Date: Fri, 22 Sep 1995 14:18:02 EDT Reply-To: Russ McMillan Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Russ McMillan Subject: Dark Side, Part 9 The Dark Side of the Mirror, Part 9 by Russet McMillan mcmillan@astro.psu.edu When they were a few miles away from the Dalou compound, driving through winter-barren fields, Duncan said suddenly, "Pull over." "Why?" "Just stop here. I want to get out for a minute." Joe stopped the car. "Mac, we don't have much time." "I know." Duncan reached into the back seat and lifted his katana. He stepped out of the car and swung it slowly back and forth, as if it were not quite familiar. Joe got out too, but kept the car between them. Duncan glanced his way and seemed to guess what Joe was thinking. He sighed and set the katana on the roof of the car. He stepped backward into the muddy field. "Pick it up," he said. "What?" "Pick up the sword for me, Joe. Please." Joe reached across the car and took the carved handle in his hand. "Come over here," Duncan said. Deeply uneasy, Joe stepped around to Duncan's side of the car. He kept the sword behind him, pointed at the ground. "You know what's wrong with me, Joe?" asked Duncan in a distant voice. "Connor thinks you're having trouble integrating all the quickenings you've absorbed lately." Something short of amusement twitched Duncan's mouth. "I guess that's about it. It started with Kalas. Maybe that was just the straw that broke the camel's back, or maybe . . . " He sighed. "I'm going mad, Joseph." Joe stepped back a pace. "I don't think I can -- control it much longer. I don't know what to do about it." "Connor --" Joe began. Duncan interrupted. "I _can't_ go to Connor. Or Amanda. Don't you understand?" There was passion in his voice now, the passion of desperation. "There's something, something inside me, that wants to take their heads. I can't be around them and not think about it. I have to stay away from them! For their own good." Joe swallowed. Duncan touched his temples. "I'm carrying them around with me every day -- Michael Moore, and Alfred Cahill, and Marcus Karolus. Garrick. And Kalas himself. So many others. And now they're trying to get loose. I thought I'd killed them, but they're still here. Still a threat. "I suppose I could lose a fight on purpose," he mused, almost to himself. "Then I wouldn't have to worry about it. But what if my quickening, and all that it holds, drives the winner mad? Another insane Immortal loosed on the world. I might as well do nothing. I can only think of one solution that won't endanger anyone." He closed his eyes. "I want you to take my head." "What!" Joe staggered and caught himself against the car. Duncan gestured to the katana in Joe's grasp. "Cut off my head. Now, while I still have some control. That way this -- insanity that's inside me will be released, and it won't infect anyone else." "You can't want that! All that you are will be lost!" "Well, that might be just as well," Duncan returned, stretching for humor and falling short. "Anyway, it's no different from what will happen to you, and every other mortal in the world." "What the hell do you take me for?" Joe growled, his voice trembling with anger. "Do you think I can just kill a man, a friend, someone I've known for decades, and walk away from it? Do you have any idea what you're asking?" Duncan's eyes were like chips of obsidian. "I know _exactly_ what I'm asking, Joseph," he said in a low voice. "Because _I've_ been forced to kill men, friends, people I've known for centuries. And then I had to carry them around with me, inside of me, for the rest of my life. At least I'm not asking you to do that." "No! I won't do it." "For Connor's sake, Joe. For Amanda's. For Francois Duhamel." "We don't _know_ that you killed Francois!" "And we don't know who else I might kill, if this goes any further. I'm too good, Joe. Too fast, too dangerous. A trained killer with centuries of experience, nearly impossible to stop -- do you really want someone like that roaming around the world insane?" "Dammit, Macleod, if you have a deathwish, pick a fight with someone else. Go buy yourself a guillotine and cut your own damned head off! Don't ask me to be a party to this." Joe threw the katana to the ground and crossed to the far side of the car. Duncan bent to pick up the sword, staring at it as if it embodied salvation and damnation at once. "There isn't much time left, Joe," he said quietly. "I don't know how much longer I can hold out." His voice was level, contained, but it carried an undercurrent of unbearable tension. Joe leaned on the car and rubbed his face with one hand. "All right," he said. "All right, Mac. I'll make a deal with you. I'll do what you're asking, _if_ you'll give Amanda's solution a chance first. Come with me now and do what she asks. If she's wrong, if it doesn't work, then I'll . . . I'll take your head." Duncan stared at him. "If it takes too long, I might not --" "Well, then, come on then. Amanda's waiting for us! Or else you can stay here and work out your own damnation." Duncan considered for a long, miserable minute. Then he opened the car door and got inside. Joe scrubbed at his eyes and took a deep breath before he climbed into the driver's seat. Duncan was silent during their drive back to town, thinking of simpler times, when he had anticipated death but never stopped striving to live. =============================== The guards' heavy footsteps stopped outside their cell, and Duncan, the Duc, and the Vicomte all turned toward the door, expecting to see their dinner passed through the slot. Instead, keys jingled and the rusty lock on the door began to turn. Duncan was on his feet before he remembered that he was supposed to be wounded. He crouched a little under the low ceiling and clasped his elbow to his side. The Duc's face mirrored his own fears; this must be their escort to the execution. There was a pause while the guards bound their hands together. Duncan regarded the shackles they put on him with distaste. They were caked with blood, only partly dry. He wondered how many different people had worn these gyves today, and how many times all told the wristlets had been to the guillotine and back. The Duc's face twisted as he watched the shackles being placed on his son. "There's a chance you can escape, sir," Duncan said in English, which the two aristocrats would understand but the guards would not. "I will go first. When my head comes off, there will be a . . . disturbance. The guards will be distracted and alarmed. That will be your chance to get away." "What sort of disturbance?" the Duc murmured as they were prodded along the corridor. "It's -- too complicated to explain right now. Trust me, the guards will be very surprised. A lot of people will be running away." _Except for the Immortal who stays to receive my quickening,_ he thought. "Don't stay to watch, just get away as fast as you can." "How can you be sure you'll go first?" the Vicomte asked, his voice quavering slightly. "I'll make sure I do," said Duncan, stumbling heavily against one of the guards. He got a hearty cuff to the head in return. "Eager to meet Madame Guillotine?" the guard growled at him. "You will be her first suitor, then." Duncan winked at the Vicomte. The three prisoners were ushered out into a courtyard, blinking at the daylight. A priest in brown robes stood near the doorway, raising his hands in blessing. Duncan stiffened, but he had no sense of Immortal presence from this priest; he was just an ordinary man. "Peace be with you," murmured the holy man, marking a cross on the Duc's forehead. "Go in peace." He grasped Duncan's hands briefly. The guards shoved them roughly into the waiting tumbril. Four other prisoners were already inside the rough cart: a man and three women. Two of the ladies clung to each other, weeping. The third, somewhat older lady held her chin high and bent a sharp glare upon the guards who leered at her. The Duc de Givagny peered intently at the fourth prisoner in the cart, whose leg was in splints. "Gervase!" he cried. "Is it you indeed?" "Yves!" Their bound hands clasped awkwardly. "I never thought to see your face again, my friend." The Duc nodded. "I could wish the circumstances were better, but I am glad to see you also." Duncan rolled his eyes, thinking that this aristocratic sangfroid could be carried a bit too far. The young Vicomte, pale and thin-lipped, seemed to agree with him. They stood at the back of the tumbril as it lurched drunkenly into the streets of Paris, gazing about at the world for what was surely the last time. Duncan bent his head to study the scrap of paper the priest had pressed into his hand. It held only two words, in English: "Hold Fast." The Macleod clan motto. "What does it mean?" the Vicomte murmured to him. "It's a message from a friend," Duncan replied. "Who?" "I'm not sure, actually, but I think we can expect some help." "Not _sure_? What were you saying about a proper appreciation of strategy?" Duncan grinned. "Well, there's something to be said for impetuosity, too." Tucking the note into his belt, he craned his head to scan the onlookers that lined the streets. This incautious movement earned him a rotten tomato square in the eye. As he ducked his head and tried to wipe his face clear, he felt the beginnings of a familiar prickle. The tumbril jolted to a sudden halt. Their driver added a flood of imprecations to the jeering of the crowd. A farm cart had wedged itself across the narrow street, and the horse that pulled it was balking with its ears pinned tightly back. As the volume of the shouting increased, onlookers began to gather round the cart and snatch its store of radishes to use for pelting the hated aristos and their red-faced driver. A wrinkled creature with lank grey curls hanging about her face climbed down from the farm cart and began to harangue the driver of the tumbril. Duncan's head twisted frantically as he felt the buzz of the other Immortal's presence growing stronger. Then his eyes fell on a man maneuvering around to the back of the tumbril. "Connor!" he gasped, realizing what the message had meant. The man in the dusty peasant clothes grinned and whipped a hefty sword from his coat. With one powerful blow he shattered the wood around the tumbril's lock, then turned upon the bewildered guards before they had even brought their muskets to bear. Duncan pushed the tumbril's gate open and started ushering the other prisoners out. The younger ladies shrieked as he propelled them into the melee; the older one picked up a guard's fallen musket, fired it into the mob, and bayoneted a man that had grabbed one of her young companions by the hair. "Macleod!" cried a familiar voice. Duncan turned his head in time to see the old crone from the farm cart thrust a blade under the driver's ribs, pluck the driver's sword from his limp hand, and toss it to Duncan. He caught the hilt reflexively. A moment later his view was blocked by half a dozen milling bodies, and he had no chance to stare. The Vicomte was guarding Connor's back with a long dagger. The Duc was supporting his lame friend, and the older woman had the young ones under control. Duncan leaped down from the tumbril and sliced the arm of a man trying to stab the Vicomte in the back. Since his hands were chained together, he arranged them in a two-handed grip on the sword. A few judicious kicks and stabs opened some space around them. "Connor!" he yelled. "Where are we going?" "Follow me!" his clansman cried, and with a bloodcurdling yell he opened a path down the street. The radish-throwing brawl had escalated into a riot. Most of the participants were quick to back away from a sword blade and turn to less dangerous pockets of fighting. Duncan herded the Vicomte, the Duc and his friend, and the three ladies after Connor, only following himself when the farming crone popped up next to him from under the tumbril. The two of them acted as rear guard for the bedraggled little party as they forced their way down the street. After a short distance, Connor led them into a cramped alley, where only a few of the most determined citizens and two uniformed guards followed them. Duncan groaned and dropped his sword as a musket ball plowed into his shoulder. The greasy-haired crone put a well-muscled arm under his elbow and hauled him through a doorway into a cellar. Duncan leaned against the wall to catch his breath while the crone barricaded the door. "I hope Connor knows where he's going," Duncan gasped as they hurried after the other prisoners. "Don't worry, we've got this all planned out," said the crone next to him, in a distinct tenor. Duncan gave his companion a suspicious glance, but didn't pause for questions. Two adjoining cellars and three alleys later, they appeared to have lost their pursuers. Clutching his shoulder, Duncan collapsed on the ground next to the Duc and his friend. Connor and the Vicomte were discussing something earnestly. The two young ladies were having hysterics, but the older one, still wielding her bloody bayonet, had persuaded them to do it quietly. The grey-haired crone pulled a pipe out from beneath a filthy shawl and began to puff on it. "We weren't expecting so many of you, Macleod. Did you have to bring them _all_ along?" Despite the pain in his shoulder, Duncan burst into laughter. "Fitz! It _is_ you!" "Well of course it is, you nodcock. Didn't you recognize my dashing swordplay?" "No, I recognized your pipe." Duncan choked, almost speechless with mirth. "Where did you get that ridiculous outfit?" Fitzcairn glared at him from under a tumble of grey curls. "It was all Darius' idea." "Who's Darius?" "Oh, I forgot, you haven't met him yet. Darius is a brilliant strategist who planned our escape from this godforsaken city. In fact, he's so brilliant," Hugh gestured broadly with his pipe, "we may even be able to accomodate the extra company you've brought along." "How?" Duncan asked curiously. "Come and see." Fitzcairn led the way around a corner of the building that sheltered them and waved at a cart in the alley. "Behold your means of escape!" Duncan stared. The cart was actually not unlike the tumbril they had just been in. "How are we supposed to hide ourselves in --" He broke off. There was a large pile of manure and street rubbish next to the cart. "Oh, no. You're not going to cover us with --" "Dung," Hugh filled in cheerfully. "It's perfect. The guards at the gates won't look too closely at _this_ cart." Duncan was appalled. "Couldn't you hide us under vegetables -- radishes or something, like that other cart you had?" "Macleod, my friend, no one takes vegetables _out_ of the city to sell them! Ordure, on the other hand . . . " He shrugged. "I, of course, will be driving, since I have a disguise." He slapped Duncan between the shoulder blades. "Congratulations on your escape." Duncan glared at him. "Since you like the idea so much, you can explain it to the ladies," he growled. Fitzcairn stared at the two weeping women, and his face paled with dismay. ============================== =========================================================================