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Epicenter

Sandra McDonald

         Author's notes:
         Not my characters. Not my television show. No profit earned. Thank you, Rysher Entertainment et al! This story is rated PG-13 only because there's a little gruesome part that Methos wouldn't let me take out. And because he doesn't have any clothes on in the first paragraph. Alternative universe details are in evidence (see end notes for further details.) Thank you very much to Janette92 for proofing this story and offering great suggestions. Questions, comments, concerns, canon, onions, orchards - all to me. I hope people enjoy.

         The faint but distinct rumbling of an earthquake woke Methos from sleep. He opened his eyes to his small, sunlit bedroom, caught by a not infrequent moment in which he couldn't remember where he was, who he was, what moment of time he was in. The smell of automobile exhaust through the open window, the sounds of children and parents speaking in English as they passed on the street below, and the pulsing thump-thump of rock music from someone else's apartment gave him the external cues he needed. The earthquake, a mild murmur of earth in spring, was already abating. Content that the world as he knew it was not coming to an end, he turned over on his stomach, the warm spring air gentle on his bare body, and wrapped his arms around his pillow.
         He drifted back to dreams of Thira as its newly awakened volcano blew it out of the sea. Time had blessedly dimmed his nightmares to faded, dusky images that no longer hurt, no longer frightened. The blackened skies and hail of fire came gently, with soft touches of sadness. Lately, in the last few centuries, his dreams focused on the white flowers Arete wore twined in her hair, and the touch of her hand on his face as they lay on the shores of the bright, glittering Mediterranean. She came to him now, her face lit with an inner light he'd searched for in every woman since, and whispered of the Odyssey in his ear.
         When he woke again it was mid-morning, and he remembered the earthquake with only the vaguest thoughts. He showered, ate buttered toast and sweet, crunchy cereal for breakfast, and spent some time on-line, researching a new book he was planning. The calendar marked the day as the first of May. The ways of counting and commemorating days had changed drastically in Methos' life, but May 1st had once been Beltain, meant to mark the beginning of the unpredictable summer season. To celebrate it properly he should wait until nightfall, build a bonfire atop a great hill, find a sacred grove, cook a pancake from the last grains of the previous year, and sacrifice a Druid. But he hadn't seen any true Druids since 324 AD. Instead, as a private joke he didn't intend to share, he invited his favorite Celtic descendent to have lunch with him in a very nice restaurant at the park.
         Duncan MacLeod looked well. He'd been dating a lovely mortal woman, and wore a healthy tan of equal parts sun and infatuation. Spring had always been the summer of love. In the spring of 596 B.C., Methos had met and wooed a priestess named Melishika as a citizen of an empire long past. He remembered strolling with her among the budding flowers of hanging gardens built like a mountain in the most magnificent city of its time. Duncan MacLeod, who'd been born far too late to remember or care about Babylon, blushed when Methos pointed out that he was in love.
         "Don't be afraid of love," Methos chided fondly, as Melishika had once chided him.
         "I'm not afraid of love," MacLeod protested with a smile.
         "I know." Beyond MacLeod sat an elderly man and woman dining at a corner table. They ate in almost perfect silence, bound by an endearment and love stronger than time. Methos tried to imagine himself and Melishika in their place, but couldn't. The Priestess was dead, and the Immortal would never look that old. He turned his attention back to the Highlander. "You're afraid of loss."
         MacLeod's smiled faded from his mouth but not his eyes. He was in too good of a mood to be dampened by Methos' probing philosophies. "Perhaps," he agreed, and sipped from his freshly squeezed lemonade. "Perhaps it's an occupational hazard."
         A faint rumble distracted Methos from his reply. "Must be an aftershock," he murmured.
         "Aftershock?"
         "Didn't you feel the earthquake this morning?"
         "I didn't notice." MacLeod studied the glasses, plates and silverware scattered on the white tablecloth. Nothing moved. "I don't feel anything now."
         "Are you sure?" Methos asked. He placed his fingertips on the edge of the table. Although he could still feel the rumbling in his head, his physical senses gave him no proof. Methos frowned and concentrated on what he felt inside. The odd sensation at the base of his brain was not entirely unlike the buzz he felt when encountering other Immortals. The resonance was different, but the prickling sensation up his spine -
         MacLeod leaned forward. "What is it?"
         The aftershocks faded, like an echo lost in jagged canyons. Like the roar of Thira's destruction had finally faded from his conscious memory, and Arete's touch from his skin.
         "Nothing," Methos said.
         MacLeod didn't look convinced, but he didn't argue. The waiter brought the bill, and Methos paid in the currency of the day. Beltain, it seemed, had given him the gift of something new, and he mulled over the interesting and troubling implications of earthquakes only he could feel.

         The dojo was empty that Sunday morning, which made Richie Ryan happy. When he was boxing or lifting, he liked other people around - for the camaraderie and conversation mostly, but sometimes just a delight in showing off. Swordfighting was different. Swordfighting drew too much curiosity and attention. And it was too important to his plans for an extended life to be frivolous or flippant about.
         He practiced his parries and thrusts with his rapier, working against an imaginary opponent of immense strength and skill. Kern, maybe, who was now dead but who'd managed to scare Richie quite badly once. Martin Hyde, who should have been his kill. Mako, if need be, but Richie usually tried not to think about his first kill. He preferred real opponents over his imagination or memory, and was waiting for MacLeod to come back from lunch with Methos so they could put in a few hours of solid practice.
         Richie hoped Methos didn't come back with MacLeod. Since discovering the fictitious Adam Pierson's true identity, Richie felt shy and awkward in the ancient Immortal's presence. Twenty two years weighed against five thousand ones left little room for things in common, and he always felt as if Methos had no time for someone he must consider a baby.
         Richie worked himself into a good sweat, muscles loose, breathing easy, and then stopped when he sensed the approach of another Immortal.
         And sensed something else.
         A warmth of unnatural origin flushed in the back of his head. Then the warmth notched up into a thousand degrees of burning, and a spotlight of agony blasted from the back of his skull forward so that his eyes nearly burst out their sockets. Dimly he felt his rapier clatter to the hardwood floor from the lifeless fingers of his right hand. An overwhelming demand, unvoiced but understood by every atom in his body, led him to immediately cede control of his will and body before the agony fractured his sanity.
         A tiny, frantic part of his mind clung to consciousness as someone else moved his body into the dojo's office. He stopped against the window, and felt his hands go up to splay widely against the glass. His body could have flung itself forward, beheading itself on jagged spears of glass, and he would not have been able to stop it. He might have been breathing - he couldn't tell - but it too was a function of his body wrenched from him, and he had no control over it, either.
         Richie focused on two figure standing on the corner down the street, because one of the figures willed him to. The woman was short and round, with olive skin, dark brown hair, and eyes that seemed enormously black and huge in his distorted vision. Beside her was a man with nut-brown skin, and short, brownish-red hair. He wasn't tall, but to Richie he towered into the sky. He couldn't have weighed more than Richie did, but his mental weight crushed his will like a five ton press on the red grapes of summer.
         Looking into that man's eyes, Richie saw fleeting impressions of trees like gods, a green river rushing through a valley of lush greenery, an arrow letting loose into the damp, dark confines of a mountain cave.
         Richie's vision dimmed to grayness punctuated by black stars, but he thought the woman gave him a nod of both approval and malice.
         He crashed to darkness and the floor.
         Fifteen minutes later, Methos and MacLeod returned from lunch. They could feel an Immortal's presence on their way into the dojo, but there was no sign of Richie. MacLeod frowned when he saw his former student's rapier on the floor, bright and abandoned in a narrow streak of sunlight.
         "Richie?" he called out.
         After a brief search, they found the young Immortal dead on the office floor. Methos saw no obvious wounds, but as MacLeod gently examined his protege, Richie's head lolled sideways to reveal dark blood trailing from his left ear.
         "What could have happened?" MacLeod asked tightly.
         Methos took hold of Richie's ankles, thanking the twentieth century for the concept of elevators. "We'll find out soon," he said pragmatically.
         They carried Richie upstairs and settled him on MacLeod's bed. Methos saw no reason to doubt that Richie would recover, but it did take almost two hours before Richie stirred beneath the brown blanket MacLeod had lain atop him.
         Richie woke with the unnerving sensation of being stared at. He dragged his eyelids open to see Methos standing above him. The older Immortal smiled. "You're awake."
         "Mmm," Richie managed, as agreement. He couldn't remember why he was laying down, or why Methos would be staring at him. His head felt like an overripe, swollen piece of fruit, and the pulse of his own heartbeat was like a jungle drum threatening to split that fruit wide open.
         MacLeod appeared beside Methos. "How do you feel?"
         "Terrible," Richie said. His neck was stiff, and his left ear ached. MacLeod helped him sit up, and then went to fetch him a glass of water. Methos sat on the edge of the bed, watching him with same calm equanimity that seemed to mark everything he ever did.
         "Do you remember what happened?" MacLeod asked when he returned.
         Richie started to shake his head, then thought better of it. He swallowed the water. In his mortal days he would have swallowed aspirin as well, but already he was feeling better. "I was working out, waiting for you," he said slowly. "Then - I don't know. I woke up here."
         MacLeod explained to him how they'd found him.
         "I've been studying a lot for my final exams next week," Richie admitted, "but I didn't think so hard that my brain would explode."
         MacLeod didn't think it was funny. He looked at Methos. "Could that have happened? An aneurysm, cerebral hemorrhage, something like that?"
         Methos shrugged. "I don't know. I've never seen it happen. Richie, you're sure you weren't attacked? You didn't fight anyone?"
         Richie gently rolled his head left to right. His headache was gone, and his neck no longer felt as if it would snap into two. "I'm not sure of anything. I don't remember."
         The two older Immortals studied him. Richie began to flush. "I'm not lying," he said hotly.
         "Of course not," MacLeod soothed. "How do you feel now?"
         Methos knew it was hard for a mentor to let go of a student, but he was glad that MacLeod still cared about the boy. The Watcher files had told Methos all about Duncan MacLeod and Tessa Noel's informal and mostly unspoken adoption of Richie before he became Immortal. MacLeod had told a few, rare stories. For one wistful moment Methos wished he could remember his first mentor as anything but fleeting impressions, images too dulled by time to ever be properly recalled. A man in a vast, battle-scarred plain. A dawn of hope and promise. A promise made.
         "Fine," Richie was saying. "A little confused."
         MacLeod's gaze narrowed. "You want to practice?"
         "Not that fine," Richie said wanly. "I think I'm going to go home. I've got a ton of studying to do."
         "Are you all right to drive yourself home?"
         "Fine. Wish me luck on American history."
         MacLeod smiled faintly. "Good luck," he said, but when Richie was gone the smile went too. Doubt rang in his voice as he asked, "You think he'll be all right?"
         Methos replied, "I think we'll find out."

         Over a week later Methos came home from shopping with two bags of groceries and a rental science fiction movie about aliens exiled to earth. That he could get vegetables, meat, bread, cakes, ale, post office stamps, newspapers, cameras, and movies all in one store amazed him. The people of the twentieth century demanded convenience, but they didn't appreciate it. Methos set the sagging bags on the counter and checked the time. Nearly four o'clock and time for one of his favorite shows. He turned on the television and flipped through the channels, stopping at a documentary about the harsh desert sands of Egypt.
         "I remember when it rained in that desert," Methos told the television's faceless commentator. Great sheets of rain, dropping from the ancient skies, whipping on winds born across the settled and unsettled lands. He'd taken one of his first Quickenings under one of those storms in the year 2530 B.C., in a spot where his friend the pharaoh would later build the Great Sphinx as tribute.
         The television paid him no notice. The documentary, like so much else about history, went about its way spreading misinformation and mistakes.
         Methos put away the groceries and sat down to watch the modern hero MacGuyver build a hanglider out of a pair of ski's, three kites, and duct tape. Just as the warm breeze and late afternoon sunlight were prompting him to take a stroll, MacLeod called with bad news.
         "Richie's disappeared," he said.
         Richie's address was in a small, neat neighborhood of three and four story apartment buildings. He'd lived on the west side for awhile, but this neighborhood was closer to the university. Judging from the multiple layers of labels that marked the mailbox slots inside the doorway, most of the apartments had multiple and frequently transitory residents. Richie lived alone, in a studio under the eaves, with escape routes out to a fire escape and up to the roof if challenged by an Immortal.
         Methos had fond memories of universities all over the world, and even more fond memories of life as a student. Richie's studio brought some of them back to him. Milk crates for bookcases, worn furniture only a step away from total disrepair, movie and travel posters. A world map with red pins highlighted his travels - limited by Methos' standards, but Richie had centuries to fix that if he didn't lose his head first. Richie's stereo speakers were larger than his refrigerator, an extravagance Methos saw quite often in the young. His desk by the window was piled high with textbooks, notebooks and papers, all testifying to a heavy schedule of studying or cramming. His computer had been left on, and his screen saver played a repeating series of Dilbert cartoons.
         MacLeod indicated a paper cup filled with dark swirls of melted ice cream and syrup. "I came by yesterday noon and made Richie take a study break. On the way back from the matinee we bought ice cream."
         The paper cup had turned soggy overnight, and was leaking across a set of now blurred ink notes. Methos decided he was missing the significance of melted vanilla ice cream. Or maybe it was butter pecan. "He's not exactly a stellar housekeeper, Duncan. That's not necessarily a cause for alarm, is it?"
         MacLeod's frown deepened. "I came by today because we were supposed to run in the park. His door was unlocked. His keys, wallet and sword were all left here. I called his history professor, and he missed his final exam this morning."
         "Has he had any problems like last week?"
         MacLeod shook his head. "No lost consciousness, no memory gaps. But he still doesn't remember what happened at the dojo last Sunday."
         "And now you think someone's taken his head?"
         "I'm not sure what to think."
         The sense of an approaching Immortal caught them both at the same time. MacLeod's hand went to the hilt of his sword. Richie let himself in, whistling and unharmed, and then nearly jumped in surprise when he saw them standing by the window.
         "Geez, Mac!" he complained. "Give a guy a heart attack, why don't you?"
         Relief and irritation washed into MacLeod's voice. "Richie, where have you been?"
         Richie gazed at them in perfect bewilderment. "Out. Why, what's wrong?"
         "Out where?" Methos asked gently.
         Richie opened his mouth, but didn't say anything. His bewilderment deepened and flowered wide. He couldn't remember, and he told them so. He sank to his sofa in concern.
         "How long did I... go away for?" he asked faintly.
         "You remember coming back from the movie?" MacLeod asked.
         "Yes. You made me see... something in French."
         "That was well over twenty four hours ago," MacLeod said.
         Richie rubbed his eyes. "What's happening to me?"
         "I don't know," MacLeod confessed, and looked to Methos for explanation.
         Methos thought back through the centuries. "I can't say. Perhaps it's some odd medical problem your body hasn't fixed yet. Perhaps it's psychological."
         "You mean, I'm flipping out?" Richie demanded.
         "I don't know," Methos answered calmly. The young were often so quick to panic. Quite unexpectedly he remembered Alric, and he pushed aside Richie's similarity to the boy dead over sixteen hundred years.
         Without warning MacLeod suddenly turned to the window, his hands pressed to his temples, his face contorted with an odd pain.
         And Methos felt the beginning rumble in his brain that was not an earthquake.
         MacLeod was moving to the window. "There," he said, voice strained, and Methos moved to see two figures in the street below. A man and a woman.
         He knew the woman.

         "You two stay here," Methos ordered. He was all the way to the stairs when he realized they were following him anyway. The young had no respect for their elders these days. The street was busy with afternoon traffic beneath the rose-colored sky, and Methos dodged through two lanes of cars to reach the spot where Octavia had been. Working on instinct, on the diminishing earthquake in his brain, he followed the nearest alley to a side street, then to another alley behind a commercial building of restaurants, banks and shops.
         He'd outrun MacLeod and Richie both, and was alone when he skidded to a stop to see Octavia and her companion climbing into a late-model Cadillac sedan.
         The companion took up most of Methos' attention. He was South American, an Indian, and from him came that unmistakable sense of the earth moving.
         Their eyes locked.
         Methos pulled his sword.
         "Don't be ridiculous," Octavia called to him in Latin before she slid behind the wheel and gunned the car down the alley.
         Methos ducked back out of the way. He had no doubt that Octavia would have run him down, but knew it wasn't her principal goal. MacLeod and Richie had just reached the mouth of the alley, and although they had plenty of time to clear themselves from her path, it seemed to Methos that Richie threw himself in front of the Cadillac's hood.
         The impact threw him into the air and then down, body already limp, to a crashing sack of flesh and bone against the paved ground.
         MacLeod moved quickly and decisively. He shouldered Richie's body and retreated to the side alley before any witnesses or spectators could appear. By the time Methos caught up to him, MacLeod was moving to hide in a doorway. He held Richie's bloody, lifeless body tightly to his chest.
         "You'll have to get my car," he said to Methos. "Bring it around. We'll take him to the dojo."
         Methos didn't move.
         "What?" MacLeod asked, somewhat testily. He appeared shaken. "Or do you want me to carry him through the streets without arousing suspicion?"
         Methos gazed at Richie's body. "He threw himself in front of her."
         MacLeod's jaw tightened. "You can't be sure."
         "What did you see?" Methos asked quietly.
         "I saw the car hit him," MacLeod answered. "What are you trying to imply?"
         The Highlander was not being logical. It was always hard to watch a friend die, even though he or she was going to revive anyway. Methos decided he would wait until later to press the issue. He retrieved MacLeod's Thunderbird, drove it carefully back to where MacLeod still hid with Richie, and then brought both of them to the dojo.
         Richie's skull was cracked, his jaw and hips broken, his skin icy with death. He lay as a corpse on MacLeod's bed for three hours. MacLeod said that Richie usually revived faster than that. Methos didn't speak his concern aloud, but thought the dark blood trailing from Richie's left ear might have something to do with his delayed healing.
         When Richie woke he was badly disoriented, and Methos took advantage of that to ask him why he threw himself in front of Octavia's car.
         "He didn't," MacLeod insisted from the sink.
         "Had to," Richie muttered, holding his head in his hands.
         MacLeod silenced himself.
         Methos asked, "Why did you have to, Richie?"
         "No choice," Richie answered. "The arrow. Can't... " He trailed off, and looked up at Methos. The confusion was clearing. His body, as it repaired itself, was wiping away his first instinctive answers. Within ten minutes Richie was fully functional and mentally alert again. He remembered going to the matinee with MacLeod, buying ice cream, settling down to study after the Highlander left. Then he woke up again in MacLeod's bed.
         "I'm going to have to buy you more sheets," Richie apologized.
         "I'd settle for knowing what's going on," MacLeod answered, but not unkindly. "You don't remember talking to us in your place? Chasing down through the alley? Jumping in front of a car?"
         Richie shook his head. "I'm flipping out, aren't I?" he asked somberly. "The first Immortal to go insane."
         "You wouldn't be the first," Methos said firmly. He didn't think Richie would ever be able to claim a first to anything, but didn't say that. But to be fair he added, "There's no proof of anything, yet. Duncan, what did you feel in Richie's apartment? Just another Immortal?"
         MacLeod retrieved three beers and settled himself into a chair. He fixed on Methos with a solemn gaze. "I felt another Immortal, and then I felt... something much more powerful than I've ever felt in my life. What did you feel?"
         "The same force," Methos agreed.
         "So who was the woman? You know her, don't you?" MacLeod pressed.
         Methos said, "Her name is Octavia." He watched Richie for a reaction, but none came.
         "And?" MacLeod asked.
         Methos told them that he and Octavia had been neighbors in Constantinople in 378 A.D. She'd been just two hundred years old then, and he clearly remembered her standing at the wall between their gardens in a robe as yellow as the sun, with hammered gold bracelets on her wrists and jeweled pins in her hair. She'd been one of the wealthiest women in the Roman Empire. Her mortal husband was one of Methos' fellow generals in Emperor Valens' army. He'd died at the battle of Adrianople, and Octavia had left Constantinople for good.
         Constantinople had once been called Byzantium, and was now called Istanbul. Adrianople was now Erdine. Richie looked blank at the mention of all five names. Methos mentally noted that modern education for university students was obviously lacking breadth and width in its curriculum. MacLeod, who'd been born over a thousand years too late to remember Adrianople, asked what the battle had been about.
         Methos didn't want to get into the sordid mess. He too clearly remembered the bloodshed and horror of his army being decimated to pieces on the once-fertile coastal plain, under an opposition of twenty thousand fierce Goth warriors. Valens, the idiot, should have known better to take them on without reinforcements from Rome. But Methos had long since forgiven his old friend for his mistakes.
         "It's somewhat complicated," he said now, lying just a little. "It had to do with the Visigoths, and such."
         "Visigoths." Richie's face lit up as he made a connection. "You mean, like Vandals and Huns?"
         "The Visigoths and Huns were mortal enemies," Methos said.
         Richie's face fell.
         Methos considered telling him that it wasn't important now. The Huns and Vandals, Visigoths and Ostrogoths, were all gone to dust, even if their genes survived in millions of Balkan, German, Turkish and other descendants. But it had been vitally important to him once, and to Octavia and her husband, and to Alric. And 'now' was such a relative term.
         "What about the other one?" MacLeod said.
         Methos had no idea who Octavia's companion had been. He had no idea of where Octavia was, or how to find her. He would have to find her Watcher and probe for information. In the meantime, given the unusual events, it was decided that Richie would stay with MacLeod, sleeping on the sofa. MacLeod and Methos privately agreed that he shouldn't be allowed to leave their sight.
         Methos privately told MacLeod to watch out for his head.
         "Richie's not going to go after my head," MacLeod said dismissively.
         "You don't know what he's going to do. He doesn't even remember where he's been for the last twenty four hours. You have to be prepared."
         MacLeod's face darkened, but he didn't argue. They'd both seen too many teachers fall before their students. If the time came to battle Richie, then it would come regardless of what MacLeod or Methos preferred. MacLeod would probably win, although nothing was certain.
         "I know Octavia," Methos added, "and if she's involved, it doesn't bode well."
         MacLeod scrutinized him. "There's more you're not telling."
         "It's a story for later," Methos promised.
         Octavia's Watcher thought she was somewhere in Brazil, but on Adam Pierson's advice starting combing Seacouver for traces of her. Richie took his final exams, worked out in the dojo every day, and suffered no more episodes of vanishing or lost time.

         A week later, Methos was watching in fascination as MacGuyver built a radio receiver out of chewing gum, dental floss, and a soda can when Jorgen Thommsen called him. Jorgen was his favorite Viking Immortal. Sometime around 975 A.D. they'd stood together, drunk and singing, at the precipitous edge of a mile-high fjord in a winter storm as ice and hail crashed around them in a chaotic symphony. That particular endeavor had ended badly, as Methos remembered. Luckily Jorgen's suggestion that they meet did not involve fjords or other heights.
         It did involve Octavia, however.
         "I'd like to invite someone else along," Methos said. "His name is Duncan MacLeod."
         "The Highlander," Jorgen grunted. "I know him. How old is he?"
         "Just over four hundred."
         Jorgen hesitated. "All right. But not the very young one. He mustn't even know you're coming, or that I'm in town."
         Not Richie.
         Methos rounded up MacLeod and together they drove out to meet Jorgen in a hillside cemetery. The moon was full, hanging low in the trees. The spot would have made a perfect site for a Beltain ceremony. Jorgen was the same as Methos remembered him - immense and broad, with thick whitish-blond hair and a handshake that could crush stone. Jorgen's brawn and slowness had always hindered his swordfighting, and he tended to survive more on his intelligence than anything else.
         Jorgen and MacLeod scrutinized each other closely in the moonlight, in case they one day became adversaries. Then they all sat down amid the carefully kept tombstones and short grass, and passed around a fine bottle of brandy while the Viking told his story.
         "Last year, in a period of two weeks, six Immortals vanished from the L.A. basin area. All of them were fairly young - the oldest was a valley accountant aged fifty six, and the youngest was an east L.A. teenage carjacker only two weeks into his Immortality. They walked away from jobs, families, homes, even cooking meals."
         Methos remembered Richie's ice cream, melting across his desk.
         Jorgen continued with, "One of them was my student, Jason Colby. It took me months of tracking down useless leads before I discovered him living in a house outside of Julian, California. Your friend Octavia was there, Methos, as well as a very powerful other Immortal."
         "We've seen him," MacLeod said.
         "All of the missing ones were there, I think, although I only saw two of them besides Jason," Jorgen said. "Octavia and the carjacker - his name was Raul Basulta - did all the grocery shopping. No one else ever left the house or grounds. I knew I had to get into that house to find out what was going on, but the day before my planned break-in, they vanished. All except Jason."
         Jorgen paused to steel himself for the most unpleasant part of his story. "Jason challenged me. He didn't even seem to know who I was. He came after me with the sword I'd given him, and nothing I could do would persuade him to stop. He would have killed me, I was sure of it. I had to take his head."
         Unexpectedly he covered his face with his hands. "I took his head," he repeated, as if he still hadn't learned to live with the memory.
         Methos didn't say anything. Grief deserved its moment in time along with love. MacLeod swallowed more of the brandy, intently studying the dark ground beneath them.
         When Jorgen could continue he said, "In the house I found the remains of the other five Immortals. They'd all been beheaded, but not recently - I would have seen the Quickenings. I think they were killed one by one, over a period of time. I also found information that led me back to Rio de Janeiro. It turns out that in 1991, nine Immortals disappeared there during a four month period. Same age group - very young. Same circumstances - quite mysterious."
         "What's your theory?" MacLeod asked. "That Octavia and her friend kidnapped all the young ones and killed them at their leisure?"
         Jorgen shook his head. "I think it's more complicated than that. I think somehow Octavia and her friend influence what the young ones do. They have some kind of mind control, if you like. Something made Jason act the way he did. Something draws them, like magnets. None of the L.A. Immortals or the ones in Brazil seemed to know each other. The only thing they had in common before their disappearances was their Immortality."
         "Mind control," MacLeod sighed. "I don't know if I believe that."
         Methos stirred from his own thoughts and memories. "Something made Richie throw himself in front of that car. Made him disappear for a full day. Made him loose his memory."
         "Your friend came back," Jorgen said, "and that doesn't fit the pattern. Is he himself?"
         "There could never be more than one Richie," MacLeod said, with a half-smile.
         "He hasn't been acting strangely?" Jorgen pressed.
         "No."
         Jorgen looked disappointed. "If he had been acting strange, I would think he's still under Octavia's control."
         "You think Octavia or her friend can make other Immortals do as they wish," MacLeod said. "But you have no proof. I've never heard of such a thing."
         Jorgen shot him a scornful look and asked, "Methos, what do you think?"
         Methos took the bottle. "When Octavia and I lived as neighbors in Constantinople fifteen hundred years ago, she wanted to learn from me all the legends and myths I knew about our kind. One story fascinated her for months. I told her that once, about 1300 B.C., I lived in the Hittite capital city of Hattusa. Hardly anybody remembers the Hittites anymore, but they rivaled the Egyptians as a powerful empire, and Hattusa was one of the largest metropolitan areas of that century. In any case, there was a rumor in Hattusa of an Immortal named Labarna who could control minds. I never found proof. If there was a Labarna, I've never heard of him since. But Octavia decided to further investigate the matter, and embarked on what I considered a foolish quest."
         "To find someone who could control Immortal minds," Jorgen said darkly.
         "What do you plan to do?" MacLeod asked.
         "Keep looking for Octavia and her friend."
         "The Watchers might have information," Methos said. "Especially about any young Immortals disappearing. I'll help you, Jorgen, any way I can."
         MacLeod said, "As will I. I don't like the idea of anyone being able to control Immortal minds."
         When they parted in the cemetery Methos asked Jorgen what he was doing, living in Los Angeles. The Viking shrugged and with a perfectly deadpan face replied, "What everyone else in Los Angeles does. Wait on tables and write movies."
         The next afternoon, Methos had more answers. The Watchers had noted the disappearances in the L.A. area but not linked them. Their Brazilian coverage was spotty, but one of the Watchers had marked the disappearance of his Immortal with a question mark. Octavia's Watcher, reprimanded for not knowing where his Immortal was, did produce the information that Octavia had been documented as living for a time with the Ureau-Wau-Wau Indians in the Brazilian highlands of Rondovia.
         Methos knew nothing about Rondonia or Ureau-Wau-Wau Indians, but he began research immediately. He spent long hours circling through the city with MacLeod, trying to feel the earthquake, but nothing came out of the rides but stiff muscles and frustration.
         Three days later, Richie went missing again.

         Richie and MacLeod had gone to a matinee movie to see a new Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. Richie's choice. MacLeod reluctantly acquiesced, on the condition he picked the next one. At the candy counter Richie bought popcorn, nachos, soda and candy. MacLeod watched in amazement.
         "I always knew you had a cast iron stomach," he said as they navigated through the darkening theater to find two seats on the aisle. "I just didn't know you had two."
         "And later, we can go out for dinner," Richie said cheerfully.
         The previews started rolling. Richie groped around and said, "Whoops. Forgot the napkins. Be right back."
         In the still-crowded lobby, Richie grabbed a handful of napkins. Then a warm flush rose in the back of his skull with a horrid sense of deja-vu. It had happened twice before to him. Once in the dojo, while waiting for Mac to return from lunch. The second time, in his studio. He'd been settling down to serious cramming of American history with the remains of a hot fudge sundae when pain blasted through his skull and demanded immediate surrender.
         This time, he vowed to fight it. He wouldn't let Octavia and Xan take him again. He wouldn't go the house on the hill, where other Immortals with pale faces and frightened voices spoke of being guinea pigs, of being lab experiments. He would cling to the knowledge flooding back into him long enough to tell Mac, and he would find a way to keep Xan out of his mind.
         The pain notched up to a level beyond unbearable, and he caved in.
         He left the lobby and, obeying instructions, crossed town to an economy hotel near the train station. Octavia knew exactly where he was to go. Once there, he made his way past the worn pastel lobby to the second floor and to a door near the fire stairwell.
         He broke it down with his left shoulder. He broke his shoulder as well, but didn't feel the pain. It knitted within seconds anyway.
         Martin Hyde was sitting in a chair, cleaning his sword. He stood up when Richie appeared. His cold, cruel eyes took on an edge of pure delight, and his voice rang with condescension.
         "So the puppy returns for more," Hyde sneered. "I thought you would have learned your lesson in Spain and France."
         Richie too clearly recalled the terror Hyde had inflicted on him - first by slaying his companions in Madrid, then stalking him across Europe, and finally having him put in a Paris jail with the prospect of life imprisonment to torture him. Mac had said he'd taken care of the bastard, but sometimes Mac wasn't entirely truthful.
         "We'll see who learns a lesson today," Richie said.
         Their swords clashed. The battle took them out the hotel room, up the stairs, across the broad expanse of the roof. Hyde wasn't nearly as good as MacLeod had said he was, and Richie endured only one or two cuts before he ran his rapier through the other Immortal's chest, withdrew it, and then lopped off his head.
         The Quickening hit him with the force of a tornado, ripping away some of Octavia and Xan's control. When he could think again, he found himself on his knees, drenched in sweat, shaking from the Quickening's aftershock. He had a headache that surely would qualify as migraine, and the sight of Martin Hyde's head just a few inches away nearly brought up the shaky contents of his stomach.
         He had to get to Mac. He had to tell him, before he forgot again.

         Richie found a fistful of plastic laundry bags in Hyde's room. He wrapped the head in a towel from the bathroom and then stuffed it into several bags. Then, carrying the grisly burden tightly, he took a cross-town bus to the dojo, which was crowded and full of men and women working out on the weights, the mats, and the punching bags. The windows were wide open to the warm evening air, and the sky was darkening into dusk.
         He sensed another Immortal as he went up the back stairs to MacLeod's loft but found Methos, not Mac, inside watching television. Methos took one look at him and rose from the sofa.
         "What are you doing, Richie?"
         "Where's Mac?"
         "He's out looking for you. You disappeared from a movie theater. Do you remember?"
         "I have to talk to Mac." Richie knew he should be telling Methos, but he couldn't be sure the ancient Immortal would understand. It had to be MacLeod. It had to be MacLeod so that Richie could stand next to him, and run his rapier through the Highlander's body -
         Appalled, he realized Octavia and Xan were still in his mind. Still trying to control him. Bolts of agony ricocheted off the insides of his skull. He tried to form the words Methos needed to hear - Xan, the house on Mersey Drive, the arrow - but all he could manage was to thrust the bag into Methos' hands.
         "It's Martin Hyde," he gasped. "I think. You've got to help me."
         Methos took the bag to the kitchen counter and gingerly unwrapped it. He had an inkling of what to expect when he saw the blood soaked towel. Five thousand years had conquered a great deal of squeamishness, however, and he unwrapped the head with a practiced calmness.
         It wasn't Martin Hyde, whose file Methos had read some time ago.
         It was Jorgen Thommsen.
         For a few long seconds, all Methos could do was stare. The life of an Immortal, he thought numbly, too often involved the commonplace - a kitchen counter, a dish strainer, a row of stainless steel kitchen knives - juxtaposed with the horrible. The head of a friend, severed from the rest of its body. The skin was still soft. He dug his nails into the palms of his fists, out of sight where Richie couldn't see.
         "Who is it?" he asked again. He needed to hear Richie's words.
         "Martin Hyde," Richie whispered.
         Methos put a clean towel over Jorgen's tousled hair, his closed eyes, his face. Then he turned his attention to Richie. "You need to sit down."
         "I need to find Mac," Richie insisted.
         "I know," Methos soothed. "But you also need to rest."
         As he maneuvered Richie towards the sofa he smashed him in the back of the head with the nearest thing his fingers could wrap around, a small bronze sculpture of a man and a woman that Tessa had once made.
         When Richie was unconscious on the floor, Methos calmly stabbed him in the heart.
         MacLeod had no rope around the loft, no chains, no manacles. Methos made do with a handful of silk neckties pulled from Mac's dresser. Fashion had changed considerably in five thousand years, but Methos was in no mood to remember the evolution of neckties from cravats and scarves. He dragged Richie to the radiator set against the wall, propped him up against it, and tied his wrists out to the sides. He considered calling MacLeod on his cellular phone, but wanted Richie all to himself when the boy revived.
         It had been a simple death, and it took only a short time for Richie to gasp in a breath and straighten against his bonds. His eyes were still cloudy, his face written with confusion, but there was no new blood in his ear to add to the dried stains that must have come earlier. Methos put his hands on either side of Richie's face to force him to focus on him.
         "Richie, where is Octavia?"
         "Big... house," Richie mumbled. "Estate."
         "Where?" Methos demanded.
         "Mer... sey. Mer. . . sey Drive." Richie's eyes closed, then opened with a new sharpness, a new focus. Methos knew his chance to get more information was gone. Richie pulled against the ties, in confusion and fear.
         "What's going on?"
         Methos sat back on the floor. "What do you remember?"
         "I was at the movies," Richie said. "Then... oh, no. Not again. I can't remember."
         "You took another Immortal's head," Methos told him, "and then you brought it here."
         Richie stared at him in disbelief. Then his gaze went to the towel on the kitchen counter, wrapped atop something that was not a bowling ball.
         "Who?" he asked, his voice a scrape of fear. If Methos told him he'd taken MacLeod's head, he didn't think he could bear it.
         "His name was Jorgen Thommsen. He was a friend of mine."
         Richie pulled at the bonds holding his wrists to the radiator. "And this?" he asked. "Is this your revenge?"
         For the first time in a long time, Methos allowed himself the luxury of fury. Icily he said, "If I wanted to take your head, I wouldn't have to do it this way."
         Richie didn't answer, but he didn't flinch away, either.
         As quickly as the fury came, it left. It was useless to blame this child for what he'd done because of Octavia's will. The grief cut deep, though, and it would be some time before he could remember Jorgen without remembering his end, on MacLeod's kitchen sink. Methos rubbed his eyes and then, embarrassed, said, "Richie, somehow Octavia and her friend were controlling you. I can't let that happen again. You might do something I'd regret."
         Richie looked away. "Then maybe you should take my head. Don't... leave it for Mac to do."
         "It's not necessary, yet," Methos told him. "I think that when you die, the link is broken. It happened after the alley, and it happened here. In the first few minutes when you come back, you remember part of it. You said something about a house on Mersey Drive."
         Richie thought back, then shook his head. "I don't remember."
         "That man, my friend, was trying to stop Octavia. He said her friend is an Indian, from a tribe in Brazil called the Ureau-Wau- Wau."
         Richie looked blank. Then he said softly, "The arrow."
         "What arrow?"
         "I remember... an arrow. Shot into a cave. But I don't know where, or why. I don't know what it means."
         Methos filed the arrow away for future use. They sat in silence, the loft lit only by a corner lamp, lost in private thoughts. When the sense of an approaching Immortal came, Methos took hold of his sword. He didn't think it was Octavia or Xan - there was no sense of the earth rumbling - but he wasn't about to take any chances.
         MacLeod entered. He saw Richie, tied to the radiator. He saw the towel-wrapped object on his counter. He looked at Methos as if the older Immortal were insane.
         "What in the world is going on?" he asked.
         Methos told him everything. Richie stayed silent. When Methos was finished, MacLeod's face was grim and tight.
         "So what do we do know?" the Highlander asked.
         Methos said, "I think it's obvious. I go to Mersey Drive and try to find Octavia. You stay here, with Richie. He's too vulnerable to let out of your sight. If Jorgen was right - " he said, and glanced involuntarily at the counter, " - then the younger you are, the more susceptible you are to Octavia's friend. I'm the oldest, and therefore stand the best chance."
         "Not in a swordfight, you don't," MacLeod said pointedly.
         Methos lifted his eyebrows. "I'm not *that* bad, thank you."
         MacLeod shook his head. "It should be me. Let him try and take me on. If I fail, we get a second chance with you. But if you fail, there's no hope for any of us."
         Methos shook his head. "No. Jorgen was my friend."
         MacLeod took him by the shoulders. "You're the one who keeps telling me not to let my emotions cloud my judgment. Listen to yourself and try to find the logic. Let me go first. If I don't come back - then you go."
         Richie said from his place on the floor, "Mac's right, Methos. Stay here."
         Methos turned to him. "Is that you, or Octavia talking?"
         Perhaps he truly was letting Jorgen's death cloud his judgment, to be so cruel. Richie winced and looked away. MacLeod's hands fell from Methos' shoulders. The ancient Immortal took a deep breath. "All right," he said. "You're right. I want to go for the wrong reasons. I'll wait here."
         MacLeod left a few minutes later, his face resolute, no fear showing. He took Methos' and Richie's words of good luck with a grim nod.
         When he was gone, Richie shifted restlessly on the floor and pulled the at the ties at his wrists.
         "Too tight?" Methos asked.
         "No. Just... impatient. How long do you think we'll have to wait?"
         "I don't know."
         "Would you... " Richie started, then stopped.
         "What?"
         The young Immortal colored. "Would you talk to me? Tell me about the world as it used to be? I'm supposed to take ancient history this fall. It would help to get a head start."
         Methos settled on the floor near him. "The world as it used to be is a great deal like it is now," he said slowly. "Men and women, parents and children, lovers, friends, enemies. Daily worries, blessings, surprises. Stupid, useless deaths. Great achievements, trampled into the dust by time. Politics and war. Only the details change."
         "They must change a lot, huh?"
         "Endless variations on themes," Methos said. To his surprise, he found himself admitting, "I have a running monologue in my head that constantly compares the present to the past. It gets rather annoying at times, and I wish it would stop. I often... see faces that remind of people in the past."
         Richie cocked his head curiously. "Do I remind you of anyone?"
         Methos took his time answering that. "Do you remember when we talked about the Visigoths, the battle of Adrianople?"
         "Yes."
         "The Visigoths fled the Huns, who were invading their homelands in what you call Germany. The Goths came to Rome and asked for asylum. The Romans gave it, but took hundreds of Goth sons as hostages to ensure cooperation from their families. The hostages lived well with Roman families, going to school, learning languages and histories and skills. Octavia and her husband had a young Goth hostage with them, a fourteen year old named Alric. He became like a son to them, and I grew equally fond of him.
         "Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, the alliance didn't work, and the Goths revolted. That was the battle of Adrianople, and the Romans lost. The Romans ceded defeat, and withdrew to Constantinople. As part of the battle settlement, the Romans offered gold and land to the Goth hostages, gathered them together in the city's Forum, and then slaughtered them in the midday sun. Alric was one of them."
         Alric had been suspicious of the offer. Octavia, mourning for her lost husband, had persuaded him to go to the Forum. Methos, as one of the surviving generals, told the boy that it was no trap.
         Methos had been wrong. The next time he saw Alric, the boy was dead of an arrow through the heart and another through his left eye.
         Octavia hadn't been the only one to turn her back on the Romans after that.
         "Thanks," Richie said when the story was done. "That really cheers me up, Methos."
         Methos wanted to be mad, but he found himself smiling again. "I didn't say you were going to end up like Alric."
         "But I do remind you of him."
         "He was tough and strong, a little stubborn, a magnet for trouble. Yes, Richie, you remind me of him. That's why... "
         "Why what?"
         "Why it's sometimes painful to be near you."
         Richie's face softened with understanding. "Thanks. I thought... I thought you just didn't like me."
         Methos shook his head. "Strange as it sounds, if I didn't like you, you wouldn't be tied to that radiator."
         Richie smiled. "Thanks even more."
         Then he flinched.
         "Not again," he whispered. "Oh, Methos . .. don't let it happen."
         "What is it?" Methos asked, but he didn't really have to ask. He could see the lines of pain creasing the young Immortal's forehead, sense the tension in his overtaxed body.
         Richie squeezed his eyes shut. "I only have a few... seconds," he gasped. "Go to Mersey Drive. She's there, with Xan - other Immortals - guinea pigs. Alarms and wires - cameras - battle to the death - oh, shit."
         He stopped talking. When he opened his eyes, Richie stared right through Methos. The pain and confusion had left his face. He began pulling at the ties on his wrists, jerking at his arms, nothing in his expression giving away pain, nothing in his eyes giving away conscious decision-making.
         Methos watched in horror as Richie's movements became more forceful, more violent. More blood spilled from his ear. The radiator shook and metal screeched. Methos dashed to the counter, pulled a knife, and sliced through the ties before Richie dislocated his shoulders or pull the radiator from the floor.
         The young Immortal rolled free, gasping, and then came to his feet. He reached for his rapier, on a sideboard, but Methos' sword prevented him.
         Richie stared at him, then at the blade tip held to his chest. Then he withdrew for the door, and vanished into the night.
         Methos followed.

         MacLeod narrowed down his choice of large old mansions on Mersey Drive to one with a long gate, steep drive, and a late-model Chevrolet at the door. His imagination conjured up grisly ideas of what he might find. The image of Jorgen Thommsen's head on his counter persisted in a gruesome fashion, and the haunted look in Richie's eyes drove MacLeod to despise both Octavia and her Indian friend.
         The darkened lawns showed no signs of life. MacLeod went over the fence, and then down to a crouch in the soft grass. He was plotting a way into the house when he felt a warm sensation creep up his neck, and then a napalm explosion went off in his head.
         He felt himself walking up to the house, and couldn't stop his limbs. He saw Octavia open the door for him, and couldn't pull his sword to run her through. She told him to follow her, and she brought him down a sterile white hallway to a massive kitchen and a stairway to the cellars. The house was quiet and dark, and wind through windows sent white curtains billowing in empty rooms like the fluttering sails of ghost ships on an ocean of pain.
         He had no conscious control over his body. He had no way to speak the words caught in the back of his throat. He could not even say that he was Duncan MacLeod anymore; he was a tool, a vessel for someone else's will, a helpless pawn.
         Then the control broke, like a dam, beneath the onrush of memories and his returning sense of self. MacLeod raised his head. He was kneeling in a wine cellar strewn with empty racks, a dozen mattresses, and three other Immortals. The sense of them overwhelmed him at first, keeping him on his knees, trying to assimilate too many things at once. If anyone had been after his head at the moment, he would have lost it in his defenselessness. But the other Immortals, as seen in the light of an overhead bulb, only stared at him from gaunt faces and haunted eyes. Dried blood flaked from beneath their left ears.
         "Who are you?" a woman finally asked. She wore Middle Eastern garb and had eyes and hair as dark as night.
         "Duncan MacLeod, of the clan MacLeod."
         "Naseem Husein," the woman offered.
         A more gruff red-headed man who appeared to be in his forties said, "I'm Ernie Meddins, from Clover, Washington. You've landed in the deep kimchee this time, Duncan MacLeod."
         "How long have you all been here?" Duncan asked. He pulled himself to his feet, and found himself at the business end of a sword wielded by a tall black man with bloodshot eyes.
         "Tom Porter, from Victoria, B.C.," the black man announced. "No sudden moves."
         "I'm not going to hurt any of you," MacLeod said.
         "You say that now," Naseem told him. "It will change."
         "There used to be eight of us," Ernie Meddins added glumly. "Now there's just us. Welcome to the Horror Club."
         Eight Immortals, each from within a hundred miles of Seacouver. They'd each been in the business of their normal lives and then woken, with no memory of travel or circumstance, in this cellar. They'd each retained their swords. The woman who held them hostage was named Octavia, but it was the Indian named Xan who could control them with his mind.
         "But not all at once," Tom Porter said. "Sometimes two, three at a time. It depends. Like mutli-tasking on your personal computer. Sometimes he can run two or three of us at a time, others take longer, more effort. One guy, he was here for awhile, they could only control him alone. He disappeared, though, and we haven't seen him since."
         "Was his name Richie?" MacLeod asked.
         "Yeah," Ernie Meddins said. "He was the youngest. Tough kid."
         "I know," MacLeod said.
         Ernie had been Immortal for forty. Naseem, for sixty. Tom Porter, for eighty five. That their ages were older than the L.A. or Brazil groups struck MacLeod as ominous. Some of the other Immortals had been even older, but Xan had forced them to fight each other to the death. Naseem had seen their bodies dumped into an open pit at the other end of the basement. She rubbed at her eyes when she said that, at tears that would no longer fall.
         "Do you know why they're doing this to us?" she asked MacLeod.
         "Because they can," MacLeod answered. "Is there anyway out?"
         "That door is about twelve inches thick," Tom Porter said. "Octavia brings us food, and collects that slop bucket over there. There are no vents, no ducts, no sealed over windows, no secret passages. Trust us. We've been here for weeks. No one gets in or out unless they say so."
         MacLeod settled himself down on one of the empty mattresses and began to question them, in minute detail, about everything that had happened in the cellar.
         Until the pain came into their heads, wiping away any traces of free will.

         Richie disappeared into the Tudor-style mansion on Mersey Drive.
         Methos had felt the beginning of the earthquake six blocks back. He and MacLeod had missed this neighborhood by only a dozen streets. He saw MacLeod's Thunderbird parked down the street, but saw no sign of the Highlander. He wasn't surprised. He hadn't rated Duncan's chances very high to begin with, but had to give him his chance.
         He took a deep breath and went to the gate. It was unlocked, but monitored by camera. He walked up the path to the main house and rang the door.
         Octavia answered. She showed no surprise. She wore a yellow dress that reminded him poignantly of the yellow robe she'd once worn as a Roman citizen in Constantinople. Her wrists and throat were encircled with diamonds.
         "I was wondering when you'd come," she said now, her face impassive.
         "You should have sent me the address," Methos said. "It would have been quicker."
         "But not as effective," she retorted, and led him inside the house. "I wanted the boy and the Highlander as well."
         "And now you have them," Methos prompted.
         "I have all of you."
         The house had been rented unfurnished. The dark, hollow rooms seemed to Methos to reflect the emptiness in Octavia's soul as well. Some part of her had died forever on the Thracian plains with her husband the general, and another part in the Forum with Alric's senseless death. He just hadn't realized it at the time.
         "Will you tell me everything before you try to kill me?" Methos asked.
         "Yes," she murmured.
         Through the house they wound, passing one empty room after another, halls without pictures or mirrors, and finally arrived at a large ballroom lit by a series of thick, fat candles against the beige walls. The mirrored ceiling reflected light down as soft golden glow. The Indian sat cross-legged on the hardwood floor, unarmed, dressed only in a loincloth and with skin painted ochre. From his fathomless eyes came the rumbling of the earth, the resonance of an Immortal too powerful for Methos to imagine ever battling successfully.
         He'd been doomed, as Thira had been domed, as the Roman forces at Adrianople had been doomed, as the Egyptian forces against the Hittites at the battle of Kadesh had been doomed, as all of mankind was doomed -
         Methos blinked.
         "I'm not that easy," he said.
         Octavia moved into his line of vision. Her dress billowed softly in the breeze. "Sometimes it is. Sometimes it takes force, but others can be persuaded without them even realizing it."
         "Why bother?" Methos asked the Indian.
         "He doesn't speak English. He only speaks through me."
         "You found him in Rondovia. The tribe of the Uearu-Wau-Wau."
         "I'm impressed," she said. "Not many people know about that tribe. There's only a few hundred of them left, and soon they'll all be gone to dust."
         "How old is he?"
         From the Indian, through Octavia, came images of spinning moons and suns sprinting through blue skies above the trees. Xan was not nearly as old as Methos expected. Just a few centuries. His gifts came not from his age, but from some other source entirely. A nameless source, even to Xan.
         "It took me sixteen hundred years to find another Labarna," Octavia continued smoothly. "But I persisted, and succeeded. We've been honing in his skills. He gets better every day."
         "Better at controlling young Immortals? At forcing them to do your bidding?"
         "Yes," Octavia said.
         Richie stepped out of the shadows, his rapier glittering in the candlelight.
         "You didn't tell me the whole story," Methos said, drawing his own sword.
         "What's missing?" Octavia asked.
         "Why you let him control you, as well," Methos said, and then threw up his sword as Richie came at him.
         The last thing he wanted to do was kill MacLeod's protégé for their amusement, but as Methos was forced to retreat across the ballroom he realized he might not have a choice. Richie's movements were quick, precise, and piercing. He had a vast reserve of talent, and had been taught well. The two slices he managed to cut into Methos' chest and arm reminded the older Immortal that to Richie, he was probably some other enemy - Martin Hyde again, or another nightmare dredged from the past. But that didn't stop him from trying to get through to him.
         "Richie, listen to me," he said. "You don't have to do this."
         Richie didn't answer. His sword cut across Methos' cheek, and blood welled. Methos retaliated with a sharp jab into Richie's midriff. The young imp deserved a lesson in respecting his elders. He'd taken Jorgen's Quickening, and for that Methos should demand a just revenge.
         "No," Methos growled at Octavia. "You're not getting me as well!"
         "I don't have a great deal of hope to," Octavia called from the sidelines. She watched with a keen interest, but seemed to have already decided on the outcome. "But I try."
         Richie caught Methos in a opening, and plunged forward into Methos' side. Methos fell, his strength running away like water down a drain, but managed to block the next blow. He thrust upward and then sideways, catching Richie in the leg and sending him sprawling away.
         Methos staggered upright and brought his sword down. Richie blocked at the last possible minute, then rolled away. Crimson marked a wide streak on the floor. Methos had hit an artery in the leg, and pain had broken through the mask on Richie's face. Methos hoped it was an opening of a different kind as well.
         "Richie, fight it," Methos urged even as their weapons clashed back and forth in deadly arcs.
         Richie shook his head violently. "No," he choked out. "I can't."
         "The arrow," Methos said, seizing on Richie's earlier words. "What's important about the arrow?"
         Richie retreated back towards Octavia and Xan. "There's no arrow," he panted.
         "Listen to me, Richie. What is so important about the arrow?"
         Richie abruptly stopped fighting. He stood motionless, his rapier falling to his side, his face ashen white, face soaked with sweat, leg pumping blood. The breeze through the windows and doors seemed to stop, and the candles all stilled.
         "The arrow can be turned back," Richie whispered.
         Then plunged his rapier into his own chest.
         "No!" Octavia shouted.
         Methos swung and chopped off her head.
         The candlelight became a storm. Methos saw Xan rise and flee the ballroom, saw Richie fall motionless to the floor, but all he could do was stand transfixed as shafts of equal parts ecstasy and agony shot down the length of his arms and spine, into the essence of his being, out his legs, back again in a dreadful circle. Octavia's Quickening ripped into his soul, sending him spiraling into a white hot acid bath of memories and emotions, then kicking him out to fall helplessly to his knees on the floor.
         The candles had all gone out, but in the blue and ethereal moonlight he raised his head and saw Xan standing with his new champion.
         MacLeod.
         "Duncan, no," Methos protested. Octavia's Quickening had left him shaken and trembling, even though it had healed the wounds Richie had inflicted. His hand shook as he picked up his sword again. Fighting MacLeod on a good day was enough of a challenge, and this was not a good day. "Duncan, please. Fight him."
         "I'm Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod," was the response he got. "And you, Kern, are dead."
         MacLeod advanced. Kern had killed MacLeod's Sioux lover, Little Deer. Methos had no doubt that MacLeod would make every effort to kill whoever he believed to be Kern, even though the real Kern was dead.
         "Duncan, you can't let him control you," Methos said desperately, falling back under a dozen carefully delivered blows. MacLeod was just warming up. He would play with him for awhile, tire him out, weaken his defenses, and then go for the kill.
         "Duncan, I'm not Kern," he said, retreating, throwing in a few thrusts for good measure.
         MacLeod easily blocked him. "You're dead, that's what you are."
         Methos had hoped it wouldn't come to it, but he pulled out his concealed 9mm pistol, and fired four rounds into his friend's chest. He had eleven more bullets to use on Xan. It was cheating, but then again, this had never been a fair fight.
         MacLeod fell backward, blood bubbling through his darkening shirt. His hands clawed at the hardwood floor, and soundless words shaped from his mouth.
         Then he died.
         Methos turned to the doorway. Three other Immortals stood between him and Xan. A woman in Arab dress, a tall black man, a portly red haired man. All with swords, all with the look of Xan's will stamped on their features. Methos shot the first two.
         Then the gun jammed.
         The tall black man came after him a with little skill but a driving determination. It took half a minute for Methos to lure him into a feint and then run him through.
         MacLeod stirred on the floor behind Methos, and rose with sword in hand.
         "Oh, no, not again," Methos panted. His vision was swimming with sweat, and his hands reeked of too much blood. Duncan rising up with the same murderous gleam in his eyes seemed like a nightmare that refused to end. He could imagine the other three rising too, like zombie puppets controlled by Xan, and knew he would eventually fall under their onslaught.
         Methos needed help. He looked to Richie, but the young Immortal had disappeared.
         A horrible premonition made him turn barely in time to see Richie cut off Xan's head from behind.
         And then the earthquake in the back of Methos' mind turned into a full fledged shattering of the earth.

         Thira had gone up in the year 1500 B.C., during a beautiful summer's afternoon. Methos and Arete had drunk too much wine for lunch, interspersed with olives and cheese, and in drunken delight had sought out each other's bodies in their open-aired bedroom above a garden of wild flowers. Methos was in the middle of entirely different kind of eruption when he realized the bed shaking and the house rocking were not the product of Arete's skills or his own passion.
         The volcano's first thrust from dormancy blew the top off the island. Slabs of the house began falling in, and the foundation cracked open like thunder. Methos grabbed Arete and dashed for the sea, but scorching streams of blood-red lava gushing down the streets blocked their way. The whole island pitched and tossed beneath their bare feet. The air turned black and solid in his chest. Arete's screams rose with thousands of others. When Methos awoke next he was in the sea, burned over most of his body, in a constant agony as the salt and sunlight soaked into his searing flesh.
         He'd floated for three days before fisherman pulled him in from the ash-layered sea. He'd fought them. In a fever of pain and grief, he'd thought he might die if left in the water long enough. But they persisted. His sorrow had stayed with him a dozen years. The dreams had faded since, but sometimes he thought a part of his brain would forever shake with that horrible day, that he could never again trust the earth he stood on.
         Now the mansion was shaking apart as Xan's Quickening struck at Richie like a miniature volcano, thrusting red light and flame up the walls, flinging bolts of white-hot light in random arcs. The mirrored ceiling which had withstood Octavia's Quickening shattered, sending down a million splinters of glass. The hardwood floor buckled and broke. MacLeod plunged through the wood towards the basement, but Methos grabbed his wrist and hauled him up in the shaking, rocking, shuddering ballroom. They huddled together beneath the Quickening's onslaught and Richie's screams.
         Then the Quickening passed, and Methos cautiously raised his head. The ballroom was unscathed. The destruction had all been a hallucination, the last mental projection of Xan's mind.
         "Are you all right?" MacLeod whispered beside him.
         "Are you yourself?" Methos whispered back.
         Richie was slumped in the doorway, too shaken and drained to even talk to them. He made no protest as MacLeod pried his rapier from his hand and then draped his coat over him. The three young Immortals revived within minutes, with confusion and pestering questions that Methos was too tired to answer.
         MacLeod took care of everything. With stoic efficiency he herded them all outside into the Cadillac. He piled Octavia and Xan into the middle of the ballroom and then set the house on fire twice - first to the pit of Immortal bodies in the basement, and then to Octavia's yellow dress. MacLeod took everyone back to the dojo, where Methos helped him haul out blankets and sheets for the young ones to use on the floor. Richie also helped, but his actions were wooden and robotic, and he'd said nothing since leaving the mansion.
         MacLeod went back to retrieve the Thunderbird. The young ones slid to sleep. Richie stayed awake on his half of the pull-out sofabed, and in concern Methos asked him what was troubling him.
         "That was the most powerful Quickening I've ever taken," Richie said.
         "It was one of the most powerful I've ever seen," Methos admitted.
         "Do you think... "
         "Think what?" Methos asked.
         "Do you think he's in me now, and I'll become like he was? That I'll have his power?"
         Methos rose up on one elbow. "Do you want his power, Richie?"
         "No." Richie's answer was quick and firm. "I don't want anything to do with that pain. It was like... having a lightning bolt in your brain."
         MacLeod had said like napalm. Methos was glad that of all the pains that night, at least he'd been spared that particular one. He leaned back on his pillow and stared at the dark ceiling. He was tired, but Richie needed to talk. "Tell me about the arrow."
         "That was weird. From the first time Xan came after me, I saw an image of an arrow shooting into a cave. But it wasn't until we were in that ballroom and you cut my leg that I realized, way down deep, that the arrow was Xan, and the cave was my mind. And it was even weirder, but because I could see the arrow, I felt like I could touch it. And I did. And I turned it back."
         "You were the only one Xan encountered who could do that," Methos offered. "I think."
         "What makes me so special?"
         "I don't know," Methos admitted. He didn't say that perhaps taking Xan's Quickening had been a very unfortunate thing for Richie to do. Richie might not have inherited the power, but it might dormant within him. And he didn't know if Richie were strong enough to handle it on his own.
         He would worry about it later. Methos wished him a good night
         Richie asked, "What?"
         "I said, 'Good night, Richie.'"
         "You said Alric."
         "I did not," Methos retorted.
         "You said, "Good night, Alric.'"
         They argued about it for a few minutes more until one of the young Immortals, the woman, rose from her pillow and told them to stop bickering like children.
         Richie giggled. After a moment, Methos did too.
         Then they went to sleep.

         MacGuyver was building a raft out of cardboard, telephone wire, and a Boston Celtics towel. The contraption might have worked on some studio backlot pond, but it would never have crossed the Nile. Methos sighed. The day marked the Celtic holiday of Lughnasa, August 1st, which the Christians had changed it to Lammas, the First Fruits Festival. He had no plans. He was tired of celebrating holidays no one else even knew about.
         When his bell rang he was surprised to find Richie Ryan at his door, holding a pizza.
         "I was in the neighborhood," Richie said. "Hungry?"
         Methos eyed the box. "Did you get anchovies?"
         "No anchovies. Extra pepperoni."
         "I can live with extra pepperoni." Methos retrieved napkins and beer from the kitchen. They opened the pizza on the coffee table, and watched MacGuyver win over the bad guys again. Methos turned off the television and said, "How are the dreams?"
         Richie shrugged. "Every now and again. The same old stuff. The arrow. The jungle. The ballroom, going to pieces. But they're fading."
         "They always do," Methos said. "You can keep calling me if they trouble you."
         "Thanks," Richie said. "Mac's a grouch to wake up in the middle of the night." Then he brightened. "But that's not why I came by."
         Methos lifted a slice of pizza. "So why did you?" he asked curiously.
         "I was wondering if you'd tell me more about those Visigoths. Alric's people. The Huns, the Vandals, stuff like that."
         "Is this for class?"
         "No. School doesn't start until the end of the month," Richie grinned. "I was just kinda... I don't know. Interested." The grin faded, and a shade of awkwardness came over his face. "But if you don't want to talk about it... "
         Methos surprised himself. "I want to talk about it. I do. But before I launch into the invasion of the Huns, tell me one thing."
         "Sure."
         The ancient Immortal smiled. "What do you know about the Celts?"

         End notes:

         This is an alternate universe story in that Richie knows Adam Pierson's true identity, and Methos remembers more of his history than he usually seems to. The timeline is sometime late season three/early season four or in a time of its own. I deliberately left out information about the lovely mortal girlfriend; it's okay, she doesn't last long.
         I did research Babylon, Thira, the Celts, the Hittites, and Adrianople. I'm a bit fuzzy on fjords. The Ureau-Wau-Wau really do exist. If you spot any historical errors then - congratulations! You're obviously far more educated than I am about ancient history, which is not surprising.
         If you noticed that little part about Methos not remembering his mentor, it's because I'm setting the stage for an epoch series of three stories that may leap frog into the future and into (gulp) the final Gathering. There's a battle-scarred plain, and there is a promise made. That's also why Richie gets to take the Quickening. It becomes important later. I think. I haven't actually composed anything yet, but sometimes Duncan, Methos, Richie, Amanda, Joe and the others materialize on top of my computer desk and tell me stories.
         Sandra

         "All experience is an arch where through / gleams that untravl'd world" - Tennyson