Entr'acte
Arabian Peninsula, ca. 930 b.c.e.
Old Mother was dead.
Quite out of character, she had at last after nearly sixty years of slavery within the Horseman's Camp, defied Kronos. And Kronos had killed her as calmly and as efficiently as he would have brushed aside an overhanging branch if it were in his way.
Methos removed his cloak, wrapping her body within it as he lifted her remains into his strong arms to carry off. Near him Silas was bawling and Caspian was silent and brooding... each was mourning the old woman in his own way.
"Leave her!" Kronos said, casually wiping the blood from his sword.
"And let her body rot in the midst of this camp and draw carrion?" Methos snorted. "I think not." He strode purposely out of the camp and down into a nearby dry ravine where Old Mother had recently told him water had once flowed.
"It is the most powerful of all the elements," she'd cackled as she handed him a small stone. "Water has the power of life... water can cover the earth and quench fire. Water is."
"What about the wind Old Mother? What power over wind does water have?" He'd chuckled... wondering at what she would have to say.
She'd grinned at him as she'd stood, holding the bundle of firewood she'd gathered in her bony arms, "Oh... wind may ruffle the waves... but water is deep and for the most part... simply ignores the wind. It passes you know. The wind is the agent of change... earth endures... fire rages... but water can cover them all." She'd headed back to the camp then. Was that only a few days ago?
Methos had remained sitting in the ravine that day, troubled by her words and wondering why they struck a chord within him. Now he laid her body to one side and began digging a shallow grave... scooping out the dry sandy soil. She was dead and it was all he could do for her. He would not leave her to the vultures or the scavengers... he would bury her in the earth in a place to which water might one day return.
"That pebble was once a mountain," she'd said that day. That was what had started the conversation. She was always starting conversations with him that seemed to be more than small talk. He had always liked to listen to her. Even when she was young, and first captured in a raid, she'd made him think.
For a moment he saw her as he had first seen her, a small dark-haired girl with strange green eyes. They occasionally saw women with green eyes in this land where eyes were mostly brown. The immortal slave Cassandra had possessed green eyes. But this girl was mortal. At first she'd seemed so small and frightened that Methos had decided she'd barely last a week among them.
But the girl had endured. She'd moved without complaint among them... at first simply something to be used and tossed aside. Quietly she submitted to Kronos enduring and accepting whatever demands he made on her. But with Caspian she'd learned to calm his rages and headaches... holding his head in her small lap and whispering to him... giving him brews that helped him sleep. Silas she bossed... reminding him to pick up after himself... as if she were some sort of big sister who was watching over him. The site of the tiny mortal girl telling the huge Silas what to do had always been amusing to the other horsemen. But when she was with Methos she had simply been... sometimes telling stories or somehow parables that mirrored his own thoughts and confusions. Lying with him in the night... she had told wondrous tales that had ignited his imagination.
Ever since the debacle with Cassandra... Methos had been torn between remaining and wanting to move on. Cassandra had re-awakened within him that memory of older days... long before he'd joined his fate to Kronos and the others. He'd moved through this immortal life without friends and attachments... afraid to remain too long in one spot... lonely... always searching for something. When he'd found Kronos... or Kronos had found him... what the other offered was a brotherhood and a belonging that would span the centuries. Friendship that would endure! Yet... as the centuries passed... Methos had begun to despair even of this existence. Cassandra's presence here had brought it to a head. He had betrayed her to ensure his own survival... but the memory of that betrayal remained with him and he began to spend more and more time alone.
It was then that green-eyed girl had been captured. Silas gave her the name Mynishka... green-eyed woman... it was all the name she had ever needed among them. Instinctively she seemed to know how to survive each of her captors. She offered only what each of them needed or expected. As she aged... it was those qualities that had kept her with them. For Kronos she ran the camp and kept the other slaves in line so that they were all quiet and submissive and serving him. For Caspian she was the only one who could ease the strange passions and terrors in his mind. For Silas she was his mother... and in time that is what he called her... forgetting the first name so that she was Old Mother... the white-haired crone who kept him in line. And to Methos she became a teacher. It had been years since any of them had taken her to their bed. Yet, she was a part of them all.
Methos laid her body in the depression he'd dug... still wrapped in his cloak. He did not wish her to lie only in the earth. She should have some dignity in death. He opened the cloak and straightened her limbs... carefully folding her arms over her chest and hiding the wound where Kronos' sword had entered. Behind him he felt Silas approach. The giant held out some flowers he had gathered.
"She liked flowers Methos. She should have flowers on her final journey," the big man said sadly. He was like a child sometimes... Methos wondered if he even understood the ramifications of what they as the horsemen did... or if it was all simply a child's game to him. Methos accepted the flowers and placed them in Old Mother's dead hands... wishing he too had some gift to leave with her. But he had nothing.
"Where's Caspian?"
"Slashing away at something or other. I think he is having one of the fits he sometimes has."
Methos nodded. Caspian wouldn't come. Nor would Kronos. He was likely too busy with his latest acquisition anyway. Why had Old Mother defied him? What had she hoped to gain by dying in this way?
Methos re-covered her with his now bloody cape so that no earth would fall into her face when he buried her, and with Silas' help re-filled the grave. Gathering what rocks they could find to prevent scavengers from digging up her body, they worked through the afternoon and into the evening. At last it was done. The sun sank into a reddened horizon and long shadows began to cover the earth. He had no words nor prayers nor songs for her. She was a non-entity that had briefly touched their lives and was now gone... and yet...
The immortal who claimed the title Death and who visited such on all he saw unless they pleased him was poised as on the edge of a cliff. With destruction and chaos... fire... at his back... there was no escape... nowhere to go... except to take a leap of faith... But... Methos wondered if he had that faith... enough faith to leave the empty existence his life here had become and move on. Could he at last break the hold that Kronos had on him... catering to his intelligence and vanity? Could Methos at last break free and search for fulfillment in the unknown?
"We go back now?" asked Silas, breaking into Methos' reverie.
Methos looked at the giant and smiled. "Back? If we go forever back... we will never find the answers."
"Answers? Answers to what?" Silas' seemingly impossibly deep voice echoed and rumbled within his chest.
"The meaning of it all." Methos had stood then and clasped his brother on the shoulder with a smile. They'd returned to the camp... but the ancient immortal had made his decision. With the next opportunity he was gone from this place. He would make the leap from the cliff and seek answers elsewhere. They were not here. They had never been here. But he had needed to experience this life to know that this was not the answer... that death on a grand scale... no matter how enticing it was... no matter how much he enjoyed having that power over others... was not the road he needed to trod.
"The water is deep Methos..." Old Mother had said that day as she had left him. "It covers the earth and quenches the fire and ignores the wind. Wind and fire are always rushing through bringing change. Earth and water endure... but within water lie the answers."
***
Returning to the camp... Methos did not see nor did he feel the presence of the immortal woman who came to stand over the grave of Old Mother in the gathering darkness. Even as the stars began their nightly vigil... the figure, leaning on a great staff sighed and murmured.
"My thanks child of the others for your sacrifice. For it is by this that the boy is reclaimed. Thus there may yet be hope for us all." The moon rose and in its pale light... Aja... first daughter of the people continued her lonely journey across the desert of the world once more.
