Free Batman 5 - Batman Begins by Dennis O'Neil Page A

he had blood in his veins.
    Was it possible to love a man who did little more than brutalize one? Was Bruce Wayne, this pampered child of privilege, suffering from some form of the Stockholm syndrome, becoming emotionally attached to his enemy? He had questions he could not possibly answer, at least not yet, not here. He did not forget them, but he did not worry about them, either.
    There was a scream from the far end of the monastery. Bruce saw two warriors dragging the man who had screamed toward an iron cage.
    “Who is he?” Bruce asked, getting to his feet.
    “He was a farmer. Then he tried to take his neighbor’s land and became a murderer. Now he’s a prisoner.”
    The portly farmer was locked in the cage and the cage was winched ten feet off the floor.
    “What will happen to him?” Bruce asked.
    “Justice. Crime cannot be tolerated. Criminals thrive on the indulgence of society’s ‘understanding.’ You know this.”
    Bruce nodded, staring at the man in the cage.
    “Or when you lived among the criminals . . . did you make the same mistake as your father?” Ducard asked. “Did you start to pity them?”
    Bruce remembered the feeling of a hollow belly and a wide-eyed child in an alley and the taste of a ripe plum.
    He said, “The first time you steal so that you don’t starve, you lose many assumptions about the simple nature of right and wrong.”
    FROM THE JOURNALS OF RĀ’S AL GHŪL
The agony of suspense I have endured this past year will end within twenty-four hours. Though he himself has no inkling of it, Bruce Wayne will face his final trials very soon. His skill will be tested and also his courage and his resolve. We will learn if fear still dwells within him and how he has confronted it if it does. We will finally come to know if he has what weak men call ruthlessness. For if the world is to be saved it will be saved by those willing to do all that may be necessary. There will be a time for weeping and lamenting and even regret that draconian measures were needed, but that time will be later when we have accomplished our tasks and can afford the luxury of the weaker emotions.
    I actually have little doubt that the blood of Bruce Wayne will leak onto the floorboards of the monastery and we will use fire to dispose of his remains. He will die as his dozens of predecessors have died and in dying prove himself to be at last unworthy.
    If he continues to breathe two days from now I will allow myself to rejoice and I will summon Talia to return from Switzerland.
    It would be good to see my daughter once more.
    That night, as Bruce lay down on his futon, Ducard, clad in a ninja uniform, a short sword slung across his back, came to the doorway and spoke his name. Bruce rose, dressed, and followed Ducard across a moonlit courtyard to the throne room. Inside, they went to a workbench set against a wall, and Ducard said, “You traveled the world to understand the criminal mind and conquer your fear.”
    Ducard took from his pocket a dried flower, the shriveled blue poppy Bruce had long ago carried to the monastery. Ducard put it in a stone mortar and used a stone pestle to grind it to dust. “But a criminal isn’t complicated,” he said. “And what you really fear is inside yourself. You fear your own power. Your own anger. The drive to do great or terrible things . . . You must journey inward.”
    Ducard poured the dust into a small brazier, struck a long wooden match, and set it aflame. A thin column of smoke rose, twisted, curled. Ducard motioned Bruce closer. “Drink in your fears. Face them. You are ready.”
    Bruce understood without further instruction. He inhaled the smoke and shook his head. Time roiled and shifted inside his skull and he saw:
    . . . himself falling into the well . . .
    . . . screeching bats exploding from the crevice and tearing at him . . .
    . . . Father staring down at a red splotch on the snowy white shirt that spread outward from a small, black hole . . .
    . . . bloody