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Duncan pulled himself up stiffly. The two quickenings had done some damage and he hurt all over as if he'd been run down by a herd of buffalo. His first concern was for Anne and the children. The children were fine, Anne not so much. She was shaking and blubbering, huddled against the T-bird, going into shock. Duncan dove for the blankets in the back seat of the T and wrapped her up, trying to croak out soothing words through his flame-strafed throat. He lay her down in the back of the bird and turned to Mary, holding his son in her tiny arms, rocking and humming to him as if he were here own.He picked them both up and made his way to Adam, still down from his last quickening. Molly and Margaret caught up with him and took the children. Mary made them go over to talk to Monstro who was standing nearby, cropping grass as if nothing at all had happened here today.
"It's a mess here," Duncan's voice was starting to clear its croak as he stated the obvious. "Give me a moment with Adam and we will plan how best to clear the field."
Margaret gave him the "thumbs up," all the while listening intently to Mary's tale of her ride from the field on the gigantic black stallion.
"Adam?" Duncan lifted the Eldest Immortal up to sitting. "Adam?"
Adam leaned over his lap, groaned, and dug his fists into his eyes. "Sean?"
"Your baby brother is fine, both the children are," Duncan helped him to his feet.
"I can stand," Adam batted Duncan's hands away, his gaze wandering across the field and up the rise to where Cross was struggling in Grant's brawny, emotionless grasp. "Give me a leg up," he said, heading for the stallion.
Duncan thought he couldn't possibly have heard what Adam said. "You?"
Adam bowed to Mary, asked permission to ride her horse and then leaned against Monstro's left side and waited, kicking his left heel behind him. "Duncan!"
"On that?" Duncan approached.
Adam's face turned towards the Highlander and a look resided there that made him seem every single day of his five thousand years. "My mother has died. I've gone through two really unpleasant quickenings. I had to put up with your ditsy wife all morning. I would say I have had just about enough grief for one blessed day, Duncan! Don't give me any more! Just give me a leg up! Now!"
Duncan caught Adam's left ankle and one, two, hoisted him up on Monstro's back.
Off he galloped towards whatever was happening with Cross on the hill, taking a wide berth round the remains of Malak at the center of the field.
Duncan greeted Allen and the Judge. The three men sat together around the picnic table and ate the lunch that Adam had packed. Duncan fed the baby while they planned what to do.
Judge Stoner led the discussion, between bites of delectable ham sandwich and swallows of beer, a peculiar French brand that was flat as the road between Dallas and Fort Worth. "The boys will be bringing the four-horse trailer and the big truck for the bodies," he looked at this watch, "anytime now. I'd take your remarkable little T down the road and pick up the sedan, but I don't think your Missus is up to being jostled just yet. What do you think, Margaret?"
Margaret returned from checking on Anne. She shook her head, "Not anytime soon. She's sleeping, but she's not resting. This was really too hard on her." She took some sandwiches and milk cartons over to Molly and Mary who were sitting by the river, washing rocks, looking for treasures.
"How are we going to get the horses back?" Duncan asked.
"I think Adam has that in hand, Mr. MacLeod," Judge Stoner commented. "I was hoping we could send Cross away with Dr. Piersen while we, that is..."
Duncan had not eaten. He was not hungry. "Let me take care of Malak, Judge Stoner. Just keep everyone out of the field and I will attend to that after everyone is gone."
"Thank you, Mr. MacLeod," Stoner said sincerely. None of them wanted to know exactly what had been done to the dragon who led them. The knot of Immortals and then the grass of the field had kept them mercifully ignorant of the particulars. "I wondered how you commanded such loyalty and bravery and devotion in your friends when I sat at your hearing, MacLeod. I saw you then as a bra' Highland King, out of his time in the present." Stoner shook his silvered head, "How little did I know I would one day be one of yours." With this he extended his hand formally to the Scot. "I almost feel as if my life began today. I am just so sorry your friend ended his here."
They all bowed their heads and thought silently about the one of their number who would not be going home. Then Garret and Daniel and Chad arrived with the rig and Grant came down from the rise to help them clean the killing ground.
Duncan saw to the children and to Anne, because the Facets would not hear of his helping them, each thinking silently that they were leaving him the worst task of all. Sometime during the cleanup, Anne woke, a little more herself, and he served her a sandwich and some beer, the fare of their happy family picnic, now travesty. She still shuddered from time to time as one thought or another drove her back to the brink, but she remained on the sane side of the world and was soon settled enough to watch the children.
Duncan meant to head up the rise to see to Adam and Cross, but when the opportunity presented itself, he found both horses and riders were gone. Well, Red knew the way home, if it came to that, he thought. And he had other concerns to deal with.
Just as soon as the troops left.
Several things bothered him, two of them numbers and the third, a conversation he had had, but he couldn't remember where and he couldn't remember when, and he couldn't quite remember what was said. Some portion of his warrior skill, his inborn vigilant self, his "watcher," kept telling him something was amiss, but he was damned if he could put it together.
The afternoon grew old before the trailer was finished being packed with bodies and tarps and sawdust and bales, just in case they got stopped on the way back to the Estates. Judge Stoner drove the T back to the Estates with the children and Anne, Molly and Mary, promising to bring it back as soon as they were settled under Cross' roof.
The rest of the Facets hitched a ride back on the rig just till they got to the main road and their own cars. Then Duncan was alone with the two unopened beers Stoner had left him and the horror in the center of the field.
And a shovel and three blankets.
And a nagging in the back of his head which was building to a roar.
He sat down, opened a beer, and tried to think. Maybe it was the numbers, biblical in their numerology: thirteen and one. Cross had taken three heads. He had taken two. Adam had taken two. If there were twenty Immortals to begin with, then what happened to the thirteen other Quickenings Major? The Immortal Malak had skewered to begin with had risen before the end of the fight and run, haplessly, into Grant's Magnum and Dragon's happy blade. The Immortals were dealt with more or less simultaneously, and even were this not the case, the last ones killed still had Quickenings unaccounted for by the distance from the three surviving Immortals on the field.
Then there was the one. The one Quickening which should have knocked them all on their asses, Malak's. Where had all that power, all those countless ages gone?
Little by little, Duncan began to remember the conversation. It was in hell, the time he had gone to hell to bring Ram back into the living world. What had they said?
"It was save you or kill you, Ram. We opted for the former."
"Kill me? How were you going to kill me?"
"I don't know, Ram. I guess we assumed...beheading? I guess we never really seriously considered it at all, we just kept thinking it would be the last resort, but we never thought about how--"
Duncan picked up the blankets and headed for the center of the field. He wasn't anxious to see what lay there--less so now, if what lay there were still alive, but it was just this thought which drove him forward. What if Malak were not only alive, but sentient?
He found the body first. The blankets dropped out of his hands, of their own accord it seemed. It was a moment before Duncan could find the perspective to continue, the distance that would make this possible for him. He had known it would be bad. He had heard Malak screaming. It was simply this bad and that was all it was. Bad.
They had butchered Malak so terribly that his clothes were nearly gone, the T-shirt and the jeans tattered beneath the many deep gashes, some mindlessly placed, others with their own awful purposes. They had cut off his beautiful hands, so like Adam's. One was still near the body. He was eviscerated and emasculated. They had maimed him beyond believing, spent their rage and their better judgments on his flesh, while he made them forget about the child that was not there and the Immortals waiting at the edge of the field.
"Oh, Malak," the Highlander heard his voice break. "Look what they've done to you. Damn!"
Duncan searched the grass for Malak's head, finally finding it after a second pass. He'd missed it the first time because the face was down and the hair so matted with mud and old blood that it looked like a rock. He lifted it up and turned it over gently.
And then, God forgive him, he dropped it, screaming.
After everything else, it should not have surprised him, and perhaps it did not. Maybe he was only so exhausted and so horrified that this one last assault should undo him.
They had gouged out the pale blue eyes and cut off his nose, rendering his once beautiful visage a grotesque, the face of a nightmare.
Duncan made himself pick up the ghastly thing again and take it to lie in its proper position above the sundered neck of the carcass. He was even longer finding the other hand and the genitals, but at last he had reassembled the remains in as proper a proximity as was possible.
Then he sat down beside Malak and watched the breeze roll silvery ripples over the seed heads of the wild grass. Be asleep, Duncan prayed, be deeply asleep, far away from this, Malak.
God be kind to you. Be far, far away from this.
"Thomas?" Adam called his name softly now and again as they rode home. He got more answer from the big warmblood, Red, than he did from the master of the Cross Estates. Adam only knew that all the time he had been fussing with the business about MacLeod, he had totally missed out on Malak's, and his mother's, last days on Earth. He was not so much regretful about this as enraged, with himself, with fate, with the pettiness of his romantic inclinations of late.
Adam supposed this was Fate's way of bringing him up short, of hauling back so hard on the bit that his bars broke. He certainly had the bloody mouth to prove it. Too late, too lazy, too self-absorbed, the real business of living and dying and shaping the world in your wake had gone by him unnoticed and he was more ashamed than he had been in a very long time.
"Thomas, please," Adam said his name again, riding up beside him and leaning down to pat him on his tight shoulders. "We have both lost a large part of our lives today. Surely we can share this pain and find some peace together."
"He knew this would happen," Thomas said in a voice disconnected from both emotion and reason. "He worked for it and planned for it down to every last detail for thousands of years. He knew what they would do to him. He bred a whole line of destriers over twenty generations to carry him into that last agony. He stood in that field, knowing what was about to happen and he watched the girl ride away, safe..." Thomas started to break down. "...and he was joyful, Adam. Despite what this cost him--what it cost all of us--he was joyful. He was--"
That was the last of Thomas' reserve. Adam told Red to whoa and leaned down to hold the small black man sobbing out his heart over the death of the Father of All Horses.
When the worst of it had passed, Adam grumbled, "God damn heroes, anyway."
Thomas pulled out of his grasp. "What?"
"You heard me," Adam urged the stallion forward again. "God damn them all! If He hasn't done exactly that already."
"Adam!" Thomas pressed his legs against the Belgian gelding's sides and caught up with the lanky man on the gargantuan steed. "What are you saying?"
"In more simple terms," Adam hissed, "Fuck them all!"
"Adam!"
"They get all the glory and we do all the bleeding," Adam raged.
"What is the matter with you?" Thomas ascended from the dark valley of his grief at the completely odd sounds coming from the giant horse and his none-too-sane rider. "Just admit that this saddens and hurts you. Is that so hard to do?"
"You said it yourself. He planned for this. He wanted it. He got it. End of story, Thomas. Finito."
Monstro Napoli took this to mean "halt," and did so, unexpectedly, dumping Adam over his head and onto the ground.
Adam shook his head and pushed up to sitting, rubbing his sore side, and thinking this was just the perfect damn ending to a jewel of a day. He wrapped his long arms around his knees and began to laugh. Soon enough both his sides were aching with his explosive fit of hysterics at the absurdity of it all.
And soon enough after that, his grief admitted itself, without even asking his permission, and turned his gales of laughter into great gulping wails and sobs, breathless, gasping waves of unremitting pain.
Duncan leaned over his knees and stretched his tired back, shifting his weight to restore some of the circulation to his nether regions, perched on the hard ground beside the patchwork corpse in the field. He had not moved since the breathing started. Malak was coming back, slowly, and in the hour since the first breath--though it could hardly be called that--Duncan had followed a meditation of waiting and wondering in absolute stillness.
The torn lids had fluttered, the crushed chest shuddered and labored to rise, and a sound like the echo of a grave started near the battered lips and struggled through a single agonal gasp. Again and again the dead flesh fought to inspire through crushed and sundered passages, whistling and grating and gurgling. It sounded to Duncan like the last efforts of a strangling victim, the last paroxysms of a mortal chest wound. He had seen enough of these on the various battlefields of his violent life.
The one difference being that this corpse refused to stop. The simple, impossible act of inspiring, was attempted, unsuccessfully, time after time after time, forcing a way for the air, for life itself, bullying its way back to life. Fighting most gloriously without surcease, the corpse rode its way on will alone, back into the world.
Duncan thought about this example, stripped bare of any trappings, pure and distilled to the last essence of life, one breath to the next and only that. If he had not understood the difference between the Sons of God and the Sons of Man before, he did now. The words which were only words before, the descriptions of the Holy Host: power, glory, might--these became real for him in the unrelenting travail of the simple, and incredibly complex, refusal to be dead which Malak put before him.
He thought he knew how very strong they were, these beings who had made the Immortals, but they were Beings of Light, pure reflections of their terrible and wonderful wills, existing in a way which was all but past his understanding. Duncan knew now how you killed a dragon. You broke its will and it merely ceased, because it was its will.
And breath to breath, Malak's wonderful will refused to be broken.
And breath to breath, Duncan sat the watch and did him the honor of merely appreciating the wonder of this.
"Stop hovering," Adam whined as he checked the water and put a fleck of hay in Monstro's stall. "It only makes this worse." He slumped back against the wall and took several measured, deep breaths, willing his tears away. He was damned if he would spend any more time blubbering.
"You are right, of course," Cross agreed, checking on God and doing a quick turn down the aisleway, seeing that none of the horses were needing anything essential. "Maybe if we got phenomenally drunk," he suggested.
Adam considered it, "We could, I suppose, but the two of us sloppy is hardly the reception that will be needed for the rest of your folk when they return here. They will be back in an hour or two and there is nothing to offer them. We should make some coffee, maybe biscuits and tea, maybe..."
Cross tugged gently on the sleeve of Adam's coat, pulling him out of Monstro's stall and into the adjacent stall which was empty except for a bedding of new sawdust. He closed the stall door behind them, throwing the stall into a comforting darkness.
"We were lovers in these last months," Thomas said softly. "A whole day has not passed since he was inside me. He is cold and dead, but I still feel him, I still feel--" he closed his eyes and the tears spilled down the dark angles of his cheeks and sparkled in the darkness.
Adam understood what he was saying, what he was offering. "It is too much, Thomas. I cannot be what Malak was to you. I am in no way his equal."
Thomas reached up behind Adam's long neck. "No, I have said it badly. I am only asking you to be with me now, to bring him back so we may let him go." Thomas shook his head. "You remember that moment in Blood's stall when you lost yourself?"
Adam did indeed remember. He did not understand to this day what had happened, only that Cross had begun to make love to him and Adam had lost his identity, had descended into some realm where there was no division between the HorseMaster and himself. "Yes, I remember, Thomas."
"Let me take you to that place again, Adam," Thomas slipped Adam's coat off and laid it on the bedding. "Malak's memory will be there with me and I will make you part of that."
Adam thought, if nothing else, it would be so nice just to be held and cared for in this moment when he was feeling so misused by time and circumstance. He settled down beside Thomas on his coat and began to pull off his clothes.
Thomas stopped him. "Just lie down, Adam. I will do the rest. Just trust me as you did before."
Adam was certainly tired enough, if not calm enough, to surrender. He lay back and let Thomas' practiced, talented hands uncover him, heart and belly and soul. Layer after layer lifted off him as he drifted beneath the pleasure of Thomas' sure fingers and warm soft lips. The awful day retreated beyond the stall door and Adam sank beneath wave after wave of electric sensations, spidery tracings across his groin, tender sucklings and bites, one nipple to the other, soft, cool pressure as he was turned and splayed, fondled and tended, pushed and stretched and entered. Adam felt the strong hands curve around the wings of his pelvis and pull him back, onto his knees, in a slow rocking, deeper and deeper. He heard himself moan with the falling, emptiness of a compulsion to release, and then the swaying slowed, and the sensation of impending orgasm retreated.
Adam felt first the sadness, so profoundly, it nearly made him flee, but he held on, as he was held, and won past the rich, somber woe to the wild delight that was the heart and wonder of his old teacher. He gasped at all the ticklish, full-blown hilarities and warm, bright feelings of absolute joy. There were rainbows of mirth, bursting and shimmering, laughing like children everywhere, jumping and scurrying, giggling, in and out of all the nooks and crannies, great libraries of wonderful feelings. lights like prisms casting notes and rays and images of great complexities and infinite bliss.
And at the center of this place was a fountain of bells, playing a tune that echoed a name, over and over, in a pulse like a heart's throbbing, constant and strong, in colors and music, in flavors and symbols and the memory of a touch, a kiss, an abiding tenderness of spirit.
It was his own name. Somehow it was Adam and Methos and all the names he had ever taken in all the ages of all his life.
And it was one name only--also his.
Love.
"Oh, merciful God in heaven!" Stoner murmured. "He isn't?"
"What?" Duncan shook out of his vigil. He had forgotten Judge Stoner promised to come back with the car. "Oh, how are the troops?"
"They are fine, Mr. MacLeod," Stoner reported, "remarkably so. They are all changed, of course, myself included, but I think--no, I know--for the better. And it's even nicer to know we won't all be dying in three years."
"What?"
"Well, Mr. MacLeod," Stoner began.
"Please, 'Duncan,'" Duncan said.
"Well, Duncan, I don't pretend to be the expert at this, but it's my understanding that the Facets--"
"Facets?" Duncan's eyes never left Malak's struggle. His neck and chest were nearly healed to the point where he would soon be making sounds. Duncan tried to steel himself against that time. He couldn't be medicated or the healing would be slowed with the will. He couldn't be moved yet, most of the avulsions were barely reattached, let alone reformed and healed.
"There are Facets and there are Powers," Stoner explained. "The two groups of mortals who have tasted dragon blood," he added. "The Powers are--"
"Alexa, Anne, Lucille, and Dawson. I know," Duncan placed his hand cautiously on Malak's forehead. He prayed the pale blue eyes would recreate themselves. He could not bear the thought of Malak blinded.
"Very good," Stoner kept his vision above the level of the ground. His first glance had been quite enough to fill a year's worth of very disturbing dreams. "The Facets are the same thing, only we have touched the Crystal which Malak carries within his skull, a shard of the Crystal Covenant, he says, supposed to be a piece of the Elohims' covenant with God Himself. Like the Powers, if the blood is not repeated in a thousand days, then we go mad and die. And unless you know any other dragons--"
"Easy," Duncan murmured as Malak began to give voice to his discomfort. "You are safe. We will move you off the ground soon." It was doubtful Malak could understand, but the steady tone and the obvious concern might translate, through the wall of agony, into something he could use.
"I think I can drive your T up into the field this far without getting it stuck," Stoner offered.
"Yes," Duncan nodded, still not looking up at him, "that would be helpful. The less we can move him, the better."
The breathing, which had gradually improved to a near-normal tide, now grew jagged and labored again as Malak's sensorium returned to consciousness. A hollow, low moan echoed each expiration, an angry anguish building in volume as the muscles twitched over the surface of the ravaged body and the empty sockets unlidded and jerked in a vain attempt to find the light.
Duncan felt his guts roil. He should probably at least get Malak's carcass on one of the blankets before he became any more awake. If he was very careful and--Who was he kidding? This was just a bad business all around. Bad.
The T-bird rolled up cautiously and Stoner set the brake. "Wait," he called out, "Let me help you there."
Together they moved Malak onto one of the blankets without dislodging anything major, if it wasn't their eardrums from the sound Malak made. Somehow they lifted him into the back seat of the T and Duncan got behind the wheel to drive them off the field. The battle could finally be called done, with the day, all sunset-blooded indigo sky and Malak in the back, whimpering and groaning with every bump, every turn, every impossible breath.
"Where are we going?" Stoner asked as Duncan passed up the turn east to the Cross Estate.
"Anne's house," Duncan replied. "We can make him comfortable in the back house until he's healed. It's closer and it's better to see what happens before we announce he's all right."
"Meaning?" Stoner asked.
Duncan took a deep breath and turned at the next intersection, westward into the sunset. "He's blind, for one. I don't know if that's going to change. He could lose heart and die at any point along this recovery," Duncan shook his head, "You know what they call his alter ego?"
"Ah, yes," Stoner smiled and nodded, "Yes, Chaos. I understand. Anything may happen and probably will."
Duncan shifted his grip on the wheel and tried not to listen to Malak. There was nothing he could do until they got to Anne's. Another ten minutes. But if he went any faster, the ride would get bumpy. "I have been meaning to ask," Duncan glanced over at Judge Stoner. His voice had suddenly turned cold and forbidding.
"Yes?" Stoner answered cautiously.
"Who told the Immortals where we would be today, Stoner?"
"I did, Duncan. Indirectly, of course, but I was the source."
The Highlander's brooding dark eyes narrowed. "Why did you put my family in such danger?"
"I was told to do so. I was not told the reason, but I can guess," Stoner replied evenly.
"Guess," the Scot commanded.
"To save your son, of course. They would not stop coming. You took out half their number in Paris, one-by-one. Then they came in a group that assault on the barge. They have been watching you from the shadows since you arrived back in 'Couver. No one could tell when they would attack. No one could plan for the next assault and there were too many for you and Adam to defend against by yourselves. So the battle was modeled and manipulated to our advantage and we wiped them out today. Your son is no longer beneath a fatal cloud."
"We could have all been killed," Duncan grumbled.
"I cannot deny that, Duncan MacLeod, but it was less likely in this setting than in any other," Stoner paused, "And none of you would have been in any danger had you not neglected to count your children before you left the field."
Duncan stared at the Judge, "You bastard!"
Stoner raised his palms, "Guilty as charged, Your Honor."
Both men jerked around suddenly as the wrenching whimpers turned first to coughing and then to something very like laughter and then to something which was unmistakably words, frail and hoarse, but understandable as, "Warmeat, I told you, it goes 'one,' 'two,'--"
Duncan slowed down as he neared the house he'd rebuilt for Anne and Mary.
"What is it?" Stoner asked, searching the horizon every side, checking on their passenger, who was poured over the back seat, writhing fitfully in an attempt at sleep.
"Don't know," Duncan decelerated with care and pulled the car over. "There's an Immortal near the house. Maybe a straggler come to ambush the family." He paused a moment, "Only one. You stay here and watch Malak.
Duncan loosened his sword arm and stretched his shoulders. The closer he came to the house, the stronger the buzz. This was no young one, either. The aura was too powerful, too assured, pulsing like the constant light which warns the sailor away from the reefs. The resonance was heady, a little like sex, the wave of intrusion and recession washing over Duncan in a hypnotic, repetitive rhythm of perfect cadence.
Who the hell was this? Duncan would have remembered such a signature, so transparently powerful, it was in some ways "too loud" to bear with for very long. Maybe, Duncan thought, this one is so confident and strong, he does not hear me coming. He circled around the back of the main house and edged towards the front door, where the strong presence waited, unmoving, apparently unaware.
Sword high behind his right shoulder, Duncan lunged forward to face the Immortal, "I am Duncan--"
"MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. Yeah, yeah. I know," Adam laughed and rose from his seat on the front step where he'd been waiting.
"There's someone else here," Duncan whispered.
Adam tucked his chin in, glanced right, then left. "I don't think so, Duncan."
"No, really," Duncan repeated, listening with all his senses. "A very old, very powerful Immortal with a buzz like thunder."
Adam's lips pursed together against the smile which threatened to split his face in two. A warm blush started up from his neck. "Thank you," he nodded his head in a brief bow.
"Not you," Duncan said. "There! There it is again!"
"No, Duncan," the grey green eyes went shiny as diamonds. "Here."
Duncan lowered his sword and stared, astonished at the lanky, troublesome schoolboy, Old Man, he thought he knew so well. With the silliness and sarcasm set aside, Adam seemed a prophet out of some ancient tome, an ascetic, gaunt from fasting, but sated in the ways of the spirit and the mind..Still and sure and intimidating in his certainty and ease. Duncan could hardly recognize him. "What happened? Who are you?"
The long frame shifted slightly, the pounding signature faded, and the presbyter set of the Adam's features melted into a shifty grin. Duncan could have been no more awed had this son of Chaos grown horns and hooves. There stood Adam, as always, but the shadow of that other Adam still lingered just out of sight.
"Adam, what happened?"
Adam ducked his head. "It is somewhat complicated how it was done, Duncan, but I can tell you what was done. Today I am a man."
"What?" Duncan tried to keep from laughing.
"After all these ages," Adam continued. "I have Ascended and am come into my adulthood."
"What?" Duncan's smoky eyes disappeared behind a squint.
Adam started humming and walking away from the stunned Scot, towards the T-bird, parked down the road.
Duncan sheathed his sword, closed his mouth and followed after. The Old Man was singing something, some Paul Simon thing, "I got the Presidential Seal. I'm up on the Presidential Podium." The Old Man had lost his frigging mind. But he seemed so happy about it, Duncan couldn't see the harm in letting him go on with this. Up ahead, the bright baritone crooned on...
And my momma loves me, she loves me...
get down on her knees and hug me.
I said, loooooves me like a rock.
"Oh, Malak," Adam leaned into the car, "but you are a mess!" He placed his slender fingers at either temple of the blind, torn face. The trapped animal noises stopped. The rolling torment of the healing limbs ceased. The breathing deepened and steadied. Adam instructed Stoner to drive up to the house and walked back, intercepting Duncan.
"Stoner's taking him to the house," Adam explained as the black T drove by. "Brother! They really spared no effort in taking Malak apart."
"No, they didn't," Duncan turned and started back for the house.
"That must have been very hard for you, Duncan," Adam caught up with him and draped a conciliatory arm over his broad shoulders.
Duncan shook him off. "It's too weird," he said.
"Meaning what exactly?" Adam bounced ahead of the Scot and began walking backwards, watching him.
"It has been a very trying day, Adam," Duncan felt all the muscle fatigue and injury building into spasms and twitches over his entire body. "I--I am not in any mood for whatever you are doing. I can appreciate your grief, Adam. This--" he waved his sore arms, the sprained wrists, reaching for words that simply were not there.
Adam shrugged and walked with Duncan into the approaching night and the headlights at the end of the drive.
Between the three of them, they managed to move Malak into the main house and onto the bed in the first room near the door. Not without an argument from Duncan about what would happen when the children returned and why couldn't they put him in the back house? Not without Adam going on about how there would be no children were it not for the heroic act that had ended him up in this terrible state. Not without Malak protesting in the most interesting colloquialisms that they should all bloody well go to hell and leave him be.
Judge Stoner knew better than to insert himself between squabbling family members. He wandered to the kitchen, filled a large basin with warm water, commandeered towels and soap and returned just as the Immortals were settling the wounded dragon onto the bed. "Shall we draw straws, gentlemen? Or do we have a volunteer?"
Adam reached for the basin. "It might be good if you take the Lincoln back up to the Estate and see that Thomas is all right. If you are not too tired, Judge Stoner."
"Tired?" Stoner laughed, "Oh, my, no. I am so far from tired I probably won't sleep until tomorrow. Anyway, I had strict instructions to stay with MacLeod. No, not as a spy," he quickly answered Duncan's sudden dark look, "just so you wouldn't be alone after you'd buried Malak. Cross was concerned your dark Gaelic humours might get the best of you."
"I wouldn't worry about Cross, Adam. He is in his element with the Facets fussing over him and cooking and the children and Anne needing the full Cross-get-you-over-just-about-anything treatment."
Duncan sited on the Judge, "What exactly does that entail?"
Stoner laughed, "Not to worry, Mr. MacLeod. Not that sort of treatment."
"Too bad Thomas has none such to see to him just now," Adam commented as he and Duncan gingerly peeled off the remnants of Malak's clothing, separating them carefully from the healing flesh.
Judge Stoner cocked his head to the side. "What do you mean?"
Duncan had somehow missed the dreadful reek of Malak's carcass when he'd been out in the field. It reminded him he would have to air and clean the car. But what else could he expect? Malak's evisceration had covered his entire torso in shit and blood. It definitely was not daisies.
"I mean it is a shame that someone so nurturing as Thomas," Adam explained, working to free the zipper from Malak's crotch. "Has no one to nurture him when he has been so wounded."
"You don't know?" Judge Stoner asked.
"Know what?" Adam asked. Done. He dipped a towel in the warm water and worked in a tiny bit of soap, sending Duncan for the change of linen they would need when he was done.
"Thomas is married," Stoner said. "You didn't know?"
"Married? You're kidding!" Adam started with the neck and shoulders. He would give the face longer to heal.
"Oh, definitely, over two decades. Two people more in love you are never likely to know," Stoner added.
"Who's married?" Duncan returned with the clean sheets and more pillows.
"Stoner says Thomas has been married for over two decades," Adam reported, getting Duncan to roll Malak to his side and prop him with pillows so he could work on his back.
"No," Duncan stared. "Who?"
"Cross, Warmeat," Adam used his mother's nickname for the Scot too easily, Duncan thought.
"No, I mean who is Cross married to?"
Stoner's expression curled into a cheap grin, "Guess."
"Sweet Lucille," Adam guessed. They didn't live together, but that wasn't unheard of with marriages of long standing.
"No, but that's an excellent guess," Stoner continued to grin.
Adam's elegant hands moved over Malak's back with the tenderness of a mother. "All right, let's see. That elegant black woman that supervises the menus and the kitchen inventories. Now there is some wondrous piece of work." She had come out to the house several times while Adam was still staying with Cross--wouldn't give him the time of day.
"Sylvia? Oh, dear, no, not even warm," Stoner lifted his eyebrows and looked at the Highlander.
"I know who it is," Duncan said, wincing with Malak's howl as he moved him from side to back again.
"Oh, do you now, Warmeat?" Adam teased. "Let's hear it, then."
"I'll Warmeat you," Duncan hissed and began flipping one of the wet towels around and around into a tight twist between his hands. "And you will be ashamed you didn't think of it yourself."
"Mois?" Adam put his hand to his throat and blinked, stepping sideways just at the moment Duncan let the towel fly with a resounding snap.
"Boys," Stoner grumbled, "There's ten seconds left on Final Jeopardy and I remind you, your answer must be in the form of a question." He started humming the appropriate jingle.
"Well," Adam sneered, "Put up or shut up, Duncan."
A mirror of Stoner's cheap grin crawled across the dark celtic face. "Who is Grant," he said.
"And we have a winner," Judge Anthony Jackson Stoner proclaimed.
Stoner made them scrambled eggs and toast and coffee for supper while Duncan and Adam finished seeing to Malak.
By the end of the bath, he was becoming whole enough to fight them. His pain whipped him into a frenzy and they had all they could do to calm him and settle him as comfortably as possible, propping him in a sea of soft pillows and cool sheets. Malak finally let them put a cool compress over his upper face and the healing nose.
"Why aren't his eyes healing?" Duncan asked.
"Because they just aren't there to heal, I suppose," Adam replied. "Ask him."
"Malak?" Duncan leaned in close, then withdrew under an assault of invective that threw blue clouds into the dark room that were almost visible.
"Hey!" Adam jostled Malak's shoulder. "If it weren't for Duncan, you'd still be scattered over that field waiting for owls and voles to scatter you further. Show some respect."
The voice was still raspy and weak, but it had gained since their arrival at the house. "Tell that Warmeat, I would have more respect still if he weren't in the habit of leaving important items behind him when he retreats: children, eyes, and such."
"I don't know, Malak," Adam answered with no respect whatsoever, "I can think of worse things he might have left behind."
"Worse than being blind?" Malak's usually sunny tones grew viperous.
Adam's delicate touch wandered over the sheets at the top of Malak's legs, eliciting a low, throaty groan that had nothing at all to do with pain.
"I take your meaning, Adam," Malak gasped as his breath returned. "Still, you might tell him I did not appreciate his double-dribbling my cranium--" Malak's entire body arched off the bed as a spasm of pain gripped and twisted him.
"Breathe!" Adam shouted, "stop fussing and just breathe! Now, release!" Adam's hands pressed Malak's temples and the body went limp.
"Sleep," Adam changed the compress. "You can give MacLeod the old 'what for' in the morning. And I will personally make the pancakes for breakfast."
Malak proceeded to instruct his old student on an alternative application of such pancakes, complete with route and angle of attack.
"We have to clean up a bit ourselves, Malak," Adam stroked his cheek. "We will just be down the hall and someone will be in with you through the night. Just call out if you need anything."
But Malak had used up his energy with his ire and was already beginning to snore. Adam motioned to Duncan and they stole from the room, quiet as grave wights.
"Supper is served," Stoner announced as Adam entered the kitchen. He got up from the table and built a plate of eggs and cheese and toast for the good Dr. Piersen.
"Hate to eat and run," Adam apologized, "but I lost Duncan at the second bedroom and he really should eat and wash before he passes out completely. Can I get an egg sandwich and some juice and coffee to go?"
"My pleasure," Stoner smiled, "You start the bathwater and I'll set a meal on the bureau while you're washing."
Adam nodded his appreciation and turned back down the hallway. He paused and turned back. "Do you need anything, Stoner?"
"Me?" Stoner seemed genuinely surprised at the question. "No, Adam. I'm in heaven. How could I possibly want for anything?"
Adam strolled back into the kitchen. "But you had the very same awful day that we had. And you don't have anybody to share it with."
"I just don't see it that way, Adam," Stoner said. "Two months ago, I was old and used up, bored and dying. Everything I was, all the great accumulations of my lifetime were meaningless, useless to me, to everyone it seemed. And now--"
"Now?"
"I could be no more excited and thrilled if I'd run away and joined the circus," Stoner laughed. "I'm having too much fun. Really. You go on and see to MacLeod. I'll--how does a warrior say it? Ah, yes, I will stand the watch over Malak this night."
Adam walked over to him, placed his hands on the Judge's shoulders, and looked him squarely in the eyes.
"Well, then, Stoner, welcome to the circus."
The stepson of the Highlands lay face down where he had fallen, exhausted, sprawled across the bed in the second room where Anne's mother usually stayed. He still had all his clothes on, muddy and bloody and stinking like a goat in rut. Adam shook his head and wondered if he could wake and move this mountain before the bathwater ran over.
"Come on, Duncan," Adam coaxed, "It's just a few steps to the bath."
Duncan lifted his face up from the bedspread. "Go away."
"I know you're tired," Adam rubbed his back, "but I'll help."
Duncan dropped his forehead back down on the bed and changed his tactics, "Okay," he said, "You start and I'll join you later--"
"Right," Adam was unconvinced. He'd already cleaned and changed at the Estates. "Up. Now."
"Go take care of Malak," Duncan slurred through his last tactic, appeal to Adam's sense of duty. Always a weak hand at best.
"Ow!" Duncan sputtered as Adam flipped him over on his back and sat him up, engendering all sorts of delightful cramps and burns the length of his flesh. "God damn you!"
"I'm sure he does. There you go," he said in an encouraging tone, dodging the brawny arm as it came around in a swiping arc. "Up and at 'em." He pulled the solid Scot up on his feet. "Excellent," he praised, panting.
Duncan slumped back down on the bed's edge, taking Adam with him. The Highlander bent forward double over his knees, "I should have found his eyes," he moaned. "God! I blinded him! How will he live in darkness?"
"Oh," Adam patted him solicitously, "Oh, Duncan, Duncan. It isn't permanent."
Duncan turned his head and looked up at him. "It isn't?"
"No," Adam hugged him, "you silly puppy. It's just till his next manifestation. You know, he'll change into another form and change back right as rain. I am so sorry. I thought you knew."
"Is there water running?" Duncan sat up. "I could do with a bath you know."
Adam helped him up and they made their way into the bathroom just in time to keep the bath from running over. Stoner had left a sweat suit and fresh towels on the cabinet and bottle of chilled spring wine with two glasses. He was going to have to get to know this old Judge much, much better, Adam thought.
Duncan peeled off his reeking apparel and sank blissfully into the suds, every sore muscle thanking him almost audibly. "Yes," he said on an expiring sigh. "Why didn't you think of this sooner?"
"I can't imagine my being so dense, Darling," Adam quipped, handing him a glass of the wine. "You want your supper now? I could bring it in."
"No, this is perfect," Duncan sighed. "I can't tell you how relieved I am that the blinding is going to be all right."
Adam slipped off his sweater and shirt and started in on Duncan's broad, strong, and very filthy back. "I'm still trying to figure out what Malak was going on about with the 'double dribble' comment."
Duncan's neck bowed forward and his shoulders climbed up. "I dropped his head."
"Come again?"
"His head," Duncan repeated. "I picked it up, turned it over, saw what they'd done to him--I couldn't help it. I dropped it."
"Oh," Adam swallowed hard and bit his lips together, "did it bounce?"
"Did it--?" Duncan twisted around.
"Or did it--" Adam set his jaw, "just sort of roll a bit in the grass. You didn't kick it about did you?"
"Kick it! Dear Lord! Of course not!"
"Then I can't see there's a problem," Adam's nostrils flared. He held the pose one instant longer before he dissolved in hysterics on the tile floor, pantomiming dunk shots and dribbles, all the while howling his glee.
"You're incorrigible," Duncan grunted and sunk down deeper in the balmy water.
Adam finally ended on his back sighing and giggling. "I've been told as much on more than one occasion."
"So," Duncan held his glass up and Adam retrieved the bottle and freshened his wine. "I think this would be a good time for us to talk."
"I thought we had the conversation rolling along quite handily," Adam replied. "Oh, you mean 'talk'." Adam pushed up and crossed his legs. "Tell me first how you knew the answer was Grant."
"It was obvious," Duncan answered. "They almost never speak, except in shorthand. They always anticipate each other. I don't know. They just act as if they have been wed for a very long time."
"Well, I would have guessed old friends, but lovers?" Adam asked.
"Watch them move the next time you're at the Estates. Even across the room from each other they are connected. I don't know. Just watch the next time you are there."
"Grant never comes to the Estate," Adam said.
"Never comes? He lives there."
"He wasn't there the day of the accident," Adam protested.
"No, no he wasn't, now I think of it. Oh," Duncan sipped his wine. "He probably stayed in town when you were there."
"So how do you know he lives there?"
"Oh, I go out there every night. To ride," Duncan amended, a little too quickly.
Adam stared at him.
"Malak and I go riding every night to that field, have done so now for over a month," Duncan added.
Adam stood up and glared down at him. "You have known my teacher was in the world all this time and you never once told me?"
"He asked me not to, Adam," Duncan said simply. "He thought you would in due time come back to the Estates and make your peace with what happened there, with your stallion being killed so violently and senselessly. Then he would be there to reconcile with you. But you never came." Duncan shrugged.
"I don't think I want to talk, after all," Adam said sullenly, starting for the door.
"Your momma loves you," Duncan reminded him, he lifted his glass in a sudsy toast, "and so do I."
"Really," Adam grunted, "except I'm too much of a freak for decent company, yours included, according to Anne."
"She's right," Duncan agreed, splashing his head under the water and coming up spitting. "But then, so am I."
"You say that like it doesn't bother you," Adam drifted back towards the tub, taking the shampoo from Duncan and rubbing some into his palms to work through the dark curls.
"I'm sure it does," Duncan said, pushing back against Adam's fingers as they scratched and rubbed their way through his scalp. "I'm sure it always will. Can't help that, any more than I can help the fact that I, like your very strange momma, love you, like the Rock of Ages."
"So why have you been so distant?" Adam asked.
"Just a coward, I guess," Duncan laughed. "I think not just Malak has been waiting patiently for you to come around, Adam, for you to reach out and take what has been right there for you all along."
"But it's just impossible," Adam sprayed the suds out of Duncan's thick hair and reached for the cream rinse.
"You could be right about that. It sure seems to be difficult going," Duncan agreed.
"So what do we do?" Adam finished with the second rinse and started sorting through the tangles with his fingers.
"I think the first thing we do," Duncan said almost too quietly to hear.
"Yes?" Adam leaned over as the Highlander sank deeper in the tub and arched back to look up at him.
"The first thing we do is to stop pretending we have any choice in the matter," Duncan said, reaching up suddenly and pulling Adam down on top of him, into the tub.
Adam bobbed up, the pulsing buzz of his new persona thrumming so hard it made waves in the bathwater. He had a grin on his face the size of New Jersey--Lucille's favorite standard of measure, it seemed. Duncan felt suddenly very, very young and small.
"Boy, that's going to take a little getting used to," Duncan started to say, but his knees were suddenly somewhere north of his ears and all the petty considerations like tender preliminaries and not scaring the neighbors and how long could he breathe underwater anyway, just went right out of his mind.
"Adam?"
The Eldest Immortal tried to pull himself out of the deep, soft pit of sleep, the utterly seductive hold of eider and down. He did not want to disappoint the Highlander, but, really, there was a limit to even the best of endeavors, and too much of a good thing was not a good thing. Maybe if he just pretended to unconsciousness, this satyr's son would cool and finally let them both get some rest this night.
Not that Adam was actually complaining, mind you.
"Adam, please?"
Adam shot up to the surface as he recognized the voice. "What is it, Stoner?"
"I am really sorry to intrude, Adam. Please come out in the hall," Stoner asked as he stepped back into the hallway.
Adam borrowed the pants from the sweat suit Stoner had laid out for the Highlander and bounded into the hall. "What is it?"
"He's gone, Adam," Stoner was clearly upset and embarrassed. "Malak is gone."
Adam stretched and yawned, "Well, he can't have gotten very far, Stoner. It's all right. Let's have a look." He started for the kitchen and punched on the light, blinking. "Oh, God bless you, Stoner. Coffee."
"Why don't we start with what happened," Adam poured himself a cup of old, scorched coffee concentrate. He'd almost acquired a taste for this peculiar brew, a product of the low-heat automatic coffee makers that could keep coffee at lukewarm and slow evaporative concentration over days. It certainly was potent, if not palatable.
Stoner poured out the rest of the coffee and started a new batch. "I over-estimated how well I felt," he admitted sheepishly, "The instant I sat down and was quiet for a bit, I fell so soundly asleep..."
"That was when?" Adam asked.
"I would say about eleven last night."
Adam squinted and tried to read the clock on the stove. "What time is it now?"
"About four in the morning," Stoner moved the pot out from under the coffee maker and filled a new cup for Adam, trading it for the old stuff.
"So we're working with five hours," Adam tried to order his thoughts. Where could Malak have gotten in five hours, blind and badly injured?"
"Do you want me to wake MacLeod?" Stoner suggested.
"Well," Adam started laughing softly, "You can give it a try if you like, but I wouldn't hold out any hope of success. And he needs to rest."
"I shouldn't wonder," Stoner agreed.
Adam studied the elder judge over the rim of his coffee cup, but he couldn't see even a glimmer of derision or disapproval. "I assume you've canvassed the house," Adam said. "He might have tried to get to the pond south of here."
"Why?" Stoner poured himself some coffee and sat down beside Adam.
"Well, I'm not entirely sure how this works, but I believe there is a way for dragons to transform by going through a water-breathing phase, and that that is the easiest--" Adam began.
"Oh, you mean like when Malak worked that miracle with Mary," Stoner referred to Mary's bout with what all the learned physicians took to be a fulminant malignancy and which had turned out to be--What?--a consequence of her heritage, her being the daughter of the Dragon Marak, Malak's brother, now dead. Malak had put her in a warm bath and she had transformed into a merchild and then back into her normal self.
"Yes," Adam started to sort out all the routes south. Malak would be able to smell the pond from here, even if he couldn't see. Then his course of thought ceased suddenly and he jumped up.
"Adam?" Stoner followed him down the hall.
Adam threw open the bathroom door. There was little water left in the tub, most of it was splashed on the floor and the walls, nearly to the ceiling.
"Look," Stoner pointed down to the hallway carpet at their feet. Very large, wet footprints led away from the bath towards the stairs.
They followed them up the stairs to Anne's bedroom. The closet door was open and the hangars pushed to one side, several empty hangars dangling in the center.
"Anne kept some of Marak's clothes here," Adam explained. "She couldn't bear to throw them out after Dr. Palmer died. Though he was quite a bit smaller than his brother, I am sure Malak knew the clothes were here and would serve till he got something that fit better."
"So where do you think he went from here?" Stoner asked. The helpful wet footprints stopped at the closet.
Adam shrugged and looked out the dormer window, "Well, both cars are still in the drive, so wherever he went, it was on foot. Maybe he's just resting in the back house. I'll go check. In the meantime, could I impose on you to clean up the bathroom? Anne will be home with the children this morning and if she finds we've trashed her things, there will be hell to pay."
Back to the real world, Stoner thought, descending in his fantasy from elder warrior to downstairs maid.
Malak was nowhere to be found. Stoner and Adam spent the time until dawn changing beds and tidying and trying to wake the snoring mountain in the second downstairs bedroom. They finally just made the bed around him and went on about their chores.
"That's a truly beautiful piece," Stoner commented on Adam's sword.
Adam had finished with Duncan's sword and was now sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for sunrise breakfast, and polishing out the nicks and battle dings on his own gild blade. "Oh," he held it up by the hilt, "It is a tad ornate, but I've grown very fond of it."
"May I?" Stoner reached out.
Adam stiffened. The Judge did not know what he was asking. "I'd rather--"
"Oh, excuse me," Stoner apologized, "What could I have been thinking? I did not mean to be rude, Adam. I am just not used to being a warrior and all the protocols and traditions involved."
Adam held out the blade, hilt first, towards the Judge.
"Oh, I am honored," Stoner breathed, taking the blade with as much reverence as if he were being handed the Crown Jewels. "These gems are significant?" he indicated the many jewels set in the intricate gildwork of the hilt and guard.
Adam smiled, "Yes, there is, but it's much too complex to recite so early in the morning. It's something in the nature of a Danaan history."
"Danaan?"
"What the dragons call--called--themselves," Adam answered uneasily. He stood and paced back to the front door. No one was there. He returned to the kitchen.
"Something wrong?" Stoner brought over a basket of biscuits, honey, and butter.
Adam dug in. "I just thought someone was there."
"Well," a sunny, low voice sounded from the door, "You're having breakfast," Duncan observed. "You weren't going to wake me?"
Adam and Stoner stared at each other and broke out in broad guffaws.
"Only in the sense that one wakes the dead, Darling," Adam quipped.
The sound of a car engine shutting down, the approach of crunching gravel at the front door sent Stoner back to the stove to set in the next batch of biscuits and turn the sausages.
Adam and Duncan walked to the front door to welcome home the lady of the house.
Anne walked in, key in her right hand, Sean in her left arm, and Mary, peeking around behind her. She startled when she saw them, not expecting anyone to be here as both cars were parked around the side of the house and out of sight.
"Dadahm!" Sean howled happily. He squirmed and kicked and reached for his beloved brother. Adam took him and they wandered into the parlor, babbling about this and that, happy as larks.
"Daddy!" Mary squealed and dashed around Anne, down the hallway towards MacLeod, who dropped to one knee.
Mary ran right by him.
Duncan did not turn around. He did not need to see who was standing behind him.
The ashen look of incredulity in Anne's face told him all he needed to know.
They had made a bargain to save Ram, to save Malak, from Hell. This was part of that bargain.
That Marak's soul, through Malak's flesh should some day be manifest once again in the living world.