 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Introduction
Monthly Poll
2001 Archive
2002 Archive
2003 Archive
2005 Archive
Sequel Poll
2001 Archive
2005 Archive
2009 Archive
Fan Fiction
Fan Art
Tidbits
Movie
In Print
Radio
T.V.
Miscellaneous
Events
Site Map
Guestbook
Forum
Fan Fiction: Short Stories
Author's Note: Okay, I'm not a huge Shadow fan, so canon should be somewhat ignored in this case. It's really more of a mood piece. Anyhow, I'm basing this off the 1994 movie and Kimberly Murphy-Smith's depiction of The Shadow in her series of stories based off of the said movie. Disclaimer: Excuse me while I laugh hysterically at that concept . . . Okay. No. I don't own The Shadow, nor do I own Brendan Graham's 1996 Eurovision Song Contest winning song, The Voice which was performed by both Eimear Quinn at the contest, and Lisa Kelly on the Celtic Woman show CD. Contact: If someone wants to rain down abuse upon my head for my inaccurate depiction of The Shadow or to inform me that I am the worst writer ever to grace the hallowed bytes of the internet you can get my attention at scwlc@yahoo.ca. If you happen to actually like this, I suspect that you can get a tonic for that. I hear they're doing wonderful things with anti-psychotic meds these days. But do let me know either way. Lamont Cranston sometimes felt like he'd given up one addiction for another. Oh, he knew he was better off now than he was when he'd been addicted to opium. He was no longer a cruel man, drunk on power and dazed with his drug of choice. But it was sometimes so hard to step back from his new alter ego. I hear your voice on the wind.But sometimes he felt as though The Shadow was becoming all of who he was. The dilettante, playboy that was Lamont Cranston to the world was merely a mask. A spectacle put on to keep people from wondering where he'd been and what he'd been doing for seven years. Something that made everyone unable to suspect that he was anything but Lamont Cranston, the epitome of the idle rich. He'd be out and see one of his Agents, and the temptation to change into his cloak and hat would nearly overwhelm him as he felt the urge to find out whether he was needed. Listen my child, you say to me,It wasn't only the desire to save the world however. What truly bothered him was that The Shadow was as much an outlet for the urges and desires of who he had been. Ying Ko. The Butcher of Lhasa was with him wherever he went. The desire to force others to his will still informed his every move. It was this need for control as much as a need for a coherent network of informants that had him creating his network of agents. Each one, bound to him the way he had bound his servants and followers in Tibet. Each one would die for him on a moment's notice. He had taken their lives and made them his property. And beneath The Shadow's benevolent intentions to save the innocent from criminals lay Ying Ko, laughing with glee at every moment of terror he inspired and every order he gave that was followed without dispute. Be not afraid, come follow me.Because every moment he wore the cloak, spinning his illusion of invisibility around himself, was another moment of heady freedom. A chance to act with no consequences save those he decided to pay heed to. So he was no longer interested in the destruction of his competitors on the opium market or how many more concubines he could amass in an afternoon. Did that truly make it all right for him to make these choices of who lived and died? Of who was given the chance at American justice and who was simply given a bullet through the skull to save everyone the trouble? He was free to act without restraint as The Shadow. As free as he'd been in Tibet. There was no one to stand in his way, nothing to stop him. There was no Marpa Tulku here that would bring a halt to his depredations if he lost control and stepped out of line. There were days he was sure he would. How could he not when the intoxicating feeling of terror rose from the minds of those he pursued. Even Moe would look at him, as he sat in the cab, and feel fear. I am the Voice in the wind and the pouring rain,That was what The Shadow was. He was the darkness in Lamont's soul, given form and shape and a place in which to vent and express those feelings. His shame was that he needed this. Needed to feel that fear from his victims, fear from his servants and agents. He needed to feed on those feelings and let them run through him, because without them he didn't feel as though he was truly living. The Tulku had broken him of feeling true pleasure at the pain and terror of innocents, but he could do nothing but redirect Lamont's dark urges into something that would do good. Appeal to the conscience that had been so long suppressed; first by the Great War, then by the years of luxury and self-indulgence which spawned Ying Ko, only to peak in the violence and utter evil of his alter ego. But The Shadow still spoke in the words of that madness. Still killed, and laughed at that pain and he let himself be intoxicated by it. He hungered for the hunt. Wanted it in a way he hadn't when he was Ying Ko because he was denied it by the demands of polite society. I am the Voice that always is calling you.It would always be there. His penance and addiction simultaneously, The Shadow let him reach into the darkness of his worst self and make something good come of it. It also brought him close to the edge time and again. The Shadow walked a dagger's edge as he kept himself from slipping too far into the darkness, but needing that darkness to perform his acts of absolution. And still Ying Ko called to him from the heart of The Shadow. He still dreamt of those wild days on horseback, dreamt of the screams, the raw pleasure taken from the fear of the peasants and dreamt of being able to take what he wanted, whenever he wanted it. He could feel the temptation to let the opium take the pain away every time he caught another drug runner, to let it make the choices easy and to dull the sharpness of his memories. He'd still hear that voice, harsh, speaking Mandarin, at odd moments. He'd be at lunch with his uncle Wainwright, on a date with some lovely young thing or at some interminable charitable function and the voice would speak from his mind and memory, telling him to have done with and use his powers to being about what he wanted. And sometimes he listened. I am the Voice in the fields when the summer's gone,It was ephemeral the way it fluttered in and out of his consciousness. Nothing more than a harsh echo of the voice that was his not so long ago. Years passed and yet it seemed like only moments before that he'd been that voice. Sometimes he could almost forget, and sometimes he woke from dreams of horrors his peers in America would think impossible to have occurred. The cruel laughter, vicious words and inhuman orders to minions of all sorts remained with him. They slept in his memory, in his subconscious, waiting to be woken again. And they did stir. Every time he recruited a new agent and bound them to him he felt that voice stir. It sometimes felt as though he was claiming ownership of those poor souls for no other reason than his own convenience. What right did he have to tell these men and women he owned their souls in exchange for saving their lives? He did his best to keep that evil voice from gaining a foothold once more, but faced with the evils of the world, he sometimes felt it was only a matter of time before the bonds he placed on his darker impulses melted like snow in the spring. I am the Voice of the past that will always beHe was reminded every day of how that voice in his mind came to be. Every time he saw a weapon or a uniform he would recall the horror he had felt in the Great War. He had been lauded as a hero for wallowing in muck for an eternity, a mud made of everything from honest dirt and water to chemicals the men had been gassed with, to the blood and guts of those dying on the lines. A hero because he'd let the madness take him and he'd flung himself into the enemy lines like a berserker because there was a sort of transcendent ecstasy in hearing the screams of the enemy. He was reminded every day of the self-indulgent aimlessness of the years at the Sorbonne when he stepped into the world as Lamont Cranston, rich American playboy. Years had been spent cultivating a taste for the rare and expensive. Years had been spent on nothing more than indulging every whim that crossed his mind as it crossed his mind. He could hardly avoid the memories as they were echoed back at him by the posturing of those around him in the clubs and social engagements he frequented. He was reminded every day of those mad years in the Far East by a hundred little things. Something as simple as a reference to Chinatown could bring him back to those days of learning Mandarin, days of remaking himself in the image of something he had conjured from the fevered depths of his drug-addled imagination. His uncle Wainwright's not-so-veiled references to his lost years only served to sharpen his temper, not because the man was being unreasonable, because he was being completely reasonable. They made him angry because he would remember and suddenly find himself craving that madness again. And then he would go out into the night, dressed in black and swoop down on some unsuspecting criminal. There he would take out his desire to take to horseback and raze a village to the ground on the man. He'd terrify the thief, thug, minion whatever the criminal might be, beat him and breathe in the fear and feel a release of all the tension that had been building all day with every reminder. I am the Voice of the future.There was a kind of peace to be had in letting the madness take hold. There was no struggle in those dark days. There was no need to make the hard choices and no need to walk a thin line between good and evil. It was a kind of peace, deceptive in its simplicity. It was the Tulku who had shown him the price that sort of peace cost him. Although he was always able to gain whatever it was he wanted, he always had to seek something more, because nothing ever satisfied him in the end. Bring me your peace and my wounds, they will heal.The Tulku had shown him that the peace brought by success in that battle with his own desires and darkest urges had greater effect and brought him more satisfaction than all the best concubines, opium and alcohol in the world. The wounds of those days in the War had finally drained and begun to heal, as much as they ever would, and the scars of his childhood had finally begun to shrink away, letting him see the past with something approaching objectivity. The Tulku had brought him something resembling a sort of peace that he had never thought he could achieve. It was something he had thought reserved for those too foolish to have ambition, or too treacly-sweet to have a nasty thought in their heads. He had been wrong about that. But it only resembled that peace. It wasn't truly peace. I am the Voice in the wind and the pouring rain.Ying Ko's voice still called out in the night, still broke that fragile peace and still tempted him day after day. He could not retire to the mountains to hide away and remove the temptation. He had penance to perform. A thousand Hail Mary's, a thousand thousand Our Father's and counting the beads of the rosary until his fingers bled would never absolve him of his crimes. And still he heard that sweet voice calling. It called every time he found himself dangling some crook over the side of a bridge and he thought how much easier it would be just to drop him. It called to him every time one of his agents didn't do exactly as asked when he was asked. Some day he was going to give in to that voice, just because he wasn't strong enough. Some day he would find himself laughing as he stood over a corpse because he had surrendered to his desire for simplicity, and Lamont Cranston would fade away into nothing more than a pathetic mask for Ying Ko. I am the Voice.The more he thought on it, the closer the madness edged. It was waking, he could feel it. I am the Voice of the past that will always be.As it always did when he thought too much on his past, he fancied he could almost hear that mocking laughter. I am the Voice of the future.Ying Ko was with him always. Forever and ever and ever and unto eternity he would carry that madman with him. Because that madman was him. Had been him and always would be. No matter what Margo said, and she said it often, she was wrong that it was behind him. That voice of cruelty and madness was his past, present and future. It was the burden and gift the Tulku had given him. I am the Voice.Lamont Cranston was The Shadow. He would be The Shadow for the rest of his life and nothing would make that darkness go away. Ying Ko was the darkness of The Shadow. Underneath the benevolent intentions and underneath the hunt for justice was a lurking horror. I am the Voice.All that held him back from giving in were the teachings the Tulku had forced into him in Tibet. The path he had been put on that showed him a better way. It had showed him a way that was hard, but infinitely more rewarding. Sometimes it was too hard. I am the Voice.And then Lamont turned a little and saw Margo's concern. He saw the fear. He knew that he would never have her again if he let the voice wake. And with that thought alone it went back into its slumber. I am the Voice. |
© copyright 2003 - Present
The Shadow: Master of Darkness
The Shadow is copyrighted by Advance Magazine Publishers, Inc. Disclaimer
The Shadow: Master of Darkness
The Shadow is copyrighted by Advance Magazine Publishers, Inc. Disclaimer