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Chapter Eight: Sometimes a Dragon
Chaos and Lightning,
Stormy and Drear,
Shall Not Enter Near You
Nor Cause You to Fear.Sleep Softly, Sweet Baby,
No Thunder You'll Hear,For, Sometimes, My Dear Heart,
A Dragon is Near.
Thomas Cross, Master of the Estates, Xavier of the Drieg, puttered around the deck-level main room of his ersatz Frank Lloyd Wright home. He worked hastily to put the living room to rights before the Facets and the rest of his odd group had assembled for Christmas morn.
Nature, bless Her heart, is always a matter of balances, Thomas mused, fussing round the pine tree. For each thing there is an opposite, he reminded himself. There is not Light where there is not Darkness. There is not Joy where there is not Sadness.
In this way, he recited his way through the very sad morning, overbalanced, by half, towards grief.
And, I, Thomas continued the logic to its limits, I am the darkest, skinniest little Santa ever to bless Christmas, if it were not for Ba'al Thazaar, back at the very first celebration of this feast. There was no frankincense, but all the tones were indeed myrrh, even if all their gold was the tiny sword which Adam had left, mortally, in the depths of his brother's grieving heart.
Thomas was no Santa, after all. Matter, anti-matter...he was the Anti-Santa, stealing the parcels, Grinch-like, from under the tree, reading their tiny cards and sorting them into two piles.
One to go back under the tree.
The other to hide from their eyes and dispose of discretely, when the time permitted.
When he had removed all of Duncan MacLeod's gifts, both from and for, and the same with Dr. Piersen's, he bundled them up in his anti-santi pack and ported them over to a closet beyond the kitchen on the landing of the tunnel steps. Then he sat down in the darkness and gave himself a present, the luxury of a good long cry.
Sniffing loudly, Thomas wiped his nose on his bathrobe sleeve. Well, he thought. Enough of this. The two Immortals have given themselves to each other for Christmas, and there is some glory there, even if it hurts too much to appreciate at the moment. Time for lyric eulogies later. The guests would be here any moment and it fell to him as host to see to their joy this day.
Even in all this darkness, there would be light.
He would make it so.
Or at least he would make them coffee and a fine breakfast so they could find the light themselves.
Thomas was much lighter of heart in the next hour which saw his family gather, sleepy and soft, mumbling their gratitudes for his many attentions.
Facets could not get drunk, nor could they be hung over, but the ample and hearty feasting they had done the night before rendered them sluggish and good-natured. Hello Allen stumbled up the outer stairway with Striker and Dragon, the three of them smelling of barn and horse, shedding cold from their thick 'ralls like ice gods. The trio had gathered at the fireplace while Thomas fed them, as they had done him the favor of feeding his fine stables, seeing the usual barn crew was in town for the holidays.
Facet Margaret would not be attending. She was still south of them, in 'Couver,' searching for Molly, gone these many weeks, without a word--as silent in her absence as she had been in her presence.
But here came the MacLeods, Sean and Mary, speaking quietly to one another as if no one else existed. The MacLeod heir settled his very pregnant wife in deep pillows and afghans on the sunny window seat and joined Thomas in the kitchen section of the room, pulling out the warm rolls and setting them on the trays of honey and butter and a rainbow of jams. He put some holly round the edges and went, first to Mary, and then to the trio at the fire, where he left the tray. Sean retrieved the coffee and cups tray and set it beside Mary at the window, mixing up her morning decoction, which was more sugar and cream that it ever was coffee.
Together they sorted through the music selection on Master Cross' slate, setting the mix for the morning, all traditional tunes, medieval pieces set at a volume just above the background noise of the trio at the fire, belching and whinnying their way through a tale of their getting up so early and all the barn business.
Thomas watched the two young Immortals. Such a wistfully romantic pair they were. Except for the Greater Destiny which moved each of their lives, they might have been truly wed--and perhaps they would be, once this child was born and Malak was gone beyond The Last Gate forever. If only Mary weren't so sure she would die soon. Well, Ram had returned, Thomas reasoned, and with Chaos, even Fate must stagger back and sway.
Thomas' ruminations were cut short as Sweet Lucille rolled into the room, dressed in a velvet gown of deepest green, looking like Mother Verdant, or perhaps Maid Marion. No, thought Thomas, nothing about the Mayor's wife put one in mind of maidenly virtues.
And God bless her for that, he thought as he handed her a frothy Bailey's Cream Coffee, complete with whipped cream and just a shaving of chocolate. She settled silently into one of the over-stuffed wingbacks near the second Christmas tree, just at the edge of Sean's adoring world which he had built around his wife in the sun of the window.
Thomas picked up the slate and sent the lift down to the second sub-basement where the master suites resided and Mayor Dawson would be waiting, just as soon as he noticed Lucille had finally left without him.
And so they assembled, Thomas buzzing around them like a bee across a meadow, lighting here and there, picking up their moods and conversations, dispersing them through the room until everything was going smoothly as honey, orderly as comb.
Dawson appeared finally, all out of sorts, barking and growling about where Lucille had gotten off to and why hadn't she said something, and how the hell--
Mother Verdant had him in hand and mounted on the second wingback, by the window tree, smoothing his feathers, and feeding him champagne and peaches, before his prickly mood had stirred the room.
Joe probably suspected something was amiss, Thomas reasoned. It was so unlike the Watcher to bluster like that.
When the croissants and sausages, egg whips and teas, strawberries and cream, and the rest were more or less decimated and the guests began to nod, Thomas took a quick inventory.
Mary and Sean on the window seat by the second tree, Lucille and Joe in the chairs across from them, the barn trio still by the fireplace. Allen, in the kitchen nook, grazing half-heartedly on the left-overs while Kyle, who had slipped in quietly, counseled against gluttony. Yes, that was all of them.
There were others, separated by distance...
...or circumstance.
Thomas served them all mulled cider, invited them to sit on the thick rugs, or to bring hassocks over to the second tree. Then he made excuses for Grant, and for Adam, and made like the elf they all suspected him of being.
"I think we'll start with these," he handed a small package to Mary and another to Lucille.
Each couple bowed over the gifts and cooed appropriately when the crystal angels, Thomas had gotten for all his family, were revealed. He had the others all distributed, except for Kyle's.
"This is for you, Kyle Dawson," Thomas said formally. "Consider yourself officially part of us."
They all applauded, except for Lucille who looked suddenly away, out of the large window into the blinding white of the snow-dazzled sky. Mary leaned forward, as far as she was able, and said something understanding, one mother to another.
Which only served to make Mrs. Dawson cry.
"Now, let's see--" Thomas hurried to lift the mood, by sheer muscle alone. "What is this interesting--?"
"Master?"
Everyone turned from the tree towards the "dungeon" door, beyond the kitchen.
Oh, no! Thomas cursed silently. "Grant," he acknowledged aloud.
The gigantic servant stood in the doorway, making no effort to move into the room. Thomas was grateful for that at least. The man was stinking of soot and cinder, caked in frozen icicles of sparkling mud. He'd obviously just come from the very task he had been sent on, earlier this morn. But he should not have joined them still with the mud from the grave over his enormous hands, still sweating and steaming with the efforts of that sorry exertion. Thomas just could not believe Grant--usually so proper in all things--would have erred so miserably. He was going to ruin whatever semblance of rejoicing that Thomas had managed up to now.
"Perhaps if you returned after a bath," Thomas ordered, pinning the giant with a cobra's stare.
"It could not wait, Sir," Grant replied.
"What could not wait?" Thomas tried to ask evenly, turning his back to the group and making desperate signals to Grant.
"I've Christmas presents to give," Grant's deep bass announced.
"Grant!" Thomas' usually pleasant, easy tones hissed like a steam vent.
Thomas' implacable man-servant, spouse of long-standing, and second-in-command, lifted his two fists up in front of him. "Mistress Mary," he asked softly.
"Yes, Mister Granite," Mary giggled and shifted to a more comfortable position, nearly recumbent.
"Pick which hand," he finished the game they had played in the past.
It was difficult to tell, beneath the mahogany of Thomas' sleek hide, but the Master of Cross Estates began to flush with an apoplectic rage.
"Ummmm," Mary put her index finger in her mouth and thought a moment. "That one," she said finally, pointing to neither hand actually--which was always how she won at this game, letting Mr. Granite decide which hand she had picked.
"Excellent choice, Mistress," Grant finished the liturgy as he always had. He reached behind his back and revealed his gift.
"Mother!"
With a little help from Sean, Mary rose and waddled over to Anne Lindsey, where they fashioned a hug around her very large belly and her all-too-tender breasts. Judge Stone stood awkwardly nearby, until the other facets broke out of their stunned surprise and rushed him as well, warming him with their welcome.
They gathered back by the second tree and heard the grand news about Richie and Alexa and the breeding farm they had started in Alameda. The Monstro colt bringing high breeding fees. And the old mare had settled to a neighbor's Arabian, and they all sent their best, and no one was ever happier or more in love with--
--and so on, until Mary stared back at the dungeon door where Grant still stood, waiting.
The others followed her attention.
Just in time to see Grant put up his fists again. "Your turn, Master Sean," he said. "Which hand?"
Sean helped Mary back down to the deep window seat and she proceeded to curl up on her side, using his lap as a pillow while the bright sun warmed them both. "The other one," Sean answered. It did seem, where Mary was concerned, he always was left with second choice.
"Oh. I am sorry," Grant's hard hand opened up. Except for the dirt, it was empty.
Sean knew what the dirt meant. He knew he had chosen, if not entirely of his own accord, this empty hand. He should be used to it by now, he thought, as he stepped away from the window seat, making way for Mary and her mom and the Judge, all of them acting as if he'd suddenly become invisible.
"I'll help you get cleaned up," Sean strolled across the room towards the giant, but his eyes lingered on the warm little group at the tree, feeling at once dismayed and dismissing of there petty joys. He was going to be a man now and such things were going to be for others, not for him. In a sudden apprehension, he felt how his mother must feel, the sodden, sad affection that she bore for them all, even from her lonely distance.
"Well," Grant smiled as he approached. "There is something here on the stair you can help me with, if you promise to be very quiet about it."
Sean followed him into the dark landing.
In the next moment, the dirty, empty hand wrapped round the bottom half of Sean's face, effectively stifling the scream that would have sounded far into the woods and all the way down to the barn--or even Seacouver by the Bay, for that matter.
Several moments passed before Sean gathered his wits enough to nod his consent to be quiet, and then the large hand moved away, the giant withdrew, Sean found himself wrapped in his father's arms.
"Easy, easy, there," Duncan said softly, over and over, as Sean shuddered and sobbed silently.
"Merry Christmas," Sean said finally, in a breathless gasp. "You're, you're--"
"What is it?" Duncan asked. "What is wrong, Son?"
"I thought," Sean swallowed and sniffed. "I thought you were dead, that you had gotten together with Dahm and that you both died--but--" he blinked and pulled back from his father. "But you, you feel different, Pops--and that fireworks in the field--"
"Come here," Duncan reached for his son.
Sean pulled back farther, pressing his back against the stone wall of the landing. "Who are you?" he asked.
"I am still mostly me, Son," Duncan said gently. "And, yes, Adam and I have been together, but we did not die, as you can see. He will be up shortly, Sean. He's playing with the horses in the barn, has been ever since the breakfast crew left. I tried to make him come up here with me, but he says he will be along shortly. Then Grant and I ran into the Stoners, driving up the lane, and then--"
"Where did you get that coat?" Sean disconnected from the essential and went fluttering around the more understandable peripheral items which presented themselves to him.
"This?" Duncan put his hands on the lapels of the worn brown coat. "It's my favorite. You know that. 'Course, it's a little thin at the elbows--,"
"Not yours," Sean said, trying to avoid the nearly nauseous feeling that seemed to be winding his guts tighter and tighter.
Duncan's features softened slightly and confusion narrowed his deep eyes. "Right. Adam's coat. Adam's," he repeated, as if to remind himself.
"Take it off, Pops. It doesn't even fit you." Having fixed on the coat, a safe and sane diversion--or so he thought--Sean could not seem to let it go.
"Well," Duncan laughed softly. "Now that's going to be a problem."
Sean reached for Duncan's--Adam's--collar and pulled forward. "Geez, Pops!" he said, alerting the entire main room behind him.
"I lost all my clothes down the Cross Estate Plumbing getting here, Son," Duncan patted his son on his head. Something he knew Sean hated. "It's not like I came to flash the celebration, after all."
"Pity," Lucille said from the main room, unable to keep the respectful silence any longer.
"I meant to give you this in private, Son," Duncan reached into the pocket of his coat--Adam's coat, Adam's--and pulled out a legal-size envelope, handing it to Sean. "To remind you that fatherhood is not a matter of impregnation, that one of your own fathers loved you nonetheless that your were my flesh and not his."
Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod left Sean to join the patiently waiting remainder of his clan who gathered round him and welcomed him home, none of them noting he was naked beneath Adam's coat--except for those who were delighted thereby.
Sean remained in the landing alcove, opening the envelope. It contained an old photograph, a nativity of sorts. There was Dahm. There was Sean as a baby, a tiny foot planted firmly on his brother's heart. I will try, Pops. I will surely try to be as good to Mary's babies as you were both to me. I will try to love them with all my heart.
But I really don't see how that will be possible if they kill my Mary.
Then again, Adam had thought Sean had killed Ram, at least at the beginning.
Maybe it was possible...
If you were wise, and clever,
...and five thousand years old.
The extended clan MacLeod Christmas gathering listened to Thomas explain his lie to those who hadn't suspected, and his gratefulness to those who had guessed the sorry outcome, but had remained silent.
Anne and Stoner's appearance had been a complete surprise--even to Judge Stone, who hadn't known they were coming until they started the cross-country drive three days ago, non-stop. When Anne got a notion...well.
"Well, Grant," Thomas returned from his quick trip to the closet and began laying out the purloined presents again. Thomas tried to pay attention to the task. His dark face was not really suited for the addled expression it had developed as he fell in love with Grant all over again. "I suppose we better open some of these gifts so you can go down and clean up before we serve breakfast to our newest arrivals. Here."
Thomas didn't do shy very well, either, but he held out the large box, no wrapping, just a red bow and GRANT scrawled at the top, and he couldn't seem to lift his eyes from the floor as he did so.
"You are too kind, Master Cross," Grant said elegantly, graciously.
"Here ya go, Pops," Sean bounced into the room and handed his father a tall stack of boxes, all wrapped in different, bright colored foils, a rectangular metal rainbow of many parts.
"Well, open it," Sean and Cross said, nearly in unison, as the giant and the Highlander hesitated, distracted as they both were by their own cheery feelings.
Duncan lowered himself carefully to the rug and began on the first box, reading the happy card Sean had written.
Here's to the time when we are all together again.Tygger
They all laughed at Sean's reference to his father's pet name for him. The clairvoyant or hopeful note which emphasized this special morning drew Anne and Mary together before the warm window. Lucille's pale hand reached over to stroke the Mayor's silver beard.Duncan lifted the moss green raw silk from the box. "My shirt," he said.
"Yes, Pops," Sean ducked. "Dahm and I ruined your others. There's a whole collection," he indicated the other boxes, "and some of those pale flannel slacks you like. I didn't think to get you shoes," he apologized.
"Well, I seem to have made out like a bandit, Grant," Duncan declined Lucille's suggestion that he try the shirt on so they could see how it fit. "How'd you do?"
They all looked up at the giant, still standing, a thick white fur cloak draped over his arms.
"Put it on," Thomas said gruffly.
"I don't believe it is legal, Sir," Grant commented.
"I swear to you, by the Father, Grant. I broke no laws getting you this," Thomas replied.
"I can't see how that is possible, Sir. It is polar bear."
The Clan Leod gasped in unison.
"But they're endangered!" Sean blurted out. "How could you?"
Master Cross rolled his golden eyes heavenward. "Wait a minute," he said and stomped off to the desk that sat in a bay window off the main room. He was soon back with a mountain of papers in his dark hands. "Here!" he slapped them down on top of the fur.
Grant handed the fur off to the Mayor and began to peruse the documents.
The giant started reading and sorting through the pages, bills and expedition schedules, veterinary reports and diving records. His demeanor, at first righteously patient, soon began to deteriorate most dramatically. His thin lips pressed together more tightly and then a sputter, and another, and he turned his back to them and opened his mouth, roaring and shaking all over.
"My God!" Duncan rose. "What is it?" He started towards Grant.
Thomas intervened. "He's laughing," he explained.
"Really?" Sean asked from his place on the floor, thinking to himself that it was fortunate Grant did not do this very often.
"What's the joke?" Striker asked, looking up from the gild-handled switch Dragon had given him.
"Well, it isn't legal to kill a polar bear," Thomas began, "so I had to wait until one died a natural death. We have been tracking this bear for a decade now, waiting. But then, when he did finally die, the beaste fell into the water before we could get to him and I had to hire three teams of divers to go down to get him, and then finally a small submersible, and then when they got him up, well, it was difficult...we had figured the load for dry bear, not wet and frozen. The air platform crashed and we had to send out three jet choppers and then customs would not let the military vehicles overfly the return route and..."
"Oh, do stop that, Grant," Thomas popped the giant who was still roaring.
Grant turned around slowly, holding his breath. "It's just--well, it's a beautiful--a veritable Viking's mantle, Sir. It's just--"
"Just what, Grant?"
"I didn't think you still had a craving for 'Conan ravishes Sambo' any more, Sir."
Grant started laughing again. They all started laughing. Even Anne by the window, communing with the next generation. Even Adam, draped silently against the door frame of the entry to the lower levels.
But not Thomas, whose sense of decorum and reverence for the season had dissolved into a tight- throated, guttural fury, "Sambo? I'll Sambo you, you overgrown albino excuse for a--!"
Grant made a run for it with Thomas in hot pursuit.
Adam sucked back out of their path. "Merry Christmas," he mumbled, as they swept past like a storm wind.
"Same to you," the tiny black man's impressive voice echoed back up the stairway as he chased the giant, like Alice after the rabbit, down the dark well to the lower levels. It was uncertain whether he was returning the blessings of the season or answering something Grant had said.
Adam nodded silently towards the Christmas gathering and strolled in an effortless glide towards the first hearth at opposite end of the room. Kyle scrambled up to serve him breakfast at the other fireplace and Duncan folded himself down on the floor by the tree and its presents, at the feet of Mother Verdant Lucille.
Sweet leaned forward and ran her fine fingers through his waves. "It's so nice to see you not dead, Chieftan."
"Mmmm," Adam murmured from his languid recumbency before the fire.
Duncan grinned and took the warm mug of coffee Sean offered before his son set off across the room to take Adam his presents.
"Let's see," Duncan commented on their various presents, each little wording an artful weaving of Thomas' kind gestures and their own place in the clan. "You don't seem much in the spirit, Joe," he ended his tour of the celebrants.
"I thought you were dead," Joe snorted.
Duncan halted suddenly and his dark eyes unfocused briefly, then he burst out laughing, never turning around as Adam toasted behind his back with a half-full mug. "And would that dark mood be," Duncan caught his breath, "because we did or did not die, Mayor?"
"I suppose you disappoint him on both counts, Lord," Lady Lucille piped up, shushing her son, Kyle's, ready rejoinder. "He's just embarrassed that you made him cry, coming back so unexpectedly and all. Pay no attention. His Honor will be himself in no time at all. Here, I think this is just the thing." She leaned over Duncan's left shoulder, draping a velvet and breast pillow very close to his left ear, as she reached for his gift.
Adam's ample beak curved down over a grin, though his emerald gaze never left the fire at the opposite end of the room.
Occupied with his hands full of the breakfast which Lady Verdant's blond son had brought him, Duncan asked Mary to open the present for him, but the gravid little daughter-in-law by the sunny window just blushed. Must be some present. "Well, then, Joe, would you be so kind?" Duncan tilted his head up towards the Old Blues Master.
"Give it here," Joe said gruffly, earning a smack on his false knee by his Dearly Beloved, and a conciliatory pat on his other false knee by his doting son.
Lucille handed over the thin box with a deviltry that caught everyone's attention.
Duncan turned his attention back to his breakfast, relishing Adam's delight at his new Christmas boots from his brother, Sean. He didn't hear Joe choking behind him, or the titter of wicked delight which followed his present from Sweet Lucille around the circle in the sunny nook.
He only heard the blessed sigh of his son as he melted into Adam's long arms and returned, for a moment, to his childhood. Merry Christmas, Son, Duncan thought warmly, sopping the last of the eggs with a crust of Thomas's wonderful bread.
Duncan reached for his gift as it finally came round the circle to his place on the floor.
"You'll have to wipe your hands," Dragon said, pulling back the gift and staring.
Duncan wiped his mouth and then his hands. He looked up. They were all staring at him with such looks that made the Highlander glance down to assure himself that Adam's old raggy raincoat hadn't suddenly rendered him indiscreet. But no, he was more dressed than he would have been in the clan colors. He reached up for the gift, a picture in a gold frame.
It was...
Adam erupted in loud guffaws at the other hearth.
"Oh, shut up!" Duncan said without looking up. "Just stop with the visions of sugarplums already!"
It was one of the pictures that had gotten them run out of town so long ago, when Sean was still a baby. Which reminded him...
Duncan lifted his head and stared into the distance.
Adam jumped up and disappeared into the kitchen and the stairwell beyond.
"What is it, Pops?" Sean asked as he wandered back towards the main group.
"He went to get our present to you, Son," Duncan replied.
"No," Sean bumped Duncan's shoulder with his knee. "Hand it up. Let me see." He reached down for the picture.
"Oh, Dear Lord!" Sean exclaimed nearly dropping it. "You think that's an appropriate gift, Lucille?" He set the picture on the floor, face down.
Mary turned from her conversation with her mom, "Oh, Sean, you can be so rigid sometimes!"
"Well excuse me all to hell." Sean lent a wonderful lyricism to one of Sweet's favorite lines. "I am just old-fashioned enough to believe the silly things like 'honor your father.'"
"Well he's not our father," Mary smiled sweetly, obviously taking the upper hand without even raising her voice. She returned her attention to her mom and the lengthy tale about the MacLeod flight from Seacouver and the origin of the photograph.
Stoner, sitting on Anne's other side, tried to practice his judicial reserve.
"And thank God for that," Lucille leaned forward and kissed the crown of Duncan's head.
"Amen to that," Joe said, seeming to agree, but meaning something else entirely.
Adam slipped in behind Sean, reached around him, and presented him with their gift. "We thought you would want to be officially included in the infamous tartan series, Brother. Wouldn't want you to be the only MacLeod with your dignity intact."
Sean took the present, a suspiciously similar size as Duncan's and held it out, gazing slowly over his shoulder at his brother, and then down at his father. "What are you two up to?"
"You saved our lives, Son," Duncan turned around, carefully, and rose on his knees, squaring his wide shoulders. "When we would have forgotten ourselves, you were the anchor. We remembered who we were in relation to you...and that was so clear to us that we survived in that image."
The explanation, the declaration, really made no more sense than the random twinkle of the Christmas lights, or the bulbous distortions of their faces in the crystal balls adorning the dead tree at their center. What they all did understand, however, was the loud gasp from the kitchen as the giant and the HorseMaster returned to find the Scot and the Eldest Immortal within arm's reach of one another.
Something most of their efforts and combined energies had been directed towards preventing the entire fall and early winter. Only Sean stood between them now.
"Adam," Thomas called out. "Perhaps if you helped me with the coffee?"
Adam's lank frame twisted sinuously round and he strolled towards the kitchen, less from Thomas' summons than from the almost imperceptible nod from the Scot, who had meanwhile settled back on his heels and pulled his son down beside him to open their present.
"It must really be awful by the look of that grin on your face, Pops," Sean muttered, opening the gift as slowly as was humanly possible.
Duncan only smiled.
Of course, Sean's protestations had brought him into the center of all their attentions, except for Adam who was stacking dishes and making snappy little remarks that had Grant blushing like a mountain at sunset.
Sean was finally down to the box and nowhere to go but to lift the lid. He shook his head and opened the box, unfolding the thin tissue, and revealing the portrait. He was going to cry. Right here, in front of God and everybody, he was going to make a sopping fool of himself. "Damn you both," he said, but there was so much love in the remark it rather lost its meaning.
"And that, Dear Sean, is a portrait of the little warrior who won us back our lives and brought us home again," Duncan said, making just a little more sense this time, as he hugged his Champion and Heir within an inch of his life. There were hugs and "Awww's" all around, except for Grant, in the kitchen with Adam and the coffee. The giant respectfully declined Dr. Piersen's enthusiastic offer to glom.
Thomas was entirely drawn into the Christmas spirit and he was transformed, elf-like into a harbinger of all things Yule, skittering about the celebrants, apportioning the rest of the gifts, and more tasty victuals, warm drinks, warmer sentiments, and just general good cheer and blessings of the season.
Anne and The Judge left to unpack their things in one of the guest rooms and Mary leaned back against the sun-warmed panes and gave the next generation MacLeod a little more room, especially Sean's obstreperous intended who wasn't any more pleased with all this hugging than was Master Cross' giant.
They do make a wonderful family.
Merry Christmas, Malak, Mary acknowledged him silently. And you too, Father, she added.
Blessings on you, Child.
A warm rumble with the deep bass undertones seemed to ripple up from her toes. Mary smiled sleepily and folded her tiny hands over her swollen belly. Sean's nameless future love bumped up against Mary's palm and then nestled quietly atop her sibs. She smiled more widely as she contemplated what a family she made, all by herself.
Someone came over--was it Lucille?--and tucked Mary into a warm quilt and refilled her hot cocoa, but Mary was distanced in a pleasant and tranquil vantage, just watching peacefully. Is that what they mean when they call you "Watcher?" she asked silently.
This engendered a delightful fluttering, like wings' ascendance. You know the meaning of my name, Beloved.
At least, Mary answered. When you know everything about me, Bird.
I have the advantage of time, Beloved.
And obsession, Mary added.
Guilty as charged, Little Mary.
Soon, Bird, she thought. Very soon, now. The oft-repeated phrase took on a more immediate meaning somehow, against the backdrop of Christmas cheer, the general loving remembrances of presents and kindnesses which the extended clan shared as the morning rolled on towards dinner and Thomas' excellent turkey wafted deliciously through the entire room. Hearth and home, Mary thought, watching, just watching.
Will I watch when I am dead, Bird?
Mary, the sigh lifted her chest and breezed round her heart. I have told you--.
Yes, I know, Bird--You don't have words for such things that are beyond--yadayadayada. Look at them, though. See how it is between Unka Dunc and Unkadem? I mean--
I know. I've been watching. Do you see the wave?
The what? But even as she asked, Mary did indeed see what Malak meant. There was a broad crystalline wash shimmering back and forth between Adam and Duncan, rippling over the entire room, washing up gently against the ankles of the folk who passed between them. Subconsciously, or not so, the Facets strove to keep the two men separate, but the wave continued on, no matter their distance. The two men were each involved in a knot of conversation at opposite ends of the room, but they still conversed with each other as the wave broke quietly, back and forth, upon their opposite shores.
Some joke in one group would prompt a happy laughter in the second and, likewise back to the first. And if the others did not see this broad, light-dazzled wave, still they were blessed by it as surely as if it washed them in substance and not in grace.
Mary herself was drawn into the blessing of these two men, though she understood it not at all. She had been around those who were "in love." This was surely not that. No distancing baby talk. No giggled secrets that set them apart. This was an all-embracing force which included, rather than excluded, the others.
They did not so much as look at each other, but they might just as well be wrapped tightly in each other's arms, or conjoined, like mis-born twins.
What is this? She began to ask, but the thought was interrupted when Adam's long back bowed briefly and he took his leave of his group to join Duncan at the exact middle of the large room.
If they did not see the wave building in high swells and flashing caps, still the others were stunned by their unspoken fears as the two men approached each other. Duncan and Adam seemed oblivious to the effect their progressive proximity was making on the Christmas guests.
But they could not ignore the audible gasps as their hands reached out.
"What?" Duncan pulled his hands back and returned their fearful glances. "What's wrong?"
"I think they fear we will make a hole in the floor," Adam suggested.
No one laughed. It was too true.
"Oh," Duncan chuckled warmly. "That. Well, you can all start breathing again. We've had some practice at this now--"
"A lot of practice," Adam added salaciously, despite Duncan's warning frown.
"And, well," Duncan lifted his hands again, palms forward. "See for yourselves."
Adam reciprocated, his slender, long fingers fanning out like wings.
Between their palms a light, a small glow, appeared in the air and built to a sparking, crackling orb.
Oh, my, Mary thought as she watched the others gather around, the wonder washing their faces of all their years and painting them in baby colors. "Wows," and "Oh's," and "Ah's" rang in breathy admirations.
"Is it a Quickening?" Thomas asked, thoroughly absorbed in the phenomenon and not really listening for any answer.
Mary, Malak called her back to her senses. Pay close attention, Mary. Comes now the benediction.
Mary could not think what more blessing could possibly be given them this holy day, but she knew Bird well enough to pay attention when he asked. He asked for so little usually.
There, in the darkened alcove off the kitchen, she saw why he had asked this.
Ram stood there, watching. Her face lit up as she moved forward out of the shadows. She seemed a child and an ancient, both at once, the lineless face, the placid, focused manner of her every move and gesture.
The glow at the room's center continued to build, seeming now like the blinding light of a welding torch, making them all squint and draw back.
But Mary's attention was on the quiet figure moving into the room on sinuous, soundless strides, her slight frame braced for war or peace or both. Then Ram stood, unnoticed, behind the group and began to move her arms away from her body.
The gesture was so familiar, Mary had to concentrate to think what it reminded her of. Of course, every Renaissance painting and Orthodox triptych and...
The palms rotated forward to their extreme limits, the thumb and first finger circled precisely, the three remaining fingers curved gracefully, perfectly, as the arms lifted slowly, evenly, through a dancer's circle, first position to second. As Ram did so, Mary noticed the floating fire between the two Immortals flared larger and began to stream rays through the room, over the guests, now transfixed where they stood in the circle around Duncan and Adam.
And Ram's beautiful hands gathered the light and sent it back to the Christmas gathering, straight to their hearts where it ran up their spines and glowed in brilliant auras round their heads, lighting their faces in a transfiguration of utter peace.
Only Mary remained outside the benediction. I am the Martyr, she thought.
Oh, Mary...Malak began woefully.
I mean as a witness to something holy, Bird, Mary corrected him. Maybe she meant both, at that.
I do regret I am no part of this, she thought with no little self-pity, But then, they have to regret they do not sleep with angels--or they would regret, if they knew. She suspected that they had each found their own angels, and were as blessed as she, by more than just this stunning benediction. Except for poor Sean, she thought, though he will soon be blessed more than he can stand.
The light receded so quickly it seemed the room went dark as their eyes adjusted and their disorientation found a voice for their pleasant confusion, like afterglow.
Duncan's deep voice brought them back to the world most rudely. "RAM!" he roared at the spare figure standing by the second hearth.
"Lord Leod," Ram bowed her head in a curt bob, looking, despite the simple white T-shirt, like a royal in full robes and splendor. She acknowledged his rudeness as if it were of no consequence at all.
"Plentyn gordderch!" Duncan exclaimed, his voice so strictured in rage he wouldn't have been understandable, even discounting the Gaelic garble. There was more. Something like bwrw and another which sounded like "are-we-low," but was clearly not that question, though they might have answered yes to that. Bastard (literally, "son of a concubine"), cast down, mourning the dead--in that order.
They gathered around their incoherent Chieftan, arms folded, stances set. Though it was unnecessary, Kyle helped his father up to standing. Mary pushed up from the deep window seat and waddled over to join them.
"He means to banish me," Ram explained without emotion, seeing her eldest son was not going to translate for them. "It is the most terrible punishment one Highlander can grant another," she continued as Duncan growled out the malediction. Ram remained unmoved by the irony that necessity had made of her in this moment, to be the translator of her own damnation...nor the deeper irony, that she had spent two decades now doing just exactly that, in one way or another.
"If I remember rightly," Ram interjected. "You should all now turn your backs to me. You are supposed not to pay me any heed hereafter, but you will have to listen until I finish translating the ritual. It is a small breach. I don't think anyone will count it against you."
They turned, in unison, only to be met by the sight of the larger Christmas tree and the sunwashed snow through the windows beyond--a too-fitting imagery of the home which they were now denying the woman who stood behind them, patiently telling them how to think of her as dead and buried.
"I have murdered Connor MacLeod," Ram intoned, "and for that traitorous act against the clan, I am banished forevermore. The words are these:
"From this day forward, you are unknown to me.
Your words are silence. Your comings and goings of no consequence.
Never were you born, never did I know you, never did you walk the world.
If our paths cross, you will step aside, for my course is unaltered by the dead.If you fall, I will not heed you,
If you hunger, I will not feed you,
If you die, I will not bury you.You are nothing, and less than nothing,
You are not."
"So was Duncan MacLeod sent out of the Highlands," Ram editorialized. "And so am I sent out of your midst."They did not turn around again until she was gone.
With this single and terrible act, Duncan MacLeod had come into his kingdom, his lordship of a most unusual clan. It was a sobering moment, sad and exultant, both at once. He had commanded and they had answered and the pattern had been set which would see them through countless adventures as yet unforeseen, albeit the command had been ill-conceived at best. Perhaps that was what made their obedience all the more legitimate. What would it have meant if he asked them something easy, something they would have done anyway?
Sad as the moment was, it owned its own magnificence. The mirror of the dragon's banishment had brought them all together as surely as the benediction and in a much more tangible fashion. In the way of all Men, since the first Dawn, they had created Order and beat back Chaos. In the righteous vengeance of their Chief, they had each found their place inside the circle of his defense.
And it was not as if each of them--The Dawsons, Mary, Thomas and Grant, and Strike, Hello Allen and Dragon, and those who were absent, Stoner and Anne and poor, missing Molly, and faithful Margaret gone after her--hadn't at some time or another felt drawn into the more immediate family MacLeod of Sean and Adam and Duncan. This was different, somehow, a more permanent affirmation, like a covenant.
All of this remained unspoken as they separated to do something more ordinary, more familiar and less daunting. Grant and Adam returned to the kitchen nook, to help Thomas with the turkey, while Allen and Dragon and Striker moved to unfold a large table and set it with feasting fare. Lucille gathered her blood kin round her like a motherly hen, a protective arm around both her "men."
Only Sean remained, unmoving and sullen, at the center with his father. A few more moments passed while he waited for "Pops" to come back from the ethereal rush of power and fatherly glow.
Mary made her way back to the window and snuggled soundly under the quilt, napping off to visit with her own clan.
"No," Sean's denial stopped all activity in the room. It wasn't so loud, just incredibly determined and not a little angry. It bore quite a bit of his father's wonderful call-to-arms voice.
Adam started towards his brother and his spouse, but Grant intervened, and the Oldest Immortal had to concede that this was not his business.
"What is the matter, Son?" Duncan was clearly blind-sided and off-balance.
"No," Sean repeated, drawing up tall and tucking his stubborn chin down. "No."
"Maybe if you said--" Duncan reached for the boy, who was less boy by the minute.
Sean stepped away. "If I saaaayaaad---" he mocked. "You do not want to hear what I have to say. There are not decent words to say such."
Oh, dear, Duncan thought, Not a good sign when Sean started sounding like Adam.
"No," Sean said, yet another time. "I do not agree to this. No. You have made a mistake, Father. A dreadful mistake."
"Father" is it now, Duncan thought. A worse sign if ever there was.
"Here," Sean grabbed up the frame and the baby picture of himself 'neath the tartan. He pulled out the picture and set the frame down, standing directly in front of the Highlander. "I have no ancient Gaelic gutturals to show you how angry I am, but this will serve."
With that, Sean tore the picture into pieces and threw them at his father's broad chest.
"No," Sean said more quietly, but with more determination. He turned on his heels, walked to the front door, and left down the outside steps to the stream.
Duncan raised his hands to stop them following the boy, now man. He brought all his great courage to bear and it was almost insufficient to do this one simple thing, this thing which all fathers must someday do--to let their children go.
With a solemn tenderness, he bent down and retrieved the pieces of Sean's picture, putting together, in his heart, the image of the child he had sacrificed so much for to bring into the world.
This child who would never be again.
Duncan did not doubt that Sean would return some day, but it made no difference really.
The man would return...
...but this blessed baby, peaking out into the world with innocence and wonder and unquestioning love,
This child was gone forever.
Adam's hand smoothed its way onto the Highlander's shoulder. "I suppose this is where I say the 'Mommy thing.' "
Duncan's head turned slowly away from the front door. "The Mommy thing?"
"Let me see," Adam sniffed, a dramatic note, given his instrument.
Duncan reached out and stroked the Old Man's cheek. He'd been crying. The Scot cursed his density that he could not see, in his own grief, what this must mean to Adam. And Duncan could see, over Adam's shoulder, that Mother Lucille understood and sympathized. "Yes?" Duncan said, more as an affirmation than question.
"It goes like, um," Adam wiped his eyes and grinned, "Oh, something like, 'We've raised him right, you and I, and now it's up to him to make his way in the world, Father.' "
"You were a wonderful Mommy," Duncan touched his forehead against Adam's. Then he drew back and fixed his smoky brown gaze on the Old Man. He tried to think how to ask Adam if he were going to mutiny as well...if he were going to take his mother's side in this.
"Oh, don't even--," Adam laughed.
And then he said, more simply, "No."
to be continued in...Grail
