Genesis
The electricity crackled through his body, its touch at once an agony and a release. He cried out at the sensation, for it was his first. And for a moment, the man wondered if it would go on forever... but no, it was fading now, the ice-burning of the Quickening giving way to cool-warmth, and then to only a memory. Again, his first.
The man opened his eyes, to see a desert stretching before him. Mountains rose far in the distance to his right, as far as the end of the world, it seemed. Behind him lay a river, many days' walk from where he stood, but he could still see the line of green that marked its shores. He did not know how he knew the green to be vegetation, indicative of a river, or how he knew the mountains were mountains, the desert, the desert... the world simply was as it was, no more.
To his left the desert stretched interminably long, so long that the land seemed to have no clear ending place, but simply faded away into mist and false images. Before him, the sun marked the world's edge, its blazing disk half-hidden by the ground. It fell swiftly into the depths of the earth, to be seen again only when it had rested, and journeyed to the far horizon to rise again in the east, from the other entrance between earth and heaven.
The sunset was ablaze with light, adorned with every color the man had ever dreamed, and a few more besides. It was simply the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. So moved was he, that even though he knew it to be foolish, he reached out a hand to touch those colors before they faded from the sky. It was only then as he did so that he noticed on his wrist, a mark was splayed across his skin: a wide and sloping V inscribed in a circle of stars. Having no memory, he could not say where the mark had come from, or what it could mean. But there were many things for which this was so, and the mark was the least of them. He gave it no more thought, instead turning his mind to the problem of what he should do, where he could go from here.
But he had all the time in the world to consider such things. The sunset could be seen only now. So the man sat and watched the sun fall away, until it was gone completely and the stars shone bright in the sky. For hours more he sat on the sand, watching the stars and the moon, considering. Finally he decided that he would travel east, towards the sun's rising, and the river's greenery. He rose with purpose and began to walk in the darkness, resolved to find shelter before the sun's merciless anger fell upon him in the heat of day.
He never saw the body of the man he left behind him, never knew he even existed; he had fallen on the other side of a sand dune when the Quickening came upon him. Perhaps if he had seen the man he killed, he would have recognized him, remembered him. Perhaps it was best that he did not.
And so the man walked away. He had no food, no water, no shelter, no clothes, but he would survive. Of that, there was no doubt.
***
The man had a name now. It had been many, many years since his first Quickening in the desert. He had walked many miles, seen many things. He had learned of the others, like him, who did not grow old and die. He knew of the race for power among them, their struggle with each other for the formless Prize.
There were those whose philosophy was to go out in search of others of their kind, to steal their power for themselves. Then there were the ones who did not seem to want the Prize for themselves, but devoted their lives to searching out and destroying the first kind, ensuring that the Prize went to one worthy of it.
Then there was him. He didn't care about any Prize, or who it went to. He wanted to live.
"Master Methos!" A child no more than ten, dressed in the rags of a street urchin, skidded through the open doorway of his home, panicked and out-of- breath. "Altin's in trouble!" he gasped.
Methos' hands went simultaneously for a spear and his cloak. Altin was following Enkidu, and had been for two months now. He was the first Methos had approached and offered money to, four years ago, to follow a certain man and report his whereabouts. Now he was one of many, racing about in the streets and poking their heads out of windows like all street children, watching, safe in their anonymity. Most of the time.
"Tell me where."
"Town square!" The child, Koron, turned and started back out the door.
Methos grabbed him by quickly by the arm. "Tell Vobara." Vobara had a noble heart, and more importantly, a good sword arm. He lived close to the square, and would never let a child be hurt, no matter what the circumstances.
Koron gaped back. Methos had always told them never to speak to those he had watched, until now. "Go!" The room was quickly empty, as Methos went for the square at a run. In no time, he reached the center of town, where a crowd had already gathered. As the man fought his way through to get a better look, he heard another man shouting.
"Thief! I'll cut out your eyes, boy!"
Methos broke through to the center of the action, to see Altin being held by two men, his expression terrified as a third man waving about a huge saber stalked toward the boy, threatening. But before he could land a blow, however, a spear landed at his feet.
The two holding Altin started, and jerked their heads about to see where this new threat came from. The man with the sword frowned thickly, and picked up the spear. He looked about, and Methos saw that the people had backed away from a man to one side of the clearing.
Vobara stood imposingly at the edge of the crowd. The man grunted, and gestured at him with the spear. "What's this?"
"It's a spear," Vobara replied helpfully. "And a warning. It's the only one you're going to get, so I'd use it wisely."
The man snarled and snapped the spear in two, throwing it to the ground. "That is *your* warning, my friend. Go away." His friends laughed harshly.
He started to turn back to Altin, but Vobara took a few steps forward, forcing the man's attention back on him. Vobara's eyes flashed to the boy, and he jerked his chin. "Listen to me. Look at the boy's wrist." The man wasn't entirely stupid, and glared at Vobara warily.
One of the men holding Altin drew back his sleeve to show the tattoo on his wrist. Methos, unnoticed in the crowd, fingered his identical one. "So you see," Vobara continued conversationally, "the boy is part of a tribe. If you hurt him, there will be consequences."
"Bring them to me! He is a thief!" the man roared, waving his sword angrily in great arcs above his head. "He was hiding in the back of my shop, waiting until I left so he could rob me. I will have justice!"
"No, you won't." Vobara was still arrogantly calm, which enraged the swordsman even further, and he fell upon the man suddenly with a vicious snarl. Fortunately, for all his volume, the attacker was stupid and slow. He didn't last two minutes. Neither did his friend, who tried to sneak up on Vobara while he was occupied with the burly man.
The warrior held up his sword, now slicked with red, and pointed it at the third man, now the only one still living. "You. Let him go." The poor man was already staring, horrified, at the bodies on the ground in front of him, and released Altin instinctively. Vobara put his arm around Altin's shoulders, and began to walk away, the crowd parting around them.
Vobara kept Altin by him after that, and for many years after. He heard a rumor that the last man he'd spared came to a rather swift and ugly end, and that the boy's tribe was god-touched. Altin never spoke of it, and there were no more public displays, but it became common knowledge that when a boy with the star-patterned wrist died, his assailants were not long for this life. Vobara was troubled, as many thought it was his doing, but the violence never spread beyond child-killers, so he did not take matters into his own hands. The one responsible was never caught.
It was many years before Methos and his urchins were troubled again.
***
It was late at night, in a much different place, and a much different time. Once again many years had passed, and the man had had many names, piled one on top of the other until even he could barely remember them all. Ironic then, that he didn't have to.
"Methos! I didn't think I'd see you around these parts so soon." Joe came out from behind the bar to join the man in the corner. Methos reached out to shake his hand; the two had not seen each other for some time. Too late, he realized he'd reached out with the wrong hand, and his tattoo, still- bright after millennia, met the faint scar where Joe's used to be. Joe noticed, of course. He'd been a Watcher for most of his life, it was his job to notice.
"I'm sorry, Joe. I didn't mean for it to turn out this way."
The older man shrugged slightly, and lowered himself into the chair next to him. "Yeah well, we never mean for anything to turn out 'that way', but sometimes it just does anyway." He rubbed his scar absently in what appeared to be a common habit.
Finally he asked, "Does it mean anything anymore, do you think? Did it ever? It doesn't mean I can't Watch anymore, just that anything I write won't be kept with the other records. And who cares about that?"
Methos sat and thought about the small army of street children that he collected in the beginning with the promise of safety and food. The tattoo could mean life or death to them. But as life became more ordered and violence died down, they were needed less and less; and as the Watching expanded, his ability to protect them waned as well, until Watchers were recruited, served, and died without ever knowing the true purpose. Until that purpose was itself forgotten, and the Watchers found their own purpose, a nobler one.
After a silence, Methos replied, "A tattoo doesn't dictate what you choose to do with your life. It certainly can't tell you what kind of person you are. And you, Joe Dawson," he poked his friend in the arm amiably, "are a Watcher. Nothing and no one can burn that out of you." He smiled, and Joe tried to return it weakly.
"Even now?" His thumb rubbed harder over the scar.
Methos slowly nodded at the passionate calling in the eyes of his friend. "Especially now."
***
The man didn't need a name anymore. They all knew each other on sight by now. They had been brought here, to an empty city, its towers fallen to dust long ago. The man didn't care to think about how many times he'd seen cities crumble, over how many lifetimes it had been. This, it seemed, was the last. The Gathering had come, the Prize was near. The man was angry to be taken away from his current life. He didn't care about the Prize, he didn't care about the others, who were almost manic in their excitement to grasp it. The man just wanted to go home.
But fate had given him few options, and forfeit was not one of them. So he fought. Some were not as good a fighter as he was. Some were much better. But the man was smart, and ruthless, and wanted to live very much. He fought those he could beat, and managed to let the rest kill each other, until only one was left. This woman was very good, but the man had always been even luckier than he was smart, and his luck was with him that day.
The Prize was his. He could have cared less. Perhaps there was something to be said for that. You see, no one knew what the nature of the Prize really was. Some said that perhaps it was one specific thing, that many would find inconsequential or useless. Some said that perhaps it was simply what the recipient wanted most, in his heart of hearts.
Whatever the nature of the Prize, this was what the man received: knowledge. Not of vast universal truths, nor of the fate of the future. The man learned who it was that he killed, on the far side of a sand dune, ten thousand lifetimes ago. He learned the man's name, and in so doing, learned his own.
Because the man he killed was his brother.
The man found that his legs could no longer hold him. He fell to his knees, and cried out, "Oh God! Abel!" He put his face in his hands, and wept. "What have I done?"
And in the background, the last Watcher made his final entry, the mark of Cain bright on his wrist.
END.
***
From the New American Bible, Saint Joseph's Edition:
Book of Genesis, Chapter 4:
(13) Cain said to the LORD: "My punishment is too great to bear. (14) Since you have now banished me from the soil, and I must avoid your presence and become a restless wanderer on the earth, any one may kill me at sight." (15) "Not so!" the LORD said to him. "If any one kills Cain, Cain shall be avenged seven-fold." So the LORD put a mark* upon Cain, lest any one should kill him at sight. (16) Cain then left the LORD's presence and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
In the footnotes:
* A mark, probably a tattoo. The use of tattooing for tribal marks has always been common among the nomads of the near Eastern deserts.
***
Author's Note:
Adam and Eve bore another son after Cain and Abel, named Seth. Seth's lineage is described for nine generations in the fifth chapter of Genesis, with a precise age of death for each man in that lineage, including Seth and his father Adam.
Cain's lineage is found in chapter four, but though his line is described for six generations, there is curiously no mention of their deaths in any way.
The electricity crackled through his body, its touch at once an agony and a release. He cried out at the sensation, for it was his first. And for a moment, the man wondered if it would go on forever... but no, it was fading now, the ice-burning of the Quickening giving way to cool-warmth, and then to only a memory. Again, his first.
The man opened his eyes, to see a desert stretching before him. Mountains rose far in the distance to his right, as far as the end of the world, it seemed. Behind him lay a river, many days' walk from where he stood, but he could still see the line of green that marked its shores. He did not know how he knew the green to be vegetation, indicative of a river, or how he knew the mountains were mountains, the desert, the desert... the world simply was as it was, no more.
To his left the desert stretched interminably long, so long that the land seemed to have no clear ending place, but simply faded away into mist and false images. Before him, the sun marked the world's edge, its blazing disk half-hidden by the ground. It fell swiftly into the depths of the earth, to be seen again only when it had rested, and journeyed to the far horizon to rise again in the east, from the other entrance between earth and heaven.
The sunset was ablaze with light, adorned with every color the man had ever dreamed, and a few more besides. It was simply the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. So moved was he, that even though he knew it to be foolish, he reached out a hand to touch those colors before they faded from the sky. It was only then as he did so that he noticed on his wrist, a mark was splayed across his skin: a wide and sloping V inscribed in a circle of stars. Having no memory, he could not say where the mark had come from, or what it could mean. But there were many things for which this was so, and the mark was the least of them. He gave it no more thought, instead turning his mind to the problem of what he should do, where he could go from here.
But he had all the time in the world to consider such things. The sunset could be seen only now. So the man sat and watched the sun fall away, until it was gone completely and the stars shone bright in the sky. For hours more he sat on the sand, watching the stars and the moon, considering. Finally he decided that he would travel east, towards the sun's rising, and the river's greenery. He rose with purpose and began to walk in the darkness, resolved to find shelter before the sun's merciless anger fell upon him in the heat of day.
He never saw the body of the man he left behind him, never knew he even existed; he had fallen on the other side of a sand dune when the Quickening came upon him. Perhaps if he had seen the man he killed, he would have recognized him, remembered him. Perhaps it was best that he did not.
And so the man walked away. He had no food, no water, no shelter, no clothes, but he would survive. Of that, there was no doubt.
***
The man had a name now. It had been many, many years since his first Quickening in the desert. He had walked many miles, seen many things. He had learned of the others, like him, who did not grow old and die. He knew of the race for power among them, their struggle with each other for the formless Prize.
There were those whose philosophy was to go out in search of others of their kind, to steal their power for themselves. Then there were the ones who did not seem to want the Prize for themselves, but devoted their lives to searching out and destroying the first kind, ensuring that the Prize went to one worthy of it.
Then there was him. He didn't care about any Prize, or who it went to. He wanted to live.
"Master Methos!" A child no more than ten, dressed in the rags of a street urchin, skidded through the open doorway of his home, panicked and out-of- breath. "Altin's in trouble!" he gasped.
Methos' hands went simultaneously for a spear and his cloak. Altin was following Enkidu, and had been for two months now. He was the first Methos had approached and offered money to, four years ago, to follow a certain man and report his whereabouts. Now he was one of many, racing about in the streets and poking their heads out of windows like all street children, watching, safe in their anonymity. Most of the time.
"Tell me where."
"Town square!" The child, Koron, turned and started back out the door.
Methos grabbed him by quickly by the arm. "Tell Vobara." Vobara had a noble heart, and more importantly, a good sword arm. He lived close to the square, and would never let a child be hurt, no matter what the circumstances.
Koron gaped back. Methos had always told them never to speak to those he had watched, until now. "Go!" The room was quickly empty, as Methos went for the square at a run. In no time, he reached the center of town, where a crowd had already gathered. As the man fought his way through to get a better look, he heard another man shouting.
"Thief! I'll cut out your eyes, boy!"
Methos broke through to the center of the action, to see Altin being held by two men, his expression terrified as a third man waving about a huge saber stalked toward the boy, threatening. But before he could land a blow, however, a spear landed at his feet.
The two holding Altin started, and jerked their heads about to see where this new threat came from. The man with the sword frowned thickly, and picked up the spear. He looked about, and Methos saw that the people had backed away from a man to one side of the clearing.
Vobara stood imposingly at the edge of the crowd. The man grunted, and gestured at him with the spear. "What's this?"
"It's a spear," Vobara replied helpfully. "And a warning. It's the only one you're going to get, so I'd use it wisely."
The man snarled and snapped the spear in two, throwing it to the ground. "That is *your* warning, my friend. Go away." His friends laughed harshly.
He started to turn back to Altin, but Vobara took a few steps forward, forcing the man's attention back on him. Vobara's eyes flashed to the boy, and he jerked his chin. "Listen to me. Look at the boy's wrist." The man wasn't entirely stupid, and glared at Vobara warily.
One of the men holding Altin drew back his sleeve to show the tattoo on his wrist. Methos, unnoticed in the crowd, fingered his identical one. "So you see," Vobara continued conversationally, "the boy is part of a tribe. If you hurt him, there will be consequences."
"Bring them to me! He is a thief!" the man roared, waving his sword angrily in great arcs above his head. "He was hiding in the back of my shop, waiting until I left so he could rob me. I will have justice!"
"No, you won't." Vobara was still arrogantly calm, which enraged the swordsman even further, and he fell upon the man suddenly with a vicious snarl. Fortunately, for all his volume, the attacker was stupid and slow. He didn't last two minutes. Neither did his friend, who tried to sneak up on Vobara while he was occupied with the burly man.
The warrior held up his sword, now slicked with red, and pointed it at the third man, now the only one still living. "You. Let him go." The poor man was already staring, horrified, at the bodies on the ground in front of him, and released Altin instinctively. Vobara put his arm around Altin's shoulders, and began to walk away, the crowd parting around them.
Vobara kept Altin by him after that, and for many years after. He heard a rumor that the last man he'd spared came to a rather swift and ugly end, and that the boy's tribe was god-touched. Altin never spoke of it, and there were no more public displays, but it became common knowledge that when a boy with the star-patterned wrist died, his assailants were not long for this life. Vobara was troubled, as many thought it was his doing, but the violence never spread beyond child-killers, so he did not take matters into his own hands. The one responsible was never caught.
It was many years before Methos and his urchins were troubled again.
***
It was late at night, in a much different place, and a much different time. Once again many years had passed, and the man had had many names, piled one on top of the other until even he could barely remember them all. Ironic then, that he didn't have to.
"Methos! I didn't think I'd see you around these parts so soon." Joe came out from behind the bar to join the man in the corner. Methos reached out to shake his hand; the two had not seen each other for some time. Too late, he realized he'd reached out with the wrong hand, and his tattoo, still- bright after millennia, met the faint scar where Joe's used to be. Joe noticed, of course. He'd been a Watcher for most of his life, it was his job to notice.
"I'm sorry, Joe. I didn't mean for it to turn out this way."
The older man shrugged slightly, and lowered himself into the chair next to him. "Yeah well, we never mean for anything to turn out 'that way', but sometimes it just does anyway." He rubbed his scar absently in what appeared to be a common habit.
Finally he asked, "Does it mean anything anymore, do you think? Did it ever? It doesn't mean I can't Watch anymore, just that anything I write won't be kept with the other records. And who cares about that?"
Methos sat and thought about the small army of street children that he collected in the beginning with the promise of safety and food. The tattoo could mean life or death to them. But as life became more ordered and violence died down, they were needed less and less; and as the Watching expanded, his ability to protect them waned as well, until Watchers were recruited, served, and died without ever knowing the true purpose. Until that purpose was itself forgotten, and the Watchers found their own purpose, a nobler one.
After a silence, Methos replied, "A tattoo doesn't dictate what you choose to do with your life. It certainly can't tell you what kind of person you are. And you, Joe Dawson," he poked his friend in the arm amiably, "are a Watcher. Nothing and no one can burn that out of you." He smiled, and Joe tried to return it weakly.
"Even now?" His thumb rubbed harder over the scar.
Methos slowly nodded at the passionate calling in the eyes of his friend. "Especially now."
***
The man didn't need a name anymore. They all knew each other on sight by now. They had been brought here, to an empty city, its towers fallen to dust long ago. The man didn't care to think about how many times he'd seen cities crumble, over how many lifetimes it had been. This, it seemed, was the last. The Gathering had come, the Prize was near. The man was angry to be taken away from his current life. He didn't care about the Prize, he didn't care about the others, who were almost manic in their excitement to grasp it. The man just wanted to go home.
But fate had given him few options, and forfeit was not one of them. So he fought. Some were not as good a fighter as he was. Some were much better. But the man was smart, and ruthless, and wanted to live very much. He fought those he could beat, and managed to let the rest kill each other, until only one was left. This woman was very good, but the man had always been even luckier than he was smart, and his luck was with him that day.
The Prize was his. He could have cared less. Perhaps there was something to be said for that. You see, no one knew what the nature of the Prize really was. Some said that perhaps it was one specific thing, that many would find inconsequential or useless. Some said that perhaps it was simply what the recipient wanted most, in his heart of hearts.
Whatever the nature of the Prize, this was what the man received: knowledge. Not of vast universal truths, nor of the fate of the future. The man learned who it was that he killed, on the far side of a sand dune, ten thousand lifetimes ago. He learned the man's name, and in so doing, learned his own.
Because the man he killed was his brother.
The man found that his legs could no longer hold him. He fell to his knees, and cried out, "Oh God! Abel!" He put his face in his hands, and wept. "What have I done?"
And in the background, the last Watcher made his final entry, the mark of Cain bright on his wrist.
END.
***
From the New American Bible, Saint Joseph's Edition:
Book of Genesis, Chapter 4:
(13) Cain said to the LORD: "My punishment is too great to bear. (14) Since you have now banished me from the soil, and I must avoid your presence and become a restless wanderer on the earth, any one may kill me at sight." (15) "Not so!" the LORD said to him. "If any one kills Cain, Cain shall be avenged seven-fold." So the LORD put a mark* upon Cain, lest any one should kill him at sight. (16) Cain then left the LORD's presence and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
In the footnotes:
* A mark, probably a tattoo. The use of tattooing for tribal marks has always been common among the nomads of the near Eastern deserts.
***
Author's Note:
Adam and Eve bore another son after Cain and Abel, named Seth. Seth's lineage is described for nine generations in the fifth chapter of Genesis, with a precise age of death for each man in that lineage, including Seth and his father Adam.
Cain's lineage is found in chapter four, but though his line is described for six generations, there is curiously no mention of their deaths in any way.