Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 01:30:39 EST Reply-To: Highlander TV show stories Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: the dungeon of souls Subject: "In Loving Memory" "In Loving Memory" by Caile Donachaidh Kane comments (&flames) to _IN_LOVING_MEMORY_ Duncan stood in the middle of his apartment, unpacking the box he'd gotten out of the storage garage. It was full of old letters from Darius, and little things the priest had given him over the years. A hand carved mug, a small marble figurine, a brass letter opener. He turned the little knick-knacks over anad over in his hands before setting them on the coffee table. The letters were all neatly stacked, yellow with age now, and fragile. This was the last part if his grieving for his friend - his death had lost its sting, but not its ache. It didn't matter that Darius had died over a year ago now - some thigs don't ever stop hurting. In the bottom was a picture frame, wrapped in many layers of oil cloth and leather. He smiled as he looked at it sitting there in the box, unsure if he wanted to pick it up and look at it. He reached for it after a moment, then stopped, his fingers hovering over it. Should I? he asked himself. It was given so that I could remember, not that I should forget. He reached in and lifted it gently from the box. He unwrapped it carefully, putting each layer of wrapping reverently aside. At last, the painting was bared, and he turned it over, something fiercely painful slamming into his chest as he gazed at her. HER. Aria. The Queen of Immortals. The most beautiful woman in history. The only woman Darius had ever loved. The painting was older than he was, by centuries. He felt almost as though he were committing a sacreliege by touching it. Aria. The love of Darius' life, and the one who'd had to leave. It was probably the most valuable painting in the world - a portrait. circa 487 AD. A painting the like of which was never done again until the Rennaissance. It was ahead of its time - its subject was ahead of *her* time, too. The frame had been replaced many times over the years - this was its latest, a dark wooden one that was almost 200 years old. Darius had given him this just before he left for America. He slipped the back of the frame out, and lifted out the letter tucked behind. It was an old piece of parchment, addressed to him. He unfolded it slowly, and read it: "They have all heard of her, but few will ever see her - let alone know her. She is called by many names, in many lands: The Mother, The Goddess, The First Immortal, The Queen of Immortals. Her personal name, the one she prefers, the one by which *I* knew her, is Aria. "Perhaps someday you will seek to find her. Perhaps someday she will find you. Remember that there have been many who claimed to be her, but *you* will know her, for this portrait is the only existing likeness of her, and I myself saw it painted. You will know her by things I shall tell you, for I knew her body as well as my own - I was not always a priest, my friend. "She is more than fair in her intelligence, beyond compare in her beauty, unmatchable in both wit and skill. "She is tall for a woman of her time, and carries herself like the queen she is. She has two small moles on her right wrist, and one on her right ankle. On the back of her left shoulder is a mark like a scar, that is really a small hole in her flesh. Perhaps she still has the ring I gave her - 3 small opals set in silver wrought leaves. "If you ever do meet her, seek to learn from her all that you can. Even she herself has forgotten how long she has been on this Earth, and she has learned a great many things. She is willing to teach whoever is willing to learn. That was my mistake - I did not want to learn when I had the chance. My last word of advice , my friend, is the most important: do not ever fight her, for you shall surely lose. "Darius." The love and pain infused in the words brought tears to his eyes as he slipped the letter back into its hiding place, and put the back of the frame into place. To think - he's dead, and she probably doesn't know. With a start, he realised that she had probably sent out her customary letter to him, the challenge that begged not to be accepted, the only thing that kept them connected over all the centuries. She had written him a letter, every three years, hand delivered by a courier whose soul purpose was to find Darius wherever he may be, and put the letter into his hands. It was a challenge, a "game" they had played for almost 1500 years. She was the better fighter, she would have won had they ever met. After all, Aria was the oldest living Immortal in the world. He remembered the day he had found Darius weeping, staring at the portrait. He'd just recieved one of those letters. He vowed that day to stay a monk forever, to never again know the warmth of a woman, to lose what he had for so long loved. He could have gone to her at any time, but the pain for him was just too great. Duncan recalled that day with a shiver, remembering the depth of sorrow in his voice as he told the tale of love lost... When Darius left her, she had intended to wait for him. He was a power hungry young immortal, and the general of one of the most powerful land armies since the days of Philip and Alexander. He thought he would conquer the world. He made a vow to march west - from his hall on the steppes below the Ural mountains - conquering everything in his path until he'd reached the sea. He wasn't certain how far the sea was, but he believed he could do it. Aria had laughed at him, telling him how she had seen the the attempt made before, and each time failure was the only result. A man could conquer vast areas, and an Immortal could surely take over more than those, but no-one, Immortal or not, could conquer the entire world. Darius was hurt by her scorn, but he wanted to try anyway. He was full of great dreams and idealism. He told her" "I will be king of all Immortals, and you will be my queen." He promised her that they would be married as sooon as he completed his great campaign. Before he left, he had a portrait painted of her, the most exact rendering of his time, and of any time. He had one made of himself for her - smaller, but just as exquisite. He took the portrait of his beloved with him on his campaign, taking it out every night to look at it, and remember her. On the day of his departure, he kissed her goodbye from his horse, and placed a ring on her finger. It was a silver wring, silver wrought leaves with opals set in them. He whispered in her ear: "This is for you, my love, wear it for me." To this she replied: "Always." He said then: "Promise me you *will* wear it always, and be mine forever." She smiled upon him and replied: "Always. I swear." When Darius had tme, he wrote to her. She stayed on at the hall, going about her business, living as a wealthy lady should. She had many attendants, and a small standing army that fended off the hall from bands of roving bands of barbarians. She wrote him long letters, telling him about new dresses, and how the household was being run. Homely things, like a wife tells a husband who is travelling on business. Aria was, at this point in time, the second oldest Immortal living. The oldest was a holy man of the Parisii, a people who had settled on the banks of the Seine in Gaul. They had founded a city, called Paris, that was supposedly impossible to conquer. One of the greatest leaders of the time had fallen there only a few years before. Aria knew the holy man of Paris, was his friend and his pupil. Her mentor had been killed off long ago, and this man had taught her many things that she otherwise would not have known. She loved him dearly, and prayed that Darius would not atack his city. Her prayers were not answered. Darius attacked Paris in the autumn of 490, and a great siege ensued. One day, after three long weeks, he stood at the gates of Paris and screamed to the guards standing above: "SEND ONE OF YOU OUT TO FIGHT ME, COWARDS! YOU WAIT INSIDE YOUR WALLS THAT WE CANNOT YET DESTROY, AND YOU WILL NOT FIGHT US! FORGET MY ARMIES! FORGET YOURS! SEND YOUR BEST WARRIOR OUT TO FEEL *MY* BLADE. ARE YOU MEN? OR ARE YOU BUT BOYS? FIGHT ME, COWARDS, FIGHT ME!!!" From behind the gates, came silence. Discouraged, he turned away, and started back to his tent in the field. Then from behind, he sensed another Immortal. He whirled around and and saw the man, standing at the gates. He strode up to him and cried "Are you going to fight me?!" The man stood there, wearing nothing but simple robes, with no weapons. "I am one of peace, not war," the man answered. "I have come to ask why you trouble our city, when we have done no harm to you or you people." "I don't know who you are," sneered Darius, "but I will answer you before I take your head. I am Darius, and I am the greatest general of all time. I am here to take your city for the pure joy of conquest. And for the love of the woman I would make queen of the world." "Who is this woman, that you would desire to put her on the throne of the world?" "Only the most beautiful woman in the world, the most intelligent woman in the world, the sweetest woman in the world, and for her, since you stand in my way, I will kill you." With this, Darius drew his sword and took the head of Aria's dearest friend in the world. The Quickening was huge and powerful. When it was through, the great general collapsed upon the ground, the strangest feeling over-taking him. It was a feeling of light and goodness and purity, the like of which he had never experienced before. He looked upon the city and the siege which was still going on around him. He saw it suddenly as madness. He ran to his second-in-command, another Immortal named Greyson, and ordered him to stop the siege. Greyson laughed in his face. He drew his still bloodied sword and told him if he did not order the rest of the troops to fall back, he would cut off his head there and then. Greyson, frightened by his mentor, called back the troops. Darius disbanded his armies, sent Greyson home for Aria, and entered the gates of Paris a much humbled man. Aria, back in Russia, waited anxiously for word from Darius. It finally came, in the form of Greyson. He told her that Darius had killed the holy man, and that he had abandoned the siege. He was not planning to leave Paris, and would like her to please come to him. She was outraged by the death of her friend at the hands of her lover. She refused to go with Greyson. He told her she had to. Greyson was hurt and disappointed in his mentor - all of Darius' dreams had been his dreams, too. Being vicious by nature as well as experience, he saw the perfect way to get back at him - to harm the thing that Darius valued above all else. He raped her. He then went back to Darius and told him that she had refused to come with him. Not long after, a letter arrived from Aria. She told him of what Greyson had done to her, and that she was leaving the hall. She said she could not live with the man who had killed her best friend. She closed the letter with a challenge: "You can come join me, be my King. Or meet me on the field in the dawn. Choose, my love or my blade. I know which *I* would rather, but the choice is yours. "Aria." Darius' simple reply eventually found her: "For my love for you, and my betrayal of you - I cannot choose." She did not answer him. She left the hall to travel the world, as she had done for centuries before. Darius sent word back to his men in Russia, and ordered the hall burnt to the ground. He then made his vow to work from holy ground to keep peace - among both Immortals and the mortal world at large. It is as this ascetic that most people found him. Legend held that the pure gooodness of the Quickening of the holy man was what caused him to make this vow, but as with most legends, this was only partly true. The other reason was to atone for the driving away the woman he loved. Duncan snapped out of his memories suddenly as the telephone rang. He answered it after staring at it a momnet - did he really want to talk to anyone now, now in the midst of this final ritual of grief? To hell with it. He picked up the phone. "Hello?" "Is this Duncan MacLeod?" "Yes, who is this?" It was a feminine voice, very low and smoky sounding. It was an old voice - the voice of someone who'd seen alot. "Someone who is inquiring about the death of someone very special... Someone I've known a long time..." The voice trailed off, and he heard a long inhalation on the line, as though she had just taken a drag from a cigarette. "Might you tell me who you're talking about, if you won't tell me who you are?" The death of someone very special, eh? What a coincidence. "His name was Darius." Duncan's body froze, hearing the nmae spoken. "WHO ARE YOU??" he demanded. "What do you want?!" "My name is Aria... I knew him, long ago." Fifteen-hundred years ago, even. This was starting to be too horribly weird, too coincidental, too... "Duncan? Are you still there? I've shocked you, I know. Listen, I'm at the airport right now. I know where you live, I got the address from the police in Paris. I'll get a taxi out to you... I'd like to talk about... what happened." "That's fine... I'll be waiting." He realised that his hands were shaking as he hung up the phone. Good God. Aria. A woman who had seen the rise of humans, from the caves and mud huts to the skyscrapers visible in the distance. A woman who could know so much and teach so much. A woman who could love Darius as he had been meant to be loved, for however brief a time. However long ago. The oldest. The oldest. A woman some five thousand years old... ancient, beyond compare. He stared at her portrait, wondering. He felt her approach two or three minutes before he heard the knock at the door. The most powerful buzz he'd ever gotten. He shook his head as though to clear it, and answered the door. She stepped into the room slowly, moving carefully woth a feline grace. It had begun to rain outside, and her ahir and coat were damp. She was breathtaking. He recognised her immediately from the portrait. It wasn't possible that she could be anyone else. He thought back to his awful experience with the Tessa counterfeit, and thought that it was a good thing that plastic surgery didn't work on Immortals. And this was definately an Immortal, he could still feel an faint shimmering presence radiating from her. For a young one, it would be unbearably annoying. Aria was tall for her time, but about average for modern women. She topped maybe 5'6", and was wonderfully slender. Her hair was the blackest he had ever seen, and her skin perrfect ivory, without a single blemish. As she stepped closer to him, he noticed that her eyes were green, like emeralds flashing in her white face. He got the impression that that she was whiter than usual, for she had a strained look about her. He saw that she had her ahnds in front of her, and was twisting the ring on her ring finger. It was the opal ring, the one Darius had given her. His insides wrenched - oh, god, this is really her. "Duncan MacLeod?" "Yes." He held out his hand to her, and she clasped it warmly. He noticed the moles on her wrist, exactly as Darius had said ther would be. "I've heard of you," she said. He smiled wryly. "I've heard of you, as well." She smiled too, but there was something forced and weary in the woman's face. "Darius, no doubt." Her voice was wonderfully even, with a light musical quality. "Yes." He stared at her for a moment, lost in looking at her. Then he recalled his manners, and looked away. "Would you like to sit down?" he asked, taking her coat. "How about a cup of tea?" "Thank-you, yes." She sat delicately on the edge of the couch, crossing her ankles and folding her hands in her lap. Pure elegance. He luckily had a pot of tea already brewed, and he poured her some in one of his nicer china cups. He brought it over to her, and she accepted it gratefully. He sat down in the chair opposite, and suddenly noticed that she was staring down at the coffee table with a somewhat horrified expression. The portrait was still lying there. She reached down and picked it up, looking her own face in the eye. She had a demure expression in the painting, with the barest hint of a smile. As she gazed at it, he saw her expression alter slowly until it matched that in the painting. A tear rolled down her cheek as she whispered something in a language he did not understand. He needed no translation, however, to understand that it was an expression of sorrow. She looked up at him, tears spilling soundlessly from her eyes. "Would you bring me my coat please?" she asked. He got it for her, terrified that she might leave, wondering how he could keep her longer. But all she did was reach into the pocket and lay the coat aside. What she took from the pocket was a small flat wooden box with a clasp to it - about eight by five inches big and perhaps an inch and a half thick. She opened the box and he saw that it was actually a picture frame. It could only be the miniature. The matching portrait. She handed it to him. Darius. Sitting slowly, he closed his eyes before looking at it. Then he opened them and he saw something he never expected. Although in the back of his mind he knew Darius had been a warrior, he still could only picture him as a monk. The painting took his breath away. It showed Darius from the chest up, exquisitely detailed. He was wearing his leather breastplate, and his hair was long and full. He wore a fearsome expression, that of a man not to be trifled with. A lump came into Duncan's throat as he thought about what his friend could have been like in those times. It suddenly struck him that *this* is how Aria remembered her love, not as the gentle priest but as the rough fighter. He thought that she perhaps may not have loved the man *he* knew, had she known him. But then he realised that she would have loved him any manner she could have had him... It took only one look at her face to see that. "This is beautiful," he said finally, in a quiet voice. He shut the case and handed it back to her. She smiled faintly, and slipped it back into her coat pocket. "I've carried that painting for 1500 years. But tell me, how did you get *this* one?" She touched the frame of her portrait lightly. "Darius gave it to me, a long time ago. He wanted to forget you." He realised his mistake as soon as the words were out of his mouth. The expression of horror that crossed her exquisite face was almost too much for *him* to bear. He hastily tried to make up for his own error. "It wasn't because he didn't love you, nothing could be further from the truth. It was the knowledge that he could never be with you... after what *he'd* done, after what *Greyson* had done... that was what drove hm to give your portrait to me. It was because he loved you *too* much." He understood that he was giving away the fact that he knew the whole story, but he plunged onward, desperate to make up for the pain he'd caused with his one careless statement. "Darius hated those letters, he hated them because it was just another reminder of the awful mistake he'd made. He hated the feeling they gave him, the feeling that there was no going back to whatever beautiful thing the two of you onece had. But he also waited and waited for those letters as well, because despite the pain they caused him, they at least let him know that you were alive and well. That was his one reassurance - as long as you were alive, you might be happy. He wanted nothing more than to see you happy, one last time... and now... he never will." Duncan stopped, out of breath, too emotional to go on. Aria's face had gone blank as he spoke, and now the barest hints of her carefully masqued anguish were starting to show. It was a long time before she spoke, and when she did, it was with the same measured and musical voice as before. "I wrote to him as usual. I knew he was on holy ground. I had no doubts whatsoever that he would still be in the rectory where he had been for centuries. Why would he leave. I certainly did not expect my courier to return and tell me that he had... died." She took a deep breath, twisting her ring harder. "I was astounded. Darius was... dead. Killed on holy ground. What evil person could do such a thing? I suspected Greyson, but I found that he too was dead. I found that *you* were the one who killed Greyson. Then I found out that you and Darius had been close, that you had been a student of his. I also found out that you had taken his vengeance for him." She reached out suddenly and clasped Duncan's hand. "I thank you for that. I would have done it with my bare hands..." Duncan swallowed hard. He had rarely seen such hatred in a person's eyes as had been in Aria's at that moment. But then her face returned to normal, except for the ever present pain. "I loved him above all other things," she continued. "I would have given my life for him. I would have given up all these millenia to have been able to say goodbye, to kiss him one last time, to see his face, touch his cheek... to whisper his name.... to tell him how much I loved him. He died without knowing hiw much I loved him." Her nails were digging into his hand, tears were streaming down both of their faces. "He knew," Duncan whispered. "He knew." "I wanted so much to be with him... We were together for half a century when he left... I wanted to be with him forever. He was the only man, mortal or Immortal, that I have ever truly loved. My soul belongs to him. He took my soul with him when he went on his journey all those years ago, and he took it with him when he died." Duncan's heart felt as though it was being torn from his chest. He could understand some of her pain - he's experienced loss, what immortal hadn't? But this gutwrenching agony that crossed her face every time heard his name, every time the thought of her beloved came into her mind... The closest he could come to this feeling was his dozen years of love with her could not compare to a millenia and a half of violently intense love. "He didn't have to die," he whispered. "I wish I could have stopped it, I wish I could have kept him alive... for you, if not for the good of all mankind. He gave so much to me... to you... to everyone he came in contact with. A man like that it hard not to love." "I know. He was always like that, irresistible. Even when he was the kind of man who would kill you for looking at him the wrong way. I know you find it hard to concieve of Darius as the man *I* knew and loved, but to me... he was just as loving and as caring as you say he was. He was very caring, doting even, when it came to me. The people under his care, the villagers outside his hall - they were all distantly related to him, they were his own clan. He cared for them. He was brutal when it came to justice, or to conquest, but he was not inhuman." A soft light seemed to fill her eyes as she leaned back into the couch, seeming to fold into herself while remaining perrfectly elegant. She was staring off, out the window, lost in memories, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand. "I remember nights is=n his hall... there weren't really beds then, just straw pallets, usually on the floor, but we had one that was very large, and built up off the flor. It was quite warm in the wintertime, covered in rugs and blankets, burrowed in the straw, with the hounds at our feet. I remember I used to lay there, in his arms, and listen to him recite all his grand plans. I would fall asleep to the sound of his voice on so may nights... He had the most soothing voice... He sang, did you know that? The cradle songs of his childhood..." She sang something softly under her breath, he caught snatches of the same ancient language she'd whispered in before. It was a beautiful chant, simple and beautiful. "What does it mean, the song?" he asked softly. It took a moment to draw her back to the present. "The song?" she repeated. "Yes. What does it translate to... or does it?" Duncan looked at her curiously. She still seemed very far away. "The song..." Oh, yes. It's a sort of lullaby." Aria smiled at him sadly. "I can't count the number of times he sang me to sleep with that same song..." She began to sing again, tentatively, in English. "Sleep... sleep... sleep to the sound of the nightbird crying... sleep to the breeze in the moonlight... sleep to the sound of lovers sighing... sleep to the music... sleep to the rain... sleep, sweet child, sleep..." She looked down at the floor for a long time. And when she looked up her eyes were again full of tears. They ran silently down her cheeks as she smiled softly at him. "I always missed him," she whispered, but I never knew how much until now." Duncan reached out and patted her arm awkwardly. This was torture, watching her. 1500 years worth of regrets, sorrow, of things unsaid were streaming down her face in drops of saltwater. He was unsure of what he should say, what he should do. How do you comfort one who has lost everything they lived for? She slowly regained control of herself, wiping her eyes with a lace handkerchief she slipped from her pocket. "Thank-you, Duncan," she said finally. "For what?" he answered in surprise. "For bieng his friend. For knowing him. For keeping his memory alive. Sometimes I think that I am the last person on earth who remembers him." She stood up abruptly, folding her hands in front of her. "Do something for me." "Anything." "Each year, on the anniversary his death, make sure you are in Paris. Together we will light a candle for him - in remembrance, at his church. I know the ritual sounds silly, so awfully Christian, but the rite of remembrance is much older than the Church. Will you do this?" Duncan stood up and took both her hands in his. "I swear to it." * * * * * * * * * * * * The first anniversary dawned rainy and cold. Duncan stood outside the church, looking up at it, his collar turned to the wind that blew through the Paris streets. He felt an overpowering Immortal presence behind him, then turned at the sound of footsteps on cobblestones. Aria came up the street in a lng cloak that flowed with her steps. She kissed his cheeks warmly. "You came." "Yes." "I'm glad." They walked inside together, up the long aisle to the altar where many candles were already flickering. Duncan lit the first candle and Aria the second. She whispered something in that ancient language, and he recognised it as Darius' lullaby. She smiled at him, and took his hand to go. As Duncan opened the door, a gust of wind tore it from his hands and blew through the empty church. He glanced back at the altar, and touched Aria's arm. "*Look*," he whispered. She turned back. The wind had blown out all the candles except two, the pair that they had just lit. As they watched in disbelief, the candle between the two seemed to light itself, forming a triad of light at the front of the altar. "Goodbye, my love," said Aria quietly. Then she took Duncan by the arm and they left the church,leaving the spirit of love happy once more. IN LOVING MEMORY OF WERNER STOCKER UBI SUNT =========================================================================