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Chapter Six: ENIGMA

        Duncan padded down the dark hall, trying to make excuses to himself about why he wasn't headed for the large guest room which Thomas Cross had fitted out for him and his partner, the night after they'd blown a hole in the back pasture.
        "I'm tired," he could hear himself voicing the lame excuse. He could still see the look of bewilderment in the Old Man's eyes. Duncan had drifted nearly asleep in the womb warm water, waking to find Adam astride him nearly giggling his delight aloud and murmuring something about looking for the soap. It had so startled the Scot, that he had placed both his hands either side of Adam's slim hips and lifted him off, at which point the weariness excuse was voiced and the Old Man drew back, pretended it didn't matter, and returned to washing his shoulders across the ten foot expanse of Cross' tub.
        One more advance, less enthusiastic that time, elicited another stall, "Why don't you go on to bed and I'll join you a little later. I just want to soak some. Okay."
        It was "okay" with Adam, or so he said. Didn't look all that okay, but the Eldest Immortal wasn't the sort to make an issue out of anything much. This wasn't much.
        So why did it feel important? Why did Duncan feel guilty?
        And, why, even now, was he still headed away from the bedroom, rationalizing his retreat?
        The galley archway made Duncan wonder if he were hungry. He might be hungry. He surely hadn't eaten for the major portion of the day. He would just make himself a little something to eat and sit down and eat it and then wash the dishes and tidy up and--
        --if he returned to bed and the Old Man were asleep, then how could it be his fault?
        Of course not. The Highlander wound the soft cloth robe more tightly round him and strode purposefully into the darkened galley.
        "I should have thought you would be the last person in the world with performance anxieties, Lord Leod," a soft alto voice addressed him out of the deep shadow near the galley table.
        "Ram?" Duncan pawed along the wall until he reached the lighting console.
        "Caesar! dost thou lie so low? Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, Shrunk to this little measure?" Ram laughed as she quoted.
        Duncan keyed on the light. "Holy God! Ram!"
        Ram lifted her head up from the ice pack in her right hand and jolted back as if there were an enemy in the room. Her strafed eyes blinked and watered. "Please," she said finally, "the glare is painful."
        Duncan shook himself out of his shocked attention on her ruined face and turned the light down to its dimmest setting. "Can I do something for you, Ram?"
        "I'm really all right, Duncan," Ram replied evenly. "Perhaps something to drink. My glass seems to be empty."
        Duncan readily complied, putting his broad frame between the frig light and her poor wounded eyes. He returned to the art nouveau dinette and sat around the curved booth, across from her. When she reached out for the new glass, he caught her wrist gently and directed her there.
        "This is going to be a dreadful nuisance," Ram remarked after a long swallow on the cool, salty lemonade which Thomas had brewed for her before Grant made him go to bed. "I cannot take care of myself in this state," she noted calmly. "I am hoping you will let me stay here, but I suppose I could room with Lucille in town, if that is not to your liking. It's just that with Joe and--it would be awkward."
        "Of course you'll stay here," Duncan said emphatically.
        "Shall I remind you that you do not like me, Duncan. You will like me less pregnant, believe me," Ram lifted the glass again.
        "Someone would have killed my father, in time," Duncan said sadly. "I suppose he couldn't help it that someone was you."
        "I hope you will treat him with the same loving care which you showed Sean Byrnes as he was growing up again," Ram set the glass down and pushed it across the table in the Scot's general direction, placing the ice pack back on her raw face and sighing softly.
        Duncan had walked to the frig, refilled the glass, grabbed a handy sandwich for himself, and sat back down at the table, before he actually heard what Ram had said. "Connor is alive?" he asked.
        "Yes, Duncan," Ram said simply. "I told you it was wonderful day."
        Duncan could not help himself. He slid around the booth and laid his hand lightly on her belly.
        Which disrespect Ram tolerated all of two seconds before she began to growl like a disgruntled panther.
        The Scot jerked back. "I'm sorry, Ram. I didn't mean. Who hurt you?"
        "Someone who is no longer on the Earth," Ram replied. "I would rather not discuss this now," she added. "I know that we are two shepherds here with no sheep around to tend, but let me play Bo Peep for now. Tell me what ails you and I will do what I can to make it better. Think of it as a damage deposit on my rent here, since it is clear I will surely be good for little else in the next two seasons."
        The Highlander shook his head. "I just want to hold you and rock you and make it better, but I can't even touch you."
        Ram put the ice pack down and reached towards him. "You can hold my hand," she offered.
        "You know," he folded his large warrior fingers over her thin, delicate hand. It was cold from holding the pack, but it was steady as granite. "We have suffered so many losses today: some obvious, like poor Mary and Anne, some more subtle, like Sean and Judge Stoner, and some nearly hidden, like your brother, Mark, and some, like Malak, I don't even know if they are gone--" His voice descended to a whisper as he lifted her hand to his mouth and grazed her knuckles with his lips.
        Ram's scabbed lips widened and she licked over a split. "Mary and Anne and Malak know such peace and joy as we may all be blessed some day to find. Sean will only fare badly if you set him aside because he is no longer young. Stoner will find his way to the desert and his salvation will be there in the pale landscape and the sun-faded earth. Mark will be fast friends and dutiful brother to Connor, and this will last until the Earth Itself is old."
        "Mark is returning, too?" Duncan's left hand stroked cautiously down her forearm.
        "A most wonderful day, Duncan," Ram's neck extended as she rested her head on the couch back.
        "And the other three?" he heard the question almost before he could believe he'd asked it. Duncan wondered if Ram knew she had offered him her neck.
        "You and Adam and Sean will have to stand down as the Millennial Triumvirate," Ram replied. "And we do seem not to be talking about what ails you, Highlander," she remarked.
        "Did you mean to get pregnant?" Duncan bit his lip. He didn't seem able to stop these stupid words.
        "I suppose," Ram took her hand back and patted across the table until Duncan pushed the ice pack under her palm. "Thank you," she leaned forward and replaced the ice over her eyes. "And you still aren't speaking to what causes your disquietude."
        "I would tell you," Duncan nearly whined, "if I knew what it was. I don't even understand, so how can I explain?"
        "Just tell me and we'll figure it out between us," Ram suggested. "I'll start: you are not in bed making mad monkey love with my son. Knowing my son and how he feels about you, this must be something you have decided, however informally. Your turn," she said.
        "We don't--" Duncan began to protest, but he had to admit she was right, however rudely the matter was stated. "Something has never been right between us. I used to think it was because we are both men and--."
        "And you never expected to fall in love with another man," Ram filled the silence that his stammering had made.
        "I did, though. I still don't understand it. I've never felt so profoundly, so absolutely--" again the words bundled up against the back of his throat and would not sort themselves coherently.
          "But you were afraid, Duncan?"
        "Yes. Very. For a lot of reasons, really. I didn't think I was gay. I'd never been before. Then I began to wonder if I had been so for four centuries and just too cowardly to admit it to myself. I didn't think so. I truly loved the women I loved. You reminded me of that--at least your pretense at Amanda reminded me. I have been raised to think such unions as Adam's and mine are unholy, and I admit that bothers me, but I don't think enough for me to lie to myself about who I loved, who I desired. Lucille and I spoke some time ago about bisexuality, but I really didn't think that applied either."
        Duncan borrowed her lemonade, took a sip, and continued. "I look at Adam and I see my whole life, where it is, where it will go, everything that matters to me, but--" he paused. This hadn't really occurred to him until this very moment. "But I don't see Adam. I know it doesn't make any sense. I see something--something he doesn't see in himself. Something--" he shook his head.
        "You never cease to amaze," Ram lifted her head up and looked exactly his direction, both eyes open, as if she could see him.
        That blind stare was more than a little unnerving.
        Duncan grabbed the glass, which wasn't quite empty, and retreated to the frig. "It must be amusing to you to speak with a Warmeat like myself," he grumbled.
        Ram startled. She was still looking where he had been and his sudden dislocation, by her perceptions, unsteadied her. "No," she said, "not at all. You have exactly discovered what is wrong. It is not your fault you are missing one piece of information. It is not your lie. It is his."
        "What do you mean?" Duncan leaned over the table to place the glass and a plate of chocolate chip cookies in front of her.
        She jerked again, almost imperceptibly, again readjusting her attitude to face him, but of course he'd already moved to her left and settled back into the booth. Reaching out for the glass she'd heard clunk on the laminate of the table top, her hand fell into the cookies and she squeaked, pulling back from the plate, then sending her hand back to explore. As soon as her index finger grazed round the curve of the top cookie, she pounced and brought the thing to her mouth. "Mmmmmm."
        Another sip of lemonade, another readjustment in her mind's eye about where the Highlander was now, and Ram was ready to hear Duncan's earlier question.
        "You have elicited in my son, the one thing I thought never to see," Ram reached for another cookie and the Scot fouled her aim by trying to hand her the plate. "Look, just stop moving," she complained. "And stop moving things around. I will get better at this, but your hurt and mine are occupying my concentration, and this 'drawing sketches in the dark' trick is too much to do with all the rest."
        MacLeod apologized, put the plate back, and steered her wrist to its current placement.
        "Oh, yes, where was I? Yes, MacLeod. For example, if I were only Malak and had never been Ram," she paused and sipped, putting the glass back so exactly that it landed directly in the water ring it had made. "Then suppose you had met Malak, but found yourself in love with Ram," Ram paused and waited for this to make sense to the Scot.
        It didn't.
        "I know, it's a poor example, because you don't love me," Ram sighed. "But suppose you did and Malak were the only part of me you knew." Ram's slender hand scurried, like a pale spider, across the table to the cookies.
        "I don't follow," Duncan surrendered. "Adam is only Adam. It isn't the same with Immortals."
        "You have almost figured this out on your own, Warmeat, but sometimes you are too literal for your own good," Ram commented.
        "I understand you are trying to tell me that I have somehow tapped into Adam's feminine side, but I don't see how that explains anything, and I really don't think Adam would agree, Ram."
        "I'm TRYING--" Ram's velvet alto got suddenly quite shrill. "--to tell you that Adam is a dragon!"
        Neither of them said anything more for a long time. Then Duncan piped up, "What kind of dragon, Ram?" His voice was lifted in fascination, and there was no tinge of fear or disgust in the question he asked.
        "You do well, Highlander," Ram smiled. "In answer to your question: I do not know. As you have said, Adam is Adam--or so he thinks--and so he has been for five long millennia." Ram ran her tapered fingers over the empty plate and then tapped her fingers idly over its surface.
        "Why haven't you told him this?" Duncan asked from across the galley where he'd gone to retrieve them both sandwiches. He had decided that he really was hungry.
        Ram tossed the ice pack at the point whence his voice had come and hit him in the back of his neck, just above the robe he'd worn from the tub room.
        "Hey!"
        "Think about it, Warmeat!" Ram snorted. "Don't you think I have? Why do you think I killed him? Why do you think he can't stand the sight of me? Why do we fight whenever we are together? I know the truth that Adam cannot accept, that he is not human."
        "Sandwiches at twelve o'clock," Duncan sounded as he returned to the table. "Here," he moved her hand to show her he'd put the plate of sandwiches where the cookies had been. "Sorry, all out of cookies," he answered her disappointment.
        "Some of that makes sense, Ram." He'd followed the emotions, if not the gist, of her list of "why's."
        "When Adam was young, I lied to him," Ram said between large mouthfuls of bread and meat. "The lie you know about who his real father was."
        "Why?" Duncan asked.
        "He was the only child of the five to survive after birth. He was very fragile and the other merdrags did not like him, so when he came to landphase, we brought him to live in the ziggurat itself and raised him with a group of young Immortals. He'd spent his whole childhood being rejected by his peers, so I introduced him to his playmates as another Immortal, and, as he grew, I told him this, as well. If he thought about why he was born a fish, he never seemed to admit that. As far as Adam knew, he had always been as he was.
        "When he came of age, I told him the truth, and he tried to kill me, and I ended up killing him. When Adam revived he ran away, to live with humans and Immortals. He generally hated the Danae, and he hated himself even more, I think, because I had made him one of the hated dragonfolk.
        "Out in the world, he forgot his time at Bavil entirely. His mind wiped it all away as if that part of his life had never been. He remembered, instead, the lie I had told him all of his childhood. I tried many, many times to get him to see the truth, but finally I surrendered to the lie I had made in my son, because otherwise I never would have had a chance to speak with him at all." Ram put the sandwich, half-eaten, back on the plate.
        "I'll get you some more ice," Duncan offered when he saw Ram reaching for the pack she'd thrown earlier. "Unless you'd like to rest your head on the back of my neck."
        "Sorry," Ram said as contritely as was possible for her.
        "So," Duncan tried to put this intriguing new piece of information together. "What is Lady Adam like?"
        "Adam is, as he is," Ram answered. "Just--he doesn't manifest in Kyr."
        "Pardon?" Duncan handed her the ice.
        "He is in a male body form, but he is all other ways the woman that he is," Ram shook her head. "It really isn't any good trying to explain this in human terms. You made him do something no other force in creation had been able to up until then. He fell in love with you. She fell in love with you, and in so doing, she emerged into the world, when she had been all but dead for ages. If not dead, then absolutely denied."
        "Well if this is who Adam is when he is a woman," Duncan tried to make some sense of this, "then who is he when he is a man?"
        "What is he like?" Ram asked.
        "Yes, Ram. What is he when he is not like this?"
        "He's a little too aggressive. He's nervous, always in motion. When he speaks, it is to command or to wound. He is very closed in upon himself, and he doesn't bother very much to think about consequences or the emotions of others. He is sublimely graceful and surprisingly strong, but if he were to be named by a single characteristic, that would be 'disdain.' He tends to hold the entire world in contempt, as if it bothers him, just by being." It was clear Ram felt no less love for this "other Adam," than she did for the present person.
        "Hey," she answered Duncan's judgment of silence, "You don't like him either. You nearly parted ways when you found out about him."
        "What?" Duncan had thought he was beginning to understand.
        "Methos," Ram hinted, "Death, The Horseman?"
        "Oooooh," Duncan exhaled loudly as the light dawned.
        "Every time you even suspect he might be making another appearance, you knock him back down again," Ram added. "And her love for you is the only thing which makes that possible. He would be far too strong for you otherwise. Methos is quite powerful and absolutely lacking in the skills of Blessed Ruth."
        "Ooooh," Duncan said again. Yes, it did all make sense. "Do you think he ever will accept this?"
        "I don't know, Duncan," Ram struggled up to standing. "You must promise me not to tell him. It will only make things impossible between you."
        Duncan ignored her protestations and lifted Ram up, carrying her out the door and down the hall to her room where he tucked her in and bid her a good night.
        "Why did you tell me this, Ram?" he turned at the door to her room and whispered back into the darkness.
        "So that you may continue to trust your very fine instincts, Lord Leod. So you could know what you have always known: Your heart is not only brave, Highlander, but it is true."

        Walking through the muted "night lights" of the tunnel system, Duncan wondered if this would be the measure of his days for the next twenty years, subterranean night wanderings and burbling aerators. He could imagine himself growing restless here, buried alive in this watery tomb, no matter that Thomas' fittings were lush and comforting. He chided himself for finding yet another reason to complain when he really felt finally at ease with things as they were.
        Perhaps it was the warrior, bred into him as surely as the amber of his brooding eyes. Perhaps he was too able at war to be comfortable at peace. Though there was as much disorder here as on any battlefield, still there was no real enemy except himself.
        Duncan found his musings and his bare feet had led him down to the main pool, like a father to his children's' bedroom. And, like a father, he watched over the next generation, dreaming their futures in the abject bliss of innocence.
        Thomas' gigantic manservant lay snoring at the far end of the pool, his right arm and head draped on the top step, just out of the water, with two of the glowing orbs, the green and the orange, floating lazy spirals in the circle of his left arm.
        Dawson's bright young son, Kyle, lay nearby on the pool edge, with his leg and arm dangled into the pool, the purple and the blue globes nestled quietly in the hollow of his knee, glowing little dazzles of color in a rhythm like breathing.
        MacLeod searched the surface for Sean and the garnet glow of Piper, but he didn't see them. Perhaps they had exited through one of the underwater tunnels and gone to find a more private...
        "Duncan?"
        The Highlander couldn't help startling. "Sean," he let the robe slip off his shoulders and asked if he could join them in the pool.
        "What do ya say, Lass?" Byrnes asked the obstreperous little screeing crystal. "Do we let him in or give him the boot? Come on then, Lad, and welcome."
        Evidently Piper had given permission, though Duncan had yet to hear her, or any of the children, actually speak.
        MacLeod kept what he took to be a respectful distance, sculling slowly in the body-warm, buoyant water. "Sean?"
        Byrnes, in the body of Duncan's son, scooped the scarlet sphere behind him and struggled to address the impossible situation of his trespass and treachery. "I have been here," he began softly, "from the day of my christening, from the day that you named me your son, in the little baptismal alcove of Darius' dear chapel. I am here now, and the difference being only that I know I am here, that I know where and who I was before. I love you no less, Duncan, not for my murder at your hands, not for this great guilt I feel for having killed your son before you ever knew him.
        "When Ram first approached me with this plan," Byrnes sighed, "She told me that the price would be high, both in my pain and yours. I don't think that I believed her, Lad. Not really, though I am beginning to understand now, exactly what she meant. I am sorry, Duncan. I wish there were words to say how--." Byrnes' eyes filled and sparkled, and he could not continue. Little Piper shot over his head and rolled, around and around, his face, emitting a tiny rumble that might have been a solicitous purring.
        Duncan bid his tears away by a sheer force of will that surprised even him. Moving forward slowly, he reached out his hand to Sean. "He is in no danger from me, Princess Piper," the Highlander addressed the frantic child. "He is only sad that we might not still be friends, but that is not so, Piper. Son and Friend and Brother Champion he is, and so he will be always. All right?"
        Evidently, it was not all right. The next thing Duncan knew he was under attack by the furious cherry jelly baby. The gelatinous ball shot straight into his forehead and drove the Scot backwards. From flat on his back on the bottom of the pool, Duncan heard the child for the first time.
        Piper had no words really, but instead an expression of melodious tones, a song of the furies themselves. Seastorms and wave battered shores, starwinds and gales, all sounded in her song. And beneath the angry, staccato attack, ran another song, lovely and low, steady as tides.
        She loves him already, Duncan thought, before she even knows the word. I love him too, you silly little jelly poop. Stop this! I won't hurt him!
        He couldn't quite believe it, but this tiny bit of brand new life was trying to drown him.
        Enough!
        Duncan pushed up suddenly and grabbed Piper on his way to the surface. After he had caught his breath, he held the pulsing red globe up to his face. He saw through the translucent surface that she was swimming wild circles in the confines of her peculiar egg. Here a flash of opal tail, there a stunning stare of pure ire, spun before his eyes.
        Tsies, Ram spoke to Duncan's mind, supplying the command without even being asked.
        Thank you, Shield Brother, Duncan replied silently.
        "Tsies!" he said calmly, firmly.
        The spinning stopped and the eyes blinked open, pressed against the soft pane of the sphere.
        "You can be as angry as you like, Princess," Duncan's voice maintained a smooth and loving tone, despite the commanding words. "But I will not, NOT brook any disrespect." The Scot paused. He didn't really expect an answer, but he got one anyway.
        It wasn't a very long song, more of a contritional whine.
        "As tribal chieftan, I am your father. You will find I am a kind and loving sire, but I shall be far too busy seeing to your care and protection to put up with any nonsense. Is that clear?" Even as he said this, it vexed him to be scolding an infant, not yet one day old.
        "All right, then," he didn't sound gruff at all. "Give us a kiss and then back to sleep with you, Child."
        Duncan felt the globe warm brightly in his hand and then it rolled out of his cupped palm and up the length of his arm, the transparent fuzz at its surface sending chills along his skin. Then Piper rested near his cheek and sang him such a sweet song that it brought tears to his eyes.
        And then Sean found his way into his father's arms, also weeping.
        And Piper had almost more than she could do, singing them both to gladness, to peace, and together.
        Not until her true father spoke in the ailith of their mutual heritage, the silent song of stars and winds, did Piper settle back to sleep in the bend of Sean's neck.
        You do well, Little Lord, exceedingly fine. I am proud.

       Duncan MacLeod, calmer and happier, and quite a bit soggier, proceeded down the dark hall towards his bedroom and his spouse, who would doubtless be sleeping by now. One of those little ironies of timing. Since his conversation with Ram and his reconciliation with Sean, the Scot was eager to take up their bed play where it had left off, many months back before they had inadvertently crawled inside of each other's skins and nearly died doing so.
        His vision of the Old Man lying askew midst tumbled counterpanes and languid dreamings dissolved suddenly into a distressing image of Adam, rolling pin and all, fuming in the dark, sitting bolt upright across from the door, waiting for an explanation from his wayward partner.
        Duncan began to practice explanations. The times, the circumstances, the logistics, this business with the deaths, his toss-up with Sean, Ram's peculiar situation, but really, none of them would do. Adam would know it was something else. What else would that be? Duncan wondered how hard it would actually be to only tell the truth, to actually vent his uncertainty, his uneasiness...
        ...his cowardice, the sucking fitful fear that had filled him and would probably do so for as long as they were together. They would be together for as long as he lived, Duncan mused. He would always feel this way, at some level of his knowing, aware or no. Then again, he thought, You feel much the same way, Old Man. You are just too used to being so afraid. It is almost second nature to you now, the pit wrenching blackness that colors your life. Too used to the darkness to even be bothered by this latest subtle shadow.
        I am frightened of you and for you, but I will never be so wounded as to be frightened with you. I would never live so long, nor so complacently, to even begin to understand how you can stand your cowardice, let alone revel in it...
        ...let alone make such a fine life in it...
        ...and God only knows how you have set that all aside in my favor, even when everything you knew, everything you were, told you that was a fool's course, a fatal error of judgment.
        Even as I embraced, in you, all the qualities, I would never have abided in myself.
        Yes, Duncan took the last turn and paused before his door. He would tell him this, and if that didn't "charm his socks off," as Sweet Lucille would say, then nothing would.
        The Highlander muscled through the door to find his uncharacteristic introspection and the headache it had given him were all for naught. The room was empty. The bed was unmussed. Adam probably had not been here yet tonight.

        Former Federal Jurist Stoner spilled himself out of the five-track rental and onto the chill, snowy plane far to east and a little south of the Cross Compound. The clouds that had hung like widow's weeds that whole damn day had finally blown by and left a deep blue sky, the color that used to be "Prussian," in the days before crayons had become politically correct.
        In the days when there still were crayons.
        In that other world, that other time, when there still was time...
        ...before everything had ended on a dim little windy road overlooking old fish-stinking 'Couver-by-the-Bay.
        Stoner had pulled over so he could hold her at the end there, even as she gasped that it was all right, that she just had to catch her breath.
        Doctor or no, she was wrong, or she was lying. He knew Anne was dying then. He could feel her going away from him, just as surely as if something were ripping off one of his arms and the sinews were just about to give.
        Tony Stoner stopped suddenly, for no apparent reason, in the middle of the snow field. He sank to his knees and began digging with his bare hands. Deliberately, relentlessly, again and again, he clawed at the snow and then the dirt, and then the stones and frost beneath.
        Deeper and deeper, sowing his own blood into the ground, even as he sought to deliver the object of this quest...
        ...even as his impossible grief bled itself away from his raw hands and wretched heart.

        "Ahemmm!" Duncan cleared his throat a second time since the first had garnered him no attention whatsoever.
        Neither man looked up from their tasks.
        Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod stomped as noisily as one could on bare feet down the three stone steps into the groined vault of Thomas' elaborate library. He saw them in the right alcove just off the main hall, draped near the fireplace, Adam up to his hips in books and papers, and Thomas surrounded by portable monitors and digital slates.
        He didn't so much see the mechanisms and the volumes as he did that they were both naked and completely at ease. A nasty little twinge of jealousy jabbed his midsection. He couldn't help wondering whether their preoccupation was more in the nature of afterglow.
        How very far he had come these two decades, Duncan berated himself. To be jealous of another man. Still, that was some measure of his certainty as pertained to his spouse. His heart was true Ram had told him, and here it was doing a true, if petty, thing: pining.
        He leaned on the column at the arched entrance to the alcove and stared at the two men, their hides glowing in the fire's light and the screens' phosphorescence.
        "Hullo, the Clan Chief," Adam's baritone sounded brightly through Duncan's mindfog.
        "Hullo, my ass!" the words flew out before a less angry Duncan could come to the fore.
        "Well, if you are going to require individual salutations for all your excellent portions," Adam chuckled, "then I shall surely have to get out my list, Lord."
        "What are you doing here?" the Scot completely blew off the jest in the storm of his building ire. "You never did go to bed," he said accusingly, as close as he cared to come to asking what was up between the Master of Cross Estates and the Old Man.
        "The business of the clan does not cease," Adam began evenly, "just because its chief is indisposed, Duncan. There are the regular chores to attend--my job, as it turns out--and the more irregular ones--Master Cross is seeing to those.
        "And besides," Adam patted a large pillow on the floor next to him, the tapered fingers stroking the silk in a pleasant invitation, "I know many languages, Duncan, and I do understand 'no' when it is stated, in whatever language, spoken or otherwise."
        Duncan sighed. The Old Man could blow smoke like a steam engine when the mood took him, but when he was right, he was truer than a plumb bob. The Highlander let himself down on the pillow. "Can I help?" he offered contritely.
        "As a matter of fact, Mac," Adam handed him a thick envelope. "I was counting on it."
        "What is this?" Duncan eyed the envelope and began to open it, but Adam's long fingers closed over his and the Scot forgot his curiosity for a moment.
        "There's identification and coroner's report, the ticket for the fixed wing out of 'Couver. Striker will go with you and deal with the customs paperwork. Duncan, are you paying attention?" Adam asked.
        Duncan paused, reviewed what he had heard. "Striker will attend to customs. Yes?" he repeated the last bit to prove he was listening.
        Adam's fire-sparkled green eyes narrowed. He spoke more slowly. "All the instructions are included, the address, plot number, so forth. The limo should meet you at the hangar. There shouldn't be any problems and, weather permitting, you should be back in time to join the party at the Drieg the day after, including a layover to sleep in Alberta. Duncan?"
        Duncan nodded and tucked the envelope in the pocket of his terry robe.
        Adam shrugged and went back to his papers, checking off names, making more lists, humming softly to himself.
        Duncan followed the planes and curves of the long back, playing it in his mind like a counterpoint melody to the tune Adam hummed. "Adam?"
        "Yes," Adam tilted his head and looked up at the Scot.
        Duncan was once again struck by how very young the Old Guy could look at times, what a soft expression the angular features could affect, a tenderness and innocence all at odds with its more usual set of artful cynicism.
        "Yes?" Adam repeated patiently.
        Duncan thought a moment. "Oh, yes. Alberta, you said."
        Adam waited.
        "And why would I be going to Alberta, Adam?"
        "Yes," Thomas hissed to no one at all as he attacked three different keysets with his strong brown fingers.
        "What?" Adam's attention turned back from the HorseMaster. "Oh, that's Mrs. Lindsey's home."
        "Couldn't we just notify Mary's grandmother by vid?" Duncan asked.
        "Duncan!" Adam shook his head. "Anne's wish was to be buried beside her mother. You know very well Mrs. Lindsey is gone this past decade."
        "Right," Duncan ran his fingers through his hair. "Isn't there someone more appropriate to--."
        "We've run out of time to find the Judge, Duncan. He's just disappeared since the bail was posted and we don't have much hope of finding him in the next twenty four hours. I'm afraid that makes you closest to next of kin that is available.
        "It won't be an elaborate ceremony. There are no relatives left, no friends expected--," Adam stopped. He couldn't help feeling that his own interment would be an even emptier affair.
        "How do you know so much about Anne's intentions, and I was the one married to her?" Duncan asked.
        Adam tucked his chin and grinned, "Well, you were interested in her life, Duncan."
        "Adam!"
        The Elder Immortal shrugged. "I spent too many lonely hours in the back house, not to have a fantasy or two about when my exile would end."
        "And are you happy now?" Duncan growled.
        Adam sighed, "Amazingly...no."
        "You could go with me," the Scot suggested.
        "Sorry, but no," Adam checked off the last name in yet another list and tidied the stack before handing it over to Thomas. "I will be standing in for you at Mary's ceremony."
        "You?" Duncan regretted the ease with which the question popped out.
        "Yes, Lord," Adam considered the slur, his mouth pressing into a lipless line. "I will just have to do my best not to dishonor you. Really, Duncan, I have attended a funeral or two in my time."
        "Who better than Death Himself?" Duncan quipped.
        "Indeed," Adam surrendered in soft, somber tones that made the Scot sorry he'd won.
        "Why can't you just wait until I get back, Adam?"
        "Well, customs change, with time and place, but I think burials on the eve of the new year are pretty much not the style in most cultures, Duncan."
        "New Years?" Duncan resisted the urge to count on his fingers. "Already?"
        "With all that's happened since Christmas," Adam commented, "I was thinking more along the lines of 'finally.' "
        "Adam?" Duncan slipped his arm over Adam's deceptively wide shoulders and lowered his voice almost to a whisper. "I don't know how to ask this, but did your tests, did Mary--do you think--?"
        "Was Mary murdered?" Adam formed the question for him.
        Duncan chewed his lush lower lip and waited for Adam to form the answer as well.
        "Anything is possible," Adam said finally. "From the autopsy, she should still be alive. There isn't even a mark on her that would be consistent with a delivery, or even a pregnancy preceding that delivery. There was a blood loss, difficult to assess post-mortem, but reasonable post-partum, and only evident by a residual anemia. There is no evidence she was harmed in any way, but that might have been erased as was the delivery, or the fire, for that matter. I don't have an answer and Ram either can't or won't tell us what happened. We've quite a few tests still pending. Perhaps they will give us some answers, but the body has been officially released for burial and legally judged to be death by natural causes, undetermined. Believe me, I would tell you more if I knew more."
        "Well at least we do not seem to be under siege by an unknown assailant," Duncan rested his forehead on Adam's shoulder.
        "Not yet anyway," Adam tilted his head over and rested his cheek on Duncan's thick mane.
        Halfway up the Old Man's neck--mid-nuzzle, as it were--Duncan heard the words and jerked back. "What do you mean, 'Not yet' ? "
        Both men looked toward the door where HorseMaster Cross was even now exiting their company in his most discrete and knowing fashion.
        "Tom?" Duncan asked the diminutive black man to return. "Please," he said graciously, "sit down here." With his right hand he placed one of the large pillows in front of him. With his left he reached up to guide the short man, or in emphasis to his invitation. In either case, the reach of his brawny arm placed his palm squarely against the solid curve of Thomas' rump, where it lingered just long enough to color the deep mahogany a subtle cherry.
        The Highlander had clearly meant nothing by the gesture, but its effect was profound, projecting mastery and concern, boldness and nonchalance. The Old Man pretended not to notice, but he couldn't quite pull off the disinterest he'd intended, what with his long arms suddenly wrapped around the Highlander's shoulders and his appearance of undivided attention on Tom's digital tablet rendered artificial by the possessive set of his jaw.
        Even if Adam had succeeded in his deception, still Duncan's "See what I have to put up with?" glance towards Thomas would have betrayed the Elder Immortal's territorial intentions.

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        Thomas forced a smile for them both. His own bed was far too empty what with Grant doing aqua-babysitting and he was not in the mood just now to be so close to this much musky lust. He cleared his throat and tried to focus his thoughts on just one of the many projects that he and Adam had attended to this night.
        "Well," the Master of Cross Estates tilted the slate towards the Clan Chief, "There it is."
        Duncan reached forward and scrolled down the long digital list. "How many people are coming to the funeral, Tom?"
        "See the blinking names?" Adam pointed over Duncan's right shoulder, moving his long torso flat against the back of the soft terry robe.
        Duncan leaned back against his spouse. "They have canceled?" the Highlander suggested.
        "No, Lord," Thomas sighed. "They have not been invited. They are Non-Affiliates."
        Duncan thought a moment. "They are what?"
        "They are not members of The Consortium," Thomas explained.
        "The what?" Duncan asked.
        Adam coughed out a sort of audible smirk behind the Scot's right ear.
        "Well, dammit!" Thomas complained. "I have to call it something and that's what I choose." He remembered his manners, and continued in a more civil tone. "I mean the Immortals and Facets and Watchers that have informally come together in the past two decades thanks to Ram and her kidnapping the Watcher Data Base and hiding it in the printer buffers at HQ Central so we all had to pool forces to retrieve it. The old Watcher Network had to forget both its non-interference and no fraternizing policies. Also includes Grace's tribe, of course, and--"
        "Excuse me?" Duncan absently stroked the Old Man's lovely long fingers draped over the opening in his robe.
        Thomas Cross, feeling less "Master of the Estate," and more field hand, suppressed the temptation to give the conversation over to Adam, who would doubtless be better at filling the Highlander in. "Lord MacLeod," Tom reached for the slate's several sorting keys, "Later, when you are bored on your Alberta flight, you can review the more mundane elements of your empire." He set up four cogent hot keys and showed their summary titles, one at a time, to the Scot.
        Duncan twisted around and stared at Adam as if he thought the Old Man had been keeping secrets from him, even though he knew this was no longer possible, or at least highly unlikely, since they had been One so recently. Adam just lifted his wide, angular shoulders and shook his head, muttering, "Well, we have been in seclusion, raising Sean for two decades. You know how far-reaching Ram's plans tend to be."
        Adam's explanation didn't seem to help. It only lent a certain sadness to MacLeod's confusion, invoking as it did, the two darker elements of their very strange family. "So, why are these--uh--enemies," Duncan picked the more familiar ground of battle, "headed our direction?"
        "Yes," Thomas stretched and rose to standing, moving to tidy and organize the mess he and Adam had made of the cozy library alcove. "They are enemies, as nearly as we can determine, and they are headed this direction." HorseMaster Cross reached high over his head and replaced three leather-bound tomes on their home shelf. "The 'why' is far more complex, and exactly the point we were discussing when you entered, Lord."
        Duncan slipped Adam's arm off his shoulders as if he were divesting himself. He also stood and began helping Thomas. "It's almost like the siege in Paris when Sean was a baby, and then, later, when we set that battle on the field south of here, when Mary--."
        An unfortunate collection of memories, these. Both men took the moment to set them in their place for later consideration so they could focus on the matter at hand.
        Adam just snorted and went to play in the fire, throwing in the crumpled papers they had made, the rough drafts of this latest campaign.
        When the silence had run its course, Duncan asked, "Is this a Gathering?"
        Tom's dark gold and Adam's dusty green gazes locked. It had taken them hours to come to this conclusion, and then only after they had consulted Ram.
        "But, didn't Ram say that the Gathering was directed by the dragons?" Duncan continued shelving the books, speaking almost to himself, half-disbelieving he could be saying such ridiculous things. "And all the dragons are dead--" he paused and then whirled around to stare at Adam.
        Adam's mouth curled and pressed into a smirk of grand proportion. "Of course we went to ask Herself that very question, Daaarling."
        "And?" Duncan strolled over and lowered himself down by Adam and the fire.
        "Ram either doesn't know, or won't say," Tom joined them, making sure to keep Adam between his own diminutive frame and the terry-robed mountain of manor lord.
        "What do you think?" Duncan leaned around Adam and asked Thomas.
        Adam tucked his chin and drew up, tall and indignant, as Tom answered, "I think it is a Gathering, Duncan. I think that's why everyone is acting so strangely--"
        "Strangely?" the Highlander's thick brows bushed.
        Adam wrapped his long fingers around his own throat and made glub, glubbing sounds.
        "Oh," Duncan responded contritely.
        "It seems they are 'gathering' in Seacouver, or soon will be," Thomas finished.
        "What is drawing them?" the Highlander asked.
        Tom looked down and rubbed the palm of his left hand with the fingers of his right.
        "Well?" the Scot demanded.
        "You, Daarling," Adam murmured. "They're coming after you, Duncan.
        "We will know for sure when you head for Alberta," he added. "If they start changing their flights north or renting cars, or--well, you get the idea."
        "I see," Duncan chewed his thick lower lip. "I'm to be the hare, then?"
        "Hippity, hippity," Adam laughed, ignoring the cold, killer eyes suddenly bearing down upon him.
        "Good night, Thomas," Duncan growled.
        "Yes, Lord." The tiny black man jumped to standing and retreated with as much dignity as the speedy departure allowed. Cross only played at being Master. The Highlander lived as one, as he was born to do.
        Moments like these served as vivid reminders of that fact.
        In times of peace, Thomas thought, it was all too easy to forget.

        Adam damped down the fire and then did his best to develop a slink or some other low-profile exit of the library alcove. Duncan's persistent and progressive seethe did not help.
        "It's the Gathering's making you so testy, you know," Adam suggested.
        "It's getting a lot of help from you," Duncan complained.
        A sudden, not-nearly-innocent grin broke over the Elder Immortal's angular features, curling the tip of his nose. "Maaaybe," he ducked out the archway, "It's all just sexual tension." This last pronouncement floated teasingly back to the dark Gaelic cloud huddled in terry before the fire.
        "Sometimes--," Duncan shook his head in exasperation. He didn't finish the sentiment aloud, but silently he knew that sometimes the Old Man was just too bloody right. Struggling up wearily, Duncan plodded out of the alcove and into the main hall of Tom's underground vaulted book barn. The darkened hall was empty.
        Seemed to be empty, Duncan corrected himself. One disadvantage of being an Immortal couple--there was no chance of playing hide-and-seek. Olly, olly, you terrible Old Man.
        "Your wishhhhhhh," Adam's whisper sizzled the Scot's right ear, "--is my--Hey!"
        The Highlander silenced the sizzle with a quick right hand, buried in the back of Adam's tousled hair. He had no idea how his mouth had found that other warm twin to his own, when he had only meant to stop the tickling of his ear.
        "It seems a long time, Love," Adam mumbled dreamily when they separated many long moments later.
        Duncan harrumphed. "Long time. Right. How old are you, again?"
        "I ascribe," Adam reached for the belt of the terry robe, "to the Satchel Paige chronological age theorem."
        "Okay, I'll bite," the Scot put his large warrior fists over Adam's slender wrists.
        "Oh, I certainly hope so," Adam chuckled, slithering effortlessly from Duncan's steely grasp and reaching again for the robe. "You know Paige, the baseball player."
        "Yes?" Duncan shivered as the terry slid slowly down his shoulders.
        "Satchel's theorem is a question, very Zen. It goes 'how old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?' "

        "Incorrigible," Duncan commented.
        "Ooooh," Adam crooned, dropping the robe on the floor. "Such a large word and such a large--."
        "Oh, stop it!" the Scot warned half-heartedly, dragging the Oldest Immortal into the circle of his arms and flat against his chest.
        "Mmmmm," was the most Adam could reply, partly because of a suddenly compressed chest wall, partly from the sheer pleasure of proximity.
        Duncan wondered if he ever would get the better of this wise-ass spouse of his.
        And there, his gaze drifted upward over the top of Adam's head, was surely the answer!
        "Duncan?" Adam pulled the side of his face back from the Scot's broad chest and pounding heart.
        "Well, well, well," Duncan mused, still staring at a point above the large plank table which graced the center of the hall.
        "What is it?" Adam asked.
        "That old chandelier finally got back from the shop," the Highlander laughed and pointed.
        "What?" The Old Man turned around and lifted his gaze. There above the rough bridge-planking table hung an enormous wooden chandelier, bolted into the main beam of the high ceiling via some impressive steel chain work.
        "I'd say it was time that, oh, someone--I couldn't say who that would be--," Duncan swallowed the ready laughter that threatened to ruin his sarcasm. "Time for someone to put up or shut up."
        Adam looked up at the fixture and then at the table as if he were measuring load tolerances and such, as if he really meant to--"put up."
        Duncan folded his arms. "Oh, come on, Old Man. I know you're bluffing."
        The Elder Immortal walked over to the table and folded his right leg up and lifted his lean frame onto the table. Standing there at perfect ease, he just waited.
        "Adam," Duncan shook his head. "I know it's a joke. There is no such thing as 'the chandelier trick.' "
        Adam reached his hands over his head. The tapered fingers just touched the thick wooden ring of the gigantic candleholder. "No?" he asked idly.
        "Oh, come down, Adam."
        "Well, if you're going to be a prude, BoyScout," Adam hunkered down and draped one leg over the edge of the table, fanning his toes and humming.
        All right, Duncan thought, hefting his considerable bulk up onto the table. If it's daring you're after, then you've picked the wrong Scot to bluff.
        "Splendid," Adam jumped back up to standing, bent his knees slightly and then lifted up smoothly, catching the the ring of the ancient candelabrum with both his hands. "Well, come on then," he said somewhat breathlessly.
        Duncan approached cautiously wondering just how far the Old Guy was going to take this.
        For all his wariness, the Highlander found himself promptly imprisoned the instant he got within the reach of Adam's long legs. A cool smooth thigh clamped either side of his head and Adam's building erection teased across the bulb of Duncan's nose.
        MacLeod groaned inwardly. He might have known it was something like this. Damn it, Adam!
        From his perch on Duncan's shoulders, Adam bowed his back forward, moving his grip on the chandelier ring. "Don't worry, Love. That's not really part of the trick, anyway--just the mount, as it were."
        "Look, Adam," Duncan tried to explain for what must have been the hundredth time, "It's not that I don't--"
        "Shhhh," Adam breathed softly. Another one of those ironies with which life was littered. The one deficit that made Duncan bearable--his hyperexuberant gag reflex. It was, after all, integrally tied to his inability to disengage from his magnificent body and all the signals--good or ill--which it chose to relay to him, making love or war or simply living, day to day. Then again, Adam mused, getting a better grip on the ring, it wasn't really fair, seeing that Adam, while more than adequate, was hardly overly endowed, and the Scot was, in Lucille's matchless phrasings, "Way more than a mouthful."
        You would think with all the Eastern training...
        The thought drifted away as Adam's arms reminded him he would not be able to hang here forever and he was wasting time thinking--the one skill not at all required in the chandelier trick.
        The Eldest Immortal felt the Scot's shoulders slack slightly as broad palms pressed against the middle of Adam's back.
        Duncan MacLeod reached around to steady Adam so the Old Man could let go of the chandelier and they could quit this stupid game, which was less "chandelier trick" and more "sit on my face."
        It was then that Duncan felt Adam's slender body lift up slightly off his shoulders as the Elder Immortal took his full weight on the deceptively strong, lean arms. The Scot began to pull back so that Adam could get his legs down but he felt the slim calves cross behind his neck and he took it that the Old Man wanted him to stand still.
        Not much of a trick, this, Duncan thought, but he stood still and waited. Adam's legs relaxed and bent to their limits at both hips, bringing the lithe body, folded in two like a letter, flat against the Scot's upper chest. Duncan looked up, following the linea alba up to Adam's very pointy xyphoid, up along the flat of his sternum and the elegant line of the Old Man's very nice neck, thrown back now--with the effort of this maneuver, or passion, or both. Adam's biceps were knotted hard, holding the arms at the ninety-degree angle which maintained this prolonged pull-up at the current height.
        Almost imperceptibly, the long arms began to straighten, with an excruciating slowness, all but invisible. And, in fact, Duncan did not see the mechanism of Adam's slow descent so much as he felt it against his breast. The soft down of the Old Man's nether regions stroked gently down his chest and Duncan felt the cool, smooth legs slack utterly in the impossible bend as they slid like living silk over his collar bones and onto his pectorals.
        The Scot braced his legs slightly wider and he made his hands open from the claws they had made against Adam's back. The entire interface between them began to sparkle with a profound electricity and a more simple sweat. Duncan took a slow, deep breath that ended in an exquisite hiss as his nipples brushed hard against the back of Adam's thighs, still descending, maddeningly deliberate, breathlessly dilatory.
        The Highlander had a momentary flash, more sensation than actual organized thought, about Ram, what she had told him about so many things, what she had told him about this man to whom he was wed. All the things she had told them, probably none of them true, but all of the things she said were so very useful, so, so...comforting. Adam might not be a dragon...oh, hell...probably wasn't...but the idea that he might also be a woman was such a welcome relief, that even if it were the baldest of Ram's many lies, still it had removed that last little doubt which haunted Duncan these past two decades. He now had the luxury to worry about Adam being a woman.
        Would she be this heated in passion? This creative? This--
        Oh, Merciful Lord!
        Duncan snapped back to alertness just as Adam's lips brushed lightly against his forehead and the velvet ring settled heavily over his cock. The sensation was so overwhelming that he bowed his forehead into the hollow of the Old Man's neck and lowed like a baby bear.
        Adam had complete control of the rate and the rhythm. Duncan could not move for fear of falling and taking them both down when the Old Man's arms tired. Little chance of this, though, by the unfailingly sensuous stroke, the languid slide of thigh and hip and heaving chest.
        "Please," he heard himself finally whimper, but for what, really, did he plead? For any greater love than this? For an end? For a completion? For any blessed thing?
        No, no, no, no, Duncan protested silently, denying nothing, accepting all that was offered, all that was taken, and all that was--
        I wondered when you would find me again--
       Oh, no. Duncan wondered if Adam heard the voice of the One, or whether it was just a fancy of his passionate extremity. To hell with it, the One, or the Two--let it be--there was not a particle of his being that resisted, or even considered resistance, of that superb and ultimate moment between them.
        He felt the blinding, pumping completion, felt Adam's full weight suddenly descended onto his hands and forearms...
        ...and then the old bridge planking came up against his back.
        "Ouch, ouch, ouch," Adam complained, in between a caroling laughter and an occasional moan. The Eldest Immortal leaned back, easing the unnatural bend on his hips, pulling himself, too suddenly, off the loins of his lover.
         "Ouch!" Duncan joined the chorus.
        "You ruined the trick," Adam grumbled, stretching out his legs and wiggling his toes either side of Duncan's head. "You're not supposed to fall down," he commented, grabbing a dark curl between his toes and tugging gently.
        "Hell of a trick." Duncan's hand moved, fast as thought, and caught the errant ankle.
        "Well don't expect it as regular fare," Adam warned as he sat up between the Highlander's thighs. He rubbed his sore shoulders and tried to look suitably overworked. "I'm surely too old for this."
        "Adam?" Duncan sat up and began massaging the knots out of Adam's thighs.
        The Eldest Immortal tried not to stiffen as he waited for the questions: where had he learned this? who? when? All with one answer--a name he did not wish to speak ever again so long as the world should live. "Yes?" he answered tentatively.
        "How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?"