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Chapter Six: Tis the Season
Mary Palmer nuzzled her cheek into the soft down which draped Malak's shoulder. She peered up into his wonderful face. "Bird?"
The bright eyes focused and lowered. "Yes, Dearest Mary?"
"Are you sad, Bird?" She grazed the blade-sharp edge of his jaw with her index finger.
"Oh, not at all, Beloved," the translucent brows knurled. "Why do you ask?"
"You were staring out at--" Mary lifted her head and checked, "Whatever it is you have conjured for today. Oh, a sloping field of wildflowers. That's lovely, Bird." She mostly didn't notice the particulars of their trysting place any longer. It mattered less and less each time she came here to meet with the angel. "Anyway, you were staring. Maybe you were only thinking."
"I only ever think of you, Beloved," Malak smiled.
Mary felt her own features beam reflexively. What a wondrous way he had about him. She settled back into his shoulder, tucked in beside the plane of the deep wing-keel, and snuggled beneath the gigantic white wing which furled over her, casting a prism of color and shadow over the pale blue sky.
"What were you thinking?" Mary tried not to let the trail of his elegant fingers distract the course of her thoughts.
"I sought to find a way to make it clear to you that I have infinite powers--" he began.
"Oh, abundantly clear, Bird," Mary purred.
"Please, Mary," Malak said gently, "if you wish me to answer you--."
"Infinite powers, yes?" Mary prompted.
"I can wait longer, Mary," Malak tried to begin again. "I want you to know this, to know you may stay with the children if you wish, that I will wait for you--as I have waited--"
"These many, many ages," Mary finished for him. "I know, Bird, but I am not so fine and patient as your holy self. The children will be well-cared for. Master Cross is building them a nursery of baths and pools and lagoons with slides and an enormous library. I do not worry for them." Mary shifted in his arms, to her back, arching her neck to rub the back of her head against his arm. "I am too selfish to wait, Bird," she said, as she always said, but there was more fear in her voice each time she made the declaration.
Malak combed his fingers through her copper and gold curls. This would be the day they met this fear, he thought. While his own anxiousness built like a storm tide within his broad chest.
"Being dead isn't like this," Mary said, gesturing towards the field, the sky, ending with a grazing stroke down Malak's belly that made him gasp.
"No," Malak answered as soon as his breath and thoughts returned. "It isn't, Mary."
Mary took a shaky, long breath in and then let it out again. "Will we still be as we are? I mean, will you still love me? Will you even know me? Will you--?"
Malak touched her lightly on the lips and bowed forward until their foreheads touched. "You know that moment, Mary? The one you were trying to describe the other day?"
Mary bumped a nod against his head.
"You said there was an instant when you could no longer feel the division between us. You remember? You said it was just in that instant, right before you--"
"I remember, Bird," Mary interrupted.
"Oh, Mary," Malak sighed, "I think the one and only thing I shall miss is seeing you blush."
Mary punched him.
Malak cleared his throat, hoping she would not think he laughed at her. "I will not love you. I will not know you. I will be you, Mary. And you will be me. And that instant of which you are so fond will go on forever and ever and ever."
"Oh," Mary's breath drifted away from her in one long, sonorous woosh. "But that would be too wonderful, too perfect. How could I stand it? I would--"
"Yes, Mary," Malak bundled her against him, swaddled in his long, pale arms, and yards of galleon-sail wings. "Yes, Mary. You would die."
"You know, Amanda," Duncan MacLeod, Prince of the Universe, and All Around Boy Scout, tried to keep his tones level and his temper in check. "I think I could just manage to get this miserable car down the road and not run it into the bay, if you would stop pummeling me."
It was a reasonable suggestion. Not one that elicited any agreement, however, from his mad-as-the-proverbial-poultry passenger who proceeded to thwack him again.
"You! You!" Amanda sputtered and spit. "You knew all along what that, that, that---Place was!"
Duncan braced against the blows, both verbal and actual, and tried to concentrate on the dark road which wound through the warehouse district, the seamier side of Old Couver by the Sea. It wouldn't do to break down in this neighborhood, not the sort of environs one would want to be bent over changing a tire.
"They have very good food," Duncan offered lamely. For which he took another blow, but there was no real force to it. She must be tiring.
"You," Amanda crossed her arms and slammed back in her seat, "are insufferable."
Duncan was too much a gentleman to remind Madame Corvid that this had been exclusively her idea to begin with. He contented himself imagining all the clever ways Adam would have burned the bothersome woman fuming at his side.
"And I suppose you met this Sean there?" Amanda's nostrils dilated imperiously.
Duncan swerved the car suddenly and very nearly did take them both into the bay. He slowed the rental, geared down and turned up a side road, heading for the bay bridge and home. "What Sean?" he asked with as much innocence as he could bring to bear.
"Oh, well," Amanda harrumphed, "While you were dallying with that Dragon character, that Chains are Us poster boy, I was over at the bar getting an earful from--hmmm, Allen, I think--the bartender. He asked if the T-bird was fixed yet, from when Sean drove it up into the woods. He also asked after Mary MacLeod and how was she doing since the separation. I told him you didn't strike me as the marrying kind and he said something about love surmounting--or mounting, or whatever. Just exactly what kind of harem have you gathered round you, Boy Scout? And why didn't you tell me you were married--well, separated now, I guess. And why the hell do all these normalcy-impaired folk seem to know you so well?"
Duncan didn't think she actually meant him to answer her, but his mind spun one tale after another trying to find just the right mix that would do. If ever he needed a "Ram consult--"
"I think we would both feel better with something to eat," he suggested.
Amanda's head slid sideways slowly towards his direction and she gifted him her most glorious glower, but her empty stomach made silence a nuisance. "Where are we?"
"Well," Duncan took his bearings. "We're on Water Street, heading north and east towards--"
"Joe's!" Amanda exclaimed, "For old times' sake. Turn around. It's back the other way."
Duncan wondered if he shouldn't say something. Joe's hadn't exactly turned into the Drieg Tower West, but it was very different from the old blues bar. Good food, though. The two establishments shared the same corps de cuisine. Why didn't Amanda know this if she was working with the Watchers? Surely she knew Master Xavier, the Dom Supremo of Seacouver, was none other than Thomas Cross, the Regional Watchers' Bureau Chief. And why--? "Amanda, you do know that Adam is Methos?" he posited a test question.
"Who isn't," Amanda peered through the dimly lit streets, looking for old landmarks, long gone these two decades. Everything had changed so much. Everything went by so fast these days...gone, gone, gone, she thought. "Let's see, there was Adam Piersen Number One and Adam Number Two, one of whom was pretending to be the other. One got buried after dying in a crash with your barge, smack into Notre Dame, I think was the report. Then the real Real Adam--maybe--showed up here in Couver. Then there's the Methos who got axed in Stanley Park by your cute little student, Rich--" Amanda bit down on her knuckle. "I'm sorry, Duncan. I know--. Well, I'm sorry. I know it couldn't have been your fault. I know how upset you were that last time I saw you, when the barge was still intact, that last night when you told me I made your heart glad. I guess I don't any more," she said by way of apology.
"We're here," Duncan was relieved he wouldn't have to sort any of this out just yet. The World According to Amanda was a more chaotic vision than even the Danaan King might have conjured, though Chaos was her kingdom. He shut the rental down, got out, and walked round to get Amanda's door. He couldn't wait to hear what she had to say about--.
What did Thomas call Dragon's Place?
Ah, yes.
Leather Bar Lite.
"Oh, hello, Dear. Nap over so soon?" Lucille sat in the middle of boxes and ribbons at the very center of the Mayor's Mansion Parlor. She was involved in measuring a large frame for a box.
"You don't have to make fun," Mary complained, yawning.
"I suppose I was," Lucille conceded. "And for no reason whatsoever." The luscious front of Couver's gorgeous First Lady lifted in a sigh. "I suppose I am missing my own angel, who is right this minute having one of those endless meetings of his."
"I thought Joe was coming home early today," Mary lowered herself awkwardly down by Lucille.
"They got their knickers in a twist over the crèche scene again," Lucille shook her copper-brown locks. "As if no snow yet this year weren't a more pressing problem for the season."
Mary's eyes began to well and she chewed down on her lower lip.
"Oh, Honey," Lucille put the frame down and hugged her guest. "That's okay, Mary," she said when the storm had passed and they were both blowing their noses. "You should have seen me when I was this far along with Kyle. I made Joe burn the photos and promise, on pain of death, that he'd never make mention of it. He swears I put tooth marks in the bed rails, I got so out of hand. It's just the hormones, Darlin', not anything to apologize about."
"I'm sorry anyway," Mary called after Lucille, who returned soon enough with tea and some incredible assortment of brownies and cookies and tiny cakes. "Yum," Mary murmured her approval.
"Oh," Lucille put her brownie back on the plate and reached for the frame. "Speaking of burning photographs." She handed the frame over to Mary.
"No," Mary said and swallowed hard against the laugh that, with the cake, threatened to choke her. "It isn't," she said.
"Oh, My Dear," Lucille poured the tea and put in Mary's requisite four lumps. A few stirs and she traded the tea for the picture, which she propped on the coffee table. "It most certainly is."
Mary shook her head, set her cup beside the picture and struggled back up, sliding onto the damask couch, an ostentation of the previous First Lady. "Unca Dunk," she said the name she used to call the Highlander when she was a toddler. "How did you ever--?"
"Hasn't Sean ever told you about the Great Couver Campaign?" Lucille asked, settling on the couch by Mary and staring at the photograph, the single one she'd saved from that photo session so long ago.
"Oh," Mary sipped and thought. "Something about awkward pictures and our having to move to England. That's what Mom said, anyway. I know it had something to do with her leaving my dad."
"Oh, how stupid of me," Lucille chided herself. "Of course that would have been an awful time for you. I'm sorry. What a very poor foster mom I have turned out to be."
"Oh, no, Luz," Mary smiled, "You've been wonderful. Anne is so afraid of all this. I think she's buried me already." Mary swallowed hard. She was damned if she would be sobbing and gulping again.
"Oh, Honey," Lucille hugged her again. "She is the one who is the poorer for her absence."
"I suppose," Mary pulled away and stared out the high west windows with their tasteful beige drapes and deeply beveled glazings. She might be back in England this moment for all the decor was so reminiscent. "Oh, don't put it away just yet," she said, a little more emphatically than she meant to.
"Mary, you hussy!" Lucille laughed. "Oh, all right. I'll wrap it last. It's a shame I didn't keep one of them both together, but all the other copies I had were stolen by that stupid scandal sheet, and the ones Duncan has are locked somewhere in a deep dark vault, no doubt.
"That's too bad," Mary sighed.
"A tragic twist of fate, for sure," Lucille reached for her wrapping things and arranged them beside her on the couch, beginning on the next gift. Could Christmas be only a week away?
Mary joined in and they were soon imbued with the special happy blessings of the formalized affections represented by each bow and note, each gift and thought, an inventory of their own divers clan members.
And all the while, the Chief, while not actually present, was with them.
--in spirit, always, of course.
But on this occasion, also in icon.
"They had one hell of a time bracing the pillars, though. They weren't designed for submersion. In any case, it took one work crew off the subterranean lagoon for an entire week. You will have to come on the tour. The final touches are still wanting, but all the main work is done and we'll be running the water tests in three days before we begin to fill the complex. I thought--"
"Oh, there you are," Thomas Cross strolled over to the window and stood behind the giant who sat there, squinting at the sun, silent as an elder mountain. He ran his mahogany hand over the tense knot of Grant's right shoulder. "They told me you'd arrived an hour ago. I thought you might join me at the barn. Is everything all right?" he asked, knowing full well the answer was, "No." When Grant did not answer, Thomas continued on. "I do think the river is just the right touch." He peered out the window at the babbling brook which now flowed past the south side of this sunny second-level living room.
"I failed you," Grant said, in a voice so quiet, and so deep, it was more a somber vibration and less an actual sound.
Tom slapped the giant on his shoulder. "Oh, for heaven's sake, Grant! Give me a break!"
"Master?" Grant glanced over his shoulder at the bantam-weight black man who owned him, or rather, owned his soul. He had expected any number of reactions for his failure, but not this one.
"You heard me. I'm so glad to have you back, I'm sure I don't want to waste time wallowing in some misperception on your part. Good grief, Man, it's almost Christmas!"
Grant twisted around and faced HorseMaster Cross. "I have done all the shopping. Everything is ordered and ready, Sir. There is nothing--"
Thomas leaned forward and cupped his hands over Grant's rock-hard delts. He shook the giant. "Christmas, Grant. Doesn't that suggest something to you?"
"Only that I am miserable beyond belief, Master," Grant answered.
Thomas tried again, "We have our own little Mary."
"Yes."
"...who is pregnant by one of the last angels."
"Yes."
"...and it came to pass--" Thomas said excitedly.
The great brows knurled down like the knees of an old oak. "You cannot be serious, Master. In any case, the time would be too soon."
"Only by ten days or so, Grant," Thomas argued.
"You know," Grant reached out and picked up the black man by his tiny waist. Then he settled him on his lap as easily as if the Master of the Cross Estates were a child. "You do know you are too romantic by half?"
"If it is proper to pray for the New Jerusalem," Thomas trailed his hand over the broad plane of Grant's chest. "Why not a New Bethlehem as well? What do you think?"
"Meaning no disrespect, of course," which meant he had no respect whatsoever, "I think I have returned home not a moment too soon, Master Cross."
There were all sorts of things that needed to be done if they were to finish in time, but Thomas could think of none just now. He settled his ear over Grant's great barrel chest and listened to the slow comforting thud of the Facet's heart.
"Not a moment too soon," he agreed.
Adam strolled down the cool arcaded ambulatory--or at least it would have been an ambulatory did this groined arcway lead above the ground, or even above the water. Still, the lighting and the steel which formed the enormous water tunnel gave the place a contem- plative ambiance that was magic, if not mystic.This portion of Master Cross' elaborate waterworks nursery was, discounting the library hall, the most impressive piece of the entire subterranean--and subaquarian-- construction. This section of the grand aquarium was stocked with colorful seafish, raised entirely under the strictest conditions of germlessness, a scientific piety, Adam thought, or perhaps it was only sheer presumptuousness. Adam was glad he would be leaving soon, that he would not be burdened by another generation of whatever these dragonets turned out to be.
He suspected the Cross Estate Staff harbored darling little visions of cherubs with tails, but Adam doubted the children would be as human as all that. He did not remember ever seeing an adult Danaan in what they called merdragor, the infant form, and he was fairly certain he would remember this. Adam's memory had come back to him in a rush after Ram lifted the--whatever it was kept him from remembering his childhood in Bavil. And maybe she was right that it had only been his own capacities for denial kept him ignorant of that time. Maybe.
Just now, Adam had far more important things to forget, far more painful memories to bury. Little by little, he was forgetting the Highlander. No, he corrected himself. His mind was willing the Scot away, into the past. His body was another problem altogether. It seemed never to lose its memory.
"And the memory of the flesh," Adam recited quietly, shivering at the odd harmonics and reverberations of the large tunnel. "Is desire," he finished.
"Rightly so, Dear Nephew," a deep voice echoed off the curved crystalline panes and shuddered the beams.
Adam spun round. The great white thing before him, shimmering in the caustic rays of the sea tunnel, stared out of shiny black eyes the size of his fist. He had to step back to see enough of the creature to even identify what it meant to be.
Bear.
A great fluffy white mountain of ursine...
Bear.
Okay, Adam tried to bring his acute senses and wit to the moment. Bear.
"Bear," he said aloud.
"Yes," the bear replied in great glowing tones which smelled faintly of fish.
Adam glanced down at the wet paws and the onyx claws, bigger than his own fingers. "Fishing?" he ventured.
"More a metaphysical trolling," the bear replied, plopping its enormous backside onto the slate tiles of the tunnel floor.
It was strange, Adam mused, sitting didn't make the thing any smaller. "I don't--"
"No, of course you don't," the bear shook, shoulder to neck, like a wet dog. "I will have to be brief, Dear Nephew--"
Adam thought the thing had called him that before. It must mean something. If his brains would only engage and--. "Marak!" Adam plunged forward into the deep plush of white fur and noble uncle. He could smell the musky deep--.
Smack.
The cold tile floor met Adam's long, outstretched arms.
"Sorry, Maat," the deep voice commiserated. "I am not really here, you know."
"Duh," Adam growled, pushing himself back up from the floor. This separation from Duncan was driving him stark, raving mad. Hallucinations, delusions, the whole gamut. Damn!
"I really do need to speak with you, Maat," the bear voice sounded again behind him.
I'm not even going to turn around, Adam told himself silently. I'm just going to walk down this lovely tunnel and go about my business as if I weren't hearing voices and seeing overgrown Teddies.
"I can tell you the answer to your dilemma," the bear offered Adam's slender retreating back.
"La, la, la," Adam put his elegant hands up to his ears.
"I can tell you how to survive your next meeting with Chieftan MacLeod," the bear continued.
"La, la, la, la," Adam hummed more loudly.
"Oh, dammit, Maat!" the bear started a lowing growl. It built from his great belly through the broad barrel of his soft-furred chest and erupted through the impressive fangs with a force that nearly knocked Adam over. "I want to ask for your mother's hand in marriage, Boy."
"La, la--What?" Adam turned back in time to see the Bear rocking on its haunches, holding itself back from the deadly leap which would, in the proper order of things, have followed that roar.
"You heard me, Adam," the bear snorted and a cloud of smoke rose in the humid air of the tunnel.
"Okay," Adam snorted back. "Even if you are Marak, you don't have a body. What kind of husband would you make?"
"You need have no fear that some way or another, I will find a way," Marak said without a hint of boast, only absolute determination.
"But you are her brother," Adam argued. Why am I even talking to you? he asked himself.
"And you have been happily wed to your own uncle for the past two decades with no apparent harm," the Bear replied.
Adam's patrician features screwed up in disgust. He did not actually think of Duncan as his uncle-- or, more accurately, half-uncle. He always contended, at least subliminally, that the intervening five millennia more or less erased such considerations. "If you don't count the latest near-fatality," Adam grumbled, lowering himself next to where the bear appeared to be lying now, the wide ursine jaw resting on its impossible paw.
"I told you I could help with that," the Bear offered.
"Go ahead," Adam lolled over on his side, propping on his elbow and stretching his legs out. Being away from the Highlander was forcing this wish- fulfillment thing, this waking dream.
"The main difficulty is," Marak's wet black nose nuzzled Adam's belly to focus his attention. "You forget yourself. You can't help it."
"I forget what?" Adam patted the soft fur between the awesome black eyes.
"Yourself," the Bear repeated. "You lose yourself, you lose everything you know."
Adam chewed on the thought. He sighed and nodded. It was as good a description as any he supposed.
"But not absolutely everything," the Bear continued, "there is always one thing you can remember. Yes?"
"No," Adam scratched behind an offered ear. "No, I can't think--Oh. Oh, I see. Yes, I never forget Duncan." It was the truth. He had only been fooling himself that such a thing were possible.
"Oh, exactly!" the Bear rolled over on his back, tucking his paws beneath his chin and exposing a vast carpet of pristine white belly fuzz. He waited for Adam to take the hint and then he continued. "And Duncan is the same," he said. "If you are careful to hold the other in exquisite clarity, then you will exist past the union and you can give yourselves back to each other."
"What if it doesn't all go back?" Adam asked, scratching Marak's belly a little harder.
"You haven't noticed already, Adam?"
"Excuse me?"
"Oh, right there, on the side. Oh, yes, indeed," the calf-lowing sound rumbled beneath Adam's hands. "Oh, where was I? Haven't you noticed the two of you have exchanged portions already, just by being together so long? I certainly note you are both of you the better for it."
Adam wasn't sure this revelation pleased him. Turning into a stubborn bit of Warmeat, was he? Even worse--Boy Scout?
"In any case," Marak rolled back to his belly and leveled his gaze with the Immortal's. "That is how you will survive your next union."
"We only touched each other," Adam argued. "I cannot imagine what would happen if we--."
The Bear's great throat moaned out a low, sensuous sound. "It will be wonderful."
"You sound as if you were experienced in this," Adam said, somewhat accusingly.
"Not as much as I'd like to be," the white head shook. "It does curb one's efforts when one loves another who has vowed to celibacy."
"But you didn't say you wanted Malak," Adam remarked.
"I have not the time to debate their identities now, Nephew," the Bear pushed up to sitting. "There is a handwritten book in the third shelf of the northwest alcove in the main library, Adam. Please give that book to Sean to take to my daughter. It is in the nature of a baby shower gift. I would be most grateful if you did this. I cannot myself, for--as you so rightly noted--I have no form."
"But I felt you," Adam argued, "I scratched you and--."
"You remembered me," the Bear said softly. "You remembered me with such completeness that I was returned to you--after a fashion. You remembered the bright spring days when we would finish with lessons and go outside the walls to the fields above the northern rim. We would loll in the shade of that ancient oak and discuss everything and nothing at all. And I would ride you around in this form, since you had such trouble with the horses. It was our secret, seeing that dragon-riding by any but God is something of a sacrilege."
"Oh, Uncle Marak," Adam leaned forward to hug him again, and this time he did not fall. "I do remember.
"And I can think of no greater joy than calling you 'Papa Bear.'"
Such were the banns between Marak and Satan'm.
Duncan MacLeod watched Amanda sort through the wild array of papers and blueprints and photos, scattered over the counterpane of the loft King-size. Except for the crystal stemware in her hand, she appeared in every way a mischievous child, plotting a raid on the cookie jar. Cross-legged and absolutely enrapt in the project before her, Amanda the Thief was an elven wonder of another age. She was wrong, he thought. She still makes my heart glad. He poured her the last of the wine which had graced their simple dinner, something he'd whipped up out of leftovers, more breakfast than dinner.
"You might open another," Amanda suggested, never looking up from the various calculations and depictions of the Cross Estate renovations. "The way I see it, is this: tomorrow night. We go tomorrow night."
Apparently her calculations had rendered up a plan. Duncan returned with another bottle of the "house wine." It was a pleasant, if characterless little grape, a little darker than blush, and it went with scrambled eggs like nobody's business.
"Why the hurry?" Duncan asked, sitting down beside her on the bed. He set the bottle on the bedside table, not bothering to open it. It wasn't the sort of grape that needed to breathe or anything fussy like that. Adam would be having apoplexy about serving the "grape juice" to company. For all his droopy, lazy ways, the Eldest Immortal was a stickler for all the many conventions of hosting.
"Well," Amanda sipped pensively. "The security system has one major hole." She rolled up one of the blueprints and sited down its length."
"Oh," said Duncan. "the tunnels for the water."
"Bright boy," Amanda laughed. It was such a nice change from her earlier growling and the number 6 seismic detonation at Joe's Bar. "They will soon be doing the test fills and then the real thing. After that, I don't think anyone is getting into that place. Look, here's the path. We can come up from the south and there's a spot here outside the perimeter, below the main pasture where they have left the drains open until the tests are done. All we have to do is move the grate, slip down the tunnel and work our way back up into the main compound via, ummm," Amanda dug through the stack near her left knee. "Here, the library. At least that's what it says on the plans. What anyone wants with an olympic size pool in the middle of bookshelves is beyond me, but--"
"How do you know they won't be filling them already, Amanda. Drowning isn't all that pleasant."
"It's the week before Christmas, Duncan," Amanda toasted him her empty glass. "Trust me. No construction man born would bypass a chance for a holiday. They've laid off the crews till New Years."
"But why tomorrow night then?" Duncan thought he had been following her discourse.
"Some bilge water geek specialist is coming up for the holidays," Amanda tilted her glass towards Duncan and waited for him to uncork the next bottle and pour. "Doubtless he'll be doing some preliminary tests, and that will involve filling some of the tunnels. He isn't due until day after tomorrow. Sooo--"
Duncan nodded and clinked the bottle against her glass in a toast. Then he took an inelegant swig, straight from the bottle. "To tomorrow night," he finished the toast.
Putting down the bottle, he leaned forward and caught Amanda's shoulders in his large hands, lifting her towards him and pressing a more than friendly kiss all over her cute smile.
"Hey!" she protested, pushing him back. "This Sean, she's a brawny girl, eh? Strong like bull?"
"What?" Duncan flipped mentally through his notebook on Amanda's World.
Amanda started stacking and putting the papers, maps and pics away. "Sean MacLeod, you ninny. You know, the Missus--ex-Missus, I guess." She slipped off the side of the bed and stood, filling her arms with the "research" material. "If you don't want to talk about it, okay. I was just noting how much rougher you've gotten. I figured she must be a stalwart wench." Amanda produced the most amazing whinny and stomped her foot like a horse counting.
Oh, God! Duncan thought, just as soon as he caught up with Amanda's misperception. He didn't know how to touch a woman anymore. He'd grown too used to making love with Adam. Duncan decided it was time to clear the air of all this misunderstanding. "I am not married to Sean," he began simply.
"Well, whatever," Amanda came back to the bed for the second load of papers. "It really isn't any of my business."
"But I don't want you to think--"
Amanda dove into him, pushing him over backward. "And I certainly don't want you to think, Highlander."
Duncan relaxed under the assault. He would probably be dead soon. Tomorrow night, if they pulled this off. What did a tiny indiscretion matter in the grand scheme, after all? He could be gracious in defeat. A Host should be gracious. Wouldn't Adam agree?
And all the while his thoughts went skittering round the vault of his thick skull, Amanda plied the softer surfaces with all manner of thrilling diversions, mouth and belly and groin and ear and--
Amanda was so good at getting her way.
She didn't want him to think.
So, Duncan was very soon drifting in the most pleasurable font of absolutely no thoughts whatsoever.
"Oh, Pops!"
Two words usually accompanied by a hug and general happy benedictions sounded icily round the large loft and crept under the sheets where Duncan lay, not quite dead to the world.
"Coming," he mumbled even as he struggled with the tangle of linen and blankets, blinking his eyes open, trying to focus.
"Shame on you!" The voice had moved nearer the bed, or it had become suddenly louder.
"Jeezus, Sean," Duncan levered up, propping his back against the gigantic tapestry that overlooked the bed. "Let me at least wake up before you start cursing me."
"Honestly, Pop! I mean--Really!"
"All right," Duncan dug his fists into his eye sockets and blinked again. "What is it?"
"I might ask you the same thing," Sean remarked imperiously, pointing at the second lump, still completely buried in counterpane and covers.
"What?" Duncan scratched his fingers through the tangles of his long hair. "Oh," he said, following the line of Sean's finger. "This is--"
Amanda stretched like a cat, emerging from the linen pile, just eyes and nose. "Sean? This is Sean MacLeod?"
"Yes, I--" Sean's fists found his hips and he looked for all the world like Peter Pan facing off the Captain. But something stopped his retort and he just stared as Amanda emerged the rest of the way out of the sheets.
Amanda's eyes went round and liquid. Duncan saw them as confusion and awkwardness.
Sean saw the look for what it was, a desperate and pleading warning to be still.
Sean responded immediately to the unspoken request. He leaned over his father's sodden frame, offering a hand and a serviceable bow. "Madam Amanda, I am indeed pleased to make your acquaintance."
Duncan's mouth slacked open. He had surely missed some subtlety here, but he could not ken its way or wherefore. He was just grateful that Sean had pulled back from his embarrassing diatribe.
"I am so confused," Amanda smiled graciously. "I thought they told me you had married--"
"And so I have, Lady," Sean sat down on the bed's side, as if Duncan were not there, as if Amanda were not incredibly naked. "This very summer, in fact."
"Oh," Amanda said, batting her eyes at the Highlander. "So you are a what--cousin?"
Sean smiled broadly, almost laughing, "Quite so, Lady. Yes, exactly."
"I see," Amanda punched the Scot on his near deltoid. "Shame on you."
"Well," Duncan sniffed, "That's just about as much, 'shame on you' I can take so early in the morning." With which, he got up from the bed and padded over to the bathroom, leaving an almost visible cloud of ire in his wake.
"What are you doing here?" Sean whispered as soon as the bathroom door was closed.
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Amanda pulled the sheet up fetchingly.
It was only then that Sean realized he had been staring baldly at her bare breasts. It was only then that he blushed. "All right. Whatever," he said. "I'm just picking up Kyle Dawson to take him out to the compound. That and leaving off a present for Mary." His voice dropped several notes on the scale and into a minor key.
"Courage," Amanda said and she reached out and patted his wrist. "Courage."
"Well," Sean sighed, "that would be nice. Hard to be brave when you don't know--"
"All will be revealed, Sean," Amanda said softly. "Soon enough."
"If you say so," Sean shrugged. "Later," he said.
At the lift, he called back, "Tell the Old Man...I don't know--"
"You love him," Amanda suggested.
"Yeah," Sean entered the lift. "That'll do."
Mary Palmer MacLeod waddled out of the Mayor's Mansion parlor with the last of the Christmas gifts. Sweet Lucille had retired early when the Mayor returned. The perfect hostess, she'd seen that an evening snack was set for their gravid guest, before she and her paramour disappeared into the lift, headed upstairs to the Master Bedroom.
In all likelihood, they would not make a reappearance until tomorrow, Mary thought. Most of the staff was off for the holidays. They would be coming back in Christmas Day for the Mayor's Breakfast Reception, which had become a Dawson tradition. The stately State House took on a tombish feel as dusk darkened its corners and added a hollow echo to every sound.
Mary set the presents down beneath the tree in the main living room. Getting down proved no problem. The reverse was another story, though, and Mary ended up, plop, on her backside, as ungainly as an upturned turtle, or an unhorsed knight. Damn.
She wasn't really hurt. Well, everything hurt, not any of it very badly, though. Mary was just tired of being pregnant, tired of being afraid, tired of being alone...
Little Mary broke into tears, each drop a multi-colored sparkle in the blinking lights of tree and tinsel.
"Oh, Beloved--"
She felt his arms and his warmth as a physical glow at her back.
"You are never alone."
"I know," Mary sniffed. She didn't look around. Malak wouldn't be there visually unless she were asleep. He was more "with her" than any other being on the face of the globe. "But I still feel alone."
"Then be alone with me, Mary," Malak murmured. "The tree is lovely," he turned the conversation to lighter tones and tempers.
"Oh," Mary was suddenly reminded. "I have meant to ask you. This being the season and all. Tell me about The Birth."
"You should have no difficulty, Beloved. Ram will attend--"
"No, silly," Mary chuckled. "That Birth." She pointed to the crèche beneath the tree.
"Oh," Malak sighed most wonderfully like a moonlight wind in the high mountains. "I was not there." He spoke these last four words so sadly that Mary felt her tears well up again.
"I was King in those days," Malak continued. "I had lost my son to the wild temptations of the Westron Steppes. I busied myself with all the duties I considered important. It will remain my undying shame that I missed the miracle, that I dismissed it as an aberration of the meddlesome Five Shepherds and paid it no heed whatsoever."
Mary willed herself to sleep, traveling the sonorous belltones of the angel's tale. He needed her to hold him. She longed to do so, to fill her arms with him, to surrender to the building irresistible maternal urge. There he was, crouched on the edge of the knoll, his great wings folded over him, like a bird in a snowstorm. "It's okay, Bird," she said reaching under the feathers, feeling for his waist. "Don't cry."
"Oh, God, Bird," Mary exclaimed, as the angel lifted his wings and turned towards her. "You're bleeding. A great gash cut deeply down the broad slope of the angel's forehead.
Malak stared at her and then reached up absently and drew his fingers away. "I guess I am," he said, as if he did not feel the wounding. The bleeding stopped. The wound healed. "This," he gestured towards his forehead, "is my payment for being so stupid, Mary."
"I don't understand," Mary's voice trembled and she drew back.
"No, no," Malak said gently. "There is nothing to fear, Beloved. Just a memory. When it was revealed to us the meaning of this Man, we were sorely chastened. The crystal shard we carry is the sigil and the measure of His Displeasure, as was the Diaspora, and the Abandonment."
"Maybe I don't want to know about this," Mary whispered. She was suddenly anxious about Malak and his place in the Divine Order and his, his sudden lambent magnificence. Her knees wobbled and collapsed her to the short grass of the knoll.
"Oh, Mary," Malak leaned over and reached for her. "Don't be afraid."
"I can't help it," Mary whined, her face cupped in her hands. "I'm not like you. I have no holiness, no greater destiny. I have nothing--not even all of my life."
Malak lifted her up in his pale arms and tucked her close to him in the hollow to the left of his deep keel. "Then you must have all of your life, Mary. Every last moment, Beloved. And I will be here when you are ready.
"You are wrong, you know," he said when she had stopped sobbing. "You are the Crown of Creation, Beloved. You are The Mother and The Babe, The Beginning and The End. You are my every breath, from the moment I first saw you at the fountain, those many ages ago, and you are the entirety of my inspirations ever after."
"It sounds," Mary gulped, "It just sounds too important, too unreal, Bird. I just love you. You gave me some gosh-awful slippers, and I fell in love with you. That's all. I can't seem to be rightfully serene and regal about any of this. I'm just me, Bird. I can't ever be that vision you saw. I'm not nearly important enough for all your devotion. I'm just me, Bird. Just me."
"Just you, Mary," Malak agreed, setting her down on a deep nest of rainbow-colored pillows. The knoll had transformed into a great silken tent, billowing softly in a spectral breeze and just the first blush of morning.
"Just me," he added, furling his wings tightly against his back and kneeling beside her.
Mary pushed up on her elbows. "So tell me," she said.
"Yes?" Malak asked.
"You said you weren't there, but surely you know what happened," Mary reached up to stroke his solemn face. "Tell me what happened with the real Mary. Tell me the story of Christmas, Malak."
"I told you," a low grumble rose from the enormous white muzzle which nosed its way into the tent.
"Father!" Mary grabbed a pillow and planted it over her nakedness. "Really!"
"Oh, for Heaven's Sake," the Bear crawled the rest of the way into the tent on its belly so as not to disturb the delicate silk walls. "It's not like I never changed your diapers, Child."
"Father!" Mary fumed, blushing in embarrassment and rage.
"You were right, Brother Marak," the angel bowed. "She was indeed brave enough to ask the very question that you suggested she might.
"Hello!" Mary complained. "I'm not a third person irrelevant here."
"No, Dear Daughter," the Bear nodded. "I beg your pardon."
Mary's eyes grew wide. "You haven't--you don't--You're here all the time, have been here. You--!"
The Bear collapsed in on himself, ducking his great head deep between his shoulders. "I sleep. I swear! I don't invade your privacy, Child. I can't help that I live here. I try to stay out of the way."
"She is really furious," Malak warned.
"Duh," said the Bear. "I only came to wish the both of you Merry Christmas and to tell you my gift is under the tree. Sean brought it from Horse's collection. Your own book, Brother Malak, about The Birth."
"And I was feeling sorry for myself about being so alone," Mary started laughing.
And Malak started laughing, a light carillon of happy sound which stirred the tent drapes.
And Marak started laughing, a baso profundo staccato moan which tore the drapes from their moorings and sent them sailing into the wide sky and the last of the stars.
Mary sighed finally and caught her breath. She was awake, still sitting before the tree, the twinkling lights where the morning stars had been. There, to the right of the crèche, lay the book, as promised. She picked it up and opened it carefully, reading the three words on the first page.
It must have been copied and translated recently, she thought. The words were in nearly modern English, carefully penned. Another thoughtful gift from the wondrous angel, Mary thought. And from my father, as well.
I may not be special.
But I certainly am blessed.
He wished he could say the same about the fetor of the brackish saline. When in this ill-conceived plan had Amanda thought she was going to tell him they would be spelunking through the Cross Estate plumbing? "Let me see--this is so much worse than bilge-rafting through the lower middens."
"Well, Stanley," Duncan shifted his position on the narrow cement ledge and tried to ignore all the divers discomforts this delightful perch had to offer, rats not the least of these.
"Is that the only joke you know, Duncan?" Amanda croaked back. "This last fork was your idea," she added, shivering and panting. Silvery smoke rose in a fog from her every sopping surface, making clouds in the light shards which streamed down on them through the titanium bars of the tiny hole above them.
"Oh, right," Duncan hunched over the lip of this ledge and peered down on the dank lake below them. He measured the water level by the reflections on the opposite walls. Not rising anymore. Well, the level was not rising.
"Oh, be still," Amanda tucked her hands under her arms and knocked the back of her head against the cement wall behind her. "Let me think."
Duncan just shook his head and pawed through his pack. Amanda's was long gone, down some sewer or another, probably to 'Couver by now. He pulled out the bottled water. It was nearly empty. "Hey, Christopher Columbus, what happened to all the water?"
"You drank it, Warmeat," Amanda shook out her soggy curls.
"And I'm sure I had no help from your quarter, Admiral Bird," Duncan grumbled.
"Will you stop!" Amanda tilted her seated posture and rubbed her backside. A mouse ran over her boot and she was so tired, she didn't even jerk. "I got us lost. All right? I'm sorry. I don't know how it could have happened. You don't seem to be any better in the pathfinder department."
"I found us some light and a view at least," Duncan handed over the water bottle.
"Through bars we can't budge," Amanda reminded him. "And night will come soon enough by the look of the light." She handed back the bottle without drinking. "Keep it. You may need some before we ever get out of this godforsaken maze."
Good God, Duncan thought, she must be tired. The generous gesture was entirely uncharacteristic. He didn't blame her. They were both battered and bone chilled and wet through. The entry into the first tunnel had been without incident. They had made their way perhaps a hundred yards into the tunnel and made the first turn on Amanda's map when a sluicegate opened somewhere ahead of them and they were tumbled, tossed, swept down a side drain, drowning and losing the map, all of Amanda's equipment, and their lights.
There followed a dismal trek through a lightless maze of steel and concrete, so confusing and trackless, that Duncan was at times unsure whether they were climbing or descending. Perhaps it was only his own paranoia and weariness, but the Highlander could have sworn that every time they seemed to be making headway, another wall of water would dash them down an unfamiliar pipe and they would have to start all over again. They'd been down here so long in the dark and the cold, losing time intermittently as they died from one injury or another, he had completely lost track of time. It felt like they'd been at this for years.
"This was such a stupid idea," he commented to no one in particular.
Duncan looked up just in time to see Amanda's hand dart out and catch the next rodent visitor by the tail. Then, with a quick flick of the wrist, she smacked it down on the ledge, smashing its head and killing it without even a final squeak.
"Gotcha," Amanda said without emotion, tossing the carcass into Duncan's lap. "Don't say I never cooked you supper."
Duncan's laughter deteriorated into a choking cough. When he could breath again, he set "dinner" aside and tried to come up with the next plan of action, seeing the expedition leader was so hopelessly inept. "What's that?" he remarked as a flash of light sparkled from Amanda's wrist.
"What?" Amanda grunted. "Oh, watch. See? When the big hand is on--"
Duncan grabbed her wrist.
"Hey!"
The Highlander ignored her complaint and focused on the watch. There were no hands, of course. It was a top of the line digital timepiece, stopwatch, interval timer, and, most importantly, waterproof. "Why didn't you tell me you had this?"
Amanda jerked her hand back. "You didn't ask. What good is it, anyway? The light isn't strong enough to see by."
"Does it say how long we've been down here?" Duncan tried to hold his temper.
Amanda blinked and shrugged. She touched one of the buttons. "Oh," she said, resetting the piece.
"Oh what?" Duncan tried to relax his jaw muscles.
"Guess."
"Amanda!"
"Oh, all right. Sixty two hours, five minutes, ummm, thirty-two, thirty-three--"
"My God!" Duncan exclaimed. "We've been down here three days."
"Well, actually," Amanda unbent her long legs and struggled up to standing. "It's two days, twenty--."
Duncan jumped up and stretched toward the grating. "Give me the watch," he reached out.
"You're welcome," Amanda snorted, handing it over.
"All right, Mandy, lean over and brace your arms on your knees," Duncan said.
Amanda giggled, "Well, it does sound like it has possibilities.
"I don't think so!" she said in the next instant, when Duncan planted his foot over her sacrum. She stood back up. "You lean over and I'll show you a trick!"
"Okay," Duncan assumed the aforementioned position. "Climb on my back and look for the horizon line through the grating. It's slanted enough, you probably can see it, off to the west. Then look for where the sun is, in relation to the horizon and I'll get a reading on the watch, and then when the sun sets--"
Amanda planted a boot against Duncan's backside that nearly sent him over the ledge and into the drink again.
"And what?" she planted her stance wide and put her fists on her hips. "You're going to figure latitude and longitude?"
"It was just a thought, Amanda," Duncan wondered how many Boy Scout demerits he might accrue tossing this troublesome woman into the dark, stinking waters below.
"Aside from the general estimate of 54o North and 130o West, just how accurate did you think you could get?"
Duncan shrugged. He had to admit it was a stupid idea. Still, getting oriented was of paramount importance, even if his fatigue-induced disorientation were making the process a bit dicey.
"I'm open to suggestions, Amanda," Duncan settled his tired bones back down on the cold concrete.
"I vote we give up on this siege and give serious consideration to a nap," Amanda snuggled down beside him.
"I'm all for that, Mandy," Duncan moved to stroke her cheek, but his hands were so filthy, he thought better of it. "If only Santa will leave a map in our stockings tonight, so we can find our way out of here."
"Santa?" Amanda tilted her face up towards his. "Oh, yes, it would be Christmas Eve by now. Well, Ho, Ho, Ho, Scot O' Mine, it's that way." She looked at her watch and then reached over him and pointed toward the third dark opening on the opposite wall.
"Really?"
Amanda nodded, "Really, Duncan. Let's go home."
"You've known how to get out of here all along, Amanda?"
"Yup," she sighed, lifting her wrist with the watch, now blinking a soft red light which lined up with the passage when she held it level. "Bread crumbs," she said by way of explanation.
"You left a seeker at the entrance?" Duncan asked. "You might have said something sooner, Amanda."
"I might, but then you would just have quit sooner," Amanda got up, looked down at the dark lake below them and shivered in disgust. "I get first dibs on the bath when we get home," she said and vaulted over the ledge, sploosh, into the nasty fluid.
"Yuck," her voice floated back to him from across the room.
Duncan shook out of his stupor. Damnation! He didn't have a finder watch. If he lost Amanda, he really would be stuck here for a while. "Wait up," he called after her and gathered up his gear.
And he looked like a peddler, just opening his sack.
Just beyond the cavern entrance, there was a set of steps up to dry floor, and just fifteen minutes later, Duncan found himself in the round well where they'd entered, three fun-filled days before. The sun was at too steep an angle to shine all the way down the well, but it painted blushing oranges and deep violets at the top of the steel ladder.
Duncan could not have said what exactly struck him as he watched Amanda begin her ascent, only three rungs off the well's rock flooring. What he did was more automatic reaction on his body's part, though it was borne of any number of inconsistencies.
And laying a finger aside of his nose, and giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.
Duncan reached up and pulled her down off the ladder. Then he spun her around and pinned her against the curved brick of the chimney's wall. "Who are you?" he hissed.
Amanda smiled feebly. "Duncan? You're just tired and hungry, Honey. We need to go home now."
"Cut the shit!" Duncan leaned more of his weight against her shoulders and brought his eyes down even with hers. "Who are you?"
"Amanda," she squeaked. "Amanda. Remember?"
"You look like Amanda," Duncan growled. "You sound like her. You even make love like her. But you are not Amanda. I'm going to ask you just one more time..."
"You're hurting me," she complained. "Duncan, what's the matter with you?"
"Who--"
"I don't know what you're talking about, Duncan. Please."
"Are--"
"Really, Duncan. Why are you doing this? What--"
"Oh, it's too late to turn it on now, WhoeverYouAre," Duncan remarked. "Got a little too tired to keep up the charade, eh? Didn't think I would notice how your aura seems to disappear now and again when you aren't paying attention."
"What?" Amanda's eyes grew rounder and rounder. "Oh, I just learned that from Thomas Cross."
"That was before or after you never talked about his owning the Drieg?" Duncan asked.
Amanda's gazed slipped away from his. "He doesn't tell me everything!" she pleaded.
"For sure he never told you to give back the last of the water or kill that rat, either. Amanda died of plague. She can't stand the thought of rats. She would never be able to touch one. And what was that, that sudden understanding between you and Sean? You've been running me in circles down here in the dark. Why bother? Who the hell are you?"
"Let me go and I'll tell you," Amanda said.
Duncan lifted his hands cautiously and stepped back, not very far.
She began sidling along the wall slowly, towards his weaker side, and that was really all it took to complete Duncan's understanding. "Ram!"
Amanda's head drooped forward and she slumped back against the wall, pulling her weight out of the balanced fighting stance which had given her away. "Yes," she said, apparently speaking to the floor.
"What in God's Name are you up to?" Duncan spat out the question like a curse.
Ram slid down the wall to sitting and wrapped her arms around her knees. "You were too mean to Grant," she said. "We couldn't move Adam until Mary delivered," she added. "You needed something to distract you, someone to watch you, some--uh--some way to use up your energy and stubbornness without actually letting you succeed in killing yourself. You needed a little special TLC," she sighed. "I don't know. There were any number of good reasons, Duncan, all of them to your benefit."
The Highlander rolled the words around his very tired brains. Some of it made sense. Some of it did not. "That isn't a trick," he said.
Ram squinted and stretched. "What?"
"That body," Duncan explained. "You really are walking around in Amanda's body?"
"Nooo," Ram snorted. "Just a copy. She's off in Africa with Grace and Cassie."
"Why not just distract me as yourself?" Duncan had no order to his questions. He just voiced them as they occurred to him.
Ram drew her shoulders in, defensively. "Ask me something else."
"All right," Duncan hunkered down on his heels. "Why can't Adam leave yet?"
"If anything happens to me," Ram's voice seemed so strange, emanating from Amanda's lips. "Then Adam is the only person left in the world who knows anything about dragon births, though I doubt he remembers much of what I told him. He would remember if he needed to."
Duncan stood up and loomed over her like a storm. "There's nothing here," he pointed to his heart. "Is there?"
Ram shook her head and pointed to her temple. "And if you don't think it was hard to put that suggestion into such a thick skull--"
"Yeah," Duncan smirked. "I should have known this from the moment you slipped and called me 'Warmeat.'"
Ram pushed up the wall and headed back for the ladder. "Let's go home."
"Wait," Duncan felt the muscles in his shoulders tighten, and then go slack. "Why did you pretend to be Amanda?"
"So I wouldn't remind you of my son, I suppose," Ram started up the ladder.
"Did any of you even consider speaking to either Adam or me about this? Did you think we might want to have a say in this decision, Ram?"
"At this point, Duncan," Ram leaned her forehead against the cold steel of an upper rung. "I really could care less about any of this. Yes, the answer is 'yes,' we did think about it, but we considered you could not be objective in your decision."
Ram climbed slowly up.
"Ram?"
She hesitated and answered wearily. "What?"
"Where is Connor, Ram?"
All Ram's Amanda-muscles bunched like a cat and she shot up the ladder, but Duncan was ready for her retreat. He jumped straight up, grabbed her waist and they both fell back, rolling, on the hard, cold stone, fists and boots and grunts and rage. There really was no attendant conversation as such, just a gasping, roaring diatribe, of accusations and explanations and a hatred more intense than the white-blue steel at the heart of the furnace, or the center of the earth.
When the incandescent vengeance finally cleared enough for Duncan to think again, he wiped the blood from his eyes and surveyed his handiwork. Ram--or the Amanda variation thereof--lay broken, bloody, and entirely dead, face down on the darkening floor of the deep stone pit.
Duncan sank to his knees, cursing the dragon who was, for now, beyond such concerns, and wailing his great grief for the loss of his father.
The dreadful cry echoed and magnified up the entire height of the well, a threnody of impossible dimension, unbearable pain.
For so long as he lived, Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod would never celebrate Christmas again.
"Master Cross," Sean called out cheerily as he entered the Command Center of the Cross Estates.
The tiny black man was watching one of the lower monitors, the new ones which watched the nursery tunnels. "What is it, Sean?" he asked without turning from the monitor array.
"The party is in full swing, Master," Sean rubbed Thomas' tight shoulders. "I will take the watch and you go have a little fun at least. Everyone's asking for you. The Dawsons are here and Kyle is beside himself, the picture of Christmas joy. All the Facets are drinking you out of your best wine supplies, even though they can't get drunk. They are all getting quite silly anyway. I thought you wouldn't want to miss the caroling. They really need your bass. And--"
Thomas adjusted the focus on one of the remotes. "And--?"
"I can't stand being around Mary much longer, Master," Sean confessed. "I know you said it would be a good exercise in courage and restraint, but--"
Thomas reached up and rested his hand on Sean's. "I don't think I said it would be either easy or painless.
"Sean?"
Duncan's only heir felt the muscles knot again beneath his hands. "What is it, Thomas?"
Cross' tones remained collected, "Go upstairs now and tell Grant to attend me. Tell him to leave the hosting duties to you. I know you will do well, despite the awkwardness of Mary MacLeod's presence here. You may not be the baby's father, Sean, but you will be its guardian, and as such, your duty transcends any discomfort you might feel now."
"Is something wrong, Master?"
"Now, Sean."
Thomas Cross waited until Sean was out the door and his footsteps no longer audible. Then he pushed violently back from the array and fell on the floor, pounding it with his fists and emitting a curious mixture of angry concern and profanity, something on the order of:
I told you it was a stupid plan, Ram. Look, Oh, God, just look at what has happened!
"Master!" Grant helped him up from the floor. "What?"
Thomas wriggled out of the giant's grasp. "I'm all right."
"If you say so, Sir. Sean said you needed me?"
Thomas retook his seat and rolled the chair forward. "Go to tunnel gate 50a. Take Striker and Dragon with you, and some blankets."
"Oh, dear," Grant leaned forward over Thomas' left shoulder and peered at one of the lower monitors. "Lord Ram is--"
"Sure looks that way," Cross murmured.
Grant picked up a phone and rang the main house, three levels above them. He spoke quietly for a few minutes and then returned to Thomas, pulling up a second chair.
"I told you--" Thomas began.
"I heard you, Master Cross," Grant punched on four more monitors in the bottom row and one in the center. "I will remain here."
And that, apparently, was that. Grant never disobeyed, Thomas thought, so it must be that his command had been out of order.
"You know what's going to happen," Thomas typed furiously on the nearest keyboard interface, mapping speed, direction, depth, setting up the water gates and working through the various contingencies.
Grant did not answer. He had two monitors on Adam Piersen, swimming in the grotto pool, just below ground level. They'd shut down his more usual haunt, in the larger pool complex, to finish the interior fittings. "It will be some time yet, Master. You could go topside and visit with the guests. Your party is going very well, but I think your guests are trying a little too hard to be merry. The food was fabulous. I saved some back. I could have Allen bring--"
"I like the tuxedo," Thomas grinned and reworked the calculations. The Highlander was more tired than he had estimated at first. Doubtlessly injured in some fashion after the melee with Ram. He recalculated for this particular Immortal's rate of regeneration, which was remarkably rapid. He was still wandering aimlessly, though. Thomas would not have to interfere yet.
"I had one fitted for you, Master. I could--"
"You can stay if you promise not to fuss, Grant. I'm anxious enough already."
"You haven't been to bed for three days now," Grant observed, neither man looking away from the monitors before them.
"Aw," Thomas re-aimed the number 50A camera away from Ram's messy remains and up the ladder. Good, Striker and Dragon had already made it to the entry. "You missed me."
"Oh," Grant hummed innocently. "I merely assumed you were discretely removing yourself so I could celebrate Solstice with Dragon."
Thomas put his head down on the monitor ledge-desk. "God help me, the Mountain made a funny."
"They have her, Master," Grant reached for the headset and adjusted it for Dragon's frequency. "Yes," he crooned into the mouthpiece. "I see. Second room west of the Galley on the third level. Wait." Grant stroked Thomas' shoulder.
"Oh," Thomas stopped laughing and took the headset. "Yes, that would be fine. No, leave Margaret and Molly at the party. Ram won't mind who cleans her up. It's not like she's even going to know. Oh, wait, not--." He had forgotten a moment. In the midst of all the rest of this, quiet little Molly had wandered off and gone missing, somewhere in Seacouver, and they'd yet to even get a lead on her whereabouts. Maybe she meant to absent herself. Maybe her heart was too tender for the tragedy of the Two Immortals. Whatever was the matter, Margaret was gone as well, searching the streets of 'Couver for her sister Facet. They had become such a part of this family that Thomas felt them here with them, even though they were both many miles away--or farther still, pray God this was not so.
Thomas handed the headset back to Grant. "I'm going to turn on the sound, Grant," he warned.
"If you think that would be wise," Grant said, meaning it was the stupidest thing he'd heard all week.
The giant tuned in the grotto pool, a larger version of Thomas' favorite bath, all igneous rock and ferns and indirect lighting. Adam was silent except for an occassional Egyptian epithet as he hit one rim or the other, misjudging the smaller dimensions of this pool.
Thomas slowly increased the volume on tunnel 143 through 148. He cut back the echo and listened. The Highlander was making some incoherent, godawful noise, not exactly weeping, not exactly roaring--somewhere in between. "Is that Gaelic?" he asked.
"If wounded lions speak in Celtic tongues, it is," Grant answered aridly.
"Oh, save me," Thomas started laughing again, with just an edge of hysteria. "Another funny."
"Report," Thomas Cross barked the moment he reentered the Command.
"And hello to you too, Sir," Grant reached over and pulled a chair out for Cross. "It would appear Chieftan MacLeod has taken the scent. He descended to the the fifth level and backtracked through the secondary tunnels. He reached the switch and took the vertical tunnel up to the second level."
Thomas wriggled out of the coat Grant had made him wear to "at least say 'goodnight' to your guests in something more respectful than flannel, Sir." Thomas rolled up his sleeves and settled into his chair. "Where--oh, I see. Dear Lord, he's nearly to the grotto."
"Not to worry, Master," Grant clicked through the security system check. The entire bank was green. "MacLeod will not make it much farther. He's nearly to the last inner security gate."
A quick check through the barn monitors, the half-dozen mares due to foal in January, but you could never tell. They were sleeping quietly. Then Thomas ran the mail from HQ Central--mostly sorting and prioritizing. Time to read them in the morning. All the while, he darted nervous glances towards Grant's screens, half of them with Adam still swimming laps, the other half with the filthy, weary Scot, doggedly pursuing his ruin.
"All right, Mr. MacLeod," Grant spoke to the screen, though there was no way Duncan could hear him. The giant punched up the warning lights over the steel gate.
"No sound alarms!" Thomas warned.
Grant looked at him as if he were insulted. "Perhaps you were concerned Adam would be alerted?"
Thomas sighed, "Perhaps I was, at that."
They both watched the Highlander hesitate, only a moment, surveying the warning.
"No!" Thomas cut the power to the gate, but too late. The Scot bolted back in a shower of sparks and cast his senseless bulk across the tunnel tiles. "Damn!"
Several moments passed silently.
"Do you want me to reengage the gate, Sir?" Grant asked finally.
"No," Thomas shook his head. "He can't get through it in any case."
"If he did," Grant mused, "there would be no stopping his getting to Adam. Should we send Dragon and Striker down to move Dr. Piersen?"
"Which would alert him as surely as a siren," Thomas said. "Ram said the suggestion about the defibrillator chip would wear off with time. We can't count on his testing it again and finding himself unencumbered."
Grant nodded. "I could not break that gate, Tom. Do not worry. It will hold. Even without the electrical charge, it will still hold."
"Thanks, Grant," Thomas reached up to stroke the giant's shoulder. "I guess I just needed to hear that."
"Lord MacLeod is coming around, Master," Grant turned their attentions back to the monitor which oversaw Gate 18e.
Duncan lifted himself up with one great effort and a loud grunt. Little tendrils of smoke still rose from his shirt where the electricity had sought its grounding straight through his flesh. Thomas watched the Scot throw his weight against the bars of the grating. Grant was right. They would not give.
Thomas watched the Highlander drive his fists, his arms, his back, against the bars, bloodying his forearms, wrist to elbow, laying bruise upon bruise over his chest and back. Again and again and again.
Cross turned his chair away from the monitor. Then he turned back and punched off the sound. He got up nervously and paced the room, trying not to watch MacLeod pummelling himself to tatters against the impossible steel.
"He is close enough to know Adam is near," Thomas said, crossing his arms.
Grant said nothing, but his pale eyes never left his Master.
Even with the sound off, Thomas could see Duncan howling as he broke his hands and still did not stop beating at the bars. "Grant," Thomas said suddenly, "Leave."
Grant just shook his head slowly. "I will take the responsibility, Master," he said. "Give me just a moment to make sure the area is clear." The giant ran through a perimeter check and then through the monitors. He reassured himself there were no horses out in the pasture which overlay the grotto. Then he reached his large hand over the gate control and dialed in 18e. "Farewell, Mr. MacLeod," he said in a soft, low voice. "You and Dr. Piersen will be missed."
Thomas could not speak. Ram would of course kill him, the moment she awoke and found out what they'd done. He could not, however, let Grant do this for him. He lunged forward and grabbed the giant's wrist.
Then Thomas brought his fist down on the button. The bars retracted into the tunnel sides and the way lay open at last.
Duncan's arms and hands were so beaten that it was several more minutes before he could use them to stand again.
But as soon as he was standing, he lumbered forward again and disappeared down the last bend of the tunnel.
Thomas turned off the monitors and just stood, staring at the screens as if they were a row of dead, uncaring eyes. Very unlike his own at this moment.
"You were right, Grant," Thomas took the offered kerchief and dabbed at his eyes. "I am far too romantic for anyone's good."
"No, Sir."
"No? You've taken to correcting me now, is it?"
"Not at all, Tom. Just reminding you what you taught me a long time ago: that mercy and goodness are as irresistable as the finest lover," Grant recited. "I do not think I quite understood that before now.
"Well, I did not understand about the goodness and mercy part, Master," Grant amended.
"This a private club?" Duncan stood unsteadily at the edge of the "pond" and called to the Old Man.
"What?" Adam stopped, mid-lap and jerked around, sculling in the middle of the pond. "You look awful!"
"Private, then," Duncan shrugged. He made a great show of checking through his tattered clothes. "Now where did I leave my guest card?"
"You're not supposed to be here," Adam commented. "You could get hurt. I would hurt you."
Duncan started laughing. "You and which army?"
"Duncan," Adam pleaded, "this is too dangerous. Really."
"Then why," Duncan stripped off what was left of his shirt. "Do you seem to be swimming ever-closer this direction?"
Adam took his bearings. He had covered half the distance to the poolside already and was even now still advancing.
"I actually haven't thought much about this," Duncan unbuckled his belt--the only intact portion of his wardrobe--and then slipped off his pants, kicking off his shoes and peeling his socks when the trousers got hung up on them. Stepping out of the rags at his ankles, Duncan lowered himself gingerly to sitting at the pool's edge. "I was just in the neighborhood--" he began, kicking in the cool water. "And I thought I might drop by."
"From a fatal height, by the look of you," Adam stood up in the shallows and waded slowly towards him.
"Well I would have dressed up," Duncan smiled, "but that always seems such a waste of time when we get together any more."
"True," Adam stopped an arm's length away. "Marak told me something that might help."
"Adam," Duncan took a full breath, testing his ribs. "I can't make this decision for you, only for myself. And I just don't have a choice. The world does go on spinning, the night still comes and then the day. Hearts go on beating and so forth. But when you are gone, then I am also gone, and all the rest really holds no meaning, Old Man, Best Beloved and Honored Husband of Mine."
"Which is why you were schtooping Amanda, Oh, Faithless One?" Adam tilted his head and scowled.
"Probably." Duncan scooped up some water and started dousing his arms, rinsing the dirt off his hands. "Or maybe it was a friendly gesture in exchange for help getting in here."
"Oh," Adam's scowl relaxed and he stepped closer.
"I always worried you would die first," Duncan mused, splashing his torso, melting the salt crystals that frosted his chest.
"In your dreams, Highlander," Adam snickered. He took another step forward through the clear blue water, the ripples echoing against the Scot's thighs.
"Listen to me, you thick-headed Scot," Adam moved closer. "If you keep me safe, hold my image before you exactly, then we should come through to the other side still alive."
"And if we don't," Duncan splayed his knees slightly and Adam walked between them.
"If we don't?" Adam asked, staring into the soft eyes whose mere absence had made him dead and blind these many weeks.
Duncan placed his hand over Adam's on the pool's side. Adam's other hand trailed down his thigh and snugged his leg against the Old Man's spare waist. Duncan felt as if he hadn't even been breathing until now, when he was back together in one piece, and alive again. He let his eyes wander over Adam, memorizing all the details which he already knew...
By heart, he thought. By my heart. That is how I know you, how I will always know you.
"If we don't," Adam asked again, laying the side of his face against Duncan's chest.
"Who knows?" Duncan murmured. He curled down and kissed the crown of Adam's head. "Maybe the flashiest Feast of Lights ever."
