Part Four: Sword of Vengeance
" ...[In him] all [shall] meet, Their ancient feuds forgetting,
To plowshare beat the sword, To pruning hook the spear."
~from Christ Is the World's True Light, lyrics by G.W. Briggs
Isle of Britain, Avalon
In one spot, far above his head, Kae Dhun could see that the blue sky... was just a little more blue. He'd almost missed seeing it. Had it not been for his happening to toss rocks at the invisible wall that separated his summer prison from the rest of the mortal world... he might well have missed it.
As it was, it was small... too small to climb through... and far too high for Kae to reach anyway. But once he'd seen it... he'd smiled, a wicked gleam in his dark eyes. The power of the ancient immortal that held him in this place must be waning. And if it were waning... then he would be free.
Carefully he aimed a rock at the patch of blue... and when it passed harmlessly through the barrier to land on the ground outside with a thud... he'd known he was right. Kae felt like celebrating... He returned to the small stone hovel that served as his shelter, and grasped a burning brand... Gleefully he set fire to everything.
He'd not done this in some time. It still amazed him that although he could destroy everything... kill all life that was in this one moment of time in which he found himself imprisoned... when he woke from sleep... all was as it had been when first he'd stumbled into this prison seeking his stolen sword.
He'd found it... and killed the two inhabitants who dwelt here... those two old immortals who'd offered no resistance to their deaths. They'd robbed him of his feelings of victory by their submission to his sword-stroke. But it mattered little. Their quickening was a part of him now. He'd not let their lives twist him into something else... he'd twisted them... as he had once twisted the old one... the one he'd first taken.
As darkness fell and the flames of the burning landscape leapt high into the night... Kae felt his patience had been rewarded. Though he'd been a prisoner for decades in this summer-drenched prison... it had been nothing compared to the centuries he'd endured as a prisoner under the mountain which that first massive quickening had brought down on his head. If he'd the patience to endure that prison... then he'd endure this one.
"I am the stronger!" he yelled into the night, his words aimed at the pathetic old ones he'd killed... and at the one whose power kept him here. "I remain while you are nothing! I will be free once more... and I will kill them all. I will be the one!"
Eventually Kae Dhun slept, and when he'd awakened... the world was once more a glorious summer day... the trees were still laden with fruit, the hovel stood undamaged, the fish remained swimming in the lake, and that damned goat was bleating... wanting to be milked.
Kae grinned... and wandered down to the barrier. The patch of blue on blue was slightly bigger he thought. In a year... perhaps two... maybe three... it would be big enough... and when it was big enough... he'd find a way to reach it.
From his various imprisonments, Kae had learned one very important thing. He'd learned patience. He had his sword, he'd be free... First he'd travel south to find the thief, if he still lived, and make him pay. In Kae Dhun's mind... the thief, the one who'd robbed him of his sword so long ago, that boy was the cause of all his problems. And that boy would pay! He could not huddle on holy ground forever. None of them could.
Within him... Kae felt a moment of laughter from the Ancient One. Swiftly Kae twisted it down. "I am victor here... you are nothing," he whispered to it. "I rule... your power serves me." He glared and considered once more burning the glade... just for the fun of it. Perhaps that would weaken the barrier still further... making his eventual escape come all the sooner.
Paris, June 1832
Darius had donned his peasant's clothes, slipping through the darkness of Paris to check with some of his operatives. He'd become a little more outgoing in the face of the recent unrest. He'd always managed to be out and about Paris under cover of darkness... but recently, as the civil unrest had grown... he'd found himself hanging on the fringes of groups at some of the taverns... listening. The students had the right ideas... he just didn't believe, that their impassioned words nor their half-baked schemes of civil revolt would ever get them what they wanted.
Most of these young people had no idea what the Revolution had been like. They saw it only as the means by which the common people had arisen and banded together to end a corrupt government. They did not see the excesses... the horrors... the depths... to which it had fallen. Nor did they appreciate that those who had come to power in that revolution... had themselves been deposed. The students had a romantic notion about what a revolution was... not a realistic one.
Darius glanced in briefly at Le Chevrie Noir intending only to see if Dulon were about when he'd felt a lilting presence amongst the students. Instantly drawing back into the shadows, he gazed over the crowd, concerned as to who was about. That's when he saw her... small, dark-haired, green-eyed Eleanor... his student.
She was focused so totally on the speaker... a handsome young man, well-dressed with wavy brown hair, a pleasant and cultured voice, an aquiline nose above full lips... that Darius began to doubt she was even aware he was there.
Then Eleanor glanced in the priest's direction... and smiled. She knew... how could he have ever doubted it.
After the student oration had reached a fever pitch, and the young men at the tavern were roused up and singing as if songs alone could manage to topple a government... Eleanor quietly joined Darius in the shadows.
"You are out early this evening mon ami, you should be more careful." Eleanor whispered conspiratorially. "Someone will see you, or notice you are not at home."
"There are things that need doing... things only I can do."
Eleanor rubbed her arms as she adjusted her thin shawl over her shoulders and shook her head; a lock of dark hair fell from under the dust cap that covered it. "All you need do is ask. You know I will help."
"And this...," Darius gestured toward the students, several of whom were now standing on chairs and tables, lifting their drinks as their songs rose in the night air. "How is this helping?"
"They are right... things need to change. You've seen the conditions most people still live in. How can you who have seen so much and try so hard to make things better not see this?" Eleanor's pleading voice rose slightly... she glanced about and lowered her voice once more. "I cannot just sit in the shadows... I've seen too much... in my life... I need to help. I need to make a difference."
"They are doomed Eleanor.... They are dreamers whose revolution will be little more than an insurrection and a footnote in history. In two hundred years... no one will remember it at all."
Eleanor straightened and smiled at him sadly with a nod. "Perhaps... or perhaps they will be remembered because they were right... even if they fail." She brushed past him, sauntering into the warm summer night. Darius watched sadly as she left. He remained where he was, choosing instead to listen to the students' singing for some moments longer... and then he returned to his rounds. He still had people to see... and intelligence to gather. He needed to get what he could before the students' anger grew so strong... that the government would have no choice but to clamp down. When they did so... even he would have difficulty getting about the city. If the barricades arose once more... many would die.
Three hours later... Darius slipped into the sewers he knew so well... and made his way swiftly along the underground passages into the old city... and home. His old student and companion Grayson was in Paris... and was supplying the students with weapons and ammunition, likely hoping that the revolt might bring Darius off of holy ground to become involved.
Cleaned up and dressed once more in his clerical garb... Darius heated water for tea and considered Grayson's involvement as he nibbled on some bread and cheese. That his old comrade had two purposes in his involvement was quite clear. One... he wished to draw Darius off holy ground... so Darius would need to stay close to the church for the foreseeable future... otherwise... Grayson would strike. He didn't think it was his death his old student wanted so badly... as to force Darius' return to the game... thereby negating any good that he could do here. The second reason likely had to do with money. Knowing Grayson, Darius felt his former friend had bought cheap and was selling dear. Wealth and power seemed to be what inspired Grayson these days. And what fueled him? His need to destroy Darius. Well Darius would not let that happen. He could deal with Grayson... and part him hoped that one day... the man would see the truth of what Darius had learned through the Ancient's quickening... that Grayson would join Darius once more... at his right hand... and work to end the game.
Thoughts of the game reminded him of Eleanor's involvement in this fiasco. The girl had remained here for the most part, for almost six hundred and fifty years. Oh she left periodically... suddenly and without warning... but she always returned. Right now... Darius wished she weren't here. If Grayson were lurking about... if he noticed her... if he learned she was one of the priest's students... he'd challenge her. Although Eleanor was nearly a thousand years old... she'd yet to enter the game.
Darius wondered if it had been his teachings, which had kept her from doing so. Part of him hoped so... but part of him also worried that it might have been an error on his part to keep her from the game. Forty years ago she'd been badly burned in a fire... burned to death actually... and had healed only slowly and painfully... much more so than he'd ever seen in an immortal. Had his teachings rendered her helpless in such circumstances? Did that mean there was a limit to their immortality? Did it mean that aging and death might be possible in those who did not enter the game? The thoughts had intrigued him for decades.
As had Eleanor herself.
From the first moment he'd seen her, standing in a patch of sunlight, which had broken forth from a cloudy sky, he'd felt as if he knew her somehow. Even as light had broken over her small cloaked form, his heart had leaped for joy and his burden of bringing peace to the world had seemed lighter. As he'd gotten to know her... he'd sensed great capabilities in her and perhaps a destiny he could only imagine.
Then he'd seen her dance masked before a fire... an ancient dance that somehow he knew... even as he'd watched... and in that moment of recognizing that dance... he'd recalled a vision he'd seen as a boy. The old woman he'd once known as Anya... the ancient immortal Aja... had shown him this moment and warned him he might have to make a choice.
Darius had felt desire rise in him for her at that moment... a desire he'd not felt for anyone physically in eight hundred years. He'd kissed her... and then walked away. In the darkness of the lonely night that followed, he'd chosen to remain where he was. For the chance to achieve peace for all immortals... he needed to be the visible symbol of that peace. If he chose to be with Eleanor... then he'd simply be another immortal... attempting to survive on the outskirts of the game.
He'd kept his feelings and his desires carefully harnessed after that. Always he'd urged her to go into the outer world... to be with others... especially the immortal she'd once been married to in her mortal existence... the immortal Darius had once known as Antoninus... the immortal he now knew was Methos... the eldest of those who remained.
Within the priest was an understanding that the ancient ones had hopes for Methos and Eleanor... but hopes, which Darius did not completely understand. He also understood that his interference in that plan might only alter it... delay it... but not end it. In the years since that night, Darius' feelings for Eleanor had never dimmed. He longed to be more than simply her friend... and he knew there were times she longed for it as well. But he made no movement... he never acted on her silent invitation... and turned a deaf ear to her pleas that he leave Paris with her. Yet there were times... when leaving here with her was almost too great a temptation.
Tonight was one of those times.
Part of all he was wished to take her in his arms and vanish into the night... never again to be seen by the eyes of mortal men. Some part of him wondered if in all the world there might be such a place where immortals could live in safety. Darius wondered if there were a place set apart from the events that shaped human existence, attune only to the natural world, where all immortals might live in a community where they did not feel the need to kill one another. Was there a place where there was no imperative to be "the one"... where they could all live forever?
Rubbing a hand over his forehead, Darius tried to dispel the thoughts which consumed him... and focus on the here and now. Eleanor was right about one thing. Immortals could not sit forever on the sidelines... they needed... he needed... to be involved in the events of men. He needed to be certain that light remained in the world... that joy was a part of life... and that he... as a beacon of the possibility of peace for their kind... forever shone.
Freedom had come at last... and with it... Kae had slaked his bloodlust with anyone... anyone who made the mistake of crossing his path. The petty mortals he met on his focused journey across the island paid with their lives. Kae slashed at them without care... taking what he wanted or needed... be it clothes, money, women... food. If authorities pursued him... they died as well. He was in no mood to be delayed any further.
Crossing the thin body of water the people of this time called "the Channel" Kae Dhun arrived once more on the continent... and focused his attention on the old city called Paris... already in a civil upheaval.
"Excellent," he smiled. "No one will stop me or deter me or even notice my passing for all the other slaughter going on." He had not counted on the barricades.
The behemoth constructions of the detritus of life were everywhere throughout the city... and ardent young mortals... determined to change the system... huddled behind them... shooting at anyone who dared venture onto the killing ground before them.
Kae had been shot once. It was a new experience... this being killed by something launched by means of gunpowder from a slender stick. Mankind had developed ever more efficient ways of killing one another. Upon reviving... he'd crawled to a hiding place where he'd glared at the impediment before him. He'd need a new plan if he were to reach the thief. Already Kae's mind filled with scenes of the thief on his knees... begging for his life... offering anything to Kae... but the Oriental wanted only the other's head... and quickening. He would drag him from that mausoleum of a church he lived at and once in the street... Kae would finally have his long-denied vengeance. "You can run... little thief... but I will find you. You cannot hide from me!" But first he had to find a way past the obstructions in his path.
Removing a uniform from a nearby dead body... Kae Dhun slipped among the ranks of the soldiers attacking the barricades. He watched how to operate the "guns" and soon was rather enjoying himself.
When the barricades went up... and shots were heard all over Paris, Darius stood at the door of his church... welcoming those who were fleeing the madness. Women with small children, the elderly, the poor, and the sick, sought refuge on holy ground... praying that the violence in the streets would not reach here. Some wept, telling the priest their sons... or their fathers... or their husbands... had gone to the barricades... either as defendants... or as soldiers.
Shopkeepers and their clerks had taken up positions inside some of their stores... desperate to protect their goods. Others were letting their places of business serve as command posts for one side or the other. Some had taken up weapons... and were even now sniping at people in the streets. The sound of gunfire was everywhere.
Concentrating on his parishioners... Darius ignored the rising feel of another immortal until it was so close he knew the other had to be within the church. Glancing around... the priest noticed Grayson kneeling at the foot of a statue in one of the apses. Darius excused himself and crossed the nave to stand quietly over his old comrade in arms.
"I had hoped we would have a quiet moment to talk... old friend," Grayson said flatly.
"I'm rather busy at the moment. But if it's important." Darius slipped his hands inside the sleeves of his cassock and waited patiently. Whatever plan Grayson had formulated... the priest had to be ready for it. "I always have time for old friends."
Grayson chuckled and rose. He smirked as he circled Darius. "The world devolves in chaos... Men kill for a piece of bread... a drink of clean water... a spot of ground they can call their own. Not just here, Darius, but throughout the world. You're huddling here helps no one. Take up your sword once more. Conquer them all... govern them all. You can issue commands of peace, formulate laws of justice in this world if you so desire... if you but stretch forth your hand to grasp it."
"And how would raging over the world... killing, pillaging, and raping... ever bring the world peace?"
"The means of achieving peace cannot be peaceful. If you conquer... then you rule... and all will obey."
"Even you?" Darius' words brought Grayson's circling to a halt.
"We would rule all mankind. One by one... we could face the others of our kind and defeat them. If we work together Darius... we can achieve greatness!"
"And in the end?"
"In the end... we will strive for the final prize... you and I... I swear to you... as I have always sworn... I will never lift a sword against you until that final battle. When we are all that remain... only then... because it must be done... will I fight you." Grayson leaned closely into Darius' face. "I have seen the tiny one Darius... such a small wisp of a thing... I have seen how your eyes follow her where she walks. Come with me now... and I will leave her for you. Remain here... and she is mine."
Darius' widened eyes betrayed his fear. "She is not in the game, Grayson... Leave her be."
"I think not. You must decide Darius... Which is more important to you... your remaining here, her life, or a world we can rule together someday... Perhaps our final battle could be over which of us would possess her." Grayson smiled, replaced his tall hat, and sauntered from the church. He smiled; knowing his words had achieved their intended effect.
Darius backed up a few steps until he felt the stone wall at his back. For a moment he felt truly and utterly trapped. About him the mortals prayed as their children cried, and he knew his place was here... with them. But his heart and soul was on the barricade.
In a moment of decision... Darius threaded his way through the mass of humanity and into his cell... softly closing the door behind him. Grayson might not know about the sewer passages. He'd be watching for Darius to come out... Did the priest dare to leave by means of his secret passage? What if Grayson returned... he'd know Darius had gone? Would he search?
Darius had no time to think this through. Grayson was likely on his way to the barricades, if he'd seen her... he'd know that Eleanor was likely on one near Le Chevrie Noir. He had to get to her and get her away from there. Pulling out the stone, Darius pulled at the iron ring, and then replaced the stone carefully as he stepped through the narrow passage. Inside... he shut the opening and descended the steps... already pulling at his cassock to remove it.
Where once he'd had time to watch and wait... suddenly he felt as if there were no time... no time at all. Even within him... the memories of the ancient ones he held stirred uneasily... as if contemplating the death of this child were something they could not endure.
He came up in an alleyway not far from Le Chevrie Noir and looked around. He could barely sense her... but it had to be her! Slowly he slipped along one side of the street... hugging the buildings as shots continued to ring out about him... both from the barricade... and from the windows overhead. The air was thick with smoke and the smell of gunpowder. About him on the street, lay the bodies of the dead and the dying. Still Darius closed in on the immortal presence ahead.
Eleanor reached out and grabbed Darius into the shadows.
"What are you doing here, mon ami?"
"I came to see if you were all right. There is an immortal out there... and I think he is hunting." Darius needed to get her attention quickly. He'd explain everything later.
"I know... he was near here earlier. But if that is so this is the last place you need to be. How did you get here?"
Darius glanced at the barricade a moment... She'd already felt him? How had Grayson gotten here so swiftly? Did he have contacts? Or had he come through the sewers as well? Darius stared at the street thinking feverishly.
"Well go back the way you came. Everyone here will die tomorrow."
Darius met her gaze. Whether or not she'd felt Grayson, this barricade was no longer safe for Eleanor... if it had ever been. "Then come with me... this immortal seems to be with the armee' or the police. He would use the opportunity to end your life."
"I'm not like you mon ami. I cannot just sit by and let the world come to me. I have to help. Wasn't it you that taught me that once? Now go home!" She pushed him away slightly with a sad smile.
As another volley rang out, Darius saw one of the students fall. Eleanor raced out to gather him up. But as she did so, one of the shots also found her. She spun in the impact... her eyes met his as the red bloom spread across her bosom. Even as she collapsed, Darius reached for her and called her name. Gathering her up into his arms... he raced back to the shadows... then made his way along the wall to the alley. Once there... Darius reopened the sewer grate and dropped Eleanor into the rushing water below. As she was swept away... he lowered himself and pulled the grate back into place. He hung for a moment, to get his bearings, then dropped and followed the flow of water.
Her body was cast up on a spit of refuse in the darkness. Darius clambered up beside her and sat... catching his breath. He pulled her up into his arms and waited. It had taken her such a long time to come back the last time... when she'd died in the fire... as yet he could sense no spark of returning life. About him he heard the skittering of the hungry rats. He'd have to keep them away...
Once he'd recovered his strength, the immortal gathered Eleanor's body into his arms once more and began splashing through the water in the passages... seeking those which would take them both back to St. Julien's and the secret grove with its hidden spring.
When he felt the spark of life returning to her. He set her body down to await her revival. In the distance, Darius thought he felt another. He rose, staring off into the darkness, aware now that they were being followed.
Behind him Eleanor gasped as she drew in that first breath and then began coughing.
As she sat up, still holding her side. Darius crouched beside her to urge her to get up and moving. "We have to keep moving!"
"Why?"
"He is coming... the other one... I think he followed us down here."
Eleanor nodded and rose.
"Are you armed?" Darius asked suddenly, wondering if they would to resort to the rules of the game if the other found them.
"My knife... I fear my sword is likely still on the barricade unless you found my cape...?" she grinned. "Are you?"
"Of course not... We need to go. Let's see if I can remember the best way to get us out of here."
Darius knew the sewers like the back of his hand. He had used them for centuries as a way to travel to distant parts of Paris. It was how he would lose his Watchers occasionally. Of course... he would always re-surface at the church as if he had never left. But he needed to get his bearings and consider what to do, ... if Grayson or some other immortal had followed them down here, then he was hunting for them... They needed to put additional distance between themselves and him... either that or Darius needed to find the closest holy ground. He clasped her hand firmly and pulled her along behind him.
They splashed through the water as they turned left for a short distance, then right, then left again. Darius would feel the walls occasionally, searching for notches or markings that helped him find his way in the darkness. He could still feel the barest sense of another following them.
Then the following presence faded for a moment. Darius stopped and whispered. "There are some catacombs off to the right. Should we chance those and hope he misses us?"
Eleanor nodded her agreement. In the eerie phosphorescent glow, her face was still etched with pain. Darius knew she was not fully healed. The ground rose beneath their feet and they finally climbed out of the murky water for a time. Soon they were in a small chamber set off from the sewer proper. It looked like a flood had at one time broken down the wall between the catacomb and the sewer so that one could pass from one into the other.
As soon as Darius set foot in the safety of the ancient burial site, Eleanor held up and backed away a step.
"Eleanor... where are you going?" Darius said.
"I'll lead him away... stay still for now... I'll be back later." Then impulsively she leaned in and kissed him full on the mouth.
For a moment he responded then he held her tightly and whispered. "Stay here with me...here where we will both be safe... trust me to take care of this."
"No... you must trust me to take care of this... I can you know... I can." Before he could stop her, Eleanor pulled loose from his grasp then turned and ran back to where the water still covered the way.
Darius stared after her retreating form. He started after her... then sensing the other... halted... waiting. Slowly Darius retreated once more to the catacombs... hoping to draw him his way. Whoever this was... he'd deal with him... disable him... leave him here... If it were Grayson... he'd do whatever he had to do to keep Eleanor safe... even rejoin the game. If it was another? Then he might yet find another way out of this situation. The main thing was to draw their pursuer after him... keep him from following her. It worked... the torch came in his direction. The immortal must have sensed the priest.
Within the flickering torchlight Darius saw an Oriental immortal whose face he'd not seen before. The priest centered himself and waited.
"Come out thief... you stole my sword... but as you can see... I have it back. Your head is mine."
Darius shook his head. "I do not know you..."
"But you know my sword!" The immortal lifted a sword that as familiar to Darius as his own arm. It was the sword that, as a boy, he taken from a burial mound where the mountain had fallen near his home. A sword given to him to keep by an old traveling woman he now knew was the ancient immortal Aja. He had given it back to her long ago.
"It may return to claim your life one day," she'd said sadly when he had done so.
In the torchlight Darius stared at the sword and nodded in understanding. "Then it was you in that barrow... buried in the earth." The arm that had flailed at him that long ago day had belonged to an immortal... this immortal.
The man threw back his head and laughed. "It was I who killed Kritis, first born of the ancients. His sword is mine by right! And so are you! And... your little friend back there!"
Darius nodded, he'd have to deal with this one somehow... and quickly. Aja had told him the sword could never hurt him... as long as he held it... would he have to reclaim it here? What would happen once he did so? Within him the voice of the ancients whispered, "Fear not, reach for it... take it back... accept it once more and this one cannot hurt you. Kill him and make us whole. He will help... our brother longs for us... as we long for him."
Before Darius could move, Eleanor leapt quickly out of the darkness and threw her knife solidly into the man's back. The knife hit its target! The immortal roared and turned on her as she came at him. He shifted suddenly, and lashed out at her, not with the sword, but with his other arm. He tangled her hair in his hand and forced her to the ground. The sword came sweeping to her neck... then halted, just barely touching her skin.
The immortal met Darius' eyes and laughed. "What's it to be thief. Do you stay where you are and watch me kill her? Or, do you come out of there and face me?"
Darius knew the moment of choice had come. His voice was laced with sadness. "I will come... but first let her go."
The Oriental immortal grinned, "No... you come... then she can stand where you stand now and she can watch me take your head."
Within him the ancients whispered, "Trust us Darius, he can not hurt you. We will not let him." Darius nodded, "I will come." He spread his arms wide and stepped forward... off of holy ground.
Yelling, "No!" Eleanor twisted, lashing out with one foot so that she solidly connected with the immortal's gut. The immortal doubled over. Even before Darius could intervene, she leaped into the air and kicked with the other foot to disarm him in one of her teacher Phillip's patented moves. The sword flew into the air, turned and came down pommel first into her waiting hand. She flipped it around and with both hands slashed with all her might at the immortal's neck. The blade sliced cleanly all the way through.
Darius cried out, "No Eleanor!" But it was already done. Sadly Darius retreated from her onto the holy ground of the catacomb. His eyes were closed. Within him... the ancients were wailing. The centuries of peace were lost and they raged in torment and loss... screaming unheard on the wind... except by him. Opening his eyes he watched the quickening take her... knowing it would be as massive as that last one he'd taken... worried as to what it would do.
On and on it went... the earth shook and fire laced along the catacomb and sewer walls... oil on the surface of the water ignited... sparks flickered as moss and algae flamed and died. Finally, the power died away, and he could see her huddled in a pool of water. Darius leaned over her, "Eleanor... are you all right?" He reached to touch her.
Eleanor scrambled away. "Nooo!" she answered. Wild-eyes she stared at him and hissed... baring her teeth. She scrambled to her feet and backed away from Darius to stand flush with a wall.
Darius slowly took a step toward her. She needed him, now more than ever. He reached for her... inside his mind the ancients still wailed.
Turning to face the wall, she put her hands to her head and moaned, "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" Eleanor turned and ran, slipping on the wet stones, and into the waters. She ran into the darkness screaming!
Confused, Darius watched her go. He called after her, but heard only the echo of his voice in the darkness. He tried to recall his own sense of euphoria when he had killed the ancient so long ago. There had been one moment of crystal clarity, wherein he'd understood Havron's peace of mind... and then the peace had been with him. There had been no terror... but then... he'd had many quickenings... this was Eleanor's first.
Darius reached down and lifted the sword. "All this for a sword?" He said aloud... wondering why it was this thing so bothered other immortals. He'd seen immortals eye it over the centuries he had carried it. They would stare at it and lick their lips as if that sword were the answer to all their desires. He'd seen a few consumed by it... saying it spoke to them. But Darius had never heard it speak. Even now... it was only a sword. Still... he could not leave it here for someone else to find.
The immortal's corpse, however, he left where it was. The Paris sewers and its inhabitants would deal with it soon enough... already the rats were coming. Darius made his way back through the sewers... and climbed the stair to the secret grove, thinking Eleanor would be there. But she wasn't.
Darius crossed the grove to the spring and stared at the spot where he'd buried the ashes of the ancients. He chuckled, laughing briefly at the absurdity of what had happened. Why had they wanted the other? It made no sense to him. Had they thought that he, with their help could have held him? Evidently Eleanor would need his help, though he was confused as to why she had fled. The ancient's voices within him merely continued to wail mindlessly. He held out the sword, smiling in the familiar feel of it in his hand, even after so many centuries. Reverently he placed it within the healing waters of the spring. Perhaps the power of the stream could cleanse the sword of the blood and the voices that other's heard from it. Perhaps that would help. He sat on the stones, letting the water flow over his hands as he waited a bit for Eleanor. When she did not come, he then returned to his church via the tunnel that ran from under the street between the grove and St. Julien.
As darkness had fallen, and the guns went mostly silent, the parishioners had left the church. Darius straightened the chairs and swept the floors... all the while waiting... wondering where she was. Finally weary from the events of the day, he returned to his cell and flung himself into a chair. He closed his eyes and waited. She would come... she would come.
"You cannot help her," whispered the voices in the darkness, finally ceasing their wailing to make sense once more. "She is lost to us for the moment. Until she can harness the power and control him... he rules her actions."
"Why can I not help her?" Darius said aloud... breaking the stillness of the night.
"The other wishes to kill you, child... and she cannot stop him... not yet. He was stronger and more devious than we expected. You and we could have controlled him... but she cannot... not yet."
"What must I do?"
"Let her go... for now." Darius closed his eyes and wept.
Like a hurricane he could sense her coming. She stormed into the church and beat on his door screaming. "Come to me! Come to me now!" She scratched at the door like a cat.
"You must let her go."
"Never!" he called to the darkness as he opened the door to face what would come. If she needed his head... he would give it... in that way she would be saved. She reached for him... he did not resist. Eleanor clasped one hand on his throat and then some sense of herself seemed to come once more to her, and she dropped her hand. Grabbing Darius' hand she pulled him behind her through the darkened church. He did not struggle. He came. If this were the only way... he would accept death as he must... she would be safe. Near the door, he became aware of another. Darius' head snapped up sharply, fearful suddenly that it was Grayson.
But out of the shadows stepped Phillip, a friend to Darius and teacher to Eleanor. "Let him go Little Sister! Let him go!" Eleanor dropped Darius' hand and backed away from them both, staggering. She looked at both the immortals, "Help me! I am so lost!" for a moment... she seemed herself again.
Phillip stepped closer, wrapping her in a cloak. "I'm taking you back with me to Niebos. You'll be safe there. I won't let anyone harm you."
Eleanor turned to the priest, "Darius?" She reached for him. "I need you... Come with me..."
"Let her go!" the voices insisted within him. "Darius, for the sake of the future... let her go now! If you go with her... she will kill you and she will be consumed by the guilt. She will be forever lost... as will we. You cannot help her now... let her go. For the sake of the future... for the chance at unity and peace... for all of us... you must let her go."
So Darius closed his eyes and turned away, while Phillip lead Eleanor out of the church and into a gray dawn. It would be nearly thirty years before he saw her again, thirty years... before he dared hope the future might yet be reclaimed.