Immortal Beloved

by C. E. Murphy

  Methos struggled to keep the dismay off his face. “Perhaps,” he agreed, “though Karem claimed to be no scholar, and thus without hope for studying the artifacts. We’ve met,” he added, and inclined his head towards Karem in greeting.

  “Ghean tells me you’ve been staying up late reading about the artifacts,” Karem said, light tone belying the glint of steel in his eyes. “Not holding out on me, are you?”

  “Why ever would I do that?” Methos asked drly, swinging a long leg over the bench to sit. “I haven’t found anything useful at all.”

  “You spent half the day missing and found nothing useful?” Karem’s skeptiscism colored his tone, now.

  Methos cast a brief glance at Ghean. “Telling your woes to strangers?” he asked. “The trauma of a missing betrothed?”

  “He’s not a stranger,” Ghean explained, sitting on one side of Methos as Minyah took the other. “He’s a friend of Aroz’s, and Aroz is family.” She smiled across the table at the dark man, whose face went even more bleak.

  “Perhaps I should get the newcomers something to drink,” he offered, standing. “Minyah?”

  Minyah smiled up at him. “A cup of coffee, please. Methos?”

  Methos, all too aware of how little Aroz desired to bring him anything, hesitated. It had been hours since he’d had anything to eat or drink. “Ale, please,” he said after a moment. Aroz scowled again and made his way across the busy tavern.

  Ghean watched him with a frown, and when he returned, reached out to place a hand over his as he sat. “The ceremony is in two days,” she said. “Won’t you be happy for me, old friend? Is there not even one smile within you for me?”

  Aroz dredged up a smile, tinged with regret. “I am happy for you,” he lied.

  Methos, tasting the lie in the words, threw a twisted smile at the table. I wonder how long it will be until we battle again. Without Ghean to cry mercy, this time I will take his head. I’d hate to spend my married life looking nervously over my shoulder, waiting for him to come.

  Ghean smiled, pleased. “Thank you, Aroz. That wasn’t so bad, was it? You’ll stand in place of my father, won’t you? I’d like to have all of my family together for the ceremony, and you’re a part of it.”

  It was a kinder way to distance herself from him than Methos would have tried. He watched Aroz struggle with the request, and give in, nodding his head. “I would be honored, Ghean.” The bass voice sounded more angered than honored, but everyone at the table knew it was the only answer Aroz could give.

  “Pleasantries aside,” Karem said, voice so innocent it almost entirely diluted the sarcasm in the words, “I wonder if I could impose on you, Minyah? Your expertise on the artifacts is clearly far greater than Methos’. I would like to learn what you know about them.”

  The intended barb slid by without the desired effect, as Methos nodded a little. “She’s more likely to be able to determine the location of the Book, if it still exists, than I am,” he said, sounding almost apologetic. “An entirely lifetime in Atlantis, versus a few weeks.” He shrugged, playefully rueful. “I’m outclassed.”

  “In that,” Minyah said serenely, “you are entirely correct.” The grin that shot across her face ruined the effect, and everyone laughed. “I would be delighted to instruct you in what little I know, Karem. Perhaps Methos would like to join us, as he has finally confessed his interest in the artifacts as well?” She lifted an eyebrow at Methos curiously.

  He opened his mouth to protest that it wasn’t necessary, then stilled the words as he took in Minyah’s expression. She’s–not afraid; I don’t think Minyah is afraid of anyone. Wary. Of being alone with Karem. I can’t blame her. Methos changed his sentence while still inhaling to speak it. “I’d love to join you,” he admitted, adding a touch of chagrin at being found out. “I’d no doubt have gotten further myself if I’d had the presence of mind to ask you, Minyah.”

  “No doubt. Men, however, often seem reluctant to ask the help of a woman.” Minyah picked up her coffee mug and smiled over the brim of it at each of the men, in turn. “I suspect it is due to the fear that they will confirm that women are far more intelligent than they.”

  For a moment, Methos, Aroz and Karem became a monument to consolidarity, equally offended on behalf of their gender. Ghean laughed, applauding her mother, and Minyah’s quiet smile turned to a grin. “I trust you will remember that in the future,” she said severely to Methos, who gave up his expression of mock outrage to join the laughter.

  “I’ll try,” he promised. “Meanwhile, maybe our study sessions shouldn’t begin until next week? The ceremony is in two days — ”

  “A day and a half,” Ghean interjected.

  “A day and a half,” Methos corrected, grinning, “and most of us here are rather intimately involved with it.” He shrugged at Karem. “A few days delay won’t make that much difference.”

  Karem frowned very slightly, glancing over the others at the table. Finally, he shrugged as well. “I suppose not, at that,” he agreed with well-feigned pleasantry. “Forgive my eagerness, Minyah. I’ve never been good at patience.”

  “Few of the young are,” Minyah said in a tone so dry Methos shot a sideways glance at her. She arched an eyebrow back at him, elegantly. The corner of her mouth turned up, self-mocking, and she lifted a hand to gesture briefly at her own eyes. It is something in the eyes, she’d said, when she’d deduced Methos’ secret. Something, apparently, that she could discern in many Immortals. Methos sat back, regarding the woman.

  She could be very, very dangerous to Immortals, if she chose to be, he realized. How old? How many lifetimes do we have to lead before she can see it in our eyes? Or is it the first death that marks us? Methos turned his head to study Ghean, who smiled back up at him curiously.

  Nothing but the tingle of potential Quickening marked her as Immortal. Her eyes were bright, full of life and excitement, untouched by the deaths he could see in the faces of the other two Immortals at the table. Examining Ghean, Methos wondered when those changes would settle into her eyes, invisible to all but those who knew how to look for them.

  Karem was grinning apologetically, unaware that his secret was betrayed to the Atlantean scholar sitting across from him. “Perhaps patience will come to me as I age,” he agreed. Methos could hear the underlying tinge of amusement, so often injected into his own words. Sometimes it was the only way to maintain sanity, to pretend Immortality and great age were a colossal joke, one that only the Immortals were in on.

  Except this time, Minyah was in on it, as well. She smiled, nodded, and said, “Perhaps,” with such polite disbelief that Ghean blinked in surprise.

  All trace of humour fell away from Karem’s face. Coolly, he stood, looking down at Minyah. “And perhaps not,” he agreed, acidly. “Maybe you’re right. What a pity that would be for you.” He turned and stalked away through the thinning crowd.

  Methos watched him a moment before speaking to Minyah. “That may have been a mistake.”

  “I do not care to be laughed at,” Minyah said irritably. “Particularly by children who think they are my better.”

  Aroz, voice slightly strangled, said, “He’s more than four hundred years old, Minyah.”

  “Never-the-less,” she snapped, “my statement stands. He is a child, eager for toys beyond his understanding, and I do not care to be mocked.”

  Ghean stared after Karem in dismay. “He’s one of you, too?” Her voice rose to a higher pitch. “Is everyone going to live fore–”

  Methos elbowed Ghean in the stomach, wincing apologetically as he did so. Ghean’s expression exploded into outrage. Aroz half lurched to his feet, snatching for his sword, an action mirrored by Methos.

  Minyah’s voice cracked out: “Stop this!”

  Both men froze, eyes locked on each other across the table. A little circle of quiet washed out from their table, as other patrons turned to watch the commotion. Finally, Aroz snarled, “Later,” and slammed his sword fully back into the sheath
, regaining his seat.

  “Later,” Methos agreed in a growl, then took a calming breath. “Ghean, I’m sorry,” he said as he sat down again. “You were becoming uncomfortably loud.” This is a serious game, Ghean. You don’t understand yet, but you will in time. Until then, I cannot allow you to betray me. To betray us. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “Are you all right?”

  Ghean rubbed her stomach sullenly. “I’m fine,” she muttered. “Is everyone but me going to live forever?” she demanded more quietly. “It’s not fair.”

  Methos exchanged an uneasy glance with Minyah. “Life has never been fair, Ghean,” the woman said. “I am quite certain I will not live forever. Perhaps you will be lucky and will be like them.”

  Ghean looked up at Methos, eyes pleading. “Will I?” she asked. “Could that happen?”

  Methos closed his eyes, sighing, then looked at Ghean. “I don’t know.” If you die before your time, yes. If one of us tells you, yes. If you do not die … no. “I don’t know, Ghean. We don’t make that decision.” He looked aver at Aroz, whose face was pinched, though he nodded his head in agreement after a few seconds. Methos sighed again, shaking his head. “I don’t know.”

  Chapter 16

  Just after midnight the next day, Methos jerked upright, hand closing on the covers in search of a sword that wasn’t there. Ghean pushed herself up on her elbows, blinking tiredly at him. “What is it?”

  The Immortal swung out of bed, shaking his hair back over his shoulders. “A nightmare,” he answered. “Go back to sleep. I’m going to get a drink of water. I’ll be back soon.”

  Ghean nodded, eyes already closed again as her head dropped into the pillow. Methos watched her for a brief moment, bending to brush the back of his hand across the air above her cheekbone. “I love you,” he whispered, and picked up his sword to go out and meet the Immortal who waited for him.

  The moon had faded to a sliver, its light reflected poorly from garden walls and making monsters of trees and shadows. Methos walked the path cautiously, flat sandals offering little purchase and causing gravel stones to shift slightly under his weight. Each movement cracked like a richocheted shot to Methos’ ears, forcing him to abandong any pretense of silence.

  Aroz sat on one of the stone benches, elbows on his knees and hands hanging loosely, head dropped as he studied the ground. He was dressed as Methos was, in the lightweight pants that Atlatneans customarily slept in, shirt left behind in his quarters. His sword lay on the bench besdie him, bronze glinting dully in the moonlight. As Methos stopped a few yards away, Aroz lifted his head, expression unreadable in the half light. After a minute he stood, sword gripped loosely in his hand. “I wasn’t sure you would come.”

  “We don’t have to do this,” Methos said tiredly.

  Aroz smiled thinly, casting a glance at the small house Methos had come from. “You struck her. I am still her bodyguard. Even if we were not Immortal, her honor would still be at stake.”

  “She was about to expose us,” Methos pointed out. “Loudly, and to a sizeable group of people. I couldn’t allow that.”

  Aroz shrugged. “Who would have believed her?”

  “Someone might have. I didn’t live as long as I have by letting people announce to random strangers that I’m Immortal. I couldn’t take the chance.”

  “And so you prefer to strike your beloved?”

  Methos sighed, looked away momentarily, then looked back. “Yes. I’ll stop someone by any means necessary to keep our secret safe.”

  “Even the woman you are to marry.”

  Methos tilted his head back a little, weariness in the movement. Eyes still on Aroz, he said, “Yes. There will be a time that she understands, Aroz, but it hasn’t come yet. She’s still mortal.”

  Aroz looked up towards the house again. “How long will you continue to allow her to be unaware of what she is?”

  “Allow?” Methos straightened his head, staring at Aroz. “I don’t allow or disallow people their Immortality. I’m old, not omnipotent. It’s not my choice when or if she becomes Immortal.” He, too, glanced back towards the house, and his shoulders dropped. More quietly, he admitted, “I don’t think I could bear to lose her to old age, not knowing the potential is in her. A few years … five or six. She’d still be young.”

  “And if she hates you for keeping it secret? What if you lose her to that?”

  Methos turned back to Aroze, smile wry. “Maybe she’d let me make it up to her in a few hundred yeras. I don’t expect the marriage to last after she learns. It wouldn’t be fair to her.”

  Aroz shook his head. “Then why not tell her now? Let her make the choice now?”

  “Why not tell her yourself?” Methos asked shortly, lifting his eyebrows when Aroz looked away uncomfortably. The older Immortal let the silence draw out a few moments longer before speaking again. “I won’t tell her yet because Immortality changes us all in a fundamental way, and Ghean is still very young. I don’t want to see her vividness fade. Not yet.” He closed his eyes, calling the image of Ghean’s smile to mind. “Let her enjoy that passion while she can. It may not survive the first death.” He could hear the sorrow in his own voice, and smiled sardonically at it. When he opened his eyes again, it was to find Aroz staring at him, a quizzical frown wrinkling his forehead.

  “You really do love her.”

  Methos groaned. “Of course I do. You think I want to marry her so you can’t have her? Don’t be stupid, Aroz. I haven’t lived this long courting that kind of idiocy, either.”

  Aroz stood quietly a few minutes, eyebrows still drawn down as he examined Methos. “I don’t understand you,” he said eventually.

  Methos snorted, a sound of amusement that shook his body. “You’re not the first, and you won’t be the last. Does your lack of understanding go so far that it requires us to fight, Aroz? Because whether it does or doesn’t, I’d like to get this over with so I can go back to bed.”

  Aroz’s expression darkened again. For the third time, he looked at the house where Ghean slept. “I have protected her all my life, at any cost. Will you do the same?”

  At any cost except my own survival. Methos nodded slowly, the caveat remaining unspoken. “I will.”

  Aroz nodded once. “Then we have no real quarrel. Much as I would like to stand in your place, I haven’t the heart to deprive Ghean of her groom mere hours before the ceremony.” He lifted his sword, leveling it at Methos. “Do not betray her,” he said flatly.

  Methos smirked. “I’ll expect to find you waiting, if I do.” He took two steps backwards, effectively dismissing the other Immortal. Aroz nodded again, and turned his back, walking swiftly from the gardens.

  Methos waited until Aroz was entirely out of sight before releasing a slow breath. Someday I won’t be able to avoid that fight, he thought waspishly. It might be better to force it now, when I know I can beat him. But I’d no more divest Ghean of his presence at the wedding than he’d deprive her of mine. With a sigh, Methos turned back to the house. He’d only taken a step or two when an indistinct tingle shivered down his backbone. He lifted the bared sword warily, searching the darkness for the Immortal whom he’d been warned of.

  “It’s only me.” Ghean stepped out from behind a tree only a few feet away, a blanket clutched around her shoulders. “I thought I was being quiet.”

  Methos lowered the sword, slipping an arm around Ghean’s shoulders. “You were. How long have you been out here?” The awareness of her potential Quickening thudded at the back of his head, a headache timed to match his heartbeat.

  “Just a minute,” she answered, snuggling against his side. “You’d been gone too long to get water, so I got up to look for you.”

  Methos encouraged her to begin walking back to the house with a brief squeeze. “I didn’t think you’d really woken up at all.” A little hesitantly, he asked, “You were listening to us?”

  Ghean nodded against his ribs. “I’m glad you didn’t have to fight him,” she said softly. “I l
ove you both.”

  “I know,” Methos said, equally gently. “I’m glad, too.” He pushed the door open, escorting Ghean inside. She padded back into the bedroom, dragging the blanket up onto the bed with her, and curled into a small lump in the center of the bed. Methos laughed quietly, leaving his sandals by the side of the bed as he climbed in wiht her. She rolled over sleepily, looking up at him with half lidded eyes.

  “You won’t fight him?” she asked drowsily.

  Methos laid a hand against her cheek, smiling down at her. “I’ll try not to,” he promised. “Someday I might have to, but I’ll try to avoid it.”

  Ghean smiled contentedly, eyes drifting fully closed as sleep claimed her again.

  She didn’t hear, Methos concluded. If she’d heard, she’d be awake and angry. He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her against his chest, and let sleep find him again, as well.

  -o-O-o-

  Ghean kissed his cheek just past daybreak and told him to find something to keep busy for the morning. Thus far, Methos’ method of entertainment had been nervously pacing the outer wall of the temple, manfully dismissing the urge to peek through the windows. A quick glance at the sun told him he’d been at this task for almost four hours. He was relatively certain he would wear a path in the stone tier the temple sat on before the sun reached its zenith and it was time for the ceremony.

  A burst of giggles from inside nearly forced him to break his vow to not spy on the women inside. They had been doing that all morning. Methos’ curiousity was eating him alive. He slowed next to a window, then fixed his gaze on his toes, finally smiling at himself. One would think hundreds of years of practice would reduce the apprehension of getting married. He laughed. One might also think that hundreds of years of warfare would numb one enough that each new battle wouldn’t send a surge of adreneline through the body. One would be very wrong, and, Methos decided, one should not pursue the comparisons of marriage and battle any further. Grinning, he resumed his methodical walk around the outside of the temple.