ADULT: Meeting Of Minds - Part 19a of 25+
Dana Short (DanaShort@aol.com)
Fri, 21 May 2004 00:53:20 EDT
This story may be concidered PG-13 due to both the situation, and
the occasional use of profanity (Chapter 11) when a char was upset.
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be lost to my SPAM filter.
Once more, due to the size of the chapter, I am breaking it in half.
Sorry. Again, if you just Gotta Know what happens next, email me and
I will send you the next part ASAP. Otherwise, I'll be posting it on
Monday.
Legal Disclaimer: See first post, or visit the URL below for full
disclaimer. Just let it be known I don't own this universe.
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I hope you enjoy the story.
Fully formatted text of Chapters 1-19 available at:
http://www.DanaShort.com/HL-MOM.htm
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Chapter Nineteen
On The Road To Yellow, By Another Name
Adam had regained his composure by the time Sally joined the rest of
the group inside the Motor Home. They decided to eat breakfast on
down the road, and with Patrick driving the first shift, Adam taking
Shotgun, Eadgils on the couch, and Cassandra once more sitting at the
table, Sally took the opposite side of the table, and stretched out
as well.
"So, Cassandra, who would you say is the most famous Immortal you
ever met?" Sally asked, "Would it be Elvis?"
"I don't think so. He was famous, no doubt about that, but I think
the most famous would probably be the one the most people knew was
Immortal." Cassandra replied, her eyes seeing beyond the wall
opposite her, and into the past somewhere.
"I wasn't aware there were any Immortals who were famous for being
Immortal." Eadgils replied from his position opposite Cassandra.
"What do you mean?" asked Adam swinging his seat around to face the
interior instead of the road. "I can think of several generally known
Immortals. Achilles for one."
"Achilles?" asked Sally, "Homer's Achilles?"
"The very same one. One of the earliest recorded accounts of a known
Immortal on record." Adam replied.
"I thought he was a Greek God or something." Patrick asked.
"Greek, no. He predated the Greeks by several thousand years. No
Achilles was an Ionian Warrior." Adam replied
"I thought Achilles was only vulnerable on the heal? Aren't all
Immortals vulnerable only in the neck?" Patrick asked.
"That was what he told the Greeks, so that the Trojans would waste
their time shooting and hacking at his feet, about as far away from
his neck as he could get them. Pretty clever if you think about it."
Adam explained.
"Wow. So how did he die?" Patrick asked.
"The Trojans hired a Minoan Immortal who was a mercenary into their
army, by the name of Paris. He killed Achilles, cutting off his
head, and later claimed he brought him down with an arrow to the
heal, figuring that if people didn't know how to kill Immortals, it
was safer for him." Adam replied.
"That's all well and good," Sally interrupted, "But I was askin'
Cassandra 'bout the moast famous n'mortal she knew."
"I'd say it was James. I met him during my visit to the U.S. in 1833
to see Duncan." Cassandra replied finally.
"Who was James?" Sally asked, intrigued.
Eadgils's ears pricked up at the mention of the name and
date. "Bowie?" he asked.
Cassandra nodded. "Yes. I met him in New Orleans. I didn't like the
man. It was not well known, but he was a student of Jean LaFitte the
pirate. They smuggled slaves. He told me he took his first head in
1831."
"Who was this James Bowie, how was he famous?" Sally asked confused.
Eadgils in a silent explanation fished the Bowie knife out of the
holster on his back, producing the blade as if from nowhere, and
handing it to Sally. "This is known as a Bowie Knife. Legend has it
that James Bowie saw a rock fall from the sky one day, and used it to
make his knife. He called it a Bowie Knife. Truth is his brother
made it, James was useless at metal smithing. Always burning himself
and dropping things."
Sally examined the carbon fiber blade and plastic handle with rubber
grips. "This is nae metal, 'tis some sort o' plastic, or glass!" she
exclaimed.
"That one is, yes. I like to carry it because the size and weight
make it easy to conceal, but it is big and heavy enough to be useful
as a weapon if I get forced into a fight. And since there is no metal
in it, it doesn't set off metal detectors." Eadgils explained.
Sally looked Adam in the eyes, and said "I see what ye mean tha she
is qualified ta teach a n'mortal." Her voice slurring with her
distraction.
"How is this James a famous Immortal though?" Sally asked, "I naeer
heard of him."
"Believe it or not, they have documentation of him being shot,
stabbed, and run through with a sword in a single fight. Each time
the Spanish thought him dead, he would get up and fight again."
Cassandra replied.
Eadgils had been fishing in Sue's memory, and asked Adam, "Did you
ever hear of a chronicle on him?"
Adam who had been looking mystified the whole time, shook his head,
and said, "No. As far as I know none of the Watchers ever identified
him as an Immortal. I wonder why?"
"Probably because he died his first death when he was shot by some
guy named Wright in 1826, who he killed in a fight a year later,
after being shot twice, and stabbed several times according to the
witnesses. He lost his head to the Spanish Immortal Juan Almonte at
the Alamo in March of 1836." Cassandra replied. "And before you ask,
Juan lost his head to Duncan in 1842. That's about all I know about
it."
"That's pretty amazing itself, I mean an Immortal, who was known to
be an Immortal in the nineteenth century, but with no chronicle, and
who wasn't known by the Watchers as an Immortal." Adam responded.
"Yea. Prhaps the lass was right, me talking ta my n'mortal." Sally
said, with a glance across the isle at Eadgils.
"I thought the Watchers always kept an eye on the Immortals?" Patrick
asked from the driver's seat.
"Nae, we try, but thae have a tenancy tae dissapear when yaer loookin
right aet em sometimes." Sally grumbled back.
Eadgils proffered, "Some times you need a bit of privacy."
"I soppose. But it maeks fer a hard time o keeping thae chronicles."
Sally muttered.
Silence descended, broken only by the constant rumbling of the road
beneath the wheels, and the whistling of the wind outside.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
It was approaching ten thirty in the morning as Patrick pulled off
the highway and stopped at a Denny's in Fort Smith for a late
breakfast.
He had been driving the whole time, but the general consensus had
been that cold dry cereal just didn't sound worthy of being eaten.
Adam, who had forgotten to get milk, was the only one who actually
considered trying fruit loops in beer.
They headed inside, and shortly were seated at a corner booth, having
arrived between the breakfast and lunch crowds.
After the waitress had taken their order and gone back, Adam turned
to Cassandra and said, "So Cassandra, is there anything you think you
can add to the Methos records? I heard you knew him."
Cassandra choked on her water, and after spluttering for a few
moments trying to catch her breath, she finally looked at him across
the table, and said evenly, "Are you sure you would want what I would
have to say in his record? Really sure?"
Adam looked her in the eye, and nodded his head slowly. "Yes. People
change. But the records the Watchers have of Methos only go back to
shortly after their founding, about three thousand years ago.
Granted, your memories would only be able to add a small slice from
before that time, but it would be a critical slice, and a slice which
is NOT in the record at present. I think it needs to be, if for no
other reason, than completeness."
Cassandra looked at him for a long time, her eyes studying his face.
As she looked at him, the waitress came and went two times, laying
out their food orders. Finally she nodded. "Ok. You're being
honest. I don't understand the reasoning behind it, but you
genuinely want me to tell my story to you. I can feel that. I
suppose if nothing else, Sally here can add it to my own chronicle.
Some sort of an appendix."
"Aye. I can do that. It would as good as anything show this was nae a
waste of my time as well. I expect to catch eneaou grief from my Da
when I get home. Prhaps a history o' Cassandra from afore there were
Watchers would be enou tae get 'em off mae back."
"Ok then. I will start with the beginning. Some of this is already
in the records somewhere, I am sure. But I might as well put it all
down for posterity." Cassandra said, around a bite of grand-slam
pancakes.
Sally pulled a PDA out of her purse, and set it to record audio, then
put it down on the table, making eye contact with Cassandra, who gave
her a smile and a nod.
"My name is Cassandra, and I am Immortal. I was found on the plains
of the Arabian desert. Where I came from, no one could tell me, but
the tribe's healer and wise man, Hijad told me he was led to me by
the gods. He raised me as his own daughter, and schooled me in the
ways of the shaman. I learned to commune with the world, and myself.
I learned the arts of healing, and of touching the spirit worlds. I
lived as his daughter for over twenty years, growing stronger and
wiser. It was a happy life among the nomadic tribe I saw as my
family.
"Then one day an Evil came. Our people, we didn't even have a word
for Evil. But there was no missing it. It came in the form of
another nomadic peoples, a plague, like of human locusts. They
descended upon us and slew us all, including myself. I died in my
Father's arms, holding his cooling body as a blade slashed savagely
through my back, and into his as well before stopping. That was the
end of my life, and the begging of my hell.
"I awoke later, tied up in a tent. There was a man there. He raped
me first thing. He would do that a lot over the next hundred years.
We didn't share language, but he taught me his name that night. It
was a name I came to hate, and to love, but mostly to despise.
Methos.
There were gasps from both Patrick and Sally. Patrick actually
looked over at Adam, his face again draining of blood, as he inched
closer to Sally, and away from Adam, despite the fact that Sue was
sitting between himself and Adam.
"I was held as a slave in the horsemen camp for as I said almost a
hundred years. Throughout that time, I was the exclusive property of
Methos. He was not a kind master. Sometimes he would be downright
cruel. Yet, over time, I convinced myself he cared for me on some
level for some reason, and I for him. Often I would see him fight.
He was savage and vicious. He was not the leader of the Horsemen,
that was Kronos. But he was the brains, and the soul of the group.
"Over time, the others apparently grew jealous of his refusal to
share me, and one night, Kronos came and took me to his own tent
while Methos was away. That was the last time I saw Methos for a
long time. In Kronos's tent, I was able to use a small knife to kill
Kronos, and run away. It was about a month later that Eadgils found
me, wandering in Eastern Europe," Cassandra said, looking this time
not at Adam, but at Eadgils instead.
"He knew." Adam said softly.
"Knew what?" Cassandra asked sharply, looking back at him.
"That you had killed Kronos and escaped. He even knew about the knife
you used, he had known about it for a long time. I don't remember
where I read it, but he once told someone that watching you flee into
the night was the hardest thing he had ever done. He could have
stopped you with a single word to the guards, but he didn't. He let
you go. Take it for what it's worth."
Cassandra froze again, and a single tear rolled down her cheek,
before she reached up and wiped it away. "You believe what you say.
That Methos could have stopped me that night, but instead let me go.
Why would y-he do that?"
"Perhaps he thought you would be better off on your own, away from
the rest of the Horsemen. Away from Kronos, Caspian, and Silas.
Perhaps even away from Methos. He was not a very nice person back
then." Adam replied softly while setting some money down to cover the
tab, and sliding out of the booth to stand.
"'Tis a good thing he is dead then." Sally said, picking up her PDA
and saving Cassandra's story.
"He's not dead." Cassandra said.
Sally dropped the PDA onto an empty plate, splattering boysenberry
syrup across the table with a soft 'ploptk'. "He's nae?"
Cassandra looked again at Adam, and said with a sly smile, "No. The
other three horsemen, they are dead. Sally, remember when I went to
find Duncan, and ended up in Bordeaux?"
"Yea. Neither Joe or I could get ta ye."
"Well, it was the Horsemen. Kronos was reuniting them after almost
three thousand years. But he failed. Methos, Silas, Duncan, Kronos,
and Caspian fought. Duncan killed two of them, and Methos killed the
other one. I had a chance to kill Methos, but Duncan asked me to
spare him, and I did. I am glad I did." She said, her eyes still
locked on Adam's.
Finally, she stood up, releasing Sally, who retrieved her sticky PDA
and tried wiping syrup off with a napkin, before heading for the door
in Cassandra's wake. Adam continued to stand where he had risen at
the other end of the table, until both Patrick and Eadgils scooted
around to exit from Cassandra's side.
He was still standing there when Eadgils reached the door, and
stepped outside into the late morning sunshine.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Cassandra was seated behind the wheel, with Sally in the passenger
seat, and Patrick already stretched out lengthwise on the couch by
the time Eadgils stepped into the Motor Home, having waited at the
door until Adam finally emerged from the Denny's and started across
the parking lot towards them.
Eadgils took one of the benches alongside the table, as Cassandra
fired up the engine.
Finally, Adam climbed in, pulling the side door closed behind him.
Cassandra put the motor home in reverse, and backed into the parking
lot, then headed back out onto the street, heading back towards the
highway.
Adam looked at Patrick, then looked at Eadgils, and at the back room
of the motor home. He said, "Would you like to join me in back?
This seems to be a day for stories, and I have one I promised to tell
you, and you owe one to me as well, I think."
Eadgils looked at him and considered it. He was still not thrilled
about the idea of hanging around with Death. But Sue's memories
showed him as a decent person, and there were questions which needed
answers. Finally, he nodded.
Adam made his way to the back, and Eadgils got up and followed him,
steadying himself with his hands against the RV's movements as
Cassandra pulled onto the highway and changed lanes.
Once in the back, he settled himself on the rear corner of the bed,
while Adam settled himself against the window on the opposite side of
the bed. "So, are you really Eadgils in there? Or is it Sue? Or both
of you?" he opened.
"Eadgils, but Sue is here somewhere, I just can't reach her, other
than in the Dreamscape." Eadgils answered.
"Dreamscape?" Adam queried.
"When we sleep, sometimes, we are somewhere. Wherever it is, it isn't
real. But we are both there. We can talk, I was even able to teach
her to fight."
"I tried. I taught her fencing. She was ok, but she lacked the
spark, no fire, no drive. It was like she didn't really take it
seriously." Adam answered, remembering. "Patrick said she killed
Cassandra. I find that hard to believe. Was that you?"
Eadgils shook his head. "I know. You gave the girl a good foundation.
But it took a long time to build on that foundation until she could
take my head more often than not. One thing we learned in the
dreamscape, if you take someone's head there, all it does is hurt."
"She can take your head? After three days?"
"Years. At least, it seemed like years. Time is different there. It
is hard to explain. Anyhow, I had to teach her how to handle a
Katana, and how to FIGHT with other blades. You never taught the
girl how to even throw a blade. But we had the time. I practiced
with her that second night, and again last night. She was able to
take Cassandra after the second night. By now, she might even be able
to take you." Eadgils added, with a slight edge in his voice.
"If she had to, that is good. Why do I feel like you want to take my
head yourself? What have I ever done to you?" Adam asked.
"You killed me, and slaughtered my tribe. And later, I believe you
killed my Teacher, Ralas."
Adam suddenly froze. Then he closed his eyes and sank back on the
bed, until he was looking up at the ceiling.
"Ralas. Yes. I killed Ralas. I took his head, and he saved, or
perhaps gave me my soul."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Eadgils asked angrily.
Adam continued to lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. After a
moment he spoke.
"It was a few years after Cassandra had left. I was becoming
restless, and perhaps even more vicious because of it. Perhaps not,
I can think of things I did for fun long before that time in looking
back now that were crueler than anything I did then, but none the
less, I was no longer satisfied with simply torturing and killing the
petty Mortals of this world.
"One day, an Immortal openly approached our camp, and he called
Kronos out. But Kronos was not there at the moment. I was however.
I approached him, and told him that by coming here, he was seeking
death. When he agreed, I introduced myself, saying 'I am Death. You
can face me now, and if by some chance you survive, you can face
Kronos later.'
"Oddly enough, I was more than half hoping he would take my head. As
I said, I was bored and tired of it all. And when we met, I learned
that he was good. Perhaps he was even better than I was, at least in
an honest fight. But I wasn't an honest man, and I fought dirty.
For that matter, I still do. In the end, I caught him with a
deceptive move, and knocked him to the ground, my blade taking his
head with the next swing. And then the Quickening began.
"I was hit with more force than I had experienced since my first
Quickening, almost two thousand years before. I was out for quite a
while afterwards, and when I was finally able to rise, I was still a
jumble of thoughts and emotions. Had one of my fellow horsemen
attacked me at that point, I would have surely been killed without a
fight. I made my way back to my tent, and went to sleep.
"My rest that night was anything but restful. I was visited by
ghosts that night, for the first time in my memory. I saw the faces
of the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of people I had coldly
killed. And with each face, I felt a stab of pain at what I had
done, and a bit of horror at what I had become. I awoke in the
morning screaming. And with a new emotion in my mind; remorse. I
had never felt remorseful before that day. Even when I let Cassandra
go, I was more upset for my own impending loss, not sorry for how I
had treated her. Until I took Ralas's head, all I was concerned
about was me. But afterwards, I realized that the others, they felt
the same things I did. They counted as well. And that realization
was horrible.
"I left the Horsemen that afternoon. I simply took my horse, my
sword, and a light pack of belongings and rode away. I did a lot of
things in the next few years, including founding the Watchers, to
keep an eye on my fellow Immortals. Not so I could hunt them, but
more so I could avoid them, without having to hide on Holy Ground."
"So you started the Watchers? What about the Hunters? Did you start
them as well?" Eadgils growled.
"No. They started themselves, after one of our fellow Immortals
killed his Watcher, and his son decided to get revenge. Actually,
this is the fourth outbreak of them. The past three times had always
been contained. Twice I had to step in, like I am doing this time,
and the third time, the Watchers managed to police themselves, using
the mechanisms I had installed after the previous two occurrences.
Since I did start the Watchers, however, and the Hunters are a
splinter group from them, then I suppose you could lay the blame for
their existence at my feet. Including the deaths of almost a dozen
Immortals, including Darius. But they were not my intent at any
time, and I have always done what I could to contain the damage
caused."
"So, you are saying that the last three times Hunters sprouted from
your child you were able to prune them back, what went wrong this
time?"
"Technology. As you recall, it used to take weeks, if not months to
send a letter across the ocean. Ideas could spread no faster than
horseback. And areas were more or less isolated. When a pool of
Watchers were contaminated by a desire to kill Immortals, they were
separated by time and geography from the other Watchers. It gave
myself and the Tribunals time to find out about them and take action
before they could spread their attitudes to their fellows. The very
cell structure I had set up after the second such outbreak also
helped to isolate them. But now days, an email can cross the world
in moments, and my very cell design works as well against discovery
as it does to isolate contamination. And these days, with globe
trotting Immortals, there is so much cross contamination between
Watcher Cells anyhow; that the cell structure really doesn't work for
them anymore, but it does work well for the Hunters. Almost too
well." Adam replied sadly.
"So what are you, or the Watchers going to do?" Eadgils asked Adam.
"I don't know. I do think that the first step though is to break
down the barriers between Watchers and the Immortals they watch. It
is harder to dehumanize someone you know than something you study.
Joe and Duncan, or the new relationship I see springing up between
Sally and Cassandra, may be one defense. Adding a more aggressive
Internal Affairs division may be another. I haven't quite figured
out how to fix the problem this time. I certainly can't kill all the
affected Watchers and replace their records with sanitized versions
designed to delete the concept of hunting Immortals. That was what
the Watchers did in India back in 1894, and while it worked for them
there, that seemed a bit extreme to even myself. However that was
the order of the Tribunal. Tribunals were one of my attempts to fix
the problem back in 1629. While it worked, it had adverse effects on
the Watchers themselves. But whatever it is, something must be done."
"1894, and 1629. When were the other 2 outbreaks?" Eadgils asked
coldly.
"It would have been around 410 AD, for the first one. Three
Immortals were killed, and I myself killed the two Watchers
involved. Two of the Immortals may have deserved it, one was about
as bad as we come, he caught and killed his Watcher, but the
Watcher's brother was also a Watcher. He found out what had happened
to his brother, and who had done it, and he wanted vengeance. He
involved another Watcher who also had a scumbag for a subject, and
they steered their Immortals together, setting them up so they would
go after one another's heads. When the winner was still recovering,
they took his head as well. If they had left it at that, and
resigned, then I could have lived with it. But they then went
hunting. They tracked down another Immortal, and simply took her
head. She hadn't even been involved in a fight in over 400 years
according to the records. But her Watcher saw them kill her, and sent
in an urgent report. I myself responded, and I tracked down the
pair, and killed them both.
"The second outbreak was in 1629, in Spain. I didn't find out about
it for almost a year that time. In the meantime we lost track of
seven Immortals, and five Watchers. Two Watchers were confirmed
dead, but the others were just gone. I gathered three of the more
senior Watchers, including one who knew who, and what I was. We went
to Spain to investigate. Once there, we picked up the trail of
another Immortal who was trying to find what had happened to his
friend, one of the missing seven Immortals. Shortly after arriving
in Segovia, his Watcher was attacked by three other Watchers. The
three senior Watchers, and myself stepped in, and captured the three
local Watchers. I must admit, the inquiry raised by the Watchers was
more inline with the Spanish Inquisition than a modern police
interrogation. They determined that the local Watchers had decided
that Immortals were agents of the devil, and led by a local priest,
they had set about to exterminate them, sacrificing them on Holy
Ground, and burying the decapitated corpses in unconsecrated earth
behind the church's grounds. The Watchers who disagreed with them,
were buried in the regular cemetery.
While Adam was talking, the Motor Home had pulled over to the side of
the road, and Cassandra had traded places with Sally, who had resumed
driving, as Cassandra headed towards the bathroom just outside the
rear bedroom.
"The Watchers cleaned their own house that time, although I assisted
where I could. They called in assistance from several different
areas, and went hunting the Hunters. They included the priest and
the local bishop on their game list, because both were involved.
Eventually though, they believed they had successfully cleaned
house. Most of the local records had been destroyed, so the three
senior Watchers went ahead and burned the rest of the records, along
with what had been the local Watcher Headquarters to the ground.
They established strict punishments for any Watcher who would so
violate their oath as to harm an Immortal deliberately, noting how
since Watchers swore their life, should they violate that oath, their
life was the logical forfeit.
"That was the birth of the Tribunal system of Watcher Regulation. I
think the time has come to modify that system somehow. But for the
life of me I can't figure out what to do."
Cassandra emerged from the bathroom, and leaned against the wall,
looking into the bedroom. "Methos, what exactly happened to you? You
are not like the man I once knew, and yet you are still him in many
ways."
"I told Eadgils when we came back here a couple of hours ago, but I
guess I owe it to you to repeat myself. I killed Ralas. And his
Quickening helped me to see the horror and futility of my actions. I
hadn't understood what had happened myself back then. But about
fifteen hundred years ago, I ran across Darius again, however he was
no longer the war leader who I had met before."
"When had you met him before?" Cassandra asked.
"Summer of 410, in Rome. I met Alaric, Athaulf, and Darius, along
with his assistant Grayson and Grayson's new student, Callestina.
They were in the process of sacking Rome at the time. The whole band
was very reminiscent of my days with the Horsemen. I tried to
convince Callestina she would be better off with myself as a teacher,
but she was in love with Darius and wouldn't leave him.
"The next time I came across him, it was in Paris, in 585, he was a
priest living in the Basilica of St. Julien. The man I met that
evening was as different as can be from the war leader I had met in
Rome. I asked him what had happened, and he told me he and Grayson
had marched on Paris, and there they had encountered a single
Immortal, a holy man who set out unarmed to stop an Army, and much
like Ralas and the horsemen, lost his head, yet met his goal. Darius
took his head, and when he awoke, he was filled with such a different
perspective that he dismissed Grayson and the army, and himself took
up residence in Paris, later taking vows and becoming a Catholic
Priest. Darius and I talked for hours that night. He called the
event a Light Quickening."
Cassandra nodded, and turned back towards the front, saying over her
shoulder, "We will need to talk later, Methos. I still have many
questions, but I meant what I said this morning about being glad now
that I spared your life, despite the misgivings I suffered
afterwards."
=================== ====================
Chapter 19, "On The Road To Yellow, By Another Name" will be
concluded on Monday, 5-24 Sorry for the inturuption.