There was no witness to the passage of the ebon steed, cantering through the moonlit stands of birch and pine and aspen, wending ever northward into the black night. Only the gibbous moon, wan and distant, watched over the stallion's rider and the fair maiden, all in white, sleeping in the pale prince's adoring arms.

        Malak was burned so badly along his right side, shoulder to thigh, that the threads of his garment had melted, inextricably, with the skin beneath. Every surge of the giant destrier tore at his side in an agony of liquid fire. His arms were sore and cramped with the long burden of even so light a weight as this blessed bride, and each stride opened another minor wounding which one of the bridal party had dealt him.

        Malak had never felt so well in all of his long, long life. Every part of him gathered in the profound gladness which burnished even his soul with a pure, golden light, resplendent and lambent and fine.

        This sleeping woman, this bright riddle of intellect and innocence, had accepted his troth almost two seasons before. She had put off the wedding, though, until she traveled southward and saw to her schooling and such. Or so she had said. Malak had followed her silently, watching, with no little sorrow, her friendship with the MacLeod child grow into something more. He might have been broken beneath this precious girl's whim, were it not for the book, her favorite, she said.

        He had packed up her things to send to her, wallowing in his sadness at losing her, each one of her things recalling her to him as if she were there in the flesh. Then he had found the tiny book, the poem about the Knight and the Bride, and he finally understood what Mary wanted. He had finally kenned this was a test, that he would have to win her, to take her like the knight in the poem.

        So he had waited--an occupation at which he was superb--and he had planned. Getting onto Holy Ground was going to be the most difficult part. After some thought, he had gone back to 'Couver and retrieved two of Monstro's get, a fine stallion and a gentle mare, and brought them to the place he prepared for their bridal bower. He would enter the ground on one of the horses, desecrate the place with dragon's blood, take the bride, and ride away.

        It had not been so simple in the execution, Malak laughed to himself and shifted Mary's weight so gently she did not even wake. He had to kill Sean and Cross and Connor. He had not killed the Facet, Grant, but the big man had rushed him so quickly, Malak couldn't place his stallion's kick from the distance he might have wished and the man had smacked up soundly against the stone wall.

        He hoped Grant would be all right. Cross would never forgive Malak if any serious harm came to his beloved.

        Malak had known Duncan would stand between himself and Mary. He just hadn't counted on Adam's quick wits. Methos was his own student, after all, as well as Ram's son. If he were thinking rightly and not so mind-muddled with his all-consuming love for the woman, Malak might have foreseen Adam's immediate counter to his desecration. The timing had been too close, hence the burns which Malak hardly felt, though he was not looking forward to picking the threads of his shirt out of his wounds.

        In the end, when Adam had finished the consecration of the water, Malak had moved against Duncan, as if to take his head. This had done the trick to draw Adam away from the altar. He pulled Adam away from the one maneuver which might have killed Malak: to pour the water on the altar, thereby consecrating the chapel entire.

        But Adam's love for Duncan over-rode his better sense and Malak had made it out of the chapel alive. Mary was not ascended yet, so she would have been in no danger, but Malak himself would have detonated like God's Own Wrath. He would have been killed in one of the few ways an Elohim may be.

        No matter. He had succeeded. Two decades before he had lifted Mary up to the father of this horse and stayed behind to face a cruel and inglorious death, so that she might fly away free.

        This day Malak's life had come round the full circle. Today, they had both flown free, together. Where his life had ended before, now it would truly begin. The woman he had fallen so utterly in love with five millennia earlier was now sleeping in his arms, resting over his heart, the place where she had always been, and always would be.

        Then he heard the wickering call of the mare. "We are here, Mary," he said softly, waiting for her to wake before he lifted her to the ground. He jumped down beside her, catching her waist as she started to crumple. Her glazed eyes lidded closed again and Malak picked her up, gathering in the lace of her gown. He bent his head forward and nuzzled his cheek against her forehead.

        Well, he thought, you will see the place yourself after a night's rest. I wish you could be part of this, Mary, he thought, as he neared the cabin and stepped up to the porch.

        But I will be happy enough for both of us.

        He carried her across the threshold.

---

        Duncan shook his head clear and winced as he reached up to his healing jaw. Suckered into a left hook! It was too much to bear. Stupid, stupid,stu--.

        Then he saw his son lying stone cold dead five strides away in Robert de Villancourt's arms. The Highlander was on his feet and beside Sean, kneeling, in an eye-blink. Robert's features were set in a rigid expression. "I am sorry, Duncan. He was suffering. He was dying. I--" Robert handed over the thin dagger with which he had dealt the MacLeod son the final wound of grace.

        Duncan stood and lifted Sean in his arms so he could reawaken in a less bloody place. "It's all right, Robert. Thank you for doing what I would have done had I been conscious. Come with me and tell me--"

        Robert knew well enough how to report from the field, "Gina has taken the Dawson's outside to see to the guests, except Kyle. He won't leave. He won't, can't seem to, get near Sean, but he won't leave the church. He may do so, now we are leaving. You can see Adam is rousing now--"

        Duncan saw the slim body begin to move, stretching on the aisle floor. Adam was lying on his back, his lips still moving in the Latin rite which had probably saved them all...well, all except Mary, God Keep her safe in Malak's care until they should get her back again.

        "Grant is badly injured. Cross carried him out of here to one of the tents. You can see Connor still needs tending. I make three major fractures. I could be wrong. Haven't had a chance to evaluate him closer..." Richard continued, no guests injured, Lucille seeing to them now. Everyone was in a sort of floating shock. It would be a while before they needed anything, save someone to lead them to a quiet place and tell them everything would be well. Cool Lemonade, ice packs, aspirins, and double bourbons pretty much took care of the rest.

        Duncan kneeled down with Sean in his arms and watched Adam's breathing. The Old Man had done admirably. Wounded and dying from the beginning of the assault--Robert had recounted their late understanding--still Adam had held, had stood his shield, saved his life. Duncan shifted Sean's weight and touched the still cool forehead.

        Sean took that moment to enter the world of the Immortals, kicking and howling, sobbing and screaming. Duncan could hardly hold him. "Son, you are all right," Duncan intoned again and again.

        But all the while Sean wailed he was anything but. The young man shook all over, beating back his horrifying and unbearable first taste of death.

        "Sean," a cracked voice sounded from the floor and a slender hand touched Sean's back. "Be still, you're frightening Kyle."

        Sean's squeals stopped and Duncan laid him on the floor beside his brother, just waking. "Kyle!" he called over to the blonde boy shuddering against the side wall. "You'll have to be upset some other time. Adam and Sean need your help. I have to go to my father."

        "Now!" the Highlander roared and the force of his voice drove Kyle away from the wall and into the aisleway to crouch down beside Adam and Sean. Sean reached over and took him in a hug. Adam slumped back flat on the torn carpet and just caught his breath. He couldn't help being reminded of the two baby monkeys in the orphan experiment where they ran in the "monster" to see what two motherless babes would do. Pretty much just exactly this, Adam thought. So much easier to be afraid with someone there to hold you, even if they are as afraid as you.

        "Connor," Robert was speaking with the elder Highlander, wedged under the third to the last row of benches.

        "Let's start with these," Duncan suggested, lifting the heavy pews off Connor, trying not to listen to the sound of his father's pain with each new jostle, though they were just as careful as they could be with the extrication.

        That accomplished, Duncan bent to exam the damage done by the charging steed. Both legs broken and angulated, same with the left arm, and a deep, crushing injury to the belly. That last was what made him moan and scream. Duncan was stuck for how to begin.

        Robert had the solution. He lifted Malak's dagger back from Duncan's belt and drove it without hesitation into its second MacLeod heart in one day.

        Duncan stared at Robert.

        Robert shrugged, "Think of it as Immortal anesthesia." He worked to straighten the right femur, pulling hard against Connor's strong thigh muscles.

        Duncan straightened the left lower leg fracture, no traction was required, and to settle the left arm straight.

        "You should be very grateful you were not awake when your ex-wife found out I had not waited to let her set a chest tube and inflate Sean's lung. Dr. Lindsey was so certain she could have saved him, she nearly bashed me brainless when she found out I'd already just gone on and killed him."

        Duncan's mind conjured up poor Robert, fending off the assault.

        "He is of age and to full height," Robert said carefully, "he has always buzzed like a veritable ancient. I could not think it would change anything too badly, except that it adds another trauma to an already awful, or at least intense, day."

        Connor started to wake again, drawing breath like a drowning man coming through the surface of the water, into the air and the light. Robert kept his traction on the stubborn femur and Duncan reminded his father not to move until the healing was done.

        "Your bride?" Connor rasped beyond Robert's shoulder.

        Duncan looked up to see Adam standing there, Kyle on his right, Sean on his left, explaining Sean's birthright to them both, giving them words and ways to see this which would not trouble them so.

        "She is gone with the dragon, Grandfather," Sean said in a tiny, but respectful voice.

        "Ha, ha, ha," Connor laughed in a throaty whisper. "Oh, Duncan, did you ever think we'd hear that name. You're going to pull my leg off, Villancourt," he added.

        Robert let go reluctantly, but the angulation did not reappear.

        "What can we do to find her?" Connor said.

        "You see," Adam remarked to the two young men, "It's a definite streak which runs through the family, and something you'd do well to avoid, Brother. Flat on his back, broken to bits, a MacLeod still sees himself as everyone's Lord High Protector."

        Connor replied in some obscure Welsh dialect. Duncan's hand went over his mouth and Adam started laughing hysterically.

        "Well, if it were at all anatomically possible, you thick-skulled Scot," Adam quipped back, "Then I might consider giving it a try."

        "You would," Duncan muttered.

        "And isn't it the wife's place to support her husband?" Adam asked lightly.

        "Not where chandeliers are involved," Duncan snapped back.

        Sean looked questioningly at Dahm.

        "Come along, boys," Adam warbled, "We'll talk outside. I  am a bit peckish, now I think on it, and smelling Cross' fine feast all morning, I'm damned if I'm going to let this row deprive me of culinary paradise."

        Duncan and Robert carefully lifted Connor to sitting on a nearby bench. The elder Highlander gingerly rubbed his belly, surprised at how much better it felt, and how empty. "Clansmen," he honored Robert into the bargain, "Let us be off to the feast as weel. Then we'll see about getting the wee bridie back for my--," Connor hesitated. His wounded eyes softened with a thin veil of tears, "for my grandson."

---

Mary stirred in her sleep. She was riding and riding, they never seemed to stop. Her mind blended the pictures of a treasured book into the imagery of her dreaming. East of the Sun, West of the Moon, a book with lovely pictures of monsters and maidens and knights, each a little disturbing, for no apparent reason.         She was riding a great white bear, on and on into the dusk of a summer's night.         "Where are we going?" Mary asked the bear.         "Into the future, Darling," the Bear replied.         "Father?" Mary recognized the voice. "Is that you?" But, of course, she knew it was.         "Yes, Honey," replied the Bear.          "What happens in the future, Father?"         "Many wonderful things, Little Princess."

        "You aren't answering me," Mary pouted, growing sleepy with the long, swaying stride of the Bear.

        "I want you to be at peace, Honey. I want you to know that whatever you decide, I will be here to take you home...all the way home. Just remember that. Things will happen as they happen, but I will be here to take you home. Do not be afraid."

        Mary began to sleep in the dream and wake in the world. "Where?" she mumbled.

        A soft voice whispered near her, "You are safe. Do not fear, Mary."

        "Oh, Father," Mary said, "I had such a dream. I was standing at my wedding to Sean MacLeod, and the vows were done, and then--he came for me, Father, galloping into the church, fighting all who would stop him, lifting me up before him and carrying me away. Such a dream, Father."

        "You did not dream, Mary," the voice said slowly, gently.

        Mary jerked awake and pushed back as far as the bedstead would allow. She started to scream, but then thought better of it and glowered instead. It was a daunting darkness overflowing poor Malak, seated on the floor by her bed, waiting...always waiting.

        Mary took a quick assessment. She was still dressed in her wedding gown. It was torn in several places and dirty along the hem, but had otherwise not been disturbed. He had not taken her while she slept. Well...that was good.

        Malak stood slowly and backed away from the bed. "I will replace or repair you gown, Lady," he said, feeling her anger, but not understanding it.

        Mary thought a moment. Malak was not acting like a kidnapper or a rapist. "Take me back now!" she commanded.

        "What?" Malak choked.

        "You heard me!" Mary crossed her arms and squared her shoulders. "Take me back."

        "But I thought--but you--" Malak's tongue stumbled over his building anxiety. "But surely I did not misunderstand when you accepted my offer of marriage?"

        "I lied," Mary growled. "You wouldn't leave me be, so I lied. To get away from you."

        Malak closed his eyes and held his breath against the pain seizing his heart. Somehow he found the words to say, "You will want to change then. The gown will not take another long ride. There are clothes--" but he had no steady words to say after that, so he just pointed towards a tall chest of drawers across the room. Then he bowed. Then he left. He supposed he did not have to tell her he would be outside, waiting....always waiting....she knew this well enough that it had driven her away from him.

---

        Mary wandered over to the chest of drawers, noting the features of the one-room wood house. It was a tidy little cabin, clean and warm and fit and furnished just right. Here a miniature crystalline horse, there a row of books, she moved closer. Her ten most favorite books, three of them out of print and impossible to get, and, yes--

        She reached into the satin sash at her waist and pulled out the tiny book with the poem about the knight and--

        Oh, My God, Mary thought, Surely Malak didn't think--He couldn't have--. She put her book in the row beside its twin.

        She sighed, what did it matter if he did, anyway. It didn't change anything. It didn't change anything at all.

        What I need to do is get dressed and go home, Mary thought, heading once again for the chest, trying to take no notice of the charming kitchen canisters, the garland of flowers overhanging the leaded window at the sink, the impeccably clean floor and soft rugs--.

        She pulled out one of the middle drawers. It was filled with packages.

        Mary opened another and another drawer. All filled with dozens of packages. She was such a sucker for presents, little packages of surprise and wonder. There were countless varied papers from gild antique to humorous cherubs to simple metallics, all wound with satin bows in a rainbow of colors, and each with a tiny, handwritten note.

        Decisions, decisions. Mary opened the lowest drawer and took out all its presents, placing them carefully on the rug, then sitting down beside them. She picked up a package wrapped in pale green mermaids and a pale green bow, bearing a card that said simply, but oddly, "Ware the bows."

        Hmmm? Malak was not the sort to misspell, but she did not know what he meant. She tore into the package to find another wrapping, thin tissue folded around some material. This she brought to her lap and unfolded. It was a shirt, no, a dress, no--. It was a charmingly demur nightgown done in handwidth panels of soft cotton and beige lace. Small beige silk bows ran up and down the panel edges. It was sleeveless, but otherwise shoulder to mid-thigh, and not anything she would have considered sexy. Still it did look very comfortable, and it wasn't like anyone else would be wearing it.

        Mary walked over to bolt the door, then slipped off her wedding gown and the heavy slips beneath and drifted the nightgown over her head. It was soft and cool, just the sort of thing she would wear to bed if it wasn't a T-shirt. Ware the bows? Hmmm? Mary touched the bow at the top of the center, between the two front panels. It came undone and turned the demur neckline into dramatic cleavage. Mary burst out in laughter. She opened the next present, "For less formal evenings," an enormous T-shirt with a silly green dragon on the front making little smoky "Z's" snoring.

        This little thing and that, and all of it perfectly suited to only her. Mary opened the last package, a larger one with thicker plain wrapping, that said, "No explanation for these, just had to."

        Inside were, without a doubt, the ugliest slippers she'd ever seen. Mary slipped them on. They were all soft, combed lambswool, and for all they were indeed, large and ugly, they were also soft and warm and...

        Perfectly wonderful.

        Mary started laughing again, but this soon turned to weeping. She couldn't even say why she was crying. She had not been hurt, but she felt pain anyway. She had done nothing wrong, but she felt ashamed and miserable. She had just been married that day, but she felt as if she were living alone on the far side of the moon.

        Malak rushed into the room, breaking the bolt. "Mary!"

        Mary shook her head but she couldn't stop sobbing and gulping long enough to explain, nor did she really have an explanation anyway. Malak hesitated and then just held her, rocking slowly, trying not to weep himself, though he had surely been doing exactly that when he heard her start to cry.

        Mary finally settled and her ragged breathing steadied. She stuck her legs out straight, the terrible slippers still on her feet. She put her heels together and clicked their toes together and apart, together and apart. "You know," she started in a philosophical tone, or almost.

        "What?" Malak asked soberly.

        "I will never be able to explain this," Mary said sniffing and sighing.

        "Explain what, Mary?"

        Mary shook her head, "How I fell in love with you over these ugly slippers."

        Malak got up and walked back to the door, "If you need anything--" he didn't have the heart to say he'd be waiting outside.

        Mary tucked her legs underneath her and twisted his direction. "You don't believe me," she said, "I don't believe it either, but there it is. I do. I'm sorry I couldn't see that before. I was afraid."

        Malak didn't turn around. "There is no need to be kind, Mary. I will take you back as you asked."

        "You can't forgive me for lying to you?" Mary asked, pushing up to standing.

        "I can forgive you anything, Mary," Malak still did not turn around. "I just cannot stay and jest with you about something that means my life to me. I would rather be gutted or quartered." He reached for the door handle.

        "I understand why you came for me, Malak," Mary said a little more desperately. "You may know me better than I know myself. This cabin, these wonderful slippers, everything proves it is so. I may not have known it, but I wanted you to come and spirit me away." She began crying again, just little sobs of frustration that she could not make him understand.

        Malak returned to her anyway. Held her again. Noticed this time that she had put on the nightgown for her trousseau and even played with one of the bows.

        "I told Duncan MacLeod that I was waiting for my heart to lift. Lucille said it would do that when first I saw Sean standing at the altar, waiting for me. But it didn't, it didn't..." she began crying again in earnest, remembering how badly that had made her feel. "I thought I was wrong, that I expected too much, but all around us there were couples who loved each other so, so---much. They were buddies, mates, to be sure, but they were also more. I knew then it would never be more for me and Sean. But then you came, almost as if I had called you there..."

        "You were so, so--," Mary gulped and swallowed, "magnificent," she breathed out the word in a way that made Malak's entire body come alive. "And, and," she burst into choking sobs, then shook her head angrily, trying to hold back her emotions enough so she could speak. "My heart lifted then, even when I first saw you. You made me so afraid. I don't know, I just--"

        Malak sank them both down to the floor. He held her more closely and stroked her head. "Don't be afraid, Mary. I am sorry you are so distressed. You need to rest. It is too dark to start back now. Rest a little more and in the morning we'll have breakfast and then you can decide what you want to do."

        "Could you just sleep with me tonight?" Mary, or the uncertain little girl within, asked. "I mean, just, I am too upset to be alone and I--"

        "Yes, Mary, I will be glad to," he lifted her up and walked over to lay her back in bed. Then he tied the one errant bow. "Wait just a moment, Mary."

        Malak walked over to the other side of the cabin, retrieved his sword and laid it on the bed, in its sheath, beside her.

        "What is that for?" Mary asked.

        "It is in the nature of a Knight's vow. It means I will not take advantage of you," Malak explained.

        "I trust you, Malak," Mary said. "I suppose it also means I can't take advantage of you then?"

        Malak moved unconsciously to a defensive stance, then he gauged the joke in the woman's merry eyes, and he had to laugh at himself. He slipped into bed and under the thick quilts. "Maybe I should make a fire," he said to cover his nervousness.

        "It's summer, Malak," Mary replied sleepily, "Good Night, Prince Malak."

        "Good Night, Princess Mary," he said and let the night descend upon him.

        Chaste though they both remained through their very odd first night of the honeymoon, still they found themselves wrapped around each other come morning, and the sword fallen on the floor.

---

        They had gone after Mary and Malak and the black horse. Cross had his chopper up less than ten minutes after they'd last seen the interloper vanish into the woods to the north, but there was no sign of him anywhere. Joe Dawson mustered all the Watchers in the area and the Park Service personnel and even the Overlook Police, after he'd concocted some more believable tale than the actual facts of the matter. Mokgobja went on foot with four of the wedding guests from Overlook who were practiced hunters and trackers. Sean took out his slate and requested records on trailer rentals from Seacouver to Overlook and DOT records for the past two months, hoping to narrow their search. These would not arrive before the morning, and it was a weekend, and--. Joe got on the slate and pulled some mayoral muscle and they promised to send the records out first thing in the morning.

        The fact of the matter was that Malak and Mary had disappeared into the forest, into an area that was remote and wild and inaccessible and which covered thousands of acres, and they had done all they could until morning, some more information, and some rest. Then they would load up and pack into the wilderness. There was no other way. It might take them a month, longer, to find Malak's hideout, if he were still there when they did.

        In the meantime, they fed and comforted their rattled guests, and tried to find some order in all the Chaos.

        By the time dusk washed over the sea cliff, the wedding guests began to take their leave of the MacLeods, Connor and Duncan and Sean. The farewells were a bit awkward, there being no formal commentary for such a bizarre and breathless day, more Renaissance Fair, less wedding. But one and all expressed their sincere condolences in the place where they would have put congratulations, and every one of them offered their help and their hope that all would be well in the end.

        Duncan was very proud of his son. First Death was a strain at best, a time to be alone and gather one's wits, but Sean had been most gracious and helpful, had not broken down, nor held himself apart. He bounced his Sean self through the whole nasty affair with humor and heart and more endurance of spirit than the Highlander might have expected in one so young and untouched by the ugliness of the world.

        The guests who would be staying the night gathered in the largest pavilion and together sorted through the silverware, cleaned the plates and glasses, tidied and gossiped and stuffed themselves on sandwiches and beer. Thomas Cross was honored with more than one toast for his splendid fare. He was absent the entire afternoon, seeing to Grant's various injuries from his run-in with the horse monster which had borne away the bride.

        On his own part, the large man, Grant, was less than a gracious patient. He had more than once offered to seriously bash Thomas if the diminutive man picked him up to carry him once more. Not that that stopped Cross, who gathered the giant and bore him to Stoner's large car which took them back to the Fortress and the Master Bedroom. It would have been hilarious, the large sputtering man who was usually so taciturn, the tiny black man speaking like a weary mother to his obstreperous charge, but they had all worried for Grant's survival, Facet or no. It did not seem so funny from that perspective. Not now, but in future, the giant and the black man would find themselves a very humorous tale, woven into the myth this day would make. Told and retold, mostly fiction, and none of it any more unbelievable than what had actually occurred at the Wedding MacLeod.

        The remaining Facets, Dragon and Strike and the two women, whose names Duncan could never quite remember, finished packing and cleaning while Connor and Duncan and Sean and Kyle struck the tents and folded the parachute ceiling of the chapel. Kyle turned out to have more sand to him than even his mother, Lucille, would have suspected--and she thought him quite the wonderful child. He ceased his all-too-tender tears and fears and pitched in with the rest, though he was never very far from his cousin, Sean, and an hour did not go by without Kyle asking his cousin if he was all right.

        Sean finally sent him back to the Fortress with his father, Joe Dawson, and a tray of food for Cross and Grant, but he hadn't stayed. Kyle came right back and turned into Sean's shadow again. Lucille rode back with Stoner and Dr. Anne who would be going on to a hotel in Overlook where they could access the police net--or so Stoner said, but it was clear Overlook had more to offer these two than LAN lines and larger slates, and when they dropped Sweet Lucille off, they picked up enough clothes to stay a week in town at least, some of it formal wear. Doubtless for evening sessions on the net, Lucille had remarked laughing at them only a little bit. Lucille thought it was dear and a proper answer to poor Anne's sudden loss and the Chaos she could never stand, even at its most benign.

        Then they were to the last tent and Duncan pulled "the boys," as Adam referred to them, back from their assault on the last pavilion, this one with the side drapes drawn closed all round. "We'll have to wait a bit," Duncan said, and Connor started his soft, wheezing laughter, the rumbling, "Heh, heh, heh," which was his signature.

        The boys looked to Dahm for an answer and he motioned them back to the large table, all that was left of the kitchen. He served them both beers and commenced a most tasteful explanation of how warriors feel after the battle is over, how wenches should ware the soldier just come from the field of battle.

        "Wait, are you saying that fighting turns you on?" Kyle asked bluntly.

        "I don't know it's the fighting," Adam mused, "so much as it is the killing and the blood and the utter relief at battle's end to know that you are still living. And I am not sure it is anything so rational as all that, either. The same rush and madness that gets you through the battle, stays with you after for a while. What does your father call it?" he looked at Kyle, "Ah, yes, A Guy Thing. I suppose it isn't much different from what hunters call 'buck fever.'"

        Sean sat silently and sipped his beer, thinking.

        "And that has what, exactly, to do with why we can't strike the last tent?" Kyle asked.

        Adam smiled, "Well, the Villancourts are both warriors and we did have one hell of a battle today," he waited for Kyle to make the connection.

        "You mean--?" Kyle's luscious lips, so like his mother's, slacked open, "All this time?"

        Adam's eyebrows scrunched together and he pressed lips against what would obviously have been a more salacious reply, "I believe I saw Robert setting a tray from the feast table some time mid- afternoon."

        Kyle stared at the one remaining tent, peering as if the walls would speak.

        "Kyle!" Sean admonished him. "You don't have to stare."

        "Well, Sean," Adam sighed and turned his full attention on his brother. "You have made a great, glad day for your father and for me, and for so many others, but--" he moved close to Sean and threw one long arm around his baby brother's shoulders, "you have had no joy yourself and this your own wedding day, and none to say what has become of your dear little bride, and no--"

        "Stop!" Sean barked. "I know you are trying to make me cry, but it's not going to happen. I know very well what you are trying to explain with this ridiculous metaphor of the Villancourts and warriors' passion, and such. I know very well, my bride will not know me first--" he pause his tirade, "but she will know me last. And Malak will know something he has never known before. I could do nothing in the fight but lay there and hurt, every breath--and feel my life going out of me. But I watched, everything, precisely, and I know now how to kill a dragon. And this dragon is going to be sent to Kingdom Come by my hand."

        "You really have become a man this day, Sean," Adam said softly, "and I cannot say I am entirely happy about it. I suppose I shall have to put away all the precious baby brother memories in some safe place now, because it will be a long time before you even want to hear about them. Very well, vengeance be yours, Sean. You are by birth a Prince among the Danaans and among the Immortals. You are the Last Immortal as I am the First. In this hour, I pledge you my sword in your service, my fealty in your cause and your kingdom. May the fates be kind to you, Lord MacLeod, and may all the things which I have taught you finally make sense now." He took Sean's hand and laid it, first on his heart, and then on his neck. The symbolism of the simple rite was obvious.

        Sean said nothing, but he nodded curtly.

        "Now," Adam sighed, "Let's go see if we can rouse the Villancourts and finish cleaning up. Kyle can come back in the morning and tag the plants with their various instructions, so the landscapers can bed them for real. This will make a nice little park when they are done. Perhaps we will, ourselves, in some future time, come back to this place and remember this day. I know it won't be anytime soon."

        Sean smirked and shook his head. He wasn't going to weep and that was that. "Come on, Kyle," he said, "Let's blow this popsicle stand."

        Adam watched his brother go, disappear, into the fog rolling in from the sea. Adam had somehow contracted that dreadful MacLeod trait of protectiveness. It would be so hard for Sean and there was nothing Adam could do to ease this for him. He could help find Mary. He could even go after her and bring her back. This would not help what had happened to Sean. Sean had died. He would never be alive in the same way again.

        It made for a very peculiar sort of mourning, Adam thought. Probably shared by many a mother who sees her precious child replaced by a grownup with a similar face, like a changeling. It was just that Immortals owned a more exaggerated coming of age and agonies unique to their particular inheritance. They were each, in a very real way, the masters of their own death, and part of what made First Death so daunting was the assimilation of a small piece of godhood, a weight upon the soul which no mortal would ever entirely understand.

---

---

        "Malak?" Mary untangled her arms from the blonde man and ran her fingers down the side of his face.

        "Yes?" the nearly translucent lashes fluttered and lifted.

        "Does this place have indoor plumbing?" Mary didn't know how else to ask.

        Malak bolted up, "Oh, Dear Father, I rode you eight hours yesterday, put you to bed without so much as a bath or a meal, or even something to drink. Yes," he scrambled up and opened a head tall cabinet to the left of the drawer chest. From the row of dresses and coats, he brought forth a pale yellow, thick plush bathrobe with her initials on the collar. "Here," he said, "Summer or not, it gets freezing early mornings, this high in the mountains. "The facilities are through that door," he pointed to a door set in the wall above the head of the bed.

        Shivering, Mary bundled into the robe and the ugly slippers and shuffled into the bathroom. Malak pulled on a jacket and went out to bring in some wood and see to the horses, cursing himself for his awful performance as host.

        Passing the generator, he checked the reserve of diesel. There was plenty. He topped off the tank and started the engine. The horses heard him and started complaining about where was breakfast and could they go out for a run and why hadn't he come to visit them, since they'd been lonesome and starving for--oh, weeks, at least.

        He cracked the ice on their water barrels and poured out the grain and they stopped fussing about the really poor service they'd gotten ever since he'd stolen them away from Master Cross. Malak told them he would send them out a lovely lady two-foot to commiserate with them. He was running 0 for 2 on the Four Star Bed and Breakfast listings. Breakfast! Damn!

        Malak rushed back to the wood pile, grabbed up an armful, and jumped the three steps up to the porch. He dashed through the door only to find Mary frying sausages, boiling grits, and the fireplace roaring with a new fire, extra wood set in the box, and the entire room returned to its pristine tidiness.

        His whole frame slumped and the wood dropped out of his hands. "Oh, Mary," Malak said, thoroughly ashamed of himself, "You were right. I really should take you back. I am not fit to care for you."

        "Don't be silly," Mary laughed.

        Oh, he thought to himself, I could surely become used to that sweet sound.

        "Sit over at the table and sip your juice and coffee, while I finish the eggs and the sausages, and," Mary lifted the corner of the apron she'd found to wear and used it to lift the lid on the grits, "I think the grits will be done in a bit."

        Malak leaned over his elbows and shook his head. He decided to leave his jacket on. He was still a bloody mess underneath and he couldn't keep his left side turned toward her forever. "The horses say hello and welcome," he commented, for want of something intelligent to say. "Perhaps we could go riding after breakfast."

        Mary pushed his elbows off the table, put a plate there instead and plopped a large portion of grits, topped with sweet cream butter, onto the plate. Then she handed him a fork. "No, we will not go riding," she said.

        Malak picked at the white hominy mound, wrinkling his nose, wondering if people really ate this gruel. "Why not, Mary?" he asked, picking up a forkful and smelling it cautiously.

        "Well," she said bringing plates of sausages and gravy, eggs and relish, stacks of toast, and a plate for herself. "I have other things planned for today is all." She filled her plate with toast and grits and sausages, stealing some of the gravy for the grits.

        Malak watched her with no little amazement. Such a tiny child for so voracious an appetite. Perhaps he should have laid in more provisions. When she started mushing up the gravy in the grits, he couldn't stop the tiny gagging sound that escaped his throat.

        Mary looked up at him, "You don't like grits?"

        "I don't know, Mary. They certainly don't look too appetizing."

        "Well, if you don't--well why did you stock them--Oh. All of the food is for me also?" Mary asked and then she took a large bite of grits 'n gravy and swallowed. Mmmm, mmm. To show him it was not poison, after all.

        Malak nodded, braced himself, and tried some. Oh, yes. That was quite good. No wonder she liked them, they went down like a warm internal hug, a most friendly victual. He finished his portion in silent contemplation and reached for the bowl for seconds, only to find it empty. Malak looked at the bowl, and at Mary, and at the bowl again.

        "If you want seconds," Mary said, wiping her mouth. Her plate was as empty as the bowl. "You will have to speak up a little sooner, Malak."

        He made a mental note and finished with what little remained of the eggs and sausage and toast. "You said you had plans?" he prompted.

        "As a matter of fact," Mary started to clear the table.

        Malak put his hand on her wrist and bid her be seated. "I'll do that as soon as I finish. I just eat slowly, Mary. You have done more than enough. You talk. I'll listen and eat and then I'll get the dishes."

        "Well, then," Mary said folding her hands on the table, "First we are going to separate you from that shirt and tend your wounds. You bled all over the bed last night. Why didn't you tell me you were so hurt?" She didn't really sound like Malak's mother, but she surely sounded like somebody's.

        "We'll soak you in the tub first and then gently," she winced, "get it off the burns."

        "It doesn't bother me, Mary," Malak stared down at his plate, suddenly very embarrassed.

        "Well, then consider that it bothers me," Mary replied.

        Malak seemed to have lost his wits somewhere back before the flight from the wedding. His thoughts were capering round his skull like spring goats, spinning round his ears in a maelstrom of unintelligibility. He nodded and kept eating.

        "Then?" he asked, just to keep the conversation going while he found his bearings.

        "Then," a wicked mirth crept into the soft tones, "I suppose we will just have to be fucking each other's brains out until lunch."

        Malak's fork dropped, unheeded, out of his hand and his head lifted slowly to stare at the shy, sweet bride, all innocence, which he had brought to this place. "Pardon?"

        "You heard me," Mary said, "I've wanted to say that for ever so long as I first heard Lucille tell the story of the first day she met Ram."

        He might have known Ram was the author of such a remark. "Well, Mary," he sighed and pushed his plate away. "I think you can presume my brains are already suitably fucked."

---

        "I'm going on into town and see about getting some horses," Duncan stopped on the road even with the landside portion of the bridge to the Fortress. Adam didn't move.

        "I said--" Duncan began again.

        "I heard what you said, Duncan," Adam huffed, "If you are going into town, then so am I."

        "But Cross needs help with Grant and Sean is still in some sort of--I don't know--shock, maybe, about the abduction and his Awakening. Connor might need something. And--"

        "Oh, give it a rest, will you," Adam said. "Just what were you planning? Get the horses, rent a trailer, bring them back up here and charge into the woods in the dead of night?"

        "But we have to do something," Duncan's deep rolling brogue came suspiciously close to whining.

        "All right," Adam said brightly. He leaned over the seat back and retrieved his sword and a plastic water bottle out of the bottled water paks left over from the wedding feast. Then he pulled out an afghan from under the seat. Bundling the rest together in the afghan, he added a turkey leg and knotted the bunch. Then he got out of the car and started back up the road, back towards the old abbey, buckling the sheath to his sword as he went.

        The Highlander watched Adam go until he lost sight of him over a rise. Then he jumped out of the car and ran after the Old Man. "What are you doing?" Duncan asked breathlessly as he caught up to Adam's long strided walk.

        "Going after Mary, of course," Adam replied. "I can probably catch Mokgobja's party by morning."

        "Oh, stop," Duncan grabbed him and spun him around. "This is ridiculous."

        "And that, Dearest Duncan," Adam smiled and settled into the embrace, "was exactly my point."

        "So what will we do until dawn?" Duncan meant it more as a general suggestion than a true question. "I really can't stand going back to the Fortress," he added.

        Adam eyed him sideways, "Why is that?"

        "Because ever since Adam left, I--" Duncan stopped.

        Adam's green eyes turned full on him, "Oh, really?"

        "Yeah," Duncan hung his head, "I just started sleeping outside in the hammock and Sean brought my clothes up, so I wouldn't have to go into our bedroom."

        "Oh, stop," Adam wailed, "You're gonna make me cry. Oh, Duncan. I had no idea." He craned his neck back and gazed up at the clear, starry sky. Well, this," he patted the afghan, "will make a nice ground sheet." Adam left the road and climbed up past a dense copse, into a tiny meadow, invisible from the road, abloom in daisies.

        Daisies for loyalty, Duncan thought, having had his share of Kyle's flower meanings. He waited for Adam to spread out the blanket, smelling now like smoked turkey leg. Then he lay down beside him and they just stared at each other.

        "This is strange," Adam said, feeling his responsibility as the verbal half of the duo.

        "'Tis that," Duncan agreed. "It feels so different somehow."

        "Maybe it's because what we did before was out of mindlessness. It had to be. There were so many things we had to forget just to be together. And now," Adam reached over to stroke Duncan's face, "Now we don't know how to approach one another with our brains on straight."

        Duncan moved under Adam's touch on his face, turning until the slender fingers just graced his lips. He nibbled on their tips.

        "And perhaps a less-abandoned relationship is what one can expect between--Mmmm," Adam purred as Duncan's hand found another "between" altogether.

        "Shut up, now," Duncan took over his responsibility as the physical half and closed in on Adam's open mouth. He drew a feathery trace along the bottom lip and then the top and then pushed past Adam's teeth to tease his tongue and palate, savoring the taste of him.

        Adam felt his belt loosen and a light touch trace along his belly. "No," he murmured, as he felt Duncan's lips at the join of his neck and shoulder.

        "No?" Duncan pulled back and brought Adam into focus. "No?" he repeated.

        "It has been too long," Adam could hardly draw enough breath to speak, "I can't do this slowly."

        "Oooh," said Duncan, "It's a ravishing ye're after."

        "If it wouldn't be too much bother, Lord MacLeod," Adam couldn't stop gasping.

        "No bother at all," Duncan laughed and flipped Adam over on his stomach. He ripped the belt out of its loops, grabbed either side of the back seam and ripped, pulling everything halfway down Adam's thighs. He reached for the turkey leg, tore off the skin with his teeth and rubbed his hands in the thick grease beneath. Then he basted Adam right properly and took him with more violence than he thought was in him.

        It was very quick, two maybe three strokes and Adam's mewling purrs and sinuous writhings ceased and he reached beyond the blanket, tearing up mud and grass and daisies in two rigid fists as he met his release and completion, sighing like a wind out of the high mountains to the north.

        Duncan withdrew and zipped up his red, mulberry, trousers. He pushed back to kneeling and to thinking, his brows knurled together with the effort.

        Adam rolled dreamily over on his back, but the moment he saw Duncan's face in the moonlight, he sat up. "Duncan?"

        "Give me your pants," Duncan said, reaching into his pocket.

        "What?"

        "I need to mend them. You can't go back to the house in them that way," Duncan explained, "It won't be the best seaming--I wouldn't try any deep knee bends--but it will serve to get you home decently dressed."

        "Duncan?" Adam handed over his trousers and pulled up his jockeys. The smell of smoked turkey was everywhere. He placed his palm against the hard bulge beneath the red pants.

        "No," Duncan said as he turned Adam's pants inside out and matched up the torn back seam.

        "Do you want me to ravage you back?" Adam curled in beside him.

        "No," Duncan made a knot in the thread and began to run a stitch along the seam.

        "You're making me start to sweat, Duncan," Adam tried to break through the sudden frost, "If you don't tell me what is wrong, and right now--"

        "You will think it is stupid," Duncan said with no particular emotion, "as is much of what I do, I suppose. Hell, it is stupid."

        "I know you love me, Duncan," Adam tried to remain calm as his bright wits flew up like an exaltation of Liths, "but if that does not include any more sex, then so be it. I can live with that. I cannot live with this separation--"

        "Hah," Duncan laughed, "You cannot live--That's a laugh--"

        Adam laid his head on Duncan's wide shoulder, just at the moment that the Highlander skewered his finger with the needle. Perhaps it was both things, or neither, but he began to sob.

        Good Lord, Adam thought holding onto to the bucking Scot, Leave it to a Gael to really know how to grieve. Duncan was racked with it. He was having seizures of emotional agony, great gulping portions of sheer misery and melancholy. Such wailing as only Sidhe might make. Adam's hair bristled beneath the weaves and he began to fear for his beloved's sanity.

        Duncan took a deep breath in, let it all out in a noisy grunt, and said, "That feels better."

        "Better than what?" Adam drew back.

        Duncan looked over at Adam, "Is something wrong with you, Dahm?"

        "Wrong with me?"

        "Oh, well. Hmmm, I just needed to do that, just didn't have the time nor the luxury before. You'll enjoy this," Duncan said.

        "I can hardly see how," Adam said.

        "Oh, no, it's one of those ironic situations of which you are so fond," Duncan continued. "The hell of it is I couldn't fall apart over your going, until you came back."

        "Meaning?"

        "I had to be strong until you came back to pick up the slack. It wasn't safe to let go until you came back," Duncan tried to explain. An idea struck him, "And I needed that release more than I needed the other. Thank you." He handed Adam's pants back to him.

        "Okay," Adam put his mended pants back on. "You're welcome. I guess."

        "You don't think it's funny?" Duncan asked.

        "Ask me again, when I stop shaking," Adam replied.

---

        Malak finished the dishes while Mary drew the bath, which had begun to take on, in his own fevered perspective, all the aspects of some prototypic baptism of a bath, a Solemn High Bath, as it were. He really couldn't think what was the matter with him, except that everything mattered so much, he couldn't seem to put one foot in front of another without tripping. He simply could not step out of the mythic and into the real. Just her attention bathed him in a chrism of light. Just her voice set off harmonics along the essential struts of his being which threatened to shatter him at every turn. Just her touch--.

        Malak cleaned the table top, twice, and then there was nothing more to do but surrender. He had simply said "no" so long that this saying "yes," was nigh on to impossible.

        He knocked lightly on the door. Oh, well, nobody home, maybe later.

        Malak pulled off a boot that hadn't left his foot since this time yesterday when he'd readied for his charge on the wedding. Hopping around on the other foot, he finally got the stubborn leather off.

        "Come in," she said beyond the door. "Bath's ready."

        Malak delayed with getting his other boot off. Then he walked through the door. Both boots dropped out of his hands. He was the best swordsman in the world. He could fight another swordsman, successfully, with his bare hands alone. His reflexes were sublime.

        But his boots were the third thing he'd dropped in a single morning, after the logs and the fork.

        "Well," Mary said, up to her armpits in soap suds, "Your bath awaits."

        "Shall I wait until you are done, Lady?"

        "We are both a little awkward at this," Mary began, "Though I tend to suspect you are less uncomfortable than you seem to be and are only acting so to make me feel less stupid at this."

        Malak knew this was a lie, but he blessed her for the kindness she showed his fear.

        "You know we are going to laugh about all of this sometime in the future," Mary splashed in the water and five perfect pink toes peeked over the edge of the porcelain tub. "Well, come on then. I'm going to think you don't find me attractive," she pouted, or pretended to.

        Malak had the odd sensation that little fireworks were going off behind his eyes. "I think you are the most beautiful being in all of creation," he said, hearing her giggle. His ears felt like a bank of hives buzzing above a field of new clover. Then the harmonics stopped, the sparkles of light stopped, and he could see and hear again. He couldn't move though.

        Mary climbed out of the tub, padded over to stand in front of him, and waited.

        Malak just could not believe how brave she was. He sank to his knees, wrapped his arms around her, and buried his face in her belly. "I am such a poor excuse to be your love, Mary. Please, let me take you home."

        "Oh, Malak," Mary loosened his grasp and knelt down in front of him, "you are just going to have to stop that. I am afraid. I don't even know exactly what I want. But you know what I want. You know me better than I know myself and I am counting on you to lead me where I want to go. All this false humility is silly. I am--whatever I am--but you, you are an angel, a dragon royal, a gorgeous creature who needs a bath, if nothing else. So," she said as if the matter were completely settled, "take off your pants and get into the tub and we'll work on getting you separated from that shirt."

        Which is exactly what he did, almost amazed that no dire consequences resulted. Malak climbed into the tub, with Mary getting in behind him. She wrapped her ivory legs around his waist and started, with infinite care, to peel the melted shirt away from his deep burns, gasping and sympathizing and empathizing with his physical pain and ignoring his other discomfort completely.

        Mary started humming and Malak jumped up, dripping suds. "Damn!" he exclaimed.

        "What is wrong now?" Mary asked, completely absorbed in looking at the sleek and lovely lines of his lithe frame, even strafed as it was, entirely pleasing just to behold.

        "I am such an idiot!" Malak walked over to a switch on the wall and keyed in a series of numbers. Immediately there floated into the room an aria from "Goethe's Faust," her favorite, of course. It was the duet which Faust and his lady sing towards the end of the opera. It always made her weep. How did he know all these things about her and not know she thought him superb?

        "Please," she said, and busied herself washing her arms, so he wouldn't see her staring so blatantly at his nakedness. "What music do you like?"

        "Well, Duncan says my tastes are most unseemly for a member of the angelic choir," Malak chuckled. "I'm, I'm rather fond of the old Detroit music. The black groups," he elaborated.

        "Motown!" Mary did a bit of back up singer hand movements.

        "Why, yes," Malak smiled enthusiastically, "exactly."

        "Turn it off," she tipped her chin towards the control panel. "And sing me your favorite Motown song."

        Malak shut down the music. He tucked his chin and grinned, "The first time I heard the words, I thought the song was written for me, personally, or at least, it seemed that way. I was absolutely enthralled by the rhythm and the texture, by the vocal quality and the range of emotion and tone, but the words just," he thought a moment. What had they used to say? "They just blew me away."

        "I'm waiting," Mary said, starting to soap her toes.

        Malak just stared, "How could I have gotten such ugly slippers for such lovely feet?"

        "Because you have a sense of the sublime," Mary answered, "And I'm still waiting."

        "It is a song about waiting, Mary."

        "But I'm still not hearing it," she started on her other foot.

        Malak broke his stare and started humming, deep in his throat. He was such a good mimic, that when he started into the vocal line, Mary jerked her attention back towards him to reassure herself he had not suddenly turned into a skinny little black lady.
 

I need love, love, love, ooh to easy my mind
And I need to find, find someone to call mine, my mama said

You can't hurry love, no, you'll just have to wait
She said love don't come easy, it's a game of give and take
You can't hurry love, oh you'll just have to wait,
Just trust in the good times, no matter how long it takes
 

        Mary joined in with a verse, out-of-order, but apt nonetheless.
 

Now I can't bear to live my life alone
I've grown impatient for a lover to call my own
And when I feel that I, I can't go on
You know I feel my strength, you know it's almost gone,

        Malak was thrilled to have discovered an aspect of his intended he had never known before. She liked his music! She knew his music! They joined in the chorus, Mary climbing out of the tub and joining him in the X-rated version of Motown choreography.
 

I remember my mama said
You can't hurry love, no, you just have to wait
She said love don't come easy, it's a game of give and take
How long must I wait, how much more must I take
Before loneliness will cause my hard heart to break
 

 
        Two more choruses and the bathroom floor became too slippery to continue their wildness. Malak started laughing and Mary with him. Then he reached up and tore his shirt off in one, quick jerk.

        Mary yipped. "Malak!"

        "It's okay, Mary," Malak bent over the tub and rinsed off his shoulder until the bleeding stopped. "See, all better." This was not exactly true, but it would be in several more minutes.

        "I'll say," Mary said, folding her arms and tipping her head as she contemplated him from a different angle.

        Malak stood up straight and spun around.

        "And that side is nice too," she grinned and reached up to fuss with a copper red curl at her neck. "Follow me," she crooked an index finger on her other hand and then reached for the knob and opened the door. She backed out slowly, then turned, squealed, and ran for the bed.

        Malak scrambled after her, but she beat him to the bed. He jumped in beside her and took her in his arms. Everything about her was smooth and soft, peaches and apricots and honey. He surrendered completely to her, to his knowledge of her, to, as she had said, to leading her where she wanted to go. While all the time he only followed, fate and desire and five thousand years of diligent study and patient waiting.

        He thought of her as the most exquisite young mare he had ever approached, green, but so talented and beautiful as to need only a subtle clue here and there to turn the fire into grace and strength. Mary was so responsive, so exquisitely sensitive, it was a joy to pleasure her. Everything was new and wonderful for her, he had only to be gentle and slow and careful not to frighten or offend. And she was so brave, this was hardly a problem.

        In the end, Malak found his old self just a little too slow to suit. Mary grabbed him by his golden curls, pulled him up from the copper fuzz and delightful taste of her sex and demanded, silently, though no less imperiously, that he mount. Thrown off his pace, Malak sought her younger rhythms, but he led a little more slowly than she followed, so she more or less ran away with him, as green horses are apt to do, just from the sheer joy of the wind whipping past.

        So he did what good horsemen always do in that situation: hang on for dear life and make it seem that it was what they had intended all along.

        Malak felt her breathing grow ragged and hot against his ear, heard the beginnings of her ascendancy and his own completion.

        Then something went terribly wrong.

        The sleepers within him, Marak and Ram, awoke and he began to tear apart in blinding flashes of power and light. He heard Mary screaming beneath him, but he could not help her. It was over in another few seconds, but there was an eternal quality about the rent which went on tearing at him even after they both lay senseless on the singed linen.

---

        Malak struggled to wake. He was shivering, buried under a mountain of blankets and furs and quilts. He clawed and fought his way out from under them as if rising from a grave.

        "Oh, Malak!"

        He heard Mary's voice, heard its pain and concern. One last thrash and he was up, free, still shaking, but awake. Malak opened his eyes and searched for her through the fog of his senses.

        "Oh, Malak, Malak," Mary's arms folded around his shoulders and squeezed. "I was so worried about you. You just kept right on sleeping and lunch is already ready."

        He reached behind him and brought her around to his lap where he could see her. "Mary? Are you all right?"

        "Oh, my yes," Mary tucked her head down and blushed the most becoming peach tones. She tilted her face back up towards him, "That was," she took a deep breath, "Wonderful, most amazing. I never, in all my wildest fantasies expected--"

        "That wasn't supposed to happen," Malak interrupted her. Oh, dear, he hoped she wouldn't be expecting this on a regular basis. He felt nearly dead--or at least dreadfully wounded--as it was.

        "Yes, it is," Mary smiled brightly.

        "What?" Malak asked. He hadn't heard her over the noise, the hollow echoes in his own wide skull.

        "That is just what was supposed to happen," Mary repeated.

        "But how could you know that?" Malak asked, then regretted doing so. If Mary's wits had been this rattled, was confrontation really the best approach?

        Mary laughed. God, but he loved that sound, better--Forgive me, Father--than the Holy Choir.

        This time she waited for his internal dialogue to still, then she said, "Because my father told me so, Malak. He says that's how dragons make babies, or--hmmm--yes, a perfect clutch."

        Well, Malak thought, I certainly feel clutched, if not perfectly--and my brains out, as well.

        "And Ram says the same thing. She told me to tell you, 'Congratulations,' when you wake up," Mary added.

        Malak lifted her off his lap and set her down beside him on the bed. Absolutely bonkers, he thought, she has gone right round the bend. He got up slowly and stretched his very sore back. "You are not hurt, Mary?"

        "No, Beloved," Mary answered softly, "I am only hungry. I made us sandwiches off that roast in the frig and I warmed up the soup."

        Malak started towards the bathroom and then the exact nature of his wounding staggered him to the floor, gasping.

        "Oh, dear," Mary rushed to his side and settled him on the floor, "Father said this would be hard on you, because he had been with you so long."

        "Gone," Malak moaned, "He is gone. Oh, Mary! Your father, Marak, is dead!"

        Mary chuckled, "No, he isn't. I've been trying to tell you, Honey, he's here with me," Mary tapped her heart, "In my empty spot," she added.

        "Your--?"

        "The place where a man dragon would have lived if I was complete," Mary explained.

        Malak shook his head kindly. Poor child, he thought, her brains all out too. Then from her sweet lips came a voice, familiar and frightening, that threw him back whimpering denials and realizing he, not Mary, was all the way round the bend.

        "I am all right, Brother," Marak's voice said. It came from Mary's throat, but it was the Bear's own voice. "This was unexpected, but all-too-obvious in retrospect. My alkyr, Alael, has been gone from me since the Danae went beyond the gate. Mary's alfaeryn has never existed. It is, I must say, a perfect fit, Brother, and much preferable to regressing back to infancy, where all my memories would be expunged."

        Malak just lay on his back, shaking his head slowly, side-to-side.

        "Take a bath, Brother. That always soothes you. Then partake of the lovely lunch Mary and I have made for you. Then think about this again, when you are less fragile. Oh, and may I add my congratulations to you, Brother. You are the father of a perfect clutch, or you will be in six months. Blessings on your sons, Brother Malak, the fathers of the new Danae upon the earth. I will sleep now, but I will return when I am needed. Know that your brother, Marak, loves you Malak, as only a scruffy old bear can."

        Then Mary shook her copper tresses and her gold eyes blinked as she returned . "That is a nice place to go, Malak. The Sleep Place. I thought it would be lonely and empty, but it's very--" she shook her head again. "Your bath awaits," she pointed towards the slightly open bathroom door.

        Malak got up and followed her, dazed. He obeyed Marak's order not to think about this too much. Mary made that all too easy as she sudsed up his hair and stroked his back with the the sponge and the peach soap and her tiny fingers. He couldn't think of anything at all.

        He was nearly comatose with the utter pleasure of it all when Mary slipped off the yellow bathrobe and her stupendously ugly slippers and he felt her very slight weight, first across his upper thighs and then...

        Oh, Father! Malak's coherence rushed away from him in a flood of sensations mostly centering around the erection he hadn't even known he had. Well, he knew it now, buried his limit in her warm, tender flesh, making baby whimpers. No, he was making those funny sounds. He took a sudden breath, "Wait, Mary, the children, this might--"

        "You worry too much. It will be all right," she whispered huskily.

        "How do you know all these things," he thought he meant about the children, but then again, he might have meant her phenomenally sensuous techniques which were driving him past his capability for speech, even before she told him to shut up. Malak tried to hold back, afraid for the Quickening which had happened before, afraid for the clutch, afraid he would lose even more of himself.

        Then the inevitability of the warm water and the Woman drove him over the edge into a very different oblivion than before, one much more to his liking, and he sank beneath the bubbles and disappeared.

        He was too heavy for Mary to lift and she had to pull the plug and drain the tub before she could rouse him again.

---

        "This room is empty," Adam announced as they peeked into the fourth guest bedroom.

        "Right," Duncan agreed. "Mokgobja is out with the tracking party."

        "If you knew that, then why am I tippy-toeing down the hallway looking for a room," Adam growled as he opened the door all the way and entered.

        Duncan sighed, "Perhaps because you look so fetching when you tip-toe."

        Adam did a slow take, "Is it my imagination, or have you gotten funnier since I left."

        Duncan plopped down on the unmade bed which smelled of balsam and African prince. "Maybe you've just developed a better imagination," he answered back.

        "That's one hell of a suit, Duncan," Adam remarked as Duncan took off his jacket.

        "It looked better before Malak had a go at it," Duncan grumbled. It was slashed in both front panels, blooded under one of the slashes, torn under the arms where the sword maneuvers had pulled the seams to their limits and beyond.

        Adam laughed and began to peel out of his newly-mended britches, "Well, it sure is red."

        "Well, you know, Adam," the Highlander held up his suit trousers and turned them back and forth in the dim light of the Tiffany knock-off by the bed. "I thought it was too, but Lucille kept going on about it being mulberry."

        "Looks pretty red to me," Adam slipped out of the rest of his clothes. "When I saw you coming down the aisle with Connor, I thought it was some sort of a statement."

        "Statement?"

        "Yeah," Adam remade the bed and slipped under the covers. "That you were trying to say you didn't care about appearances or what people might think about your masculinity and such."

        Duncan launched on top of him, on top of the covers, effectively pinning the Old Man prone. Which lasted all of five seconds before a very bony knee lifted on the lever of a very long thigh and jolted the Highlander off him. There followed a lackluster skirmish, incredible technique, no heart, which ended with Adam's long arm twisted high behind his back and a brooding Scot kneeing into his back.

        Duncan leaned near the Old Man's ear, "What was that about my suit?"

        "A manly suit, ouch, if ever there was, Lord," Adam recanted between gasps and complaints, "The air fairly reeked of musk and testosterone. Blood red, the color of a warrior. Duncan!"

        "Well, all right then," Duncan lifted his weight off Adam's long, sinuous back and let go the graceful arm.

        "I don't see how you've changed a bit!" Adam spit out, a little more hastily than he could think.

        "I really haven't," Duncan sat on the edge of the bed and his head drooped down. "I think we will both have to understand there are some points that are never going to be completely all right between us. Come over here," he patted the bed beside him, "And I'll take that knot out of your shoulder."

        "That would only be fair," Adam moved beside him and turned his back, so Duncan could reach his shoulder, "Since you put it there in the first place."

        "And that's something about you, I will never really understand, Adam."

        Adam looked over his shoulder, "That would be?"

        "How you can pay to have someone hurt you on the one hand and be such a ninny about the free stuff on the other. Adam, you're going to have to relax," Duncan admonished, "It's not like I was really there behind the mirror when you visited the All Night."

        Adam spun round, his grey-green eyes looking for all the world like one of the gems in the Tiffany lamp. "You weren't?" he breathed.

        "I said what I said, Adam," Duncan's face solidified into impenetrable rock. "You may take it anyway you like."

        Adam's eyes began to water, not with tears, but with rage.

        "It's just another one of those things that will never make a great deal of sense, but which really doesn't matter much, anyway. I can't get comfortable thinking of myself as gay," Duncan paused, "Anymore than you think of yourself as gay. But it's really not that at all. It's more a matter that neither of us can quite believe we can be loved, honestly, truthfully by anyone who really knows us. But we are, and we are going to just have to stop finding fault with such a blessing and give it the respect it is due."

        "Were you there?" Adam's voice had nearly lost all it's volume.

        Duncan rubbed his temples. "What if I was?"

        "Tell me!" the hoarse whisper rattled.

        "No, Adam I won't. It is really none of your business in any case. Believe what you want."

        "Duncan!"

        "Listen to me, God Damn It! I am saying something important to you," Duncan took a deep breath and tried to back down his emotions, or at least the anger portion. "I love you. It doesn't matter to me what drives you or what desires lie smoldering in your soul. I mean, if you want that, and have deprived yourself of that because I am so inept at the various techniques, then I'll hie me to yon Cross Estate and learn what is to be learned."

        "God no," Adam murmured.

        "You see how even you don't know, even I don't know all there is about the other?" Duncan prompted.

        "Tell me!" Adam renewed his question about the two-way mirror.

        "What did you see in the mirror?" Duncan asked.

        Adam was so angry, he could not remember at first. "Myself," he said finally.

        "Exactly what I see when I look at you," Duncan said, "the person I love above all others." He did not add the "after my son," as he usually did when he said such things to Adam.

        "That is not possible," Adam remembered the pitiful monster he had seen, hideous beyond words.

        "Well, possible or not, there it is," Duncan argued, slipping his arm around Adam's slender waist.

        Adam turned his gaze full on the brawny Scot. His gaunt face softened and the tears rolled without weeping or sobs down the high planes of his cheeks.

        "Oh, Adam," Duncan shook his head, feeling his own eyes well. "You are too harsh in your judgments on yourself. You are a fine man. Even my father thinks so." Duncan reached forward gently and wiped Adam's cheek with his knuckle, making the Old Man sniff and laugh.

        "Connor?"

        "Yes, Adam. My father said he propositioned you, but you always declined, and that he was jealous I had won you instead of him."

        Adam did not hesitate, "I am surprised he told you that, Duncan." It was as close to lying as he could make himself go. The situation had been reversed, of course, and Connor had only said that to sanction the marriage between them and set Duncan's inflexible code of honor at parade rest. And he knew in his mind that had been for Duncan's benefit, but it touched Adam also that Connor would have said something so complimentary about him. And he was likewise reminded of the entire complex plan for bringing him to the wedding, including half a day at the salon getting "weaved."

        There were many here who loved him, even though they knew him, even though they knew his darkest secret. Thinking on it again, Adam recalled the being in the mirror was not quite so hideous, so unlovable after all. But Duncan had yet to answer. "So, were you there, Duncan?"

        Duncan bundled him up in his arms and pulled him down to lying on the bed. "I am always there, Adam," he said. "Always."

---

        "It will be so hard to leave you," Mary said, lying beside Malak on their picnic blanket, gazing up at the wide blue sky, while the two Friesens cropped the bright grass of the mountain park.

        "You're planning on leaving?" Malak rolled over on his stomach and propped up on his elbows, taking in again, the wonder of his wife.

        "I'm not planning on it. No," Mary sighed, "It's just going to happen. There's nothing I can do about it really."

        Malak kept his features still and calm. Did she know he was going to be leaving soon? Was she trying to get him to reveal this? "We are immortal, Mary. We shall be together forever."

        "But we are not invulnerable. We are not eternal," Mary's eyes closed as his hand ran along the upper margin of her tube top.

        "Our love is eternal, Mary. We will be together always," Malak answered. "Neither Fate, nor circumstances, nor God Himself can say otherwise."

        "Well," Mary sighed again, "I hope our love will be very happy then."

        "The babies are just making you moody, Beloved," Malak whistled at the horses, reminding them not to stray too far.

        "I am only three weeks along and I'm not moody, Dear," Mary replied, pushing up to sitting. "Just reflecting. I don't really worry about it. You will be such a fine father to the babes. I just know they will be fine without me."

        Oh, Malak thought, one of those "I'm going to die when I deliver," normal mother fears. She did not know she would survive him. "Not to worry," he said brightly, "I'll get a good wet-nurse and join you."

        "You're joking," Mary started laughing. She reached up and mussed his golden curls.

        "Of course you're right," Malak surrendered and laid his head down over her heart, the convenient tube top having somehow migrated down to her waist while they were talking. "We are not mammals, Mary. Our babes do not suckle." He turned his head to demonstrate the opposite.

        "Which deficiency is, thank the Dear Lord," Mary's breath caught, "not shared by their father."

---

        Sean drove the T-bird north and then east, deep into the Park Service Reserve. His wife had been missing for four weeks now and he didn't think twice about stealing his father's precious car, nor taking off without leaving any notice behind him. They were too stupid to understand in any case.

        Sean parked the car at the edge of the logging road, where it turned into trail. He shut down the engine and pulled Duncan's katana from the back seat, along with a small knapsack. All stolen from his father's house with the car. To hell with them. They left him out of all their plans and refused to answer his questions. It was as if he were still a child. Who had discovered the answer to killing a dragon? Who had discovered how to find Malak?

        Well, it certainly wasn't them. They just wandered around at the speed of a tranquilized snail while he went slowly nuts waiting for them to do anything which might prove successful.

        And of course, they didn't. So in the fourth week, when Joe Dawson and Lucille and Kyle were readying to go home, he'd made his move.

        On the pretext of helping Joe pack the enormous Lincoln, Sean took him aside and went straight past his consciousness, into his mind. Once there, he asked one question, got one answer, and then woke him up, saying the late summer heat had made him pass out. He helped Joe back into the house, finished packing the car, and polished up the gaps in his plan.

        The question he'd asked was, "Where is Ram?"

        And this place, or five miles to the north, two miles east, was the answer.

        The other part of the plan he'd garnered much sooner, as he lay dying by the altar in the old abbey church. He had not missed how Malak deconsecrated the chapel by desecrating the altar, nor did he miss how Malak had drawn Adam away from doing the same with the holy water. He had enough holy water with him to put out a forest fire. All he needed to do was trap Malak on consecrated ground. The ritual he copied off the slate network and memorized, day-by-bloody-day, while the rest of them just meandered around, shaking their heads and wondering what to do.

        And bedding each other all the while his own beloved was lost to him and probably bedding the dragon. It would not be rape, so much as seduction, Sean thought. Had the Danaan not plied Mary the entire past year? Would it not be easy for him to--. Damn! Sean cursed himself, as much as anyone, he refused to place any of the blame on his sweet wife. Malak would pay for this! Then he would bring Mary home and they would start the long road back to the rest of their lives together. Sean knew he could win her again, once this interloper was gone--once Sean made him be gone.

        Night was fully upon him when Sean finally came in sight of the hexagonal cabin hidden in the trees, but for its windows, staring into the dark. Sean was surprised to feel Malak, the same way he felt his father and Dahm. He flattened against the ground on the rise above the log building, thinking any moment Malak would appear on the porch and come after him. After an hour, he decided Malak was too distracted with whatever, or perhaps he could not feel Sean as the Immortals did.

        "Say farewell to the world," Sean murmured the words like solemn mass, "You will not see another sunrise."

---

        Malak wiped his hands on the dishcloth and left the chores, all done, to snuggle in beside Mary at the hearth. He leaned over to kiss her and then he felt Sean up on the rise.

        "Is something the matter, Love?" Mary lay back in his arms, thoroughly exhausted by their ride and the picnic and doings romantic in the mountain park. Topped off by a scrumptuous supper, all Mary felt able to do was lie by the fire and play with her wonderfully awful slippers.

        "Well, not really, Mary," Malak said in absolutely benign tones. "Your husband is skulking about in the woods above the cabin."

        "Who?" Mary asked sincerely.

        "Oh, Mary," Malak laughed, "I hope you remember me a little better than that."

        "Oh, you mean Sean," Mary made a face and kicked her slippers together.

        "I need you to do something, Mary," Malak stroked her arm, forbidding himself to think it would be the last time.

        "Yes?"

        "Get some shoes on, and a jacket, and go out to the barn," Malak began. "Saddle the mare and take her back to the meadow, where we had so much fun this afternoon."

        Mary groaned.

        "I know you are tired, Dearest Mary," Malak brushed her hair with his lips, "But Sean may not understand right away about the babies, and I would not want to hurt him just to keep you safe. It will be an easy ride, the mare knows the way. And if the moon sets before I join you there, then just give her her head and she will take you home."

        "I'm not leaving," Mary began what had all the signs of a substantial pout.

        "Of course you will, Mary," Malak helped her off of the slippers and put her tennies on. He got the jacket on with nothing but grumbles from his fair wife to help. "Mary, you can be furious at me later. You can even give me the thrashing I so richly deserve. Not now!"

        "Oh, all right," Mary snorted. She stood up, sighed a storm round the cabin, and made her way to the door.

        "Wait," Malak said, raising his palm.

        "What now?" Mary asked, yawning.

        Malak looked down at the floor, as if listening, then he said, "Now."

        He held his breath as Mary disappeared beyond the door. She'd forgotten to close it as usual. He walked over and closed the door, set the hasp, and leaned his forehead against the wood. He stepped up the leak of his power to keep Sean focused on the cabin, so he wouldn't notice Mary's leaving.

        He could feel Sean approaching from the west side of the cabin. Mary's retreat would be covered. She would be riding out from the east door of the barn. Malak held himself very still and the wave of sorrow passed. He'd been blessed with a purpose and direction to his life. He had been given the sweet love of the woman whom he loved with all his life and being. He would not allow himself to regret and complain about the length of time this had lasted, when there was no real reason it should have lasted past their first day together.

        Emitte lucem tuam et veritatem tuam: ipsa me deduxerunt et adduxerunt in montem sanctum tuum, et  in tabernacula tua.

        How long have I waited here by the door, Malak wondered, that Sean is beginning to circle the cabin with the water and is far into the ritual? He searched in his mind for any sign of Mary, but she was gone away already, far down the mountain trail to the park. Good, she would be safe.

        And he would have to hurry. Malak ran around extinguishing all the lights, pulling the polarized screen shut in front of the fire, so that the entire cabin was thrown into darkness. Then he pulled off his clothes and walked to the middle of the cabin. Bowing his head, he stretched his arms back, and backwards more, until they released from the shoulders and began to be wings. He did not mind the discomfort of the wing-keel stretching forward, or the second pair of arms pushing from the empty sockets.

        Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, beatae Mariae semper Virgini, beato Michaeli Archangelo,

        The apotheosis came to completion just as Sean began the Confiteor. Here comes the angel, Malak thought. He knelt down and folded his hands together, bowing forward and extending his white wings to the ceiling. "Father," he said aloud. He knew perfectly well that God was not a Being, Holy or Otherwise, but rather a state of being. A state of being one, the Holy Unity, and life was simply a temporary separation from that Unity. But Malak had walked the World of Men too long, and he spoke to God as if he knew Him, not as if he were Him. Still, it served his purpose to pray, and so Malak did.

        "Father, please watch over Mary. Please comfort her when she is frightened or sad. Please, watch over my children. Please, melt Sean's heart, should he find her, so that he will not harm or distress her. And, Father,"

        In nómine Patris, et Fílii, et Spíritus Sancti. Amen.

        There was no more time. Malak increased the gradual profusion of his power into greater and greater gouts, until he was nothing but light and will, weaving a column from floor to the ceiling and straight through with a thunderous crash. All the while, the column expanded and the image of the angel grew dimmer at its heart. Then the column included the generator and the diesel reserves and a resounding explosion lit the entire mountainside and threw Sean MacLeod thirty feet backwards.

        And Malak stepped off the earth.

        It is difficult to describe what happened next. Impossible, in fact, being it is described in mortal words when it was effected in the eternal, which lies beyond the most far-flung metaphors. In one way, Malak died. In another, Malak stepped from his separateness back into the Unity that is everywhere and everything, all else being an artifact of perception. In this second version, it could be said that Malak met the Father and refused Him. In the Danaan perspective, Malak crossed the bridge to Last Gate and simply declined entry.

        He did none of these things of course.

        Malak, incorporeal, did what he had always done down the long, long ages of his sojourn among Men.

        He stood apart before the Throne of God Himself, something that would have torn an ordinary mortal, immortal, or even a Danaan, and he did what he was born to do...

        Malak waited for Mary.

---

        Mary dismounted when she reached the field. She loosened her mare's girth and leaned against the horse. She hoped Malak would not be long coming. She was so very tired.

        The explosion made the mare jump sideways and woke Mary who had quite fallen to sleep standing up. She looked back the way she had come and saw a great fire reaching into the heavens. Oh, please, hurry, she thought. Please, Malak, I am not any good at waiting. I do not have any of your great patience.

        Mary waited a half-hour longer, her worry building all the while. Then she tightened the mare's girth and mounted. She would ride back and see what had happened. To hell with what Sean thought. She squeezed the mare forward.

        Then she felt the great sides of her horse shudder in a full, hearty nicker. And she heard the deep answering call of the stallion. Finally, he was here.

        "Mary!"

        But it was not Malak's voice called her name. Mary reined the mare back, but not quickly enough to get away. Sean rode even with the mare and grabbed the reins.

        "Oh, Mary," Sean said, reaching out for her.

        She shrank back. "What happened? Where is Malak? Why are you riding Monstro?"

        "So many questions, Dear One," Sean answered. "All you need to know is that Malak is dead, gone in the power of Holy Ground, in a grand explosion. I mounted the stallion and gave him free rein, thinking, rightly, he would find his barn mate. Oh, Mary, don't cry," he reached again for her, and again she drew away. "I will take you home now. You have nothing to fear."

        The moon cleared a cloud bank and washed the meadow in its cold light. Mary stopped sobbing and placed her hand over her heart, where Marak lay sleeping--where her memory of Malak would now also lie. She felt something crunch beneath her fingers and reached in the jacket pocket and found a small piece of paper. Malak had left her a farewell. He had known when he sent her away that he would never see her again. He had given his life one last time for her, for his children.
 

Dearest Lady Mary,

        You are so brave and bright, I know you will overcome this. How I longed to warn you, but that would have served only me, and I would not have hurt you or darkened our time together. I can say that I love you, that I pray for our children, that you must not let your sadness take your life away from you.

        I do not go to the Father, as you understand it, but instead I will wait for you. I will wait until you come this way, so that you will not be alone or afraid. If it is tomorrow, I will be here. If it is another five millennia, I am here.

        I am always here, and your face is ever before me,

        And if you know this, then I am content.

        And when you come to me, we shall go dancing in the stars forever.

                                                                                                    Malak
 

        "What is that?" Sean asked.

        Mary's hard golden stare would have killed him for his insolence alone, were that possible. She clutched the paper in her hands and rocked over it,  screaming whenever Sean approached her.

        Sean did not know what to do except to get her out of this dreadful place. He urged the stallion forward and pulled the mare after. And when they reached the edge of the meadow, Mary slipped off the mare and knelt down on the forest floor...

        Where Mary's grief was unbounded and might very well have driven her mad, except for the one thing which Ram had tried to explain to her all those long night discussions while the Bear slept. The babes would be delivered in five months and then she would die. Ram had not meant to make her afraid, but to give her hope. Malak would not have to wait much longer and they would be together again.

        She would follow this cretin home--well, not to his home, that was Holy Ground--and wait. Just one month for each of poor Malak's thousand years. It was really unjust that she should have gotten off so lightly. Not quite half a year, Beloved, she prayed, and we will go dancing, forever.

---

 Continued in "Children of Chaos"