Chapter Twenty-seven
The Quickenings began, as most Quickenings do, with a quiet hush and a gathering of light and energy. Methos, veteran of thousands of years of Quickenings, tried to relax his tense, tired muscles, while Duncan MacLeod braced himself for the onslaught of anticipated pain and horror.
The five players in the scene, three living and two dead, seemed locked in a frozen tableau as faint crackles began to sound throughout the room. Cassandra moaned a little as she watched the light begin to coalesce around Kronos and Silas' forms, but neither Duncan nor Methos paid her any attention.
Suddenly, the Quickening energy began to leap from the prone bodies. Bolts shot out randomly, striking the remaining lights in the room. Sodium bulbs began popping with a cascade effect, and glass sprayed out in rapid bursts. Sparks arced out of exposed wiring on the walls.
Then, seeming almost sentient, the energy began to form into seeking tendrils. Gone was the random search for an available outlet to ground itself. The two clouds of white, glowing haze drew themselves in briefly, then shot out violently, Kronos' energy striking Methos squarely in the chest.
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As the fireworks raged, Methos calmly accepted the
invasive inner effects of the Quickening. The knowledge that he was taking
inside himself the essence of a man who represented the depths to which he himself
could sink was not pleasing, but he had long ago made peace with the personal
sacrifice that must sometimes be made to emerge victorious after a challenge.
So your defeated enemy wasn't a nice guy. Get over it. You're alive.
He felt the first tentative tendrils of Kronos' being entering him, and he relaxed, opening himself in full acceptance of the inevitable. There was a sensation of familiarity as some of the more pleasant moments of his days with Kronos were suggested and played in his memory, moments of camaraderie and laughter. He smiled slightly, unconsciously groaning; he had once felt something close to affection for his brother.
Then this congenial sensation was elbowed brusquely aside and the full depth of Kronos' domineering and brutal nature forced its way into Methos, taking his breath away momentarily. He gasped spasmodically, taking a step or two backward as his mind was assaulted by the anger, the viciousness, the violence that had made Kronos the man that he had been. It was as though the essence of the leader of the Horsemen sought not to enrich and empower his host, but to control and enslave him as he had done to thousands in life.
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Duncan was breathing raggedly even before he felt the first insidious touch of Silas' essence seeking entry. The Highlander had never regarded the Quickening as a pleasant experience; to him, it had always felt more like a violation than a blessing. But never before had he felt so much resistance to accepting the spoils of a challenge, because he had never before won a challenge in the way in which he had just defeated Silas.
Acutely aware that there was enough blood on his clothes to account for killing several people, Duncan was powerless to stop the tears that formed in his eyes and traveled in irregular paths down his cheeks. In a million years, he would never have believed himself capable of the kind of savagery he had just displayed. He had been driven to rage before, certainly; had even lost control of himself on occasion and done things of which he was not proud and which he tried not to think about.
But never – never – had he been driven to butchery in combat.
He knew that this time, he'd ventured into obscene violence; knew it because he'd seen it in Cassandra's horrified eyes when it was over. Knew it because he couldn't remember a time when he'd continued hacking on an opponent after he was clearly dead, taking the head almost as an afterthought. Such a victory was not deserving of the reward that the Quickening represented. No one should gain power and knowledge by descending to such hideous depths.
So when he felt Silas' being come knocking to claim its place in his soul, Duncan, in his shame, tried to bar the door.
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Silas' energy slid sinuously toward Duncan. It paused for a
moment, then broke like a wave over the Highlander.
The tendrils of the Quickening enclosed him like a fist. There was none of the
easy acceptance that Methos allowed Kronos' Quickening.
Feeling resistance, bolts of lightning jumped from Duncan's body, touching down on every available surface. Methos' sword, still anchored in the wall, served as a convenient lightning rod for the excess energy. Waves of it rode the sword, and sparked the wiring, starting fires within the wall.
A high whistling noise, which could almost be described as a keening, echoed through the arena. Cassandra, now huddled against the low wall around the base, thought for a moment that she heard the mournful tone of a flute. But in another breath, the illusion was gone.
Chancing a quick look up, Cassandra saw Duncan MacLeod, hair blown around his head with the tremendous energy surrounding him. Lightning seemed to shoot from his outstretched hands, and his whole body screamed of pain and horror. One of the bolts touched the wire that suspended the base target, and as it crashed to the floor, Cassandra ducked her head once again.
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Light and energy poured into Methos. As quickly as
one new tendril formed, it was drawn into the well of five thousand years of
life and experience. While Methos contorted in the
throes of the Quickening, stray bolts hit the fallen catwalk behind him,
superheating its structure. The building material used in Laserocity,
while up to code for most recreational situations, could not withstand the
energy poured out by a Quickening.
Flames, already kindled in the walls, began to lick up around the collapsed catwalk. One of the discarded laser rifles exploded with a loud bang, but none of the occupants of the room even noticed. As the tongues of fire reached greedily for more fuel, smoke began to fill the room.
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Methos' didn't feel his body jerking and contorting
with shock and resistance; all his consciousness was engaged in keeping his own
spirit in command. There would be no Dark Quickening here today, he resolved
grimly. He had not risked everything he held dear to free himself of the
Horsemen forever only to become Kronos' puppet.
His mind was filling with visions of mayhem, of the Horsemen slashing and raping their way through the ancient world. Angrily, he held fast to his solid rejection of that life, that attitude. He would not be turned by such images. They held no attraction for him anymore.
Suddenly, the visions changed, and he was watching himself only, terrorizing screaming villagers, murdering innocent people of all ages – often while they were running away – and "conditioning" newly acquired slaves. His breathing became harsher as he watched himself raping and torturing Cassandra, saw the look of cold purpose on a face he could barely recognize as his own. He was not aware of his head whipping from side to side in a desperate gesture of rejection, nor of his guttural screaming as he fought against the vivid memories.
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Cassandra risked another look up as she felt the heat beginning to gather in
the room. For the first time since the Quickenings
had started, she glanced over at Methos. What she saw
there froze her blood, and her gasp, when it came, was soundless.
The Quickening arced around Methos like a power line downed by a storm. Energy lashed his body mercilessly, and he swayed and arched with it. Flames leapt behind him and silhouetted his powerful body and most of his face. His eyes, however, glowed with a light that was both mad and anguished. He was, at that moment, more fearsome than Cassandra had ever seen him, and she tore her eyes away.
Gazing back toward Duncan, Cassandra noted he was still trying to deny the power of Silas' Quickening. His body was wracked with shudders, and the excess energy that had sought outlet in other surfaces throughout the arena was gathering itself as if to assault its unwilling host.
Cassandra's ears popped as all the air in the room seemed to rush toward the writhing cloud around Duncan. Even the flames died down as their source of fuel disappeared. The energy massed itself, and struck at Duncan like a fist. The flames roared once more, and Cassandra's renewed moaning was again ignored.
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Silas' Quickening seemed perplexed, as though finding a completely unwilling
receptacle was a thing never anticipated. It would not, however, be denied.
Like a SWAT team entering a criminal's hideout, the essence of his slain
opponent kicked open the door to Duncan's soul, splinters flying and timbers
groaning in protest, and stomped on in – uninvited, unwelcome, and undaunted.
Falling to his knees, the Scot sought refuge in physical diminishment. His arms came over his head as though trying to protect it from falling debris, and he curled himself into a tight ball, the top of his head nearly touching the floor, roaring his resistance all the while.
The first images he received were completely unexpected, snapshots from the life of a simple, pastoral boy who spent more time with animals than with people. It was obvious that Silas' greatest pleasure had come from communing with the creatures of the wild, and equally obvious that this preference and his mental simplicity had made him a target for cruelty in his young life.
With the images of Silas' life with the Horsemen, the emotions shifted and a love of violence emerged. This, then, was the way Silas chose to cope with the ancient memories of teasing and torment – by repaying it a thousandfold to all who ventured into his path.
Suddenly reinvigorated, Duncan uncurled himself and bent backward, arms wide, fists tightened, and bellowed toward the ceiling. He would not give in, he would not accept this Quickening. Silas' essence became compressed and was pushed back toward the door, a bit at a time.
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As Duncan renewed his fight with Silas'
Quickening, the fires in Laserocity continued to
spread. The smoke that filled the room obscured visibility, and the crackling
of the flames could be heard over the roar of Duncan's displeasure.
Cords of energy whipped back and forth over his tortured body, sending surges
into the walls and ceiling. Tiles began to fall from overhead, and the
remaining portion of the catwalk creaked ominously as its pillars burned.
Methos, meanwhile, stood wrapped in a nimbus of light and energy. His tormented expression revealed almost as much pain as Duncan's wracked body did. Sparks and burning embers tried to land on his outstretched arms, but the energy cloud seemed to repel all trespassers on its preserve.
Coiled possessively around its intended target, Kronos' Quickening massed; Methos seized with the increase of energy pouring into his slender form. Behind him, the last sodium bulb in the arena burst, but it was a small sound, easily lost in the cacophony of destruction.
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There was tremendous pain in this remembering of Methos'
past life, vast, unending depths of it, and in this moment he felt he would do
anything, anything at all, to escape it. With that thought came a fading
of the images and a sense of consolation, of comfort being offered for a price.
He was nearly persuaded to pay when he perceived something unexpected in the unkempt assortment of memories and emotions: pain, great pain, but pain which did not originate within Methos. He tried to look closer at it, to determine its source, but a surge of violent anger shoved him away and covered up the pain, hiding it from view. More pictures of his own misdeeds were thrown up on the viewscreen of his mind, as though he were being told to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain…
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Though Duncan's resistance was
partially successful in repelling Silas' Quickening, some things still leaked
through. He saw snippets of interaction between the Horsemen, and particularly
between Silas and Methos, moments of extreme
poignancy in which Methos showed the big man great
patience, kindness, and friendship. It was difficult to reconcile that such a
relationship could exist within the framework of a band of killers so ruthless
and sadistic that they had intimidated the entire known world.
The contradiction occupied enough of Duncan's mind that some of his concentration was siphoned away from his battle to drive out Silas, and more of the dead man's knowledge and power became fused with his own as he fought to fortify his resistance again.
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Whatever it was that Kronos had kept buried in his
heart and soul all his long life, he sought still to deny in death, and Methos realized with a shock that this revelation was his
own salvation. Forcing himself to look squarely and without recoil at the
memories of his life as a monster, he felt the shame, the pain, and the regret,
but no longer rejected or denied them. He knew that acceptance, not denial, was
the key not just to survival, but to growth, to progress. To a healthy life,
not just a continued life.
Smiling slightly again, Methos embraced all that he was, all that he had been, and all that he would yet be… and this allowed him to embrace Kronos' essence as well, and not be dominated by it.
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Cassandra spared a moment to fear for their physical safety, noting that a ring
of fire was quickly engulfing the former base area, and parts of the walls and
ceiling were falling constantly. More important though, was the rapidly
changing dynamic of the Quickenings before her.
Silas' Quickening was being driven partially away from Duncan's body. Kronos' Quickening, although being accepted, almost embraced, by Methos, was reacting to the reformed mass of energy just feet away. Now, although both Quickenings still battered at their new hosts, tendrils of energy were beginning to swirl together in the center of the room.
Again, the air seemed to be sucked out of the room, and channeled into the new energy mass that twisted between Duncan and Methos. Slowly, a pillar formed, a seething mass of energy that pulsed and turned in a mindless quest for somewhere to vent its rage and pain. With lightning quickness, the pillar changed. Two lances shot out, one to Methos and the other to Duncan, piercing both men through the chest.
This time, Cassandra didn't moan. She screamed.