Reign

When they were comfortably settled in a booth at Joe Allen's, with drinks in front of them, Sybil took Dennis's right hand in both of hers and squeezed it. 'I heard about you,' she said, 'but I didn't believe it. You're the talk of Broadway, Dennis dear. The only performer living whose talent has not only deserted him, but has apparently sued for alimony as well. Rumor has it that you've had to sign over half your brain cells. True?'

'What does it look like?'

'It looks like you're some goddamned apprentice at the worst non-Equity dinner theatre in South Dakota, for Christ's sake. What is the matter with you? Did you forget how to fool the nice people?'

He shrugged. 'Did I ever know?'

'Of course you knew, don't be fatuous. You could never fool me, but you fooled the others well enough. And I hate to see a charlatan lose his skill. You may have to actually learn to act, Dennis.' She threw back half her drink and shuddered. 'Now that I've bawled you out for no longer being able to do what I always felt you shouldn't anyway, let me tell you how sorry I am over everything that's happened. You have had a hill full of crosses to bear.' She put back her head and looked down the long bridge of her nose at him. 'I assume that's what's been the cause of this… performing debacle?'

'In a way.'

'Well, what are you going to do about it?'

'Try to… find it again. The performance.'

'And where might you be looking? Outside? All around? In the movies? Under cabbage leaves?'

He shook his head. 'Inside.'

'Inside. Will wonders never cease.' She shook her head in mock amazement, then plunged it toward him like a hawk attacking a vole. 'Well, you'd damn well better find it, my friend. Because you are no more than an object of pity right now. You've got how long till the big night?'

'A little over two weeks.'

'I'd recommend some sessions, but I don't think you'll have time. So perhaps you wouldn't mind if I gave you some advice?'

'Sybil, at this point I'd take acting advice from Vanna White.'

'Oh, thank you so much for the compliment.'

'You know what I mean. I've always admired your work, even when I haven't agreed with the principles behind it.'

'Meaning that you do now?'

His only reaction was a shrug.

'It's hard for an old dog to learn new tricks, isn't it, Dennis? But I'll tell you what I think, and you can take it for what it's worth. Maybe it'll help you. Maybe you'll decide that you do want to try being a tree and letting your branches blow in the fucking wind.' She took another sip of her drink. 'I've said it before and I'll say it again. All your life you've been afraid to drop the mask and confront yourself. You've worked with technique alone, and in that way you've protected yourself from the truth – both bad and good – about Dennis Hamilton. Your emotions have been only constructed artifice, and it's only when you confront your true emotions, emotions expressed sincerely, that you will give a truly great performance. Working with a series of constructs, as you've been doing for your entire career, is not the way to bring real life to a character.'

Dennis began to laugh. It started out slow and soft and gentle, then increased in volume and became a series of rattling bursts that filled the room. His eyes squeezed shut and tears emerged from their inner corners. The attack slowly diminished to weak, panting sobs, and he waved his hands in the air feebly in apology.

'Well,' Sybil said in a voice as chilled and dry as her martini, 'I'm glad you still find my beliefs so amusing.'

'It's… I'm sorry, it's not that, Sybil, I just… things have been stranger than you can imagine, and…”He paused. There was no way he could tell her the truth. 'I'm sorry. Really. I won't laugh again.'

'Do,' she said, getting stiffly to her feet. 'At least it's an emotion, and it's real.' She spat her curtain line, 'And that's more than I've seen from you in years,' and left him sitting alone.

God damn it, he thought. She was so close in one way, so far in another. Despite what Sybil said, it was precisely the strength of his dramatic constructions that had brought his character to life, and to a hateful, violent life at that. But she was right in that it was only by the strength of his own emotions, at least those he still had left, that he would bring those he had lost to the Emperor back again.

And make his soul complete.

Scene 6

That night, after his calamitous discussion with Sybil Creed, Dennis had a variant of the Actor's Nightmare. He was standing on the stage of the Venetian Theatre, dressed in the full regalia of the Emperor Frederick. Richard Reynolds, the actor who played the role of the Peasant Leader in the 1966 production of A Private Empire, was with him on stage. Dennis knew that he had just pardoned the man from being a spy and made him a retainer, for Richard said:

– Would to God my Emperor were as decent as you. I'll serve you well, majesty. My life for yours -

And then he turned and left the stage, leaving Dennis with the knowledge that he was in a dream, for Richard had been dead for fifteen years, beaten to death by a burglar.

In reality, Dennis would have known his lines, his lyrics, his movements, but in the dream, and knowing that it was a dream, he did not. That knowledge did nothing, however, to lessen his panic. All he knew beyond the fact of the dream was that he did not know. He heard the music begin, and remembered dimly that the song was called 'A Land Where We Can Love,' but could recall none of the lyrics, did not remember how the song began, where he should be on the stage.

The introduction seemed to bubble on forever, pushing him closer to that moment when he would be expected to open his mouth and sing, and in desperation he crossed the stage, slapping his hands behind his back, wondering if he was past the point in the show where that gesture was first used. Striding to the stage right curtains he peered into the wings in hopes of seeing the prompter, but saw not even the dim light that guided the actors off stage. There was nothing there but darkness, a thick, inky blackness that seemed even more terrible than his fate were he to remain on stage until the time came for him to sing the song he did not know.

The introduction was finally coming to its end, and Dennis turned back toward the audience, his dream-self trembling. The upbeat was coming, and he opened his mouth, thinking that perhaps if he just began to sing, the right words would come out. After all, he had sung them thousands of times, they should, damn it, be there. They were not. The accompaniment of the unseen orchestra below him in the pit droned on, and he stood there, his mouth opening and closing, no words coming out, no song filling the air. The music got softer and softer, making his failure all the more obvious. What must they think of him? he wondered. They must think him a fool. And then, as if in universal agreement, they started to laugh.

Dennis recognized the laughter. It was the laughter of thousands laughing with one voice.

And the voice was that of the Emperor.

Then all the stage lights exploded into brightness, and in their glow Dennis saw row upon row of Dennis Hamiltons, of Emperors, of himself and of the beast, going back and out and up into the air, and the rows had no end, the theatre had no ceiling, and the world was girdled with images of himself, images with madness in their eyes, madness that seeped into his soul even as they stole that same soul away.

He woke up sweating, his stomach a churning pit of fire, his spine a rope of ice, and remembered waking up next to Robin after the other nightmares. But he wasn't next to Robin now. He was next to Ann, and the sounds of his awakening had not pierced the armor of her sleep. He listened to her breathing softly in the dark, the sound coming around the edges of the pounding of his own heart.

He thought he must have woken up quietly then, without a cry or a sudden motion. Of course. A cry would have taken emotion, wouldn't it? And though he felt it, it seemed as though his days of expressing it were far behind.

Lying in bed then, after the nightmare, he decided to call Ally Terrazin. She was the only person he knew who was serious about what the rest of his friends and acquaintances had regarded as silly. Perhaps, he thought, smiling inwardly as his self-perceived foolishness, Ranthu or Ramcharger, or whatever that damn thing's name was, could help. Dennis's skepticism toward the occult had taken a terrific beating.

He called her the next day at the lunch break, hoping she would be up by nine o'clock Pacific time. She was.