Immortal Beloved

by C. E. Murphy

  The Book, the patient one purred. A treasure we hadn’t even considered, legendary even to us, and now we know where it is.

  The temple was so nearly destroyed, the frightened one protested. The room below won’t be there anymore. It’ll have melted away into nothing, the Book will be ashes, drowned ashes, nothing more. The tunnels will be collapsed, the room flooded, the stone burned, Book drowned. It’s too late. There’s nothing there. Atlantis is gone and only we remain, high in the sky. We’ll fall. We’re falling.

  No. Ghean pushed the frightened voice away, rejecting out of hand the idea that the Book might have been destroyed. I survived. Methos survived. Even Minyah survived. The Book will be there. I need it to be there, so it will be. I needed Methos and he’s alive. The Book will be there.

  The Book. Ghean nestled back into the airplane seat, comfortable. Her diminutive size was enough to make coach seating passable; the roomy first class seats were luxurious. She tapped the call button for a flight attendent. A tall young man appeared moments later, smiling. “What can I do for you, ma’am?”

  “A gin and tonic, please,” she requested, and smiled as it was delivered in under a minute. “Thank you.” Lifting the glass to her mouth, she loked out the window again, almost content despite the flight.

  Her first plan had been to search out the remaining artifacts. Atlantis’ ruins were secondary, more a bitter reminder of a childhood lost than the archaelogical find of the century. Somewhere in the city are items of incredible power. This century I’ve been reborn into is nearly advanced enough to unravel their secrets.

  So many of the artifacts have already been lost. The Fleece, gone since the days of Jason and the Argonauts. For an instant, Ghean’s expression darkened as she thought about the legend. If Methos was telling the truth, her mother had only been dead a few decades when that adventure happened. Two millennia of life ended by a child’s selfishness.

  Two thousand years while I lived and died in a lightless prison beneath the sea. Ghean shuddered, pulling her thoughts away before she spiralled down into pointless rage at the wasted centuries.

  Good, the patient one whispered approvingly.

  The chalice, found and lost again in Christ’s time; the cauldron destroyed, according to Welsh legend, when a living man climbed in it to end the evil of raising men from the dead. Curious, Ghean thought, that three of the thirteen artifacts appeared in the islands of Britain, when the rest are so widely scattered. The other two, the sword lost to a lake and the scabbard to a battle, were among the last to be lost, by legend and history’s tales. Arthur who bore the magical blade had lived only fifteen centuries ago.

  I wonder if Methos was there. I wonder if he recognized the blade as Atlantean work, from a life he’d left behind long ago. Ghean sighed, closing her eyes as she sipped at her drink.

  The unicorns died with the island. Methuselah’s stone I’ve seen myself, nearly all the crystals kept safe in the Watcher’s headquarters in Paris. Rebecca, Ghean remembered vaguely, was the Immortal who’d had the crystal. Over the years she’d scattered pieces of it out to her students, and over the years they’d died, their Watchers collecting the pieces until only one last piece was missing. Ghean regretted, briefly, not taking the time to see who of the remaining students had the last piece, but she’d left the Watchers long before the technology for excavating Atlantis was available, and at the time the recovery of the final crystal hadn’t been important enough to pursue.

  Even the Dragon’s Teeth were scattered around the world. Both Greek and Chinese legends told tales of stones cast to the ground to sprout undead warriors. It seems safe to believe those gifts are also irretrievable.

  There are others, though, Ghean thought smugly. Artifacts that never appeared in legend. Cuthmesh is one. The Book is another. There was the girdle, and the helmet, both of which were supposed to protect the wearer. They must be down there under the waves. We’ll study them, and maybe we’ll find a way to replicate them.

  But the Book would be the ulimate treasure. Ghean swirled her drink, watching the liquid flow. The hole in the temple will have to be expanded, but maybe we can pump the water out, leave the floor cleared so we can excavate beneath it without flooding the lower room. Ghean took another sip, frowning. I wonder if the temple will be able to take the pressure from outside if it’s not equalized within.

  It doesn’t matter, the patient one said. We don’t have to worry about it today. If Methos is right, the Book is sealed in one of the artist’s boxes. Unless it’s been physically cracked open, it won’t leak, so the Book will be safe even if we have to flood the secret room.

  We’ll prove Atlantis a great civilization, with the Book, Ghean thought triumphantly. We’ll find a way to rebuild it, using the Book, and for those who help us we’ll learn how to make new artifacts, and share them. It’s a fitting tribute to a city that died in such an untimely way. Eternal life for its new citizens.

  Methos won’t approve, with his unwillingness to share Immortality with the world. Ghean clucked her tongue quietly, shaking her head.

  Methos will only be part of the equation as long as he is useful, the patient one reminded her. We won’t need him, by the time we’re ready to rebuild Atlantis. We can kill him long before that.

  Ghean smiled, turning her attention to the window again, lifting her glass to sip at her drink. Light bounced off her ring, catching in the engraved lion’s head that marked the surface of gold.

  Chapter 22

  The wind off the water tasted of salt and fish, ruffling Methos’ hair and leaving a few dark strands knocked out of place when it faded away. Even on the warm Mediterranean beach, he wore his greatcoat, the heavy wool less affected by the breeze than his hair was. The only real concession to the warmer climate were the sandals he wore, though the kahkis and white polo shirt, open at the throat, were equally suited for Chicago or Greece.

  He kept his hands shoved in his pockets, eyes closed. It hadn’t been so very long since he’d last stood on beaches along the Mediterranean Sea, not even by mortal standards. For Methos, the few intervening years since he’d brought Alexa to Greece were barely a blink, an infinitesimal fraction of his thousands of years.

  Alexa. Time dulled grief, but Immortality was a double- edged sword. It made time peculiarly fluid, washing the years after a death away into nothing at all, until suddenly it was decades, not days, since death had captured a loved one. A scent, or a gesture, or a smile would bring it all back in a rush, leaving him — or any Immortal — surprised in a net of memories from a lifetime before anyone near him had been born.

  It would happen. Methos knew it, and a part of him was relieved for it. To remember everyone and everything gone each day would drive anyone insane. Fading memories were the only way to deal with the never-ending loss that was the price of Immortality. The moments of sudden clarity, when they came, were tempered with time, making it easier to remember the good moments, distance making bittersweet pain easier to bear.

  For now, though, it was still raw, and Methos kept it close to his heart. He wasn’t ready yet to let Alexa go. She’d been something special, something he didn’t see often, courage and pride mixed up with fragility, reflected in her dying body. She’d had such defensive walls, and he’d been desperate to break them down, desperate for what little time they could have together. She’d been beautiful, round-faced with gentle eyes and a shy smile. Her hair was thin. He’d never asked if it’d been thicker before cancer invaded, only brushed it and buried his face in the scent of it. It wasn’t fair. It was so damned unfair.

  A hundred miles off the coat, drowned beneath the sea, lay the potential cure for the cancer that had eaten Alexa from the inside out. Methos opened his eyes, looking out over the blue waters. The cure might be in the Book, and I don’t want to give it to the world.

  What kind of selfish bastard am I? The question, voiced silently, was without venom. The kind of selfish bastard that puts himself first to survive. Just like I always have. It
might not be the right thing to do for the world, but it’s the right thing for Immortals. For myself.

  Duncan, he thought acidly, would damn the consequences and hand the Book over to medical science on a silver platter. If it meant Immortality for the world, so be it. Mac would accept it with open arms.

  Methos grinned despite himself, wandering down the beach into the water, walking along the tide line, foamy water and sand splashing the legs of his pants. But I’m not Duncan. He looked up, squinting at the water, and shook his head. The Highlander had changed him. Less than a decade ago, he wouldn’t have stopped to consider what another’s actions might be, or whether his own were wrong or right in someone else’s eyes. Now, at least, he thought about it. It rarely changed his course of action, but the fact that he gave other viewpoints heed at all was a remarkable change to have affected in such a short period of time.

  Duncan was back in Seacouver, at any rate, and unlikely to change Methos’ feelings on the matter. It’s not that I object to the knowledge being available, exactly. It’s that I object to it being available to anyone I don’t trust.

  That rather narrowed the field of people Methos wanted to have access to the Book. Down to two or three, he thought wryly. I’m curious to read it again, now that I’ll be able to understand more of it. Methos shook his head, frowning at the water. He simply didn’t want the kind of knowledge available in the Book to be misused, and he was far too old a student of humanity to believe anything else would happen. The answer, then, was to either destroy it, or control it.

  He’d prefer to control it. Methos was also far too much a scholar to willingly destroy the Book. He glanced south, over the sea, smiling a little in memory. He’d wept, when the Library at Alexandria burned, fourteen centuries ago. Knowledge was too precious to him, too long a pursuit, to take it from the world entirely. Hiding it, as it had been hidden all these millennia, would be enough.

  It was possible humanity would someday reach the point where his kind and mortals could live together, if the Game didn’t end before then. It was possible the day would come that Immortality would be parceled out to everyone, not just the wealthy.

  It was possible pigs would sprout wings and fly away. Until then, Methos wanted to be the one with the Book. He didn’t trust anyone else. It’s a limited existence, he thought, amused, but I’ve grown accustomed to it. He angled up the beach, leaving the water to head back to where he’d parked. The sharp cries of seagulls slowed him, and he looked back over the water, pain tightening his features. He’d left guilt behind a long time ago — I haven’t felt guilt since the eleventh century, he’d told Duncan once. Since I joined with Kronos and became Death, he amended the statement privately. But regret. Regret seems unavoidable.

  If only, he thought. If only Ghean had rediscovered Atlantis earlier. If only I’d thought to look there myself. If only the cancer hadn’t been so bad. If only, if only, if only. Alexa would want me to give the Book to the doctors.

  Alexa is dead.

  Methos turned his back on the water and finished the climb to the car, trying hard to leave regret behind him.

  He was almost surprised that Ghean wasn’t waiting for him at the car. She knew he’d come to Greece; the University had returned Duncan’s call, politely falling over itself in its eagerness to accept the donation to the Atlantis fund. They were almost rabidly apologetic at Dr. Kostani’s insistance that only Dr. Pierson accompany her on the undersea explorations, although, the harried woman on the other end of the line assured Duncan, he was most definetely welcome if he wished to stay at the land base or even on the ship. Duncan had looked at Methos, and demurred. Methos was fairly certain the Highlander had an absurdly romantic notion in his thick Scottish skull, and rolled his eyes at Duncan as Mac hung up the phone.

  It wasn’t, Methos agreed, that the idea was unappealing. Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error, and upon me prov’d, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. A smile curved Methos’ mouth as he recalled Shakespeare’s sonnet. No one, certainly, was more qualified than Methos to pass judgement on love’s ability to pass through the centuries.

  Until the gut-wrenching shock of seeing Cassandra again, even Methos had always relegated those eternal loves to fond memory, only reflective of the true feeling. Her pale eyes, filled with fury, gave the lie to the reflection, and the truth to Shakespeare’s words. In the terrifying moment when he’d first seen her again, Methos learned that love hadn’t altered at all. It had only settled into memory, waiting for a chance to re-emerge.

  It had been much the same with Ghean’s unexpected reappearance. The same sick, thudding disbelief had twisted his stomach, somehow bringing all of the good moments they’d had to mind.

  And Ghean still had her intensity, the dark-eyed focus that made the rest of the world fade away. Watching her, as they’d exchanged stories, filling in what had happened in Atlantis and after, had been breathtaking. The short haircut she wore now highlighted her eyes in a way the hip-length style she’d worn in Atlantis never could have. The innocence, as he’d feared, had been lost. Whether it was the first death, or the ensuing thousands of years of captivity that had broken naievete away from her was irrelevant. Replacing it was anger, a fire that burned a little too near the surface. It was as compelling, perhaps even more than innocence had been, for the danger inherent within.

  It was what kept the idea of rekindled romance nothing more than a charming and idle thought. Passion, Methos thrived on. It was part of what drew him to Duncan, as well as Joe and Amanda, and one reason they had come to matter so much to him. All of them had an astonishing passion in life — Duncan for his rigid code of right and wrong, Joe for his belief in the Watchers, and Amanda in her sheer exuberance for living on the edge. Methos had his own passions, more tempered: scholarship, medicine, and above all else, survival.

  Ghean had passion in her anger, but no visible focus. It was not, Methos was certain, that the focus was not there, but merely that he couldn’t see it. Far too many years separated them for him to be able intuitively guess what she might be thinking or plotting. Until he knew, Methos couldn’t let sentimentality cloud his judgement.

  And still you expected her to be waiting for you. Arrogant old man. He grinned at himself.

  It wasn’t impossible that she might have been waiting. The University had offered him a room in the small complex they were renting for their land base, but Methos had declined. The key word in their description was small. Methos was uncomfortable with placing himself so near another Immortal, particularly one he didn’t entirely trust. Though he’d never slept through the tingling headache that announced another Immortal’s arrival, the warning wasn’t a constant: once and Immortal entered the range of sensitivity, the feeling faded away. Methos prefered not to risk the proximity being so close that the warning would be useless, and instead rented himself a room at a nearby bed and breakfast. The University had the name and room number, and Ghean could have learned from the proprietor that Dr. Pierson had asked directions to the beach that morning.

  Methos pulled the car up to the B&B, shaking his head. All of which, he teased himself, comes out to a great deal of trouble. For someone who’s busy swearing off revitalized romances, you’re spending a lot of time hypothosizing how Ghean might ‘happen’ to come across you. Grinning again, he locked the car door and took the stairs up to the bed and breakfast’s second floor two at a time.

  Halfway up, the chill of warning slashed through him. Glancing over his shoulder to assure himself there were no mortals lurking, Methos drew his sword, taking the last steps more cautiously. At the head of the stairs, he craned his neck around the corner, peering down the hallway.

  Ghean stepped out of his room, hands spread deliberately wide and open at her sides. “They let me in,” she called. “I explained I was a work collegue. I don’t,” she added, smiling, “think they believed me.”

  Methos sighed, coming around the co
rner and down the hall without resheathing his sword. “Don’t do that to me,” he said irritably. “I behave badly when surprised.”

  “Only when surprised? You seem to have displayed bad behavior extensively since we’ve become reacquainted.” Ghean went back into his room, Methos a step behind her.

  The room was pink. The walls themselves were an inoffensive pale rose, just enough color to them to warm the room. Alone, it would have been pleasant. Unfortunately, the decorator hadn’t stopped there. A fuzzy carpet, a few shades off fuschia and with loops coming out of the weave, reflected off the walls, rendering both floor and walls brighter than they’d originally been. The curtains over the windows almost defied putting a name to the color. Methos had, after much horrified deliberation, concluded they were probably magenta. The bedcovers were not only pink, but were embroidered with heavy red roses. Even the overhead light had a pink bulb in it.

  It was, the proprietor had told him firmly, the only available room. The others were being redecorated. Methos, staring in dismay at the overwhelming decor, could see why.

  It didn’t get better with repeated exposure. Methos considered buying a pair of sunglasses just to deal with the glare of the room, although he loathed wearing them outside. Ghean was grinning at the room. “It’s very you, “Met–”

  “Adam,” he corrected, before she finished his name. After an audible pause, she continued.

  “Adam. I think they call this being in touch with your feminine side?”

  “I make a terrible woman.” Methos grimaced. “I’m too flat-chested, and I just can’t disguise the Adam’s apple. I have,” he added, “been surprised a lot since your reappearance. It no doubt accounts for my ill temper.”

  “Isn’t life more exciting that way?” Ghean sat down on the bed, leaving the chair — an armchair covered with dark pink plush — for Methos. He eyed it distastefully, and sat, kicking his feet up on the dresser. He hadn’t examined it, but decided it was probably made of rosewood, to keep in theme.