*** My men understood what I was. They'd seen the aftermaths of beheadings. Now I was dimly aware that the ones nearest me were scurrying to a safe distance. Just in time. The storm that tore into me flung me to my knees. In an instant my body was afire, my mind exploding. Incomprehensible sights, sounds, and impressions piled one on another, beating me into the ground. Above the tumult, I heard myself scream. Then the torrent abated. The Quickening seemed to shape itself in recognition of my limited capacity. I sensed a fleeting regret, an apology for having hurt me. I sensed something else. And then, with gut-wrenching certainty, I *knew*. I saw what should have been obvious all along...if I had not, unconsciously, rejected it as impossible. I had just killed a man who *loved and revered ME*. *** But that made no sense. I'd never seen him before! True, my fame had spread far and wide. I was the idol of countless men who'd never laid eyes on me. But I'd won renown as a *warrior*. I was the antithesis of everything Ludovic stood for. As I lay there, stunned, a thought took form in my mind. His thought, not mine. Gentle and insistent. "MARCELLUS IS SAFE." My immediate response was, "Of course Marcellus is safe!" How could he not be? I'd left him with retainers who loved him almost as much as I did, who'd lay down their lives to protect him... And then realization slammed into me. There was no way this holy man should have known about Marcellus. My son. *** Over the years, I'd met only a few Immortals who understood that we can, infrequently, father children. And my son's existence was a closely guarded secret. A bittersweet one: an old enemy had made him Immortal at the age of two, trapping him forever in a body that would never mature. His mind, too, was that of a baby. Could Ludovic have learned about him from a Quickening? Impossible! From what I'd heard, the man hadn't taken a Quickening for centuries. If ever. As I clutched frantically at possible explanations, Ludovic spoke in my mind again. "I'M NOT SURE WHETHER HISTORY CAN BE CHANGED. BUT IN THE REALITY I KNOW, YOUR LITTLE ONE IS STILL ALIVE AND HAPPY, CARED FOR BY PEOPLE WHO LOVE HIM, MILLIONS OF YEARS IN THE FUTURE." *** //Millions of years in the future???// *** I gave up on reason, opened my mind...and let the truth pour in. What little I could grasp of it. *** Ludovic was a man displaced in time. Most of his incredibly long life had been spent in the future, not the past. He had borne many names, walked on many worlds. Taken the Quickenings of powerful sorcerers, but resisted the temptation to become what they were. He'd lived to see humans almost stop killing each other. Almost. Perfection, it seems, will always elude us. In the far future, he and a few others learned of a monstrous crime against children, and risked their lives to set it right. They succeeded...but as a consequence, the man now called Ludovic was hurled back through time. He could have lived out his days in bitterness, grieving for all he'd lost. Instead, he embraced the past as a new planet to be explored. Despite his attempts to avoid critical turning points, he found himself destined to shape ancient history. To receive the Cup of the Last Supper from the hands of Joseph of Arimathea. To die before he was born. And finally, unbelievably, *to become the teacher of a man who'd taught HIM*. *** I spared Paris. After I'd disbanded my army, I took Ludovic's place as the city's guardian. And despite the belief in some quarters that I was "possessed"-- transformed by a Light Quickening into a mere vehicle for another man's spirit--those decisions truly were mine. No one has ever understood my relationship with Ludovic. A part of him does live on within me; but there's no question of his controlling me. He never even tried to convert me. Rather, I was changed--changed utterly--by what I sensed from him. What I always sense from him: love, peace, and an all-encompassing *JOY*. Whenever I've berated myself for taking his head-- wished desperately that we could have lived through the centuries as friends--he has reached out to comfort me. He believes our encounter at the gates of Paris was dictated by unalterable destiny. //"Conscience, courage, and hard necessity."// *** One thing this bearer of many names explained long ago: in his youth, he learned something of Ludovic from me. Clearly, I took care not to tell him too much. Transported to the past, he never formed a plan to become Ludovic. He would have rejected that idea as blasphemous. But he had no choice. Unfolding events brought him to the inescapable conclusion that he *was* Ludovic. *** Usually, my mentor and friend is behind a kind of door in my mind. I can open and close that door at will during my waking hours. He also visits me in dreams, and I'm always aware of their source. Recently, though, hešs pulled away... *** I've always known this day would come. But few details. Not the date or even the century. Ludovic told me a little at a time. Guided me in dreams, urged me to do certain things without revealing the reason. I suspect that more than once, I saved the life of the man who would become his father. How long I've waited, how passionately I've prayed, to *see his face again!* One detail I did know. He promised that on this day of days, he would use his long-buried sorcerer's power to send me a sign. Part of the eternal enigma of cause and effect: "I WILL MAKE IT HAPPEN, BECAUSE I KNOW I DID MAKE IT HAPPEN." He never told me what the sign would be, only that I would recognize it. Today is the day. *** And now, at last, I sense another Immortal. I fight to control the racing of my heart. Struggling through the snow, bent under the weight of the wounded man he carries, he stiffens as he senses me. He wears, as I anticipated, a British uniform. I pretend not to notice him until I brush against him. He looks up...and suddenly, after all these centuries, I understand why Ludovic shaved his beard. He wanted the face I'd see now to be *exactly* the one I remembered. The face I've seen in a thousand dreams. Tense, wary, the young man who thinks himself an old man says, "I'm Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod." The name is the one I expected to hear. Burdened as he is, he has already moved instinctively to draw his sword. As I did, long ago. I tell him, "I am Darius." Then I glance at the sword and say, "You won't need that." //No, Duncan, I'm no threat to you now. I *will* kill you. But you'll let me do it. And that will be millions of years in your future. A thousand years in my past.// *** We work together to help that wounded man. As we do, I begin, gently, to educate Duncan in the futility of war. At one point I ask him to fill a tin cup with snow. And as he brings it to me, I recall another cup that passed from his hands to mine. The Cup of the Last Supper. As others call it, the Holy Grail. Even now, it resides in my saddlebag. But I've found *my* Grail today. *** Historians will devote books to the Battle of Waterloo. None will record this meeting of a warrior and priest whose bond is the strangest ever known. Nor will they note the sign Ludovic gave me. The snow. The snow that fell in June. (The End) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Author's Note: The other stories of mine that tie in directly with this one--in various ways--are "Absolutely Not," "A Present With a Past," "Somewhere Else," "Survivor," and "Miles to Go." All are archived at Daire's Fanfic Refuge (http://www.geocities.com/daire24/) and at Seventh Dimension. More are planned!