Tibet. 2017.
A few shafts of light broke through the holes resembling windows, struggling to defeat the everpresent darkness. The room was almost empty. An old monk was sweeping calmly. He felt his bones complaining about the work as he contemplated his doing. The room was neat and clean. The sun leaked through over the emptiness. His eyes looked farther and noticed the other as he began to pace away slowly.
That stranger had been there for twenty years. He had arrived when the monk was entering his fifties, and most of his teeth were in its place. Now he was in his seventies, and found painful even moving.
The other was a strange man, more than what the word would allow. His beard had grown with his hair, but the monk was certain. He had not aged. It was good for him, he thought without envy as he waved at the other before leaving the room, as he never forgot to do, not being replied, as it always happened.
Cross-legged, with his arms completing the lotus position, Duncan MacLeod watched in still silence as the monk left him by himself. He could have returned the salute. He had done it before, in other times, with other people. Had it been a decade? A century? More? Memory failed.
"It's bad manners not to say hello, you Scottish goat!"
Duncan felt startled as his mind struggled with the words he had just heard. His brain began to function. It was English language. The voice had a British accent... a familiar accent. And the choice of words... it couldn't be. He had to be hallucinating.
"Duncan MacLeod, you have become mean-mannered... and also a filthy pig!"
It couldn't be. He had died by a blade as many others Duncan had known. For they were forever bound by a limitless Game in which they had to fight to keep their heads over their shoulders.
"You couldn't read... you couldn't write... and now you can't even speak?!?"
Duncan stood up and looked around. He opened his mouth to speak but no words came out. His tongue had not moved in more than he could remember... or know.
"This can't be..." he mumbled.
"Really?" This time the voice came from behind him, whispering in his ear. "Then what am I doing here?"
Duncan turned, finding a tall, blond man bearing good looks and very elegant trims. He was smiling at him with a smoky pipe in his right hand. Duncan stared as if the other were a ghost, which indeed he had to be.
"Fitz?!"
"Yes, my friend. I left the afterlife to come and say hello." Hugh Fitzcairne replied as he moved around Duncan.
"But how..."
"It doesn't matter, Highlander." Fitz raised a hand to make his point. "What matters is what YOU are doing here?" He emphasised his words pointing at Duncan with the pipe.
"I..." Duncan's mind juggled with a plethora of thoughts. "Richie..."
"Oh, I remember. You were tricked to behead Richie." Fitz spoke nonchalantly. "So? Is that a reason enough to spend twenty years buried here?"
"It was my fault."
"Nonsense, MacLeod." Fitz snapped. Duncan wondered if he was truly having this conversation, if his mind was not tricking him, making him believe he was chatting with a ghost. "Richie's death was an accident. Supernatural things. It happened to us before, remember?"
The snow. Duncan shivered remembering the trip they had underwent to find gold in the late nineteenth century. Months amid snow, snow, and nothing but snow. He shook away the memories before they overwhelmed him.
"But..."
"Have you forgotten who you are?" Fitz' image suddenly disappeared. "Tell me who are YOU..." now he was to his left "... YOU..." to his right .." YOU?!" Fitz appeared before him, their noses almost touching.
"I..." Duncan stammered.
"Anyway, just thought about visiting. Seems I'm not the only one. See you when you die..." Fitz shrugged with a smile. "I hope not soon."
Duncan blinked and Fitzcairne was gone. But something else kicked in. He felt it in his head, buzzing furiously. The Highlander shivered, feeling weak and run through by an unnerving cold sweat. He turned to face the door.
The footsteps echoed furiously as the stairs were being climbed up. The old monastery had that feature, but he had forgotten it. The steps grew louder and halted... at the door.
Suddenly it burst open. A beacon of light flooded the room and Duncan made out the slim shadow of a man, who gave two steps and gazed around, inspecting the place. Duncan saw the head jerk towards him and he trembled. He would be unable to present battle.
"Hello, MacLeod."
The other's voice seemed familiar. But he could not be certain. The shadow began to move closer, always shielded by darkness, the few light that broke through the window illuminating parts of his body: his chest, his legs. But never his face.
"Who... who is it?" Duncan stammered.
The figure stopped at a point where light highlighted most of him, from the feet to the neck. The face remained concealed. Duncan sensed in his bloodstream and joints the beginnings of a feeling he had lost acquaintance with, even before Richie's death. That feeling was fear.
"You don't remember me. It surprises me, Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod. We were friends. Not very close friends, but I saved your neck one or twice." The other paced back and forth calmly, hands in the pockets of the long black coat he wore. At some point, Duncan thought he caught a glimpse of his face. "You saved mine more, though."
"I know you..."
"Yes, Duncan, you know me." The man halted and stuck a hand inside his coat, to then produce something long that reflected the sunlight. Unmistakably, it was a sword. What was this man up to? "You offered me this... the last time I saw you."
He saw how the other gripped the sword by the border between the blade and the hilt and extended the latter to him. The sculpted white shape of a dragon abruptly faced Duncan and memories of twenty years before hit him hard.
"M—Methos?"
"Bravo, Highlander." The man stepped forward, revealing a lean face which bore the novelty of a pair of thin glasses. Duncan's chin quivered.
"What... why... are you...?"
"Each man has a way to grieve. Richie's death was an accident. You've spent too long in here. But as I said, you grieve your own way." Methos squatted by Duncan. "I didn't want to disturb you but..."
"Why... did you come... here then?"
"Because what's left of the world you left behind twenty years ago needs you out of here to defeat Ahriman."
Duncan remembered. He was said to be the Champion, chosen to defeat the demon Ahriman who resurfaced every millennia. But Ahriman had made him kill his protégé. He had failed.
"I can't. The world is lost if I'm it's only hope." He said despondently.
Methos didn't like what he heard. He smirked in frustration but never let his cunning eyes off Duncan. The Highlander was expecting an argument aimed at convincing him, but Methos stood up and turned.
"Fine, MacLeod." Methos said easily as he jerked his head to glimpse at the Highlander. "But if not for the world... for a friend?"
"What do you mean?" Duncan queried as he stood up.
"Joe." Methos hissed. "He's dying. I'd wanted to come many times since I learnt you were here... but I never thought you would leave..."
"Joe...?" Duncan remembered his Watcher... his friend, the ancient mortal without legs that was a sucker for guitars, blues and books. He had vanished without a trace, never telling anyone where he was. But he needed to mourn alone!
"Lung cancer." Methos whispered. "He wants to see you one last time..."
Duncan dithered. "I'll say goodbye to him... and then return."
"Fine, Highlander." Methos was by the door. "The world will bury itself in oblivion, but what can I do about it?" His voice lingered in the room as his footsteps echoed away...
AUTHOR'S NOTE: the snow Duncan remembers is a reference to the novel "White Silence" by Ginjer Buchanan. Fitz' "Who are you?" line is taken from The Who's song.