Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 09:16:06 -0500 Reply-To: NancySSCH@AOL.COM Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: "N.L. Cleveland" Subject: Aloha Ch 3 p 194-201 c1995 N.L. Cleveland Duncan smoothed out the involuntary grin that had crept across his features, not wanting to give the sharp eyed guards anything more to speculate about. Richie's delighted smile faded into confusion, then comprehension and a brief caricature of craftiness crossed his face. He looked away from Duncan, stared deliberately in every other direction, as if seeing only a room full of strangers, and trying to catalog every item, every person, in the place. Richie would be fine, now. Duncan glanced around, as well. Almost every person in the room had their attention focused in the front, on Raven's battered, kneeling form, as he stared silently, defiantly, at the council, at the men and women who would decide his fate. Duncan eased his body sideways, leaned away from his guards, and carefully, casually, held two fingers pointed down along the side of his leg, where Richie's equally casual glance could pass over them and see his signal. *Wait.* It said. *Be ready.* Duncan had learned more than the Sioux language from the Plains Indian tribes he had lived among in the American West. He had learned the silent hand codes for the hunting parties as well. And had taught his own modified version of them to his student. An Immortal sometimes needed every edge, every advantage. It was part of the nature of their life. Of their eternal battle to survive. Still, he was puzzled. He knew Richie's aura. Realized that Raven had not changed...much... as an Immortal. His aura had been different. Resonating with a hint of something new, and strange. Something Duncan had never sensed before in another Immortal. But it was weak, as well. Attenuated. Barely, tantalizingly there. So he knew now that whatever else he had done, whatever else he had been, Raven had, in fact, yet to take a single Quickening. But the sense of oppression, of overwhelming power, of some other, immensely strong Immortal presence, still remained. Still pressed, remotely, impersonally, against Duncan's mind. Seemed to strengthen more, even as he stood, and watched the human drama unfolding before him in the room. Could this be that other, that ancient, nameless one which Joe had warned him about? And if, as Duncan more and more suspected, it was that other, moving closer, coming here, for him, or Richie, or Raven.... then his priorities must change. This threat must be dealt with, as well. * * * * * "Aki...." Jonathan knelt before her, his open defiance, his hidden victory, suspended for a moment as he breathed her name, the name of the woman who had haunted his dreams and colored his memories of his past. The word was a tortured, twisted oath, a plea, a vow of love, a denial of the reality and simultaneous embracing of all the myriad possibilities of treachery and duplicity that her existence, her living body, here, with the Dragons, could mean. Dimly, as through a fog, he fought to think, to understand. The clamor of Shonte's powerful aura was pressing down on his soul, dizzying him, distracting him, pulling him away from the moment and into a unreal, yet frighteningly urgent inner battle....for ownership, for identity, for his very existence. With a tremendous effort of will, summoning his years of training in the disciples of meditation and self control, he shut Shonte....her..it...himself...all his Immortal instincts...out.....for now...and focused his entire being, concentrating only on seeking out the meaning to the puzzle, the enigma, confronting him. He almost dared not ask, not discover, why. He trembled, inside. Trembled, as he looked at her. Remembering the sweet fresh scent of her hair, the silky smoothness of her skin, against his. The delicate arch of her eyebrows, the clean line of her jaw. The tiny dimple where she smiled. The color of her lips...just the same.... the same pale rose, like a new bud, just opening for the dawn....their soft, inviting shape shimmering before him, in the flesh, just as her memory had haunted his mind for so long. She was older now. Tiny lines bracketed her lips, traced a delicate web around her eyes. And her eyes, the dewy fresh innocence he remembered was gone, replaced by a harder, more experienced look, the look of a woman who had seen much, and expected little. Those eyes, once filled with hope and love, now looked at him with...regret.. disdain...and something more, and less, than hate. Exactly what, he could not say. Where once their very thoughts had shimmered like messengers of love, unspoken, between them..now he could not read her expression, could not tell what went on behind those eyes, in that mind. Yet she was, undeniably, the same woman. His very first, his truest, love. A tide of melancholy, the raw ache of yearning, unearthed from its musty tomb, mingled with the bitter spur of treachery unveiled, swept through him. He had eyes for no other, yet he knew he was surrounded by all his remaining enemies in the clan. The survivors, ready for their final revenge. Was *this* their vengeance? To show him his lover, now filled with hate? To have her kill him, as the boy had been sent before? It was unthinkable....and yet, he knew it could happen. Saw the deadly possibility, in her stare. But what could have changed, could have led her to this? He hesitated, knowing he was on the brink of a discovery, an understanding, he did not think he wanted to see, did not want to know, to hear. But he could not stop, now. Could not turn back, when he had come so far. Come, in fact, for this very reason. Come to end, to complete, the unfinished business of his life. He *had* to know. Before it was over. *Had* to understand....to understand why.... Hata Shin stepped past him, and knelt in front of Tawara, Jonathan's sheathed katana in his hand. The blade he'd borrowed from Shonte, what seemed like eons ago. Tawara took the blade and pulled it from the sheath, gesturing for Hata Shin to get up, examining the katana casually, then turned and handed it to the woman at his side. She took it, her face troubled, her gaze dropping to the shining band of steel resting lightly in her grasp. Jonathan watched, prepared for the worst. He would die, before the bomb went off. Die, before Shonte arrived. Die, at the hands of the first woman he had ever loved. And for what? "Jonathan Raven." Tawara addressed him now. Jonathan pulled his eyes back from the mesmeric gleam of the naked steel, and faced the man who, his informants said, led the Dragons now. The youngest brother of the clan leader, when he'd left. Now the head of the clan. Thanks to Jonathan's bloody intervention. Jonathan did not, in fact, expect him to be grateful. And he was not disappointed. Hostility fairly radiated from the man, as he examined the Immortal kneeling before him. "Tawara" Jonathan acknowledged that he knew the man's name. Acknowledged that he was who they said he was. And waited to hear if he would be given the answers to his questions, or if he would have to barter information for information. "Once, you were a part of our family. The first gaijin, the first outsider, to be welcomed into our clan. You were accepted, treated like a brother, like a son. Taught. Trained. Trusted." Tawara spoke softly, but his voice carried to the furthest edges of the room, as the clan members stood, straining to listen, to hear the final words, the final resolution to the act of betrayal that had devastated their lives, shattered their power and destroyed their families, so long ago. Jonathan bowed his head. Acknowledging the truth of the words. There was no point in denying them. Everything Tawara spoke was correct. Was true. They had been his family. Had offered him their trust. Had offered him full membership in their clan. And he had betrayed them For his own, higher purposes. He held to that thought. For his vengeance. For his parents. "But you were a traitor. Come to us with false words, false intentions. False promises. Set deliberately into our midst. To win our trust, and betray us." Tawara spoke to the larger audience, now. Spoke for posterity. For the future of the clan. "And you have failed......once again..... in your attempt to destroy us." Tawara let a grim satisfaction show, in his voice. "Now, you will die." He watched Jonathan intently, his gaze sharpening as he spoke. "You will die at the hands of the survivors of all those you hurt, before. Slowly. Each one will exact their measure of vengeance. Each one will revenge their missing, their dead." Tawara put his hand on the low table in front of him, his palm flat, pushing into the glossy surface, as if he felt the weight of the vengeful Dragons, pushing him down. "Have you ever wondered, Jonathan Raven, how many you killed that day?" He spoke to the wood, to the table, to the spirits of the dead who hovered, listening, in the air. Waiting for their due respect, their death offering. "Have you ever wondered how many died, at your hands?" It was not something Jonathan had cared to dwell on. He had driven the faces, the names, the possible totals of the dead, out of his mind. Letting them only return at night, in his dreams, in his haunted, never ending dreams. Dreams that he could not control, as he controlled his conscious thought. Dreams that threatened now to come to life, here, in front of him. He closed his eyes. Shook his head, mutely. No. He had not counted. Never wanted to know the count. It was enough that they had died. That his parents had been avenged. "You never looked back, when you fled the burning compound." Tawara's voice intruded, insistently, into his dark, private space. "Your bombs, your poison gas....besides those you killed directly, with your sword, face to face....surely you have no idea who else fell that day. Do you? Do you care? Do you want to know the list of names, of faces, of lives, of your friends and comrades?" He did not care. He did not care. He shook his head again and repeated the litany to himself, as if saying it enough times would let him believe it. Like the rosary he'd been taught to recite once, in Sunday school. His lips moving, no noise coming forth. "Let me tell you about the children, Jonathan Raven." Tawara spoke on, ignoring Jonathan's silent protest. Ignoring his denial. Piling up the details of that day. Bringing the bloody ledger book up to date, with the full balance due on Jonathan's deadly account. "The children who died here. There were twenty boys, seventeen girls, at their lessons, with their teachers. None was more than 12 years old. You knew those children, Jonathan. You knew their parents. And you knew the children. Do you remember their faces? Their voices?" He did remember. Their faces flashed before his eyes, the children he'd met, he'd seen, he'd played with, the earnest young boy, the giggling little girl he'd bounced on his knee. All a role. All an act, to win the trust of their parents. A tear, one bitter tear of regret, leaked from his still closed eyes and burned its way down his face. The parents, the parents may have deserved to die. But the children....did the children? He had not known. Had not planned on it. He'd buried their memories. Buried the possibility of their deaths. He'd buried it all...except his deep and abiding hate that had driven him to this place today, for its final exorcism. But it was not proving simple. Not proving simple at all, to be here. To face the Dragons again. Even knowing that they were all doomed and damned and dead in a few short minutes...still, he could not shut his ears, could not shut off his mind. Could not sever the links with his sentimental, traitorous heart. He bit his lips, to keep from speaking. Bit them hard. Tasted his own blood. Focused on that , instead. Anger filled Tawara's voice now. "You will beg us for the mercy of death, before we are finished with you. Traitors have no honor. Murderers of children deserve no respect. You will get none, here." "And assassins know what is honor? What is respect?" Jonathan summoned his scattered fury, his faith in what he was and what he'd done, put the edge of mockery on his words, and threw them back in the face of the clan. They were the only weapons he had left, for the moment. He needed to keep them distracted, busy. And to burrow out the answers that he sought. "You are cowards. Have been cowards. Will be cowards. *You* kill the weak, the helpless. You kill innocent women, like my mother." There, the words he had never spoken to the Dragon Clan before. The first, the most basic, root of his heart's black rage, the source of that unending drive for vengeance. "You kill agents of the law, in their homes. In their beds. Unarmed, and asleep. Like my father. With cowardly midnight attacks....While you fear the strong." Tawara smiled back at him, unperturbed. There was a distant amusement in his eyes, it flickered briefly and was gone, buried in the bitter rage of the ancient hurt. The ancient deaths. "Your mother....." His voice was silky, smooth, like a seducer, lingering in the bower. "Let me tell you about the death of your mother, and of your father, Jonathan Raven." He turned to the silent woman at his side, and rested his hand on her shoulder. "Or better yet, I'll let Aki, my daughter, tell you." Jonathan sat, stunned. It was impossible. His eyes traced their faces, saw for the first time the resemblance, the telltale hints of shared heritage, shared genes. But if Aki was his daughter, then her mother....and her father....had been one of the clan. One of the Black Dragons. But her mother had died, long ago.....before he'd even met her, she'd said. And her father had been a man of peace. Skilled in the martial arts, it was true....But his sensei. His teacher. His confidant. A friend of his parents. And his own virtual foster father, after his own parents had died. The man who had explained to him who the Dragons were, and comforted the grieving boy, helping him make sense of what had happened.... Counseled him against vengeance.... It was simply not possible... "I loved you once, Jonathan." It *was* Aki. Her voice. Her inflection. Her words. Truly, it was Aki. His heart melted for a moment from the icy shell he had erected around it, and the pain of his loss, of his love, brought stinging tears to his eyes. He blinked them away, and forced himself to listen, to understand. Her voice, faded and flat in his memory, stirred his passions once again as he heard it anew, for the first time in almost 15 years. Her voice, silvery bells on the air, soft and gentle, carrying words of love and faith and trust, in his memory. Her voice, the same silvered bells, now frosted with the chill of distant enmity, buried rage. He listened, as she spoke, and tried to absorb the sense, the meaning, of those words.... "We were children together, and we knew nothing. In my ignorance, I loved you." Her words were bitter, full of self loathing, and regret. He wanted to reach out and comfort this woman, this hard, angry, bitter woman, who looked back on the past that he treasured, with grief, and anger. He watched her, saw her note the love, the care and concern in his eyes, and saw her laugh at him. Laugh, in her eyes. With her lips. With her words. Laugh at him, and at herself. And wondered why. Feared why. Feared now to hear the next words from her lips. Feared what she would say, as he had never feared death. Feared her words with a sudden chill stroke of premonition. "If I had known now, what I knew then...Ah, Jonathan.....things would have been different. So different for us both." She shook her head, her eyes looking deep into the past, not seeing the room, the faces around her. "But I did not know. Nor did you. And I have paid....will pay...the price for my ignorance, for the rest of my life. As will you." There was a cold finality to her tone, and Jonathan shivered, his soul cringing at what he felt, he sensed, was to come. "My uncle, the man we both knew as my father... as you have no doubt deduced by now, was a member of the Black Dragons. Their leader, at one time, in fact." A flash of the old Aki re-emerged for a second, like a ghostly apparition, a flash of her sharp wit, as her lips twisted in self-mocking humor. "Another fact, unfortunately, of which I was not aware." Jonathan had suspected something.... but not exactly that...surely not that... from the moment Tawara had named Aki his daughter. All his conversations, all his memories and knowledge of his sensei's beliefs, values, past....were as nothing, as he was forced to reexamine the very foundation of his life. His world was shifting beneath his feet, the once solid ground like quicksand, his memories, the facts he had believed, suddenly no more than wisps of childish misunderstandings...lies, lies....a tissue of lies wrapped around the central tragedy of his life.... Aki was speaking again, and he pulled his wandering mind back from the dark alleyways of his past, to listen to the words that dropped like hammer blows upon his conscience, and his soul. She stared down at the sword in her hands now, a delicate rosy hue staining her cheeks as she blushed, still shamed to recount this next detail. She looked to the man beside her, for support. He nodded, his face somber, urging her on. "It was the age old story. My mother...found her husband's younger brother...more congenial to her tastes. To her affections. And he reciprocated." She bit her lip, and glanced up at Jonathan again. Her eyes hard now, with remembered pain. "When the child..when I.... was born....my mother's husband...my uncle... suspected, and tried to have his brother, my father, killed. Accused him of treachery to the clan, and tried to drive him out, along with his followers. But my mother stood up and told the truth. Told them all what had happened." There was a stern pride now, in her voice."She killed herself, in public seppuku, to atone for what she had done. To wash the stain to the clan's honor clean, with her blood. And to save my father's life." Jonathan watched her, hardly daring to breathe. Hardly daring to listen, but drinking in every word from this ancient tale of love and jealousy, treachery, betrayal, and redemption, whose modern repercussions had reached down across time to twist and blight his own and his lover's life. How...how much....he only suspected, but could not yet know...could not even conjecture. His mind numb, he held back his tumbling conclusions, and waited for her next words. She reached out and touched her father's hand. Tawara's hand. The younger brother, Jonathan now knew. Put hers over it, lightly. The gesture of respect, the child, to the honored elder. Her father laid his other hand over hers. Welcoming her touch. Reciprocating. Supporting and encouraging her to go on. She bowed her head once, and continued speaking. Speaking for the benefit of the others in the room, not just for Jonathan. Telling them a story they obviously knew well, a story that instructed, with a moral purpose, one that illuminated the strange dark realms of the human soul. A story that was a warning, a cautionary tale. A story of a blighted, wasted life. His story. He knew it now. Knew it, even as she spoke. "My uncle took me, and fled. Left behind the shame and defeat he had suffered at his brother's hands. No one stopped him. No one dared. He was still the leader, still the most dangerous of the clan. Only his heart had been torn apart, first by the lovers' secret betrayal, then by the public humiliation of the affair's exposure and the death of his wife. My mother." Aki paused, and fumbled for a locket at her neck. She opened it, and stared for a moment at a tiny painted miniature Jonathan half-glimpsed, half-hidden there. "She was beautiful then, my mother. Strong, and proud. Willful. Intelligent. Willing to risk all, and willing to die, for love. For honor." Jonathan remembered now. The secret whispers. The vague rumors he'd heard, about a previous leader of the clan. An illicit love affair. A death. But he'd had no names, no faces, no idea that these characters from the fragmentary tales had been the living, breathing people, so close to him. So close and dear to his heart. He could see where this story was heading. See what the inevitable conclusion would be. He hunched his shoulders, hunched into himself, his bound hands gripping one another, the nails cutting deep into his own skin, as he used the pain as a goad to keep control, to focus his attention on Aki and her narrative. Unable, unwilling, as yet, to grapple with the repercussions of what she was saying. Hoping that he was wrong. Hoping the next words would be different than what his heart told him they would be. Hoping, and fearing to hear. "My father swore he would be revenged on the clan. On his brother. On all those who had seen his shame, that day." Aki stuffed away the locket, and ran her fingers along the braided hilt of the sword, tracing out the pattern automatically as her eyes focused on Jonathan's. "He spent years, in hiding, with a new face, a new identity. Years, planning his vengeance. Watching me grow. The last memento of his lost, dead wife. He often told me how much like my mother I was. Never how much like him. And he never told me how, or why, she died." =========================================================================