Chapter 29

Within the Standing Stones, in the "before" time

Before D'jann had left the people... he had held one last ceremony. One to which Kritis, Havron, and Aja, had been brought. None of the other small ones were there... they must not see... they must not know... the changing was something revealed to Ga'el in the stone of seeing... and only those first three of the small ones were to learn of it at this time.

When the three had awakened from the changing... their palms were marked with their names and then their hands were bound one to another. Lightning and blood had mingled and filled them with a sense of completion.

"If I am right," said D'jann quietly to them in explanation, " You three will be the triad of a new group of the people even as I, Ga'el, and Morannon are for this one. In my wanderings, I will learn if groups of the people in other areas... also have small ones... if so... then all the people may be facing a new time as we grow to live in new places, guardians of the others... watchers of the holy sites. Perhaps you three are meant to lead a band of us to a new place."

He had left the next day... and two others had gone with him. When he'd first asked for volunteers to accompany him in the wandering... Aja had sensed that the idea appealed to Havron... as it always had. But her beloved had put his arm around her and held her tightly. "You are my dream and my vision... I need no other." So he had stayed... and now they'd been changed... ushered into the unchanging life of the elders. The three of them would now take the place of D'jann and those who wandered with him in the ceremonies.

Even more than before... Aja consistently was the one who found the small ones whenever they appeared. Some inner sense spoke to her... and she'd go the stones and collect the mewling infants. The magic of their creation... still something that none of the people could fathom. Aja would brush her fingers over their faces and feel the sign by which they would be known. She would place them with the pairs most likely to care for them and need them.

Gael did this less and less... becoming much more healer to the others. Less and less she looked into the stone of seeing... as if what she saw there troubled her. With D'jann gone and Kritis and Aja grown and on their own... she was alone. Into this loneliness came Morannon. He'd sit with her or share a meal, or walk with her amongst the others. He'd never united with another... he had always been the odd one out... the one for whom there was no mate. Over the years... he remained more and more with Ga'el. To the rest of the people... all was as it should be. They prospered... the winds were warm... the waters were clear... and their numbers continued to grow. As the years passed... more and more of the small ones grew to adulthood and one by one or two by two... they were changed to be forever unchanging.

Havron and Aja raised three sets of small ones who in their own time became unchanging. In recent years... another small one had come to them... one still small and helpless... a dark-haired girl-child who danced and sang... filling the hearts of all who saw her with love.

It was then... that D'jann returned... and the world as they had known it... ended.

Paris

Darkness had fallen in Paris. Around the edges of the draperies covering the windows, Methos could just make out the bright lights that lit up the Paris attractions. Eleanor stirred sleepily next to him... with every move... some part of her body slid against his and where the patterns touched one another between them... the visions of each other's past and the strange visions of long ago continued to occupy both their minds.

But the bonding ritual was at last complete. Now it was just a matter of exploring it... of letting it fully develop over the next few days... then... they could part. Methos could go on with his research for the answers to Darius' research... and Eleanor could get Derrick to safety. He wrapped a lock of her hair about his finger and smiled. She would always be a part of him now.

In the outer room he could sense both a pre-immortal and an immortal presence arriving. Methos focused on the sounds of voices to assure himself it was Phillip and Derrick and then relaxed as he identified Derrick's voice. They were back... they were safe.

He traced over the small scar below her right ear... unity. On their throats the two patterns they each wore had left small white scars. She smiled and shifted again as he touched the pattern... her right hand reached out and lazily ran down his chest... pausing momentarily at joy. She laughed... the sound of tinkling bells. He'd missed that laughter over the past few years.

A knock at the door caused him to groan in exasperation.

"Adam... Ellie..." Derrick's voice had an insistent edge to it.

Methos looked up... half-rising. "Kids!" he thought... "Why do they always want something at an inopportune time?" He said nothing aloud. Hopefully Phillip would distract the boy. His fingers continued to trail down Eleanor's bare back. One thing Methos had noticed... one thing he truly liked... Eleanor no longer curled into a ball. She seemed content to lay against him... skin to skin... pattern against pattern.

There was a second, more insistent knock... "Something's wrong... I need to talk... Ellie?"

Methos sprang up and grabbed the hastily discarded jeans from the floor and pulled them on...

fastening them as he headed to the door. He opened it sharply and stared at the boy's solemn face and at the still form of Phillip... gazing bleakly out the window. "What's wrong?" he pulled the door to the bedroom to softly... not noticing that it didn't latch as he crossed to Phillip.

Phillip turned and looked at him... almost blankly.

"He's been kinda funny all afternoon, Adam," Derrick said quietly. "I think something's wrong with him."

Methos clasped Phillip with both hands and gently turned the immortal to face him, noticing Phillip's blank expression. "Phillip...?"

The Greek's eyes slowly focused on his friend and he seemed to be struggling with a thought... a question... "The crystal... My Lady's crystal... Where is it?"

"The crystal?" For a moment, Methos was stunned. What did the crystal have to do with any of this? Phillip had helped him steal it from the Tower of London over five hundred years ago... but even then he'd had no interest in it. He'd held it... but unlike Methos and Eleanor... had seen nothing within it. It did not glow for him... it did not show him a vision of an ancient past or a scene from a far-off future. It had merely been a crystal... totally worthless... and of no practical use. Methos had never shared with Phillip that he'd seen a vision of the past in that stone... the same one he'd once seen as a boy. Nor, he was certain, had Eleanor shared the vision she'd had... that flash of a sword. That vision had terrified her as if the sword she had seen had come for her. She'd refused to ever touch the stone again. He'd explained to her a hundred or so years ago that the stone had been Aja's... but even then... Eleanor had been frightened of it... afraid to hold it again. "Why do you ask about that, Phillip?"

Phillip's face betrayed some struggle that he seemed to be going through. Finally he whispered, "She wants to know where it is."

"Who wants to know?"

Just then... Methos heard Derrick's tortured scream.

***

Adam was focused on Phillip. Adam would figure out what was wrong. What Derrick really wanted... now... this minute... was to see Ellie. He'd missed her all afternoon. He understood that grownups sometimes had to be by themselves and that they did things he did not entirely understand... He wanted Ellie to be happy... and Adam made her happy. She'd seemed so unhappy without him the last week or so... and Derrick had been happy to see that Adam had come to see her. He'd been happy for her, but he had missed her today. He wanted to show her his Eiffel Tower that he'd bought... he wanted her to hear all about his day.

The door was open a crack. Slowly Derrick opened it and called out softly as he entered, "Ellie..." A shaft of light from the outer room fell across the bed. Within that light... Derrick saw a horror from his nightmares.

There was blood all over the once white sheets of the bed... and within that blood lay Ellie. She lay naked on her stomach... one arm outstretched. Her eyes were closed. Derrick's mind shut down... all he knew was that Ellie was dead... as dead as the Ellie of his memories... She was dead and lying in a pool of her own blood! He opened his mouth and screamed! About him the darkened hotel room seemed to whirl and spin.

He could hear her, but she was dead... she was dead... she was dead! He collapsed.

***

Methos flipped on the lights as he re-entered the bedroom at the sound of Derrick's scream. What he saw made him pause.

Eleanor was kneeling on the floor cradling Derrick whose small body was jerking in violent spasms. His blue eyes stared blankly out of a pale face and a strangled cry emanated from the boy. But it was the sight of the bed that made Methos pause.

He had not realized how much blood they had spilt during the ritual. The room had been darkened and the two of them had both been focused on the visions they were sharing. They'd been at it most of the day... Methos glanced at his own arms even as he knelt beside Eleanor. Smears of blood were on them... just as they were on her... all over her.

Derrick continued to jerk as if in a Fugue State, totally oblivious to Eleanor's voice or caresses.

"I'll take him." Suddenly all efficiency, Methos scooped the boy into his arms and stood to take him into the other bedroom... out of this one.

Eleanor rose to follow. "Get cleaned up first." His voice was sharp with her... but it wasn't at her he was angry, so much as with himself for not having considered the boy's curiosity and his attachment to Eleanor.

As he passed Phillip... the Greek, staring at the bloodied bed, murmured, "By the gods what have you two been doing?"

Methos spared him only a glare as he brushed past him taking the boy out of the room. He lay him on one of the beds in the suite's other bedroom, quickly feeling the boy's pulse. It was strong and steady... unlike the de Pres girl yesterday. This was not shock... so much as a total withdrawal mentally from the world. The boy just jerked and seemed unaware of surroundings. Gradually he seemed to tire as the ragged breaths came slower and slower and the jerking motions less severe. But still there was no sign of cognizance in his eyes.

Eleanor, wrapped now in a hotel terry-cloth robe... her dark hair still wetly plastered about her head, rushed in. She slid onto the other side of the bed and felt Derrick's forehead.

"Derrick... Derrick love... I'm here Derrick... I'm here... I'll always be here. I'm fine... I'm not hurt." Her soft voice continued to murmur platitudes as she kissed his forehead and stroked the side of his face. "Derrick... it's okay... It's all okay."

Methos could feel within him her focus on the boy... on taking care of him... her compassion. It mirrored his own. Looking down at his own bloodied arms... he finally said quietly, "I'm going to clean up now... Will you be all right watching him?"

"We'll be fine." Her focus was still on the boy. Gently Methos clasped her shoulder. He did not know what to say... but then he realized he didn't have to say anything... she knew how he felt... as surely as he knew how she did.

Even as he turned to leave the room, he heard her say, "Methos..." he paused and looked back at her. Her green eyes glittered above a small smile. Eleanor mouthed at him, "I love you." Then she returned her attention to the boy. Methos returned her smile, although she did not see it, and sent his own feelings out to her as well.

As he passed through their bedroom to shower, he chuckled at Phillip who was busy stripping the bed. "I don't know what we're gonna tell hotel housekeeping... " the Greek was saying, "There are bound to be questions. Whatever you two were doing... couldn't it have waited?"

Methos shrugged. "Not really."

Phillip suddenly tossed the gathered linens down on the bed and crossed to Methos, swiftly drawing his sword in a fluid motion as he approached the ancient. In one motion he had the elder immortal against the wall with his blade at his throat. Methos stood quietly... but his heart was pounding and his mouth was dry.

"If you ever hurt her... I will take your head... and you know I can!" Phillip's expression seemed almost feral for a moment and his words were little more than a dark hiss.

Methos did not move. Finally, Phillip dropped his blade away from the ancient's neck and stepped back still glaring. Methos carefully rubbed his neck and glared back at the Greek. "If you try that again... I suggest you do so when Eleanor is not around. If you do try it... she may very well take your head."

Then he entered the bathroom, shutting the door as he started the water for his shower. He had some additional questions for Phillip... but they'd have to wait for the moment. Wait for both of them to calm down.