========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 15:33:10 -0700 Reply-To: Noah Johnson Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Noah Johnson Subject: Pawn To Bishop PAWN TO BISHOP By Noah Johnson This story is copyright 1996, by Noah Johnson. Permission is given to reproduce it, in its entirety, and including this notice. Reuben Smits pulled into Denver in a dead man's car, with a dead man's sword in hand. Yesterday had been very strange. The previous morning, he had been mortal, so far as he knew. Then a man who he now knew to have been an Immortal had given him a ride on his motorbike. A freak crash had left Reuben slightly injured, and the driver decapitated. Reuben had become the first person in history to take a Quickening before becoming Immortal. The dead mind of Maximillian Venner had spent an hour sharing space in Reuben's mind, before another Immortal had appeared, seeking Venner's, and then Reuben's, head. Moving on impulses he didn't understand, Reuben had taken his second Quickening in as many hours. All was silence in his head now, but part of Venner had become part of him. A certain sense of being, a few skills, and a precious few scraps of knowledge, such as where in Denver Venner had been going. Alton Walker's house. Reuben pulled into the driveway outside the shingled house. He glanced up and down the street and, seeing no one, picked up the sword on the seat next to him and got out of the car. Nervously, he walked towards the door. As he did so, he felt a feeling wash through him, tingling its way into his brain and making his adrenal gland kick over. He knocked hesitantly. Seconds later, a tall, lean, brown-haired man with a mustache opened the door. "Hey, Max..." he began, his voice trailing off in midsentence. He whirled suddenly, snatching a sword from a coatrack by the door, and bringing it up. "Who the hell are you?" "Reuben Smits," Reuben replied nervously. He began to gesture with the sword to begin his explanation, and Walker's blade was pressing lightly on his throat. Reuben was suddenly very conscious of his pulse. "I'm Alton Walker, U.S. Secret Service, and you'd better have a damned convincing explanation of where you got that sword, Reuben Smits." Walker said darkly. "I do. Believe me." Reuben said carefully. "Can I come in?" Walker paused a moment, looking at Reuben closely. "All right," he said slowly, backing away but keeping his sword pointed at Reuben. Reuben stepped into the shady house carefully, aware that Walker could and would kill him given any reason. They moved, slowly, into the sunken living room, deeply carpeted and furnished in leather. Reuben sank into a sofa, trying not to look threatening. Walker sat opposite him in an armchair. "I'm listening, Smits. Now talk." Reuben began his story. From hitching across the desert to driving into Denver, with all the madness in between. He toyed nervously with the sword at first, but noticed that Walker's face seemed to tense when he did this, so he settled for leaving it next to him on the couch. "...so I sort of remembered that he was coming here, and I thought you might be able to help me sort some things out." Reuben finished, trying to gauge Walker's reaction. There was a very long moment of silence. "You 'remembered'?" Walker asked finally. "Well, kind of. I mean, it's not really my memory, it's just sort of this impression I have, like something I heard from someone else, only not quite. Um... I'm not making much sense, am I?" "No, but I got used to that a hundred and thirty years ago." said Walker shortly. Reuben's mouth fell open. "My god, you're that old?" he blurted. "I'm a hundred and sixty. Venner was older." Walker cocked an eyebrow. "That's why they call it Immortality, Smits." Reuben felt like an idiot. "Well, yeah, I knew that, sort of, but I didn't really... you know, get it." There was another cold silence. Reuben felt he had to break it. "How old was he?" "You tell me." "I told you, man, I don't just have his whole life written down on my brain. I just these little pieces of info. I mean, you. You were with the Secret Service, right?" Walker sighed, and put his hand on the hilt of the sword in his lap. "I told you that when you opened the door. You're not impressing me, Smits." "Well, what do you want?" Reuben burst out. "His mother's maiden name? His belt size? Where he had a birthmark? I came to you for help, you asshole!" Walker remained cold. "Or you came for my head. I've got no evidence either way at this point, except that I doubt you could have taken Venner in a fight if you tied both his hands behind his back. Then again, I've no proof you took him in a fair fight." Reuben was getting angrier by the minute. "Well okay then, what proof do you have that he's even dead, Descartes?" Walker's mustache twitched. "You have his sword. That means he doesn't, which in turn means he's dead. He wouldn't give that sword up under any other circumstances." "Oh, you mean Marignac here?" Reuben said, tapping the hilt. Walker leapt to his feet. "What did you call that sword?" "Marignac. That's its name, right?" "Yes. Yes it is." Walker's eyes narrowed. "Who was it named after?" "Christ, I don't know. Some guy in the 19th century, right? Somewhere... hang on." On an impulse, Reuben picked the sword up. Closing his eyes, he felt the hilt in his hands, tried to remember the first time he'd felt it there. He got two answers: yesterday, in the desert, and over a hundred years ago, in... "Switzerland," he said. "Jacques Marignac. He was a friend, a mortal. He died, but left Venner his estate. Venner had a sword made with part of the money, and named it after him." Reuben opened his eyes. "Right?" Walker was sitting down again, looking at Reuben with a new expression on his face. "That's right." he said slowly. "I was there for part of it. What else can you tell me?" Reuben shook his head. "I don't think I can. It's like those word-association tests. Whatever part of Venner's mind I've got had a lot of memories of this sword. You, I don't know about. I don't know how often he saw you, but Marignac was with him all the time." Walker nodded. "That's the way it works." he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Reuben was amazed to see a tear slip from beneath one eyelid and slide down his cheek into his mustache. "Are you okay, man?" he asked. "I'm fine." Walker said. "I believe you. And that means my friend is dead." There wasn't much Reuben could say to that.