Immortal Beloved

by C. E. Murphy

  You are all dying! Words Methos had spoken when he’d first become interested in Alexa, when Joe had told him that the woman was dying of cancer. Six months, twenty years, it doesn’t matter! Looking at Methos, Joe shivered in the warm room. Death could take him, in its time. Unlike most men, he knew he would be remembered for lifetimes far beyond the end of his own. It was enough.

  After a moment, his eyes came back to Ghean. The acrid smile was gone from her face, but still deep-set in her eyes. Hers had been a hell worse than the other Immortals had suffered, even with the pain of lost friends. Eternal life and eternal death, in eternal captivity. The hairs on the back of his neck stood again, and Joe glanced at the stone on the bookshelf once more.

  “Yes,” Ghean answered the unspoken question. “It’s the same stone. I’ve kept it, as if it were a precious talisman, a piece of jewelry so valuable it couldn’t be parted with.” Her faintly accented voice was self-mocking.

  Joe looked back at her. “It is. It bought you your freedom, didn’t it?”

  Ghean’s eyebrows lifted curiously. “To say this on so few hours’ acquaintance is perhaps presumptuous, but would have expected that comment more from Duncan than you, Joe.”

  Duncan smiled a little. “E’en Joe has his moments o’grace, Ghean.” He cleared his throat, as if to clear away the accent thickened with emotion by the tale.

  “Don’t do me any favors, Mac,” Joe said dryly.

  The Highlander grinned, glancing towards the fourth, and still silent member of the group.

  Methos sat deep in his char, elbows propped at awkward angles on the arms, long fingers steepled in front of his nose. Over them, he regarded Ghean, ignorning the genial banter meant to lighten the mood of the room. Hazel eyes had deepened to black, no longer lost in memory, but in thought as he studied the woman whom fate had kept him from marrying.

  Ghean turned her attention back towards Methos, serenity settling over her face. For an instant, Joe imagined he could see Minyah looking out from her daughter’s face, in that steady contemplation. “Tell me what happened to my mother,” Ghean ordered imperiously.

  “I thought she’d died,” Methos replied, fingers still against his lips. “After I couldn’t find her, I assumed the Fleece had been torn off her in the water and she’d drowned.”

  “And you did not look further.” Ghean’s voice was soft.

  Methos ignored the question. “I didn’t see her again for a thousand years.” His glance ran to Duncan and Joe, and slid off them again. “Not until after the Horsemen disbanded.”

  -o-O-o-

  Heat rose in heavy waves from the desert floor, warping the air so greatly that Methos made a habit of looking twice before feeling any assurance that objects were actually there, and not figments of a sun-strained imagination. It had been more than weeks since he’d last seen a traveler through the wasteland; months, at least, and perhaps more. After a thousand years of warfare, the silence was welcome, even in the inhospitable desert.

  His oasis was a tiny one, a patch of green so small that passing nomad tribes stayed only long enough to water themselves and their animals before moving on, unwilling to encroach on the little home Methos had dug himself out of the sand. It couldn’t possibly be me, he thought sarcastically. Reflections in the water, when it stilled, showed him the face he turned to visitors.

  It wasn’t a face he would want to long sojourn with. The changeable eyes had gone to black, fathomless darkness whose first and most easily read expression was rage, seconded by hatred. The features, always sharp, were chiseled thin with an everlasting anger that fed his belly, churning and boiling. Hair framed his face, unkempt, the top once chopped short and finally growing out. Left to its ragged path, it completed the aura of complete disdain for humanity that radiated from his slender form.

  The approaching traveler was either real or a remarkably persistent hallucination. Methos turned from his perch at the edge of the oasis, flinging a loose length of fabric over his face and shoulder to cut down on the sun’s glare. The waterhole was easily found. Without a show of hospitality as invitation to stay further, perhaps whomever it was would move on. A millennium of battle was hard to set aside. The more Methos could avoid mortals who provoked his temper, the better. In a year or two, or a few decades, if necessary, he would rejoin the world. Until then, the desert solitude suited his need to reconstruct himself from what Death had left him.

  Some of the passion for killing had left him already. Had he gods, Methos would have thanked them. He settled to his knees in the sand under a slim tree, the scarf falling away from his face again. A thousand years had gone by since he had turned his back on the Rules learned in a nebulous past. He killed where he wanted, fought whom he chose, and hunted with his brothers, sharing spoils and graciously offering Quickenings back and forth. The unfortunate victims were left to listen as the Horsemen debated about whose turn it was to take a head. The power had been heady, but in time it grew sour. Mortals were little sport, and only his brother Horsemen equaled his skill with a blade. Even the rush of the Quickening seemed dulled, when he never doubted he would be the victor in Immortal combat.

  Then came Cassandra. Beautiful and wild beyond compare, she’d stolen Methos’ heart far more solidly than she’d imagined. He’d have done anything for her — except die. He’d never been the strongest of the brothers, only the smartest. When Kronos came to claim her, he let Cassandra go, betraying her trust in favor of keeping Kronos’. Methos did the only thing he could for her: when she attacked Kronos, and ran away into the night, he didn’t stop her.

  The thousand-year reign of the Horsemen began to draw to an end, after that. It hadn’t been easy, spreading the seeds of dissent so carefuly and subtly that the blame rested on no one, least of all Methos. He’d clapsed arms with Kronos, the last of the four to part ways, and promised, “Someday. Someday, we’ll ride together again, you and I. Until then, brother.”

  Then he’d run like hell into the desert, to an insignificant oasis that had once been someone’s holy ground, and there he stayed, in search of sanity. It was a long time coming, but at least the killing rage was fading.

  The traveler’s camel was slurping noisily at the water. Methos closed his eyes, willing the newcomer away, only to open them again almost immediately. He was safe enough from Immortals, here on ancient holy ground, but the Rules wouldn’t prevent a bloodthirsty mortal from taking his head. The faint shift of sand underfoot made him turn his head, looking to the approaching stranger.

  Slight, and wrapped in the loose robes that kept the desert heat from killing, the interloper stopped a few yards from where Methos knelt. After half a minute’s silence, Methos heard a language unspoken in ten centuries, by a voice he’d thought dead all those years.

  “They told me I would find a madman alone in the desert if I passed this way,” Minyah said smoothly, pulling her scarf from around her face. “Never did I imagine he might be a friend from a thousand years gone by.”

  For long seconds, Methos stared up at the Atlantean scholar, speechless. “A friend?” he finally asked, in disbelief. “Is that what I am?”

  “You saved my life,” Minyah answered evenly. “Had you not dragged me from the temple, I would have died as certainly as Ghean did. I do not think any of the House artifacts are remarkable enough to compensate for fires as hot as the earth’s core itself. I saw the sea boil in places where Atlantis’ stone fell from the island as it melted. I would not have wished to die in those fires.”

  “I thought you drowned.”

  “I waited to.” Minyah knelt gracefully where she stood, still a few yards away from Methos. “The pull of the water dragged me under, but in time released me again. When I finally reached the surface, you were gone.”

  Methos opened his mouth to offer an apology, and was left wordless. “I looked for you,” he said eventually. “Until the water came too close to pulling me back to Atlantis.”

  “And you left.” Minyah inclined her head. “An
d you would do so again,” she added in understanding. “For a long time I was angry at you. It took centuries before I was able to understand the need that compelled you to run from the temple, to abandon those who fought or died there. The desire for survival in itself, that is understandable. But for you, it is more, is it not? It was not something I understood Immortality well enough to see, in Atlantis. Only retrospect gave me the wisdom. It is not only survival, for you. It is survival at any cost.”

  “I betrayed that instinct once,” Methos grated suddenly, as Minyah stopped speaking. “I let Ghean stop me from killing Aroz in Egypt, and in the end that cost us everything.” The chill of Death’s mask settled over his face, the cold lines comforting. “Love’s lessons can be hard. It’s not a mistake I’ll make again.”

  Minyah came to her feet in a smooth motion, crossing the sands with a few steps, to rest her fingers atop Methos’ head. “My dear Methos,” she murmured after a moment, “what has happened to you this thousand years?”

  -o-O-o-

  Methos broke off his narrative to frown uncomfortably at Ghean. “She stayed a while,” he said. “Years, I think. I told her about the Horsemen, and she, in turn, told me about the Watchers. We parted as … very close friends. Over the years we met up again now and then, and exchanged tales. Her files on me were frighteningly complete.”

  “It’s good you were friends,” Ghean said softly. Methos closed his eyes, exhaling gently, only to look at the petite woman as she spoke again. “But what happened to her, in the end? I want to know.”

  “She died,” Methos said tiredly. “Isn’t that enough, Ghean?”

  “No.” Ghean’s voice was insistent. “She was my mother, Methos. I want to know.”

  Methos lowered his face against his steepled hands, sliding his fingers along the bridge of his nose to press at the inner corners of his eyes. He held the posture so long that Ghean glanced uncertainly at Duncan and Joe. Just as she pulled in a breath to speak, Methos broke the silence. “All right.”

  -o-O-o-

  “Yours?” The twins were just in their teens, both tall and slender, and madly running through the surf, soaked to the skin. Methos stared openly, first at the children, then at the unaging mortal beside him.

  “Not by birth,” Minyah said, amused. “For all the artifacts’ wonders, they do not turn back the years, only hold them at bay. My child-bearing days were over while Atlantis still stood.” She looked out over the blue water. “I miss it sometimes. I hardly recognize myself, from my oldest journals. I knew so little, then. Is that how it always must be?”

  Methos shook his head. “You were always knowledgeable, Minyah. The world has changed, and you’ve watched it happen, is all. It’s that way for all of us.”

  Minyah folded her arms under her breasts, pushing the cloak back over a shoulder. “I was proud of my knowledge, then. I knew there was always more to be learned, but I was proud of what I had.” A hand drifted up to touch the edge of the Fleece. “Were my gods wise or foolish, Methos, to give us these gifts? Mortal life is so short, but the world has so much potential. Part of me wants everyone to share in it. The greater part fears what might happen if all people were given this gift.”

  Methos rested his chin on his knees, watching the water and the children below. “Your gods were well-meaning,” he said. “I don’t know whether they were wise or foolish, but they meant well. And if more people knew about the artifacts, or if there were more of them, it would make war.” He sighed softly. “There’s always war. The artifacts would be hoarded, and only the rich would be able to afford them. For most people, it would be the same as it is now. For the dangerous ones, the ambitious ones, there’d be no way to stop them.” He glanced up at Minyah, eyes hazel in the sunlight. “My kind of Immortality is less dangerous. I can die. I don’t know if you can.”

  Minyah laughed, settling down beside him on the rock again. “Can you? Three thousand years, my old friend, and you still think you can die?”

  “I wouldn’t keep my head if I didn’t know I could lose it,” Methos said, then nodded at the children. “Where did they come from?”

  “Nephele, the first wife of Athamas the king. He lost interest in her, and left her. He remarried Ino when the children were small, but she does not like them very much. I have played nursemaid, and helped raise them. I have missed children, over the years.”

  Methos nodded again. “What will you do?”

  Minyah glanced away from the twins to look at Methos. “What do you mean, what will I do?”

  “Our kind were not meant to have children, Minyah.” Methos hesitated, then smiled faintly down at the water. “I forget,” he said, “that you and I are different. Despite there being no warning at your approach, I tend to think you’re like me. Even I categorize things in the most familiar manner, whether or not I know better.” He shook his head. “That aside, Minyah, they’ll grow old and die, while you go on eternally. Watching it happen to friends is bad enough. Can you stand to watch it happen to your children?”

  Minyah sat silent a long time. “The war-horses drowned with Atlantis,” she said eventually. “They tell stories about them, did you know? They call them unicorns. Noah took Methuselah’s crystal away with him on his ark. I have the Fleece. Did you ever wonder what happened to the rest of the artifacts, Methos?”

  Methos glanced at the woman. “I hadn’t. I suppose I assumed they all sank with the island.”

  Minyah shook her head. “I have searched out fabulous stories about magical items over the years. The cauldron, the sword and scabbard, the grail; I have found them all. Even Cuthmesh.”

  “Ring of life,” Methos translated, and looked at Minyah’s hands. But for the silver pendent of Aries, her jewelry had changed over the centuries. Now, her right middle finger bore a simple gold ring. Methos reached over to lift her hand, folding her fingers over his. The etchings remained, unfaded, a roaring lion’s head against the gold. “House Leo?” he guessed.

  Minyah nodded. “I found it only a few months ago, after tracking it for nearly two centuries. A rumour here, or a half-remembered tale about an ancient man who wore it — eventually I found the man who owned it.”

  “And how did you get it from him?”

  Minyah gave a sideways smile. “I stole it.”

  Methos’ eyebrows shot up. “You?”

  “It is not much like me, is it? He was a small man, black of heart, an unloved warlord. I became his lover and slipped it from his finger one night. I understand he died not long after.” There was no sympathy in her voice. Methos shook his head.

  “Judging who lives and who dies?”

  Minyah lifted a shoulder and let it fall again. “We all die, in the end. You have just reminded me of that. I judged him unworthy of special protection. I cannot find distress in that.”

  “Do you think you need the protection of both the ring and the cloak?”

  “No.” Minyah shook her head. “I will wear the ring, and put the Fleece away, I think.” She smiled briefly. “Although after so long I fear I will feel unclothed, without the cloak on my shoulders. I have slept in it, even, for all these years.”

  Methos nodded. “You’d have to, or the hours you spent sleeping would be hours you aged. Your life would only have been two or three times the normal span.”

  “So long, and yet so little time.” Minyah nodded down the beach towards the children. “When they are older, I will give them the artifacts, or have them sip from the chalice if I have discovered how it works.”

  Methos’ eyebrows went up. “You don’t know how it works?”

  “No,” Minyah said in a voice full of chagrin. “Neither wine nor water drunk from it brings eternal life.” She laughed suddenly. “And for two thousand years there has been no coffee to try it with. I miss coffee.”

  Methos grinned, thinking back to the bitter drink. “So do I, now that you’ve brought it to mind. Have you tried blood?”

  “Blood tastes nothing like coffee,” Minyah said pr
imly.

  Methos laughed. “In the chalice, Minyah, in the chalice. Have you tried sipping blood from it?” Curiously, he added, “How did you determine water and wine didn’t work?”

  “Mice,” Minyah answered, “pet mice. They died in the usual time.” She looked thoughtful. “I have not tried blood. Perhaps I should.”

  “Will the cup work on mice?”

  Minyah looked up at Methos solemnly. “It has not, so far.”

  Methos grinned. “Well, where is it? We’ll try it with blood.”

  “Egypt,” Minyah replied. “Somewhere safe,” she added evasively, and Methos laughed.

  “What is it about great age that inspires such a lack of trust?” he asked teasingly. “Eventually you’ll have to go get it, and we’ll see if blood works.”

  “What made you think of it?”

  A skull, silver hammered into the inner curve and glinting over the eyes, flashed through Methos’ mind. Kronos, toasting his brothers, and thick, cooling blood dribbling crimson over the whitened bone as the skull was passed from one Horseman to another, each draining some of the blood away. Methos could no longer recall whom the enemy they had so ‘honored’ had been. “You don’t want to know,” he replied.

  Minyah’s eyes narrowed. “Do not credit me with over-delicate sensibilites, Methos,” she warned, before allowing, “You are most probably correct. It is likely I do not want to know.”

  Methos stayed nearby, watching the twins grow, mildly horrified at the rate they aged. “Is it this way for mortals?” he asked Minyah one morning, watching Helle tear out of Athemas’ palace after Phrixos for a day’s riding.

  “Ghean grew fast,” Minyah said, “though not this fast. The days are shorter, now. They do not need our supervision today, Methos. Come back in and I will make you breakfast.”

  “You made breakfast yesterday,” Methos said idly, returning. “I’ll do it today. Then we can sit around in the sunshine and tell each other how much better the old days were.”