Am I becoming a religious man? Methos wondered wryly at that. Well, maybe, maybe not. Time enough for philosophy later. But if there is Anyone or Ones listening, let that One or Ones know that I pray that Nebet has found her own joyous immortality.
With that, having no other means of escaping his unwanted companions, Methos settled down on deck to sleep. Or at least to as deep a sleep as he could manage with another—and potentially dangerous—Immortal on board. That meant, naturally, almost no genuine slumber and little true rest, but, he thought, one took what one was given.
This included being wakened at an unearthly hour, just when he actually had succeeded in sliding into a brief patch of sleep, by one of Khyan’s usual nightmares. This time, Methos thought from where he lay, I will not comfort him. This time, let him suffer.
Waiting for the prince’s shouts to settle to whimpers and then into silence, he toyed with the idea of slipping overboard then and there and swimming to shore, then finding a fishing boat. But the sudden glint of moonlight on what was assuredly not a log put an end to that thought.
I can’t risk having Khyan reach Thebes before me to spread tales about King Apophis’s new advisor.
At last daylight came, and with it, to Methos’s great relief, the gradual diminishing of the wind.
“Oars out!” Captain Intef ordered, and the sailors began to row their determined way on up the Nile.
Now let them only put ashore for the night!
But once again, they did not. Instead, for whatever wary reason, Captain Intef had their ship anchored in the middle of the Nile.
“Is that wise?” Methos asked him in apparent innocent curiosity. “Might another ship run into us in the darkness?”
That earned him a mildly contemptuous glance. “No one will be sailing at night!”
“Except for the occasional smuggler?” Methos suggested.
“The Hyksos regime does not permit smugglers.”
“Ah, forgive me, Captain Intef. I had forgotten the strength of the Hyksos rule.”
Indeed I had not forgotten. That which is too strong to bend can, instead, be broken.
Methos set about working on Khyan instead, reminding the prince of how wonderful roasted duck could be, painting a delectable word picture of a duck turning on a spit, basted with its own juices, the steam rising into the night air, so wonderfully savory….
“Yes!” the prince exclaimed. “We shall have roasted duck this night!”
“But Prince Khyan,” Captain Intef began warily, “we dare not risk open flame aboard ship.”
Methos waited, anticipating… yes!
“Then put ashore!” came the autocratic command.
“But the men—the horses—it will take so long to get all unloaded and then reloaded in the morning.”
“Do you question me? Do you dare?”
“No, Prince Khyan,” the captain said in resignation. “Never.”
As Intef began shouting orders to his men, Khyan turned to Methos in triumph. “You see, Methos? You see how they dare not disobey me? This night we shall have a hot, fresh meal!”
Methos nodded and smiled. This night I shall escape from the lot of you!
But it wasn’t as easy to slip away into the darkness as Methos had expected. The guards weren’t the problem: Well fed and groggy from their meal, they were definitely less than alert, drifting off to sleep one by lazy one. After all, why bother to keep a stern watch? No one was likely to be about this region save for the occasional farmer, and what had such as they to fear from a farmer?
Khyan was another matter, alert and aware of every shadow, clinging to Methos like a child.
“Nothing is lurking out there,” Methos tried to assure him. “Nothing but—”
“There! Look, there! Eyes!”
“That? That is nothing but a tiny, tiny jackal trying to steal scraps of food from our camp.”
“That is Anubis! Anubis the jackal god is watching us!”
Methos gave up trying to explain. “You should not fear him! Are you not protected by a greater god?”
“Set!” Khyan exclaimed. “Set will protect me!”
Unfortunately, Set isn’t going to silence him, Methos thought. Instead, as though newly inspired, the prince followed him about wherever Methos tried to settle down, insisting on telling story after story, sharing confidence after confidence.
And none of it making any sense. Damn you, man, will you never be still?
But even Khyan had to sleep sometime, so Methos bided his time.
And bided it some more.
At last, pushing the issue a bit, he feigned a yawn, then another. “Forgive me,” Methos told the prince, “but I really must sleep a bit.”
“Ah, of course. You are not as strong as one protected by Set. By all means, sleep.”
“Even you, oh prince, really should take some rest. You do not want to show Set you think so little of the gift of life.”
“Oh. Never. Good idea. Good idea.”
Methos lay still, waiting… not yet… Khyan was still stirring restlessly, murmuring something about “Set… nothing to fear…”
Ah, silence at last. Utter, utter silence, save for the occasional stamp of a horse’s hoof and the chirring of insects. Methos slowly, warily sat up, looking around. Someone had banked the campfire, and he waited for his eyes to fully adjust to the darkness.
Yes. All of them were asleep.
I could kill them one by one—no. Not all of them deserve to be murdered in their sleep.
Let them die on the battlefield instead? Was that really a better death?
Philosophy at some other time, Methos chided himself. The hard fact of it was that no matter how wary, no one man could slay so many others without making some noise, waking someone and getting himself killed.
Warily, he got to his feet, holding his breath, then crept step by silent step toward the horses, praying that none of them would whinny. He reached out a slow hand to the nearest, letting the animal catch his scent, lip his hand, even swipe a wet pink tongue across his palm for the salt.
“Good, very good,” he murmured to the horse.
Carefully, Methos slipped a makeshift rope bridle over the horse’s head, then stepped softly away, looking about for tack. He could, if he must, ride bareback, but it would be so much easier if only he could find—
A heavy body tackled him, sending him crashing down, fortunately into noise-muffling sand. Methos twisted frantically about—
Khyan!
“Traitor!” the prince hissed. “Demon!”
Methos struck, fist catching Khyan in the throat. As the prince fell backward, choking, but still clinging to him, Methos struggled to draw his sword. But there wasn’t room in these close quarters, and Khyan, already recovered, was trying to draw his blade as well. Methos lunged at him again, and the two Immortals went sprawling, struggling with each other, both trying to get their weapons free—Methos trying above all to keep the fight quiet!
He’s strong, too strong, can’t hold him—ha, wait!
He closed a hand on the hilt of Khyan’s dagger, thought, Yes, twisted it free, and stabbed with all his might, up under Khyan’s ribs, stabbed again and again, choking the prince on his own blood so he wouldn’t cry out with his dying breath.
Yes! Khyan was, for however short a while, dead.
Can’t risk taking his head, damn him, not when a Quickening would draw the guards. Some other time, Khyan, I promise.
Never mind wasting more time hunting for a saddle. Methos hurled himself onto the horse he’d befriended, only to nearly get himself thrown as the animal shied in terror from the reek of fresh blood. But he clung to the slick back and short-cut mane with the strength of desperation. And fortunately this horse seemed to have been broken to riding, because it didn’t try to buck him off more than once.
With a slap on the neck and a kick with both heels, Methos urged his mount forward, and the horse gladly burst into a full, frenzied gallop, eager to outrun the sm
ell of blood. Bending low over the tossing mane, feeling the powerful equine muscles bunching and releasing under him and hearing the wind rushing by his ears, Methos could have laughed his satisfaction. But not yet, not till they’d traveled long enough to open up a good lead. Long enough to make pursuit away from the ship impractical—particularly since the Hyksos would be caught up in a storm of confusion about their blood-covered yet miraculously unharmed prince. And if he cut directly overland, he would reach Thebes just ahead of the ship, which must follow the curve of the Nile.
To Thebes! Methos thought and dared not shout. To Thebes—and vengeance!
Chapter Twenty
New York City, Riverside Park:
The Present
Ironic, Duncan MacLeod thought, terribly ironic that a killer should be hunting here: Riverside Park was one of the lovelier, more peaceful stretches of greenery in Manhattan. A long, narrow, cleverly landscaped park placed so that nothing seemed to come between a visitor and a fine view of the Hudson River, it also muffled as much of the city noise as was possible.
Oh, yes, and so whatever happens here at night is also muffled from the city, thought MacLeod. Ideal for lovers. And predators.
MacLeod and Methos had just come across the latest site of the West Side Slayer’s attack, an area roped off by the inevitable yellow tape reading, POLICE LINE. DO NOT CROSS. There was little to see now, save for a few busy police officials, police photographers going over every inch of ground, and what were presumably police lab technicians taking soil samples. Nothing, MacLeod thought, to show that two young people had died here last night.
He glanced around. A news van, station logo plastered on the side, was parked up on Riverside Drive, the reporters inside presumably hoping for one more gory bit of news. And a group of tourists, recognizable as such by their barrage of cameras, were watching the police proceedings as though this were just another form of entertainment.
Entertainment!
“Tourists will be tourists,” Methos murmured. “Should have seen them in old Rome, rooting for the lions.”
MacLeod glanced sharply at him. “There are two kids dead here. And there are going to be more dead kids if we can’t find the killer. I take it there’s nothing you can use?”
“No. The place has been too thoroughly trampled. MacLeod, just because I don’t wail and tear my clothes in grief doesn’t mean I don’t feel something. Mostly,” he added, “frustration.”
“Frustration,” MacLeod echoed without expression. “Come on, let’s go look at the river.”
Without another word, he started south, and after a second, Methos followed.
New Yorkers, though, were a hardy lot. Since everyone knew that the West Side Slayer struck only at night, and it was now early afternoon, life went on. As they left the murder scene behind them, MacLeod and Methos passed a few locals who seemed utterly unworried about crime: a young woman dog-walking her half-dozen charges on their leashes, who gave both Immortals an appreciative grin in passing; a scruffy teenage boy engrossed in pinning up flyers on every lamppost, fence, and even the occasional tree (was there really, MacLeod wondered, a band called Elektrik Kows?); and one bedraggled homeless man lost in a happy world of his own.
Only the patrolling policemen and -women looked grim, glances missing nothing. MacLeod knew that he and Methos had been instantly summed up by them as “businessmen, out-of-towners, no problem.”
True enough. For them, at any rate:
To his left was the busy, modern flow of traffic on the West Side Highway, though the clever landscaping almost hid it from sight, and up on the drive, the elegant town-houses MacLeod recalled from Edmund Branson’s time, now mostly subdivided into high-priced apartments. To the right stretched the width of the equally busy Hudson River, filled just now with a freighter, a good-sized sloop headed, presumably, for the Seventy-ninth Street Boat Basin, and some daring soul in what looked like a one-man kayak.
He stifled an impatient sigh. “Not much like the Nile.”
Methos raised a shoulder in an absent-minded shrug. “Not all that different: That was a commercial river, too. Lots of boat traffic up and down it every day. Unless,” he added wryly, “I’m getting my memories mixed up with some National Geographic Special.”
But then he stopped to look out over the river, his face unreadable, his eyes grown shadowed once more. “Must be frustrating the hell out of Khyan, too,” Methos added, so softly that MacLeod almost didn’t hear him.
“Just how far back do you two go?”
“Far enough.”
“Damn it, Methos, this ‘everything’s a secret’ routine is getting to be a pain. All right, admit this much: You two are old enemies.”
“‘Old’ is the operative word for it, yes.” Methos never so much as glanced MacLeod’s way. “I thought he was dead, I truly did.” A long pause. “I did kill him once.”
Then Methos shrugged and turned away from the river, starting forward again. “Unfortunately, as I said, I didn’t get the chance to finish the job, take his head. So it goes.”
“You seem amazingly calm about it!”
“Not calm,” Methos corrected. “Merely accepting.”
“But—”
“Look, I’m not denying that once upon a time I would have taken his head with a great deal of joy, and maybe even have done a good deal worse to him first. But that was a long time ago, in a very different world. A man changes.”
He fell silent, walking on as though MacLeod weren’t even there. But MacLeod couldn’t let it drop just like that. “I’d like to have some idea of what we’re up against! You do still hate him, don’t you?”
“Do I?” But then Methos’s sly smile faded, and he gave the smallest of reluctant sighs. “Don’t you see, Duncan? It’s just been too damned long. The fire dims with the centuries, the hate, the rage, the… grief. Given enough time, you come to see just how small one person really is. The world, the universe, is all just too vast for that one small person to make any major changes.”
“Are you saying we should do nothing?” MacLeod asked indignantly. “Just—sit back and let evil flourish?”
“Save me from melodramatic Celts!” Ignoring MacLeod’s wryly raised eyebrow, Methos continued, “No, my wild Highlander, I am not saying that at all, merely that one man, even one Immortal working with all the goodwill in the world, can’t cram all evil into a neat little package and remodel… it.”
“What is it?”
Methos stopped short, staring at him. “Well, isn’t memory an amazing thing? Remodeling that neat little package, indeed—I’ve just remembered something nasty about Hyksos beliefs. The something I almost recalled back in the coffee shop.”
“Something nasty in the sense of useful to us, I take it?”
“Ohhh yes. You see, the Hyksos believed that a soul captured in an artifact could still be tormented by anyone with sufficient arcane skill.”
“Which you have?” MacLeod asked wryly.
“Which I can fake. Listen.” Quickly, Methos summarized his idea, concluding. “If we can get our hands on the Hyksos sword, we can almost certainly lure Khyan right to us.”
“Ah, you do realize what you’re saying, don’t you? We can hardly call up Professor Maxwell and ask, ‘Can we borrow an item from your exhibit?’”
Methos only shrugged.
MacLeod gave a sharp little laugh. “Oh, right. After five thousand years or so, a little art theft hardly seems memorable.”
“Something like that. We’ve both garnered enough, shall we say, professional experience in that area, so…”
“If Amanda learns about this, she will never, ever let me hear the end of it.”
“That, my dear MacLeod, is your problem.”
He had been wandering aimlessly since morning, down by the huge bulk of the docked USS Intrepid, his mind seeing not the modern warship museum with its berthed but still deadly looking warplanes, but casting up images of an earlier world, another river….
Y
es, he could almost see the right boats now, the proper boats, with their rectangular sails, their curving prows and sterns… it was then, then, and his brother was still alive and he was happy at his brother’s side, safe, loved—
But the harsh blaaat of an impudent ferry cut into the image, shattering it back into sharp reality, and for a moment he could almost have wept over the shock and disappointment.
“I will find you,” he vowed, “find you, yes, find you and free you.”
A passing sailor gave him a startled glance at that and said to his fellow, touching his head, “C’est un fou!”
This is a crazy man. French. He knew that much French, picked up somewhere, somewhen in his wanderings. A crazy man.
And the other sailor was laughing and agreeing, “Un fou, vraiment!”
Truly a crazy man! For one wild instant, he almost drew his sword to avenge the insult—
No. Not by day. Too many witnesses would bring those officers of the law. He could not afford to have his mission, his sacred, desperate mission, interrupted.
A crazy man.
Was he that? Was he insane? Brother, brother, help me! I am lost and alone—help me!
But of course there was no answer. “I am not crazy,” he snapped at the sailors. “Oh you of no worth at all, I am of royal blood!”
Ignoring their startled stares, he hurried on his way, shivering, heading blindly north. Start with the young, start with the young, kill and kill each night for as long as it took, till this land was a desert…
More children, he thought.
He would kill more children.
Here I sit on a park bench, MacLeod thought, like someone out of a bad caper movie, plotting to rob a museum. Yes, and I’ve got a man next to me who remembers when the artifacts in there were all new.
Just another day in New York City.
“… and so,” he continued, “we should be able to bypass the alarms that Maxwell so kindly told me about. Once we’re on that balcony, there shouldn’t be any real difficulty for one of us to climb down the—”
The Captive Soul Page 15