Date: Sun, 25 Feb 1996 13:11:12 -0700 Reply-To: Hank Wyckoff Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: Hank Wyckoff Subject: (30B/30) Reading the Endtrails -- HL Posting This chapter has been split for posting reasons The Cycle of Axer Carrick, Part 4 Reading the Endtrails (30B/30) A continuation of: When the Veil is Lifted The Duplicity Frostmelt In the cold north, the winds blew mercilessly across the landscape. There was no snow here, but lots of ice. It covered a single corpse lying in the middle of ruins. It was a filthy corpse, but anything but bloated. One eye had been taken out a long time ago, and the second one had been shot out with an arrow. The corpse twitched, then screamed. It felt hot -- so hot. It pulled the arrow out of its face and waited. Time passed as it breathed heavily, fingers twitching like fingers at a keyboard. "Behind closed eyes, realize your sight," whispered a voice from nowhere. **************************************************** Axer stood on the Scottish plain, the sky empty and the landscape devoid of all life except for the rolling grasses. She was there, without his even having to call for her, and she looked as if she were expecting him. "Mother," he said. "We need to speak." She nodded. "I know. You're beginning to understand." Axer nodded hesitantly, "I think I do -- but I only have more questions..." It was really hard for him to ask this, "Were you an immortal?" She laughed long and loud, "What would possess you to ask a question like that?" His look was grave, "'Possess' is the right word. It suddenly occurred to me that I met Tesla the same way that I met you -- through the nightmare-scape. He was an immortal who passed on to me when I took a quickening. But you were in my mind for as long as I can remember. ...Were you an immortal that I had slain?" Her look was sad, "I had wanted you to remember -- had *pushed* you to remember, but I was also sad that it had to be. You *must* grow up, but it's sad to see, as it is for any mother." "What are you getting at?" demanded Axer. She pointed to a calm pool that was now next to them, "Look into the waters, and remember." He did so, and he found that he *could* remember. It was in the pool, but it was also in his own mind... He had died in battle. That much was evident. And now, he was no longer dead. He screamed in the pain of dead flesh coming back to life -- nerve by nerve. But even that faded. "He is a god!" cried the jubilant villagers. "Me? A god?" he asked incredulously. "It can't be!" But it was. And in order for the god to rise from the ground, the old one had to be put into the ground. He was led to the sacred grove, where the goddess waited between the three sacred oak trees. It was the young woman he had known all his life, one he had only known as 'mother'. The villagers were honest enough to say that they never knew his mother, but she was close enough to a real mother. "Mother, what is happening? Why am I a god, when I thought I was but a man?" His mother looked at him kindly, "Do not question what is. Accept it. Just as I will accept your next deed." She handed him an axe. "You must lay me down to the earth." In a trance, he accepted the axe. "Now you must take my head." He never protested, asked why, or hesitated. He took her head, for this must be the way of things. Her head came clean off in one swipe, and the next thing he knew, her soul was released -- for everyone knew the head was the soul-cap, and if the head came off, the soul must release itself from the body. His vision faded with the pain that came from the soul-lightning... "I killed you," Axer said numbly. "You were my mother, and I killed you." She smiled fondly at him, taking him in her arms and kissing his forehead, "It was the way things had to be. And it wasn't that bad -- we still could see one another..." Axer opened up his eyes in the real world. "I remember now." ************************************************** "So," Richie asked, "what do we do? We go up to Canada to find this corpse?" "That's exactly what we do, but I think we should make a detour by Toronto first." Richie buried his head in his hands, "Why did I get a feeling you were going to say that?" ***************************************************** LaCroix' was deep in thought, and he came to the conclusion he was searching for. He didn't like it, but he stuck with it. "You're free to go," he said, releasing the prisoner. "But they'll kill me!" LaCroix just looked at him. ******************************************************** Axer felt a strong presence hit him from within the Raven. "Kate," he nudged her off. "Something's wrong. There's another immortal here." "Who could it be?" she helped pull him up. "I don't know, but I aim to find out." They went downstairs, where he saw LaCroix and Halscombe in the main room. Not only were Joe and Kermit here, but so were the two feds and Powys. Axer drew his glaive, "You're mine!" "Stop!" commanded LaCroix. "He has a story to tell you all. The same story he just finished telling me." ******************************************************* Nick lay in his own bed, in his own house, staring at the ceiling. Janette had followed him here, but he would have nothing to do with her. Everything hurt too much -- Janette leaving him, Nat leaving him, and Janette coming back. Janette stood a few feet away from his bed, "You can't stare at the ceiling forever." "No, Janette. I can't take this." "What is it that you can't take, Nikola? Tell me." "You left me, and made it clear to LaCroix that I wasn't to follow you, and then you waltz on back, expecting everything to be like nothing ever changed." "That's not true," she sat on the edge of the bed, "I *don't* want things to be the same. I *want* them to be like things are changed." She stood up sharply, "I don't even know why I'm even talking to you! LaCroix told me that you'd changed, so I thought I would come back to see for myself. But apparently he's wrong." "LaCroix *knew* where you were?!" He looked at her. She looked at him as if he were an idiot. He was silent for a moment, "What is it that everything I do seems wrong? Why have you never approved of my ambitions, and mocked everything I've believed in? What is it that I'm supposed to do?" Janette smiled softly, "At least you're asking. That's a perfect way to start." **************************************************** Everyone was seated at the main floor, their eyes locked on Halscombe as he finished his story. Rather than clearing minds, all his monologue did was clutter it up with more confusion. Mulder reacted the worst, "This doesn't help us at all! You know a great deal more than you're telling us, and I *know* how to get it from you, bastard!" He drew his gun. Axer, who was seated a foot away, smoothly grabbed the gun and unloaded it. "There'll be no killing here today. Sit back down." Mulder didn't. He paced back and forth, making 'Latin American dictator' gestures. "So where the hell are we? Are we any closer to the truth? Have we actually accomplished anything?" "I think so," said Axer lazily, counting on his fingers. "One, we've knocked out the black-box killers. Two, we've totally demolished the electrogravity research lab and destroyed all their records. Three, I killed the only one who knew anything real about the research. Four, we have Halscombe, and whether you like it or not, he's helped us eliminate some possibilities. "But I get your point -- so don't start snapping at me... I'm also pretty sure that even though we've hit a lot of dead-ends, tying up a lot of the loose ends are going to help us out in the long run." "That may be fine and nice, but what do we do now? We're no closer to the Invisible Ones -- how do you propose to get us any closer to them?" Axer's ears perked up, "I think that may be the least of our worries for the present. Do you hear that outside?" There was the faint roar of a million voices coming closer. ****************************************************** While Methos and Richie were going over the books, the BBC news was on the radio, but neither one paid it any mind. Today, a horrific riot took place in the middle of Dublin and Belfast simultaneously. If these riots took place because of differences between Catholic and Protestant, or views on England's relationship with Ireland, it would be understandable -- though sad. No, the reason these riots took place have more to do with the rise of pagan cults across Europe. One group, calling themselves the Vanir and claiming to follow the Viking god Frey, clashed with another cult calling themselves the Cult of the Wolf -- of Fenris, in fact. It started off with several hundred people on each side, armed with not guns and bombs, but rather swords, axes, and clubs. Nobody know why these two cults met openly and began to fight, and nobody knows how the riots grew, including average people who were not involved with either cult in any way. When government troops moved in to squash the riot, they found themselves overwhelmed, even when they used tear gas, plastic bullets, and the other humane tools used to stop riots. Two years ago, this would have been unheard of, but now it is a common scene across the globe. In Dresden, similar riots erupted last week -- thoughts of labor and anti-Semitism problems absent from all of the rioters' minds. In Toronto, Canada, an especially violent and armed cult known as the Tyrssons have been roaming the streets, actively searching for whom they call 'Odinssons'. This very day, there was a long and drawn-out battle between the two cults in the slums, and in another part of the city, police and federal agents stormed a warehouse where the black-box killers were headquartered. More as the developments are made available... Neither one paid any attention to the news, but there wasn't much they could do about it anyway. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx This is the end of Reading the Endtrails. The next part of the Cycle is called Riding the Wave As always, I'm accepting guesses as to why I picked this title, as well as predictions of what will happen in the next story. --------------------------------------------------------- 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. =========================================================================