Jacob Kell was like me, of course. But he had the body of a man in his forties. Ordinary-looking, didn't strike me as much of a threat. I figured my reflexes were sure to be faster than his. And I was proud of my new, self-taught swordfighting skills. So I decided this was the time to try them out, do battle using only the sword. Bad mistake. In less than a minute Jacob had me flat on my back, his sword at my throat. Then he began quietly laughing. "Just as I thought. You're not afraid. You don't even know how you can be killed, do you?" Lucky for me, Jacob wasn't headhunting that day. He was looking for a student. *** In time I learned he had a knack for spotting new, untaught or poorly taught Immortals. And he was always on the lookout for students. He liked having anywhere from three to a half dozen, and he kept them around till they somehow got separated from the group and lost their heads. The ones still alive would never learn just *who* had offed one of our friends. We were grateful to Jacob. He told us what we were, Immortals with a capital *I*. He explained that there was a way we could be killed permanently, by beheading, and that others of our kind would be eager to kill us for our Quickenings. He helped us become fairly good swordsmen. I'd been using a sword whose size and weight were all wrong for me, and Jacob straightened me out. He never discussed some things the other students whispered about--the Game, the Gathering, the Prize. Guess he didn't want us to think that down the road, he might be willing to kill us. But he taught us what a Quickening is, and made it clear that receiving one is no fun. I recall his exact words. "You take a terrible pounding, physical and mental. Sometimes you have to fight to hang onto your identity. An Immortal is as weak as a baby for up to a half hour afterward." So why was it desirable? Exact words again. "When you've had time to absorb the Quickening, it makes you stronger. You have all the power of the Immortal you killed, the ones he killed, the ones *they* killed." We couldn't miss the greedy glint in his eyes when he talked about it. We didn't fear him, though, because he'd explained how important students are to a strong Immortal. We were bound to him for life, he said, his life or ours. It was our job to beat up on his enemies, double- and triple-team them, wear them down. Then Jacob would come in with his sword and fight them one-on-one. He claimed that kind of fighting was fair--we were just making things a little easier for him, in fights he could have won anyway. In return, we were under his protection, safe from harm, not forced to take any of those brutal Quickenings ourselves. He always stressed that there was safety in numbers. Jacob wasn't a stickler for etiquette. We heard that some Immortals wouldn't consider ganging up on an opponent, catching him unarmed or weakened by a Quickening. Our teacher scoffed at such notions. But there was one concern he didn't sneer at. On my first day with him he said gruffly, "We don't kill on holy ground. Not even mortals, on *anyone's* holy ground. "I suggest you remember that." *** Every student of Jacob's found out he had hangups about religion, and also about Connor MacLeod. At times he insisted he was a Catholic priest, just as validly ordained as the Pope in Rome. But other times he admitted he couldn't possibly be a priest in good standing, because MacLeod had driven him to take up the sword. He was now a "priest of hate." And it was all MacLeod's fault. MacLeod, he said, had murdered his father in 1555. Not his biological father--none of us knew who our real parents were. But a priest named Rainey had raised Jacob, and MacLeod had killed this unarmed holy man. Jacob, also a priest by that time, had betrayed everything he believed in when he grabbed a sword and went after MacLeod. And MacLeod had dealt him his first death, run him through and left him there. MacLeod was still a fairly new Immortal himself, and hadn't realized what Jacob was. At least Jacob was sure --in our day--that if he'd known, he would have taken the extra minute to behead him. Why leave a potential enemy alive? The young Jacob had honestly believed MacLeod was a demon, or had made a pact with demons. When *he* came back to life, he was denounced and driven from their village, same as MacLeod. But with no one to teach him about Immortals, he still believed MacLeod was a demon, and had made him one of the undying ones for spite. He hated MacLeod and wanted revenge, but was afraid to do anything because he thought MacLeod had magical powers he didn't have. When he finally learned the truth, he was furious that he'd wasted a chance to hurt MacLeod by murdering his mortal wife. She'd died of old age after a fifty-year marriage, and Jacob never got over that missed opportunity. His students couldn't quite understand why he didn't kill MacLeod--by fair means or foul--and put an end to it. But he wanted to torture the guy by hounding him through the centuries, murdering all his loved ones, with his victim never able to figure out who was doing it. Someone--probably Carlos--once asked him the common sense question, "What if some other Immortal takes his head, and cheats you out of your final revenge?" Jacob got really mad. He didn't want to consider that.