Immortal Beloved Read online

  The lump on the couch remained still. Duncan, undaunted, repeated, “Methos, wake up. You’ll enjoy this. Methos?” Frowning, he set the paper aside and went to shake the blankets.

  They gave way, nothing under them but pillows. Duncan straightened as the elevator rattled, in tandem with the rush of warning nausea. Duncan turned, eyebrows elevated, to watch Methos pull the gate up and step into the flat. He was barefoot, wearing a pair of sweat pants, and had a towel hung over bare shoulders, hands curled loosely around the ends of it. “Good morning, sunshine,” he said cheerfully. “About time you got up. I was beginning to think you’d sleep forever.”

  “You can’t possibly have turned into a morning person since the last time you stayed here,” Duncan said accusatorily. “What are you doing up?”

  Methos shrugged. “I slept on the plane coming in, so I got up about an hour ago. You’re usually up much earlier.”

  Duncan glanced at the clock, discovering it was nearly nine. “I don’t usually have unexpected guests at three in the morning,” he said sourly.

  Methos nodded blandly. “I’m sure Amanda always arrives at a convenient hour,” he said, “and I’m sure she lets you go right back to bed, but then you have to spend all that time greeting her properly. I’m really far less trouble.” He grinned. “What’s for breakfast?”

  “You’re incorrigible.”

  “Encouragable,” Methos corrected.

  “Grapenuts.”

  “That sounds hideous.”

  Duncan brightened a little. “You could mix it with plain yogurt.”

  “You have got to be kidding.”

  “Not at all. What were you doing?” Duncan went back into the kitchen to make his tea.

  “Working out. Even those of us who aren’t health nuts like to work out every once in a while, and you’ve got that lovely gym down there. You’re not really going to eat that, are you?” Methos asked in dismay, as, tea steeping, Duncan began to mix the threatened cereal and yogurt.

  “Sure. You sure you don’t want some?”

  Methos shuddered. “Positive. Do you have anything that’s not good for you around here?”

  “Eggs and bacon in the fridge.” Duncan pulled a stool over to the edge of the counter and sat down. “Did you see the paper?”

  Methos crouched to dig a frying pan out from a cupboard, and pulled the fridge open. “No, why?”

  “Someone’s claiming to have found Atlantis.” Duncan pointed to the paper with his spoon. “Some Chicago archaeologist. I haven’t finished the article yet.” He dug the tip of the spoon into the paper, pulling it towards him to continue reading.

  “Seems unlikely,” Methos said absently. “What’s his name?” Half a dozen slices of bacon began to sizzle. Methos picked up his eggs and started juggling them.

  Duncan blinked up at the motion. “I didn’t know you could juggle.”

  “You don’t know lots of things about me. What’s his name?”

  “Um.” Duncan looked back at the paper. “Doctor Mary Kostani. ‘The artifacts are dated at more than five thousand years old, and are of a superior workmanship than artifacts from contemporary civilizations. The legends of Atlantis support a more advanced civilization than those surrounding it … .’ It goes on like that. There’s bread under the counter if you want toast.”

  “Thanks. Is there a picture?” Methos put the eggs down in favor of finding the bread.

  “Of what? Atlantis?”

  “No, the archaeologist.” Methos dropped bread into the toaster, then looked over his shoulder. “Well, or the ruins. Ow!” He shook bacon grease off his hand, glaring at the frying pan.

  “None of the woman. Some of the pottery they’ve found. Here.” Duncan stretched to drop the paper next to the stove, and stirred his yogurt again. “Sheff ghibbng a leffhur in ffiffaffo.”

  “Finish your food, you Scottish barbarian, and speak clearly. Oh, she’s giving a lecture in Chicago.” Methos nudged the paper up, reading the end of the article. “I can’t believe she found Atlantis. That stuff could be from anywhere.” He squinted thoughtfully at the pictures. “Terrible photographs. Detail’s bad. Looks like it might be pretty nice stuff.”

  “It’d be the find of the century,” Duncan said. “Even if it’s not Atlantis, she’ll get enormous publicity.”

  “Yes, and it’ll embarrass her department when it turns out to not be Atlantis. I wish they’d published the location.”

  “Why?”

  Methos shrugged, flipping eggs. “So I could see how close she was.”

  Duncan stopped eating, spoon halfway to his mouth. “You know where Atlantis is?”

  Methos looked over his shoulder again, expression deliberately bored. “Sure. Doesn’t everyone?” He turned back to grin at the frying pan.

  Duncan put the yogurt down, spluttering. “My God, Methos, that’s — that’s — you can’t just keep that sort of thing secret! That’s criminal!”

  “Of course I can. I told you a long time ago, Mac. One of the advantages of being five thousand years old is that you remember where all the great stuff that everyone else has forgotten about is.”

  “But nobody’s forgotten Atlantis!” Duncan protested, in half genuine outrage.

  “Maybe they should.” Methos slid his bacon and eggs onto a plate. The toast popped, and he danced it on his fingertips while buttering it, chanting, “Hot hot hot!” under his breath.

  Duncan leveled a stare at the older man. “Are you going to explain that cryptic remark?”

  Methos pulled up a stool, grinning wolfishly around a mouthful of eggs. “I shouldn’t. I should make you wonder.”

  In a voice of reason, Duncan said, “I’d have to throw you out a window. You wanted to die, right?”

  “Duncan MacLeod would never throw a helpless mortal out a window. He also wouldn’t bring a new Immortal over that way. They’d never buy it.” Methos took another bite of toast.

  “Atlantis, Methos.”

  Methos waved his fork. “All right, all right.” He got up to pour orange juice, and sat back down, looking thoughtful. “Even if they did find it, it’s not going to have all the wonderful knowledge they’re looking for. They wrote on paper, Mac. Really fine paper. It’s been underwater for thousands of years. It’ll have dissolved. Even if it’s not, I’m the only person in the world who knows the language, and I’m not about to volunteer to read it for them.”

  “They figured out the hieroglyphics,” Duncan pointed out.

  Methos snorted. “Some of them. Occasionally I have to suppress the desire to tell them where they got it wrong.” He ate a piece of bacon. “At any rate, some of the stories about Atlantis are right. It was an astonishing culture. There were a lot of scholars, artists, architects, that sort of thing. It was run by a counsel of the ruling Houses. Men and women both served on it — no gender issues in Atlantis.” Methos folded a piece of toast in half and ate it, tapping his fork against the plate. “It’d be nice if they’d get back to that.”

  “They’re getting there,” Duncan said patiently. “So what happened?”

  “It sank,” Methos supplied helpfully, “and it should be left where it is. You remember the Methuselah stone,” he asked for the second time since he’d arrived. Again, Duncan nodded.

  “They made that.”

  Duncan stared, caught off guard. “What?”

  “They made it. I don’t know how. That was what made Atlantis special, Duncan. There are things in this world that we can’t explain. Ourselves,” Methos stressed, “for example. Cassandra’s ability to manipulate people with her voice, and her visions of the future. Your own encounters with that demon-thing. There are elements of magic that we can’t explain.”

  Duncan nodded, slowly.

  Methos stabbed an egg yolk. “Somebody in Atlantis figured out how to harness those elements to a degree no one has ever duplicated. A lot of the legends we hear about are derived from articles the Atlanteans had. Christ’s holy Grail, and the sword they called Exca
libur were both from Atlantis. They were the ones who bred the unicorns.”

  “Unicorns,” Duncan said, disbelievingly.

  Methos smirked at his plate. “Unicorns,” he repeated. “The point, Mac, is that somehow they’d gained the ability to make objects of fairly phenomenal power. I don’t know what else drowned with Atlantis, and frankly, I don’t want to. That knowledge is long gone, and it’s better that way. Would you want to see six billion Methuselah crystals handed out across the world? Or maybe worse, only a few thousand, to the wealthy?” Methos shook his head. “I’d rather Atlantis and its magics stayed under the ocean.”

  He speared the last bite of breakfast. “Now. How are we doing to kill me so I can gain my Immortality and hornswoggle the Watchers?”

  Suddenly curious, Duncan asked, “How did you die the first time?”

  Methos shook his head. “I have no idea. Painfully, no doubt. That’s usually how it happens.”

  “You must be the only Immortal in the world who doesn’t remember his first death.” Duncan finished the yogurt and threw the cup away.

  “I’m the only Immortal in the world who’s five thousand years old, too. Do you suppose there’s a correlation?” Methos got up to rinse his plate off. “It has to be public enough for a Watcher to notice, or to hear about it quickly, but I’d rather not get the police involved.”

  “The police usually get involved when there’s a violent death, Methos. They already don’t like me very much. The last thing I need is for a buddy of mine to walk away from an obviously fatal accident.”

  “I could get in a car wreck,” Methos went on obliviously.

  “In whose car!”

  Methos grimaced. “Maybe not. Adam Pierson’s not really the type to be racing around at unhealthy speeds, anyway.”

  “What is Adam Pierson the type to be doing?”

  Methos’ expression turned glum. “Getting mugged, I’m afraid.”

  “No Watcher in his right mind would believe I let you get mugged.”

  “I guess you’ll have to be doing something else. Do you know anybody who could mug me?”

  Duncan stared at him, and Methos shrugged. “Okay, I didn’t think so. I don’t suppose Boy Scouts know muggers.”

  “I’m not a Boy Scout.”

  “Only because they didn’t have them in the Highlands when you were growing up.”

  Duncan rolled his eyes. “For God’s sake.”

  Methos grinned. “C’mon, Mac. Where would I live in town if I wanted to increase my odds of getting mugged?”

  “Methos, this could take years.”

  “Do you have any more pressing business?”

  Duncan sighed. “I’m almost positive I could think of better things to do than wait for you to get killed. You know, you should go call Amanda and ask her to find someone to kill you. I’m sure she’d know who to go to.”

  “It could be another Immortal,” Methos said thoughtfully.

  “Why would another Immortal be after you if you’re not dead yet?”

  Methos shrugged. “We’ve all heard the stories about unfocused Quickenings being their own sort of rush. Maybe it could be somebody after that. He deals me a fatal wound and you dash in to save my head.”

  “Methos.” Duncan sighed again, shaking his head. “You know I don’t kill people for the fun of it. I’m not setting anybody up for that. The Watchers wouldn’t believe that I wouldn’t take the head of someone who tried to kill you?”

  Methos frowned across the counter at Duncan. “Isn’t it awfully inconvenient to have a conscience?”

  “It isn’t,” Duncan said dryly, “nearly as much of a bother as you and Amanda seem to think it must be.”

  “Maybe you’ll grow out of it,” Methos said hopefully.

  Duncan shook his head again, picking up the paper. “Want to go to this thing?”

  “What thing?”

  “The lecture on Atlantis. You could made snide comments about where she got it wrong.”

  Methos looked interested. “Maybe. Do you know anyone in Chicago who could kill me?”

  “You have a one-track mind, Methos.”

  The ancient Immortal inclined his head in agreement. “Yes, and the track is surviving another day, every day. You have to plan in advance for that sort of thing, Duncan. Who’s buying the tickets?”

  “What, to Chicago?”

  Methos nodded. “You don’t think Adam Pierson can afford to fly to Chicago on a lark, do you?”

  Duncan couldn’t help smiling. “I think Adam Pierson wouldn’t fit on a lark. They’re not very big. Have you been a mooch for five thousand years, Methos?”

  Methos scratched his chin. “Pretty much.”

  Duncan nodded. “I thought so. Maybe I’ll ask Joe to come along, too.”

  “Good idea. He’d like the lecture.”

  “You just want a bigger audience.”

  Methos grinned. “Who? Me?”

  Chapter 3

  Earthquakes rolled through the water in peculiar, soft shocks. The sound of them, dim rumblings and muted scraping of stone, was the only sound she could remember hearing, aside from the distorted sounds of her own screams. There was no way to mark how often they passed, in the timeless prison. At junctures they seemed to come often, sending the water quivering over her skin again and again in reverberating series. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling, the concussions jarring through her bones and sending chills through her teeth. Goosebumps lifted on her skin, so rare an occasion she felts at them in wondering confusion. Any texture at all came as a fascinating alleviation to the endless litany of despair that was her only company.

  The earthquakes provided rare moments of coherency, functionality in a mind that she could recognize as disturbed, if not shattered, in those cognitive minutes. Awareness was not welcome. It made the hopelessness of the situation more pressing. She could hear discordant thoughts shying away from comprehension, thoughts that seemed to belong to someone else entirely.

  Nothing, nothing, nothing. Nothing in the world but us, our little black room and the water. Nothing but us, nothing to fear here, nothing to hide from, here is home, here is all. Don’t think about outside, it’s a bad place, it’s not really there at all, nothing was ever really there but the dark room and our hair, oh our hair, play with it, keep it from tangling us. Ignore! Ignore the rumblings and the shakings! Nothing is outside! We are everything, all here, all one, all safe. Nothing surrounds us, nothing at all.

  She shook her head, trying to clear the frightened little voice away. The water had stilled again, leaving her drifting in smooth silence. Escape, another voice whispered. Someday there will be escape. We’ll stay here until then, but someday, someday. We’ll kill the one that did this to us, and then we’ll make ourselves a home again, safe in Atlantis where the gods will favor us again. Patience. Patience is all we need. Nothing is forever. This is not forever. Smooth and calm, the voice soothed her to sleep.

  When she woke again, awareness had slid from her grasp once more. She swam back and forth across the room, followed endlessly by yards of hair, infinitely patient. It might be years before the frightened one emerged again. Decades could pass before she was given another taste of herself, another hour or two of discerning between the patient one and the terrified one, and time to reach for the woman she’d once been.

  The patient one didn’t mind.

  -o-O-o-

  The report of the wall shattering jolted her from sleep cracking into her bones and leaving her stunned. She hung in the water, bewildered, unable to put a name to what had wakened her. In only minutes there were differences in the water, fine grains of stone floating in the formerly sealed environment. Without comprehension, she reveled in the new sensation, rubbing grit between her fingertips and tasting it against her tongue. She played with it for hours before understanding settled into her. Disbelieving, patient, she began to explore the walls, fingertip by fingertip, as she had done thousands of times before.

  For the first ti
me in memory, there was pain from something beyond her own self-inflicted injuries. She doubled over, clutching her toes in shock, a hoarse curse roughing out of her throat. The pain subsided in seconds, and she unclenched her fingers, upending herself in the water to search for the unexpected obstacle that her toes had crashed into.

  Eager hands found a stone, settled against the floor as though it belonged there. Wedge-shaped and rough-edged, it was as large as her head, easy to lift with the water’s bouyancy. Possessively, she clung to it, folding it between her chest and the crook of her elbow. She kicked upwards, trailing her free hand along the wall in search of the break in the walls where the stone had fallen from.

  It began as a crack, almost indiscernible, even to fingertips long familiar with the smooth stone. In inches, though, it split wider, one side of it rising away from the other fractionally. Small as her hands were, she couldn’t force her fingers deeply enough into the crack to find an outside edge. After a while she gave up, kicking higher, following the split.

  It was at the point that the wall began to curve into ceiling that the precious stone she cuddled had fallen from. The break continued further up the ceiling before fading away again. The divot left by the falling stone was by far the largest breach in the oubliette walls.

  With a shout, she smashed her stone against the hole it left, kicking to keep herself aloft in the water. Soft clouds of dust broke free, a tiny release of particles, washing vividly over her face in nearly sensual waves. Again and again, in the darkness, she brought the stone down. Smaller shards of rock splintered away. As her hands grew numb from the repeated shocks, a slightly larger chunk dropped, falling to connect with the top of her foot as she kicked. A moment later it clicked lightly against the floor, leaving a delicious ringing pain in her foot.

  Eventually she noticed the dull thud of the stone cracking against the wall was dimmed beneath a high-pitched giggling. It was longer to still before she realized the sound was her own laughter, unheard for centuries, released by the prospect of escape. It would take time to break through the wall. It would take time to make a hole large enough for her to fit through.