Seasons of Rest

by Cameron Dial

Part Two in the Hearts of Glass series, following Season of Change. Methos sets out to find Duncan MacLeod after the Highlander leaves Paris at the end of "To Be/Not to Be."

Seasons of Rest

Part One

by Cameron Dial

Disclaimer: "Highlander" and its associated names, trademarks and characters are the property

of Davis/Panzer Productions, Inc., which reserves all copyrights. This story is

for entertainment purposes only. No monetary compensation is received by the author.

No copyright infringement is intended.

I know it's their sandbox. I just dropped by to play.

I am monarch of all I survey; my right there is none to dispute;

From the centre all round to the sea I am lord of the fowl and the brute.

O Solitude! Where are the charms that sages have seen in thy face?

Better dwell in the midst of alarms than reign in this horrible place.

*****

I am out of humanity's reach; I must finish my journey alone;

Never hear the sweet music of speech--I start at the sound of my own;

The beasts that roam over the plain my form with indifference see--

They are so unacquainted with man, their tameness is shocking to me.

*****

Society, Friendship, and Love divinely bestow'd upon man,

Oh had I the wings of a dove how soon would I taste you again!

My sorrows I then might assuage in the ways of religion and truth,

Might learn from the wisdom of age, and be cheer'd by the sallies of youth.

*****

Ye winds that have made me your sport, convey to this desolate shore

Some cordial endearing report of a land I shall visit no more.

My friends, do they now and then send a wish or a thought after me?

O tell me I yet have a friend, though a friend I am never to see.

*****

How fleet is a glance of the mind!

Compared with the speed of its flight, the tempest itself lags behind . . .

When I think of my own native land, in a moment I seem to be there;

But, alas! recollection at hand soon hurries me back to despair.

But the sea-fowl is gone to her nest, the beast is laid down in his lair;

Even here is a season of rest, and I to my cabin repair.

*****

There's mercy in every place; and mercy--encouraging thought!--

Gives even affliction a grace, and reconciles man to his lot.

The sea-fowl is gone to her nest, the beast is laid down in his lair;

Even here is a season of rest, and I to my cabin repair.

--W. Cowper, "The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk"

June 1999

Methos had abandoned his SUV in the parking lot of the Grand Monarque Hotel in Chartres, half surprised at how easy it had been even after all this time. He'd left his keys in the ignition and then locked the door, knowing Nick had a spare key to the vehicle. That done, he shoved his hands in his pockets and walked away.
He used a pay phone to a call an unlisted number dialed from memory and three hours later a young man with a briefcase met him under the bright  lights of Calais' high speed train station. It was, predictably, late enough that few people were about. A heavy set black man in coveralls was moving a damp mop back and forth over the tiled floor, but the main attraction was a construction crew at work in a waiting area that was being renovated. Construction barriers cordoned off the area, and a commercial shredder was busily chewing up scraps of left over wood and plastic, creating an almost unbelievable din. Overhead signs apologized for any inconvenience and advised that hearing protection was recommended for those working regularly in the area. Methos could well believe it. Without a word, he reached for the long, narrow carrying case the boy held almost negligently under one arm, simultaneously pulling the Ivanhoe from its hidden sheath inside his coat.
The youngster's eyes widened at the sight of the sword, but his training held. He said nothing, only fumbling a little as he snapped the case open, revealing the heavy foam rubber lining, cut out precisely to admit the broadsword Methos silently slipped into it. A second, shorter cut out cushioned the main gauche Methos pulled from the front of his coat as the young man watched. Closing the case, he snapped the carry strap on and slipped it over one shoulder. Once Customs had verified the contents and paperwork identifying him as a secure courier transporting antiques, they'd seal the case for him, watch him lock it, and tape it shut for its short trip beneath the Channel.
That done, Methos pointed to the briefcase the young man had set on the floor between his feet while the sword and dagger were secured in their case. The shredder made conversation impossible even if Methos had been so inclined, but the boy had no doubt been told to ask no questions. Swallowing with a glimmer of perspiration on his forehead, he handed Methos the briefcase, watching as he spun the tumblers on the twin combination locks until the lid clicked quietly open. Methos' face was expressionless as he checked the contents--a passport identifying him under a name he'd used at various times over the past dozen years; French and British customs papers on the sword and main gauche; and a wallet with an International driver's license and sufficient cash for almost any situation that didn't involve bloodshed. Essentially, everything he'd need since he was accustomed to traveling light. Anything else was just stuff, he reminded himself, and stuff was easily acquired elsewhere.
Methos pulled his wallet from his back jeans pocket and glanced quickly through its contents. In addition to his cell phone he had close to 10,000 francs, and he handed them to the nameless young man, saying merely, "For your time." He doubted the young man had heard him--the shredder was deafening under the terminal's low ceiling--but the proffered bills spoke for themselves and Methos lip-read the boy's "Merci, Monsieur."  Snapping the briefcase shut, he turned on his heel and moved down the hall past the construction site, chucking both the wallet and his cell phone into the shredder. If the shredder had any objection upon meeting plastic and metal, it made no comment he could decipher.
His business in London took just over a day to transact; after that he'd planned to rent a car to drive to Cardiff, Wales, to visit Ellie for an afternoon if she was up to company. Elizabeth Eleanor Alcott was close to 80 now, and 35 years ago she had--for reasons of her own--allowed him to "adopt" her family as his, ultimately providing him the essentials that his "Adam Pierson" persona had grown out of. She'd enjoyed playing her role and he remembered her eyes crinkling as she'd called to the village minister to "Come and meet my sister's only boy," when he'd last been in Cardiff ten or twelve years ago. The story of Adam Pierson's boyhood was totally fictitious, of course, but it had held through the Watchers' background check--and the minister's as well--and Methos had provided generously for Ellie's income all these years, though it was no part of their official arrangement.
Driving to Wales made a change of clothes a necessity, and that meant he had to pick up a few things at least. Selfridges was close enough for some one-stop-shopping, and inside of an hour he'd picked up a pair of jeans and a pair of permanent press gabardines that even Ellie would approve of. He tossed them over one arm, declining a salesclerk's offer of assistance as he selected a couple of button-front shirts that would go with either, frowning slightly at their band-collars. Putting them back, he reached for a more comfortable button down version of each and then tossed a long sleeved polo shirt onto the pile along with a threesome of socks and two packages of boxer shorts.
"Anything else, sir?" the clerk asked.
"The gym bag behind you," Methos said, lifting his chin to indicate the one he meant.
Smiling, the clerk rang up his purchases and rolled everything to fit inside the case. Methos checked to be sure there was sufficient room inside for one or two more items and nodded. Satisfied with his shopping expedition, he headed back to his hotel, stopping at the desk just long enough to collect his room key and ask that laundry service be sent to his room in half an hour.
Stepping out of the shower twenty minutes later, he had time to dress before the maid tapped on the door. Barefoot but otherwise fully dressed, he let her in, gesturing to the small pile of dirty clothes on the foot of his bed as he scrubbed a towel through his short hair.
"Just these, sir?"
"Yes, thank you." He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on a pair of new socks as he watched the maid checking for anything left in the pockets before sending the jeans off to be laundered.
"An earring, but just one," she said, rolling the tiny stud between thumb and forefinger before placing it on the corner of the night stand. She was young, about Amy Thomas' age, and her dark eyes twinkled as she asked, "Was she pretty, I hope?" her good humored smile making a joke of it.
"No doubt," Methos drawled. It was, after all, MacLeod's souvenir, so it was a safe enough guess.
"And she left her phone number behind," the maid said, holding a yellow piece of paper out to him.
"A fact I'd completely forgotten," he remarked, taking it from her. As she bagged his dirties and let herself out, he turned the piece of paper over in his hand. Just a scrap of paper, dog-eared and ragged, apparently torn from a larger piece as needed, with a phone number in pen. Ten digits, written in MacLeod's elaborate handwriting. Ten digits, which meant it was most likely a French number. He'd first noticed it a few weeks ago, when he and Joe had met to clear out the barge before Methos had it put into drydock.

"Damn," Joe had said, looking around the barge. "He didn't leave much, did he?"
"Oh, I don't know," Methos had said noncommittally. "I've left less when I cleared out of a place."
As Joe had watched, Methos pulled a decorative oriental-looking bowl down from one of the shelves. It was about four inches deep and stood on green curlicue legs of some sort, with characters engraved all around the edges.
"What's the writing?" Joe had asked.
"Ancient Chinese," Methos had replied. "It's the story of a sea voyage around the world."

"Old?"
Methos shrugged. "Seventh century B.C," he'd said, pouring the bowl's scant contents into the palm of his hand: an earring--most likely Amanda's, he'd thought at the time, though he'd been wrong about that--a wire whisk he'd tossed negligently into a chest, and a scrap of wrinkled paper on which the Highlander had scribbled a phone number.

This phone number.
Methos reached for the phone next to the bed, requesting an international line. He glanced at the bedside clock. It was just short of noon in London, an hour later in Paris. Eyes shifting between the phone's keypad and the scrap of paper between his fingers, Methos punched in the number. Following the fourth ring a woman's voice came on, greeting him in musical French tones.
"I'm sorry--what number was this?" he asked.
"Bordeaux Shipyards," came the reply. "Who were you trying to reach?"
"Duncan MacLeod," he said dully, the name falling out of his mouth before he could think of anything else to say.
"A moment, please."
Ridiculous, really, the way his heart was pounding the blood into his ears. It wasn't as if he actually expected MacLeod to answer the telephone or anything.
"Oui, Monsieur--we have one Duncan MacLeod registered as master of the cutter Joshua Slocum--"
Oh, bloody hell, Methos thought.
"--Joshua Slocum, renamed Absolution. He's not in port, though. He shipped out about eight months ago--"
Oh, bloody, bloody hell. Let me guess.
"--on a solo circumnavigation--"
Shit, Methos thought. Shit, shit, shit. Once he had the clues in hand there'd been no other possibility really. In fact, it was so obvious it set his teeth on edge. A century ago a retired American sea captain named Joshua Slocum had made the first documented one man voyage around the world in modern times, sailing a 37-foot sloop called the Spray. If he recalled correctly, it had taken him about three years to complete the journey, though Slocum had picked his weather whenever possible and set a leisurely pace. And Duncan MacLeod--who knew perfectly well that Methos hated the sea--had chosen the one way he knew to disappear that he'd been sure would guarantee no one was going to come haring after him to drag his butt back home and back into the Game. Malaysian monasteries and solo circumnavigations, Methos fumed. Some people have no imagination whatsoever. And some have far too much for their own good.

Chapter Two

"Adam Pierson, you look like a vagabond!"
He smiled at Ellie's chiding and bent to kiss her forehead, saying, "I'll have you know I stopped and bought new things just for this visit. It's not my fault if I have no taste in clothes."
She chuckled, letting him draw her arm through his, and pointed toward the couch. Pacing himself to her steps, he guided her back to the couch as the nursing home attendant watched, ready to offer assistance if needed. Seating Ellie on the couch, he slid into the nearest chair and leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
"Adam--what's wrong?" Ellie asked, her frown adding a crease to her already wrinkled brow. Normally he simply flowed into a piece of furniture, the way she imagined an invading army occupied territory. This composed, gentlemanly posture--this was Adam on his guard, working through a problem that quite possibly had no solution to speak of. "Adam?"
"It's nothing, honestly. I just can't stay as long as I'd hoped. I'm sorry."
"Are you in trouble?"
"No," he told her, his eyes crinkling as he flashed her a wicked grin. "Just a guilty conscience."
"You? The only guilt-free man in the world?"

"Come on, Mac, you are not buying into that tawdry, guilt-induced little melodrama!"
"Oh, I forgot," MacLeod shot back at him, catching Joe Dawson's eye over Methos' shoulder. "We're talking to the only guilt-free man in the Western world."
"No," Methos replied. "We're talking about Ingrid. It is the ultimate in arrogance to think that one person can alter the course of history--"

"Adam?" Ellie's voice, and he blinked, focusing on her. "Adam? Where did you go just now?"
"Nowhere--the past--for a moment." He smiled an apology. "You . . . just reminded me of something." Someone. It had been in Seacouver, at Joe's, three, almost four years ago now, but it hadn't ended there. Quite predictably, it hadn't ended until Ingrid was dead and the New Freedom Party rally was over, Wilkinson's supporters departing, shouting encouragement to each other along with their good byes, honking their horns as they drove off.

"You okay?" Methos asked gently, sitting next to MacLeod just outside the back door.
Not quite trusting his voice, Mac had nodded, knowing he wasn't fooling either of them. After a moment he'd said simply, "Ingrid asked me something before she died."
"They usually do," Methos said.
"She said, what was the difference between her killing them and me killing her?"
"Good question," Methos had replied. "Right up there with the chicken and the egg."
"So what are you saying? That there is no answer?"
"No. There's an answer. The real question is whether you're ready for it."
After a second, MacLeod had nodded.
"Right." Methos had pursed his lips together and took a breath. "Stephanovitch killed and Ingrid judged him. Wilkinson killed and Ingrid judged him. Ingrid killed and you judged her."
"And who judges me?" MacLeod had asked.

In the end he'd judged himself far more harshly than Methos ever would have, but then, Methos had a bit more perspective on things. What was it Goethe said? Something about it being easier to forgive once you'd done everything yourself, and found yourself in need of forgiveness.
Focus, Methos told himself. He smiled, listening to Ellie talk about the small events that made up her days, talking about the merest surface events in his own: He'd been back to the States since he'd seen her last, and bought a house in Paris--the same house he'd abandoned without so much as a thought days ago, though he'd miss his office and the techno toys Amy liked to tease him about. Stuff, he reminded himself. Just stuff, easily acquired, easily replaced. It was people you couldn't replace, a fact Duncan MacLeod had learned the hard way.

"I killed Richie," MacLeod said quietly.
"And having killed your student, you turned to me for judgment," Methos said.

"Please," MacLeod had whispered. His voice had been hoarse as he held the katana out to Methos, begging for death.
And Methos had turned his back on the man who was the best friend he'd ever had. "Absolutely not," he'd said.

After a moment, Mac nodded.
"And when I refused to judge you," Methos said, "you judged yourself."
MacLeod opened his mouth to protest. "You said--"
"I said that I wouldn't judge you, and I didn't."
"But I killed him," Mac said. "I killed my own student."
"And you found yourself guilty of the crime and gave yourself the same sentence you'd imposed on Warren Cochrane--life with the knowledge of what you'd done, never to be forgotten or forgiven."
Mac stood and turned his back on Methos. The street lamps had come on, their reflections rippling with the water when he turned back, swimming, too, in the tears Methos could see in his eyes. Methos had risen, too, and was standing with his hands shoved casually in his jeans pockets, elbows pushing his coat back in a familiar posture. Mac swallowed, finally asking in a strained voice, "Was I wrong?"
"Richie's death was an accident, Mac. At some level you have to know that."
"So, what? You want me to plead temporary insanity? You think I should find myself not guilty by reason of mental defect? He isn't any less dead because I didn't mean to do it. I killed him, Methos!"
"Yes, you did. Just like Warren Cochrane killed his student."
"So add that to my crimes! You said it yourself: I set myself up as judge and jury. I wanted Cochrane to suffer lifelong for what he'd done--well, he did that, didn't he? He lost his home, his friends, the woman he loved, possibly even his mind. He became a fugitive wanted for murder. He became a murderer, Methos--in the end he was nothing like the man I'd known or the friend I'd loved. And it might all have been avoided if I'd tried to understand--"
The helplessness, the frustration, the fury--Methos understood it all, and Mac had known it, the realization plain on his face as he nodded ever so slightly. The recognition was there, too big to trust to words, and Methos could only hope that the knowledge helped at least a little.
Mac took a step forward. "Why'd you kill Cochrane?" he asked.
Because I wasn't sure you could bear the consequences of having to do it yourself, Methos thought, but he said simply, "Because it had to be done." Methos could see MacLeod working it out, a dozen warring emotions flickering across the Highlander's face in the space of a heartbeat as brown eyes met hazel.
Mac walked down the steps to the water's edge and sat again, Methos joining him after a moment. They sat together while Methos finished his second beer and Mac made silent headway on the whisky. Eventually, Methos bundled his empties back into the plastic bag and caught the flash of the Scot's white teeth in the near darkness. Stretching out one long leg, MacLeod had prodded Methos in the rump with one foot. "So what are you telling me?" he asked. "Judge not that ye be not judged?"
"You do know that's an incomplete translation, don't you?" Methos asked, the suggestion of a smile shaping his lips. "It's supposed to be 'Judge not unrighteously, that ye be not judged.'" Mac said nothing, but merely sat there, looking at him. "There's another one I really like," Methos said. "'I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.' I've always liked to think that extends to forgiving yourself, as well as others."
"That's not--"
"Yeah, I know. It got left out when they translated the original Hebrew into Greek. Pity."

"Do you have to go?" Ellie asked him, and he smiled, kissing her hand.
"Places to go, people to see. None more important than you, though."
"Your friend who's in trouble?"
He smiled. As usual she'd seen right through him. "Yeah?"
"He must be a very good friend."
"Sometimes."
"Most of the time, or I miss my guess."
He shrugged. "When he isn't being a pain in the ass."
"Something you excel at."
"Yeah, but I work at it. It just comes naturally to him."
"He's your student," she said, startling a chuckle from him.
He rolled his eyes. "Don't tell him that." It reminded him abruptly of Nick. So much for guilt-free living. Her arms were frail around his neck as she hugged him good bye, and the thought fluttered through his mind that he could be looking at Joe Dawson in this state in another thirty years. Stop whipping yourself over things you can't do anything about, he told himself firmly. "Take care of yourself, Ellie. It'll be awhile, but I'll see you again when I can."
"Here, or on the hillside," she said. "You know where."
"I know where."
It was a touchstone between them, a joke that had become a promise. She'd always said she wanted to be buried on the hillside behind her family's cottage, within sight of the furthest bend of the river. She'd first shown it to him almost thirty years ago, silver-green in the distance under the trees, and he'd made sure her lawyer knew the spot and had it clearly designated in her will and final papers.
"Don't stay away forever, Adam," she whispered as he bent to brush his lips to the top of her head.
"Only so long as it takes," he said, and then he went away.

Chapter Three

Duncan MacLeod had taken possession of the Joshua Slocum within a week of leaving Paris and his friends behind. His first thought had been to sail her home--truly home--up the estuary to Loch Shiel and then to Glenfinnan. He might have, too, if he hadn't pictured every Watcher in Great Britain lying in wait for him there. He did want to go home, though, to Scotland, at least, and after some hesitation he'd set sail for the scattered islands off Scotland's wild, northern coast.
Betty Bannen took him in without question and sheltered him while he worked day after day on the Absolution's refitting, watching from the stoop as he laid on calking and fastened the new butts through with bolts, using screw-nuts to tighten them to the timbers. At 29 feet, Absolution was a good deal smaller than the 37 feet Captain Slocum's Spray had measured, but the original name had caught his fancy and, in fact, had given him the idea to sail around the world. The Spray had been a sloop; Absolution was a cutter, lean, but adequate to the task if her captain knew what he was doing. And after various tours of duty in half a dozen navies and the Merchant Marine over some 400 years, MacLeod was reasonably sure of his abilities as a one-man crew.
When the recalking was finished, two coats of paint went on, and half as much, it seemed to Betty, ended up on the man himself, who walked up the hill every day tired and grimy to wash off in the oaken barrel in the front yard. Two weeks after he arrived he refitted the mast and they celebrated with roast mutton and bread fresh from the oven. The following day the Absolution was launched with the help of half a dozen neighbors, and that was cause enough for a bonfire on the beach, with pipes and dancing all around.
In the morning Mac was up and about long before Betty stirred, standing on the beach and staring out at Absolution as she lay at anchor. Sailing was something he'd wanted to teach Richie, though Richie had never understood the appeal. He'd trailed after MacLeod dutifully enough the time or two the Highlander had dragged him down to Cape Schooner or one of Seacouver's other docks, but he'd never caught the spirit of the adventure--yawl, ketch, sloop or cutter, they'd all been the same to Richie, and of little interest to him. Mac smiled. He remembered Richie's good natured complaints at manning a rowboat or paddling the canoe Mac normally used for transport to and from the island cabin off the Washington state coast. Truth be told, Richie had found his own freedom in trips on his bike, whether in the States, down to Rio, or across half of Europe. Richie was dead now--MacLeod's fault, that--and he would never know the joy of the open sea, just as he'd never know any of life's other possibilities. Silently, Mac waded barefoot into the shallows lapping about his ankles, shivering in the chill mixture of memory, wind, and water. A moment later he plunged into the salt water, swimming toward his prize.
If he'd had more time, he'd have rebuilt the Absolution from its twenty-year-old hull up, but he was anxious to be at sea. Hauling himself up to the stern via the trail rope he'd attached, he half regretted having delayed this long, but Betty's hospitality and that of her neighbors was so warm and welcoming he'd have felt an ingrate to turn it down. One neighbor, a mechanic, had dismantled Absolution's little marine engine and spent a day cleaning the plugs and fuel line for him, adjusting the carburetor and overhauling the generator. Another had wired Absolution so a flip of the switch set her small cabin ablaze with light from the engine battery. He'd also helped MacLeod repair a radio he'd been ready to junk, turning it into a useful, working instrument, though of limited range. Unasked, the man's gangly grandson had built a large locker from the deck beams down to the unused surface of the starboard bunk. Like any sailor, MacLeod knew the worth of found storage space, and he'd been so pleased with the boy's ingenuity and thoughtfulness that nothing would do but to insist that the boy and his grandfather be Absolution's first passengers, along with Betty. A short trip around the bay was all they'd planned, though he knew from the gleam in the boy's eyes that he'd gladly have signed on for the entire trip around the world, and again he thought with regret of Richie.
Two hours later it was his name, carried on the breeze from the shore, that caught his attention, and he waved from the deck of the Absolution, watching as Betty Bannen was helped into a row boat by her neighbors and the three made their way out to the cutter's anchoring place. He shook his head in amusement, seeing that Betty had brought along the two kittens she'd rescued of late--"They were going to drown them, I tell you"--and smiled a bit sadly, realizing he wasn't the only member of the sailing party with a tendency to take in strays. Helping Betty to board, he watched without surprise as the kittens made themselves at home among the rigging, two patches of black with green eyes amid the white sails. Though they were twins, the kittens were far from identical: One was longer and leaner than the other, with nearly perfect features; the other had a pooched out belly, left over from the malnutrition Betty had nursed him back from, and much coarser fur. For all their storied dislike of water, he'd known his share of ships' cats over the years and these seemed unconcerned by the bobbing deck beneath them. In fact, their only reaction when the sails filled with the morning breeze was to scamper sailward, as if fascinated by the invisible wind in the sheets above their heads. They'd have remained aloft all day long if Betty's picnic hadn't included a tin of mackerel, but the fishy smell brought them down to the deck, tumbling over each other and slapping demandingly at the tin as Betty peeled back the top and dumped the contents onto a plate for them, spreading the mackerel around enough that each had his own little feast.
The day was perfect, a sea of green beneath them, dressed in white caps toward afternoon; the wind came up and Absolution seemed to want to head for deeper, bluer waters. MacLeod gave the cutter her head for a few hours, feeling the creak of the deck and the straining of the wind in the sails. Another time he might have lashed the tiller, but today he wanted to feel the wheel in his hands as the Absolution swayed gently and sailed smoothly as the sea rolled under her, the wind tugging through his shortened hair. It was a freedom he'd missed for too long, and he was loathe to have it come to an end. It was full dusk when they returned to shore and the MacNalleys headed home. Betty waved a farewell from the beach and then linked her arm through MacLeod's as they trudged together across the damp and flattened sand of the winter beach toward home.
"You're gone in the morning, aren't you?" she asked, leaning toward the warmth of his body and the thick, cream-colored sweater he'd pulled on toward sunset.
"At first light."
She sighed, shaking her head. "What would it be like, sailing 'round the world? In truth, Duncan MacLeod, I don't know if you're the bravest man I've ever met or the foolhardiest."
"I'll tell you when I get back," he said with a smile.
"It won't bring your young friend back, you know," she said. "When my Tommy died, I thought coming home to the Highlands was the answer. It took me the better part of a year to realize I didn't know what the question was, let alone the answer." She studied his face in the light falling through the open door. "It's a terrible thing," she said, "for the parent to outlive the child."
"Richie wasn't my son."
"Wasn't he? I've heard your voice when you talk of him, you know. I've watched your face, too. In every way that mattered, I think he was your son, whether you knew it or not. He might have been growing into your friend, looking to redefine the relationship, maybe, the way young people do, but definitions don't matter the way feelings do."
Just because a relationship changes doesn't mean it ends, Rich.
Nodding, he lifted his chin, blinking the way people do when tears are close, and she sighed. "I'm sorry, Duncan. I know you haven't wanted to talk about it--"
She was right, of course. He hadn't talked of it, not to Joe, not to Methos, not even to Amanda. Still, courtesy demanded a response. "It's all right," he said. "It's been two years." Two years and more, truthfully. Time enough to be done with mourning, anyway. It was just that the damn thing wouldn't let go of him.
"Healing has its own time to keep," Betty said quietly. "The calendar was made for other things."
He nodded at the truth of it. He'd spent a year in a monastery in Malaysia, looking for forgiveness after Richie's death, and a year in Paris after that, playing at a return to a normal life, all to no avail. Was it possible, he wondered, for a wound to go so deeply that the healing process itself worked irreparable damage?
He remembered coming to and staring up at Methos after escaping Liam O'Rourke's men weeks before, clutching the ancient Immortal's coat front and glaring up at him.

"How long?" Mac had demanded.
He remembered the flicker in the hazel eyes as Methos stared down at him.

"A few minutes," Methos had replied.
A few minutes. It had seemed much longer to MacLeod and had been, in fact, long enough to change his life, thanks to Fitzcairn.
"Never again," MacLeod had said, and he'd seen Methos' quick intelligence at work behind the eyes. The old man might play dumb when it suited him, but in fact he missed very little, particularly where Duncan MacLeod was concerned. He would never again willingly fight in the Game, or have others put at risk for his sake. And he would never again be arrogant enough to believe he could make a difference, or that it was his role to do so.

"I've marked a map, did I tell you?" Betty's smile was shy as she tugged at his hand, pulling him down to sit beside her on the stoop, and she chuckled at her own foolishness. "I've marked all the places I think you'll go--"
"I'll follow the oldest sailors' routes," he said, "down the eastern coast of Scotland and England, across the Channel to France. I'll stop at Le Havre for a day or two for some outfitting I can't do here. Then I'll sail south along the coastline, the way the ancient mariners did, to Africa. Just past the equator there's a strong, driving wind that will take me across the Atlantic to South America. I haven't decided yet whether to take the canal at Panama or to try my luck at the Cape, but either way I'll make my way to the Pacific--"
"Oh, it's a grand adventure, isn't it? Across two oceans, touching on any little bit of land that's available . . . if I were twenty years younger I might beg to go with you just to say I'd done it!"
That made him laugh, as she'd intended it to, and they let the conversation drift into irrelevancies and then into nothing as they sat enjoying each other's company and the oncoming evening.
"And will you not mind being alone all that time?" she asked him as the moon was rising, and he shook his head.
"I need a bit of time away from the world," he said.
Aye, and from yourself as well, if you could manage it. "Ah, Duncan," she said. "Be glad you're young and strong. The world gets harder as we go along."
He smiled at that but said nothing, only tipping his head back to watch the moon. Then: "How's the poem go? 'The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees; the moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon the cloudy seas--' "
" 'The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor; and the highwayman came riding, riding, riding-- ' "
" 'The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door,' " they chorused, Betty chuckling at the last and MacLeod flashing a smile into the night.
"Not altogether a bad poem, even if the author wasn't a Scot," Betty said generously, and it was Mac's turn to laugh out loud.
"Bedtime?" he asked when she couldn't hide her yawns any longer, and she nodded reluctantly, resting her head against his shoulder. He smiled. "I thought I'd sleep onboard tonight so I can cast off first thing."
"So this is good-bye as well as good night," she said.
"Good-bye for a bit, anyway."
"How long?"
"I should reach the Azores by the nineteenth or twentieth, then on to Spain by the first of the month--"
"But how long for the entire trip?"
He shrugged, and she peered at him. "Joshua Slocum took three years," he said.
"Three years!"
He chuckled, rocking to bump against her gently as they sat together. "I doubt it will take that long. Slocum took his time. And if I recall correctly, he actually crossed the Atlantic twice--something about changing his mind about which direction to travel, I think. He had planned to go west to east. They say it's easier the other way. I understand you can actually make the voyage in about a year if everything goes well."
"A year? In that wee boat?"
He laughed, grinning. "I'll manage," he promised.
She shook her head at him. "Aye, I imagine you will. Still--a year's a long time."
"Well, I won't be at sea the whole time, you know. There'll be lots of ports of call along the way. Gibraltar, the Canary Islands, Cape Verdes, Brazil, maybe Rio--it depends on whether I go north or south from Brazil, but I'd like to see Juan Fernando Island, where Alexander Selkirk was wrecked--"
"Robinson Crusoe himself," Betty murmured.
"And a fellow Scot," he reminded her. "Plus, I've always wanted to see the Galapagos, where Darwin made all his observations. And from there you sail to the Marquesas, and to Australia and beyond."
"Australia and beyond," she echoed. "It does sound wonderful." With that she yawned again, resting her head against his arm, and they sat that way for a long time. "You will come back this way again sometime, won't you?" she asked, and he nodded.
"I promise," he said.
"Then I promise to be here when you do," she replied, and he smiled.
They parted, saying good night rather than good-bye.

Chapter Four

"Wales?" Amanda echoed Joe. "What the hell would Methos be doing in Wales?"
Without looking up, Amy Thomas said, "Ellie Alcott lives there, in Cardiff."
Amanda stared at her. "And just who is Ellie Alcott?" she asked.
"Elizabeth Eleanor Alcott," Amy said. "She's . . . well, not really his aunt, of course, but she's 'Adam Pierson's' aunt, at least on paper, if that makes any sense."
"She's his cover," Amanda said.
"I guess you could say that," Amy replied. "She's in a nursing home now. He takes care of her bills and things, and calls her regularly. She's about 80."
Eighty. Amanda had a sudden picture of a frail, white-haired woman whom the world's oldest man called regularly. It was . . . sweet, really, and not at all how she thought of Methos normally, considering that the world's oldest man was also the world's oldest pain in the behind.
"How'd you track him?" Nick Wolfe asked, and Joe Dawson shrugged.
"We've had someone in the nursing home since the Watchers caught onto the fact that 'Adam Pierson' was actually Methos," he admitted. "Someone in the hierarchy figured it might just pay off someday."
In fact, he knew exactly who had figured it might pay off--Amy Zoll, chief Methos scholar and the Watchers' second-in-command on the Methos Chronicles. He should know, since he was in charge of the Methos Chronicles these days and Zoll reported directly to him. She'd called as soon as she'd confirmed the sighting and had asked how he wanted them to proceed.
"Where'd he go from there?" Joe had asked.
"To London. He met with a private investigation firm in the city. We don't know why, and of course they'd be unlikely to violate client confidentiality if we asked."
"Okay," Joe told her. "Back off." Private investigators could be bribed, of course, but he recognized the name of the firm as one Methos had used before. Methos might be a lousy tipper when it came to doing business at Joe's, but he knew you got what you paid for elsewhere. As a result, Joe had noticed that he paid extremely well in certain places, with the predictable result that those he dealt with valued his business and hoped to see more of it. Result: They would keep his confidences, sure they'd be paid well for doing so. "Has he spotted our guys yet?" he'd asked.
"He doesn't act like it," Zoll had said. "No--let me rephrase that. I mean I don't think he has."
Right, Joe thought. Zoll knew as well as anyone that outward appearances were no indicator of what Methos did or didn't know. "Okay," he'd said. "Don't push. Do you have Watchers tailing the private investigators?"
"Yes."
"All right. Keep them well back." Methos would likely be able to figure out who the players were with or without a program, but there was no reason to spook him. "He gave half a dozen Watchers the slip in Chartres before any of us knew what was happening," Joe reminded Zoll. "Something's bothering him and I don't want to push him further away. Give him room to work through whatever it is. If he has spotted the Watchers I want him to think it's business as usual. Don't box him into a corner, Zoll. There's no telling which way he'll bolt."
"You're the boss. I'll call if I hear anything more."
They'd hung up, and Joe had become aware only then that Amanda was standing there listening to him. Damn, he'd thought. Too bad Watchers weren't able to feel an Immortal's buzz when they walked into a room. Never slow, she'd put almost everything together from his half of the conversation and had the rest out of him by the time they joined the others in downstairs in Le Blues Bar Deux.
"So now what?" Nick asked.
"What do you mean?" Amanda asked him.
"We go to London, right?"
"No, we don't go to London. If Methos wanted you in London he'd have taken you with him. You're to stay put, keep up your sword training, and be a good little Immortal until he gets back."
"And you're what? My babysitter?" The challenge was plain in his tone.
"Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answer to," she said. Oddly enough, she seemed to recall Methos saying that to her about something or other. It didn't improve her mood any.
"Amanda--you were with him," Joe said abruptly. "Did he say anything to you?"
"You mean besides 'good-bye'? I already told you," she said. "He said he'd be gone for a couple of months and asked me to see to Nick's training for awhile."
"What bothers me is that he's practically invited us to watch him for the past six months. And now he just disappears?"
"Sounds just like him to me," Amanda said casually. She shrugged. "Come on, Joe--you know Methos. He's always setting off for parts unknown. First stage out of Dodge and all that stuff."
"I don't know," Joe said. "He just seemed so . . . " The word happy came to mind, and Joe's gaze slid toward his daughter Amy. In fact, he'd have bet Methos was falling in love with Amy less than a week ago, and then abruptly he'd given them all the slip in Chartres and simply walked away without a word to anyone but Amanda. And speaking of Amanda . . . Joe followed her gaze and realized he wasn't the only one looking at Amy Thomas.
All right, so something had happened between Amy and Methos, and whatever it was had triggered the old man's latest disappearing act. Unfortunately for Joe, he'd been so close to both of them that he'd been unable to see what was going on between them until it was too late. Belatedly, he remembered a scene that had taken place downstairs in the bar just a few days ago. There'd been a car accident and both Amy Zoll and Amy Thomas had been pretty shaken up, though neither was actually hurt. Methos had seated Amy Thomas and pulled a chair up so he could face her. Joe remembered him taking her hands in his when she reached for him, the intent, hazel eyes never leaving her face. He remembered, too, the way Methos had spoken to her, his voice too quiet to be heard by the others.
It had been Joe's first real indication of the depth of feeling that was running between the two--before that he'd written it off as the kind of infatuation young female Watchers sometimes went through when assigned to watch male Immortals. There was, after all, a predictable attraction in associating vicariously with men who were most often worldly, intelligent, well traveled, etc., and Amy's association with Methos had stopped being vicarious a long time ago. "To observe and record, but never interfere" had gone right out the window when Joe had been kidnapped by Hunters shortly after Duncan MacLeod had deserted Paris. With nowhere else to turn, Amy had gone to Methos for help and they'd grown steadily closer since that time. Exactly how close, Joe hadn't realized until lately, and he blushed now, remembering his reaction. Amy had only recently become a part of Joe's life and he'd been undeniably jealous and a bit angry that her affection might be focused on Methos--or anyone for that matter--but what had really set the alarm bells ringing was the fact that Methos was immortal.
Relationships between mortals and Immortals tended to be rare for several reasons, and at five thousand Methos had to know better than to get mixed up with a 25-year-old mortal woman. Still . . . Joe couldn't help remembering Alexa Bond.
A waitress at Joe's bar in Seacouver, Alexa had been diagnosed with cancer and given less than a year to live before she and Methos ever met. Much to Joe's surprise, Methos had fallen for her hard and fast. The one thing she'd always wanted was to see the world, and he'd done his best to give her that before she died. They'd driven cross-country to the East coast and then flown to Europe. She'd died in Geneva six months after they'd met. That was three years ago, and as far as Joe knew there'd been no one in his life since then. No one until Amy.
Besides Methos and Amy, it occurred to him, there were two people who might know what had happened. Amy Zoll and Hugues LeBrun had both been with Amy and Methos that last night in Chartres, just before Methos walked away. LeBrun, a French police inspector, had come away that night with the knowledge that Methos and Nick Wolfe were Immortals. A skeptic to begin with, LeBrun had been left no room for doubt when Nick returned to life right in front of him, and Joe had kept an eye on him for the past week through the Watchers. No fool, LeBrun had kept the knowledge to himself, but Joe figured he was reaching the point where he had to talk to someone, and it seemed likely he'd make his way to Le Blues Bar Deux one of these days for a word or two with his friendly neighborhood bartender. That made Zoll the best candidate for information.
"Hey, I've got to follow up with Amy Zoll on some things about the Chronicles," Joe said. "Nick, would you and Amy mind sticking around here? I'm still short a relief bartender--"
"Yeah, sure, Joe," they both muttered.
"Right, I won't be more than an hour or so."
He let himself out through the rear exit to the alley and headed for his car. He had just unlocked the door and was sliding into the driver's seat when the passenger side door opened and Amanda slid into the seat beside him, smiling her best smile.
"I believe that door was locked," Joe said drily.
"Picky, picky," Amanda said. "You don't really think I'm going to let you talk to Zoll alone, do you?"
"Amanda, I am not going to walk into Watchers headquarters with you by my side. It just isn't done."
"Oh, pooh. You took Duncan to Watchers headquarters with you once."
"That was a special circumstance. And as I recall, it didn't exactly make me any friends."
"Well, didn't the high council or whatever it's called give you permission to hang around with Immortals?" she asked.
"I have a tacit understanding with the Watchers Tribunal, but it doesn't extend to Amy Zoll. You're going to get her in trouble, Amanda, and I'm not talking about a slap on the wrist."
"So we get Zoll to come to us," Amanda said reasonably. "That way nobody has to know about it."
And just when did we become us? Joe wanted to ask. He closed his eyes and counted slowly to three before making one last try. "What about Nick?" he asked. "Shouldn't you stay here with him?"
"Nick is a big boy and he'll be perfectly safe as long as he stays in a public place. You're stalling, Joe."
He sighed. Then, since he could think of no way to avoid it: "Where do you want to meet Zoll?"
"St. Julien's," she said immediately.
"A church? Why a church?"
"Because no one thinks twice about people whispering in a church."
And conspirators, of course, did a fair amount of whispering. "I don't suppose there's any way for me to say 'No' gracefully at this point," he said.
Amanda smiled. "You're wasting time," she told him.
"I'd have thought that's one thing you had plenty of," he murmured, and she smiled.
"Come on, Joe," she coaxed. "You let me in on whatever it is you think Zoll knows, and I'll tell you what Methos really said before he left."
That got his attention all right.
"I thought you already had," he said.
"Well, I did, sort of. I mean, I told you almost everything."
"Almost everything," he repeated.
She shrugged, saying, "Drive the car, Joe."
He gave up and drove the car, using his cell phone to call Zoll along the way and arranging for her to meet him at St. Julien le Pauvre in the Latin Quarter. Of late St. Julien's had evoked a sense almost of homesickness in Joe, since it reminded him so acutely of Duncan MacLeod. Darius had lived there for many years, and MacLeod had visited the Immortal priest there regularly before his death at the hands of Hunters, among them Joe's brother-in-law, James Horton. Amanda had elected to wait outside in Joe's car until after Zoll arrived--a reasonable tactic, considering Zoll would probably try to bolt as soon as she saw her. In effect, they'd trap Zoll between them in a classic pincers attack, a fact that didn't make Joe feel any better about the situation.
The chapel was nearly deserted, with only a few parishioners near the front on the hard wooden chairs that filled the nave. Joe took a seat in the middle of a row half-way between the chancel and the main doors, figuring he was unlikely to be disturbed there; less than five minutes later Amy Zoll walked in and joined him, curiosity plain on her face. He'd been uncommunicative on the phone, simply asking her to join him at St. Julien's, and now that she was there he was practically squirming in discomfort. At first she put it down to the hard wooden chair, thinking it was uncomfortable for Joe's prostheses after a long day. A moment later Amanda entered and Zoll did a double take, her mouth opening and then closing before she whispered, "Oh, Joe, what are you doing to me?"
"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I am really sorry. You just don't know how hard it is to say 'No' to Amanda. Please--she just wants to ask you a few questions and it will only take a few minutes. It's a trade off I had to make for some information on Methos."
Zoll looked uncomfortable, but as Amanda joined them she bit her lower lip and nodded. "All right," she whispered. "What do you want to know?"
"It's nothing, really," Amanda said disarmingly. "I just thought Amy Thomas might have . . . well, you know . . . a thing for the old man. I know he's more than fond of her, and I thought she felt the same about him. That's why his taking off like this seems so odd. You were with the two of them, Zoll, and I thought you might have some ideas, or know if anything had happened between them."

Bars had separated them, but only momentarily.
"Methos," Amy had breathed, and he'd reached between the bars, taken her face between his hands, and kissed her without even seeming to think about it.
"Not 'Adam Pierson'?" Inspector LeBrun had asked from the opposite corner of the small cell.
Next to him, Amy Zoll had smiled apologetically and lifted one shoulder in a shrug. She'd doubted it was the only surprise the Inspector was in for. "Any time you two care to come up for air," she'd said dryly, looking at Methos and Amy Thomas.
They separated at last, Amy looking a bit stunned and Methos looking . . . well, to be perfectly honest Methos had looked like someone who'd just returned home after a very long time away.

"He kissed her," Zoll said quietly. "I remember it caught her off guard."
"Something you want to talk about?" Amanda remembered asking him. And what had he said? "Nope." More than the words, though, she remembered the sad little half-smile that had shaped his mouth, and the shadowed look in the hazel eyes. Oh, Methos--I'm so sorry. In twelve hundred years of existence she could remember nothing more painful than a love that was unreturned, and she didn't imagine he'd found anything to top it in five thousand.
"That's what this whole thing is about?" Joe asked. "A kiss?"
"You said it caught Amy off guard," Amanda said. "So she didn't kiss him back?"
Zoll shook her head. "No."
"Are you telling me Methos walked away from Chartres because he kissed my daughter and she didn't kiss him back?" Joe whispered in disbelief. "Oh, come on--this is Methos we're talking about, you know!"
"And?" Amanda asked.
Joe looked blank. "Well--the guy is five thousand years old, you know."
"What are you trying to say?" Amanda demanded. "That Methos can't fall in love like the rest of us? Ever been rejected, Joe? Ever wanted to hand someone everything you had to offer and had them drop it at your feet? Can you imagine what it must be like for him to take a chance like that with everything he's been through? Especially with a Watcher who knows his entire history? Joe," she said, "do you even remember what he went through with Alexa? What he risked for her?"
"The Methuselah stone," Zoll whispered.
"Oh, shit," Joe muttered. God, how could he have forgotten that? When Alexa Bond had been dying in Geneva, Methos had risked exposure as an Immortal, capture, even his own death for the crystal that was supposed to grant its owner eternal life, all because he'd fallen in love with a mortal woman who was dying. More--when Duncan MacLeod had taken a dark quickening just two months before Alexa died, Joe had called Methos and the old man had gone to help MacLeod when Alexa most needed him. Had he ever asked himself, Joe wondered now, exactly what it must have cost Methos to leave Alexa at that time? Or had he simply assumed that Methos would do what had to be done out of friendship for Mac?
Joe cleared his throat, seeking more comfortable ground. "All right," he muttered. "I'm sorry. Now talk, Amanda--what did Methos say before he left?"
"He said he'd been in Paris too long. He'd bumped into a woman he'd known 25 years ago and she'd recognized him as Adam Pierson, called him by name. She can't have believed it was actually him after all that time, of course, but it brought a lot of things home to him. He said he'd gotten sloppy." She looked at Joe. "He said he'd let himself get involved with people he cared about, and he'd gotten careless about his personal security." She shrugged. "He said he was leaving France for a few months, but he'd be back."
"And he asked you to keep an eye on Nick," Amy Zoll whispered.
"Yeah."
"And that's all?" Joe sounded skeptical.
"That's it." And it had been, at least technically.

"All right," she'd said. "I'll watch Nick for a couple of months, even if he doesn't like it." She'd thrown her arms around his neck. After a moment she'd kissed his mouth, drawing away to say, "That's for MacLeod if and when you find him. I'll understand if you prefer to wait until I can give it to him myself." He'd ducked his head, chuckling, and she'd caught his face between the palms of her hands, her eyes searching the lean, angular face. She'd kissed him gently then, and when they parted, her eyes had met his. "That one's for you," she'd said, "so you'll remember there are people here who love you and miss you."
He'd smiled. "I'll remember," he said.
And then she'd watched him walk away.

It had been her idea, hadn't it, that inescapable feeling that he intended somehow to find Duncan MacLeod? She couldn't remember him saying or doing anything that might have put the idea into her head, and yet . . .
"Amanda--"
"Joe," she said, cutting him off. "That's all he said. Word of honor."
It was only later that Zoll found herself wondering about honor among thieves.

Chapter Five

November 1998

"Make thee an ark" --Genesis 6:14

MacLeod was less than four hours out from Betty Bannen's when he discovered the stowaways. Betty's kittens had been left aboard the Absolution, and he'd somehow missed them in the night he'd spent aboard ship--something of an accomplishment in itself, given that the Absolution was little wider than the average bathroom and just about as long as Betty's living room. He discovered them several hours after he'd cast off, curled in a ball behind the spare bedding he'd tossed into one corner of the cabin, both sound asleep and seemingly perfectly at home.
He'd considered turning about and returning them to Betty, but the winds were against him. More than that, though, once he'd set sail he was loathe to turn back whatever the reason. He had more than a dozen cans of tuna, mackerel, salmon and the like on board, so rations for his unexpected crew were no problem. The thought of a litter box caused him a bit of concern until he recalled two plastic bins Betty had given him for washing dishes and the like. He found the spot on deck the twins had already christened and attached the bin to the deck with a screw, filling it with half of the sand from the old-fashioned fire bucket intended for the cabin. By shifting a load of canned goods to the storage locker, he freed a wooden box to serve as a lid for the cats' litter box, saving the sand from being repeatedly drenched by the sea. Pushing the box down over the litter tray made for a snug fit, but that was what he wanted. He used his hand saw to cut out one end of the wooden box for a doorway, and sawed the wood he'd cut away into three strips, nailing one to each side of the up-ended box as braces.
Making a mental note to pick up a chemical fire extinguisher in Le Havre, he returned the half empty fire bucket to the cabin and then carried the kittens on deck to their sandy hutch. Stooping to peer inside, he could see the longer, sleeker of the two already taking care of business. The stubbier, coarser-haired kitten was sitting in the far corner, yawning hugely. Standing on three legs then, he laid down a patch of urine that was rapidly soaked up by the sand even as his brother emerged from the hutch and began nosing about the deck. MacLeod watched with amusement as the kitten's brother tottered out after him and curled up next to the mast to finish his nap. It was too bad, Mac thought, that he'd have to wait until Le Havre to contact Betty, but since she had no phone or radio he'd have to send her a telegram.
Within a week the sound of the sea had become as constant a companion as the cats. After days of calling them both "Kitty" interchangeably he'd succumbed to his own sense of humor and dubbed one Puss and the other Boots, with the leaner, sleeker of the two getting the latter name.
Docking at Le Havre, he couldn't help but remember the last time he'd been there, in the spring of '96 with Methos. It hadn't started out that way, though. It had begun in Seacouver, with a phone call from Jim Coltec, a native American Immortal who was also a Hayoka--a healer. Over the centuries Coltec had absorbed the energy of innumerable quickenings. When he'd arrived in Seacouver he'd encountered Harry Kant, an evil Immortal whose energy had tipped the scales, changing Coltec from good to evil. Mac remembered trying to help Coltec, much as the Hayoka had once helped him. He'd been too late, though, and in the end he'd been forced to take Coltec's head. Absorbing all of the quickenings Coltec's death had transferred to him had been too much and MacLeod, too, had been overcome by the dark quickening.

Richie had been practicing that day, doing solo sword drills, a spill of sweat down the front and back of the tank top he wore, but he'd stopped when MacLeod walked into the dojo. "You okay?" Richie asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"I was getting a little worried about you."
"You were?" Mac asked from somewhere beneath the layers of quickening and personality overlaying his own. "Why?"
"You found Coltec."
"Yeah, I found him."
"I know how much you liked the guy. I'm sorry."
"You're sorry."
"Yeah, well, you did what you had to do, but I know how much you hated it."
"Hated it? You're wrong," MacLeod said, and at the same moment his katana licked out, striking at a spot just above the boy's heart. Mac had pulled the blow, though, and it was the flat of the razor-sharp blade that made contact with Richie's chest. It was enough to startle him, though, as did MacLeod's words: "I loved it."
"What are you doing, Mac?
"You're a smart boy. Why don't you figure it out?"
There was fear on Richie's face as MacLeod charged him, and when their blades connected there was no pulling the blow: It wasn't the flat of the katana that rang against Richie's saber, but the business end of the blade, and he danced back, in control but in retreat, not believing that Mac would actually come for him. Four times their blades connected as Richie retreated, sketching a half-circle around his teacher rather than be pinned against the wall. That MacLeod was toying with him was made clear by the leisurely swipe the Scot executed even as he let Richie put room between them.
Richie might hold his own against MacLeod for a time, but inevitably he would make the mistake that would spell defeat, and they both knew it. The knowledge was plain in Richie's eyes and plain in the ease with which MacLeod drove him back yet again. Two more blows and he faltered--three beyond that and he found himself too close, the katana slashing the air between them again, making Richie jump back, half stumbling but maintaining his stance. The next swipe of MacLeod's blade connected, slashing inches deep into Richie's right thigh, and the younger Immortal was unable to control the pained exclamation that escaped him.
"Whatever happened, Mac, we can work it out--"
"Sorry, wrong number."
MacLeod charged again, playing with the boy, grinning when the pain forced Richie to press one hand to the wounded thigh. A vicious two-handed chopping drive forced Richie back again, and this time the katana bit through the exposed right bicep, forcing another pained shout out of him. The leering smile on MacLeod's face was insult enough; the mocking bow he assayed as he again allowed Richie to escape was more than the youth could take.
Richie charged, three rapid blows forcing the Highlander back a few steps before MacLeod lunged forward abruptly, pushing Richie back with a blinding over and under series of blows, each harder than the last. This time the katana caught the boy across the ribs, and as he fell to his knees MacLeod pressed a mocking kiss to his head. He brought the katana up and then down, and Richie's saber fell clattering to the dojo's wooden floorboards.
"Just tell me why," Richie gasped. "The teacher kills the pupil? Is that what this is all about?"
MacLeod grinned, using the edge of the katana to force Richie's head up and back, enjoying his fear as he strolled slowly around him, like an animal ready for slaughter.
"Is it because there can be only one? Is that it?" Richie demanded, and a deep-throated chuckle came from his teacher.
"That's as good a reason as any," MacLeod said, and in the same breath he rose, cat-like, stretching up for the killing stroke, the katana falling toward his student's exposed throat.

He didn't remember dying, but he did remember the three shots that had slammed into him and the look on Joe Dawson's face as he'd squeezed the trigger. MacLeod had come to, tied up, with Dawson standing over him, Richie nowhere in sight.

"Do it!" he'd taunted Joe, seeing the katana in the Watcher's hands. "You've got the will. You've got the guts." Yet Dawson had hesitated, even knowing what he'd become. "It's not easy, is it, Dawson?" he'd asked. "Taking somebody's head? Cutting the head off?" Obscenely, he'd caught the katana between his chin and his neck, leaning into the blade of his own will, feeling it nick the skin. "Do it!"
Instead, Joe had cut the ropes that had bound him, and MacLeod had turned on him, taking the katana out of the other man's hands. "Wrong choice," he'd informed Joe.
"Maybe so," Joe replied unflinchingly as MacLeod held the point of the katana to his throat. "Maybe so."

Dawson had let him go. And something in MacLeod let Dawson go, too. That same night MacLeod had boarded a freighter, number 18 of an 18-man crew, and they'd crossed the Atlantic to Le Havre. The work was dirty and the crew rough, but there was none rougher than MacLeod, or whatever it was MacLeod had turned into.
They were glad to get rid of him in Le Havre, and Captain Davis had docked his pay for all the trouble he'd caused while onboard. When he'd lunged for the man's throat members of the crew had gladly tossed him onto the docks, getting back a bit of their own on the man who'd made the sea passage such a miserable one. Unable to leave good enough alone, MacLeod had waylaid Davis again on the way to the man's home, robbing him and then seducing the man's wife. When Davis had arrived home the next morning he'd found MacLeod and chased him from the house, shooting him half a dozen times in the process.
If Methos hadn't shown up when he had, Mac would have had a very public resurrection and a lot of explaining to do. As it was, he remembered the old man's face--half concerned, half amused--as he'd thrown open the car door and called, "Get in!" When MacLeod had hesitated, rolling onto his knees and looking at him, Methos had asked, "What are you waiting for? An engraved invitation?"
MacLeod smiled. Methos to the rescue, he thought. Joe had called him, of course, and he'd risked his own life to save . . . what? MacLeod's soul? Too bad he was too late to save Richie the third time I went for him. Because that night in Paris had been the third time, MacLeod thought--"Third time's the charm" echoed mockingly around his brain--because that time in Seacouver had actually been the second time he'd gone for Richie's head, and the second time he'd failed.
He'd almost forgotten about Garrick, he realized. It had been fall, getting on toward winter, two years before Coltec and the dark quickening. A mild November, he thought, just before Thanksgiving. Just before he'd broken up with Anne Lindsey. Before she'd broken up with him, actually.
They'd gone to an art exhibition and the sculptor turned out to be John Garrick, an Immortal MacLeod had known for centuries. Meeting Garrick had coincided with a series of dreams that had been disturbing Mac's sleep at the time; keeping him awake nights. He'd grown increasingly irritable and, eventually, had begun to hallucinate, picturing . . . something . . . coming for him. Something like a man, cloaked and hooded. Something like an Immortal, though there was only the most residual of signatures, more like a pre-Immortal than anything. Something like . . . death.

"Hallucinations?" Joe asked.
"Yeah, they happen. I just wanted to know if you knew why." You, meaning the Watchers.
"All the crap you guys go through," Joe said, "I'm surprised you're not all nuts."
"Darius wasn't," Mac told him. "Constantine, Amanda--I could name a bunch of others."
"What are you looking for, MacLeod?"
"A reason. A pattern. A way to stop it."

He'd gone to Garrick eventually, of course. Garrick, the one Immortal he knew who had first hand experience with both insanity and the return to sanity. That John had "second sight" wasn't news to him, and in the 17th century MacLeod had accepted it readily enough, just as he'd accepted since boyhood Cassandra's spells and prophecies. The death of Garrick's mortal wife and her child had driven the man very nearly insane, though, and insane his contemporaries had judged him in the language of their time, calling him "witch" and sentencing him to be burned at the stake. MacLeod's untimely return to life among witnesses was sufficient to earn him the same sentence, though he'd escaped, and believed that Garrick had as well.

"I'm glad you came," Garrick said when MacLeod showed up at his studio.   "When I saw you, I wasn't sure you'd be happy to see me again. I was pain in the ass the last time we met."
"That's all in the past," Mac told him. "Right now I could use your help."
"How could I help you?" Garrick asked.
It was true--MacLeod had always been the stronger of them, but now it was MacLeod who needed help. "You can tell what it was like," he said.
"You mean to go insane."
It was the closest they'd ever come to discussing it. "You talked about your demon once," MacLeod said. "What was it like?"
"Mine was a person," Garrick said. He started to walk away and MacLeod could think of only one way to make him listen.
"This one wears a hood," he said simply.
Garrick turned, facing him with eyes wide. "You've seen it?" he asked.
MacLeod nodded. "Several times. Do you know what I'm talking about?"
Without a word, Garrick hauled open two heavy doors leading to a work area in the studio. Behind the door stood a figure, wrought in fired clay, of the image MacLeod had been haunted by for the past week. The similarity was so astounding MacLeod instinctively took a step away from it when Garrick threw off the sheet covering it.
"Yes, I know," Garrick said quietly.
"You're saying this is a racial memory?" MacLeod asked. "Something we all share?"
Garrick nodded. "That's what Carl Jung called it," he said. "I saw them all, MacLeod, the hacks, the butchers, finally Freud and Jung; anyone who could help me learn how the mind works. I spent more time in analysis than anyone in history. They were right. We carry the fears inside us all the time."
"But what is it?"
"Something from the dark end of your mind," Garrick said. "It's death, MacLeod. That's what you're afraid of, that's what you're really facing."
"But why now? Why after so long?"
"Because of how we live, what we do. It's only a matter of time for all of us. After all, part of us is still mortal."
"How do I stop it?"
"You realize that it comes from your mind, that it's an illusion."
"That's it?"
"If I could do more, I would. You have to do the rest yourself."

He'd been in the dojo's office later, reading Jung for himself, looking for answers and thinking of Sean Burns, an Immortal friend who had become a psychiatrist. He'd seen Sean work wonders with mortals, at least, and it had given him hope. If there was an answer to his demons, he remembered thinking, perhaps it lay in psychology, and the language of Freud and Jung. It was then he'd sensed another Immortal.

"Richie?" he called.
It wasn't Richie, though, but the hooded and robed figure he'd seen in his dreams and in Garrick's studio, its presence stronger this time. He charged it, bellowing, and they fought, sword to sword; MacLeod, at least, bent on destroying the other. His opponent was relentless, though, and at one point he'd lost his sword and been knocked backward onto the floor, Death towering over him, blade raised in an unmistakable killing stroke. At the last moment he'd done a tuck and roll, coming up on the other side of the figure, grabbing his sword as he rolled.
He came up swinging, the katana's blade biting through the air and then something more as Richie's shouted "Mac!" finally penetrated. He froze, eyes clearing to focus on his student, cowered on the floor before him, sword raised in self-defense.
"Richie," he said.
"What the hell is wrong with you, man?" Richie shouted. "You know you damn near took my head?"
"You're hurt."
"I'll live! What the hell is with you, man? What's happening?"
"I don't know!" he shouted back, the words echoing in his own mind as he sank to a wooden bench, his head in his hands. "I don't know."
"So this thing that's coming after you," Richie said a few minutes later as he tossed his slashed shirt into the trash upstairs. "This is not a real thing, it's like a Freddie Kruger kind of thing, right?"
"Well, that's not the way the books put it," Mac said, "but that's the idea. Here," he added, handing his student a shirt. "Put this on."
  "Thanks," Richie said, slipping into it.  Then: "Well, what's this thing you're seeing supposed to be?"
Mac shrugged. "The unknown. Death. At least, that's what Garrick thinks."
"Garrick? Who's Garrick? A shrink?"
"Garrick is an Immortal who's studied the mind for centuries. He's seen the same thing."
Looking skeptical, Richie asked, "Mac, are you sure about all this?"
"I'm not sure about anything, Rich," he said. "I just know I keep seeing it."
"Yeah, well if I were you I'd get some R and R real soon," Richie said. "So far you just owe me a shirt."

The implication had hung between them unsaid and MacLeod remembered its weight and its truth: You could have taken my head, Mac. You could have killed me.

 
In the end, of course, he'd done exactly that.
"Is that all, Monsieur?"
MacLeod blinked, staring at the clerk in the telegraph/post office. "Yes," he said. "Yes, that's all." The clerk read back the message MacLeod had composed for Betty, assuring her the kittens were safe and sound aboard the Absolution.
" 'Absolution' ?" the clerk said, sounding confused.
"It's the name of a boat," Mac said. "A sailboat."
"Ah. Oui, Monsieur. Now I understand. It would be less expensive to telephone, however--"
"She doesn't have a phone."
"I see. Well, in that case a telegram is, of course, the best way to contact her. Will you be expecting a reply?"
"No.  I'm sailing on to Gibraltar in the morning."
"Perhaps Monsieur should add a line to that effect?"
It made sense, and would save Betty trying to reply. Nodding, MacLeod added a line, telling her he expected to leave port by morning, so she'd be unable to reach him. "I hope to be anchored off Africa by the first of the year," he added optimistically, remembering the map she'd talked of using to track his journey, "and then on to Brazil."
"All the way across the ocean by sailboat?" the clerk asked.
"All the way around the world if I'm lucky," he replied, smiling. He paid for the telegram and then headed into town to do some reprovisioning. First on his list was a chemical fire extinguisher; second was as much kitty litter as he could find and store on board. And if he had to settle for just one, he thought wryly, he knew which really had first priority.

Chapter Six

"I've checked Calais, Le Havre, and Bordeaux, as you specified. He did purchase a 20-year-old cutter called Joshua Slocum in Bordeaux a few days after leaving Paris, and renamed it Absolution, just as you were told. I've got the port master's record showing he paid the fees to leave Bordeaux shipyards."
"Headed for?"
"Scotland, apparently."
"Inland to Glenfinnan?" Methos asked. "On Loch Shiel?"
"No . . . the, uh, northern shore--he mentioned to someone in the harbor that he was overdue to visit a friend. I couldn't come up with a name."
No, but there was a chance he could unearth it from Mac's chronicles. Of course, it would mean either breaking into Watchers headquarters or rifling Joe's files, and he knew which would be easier.
"We have him in Le Havre on the nineteenth of November. He sent a telegram--"
"To?"
"Scotland. The clerk wouldn't reveal the receiver's name or location, but he remembered MacLeod. He was pretty impressed that he was sailing solo across the Atlantic, never mind around the world. Apparently the guy's a closet sailing enthusiast."
"Figures. Half the population of Le Havre makes its living from the sea." Methos remembered the last time he was in Le Havre. Get in, he'd told MacLeod. Then: What are you waiting for? An engraved invitation? Later, at the church, he'd deliberately maintained an irritatingly cheerful demeanor. Good morning! Feeling better? The answer had obviously been No, and he'd been lucky to get off unscathed at the time. Luckier than Sean Burns, certainly. "All right," he said, focusing on the problem of the moment. "I'll see if I can come up with the name of the friend he visited in Scotland. You check Gibraltar and the Canary Islands. They're the next significant ports of call after Le Havre, short of Africa. Also, get someone to check out possible ports of call in Brazil."
"Brazil?"
Methos nodded distractedly, not bothering to give the man a geography lesson. Don't they teach anything in school these days? From the Canarys to Africa, into the Doldrums until you hit the Bosporus, and then across the Atlantic on the trade winds. "Yes," he said, his mind elsewhere. "He should have come in somewhere around Olinda Point, near Pernambuco. Also, check Rio de Janeiro. I'll lay anything he headed for Rio."
"Pernam--"
Not surprisingly, he wound up spelling it. "Anything else?" he asked.
"No, sir, not at the moment."
"All right. I'll telephone in a few days."
"And you'll be . . . ?"
Methos looked at him as if the answer were obvious. "In Scotland," he said. Now if he just knew where in Scotland.

Chapter Seven

December 1998 - January 1999

From Le Havre, he set sail for the Azores, sighting first Flores, then Pico, and then Fayal Island within days. Then, on the twenty-sixth of November, he sighted St. Michael's and knew he was about a week out from Gibraltar. He made the entry in his log in the morning and decided to change the cats' litter before going on deck for the morning's ritual fishing. Having obtained the majority of his stores in Le Havre for the first leg of the voyage, he was relaxed and confident, and enjoying his stowaways' company far more than he'd expected. In fact, most mornings he whiled away on deck with his feline crew, the tiller lashed and Absolution swaying gently and smoothly as the sea rolled away under her. Every morning he was obliged to cast out his fishing lines on the crew's behalf, and the cats had taken to watching him, waiting in anticipation for their morning meal, even standing on the deck with forepaws on the rail and stretching to peer over the edge while they waited. "Puss" tended to be the least patient of the two, and would paw at the line as it tugged along in the boat's wake, tightening and then growing momentarily slack, tantalizing him. "Boots," on the other hand, seemed content to wait and watch, though as soon as a fish was hauled on deck he was all teeth, eyes, and furious speed.
Normally Mac saved something of the previous day's catch to use as bait the next morning, though he had to be careful about keeping it away from the cats. To this end, he'd taken to dropping the remains into a sealed glass jar he kept filled with salt water. The result was a small, ready-made aquarium that fascinated the two cats to no end, and he'd often find them around the wide-mouthed jar, watching and stalking as the left-over fish portion swirled gently around, stirred by the motion of the boat. This morning's bait was the tail of a yellow jack, but first he had to replace the week-old litter in the cat box.
In a moment he'd straightened his bunk, stashed last night's reading material in the rack overhead, and was shifting things aside so he could get to the sacks of kitty litter. This required moving the two ten gallon cans at the bedside--one of water, and one of kerosene for his small cooking stove--and shifting the tool box momentarily as well. Below decks, Absolution was built like a narrow dormitory, with two bunks in the main cabin and two shortened, narrower bunks forward, nearer the bow. The forward bunks had no mattresses this trip, but their tops lifted on hinges to allow for storage underneath, and it was under the starboard bunk he'd stashed the half dozen bags of litter he'd been able to procure in Le Havre, along with the majority of his canned goods.
"Damn."
Water was coming in somewhere beneath the storage bunk, and the bags of kitty litter had been soaked to their middles, turning the sand-like litter into something closer in consistency to coarse, flaky cement. Since the bags had absorbed the seeping water, he had no way of knowing how much might otherwise be free-standing, and though he wasn't greatly concerned it was something no sailor liked to be confronted with. He'd known Absolution's hull was 20 years old when he'd bought her in Bordeaux, but she'd looked hardy; he'd been willing to take the risk and, as it turned out, he'd lost the bet. Well . . . he was about a week out from Gibraltar, and with luck he'd be able to make the necessary repairs there. For the moment, though, he started methodically unloading the compartment beneath the bunk and stacking everything on the opposite bunk so he could restack things to keep the rest of the litter high and dry.
Once everything was cleared out of the compartment he could tell the planks were barely wet--a good sign, though he'd have preferred them altogether dry, of course. All right. He shifted the canned goods to the bottom, using them to make a waterproof base for other things to rest on, calculating it would be more than adequate protection from any incoming water. In addition, he'd run the bilge pumps daily for good measure until he reached Gibraltar. Once there, he'd take a couple of weeks to make repairs, check all his gear, and then be on his way again, confident about his boat once more.
That done, he lugged one of the half-soaked bags of litter on deck and took the lid off the cats' box. He'd mounted a small spade to the deckhouse wall while in Le Havre, and he used that to empty out the used litter, dumping it overboard and replacing it with several inches of fresh sand. Seeing what he was doing, the cats came to inspect his work and leave their seal of approval on it; he laughed, amused at the idea of being reduced to the role of cat janitor and food-source for the two furry beasts. At least they weren't ungrateful, a fact that was never more obvious than when he managed to haul a fish onboard for them half an hour later.
Hauling a flapping fish on board for the cats was as good as a show anytime. They approached first with nostrils flaring, stalking cautiously around the flapping fish with a cat's normal curiosity. A sniff told them what it was, of course, and they jumped viciously upon the fish, growling and grappling for a tooth hold. Flapping violently, the fish sent them bowling across the deck, sending them scattering to the foredeck, wild-eyed and with tails flying. In a moment the rich odors were too much to bear, though, and they crept cautiously back, whiskers twitching and looking hopeful. They moved up beside the victim again, crouched low, sniffed from a distance, and then sprang again toward the fish.
Unable to resist, MacLeod let the spade drop to the deck behind them--and nearly laughed himself sick as the two flew trigger-quick in opposite directions, scampering finally to the bow to eye him disdainfully. After a moment or two they peered around the deckhouse corner with round, bright eyes blinking. Slinking once more slowly toward their breakfast along the deck, they ranged up beside the delicacy and sniffed deliciously. Throwing caution to the wind, they pounced on the fish with wolfish growls. Like rodeo cowboys on a bucking bronco, they clung for a few wild jumps as they fish flipped and flopped in reaction and then scurried away again, spitting as they went, one tumbling over the other.
MacLeod just shook his head, grinning. Patience, he'd figured out long ago, was something learned but never successfully taught. And much to his delight and entertainment, Puss and Boots seemed incapable of learning patience where fish were concerned.
He made Gibraltar by the first week of December and arranged for a berth where he could see to repairs on the boat. His first surprise came when he again unloaded the forward bunk of its contents and discovered that there had been sufficient leakage to soak all the labels from his store of canned goods. With an annoyed snort, he contemplated the stash of some 60 aluminum cans and the sodden paper mess that had once identified the contents of each one. It was, admittedly, more annoying than anything else, especially considering that MacLeod was accustomed to eating what was at hand despite his reputation as a gourmet. He shook his head, envisioning future meals of Lord knew what, since there was no way to know in advance what he might be opening. At noon he could only roll his eyes when he proved his own point by opening two cans of tomato sauce in a row, neither of which were much good for lunch. Shaking his head, he set both aside for dinner, figuring he could make a batch of spaghetti sauce, and settled on last night's leftovers, reflecting that he at least knew what they were.
In all he was three weeks to the day in Gibraltar, from the fourth of December to the twenty-fourth, passing his 406th birthday there. He could have finished the work on Absolution's ribs sooner, but good neighbors made the work enjoyable, so he saw no need to rush. At the end of the three weeks he'd accomplished what he set out to do, was well rested himself, had replaced the cats' soaked litter, and was ready to set sail again. Christmas day found him at sea once more, still tracing the European coastline, as he intended to do until he reached Africa and the doldrums. A week later land-clouds rising ahead foretold the Canary Islands, which came into view on New Year's Day.
By the fifth he'd put the Canary Islands behind him. The wind had freshened during the night, and toward the end of the week he could make out Africa's western-most shores. He was on deck when a calm ensued, precursor he had no doubt, of yet another of the gales that had accompanied him southward. This time the wind howled dismally overhead and brought with it dust from the African shore, dust that had, within the hour, laid a rusty, brownish cover on the waters and discolored everything on deck. The air remained thick with flying dust all afternoon, but the wind, veering northeast at night, swept much of the dust back landward, leaving the Absolution a clear, star-lit sky that night. Her mast bent slightly toward the bow under the strong, steady pressure from the north, making her sails belly out, pregnant with wind. Wave after wave rolled beneath the cutter, making her dip and curtsey, dancing on the sea in a way that was undeniably exciting. This, MacLeod thought, this was sailing as he'd remembered it. This was the freedom he'd long missed, and he was thrilled to the core to be experiencing it again.
On the morning of the tenth he found three flying fish on deck, and a fourth on top of the deck house. He tossed one to the kittens, who immediately went into their stalking routine, and fried up two for breakfast. The fourth he saved for supper, wondering what mysterious side-dish he'd draw from the pot-luck of his unlabeled canned goods.
Absolution was running now with the trade winds, so he was left for days at a time to himself for rest and recuperation, except for the demands of the kittens. For the most part he read, although long hours were spent sitting on deck or on top of the deck house, one or both kittens in his lap, simply thinking. For the most part the days and nights passed smoothly, although he awoke one morning aware he'd dreamed of Fitzcairn. The dream itself he didn't recall, though he could still hear Fitz's voice echoing.
MacLeod. Look up, MacLeod.
Odd, he thought. Fitz had said exactly that to him . . . when? It was three months ago, now, he supposed, since he'd last talked to Fitzcairn, if you could call it that.

"I'm so tired of the killing," he said through the rising din all around him, and that in itself was odd. He'd died hundreds of times but he couldn't ever remember hearing even the snatches of voices that seemed to leak through to him now from . . . where? In the end he was too tired to puzzle it out. Just . . . someplace else. And there was a light, as well, which was odd--a glaring white light that seemed to be growing in the mouth of the railroad tunnel--
"MacLeod! Over here, MacLeod."
"Fitz? Is that you?" he sat up, and his old friend grinned at him.
"In the flesh, dear boy," Fitzcairn said jovially. "Well, so to speak. Good to see you again!"
"But . . . Kalas killed you," Mac protested. "You're dead."
"Well, I might say I've seen you looking better yourself," Fitz pointed out, and MacLeod looked down, examining his shirt and jacket front, seeming to remember being shot.
"Am I dead?" he asked. There were half a dozen bullet holes in his shirt front and another couple in the leather of his jacket, both of which were sticky  with blood, but as far as he could tell his head was firmly attached. "Well?" he demanded.
"Try not to think of yourself as dead," Fitz advised him. "You're, um . . . metabolically challenged. You know--handicapped."
"Come again?"
"Like in golf," Fitz said.
"Golf," Mac echoed.
"Yes, and you're the ball."
"I'm the ball?" A golf club had appeared in Fitzcairn's hand where there'd been none before. As he stared in confusion, Fitz mimed a golf swing.
"Yes!" Fitz said enthusiastically. "Rolling down the fairway!"
"Down the fairway."
"Now you're getting it," Fitz sang out.
"I'm not even close to getting it, Fitz."
"That's because you're not being the ball."
"What are you talking about?"
"You've definitely left the tee," Fitz told him, "but you're not yet on the green."

It was as odd a conversation as he could ever remember having with Fitz, and they'd had some pretty strange discussions in the two hundred-plus years they'd known each other.

"Look, try and follow me on this," Fitz said. "A bunch of us were sitting around the nineteenth hole this morning when You-Know-Who came in. Asks for me especially, he does. Well, of course, I was flattered--thought it was something big, you know. Something requiring my special talents. Right hand of God and all that, you know."
MacLeod just stared at him. "You're telling me that you're an angel?"
"Well," Fitz said, "why can't I be an angel?"
There were some things, MacLeod thought, that were better left unsaid even between friends. Maybe especially between friends. "Is there a point to all of this, Fitz?" he asked.
Exasperated, Fitz stared at him. "Of course there's a point to all of this," he exclaimed, "and I'm looking right at it! It's you!"
"Me?" MacLeod blurted. "What about me?"
"Well, forgive me for saying so, MacLeod, but it seemed to us up there that you were about to give up your life."
"It was either my life or theirs," Mac said.
"Oh, come on, MacLeod!" Fitz snapped. "I've seen you get out of many a tight spot that seemed well-nigh impossible. What made this one so different?" When no answer was forthcoming, he shook his head. "Been a tough few years, has it?" he asked, not ungently. "Fighting, always bloody fighting, trying to save the world."
"Yeah," MacLeod said shortly. "Nothing ever changes, does it?"
"Did you really think you could change the world by yourself?" Fitz asked him.

The question bothered him now in a way it hadn't at the time, perhaps because there'd been so much else to think about. Fitzcairn an angel? The thought made him smile, though he had to admit Fitz had been on the side of the angels more often than not. It was an interesting thought, an angel with a little larceny in his heart. Maybe it wasn't so impossible, assuming God had a sense of humor.
Still, it had been the oddest experience, talking to Fitz, and in the end he'd been convinced that he'd been given the opportunity, just as Fitz had said, to see the world--his world--as it would have been without him.
"You've been given a gift, my dear boy," Fitz had told him. "Trust in the gift."
But was it a gift, to see Amanda, Joe, Methos, Richie, even Tessa, all as they would have been if they'd never met him or known him?

"That's not Amanda," he remembered protesting. "Amanda's back there, with O'Rourke." Yeah, right. Wherever there was.
"Not this Amanda," Fitz told him. "This Amanda's never met you. Doesn't even know you exist."
"Of course I exist," he insisted. It was ridiculous to think that he didn't exist, especially when he was standing right there.
"Not in this world," Fitz said. "Here there never has been a Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. Never has been, never will be."

He couldn't grasp the concept. It was hard enough to believe that the world would go on its way without him someday, but to believe that he didn't exist, that he never had, and never would? There were certain things the finite mind couldn't conceive of, whether mortal or immortal. And those he loved were all so different from the way he remembered them--harder, colder, sadder, emptier, heartbreaking in their isolation.
"Joe, there was a young Immortal named Richie Ryan. What happened to him?"
He remembered his mouth going dry even as he asked the question, dreading the answer.
So many, dead at his hands or because of him. Tessa and Richie, lying dead in the street in Seacouver, Tessa's death made all the more poignant because Richie--an Immortal--revived while she did not. Darius--friend, mentor, teacher--killed by Hunters, beheaded on Holy Ground. Chu Lin; Walter Reinhardt; Grayson; Tommy Sullivan; Xavier St. Cloud--so many. More than he could name. More than he could count. More than he could carry easily on his conscience.
"No one else dies because of me, Joe." He'd meant it when he'd said it, but his katana was in the cabin, mounted above his bunk in a waterproof wrapping, yet within easy reach.
"Hypocrite," he muttered, staring out at the sea. He passed St. Antonio the next day. The wind was from the northeast and at squall proportions as the cutter drew by the island, but he reefed Absolution's sails and passed without trouble. Then, with the Cape Verde Islands astern, he found himself once more sailing a lonely sea and in a supreme solitude. Even the cats had deserted him, snuggling down either on his bed or in the tamped down sails, as they were accustomed to doing. When he slept he dreamed he was alone, and Fitz came to bother him no more. The little cutter was now rapidly drawing toward the doldrums, that region near the equator between the northeast and southeast trades, where there was little or no wind at sea. The trade-winds were lessening and he could see by the ripples on the surface of the ocean that a counter-current has set in.
On the following day heavy rain clouds rose in the south, obscuring the sun. On the sixteenth the Absolution entered the gloomy, still region, battling alternately with squalls and calms. It was, as he'd known it would be, a test of both nerve and patience. The sea leapt and tossed in confused cross-lumps and dancing currents that carried him nowhere. To worsen the situation, the rain poured down both day and night, fretting the cats and him. The cats he could toss into the middle of his bunk to curl up amid the blankets--they persisted in unmaking any bed he made, anyway, burrowing under the covers to create little caves of warmth for themselves beneath the blankets. He alternately draped himself around the cats so he could read for hours at a time or stood gripping the cabin door frame, staring out at the rain, saying nothing.
The Absolution struggled and tossed for ten days under sodden skies, making headway only slowly. Along the equatorial limit of the southeast trade winds the air was heavily charged with electricity, and thunder and lightning were persistent, much to the annoyance of the kittens, who cowered unhappily every time the thunder crashed overhead. By the second day they would stir from the bunk only reluctantly when nature called. They would dash out, claws skittering on the deck, round the deckhouse and nose into their litter box--which at least was dry inside, thanks to the lid MacLeod had rigged for it. On returning, they would shake themselves off violently in the doorway to the cabin, scattering water everywhere, and wait for MacLeod--a resigned nursemaid--to rub them dry with the towel he now kept handy for that purpose.
On the twenty-sixth, Absolution crossed the equator. At noon, she was two miles south of the imaginary line circling the globe, and the south trade winds met at last, signaling that he'd passed out of the doldrums. The rain had slacked off the day before, and as he watched the sails filled out again. For the first time, MacLeod altered the ship's general southerly direction, pointing her west, across the ocean.

Chapter Eight

July 1999

A long distance search of Joe's files had turned up Betty Bannen's name, in conjunction with the death of her son, Tommy, and an Immortal named Gallen, killed by MacLeod on January 22, 1994. Joe's note said simply that Bannen had returned to the Scottish Highlands. It wasn't much to go on, but the private investigation firm Methos had hired finally turned up a Betty Bannen on the Northern Highlands' property tax records. She'd inherited a small farm from her mother and had begun making property tax payments herself in 1995. The dates were a close match, and the farm was located on Scotland's extreme northern shore. Methos thought about calling Joe for about three seconds. In the end he decided it was better to say nothing until or unless he had something definite to tell him. Instead, he caught the train as far north as it would take him, rented a jeep when the train ran out in Durness, and drove the rest of the way, following the directions supplied by his investigators.
The farmhouse was empty when he arrived just before midmorning. He sat down on the wooden steps and squinted out to sea, imagining MacLeod refitting a sailboat in the waters below. He could picture him trudging up the hill to visit with his hostess and share supper with her, the two of them sitting together late over coffee or dessert. The whitewashed and thatched farmhouse had a very inviting feel to it--just the type of place that might shelter the wounded soul, with few questions asked. Methos smiled, sure he was over romanticizing, though there had been times enough when he could have used just such a place himself.
It was close to ten when Betty Bannen appeared in the distance. She had a basket over one arm, and Methos guessed she'd walked into the village--five miles distant--to do some marketing. She walked toward the farmhouse with a steady, healthy step, slowing just a bit when she spotted him and knew him for a stranger. From Joe's report he knew she was in her mid-fifties and a widow; from her walk he knew she was confident and accustomed to doing for herself or doing without. As she came closer he came down the steps to the yard, smiling slightly, welcomingly.
"Do I know you?" she asked, looking him up and down.
"Not personally," he said. "We've a mutual friend, though--Duncan MacLeod."
"Oh?"
"I'm Adam Pierson," he said, "a friend of Mac's from Paris. It's been . . . oh, seven or eight months, I guess, since anyone saw him there. We've been a bit worried. Then I heard he'd bought a boat and intended to sail around the world of all things--"
"Aye."
"He'd mentioned he wanted to visit you, too, so I wondered if you'd seen him."
She hesitated, then nodded. "Aye, he was here, before Christmas." She inclined her head in the direction of the water below. "He did some work on the boat there, below."
He nodded. "Yes, the Absolution. Well, we've been concerned, so I hired some investigators to try to trace him. I thought at first he'd gone to Glenfinnan, but then I learned he'd sent you a telegram from Le Havre. On the nineteenth of November?" It was a chance, but not much of one, and she nodded again.
"To tell me my kittens had stowed away--"
"What?" That surprised an honest laugh out of him, aside from the Concerned Friend personality he had deliberately put on for her, and she grinned.
"That's right," she said. "After he'd left I couldn't find my two kittens anywhere. We'd taken them out with us on a sailing picnic the day before he left and they got left on board. He sent me a telegram to tell me they were with him. He didn't want me to think they'd stolen off or been drowned or poisoned."
Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod and two stowaway kittens on board a 20-foot boat. Now there was a picture. "I wondered--did he say anything more about what ports of call he planned to make, or how he might be contacted?"
"No," Betty said, "not a word." Her face changed then, and she said, "No. No, wait--he did say something. We talked about Alexander Selkirk. You know, Robinson Crusoe--"
"Right," Methos said. "Selkirk was castaway. Where was it? Juan Fernando Island, off Chile--"
Betty nodded, approving of a young man who knew his geography. "They call it Robinson Crusoe Island now, probably for the tourists. You know Selkirk was a Scot? Duncan said he'd like to see where Selkirk was castaway all those years, and the Galapagos Islands as well."
"Selkirk and Darwin?" Methos asked with a grin. "Well, at least they're both British." More importantly, it told him what route MacLeod had likely taken once he'd crossed the Atlantic. From Brazil he'd have gone south, either through the Strait of Magellan or around the Cape if he was feeling particularly adventurous. From there he'd have gone north up the Chilean coastline to Juan Fernando, then on to the Galapagos. Beyond the Galapagos it was a straight shot to the Marquesas, past Samoa and Fiji to New Caledonia and Australia.
"Would you like to come in?" Betty asked him. "You can see the telegram Duncan sent," she said. "I kept it. I have a map--I marked out the places I imagined he'd go," she admitted with a self-conscious laugh. "It's silly, I know, but it sounds so exciting--"
He laughed with her but hesitated. "Really," he said, "it's not necessary. You don't know me--"
"Don't be foolish," she chided him. "We're practically clansmen, you and I."
Clansmen, he thought. The only thing that came to mind was the KKK, pointed hats and bed sheets with crosses burning in the background. Oh. Clansmen. As in members of the Clan MacLeod. Huh. He wondered what Mac would say to that.
The house was small, just two bedrooms, a tiny bath, the kitchen and living area. It was snug, though, and comfortably furnished--he could easily picture her in her favorite chair with a book or some hand-work before the fire. Needlepoint, maybe, he thought, seeing the matching seat cushions on the kitchen chairs. "Nice," he said as he walked in, and she flashed him a smile, taking him over to see the map she'd pinned to the wall in the kitchen.
"I've got Le Havre marked," she said, and he nodded.
"From there he passed the Azores off Portugal," he said, tracing the path with one long finger, "and then he was in Gibraltar. The harbor master remembers him making some sort of repairs over two or three weeks. He sailed again on Christmas Day, most likely headed for the Canary Islands."
"You sound like a sailor yourself," she said, and he rolled his eyes.
"Me? No--it's just geography. To tell you the truth, I hate the sea. Except for Mac's barge--d'you know his barge in Paris?" She shook her head. "He owns this barge, on the Seine. It's . . . about as long as your cottage, but narrower," he said, looking around to verify the dimensions. "It's all one long room, except for the galley and a bathroom that's just big enough to turn around in. Anyway, except for Mac's barge I don't suppose I've been on the water in ages. It's just like MacLeod, though, to set off around the world in a boat that's no bigger than most people's living rooms."
She chuckled, imagining Duncan MacLeod and--what was his name?--Adam Pierson, that was it--Adam Pierson as friends. Yin and yang, she thought. They fit, though, like two pieces of the same puzzle.
"Did you know Richie Ryan by any chance?" he asked her, and again she shook her head.
"I've heard Duncan talk about him," she said, "but we never met."
He seemed to hesitate, then to plunge ahead. "He was a good friend of MacLeod's--quite a bit younger, though, sort of a kid brother or adopted son. Mac took him in off the street when he was still a teenager, made a home for him--"
"It sounds like something Duncan would do," she said.
Yes, it does, doesn't it?
"He died, didn't he," she asked, "Richie, I mean?"
He nodded. "He was killed in an accident, oh, just over two years ago now."
"And Duncan's not gotten over it. That's why you're worried about him."
"Yeah."
"You're a good friend, Adam."
He smiled. "Sometimes. I'm trying to be."
"You think you could have done something to prevent Richie's dying," she said.
"No," he said automatically, then, "maybe. I don't really know," he said slowly, "but I should have tried harder--" Hell, he should have tried, period. The last time they'd all been in Paris together, Richie had tried to talk to him and Joe about the visions that Mac had been experiencing, and he'd brushed it off with some smart-ass comment about millennium fever, smugly telling the kid he'd never seen a demon. Never seen a demon? He'd seen the demons in Kronos' eyes often enough, and here the kid was, telling him that MacLeod had seen Horton, years dead, and Kronos, too. He'd been so glib when he hadn't known a damned thing about it. "You need help, MacLeod," he'd said, but he hadn't done anything to help. And Ryan had lost his head because of it, and two years later MacLeod was still floundering in guilt and grief over it. Methos swallowed, saying, "I should have listened to Ryan. And I should have been there when Mac needed me. It might not have made a difference, but I'll never know now, will I?"
"Sins of omission," Betty said. "And Duncan?"
Sins of commission, Methos thought. "He blames himself," he said, "but Ryan's death was an accident." Amazing how clearly he remembered the moment when he had realized, too late, what MacLeod had done. He could still see Richie's severed head rolling loose on the filthy floor, rocking unevenly like a fumbled football. Joe Dawson had stared in horror at the boy's body and then, in disbelief, at MacLeod, still gripping the katana. In that moment Methos had gently put out his foot and stopped the head's obscene rolling, not wanting Joe to remember it that way. So young, he remembered thinking. So very young.
"Death is hard any time," Betty said, "but especially when they're young."
It threw him for a moment, her words so closely echoing his thoughts, and then he realized what she was talking about. "I'm sorry," he said. "You lost a son, didn't you? I should have thought."
"It's been five years now," she said. "There are still times when I think I'll look up and see him coming through the door." She smiled. "I'll tell you what I told Duncan, sitting right there on the steps where I found you: Healing has its own time to keep, and the calendar was made for other things. Grieving has to run its own course, however long it takes."

"Please," MacLeod whispered. His voice was hoarse as he held the katana out to Methos, begging for death.
And Methos turned his back on the man who was the best friend he'd ever had. "Absolutely not," he'd said.

"You and Duncan," she said. "You're just about old enough to be finding that out. You can help each other, though, if you will."
"To be honest, I don't know what I can do to help him. I'll try, though, if he'll let me."
"And to look at the two of you, I'd have thought he should have been the older and wiser one," she said with a gleam of amusement.
It made him laugh. "I've a couple of years on him," he said.
"Maybe so, but he's catching up to you fast."
She invited him to stay for lunch and they chatted easily about places they both knew in Paris. If he was staying in Scotland, she told him, there were lots of places he should see, and he smiled over homemade bread with cheese and a good, thick beef stew while she described some of the sights he should visit. Over coffee she told him some of the particulars about her son's death, and how he had wanted to be a newspaper reporter, even bringing out the article MacLeod had written under Tommy's name in the end. "I was so proud to see his name in print in an important newspaper," she said with a sad little smile. "He'd wanted that since he was sixteen, and he had to die to get it."
It made him wonder about things that were worth dying for, and she seemed to read the thought in his eyes.
"I've decided it's as important to know what's worth living for myself," she said, and he nodded.
"You're a wise woman, Betty Bannen," he said, only half teasing.
"Well, I don't know about that," she said, "but you can take it for what it's worth."
She saw him to his car and pushed the driver's side door shut after he'd climbed in. "You'll come back, you and Duncan," she asked, "when he's back from adventuring?"
He smiled. "Assuming I can find him," he said. "Don't look for us any day soon, though. First he'll have to get over being mad at me for dragging him back home."
"Oh, aye, there's always that," she said with a grin, the sparkle in her eyes showing she understood. "He will fight you, y'know. Are you prepared to lose?"
"To MacLeod? It almost goes without saying."
She laughed, shaking her head. "You're as different as night and day, the two of you," she said. "Still, I'm glad you came."
"I am, too," he said, and she watched him drive away.

Chapter Nine

July 1999

"You really think this is for the best?" Amy Thomas asked.
"Yeah," Joe said. "I really do, honey."
She looked at him, and then at Amy Zoll.
Huh. Well, she'd always wondered what happened to Watchers whose Immortals went missing. Apparently they got reassigned to the Methos Chronicles. At least, they did if their Immortal happened to be Methos. "I warn you," she told Zoll, "I'm a lousy typist."
"So am I," Zoll said. "I promise you, though, that's only part of the job. How literate are you in French?"
"I'm pretty good. Improving, quite a bit, actually. I've been reading a lot in French to increase my vocabulary."
"Good," Zoll said. "We've recently come across a fifteenth century manuscript that appears to be based on something from much earlier times. It reads like fiction unless you already know the story, and the Immortals involved." She grinned and turned to include Joe in what she had to say. "I think it's a heavily disguised telling of Darius' stand before the gates of Paris, Joe. I could be wrong, but I've already identified a character I think is--was--Grayson. There's another character, a war lord, the author calls him. He reminds me quite a bit of an old friend of yours."
"Methos?" Joe said. Methos at the gates of Paris with Darius all those years ago? Was it possible?
"I wouldn't bet the farm on it just yet," Zoll said, "but I thought if a few people who actually know him read the manuscript we could reach a better informed opinion. And, well . . . it may be cheating, but I wondered if you might run the idea by him. You know, test the water?"
"For what?" Joe asked with a snort. "Sharks?"
"He might tell you," Amy said.
"Yeah, and he might lie, too, just for the fun of it."
Zoll shrugged. "Don't know till you try," she said.
"We also don't know if we're ever going to see him again," Joe pointed out.
"Oh, there's something else," Zoll said, abruptly changing the topic. "You wanted us to keep watch on your lines in case he tapped into your files? The computer analysis we ran suggests you were hacked by an expert in the last week or so."
"Methos Chronicles stuff?"
"No. Duncan MacLeod's Chronicles."
"But that doesn't make any sense," Joe sputtered. "I mean, Methos had access to MacLeod's Chronicles for years, even before he met MacLeod--"
"You mean he had access to everything that was in the Watchers' Libraries up to that time," Zoll said.
"Well, yeah."
"Up to . . . what? Three or four years ago?"
"Maybe the stuff he wanted to know hadn't happened three or four years ago," Amy said.
"Or maybe it had but it didn't matter to him at the time," Joe said.
"What?" Zoll said. "What are you thinking, Joe?"
"You said he'd been in Scotland."
"About a week ago."
"But not in Glenfinnan."
"Right," Zoll said. "We've had someone in Glenfinnan since MacLeod first disappeared. Methos caught a train from London to a place called Durness or Thurness, something like that. I can look it up. We lost him at the train station, though. My guess is Methos had a car waiting and the Watcher couldn't make arrangements fast enough to follow, but the report is . . . a bit less than forthcoming. I think the guy hated to admit Methos had given him the slip. We haven't a clue where he went from there, and he hasn't been seen since."
"There was a woman named Betty Bannen," Joe said. "This was--I don't know, four, maybe five years ago. Her son was killed. She and MacLeod became friendly. She was from somewhere in the Highlands."
"You think Methos went to see her?"
"It's the only thing I can think of," Joe said. "Anything else I can come up with would lead to Glenfinnan, and you've ruled that out."
Zoll nodded. "All right. I'll put someone on the Bannen woman--"
"From a distance," Joe said. "No direct contact."
"Joe--"
"What are you going to do?" he asked. "Knock on the door and ask her if she was recently visited by a 5,000 year old man?"
"No, but--" She stared at him for a moment before giving it up. "You're not making this any easier, you know," she muttered.
"If you spook Betty Bannen and she is in contact with Methos--or MacLeod--they're either one likely to go so deep we'll never find them." Not to mention the fact that Mac, at least, would very likely resent their interference in his friend's life. He shook his head. "We're not going to take that chance, and you can glower at me all you want. I'm not changing my mind."
She did glower at him, but he stood his ground. The rest of the meeting was not what one would call pleasant. Damn, Joe thought. Was it just him, or did life used to be easier?

Chapter Ten

February 1999

The Atlantic crossing was without incident, with Absolution proving her merit. For over a thousand miles of the journey they had dolphins swimming around the bow, and MacLeod had named their leader Old Death. There were almost always shoals of flying fish about, and as often as not he would find several on deck each morning, supplying the cats' breakfast and often his own. Old Death and his boys would constantly harass the flying fish, lesser members of the dolphin pack prowling ever ahead of the bow, reminding MacLeod of sleek, gray submarines. More beautiful than anything man had ever designed, the stalking dolphins would streak with deadly efficiency into the schools of fish in a constant and deadly game. It was a vicious, dog-eat-dog circle of activity, played out among the creatures of the sea, and a reminder that the beautiful, lithe dolphin was a killer in a kill or be killed game, despite the cute and fluffy image promoted for it by environmentalists and others.
Like the katana mounted above his bunk, it was a reminder that he was a killer in a kill or be killed game, and he would sit for hours on deck, watching the dolphins give chase to the flying fish. As the flying fish cleared the water his more-than-capable enemy would be just below and behind him, ready to strike. It was, in a bizarre way, much like a sword fight between Immortals--a stalking filled with speed and danger, with a single false move translating into possible death. One evening he watched Old Death single out a lone flyer, dancing along on his tail for close to five hundred yards before abandoning the chase, and he found himself thinking, remembering.

"Going somewhere?" he'd asked Methos.
"You shouldn't be here," Methos said tiredly, sliding a duffel bag into the back of his Land Rover and closing the hatch.

Odd, how he remembered the look of weary vulnerability on the old man's ever young face. He'd looked so tired that day, but it hadn't stopped MacLeod from pushing. "What are you running from?" he remembered asking. "The question or the answer?"
And he remembered the old man's reply, as well: "There is no answer, MacLeod. Let it be."
No answer. Yes, he'd learned that the hard way. Some things had no answers, or at least no answers that bore examining. They simply were.

"Is what she said true?" he'd demanded.
"I'm out of here," Methos said.
"No, you're not out of here," Mac said, blocking the other's path. "Is what she said true?"
"The times were different, MacLeod," Methos told him. "I was different. The whole bloody world was different. Okay?"
"Did you kill all those people?"

Like a hound with a hare, he'd kept at him, unwilling--unable--to hear or understand what Methos was trying to tell him. And Methos had known that, hadn't he? He'd known that MacLeod simply couldn't understand, that he lacked the necessary context and experience. So in the end he'd settled for the unvarnished truth, inadequate as it was.

"Yes," Methos had said, driving the word home like a nail. "Is that what you want to hear?" he demanded, eyes intent on Mac's face. "Killing was all I knew. Is that what you want to hear?"
"It's enough," MacLeod replied.
"No, it's not enough," Methos said, slamming MacLeod bodily against the side of the Land Rover. "I killed," he said, "but I didn't just kill fifty. I didn't kill a hundred. I killed a thousand. I killed ten thousand. And I was good at it. And it wasn't for vengeance. It wasn't for greed. It was because I liked it. Cassandra was nothing. Her village was nothing. Do you know who I was? I was Death . . . Death on a horse. When mothers warned their children that the monster would get them, it was me. I was the nightmare that kept them awake at night. Is that what you want to hear? The answer is yes."

And the answer would forever and always be yes whenever someone asked Duncan MacLeod if he had killed his student, wouldn't it? Nothing would ever change that, regardless of how many centuries he lived, or what he did to try to make up for it. A part of him wondered if it was even possible. How much of Methos' life had been spent trying to make up for a past he couldn't change? Had he managed? Had he achieved absolution, or did he still awake in the night, as MacLeod did, with the images clogging his brain, making it impossible to think of anything else?
"I am not who you think I am," he'd told Cassandra.
Abruptly, Mac remembered Warren Cochrane.

. . . The old inn was dark, occupied only by Warren Cochrane, Duncan MacLeod, and ghosts that whispered of days long past.
"What happened here?" Mac asked.
"I don't know." Warren's reply was barely audible.
"You were here with Andrew, your student," MacLeod said. "You were here and Andrew died. What happened?" His tone had hardened, growing demanding.
Cochrane's face was anguished. "I don't know!" he shouted. "He was like a son to me!"
"You killed him!" Mac shouted. "You killed your own student!"
"I know!" Warren cried. "I know what you're thinking--only a monster could do such a thing. Well, if I'm a monster, slay me!" he shouted. "What thing on earth could be more evil than me?" Cochrane demanded. "Could anything be more deserving of death? You should have let me forget!" Furious with pain, he lunged at MacLeod, sword drawn.
"I don't want to fight you!" MacLeod shouted, turning Warren's blade away with his own.
"Why not?" Cochrane demanded. He struck out repeatedly, trying to force MacLeod to defend himself--no, Mac realized, not to defend himself . . . in an effort to force MacLeod to fight him and to take his head.
"Don't do this!" Mac pleaded, twisting away from Cochrane into the shadows.
Desperate, Cochrane scanned the room with his flashlight's beam, afraid that Duncan had left him truly alone with his fears and himself. Terrified of what the dark might hold he plunged into the next room and found Mac's abandoned flashlight, rolling from side to side on the wooden floorboards.
Warren charged further into the room and at that moment MacLeod stepped from the shadows, his katana slicing deep into Warren's abdomen.
Groaning, Warren sank to his knees. Tears brightened his eyes as he looked up, even in the gloom of this place. "End it, MacLeod," he begged. "End it now."
"I won't take your life," Mac answered tightly.
"Please," Cochrane whispered. "I cannot live with this."
"You're going to have to," MacLeod said. He turned his back on his friend and walked away. . . .

"Please," MacLeod remembered whispering, his voice hoarse as he held the katana out to Methos, begging for death.
And Methos had turned his back on him, saying, "Absolutely not."
Methos had told him once that he would never judge him. Well--no, that wasn't quite true. They'd been in Seacouver, and an old friend had come hunting not for an Immortal, but for Alan Wilkinson, an American politician and advocate of white power. Ingrid had been bent on assassination, plain and simple, and MacLeod had confronted her outside the hall, an insurmountable distance between them at last as she held the detonator's remote control in her hand, ready to trigger the bomb inside the hall.

"Ingrid, don't do this," he'd pleaded. "Dozens of innocent people are going to die."
"Innocence is relative," she said calmly. "You've lived long enough to know that

"What about the cop you killed?" he asked. "What was his crime? He was just doing his job. He didn't care about Wilkinson. He didn't care about politics."
"Just like those German officers we killed with that bomb?  They were just soldiers. Ah, yes, but that was the price of killing Hitler. Except that we didn't."
"That was war," he insisted, meaning, "That was different." Slowly, she raised her right hand, ready to trigger the bomb, and he'd tensed. "Put it down," he ordered.
She looked so sad. "I can't, Duncan."
"I don't want to do this," he said, and the katana's blade whispering against its sling as he pulled it from his coat.
She grew still for a moment, disappointment crossing her face. "We're old friends," she reminded him.
Near tears, his throat tight, he'd responded: "This goes beyond friendship."
"You'll never be able to do it," she said. "I know you--you're better than I am."
"Please--"
"Imagine a world without tyrants, without dictators," she'd whispered.
He shook his head. "I can't let you kill everybody in that room."
"You're prepared to sacrifice our friendship?" she asked. "For what? For a group of racist, arrogant bastards who are no better than Wilkinson is?"
"It doesn't matter what they are," he insisted. At the same time she raised the remote control--so small, so harmless looking. He lifted the katana. "Put it down, damn you!" he grated. "You have no right to do this!"
"But you have the right to stop me?  How is that different from my killing them?"  She raised the remote control. "It's now or never, Duncan," she told him.
"No!" he shouted. The swipe of the blade was almost instinctive, the Quickening taking him even as the remote control fell to the sidewalk.

Hours later, Wilkinson's supporters had departed, honking their horns good naturedly as they drove off. Methos had come to sit next to him on the hood of the air conditioning unit behind the hall, asking gently, "You okay?"  Not quite trusting his voice, Mac had nodded, knowing he wasn't fooling either of them. After a moment he'd said simply, "Ingrid asked me something before she died."

"They usually do," Methos had said.
"She said, what was the difference between her killing them and me killing her?"
"Good question," Methos said. "Right up there with the chicken and the egg."
"So, what are you saying?" MacLeod demanded. "That there is no answer?"
"No," Methos said quietly. "There's an answer.  The real question is whether you're ready for it."
After a second, MacLeod nodded.
"Right," Methos said. He'd pursed his lips together and taken a breath. "Stephanovitch killed and Ingrid judged him. Wilkinson killed and Ingrid judged him. Ingrid killed and you judged her."
"And who judges me?" MacLeod asked.

Not I. Unspoken, the words had hung in the air between them, though there were times when MacLeod was almost sure Methos had actually spoken them.
May 19, 1997. Taunted and tormented by hallucinations or demons or something, pushed to his limit and beyond, Duncan MacLeod had killed his student and friend. It had been an accident--he knew that, at least intellectually, but knowing it didn't bring the boy back. He couldn't undo what he had done that night anymore than Methos could undo things he'd done during the Bronze Age. The Bronze Age. God, MacLeod thought. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He'd looked it up once, and could still remember what Webster had to say on the subject. "A period of human culture between the Stone Age and the Iron Age, marked by the use of bronze implements and weapons, culminating approximately 2,500 years B.C." Twenty-five hundred years B.C. Methos had been about 500, a mere century older than Mac was now.
It was the fifth of February when the Absolution edged close to the coast of Brazil, just north of Olinda Point. She made land without incident, casting anchor in Pernambuco harbor about noon, just over a month out of Gibraltar, with all well on board. He had, for a time, debated sailing north and transiting the South American subcontinent via the Panama Canal, but he had two goals in mind that made him change his mind. As he'd told Betty, he wanted to see Robinson Crusoe Island--formerly Juan Fernando--where Alexander Selkirk had been castaway, and he wanted to round the Cape if he could. There was no real reason to round the Cape, of course--both the Panama Canal and the Strait of Magellan made it unnecessary--but he was intrigued by the challenge it represented and, to be truthful, by the romance of the idea. It was the kind of thing the first mariners had done, facing the sea fearlessly, blazing a trail for all of civilization to follow. And, besides, he wanted to.
He stayed two weeks in Pernambuco, getting the feel of solid ground beneath him again, and then sailed south once more.

Chapter Eleven

March 1999

MacLeod arrived at Rio de Janeiro on the fifth of March with scarcely an event worth recording in his log. He dropped anchor near Villaganon as the afternoon was running out, spent the night on board Absolution, then went into town after mid-morning, whistling as he walked along. He knew Rio, having been there half a dozen times before, and at least twice for Carnival--potent reminder of Richie, that. He remembered Richie showing up at the barge a few years back, Martin Hyde behind him, driving the cub home to the wolf, and Richie talking about having ridden his bike down to Rio for Carnival with a girl who had turned out to be not quite as wild as he'd originally thought.
Tired of his own cooking, MacLeod walked into a bar around noon for something to eat. He was barely through the door when he felt another Immortal's presence, and he'd locked eyes with the youngster before he could gracefully reconsider his choice of eating establishments. He was a youngster, too, MacLeod was sure of it. There was something about the way he held himself that marked him a child of the twentieth century. Too much swagger, not enough circumspection, ready to take on all comers with no sense of his own risk--Methos was right, Mac thought suddenly.
Once at Joe's they'd gotten into a long-winded analysis of the differences between what Methos had called the fighting styles of the various generations of Immortals. People of his time, of Amanda's time, of Mac's time--they'd been raised when the sword was a normal form of protection, and every man who could afford to do so carried one. For Immortals of their times, he'd maintained, sword fighting seemed more or less natural. Joe had wanted to know about Immortals born into more modern times--say, the last century or two--and Methos had shaken his head. "It's the fault of the Chinese, of course," he'd said, and Mac had pricked up his ears, intrigued to know where the old man was going with this one. "As soon as gun powder appeared on the scene, everything started to change. The mentality changed. Death could be delivered from a distance rather than face to face. Oh, sword fighting hung on, and a kind of Errol Flynn romance began to develop around it. Gentlemen--honorable men, like MacLeod here--still fought face to face. In time, of course, dueling with pistols replaced dueling with swords, and honor was redefined, despite what MacLeod will tell you. Let's face it--guns were just so much more efficient than swords. Except, of course, that guns had to be reloaded and they didn't work on Immortals. So regardless of your generation, the sword continued to be a necessary way of life for Immortals, anachronistic as it seemed."
"What about the really young ones?" Joe had asked. "The kids, like Richie, and Michelle Webster?"
Mac remembered Methos nodding. "To them the sword is absolutely foreign at first. The idea of running forty inches of steel through another person is totally unthinkable, never mind using it to lop someone's head off. With the exception of hand guns, they're used to the idea that death is done long distance. Rifles kill from half a mile away. Bombs are dropped on you from planes that make no sound in the night. Missiles are launched from another continent, an impossible distance away. Killing face to face takes a different mentality."
"A criminal mentality?" Joe had asked, and Mac remembered chuckling, watching Methos rise quite deliberately to the bait.
"What?" Methos had asked Joe. "You want to argue ethics with me? Mine are purely situational, as you very well know. No. There's nothing criminal about your friend MacLeod here, is there? What it requires is a desire to stay alive when someone else is coming at you with forty inches of steel and they mean business."
"Richie learned quickly enough," Mac had thrown in, more to annoy Methos than anything, but the old man had simply nodded.
"Sure," he'd said. "But he'd had you around to hero worship a good year or so before he was required to pick a sword up himself. You made the whole thing look glamorous. And I'll bet when you gave him his first sword you made a little presentation of it, didn't you? 'Make it part of you, keep it by you always,' that sort of thing. Come on, MacLeod--I know you better than you think I do. You rewarded his behavior by making it a damned rite of passage into adulthood."
"So what makes the difference?" Joe had asked.
"Immortals are shaped by their own times," Methos had said. "Ryan's generation grew up clean and neat with most things handed to them--all right, there are exceptions, obviously, but you know what I mean. Even little street thugs have been raised on television, movies, and video games. They think that's violence. Point the remote control and watch murder and mayhem in the comfort of your own living room. Plug in the video game cartridge and whack, off goes the other guy's head. All clean and neat and sanitized. The first time a new Immortal takes a head, half of them don't even realize until later they've killed another human being because they're locked into that damned video game mentality. They don't understand that the sword isn't for swagger, and that it doesn't make you a man. That takes learning, and it takes time. And time is a luxury most of the young ones don't get these days, because someone bigger and badder and meaner--and unencumbered with an outdated sense of chivalry--is just as likely to be around to show them what death and dying is really like at the business end of a sword."
This one looked about twenty, with a wide, mobile mouth and thin lips that twitched into something like a smile as he nodded. And at a guess, he was not encumbered with an outdated sense of chivalry. "Juan Bartolo," he said simply.
MacLeod looked him up and down. "How's the chili and sea bass?" he asked.
"You won't need to worry about it. When I'm through, you won't be able to swallow."
"In that case," MacLeod said, "do you mind if I eat first? I've been making due with my own cooking for quite a while now."
"Suit yourself," Bartolo said. "There's an abandoned warehouse a block over, on Malopeso. I'll be waiting."
And the condemned man eats a hearty meal, MacLeod thought, watching him walk away. He ordered, but couldn't bring himself to finish more than a few bites. "No one else dies because of me, Joe," he had said. Sighing, he counted out money for the bill, asking the waitress which way Malopeso was from the bar. Bad penny street. At least the name had a nice ring to it. No doubt Methos would have found it amusing.
"Up here," Bartolo called, and MacLeod looked up to see the younger man leaning half over an unrailed loft that ran the length of the warehouse, but only three-quarters of its width. "It's a little less public than the ground floor," Bartolo added, still smiling that almost gentle smile, and MacLeod took the ladder up with his katana ready in his left hand just in case. Now that he was close enough to see--and the light was better--he could tell that Bartolo had a neatly trimmed mustache he seemed to be cultivating. It was typical of a young man's vanity, but MacLeod had news for him: If the grow juices hadn't kicked in before his first death, he might just as well give it up and go clean shaven. He'd tossed his almost ankle-length coat to one side while waiting and stood with a basket-hilted rapier in hand, swishing it back and forth impatiently while MacLeod got rid of his coat.
They squared off point to point, katana to rapier, two handed-grip to one. MacLeod favored a straight-on stance, his opponent the classic fencer's grip. Bartolo wasted little time, his first attack a swipe from right to left, easily countered, easily returned. Their swords connected half a dozen times, blows echoing back from the distant walls of the warehouse, and then they were point to point again, holding each other off at the length of their swords. Bartolo stepped back, forcing MacLeod to follow, and the swords connected again, once, twice, three times before they closed on each other--abnormally close, in fact--and Bartolo slammed his fist into MacLeod's jaw.
Mac's sword came up as he staggered back a step, countering Bartolo's two handed downward strike. Two more steps backward and he had sufficient distance between himself and the younger Immortal to slam a foot into Bartolo's chest, sending him crashing to the floorboards on his back and knocking the wind out of him. The katana swung, slashing the air between them, and in an eye blink it was on a downward descent, connecting with the wooden floorboards where Bartolo had been a second before. No slacker, Bartolo had rolled clear as soon as he'd seen the move coming, and he came to his feet with a cutting swipe intended both to hold off his attacker and buy him the room to regain his balance. Unfortunately, the roll had brought him to his feet precariously close to the edge of the loft, and there was no rail to catch himself on. For just a moment, he managed to balance on tiptoe, his arms cart-wheeling backward. Momentum and gravity left him no choice, however, and he leaped to the floor some twelve feet below, his feet going out from under him as he landed. He wound up on his back, right leg crooked under him at an angle that was possible only with a break or severe dislocation, spewing a string of obscenities at MacLeod as his rapier went flying and the other Immortal landed lightly on his feet behind him, katana firmly in hand.
Since it was clear Bartolo wasn't going anywhere even with the speed of Immortal healing, Mac stepped over the younger man's body and returned with the rapier in his right hand, the point of his own katana trailing downward in his left. For just a moment he stood staring down at Bartolo, ignoring his impotent taunts. "No one else dies because of me, Joe," he had said. He hesitated. Then he tossed the rapier lightly upward so he could reverse his grip on its hilt. He plunged its length into Bartolo's chest and stood there a moment, watching the eyes cloud over as the young Immortal's life bled away. The katana, still pointed downward, wavered only slightly, and after a moment MacLeod walked away, reboarded Absolution and set sail, headed south again.

Chapter Twelve

July 1999

Amy Zoll had flagged all incoming reports for Duncan MacLeod's name when it first became obvious to her that Adam Pierson was actually Methos, and that Methos had made a habit of hanging around with the Immortal so many Watchers had pegged as "the One." Personally, Zoll was less than convinced of MacLeod's staying power, but then, she was skeptical by nature. For the past eight months there had been nothing more on MacLeod than a few rumored sightings, none of which could be confirmed. There was nothing new on Methos, though, so she dutifully scanned the report from South America. Half way through it, she returned to the top of the report and started reading slowly through it, paying attention to details this time. A minute later she was on the phone to Joe Dawson.
"Joe, hi, it's Amy Zoll. There's a report I want to fax to you--"
"From South America?" Joe asked. "Don't bother. I flagged everything with Mac's name the day after he disappeared. I'm looking at it right now."
"So, what do you think?" she asked.
"I don't know," Joe said, and she could picture him shaking his head. "Killing like that--leaving an Immortal dead with his own sword through the chest, I mean--it's hardly Mac's style."
"The Watcher sounds pretty sure in the identification," Zoll offered. "All the vitals coincide. And Joe, isn't the point that he didn't take the head? You told me yourself what MacLeod said--"
"No one else dies because of me, Joe."
"I don't know," Joe said. "It's possible, I suppose. Run the kid through with his own sword and leave him to be found--"
"What?" Zoll asked. "You think it's a warning to other Immortals? Joe, get real. What kind of warning is that in a Game where people play for keeps? Did you read between the lines on this thing?"
"What do you mean?"
"Who do you think pulled out the sword?" she asked him. "Bartolo is alive and well. Of course, he's probably more than a bit annoyed at your friend MacLeod. His Watcher has to have removed the sword. Yeah," she said, hearing the intake of breath on the other end of the phone. "You want to bet the guy freaked?" she asked. "We're talking major interference, Joe."
"Something neither of us would know anything about, of course," he dead panned.
"Hey," Zoll said. "I never interfered with the outcome of a fight between Immortals."
"I did," Joe said, "when MacLeod took the dark quickening and went after Richie Ryan."
"You're leaving out the part where you called a certain friend of yours and sent him running to the rescue."
"Oh, well, if you're going to get picky--"
"Joe, I'm serious. I think this may be a legitimate sighting."
"So now what?" Joe asked her.
"That's up to you," she said. "I'm just a researcher assigned to the Methos Chronicles. You're the one in charge of the search team responsible for locating Duncan MacLeod."
He snorted. "Yeah. A search team that's succeeded in absolutely nothing for the past eight months."
"So?" she said. "Here's your first break. You can do something with it or you can sit on your butt. Make a decision, Joe."
"I already did. I've left the report in my incoming basket."
"Joe--"
"Think of it as bait," he advised her. "If our favorite hacker comes calling, I wouldn't want him to miss it."
"It's your decision," she said.
"Is that water I hear running in the background?" he asked. "Washing your hands of me, Amy?"
"Later, Joe. I'll talk to you later." And just what makes you think he hasn't already seen the report? she mused. She shook her head as she hung up, staring at the report on her screen. After a few moments' thought, she put in a call to the Watchers' Headquarters in Rio de Janeiro and alerted them to mount a special lookout for a young Immortal named Adam Pierson, photos to follow.

Chapter Thirteen

July 1999

"Getting just a little obvious in our old age, aren't we?" Methos muttered, scanning the contents of Joe Dawson's incoming files. He was tempted to leave a suitable calling card--a bright yellow smiley face, perhaps--but he resisted the urge and backed out instead through the various links he'd established. He'd been conscientious in covering his tracks so there was no need to give away the game; anyone attempting to diagnose his intrusion would come to the mistaken conclusion that Joe had been hacked from Helsinki. Anyone but Joe, of course.
Methos' investigators had placed MacLeod in Pernambuco on the fifth of February, and in Rio a month later. There, he'd apparently had a run in with a young Immortal named Juan Bartolo in a warehouse on Malopeso Street. Bad penny street. Methos smiled, finding the street name both amusing and appropriate; it was, he thought, a suitable addition to the Chronicles of Duncan MacLeod. At any rate, Bartolo's Watcher thought he'd recognized MacLeod, and he'd posted the report accordingly. What was interesting was that he'd posted it about four months after he should have and the fact that the report had an undertone of near vehemence to it. The probable encounter with MacLeod was enough to prompt Methos to break into the Watchers' South American files, looking for anything on Bartolo. Half an hour later he was convinced Bartolo probably deserved whatever he got, and his best advice to MacLeod would be to wash his hands thoroughly afterward.
So what did he have, really, Methos wondered, severing the connection with Rio. Two Immortals go into a warehouse. Only one comes out, but there's no Quickening. The Watcher goes inside and finds Bartolo left for dead, his sword in him. What it meant wasn't all that hard to piece together if you read between the lines. Probably unable to bear seeing the young man that way, Bartolo's Watcher had removed the sword, allowing him to revive. Having interfered that much in the Game, sometime later the Watcher had an acute attack of guilt. He'd almost confessed in his report, although he hadn't actually come out and admitted the specifics of what had happened. What showed clearly, though, was the fact that Bartolo's Watcher had been almost incensed by MacLeod's action. Here was a man--a Watcher, sworn to observe and record, but never interfere--who obviously believed that Duncan MacLeod had somehow committed an outrage against the rules of the Game by not taking Bartolo's head. As a firm supporter of the concept that life was almost always preferable to death, Methos could only shake his head.
"No one else dies because of me," MacLeod had said. And that apparently included a snot-nosed brat like Juan Bartolo, whatever Methos' opinion on the subject.
He closed his eyes for a moment, visualizing MacLeod's likely course from Rio de Janeiro. Logic said he would continue south, through the Strait of Magellan, and from there go north again, toward Concepcion and Valparaiso on Chile's western sea coast. From there, it was just four or five hundred miles to Robinson Crusoe Island, which MacLeod had told Betty Bannen he wanted to visit.
Betty Bannen. There was another problem Methos had decided he'd have to trust to Joe. He knew he'd had a Watcher on his tail when he arrived in Durness, but he was reasonably sure he'd lost the man at the train station. Certainly there'd been no sign of anyone else at Betty Bannen's, and he was almost willing to bet they had yet to catch up with him. As soon as it was known he'd been in Durness, though, Joe would put two and two together, check MacLeod's files, and come up with Betty Bannen's name. That would mean Watchers on Betty's farmhouse--probably from a discreet distance, if he knew Joe--but as soon as the farmhouse was empty for any length of time the Watchers would--should--go in. That, of course, meant they would find the telegram from MacLeod and the world map Betty had pinned up to track his journey.
All right, Methos thought. There was little enough reason to remain in Europe with MacLeod a continent away. That decided, he picked up the phone and checked out of the tourist class hotel he'd checked into just hours before. Throwing the few items he currently considered his into the bag he'd bought at Selfridges, he wiped the laptop's drive and packed it up as well. Within the hour he was on his way to the Underground station, where he made a few phone calls and caught the train to Knightsbridge. Once there, he walked down Brompton for a leisurely tea at Richoux. About half an hour later he was joined by a young black woman who was--in efficiency, at least--reminiscent of the courier who had so ably supplied his needs in Chartres. She took the laptop computer when he handed it to her across the table, nodding when he said, "I'll want this stored." He handed her the passport he'd traveled to England on--and to Bordeaux and back in the meantime--saying, "Destroy these." She nodded again and handed over a new passport and identification papers, along with a sheaf of forms that would get his broadsword through customs on either side of the Atlantic. Last of all was the requisite case for his sword's transport.
"Wait here, please," he said, taking the case with him into the men's room. He waited for the single patron to finish his business and then slipped his sword and main gauche into the case, rejoining her a moment later.
"Will there be anything else?" she asked.
"Just one," he replied. "You came by cab?"
"Yes."
"And you asked the driver to wait?"
"Yes, as you specified."
"Good," he said. He raised a finger in the waiter's direction, saying, "I've ordered tea for you. You'll need to order another cab when you've finished."
"Yes, sir," she said. The waiter arrived with a selection of sticky rolls and other offerings, and Methos smiled. Whatever questions she might have about the transactions they'd just completed, they went unasked as he paid for her tea and his, thanked the waiter, and walked out of the restaurant.

Chapter Fourteen

April 1999

South of Rio, MacLeod ran into a gale that tore things up along the coast. All in all, he was grateful that Absolution suffered nothing more than a bit of ripped canvas that had to be hauled down and mended. The job proved interesting because of the cats, who were curious to see the sails spread carefully about the deck while MacLeod set about the restitching. They watched curiously as he crawled about on hands and knees, smoothing out the stiff canvas sheets so they could be resewn, and wherever he stayed still for ten minutes at his task they came to investigate, sticking their faces in where he needed to be. The result was that he spent a fair amount of time scooping one or the other up under the belly and redepositing him several feet away. Inevitably the cat would scoot back, though, and when the two came into close quarters it usually resulted in a brotherly wrestling match, Puss and Boots rolling about across the canvas--and sometimes under it if he didn't watch them--first one on top and then the other. For all his stunted growth, Puss was turning into the top cat, and he would eventually get Boots down and hold him there long enough to show him who was boss.
For about a week MacLeod enjoyed being free of land again, despite the storms he was encountering. One bad storm had driven him closer to shore, though and, there being no reason not to, he had continued on his way with Absolution hugging the shore, even putting in occasionally at night at any bit of land that appealed. On such nights ashore he would use a spare sail to construct a tent and enjoy a fire before curling up to sleep. The cats he left on board, not wanting to risk losing them to their own curiosity as they set about exploring parts unknown, and they alternated between being transparently glad to see him the next morning and ignoring him utterly by way of punishment for deserting them. Sleeping ashore made a pleasant if temporary change of pace from being rocked to sleep on board, and he used part of his time on shore to work on what he'd come to think of as the cats' lifeboat. With frequent storms ahead, he'd begun to give some thought to what might be necessary to keep the cats safe if he did have to abandon ship, settling on an assortment of things readily at hand on Absolution. In the end he wound up with a water proof wooden box about the size of a picnic basket, mounted in the center of two Styrofoam life preservers. He weighted the bottom of the box slightly to help keep it upright on the water and attached a hook and eye lock so the cats couldn't push the lid off. The final bit of work was looping a 20 foot nylon rope around both life preservers to allow him to haul the contraption in an emergency.
He paid for hugging the shore when, one fine night toward the end of March, Absolution ran hard and fast aground. At first he was annoyed, but little more; under the brightness of the moon, he'd been fooled by the false appearance of sand-hills and come in too close to shore. The sea, though moderately smooth, was breaking with some force on the shore and pushing him that way as well. In more frustration than fear, he knew he'd have to get the anchor over quickly or risk real trouble. His plan was to buoy the anchor and attach a cable to Absolution's bow. He could then use a winch and second cable to swing her stern off shore and away from the pounding surf. With the anchor overboard and the manual winch and first cable attached, he tossed the protesting cats into the "abandon ship" floater he'd constructed for them, tossed the second cable into the life raft, and launched off the stern. Sure enough, Absolution was being carried toward the shore, but once he was in his raft he realized there was, simultaneously, a current carrying him out to sea.
It took several more minutes than he'd planned to get himself going in the right direction with the life raft's oars, but he paddled in to shore; there, he hauled the life raft as high as he could manage and tossed the cats' lifeboat higher still, much to their annoyance. The position of the Absolution--now high and dry--was not something he really wanted to contemplate too long. He had to get her afloat again, and fast. Looping the second cable over one shoulder, he got that secured to the stern and then had only to swim out to the anchor, where he used the winch to pull everything taut and, bit by bit, began to move Absolution back into the water where she belonged.
The stress of keeping himself afloat in jeans sodden with salt water and working the winch and cables against the currents made his neck and shoulders knot and his stomach cramp in on itself. By the time he'd half accomplished his task he felt he'd swallowed more than enough salt water for two men, but there was no time to waste. At last Absolution moved, and after another hour's work she floated free again. Several hours later, when his arms were hanging low and leaden, she was well free of the shore. The anchor would hold her against the morning tides--and, indeed, it was morning he could see creeping in now--and at last he let himself float, stretching out on his back and letting his body ride the currents for a bit.
He'd closed his eyes and was still floating some time later, holding himself just a bit out of the constant splash of salt water when something struck him from beneath. It was a reminder that he wasn't alone in the sea, and while it could have been one of the sleek, gray dolphins that had followed Absolution half way across the Atlantic it might also have been a shark, nosing up to see if he might make a mouthful. Sighing, he loosed the cable and swam slowly toward the shore, only too glad to throw himself on the sand above the tide and rest without the worry of becoming someone's breakfast.

 
MacLeod. Look up, MacLeod.
Oh, Fitz, not now. I'm too tired.
That's because you're not being the ball.
I'm not cut out to be the ball, Fitz.
Yes, I should have realized that. You've always been a doer, haven't you, MacLeod? Even when I told you that you couldn't make a difference here you insisted on trying, didn't you?
Fitz, is there a point to this?
I keep trying to tell you, my dear boy. You're the point.

The sun was well up when he awakened face down in the sand. He crawled to hands and knees, remembering the cats, and stumbled higher up the shore to find them. To put it mildly they were not happy with him, but he didn't dare release them from their box and risk losing them in an unfamiliar place. He tried making recompense by opening the box just a bit and wiggling an apologetic finger inside. One of the cats bit him for his troubles and he mumbled, "All right, I'm sorry, I'll get you some breakfast," and closed it up again. It was at the same moment that he realized his life raft was nowhere on shore and he ran back down to the water's edge.
There it was, floating some distance off in the water, bobbing between him and Absolution, seemingly on a steady course home. "Oh, hell," he said aloud. Wearily, he trudged back down the beach, contemplating the cold, salty water for a moment before wading in. He swam out to the boat, each stroke its own unique torture, and caught up with his life raft half way to Absolution, hanging on to the edge and letting his aching legs dangle into the water. At least both oars were safe in the bottom of the raft and he didn't have to go swimming after them as well. More tired than he'd been in ages, he pointed the life raft back to shore and rescued the cats before setting out for the Absolution yet again. There, it took a Herculean effort to haul himself up via the line attached to the stern, but he managed it, grateful for the sixty feet or so of trailing rope he'd rigged as a lifeline should it ever be needed.
Safely aboard once more, he secured the life raft in its place on the stern and sat down heavily in the cockpit, leaning against the wheel. It was several minutes before he felt like moving, and when he did it was merely to stretch one arm far enough that he could reach the cats and let them out of their box. Draped half over the wheel, he fell asleep for another hour or so, waking only when Puss nipped at the underside of one exposed elbow, demanding to be fed. Too tired to even think of fishing for the cats' breakfast, he went below on legs that were barely working and opened an unlabeled can for them, coming up with baked beans on his first try. Staring numbly at the can for a moment, he sighed, figuring the beans would do for his own breakfast when he'd worked up enough energy to eat something. On the second try he shook a few cans experimentally until he detected what he thought was the semi-solid, somewhat packed sound and feel of canned meat. Ah. Salmon. It was too good for them in the mood he was in, but he dumped half of the contents onto the deck anyway, pressed the lid over the remainder and dropped to his bunk for a few more hours' sleep.
He dreamed of Richie, as it turned out--a newly Immortal Richie and Annie Devlin, shortly after Tessa's death.

"It won't do you any good you know," Annie had said. "Getting me drunk, acting sentimental about the old days. . . . I'm still going to kill Richie."
"Why?" he asked. "It won't bring Tommy back. It won't bring anyone back. Nothing you do brings anyone back once they're dead. Nothing."
She looked at him, her hatred for Richie turning slowly to a kind of growing pity for him, and she'd asked quietly, "You lost someone too, didn't you?"
Searing, still, the memory of Tessa, and not to be examined too closely. "So we have something in common," he said gruffly, and turned away.
"I'm supposed to live forever but I feel so dead inside," she said, and he knew exactly what she meant. "Are you dead inside, MacLeod?" she asked. "Are you dead, or are you alive?"

MacLeod. Look up, MacLeod.
He blinked, staring upward at the cabin's ceiling, dream images mixing with memory. They'd kissed, he remembered, and made love there on the shore. Annie Devlin was the first woman he'd been with since Tessa had died--a fact that, in itself, made what they shared an agonizing betrayal of something too sweet to name.

"I still have to kill him," Annie had said. "It's a blood debt. Richie's life for Tommy's. I have no choice."
"Then neither will I," he said. "If you come after Richie, you'll have to go through me."
He met Richie at the dojo later that morning, and he'd jumped to the obvious conclusion. "So, you were gone the whole night--you fought, right?"
"Not exactly"
"Not exactly? What do you mean not exactly?"
"Look, Richie, it's complicated--" Far easier to prevaricate than to tell him the truth and admit his betrayal of Tessa and her memory. "Don't ask me to explain, but she's coming for you. I want you to get out of the city until she gives up."
"I don't believe this! What have I been busting my butt for?
"To learn to survive and not get slaughtered."
"Not get slaughtered?" Richie echoed him. "Look, Mac, you might not be able to face her, but I can--"

"I want you to live!" he remembered snapping. I want you to live. He'd shouted something very like it to Cassandra, once, though they'd been talking about Methos and not Richie. "Cassandra! I want him to live!" Well, Methos had lived. Richie, though, had died at MacLeod's own hands.
"You don't change when you become Immortal," he'd told Richie once. "You just live longer." He'd been presenting the boy with his first sword. "Take good care of it," he'd said. "Live with it, make it part of you. It might be the only friend you have."
Good advice, that, as it turned out.
He swung his feet to the deck and sat up, Immortal healing and the few hours' sleep he'd managed having cleared away the night's aches and pains. He sat there dully, blinking away the sleep in his eyes, and stared at the table aft of his bed. The table and the Primus stove that sat atop it was, essentially, his "kitchen," along with the odds and ends stored beneath the table and attached to the wall. What meals he didn't take in the open on the deck were eaten sitting on the end of his bed, facing the table. At the moment, though . . . he blinked again, his brain refusing to put two and two together for a complete whole. Then he realized what was wrong. While he'd slept the cats had been at the can of salmon he'd left sitting on the table. The remainder of the uneaten salmon now sat in a pinkish orange heap on the floor at the foot of the bunk, and the can that had held the meat was rolling back and forth beneath the table.
Monsters, MacLeod thought. He stood, stretching, and after a moment snatched the can on one of its forward rolls. Annoyed, he scooped up the remainder of the soppy salmon mess in one hand and stood there, staring at it in disgust for a moment before plopping it back into the can. That done, he wiped his hands on his jeans and then stashed the can against the wall, securing it this time in the netting he'd tacked up to hold his few cooking utensils and the like. His stomach rolled, reminding him he'd had nothing to eat since the night before, and he took the can of baked beans and a spoon on deck to take care of the problem.
Puss came up to him to sniff at the can of baked beans once he'd settled on top of the deckhouse. Resigned to living with a mooch who was half stomach, Mac held the can out for the cat's inspection. "See?" he said. "Nothing for you, brat-cat." The fishy smell from his jeans and the palm of his hand required inspection, however, and Mac settled for eating his breakfast--lunch--left handed with his spoon while Puss licked the palm of his right hand clean. By the time the baked beans were gone, the sun was high in the sky and he felt he should be about the day's work. In no particular hurry, he unfastened the cables from the bow and stern and retrieved the manual winch, returning each to its proper place. That done, there was little else he actually had to do. Absolution seemed content to ride at anchor for the moment, and since the water here was deep enough that there could be no repeat of last night's near disaster, he was content to let her do so.
The cats seemed to have forgiven him last night's rough treatment. At any rate, they came to curl up next to him when he stretched out on deck for a nap in the sunshine, and when he woke an hour or so later Puss was occupying his right hip and Boots was curled about his head. He smiled and rubbed the top of Boots' head between the perked-up ears, enjoying the green, green eyes staring at him and the soft, short fur beneath his fingers. Odd, he thought, how Puss' coat was so coarse while Boots' fur was like cropped black velvet. Flecked here and there in Puss' black coat, too, were little white hairs, indicative, MacLeod supposed, of the malnourishment he'd suffered as a newborn. From all outward signs, Puss had been the runt of the litter and unable to fight for his mother's milk--not that it was a problem now, of course, Mac thought, remembering the canned salmon. And MacLeod remembered Betty saying she'd rescued the kittens from drowning, no doubt meaning the original owner had decided to reduce the surplus population of cats by two.
Mac sat up, dislodging Puss, and ran a hand over his bare arms and chest. He was dry, but sticky with salt from being doused in the ocean for several hours, his jeans so encrusted they were stiff and uncomfortable on him. It was decidedly time for a bath and a change of clothes as well.
He stripped off in the forward cabin between the two spare bunks, literally peeling salt-encrusted jeans off over his sticky skin. The plastic wash basin that normally served for washing his few dishes worked equally well for a stand-up bath, and two inches of fresh water in the bottom was enough to soak a washcloth. He worked up a light lather from a bar of soap and concentrated on cleaning the salt from his skin, enjoying the luxurious feel of soap and water. When the white film on top of the water indicated it was necessary he dumped the first batch onto the floorboards and poured a few more inches of fresh water into the basin so he could finish the job. His hair was stiff with salt, too, so he combed out as much as he could and then improvised a shampoo with a bit of soap and the last of the rinse water, glad he was wearing his hair short these days. He felt better after bathing, though he conceded he'd have felt almost as clean after a trickle shower in the worst dive he'd ever spent a night in.
He changed clothes, and his usual jeans-only style of dressing made him feel almost ready for guests when he pulled on sweatshirt as well. The weather was growing cooler these days, a reminder that the seasons were reversed from those he had grown accustomed to north of the equator. April here meant he was heading into winter, and that meant worse storms than those he'd been through thus far. He sat for a moment on the bare boards of the spare bunk, thinking. He could be in Tierra del Fuego in less than two weeks, or he could continue on to Buenos Aires, which would mean a few more days at sea before landfall. Either way, he had to decide if he meant to traverse the continent via the Strait of Magellan, or to round the Cape itself. Whichever course he chose he could treat himself to a few days ashore before going on, and take care of whatever reprovisioning was necessary. Perhaps, he thought, he should wait and let the weather of the moment decide for him.  Once he crossed into the Pacific, though, he'd have to think seriously about hurricanes, and he wouldn't want to be caught short of anything once he was facing the westward trek from the Galapagos to the Marquesas.
All right, he thought. He'd push on to Buenos Aires, which would offer far more in the way of provisions and any diversions he might be interested in than Tierra del Fuego. From there, he'd talk to some of the local sailors and make his best call on whether to round Cape Horn itself or cut through the Strait of Magellan. In the meantime, he had a bit more than two weeks at sea ahead of him.
MacLeod smiled. He had no deadlines, no demands on his time, and nothing worse than the weather to worry about it. It was just possible, he thought, that a man could get used to this.

Chapter Fifteen

July 1999

Malopeso Street wasn't nearly as run down as the name had suggested to Methos' active imagination. In fact, it was part of what looked to be a fairly new development area near the docks, with old wooden warehouses giving way to newer replacements made of concrete, steel beams, and plaster fronts. It had been a morning's work to convince the harbor master to let him see MacLeod's docking papers, but the man had finally conceded, giving in to Methos' story of a rash friend's possibly ill-advised attempt at a solo circumnavigation in a boat poorly suited to the adventure.
"What was he sailing?" he'd asked.
"A twenty-seven footer," Methos had replied. "A cutter, at least twenty years old, christened Absolution. Please. I'm just trying to verify that he was here in the first week or so of March."
"Absolution?" the harbor master had echoed him. "Yes--here it is. He docked overnight on the fifth of March, left on the sixth." The man had looked knowingly at Methos and asked, "What's he running from, this friend of yours?"
"Himself," Methos had said, meeting the other man's eyes.
"Ah. Well, good luck to him."
The words had a touch of been there, done that to them, and Methos had nodded, asked directions to Malopeso Street, and left. He'd wanted to see if he could locate the warehouse mentioned in the Watcher's report, where MacLeod and Juan Bartolo had crossed paths and swords, but because so much of the area was under construction--or reconstruction, as the case may be--the numbering was erratic, with most of the warehouses bearing no visible addresses at all. His stomach was reminding him he'd skipped breakfast and he'd decided it was just about time to give up this particular search and concentrate on finding a place for lunch instead. He was deciding between clean and colorful when he felt a whisper of Immortal presence, moving at a distance from him, but still close enough to be enticing.
"When they carry a sword and I haven't been formally introduced," he'd once told Joe, "I get shy."
In fact, what he usually got was scarce, but from Bartolo's chronicles he knew the docks and Malopeso were the little slime bag's customary hunting ground. In which case, he thought, this was no time to be shy. Three blocks over he had no doubt he was being led. It made him a bit more cautious, but no less determined to meet his quarry, and it was reassuring to know they both had the same goal in mind. It was close to the traditional siesta hours so there were few people about, only an older man painting a mural of some sort on the front of one of the warehouses and a group of half a dozen or so boys kicking a soccer ball about; he pushed through them, engulfed for a moment in their laughter and the bright chatter of their challenges to each other, and would have liked to have lingered awhile to watch the painter, but the Immortal presence was stronger, and after a moment the boys' voices were well behind him, lost to distance.
A few minutes later Methos was--quite deliberately, he was sure--permitted to glimpse the back of the man he was pursuing. The other dodged into the yawning door of a warehouse halfway up the street--Malopeso Street, as it turned out, since they'd completed a circle--and Methos shook his head. There really was nothing more annoying than exercise that brought you right back to where you'd started, and he was beginning to get irritated. With the other's presence stronger than ever, Methos stepped through the open door, his back close to the wall, Bartolo some thirty feet away from him, in the center of the unfinished warehouse's vast, empty space. Methos didn't even take his eyes off Bartolo when the door was slammed shut from the outside and he heard metal on metal, the sound of a bolt or bar of some sort being rammed hastily into place.
"All right," Methos said. "Now that you've got me, what are you going to do with me?"
Bartolo glanced up, smiling, sword already in his hand, and said, "I'm going to take your head at my leisure."
"Like you took Duncan MacLeod's head?" Methos asked.
Bartolo's brows drew together slightly and he ceased toying with the sword. "I don't know anyone named Duncan MacLeod," he said.
"Sure you do," Methos said, freeing his broadsword from the sheath inside his coat. "He left you cold and dead with your own sword stuck through you in March. I don't know about you, but personally, I'd have been just a little embarrassed if it happened to me."
"Whoever said such a thing is a liar," Bartolo snapped.
"Oh, get over it, Bartolo," Methos said. "Everyone knows. You're the laughing stock of Rio."
"You lie!"
He was lying, as a matter of fact, but Bartolo's furious charge, sword at the ready, left Methos no time for a retraction. In fact, he barely had time to counter with a blow from left to right that had more force behind it than actual skill, negating Bartolo's incensed attack only by pinning his blade point down in the dirt between them. They were too close for swordplay; too close, in fact, to do anything more than push away from each other in an attempt to buy space for swords to come up again. Feet scuffling in the dirt, they backed off, their blades sliding one along the other with a metallic scraping sound, and for a moment they held each other off at the lengths of their extended swords.
"Fight me, damn you!" Bartolo shouted, his voice echoing in the cavernous depths of the warehouse.
"I will if you'll stop flailing about like a child," Methos drawled. "Gods. Small wonder MacLeod couldn't be bothered with you."
It had the predictable result, and the younger man slammed into him again, sword held high, everything about his body language screaming that he was aiming a vicious, two-handed downstroke right at and through Methos if he held still long enough. It left Methos no choice but to meet him head on, absorbing as much of the charge as he could with his own body, feeling the impact in every bone, his own sword up to ward off the blow. What Bartolo was not expecting was that Methos would shove him away with his left hip, clearing enough space between them to abruptly and mercilessly slam one knee into the younger man's unprotected crotch. Bartolo's face purpled, the breath going out of him on an inarticulate moan. Methos stepped away, circling to attack again, but Bartolo wasn't going anywhere. "Bastard," Bartolo breathed, numb with agony. He staggered forward a few steps, his right hand retaining its grip on his sword--barely--but his left hand going irresistibly to his crotch, cradling the outraged flesh.
"You really have to learn to focus," Methos hissed in his ear, insultingly close.
Bartolo reached, grasping at straws, grasping anything that might save him, and snagged only the open edge of Methos' coat pocket. Methos spun, sword at shoulder height, and connected on the backstroke; the coat pocket gave way at the seam with a tiny tearing sound, lost in the grunt of surprise and protest that Bartolo's open mouth produced as his head came away from his body.
"And you should learn to look behind you."
The quickening hit Methos even as he registered the words, making it all but impossible for him to focus on their source. By the time it was over, leaving him standing but shaken, leaning heavily on the Ivanhoe he gripped determinedly, the girl had retrieved Bartolo's sword and stood ready to use it.
"You've got to be kidding," Methos said.
If there was one thing that was patently evident, it was that she was mortal.
"You killed Bartolo," she said. "Don't tell me you're afraid of me."
"Bartolo was barely worth the time," Methos said. "I don't fight mortals."
"Pre-Immortals, you mean," she snapped, thrusting the captured rapier abruptly toward him.
Say what? He stepped back, though, bringing the point of the Ivanhoe out of the dirt and up to defend himself if necessary, and stood considering her. A long, oval face, wide enough at the cheekbones to suggest Indian heritage as well as Spanish or indigenous Brazilian, with a wide mouth touched with lipstick, her jaw set. It was obvious what she meant, of course. Mortals didn't stand around watching one Immortal behead another unless they already had a fair idea what was going on. And they didn't threaten Immortals with a sword unless they at least thought they were prepared for the consequences.
"Tell me what he told you," Methos said.
She glared at him, and he could see the gears grinding as she stared back at him, wondering, doubting, unsure how much to trust him if at all.
"Tell me what he told you," he repeated, louder.
"I--he was Immortal," she blurted.
"And now he's dead. Keep talking."
"I don't owe him anything!" she snapped, and the chin came up in defiance. "He deserved to die. He used me; he made me do things. But he told me I'm pre-Immortal. When I die I'll be an Immortal. Like you."
You really were a bastard, weren't you, Bartolo? Methos shook his head. "He lied to you," he said, and immediately he saw the denial in her eyes.
"No!" She charged, en pointe, and he stepped back two paces, beating the sword down with the flat edge of his broadsword as the dust swirled around them.
"Yes! I'm sorry, but you are not pre-Immortal. I'd have sensed you if you were, just like I sensed Bartolo. He lied to you."
"You're the one who's lying!"
The rapier swiped through the space between them, driving him backward again and this time he turned his back on her, jogging even further away, his own sword up, reluctantly, for self-defense, but with the idea of putting as much distance between them as was reasonable to neutralize her effort at attack. "Look," he said across the 30 or 40 feet separating them. "I'm sorry Bartolo was a lying bastard. I'm sorry he used you. But you have to believe me. You're not pre-Immortal. Now, I really don't want to kill you, so put the sword down."
He saw it then, the spark in her eyes as the thought connected.
"No!"
There was too much distance between them, though. Gripping Bartolo's sword at the full extension of her arms and tipping it toward herself, she held the tip low between her breasts and threw herself forward on it. He reached her as she fell, and knelt next to her in the dirt. She moaned low when he rolled her onto her back. "Shhh," he whispered "It'll be easier, now, if you don't talk." Gently, he pulled her into his arms, her wound soaking her front.
"You have to die to become Immortal," she said, looking up at him.
"Yes," he told her, "that's right."
Too weak to hold the sword, she loosed it, her wrist falling back almost delicately to reveal the tracery of blue veins and arteries beneath the skin. Blue, he noticed, like the Watcher tattoo revealed as the cuff of her blouse was pulled away from her wrist.
"I knew you were lying," she said. "I am Immortal. I know I am."
He nodded, and she coughed, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.
"Tell me your name," he said. It was ludicrous, of course, but for whatever reason, he didn't want her to die without knowing her name.
"Ernesta," she whispered. "Ernesta Vincente." She breathed shallowly, her tongue wetting her lips, and coughed. "It hurts," she said.
"I know," he said quietly, and a frown creased her forehead. He pulled her closer. "Just another minute," he promised. "It won't hurt after that."
He held her until she could no longer feel his arms around her, until it couldn't possibly matter any more, and then eased her body slowly to the ground. It was a long time before he got to his feet, and longer still before he retrieved his sword from where he'd dropped it.

Continued in Part Two