§ § § -- January 1, 2001
The second voice took over for this one. "Roarke, I must say that so far I find your defense admirable. But it seems to me this is a problem you must make concession to. Your history will tell you that when our people arrived here millennia back, we found a beautiful, unspoiled world whose people revered it and took care of it. However, as the technological capabilities of humans have advanced, so too has their gradual destruction of the planet. In the last two centuries especially, their plundering and exploitation of earth has escalated to such an alarming degree that there seems no hope even of slowing it, much less halting it. Do you truly wish to continue on in the face of this?"
"If I agree to step down as a result of your mere announcement that my time is up and that this planet's ongoing suffering is sufficient reason to accept that announcement, then it would be tantamount to giving up," Roarke said.
"But it's overwhelming," the second voice protested fervently. "Not only is the human race slowly laying waste to its homeworld, it also seems bent on laying waste to itself. In all our observations, we have noted that no supernatural power now in existence seems to be able to halt humanity's determined attempts to destroy itself and the world it calls home."
Roarke offered with a flash of whimsy, "Perhaps you should take up the issue with Mother Nature. Have you not seen the increasingly severe and abnormal weather patterns over the last two or three decades?"
"Flippancy has no place here, Roarke," growled the third voice.
"What flippancy?" Roarke asked, the picture of innocence. "I spoke with Mother Nature several years ago, and she herself told me of her frustrations."
Someone actually giggled, and there was audible shifting of positions, a few muffled "ahems" and some indecipherable mumbling. Roarke noticed the shadowy figures swaying slightly in time with all this, and carefully repressed a smile. "Very well, Roarke," said the second voice, with a barely perceptible loss of patience. "But surely, with the world and its inhabitants in this dismal state, you must wonder if your work is all in vain."
"To the contrary," Roarke said. "With so much unhappiness in the world, the need for Fantasy Island is greater than ever. Humans need the chance to escape, to find some joy and lightheartedness in what is too often a difficult and trying existence. Where else can they go in order to gain that?"
"Another point taken," the first voice remarked, sounding simultaneously resigned and impressed. "Who has the next issue on the agenda?"
Roarke relaxed in the chair, surprised that he had won this round so handily. He lifted the water glass and drained a healthy percentage of its remaining contents, in an attempt to fortify himself for the debate that still faced him.
The sixth voice spoke now: "The point I raise is connected nominally to Roarke's lack of blood offspring. There have been a number of women over the centuries with whom you seemed very happy, very much in love. Has it not occurred to you that you could see them again upon stepping down? This, incidentally, includes your parents, and all those relatives whom you have seen pass out of earthly existence in your time there."
Roarke tensed in the chair. "If I remain on earth, will I lose the chance to see them again when I do finally decide my time should come to an end?" he asked.
"There is no need for sarcasm," the sixth voice admonished, though gently, as if it knew this was something of a sensitive issue with him. "Surely you deserve that happiness, which we note you have denied yourself on several occasions in the last two or three centuries especially. There was a dancer, was there not, whose memory of her love for you you deliberately erased in order that she have her life's dream?"
Roarke remembered her well; curiously, the lady had shared his goddaughter's name, and they had known a brief but intense love. "That," he said, "is a situation that cannot be changed; and I point out that even if it could, she still lives. Stepping aside would not allow me to be with her."
"Then what of these women?" the sixth voice said, and out of the smoky mist that obscured the council members stepped a completely unexpected apparition. Roarke stared in wide-eyed silence as the beautiful woman, with long unbound black hair, dusky skin and soft, expressive eyes hesitated in front of him. Even after many centuries, he could still remember her name: she had been the first woman he'd ever fallen in love with. "Tecalca," he murmured. She had been the daughter of the chief of a small Mayan tribe that lived on the tip of what was now the Yucatán peninsula. How young had he been? Unwittingly he smiled reminiscently. His parents had still been alive; his father had been robust and vital, the well-liked leader of the Roarke clan, and his mother the generous woman who had gently encouraged her son and this sweet-faced chieftain's daughter to mate for life and raise a family together. The girl before him returned his smile in full, encouraged to move closer to him, and took his hand hesitantly in hers. Only then was Roarke startled back to reality: her hand was so cold it almost burned him, and instinctively he drew back.
"This was your first love, was it not?" the sixth voice prompted. "What happened that you did not fulfill the promise of your love with her?"
"She drowned in a hurricane," Roarke said, closing his eyes briefly. The pain of the memory had dulled and faded over time, but it always evoked a gentle sorrow in him for the agonizing way she must have died. When he opened his eyes again, Tecalca was gone. "My love for her was that of a callow youth."
"Yet you did love her," the sixth voice said. It waited till Roarke nodded a couple of times before saying, "And then there was this lady." This time the form that materialized from the mist was of a reed-slim girl, not yet two decades old, with short black hair and pale skin. But she had fierce, determined eyes, which now brightened as they met Roarke's. He had to smile. Leslie would never believe that for just a few short weeks, he had been in love with… "Joan of Arc," the sixth voice concluded.
Roarke allowed himself to smile briefly at her, long enough to see her return it and nod her head just once, before saying, "We both knew it was only temporary. She had her mission, and I knew even then that there was no future for her in those brutal days. She would not be dissuaded, and I had no choice but to move on." His attention had shifted to the shady form that seemed to own the voice; when he looked again, the famous warrior girl was gone, just as Tecalca had vanished.
"You wandered a great deal, Roarke, did you not?" remarked the sixth voice with some amusement. "First the Mayan chieftain's child; then the young French warrior. And now this Hungarian countess…" From the mist emerged a lovely red-haired woman with a calculating look in her eyes; when she saw Roarke, she lit up with astonishment.
"Elizabeth," Roarke murmured, and couldn't quite suppress a shiver. Elizabeth Bathorý had been a diversion he'd been unable to resist for just a little while. By the time he had met her, she had been widowed and already sinking fast into her obsession with black magic and retaining her extraordinary beauty. For that short enchanted time, he'd thought he could save her from herself; but her obsessions had overcome her love for him, and he found himself unable to tolerate them long enough to really help her. She had ultimately driven him away to pursue them.
"Do you consider that interlude a mistake?" the sixth voice queried.
"Not a mistake," Roarke said, picking his way through his words, trying to find the right ones to express what he meant. "Only a failed attempt to help…" He shook his head hard once, and when he looked up, Elizabeth too had disappeared.
"Then perhaps this will persuade you," the sixth voice said, low and deliberate, and that was when Helena Marsh approached him from the mist, still bright-eyed and vibrant, still with that wide, ready smile. Caught unprepared, Roarke lurched forward in the chair and half arose, eyes fixed on her. The pain of her death was still too recent and too fresh, and the sight of her here, now, was almost too much for him. He could feel the council's close scrutiny as he helplessly stretched out his hand toward her.
Helena looked up at him and, unlike the others, reached instantly out to grasp his hand in both of hers; she felt warm, alive. "Helena," he breathed.
Also unlike the others, she spoke, though only in a whisper. "No, my darling," she said. "You aren't finished yet…"
He knew she was right. His heart struggled to talk him out of it, to accept the verdict and let her lead him to some other plane where they'd have all the time that ever existed…but she was right, and he couldn't deny that. His work wasn't finished…and Leslie wasn't ready. He couldn't desert Fantasy Island and all those who depended on him, many for their very lives. Too much rested on his shoulders. He braced himself, trying to prepare his heart for this newest loss. Then Helena said, "Are the children all right?"
Roarke nodded, a film of tears misting her image and making it waver. "Both of them are thriving," he assured her.
She smiled brightly, looking delighted. "That's all I need to know. I can wait for you, my darling, knowing what I know now." She squeezed his hand. "Do what you must." She released him then and stepped back; Roarke drew in a slow, deep breath, pulling together every last atom of his will to do what needed doing.
"We weren't meant to be," he said, his voice just a little shaky. "She died before her time, but if it had been the right thing at the right moment…"
The sixth voice sounded shocked. "This was the greatest love of your life, Roarke, yet you give her up that easily?"
"No," Roarke said, his battle for control making his voice sharper than he'd intended. He forced calm into his tone. "It's not easy—it is never easy, least of all now. But it's what I must do. I am not yet finished." He focused deliberately on the form that owned the sixth voice, knowing that Helena would be gone when he looked back…and sure enough, she was. He picked up the glass and took a long draft.
The council was deadly silent for some time, perhaps to let him regroup. Then the second voice said, "Perhaps bringing Helena Marsh into the equation was too cruel."
"It was a test," the first voice said, not without compassion. "There is no mistaking the pain Roarke suffered at sacrificing her and their love, but sacrifice them he did. This matter is closed…and I myself raise the final question."