Lazarus Rising

1.4 Lylacs

"Hygge," said the face that opened the door.

"Hygge," responded Cheyenne walking onto the thick patterned rug in the Welcome room.

Rous, tall, dark and elegant was one of the Rossitti twins who attended to Haydens 24/7. Remarkably both twins were Lylacs. Cheyenne had often wondered ever since her first meeting with Haydens what their powers were. If anything it should have been patience, if patience could be considered a power. Haydens could be a perplexingly difficult man at times, as all great men could be. He reputably never slept, which must have taxed the twins and drained their virtues in their roles as his assistants and personal aides.

"Could you wait here Sweetie while I do a couple of things, then I'll come and get you," Rous wore a long clinging dress that glittered like a million stars as she ushered her to the immense picture window that dominated the room. "Have a look at the city this morning. It looks like it's about to burn. Maybe that would be a relief for us all. Hmm? Oh don't forget to slip your boots off, you know how the noise upsets him."

The top floor of the Sanatorium's main block had been converted into living accommodation for the exclusive use of the Head of Sector19. Haydens had no other accommodation, he lived here permanently. Who wouldn't? Cheyenne considered. Away from the city, here on the wild open lake it was positively idyllic. She stood and watched the thin branches of the trees leading down to the shingle beach, sway under the will of the wind. Far off the few water fowl flying low over the lake trailed their own reflections in the rippling water's surface.

The view along the spit of land to the city gave the impression of looking down the ceremonial causeway of an ancient monument, it drew the eye toward the vast monoliths of the city's skyscape, which grew like thick stubby digits from the cradle of the earth. The towering chimneys of the industrial zone were pumping black cloud up into the sky which had, in the passing of the storm, turned the texture of volcanic ash. Behind the clinging grey mass the sun sent trickling streams of glowing magna running across the horizon giving the impression that the city was caught in an inferno of raging fires.

A striking sight, from an exceptional vantage point. Not that Haydens would ever see it.

She checked her watch, it was 5.00am. She sat on the edge of the seat by the shoe stand, unclipped her boots and dropped them into the rack.

"OK Sweetie he's ready. You can come in." Rous opened the inner door and waved her through it.

Hayden's accommodation was probably fifty times larger than her own tiny flat. It rolled out into acres of caramel glazed wood, set in a post-modernist style of sparsely populated pieces of comfortable, fashionable furniture. The high white plastered walls were devoid of any art, what need would Haydens have for art? The whole gave a feel of a minimalist high end art gallery strangely devoid of any feeling. Haydens never left here, his only communication with the outside world was through his constant stream of visitors and the orders he barked through his two mouthpieces -Rous and Raveen.

Haydens sat, eyes closed on a large leather couch, bald head tilted sideways in the manner of the blind, sensing movement by balancing sounds between his ears. Before him on a low black marble table was a curved blue glass jar half full of hundreds of luridly coloured capsules

She slipped silently onto the soft leather seat opposite him and Rous went to stand by the window to watch the stealing sunrise.

Detecting her presence he turned to her and opened his eyes. Even by Lylac standards there was something exceptional about Haydens. The pupils of his eyes rolled in a tempest of emerald blues and raging violets that flickered with flashes of ragged red and green lightning bolts. It was nothing like Cheyenne had ever encountered in any living being. Looking into his mesmeric eyes she found herself drawn into a semi hypnotic state that emptied her mind of all consciousness. The expression Boketto was one she'd heard being given sometimes, inappropriately, to the vacant look of Risers. But in Hayden's eyes it realised its true meaning of looking into something so distant and so powerfully influential on the psyche, that it suspended rational thought, or in fact, any thought at all.