Disclaimer: I don't own Angel, Buffy, Charmed, Morrowind, or Prison Break. I'm just peeing in a lot of different peoples' pools.
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The woman's name was Arisis, and she had been waiting for them. Well, not for the four of them in particular. Actually, she'd only been expecting one man. When Lindsey asked her who had told her to wait, Arisis explained:
"The Daedric Prince Azura, the lord of the dusk and dawn, spoke to me in a dream and said I was to travel out into the Grazelands to the south and east of the Zainab camp and to wait for a man to come."
"Then what?" Bob asked from the far side of the campfire where he sat huddled underneath Arisis's cloak. The sun had set a few hours ago, and the air over the grassy plains had grown chilly as the moons (yes, moons—there were two of them) rose.
Arisis looked around at the four of them, her red eyes glinting in the firelight. "Then I was to guide the man to the Cavern of the Incarnate."
It was Michael's turn to speak. "Why?"
She arched an eyebrow. "Are you accustom to questioning the Daedra when they speak to you?"
The way she said it made 'Daedra' sound like gods. "Who are the Daedra?" Lindsey asked.
"The lords of Oblivion. Azura is just one of many princes, and the hordes they reign over are legion." She spoke with utter casualness as though dealing with these Daedra was a common place occurrence. Leaning forward, she lifted the lid on the clay stewpot that hung suspended over the fire by a tripod and sniffed at its contents. "Just a while longer and we'll have supper."
"So the Daedra are demons?" Lindsey ventured.
She blinked. "I'm unfamiliar with the term, outlander."
Then that must be it. This woman was in league with demons—never a good thing, especially if you were running The Gauntlet like he was. He sought Scofield's eyes across the fire and gave a slight nod.
His former cellmate, who had been observing everything the elf woman did with a critical eye, nodded that he understood, then leaned over to murmur something to his brother.
They would have to get away from the woman and soon. Unfortunately, Marilyn, who was currently curled up in Burrows' lap (having apparently taken a liking to the big man) wasn't offering any suggestions, and they had no idea how far away from the nearest town they were. They'd been running blind, but that was better than letting this woman serve them up to demons on a platter.
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After a dinner of stew that was too spicy for Lincoln's tastes (and it didn't help that he couldn't identify the meat in it), Arisis let them into her tent, which she called a "yurt". "It bothers me, how you got this far without weapons. We shall have to remedy that," she said.
He had to stoop to fit through the doorway. Inside, four pallets ringed a central, open spot. Four beds, but the strange elf woman had sworn she was only expecting one traveler. Michael had warned him at dinner to be careful around her. Lincoln was starting to suspect his brother was right to be suspicious. Where were the other two people who slept here?
Arisis was digging through her things, piling up weapons in the center of the floor. Linc wasn't much for weapons—look what trouble carrying a gun had gotten him into—but he didn't need to be an expert in medieval-esque weaponry to tell that the stuff she was pulling out wasn't top quality. Two knives, a short bow with accompanying quiver full of arrows, and a sword with a pitted and rusty blade were the only things she found.
"It's not much," she said, "But it's better than nothing."
"I'll take the saber," the man-who-had-been-Sucre said. "Picked up some training a while back." He made a few small sweeps with the blade, careful of the others crowded around him. "Of course, this is the first sword I've ever used where the blade was bent nearly in half and then hammered back into shape."
"Take what we can get," Michael muttered as he bent down and picked up one of the daggers. It was slightly longer than his hand and—unlike the sword—in good condition. He looked up at Lincoln. "Do you want the other one?"
Lincoln smiled and spun the handcuffs still attached to his wrist. "Nah, I'm good. Bob can take it."
The prison guard looked at the knife uneasily and reached for the bow and arrows instead. "These…these I might remember how to use. I went to Boy Scout camp every summer for nine years, and it took an act of God to get me away from the archery ranges. At first, it was because I wanted to be the Green Arrow from Flash Comics, but then I really just fell in love with it. I'm probably a little rusty though."
Arisis was watching the CO through slitted eyes. "If you would like to practice, a target could be set up away from camp."
"Now?" Michael asked.
Those eerie red eyes shifted to Lincoln's brother. "Yes. Is that problematic?"
"It's dark outside," Michael pointed out.
Their new acquaintances muttered something that sounded like 'outlanders'. "If you plan to travel in this land, then you're going to have to be prepared to fight in adverse conditions." She pushed aside the tent flap, revealing a thin strip of starry sky. "You're just lucky there isn't an ash storm." Then she was gone.
Lincoln and Michael shared a look. "Was the other one like this? The one who took over the doc's body?"
Michael swallowed. "No. Cass…Cass was definitely less abrasive."
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Arisis led them down to a small hollow in the shadow of a rocky hill. There was a scrubby tree/bush thing for Bob to aim at, and the hill would stop any stray arrows from disappearing forever into the night. The moons—God, Lindsey still couldn't get his head around there being two of them—hung low overhead, casting just enough light for them to pick out most of the holes in the ground before stepping into them.
Lindsey settled on a rock and tried to ignore the ache in his shoulders. He might be back in his own body, but his muscles were still convinced they'd been the ones to try and drill through concrete with an egg beater. Closing his eyes, he breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth like he'd been taught on his pilgrimage to Tibet. He'd gone to that mystical mountain kingdom searching for an edge, something that would allow him to compete toe-to-toe with Angel. In the end, the sword training, the protective tattoos—none of it had been enough. Angel had still won. Just like his Tibetan tutors had said he would.
I don't have patience, they claimed. They were right.
Fabric scraped against rock as Michael Scofield settled next to him. "I wanted to apologize," he said quietly after a moment.
Lindsey opened his eyes. "For what?"
"For getting your guide killed. I should've…there should've been something I could do…"
"From what you told me, it sounds like there wasn't. Cass was a Higher Power, Scofield; she knew what she was doing." Or not, he thought as he remembered her uneven handling of him. The times when she'd been frighteningly confidant and the times when she'd admitted to flying by the seat of her pants. "She knew the risks," he amended.
"I keep trying to tell myself that, but it's not just her: it's everyone who's died thanks to my plan to break Lincoln out." He shifted uneasily, drawing one foot up to retie a shoelace. It didn't take a genius to tell that the guilty for all the lives lost in the riot was weighing down on him…and he wasn't handling the burden well. "Forget I said anything."
"No." Lindsey looked down at his hands, at the scar on his wrist from where his hand had been reattached. "No, I'm not. Look, if there's anyone on this rock that should be punished for acting callously with human life, it's me, and I am being punished. I was in Hell, wasn't I? I deserved to be there. I drew the line at killing kids, but anybody else?" He made shooing motion with his hand. "Was just there to be stepped on. That doesn't mean you let the guilt just go. I'm no good at this redemption preaching stuff—that's Angel's bag of tricks—but from what I understand, if you're going to make the big moves needed to be a real hero, innocent people are going to get caught in the crossfire. It's a fact of life. And you're going to feel absolutely shitty about it, and that's good in a way, because it's when you stop fretting over the loss of the little guy that you start to head over to the dark side. Trust me, once you get into that dark place, it's damn hard to find your way out."
For a long moment, the two men just sat there, regarding each other with level gazes. For most of that moment, Lindsey was stuck wondering if he'd just completely botched his first sincere attempt to offer guidance to someone. It'd been easier when he was pretending to be Spike's link to the PTB. Then, he just had to act high-handed and superior, mimic the White Hat routine Angel put on. Offering advice off the cuff was a lot more nerve-wracking.
Just as Michael opened his mouth to break the silence, Lindsey felt something suspiciously similar to a knife point pricked the small of his back, just to the left of his spine, as a hand came around and seized him by the throat.
"Try to flee, and I slit you open," a low voice growled in his ear.