jack looked over to it from his position on the couch, a bead of sweat running down the back of his neck.  He let it ring.  Finally the answering machine kicked in.  A disembodied voice leaving a message was broadcast through the empty apartment."Hello.  This is a message for Jack Zarko.  Jack, if this is still your number, this is Alexander Blackwood.  Hope you're doing well.  Hey, I'm in town for the next couple days, getting some locations shot for this movie I'm working on.  Anyway, give me a ring if you want to get together and reminisce about the old days.  Take care, Jack."Jack rolled over.  The good old days.  Back before Alex had become a director; back when he was just the stunt coordinator.  Back when he was Jack's boss.  He was there when the accident happened.  Five years ago.  It seemed like yesterday.It'd be good to see Alex again, Jack thought, but he knew he was fooling himself.  He wouldn't go out to see Alex.  He wouldn't go back out into the great wide world with its crushing mobs of humanity and death lurking around every corner.  The very thought of it set Jack's hands shaking; it took him ten minutes just to calm down enough to pick up the phone.He dialed a long international number.  It was late evening in France, but not too late to call Sara.  He had a brief conversation, and then returned to the couch to prepare himself.He hadn't left his apartment in five years, but he'd been abroad by other means.* * *Jack opened his eyes.  He was in a place of swirling pastel colors and soft ethereal music.  It was Sara's astral home plane.  She was there, standing nearby.  Her astral body was that of a young teenage girl, with a precocious pigtail of blonde hair.  A silvery cord of energy ribboned off behind her."Hello, Jack.  It is so good to see you again."  She hugged him; the touch of her body was warm and yielding.  She looked into his eyes.  "Is there something wrong, my friend?" she asked."It's good to see you too, Sara.  I just got a call from an old coworker.  He was there when... when the accident happened," he said.  He involuntarily glanced down.  His astral body was that of a young boy, but his body ended at the waist.  Below was a wheelchair, ornately constructed of leather and brass."You should stay in touch with your friends in the physical world, Jack.  I worry about you.  It has been a long time.  Perhaps it is time to move on," Sara said."I can't, Sara.  I just can't.  I don't know what happened.  One moment I was the best stunt double in the business.  Fearless.  Now I can't even open my front door without being paralyzed by dread.  I want to, Sara; Lord knows I want to.  But I can't."  He'd had this conversation with her before.  It always ended the same.Sara looked thoughtful.  "There's an old friend of the family I'd like you to meet.  Very old.  My grandmother knew him when she was young.  He's very wise."Jack's hands tightened around the wheel grips of his chair.  He was safe here.  With a thought he could be back in his apartment.  Slowly, he nodded.Sara grinned.  "I think you will like him, Jack.  Kokabiel, are you there?  Come in, please," announced Sara.  A moment passed, and then she looked over Jack's shoulder.He turned.  Kokabiel appeared to be a young boy of perhaps eight, but with perfectly-white hair.  The newcomer bowed to Jack slightly.  "Jacob Zarko, it is a pleasure to meet you.  Sarina Constatin has told me much about you."  His voice was deep and resonant.Sara stepped beside them.  "Jack, this is Kokabiel.  I've known him a very long time.  He knows many things.""You know many things, do you, Kokabiel?  That's just great.  Do you know why I'm here?  Do you know why I've only got half a body?  Do you know why I've been cowering in my room for the last five years?  Do you?" he asked, with increasing anger.  "I don't need this aggravation.  Not today," said Jack, and he shut his eyes.  He willed himself to return to the physical world.  When he opened his eyes, he still saw Sara and Kokabiel, regarding him.Sara began to speak, but Kokabiel silenced her with a look.  "I know many things, but I no longer interfere in the affairs of mortals.  Yet, in this place, all causes and all effects are revealed," he replied.  "You wish to return to your body, yet you cannot.  This is caused by your fear.  Your desire to leave can no longer overcome it.  Although time has little meaning in this place, eventually your physical body will wither away, and you will die here.""You have asked me many questions, Jacob Zarko.  The answers already lie within your grasp.  Permit me to ask you a question:  how did you come to obtain that object in which you are seated?" Kokabiel asked, gesturing towards Jack's wheelchair."What?  This thing?  I've no idea.  It was here when I woke up -- when I woke up the first time," said Jack, looking to Sara.  She said, "Yes, that is true; when I found Jack drifting out there, alone, he was in it then.""Every thing here has a cause, Sarina Constantin; I thought you had learned at least that much from me.  Can you not, even now, see its cause?" he asked.  Sara peered at the wheelchair intently, but finally shook her head."You, of all people, Jacob Zamko, should see the truth in it."  Quicker than thought, Kokabiel's hand shot out and touched Jack lightly between the eyes.  His touch was cold and hard as frozen steel, thought Jack, before a new sensation drove the thought from his mind.  He could feel something opening inside his head, unfurling like a hibernating animal awakened by the spring.Jack blinked, and his gaze was drawn down to his wheelchair.  Faintly but clearly, he could see a silver cord issuing from it, stretching far off into the distance.  Causes and effects, he thought.  Instinctively he reached out to touch it.  The cord snapped at his touching, recoiling away from the chair.He reached out for it, but Kokabiel was far quicker once again.  He had grabbed the cord before Jack had even comprehended that it was broken.  "I can hold this," he said, "but not for long. You must come with me now, if you wish to find the answers you seek."Sara grabbed Jack by the shoulders.  "We must go with him, Jack.  You have waited so long for this.  Trust him.  Trust me, at least," she pleaded.  Almost imperceptibly, Jack nodded.  She had earned enough of his trust for that.Kokabiel took his hand.  It was so cold Jack began to feel an ache.  "Whatever happens, remember: do not let go."{<a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=25894" target="_blank">1</a>}And then they were off.  Sara's world of pastels disappeared in a blur of color.  They were moving at an unthinkable velocity, dragged through the astral plane by the retracting cord.  Jack's instincts told him to flee, to escape, but there was no escape from either Kokabiel's grasp or Sara's clinging.  After an indeterminate time they abruptly stopped.  Jack had the fleeting impression of the clear blue sky, and looked into the eyes of the man to whom the cord had returned.  The last thing he remembered was screaming.  He recognized that man.* * *Jack opened his eyes.  He was back in his apartment.  In an instant he remembered everything."That bastard," he said aloud.  His own voice sounded strange in his ears; he could not remember the last time he had spoken anything louder than a whisper.  "I trusted him... I trusted him with everything," he said.He stood, and strode to the front door.  His keys were still on the table by the door, just where he had left them, though now they were covered in dust.  He knew where he had to go.He opened the door.  The apartment hallway stretched before him.  An all-too-familiar tang of panic and fear filled his mouth.  He walked through it and closed the door behind him.  There was a new emotion filling him now, smothering the fear and almost all his rational thought.  He was filled with rage.* * *It wasn't hard to find.  The cab driver knew where the film was being shot, and after twenty minutes of driving, Jack was there.He knew security wouldn't just let him stroll onto the set.  Maybe, years ago, when he still had friends in the business, he would have been able to talk his way in, but not now; especially not looking the way he must have: unkempt, rumpled, eyes squinting against an unfamiliar sun.  He was angry enough to be tempted to bully his way past the security guards, but even now he didn't want innocent people getting hurt.  The way he had been hurt, once: an innocent victim.  He surveyed the surroundings.  There -- a restaurant with a roof-top patio, right across the block.  That would be close enough.  Soon he was sitting down at his table and cursorily glancing at the menu.  He had managed to get the perfect spot, with a good view of the set.  He looked down at it: some sort of outdoor establishing shot, he figured.{<a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=25892" target="_blank">2</a>}  There, in the director's chair, sat Alexander Blackwood.  Perhaps feeling Jack's gaze upon him at that moment, Alex looked up and stared straight at Jack, with his terrible and familiar eyes.* * *Jack blinked.  He was seated in his wheelchair, in an astral plane which appeared to be a grassy field in summer.  He hadn't known he could be brought, summoned, into the astral by someone else like this.He didn't have time to think it over.  Nearby, a man was standing quietly, turned towards the warm sun, eyes closed to its warmth on his face.{<a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=25893" target="_blank">3</a>}  Jack gasped.  The man -- Alex's astral body, surely -- looked less than human.  His skin was the color of white ash, flaking away in the breeze.  He looks like a zombie, Jack thought.  He looks just like the zombies in that movie --"Yes, Jack.  The Dead Among Us.  It's easy to direct a horror movie when all you need to do is look into the mirror for inspiration," Alex said, his voice a dry croak.  He opened his eyes languidly.  "But, of course, I have you to thank for all of that.  I'm glad you came, Jack.  I must admit, I didn't think you would," he said, a smile revealing his jagged teeth."Damn you, Alex.  I trusted you.  I trusted you with my life.   I trusted you when you were there beside my hospital bed, explaining how the pyrotechnics had gone off wrong," Jack said, struggling to maintain an even tone in his voice.  Alex just laughed at him, a horrible, reverberating sound."Of course you did, Jack.  I was counting on it.  You were the bravest man I've ever met.  I knew you'd agree to do the stunt.  I knew you'd survive the explosion, if just barely.  And I knew you'd survive the surgery," he said.  Alex opened his hand and there was a knife in it, a wicked thing of engraved brass.  The edge carried a thin sheen of frost."I needed it, Jack.  I needed your bravery, your courage.  I was dying inside, working every day as a lousy stunt coordinator.  Surely you, of all people, must have seen that.  And so when I was offered a deal, I took it.  I had to.  There was a price, of course.  But it has been worth it," he said, strolling towards Jack as he spoke."Alas, all good things come to an end," he said with a smile.  "I didn't think you'd ever show up to bother me again.  But here you are.  So, before we part ways," he said, bringing the knife against Jack's throat, "let me ask you one thing.  How did you do it?  How does a man ruled by fear bring himself to confront his enemy?"Jack moved at the speed of thought.  He drove his hand like a blade into Alex's soft belly.  His insides felt dry as summer grass, until Jack felt the touch of something familiar.  The touch of something that had been part of him, once."Hatred, Alex.  Pure hatred.  I hate what you did to me, and I hate what I've become."  He felt Alex's body go limp, his eyes rolling to the back of his head.  Jack took the knife from Alex's weakening grasp.  "Rot in Hell, you bastard," he said, as brought the blade down and severed Alex's silver cord.* * *Several months later, Jack had almost finished packing his apartment.  He was moving back to Los Angeles.  He had already lined up several job offers, mostly from agencies who remembered just how good he used to be.  He'd show them he was as good as ever.Just one last loose end to wrap up, Jack thought.  He called Sara, and arranged a meeting.Jack smiled when he saw Sara again, among her pastel colors.  He relished the look of shock on her face when he walked up to her on his own two legs.  "My God, Jack, you're alive!  And you're whole!  I'd thought we'd lost you there forever, when Kokabiel lost his grip on you.""Takes more than that to keep an old stuntie down, Sara.  Say, speaking of Kokabiel, is he around?  I'd like to thank him for all his help," he said, easily.  He wasn't quite lying."Of course, Jack; he's always around, somewhere.  I'm calling for him now.  My, Jack," she said, taking in the full sight of him, "if I were a younger woman, I might already be on a plane to America."Jack shrugged amiably.  "Another lifetime, perhaps.  Ah, there's Kokabiel," he said, seeing a new astral body materializing.  "Kokabiel, I suppose you already know how things turned out," he said."Indeed, I am aware of what has transpired.  It warms my heart to see that you are whole again, and that perhaps I have helped set things right," replied Kokabiel."Perhaps.  I'm sure I owe you much.  I suppose I should return this to you," he said, and the knife appeared in his hand, not exactly pointed towards Kokabiel.  "I thought you said you didn't meddle in the affairs of mortals."Sara involuntarily took several steps back.  Kokabiel's smile faltered slightly.  "I see you have taken the lesson of cause and effect to heart, Jacob Zarko.  To be fair, I said I no longer meddle in your affairs.  You have taught me that such things are fraught with peril.  For that lesson I am in your debt," he said.  Jack thought he seemed to be retreating, although he couldn't discern the act of movement."Let us agree that all debts between us are repaid, Kokabiel.  Go on, take it," said Jack, offering the knife again to Kokabiel.  The words had barely left his lips before his hand was empty and the knife gone.  "There was a time, perhaps, when I would have taken my revenge on you.  But I've grown to appreciate small kindnesses.  If you had not provided me with a wheelchair," he said, Kokabiel's eyebrows rising slightly, "perhaps this would have played out differently.  But I'm willing to call it even, now.  There's been enough violence.""I think you should go now," Sara said, with an uncharacteristic hardness in her voice.  Kokabiel looked at Jack a moment longer, and then bowed slightly.  He was gone."Jack," she said, "I'm so sorry.  I shouldn't have trusted him.  And now, I don't think I can forgive him.  How can you, after all that's happened?"Jack was thoughtful.  "All it takes, babe," he said at last, "is courage."THE END* * *Ceramic DM -- Fall 2006 -- Round 1b (1. tadk v. Roger)Written 14-17 September, 2006.  Word Count: 2700.Illustrations:[1]  <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=25894" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=25894</a>[2]  <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=25892" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=25892</a>[3]  <a href="http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=25893" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=25893</a></blockquote>

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