THE HUNTERS
Dartmoor, England 2052
Back in April, when Methos wrote to say he would visit in the autumn, Duncan had begun wondering when his friend would appear. September was much too soon; Methos didn't do eager. Sure enough, the long days of an English summer gave way to the earlier nights of autumn with no knock on the door. October was possible, if only to surprise by promptness, but Methos didn't show. On Guy Fawkes Day in early November, Duncan found himself looking at every masked man, but they were strangers all.
Duncan stood and watched the village bonfire burn as the night wore on. When the flames were down to ash and glowing coals, he crossed the grassy fields and went home. The bottle he'd bought was still in the cupboard, waiting. The house was quiet and dark … and lonely.
But Methos would visit soon, and this time maybe stay a while. The village had a decent inn, and Duncan had scouted out some horses at a nearby stable for them to ride. They could spar, too, and get in some good sword-work; Duncan's place was at the end of a long private lane. When it rained, they could play chess or argue, just for fun, or sit by the fire and read. In the evenings they could go out for a beer. Or maybe stay in. Duncan had fixed up the other bedroom, just in case.
And his own bed was quite comfortable, too, he noted as he got under the covers. Plenty of options, plenty of space. No pressure, no expectations. But not too standoffish. Just … a heartfelt invitation, then letting things take their course, to see if their friendship might "put on Love's wings".
The chill days went by and the darkness grew, and still there was no word, but Duncan didn't worry. Methos wasn't above enjoying a bit of payback, and Duncan had canceled on him twice before. His birthday, Duncan decided, December twenty-first, the very last night of autumn and the first day of winter. Methos would appear.
But he didn't. Nor on Christmas. Duncan decided it was time to find out why. He called and got no signal. V-mails went unviewed; paper letters go no response. Duncan hired a courier from the Iris company to hand-deliver a message to James Coulsen, but it came back with apologies and all fees returned, marked "Addressee Not Found." So Duncan traveled to India, arriving just before the spring rains. By chatting with a young mathematician at a coffee bar, he found that no one had seen James for an entire year.
"It was quite sudden," she said. "A family emergency." She leaned forward to confide, "Though I heard he was in love, and her family didn't like him, so they had to elope."
"True love indeed," Duncan said, remembering when Methos been smitten with Alexa. Within a week of their first meeting, the two of them had gone off together to tour the world. "He just left all his things at his desk?"
"No," she said, "a few days after James stopped coming to work, he sent Raj a text message and asked that his things be sent to his flat. I helped Raj box them up."
When Duncan talked to the neighbors, he found that Methos's flat had been cleaned out a year ago. Disappearing was standard operating procedure for Methos, Duncan knew, but victorious immortals often wanted more than a head and a sword. With a wallet and phone, stealing everything and sending messages or spreading rumors to fake a disappearance wasn't hard. However, neighbors hadn't seen anything, the news articles from a year ago had no records of a decapitated body, and the weather reports made no mention of odd lightning. That proved nothing; duels were often fought away from towns.
Duncan considered the options. It was possible that Methos had changed his mind about visiting and just hadn't bothered to send word, but Duncan dismissed that idea. Even if Methos had fallen in love with someone, he and Duncan had waited too long and come too far to treat each other that way. Methos might, however, be testing Duncan's interest. Maybe Duncan was supposed to come looking. Or maybe, Duncan thought grimly, Methos really had been on the run.
In any case, Duncan's next plan of action was the same. If Methos were captured or in hiding or playing games, Duncan was going to find out where.
And if Methos were dead, Duncan was going to find out who.
Limoges, France, Summer Solstice 2053
"A letter for you, Sister Elise," the young acolyte said, as people were slowly entering the great hall for the solstice sunrise feast, their shadows long across the courtyard in the early morning sunshine.
"Thank you, Sister Jane," Cassandra replied, taking the sealed envelope. It was addressed to Elise Daugherty in black pen, and another hand had written the name of their school and town.
"Your partner for today?" Tandagi asked, curious and eager.
"No," Cassandra said, for the return name on the back of the envelope was Justin Morris, and Cassandra would not take Duncan as a partner in the rites. "A friend."
"Friends can be partners," Ninian pointed out as they entered the hall, but Cassandra did not reply, and Ninian let it go.
"Oh look, the oranges!" Tandagi exclaimed, catching site of pyramids of the golden fruit on every table, a yearly treat in honor of the sun. "My mother said she ate an orange every day, even bought bags of them at the market. Can you imagine?"
Cassandra remembered picking naranjas off the tree outside the house she'd shared with Ramirez in Spain, and having to step over the overripe ones on the ground. Then they'd moved to the Highlands, where snow fell even in summer and only berries grew. A century later, Connor had brought her a gift of three oranges. She'd eaten each section with her eyes closed, savoring the juice and the flavor and the scent, and she'd saved every seed and all the scraps of orange rind to make marmalade, so she might have a taste of summer in the long winter darkness of that northern land.
This morning's feast was summer-rich and bountiful—fresh bread, fresh fruit, milk and eggs and cheese—and she was eating with sisters and friends. When the meal was over and the song of thanksgiving was done, Cassandra took a moment in a quiet corridor to read Duncan's letter, dated the week before.
"Dear Elise," it began. "I hope you are well and happy, wherever that might be. Your sisterhood won't tell me where you are, but they said they would deliver this to you. My cousin and I returned to Europe last year, after a difficult journey, and he went back home. I'm in India now, looking for an old friend once again. We were supposed to meet this past autumn in England, but no one has seen him for a year. I'm hoping you might be able to give me news of where he might be? Or if anything has happened to him? Your friend – Justin"
Cassandra folded the letter, each crease precise and sharp-edged. So, once again Methos had disappeared, and once again Duncan was chasing after him. It seemed that little game had gone too far this time; Duncan was truly worried. She would write him a note tonight. She would write to Connor, too, now that she knew where he was. She hoped they might see each other soon.
"Elise!" Tandagi called from the door. "Mother Annemarie is waiting! We're to practice the kindling ceremony one last time."
The crowds had been gathering in the courtyard all morning, and the kindling ceremony started just before noon. The drumbeat grew louder as the sun neared its zenith, and on the high dais, Tandagi, dressed in a long white gown with flowing sleeves, lifted her hands and looked skyward for the invocation. Like a wave across a wheat field, the watching crowd also lifted their hands and turned their faces to the sun. Then three drum beats sounded, clear and carrying, and Tandagi turned and pulled away the dark cloth that had covered the great lens. Sunlight danced within the glass, brilliant on this beautiful summer day.
Cassandra and Ninian, clad in white and gold, stepped forward to lift the lens so that it could kindle the sacred flame. Cassandra grasped the handle firmly, its black metal already warm from the sunshine. Then three more drumbeats, and they lifted the lens and carried it toward the unlit pyre, where Mother Annemarie, all in gold, waited to say prayers over the newly kindled flames.
Ninian had been the nervous one during practice, but it was Cassandra who fumbled, startled by the arrival of an immortal somewhere in the crowd.
"Elise!" Ninian hissed as the the heavy glass lens started to tip, and Mother shot Cassandra an unhappy glare. Cassandra forced down the automatic urge to flee and hastily lifted her side, her face showing only calmness. With all these people about, the other immortal might not have identified her, and even if he had, they were on holy ground. And she had a ritual to complete. Cassandra and Ninian held the disc at the proper angle, catching the sun's rays and focusing them on the waiting wood while Mother Annemarie chanted slowly, her arms lifted high.
Finally, fire blazed forth, and the watching crowd burst into cheers. As the singing began, Cassandra and Ninian placed the lens back on its pedestal, and Mother Annemarie ceremoniously covered it with the black cloth. The priestesses retired to the temple as the music went on outside.
The long chamber was cool and dim after the bright sunshine. As soon as they were inside, Mother Annemarie turned to Cassandra to ask, "Are you all right, Sister Elise?"
"Yes, Mother, just a little dizzy," Cassandra answered.
"Did you eat breakfast?"
"Yes, Mother," Cassandra said, and Ninian and Tandagi nodded in confirmation.
Mother Annemarie peered at her and demanded, "Are you pregnant?"
"No."
"Pity." She looked at the other two and asked, "Either of you?" but they both shook their heads. "Well," Mother said, "there'll be plenty of opportunity for that today. And tonight. Don't forget."
"Yes, Mother," they chorused, but as soon as she left the room, Tandagi snorted derisively. "Forget? Not likely. I've had my eye on this one fellow since New Year's."
"Only one?" Ninian teased, and Tandagi laughed as they all walked to the vestry to change clothes for the dancing that had already started outside.
But in the vestry, Jane was waiting with another message: "Sister Elise, Sister Linnea told me to tell you that a woman is waiting to see you in the visitor's parlor."
Either the immortal had indeed identified her or knew her already, or a mortal had just happened to stop by today. "Do you know her name?"
"No, Sister Linnea didn't say," Jane said and suddenly looked worried. "She was very busy."
"It's a busy day," Cassandra replied with soothing cheerfulness. She wouldn't have trusted the name anyway. She sat in front of the mirror and started to remove her veil of golden beads. As usual, it snagged on her hair.
"I saw her," Jane offered, coming over to help and untangling a bead. "She's young—"
Cassandra doubted that.
"—about my size, dark hair, pale skin."
Not Amanda or Elena then. Jane was not very tall.
"She's pretty, but she doesn't know how to dress." Jane placed the veil on its stand then carefully smoothed the netted strands.
"Probably an American," Tandagi called over from the other side of the room as she stepped out of her clothes.
Or possibly Etruscan or Iceni or some other extinct tribe. Cassandra gave up the guessing game; she'd find out soon enough.
"What's wrong with her clothes?" Ninian wanted to know.
"The shoes are ugly, and her coat is much too long."
Swords and the game wrought havoc with fashion. Amanda often complained. Cassandra shrugged off the white silk alb, heavy with embroidery, and hung it in the closet. The golden robe was next, and she was left in basic black shirt and pants and her necklace of the triple crescents: her usual attire. She wiped the stage makeup off her face then pulled on a full skirt, woven of fine cotton in crimson and cream. Next, she set to work on her hair. It was almost long enough to braid. She should cut it soon.
Cassandra left the other women to finish adjusting their outfits and went to meet her mystery guest. The bonfire still burned, tended by three acolytes, and the festival had become a street fair, with jugglers tossing balls and vendors selling food. Cassandra walked past the fiddlers and drummers and their groups of dancers in the square, letting the beat carry her, so that her skirt swirled about her ankles, and the music sang to her soul. She paused to greet the moon, a pale sliver on the eastern horizon, then finally reached the great wrought-iron doors of the gate.
The sensation of an immortal crawled up her spine as she entered the gatehouse, and she gritted her teeth while she checked the surveillance camera in the hall closet. The visitor was a stranger to her, so not a friend, but not necessarily a foe. It was time to find out. Cassandra left the closet then knocked once on the parlor door and waited a beat before entering; immortals didn't like to be surprised.
This immortal was standing near the window, facing the door. She was still wearing her too-long coat, and her hand was not far from her sword. Her gray eyes were watchful, but not wary or frightened, and she began the conversation with: "The sign on the gate said this school used to be a convent."
Not much of a greeting, Cassandra noted wryly. This definitely wasn't a new one. She confirmed, "Yes, this site has long been holy ground." A temple to Minerva had been dedicated here. "We should go see the gardens," she suggested, glancing around the room then holding the other woman's gaze as she scratched at her ear, for the visitor parlor was wired for both sight and sound. "The flowers are in bloom, and the weather is delightful."
The immortal nodded as comprehension dawned. "Yes, that sounds nice."
They were silent as Cassandra led the way through the shaded colonnade, into the inner courtyard, and down two stone steps to the beds of flowers and vegetables bordered by fruit trees. "I don't believe we've met," Cassandra said. "I'm Cassandra."
"Chelle," came the succinct reply. "Ceirdwyn and I run a school in Ohio for preimmortals, and she gave me your name."
With that for context, Cassandra now recognized her visitor from an old Watcher photo: Born Michelle Webster in 1977, watched over by Duncan, first death at age eighteen. She'd been a U.S. Marine, and she'd taken her first head in the hills of Afghanistan at the age of twenty-nine. The Watcher chronicles had stopped soon after that, but Ceirdwyn had mentioned that Chelle was a doctor and a teacher, and fiercely protective of the young.
"Welcome," Cassandra greeted Chelle with a warm smile. "Ceirdwyn's spoken of you, too, and quite highly. Please, let's sit down." She motioned to a pair of stone benches under a pear tree.
As Chelle walked, she took her coat off, but she kept it on her lap after sitting down. She leaned forward a little with hands palm up and open, a posture of supplication, before saying, "Ceirdwyn said you were good at finding things."
"I have a variety of resources," Cassandra replied. "What are you looking for?"
"Connor MacLeod."
She had not expected to hear that name. Cassandra steadfastly maintained a politely interested expression.
"We had arranged to meet last month," Chelle went on, "but he never showed up."
"For a challenge?" Cassandra asked, wondering what madness had possessed this young woman to challenge a swordsman far beyond her skill. Or was Connor the one possessed, lashing out in rage? And why on Earth would she continue to seek him? But perhaps… "Or for a training session?"
"No," Chelle said, her brows drawn together in confused surprise. "For a date."
Cassandra abruptly found herself wearing a meaningless serene half-smile, her automatic cover for surprise or fear or rage. Or for feeling stupid. It was that kind of madness that possessed Chelle, and probably Connor, too. Of course she was still seeking him.
Cassandra took a closer look at Chelle. Slim and fit, a warrior trained and blooded in battle, yet a healer, too. Tenacious and straightforward, Ceirdwyn had said, and even after two minutes, that was already clear. Young, both in body and in mind, with pale skin, dark hair and grey eyes, and very pretty indeed. Oh yes, Connor would like this one.
And obviously did.
"At first, I thought he'd just been delayed," Chelle said. "But it didn't seem like him, to not show up. Or at least send a message."
"Yes," Cassandra murmured. Connor was a man of his word. Methos wasn't, but for both of them to go missing in this way, to break a long-standing date without sending a message… Cassandra did not believe in coincidences.
"Is he dead?" Chelle asked next, helplessly blunt in her need to know.
"Not that I've heard," Cassandra answered. She hadn't sensed it, either, or dreamed of his death in decades. "When did you and Connor last have contact?"
"Over two years ago, at the school. Connor and I had agreed to meet in Paris this spring."
"Very romantic," Cassandra observed.
Chelle's smile was heartbreakingly hopeful. "Connor said he'd show me the sights. I've never been to Europe before," she explained.
Yes, Cassandra thought again, Connor would like this one very much indeed. She looked away from Chelle to the sunny courtyard, where a few pigeons mingled with the chickens. For all those glib assurances to Connor about "taking turns" in relationships, Cassandra had never shared a lover with another immortal before. Nor did she want to.
But even while they had been lovers, she knew she had never had an exclusive claim on Connor's affections. She definitely had no claim now. She wasn't surprised he'd found someone else.
Though it certainly hadn't taken him very long.
"Can you find him?" Chelle asked. "Or at least find out if he's all right?"
Cassandra breathed out and folded her hands together, the fingers calm and still. She summoned a smile and turned back to her younger rival to promise, "I'll try." Tonight, she would begin. Now, she would find out more from Chelle. "Was Duncan MacLeod at the school, too?"
"Yes, Connor and him were traveling together. I'm planning to go to the Highlands to see if they ever even got there, but Ceirdwyn said you were involved with these…," she paused to look about the courtyard before settling on a word, "…temples, and so when I saw there was a festival this week in Limoges, since I was already in Paris I thought I'd take a chance and see if you were here."
"It's good that you did," Cassandra replied then shared what she knew. "Duncan and Connor went their separate ways when they returned to Europe. Connor was going to the Highlands, but, as you say, it's possible he may not have arrived."
"So you know both the MacLeods?"
Intimately, Cassandra might have answered, but didn't. "Yes," she said simply, but now Chelle was taking a closer look at her. This truth couldn't be hidden, and Cassandra didn't want to try. "I was living in the Highlands when the MacLeods were born," she explained. "I met Duncan when he was a boy, and I met Connor soon after he became an Immortal. After his wife died, he was my student for a few months. Later, Connor and I were friends … and lovers."
"Huh," Chelle said, an inelegant grunt, and looked her over one more time, very thoroughly. "Connor never mentioned you," she said finally.
Cassandra shrugged one shoulder, saying smoothly, "He had no reason to. We're not in a relationship now."
The younger woman nodded slowly before asking, "When were you?"
"A few centuries ago and a decade ago."
"How long were you together?"
Cassandra was not in the habit of discussing her personal life, and while Chelle deserved the truth, she didn't need details.
"Right," Chelle said abruptly. "None of my business. Sorry."
"No," Cassandra said, reminding herself to be gracious. "I understand."
"I haven't been with an immortal before." Chelle's smile was rueful. "I'm not sure how it works. Gregor and Ceirdwyn act like a normal couple living together, but as far as I can tell, Amanda just shows up at Duncan's place whenever."
"Ah, Amanda," Cassandra said knowingly, and she and Chelle shared their first smile. "Amanda's 'whenever' is more haphazard than most, but visiting is not uncommon," Cassandra explained. "Connor and I had a once-a-year arrangement for a decade, back in the 1500s." Chelle blinked at the date, and Cassandra continued, "More recently, we saw each other almost daily for three years, rather like Gregor and Ceirdwyn. Such partnerships can last a year or ten, or even a century. A few immortal couples marry."
"Huh," Chelle said again then offered: "Connor and I worked together at the school for about nine months, and we got together a couple of times."
She had obviously left Connor wanting more. Share, Cassandra told herself sternly. Be glad for him, and be gracious to her.
"Look," Chelle began, learning forward again, but with her hands tight on the sword hidden beneath her coat, "this isn't about me-and-Connor or about you-and-Connor. It's about Connor. Right?"
"Yes," Cassandra agreed.
"I just want to make sure he's all right."
"So do I," Cassandra promised her. And she had questions of her own. "How was he doing?" she asked, needing to know. "When I last saw him, his daughter had just died, and then I heard that his son John was killed when Yellowstone erupted."
"Yeah, Duncan filled me in on all that. When I first met Connor, he was crazy focused on finding John, even after I told him going into the ash was a stupid idea."
"Oh, well done," Cassandra said in amused appreciation.
Chelle responded with a cheeky grin but added, "He didn't like that much."
"No," Cassandra murmured. "He wouldn't have done."
"Anyway, I saw him again a year later when Duncan and him came to the school. Connor never talked about his own kids, but Duncan said teaching the students was helping a lot."
Cassandra breathed out in relief. "Good." She should help Chelle understand him better, or as Amanda would have said: Let the poor girl know what she was in for. "In grief," Cassandra explained, "Connor can be … angry."
"Yeah." Chelle's answer was short, and her fingers were carefully stroking her jaw.
Cassandra recognized the caress of remembered pain. "He hit you," she said with sad certainty.
Chelle's head jerked up, the flare of surprise in her eyes quickly smothered into blankness. "We were in the dojo."
The explanation was quick and smooth, believable and likely. It was also a wrapping of truth around a lie, because Cassandra knew that Chelle and Connor hadn't been sparring, not by the end. "Connor and I don't spar anymore," Cassandra commented, looking away from Chelle, avoiding accusation. "We've hurt each other too often." She turned back before adding: "Especially when we're angry."
Chelle shrugged, an ostentatiously casual rejection. "It had been a bad day."
And there was the justification for the violence, the explanation for why it wasn't really that bad.
"He apologized," Chelle said, now defending the indefensible.
Of course he had. Cassandra knew those soft words, the dismayed murmurs, the gentle hand wiping away the tears and the blood. Then came the lovemaking, tender and desperately sweet, its fragile reassurance a thin scab over the unmentionable wounds.
"Twice," Chelle added.
"Is that how many times he hit you?" Cassandra asked pointedly.
That got through. Chelle flinched before looking away. "It had been a really bad day," she said. "For both of us, what with the quickenings."
"Both of you?" Cassandra asked in surprise then listened with weary sadness as Chelle told the tragic tale of a pair of child immortals and of the immortal who'd come hunting and also died at Connor's hand.
"If I hadn't brought Terah back to the school," Chelle said, "Tomas would probably still be alive. If I'd—" She bit off that word and stared at the ground, her mouth tight.
Cassandra knew this litany of guilt and self-reproach.
"Have you ever killed a child?" Chelle asked without looking up.
Cassandra looked up at the tree, its leaves a shifting pattern of sun and shade, of light and dark. "Not that way." No way was good, but to be the one to swing the blade, to take the quickening of a child… Roland had relished the slaughter of innocents, but Connor would be sickened by it, especially as it seemed he had regarded Tomas as his student, perhaps even his son. It didn't excuse what Connor had done to Chelle—nothing could—but it explained quite a bit. "Did you and Connor talk about it?"
"No, he left a week later, with Duncan." She heaved a gusty sigh then looked at Cassandra with defiant eyes. "So, like I said: bad day."
She shared Connor's penchant for understatement. It had been a horrific day of brutal acts, each death leading to the next in a twisted chain, with Chelle the last victim and Connor forging a chain of his own.
"It's not Connor's fault," Chelle said. "I was looking for trouble."
She'd been "asking for it." It was all her fault. She deserved it. Cassandra knew that mantra, too. She shuddered then took a moment to summon inner calm. "Chelle," Cassandra advised, "the next time you despise yourself, take responsibility for your own pain. Don't ask someone else to inflict it on you. It's not good for you." She leaned forward intently. "And it's even worse for them."
"We only got carried away because of the quickenings," Chelle protested.
Cassandra lifted an eyebrow. "Really."
"Of course! You know how it is."
"I do," Cassandra agreed. "So does Connor. And he knows not to spar after a quickening."
"He didn't want to. I had to ask him twice."
"So tell me," Cassandra prompted, " just why do you think he said yes?" Chelle opened her mouth then shut it again, and Cassandra went on: "We all have a taste for blood, Chelle, especially when we're angry. That taste can become hunger, and that hunger can become addiction."
She was shaking her head. "Connor isn't—"
"I have seen him, Chelle," Cassandra broke in. "No quickening. Not even an immortal. Connor beat a mortal to the ground, put him in hospital … and he was laughing as he did it."
Chelle was holding tight to her sword again. "He was laughing," Chelle admitted, her voice small, "while he was hitting me."
Cassandra closed her eyes in sick dismay. It had been a beating, then, not just a blow or two. She would still be Connor's friend, but she began to doubt if she could ever let him touch her again.
When Chelle looked up, her eyes glistened with the start of tears. "I thought it was the quickenings."
"The quickenings are certainly a large part of it," Cassandra agreed. "But not all."
"After, he apologized and told me he'd lost control. He was—" She met Cassandra's gaze then said merely, "He was sweet. He seems like a good guy."
"He is 'a good guy'," Cassandra reassured her. "He's honorable and loyal and fiercely brave. But he's also—and will always be—a warrior, and that's a dangerous road."
"Dark times," Chelle murmured.
"Exactly. So please, Chelle, I beg of you," Cassandra urged, "don't ever ask Connor to hurt you." She leaned forward, her hands open and her voice full of desperate persuasion.
"Don't tempt him that way."
Cassandra saw Chelle settled in the abbey's guest house and invited her to share in an evening meal later that day. Then Cassandra finally went dancing, to celebrate the sun. Tandagi waved just before she and her long-awaited partner went to find a room.
Cassandra waved in return then went to collect Chelle. As the meal ended, Cassandra made the decision to involve—and thereby trust—the other woman, thus also engendering trust in return. "Would you like to help me tonight in the search?" Cassandra asked.
"Sure," Chelle said immediately. "Though I hope it's not just reading reports."
"No, I thought you might stand guard."
Chelle sat up straighter, eyes alert. "Guard against what?"
"Anything. Everything. I'll be … in a trance while I search," she explained. "It's—"
"Are you going to reach out with your quickening to try to find him?" Chelle broke in.
Cassandra realized she was smiling again, a cover for surprise. Chelle would be even more valuable than she had supposed. Cassandra folded her napkin and set it on the table. "Yes," she said pleasantly. "Did Connor teach you how?"
"Yeah. We all tried it. Gregor and I picked it up quicker than the others. Duncan said it gave him headaches. I already tried to find Connor that way but didn't get anything. But then I can't reach more than a mile or two. What's your range?"
"It depends who I'm looking for," Cassandra answered. She'd reached Methos hundreds of miles away once, without meaning to, certainly without wanting to. She'd snapped the connection immediately, shaken to find she was bound to him still. He'd burned her soul away and created her anew, and so no search was needed. She carried a part of him within her, and all she had to do was to let it go home.
Her bond with Connor was of a different kind. "It should help that I know the Highlands, and Connor and I have searched for each other before."
"Then let's go," Chelle said, already standing.
They crossed the river and went south to the abandoned abbey that had been built near a spring sacred to the Gauls. "Holy ground," Chelle said with satisfaction upon seeing the ancient cemetery stones. She walked the perimeter, then picked a vantage point on a half-tumbled wall to keep guard. "Whenever you're ready," she said to Cassandra with a nod.
"When the sun goes down," Cassandra replied, watching the red-orange glow behind the trees.
"Why?"
"On the solstice, the sun is strong. The veil is thinnest when light and dark intertwine."
"Huh," she said. "Connor never said anything about that."
"Perhaps it's not so true for him," Cassandra suggested. "Each person must find their own way through."
"I hear a lot of birds," Chelle offered.
"I hear trees."
Chelle looked around them at the grove of pines then asked, "How long will you be under?"
"It's difficult to say. Ten minutes, at least. An hour, maybe."
Chelle nodded, then asked suddenly, "Are you really that comfortable with this? With me?"
Trust came hard, in both directions. "Ceirdwyn told me you'd been a Marine and a doctor and a teacher, Chelle," Cassandra said. "You've sworn oaths to protect and to serve. Would you attack an unarmed defenseless woman, drag her off holy ground, and then take her head?"
"No," Chelle bit out.
"No," Cassandra agreed. "You are a woman of honor. Also, you're friends with Ceirdwyn and Duncan and Gregor. And Connor," she added with a smile. "They trust you, and so do I." She did not point out the obviously corollary. Chelle would have to reach that conclusion on her own.
When the sun was almost to the horizon, Cassandra started to peel off all her clothes, so that her skin could feel the air. Chelle said "huh" again, and Cassandra asked dryly, "Connor never said anything about this, either?"
"Nope. Didn't demonstrate, either," she said with a show of regret. Then she grinned. "Too distracting—for everyone."
"I imagine so," Cassandra agreed with an answering smile, but the sun was nearly at the horizon, and the moment was at hand. Cassandra focused on the caress of the wind, the warmth of the earth beneath her feet, and the rhythm of the moontides in her blood. Her hands were open, her eyes were closed, and she reached out with her quickening to find the heartbeat of the man she loved.
Northward she went, to that land of stone and water and sky, the glens that Connor had hunted as a young man, the hills he had climbed as a boy. She found his family, their ashes and bones melting into the earth: Alex and Rachel and Sara. Colin was there, too. In sorrow, Cassandra paused to bid him farewell; then she picked up the hunt again.
She looked south to Glen Coe, to the cairn for Ramirez and the faint remnants of Heather's bones. Connor wasn't there. Cassandra went north again, to bleak hills of barren stone and water dark as the new moon. Cave after cave was empty, glen after glen lay silent, until finally she found him, a spark of a quickening upon a wind-scoured isle in the middle of an angry sea.
Cassandra made no attempt at contact; Connor would not welcome her intrusion in his time of grief, certainly not this way. She turned the hunt to Methos, expecting a quick connection, but instead wavered aimlessly, drifting. She cast the net wide, actively seeking now, but he was not to be found. Cassandra came back to her body and slowly lowered her arms, blinking in the fading light, tasting the dust on the air.
"That was quick," Chelle commented. "What did you find?"
"Connor's alive," Cassandra said as she reached for her clothes. But Duncan was right to be worried about Methos.
"Ok, good," Chelle said. "So… why did Connor stand me up?"
"He's in mourning, living on holy ground in the Highlands." She pulled her shirt over her head. "His son Colin is dead."
"Damn," Chelle said softly, then asked, "How do you know that?"
"I just saw Colin's grave."
"Just now? You mean…" When Cassandra nodded, Chelle cursed in surprise, and gave Cassandra yet another visual exam. "You're good."
"Inborn talent," Cassandra explained, a useful euphemism for witchcraft or psychic power. "And a lot of practice. I can teach you," she offered.
"Thanks." Chelle sounded pleased, if surprised. "I'd like that." Then she sobered. "Colin's the last of them, right? Connor's four kids?"
Cassandra nodded, wiping her tears away as she pulled her shirt on. All the family was gone now.
Chelle swore again. "That sucks." She hopped off the broken wall. "Guess Connor wants to be alone."
"He may think that," Cassandra said, putting on her shoes. "But it's not good for him."
"Are you going to go to him?"
"I'd like to," Cassandra replied, and she made herself smile at the other woman, "but I think it should be you."
"That's damn generous of you," Chelle said, more suspicious than grateful. "Why?"
So many reasons, so many years. Her smile slipped away. "Connor has enough memories right now." He didn't need her.
Bengaluru, India, 25 June 2053
The restaurant was busy when Duncan arrived, but he didn't need to look around to know that no immortal—including Cassandra—was there. He surveyed the crowd anyway, a standard precaution: middle-aged couples, a pair of young women dressed for a night out, a group of businessmen, a noisy family celebration taking up an entire corner … nothing unusual. The waitress took him to a small table near the window, and Duncan ordered a gin and tonic, for old time's sake. When the British East India Company had ruled the land three centuries ago, everyone in the garrison drank "the tonic" to ward off malaria, masking the bitterness of the quinine with sweeteners and gin.
The two young women were looking his way, but he wasn't in the mood to chat. He kept his head down and perused the menu, a variety of Chinese and Continental and Indian cuisines. He ordered an appetizer of grilled mushrooms, also for old time's sake, along with a bottle of wine.
Cassandra arrived at the same time as the food. "Duncan," she said warmly, kissing his cheek. "I was glad to hear from you."
"I'm glad you could come," he said, pulling out her chair for her then sitting down to face her across the table. "And surprised," he admitted, pouring them each a glass of wine. "This is a long way from France."
"Something is … odd," she said. "It needs looking into."
"A disturbance in the force?" Duncan replied with a small attempt at humor.
"None." She wasn't smiling. "None at all. There should be something."
"But Methos isn't dead?" he pressed.
She shook her head slowly. "I think I would know."
"You thought he was dead before," he pointed out. "For centuries."
"I wanted him to be," she said matter-of-factly. She shook out the cloth napkin with a snap and laid it across her lap. "I never looked for him." Her lovely cat-green eyes were unblinking as she announced: "Now we will."
They had set out together to find Methos once before. That search had ended with friendships broken by blood and hopes shattered by tears. But it was a new millennium, and hope and friendship had grown anew, perhaps into something more.
Duncan lifted his wine glass in a toast. "To friends," he proposed.
"To friends," she agreed, and they drank together.
Cassandra looked carefully at the mushrooms, and he reminded her, "Not all mushrooms are poisonous." She smiled then as she speared one, for she had said the same to him centuries ago. He had been a boy of thirteen, visiting the cottage of the witch of Donan Wood, warily regarding the bowl of peculiar—and (he'd been sure) deadly—food she had set before him.
"Have you heard from Connor?" she asked.
"A year ago, in the spring. He sent me a note from Glenfinnan." Yet another picture of that monument to Bonnie Prince Charlie. "He'll be staying in the Highlands, near Colin, for as long as he can." It was the life both he and Connor had grown up expecting: breathing the brisk Highland air, working side by side with your son, watching the grandchildren grow, all near the very same loch where your own parents had lived and died… Duncan smiled, glad for his kinsman. "Connor's home."
"Duncan," Cassandra began, touching his hand, her eyes sad, and so Duncan knew to brace himself for the blow to come. Not Connor, it couldn't be Connor, she would have told him right away instead of asking for news, so it had to be so someone else, someone—
"Colin's dead."
Someone he loved. Dimly, Duncan heard her murmur "I'm sorry" but the room blurred about him as he remembered his nephew, his namesake, tiny Colin Duncan MacLeod, only a few hours old, soft and helpless in his arms, looking up at him with wondering eyes, while Connor stood exultant and exhausted nearby. The memories flickered by—a laughing toddler on a sled, a serious boy intent on fishing, a teen riding a horse, a quiet man holding a child of his own. It was a movie played too fast and over much too soon. Duncan blinked back tears at this latest blow to the heart. He muttered an oath in Gaelic and then a prayer in Latin.
"Amen," Cassandra responded, her eyes still sad, and she lifted her glass of wine. "To family."
"Aye," Duncan agreed, with a roughness in his throat, and they toasted the memory of Colin, and then of Sara and John and his family, too, all of them taken before their time. At least Connor would have had the chance to say goodbye to Colin, unlike with Sara and John. Or with young Tomas. "Where's Connor now?" Duncan asked. "Do you know?"
"Yes, the day I received your letter, I scried for both him and Methos. Connor is still in the Highlands; he's gone to holy ground."
Duncan nodded, for he himself had sought refuge from time to time, but solitude wasn't good for Connor, not when he was grieving this way. Cassandra knew that, too. "Now I'm really surprised you came here," Duncan said.
"Connor won't be alone," she replied. "Chelle went to be with him."
"Chelle?" Duncan repeated in surprise. "You mean Michelle Webster?"
"Yes."
"I didn't realize you two knew each other."
"Ceirdwyn's mentioned her, and Chelle visited me last week, wondering if I knew where Connor was. She left for the Highlands a few days ago."
"Good," Duncan said. "Those two kind of rubbed each other the wrong way when they first met, but they got to be friends after Tomas and Terah died." Duncan stopped to ask: "Did Chelle tell you about them?"
"She did. A brutal tragedy."
He'd never put those two words together before, but it fit. "Yeah." Duncan drank what was left of his wine. "Connor and Chelle both took it hard, but strong friendships can come out of shared pain."
Cassandra laid her hand upon his, and her smile was both warm and sad. "As you and I know all too well."
"It's been a long road for us," he agreed, turning his hand so that their fingers intertwined. Then he poured them both more wine, and they drank in silence this time. The mushrooms had grown cold, but they ate them anyway, and then Cassandra went to visit the lavatory while Duncan waited for their meal to arrive.
A woman wearing a knee-length tunic of gray with red and black trim slowed as she walked by, and Duncan glanced up and met her gaze. She was attractive, with dusky skin and dark eyes, and from the dusting of silver in her short black hair and the lines from nose to mouth, Duncan estimated her to be about fifty years old. She held a nearly empty tumbler in her left hand, and a thin scar twisted over her right cheek and ended at her right ear. From a knife, probably, or a piece of glass. Either she had no money for plastic surgery or she was one of those who wore her scar as a "mark of victory instead of shame," a defiant reminder to all who saw her of the violence she had survived.
He wasn't trying to start a conversation, but she was looking back at him, and she stopped walking to say, "Pardon me, I don't mean to stare. It's only that you look quite like that man who rescued those people in the North Sea. But of course you couldn't be," she said, leaning forward a little, close enough that he could smell rum. "Duncan MacLeod died at sea, seven years ago."
He'd run into this before. People remembered mysteries, so it was better to explain the resemblance away with a plausible story. "He was my uncle," Duncan said. "We still miss him terribly."
Most people took the hint, offered their condolences, and moved on. This woman confided, "I met him once."
"Oh," Duncan said, but he didn't recognize her and he made no effort to try to remember her; ignorance make it easier to lie.
"Only briefly." She smiled at the memory. "He still made quite the impression. He was very handsome." The woman peered at him again. "It is an amazing resemblance."
He shrugged, a polite and uninterested smile on his face. "That happens sometimes."
"Yes," she agreed. "It does."
Duncan saw Cassandra finally emerge from the lavatory, and he said, "My dinner date is returning," but the woman made no move to leave, simply turned to watch. Maybe she was lonely, or just liked to talk. And that drink probably hadn't been her first. Well, Cassandra could get rid of her easily enough. Duncan didn't want to cause a scene
Cassandra quickened her step then greeted the woman by pressing both palms together and bowing her head in the anjali mudra, the salutation seal, before saying, "Councilor Amshula."
Duncan immediately got to his feet, both for politeness and for freedom to move. This encounter might still be simple chance, but he wanted all his options open.
"Sister Elise," Councilor Amshula replied, saluting in turn, but not bowing quite so deeply.
Duncan tried to remember when and where –and if—he had met this Amshula before. It would have been between 2029 and 2046, when he'd been using his real name. During a visit to Cassandra, probably, since Phinyx was involved. The castle in the Alps, Prague, London… Or maybe during a mission? Phinyx had provided search and rescue help a few times.
"Councilor, this is my friend Justin Morris." Cassandra seemed cheerfully composed, but that could be a cover. "Justin, this is Amshula, Councilor of the Guardians."
As Duncan pressed his palms together and bowed, the title helped the name click in. They'd been in Prague, nearly a quarter of a century ago, standing in a hallway with Sara. Amshula had been the guard in the excellently tailored uniform who had offered to show him the city and given him her card. He'd never called.
"Councilor Amshula," Duncan said in greeting as he straightened. She'd done well in her career, rising to be head of all the Guardians. So why was she here?
She bowed back but didn't say his name. "Your friend and I were just talking about family resemblances," she told Cassandra. "It's amazing how much he looks like his uncle, Duncan MacLeod. Did you know you look like your aunt, Laina Garrison?"
"So my mother always told me," Cassandra said.
She still seemed unconcerned, but he didn't like the way this conversation was going. Duncan rapidly surveyed the room again, noting exits and obstacles but mostly people. A worker was taking her time in cleaning a table in their corner of the room, and those two pretty young women were watching him and Cassandra now, but with barely a glance for Amshula. Three Guardians, well trained and well hidden. That left about two dozen civilians. He could fight his way out, if he had to, but people could get hurt. Cassandra couldn't use the Voice on four people at once, but she could tell Amshula to order the other three to back off. They could still talk their way out.
Amshula was waiting for him when he finished his evaluation. "Your families seem to have known each other for quite some time, Mr. Morris. Did you know that Elise's aunt and your uncle were friends?" Cassandra smiled, but neither she nor Duncan replied. Amshula's brief smile was amused instead of friendly. "I wonder, Mr. Morris: were Sandra Grant and your 'great-uncle' old friends, too?"
Sandra Grant had been Cassandra's alias fifty years ago. Duncan didn't think Amshula was wondering at all. She knew, and she knew far too much. "What do you want?" he asked bluntly.
She tossed back one word: "Answers," while watching him as intently as a cat waiting for a mole.
"Amshula," Cassandra called, and the sound of that name was coiled leather, soft and supple and strong. Amshula turned to look at her, couldn't help but turn to look at her, and Duncan shuddered at the power of the Voice so near. "Amshula," Cassandra said again, and he could see the bonds of control wrap even tighter. "I'm the one you want to talk to," Cassandra urged.
"Yes," Amshula agreed, and the two women sat down with nary a glance for him. Duncan suspected he could have danced the flamenco – naked—in the middle of the restaurant, and Amshula wouldn't have bothered to turn around. Cassandra kept eye contact with Amshula while shooing him away with a subtle motion of one hand.
Well, he knew someone who wanted him. Duncan strode over to the table with the two Guardians who now appeared focused on eating their meal. "Ladies!" he greeted them joyously, and after a few moments of flirting he was invited to join them for dinner.
"If your date won't mind?" one of them asked, glancing back at Cassandra and Amshula, who were deep in conversation.
"She's just a business associate," he explained. "And she found someone else she'd rather do business with."
After dinner, Duncan invited the women to go dancing, and their apparent delight held a touch of satisfaction at keeping him under surveillance while their commander got answers. He opened doors and held chairs and was a perfect gentleman, and as they chattered on he learned of their travels and some of their training, and got a sense of the command structure and goals of the Guardians. Over the centuries, Duncan had perfected his own interrogation techniques.
Near midnight, he went back to his hotel and found Cassandra waiting for him in the lobby. She looked pale and drained, sitting on one of the couches against the wall, with an empty cup held loosely in her hand. Traveling was always tiring; using the Voice was exhausting. "Did you erase Amshula's memory?" he asked, sitting next to her.
To Duncan's relief, Cassandra shook her head. "She has too much evidence written down, and the trail is too obvious. She would simply come to the same conclusion again."
"So…?" he prompted.
"So, I recruited her."
"You couldn't just tell her to keep quiet?"
"Yes, I could have," Cassandra replied with an easy confidence that made Duncan uneasy. "But other people will find the same information. Amshula is in a position to monitor and channel their investigations safely, and to let me know."
"Will you recruit those people, too, or will Amshula do that for you?"
"She could. She knows to keep Immortality secret."
"Because you ordered her to," Duncan noted.
"Of course I did. It's best to be sure about this, and killing her seemed extreme." She twisted to look at him. "What do you do, Duncan, when someone finds out what we are?"
"It depends. Convince them they're wrong, or—if that doesn't work—convince them to keep quiet. Lie. Change or destroy evidence. Steal it sometimes."
"That's exactly what the Watchers did." Each word came out slowly. "They also killed, and they died, sometimes under torture, all to keep a secret that wasn't even theirs."
Duncan knew that Joe Dawson had been willing to do both.
"For centuries they helped us hide, and we didn't even know they existed." Cassandra leaned forward and put her cup down, a tremor shaking her hand so that the cup rattled on the table, then leaned back with a sigh. "We need them. Or something like them."
This wasn't a good place or time to discuss it. "Let's get some sleep now," he said as he stood; then he offered her his hand. "We can talk later."
"Sleep sounds wonderful," she agreed, and she held on tightly as he helped to pulled her upright.
She seemed unsteady on her feet, so he asked, "Have you eaten since dinner?" She'd always had a snack after their training sessions in the Voice at St. Hildegarde's school. She seemed confused by the question but then shook her head. "I've got food in my room," he told her. "And you can spend the night here." When she hesitated, he asked, "If you're allowed?"
"Allowed to what?"
"Be in a man's room."
That woke her up enough for a smile. "We do call each other sister, but we're definitely not nuns, Duncan. Mother Annemarie is always disappointed when we tell her we're not pregnant."
"Wish I could help," he told her in jest but then realized how that might sound. "I didn't mean—" Though, truth to tell, he wouldn't mind. "Unless you want…?"
"Duncan, thank you, but I'm not—"
"—in the mood," he said with her, and she nodded. "That's fine," he reassured her. "Just friends, like before." Except for that one night of passion after Roland's death, he and Cassandra hadn't been lovers, even though they'd shared a bed while they'd been hunting the Horsemen and again a few years later in the Highlands of Scotland.
"Friends," she confirmed, linking her arm through his. "Food and sleep now, and tomorrow we start looking for Methos."
"Good."
In his room she ate, and then they got ready for bed. As they faced each other across the pillows, she said, "We will find him, Duncan."
"Is that hope? Or prophecy?"
"Prophecy."
She turned out the light, and Duncan slept well for the first time since the New Year.
The next morning was warm and steamy, and Duncan controlled his impatience as they trod ground irritatingly familiar to him. Methos's place of work, the coffee bar where Duncan had met the mathematician, Methos's apartment, the media store in his neighborhood. "It's jumbled," Cassandra said, waving her hand in front of her eyes. "Too busy. Too paved. Is there a park nearby?"
"A big one." Duncan led the way to the city gardens, where Cassandra took off her shoes and stood with her eyes closed and her hand on the trunk of a large tree, her toes digging into the dirt. "Anything?" he asked when she finally opened her eyes.
"Odd lightening, in the time of the rains." She slipped her shoes on. "Year before last."
"When Methos disappeared," Duncan said grimly.
"It wasn't him. This was a young one. Perhaps someone he knew? Or perhaps the victor of that battle went after Methos."
She did not, Duncan noticed, bring up the idea that Methos might have been the one to kill the young immortal or to go after the victor of the battle. Because he wouldn't have. He didn't headhunt and he didn't do revenge.
"Let's look into it," Duncan said, and they spent the rest of the morning reading old reports and newsfeeds, looking for missing persons and odd thunderstorms from that month. They took a break for lunch, carrying their food to the gardens, but Duncan didn't let the time go to waste. "What are your plans for Amshula and her comrades?" he asked after they had sat down in the shade of a tree.
She glanced up at him as she set out a cloth napkin on the grass."What do you think I should do?"
"I'd like to know your plans," he insisted with iron cheerfulness.
Cassandra set naan and a bunch of grapes upon the cloth before responding. "Inculcate those who know about us with a sense of mission, a larger purpose. Stress that only a few people, carefully selected, are part of the team; their pride in being chosen will help ensure secrecy and dedication. Reinforce as needed, frequently this coming year, less often as time goes by. Eventually, they'll be training themselves."
"Sounds like boot camp," Duncan commented, but that was no surprise. Those were standard techniques for melding individuals into a team. But such a force—whether military or religious or ideological—could easily go too far. "Connor told me you helped him take the Watcher Organization apart. Why are you starting it again?"
"Because we need it. These people will know about us, obviously, but their mission will be to hide all evidence of our existence, not create more by writing chronicles."
"Ever heard of mission creep?" he asked dryly. "Or the Hunters?"
"Yes. But if we don't hide, every mortal on the planet will be a hunter."
"Not all mortals will hate us just because of what we are."
"You're right," she admitted immediately. "I exaggerated. But most people will. It's bad enough we don't age, but if they believed an immortal was fated to become their dictator with immense powers, ruling over them forever… Would you want that, if you were a mortal?"
"No." He wouldn't want that as an immortal, either. "Did you tell Amshula about the Prize?"
"I told her about quickenings, of course. That's part of what we have to hide. Then I told her that some immortals believed they were fighting for a 'prize', but that most immortals fought only when they had to, to survive."
Duncan looked at her curiously. "You don't believe in the Prize."
"Even if I did," Cassandra said, plucking a grape from the bunch, "I wouldn't kill for it."
Duncan took a grape for himself and ate it slowly. "I don't kill 'for' it," he explained. "I kill to stop evil immortals from getting it."
Both her eyebrows lifted. "If a good immortal wins the Prize and gains 'power enough to rule the world', how long do you think that immortal will stay good?"
Absolute power corrupted absolutely. "Not forever," he had to admit. "Horton and his Hunters hated and feared us just because of what are, not what one of us could become, but much as I don't like to admit it, they had a point. If mortals killed all of us, so that no immortal could accumulate quickenings, then no one could win the Prize. There would never be an immortal dictator."
Cassandra nodded as she tore off a piece of naan. "That's why I told Amshula that the Prize was a myth, a reason some immortals used to justify taking heads, but that it wasn't real."
"The Watchers kept track of us because of the Prize," Duncan pointed out. "They wanted to know something about who won. Why should these … neo-Watchers bother keeping our secret, if they don't believe?"
She sighed and stared at her food. "Good point. I didn't think that through."
"There was a lot going on last night," Duncan said reassuringly. "We'll just have to give them something else to believe in."
Her smile was brilliant. "Let me know if you think of something, would you?"
Duncan finished his lunch in thoughtful silence.
Mombai, India, 26 July 2053
"Do you get the answers you wanted, Amshula?" Parul asked, looking up from the pot she was painting.
"Yes," Amshula replied, shutting the door to Parul's room. "And more." She told Parul of immortals and of the lightning they carried within, of endless feuds and sudden horrors, of loyalty and love across the ages, of ancient rituals in temples long destroyed.
"It's like a story from the Rigveda," Parul said, and they both looked at the painting of the pantheon that hung on the wall. Indra carried a lightning bolt; his brother Agni, god of fire and sacrifice, had two heads. Kali and Shiva danced together in the eternal cycle of destruction and creation, and the Divine Mother held forth gifts in her many hands. "I know I've been a priestess for more than twenty years, but I always thought they were just…allegories," Parul said. "Symbols of a deeper truth. They're too fantastic to be real."
Amshula had never believed the old stories literally, either, and she wouldn't have believed this tale of immortals if she herself hadn't been the one to find the evidence. After Laina Garrison had died in the bombing, Amshula had kept up with the niece's career out of simple curiosity. But then a surveillance picture of Justin Morris (who looked exactly like Duncan MacLeod) had appeared on her desk, and curiosity had grown into suspicion. And now it was reality. She turned from the painting to her phone, which showed images of Cassandra and Duncan going back half a century, from employment files at St. Hildegarde's, newsfeeds, surveillance video, and old IDs.
Parul reached out a hand to the screen, not quite touching. "If immortals are real—"
"They are," Amshula replied. She'd spoken with them, eaten with one, and (years ago) flirted with another. They were real.
"Then avatars of the gods truly walk among us." She quoted softly: "Whenever righteousness wanes and unrighteousness increases, I send myself forth. For the protection of the good and for the destruction of evil, and for the establishment of righteousness…"
Amshula joined in on the last line. "…I come into being, age after age." She hadn't remembered that. "Cassandra said that immortals never know their parents. They're all orphans."
"They come into being," Parul said with a nod. "Though from what you say, not all immortals protect the good. Some must be of demons instead of gods."
"I don't think it's that simple," Amshula said. "Cassandra said she'd done evil deeds in years past, deeds she regretted now."
Parul stared at the painting before saying slowly, "They do not die, so they cannot be reborn. They remember all their many lives; they know their own karma. In time, some become worthy to be avatars."
"I suppose," Amshula said. Parul was the priestess, not her.
"Cassandra became a priestess of the Great Mother during the Bronze Age, and now she works to bring back ancient ways, to make the wheel turn so the world can manifest itself anew." Parul leaned forward eagerly. "This is Shakti, the one who changes. But not only one; we are all of Shakti. We are all bound to help." She clasped Amshula's hand, priestess to guardian, for the invocation: "We are the change we have been waiting for."
Amshula's grip was strong as she gave the ritual response: "And we shall change the world."
Bengaluru, 27 July 2053
Cassandra and Duncan woke before dawn and went back to the gardens. In a lawn of grass edged by flowers, Cassandra poured water into a copper bowl. "Not fire?" Duncan asked, because he'd seen her use candles before.
"Methos is water." She took off her shoes and faced the sunrise, eyes closed, speaking softly in a language he didn't recognize. Then she watched the water as the sunshine slid across the bowl. The paths were busy with early morning walkers before she tipped the bowl and slowly poured the water onto the grass.
"Anything?" Duncan asked, trying not to sound too impatient while still making it clear they needed to hurry.
"There's nothing to connect to, Duncan. There's no energy."
"His body is dead?" he suggested.
"Yes," she agreed slowly. "That might be."
Duncan thought of the ways an immortal could stay dead for days—even months—on end. A knife in just the right place, getting trapped underwater or in a cave, being buried under mud or dirt or snow so that there was no air… He shuddered with old memories.
"Keep reading?" Cassandra suggested, and they spent another morning combing through files.
Just before lunch, the searching paid off. "Here," he said, showing the report to Cassandra. "Gitali, a twenty-six-year-old woman, was reported missing five days after the day Methos disappeared. No body was ever found; the mother was distraught. She lives in a village to the north, about three hours by train, one hour by darkmatter express, but that's not running now; it needs parts."
"We should talk to Gitali's mother," Cassandra said.
"Let's go," Duncan said, and they packed their bags and took the train. But they got no answers at the village; the mother had died six months before and the neighbors had noticed nothing strange. And they had no other leads. Duncan paced along the stream bank while the shadows lengthened and Cassandra sat and stared at the water.
"You said there was no energy," he said, stopping near her. "How about matter? If you had something physical of his, could it connect to his body, the way you've been trying to connect to his mind?"
"Perhaps," she allowed. "It would need to be something he'd touched frequently."
Duncan reached into his pocket then held out the key he had never used. "This is for his house in England." She did not reach for it, and he asked, "Will it work?"
"I think it might," she said. "You should hold it. Not me. We'll try tomorrow at dawn."
It was a long night.
In the darkness of the next morning, they walked to a grove of trees surrounded by sorghum fields. At dawn, Cassandra knelt on the earth and placed the copper bowl upon a bed of fallen leaves. Duncan asked curiously, "If Methos is water, what am I?"
"Earth."
"And Connor?"
"The same. The rock of the Highlands is in your bones." She looked up with a smile. "And both of you are touchstones for me." She poured a finger's depth of water in the bowl then sat back on her heels and laid her hands on her thighs. "Can you place the key in the water?"
Duncan joined her on the ground and slid the key into the bowl. It went in with barely a ripple and lay on the bottom, doing nothing. "How does this work? It's too heavy to float like a compass needle."
"The patterns it makes in the water point the way."
He peered closer and saw nothing in the filtered light, but Cassandra was obviously fascinated, leaning forward with her hands on the ground, her fingers splayed out into the dust, and with her shoulder-length hair falling about face like a curtain. Duncan waited, keeping watch for any danger and listening to the rustles of the leaves and the voices of the farmers coming into their fields.
After about ten minutes, she sat back with a smile. "It worked."
"That's great!" Duncan nearly laughed aloud with relief. "Where is he?"
"North."
That cold slap of reality punctured his joy. He'd been hoping for a wee bit more detail. "We're in the south end of the subcontinent," Duncan commented dryly. "There's a lot of north."
"Yes, there is," she agreed ruefully then carefully emptied the bowl onto the ground.
The faded leaves darkened to deep brown, and the water disappeared in the earth. When Duncan picked the key up, it was warm to the touch, though the water was cool. He stood and shouldered his pack. "Let's go."
They went by train that first day, passing fields and villages that were quieter than they should have been. Some were silent and abandoned. No children anywhere, save in the towns that had schools. "It's like the Highlands during the Clearances," Duncan observed as another ghost town flickered by.
"Or like Babylon when the droughts began," Cassandra added then waved her hand at a stand of trees. "In fifty years, the forests will have returned. We'll have only about one billion people by then."
"Haven't seen that in a century," Duncan said then remembered a discussion at a family picnic about five years ago. "You really think we'll drop from five billion to one billion in a quarter of a century?"
"No, because of Yellowstone, I think the drop will be steeper and come sooner. We've lost the breadbasket of North America, and crops have been failing around the globe. Stockpiles are gone, and resources of all kinds are depleted. The infrastructure is shredded; the edges are isolated, and the centers will go soon."
Duncan had seen the destruction of a people before. "So we're talking death, famine, war, and plague?"
Her lips tightened at those names. "Yes."
"Great," he commented sourly. "The apocalypse comes after all."
They passed two more empty villages before she said, "It's not the end of the world, Duncan. But things will change."
The journey was tedious, as most journeys were, but made worse by not knowing when or where it would end. Cassandra took their bearings the next morning with the key, and once again they headed north. "If you can do this and the scrying," Duncan asked, "why did you use a detective agency to find me when I lived in Seacouver?"
"Because I couldn't do this," she told him. "Or the scrying. Not then. I had … disconnected myself." From the Earth, from people, from love. She had cut herself off from life to seek death.
Now she was seeking Death.
"What's funny?" Duncan asked.
"Nothing," she said. "It's just ironic, you and I traveling together, seeking Methos again."
"And we don't know where we're going this time, either."
She smiled. "Maybe Methos has left us another matchbook to follow."
He hadn't, but when they finally reached Armenia they did find a clue. "I'm not here to fight," another immortal told Cassandra during a chance encounter in the market.
"Nor am I," Cassandra told her, and they parted without another word.
Two days later, they met outside a hotel bathroom. "Are you following me?" the other immortal demanded, trying to be intimidating but failing. She seemed very young and very nervous. She didn't have a sword, but her hand was ready on a gun.
"No,' Cassandra said, adding soothing harmonics to the word. "Are you following me?"
She looked surprised. "No."
"Where are you going?" Cassandra asked, this time layering the words with the Voice of Command.
"The haven."
Cassandra smiled with delight. "Why, that's wonderful! So am I." Now to find out what this "haven" was.
"It's an academy for immortals," she reported to Duncan at dinner. "Like Ceirdwyn's school, but for adults. Erianne learned about it online."
"Who runs it?"
"Erianne didn't know."
"And she's going there? It could be a trap."
"It's on Holy Ground."
Duncan shook his head. "It could still be a trap."
"Methos is there," she told him, for after hearing Erianne's story, Cassandra had given scrying another try. "He's alive."
Duncan stood. "Let's go."
To be continued in "Testimony", wherein Methos is in need of a friend.