Chapter 25

Somewhere in the Arabian Peninsula

A dark and arid night in the desert. His footsteps kicked up plumes of dust that whispered silvery secretes in the moonlight. He had been walking for hours in the craggy wilderness, and his throat cried out for water.

Up ahead the desert wilderness twisted in long bends and valleys. Nothing for miles except sedgeweed and dried bush. Many lizards scurrying along the bone dry floor. The scorpions burrowed underneath rocks, watching his progress with their beady black eyes. And above him, the most extraordinary constellations of stars. There seemed to be more bright lights than there were dark spots in the sky: that thought instilled in him a measure of hope.

He watched the stars carefully. Centuries ago, sailors learned to navigate their way across the oceans using the stars. He was doing something similar, except he needed no astroglobe. Centuries of practice had etched the stars into his mind. He just had to follow the right constellations.

And he was headed in the right direction. But he had to hurry.

The object of his search was a place inaccessible by any normal means of navigation. A bizarre fact, but quite definitive. He once plotted the coordinates on a map, yet when he returned the entrance was simply missing. He then tried leaving a homing beacon, only to read on the corresponding radar that the beacon was transmitting from the Alaskan gulf—half a world away.

It was magic, there was no other explanation. The place was a relic of another force on this earth, and it would not succumb to the technology of mankind. It had to be respected.

After an hour of dusty footsteps, he came upon the familiar ridge. On the other side, in the bowl of the valley, sat a camouflaged cave. If you blinked, you missed it. But if you were desperate, if you were an inch from death and in the throes of hunger-induced hallucinations, the cave would appear before you.

That is how it was the first time: When he was a wounded soldier lost in the desert. His men had been massacred, his lands forsaken. He saw the mouth of the cave in the desert, and thought it was a good place to die. Little did he know he would stave off death for centuries.

He came upon the mouth of the cave and heard its whisper. Like a seashell. All these years, and it still sounded the same. He pulled a torch from his rucksack. It released a brilliant ball of flame in the darkness. He went inside.

Cold, damp air—it tightened the skin on his bones. Like the life was slowly sucked out of him. A slanted ground floor; he felt himself descending lower and lower as he walked into the cave. The torch flame illuminated the space immediately before his nose and nothing more. It was like walking into infinity.

Always losing his sense of time as he walked—this was a random and relative experience for each person. To him, the walk lasted only fifteen minutes, but others swore that they ambled aimlessly for hours. Talia said it was a short five-minute walk. Roland said it took him nearly a day.

In the distant black void of the cave, the very faintest green flame flickered. It was barely a curl of fire. He lowered his torch. Again, it felt like he had walked fifteen minutes.

He came into a stone-cut chamber. Sparse, clean, and set with a deep pit in the center of the chamber. Stone benches on either side of pit. At the far end of the pit was an altar. The green flame here blazed confidently atop the altar.

Talia stood at the foot of the pit, her back to the stairs and to him. Her disciples stood before the benches on either side of the pit. And on top of the altar—a body, wrapped in thin silk.

"Father. You made it."

Talia's voice, barely a whisper, rebounded throughout the chamber in perfect fidelity. It was like she was speaking into his ear. And when Ra's spoke, he barely raised his voice, too.

"For the sake of the centuries we've shared, please do not do this, Talia. This is madness. We've never brought anyone back whose passing lasted more than a day. This man has been dead for twenty years!"

The phrase 'twenty years" rebounded endlessly in the chamber's echo, as if a multitude of ghosts in the walls were chiding the audacity of their intended actions:

Twenty years, twenty years, twenty years.

"He could come back a monster—if he comes back at all. Don't you see, Talia? We won't be able to control him."

"You couldn't control him in his previous life, Father. That's why I want him."

"He's not some puppy you can bring back, Talia. He's not—I command you not to do this!"

Ra's unsheathed his sword. The blade shook in his hands. He would not hesitate to kill his own daughter.

But Talia did not move. Her back remained exposed to him. Her naked, unguarded back.

"If you are going to strike me, Father, you are going to need more soldiers."

Ra's addressed the benches: "I am the leader of our armed forces. The sworn commander of our entire organization. I order all of you to stop Talia Al Ghul."

He saw some flickers of doubt across the faces of the guard. For a moment, Ra's was sure they would remember their true allegiance. But whatever doubt existed in their minds fell in the wake of Talia's calm confidence. She shook her head, and they steeled themselves under her resolve.

The sword in his hand quivered: for the first time in centuries, he was on his own. He was that dying soldier who stumbled into the cave, who took the elixir of life int his trembling lips, who started everyone on a path—a path that led things to here. The circle of life. An eclipse.

Ra's adjusted the sword in his hand. Was this how it ended for him? A part of him saw the symmetry. Too perfect. And he couldn't let this happen, even if it cost him his life. He made down the steps.

"Father, don't throw away your life so recklessly," said Talia in her relaxed tone. "I would hate to have to kill you – not because I love you, but because you possess a remarkable skill set. We will need you in the war to come."

Ra's was a step away from Talia's heart. Would she be able to move out of the way in time? No, he had a clear shot at her heart. He held the blade strong—one quick movement, one jab; how many times had he executed such a strike? How many had he slaughtered with such an effortless move?

And yet, Ra's did not move. He was trembling now.

And Talia's torso began to roll. She was laughing.

"Why are you laughing?" asked Ra's icily.

"Because you know the stakes. If you kill me, my soldiers will kill you. But who will they resurrect? They have their orders, and there will not be enough Lazarus for three returns."

One deft movement, no longer than the beat of a hummingbird's wing—that's all it took, and he would be free of his daughter's maniacal plan. Then fight twelve of her men? Terrible odds, but not the worst. It was risky, but possible. He just had to take a chance—that he would come out on top. Because before, if he died, he knew the Lazarus would bring him back. But this time.

Talia's laughter boomed to a terrible, insufferable sneer. "I gave you too much credit, Father. I thought perhaps your love for me would stay your hand. Or your unmoraled pragmatism. But I think a far simpler conviction is keeping you from attacking me: you simply do not want to die. You do not want to face the judgement of whatever comes next."

Ra's found himself sneering. "Nothing comes next, daughter of mine. This is the only life we will ever have."

"Yes. That is what I tell myself, too."

The final step. He was close enough to fully extend his arm and touch Talia's hair. This was it. He had to stop this. He would not be responsible for this monstrosity, even if it cost him his life.

"Choose, Father: Life or Death? Me or you? A leap of faith."

His sword quivered in his hands. It was not fear. It was fury that throttled him: fury that he had been betrayed on multiple fronts: his daughter Talia, his student Roland, his son Bruce. They had all betrayed his entire life's work. They never could see his vision, they never shared his optimist. They stole his teachings, his guidance, and used those tools against him.

Fury. Fury Fury.

After all this time, after living with the threat of death for so many centuries, he had grown quite used to it. He had seen endless comrades perish gloriously in battle; a slew of enemies had fallen before him, clutching their throats, dying indignantly. He knew what death looked like; knew what it smelled like.

But he had grown accustomed to living. He had opened his eyes so many times, woken up so many times, and fallen asleep so many times, that he expected it.

Ra's Al Ghul was not afraid of dying. But he was afraid of no longer living.

His sword clattered to the ground. The adrenaline had exhausted him. She had been right all along.

"Wise choice, Father. I have hope for you yet."

Ra's began walking back up the steps. He did not want to see what came next.

"You'll thank me when this is all over, Father. Thank you."

Behind him, he heard chains slowly turning: they were lowering the body into the pit. Ra's kept walking, he looked determinately forward. If he looked behind him, he would dignify the part of him that was curious, that wantedto see the process. But he knew it was wrong. It was so wrong it made him want to vomit.

At the top of the stairs, Ra's rekindled the torch. Was Talia always like this? So full of herself and completely blind to the truth? He had made her like that. She was his child, and he was responsible for his daughter's current insanity. But that is the relationship with parents and their children. The generations that come after always generate inexcusable actions that led to great changes in history. Amoral and unanticipated. Terrible and murderous. Tomorrow, the world would be different.

The chains came to a stop. The body was inside the Lazarus pit. The process had begun.

"Thank you, Father," said Talia. She sounded emotionless. Fanatic. Totally enraptured in her own genius. "Thank you for trusting me. You will not be disappointed."

Ra's stopped at the mouth's entrance. The torch burned before him, and he was struck with the foolishness of hope: what if she was right? What if he came back and he was himself? Then this episode would be rendered one of the many wild escapades in his history—an exciting, foolhardy excursion in desperate measures that worked. Then the risk would be overshadowed by the spoils of its triumphant success. Nobody would care how much could have gone wrong, because so much had gone right.

Betrayal, family, and resurrection—it all came down to this. He finally stole a look behind him. What he saw was burned into his mind forever: Talia and her bodyguards chanting in low, melodic voices, and the wrapped body lying in the listless green water of the pit. Some unseen wind swept through the chamber, tossing hair, clothing, and rippling the surface of the water.

And underneath those ripples, in the undulating reflection of the water, perhaps by a trick of light - the wrapped body seemed to be moving.