II - The writer

"Any other question?"

The man sitting before the crowd asked the question with a harsh voice. His first book had been a success, and he had been paid a lot of cash to sit down and answer his fans' questions. Not that he needed it but he had to keep the facade of the up-and-coming writer with not enough money to reject the offer. But after an hour of discussing his method of writing, without metaphors or figures of speech, his bluntness when describing delicate situations such as rape or parricide, and the excessive violence contained in the book, he was losing his temper. Even more when the blond nerd with the thick glasses raised his hand again. Having been motioned at, the nerd squirmed in his chair before beginning to speak.

"Yes, Mr. Simpson. You wrote all the stories in your book in the third person, except for Kurgan of the Kurgans. The character is so violent it makes Conan looks like a housemaid... the story is good, but the ending..." the nerd halted to read the book... "and I left my birthplace, to wander the world till the end of times, meeting love only to watch it burn. And I still do..." the nerd went emphatic as he fixed his glasses better. "It's rather supernatural, unlike the rest of the book... Where would this character be now?" he grinned with an air of superiority, expecting the crowd to chant his attempt at mocking the author of the book.

Simpson felt like jumping over the nerd, and punching the hell out of him. When the idiot was close to faintness, his teeth falling in spits of blood, his greased hair completely a mess, he would yank him, lean in and yell in his ear. HERE, YOU MORON! He wished he had had his trusty broadsword to impale the jerk. Bah, the mere sight of it would have made the imbecile wet his pants. But his sword had not been with him for a while now.

But he could not do that without telling that the stories of the book were his early memories. Events he had witnessed as the minor of five brothers. The mentioned story, Kurgan of the Kurgans, was also an autobiography. It told his life. He grinned. All the immortals in the world would come after him for revealing their existence. He didn't care. They would lose and their heads would fall in line. But the Rules had to be respected. Pity.

"At home, making dinner..." He uttered. The crowd giggled lightly. The nerd dared not speak anymore. "Anything else?"

"Yes." Someone yelled. "Say hi to Marge for me."

Silence followed. The joke was not well welcomed by anyone. A man in his early seventies appeared and grabbed the mike, as Simpson tried to guess who had been the joker.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this was Mr. Homer K. Simpson, in another of Bane Bookstores' Special Events. Thanks for coming."

The crowd cheered. The author flashed up a hand and waved, more out of tiredness than of feeling gratefulness to his readers. The exhilaration in the crowd exploded.

-----

Ten minutes later, Homer was in the back of a revamped Jaguar XK 150 S. The car was almost fifty years old, but he found it better than most of the small-sized new cars. A copy of his book "Stories of the Kurgans" was beside him. He leant thoughtfully against the window.

He was the Kurgan. His true name, Victor, had been lost to history, and few in his three thousand years of lifetime had known it. He was known among his kind as the darkest pinhole in the curtain of the night. A reputation gained by being ruthless in the battlefield, by fighting without restrains, by having no considerations concerning who his opponent was. In short, by playing the Game all immortals play.

However, his reputation did not match his behaviour over the last fifty years. Though he had not spared the life of those pitiful immortals stupid enough to oppose him, and that had begged for their heads fruitlessly, he had also grown tired of the Game. Centuries ago, he had hunted the immortals who might pose a threat in the Gathering. But he was tired of engaging in battle with inferior opponents. With this tiredness, the darkness that had possessed him seemed at bay. He had tried retaking the old habits from time to time, hoping to feel an injection of life, but they no longer amused him.

He had realised darkness stemmed from his early days amongst the Kurgans. His father had crushed his head against a rock when he was five. His mother had saved his life. Years later, the man would kill her, for which the son would get even, crushing a hot stone down the old man's throat...

"Mr. Simpson?" the chauffeur interrupted his chain of thought.

"Yes, Robert?" he spoke softly as he regarded the image of his driver through the mirror. Early seventies, a hard face which concealed a kind-hearted man, and a square of white hair on the top of the head that gave away his Army background.

"Tomorrow is the... birthday of... my daughter... and I was wondering..."

"Take the day." He said, trying hard to sound kind. Two days a year he would ask that: the birthdays of his daughter and his wife. Robert paid them a half-an-hour visit at Boston cemetery.

"Thank you, sir."

Victor returned to himself. Writing the book had been the vehicle to realisation. To his surprise, an editor had liked the style of the book and the work made it to the stores without many corrections. Months later, it was a best seller. Only days before the publication he had had to change his name. Victor Kruger could not be the author. He had explored different possibilities. Kurt Gens, Adrian Lambert, Piotr Rodoshkov, Brad Jones, options he had jettisoned for different reasons. In the end, he had chosen Homer Simpson, feeling it was a name that would not strike as catching. He now regretted not having watched more television. But no immortal in his or her right mind would associate the name of a cartoon with the strongest immortal.

The darkness was still there. Over the years, when it had been strong inside him, it had blinded him and kept him in the cold. But there had been shafts of light that had subdued his appetite for chaos. Like his mother, who had talked him out of the obscure desire to kill his father in the aftermath of his near death. It had meant her murder years later at the hands of her bride, but she had been avenged. Apollonia, murdered during an attack to the village they lived in by a group led by another immortal. He had hunted them all, and found all but the leader. Irina, his only wife, widow of Ivan Trotski, an immortal who lost his head to her new husband. She committed suicide upon learning the truth years later. Helena MacDonald... a blonde beauty whose life had been taken away by a coward immortal. She had been vanquished. The four of them he had buried. The four of them he had mourned. In between there had been many others not nearly as important. Some had been one-night lovers, but others had been victims of his dark appetites. He remembered one particular immortal girl, in the dawn of the twentieth century, whom he had kept in a beating-rape diet for a month. He would not be entertained anymore by then so he took her head.

The car arrived at the luxurious hotel where he was staying and he promptly got to his room. He opened the built-in wardrobe and took out a sword. A Japanese katana, with a tiger sculpted in its hilt. Former belonging of the effete snob Juan Ramirez. His mind glided back to his broadsword, the one he used to carry in a suitcase, split in three pieces that could be easily assembled when needed, and focused on who had it now.

Darla Hails, his younger apprentice. He had made her believe he was dead, helped by the half-trusty Methos. He hoped she would simply assume it, but he remembered the chill he had felt when he had received the fax. She knows, it read. Then he had orchestrated the name change. Somehow a picture of him had made it to the back of the book. Darla could track him with it. So he would have to change his name again and say farewell to his fifteen minutes of fame. He would use a name that sounded well, something like Clancy Brown, or Russell Nash. They were better choices than Homer Simpson, but not as good as Victor Kruger.

He had spared her head. Methos was around by the time he found her, so he simply trained her. By the time he would be gone, Darla was likely to become a pet. But she had learnt well and endured his hard lessons. By the time Methos went away, he had got used to her company. He noticed darkness was a part of her too. He could feel it seeded deeply within the young woman, latent, waiting for the right moment to burst out. She was sweet and kind. Only once he had seen anger and bitterness in her, darkness arising, her inherent skill unleashed. Then he had felt something he had not felt in all his lifetime. The feeling he had produced in all his opponents. Fear.

He wondered where she would be now...