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Survivor Part 3 (8/8)
Kay Kelly (wilusa@EARTHLINK.NET)Wed, 4 Apr 2001 04:38:49 -0400
*** We relaxed with drinks--a choice of Scotch or beer, no Cutting Edge in sight--and Duncan whipped up a pasta dinner. That came as a pleasant surprise to me; the others had been well aware of his culinary talents. While we were lingering over coffee, he finally raised the subject of Jacobıs vendetta. "Manny, I suppose you've been wondering whether Connor really did start the whole thing by murdering a priest." Actually, I hadn't been wondering--I'd taken it for granted. Why would Jacob have let his own life be so horribly disrupted, for centuries, if he didn't have a legitimate grievance? Of course I didn't say that. "Connor didn't defend himself to me," Duncan said softly. "Didn't tell me anything while he was alive. But I learned from his Quickening that it was much more complicated. "The people of Glenfinnan had driven him out, calling him a demon. Years later, when their crops failed, they needed a scapegoat--so they blamed his mother. His adoptive mother, though they didn't know that. They claimed *she* was in league with demons. Connor knew she was in danger and slipped into the village to save her. But they beat him into unconsciousness and burned her alive. On a cross." "My God," I whispered. I too had once had a mother. "Father Rainey--the priest who'd raised Jacob Kell--was pretty much the ringleader. And Kell didn't take heroic risks to stop it." Duncan's voice shook with emotion. "But things weren't as black and white as Connor thought. He knew the two priests were better educated than the rest of the villagers--and he and Jacob had grown up as friends. He was sure those priests didn't really believe he was a demon or allied with demons. "I can't be sure about Rainey. But I know from Kell's Quickening that he did believe it. He *didn't* believe Connor's mother was evil. He thought that if Connor really was a demon, an incubus might have molested Caoilin in her sleep and made her pregnant. He also thought Connor might have been so afraid of dying in battle that he'd made a pact with the Devil--again, no fault of Caoilin's. "Kell did try to save Caoilin. He won Rainey's agreement to a compromise--that she'd be spared if she'd agree to say Connor was not her own child. He thought he was asking her to tell a small, harmless lie. It was really the truth--but she still refused to say it. Kell felt he'd done all he could. And who knows--I don't think any of us can say for sure what *we* would have done, facing a crazed sixteenth-century mob. "Connor broke out of the cell where they'd been holding him, tried desperately to save his mother--and failed. He was half out of his mind at that point. When someone began urging him to leave his mother's body, he spun around and struck out at the person without looking. And *that* was when he killed the unarmed priest." We sat in stunned silence. Indeed that was "more complicated" than Jacob had led me to believe. When Duncan resumed his story, he surprised me again. "Kell grabbed a sword and charged Connor. And Connor, still not thinking clearly, ran him through. "That day, he'd realized for the first time that Kell was a pre-Immortal! When he saw what he'd done, he was appalled. But he had to decide whether to carry his dead mother's body off with him, or Kell's. He chose his mother. "In later years, he never blamed himself for having killed Father Rainey--or for having given Kell his first death. He could plead temporary insanity on both counts. But he'd come to his senses after that. And he never *forgave* himself for having abandoned that newly made Immortal. It haunted him all the days of his life." I was the first to find my voice. "When Jacob came to understand Immortality, he thought that if Connor had known what he was, he would have beheaded him." Duncan shook his head. "There was never a chance of that. Connor believed he should have taken him as a student." "Jacob's having a teacher would have changed everything," I mused. "Everything! But it never occurred to him that Connor could have been that teacher." Duncan could only murmur, "I know." *** He had yet another bombshell to drop. The biggest of all. "Connor didn't think Kell had survived long," he told us. "And he certainly didn't suspect him of being his mystery enemy, because the murders didn't start till late in the seventeenth century. I know now that in those early years, Kell had been afraid Connor had magical powers he didn't." The pain written on his face told me he was thinking of the powers Jacob himself had so recently won--and lost to him. "Connor, of course, never imagined such a thing. "But in 1987, Connor had a Watcher who respected and admired him. Dana Brook. She was almost as devastated as he was when Brenda was murdered. "Brook couldn't bear the thought of anything like that happening again. So she violated her oath. She revealed herself to Connor. Told him about the Watchers--*and about Kell*." Joe Dawson practically erupted out of his seat. "She did *what?*" I was thinking less of Brook's oath-breaking than of what it implied about Connor. And I wasn't alone. "He knew?" Pierson whispered. His face was ashen. "He learned Kell had murdered his wife. But he did nothing. And later, he knew Kell must have been the one who'd murdered his daughter. But he still did nothing. He went into the Sanctuary instead of going after him..." "Yes," Duncan said bleakly. "Because of the guilt he felt over what he'd done to Kell. That was why he welcomed the idea of the Sanctuary. He knew he'd never be able to change his mind, give in to the temptation to seek revenge." I saw his fist clench. "But Matthew Hale knew about Kell too, and he wasn't aware Connor knew. Brook didn't dare tell him she'd broken her oath. I think his urging Connor into the Sanctuary was criminal." None of us had any argument with that. "So that was why Connor made you take his head?" Pierson asked gently. "Because of the...sin on his conscience?" Duncan nodded. "Yes. He knew by then that Kell had to be stopped, and only our combined strength could do it. He insisted on being the one to die." His voice sank to a whisper. "The only reason I agreed to kill him was to save his Quickening. I knew he wouldn't defend himself against the Watchers. "I didn't think I'd need his strength to defeat Kell. "But he was right. I did." *** After that we stopped drinking coffee. *** Duncan still had a different kind of surprise in store for me. Hours later, when we were all feeling loose, he said, "Hey, Manny, I had another reason for wanting to see you. I know you have a problem on your hands, needing to dodge the Watchers." I grunted. "Too bad plastic surgery isn't an option for Immortals." "I think I have a better idea than plastic surgery." His eyes were twinkling. "Have you ever heard the expression, hide in plain sight?" *** And that's how I came to my present employment--as manager of a legit business in the United States, a dojo called De Salvo's Martial Arts. I'm doing what I love. Offering more real instruction than anyone else has done here since Charlie De Salvo's death; we're actually in the black. I anticipate a long, happy life. After all, what Watcher would expect to find a member of Jacob Kell's gang *working for Duncan MacLeod?* The End ****************************************************** *Author's Note: Of course, it's also permissible to use a first-person narrator who **doesn't** die in the end! <g> As the reader may recall, we do not, in any version of Endgame, see a close-up of Manny as he's about to be whacked. (Though we do see it in the "Special Effects" feature on the DVD.) I know the filmmakers' intent was that Manny dies in between Bob and Winston, while the camera is on Duncan MacLeod. But if we don't see it, I don't accept it as canon. Did anyone who knows me imagine I would?* *I couldn't resist ending Manny's story as I did, because actor Victor Rieta is in fact Adrian Paul's martial arts instructor.* *I changed the name of Connor's mother because, based on my knowledge of Irish names, "Caoilin" looks more right to me than "Caiolin." I know there's an Irish feminine name Caoilfhionn (meaning "slender and fair"), rendered in English as Keelin.* *I had two things in mind in naming that famous hotel the Phoenix. You'll understand one if you've read, or do read, my Endgame sequel "Land of My Birth." Hint: Another name I considered for that fic was "Ashes."* *The other consideration was more personal. My mother had a childhood sweetheart who died at about age eight, and his family operated a historic hotel in our home town--the Phoenix Hotel.*