Date: Mon, 14 Aug 1995 02:53:36 EDT Reply-To: Russ McMillan Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Russ McMillan Subject: Hold Fast, Part 1 of 7 Hold Fast, Part 1 by Russet McMillan mcmillan@astro.psu.edu Duncan entered the dojo and nodded as Richie stuck his head out of the door of the office. "Hi, Richie." "Hey, Mac. I finished last month's accounts." "Great. Are we in the black?" "Not yet, but it's getting better. Those new beginners' classes are helping. Hey, you got a package. I put it in the elevator for you." "Thanks, Richie." Duncan entered the lift and pulled the gate closed absently behind him, studying the package as he rose to his loft. It was long, narrow and heavy, with no writing on it except his address and the various postal markings. There was no clue to its origin. Reaching the loft, he set the package on his coffee table and got a beer from the refrigerator before opening it. The paper came away to reveal an unmarked box, and the box opened to yield what Duncan had more than half expected -- a sword wrapped in cloth and carefully packed for shipping. But what sword, and why had it been sent to him with no warning? When he unwrapped the sword, Duncan stared in shocked disbelief for several minutes, then reached for the phone. He didn't use the number much, but his fingers dialed unerringly. "Nash Antiques, Rachel speaking." "I need to speak to Russell Nash," Duncan growled, then added in afterthought, "please." "I'm sorry, Mr. Nash isn't in at present. Could I take a mess--" "When will he be back?" A pause. "Mr. Nash is out of town for several days." "Where can I reach him?" "I'm sorry, I can't tell you that. If you'll give me your name and --" "I'm a relative of his. I need to get in touch with him right away." "Well, I can't give that information over the phone. Leave a message and I'll be sure that he gets it as soon as he calls in." Duncan frowned. "When _he_ calls in? You mean you can't reach him yourself?" There was another telling pause. "Look, uh, Rachel, I think he may be in trouble. If you know where he is, just tell me." "I'm sorry, Mr. Macleod, I don't know where he is. But there's no reason he should be in any trouble." "Well, thanks anyway," Duncan snarled, and slammed the phone down. After a moment's thought, he headed for the elevator. ========================== Joe Dawson was in the back room when he heard someone entering the bar. He picked his cane up from the corner where it was leaning and limped out to the front. "Sorry, we're closed," he called out, wondering how the doors had come to be unlocked. Then he froze in the doorway. Duncan Macleod was standing before the bar, his stance rigid and his face flinty. Dawson recognized the signs of anger and grief; he hadn't seen Macleod so affected since Tessa was killed. "What's wrong?" he said at once. Duncan said in a low voice, "Joe, I need to know the name of Connor's Watcher." Dawson frowned. "You know I can't tell you that, Mac." "Damn it, I have gotten that answer too many times already today, and it isn't good enough!" Dawson just shook his head. Duncan paced. "Has he been killed? Did someone take his head? Tell me that, at least!" Dawson raised his brows. "His last fight that I know of was two and a half weeks ago. He won. An immortal named Morgan, about two centuries old." "I've met him," said Duncan, calming slightly. "Brash, overconfident. Good with a sword, but too flashy. Connor wouldn't have any trouble with him." "No, he didn't." "And you haven't heard anything since then?" "He's been perfectly quiet in New York, as far as I know. Why?" With that uncanny ability that most older Immortals possessed, Duncan produced a sword and placed it on the bar. Dawson leaned forward and inspected the weapon, a well-used, slightly strange-looking katana with a white hilt. The blade was covered in dried blood. "Connor's?" Duncan nodded. "He got it from Ramirez. It's over two thousand years old. He doesn't use it for ordinary fights." "How did you get it?" "It came in the mail today. No return address." "The postmark?" "Seattle. Yesterday." "That doesn't tell us much." "Joseph," said Duncan ominously, leaning toward him. "If someone's killed him, I need to know." "So you can have your revenge?" "He was my kinsman. My teacher and my friend. But more than that, I have to know who has his Quickening. And Ramirez', and the Kurgan's. Whoever it is must have a pretty good shot at the Prize. I know the Watchers must have been keeping a close eye on him." Dawson nodded slowly. "Hang on a minute," he said, withdrawing to the back room. Duncan could hear the murmur of his voice and knew the Watcher was placing a phone call, not simply checking his files, but the words were inaudible. After a few minutes Dawson reappeared, frowning. "His Watcher lost track of Connor five days ago. He went across the street from his shop for coffee and never returned." "Was he armed?" "He's always armed, but he rarely carries that ancient katana. She thinks it was stolen from the shop that night." Duncan stiffened. "'She?'" He drew a breath in dawning realization. "His secretary! Of course. She called me 'Mr. Macleod,' and I didn't even realize . . . but she's been with him for years. He must know that she knows." "He told her himself. It was later that we recruited her." Duncan's lip twisted. "He saved her life, didn't he? And he trusted her." "She never betrayed his trust." Duncan turned away, his shoulders rigid. "Mac, you're missing the point. With all the security on that shop, the sword could only have been taken by someone with the keys. Connor's keys. Rachel didn't have a copy for that display case." "So it was the same one who took Connor. But why? He must have had Connor helpless in order to get those keys. Why go back for the sword, just to mail it to me?" Dawson bent over the gory weapon on his bar, studying it closely. "This isn't just dried blood, is it?" "No. There's bone and hair and -- I think -- brain." Duncan swallowed hard. He didn't like being able to recognize such things, but it was an inevitable part of the Game. Connor always took great care of his weapons -- any intelligent Immortal did -- but with Ramirez' blade he had made a religion out of cleaning, oiling, and sharpening. And whatever bone or brain the sword had cleaved, Connor had been unable to tend the blade afterward. Dawson placed a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Let me do some more checking around. I'll come by tonight and tell you what I can." Duncan met his gaze sharply. "Thanks, Joe." He turned and left the bar, the sword disappearing beneath his coat as if by magic. ==================== It was nearly ten o'clock before Dawson showed up. Duncan was staring contemplatively at the phone nestled amid shredded wrapping. He searched the packaging for a clue to its origin, but found nothing. Now his hands moved restlessly over Connor's blade, cleaning the last of the crusted blood away. Growing impatient, he reached for the phone, then paused as he heard the lift begin to move. Joe Dawson limped heavily into the loft and settled himself into a chair with a sigh. "Well?" said Duncan crisply. "I've been checking on other Immortals, trying to find out who might have been in the right place at the right time. The only ones who were in New York last week are young and inexperienced. They had all met Connor before and parted peacefully, sometimes as friends. Most Immortals who aren't on good terms with Connor avoid the area." "I know," said Duncan with some satisfaction. "In fact, I couldn't find anyone who might have attacked Connor last week." "Then you haven't looked hard enough." "Mac, there are no more than a dozen people in the world today who could stand for ten minutes against Connor Macleod, much less take his head. And none of them were anywhere near New York." Duncan got to his feet and began pacing again. "Then someone must have cheated. Attacked him two to one, or on holy ground, or something. One of those young idiots in the area." "All of them were watched that day. Nothing unusual happened. Mac -- I think you have to face the possibility that it wasn't an Immortal." Duncan stared unseeing out the window. "It was someone who knew about him, about me. Someone who knew enough to mail that sword to me." "Someone vindictive enough to use Connor's own sword against him." Duncan closed his eyes. "A Watcher," he rasped. "Hunters," Dawson corrected. "Is there a difference?" Duncan spat. "You know there is." "Rachel led them straight to him. Do you suppose she let them in to get his sword? Or did she just warn them that he was on the way across the street?" "Connor's been based in New York for two centuries, Mac. They didn't need any help to find him." Duncan picked up the ancient katana, feeling the blemishes where it had struck bone, imagining all too clearly the feel of that blade shearing through vertebrae, the arc of the disconnected head, the leap of blood and the fire of the Quickening . . . released into nothing, if Dawson was right. All that power, the accumulated energy of millennia of immortality, Connor's own essence, lost forever beyond hope of retrieval. Connor snuffed out as if he had never existed, four hundred and eighty years of struggle for survival ended in one moment. Just like Darius --- "NO!" Duncan bellowed. There were tears on his cheeks, and a pain in his hand. He looked down to find blood dripping from his palm; he had clenched his fist on the razor-sharp blade. Dawson came up behind him and gripped his shoulder hard. He removed the blade from Duncan's hands, wiped it clean with a piece of packing paper, and pressed a cloth against the wound to soak up the blood. "I'm sorry, Mac," he said softly. His uneven steps moved toward the elevator. "I'm very sorry." ================== Duncan crouched on the side of the mountain, sick at heart. His clothes were torn and crusted with blood, but his body beneath was whole and healthy. He had tried three times to kill himself since he had been cast out of his village. Each attempt was painful, which suited him, but none had been successful. He always awoke to find himself healed. There was a roaring in his ears and a churning in his stomach. Hearing a footstep, Duncan turned around. A man -- a member of the clan, by his tartan -- stood on the heathered slope above him, with an odd curved sword pointing at Duncan's head. Duncan's sword had been taken from him. He reached reflexively for his the sgian dubh at his ankle, but it, too, was missing. He must have lost it at some time in his three days of wandering the glens, searching for death. Duncan rose to his feet slowly, resisting the cramps in his gut. He had never seen this man before, but any clansman must have heard the story of how Duncan was accursed and cast out, a creature of the devil. Perhaps this man knew some way to kill such a demon as Duncan had become. He would find no resistance. Duncan waited calmly for death, praying that this time it would be real. Instead, to his dismay, the stranger relaxed his fighting stance, sheathed his sword, and reached out a hand in friendship, beginning to smile. Duncan's face twisted, and he drew back. He felt the rock crumble beneath his feet, and turning away from the offer of friendship, he threw himself over the cliff. He woke to the crackling of a fire. He lay still a while, staring at the cloud-pressed moon above, then turned his head. Someone came around the fire and laid a hand on his shoulder. The buzzing in his ears redoubled. "Sit up, brother, and have a drink," said an unfamiliar voice. "You must be thirsty." He was thirsty, very thirsty, and he guzzled eagerly from the skin the stranger handed him. When he had emptied it, he wiped at his mouth, gasped, and demanded, "Who are you?" "My name is Connor Macleod," said the stranger. Duncan's eyes widened. He had heard that name. "The demon!" he gasped. "I am not," said Connor firmly. "And no more are you. We are just -- very hard to kill. The townsfolk call us unnatural. But have you had any dealings with the devil? I have not." "No . . . " said Duncan weakly. He had not at first believed his family when they told him he was accursed. But what else could he call it, when he was impervious to death? "Why can't I die?" he pleaded. Connor sighed and sat next to him, staring at the flames. "I don't know why," he said. "But I do know it's no favor we've been granted. It brings naught but pain. Last month I buried my wife -- dead of old age. And here am I, alone, still seeming as young as the day I married her. What pleasure can there be in that? Would any man sell his soul for such a life?" Duncan certainly wouldn't have given much for his own life, as it was now. "What's your name, brother?" said Connor, stirring from his bitterness. "Duncan." "Are you a Macleod, then?" Connor fingered the philabeg draped over Duncan's shoulder. "Yes. No. I don't know." Duncan scrubbed at his face. "I'm cast out from the clan. I've just learned that my father is not my father, and my mother never bore me. Which explains why I haven't the look of either of them." "You're a member of the clan by choice, not by blood," Connor said. "Nothing wrong in that. Did they speak the words to cast you out?" "No. They said Duncan Macleod was dead, and I was a spirit that had stolen his body." "You are the same man you were a week ago, and you're still a Macleod," Connor affirmed. "Just as I am." He knelt and began to bank the fire. "Go to sleep, Duncan Macleod. I have much to tell you in the morning." ================== =========================================================================