Questions After Dark



X-Men fan fiction, with a little something extra, by Mitch Kelly

The X-Men are the property of Marvel Corporation. No infringement is
intended. The World of Darkness is copyright to White Wolf Games Studio. No
infringement is intended. Laslo Radulos belongs to me - just don't tell HIM
that!



A knock at his study door drew Professor Charles Francis Xavier back from
the papers he had immersed himself in. He glanced at the clock on his desk.
Nearly ten o'clock, it had been another long day in the long war against
fear, hatred and bigotry. Xavier had been looking over data on the mutant
birth rate, attempting to put a "spin" on the data that was more positive
than the mindless scaremongering of the tabloid press, or the more sinister
posturing of groups like the Friends of Humanity.

He slipped the folders of information into his desk, and hit the "save" key
on the computer as the door opened. The lean, upright figure of Count Laslo
Radulos was silhouetted in the doorway, the light from the corridor
outlining him against the darkness of a room lit only by a desklamp.

"May I come in?" asked Laslo, the hint of a smile on his lips.

Xavier glided from behind his desk, the same hint of a smile on his lips.

"Certainly, Count, come in, take a seat," he replied. A watcher with a
suspicious nature might have wondered if Laslo, a vampire, or Kindred as he
preferred to be called, might suffer the legendary restriction of being
unable to enter a house or room uninvited. Laslo's only restriction in this
regard was his manners, which prevented him barging in anywhere uninvited
more effectively than any supernatural geas.

"Good evening, professor," Laslo began. "I hope that I am not disturbing
you. I can always come back..." Laslo had time on his side more than most
people.

"Not at all," replied Xavier. "The truth is, I ought to get disturbed more
often, I suppose. I lock myself in here, read, write, plot, struggle -
every day, every night. Sometimes I find that I look up and it's morning,
the whole night gone without sleep, without talk, without, apparently,
anything happening or being achieved."

"Then tonight at least, let us talk," said Laslo. He opened his briefcase
and removed a pair of brandy glasses. Xavier looked at them. They were
plain, severe almost, but beautifully crafted. Then Laslo removed a bottle
from the briefcase, uncorked it and poured a generous measure into each
glass. He passed one to Xavier then took the other himself.

Xavier sniffed the liquid cautiously. Cognac, and very fine cognac too, his
nose told him. He lifted the bottle, straining to read the label in the
poor light. It was hand written and simply bore the legend "1952".

"An advantage," said Laslo, "of having been able to make so many deals in a
long unlife. The family that make this cognac are quite as skilled as the
people at Remy Martin, but not quite so lucky commercially. However, I am
able to buy direct from them. This was an especially good year."

Xavier was impressed with the taste, and said as much.

"To what do I owe the honour of your presence, Count Laslo?" asked Xavier
after a long moment of silent appreciation. The cognac was too good to
simply be swilled and ignored. It demanded attention on its own.

I want to talk. Really talk, you understand," Laslo replied, "with one of
the great minds of the age - indeed of any age that I at least have been
privy to."

"I think you overstate my importance," said Charles Xavier, looking down
into his glass with a touch of embarrassment. "Although my efforts,
arguably, have been the best that I could make, my results, my impact? No,
I do not think I shall be remembered as a great mind of my age."

"Greatness is not always seen, or appreciated, by those on behalf of whom
it has been effected," answered Laslo.  "I have met many great men and
women, truly great men and women, and their names are just straws on the
wind now. That does not make their greatness any less."

"Yet the historian assigns greatness," riposted Xavier, "and history is
written by the victors, or at least, those whose pattern of truth is
accepted."

"So, and so," nodded Laslo. "But what, in that case, is truth?"

Hearing one of the great questions that has tested the minds of thinkers
for millennia, Charles Xavier lifted his cognac glass and took a sip. He
began to marshal his thoughts, knowing that this was going to be no mere
idle chat, but was to be a long, deep discussion, quite possibly one that
would last all night. And in spite of their intellects, neither man knew
where it would end.

>From here the debate took off. Both men stated their cases as strongly as
they could, presenting their own arguments with all the cognition and
passion they had, attacking the positions of the other at the weakest point
- not out of any trite wish for victory or simply to prove the other wrong,
but to stretch their minds and reasons; to search for the weaknesses in
themselves, their beliefs and creeds; and thus to strengthen them.

The next time Xavier looked up it was two in the morning. The level of
cognac in the bottle had dropped steadily. Xavier looked directly at Laslo.

"Because," Xavier said, with fire in his voice, "Ultimately one must act.
One must do something, all that one can, even if one fails, even if it is
not enough. It is better to try and fail than never to have tried to act
and to live with the regret that would bring." He shrugged, looked down,
then at Laslo. The fire was banked at present. "My dream, my defining belief."

Laslo paused before replying.

"The words of Cicero," he said rolling the cognac around in his glass.
"'The safety of the people is the highest law'. A truth that I, at least,
hold self-evident. One that has guided me, too. Yet..."

 "My friend Henry put it another way," said Xavier. "'Down these mean
streets a man must go who is not himself mean'."

"I do not recognise that," said Laslo with a thoughtful look. "One of your
great American writers?"

"A detective novelist," replied Xavier with a smile, "Raymond Chandler."

Laslo nodded. He turned the phrase over in his mind. It fit, precisely. It
might lack the high tone of Cicero, or the incision of Voltaire, but it
captured the spirit of the dream of Xavier better than anything. After a
moment, he spoke.

"But I do not understand why you continuously place yourself at risk, for
people who do not merely not care, but actively hate and despise you!" said
Laslo, shaking his head. "These 'Friends of Humanity', you call them? Their
contempt, I can think of no better word; their utter contempt; not merely
for you as mutants, but for all people; and their overweening arrogance!
How can you rise above it? Surely the temptation to strike back must be so
strong!"

"It is," replied Xavier. "And it is often for that reason that we must
place ourselves in harm's way. To show that not all mutantkind is a threat,
or wishes to abuse and enslave equally as much as the Friends of Humanity.
But I say this to you, Laslo, you are no different. You have sat here and
told me of the risks you have yourself taken to fight magical creatures
that would otherwise have run rampant."

Laslo chuckled and made a dismissive gesture.

"Ah, Charles, please do not place any of your own high principles upon me.
They would sit very poorly upon my shoulders. Those acts were not spawned
by any public-spiritedness, but simple prudence, and perhaps even a little
fear: such creatures are often attracted to Kindred, and it is better to
fight them sooner than later. We Kindred are not, by and large, an
altruistic race."

"You are an unconvincing liar, Count Laslo," said Xavier, pressing his
point.  "I think that if I sell myself short, you too are equally guilty."

"If I am a poor liar it is through lack of practice," said Laslo. "And if I
am as good a man as you say, then I am not typical of my fellow Kindred."
He shrugged, then looked intently at Xavier. "But consider this: I sat here
and told you of the laws of the Kindred."

"And in so doing broke the first of those laws," Xavier nodded, remembering
a night not unlike this one. "The first law is 'do not reveal your nature
to one not of the blood', is it not?"

"Just so," said Laslo. "How long to you think such a law has been codified
among us?" he asked.

Xavier thought about this. The Kindred had been around, as far as Laslo had
told him, as long as there had been humans. Laslo himself was nearly six
hundred years old, others among the Kindred were many times older than him,
and their myth and legend stretched back as far as any human culture. They
claimed descent from Caine himself, the Third Mortal, accursed by God. They
had been present in Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece and Rome, and had
lurked behind the affairs of human civilisation for all of that time.

"Three thousand years, perhaps," replied Xavier after a pause. "Longer?"

"Would it surprise you to know that that law was codified just over five
hundred years ago?" said Laslo quietly.

"It would," said Xavier. "Why was it so, comparatively, recent? If you do
not mind, of course?"

"Not at all. It is a little secret, and one that might make you think,"
Laslo poured another glass of cognac for each of them. "During the early
middle ages and before, we had acted, more or less, openly, uncaring of the
fear and terror we caused. Then, the Church, which had been divided and
divisive, united itself to destroy us. The Church at that time had huge
resources and great powers. We called it the Burning Time. The hunted us
and drove many of our lines into extinction. But it was not power, or
resources, or faith, fire and sword, even, that caused us to hide; and
begin our programme to deny to the world the mere existence of the Kindred.
It was the common man. The Church united the common people against us."

"And you could not fight back, or would not?" asked Xavier pointedly.

"Oh, make no mistake, some did fight. The destruction on both sides was
terrible. For my own part, I simply could no longer carry on killing, and
heeded the call to hide. Many went to their ends fighting. Others who
wanted to continue the war realised they could not fight on and win. A
vampire might be the match for ten or even a hundred human warriors, and
with time and guile could halt an army that outnumbered him a thousand to
one," Laslo went on, "But we were not outnumbered by a thousand to one, but
by ten thousand, or a hundred thousand, and we could never win against such
odds. So we hid."

"And you think we mutants should do the same?" asked Xavier.

"I think you should consider it," said Laslo.

There was a long silence. 

"No," said Xavier simply. "Even if we are defeated, destroyed, then some
will remember the good we tried to do, and at another time, under different
circumstances, it might come back as an example to them."

"Even at the cost of your own lives?" asked Laslo quietly. He had respected
Charles Francis Xavier from the moment that he had met him. That respect
had grown with time. It reached its pinnacle. Whatever Professor Charles
Francis Xavier thought of himself, Count Laslo Radulos knew how great a man
he was.

"Even at that cost," said Xavier, his voice full of passion.

Laslo stood up.

"Well, professor," he said. "Morning comes, and I had best be among by
native earth by then. It was a rare talk. I have seldom had such a one. I
thank you." Count Laslo Radulos bowed, and left.

Xavier sat for a while and looked at the cognac glasses, thinking about his
guest before he glided out of the room to his bed. He felt stronger in his
belief in his dream that he had earlier in the evening.

As he was driven back to his haven, Laslo Radulos smiled a grim smile, as
he realised that he had learned three things. The first, he had already
known, that debate could be a deadly as duelling. The second, he had
suspected, that is was indeed possible to be waking and yet be solidly
caught in the dreams of another. The third, he had not even suspected, but
he now knew: that down the mean streets a man, or a Kindred, would go who
was not himself mean.





Mitch Kelly mkelly@netcomuk.co.uk
http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~mkelly/index.html

"A natural beauty should be preserved like a monument to nature."
- Neil Young, "Natural Beauty"