Origins - Chapter Eleven
At long last, the next chapter. The previous chapters can be read at my WIP page or you can click on the "origins" tag.
Origins
by MacGeorge
Chapter 11
Methos sat up with a gasp, going from a sound sleep to heart-pounding alertness in the space of only a few seconds. Damn! One minute he was having a pleasant dream involving a beautiful sunrise (or sunset, he wasn’t sure), a soaring hawk…, and the next they were there, so close! Never, during all the millennia he had so diligently avoided contact with the ones who had made him - never had they gone so far as to be able to reach him so tangibly. And not just in meditation or in deep sleep - but through secondary contact with another. The effort it would take, the pure psychic and intellectual power required boggled the imagination.
Some Sidhe was pushing the boundaries of… what had they called it? He reached for the oldest of his memories, back thousands of years… but the word was elusive. Ka.. something. Anyway, the most powerful of his ancestors were stretching their influence far past what he long thought had been their absolute limits. Was it some exponential increase in ability? Certainly the Sidhe had vast mental powers, honed over a span of time that even Methos had a hard time grasping. Their understanding of the subtleties of genetic manipulation were unsurpassed, and they had even reached as far into the galaxies as any sentient life they had ever encountered in millions of years, only to ultimately return to the power of their own minds as their source of stimulation.
So, that begged the question - Why? It was a question which had only one frighteningly ominous answer. At long, long last, the utterly timeless Sidhe were running out of time, and in their arrogance they had apparently left themselves only one option for survival - the castoff by-products of an ages-old back-up emergency plan in a backwater planet at the edge of one of billions of galaxies.
Great. Just his luck.
He looked over at the other bed where Joe was sleeping on his back, snoring gustily. Joe looked tired and worn and Methos felt a surge of irritation - at himself, at MacLeod, at the Sidhe for creating this mess. Joe should have spent his life writing and playing his music for those who loved and appreciated his gifts. Instead, the man was haring all over the world, using up his precious mortal years trying to save a pathetic race of delusional, genocidal misfits.
A part of him knew that wasn’t really a fair assessment, that Joe did what he did because of a sense of a larger purpose, a sense of history, a sense of obligation, and no small measure of hero worship of one Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod - damn his sad, soulful, puppy dog eyes.
But was MacLeod remotely worthy of that dedication? Was he an inveterate heroic, self-less do-gooder because he had a superior moral compass or simply because that’s how the Sidhe had made him? He snorted in wry amusement as he gave up on sleep and quietly moved to pull on his jeans and peer out the motel window at the dim gathering light of dawn. Nature or nurture? But in this case there had been nothing ‘natural’ about MacLeod’s nature. Genetic code by genetic code, the Sidhe had seen to it that Mac was endowed with the physical skills and strength to survive against foes of far greater power and experience, the stubborn will and intelligence to deal with those battles and the resultant emotional toll it inevitably took, and - most notably - the abiding sense of obligation, of service to others, a need to protect. It was his greatest weakness, and sometimes manifested itself as a peculiar of lack of self-worth, as though his value, to himself and to others, was only in sacrifice.
And, dollars-to-doughnuts, that was what this was all about - sacrifice. The only question was who. The only answer Methos knew for sure was that it sure as hell wasn’t going to be him.
Joe snorted and sniffed, drawing Methos’ attention as Joe cracked open one bleary eyelid. “What time is it?” he rasped.
Methos checked the glowing clock on the nightstand. “It’s about 6:30am.” He paused, giving Joe the chance to scrub at his face and yawn. “I think we need to get on the move as quickly as we can.”
“Why?” Joe grumbled, pulling the covers up around his shoulders and nestling into them a little deeper, almost out of sight. “It’s the ass crack of dawn. The world gonna end in the next half hour?”
Methos just stood and looked at him until Joe felt the weight of Methos’ gaze and peeked back over the covers. Their eyes met and Joe blinked a few times, then sighed. He sat up with a groan, scratching through the dense gray hair curling on his chest. “Okay, the end of the world it is,” he announced matter-of-factly. “Do we rush out and save the day right now, or can we at least get some breakfast?”
“I guess a quick bite can’t hurt,” Methos answered with as much of a smile as he could muster.
Joe’s eyes narrowed as he read Methos’ expression with a discerning eye. He threw back the covers and reached for his prostheses leaning against the nightstand. “Gimme ten minutes and we’re outta here,” he snapped grimly.
~~~~~~~
Greta had insisted that hiking the three-mile trail to the proposed “holy” site was not an option, so Sam was forced to borrow his father’s battered old Jeep to make the trip. Of course, Sam hadn’t told Wick where they were going. At best, telling his father that they intended to start a commercial venture based on taking spiritual tourists to one of their sacred sites was going to be awkward. At worst, Wick would be outraged and totally forbid it, then disown him if Sam disobeyed. But Sam was convinced that when his father saw the kind of money they could make, understood what a huge difference it could make in the life of the whole town, he would come around. At least, Sam was pretty sure, and besides, what right did his father have to tell him what he could or could not do on what amounted to public land? His father would probably be against anything Sam wanted to do that didn’t involve going back to college.
The day was crisp and cold, but typically clear, the sun gleaming brightly in a deep azure, almost cloudless sky. Greta was hanging onto her seat with one hand, and bracing herself against the dashboard with the other, looking tense and grim as they bounced and jerked along the what was really only a footpath, if a well-used one. There were recent tracks on it, Sam could tell, so someone had been along here since the last rain.
A dust cloud rose behind the Jeep, leaving a long telltale trail hanging in the still air. The clear evidence of their presence made Sam a little nervous. If someone reported this trip to his father their plans could be dead in the water before they even got started. Sam veered around a medium-sized rock, crashing into a mesquite bush on the other side of the trail. Greta yelped and ducked as the branches scraped along her side of the car, and Sam had to work to suppress a smile. Greta was such a city girl, all frowns and terrified squeals at the slightest hint of any form of wildlife. Sam had spent his childhood in these hills, among the lizards and hawks, the jackrabbits, the deer, the snakes and even the occasional mountain lion. He had spent many a summer evening clambering these rocks, then sitting and watching the sunset as swarms of bats exited the multitude of hidden caves and overhangs among the mesas, their small, flitting shapes filling the darkening sky as they swooped and dove in search of their evening meal of insects - also in abundance.
There was a part of him that truly loved this land, but there was another part of him that hated it and all it represented. Hated the desolation, the isolation, the hopeless poverty of so many of his people. Most of all he hated his father’s ridiculous insistence on clinging to a way of life that made no sense and served no purpose in today’s world. But at college, it had been even worse. He was of two cultures but at home in neither. He had rejected his father’s traditions, but the structure and social pressures of college life had been equally baffling, so one day he just walked away.
The job he had gotten at the carnival had been menial and paid poorly, but at least there he had felt, for a time, like he didn’t have a sign on his chest saying, “Misfit Loser”. Almost by definition, every carnie was a misfit or a loser, or both, one way or another. He looked over at Greta again, proud that she was with him. She was strange, with weird ideas and rarely talked about her own history or family, but she was smart and beautiful and oddly vulnerable, despite her hard-edged, street-smart facade. She made him feel strong and protective which was a new and welcome change for Sam.
He maneuvered around a large clump of cactus and brought the jeep to a jerking halt. “Have to walk from here, but it’s a smooth trail and not far,” he said, grabbing some heavy work gloves from the backseat as they both got out of the car.
“What’re those for?” she asked, shading her eyes to look around as he put on the gloves.
“My dad always piles rocks and moves scrub brush across the path. We’ll have to do a little clearing to make it easy for our clients to get there.”
“We?” she asked with a twist of her mouth and an arch, dubious look.
“Okay,” he conceded with a twisted smile. “Me.” He turned and examined the dirt track behind them, where their dust trail still hung in the air. “And I’ll have to clear a few of the larger rocks so we can get a minibus through here, but it really isn’t as bad as I remembered. Won’t take but a day or two.”
“So,” Greta said with a resigned sigh, “where is this magical place?”
“Can’t you tell with your ‘psychic radar’?” he asked with a grin.
“Yeah, right,” she muttered, but she did turn to the north with a speculative look down the trail.
Sam led Greta about another quarter mile down the now-negligible trail to what appeared to be a dead end - rocks and rough brush edged against the uprising of a mesa on one side and the steep drop into a wide canyon on the other. Sam went to work moving the rocks and yanking out some of the thorny shrubbery. It looked like the vegetation had taken root since the last time he was here, so it was unlikely that the site had been visited in a long time, possibly years. Greta settled on a rock nearby to watch him work, looking suitably feminine and helpless, Sam noted as he sweated with his efforts despite the cool air. She might not be much of a help with the hard labor, he decided, but she sure was easy on the eyes. She was dressed in a short jeans jacket that had elaborate embroidery down the sleeves, a rose-colored v-neck shirt and skin-tight jeans that accented her generous curves. That spectacular figure only added to the already sexy pout of generous lips and a heart-shaped face that made his heart ache and his groin tighten.
He knew she used her sex appeal to get by in the world - he even admired her gumption in that respect, but the thought of other men looking at her, wanting her, made him seethe with jealousy. That was a risk and a downside to their business plan. She was the main attraction - her beauty, her sexiness, her claim to ‘spiritual gifts’. Sam didn’t really believe in that crap, knew it was a well-practiced scam, but there were times when she got that glazed, far-away look in her eye and made an observation that just creeped him out.
He took off his battered hat and wiped his brow with his sleeve, catching his breath. Greta had been quiet as he worked and when he turned to tell her the path was clear, he was surprised to see her standing, facing west, her head cocked.
“Do you hear that?” she asked softly.
Sam paused, listening, but only heard the soft sigh of wind and the distant caw of a crow. “Hear what?”
She blinked a few times, frowning. “I’m not sure. I just thought….,” she shrugged. “Never mind. Just the wind.”
~~~~~~~
It was a kind of subliminal itch, a vaguely uncomfortable feeling that he couldn’t truly identify, unsure even if it was something physical or some mental/emotional glitch in Quickening energy. It manifested itself in vivid dreams of strange landscapes, of frightening images of exploding stars that devastated huge swaths of space as the force of the blast spread through the galaxy, dreams so disturbing that for almost a week he resisted going to bed at all. But the feeling didn’t stop there, not since he had heard that voice out on the trail. And it was getting worse, day by day. He had deliberately put up mental and emotional barriers, made himself concentrate fiercely on the ‘here and now’ of putting the finishing touches on Wick’s almost-finished truck, listened to opera with the volume turned up loudly enough to generate light-hearted, teasing complaints from his neighbors, and generally tried to occupy his mind with something - anything - that required some measure of concentration.
Of course, the less sleep he got, the more his mind wandered, the more he felt the compulsion to meditate, the more he wanted to grab a bottle of water and set out across the desert, running himself into that mental void that extreme exercise sometimes generated. But that was very nearly equivalent to a full-on meditative state, so that option seemed like a bad idea. Right now, everything seemed like a bad idea. He was even tempted to contact Methos to ask what the hell he should do, but the whole point of disappearing was to distance himself from other Immortals - especially from Methos.
“You into reading coffee grounds now?” a familiar voice asked. Duncan looked up to see Wick examining him with a quizzical expression. “You’ve been staring into that empty cup for an awfully long time. Learn any secrets of the universe?” he continued as he slid onto the stool next to him, signaling Maria to bring him his ‘usual’ mid-morning snack, which was a glass of orange juice and a doughnut.
Mac made a show of examining the bottom of his cup, then looked up with a sad shake of his head. “’Fraid not,” Mac said with a smile. “No secrets here.”
“Hmm,” Wick replied enigmatically, eyeing him sideways. “Seems to me you are a man with a lot of secrets. For instance,” he went on softly, “You are a man who does what he wants, when he wants, so one might think you are a man of means, but you look like you’ve been ‘rode hard and put away wet’ these last few days. I’m not a man to pry into other folks’ private affairs, Mac, but if you’ve got some sort of trouble, it might help to share it a bit and ease the load.”
Mac shrugged and shook his head. “It’s complicated,” he equivocated, then searched for some other topic to discuss. “How’s Sam doing?” he asked. “I’ve hardly seen him or Greta around the past week or so.”
“You know, I’m a little curious about that myself,” Wick responded, nodding thanks to Maria when she put his juice and doughnut down in front of him. “He’s borrowing the jeep every day, and comes home looking like he put in a hard day’s work, but won’t say what he’s doing. But if it’s keeping him busy, that’s okay with me. And if it involves hard work, that’s even better.”
“What about Greta?” Mac asked, keeping his tone casual. He was still deeply suspicious at her unexpected and as-yet-unexplained presence in this utterly backwater town in the middle of the desert.
Wick took a bite of his doughnut, giving himself a powdered-sugar mustache in the process. “I dunno,” he shrugged. “Sam said she was in Sedona ‘seeing to some business’”, Wick waggled his head as he spoke. “I don’t know what the hell the big mystery is. Probably just looking for a waitress job or somethin’.”
A chill crept across Mac’s shoulders and it felt like his skin tightened all over his body. Something wasn’t right. Something hadn’t been right for a long time, and whatever bad karma was in the air seemed so close he could almost smell it, but it was getting so he was just too tired to even think about it anymore. “You know, Wick,” he finally said in soft resignation, “your truck is just about done. The engine is running pretty well, and I’ve finally gotten the transmission to where the gears are working smoothly. I’ve reupholstered the seats, refinished the wood and all it really needs now is a nice paint job.”
Wick turned on his stool, took a long drink of his orange juice and set the glass down, just studying Mac for a moment. The intense inspection was discomforting, but Mac just met his gaze with a steady one of his own. “So you’re going to move on?” Wick asked, although it sounded more like a statement of fact than a question. Wick paused, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “You know, son, whatever you’re running away from, it’ll catch up to you sooner or later. Maybe it’s better to just stay and face it.”
Mac felt his face form a tight, bitter smile. “Or maybe that’s the worst thing I can do,” he responded softly. “Maybe I just put everyone around me at risk. People I care about,” he added, with a meaningful look at his friend.
“If they are people you care about,” Wick responded equally quietly, “then maybe they’d gladly face a little risk for your sake. It’s what friends do.”
“And maybe,” Mac answered with a hard twist of his mouth and a deep breath, “it’s just time to move on. Rolling stones gather no moss, and all that,” he added in a lighter tone as he stood and pulled some money out of his pocket. “No drama, Wick. I’ll take the truck into Flagstaff and get her painted a beautiful red. Bring her back in a couple of days and your old Rosie will be as good as new, maybe better. Then Sam can have his trailer back, although I suspect Greta prefers her present accommodations.” He threw some bills on the counter left without looking back.
Maria brought Wick a refill on his orange juice, and both of them watched as Mac strode out the door. “He fixin’ to leave town?” she asked, her eyes lingering on the door.
“Looks like it,” Wick replied.
She shook her head, making a uniquely Indian sound of disappointment. “Too bad. Rumor is he has some of our blood in him, and he’s so pretty I could almost believe it,” she said, winking at Wick. “But at least Sam is sticking around, so not all the good looking ones are gone.”
“Hey, what about me?” Wick protested, feigning offence, but all he got was a soft slap with a dish towel.
~~~~~~~
Methos felt he now had a better sense of the general direction of MacLeod’s whereabouts, and the two travelers quickly left the mountains and the miserable weather behind, heading southwest across the dessert in the bright sunshine of an azure sky. Methos drove for the better part of the day, leaving Joe to alternately doze and worry. His troubled thoughts were no longer just for the well-being of his friends, but of the potential reverberations of their lives on… the world? That sounded melodramatic even in the privacy of his own head, but Methos was being so damned cryptic and grim that Joe really had no way to gauge just how bad the situation was, or might get.
And, of course, the experience with Ahriman had taught him not to underestimate the ripple effect of Duncan MacLeod’s personal tribulations. This whole adventure was getting seriously scary. Aliens? Meditations that crossed psychic boundaries, causing a Gathering? So far, Methos’ explanations had seemed unlikely - to put it kindly - and, Lord knows, Methos was probably the most accomplished liar in the History of Man. Nevertheless… he looked over the man, whose hard-planed face seemed even sharper than usual, his concentration on the road so intense as to discourage conversation - which was probably quite deliberate on the wily old Immortal’s part. However, if there was one thing that had become evident in his admittedly turbulent dealings with Methos, it was that the man had a singular fascination with Duncan MacLeod.
Yeah, Mac was a Good Guy, with a capital “G” - most of the time, at least. Yeah, through centuries of hard work and harder experience and the most damnable luck, he had become the most formidable Immortal on the planet, save one, Joe observed, glancing once again at Methos’ tense profile. But there was something else that drew Methos. Was it the same fascination that had kept Joe enthralled all these decades - the somewhat embarrassing hero-worship of which Joe himself was guilty?
Nah. Methos didn’t seem the type to hold anyone, Immortal or mortal, in that kind of esteem. He’d seen too much, knew too much, understood all too well that Mac was a man like other men, cracked and flawed and terribly emotionally scarred. It was a mystery, and an important one if Joe wasn’t greatly mistaken.
He drew in a breath to tentatively ask what he knew were going to be some awkward questions when Methos quickly reached out and snapped on the radio, turning it up to an uncomfortable volume, even for Joe’s jaded ears. Damn. You’d think the man could read minds.
Joe settled back further in the seat, choosing not to pursue the issue - for the moment. It wasn’t like he really wanted to ask those questions, anyway. But eventually, the information would come out, and it would be better to be fully informed before they got into some big honkin’ mess of a crisis, rather than only figure it out after the fact.
It was mid-afternoon when they rolled into a little desert town called Braddockville and rather than blowing on through, Methos slowed, eyeing the various stores along the main street. He pulled into an ice cream shop whose parking lot was decorated with antique cars that had been left in the desert sun too long.
“Feeling the need for something sweet?” he asked.
“Not really,” Methos answered cryptically.
Figuring he wasn’t going to get anything useful out of the man, Joe struggled out of the car and by the time he got to the order window, Methos had already ordered two vanilla cones of soft ice cream, dipped in chocolate. Ick. Joe hated those things. Well, that wasn’t true. He liked ‘em well enough, but there was no way you could use a cane, hold an ice cream cone and lick it fast enough to keep it from dripping, especially with that hard chocolate coating, with no way to wipe your face and hands with the other hand. He almost always ended up with sticky stuff all over himself. Not very dignified.
“Thanks!” Methos said to the clerk - a robust young Indian woman wearing a ridiculous uniform, including a little cap on her head.
Methos led the way to a nearby outside table, swept off a seat with a spare napkin he had grabbed and gestured for Joe to sit, which he did with gratitude.
They sat for a moment in silence, licking their cones with great concentration. It had to be done fast, especially right after you broke the shell or you could lose whole chunks of chocolate as it slipped away from the melting ice cream.
Joe crunched into the last of the cone, then used one of the miniature napkins to make a desultory attempt to get the sticky off his hands. The day was relatively cool, but the sun was warm on his skin and there was no breeze at all. The desert sky was a beautiful blue and he took a deep breath of air unsullied by city smog. “Okay,” he finally addressed Methos softly. “Why are we here? You just feeling low on sugar, or maybe you used to own one of those antique cars?”
“A hunch,” Methos finally answered, his tongue snaking out to wipe away a residue of ice cream on his upper lip. “This place… feels different. Something in the air. Mac would feel it, too. And,” he added with a nod at the half-dozen rusting old automobiles, “while I’m not into old cars, MacLeod is.”
Joe sat back, enjoying the sunshine, just glad to be out of the car. “I supposed that’s as good a reason as any,” he sighed. “Well, if you want to ask around, that’s okay with me, but this place is small enough that if Mac was here, seems to me all you have to do is drive down Main Street and you’d feel him.” Joe paused and gave Methos a desultory look. “And we just did that.”
“MacLeod has many faults,” Methos noted with a tight smile. “But stupid isn’t one of them, and he would never stay someplace where any passing Immortal could easily sense him from the main highway.” Methos stood, his hands on his hips, looking up and down the street - a street which offered little of interest except a coffee shop, a seedy-looking bar, a trading post that also served as the local garage, and a hardware store. Methos smiled at the name of what was most likely a tee-shirt mecca - Joe’s Trading Emporium. He looked over at his friend. “I think we ought to go visit Joe, Joe” he announced with a sly smile.
Joe Dawson snorted his acknowledgement of the lame joke, and hauled himself to his feet. The probability of finding MacLeod in this backwater town seemed unlikely in the extreme, but he supposed a vague hunch from the Oldest Man in the World was the most likely lead they were going to get.
~~~~~~~
Ce’dane of the Mountains awoke with a gasp, his head jerking back as his wide, dark eyes flew open. Something had pulled him out of his deep journey into his own memories. The room was filled with far more illumination than his simple movement should have caused. The p’talne were all swaying and quivering as though they had been shaken, causing them to flare into maximum brilliance. Dane lay very still, and even through the soft, cushioning geesta, he felt the tremor of a low, uneven rumble echo through the stone cavern.
“No!” he breathed. “It’s too soon.” Or was it? How long had he lain there, insensible to his surroundings as his beloved planet was torn apart from the forces of their decaying sun? Time had always seen almost irrelevant, measured only by the eons, by the rising of the mountains, the erosion of the rivers, the slow, gradual development of new species, but suddenly it seemed like each full turn of the planet brought them ever closer to ultimate destruction - of their world, of their very existence in the universe.
He had to strain to push himself to a sitting position, and a g’nagal was instantly by his side to assist him. It asked him if he wanted food or drink, and he nodded. Within a few breaths a vessel was pushed into his hand and he forced himself to swallow its contents. Another ominous rumble stirred the p’talne and the fronds, which had just begun to moderate their output of light, flared brightly again.
“How long have I been… dreaming?” he asked. His voice was harsh and grating, but the g’nagal’s response was immediate.
“Not long,” it said in soothing, mellow tones. “Only five cycles of the third moon.”
Ce’dane felt his lips tighten into a humorless smile. How ironic that they still measured small increments of time by the orbits of Dunal’s largest moon. That splendid vista of their night sky was forever barred to them, and had been for a very long time. He closed his eyes and in his mind easily conjured B’labrit rising over the peaks of his own carefully forested mountain. There was always one or more of its five distant orbiting sisters in view, each unique in color and size and brightness, filling the sky with breathtaking beauty. He had never tired of that sight and many of the rooms of his so-carefully grown sanctuary were paeans to one or more of the those magnificent moons. Of course, they too, would be destroyed by the destructive force of their damnable decaying sun. Perhaps the smallest of them was already gone. Perhaps that was the reason for the sudden increase in the small quakes that had awakened him from his world of dream and memory.
He didn’t want to know. It would have been better to have met the end while still in his world of dreams, where their beautiful world still lived on. Unless… he shook himself. No, D’Thalia must have tried to open the gate by now, and failed. Otherwise, she would have done whatever was necessary to awaken him had she succeeded.
“Where is D’thalia?” he asked, beginning to feel the strength return to his body as the highly fortifying drink worked into his system.
“She is at the main dun’a’queha,” was the murmured answer. “Most of the others are gathered there.”
An ominous shiver crawled across his shoulders, and he felt a touch on his forearm. Surprisingly, the enormous eyes of the g’nagal met his directly. “It is time,” it added. “You are needed there, Ce’Dane of the Mountains.”
Amazing. For time immemorial the g’nagal had not demonstrated the power of independent thought, yet in the span of only a few rotations, not even enough to be measured by fan, the creatures were showing a capacity for independent analysis and decision-making that vastly exceeded anything Dane had believed possible. Had they just suddenly… evolved? But that was impossible. They were a product of genetic engineering, their abilities, their reproduction, their attributes all carefully monitored and controlled.
He put a hand on the creature’s shoulder to help him to stand, wavering there until his limbs were firm beneath him. With the g’nagal’s assistance he moved slowly out of his rooms and along the wide, arched cavern toward the central standing stones of the main dun’a’que’ha, where the magnetic ebbs and flows of their dying planet were concentrated.
As he walked, he knew he should be contemplating the last great obstacle his race might have to overcome, but instead his mind puzzled over the strange changes in the g’nagal, sensing something of great import, some monumental realization was just out of his reach. He was so very tired, his very being felt… old beyond bearing. Age was an almost non-existent concept for their race - something observed in other, more primitive creatures, but never in themselves. Perhaps it was the knowledge that their world was in its last death throes. Perhaps it was just time itself. Perhaps he wasn’t strong enough, wise enough, patient enough, to continue to endure - and endurance was the trait most valued by their kind. He was a failure, he knew. He had failed his people, his planet, and his closest companion. D’thalia needed him now, more than ever, and he found it truly hard to summon the energy to care.
~~~~~~
Cassandra shuddered again, the eerie sense of prescience crawling over her like insects on a cadaver. She couldn’t remember the first time it had happened, but the sensation had gotten stronger with the passing months until it had become practically unbearable. It felt a little like the call she had resisted for over 3,000 years - that burning in the blood that drew their kind to combat - the need, the thrill, the hunger. But… not quite. This was a deeper thrum that excited a different aspect of her being, that odd not-place deep inside that resonated whenever she used the Voice or extended her will to ‘help’ others see what she wanted them to see. At last, reluctantly, she had responded, but still didn’t know whether it was the right or wrong thing to do. The last thing she wanted was to get caught up in a Gathering.
The plane jolted slightly as it landed and the steward welcomed them to Phoenix, Arizona, announcing the local time and temperature and thanking them for using Southwest Airlines. What she would do next was uncertain, she only knew there was something that pulled her here, something… important.
At the luggage carousel she felt the jarring presence of another Immortal, and looked across the concourse, spotting him immediately. He looked young, uncertain and fearful, jerking his gaze away when their eyes met. Then she felt another… and another…
…to be continued
Origins
by MacGeorge
Chapter 11
Methos sat up with a gasp, going from a sound sleep to heart-pounding alertness in the space of only a few seconds. Damn! One minute he was having a pleasant dream involving a beautiful sunrise (or sunset, he wasn’t sure), a soaring hawk…, and the next they were there, so close! Never, during all the millennia he had so diligently avoided contact with the ones who had made him - never had they gone so far as to be able to reach him so tangibly. And not just in meditation or in deep sleep - but through secondary contact with another. The effort it would take, the pure psychic and intellectual power required boggled the imagination.
Some Sidhe was pushing the boundaries of… what had they called it? He reached for the oldest of his memories, back thousands of years… but the word was elusive. Ka.. something. Anyway, the most powerful of his ancestors were stretching their influence far past what he long thought had been their absolute limits. Was it some exponential increase in ability? Certainly the Sidhe had vast mental powers, honed over a span of time that even Methos had a hard time grasping. Their understanding of the subtleties of genetic manipulation were unsurpassed, and they had even reached as far into the galaxies as any sentient life they had ever encountered in millions of years, only to ultimately return to the power of their own minds as their source of stimulation.
So, that begged the question - Why? It was a question which had only one frighteningly ominous answer. At long, long last, the utterly timeless Sidhe were running out of time, and in their arrogance they had apparently left themselves only one option for survival - the castoff by-products of an ages-old back-up emergency plan in a backwater planet at the edge of one of billions of galaxies.
Great. Just his luck.
He looked over at the other bed where Joe was sleeping on his back, snoring gustily. Joe looked tired and worn and Methos felt a surge of irritation - at himself, at MacLeod, at the Sidhe for creating this mess. Joe should have spent his life writing and playing his music for those who loved and appreciated his gifts. Instead, the man was haring all over the world, using up his precious mortal years trying to save a pathetic race of delusional, genocidal misfits.
A part of him knew that wasn’t really a fair assessment, that Joe did what he did because of a sense of a larger purpose, a sense of history, a sense of obligation, and no small measure of hero worship of one Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod - damn his sad, soulful, puppy dog eyes.
But was MacLeod remotely worthy of that dedication? Was he an inveterate heroic, self-less do-gooder because he had a superior moral compass or simply because that’s how the Sidhe had made him? He snorted in wry amusement as he gave up on sleep and quietly moved to pull on his jeans and peer out the motel window at the dim gathering light of dawn. Nature or nurture? But in this case there had been nothing ‘natural’ about MacLeod’s nature. Genetic code by genetic code, the Sidhe had seen to it that Mac was endowed with the physical skills and strength to survive against foes of far greater power and experience, the stubborn will and intelligence to deal with those battles and the resultant emotional toll it inevitably took, and - most notably - the abiding sense of obligation, of service to others, a need to protect. It was his greatest weakness, and sometimes manifested itself as a peculiar of lack of self-worth, as though his value, to himself and to others, was only in sacrifice.
And, dollars-to-doughnuts, that was what this was all about - sacrifice. The only question was who. The only answer Methos knew for sure was that it sure as hell wasn’t going to be him.
Joe snorted and sniffed, drawing Methos’ attention as Joe cracked open one bleary eyelid. “What time is it?” he rasped.
Methos checked the glowing clock on the nightstand. “It’s about 6:30am.” He paused, giving Joe the chance to scrub at his face and yawn. “I think we need to get on the move as quickly as we can.”
“Why?” Joe grumbled, pulling the covers up around his shoulders and nestling into them a little deeper, almost out of sight. “It’s the ass crack of dawn. The world gonna end in the next half hour?”
Methos just stood and looked at him until Joe felt the weight of Methos’ gaze and peeked back over the covers. Their eyes met and Joe blinked a few times, then sighed. He sat up with a groan, scratching through the dense gray hair curling on his chest. “Okay, the end of the world it is,” he announced matter-of-factly. “Do we rush out and save the day right now, or can we at least get some breakfast?”
“I guess a quick bite can’t hurt,” Methos answered with as much of a smile as he could muster.
Joe’s eyes narrowed as he read Methos’ expression with a discerning eye. He threw back the covers and reached for his prostheses leaning against the nightstand. “Gimme ten minutes and we’re outta here,” he snapped grimly.
~~~~~~~
Greta had insisted that hiking the three-mile trail to the proposed “holy” site was not an option, so Sam was forced to borrow his father’s battered old Jeep to make the trip. Of course, Sam hadn’t told Wick where they were going. At best, telling his father that they intended to start a commercial venture based on taking spiritual tourists to one of their sacred sites was going to be awkward. At worst, Wick would be outraged and totally forbid it, then disown him if Sam disobeyed. But Sam was convinced that when his father saw the kind of money they could make, understood what a huge difference it could make in the life of the whole town, he would come around. At least, Sam was pretty sure, and besides, what right did his father have to tell him what he could or could not do on what amounted to public land? His father would probably be against anything Sam wanted to do that didn’t involve going back to college.
The day was crisp and cold, but typically clear, the sun gleaming brightly in a deep azure, almost cloudless sky. Greta was hanging onto her seat with one hand, and bracing herself against the dashboard with the other, looking tense and grim as they bounced and jerked along the what was really only a footpath, if a well-used one. There were recent tracks on it, Sam could tell, so someone had been along here since the last rain.
A dust cloud rose behind the Jeep, leaving a long telltale trail hanging in the still air. The clear evidence of their presence made Sam a little nervous. If someone reported this trip to his father their plans could be dead in the water before they even got started. Sam veered around a medium-sized rock, crashing into a mesquite bush on the other side of the trail. Greta yelped and ducked as the branches scraped along her side of the car, and Sam had to work to suppress a smile. Greta was such a city girl, all frowns and terrified squeals at the slightest hint of any form of wildlife. Sam had spent his childhood in these hills, among the lizards and hawks, the jackrabbits, the deer, the snakes and even the occasional mountain lion. He had spent many a summer evening clambering these rocks, then sitting and watching the sunset as swarms of bats exited the multitude of hidden caves and overhangs among the mesas, their small, flitting shapes filling the darkening sky as they swooped and dove in search of their evening meal of insects - also in abundance.
There was a part of him that truly loved this land, but there was another part of him that hated it and all it represented. Hated the desolation, the isolation, the hopeless poverty of so many of his people. Most of all he hated his father’s ridiculous insistence on clinging to a way of life that made no sense and served no purpose in today’s world. But at college, it had been even worse. He was of two cultures but at home in neither. He had rejected his father’s traditions, but the structure and social pressures of college life had been equally baffling, so one day he just walked away.
The job he had gotten at the carnival had been menial and paid poorly, but at least there he had felt, for a time, like he didn’t have a sign on his chest saying, “Misfit Loser”. Almost by definition, every carnie was a misfit or a loser, or both, one way or another. He looked over at Greta again, proud that she was with him. She was strange, with weird ideas and rarely talked about her own history or family, but she was smart and beautiful and oddly vulnerable, despite her hard-edged, street-smart facade. She made him feel strong and protective which was a new and welcome change for Sam.
He maneuvered around a large clump of cactus and brought the jeep to a jerking halt. “Have to walk from here, but it’s a smooth trail and not far,” he said, grabbing some heavy work gloves from the backseat as they both got out of the car.
“What’re those for?” she asked, shading her eyes to look around as he put on the gloves.
“My dad always piles rocks and moves scrub brush across the path. We’ll have to do a little clearing to make it easy for our clients to get there.”
“We?” she asked with a twist of her mouth and an arch, dubious look.
“Okay,” he conceded with a twisted smile. “Me.” He turned and examined the dirt track behind them, where their dust trail still hung in the air. “And I’ll have to clear a few of the larger rocks so we can get a minibus through here, but it really isn’t as bad as I remembered. Won’t take but a day or two.”
“So,” Greta said with a resigned sigh, “where is this magical place?”
“Can’t you tell with your ‘psychic radar’?” he asked with a grin.
“Yeah, right,” she muttered, but she did turn to the north with a speculative look down the trail.
Sam led Greta about another quarter mile down the now-negligible trail to what appeared to be a dead end - rocks and rough brush edged against the uprising of a mesa on one side and the steep drop into a wide canyon on the other. Sam went to work moving the rocks and yanking out some of the thorny shrubbery. It looked like the vegetation had taken root since the last time he was here, so it was unlikely that the site had been visited in a long time, possibly years. Greta settled on a rock nearby to watch him work, looking suitably feminine and helpless, Sam noted as he sweated with his efforts despite the cool air. She might not be much of a help with the hard labor, he decided, but she sure was easy on the eyes. She was dressed in a short jeans jacket that had elaborate embroidery down the sleeves, a rose-colored v-neck shirt and skin-tight jeans that accented her generous curves. That spectacular figure only added to the already sexy pout of generous lips and a heart-shaped face that made his heart ache and his groin tighten.
He knew she used her sex appeal to get by in the world - he even admired her gumption in that respect, but the thought of other men looking at her, wanting her, made him seethe with jealousy. That was a risk and a downside to their business plan. She was the main attraction - her beauty, her sexiness, her claim to ‘spiritual gifts’. Sam didn’t really believe in that crap, knew it was a well-practiced scam, but there were times when she got that glazed, far-away look in her eye and made an observation that just creeped him out.
He took off his battered hat and wiped his brow with his sleeve, catching his breath. Greta had been quiet as he worked and when he turned to tell her the path was clear, he was surprised to see her standing, facing west, her head cocked.
“Do you hear that?” she asked softly.
Sam paused, listening, but only heard the soft sigh of wind and the distant caw of a crow. “Hear what?”
She blinked a few times, frowning. “I’m not sure. I just thought….,” she shrugged. “Never mind. Just the wind.”
~~~~~~~
It was a kind of subliminal itch, a vaguely uncomfortable feeling that he couldn’t truly identify, unsure even if it was something physical or some mental/emotional glitch in Quickening energy. It manifested itself in vivid dreams of strange landscapes, of frightening images of exploding stars that devastated huge swaths of space as the force of the blast spread through the galaxy, dreams so disturbing that for almost a week he resisted going to bed at all. But the feeling didn’t stop there, not since he had heard that voice out on the trail. And it was getting worse, day by day. He had deliberately put up mental and emotional barriers, made himself concentrate fiercely on the ‘here and now’ of putting the finishing touches on Wick’s almost-finished truck, listened to opera with the volume turned up loudly enough to generate light-hearted, teasing complaints from his neighbors, and generally tried to occupy his mind with something - anything - that required some measure of concentration.
Of course, the less sleep he got, the more his mind wandered, the more he felt the compulsion to meditate, the more he wanted to grab a bottle of water and set out across the desert, running himself into that mental void that extreme exercise sometimes generated. But that was very nearly equivalent to a full-on meditative state, so that option seemed like a bad idea. Right now, everything seemed like a bad idea. He was even tempted to contact Methos to ask what the hell he should do, but the whole point of disappearing was to distance himself from other Immortals - especially from Methos.
“You into reading coffee grounds now?” a familiar voice asked. Duncan looked up to see Wick examining him with a quizzical expression. “You’ve been staring into that empty cup for an awfully long time. Learn any secrets of the universe?” he continued as he slid onto the stool next to him, signaling Maria to bring him his ‘usual’ mid-morning snack, which was a glass of orange juice and a doughnut.
Mac made a show of examining the bottom of his cup, then looked up with a sad shake of his head. “’Fraid not,” Mac said with a smile. “No secrets here.”
“Hmm,” Wick replied enigmatically, eyeing him sideways. “Seems to me you are a man with a lot of secrets. For instance,” he went on softly, “You are a man who does what he wants, when he wants, so one might think you are a man of means, but you look like you’ve been ‘rode hard and put away wet’ these last few days. I’m not a man to pry into other folks’ private affairs, Mac, but if you’ve got some sort of trouble, it might help to share it a bit and ease the load.”
Mac shrugged and shook his head. “It’s complicated,” he equivocated, then searched for some other topic to discuss. “How’s Sam doing?” he asked. “I’ve hardly seen him or Greta around the past week or so.”
“You know, I’m a little curious about that myself,” Wick responded, nodding thanks to Maria when she put his juice and doughnut down in front of him. “He’s borrowing the jeep every day, and comes home looking like he put in a hard day’s work, but won’t say what he’s doing. But if it’s keeping him busy, that’s okay with me. And if it involves hard work, that’s even better.”
“What about Greta?” Mac asked, keeping his tone casual. He was still deeply suspicious at her unexpected and as-yet-unexplained presence in this utterly backwater town in the middle of the desert.
Wick took a bite of his doughnut, giving himself a powdered-sugar mustache in the process. “I dunno,” he shrugged. “Sam said she was in Sedona ‘seeing to some business’”, Wick waggled his head as he spoke. “I don’t know what the hell the big mystery is. Probably just looking for a waitress job or somethin’.”
A chill crept across Mac’s shoulders and it felt like his skin tightened all over his body. Something wasn’t right. Something hadn’t been right for a long time, and whatever bad karma was in the air seemed so close he could almost smell it, but it was getting so he was just too tired to even think about it anymore. “You know, Wick,” he finally said in soft resignation, “your truck is just about done. The engine is running pretty well, and I’ve finally gotten the transmission to where the gears are working smoothly. I’ve reupholstered the seats, refinished the wood and all it really needs now is a nice paint job.”
Wick turned on his stool, took a long drink of his orange juice and set the glass down, just studying Mac for a moment. The intense inspection was discomforting, but Mac just met his gaze with a steady one of his own. “So you’re going to move on?” Wick asked, although it sounded more like a statement of fact than a question. Wick paused, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “You know, son, whatever you’re running away from, it’ll catch up to you sooner or later. Maybe it’s better to just stay and face it.”
Mac felt his face form a tight, bitter smile. “Or maybe that’s the worst thing I can do,” he responded softly. “Maybe I just put everyone around me at risk. People I care about,” he added, with a meaningful look at his friend.
“If they are people you care about,” Wick responded equally quietly, “then maybe they’d gladly face a little risk for your sake. It’s what friends do.”
“And maybe,” Mac answered with a hard twist of his mouth and a deep breath, “it’s just time to move on. Rolling stones gather no moss, and all that,” he added in a lighter tone as he stood and pulled some money out of his pocket. “No drama, Wick. I’ll take the truck into Flagstaff and get her painted a beautiful red. Bring her back in a couple of days and your old Rosie will be as good as new, maybe better. Then Sam can have his trailer back, although I suspect Greta prefers her present accommodations.” He threw some bills on the counter left without looking back.
Maria brought Wick a refill on his orange juice, and both of them watched as Mac strode out the door. “He fixin’ to leave town?” she asked, her eyes lingering on the door.
“Looks like it,” Wick replied.
She shook her head, making a uniquely Indian sound of disappointment. “Too bad. Rumor is he has some of our blood in him, and he’s so pretty I could almost believe it,” she said, winking at Wick. “But at least Sam is sticking around, so not all the good looking ones are gone.”
“Hey, what about me?” Wick protested, feigning offence, but all he got was a soft slap with a dish towel.
~~~~~~~
Methos felt he now had a better sense of the general direction of MacLeod’s whereabouts, and the two travelers quickly left the mountains and the miserable weather behind, heading southwest across the dessert in the bright sunshine of an azure sky. Methos drove for the better part of the day, leaving Joe to alternately doze and worry. His troubled thoughts were no longer just for the well-being of his friends, but of the potential reverberations of their lives on… the world? That sounded melodramatic even in the privacy of his own head, but Methos was being so damned cryptic and grim that Joe really had no way to gauge just how bad the situation was, or might get.
And, of course, the experience with Ahriman had taught him not to underestimate the ripple effect of Duncan MacLeod’s personal tribulations. This whole adventure was getting seriously scary. Aliens? Meditations that crossed psychic boundaries, causing a Gathering? So far, Methos’ explanations had seemed unlikely - to put it kindly - and, Lord knows, Methos was probably the most accomplished liar in the History of Man. Nevertheless… he looked over the man, whose hard-planed face seemed even sharper than usual, his concentration on the road so intense as to discourage conversation - which was probably quite deliberate on the wily old Immortal’s part. However, if there was one thing that had become evident in his admittedly turbulent dealings with Methos, it was that the man had a singular fascination with Duncan MacLeod.
Yeah, Mac was a Good Guy, with a capital “G” - most of the time, at least. Yeah, through centuries of hard work and harder experience and the most damnable luck, he had become the most formidable Immortal on the planet, save one, Joe observed, glancing once again at Methos’ tense profile. But there was something else that drew Methos. Was it the same fascination that had kept Joe enthralled all these decades - the somewhat embarrassing hero-worship of which Joe himself was guilty?
Nah. Methos didn’t seem the type to hold anyone, Immortal or mortal, in that kind of esteem. He’d seen too much, knew too much, understood all too well that Mac was a man like other men, cracked and flawed and terribly emotionally scarred. It was a mystery, and an important one if Joe wasn’t greatly mistaken.
He drew in a breath to tentatively ask what he knew were going to be some awkward questions when Methos quickly reached out and snapped on the radio, turning it up to an uncomfortable volume, even for Joe’s jaded ears. Damn. You’d think the man could read minds.
Joe settled back further in the seat, choosing not to pursue the issue - for the moment. It wasn’t like he really wanted to ask those questions, anyway. But eventually, the information would come out, and it would be better to be fully informed before they got into some big honkin’ mess of a crisis, rather than only figure it out after the fact.
It was mid-afternoon when they rolled into a little desert town called Braddockville and rather than blowing on through, Methos slowed, eyeing the various stores along the main street. He pulled into an ice cream shop whose parking lot was decorated with antique cars that had been left in the desert sun too long.
“Feeling the need for something sweet?” he asked.
“Not really,” Methos answered cryptically.
Figuring he wasn’t going to get anything useful out of the man, Joe struggled out of the car and by the time he got to the order window, Methos had already ordered two vanilla cones of soft ice cream, dipped in chocolate. Ick. Joe hated those things. Well, that wasn’t true. He liked ‘em well enough, but there was no way you could use a cane, hold an ice cream cone and lick it fast enough to keep it from dripping, especially with that hard chocolate coating, with no way to wipe your face and hands with the other hand. He almost always ended up with sticky stuff all over himself. Not very dignified.
“Thanks!” Methos said to the clerk - a robust young Indian woman wearing a ridiculous uniform, including a little cap on her head.
Methos led the way to a nearby outside table, swept off a seat with a spare napkin he had grabbed and gestured for Joe to sit, which he did with gratitude.
They sat for a moment in silence, licking their cones with great concentration. It had to be done fast, especially right after you broke the shell or you could lose whole chunks of chocolate as it slipped away from the melting ice cream.
Joe crunched into the last of the cone, then used one of the miniature napkins to make a desultory attempt to get the sticky off his hands. The day was relatively cool, but the sun was warm on his skin and there was no breeze at all. The desert sky was a beautiful blue and he took a deep breath of air unsullied by city smog. “Okay,” he finally addressed Methos softly. “Why are we here? You just feeling low on sugar, or maybe you used to own one of those antique cars?”
“A hunch,” Methos finally answered, his tongue snaking out to wipe away a residue of ice cream on his upper lip. “This place… feels different. Something in the air. Mac would feel it, too. And,” he added with a nod at the half-dozen rusting old automobiles, “while I’m not into old cars, MacLeod is.”
Joe sat back, enjoying the sunshine, just glad to be out of the car. “I supposed that’s as good a reason as any,” he sighed. “Well, if you want to ask around, that’s okay with me, but this place is small enough that if Mac was here, seems to me all you have to do is drive down Main Street and you’d feel him.” Joe paused and gave Methos a desultory look. “And we just did that.”
“MacLeod has many faults,” Methos noted with a tight smile. “But stupid isn’t one of them, and he would never stay someplace where any passing Immortal could easily sense him from the main highway.” Methos stood, his hands on his hips, looking up and down the street - a street which offered little of interest except a coffee shop, a seedy-looking bar, a trading post that also served as the local garage, and a hardware store. Methos smiled at the name of what was most likely a tee-shirt mecca - Joe’s Trading Emporium. He looked over at his friend. “I think we ought to go visit Joe, Joe” he announced with a sly smile.
Joe Dawson snorted his acknowledgement of the lame joke, and hauled himself to his feet. The probability of finding MacLeod in this backwater town seemed unlikely in the extreme, but he supposed a vague hunch from the Oldest Man in the World was the most likely lead they were going to get.
~~~~~~~
Ce’dane of the Mountains awoke with a gasp, his head jerking back as his wide, dark eyes flew open. Something had pulled him out of his deep journey into his own memories. The room was filled with far more illumination than his simple movement should have caused. The p’talne were all swaying and quivering as though they had been shaken, causing them to flare into maximum brilliance. Dane lay very still, and even through the soft, cushioning geesta, he felt the tremor of a low, uneven rumble echo through the stone cavern.
“No!” he breathed. “It’s too soon.” Or was it? How long had he lain there, insensible to his surroundings as his beloved planet was torn apart from the forces of their decaying sun? Time had always seen almost irrelevant, measured only by the eons, by the rising of the mountains, the erosion of the rivers, the slow, gradual development of new species, but suddenly it seemed like each full turn of the planet brought them ever closer to ultimate destruction - of their world, of their very existence in the universe.
He had to strain to push himself to a sitting position, and a g’nagal was instantly by his side to assist him. It asked him if he wanted food or drink, and he nodded. Within a few breaths a vessel was pushed into his hand and he forced himself to swallow its contents. Another ominous rumble stirred the p’talne and the fronds, which had just begun to moderate their output of light, flared brightly again.
“How long have I been… dreaming?” he asked. His voice was harsh and grating, but the g’nagal’s response was immediate.
“Not long,” it said in soothing, mellow tones. “Only five cycles of the third moon.”
Ce’dane felt his lips tighten into a humorless smile. How ironic that they still measured small increments of time by the orbits of Dunal’s largest moon. That splendid vista of their night sky was forever barred to them, and had been for a very long time. He closed his eyes and in his mind easily conjured B’labrit rising over the peaks of his own carefully forested mountain. There was always one or more of its five distant orbiting sisters in view, each unique in color and size and brightness, filling the sky with breathtaking beauty. He had never tired of that sight and many of the rooms of his so-carefully grown sanctuary were paeans to one or more of the those magnificent moons. Of course, they too, would be destroyed by the destructive force of their damnable decaying sun. Perhaps the smallest of them was already gone. Perhaps that was the reason for the sudden increase in the small quakes that had awakened him from his world of dream and memory.
He didn’t want to know. It would have been better to have met the end while still in his world of dreams, where their beautiful world still lived on. Unless… he shook himself. No, D’Thalia must have tried to open the gate by now, and failed. Otherwise, she would have done whatever was necessary to awaken him had she succeeded.
“Where is D’thalia?” he asked, beginning to feel the strength return to his body as the highly fortifying drink worked into his system.
“She is at the main dun’a’queha,” was the murmured answer. “Most of the others are gathered there.”
An ominous shiver crawled across his shoulders, and he felt a touch on his forearm. Surprisingly, the enormous eyes of the g’nagal met his directly. “It is time,” it added. “You are needed there, Ce’Dane of the Mountains.”
Amazing. For time immemorial the g’nagal had not demonstrated the power of independent thought, yet in the span of only a few rotations, not even enough to be measured by fan, the creatures were showing a capacity for independent analysis and decision-making that vastly exceeded anything Dane had believed possible. Had they just suddenly… evolved? But that was impossible. They were a product of genetic engineering, their abilities, their reproduction, their attributes all carefully monitored and controlled.
He put a hand on the creature’s shoulder to help him to stand, wavering there until his limbs were firm beneath him. With the g’nagal’s assistance he moved slowly out of his rooms and along the wide, arched cavern toward the central standing stones of the main dun’a’que’ha, where the magnetic ebbs and flows of their dying planet were concentrated.
As he walked, he knew he should be contemplating the last great obstacle his race might have to overcome, but instead his mind puzzled over the strange changes in the g’nagal, sensing something of great import, some monumental realization was just out of his reach. He was so very tired, his very being felt… old beyond bearing. Age was an almost non-existent concept for their race - something observed in other, more primitive creatures, but never in themselves. Perhaps it was the knowledge that their world was in its last death throes. Perhaps it was just time itself. Perhaps he wasn’t strong enough, wise enough, patient enough, to continue to endure - and endurance was the trait most valued by their kind. He was a failure, he knew. He had failed his people, his planet, and his closest companion. D’thalia needed him now, more than ever, and he found it truly hard to summon the energy to care.
~~~~~~
Cassandra shuddered again, the eerie sense of prescience crawling over her like insects on a cadaver. She couldn’t remember the first time it had happened, but the sensation had gotten stronger with the passing months until it had become practically unbearable. It felt a little like the call she had resisted for over 3,000 years - that burning in the blood that drew their kind to combat - the need, the thrill, the hunger. But… not quite. This was a deeper thrum that excited a different aspect of her being, that odd not-place deep inside that resonated whenever she used the Voice or extended her will to ‘help’ others see what she wanted them to see. At last, reluctantly, she had responded, but still didn’t know whether it was the right or wrong thing to do. The last thing she wanted was to get caught up in a Gathering.
The plane jolted slightly as it landed and the steward welcomed them to Phoenix, Arizona, announcing the local time and temperature and thanking them for using Southwest Airlines. What she would do next was uncertain, she only knew there was something that pulled her here, something… important.
At the luggage carousel she felt the jarring presence of another Immortal, and looked across the concourse, spotting him immediately. He looked young, uncertain and fearful, jerking his gaze away when their eyes met. Then she felt another… and another…
…to be continued