=========================================================================
Date:         Thu, 28 Mar 1996 21:35:53 -0500
Reply-To:     Sandra1012@AOL.COM
Sender:       Highlander TV show stories <HLFIC-L@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
From:         Sandra McDonald <Sandra1012@AOL.COM>
Subject:      Lay Down Your Sword 3/8

Holland left the hotel after breakfast to go to the transit station.
Duncan could have made the trip, but he was too easy to pick out
of a crowd even with his gorgeous hair cut short these days.   She
blended much better.  At the station she checked for I-Mail to a
false account she'd set up two days before.  Methos was supposed
to use the account to warn them of any last minute changes.  It was
empty, and she relaxed ever so slightly.

On the way back to the hotel she felt another Immortal's presence,
and immediately detoured from a side street into a more crowded
marketplace.  The streets were shiny with remembered rain, the
market stalls bustling with activity, the crowd of unfamiliar faces
pressing close against her coat and hidden sword.  Public places,
Felicia had taught her a rule number one, were the best place to be
to avoid a fight, but they made Holland feel claustrophobic.

Holland used other tricks Felicia had taught her to try and spy her
follower, but he or she evaded him deftly.

Until she turned and saw a man only a few feet behind her, a man
with perfectly straight white teeth and strong Indian features, a
man who had knelt to talk to a young girl and her brother.

He glanced her way and with a smile, in English, said, "Meet me
on the other side of the square.  Or I kill them now."

Holland felt herself pale.  English was a rare public language these
days, since the fall of the United States, but his words would have
chilled her even in Esperanto.

"I'll be there," she said in a steady voice.

Across the square lay a warren of side streets and alleys, all neat
and orderly in the early morning sunshine.  The Swiss houses, built
of plastisteel, mimicked the bright colors and wonderful variety of
the old town of Stans under the lake.  A cleaning robot on a
balcony methodically beat out rugs of dust.  Another, across the
street, wiped clean a window.  Holland waited for the stranger.  He
bowed like a gentleman, and escorted her up the street.

She knew who he was.  She knew from Duncan's description of the
man who'd nearly bested Connor a few months ago in a private
courtyard of olive vines and fountains in Cairo.

He introduced himself anyway, so she would be absolutely certain
of who had killed her.

"Goran Riswanathan," he offered as he shrugged out of his
raincoat.  "Ris for short."

She hefted her sword.  "Holland Greer.  You're not going to live
long enough for us to be on first name terms."

He laughed in sincere delight.  "An honor, dear lady," he said.
"Don't be like the others.  Don't try and charm me, don't smile
winsomely, don't wiggle your hips.  You'll be easy to beat, but at
least you won't beg."

"You talk too much," Holland offered.  Felicia had warned her
never to worry about the talking.  It was the eyes to watch, to
prepare for that first blow.

Obligingly he struck out with that first blow.

And nearly knocked her immediately to the ground with the force
of it.

Holland had taken more than a dozen heads in her four hundred
years, although she wasn't proud of it.  She understand the rules of
the Game.  She knew what she was, and why total strangers desired
to slaughter her.  If she preferred to avoid a fight than wage one, it
made her no more or less successful than other Immortals her age.
She'd had excellent teachers, including Felicia and Duncan, and
felt confident going into almost any situation.

She also knew that lesson Duncan had hammered into her for a
hundred years - that she didn't have to lose because she was less
strong than a man.  She had speed and agility on her side.

With Ris' first blow she knew speed and agility would not be
enough.

She was going to die.

She blocked, retreated, and managed a blow of her own that he
parried as if her blade were a gadfly.  Their swords clanged with
sparks, and she retreated further down the street as he increased the
tempo.

"Thirty seconds more," Ris promised, "and I'll take your head for
you."

She wasted no breath on witty replies.  Holland faked a thrust,
came up underneath, scored a scratch on his arm.  Ris' smile
merely grew wider.  He wasn't even breathing heavy, the bastard,
and looked as if he were exerting as much energy as a leisurely
park stroll required.

Her back was already running with sweat, and she couldn't breathe
enough oxygen into her lungs.

Ris slashed downward suddenly, catching her leg.  Holland felt the
flesh and muscle rip with a searing intensity.  She fell but rolled,
and came up on her good leg with a blow that he deflected at the
last possible second.

He'd nearly beaten Connor, she remembered.  How could she ever
have stood a chance against him?

"Time," Ris said, and caught her with a blow that sent her
staggering into an alley wall.

The buzz of another Immortal swam through her dazed senses.

Duncan, she thought.

But he would be too late, too late, too late -

Or not.

A flash of lightning, the clang of her future.  Duncan's sword saved
her neck.

"Try taking on someone your own size," Duncan MacLeod hissed,
his eyes smoldering with an inner fire, his voice laced with rage.

Holland thrust her sword up into Ris, driving it through his
diaphragm and out through the back of his white silk shirt.

Ris gaped at them both, blood spilling from his mouth, and
collapsed to the pavement.  He clawed at the ground, mouth
desperately working to suck in air, eyes bulging.  Then he
collapsed lifelessly, his body sliding into death.

It reminded Holland vividly of her own death, on an airport hangar
floor so many centuries ago.  She felt MacLeod raise her up and
hold her until her legs steadied.  His face worked in rage, but he
couldn't say anything.  And neither could she.  She pressed herself
up against his chest until she could breathe regularly again, until
the tears that threatened to blind her vision cleared and focused on
Ris' corpse.

MacLeod gently released her.

Went to Ris.

Lifted his sword.

Holland watched him silently, with a new kind of dawning horror.
She knew what he knew.  That killing him now was a violation of
the rules.  Intentionally or not, it had been two against one at the
very last second.

No one else need ever know.

Just the two of them.  The world would be rid of Ris, and others
would be safe.

"Duncan," she breathed, her voice raw in her throat, "you can't."

But he wanted to.  She could see it in his shoulders, his intense
stare, his grip on his katana.

She wanted it too.

MacLeod lowered his sword.  Across his features played the awful
combination of confusion and pain that Holland knew cut deep, a
wound of its own.  He was one of the best Immortals on the planet,
but he was just a man.  He could only live by his code of honor.

Holland took him by the hand and away from Ris' body.  Only then
did she realize the robots above were screeching out alarms, and
that the sirens of approaching police pods were cutting through the
air.

They had no choice but to flee up the mountain.

***

Gregor prayed long and hard for guidance before he went up to
Jason's room.

There was no denying that he had initially come to the monastery
centuries ago on the advice of his Immortal doctor, Sean Burns,
who'd felt that a retreat from the pain of the world might be a
healing balm.  Sean had never intended him to stay more than a
few weeks, under the care of an old Trappist infirmarian Sean
knew from his army days.  Instead, Gregor had ended up spending
thirty years in Gethsemani before leaving.  His leaving had only
been to avoid more speculation on why he, of all the monks, was
not aging.

He'd gone back to the world outside, forging new lives for himself,
but his heart had always stayed with the Trappists.  He spent a
third of each successive century living among them all over the
world, then would leave to protect his Immortality.

Now he was back in Gethsemani.  And the Lord that Gregor had
once shunned had seen fit to send him Jason, who was more than
he appeared to be.  The graced one.

Gregor could remember very clearly the pain and misery he'd been
in before reaching Sean.  The awfulness of living forever, feeling
nothing, watching tragedies play out over and over again, feeling
nothing, having everyone he loved die, feeling nothing.  Because
he'd made himself forget how.  The pain had been too intense, too
agonizing, to be felt.

Blocking it only hurt worse.  Duncan MacLeod had taught him
that, on the roof of a hospital.

But try as hard as he could, Gregor hadn't been able to teach Jason
that.

Gregor tightened his hands together in praise of the Lord, although
his thoughts were racing him along paths he had no control over.
Amanda's presence in the monastery had brought him to an
unexpected crises.  Connor had relayed Methos' plan to take
Immortals to Sanctuary until the world was ready for them again. It
was an amazingly tantalizing offer, living in a community of only
Immortals.  Despite his closeness to his fellow monks, Gregor had
only managed to find three or four in the past four hundred years
who could be trusted with the enormous secret of Immortality.
Dom Stephan was one of them.  Leaving the old abbot behind,
along with the life Gregor had forged in this abbey, was a very
painful idea.

He'd finally dismissed the idea.

Now Amanda was here, to bring Jason away.  Connor was here,
when he should have left weeks ago.  Minette was here, drawn by
some undefined force she said called to her across the mountains.

God worked in mysterious ways, but sometimes a clue or two
would be helpful.

Gregor climbed to stiff knees and went upstairs.  Jason was in his
room, meditating on his bed lotus-style.

"You're troubled," Jason said.

Gregor pulled up the chair.  "May I?"

Jason opened his eyes.  "If you have to ask, then I know we're in
trouble."

Gregor sat.  He took a deep breath.  "Someone's come to see you."

Jason nodded very slightly.  He relaxed his legs and swung them
over the side of the bed.  "I heard something last night.  Who is it?"

"Her name is Amanda."  Gregor watched closely for a reaction, but
there was none.  He went on with the risky part. "She's come to
make you an offer to leave."

"Maybe I don't want to leave," Jason said.

A shiver ran down Gregor's spine to the very bottoms of his feet.
Never before had Jason even entertained the thought aloud.  When
MacLeod and Methos confronted him on it, he'd pulled back into
near catatonia.  That was the least of the reactions Gregor expected,
but certainly not this calm assuredness.

"No one's going to make you," Gregor nearly stammered.

"I know," Jason said confidently.  "You and Connor would stop
them."

Them.  Not just Amanda.  Methos and MacLeod, and anyone else.
Gregor had never been sure that Jason understood the depth of his
devotion to the younger Immortal, or realized that Connor had
fallen somehow under that spell as well.

"Jason," Gregor asked, "why are you fasting?"

Jason's gaze took on a far away introspection.  "Because I have a
decision to make."

"To stay or to leave?"

"I don't know."  Jason's attention returned from wherever it had
gone.  He gave Gregor a small, helpless smile.  "I don't really
know."

Gregor wasn't really surprised.  Jason had been graced.  He
displayed, on occasion, startling insights that must have gone from
God's mouth to his ears.  ESP, divine intervention, astrology -
whatever.  Jason knew things, sometimes, that he shouldn't have.

The look Jason was giving him now, however, spoke of other
things.  In that moment, Gregor would have sworn Jason saw right
through him, to very heart of him, to the secret places he didn't
dare share with the younger Immortal.  That Jason saw everything,
and that there was no condemnation.  That, like God, Jason saw
only the goodness and absolved him of the rest.

The thought was too unsettling to hold for very long.  Gregor
asked, "Do you want to talk to her?"

Now a shadow did cross Jason's eyes.  His gaze went to his sword
on the wall.  "Amanda," he said, as if testing the name.  "No.  I
don't want to see her."

Abruptly he rose.  "But I do want to get to the carpentry shop.  I
promised Brother Hans I'd make him a new bench."

Gregor stood as well, shaken and disturbed by forces he didn't
understand, and accompanied Jason out of the room.

***

Amanda instantly liked Dom Stephan.  She'd been prepared to
instantly dislike him, only because he was the abbot of all these
men who'd fled from the world, but she found instead that he put
her instantly at ease with a handshake and a deep voice that
rumbled, "Call me Steve."

Connor raised his eyebrows.  No one ever called Dom Stephan
"Steve."  He excused himself, however, because this was a
discussion that clearly Dom Stephan wanted to conduct in private,
despite the fact they were out behind the courtyard.  Dom Stephan
was splitting firewood with an ax that looked as old as Connor felt
this morning.

"I hear you're extremely long-lived," Dom Stephan said, swinging
down his ax.

Amanda took a seat on a nearby tree stump.  She found it
interesting this monk wanted to talk to her with an ax in his hands.
Hopefully, he appreciated the dangers.  "You could say that," she
admitted.

"You don't look a day over five hundred," Dom Stephan joked.

Amanda smiled, "I hope I don't look a day over thirty."

Dom Stephan grinned.  He split another log with a neat, powerful
blow that sent it sailing apart in two equal halves.  "You've come
to take Jason away."

"I've come to ask him.  There's a difference."

"And what would you like to ask me?"

"Who says I want to ask you anything at all?"

"The look in your lovely eyes."

"I didn't think monks were supposed to notice things like that."

"Monks notice everything.  That's why they're monks."  Dom
Stephan piled his split logs, then placed another beneath the edge
of his ax.  He split six more before Amanda caved in.

"Why do you lock yourselves away up here?"

"You view us as limiting ourselves."

"Yes."

"What if I tell you we're freeing ourselves?  That by abandoning
the priorities of your world - careers, possessions, ambitions, riches
- we bring ourselves closer to what God wants of us.  In solitude
and solidarity, we find out what's truly important."

Amanda studied him in the weak winter sunlight.  Clouds were
moving in from the east, and she expected bad weather by noon.
She pulled her sweater tighter.  "Did Connor tell you I was once a
thief?"

"Connor has told me very little about you."

"I stole things.  Lots of things.  I was very good at it.  If God didn't
stop me, he must have wanted me to have those possessions."

"You confuse what God wants with what you want.  God's power,
versus your own free will."

"God's not omnipotent?"

"He could choose to be," Dom Stephan admitted.  "But he doesn't.
He took a risk on making you, Amanda.  He could have just as
easily made a tree.  But he made you, and gave you free will, and
suffers the consequences of your actions along with you."

Amanda concentrated on the fall of the ax.  She doubted very much
that God mourned Tristan the way she did.  Anger over Tristan's
death tried to work its way up from the place in her chest where
she'd locked it away.   "That's all very well," she said tightly, "but
it doesn't concern why I've come to see Jason Sanger."

"Maybe.  Maybe not."  Dom Stephan paused to rest.  She reminded
herself that he was not young - sixty five, at least, with wrinkles to
prove it.  Outstanding health aside, he didn't have the energy of
younger men.  Of herself, aged sixteen hundred.

"Jason is God's child as much or more as any of us," the abbot said
quietly.  His words carried softly on the cooling breeze. "He was
brought her for a reason.  We've sheltered him, and helped him
heal himself.  He has the free will to leave or stay.  You won't
make that decision for him."

"I know," she said.

"You don't know as much as you need to," the abbot said,
somewhat sharply, and then took in a deep breath to calm himself.
"I'm sorry.  I don't know as much as I need to, either.  But I get
by."

"Can I talk to Jason?"

"That's up to him," the abbot said.  "Gregor's asking him."

The shivery sense of Immortals approaching brought Amanda to
her feet.  She turned and saw two figures across the courtyard stop
mid-stride.   They'd been on their way to what must have been the
carpenter's shop, but now, as one, they turned to face her.  One
wore the habit of the order, and was obviously Gregor.  The other,
beside him, was less obviously Jason Sanger.

She felt Connor's return and heard him mutter an oath to himself.
She hadn't been meant to see Gregor or Jason, not like this.

>From Jason she felt the same odd song that went beyond
Immortality to something deeper, clearer, cleaner.  An awareness
of something ancient and powerful that called to her all during the
night, with a presence she hadn't understood.

Actually seeing him put things in no clearer perspective.  Because
although she knew now why Duncan had been willing to beg for
this favor, she didn't understand yet why deceptions had been
necessary.

Still, the shock of recognition was enough to keep her feelings
from being instantly hurt.  Her mind seemed flushed with
numbness, and only one word escaped her.

"Richie," she whispered.

end of part three
******************************************************************************

"We had to make 6 of them.  There were just so many unanswered
questions."  Bobcat Goldthwaite to Jay Leno, finally revealing why so
many Police Academy movies were inflicted on the public.
******************************************************************************
*