Date: Wed, 2 Nov 1994 08:57:11 -0500 Reply-To: Highlander TV show stories Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: "N.L. Cleveland" Subject: Aloha 3 (p 30-39) c 1994 N.L. Cleveland (I can't find my last posting of Aloha, so I hope this is sort of close to the last place I posted...sorry if there's some overlap, folks...I actually tried to post this back in October before the con, but for some reason my mailer wasn't working, and I don't think it ever went through...thanks for all the comments and suggestions, and yes, I am listening....) Aloha 3 p 30-39) Duncan grabbed a small naked girl, snatched her up from the ground, where she had fallen, snatched her from under the swinging cutlass of a wild eyed, sunburned white man, and shoved her behind him, shoved her into the jungle, shouted at her to run, to hide. Not to look back. Turned and faced the man. Smelled whiskey, raw, on his breath. Faced his shining sword. His own hands empty. Faced death. "Bloody heathen!" The man growled, swung his sword. Duncan crouched, blocked the cutting edge with his bundled shirt, felt the blade slice through the fabric, slice into his palms. He twisted and yanked the cloth, entangling the sword, pulling it loose from his attacker's hands, scrambling after it, as it fell behind them. The sailor tackled him, from behind, leaped on his back, driving him to the ground, and started pounding his head into the sandy earth. The sword lay, just out of Duncan's reach, his fingers scrabbling for it. Too far. Duncan heaved the man off his back, rolled and grabbed his neck, tightened his arms across the man's windpipe, hearing him start to gasp and struggle for breath. The man's hands crawled up Duncan's face, reaching for his eyes, his ears....Duncan pressed harder, twisted his arms across the man's throat, feeling the muscles and tendonds writhe beneath his arm. All his energy, all his concentration was focused on this tiny battle. He felt the man's struggles slow, weaken.... The blade, from the forgotten sword, flashed across his vision, touched his neck... He froze. Looked up. Into the eyes of a man wearing a ragged ship's unform, a tattered jacket with tarnished brass buttons hanging loose. Holding the sword at his throat. The man grinned at him. A gold tooth gleamed from his mouth. "Don't matter if you savvy the words. You get my meaning clear enough. Let him go." The sword prodded at him. Duncan felt a trickle of moisture tickling its way down his neck, a stinging at the hollow in his throat where the tip rested, pressed into his flesh. "I understand you." He eased his armlock and let the sailor slide from his grasp. The sword stayed at his throat, the pressure increasing a bit. "Well, well. Where'd you learn to talk so fine?" The man kicked at the sailor, shoving him off Duncan, to the ground. Exposing the breeches Duncan wore. "You're no native. What did you do, jump ship?" The man kicked at Duncan, now. "Get up, you deserter. I'll take you back to hang, if you're lucky. Or you can die here, with your friends." Duncan glanced sideways. Other sailors were moving towards them. Gathering, at a distance. Watching them. The screams had stopped. The silence in the village filtered into Duncan's mind. He pushed his feet under him, stood, started to turn and look around. "Uh uh." The sword, still following him, still on his neck. He could feel his pulse, ticking against the pressure of the blade. "You just stand still for a moment. Until I say you can move. Understand that?" He nodded. Choked at the pressure on his neck. Stood very still. Tried to see, to glance around from the corners of his eyes. At their feet the sailor moaned, stirred, sat up, cursing. The man holding the sword addressed another kick at him, got his attention. "Jamie, boy, back on your feet with you. I need some help with this prisoner here." The sailor leaned forward, still on his knees and grabbed Duncan's ankle, yanked hard and pulled him off balance. Duncan flailed, grabbed at the sword for balance, feeling it slice at his fingers as he fell. Shielding his face against the pummeling blows of the angry man, bent on revenge, who pounded at him with hard horny fists. "Damn it, stop that." The man with the sword beat the flat of the blade indiscriminately against the backs and sides of the two men struggling in the sand. The blows stung and burned across Duncan's skin, different from the hard impact of the sailor's fists on his forearms and chest. He knew he couldn't' take much more of this. If he was going to escape it had to be right now. He glimpsed the other sailors moving slowly towards them, their figures blurred shadows in the dusky twilight. He scrabbled desperately with his fingers, scooped up two hands full of sand and threw one blindly backwards, at where he judged the swordsman's face might be, tossing the contents of his other hand at the man's eyes in front of him. The blade paused, the fists hesitated, the sailor's imprecations mingled with the commander's calls for help, ordering the other men to pursue. Duncan rolled madly to his left, away from the looming hut, towards the dark green of the forest, the protecting shadows of the jungle. He brushed against the trunkof a palm and scrambled to his feet, plunging deeper into the still too thin cover of the palms. Behind him he heard footsteps, metal clanking, shouts as the chase was taken up. He ran, stumbling in the dark, seeking deeper cover than the thin scattering of palms provided here. He could hear the drunken shouts of the sailors, all around. He saw a darker place, a matted tangle of brush and foliage, and dove for cover, wriggling in among the roots and leaves, crushing delicate flowers under his arms, surrounded suddenly by the sweet scent of the blossoms. Footsteps pounded past, as he tried to still his breathing. The shouts were mainly coming from ahead of him, from beyond, now. He eased out of the temporary cover, shaking the sticky debris from his arms and legs and headed back to the village. He had to find out what had happened, before daylight exposed him again to the hunters. He had to know....the fate of his adopted family. His friends. Even though they had cast him out. The thought hurt. Stung deeper than the cuts and weals healing on his skin. But he still cared, still wanted to help, if it were possible. If anyone was still alive. He wondered if the girl had made it to the forest. He hadn't been able to see, had been too busy fighting for his own life, to listen. He hoped she had escaped. He feared she had not. And feared even more the fate that would meet her if she were the only living person left on this island, after the sailors departed. He made a vow to find her. To discover her fate. To share it if necessary. But never to abandon her to the life of a solitary exile. He moved cautiously through the dark, stepping carefully, trying not to scuff the dry leaves that occasionally littered the ground. He could see the village's cooking fires again, flickering among the ruined huts. He moved closer and saw more. Saw the flames flickering on bodies, dark blood seeping into the pale sand around them. He heard nothing, save the crackling of a coconut husk as it popped and sizzled in the fire. No sound of human life. No laughter. No calls for supper, no bantering gossip. No children's cries. Nothing. A village of the dead. An open grave. He stepped out from the palms. Circled around the still standing huts, his hands held out before him, his eyes wide in the dark, straining to see a hint of motion. His ears alert to the slightest sound. At each huddled shape, each soft formless body curled into the sand, he felt a moment of hope, bent down, touched the flaccid cool skin, felt the flicker of hope die inside him, and moved on. He recognized them. Even in the dark. By touch. By smell. By shape. By where they had died, and how. Here was Tikil. At the door of his hut. A cudgel in his hands. His head split open. His wife, behind him. Their child, in her arms. Both shot through the heart with the same bullet, it seemed. Here, Hakanna. The necklace maker. Her arms and face bloody and battered. Her small piles of shell, so carefuly gathered and sorted by size, by color, all scattered and broken. One crunched under foot as Duncan came up off his knees, his fingers full of her treasures. He leaned over her frail body and placed a strand of her shells around her neck. Honoring the artist, if only in death. He felt empty. Broken. Like Hakanna's shells. The chief's hut. He hesitated. He did not want to go in. Did not want to see the final end of his hopes and dreams, the reminder of his loss, again. But he had to know. Had to look. He stepped through the open doorway, into the spacious hut. It smelled of death. No light guided him in here. The torches had been ripped from thier stands and the oil lamps had been dashed to the sandy floor. Duncan could feel the greasy oil and sand sticking to his feet, along with the tatttered fragments of the chief's houshold items. He walked like a blind man, his hands groping the air in front of him. The hut was black as a cave. His toe nudged something soft and he fell to his knees, his hands out, exploring. Soft, cold and rigid. The chief's face was frozen in a snarl, his lips drawn back from his teeth in a last rictus of death, defiant to the end. Duncan's fingers brushed lightly at the chief's eyelids, lowered them over the open, staring and unseeing eyes. Duncan crouched over the body, his fists clenched. There was so much he wanted to say, so much he would never be able to say, now. He felt a surge of pain in his heart as bitter tears burned their way across his face, burning his eyes and cheeks and lips and chin, searing him as they fell. Useless, foolish, hopeless tears. He throat was raw, his chest ached and heaved. He had never had time to mourn Ko. He had been too busy surviving. And now she was gone. This man the only remnant of her blood, of her lineage. How he hated this man. He pounded his fists on the chief's unfeeling chest. It was like hitting a log. Cold. Pointless. He sat, for what seemed like eternity, seeing only the darkness, feeling only his loss. Feeling the darkness seep into his soul. Welcoming it. Feeling the pain. The loneliness. The regret for all the things left unsaid, left undone between himself and Ko. Pouring out his grief in the black, empty silence. Wishing to become one with the dark, to kill the pain inside. Wishing to die. To join Ko, in the empty eternal night. To stop feeling.... stop thinking....stop being. His eyes closed. He nodded to sleep, for a second. Jerked awake. His soul was drained. His emotions, emptied. He felt like a husk, a hollow man, with no heart, no center. No purpose. Slowly he became aware of how his legs stiffened, his muscles protested at the unmoving rigid stance. He eased his shoulders, wincing as they relaxed. He felt like a rock, a statue, come creaking back to life. But his heart was now stone. He had bricked it away. Walled it off. To keep it safe. Never again would he go through what he had felt, never again would he face the dark pit inside his soul, contemplate suicide, his own self destruction and extinction as a man and an immortal, because of the love of a woman. Never again would he let the hurt get that deep. He made that promise to himself.... Never again.... "Duh..." He froze. His body trembled with the intensity of his stillness. A whisper of sound, from the corner of the hut. But noone was alive in here...no one.....visions of ghosts, of demons from the clan's tales, of the tribal gods and spirits of the dead villagers, crowded into his mind. Were the dead coming back, to wreak their vengeance on the living? He could feel goosebumps all along his arms, the hair on the back of his neck standing stiff, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. "Duh..Duh...can...." A word... The voice was barely a whisper. A husking sound from beyond the grave. Calling out his name... He fought down all his instincts, all his superstitous shuddering visions of goblins and ghouls and bloodsucking dead come back from beyond death....and moved, deliberately, towards the sound. He was still kneeling, and he edged forward, scuffing the sand, feeling it bite in tiny sharp grains into the skin on his knees, his eyes wide, straining to see in the pitch black hut, his fingers feeling the air, almost forcing themselves through the inky dark , as if it were palpable substance, not empty void. His straining fingers felt a shape, brushed warmth, and he started back, involuntarily. Sweat drenched his skin, as he learned forward again and touched the body, felt the soft warm breath moving in and out of its mouth. Lamanaku....Ko's aunt. I t could be no other. He recognized the sagging breasts, the tiny, fierce wrinked body, the slanting scar across her left shoulder...he felt its rough ridges under his fingers. "La?" His voice was tentative. Unsure. It trembled through the dark. His fingers, resting lightly on her shoulder, felt her stir. He touched her face with his other hand. The soft skin of her cheek, slicked with moisture, sticky with clots of blood. He felt her nod, once. He moved his hand delicately up her face, found a huge gaping wound across her forehead, slanting down towards her eyes, a long gouge from a sword that had laid her skin and muscle open, to the bone. If it was only the head wound...He hoped that was all... He traced the sticky path down her face, followed the trail of blood by touch and found more puddled in her lap. He slid his fingers over her hands, felt them tightly clasped across her stomach, her fingers rigid, laced together, holding in her life against the fatal slash to her belly. It was long. He felt the edges. Gently. She shuddered at his touch. Drew in her breath, in pain. He could only guess how deep the cut went. Deep enough, he knew. There was no hope...she was doomed. Alive, for the moment....but dead. Very soon. Amazing that she clung to life even now. But she had always been a determined woman. Strong. Like her niece, her adopted daughter. Like Ko.... "It is you." He could barely hear her. He brought his ear close to her mouth, spoke softly back. "Yes." "Are you a spirit? Come to seek your bride?" The old woman's voice was tremulous. Fading in and out. "La. I am a man. Only a man. Come to see if anyone survived. " He wasn't sure. He no longer trusted his own judgement about people, right now. He'd seen too much irrational violence, too much hate and murder coming out of nowhere, to ever fully relax again. To ever fool himself into believing he was safe, was surrounded by friends. He would remember this lesson, remember the parallels between his clan and this tribe.....remember them long and well. The old woman was silent. He leaned closer, felt the soft warmth of her breath lightly touching his face. She still lived. He paused. He had to know. Feared to know. It might be his only chance to ask. He battled with himself, and won. Or lost. "La. Tell me. Why did Ko..." He broke off. He couldn't ask. Didn't know what to ask. How to say it.... "She loved you." La's voice was surprisingly strong. For a moment, the rich tones were back, her musical lilt, her voice casual, as if she were sitting by the beach, making conversation, combing a carved turtle shell through her niece's long dark hair...as he had watched her do a hundred times before..... Tears stung his eyes, and he blinked them back. "I loved her." What more could he say..... "Spirit, she loved you. Find your rest. End your walking on the land." She paused. Took a breath. Her voice weakened again. "Find her. Try to understand. Help her, spirit. Help her....and her child...." La's voice trailed away. Duncan leaned closer, listening to her breath rattling in her throat. Listening to her labored breathing as her lungs strained to draw in air, to let out words. Willing her to continue.... "Spirit....you know....she knew.....it was her brother's child...she died to be with you... " Duncan could barely hear the words now, so faint and frail was the whisper reaching his ears. He strained to hear. Strained to make out the last quiet gasps... "She died for love of you...." La sighed. Her hands loosened under Ducan's tense grip. They fell, flaccid, from her stomach, sticky with clotted blood. He let them fall. Touched La's neck. There was no pulse. She was gone, as well. He leaned back on his haunches, put his head into his hands and sat there, feeling the darkness pressing down on him, as if the souls of the entire village were standing on his shoulders, in judgement. Ko had known the child was her brother's. Had chosen to kill herself and her unborn child, to join him in death. Had told her father the child was Duncan's, in order to be killed. The flimsy shell he had thrown across his heart, across his feelings, shattered, cracked open and left him defenseless against his own guilt, his grief mixed with self-blame and fury. He had killed Ko, just as surely as if he had plunged the knife into her heart himself. Her blood was on his hands. On his soul. He was to blame. He could see it all now. And there was nothing, absolutlely nothing he could do about it. Nothing. Except to rage at his own stupidity. His own short sightedness. His own basic lack of trust that had let him woo and love a woman, had let him use his centuries of skill and knowledge to charm her to be in love him...without his sharing the secret of who, and what, he really was, with her. He realized now his immense conceit and the shallowness that he had based their relationship on. He castigated himself...saw how superficial he had been, too late...he had thought he was being so open, so honest, to tell her he could not have children. To offer to let her choose another, because of that. And she, she had chosen to be with him, to offer him the public honor of fathering her child, and then gave up her own life and her child's...to be with him in death. A death that was permanent, for her. He knelt, truly alone now in the hut, and cried aloud his grief, and his rage. Howled his anger and regret at the spirits that hovered around him. Shouted his fury and his loss....his love....his loss.....Shouted at the empty air...Raged at the dark.... Light flared in the hut, blinding him. Dazzling his eyes, as he realized where he was and the danger he was still in. He scrambed abruptly to his feet, blundering into the human shapes crowding through the door, flailing wildly at their half-glimpsed faces, staggering back as their fists found his body. "'"E's in 'ere, lads." He bared his teeth in a wild snarl, using all his pent up rage and grief and anger and picked up the manshape nearest to him, a small, slender manshape, maybe just a boy, raised it above his head, his muscles straining, and threw it into the raucous, smelly crowd pummeling at him. His eyes teared and streamed moisture, but the dazzle was fading. He saw the opening he had created and threw himself into it, hunched into a somersault and rolling forwards out the hut's entryway. His shoulders hit the ribs of another man, dragging him down beneath him, and he half fell, half leaped over him. He was almost on his feet, rising, running....when a black shape whistled out of the dark and smashed into his back. The pain drove him to his knees, then flat onto the sand as the club....he thought it must be a club....came down once again on his head... * * * * * A wet cold touch on his back. "Kali, go away." Jonathan spoke calmly, his eyes still closed in meditation. He heard the dog's toenails clicking on the tile, receding into the distance as Kali walked towards her mistress. Shoshanna's scent wafted to him, and her could sense her presence, hovering near him, as she stood in the doorway to the room. He opened his eyes, narrowed them briefly against the strong midday light, and turned, moving gracefully to his feet, enjoying the smooth control of muscle, sinew and tendon that made his motion seem almost liquid as he rose. He could get used to this Immortal business. Yes indeed. There were some benefits. He glanced down at his chest and torso, his arms and legs, critically inspecting the still piebald skin, some tanned, some new and pink, and thought back to the twisted wreck his body had been...was it only hours ago?.... when he had been pulled from the smouldering debris of the Agency. Not even a twinge of pain remained from the searing agony he had endured..only the ghost of its memory haunted him, would haunt him for a long time. But that was the past. He shut it off, pushed it aside. This was the present. And he had the future to consider, now. His future. He stared up at Shoshone. She looked back at him, her expression neutral, her eyes cool and opaque. Her beauty caught at his heart, luring him, drawing him towards her. Kali sat at her feet, staring at him as well. He had a choice to make, now. And he wondered, as he spoke, if he was not turning his back on the one path he should be taking that offered him something new and good, to follow his own rigid goals, to his own destruction. "I must leave now." He felt like he was slamming the door on life. He moved closer, despite himself. Fighting himself. Fighting his need to run. To hide. To shield himself against the touch of concern he had felt, before, from her. Shoshana's expression did not change. She shrugged. "You may leave anytime you wish. But you are a fool, to rush towards death, unprepared." He stared at her, drawing closer. Looking deep into her eyes. Looking for a hint of emotion, of condemnation, of pity, of distaste....He sensed only that same tingling warmth that had pulled him to her earlier. But he would not let her inside. Not this time. Not again. Never... Still...rationally, he understood he was not operating under full control. He realized he was running on autopilot, unable to take conscious and full direction of his life and his actions, letting the ghosts from his past govern his future plans. But his rational side had ceded control of his fate and his future, to the dark ravening anger and rage he had lived with and used as fuel for his life, for so long. It was as if he had consumed his own heart, as fuel for the fire, long ago. She reached down to the side table, near the door. Picked up a newspaper and handed it to him. He reached out and took it, glancing at the headlines. His eyes arrested, suddenly, as he realized they were about him. "I think you should know the effects of your handiwork, at least." Her voice floated after her as she turned on her heel and left, the dog following her down the shadowed hall, its nails clicking in pace with its mistress' stride. =========================================================================