Awakening (2/3)

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II


By nine o'clock MacLeod was sprawled in a chair on the
dimly lit barge, testing his resolve not to drink. If he
started, he'd probably drink himself into a stupor. And
that was one habit he didn't want to form.

The din outside was unceasing, though mercifully
distant. Bursts of light at the portholes told him not all
the fireworks were being saved till midnight.

Could these rowdies possibly be the same ones who'd
been at it all day? He pictured hordes of them
collapsing in the streets, and more hordes appearing,
carelessly treading on the fallen.

**Battle raged around him. Blinded by snow, he
struggled to carry a wounded man behind the lines to
some healer named Darius. Wincing whenever he
stepped on the snow-covered dead and dying...**

He grunted, hitched himself upright in the chair, and
tried to banish the memory.

Only to hear a blast that sounded uncomfortably like
cannon fire.

//I'm too old. Too many memories, ghosts in every
corner.//

Too old...yes, that was part of his problem. Champion
of the millennium that was ending, he was one with it,
heart and soul. He had fulfilled his life's mission by
routing Ahriman, preserving the world for future
generations. But in so doing, he had received a wound
that would never heal.

All that remained for him now was to meet his heir...
his deliverer. The mystery-shrouded Immortal
innocent who would--if history repeated itself--receive
his Quickening, and take his place in the eternal fray.





That thought impelled him, finally, to open a bottle of
Scotch.

He poured some into a glass, sipped it cautiously, and
set the glass down. Closed his eyes and let the liquor
run slowly down his throat, its taste taking him back
to the Scotland of his youth.

**He stood again in a foul-smelling, grime-encrusted
cave, straining to see through the greasy smoke that
rose from a peat fire. Haze distorted the features of his
host, an unkempt, unwashed hermit. But there was no
mistaking the madness in those glittering eyes. "I have
waited in this place for six hundred years, for you," the
hermit intoned in a singsong voice...**

MacLeod came back to the present with a start, heard
a whimper escape his lips.

But the memory would not be denied. Hunched over in
shock, he relived the hermit's ghastly suicide, the
Quickening forced on him before he understood what
he was. For the first time, he truly grieved for that
ravaged man who'd been required to outlive all he
knew, linger through six centuries of an alien era, to
await his heir.

//The Champion of the dying millennium should die
with it.//

MacLeod examined that thought, turning it over and
over in his mind. His promise to Amanda... No, he
would never break it, never throw his life away
without a fight.

But he sensed that life was meant to end with the
millennium. Not his choice, his destiny.

He took a long, slow sip of Scotch, settled back, and
waited.



***



//Immortal. On the dock.//

MacLeod took a deep, steadying breath.

The sensation was not followed by footsteps on the
gangplank or a cheery greeting. Not Methos, then, or
any other friend.

He took up his sword and went on deck.

And cursed himself for having sampled that whiskey.
He was far from drunk, yet his perceptions were
strangely altered. The wave-lapped barge had drifted
into a surreal realm: he faced not the city of Paris but
inky blackness, the void beyond the stars. The cries in
the distance had become the anguished wails of lost
souls.

Then a burst of fireworks seared the sky, grotesque
flowers of light strewn on a cosmic graveyard. He saw
that there was indeed a dock at the end of his
gangplank. And on it a hooded, cowled figure, a shadow
solidifying into substance and form. Sword held aloft,
stained crimson by the unearthly light.

//Death himself...?//

He fought down the superstitious dread that seized
him. //This is my heir, as guileless as I was in 1625.//
As night descended again, he announced with his usual
firmness, "I'm Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod."

The response was low, unsettling...*laughter*. Then a
grating voice out of the darkness: "What, not expecting
me?"

MacLeod's flesh crawled. Coming from everywhere and
nowhere, it seemed the voice of every male Immortal
he had ever fought. No, every male Immortal he had
ever known.

He was about to say, "In a way, I have been expecting
you."

But before he could speak, his visitor snapped, "Have
you forgotten Pellinore?"

//Pellinore?// MacLeod recoiled as if he'd been struck.
For some reason, he hadn't expected the heir to bear a
grudge, have an agenda of his own.

He thought furiously. Pellinore? The name seemed
familiar... No, surely not from personal acquaintance.
But he knew it was a masculine name, not a place. Was
this Immortal saying he was Pellinore, or seeking to
avenge a friend by that name? //Either way, I should
remember.//

Again, the voice that was all voices. "Come on,
Pellinore wasn't so long ago."

//He isn't Pellinore. It's revenge.//

Feeling faintly ridiculous, MacLeod said, "Uh, excuse
me.  I'm willing to fight you. But...I don't think I've
ever killed an Immortal named Pellinore."

More brittle, mirthless laughter. "For once, you're
telling the truth. You didn't kill Pellinore."

Then why--?

"A bit fuddled, are we? I thought I might find you
prematurely celebrating."

"I haven't been celebrating."

"No? That's too bad. You won't get another
opportunity." Naked hate in the voice now. "I'm
sending you to the pits of hell tonight."

Resentment stirred in MacLeod's breast, and he
tightened his grip on his sword. "That may not be as
easy as you think."

"Don't kid yourself. I'm more than the equal of
Pellinore." That name again. "I'm just more patient.
You didn't expect me to wait so long, did you? But this
is the way it should be. Deadline staring us in the face.
One roll of the dice, winner take all."

//He's insane//, MacLeod thought suddenly. //And
despite the modern jargon, probably older than I am.
His friend had a medieval name.

This, the next Champion? Already old, bitter, mad as a
hatter? He won't stand a chance against Ahriman.//

In an attempt to interject some reason into the
discussion, he said, "Could you at least tell me what you
think I did to Pellinore?"

His answer was a near-howl of outrage. "What I think
you did? Are you going to insult my intelligence by
denying it?"

"I'm starting to think you don't have any intelligence."
He'd had enough of this. "If you want to fight, quit
talking and come aboard. The light's better here."

//Actually, the light's terrible, but I'll have an
advantage because I'm used to the motion of the barge.
And my eyes are accustomed to the dark now, so you've
lost that edge.//

Primed for a fight, MacLeod was ready for anything.

Except what his opponent said next.

"Thanks for the invitation, Ahriman."





*"Ahriman?"* Reality was skittering away from him;
the deck seemed unstable beneath his feet. "I'm Duncan
MacLeod--"

"Drop the act, Ahriman!" His challenger leapt onto the
gangplank, revealing himself as a black-clad man of
average height and build. "Are you forgetting I'm the
one person who knows Duncan MacLeod is dead?" He
flung back his hood.

RICHIE.





MacLeod fell heavily to his knees, and the sword
dropped from his nerveless hand.

//It can't be. A trick of the light, or the lack of light...//

The other man reached him in one bound, kicked the
katana the length of the deck. In an instant his sword
was at MacLeod's throat. MacLeod peered up at him.

Long, matted hair of indeterminate color. A tangle of
beard. Sunken eyes that blazed defiance, set in a pale,
careworn face.

But despite the cruel changes, unmistakably Richie
Ryan.

//Avenging spirit//, MacLeod thought wildly. //Yes,
Richie, take me. I don't deserve to live.//

Then another thought intruded. //No avenging spirit
would think I was Ahriman.//

Richie was blinking at him in amazement. "You really
didn't know who I was till you saw my face."
Amazement flared into anger, and the sword quivered
dangerously. "You counted me out from the start. And
you didn't know what I was talking about--meaning
you never even bothered to learn Pellinore's name!"

"Richie." Dazed and floundering, MacLeod clung to his
one shred of certainty. "I'm not Ahriman. I'm Duncan
MacLeod."

*"I received Duncan MacLeod's Quickening!"*





The truth crashed in on MacLeod with the force of a
tidal wave.

A part of him reeled at the implications. The
viciousness of it, the sadism.

But another part murmured, //Of course. I should
have known. Why would Ahriman settle for torturing
one Immortal when he could torture two?//

It was stunningly clear now. He himself had received a
false Quickening. He'd thought of that possibility at the
time, prayed it might be so. But then, in his
overwrought state, he had despaired when a "living"
Richie turned out to be Ahriman. Even though he had
already seen evidence Ahriman could be in two or
more places at once.

All those months. Those hurtful thoughts in his mind,
not Richie's at all.  And he had "lost contact" because
he'd defeated Ahriman!

"Listen to me, Richie." //Speak quickly but calmly. He's
not insane. He'll listen to reason.// "You received a false
Quickening. You believe you killed Duncan MacLeod in
May '97, right? At the old racetrack? I am MacLeod--
and I thought I had killed you! Ahriman played the
same fiendish trick on both of us. Probably at opposite
ends of the track."

Richie was paying attention, but MacLeod didn't like
the look on his face. Nevertheless, he plunged ahead. "I
can guess what you did after that. You didn't feel you
could face anyone you knew, ever again. So you buried
the body in secret and fled Paris. I would have done the
same thing, but Joe and Methos walked in on me.

³The Watchers have never picked you up again, have
they? Doesn't that seem strange, after all this time?
They weren't looking for you, because Joe had reported
you dead!"

"Bravo." Under the ragged beard, Richie's mouth curled
in a sneer. "Great story. I have to admire your powers
of invention."

"Richie, I'm not--"

"First, about the Watchers," Richie said with
maddening deliberateness. "They didn't pick me up
because I'm one of the few Immortals who know about
them and consciously avoid them. And I've changed
my appearance. 'Nuff said.

"But beyond that..." His voice sank to a deadly hiss.
"You don't understand, Ahriman. It's no use lying to
me. I *know*. I know what happened a thousand years
ago."

"A...thousand years ago?" MacLeod had learned
virtually nothing about that fight against Ahriman.
His attempts to access the hermit's Quickening had
been fruitless--no surprise, after the passage of so many
years. He and the Watchers had unearthed some
information about earlier eras, but not that one.

Richie had devoted more time to the search, he
realized. He'd been needlessly poring over musty
records two and a half years after the battle was won.

"Do you even remember Oriant's name?" Richie's tone
was withering. "He was the Champion. And you, you
bastard, tricked his best friend Pellinore into killing
him.

"But then Pellinore found out what happens if you get
rid of the Champion. You assume his identity. After the
turn of the millennium you'd be all-powerful, right?
*Truly* immortal in the form of a respected human,
and able to morph at will. Your first priority would
probably be to kill all the Immortals.

"But if you 'win' too early, you're at risk. You have to
take the Champion's form then, or never. If you keep it
a certain number of days, you're stuck in it till the
millennium. And during that time, the body can be
killed by beheading like any Immortal's. Meaning you
lose after all."

//That's why he's so confidently standing over me with
a sword. Oh God, no, no...//

"You underestimated Pellinore. Must have been as
cocky then as you were this time. So he caught you off
guard and took your head. He was never really sane
again, never recovered from his killing of Oriant...but
at least he had the satisfaction of sending you back
where you belong. Just like I will."

"Pellinore was the hermit," MacLeod whispered.

And thought grimly, //Sophie Baines did say every
Champion has to find his own way.

But now, even though the world is safe, Ahriman may
score a terrible victory in the end. If Richie takes my
head and receives my actual Quickening, he'll know
what he's done. How can he possibly cope with that,
after all he's been through already?//

"This time is different, Richie. Ahriman tricked both of
us, and I defeated him over two years ago." He groped
frantically. "Consider this. I've never seen you with
hair that long--and you've never seen Duncan MacLeod
with hair this short. If I were Ahriman, wouldn't I
appear to you as a MacLeod looking exactly as you
remember him?"

"You're a demon, not a ghost." For the moment, Richie
was savoring his distress. "It only shows that your
tastes are different from Mac's. You didn't recognize me
till I was practically on top of you. Anyway, I don't
think you *can* magically add inches to your hair
right now."

MacLeod tried again. "Okay. You think I'm a demon,
and I've been impersonating Duncan MacLeod for three
and a half years. Do you really believe I could have
fooled Joe Dawson all that time? Methos? Amanda?"

Richie's sardonic smile faded. "I have only your word
that any of them are still alive. And I'm not going to
stop now to find out. Besides," he added thoughtfully,
"I believe you could have clouded their minds. I'm the
only one you can't deceive--because I have the
Champion's Quickening."

//Perfect.// MacLeod clutched at another straw. "The
Quickening. Richie, if you believe you have Duncan
MacLeod's Quickening, you must have tried to make
contact. Think about it. What did you find? Wasn't it
out of character?" //Please, God, let him realize what
I did...//

But Richie was shaking his head. "No," he said softly.
"I found understanding, forgiveness. Though it didn't
help me forgive myself.

"And also--mostly--I found grief. Grief that by
accidentally killing the Champion, I had doomed the
world. That almost did me in."

Tears stung MacLeod's eyes. //Damn. Ahriman played
him like a fiddle. I'd like to think that if he had really
killed me, I wouldn't have communicated a defeatist
attitude. But I can't convince him it wasn't me. What
Ahriman gave him wasn't as obviously "off" as hatred
would have been.//

"Richie!" Desperate now. "Doesn't it seem unlikely
Ahriman would fall into the same trap, let himself be
defeated the same way, twice in a row?"

"I'm getting bored with your games," Richie said
ominously. "But I'll go round the mulberry bush once
more.

"*You* never expected me to learn anything about last
time. If you didn't know Pellinore's name, I'm sure you
didn't know Mac had received his Quickening.

"As it turned out, that Quickening didn't do me any
good. Pellinore was so ashamed of having killed Oriant
that he suppressed his memories, even if he was
consciously trying to pass them on. But I knew from
Mac that he'd lived as a hermit in Scotland for six
hundred years before he killed himself in 1625. I took it
from there.

"Guess you didn't know much about me, either. Richie
Ryan, burglar extraordinaire--especially after I picked
up some tips from Mac's friend Amanda. I'm mostly
retired these days. But I figured a medieval type like
Pellinore would have told his whole story, once, to his
confessor. And any priest worth his salt would have
convinced the guy to let him leave a record for the
Church.

"Found what I was looking for in the most secret files of
the Vatican. Like I said, burglar extraordinaire."

//Oh, Richie. You should have been the Champion. All
that effort...an approach I never thought of, even
when I confided my own secrets to Father Beaufort.
But all for nothing. You're going to have your heart
broken, your spirit broken.//

Richie's sword caressed his neck. The sword he had
given him and thought buried with him, the
magnificent blade of Graham Ashe. "You never worried
about me at all, did you? Because you knew how much
I loved Duncan MacLeod. You thought I'd seek out the
nearest Immortal to kill me--and he'd be no threat to
you because he'd be screwed up by getting my
Quickening along with Mac's. Or else I'd just head for
the nearest railroad track.

"I almost did. But then I decided to fight. To go down, if
I had to, with honor. At least in that small way, to be
worthy of my teacher.

"And now"--a bleak, twisted smile--"you're the one who's
going down."

MacLeod was lost in a morass of recrimination. //I've
been a fool, wallowing in depression and self-pity. I had
no earthly reason to believe my "heir" was destined to
kill me, now or ever. Pellinore just happened to be
psychic. He wasn't even the original Champion!

I should have been using my wits. Why didn't I see
through that false Quickening? If only I'd searched for
Richie, found him before he found me...//

Too late, too late.

He took a deep breath--//not many left//--and focused
on the present.

//He's going to kill me. I can't prevent that.

But I can do everything in my power to save him.//

"Richie." He gasped as the sword brushed him again. "I
won't argue any more. But please, can I have a minute
or two to prepare myself? Right here...I won't move."

Richie snorted. "Oh, this I have to see. Are you going to
pretend to pray?"

"Think what you will," MacLeod said wearily.

"Go ahead, but don't take too long. I know what I'm
doing. I won't *let* you take too long."

MacLeod looked up into the granite-hard face. One last
look.

//I don't need to pray. All I could have prayed for, I've
already been given. You, alive.//

Then he closed his eyes. If they opened again, he'd be
past knowing.

There was no point in trying to disguise his
Quickening. He almost certainly couldn't do it. Even if
he could, Richie would be bound to run into Joe or
someone else who'd tell him what had really happened.

No, the situation called for honesty. And that was no
problem. Just still the turmoil in his mind, and use his
last thoughts to emphasize what he most wanted his
friend to know.

//Richie...this is really me. I can't prevent your
knowing that, and I'm sorry for the pain it's going to
cause you.

But you mustn't despair, and you mustn't blame
yourself. Ahriman caused all this, not either of us. We
both slipped up three years ago, each thought we had
killed the other--and easily could have. I'm guessing
Ahriman didn't let you kill me because he knew that
would give you Pellinore's Quickening, and didn't let
me kill you because he wanted to torment both of us.
Tonight, the only reason I was in no danger of
mistaking you for Ahriman was that I knew I had
already defeated him.

If we weren't capable of making mistakes--even tragic
ones--we wouldn't be human, Richie. And then we
wouldn't be able to relate to mortals at all, wouldn't be
able to share the wonderful loves and friendships we do
with them.

If one of us has to die before this is over, it's infinitely
preferable that it be me. I've had a long life, over four
hundred years. A wealth of experiences.

One of my most treasured experiences was finding you.
I've never put this into words, Richie, but I love you.
When I was young, I dreamed of the strong sons I'd
have. And all those dreams are fulfilled, a hundred
times over, in you. No Immortal has ever been prouder
of a student, no parent prouder of a child.

I want you to have my sword. I know you won't feel
comfortable using it, at least right away. And your
own is just as good. But keep it. Someday, maybe
centuries from now, you'll know in your heart that you
should either begin carrying it, or give it to a special
student of your own.//

He paused to collect his thoughts, and found himself
wondering whether the blow had already fallen.
Perhaps death was a smooth, painless transition?

If he was still alive, he was too deep in an altered state
of consciousness to think of trying to open his eyes.
Instead, he peered into the darkness that waited to
embrace him. And saw, or thought he saw...

//Tessa? Tessa, I didn't kill him! I can face you now...//

No! He pulled back from the vision, real or imagined.
He might still be influencing the Quickening. Think of
Richie, only of Richie.

//Richie, I repeat, you mustn't blame yourself.
Everything is all right now. For the first time in years,
everything is truly all right.

I believe a part  of me will travel on--be reunited,
somewhere, with Tessa and Darius and Fitz. But
another part of me will remain with you. You'll always
be able to feel my love, my pride.

It's important that you go on living, my son. Living,
dreaming, working to build a better world. I want you
to appreciate, for both of us, all the glories of this
universe that's unfolding. Live for millennia, Richie!
Journey to the stars! You'll be taking a part of me with
you. I want you to take me to the stars!

And never, never waste valuable years of your life
grieving for the people and things that have to be left
behind. Especially not for the part of me you're leaving
behind. There's no need to grieve. I feel only peace and
joy, the purest joy I've ever known...//

A sound.

There had been a background cacophony all along,
noise he could accept and ignore. This was different.
Close at hand. Something...metal? Clattering on a
wooden surface?

Directly in front of him, a dull thud. //Could I hear my
own head falling? No, that makes no sense at all.//

Headless or not, he felt himself toppling forward. Into
someone's arms.

And then--was it all in his mind?--the night exploded
in a riot of bells, horns, sirens and rocket blasts.

It was like...

Like...

Like midnight on New Year's Eve.

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