  
  |
|
|
Chapter Five: Loneliness is a Desperate Master
The morning was crackling with a premonition of ice, not enough to chase HorseMaster Cross from his deck table breakfast, just an invitation to Fall, his favorite season. The short black man who owned the massive Cross Estates north of Seacouver reveled in the bright new air, astir with barn smells and the flat, dusty aroma of all the new construction, and the new ocean smells of the lake of brine he'd imported from the bay, truck by truck, inland these hundred miles.
He wondered if his idol, Frank Lloyd, would approve of this alteration in the home Cross had built in his honor. Thomas Cross decided this other short person who molded worlds with his wit would be pleased.
"Good morning, Horse," Ram strolled onto the deck and leaned over the railing, watching the new stream gurgle and trill. "Dragon told me if I refused your breakfast invitation one more time, there would be all hell to pay."
"I can see you're shaking with fear," Thomas grinned around a mouthful of omelet and bacon.
"Well, it did tweak my interest," Ram turned around and leaned her back against the rail, crossing her arms over her chest.
"It can't be good for you to stay in the underground rooms all this time," Thomas moved the other bench with his foot towards her direction--just in case she might want to actually sit down and join him.
"Just tell me what you want," Ram dropped any pretense at play.
Thomas put his fork down and stared up at her. "You don't look well, Ram," he said. It was true enough. She looked fragile and old and weary, though he knew for a fact she'd done nothing but eat and sleep these past two weeks.
"For that, you could have sent a note, Horse," Ram pushed away from the railing and started down the deck, towards the door into the main house.
"Don't you want to know how they're doing?" Thomas threw the question at her back, or rather the back of the shabby bathrobe she'd rummaged from somewhere in the depths of the Cross lair.
"I am sure they are both fine, Horse," Ram turned back slowly. "Grant is staying with MacLeod at his loft in Seacouver."
"Yes," Thomas replied. "But--"
"And Adam is here, under your fine care, and the constant attention of his favorite baby brother," Ram continued the recitation.
"Yes," Thomas replied. "But--"
"And I am sure you explained to them why they must neither see nor speak nor come in contact with one another," Ram said.
"Yes," Thomas replied.
"But--?" Ram finished for him.
"They are so miserable, Ram," Thomas said.
"Poor babies," Ram remarked. "I am sure they will survive."
"They are so lonely," Master Cross wished he were so sure of their continued survival apart.
"Take my word for it, Horse, no one ever died of loneliness."
"Loneliness is a desperate master, Ram," Thomas replied.
"And you, Dear Horse, have been reading too many romance novels," Ram snorted. "I cannot disagree with you about this sad turn of events. I cannot say I even understand how the two of them achieved such a thing.
"I do know this, though," Ram's alto tones deepened. "I have no intention of going through the remedy again, nor do I want to let them leave their lives so soon."
"No arguments here," Cross said sadly. "If it came to that, you couldn't save them again, could you?"
"I could," Ram sighed, "I am just not so sure I would, though. It is all right, Horse. The implants will serve us, and your incredible security systems here, and I have made other--provisions."
"Oh?"
"Their deep bonding with one another will fade with time and other interests. It will not be easy for them, but I have to believe it is better than dying," Ram slumped against the railing. "They have too much yet to do with their lives--both of them."
"You know what happened to them, don't you?" Thomas asked.
"Yes," Ram stretched and wrapped the robe more tightly around her.
"Can you explain it to me?" Thomas asked.
"No," Ram snapped. "There are some things which you are better off not knowing, Horse."
"I wish you had seen fit to spare me two weeks ago," Cross complained.
"You didn't think that was a jolly time, Horse?" Ram chuckled, but it was an unhappy sound. "I should have thought that was your particular cup of tea."
"Don't ask me to do that again any time soon, Ram," Thomas' voice grew quiet.
"Keep them apart from one another, and you won't have to, Horse," Ram said by way of "goodbye."
Or at least as the last thing she said before she was gone back through the door and down to the depths of the Cross Estate's vast dunjons.
 |
 |
Sean crept quietly onto the catwalk of the first-level pool and curled up on the cold concrete. Below him, the determined sploosh and swish of his older brother's morning swim stirred the warm, briny water and swirled the rising mist. Poor Dahm, Sean thought as he watched the lean, hard lines of his brother's long frame thrash through the blue green froth. Poor Dahm, so restless, so dis-eased since their return from the seashore. This half-finished sunken aquarium, just bare walls and new paint smell, and no light except the vertical tunnel up to the surface, had drawn Adam in those first days of the Oldest Immortal's imprisonment on the vast complex of the Cross Estates.In the fortnight which followed, this swimming had become something of a tradition or ritual. Adam did not so much swim as fight his way through the water until he was exhausted. He'd come too close to drowning on several occasions. Sean thought his brother was more careful now only because of Sean's anxieties and none of his own.
The thing, the Diminishment, or whatever had happened in the Overlook beach house, had changed Adam. Everyone noticed the change, but no one described it, or even perceived it, in the same way. Sean was just taken by how sad his brother was since they had come north. Thomas seemed to think Adam had experienced something which had wounded him so profoundly that he would be a long while healing. Ram was somewhere deeper beneath the complex. No one had seen her since--.
Sean shuddered. He and Thomas Cross had been the only witnesses to the price of Dahm's and Pop's redemption. He knew this was the source--one of them, anyway--of his own anxiousness, but Dahm had been so nearly dead for most of the process, that he could not have known what was happening. Adam did not even know it now.
Sean brought himself back to the present. He ordered the news while he waited for Adam to be done vanquishing the brine. Let's see. Ah, yes, Richard and Alexa had decided to be wed sometime near Christmas. The horses had made the trip fine and the stallion was behaving himself. The mare was giving Richard all sorts of gentle grief, having read his number from the start. She loved him and teased him and begged everything edible off him at every opportunity.
Dr. Anne had accepted the Judge's invitation to visit his family home in Texas. They would be returning for Richard's wedding and then up to Seacouver in time for Mary's delivery.
And whatever, after that, Sean thought. He couldn't seem to visualize the child, or--if Mary was to be believed--children that would be arriving at the end of the year. He wished Ram were available for all the questions he had, but she was doubtless still recovering. Sean wanted to go visit his father, but Thomas had talked him out of that, at least for the moment. Sean's first lesson as HorseMaster Cross' apprentice was baby-sitting his older brother, and it had been made clear to him early on what an enormous task had been laid in his lap.
If only Sean could talk with Kyle, but every time he called the Dawsons at the Mayor's Manse, Kyle would mumble vapid, meaningless nothings and hand the phone over to Mary or Sweet Lucille. Sean didn't really do any better conversing with Mary than Kyle did, talking with him. What, really, does one say to a wife whose heart, soul, affection, and gestation belong to another man? The most Sean could ever manage was to be civil, while Mary, on the other hand, was completely at ease with the situation.
Mrs. Dawson would always report that Pops was fine, or that Grant sent his best to Master Cross, or that Joe would be out to visit any day now. Even Lucille, Mother of the Metaphor Most Marvelous, seemed strained and stiff in the graciousness which usually flowed from her like gentle rain. Everyone was tense and unhappy, Sean thought. At least I'm not the only miserable old hide on the planet.
Only Mary MacLeod was happy, blessedly, ethereally so. Sean's dear wife had attained that state of grace which finds its paragon in the happy new mother to be. He would hate her for it, if he did not love her so desperately, so hopelessly. Her happy tale about the daughter she carried who would one day be his love, did nothing at all to ease the awful ache that had settled in--permanently it seemed--at the base of his heart.
Adam heaved himself, gasping, to the pale bricks of the pool side. Sean tossed the bathrobe and towel down to him and lowered himself off the high ledge. "Good morning, Dahm. Breakfast?"
Adam swiped at his face with the towel and nodded, still too short of breath to answer.
"Why do you hover all the time?" Adam asked, pulling on the robe and rising. "I do love you, Sean, but shouldn't you spend a little time with Mary?"
"That's a lot of questions, Dahm," Sean stalled. "Um, well, Mary and I--she's perfectly happy at the Dawsons."
"Well, I'm sure that Kyle has missed you," Adam suggested.
"No," Sean shook his head. "I think he's still mad at me for something."
"Well, then," Adam patted Sean on the shoulder as he walked by on his way towards the tunnel and the underground galley kitchen. "I am sure we could both stand a little time alone."
Sean scrambled after him. "If you are sick of my company," he suggested, "then Thomas can stay with you while I--"
Adam spun around so fast, Sean nearly ran into him. "Dearest Baby Brother of Mine, is there no possibility of me having any time alone?"
"I don't sleep with you," Sean answered, "I don't follow you into the bathroom. It's not like we're joined at the hip."
"No?"
"Well," Sean could hear himself start to whine. "I'm supposed to watch you, Brother. Thomas has entrusted me with seeing you don't try to leave."
"Did I miss something?" Adam's baritone turned gritty and harsh. "Was there a trial? Is there some Council of Immortals has appointed you my warden, or am I just a ward of the court?"
Sean knew better than to battle at words with his brother. "I just can't let you leave, Dahm. Please don't try."
Adam turned away from him and continued on to the kitchen. The coffee was ready and Sean had wrapped the biscuits in a clean dish towel and cradled them in the wicker basket on the booth table that usually held fresh fruit. He wandered over silently to the fridge and retrieved the jam and butter and milk, setting these on the table. Sean poured the coffee and waited for the next round of incoming. He did not mistake this silence for either acquiescence or peaceful reason.
Adam took the offered biscuit and rolled it in his hands. "What happened, Sean? Why can't I leave here and why must I stay away from your father?"
"HorseMaster already told you," Sean picked the biscuit out of Adam's worrying hands, split it in two and added some strawberry preserves.
"I know what Cross told me, Sean. I want to hear what you say."
"It isn't anything different than Thomas says, Dahm."
"Not anything different than Ram told you to say, you mean," Adam took the biscuit halves back and nibbled absently on one of them.
"Adam! I wouldn't lie to you!" Sean was appalled his brother would think this.
"But you haven't exactly told me everything, now have you, Sean?"
"What haven't I told you, Dahm?"
"All right," Adam put down the biscuit and slid out of the booth. "You seem to think you can stop my leaving. All by yourself. Just how do you intend that? You are carrying no weapon. You can't beat me hand-to-hand." Adam strolled back across the kitchen towards the hallway door. "I'm leaving."
"Oh, God," Sean shrieked. "No!" He lurched after Adam into the dark subterranean hall. "Stop! Please, please, Adam! Please don't do this!"
Adam padded slowly down the hall and started up the carved stone steps. "I don't see your stopping me, Little Brother."
Tears welled up and brimmed over Sean's lower lids. "Dahm! Please, don't make me show you. It isn't a bluff."
"I seem to be nearly up at the top of the stairs, Little Brother, and I don't seem to be--"
"Alanuit," Sean said quietly.
Something like the hoof of a well-muscled mule connected at a point near Adam's solar plexus.
And Adam's heart stopped beating.
And the lean, hard lines of Adam's lengthy limbs went suddenly slack. He thrashed back down the stairway, swimming the air and gravity with none of the grace he had shown in the pool. He landed in a heap on the stones of the tunnel floor. His baby brother, not five strides away, collapsed in a fit of weeping.
"If it is all the same to you, Sir," Grant had retreated to the kitchen isle. "I am hungry. I will make us both something to eat, in case you change your mind, Sir."
.
Grant stirred on the black leather couch. "Should I make breakfast, Sir?"Duncan jolted out of his reverie. "I'm not going anywhere," he answered, almost as a reflex by now. His broad fingers traced over his sternum.
The gigantic manservant, on loan from Thomas Cross, strode over to the kitchen portion of the loft, where Duncan leaned against the corner jamb and stared out the window of the five story brown stone that had cost him twice its worth to buy back.
"We could go out if you like," Grant suggested.
Duncan turned away from the window and took the measure of the silent giant. "Yes," he said finally. "I honestly believe you would drop me in public."
"I would be dreadfully sorry, Sir," Grant stood his considerable ground. "Breakfast then?"
"No," Duncan traced a circle on the frost-mist of the window's glazing. "I'm not really hungry. I suppose Adam is faring the same, probably down to two or three zaps a day." Duncan referred to the particularly obnoxious "leashes" with which both he and his spouse had been implanted. "Grant?"
"Grant!" Duncan sited on Master Cross' second-in-command.
"You place too much importance on the implants, Sir," Grant held up the glass coffee pot and checked the etched measure for eight cups.
"He's getting popped all the time?" Duncan dug into his own chest. Oh, poor Adam.
"No sir," Grant replied. "I would not worry about Dr. Piersen, Sir. He is handling the separation with all of his vaunted equanimity."
"He hasn' t tried to leave at all?" Duncan left the window and stalked over to the island, leaning forward and staring at Grant.
"Well, this morning," Grant slipped the coffee grounds' and their filter into the slot in the coffee maker. "He did have his implant engaged. It was the first time. He was teasing Sean and it got out of hand. The boy cannot be faulted for tripping it. He really thought Adam meant to leave."
"Oh," Duncan said vacantly. "He hasn't tried to leave, to--"
"No, Sir," Grant straightened up from his stoop into the fridge to retrieve the eggs and milk.
"Because he knew about the implant and he knew it was futile," Duncan reasoned.
"No, actually, before Sean set it off this morning, Dr. Piersen had no idea that chip defibrillator was in his chest."
"I see," Duncan wandered across the loft and paused at the bathroom door.
"The window is nailed shut, Sir," Grant reminded him. "If I hear any carpentry sounds, I'll speak first and find out later."
"Alanuit, you mean," Duncan said the strange word. Nothing happened.
Across the loft, Grant dropped an egg.
"Don't worry," Duncan smiled. One small victory meant something to him against so many days of petty defeats. "It doesn't work unless you say it. Doesn't even work with a recording of your voice."
Grant made a mental note to watch MacLeod more closely. This devious Highland son was going to find a way to slip his chains. He would have to contact Master Thomas and report his misgivings. They would have to hide Dr. Piersen someplace far, far away.
Grant watched the bathroom door close behind the Scot. Don't make me do it again. Don't make me.
But halfway through breakfast there was the tiniest squeak of metal through wood.
"Alanuit," Grant called out clearly and loudly.
There was a soppy, heavy thud as the brawny Immortal went down on the other side of the closed door.
Grant sighed, and returned to his interrupted breakfast.
This was not going to be a good day.
 |
Sean MacLeod was more embarrassed than he'd ever been in the two decades of his life up to this moment. He'd done what Pops would call "failing the watch." Master Thomas had set him a task as new student which, while onerous, was still easy. He had failed to keep his brother here in the complex without killing him. Worse, once he'd killed Adam, Sean had completely fallen apart.He wasn't even clear about what had happened after that. Somehow, Thomas had shown up and seen to Brother Adam's corpse. Sean did remember the melody of the HorseMaster's solicitous wordings. Cross had not seemed to be angry at all. Sean was sure he must have been mistaken about that but all he remembered was that the short black man had led him down deeper into the subterranean vaults of his domain and pointed him towards the hallway that bent rightward.
It seemed to the MacLeod heir that he'd trudged dejectedly down this dark way for hours toward a large stone dolmen which formed the doorframe of an enormous room beyond. Sean approached the alabaster threshold and peeked in. Beyond the massive door lay a multi-roomed library, shelves and shelves of books, arches and halls, beautiful lighting that bathed the entirety in false, soft dawn.
As light as he made his tread, still an echo rang round the barrel ceiling and announced his entrance. Thomas had surely said something about why Sean was to enter here, but he had neither heard, nor understood, in the loud internal howling of his frantic state. Now that he was more calm, Sean wished he'd tried to pay closer attention.
The library was warmer than the dark tunnel, making it seem cozy despite the loft and lift of the high curved ceilings. Doubtless this was because the main room and several of the alcoves sported their own fireplaces, probably as false as the dawn rays, but warming and comforting nonetheless. Sean found he was down the stairs, his long fingers trailing lightly over the book bindings almost before he'd actually decided to enter. Real books in leather bindings with embossed titles, some of them gilded, he was in heaven. Years, he thought, I could be here for years and never finish reading. Oh, Thomas, what a wonderful gift this is, a collection worthy of a king!
"The books really are wonderful," a soft alto voice whispered behind him. "Did you bring those for me?"
Sean looked, first behind him, and then to his left arm, draped with a faded pair of soft jeans and a new T-shirt. He saw his mother and the clothes Thomas had sent with him, in that order.
"Yes," he said jerking his arm towards her, though for the life of him, Sean could not recall how they got there, or even how long he'd been carrying them.
Ram smiled. "Something happened that disquieted you, Sean. Take a moment while I dress and gather your wits."
Sean stood there before the bookshelf again, staring at his empty arm and the place where Ram was no longer standing. He backtracked trying to think if his perceptions had gone awry. No, he was in the library deep below ground...alone in the library. His mother had appeared out of nowhere. The clothes on his arm were just as unaccountable. Then why did he feel he himself was the haunt here, the least real, the least substantial?
"Why don't you come in here?" Ram peeked around the archway of an alcove to his left. "The fire is real--and the tea, some English import Cross especially craves, and you know the standards of his taste."
When Sean was settled in the pillows on the floor before the fireplace of the smaller sideroom, he began to lose the feeling of disociation, began to fit back into his own skin. "I've wanted to talk with you ever since we got here, Mother, but now I can't remember why," he said.
"I'm sorry," Ram bowed her head. "I was in meditation when you entered and I softened your appreciation for the moment. I thought it better for you to deal with one fear at a time. I give you enough nightmares already, Sean. You saw me in another form and I couldn't change back fast enough."
"Yes," Sean answered dreamily, sipping his tea--lots of sugar, just a little lemon--perfect.
"I can see, like your brother, you have profound capacities for generalizing your forgetfulness," Ram said pleasantly, almost as if this were an admirable trait.
As Sean's thoughts cleared and his bearings balanced, he turned his attentions toward the woman seated before the fire on hearth rug. When he'd first met her on the beach this summer, Sean had thought she was plain, ugly, in fact. Now he could not look at her but he saw Dahm and all the ways his brother delighted him, only in a slightly smaller package.
"You're staring," Ram peaked over the rim of her teacup and reminded him not to be rude.
"Sorry," Sean sorted through the cakes and cookies on the tray and placed two on his saucer. "I said the word," he confessed.
"I thought as much," Ram's pale eyes, not quite blue, nor green, drifted over the room, leaving Sean untouched by their harsh glare.
"I haven't missed you," Sean heard himself saying. He wondered what he meant or how he could have said something so cruel.
"I'm glad," Ram said, stirring her tea with her index finger. "I hoped that leaving you with your brother would teach him the more tender graces. You have become quite a force in the landscape of his long life. I am relieved that proved to be a reciprocal blessing for you. I do know your father adores you."
"He also adores Dahm," Sean wondered who owned this steady, deep voice, though it surely was coming from his own lips. He felt possessed by an older version of himself, the man he wanted to be and waited to be.
"Yes, I know," Ram sighed softly. "I am sorry to part them, but they have become fatal to one another, in a way that is difficult to remedy, impossible to prevent. I would not want them to kill each other, to leave the world, to leave you. There is so much still to be done."
"Tell me," Sean heard a new note enter into the easy tones of his conversation. He did not at first recognize it for what it was--authentic command.
Ram's carved lineage softened in a warm smile. "You are probably the only person on the Estates to whom I could explain this."
"And why is that, Mother?" he really liked the easy, deep vibrations of his new voice.
"Because you are too young to either understand or believe what I would say," Ram replied, setting down her tea and reaching up to steal one of the cookies he'd chosen.
"Tell me anyway," Sean persisted. This was a voice that could call "Charge!" and be answered to the last.
"As you wish, Lord," Ram said sweetly, speaking to the new voice, playing comely maid to his regal stance. "It is a longish explanation."
"Then beginning now would be the wisest course," Sean remarked. He replaced the stolen cookie and settled back more comfortably on the dark red leather of the deep couch. This would be his first--what?--first royal audience. Yes. Speak on, Mother. You have the King's ear.
"When God is in His Form," Ram began, imparting one of the Great Truths--perhaps the Single Great Truth. "There is nothing else save God. There is God and there is nothing."
Sean decided he would just let the words collect in his memory, though their meanings were not immediately apparent to him.
"Everything is God and God is Everything," Ram droned on, almost singing. "Out of the Everything and into the World," she sang, "come all the beautiful faces of God, like precious shards of a shattered crystal. These facets would have no substance of themselves, no actuality, were it not for their separation from the Everything. It is a brief instant of distinction, to be sure, but in that instant is their entire existence. Were it not for a certain antagonism towards the Everything, such a separate identity would be impossible. Even so, the divers portions, the shards, seek in every way to rejoin and lose the aloneness which is their identity. The antagonism, which is the Will to Live, battles continuously with the loneliness, which is the Will to Die."
Sean began to feel like a library, book after book of unread verbiage. Still he did not understand.
"All of this would be impossible, of course, if God did not desire to Know Himself, if--" Ram paused. "How does Horse say this? Ah, yes, he says that loneliness is a desperate master. God is lonely, so He affects His Own Division. But the divisions are lonely so they continually attempt to affect their own re-union."
Sean chewed on the cookie piece that had grown soggy in his mouth as he listened, mesmerized.
"Love is the dimmest shadow of this union, but its power, its passion is driven by the attempt to end the separation which is the prime tenet of Life Itself.
"The fear of Death is only the natural consequence of the essential antagonism that makes the division from Everything, the Life, possible." Ram put her hands behind her and stretched.
Sean tried to think what any of this meant, or even how any of what it meant had anything to do with why Dahm and Pops couldn't be together again.
"Your father and your brother have transcended that artificial boundary which makes one living thing unique from another. They come together too completely, too easily. How they have managed this, I have no idea. They all-too-readily return to the Everything. They have been and seen beyond the dark glass. They know the fatal truth that Life is no different than Death, any more than Adam is different than Duncan, because Everything is Everything...
"And Life is only a game where the Everything pretends to be separated into Its numberless portions," Ram finished.
Sean could almost understand this. "You mean that when Mary dies, she will go back to the Everything and cease to exist?"
Ram began to laugh, softly at first, then in great, rolling guffaws of pure mirth. "No, Sean," she said when she had finally caught her breath and wiped the tears from her eyes.
"No, Sean. Then she will truly begin to exist."
"Can you make it so I can die when she does," Sean's voice went weak and weedy. Damn! Just when that King-Voice would have been so useful.
"No, Sean. No," Ram looked up at him and her features softened, her eyes welled. "I know you cannot see this now, but Dear Child, you have such a fabulous adventure ahead of you. And, maybe, if I promise to be gentle and kind with you, you might let me visit your life from time to time."
"Oh, yes, Mother," Sean slipped down from the couch and sat beside her. The proximity startled him so much that he could not bring himself to hug her, which had been his original intent.
"Tell me something simple and nice that I can do to make your life a little easier now," Ram offered.
"All right," Sean knew enough at least to pause before answering the request of a djinn. "Okay, Adam is so old," he began. "He knows so much and I can never have the upper hand. There is no subject at which I can best him. I need a magic to let me win at something. It doesn't have to be anything big."
Ram grinned at him and laid her hand on top of his. "Well, let's see. You are very quick at superfluous connections, especially idiomatic and semantic endeavors. You know this isn't really fair to your poor old Brother Adam, because I know him too well, but I did promise. Here goes--"
"Yes?" Sean was too excited for his magic to wait through her next inspiration.
"If a tall, skinny Immortal should meet a short, rotund Immortal on the road, and should they call challenge, and the skinny Immortal should take the second man's head, what is that called?"
"What!" Sean had expected he would be memorizing a spell, or something. Surely not this stupid little tale.
"It is a riddle," Ram explained. "More in the nature of a linguistic joke, something at which you are most quick and Adam is not. It will drive him crazy and there are infinite permutations, so it's something in the nature of an automatically reloading weapon, with various severities of fire and volley."
"Huh?"
"If a skinny Immortal takes a fat Immortal's head--?" Ram prompted more simply.
Sean could see where five thousand years of knowing this awful woman had hardened Adam's heart towards her. "Oh," he said suddenly. "A Thickening!"
"And if he should take the man's head with a candle instead of a sword?" Ram chuckled.
"A Wickening!" Sean shouted with glee. "Or a baseball player--"
Ram's brows knurled. She finally shook her head and shrugged.
"A NinthInning!" Sean crowed.
"Right," Ram nodded. "Adam is going to be so not pleased with this trick of yours, but it will give you a non-wounding edge at that." She watched him rise and wondered to herself how Sean could still have not the slightest intimation that he was the best of them so far. But, then, he was still a child in so many ways. It would not be easy for Sean to come into his kingdom, though he surely would.
"Death by email," Sean called from the doorway as he left.
"Yes, a Beckoning," Ram reciprocated with her portion of the farewell.
"No, Silly, a Clickening," Sean's voice echoed through the hallway door. Sickening, Chickening, Stickening, and so forth floated behind him in the dark, heavy air.
Ram stared at the slender, graceful palms which lay now like wings in her lap. "Oh, Adam, I wish I could say I was sorry about that." She could see her eldest son, wrestling with all sorts of esoterica, trying for just the right sounding and meaning, while his baby brother rattled off a cartload of amusing answers and questions with no effort at all. What was that old-fashioned expression of victory? Ah, yes.
"Eat my dust."
Spend all your time waiting for that second chance
For the break that will make it okay,
There's always some reason to feel not good enough
And it's hard at the end of the day.I need some distraction or a beautiful release
Memories seep from my veins
Let me be empty and weightless and maybe
I'll find some peace tonightIn the arms of the Angel far away from here
From this dark, cold hotel room, and the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage of your silent reverie
You're in the arms of the Angel; may you find some comfort here.
Thomas Cross sang the old song, written by a young Scottish maiden--probably now a grandmother-- two decades past. He bent forward and rubbed his sore eyes, blinking out the strafing glare of the several hundred monitors in his subterranean command center, three floors beneath the vast Cross Estates.
So tired of the straight life, and everywhere you turn
There's vultures and thieves at your back.
The storm keeps on twisting,
You keep on building the lies
That make up for all that you lack.It don't make no difference, escape one last time
It's easier to believe
In this sweet madness,
Oh this glorious sadness,
That brings me to my knees.
The short black Immortal slumped down in the old swivel chair that knew each curve of his butt, all too intimately. He launched into the refrain with all the self-pity that was in him. The shimmer of a second voice, pure of tone and high as an eagle, made his dark skin burn even before the slender fingers draped their sheltering touch over his bare shoulders.He sang out more forcefully then, to keep a balance in their harmony, but all the pity had fled, and the song lifted from its woeful tenor into a rolling bright melody of victorious joy.
In the arms of the Angel far away from here
From this dark, cold hotel room, and the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage of your silent reverie
You're in the arms of the Angel; may you find some comfort hereIn the arms of the Angel; may you find some comfort here.
"Well," Ram's voice descended to its more familiar soft alto. "If I were guessing, I'd say this must be your version of Lucille's hog wallow heaven. The last time I was in here, you had, what, ten systems going, now--. Lord, Horse! Are you keeping tabs on the world from here?""For all the good it's doing," Thomas turned his chair to face her and to keep the monitor lights at his back and out of his eyes.
"Well, it's time I earned my keep," Ram chuckled.
"My goodness!" Thomas exclaimed. "Aren't you the fashion plate, though!"
"I am," Ram agreed, striking a pose. She was top to toe in a soft grey suit with a longish skirt and charcoal leather boots disappearing up under the full hem. The only color was a scarlet silk shirt with a stock collar, tied in a high neck wrap with a full drape down the front, set by a single gold pin.
"What are you dressed for?" Cross had more or less taken her nakedness or the damnable elder bathrobe for granted these past weeks.
"Well, Molly has asked me to lunch at The Towers, if you please," Ram smiled and bowed, looking very pleased indeed.
It was like the bread-making thing, Thomas thought, kicking himself for forgetting that Ram might like to be treated to the simple pleasantries once in a while, even if she were hardly simple, and often not pleasant, at that.
"And those?" Thomas indicated the pile of papers and the box which balanced in the crook of her right arm.
"Well, since I was going to town," Ram paused, "On that other matter, anyway---and now for lunch-- I thought I'd drop this off for Mary."
Ram handed over the pile of papers first. "These are for you, Horse. They are the ones that didn't seem to work very well. I thought you would like them, being such a pack rat, and all."
|
|
Cross looked at them. They were sea-green and aqua pictures, sketches and
watercolors of merbabies. "They're lovely," he said. "But I don't see--"
"Well, I'm not quite sure about the proper ritual," Ram began, "But I understand there is something--a shower, I believe it's called--to celebrate the upcoming birth of a first child." She shrugged. "I doubt I'll be invited, but I thought a gift would be proper. I am something of a godmother in this case." |
|
"Is this what the baby will look like?" Thomas asked, spreading the pictures over the consoles in an impromptu gallery.
"Here's the one I went with," Ram added another picture to the collection.
"Oh, well now," Thomas exclaimed, "Mary will love this one." He lifted up the picture to return it to her. "Oh, no," Ram laughed. "Those were just the plans. You may have them. Here is what I made." She lifted a glass dome out of the box and set it carefully between the keyboards on the ledge.
It was a snow-globe of sorts, without the snow. There was some mechanism within the base of the bell jar which kept the water in slow and constant stir, which had the effect of using the ambient light as the "sparkles" or "snow," by changing the angle of refraction and reflection with the movement of the water within. The painting had been rendered in porcelain, a tiny mermother with a scarlet tail reaching down to a tinier merbabe with a golden fin.
"Oh, Ram," Thomas crowed, "Mary will love this." Then his thoughts stopped his praise. "Because she will never actually see her baby, or live long enough to play with it?" "Them," Ram slid past his question, "there are five babies. I am sure Mary has told you this."
"You know perfectly well that Mary spends all her time napping at the Mayor's Manse with the Dawsons, speaking to her Beloved, The Father of All Horses. She spends all her days dreaming with Malak and has no time left for the lesser pursuits. Yes, she said that there were five, but no one believes her. She does not seem large enough to be carrying quintuplets."
"They don't look anything like this do they?" Thomas pressed. Each of them had various theories and surmises regarding what Mary's dragonbabes would be like.
"While I'd adore spending my day discussing Danaan embryology with you, Dear Horse," Ram grinned. "I am going to delay Grant's return unless I leave now. Perhaps we can discuss this later."
"You know I don't approve of this plan of yours, Ram," Thomas set the drawings aside gently and returned to his logs and programs.
In the next instant, Cross found himself on his back, on the floor, with the instep of Ram's leather boot across his neck.
"Ah," Ram purred lightly, "You've forgotten all your lessons, Little Horse."
Thomas could just swallow beneath the weight of her boot. "Lessons?" he croaked.
"We seem to have made some dreadful errors in assumption, now, haven't we?" It was nothing at all like a question when she said it.
"Assumptions?" Cross hated that he had no better defense than this idiotic echolalia.
The boot lifted and Ram leaned over, offering him a hand up. "Let's just see if we can recite those misperceptions, shall we?"
Thomas rubbed his neck a bit more dramatically than was necessary and proceeded with the required recitation. "I wrongly assumed that you either required or were interested in my opinion as to your actions."
"Very good, Horse," Ram nodded. "And--?"
"I wrongly assumed that I could take advantage of our friendship and disrespect your--um--office."
"Superb," Ram complimented him. "And--?"
"I was wrong to attempt provoking you into an explanation, when I know perfectly well you will tell me in the proper time," Thomas finished. "It was a faithless action on my part."
"Sublime," Ram closed her eyes and breathed in his graciousness as if it were ambrosia. "And for your excellent recitation I will give you one answer to any question that does not involve Mary."
Thomas could have been no more surprised had a magic djinn suddenly appeared and offered him the wealth of the world. He knew that no matter what question he picked he would be hating himself for all the ones that remained unasked. In the end, he decided on imparting, rather than gathering, information. Cross thought he could stand himself better that way somehow. "Do you know what has happened with Grace and the tribe in East Africa?"
"The Zulu-Natal Preserve and the Kiswahili Project?" Ram asked.
So much for his one clear chance at the truth from this dragon, Thomas thought. "Yes?"
"Yes," Ram said softly, but the look on her face made Cross rub his neck again. "I know."
"Why did the blood work for them and not for Anne?" Cross asked.
"Excellent question, Horse," Ram relaxed and sighed. "It is, however, your second question."
Thomas tried not to groan. "Death by fried pigskin," he said, trying to cover his disappointment with Sean's new game that was driving them all nuts.
"That's some obscure Lucille-thing, isn't it," Ram complained.
"I'll trade you answers, Ram," Thomas affected an innocence which made Ram wonder whether lunch at The Towers and Grant's return might indeed be put off a day.
"The answer is: the blood didn't work for the Zulu tribe either," Ram said, putting her baser instincts on notice.
Which really raised still more questions, but Thomas was already over the limit. "A Crackling," he said and blew her a kiss. "I know you don't need it, but my thoughts will be with you, and everything here is ready for you when you need it."
"Keep restoring the world, Horse. You are a blessing on us all."
Damn, Thomas thought, staring at the now empty door to the command center. Why can't I ever think of such fine exit lines--the kind that make the hearer feel wonderful for many days after the parting.
 |
Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod--or, more accurately, Duncan of the Leods--tossed fitfully in the wide bed of his loft apartment, five tall stories above the old port city of Couver on the Sea. He did not hear the giant manservant, Grant, whining like a child on the cellular, something about camp not being any fun at all, and could he please come home now?Nor did Duncan, Mac to some of his friends, feel the warming noon sun take the chill from the echoing openness of the enormous single room. He had fallen into this odd slumber shortly after recovering from yet another dying round after breakfast. His fault, really, having done the one thing Grant had requested him not to do, try escaping. Somehow the giant had heard him pulling the nails from the window and had uttered the fatal word which activated a chip at the base of his heart and dropped him like a steer on the knacker's floor.
Duncan could not have been dead for very long, but he came back to life in the soft bed and he decided to give up and just sleep the rest of the morning. There would be time enough to join the battle later, time enough to devise a scheme out of this enforced separation from the real repository of his heart, far to the north of the dojo.
It concerned him that Adam was not similarly occupied, trying to find a way back to him, but then the Old Man was crafty and wise--neither a bull nor a soldier--and the Eldest Immortal was no doubt just biding his time until the situation presented itself which would allow him to slip away. Duncan did not own such patience, nor wit. He simply put his head down and moved forward with all his might, again and again. That was the nature of his strength. He didn't claim any grace or intellect in this, only grim and enduring purpose.
And his thoughts followed a similar fashion, breaking wave-upon-wave against the obstinate and rocky shore, until, in sheer exhaustion, Duncan stopped thinking and began to dream.
He knew he was dreaming, almost from the start. The colors were too bright and crisp, all the sounds and sensations too real to believe. The brave, tall redwoods were taller and older, the filtered light of a gibbous moon was too bright for so cold and dark a night as this dream had. Duncan saw his father, Connor MacLeod, braver and far more alive, brighter and more wild than he had ever seen him before.
Connor stood, nearly naked, luminous and rampant beneath the blue white light of the sun's lesser cousin. His long hair blew back from his intense features, flying like a cape at his back in the ebb and flow of some spectral wind. His dark eyes were lit with the feral spark of battle rage, berserk and murderous.
God help the poor Immortal who crosses his path this night, Duncan thought. Connor seemed the Prince of Fates, wrapped in the Leod colors, golden-torqued and regal, even as he was sweat- burnished and savage. Duncan swelled with pride that he could claim this man as sire. It gladdened him to see his father so vital, so different from the sorrowful, walking-dead affect which had come to mark the elder MacLeod like a weeping stigmata.
Here was Duncan's heritage, laid out before him in glorious shades of argent and indigo and deepest reds, carmine and solferino. This is my line, he thought, What I am and what I will be.
And what my son will be after me.
Connor waits to call the Challenge. He will Quicken this night and these great trees, nearly as old as he is, will bear a holy witness to his glory. Duncan could hardly wait. He felt the tremorous excitement flow through him, felt his palms chill and then warm. He felt the soft curves of the ivory dragon which formed the katana hilt.
But it was not his sword. Duncan perceptions were blending with his father and the two MacLeods soon stood, father and son, wrapped in the same plaid, the same body--waiting the same fate.
Which fate staggered through the forest even now, as the MacLeod braced and flexed, moving the venerable katana through its fluid dance, filling the glade with its silvery whispers and sonorous sighs.
Duncan was filled with the pleasure of his muscles' stretching and engaging, the weight of the blade as it moved, the entire fulfillment of his incredible prowess. He was born for this, made for this--fine and fair and formidable. He would never admit to this surpassing joy after the battle was done, but here, at the beginning, he made no pretense at denying how glorious this was.
The MacLeod eyes sited towards the deep shadows where the Challenger would emerge from the forest. The sound of the man's advance seemed to indicate he was already wounded, it was so uneven and loud, as if he were falling through the underbrush, rather than making any purposeful attack.
Duncan laid that off to fear and stiffness. Connor seemed not to notice, nor to care, if he did.
And here came the bounder now. Damn! A tiny man! And he was limping atrociously, nearly falling into the clearing as he continued to fight against the brambles that were no longer in his path. Well, Duncan mused, there would be no glorious battle today. They could not fight such a pitiful wreck as this frail fellow, who didn't even recognize yet that they were waiting for him.
Connor's ire did not dampen in the slightest. In fact, his rage built with a ferocity that frightened even his son, safe within the circle of their single skull. This man must have wronged us terribly for Father to be so angry with him, Duncan reasoned.
As the wretch entered the circle of moonlight before them, Duncan gasped. Ram.
She crumpled to her knees on the pale sward, her head flung back, mouth gulping air. Her arms were wound in the leather and metal braces she used for the heavy blade which drooped from her left hand. Her hair was singed and still smoking, tendrils rising in the eerie light. Her arms and legs were burned, dark crusty mattes of charcoal and scab. The ragged T-shirt, her only other caparison, was also burned and melted into the flesh of her left shoulder.
Duncan tried to move towards her, to comfort her. Something awful had happened and she was sorely wounded by more than just the burns.
But it was Connor's body and Connor's enmity and Connor's killing sword which advanced on the gasping woman who knelt in the moonlight, still unaware that Death Itself stalked her now.
Duncan reminded himself that this was a dream, that he had no will in this instance, that he was only here to witness, but none of this made him feel the moment any less.
Ram's head snapped back to straight and her silver eyes sparked as she pushed back off her knees and stood. "I have no quarrel with thee, Connor MacLeod." Her voice strained against the smoke damaged throat.
"Die," was Connor's only reply. Marw dioddef, plentyn gordderch was the exact term employed, something in the nature of "eat shit and die," though more nobly expressed. Well, a little more nobly. He did call her, spawn of a whore.
"Why?" Ram circled back and right, towards Connor's weaker side--if it could be said he had a weak side at all.
"You will be the debasement of my entire line, you abomination!" Connor's eloquence was nearly lost in the tight wheeze with which his passion constricted his voice.
"Who can say this will not ultimately be an elevation of your line to godhood?" Ram argued, her voice no more effective than Connor's tight hiss.
"I can!" Connor emphasized his answer with a deep lunge, cutting off her lateral movement.
Ram countered listlessly, levering her heavy blade up on her opposite forearm and diverting the katana's arc laterally. All the while she retreated towards the belly of the deep forest far behind her at the edge of the glade.
"I do not wish to fight you," she pleaded. "Please, Connor. Just let me leave. I have lost everything. I cannot lose my life. You cannot take it from me."
Connor had ceased making coherent sounds past a guttural growling. He moved in again with a flurry and flash, effecting a bloody slice across her left bicep before Ram could move back again, out of his range.
This time, however, Ram did not move so far away from him before she braced in a wide stance, her nostrils flared, the wild wide moon agleam in her eyes. If Fury had a face, this was such a mien. With a rumble and whirr, building into a skull-splitting clarion, the very odd Danaan blade came to life in her hands, warning Connor back and strobing the night with its throaty dirge.
Connor readjusted his grip on the dragonhilt and moved into the buzzing arc of Ram's blade. She bounced the sword off her opposite forearm and met the katana with a spine-jolting thud.
Connor staggered backward, fighting for his balance.
Ram also moved away, still trying to retreat in the time her blow had given her.
Connor bolted forward again, seeing her intention to flee, and they engaged again, full arc meeting full arc in a shower of sparks and a chorus of deep grunts. Once, twice, and then a third time they met--right shoulder, left shoulder, right hip--as if their blades had come to some unspoken prearranged meeting in the dark space between them.
After the third blow, Ram spun away, showing her back for an instant to the Scot, building a full horizontal circle to her next blow, aimed for Connor's neck. Connor brought the katana up to vertical and braced for the block.
But Duncan saw, as Connor had not, that the third connection between the two blades had found a fault in the ancient blade. He should not have kept it so long, Duncan thought sadly, knowing all too well his own affection for his sword--almost as old. The rest happened with a slow, painful inevitability.
Ram's full turn completed itself and she aimed the sword's arc at Connor's neck. Connor stood with the correct blocking answer, but he no longer held a sword--only the dragonhilt remained, and above that only air and night and--.
Death.
Duncan cried out silently. He alone knew what must happen next, though it surely took both combatants by surprise. He willed himself to wake, to no avail. He could not spare himself the full course of this dreadful night's mare.
Such was the force of Ram's blow that it turned her completely around again after the blade finished its way through Connor's neck. The tall, brave body crumpled behind her and she released the heavy blade, keening a high-pitched wail that shattered the glade and shook the trees.
The Danaan sword sailed into the forest deeps as Ram scrambled the opposite direction, towards Connor's head.
Oh, God, spare me, Duncan prayed. Still alive, Dear, Dear God!
Ram dove down and picked up Connor's head, cradling it in her arms, close to her heart, bathing them both in hot, flooding grief. Connor's face relaxed, the eyes closed for the last time, and the cruel mouth surrendered to a peaceful smile as Ram led him past the present and into the One.
But Duncan could only feel himself rent and reaved and racked with unbearable sorrow and grief and pain. He was suddenly in so much agony that he hardly felt the Quickening which lit the entire forest and took the ancient woods into the heavens with the soul of the fallen hero.
 |
Molly and Ram strolled up the slight cant of the walkway ascending from
the garage to the crisp winter sun of Seacouver's "uptown." They chatted
happily, waiting for the light to change and then walked across to the
aedificium
magnificum which had taken residence over the ashes of the Couver Towers,
where Lucille Dawson had lived and all the Danae had died so very long
ago. Their passing had warped the very bedrock beneath this enormous structure.
Warped or no, the land itself was worth the ransom of a king and belonged,
in trust, to Mary and Sean MacLeod, deeded them by the strange woman who
stood now before the ornate lobby doors blathering on about mild winters
and whether the whales had found their way back to the warmer waters of
the Pacific Rim.
Diminutive Molly was quite content to have Ram manage both sides of the conversation. The tiny Facet nodded and smiled and blushed as Ram held the door for her and they strode towards the dining hall and the imperious maitre d' who guarded its entry arch. |
"I can't begin to tell you how this pleases me," Ram said as they waited for the rude maitre d' to finish his self-perceived more important business. "What a thoughtful person you are, Molly.""It is nothing, Lord," Molly murmured. "I just missed the wonderful time we had making bread at Mary's house--."
"Well, you have no cause to worry, Facet Molly," Ram reciprocated the formal address. "I may not know my way round a kitchen, but I can dine in public without shaming my escort." She sketched a bow Molly's direction.
"I never doubted it, Lord," Molly laughed. "Just promise me you won't bury your knife if you find the steak too noble." There was a reason Molly usually remained quiet. She had no sense of restraint between what her mind flashed and what her mouth spoke. She paled noticeably and bit down on her tongue. What a terrible thing for her to have said, she thought. To have mentioned that Ram's sword lay buried somewhere, in the grave of her last victim.
But Ram seemed not to have heard. The grey eyes were fixed on a distant point, across the dining hall towards a table by a sunny window where the mayor's family dined in a tense silence that was obvious even at this distance.
"Oh," said Ram, conjuring up tones of those who have been damned so long, they have become patient with the prospect of new torment, almost grateful for the familiarity. "Molly," she called the little Facet's name out with a forced pleasantness which was chilling.
"Yes, Lord," Molly replied, backing up two steps.
"Do you see my face, Molly?" Ram's gaze never left the far table, but her words found their mark, one-after-the-other, making the short woman whince.
"Yes, Lord," Molly replied.
The electric moment, stopped the maitre d' and turned him towards them as if a full-blown brawl had broken out between the two women who were simply standing there speaking quietly to one another.
"How far from me would you have to be before you could no longer see my face, Molly?" Ram continued.
"I don't know exactly," Molly stepped back again. "I suppose--um--a hundred yards?"
"That would do," Ram nodded benignly, but the place where her fangs would reside curled up the corners of her lips in nothing like a smile. "I could not see your face from that distance either."
Which, Molly suspected, was not true, but she knew better than to argue. "I don't understand--."
"Turn now, Molly, and walk away from me," Ram said. "Never get close enough that I may see your face again."
Molly turned, crestfallen, and retreated, happy enough to be able to walk away from such an angry dragon as Ram must be, having discovered the little Facet's betrayal. Molly wished she could sink through the deep maroon carpet of the lobby. She had failed. Miserably.
And now all would be lost.
"Kyle, please eat something," Lucille Dawson, Seacouver's First Lady, leaned forward and stroked her son's pale hand.
"Leave it be," Mayor Joe intervened. "He just isn't hungry, Honey. We'll get a snack later," he added, conspiratorily, as he leaned towards his beloved only son.
"Thanks, Dad," Kyle chuckled, but it was a weak sound, heartbreaking for both his parents.
Lucille swore she would make herself stop staring at him, but she couldn't help feeling that if she let her glance drift, even for a moment, her precious Kyle would be gone forever. He was so thin and frail, she could hardly remember the sun-browned, robust child he had been not four months earlier. He had been ill at the wedding, but no one, not even Kyle, had noticed. After they returned home, his course had gone so dramatically down the proverbial hill that it was soon evident the boy was dying.
And so he had been the whole summer long and the fall, and now into the cold winter, which would be his last if--
"Excuse me, Mrs. Dawson," the maitre d' bowed and whispered into her ear.
Lucille nodded and placed her napkin on the table. "You boys entertain yourself," she announced. "Mama has business to attend to."
Kyle and Joe backed their chairs from the table.
"Don't get up, Darlings," Lucille smiled graciously. "I won't be a minute."
With no more bother than this, Sweet Lucille marched off to the field of war--in this case, the VIP washroom of the stately Two Towers.
Lucille entered the lounge portion of the suite and locked the door behind her. "Ram?"
"Yes?" Ram appeared at the opposite doorway and glided into the room, appropriating the pale mauve chair as if it were a throne.
"I'm here," Lucille said, letting her lush frame down carefully on the matching love seat under the potted palm. She wished she had something more heroic to say, something like "I am Lucille Dawson of the Clan--" whatever. She would live or die in what happened here, now. No less a war this, for all it would begin and end in a powder room of all places.
"I am listening," Ram began the audience with no respect whatsoever. Her long fingers laced together and settled solidly on the soft grey wool of her skirt as she waited for Lucille to speak her piece.
"I take it you are not pleased," Lucille's soft voice grew ever more southern in its inflections. "I can only, only say that we did not wish you any harm, that we did try to get you to meet with us. You wouldn't return our calls, wouldn't--."
"The point, Lucille," Ram interrupted in tones that overlaid the ostentatious interior design with an array of sparkling icicles.
All right, Luz thought, no quarter asked then. "I love you, Ram."
Ram's grey eyes went shiny and dead.
"Joe loves you also," Luz continued. "We have discussed this at great length, Ramikins, and we have decided to ask you to join our--"
"No," Ram raised her palm to silence the auburn-haired wonder who managed the political doings of the seacoast. "You have decided no such thing, Mrs. Dawson, and it is unfittingly cruel for you to even suggest this. Do not mistake my loneliness for desperation. If I ever loved either one of you, I seem to have forgotten it now. You have made me forget it. You want something. Ask it and I will answer and we will not speak again. Ever."
"Oh," Luz swallowed to keep from weeping. "I am so sorry. I--you have no idea--I--" Lucille found herself stammering over what had to be the most important words of her lifetime. Lucille of the quotable metaphor, the quick return, now rendered nearly mute by the immensity of her great fear. She tried to find any air in this hopelessly decorative room.
A gentle hand cupped her chin and lifted her head. "I do love you still, Luz, though it breaks my heart to even think on it. My answer is 'yes,' whatever the question, but there will be no more questions afterwards. Yes?"
Lucille nodded into Ram's palm. "Kyle is dying, a resistant and malignant form of AIDS, Fulminant Immune something or another. He's always in pain. He can't eat. Save him. Please," she added tremulously, almost as afterthought. The whole world contracted to this instant and Lucille could swear her heart had paused between beats, waiting.
"Tell him to come to this place," was all Ram answered.
Lucille found herself back in the dining hall, about to trip over her own chair, before she became aware of the world again. She told Kyle what Ram had said and then she sat down and buried her face in her hands, hoping no nosy reporters were dining here this day.
She had hardly dried her eyes and stopped shaking when Kyle returned, as unsteady and ashen as always.
"Kyle?" Lucille tried to still the dread which tore at a spot near the base of her heart.
Kyle let himself down in his chair and sighed softly. "Yes, Mother?"
"Well?" Lucille ignored Joe's steadying hand on her wrist.
"Well?" Kyle reached for a roll and tore it in half, slathering whipped butter thickly on each piece.
"What happened, Kyle?" Lucille did very well just to keep from screeching.
"We had a fight," Kyle stuffed one of the pieces in his mouth, "A tubble," he swallowed, "A terrible fight."
"Oh, no," Lucille's hope sank like a leaden anchor deep down to the bottom of her belly where Kyle had started life.
"I said I wasn't afraid of her," Kyle stuffed the second half of the roll in his mouth and reached for another, this time with jelly on top of the butter. "I said she was a melling--excuse me--a meddling old bat and that if I felt stronger I would bash her for making you cry. I told her she could--" he paused just long enough to start on a third roll. "Well," he waved the empty basket at a passing waiter. "Well, I really let her have it. I mean, who does she think she is just because--." Kyle's pale features blushed a becoming peach. "Well, you know, you knew her once."
Joe pushed his salad towards Kyle in response to the boy's glance.
"Oh, Kyle," Lucille sobbed. "How could you?"
"Very, hmmm," he wiped a dollop of dressing off his chin, "Very well, thank you. Ram even said so. Then she made me promise. Then I came back. Are you going to eat that?" he indicated the teacake that lay untouched on Luz's plate.
She just shook her head and wondered why she didn't die from all this sadness.
Joe stroked her hand and waited for the light to dawn, as it surely must. "What did you promise, Son?" He passed over Lucille's cake and signalled the waiter for three lunch specials, or the uptown equivalent, matin du mason, or something like.
"No sex for ten years, while I consider my very poor lack of judgment," Kyle recited. "Indentured servitude as nanny-assistant to Master Cross--for Mary's babies," Kyle explained, when his father's expression made it clear he was not understood. "Just until they are able to walk, she said."
Kyle started in on another salad and complained about the entree taking so long. "Oh, and she says you have to stay away from her--you and Mom. Which means I won't be seeing much of you for a while, since she's living at the Cross Estates."
Joe nodded. It was a fair price, though he would miss seeing his son come back to health.
"How can you eat at a time like this?" Lucille commented woefully, as the lunch arrived. "When everything is so, so--"
"Well, if you don't want it," Kyle reached for her plate.
Lucille stared at his arm as if it had only just appeared out of the thin, bright air. She wrapped her tapered fingers around his and drew Kyle's hand to her lush lips, just tasting the knuckles lightly.
"Mother!" Kyle complained, his mouth full of steak and potatoes, boef de whatever et pommes de terre.
"Oh, Sweet Baby," Lucille said calmly through her tears, the very words she had spoken at his birth, "You are alive in the world. My own dear Son, today and tomorrow, and every day after."
Ram careened down the alley, a bloody towel with the monogrammed double "T's" on its border pressed against her forehead. Past the dumpsters and crates, she found a dark safe haven and slid down the grimy granite back walls into the alley dust. Ram knew she was dangerously close to feeling sorry for herself even as she had sworn not to dwell on this. The pain in her head shook her resolve though and she began to indulge. Ram had come against many enemies in her long life, but none of their machinations compared with the cruelty visited upon her by the dear Lady Lucille.
How could she come to me like that, Ram wondered. To offer me a false and pathetic parody of everything I might have desired was worse than a beating might have been. Still, Luz was so very brave to offer herself, her marriage, everything she held dear, to save her son.
Not that any of that eased the devastation such an offer engendered. I suppose, Ram mused, l would rather they reveal their hatred than pretend to their love.
No, Ram corrected herself, bending over her knees and the now ruined wool skirt. No, I would rather be loved, but that is never going to happen and it is just as well I learn that now, even at this late date. I will be stronger for it.
At least, I would be stronger, if this pain would just ease up.
Ram began the complex process of ascendency and healing.
But even that did not help very much.
And it did nothing at all to still the hissing, righteous laughter which echoed round the vault of her skull, suggesting all sorts of dire consequences which would render this petty discomfort pale fare indeed.
Good, God! An Immortal!
Duncan struggled drunkenly up from the long day-sleep which had brought him the vision of his father's death. He needed Adam more than ever--to help him find out if Connor were all right, to be with him if Connor were not. All his limbs felt leaden and unresponsive. His mouth was so dry his tongue grated against the roof of his mouth. He could hear the thrumming of his own snores but his neck was too limp to push his head back.
Something else was wrong, but Duncan couldn't identify it. Some tingle than ran up his back and--.
Duncan's innate survival skills over-rode his lethargy and he bolted straight up.
"Hi!" a cheery voice sounded behind him from the pillows.
"Amanda?" Duncan twisted around and looked down on her. Amanda just grinned and stretched, naked beneath the satin sheets. It all had the effect of absolute disorientation...in time and place and circumstance.He started anchoring his wits on the familiar surroundings: the old tapestry above the bed, the circular stairs that led to the roof. Ah, he could still smell a faint aura of balsam. So, Grant had been here after all. "You didn't see a very large man with white hair--?" he started to ask.
"Oh, Grant," Amanda pushed herself up against the tapestry, plumping the pillows into a back support.
"You didn't hurt him, did you?" Duncan declined her pat -on-the-pillow invitation to sit beside her.
"Oh," Amanda tsk, tsked. "Of course not, Duncan. When did you get to be so suspicious?"
"The second day I knew you, Mandy My Maid."
Amanda laughed. "Oh, all right. You always take all the mystery out of everything. Don't I even get a hug after--what is it?--Twenty years?"
"Maybe after you tell me what happened to Grant, Amiranda Vesalia Devaraux," Duncan leaned into the broguish elaboration of her chosen name.
"Madame Corvid these days, Lord MacLeod," Amanda corrected him.
"A rook?" Duncan stared.
"No, silly, a Raven," Amanda curled her fingers through her most recent hairdo a charming crop of dark curls.
"You do have a penchant for sparklies, at that," Duncan started to relax--not too much, never too much around this one. "Which still begs the question about Grant."
"Oh, that," Amanda slipped sideways out from under the sheets, stood and stretched. "I'm your new Watcher. She flopped her wrist his direction to display the tattoo. He caught just a trace of lavendar on her forearm. Her favorite scent. Some things never changed.
"Well, I've slept too long this afternoon, watching you nap," Amanda announced. "I'm going to get fabulously wet and then--" she wandered off.
Duncan stared. It was so odd how he had gotten used to the angles going the other way, just seemed unnatural to have such a flaring curve from waist to hip...not that it wasn't--"Hey!"
Amanda dug her fingernails in harder. "Just come with me like you want to and I'll explain," she hissed so softly he could hardly hear her.
He followed her into the bathroom. She put her finger to her lips and turned on the bath taps.
"That should mess up the surveillance enough for us to speak privately," she indicated the running water.
"They bugged the loft?"
"Well it won't cover your bellowing, Duncan. Keep your voice down."
"What the hell is--"
Amanda slapped him across the bow. Hard.
Duncan jumped, but he lowered his voice. "What is going on, Amanda?"
"I just did a little fiddling with some of the Watcher records when they moved out of Paris to the Vallincourts Estate. Just a little here and there and, voila, instant Watcher Identity, should the need ever arise. It hasn't come up before, but--"
"Now?" Duncan slowed down the taps. No good flooding the bathroom, just for the sake of secrecy.
"Oh, just the biggest heist of the millenium!"
"I thought you said to keep our voices low," Duncan reminded her. "And we're hardly through the second decade of this one, in any case."
"Do you know the latest Northwest Territories Watcher Chief? You know, Grant's boss. My boss too, or so he thinks," Amanda smirked.
"Yes, I know of Thomas Cross," Duncan said blandly.
"Well," Amanda purred conspiratorially, "Fifty thousand solid gold bullion ingots from the Central Compound seemed to have gotten misplaced somewhere on the wild plains of Bella Russe."
"Yeah?" Duncan slid into the tub.
"Hey!" Amanda complained.
"Oh, hey yourself, there's room," Duncan knew this from first hand experience. Well, there always seemed to be plenty of room for himself and the Old Man.
"Thanks, but no," Amanda demurred. "Much as I love you, Duncan, I don't want to smell like you."
"Fine, have it your way," Duncan grabbed the sponge and the soap and started on his toes.
"Sooo," Amanda wrapped up in one of the gigantic bath towels and sat down on the tub side. "Who should be building an enormous underground vault and the most expensive and complicated security system on the planet at the same time all this gold goes missing?"
"I give up," Duncan wet his hair with the sponge.
"Oh, you," Amanda picked up the shampoo and started working it through his hair. "Thomas Cross, of course. I'm so glad you let your hair grow again. I didn't like it short."
Oh, right, Duncan reminded himself. In the two decades since he'd seen Amanda last, the whole world had changed--several times over, in fact. "What have you been doing, Amanda? Didn't you have white hair the last time I saw you?"
"Breathless Blonde," she corrected him. "I've been on the East Coast," she answered his first question with a vagueness that just begged elucidation.
"Doing?" Duncan asked.
"Oh, this and that, Duncan, this and that. Dunk. No, I mean dunk your head down for a rinse. Here," she handed him a towel and pulled the old drain plug to empty the tub.
"You met anyone?" Duncan thought if he could just get her talking he could stall off explaining all the very complex changes that had overcome his formerly simple life.
Amanda looked up from cleaning the substantial ring Duncan had left. She took a deep breath. "He died , Duncan. I fell in love with a mortal and he died. Happens."
"Oh, Mandy," Duncan gathered her in to his heart. "I'm so sorry."
Amanda wriggled out of his grasp. "Now you can get me back for all those thoughtless things I said about your losing Tessa."
"You never said anything, Amanda."
"Well, I surely thought enough things, Duncan. I thought you were hopelessly stupid about her. I just didn't understand, all right?" By which she meant she wanted to hear him forgive her, not necessarily that she'd actually done anything wrong.
"I forgive you, Amanda. Your sorrow absolves you," he added.
"You've changed, Duncan," Amanda dropped the towel and slipped into the bubbles she'd built in the tub.
"Have I?" Duncan tried to sound nonchalant about this. He was still trying to figure out what Amanda was planning for the Cross Estates and how he could best use it to his own advantage.
"Yes, you have," Amanda handed him the sponge. "You become a monk, Lad?"
"Nearly," Duncan stretched the limits of the truth. He took the sponge and soaped her beautiful wide back. In some ways, he thought, they all had a similar body type, at least the ones who lived very long. They all had this functional and esthetic musculature across their shoulders, their own accomodation to the swords which protected their lives. Even tiny Cross had such a back, even slender Adam.
"I must surely be losing my touch," Amanda grumbled.
"You aren't in mourning?" Duncan trailed the sponge over her shoulders.
"Yeah, I guess I am. Oh, dear, are you?"
"Are I what, Amanda?"
"Have you lost somebody else?" Amanda twisted around to look at him.
Breasts, Duncan thought. Now there's something he'd missed. Aloud he said, "No, not really. You know how it goes. Nothing lasts forever."
"You okay?" Amanda's eyes narrowed.
"I'm fine," Duncan turned her around again and began on her hair.
"Grant didn't tell me much," Amanda leaned back against his hands. "He gave me a word to say if you tried to run. He said they were protecting you from another Immortal. I don't know. It didn't make any sense. I tried the word. You just kept sleeping. I can't see it did anything. He said you'd just moved back and that you'd been gone almost twenty years at some Abbey in California."
"I've been gone a while," Duncan agreed.
"Oh, well," Amanda's voice attained that little-girl-I-know-where-the-candy's-hid quality that Duncan remembered so well. "Let me tell you what I found out in my research for coming here!" She leaned forward and pulled the plug so she could let the water run again.
"You remember the old Territory Chief, the bar owner. Oh, you remember. Joe Dawson! Well, he's now the mayor, can you believe it. And he doesn't look a day older than he did twenty years ago, though he must be pushing seventy by now. But I guess he always looked older than he was. Anyway, he married this hooker and they had this weedy little kid who's gay as a jelly bean in a field of broccoli. You remember Adam Piersen? You know the Immortal that was pretending to be a Watcher." She waved her wrist. "Got the idea from him. I think he got killed in Paris, but he turned up, using that same name, hanging around here. Then he got brought up on a morals charge or something. That was a while back, right after you left I think. Anyway, turns out he's queer as well and was trying to get custody of some baby he claimed was his brother. Like I'm so sure...."
And on and on Amanda went, mucking through her version of what had happened in the intervening years--all of it very colorful, none of it very accurate. Duncan tried to pay attention, if only to keep a running list of all the things she didn't know, so he wouldn't trip up inadvertently.
After the bath Amanda talked him into taking her to dinner.
Some nice place down on the wharf she'd heard about.
Very exclusive.
The Drieg Tower or something like that.
