Interlude One

Niebos, December 2010:

Phillip's voice drifted away and Stefan Portocullis took the opportunity to exchange disks in the recorder. Taking out a marker… he wrote a "1" on the first disk and slipped it into a disc-sleeve before settling back once more. "Do you need a break sir?"

"A break? No… I was just thinking about things I'd never considered before."

"What things would those be?" Portocullis started the recorder once more.

"Things? I suppose how in those early days, Danaë gave me ample chance to choose another path. But once I'd indicated that it was indeed my choice to be a warrior… she gave me greater gifts than fine raiment and money… she gave me a sense of myself and confidence in who and what I was. Had I gone without her teachings and gifts… I would have been an anonymous soldier in the army and while I would have received basic training… I rather doubt I would have lived much past my sixteenth summer. And as we well know… immortals of that age seldom last long in the game… some don't last at all."

"Is that why you've a soft spot for the young ones you make room for here?"

Phillip met the old man's gaze and then chuckled. "Soft spot? Perhaps. But I do know this. If a child immortal… any child immortal… betrays me or makes an attempt to take my head or the head or those I watch over… that child dies. They're not really children, you know. They are just trapped in childlike bodies.

"You're thinking of Kenny."

Phillip drew in a deep breath as he considered his words. "Kenny is no threat to anyone right now. But should he awaken… and should he threaten anyone… his eight hundred years on this earth will end."

"What about the girl that holds Nestor's dark quickening?"

Phillip's dark eyes flashed his anger. "She's a special case. She can't be killed… not by one of us."

"Then why not let a mortal kill her? The Watchers could easily do this."

"You people have interfered enough in the game. You have no business even suggesting such a thing!"

Portocullis held up his hands in surrender. "My apologies, Swordmaster. I was merely offering a solution."

Phillip leaned forward and his words dripped with anger; "She is not your concern. We immortals will face what she has become and what will eventually happen to her when the time is right."

"Where is she exactly? You said earlier she was at the cove, but not where?"

"None of your business." Phillip sat back in his chair, glaring at the old Watcher.

Portocullis bowed his head. He reached for the recorder. "We can continue this another time."

"No… my past is one thing… the future is something else." Phillip gestured for the old man to ask his questions.

"So your time in the Theban army?"

Phillip shrugged. "Passed like most time. I was well trained before I came. The funds I had allowed me to purchase a commission. I became an officer and led men into battle when asked. I taught my men much… but not all… of what I'd learned. Soon I was training soldiers throughout the army. It was then that I was first called 'Swordmaster.'"

"You were fourteen when you came there?"

Phillip nodded. "And sixteen when I began to train others. I was seventeen the first time I faced an enemy in battle. At the time… I still thought war a glorious escapade. As a surviving hero of the first war, I was granted many favors and took my first lovers."

"Male?"

Phillip shrugged. "Some. Others were female. It was over the years that followed that I began to gravitate more to males."

"And the years passed."

Phillip nodded thoughtfully. "And the years passed."

"And your first death… tell us of that and how you learned about immortality… and the game."

Phillip leaned back, tugging his beard slightly and twirling hairs about his forefinger. "My first death. Ahh… now that is a story in itself."