Immortal Beloved Page 4

  “Good evening. I’m Dr. Michael Powers, head of the Archaeology department here at the University. I expect a lot of you are waiting impatiently to debunk the findings we’ve made claim to.”

  Beside Duncan, Methos snorted. The Highlander elbowed him in the ribs.

  “I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised,” Powers went on. “This isn’t the kind of announcement we’d make without being very sure.

  “I have the honor of presenting to you tonight’s speaker, Dr. Mary Kostani. Dr. Kostani has been an associate of the University for five years, and is widely known in archaelogical circles for ground-breaking work in translating some of the more difficult Egyptian hieroglyphics. Like many of us, she’s had a goal her entire life of making that one major find, the one that would make a real mark in accessing our past and the peoples from whom we’re descended.

  “Unlike most of us, Dr. Kostani has actually succeeded in achieving her goal. Eighteen months ago she located a site she felt certain was Atlantis. We’ve spent the last year and a half fundraising and beginning to explore the site. What Dr. Kostani has lead us to is a city nearly beyond our ability to imagine, so rich is it in artifacts. Last week’s announcement and tonight’s lecture are our first step in beginning a massive fundraising effort so that we can properly explore this new site. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to introduce you to the woman who has rediscovered Atlantis: Dr. Mary Kostani.”

  Applause rippled through the auditorium, louder than simple politeness dictated; the audience was interested in the topic, whether they believed Atlantis had been located or not. Dr. Powers stepped back from the podium, beckoning Dr. Kostani onstage with a smile.

  Petite, with straight black hair cut at cheekbone length, she stepped out, a more genuine smile on her face than had graced Powers’ during his speech. That smile froze in place, and her chin lifted a little, as she scanned the audience through the bright auditorium lights. To Joe’s right, Methos and Duncan reacted in much the same way, both stiffening in their seats and straightening to better see the woman.

  Joe, long familiar with the reaction, shot a startled look first at the two Immortals with him, and then at the woman on the stage. “She’s one of you?” he hissed under the applause.

  Dr. Kostani continued across the stage with only the slightest hesitation, her smile still warm, if no longer quite reaching her eyes. Her skin was warm olive, absorbing the stage lights to good effect, and her eyes were slightly tilted in a round face with high cheekbones. Not exactly beautiful, she was more than pretty; striking, with features worth a second look. She adjusted the microphone to her height — even standing on the raised podium, she was clearly not quite five feet tall — and inclined her head. “Good evening,” she said, in faintly accented English. “Thank you for your welcome. I assure you, I have been looking forward to this day for a very long time.”

  Masked by the pleasantries opening her speech, Duncan nodded at Joe, without taking his eyes off the woman. “Aye,” he whispered, “but I don’t know her. I’d remember that face. D’you know her, Adam?”

  “Yes,” Methos said, almost voicelessly. The expectant expressions that crossed Joe and Duncan’s faces were lost to him, as bright stage lights faded into the even brighter sunlight of memory.

  -o-O-o-

  Pacing in sand did not lend itself to the dramatic strides Methos tried for. The ground had the unpleasant habit of shifting away underfoot, causing unexected lurches at best, and badly twisted ankles at worst. After the third such twisting, Methos stopped pacing, lifting his hands to guard his eyes as he squinted over the dunes. In the distance, the great Sphinx, nearly completed, rose up, dignified and silent. Unable to track any motion nearby, he scowled at the Sphinx, and waited.

  “Methos! Methos!” The voice came out of the dunes, sounding thin in the desert heat. Moments later sound was followed accompanied by a slim young woman bounding over the edge of a sandy hill. She jumped up and waved once, drawing attention to herself, as if there were other creatures of equal vibrancy nearby to distract him from her. Once she was certain he’d sighted her, she slid down the hill, leaving ruts in the sand in her wake.

  Methos grinned, sliding down loose earth himself, to meet her in a small valley. With ease, he lifted her up against the crystalline sky, spinning around before he set her on her feet again. No more a native of this country than he, Ghean looked the part more, with her bronzed skin, dark eyes and black hair. Small as the Mediterranean folk were, Ghean was small even for them, less than five feet in height, and deceptively slender. There was more muscle in her compact frame than met the eye, but her weight remained slight for Methos’ six-foot frame. Like Methos, Ghean was dressed in creamy white robes; unlike his clothes, hers seemed alive, crackling with the energy she possessed.

  “Where have you been?” Methos demanded, smiling down at her. “I’ve been out here sweltering under the sun for half the day.”

  Ghean laughed. “I saw you leaving the edge of town not more than,” and she glanced at the sun, pursing her lips before finishing, “not much more than an hour ago. Mother wanted help with a seam. I don’t understand how she can write so neatly and not sew a straight seam.”

  “She probably doesn’t understand how you can sew straight seams and still have dreadful handwriting.”

  “True.” Ghean slipped an arm around Methos’ waist, looking up at him. “Come. Let’s circle back to town.”

  Methos chuckled. “What did you want to talk about that had to be done out in the sands instead of in the shade with some juice?” The chuckled turned to laughter at Ghean’s pouting expression. “Just asking,” he said mildly, to appease her.

  The sensation he felt around the young woman was peculiar, not something he’d felt often before. A sense of the Quickening resided within her, untapped, waiting to be triggered. Her life might be gentle all the way through, and she might die aged or of illness, the potential within her never brought to life. If she met with violence, though, her mortal life would end, and she would awaken to a new existance, an Immortal life like the one Methos lived.

  The thought distracted him for a moment, as they walked slowly through the sands. Centuries fell away, back to the night he had taken his first head. The memory was blurred, with a black sky and hard stars, and an axe in his hand. Nothing told him where he’d learned the skill to weild the weapon as efficiently as he had, or if it had been dumb luck that had prompted him to take the nameless man’s head in a moment of panic.

  Certainly nothing had prepared him for the storm that surged from the clear sky, or for the lightning that screamed through him, to leave him trembling in the shaking aftershock of the Quickening, shuddering from the intense pain/pleasure that rattled his body. When it occurred to him in the black night that he still lived, he staggered to his feet and limped away, leaving the body behind, but keeping the axe clenched in his fist.

  Before that night and the foggy memory, there was nothing at all but a vague sense of many, many years passing.

  “What are you looking so solemn about?” Ghean stopped to look up at Methos, the giant of an outlander, even more foreign to Egypt than she was. His pale skin was burned now, from the sun, but she knew it would fade quickly. Methos’ sunburns always did. He browned, but slowly, and he would never pass for a native.

  “Mmmm. I was thinking about the past. And the future.”

  Ghean held her breath, dark eyes lighting up. “Our future?”

  Methos looked down and grinned. “You are never one to dance about the point, are you, Ghean? Yes, our future. Tell me what it was you wanted to talk to me about.” He nudged her into walking again.

  “Mother wants to return to Atlantis at the end of the flood season. She thinks she’ll be done with all her work by then. I know your own work has kept you from meeting her, but I want you to talk to her before we go. I want you to come with us. You will, won’t you?”

  Methos nodded. “Yes. I would … I’d like to see your homeland. Its reputation
precedes it, as a center for learning.”

  Ghean laughed. “Mother will like you,” she predicted. “You’re cut from the same cloth she is, a scholar to the bones. Why don’t you just live there, in Atlantis? Very few people outside of it can read, but I know you can.”

  Because I am afraid I might want to never leave, and even hidden in a library, eventually someone will notice the scholar who doesn’t age. “I learned to read and write when I was — younger,” Methos said absently, and chuckled to cover the hesitation in his words. “Obviously. It would be difficult to have learned when I was older, wouldn’t it?”

  There were journals secreted away, on clumsy clay tablets, rough notes sketched out in Sumerian pictographs and later, cuneiform. Much of it had been transcribed into the Egyptian heiroglyphics, a writing form far more capable than the earlier written languages. Over the last decade he had learned the Atlantean tongue and printed word, precise and more elegant than even the heiroglyphics. Methos thought he might someday transcribe those oldest journals into the newest language he had learned.

  An astonishing thing, the invention of writing. It made him wonder how old he’d been when it was invented, and how it was he’d been in the right place to learn of it in its infancy. Had he been born in that region, sometime in the forgotten past, or had he merely come to be there? He’d started the journals as soon as he grasped the significance of the written word. It preserved his own history, and prevented him from losing any more time.

  He was brought back to the present by Ghean saying, tentatively, “We could settle there, perhaps, after the wedding. You could study.” Black eyes searched his face, waiting for a reaction.

  Methos’ heart lurched, though he smiled reassuringly at her. How fair was it to wed her, when he would not age, and she would — or when she might die violently, releasing the Quickening within her and extending her life down through the centuries, married to a man she’d met in her childhood? “Perhaps,” he answered. “It isn’t a decision we have to make now, or quickly. Tell me,” he continued lightly. “Did you have to escape from Aroz?”

  Aroz was another problem, entirely outside the question of Ghean’s potential. For years he had been Ghean’s mother’s bodyguard, and was clearly viewed less as an employee than as family. Just as clearly, he loved Ghean, and had become her self-appointed guard dog after she met Methos. Above that, he was skilled with the heavy blade he carried, and Immortal to boot. There was no love lost between Methos and Aroz, and while there had not yet been cause or opportunity for a confrontation, the status quo would not hold.

  Ghean rolled her eyes. “Luckily, no. Mother’d sent him to get more ink, and so when I was done with the stitching, I just slipped out. Methos.” Her next words tumbled out in a rush. “You must come meet Mother, very soon. I’ve told her all about you, but I’m afraid she’s planning to marry me off to Aroz. You have to convince her we want to marry.”

  “Aroz?” Methos frowned, gnawing the inside of his lower lip thoughtfully, distracted from the conversation by considerations of survival. Staying within the town’s boundaries would be the easiest way to delay the abruptly inevitable battle. It was one of the Rules they lived by: there could be no mortal witnesses to the battles in the Immortal Game. With luck, Methos would be able to keep Aroz inside the city until they had time to discuss the situation. Methos glanced at the tiny woman beside him, hope and worry sparking from her almost visibly. He had no desire to bring death into her family on the eve of their wedding; he had far less desire to die himself. If Aroz insisted on a fight, Methos couldn’t allow himself to do anything less than fight as though his life depended on it. He was certain Aroz would have no compunctions against taking his head.

  “He’s like a brother,” Ghean said miserably. “I love him but I don’t want to marry him. I’m not sure Mother understands that. You have to tell her, Methos. He’s so — old!”

  Methos couldn’t stop the laugh, although he swallowed it and looked as apologetic as he could manage. Aroz appeared older than he did, indeed, but Methos was positive he was not only the older of the two Immortals, but the elder by centuries. “He’s certainly a better financial match than I am,” he teased, but relented at the horror on Ghean’s face. “All right,” he said. “I’ll come meet your mother tomorrow. What will you do if she opposes the match?”

  “Marry you anyway,” Ghean said defiantely, frowning to hide the doubt in her eyes. “When tomorrow will you talk to her?”

  “Early,” Methos promised, “and alone.” He lifted a hand to ward off her protestations. “You’ve already told her all about me, and I don’t think I can make a good impression on two women of your family at the same time.” He winked, and grinned.

  Ghean’s shoulders dropped. “All right. But you promise? Tomorrow?”

  Methos nodded. “I promise.”

  -o-O-o-

  Duncan elbowed Methos in the ribs again. “Well?” he demanded softly, as the woman onstage began speaking. “Who is she?”

  Methos cleared his throat quietly. “Technically,” he whispered, “I think she’s my wife.”

  Chapter 5

  Not once in her days-long swim did Ghean consider the massive weight her hair would have, once the water no longer supported it. She noticed the weight, of course, when treading water; it pulled at her neck, and she spent countless hours playing with the new weight, reveling in the return of sensation. Still clinging determinedly to her rock, she hunted just below the water’s surface as often as she hungered, despite the hours’ delay it cost her in reaching shore. The patient one, almost indistinguishable from her own thoughts, reminded her that a few more hours was nothing to worry about. The more normal her body looked when she finally went ashore, the better off she would be.

  The frightened one preferred the ocean anyway, and encouraged the fishing, sometimes pressuring her to stay in a single area far longer than she needed to. Ignoring its constantly voiced fears, Ghean always returned to the surface, finding the sun and the direction she wanted, and beginning her journey towards land again.

  When the waters became shallow enough, she stood, awkwardly, no longer certain how to balance her own weight on two feet. Even with the sea lifting her a little as she stood in the shoulder-deep water, the posture felt heavy and clumsy after centuries of the ocean’s all-encompassing support. The beach was visible, only yards away, and still Ghean stayed stubbornly in the water, reaquainting herself with the idea of walking. The sun rose and set twice while she practiced, edging a little closer to shore as she began to feel some confidence in her ability to not collapse with the unfamiliar motions.

  By the time she stood in knee-deep water, her hair was a significant weight. The days of swallowing down raw fish had added weight back to her frame, and the swimming had turned some of it to muscle, but there was still little strength in a body atrophied by millennia of small actions. Clumsily, she gathered up her hair to fold it over her arms, trying not to drop her stone. Bending to snatch at the lengths of it, she lost her balance, undone by the unfamiliar pull of gravity and the impossible weight of the long strands. It pooled around her again, a black spider’s web that was pulled away and pushed back again with the waves that rocked the water. For a while she watched it, mindlessly, admiring the pattern of sunlight through water and shining threads of hair alike. In time, she shook herself, and began searching for a sharp stone or shell with which she could hack the impossible weight away from her head.

  She found one by stepping on it, slicing her foot open. Reaching down through the water, she watched the blood drift away in seconds, leaving behind unscarred flesh. The thought came, dimly: I would have had to have wrapped it, and favored it for days, before. She exchanged the shell that had cut her foot for her wedge, placing it firmly between her feet so it would not be lost, and lifted the cutting shell to her hair.

  Had to have wrapped it. Ghean hesitated, the shell hovering near her cheek. If I want to sell it I can’t let the sea take it away. For a moment
she was tempted to leave the legacy of her imprisonment to the ocean, but the patient one shook her head. No, it advised, keep the hair. The world must still use money or barter of some kind. We’ll need it to make a new beginning for ourselves.

  What if it has changed so much? the frightened one demanded. What if they no longer use money?

  Then I’ll dump all my hair in a river, Ghean answered it acerbically, and squatted to lift her wedge again, kicking back towards deeper water once both stone and shell were secured in her hands. Seaweed drifted in the water, and Ghean sliced long strips of it, wrapping them around her arms to keep them from floating away. When she thought she had enough, she swam back to shore, trailing seaweed and yards of hair.

  She sat on the ocean floor where the water was still deep enough to support the weight of her hair, and she tied a length of the seaweed around her hair, just beyond her shoulderblades. An arm’s length further down, she tied another length, and down again, until she ran out of seaweed, well before she ran out of hair. Still, the tied-off lengths gave her more control over the mass of hair than she’d ever had, and she was able to gather it into a slightly more wieldy bundle, piling it in front of her and between her legs.

  She lifted her stone, pressed her lips together, and threw it at the shore as hard as she could, knowing she wouldn’t be able to carry both it and her hair at the same time. It splashed just before the tide mark, not many feet away, but far enough that she could see it. Without taking her eyes from it, as if it would be lost if she looked away, Ghean took the shell and razed it through her hair, as close to chin-length as she could. It spliced away messily, repeated passes cutting through the heavy mass before it was all free, but even so it took only a few minutes to release herself from the weight. The severed end fell into the water with a soft splash, ragged ends spilling randomly out from the seaweed tie. Her head felt peculiarly light. She shook it back and forth, feeling the chopped ends tickling her jaw, and she giggled. One hand lifted almost of its own accord to brush at the short hairs, passing over the ends with a repetative, obsessive motion.