========================================================================= Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 16:47:25 -0500 Reply-To: Sandra1012@AOL.COM Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Sandra McDonald Subject: Lay Down Your Sword 7/8 Warning: Parts 7 & 8 do have violence, death, some horror, maybe an obsenity or two. The Immortals in the rectory were all talking, and laughing, and rushing over one another to give hugs and kisses, congratulations and jokes, when Dom Stephan poked in his head. "I see the lost lamb has returned," he said. They immediately sobered. Richie, who remembered everything Jason knew, said quietly, "Hello, Dom Stephan." Dom Stephan considered him carefully. "Hello, Mr. Ryan. Welcome to Gethsemani." To the others he said, "Please keep it down." Then, with a wink, he was gone. "Scots everywhere," Holland said, which made Connor start laughing all over again. In deference to Richie's appetite they sat around the table and watched him quickly demolish several plates of leftovers. In between bites, he told them as much as they needed to know. "I think the dam was trying to break for a long time," he admitted. "Seeing Amanda yesterday just made it go faster. It was all so . . . overwhelming. Four hundred years in four seconds. Everything I'd ever done, everyone I'd ever known or loved . . . " For a moment his voice shook, and he gulped down more water. When he looked up, he fixed Duncan with a profound look of gratitude. "Thanks," he said. "For having faith in me. For rescuing whatever was left of me." Duncan couldn't answer. Holland squeezed his hands. "I went out to the mountain because I wasn't sure I wanted to be me, anymore," Richie went on, swallowing several large pieces of bread. "I thought if I tried hard enough, I could just become Jason again, and not have to deal with any of the crap." "Do you think it would have worked?" Connor asked quietly. Richie nodded. "Yeah. I think it would have. Until the next time the dam broke." After several more minutes of gorging himself, during which time Duncan began to feel the need for an antacid, Richie finally sagged back in his chair. "I'm beat," he announced. "I hate to be the party-pooper, but I might just fall asleep here if you guys will clear a spot." They agreed it would be better for Richie to sleep in his room, for them all, in fact, to go to bed, and after numerous good-nights only Richie, Duncan and Gregor were left in the rectory. Richie motioned for Duncan to go on for a minute. Gregor, who'd been very quiet, busied himself with cleaning up the dishes and plates. "You know," Richie said conversationally, "you were the first one who ever hinted that I would be an Immortal someday." Gregor's heart started racing. He put the dish he'd been lifting back on the table. "Was I?" "We were walking by the waterfront. You were this up and coming photographer with all the nasty pictures, and I was just a punk kid hanging around MacLeod and Tessa. You knew then what I would become." Gregor flushed slightly. "Yes. I did." "But you didn't tell me. Duncan, Connor, you, Darius, I don't know who else - you all knew, but you didn't tell me." "I almost did," Gregor admitted. "But it would have been wrong. You had to live your life as a mortal first - grow old, have a chance at a real life first." "It didn't happen," Richie said. "I was killed just a short time later." Gregor didn't answer for a moment. Then, gingerly, he offered, "I did other things besides walk on the waterfront with you." "That's right. I remember a certain bike stunt. I remember you coming by the shop, and being a little upset." Gregor turned away from him. "I was more than a little upset, Richie. I nearly killed you." "Scared the shit out of me," Richie agreed softly. "Can you forgive me?" "Forgive you?" Richie asked incredulously. He put his hands on Gregor's shoulders and turned him back. "For four years, you've been the only thing holding Jason Sanger to earth. You cared for him - for me- from the very day MacLeod and Methos carried me in here. Of course I forgive you. I owe you everything." With those words Richie folded Gregor to his chest and held him tight against the guilt that finally spilled over from the monk's eyes. After Gregor had been comforted and sent to bed for well-deserved rest, Richie and Duncan climbed to the top of the stairs and to Richie's room. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, they uncorked the bottle of wine that Connor had smuggled to Duncan from the infirmarian, who swore it was only used for medicinal purposes. Over four hundred years of common adventures and tragedies came back to life between them, a product of wine, the late hour, the slush of freezing rain against the windows, the warmth inside, the love of old friends. They talked about Tessa and Seacouver, of Richie's pre-Immortal days. Of Paris and Darius, then later Maurice. Kirstin, who'd nearly come between them. Methos, the most ancient of all the Immortals, and his fondness for cheap beer. Joe Dawson, who'd died at the age of eighty with a blues guitar in his wrinkled old hands. Mako, who'd been Richie's first Quickening. And although Richie was tired to the very center of his bones, he insisted on hearing everything that had happened since Versailles. Duncan told him the Free Wave movement had become more and more widespread, with even greater tragedies in its wake. The dictatorships in the world, straining under the burden of overpopulation and environmental collapse, struck down harder and harder on the Free Wave protesters who called for the return of democracy and civil rights. SIDI was growing worse in their blatant attacks on Immortals. Richie and Felicia hadn't been the first to fall under their evil. Richie's eyes shadowed at the mention of Felicia, but he didn't flinch away from her memory. "She fought them until the very end," he said softly. "Cursing them, giving them hell, making them earn every single inch of ground. I caved in long before she did." "You survived," Duncan said, laying his hand on Richie's arm. "That's what matters. You're here, and we're leaving, and we're going to Sanctuary." Richie shook his head. "I'm going with you, Mac, but only to tell Methos I don't agree with his ideas." "What do you mean, you don't agree?" "Running away isn't going to help anything," Richie said flatly. "That's what he's doing. That's what you're all doing. Sure, the world is a mess, but we're the ones who can help it get back on track. We're the ones who have the knowledge and the experience." Duncan scowled. "We're the ones they hunt and destroy, Richie. Just like the Hunters used to. But we can outlive them. We go away for awhile, we wait. Time is the only thing we have. And then they'll be gone." "And how many innocent mortals will die in the meantime?" Duncan upturned the empty wine bottle. "I don't want to fight, Richie." "We're not fighting," Richie said firmly. "We're just not agreeing. You taught me that was okay." Duncan smiled. "Yeah, it's okay. Tough guy. Welcome back." "Good to be back," Richie said, from under another hug. When MacLeod was finally gone, Richie sank down on his bed without even bothering to get out of his filthy clothes. He could easily have slept for a week. But a knock on his door disturbed him almost immediately. It was Amanda, carrying a large bucket of steaming water, a washrag over her shoulder, and a smaller empty basin. "I figured you could use this," she said. Richie eyed the hot, soapy water. Suddenly he wasn't as tired as he thought he was. "That's for me?" "Welcome home present," Amanda said. "Take off your shirt." Although it was cold in the room he did as instructed, and she seated him on the low wooden bench. By candlelight she soaked the rag into the water, then began a gentle scrub of his filthy back. Richie relaxed beneath her firm movements, his mind pleasantly blank, his stomach full for the first time in three days. He hadn't had enough wine to make him feel more than slightly heady, but the smell and closeness of Amanda was an intoxication of a different sort. Amanda moved to his chest. She wouldn't meet his gaze, and seemed enormously absorbed in her work. "Why are you doing this?" he finally asked. She said, "Why not?" Then, a short time later, she asked, "Why was it the sight of me brought your memory back?" Richie hesitated, then said slowly, "I remember standing on top of Mac's barge in Paris, soon after we met at the circus. You came out to talk to him. The way you looked at me, the way you said my name . . . I don't know. I guess I fell in love with you." The soft glide of the rag and the soothing hot water across his stomach stopped as Amanda lifted her eyes to him. "You did?" Richie didn't look away. "I was an eighteen year old kid in Paris, Amanda, and you were absolutely gorgeous. Then, softly, he added, "You still are." "But you're not eighteen years old anymore," she said, just as softly. Then her hands moved down. "Take off your pants," she said. "Why don't you do it for me?" he asked. So she did. Sometime in the next few hours, as their bodies met and joined in the ancient room high in the storm, as they filled each other's emptiness with genuine warmth and giving, as he taught her he was still young and she taught him what experience will bring, he might have murmured, "Felicia." She might have murmured, "Tristan." But it didn't matter. *** The storm held through the next afternoon. Richie and Amanda didn't emerge from Richie's room. Holland brought them food, and came back with a grin on her face. Duncan tried to feel some jealousy about Amanda, but couldn't. Holland was the only one whose sexual activities mattered to him, and during the long, languid afternoon they explored an infinite variety of ways to please each other. Connor cleaned his sword again. Gregor did whatever monks did on stormy days. Minette moped. Sometime before the bells of Vespers, at perhaps five o'clock, Amanda emerged from Richie's room with a bucket of cold water in her hands. She went back to her own room, feeling delighted and exhausted and whole. The rain had stopped, and she thought she could see blue beginning to poke its way through the eastern skies. Minette came by a short time later. "Can we take a walk?" the younger Immortal asked, her face flushed. "I want to talk to you about . . . Jason. Richie." Amanda contained a sigh. The young could be very possessive, sometimes, and she should have remembered Minette's obvious infatuation. "All right," she said. "If you'd like to." "Yes, please. There's a path that winds around the woods. We can have some privacy." Amanda nodded and grabbed her coat. Minette took her down the path in the falling darkness, and delivered her into Ris' waiting hands. She never stood a chance. *** Duncan was laying in bed with Holland, tracing lazy circles on the bare skin of her back, when the western sky lit up with lightning. "That's funny," Holland said, her voice half-muffled in the pillow. "I thought the storm was over." He sat up. Bolts of white ran up into the sky. "That's not lightning," he said, as a cold saber ran its way through his gut. He grabbed his boots and pants. "That's a Quickening." He flung open his door, shouting Connor's name. But there was no answer. He and Holland were halfway out the door of the novice house when the carpentry shop erupted into a fireball of hungry, searing flame. A few seconds later, something blew out the windows of the two floors of the main building. The explosions threw both of them to the mud. Duncan staggered to his feet and hauled Holland upright. "Someone's bombing us!" she shouted. "Trying to get us off holy ground!" Duncan yelled back. No rain came now, to drench the flames. Instead, a full moon was clearing out from a bank of clouds, and the fire went unchecked. "Find the others and get them to safety!" "Like hell I will!" she shouted. The novice house roof went up into a volcano of flame and shattered debris. They ran out the gate and down the path to where the Quickening was ending. Duncan could feel the song of at least two other Immortals, but as he burst through the brush he saw only one. He saw Ris, his arms outstretched to the sky, standing above the bloodied heap of someone who'd lost his or her head. He began to realize with the edge of a dull knife dragging across his mind that something huge and horrible and irrevocable had happened. He tried to close his eyes but couldn't. He tried to blot out the vision before him, but knew instantly that he would carry it to the end of his Immortal life. Amanda's head, six feet from her neck. Her eyes, wide with surprise. Her dead gaze, on something MacLeod couldn't see. A churning rage exploded up from his bowels into his chest, his arms, his sword. But he controlled it. He controlled it with every ounce of strength he had, because it would do absolutely no good to go insane just yet. "My God," Holland whispered. "Oh, dear Lord." "She couldn't fight worth a damn," Ris smiled. Duncan could barely see but for the crimson waves dancing before his eyes. Without taking his eyes off Ris, in a voice shaking with fury, he growled, "Holland, go back. This is between us." Holland backed away on the path. Then she realized she too was blocked. By Minette, who was gently laying aside the remote control for the bombs which she'd planted around the monastery and drawing her own sword. "You'll be dead in a few seconds, too," Minette said. "I'm sorry, Holland. But this is the way it was meant to be." Holland heard the first clash of steel between Duncan and Ris. She realized, in an instant, that Minette must have lured Amanda out to her death. Amanda had been sixteen hundred years old, she'd known better, she should have been more careful - Holland took a deep breath to steady herself against the burning in her chest and eyes. She drew her own sword. She'd had the best teachers an Immortal could ask for, including Amanda. "We'll see who dies first," Holland said, clearly and coldly, and threw herself into battle. *** Connor had been in with Dom Stephan when the first bomb went off in the courtyard. He hadn't even noticed lightning to the west, and had no idea that Amanda lay dead and lifeless at Ris' feet. A few seconds later something exploded above him, sending dusty shaking in the abbot's office, and Connor thought instantly of Richie on the top floor. "What is it?" Dom Stephan asked. "What's going on?" "You have to get everyone out," Connor ordered, dashing for the stairs. "Find Gregor. He'll protect you." The monastery walls and floors were stone, but the roof had been rebuilt through the years and was as vulnerable as the flammable furnishings in most of the chambers and cells. Flames were already licking down the fourth floor tapestries as Connor raced up to the top floor. Half of it had been ripped open to the sky, and the night air poured in. He pushed past blazing rugs and benches to Richie's room, which had been only a few rooms away from the blast. Richie's bed had flipped over, and his trapped corpse lay burning beneath the sheets and covers. Connor grabbed a smoldering blanket, used it to smother the flames, and then wrapped Richie into it and up into a fireman's carry. Going down the stairs put him in a haze of thick black smoke that choked Connor's lungs and nearly sent him spiraling into nothingness. He felt the buzz of another Immortal, but held off shouting for help. Someone had set the bombs. Someone wanted Richie dead, if not actually beheaded. "Connor!" a voice shouted. A desperate, hacking voice. Gregor. "Here!" the Highlander yelled, and stumbled against the monk in the thick, oily blackness. Choking and gasping, Gregor led him through the maze-like floor plan until they stumbled into the outside air. Dom Stephan and several of the more able-bodied monks were fighting a doomed battle with water buckets to save the novice house. The older brothers lay gasping and shivering in the courtyard mud, their frightened faces reflecting back the horrid destruction of their home. Some were praying, but as Connor eased Richie's corpse into the mud, prayer was the last thing on his mind. He felt another Immortal. Immediately he lurched to his feet, sword in hand. The burning of his lungs was easing, the burns on his hands healing. He squinted against the flames, seeking his quarry, and then turned to focus on a man standing outside the gate. A man with a sword. A man with a smile. "Connor MacLeod," he said grandly. "My name is Valery Constantine. I've come for your head." Connor felt within him the wild call to battle that had forged his life in the Highlands. A glorious and awful surge of blood red thunder roared in his ears. "Then try and take it," he said. end of part seven ************************************************************************ When the deepest part of you becomes engaged in what it is doing, when your activities and actions become gratifying and purposeful, when what you do serves both yourself and others, when you do not tire within but seek the sweet satisfaction of your life and your work, you are doing what you were meant to be doing." - Gary Zukov, "The Seat of the Soul." Sandra: Writing Highlander fiction works for me!