| Morning Storm Claims Lives |
|---|
| An early-morning storm on the Mediterranean Sea claimed the lives of two research doctors. Doctor Mary Kostani of the University of Chicago, recently acclaimed for finding the legendary city of Atlantis, and unaffiliated researcher Adam Pierson died Friday morning when a violent storm arose. The two were the only ones on the deck of research vessel Retribution, thanks to a late-night party the evening before. |
| We have a crew that's usually up early," Dr. Michael Powers, a friend of both the deceased, said in a subdued interview Friday afternoon. "We had a fantastic find Wednesday afternoon. After we'd verified some of our findings we threw a party to celebrate on Thursday evening, and everyone was up all night. I guess we were lucky, if you can call it that, since no one else was up to get caught in the storm. |
| This project was Mary's life. I'd like to see it go forward, in her memory," Powers added. |
| When asked about Pierson, Powers shook his head. "I only met him recently," he said. "He was a recluse, no family. It was his discovery, in fact, that we were celebrating. I guess that means I should thank him, for saving the lives of a lot more of the crew, no matter how inadvertantly." |
| The storm blew itself out early Friday afternoon, only after which it was discovered that two of the Retribution crew were missing. No bodies have been found. Neither Kostani nor Pierson have next of kin. Kostani's assets were left to the University. |
Highlander: Immortal Beloved
Posted online © 1998 C.E. Murphy
Summary: An archaeologist's claim to have found Atlantis brings five thousand years of memories and missed chances back to Methos' doorstep.
Comments: I wrote this novel in 1998, just before Warner stopped publishing the Highlander novels. I submitted it and received a response saying that in fact they had stopped publishing Highlander, and for a long time I sat on it, then decided I might as well put it on the net for people to read. So it's more or less been relegated to the status of fan fiction, at this point.
Starring Methos, featuring Duncan. PG rated; no slash.
Chapter 1Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter One
Her hair was filling the room.
Hip-length when she was captured, she could only guess at its length now. She could stand on it, folding it back to the top of her head and down to her feet again, half a dozen times. Arms full of the slippery stuff would slide out of her grasp, making the folded count unreliable, and the ends always drifted free; she didn't know how much more there was than what she could hold folded in her arms.
No matter how she twisted, she couldn't escape the tendrils. Her hair followed her as she moved, invisible spiders whose subtle brush were the only contact she had with anything living. She'd broken it off at first, tearing great handfuls apart and letting them go in the little prison. It had not taken long to realize the folly of the tactic: at least while attached to her head, she had some control over the impossibly long strands. Those torn free wound their way around her legs and arms, almost lazily, constricting her movements.
It was those broken lengths that made her realize that someday the room would be filled with her hair. The thought terrified her. Captivity for eternity was hell enough. Captivity wound motionless in a secondary prison of her own making was enough to set her screaming.
The sound carried to the walls of her prison, bouncing harmlessly back to her, distorted by water. Only exhaustion stopped the screams, hours or perhaps days later. There was no way to count time's passage, in the black oubliette. Neither light nor tide passed into the deeps, leaving her with no idea how long she had been trapped.
Only the first few hours were clear.
She'd wakened with a surge of pain, screaming air into her lungs, thrashing wildly in salt water. Her skin was raw, and the salt stung it viciously. That pain faded as panic rose. She swam across the room, fumbling in the absolute darkness for the door. The wall curved inward slightly just above the water level, turning from wall to ceiling. She pounded frantically on the curves, the stone not even reverberating with her efforts. Finally she dove for the door, searching with blind hands. The floor lay several feet below her, smooth, but her frenzied hunt found no exit.
Shoving back to the surface, she reached up, trying to gauge how much room there was between the water and the ceiling. She couldn't reach the ceiling, which afforded her some scant relief. There was air, for a few hours, at least. Maybe there would be time to find a way out. There had been windows. If the door was gone, perhaps the windows were still there. She dove again, and again, until she had touched every inch of the walls surrounding her. There was no way out.
Someone was screaming. It was long minutes before she realized it was herself, screaming for her gods, for her mother, for her lover; for anyone at all to save her. Silence answered, and the patient lapping of the water as she caused it to slosh back and forth in the free space in the chamber. The adrenaline was leaving her system, panic replaced by despair, and she slapped her hand against the wall, whimpering. "Please, please, please." It became a rhythmic sob, growing more distraught as she realized the ceiling was curving more steeply than it had been. The water level was rising. Soon the air would be gone, and she would drown with the rest of Atlantis.
The water level was rising!
Somewhere, there had to be a fracture, a break in the stone that let the water in. Again, she dove, running her fingertips over the stone, looking for the flaw. Time and again she floundered to the surface, gasping for air, only to drive herself back under the water, determined to find the passage where the water flowed in.
She couldn't find it. The water continued to rise, terribly slowly, but inexorably. The break allowing it to seep in could only be a hairline fracture, too small for frightened fingers to find, too narrow to break further apart for escape. As she pushed her way back to the thin layer of air, she could taste it going bad, stale, with no replenishing breeze to finish it. Fighting despairing tears, she lay on her back in the cool water, trying to breathe shallowly. She lay still for hours, fading in and out of consciousness as the air continued to thin.
Panic regrouped only when her nose bumped the ceiling. A horrified scream tore her throat, the faint metallic taste of blood pooling at the back of her mouth from the force of the scream. She smashed her hands blindly into the ceiling, wasting the little air that was left. In the barest moment of time, the water closed over her head entirely.
Sinking into the quiet tomb, she held her breath, desperate to extend her life just a few more seconds. The physical desire to simply open her mouth, to breathe deeply, was nearly impossible to resist. Surely if she could not breathe for only a little longer, there would be miraculous escape. Pale stars danced behind her eyes, and the conscious decision to hold her breath failed before the instinctive reflex to breathe.
A fit of coughing, the attempt to dislodge water from her lungs, doubled her over, sobbing in the darkness. Not until it passed, and she lay floating in a fetal position, did it slowly dawn on her that she was still alive. She did not need to breathe.
It took much, much longer for the implications of that to settle in. That she, like Aroz, was Immortal.
Like Methos.
She would live here until she escaped. If she could not escape, the room would be her prison, but never her grave.
She screamed. She screamed until her throat was bloody, folded tightly in on herself, biting the knees that she held crushed against her chest. She could feel the sting of salt water in the cuts, and she could feel them seal closed again within moments.
It triggered motion, making her unfold from the painfully tight fetal position she'd floated in. She kicked towards a wall, and began working over every centimeter of the room with terrified, unseeing fingers.
It was no longer shaped as it once had been. The walls were melted smooth, a uniformity to them that the architects could only have dreamed of. There were no cracks, no imperfections that might be exploited. Even the fracture that let the water in was too fine to be discovered. The door was simply gone. No hollows or changes in the stone's texture hinted at what might have been the way out.
Only in two places did the texture change at all. The stone turned to metal slag, short rough spots on the floor. Recklessly, she scrabbled at them until her fingers bled, trying to gain some purchase in the two small flaws. That she failed each time she tried did not stop her. There was no other choice.
Nearly five thousand years passed.
Chapter Two
Bum. Tha-dum-bump.
Duncan pulled the pillow over his head and violently willed the knocker to go away.
Tha-dum-bump-bump.
The Highlander groaned. "Coming!" he yelled through the pillow, and didn't move.
Ba-dum-bum-bump.
"For God's sake, don't ye know what time it is?" he growled into the pillow. Kicking his feet free of the covers, he rolled off the bed. As he stood, a chill of nausea shuddered through him, warning him that the knocker was an Immortal. In an instant, Duncan came fully awake.
Instinctively lifting the katana from where it lay, Duncan crossed the long apartment silently, blade held before him. The brief hallway to the door was narrow. Opening the door with the weapon to the fore was a long-practiced chore of turning sideways behind the door, to greet the arrival with the blade rather than his neck. Wary, but not terribly alarmed -- most Immortals intent on taking his head wouldn't bother to knock first -- Duncan pulled the door open.
The slender man at the door was visibly shorter than Duncan, although he stood nearly six feet in height. His head was cocked to the side, an eyebrow arched over deep-set black eyes. Soft black hair spiked in a pattern that suggested it had been slept on recently, strands poking out over a face with the classical features of a Roman emperor. An aquiline nose complimented thin lips, which were currently curved in a rather sardonic smile. A black greatcoat, hitting him at midcalf, was worn over a grey, high-necked sweater and Dockers. A duffel bag was slung over his shoulder, held by there by two fingers.
"Took you long enough," Methos said pleasantly.
"For God's sake," Duncan repeated. He rotated the katana behind him, parallel to his arm, and gestured Methos in with a jerk of his head. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"
"Around three fifteen, I imagine," the other Immortal said. He brushed past Duncan, knocking a light switch on with his elbow as he walked into the living room. It flooded the room, coloring in a couch and chairs that had been shadows a moment before. "Did I wake you?"
Duncan leaned on the doorknob without closing the door, watching Methos make himself at home in the flat. "What do you think?"
Methos dropped his lanky form onto the green leather couch, and the duffel bag beside it, looking Duncan over.
The Highlander was bare to the waist, wearing flowing gi pants. Faint red marks left from sheets and blankets criss- crossed oddly over a well-muscled torso. Black hair, cut short, was disheveled, and brown eyes under heavy eyebrows were sleep- filled. Only the katana glittering behind his shoulder, and the loose, easy grip on it, suggested Duncan was fully awake.
After briefly considering the Highlander, Methos ignored the question. "I had an idea," he announced instead.
With a sigh, Duncan shut the door, relocking it. "It couldn't wait until morning?"
"It could have," Methos said thoughtfully, "but my plane just got in, and the cab ride out here took all my money. I was sure you wouldn't want me to sleep in the street."
Shaking his head, Duncan came back into the living room, sitting in an armchair across from Methos and leaning forward to put the katana on the coffee table. "You could have stayed at a hotel next to the airport and called in the morning. I'd have come out to get you."
Methos stretched out on the couch. Even relaxed, he had a nervous energy about him, something that suggested too little sleep and too much caffeine. It gave him the aura of an overworked graduate student, completely belying five thousand year history the Immortal man actually had. "I hate sleeping next to airports," he explained. "Planes keep me awake. All that noise pollution."
Duncan smiled despite himself. "It's better to wake me up in the middle of the night?"
Methos looked over with a grin, folding his arms behind his head. "Infinitely. What's the point in friends if you can't impose on them? You were," he prompted the other man, "about to ask me what this great idea of mine was."
"It can't wait until morning?"
"Of course not. I couldn't stand the idea of you lying there all night, awake with suspense. I'm doing you a favor."
Duncan snorted, sinking back into his armchair. "All right, Methos. What's this great idea of yours?"
"I'm glad you asked," Methos said modestly. "I was thinking about the Watchers."
Inadvertently, Duncan glanced at Methos' wrist. Though he couldn't see it, the Highlander could visualize the blue tattoo on the inside of Methos' left arm, a circle encompassing an exaggerated Y. It was the symbol of an ancient organization of mortals; historians who, for centuries, had observed the Immortal Game, recording battles, but never interfering. It was a secret society, and a world-wide network. For the past decade, Methos, the oldest Immortal, had worked for them, as a research scholar called Adam Pierson. Pierson's focus of study was the legendary Immortal, Methos. The Watchers weren't sure if Methos was still alive. Adam Pierson kept it that way.
"What about them?" Duncan asked warily. He'd learned the hard way that not all Watchers followed the non-interference rule. While the years had built a friendship between Duncan and his own Watcher, Joe Dawson, the Highlander still harbored some suspicion and doubt of the society as a whole.
"You remember the Methuselah crystal, and the Watchers who found out I was an Immortal?"
Duncan nodded. The race between Watchers and Methos for the Immortality crystal had nearly cost first Amanda, and then Methos, their heads. Legend had it that the crystal would grant Immortality to the mortal who carried it. Methos had wanted it for his beloved Alexa, dying of cancer. The Watchers had wanted to it to be able to share the Immortality their charges were gifted with. In the end, the crystal had been lost, and the Watchers killed in the battle for it.
"They weren't terribly happy to discover they'd been harboring an Immortal in their ranks all those years," Methos went on. "It occurs to me the rest of them are going to find out eventually, one way or another."
Duncan nodded again. "So disappear. I've always wondered why they didn't figure it out when you took Kristin's head."
Methos shrugged, thinking back on the woman. Obsessed with Duncan, Kristin had come after him through the centuries, and the chivalrous Highlander had been unable to bring himself to take her head. Less concerned with niceties, Methos did it for him. "They thought you did it," Methos explained. "That's what Joe put in your record. Anyway, I have a better idea than disappearing."
Duncan sighed. "All that dedication to history, and he's doctoring the records. All right. What's your better idea?"
"Everybody doctors the records," Methos' voice was unconcerned. He toed his shoes off, sending them thumping to the floor. "I need to die, really spectacularly."
Duncan's eyebrows shot up. "Beg your pardon?"
Methos swung his legs around, sitting up. "In front of a lot of Watchers would be particularly good," he said eagerly. "I wake up befuddled. 'What? Me? An Immortal? After all this time studying them? It can't be!'"
Duncan pursed his lips. "You're insane."
Methos leaned forward. "No, listen. It'll work. Look: I'm mortal, you're Immortal. Why've you spent all this time hanging around me? The Watchers know Immortals can sense the undeveloped Quickening in potential Immortals. You're doing . . . " For a moment the older Immortal's conviction failed, and he continued more gently. "You're doing something they've seen you do before. Befriending a potential Immortal to train him if he gets in an accident."
Duncan looked away. "Richie," he said, quietly. "Dammit, Methos, I don't want another student. I'm not ready for that again."
Methos' smile quirked as he straightened up again. "I wouldn't exactly be your average student, Mac," he reminded Duncan. "It's a cover story, and I need your help to pull it off. When we're through, I'm Adam Pierson, died 1999, age thirty-four."
Duncan sighed, looking back again. "You think it could work," he said doubtfully.
"Sure. And just think -- I'd be the only Immortal with two records in the Watcher files."
Duncan laughed. "You're hopelessly vain, old man."
Methos tilted an eyebrow in acknowledgment. "I'm also practical, MacLeod. They won't be looking for Methos in me if they see Adam Pierson die the first time."
Duncan thumped his head against the back of the chair. "I'll think about it," he grumbled. Knowing he was agreeing to the scheme, he lifted his head again to glare impartially at Methos. "You can't live here," he warned.
Methos' eyes widened. "Would I impose on your hospitality like that, Mac?" The innocence didn't fade from his face as he added, "Can I have a blanket, by the way? The couch is comfortable, but you keep it chilly in here."
"What makes you think I'm not going to throw you out on the street?" Despite his words, the big Scotsman got to his feet, searching for a blanket. "What," he asked over his shoulder, "makes you think they'll assume it's the first death, anyway? That they won't figure you've been pulling the wool over their eyes all this time?"
Methos stood, to finally shed his greatcoat. "Because I'm a very good actor, MacLeod. I can't afford a bad performance."
Duncan balled up a blanket and flung it down the length of the room at Methos, hitting him in the back of the head. "None of us can." Two pillows followed the blanket. Methos turned to catch them neatly, grinning. "Don't you ever stay in hotels, Methos?"
"Not if I can help it. Researchers. Underpaid everywhere." Methos' tone was mournful.
"I'm overflowing with sympathy. Go to sleep. I'll tell you all the flaws with your hare-brained idea when I'm awake enough to think."
Methos shook the blanket out, grinning. "Good," he said brightly. "We should have the whole thing done before that happens."
The sunbeam crept determinedly up the bed. Duncan ignored it fiercely, even as it warmed him to the point of discomfort. Only when it slid over his face, turning the pleasant darkness behind his eyelids to a gold-tinged wall of fire did he roll out of bed, groaning reluctantly.
The apartment was silent, the heap of blankets and pillows on the couch unmoving. Rubbing his face, Duncan scowled good- naturedly at the couch's contents, and made his way past it to open the door and get the newspaper. Shaking it open, he went into the kitchen, setting the teapot on to boil. The headlines were typically depressing: war in India, a cop shot on duty, studies finding drugs were less and less effective against tuberculosis. With a sigh, Duncan flipped the paper over to read the lower half, and chuckled. "Wake up, Methos. Somebody's claiming to have found Atlantis."
The lump on the couch remained still. Duncan, undaunted, repeated, "Methos, wake up. You'll enjoy this. Methos?" Frowning, he set the paper aside and went to shake the blankets.
They gave way, nothing under them but pillows. Duncan straightened as the elevator rattled, in tandem with the rush of warning nausea. Duncan turned, eyebrows elevated, to watch Methos pull the gate up and step into the flat. He was barefoot, wearing a pair of sweat pants, and had a towel hung over bare shoulders, hands curled loosely around the ends of it. "Good morning, sunshine," he said cheerfully. "About time you got up. I was beginning to think you'd sleep forever."
"You can't possibly have turned into a morning person since the last time you stayed here," Duncan said accusatorily. "What are you doing up?"
Methos shrugged. "I slept on the plane coming in, so I got up about an hour ago. You're usually up much earlier."
Duncan glanced at the clock, discovering it was nearly nine. "I don't usually have unexpected guests at three in the morning," he said sourly.
Methos nodded blandly. "I'm sure Amanda always arrives at a convenient hour," he said, "and I'm sure she lets you go right back to bed, but then you have to spend all that time greeting her properly. I'm really far less trouble." He grinned. "What's for breakfast?"
"You're incorrigible."
"Encouragable," Methos corrected.
"Grapenuts."
"That sounds hideous."
Duncan brightened a little. "You could mix it with plain yogurt."
"You have got to be kidding."
"Not at all. What were you doing?" Duncan went back into the kitchen to make his tea.
"Working out. Even those of us who aren't health nuts like to work out every once in a while, and you've got that lovely gym down there. You're not really going to eat that, are you?" Methos asked in dismay, as, tea steeping, Duncan began to mix the threatened cereal and yogurt.
"Sure. You sure you don't want some?"
Methos shuddered. "Positive. Do you have anything that's not good for you around here?"
"Eggs and bacon in the fridge." Duncan pulled a stool over to the edge of the counter and sat down. "Did you see the paper?"
Methos crouched to dig a frying pan out from a cupboard, and pulled the fridge open. "No, why?"
"Someone's claiming to have found Atlantis." Duncan pointed to the paper with his spoon. "Some Chicago archaeologist. I haven't finished the article yet." He dug the tip of the spoon into the paper, pulling it towards him to continue reading.
"Seems unlikely," Methos said absently. "What's his name?" Half a dozen slices of bacon began to sizzle. Methos picked up his eggs and started juggling them.
Duncan blinked up at the motion. "I didn't know you could juggle."
"You don't know lots of things about me. What's his name?"
"Um." Duncan looked back at the paper. "Doctor Mary Kostani. 'The artifacts are dated at more than five thousand years old, and are of a superior workmanship than artifacts from contemporary civilizations. The legends of Atlantis support a more advanced civilization than those surrounding it . . . .' It goes on like that. There's bread under the counter if you want toast."
"Thanks. Is there a picture?" Methos put the eggs down in favor of finding the bread.
"Of what? Atlantis?
"No, the archaeologist." Methos dropped bread into the toaster, then looked over his shoulder. "Well, or the ruins. Ow!" He shook bacon grease off his hand, glaring at the frying pan.
"None of the woman. Some of the pottery they've found. Here." Duncan stretched to drop the paper next to the stove, and stirred his yogurt again. "Sheff ghibbng a leffhur in ffiffaffo."
"Finish your food, you Scottish barbarian, and speak clearly. Oh, she's giving a lecture in Chicago." Methos nudged the paper up, reading the end of the article. "I can't believe she found Atlantis. That stuff could be from anywhere." He squinted thoughtfully at the pictures. "Terrible photographs. Detail's bad. Looks like it might be pretty nice stuff."
"It'd be the find of the century," Duncan said. "Even if it's not Atlantis, she'll get enormous publicity."
"Yes, and it'll embarrass her department when it turns out to not be Atlantis. I wish they'd published the location."
"Why?
Methos shrugged, flipping eggs. "So I could see how close she was."
Duncan stopped eating, spoon halfway to his mouth. "You know where Atlantis is?"
Methos looked over his shoulder again, expression deliberately bored. "Sure. Doesn't everyone?" He turned back to grin at the frying pan.
Duncan put the yogurt down, spluttering. "My God, Methos, that's -- that's -- you can't just keep that sort of thing secret! That's criminal!"
"Of course I can. I told you a long time ago, Mac. One of the advantages of being five thousand years old is that you remember where all the great stuff that everyone else has forgotten about is."
"But nobody's forgotten Atlantis!" Duncan protested, in half genuine outrage.
"Maybe they should." Methos slid his bacon and eggs onto a plate. The toast popped, and he danced it on his fingertips while buttering it, chanting, "Hot hot hot!" under his breath.
Duncan leveled a stare at the older man. "Are you going to explain that cryptic remark?"
Methos pulled up a stool, grinning wolfishly around a mouthful of eggs. "I shouldn't. I should make you wonder."
In a voice of reason, Duncan said, "I'd have to throw you out a window. You wanted to die, right?"
"Duncan MacLeod would never throw a helpless mortal out a window. He also wouldn't bring a new Immortal over that way. They'd never buy it." Methos took another bite of toast.
"Atlantis, Methos."
Methos waved his fork. "All right, all right." He got up to pour orange juice, and sat back down, looking thoughtful. "Even if they did find it, it's not going to have all the wonderful knowledge they're looking for. They wrote on paper, Mac. Really fine paper. It's been underwater for thousands of years. It'll have dissolved. Even if it's not, I'm the only person in the world who knows the language, and I'm not about to volunteer to read it for them."
"They figured out the hieroglyphics," Duncan pointed out.
Methos snorted. "Some of them. Occasionally I have to suppress the desire to tell them where they got it wrong." He ate a piece of bacon. "At any rate, some of the stories about Atlantis are right. It was an astonishing culture. There were a lot of scholars, artists, architects, that sort of thing. It was run by a counsel of the ruling Houses. Men and women both served on it -- no gender issues in Atlantis." Methos folded a piece of toast in half and ate it, tapping his fork against the plate. "It'd be nice if they'd get back to that."
"They're getting there," Duncan said patiently. "So what happened?"
"It sank," Methos supplied helpfully, "and it should be left where it is. You remember the Methuselah stone," he asked for the second time since he'd arrived. Again, Duncan nodded.
"They made that."
Duncan stared, caught off guard. "What?"
"They made it. I don't know how. That was what made Atlantis special, Duncan. There are things in this world that we can't explain. Ourselves," Methos stressed, "for example. Cassandra's ability to manipulate people with her voice, and her visions of the future. Your own encounters with that demon- thing. There are elements of magic that we can't explain."
Duncan nodded, slowly.
Methos stabbed an egg yolk. "Somebody in Atlantis figured out how to harness those elements to a degree no one has ever duplicated. A lot of the legends we hear about are derived from articles the Atlanteans had. Christ's holy Grail, and the sword they called Excalibur were both from Atlantis. They were the ones who bred the unicorns."
"Unicorns," Duncan said, disbelievingly.
Methos smirked at his plate. "Unicorns," he repeated. "The point, Mac, is that somehow they'd gained the ability to make objects of fairly phenomenal power. I don't know what else drowned with Atlantis, and frankly, I don't want to. That knowledge is long gone, and it's better that way. Would you want to see six billion Methuselah crystals handed out across the world? Or maybe worse, only a few thousand, to the wealthy?" Methos shook his head. "I'd rather Atlantis and its magics stayed under the ocean."
He speared the last bite of breakfast. "Now. How are we doing to kill me so I can gain my Immortality and hornswoggle the Watchers?"
Suddenly curious, Duncan asked, "How did you die the first time?"
Methos shook his head. "I have no idea. Painfully, no doubt. That's usually how it happens."
"You must be the only Immortal in the world who doesn't remember his first death." Duncan finished the yogurt and threw the cup away.
"I'm the only Immortal in the world who's five thousand years old, too. Do you suppose there's a correlation?" Methos got up to rinse his plate off. "It has to be public enough for a Watcher to notice, or to hear about it quickly, but I'd rather not get the police involved."
"The police usually get involved when there's a violent death, Methos. They already don't like me very much. The last thing I need is for a buddy of mine to walk away from an obviously fatal accident."
"I could get in a car wreck," Methos went on obliviously.
"In whose car!"
Methos grimaced. "Maybe not. Adam Pierson's not really the type to be racing around at unhealthy speeds, anyway."
"What is Adam Pierson the type to be doing?"
Methos' expression turned glum. "Getting mugged, I'm afraid."
"No Watcher in his right mind would believe I let you get mugged."
"I guess you'll have to be doing something else. Do you know anybody who could mug me?"
Duncan stared at him, and Methos shrugged. "Okay, I didn't think so. I don't suppose Boy Scouts know muggers."
"I'm not a Boy Scout."
"Only because they didn't have them in the Highlands when you were growing up."
Duncan rolled his eyes. "For God's sake."
Methos grinned. "C'mon, Mac. Where would I live in town if I wanted to increase my odds of getting mugged?"
"Methos, this could take years."
"Do you have any more pressing business?"
Duncan sighed. "I'm almost positive I could think of better things to do than wait for you to get killed. You know, you should go call Amanda and ask her to find someone to kill you. I'm sure she'd know who to go to."
"It could be another Immortal," Methos said thoughtfully.
"Why would another Immortal be after you if you're not dead yet?"
Methos shrugged. "We've all heard the stories about unfocused Quickenings being their own sort of rush. Maybe it could be somebody after that. He deals me a fatal wound and you dash in to save my head."
"Methos." Duncan sighed again, shaking his head. "You know I don't kill people for the fun of it. I'm not setting anybody up for that. The Watchers wouldn't believe that I wouldn't take the head of someone who tried to kill you?"
Methos frowned across the counter at Duncan. "Isn't it awfully inconvenient to have a conscience?"
"It isn't," Duncan said dryly, "nearly as much of a bother as you and Amanda seem to think it must be."
"Maybe you'll grow out of it," Methos said hopefully.
Duncan shook his head again, picking up the paper. "Want to go to this thing?"
"What thing?"
"The lecture on Atlantis. You could made snide comments about where she got it wrong."
Methos looked interested. "Maybe. Do you know anyone in Chicago who could kill me?"
"You have a one-track mind, Methos."
The ancient Immortal inclined his head in agreement. "Yes, and the track is surviving another day, every day. You have to plan in advance for that sort of thing, Duncan. Who's buying the tickets?"
"What, to Chicago?"
Methos nodded. "You don't think Adam Pierson can afford to fly to Chicago on a lark, do you?"
Duncan couldn't help smiling. "I think Adam Pierson wouldn't fit on a lark. They're not very big. Have you been a mooch for five thousand years, Methos?"
Methos scratched his chin. "Pretty much."
Duncan nodded. "I thought so. Maybe I'll ask Joe to come along, too."
"Good idea. He'd like the lecture."
"You just want a bigger audience."
Methos grinned. "Who? Me?"
Chapter Three
Earthquakes rolled through the water in peculiar, soft shocks. The sound of them, dim rumblings and muted scraping of stone, was the only sound she could remember hearing, aside from the distorted sounds of her own screams. There was no way to mark how often they passed, in the timeless prison. At junctures they seemed to come often, sending the water quivering over her skin again and again in reverberating series. It wasn't a comfortable feeling, the concussions jarring through her bones and sending chills through her teeth. Goosebumps lifted on her skin, so rare an occasion she felts at them in wondering confusion. Any texture at all came as a fascinating alleviation to the endless litany of despair that was her only company.
The earthquakes provided rare moments of coherency, functionality in a mind that she could recognize as disturbed, if not shattered, in those cognitive minutes. Awareness was not welcome. It made the hopelessness of the situation more pressing. She could hear discordant thoughts shying away from comprehension, thoughts that seemed to belong to someone else entirely.
Nothing, nothing, nothing. Nothing in the world but us, our little black room and the water. Nothing but us, nothing to fear here, nothing to hide from, here is home, here is all. Don't think about outside, it's a bad place, it's not really there at all, nothing was ever really there but the dark room and our hair, oh our hair, play with it, keep it from tangling us. Ignore! Ignore the rumblings and the shakings! Nothing is outside! We are everything, all here, all one, all safe. Nothing surrounds us, nothing at all.
She shook her head, trying to clear the frightened little voice away. The water had stilled again, leaving her drifting in smooth silence. Escape, another voice whispered. Someday there will be escape. We'll stay here until then, but someday, someday. We'll kill the one that did this to us, and then we'll make ourselves a home again, safe in Atlantis where the gods will favor us again. Patience. Patience is all we need. Nothing is forever. This is not forever. Smooth and calm, the voice soothed her to sleep.
When she woke again, awareness had slid from her grasp once more. She swam back and forth across the room, followed endlessly by yards of hair, infinitely patient. It might be years before the frightened one emerged again. Decades could pass before she was given another taste of herself, another hour or two of discerning between the patient one and the terrified one, and time to reach for the woman she'd once been.
The patient one didn't mind.
The report of the wall shattering jolted her from sleep, cracking into her bones and leaving her stunned. She hung in the water, bewildered, unable to put a name to what had wakened her. In only minutes there were differences in the water, fine grains of stone floating in the formerly sealed environment. Without comprehension, she reveled in the new sensation, rubbing grit between her fingertips and tasting it against her tongue. She played with it for hours before understanding settled into her. Disbelieving, patient, she began to explore the walls, fingertip by fingertip, as she had done thousands of times before.
For the first time in memory, there was pain from something beyond her own self-inflicted injuries. She doubled over, clutching her toes in shock, a hoarse curse roughing out of her throat. The pain subsided in seconds, and she unclenched her fingers, upending herself in the water to search for the unexpected obstacle that her toes had crashed into.
Eager hands found a stone, settled against the floor as though it belonged there. Wedge-shaped and rough-edged, it was as large as her head, easy to lift with the water's bouyancy. Possessively, she clung to it, folding it between her chest and the crook of her elbow. She kicked upwards, trailing her free hand along the wall in search of the break in the walls where the stone had fallen from.
It began as a crack, almost indiscernible, even to fingertips long familiar with the smooth stone. In inches, though, it split wider, one side of it rising away from the other fractionally. Small as her hands were, she couldn't force her fingers deeply enough into the crack to find an outside edge. After a while she gave up, kicking higher, following the split.
It was at the point that the wall began to curve into ceiling that the precious stone she cuddled had fallen from. The break continued further up the ceiling before fading away again. The divot left by the falling stone was by far the largest breach in the oubliette walls.
With a shout, she smashed her stone against the hole it left, kicking to keep herself aloft in the water. Soft clouds of dust broke free, a tiny release of particles, washing vividly over her face in nearly sensual waves. Again and again, in the darkness, she brought the stone down. Smaller shards of rock splintered away. As her hands grew numb from the repeated shocks, a slightly larger chunk dropped, falling to connect with the top of her foot as she kicked. A moment later it clicked lightly against the floor, leaving a delicious ringing pain in her foot.
Eventually she noticed the dull thud of the stone cracking against the wall was dimmed beneath a high-pitched giggling. It was longer to still before she realized the sound was her own laughter, unheard for centuries, released by the prospect of escape. It would take time to break through the wall. It would take time to make a hole large enough for her to fit through.
Time is not a problem, the patient one whispered.
She couldn't remember how thick the walls had been.
It doesn't matter, the patient one told her. We have time.
But I want to remember! she raged back. It seemed likely that it really didn't matter. The textures of the walls had been changed utterly by the cataclysm that drowned the city; almost certainly the depth of the walls had been changed by the same events.
Neverless, as she scraped and tore away fragments of stone, she tried to remember. As deep as her forearm was long? Leaning in the door, did the stone stretch wider than the breadth of her shoulders, to encompass her safely in the carved structure? Had there been windows she could reach through?
Had there been windows at all? The wedge of stone slipped from her hands as she drifted in the water, struggling to bring the memory of the original room to mind.
No doors! No windows! Always smooth, always safe, keeping us here inside! the frightened one insisted. Always here.
No. She shoved the voices away, trying desperately to focus. She curled on her side, catching her hair over an arm to prevent it from wrapping around her face. Had there been windows? The wide floor she could envision, from eons of testing it with fingertips. The walls, she knew, had never been so smooth, but they had curved into the arched roof in the same essential structure of her prison.
The door had been deliberately simple. The memory came back to her in a rush, and faded away again into fog. She pressed her eyes closed, trying to rebuild the vision. Wide, a double door, it swung inward, and was carved along the inner edges with symbols of thirteen Houses. The idea teased her, first with the belief that the door had not been deep enough to outstretch her shoulders, other times asserting with an almost physical shock that she'd fit neatly between the sides of the doorjamb.
It might be a childhood memory, she realized after hourless drifting. Perhaps the door had surrounded her when she was smaller, but time had shifted her perception.
Time. She laughed into the faintly gritty water. How much time had passed? How long had she been damned to the watery hell already? How much longer would it be until she broke free?
It doesn't matter, the patient one whispered again. What matters is release. We'll have release soon.
She uncurled, angling towards the floor, to collect her hammer again. Stone chips lay scattered around the room, providing texture she reveled in. Small fingers lifted a sharp stone, and slid it across her cheek. The pain was thin, fading almost before she tasted the blood in the water. With a giggle, she let the piece go, searching for her wedge.
Finding it, she pushed upwards again, feeling for the hole she drilled with mindless perseverance. She could fit her whole head in it now. Eventually she would break through to the other side. In time, there would be freedom.
In time, the patient one promised, there will be revenge.
The rock made a different sound when she snapped through the final layer, a thin report that echoed into other waters, no longer contained within her prison. A few more frantic blows gave her an opening large enough to stick her fingers through. She flailed them against the water outside, shouting at the top of her voice, as if someone beyond was waiting for her in the drowned city.
Withdrawing her hand from the hole brought fresher water into the room, a wash of salt much heavier than she was accustomed to after the long years. It tasted wonderful. With renewed energy, she swam for her wedge, and began again to pound at the rock.
It seemed to go faster now, with the greater circulation of water and the taste of freedom. Stone cracked away, bigger pieces knocking out to fall to the floor of the oubliette. Only hours had passed before she was able to push her whole hand, all the way up to her forearm, out into the water beyond.
It seemed no time at all until she had a hole big enough for her head, then her head and one shoulder, and, finally, both shoulders.
It was not until then that panic struck. She knew she would fit through the hole, visible only to impatiently seeking fingers. What was on the other side? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing is there, all is here, here is safe, here is where to stay.
She curled into a small ball again, hair drifting around her as deadly as a jellyfish's tendrils.
What was on the other side? Drowned Atlantis, the shell of her home. The sea, and eventually sunlight. She remembered the idea of sunlight, the brightness that colored the world, but the world itself, those colors, were gone, lost in thousands of years of darkness. Would she be able to see at all, or had her eyes atrophied entirely, leaving her blind to the world she had once known?
Blind, the frightened one encouraged. Blind, we'll be blind, stay here where the blackness can't hide anything from us. Stay. Stay. Stay. There's nothing left of the world we knew. Nothing's there. Just the sea, just the water, just blackness forever.
The thin wail that escaped her was a sound unlike any she had made in hundreds of years. It vibrated through her, forcing tears from her eyes as she shivered, clutching her knees closer to her chest. Changed, all changed utterly, the frightened one chanted at her. Nothing recognizable. Our people drowned, our language lost. No one to talk to, no one to understand our words. Stay in the safe place.
She lay in the nest of her hair for three days, images of a world she could not fathom holding her captive in the prison that was her home.
We didn't choose prison, the patient one whispered eventually. Sea and stones, captured forever, captured because of his actions, his inactions, not ours. Outside is different. Outside is frightening, the patient one agreed. Outside is freedom.
Strands of hair drifted across her face, brushing her mouth and nose, and the patient one made her shake her head at the feeling. Outside is better than being mummified by our hair. Languages can be learned. Give us the chance. If we stay, we accept his prison. If we stay, we can't make him pay.
The wash of courage was tenuous, at best. She twisted free of her hair, the strands unwinding in graceful slow motion. She dove again, a final time, and located her wedge of stone, dulled now to a much smaller size, but familiar in her hands. Clutching it one hand, she pushed up to the wall, and through the hole as quickly as she could, before her grasp of boldness eluded her again.
Several feet beyond the wall of her prison she stopped. Yards of hair billowed out after her, clouding around her like a blanket of fog.
The blackness was still completely. She could not even see the ruins of the city, and realized she'd expected to be able to. For a while, she drifted in the darkness. Then, tentatively, she tilted her face up, and began to kick towards the surface.
Very gradually, she became aware of light. It stopped her where she was, hovering in the water, trying to define the nebulous changes in the sea around her. Only when a fish darted by her face, a shadow in the shadows, did she realize vision was beginning to return.
The next fish that swam by brought to her attention a sudden, vicious hunger. For time unknown, she hadn't eaten. Further thought was delayed until she chased down one of the slipper animals, smashing its head in with her stone. Floating in the water, she gobbled it down, sucking blood from her fingers before it had time to wash away.
For days she stayed at the faintly grey level, drifting where the current took her, chasing fish with wild shifts and twists in the water. She snatched them by their tails, bashing her stone into their brains. While she ate she sat in a protective, cross-legged position, her stone resting between her thighs. Fish of all sizes where her prey, and, indiscriminate, she left only bones for the water. Eventually, her body stopped demanding food, and she was able to think again.
The nutrients in the water must have been bare, she realized. Long, blank periods of time ending in pain were many deaths and rebirths. Her Immortal body must have taken what it could out of the waters, over years of time, recreating life out of death. Hunger was such a way of life that until food was presented directly to her, she had not recognized the sensation.
Waking memory was far too long. If immeasurable time had been spent dead, trying to gain life-sustaining nutrients from the water . . . how long might it have been? With a shudder, she pushed the frightened voice away, holding her stone tightly enough that her hands cramped. Still clinging to it, she began to kick upwards again.
It took longer than she expected, partly due to convulsive hunger pains that would send her after schools of fish. The water became less murky only very slowly, and in time she was able to see that fish seemed to like nibbling on her hair. She started drawing them in that way, sitting silent in the water, rock in her lap, waiting until she'd pulled her hair close enough to bash a fish's head in. It was more effective than chasing them. She knew that she slipped deeper into the water, and was carried where the current would bring her, but the journey to the light was secondary to feeding five thousand years of hunger.
When it became bright enough, the light slowed her. The gradual increase never quite pained her eyes, but she realized abruptly that she could see herself when she looked down. It was a young woman's body she saw, painfully thin. She was relieved she hadn't seen herself before days of gorging in the deeper seas, before her body was able to add and redistribute some of the weight that had wasted away over the years of captivity.
She hung in the water, studying herself. Her fingertips were scarred, which surprised her. Perhaps the healing skills of her Immortal body had their limits. Certainly the trauma of scrabbling at the stones in futile attempts to escape had left their mark. The bronze of her skin had faded to pasty white, emphasized by the dead-colored scars.
Even as the light grew brighter, she could not really see the end of her hair. It drifted too much, and seemed to fade into the water instead of ending. The vague plan to sell it formed in her mind. In Atlantis, wig-makers created wigs out of real human hair. Surely the world would not have changed so much that she could not find someone to buy the masses of endless hair that was her legacy of imprisonment.
It could have changed so much, the frightened one whispered. She thrust it away, and kicked upwards.
Not until the sea lit blue with the sun's light above did she suddenly appreciate the visual acuity Immortality had granted her. She had no idea what depth Atlantis had descended to, but her vision had begun to return at a level she was sure no ordinary human would have been able to see in. To discern such detail in such complete darkness was a marvel; what would full light bring? She looked up at the sun, visible through twenty yards of sea, a distorted ball of white fire that colored the ocean and her hair. Schools of fish flitted above her, shadows against the blue.
What kind of world am I returning to?
She kicked upwards. Only seconds later, her head broke the surface and she inhaled, fresh sea air, for the first time in centuries. Instinctively, she squinted her eyes shut against the light bouncing off small waves, wincing with anticipated pain. It wasn't as bad as she feared. She could still see, the light coloring her vision crimson until she dared peek through lashes pushed almost all the way closed.
Wherever the currents had brought her, it wasn't close to land. Quiet, open sea filled all the horizons, brilliant white and vivid blue, the sky scarred with thin, idle clouds.
Nothing at all, the frightened one hissed. Go home. Go back to Atlantis. It's safe there. Go back. There's nothing here.
We're in the middle of the ocean, the patient one said. Of course there's nothing here. Swim. We'll find land and people again. We'll rebuild a life and then we will find the one that did this to us and we will have revenge.
Go back to Atlantis, the frightened one said plaintively.
Revenge, she thought, and then Atlantis reborn. That would be the way of it. She lifted her stone, her single legacy of her drowned home, out of the water to inspect it.
It was quite ordinary: white and wedge-shaped still, and scarred around the edges, much as her fingers were. She hugged it to her, then turned around in the water, her hair tangling about her body. A second inspection of the horizons provided her with no landmarks, and so she glanced at the sun, judging which direction land might be. She had never visited the lands to the north of Atlantis. To the south and east, though, lay Egypt. Surely Egypt had survived. The Sphinx must still be there. It would be a beginning, even as it had been in her mortal life.
She turned on her back, her stone resting protectively against her chest, otter-like, and began kicking her way south.
A few hundred miles to the north, Europe went to war. They called it the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, and, in time, World War I.
Chapter Four
Methos edged his way around a class of third-graders to stand uncomfortably close to Duncan, letting grey-haired dignitaries squish past him towards the stage. "I hate crowds," he muttered in MacLeod's ear. He stepped backwards, and a woman yelped as his heel landed squarely on her toes. With a patently apologetic and utterly insincere smile over his shoulder, Methos leaned forward again, hovering at Duncan's shoulder. "Please tell me our seats are near an exit so we can bolt out of here."
"Down there." Duncan pointed absently towards stage left, near the front of the auditorium. "There's an exit behind the end of the row, so there's your escape route. I had no idea so many people would be here. We should have gotten here earlier."
"Really," Methos said sarcastically. Joe, just in front of the two men, laughed.
"C'mon, Adam," the Watcher said. "You must've expected a lot of interest in Atlantis. It's everybody's favorite legend."
Methos lifted a finger. "One," he said, "you're discounting the entire Eastern half of the world with that statement, and two, I always thought King Arthur was everybody's favorite legend."
"Don't be difficult." Joe grinned over his shoulder at the oldest Immortal. "Pretend you're having a night out with the old man. Look at us. You two could be my kids." Merriment glinted in Joe's eyes as he looked back at the aisle, edging his way through the crowd.
Methos snorted. "Old man."
"There's not much family resemblance, Joe," Duncan pointed out, grinning.
"I guess you boys must've had a good-looking mother. Sure didn't get it from me." Joe grinned again, pushing his cane forward to secure a small pathway down the aisle. The grin acknowledged his unfair assessment of himself; despite the greying, brush-cut hair and the slightly awkward gait from artificial legs, Joe still had the spark of charm and the rough good looks he'd had twenty years earlier. At six feet in height, and, in his fifties, still with the build of the football player he'd once been, Joe looked very much as though he could be his companions' father.
The tattoo concealed on his left wrist made the relationships more complicated than that. After a crippling injury in the Vietnam War, an Immortal had saved Joe Dawson's life, and by doing so, changed it forever. The Watchers recruited the young man into their ranks, and much of his life had come to revolve around the secret society, and his charge, Duncan MacLeod. For fifteen years, he'd Watched the Highlander, learning almost as much about Duncan as Duncan himself knew. Their paths had crossed only in the last few years, and a friendship had grown up between Watcher and Immortal, against all regulations.
That friendship lead Mac to tell Joe that research Watcher Adam Pierson was in truth the legendary Immortal, Methos. Joe kept the ancient man's secret, first for reasons that even he couldn't define, and over time, to protect the man with whom he'd developed a wary friendship. Immortals would not be the only men after the oldest Immortal's head, if the Watchers were to learn of the secret Adam Pierson had harbored for a decade.
They finally edged their way down to the seats, and Duncan gestured Joe in. "You first, Dad," he grinned. Joe chuckled, and stepped down the aisle.
"Not bad seats," Methos said approvingly. "How'd you get us right up next to the stage?"
"Called in a favor," Duncan admitted. "I thought it might be busy. "Not," he added, looking over the auditorium, "this busy. They should have held this somewhere larger."
"This way it looks like more people are interested. 'Record crowd attends Atlantis lecture', along with a picture of people overflowing the aisles." Methos dropped into the seat next to Joe, doing his best to stretch long legs out in the narrow aisle. "I suppose I should thank you for thinking to get good seats."
"Don't strain yourself," Duncan suggested dryly.
"Okay," Methos said, more cheerfully.
Joe shook his head. "What do you do when Mac's not around for you to irritate, Adam?"
"Pick on myself," Methos said. "It's not nearly as much fun. I don't get half as outraged as he does." He smiled innocently at Duncan, who waved a hand, implying he was above the need to respond as he took the seat next to Methos. Still grinning, the oldest Immortal turned back to Joe. "How's the bar? I haven't been by in a while."
Joe's eyes lit up. Aside from the Watchers, the other love of Joe's life was his gin joint, a blues bar that filled up nightly with blues fans, musicians and listeners alike. "Good," he said. "There's a new bass player who comes in at least a couple times a week to jam. He's good. You should come by and listen. Both of you."
Duncan nodded. "When we get back," he promised.
The auditorium lights dimmed, turning all three mens' attention to the stage. A small round man with a gleaming head came out, blinking into the lights.
"Good evening, everyone. If you can just take your seats, we'll get started." He squinted against the lights, judging the crowds. "Looks like we have quite a turnout this evening. It's nice to know archaeologists can grab the general populace's attention every once in a while." As his eyes adjusted further to the light, he frowned. "Perhaps we can get some extra chairs in . . . ?" Light bounced off the top of his head in a hard reflection as he turned to talk to someone offstage, the microphone picking up scattered syllables. After a minute's discussion, he turned back to the microphone, nodding. "We'll bring some more chairs in for the back rows. If everyone who can't be seated yet could step back to give the crew some room . . . thank you. I'll go ahead and begin my introduction while they're doing that, so we'll get started on time." He cleared his throat, straightened his tie, and put on a rehearsed smile.
"Good evening. I'm Dr. Michael Powers, head of the Archaeology department here at the University. I expect a lot of you are waiting impatiently to debunk the findings we've made claim to."
Beside Duncan, Methos snorted. The Highlander elbowed him in the ribs.
"I think you'll be pleasantly surprised," Powers went on. "This isn't the kind of announcement we'd make without being very sure.
"I have the honor of presenting to you tonight's speaker, Dr. Mary Kostani. Dr. Kostani has been an associate of the University for five years, and is widely known in archaelogical circles for ground-breaking work in translating some of the more difficult Egyptian hieroglyphics. Like many of us, she's had a goal her entire life of making that one major find, the one that would make a real mark in accessing our past and the peoples from whom we're descended.
"Unlike most of us, Dr. Kostani has actually succeeded in achieving her goal. Eighteen months ago she located a site she felt certain was Atlantis. We've spent the last year and a half fundraising and beginning to explore the site. What Dr. Kostani has lead us to is a city nearly beyond our ability to imagine, so rich is it in artifacts. Last week's announcement and tonight's lecture are our first step in beginning a massive fundraising effort so that we can properly explore this new site. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to introduce you to the woman who has rediscovered Atlantis: Dr. Mary Kostani."
Applause rippled through the auditorium, louder than simple politeness dictated; the audience was interested in the topic, whether they believed Atlantis had been located or not. Dr. Powers stepped back from the podium, beckoning Dr. Kostani onstage with a smile.
Petite, with straight black hair cut at cheekbone length, she stepped out, a more genuine smile on her face than had graced Powers' during his speech. That smile froze in place, and her chin lifted a little, as she scanned the audience through the bright auditorium lights. To Joe's right, Methos and Duncan reacted in much the same way, both stiffening in their seats and straightening to better see the woman.
Joe, long familiar with the reaction, shot a startled look first at the two Immortals with him, and then at the woman on the stage. "She's one of you?" he hissed under the applause.
Dr. Kostani continued across the stage with only the slightest hesitation, her smile still warm, if no longer quite reaching her eyes. Her skin was warm olive, absorbing the stage lights to good effect, and her eyes were slightly tilted in a round face with high cheekbones. Not exactly beautiful, she was more than pretty; striking, with features worth a second look. She adjusted the microphone to her height -- even standing on the raised podium, she was clearly not quite five feet tall -- and inclined her head. "Good evening," she said, in faintly accented English. "Thank you for your welcome. I assure you, I have been looking forward to this day for a very long time."
Masked by the pleasantries opening her speech, Duncan nodded at Joe, without taking his eyes off the woman. "Aye," he whispered, "but I don't know her. I'd remember that face. D'you know her, Adam?"
"Yes," Methos said, almost voicelessly. The expectant expressions that crossed Joe and Duncan's faces were lost to him, as bright stage lights faded into the even brighter sunlight of memory.
Pacing in sand did not lend itself to the dramatic strides Methos tried for. The ground had the unpleasant habit of shifting away underfoot, causing unexected lurches at best, and badly twisted ankles at worst. After the third such twisting, Methos stopped pacing, lifting his hands to guard his eyes as he squinted over the dunes. In the distance, the great Sphinx, nearly completed, rose up, dignified and silent. Unable to track any motion nearby, he scowled at the Sphinx, and waited.
"Methos! Methos!" The voice came out of the dunes, sounding thin in the desert heat. Moments later sound was followed accompanied by a slim young woman bounding over the edge of a sandy hill. She jumped up and waved once, drawing attention to herself, as if there were other creatures of equal vibrancy nearby to distract him from her. Once she was certain he'd sighted her, she slid down the hill, leaving ruts in the sand in her wake.
Methos grinned, sliding down loose earth himself, to meet her in a small valley. With ease, he lifted her up against the crystalline sky, spinning around before he set her on her feet again. No more a native of this country than he, Ghean looked the part more, with her bronzed skin, dark eyes and black hair. Small as the Mediterranean folk were, Ghean was small even for them, less than five feet in height, and deceptively slender. There was more muscle in her compact frame than met the eye, but her weight remained slight for Methos' six-foot frame. Like Methos, Ghean was dressed in creamy white robes; unlike his clothes, hers seemed alive, crackling with the energy she possessed.
"Where have you been?" Methos demanded, smiling down at her. "I've been out here sweltering under the sun for half the day."
Ghean laughed. "I saw you leaving the edge of town not more than," and she glanced at the sun, pursing her lips before finishing, "not much more than an hour ago. Mother wanted help with a seam. I don't understand how she can write so neatly and not sew a straight seam."
"She probably doesn't understand how you can sew straight seams and still have dreadful handwriting."
"True." Ghean slipped an arm around Methos' waist, looking up at him. "Come. Let's circle back to town."
Methos chuckled. "What did you want to talk about that had to be done out in the sands instead of in the shade with some juice?" The chuckled turned to laughter at Ghean's pouting expression. "Just asking," he said mildly, to appease her.
The sensation he felt around the young woman was peculiar, not something he'd felt often before. A sense of the Quickening resided within her, untapped, waiting to be triggered. Her life might be gentle all the way through, and she might die aged or of illness, the potential within her never brought to life. If she met with violence, though, her mortal life would end, and she would awaken to a new existance, an Immortal life like the one Methos lived.
The thought distracted him for a moment, as they walked slowly through the sands. Centuries fell away, back to the night he had taken his first head. The memory was blurred, with a black sky and hard stars, and an axe in his hand. Nothing told him where he'd learned the skill to weild the weapon as efficiently as he had, or if it had been dumb luck that had prompted him to take the nameless man's head in a moment of panic.
Certainly nothing had prepared him for the storm that surged from the clear sky, or for the lightning that screamed through him, to leave him trembling in the shaking aftershock of the Quickening, shuddering from the intense pain/pleasure that rattled his body. When it occurred to him in the black night that he still lived, he staggered to his feet and limped away, leaving the body behind, but keeping the axe clenched in his fist.
Before that night and the foggy memory, there was nothing at all but a vague sense of many, many years passing.
"What are you looking so solemn about?" Ghean stopped to look up at Methos, the giant of an outlander, even more foreign to Egypt than she was. His pale skin was burned now, from the sun, but she knew it would fade quickly. Methos' sunburns always did. He browned, but slowly, and he would never pass for a native.
"Mmmm. I was thinking about the past. And the future."
Ghean held her breath, dark eyes lighting up. "Our future?"
Methos looked down and grinned. "You are never one to dance about the point, are you, Ghean? Yes, our future. Tell me what it was you wanted to talk to me about." He nudged her into walking again.
"Mother wants to return to Atlantis at the end of the flood season. She thinks she'll be done with all her work by then. I know your own work has kept you from meeting her, but I want you to talk to her before we go. I want you to come with us. You will, won't you?"
Methos nodded. "Yes. I would . . . I'd like to see your homeland. Its reputation precedes it, as a center for learning."
Ghean laughed. "Mother will like you," she predicted. "You're cut from the same cloth she is, a scholar to the bones. Why don't you just live there, in Atlantis? Very few people outside of it can read, but I know you can."
Because I am afraid I might want to never leave, and even hidden in a library, eventually someone will notice the scholar who doesn't age. "I learned to read and write when I was -- younger," Methos said absently, and chuckled to cover the hesitation in his words. "Obviously. It would be difficult to have learned when I was older, wouldn't it?"
There were journals secreted away, on clumsy clay tablets, rough notes sketched out in Sumerian pictographs and later, cuneiform. Much of it had been transcribed into the Egyptian heiroglyphics, a writing form far more capable than the earlier written languages. Over the last decade he had learned the Atlantean tongue and printed word, precise and more elegant than even the heiroglyphics. Methos thought he might someday transcribe those oldest journals into the newest language he had learned.
An astonishing thing, the invention of writing. It made him wonder how old he'd been when it was invented, and how it was he'd been in the right place to learn of it in its infancy. Had he been born in that region, sometime in the forgotten past, or had he merely come to be there? He'd started the journals as soon as he grasped the significance of the written word. It preserved his own history, and prevented him from losing any more time.
He was brought back to the present by Ghean saying, tentatively, "We could settle there, perhaps, after the wedding. You could study." Black eyes searched his face, waiting for a reaction.
Methos' heart lurched, though he smiled reassuringly at her. How fair was it to wed her, when he would not age, and she would -- or when she might die violently, releasing the Quickening within her and extending her life down through the centuries, married to a man she'd met in her childhood? "Perhaps," he answered. "It isn't a decision we have to make now, or quickly. Tell me," he continued lightly. "Did you have to escape from Aroz?"
Aroz was another problem, entirely outside the question of Ghean's potential. For years he had been Ghean's mother's bodyguard, and was clearly viewed less as an employee than as family. Just as clearly, he loved Ghean, and had become her self-appointed guard dog after she met Methos. Above that, he was skilled with the heavy blade he carried, and Immortal to boot. There was no love lost between Methos and Aroz, and while there had not yet been cause or opportunity for a confrontation, the status quo would not hold.
Ghean rolled her eyes. "Luckily, no. Mother'd sent him to get more ink, and so when I was done with the stitching, I just slipped out. Methos." Her next words tumbled out in a rush. "You must come meet Mother, very soon. I've told her all about you, but I'm afraid she's planning to marry me off to Aroz. You have to convince her we want to marry."
"Aroz?" Methos frowned, gnawing the inside of his lower lip thoughtfully, distracted from the conversation by considerations of survival. Staying within the town's boundaries would be the easiest way to delay the abruptly inevitable battle. It was one of the Rules they lived by: there could be no mortal witnesses to the battles in the Immortal Game. With luck, Methos would be able to keep Aroz inside the city until they had time to discuss the situation. Methos glanced at the tiny woman beside him, hope and worry sparking from her almost visibly. He had no desire to bring death into her family on the eve of their wedding; he had far less desire to die himself. If Aroz insisted on a fight, Methos couldn't allow himself to do anything less than fight as though his life depended on it. He was certain Aroz would have no compunctions against taking his head.
"He's like a brother," Ghean said miserably. "I love him but I don't want to marry him. I'm not sure Mother understands that. You have to tell her, Methos. He's so -- old!"
Methos couldn't stop the laugh, although he swallowed it and looked as apologetic as he could manage. Aroz appeared older than he did, indeed, but Methos was positive he was not only the older of the two Immortals, but the elder by centuries. "He's certainly a better financial match than I am," he teased, but relented at the horror on Ghean's face. "All right," he said. "I'll come meet your mother tomorrow. What will you do if she opposes the match?"
"Marry you anyway," Ghean said defiantely, frowning to hide the doubt in her eyes. "When tomorrow will you talk to her?"
"Early," Methos promised, "and alone." He lifted a hand to ward off her protestations. "You've already told her all about me, and I don't think I can make a good impression on two women of your family at the same time." He winked, and grinned.
Ghean's shoulders dropped. "All right. But you promise? Tomorrow?"
Methos nodded. "I promise."
Duncan elbowed Methos in the ribs again. "Well?" he demanded softly, as the woman onstage began speaking. "Who is she?"
Methos cleared his throat quietly. "Technically," he whispered, "I think she's my wife."
Chapter Five
Not once in her days-long swim did Ghean consider the massive weight her hair would have, once the water no longer supported it. She noticed the weight, of course, when treading water; it pulled at her neck, and she spent countless hours playing with the new weight, reveling in the return of sensation. Still clinging determinedly to her rock, she hunted just below the water's surface as often as she hungered, despite the hours' delay it cost her in reaching shore. The patient one, almost indistinguishable from her own thoughts, reminded her that a few more hours was nothing to worry about. The more normal her body looked when she finally went ashore, the better off she would be.
The frightened one preferred the ocean anyway, and encouraged the fishing, sometimes pressuring her to stay in a single area far longer than she needed to. Ignoring its constantly voiced fears, Ghean always returned to the surface, finding the sun and the direction she wanted, and beginning her journey towards land again.
When the waters became shallow enough, she stood, awkwardly, no longer certain how to balance her own weight on two feet. Even with the sea lifting her a little as she stood in the shoulder-deep water, the posture felt heavy and clumsy after centuries of the ocean's all-encompassing support. The beach was visible, only yards away, and still Ghean stayed stubbornly in the water, reaquainting herself with the idea of walking. The sun rose and set twice while she practiced, edging a little closer to shore as she began to feel some confidence in her ability to not collapse with the unfamiliar motions.
By the time she stood in knee-deep water, her hair was a significant weight. The days of swallowing down raw fish had added weight back to her frame, and the swimming had turned some of it to muscle, but there was still little strength in a body atrophied by millennia of small actions. Clumsily, she gathered up her hair to fold it over her arms, trying not to drop her stone. Bending to snatch at the lengths of it, she lost her balance, undone by the unfamiliar pull of gravity and the impossible weight of the long strands. It pooled around her again, a black spider's web that was pulled away and pushed back again with the waves that rocked the water. For a while she watched it, mindlessly, admiring the pattern of sunlight through water and shining threads of hair alike. In time, she shook herself, and began searching for a sharp stone or shell with which she could hack the impossible weight away from her head.
She found one by stepping on it, slicing her foot open. Reaching down through the water, she watched the blood drift away in seconds, leaving behind unscarred flesh. The thought came, dimly: I would have had to have wrapped it, and favored it for days, before. She exchanged the shell that had cut her foot for her wedge, placing it firmly between her feet so it would not be lost, and lifted the cutting shell to her hair.
Had to have wrapped it. Ghean hesitated, the shell hovering near her cheek. If I want to sell it I can't let the sea take it away. For a moment she was tempted to leave the legacy of her imprisonment to the ocean, but the patient one shook her head. No, it advised, keep the hair. The world must still use money or barter of some kind. We'll need it to make a new beginning for ourselves.
What if it has changed so much? the frightened one demanded. What if they no longer use money?
Then I'll dump all my hair in a river, Ghean answered it acerbically, and squatted to lift her wedge again, kicking back towards deeper water once both stone and shell were secured in her hands. Seaweed drifted in the water, and Ghean sliced long strips of it, wrapping them around her arms to keep them from floating away. When she thought she had enough, she swam back to shore, trailing seaweed and yards of hair.
She sat on the ocean floor where the water was still deep enough to support the weight of her hair, and she tied a length of the seaweed around her hair, just beyond her shoulderblades. An arm's length further down, she tied another length, and down again, until she ran out of seaweed, well before she ran out of hair. Still, the tied-off lengths gave her more control over the mass of hair than she'd ever had, and she was able to gather it into a slightly more wieldy bundle, piling it in front of her and between her legs.
She lifted her stone, pressed her lips together, and threw it at the shore as hard as she could, knowing she wouldn't be able to carry both it and her hair at the same time. It splashed just before the tide mark, not many feet away, but far enough that she could see it. Without taking her eyes from it, as if it would be lost if she looked away, Ghean took the shell and razed it through her hair, as close to chin-length as she could. It spliced away messily, repeated passes cutting through the heavy mass before it was all free, but even so it took only a few minutes to release herself from the weight. The severed end fell into the water with a soft splash, ragged ends spilling randomly out from the seaweed tie. Her head felt peculiarly light. She shook it back and forth, feeling the chopped ends tickling her jaw, and she giggled. One hand lifted almost of its own accord to brush at the short hairs, passing over the ends with a repetative, obsessive motion.
Only when she looked up to see that her wedge was almost covered by the tide did she think to move. The shell still clenched in her hand, she pulled the hair close to her, trying to capture as much as possible in her arms, and then she stood, staggering to shore with her burden. At the water's edge, she dumped the armful and rescued her stone, putting it higher on the beach with shaky, off-balance steps. Then she returned to her hair, pulling it length over length higher up onto land, until, for the first time in thousands of years, both it and she were free of the ocean.
Ghean sat in the sand, staring at the water, trying to encompass the thought. Freedom. The water isn't my home any more.
The water is always home, the frightened one whispered. It's safe, there. We should go back.
We will, the patient one said. When we go back to recover Atlantis. We will rebuild and we will have revenge. But not now. Now we have other things to do.
Like eat, Ghean told the other two, and pushed to her feet without grace. The water's bouyancy was a welcome respite, even after so little time out of it, and she dove, searching for fish and admiring the ease of movement, without the hair to dodge.
Later, she cut her hair into shorter segments, each a little longer than she was tall, and braided each one. The seaweed shrank as it dried, holding the braids tightly enough to be carried without losing the hair. When she was done there were ten lengths, more than fifty feet of hair. She would sell them one at a time, when she found a city.
The next weeks blurred, as much as the time under water had. She stole clothes from the first town she found, under the cover of dark. Certain memories stood out: the first car that whisked by, and the first plane that flew overhead. She fell to her knees, shrieking in fear, when the plane buzzed over. To her untrained ears, it was the sound of the world ending.
She hid her hair away, and begged or stole food, gaining strength and a smattering of language. She wanted to go to Egypt, that she knew, but she no longer had a word for the country that anyone could recognize. After days of watching, she recognized pieces of paper that people referred to, and then left town: maps. She understood maps, and found an abandoned one stuffed into a trash container near a hotel. Hours of intent study of the shoreline gave her an uncertain belief that Egypt was to the east, but she wasn't sure; the maps looked different, and the coast had changed from what she could barely remember. But she took the map, and a length of her hair to a man she'd identified as a wig-maker, and displayed the braid. His surprise was evident; the length was as long as she was, but Ghean's lack of language prevented him from questioning her deeply. He gave her money, and she stared at it, having no idea if it was a fair price. Lifting the handful of coins and paper, she flattened out the map, and jabbed a finger at the corner she thought was Egypt. "Will this take me there?" she asked, knowing the tongue she used would be utterly foreign to him.
Despite that, he seemed to understand, and pointed elsewhere on the map. "You're here," he told her, and gestured with a finger, circling himself and her with the movement, and then touched a point on the map again. "You're here," he repeated, and Ghean touched the same point.
"Here," she echoed. The wig-maker grinned and nodded. Ghean tapped the money, and drew a line with her finger across the map to what she thought was Egypt. "Here?" she asked.
He nodded again. "You can take a bus. They're rickety and they take a while, but you can get to Egypt." He touched her end of the map, and said, "Egypt," again.
"Egypt," she repeated dutifully. "Here, Egypt?" She touched the two points on the map again.
Another nod. "On the bus."
Ghean shook her head. "Bus?"
The wig-maker pointed over her shoulder, at one of the four-wheeled vehicles. "Bus," he said, and then, taking pity on her, he brought her to the bus station, and arranged her ticket across the top of Africa. As she boarded, he gave her another handful of money, and she folded her fingers around it with a grateful smile. "Thank you," she said. Those words she had learned.
The bus terrified her at first. Leave this, run away, back to the ocean, back to Atlantis where it's safe, no fast strange things to carry us across the sand, go back home where it's safe, where we're safe in the darkness, the frightened one chanted, an overwhelming litany that drowned out even the patient voice for hours.
It faded, though, as Ghean began to become fascinated with the speed the vehicle travelled with, the efficiency of crossing the country on the rough roads. Once the fear fell away, she concentrated, with the patient one's encouragement. The language was vastly different, but people on the bus were friendly, and they gave her words for things. She would ask and point, and they would laugh and answer. By the time she reached Cairo, she could make rudimentary sentences, and she knew the year was 1914. It meant nothing to her.
In Cairo, she found caravans that went into the desert, ferrying people to see the Sphinx and the pyramids. She sold another length of hair, for a lesser price than the first had gone for, but she didn't have enough words to barter. Without worrying, she joined a caravan, riding her camel with the ease of muscle memory. She refused to think about that too deeply, afraid thought would tumble her off the animal's back. Instead, she idly stroked her wedge of stone, and waited for the familiar Sphinx to appear ahead of her.
When it finally did, she let out a cry of dismay, turning to the guide and gesturing at her face. "Nose! Nose gone!"
He laughed, white teth bright in a dark face. "Shot off by Napoleon's cannon," he explained.
None of the words made sense to her, and so she simply turned back to the great Sphinx in horror. It had been new, not quite completed, when she'e left Egypt, and now it was so worn and old. Nervously, she turned back to the guide, pointing to the Sphinx again. "How old?" she demanded.
He shrugged easily. "Forty-five hundred, five thousand years old. About that."
Ghean stared at him blankly, trying to understand the numbers. She shook her head unhappily, and held up her hands, fingers spread. "How many?"
"What, fingers? Ten. Ten fingers."
"Ten," she repeated, and looked worriedly at the Sphinx. "How many tens?"
The guide hesitated, then slid off his camel, encouraging her to do the same. She did, crouching in the sand next to him. He drew out ten marks in the sand. "Ten," he said patiently. Ghean nodded, short hair brushing along her chin.
Rapidly, but neatly, he made nine more rows of ten marks. "Ten tens," he explained. "One hundred." She nodded again, and he made a box around the one hundred. "Ten of these make one thousand. Do you understand?"
Ghean did, but lapsed into her own language to express her understanding. "Yes. Ten times one hundred is a thousand. I understand." She nodded, dark eyes on his face. "Ten one hundred," she said carefully, in his words. "One thousand."
He grinned. "Good. Yes." Then he pointed at the Sphinx. "Five," he said, and held up five fingers. "Five thousand years old."
Ghean's chin jerked up and she stared at the Sphinx. "Five thousand years?" The brilliant blue sky around the Sphinx dimmed and fogged, and blackness swept in to comfort her.
She woke slowly, to a familiar scene: the desert left in darkness by the sun, and the crackle of a fire just beyond the edge of the tent. For a moment she relaxed, smiling, wondering when her mother would come get her for the evening meal.
Firelight glinted on the metal post of the tent, and memory rushed home with a painful blow. Her mother had been dead five thousand years. Five thousand years.
Not even the patient one was prepared for that much time to have gone by. A wordless sound of loss ripped out of Ghean, shattering the quiet night. Camels, close by, bellowed in irritation at the unexpected scream. Ghean curled on her side as she had done for so long, no longer floating free, but weighed down by gravity and unfathomable years having passed. Panicked fingers reached out far enough to find her stone, and she drew it close to her chest.
The guide came running, kneeling at her side to check on her. Ghean rocked violently, the patient voice trying to sooth her terrified thoughts while she tried to force her mind to encompass the number of years that had passed.
She could not do it. Five thousand years! the frightened voice screamed at her. Five thousand years! Too much has changed! Go home! Go where it is safe, where nothing ever changes! Go home to Atlantis!
Five thousand years is a long time to wait for vengeance, the patient one whispered in counterpoint. If we go back now, we'll never get what we want. We'll never have revenge. We'll never rebuild Atlantis. The years aren't so important. That we're free now, that's what's important. We're free now. Stay free. The world has changed. If we don't change with it, we'll never survive.
Ghean whimpered softly, as the guide sat beside her, helpless. Get up, the patient one urged. Look at the world as it is now. Find a way to accept it. We've survived this long. We're learning new words, and we know we can sell the hair for money. Get up, and face the world. Let us survive.
Ghean hiccuped, an unhappy sound, and climbed blindly to her feet, her stone held against her chest by crossed arms. The guide came to his feet as well, following her beyond the perimeter of firelight. There, Ghean looked up into the sky, seeing it for the first time.
She had looked up every night while she was in the water, but she had denied what was there, never truly seeing it. The stars had wheeled in their cycle, no longer where they'd been, distorted almost beyond recognition. Shaking, she searched the skies, and slowly picked out the sign of her House, the great ram.
She was the last member of her House. "Mother," she whispered, and then turned towards the Sphinx, a great shadow in the darkness. Never looking at the ground, she worked her way through the cold desert night, over spilling slopes of sand, until she reached the ancient structure. Slowly, methodically, she circled it, fingers trailing along the stone, until finally she came around to the front of it again, and knelt in the sand.
Five thousand years. Ghean sat before the Sphinx, letting the factions of her mind war between retreat and acceptance, detatched from the battle as thoroughly as if it took place in another mind entirely. She watched the quick desert sunrise color the stone structure before her, as it had done thousands of years ago, and still she did not move. In very little time, she could feel the sun burning her pale flesh, as it had once burned Methos', the same sun in this same desert, hundreds of lifetimes ago. She smelled the sand heating around her, and tasted sweat forced from her body, and she listened distantly to the argument in her mind.
As the sun reached its apex, she decided. Slowly, she leaned forward from the waist, bowing deeply to the great Sphinx, until the sand touched her nose. Eyes closed to the heat rising from the sand, she chose the patient voice, and folded the frightened one away, deep into her mind. With a grace remembered from a childhood long gone, Ghean unfolded from the sand, lifting her piece of Atlantean stone with her, and walked out of the desert to claim a destiny five thousand years delayed.
Chapter Six
"Your what!" The whisper came in outraged stereo, slightly louder than was prudent for a darkened auditorium. Heads turned irritably, while Joe and Duncan sank guiltily into their seats, still staring openly at their companion.
"It's a little complicated," Methos muttered, without taking his eyes off the petite woman onstage. "I think we should get out of here."
Duncan shot a glance at the stage, then back at Methos. "We just got here," he protested. "She's just starting her speech."
"You don't need to hear it," Methos growled softly. "She found Atlantis for them. I really think we need to leave, Mac. Now."
"Don't you think it's a little bizarre to run out at the start of the lecture?" Joe asked, voice quiet and reasonable. Methos shook his head.
"She shouldn't be alive," he whispered. "I had no idea she was alive. I'd rather have the whole audience watch us leave than be here when the lecture gets over. I need some time to think this through. She shouldn't," Methos repeated, "be alive."
Duncan looked across Methos at Joe, who shrugged. "All right," Duncan said. Methos lurched to his feet, offering a hand to Joe. The mortal man stood less awkwardly than Methos had, an odd reversal of grace. Methos jerked his head towards the far end of the aisle.
"Closest exit," he hissed, and flapped a hand at Joe, encouraging him to step over people. In a slow, annoyed wave, everyone in the row stood, expressions ranging from mild exasperation to outright indignation. Methos kept his face averted from the stage as he climbed over expensively shod feet, just behind Joe. Behind them, Duncan murmured, "Excuse us," to the last woman in the row, favoring her with a quick smile. She smiled back, remaining on her feet until her date plucked at her sleeve, frowning. Even in the darkness, she colored visibly, and sat. Duncan grinned, as Joe pushed the exit door open.
As the door swung closed behind Duncan, Joe wheeled to face Methos. "What the hell was that all about?"
"Not here," Methos said flatly. "There must be a bar or a coffee shop nearby. Anything. Just not here."
Duncan and Joe exchanged glances again, the Watcher shrugging and shaking his head. "This had better be good, Pierson."
"Oh, it is." Methos' voice sounded thin. "It is. Come on." He stalked out of the building, shoulders hunched, to choose a direction and walk for several blocks. Joe and Duncan trailed behind him, taking turns watching the tense walk, and regarding each other from the corners of their eyes.
A guttering streetlight flickered above a badly stenciled sign, the letters worn to illegibility. Methos stopped below the light, frowning up at the sign, then ducked into the bar. Joe scowled after him. "Do you have any idea where we are?" he asked Duncan.
The Highlander shrugged a shoulder. "No." With a faint smile, he suggested, "Maybe he's still hoping to get himself killed."
Joe pushed the door open, stepping inside the bar. Orange and olive glass light fixtures, left over from the seventies, barely lit individual booths, small pools of light coloring one end of each table and leaving the far ends dimmed. Smoke hung in the air, barely stirring with human movement through it. As the trio entered, sound fell away, a few men at a time. Joe shot a look at Duncan. "Looks like the right place for it," he muttered.
Methos ignored both the silence that flooded in front of him, and the hubbub that picked up again behind him, pushing his way to the back corner of the bar. He stood a moment, hands shoved in his pockets, scowling at the back door. Two bathroom doors, both marked 'Men', hung slightly open. Around a corner, another door was nearly lost in smoke. Duncan and Joe hung back, watching Methos as he went down to the third door, twisted the knob, and shoved it open on a dank alley. He hesitated there, looking down the alley, before closing the door and coming back to sit in a grungy booth.
The two other men, after a final exchange of glances, joined him. "Well?" Duncan asked pointedly after several seconds.
"Did you know," Methos said, "that they had coffee in Atlantis? I don't know who crossed the Atlantic to find it, but someone did. I didn't have coffee again for almost forty- five hundred years after Atlantis sank. They guarded the plants jealously. No one knew where they'd come from. There are people who would argue that Western civilization wasn't, not until they rediscovered coffee."
"Methos," Duncan said deliberately. "What about the girl?"
"Who is she?" Joe asked on the tail of Duncan's question. "I don't recognize the name or the face."
"Her name is Ghean." Methos looked up to watch unfamiliarity write itself across Joe's face. "She won't be in the records anywhere. I can't believe she's alive."
"You mentioned that," Joe said dryly.
"She's your wife?" Duncan spoke at the same time, the question incredulous.
Methos lifted a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. "I'm sure not anymore. Not with the way Atlantean law was written . . . maybe I'd better start at the beginning." He looked up again, flagging down a waitress. "Beer," he said. "A pitcher. Or two." He lowered his head, pinching the bridge of his nose again, and went determinedly silent until the beer arrived.
Heat seared down, thickening the air. Methos grinned at the woman clinging to his arm. "You'll have to let me go," he said. "I can't go talk to your mother while you have a death grip on my arm."
Ghean looked down, loosening her fingers a little. "I'm nervous," she whispered.
"Why? You're not the one who has to go present a case to your mother as to why you should marry a penniless scholar she's never met instead of a well-employed bodyguard she's known for twenty years."
Ghean looked at him severely. "You're making fun of me."
Methos grinned again. "Maybe a little bit. It'll be fine, Ghean. A kiss for luck?" He bowed his head, touching his lips to hers, and she smiled into the kiss. "I'll meet you in the market later, all right? Don't worry. It'll be fine," he promised again.
Ghean nodded, letting his hand go and watching him turn into the sun, down between the sandy streets of the tent town. A temporary camp, large enough for commerce because of the construction of the Sphinx nearby, the town remained nameless. The streets were wide, with tents scattered in neat, long rows, enough room between them for men and animals alike to pass through without endangering anyone's encampment. During the hot days, heat kept the sound down, a weight on words that lifted with the setting sun. In the quick chill of the desert nights, voices carried, making the town more of a community than the days could. Traders, mostly men, kept the town busy in the day, and Methos wove his way through them as he crossed the camp towards Ghean's mother's tent. He bowed, a small movement, in greeting to the guard who stood before the tent, scowling benignly. "Would you tell the lady Minyah that Methos is here to see her?"
"Come in," a voice called from inside. "I can hear you quite well."
Methos' eyebrows lifted as the guard stepped aside, allowing him to pass into the tent. The woven cloth that made the walls was not unusually thin; Minyah evidently had good hearing, or at least a skill for listening. Methos bowed a second time as the tent flap fell shut behind him, and blinked to adjust his vision to the relative darkness inside.
Minyah sat at a neatly crafted desk, her head cocked curiously, a stencil in her hand. Beneath her hand was a sheet of thin, quality paper. More of the same was piled around her on the desk, carefully cut edges lined neatly up. Methos' eyes widened a little at the stuff, and he took an avaricious step forward before catching himself. With an effort, he looked up at Ghean's mother.
Even sitting, Minyah was clearly several inches taller than her daughter, and shared the smoky skin and dark hair that typified Atlanteans. Her expression was faintly amused, growing more so as Methos' eyes fell to the paper again. By the time he looked at her a second time, she was smiling, serene confidence in the expression. "I wondered when you would be bold enough to come by," she said lightly, and stood. Her robes were fine linen, brightly dyed and finely woven, cut loose to keep cool in the desert heat. A silver pendant shifted between her breasts, catching the light for a moment as she stepped across the room to offer her hand to Methos in greeting. "Ghean calls you her giant. I can see why."
Methos took her hand, bowing over it briefly. When he straightened, it was to meet her gaze fully. Minyah's eyes were gold, flecked with hazel, oddly alien in her dark face. Methos shifted his shoulders uncomfortably, trying to shake off the abrupt feeling that the woman could see through him. Minyah smiled, stepping back. "Would you like water?"
Methos nodded. "Please. Thank you for seeing me."
"I could hardly wait," Minyah replied as she walked across the tent to pour a cup of water from a jug. "Ghean has spoken of you for months."
"Has it been that long?" Methos frowned, accepting the water. Minyah settled back down at her desk comfortably, in a rustle of fabrics.
"It has. Sit, please." Minyah waved a hand towards a chair. Methos took the seat while she considered him silently, the disconcerting golden eyes intent. He was tanned, but still paler than any Egyptian or Atlantean might be, thin lines etched away from the corners of his eyes, from too much squinting into the sun. He met her golden gaze a moment, then dropped his eyes, sipping at the water, trying to bleed away the tension he could feel in his shoulders. Minyah twitched a smile. "You are nervous."
Methos looked up, startled, and laughed quietly. "A little."
Minyah nodded. "That is well. It would not do for you to be too confident." She cocked her head again. "You love her."
The smile that fell onto Methos' face was genuine, almost silly. "Yes," he said. "How could I not? She's so vibrant, so full of life."
"Are you really penniless?"
Methos blinked, opening his mouth to form an answer, but Minyah cut him off with a short gesture. "Nevermind. I am almost certain you are not." She stood, slipping off her stool again to come around and take his chin in her hand, frowning down into his eyes.
Methos returned the look, one eyebrow rising quizzically. Minyah held the pose for over a minute, frown growing steadily deeper. Just as Methos was about to speak, Minyah whispered, "Ah," and released his chin, taking two steps backwards. "You are like him, are you not? Like Aroz. You do not die."
Methos' other eyebrow shot up to join the first, jaw dropping a little in shock. No mortal had ever guessed that, and yet there was no sense at all of the Quickening about Minyah, nothing out of the ordinary. "What are you tal--" he began. Minyah shook her head.
"Do not lie to me," she advised. "It is in your eyes. I have seen it in Aroz for a very long time, and I think it is stronger in you."
Methos simply stared at her, lost for words. Minyah stepped back to lean against her desk and regard him steadily in return. "Do not," she repeated, "lie to me. You are like him. Immortal."
Methos clung to silence a few more moments, before letting out a slow breath. How could she possibly have guessed? "If . . . I was like Aroz . . . what would you do?" The words were carefully measured, an admission without speaking any damning words.
"Do?" Minyah's eyebrows rose. "I would do nothing. I am a scholar, Methos. I wish to know, not interfere. I have spent my life pursuing knowledge. If you are like Aroz," and Minyah's eyes were shot with laughter as she spoke, politely playing by the rules Methos had dictated, "then you would have great knowledge. That is my interest in you. If I exposed you to other mortals, I would lose that knowledge base to those who are afraid of that which they do not understand. That would not be acceptable."
Methos stared at her, silent a while longer, and then he shook his head. "How did you know? About Aroz?"
Minyah waved a hand, dismissively. "He saved my life when I was a child. I wept over his body, and he rose up again. I thought the gods had answered my prayers, but he told me a different tale. I have seen it in him again since then, and I have come to believe the story he told me was true, and that he cannot die. I have never met another one like him until now."
"He can die," Methos said automatically. "But not unless someone takes his head. How did you know about me?"
"Ah," Minyah said again, clasping her hands together. "So Aroz has said, about his death." She turned, to pour herself a cup of water, before returning her regard to Methos. "So I am right. That is always satisfying. Your eyes are very old," she answered. "Some mortals have old eyes, the eyes of a soul that has come into the world in many cycles, but there is a different look to your eyes. Different even from a warrior, who has seen much death. Something in your eyes has tasted death, experienced it and survived it. Aroz has the same eyes. Perhaps it marks all of your kind." She sipped her water. "Perhaps it is only that I know what to look for."
Methos shivered in the warm tent. "I hope you are the only mortal I ever meet with that gift," he murmured.
"It would be uncomfortable," Minyah agreed, "for a life built around secrecy to meet too often with those who can see through the secrets. Do you wish to marry her?"
Methos blinked, hesitating a fraction of a second, and Minyah's eyebrows lifted. "You do," she judged, "but there is some doubt in you. Tell me of it."
For several moments Methos said nothing at all, staring at the discomfiting woman before him. I don't remember ever having been so neatly unwrapped. What are you, Minyah? He shook his head, remembering to answer her question. "Marriage . . . is not lightly undertaken. Not in any case, and especially for my kind. There's always the problem of . . . truth. Whether to confess what we are, or to keep it hidden away, to save our lovers pain. This time it's . . . more difficult than usual." He lifted dark eyes to the tent's ceiling, debating his next words.
"Has Aroz told you that Ghean has the potential to become Immortal, as we are?"
Minyah's eyes widened, lips parting in shock. Methos frowned at the floor a moment, nodding. "I didn't think so. Minyah, your daughter is intelligent and beautiful, and if she were wholly mortal, I would wed her tomorrow. But she isn't, and I don't know what to say or do, to either you or to her." He stood to pace uncomfortably, water cup in hand.
Minyah remained quiet, eyebrows drawn down in thought. "If she were mortal, you would wed her, and love her for the rest of her life." The words were quiet, spoken almost to herself. "If she were Immortal now, would you marry her?" Minyah looked up.
"Probably not."
"Why?"
Methos turned to look at the brightly-clad woman. "If she were to become Immortal today, she would still be terribly young. I wouldn't want to marry an Immortal in her childhood. I'm not sure I would want to marry an Immortal at all."
Minyah's eyebrows quirked up. "Why?"
"Because there are Rules we live by, and the one truth that we know is that there can be only one." Methos voice was flat. "I would not want to have to take my wife's head." And I would. To survive, I would. Methos knew himself that well, at least.
Goosebumps lifted on Minyah's arms, and she let the line of questioning go, looking pensively into her water cup. "When will she die?"
Methos shook his head. "It doesn't work that way. She could die of old age, or of illness, and the Quickening would never be triggered." He listened to himself with a faint sense of unreality. I don't remember ever telling any mortal these things, except one or two wives. "We only become Immortal through violent or untimely death. But how can I marry her, knowing that she might die accidentally and then be married eternally to someone she expected a few decades with?"
Unromantically, Minyah shrugged. "Lifematings dissolve. Very few people have the temperance to remain with one mate forever, whether words of ceremony have been said over them or not, and whether or not they are mortal or Immortal. Does she know the truth about you?"
"No."
"Perhaps you should tell her, and let her choose."
"Tell her? About me, or about herself?" Methos shook his head again. "I can't tell her about herself. It would be interfering. I can't interfere."
Minyah's eyebrows lifted. "Why not?"
Methos shrugged. "Those are the Rules."
Minyah circled her desk, not sitting. "Who made these rules? Aroz also speaks of them."
"I don't know. I've always known them."
"Always?"
Methos sighed, putting his cup on Minyah's desk, careful not to place it near any of the fine paper she was working with. "As long as I can remember, Minyah."
The woman looked up, interested. "And how long is that?"
Methos was silent a moment. "A very long time," he said finally. "A thousand years."
Minyah's eyes widened again. "Twenty lifetimes," she whispered. "More."
Methos nodded, a tired motion. "A very long time," he repeated. "All of which has come down to now, and whether or not to marry your daughter."
"She will be very angry, if you do not tell her the truth."
"If I tell her the truth, she'll fling herself off the Sphinx to gain Immortality!"
Laughter sparked in Minyah's voice. "Would you not do the same?"
Methos laughed. "Yes," he admitted.
"Do you love her enough to grant her this Immortality?"
Methos' smile faded. "I don't grant it. It's just the way she was born. I would prefer not to interfere. It's not how it's supposed to be done."
Minyah, curiously, asked, "And if I told her?"
"You'd be betraying my trust."
"She is my only daughter. Would you not do anything you could for your child, to insure she would live beyond a normal lifespan?"
"We can't have children," Methos replied argumentatively. Minyah dismissed the words with another wave of her hand.
"That is not what I asked, Methos. If you had a child, what would you do?"
Methos stared at her, pained. "I don't know, Minyah," he said finally. "I don't know."
Minyah looked over her shoulder at her paperwork, then back at Methos. Thoughtfully, she said, "You have my permission to marry, if that is the decision you ultimately reach. Go. Tell her."
Methos blinked. "Thank you," he said quietly, and turned to go, stopping at the door to look back. "Why?"
Minyah chuckled softly. "I am not the ogre Ghean paints. Atlanteans marry for love, not commerce. Her heart is given to you, not Aroz. Much as I would like to see him truly a part of my family, I cannot set Ghean and her happiness as the price for such a union. And you are honest. Perhaps not reassuring, but honest. Go." She flapped her fingers at him impatiently, circling back around to sit on her stool. "Go."
Methos grinned faintly. "Thank you," he repeated, and pushed the tent flap aside to step out into the desert again.
Minyah watched the small clouds of sand settle as the door drifted shut, waiting for the bright afterimage of the sunshine to fade without looking away from the partition of the door flap. When it had faded, she reached for her stylus and ink, and a clean sheet of paper, arranging them before her. With her free hand, she lifted her necklace, turning the pendant so she could see it right-side-up. Neatly, in the upper left- hand corner of the parchment, she began to sketch a copy of the necklace, the ancient symbol of her House: a ram's head, horns deeply curved, within a circle, thirteen points within the borders of the circle. She waited for the ink to dry, letting the necklace fall again, and then, in smooth print, she began to write.
I am a Watcher. I, alone, know of a race of men who walk among us, men who cannot die. They are Immortals. Every day, they fight among themselves, the winner taking the loser's head. It is my job to observe and record the histories of these men, but never to interfere . . . .
Chapter Seven
"Your accent -- I can't quite place it."
Ghean smiled a little. Try as she might, she couldn't erase the faint traces of Atlantis from her voice. At first the fact had been a source of chagrin, but she'd come to be quietly amused at having a singularly unique accent in all the world. "I'm from the Mediterranean," she explained easily. "My family moved a great deal when I was a child."
The lie came easily after more than a decade of living in the twentieth century. At first she'd stuttered and mumbled useless explanations, certain her secret would be revealed. The frightened voice often resurfaced in those times, screaming out its horror of being found out. The other, infinitely patient, waited until the frightened one had yelled itself out before interfering.
They have no reason to suspect you, it pointed out. Write out your new history and study it. Make it simple, and there will be no flaws. Be confident. They cannot possibly suspect us.
And they didn't. Ghean knew the exact moment when she'd begun to think of mortals as 'they', as creatures different from herself. It had taken years, years in which she grew accustomed to the new world she was in. She learned languages, Egyptian first, from the young guide who'd told her how much time had passed. Two years with him was not enough to feel the difference between herself and mortals, nor were the following handful of years while she learned English and German from archaeologists robbing the magnificent temples and crypts the Egpytian pharohs had left behind.
The illusion that she was the same as she had been, as mortal as those around her, ended with a car crash. Her teacher, a skinny American, sped around a corner and into a cart pulled by oxen. He, the oxen, and two of the three in the cart died; Ghean jerked awake minutes after the crash, shattered skull stitching itself back together while a handful of terrified onlookers stared. A woman screamed, naming her a witch, and ran for the authorities.
The war has ended, the patient one advised. The gods are telling us it is time to leave Egypt and search for our enemy. Ghean pulled herself from the wreck and sold the last of her stash of hair for passage on a boat going to America.
"I do not understand this Prohibition," she went on. "Nowhere that I have been would such a thing be thought of."
The boy next to her smiled, waving his hand. "Only in America," he agreed. "It doesn't work very well, does it?" Another waves of his hand encompassed the dark little tavern -- speakeasy, Ghean reminded herself -- where they, and dozens of others, were congregated.
Ghean shook her head, about to speak when a headache rocketed through the back of her head, the abrupt wash of pain hard enough to feel as though it would come out her eyes. As quickly as it came, it passed, and she was left gripping the edge of the bar. After a few seconds she lifted her head, looking beyond the boy, frowning with concern.
A tall woman, dark hair bobbed and curled in permenant waves, stood just inside the door, scanning the room with narrowed eyes. In a moment, her gaze fixed on Ghean and she nodded slightly before making her way to the other side of the bar. Ghean watched her sit, then excused herself to the boy, and followed the other woman, coming to a stop a few feet away from her table.
The woman looked up, eyebrows arched. "I'm not looking for a fight," she said without preamble. "If you aren't either, have a seat."
Ghean sat, tentatively. "You gave me that headache," she half asked. The woman's eyebrows went up again, and sympathy suddenly washed across her face.
"You don't know what you are, do you?"
Ghean hesitated a moment. Tell her no! the patient one ordered. We need to learn to fight. She may help us, but how would we explain knowing what Immortals were and yet being unable to fight? "No," she said slowly. "I was in an automobile accident in Egypt and . . . . "
The woman's mouth twisted in a smile of acknowledgement. "And you got up from a fatal injury." Her voice was soft. "Maybe it's happened again since then. Maybe not. It will, though." She lifted her head, catching the bartender's eye and lifting two fingers. He nodded, and a minute later a pretty young woman delivered two drinks to the table. "Thanks," the Immortal woman said, and paid, pushing one drink across the table to Ghean. After the waitress was gone, she said, "I'm guessing that was the first headache like that you've felt."
Ghean nodded, picking up the drink to taste it, and grimaced. "What is this?"
"Gin and tonic." The brunette laughed. "It's awful, but it's cheap." She sipped her own drink, then offered a hand, across the table. "I'm Katerina. I was born in Venice four hundred and nineteen years ago. Have you ever used a sword?"
Surprise, largely heart-felt, flooded Ghean's face. I thought Immortals would be much more secretive. She shook the other woman's hand slowly. "I'm Ghean. I -- no, I've never used a sword."
"Funny, you look as though you're here. Maybe it's a case of here today, Ghean tomorrow." Katerina grinned, then shook her head. "Sorry. Unusual name. Kind of pretty, though. You're going to need a teacher, then. Finish your drink and we'll go to some nice little church and I'll tell you all about what you are."
Two days later Ghean went west with Katerina, to an isolated cabin in Navajo territory. "I lived with the tribes about three hundred years ago," Katerina explained. "Their holy people gave me permission to build a retreat here. It's a good place to hide, and to learn."
For three years, Ghean learned. Even Katerina towered over her, and most men would be at least the Venetian woman's height. "Use it to your advantage," Katerina ordered, and taught her the short sword, and the use of daggers first. Ghean came to love the elegance of the rapier, and drilled long hours even after practice had ended.
Katerina came out of the cabin early one morning to watch one such drill, arms folded. When Ghean eventually turned to her, the other woman came forward with an envelope. "There's more I can teach you, but you'd be better trained if you went to the far East. There are martial arts which will suit your size and frame, but I can't teach them to you. This is a letter to a friend of mine, and cash for the journey. I'll bring you to California. I've already arranged passage for you, if you're willing to go. It'll help you keep your head."
Not until the mid-30s did Ghean return to America. Only days after she landed, the thrill of warning shot through her as she walked a San Francisco street. The warning was accompanied by the close-by sound of swords clashing. Curious, she followed the sound, creeping forward down an alley to watch the battle. It lasted only minutes, two men silent with intent, the only sounds that of labored breathing and metal slamming against metal.
Ghean had taken no heads herself; the fury of lightning that rained from the sky was the closest she had ever been to a Quickening. She stood rigid in the aftershock, hair blown astray and heart racing as the survivor walked away, down the other end of the alley. Ghean sank against a wall, eyes closed, only to shriek in surprise when someone put a hand on her shoulder. Years of drilling came into play before she thought, as she knocked the hand away, and nearly drove the heel of her hand forward into the lower chest of the man who'd touched her.
He jumped back nervously, both hands lifted in apology. "I'm sorry," he said. He was brown-haired and brown-eyed, mild- looking. "You saw?" he asked, though he gave no indication what she might have seen.
Ghean pulled in a breath, about to deny having seen the battle as the man lowered his hands. For an instant she froze, reconstructing the image of his hands in the air. There was a mark on his inner wrist, impossibly familiar. "I -- what was -- he killed that man!" she blurted. "And the storm! Where did it come from?"
The brown man hesitated. "It would be best if you forgot what you saw," he suggested.
Ghean shook her head. "No. No, I want to know. What was it? Who were they? You know, don't you?" She could hear her accent growing thicker, and calmed herself a little. "Please tell me."
Another hesitation, then the man gestured withhis head. "Walk with me a little while," he said. "Tell me about yourself. My name is Thomas Burns."
"Marion," she replied in kind. "Marion Townsend." It was the name that had been on her travelling papers, the ones Katerina had provided for her. "I just came to San Francisco. I want to go to college. I want to learn history."
"Do you?" Thomas smiled. "I'm a historian, myself."
Ghean lifted her eyebrows. "I don't think I've ever seen a historian with a tattoo." She nodded a little at his wrist. "That's what's on your wrist, isn't it?"
He smiled again, and turned his wrist over, displaying a dark blue tattoo, a deeply curved Y within a circle. Ghean stared, feeling heat surge to her face.
It isn't possible, the frightened one insisted, and even the patient one seemed to agree. There was no detail within the Y, yet the curves were terribly familiar. The circle bordering the design had thirteen points. Ghean counted them rapidly, and then again, heart pounding.
It has to be, she told the voices. The thirteen Houses in the circle, just like all the House symbols had. The ram's head. It has to be. That's my House symbol!
After five thousand years? the frightened one demanded dubiously. It's impossible.
It's improbable, Ghean corrected it, and slowly looked up at Thomas. "It's very interesting. What's it of? The only tattoos I've ever seen have been fantastic creatures or women's names, things like that."
Thomas shrugged, smiling again. "It's a symbol that caught my eye a long time ago."
Ghean glanced back down the street towards the alley where the battle had been. It's impossible, the frightened one whispered. Aloud, she guessed, "It has something to do with the fight back there, doesn't it?"
Thomas stopped walking, frowning down at her. "You're very astute."
Ghean nearly stopped breathing. How? What does my family have to do with the Immortals? Who are you? Why are you watching us? What do you know about us? She stopped the race of thoughts with effort, and said, "I think I would like you to tell me about it, if you would."
Eight months later, Ghean entered the Watcher Academy. She had taken no heads, and her life as an Immortal had been quiet enough, evidently unnoticed by the Watchers. She went into research as quickly as she could, and in a few years transferred to the European branch of the Watchers, unable to find what she was looking for within the American texts.
The Parisian vaults held no more answers regarding the use of her House signet than the American histories had. Paris did, however, have dozens of texts on the only Immortal she had any interest in finding. They were called the Methos Chronicles, and for nearly a thousand years, there had been no new entries. The final journal came from 1066, the Battle of Hastings; his Watcher had lost him, and no one since had been able to find him. There were a few sightings that might have been him, over the last ten centuries, but most of the writers seemed to agree that Methos was dead, if he'd really ever existed at all. More than one chronicler suggested 'Methos' had been a number of Immortals over the centuries, laying claim to the name of a legend.
Ghean sat with the newest of the Methos Chronicles a long time, turning pages without really seeing them. It hadn't really occurred to me he might be dead, she realized. Even looking at the scrawled handwriting that recorded the last verified sighting, she did not entirely believe it.
She had time. If her old lover was still alive, she would find him somehow. The Chronicles were a disappointment in that aspect. She decided to study them anyway, as much for the sake of learning history as reading about her beloved. The newer texts were fairly easy to decipher, written in Old English or German, but she had to spend years learning Classical Greek and Latin. The latter was easier, and let her read back centuries; the former took more time, but the oldest texts about Methos were in that language.
The older the books, the more unweildy they were. By the time she had learned enough Greek to read the very oldest books, the covers were nearly as thick as the paper between them. They were terribly fragile, three thousand years old, and Ghean turned the heavy covers and thick paper carefully, remembering the fine, thin paper her mother had used in Atlantis.
The next piece of paper was very nearly that thin, and Ghean's fingers slipped on it, crumbling an edge to dust. She'd hardly been reading the pages as she turned them, and gave the piece under her hand a startled glance.
My darling Ghean,
For a few seconds Ghean couldn't read beyond the first words, written in her mother's delicate hand, in her native tongue of Atlantean.
My darling Ghean,
I realize the chances of you finding this are so slim as to be nonexistant. Still, I write these words in the hopes that this letter will somehow survive the centuries and end up in your hands.
Your Methos saved my life. I find this ironic, as only weeks before I had chosen to make him and his kind my life's study. Had he not saved me when Atlantis fell, that study would have died with me, and the Watchers would not exist. Because he did, I have this final chance to communicate with you, through the barrier of time.
He said that you died in the first moments of the panic. I have no reason to doubt him, other than the hopes of an aging mother. I know that you are, as he is, Immortal, or have that potential within you. It is a comfort to me to imagine that you somehow survived the destruction of Atlantis and live on, last child of our House.
Sheer willpower prevented Ghean from crumbling the paper to dust. Her hands trembling, she stared down at the words. I know that you are Immortal. She was betrayed on all sides. Shaking, she took her hand away from the paper, to prevent herself from clenching her fist and taking her mother's last words to her away. In time, she was able to go on.
I do not know when you will find this letter. I do not know what the world will be like, how much it will have changed, where the Watchers archives might be.
If you have found this at all, it is likely you have found the Watchers themselves. I chose the symbol of House Aries as the marker for the Watchers before Atlantis fell; now I am glad I did so, for it is a sign you should be able to recognize, no matter how many years pass.
I have taught many of my followers -- the Watchers -- Atlantis' tongue and written language, for it is more elegant than any other writing yet known. I can only imagine what language this letter might have been translated in to by the time you find it. I only hope that in whatever form, it survives the years, and that you, too, have somehow survived, and will be able to read this.
If you do, share your history with the Watchers. Share our family with them, as they are a very real legacy of House Aries. Tell them of Atlantis, and if there is some way in the new world that you live in to bring Atlantis back to the sun, I hope that you will try. I hope that its magic will be a part of the world again someday.
Remember that for all time, I love you.
It was signed with the graceful scrawl of Minyah's name.
Ghean read the letter until she could see the words with her eyes closed, committing them to memory. Her mother had known, and hadn't told her. We don't interfere, the patient one reminded her, echoing Katerina's lessons.
She was my mother! Ghean shouted back. She wasn't Immortal! She wasn't bound by the same rules! She should have told me!
She began the Watchers, the patient one said, too rationally. She made her own rules of non-interference. We couldn't have known Atlantis would fall. If we'd known, perhaps she'd have told us, to protect us. It's too late now. Let it go. Be glad there is anything of her at all, after all this time.
Ghean's head dropped, and she nodded a little. "The letter," she murmured, in Atlantean, "the Watchers, and me. And someday, we'll bring back Atlantis for her." Feeling weary, she turned the letter over, trying to focus again on Methos' history.
A second piece of paper cracked free of the back of the letter, falling forward against the Chronicle's pages. For a handful of seconds she simply stared at the blank sheet. Picking it up took conscious will. She could see the impressions from where pressure had sealed it to the back of her mother's letter. I wonder how long it's been since anyone's looked at the Methos Chronicles. She turned the sheet over, carefully. It was old, but far less delicate than the ancient sheet her mother's letter had been written on. Seeing her name written again, in a different hand but in the same tongue, sent a dull sick thud through her, the feeling of a missed heartbeat.
Ghean,
This is the third time I've joined the Watchers to make certain your mother's letter was all right, and to hide something she left for you. It's funny, the things we do for long-dead friends. I can't imagine that you're alive, and still, here I am.
If you're reading this, you're in the Paris Headquarters. In the extremely impressive vault where they keep my chronicles, there's a safe cut into the wall in the back bottom left-hand corner. I could fit under the stacks to cut it there, so I'm sure you can fit under it to open it up. There's no lock, just the stone set back into the wall. There's a box in there, one of those damned Atlantean things with the pressure points. Minyah left it for you when she died. I expect it's going to stay there for the rest of eternity, but here I am writing a note to someone forty-six centuries dead anyway.
I wish I could have saved you, Ghean. There was no time, and I don't believe anybody could have survived that cataclysm. I still think about you sometimes. I hope your rest has been a peaceful one.
There was no name, only a date, written out in longhand, in Atlantean: eighteen hundred and forty-five.
Ghean set the letter down gently, hands shaking. Only ninety years ago. He's alive. The conviction filled her.
He's alive.
Chapter Eight
I thought she would forbid the marriage.
Methos sat gracelessly, scowling at toes buried in hot sand. That would have been convienent, wouldn't it? The thought was a mix of acidic and amused. Methos shook his head, half smiling despite himself, and lifted his eyes to look over the shifting sand. Wind blew grains into small heaps, and smoothed them out again, an ever-changing constant. Relieving me of the burden of choice. Methos half grinned again, standing and silding down the dune into one of the endless valleys of sand. It's never that easy.
I probably shouldn't have told her about Ghean. Methos glanced at the sun, and closed his eyes, afterimage dancing behind his eyelids. I wonder what she'll do.
"What would you do?" he demanded of himself, stopping at the top of a dune. "If you had a child?" He shied away from the question, even asking himself, in the same way he'd argued it with Minyah: I can't have children. It's not a relevant question.
The corner of his mouth turned up in a sardonic grin. All right, he admitted, silently, to the sands. If I had a child, a girl like Ghean, I'd probably throw her off the Sphinx myself. He looked up at the sun again, hard white ball in the heat-seared sky. Time is such a gift. The pain of losing friends balances it, but the possibilities time grants are too great to ignore. Their lives are so short. So many of then disappear so quickly. Even the lucky ones burn bright for their brief moments, and still they're simply gone.
Ghean burns bright. He smiled at the sun, eyes closing to better envision her face, dark eyes and a quick smile, enthusiastic for life. Time might dull that edge, but the gift is greater than the potential loss. I'll tell her. Not yet, but before her youth is gone.
I can't remember who told me the rules, anyway.
Methos slid back down the sand dune, following his tracks back towards the town. A more purposeful glance at the sun told him that he'd been debating the question for far longer than he'd thought. Hours had passed since he left Ghean to speak with Minyah. Ghean will have chewed her fingernails off. He chuckled, and picked up his pace a little. Whether I tell her about herself now or not, Minyah is right. She needs to know about me.
The market was growing busier, with high noon's heat passed. Methos made his way through the growing crowd, skimming for Ghean's small figure. A chill, at odds with the lowering sun, ran up his spine, and he turned, searching for the Immortal who'd triggered the warning.
Aroz sat at a table under an open tent. He lifted his head, looking over his shoulder with the same slightly wary expression that graced Methos' features. When he saw Methos, a frown settled over his face, but his eyes dropped, unchallenging. Just beyond him sat Ghean, fixedly studying a cup of juice which she held in both hands. She looked up as Aroz settled back into place, craning her neck to look around him. With a smile, she came to her feet, darting around the end of the table to come towards Methos. She waved her juice cup, grinning. "You're always so easy to see. So much taller than everyone else."
"Really? I hadn't noticed." Methos still watched the other Immortal, whose face darkened again as Ghean left his side without a word. He met Methos' eyes again, and this time the challenge that had not been there a moment earlier was clear. Methos returned the gaze blandly, glancing down at Ghean so he would not have to acknowledge Aroz's intent.
Ghean frowned up at him. "What's wrong? Did Mother say no?"
"Actually," Methos said absently, "she said yes. We need to talk, Ghean."
Ghean let out a happy shout of delight, nearly flinging the contents of her cup into the air. "She did! Oh, I knew she would!" She switched the cup into her other hand, licking spilled juice off the backs of her fingers, and then drained the remaining juice from the cup, pressing the empty vessel into the hands of a startled passer-by. The man blinked at it momentarily, then grinned as Ghean caught Methos' hands in hers and began pulling him towards a nearby booth. "Come, let's get betrothal bracelets now, Methos!"
Merchants suddenly appeared out of the crowds, barking out pricing and quality of their wares. "Betrothal tokens!" called the man at the booth Ghean dragged Methos towards. "You'll find no better! For the outlanders, a special price, mm? Let me show you." He lifted a pair of glittering bracelets, turning them to catch the afternoon sunlight.
Methos glanced at one perfunctorily. "Very nice," he said politely. "Ghean, later, all right? We need to talk about some things?"
Ghean sighed, casting a hopeful look at the bracelets. "All right," she agreed. "Later," she promised the merchant, then looked up at Methos. "What's wrong? Did Mother say something awful? I told her not to!"
Methos laughed in spite of himself. "No, she said nothing awful. She made me think, though. Come back to my tent? We need some privacy."
Ghean's mouth curved in a slow smile. "That sounds promising," she purred, an entirely different voice than the concerned one of a moment ago.
Methos looked down at her, and laughed. "None of that," he warned, "or I'll entirely forget what I need to talk to you about."
Ghean smiled again. "You'll remember later."
"What," Ghean asked, some hours later, "did you want to talk about?" She propped her chin on Methos' chest, blinking sleep away hazily.
Methos opened his eyes slowly, looking at the tent roof. It was nearly seven feet high, far taller than any of the other tents in the city. The extra yards of fabric had cost him, but it was well relief from the sense that the roof was balanced precariously on his own head. "Mmmf," he said thoughtfully, and turned on his side to wrap his arms around Ghean, kissing her hair. "Can't it wait?"
"It was very important four hours ago," Ghean pointed out, grinning at his chest.
"Mmm-hmm. And I was cruelly distracted and it's gone clean out of my head. I'm left with nothing but inspired passion for you." He grinned, ducking his head to kiss her.
"I don't believe you," Ghean said happily. "What was it? I want to go find some dinner."
"Ah," Methos said, "You don't really care what I have to say. This is just a ploy to wake me up and get me moving so you can eat."
Ghean rolled him back onto his back, flinging an elbow over his chest and resting her chin on the back of her hand. "I can think of other ways to get you moving," she threatened idly. "Of course, those will neither get me dinner nor talk about your important topic. Now, go on. I'm listening." She moved her hand a little, to kiss his chest, watching him through her eyelashes.
Methos sighed, eyes closing contentedly. "I'm not sure where to start," he confessed. Ghean hitched herself up on an elbow and kissed his chest again, along the breastbone.
"You'd better think of somewhere," she said, "or I will, and then I'll miss dinner."
"That really doesn't help me think, Ghean," he pointed out. She looked up with an unrepentant smile, and resumed the kisses. Laughing, he dropped an arm over his eyes. This is decidedly more entertaining than explaining myself. Maybe it could wait until . . . "No," he half groaned, aloud, and rolled onto his side, firmly setting Ghean several inches away. "That line of distraction will keep me from talking about this for years, and it really is important, Ghean."
Brown eyes sparkled merrily back at him. "Oh, all right." Ghean propped her head on her hand, elbow crooked. "What is it?" She studied his face a moment, and her eyebrows drew down. "It's all right," she assured him, and put a small hand against his chest. "Go on."
Methos sighed. This is never easy. "Ghean, what -- this is going to sound absurd. I need you to hear me out, all right?"
Her eyebrows reversed, crinkling up, and she nodded, wide- eyed.
Methos nodded a little, pulling in a breath. "You remember yesterday when I said I'd learned to read when I was younger?"
Ghean's eyebrows remained elevated. "Well, of course. I suppose a few people outside of Atlantis do learn to read when they're children."
Methos shook his head a bit. "Not when I was a child. Just . . . younger. I have no memories of my childhood, when or where I was born."
Ghean shrugged easily. "So? I hardly remember anything before I was five or six. Most people don't, I think. That's hardly unusual."
"I know. But I didn't learn to read ten or fifteen years ago, Ghean. I learned to read about five hundred years ago."
Ghean's eyebrows shot back up, and she laughed. "Methos, whatever it is you need to tell me, it can't be as bad as all this. Five hundred years ago, indeed. Stop making up stories and just tell me."
A thin smile twisted Methos' mouth. "Ghean, I'm over a thousand years old. I learned to read nearly at the very moment the world outside Atlantis discovered the arts of reading and writing. I'm Immortal."
Ghean frowned, shaking her head. "Methos, stop it. You're frightening me."
He took another deep breath. "This is the truth, Ghean. I've lived ten centuries, or more. There are others like me, who don't die. We heal very quickly, and the only way to kill one of us is to take our head."
Ghean sat up, pulling blankets around her, frown growing deeper. "Methos, stop this. It isn't funny."
"No," he agreed, "it isn't." He sat up as well, reaching under the pallets that made up the bed on the tent's floor, to pull a short, fat-bladed sword from beneath the matting. Settling back on his heels, he laid the blade across his thighs a moment, looking at Ghean. "I don't usually explain this to people unless they've seen me die; I told none of my other wives save one. Still, it seems the best way to explain is to show you. Please don't scream." With a swift, sure motion, he lifted the short sword again and spliced open his palm, hissing with pain.
Ghean jerked in a horrified gasp of air, lurching to her feet. "Methos! You'll need a physician!"
"Watch," he said quietly, and spread his hand, fingers splayed back, to display the cut. Bone was visible for a few moments, tendons laid bare as crimson flowed between his fingers to drip on the blankets. Ghean swayed where she stood, watching as both ends of the injury began to heal, eating inwards to the deepest part of the cut. Fresh blood discolored and dried as the healing slowed a little, severed tendons visibly knitting together, then muscle reconstituting. The skin reformed in a smooth swirl. Methos closed his hand in a fist, and looked up at Ghean.
Her eyes were locked on his hand, shock stamped on her face. "How -- how?" Her eyes snapped to meet his, fear in the demanding question.
"I am Immortal," Methos repeated softly. "That kind of injury is easiest to . . . demonstrate with. I can do something more drastic, if you need me to."
"No!" Ghean's voice rose sharply. She took a step back, clutching the blanket around herself more tightly. "It's not possible. No one heals that fast. You're tricking me somehow. Why are you doing this? It's not funny. Why are you doing this?"
Methos opened his hand again slowly. Rust-colored flakes broke and fell away, leaving no trace of the cut. "Because you deserve to know who it is you might marry. What I am."
Ghean's eyes dropped to his unscarred palm. "Are -- are you a god?"
He lowered his head, shaking it. "No. Not a god. Just a man, Ghean. Different than most, but just a man. I don't want to frighten you, Ghean, but you had to know before we married. Please . . . ." He reached out towards her, to catch her hand.
Ghean bolted backwards, nearly tripping over the blanket she clutched. "No! Don't touch me! Don't -- !" She whirled and ran for the door, darting out into the sands.
Well over a week passed. Methos made himself easy enough to avoid, keeping to his tent during the hot days, venturing out at night to pace the desert and think. He didn't quite believe Ghean would return to him. It is not easy to learn that your lover is not at all what you thought he was. Methos sat in the sand with a faint groan, looking up at the star-littered sky. Sharp-edged in the desert's clear air, only a few shone with any color, traces of blues and reds. The rest were stark, white against black. The universe presents itself as black and white, and we're offended when there are shades of grey inbetween.
"It's a lot easier to see things in black and white. I thought you were all white, at first. A good scholar, a good man, someone to love."
Methos startled, looking over his shoulder. "I didn't know I'd said that aloud."
Ghean continued down the side of the dune, towards him. "Then you told me what you were, and I thought you were all black. Something evil and unnatural, to be feared and hated."
Methos closed his eyes against the stars, staying silent this time.
"I have been thinking," Ghean went on, "very hard, these last several days." She sat down in the sand beside him, spreading a cloak out around her. Her hair was loose, falling over the cloack to brush against the sand. "I suppose I'm not very old, and I've always seen everything in black and white. But you're not black or white, are you?" It wasn't a question that needed answering. "You're grey. You belong to two different worlds, and that, if nothing else, makes you grey. You have to have different considerations. Do you try to do the right thing, Methos?"
"I try to stay alive." He sensed, more than saw, Ghean turning her head to look at him. "I don't know if I try to do the right thing. I thought telling you was the right thing, not for survival, but because I love you. I have done things you wouldn't consider right, to survive. I'm sure I will again."
Ghean nodded, looking out over the desert, quiet. "You're a thousand years old?"
Methos shrugged a little. "I think so. Maybe more, maybe a little less. I don't remember much before I started keeping journals."
"When was that?"
Methos' mouth turned up in a smile. "About ten minutes after they invented writing. Five hundred, eight hundred years ago."
"You said 'your other wives'."
Methos nodded. "I've been married. Eight or nine times."
"How many of them knew?"
"Three. Two who saw me die and come back, and a third whom I chose to tell." Methos smiled again. "She was a lot like you."
Ghean glanced at him. "Why did you tell me?"
He looked at her, then at the desert. "Atlanteans live a long time. It's easier than lying or acting out an old age I'm not actually acheiving. You'd have realized in a few years, ten years, that something was wrong. You're too intelligent to accept lies, in the long run. I'd have to tell you the truth eventually. It seemed better to do it now."
Ghean almost laughed, making a sharp sound. "I'm not sure if I'm flattered or insulted."
Methos twisted another smile. "Be flattered," he advised. "It's not your age that makes you see things in black and white. Most people never learn to see any other way."
"Most people," Ghean said, "aren't in love with a thousand- year-old-man. Tell me about being Immortal, Methos. It's hard to imagine. Everyone dreams of never dying, but what's it really like?"
You'll find out. Aloud, he said, "Exhilarating. And difficult. Watching those you love age and die while you remain eternally the same never stops hurting."
"I don't believe anyone can remain eternally the same."
Methos shot her a startled look, and smiled quickly. "I'd love to debate the philosophy with you."
"Haven't you changed?" she asked. "Since you became Immortal?"
Methos tilted his head. "If you overlook the fact that I don't know what I was like before I became Immortal . . . yes, I have. It might be more accurate to say while you remain unaging. It isn't easy, however you phrase it."
Ghean nodded, silent again for a while. "Mother explained to me what you'd told her. How you fight with each other. Will you and Aroz fight?"
"If he makes it necessary."
"Will you kill him?"
"If I can."
Ghean shuddered a little, drawing her cloak tightly around herself. "How many men have you killed?"
Methos shook his head. "I stopped counting. The only time I see the faces clearly are in dreams."
"You frighten me," Ghean admitted in a small voice.
Methos sighed. "I don't want to, Ghean. In most respects, I am what you thought I was. I'm a scholar. My interest is in watching history, not making it. All I want is to keep seeing it happen. My luck is in that I have more time to do that than most people do."
"And you'll really live forever."
Methos smiled. "Or die trying."
Ghean looked at him, surprised, and laughed. "I guess that's what we all do." She pressed her lips together, watching the desert again. "How many others are there like you? Are they all as old as you?"
"I don't know. New Immortals are born -- made -- every day, but I have no idea how many. Whether there are any older than I am," he shrugged. "I don't know that either. I don't know how old I am, which makes it hard to say. I haven't met anybody older than I am."
"Were you the first?"
The image of the axe rising and falling, blood dull in the pale moonlight, danced in front of the stars. "I don't know," he said again. "I don't think so." Was the one who died my teacher? Or just some chance Immortal whose life crossed with mine, just to end in that rush of instinct? Eyes closing, Methos tried to chase down the memories. The images faded again, to a grey blur that crystalized into surety only as the battle with the nameless stranger began. He shook his head, and repeated, "I don't know."
Ghean nodded, drawing her knees up under her chin, silent again for a time. Eventually, just louder than the wind, she asked, "How can someone like you love someone like me?"
Ah. There's the real question. Methos turned to face her, not quite daring to reach out and pull her against himself. "How could I not?" he asked, as softly. "You're intelligent and brave -- bold enough to come back, to face me even after I told you about myself. Your vivacity, your love for life -- they remind me of why life is worth living, even after the long years. Without someone like you, there's just history, and history is mostly about death." He fell quiet a moment, then added, "I need you more than you need me, Ghean." The words faded in the darkness, while he considered how much truth was in them.
Ghean nodded slowly, then leaned against him, sighing. Methos smiled, sliding his arm around her shoulders. "I'm glad you came back," he whispered, lowering his head to kiss her.
He froze mid-motion as a warning headache flowed through him. Kiss abandoned, he stiffened, lifting his head to search the shadowed dunes. Ghean straightened, frowning curiously as she pushed a strand of hair back from her face. "Methos? What is it?"
"Company," Methos growled, and scrambled to his feet, hand on the sword's hilt at his waist. Ghean remained where she was, seated in the sand, looking up at him with confusion. "Go," he ordered. "There's another Immortal. Go back to the town. I'll meet you there later."
Her eyes widened in alarm, pupils swallowing the brown in the faint moon's light. "No!" she protested. "I'll stay. I won't leave you!"
A shadow separated itself from the night, easy strides across the sand marking Aroz's approach. Black eyed, black haired, black skinned, and black-robed, he stood several inches shorter than Methos, inches lost in height made up in breadth. His face was sharp-edged, craggier than Methos', with thin white scars under his cheekbones and on his chin. He stopped several feet from the pair, a dangerous slash of darkness against the night, and bowed slightly to Ghean.
"There you are, Ghean. Your mother asked me to find you and send you home." Aroz's voice was at odds with his appearance, smooth and light, not the voice of a warrior. He lifted his eyes from Ghean to Methos. "Methos and I have business to attend to."
Ghean shook her head, coming to her knees in the sand. "No. No, Aroz. Bring me back with you. I'll go back with you right now. With you." She climbed to her feet, hovering between the two men.
"Ghean," Methos said gently. "Go on. It's all right. I will see you," he repeated firmly, "in a few minutes." The bronze blade he drew made a whisper of sound as it left the sheath. Aroz drew his own blade. Methos watched it glint dull silver in the moonlight, and whispered a curse under his breath. His own blade was hard won and had taken time to forge, but the color of Aroz's sword suggested it was of the legendary Atlantean steel. "Ghean," Methos said more urgently, "go."
Ghean whimpered, then ran, tripping over her cloak and pulling herself up the sandy hillside with hands and feet. In mere seconds, the desert swallowed the sounds of her flight. Methos' shoulders loosened, and he turned his full attention on the other Immortal.
Aroz paced around him in a wide circle, sizing him up in a nearly ritualistic fashion. Methos turned slowly, to watch him, steadily, waiting patiently for Aroz to press the attack. Only when he had completed a full circuit around Methos did Aroz speak.
"You have the reach." His light voice was pitched to carry just to Methos, no further. "But I have the better blade. Make this easier on both of us, and let me take you. I will tell Ghean you fought well."
"Thank you," Methos said, "but I'd prefer to carry my own tidings. Are you mad? We don't have to do this."
"We do," Aroz disagreed. "If for no other reason than there can be only one."
"Right," Methos grated. "Ghean has nothing to do with it."
"She would make a fine temporary prize, wouldn't she?" With a shout, Aroz sprang forward, the deadly steel blade whistling down towards Methos' weaker bronze blade. Methos danced backwards, withdrawing his sword just slowly enough that sparks darted along the edges of both blades as they clashed together. Methos winced, seeing threads of metal shard away from his sword. This is going to have to be a fast fight, or I'm going to be left without anything to fight with.
He spun away from another charge, stepping just outside Aroz's reach and whirling to drive a wide, circular blow towards Aroz's back. Aroz, misjudging the length of Methos' reach, turned back to the battle and all but into the swing of Methos' blad. Skin tore in a wide rent, and the smaller Immortal staggered back with a startled gasp. Hardly defeated, he knocked the bronze sword aside, wrapping his free arm around his side to stem the bloodflow while his Immortal body knitted itself back together
Methos pressed the attack, unwilling to let the advantage go. Too tall to effectively step inside Aroz's reach and still leave himself room to manuever, he met a strike or two with quick parries, watching nicks fly from the edges of his blade as the two swords met. A third blow he deflected badly, deliberately, and crashed to his knees, leaving himself open and vulnerable.
Aroz grinned in triumph, a flash of white against his pain- etched dark face. He took two running steps forward, sword lifted high for the final strike.
Methos flicked his free hand to his belt, whipping out the horn table knife he wore there, and shoved it into Aroze's abdomen, just above the pelvis, halting the charge. Aroz staggered, shocked, and Methos rolled out of danger's way, to his feet, the knife in his hand. While the other Immortal swayed, Methos smashed his blade against Aroz's wrist, severing tendons. The steel sword fell to the sand. Aroz followed it, to his knees. Methos took a breath, and swung his sword back to deal the killing blow.
"No!" Ghean's scream made both men jerk, looking up. Methos' sword stopped, a breath from Aroz's neck. Ghean fell down the dune, unable to keep her feet, sliding to a halt a few feet from Methos. "Methos, no, please, don't. Please. I've known him all my life. I don't want him to die."
Methos rested his sword at the joint between neck and shoulder, holding it steady and not taking his eyes from Aroz. "May I point out," he said, a little shortly, "that he was just trying to kill me?"
"He won't do it again. Will you, Aroz? Please? Please promise me. I don't want you to die. I don't want either of you to die. Promise you won't try to kill Methos. Please?" The words rushed out of the young woman, desperate.
For a long moment there was silence, broken by the harsh breathing of both warriors. Finally, Aroz inclined his head in agreement. Methos crouched and picked up the steel blade, leaving his own sword still at Aroz's neck.
"Spoils of war," he said thinly. "Care to argue?" He waited a few seconds, then straightened again, throwing his bronze sword to the sand. "I didn't think so." He turned to stalk up the shifting sand dunes. Behind him, Ghean hesitated, looking at Aroz. Then she turned to run after Methos, catching up with him in a few steps.
"Methos?" she whispered.
"I told you to go back to the town," he growled.
Ghean flinched, but lifted her chin. "I couldn't. Not with the two of you fighting. I couldn't bear to lose either of you."
Methos shoved the steel blade into his belt and glared down at her. "You shouldn't have interefered. It's what we do, Ghean. I told you that."
"I couldn't sit back and do nothing," she insisted. Her eyes were angry in the reaching light of the town's fires. Looking at her, Methos felt his own anger beginning to fade. He kept quiet until they reached his tent, and he held the door flap aside for her.
"I don't suppose you could have," he said then, tiredly. He sat down on the carpeted floor, cross-legged, withdrawing the blade from his belt again. For a moment he tilted it, studying the workmanship, and then found a cloth to rub over it, bringing more gleam to the metal. "But Ghean, you have to promise me. Next time, you can't interfere. It's one of our Rules. No mortal observers, no interference once a battle is met. Promise me."
Ghean sat down across from him, pulling her hair over her shoulder and tugging on it while she considered him. "No," she said, finally. Methos looked up, surprised. "I can't promise. I can't imagine letting you fight to your death if I could prevent it. So I won't promise." Her chin set defiantely.
Methos started at her a moment, then laughed, setting the blade aside and placing his hands on either side of her face. Too late, he noticed the blood still staining his skin, from stabbing Aroz. Ghean noticed it as well, and he waited for her to cringe.
Instead, she lifted her small hands to cover his, with a steady strength. "I love you," she said. "I can't promise not to interfere."
Methos couldn't stop the smile that worked its way across his face. "You are an impossible woman."
"I am," she agreed. "I have to be. I'm going to marry a man who's much more impossible than I am." She picked up the sword to set it aside, then reached for the knife Methos had put back in his belt. "Let's put these away for the night," she whispered, "and find a less war-like way to distract ourselves."
Methos' smile turned into a grin. "If you insist."
Chapter Nine
Lights came up slowly in the auditorium, giving the audience time to adjust. Ghean took the time to scan the hall, searching for the Immortal she'd sensed when she came onstage. The crowd shifted, collecting coats and bags in preparation for departure. A few of the more curious made their way forward to the stage, for a question-and-answer session. Ghean ignored them for a few moments, searching for the seats that had been abandoned at the beginning of her lecture. A couple from that section of the house came up to the stage, but there was no warning from them; whomever had left had almost certainly been the Immortal who triggered the warning. Ghean tapped her thumb against pursed lips, building the glimpse she'd caught of the trio leaving into a more solid image.
Three men, all tall, the patient one recounted. All with short hair. One had an awkward gait, as if he'd been injured. That's probably not our man. The second was slender, and the third taller than the other two, and wider of shoulder. One of the last two.
Ghean nodded faintly, unaware of the motion. One of the second two, she agreed. Not much to go on. She glanced at the convening group on the stage, then beckoned Michael onstage from where he stood in the wings. "Could you field the questions for me?" she asked. "I think I caught sight of an old friend in the audience, and I'd like to try to catch up with him."
Michael, not tall himself, smiled down at her. "Of course. I keep telling you that you don't get out enough. Go catch up. Don't forget the flight leaves at eleven tomorrow morning."
Ghean grinned. "If I got out more, I wouldn't have dedicated my entire life to this dig and we wouldn't have found Atlantis yet." She stood on tip-toe, kissing Michael's cheek. He blushed clear to the top of his shiny head, and Ghean grinned again. "I'll be at the airport with bells on," she promised, then hurried backstage. The clunky, thick-soled shoes she wore for the lecture added much-needed height, but they were impractical for wandering Chicago streets at night. She kicked them off, pulling on black Keds, not bothering to untie them first. Being small makes them underestimate us, the patient one reminded her. We can fight to compensate for it.
I know, she answered irritably. That doesn't mean I like it. At least in Atlantis the women didn't tower over me, too. She pulled her coat off the back of a chair, and pushed open the stage door, frowning thoughtfully down the hall as she went up to the main lobby. A bored youth sat behind the ticket booth, head tilted back as he stared at the ceiling. Ghean grinned. "Excuse me?"
The boy jerked upright, guiltily. "What? Yes? Uhm, yes ma'am. What can I do for you?"
Ghean gestured loosely at the door. "A trio of men left just after the lecture began. Did you see them, by any chance?"
The kid nodded. "Yeah. Three of 'em, an old guy and a couple others. The old guy walked funny."
Ghean inclined her head. "That's them. Did you happen to see which way they went?"
"Nah." He shook his head. "They just headed out. The guy with the nose didn't look very happy. Oh, hey, he said somethin' about findin' a bar or a coffee shop or something. Does that help?"
Ghean's eyebrows quirked and she laughed. "The guy with the nose?" She laughed again, shaking her head. "It does help, thank you." She began to turn away, then reconsidered, looking back. "Was one of them wearing a long coat, kind of like mine?" She moved her hands in her pockets, making the tails of her trenchcoat swing.
"Two of them," the kid supplied helpfully. "The young guys. Hope you find them. Hey." He squinted at her. "Did you really find Atlantis?"
Ghean paused again, smiling. "I really did."
"How do you know it's really Atlantis?"
Carefree, Ghean grinned. "I was born there." She dropped the boy a wink, and crossed the lobby to walk out into the Chicago night.
Wind knocked hair into her eyes instantly, and she pushed it out of the way absently, walking away from the University. The streets were quiet, a steady drizzle beginning to fall as the last cars left from the lecture.
Whomever it was doesn't want to meet up with us, the patient one said. Perhaps he's young, and doesn't want to risk a battle. Ghean pressed her elbow against the hilt of her sword, hidden beneath her coat.
Maybe, she said, but I don't want a fight, just to talk. I want to see why he left.
It could be dangerous! the frightened voice broke in. Ghean shrugged dismissively.
I've had training, even taken a head or two. We'll be fine. It had only been a very few heads the small woman had taken. The Watcher files had proved very useful, and Ghean didn't want to risk her ability to rejoin the Watchers at some point if she needed their knowledge again. The only battles she'd fought had been after making absolutely sure the Immortals had no Watchers nearby. Idly, she lifted a hand to touch the pendant of her necklace.
The vault the Methos Chronicles were kept in was dusty, not impressive. Ghean scowled at the lower left-hand corner, crouched to peer under the stacks. The shelving was far too deep to just reach back and feel for the crack that would indicate where the safe Methos had cut out would be. Bringing a mop into the vault would be noted. Ghean swore softly, and batted at the dust, then sighed and crawled under the shelving. Even with a flashlight, it took several minutes of squirming to find the edges where the stone had been cut. Ghean sneezed. How the hell did he expect me to pull this out? There's no handholds, no grooves. I'm not as strong as he is.
He didn't expect you to at all, the patient one said helpfully. He thinks you're dead.
Oh, shut up. Ghean gained a tiny purchase against the stone, pulling back without success. Her fingers slid off the sharp corner, skin tearing.
Trapped! the frightened one screamed. Trapped again! Forever and ever in the darkness again! We should have stayed! Atlantis was safe, we knew Atlantis! Now we're trapped again!
Ghean shuddered violently, biting back a panicked scream as she flung her arms up, hiding her face. Trapped!
We are not trapped. For the first time, the patient voice sounded impatient. Roll backwards. We're safe. There are answers to mysteries behind that stone, but we are not behind that stone. We're safe. We won't ever be trapped again. Now try again. We're fine. It subsided into a grumbling silence.
Ghean, trembling, unwound her arms, and tried a second time to pull the stone out. The struggle flew back and forth within her mind, practicality and fear shouting at each other until her own thoughts were all but drowned. When the stone abruptly came free, it shocked both voices into silence, and Ghean dropped her head against the stone floor in relief.
Gods, you're loud, she muttered, then wiggled backwards to pull the stone further out. It came out smoothly, once there was enough to get a grip on. Ghean brushed dust out of her eyes, studying the stone for a few seconds.
Time had distorted her memories too far to be sure, but she was fairly certain the lump of rock would have been too heavy for her mortal self to move, centuries ago. I don't have any idea what a normal strength is anymore, she realized. I'm no Atlas, but I don't think a woman my size should have been able to move that.
Greater endurance, greater strength, more developed senses, the patient one said. We are more than human. Not as great as a god, but greater than mortal.
Ghean rubbed a dirty hand over her face, picking up her flashlight, and crawled forward into the space left by the stone. I know, but why? Maybe when I've found Atlantis and we've had our revenge I can become a doctor, study what makes us the way we are . . . . The gap went back about three feet, more area than the stone she'd dragged out took, though there was nothing visibly set into the space. She lowered the flashlight, running her fingers over the floor, setting her teeth to ignore the screaming frightened voice. Too familiar, the search for imperfections. Shivering, she almost missed the thin bump in the floor. In a moment, she was able to lever the box out of the floor, and back up with it, flashlight clutched in her other hand.
She shoved the stone back into its resting place as quickly as she could, then sat on the floor of the vault, running her fingers over the Atlantean box. It took several minutes to find the subtle depressions where pressure would open the box, and she held her breath as it quietly clicked open.
An envelope lay at the end of the box, and two delicate velvet bags lay atop it. Ghean picked up the larger, working it open uncertainly, and turning it to spill its contents into her palm.
A silver chain tumbled out, drawing with it a pendant painful in its familiarity. Minyah's pendant, the symbol of House Aries, was blackened with time, the silver uncleaned in at least a century, but even so Ghean was certain it was her mother's original necklace. She slipped it on, fingers clutching the pendant. Even the voices were silent as she clung to the necklace, shivering every once in a while with memory.
Eventually she worked open the second bag. A gold ring, etched with the stamp of House Leo, fell into her palm, and she smiled a little. What little had been saved from Atlantis, it seemed, was now hers. She slipped it on over her thumb, where it fit snugly.
Methos' handwriting spelled out her name on the outside of the envelope, written in Atlantean as the other note had been. She slowly lifted it, still hardly breathing. It cracked open, and she withdrew the note carefully. A key fell with it, and she caught it quickly, scanning the note.
The key is to a safe-deposit box at the Bank of England, in London. Minyah's Watcher papers are there, detailing the first fifty years of the Watchers. The family name they're under is Lazarus; I couldn't help myself. Someday my sense of humour is going to get me in trouble. There's a bank account associated with the name. I didn't put much money in it, but I made the deposit in 1720. I rather expect it's built up. I imagine I'll use it someday, since I've got the other key to the safe-deposit box, and you've been dead forty-five centuries.
The things we do for old lovers.
Again, there was no signature. It was dated the same year as the note Ghean'd found in the book, 1845. Ghean sat, re- reading the words, and finally let out a breath. "Well," she whispered, "I hope all that money is still there. I'd like to be rich." She tucked the box under her arm, and stood, trying to brush some of the grime off her clothes as she left the vault.
Ghean turned the pendant again, splashing as she made her way down the street. If we were running away to hide in a bar, the patient one said, we'd find a bar with a bolthole.
Our shy friend might not be that clever, she replied, but nodded anyway, lifting a hand to tuck damp hair behind her ear. She crossed the street, continuing up the block to walk under a streetlamp that sputtered on and off with a faint electric hum. A rag-tag sign hung above a door in the wall, and she backed up to read the sign, resting her hand on the doorknob.
The rush of nausea hit her so fast she jerked back, yanking her hand off the doorknob as though it had caused the sudden illness. She backed up, staring at the door, and then a quick smile flashed over her face. She glanced both ways down the street, almost missing the alley a few yards further on in the dark and rain. Grinning, she walked down the alley to lean on the wall several feet from the bar's back door.
Methos broke off his story mid-word, an expression of intent assessment on his face. Duncan's eyebrows rose, and he leaned out of his booth, glancing through the dim bar at the front door in obvious expectation. Joe groaned. "Another one?"
Methos swung out of the booth, pulling a fistful of money from his pocket and throwing it on the table. "Come on," he said, looking over his shoulder nervously.
"Life with him is never dull," Duncan murmured to Joe as they both slid out of the booth.
"Not if you like running away," Joe agreed.
Methos began pushing his way to the back door, using his elbows liberally to clear the path. "A very wise man once said there's no problem so big you can't run away from it, Joe."
"Who was that?" Joe grinned. "You?"
"His name was Trent." Methos opened the back door, gesturing Duncan and Joe through before him.
Ghean grinned again as the door swung open. So I was right, she thought, the phrase borrowed from words her mother had often used, centuries past. That is always satisfying. She tilted her head a little, to better see whom it was she had trapped without yet revealing herself.
The first man out the door was the one with the awkward gait, a good-looking man in his early fifties. He used a cane, but perfunctoraly, as though it were old habit and largely unnecessary. Fond exasperation was settled into the lines of his face as he stepped away from the door, waiting for his companions.
The second man she recognized with a shock, from Watcher files a now a half century old. Duncan MacLeod was a favorite of the Watchers, a man who'd carried his chivalrous code down through four centuries. Ghean watched him with curiousity. At the moment, there was less exasperation than on the grey- haired man's face, and more amusement, settled on Duncan's face. The expression sat well on handsome features, and even through the rain, Ghean's eyebrows rose a little in appreciation. She'd only seen Watcher photographs of the man, and those fifty years ago. He was almost impossibly attractive. No wonder the list of lovers over the years reads like a telephone directory. She grinned again at the thought. There's my Immortal. I think I'm insulted. Duncan MacLeod doesn't exactly have a reputation for running from women Immortals.
The third man stepped out. Ghean's heart gave a violent lurch, pain of the missed beat settling into her gut as she stared, smile fading away. His black hair was cropped short now, but the sharp cheekbones and thin, expressive lips were the same. The guy with the nose, the boy's words came back to her. In the darkness, his deep-set eyes would be black, not entirely comfortable with the present situation. Ghean pressed up against the wall, steadying her breathing.
Methos turned to close the door with a solid thud, and leaned against it a moment, rubbing long hands over his face. "Let's find our hotel and hole up," the ancient Immortal muttered, loud enough to be heard over the rain. "I've had just a little too much fun tonight. I want an expensive bottle of whisky and no more surprises."
Duncan clapped him on the shoulder. "And then you'll tell us the rest of the story," he prompted. Methos dropped his hands to give Duncan a dirty look.
Ghean grinned so hard her teeth hurt from pressing them together. One more surprise, she thought gleefully, stepping out of the shadows. "One more surprise," she repeated, aloud, and flared a grin at the man she was going to kill. "Hello, Methos."
Chapter Ten
Methos went utterly still, barely breathing, like a rabbit trying to avoid detection by a soaring eagle. The rain increased from a drizzle to a more enthusiastic downpour, and after several seconds, water beaded and dripped off the end of his nose. Duncan and Joe stood nearly as motionless, transfixed by the small woman who'd appeared in the alley.
Ghean was even smaller in person than she'd appeared on stage, an easy two inches below five feet in height. Short, sharply bobbed hair was not quite long enough to tuck behind her ears, and damp threads swung forward to stick to her cheeks. Those threads highlighted brown eyes with a slight epicanthic fold and short eyelashes, eyes which were at the moment crinkled with a broad smile. Olive-toned skin appeared warm, even in the rain, the effect emphasized by a dark orange blazer, visible under her trenchcoat. The grin was so wide it looked painful.
The silence drew out as they all stared at each other. When it appeared Methos would seize up entirely before speaking, Ghean, without losing her grin, asked, "Were we going to stand here in the rain all night, or is there a more pleasant place for this little reunion?"
Methos flinched as though he'd been struck. Duncan, casting a glance at his friend, struggled with and lost to a grin, not quite as profound as Ghean's. As he opened his mouth to speak, Methos cut him off.
"How can you be alive?" It was an accusation. Joe and Duncan looked askance at the oldest Immortal. Some of the humour fled from Ghean's face.
"No one's taken my head yet," she said flatly, as deliberately obvious an answer as Methos' question had been. "Really, Methos, aren't you going to introduce me to your friends?" She stepped forward to offer her hand to Duncan. Methos took two steps backwards. Ghean lifted an eyebrow at him, and spoke to Duncan. "He used to be considerably more polite, I'm almost sure of it. I'm -- "
"Ghean." Methos came forward again, scowling down through the rain at the tiny woman. "I saw the t--"
Ghean cut him off with a quick gesture, tsking. "Don't spoil the punchline," she chided. "My guess is you've been telling them the whole story since you ran out of the auditorium."
"I did not run."
"You ran," Joe and Mac chorused, and Duncan took Ghean's hand, bowing slightly over it. "Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. It's a pleasure to meet you. Do you prefer Dr. Kostani, Mary, Ghean . . . ?"
Ghean smiled up at Duncan. "Ghean will do. Unlike my infamous husband here, nobody knows I exist." She watched Duncan's face, and nodded slightly. "I thought he'd have gotten that far."
"That's 'legendary'," Methos muttered. "Not 'infamous'."
"Ghean, then," Duncan replied. "And this is Joe Dawson."
Joe stuck his hand out to shake Ghean's. "Nice to meet you."
"You too, Joe." She studied the grey-haired man momentarily, and then asked, "I'm guessing we have no secrets here? You don't know Methos under another name?"
Joe gave Methos a sour look. "I met him as Adam Pierson, but no, I know his story. We go back a ways."
Ghean nodded. "It's unusual company you keep, Joe Dawson. Do you suppose, now that introductions are over, we might go somewhere dry? Or are you so offended to find me alive that you intend to stay out in the rain all night?" Ghean arched her eyebrows at Methos. "Running the moment you saw me isn't exactly the most charming way to greet your wife, Methos."
"I did not run." Methos brushed water off his face, scowling. "A hotel? Where are you staying, Ghean?"
"Actually, I have an apartment on campus. We could go back there, I suppose. It's only a few blocks."
"Do you have any beer?" Methos rubbed water off his nose again.
"As a matter of fact, I do."
"That'll do, then." Methos hunched his shoulders against the rain and stalked down the alley, kicking puddles. Ghean watched him, not moving until he reached the end of the alley and turned around impatiently, waiting for directions. Then she followed him up to the street, and took the lead.
The walk to Ghean's apartment was silent, the silence ranging from hostile and confused to outright curiosity as all four members of the group cast surreptitious looks at one another.
Ghean was the most outwardly composed. A general amusement seemed to permeate her as she treaded through the rain, grinning frequently at Methos' bunched shoulders. The sing-song, childlike chant ran through her mind: I know something you don't know!
He knows things we don't know, too, the patient one reminded her. We should be careful around him.
"I will be," she murmured under her breath as she examined the man just ahead of her.
Methos knew his entire body was expressing outraged tension, and didn't care enough to shake it off. Dead Immortals are not supposed to crop up at seminars! Particularly, he thought grumpily, dead Immortals I'm married to are not supposed to crop up at seminars. Despite the fact that it is painfully obvious that it is not impossible. Only incredibly improbable. He dropped his shoulders in resignation. Rain trickled down the neck of his coat. With a grunt, he hunched up again, forging over the curb and into the middle of the street before catching sight of Duncan turning up the sidewalk Methos had just stepped off. He frowned and altered his course to follow the Highlander.
Duncan trailed a few steps behind Ghean, keeping pace with Joe. Every block or so the one of them caught the other eyeing the other duo, and exchanged slightly abashed grins. "They'd better tell us the whole story," Duncan said, under the sound of rain. Joe grinned, ducking his head to suppress laughter.
"Right here," Ghean said suddenly, and turned to climb up a short set of stairs, digging keys out of the pocket of her trenchcoat. The locks clicked open, and she herded the men inside to drip on her carpet. "Towels, anyone?"
"Beer," Methos said, shedding his coat.
Ghean pursed her lips at him. "Perhaps it's just fond memory, but I'm sure I remember you being a little more polite."
Methos, shortly, said, "People change."
Duncan frowned. "Methos, there's no need to be rude."
Ghean opened a coat closet, reaching up for a hanger. "Why, thank you, Duncan. Do you make a habit of rescuing damsels who may or may not be in distress?" She hung up her coat, then turned to collect Methos' and Joe's coats. Duncan got his own hanger, smiling.
"I'm afraid so. Methos thinks it's a character flaw, but most of the damsels don't seem to mind."
"I'm sure they don't. The beer is in the fridge, Methos. Try not to drip too much on my carpets. The living room and kitchen are that way." She pointed down the hall and jerked her thumb to the left. "I'll be out in a few minutes." She disappeared into a second door in the hall, tennies squeaking on the hardwood floor. Methos stalked down the hall in search of beer, leaving Duncan and Joe behind. After a moment, running his hand through wet hair, Joe followed, turning the corner into the living room.
The room was elegantly decorated, primarily in creams. Bookcases, the top shelves no more than five and a half feet from the ground, were stuffed with textbooks of histories and languages. Knickknacks were settled on top of the bookcases: candle-holders of colored glass, a silver-framed photograph from the early twenties, of Ghean, and an accomplished wooden sculpture of the Sphinx. At the far end of one of the bookcases was a scarred white stone, wedge-shaped and out of place with the other graceful objects along the shelving. Halogen lamps bounced light off the ceiling and walls, the warm lighting clashing with the fluorescent light from the kitchen at the entrance end of the room.
A pale cream rug with splashes of crimson covered most of the floor. Joe started guiltily as water dripped onto the rug, and stepped back the edge, dripping on the hardwood instead. Methos walked by him from the kitchen, carrying four beers by the necks in his long fingers. "College professors must be getting paid better these days than I remember." Ignoring his squelching shoes, the ancient Immortal crossed the rug to sit on an overstuffed loveseat several shades darker than the rug. Three of the beers wet on a glass-topped oak table. The fourth he kept, twisting it open as Duncan came into the room, having discarded his shoes.
"You left footprints," Mac said disapprovingly. Methos tilted his beer back, shrugging his eyebrows.
"You're too refined, Mac. Water dries. Have a beer."
"You're always very free with other people's beer," Duncan observed, but came in to seat himself on a couch matching the loveseat. "Too refined? Aren't you the one who was calling me a barbarian a few days ago?" He reached for two of the beers, offering one to Joe as the Watcher came to sit on the couch as well.
"Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds." Methos smiled faintly.
"Isn't there another one about rudeness being the last resort of the feeble-minded?" Duncan asked. "Why are you being so unpleasant?"
"That's sarcasm, not rudeness."
"That wasn't the question I wanted answered, Methos."
"It's in my nature." Methos leaned forward to set his beer down, frowning at Duncan, who frowned back. "She should be dead," he said softly. "I don't like mysteries, MacLeod."
Duncan's eyebrows shot up. "You?" he asked disbelievingly.
"Not mysteries like this one." Methos shook his head, picking his beer up again.
"I can't believe we have no record of her," Joe said. "At least we have confirmed records of you, no matter how old the last ones are. I don't know how somebody could get by for five millennia without the Watchers noticing."
"My mother did start the Watchers," Ghean said, coming around the corner. "Maybe she told me all about them, and how to avoid them." She was dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt now, and her hair had been rubbed dry. It stood out from her face, slightly fluffy. She tossed towels to each of the men, then stopped in front of Joe, turning the inside of her left wrist towards him. The Watcher tattoo, greatly faded, was barely visible against her olive skin. "Or maybe I infiltrated them, learned how to avoid them myself, and went on my way."
As Joe gaped, she went past him to curl up in the single chair left empty, a dark red recliner. "Or maybe someone there has known about me all along, and has kept the records very secret, at my request, because of this." She pulled a black cord with a silver pendent out from under her shirt, handing it to Duncan and nodding towards Joe. She picked up her beer from the table as she settled back to watch the Watcher.
Joe gave the pendent a perfunctory glance, looking back at Ghean. Then his gaze returned to the necklace, sharply, and he straightened, staring at the symbol in his hand.
There could be little doubt that the Watchers' symbol had been derived from the necklace he held. Where the tattoo Joe shared with Ghean and Methos was rounded and undetailed, the necklace was visibly a ram's head, the horns' curve exaggerated to emphasize the features. Etchings, still visible after thousands of years, segmented the horns and drew out eyes and nostrils within the animal's face. In the encircling silver that surrounded the ram's head were thirteen studs, unworn by time.
Joe turned his wrist up to study the differences between the tattoo and necklace. Duncan leaned over to do the same, looking back and forth. Methos, elbows on knees and beer held in both hands, watched the pair of men, almost expressionless.
"Or maybe," Ghean concluded after a few moments of silence, "it's none of those things at all. The necklace was my mother's."
Joe looked up at Ghean, the necklace cradled protectively in his palm. "Why a ram? Do you have your mother's records? They would be invaluable."
"They would be unintelligible. I do have them, but I'm the only one who could translate them. How would you know if I was doing so accurately?"
Methos turned his head to lift an eyebrow at Ghean. Her lips pursed, and she inclined her head. "I stand corrected," she acknowledged him. "A ram, Joe, was the symbol of my House. My mother considered the Watchers to be her children, as much as I was. In a way, by wearing that tattoo, you are of the last House of Atlantis. It makes you my brother, by Atlantean law, as it makes family of all the Watchers."
Silently, with a quirk of his mouth, Methos slid his arm forward to display his inner left wrist. "Sister-wife," he said drolly. "A custom I thought the Atlanteans had forgone."
Ghean's eyebrows arched, and she looked at Duncan with amusement. "Well?"
Duncan grinned. "I'm afraid not. Just an ordinary Immortal. I don't belong to any other secret societies."
Joe, reluctantly, offered the necklace back to Ghean. "I would love to read your mother's files," he said wistfully. "I wonder why we don't have copies of them."
"Time, most probably," Ghean answered. "Truly, Joe, the Watchers have done an astonishing job of maintaining the records. There are gaps, of course, but once I was done with the Methos Chronicles -- " She broke off as Methos straightened uncomfortably. "How else would I have found the necklace, Methos? I read everything the Watchers had on you. I had to learn new languages to do it." She shook her head, and added, "They're woefully incomplete, you know. There's very little about you prior to about thirty-five hundred years ago. Even Mother's records are sketchy, though you're the first Immortal she talks about. You began the Watchers, you know. Without you, they wouldn't exist."
Methos looked down at the beer in his hands, nodding. "I know. No more than they'd exist without Minyah. She was a remarkable woman. I've met very few people as dedicated to the preservation of history as she was."
Ghean smiled briefly, then returned her attention to Joe. "The oldest records I came across seemed to have been written about three thousand years ago, since they were in Greek, but many of them recorded events far older. I found nothing about Atlantis, nor my mother, so I can only believe that I have the only copies of her records, kept in a language no one else could know."
Methos shook his head. "You have her only copies in Atlantean," he agreed. "It wasn't really until Greece had a written language that there was another written tongue as elegant as Atlantean. She translated virtually all of her work and her students' work into Greek not long before she died. I helped, some. The originals were in tatters."
"Greek," Ghean said in a soft, dangerous voice, "didn't come into existence for centuries after Atlantis drowned."
Methos shifted his shoulders, looking up to meet Ghean's eyes. "The Fleece worked," he said. "Your mother lived a very, very long time."
"Fleece?" Joe demanded.
Methos turned his attention to Joe briefly. "Jason's fleece. The golden one."
Joe snorted. "That's mythology."
"Most myths have some basis in reality. The myth lost the truth of the thing, somewhere along the way. It was one of the artifacts of the Atlantean Houses, like the Methuselah Stone. They worked the same way, rendering the wearer effectively indestructible. Apparently it included the ravages of age in that. It's a lot of why I thought the Methuselah Stone would work for Alexa." Methos sighed, setting his beer down and rubbing a hand over his face before looking up at Ghean.
Her expression had not changed at all, nor had she moved. "How long did she live?" she asked hoarsely.
Methos shrugged a shoulder. "About two thousand years."
Ghean shuddered. Betrayal upon betrayal. For nearly five thousand years I drowned and starved and was reborn, and Minyah survived through the centuries.
There will be revenge, the patient one promised. Aloud, Ghean managed, "I have only fifty years of records. The Watcher records, none of them were written by my mother. I'd know her style, even in another language. You said you'd helped translate them, though."
Methos nodded slightly. "I did."
Joe's eyebrows drew down. "You're telling me the first Watcher lived two thousand years, and we have none of her records?"
"Where are they?" Ghean demanded.
"Safe," Methos said. "Hidden."
Duncan finally spoke again. "You're a scholar, Methos. Why didn't you give the Watchers Minyah's Greek translations?"
The smile filtered across Methos' face without touching dark eyes. "There's far too much information about me in them."
Ghean's face was incredulous. "You kept all that information from the Watchers to protect yourself?"
Methos nodded, taking a sip of his beer.
"How could you do that? How could you dishonor my mother that way?"
Methos made a moue, shaking his head. "Minyah was a friend of mine. It's possible she knew more about me than anyone else ever has. I can't afford that knowledge to be public, even to as select a public as the Watchers. I've worked very hard for a very long time to make myself an unknown quantity. Believe me, hiding some records is not a particular transgression on the list of things I've done. You may not approve, but it's been very successful." He set his beer down, looking at Ghean.
"In fact, the only person who's been more successful in hiding her existence for the last five millennia is you. How is it you're alive, Ghean?"
Ghean glanced at Joe and Duncan. "How far in the story had you gotten?"
"You'd just forgiven me for being Immortal. Right after you stopped me from taking Aroz's head."
"Oh." Ghean pursed her lips, and stood to go into the kitchen. She returned a few moments later with more beers, which she handed out before sitting down again. Twisting the top off her bottle, she made a little toast to Methos. "There's a lot left, then."
Chapter Eleven
Atlantis rose out of the waves, a bleak obsidian castle. Jagged mountains swept down to the water, waves beating an endless tattoo against stone worn smooth from the ocean's eternal beat. Far above the sheer edges of stone that met the water, trees clu stered along the mountains, rendering the sharp lines just faintly blurred with green softness.
Tiny ports circled the islands, wherever there was beach instead of mountainside meeting sea. Small fishing boats went in and out of the ports, providing Atlantis with its staples of life. Villages scattered up through the mountains at each port, n estled into protective valleys. In a few places, roads were visible, spidering towards the main city, mountainside barely scarred with their passage.
Methos leaned on the railing of their ship, hands clasped loosely over the water as he looked up at the legendary island. The ship's captain had announced his sighting of Atlantis at mid-morning, and since then, the slender Immortal had been on deck , watching the island as they approached and circled around it. A glance at the sun told him it was a little after noon now. Ghean came to his side as he looked back towards Atlantis, and smiled at him.
"The main port is around the next curve," she assured him. "We won't have to wait much longer."
"How can you tell? One mountain looks the same as any other to me." Methos gestured at the craggy, weather-beaten stone a few hundred yards away.
"I've made this journey since I was a little girl. Before my father died, he used to test me on the different ports, to see if I could pick out details to distinguish them." Ghean leaned against the rail next to Methos, pointing towards a copse of trees that hung precariously out over the water, growing nearly parallel to the sea below. "Those trees are how I know Atlantis is around the bend. It's the only place on the island they grow like that.
"Father used to tell me a story about them. He said that when Atlantis was young, it was a flat island, good for farming. Storms seemed to pass by, and the ocean never rose up to drown the land with salt. In those days we kept watch for enemies wh o might come by sea, and each person on the island helped to keep watch. One day a young boy who was supposed to be watching from this part of the island, to the west. But he was very vain, and instead of watching the sea for enemies, he watched it for his reflection, admiring himself.
"A fleet of ships came, and because he was so intent on seeing himself in the seawater, he did not see the enemy ships. Atlantis' gods, who had never come down from the skies before, came down that day, to save their favored people. They saved us f rom certain destruction by raising the land into mountains and only a few difficult ports. To punish the boy for his carelessness, they changed him into that stand of trees, destined to always look into the waters and never see his reflection again."
Ghean smiled up at the trees as the ship passed under them. "I always felt badly for the boy. I can't imagine Atlantis being as beautiful as it is, if it were flat land. I never thought it was very fair of the gods."
"Your people have kind gods," Methos said. "Most gods would have let the enemy overrun the island and destroy most of the people, to teach the boy a lesson."
"Maybe it's because our gods are kind that we've created a civilization unlike anyone else's."
Methos smiled. "Possibly." The ship banked hard to starboard, swinging around an outcropping of rock at remarkable speed. Methos glanced up. "Good gods."
Ghean looked up, grinning. "I told you they were," she said smugly. Methos shot a glance at her, then laughed, looking back at Atlantis' main port.
The harbor itself was vastly larger than any of the others they'd passed by. Ships of varying sizes and shapes rested in docks or sailed free, some with a multitude of sails curved to catch the wind. Methos stared at one of these with fascination a s it swung closer to their own ship. A dozen sailors traversed the deck and masts to better use the wind.
Three masts! It's actually got three masts! Methos leaned further over the railing, squinting against the sunlight on the water to get a better glimpse yet. He cast one glance back over his shoulder, at the single mast on the ship he sailed on, and laughed. And I was impressed with this one, he thought, returning his attention to the three-masted ship. A sailor on the other ship caught his intense observation and grinned, lifting a hand to shout a greeting across the water at the arriving ship. Methos lifted a hand in reply, continuing to study the vessel until it was past. Then, reluctantly, he tore his gaze away to examine the rest of the port.
Triremes, their dozens of oars pulled up to keep them from rotting in the water, far outnumbered the sailing ships. Smaller vessels, little more than rafts, piloted by children, zipped between the larger ships, skipping over whitecaps brilliant agai nst the glowing blue harbor water.
Methos laughed, nodding towards an area cut off from the rest of the harbor by blocks threaded together with rope. "A swimming area? In the middle of your busiest harbor?"
Ghean smiled, watching swimmers in the water. Most were children, but a few were clearly adult-sized, and the occasional shout of glee mingled with the general cacophony of the port. "Nearly all Atlanteans learn to swim at the same time they learn to walk. There are quieter lakes on the island, of course, but many of us are fishermen. The harbor is the first place we learn to judge the sea's mood, for swimming and sailing alike. The portmasters are convinced it saves lives."
Methos nodded. "It might well," he agreed, and turned to study another section of the harbor. The smell of fish was stronger than it had been on the open water, and fishing boats offloaded their catches. Men and women both worked the boats, calling directions to each other, tossing silvery fish into totes.
Methos took it in as rapidly as possible, watching a tote be filled and a top fastened on before half a dozen people lifted it into a cart. "I've never seen a port this clean. Where are they bringing the fish?"
Ghean split a delighted smile. "We work hard to keep it clean." She pointed to one of the smaller skiffs, captained by a young boy. "They clean up after the ships coming in from sea, to keep the harbor free of seaweed and muck. There are caves all over the mountains. The fish are brought to one set of caves that we've developed, to be kept cool so they stay fresher. The waste is dumped into chutes in the cave systems, like all of the sewage systems in Atlantis are. The fish caves are burned clean as often as necessary to keep the smell down. The others are burned about once a moon, to keep disease from coming up. None of it drains into the water."
Methos looked down at her in admiration. "What lessons there are to be learned in Atlantis," he breathed. Finally, with a little sigh, he looked up beyond the harbor, to the mountains.
Beyond the edge of the beach, where the mountains swept up again, lay an enormous set of gates, opened now, their doors swinging outward as if to encourage the world to enter. Even from the distance, the craftsmanship that had gone into the gates was visible. They gleamed the silver sheen of steel, and were set into the stone of the mountains as if they'd grown there, outer edge sculpted to the curve and bump of the mountainside. The mountains themselves were steep enough that the gates, rising three times Methos' height, would prove a nearly impenetrable barrier.
A broad road cut into the stone rose behind the gates. Traffic, both on horse and foot, moved up and down the road, a dauntingly steep rise to Methos' eye. Even from the water, it was possible to see rest areas carved out of the mountains, and people and carts both littered those areas, improbably small from the distance.
"The city's just on the other side of the pass," Ghean said. "We won't be able to see it at all until we're at the crest."
Methos grinned at her. "Until then, I'll have to content myself with admiring you."
Ghean laughed. "You are not very good at extravagant compliments, Methos. You should practice more."
"I will," he promised, and bent to kiss her. The motion was checked as a warning rush of nausea ran through him, lifting the hairs at the back of his neck. Methos turned, wary, to scan the ships closest to their own. Not far away, he watched a man straighten with the same familiar expression of caution on his face. For a moment the two locked gazes across the water. Then the second man inclined his head, in acknowledgement, and returned to his observation of the port. Methos watched him for another few seconds before his attention went back to Ghean, and he kissed her, repeating, "I will," absently.
"Are you all right?" Worry creased her forehead. Methos nodded, looking over his shoulder as a second tingle of nausea swept over him. Aroz came up from below deck, scowling curiously at the nearby ships and less benignly at Methos himself. Methos tilted his head towards the ship with the other Immortal. Aroz grunted in reply, coming to stand a few feet away from Methos and Ghean, hands planted at his waist. Methos' battered bronze sword hung at Aroz's hip. Methos touched the hilt of the steel sword he now carried, and nodded at the pass through the mountains.
"How long does it take to reach the city?"
"Only an hour or two," Ghean said airily. "The road looks worse than it is. Coming back down takes no time at all."
The ship banked again, to drift into dock. Ghean hovered impatiently at the gangplank, rising on her toes and lowering back down onto her feet until it was lowered. One of the sailors made certain it was steady, then stepped out of the way, exaggerated, as Ghean rushed down it and over the dock to the beach. Methos grinned, watching her spin wildly on the sand, and then went below to collect his journal, too precious to leave to the hands of shipsmen.
Minyah, engaged in the same task, smiled at him as he left his cabin. "Let me guess," she said. "My daughter is cavorting in the sand like a child released from captivity." She arranged a satchel over her shoulder, and accepted Methos' hand up the ladder leading to the deck. He nodded as she turned to wait for him, and the older woman smiled again. "She has done that on every journey since she could walk. I sometimes think she would outgrow it, were it not for my expectations of her antics."
Methos straightened, looking down at the sand where Ghean was engaged in animated conversation with a boy. The child nodded eagerly and ran off, leaving Ghean to begin her dance on the beach again. "I don't know," Methos said. "The celebration seems very much in her nature. She might do it anyway."
Minyah paused at the gangplank, watching Ghean fall to lie on her back in the sand, smiling up at the sun. "I am glad you came to an understanding," Minyah said as she began making her way down to the dock. "I will be pleased to have you as a son."
"You just want to study me as a scientific anomaly," Methos accused.
"There is that," Minyah replied equably. "You know these last two months Ghean has come to me, to repeat all the stories you have told her."
Methos laughed. "I would save everyone a lot of time if I simply told the stories to both of you at once."
Minyah blinked mildly at him. "An excellent suggestion." She left Methos at the end of the dock with the suspicion that he had just been had. Bemused, he followed her, stopping on the waterfront beside Ghean.
"We can't go up to the city yet," Ghean announced, sitting to stretch her legs out over the sand. "Ertros is bringing us iced coffee and chocolates to fortify us for the trip up."
Methos shook his head at unfamiliar words. "Coffee? Chocolates? What are they?"
Minyah chuckled. "I am not certain they can be qualified as fortifications. They are derived from beans grown across the ocean. I think neither is necessary for survival, although they are most pleasant."
"Chocolate," Ghean said firmly, "is necessary for survival. I always bring some when we leave Atlantis," she went on, looking up at Methos, "and it never lasts the whole ship's journey to land."
Methos sat down beside her. "But what are they?"
"Sweets. At least, the chocolates are. Coffee is bitter but wonderful. Ertros is nearly as tall as I am, Mother. By next summer he'll have outgrown me."
Minyah looked down at her diminutive daughter. "That is not a difficult task, Ghean."
"But I remember when he was born!" Ghean mock-wailed. "I'm getting old and decrepit!"
Methos felt Minyah's glance slide off him, and didn't meet her eyes. "You are the freshest blossom on a young and slender tree," he assured Ghean, grinning, and then, hopefully, asked, "How was that?"
She clucked her tongue. "You can't smile. Smiling ruins the whole effect. Ertros!" She bounded to her feet again, waving at the boy who made his way across the sand.
Shaggy-haired and bare-footed, he was about eleven, and only an inch shorter than Ghean. He carried a plate of mugs, heavy clay that would stand up to being dropped. There were eight chocolates, two for each cup. "You owe me," the boy said to Ghean severely. "It's hot, and I ran all the way up the beach to get this for you."
Ghean eyed the four mugs. "It looks to me like I paid you back by buying you some coffee."
"It'll do for starters," Ertros said smugly. He handed a mug to Ghean, then Minyah, and stopped before Methos, studying him suspiciously. "Who're you?" he demanded.
"My name is Methos."
"He's my betrothed, Ertros!" Ghean broke in. "We're to be married as soon as we can."
Ertros' expression slid from suspicion to outright dislike. "He's awfully tall," the boy said critically to Ghean. "And pale. What do you want to marry an outlander for?" After all, his tone said, you've got me.
Methos ducked his head, grinning at the sand.
"Well, he's very nice," Ghean explained. "For an outlander."
Ertros looked dubious, and offered Methos a mug. "Welcome to Atlantis," he said, with chilly precision.
Methos fought back a smile and nodded his head gravely in reply. "Thank you. I'm honored to meet a man of the island who is such a good friend of Ghean's." He accepted the mug, looking curiously at the chipped ice in the dark liquid. "I've never had coffee before," he confessed to Ertros.
The boy puffed up visibly. "Real Atlanteans drink it all the time," he said loftily, and took a swig from his own mug to prove it.
Methos took a more cautious slip, aware of the anticipatory eyes of all three Atlanteans on him. The chilled liquid was considerably more bitter than he'd anticipated, from the slightly sweet scent of it. After another two slightly tentative slips, he slowly nodded his approval. "I think I could get used to this coffee."
Ghean beamed, clearly pleased. "Now a chocolate," she proclaimed, and broke one of the pieces on the tray in half to pop in Methos' mouth. Bittersweet richness coated his tongue. For several seconds he didn't move, letting the bit of chocolate melt in his mouth. Then, in sheer disbelief, he stared at the mug of coffee. "They're made from the same thing?" He took another sip of coffee, trying to discover a similarity in the flavors. "That's wonderful."
"No," Minyah laughed. "I spoke poorly. Two different beans, from over the ocean. The chocolate comes from one called cocoa, which has many other uses, and the coffee comes from one called coffee." She paused. "It is not," she added, "a very original title."
Methos laughed, sipping at the coffee again as Ghean continued to beam at him. "I think he'll fit right in here, don't you, Ertros?"
Ertros scowled. "I guess."
Several minutes later, Minyah sighed contentedly over her mug. "We should begin the journey up to the city soon. A sunset over Atlantis would be an admirable way to introduce Methos to our home."
"Is that your way of saying you've finished your coffee?" Ghean asked, teasing. Minyah nodded, unflappable.
"Ah," Ghean said, in a precise mimicry of her mother. "So I was right. That is always satisfying."
Minyah laughed. "Insolent daughter. I will forbid your marriage and betroth you instead to a toothless old minstrel who must sing tales of woe to earn his daily meals."
Methos sucked his cheeks in, crumbling in on himself to appear smaller, and climbed to his feet to totter uncertainly towards Minyah. "Will I do, madam?" he creaked. "For such a fair prize I will sing my best songs, though I fear my voice is not what it once was." He blinked near-sightedly at her with eyes suddenly gone rheumy and watery.
Minyah, unnerved, stepped back from the approaching Immortal, stilling herself after one pace. Her usual composure reasserted itself as she lifted one eyebrow. "How extraordinary," she murmured. "Despite the grain of your skin and the color in your hair, I see an old man."
Methos pushed himself up straighter, a hand at the small of the back to suggest stiffness. "Not so old!" he said in the same raspy tone. "Young enough to get a fine child on that impertinent daughter of yours, to care for us in our old age!" He thumped an imaginary stick in the sand. Ertros jumped slightly, then looked abashed, casting a glance to see if Ghean had noticed his slip.
She had not. Still sitting in the sand, Ghean clasped her coffee mug in loose hands, staring up at Methos' act. Minyah laughed, and Methos shook the character off, unbending himself to stand at his full height. "You're spilling your coffee," he said gently to Ghean.
She flinched the mug upright. "Oh! Methos, that was -- was that you?" With an uncertain frown, she climbed to her feet, setting her empty mug aside on the plate Ertros had brought.
"Of course it is." Methos extended a hand towards her. "Come. You have a city to show me."
The trek up the mountains took a little over three hours. Methos was met with mildly curious stares as he walked, and the Atlanteans with him by delighted greetings and hugs. "I believe you'll have introduced me to the entire city by the time we reach the top," he commented softly to Ghean, after they'd been stopped for the fourth or fifth time.
She laughed. "Just wait. I predict that in the next week our House will be flooded with visitors wanting to see my outland scholar."
"I'm not that remarkable," Methos protested.
"Scholars in Atlantis are nothing new. Scholars from outside are a rarity. You'll be very popular. Close your eyes. The city is just over the next rise." Ghean took his hand to lead him forward as Methos closed his eyes, lips quirking with mirth.
Perhaps two minutes later, as the land changed from an incline to a decline, Ghean stopped. "All right," she decided. "You can open them now." Methos did, looking first at Ghean. Her mouth curled in expectation as she watched him. Light from the setting sun gleamed red in her hair and warmed her skin. For a few moments he simply admired her, disregarding the images that were her backdrop. Then, because she was waiting, he looked up and beyond her, to the city.
Atlantis was the color of fire. Built of stone, it glowed like fading embers. The sun's dying rays reflected in soft-edged shadows that blended the city's edges into the mountains surrounding it. The road he stood on dropped sharply down to the gates. From his vantage, Methos could see the simple layout of the city, built around a central circle. Dominating the central circle was a temple, the roof a high dome that stood above any other buildings in the city. Streets webbed out from the temple circle. Without counting, Methos knew there would be thirteen major passageways, and innumerable smaller. The smaller streets fell in ever-widening circles, details lost to the setting sun. It was a city that had been planned, not one that grew up in a random pattern. The symmetry was awe-striking.
"Gods above," Methos said quietly. "It's . . . I've never seen anywhere like it, Ghean." He glanced at the black mountain beneath his feet, and back at Atlantis. "The stone," he half-asked. "It looks white." He gestured at the walls, their true color returning as the light dimmed.
"Legend says that the gods came down to look at the city our fathers built, and they were pleased," Ghean answered. "But it was not enough for the children of the gods, and so they struck it a thousand times with lightning. When the skies cleared, all the color had bleached from the stone, and so it has always been."
Methos nodded slowly, looking over the city again. "How old is Atlantis, Minyah?"
"Older than you," she replied, "and more enduring. Shall we go home?"
Chapter Twelve
"You're very young to have studied so widely." It was almost an accusation, from a scholar of Taurus. He was in hid middle fifties, very slightly portly, and called Ragar. He also, very clearly, could not quite decide if he should be impressed with House Aries' new acquisition or resentful of it.
Methos suppressed a sigh. I wonder what he would say if I told him the truth. He dismissed the thought, as he'd dismissed it thousands of times over the years. "I've tried to keep an open mind," he said instead. "Studying a little about many things has served me well, given my habit of travelling. It seems more practical."
Ghean's prediction had not been in error. The past week, Methos had spoken in depth with more people than he usually did in a year, arguing history and interpretations and language changes. Most of it had been fascinating, extended scholarly discussions with stimulating intellects, and he dared imagine he'd made a few friends out of the constant throng of well-wishers and critical academics.
A significant portion of the visitors had come simply to see what oddity Ghean had brought home to marry. An alarming number of those returned later with their daughters. The daughters were evenly divided: either they refused to meet his eye, or Methos had to move constantly around the room to keep from being latched on to.
Ghean sat through each display placidly, to crawl into bed late each night and giggle about it. Methos couldn't decided if he should be offended or relieved that the situation amused her. "What if I found one of them irresistible?" he demanded.
Ghean propped her chin on his shoulder, grinning. "I'd magnanimously allow you to wed your new beloved," she said cheerfully. "Then I'd sneak into your house and kill you. Right in front of her. Then I'd cart your body off the island, marry you anyway, and hold it over your head for the rest of my life."
"That's not fair," Methos said primly. A moment later, with admiration, he added, "You have a mean streak."
Ghean's grin turned smug. "I do. You'd best not find any of them irresistible, hm?"
"No one could ever be as intoxicating as you are," Methos promised extravagantly, ducking his head to kiss her.
"No one in this lifetime, at least," Ghean replied.
"You also have a morbid streak, wife."
Ghean sniffed. "Not yet," she corrected. "Three whole weeks until the ceremony."
"Ah." Methos lifted a finger. "But doesn't Atlantean law provide that once the parents' blessing has been given to a betrothal the couple are essentially consider wedded?"
Ghean nodded. "Mmmhmm. Unless something happens before the actual formal ceremony and they decide to not have the words said over them. Then neither is considered to have ever been married." Her eyebrows went up. "Where did you learn so much about Atlantean law?"
"I spent some time at the library yesterday."
"When? We had visitors from daybreak to dusk. Until past dark!"
"You had visitors," he said. "I snuck out while you were planning the ceremony." Methos grinned. "And here I was worried you'd be offended that I left."
"I am," Ghean said. "Terribly. You'll have to make it up to me. Now."
Methos became aware that Ragar had asked him a question and was waiting patiently for the answer. He blinked, shifting away the memories to search through what the man had been saying. "I've traveled ever since I can remember," he replied. Technically, it was true. "Studying the places and people I came into contact with seemed natural. I was lucky enough to learn to write, so I could keep notes on my studies."
Ragar shook his head. "How do you survive? Most people aren't interested in histories. Most people don't have enough history." He clearly excluded Atlantis from that group.
Methos spread a hand in depreciation. "Nearly everyone loves history. They just call them stories. It's how I survive, telling stories. Almost everyone is willing to offer a space by the fire and a bit of food in exchange for new stories, or even old ones. It's -- " Methos broke off as goosebumps raised on his skin, prickles of caution alerting him to an approaching Immortal. His eyes on the door, he said, "Please excuse me? There's someone coming I need to talk to."
Ragar shot a startled look at the door. "Of course," he said, puzzled. "Who -- " He, too, broke off, as a shadow appeared in the door. "You must have excellent hearing," the mortal scholar said to Methos.
Methos twisted a small smile. "Yes," he agreed. "We'll talk more later, Ragar?"
Ragar nodded, stepping past the new arrival to make his way back down towards the city. Methos stood, examining the newcomer as he entered the room.
He was tall, nearly Methos' own height, and judging from his coloring, no more of Atlantis than Methos himself was. Fine, narrow features were dominated by lively green eyes that added an animated attractiveness to a face that fell a little short of handsome. Light brown hair was held back in a long tail, falling past his shoulders. He wore the sword at his hip easily.
"Ah!" he proclaimed, and bowed extravagantly. "The great scholar Methos. At last, we meet."
Methos' eyebrows lifted, amused but not relaxed. "You have the advantage of me."
The man straightened, stepping forward to offer a hand. "My name is Karem. I'm afraid I'm only a warrior, nothing to make a fuss about on this island of studies."
Methos clasped Karem's forearm briefly, then stepped back, still studying the man. "You're the one I saw on the ship last week."
"I am," Karem agreed. "Rude of me to take so long to stop by and visit, but I've been busy. Do you realize this island is teeming with Immortals?"
Methos inadvertently glanced through the door, as if expecting an army of Immortals to stand there. "I haven't sensed any since I've been here."
Karem sat in a loose, fluid movement. "You wouldn't have. They're not like us. Somehow these people have discovered how to make artifacts of Immortality."
Methos regarded the other man skeptically. "How?"
"I have no idea." Karem shook his head. "It seems to be common knowledge, but not bandied about. Each of the Houses apparently has one of these artifacts. That means if they're all in use, there are at least fifteen Immortals in this island, including you and me."
"Seventeen," Methos corrected. "A man and a girl, like us." He sat down across from Karen, intrigued despite himself. "I've seen some of the wonders they've created. They've bred horned war-horses that are possibly the smartest animals I've ever seen. But Immortality artifacts?"
Karem nodded. "The horses are one of the Houses' artifacts. The horns, when ground to a powder and drunk, are supposed to heal all wounds." He waved a hand, continuing, "I was told about the artifacts by a man called Methuselah, years ago. He carried a stone, a giant crystal, and claimed to have been alive for nine hundred years. Can you imagine? A mortal, nine hundred years old? I tested him as best I could. If he wasn't older than I am, he was a brilliant liar."
Methos' eyebrows crinkled curiously. "Where is he now?"
"The islanders said he got tired of living, and gave the stone to his grandson. The grandson's apparently been down at the harbor for weeks, building a boat. He says the gods have told him a disaster is coming and the only way to survive is to sail away from it."
Methos nodded, with a faint grin. "I see. It grants Immortality at the price of lunacy?"
Karem shrugged. "The old man seemed perfectly sane."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"I want to learn how they're made. You're already an established scholar. They'll be more receptive to you than me." Karem leaned forward, green eyes bright and eager. "Can you imagine, Methos? The ability to grant Immortality to our loved ones? Never losing the people we care about?"
Thinking guiltily of Ghean, Methos murmured, "It's not our decision to make."
Karem spread his hands expressively. "Who better? We have experience at Immortality. We can pick and choose those who would be best suited for it and bestow it upon them."
"A world full of Immortals," Methos retorted. "Do their artifacts, if they work, prevent children? How long until the births so far outnumbered the deaths that there was nowhere to live? How would you feed everyone?"
"The world's a big place, Methos! We wouldn't have to worry about it for generations."
Methos rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. "You sound like them," he accused. "Thinking of now instead of forever. You could live forever, Karem. How long do you think they'd let you live if they realized you were born to live eternally, while they had to depend on trinkets and toys?"
"If I gave them the toys, why would they be anything but grateful to me for sparing them from death?"
Methos looked hard at Karem. "If you give it to them, then they know you can take it away again. Not even gods are sacrosanct, Karem. You'd be different from them, and men fear that which is different, and kill that which they fear. They'd kill you, and me, and any other Immortal like us they could find."
So I'd choose my children carefully." Karem leaned forward again, hands folded earnestly on the table in front of him. "It's what they'd be to us, Methos. Think of it. Children of our own."
"We can't have children," Methos said impatiently. "At best they'd be -- disciples, students, acolytes, to whom we'd be mentors. And sooner or later, they'd turn on us."
"Not if we kept how to make the artifacts a secret."
Methos let out an explosive sigh. "Which gives you power over them, which they will resent, which will turn to fear and hatred, which will lead to your death, Karem! The pattern is the same, can't you see that? Besides, what's been discovered once will be discovered again. If your old man was telling the truth, Atlantis has had the secret of Immortality for nearly a thousand years, maybe more. They've kept it secret. Take heed from their counsel, Karem. Let it die. Let them die."
Karem sat back, clearly unconvinced, yet unwilling to press the issue to a fight. "I'll persuade you yet," he said firmly, though there was humour in his eyes. "But I've no wish to quarrel with you. Are we still at peace?"
Methos nodded. "We are. Think abo . . . " He trailed off, lifting his eyes to the door as the chill of warning came over him for the second time in the afternoon. Karem rose, dropping his hand non-too-subtly to his sword.
Seconds later, Aroz appeared in the doorframe, expression as wary as both Methos' and Karem's were. Methos relaxed slightly, gesturing to the Immortal he'd been speaking with. "Karem, this is Aroz, of House Aries. Aroz, this is Karem, an itinerant . . . troublemaker, I think." Methos grinned apologetically as Karem shot him an amused, mock-offended glance.
Aroz looked over Karem with apparent disapproval. "A friend of yours?" he asked Methos.
Methos shrugged. "Time will tell. We've only just met. I doubt you're here for my company, Aroz. What do you need?"
"Ghean is not here?"
Methos shook his head. "She went to the market when it became obvious I was going to spend the entire afternoon discussing history with Ragar. Wait a moment," he added, as Aroz turned to leave. "You've been a part of Atlantean society a while. Did you know a man named Methuselah?"
Aroz stopped in the doorway, broad shoulders filling the frame. "He's dead now."
"But you knew him," Karem interjected. "Tell Methos about his crystal, the Immortality stone."
Aroz cast a look down the walkway towards the distant market and sighed heavily before coming back into the room to stand, wide-legged, arms crossed over his chest. "I met Methuselah when I was very young," he admitted. "Nearly two hundred years ago."
"Hah!" Karem barked, triumphant. "You see, Methos? They do have the gift of Immortality!"
Methos ignored Karem, frowning studiously at Aroz. "Why doesn't everyone here have artifacts that extend their lives?"
"Don't they?" Aroz came further into the room, to lean stiffly against a table. "What's the average mortal lifespan, Methos?"
Methos waved his hand. "Thirty, thirty-five years, in this part of the world. A little longer, further north."
"Atlanteans live an average of sixty."
"Yes, I know. I assumed their lifestyle, their knowledge -- "
"Maybe. Maybe not. I don't think they're sitting on a well of spring water that lets them live forever, but they live twice as long as the rest of the world, and some of them do have objects that appear to protect them from death."
"How?" Methos shook his head.
Aroz split an ugly grin. "I don't know. Maybe they're right, and the gods did favor them."
Methos made a face, shaking his head again. "Why only one for each House, then, if that's how it works? Why not for everyone?"
Aroz lifted a thick shoulder and let it fall. "Legend says that the final artifact was hundreds of times more powerful than any of the others. That the gods poured far more into its creation than any of the others. There was nothing left to make smaller gifts with. Not even the twelve work equally."
"How careless of the gods," Methos murmured. "What was the final artifact?"
"A book."
"A book?"
Aroz nodded. "That's what they say. It was created and lost at the dawn of Atlantis' history."
"How can a book grant you Immortality?" Methos demanded. At the same time, Karem asked, "What was in it?"
Aroz spread his hands. "Who knows? The secrets of alchemy, science, House Aquarius' secret recipe for bread. It doesn't matter. It doesn't exist anymore."
"What if the book explains how to make the artifacts?" Karem's voice was eager.
"Then it's better off lost," Methos said, and stood. "Enough of us handle Immortality badly. Giving it to all mortals would be disastrous."
"Who are you to make that decision?" Karem snapped.
Methos paused at the door to slip his sword-belt on, looking back at the other two. After a moment he stepped through the door, heading for the market, words lingering thin in the air behind him. "I am the oldest Immortal."
Chapter Thirteen
Moonlight's hard shadows mixed with the softer, flickering edges of candlelight shadows. Methos sat with his head dropped, long fingers pressed against his temples and forehead. The papers spread over the table in front of him were written in Atlantean, recognizeable but painfully archaic. He hadn't moved in four hours, other than turning pages and sipping coffee.
Karem's stories had engrossed him more than he wanted to admit. Artifacts of Immortality were a tempting focus of study, even if they didn't work. If they did, having the knowledge to make them, whether he used it or not, would be priceless.
It hadn't been difficult, over the last two weeks, to build a camaraderie with Ragar, the mortal scholar. Methos had slowly convinced him to tell him the stories of Methuselah's crystal, and then of the other artifacts.
He'd asked Minyah where the Fleece of House Aries was. She looked at him thoughtfully before bringing him to one of the smaller, unused rooms in the house. It was filled with wool cloaks, dyed through a spectrum of yellows, all hanging on small racks set into the walls. "Can you tell which it is?" she'd asked curiously.
Methos pursed his lips slightly, walking around the room. His footsteps on the stone floor were muffled by the wool that lined the walls. After several minutes, he returned to Minyah's side. "Not at all," he confessed. "It's a cloak? I was expecting -- well, a sheepskin, I suppose."
Minyah crossed the room unerringly, to select a mid-length cloak dyed pale gold. "This one." Folding it over her arm, she presented it to him. Methos took it gingerly, half expecting some sort of backlash.
It looked, and felt, like a perfectly ordinary cloak. "You're sure?"
Minyah nodded. "Quite certain. Somewhat more elegant than flinging a sheepskin over your shoulders, I think. It produces no special feeling, nothing like your sensation that warns of other Immortals?"
Methos shook his head, inspecting the cloak more carefully. "Nothing. I would never be able to choose it out of a room like this."
"I thought not." Minyah sounded smug. "Our gifts of Immortality are utterly unrelated to yours."
Methos looked up from the cloak. "Did you know Methuselah?"
Minyah nodded. "Certainly. In truth, I never thought to test our cloak, despite knowing his crystal worked. Many of us saw him as something closer to the gods than we were, a protector left from the early days of the island. That the gift could be passed on did not occur to me. Shall we test it?"
"Test it?" Methos looked skeptical. "How? It won't work for me. I'm already Immortal."
Minyah took the cloak back, slipping it over her shoulders. "It is supposed to protect the wearer from harm." She nodded at his sword. "Strike at me."
Methos' eyebrows went up in horror. "And if it doesn't work? I really don't want to explain to Ghean that I accidentally chopped her mother in half ten days before the wedding!"
Minyah laughed, extending her hand. "Give me your knife, then. I will test it myself, in the same fashion that you demonstrated your healing ability to Ghean."
Reluctantly, Methos unsheathed the little blade and placed it in her palm. "Don't cut too deep," he warned. "If it doesn't work, I'd hate to see you crippled. A scholar needs her hands."
Minyah nodded, shifting her grip on the hilt and considering her other palm. "I find this somewhat alarming," she announced, then took a quick breath and sliced the blade over her palm. A sharp cry of alarm escaped her, and Methos caught her wrist to turn her palm towards him, flinching in anticipation.
The skin of her palm was whole, not even creased by the blade's path. Shocked, Methos looked at the knife, which remained unbloodied. "Dear gods."
Minyah stared at her palm with as much surprise as Methos. "By the gods," she agreed. "So it is true. It protects the wearer."
"Minyah," Methos says slowly, "may I try it? Our healing doesn't stop from happening. It just heals faster. It might work . . . ."
Minyah, still looking wide-eyed at her hand, pulled the cloak off and handed it to Methos. He swung it on and took his knife back from Ghean's mother. With less trepidation than she had shown, he drove the knife towards his palm.
Both mortal and Immortal startled violently at the sharp crack of the horn blade shattering. Methos lifted it to study the jagged pattern where the tip had broken off, then turned his hand up to gaze at the unbroken skin.
I could be invincible.
He shuddered, pulling the cloak off and handing it back to Minyah. "That is not for me," he said softly, intently. "Not for any of my kind. If it fell into the hands of the wrong Immortal, if he were the last one -- destroy it, Minyah, before handing it to an Immortal again. Destroy it."
Minyah folded the cloak over her arm. "The last one," she repeated. "You battle to the death, but why?"
"Put the Fleece away," Methos asked quietly, turning away. "I don't want to watch you do it." He shivered again, then replied, "Because there can be only one. Someday, there will be a Gathering. The last of my kind will come together to fight to the end. There's a prize of some sort, for the last one." He heard her cross the room, shifting cloaks aside as she hung the Fleece.
"What is the prize?"
Methos shook his head, back still turned to her. "I don't know. It's said whomever wins the Prize will have the power to rule the world. I don't know if it's true."
Minyah came back to stand before him, eyes thoughtful. "Do you want it?"
Methos looked down at her. "I want to live."
I want to live. Methos rubbed his eyes again before pushing his stool away from the desk to stand. The Fleece, stored with the dozens of other cloaks, was painfully tempting. More than once Methos had found himself retracing the route to the storage room, only to deliberately walk away when he'd realized his goal. Our Immortality doesn't work that way, he reminded himself. Using it would encourage complacency, and it would be your undoing, old man. Survival's a solitary pursuit. You can't afford to rely on tricks and toys.
With a quiet sigh, Methos reassembled the papers he'd been going through. After nearly two days of meticulous research, he was certain the histories would not provide him with the details of how to create the artifacts, nor with the location of the mythical book of Aquarius. Still, he would finish reading them in the morning.
Barefooted, he padded into the bedroom, watching Ghean sleep for a few moments. Relaxed in the moonlight, her hair spilling over the edge of the bed, she looked utterly content. Methos smiled, slipping out again, hesitating only briefly in the main room to blow out candles and pick up his sword before he made his way down towards the city.
The streets were deserted, the market closed down for the night. Methos glanced absently at the moon and the position of the stars, judging it to be well past midnight, closer to the new dawn than last night's dusk.
The city glowed, white stone reflecting moonlight with an eerie, unreal edge, as if lit from within. The shadows were blued, full darkness unwilling to encroach on the city's streets. It lent an aura of peace to the sleeping town, lulling Methos' walk into a slow and leisurely pace.
He'd almost reached the temple at the city center before he realized it was his destination. He paused at the door, considering the blade he still carried, sheathed, in his hand. He knew of no mortal enemies on the island, and Immortal enemies could not fight on holy ground. Nevertheless, Atlantis had no tenements requiring temple-goers to abandon their weapons outside the sanctuary, and after a moment's debate, Methos stepped inside, sword still in hand.
The weeks in Atlantis hadn't afforded him more than a few minutes' visit to the temple. It had been enough to register fine architecture and artwork, but little else. The wait was worthwhile. The circular building was domed, roof set upon wide pillars at even intervals. Head tilted back to study them, Methos walked further into the temple, coming to the center of the room and placing fingertips on the altar that dominated the building.
The pillars were carved, each in its own distinct style, as if each of the thirteen had been commissioned by a different artist. The Houses of Atlantis were represented there, beasts and creatures from the stars rendered in white marble to hold up the dome of the sky. Some were stunningly lifelike, the effect compounded by the shadows cast by the moon's bright light. Methos turned to find the ram of Aries, whose wide horns supported his section of the ceiling. With a self-mocking smile, Methos bowed to the stone animal, amused at the real respect he felt. Though his own gods, if he'd had any, were long dead, there was still a degree of comfortable familiarity in acknowledging the gods of others.
Scattered cushions were the only seats in the temple. Atlantis' religion was more one of contemplation than gathered masses, though the central altar saw sacrifices from each of the Houses, as its constellation grew dominant. Faint, discolored traces of blood stained the stone, rendered innocent by the lighting. Methos withdrew from the altar, fingers sliding off smooth, worn stone, and knelt on a nearby cushion, sword held loosely across his thighs as his eyes drifted shut. Time slipped away, the meditative silence of the temple helping to loosen the restraints of memory.
The arrogant claim of a few weeks ago came back to him: I am the oldest Immortal.
He refuted his own claim silently. I haven't met anyone older than myself. It doesn't mean I'm the oldest, or the first. The first of us must have made the Rules, and I don't remember doing that.
It's important. I'd think if I'd made them up, I'd remember. It stands to reason that I didn't, then.
Memories prompted by centuries of journal-keeping, remembered only because they'd been written down, surfaced. Heads he'd taken, ages of the Immortals who had died. None of them were older than I. But what about the first? There must have been a first. With a heavy breath, Methos let all conscious thought slip away, giving himself up to the flickers of memory.
The first head, the first Quickening; the night that began his life, as far as waking memory was concerned. The electric thrill still jolted his fingertips, raising hairs on his arms. Power was left, but the man whose head he'd taken was gone, memories of his life swept away in the river of time that was Methos' life as much as any mortal life might be lost. For an instant, the thick features came into focus: wide nose, heavy cheekbones and wild, wild hair, frantic eyes visible in flashes under it. Methos snatched at the image, trying to follow it to more knowledge, only to watch it dissolve. Hunger and fear, rage and despair, tangled in the power of the Quickening, replaced it, the sensations remembered more in bone and muscle than in mind.
With thoughtless determination, Methos pursued even those shreds of memory, wading through the grey blur of time. Distantly, he felt the prickle at the back of his neck, warning him of the arrival of another Immortal. Beyond a brief concession to that awareness, he ignored the physical, falling deeper into memory in search of answers.
Nothing came forward. No faces, no teachers; nothing of the Immortals who had come before him, nothing of how he'd learned about himself or about the Rules. Briefly, the face of an old man, toothless with age and utterly bald, filled Methos' mind. With the face came a dozen other glimpses of other faces, men and women and children whose presence spoke faintly of family to the ancient Immortal. As quickly as they'd come, they were gone, leaving Methos with a small smile playing at his mouth. He spoke without intending to, voice quiet in the stone temple. "Zethres het'dyan, Nolan."
Karem's voice broke him out of his reverie entirely. "What did you say?"
Methos opened his eyes to regard the man crouched over a cushion several feet away. "Zethres het'dyan," he repeated, the words suddenly awkwardin his mouth. "It means . . . 'your memory is mine', roughly. It's something you say to someone who is dying or leaving, so they'll know they won't be forgotten."
"Who is Nolan, then?"
"He was . . . " Methos freed one of his hands from around the sword, lifting it to pinch the bridge of his nose. "A friend," he said finally. "A mortal."
"I didn't recognize the language."
Methos dropped his hand to look across the room again. "Neither did I," he said, with no particular humour. "What are you doing here?"
"I might ask you the same thing."
"I was meditating," Methos said dryly, "until you interrupted me."
"With a sword in your hands?"
Methos shrugged, unfolding himself from the cushion. "We live and die by the sword. Why not pray by it, too? You ask a lot of questions, Karem."
Karem smiled easily. "It's the best way to learn. Have you learned anything else about the Immortality artifacts?"
"No." Half a dozen explanations and appendages leapt to mind, and Methos closed his mouth firmly on them. No need to let Karem know I've been researching them. Better to let him think I've dismissed them entirely.
Karem remained where he was, crouched over the cushion. "Have you looked?"
Methos showed half a smile, shaking his head. "No, again, I'm afraid. Maybe in twenty years when they're used to me."
"I want it now."
"Why?" Methos paused at the door, looking at the other Immortal. "Is someone dying, or are you anticipating a challenge you can't win without a crutch?"
Curious, Karem looked up. "Do you think they'd work for us?"
Methos shook his head. "Our Immortality doesn't work that way," he lied smoothly, then grinned quickly. "What if it turned out to be catastrophic?" What if it did? There was no recompense for trying to stab myself, but I wasn't in battle with another Immortal. "I wonder if there's a rule we don't know about. 'No using Immortality artifacts.' Like no fighting on holy ground."
Karem glanced around the temple. "What happens if we fight on holy ground, O Oldest Immortal?"
Methos spread his hand. "I don't know. I've never tried. Good night, Karem." He stepped through the temple doors, letting them swing shut silently behind him. Outside, he stopped a moment, looking down the broad avenue that lead through the city. Who taught me we couldn't fight on holy ground?
After a few seconds, he let the question go, along with the other half-remembered memories of the night. Whomever it was, whomever I once was, are lost to time. Methos walked down the steps and back into the city, leaving the questions behind in the sanctuary of the Atlantean temple.
"What're you doing in the temple?"
Methos glanced down a side street, eyebrows elevated, to see Ghean's young friend, Ertros leaning against a wall. "What are you doing up this early?" he asked in return, then smiled. "Praying, I suppose. Something like it. Good morning, Ertros."
Ertros folded his arms across his chest, suspiciously, and squinted up at Methos. "Good morning," he said, without a great deal of courtesy. "My mother runs a tavern," he replied. "I always start the fire just before dawn so the cooking can get done. Atlanteans," he accused, "don't pray in the middle of the night."
Methos lifted his eyebrows, crossing to lean against the alley wall opposite Ertros. "I'm not Atlantean," he pointed out. "Too tall and too pale, I think is what you said? Your mother must appreciate your help a great deal."
"So how come you're here, if you don't belong here?" the boy asked resentfully. "Coming from the outlands to marry Ghean. She should marry an Atlantean."
Methos slid down against the wall to make himself a little smaller than the boy. "I met her in Egypt," he said. "She went there to study how they were building the Sphinx."
Ertros nodded impatiently. "I know. I didn't want her to go away." He scowled at Methos. "What were you doing in Egypt?"
"Studying their language and the stories they have written down. I've been studying stories a long time. Ghean told me that you worked in the library yourself."
Ertros straightened up a little, clearly proud of himself. "They don't let most kids my age work there because they're not careful enough. I'm real careful."
Methos smiled. "You must be. Even I get nervous going through the old manuscripts. I suppose if you've been around them your whole life you're more confident with them."
The boy thawed visibly, almost smiling with pride. "If I keep doing well I'll be able to study the very oldest Atlantean histories when I'm grown up. I might even join a House, if I can." He glared at Methos suddenly. "I was gonna marry Ghean."
Methos half smiled. "She's almost eleven years older than you are, Ertros. Maybe you could marry our daughter someday, instead."
Ertros' eyes nearly popped out of his head. "Are you having a daughter?"
"Someday, I hope so." Methos held back the sigh, spreading his hands. "By the time she's old enough to marry you'll have gained all sorts of knowledge."
Ertros scowled again. "Maybe," he agreed. "That might be all right. Then I could tell our kids about Atlantis' history."
Methos grinned, nodding. "You've got a head start on Ghean and I. Ghean's studied architecture, not history, and me -- well, I'm a newcomer to the island. I'm trying to find the oldest histories of Atlantis to read them now, but maybe outlanders don't get to read them. I can't find the very oldest. Y-- "
"What," Ertros asked curiously, "Like the Book of Aquarius?"
Methos broke off, blinking in surprise. "I've heard of that," he admitted, "but it doesn't seem to exist."
"I haven't seen it either," Ertros said, "but the kids say it's under the temple." He grinned. "We always look for it in the summer. A couple years ago I tried chopping a hole in the temple floor. I've never seen the priests so angry."
Methos laughed. "I imagine." He glanced back up the street towards the temple, then at the horizon, greying with dawn. "Let me know if you ever find it," he said wryly. "Right now you'd better go start the hearth in your mother's tavern."
Ertros looked towards the horizon as well, and nodded, then grinned again. "Maybe I should try chopping another hole in the middle of the night."
"The priests," Methos warned, "will be very angry."
Ertros grinned and headed down the street. "Not if they don't catch me!"
Methos laughed, stepping into the main street, looking back at the temple as the moonlight faded from it to leave it bleached colorless in the dull morning light. I wonder if there's really a room under it. Shaking his head, he turned away and made his way back up to House Aries.
Ghean sat up in bed when he came in, blinking tiredly at him through strands of long hair. "Where have you been?"
"Setting old ghosts to rest," Methos said after a moment. "Or trying, at least. I didn't mean to wake you."
Ghean's smile was rueful. "I haven't been sleeping well. I wake up and wonder if it's the morning of the ceremony yet."
He chuckled. "Not for three days."
Ghean pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. "Mother says you've been studying about the House artifacts."
Methos nodded. Ghean's expression turned wistful. "Do you suppose they might work? That I could live forever with you?"
A pang of guilt went through Methos. "You'll inherit Aries' artifact when your mother dies, Ghean. If it works, you'll find out then."
"I'll be old when she dies, gods keep her. I want to be young forever, like you are. I'm the last of my House, Methos, and we won't ever have children. I don't want my House to die out."
At a loss for words, Methos sat on the edge of the bed, pulling Ghean close to him. Marry a mortal, then. The thought came and went. Married to him or not, Ghean would never bear children. "The artifacts seem to work," he said to her hair. "I'm looking for Aquarius' artifact, the book. Maybe it explains how to make the artifacts. It was lost a long time ago, apparently."
He felt, more than heard, the little sigh of relief that indicated she believed he was not abandoning her to old age. Guilt filtered through him, and he remained silent a few moments, unwilling to betray her secret to her. "I saw Ertros in the street," he said eventually, still to her hair. "He said the other children said the Book's under the temple."
Ghean laughed a little. "I remember that story. We used to go on great hunts, trying to find a way under the temple. The temple's the oldest building in Atlantis, and the floor is solid stone. There's nothing under it."
"You're sure?"
Ghean nodded. "Everyone would know if there was. I'm sure some of us must have gone looking once we were adults and didn't have to hide from the priests anymore. We'd all know."
"Would you?" Methos asked. "If someone found the Book of Aquarius under the temple, would they tell everyone? Or anyone? It's supposed to be the city's greatest treasure. Why risk it?"
Ghean's voice became offended. "It is our greatest treasure, if it still exists. Atlanteans aren't brigands or thieves. It would be safe."
"Maybe. But why risk someone getting drunk and mentioning it to an outlander? The island would be overrun by armies of men looking for the secrets of Immortality."
"The gods would protect us," Ghean said confidently. "They always have. At any rate, there's no room beneath the temple. No one can hide something so well that thirty generations of children couldn't find it."
Methos laughed. "All right," he acquiesced. "You have a point there."
Ghean turned her head to look out at the rose-colored sky. "I wonder if you could be persuaded to come to bed for a few hours," she murmured, glancing sidelong at Methos. "I know I'm not as stimulating as intellectual pursuits, but I do try . . . ."
Methos struggled to keep laughter off his face. "I could use a few hours sleep," he agreed blissfully, and laughed aloud when Ghean hit him in the face with a pillow.
Chapter Fourteen
"Tell me about the room under the temple." Methos looked up as he asked the question, watching Ragar's reaction. It was a calculated gambit, one that paid off. Ragar paled, eyes widening as he opened his mouth, on the verge of asking how Methos had learned of it. Within a fraction of a second he regained control over his expression, shock panning away to mild perplexity.
"Room under the temple? I don't know of any such thing. The temple is set into the bedrock of Atlantis."
"So Ghean said." Methos stood, coming around the table the duo shared to lean on it, studying Ragar from above. "It must have been difficult to carve out, then."
The mortal scholar returned the ancient Immortal's gaze with evident confusion. "Truly," Ragar protested. "I know of no such room. What purpose would it serve?"
Methos sighed, straightening away from the table to pace the room with long, idle steps. "My guess," he said, turning his head to speak to directly to Ragar as he moved, "is that there is a tunnel, probably leading from House Aquarius, probably very deep in the stone, that leads directly to the room. A maze would be more clever, but it would also be a great deal more work, and most people who don't keep slaves tend to be a little more straightforward when it comes to hard labor. Of course, I'm assuming the histories haven't been adapted, and that Atlantis was never a civilization built on the backs of slaves."
"We are the favored of the gods," Ragar said stiffly. "We have no need to enslave other races."
"Ah." Methos nodded. "So the tunnel was dug by Atlanteans."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Ragar repeated, only narrowly keeping from snapping the words out.
"The stone is soft enough to carve," Methos continued thoughtfully. "The small altar in the temple has only the shallow blood bowl, but the larger one outside seems to have a room for pooling blood beneath it. I presume it drains into the waste crevasses that Ghean told me about. How long do you think it would break into the other room, if I went into the blood room and started chiseling my way towards the temple?" He reached the far side of the room and began circling back the other way, still watching Ragar. "Probably from House Aquarius," he repeated, "from a room hidden underground itself; the artichects of Atlantis are too astute to fail to notice an extra wall or wing on the outside of the house that wasn't available from the inside."
Ragar frowned a little. Methos smiled in response, nodding slightly as he went on. "It must have been built at very nearly the same time Atlantis was, I'd think. The room constructed, the temple built on top of it, the tunnel dug and the Book of Aquarius stashed there, safe from prying eyes. Perhaps not even the head of the House knew where it went, so when someone got around to asking, maybe generations later, it really had disappeared. Only a handful of scholars still knew where it was."
Ragar's frown grew deeper. "All I told you about the Book was that it had been lost. Where did you come up with these ideas?"
"The priests are going to be very unhappy when I go into their blood room and start chopping a hole under their temple. I think Ertros might help me. He seemed enthusiastic about the prospect."
Ragar's eyebrows shot up. "Ertros told you about th-- " He broke off, eyes closing at his self-betrayal. "Ertros told you there was a room under the temple?" he asked, much more mildly.
Methos smiled faintly, returning to the table. "Ertros told me a children's story about a room under the temple. You just confirmed it. How much of it did I have right?"
Ragar sighed. "I'm going to have to invite that boy into House Taurus," he muttered. "He's too clever by half."
"He really was talking about chopping a hole in the temple floor," Methos warned. "I saw him the other night when I was leaving the temple and the thought struck him to try it in the middle of the night when no priests were around."
"He tried two years ago," Ragar said dryly. "At midday. If he weren't a commoner he'd have found the tunnel by the time he was nine. It's harder to get into the House grounds if you're not a member of one of the Houses."
Methos smiled. "Ghean said it was impossible to hide something from thirty generations of children. I realized she was right. Some of the more enterprising children had to have found the tunnel's entrance. Were you one of them?"
Ragar's expression was caught between defeat and the remains of a childhood pride. "I was," he allowed. "There are a few in every generation who do. They're almost all brought into the circle who know and protect the truth, and they virtually all become scholars."
Methos' eyes narrowed. "Almost all? What about the ones who aren't?"
"There are always one or two who aren't suited for the task of protecting the Book. Gods, man," Ragar said, staring at the dark look clouding Methos' face. "What do you think we do, drown them? They're given a drink that makes them susceptible to believing what they're told. We give them a story about a dead-end tunnel outside the city, and encourage them not to talk about it. They rarely do."
Methos relaxed a bit, nodding. "What about the ones who do?"
Ragar shrugged. "There's a dead-ened tunnel outside the city." He almost grinned. "How prosaic, hm? It's maintained so it won't be dangerous. They lose interest."
Methos brushed the explanation aside, satisfied that the refined Atlantean culture wasn't hiding a barbaric underside. "I want to see the Book, Ragar."
The other man shook his head, almost violently. "No one outside of Atlantis has ever read it. They would never let you near it."
"I'm not interested in what 'they' would do. Apprentice me, adopt me into your House; I don't care." The germ of an idea finally focused in Methos' mind, the real reason the hidden book was of such interest to him. If it really has the secrets of Immortality in it, perhaps we're explained somewhere in its pages. Older than I am, Minyah said about the city. Maybe somewhere in Atlantis' past, those who held the power to create the artifacts crossed paths with the first of us. Methos looked up, eyes intent on Ragar's face. "Ragar, please. This is very important to me, for reasons I can't explain."
Ragar studied Methos shrewdly. "Can't," he asked, "or won't?" Dismissing the question as he asked it, he added, "It was written in the earliest days of Atlantis, Methos. Even I find the language difficult at times, and I've spent my entire life studying it. You wouldn't be able to read it."
Methos lowered his eyes, then looked up. "I will be able to read it," he said with frightening certainty. "Just get me to it."
Ragar went still, the almost quivering stillness of an animal being hunted. He said nothing, completely absorbed by his examination of Methos, as if another moment's study would produce a flash of insight that would explain him. Seconds stretched into a full minute before he broke the pose. "If I do this for you," he said slowly, "you will tell me what it is that you're hiding."
"I'd risk my life by doing that, Ragar."
"I risk mine by smuggling you in to see the Book!" Ragar snapped. "Is it a bargain, Methos?"
Methos fell silent, once more regarding his companion. In time he inclined his head. "It is a bargain, Ragar. The Book, and then my story. How do we do this?"
The entrance beneath the House Aquarius garden was left unguarded, simply to avoid broadcasting the fact there was something worthy of guarding. Ragar leaned against the dead end wall, shoving lightly, and it swung inward, leaving Methos studying the overall width of the garden walls with mild curiousity.
"Come on," Ragar hissed, and disappeared down a latter built into the wall, barely two feet from the door.
Methos followed, swining the door shut again with a faint grating of stone. "I hope that opens again from down here."
"It does," Ragar said. "There's even a remarkably clever device which uses mirrors and allows you to check the surrounding area to be certain no one is there when you come out again."
"Good idea," Methos said. "Was it installed before or after someone got caught?"
Ragar struck up a light, lifting it to grin at his Immortal companion. "After. They say there were rather more recruits than usual that year. Someone came out in the middle of a birthday party."
Methos laughed. "Poor planning, that." He glanced around. The room they stood in was barely large enough to deserve the name, bleeding into the tunnel only a few feet away. "Tell me, where does a scholar learn the knack of lock-picking?"
Ragar cleared his throat, and turned down the tunnel. Methos ducked after him, realizing in dismay that the only reason he'd had head room was to permit the ladder that reached back up to the garden. Sighing, he rubbed his neck in anticipation of stiff muscles, as Ragar replied, "There are half a dozen rooms in the library that you can't get into unless you employ somewhat circumspect methods. I learned how to pick locks when I was about twelve." He was silent a while, concentrating on the steep downward slope before the ground leveled out and he followed a sharp twist in the stone. "It's come in surprisingly handy over my life, actually. Not in the least for sneaking in Aquarius' back door. Be glad I can. It's an easier way to access the Book than trying to ask permission."
"Are we likely to be caught?"
Ragar shook his head, following another bend. "No. The Book is left alone most of the time. It's fragile. We copy parts we want to study and use the copies down in the room."
"Why not copy the whole thing?"
"Half of it is unintelligible. Besides, the gods told us it needed to be protected. Making copies to distribute isn't a good way to protect something."
"Unless disaster should happen to strike and you should lose the original," Methos said. Ragar stopped abruptly and turned around to stare at him.
"Must you point out glaring follies in our logic?"
Methos blinked in surprise. "Sorry."
Ragar snorted with irritation and turned again, following yet another sharp curve.
"This was dug this way on purpose?" Methos asked.
"Oh no," Ragar said, lifting the light close to the wall, allowing a reflection. "The first section, the sharp downhill, had been carved out when someone broke through to a chute in the stone. They followed it to its end, or as close to it as they could. It comes out under water, not far from the harbor. After enough surveying, they determined it passed within yards of the temple." He gestured with the litter lantern, making light bounce off the walls. "See how smooth the walls are? My teacher thought there had been a river through here once. If you follow it the other way, it comes out in a deep basin outside the city."
"Where the blocked-off tunnel is?" Methos guessed.
"Indeed." Ragar continued down the passageway. "There's more than fifty feet of solid packed rock between that blockaded end and open tunnel." He swung the lantern forward, indicating the far end of the tunnel. "They didn't want to risk water damage to the Book, so the other end has also been blocked off. It's one of the things initiates do. Everyone has to add at least three feet of new stone during the three years they're students. Every time there's a major earthquake, someone goes tearing down to check on it. So far, though, nothing has budged the stones we've set in."
"Earthquakes?" Methos asked. "Are there a lot of those?"
Ragar nodded, unconcerned. "I'm surprised you haven't felt one. There's usually one or two every moon that are strong enough to feel, but nothing damaging. You get used to it. We don't think much of them."
Methos laughed. "I'll try to adopt that cavalier attitude, Ragar. It may take some time."
"There are no earthquakes where you come from?"
Good question. "No, though I've felt them a few times in my travels. Disconcerting, to have the earth shift under your feet."
Ragar laughed, about to respond, but pulled up as the men rounded yet another corner and faced a dead end. Methos frowned at it curiously. "Either that's a door or your initiates have been a little too thorough."
"The former," Ragar chuckled, lowering the lantern to inspect a small crevasse in the stone. Two faint clicks sounded as he poked his finger into the niche. The wall swung back silently. "The Book," Ragar said a little dryly, and gestured Methos into the room.
"You first. I insist." Though Methos kept his tone light, Ragar glanced at him sharply before stepping through the doorway into the room beneath the temple.
It was only slightly smaller than the temple itself. To Methos' relief, it was also carved a little higher than the tunnel had been. He straightened, rubbing his neck as he looked around. The top of his head barely missed the ceiling; had his hair had been cut short, the ceiling would have bent it.
Ragar circled the room, lighting torches spaced evenly every few feet. A longish table dominated the rom, half a dozen chairs scattered around it. The door directly behind Methos appeared to be the only exit or entrance. Methos squinted at the walls as he followed Ragar around. "You said the initiates worked to fill the tunnel from the other side. I don't see another door."
"You wouldn't see that one if it were closed behind you," Ragar said, completing his circuit. "But there's only the one door into this room. This is all hand carved. We left the river chute a few minutes ago. The other door you're looking for was built between the natural tunnel and the one we created, back where we turned the last time. It's beyond there that they add to the blockade."
"Oh." Methos came to a stop in front of the door again, beside Ragar. "I don't mean to be difficult," he said after a moment, "but there are no books in here."
Ragar crossed the room again, locating a chisel in the stone, completely indistinguishable from any other to Methos' eyes. The same double-click the door had made sounded, and a wide slab of rock detatched itself from the surrounding stone. The scholar lifted another slab out from within it, and set the second on the table, pressing his fingertips against seven different points, in rapid succession. A hairline crack appeared in the box, and he slid the two halves apart.
"Minyah has a box like that," Methos said with fascination. "How do they do that?"
"I have no idea. I don't make them." With delicate precision, Ragar lifted a tome from the black stone box. The outside covers were a warm dark wood, thin sheets of paper held in place by long leather thongs. The cover was carved with the circle that symbolized the Houses of Atlantis, thirteen studs rising from the depressed wood. Within was the elegant pouring jug of water that represented Aquarius. Excluding the covers, the book was nearly five inches thick, by far the largest volume of any sort Methos had ever seen. "Gods of heaven and earth," he murmured, reaching a tentative hand towards the book. "It's beautiful."
Ragar set it on the table, holding it in place by way of his fingertips, barely touching the wooden cover. "If you damage it," he said levelly, and Methos looked up.
"I won't," he said swiftly, before Ragar had time to complete the thtreat. "I would sooner die." While the statement was wildly untrue, it soothed Ragar, who lifted his hands tonudge the volume towards Methos.
"I would suggest you read and absorb quickly. In time, you may be accepted into the circle of protectorates, but until then, this will be your sole opportunity to study it."
Methos was already pulling a chair towards himself, a long leg stretched out to hook the nearest and drag it across the floor. Judging it close enough without looking, he sat down on the very edge, nearly sliding off. Impatiently, he hitched it forward, and carefully drew the book across the table to open it.
Neat handwriting lettered across the page, ancestor to the texts he had already studied. For a moment Methos simply studied the scripting, then looked at Ragar. "Atlantis developed a written language like this orignally? Not a pictography script first?"
Ragar settled down in another chair, pulling out a bundle of papers from a bag he'd carried down with him. "Our gods gave us our written language. It's evolved since then, but that's the oldest example we have. When they gave us the Book, they gave us writing. It's over a thousand years old."
Methos looked down at the book, hardly breathing. "More than a thousand years?" he asked wonderingly, all too aware that the wonder would be interpreted as awe of being in the presence of something of such great age. It was partly true, but the hope that the Immortals might be explained in the thin pages struck a deeper chord in the ancient man.
"It tells its own history," Ragar said. "Read."
They tell us we are gods, the text began, and it is somehow easier to not argue.
They tell us we are gods. We are not; we are only men and women. Our godhood lies in an Immortality we didn't ask for, and in the knowledge gained over years of study.
My name is Lonan. I no longer remember how long I have been alive. The thirteenth generation of Atlantis is growing up around me now, and my family and I have been on this island thousands of years. We came here to avoid the war that is the way of life beyond Atlantis. Our kind, we Immortals, fight a deadly Game, surviving one day to the next by killing our brothers. We 'gods', my brothers and sisters and I, turned our back on that Game a long time ago, to use our Immortality to better ends. We came to Atlantis, and we have studied here for uncounted centuries.
A thousand years ago, we began to feel weary. It may be that without the Game we pall; it makes little difference. We formed a plan, to build a civilization here of a people whose lives were dictated by scholarship, not war. We were never completely alone on the island; dozens of small fishing villages litter the coast. We went among them and chose the wisest, the brightest, the most intuitive of them, and brought them to this valley in the mountains.
We taught them as best we could. After so long apart from mortals, it came as a shock to us, their brief lifespans. Still, they were eager to learn, and we taught them. With them we built the city of Atlantis, and we built the Houses in the hills, and named them for the constellations in the sky. The symbol of Atlantis became a circle, never-ending, with thirteen points to represent the Houses. Each House took its sky-sign and rendered it within the circle, and those thirteen signed Houses made the government of the city and the island.
None of this happened quickly. In each new generation, more people came to the city, and in each generation some of those newcomers joined Houses, to keep fresh blood and fresh ideas circulating. The building, the studying, the creation of a new way of life took hundreds of years, and through it all we guided them.
I suppose it's no wonder they call us gods. We didn't age and we didn't change, mentors to every generation. When they read this book we'll be gone, and I do not know if they will still call us gods. I cannot explain where we came from, any more than they can, and I wonder if it is not easier to simply call us gods, and forget the rest.
Some four hundred years ago there seemed a stabilization, a sudden cohesiveness that had not been there before. Atlantis had reached adulthood, and no longer needed our supervision so much.
Most of our time since then has been spent writing this book, and creating gifts for the Houses. This book, the greatest of the gifts, will go to Aquarius, the first House. In it are notes on everything we have learned in our centuries of study. We have chosen to not write out our learnings in detail for the Houses; mortal man is a violent and vicious creature, and I fear what might happen if we were to offer them our studies wholesale. Instead there are pointers, enough detail to set them on the right path. They will learn, over the years, how to create the things we have left outlines of.
When they reach the point of being able to understand what we offer, the other gifts will be useful as examples. The treth, the horned horses, have a universal solvent in the horn; it's a compound that can be rediscovered with the right knowledge. The cup is of the same material, though it takes specific liquids to trigger the solvent. Half a dozen of the gifts -- all of them that are meant to be worn, including the crystal -- prevent cellular decay and afford a degree of physical protection. The larger the item, the more effective it is in the second half of this; it was a side-effect, not our primary goal. When Atlantis has reached the level of technology to be able to replicate the gifts, they should be able to use the ones we left as guidelines.
My brothers and sisters and I are tired of our long lives. We left the world behind so long ago that I wonder if there are even any more like us still beyond Atlantis. Since we have had no Immortal visitors in many centuries, we think it is likely we are the last.
If that's so, it is time for the Gathering, and that, perhaps, explains our weariness. The book is finished, and we've decided who will be the last of us, the one to gain the Prize. I will not be that one, and I think in the end I am grateful for that. I've journied in this world long enough, and have helped to create a legacy in Atlantis that should stand through time. It is enough.
Methos stared at the last paragraph a long time, rarely blinking. "But there was no Gathering," he whispered. "We're still here."
"Eh?" Ragar looked up from his papers. "What?"
Methos lifted his head slowly. "You've read the introduction? Written by Lonan, about how they were not gods at all?"
Ragar smiled. "What else would you call them? They lived thousands of years."
Methos shook his head a little. "What happened?" he asked. "When the gods decided it was time to leave you, what happened?"
"There was a lightning storm," Ragar replied. "Legend tells us that it fell from the sky for hours, and when it finally ceased, the gods were gone and the city was bleached white." He gestured at the book. "The book actually tells us where the white stone was mined to build the city, centuries ago, but Methuselah swore to the truth of the lightning storm. He was a child then, maybe the last of us to speak with the gods."
Methos closed his eyes. "Did he keep any records? Any written stories of what he saw then?"
Ragar frowned thoughtfully. "Not that I've ever seen, but I've never looked for them. There aren't any in the library, certainly. You could ask someone at Scorpio. That was his House. If there are any papers, they might have them stored away somewhere. Why?"
Methos looked back down at the brief history. "Do you believe they lived as long as they did?"
"All of our histories, all of the old tales, agree they did. I know Methuselah lived hundreds of years himself, with the crystal they gave him. I think it's not impossible. What," Ragar smiled, "you want to live forever?"
Methos glanced up again. "Don't we all?"
The other scholar smiled again. "Methuselah said he was tired of living, when he gave his stone to Noah. He said mortal man was not meant to live nine hundred years."
Mortal men, perhaps. Voice soft, Methos said, "I can't imagine tiring of living."
Ragar laughed. "You're young, Methos. Thirty years, perhaps? I've seen more than fifty, a good long life, and there are days when I think I'm ready to lay down this life and join the gods on their mountaintops."
Methos lowered his eyes to hide a smile, and turned the next page of the book. The Immortal who'd written the introduction had meant what he said: the notes on the fine paper were cryptic, sketches and brief explanations enough to give a hint of the destination, but not enough to see the path clearly. The stories he hoped for were not there. Instead, there were pages detailing the building of ships, of pyramids; the arts of smithery and warfare, medical practices and plumbing.
A little less than half of the way into the book the formulas and notes became indecipherable. Accompanying notes were legible, but incomprehensible: "Cellular decay reversable by injection of select hormones; see diagram. Crossreference cloak schematics." "Genetic structure unstable at this stage; do not experiment with solvent." Methos' shoulders dropped and he looked up at Ragar, clearing his throat to speak for the first time in hours.
"How much of this can you understand?"
Ragar glanced at where Methos had the book open to, and shook his head. "Turn back about thirty pages. The first third or so we've been able to follow. It's concrete material, building and surgery, things we can figure out. There's a jump, after the section on surgery, though. It goes into topics we can't even begin to understand, things that seem to have to do with the human body, but we're not sure what." He shook his head again. "Eventually we'll get there. The gods didn't want us to have the knowledge until we were ready to figure it out on our own, with only a few hints. I'm not sure how much of the information is theoretical and how much is actually tested."
Methos sighed, carefully closing the book. "It's a little humbling, isn't it? Being presented with so much information we can't fathom."
Ragar nodded, smiling wryly, and tucked his papers away before lifting the Book and replacing it in its black stone box. Sliding it back home into the wall, he asked, "Did you find what you were looking for?"
Methos shook his head. "No. I should have expected as much, I suppose. I only ended up with more questions."
"That's the way of things," Ragar agreed philosophically. "Come. It's a long walk back, and you have a story to tell me."
Chapter Fifteen
Methos left Ragar at the foot of the mountains, the mortal scholar making his way back into the city to digest the tale Methos had told. Methos watched him go, then, a little weary, made his way up the hillside to the Aries house.
He'd had no intention of telling Ragar the truth, until he read the story written by Lonan. They weren't gods, he'd said, and neither am I. They just had an extraordinary number of years to study in. Almost anyone could discover impossible secrets, given thousands of years of undisturbed study.
But what had happened to them? Was the last still alive somewhere? Methos sighed, pushing open the main door to the house. I'll have to see if House Scorpio has any of Methuselah's records.
Minyah appeared in another doorway, an amused glint in her eyes. "Ghean has been looking for you," she warned. "Two days until the wedding, and her betrothed nowhere to be found. She has gone down to the city to find you."
Methos groaned softly, running his hand back through his hair, loosening the tie that bound it at the nape of his neck. "I haven't missed anything of importance, have I?" he asked nervously. "No unexpected rituals that the ceremony can't be completed without?"
"No," Minyah said, "but she will want a magnificent apology. You may wish to begin thinking about it."
Methos glanced over his shoulder, back down the hill he'd just climbed, and sighed dramatically. "Have you had the evening meal?" he asked. "Maybe we could share dinner and look for her together."
Minyah smiled. "I would enjoy that," she agreed, "but if you think my presence will curb Ghean's tongue, I believe you will be disappointed."
Methos grinned, offering his arm gallantly. "I can only hope. Meanwhile, I'll practice my apology on you."
Minyah laughed. "A moment." She retreated into the room she'd come from, re-emerging a few seconds later with a woven satchel slung over her shoulder. A glance inside showed Methos a bundle of paper, bound neatly, settled at the top of the bag.
"You're anticipating my company to be so dull that you bring papers along with you to study?" he teased, as she slipped her arm through his.
"No." Minyah smiled. "I will listen to your practiced apologies, and write down the parts you should keep. Did you find the Book?"
Methos' eyebrows lifted. "Am I that transparent? Does Ghean know I went looking for it?"
"Ghean," Minyah said placidly, "is not as much a study of human nature as I. At worst she thinks you are, mmm. Engaging in activities only a bachelor might be permitted to do, one last time. At best, and knowin Ghean, this is probably her thought, she thinks you are out searching for the perfect gift for the ceremony."
"Oh dear," Methos murmured. "And what might the perfect gift be? I only have two days to find it."
"Something symbolic of the House, perhaps. Ghean is very proud to be the last daughter of Aries."
Methos looked down at Minyah, curiousity drawing his eyebrows together. "Is Ghean your daughter by birth?" he asked frankly.
Minyah's own eyebrows rose in elegant arches. "What an impertinent question," she said. "No, she is not. I found her in the hills behind our house, only hours old. Whyever do you ask?"
"Our kind seem to be born without family." Methos shrugged. "At least, a number of Immortals I've talked to have been foundlings. I haven't asked everyone I've met."
"And you? Were you born without family?"
Methos shook his head. "I don't remember," he said distantly. "It seems probable."
"You find it distressing," Minyah ascertained. "Your inability to remember."
"Not distressing. Vaguely irritating, perhaps. I remember an extraordinary amount. It makes me wonder what it is I've forgotten."
"Perhaps you should be glad of the advent of writing, before you had lived a thousand years and forgotten it all."
Methos quirked a smile. "That's the thing," he said. "I might have."
The conversation died away as they entered the busy town market. Methos peered over heads in search of Ghean, finally chuckling at himself. "She's so small there could be a single person between us and I wouldn't be able to see her."
"I would suggest we try the Bull's Tavern, then,' Minyah said, turning down a side alley. "It is her favorite place to eat. She and Aroz often used to go there."
"You couldn't have said that in the first place?" Methos demanded, half dancing around the crowd to regain Minyah's side.
She smiled up at him, nearly a grin. "I could have," she admitted, "but I would have missed seeing you bobbing around the people like a tall seabird. I deemed the spectacle worthy of a small delay."
Methos couldn't stop the laugh that spilled out. "I see where Ghean developed her sense of humour," he accused. Minyah inclined her head with a modest smile, then, ithout warning, abruptly disappeared into a suddenly coalescing group of passers- by. Methos blinked down at the sea of dark hair, recognizing Minyah several seconds later by her satchel. Weaving through the throng to catch up with her a second time, he said, "That's twice you've abandoned me. Am I to take this as -- "
Nausea swept over him, a quick rush that left him chilled. Methos straightened, momentarily blessing the height that allowed him to scan the mass of people with an easy glance. Karem, light among the darkness, moved off towards a table, without looking to see what Immortal approached. Methos looked ahead, following Karem's path to its end, and touched Minyah's shoulder. "I've found Ghean. This way."
They circled towards Ghean's table. Minyah swatted someone out of the way with her satchel, looking wide-eyed with indignation when he frowned at her. Methos laughed as the man looked startled, then with an apologetic and sheepish grin, stepped out of the way. Minyah's eyes danced as she grinned back at Methos. "The trick," she explained, "is making them think it was somehow their fault."
"I think women have been doing that since the dawn of time." Methos grinned, guiding Minyah to a halt at Ghean's table. Hidden in an corner of the open tavern, Ghean sat across from Aroz and Karem both, the latter just settling down with three mugs of the sweet ale that Atlanteans drank in almost as much quanitity as they did coffee. "I see you're able to entertain yourself in my absence," Methos teased, and Ghean looked up with a startled glance.
"Methos!" She shoved her bench backwards to launch herself towards him for an exuberant hug. "Where have you been? Have you met Karem?" Ghean released the hug and stepped back a little. Over the top of her head, Methos watched Aroz scowl at the table, expression black.
Belatedly, Ghean noticed her mother. Minyah stood to the side, vivid amusement at Ghean having eyes only for Methos. "Mother!" Ghean went on. "We've been talking about history. You'll be a great help. Methos, Karem is as interested in the House artifacts as you are. Perhaps you should pool your resources and try to find the Book together."
Methos struggled to keep the dismay off his face. "Perhaps," he agreed, "though Karem claimed to be no scholar, and thus without hope for studying the artifacts. We've met," he added, and inclined his head towards Karem in greeting.
"Ghean tells me you've been staying up late reading about the artifacts," Karem said, light tone belying the glint of steel in his eyes. "Not holding out on me, are you?"
"Why ever would I do that?" Methos asked drly, swinging a long leg over the bench to sit. "I haven't found anything useful at all."
"You spent half the day missing and found nothing useful?" Karem's skeptiscism colored his tone, now.
Methos cast a brief glance at Ghean. "Telling your woes to strangers?" he asked. "The trauma of a missing betrothed?"
"He's not a stranger," Ghean explained, sitting on one side of Methos as Minyah took the other. "He's a friend of Aroz's, and Aroz is family." She smiled across the table at the dark man, whose face went even more bleak.
"Perhaps I should get the newcomers something to drink," he offered, standing. "Minyah?"
Minyah smiled up at him. "A cup of coffee, please. Methos?"
Methos, all too aware of how little Aroz desired to bring him anything, hesitated. It had been hours since he'd had anything to eat or drink. "Ale, please," he said after a moment. Aroz scowled again and made his way across the busy tavern.
Ghean watched him with a frown, and when he returned, reached out to place a hand over his as he sat. "The ceremony is in two days," she said. "Won't you be happy for me, old friend? Is there not even one smile within you for me?"
Aroz dredged up a smile, tinged with regret. "I am happy for you," he lied.
Methos, tasting the lie in the words, threw a twisted smile at the table. I wonder how long it will be until we battle again. Without Ghean to cry mercy, this time I will take his head. I'd hate to spend my married life looking nervously over my shoulder, waiting for him to come.
Ghean smiled, pleased. "Thank you, Aroz. That wasn't so bad, was it? You'll stand in place of my father, won't you? I'd like to have all of my family together for the ceremony, and you're a part of it."
It was a kinder way to distance herself from him than Methos would have tried. He watched Aroz struggle with the request, and give in, nodding his head.
"I would be honored, Ghean." The bass voice sounded more angered than honored, but everyone at the table knew it was the only answer Aroz could give.
"Pleasantries aside," Karem said, voice so innocent it almost entirely diluted the sarcasm in the words, "I wonder if I could impose on you, Minyah? Your expertise on the artifacts is clearly far greater than Methos'. I would like to learn what you know about them."
The intended barb slid by without the desired effect, as Methos nodded a little. "She's more likely to be able to determine the location of the Book, if it still exists, than I am," he said, sounding almost apologetic. "An entirely lifetime in Atlantis, versus a few weeks." He shrugged, playefully rueful. "I'm outclassed."
"In that," Minyah said serenely, "you are entirely correct." The grin that shot across her face ruined the effect, and everyone laughed. "I would be delighted to instruct you in what little I know, Karem. Perhaps Methos would like to join us, as he has finally confessed his interest in the artifacts as well?" She lifted an eyebrow at Methos curiously.
He opened his mouth to protest that it wasn't necessary, then stilled the words as he took in Minyah's expression. She's -- not afraid; I don't think Minyah is afraid of anyone. Wary. Of being alone with Karem. I can't blame her. Methos changed his sentence while still inhaling to speak it. "I'd love to join you," he admitted, adding a touch of chagrin at being foundout. "I'd no doubt have gotten further myself if I'd had the presence of mind to ask you, Minyah."
"No doubt. Men, however, often seem reluctant to ask the help of a woman." Minyah picked up her coffee mug and smiled over the brim of it at each of the men, in turn. "I suspect it is due to the fear that they will confirm that women are far more intelligent than they."
For a moment, Methos, Aroz and Karem became a monument to consolidarity, equally offended on behalf of their gender. Ghean laughed, applauding her mother, and Minyah's quiet smile turned to a grin. "I trust you will remember that in the future," she said severely to Methos, who gave up his expression of mock outrage to join the laughter.
"I'll try," he promised. "Meanwhile, maybe our study sessions shouldn't begin until next week? The ceremony is in two days -- "
"A day and a half," Ghean interjected.
"A day and a half," Methos corrected, grinning, "and most of us here are rather intimately involved with it." He shrugged at Karem. "A few days delay won't make that much difference."
Karem frowned very slightly, glancing over the others at the table. Finally, he shrugged as well. "I suppose not, at that," he agreed with well-feigned pleasantry. "Forgive my eagerness, Minyah. I've never been good at patience."
"Few of the young are," Minyah said in a tone so dry Methos shot a sideways glance at her. She arched an eyebrow back at him, elegantly. The corner of her mouth turned up, self-mocking, and she lifted a hand to gesture briefly at her own eyes. It is something in the eyes, she'd said, when she'd deduced Methos' secret. Something, apparently, that she could discern in many Immortals. Methos sat back, regarding the woman.
She could be very, very dangerous to Immortals, if she chose to be, he realized. How old? How many lifetimes do we have to lead before she can see it in our eyes? Or is it the first death that marks us? Methos turned his head to study Ghean, who smiled back up at him curiously.
Nothing but the tingle of potential Quickening marked her as Immortal. Her eyes were bright, full of life and excitement, untouched by the deaths he could see in the faces of the other two Immortals at the table. Examining Ghean, Methos wondered when those changes would settle into her eyes, invisible to all but those who knew how to look for them.
Karem was grinning apologetically, unaware that his secret was betrayed to the Atlantean scholar sitting across from him. "Perhaps patience will come to me as I age," he agreed. Methos could hear the underlying tinge of amusement, so often injected into his own words. Sometimes it was the only way to maintain sanity, to pretend Immortality and great age were a colossal joke, one that only the Immortals were in on.
Except this time, Minyah was in on it, as well. She smiled, nodded, and said, "Perhaps," with such polite disbelief that Ghean blinked in surprise.
All trace of humour fell away from Karem's face. Cooly, he stood, looking down at Minyah. "And perhaps not," he agreed, acidly. "Maybe you're right. What a pity that would be for you." He turned and stalked away through the thinning crowd.
Methos watched him a moment before speaking to Minyah. "That may have been a mistake."
"I do not care to be laughed at," Minyah said irritably. "Particularly by children who think they are my better."
Aroz, voice slightly strangled, said, "He's more than four hundred years old, Minyah."
"Never-the-less," she snapped, "my statement stands. He is a child, eager for toys beyond his understanding, and I do not care to be mocked."
Ghean stared after Karem in dismay. "He's one of you, too?" Her voice rose to a higher pitch. "Is everyone going to live fore--"
Methos elbowed Ghean in the stomach, wincing apologetically as he did so. Ghean's expression exploded into outrage. Aroz half lurched to his feet, snatching for his sword, an action mirrored by Methos.
Minyah's voice cracked out: "Stop this!"
Both men froze, eyes locked on each other across the table. A little circle of quiet washed out from their table, as other patrons turned to watch the commotion. Finally, Aroz snarled, "Later," and slammed his sword fully back into the sheath, regaining his seat.
"Later," Methos agreed in a growl, then took a calming breath. "Ghean, I'm sorry," he said as he sat down again. "You were becoming uncomfortably loud." This is a serious game, Ghean. You don't understand yet, but you will in time. Until then, I cannot allow you to betray me. To betray us. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "Are you all right?"
Ghean rubbed her stomach sullenly. "I'm fine," she muttered. "Is everyone but me going to live forever?" she demanded more quietly. "It's not fair."
Methos exchanged an uneasy glance with Minyah. "Life has never been fair, Ghean," the woman said. "I am quite certain I will not live forever. Perhaps you will be lucky and will be like them."
Ghean looked up at Methos, eyes pleading. "Will I?" she asked. "Could that happen?"
Methos closed his eyes, sighing, then looked at Ghean. "I don't know." If you die before your time, yes. If one of us tells you, yes. If you do not die . . . no. "I don't know, Ghean. We don't make that decision." He looked aver at Aroz, whose face was pinched, though he nodded his head in agreement after a few seconds. Methos sighed again, shaking his head. "I don't know."
Chapter Sixteen
Just after midnight the next day, Methos jerked upright, hand closing on the covers in search of a sword that wasn't there. Ghean pushed herself up on her elbows, blinking tiredly at him. "What is it?"
The Immortal swung out of bed, shaking his hair back over his shoulders. "A nightmare," he answered. "Go back to sleep. I'm going to get a drink of water. I'll be back soon."
Ghean nodded, eyes already closed again as her head dropped into the pillow. Methos watched her for a brief moment, bending to brush the back of his hand across the air above her cheekbone. "I love you," he whispered, and picked up his sword to go out and meet the Immortal who waited for him.
The moon had faded to a sliver, its light reflected poorly from garden walls and making monsters of trees and shadows. Methos walked the path cautiously, flat sandals offering little purchase and causing gravel stones to shift slightly under his weight. Each movement cracked like a richocheted shot to Methos' ears, forcing him to abandong any pretense of silence.
Aroz sat on one of the stone benches, elbows on his knees and hands hanging loosely, head dropped as he studied the ground. He was dressed as Methos was, in the lightweight pants that Atlatneans customarily slept in, shirt left behind in his quarters. His sword lay on the bench besdie him, bronze glinting dully in the moonlight. As Methos stopped a few yards away, Aroz lifted his head, expression unreadable in the half light. After a minute he stood, sword gripped loosely in his hand. "I wasn't sure you would come."
"We don't have to do this," Methos said tiredly.
Aroz smiled thinly, casting a glance at the small house Methos had come from. "You struck her. I am still her bodyguard. Even if we were not Immortal, her honor would still be at stake."
"She was about to expose us," Methos pointed out. "Loudly, and to a sizeable group of people. I couldn't allow that."
Aroz shrugged. "Who would have believed her?"
"Someone might have. I didn't live as long as I have by letting people announce to random strangers that I'm Immortal. I couldn't take the chance."
"And so you prefer to strike your beloved?"
Methos sighed, looked away momentarily, then looked back. "Yes. I'll stop someone by any means necessary to keep our secret safe."
"Even the woman you are to marry."
Methos tilted his head back a little, weariness in the movement. Eyes still on Aroz, he said, "Yes. There will be a time that she understands, Aroz, but it hasn't come yet. She's still mortal."
Aroz looked up towards the house again. "How long will you continue to allow her to be unaware of what she is?"
"Allow?" Methos straightened his head, staring at Aroz. "I don't allow or disallow people their Immortality. I'm old, not omnipotent. It's not my choice when or if she becomes Immortal." He, too, glanced back towards the house, and his shoulders dropped. More quietly, he admitted, "I don't think I could bear to lose her to old age, not knowing the potential is in her. A few years . . . five or six. She'd still be young."
"And if she hates you for keeping it secret? What if you lose her to that?"
Methos turned back to Aroze, smile wry. "Maybe she'd let me make it up to her in a few hundred yeras. I don't expect the marriage to last after she learns. It wouldn't be fair to her."
Aroz shook his head. "Then why not tell her now? Let her make the choice now?"
"Why not tell her yourself?" Methos asked shortly, lifting his eyebrows when Aroz looked away uncomfortably. The older Immortal let the silence draw out a few moments longer before speaking again. "I won't tell her yet because Immortality changes us all in a fundamental way, and Ghean is still very young. I don't want to see her vividness fade. Not yet." He closed his eyes, calling the image of Ghean's smile to mind. "Let her enjoy that passion while she can. It may not survive the first death." He could hear the sorrow in his own voice, and smiled sardonically at it. When he opened his eyes again, it was to find Aroz staring at him, a quizzical frown wrinkling his forehead.
"You really do love her."
Methos groaned. "Of course I do. You think I want to marry her so you can't have her? Don't be stupid, Aroz. I haven't lived this long courting that kind of idiocy, either."
Aroz stood quietly a few minutes, eyebrows still drawn down as he examined Methos. "I don't understand you," he said eventually.
Methos snorted, a sound of amusement that shook his body. "You're not the first, and you won't be the last. Does your lack of understanding go so far that it requires us to fight, Aroz? Because whether it does or doesn't, I'd like to get this over with so I can go back to bed."
Aroz's expression darkened again. For the third time, he looked at the house where Ghean slept. "I have protected her all my life, at any cost. Will you do the same?"
At any cost except my own survival. Methos nodded slowly, the caveat remaining unspoken. "I will."
Aroz nodded once. "Then we have no real quarrel. Much as I would like to stand in your place, I haven't the heart to deprive Ghean of her groom mere hours before the ceremony." He lifted his sword, leveling it at Methos. "Do not betray her," he said flatly.
Methos smirked. "I'll expect to find you waiting, if I do." He took two steps backwards, effectively dismissing the other Immortal. Aroz nodded again, and turned his back, walking swiftly from the gardens.
Methos waited until Aroz was entirely out of sight before releasing a slow breath. Someday I won't be able to avoid that fight, he thought waspishly. It might be better to force it now, when I know I can beat him. But I'd no more divest Ghean of his presence at the wedding than he'd deprive her of mine. With a sigh, Methos turned back to the house. He'd only taken a step or two when an indistinct tingle shivered down his backbone. He lifted the bared sword warily, searching the darkness for the Immortal whom he'd been warned of.
"It's only me." Ghean stepped out from behind a tree only a few feet away, a blanket clutched around her shoulders. "I thought I was being quiet."
Methos lowered the sword, slipping an arm around Ghean's shoulders. "You were. How long have you been out here?" The awareness of her potential Quickening thudded at the back of his head, a headache timed to match his heartbeat.
"Just a minute," she answered, snuggling against his side. "You'd been gone too long to get water, so I got up to look for you."
Methos encouraged her to begin walking back to the house with a brief squeeze. "I didn't think you'd really woken up at all." A little hesitantly, he asked, "You were listening to us?"
Ghean nodded against his ribs. "I'm glad you didn't have to fight him," she said softly. "I love you both."
"I know," Methos said, equally gently. "I'm glad, too." He pushed the door open, escorting Ghean inside. She padded back into the bedroom, dragging the blanket up onto the bed with her, and curled into a small lump in the center of the bed. Methos laughed quietly, leaving his sandals by the side of the bed as he climbed in wiht her. She rolled over sleepily, looking up at him with half lidded eyes.
"You won't fight him?" she asked drowsily.
Methos laid a hand against her cheek, smiling down at her. "I'll try not to," he promised. "Someday I might have to, but I'll try to avoid it."
Ghean smiled contentedly, eyes drifting fully closed as sleep claimed her again.
She didn't hear, Methos concluded. If she'd heard, she'd be awake and angry. He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her against his chest, and let sleep find him again, as well.
Ghean kissed his cheek just past daybreak and told him to find something to keep busy for the morning. Thus far, Methos' method of entertainment had been nervously pacing the outer wall of the temple, manfully dismissing the urge to peek through the windows. A quick glance at the sun told him he'd been at this task for almost four hours. He was relatively certain he would wear a path in the stone tier the temple sat on before the sun reached its zenith and it was time for the ceremony.
A burst of giggles from inside nearly forced him to break his vow to not spy on the women inside. They had been doing that all morning. Methos' curiousity was eating him alive. He slowed next to a window, then fixed his gaze on his toes, finally smiling at himself. One would think hundreds of years of practice would reduce the apprehension of getting married. He laughed. One might also think that hundreds of years of warfare would numb one enough that each new battle wouldn't send a surge of adreneline through the body. One would be very wrong, and, Methos decided, one should not pursue the comparisons of marriage and battle any further. Grinning, he resumed his methodical walk around the outside of the temple.
Minyah appeared from within the temple, hazel-gold eyes merry. "Ghean tells me that it is time for you to bathe and dress for the ceremony," she announced.
Methos shot another glance at the sky, eyebrows lifting. "It's not for almost two hours," he protested.
Minyah nodded solemnly. "True," she agreed, "but Ghean is certain that you are wearing a path in the stone and that you will trip in the groove you have left when you enter the temple. Such an ignominous entrance would ill suit the husband of a wife of Aries." The words were delivered with utter sincerity, tone at odds with the smile developing across her face. "Had she realized you would occupy yourself by carving a new riverbed with your feet, she would have given you specific tastsk." Minyah's voice gave way to the laughter on her face. "I told her men never know what to do with themselves on the day of the ceremony. I see that age makes no difference, and I was correct." Minyah looked distinctly smug. "That is always satisfying."
Methos threw his head back and laughed. "Minyah, are you ever wrong?"
The woman smiled. "No," she said, self-assuredly, "and in the unlikely event I should be, I would not admit it. Go and bathe, Methos. Here." Minyah stepped forward, holding her hand out, palm up. "This is for you."
Curious, Methos lifted the package out of Minyah's hand, raising an eyebrow for permission to open it. She nodded, stepping back again with a small smile.
The box was a tiny wooden replica of the one the Book was kept in. Methos studied it a moment, finding the pressure points that slid it open by the faint indentations in the wood. It popped open, revealing a length of soft leather slipped through a silver pendent. Methos picked it up, turning it over in his hand to examine the delicate replica of the House Aries symbol. Sunlight bounced off the etchings that segmented the ram's horns, and the silver studs that represented the Houses glittered faintly.
"It is a hair tie," Minyah explained, gesturing at the short leather strip. "Our House laws only allow necklaces to be worn by those born or adopted into the House, but there are no laws against other versions of the symbols being worn as jewelry. I hoped it might welcome you into Aries properly. Your hair is quite long enough to wear it." Minyah sounded anxious for the first time since Methos had met her. He looked up with a reassuring smile, reaching out to take her hand.
"Thank you, Minyah. This is the first time I've ever received a gift from a parent who knew the truth. It means a great deal to me." Methos closed his hand protectively over the piece. "Thank you," he repeated. "I will treasure it."
Minyah clapped her hands together, dismissing sentimentality with the sharp sound. "Excellent," she said, clearly pleased. "Now you must go and bathe. Take your time," she adviced. "I am certain the priests would appreciate you not returning to wear a rut around their temple."
A little while later, Methos closed his eyes, sinking into the bath until only his hair floated on top of the water, a black spider's web hovering on surface tension. Heat seeped into him slowly, and he drifted in the darkness, listening to the sound of his blood coursing in his ears. Tension slowly ebbed out of his shoulders, and he smiled sleepily into the water. One of the overlooked advantages of Immortality was the ability to submerge himself until all his cares filtered away in the peculiar silence underwater, without ever having to come up for air.
Atlanteans were the only people he'd ever met who bathed with at least weekly frequency, a habit he found blissfully luxurious. The cleverly-laid pipes that carried both cold and hot water from mountain springs made private, heated bathing extraordinarily easy. Methos wholeheartedly approved. I wonder if I could stay in Atlantis until the rest of the world catches up to its level of civilization. The thought made him grin, and he surged out of the water, laughing, hair streaming over his face.
"I thought you were never going to come up."
"Yagh!" Methos leapt backwards, scrambling half out of the bath in a frantic search for a blade before the voice settled into a familiar place in his mind. Edgily pushing wet hair out of his face, Methos glared at Ragar, who laughed openly at the startled Immortal.
"I'm sorry," the mortal scholar said, sounding not in the least repentant. "I've been sitting here for at least ten minutes. If I hadn't believed you before, I'd have to now."
Trying to hold on to the scowl, Methos settled back into the hot water, ducking his head under to smooth hair back from his face. "You scared me," he said accusingly. Ragar laughed again.
"So I see. I didn't mean to, but I must say it was worth it. I've never seen anyone levitate out of a bathtub before. I got your note. I can't decide if you're astonishingly arrogant or painfully humble."
"Probably arrogant," Methos said. "Why?"
"First you browbeat me into bringing you to Atlantis' most secret treasure. Then you tell me a story likening yourself to my gods, and when I go away to consider your story, you interrupt my meditations with a note asking me to stand for you in your wedding. The day before the wedding. That is not usual, my friend."
"Oh." Methos took a handful of soap, scrubbing it through his hair. "I didn't know I was supposed to have someone stand as a witness for me until yesterday morning. You were the only one who came to mind. I don't make friends particularly easily, Ragar, but I think I'd consider you a friend."
"Would you?" Ragar asked curiously. "Can a thousand-year- old man make a mortal friend that quickly?"
Methos smiled a little wistfully. "A thousand-year-old man has to, Ragar. Taking time ot make up my mind could too easily take the rest of your life. I have to decide very quickly if I want to be friends with someone." He ducked his head again, rinsing his hair. When he surfaced, he added, "If I didn't consider you a friend, and trustworthy, you can be sure I wouldn't have told you about myself."
"How can you be certain I'm trustworthy?"
Methos smiled faintly. "Nobody's pointed at me and started telling stories yet. If you tell people about me, I'll have to run, and then you'll never learn the stories I have to tell."
Ragar pulled a face. "Sometimes being a scholar is too transparent a calling. You're right: your secret is safe. But this wedding -- "
Methos leaned forward. "I'd be honored if you'd stand as my witness, Ragar. I know it's presumptious to ask, as we've only known each other a month and I asked at the last minute, but I would very much appreciate it. It would be the first, and probably the last time that everyone intimately involved with a marriage ceremony knew who and what I really was. That's something I'd like very much."
Ragar pressed his lips closed at the man in the bathtub. "It's all about you, isn't it?" he asked. "Nothing else really matters."
"Other things matter," Methos said stiffly.
"Just not as much."
Methos was silent, looking for a way around an honest answer. After a moment he shrugged, and nodded. "Just not as much."
"Mmm." Ragar folded his arms, thinking. "I'll stand for you," he said, after deliberation. "But I want to ask something in return."
"What?"
"Remember me," Ragar said. "In your journal, or however it is that you keep the days and years and centuries straight in your mind. I would like someone, a thousand years from now, to remember Ragar the scholar, even if he never did anything particularly spectacular with his life."
"You earned the trust of a thousand-year-old man," Methos said a little dryly. "That's not something that happens every day."
Ragar shook his head, not to be put off. "That's what I want in exchange, Methos. Remember me. Remember me, and live, so that I'll have made some small mark on history, even if it's through just one man."
"I will remember you," Methos promised softly. He glanced at the water, a small smile reflecting back at him. Out of all the promises he'd made over the last weeks, it was the only one he was sure he could keep.
Ragar nodded, satisfied, then stood energetically. "Well, get out of the water," he ordered. "You have a wedding to dress for. It's only an hour away!"
Butterflies rattled Methos' stomach, tying themselves into cast-iron knots of nervousness. You're a thousand years old, he scolded himself. You should be able to handle a little wedding ceremony.
"Five more minutes," he mumbled pleadingly, and sank underwater again to the sound of laughter.
Chapter Seventeen
Minutes before noon, Methos stepped into the temple, flexing his fingers restlessly. His hair, only just dried, was smoothed back from his face, bound neatly at the base of his neck with Minyah's gift, silver glinting in direct sunlight as he entered the temple. The tail of hair hung to his shoulderblades, falling over bare skin. A golden sash held cream pants tightly at his waist, a thin double-belt of leather buckled over, hanging down one hip slightly to hold the steel sword he had gained from Aroz.
The sword had caused hours of debate. Atlantean males traditionally went unarmed to their wedding cerimonies, though the other men of the party were expected to bear arms. Methos flatly refused to go unarmed when others would bear weapons, holy ground or not. Ghean eventually relented, her revenge being a six hour modeling session while the women squabbled about how best to arrange ceremonial robes over an inconvienent sword. Methos stood through it stoically, preferring the wait to being caught without a blade. Eventually a discreet slit was decided on, and Methos was given strict instructions on how to move to make certain the sword wouldn't cause the robe to fall in an ungainly fashion.
For the moment, though, it was irrelevant, and he could stand as he liked. He'd entered the temple shirtless. Donning the robe was a significant part of the ceremony itself, symbolically enfolding the new husband into the House after the vows were made.
The floor was warm under his bare feet as he moved to take his place at the back of the temple, facing the altar and beyond it, the door. For a moment, Methos frowned at his toes, then glanced to the side to see if others were unshod as well.
Minyah was, at least. Standing to his left, near the door, she wore a sleeveless dress the same cream as Methos' pants, belted at the waist with an identical golden sash. Her heavy silver pendent hung to below her breastbone, on a glittering silver chain instead of its usual leather thong. Her hair was bound up in a delicate golden headdress, curls falling loose down her back over a golden cloak, a few shades lighter than the sash.
Methos smiled briefly at her, glancing away before his attention snapped back to the slender woman. The cloak she wore was mid-length, lightweight, and he suddenly suspected he'd seen it before. His eyebrows rose questioniongly, and Minyah winked, very deliberately, before looking away.
Methos nearly laughed aloud, glancing to the other side of the temple for the Immortal he knew Ghean had invited. Karem stood, arms folded over his chest. Out of all the temple's occupants, he was the only one who didn't wear any of the deep gold that was the color of House Aries. His tunic and pants were dark green, emphasizing his eyes, and the only belt he wore was to support the blade at his hip. Methos nodded a greeting, letting the day itself be an excuse for the smile he couldn't stop. One of the precious Immortality artifacts right under his nose, and he'll never know. Methos' grin grew wider, and he finished looking around the room.
Next to Karem, directly across from Minyah, Aroz looked as though he were trying very hard to look pleasant. It resulted in a somewhat alarming glower, confused by his mouth turning up when he remembered to smile. Dressed in the cream of the wedding party, a golden robe already over his shoulders, he made a striking contrast to the green-clad Immortal beside him. Like the other men, Aroz wore a sword, though his was sheathed across his back, dark leather of the harness a black streak across the golden robe and all but blending in against his bare chest.
He looks, Methos concluded, decidedly dangerous. For a moment, Methos cast his eyes to the pillars that supported the temple dome, offering brief and remarkably sincere thanks to the gods represented that he stood on holy ground.
He was left grinning at the temple gods. Someone had climbed up among them and left wreathes of wildflowers tangled about the creatures portrayed. Aries' ram was crowned in the gold worn by all the House members, the flowers rakishly hanging over one eye, barely kept in place by the curve of a horn. It gave the carving a mischevious air, and Methos smiled again before examining the rest of the temple.
Sunlight spilled between the pillars, highlighting the flower-braided ropes that held in place sheets of brilliantly colored wildflowers cascading down the temple's inner walls. Woven with unfathomable patience, the symbols of Atlantis were splashed in white against the vivid rainbow of flowers. Each was minutely detailed with a myriad of tiny, pale flowers. Different shades picked out eyes and nostrils on the animals, or shaded the curve of a jug to render the illusion of three dimensions. Methos rocked back on bare heels, inspecting the weavings with admiration. It's absolutely impossible that Minyah and Ghean did all thirteen of the weavings themselves this morning. I'll have to ask, later, who did them, and compliment the crafter.
Ragar, last of the wedding party to arrive, save Ghean, took his place at Methos' left as well, closer to Methos than Minyah stood. The stout scholar had a pleased grin plastered across his face, and he, too, wore a sash of gold over the deep blue robes that placed his House as Taurus. The sword and belt were purely ceremonial; Methos doubted Ragar did any more than cut met in his general use of edged weapons. Still, tradition demanded he go armed, and so he wore a blade, bumping his arm awkwardly against the hilt when he moved.
Another thirteen men and women, representing each of the Houses, filed in, to take up places in front of the wildflower weaving that symbolized their House. They stood, Ghean had explained to him, not as men and women witnessing the marriage, but as the gods of each House, so that the gods might watch and bless the ceremony through them. The priest, an imposing bald man, followed them, and the temple became expectantly quiet.
Methos flexed his fingers again, watching the open doors eagerly. The nervous motion stilled as Ghean padded into the temple from the glare of the noonday sun. For a few brief seconds, the dazzling light created a halo around the tiny woman, glowing warmly before fading as she stepped further into the temple. Her steps were dainty, the dress just long enough that a more normal stride would cause her to step on the hem. Bare toes peeked out from under the gown as she came forward around the altar to Methos' right.
Unlike any of the others, Ghean wore red, the gown a deep crimson, darker than blood. The sash at her waist was the gold of Aries, and trailed down in back to blend with a wide slash of gold inset into the skirt. The back of the dress was cowled, crimson warm against the smooth olive tones of her skin. Hip- length hair was bouned up in a perfectly smooth bun, surrounded by a delicate tiara of gold, the symbol of Aries worked into the metal at the crown of her head. A length of thick black hair was left to swing free, washing down over the back of the tiara, creating a glittering mark where gold suddenly flashed through. Smiling shyly, Ghean offered her hand to Methos, over- full sleeves of the dress falling away to expose her fingertips.
"You are positively radiant," Methos whispered as he took her hand. Ghean's smile exploded with pride. They knelt together as the priest circled the altar to stand in front of them. Golden House symbols, all thirteen of them, were embroidered at the hem of his white robe. Methos grinned at the needlework while the priest gestured Minyah and Aroz forward.
"Do you have the robe this man is to wear?" the priest boomed out. Methos blinked up, startled, to look out the door beyond altar and priest alike. A crowd was gathered there, well-wishers for the newly-weds who were not to enter the temple during the ceremony, according to Atlantean traditions. Evidently the priesthood was well trained in allowing those relegated to the outside to hear what was going on.
Aroz, standing for Ghean's father, began to unfold the robe as he and Minyah came forward. "We do," he replied, neither as loudly nor as grandiosly as the priest had.
In fact, Methos thought irreverantly, I might call his tone sour. He really should learn to lie more believably.
For a moment, Methos thought the sharp crack was the sound of the robe being shaken out. A deep rumble of stone shifting followed it, and the earth trembled, correcting his belief. As the walls groaned, Methos jumped to his feet, pulling Ghean against his chest protectively.
"Earthquake," Minyah explained, voice astonishingly calm next to the alarm Methos felt. "It will pass in a moment."
For long seconds the rumbles continued, settling down into silence as the Atlanteans looked patiently bored. Ghean took a step back, grinning up at her husband-to-be. "They're not so bad," she assured him. "You'll get used to them."
Methos let out a slow breath, shaking his head. "I'd rather not," he said dryly. "Is it over?"
Silence fell over the temple for a moment, and then Ragar nodded. "I think so," he said. "Shall we go on?"
"An excellent suggestion," Minyah replied, turning to Aroz, who held Methos' ceremonial robe loose in his hands.
"We do," he repeated, and then hissed, "Kneel," at Methos. Reminded, Methos dropped back down to his knees, only to fall forward, bracing himself with his hands as another jolt, much harder than the first, shook the temple. Ghean, kneeling as well, also fell, and beside them Ragar dropped too, surprise clear on his face.
Minyah gave a sharp cry, reaching a hand out to catch herself a moment too late. The earth's shaking knocked her feet out from under her, and she fell back, a hand flailing for balance. Methos pushed himself to his feet on the rattling temple floor, able to see before she hit that the fall would shatter Minyah's wrist.
"A doctor -- " he began, as Minyah bounced off the stone slabs, unharmed. She rolled into a sitting position, staring at her arm in astonishment before tentatively prodding at it with her other hand. Hazel-gold eyes widened, and she looked up at Methos, touching the shoulder of the golden cloak she wore.
The earth gave a final violent rumble before making a sound almost like a sigh, the shaking dying away again. Karem's shout of outrage overpowered the last sounds of the earth settling. "You bitch! You're wearing one of the artifacts!" He surged forward, swinging over the corner of the altar and drawing his sword to strike at the woman on the floor.
"No!" Ghean's scream cut through Karem's shout, as she flung herself forward across the floor, putting herself between the man and her mother. Karem's expression registered feral delight.
"You first, then," he snarled. "I always wanted to taste the power of an untapped Quickening." The sword swung down to the sound of Ghean's scream. The tiny woman flung her arms up, twisting away from the falling sword, cries abruptly silenced as the blow cut her nearly in half. Kicking the body out of his way, Karem raised his sword a second time, to strike at Minyah.
Methos dove for the man's knees, knocking him off balance, at the same time Aroz vaulted the altar to lift his sword and drive it down towards Karem. Methos rolled to his back, kicking Aroz's sword arm and sending the blow astray. "Holy ground!" he screamed. "You can't do this! We're on holy ground!"
Aroz's black eyes filled with rage, looking down at Ghean's body. "I can," he growled. Karem scrambled to his feet, regaining his blade, and whirled to face Aroz. An instant later their swords clashed, an angry ring of metal. A fresh roar of tearing earth followed the first exchange of blows, and Methos struggled to his feet.
"You can't do this!" he screamed again. Another violent lurch of the earth sent him sprawling to the temple floor. Metal smashed against metal above him as Karem drove a blow at Aroz, and Methos pulled himself to his feet. There was blood on his pants, Ghean's blood. For an instant he hesitated, looking through the tangle of people for her body.
The sun went out. Methos shot one frantic look through the pillars, watching black clouds boiling through the sky as Aroz and Karem slammed their blades together again. Lightning shattered down from the clouds, rendering the people in the temple into stark fragmented images. Methos hauled Ragar up by the collar and shoved him at the door. "Run!" he shouted, snatching at Minyah's wrist, dragging her with him towards the door. Wind sprang up, howling agonized octaves above the frightened screams as people bolted from the temple and the square surrounding it. "Run!"
Minyah pulled back, trying to return to the temple as Methos herded her out the door in front of him. Curls lashed in her face as she cried, "Ghean!"
Methos grabbed the front of Minyah's cloak, hauling her centimeters from his face. "Ghean is dead!" he screamed. "Unless you want to be, too, run! And keep the cloak on!" For a moment, he looked over his shoulder at the battle being fought within the temple walls. Aroz had the advantage, but Methos could see grief blinding him, and knew it would be mere minutes, at best, before the fight was ended.
"What's happening?" Minyah remained at Methos' side, screaming. Methos snatched her wrist again, preventing her from returning to the temple.
"Holy ground -- the Rules -- run!" he shouted again, and ran, pulling Minyah with him. The earth buckled and bent beneath their feet, sending them leaping from point to point. Behind them, as if orchestrated, the temple pillars shattered, sending the dome crashing down against its thick walls.
Aroz flinched at the implosion of sound, staggering to keep his feet as the ground twisted violently again. Lightning smashed outside the temple, blackening the ground and sending acrid smoke into the flower-scented room. He met another blow from Karem, silently cursing the inferior bronze blade he carried. Had he still the steel sword Methos had taken from him, the battle would already be over.
Karem leapt onto the altar, beckoning with one hand as he tracked Aroz's movements with his sword. "First you," Karem growled, "then your precious Ghean and all her sweet untapped Quickening. And then that bastard Methos, and that bitch Minyah. And then the cloak is mine, and the world with it." He grinned, leaping off the altar and moving to the attack.
Aroz backed up, fury blinding his defense. "Over my dead body," he grated. Karem laughed.
"Exactly."
Across the room, Ghean inhaled sharply, the sound entirely lost in the crash of swords and shaking earth. Pain shrieked through her, and she tested her ribs with disbelieving fingers, searching for the gash where the sword had struck. There was blood, blending with the crimson gown, and a wound, but far smaller than it seemed it should have been. As she pulled the dress away from the cut, the bloody injury inexplicably knitted itself before her eyes. Ghean pushed to her feet in confusion, swaying on the rocking floor, reaching up to touch her head. I must have hit my head. The golden crown was crooked, nearly falling off her head. With a rough movement she pulled it off, throwing it on the floor and watching it roll towards the door. Just beyond the opening, it curved to roll in a circle, clinking against the outer wall of the temple. As if the tiny sound were a catalyst in the raging storm, the doors were moved by the wind, slamming shut with a resounding boom that shook her to her bones.
"Aroz?" Ghean whispered blankly, as the opponents in the battle before her became clear. Although he couldn't have heard her, Aroz suddenly looked her way, breaking off the fight to run towards her.
"Ghean! Stay out of the way -- it will be all right -- run!"
Karem's laughter followed the words, harsh over the sounds of the storm, and he crossed the temple behind Aroz. "Enjoy this, Ghean," he advised. "Aroz's death is going to be the last thing you ever see. How does it feel, knowing your pathetic beloved preferred keeping his own neck whole to saving yours? Betrayal is such a bitter dish." Karem's expression became perfectly even, his voice flat. "Now, Aroz."
Aroz wheeled, sword at the ready. "Now," he agreed.
Ghean slid to her knees, tears draining down her cheeks as she watched in silent, miserable confusion. The wind outside suddenly stopped, as though a wailing woman had lost all the air in her lungs to sob with. The earth's rumblings shuddered and came to a halt, leaving the collapsing temple unbearably quiet.
Half a dozen blows were exchanged, rapid and loud in the eerie silence. Karem threw a series of strikes at Aroz's head, each parried with unbelieveable speed. The fourth time, Karem jerked his sword around halfway through the blow, an ugly, awkward motion that Aroz didn't expect. Before he could rework his defense, Karem slammed his blade into Aroz's side, the same motion that had felled Ghean only minutes earlier.
Aroz slid to his knees, defeat etched in his face, more colored with regret than despair. Very calmly, he turned his head to smile gently at Ghean. "I loved you," he said clearly. The words were left hanging in the air as Karem's sword swept down to take Aroz's head.
Ghean screamed.
Outside, the wind began howling again. The temple stone roard out as the earth convulsed again. Within the temple, there was a moment of utter stillness, while power gathered. Karem flung his head back in a shout of triumph, waiting for the rush of strength that was the Quickening. He held the pose a long moment, then his eyes widened and he looked at Ghean.
"Something's not right," he whispered with great precision. Lightning slammed into him, bombarding him through the temple roof and windows. The pain of the Quickening exploded into agony, a thousand times worse than any Quickening Karem had ever felt. Pain fogged his mind, scoring his throat raw with screams. Dimly, the warning Methos had shouted came back to him: holy ground.
Holy ground is our sanctuary. We cannot fight there.
"No!"
The blade fell from Karem's hand, only inches from where Aroz's lay. Lightning turned to pure fire, hammering into the blades, leaping from bronze to stone to flesh. It burned hotter than open fire could, melting the temple's stone floor into liquid smoothness, and Aroz's body into a grease patch on the floor, charcoaled bones shattering into dust. Karem disintegrated more slowly before Ghean's horrified eyes, flesh melting from his bones as he collapsed towards the floor, screams echoing above the fire's roar.
The stone boiled. Frantic, Ghean ran to the altar, perching on it as she sobbed a supplication to the gods. "Please, please, please save me. Please save me. Please."
The litany provided no release as the fire swept up the walls, melting away fractures in the stone, rendering imperfections invisible. The door faded into obscurity, the windows reduced to smooth curves in the walls.
The air was too hot to breath. Under her, the altar slipped, beginning to melt into the boiling floor. Ghean closed her eyes and screamed until she could take in no more oxygen from the broiling temple air. She fell unconscious before the flames reached her.
Chapter Eighteen
In the moment that the winds stopped and the earth ceased shaking, Methos skidded to a halt, jerking around to stare back through the fractured city towards the temple.
"What?" Minyah gasped. "What is it?"
"I don't know," Methos replied shortly. "Maybe they've stopped -- "
"Stopped?" Minyah demanded breathlessly. "Then Ghean - - "
"Maybe," Methos said again. Stop, he prayed, to gods he didn't believe in. Don't let them do this. Stop while we're all still alive.
The wind screamed anew, and Methos swore, yanking Minyah back around. "Dead," he grated, and began to run again. The earth's shaking redoubled, stones crashing in pieces into fractures that appeared around the runners.
"Methos!" Ragar's bellow came from above, as he waved wildly. "This way!" He turned and continued up the hill. Methos glanced around in search of a better path before giving chase, hauling Minyah with him. The road Ragar'd chosen was the one leading out of the city, to the harbor. As good a choice as any.
Ragar, panting, stopped to wait for the duo below him. "There are boats," he puffed. "If we can get to them we should be safer -- "
Beneath his feet, the earth split open. Ragar fell, silent with surprise, flinging a hand up in a cry for help at the last moment. Methos sprang forward, reaching for Ragar's hand, only narrowly snatching his hand back in time as the earth slammed shut again, centimeters from his fingers.
"Damn!" For a few futile seconds, the Immortal beat his hand against the stone. "Damn!" This time, it was Minyah who grabbed Methos by the arm, pulling him to his feet.
"Run," she whispered in near exhaustion. "We have to run."
Methos nodded silently. They darted forward again. Screams punctuated the sounds of grinding rock as others tried to survive the maze of randomly opening stone. The road to the harbor was frighteningly empty, given the numbers of people in Atlantis. Methos cast one last rapid look over his shoulder at the black sky swallowing the city whole, wondering how many had already died in the streets.
He tripped, crashing onto his face as he looked back towards the road, pulling Minyah on top of him. A boulder broke off from the cliff wall above them, falling with deadly speed. Methos flinched, and the stone ended its fall with a soft bump, bouncing off Minyah's cloak, rolling to settle a few feet away, harmlessly. Methos lifted his head to stare at it in combined shock and relief, and blurted, "Thanks for wearing that today."
Minyah's laugh was high-pitched with hysteria. She clambered to her feet without answering, once more tugging Methos up as well. They ran, intent on avoiding the opening fissures, jumping madly over those that appeared.
The ground fell away as they leapt. Minyah screamed, watching the black stone of the mountain road drop fifteen feet as she plummeted towards it. She expelled a hard gasp of air as she landed, unharmed, and began running again, pulling Methos along with her.
Again and again the land fell away, until an abrupt drop plunged them into the salt water of the bay instead of onto stone. "Keep the cloak!" Methos yelled frantically. Minyah clutched one hand to the throat of it, the other still clinging tightly to Methos' hand. "Boat," he whispered, panicked. "There must be boats."
"Forget the boats!" Minyah screamed. "Swim!" She released his hand and struck out through the grey waves, intent on putting as much distance between herself and Atlantis as possible. Methos stared after her for a split second, then set out swimming himself, less agile but equally enthusiastic.
The scream of stone minutes later made them both turn, against their will, to look at the drowning island. Stone continued to shatter as Atlantis dropped in surges, yards at a time, easily visible. Fire flung up from the sea, and steam billowed in huge clouds, streaking the boiling black sky with grey.
"Swim!" Methos shouted again. "The undertow!"
Minyah blanched, setting off again with a stronger, steadier stroke. The waters around them roiled, each new breaking wave bringing with it the bodies of drowned Atlanteans. Minyah came up short, cutting off a choked scream. Methos turned to see what caused the scream, and for a moment ceased swimming, closing his eyes with dismay.
Ertros floated in the water beside Minyah, the boy's expression peculiarly content in the chaos. In the black sky's strange light, he might have been sleeping, living color no less washed from his skin than it was from Methos' or Minyah's. A wave lifted the child's body up, rolling it over, and Methos looked away. "We can't help him. Come on." It hurt to speak, his throat rough from screaming. He began swimming again, putting the image of the dead boy out of his mind.
"Methos." The weak cry came many minutes later. Methos turned in the water just in time to see Minyah disappear under a wave. Cursing, he dove, searching murky water for her, fighting against the pull of the waters back towards the sinking island. An impossible amount of time seemed to pass as he snatched at bodies, drawing them close to study their faces in the greyness. A frighteningly strong current drew him back the way he'd come, and he swore again, kicking towards the surface. Breaking through, he cast about in a frenzy, shouting Minyah's name as the water towed him back towards Atlantis.
"Damn," he whispered once more, and put his energy into escaping the determined pull of the drowning civilization.
Hours later, the sky began to clear. Methos rolled over in the water to search the slowly calming water for the remains of Atlantis. As far as he could see, there was only unbroken water, no land masses to meet the eye. The wind carried the scent of blood to him, as sharks found the meal left for them by the drownings. He drifted a while, weary, then began to swim again.
Days later, the sea washed him ashore. Trembling with exhaustion, he lay in the sand, staring at the flawless sky.
Methuselah's grandson was right, he realized fuzzily. The world ended. I wonder if he and his boat got away. The thought was sickly amusing. Methos laughed a little, then turned over to vomit seawater. The motion knocked his hair over his shoulder, and the tie Minyah had given him slipped free, falling to the sand. He folded it into his palm, shaking with the effort, and knocked his elbow against the sword's hilt.
Legacies of Atlantis. He curled onto his side, shuddering and waiting for his body to regain some strength.
Long before strength returned, the painful throb of another Immortal's approach slammed through him. What a stupid way to die, he thought faintly, and closed his eyes, gathering the will to stand. He struggled to his feet, barely able to keep his balance, and waited to see if he would have to fight.
The other Immortal stopped several feet away from Methos, an unpleasant smile creeping across his face. Not quite as tall as Methos, he was broader, and the right side of his face was badly scarred, the injury running over his eye. He regarded Methos for long moments before speaking. "Hello, brother."
Methos rocked back in the sand, staring at the stranger. "Am I your brother?" he asked with light-headed curiousity.
The other man folded his arms across his chest, jerking his head out at the water. "Ships say a whole island sand out there. Did you have anything to do with that?"
Methos, slowly, said, "In a manner of speaking."
"And you're half dead now." The unpleasant smile fixed itself firmly on the scarred man's face. "I think you have two choices, brother."
Methos lowered his head, staring through falling hair at the man. "Do I?"
"You could be my brother, or you could be dead." The scarred man let the words hang a moment, and added, "I could use a man who can sink an island."
Methos turned his head slower to look out over the water, where Atlantis had been. If, he thought. If I'd killed Aroz in the first place. If they'd listened, hadn't fought on holy ground. If I had told Ghean what she was.
The Rules be damned.
I can't remember who taught them to me, anyway.
He turned his regard back to the scarred man. "I've never had a brother."
The smile turned to a grin, no more pleasant as it split the scarred man's face. "You do now," he said. "I'm Kronos, and we are going to rule the world, brother."
Chapter Nineteen
Silence lay heavy over the living room a few long moments, as Methos and Ghean's combined story came to an end. Joe looked away from the pair, scanning the room for something less unsettling to rest his eyes on. Instead, his gaze landed on the scarred white stone at the end of the bookcases, so out of place with the other elegant decorations. For an instant he stared at it, then turned horrified eyes back towards Ghean.
She followed the look, then turned a smile on the mortal man, full of bitter resignation and betrayal. Over his years as a Watcher, Joe had become accustomed to the suddenly weary expressions that would settle in the eyes of his Immortal charges. To Joe, it had always marked the greatest difference between mortal and Immortal. Much as he loved life, the grief of losing friends over his mortal span of years was pain enough. To continue through the centuries, watching loved ones fade and die, was the worst kind of hell the Watcher could imagine.
You are all dying! Words Methos had spoken when he'd first become interested in Alexa, when Joe had told him that the woman was dying of cancer. Six months, twenty years, it doesn't matter! Looking at Methos, Joe shivered in the warm room. Death could take him, in its time. Unlike most men, he knew he would be remembered for lifetimes far beyond the end of his own. It was enough.
After a moment, his eyes came back to Ghean. The acrid smile was gone from her face, but still deep-set in her eyes. Hers had been a hell worse than the other Immortals had suffered, even with the pain of lost friends. Eternal life and eternal death, in eternal captivity. The hairs on the back of his neck stood again, and Joe glanced at the stone on the bookshelf once more.
"Yes," Ghean answered the unspoken question. "It's the same stone. I've kept it, as if it were a precious talisman, a piece of jewelry so valuable it couldn't be parted with." Her faintly accented voice was self-mocking.
Joe looked back at her. "It is. It bought you your freedom, didn't it?"
Ghean's eyebrows lifted curiously. "To say this on so few hours' acquaintance is perhaps presumptuous, but would have expected that comment more from Duncan than you, Joe."
Duncan smiled a little. "E'en Joe has his moments o'grace, Ghean." He cleared his throat, as if to clear away the accent thickened with emotion by the tale.
"Don't do me any favors, Mac," Joe said dryly.
The Highlander grinned, glancing towards the fourth, and still silent member of the group.
Methos sat deep in his char, elbows propped at awkward angles on the arms, long fingers steepled in front of his nose. Over them, he regarded Ghean, ignorning the genial banter meant to lighten the mood of the room. Hazel eyes had deepend to black, no longer lost in memory, but in thought as he studied the woman whom fate had kept him from marrying.
Ghean turned her attention back towards Methos, serenity settling over her face. For an instant, Joe imagined he could see Minyah looking out from her daughter's face, in that steady contemplation. "Tell me what happened to my mother," Ghean ordered imperiously.
"I thought she'd died," Methos replied, fingers still against his lips. "After I couldn't find her, I assumed the Fleece had been torn off her in the water and she'd drowned."
"And you did not look further." Ghean's voice was soft.
Methos ignored the question. "I didn't see her again for a thousand years." His glance ran to Duncan and Joe, and slid off them again. "Not until after the Horsemen disbanded."
Heat rose in heavy waves from the desert floor, warping the air so greatly that Methos made a habit of looking twice before feeling any assurance that objects were actually there, and not figments of a sun-strained imagination. It had been more than weeks since he'd last seen a traveler through the wasteland; months, at least, and perhaps more. After a thousand years of warfare, the silence was welcome, even in the inhospitable desert.
His oasis was a tiny one, a patch of green so small that passing nomad tribes stayed only long enough to water themselves and their animales before moving on, unwilling to encroach on the little home Methos had dug himself out of the sand. It couldn't possibly be me, he thought sarcastically. Reflections in the water, when it stilled, showed him the face he turned to visitors.
It wasn't a face he would want to long sojourn with. The changeable eyes had gone to black, fathomless darkness whose first and most easily read expression was rage, seconded by hatred. The features, always sharp, were chiseled thin with an everlasting anger that fed his belly, churning and boiling. Hair framed his face, unkempt, the top once chopped short and finally growing out. Left to its ragged path, it completed the aura of complete disdain for humanity that radiated from his slender form.
The approaching traveler was either real or a remarkably persistent hallucination. Methos turned from his perch at the edge of the oasis, flinging a loose length of fabric over his face and shoulder to cut down on the sun's glare. The waterhole was easily found. Without a show of hospitality as invitation to stay further, perhaps whomever it was would move on. A millennium of battle was hard to set aside. The more Methos could avoid mortals who provoked his temper, the better. In a year or two, or a few decades, if necessary, he would rejoin the world. Until then, the desert solitude suited his need to reconstruct himself from what Death had left him.
Some of the passion for killing had left him already. Had he gods, Methos would have thanked them. He settled to his knees in the sand under a slim tree, the scarf falling away from his face again. A thousand years had gone by since he had turned his back on the Rules learned in a nebulous past. He killed where he wanted, fought whom he chose, and hunted with his brothers, sharing spoils and graciously offering Quickenings back and forth. The unfortunate victims were left to listen as the Horsemen debated about whose turn it was to take a head. The power had been heady, but in time it grew sour. Mortals were little sport, and only his brother Horsemen equaled his skill with a blade. Even the rush of the Quickening seemed dulled, when he never doubted he would be the victor in Immortal combat.
Then came Cassandra. Beautiful and wild beyond compare, she'd stolen Methos' heart far more solidly than she'd imagined. He'd have done anything for her -- except die. He'd never been the strongest of the brothers, only the smartest. When Kronos came to claim her, he let Cassandra go, betraying her trust in favor of keeping Kronos'. Methos did the only thing he could for her: when she attacked Kronos, and ran away into the night, he didn't stop her.
The thousand-year reign of the Horsemen began to draw to an end, after that. It hadn't been easy, spreading the seeds of dissent so carefuly and subtly that the blame rested on no one, least of all Methos. He'd clapsed arms with Kronos, the last of the four to part ways, and promised, "Someday. Someday, we'll ride together again, you and I. Until then, brother."
Then he'd run like hell into the desert, to an insignificant oasis that had once been someone's holy ground, and there he stayed, in search of sanity. It was a long time coming, but at least the killing rage was fading.
The traveler's camel was slurping noisily at the water. Methos closed his eyes, willing the newcomer away, only to open them again almost immediately. He was safe enough from Immortals, here on ancient holy ground, but the Rules wouldn't prevent a bloodthirsty mortal from taking his head. The faint shift of sand underfoot made him turn his head, looking to the approaching stranger.
Slight, and wrapped in the loose robes that kept the desert heat from killing, the interloper stopped a few yards from where Methos knelt. After half a minute's silence, Methos heard a language unspoken in ten centuries, by a voice he'd thought dead all those years.
"They told me I would find a madman alone in the desert if I passed this way," Minyah said smoothly, pulling her scarf from around her face. "Never did I imagine he might be a friend from a thousand years gone by."
For long seconds, Methos stared up at the Atlantean scholar, speechless. "A friend?" he finally asked, in disbelief. "Is that what I am?"
"You saved my life," Minyah answered evenly. "Had you not dragged me from the temple, I would have died as certainly as Ghean did. I do not think any of the House artifacts are remarkable enough to compensate for fires as hot as the earth's core itself. I saw the sea boil in places where Atlantis' stone fell from the island as it melted. I would not have wished to die in those fires."
"I thought you drowned."
"I waited to." Minyah knelt gracefully where she stood, still a few yards away from Methos. "The pull of the water dragged me under, but in time released me again. When I finally reached the surface, you were gone."
Methos opened his mouth to offer an apology, and was left wordless. "I looked for you," he said eventually. "Until the water came too close to pulling me back to Atlantis."
"And you left." Minyah inclined her head. "And you would do so again," she added in understanding. "For a long time I was angry at you. It took centuries before I was able to understand the need that compelled you to run from the temple, to abandon those who fought or died there. The desire for survival in itself, that is understandable. But for you, it is more, is it not? It was not something I understood Immortality well enough to see, in Atlantis. Only retrospect gave me the wisdom. It is not only survival, for you. It is survival at any cost."
"I betrayed that instinct once," Methos grated suddenly, as Minyah stopped speaking. "I let Ghean stop me from killing Aroz in Egypt, and in the end that cost us everything." The chill of Death's mask settled over his face, the cold lines comforting. "Love's lessons can be hard. It's not a mistake I'll make again."
Minyah came to her feet in a smooth motion, crossing the sands with a few steps, to rest her fingers atop Methos' head. "My dear Methos," she murmured after a moment, "what has happened to you this thousand years?"
Methos broke off his narrative to frown uncomfortably at Ghean. "She stayed a while," he said. "Years, I think. I told her about the Horsemen, and she, in turn, told me about the Watchers. We parted as . . . very close friends. Over the years we met up again now and then, and exchanged tales. Her files on me were frighteningly complete."
"It's good you were friends," Ghean said softly. Methos closed his eyes, exhaling gently, only to look at the petite woman as she spoke again. "But what happened to her, in the end? I want to know."
"She died," Methos said tiredly. "Isn't that enough, Ghean?"
"No." Ghean's voice was insistent. "She was my mother, Methos. I want to know."
Methos lowered his face against his steepled hands, sliding his fingers along the bridge of his nose to press at the inner corners of his eyes. He held the posture so long that Ghean glanced uncertainly at Duncan and Joe. Just as she pulled in a breath to speak, Methos broke the silence. "All right."
"Yours?" The twins were just in their teens, both tall and slender, and madly running through the surf, soaked to the skin. Methos stared openly, first at the children, then at the unaging mortal beside him.
"Not by birth," Minyah said, amused. "For all the artifacts' wonders, they do not turn back the years, only hold them at bay. My child-bearing days were over while Atlantis still stood." She looked out over the blue water. "I miss it sometimes. I hardly recognize myself, from my oldest journals. I knew so little, then. Is that how it always must be?"
Methos shook his head. "You were always knowledgeable, Minyah. The world has changed, and you've watched it happen, is all. It's that way for all of us."
Minyah folded her arms under her breasts, pushing the cloak back over a shoulder. "I was proud of my knowledge, then. I knew there was always more to be learned, but I was proud of what I had." A hand drifted up to touch the edge of the Fleece. "Were my gods wise or foolish, Methos, to give us these gifts? Mortal life is so short, but the world has so much potential. Part of me wants everyone to share in it. The greater part fears what might happen if all people were given this gift."
Methos rested his chin on his knees, watching the water and the children below. "Your gods were well-meaning," he said. "I don't know whether they were wise or foolish, but they meant well. And if more people knew about the artifacts, or if there were more of them, it would make war." He sighed softly. "There's always war. The artifacts would be hoarded, and only the rich would be able to afford them. For most people, it would be the same as it is now. For the dangerous ones, the ambitious ones, there'd be no way to stop them." He glanced up at Minyah, eyes hazel in the sunlight. "My kind of Immortality is less dangerous. I can die. I don't know if you can."
Minyah laughed, settling down beside him on the rock again. "Can you? Three thousand years, my old friend, and you still think you can die?"
"I wouldn't keep my head if I didn't know I could lose it," Methos said, then nodded at the children. "Where did they come from?"
"Nephele, the first wife of Athamas the king. He lost interest in her, and left her. He remarried Ino when the children were small, but she does not like them very much. I have played nursemaid, and helped raise them. I have missed children, over the years."
Methos nodded again. "What will you do?"
Minyah glanced away from the twins to look at Methos. "What do you mean, what will I do?"
"Our kind were not meant to have children, Minyah." Methos hesitated, then smiled faintly down at the water. "I forget," he said, "that you and I are different. Despite there being no warning at your approach, I tend to think you're like me. Even I categorize things in the most familiar manner, whether or not I know better." He shook his head. "That aside, Minyah, they'll grow old and die, while you go on eternally. Watching it happen to friends is bad enough. Can you stand to watch it happen to your children?"
Minyah sat silent a long time. "The war-horses drowned with Atlantis," she said eventually. "They tell stories about them, did you know? They call them unicorns. Noah took Methuselah's crystal away with him on his ark. I have the Fleece. Did you ever wonder what happened to the rest of the artifacts, Methos?"
Methos glanced at the woman. "I hadn't. I suppose I assumed they all sank with the island."
Minyah shook her head. "I have searched out fabulous stories about magical items over the years. The cauldron, the sword and scabbard, the grail; I have found them all. Even Cuthmesh."
"Ring of life," Methos translated, and looked at Minyah's hands. But for the silver pendent of Aries, her jewelry had changed over the centuries. Now, her right middle finger bore a simple gold ring. Methos reached over to lift her hand, folding her fingers over his. The etchings remained, unfaded, a roaring lion's head against the gold. "House Leo?" he guessed.
Minyah nodded. "I found it only a few months ago, after tracking it for nearly two centuries. A rumour here, or a half- remembered tale about an ancient man who wore it -- eventually I found the man who owned it."
"And how did you get it from him?"
Minyah gave a sideways smile. "I stole it."
Methos' eyebrows shot up. "You?"
"It is not much like me, is it? He was a small man, black of heart, an unloved warlord. I became his lover and slipped it from his finger one night. I understand he died not long after." There was no sympathy in her voice. Methos shook his head.
"Judging who lives and who dies?"
Minyah lifted a shoulder and let it fall again. "We all die, in the end. You have just reminded me of that. I judged him unworthy of special protection. I cannot find distress in that."
"Do you think you need the protection of both the ring and the cloak?"
"No." Minyah shook her head. "I will wear the ring, and put the Fleece away, I think." She smiled briefly. "Although after so long I fear I will feel unclothed, without the cloak on my shoulders. I have slept in it, even, for all these years."
Methos nodded. "You'd have to, or the hours you spent sleeping would be hours you aged. Your life would only have been two or three times the normal span."
"So long, and yet so little time." Minyah nodded down the beach towards the children. "When they are older, I will give them the artifacts, or have them sip from the chalice if I have discovered how it works."
Methos' eyebrows went up. "You don't know how it works?"
"No," Minyah said in a voice full of chagrin. "Neither wine nor water drunk from it brings eternal life." She laughed suddenly. "And for two thousand years there has been no coffee to try it with. I miss coffee."
Methos grinned, thinking back to the bitter drink. "So do I, now that you've brought it to mind. Have you tried blood?"
"Blood tastes nothing like coffee," Minyah said primly.
Methos laughed. "In the chalice, Minyah, in the chalice. Have you tried sipping blood from it?" Curiously, he added, "How did you determine water and wine didn't work?"
"Mice," Minyah answered, "pet mice. They died in the usual time." She looked thoughtful. "I have not tried blood. Perhaps I should."
"Will the cup work on mice?"
Minyah looked up at Methos solemnly. "It has not, so far."
Methos grinned. "Well, where is it? We'll try it with blood."
"Egypt," Minyah replied. "Somewhere safe," she added evasively, and Methos laughed.
"What is it about great age that inspires such a lack of trust?" he asked teasingly. "Eventually you'll have to go get it, and we'll see if blood works."
"What made you think of it?"
A skull, silver hammered into the inner curve and glinting over the eyes, flashed through Methos' mind. Kronos, toasting his brothers, and thick, cooling blood dribbling crimson over the whitened bone as the skull was passed from one Horseman to another, each draining some of the blood away. Methos could no longer recall whom the enemy they had so 'honored' had been. "You don't want to know," he replied.
Minyah's eyes narrowed. "Do not credit me with over-delicate sensibilites, Methos," she warned, before allowing, "You are most probably correct. It is likely I do not want to know."
Methos stayed nearby, watching the twins grow, mildly horrified at the rate they aged. "Is it this way for mortals?" he asked Minyah one morning, watching Helle tear out of Athemas' palace after Phrixos for a day's riding.
"Ghean grew fast," Minyah said, "though not this fast. The days are shorter, now. They do not need our supervision today, Methos. Come back in and I will make you breakfast."
"You made breakfast yesterday," Methos said idly, returning. "I'll do it today. Then we can sit around in the sunshine and tell each other how much better the old days were."
Minyah laughed. "As you wish." She glanced towards the clear skies. "Truly, rain would be better. The drought has gone on a long time. Queen Ino has sent to the Oracle at Delphi for advice on how to end it."
"It'll rain eventually, no mater what Ino does. I don't suppose I could go tell her that?"
Minyah chuckled. "No, Methos. She is the Queen. Friends of the nanny do not tell the Queen that the weather is beyond her control."
"Friends of the nanny," Methos replied, "have a bad feeling about this, Minyah. Take your twins away from here and out of Ino's grasp before the messanger returns from Delphi."
"Their father would never allow it," Minyah said, "and Ino would not dare."
"You underestimate the hatred in the human heart, Minyah."
A handful of days later he stood on a clifftop above the waters, watching the scene below unfold in silence. Sacrifice the children, the Oracle had proclaimed, and the gods will be pleased and rain will come again. Hand in hand, Helle walked with her brother Phrixos to face the sacrificial priest, her fear leeched away by Phrixos' quiet confidence. Always the quieter of the twins, Helle had let Phrixos make the choice to agree to be sacrificed.
Around a curve on the beach, sand flew underhoof. A chariot, well-crafted and sure, was driven by dark-haired Minyah, her golden cloak snapping behind her in the wind. Helle stepped forward. Methos' muscles tensed, watching the priest's knife drive downward, blood suddenly staining the girl's limp body. Behind the priest, chaos broke loose.
Minyah's sword cut down two guards in an instant, the momentum of the chariot bringing strength to her blows. Methos had never known her to carry a weapon, much less known that she knew how to use one. For a moment, he regretted his decision to not join her on the rescue.
"No," he'd said, flatly, and touched her face. "No, Minyah. They're mortal. They'd die anyway. I won't risk my head for them. The reward for disrupting a sacrifice is to become one yourself, and I don't want to find out if I can survive having my heart cut out. Walk away from it, Minyah. They're not worth your life."
She'd regarded him cooly. "Perhaps they are not worth yours, Methos. My life is my own to dictate, and I choose this risk."
"Minyah, they'll take the cloak from you, and the ring. You'll have no protection. Under this," he said, fingering the edge of the cloak, "you're mortal. You won't stand up again from a killing blow."
"If that happens," Minyah said evenly, "you will take the artifacts and hide them somewhere safe." She hesitated, hand over her breast, and then she lifted her Aries necklace off for the first time since Methos had known her. "Take this," she said quietly. "You know where my papers are, the Watcher records. There is a box among them, one of the stone boxes the artists used to make in Atlantis. There are letters there, for Ghean." She lifted a hand to ward off his protests. "I know she is dead. They were written by a fanciful mother, when I was very young, long before I knew I would survive down the centuries. Put these with them, and seal the box again. Leave it in the archives, somewhere hidden, if I do not come back. Keep them safe for me. Keep them safe for Ghean."
Methos folded his hand over the necklace, slowly. "I don't want to lose you too," he said distantly. Minyah smiled.
"We all die, Methos. If it goes badly, perhaps I will see you again in the mountaintops of Atlantis."
Methos' fingers closed tightly around the necklace, the silver imprinting a mark on his palm. Phrixos was in the chariot now, bodily hauled there by the first Watcher. Settled crookedly over his shoulders was the Fleece, and a blade shattered against it as someone scrambled into the chariot. An arrow, fired from only a few feet away, split its tip against the cloak as another one embedded itself in Minyah's upper arm. Even at the distance, Methos could see the horror on the priest's face as the cloak warded off injury. A faint shout sent men running after the chariot as it sped away through the surf.
Ten hours later, Phrixos returned to the palace room Methos shared with Minyah. Silent, the boy held out his hand, curled around something. Methos extended his own hand, and the golden ring of House Leo fell into his palm.
"She asked me to give you this," Phrixos said quietly.
"She's dead." Methos couldn't make the words into a question.
"To end the drought," Phrixos replied. "A sacrifice was needed. She offered herself, and I did as the priests wished."
Methos looked behind himself, out the windows. Rain had begun to fall, a few hours since. "She raised you," he said. "Helle was already dead. They both had to die?"
"The priests would never have allowed Minyah to live."
Methos looked back at the boy. "You know so little," he said, tired pity filling his voice. "Go away, Phrixos. Go live your little life, and remember that you chose death for the two women who were your family." He brushed by Phrixos, then stopped. "Where is the cloak?"
"The Fleece? Gone away on a ship to be hidden beyond the edge of the world. It has a dark god's magic in it."
"You know so little," Methos whispered again, and walked away from the palace by the sea.
"It was almost a century, before I heard the myth of the Golden Fleece. I barely recognized it. She chose her death, Ghean. I'll never understand why." For the first time since he'd begun his dialogue, Methos opened his eyes, looking over templed fingers at the tiny Atlantean woman.
Ghean returned his regard, steadily. "You hid the box in the archives in the Paris offices. For her. For me."
Methos shrugged a shoulder. "The things we do for old lovers," he repeated the words he'd written over a century ago. "I was sure you were dead, but I put them there for you in case. Because your mother asked me to. They were in Atlantean. I never imagined anyone would translate them. I certainly never thought you'd be alive to find them."
"I'm full of surprises," Ghean murmured, then stood. "Gentlemen, much as I have enjoyed your company, it is a quarter to four in the morning, and I have a plane to catch in seven hours. Perhaps our paths will cross again someday."
"Oh, I imagine so," Methos answered, standing. "Ghean, it has been positively fascinating to see you again." He bent to brush a kiss against the diminutive woman's cheek. "We'll have to do it again."
"Perhaps a little sooner than four and a half thousand years," Ghean suggested, and smiled as she accepted handshakes from Joe and Duncan. "Goodnight, my friends." She escorted them to the door, leaning in the frame as they went down the steps. "Goodnight, Methos."
Chapter Twenty
Methos stopped at the foot of the stairs and tilted his face back into the rain. "So, Mac," he said after a moment. "How would you like to go to Greece?"
Duncan stared at Methos through the downpour. "Greece?"
"Sure." The ancient Immortal stuffed his hands in his pockets, shrugging. "It's nice this time of year. Besides, it's a convienent hopping-off place on the way to Atlantis. Sure. Why not?"
"What do you want to go to Atlantis for? Weren't you the one telling me it was better left drowned?"
"That was before Ghean was alive," Methos said steadily. Joe stepped between the two men.
"Some of us," he said, "come down with colds if we stand around in the rain all night. Could we hail a cab and discuss this back in the hotel room?"
Methos frowned up at Ghean's apartment. "Nice of her to call one for us, yes. All right, Joe." The slender Immortal walked down the street, towards the main thoroughfare. Duncan hurried to catch up, then paused a moment, waiting on Joe's slower gait.
"What bloody difference does it make if Ghean's alive or not? I'd think you'd be glad to see her."
Methos clicked his tongue. "There you go again, Highlander. Thinking." Shoulders hunched against the rain, he stopped on the street corner, rocking back on his heels as he waited for a cab to appear. "Atlantean was an obscure tongue, Duncan."
"I'm sure you have a point," Joe said.
"Patience, Joe. Don't I always get to the point?"
Joe and Duncan exchanged glances. "No," Duncan said.
"Actually," Joe added, "you seem to take great pleasure in being cryptic and avoiding the point entirely."
"It's part of my charm," Methos explained. "But my point is, until Ghean turned up alive, I was the only one who could translate any Atlantean texts."
The rain bounced off the pavement, tiny circles like ballerina's skirts rippling out from puddles. For a few moments, the steady patter was the only sound, and then Duncan asked, "And this is important how?"
"Well," Methos said reasonably, "no one knows I can read it." His grin was disguised by the darkness.
Joe ran a hand backwards through wet hair. "Methos," he said dangerously.
Headlights flashed in the distance, and Methos squinted down the road. "I think it's a cab," he announced. "The real point, Joe, is that Atlantis -- it is a cab." He stepped down off the curb to hail the oncoming vehicle.
"Lousy night for it," the cabbie said cheerfully as they climbed in. "What're you doing out in the rain?"
"Getting wet," Methos offered, and remained stubbornly silent for the entire trip to the hotel. Once there, Duncan paid, as Methos protested, wide-eyed, "What? You think I have money?"
"I can't afford to keep you, Methos," Duncan said as they entered the hotel. "You're going to have to go mooch off someone else soon."
"Just as soon as I get myself killed," Methos promised. Duncan groaned.
"You're not still on about that, are you?"
"If you don't get to the point about Atlantis soon," Joe threatened, "I'll shoot you myself, and I won't doctor the records."
Methos turned an alarmed look on Joe. "You wouldn't."
"Try me."
Methos held up his hands in defeat as Duncan opened the room door. "The point is . . . okay, who gets his own bed?" he demanded, staring in dismay at the two double beds. "I forgot about that when we dropped off the luggage." He glared impotently at the room.
Longer than it was wide, the decor was identical to virtually every other hotel in America. Neutral brown carpet hid both dirt and wear from foot traffic well, and the walls were painted a non-descript rust. Heavy grey and brown curtains cut the sound of rain at the far end of the room, and a small round table with an overbright lamp was settled between two chairs just in front of the window. Paintings of wildflowers, stiff colors looking like paint-by-number canvases, hung over each of the beds, reflecting in the mirror that hung by the television. The luggage was piled neatly on the counter beneath the mirror.
"Joe does," Duncan said firmly, lifting a finger to point at Methos. "After all, we're having a night out with Dad. He deserves to not have to sleep with squirming youngsters."
Methos squinted. "I'm older than you. Hasn't anyone ever told you to respect your elders?"
"'Out of frustration, I shot Adam,'" Joe dictated dreamily. "'It might have been a little much, but I'd known for years that he was actually Methos, the oldest Immortal, and I was really tired of him not getting to the point. The record has now been set straight.' They'll probably run me out for not telling the truth in the first place, but hell. Nobody ever actually asked me."
"The Book," Methos finally burst out, impatiently, at Joe. "That book was two thirds full of information I couldn't even begin to comprehend forty-five hundred years ago. Information that science is just now catching up to, Joe. Cloning, gene therapy, God alone knows what else. It was so completely unfathomable to me that I didn't even know where to start. Today, they'll know where to start, and I shudder to think what could be done with it."
Joe sat on the edge of one of the beds, staring at Methos in genuine disbelief. "The Book? Methos, Atlantis sank nearly five thousand years ago. What makes you think it still exists?"
"Ghean exists," Methos said darkly, flinging his greatcoat over the back of a chair. "I would have said that was impossible. Right at this very moment, I'm highly reluctant to discount anything at all as impossible."
Duncan came out of the bathroom with an armful of towels, tossing them to the other two and keeping one for himself, rubbing his hair dry as he spoke. "Why are you so angry that she's alive, old man?"
Methos caught his towel, wiping his face dry. "I don't like surprises, Mac. Surprises can be dangerous."
The Highlander pulled his towel over his shoulders, hanging on to both ends of it in front of his chest. "Is that it?"
Methos closed his eyes. "Why don't you spit it out, Mac?"
"He's touchy, for someone who dances around the point all the time," Duncan observed to Joe, then looked back at Methos. "She was trapped for four and a half millennia, Methos. You sure it's not guilt that's making you angry?"
Methos opened his eyes, regarding Duncan. "Yes." As Duncan lifted his eyebrows dubiously, Methos scowled. "They were fighting on holy ground, MacLeod. I had no idea what was going to happen, but I was dead certain no one at ground zero was going to survive. I was sure she was dead as soon as Karem cut her down."
"She was Immortal," Joe said quietly. "But you left her body."
"Do you think," Methos demanded, "that I haven't thought of that a hundred times in the last few hours? A thousand times in the last forty-five hundred years? Do you think I haven't what-iffed the situation to death?" He threw the towel down over his coat with a snap. "The goddamned world looked like it was ending, Joe, and I made a judgement call. Karem and Aroz were fighting between me and her body, and she'd been damned near cut in half. I didn't think I had time to pick up the pices and run. The world is a very simple place, Joe. If it comes down to me or the other guy, I'm always going to choose me. Always. You're thousands of years too late to make me feel guilty for choosing my life over hers."
"And yet you saved Minyah." Duncan's voice was soft, the words almost a question. Methos sighed, anger draining away.
"She was mobile. She was in front of me. I had to get her out of the way so I could move, and no, I am not pretending that my own best interests were what motivated me. I am not a heartless monster, Mac, and I was not a heartles monster then." A smile drifted across Methos' face, without humour, without touching his eyes. "That came immediately after." He dropped into a chair, on top of his coat and the towel, silent a few seconds.
"I would have saved Ghean, if I'd thought I could, and still gotten out of there alive. Now, knowing what happened to her, knowing she survived all those centuries in that prison," Methos shrugged. "I would do the exact same thing."
"Is it really that easy for you, Methos?" Duncan asked, voice tinged with a sort of faint, horrified admiration.
"After five thousand years? Yes. It really is. Death before dishonor, come home with your shield or on it: those are concepts that don't belong in my world, Duncan. I can live with dishonor. I can't live without my head."
Duncan quirked a curious smile. "Does dishonor mean anything to you at all?"
Methos shook his head. "No. Someone else might percieve my actions as dishonorable, but someone else would be dead. My own judgement is the only one I'll accept. I'm the only one who has to live with what I am and what I've done." He raked a hand through his hair, sending water droplets to the floor. "There are a few people whose opinion is important enough that I'll alter or reconsider my first impulse for them, but ultimately, I'm the only one who gets to judge me."
Duncan's smile turned half amused. "You've risked your head for me and Joe both."
"So you're two of the ones whose opinions matter. Can we stop this line of conversation before anyone gets embarrassed by the gushing sentimentality?"
Duncan chuckled. "It might be worth pursuing, someday. The oldest man's perspective on what makes a worthy human being."
Methos snorted. "You should have tried that back in Atlantis, Duncan. I was a lot more introspective in those days."
"I wasn't there," Duncan pointed out.
"I guess you missed your chance, then."
"Not to change the subject," Joe said mildly, "but how do you know what's in the Book is stuff that shouldn't be messed with today? You said yourself it was over your head, when you read it. It might prove incredibly useful for today's scientists."
"Sure," Methos said, "and the Horsemen might have advanced civilization by a thousand years by uniting everyone in fear against them. But it didn't happen. Whatever's in that Book, Joe, we're just now beginning to understand it. I'm not at all enthusiastic about handing over the secrets of eternal life to the masses, not anymore now than I was then."
"But you went after the Methuselah stone for Alexa," Duncan said. Methos gave him a sharp look.
"No one ever said I was consistent, Highlander. If I could pick and choose everyone who got Immortality, without ever risking my head, yes, I'd do it. But I can't, and what I said then still stands: people with Immortality at their fingertips are eventually going to notice us. Whether it's because we survived a mortal blow while not wearing one of their precious artifacts, or if it's because somebody realizes we're not filling ourselves with the cocktail of drugs that keeps everyone supple and youthful, eventually the top's going to be blown off the whole Game. I want no part in furthering that. It'll happen sooner or later. It doesn't need my help, or the Book of Aquarius' help."
"What if it had a cure for cancer somewhere in there?" Joe asked. Methos turned the dark look on him.
"Alexa's dead," he said flatly. "Nothing changes that, Joe. Everyone dies. It just comes sooner for some people than others."
"But if you could have saved her -- "
"If! God damn it, Joe. Yes. If I'd had the Book, if it had a miracle cure for cancer, yes, I'd have used it. I'd have given it to the world, just so some doctor somewhere could make it work. But I didn't have it, and now she's dead, and all I can do for her is remember her. I can't change the past and I can only try to control the future. If that Book has survived, I don't want anyone but me to have it."
"Maybe Ghean doesn't want it," Joe suggested.
"I don't know what Ghean wants, and that makes me nervous. She knows where it is now, and I'd just as soon I was the first one who got to it."
"How?" Duncan demanded. "Do you have a submarine stored somewhere?"
Methos pressed his lips together. "Unfortunately, no. I suspect there's going to have to be a rather large donation to the Atlantis research fund by a historian who would like to join the team on their dives."
Duncan eyed Methos suspiciously. "And just who is providing this rather large donation?"
"Aren't you the skeptical one?" Methos chuckled softly. "It'd be a lot more in keeping with Adam Pierson if you provided it. I can transfer the money into your account."
Duncan glowered at Methos through his eyebrows. "Are you saying you actually have money?"
"I'm five thousand years old, MacLeod. I have more money than God. Adam Pierson, though, is permenantly short on cash. I wouldn't borrow really significant amounts of money from you, but one must keep up pretenses."
"Uh-huh. And just what do I get for fronting this money for you?"
Methos tilted his head. "A chance to see the ruins of Atlantis, of course." He turned to Joe. "You going to join us?"
The grey-haired Watcher shook his head. "Nope. I'm keepin' my feet on dry ground. You can tell me all about it if your submarine doesn't implode."
"We'll tell you all about it anyway," Duncan said. "Wouldn't that be a nicely dramatic way to die, Methos? Sudden compression? You could burst to the surface in agonized awe, trembling with relief to be alive."
"You're making fun of me," Methos accused.
"Would I do that?" Duncan grinned. "Then I could go back and tell Joe about how you handled your first death, and how proud I was of you, and how I planned to walk you through those first uncertain days while you became accustomed to being more than mortal."
Methos hid his face in one hand. Duncan's grin grew wider as he warmed to his topic. "We could invite Joe, the old friend of the mortal Adam Pierson, to your first sword lesson. He could write up a lengthy tribute to my astonishing skills and your child-like awkwardness. He could comment on my neverending patience, and your clumsy attempts to emulate me. 'If only Adam will turn out like Duncan,' he'll write. 'The world would be a better place to have two such men.' And I, modestly, will share my meager knowledge, and send you out into the cruel world to fend for yourself against men and women a hundred times your youthful years -- "
"Enough!" Methos roared, dropping his head onto the table with laughter. "I don't think I've ever heard you accolade yourself so outrageously, MacLeod. With any luck, I never will again. Shut up, man, and go to sleep!"
Joe grinned suddenly. "I think I'll put a passage in it about how I've always thought of Adam as a son, and about how it gladdens an old man's heart to know that this youth who's been so close to me will endure through the centuries. How's that sound, Mac?"
"Oh, very good." Duncan nodded solemnly. "Very touching. We'll have to add something about how his boyish charm is tainted by the sudden cynicism of death, and how we hope a few years will give him the acceptance he needs for that roguish sense of humour to re-emerge."
"Maybe a comment about how he often seemed alone, and how we're afraid this new difference in him will set him further apart from his fellow man -- " Joe broke off with a burst of laughter.
Methos staggered from the chair to the second bed, hands pressed firmly over his ears. "I am not hearing this," he claimed loudly. He dove onto the bed, pulling a pillow firmly about his head. "I can't hear you." He remained there, ensconced in the pillow, until the chortling Highlander turned the lights out for the night.
Chapter Twenty-One
We're falling, the frightened one whispered.
Ghean took a deliberately deep breath, leaning her head against the window and looking down six miles to the featureless ocean below. A yawn cracked her jaw, and she passed a hand over her eyes, trying to rub away weariness. She'd learned, over the last decades, to sleep in cars and trains, allowing the gentle motion to lull her into rest, despite the speed at which they traveled.
Planes were a different matter. Falling, the frightened one whimpered again. The sky can't hold us up. We're falling.
We are not falling, she thought impatiently, but shivered anyway. Traveling so far above the earth's surface, at a nearly unfathomable rate, still seemed unnatural. The roar of the jet engines sounded, even after almost a century, like the sheering scream of stone crashing apart as Atlantis fell.
The sound of the world ending, the patient one said. It is not ending. We're safe.
I know, she told it.
Falling, the frightened one repeated, softly. The plane bumped into an air pocket, and Ghean stiffened, fingers clenched around the arm rests. You see! screamed the frightened one, and Ghean set her jaw, denying the voice.
The seat next to her was empty. Too many concerned colleagues had asked after her welfare in the past, their concern distracting Ghean from squelching the panicked little voice in her mind. After several flights, she simply made the habit of purchasing not only her own seat, but the one next to her, assuring privacy in her personal terror.
She'd learned to meet extended turbulence with a calm exterior. The war with the frightened voice almost made it easier to do so. The struggle to keep from shouting its fears aloud excluded the outside world almost enough to ignore bumps and rattles entirely.
Airplanes are an astonishing invention, the patient one insisted. It takes only hours to fly from Chicago to Greece. Such a journey would have been undertaken only with great care and nerve, from Atlantis, and would have taken many, many months.
I appreciate that, Ghean grated silently, on an intellecutal level. They used to make the trip, to South America, to get the beans for coffee and chocolate.
Yes, the patient one said smugly. They would have embraced flight, the scholars and scientists of Atlantis. So should we.
"I'm on the plane, aren't I?" she growled, and wished for a book. It had taken her nearly two decades to shed the habit of translating what she read into Atlantean, and she was still a slow reader. Fiction held little interest for her, and scientific texts were too rarely written in a captivating manner. Dry lectures were not what she needed to take her mind off the miles of air beneath the plane. On the rare occasions that a piece of technical literature captured her attention, she would devour the article or book in her slow, intensive way, and then read every other piece by the author she could locate. Those infrequent happenings made air travel almost pleasant. It was the only time she could spend uninterrupted hours deeply involved in reading.
Usually, though, she spent entire flights with her forehead pressed against the window, waiting for the plane to fall out of the sky. That she was guaranteed survival from the feared disaster -- barring the unlikely event that schrapnel would separate her head from her shoulders -- didn't reassure the frightened one in any way. It was the falling that was terrifying, the uncontrolled plunge towards the earth.
More than four thousand years, she thought tiredly. There's so little difference between free fall in the air and the weightlessness of the temple. Do I fear it more or less for its familiarity? Idle fingers twisted her ring around on her thumb. When she noticed the nervous movement, Ghean stopped it deliberately, placing her hands neatly in her lap.
The bright, hard light of the tiny overhead lightbulb leeched color from her hands, rendering them a pasty yellow. The scars on her fingertips were more visible, the ruined pads bouncing a different quality of light back at her. Ghean lifted one hand, propping her elbow on the arm rest, and stared at her fingers, trying to remember how they had looked before her captivity.
"What happened?" Michael's voice, behind her, made Ghean flinch violently, reaching for the sword she didn't carry on the plane. "To your fingers," he added, coming around the seats to take the one next to Ghean. "I always wanted to ask, but it seemed terribly invasive."
Ghean closed her hands in loose fists, hiding the scars. "A chainsaw. I tried picking one up by the blade when I was very small, and somehow the power switch got knocked on. It shredded my fingertips."
"My God," Michael said. "You're lucky your hands weren't cut to pieces entirely."
"So I've been told," Ghean agreed. "Why are you awake?"
"Guilty conscience," he smiled, then shook his head. "I woke up a little while ago, and just called back to the university. We've had a windfall."
Ghean's eyebrows lifted a little. "Publisher's Clearinghouse called?"
Michael laughed. "Very nearly. Evidently someone at the lecture last night was quite taken with the topic, or perhaps the speaker." He dropped a wink behind his round glasses. "A gentleman called at the University this morning with a cashier's check in hand for seven million dollars, for the Atlantis excavation fund."
Ghean's eyebrows went a little higher. "How extraordinarily generous. And what did he want in return?"
"So young, yet so cynical. He wanted to join us, along with a friend of his, on the explorations. Apparently one is a scholar of some repute, and the other -- the donor, in fact -- used to run an antique shop."
Ghean's eyebrows lowered, something of a respectful smile playing around her mouth. Very clever, Methos. It's not a tact I expected. "Did these distinguished gentlemen have names?"
"The donor is a fellow called Duncan MacLeod. Apparently he's more along for the ride; it's his friend, the scholar, who's chomping at the bit for the opportunity to see Atlantis. He may imagine there's a paper or a book in it somewhere, though I'll be damned if I'll give away those rights to the first fellow who happens along."
Ghean pursed her lips, lifting a hand to tap her thumb against her mouth as she searched for the name Methos had asked her to call him. "Adam," she said after a moment. "Adam Pierson, is he your scholar?"
"Good Lord." Michael's eyebrows sailed up from behind his glasses. "You know him?"
"I have known Adam," Ghean said, rolling the words in her mouth with a certain delight, "a very long time."
"Well!" Michael sat back, pleased. "The University's slavering over the check, of course, but they wanted to talk to us before actually accepting it." He paused, thoughtful. "I imagine they'd tell us to go straight to hell if we declined, but since Dr. Pierson's an old friend of yours, I'll let them know it won't be a problem at all for them to accompany us."
"Just Pierson," Ghean interjected. "The research sub is tiny enough, and MacLeod's a big man."
Michael looked at her, startled. "Mr. MacLeod is the man with the money, Mary."
"Adam," Ghean said firmly, "is the one who wants this. Just Pierson, or neither of them go. Duncan will accept it."
"You know him too?"
Ghean smiled faintly. "I met him last night, in fact. Adam introduced me. Adam Pierson was the friend I thought I'd seen in the audience after the lecture. He studies myths." Certainly that's what he did in the Watchers. Ghean grinned at the irony, stretching her toes out under the seat in front of her. "I'm sure he'll make a fascinating addition to our team. His knowledge of the ancient world is unparalleled."
"Really," Michael said with interest. "I don't think I've ever heard of him."
"He's very withdrawn," Ghean explained blithely. "I don't know if he's taught anywhere except in private institutions, and I don't think he's published anything in years, if ever. He's the sort of person who likes knowledge for its own sake, although he does adore lecturing people." She narrowed her eyes at the seat back in front of her, examining the folds in the leather as she thought.
We may as well paint him impossibly bright, the patient one advised. Our own knowledge can only be pressed so far under the guise of inspiration. If we can use Methos to crack the secrets of Atlantis, so much the better.
We'll be caught, the frightened one whispered dismally.
Ghean ignored the second voice. "I would hazard a guess that he knows more about the Atlantis legends and possibilities than anyone else on the planet."
"Except you," Michael teased. Ghean shot a brown-eyed smile at him.
"Except me," She agreed. "Really, though. His knowledge of the ancient world is really quite extraordinary." Expression straight, she added, "You'd think he'd been there." Fighting a grin, she shook her head, and continued, "I'd wager money on him being able to make a good stab at translating Atlantean text, if we find any. If there's any ancient language it resembles, he'll be able to construct some sense out of it."
"Mary Kostani," Michael said, amused, "I don't think I've ever heard you wax quite so lyrical about anyone's talents before. Just how good of friends were you?"
"We were . . . very good friends," Ghean said, with half a smile. Something about the phrase bothered her, and she fell silent a moment, the smile fading to a frown before she shook her head, giving up on the thought. "But it was a long time ago. Things have changed."
"Ah. A falling out? Well, I'll restrain my curiousity. Shall I give the University a call back and tell them we'd be glad to accept Mr. MacLeod's generousity and we'd be delighted to invite Dr. Pierson along on the exploratory vessel? How old is the fellow, anyway? He can't be too much older than you if you were, ah. Such good friends. But if he's as widely read as you suggest . . . ." Michael trailed off with a frown.
Ghean brushed the concern aside with a wave of her hand. "I don't look old enough for my credentials, do I?" she asked teasingly. ""Adam and I both began studying the ancien tworld when we were very young." Black-edged amusement colored her eyes darker a moment. "Perhaps past lives haunt us somewhere deep in our souls, and can't be put to rest until we've settled their accounts for them."
Michael started to smile, but it faltered. "Sometimes, Mary," he said nervously, "I can't quite tell when you're joking."
Ghean's smile was real this time. "Isn't it more interesting this way?" She pressed her head against the seat, leaning her forehead next to the crack between the seats. "Go call the university back, Michael, and make noses about how flattered we are that such a distinguished scholar would be interested in our little project. It's a drop in the hat compared to what we'll ultimately need, but it's a nice gesture and it certainly won't hurt the coffer. External support is bound to beget more external support, and we're going to sink an awful lot of money into the Mediterranean over the next decade."
Michael grinned, standing to return to his own seat. "You don't think in the short-term, do you, Mary?"
Ghean turned her head to rest her forehead against the window again. "You have no idea."
Methos is going to be a complication, the patient one said thoughtfully. He'll be convienent for a time. We can use him to further our findings, but in time he'll grow bothersome.
At least I know where he is now, Ghean retorted. I know he's alive.
I never doubted he was, she realized. Even finding his notes in the Watcher files only confirmed the conviction that he was alive. After forty-five centuries, another mere century and a half wouldn't be enough to kill him.
I wonder if I really comprehend the amount of time I missed.
We don't need to, the patient one broke in, firmly. Number the years or don't, but we don't need to dwell on it. We're a part of the world again now.
Ghean nodded a little, against the plexiglass window. I didn't really believe he could die, no matter how much time went by. Not after watching him heal. Not after how easily he bested Aroz.
He marked me. The thought came as a sudden understanding. Without intending to, perhaps, but he marked me with the certainty that he would endure.
I'm sure he would appreciate that belief. Ghean smiled faintly at the grey water far below. Appreciate it, and encourage it. Immortals can die, though. Some are easier to kill than others. Methos won't be at all easy to take, but it can be done.
He's the superior swordsman, the patient one warned. Have no doubt of that. We have passion on our side, though, and a desire for revenge that he can't possibly understand. Ghean nodded again, noticed she was fiddling with the ring once more, and painstakingly folded her fingers together in her lap.
I thought Atlantis might make him surface, but I didn't think it would be so easy. What would I have done if he'd never come forward? If he'd been dead?
It doesn't matter, the patient one said again. It didn't happen. We needed him to be alive, and he is.
Yes, but with six billion people in the world, what were the odds of finding one extraordindarly old man, no matter how much I needed him? If I'd never found those papers, I'd still have searched for him.
We had eternity to search for him, the patient one pointed out. The odds were very good. In less than a century, we found him. And now he's invited himself along on our quest, so we can keep an eye on him, and use him as we see fit. It is as it should be.
Ghean nodded. I'm sure he wouldn't have revealed the location of the Book of Aquarius if we hadn't surprised him so much, she congratulated herself. If he'd known we were alive, or that we'd find him, he'd have thought out his story to tell it without letting us know where the Book was. How very fortunate.
The Book, the patient one purred. A treasure we hadn't even considered, legendary even to us, and now we know where it is.
The temple was so nearly destroyed, the frightened one protested. The room below won't be there anymore. It'll have melted away into nothing, the Book will be ashes, drowned ashes, nothing more. The tunnels will be collapsed, the room flooded, the stone burned, Book drowned. It's too late. There's nothing there. Atlantis is gone and only we remain, high in the sky. We'll fall. We're falling.
No. Ghean pushed the frightened voice away, rejecting out of hand the idea that the Book might have been destroyed. I survived. Methos survived. Even Minyah survived. The Book will be there. I need it to be there, so it will be. I needed Methos and he's alive. The Book will be there.
The Book. Ghean nestled back into the airplane seat, comfortable. Her diminutive size was enough to make coach seating passable; the roomy first class seats were luxurious. She tapped the call button for a flight attendent. A tall young man appeared moments later, smiling. "What can I do for you, ma'am?"
"A gin and tonic, please," she requested, and smiled as it was delivered in under a minute. "Thank you." Lifting the glass to her mouth, she loked out the window again, almost content despite the flight.
Her first plan had been to search out the remaining artifacts. Atlantis' ruins were secondary to the tiny woman, more a bitter reminder of a childhood lost than the archaelogical find of the century. Somewhere in the city are items of incredible power. This century I've been reborn into is nearly advanced enough to unravel their secrets.
So many of the artifacts have already been lost. The Fleece, gone since the days of Jason and the Argonauts. For an instant, Ghean's expression darkened as she thought about the legend. If Methos was telling the truth, Mother had only been dead a few decades when that adventure happened. Two millennia of life ended by a child's selfishness.
Two thousand years while I lived and died in a lightless prison beneath the sea. Ghean shuddered, pulling her thoughts away before she spiralled down into pointless rage at the wasted centuries.
Good, the patient one whispered approvingly.
The chalice, found and lost again in Christ's time; the cauldron destroyed, according to Welsh legend, when a living man climbed in it to end the evil of raising men from the dead. Curious, Ghean thought, that three of the thirteen artifacts appeared in the islands of Britain, when the rest are so widely scattered. The other two, the sword lost to a lake and the scabbard to a battle, were among the last to be lost, by legend and history's tales. Arthur who bore the magical blade had lived only fifteen centuries ago.
I wonder if Methos was there. I wonder if he recognized the blade as Atlantean work, from a life he'd left behind long ago. Ghean sighed, closing her eyes as she sipped at her drink.
The unicorns died with the island. Methuselah's stone I've seen myself, nearly all the crystals kept safe in the Watcher's headquarters in Paris. Rebecca, Ghean remembered vaguely, was the Immortal who'd had the crystal. Over the years she'd scattered pieces of it out to her students, and over the years they'd died, their Watchers collecting the pieces until only one last piece was missing. Ghean regretted, briefly, not taking the time to see who of the remaining students had the last piece, but she'd left the Watchers long before the technology for excavating Atlantis was available, and at the time the recovery of the final crystal hadn't been important enough to pursue.
Even the Dragon's Teeth were scattered around the world. Both Greek and Chinese legends told tales of stones cast to the ground to sprout undead warriors. It seems safe to believe those gifts are also irretrievable.
There are others, though, Ghean thought smugly. Artifacts that never appeared in legend. Cuthmesh is one. The Book is another. There was the girdle, and the helmet, both of which were supposed to protect the wearer. They must be down there under the waves. We'll study them, and maybe we'll find a way to replicate them.
But the Book would be the ulimate treasure. Ghean swirled her drink, watching the liquid flow. The hole in the temple will have to be expanded, but maybe we can pump the water out, leave the floor cleared so we can excavate beneath it without flooding the lower room. Ghean took another sip, frowning. I wonder if the temple will be able to take the pressure from outside if it's not equalized within.
It doesn't matter, the patient one said. We don't have to worry about it today. If Methos is right, the Book is sealed in one of the artist's boxes. Unless it's been physically cracked open, it won't leak, so the Book will be safe even if we have to flood the secret room.
We'll prove Atlantis a great civilization, with the Book, Ghean thought triumphantly. We'll find a way to rebuild it, using the Book, and for those who help us we'll learn how to make new artifacts, and share them. It's a fitting tribute to a city that died in such an untimely way. Eternal life for its new citizens.
Methos won't approve, with his unwillingness to share Immortality with the world. Ghean clucked her tongue quietly, shaking her head.
Methos will only be part of the equation as long as he is useful, the patient one reminded her. We won't need him, by the time we're ready to rebuild Atlantis. We can kill him long before that.
Ghean smiled, turning her attention to the window again, lifting her glass to sip at her drink. Light bounced off her ring, catching in the engraved lion's head that marked the surface of gold.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The wind off the water tasted of salt and fish, ruffling Methos' hair and leaving a few dark strands knocked out of place when it faded away. Even on the warm Mediterranean beach, he wore his greatcoat, the heavy wool less affected by the breezze than his hair was. The only real concession to the warmer climate were the sandals he wore, though the kahkis and white polo shirt, open at the throat, were equally suited for Chicago or Greece.
He kept his hands shoved in his pockets, eyes closed. It hadn't been so very long since he'd last stood on beaches along the Mediterranean Sea, not even by mortal standards. For Methos, the few intervening years since he'd brought Alexa to Greece were barely a blink, an infinitesimal fraction of his thousands of years.
Alexa. Time dulled grief, but Immortality was a double- edged sword. It made time peculiarly fluid, washing the years after a death away into nothing at all, until suddenly it was decades, not days, since death had captured a loved one. A scent, or a gesture, or a smile would bring it all back in a rush, leaving him -- or any Immortal -- surprised in a net of memories from a lifetime before anyone near him had been born.
It would happen. Methos knew it, and a part of him was relieved for it. To remember everyone and everything gone each day would drive anyone insane. Fading memories were the only way to deal with the never-ending loss that was the price of Immortality. The moments of sudden clarity, when they came, were tempered with time, making it easier to remember the good moments, distance making bittersweet pain easier to bear.
For now, though, it was still raw, and Methos kept it close to his heart. He wasn't ready yet to let Alexa go. She'd been something special, something he didn't see often, courage and pride mixed up with fragility, reflected in her dying body. She'd had such defensive walls, and he'd been desperate to break them down, desperate for what little time they could have together. She'd been beautiful, round-faced with gentle eyes and a shy smile. Her hair was thin. He'd never asked if it'd been thicker before cancer invaded, only brushed it and buried his face in the scent of it. It wasn't fair. It was so damned unfair.
A hundred miles off the coat, drowned beneath the sea, lay the potential cure for the cancer that had eaten Alexa from the inside out. Methos opened his eyes, looking out over the blue waters. The cure might be in the Book, and I don't want to give it to the world.
What kind of selfish bastard am I? The question, voiced silently, was without venom. The kind of selfish bastard that puts himself first to survive. Just like I always have. It might not be the right thing to do for the world, but it's the right thing for Immortals. For myself.
Duncan, he thought acidly, would damn the consequences and hand the Book over to medical science on a silver platter. If it meant Immortality for the world, so be it. Mac would accept it with open arms.
Methos grinned despite himself, wandering down the beach into the water, walking along the tide line, foamy water and sand splashing the legs of his pants. But I'm not Duncan. He looked up, squinting at the water, and shook his head. The Highlander had changed him. Less than a decade ago, he wouldn't have stopped to consider what another's actions might be, or whether his own were wrong or right in someone else's eyes. Now, at least, he thought about it. It rarely changed his course of action, but the fact that he gave other viewpoints heed at all was a remarkable change to have affected in such a short period of time.
Duncan was back in Seacouver, at any rate, and unlikely to change Methos' feelings on the matter. It's not that I object to the knowledge being available, exactly. It's that I object to it being available to anyone I don't trust.
That rather narrowed the field of people Methos wanted to have access to the Book. Down to two or three, he thought wryly. I'm curious to read it again, now that I'll be able to understand more of it. Methos shook his head, frowning at the water. He simply didn't want the kind of knowledge available in the Book to be misused, and he was far too old a student of humanity to believe anything else would happen. The answer, then, was to either destroy it, or control it.
He'd prefer to control it. Methos was also far too much a scholar to willingly destroy the Book. He glanced south, over the sea, smiling a little in memory. He'd wept, when the Library at Alexandria burned, fourteen centuries ago. Knowledge was too precious to him, too long a pursuit, to take it from the world entirely. Hiding it, as it had been hidden all these millennia, would be enough.
It was possible humanity would someday reach the point where his kind and mortals could live together, if the Game didn't end before then. It was possible the day would come that Immortality would be parceled out to everyone, not just the wealthy.
It was possible pigs would sprout wings and fly away. Until then, Methos wanted to be the one with the Book. He didn't trust anyone else. It's a limited existence, he thought, amused, but I've grown accustomed to it. He angled up the beach, leaving the water to head back to where he'd parked. The sharp cries of seagulls slowed him, and he looked back over the water, pain tightening his features. He'd left guilt behind a long time ago -- I haven't felt guilt since the eleventh century, he'd told Duncan once. Since I joined with Kronos and became Death, he amended the statement privately. But regret. Regret seems unavoidable.
If only, he thought. If only Ghean had rediscovered Atlantis earlier. If only I'd thought to look there myself. If only the cancer hadn't been so bad. If only, if only, if only. Alexa would want me to give the Book to the doctors.
Alexa is dead.
Methos turned his back on the water and finished the climb to the car, trying hard to leave regret behind him.
He was almost surprised that Ghean wasn't waiting for him at the car. She knew he'd come to Greece; the University had returned Duncan's call, politely falling over itself in its eagerness to accept the donation to the Atlantis fund. They were almost rabidly apologetic at Dr. Kostani's insistance that only Dr. Pierson accompany her on the undersea explorations, although, the harried woman on the other end of the line assured Duncan, he was most definetely welcome if he wished to stay at the land base or even on the ship. Duncan had looked at Methos, and demurred. Methos was fairly certain the Highlander had an absurdly romantic notion in his thick Scottish skull, and rolled his eyes at Duncan as Mac hung up the phone.
It wasn't, Methos agreed, that the idea was unappealing. Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error, and upon me prov'd, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. A smile curved Methos' mouth as he recalled Shakespeare's sonnet. No one, certainly, was more qualified than Methos to pass judgement on love's ability to pass through the centuries.
Until the gut-wrenching shock of seeing Cassandra again, even Methos had always relegated those eternal loves to fond memory, only reflective of the true feeling. Her pale eyes, filled with fury, gave the lie to the reflection, and the truth to Shakespeare's words. In the terrifying moment when he'd first seen her again, Methos learned that love hadn't altered at all. It had only settled into memory, waiting for a chance to re-emerge.
It had been much the same with Ghean's unexpected reappearance. The same sick, thudding disbelief had twisted his stomach, somehow bringing all of the good moments they'd had to mind.
And Ghean still had her intensity, the dark-eyed focus that made the rest of the world fade away. Watching her, as they'd exchanged stories, filling in what had happened in Atlantis and after, had been breathtaking. The short haircut she wore now highlighted her eyes in a way the hip-length style she'd worn in Atlantis never could have. The innocence, as he'd feared, had been lost. Whether it was the first death, or the ensuing thousands of years of captivity that had broken naievete away from her was irrelevant. Replacing it was anger, a fire that burned a little too near the surface. It was as compelling, perhaps even more than innocence had been, for the danger inherent within.
It was what kept the idea of rekindled romance nothing more than a charming and idle thought. Passion, Methos thrived on. It was part of what drew him to Duncan, as well as Joe and Amanda, and one reason they had come to matter so much to him. All of them had an astonishing passion in life -- Duncan for his rigid code of right and wrong, Joe for his belief in the Watchers, and Amanda in her sheer exuberance for living on the edge. Methos had his own passions, more tempered: scholarship, medicine, and above all else, survival.
Ghean had passion in her anger, but no visible focus. It was not, Methos was certain, that the focus was not there, but merely that he couldn't see it. Far too many years separated them for him to be able intuitively guess what she might be thinking or plotting. Until he knew, Methos couldn't let sentimentality cloud his judgement.
And still you expected her to be waiting for you. Arrogant old man. He grinned at himself.
It wasn't impossible that she might have been waiting. The University had offered him a room in the small complex they were renting for their land base, but Methos had declined. The key word in their description was small. Methos was uncomfortable with placing himself so near another Immortal, particularly one he didn't entirely trust. Though he'd never slept through the tingling headache that announced another Immortal's arrival, the warning wasn't a constant: once and Immortal entered the range of sensitivity, the feeling faded away. Methos prefered not to risk the proximity being so close that the warning would be useless, and instead rented himself a room at a nearby bed and breakfast. The University had the name and room number, and Ghean could have learned from the proprietor that Dr. Pierson had asked directions to the beach that morning.
Methos pulled the car up to the B&B, shaking his head. All of which, he teased himself, comes out to a great deal of trouble. For someone who's busy swearing off revitalized romances, you're spending a lot of time hypothosizing how Ghean might 'happen' to come across you. Grinning again, he locked the car door and took the stairs up to the bed and breakfast's second floor two at a time.
Halfway up, the chill of warning slashed through him. Glancing over his shoulder to assure himself there were no mortals lurking, Methos drew his sword, taking the last steps more cautiously. At the head of the stairs, he craned his neck around the corner, peering down the hallway.
Ghean stepped out of his room, hands spread deliberately wide and open at her sides. "They let me in," she called. "I explained I was a work collegue. I don't," she added, smiling, "think they believed me."
Methos sighed, coming around the corner and down the hall without resheathing his sword. "Don't do that to me," he said irritably. "I behave badly when surprised."
"Only when surprised? You seem to have displayed bad behavior extensively since we've become reacquainted." Ghean went back into his room, Methos a step behind her.
The room was pink. The walls themselves were an inoffensive pale rose, just enough color to them to warm the room. Alone, it would have been pleasant. Unfortunately, the decorator hadn't stopped there. A fuzzy carpet, a few shades off fuschia and with loops coming out of the weave, reflected off the walls, rendering both floor and walls brighter than they'd originally been. The curtains over the windows almost defied putting a name to the color. Methos had, after much horrified deliberation, concluded they were probably magenta. The bedcovers were not only pink, but were embroidered with heavy red roses. Even the overhead light had a pink bulb in it.
It was, the proprietor had told him firmly, the only available room. The others were being redecorated. Methos, staring in dismay at the overwhelming decor, could see why.
It didn't get better with repeated exposure. Methos considered buying a pair of sunglasses just to deal with the glare of the room, although he loathed wearing them outside. Ghean was grinning at the room. "It's very you, "Met--"
"Adam," he corrected, before she finished his name. After an audible pause, she continued.
"Adam. I think they call this being in touch with your feminine side?"
"I make a terrible woman." Methos grimaced. "I'm too flat-chested, and I just can't disguise the Adam's apple. I have," he added, "been surprised a lot since your reappearance. It no doubt accounts for my ill temper."
"Isn't life more exciting that way?" Ghean sat down on the bed, leaving the chair -- an armchair covered with dark pink plush -- for Methos. He eyed it distastefully, and sat, kicking his feet up on the dresser. He hadn't examined it, but decided it was probably made of rosewood, to keep in theme.
"It's more unpredictable. I don't like unpredictable. Speaking of which, what are you doing here?"
Ghean's eyebrows rose, disappearing beneath her bangs. "Is my appearance unpredictable?"
Methos cast a glance at her, then chuckled despite himself. "I was expecting you while I was down at the beach," he confessed.
"I see. I'll have to work on my timing, then." Ghean folded her arms, leaning against the headboard. "I've painted a glowing review of you, Methos. Michael's expecting a venerable old man, or a child of genuis beyond compare."
Methos leaned backwards in the plush-covered chair, tilting it precariously far and snagging the door with his fingertips to swing it closed as Ghean used his real name again. Her eyebrows lifted, curious, and he shook his head. "You're going to have to learn to call me Adam."
"Why? We're behind closed doors now."
"Don't be difficult."
Ghean dimpled, an almost apologetic smile. "I'm terribly sorry, Adam. But since we are behind closed doors, can't I use your true name?"
Goosebumps ran over Methos' arms, even under the greatcoat he hadn't shed. A true name is a thing of power. And you, despite your years, are a superstitious old man, he chided himself. "Just watch it in public, Ghean. Legends are confirmed by chance encounters and evesdropping, and I much prefer my status to be legendary instead of confirmed."
Ghean pursed her lips, lifting a hand to tap her thumb against her mouth idly. "Were you this paranoid in Atlantis, Methos?"
"No," he said shortly. "But I was a lot younger then, too."
Ghean was silent a moment, folding her arms again. "Tell me about your life, Methos," she asked quietly. "Tell me about the life I might have lived. Would you have ever told me what I was?"
Methos lowered his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I was going to," he sighed. "Despite the Rules, I was going to. In a few years, five or six years. You were so young, Ghean. I didn't want to jeapordize the enthusiasm for life you had, the enthusiasm that I loved so much. Even Aroz agreed with me, tacitly, at least. I thought we had time." He dropped his hand, looking up at her again.
Ghean regarded him steadily in return. She wore a white silk tanktop tucked into an above-the-knee black skirt. The tank left her arms bared, showing more muscle than Methos remembered from Atlantis. She'd left her shoes, black pumps, on the floor, and had her ankles crossed in front of her on the bed. The necklace of Aries was caught in her arms, the silver chain loose against her neck. Her hair was held back by a white headband, leaving her bangs down. She looked astonishingly kitten-like, brown eyes tempered with curiousity.
Methos shut his eyes agains the image, standing to pull his coat off and drop it over the back of the chair. "You read the Methos Chronicles that the Watchers kept. You've read a lot of the life you might have lived." He sat back down, shaking his head. "Another time, I'll tell you about some of it. Tell me about this role I'm supposed to play."
"You sound like I've assigned it to you." Ghean's face lost the odd youthfulness and settled into more determined lines. "It was your idea to tag along on my exploration."
"Yes, but you told your Dr. Powers that I was inutterably clever. While I'd never disagree, I need to know how far my supposed boundaries stretch."
"He's known me for years," Ghean defended herself. "I can only push my own apparent knowledge so far, before it starts to look suspicious. You wanted to come along. The least I could do was make you useful to me."
"I live to serve," Methos said dryly. "What do I know, Ghean, or shall I just make it up as I go along?" He steepled his fingers, listening intently as Ghean outline the history she'd sketched for Michael. "Good God," Methos burst out when she was done. "You told him I could translate Atlantean?"
"Don't be silly," she said smoothly. "I merely suggested that if anyone could, you could. Besides, there may be nothing left. The paper and scrolls won't have survived."
"Unless they're encapsulated like the Book was," Methos said.
"Even so, the room might have been destroyed. Those boxes won't hold up under being crushed to a pulp, no matter how well made they were." Ghean took a rose-embroidered pillow and switched ends of the bed, rolling onto her stomach and folding the pillow under her chin so she could keep watching Methos.
Methos arched an eyebrow. "Do you think it was destroyed?"
Ghean hestiated. "I don't want it to have been," she said. "There isn't a great deal left to the city, Methos. The road structure is still visible, and some of the buildings are left, mostly partial remains. Without something like the Book, I may never prove that Atlantis was the great advanced civilization of legend."
"How were you going to do that before I told you where the Book was?"
Ghean shrugged a shoulder. "With whatever I could find. The sewer system was too far underground to be able to dig up, but I hoped for some of the artwork to have survived, maybe some of the houses. I want to try to find the library again and see if anything there was miraculously preserved. Some of the older books were kept in the boxes to keep them from corroding in the air. The Book would make it all a lot easier."
"Is that what you're looking for, Ghean? Ease of fame and fortune? You've got that, you know. Even if they decide this isn't Atlantis, you've made an incredible find."
Ghean's eyes glittered as she looked up at Methos. "No," she said softly. "I don't care about fame or fortune. I want Atlantis back."
Methos shook his head. "It's gone, Ghean. It's been gone for thousands of years. The past doesn't come back."
"I did," Ghean said, "You did. All we need is the island, now."
"I doubt you're going to be able to raise it from the sea floor, Ghean. Somebody doesn't like it when Immortals fight on holy ground. Atlantis is drowned for good."
Ghean shifted again, sitting with her legs folded under her, the pillow hugged across her middle. "How did you know?" she asked. "How did you know something terrible would happen?"
Methos spread his hands. "The Rules," he said helplessly. "No fighting on holy ground. I didn't know what would happen, and I didn't want to stay to find out. It's not that I remember being in a similiar situation before Atlantis. I just trusted the Rules."
"Why?"
"Because they're the first thing I remember?" Methos shrugged. "I don't know, Ghean. It was holy ground, the Rulse say no fighting on holy ground, the sky was boiling black. It seemed like running was the best possible option. I can't give you a better reason. I just wanted to run, and so I did."
"A lot of people would call you a coward," Ghean observed quietly.
"A lot of people," Methos said, "would have died at Atlantis. What do you want me to say, Ghean? Do you want me to say I'm sorry? I'm sorry you were caught in an oubliette for four and a half millennia. Does that help? Does it make it better, or make it all go away?"
Ghean's shoulders tensed as she looked at Methos. "Are you sorry you didn't try to rescue me?"
"No," Methos said, and watched everything gentle drain from Ghean's face. "I'm sorry you were trapped, Ghean. I'm sorry you went through that, but you're asking me to be sorry for putting my survival first, and I won't do that."
Ghean stood up, putting her shoes on and placing the pillow very carefully back at the head of the bed. "The first expedition leaves at seven, Tuesday morning. We'll be leaving promptly, so please be on time." She brushed past him, stopping just inside the door to look over her shoulder. "You could have lied."
Methos listened to the staccato clip of her heels going down the hallway, and stood to go to the window then the sound faded entirely. Ghean went out the front door, climbing into her car and slamming the door with a hard dull thud. Seconds later the car disappeared down the road.
Poorly, if honestly, handled, Methos mocked himself, and turned away from the window, letting the curtain drop.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Methos stuffed his hands in his pockets, scowling dubiously up at the peeling letters on the research vessel's prow. "Retribution?" he asked Ghean, as they waited for the gangplank to be lowered. "You couldn't possibly have named it that deliberately."
Ghean glanced up at the ship, and laughed. "It was donated by an oceanographer about fifteen years ago," she explained. "He was going through an ugly divorce and got rid of the ship as a tax writeoff. His only stipluation was that it be renamed Retribution."
Methos glanced back at the ship with a little more approval. "I like his sense of humour."
"The University liked his donation. He didn't even go to school there, just grew up in the city. We rebuilt it from the inside out, for this project. The equipment's not quite as modern as I'd like, but funding doesn't keep up with technology."
"I'd ask if there have been funding problems, but I spent the last decade in research."
Ghean shot him an amused look. "Have they gotten stingy?" she asked, deliberately not naming the Watchers aloud. "When I worked with them, they were remarkably generous."
"You probably fluttered your eyelashes at the bureaucrats. I didn't even recognize my own boss. Funding wasn't a particular concern of his, not for somebody who insisted on chasing wild goose tales. Especially wild goose stories that had no verification over centuries at a time. Really, I don't know how skeptics like that get into the organization."
Michael Powers joined the pair as Methos finished speaking. "Dr. Pierson?" he asked uncertainly, looking up at Methos.
"The same," Methos agreed, and offered his hand to the smaller man. "Dr. Powers, I presume."
Powers looked slightly uncomfortable in the heat, his round face pink with exertion and sunburn. He also looked very slightly dismayed as Methos confirmed his identity. "You're younger than I expected," he said as he shook Methos' hand.
Actually, I'm much, much older than you expect. "It's a curse," Methos said genially. "No one wants to take me seriously because my face doesn't seem to want to age. I expect I'll be grateful for that in a few decades. In the meantime -- well, Mary told you I'm something of a recluse. An inability to look properly old and stuffy is part of why I am." Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Ghean lift a hand to cover a broad smile.
Powers smiled. "It's a trait you share with Mary, then. I've known her six years and I swear she hasn't aged a day."
"Flatterer," Ghean said, letting the smile come through now. "I'm just short, and exceptionally good at applying makeup. And you're charmingly deluded."
Michael shook his head, smiling again as he looked at Methos. "Mary said you two were old friends. Was she always this modest?"
"Oh no," Methos said, grinning and deliberately taking a step back as Ghean lifted a hand threateningly. "It wasn't that she thought the sun rose and set on her, mind you." He warded off Ghean's pretense of a blow with mock alarm, cringing back with a smile before straightening. She folded her arms, deliberately pouting, and Methos couldn't help another smile. "The sun did rise and set on her," he said, watching the tiny woman. "She just never knew how much light she brought with her."
Ghean's expression softened a little, and Methos looked away to catch Michael's expression of amused delight. You're getting sentimental, he told himself dryly. At least there's anaudience to enjoy it. The tense exchange at the bed and breakfast seemed to have blown over. Methos was relieved; he'd handled it inelegantly, and had no desire to spend the next several days cooped up with an edgy Immortal.
Michael got his grin back under control, clearing his throat. "I'm sorry you weren't able to join us at Saturday's dinner party. Granted, it was a fundraiser, but there were a number of ancient-world scholars there. I'm sure your input would have been fascinating. Mary said you weren't feeling well after the long plane flight."
Methos' eyebrows went up a little. "A little of that, and a little terminal shyness, I think it was. I've never thought my social skills were my strongest point." He looked at Ghean, one eyebrow lifting higher. Ghean shrugged, failing to look even slightly apologetic. Methos shook his head, half smiling. The conversation hadn't blown over. Ghean'd deliberately failed to mention dinner in retaliation for his honesty. It made him something of a boor in the eyes of his new colleagues, and that, evidently, leveled the playing field. "Touche," he mouthed at Ghean. The corner of her mouth twitched in acknowledgement.
". . . specialize in ancient languages? Is that correct, Dr. Pierson?"
Methos blinked, turning his focus onto Powers again. "Adam," he said. "We're going to be working together, after all. No need for such formality. Myths and languages, yes. They tend to go hand in hand. It's difficult to decipher old texts if you know nothing of the languages. I like to think of myself as a purist, translating as accurately as possible."
"It's a pity we'll never know how accurate any of our translations are," Michael said rather mournfully. "There are moments when I reel with the arrogance of trying to choose the best words for languages dead thousands of years."
"Oh? Are you a translator, Dr. Powers?"
"Michael," Powers corrected, "if I'm supposed to call you Adam. No," he clarified hastily. "Not me. Man in general, I meant."
Methos twisted a smile. "From the myths and legends we do have, Michael, I think it's safe to say that arrogance is a failing mankind has had since long before history recorded it."
Ghean turned to face Methos as he finished speaking, her dark eyes unreadable. "Indeed," she said dryly. "You would know." Barely a beat passed before she added, "From your work, I mean. The gangplank's down. Shall we board?"
The ship managed to seem larger inside than it was on the outside, though it wasn't small from the outside. Conspicuously abandoned by Michael on deck, Ghean showed Methos down to the tiny cabin that would be his for the duration of the explorations. "It's a little isolated," she said, navigating narrow passageways, "but I thought you might prefer that. Michael's cabin is down at the other end, next to mine. He tried very hard to exchange yours for his."
Methos shook his head, grinning a bit. "He and Duncan should talk," he murmured, stepping into the cabin. He had no more than two inches of clearance above his head. The decor was compact, unattractive, and utterly functional. A hard-looking bed with a blanket turned at military corners filled one wall; a shelf above it with webbing across the opening allowed storage. Methos dropped his suitcase on the bed for the moment, turning to survey the rest of the room. A desk and a closet took up the other long wall; if he stood in the middle and stretched his arms, he could touch both walls.
"Small," Ghean observed dryly, "but you weren't expected."
"Why do I have the feeling you insisted I would be content with standard quarters, despite having handed over an obscene amount of money to your excavation fund?"
Ghean flashed a smile. "Because it wouldn't make sense to donate all that money and then use it to fix up a room so you could live in indulgent comfort while joining us on the explorations."
Methos looked down at her. "Of course," he agreed. "I've certainly lived in worse."
"Besides." Ghean's smile was abruptly underscored by a veneer of steel. "It's my party, and I don't want anyone to forget that. Including you."
For a moment Methos was captivated by the zeal in her eyes. Memory confused the bright determination with the centuries- gone excitement of a young woman returning home, of a wedding day, of a lifetime with her beloved. He smiled, ducking his head a little and lifting a hand towards her cheek, intending to kiss her. Only after the motion was started did he check the impulse, flicking an ironic salute rather than touch her face. "Aye, aye, ma'am," he said solemnly.
Ghean dismissed the salute entirely. "There are reports in the conference room, or what we call the conference room, anyway. It's actually the mess hall. You might want to look at them. They detail what we've found so far. You'll need the information so you don't overstep the limits of our current knowledge."
Methos nodded. Leaving his coat behind, he followed Ghean through the narrow halls to the mess hall. As she opened the door, he laughed. "Where do you actually eat?"
There wasn't a flat surface in the room, including the floor, that wasn't stacked with papers, files, or maps. Some piles were more precariously balanced than others, usually on chairs, suggesting the material had been moved hurriedly for ease in sitting or studying another piece of data. Florsecent light glared down on the papers, reflecting brilliantly off grey walls. Without the mass of paperwork, the room would be painfully dull. With it, Methos had to squint briefly while his eyes adjusted to the peculiar light level.
"Usually frantically running down hallways. Mealtime seems to signal either disaster or discovery, around here." Ghean pushed aside half a dozen reports, digging through a pile to find what she wanted. "This," she said, laying out an inch- thick pamphlet on the table, "and this, and this." She planted two more texts, of increasing thickness, on top of the first.
"Geologic history of the Mediterranean," she said, tapping the top one, then bumping it aside half an inch to prod the second. "A history of the project, and," she knocked the third file into view, "a location record and theories on use of some of the artifacts we've found. Some of them are painfully wrong. Worse than watching floodlights ghosting over buildings I used to visit is hearing the wildly inaccurate hypotheses the other archaeologists are coming up with. Don't you want to shake them and yell until they listen, sometimes?"
"I tend to bury that impulse in my own best self-interest," Methos said, "but there are moments, yes. These days, I go rant at MacLeod when a particularly disasterous interpretation makes the news." He frowned at the stack Ghean had set aside for him. "Actually, that's how I ended up here. I was going to poke fun at the poor fool who thought he'd found Atlantis." He looked up at Ghean, expression wry. "Goodness, wasn't I surprised."
Ghean laughed, moving an eighteen-inch pile of papers off a chair, depositing them neatly on the floor instead. "Sit," she invited, "and read. I'll make a concerted effort to not surprise you again for at least fifteen minutes. You're much more pleasant when you think you're in control." She walked passed him, then stopped with her hand on the doorknow, looking at him curiously. After a moment she shook her head and stepped out, letting the door latch behind her.
Methos frowned after her. "Everybody's more pleasant when they think they're in control. It's a very nice illusion." He sat, turning the frown on the pile Ghean had left him. Reluctantly, he pulled the first report towards himself, and began to read.
Ghean tapped a forefinger on her thigh as she walked back down the hall from the ship's mess. It's obvious, now that we've hit on it, the patient one murmured. Methos' security blanket is control.
"I see that," she mumbled. "He was in control all the time in Atlantis, wasn't he?"
He had the time to anticipate his options, the patient one agreed. The circumstances may have changed from moment to moment, but never too drastically. There was always time to think and choose.
Never enough time, the frightened one muttered. Can't choose that fast.
For once the patient one listened to the frightened one, considering. Perhaps it's more likely he played out potential confrontations and events well ahead of time, it suggested. Factoring in what he knew of human behavior to determine the most likely course of events and how to deal with them.
"Gods, that would be exhausting," Ghean protested.
We do not know him at all, the patient one said severely. We had no appreciation of how little we could understand him, in Atlantis. Our childhood experiences with him were less than a single facet of the man.
"He tried," Ghean said. "He tried to show us more when he told us about his Immortality."
We lacked in sophistication. The patient one brushed aside Ghean's words. That lack thwarted his ability to expose himself to us, as much as his own habits of privacy did. In time, with maturity, we would have understood him better.
But we had no time, the frightened one hissed. We only had darkness and the sea, forever and ever. When will we go home?
They should have been ours, the patient one said soothingly. We'll regain them when we we take his head. It won't be quite the same, but it will be deeply satisfying. The centuries we missed will be ours, and we will rebuild Atlantis. Patience. All we need is patience.
Ghean rubbed her fingertip against the gold of her ring, feeling the smooth surface bump slightly over the scars. "He was in control until the earthquake," she suggested. "That's when he panicked, that's when he ran. Even some Atlanteans kept their fear of earthquakes all their lives." A smile flitted across her face. "I might be able to forgive him for panicking."
'You're asking me to be sorry for putting my survival first, and I won't do that,' the patient one reminded her with a snap. His words. It wasn't panic. He chose to run, deliberately and calculatedly. He knew we would be resurrected from the blow that felled us, and still he ran. He was so certain that choice was right that he would offer neither apology for it nor lie to spare us. He was in control. We shouldn't doubt that. We shouldn't forgive him for that choice.
Ghean made her way up to deck, leaning on the railing. Wind pushed hair back from her face, and she smiled into it. You're right, she acknowledged the patient one silently.
There won't be any more surprises, then, the patient one said assuredly. We'll allow him apparent control over our relationship with him, tenuous as it is. It will make betraying him in the end that much more satisfying, watching him grasp at threads he thought he'd woven as they come unraveled around him.
Betrayal, the frightened one whispered hungrily.
In the mess hall, Methos leaned back, rubbing his eyes with one hand. It was no wonder new archaeological treasures kept being discovered on the Mediterranean floor, despite it being well-explored. A history of seabed activity detailed earthquakes of a 4.0 magnitude or higher occuring at least yearly for the last half century, and sometimes there were many in a year. While not enough to do much more than rumble on land, knocking a few jars off their shelves, every quake did resettle the sea floor a little. Eventually it made a difference, exposing new land and what it carried for explorers to find. It seemed almost inevitable that Atlantis would eventually have been found. Ghean's knowledge of her ancient home's original location merely made it a little easier.
The report actually traced the seabed's history back several thousand years, citing quakes that had rocked the Mediterranean area more than three thousand years ago. One or two had been significant enough that Methos actually remembered them. His own journals noted the volcanic eruptions and earthquakes in 79 AD, when Pompeii was buried and preserved forever in a fall of ash. Much earlier, while Methos rode with the Horsemen, had been the destruction of Minoan Crete. Both disasters had made Methos curious as to whether or not they'd been triggered by Immortals fighting on holy ground. It had only been a few years since Joe Dawson had confirmed that the eruption at Pompeii, at least, had been preceded by a battle on holy ground.
So I was right, Methos thought, deliberately shaping the words as a rememberance to Minyah. That is always satisfying.
He picked up the earthquake report again, flipping through it to the early twentieth century. Ghean had broken free of her prison in the early months of World War I, she'd said. From the report, Methos guessed an earthquake in early October of 1914 was the one that had finally twisted the temple stone enough to give way a little. Its epicenter had been considerably north of Atlantis' location, but it had measured a 7.7, enough to do damage over a widespread area.
Methos looked through the other reports perfunctorily. Had he not known the truth, the history of the Atlantis Project's development would have been fascinating. As it was, Methos had a difficult time reading it as anything other than a cover story. It was a good one: young Mary Kostani's remarkable education about and passion for a lost civiliation could and had inspired research and funding on a cause most scholars would prefer to leave alone, for fear of ridicule. The report was liberally scattered with instances of 'genuis' and 'prodigy' when Ghean's colleagues wrote about her.
Methos grinned every time he came across them. 'Astonishing leaps of intuition leading to daring preceptions about the day to day lives of ancient citizens.' Ghean must love this. I certainly would. I'm surprised she doesn't have to go through a door sideways to accomodate the ego this must have given her. Of course, he thought as he picked up the final report, she's short.
Halfway though a minutely detailed description of a mug inscribed with Taurus' bull, Methos let the papers fall to his lap. Someone's going to find House Aries artifacts sooner or later. Michael Powers, at the very least, is going to recognize the symbol from Ghean's necklace. Anyone else who's worked with her for any period of time at all probably will, too. He read the description again, glancing over the accounting of the circle and the points within it that circled the bull's head. From the House itself, he noted absently, and turned his wrist over, studying the fading tattoo. Why hasn't anyone noticed Ghean's necklace is the same layout? Does Powers know the truth?
Methos rejected the idea out of hand. Powers wouldn't have made a joke about Ghean's apparent failure to age if he'd known she was Immortal. She must have an explanation prepared, Methos decided. She couldn't be that clumsy. Or could she? She's very young, he reminded himself.
A warning rush of nausea swept through him, and Methos shifted his sleeve back down over the tattoo, standing to reach for his sword. The motion was aborted as it began; Ghean might not be alone. Still, he stepped around the table, putting it between him and the door when it opened a moment later.
Ghean leaned on the doorknob, brown eyes dancing. After a quick look over her shoulder to be certain no one had followed her, she smiled up at Methos. "We're almost there. The ship will be anchoring in a few minutes, and we'll drop down for a preliminary drive this afternoon to decide what area we want to begin in. Well, Methos. Are you ready to go back to Atlantis?"
Chapter Twenty-Four
The little submarine held six, seven if everyone was on good terms and one was as tiny as Ghean. Methos had no idea how the University had been able to afford it. His best guess was that Ghean, via a sponsor, had fronted the money. Even in as little as sixty or seventy years, it was easy to build up a mass of cash, if you knew you would outlive any fluctuations in the stock market. There'd also been the account he'd opened in the eighteenth century, so he could get a safe deposit box. Ghean must have used that money as a nest egg. Methos wondered how much had accumulated in the two hundred years before she found it.
Unlike the Retribution, the sub's equipment was state of the art. Uncompartmentalized, it didn't seem to be more than fifteen feet from end to end. A significant portion of the walls were filled with computer screens. The pilot's seat and array covered most of the front end, tiny windows of information beeping quietly as they displayed and redisplayed data, updating it every few seconds. Immediately behind and to the left of the cockpit, an alarming-looking armed waldo was set up in front of the largest screen, which flickered grey. Opposite it was a camera, set at an angle to look out a porthole, and next to that, a seat. The back side of another terminal setup made a back for the seat, ending at exactly the wrong height to be able to lean against it comfortably or ignore it successfully.
The rest of the submarine's layout reflected the layout of the camera and seat, with two extraneous portholes at the tail end. In front of each of those, sturdy black metal boxes, one with 'electrical equipment' stenciled on the outside, had been stacked up to make haphazard chairs. There were also boxes shoved under the seats, protruding dangerously and making the floor difficult to nagivate. Considerably more room was dedicated to equipment than the ability to move.
Methos, too tall to stand comfortably in the compact tube, laughed as he climbed in. "I feel like I'm watching Titanic again," he said to Ghean.
She grinned. "Only ours isn't a set. Since you're here, let's put you to good use. Know anything about mapping software?" She lead him through the tangle of seats and terminals, stepping over boxes on the floor.
"I forgot to brush up," Methos said. "Too bad I missed the dinner on Saturday. Someone could have reminded me." He sat where instructed. It wasn't too uncomfortable. There was a porthole just behind his left shoulder that he could see thorugh if he twisted at the proper angle, and he had head room. To make up for it, there was no leg room. Methos decided wisdom was the better part of valor, and didn't complain.
Ghean shrugged deprecatingly. "I could always hope. Luckily for you, the computer does all the work. If this goes off," and she flicked a finger at an unlit light, "call him." Ghean pointed over her shoulder with her thumb as a long-haired young man, taller than Methos, crawled into the sub.
"What about me?" he asked, ducking towards the duo.
"Adam, this is Jerry. Jerry, Dr. Pierson, one of our sponsors and an old friend of mine. Jerry keeps the computer systems running."
"I'm the resident geek," Jerry agreed, sticking his hand out. "Mike mentioned you at the party Saturday, but said you couldn't make it. Too bad. Mary actually put on a party dress. It was worth seeing."
Methos grinned. "Hi, Jerry. I'm sorry I missed it. It's been a while since I've seen her dressed up."
Ghean leveled an icy stare at Methos. He widened his eyes innocently, saved from having to defend himself by Michael's arrival with two others. "Mary Jerry Adam," Michael said absently, without looking at any of the three as he addressed them. He had a video camera in one hand and a battery case in the other, and went to prod at the camera behind the pilot's seat.
Behind him came a man in his mid forties, with a stiff military haircut. "Afternoon," he said pleasantly, offering his hand to Methos. "Dan Frank. I'm the pilot. Presumably you're the honored guest. This is my wife, Anne." He stepped aside to present a blonde woman in her late thirties.
"Hi," she said, "no relation."
Methos' eyebrows shot up in startlement, and he laughed. "No, I don't imagine you are. You get that a lot? Adam Pierson. It's a pleasure." He shook hands as they were presented and watched curiously as Anne seated herself in front of the waldo. "I gather you drive the robot?"
Anne glanced over and nodded. "Yeah. His name's Handy. I volunteered for this job because I get to stare dreamily out the window and imagine life in Atlantis when I'm not working." She grinned. "It's quite the sight, Dr. Pierson. You're in for the experience of a lifetime."
Methos looked up momentarily to meet Ghean's eyes. "I'm sure I am."
Ghean smiled, more an expression of acknowledgement than humour. She dropped into her seat, just in front of Methos, and turned to look at the pale water outside.
"Finished the systems check fifteen minutes ago," Dan announced. "Unless anybody forgot to stop by the bathroom, we're ready to go." He waited ten seconds, then nodded with satisfaction. "Seal up the hatch, would you, Pierson? Anne, check it?"
Methos stood, ducking and grinning at his feet as he did as he was told. He and Anne did an awkward little dance around each other, as he tried to regain his seat while she went to check the seal. They ended up grinning broadly at each other, stuck in the middle of the sub. Methos backed up with exaggerated steps to get out of Anne's way. Fortune, more than skill, prevented him from setting his foot down on a box, and he wavered briefly, regaining his balance more solidly after Anne stepped back again. "Nice and tight," she reported. "You okay there, Adam?"
"Fine," he answered, finally managing to get back to his seat. "Just working through a life-long desire to be Charlie Chaplin. I just don't have his knack for physical schtick."
"Charlie Chaplin never had to work under these conditions, Jerry observed, looking up with a quick smile.
The sub broke loose from the Retribution, sinking into the Mediterranean waters. Methos looked out a porthole, watching bubbles rise rapidly by. "You're certainly right about that."
The light change was gradual as the submarine sank into the sea. Fifty feet down, the sub's internal lights became noticeable; by fifty meters the light from the water outside was of a peculiar, ethereal quality. Aside from the occasional school of startled fish, the outside scenery wasn't particularly captivating. The others bantered back and forth lightly, and Methos listened with half an ear for a few moments, watching as the submarine descended into darkness. Within minutes it was too dark to make out more than vague shapes in the water. Methos took his gaze from the porthole, glancing instead at Ghean, wondering suddenly how well she handled the submersions, considering her history.
She sat staring fixedly out a porthole. Methos could see tiny tense muscles along her jaw, though her shoulders appeared relaxed. Her breathing was deliberately even, long slow breaths through her nostrils. But for her shoulders, her posture was rigid; Methos imagined the stiff muscles along her spine. He reached out, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. This is probably not a good idea.
Ghean didn't quite flinch, turning her head to look at Methos. Her eyes were black, expressionless in the off-colored lighting of the submarine. She watched him for several seconds, silent and stony-faced, before returning her attention to the darkness outside the porthole.
Michael finally succeeded in the arcane adjustments he was making to his cameras, and sat back, satisfied, just in time to see Methos' hand fall from Ghean's shoulder. The round archaeologist grinned broadly, gesturing at the pair with a tilt of his head and murmuring to Anne. The blonde woman looked over her shoulder to smile as well, and Methos lifted his eyebrows quizzically at the two. Anne pulled an innocent moue, and Michael averted his eyes, chuckling.
I'm surrounded by matchmakers. Methos grinned, despite knowing it would only add fuel to the fire. Leaning forward, he interrupted Ghean's reverie to ask quietly, "Didn't you tell them we were just friends?"
Ghean's gaze snapped back to him. "Yes," she replied. "I said we were very good fr . . . " Her voice faded away entirely, color draining from her face. "Very good friends," she repeated, barely more than a breath. Her chin moved fractionally, as if a blow had been taken and almost entirely absorbed. "Just like you said you and my mother were."
Oh, shit, Methos thought with perfect clarity.
"You utter bastard," Ghean said precisely, out loud, in a tongue dead for forty-six hundred years. Every head in the submarine jerked around to stare in open interest at the petite woman.
What happens if there's a Quickening underwater? A small portion of Methos' mind darted off on the tangent. We can't fight here. There's not enough room. And I don't know what else would happen, but it would be extremely unpleasant for the mortals on board. "Ghean," he said in the most reasonable tone he could muster, using the same language she'd spoken in, "you'd been dead a thousand years. I thought she'd been dead that long, for gods' sake."
"She was my mother!"
"By adoption," Methos hedged, and winced at the argument. "Ghean, after that long, what difference does that sort of relationship make? I was at a difficult place in my life and found an old friend when I needed one. It's not unusual for Immortals to become lovers -- "
Ghean erupted out of her seat, an explosion of movement startling and effective despite her diminutive size. Methos slammed the urge to react equally, to surge to his feet, down, not in the least because he'd crack his head on the low ceiling if he did. Muscles tense, he held his place, looking up at Ghean. "My mother, Methos! She was my mother! You were about to be my husband! 'You were at a difficult place', don't try that, you son of a bitch. She was my mother. You slept with my mother!"
Methos closed his eyes, hard. "Dammit, Ghean. That relationship, Minyah being your mother, was a thousand years dead. She was a friend when I needed one. Old friends become lovers -- "
"Oh, clearly. 'The things we do for old lovers.' You didn't do any of that for me, the notes, the papers -- you did it for her! You bastard! You did it all for her!"
Methos pulled in a breath to defend himself. Ghean's jaw set, eyes flashing rage. "Don't. Don't even try. Old friends become lovers. What do old lovers become, Methos? Yesterday's news? You slept with my mother and you haven't even got a second glance for me?"
Methos stared at her. Is that all it takes? "When have I had time?" he demanded. "I was angry and confused when you showed up again, Ghean, and I said all the wrong things on Saturday! Do you think you're not still beautiful? Do you think I don't want you? Gods above, Ghean, I loved you. I mourned for a thousand years. I became someone else entirely, to walk away from the pain. It took a thousand years, Ghean, a thousand years, to put away the grief. And then you show up out of the deep blue sea," Methos flinched mentally at the unfortunately accurate phrase, "and I find out that loving you didn't go away with the pain. What do you think I'm doing here?"
Ghean's eyes and mouth vied for a winning position in roundness. Methos didn't dare look at the rest of the sub's crew to see their expressions. The absolute silence was more than enough to suggest what was on their faces.
"The . . . Book . . . ." Ghean faltered. Methos let weariness settle into his face.
"What was I supposed to say?" he asked. "Especially after the story you told us about your captivity. Forgive me if I couldn't come up with a delicate way to say, 'I still love you, give me another chance'. A book isn't worth seven . . . " His knowledge of Atlantean deserted him. If he'd ever know the Atlantean word for million, he'd forgotten it, and he floundered, searching for the right word. After several seconds he let out an explosive sigh. "That much money," he tried again. "No book is worth that much money, Ghean. I thought if we spent time together . . . ."
Ghean dropped back into her seat, still staring at Methos. "You said . . . on Saturday. You weren't sorry."
Methos spread his hands, helplessly. "I'm not sorry I survived. I can't be sorry for the choices I've made, Ghean. They're what make me who I am. I can regret the consequences of those choices." A sad smile played over his features, and fell away. "You're the only Immortal woman I ever wanted to marry, Ghean."
"Oh," Ghean said faintly, and turned away abruptly to resume watching the water outside the porthole. Methos let out a long, slow breath, eyes closing. When he opened them again a moment later, it was to find the four other crew members gaping at him.
"What," Michael, the first to regain his voice, said, "the hell was that?"
"A language we made up as children," Methos picked randomly, addressing the question he thought most needed answering first, "and a lover's quarrel. I apologize for subjecting you to that." He closed his eyes again, against audibly restrained silence. After several seconds, he heard Dan turn his chair back around to begin piloting again. A few minutes later, conversation resumed, giving Methos the privacy he needed to sort through what he'd said.
How much of it did she buy? More to the point, how much of it was true? Enough of it, he decided reluctantly. Enough of it for the rest to sound true. At the least, that his relationship with Minyah had grown out of friendship, and that he had indeed become someone else for a thousand years after Ghean's death was true. Riding with the Horsemen hadn't been a time for healing, though. The pain of Ghean's death had faded in time, as it always did, but being Death had been about bloodlust and power, not mourning loss. Only the first choice, to join Kronos, had been spurred by bitterness at death -- and, Methos reminded himself, by keeping my head. Don't flatter yourself, old man.
Still, it made a good dramatic statement, a thousand years of mourning, and Ghean seemed to have been taken by it. It was unlikely that mere seduction would be enough to calm her fury, but it had obviously been a step in the right direction.
It wasn't entirely untrue, Methos temporized. There were still strong feelings for the Atlantean woman in him. It had taken a few days after the initial shock of her reapparance to sort out what he did feel. Love was a part of it, an abiding love for the young woman he'd known four and a half millennia ago. Knowing that time had changed her didn't tarnish the memory, but it made it easier to remember he wasn't sure he could trust the emotions he still felt. Her re-emergence in his life inevitably sparked a curiousity about a potential relationship, but that had nothing to do with his decision to bribe the University into allowing him passage on the ship to Atlantis. Never-the-less, the idea apparently could be used to appeal to Ghean's more romantic nature.
Ghean's a romantic. Methos' eyes popped open suddenly, and he caught Anne staring across the sub at him. Caught, she blushed and looked away. By the time she looked back, his eyes were closed again. You're judging Ghean by your own standards, dammit, and she's not as old as your memory tells you she has to be, Methos reminded himself forcefully. She's been the princess locked in the tower for eoons, and she didn't escape into the world until very recently. She's certainly still young enough, as far as experience is concerned, to be a romantic. Maybe that kind of hope is the only way to deal with eternal captivity.
I would make a lousy princess in a tower, Methos concluded wryly.
Ghean had, in fact, been the only Immortal woman Methos had ever wanted to marry. The disaster surrounding that experience was more than enough to put him off the idea permenantly. He noticed he was holding his breath, and let it out in a long exhalation. The goal, ultimately, was possession of the Book, preferably to hide it away as inaccessably as it had been hidden the last five millennia. If romance was the easiest way to reach that goal, so be it. Methos half smiled. I've had more unpleasant tasks. Just as long as I don't get carried away.
Ghean scowled at the blackness beyond the porthole, barely hearing Methos as he explained the outburst to the other crew members. His words were still ringing in her ears.
It is possible, the patient one said, very cautiously, that we misjudged his motives. We shouldn't believe him too readily.
I want to, she answered. He was so careful, describing his relationship with Minyah. If I hadn't used the same expression to characterize my relationship with him, I wouldn't have hit on it at all. He needs to be in control, but he couldn't have anticipated that I'd use the same phrase, that I'd figure it out. I think he was trying to avoid hurting me.
Maybe, the patient one said, still testing the possibility warily. He argued in Atlantean. We still think in it, but he wouldn't have spoken it for thousands of years. It would be harder to lie in a language you haven't spoken in millennia. That lends credence to his words.
He forgot words, the frightened one whispered.
Ghean seized on that, nodding fractionally. He did. If he'd prepared lies like that in advance he'd have remembered all the words he needed.
He may still be in love with us, the patient one admitted grudgingly. How do we feel about him?
Ghean reached up to tap her thumb against her lips, trying to examine her feelings towards Methos. Betrayal, she thought tentatively.
Betrayal! the frightened one shrieked. Betrayal, he'll betray us again, down below the sea in the darkness where we're going!
Shut up, the patient one said. Betrayal, made worse by his tryst with Minyah.
But it makes sense, Ghean said. Minyah was the only access he had to me, after all the years. Being with her wasn't so much seeking comfort in the arms of an old friend, but looking for what he'd lost. Looking for me, in my mother. Ghean shivered. Using Mother that way was reprehensible, she thought severely.
And pathetic, the patient one agreed.
I could almost feel sorry for him.
We may pity him, as long as it doesn't make us weak. Anger is better, and we have more anger than we do pity, the patient one said.
Anger and betrayal, the frightened one whispered. Betray him, leave him under the ocean forever and ever.
Not yet, Ghean answered. He's still attractive, and he obviously still loves me.
We'll let him in our bed, the patient one said, if that's what he wants. That way we'll have physical pleasure, at least, and in the end taking hs head will be that much more satisfying.
Ghean glanced over her shoulder quickly, to smile at Methos. His eyes were closed, a small smile on his own lips. Imagining us together, Ghean guessed, and her smile turned to a grin. The elaborate plans of revenge she'd built over the years to occupy herself were crumbling beneath the vastly more gratifying reality that was playing out. I hadn't imagined I'd still have so much power over him. With one hand I'll give him the world, and with the other take his head when he least expects it.
Everything will be ours, the patient one crowed. His power, our revenge, and the memories that he made over thousands of years. Years that should have been ours to live. Everything will finally be ours.
And then we'll go home to Atlantis, Ghean promised the frightened voice, and closed her eyes, sleeping as the submarine continued its way to the ocean bottom.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The sea changed colors in a sudden flood of light. "Water's nice and clear down here, long as there haven't been any quakes," Dan said. "We're about fifty meters from the bottom. Take a peek, Adam. You'll be able to see the city any minute now."
Methos twisted around to gaze out the porthole, a queer thrill of anticipation running through him. "How deep are we?" Forty-five hundred years ago his first look at Atlantis had been from above, looking down the mountain slope to the brilliant white metropolis. For the moment, water still hid the view, but Methos rebuilt the image in his mind.
"'bout fifteen hundred meters," Dan answered. "Crush you to a pulp if you went out there."
Methos glanced at Ghean. You'd be surprised, Dan, he thought, and shook his head. "I'll remember not to open the hatch." He glanced out the window again, waiting for the city to come into view. It won't be the same, he reminded himself. Nothing's ever the same. It's not that you can't go home again. It's that the changes that always happened are suddenly visible when you come back. Methos had long since learned to notice the changes that took place around him, a talent more difficult for mortals to develop.
He closed his eyes, rebuilding the city mentally. He was surprised there was anything left to find. In the last minutes while he and Minyah ran from the epicenter at the temple, he'd seen buildings crumble and be swallowed whole into the crust. The ancient city must have been even more well built than he'd realized, for anything at all to have survived.
"There we go," Michael breathed. "Atlantis."
Methos opened his eyes to look through light-stained water. "Jesus," he said inadvertantly, and clamped his teeth together to prevent further commentary.
Even in the light's rapidly fading radius, it was obvious far more of the city had survived than Methos had imagined. Streets were still visible, only a few feet beneath the submarine. Shattered buildings lined the streest, walls crumpled in, leaving enough foundation to made vivid separations of boulevards and buildings. Loose sediment stirred in the wake of the sub's engines, rising up and floating gently back down to settle in the streets.
Methos leaned forward, looking as far to both sides as he could. They were too far from the city's center for the temple to be visible. From the width of the street below, he guessed they were on one of the narrower cross-streets that sliced through the major roads.
His memory hadn't mislead him. As the submarine drifted forward, light played on stretches of earth left entirely smoothed by the devestating earthquake of four and a half millennia past. Buildings broke in half, the remainders eaten by jagged ocean floor.
"There isn't a lot of crusting on the buildings," he wondered aloud.
Michael, across the sub, nodded. "We're not sure why. The seabed is pretty active. We've been trying to figure out if there was some sort of protective layer over the city that's been knocked loose recently, maybe a slick residue or a heavy layer of dirt that settled after the city sank. Something that corrosion couldn't quite get a grip on."
"Favored of the gods," Methos said softly, looking back out the window. "Maybe they protected it." Until all its children had left it, he finished silently.
Michael chuckled. "Maybe. The amount of buildup is what we'd normally see on something that'd been underwater a century or so, maybe a little less. Their gods must be favoring us. More than they did the people who lived here, at any rate."
Sediment rode in the water, highlighted by the submarine's bright lamps, the water's motion enforcing the absolute stillness of the city itself. Methos closed his eyes, the static image of Atlantis at forceable odds with the city's last panicked minutes.
Memories of voices echoed in his ears, terrorized screams and calls for help. The sound was unending, rock shrieking as it tore itself apart and slammed together again without rhythm, lightning's crack and the roar of thunder filling his ears, grinding out the hopeless shouting. Water boiled, drinking the city down into the ocean, a constant shrill of noise. Methos shuddered, trying to shake the memory off.
It wouldn't let him go, his pulse rising to the frantic rate it had been those thousands of years ago. The sheer, stark stab of hope that had jolted through him in the moment of silence before the temple battle ended ripped himto him again, making his heart lurch with a sickening double-beat. Devestation replaced that hope a breath later, as it had then, and he placed a hand against the submarine's side, steadying himself against the unrelenting rush of memory. Fear and horror shot through him, the shaking of the sub from rumbling engines following muscle memory to the redoubling of the quake that sent Atlantis into the sea. He felt again the stretch as he reached for Ragar's hand, an instant too late, and memory jarred his feet with the falls from one broken piece of road to another.
There was a hand on his shoulder. Methos jerked back, eyes flinching open to see Ghean leaning towards him. "I actually think it's taking you harder than it did me," she said in quiet astonishment.
Methos pushed the heel of his hand against his forehead, wiping away beaded sweat. "I'm all right," he said roughly. I was there. You were dead.
Michael gave him a sympathetic smile, across the sub. "It's hit us all pretty hard," he said. "Can you imagine how terrifying it must have been?"
Through a dry throat, Methos answered, "I think I was." He inhaled sharply, feeling the lack of air in his lungs.
"There are ghosts here," Anne said, in all apparent seriousness. "I've driven a lot of waldos through a lot of wrecks, but I've never seen anything like Atlantis. Something happened here, something that shouldn't have."
Methos and Ghean locked eyes, neither willing to look away. "You're right," Methos agreed softly, to Anne, then shook himself, willing himself towards steadiness. "You're sure this is Atlantis?" The question was meant for Michael; Ghean knew, and Methos had never doubted her.
"The carbon dating completely fails to match any of the legends," Michael said slowly. "At least, what we've found doesn't. We've found artifacts dating back about six thousand years. From the stories out of Egypt, they should either be twice that, or only about four thousand years old."
"Thera," Methos guessed.
Michael nodded. "It blew up in 1627 BCE, thirty-six centuries ago. It drowned Crete. I have to admit that I was a believer, not that long ago -- that Crete had been Atlantis, I mean. When Mary pinpointed this as the location of the city Atlantis, I assumed anything we found here would date back to then, too; that the quakes set off by Thera's eruption had perhaps sunk another town, too." He shook his head. "The youngest material we've found is forty-six or seven centuries old. Whatever sank this place, it wasn't Thera. Not the eruption that drowned Crete."
The round doctor looked out the porthole, shaking his head again. "This is Atlantis," he said. "I can feel it in my gut." He glanced back at Methos with a self-deprecating grin. "Nicely scientific, eh?"
"Careers have been made on less," Methos said, returning his gaze to the city they drifted through.
Beneath the crust of sea grime that roughened the once clean lines of the city, the stone was still white, untarnished by its centuries beneath the ocean. Under the sub's floodlights, it glowed an unnerving pale blue, the color of moon shadows on snow. Dan changed directions, turning down a wider street; within seconds, Methos saw it as one of the main avenues. There was no way to determine if they were heading in to town or out, and he frowned out the window in frustration.
Ghean reached over the back of the ledge in front of him, tapping the terminal window at his elbow. "It's mapping," she reminded him. "Figure out where we are."
Methos blinked down at the screen, nodding. "Jerry? Can I make it tell me what's been mapped previously?"
The self-proclaimed geek nodded. "Sure. Here." He came over, tapping out a quick sequence on a small keyboard. A smaller window opened lower in the screen, covering a quarter of the original image. "Navigate with the arrow keys," Jerry instructed, returning to his seat.
"How many dives have there been?" Methos asked, studying the screen Jerry had brought up for him.
"This is the fifth," Ghean answered. "We went back to the States to try to get money to fund more."
Methos looked up momentarily, and grinned. "It worked," he said dryly. Ghean grinned back, and turned to look out the window again.
Methos studied the screen intently, trying to overlay his memories of the city onto the map. After a few minutes, he concluded memory was making it more diffcult than it would be to study it fresh. He kept expecting streets and buildings where the map showed only empty stretches of rock. Still, four of the streets they'd mapped spidered inwards, and the additions from the new mapping indicated they were travelling towards the city center. A building was mapped there. Thoughtlessly, Methos said, "You found the temple."
Ghean gave Methos a sharp look, as Michael looked away from his camera to lift an eyebrow at the Immortal man. "Temple?"
Methos winced inwardly. Clumsy, clumsy, he scolded himself, and tapped the smaller window in his screen. "Look at the layout. There's a central building, isn't there? Governments and religious institutions have a tendency to be in the middle of cities."
Michael nodded. "There's a building there, all right, but except for one place where the stone was obviously broken, there are no entrances, no decorations, nothing that might indicate it was a temple."
Methos closed his eyes, building the image of the temple in his mind. Three diases, the temple centered on the last one, the House symbols holding the temple roof above its thick walls. Carved on the outer walls were renditions of the gods coming out of the mountains to share their gifts with the citizens of the fishing villages that founded the legendary city. Opening his eyes, he studied Ghean's profile. Did the fire melt all that away? If it did, what happened to the room below, and the Book? "Is it higher than the city around it?" he asked aloud.
"Yes," Michael said, "but who would build a temple without doors?"
"Someone who didn't want his gods disturbed," Jerry offered to his computer, and looked up defensively when Michael spun around to stare at him with interest. "What? Doesn't the geek get to be esoteric and wise sometimes too?"
Anne grinned. "You seem a little too grounded in this century for that, is all, Jerry."
"Hey," the young man protested, "I've got a degree in philosophy."
Anne's eyebrows shot up. "You do? What are you doing here?"
Jerry shrugged. "Philosophy doesn't pay very well."
"You may be on to something there, though," Michael said slowly. "We call our churches the houses of God. Another civilization might have taken that idea more literally."
Methos and Ghean exchanged glances as a debate ensued, Ghean visibly biting her tongue to keep from protesting. She shook her head a little, turning to look out the window once more.
The irritating thing, she thought, is that it's not actually an unreasonable deduction.
It is more likely than the truth, the patient one agreed.
Ghosts, the frightened one whispered. Ghean leaned forward to see out the window better. They're wrong. Our gods deserted us and left Atlantis a ghost city. When will we go home? We're close to home now. When will we go home?
Soon, Ghean promised automatically. She looked over her shoulder to watch Methos, absorbed in studying the map again as it built itself. It frightens me, she admitted silently. That I can't tell what direction anything is in. That I can't remember. I think the only reason I was sure about the temple was the hole we'd chopped in it.
Patience. We've found pieces from the Houses within the city. Even though the Houses themselves are beyond the boundaries we've explored, we'll find a way to get out there. Once we can find a House we'll know what direction we're facing, where everything is.
Ghean shook her head a little. We have no reason to go beyond the city, she argued with the patient one. There's no way to suggest it. Our resources are too limited to go on wild goose chases.
We have time, the patient one reminded her. In time, we'll reach the Houses, and we'll be gain perspective, be able to place the streets and buildings into our memories. We have time.
"Care to explore, Adam?" Michael asked suddenly. Methos and Ghean both looked up, equally startled out of their respective musings.
"Explore? Perhaps I'm a little narrow-minded, Michael, but somehow the idea of popping out of the sub for a quick jaunt through the streets doesn't entirely appeal to me." Methos grinned, and Michael laughed.
"Look, practicality dictates we take this in a pretty methodical manner, mapping out the city and then focusing on what we think will be the biggest motherlode of information. If we can find a place with access to the sewer system, that'll probably be our number one stopping place. Sewers tend to have more information about a culture than anything else."
You're going to be badly disappointed by Atlantis, Methos thought, bemused. Even after all the centuries, he was still impressed by the unique sewer system Atlantis had developed.
"However," Michael went on, "we've recently recieved a generous donation by an extremely generous fellow," he grinned, flicking a salute at Methos, "and it seems like we ought to bend to his whim today. You won't get another chance, Adam, so what would you like to look for?"
"Buried treasure!" Methos said promptly. "Pirate's gold!"
Anne laughed. "All men are little boys," she said, "and little boys always want pirate treasure."
"Wouldn't you?" Methos asked reasonably. "All right, if I get to make the choice. What if we took a spin around the outer edge of the city?" He nodded at his screen. "It looks like you've found some boundaries. I wonder if there's anything beyond them."
Michael wrinkled his forehead, looking dubious, as Ghean arched an eyebrow at Methos. "I thought you'd want to look at your so-called temple," she said.
I do, but I don't think I'm going to be able to get the sub into and under the temple to excavate the Book. I think I'm going to have to go swimming. "You've already been there," he shrugged. "I was looking at the symbols on that cup you found, the one with the bull's head? There are points outside it, all in that circle. I had this idea the city might be laid out like that. The central point would be that temple, and maybe there's something in the outlying area that might be interesting." Methos widened his eyes, shrugging. "Who knows? Could we do that?"
Ghean's smile was slow and approving. "Who knows," she repeated. "Can we, Dan?"
Dan glanced at Michael, who shrugged and nodded. "Sure," the pilot said. "The seafloor maps say we're in sort of a valley here, maybe the original structure of the island. Probably is, actually. We're on kind of a high plateau on the Med floor here anyway. Anyway. I'll go up a ways, maybe halfway up the valley wall, and we'll buzz around there, see what there is to see. How's that sound?" Dan looked over his shoulder again, too briefly to obtain approval, and pulled the submarine up through the water.
Methos met Ghean's eyes again, smiling. The gods lived on the mountaintops, according to Atlantean religion. The thirteen Houses had been build halfway up, between the gods and the people they'd been raised from. "Sounds like a plan," Methos agreed. "Let's see if we can follow the path of one of these wider roads up. Maybe it'll lead to something."
"Sure thing." Dan nodded.
"Don't get your hopes up too high," Anne advised. "I'd hate to see you disappointed on your first dive."
Methos smiled at the blonde woman. "You'd hate to see me put a stop on that check," he teased.
"Too late," Michael said cheerfully. "The University called me yesterday morning to say it'd been cashed and credited to our fund."
"Ah well." Methos spread his hands. "If I'm disappointed, I'll just have to live with it, then. I've been disappointed before."
"Wise man," Jerry said, without looking up from what he was doing. "You could be a philosopher, too."
Methos grinned. "I don't know enough about computers."
Jerry raised his eyes with a laugh, touching a finger to his nose. "On the nose, buddy," he grinned. "You got it on the nose."
"Mountains coming up," Dan reported a few minutes later. "Keep your eyes peeled, folks. We'll see if Adam's feeling lucky today."
"Do ya feel lucky, punk?" Ghean grated in a singularly terrible imitation of Clint Eastwood. "Well? Do ya?" Anne shot her a grin as Methos focused out the window.
"I believe I do," he murmured several minutes later. "I believe I do. Mary." He nodded out the porthole.
"What?" Michael demanded sharply, jumping to his feet to step across the sub and look out Methos' porthole. "Did you find -- oh my God. Anne. Anne, give me the camera, Anne." He held out his hand, fingers beckoning impatiently as he leaned over Methos' shoulder. Anne handed it to him, switching sides of the submarine to look out Ghean's porthole with her.
At least one of the Houses had survived Atlatnis' fall surprisingly intact. The outer wall nearest the submarine had been partially shattered, the roof caved in at the corner, allowing the sub to cast light into a home unvisited for centuries. Unlike the guest house Methos had lived in, this was part of the permeant structure, and even the visible furniture had been designed with eternity in mind. A stone table still stood, cracks at the bases of its legs where it had once melded with the floor. Fragmented pottery lay across the floor in pieces, the sediment in the room so low that even from where the sub hovered, yards away, patterns were still visible on the pottery. Slender pieces of stone lay in lengths around the floor; chairs with broken legs and backrests suggested where they came from.
"Get Handy, get Handy, get Handy," Michael chanted, filming the ruins. "Get Handy in there, Anne. My God, Adam, you're a genius."
"Just lucky," Methos demurred, lifting his hand to block the camera's lens as Michael swung it to face him. "I'd rather not be filmed, please."
Jerry finally untangled himself from his computer so he could lean over and squint out an unoccupied porthole. "Are you nuts?" he demanded. "This is the find of a lifetime, and you don't want on-film credit for it? Damn, Adam, can I have it, then?"
Methos kept his hand up, a determined smile of apology fixed on his face. "Please, Michael." I'd hate to have to expose your film. I'm too fond of my head to see it displayed on the Discovery channel with other five thousand year old treasures.
Michael snorted in disappointment, turning the camera back to the apparent dining room setting. "Not much of a glory hound, are you, Pierson? Anne, have you got Handy ready yet?"
"Just a minute," Anne said, as Methos shook his head. "Really, Adam," she admonished, "you should take credit. Okay, I'm launching him now." Arms in the waldo, she reached up, twisting her hands. The submarine shook a little as the two- fisted robot detached itself from the bottom and dropped into the water. "Okay, Michael, here's your eyes." Anne's screen flickered, light changing as Handy's headlamps added to the wash of light. "In we go."
The little robot swam up to the break in the wall, looking absurdly slow to the watchers in the sub. A few seconds later, as the camera perched atop Handy sent back detailed images of the pottery on the floor, everyone scrambled for a good look at Anne's screen. A plate, nearly whole, was a few feet in front of the robot. Anne carefully extended a hand, clasping with the waldo. A momet later, the plate was held directly in front of the camera. "Damn," Anne said admiringly. "That's pretty."
A shallow, curved groove had been carved in the outer rim of the plate. Below it, baked into the clay, ran a pattern of dancers and bulls, each quarter of the plate a different step of the dance. In the center of the plate, only a few shades darker than the clay itself, was a representation of the bull of House Taurus.
"The must have been bull worshippers," Michael proclaimed n a hushed voice. "The pattern, the bull's head, that's the second time we've seen that. Look, it even has the thirtreen bullets around it like the cup did." He made a quick circle above the screen, pointing out the faded detail. "It's beautiful. Anne, can we bring it in?"
"Sure." Anne lowered the plate away from Handy's eyes, tucking it away out of sight under the robot.
"He's got a pouch down there," Ghean explained quietly to Methos. "Not a lot can fit in it, but it means we can bring up more than one thing at a time."
"Go on, go on," Michael said excitedly. "Let's see what else there is. Go look behind the table. Look, there's a door in the corner," he added triumphantly, as Handy's lights picked detail up at the back of the room.
"Wow," Jerry said a moment later.
A fourth chair, completely intact, lay behind the table. Handy hovered above it, focusing on the legs, and then the back of the chair. The back was squared off, but open, the symbol of Taurus carved in the stone.
"How the hell did that survive falling over?" Anne demanded. "Want me to pick it up?"
"Do you think we can bring it out?" Michael asked breathlessly. Anne bit her lower lip. Methos was almost surprised the robot didn't make a similiar motion.
"I'll try," she said. "I hope that back doesn't fall out when I pick it up."
"Wait," Methos said. "How far can Handy go looking?"
Anne looked over her shoulder at him. "About a hundred yards, why?"
Methos nodded. "There's that door," he said, half smiling. "Don't you want to know what's on the other side?"
Chapter Twenty-Six
The sound of the sub's engines filled the silence for a few seconds. "Wow," Jerry said, "did anybody else get a feeling of impending doom when he said that?"
Anne let out a breath. "I admit I sort of expected a kraken to burst out the door."
"There's no such thing," Dan said reasonably, and Methos smiled.
"Atlantis is only a legend, too," he reminded the pilot. "Michael, do we have time? Can we explore the house?"
Michael looked wryly at Methos. "You're a better archaeologist than I am," he accused. "I see something pretty and want to haul it topside so we can get a good look at it. Sure, we can go exploring. Even if we don't find anything else we can always get the chair on the way back out again."
"If this room is intact, maybe others are," Ghean said quietly. "Adam seems to be having a good day. We may as well cash in on it."
"All right, all right," Anne said. At her command, Handy rose away from the chair and puttered up over the half wall, into the next room. It was almost half again as long as the dining room, with stone counters built against the walls. Above them was shelving, all of it stone, much of it emptied. Endless broken pottery on the floor pointed to where the material that belonged on the shelves had gone. Some of the counters had collapsed, leaving piles of rubble on the floor, but a few still stood, one with a bowl sitting on it.
"Go look at it!" Michael instructed excitedly. Anne grinned, and Handy swam towards the bowl, which sat as if it had been left there only yesterday. It was considerably less elegant than the plate they'd found, made of fired clay, but undecorated. "A kitchen?" Michael hazarded. "A mixing bowl. Let's see if we can find any utensils. If we're lucky they'll have used stone, not wood."
Dan chuckled. "What, you don't think we're going to find any stainless steel? Over there, Anne, to the right. I thought I saw something on the floor."
"There's a lot on the floor," Anne pointed out. "Mostly broken. Must have been one hell of a quake." Still, Handy dropped away from the bowl to veer to the right, exploring the floor a few feet at a time. "Good eye," she added admiringly a moment later, and used one of Handy's claws to carefully push away debris from a long spoon and a stone knife that still visibly held an edge. The end of the spoon was broken off, but Michael crowed with delight anyway.
"Mary," he said, grinning, "you should have brought Dr. Pierson on board for this project a long time ago. At this moment I'd say he's worth his weight in gold. Anne, can we do a quick perimeter sweep before we look at the floor any more? I want to see how big the room is."
"Sure." Handy bobbled back up, working his way down the wall they'd begun on, over the bowl.
Methos glanced at Ghean, who mouthed 'servant's quarters'. He nodded, looking back at Handy's screen. The Atlantean Houses had been run by servants, still part of the House, but not the noble blood who ruled the city and island. The kitchen almost invariably was in their quarters, set off a little from the rest of the House. The dining room they'd come in through wasn't the main one, then. There would be another one, larger, somewhere else.
Methos straightened abruptly, almost cracking his head on the top of the submarine. Servants, scholars and housekeepers, Ragar had said to him, laughing, as he and Methos had made their way through the gardens towards House Taurus. We all live in this part of the House, not quite part of the nobility, but too useful to keep further away. "Ghean," he said out loud, and the woman looked at him sharply.
"Afraid so," Michael said. "Half the back wall is gone, in fact." Handy lit up what had once been part of a door, the left side of it broken away, along with most of the corner of the kitchen. Michael leaned forward, as if he could bring Handy a little closer to the wreckage by doing so. "It doesn't look like there's anything past that. No more walls."
Anne pushed Handy up to the remains of the door, shedding light on the ground outside. "Looks like this had floor laid here, though. Out, or do you want to look at the rest of the kitchen?"
"The kitchen," Michael said. Ghean stepped back to lift her eyebrows at Methos.
"And you were admonishing me to be careful?" she asked very softly. "What is it?"
Methos pulled an apologetic face, lowering his head to speak quietly into her ear. "Ragar's room is the next one over, just off the terrace there. He kept a journal in one of those boxes."
Ghean's face lit up. "Do you think -- " she began, still very softly.
"God damn!" Michael clapped his hands together, shouting with delight. "You are worth your weight in gold, Pierson!"
Methos leaned around him to look at Anne's screen. Handy was in front of a set of cupboards in the back corner of the room, and had pulled one of the doors open. Unbroken pots and utensils lined the shelves. "Well, aren't I clever," he grinned. "There's your motherlode, Michael."
"They used a lot of stone to build," Jerry said. "I don't get the impression these people thought in the short-term."
Ghean smiled crookedly. "Well, when you're the most advanced civilization of the time, you want to make a good impression on the neighbors," she suggested, and Michael grinned at her.
"Apparently. All right, Adam. We've struck gold twice in a row here. Do you have another inspiration as to where we should take a look next? You've given us a fine show of their architecture and pottery. I don't suppose you could point us towards a perfectly preserved body or a closet full of undamaged clothes so we could see what they wore and ate? Maybe some murals to give us an idea of the level of art in their culture? Althought," Michael added, musing, "that plate with the dancers is a pretty good showing of that. Well?" He lifted his eyebrows at Methos.
A perfectly preserved Atlantean body. Methos deliberately didn't look at Ghean, afraid of her expression. "You don't ask for much, do you?" He frowned, running a hand over his mouth. "Finish the other wall of the kitchen, anyway, and let's go through the door back on the other end of the kitchen. There's got to be more to the house over there, right?"
"How practical of you," Anne said. "You don't want to go surging blindly into the night? You're no fun at all." She grinned over her shoulder, then sent Handy back along the kitchen's other wall, stopping to examine shattered fragments of pottery. A few minutes later she directed him through the kitchen door, and let him hover there. "Left or right?" she asked. "Which wall do you want to follow? All I can see is floor, right now."
"Left," Methos said, at the same time Michael said, "Right." They grinned at each other, and Michael waved a hand. "Left," he agreed. "I'd hate to jinx this now."
"I don't think you can jinx it," Dan said. "I figure about the only thing that'd lose us this is if there was an earthquake that brought it all down around our ears right now."
Silence filled the sub as everyone stared at him. After long seconds, he cleared his throat and mumbled, "Sorry."
"God, Dan," Anne said disapprovingly, and then shook her head, smiling. "Don't do that! Left it is, then." Handy begain his exploration along the wall, and the blonde woman added, "Really, Adam, I know I gave you a hard time, but it's a good way to explore, doing it methodically like this. We're far less likely to miss something. Have you ever been on a dig before?"
Not since the twenties. Methos shook his head. "No, just read about them. Being systematic makes sense, that's all. Although this isn't a very interesting wall, is it?" There'd been a wood-framed painting on it once, a brilliantly colored rendition of a god taming one of the unicorns, with the city gleaming behind it. Methos straightened again, this time cracking his head on the top of the sub. He rubbed his head, muttering, "Ow," as he watched Handy follow the wall. This is Taurus. The stables might be left. There might actually be unicorn skeletons. Joe'll be all bent out of shape. He grinned at the thought.
"Door," Anne announced as Handy rounded the corner. "In or not?"
"In," Methos said. No one argued as the robot swam into the next room. Barely damaged at all, it was almost empty. Methos had expected that. Ragar's funiture was of wood, as most of the Houses' furniture had been, despite the stone table in the dining room. Time and water had dissolved them, leaving the more durable belongings littered on the floor. An inkpot and stylus lay where a desk had once been, the inkpot overturned. A small knife lay with them, used for sharpening charcoal. Anne collected the items without asking, tucking them away into Handy's pouch.
"They wrote," Michael murmurmed, as the stylus was lifted and examined before being put away. "That's an incredible find, right there. I wonder why there's no furniture."
"Rotted away," Ghean said. "It must have been wooden."
"Either that or they liked sleeping on stone floors," Methos said innocently. Ghean glared sideways at him. He grinned at her as Dan leaned forward, squinting at Handy's screen.
"What's that?"
"A box," Anne said wisely. Methos' head jerked up. "It's about the only other thing in here," she said. "Not all that interesting."
"Take it anyway," Methos suggested. "There might be something in it."
Anne wrinkled her face. "It's kind of big. There won't be a lot of room left for anything else if we take it."
Methos felt Ghean's hand on his forearm, tightening. If it's preserved Ragar's journal, it'll be worth far more than anything else you could bring up, he argued silently. "I have a feeling," he said with a wry smile.
Michael grinned. "Careers," he said, "have been made on less. Go on, Anne. Worst that can happen is that Adam's feeling is wrong and we'll get to give him hell."
"How quickly you turn against me," Methos sniffed. Ghean's grip on his arm loosened as Anne manuevered Hand's claws around the box and lifted it into his pouch. Methos looked down at her, and she smiled, bright-eyed excitement coloring her face. "Now only if it's undamaged," he murmured, and she nodded.
Anne brought Handy out of Ragar's room, exploring the other rooms in the servant's quarters. The common area, much larger than any of the other rooms, had a wide door, still closed, that lead into the rest of the house. After prodding at the door a minute or two, Anne shook her head. "I could probably open it," she said, "with some patience and maybe a wedge of some sort, but we're about full up already. I think we should grab the chair and head topside again to look at our treasures. If I'd known Adam was going to bring us to a gold mine, I'd have used a bigger pouch for Handy."
Methos returned to his seat, smiling. "Next time I'll warn you?" he offered.
"Hey," Dan said, "if you want to choose all our sites for us, at this point I'm for it. I don't know if we'd have ever checked out here."
"Eventually you would have, I'm sure," Methos said smoothly. Anne shook her head as she moved Handy back out to the dining room, and nudged a claw under the chair back. The claw closed gently around the carved bull in the center, and she carefully closed another one around the chair's upper leg.
"Maybe we would have," she muttered, concentrating, then exhaled, "Moment of truth," and lifted the chair.
It stayed intact. Dan let out a cheer, narrowly stopping himself from clapping Anne on the back. She grinned a little, biting her lower lip in concentration as she reversed Handy's engines and backed out of the room, chair in her grasp.
"Nicely done," Michael said. "Did you see that? Hardly any damage, very little crusting, it's in almost perfect condition. This is all going to make everyone very, very happy." He turned around to Methos, leaving the camera still pointing out the window. "Looks like you're a lucky charm."
"Lucky, anyway. Now I'm going to sit in the corner and look modest about the find while you do all the work."
"Just like a man," Anne laughed, lowering Handy's arms to their lowest point and letting the automatic mechanism dock it under the sub again. "Let's get out of here. We're gonna be famous."
Jerry flashed a grin. "Man, I like the sound of that."
"Are you sure it's a box?" Michael leaned over the drying stone dubiously. Methos scraped buildup off the sides with a piece of sandpaper, nodding.
"It's too light to be solid," he explained, "and I think this is a seam." He rubbed a finger over the slightest flaw in the stone. Laughing, he looked up at Michael. "I can't believe you're hovering over me fussing over this with all that." He nodded towards the buzz of activity that had been going on since the sub resurfaced. The chair survived the journey to the top unscathed, and more than a dozen people were crowded around it, inspecting and filming it, everyone talking at the same time.
Each of the individual pieces they'd brought up garnered the same attention. The apparently impenetrable box Methos was cleaning up was the focus of the least interest. Michael looked over his shoulder, shaking his head. "I'm as interested as they are," he admitted, "but I guess I'm kind of counting on your hunch, here. I want to be paying attention when you get that thing open."
"Your confidence is flattering." Methos looked down at the box, then frowned, glancing around again. "Where's Mary?"
"Being drowned in champagne, I think. She was going to bring some back for all of us."
"Into the lab?" Methos asked, horrified. "What if it gets spilled?"
"In the hall," Michael assured him. "Not in here. Don't worry. How do you think it opens?"
"With a chisel, failing all else." Methos shook his head, grinning at Michael's expression, and turned the box on its side. "There's a little indentation," he said, running his finger over it. "I found a couple of others. One of them, maybe. I'll figure it out. But I need to get the rest of this crap off it before I can. I think I'm missing some of them." He scraped more of the salty buildup away, concentrating on the task at hand to the exclusion of the world around him.
The box was almost clean when the chill of Ghean's arrival swept over him. Methos looked up, cracking his neck as Ghean came in, an empty champagne flute in hand. "Well?" she asked breathlessly, dropping into a chair beside him. "Have you cracked the secrets of the universe yet?" She leaned forward, elbows on the table, smiling giddily.
"I didn't know that was in my job description. Does cleaning up a stone box count?"
"Only if you get it opened." Ghean reached out to touch one scarred fingertip against the side of the box. "You scratched it," she tsked.
Methos set the box on the table, standing to look down at it, finding the pressure points on the sides. "It adds to its aura," he claimed. "I could only find four indentations. I hope there aren't any more." The box the Book was in had seven.
Ghean shook her head. "Probably not." Michael was across the room, examining the stylus, leaving Methos and Ghean more or less alone for the moment. "Three or four were average," she murmured. "The more points, the more secure the box. Even the ones in the library only had six. I never saw one with seven."
"Seven what?" Michael asked, returning to their table.
"Dwarves," Ghean said lightly. "You should have some champagne, Michael."
"It tickles my nose," he said. Ghean clucked her tongue. The sound masked the low click as Methos found the right pattern and the stone box slid open, a hairline fracture appearing in the stone. For a few seconds, the ancient Immortal stared down at the break in the white stone, and then he lifted his head, looking at Ghean.
"Would you like the pleasure, Doctor Kostani?" he asked with a suddenly dry throat. Ghean stiffened, eyes widening.
"You did it," she whispered.
"It could be empty," Methos warned, trying to stifle his own excitement. It failed completely, leaving him grinning nervously as Ghean set the champagne flute down and put her fingertips on the box.
"It could be," she agreed faintly, and bit her lower lip, grinning back at Methos. "I feel like I'm about to open Pandora's box."
Michael let out a squack, leaning across the table. "Well, open it!" he demanded.
"I feel more like Schrodinger's cat," Methos disagreed, deliberately drawing the tension out. "The box is neither empty nor full until it's opened."
"If a cat jumps out of here," Ghean said severely, "I'm going to scream." She squinched her eyes nearly closed, holding her breath as she slid the box halfway open.
"Holy Christ," Michael whispered. "Holy Christ."
Ghean stared down at the neatly stacked papers, Ragar's handwriting filling the top page in small, fine print, and flung her hands into the air with a shriek. "Yes!"
Heads snapped around and people turned to their table, to watch Methos shout with triumph and pick Ghean up, whirling her around. "There's your proof," he crowed. "There's your civilization."
"Put me down, put me down!" she shouted, laughing. "I want to look at it! I can't believe it!"
Methos laughed, setting the tiny woman back on her feet. Michael sat down in his chair, hard, mouth hanging open a little. "Writing," he said wonderingly. "My God, look at the paper. Look how fine it is. Just look at it."
"We are," Ghean beamed. Anne pushed her way through the gathering crowd to gape down at the tightly packed papers.
"Jesus Christ, that survived? My God. What's that?" she asked as Ghean opened the box the rest of the way.
Nestled at the end of the box was a thin piece of stone, sectioning off a narrow length of space. Metal glinted there, and Ghean worked it out of its resting place, tipping a bone handle up and pulling the knife out of the box. Under age-induced tarnish, the blade glinted dull silver, and Ghean's eyes widened. "Steel," she whispered. "He had a steel knife."
"It can't be," Michael said, disbelieving, and snatched up a soft cloth to place the knife on as Ghean handed it to him. The woman lifted a hand to her mouth, taking a little step backwards as Michael took the blade.
Success, the patient and frightened ones whispered together. Atlantis reborn. Ghean backed into Methos, who caught her as she swayed.
"There's your civilization," he repeated, into her hair, voice soft. "You did it. There's your proof." Someone pushed in front of Ghean, looking wonderingly at the discovery. The noise level rose violently as the knife was carefully handed around. Ghean caught Methos' hand and pulled him away from the find, out into the hall, letting the door bump closed behind her.
"You did it," she corrected, falling into her native tongue. "Methos, you did it. You found it. Writing, Ragar's journal, and a knife! A steel knife!"
Methos grinned down at her, then laughed, looking up at the ceiling. "For you," he said, shaking his head, and looked back down at her. "For you, Ghean. You deserve it. Gods above, I had no idea he had a steel knife in there."
Ghean flung her head back again, shouting with laughter. "Yes! I can't believe it. Oh, I can't believe it." As she had thousands of years ago, she launched herself at Methos, confident he'd catch her as he had in Atlantis. He did, laughing, making a small 'ooof' as she knocked him back a step.
"There's your proof," he said again, and thought, damned if you do, and kissed her. Don't get carried away, old man, he ordered himself, and still whispered, "You are so beautiful, Ghean. I'd forgotten how beautiful you are when you're happy."
Ghean's smile was slow and delighted as she curled her arms around Methos' neck. "I haven't been happy in a long time." She rolled her eyes at the door, and murmured, "Do you think they'll miss us?"
Methos shot a glance at the door, eyebrows rising. "Probably," he said, grinning, "but I think Michael would stop them from looking right away. And maybe they won't miss us at all." He lowered his head, kissing her again, then rather dramatically swept her up in his arms. "Carrying brides over threshholds wasn't exactly an Atlantean tradition, but perhaps a little new with the old?" he suggested.
Ghean laughed, kicking her feet. "My cabin's closer," she whispered into his neck. "That way." She pointed imperiously with her toes.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Michael did an admirable job of hiding an overly smug smile when Methos returned a few hours later. "There you are. We've stored the paper in mylar sheets. It's very delicate, so we're going to get some stiffer supports for it as soon as we can, but no one expected us to find paper of any sort. It's a wonder we had any mylar around at all." He cleared his throat, trying very hard not to grin as he asked, "Where's Mary?"
Methos looked at him sideways, chuckling despite himself. "Showering and getting some dinner. Have you made any sense out of anything yet? Is any of it recognizeable?"
Michael turned to the neat stacks of mylar-encased paper. "They're pretty clearly in chronological order. It looks like a journal of some sort. We kept them in order. This," he said, touching the first pile, "was on the top. I don't know if it's the oldest entry or the newest. I'd guess the oldest, and they get younger as they go deeper -- they won't fit in the box anymore, I'm afraid -- but until we figure out a dating system or some sort we won't know. You're the one Mary thought might be able to find some kind of basis in some other language to help us translate."
Methos leaned on the table, hands turned out. Michael stared at the inside of his left wrist with interest. "That's like Mary's necklace."
I should have worn long sleeves. Methos turned his wrist up to look at the tattoo, rubbing his thumb over it. "We were going to be married," he said, slowly. "A long time ago. I got the tattoo then. Her mother gave her the necklace."
"Mary doesn't strike me as the type you'd tattoo yourself for. Come to think of it, you don't seem like the sort of fellow who'd get a tattoo."
"I was a lot younger then," Methos said dryly. "People do strange things for love." He frowned at the papers, lifting the first one up by its mylar encasing. The date was ten years before Methos had come to Atlantis. He set it down again and went to the last pile, taking the last sheet or two out from the bottom. His own name leapt out at him, partway down the final page.
Methos has told me the most incredible story. I'm reluctant to even write it down, to keep his secret. He trusted me with it, not a choice he made easily, I think, and so I'm left to be circumspect even in my own journals. So many of our journals end up in the library, though, and I think Methos ought not be undone by my clumsiness.
I've been up most of the night thinking on the tale he told. I find I believe it, though I can't say exactly why. Perhaps because it's so outrageous that no one would bother making it up. He said Minyah knows the truth. I may talk to her about him. If it really is true, dear gods, the stories he could tell! No wonder he's so well-learned. I admit, I was jealous, when I first met him. He seemed so young, and knew so much. Now that I understand him a little more fully, I wonder at his ability to deal with pompous asses like myself.
"You look like you're reading it," Michael observed. Methos looked up, blinking, and shook his head.
"Most people staring intently at a piece of paper look like they're reading it. Wondering about the person who wrote it, I suppose." Not only do I remember you, Ragar, but if they manage to translate this, you'll become one of the most famous men in history. I hope that pleases you, my friend. You were a good man. You deserve to be remembered. Methos smiled, shaking his head. You weren't a pompous ass, he added silently. Far from it.
A chill ran through him as Ghean came down the hall. Methos lifted his head, waiting for the door to open, a little nervous. If she'd decided in the last half hour that making love had been an error, the next several days were going to be extremely uncomfortable.
She smiled as she came through the door, licking the last bites of dinner off her fingers. "Hello," she said cheerfully. "Have you translated everything yet?"
Methos grinned, relaxing a little. "Not yet," he said. "Give me another fifteen or twenty minutes."
Ghean laughed, coming to his side. Methos caught Michael eyeing them serriptitiously and lifted his eyebrows at the mortal man. Michael smiled faintly and shook his head, looking like the proverbial canary-catching cat.
Ghean clucked her tongue. "You're getting lazy," she said to Methos. "Slipping. I mean, you were useful this morning, but if you haven't gotten the translations done, well, what have you done for me lately?" She blinked mildly at Michael as he burst into laughter. Ghean tried hopelessly to not grin. "What?" she demanded of Michael. "What?" The grin got away from her, and she laughed as well.
Methos looked at both of them through his eyebrows, shaking his head and smiling. "Are you quite finished?" he asked without rancor, and Michael dropped into a chair to laugh again.
"I'm sorry," the archaeologist eventually said, pulling his glasses off to wipe at his eyes, "but you two make a really wonderful couple. You're so tall," he accused Methos, and laughed again.
"I'm not that tall," Methos protested. Not anymore, anyway.
"Next to Mary you are."
"Next to Mary, Napoleon was tall, Michael."
Chortling, Michael put his glasses back on, trying to get down to business. "Look, I know it's completely unreasonable to ask, but do you want to take a look at these and see if you can make heads or tails out of it? We probably won't go down for another three days, with all the loot we brought up today. Do you know that knife looks like it might really be steel? Can you imagine? Forty-five centuries ago someone had the ability to make steel? At any rate, we'll be doing photography and reports and tests and maybe we'll even get the press out here to admire us. My God," Michael said, standing up, "has anyone called the University?"
"It's four in the morning there," Ghean said.
"Oh. Yes, of course. They're planning a party tomorrow night, you missed the talk about that."
"Why not tonight?" Methos asked.
Michael shrugged, smiling apologetically. "Tonight the general consensus is studying the artifacts. Tomorrow we'll celebrate. Everyone's eating right now, but this place is going to fill up again. You'll have company, Adam, if you decide to work on these at all tonight."
Methos looked at the papers he still held. "I think I can do that," he agreed. "Put in a few hours' work, anyway. I'm not sure I have anything else to do." He looked sideways at Ghean, who elbowed him.
"Like I said, what have you done for me lately?" she asked, and tilted her head at Michael. "Come on, let's let our boy wonder here get some work done."
"You're the boss," Michael said. "Adam, that laptop over there is mine. Feel free to use it."
"Mmm," Methos said. "Thanks." He put the papers down and went to get the computer, setting up as the other pair left the room.
Michael walked Ghean up to the deck, leaning on the railing. "I want to know what's going on," he said eventually.
He knows! the frightened one shrieked. He knows, he's found us out! We're caught, we'll die, Atlantis will never return!
Quiet, Ghean ordered sharply. "What?" she asked aloud.
"I want to know what the hell is going on," Michael repeated, and jerked his head down towards where they'd left Methos. "With you and Pierson."
Ghean smiled slowly, lazily. "What do you think?"
"Not that." Michael looked exasperated. "That's pretty obvious. No, I'm talking about that fight you had this afternoon. That was no made-up kid's language. I've been thinking about it all evening. There was structure to it, even to an ear that doesn't know it. Kids don't do that. I remember. What the hell was it?"
Tell the truth, the patient one hissed. Parts of it. It will make the lie more plausible.
"It was my native language," Ghean answered. "What does it matter?" She reached for her ring to play with, only to remember she'd taken it off while Methos undressed her earlier. She tugged her necklace instead, the pendent in the palm of her hand.
"I've never heard anything like it. What is it?" Michael frowned at Ghean as she played with the necklace. "Adam's got a tattoo of your necklace," he added, shortly. "He said he got it when you two were going to be married. When was that?"
"A long time ago," Ghean answered. "We were a lot younger then."
"He also said your mother gave it to you."
Ghean frowned up at Michael. "She did. What's wrong, Michael?"
"You told me you were adopted."
"I was." Ghean sighed. "So?"
"So you have a picture on your bookcase in Chicago. From your grandmother. Who looks exactly like you. And she's wearing that necklace. Which has bullets around the outside, just like those bull decorations we found."
Ghean closed her eyes momentarily. "I found my birth mother," she said impatiently. "The picture of my grandmother was from when she was young, in the twenties. Mother gave it to me because we looked so much alike. Michael, why are you grilling me like this?"
Good, the patient one whispered. Put him on the defensive. He's noticing too much.
Rather than answer, Michael studied her face intently. "You're not wearing makeup now," he observed. "You haven't gotten older, have you, Mary?"
"Michael." Ghean opened her eyes, irked. "Everyone gets older. It's dark out, for goodness sake. The light's just kind to me right now."
"It's not your grandmother," Michael continued, as if she hadn't spoken. "It's you. It looks exactly like you. Exactly. And Pierson's just like you, isn't he? It's why you both know so much even when you don't look old enough to. How do you do it? What was that language?"
He knows, the frightened one gasped.
He's guessing, the patient one snapped.
Ghean pressed her eyes shut. "It was Atlantean," she said, forcing as much sarcasm into the words as she could. "Adam and I are both really five thousand years old and we were there when Atlantis sank. Is that the kind of story you want to hear, Michael? I can make some more up if you want."
Don't tell him! the frightened one shrieked. The patient one was, for once, stunned into silence. Ghean opened her eyes to see Michael staring down at her, shocked belief in his eyes.
"Gods of heaven and earth," she said, and stepped away from the railing. "I suppose you'd better come down to my room and hear the whole thing."
It took nearly three hours to tell Michael an abbreviated version of the tale, approaching midnight as she finished. Over the objections of the voices, she explained the artifacts, and the very different Immortality that kept her alive. Through the entire telling, Michael sat in numb silence, examining her face, as if he were trying to find the years she'd lived somewhere hidden in her eyes.
"So they're all lost?" he asked, when she finished. "The House artifacts?"
Ghean shook her head, picking up the lion's-head ring and tossing it to him. "This is one of them," she said. "I didn't even know it until a few days ago. I just thought it was something my mother'd left me, a reminder of Atlantis. You can keep it, after I'm done with Adam. I won't need it then, and if I regain the Book, I should be able to learn how to make them. I'd make one for you anyway, but wouldn't it be more fun to have one of the originals? I think there are two more, still in Atlantis somewhere. We won't find one at the House we've found; it's Taurus, and they had the unicorns."
"Unicorns?" Michael asked, incredulously.
For one brief moment Ghean understood how Methos felt, and rubbed a hand over her eyes. "Unicorns. You believed the rest of this and you don't believe in unicorns?"
"Unicorns aren't real, Mary," Michael said, as if he were talking to a small child. Ghean stared at him until he flushed, looking away. "All right," he mumbled uncomfortably. "Unicorns. Right." He eyed the ring in his palm, looking back at Ghean.
"I think I should have told you a long time ago," she said. "When I'm finished with Adam, and you have the ring, well, call it a repayment for the deception."
"Thank you," Michael finally managed, handing the ring back to her. "After you're done with Adam?"
Ghean smiled, putting the ring down beside the bed before standing to pull her rapier down from above the bed. Despite the story she'd told, Michael stood up, taking a step or two backwards.
"Christ Almighty, you actually use a sword?"
"It would take a very long time to remove someone's head with a Swiss Army knife, Michael." Ghean unsheathed the blade, letting it catch the light.
Prove it to him, the patient one said. Like Methos did for us. Then he'll believe.
Don't! He knows too much already! Don't show him anything else, the frightened one begged.
Ghean pursed her lips, leveling the sword horizontally across her torso, holding it in her right hand. With deliberation, she folded her left hand around the blade, then jerked the sword sideways. She winced, feeling skin and flesh separating, and released the blade, turning her hand up to show Michael the gashes. Horror warped his features, slowly turning to amazement as the wounds healed before his eyes.
That, Ghean thought, must have been what I looked like when Methos showed me this, the first time. "I am Immortal," she said softly. She cleaned the blood off the sword and resheathed it, slipping it into the shelving above the bed again. "I'm going to take Adam's head," she answered finally. "He heals the same way you just saw me do. The ring is my buffer. In fair combat, I'd never beat him. He's got too much experience, and I reach I can't possibly match." Ghean gestured briefly, indicating her height. "The ring will counter it. If I can't be hurt, eventually I'll be able to take his head."
"You really only die if someone takes your head," Michael breathed.
Ghean nodded. "Anything short of that and I'll survive. I can be killed, but unless my head leaves my shoulders, within a few minutes I'll be back on my feet again."
Michael asked, uncertainly, "You have to kill him?"
Ghean glanced up at the sword again as she regained her seat on the bed. "He's less use to me now that you know the truth," she said. "You can have your share of epiphanies about the site now. I'll tell you what we're dealing with. I think we should stick with the House findings for several dives, before going back to the city and the temple. We've obviously found a site worthy of excavating. It would look strange to go back to the temple right now. Adam would wonder why you agreed to it."
"I thought you were lovers," Michael said slowly. "But you'd still kill him?"
Ghean dimpled. "We were," she agreed, "and we are again. He's still in love with me. Since that's the case, I thought I might as well enjoy myself while he was useful to me. I have you, now, though, and I'd rather work with you than him. I imagine Dr. Pierson will meet with a fatal accident in the next few days."
She hesitated, watching Michael's face. "Understand, Michael," she said quietly, "Adam and I are part of a Game that most mortals know nothing at all about. I won't like to you. I'm motivated by revenge. But our Game has Rules, and it tells us that in the end, there can be only one. I'm not eager to lose my head. With Adam's power combined with my own years, I should be undefeatable."
With a smile, Ghean lifted the golden ring of Leo between two fingers. "As soon as I'm done with this, you'll gain Immortality, Michael. Wouldn't it be a pity to lose me to a silly Game now?"
Michael glanced at the ring, then at Ghean, a sheepish smile creeping across his face. "I guess I'm just a little squeamish," he said, "but you're the old hand at this. It's just a little much to take in all at once."
"I know," Ghean said wryly. "You're doing better than I did. It'll get easier, in a few days. Just try to stay steady until then. It's probably best if Adam doesn't find out you know the truth." She lifted her head as a chill shuddered through her, and stood. "Speaking of which, here he comes. It's about bedtime anyway, hm?"
Michael's eyebrows lifted a little. "It's been quite a day," he said in agreement.
Ghean nodded. "I'll take a look at the papers and tell you what they say, tomorrow. For now, good night, Michael." She opened the door as Methos was about to knock and smiled up at the tall Immortal. "There you are," she said. "Michael was keeping me company. Any luck?"
"Conjecture," Methos said, rubbing his eyes. "Frequently repeated words that could be articles, theorized letter-to-letter translations. I just came by to say good night, Mary." He smiled tiredly. "And Michael," he added, as Michael stepped past him out the door and opened his own door just down the hall. As Michael's door closed, Methos smiled down at Ghean. "These beds are a little small for two people to actually sleep in."
"Sleep?" Ghean asked. "Who said anything about sleep?" She caught his hand, drawing him into the room. "You can go back to your own room later."
Chapter Twenty-Eight
It was too easy to forget himself, and simply turn the pages, reading the journal of the last decade of Ragar's life, instead of painstakingly noting out letters and acting out the deciphering of the text. Methos caught himself reading for the fourth time in an hour, and sighed, pushing the pages away.
"You've been at it all day, Adam," Anne said, poking her head in the door. "Come have a drink with the rest of us. The party's started."
Methos looked up, around the emptied-out laboratory. "I didn't even notice everyone had gone," he said, rubbing his eyes. "What time is it?"
"About seven thirty. You look tired."
Methos smiled a little, straightening the papers before standing. "I am," he admitted. "I think it's going to be an early night, party or not."
Anne laughed. "You'd better be able to sleep through a ruckus, then. I don't think anybody is planning on going to bed until the sun comes up."
Methos came to the door, switching out the light as he followed Anne out. "I'm wearing my brain out, looking at all that writing. I keep staring at it and expecting it to suddenly make sense."
Anne shook her head. "I'll just drive a robot," she said. "You can do the hard part.
"Without you and your robot I wouldn't have any work to do," Methos pointed out. "Funny how it all kind of works together, isn't it?" The shiver of an Immortal's presence ran through him as they approached the conference room that had been emptied out for the party. Ghean was waiting inside the door, and slid her arm through Methos' possessively.
"I thought you'd run out on me," she said. "Jerry wants to get a picture of all of us with our pretty stone chair."
"Not yet," Methos said. "Someone kept me up all night, and I've been thinking all day. That sort of activity makes for tired researchers. I really don't want my picture taken."
"Smile and bear it, Adam," Ghean said. "They already think you're crazy for not letting Michael film you."
"You painted me as the eccentric scholar," Methos muttered, as Jerry waved them over. "Couldn't you have mentioned I thought cameras stole souls, or something?"
The submarine crew crowded around the chair, temporarily brought out of safekeeping for the photograph. The flash went off, followed by half a dozen more as other people snatched the opportunity to take pictures of the research team. Methos closed his eyes, pained. There are times that I wish Immortality had a more exotic side to it, like vampires not being able to have their pictures taken.
He escaped from the crowd as quickly as he could, sharing a glass of champagne with Ghean. Then, pleading mental exhaustion, he kissed Ghean's cheek and took his leave, catching Michael's amused glance on his way out the door.
"'Mental' exhaustion?" Michael asked quietly, and Methos grinned a little.
"I have to sleep sometime. Good night, Michael." The door closed behind him, and for a moment Methos stood in the relative silence of the hallway, sighing with relief. Virtually the entire crew was at the party. As good a time as any, Methos decided, making his way down to his cabin. At least I've got all night. He glanced out the window as he pulled his suitcase down from the shelving above the bed. The sun had almost set, vivid colors fading to grey. In a few more minutes, it would be dark. With the party going on, it was unlikely anyone would notice him creeping around on deck.
He'd finally had a chance to put his clothes away this morning, but the suitcase was still half full. He unzipped it, grinning faintly at the contents. Always be prepared. I wonder if I should confess to Duncan that even I have my moments of being a Boy Scout? He draped the wetsuit over the bed, pulling a loosely packed backpack out after it. Then again, why ruin his illusions?
The only real trick would be getting up to the submarine dock without anyone noticing he was walking around in a wetsuit. Methos had to count on the party for that, though his isolated cabin made a longer trek through the ship's halls than he'd like. He stripped down to pull the wetsuit on, chuckling. I should have invited Amanda along on this caper. She's much better at sneaking than I am. Oh well. Not even a Boy Scout can think of everything.
It was fully dark by the time he finished dressing. Methos slung the backpack on, checking the hall, and scurried up to the deck. The party going on really did provide the privacy he needed, and he saw no one as he crossed the upper deck and climbed down into the submarine tank. With a few swift kicks, he swam down several yards under the ship. Drifting there, Methos expelled as much of the air from his lungs as he could, bubbles bursting upwards. He pulled the backpack off to drag flippers, goggles, and a headlamp out of it. The latter he would really only need for navigating around Atlantis, but there was something slightly more comforting about diving to the bottom of the sea with a light source instead of blind. He was still too close to the surface to use it, though. Flippers and goggles on, he strapped the light around his head, pulling the backpack back on, and began kicking downward.
At its deepest, the Mediterranean is about forty-five hundred feet deep. A foot for every century, Methos thought, except Dan said Atlantis was on a shelf, about three thousand feet deep.
This is not going to be comfortable. On the other hand, he thought sourly, it won't kill me. Ghean survived it without pulverized bones or ruptured organs for centuries. Immortals are astonishing creatures. He glanced at the faintly glowing watch on his wrist. Two hundred meters. He remembered wondering who on earth would need a watch that worked down to fifteen hundred meters pressure when he bought it, and laughed silently, switching it to a compass reading. Three thousand feet. Less than a mile. It shouldn't take more than an hour or so, unless the pressure kills me on the way down. Methos switched the headlamp on, and began the swim into the depths.
Inevitably, it took longer than he expected. The currents pulled him off course, and he spent more time swimming laterally than he'd anticipated. From almost the surface, he had to clear his ears every few feet, hearing the faint internal squeal as tubes tried to adjust to the rising pressure. Eventually his eardrums burst, leaving him in a convulsive ball in the water, clutching his head at the pain. Blood tinged the water around him very faintly, swept away in seconds.
Please, God, I hope the pressure is too much for them to heal. I don't want to have to deal with that every few minutes. Methos unballed himself, shuddering, and began swimming down again. His eardrums burst twice more before the pressure overcame his Immortal body's ability to heal itself, leaving him blessedly free of pain.
He could feel his body adjusting to the pressure in other ways, what little gaseous oxygen he had left forcing its way out to equalize the pressures within and without. He grew lightheaded as the fine attunements were made, and slowed his descent. Whatever element of his Immortal body allowed him to pull oxygen from the water, it required time to condition him to the lack, just as if he were traveling high in the mountains. The lightheadedness passed as he slowed, and he maintained the new swimming pace, no new bouts of dizziness hampering him.
Once the internal adaptations were made, the water's pressure became an uncomfortable inconvienence, weighing his movements. It stopped just shy of pain, a pervading discomfort that was the price accountable for daring the dive. Methos focused on the task of reaching the sea floor, aware that too much acknowledgement of the water's pressure would only make it worse.
Eventually the seabed came into the range of his headlamp. Situating himself to find the city and locate recognizeable sections took more time, and navigating his way towards the ancient temple took longer still.
Disconcerting as exploring sunken Alantis had been from within the submarine, the sensations were measureably more disturbing without the protective metal walls separating Methos from the sea. Anne was entirely correct. Atlantis had ghosts, and too many of them had faded faces and voices in Methos' memory. He kicked up a side alley, broken walls on either side of him sullen reminders of the past. Ahead and to his left was an open area, city floor broken up but largely intact. The layout suggested the area had never been walled.
Methos hesitated there, swimming towards a wall shattered at half its height at the back of the empty stretch. Grime coated the wall, and Methos reached out to brush some of it away, leaving streaked lines against the stone. A few more swipes cleared away much of the sediment, exposing the lower half of a carving in the wally.
Memory, rather than intuition, completed the image. A bull's head, though not encompassed in the circle of the Houses. Methos turned in the undisturbed water, looking across the floor again. The outer perimeter of his headlamp brushed the back corner of the Bull's Head Tavern, the pub Ertros' mother had owned. A tabletop, broken in two, lay on the ground in the corner, wooden legs long since rotted away.
For an instant, the activity of the pub the last time he'd seen it passed over him: voices, raised in general pleasantry; close-pressed bodies manuevering around each other. Minyah, just outside the tavern, tricking someone into apologizing for something she had done, and sour-faced Aroz, reluctant to greet him. Karem, calculating how best to use him, and most vividly, Ghean, laughing in delight to see him, her brown eyes bright and excited as she leapt up to hug him. Methos clamped his eyes shut, shaking his head to dislodge the images, and shoved violently off the floor, swimming again. From here he could find the temple, if he could let memory guide him without overwhelming him.
It was easier than he thought it might be. Beyond the strangeness of swimming over streets he'd walked, he could almost make himself imagine that it was the quiet, moonlit night that he'd spoken to Karem in the temple. Keeping the illusion in mind helped keep other memories at bay, until he found the temple, and crouched on top of it, just above the hole Ghean had chopped in her escape.
It was impossibly small. Methos placed his hands on opposite sides of it, far less than his own shoulder width apart. She couldn't have been more than skin and bones, he thought with a shiver, and hair. He took the backpack off again, opening it to pull out a small hammer and chisel. They weren't the most elegant tools, but they wouldn't break apart the temple roof so much that it collapsed in on itself, either. Methos considered the backpack, then pulled it on again, more to keep it out of the way than anything else, then began diligently breaking away a larger hole in the stone. It was fast work, made easier by not having to worry about making room to pull equipment through. A glance at his watch told Methos that he'd been in the water for nearly four hours, much longer than he'd hoped. He estimated he had only another four to return to the surface, if he wanted to be sure to get back on the Retribution before daylight.
Going up won't take as long as coming down did, right? He didn't believe it, but it was a little late to abort now. A few minutes later he kicked down into the temple, struggling against the memory of Ghean's story as it came back to him. It took all his willpower to not swim back out of the temple and away from Atlantis. He hovered in the water for a moment, staring around the smoothed temple walls, and with a kind of sick fascination, he reached up and turned the headlamp off.
The blackness was absolute. Even knowing the escape route, Methos flinched violently back from the darkness, as if it had come alive. More than four thousand years, he thought, horrified. In this silence, in this blackness. Gods up above. It's a wonder Ghean isn't stark raving mad. Swallowing a scream, anything that would at least break the utter silence and darkness, Methos switched the headlight back on, unspeakably relieved when light flooded the temple again. He remained where he was, trying to regain his equalibrium before he was able to circle the temple.
The altar had once been a little more than three feet high, in the center of the temple. There was no suggestion it had ever existed at all. The floor was perfectly smooth, other than the small stones that had fallen away as Ghean chipped her way loose. Looking around once more, Methos again quelled the desire to retreat, then knelt, sliding out of the backpack a final time. Chisel and hammer still in hand, he cracked a wedge out of the floor, then abandoned the tools for the backpack.
Two dozen shaped explosives lay in the bottom of the pack, waterproofed and set off by an electrical charge. Not at all certain how much of a hole it would blow under the conditions, Methos set the first into the wedge he'd dug out, collecting the backpack and swimming towards the opening in the ceiling. As he reached it, a thought struck him, and he turned, watching the floor shimmer as light ran over it. The texture changed twice, two strips near each other, where stone turned to metal slag. Methos stared down at the legacy of the swordfight, and shook his head. I told you it was holy ground. Then he kicked through the ceiling to the comparative safety of the Mediterranean, and set off the charge.
Sediment-filled water roiled out behind him in a rather satisfying manner. Methos waited for it to settle before going in to inspect the damage he'd done. An opening perhaps two and a half feet wide and a foot or so deep was gouged in the temple floor. Methos cleared the rubble out of it, set another charge, and tamped it with some of the excess stone from the first explosion before swimming outside again. Logic dictates it can't be more than twelve feet down, because that's all the explosives I have.
It's a shame the world doesn't actually work that way. The next charge ripped a hole a little deeper and a little less wide, and Methos cleared wreckage away to repeat the sequence another nine times. Wash, rinse, repeat, he thought as the explosives tore holes in the temple floor. This isn't exactly the most delicate archaelogical excavation. Then again, I don't really have time for subtlety. His shoulders brushed the ragged edges of the tunnel he was creating, but there was enough room for passage.
After the thirteenth blast, there was no rubble to be cleared away. Methos kicked down through the hole slowly, catching himself on the rough walls he'd made to look around the room below the temple.
It was water-filled, but the walls were whole. The water was probably fresh, having rushed in as the charge blew away the last of the room's ceiling. Rock scattered around the table directly below Methos supported the theory. Methos kicked down into the room, righting himself.
Aside from the hole in the ceiling, it looked very much as it had the last time he'd seen it, more than four and a half thousand years ago. The table and chairs were undamaged, save for a handful of scars on the table, which loked new. Stone and the sudden onslaught of water had almost certainly caused them. With a quick, satisfied grin, Methos sat on the center of the table, closing his eyes to reconstruct the scene from the past.
Ragar had crossed the room from the door, to the left of the table. The door that I wouldn't be able to see if it were closed. He opened his eyes, inspecting the walls. Forty-five centuries ago, Ragar had been right, but the stresses of the earthquake and sinking had changed the dynamics of the room a little. There was a barely visible line in the wall where the door sat. Had he not known it was there, Methos suspected he wouldn't have seen it for days, perhaps weeks. He closed his eyes again, trying to remember the angle Ragar had passed the table at.
Standing, he echoed the movement as best he could, coming to a stop at a point a third of the way around the room from the door. The release had been at waist height on the Atlantean scholar, hip-height on the much taller Immortal. Eyes closed once more, Methos began exploring the chisels in the wall with his fingertips. Patience, he thought. This is the part that will require patience.
More than two hours passed, unheeded, before a soft double- click, felt rather than heard, signaled that he had found the right catch. As smoothly as it had thousands of years earlier, a slab of stone slid out from the wall. Methos opened his eyes slowly, hardly believing that the gamble had paid off.
Stone in stone, the Book's heavy protective case sat within the extended rock. With measured awe, Methos lifted the stone box out. Cradling it protectively against his chest, he brought it back to the table and his backpack, emptying the remaining charges out of the latter. He packed the Book carefully into the backpack, leaving the charges on the table. He wouldn't need them again, and they would perplex Ghean for a few seconds before she realized what he'd done.
Methos looked around the room once more, then pushed up through the tunnel, and the temple, to leave Atlantis with his buried treasure on his back.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
A few hundred feet below the surface, Methos abandoned the flippers, headlight and goggles. The last was an unspeakable relief. He rubbed his eyes, feeling circulation restore as pressure from the goggles was eased. He let the flippers go, watching them rotate heel-down in the water and sink into darkness. He wrapped the goggles around the headlamp, letting them go as well, and realized he could feel pressure against his eardrums again, indicating they'd healed sometime in the journey back to the air.
He struck out towards the surface tiredly, through water greying with the coming dawn. The escapade down to Atlantis had taken far longer than he'd hoped, and he wasn't entirely sure where the ship was in relation to himself.
He broke the surface with a relieved gasp, pulling air back into his lungs. Much of an advantage as not needing to breathe underwater is, I still much prefer inhaling and exhaling. Shocked at his own exhaustion, Methos lay on the surface of the water, fatigue sending trembles through his body. The sky grew marginally lighter, and he groaned, turning in the water to search for the ship.
It took a few minutes to pick it out of the still-dull light, grey of the ocean blending with the distant clouds meeting the horizon. The Retribution was nearly a half mile away. Methos sighed, and sank underwater again, swimming a few yards beneath the surface. It wouldn't do to have someone notice him swimming up to the ship at this point. It had been an incredibly long night, and all he wanted was a few hours sleep.
At least I've got the Book. Methos grinned suddenly into the water, weariness leaking away in a moment of triumph. He hoped it hadn't been damaged by the earthquake or the sudden wash of water into the secret room, but it didn't really matter. It was in his possession now, no longer part of a random equation. If it was damaged, so be it. At least it wasn't an unknown factor any longer.
Methos dove under the Retribution, turning on his back to look for the submarine dock. He broke the surface silently when he found it, and pulled himself up the ladder. Hidden behind the sub, he peeked out of the dock, watching for feet and listening for voices. After several seconds of silence, he hurried across the deck, glancing west to the horizon. The sky was beginning to color, scarlet and gold with the rising sun. Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning, Methos thought, slipping through the door that lead eventually to his cabin. As it closed, he let out a soft breath. Almost home free.
With the thought came the gut-wrenching warning of an approaching Immortal.
Oh, no. Only a few yards down the hall, Methos looked over his shoulder to see Ghean open the door he'd just come through. For an instant, neither of them moved, as Ghean took in Methos' wetsuit and the backpack slung over his shoulders. Then her eyes widened as she deduced the meaning of the costume. Outrage filled her face, and she started forward.
Methos ran.
He had the advantage of longer legs, a short headstart, and the fact that he was running for his life, while Ghean was only running for his head. He didn't bother with the first set of stairs at all. A long, low leap sent him to the foot of the steps, wet feet slipping in a hard landing. He scrambled forward before he'd truly regained his balance, tearing down the hall to barge into his cabin before Ghean reached the foot of the stairs.
So close! So damned close! I am not fighting in a wetsuit, dammit! With one hand Methos slammed the door shut and the lock closed on it, flinging the soaking backpack onto the bed with the other. And God didn't intend man to get in or out of a wetsuit in a hurry. Methos cursed, yanking the zipper down and jerking the rubbery outfit off, leaving his arms clammy. He hopped up and down on one foot, pulling the suit down while trying to reach for his sword at the same time. After two futile attempts, he fell sideways on the bed, kicked the wetsuit off, and struggled into the jeans he'd left on the floor the night before.
He heard Ghean try the door, and opted for his sword instead of his shirt. A sharp crack fragmented the doorframe around the lock. Ghean kicked it open a fraction of a second later, just as Methos flung the sheath from his sword and brought the sword up to a defensive position. Ghean entered with her rapier at the fore, eyes black with anger.
"Witnesses," Methos said desperately. "We can't fight here, dammit." More to the point, I can't fight here. THe room's to her advantage, both for her size and blade. Damn!
"We most certainly can," Ghean said icily. "Everyone's asleep. What a pity. I'd been going to come down here and seduce you before I took your head, poor little lovesick Methos."
Without taking his eyes off her, Methos reached for the backpack. "I'll destroy it," he said flatly.
Her eyes flickered to the pack. "You're bluffing. You want it as much as I do."
"I assure you," Methos said, through his teeth, "I want it far less than I want my head." He threw the pack full force at her face. Ghean stumbled backwards, sword dropping as she tried to catch the unexpected projectile. Methos shot past her, knocking her aside to race back the way he'd come, up the stairs and back out onto the deck. He could hear Ghean curse behind him, and a pause before her footsteps followed his. She's got the Book. I thought that might be too much for her to pass up. He slid across the deck on bare, wet feet, spinning to face the door as she came charging out.
For one vivid second the comparison between the two made Methos grin. Ghean had clearly been awake a while, and was fully dressed, wearing a crimson blouse tucked into smooth black pants, which met soft black boots, boots which apparently had traction, judging from the ease she moved across the deck with. Her eyes were bright, both with anticipation and the bloody light from the coming dawn, and her color was high from the dash between decks. The necklace of Aries glittered against the blouse, and as she dropped into a guard position, Methos saw the ring Cuthmesh bounce the early morning light.
In comparison, Methos was bedraggled. Tired, wet and barefoot, his jeans were half buttoned and clinging uncomfortably to the salt water left on his skin. Goosebumps were collecting where water didn't roll down his bare arms and chest, and he could feel his hair drying in random spikes as it escaped from the slicking that the sea had given it.
Ghean's expression darkened dangerously as she saw him grin, and she dropped the backpack, kicking it across the deck to land against a bulwark. It settled into a heap, an enigmatic prize for the winner to collect.
"No," Methos said hastily, and backed up, lifting his sword protectively. "I'm not laughing at you, Ghean. We don't have to do this. All I came here for was the Book. Go live your life. God knows you deserve the chance."
She advanced without breaking form, scooting easily across the deck with her right foot leading. "We do have to do this," she corrected. "All I want is your head. The Book is just an extraordinary second prize." She smiled tightly. "All you came here for is the Book? That's not what you said two days ago."
Methos made an apologetic little gesture with his free hand. "I lied."
Ghean's eyes went darker. "You're a very good liar, Methos. We even believed you." She lunged forward with the words, making first contact with the blades, nothing more than a faint scrape of metal.
Methos knocked her blade away with a tap, shaking his head. "Ghean, let it go. What possible good will killing me do? The years are never going to come back to you."
"What good will it do?" Ghean lunged again, another quick attack. "It'll make us feel a hell of a lot better, that's what."
"Us?" Methos danced back, stepping around a heavy pile of chain on the deck. "I assure you, it won't make me feel any better. Forgive me my selfishness, but I'd really rather you didn't feel better at the expense of my head."
Ghean drew herself up momentarily, looking at Methos down the length of her blade. "Your selfishness," she said precisely, "is exactly what we cannot forgive." The voices were gone for the first time since she could remember, united entirely within her, one purpose in mind. She could hear the patient one's edge in her voice, calm and cool and rational.
Sometimes, Methos congratulated himself, you have a real talent for finding the one irrevocably wrong thing to say. "Try," he suggested. "You'd be surprised how much more pleasant life is when you can forgive people their little faults."
Ghean surged forward again, keeping her attack on a low line. The tactic was sound for a woman of her height; a high attack would bring her opponent's sword into play at a level uncomfortably near her neck, and the lower attacks would keep anyone of greater height slightly off-balance in meeting them. Methos approved, in a clinically detached fashion, as he darted back from the attacks, doing little more than defending himself.
"Little faults," Ghean snarled, in time to the clash of blades parrying. "Failing to mention our Immortality. Refusing to fight for us on our wedding day. Leaving us for dead when you knew we would waken again. Abandoning us to hell for five thousand years. Saving our mother. Sleeping with our mother. Which of those, Methos, is a little fault? We'll be happy to forgive you for it." Each sentence was highlighted by a swift attack, less designed for blood than eventual weariness.
"Who are 'we', Ghean?" Methos stared at the small woman, almost failing to block her attacks at all until one came dangerously close to drawign blood. He twitched back, and vaulted over a bulwark, paying more attention to his defense.
"Us," she hissed. "All of us whom you abandoned. We were so patient, and so frightened, and so alone. And now you'll pay for our imprisonment, Methos. You'll pay with your head. Your memories will be ours. Memories we should have had all along."
She is mad, Methos realized with horror. I thought she came out of Atlantis whole. I was wrong. "Ghean," he said softly, "Ghean, you need help, not revenge." He met another attack with an easy parry. "This could go on all day, Ghean. People are eventually going to wake up. Stop this, and we'll find a way to heal you. Please, Ghean."
She smiled, a flash of teeth in the early light. The sun broke the horizon, shooting spires of red through the clouds above them, and it began to rain. "Our healing will be your death. So much fun, we thought, to pretend we still loved you, to use you and then to kill you. And you even proved Atlantis for us. You did very well, Methos. Now it's time to die. They won't wake up if it's over soon." She shifted her attack, moving from low to high in a smooth, rapid sequence, then dropping it again.
"Dammit, Ghean! I'm better than you are, and we're in the middle of the ocean on a metal ship full of mortals. If you press this, don't you think it's probably going to end badly for them? Nevermind you?"
Ghean straightened again, falling back out of his reach. "You won't even take us seriously," she said quietly. "Fight us, Methos. The challenge has been made. You can't walk away from it."
Methos sighed. "Have it your way."
Ghean's jaw set, and she nodded, satisfied. Methos met her next lunge with no greater enthusiasm, but far more dedication. He could see surprise in her eyes at the power behind the blow. Then something else colored her expression: pleasure. Methos took the fight to high ground, throwing a blow at her shoulder with the hand-and-a-half sword he used. Ghean tangled her rapier in his blade, thrusting it away, and retreated.
Her next attack was high, and he stepped outside it, knocking her blade away and dropping his to swing upward at her leading leg. She parried, pushing the bastard sword away and turning to the side, reducing target area. They tossed offensive and defensive back and forth, blades sparking as they smashed together, distant sunlight glittering off raindrops as they trailed down the swords. The ring of metal on metal was loud to Methos' ears, but the mortals on the ship continued to sleep, protected from the sounds of battle by the heavy steel floors and walls.
Wind picked up, knocking Ghean's hair into her eyes a moment. She brushed it back, a fighting grin growing wider as none of Methos' blows hit home. He remained serious, scowling as they fought in the rain. Ghean's moment came as they whirled around each other, Methos' footing bad on the wet deck. Sunlight bounced off Methos' own sword, reflecting brilliantly off steel and water alike to blind him momentarily. Ghean lunged forward, scoring a thin red line across his belly before he could knock the rapier off course. He fell back, touching his fingers to the cut to test its depth. It stung, but it would heal within the minute.
"We can take your blood," Ghean said into the silence left by the cessation of clashing metal. "But you'll never take ours." Secret delight crackled in Ghean's brown eyes. "We're surprised you didn't recognize it." She lifted her sword hand to display the ring she wore around her thumb, and pressed wet hair out of her face to more clearly see Methos. "The ring of House Leo, Methos. It protects us. You're going to die." The words were changed, almost a sing-song.
Methos looked at the blood on his fingers, diluted by the pouring rain, then raised his eyes to Ghean. She split a grin of triumph at the horror on his face, and laughed as he whispered, "Oh, Ghean. I did love you."
She flung her hands up, embracing the storm-ridden sky and the red rising sun. "Too late!" she crowed. "Today you pay -- "
The blow that sent her to her knees was the same one that brought her the first death, thousands of years ago. Methos' sword came down in a wide arc, half gutting the tiny woman. Her rapier fell from numb fingers as she crashed to her knees, one hand wrapping disbelievingly around her midsection. Incredulous, she lifted her head, brown eyes staring as life drained from them. "How -- ?"
We never tested it, the frightened one one whispered in shock.
An arrow embedded itself in Minyah's arm, the patient one screamed, too late. She wore the ring then -- he told us and we didn't hear, we never thought --
-- the larger the artifact the more effective it is in providing physical protection --
"The ring gives you Immortality, not protection from external harm," Methos said softly. "I did love you once, Ghean," he repeated, voice gentle. Without taking his eyes from hers, he swung the sword up and over, the weight and speed of nearly a full circle racing down to sever her head from her neck.
I did love you.
The thought burned through Methos' mind, and for an eternal second he stood in the downpour, letting grief be his companion. The Retribution. It could conduct the lightning. She'll bring the ship down with her, unless --
Methos turned and ran for the side of the ship, vaulting one-handed to stand on the waist-high railing. He took one deep breath as the sky roared with thunder, and launched himself from the railing out into the sunrise.
Lightning cauht him as he broke the water's surface. Storm- colored water already tinged red by the rising sun, the Mediterranean added blue fire to its palette, flashes of electricity slicing through Methos as he fell deeper into the water.
Memory sent a scream of panic and pain through him, out into the water, as Ghean's life pounded into him with her Quickening. The terror of the water closing over her head in the temple made him scream again, reaching for the grey skies above the surface. Waves pushed him further down, pain rocketing through his body as lightning struck again and again, bringing with it thousands of years of solitude and fear, whispering voices and mindless despair. Methos held on to himself, on to his own memories of those many centuries, forcing what Ghean had been deeper into himself, acknowledging it, accepting it, but not surrendering to it.
The sea seethed, flinging him back out on an outburst of water, to meet lightning falling from the stormy sky. It danced down around him, a ragged pattern of rapid-fire shocks that surged into the water and back up through it, up through the soles of his feet and through his body, building towards the nerve-wrecking threshold between absolute pain and excrutiating pleasure. Methos flung his head back in a wordless shout of pain and grief and release, the only release the Quickening ever allowed. Time ceased within the Quickening, a few seconds lasting forever, and then it cast him back into the ocean, spent.
For long minutes Methos remained in the sea's cradle, choppy waves made by natural winds rocking him as the sky brought forth the storm that the red dawn warned of. Dazed, he opened his eyes, finding his sword still clutched in his hand. The hilt left dimples marked deep in his palm, and he loosened his grip on it a little, trying to right himself in the waves, energy drained. After a moment he oriented himself, turning wearily towards the ship.
Michael Powers stood on the deck, hands light on the railing. He watched, silent, as Methos swam weakly back to the ship, and dove under to search out the submarine dock again. One-handed, he pulled himself up the ladder. Powers, wordlessly, crossed the deck to offer Methos a hand. After a moment's bleary hesitation, Methos accepted the mortal man's help, letting Michael pull him on to the deck. The two watched each other, Methos marked with total fatigue, Michael with unhappy understanding.
"She told you what we were," Methos said, over the rain, when the silence drew out too far.
"Her ring didn't work," Michael replied.
Methos shook his head. "No," he said, "it didn't." He turned his head, looking at the waves building in the water, and the faded light from the sun that had now risen behind the clouds, leaving the skies dreary and grey. "The storm's getting worse," he said a little hoarsely. Emphasizing his words, lightning fell from the sky again, shattering the horizon. "Two of your researchers were lost in it," he suggested quietly.
Michael licked his lips and nodded, swallowing hard.
"Thank you," Methos said, and went to pick up Ghean's sword. "Do you want this?"
Michael shook his head, mutely. Methos nodded, and dropped the rapier over the side. It made a tiny ripple in the choppy sea as it sank.
"You don't want to watch the rest of this," Methos said. Without responding, Michael turned away, walking belowdecks. Methos closed his eyes momentarily, then crouched beside Ghean's body, hands steepled in front of his mouth. Wrapping his hand around the Aries pendent, he took it from her body, and then slid the golden ring off her thumb, putting the ring on the chain with the pendent. He stood, slipping the necklace into his jeans pocket, and found a length of chain to weight Ghean's body with, sending it after her sword into the Mediterreanean.
The storm did a fair job of washing blood away, but Methos found a bucket and filled it with seawater, splashing it over the deck. The deck was scored black under the blood, a long trail of charred steel where lightning had followed his leap off the ship's railing. He toed at the burned metal, and then, still soaking wet, he went below to get the sheath for his sword. He took the wetsuit as well, finding another length of chain to weight it with before dropping it over the side of the ship. Sword strapped to his back, he returned to the submarine port, looking down into the grey water.
The Book. Methos looked up. It lay where Ghean had tossed it, crumpled agains the edge of the bulwark. He smiled without humour, and went to collect it, retying the sword to the outside of the backpack. He glanced at the submarine port, then shook his head a little, and vaulted once again over the side of the Retribution, following the same path he'd sent Ghean on.
Seconds later he resurfaced and began, for the second time in his life, swimming through a storm, away from Atlantis towards the safety of shore.
Chapter Thirty
The newspaper spun twices as it was thrown down the counter, landing with the text upside-down at Joe's elbow. A gold ring bounced down the counter after it, whirling to a rattling stop a few inches away from the paper. Joe glanced up to see who'd tossed them. Then, with his eyebrows lifted, he rotated the paper to read the short article.