Date: Mon, 18 Sep 1995 18:02:37 EDT Reply-To: Russ McMillan Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Russ McMillan Subject: Dark Side, Part 5 of Wherein the author posits her rather esoteric theories for the nature of the quickening, the Prize, and the capabilities of Immortals, based on the first movie and her interpretation of _subtle_ hints from the series. Not really in conflict with canon, but certainly not explicit in the show. Caveat lector. The Dark Side of the Mirror, Part 5 by Russet McMillan mcmillan@astro.psu.edu Connor stood up as they entered the barge, his eyes fixed intently on Duncan and a shadow of a smile on his lips. "Good to see you again," he said softly. Duncan nodded. "You too." He removed his coat and hung it up, then deliberately distanced himself from it and the sword hidden inside it. He glanced at Amanda, but she was not meeting his gaze. The set of her shoulders showed distinct annoyance. "You look good," he said to Connor. "Well, at least now I have some hair," Connor said, brushing his short-cropped head. "So where were you last night?" Duncan shrugged to conceal his sudden tension. "Walking around. I had a lot to think about." "Did you meet any other Immortals?" Duncan was surprised. "Should I have?" "I think Melander's in town." "But he's dead. Carlos Sendaro killed him." "No, that fight ended in a draw." Duncan's jaw tightened, and he took a few steps down the room. "Do you have any idea who he's after?" Connor's eyes slid to Amanda. "I can take care of myself," she said sternly, but there was uncertainty in her eyes. "Wait a minute," said Joe. "Could somebody explain this to me? Who's Melander?" "He's a very old Immortal," Duncan said. "About two thousand years old, I think. He'll fight anyone if he has to, but for some reason, he prefers to take the quickenings of women." Joe nodded. "Yes, I think I have heard of him." "You know there aren't as many women Immortals as men," Connor added, "because they usually don't survive as long." He flicked an apologetic look at Amanda. "By himself, Melander is probably responsible for half those deaths." His eyes were flinty. Duncan took up the thread again. "A while ago he tried to go after Grace Chandelle, but that was when she was with Sendaro. I thought he had taken care of it." Connor swallowed. "Duncan . . . Melander came after Grace again." Duncan's face stilled. "What?" "He heard that Sendaro was dead." Duncan's eyes bored into his kinsman's. "But you were there, right?" Connor's gaze dropped. "I should have been." "No . . . " Connor laid a hand on Duncan's shoulder. "Grace is dead, Duncan. I was too late to save her." Duncan turned away, his fist pressed to his mouth. "There's more," Connor continued, his voice gravelly. "Grace and I were both working with Cassandra, in Africa. He killed her too." Joe took a quick breath. Connor glanced at the Watcher. "You've heard of her?" "I think so. Some of the stories about her are pretty wild." "She was an old friend of Ramirez'. They taught each other a lot. Ramirez mentioned her to me a few times." Connor sat heavily on the couch across from Amanda. "After -- what happened when I came to Seattle, I thought I should look for Cassandra. Maybe she could teach me some of the things Ramirez never got a chance to. So I sold the shop in New York." He sighed. "With the Gathering upon us, I'll probably never go back there again." "How is Rachel?" Joe asked softly. Connor was unsurprised by the question. "Weak. The chemotherapy didn't work. She didn't want me to stay. I did what I could for her, and I've kept in touch. It shouldn't be much longer now." Joe nodded sadly. Duncan looked up, drawn briefly out of his reverie. Rachel had been Connor's Watcher for decades, he knew, but he hadn't told his clansman that when they met last. He gave Joe a hard look, wanting the truth to come out now. Connor caught the exchange of glances. "She told me," he said hoarsely. "I know she was a Watcher. We had a long talk about it." A faint amusement flickered across his grim expression. "She helped me get out of the country and lose the Watcher who was assigned to me." "I know," said Joe sharply. "We lost track of you for a while there." "I did meet some Watchers assigned to Cassandra, or maybe Grace, but they died." Connor grimaced. "We were hanging around some pretty lethal areas. Grace and Cassandra were both healers. They went to Zaire to try to deal with some of the new outbreaks of disease there. Between Grace's experience and Cassandra's . . . special skills, they saved a lot of lives." "Special skills? So those weren't just stories?" Joe asked. Connor shook his head. "Cassandra could do some pretty amazing things. She taught me more about the quickening in the past two months than I'd learned in over four hundred years." "Taught you what about the quickening?" Amanda asked, becoming interested. "Well, how to use it," Connor said. "Most Immortals don't use a fraction of its potential, except to warn them when other Immortals are around, or maybe to identify Holy Ground." "What else is it good for?" Amanda pressed. "Cassandra used it mostly for healing." Connor turned to Duncan, who stood as if he had been carved from granite. "With her help, I could really have grown my arm back, even without Miranda Kelly's interference." "And she could use this ability to help mortals?" Joe asked in astonishment. "Yes, but the effects weren't quite so spectacular as with Immortals." Connor sat back a little, warming to his story. "Cassandra was a Seer among her people, when she was young. I don't know if you'd call it telepathy, or a blessing, or what -- her people thought it was a curse. But there was something special about her even before her first death. When one of her predictions turned out badly, her people put her eyes out and then killed her." Amanda's breathed hissed in between her teeth. "She was blind for the first four centuries of her Immortality. Between that and the abilities she started with, she learned to use the Quickening for all sorts of things most of us never dreamed of. When she learned to heal, she started with her own eyes." "And she taught you how to do this?" Amanda asked. Connor shrugged. "A little. I didn't know her long enough to learn that much. Mostly what she taught me was about sensing other Immortals. Once you learn how to listen to the buzz, it can tell you not only that someone is near, but who they are and where they are." "That's ridiculous!" Amanda snorted. "Nobody can do that. The buzz changes all the time. You can't predict what it will sound like next." "Yes, you can. There are a lot of factors involved, but once you learn to read them . . . It's like --" Connor groped for a metaphor. "Like listening to someone's footsteps. If you don't pay much attention, all you know is that there's someone nearby, either approaching or leaving. If you listen more closely, you can tell pretty well where they are. If you know someone well, you can recognize his footsteps -- but it changes if he's wearing different shoes, or carrying something, or tired, or walking on a carpet. The buzz you get from the quickening can be like that, only it's tougher to read. It changes with a person's mood and the number of heads he's taken, but once you learn to recognize that, you can learn a lot." "Wait, you mean to say you can read my mind from my quickening?" "No. I can tell what mood you're in, but not so well as I could tell from looking at you, or the tone of your voice. Like I said, I didn't have time to learn very much. Cassandra was trying to teach me to fight blindfolded." Amanda's eyebrows rose in disbelief. Connor looked toward Duncan, hunched and silent in the background. "She taught me something else. Some of it I picked up from Ramirez, and I learned more from that incident with Miranda Kelly, but she showed me how to put it together. It _is_ possible to access the memories and knowledge of the people whose quickenings you hold." "But only the winner of the Prize can do that!" Amanda protested. Connor shook his head. "Wrong. Any Immortal can do it. You just have to know how. In fact, I think we've been asking for trouble by not learning how to deal with this. That's how you get people like Darius, changed forever by taking a single head. That's why some Immortals go mad. If the last Immortal on Earth doesn't know how to use the quickening properly, I'm not sure he'll even be able to use the Prize." Silence fell for a space. Amanda and Joe were stunned by this news, trying to fit it into their view of the world. Connor drained the last of his glass of beer, parched after his unaccustomed lecture. Duncan gave his chin a sudden jerk. "Why would anyone _want_ other peoples' memories?" he said bitterly. Connor met his clansman's gaze. "Since we have to carry them anyway, we should learn how to deal with them." "Well, it sounds pretty far-fetched to me." Joe's jaw dropped in surprise. He rarely heard Duncan use such a tone of contempt with anyone, much less his old friend and mentor. Duncan's head jerked again. "I need some air," he said abruptly. "You folks go on talking." With quick strides he crossed to the entryway, paused, snatched his coat from the rack, and took the steps up to the door two at a time. Joe watched his friend's departure with puzzlement, then turned to ask Connor something and surprised a look of deep suspicion on the other Immortal's face. Duncan retreated to the far corner of the barge deck, until the nagging sense of Immortal presences had dwindled to a mosquito whine. He had heard little of what Connor said after the news of Grace's death. Something deep within him had begun to rage with a terrible fury, and it had taken all his willpower to contain it. Images of Grace had flashed in his thoughts: her smile, the scent of her hair, the sound of her laughter. They might have been his own memories, for he had been very close to her at one time -- but they were accompanied by a deep sense of possessiveness and a desperate need that Duncan had never felt for Grace. And at the end, as he had stood frozen, struggling with every fiber of his being to remain Duncan Macleod and not Carlos Sendaro, a new thought had made its way to the surface of his mind -- a thought that should have occurred to him hours ago. Duncan had no knowledge of where he had been last night or what he had been doing when Francois Duhamel was killed. Now, with unsteady hands, he unfolded the coat he had laid across his lap and pulled out the katana wrapped inside. The blade was clean, unbloodied, and as sharp as a razor. Duncan closed his eyes in relief, shocked to realize how much of him had expected to find incriminating evidence. But a lack of evidence did not prove his innocence. He might never be able to do that; negatives are too hard to prove. The best he could do was try to find out who _had_ killed Duhamel, and hope that the trail didn't lead back to himself. Duncan stiffened and opened his eyes as one of the presences tickling the back of his consciousness began to grow stronger. Connor's head appeared in the doorway, and he walked over to join his clansman. Duncan's hand tightened for a moment around the hilt of his katana before he forced himself to wrap it once more in the coat and set it aside. Connor pulled up a chair and sat on it backwards, facing him. "Duncan, are you well?" he asked very seriously in Gaelic. Tears pricked Duncan's eyes at the sound of the old language. He looked away without answering the question. "You're hunting Melander, aren't you?" he said in English. Connor sighed. "That's right. He'll never take another woman's head if I can help it." He leaned his head back against the wall of the pilothouse. "I still can't believe he killed Cassandra. Grace was no fighter, you know -- it was against her principles. But no one ever did anything to Cassandra without her consent. I don't know how he tricked her, but he must have gotten to her somehow. He lured me away with a false message, and by the time I got back it was over. It took me a few weeks to catch up with him, but I'm sure he's in Paris now." "Will you keep an eye on Amanda?" Connor looked up sharply. "Won't you be doing that?" "I have some other business to take care of, just now." "Duncan --" Connor bit off his words, then finished, "can I do anything to help you?" "I don't think so." Duncan bowed his head. "This is something I have to work out for myself." "Mac, wait!" Dawson called as he hurried down the ramp from the barge. Duncan paused on the quai, looking back. "Where are you going?" "Out," said Duncan shortly. Joe hesitated at the icy tone in his voice. "Duncan, we've got more to think about than getting revenge for Grace Chandelle." "I know that." "We have to find out who killed Francois." "That's what I'm doing. Now, if you'll excuse me . . ." Duncan turned to go. Joe followed. "Where are you going to start?" Duncan sighed. "The hotel would be the obvious place." "I'll come with you." "I'd rather do this alone, Joseph." Dawson was getting exasperated. "Why? Duncan, what is wrong with you? You've been as prickly as a hedgehog for days, and the way you turned on Francois last night --" He broke off. Duncan stopped in his tracks, conscious of Joe's increasing tension. "What?" he snapped. "Macleod . . . where were you last night?" "That's my business." "Did you go to the hotel? Mac? Did you -- you didn't kill Francois." Duncan said nothing. Joe would have believed Duncan instantly if he had said he wasn't there, but this refusal to answer shook him to the core. "You didn't," he repeated. "Did you?" Duncan swallowed hard and bowed his head. "But why? My God, Duncan, what is happening to you? Connor's been treating you like a mad dog --" With a cry that seemed to have been wrenched from his soul, Duncan spun toward Joe. His katana was in his hands, and it was descending. Joe had no time to do more than step back a pace and lift a hand in unthinking protest. The razor-sharp blade whisked a few hairs from Joe's head. Half of his wooden cane fell to the ground, neatly severed. The handle still wavered in his upraised hand. White showed all around the edges of Duncan's eyes. His nostrils flared, and his mouth worked. "Joe, I --" The katana clattered to the cobbles of the quai. Duncan turned and ran. Joe watched him go, frozen with shock, a sword and two halves of a cane lying at his feet. =========================================================================