Chapter Six

... and Mercy

The Great Desert, circa 3000 b.c.e. later that same month:

Aja moved slowly through the group of mud brick buildings that made up the small town on the banks of a muddy river. Gnats buzzed hungrily about. The water was slow and stagnant, and smelled of rotten things. Little foliage or greenery grew here. There was little movement amongst the buildings... but from within them, they were watched by questioning eyes. Obviously, few people traveled into this area, especially in the heat of the day.

Stopping at the village well, Aja drew clean water to replace that in her bag. No one seemed to mind, but she glanced about her, trying to gauge the temper of this small town. Then she sat down on the wall of the well to rest. Methos climbed up beside her. The leather strap she had tied to his wrist some time ago chafed slightly.

"It is so I do not lose you... that you do not wander off if I am not looking," she had said, almost apologetically. "I need to know you are where I need you to be."

There had been no point in arguing. There never was...

"Will we stay here?" Methos finally dared to ask.

Aja shook her head gently. "Not here ... there is only the promise of death, here. Not even I can stop it." She sighed deeply and tilting her head to one side ... closed her eyes. Finally she opened them and stood to move on. Methos joined her, but as they were nearing the outer reaches of the village, a small band of ruffians accosted them.

"Well," one of them said with a wicked laugh, "... there is some life here, after all." The three of them circled about Aja and Methos, whooping and laughing as though they had found a great prize.

Aja leaned heavily on her staff. For a moment, she seemed to Methos to somehow become smaller... somehow less than she was, then she meekly offered, "I am only an old woman. I have nothing for you... Let me pass." She spread one arm wide in a motion of supplication.

The three laughed. They drew their swords and brandished them in the sunlight. "What do you carry in those bags, old woman?" They motioned threateningly.

Aja dropped behind her the hand tied to Methos and worked free the leather thong. With a deft motion she shoved him behind her and motioned for him to step back... out of her way.

"Nothing that is of any of use to any of you," she whispered harshly. Methos sensed rather than saw the gathering storm. He had not seen it since their flight from the temple. He inched further away.

The three laughed again. "We will see that for ourselves!" one of them sneered, as they closed in on her.

It was then that Methos finally understood the true purpose of Aja's great staff. She twirled upon the first man... planted the staff harshly in his gut and, without pausing swung it about so that it landed heavily upon the skull of the second man.

When he saw his two companions slink unceremoniously to the ground unconscious, the third backed warily up, simultaneously swinging his sword back and forth to ward her off.

Aja paused only a moment, before whirling once more, her feet kicking out into the man as she used the staff for support. She knocked him down and slammed the staff onto his head. He crumpled onto the earth, his sword flew out of his reach... bounced once and landed at Methos' feet.

"Fools!" Aja murmured as she reset her bags and leaned down to check the men and to gather their weapons.

Methos picked up the sword which had landed near him. It was almost as tall as he was ... but he felt a sudden joy in its weight in his hands. Carefully he lifted it and tried to swing it about him as he had seen the man do. It was so heavy he could not move it as the man had. But for a moment in the movement, he was content.

Aja looked at him sharply. "Bring that to me! ... That is not a thing for you... not yet." He took it to her, reluctant to let it go.

Carrying all three swords, she returned to the village well and dropped them unceremoniously into the water. Clapping her hands as if to rid them of the feel of the swords, she re-attached the leather thong to her wrist and they took a different direction out of the quiet village.

"Aja?" Methos asked as they moved out into the desert once more. "Aja, ... please?"

"Not now ... little one ... we have to keep moving."

"But why? ..." insisted the boy, pulling at her.

Sighing, Aja slowed her quick pace to a stop and looked down at him, "Oh, all right. Ask your questions!"

Methos nodded to her. "You left them alive? ... Why?"

She sighed once more and shook her head sadly; "I have seen enough of killing and blood in my long life. They have so little time... Who am I to rob them of what little they do have."

"Why did you take their swords from them?"

"I am not a fool. When they recover... it is the first thing they will search for... I wished to delay that. If you leave an opponent alive... never leave him armed." She smiled and turned to continue their journey.

"One more," he offered tentatively. She gazed down at him. "Why did we not keep... one? Why the well?"

"That, Scholar, is two questions... however, one... I do not need a sword, and two... two..." her voice trailed off and she shrugged, "it was as good a place as any. It should take them some time to recover them. That is..." she winked at him, "if they ever find them. Enough! ... Time to go." She laughed and continued on their way.

Methos spared one look behind him at the village ... one look for the well and its vanished treasure, then followed Aja into the expanse of the great desert once more.

***

When Methos awoke, it was dark night. They had traveled all that day as Aja had attempted to put distance between themselves and the small village they had left behind. When he had stumbled in the heat and his own exhaustion, she had swept him into her arms and he had dozed. She moved swiftly, as she had when they had first left the temple of Nut.

She must have stopped sometime in the late afternoon or early evening, wrapped him in her great cloak and laid him down. Now he gazed upward at the canopy of heaven with all its stars and the thin sliver of the crescent moon.

Aja sat nearby, absently drawing in the sand with her fingers. She looked over at him as he stirred. "Awake at last little scholar?" she asked calmly. Whatever storm had been in her had blown itself out.

Methos walked over to her and climbed into her lap to take comfort from her sheltering presence.

"What is this?" She was surprised. He did not often surprise her. She put her strong arms about him and hugged him and kissed the top of his head. "Ahh... my little one. You are a treasure."

"Tell me a story."

Aja laughed. "A story? What story would you hear?" She absently stroked his head and he could read the patterns her fingers absently drew on him as she caressed him.

"Tell me about your father? And about his sword!"

Aja stiffened at his words. This was not something she wanted to do, he could sense. But maybe she needed to tell him. Maybe she needed to put into words whatever it was she had been holding inside for so long. She tilted her head to one side, listened to her voices a moment and then nodded.

"This will not make a great deal of sense to you, but I will try:

"In the dawn of the world, when all was still bright and new... we lived in a place that knew tall trees and high mountains and deep cold lakes... In that place my people raised the standing stones to mark their world and the passage of time, and to honor that which was before all things.

"There were no deserts there. There was no hatred and no killing. My brother and his friend and I would run about our village and join in the laughter and the play of our friends. Sometimes we would go to the shores of the ancient sea and dance on the sand... just the three of us... as if that were all that was important in the world. There were other young ones there... but those two were all who were important to me... those two and my mother who first taught me to write the symbols. They were old even then... perhaps older than time itself.

"At long last my father returned from his journeys and brought with him a sword... none of us had ever seen such a thing. It was a wonder... and for a time, all was as it had always been.

"In time we grew up and changed. I was the youngest of the three of us. My brother was as the earth... strong deep and abiding. If ever I needed anything, he would see to it. His friend was like the wind...he was always running about and disappearing on us. But he could find such wondrous things. I adored him... he could always make me laugh. I married him in the fullness of time. I was as the ocean sometimes was... rising and falling with the tide and moving between them in the great dance. We were happy... we were at peace and in harmony with the world." Aja's voice drifted off.

Methos stirred against Aja as she paused in her reverie. This was not the story he wanted. "But the sword, Aja...tell me about the sword."

She sighed deeply, and continued, "On his journeys, as I came to discover, my father had learned something dark. He had learned that by the use of a sword... he could take into himself great power and great knowledge... and great darkness. It was the darkness that overwhelmed him in the end, and in that darkness he slew his brother and all that tried to stop him. He slew them all, only the three of us--and our mother--remained. Only we four seemed immune to the darkness that now ruled his soul."

For a moment, Methos could seem to hear the thunder of a storm and sense the gathering of great clouds. He glanced above at the clear night and at the stars, which twinkled in its dark cloak. He buried his face in Aja's side. She leaned down and kissed the top of his head.

"In the aftermath of that moment... my mother rained down curses upon my father and upon all of us. In despair she grabbed the sword from him and took her own life. There in the midst of the standing stones... she cut off her own head and all she was flowed out upon the world. And we were alone.

"Her sacrifice seemed to bring my father once more to himself and he wept at the enormity of his crimes. The only way to find peace again was to join her. He begged the three of us to do what he found he could not do himself. At last we did... but after that, nothing was the same."

Methos looked at her in confusion. But her eyes were closed and she was far away...

Finally, as light began to break in the eastern sky, she stirred once more and said wistfully. "It was the end of our beginnings. My brother took our father's sword and traveled far to the east. My beloved could no longer bear my touch and turned from me. And I... I came here where there was no ocean... no great sea... seeking solace and quiet. But I have never found them."

She looked about as if suddenly aware of where they were and that the night had passed. She wrote the final two symbols in the sand.

Methos grinned, "And what do they mean, Aja... what do they mean? What is today's guess?"

She laughed then... chuckling at his question. "Oh Scholar... my tale is done this night. That is a tale for another time." And she erased the symbols as if they had never been. "We will rest here this day. I am weary from yesterday's flight and I have sat awake all this night. I need to sleep... I need to find some rest."

Methos looked about in the growing light. "Rest?" he wondered, "where in all this great desert would they ever find rest?"