Date: Sun, 25 Feb 1996 13:08:20 -0700 Reply-To: Hank Wyckoff Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Hank Wyckoff Subject: (30A/30) Reading the Endtrails -- HL Posting This chapter has been split for posting reasons The Cycle of Axer Carrick, Part 4 Reading the Endtrails (30A/30) A continuation of: When the Veil is Lifted The Duplicity Frostmelt Nat and Coleen were standing on the roof, looking over whatever part of the city that wasn't blocked by the buildings. Nat had been strangely pensive the whole time. "Coleen?" she asked. "What did you inject me with?" "Inject?" Coleen asked with true innocence. Nat shook her head, "Don't lie to me. I'm starting to remember things -- the injections... the loss of time... It didn't make sense until Mulder talked to me, and I started to remember." She looked at Coleen with furious eyes. "Why did you do that?" Coleen knew the game was over. "Janette asked me to. I met her in New York, and when she found out who I was, she asked me to do a little job." "Which was?..." "To make sure that you wouldn't have an interest in Nick. She thought you were a bad influence, and when I saw how Nick was treating you, I thought that he was bad for you." "What are you saying?" Coleen was honest when she said, "When I came back to town, I thought I was doing it for the money, but when I saw you, I realized that Nick wasn't good enough for you." She blew out her breath when she realized what she said, "I didn't mean it like that! I just couldn't watch Nick treat you like that! You were there for him, and helped him out during all his difficult times, and he was just treating you like a slave... I realized then that you didn't want Nick - - and you didn't know what you wanted." Nat was furious, "So you made my decisions for me? So you thought you'd pump me full of drugs?! What kind of compassion is that?" Coleen looked away, "I know how it looks, but you weren't giving yourself another chance. You would have stuck where you were until one of you got too cynical to go on or one of you died -- in one way or another. This way, I've given you a choice, even if you don't like it." She looked at Nat very intensely, "What is it going to be." Nat didn't answer the question -- she stomped away without saying a word. Coleen's head hung in her hands as she breathed the cold air. A particular memory surfaced, and it was as if she stood on that nameless patch of tundra once more... ..."Emotions may be a fine thing to have when you're watching Bambi," Axer was saying, looking out at the frozen ocean, "but they're a bad thing to have if you're an immortal. It's best to block them all off. Kill them." "That doesn't make any sense! I'm human -- you are too, and I *know* you have emotions!" He smiled, "Perhaps I misspoke myself. You're right -- we're human, and we do have emotions, but the question is, are you in control of them or are they in control of you? If your arm gets chopped off, are you going to grovel in your pain and need for 'hugs and kisses' 'til the hurt goes away, or are you going to shrug it off, get up, and finish the fight?" He chuckled humorlessly, "For a long time I hated the British, but one thing I respected was their refusal to bow down to adversity. Their eternal response to disaster was, 'My, how inconvenient!'" "What do you want me to do?" "Run a mile out in the ice without any clothes on. Punch a boulder with your bare hands until they're broken slabs of meat. Put yourself through the worst kinds of torture you can, be honest with yourself about what you're feeling, and then keep going. Trust me, it's the only way you can survive." Axer looked at her directly, "Look at me: I'm a short Welshman, and I've killed Goths and Vikings who towered over me by a foot or two. How? By my *acquired* ability to let my pain pass by -- and maybe that's the key phrase there: 'pass by'. You feel it, and you let it go..." Coleen looked at her hands, "Let it go..." She slammed her fist into the wall, and broke every one of her knuckles. The pain was so intense that tears flowed, but she slammed her other fist into the wall. The pain rose. Time and time again, she slammed her fists into the wall at full force until she could no longer do it. Weak, weeping, and paralyzed from the pain, she lay slumped against the wall. "Damn you Axer!" she whispered. "You were wrong -- pain doesn't erase the pain!" Desperately, she wanted Nat to come back and realize her mistake, and say, "I'm so sorry. I was wrong. I *do* love you after all." But Nat didn't. Coleen remained alone. ****************************************** Powys walked into the Raven -- all smiles. "I hear you had several major breakthroughs!" he said as he helped himself to a pint of ale. Joe wasn't in a good mood to begin with, and snapped at him, "What made *you* so happy?" His look was innocent, "Why, it's a wonderful day!" He sipped some of the ale now that the head settled a little. "And where have you *been* all this time?" "Here and there," he said evasively. "No place special." Joe stopped asking questions: he wasn't in the mood to play games. **************************************************** LaCroix stared at Halscombe. He no longer needed to 'persuade' Halscombe, because he had begun to volunteer stuff on his own, as if he were dumping baggage from his shoulders. "There's a lot I don't know about it," admitted Halscombe, "but the word was that --" * * * "--the Invisible Ones are a society, or some sort of group of people that have been around for at least two millennia," said Methos, translating from the Latin, "and this was in Roman times. "Their purpose -- their open purpose -- was to --" * * * "--enable human beings to walk the Tree of Life. A few months ago, I didn't know what that meant, but ever since Powys talked to me, I think I do. It means --" * * * "--that if they followed through with their plan, according to this, any human being would be able to travel to 'the stars', which would most likely be more poetic than literal, and so would mean --" * * * "--that any human being would be able to travel to any time, any alternate universe, or something along the lines. But who knew why they wanted to --" * * * "--create such a race? It doesn't say. Could it be that they had a simple scientific curiosity, or did they feel they needed to do this? Who knows --" * * * "--why. It's so crazy that I can't believe it. Even now, I can't believe it. But *they* do, and that's important." "But who are they?" asked LaCroix. "What are they?" * * * "Good question," smiled Methos. "I don't know, but I think we have a clue as to where we need to go." "Where?" demanded Richie. He was so tired of reading that he needed to kill something. "It says here that they have remained hidden, but there is one who is said to be a contact -- a means of reaching the Invisible Ones." "Who?" * * * "Who else but Odin? But there's nothing you can do now. He's dead." --------------------------------------------------------- Henry Wyckoff -- wyckoff@ag.arizona.edu Q: Want to know how to conserve bandwitdth? A: We all stay off the web and watch the servers shut down. =========================================================================