HIGHLANDER: THE ELEMENT OF FIRE
by
JASON HENDERSON

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Copyright 0 1995 by Warner Books, Inc.

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First Printing: October, 1995

10 9 8 7 6

Prologue

In a year without number, because all years were alike, in a land that
would one day be called Scotland but was then called simply the World,
the Children of the Salamander sang: Khordas, we have come to please
you, Khordas, we have come to serve....

The Time of the Return had come.  With each beat of the dram the mud
vibrated, with each pellet of hard rain the surface splashed, and
ripples moved in muddy rings around the form of the god who slept.  The
god awakened in his sleeping place and opened his eyes.  His Children
were calling.

Khordas, hear our prayer!

On the surface of the mud lay the mask of the god, and now it lifted
from its resting place, the form of the god bubbling up from below.  The
mud filtered away from the god's eyes and he saw through the mask, and
became the mask, as he rose from the holy pit.

The Children of the Salamander danced, and now the god saw their forms,
lit up by a lightning chain that linked its way across the sky.  All of
them were painted deep blue, like the mask of the Salamander.  The rain
ran along their muscles, heading on the paint, their glistening bodies
moving in answer to the drums, for Khordas was their god, and they
feared him.

Khordas threw out his arms to the beat of the drums and the clap of
thunder, and mud flew all around him, splattering on the blue dancers.
The god chanted in the tongue of the Children, answering their prayer:
"Fire and water are my domain!  Who dares call Khordas, the Salamander?"

We are not puny, like our babes,

Nor weak, like our enemies acrogs the hills....

Khordas leapt from the pit with a hiss and landed in the middle,
surrounded by the dancers.  The drums grew stronger.

We are your Children, Khordas,

And because we fear you, we are feared!

Khordas slithered before them, crouching, moving his head like the
Salamander, and now he reached into a pouch and drew out something the
blue people did not see.  Khordas slapped his hands together, and
between his palms something flared and burned in the night, brighter
than the lightning.

"ile water can kill the weakest of you, in great amounts, but you
control it, for I am your god.

"But fire is greater still, and even this, I use at my pleasure!"

Khordas, we have come to please you, Khordas, we have come to serve....

The fireball flew from Khordas' hands, and fell before him on the
ground, and a ring of fire grew, too strong even for the rain.  And even
the dancers, who had experienced this since they were children, cowered
at the sight.  "Why," cried the god of fire and water, the greatest of
things, the elements of power, "I should destroy you for even thinking
you could serve me!"

Khordas, we beg your mercy, Khordas, we wish to please....

"And what will you give me that I might not destroy you?

What will you give, that I might look fondly?"

We give you these baubles, poor though they are, but to us, they are
great things.

And now they came, two at a time, all the Children of the Salamander,
heads bowed, with offerings held before them.

Each pair came to the edge of the fire circle and tossed the offering
inside the circle, for none would cross the barrier, and certainly, none
would approach the god.  Slain animals, trophies of hunts, packages of
meat and fish, even jewels-a great sacrifice, made only by the greatest
of the Children.

The god danced the dance of recognition of the offerings, and soon he
stopped dancing, and stooped low.  "Your god is not happy."

The god is not happy, what have we done?

Fire rain down, tides wash us away!

"Your god lives in his pit and wants to know the deeds of his Children!
Through the mud he cannot see what his Children do!"

We serve you, Khordas.

Khordas, the Salamander.

"Khordas will join you for this year, and walk among you, his Children,
that you may do him reverence every day."

Every day we do Khordas reverence.

Every day is his, lest we be destroyed

"Join you I shall, walk among you I shall!  Eat from your tables, sleep
in your beds!" Now the god twisted on his ankles, smiling, staring at
his Children.  The Children danced back a bit and one of the priests
sang:

Unfit are we, to be joined with the god,

Khordas would tire of our home.

The god grew angry, hearing these words, roared from the circle, and
approached the sacred hut near the pit.  "Now before me I find this
house, the home of one of my Children.  I ask for shelter and
companionship and I am denied it, and I will mete punishment!"

And the Children cowered, and sang of their fear, remembering the great
destruction the god had once seen fit to send them, as the god threw
something at the hut, and it burst into flames.

And now Khordas turned and sought out he who had been planned for, and
this man he seized.

"Lonely is your god, and angry.  .  .

The man looked like any other, painted blue as he was, and great was the
fear in his eyes.  Khordas seized the man, and the Children of the
Salamander danced and cried out in terror, remembered and real, as
Khordas tore the disciple apart with his hands, saying as he did so,
"But Khordas does not wish to be angry, he only wishes to be with his
Children," showering the mud across his body with the blood of the
victim, and now he returned to the ring of fire that surrounded the holy
pit.

A priest emerged now, from the back of the congregation, and the sea of
Children parted to let him pass as he sang his part:

Take then, oh Khordas, this my daughter, Nerissa.

"Take as your Companion her lovely frame,

Her perfect soul, her worship is yours.

Khordas' blood rushed from his face as he felt her come near, her father
pushing her into the clearing.  What was this?

What manner of ...  in all the years Khordas had been god he had never
seen so perfect a portrayal of Nerissa, her hair such as he had never
seen before, white as snow, skin utterly without color, her eyes pink.
The creature wore no paint, and the mud splashed up and made holy images
on the white skin of her bare feet.  But more than this was a feeling he
had never had before, of the air getting thick, smoke on his brain, and
the pink-eyed creature looked at him, and sang with the Children.

This companion your god accepts," said Khordas, as always he said, as
every year he said again.  But this time he knew there was something
different, that made his mudladen belly quiver, a force that bonded her
as no sacrifice had ever bonded to him before.  "Your lives I spare, as
I have before.

Khordas ...  Khordas.  ..  Khordas ...  Khordas ...  the drums pounded
as the Children danced and the god took the girl by the hand, and led
her backwards, through the ring of fire, and into the pit of mud, and he
covered her face with his hands and pulled her below.  Bubbles flew from
her mouth as she pitched, and it was minutes before she drowned, and he
remained with her below the mud for the night, before slinking away with
the offerings in the morning.

Khordas did not know who the first Khordas had been, but his mind
clouded at the thought.  He was Khordas, and so he always had been.  The
stories, the songs were about him.  The sacrifices were to him.  And now
he had been Khordas for three generations of Children of the Salamander.
He was surely the god.

He knew this, also, because the Nerissa whom he took into the pit, the
pink-eyed girl who had affected him so, rose the following morning from
the dead as he did.  And thus Khordas knew that he was the real god, and
she the real Nerissa.

Gods of fire and water.  Gods of power.  The oldest gods.

And every year for generations Khordas and Nerissa received their
sacrifices, and they danced in the blood, and her pink eyes shone under
the offering.

And when all the Children of the Salamander were gone, there was no one
left to worship them.

And Khordas and Nerissa were very sad.

And very, very angry.

1625

There are beings in the world known as h=ortals.  Nomenclature aside,
dying is not impossible for them.  Each dies twice-the first death is
practice-but the next death, the final one, head torn from shoulders and
all years poured out on the ground, is difficult.  Most avoid it
vigorously.  The Immortals skim along the surface of the years like
stones on a stream, now and again halted, the stone tumbling to the
depths, the Immortal journey complete.  In second death, the years stop
skimming by; epitaphs can be carved again.  Dying is difficult, though
some wish for it.

Dreaming is easy.

Where do I come from?  Duncan cried, but his father would not listen. He
cried again, pleading, Where do I come from?

Father was staring at him from atop his horse, and he looked at Duncan
as if Duncan were not his son, and said as much: On the night my lady
wife gave birth to our only son,

stillborn, there was brought to her chamber by a peasant woman a boy
child to replace ...

No!

...  to replace that which was lost ...

No!  I do not believe you, (no, it cannot be ...

...  and the midwife looked into your eyes, and said you were a
changeling child!

(But Father, if what you say is true ...

...  you are no bairn of mine!  You're not my son!

But where did I come from?

"Where did I come from!" Duncan cried again, and then something had him
by the shoulders, shaking him briskly, and he awoke.

"You're a bunk-mate from hell, that's where you come from," said the
dark form that stood over him.  Duncan could hear the crackle of the
fire nearby.  He had awakened Connor.

Duncan rubbed his eyes for a second and pushed his hair out of the way.
"I'm sorry, really.  It won't happen again."

Connor shrugged and sat down by the fire, leaning back against the mossy
stones of the crumbling castle wall.  Over Connors head the wall
stopped, jutting here and there with a rotting post.  The stars shone
bright where once there would have been tapestries instead.

The flames cast an eerie glow on the teacher's ruddy face, and the
Immortal looked every bit the Connor MacLeod of legend.  Connor, who had
died in battle generations ago, and who some said rose from the grave
like the Phoenix, like Christ-and, some said, walked the hills to this
very day ...  Duncan had once laughed at those stories, and shuddered,
and dreamt of the hmnortal MacLeod.  Here he was.

And he had flesh, and he had blood.

"We are the same, Duncan MacLeod," the Elder Highlander told him, that
first day.  Connor had found Duncan like Prometheus waiting in vain for
death, wedged between the rocks on the shore, as if he could drown.  "We
are brothers!"

And now Duncan sat up and looked at Connor, who had become his teacher,
and who was trying not to be annoyed with him.  Connor picked up his
sword and began to run it across a whetstone.  "You say it won't happen
again, Dun can," said Connor, "but you lie.  You dream the same dream
each night, and I am forced to listen to it."

Duncan felt his cheeks flush.  He hated embarrassment.  He had endured
more punishment from this new "brother" of his than he had ever received
in his thirty years of natural life, and he still felt abused by
Conner's every word.  "I cannot help what I dream."

"Perhaps not," Connor closed his eyes and nodded, the sword scraping
against the stone in long, even strokes.  Connor seemed to be listening
to the sound of his sword before he said, "Have I told you how I came to
leave Glenfinnan?"

Duncan leaned on an elbow and grabbed a folded skin, unwrapped it and
retrieved a piece of bread.  He tore into it with his teeth and chewed.

"Close your mouth," said Connor.

"What?"

"Your mouth.  Close it.  My God, we're pigs, aren't we?

Just trust me on this one, close your mouth when you chew.

So I was telling you about how I left Glenfinnan." Connor laughed, then,
that strange staccato laugh of his.  Nearly a hundred years old, Connor
must have been strange even when he was mortal.  Now, there was
something downright alien about him.  The light glinted in Connor's
brown eyes and sank into his dirty-brown hair in such a way that he
seemed like a walking storage, hoarding energy and giving off little,
saving the energy until it erupted in a violent burst.

Duncan was glad Connor seemed to have decided to like him, because there
was something fearful about him.  Something dangerously efficient, as if
Connor were on a plotted course and had no intention of allowing
divergence.

Duncan watched his mentor and wondered how Connor had come to be this
way.  Perhaps it was the time Connor had spent with his mentor, Ramirez.
Duncan had heard little about Rarrrez, but he knew that the
Egyptian-cum-Spanish Immortal was one of the truly old ones.  Yet Connor
MacLeod was a kinsman, Duncan could tell, by his harshness, his brogue,
his familiarity with the land of their fathers.

And so Duncan would listen to what the Elder Highlander had to say.
After all, without Connor, he was alone.

"How you left .  Duncan clamped shut his lips, of which he was now
painfully aware.  Close them while you eat.  You have to open them to
speak, though, right?

"So ask me."

"Oh," said Duncan, after swallowing hard.  He sat up straight and
imitated a clansman asking the advice of a proud chieftain.  "Connor,
how is it that you left Glenfinnan?"

"I am glad that you asked.  I was driven out."

Duncan only stared.  He had never heard this before, although a few
things Connor had said over the weeks they had been together had given
him an inkling.  "But you're a legend.  .  ."

Connor leaned in and stared back.  "The Scots, the MacLeods, are a fine
and proud people.  I say that first so that you may understand that
although they drove me out, stripped me legally of my name, called me a
child of Satan and a devil's servant, strapped a great plank to my
shoulders, and threw rocks and dung at me as I forced my tortured legs
to walk out of the only place I had ever called home, although they did
these things, I forgive them, for they could do no other.  It was their
way."

Duncan had no response to this.

"You are racked by the pain of your separation, are you not?  You died
in battle and there was great wailing and gnashing of teeth.  The women
tore their clothing, all of them.

Then, oh!  You've come back to life.  Different story, then.  Get out.
Unnatural.  Go." Connor peered deeply into the shining steel of the
katana, Ramirez's legacy to him.  Duncan could tell Connor saw something
not unlike salvation in that sword.

"Yes," said Duncan.  "Exactly."

"They know no other way.  And do you know something?

They're right."

"What on earth do you mean?"

Connor lay his sword in front of him.  "What I mean, brother Duncan, is
that these things work out in roughly the way that they are supposed to.
What if you had stayed in your village rather than being forced out?"

"I'd still be at home," said Duncan.  "I'd like to be at home."

"T do apologize for my lack of proper accommodations," said Connor,
regarding the lean-to hut that Duncan and he

had been sleeping in.  The lean-to was supported by the bricks of a
kiln, the sole standing part of the rain that surrounded them.  "She was
an old forge by the time I found her, and I fear she couldn't take a
powerful Quickening.  But in Scotland," he sighed, "there is no better
place for me." He seemed lost in thought for a moment.  Then the
warrior's eyes glazed over and refocused on Duncan.  "We would all like
to be at home.  But what would that do?  So the whole town accepts that
you came back from the dead.  Big trouble for the priests.

And what do you learn?  Nothing about the Game, I assure you. Everything
has a purpose.  By casting you out they can remain themselves, and you
can learn what you are."

"But why can't they accept that we're not like them and let us live with
them anyway?"

"Be careful, Duncan.  This is humanity you're talking at)out."

"I don't understand."

"You will.  You must learn to hide your special gift."

Duncan shook his head.  "But I don't want to hide.  This is a wonderful
thing, this life.  But why can't I stay where I havelove?"

"There will always be love.  But there is danger, Duncan.

You learn the rules of the Game, or you die.  No question."

"Die of what?  We've spent the last two weeks slashing at one another,
and not an enemy in sight."

"Oh," said Connor, as he looked around at the ruins of his adopted
castle.  "There are enemies about.  You'll find them soon enough.  Or. .
." he trailed off for a moment, his whisper harsh and then simply
melting away.  Connor was always thus-intense, burning.  Fighting for
calm and trying to teach it.  Duncan knew there were flaws in his
teacher.  But so far Connor was the only teacher Duncan had.

"Or what?"

"Or they will find you," said Connor, and the light from the fire
bounced off the sword and strange shadows danced on the Immortal
warrior's face.

Several months into Duncan's training, he and Connor went to Aberdeen.
Connor had business there, and so Duncan got to see the harbor for the
first time.  His mentor had

placed a large sum of money into several sailing ventures, and he went
to the port to check their progress and withdraw a sum "to keep us for a
while." And as Connor spent the day doing these things, Duncan was busy
making friends with a lovely creature he met at the pub where he spent
the better part of the afternoon.  The pub was called the Quarry House,
and the quarry was fine indeed.  Her name was Nerissa.

Duncan was waiting outside the pub when he sensed Connor draw near.
Duncan looked up and saw the older Immortal, clad in his best clothing,
walking toward him.  Connor raised a hand.  "Ho, brother."

"Connor," Duncan smiled, sheepishly.

Connor stopped beside him and looked into the pub.  His narrow eyes
crinkled as he surveyed the crowded room through the door.  "I'm in the
mood for a game of darts.  Did you arrange lodging as I asked?"

Hence Duncan's sheepishness.  "In fact, I ...  no."

Connor nodded.  "Something come up?"

:'l have someone I'd like you to meet," said Duncan.

"The other Immortal," said Connor, evenly.

"Ah.  Of course, you sensed her."

"Her?  I begin to understand." Connor scratched his chin, looked down
the street, and sighed.  "For what it's worth, I have an innkeeper
friend in town, so we .  .  ." Connor stopped because the loveliest
creature had just leaned out the door of the Quarry House and was
tugging on Duncan's arm.

Nerissa was the picture of an angel, a waif of an Immortal with a shock
of hair so blonde it was almost white.  Her dress was white, as well,
and hung loosely on her, an afterthought of cloth.  "Duncan, my lovely
new friend, won't you come back inside?  It's cold and your lager is
getting warm." She stopped and smiled sideways at Connor, flicking the
white locks away from her face to get a better view of him.

"What's this?  Another one?  What a fine time we'll have."

Connor gave a slight bow.  "I don't believe I've had the pleasure."

"Nerissa," said the Immortal waif, extending her hand.

Connor took the tiny extremity and gave it a slight kiss, then let it
go.

"Charmed," said Duncan's mentor.  "Connor is any name."

"Well," said Nerissa, the word rolling deliciously from her pale mouth.
"Duncan had been entertaining me; I've heard a great deal about you."

"From Duncan?" Connor smiled, but only half-way.

"From Duncan.  Of course," she said.  Nerissa had a way of tucking her
chin and speaking from the top of her eyes with a delightful scolding
look.  "We're celebrating my birthday a few days early."

"Oh?" Connor shrugged and scanned his student, and Duncan knew he was
more or less forgiven.  "And how old are you?"

Nerissa laughed, gently.  "Old enough, Highlander.  Would you care to
join us at our table?"

"In a moment, but first if I might have a word.  .  ." Connor tilted his
head toward Duncan.  Nerissa smiled and then shrugged, a bit drunkenly,
and disappeared back inside, singing, "Don't be too long."

"Been here all day?" asked Connor when the waif was away.

"Most of it," said Duncan, turning to look in again.

"Lovely, isn't she?"

Connor shook his head.  "Oh, you'll be a dangerous one."

The Immortal leaned in and said, in all seriousness, "you should be
careful of female Immortals."

"Really?  Up until now I had no idea there were female Immortals."

"Ah!  Of course you would think so, wouldn't you?  That never occurred
to me, but I compliment your logic, Duncan."

Connor tilted his head, scratching his chin.  "We can't have children,
so I suppose you're right in that we don't seem to actually require two
sexes.  Just the same it's a pleasant variation."

"Aye," said Duncan, as he wistfully turned back to look after Nerissa.

Connor continued, "But I'm just pointing outvery Immortal uses his-mr
her-gifts in the Game.  My tools, you are familiar with, or you will be
eventually." He cocked his head toward the crowded pub.  "Her's you may
never know."

"My God, Connor," Duncan sneered.  "You treat me like a child.  I'm not
as much a fool as you seem to think ......

"No, but you are a young Immortal and you will listen to me.  These
things I say may sound like the rambling of an old maid with too much
advice to give.  But I want to make sure that you keep paying attention.
You haven't been Immortal a frill year yet, Duncan.  Sword work is only
the beginning.  Pay attention.  It would be a shame if a pupil of nne
didn't last his first decade." Connor turned to enter the Quarry House.

"And in the future, if I give you an assignment, even a simple one, do
it.  Understand."

Duncan nodded and put on a charming smile, but Connor seemed unmoved by
it.  "Oh, aye," Duncan said.  He couldn't help thinking that perhaps he
would have been better off on his own.  But somehow, he knew he was
following the right path.  Especially now, since that path led back to
Nerissa's table.

Connor had settled into a chair across from Nerissa.  "So," his teacher
was saying, "you're not a Scot, lass, what brings you to Aberdeen?"

Nerissa smiled.  "The same that brings you," she said.

"Business."

Connor looked at DuncaD and Duncan winced inwardly.

He could never tell if he had broken the rules, and Connor seemed to
like to keep him guessing.  "I told Nerissa that you were seeing about
our sea ventures," said Duncan.  His eyes were imploring.

Connor grinned.  "Our ventures ...  ?" He turned his head slowly to the
younger Immortal, drawing from Duncan a look that resembled that of a
begging dog, before Connor continued, "Yes, we have many.  So I take it,
then, you're not out for sport?"

"Sport?"

"It is the hunting season, I hear."

"Not tonight it isn't, Connor MacLeod." The sweet face narrowed and the
smile did not disguise the look that would be clear to any h=ortal: And
you'd know by now if it were.

The conversation lasted perhaps half an hour more, because Connor's
arrival had a distinct dampening effect.  Duncan began to get the
impression that Connor trusted few Immortals and therefore had great
difficulty ill a friendly conversation with one he did not know. Nerissa
too became

less talkative after his teacher arrived, as if she had been caught
doing something she should have known better than to do.  What that
thing could be, Duncan hadn't the faintest idea.  But as he looked back
on the conversation that had taken up the afternoon, Duncan realized he
had done most of the talking, and that he knew nothing about her.

Duncan was finishing his beer when he felt the alcohol curdle in his
stomach.  A presence.  Another Immortal.  He breathed deeply, as Connor
had instructed, to keep from getting sick.  Connor looked away from the
table and out to the street.  There was no one in sight.

Nerissa shrugged and smiled.  "I must go.  My companion is here, and we
have .  .  ."

('onnor said, "Business?"

"Of course," she said, and the two Immortals stood as she ros(,,.
Nerissa squeezed Duncan's hand and thanked him for the lovely
conversation, then turned to Connor.  "And to meet the celebrated Connor
MacLeod.  Truly a joy.  You have excellent taste in pupils."

"Don't we all," Connor replied, eyes narrowing.

"Farewell, Nerissa."

"Farewell," said Nerissa, and she disappeared out the door.

When she was gone Duncan said, "Who is the..

"I don't know," said Connor.  "But I caught his presence in the harbor.
Whoever he is, he was staying out of sight." He raised his eyebrows as
he downed the last few drops in his mug.  "I had the pleasanter company
today, I think.  We should retire.  I thought we could rise early in the
morning for our exercise before mass."

"If you say so," said Duncan.  He had been hoping to sleep in.  He
leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head.

"The celebrated Connor MacLeod?"

Connor smiled.  "New to me," he said.  "Try this one. "Our sea
ventures."

"

The following morning, Duncan was forced out of bed by Connor an hour
before the cock so that Connor could lead him in training, which
generally involved hacking at one another with swords until Duncan lost.
And he always lost, in

those days.  The town square filled with snow as Duncan and Connor
dueled, and Connor's jeers filled the wind and stung worse than the
frosty air itself.

You use your sword like a man putting on a play, Duncan.

Who are you trying to impress?  Me?  Get in close.  Use your body; stay
inside.  Be sticky.  Con se me.  Focus.  Where are you looking?  Stay
balanced

And when you fall on your arse, try not to look like such a bloody fool.
No wonder you died in battle.

And Duncan took his daily beating with a sullen pride, and he did his
best to hide his embarrassment.  And he tried to hide his smile when
Connor repeated what he said every morning, as he pulled Duncan up from
the ground: "Good.

You were better today.  Tomorrow, you will beat me."

On this particular morning, Duncan and Connor strode away from their
practice towards the inn, breathing in the crisp air, and Connor stopped
for a while to look at the snow that covered the ground.  "Beautiful,"
he said, as he leaned on the wall of the inn, and he gestured for Duncan
to stop with him.

Duncan leaned against the wall and panted.  "I've seen enough of it," he
said, for he was soaked from having rolled in the snow several times
this morning.  Connor waved off his complaint.  There was snow in his
hair, and for a moment it cast the illusion of age that the Elder
Highlander would never really show.

"The feeling in your stomach when one of us approaches," said Connor.
"It sickens you, I know.  Some people are hit especially hard by it in
the early days.  I am not a poet, Duncan.

My mentor was, and I wish I had his words.  But as we stand here this
morning I want you to look at the snow and remember it.  This snow you
will never see again in just this way, you panting there and I here.
This morning will be gone by this afternoon.  But that which binds us
all will endure, and it carries with it all that we survey.  We feel
this in a way that mortals cannot, God save them.  Even though it makes
you sick right now, I want you to be aware of your gift, of what a great
gift Immortality is."

Duncan nodded.  He did not understand.

"Come," said Connor.  "It is St.  Valentine's Day, and we

have a mass to attend, and I think we will meet a friend of mine
afterwards."

"A friend?  An Immortal?"

Connor laughed.  "No, he's a sailor.  They only think they're Immortal."

Three hours later, Duncan was listening to fish stories.  He didn't
care, though, because he had never seen so much food in his life.

"Lad," said the smiling Captain Carmichael, "you have quite a teacher
here.  Quite a teacher."

Duncan pulled away from a turkey leg to emphatically nod his agreement.
As Connor had planned, they had met Carmichael after mass and had been
invited to join the captain for his own Feast of St.  Valentine's.  The
Feast was a glorious exercise in gluttony, and Duncan found himself
stuffing his belly among mountains of meat, wine and cheese, in a large,
torchlit room in a house that, although he remained unsure throughout
the Feast, must surely be a brothel.  (Or else the help were simply
friendly in the extreme.)  There were sailors everywhere: men from
Carmichael's ship, as well as mates from other ships that happened to be
in port that February.  According to Connor, Carmichael was notorious
for his feasts, which he funded out of his own pockets, God knew how. He
probably starved for it the rest of the year.  But what a gesture!

Carmichael was every bit the cliche he wanted to be-a grizzled sailor
with stringy white hair and some of the most god-awful scars Duncan had
ever seen on a living man.  He was a drinker and a happy drunk, a man
with a limp from something he wouldn't talk about and a crew who liked
him very much.  But for all his joviality, Duncan felt sure the man was
a tough man to work under.

The three lay like Roman Senators on the rug in the torchlit room,
surrounded by platters of food in various states of consumption.
Carmichael clapped his fingers together and one of the more voluptuous
denizens of the house cantered by, and caressing his chest, bent down to
pass a grape into his mouth from between her teeth.  Carmichael patted
the girl on the rump as she disappeared and turned his fat and happy

visage back to Duncan.  "Let me take you back, now, fifteen years," said
the captain, and Carmichael looked at Connor to validate the time.
Connor simply sat quietly and smiled.

Connor never ate much, but he seemed to enjoy attending feasts.  Connor
simply liked to watch mortals, Duncan had decided.  Once, he asked his
teacher, "why are you so fascinated by what the mortals do, when we can
do the same, or most of it, and more?" Connor had replied, "Not true.
Every bite, every lovemaking, is different when the sands are running
out.  When with every one you get older.  That is what fascinates me."

"Fifteen years ago," Carmichael continued, "I was first mate on a vessel
called the Jugleor.  And Connor here-and not a day younger, I might add,
but that no longer surprises me-we picked him up off Cape horn, of all
things.  Said he'd work on our ship if we'd drop him off the next time
we hit Scotland.  Now, Captain Farrell was a crusty old son of a bitch,
but we'd lost a few off the side and Connor looked fit enough, and so
Farrell hired him on.

"Naturally I was surprised to find a fellow Scot out in the land of
aborigines, so I tried to get to know the lad."

Carmichael looked around for effect.  "Never a more kept-to-' himself
sailor did I see, but what strength!  One night, the strangest thing
happened after Connor had been with us for five weeks.  We hit a nasty
storm, the kind that had already swept away five good men.  One of the
sails broke its rigging and the beam went swinging across the deck.  I
remember looking across the deck and seeing that beam punch the captain
himself in the gut, and send old Farrell flying into the water."

Connor sighed audibly.  Duncan wanted to hear this.

"Now, mind you, this is freezing water.  Winds to take your head off,
and we all figured Captain Farrell for a dead man.  But then silent
Connor did the damnedest thing.

Around his waist he ties a rope, which he then lashes to the rail, and
into the water he goes like a dolphin!  And here we all stand, agape, I
content to stay at the wheel and try to keep the ship under control.  I
want you to picture the water, Duncan: deep furrows of black waves, lit
up by lightning, and forty yards off, Captain Farrell, quickly
succumbing but still

waving, and then Connor, swimming towards him, diving under to try to
cut the current of the waves.  Presently he surfaces, moving like
lightning, and grabs the captain and waves, and we can tell that he's
signalling to us.  Two or three sailors go to the rope and start to
pull." Carmichael stopped to take a drought of wine, wiped his lips, and
sighed.

"Go on," said Duncan.

"Well." Carmichael had obviously waited years to hold forth before so
eager an audience.  "It can't be done.  Two big men weighing near five
hundred pounds between them?  The crewmen are pulling against the
current and the wind, and it just isn't happening.  So then I see Connor
unlash himself and tie the rope around the captain, and disappear.  We
pulled the Captain in easily, then."

"So where was Connor?" Duncan asked.

"God, Carmichael, I can't take this," said Connor.

"You'll take it and love it, MacLeod; you don't fool me.

So, Duncan-we don't know.  Old Connor's lost at sea, brave soul.  Even
said a prayer myself for him, although by his bravery he'd kept me from
becoming captain sooner than I'd planned.

"Next day, calm as far as the eye can see.  We drop anchor and have a
memorial service, the latest in a long line, and met with great sorrow
by the crew.  And I'm taking the honor o' the eulogy, because I spoke to
Connor perhaps three times and he was a countryman, and no one else knew
him.  Oh, it was a fine speech.  To hear me tell it, you'd think God
himself had sent the angel Michael to us to serve as a sailor and then
had taken him overboard and back home again after saving the captain."

Duncan grinned at his mentor, who simply drank his beer and listened,
legs crossed calmly, propped on one arm.

"And as I wrap up this fine speech, the cabin boy hands me a bundle, the
extra suit of clothes that Connor wore, which were wrapped with a stone,
and we went to the side of the ship to conirnend it to the sea in place
of his body.

"So I lean over the side, grim and mournful, and all the men gather
around me.  I toss the bundle, and it lands by the anchor chain and
sinks.  For a second we all just stand there, silent, watching the calm
water, a beautiful day for such a

sad occasion.  Then slowly we turn to go back to our duties, our
memorial concluded."

Connor said, "I think I'm going to go find some whiskey......

"Stay where you are, Connor.  So, Duncan, we're dispersing as we will,
and over our head comes flying a dark object, which lands on the deck,
and then I see that it's the bundle of clothing that we'd just thrown
in.  Then, a splash.  We all run back to the rail.

"I look down, and what do I see but a brown head of hair coming out of
the water, all drenched in sea weed, and then a dirty pair of arms,
climbing the anchor chain, until presently this man of moss climbs to
the top of the chain, stops at the chain portal, grabs the rail, and
climbs over.  And collapses on the deck."

"It was.  .  ."

"Connor MacLeod.  A miracle.  He could have told us he'd been living in
the belly of a whale and we would have believed him.  Aye, there was
something odd about this man for sure.  After that, the Scot had great
favor on the Jugleor, and I did my best to try to get to know him."

"Not easy to find a ship after a storm," said Connor.  "But she was a
good ship, and I missed her." Carmichael laughed heartily in agreement,
sending wine spraying through the air.

Now another of his plump little friends came up and dipped a finger
covered in berry juice into Carmichael's mouth.

"I thought you said we must hide what we are," Duncan whispered to
Connor.

"Sometimes situations call for different tactics."

Duncan laughed.  "I don't believe a word of it," he said loudly-louder
than he meant to in fact, for he found he was having trouble controlling
his volume.

"Oh, believe this one," said Carmichael, as his friend scampered away.
"It's true."

After that, they drank and ate even more.  Carmichael told more
stories-.some of them more true than other-and they lay merciless waste
to the feast before them, until, exhausted by gluttony, they all fell
asleep on the floor of the brothel, and slept like babies, or mad
sailors in a storm.

Duncan and Connor put off their return to Connor's ruins until after
they had seen Captain Carmichael off.  Carmichael was moving grain and
whiskey, mainly, down to England, along with some large sacks of money
for a few special clients, and he was anxious to ship out.  The day was
crisp and cold, and the three met for supper at mid-day and spent the
afternoon on the harbor.  Camchael complimented Connor on the fine
student he had chosen, and Duncan was pleased to hear his mentor praise
Duncan generously, which he rarely did, except when he said every
morning, "You were better today.  Tomorrow you will beat me."

And occasionally, Connor's unseen friend became palpably Present, around
a corner, always out of sight.  And every time his presence was felt,
Connor would look at Duncan, survey the area, and shrug.

Camchael left at dusk.  Connor and Duncan stood on the shore, waving as
Carmichael's vessel Crossover moved off.

That was the moment Duncan would never forget: the ship gently rocking
in the harbor, the sun going down at Duncan's back as he and Connor
watched Captain Carmichael go.

Presently a figure waved from the deck, and Connor waved back.  Duncan
thought it was a trick of the light at dusk that caused the curious
effect that he saw, like a cloud of dust over the deck and among the
sails.  Then there was a small flash, like a torch coming into view and
out again, somewhere towards the back of the ship.

Connor said, "What in Hell .  .  ."

And then, Duncan saw the waving figure of Carmichael disappear in a
blinding flash, as the air over the ship turned orange and flowing, and
Carmichael reappeared for a brief moment on the distant, fiery deck as a
black stick man, like a child would draw in the sand, the stick man
still waving as the orange cloud tore through him and the ship and the
sails.

The two Immortals stood completely still, in awe of the ship that now
resembled a funeral barge.  It had caught and become engulfed in the
time it took Duncan to take a breath.

Duncan found himself taking an involuntary step backward, as if in fear
that the air around him might rupture and turn to flame as well.

And then Connor began to move, wading into the water furiously, calling,
"Carmichael!"

"What do think you're going to do?" Duncan ran after him, grabbing his
mentor by the shoulders.  "Please, Connor, what are you going to do?"

".  .  ."

"What are you going to do?" Duncan spun Connor around and looked into
his eyes.  The fiery Immortal looked stunned, and then grasped his
pupil's forearms.

"You're right," said Connor, who looked back at the ship.

The fire was going out now, as quickly as it had caught.  All that
remained was a black hulk, with goods and grain flowing out its side
like ship's blood.  There was nothing of a deck, nothing to recognize.
Nothing to save.  "What am I going to do?"

The awkwardness was palpable.  There they stood, knee deep in water,
Connor's friend had just been utterly obliterated and they could do
nothing but stand there, feeling the cold as the sun went down behind
them, and presently Connor nudged Duncan and the two waded back.  Connor
mumbled, "I wasn't thinking, I'm sorry, the water's very cold, I
shouldn't have- What in Hell just happened?" he screamed, and turned
back towards the smoldering hulk, and fell to his knees.  "Someone ...
someone.  .."

Duncan knelt down beside him.  He felt woefully inadequate trying to be
useful to his mentor; the role did not suit him.  He had no idea what to
say.  "Connor, I.  .  ."

"No, Duncan," said Connor, who reached up his hand and patted Duncan on
the shoulder.  "There is nothing to be said.

It happens.  If Carmichael were an h=ortal I could swim out there right
now, pull his remains out of the wreck.  Give him time, and he would
rise.  In time.  Days.  Hours, perhaps, if he were strong.  And he would
sail."

Duncan nodded, and took Connor's extended hand and helped the teacher
off of his knees.  There were new sounds, now, the anguished cries of a
few pitiful mortals who happened to be on the harbor at dusk.  The sound
of mortal anguish rose, but Connor began to speak and kept his voice
low.

"Time is something the mortals do not have, Duncan,"

Connor whispered, his voice hoarse and mournful.  The Immortal rose and
looked at him, looked deep in Duncan's eyes as he always did when he had
somedling serious to say.  "Remember this.  Seldom will you see it so
clearly, seldom will it be so dramatically illustrated.  Make no
mistake.  In the end, they will all be snuffed out.  All of them.  That
is their natime."

Something in the calm of the Elder Highlander's voice gave Duncan the
bravery to ask a harsh question.  "But then," he asked, "why do we
mourn?  Why do you care?"

"I don't know, Duncan," said Connor.  "I honestly don't.

But it hurts every time."

The sound of a cracking whip split the air and a coach came barreling
down the beach.  Duncan felt a presence on approach.  As the coach
passed them he looked up and saw the person whipping the reins, her face
barely revealed by the hood she wore.  It was the white-haired waif he'd
met at the Quarry House.  "That was the albino.  Nerissa."

Nerissa stopped her coach about one hundred feet from the two immortals,
not a full length from the water's edge.

Connor and Duncan turned to watch her, and Nerissa held up her hand
toward the water.  A glint of light flashed, probably from a hand-held
looking glass, and presently Duncan spotted a small answering flash on
the water.

Duncan remained perfectly sill.  He whispered, "Beware of the female
Immortals." Connor had been watching all of this.  He nudged Duncan, and
the two began to walk towards Nerissa's coach.

They peered more closely at the dark sea and saw a small boat, with a
man rowing.  Nerissa's horses were nervous, and she scolded them
repeatedly to calm down.  The woman looked out at the rowboat, and now
seemed to notice Duncan and Connor for the first time.

The rowboat reached the shore and its passenger, dressed in a black
outfit that was soaked but seemed also to be smoldering, jumped out and
was dragging the boat.  As he did so Duncan's gut curdled, and he knew
this wading sailor had to be the hitherto unseen Immortal.  When the
smoldering man had made it all the way onto the sand and could drag the
boat no further he motioned to Nerissa, and now he began to

throw something, a large, black parcel, into the coach.  This was
followed by three more such packages, and then he ran around to the
front of the coach and began to climb in.

"Nerissa.  .  ." Duncan held up a hand as they drew near.

The angelic eyes looked at him from beneath the hood, and there was no
friendliness in them.  "Duncan."

"Business?" asked Connor, and Duncan could tell his teacher was about to
explode.

"Pleasure."

"Pleasure." Nerissa looked over her shoulder to see if her partner had
made it into the coach.

Connor was drawing his sword.  "You!"

The black-suited man had a leg up on the boards and now turned his head
and shoulder, hanging on.  "Yes?"

"I challenge you!  You must answer my challenge!"

The man in black took off his cap and a long mane of red hair flowed
out, cascading over his shoulders, as he stepped down for a moment.
"What on earth for?"

Connor said, slowly, still in his challenging stance, "You have killed
one who was important to me.  I call on your honor to accept my
challenge!"

:'l am not armed."

"Arm yourself"

The strange man's eyes narrowed.  "Khordas answers to no challenge from
those who should bow to him.  Go away, little man.  We have had a fine
evening, and we must be gone."

"Wrong answer," said Connor, evenly.  He was moving forward now, and
Duncan began to wonder if he was about to see his mentor behead a man in
cold blood.  Could he?  But "Khordas" was climbing on the coach again
and signaled for Nerissa to go.  The albino cracked the reins and the
coach began to move.

"Khordas!"

,"Connor MacLeod!" came Nerissa's voice, "Khordas is not armed.  But I
am." Nerissa turned a bit in her seat and Duncan saw the Italian pistol
in her hand, hammer drawn back.

The man shook his head, the hooves pounded in the mud, punctuating his
words.  "Not today, MacLeod!"

"But-"

"I always make it a point to light a fire on Nerissa's birthday.  So
sorry if one of your mortals got in the way." And with that, the coach
sped up, and Duncan heard Connor cry, "No!" and now the teacher was
running for the horses, grabbing onto the reins, dragging the leather
straps back.  The horses pitched and reared as Connor managed to get a
leg up onto the sideboard.

"You ...  will ...  answer ...  to me!"

"Nerissa," said Khordas, "get rid of him."

Duncan saw the albino point her gun down at Connor.  A shot split the
night, celebrated by a puff of smoke and the pungent smell of sulfur.
Connor sucked in air and fell back, sprawling, and Nerissa cracked the
reins again.  And Duncan ran to his teacher's side as the horses picked
up speed.

Connor still grasped his katana and struggled to get up, but he was
dying, for now, and no amount of struggling would stop it.  Within
seconds, he was dead.

And by that time, the coach was gone.

February, 1632

There is a mountain in the Highlands called Beinn Bahn.  At its height
it rises three thousand feet above the neighboring Inner Sound, saluting
the Isle of Skye which lies on the Sound's far side.  In February of
1632, when Duncan had been with Connor nearly seven years, it was here,
on Beinn Bahn, that Duncan MacLeod the HighlaDder finally stopped
losing.

Connor had been running Duncan ragged on the mountain for nearly a week.
They had come all this way to play what amounted to a war game.  The
Elder Highlander could disappear for days while Duncan searched for him,
trying to track him on the mountain as best he could.  It would be
years, indeed, before Duncan would become a master tracker; now he
searched more by guess and by God, looking for broken branches, prints
in the sand-all of which he felt sure Connor left deliberately just to
keep the trail fresh.  And then he would catch Connor's presence, and
suddenly Connor would

be on him, closing in like a wolf, descending sword-bared from the trees
or from behind a pile of rocks.  But each time, Duncan was more ready.

Stay relaxed Let the enemy come to you.  Surprised?  Out of control? Off
balance?  Rebuild yourself before you move again.  Duncan heard the
words go through his head and suddenly, on one day he never could recall
exactly, when Connor's presence loomed and his mentor came running
through the woods, something fell into place.

Duncan saw Connor's head come over a small mound of brush and he did
what he had never done before.  No gasping, no shocked raising of his
sword in a panicked sweep.  Connor was half-way over the top of the hill
and coming fast and Duncan took his surprise and banished it from his
mind.

Here we are.  Around me, there is wind in the grass, there are tiny
animals I cannot see at my feet.  My ancestors walked here on their way
to war, antifought off the dating Romans who tried to take this land I
am at home here, in these Scottish hills, and there is a century-old man
with a sword coming at my head.  I am surprised by nothing.  Do your
best, old man.

Duncan stood still with his sword unsheathed and waited.

Connor growled and came at him, swinging his katana at Duncan's neck.
Duncan breathed again and could actually feel the air moving past his
limbs, his feet moving in complementary union, as his sword came up, an
extension of his body, to meet Connor.  Connor was ready for this,
allowed Duncan to swat his blade away, and kept coming, and Connor's
face came close enough to kiss and the teacher hit him hard in the ribs
with his elbow.  Connor liked to play close.

Duncan staggered a bit and saw Connor spin, his boot a blur as it came
up with his pivot.

Duncan felt the boot hit his chest and he was thrown back, off balance,
and he allowed himself to breathe and in an instant rebuilt himself,
back together.  Connor came at him again, bringing his sword down at an
angle across Duncan's torso.  Duncan matched his blow, watching the
sparks that flew from the metal as the blades clashed, claymore against
katana.  Duncan dropped slightly and moved in, striking like an animal,
hitting Connor with his shoulder, lashing out and

landing his palm in Connor's face, moving back quickly.  For once Connor
fell back, too.

The teacher was bleeding from his mouth and with one hand he reached up
to wipe away the blood.  Connor wore an eerie grin, his breath slicing
through the air, and suddenly he pounced again.  Duncan let fly his
sword and slashed at Connor's blade, then brought it down and around and
back, moving in, and he felt a slight resistance that he knew from
battle to be the soft resistance of flesh against metal.  Quickly he
brought the claymore back, almost guilty for having connected.

Connor seemed both angered and pleased, and he flew at Duncan, glancing
Duncan's sword away and slamming head to head.  Duncan found himself
falling, ground corning up to meet him, and as Duncan's back struck the
forest floor he curled a bit and brought his feet up to kick Connor in
the face, jumping to his feet again as he did so.  Connor staggered back
and Duncan saw the next move before it even happened.  Connor's left
fool hit an exposed root and the Immortal staggered again, and Duncan
tore at him, aiming for his sword hand.  Down and up again, a lightning
are, and Connor's sword left his hand and flipped through the trees.

Connor looked around and found his balance, but not before Duncan
brought the claymore down and back to Connor's throat.

"You and me, Connor.  The Final Gathering.  Think of it, teacher," urged
Duncan, "would you take my head?"

"Heh," came the staccato, breathless laugh of Connor MacLeod.  "There
can be only one."

Duncan saw Connor jerk backwards, dropping, going for the kick.  Duncan
caught Connor's boot with his left hand and Connor went down.

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that.  Teacher," said Duncan.

Connor lay on the ground and Duncan realized the Immortal was laughing,
his bloody mouth in a delighted snarl.  Duncan sheathed his sword and
grabbed Connor's offered hand, and helped him up.  When he rose, Connor
stepped back and gave a foreign bow.

Duncan breathed, and he felt something like the close of

an era, a goal achieved and leaving him, and with it went his energy. He
had been waiting to best Connor for years.  And now, rather than
elation, he felt only exhaustion, and a hint of fear.

"Very good," said Connor.  "Today you have beaten me.  I am very proud."

Fear of what?

"Let's go.  It's time to camp.  We'll head into Applecross tomorrow for
provisions before turning south, homeward."

Connor looked him up and down the way he'd appraise a mule and said,
"You need rest." Then Connor added, "Of course, it's up to you whether
or not you come back to the ruins."

Duncan wiped the sweat from his eyes and leaned against a tree, hands on
his knees.  When he absorbed what Connor had just said he shot his
teacher a bewildered glance.  "And what does that mean?"

"It's up to you, Duncan.  There is more to learn than I can teach you."

Duncan nodded, and folded his arms, and stared at his boots and the
grass.  He looked at Connor.  He wasn't sure.

But somehow, he felt strong now, stronger than he had ever felt.  Connor
came over and took him by the shoulder and they began to walk through
the trees.  And that was the first time Duncan noticed something that
somehow had escaped him: he was taller than Connor, by at least a head.

They were camping on a hill and Duncan looked toward the sea and the
valley to the south and saw a strange light.

"Connor, what is down below?"

Connor was lying back and staring at the stars, humming a tune.  He
turned his head idly.  "Should be Applecross."

"It looks like it's on fire."

Connor frowned at Duncan and sat up, rose and walked over to join Duncan
at the summit of the hill.  Far below, in the dark valley, a sheet of
orange lay unfurled across what looked to be a quarter mile of land. "It
is," said Connor.

"We'll be there in the morning."

Connor had been right.  By the time they reached Applecross, it was
dead, a town's carcass crawling with confused, human maggots.

Through the crowds the Immortals moved, as always, detached, slicing
through the throngs of people like ships at sea.  Duncan and Connor
looked around them at the madness of the mortals as the two slid past
grubby, stunned people pushing their way down the streets of Applecross.
Sometimes it was as if the mortals did not see them: the Immortals were
so different that if they acted correctly they did not blend in but
blended right out, observant and invisible.  Connor said that Ramirez
said that the mortals looked for magic in the wrong places, so that they
would not risk seeing it when it was present, and this was just as well.
The Immortals were fearful of attention, and they were lucky that the
mortals paid so little of it.

Here and there, tendrils of dark smoke rose from the charred remains of
the buildings as Connor and Duncan moved on.  The villagers were ghosts.
Duncan passed a man who stood in what may have been a house and poked at
bits of charred wood with a rake, as if he expected the wood to respond.
The man looked up as Duncan passed and looked right through him.

Like most Scottish towns of medieval origin, Applecross was arranged
along a central street, the buildings wooden and rectangular and stacked
along the main street like vertebrae.  To Connor and Duncan, who reached
Applecross that morning after rising early, the spine looked to have
been crushed.

"It looks like we won't find breakfast here," said Connor, looking
around.

"Aye," said Duncan.  He looked at a tavern as they passed it, simply a
black skeleton, wisping curls of smoke rising.

Connor pointed out certain darker patches on the wood, this was drying
wine.  Broken glass, everywhere.  A tavern keeper, standing in the
middle, staring into space.

"Oh," said Connor, "look at the church." At the end of the main street
lay what must have been an attractive little chapel indeed.  The smoking
hulk loomed before the two Immortals and Duncan surveyed the wreck as
they drew closer.

Duncan thought it strangely comic, that this church had burnt down, but
the facade, and thus the arched doorway, still stood.  The door, in
fact, lay open.  As the Highlander walked along towards the doorway he
saw a man within the ruin, framed by the doorway.  The figure stood
where the congregation would have sat before at mass, the pews reduced
to scattered wood and ashes.  The man was strongly built, with white
hair and a beard, and the robes of his Order draped over him like a
second skin.  He was crouched low, his hands clasped together, not in
prayer but in concentration.

The priest looked up when he heard Duncan's feet crunch into the ashes
and broken wood.  There was no vacant stare here, although the man
looked weary, to say the least.  The priest rose, sweeping his hands
together to rid himself of excess ash, then wiped his hands on his robe.

"Father," said Duncan.

"I'm afraid we have nothing, my son," said the priest.

"Please be patient.  I have sent an apprentice for aid from the
neighboring villages."

"No need for aid," said Connor.  "We were on Beinn Bhan and saw the
fire.  I am Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod and this is my kinsman,
Duncan."

The priest nodded politely.  "Father Dumphries." Then he shook his head.
"And I'm sorry that this is not the best time to visit Applecross.  Good
Lord.  Good Lord."

The two Immortals stepped into the main area of the ruins.

"What happened?" Connor took off his hat and looked at Duncan, telling
him to do the same.  Duncan did so, although it seemed odd.

Father Dumphries shook his head.  "It started here."

Duncan frowned.  "You saw it?"

Dumphries smiled briefly.  "I saw it from the tavern.  Well, outside the
tavern."

"No storm last night," said Connor.

"No," said Dumphries, "and believe me, I'm not in the habit of leaving
untended fires.  No, no.  Besides, I couldn't haveven lightning
couldn't.  .

"What?" asked Connor.

"I've never seen anything like it.  I'd had a pint or two with

some wayward brethren who needed a jawing, eh?  So, when I was leaving,
I was walking down the street, and I looked up, and the steeple of the
church was clear against the moon, which was huge, as it will be when
it's behind an object."

Connor smiled politely.  Franciscans were reairily a teaching order, and
it was a hard habit to break.

"And this is the strange part-there appeared something like a cloud, or
a swarm of something .  .  ."

Duncan saw Connor react, if only slightly.  Their eyes met briefly and
Connor's spoke angry volumes.  They really didn't need to hear the rest.

".  .  .  and the cloud just erupted," Father Dumphries shook his head.

"Erupted?"

"I cannot say it better.  One instant there was the chapel and the
steeple, next, a wall of flame, a burst of orange, and wood flying down
the street as if some great force had been unleashed."

Connor turned around where he stood and looked out the odd standing door
and down the main street.  The maggots still crawled back and forth
across and along the street, poking at embers and crying to the skies.
"And the fire spread by itself, all the way down."

The priest shook his head, violently, his fists clenched, as if he were
ashamed of his anger.  "No.  This was not natural by any means."

Duncan squeezed his hat in his hands.  "What do you mean?"

"I swear to you I saw a line of fire run like a finger of flames, a
little growing wall, that someone laid from building to building, all
the way down the street.  And I ran for the church, to rescue the host."
The priest looked at them, rellying the moment that Duncan and MacLeod
had looked down on the night before.  They had known it was bad, but it
just didn't register from a distance.  Duncan wondered if God might have
a similar problem.  From a distance, vision fooled you.  Stay inside. "I
didn't make it," said the priest.  "That is my failure."

Connor said, "Father, I have something very serious to ask you."

"Yes, my son."

"Any new additions to the church collection?  Valuable gifts?"

The priest nodded, thinking.  "We were visited by the Bishop a month
ago, and he presented us a gift of a coffer that he said belonged to
Malcolm Canmore's Queen Margaret when she set about reforming the church
in Scotland.

Five hundred years old.  A magnificent piece of work, inlaid with gold
and jewels, and inside, and encased in amber, a piece of the true cross
itself.  Magnificent, as I said.  A joy to behold." Dumphries shook his
head.  "Curse my coward's blood that I did not run in to save that,
either."

Connor threw a glance at Duncan.  "Have you seen it since?"

"No.  No sign of it, my son.  Buried in wood and ash, melted, stolen by
a wrathful God, I know not."

Connor said, "Could you show me the place where it would be?"

The priest seemed confused as to the stranger's curiosity, but he had
little else to do but show him.  They walked to a separate pile of wood,
near where the altar would have been, and the father pointed.  "Here."

Connor knelt down, lifting a few boards.  Nothing.  He looked at Duncan
and Duncan confirmed what he was sure Connor was thinking.  No fire
would destroy such a piece.

Connor sighed and stood, then looked down with surprise as his foot
knocked against a hollow block of wood, or at least so it appeared.
"Hullo."

Connor snatched the block and lifted it, and saw that it was not a block
but a wooden box the size of his hand.  "Ever

seen this before, Father?"

"No."

"Hmmm." Connor rubbed the top of the box with his thumb and realized
that there was metal there, covered in soot, like the rest of it.  He
rubbed it away and read:

Gift of he who knows,

Breathes it Where no man goes,

Am I at home:

Their loss, my boon.

Theirfear, my embrace.

In the heart of the flame, The element offire.

Father Dumphries said, "I don't understand."

The Elder Highlander raised an eyebrow and held the box before him and
moved his thumbs to the lid.  Duncan and the father leaned in to have a
look, and both were silent, not even breathing when he opened it.

When the box lid swung open, both drew back in surprise.

There, in a bed of red velvet, slithering to and fro, and then stopping
to look up at them, was a salamander.

"Khordas," said Connor.

Three months later

"This is as far as we can go with our mounts," said Connor, grimly. From
town to town along the coast they had searched.  Connor had said he
could go it alone, as Duncan's training with him had more or less run
its course, but Duncan had stayed on for the extra months.  What else
was there?

Along the way Connor and Duncan met many mortals, life and limb ravaged
by the passing Salamander and his whitehaired wife, a burnt house here,
a ship in the harbor there.

Khordas was acting carefully, Connor said.  "His fires are small; he
loots and burns.  That's to keep satiated.  Remember what he said to me?
The big fires, he saves for Nerissa's birthday."

In Plockton, south along the coast from Applecross, an innkeeper had
seen the two, but the next two towns delivered no leads, and Connor
surmised they had either taken to water or gone deep inland-and the
former seemed more likely, as Khordas liked water so much.  A tutor in
Gleneig, on the

banks of the Sound of Sleat, had seen them, and had lost a student and a
year's tuition to the Salamander's fire there.

"Here's the flash point," said Connor.  "I don't know what he uses, but
he douses the place in a cloud of incendiary matter."

"Gunpowder?"

"Maybe.  If the conditions are right, it could be anything.

Sawdust.  Soap, even.  And then a fuse and something to ignite and
flash, then .  .  ." Connor shrugged, and he turned something over with
his foot that looked like a human finger.

"Sometimes I think he knows we're looking for him," said Connor,
standing in what had been a meeting louse.  "Sometimes I think he likes
it."

"This doesn't sound like the way the Game is played?"

asked Duncan.  "Pick an Immortal and hunt him?"

"No," said Connor.  "No, this is special."

And then something clicked when Duncan and Connor were in the town of
Shonah, having a meal that barely fed them.  Connor had not drawn funds
for some time, and their bellies were beginning to show it.  He was
sitting at their table and studying the salamander box when a thought

seemed to strike him.  "Duncan?"

"Hmm?"

"Where does the salamander like to be?" asked Connor, in a way that he
might ask when the hunting season began.

"Khordas, or the lizard?"

"Amphibian.  But think of both at once."

Duncan called for another loaf of bread and hoped he had the coin to pay
for it.  "Fire and water?"

"Right.  Places men fear."

Duncan nodded.  "Or where they prefer not to exist."

"Right," mused Connor.  He shook his head.  "We've been

looking in the wrong place.  We won't catch him like this."

"What do you mean?"

"The trail's gone cold.  He could be hitting the other side of Scotland
now.  But he may not even be sticking to the coasts."

"A Ioch, then?"

"Perhaps." Connor reached into the pouch on the bench beside him and
retrieved a map, and unfurled it over his

empty plate.  He swept his hand along the country.  "But more than that,
if you think of this whole land, what is the least passable terrain
around?"

Duncan stared at Connor.  "You have me there."

"All the elements, water and earth and impassability."

Impassable terrain, thought Duncan.  Then, "Oh."

"Oh.  Exactly.  We're running along the wheel when we should be sliding
down the spoke." Connor ran his finger around the country to illustrate,
then brought it down in the direction of the center.  His fingertip came
down to a name, illustrated by a rendering of mud and trees, the home of
a thousand murky creatures.  "Rannoch Moor," said Connor.

"And if I'm wrong you can tutor me."

There would be no negotiating Rannoch Moor on horseback.  It could be
done, but one had to know the territory.  The moor swept over twenty
miles of bog.  Mud and muck and low trees made it nearly impassable with
horses, and so Connor and Duncan dismounted at the southwestern shore of
Loch Rannoch and proceeded on foot.

It was hard going, the home of a salamander if anything at all.  With
every step Duncan felt his boot slide into the muck, a dull sucking
sound gasping out he retrieved it and stepped again, a rotten-root
stench belching from the ground as he did so.  Connor suffered the same
but set the pace, and they moved quickly toward the center.  After two
hours they must have gone nine miles, an easy clip on dry land,
exhausting in this drudge.

Connor stopped in a clearing and looked around, and Duncan took the
opportunity to lean against a tree.  A bit of moss swiped against his
shoulder and he swatted it away.  The sun was going down.

"Here," said Connor, as he knelt to the ground.  "Footprints.  Old
ones."

"Those could be anybody's."

Connor smiled.  "Yes they could.  But I feel good about it just the
same."

"Congratulations."

"So what are we looking for?" asked Connor, in the way

that he insisted on asking any question to which he already had an
answer prepared.

"I was hoping you'd tell me," said Duncan, who was getting irritated.
"Connor, it's getting late......

"We're looking for a camp, of course.  The sun is going down.  And if
there is not one already, there will be a fire soon."

An hour later, Connor shimmied to the top of a tree and breathed deeply.
After a moment he exhaled and said, "Aye.

He's burning something.  The slightest tinge of smoke in the air."
Connor dropped down into the mud and indicated southeast, in the
direction of the wind.  "That way."

The moonlight filtered through the trees to give the moor an eerie glow,
and Duncan followed Connor, who now seemed like a rodent hunting a
snack, hunched low to the ground and snarling.  After half an hour the
ground sloped downwards a bit, and Connor stopped.  "No presence yet,
Duncan, but I think we're close."

Duncan nodded.  As soon as they could sense Khordas, Khordas would be
able to sense them.  It was the Game's way of keeping things fair.

Over the slope and through a line of trees, and then Connor pointed at
something.  "Look."

"What?"

"In that clearing."

"What?  The mound?" Up ahead was a mound of earth, like a burial mound
but larger.  How large, he could not tell in the light.

"Aye.  There's smoke coming out of it," said Connor.  It was true.  What
they were seeing was not a mound but a large hut, with a billow of smoke
that came from what amounted to a chimney hole.  As the two crept closer
Duncan saw that the mound was larger than he had thought: the mud walls
were at least twelve feet high, like an old broch that someone might use
as a hunting station.  They were strengthened on the outside by a layer
of dried moss, and now bits of brown moss could be seen lifting slightly
in the breeze.

"How big?" Connor whispered.

"I'd say a good forty feet in diameter.  This took work," Duncan
answered.

And then, as they crept closer to the mud house, the presence hit them.

"This feels ...  different."

"That's because there's two of them," whispered Connor.

Slowly they drew their swords and advanced.

"Easy," said Connor.  "Easy."

Duncan nodded and breathed and several things happened at once.  He was
watching Connor and the mud broch when both of them stepped an inch too
far.  Suddenly Duncan's feet were plunging through the surface, and the
mud became thin and watery, and he saw Connor drop to his chest in mud
as Duncan did the same.

Duncan reached out to grab for some sort of edge and then cursed
himself, for somehow he was no longer holding his sword.  The claymore
must be at his feet, sunk into the bog.  Duncan heard a noise overhead,
and he looked up.  At the top of a tree on a constructed platform stood
a nimble figure with a shock of white hair.  The creature was laughing.
Nerissa.

Duncan's feet were just barely touching the bottom of the watery moat
and he was scrambling for some sort of handhold at the edge when he saw
something flare in Nerissa's hands.  A brilliant light extended and
burnt before her.  As she drew it back he could tell by the movement of
his arms that it was an arrow with a phosphorous tip.

Through the night, leaving a streak of brilliant orange light, came the
arrowhead, and it found its mark in Duncan's side.  He gasped once,
falling back in the muddy water.  The surface bubbled and belched when
it met the burning shaft.

Duncan's flesh was scaring, boiling, and he gritted his teeth in rage
and pain.

Connor had found the inside lip of the moat and was using a dagger to
pull himself out.  He rolled over onto the mud next to the wall of the
broch.  Duncan began to move toward Connor, and Connor was extending a
hand to help him out, when something moved.  Next to Connor's hand, at
the edge of the moat, was a lump, a block of mud near his face.  Duncan
heard air sucking into someone's mouth as the lump opened its eyes.  The
head that was just barely above water laughed, and said, "Out of your
element, MacLeods."

Connor was still pulling Duncan toward the lip when something kicked
Duncan in the stomach, jarring the wound in his side.  Duncan growled to
realize that the damn thing was still burning.

"I've got this one, Nerissa," said Khordas, as the Salamander rose from
the water and Duncan saw he was holding a short sword, and suddenly the
sword was at his throat and Khordas' other hand went under the water.
"Teach Connor MacLeod a lesson," Khordas shouted up.  And then Duncan
felt Khordas reach for his wound and grab hold of the arrow.

"Amazing, isn't it, young MacLeod, what a wonderful gift Immortality is.
The wound you receive repairs itself shortly, gone.  But what a
delightful pain if you have something lodged in your gut while the wound
rebuilds around the foreign body.  You can feel it burn, over and over,
and the pain never stops because you just keep rebuilding.  Don't you?"

Khordas jerked the arrow a bit.  "Don't you!" Now Khordas leaned in,
still pulling at Duncan's wound, and whispered in his ear.  "Fool.
Follow me?  You are just an Immortal, MacLeod.  Just a long-lived
mortal."

"As ...  are ...  you."

"No.  I am a god.  And you have angered me, little MacLeod."

Duncan was no longer listening.  He was watching Connor, who had taught
him, Feel no pain, take it in and expel it, breathe it out.  But the
pain was rebuilding, over and over again, and now he looked at Connor
and saw an arrow in flight towards the teacher's chest.  Duncan's eyes
were playing tricks, though, he was losing consciousness, he supposed,
going into shock, and now he felt the handle of his sword at his toe,
down in the muddy moat.  He slipped the toe of his boot into, through,
the rounded pommel.  Gloat, Khordas.  Go on and give me time....

Nearby, Connor saw Nerissa's next arrow fly and he moved aside as the
flaming tip scraped past him and struck the side of the broch.  The wall
of brown moss went up in flame, and suddenly the moor was lit brighter
than day.  Connor was reaching into his pocket and drawing a dagger, and
he threw it, and Duncan heard a woman shriek, then the thump of a body
hitting the mud.

So did Khordas.  "Nerissa!"

Duncan was bringing up his claymore, his foot moving closer and closer
to his stretching fingers.  He felt the metal brush his fingers and the
Highlander took the sword by the handle, and as Khordas shouted Duncan
kicked the Immortal back.  Khordas was still holding fast to the arrow
that stuck in Duncan's side and as the red god moved backwards with the
kick the arrowhead tore out of Duncan's body.  The Highlander gritted
his teeth and backed to the outer lip of the moat, drew his own dagger,
reached up and scrambled out.

Duncan lay on the ground for a second, feeling the mud in his wound
being pushed out, and then he saw Nerissa standing over him.

Nerissa drew a rapier and was bringing it down at Duncan's neck but he
rolled back against the tree from which she had fallen.  Duncan found
his feet and crouched, and saw the woman advancing.  Connor's dagger was
still sticking out of her shoulder, and this she jerked out and tossed
aside as she came forward.  "Lovely young man.  Why have you been
hunting us?" she asked.

"Because they wish to kill us," came the voice of Khordas, and Duncan
looked over and saw Connor and Khordas against a wall of orange flame.

"It is not our place to kill the mortals," said Connor.

"Oh?  And how would you know?"

"There are Rules."

"Not about that, Connor.  You know better than that.  Duncan, is that
what your mentor has taught you?  Nonsense!  We kill mortals because
they get in our way and because it is easy.  They don't understand a
thing.  I've heard worse excuses."

Now Duncan saw Nerissa draw back her blade.  "I've been waiting for
this," he said.

"Such a beautiful Immortal," she said.  "If things had been different,"
and now she lunged, "we Could have been friends."

Duncan moved aside and brought his claymore down against the rapier,
then back up.  She met his blade again.

Over his shoulder, he saw Connor and Khordas.  Sparks flew, and Khordas'
face was covered in blood.

Nerissa was the first female Immortal Duncan had ever seen, he told
himself again, and now he was supposed to kill her.  That was what
Connor had trained him to do.  (When they come, kill them.  We're not
here to make friends.) (But you're my friend.) (Count yourself lucky.)

Nerissa came at him again and Duncan knocked her blade aside, dropped
and kicked her, and his boot made a sharp sound against Nerissa's
breastbone and she fell back.  Then Duncan thought of Connor, of the
wolf in the woods, and pounced, moving in, overtaking her.  Nerissa
raised her sword but he was too close and he slammed his shoulder into
her face and saw blood fly from her nose and stain her white hair.

And then Duncan stopped, for just a moment.  What in Hell am I doing? He
heard Connor snarling, Khordas and the teacher going at one another,
dancing as if it were what they were made for, and here Duncan was
trying to kill a woman with white hair and a lovely smile with whom he
had spent a fine day drinking.

Before she destroyed Carmichael, Connor'sfriend.  Before she shot me
with a burning arrow.  Duncan blinked as the rapier sliced through his
tunic and into the flesh of his stomach.  Back to Tealily.  What are you
doing?  You're not paying attention!  Duncan stepped back, feeling the
blood flow over his abdomen, and he tried to ignore this new pain as he
lunged at Nerissa with the claymore, hacking at her.

You're right handed, and your left side is weak, as if sometimes you
don't see it.  If I go there I have a tiny point in time when you lose
me.  Connor's advice, given on some calm afternoon.  And if you attack a
strong box, you have to keep hitting the corners.  Find the weak corner.
Hit it again.

And yet again.

In to the left, hack, Nerissa turned and blocked and Duncan drew back.
Moving in again, head-butt, in to the left, hack, and now she was a
proper partner, back again, in to the left, hack, this time drawing
blood from the left shoulder, don't slow down, back.  Now Duncan kicked
high and saw his boot connect with her face and saw the head snap back,
and he brought his claymore hard at her wrist.  Nerissa was

better controlled than to lose the rapier just then, and Duncan moved
in, and when she turned to meet him coming for her left side he drew
back and brought his sword down and up and back from her right side, and
he saw reflected in her eyes the light from the flaming wall as the
claymore sliced through her neck and her head came ripping from her
shoulders.

And then Duncan breathed.

Here it comes.

Nerissa's body crumpled to the mud and Duncan felt a wind pick up.  This
had happened before.  But it never came easily.

Thoughts racing through his mind, Immortal heart pounding and guiding,
his blood chanting a litany.  .  .

Now, the pain comes, now, crash to the earth as the wind rises, feel the
shock of your knees against the earth ...

This is your destiny, this is our gift...

Now!  Feel it, raise your sword above your head and catch it, feel the
crackle in the air, the sparks that fly as the air heats and explodes
around you....

The gift must be hidden, but do not be ashamed, you are Immortal.

It is Nerissa who lies before you, remember her name, it is she who has
passed his part of the gift to you, take it!

Somewhere in the world and not ten feet away Khordas was turning,
Khordas was shrieking in horror, and Connor was sending him into the
wall of flame.  Pockets of gunpowder and fuses caught and ignited and an
Immortal was screaming, raging, burning, and Duncan was lost in the
moment.

Feel the pain and pleasure, do not fight, for this is what you are....

Feel your mouth open and cry out in pain, feel the dust in the wind
swirl around you and rub your skin raw, feel the lightning....

The lightning will speak to you as it burns through you, remember the
name of the presence you have consumed, for she is part of you now, and
you will go on with her...

Feel your shirt catch fire and smoke, to be snuffed by the ravaging
wind, feel the blood pound, this isothe gift!

Arcs of lightning fit through Duncan's hands, fusing his fingers to the
hilt of his sword.  A long, blue are danced from the pommel of his
claymore and into his eyes, electricity pushing through, and his vision
was filled with sights Immortal.  He saw the lightning, attaching him to
the dead woman, attaching the dead woman to the mud in which she lay,
saw the mud in the ground itself heat and expand, and an outward sheet
of hardened mud exploded from the surface around him on either side,
shards of hot clay slicing past him and into him.  Duncan leaned back
his head and felt the saliva in his mouth spark with lightning and
screamed.

This is the gift, receive it!

This ...

For in the end, Duncan MacLeod,

...  is..  .

there can be only one!

...  the Quickening!

Silence.  Duncan fell backwards and lay still on the hot ground, not
wanting to move.  And he looked sideways, and saw Nerissa's head,
floating in the water, staring open-eyed at him.  On the other side of
the tiny moat stood Connor with his katana before him, and something
that did not look like Khordas was shrieking, for he was on fire.  The
whole of the man was aflame, flesh cracking and splitting, and Khordas
dropped his sword and looked at Nerissa and called out her name, diving
for her.

The flaming man hit the mud and the whole moat erupted in steam, and
Duncan brought himself up to his elbows and stared.  Khordas, moving
slowly in the mud, roaring in pain, holding the dead creature to him.
Steam bubbling as the mud around Khordas belched and hissed, hardening
like a husk.

Khordas was still moving as he turned over, mourning walls pouring from
his encased mouth, and sank.

The broch that the Salamander built of mud and moss burned for several
minutes before there was nothing left to burn on the walls and the mound
began to smolder.  Connor motioned to Duncan to follow him and they
crept around the mud house until they found its entrance, large enough
to

duck through without difficulty.  Inside, a small fire burned, and lit
the clay walls.  Duncan steadied himself against the doorway for a
moment, still woozy from the Quickening.

God, god, what a sensation.  You could get drunk on it.  It could warp
you, send you after any head you could find, just to get another.  Most
of the evil ones were victims of that compulsion, and some suggested
this was simply all in the Game.  Duncan straightened himself up and
pretended there was no chance of that happening to him.

As Duncan entered the broch he was struck immediately by the stench.
"God, what is that?"

"Brimstone," said Connor.  The room inside was larger than Duncan had
expected, and deeper, for he stepped down at least a foot when he went
in.  In one corner was a trench of liquid like the moat outside, a bath
of sorts.  And when he tonied his head Duncan was struck by the sparkle
of jewels that littered the room, embedded in the walls and stacked
throughout.  "What an odd creature."

"Not a creature," said Connor.  "An Immortal, like you and l." The
teacher was standing at what appeared to be a small shrine.  A number of
small figurines, fashioned from earth and straw, stood on a shelf of
earth.  "Look at this."

Connor pointed at one.  "I'd call this a priest of sorts.  Note the
raised arms, the scratchings before him, a rudimentary sculpture of a
fire."

"Not a very good sculptor," said Duncan, regarding the stick-like
figures.

"A face is not important for this man.  He is his office."

Connor tilted his head.  "Look at those." Duncan's eyes traveled along
the shelf to see other figures, and each one had more defined clothing,
the folds in the robes more real, the bits of straw more like highlights
than a necessary bond.

"what was Khordas?"

There was a small puddle before one of the priests, a man corning out of
the puddle, sculpted flames upon him.  Connor whispered, as if he were
in a holy place.  "Scotland is a very old country.  The stock you and I
come from is an wnalgam of a great many peoples.  Some of the old
cultures, the Picts, the old Scots, changed very much even before the
Romans came in from the south, or the Vikings from the north.  We

do not know enough," he said.  "Fire and water are powerful tools."

"Like tools of gods."

"Like gods themselves," said Connor.  "Anything can be a god.  I don't
want to make any haphazard guesses, but Khordas may have played a part
in the service of his religion.  Perhaps he was chosen by the priests to
represent the god of fire and water, of destruction.  Look at the figure
of the man coming from the water."

Duncan looked closely.  God, what work.  "He has jewels in his eyes."

"Right.  Probably given in offering.  Maybe it wasn't jewels, anything
valuable would have sufficed, I imagine.

There's an image of a girl, there, too.  Probably an offering also, a
fair girl given as a slave.  Our Kbordas was a very important man."

Duncan's eyes refocused on the wall behind the figurines.

There was an inlaid sculpture in the wall, bits of straw everywhere to
highlight the muscles of a creature that stretched across the length of
the shelf.  "The salamander."

"Yes.  A very powerful image.  They say the creature embraces fire, and
is rarely seen."

"Goes where no man goes."

"Right."

Duncan looked around and found an earthen chair, and sat upon it.  He
rubbed his chin.  The pain in his side was nearly gone, now.  "What
happens when your culture is gone?"

"Good question," said Connor.  "A strong Immortal can live a very long
time.  My teacher was Egyptian.  But by the time I met him, he was Juan
Sanchez Villa Lobos Ramirez, Chief Metallurgist to King Carlos the Fifth
of Spain." Connor shook his head, remembering.  "Dressed like a
Spaniard, the peacock.  What was Egyptian of him?  Did this Immortal
carry anything of the Great Pyramids under his Spanish bonnet?  Hard to
say.  Humans grow old and die, and often by the time they are old the
world has changed so much that even if they were not old they could not
go on living.  But we have to go on.

"You're Khordas," Connor continued.  "And your gods are

no longer gods, all your disciples are dead.  All your people have
changed.  Do you?"

"I think so," said Duncan.  "After all, I became a pirate and
swordsman." Duncan saw a face staring at him from the shelf and took it
down.  It was a mask, painted deep blue.

"But did you change?" Connor held out his amns, studying the vat of mud
where Khordas probably slept.  "I don't think so.  I think you adapted.
I think you kept serving your gods, being the image of your god."

Duncan sighed, turning the mask over.  There was a funnel on the inside
for projecting the voice of the wearer.  Khordas, Duncan noted in
retrospect, had a spectacular voice.  Not that it mattered.  "Good
riddance, then," he said.  "It must be hard for the very old ones."

"Don't be over-confident.  You don't know how much your world is likely
to change."

[)uncan thought of killing Nerissa and could not help feeling guilty.
"You mean Khordas may simply be out of time?"

('ennor's eyes grew narrow.  "Careful.  All in the Game, Duncan.  You
have to let go of your time, too.  And more."

Duncan was thinking of his father, forcing him away.  You are not who I
thought you were.  You are not even who you thought you were.  You are
nothing, a mistake, a demon, you hate no place.  But Duncan still
considered himself a Scot.

He had to be.  He was here, wasn't he?  Duncan put the deepblue mask
back on the shelf, and it continued to mock him.

Duncan had a sudden thought, an ugly one, that burned into him and hurt
so much that he hated to ask it.  "Connor," he said slowly, "what if
there were no Game?"

"Now I don't understand."

"What if," Duncan shrugged, as if this were just a playful theological
discussion, and it didn't mean everything in the world, "what if the
Game came later?"

Connor was staring.  "Go on."

"What do we know about this life?  What if it's all a hoax?

Maybe Khordas is right and there is no Game, no Prize, no Gathering."

"A cruel hoax?  S. "In the end, there can be only one' is just some sort
of joke to get us to chop one another's heads off?  And who is playing
this joke?"

"You tell me, Connor," demanded Duncan.  He was entertaining the idea,
now, embracing it, and he found he was getting angry.  "Because I want
to know the truth.  Where do I come from?  If it's not real, Connor,
then what are we?"

Connor shrugged.  "That line of thought will get you nowhere." Connor
leaned forward.  He paused and tried a different route.  "Look, if you
want proof, is the Quickening not proof?  The fact that we sense one
another before we're in sight?"

Duncan shook his head.  "Only in our nature as Irmuortals, and you know
that.  The rest is faith.  How do you know the Game is for real?"

"Ran-tirez told me so," his eyes deadly serious, "as I told you.
Tradition is all we have.  It's almost all we are."

"And what if tradition is wrong?"

The Elder Highlander took a deep breath.  "Then you would be right.  It
would be a cruel hoax.  No," Connor said.

"I cannot give you the proof you seek."

"Fantastic," said Duncan.  "Just incredible.  All this life and death,
an end that you've taught me to strive for, but that I might not even
live to see.  I could live for another thousand years and then die and
never know what happened at the Gathering.  But doesn't it bother you,
Connor, that there might not even be a Gathering?  Or worse, that the
last few will get together, the last man will win, and nothing happens?
No Prize, no grand Quickening, no eternal knowledge, none of that. Over.
Finis.  No more Game.  And one lone Immortal, wondering what in Hell he
wasted his life for."

"Let me give you this to chew on," countered Connor.  "If there's even a
chance that the tradition is correct, wouldn't you rather make sure you
live up to it?" He shook his head.

"I'm sorry, Duncan, but I must follow the Game." Now he eyed his student
carefully.  "And I hope you'll do the same.

But if you become some doubting Thomas, I don't want to hear about it."

Duncan recognized this as a vague threat, but some urge he could not
define made him speak on, embracing profanity.

"I'm not saying, in fact, that I think there's no Prize.  But it
frustrates me that we run this course without ever knowing if it's the
true way."

"It is for mortals, Duncan, and not for us, to choose faiths and ponder
their existence.  Yours was chosen for you when you became an Immortal.
Go ahead, if you don't think it's real.  Go beg an evil one to behead
you.  Too bad Khordas is down; you and he seem to have a lot in common."

"That's unfair," said Duncan.  "Khordas was evil.  He was killing
people."

"All very dramatic," said Connor, "but hardly different.

And at least he was true to himself, I'll give him that."

Duncan was staring at the mask.  "So few answers, Connor.  I don't know
how much I can adapt.  I don't know how much I can let go of"

"Then in the end, you will be like Khordas," said Connor.

Then, as if admitting this had been harsh, the Elder Highlander said,
"perhaps we all will."

Outside, Duncan crouched by the moat, staring at the mud into which the
Salamander had disappeared.  The curls of smoke from the smoldering
broch wall still filled the air and flooded his nostrils.

"He should be weak," said Connor as he came out of the hut.  "I think I
could kill him if we dig him up."

Duncan dipped a finger into the mud.  It barely made an impression, so
dry had the mud become with the fire as Khordas dove in.  His mind
stretched for a moment before he said, "I'm afraid not."

"What?"

Duncan blinked.  How...  "He's gone."

Connor knelt by the moat himself, eyes meeting Duncan's.

He closed his eyes and opened them, and Duncan knew his teacher had
reached the same conclusion.  There was no presence.

"What, is he dead?"

"No," Connor shook his head.  "No." He furiously wiped his hands off on
his legs as he stood.  "We just lost him."

Far below, as far from the moat as his tunnel and his strength could
take him, the Salamander clutched his Nerissa to his breast and moaned.
He felt the bubbles of mud harden

against his burning flesh, and he fought to move again.  He called out
to his limbs and received no response.  In rage and pain he held
Nerissa, until in rage and pain he slept.  And waited.

1853

Skimming along the stream, now, down through the centuries, focusing on
these details and not those.  An Immortal's life can be told in a
thousand ways; which is right?  Skimming along the stream, and no
plurm-neting yet ...

An Immortal feels pain, but his wounds heal quickly, and so Immortals
suffer less physical pain than their former kinsmen.  Duncan MacLeod was
an Immortal, and at two hundred and sixty-one years of age what he had
found was this: the physical pain passes, but the aches build up, layer
upon layer, and every year was a new layer of spiritual aches.  And two
hundred and sixty-one years of aches will exhaust one, grind him down,
flatten him.  The Immortal walks around mocking himself-young of body,
muscles springy and taut.

And the aches laugh at the muscles and the young body and say, remember
thou art old.  Remember thy aches.  Indeed,

sometimes one wished one could die.  Which, of course, was next to
impossible.

In December of 1853, Duncan MacLeod made his second voyage to America.
When Connor had announced, all that time ago, that Duncan was free to
pursue his training elsewhere, the Highlander had had little idea that
the world was so large.  He had wandered, here learning to fight this
way, there learning that.  He learned to read in Italy, and had finally
mastered English in a monastery in Europe, starting with "Macbeth," the
Scottish tale.  He had covered Europe and then visited the Orient, with
all its wonders, and had met many more Immortals than Connor had ever
given him cause to believe there could exist.  From one master he
obtained the sword he would use for centuries to come, the dragon-head
katana, a gift from a man who died for him, when Duncan could die for no
one.  He saw many mortals die, so many, in fact, that he flirted with
philosophy, with pacifism, with war.

Pains came and went with fresh and quick-healing wounds, and the aches
remained.

And in 1853, when he discreetly booked passage on board a ship for
America, it was a different Duncan MacLeod that met the captain than the
Duncan the captain had sent away.

As the claymore had gone from his side, replaced by the katana, so had
much of the wide-eyed youthfulness left him, replaced by an aspect of
weariness.  And Duncan was not surprised to see the change reflected
ten-fold in his former master.  The ship was the HMS Rosemary.  Her
captain was Connor MacLeod.

"She'll do," Duncan told Amber, his new student.  He had found her only
recently, and was now struggling with what to do with an undertrained
Immortal.

Amber Lynn stared at him.  "What kind of ship is she?"

"Gunrunner," said MacLeod, "but the captain is a friend of mine."

Connor smiled as he looked down the plank at his former pupil and his
pupil's pupil.  Once they were off, they settled into Connor's quarters
and Connor drilled Duncan for information.

"Well," said Connor, "we have yet to be introduced."

Connor took the lady's hand and raised it to kiss, but Amber pulled it
away.  The young Immortal fidgeted, pushing back her yellow hair, and
looked at Duncan.

"It's all right," said Duncan.  "You can trust him.  He's a friend.  My
oldest friend, in fact.  This is Connor MacLeod."

"Of the Clan MacLeod, aye." Connor glanced at Duncan.

"At least so far." Duncan was happy to hear that Connor was still Connor
by name.  He had received letters from the teacher, advising Duncan that
it might be time for a change.

When would Connor cease to exist, replaced by some stranger that looked
just like him?  Connor appraised Amber and asked, "How long an
Immortal?"

"Two months," said Duncan.

"And you've gone in for taking on pupils, now?" Connor eyed Duncan
carefully, and the Highlander was not sure how his mentor meant his
statement.  But then, he never really could tell what Connor fully meant
by anything.

"Until I can find a better teacher for her," Duncan said.

"But yes, for that matter, I have."

Connor offered Amber a seat.  "You didn't tell me you wouldn't be alone.
And a girl no less, oh, the mates will love that."

"Look, Connor, if it's too much trouble to provide us with passage .  .
."

"Don't be ridiculous, lad."

"I'll hide," said Amber.  "I'm getting good at it."

Duncan nodded.  "Amber died ...  ah ..  ."

Amber tilted her head.  "I was drowned for being a witch."

Connor nodded.  "Are you a witch?"

"I'm a midwife and an herbalist.  The witchfinders wouldn't know a witch
if they saw one."

Connor said to Duncan, "She's one of us, all right."

"Yes, milord."

"Polite, too.  It is hard for a female to receive training, I must tell
you," Connor said.

"She knows," said Duncan.

"She can speak for herself, Duncan."

"That I can," said Amber.  "I trust Duncan.  Twice I have been attacked
by these men, Immortals as I am told I am, and only by wit have I gotten
away.  Duncan offered to teach

me." Amber looked now at Duncan, and Duncan groaned inwardly.  He caught
Connor's glance and could tell his old mentor was thinking the same
thing Duncan was-she was too beautiful for this to work.  It just
wouldn't do to take an attractive pupil.  You went too easy on them.

Connor shook his head so slightly it was barely noticeable and looked at
his desk.  Duncan cleared his throat.  "I have heard that Amanda is in
America.  She could do it."

Connor said, as he looked down at his desk, "What about Amanda?"

Duncan cleared his throat.  "I have heard that the lass is in America."

"Oh." Connor smirked.  "Of course.  An excellent teacher.

Watch your back," he said, as if he knew more about the ancient
Immortal-and about Duncan-than he preferred to say.  How Connor managed
to gather so much information would remain a mystery for a good, long
time.

Duncan allowed Connor his jibes against the Immortal thief.  "Then we're
all right?"

Connor laughed.  "My god, man, the ship's set sail, what do you expect,
that I'll feed you to the sharks?" And now he looked at Amber with a
charming, for Connor, wink.  "Settle in, while I find you a quiet spot.
And Amber, I want you to stay in that spot.  This is a long voyage.
We'll be going to Asia before we head back to America, and I don't want
the men getting so much as a whiff of you."

Duncan smiled.  "Not until you learn to use a sword."

"As to that," Connor put a finger to his lips, "I say we start her
training right away.  We'll have to practice in the hold.

Not much room, but close quarters is good for skill.  That's probably
where you'll sleep, as well." Then he looked again at Duncan.  "As for
you, it's bunking with the mates.  You, I'm putting to work."

"That should be fine."

"-Me you joking?  It will be murder.  But you're getting fat, so the
work will be good for you."

It was idyllic, in fact, and for three months aboard Connor's Rosemary,
Duncan got a taste of what seemed to drive

Connor, again and again, to the sea.  Even Connor wouldn't stay on water
forever, but he retreated there often.

"History is almost unknown out here," Connor said, a day after they left
China with a shipload of guns and explosives.

They were standing on the deck looking west at the sunset on the water.
"This water will never change.  It is fierce, it is kind, it is life."

Duncan looked down and watched the waves against the hull.  "Are you in
hiding, Connor?"

"In hiding?" The teacher eyed him carefully.  "Been hard, has it?  Why,
are you thinking of going under?"

By going under, Connor meant leaving the Game.  Planting yourself on
holy ground and staying there.  Like an evergreen monk.  Duncan
scratched his chin.  He needed a shave.  "I don't know.  I've been
fighting a long time."

"Aye," said Connor.  "So have we all.  Except your friend Amber Lynn.
She has only begun to fight-although she shows promise."

"Your point being?"

""There is a point to it all, Duncan.  Mark my words.  You are a part of
the Game and you cannot turn your back.  You cannot escape it, even if
you try."

"Even for a while?" Duncan saw a dolphin break the surface and jump,
twisting its smooth body and slipping back into the water with barely a
splash.  It was peaceful out here.

It was true.  He was completely and utterly tired of fighting.

"Oh," said Connor, who was watching Duncan's eyes, "for a while, yes.
But you will be followed.  What you must not forget, Duncan, is that
even if you take no interest in the Prize, there are others who lust
after it passionately."

"Evil Immortals?"

"Some, yes.  And it is those whom you are here to counterbalance.  You
must play the Game, Duncan.  If I'm not around at the end, perhaps it
will be you, or Grace Clandel, or Darius, or even your friend Amber. But
if we lose faith .  .  ."

Connor trailed off, for he did not need to run down the list of the
other possibilities.  "Guard the Prize, Duncan, even if you are not the
final one.  Protect it, or at the time of the Gathering, all will be
lost.  Can you imagine what would happen if the Kurgan is the last?"

A cold current ran down Duncan's spine.  He still wanted out, but Connor
was right.  Then he said, "You still haven't answered my question,
Connor."

"Which one?"

"Are you in hiding?"

"No," said Connor.  "I'm just enjoying a little peace.  I'll be ashore
again, I think, in time.  And it's not as if we can't be reached out
here, you know.  This is the sea, God bless her," chuckled the Elder
Highlander, as he spread out his arms.

"It's not Holy Ground, but it's close.  Damned close."

Connor was right about something else: they could be reached.

One night, after a day of red sky, a storm arose, as Duncan slept in his
bunk.  He awoke to the sound of shouting men and rain slanmng against
the deck.  And when he rose, he felt the presence of two I=ortals who
had not been there before.

Duncan rubbed his eyes and pulled his coat around him as he emerged on
deck, and his face was chilled by a right smart wind that came whipping
along the length of the ship.

"Heave to!" Duncan heard Connor cry, "Heave to!" The first mate steered
furiously, trying to face the vessel into the wind.  Connor was busy
barking orders at the sailors when he saw Duncan and ran to him.  The
deck was slick, now.  It had started to rain.

Duncan looked around.  "Where did this come from?"

"Just old Davy," said Connor, raising his voice to beat the whid.  "But
we have visitors."

"How do you know?"

"A small boat with two hmortals on it."

"Who are they?"

Connor's face grew deadly grim.  '-They're hiding, Duncan.  I think they
were waiting for the confusion of the storm."

Duncan nodded.  "I have to check on Amber."

Duncan ran to the hatch and opened it and dropped down into the hold.
Outside the cave of wood, the waves churned, and he knew the storm was
going to get worse before it got better.  "Amber?"

No answer.  Duncan stepped past the mortars and rockets and found
Amber's pallet, which was in disarray.  She and her rapier were gone.

"Connor!  Amber, she's.  .  ." Duncan said as he emerged from the hold
and slammed the hatch behind him.  He ran towards Connor, who had taken
the wheel and sent the first mate off.  Connor was looking out to sea,
trying to gauge the winds, which were pitching the ship violently, and
now the teacher looked at Connor and opened his mouth to speak.

Just then a crack of lightning filled the sky, and the air was sli(,ed
by a bloodcurdling scream.  Duncan looked in the direction of the cry
and saw a sight he would never forget.

The wind was powerful and thick with rain, but Duncan could make out a
man, standing at the mainmast, a dead sailor at his feet.  The figure
was tall and gaunt, and Duncan could not see the man's face, covered as
it was by a hood that draped over a foul weather coat.  The stranger had
his arms raised above him, revealing on his hands an outsize pair of
gloves.  In one hand he held a staff at least three times his own
height, and this appeared to be made of metal.  Its pointed end had been
jabbed into the deck, through the breast of the sailor.

Duncan shouted over the storm to Connor, who had taken the wheel.
"Connor-that's a metal staff-he's trying to attract lightning."

And then, when the stranger spoke, Duncan knew who it was.

"I ...  am the God ...  of fire!" the stranger cried, calling out to the
rumbling, brewing sky.  "I ...  am the God ...  of water!  I command
these elements, for they are mine!"

Christ, no, not you, how in hell....  A crashing wave sent the ship
reeling and Duncan found himself thrust sideways, and he grabbed a
lifeline and held on.  "Connor, it's.  .  ."

"I know," cried Connor, "Duncan!  The crow's nest!"

Duncan's eyes flew up the main mast to the crow's nest and as lightning
linked its way across the sky he saw two women there, and by the strong
presence, he knew they were both Immortal.  "Amber!" shouted Duncan, but
the wind would not carry his voice.  He saw the glint of steel.  Who the
other woman was, Duncan had no idea.  But they were fighting. Lightning
filled the sky and Duncan saw the mane of red hair, just like that of
the Salamander.

Duncan shouted out to Amber again and began to run for the mainmast, but
now he saw Connor wrench one hand free from the wheel of the Rosemary
and thrash at him, furiously.

"No!"

"But.  .  ." Crashing waves.  The two women were pitched in a battle in
a space no wider than a tabletop.  "She's not ready!"

"No!" Connor snarled again, over the elements, "You may not interfere!
It is forbidden!"

Lightning crackled once again, and the two female figures were
silhouettes against the gray clouds, and Duncan heard Khordas cry, "The
God will be avenged, Highlander!  I own the elements, and will not be
denied my due!"

Duncan was running towards Khordas now, and he saw the Salamander's
face, raised back in laughter, lit up by the intermittent lightning.
"This ship is dead, MacLeod!  As dead as you!  As dead as your kinsman!
As dead as your dear, young friend!"

"This fight is between you and me, Khordas!  Call off your dog!" Duncan
was within twenty feet of Khordas, and he was beginning to draw his
katana from its scabbard, when he heard a sailor call, "MacLeod, look
sharp!" and something hit him hard in the face and sent him sprawling
across the deck.

Duncan reached his hand to his face and felt blood flowing freely where
a lifeline had snapped and lacerated it.  The line dangled from the mast
and Duncan grabbed it, dragged himself to his feet, careful not to slip
on the slick deck.  If he washed over in this, there was no telling if
Connor would be able to find him come morning.  And more, there was
Khordas.

"See, MacLeod!  The battle goes badly!  Say good-bye to your companion!"

Duncan looked up again at the crow's nest and saw the two women.  He
could not tell them apart, but one of the female shapes seemed to
stagger now.  Now a sword flashed and another one went flying into the
ocean.  Lightning struck again and Duncan saw Amber's yellow hair,
electric, and

though it was impossible he swore he could see her eyes.  Oh, Amber, oh,
my pupil ...

Slow motion, now, the wind howling, Khordas' laughter filling the air,
Connor snarling at the wheel, trying to keep his dear ship from
capsizing, and another flash of the sword, and Duncar) saw a shape rip
free from its base, a yellow and white shape, tumbling through the air,
and when it landed and rolled and rested against Duncan's boot, the
Highlander did not have to look to know its identity.  But he did.  The
eyes of Amber Lynn stared at him, imploring.  Dead.

Duncan felt the hard rain against his face mixing with tears in his eyes
and he roared, "No!" and as he threw back his head he saw the blue flame
circling the crow's nest and the red-haired woman and the lump of flesh
that had been the Immortal Amber.

Suddenly, all was calm, and the rain turned to mist, and Khordas was
chuckling.  "This ship, this life, like this abomination you call a
Game, is dead.  Just like your little Companion." The blue flame was
spinning now, like Saint Elmo's fire, and the carcass was lifting off
the deck of the crow's nest and into the air, and then, all at once, the
storm returned.

With a vengeance.

Lightning tore from the sky and through the levitating, spinning body of
Amber, and a massive bolt of white-hot light burst from her severed neck
and slammed into the redhaired Immortal, who fell against the rail and
screamed.

Lightning, blue and white, flying out in all directions, bursting the
wooden rails, and Khordas' consort fell out into the air and stopped,
floating on the winds, as lightning sliced through her and held her
aloft.

"Yes, my Companion," cried Khordas, "we receive our due!"

And Duncan saw Khordas pull back the hood and his hair whipped in the
torrent, and he laughed as the lightning that supported his Companion
wrenched free a cord of pure white flame, and the cord burst forth in a
violent are, connecting with the rod that Khordas held.  The lightning
danced along the metal rod, arcing up and down its length, and slammed
into the deck, bursting the chest of the impaled man, tearing into the
boards beneath him with a fiery roar.  Now Duncan

could make out a gaping hole in the deck, and he saw a flaming board
fall, into the hold, into the dark.

"Duncan!" Duncan tore his eyes away from the Quickening and saw Connor,
who had let go of the wheel.  Connor shouted to him, cupping his hand
before his mouth, "Duncan!  Go!  Go!  That hold is full of mortar and
powder, there is no time!"

The ship was a nightmare of fire and water, Khordas still holding to his
staff, and now Duncan saw the Companion beside Khordas, and all the deck
was aflame, the rain only fanning the inferno.

"Abandon ship," Connor called out, "All hands, abandon ship!"

Duncan ran for Khordas, now, screaming at the top of his lungs, katana
before him, and Khordas shouted out, "Another time, Highlander!  I have
caused you just a small portion of the pain you can expect from me!"

Khordas and the Companion turned and ran as Duncan heard a popping
sound, far below the deck.  The two Immortals threw themselves over the
side, Khordas' laughter still filling the air, defying the storm.

Duncan looked around him where he stood on the fiery, pitching deck and
he saw sailor after sailor running for the rails, and now Connor grabbed
him across the chest and pushed.  He and Connor tumbled, and Duncan's
back hit the rail and they went over the side, Connor still holding on
to him.  They plunged into the crashing waves and began to sink, and
Duncan was sure he could still hear the laughter of Khordas and the
silent screams of Amber Lynn as the cargo of the HMS Rosemary exploded.
Duncan saw Connor's face under the water, then lost the sight as the
shock wave hit him and the waves swallowed the Highlander and the
Rosemary whole.

When Duncan came to, he was alone, the hmortals having been thrown by
the storm in separate directions, like the children of Babel.

It was many pains, and many layers of aches, before he saw Connor again.

1897

Nantucket Sound

The years between the wreck of the Rosemary and Duncan's next meeting
with the Salamander were busy ones, indeed.  A lot can happen in forty
years.

Duncan travelled America in that time, and even more mortals died.
Tragedy became a timepiece.  Now and again he saw Connor, who drifted in
and out like the ghost he seemed on the verge of becoming.  More
intense, always.

Duncan felt the intensity, too, the burning drive to go on, because
there seemed no other option.

Connor was there, in fact, in 1872, when Duncan lit a funeral pyre for
Little Deer.

Duncan had joined the mortals who called themselves Sioux; tired of
revolution, he had loved their peaceful ways, their respect for the
order of the world.  He had adopted the

woman, Little Deer, and her son, and they had lived as a family.  He had
come home one day to find them butchered along with the whole village,
one and all, by blue-coated psychotics.

No, not psychotics, he corrected himself.  Just the Army.

And one mercenary scout in particular, the hmortal Kem.

Just like MacDuff in the Scottish play, the first English book he had
ever read, Duncan had been gone when needed most.

Front tofront.  At my arm's length set him.  And if he 'scape, Heaven
forgive him.  But that day had not come.

Ten years' isolation after that.  Meditation.  Burning.  Near three
hundred years of life for Duncan MacLeod had shown not a jot of hope in
sight of the mortals.  At the same time that they created their lovely
articles of technology, the camera here, the steam process there, they
continued destroying one another.

He travelled, and watched, always separate, but not always alone, and
sometimes, as now, in love.  Despite everything.

Gabriela pointed the child out to Duncan as the two walked along the
deck of the Andrew.  The little girl was skipping rope and chanting:

Did you ever think, as a hearse rolled by,

That someday, in it you will lie?

The rope slapped against the deck, in rhythm with the waves and the
splashing of the steamer's great water wheel.

Gabriela Savedra leaned back against the rail, and Duncan watched her,
his hands in his pockets.  From under her tiny hat, Gabriela's brown
hair was flowing in the wind, her olive skin tanned even in January. She
reminded him of someone and he was trying to place it.

"Well, did you?" she asked.  The sun was going down behind her, over the
shore, where a thousand little lights were burning.

"Think of hearses?" Duncan tilted his head and moved to her, putting his
arms around her to rest on the rail.  "Not generally," he said.  "Only
in dreams."

Gabriela smiled, in that way that she did, a pouting smile that Duncan
had come to love over the past week.  "I never know if you're sad, or if
you just want to look it," he had

said, to which she had replied, "Life is complicated, Mr. MacLeod."
Duncan had long since come to accept that people tended to speak
philosophically when they were traveling, when they could be anyone they
wanted to be.

But Gabricia was special.  And she had a mind like a trap.

Duncan gave up on trying to place his remembrance; kissing the girl in
front of him seemed like a better idea.  He smelled chartreuse on
Gabriela's breath, and he knew he tasted of Glenmorangie, and the tastes
mixed and they lingered for a moment, until the sun was gone, and still
the little girl skipped and chanted: And the worms crawl in, and the
worms crawl out, And the worms play pinochle on your snout!

Duncan spoke as they embraced, into the rich, full hair that poured over
her shoulder.  "We will put into port soon."

"Back where we started," said Gabriela.  The passengers on the Andrew
were just drifting, now, having completed the trip down to the Keys and
back.  The ship would put in at Buzzards Bay in the morning.

Duncan cleared his throat and stepped out of Gabriela's arms to lean
against the rail himself.  "I'm closer to home now than I will be
tomorrow." Then he smiled at what this sounded like, and added: "I have
a boarding house on Nantucket." He gestured with his arm at the island,
the lights of which were visible now.  "Perhaps you would care to
visit?"

"I might." Gabriela had the slightest accent, a lovely, lilting pattern
which Duncan had placed early on and correctly as Argentine.

"How busy are you?" he asked.

"Not very," Gabriela said.  "Father likes me to visit his ship, and so I
do, and there's very little else to keep me busy."

"Ah," said Duncan.  "Captain Savedra." He had met Gabriela's father all
of once in the entire cruise.  A pleasant man, but distant.  A widower.
Duncan had wanted to talk to the man, but what could he say?  Terribly
sorry, my good man, I too have lost the near and dear.  Nonsense!  As an
Immortal he might lose love a hundred times over, but he had no idea if
it was the same for a mortal.  What was it like, he wanted to ask, if he
could, what if you find the one true love

and lose her, and you know your own days are numbered?

Your time is running out, you have but a few years of loneliness before
you go on, you know not where.  What have I missed, what is it like to
be mortal?  Is your pain like mine?  I fall in love again and again, and
lose every one.  Whose situation is better, Captain Savedra?  Duncan
cursed himself for playing at what his mentors had warned him about.
Don't get too attached But try not to get too detached, either.

So many lost loves, and now Gabriela's warm body beside his, her
sweet-liquor lips near his neck, her dainty gloved hands clinging to his
arms.  And it happened every time, like that: he just couldn't help
himself The dead are buried and gone and the lesson is buried with them,
it must be, because damned if you're notfalling again.

Gabriela was watching the waves.  The little girl's mother appeared and
tempted her away with the prospect of dinner.

Gabriela looked back at Duncan.  "A boarding house, eh?  I'm trying to
fit that into my picture of you."

"I haven't owned it for very long," he said.  "You might like it."

"I'm sure it's chamng," Gabriela sn-died, and she seemed to mean it.
"And I would love to visit very much."

The tiny rowboat slowed in the dark waters and its Immortal passenger
looked ahead at the cruise ship.  Andrew.  He thought he heard a chant
carried across the waves, a little girl singing about hearses and worms.
Good lass, the Immortal thought.  Keep your eye on the Prize.  The
Immortal was dressed from head to toe in black, and his hands were
smeared with the same dark substance that covered his face.

He shifted in the small boat to inventory his tools for the last time.
The Andrew bobbed ahead, slowly coming closer, and the Immortal slowed
his rowing, letting the boat drift toward the cruise ship.  There were
small steamboats available now, and Khordas had been tempted to acquire
one, but for now, nothing provided silence like a rowboat.  Within
minutes, the prow of the dinghy reached the starboard side of the
Andrew, and the prow scraped against the Andrew's wooden hull, water
splashing up at the Immortal.

And then, as he was gathering the tools he would need and

putting them into a pouch, he felt a reflex, a shudder, and stopped for
a moment to regain his balance.  When the queasiness left him, he had to
smile.

There is an Immortal aboard, thought Khordas.  This should be
entertaining.

Duncan and Gabriela were walking together towards the dining room when
he felt the presence.  As the two rounded a corner, something hit Duncan
in the gut, or felt like it, and a wave of nausea flashed through his
body and head.  He nearly fell back against the wall before he stood
straighter and looked around.

Gabriela took him by the arm and asked Duncan something he didn't hear.
The wooziness had passed.  The presence of an approaching Immortal was
something that after three hundred years still took him somewhat by
surprise, but he was better at it now than in the very beginning, when
an approaching Immortal made him want to retch.

Bloody Hell.  Not now.  The Highlander looked around him, and saw
nothing.  Close.  But where?

"Duncan, what is it?" Gabriela still had Duncan by the arm.  She reached
up to his brow and he moved the dainty hand away, trying not to look
annoyed.

"It might be nothing," said Duncan, but he knew Gabriela could tell he
was lying.  "It's just that I .  .  ."

"Are you feeling alright?  I could get you something."

"No," he said.  Duncan frowned.  The presence was still there, somewhere
nearby.  This was not a safe place.

"Gabriela, go ahead to dinner, I'll be along shortly." With that, he
moved away from her, striding along the deck and around the corner until
he was out of her sight.  Gabriela would probably be perturbed at his
abrupt departure, but he couldn't think of anything else to say.  It
always happened that way, and after all this time he had not found a
proper way to excuse himself to go look for someone who was likely to
take his head off.  He counted it one of the lucky things about mortals
that they tended to invent their own reasons for the unexplained, and so
he usually just left.  He would work it out later.  Where are you?

The Andrew's deck was sparsely covered with people, and

Duncan could see clear along the two hundred yard expanse of the
promenade on the starboard side.  Most of the people had gone to the
dining hall on port.  Duncan reached into his coat to touch the hilt of
his katana, then scolded himself for being hasty.  Just the same, it was
a comfort.

In the small boat, Khordas was busy fastening a small dark packet the
size of a man's fist to the hull of the Andrew.  He worked swiftly, his
hands smoothly performing their task while his tiny craft moved up and
down in the lapping waves.  All had to be timed perfectly.  As Khordas
smoothed the final piece of tape over the packet and began to unwind the
fuse, he ran over the scheme of the cruise ship in his mind.  The wood
where he had attached his packet should be the wall of a servant's
cabin.  There would be screaming.

That was good.  Khordas lit a half-minute fuse and pushed away, moving
down the hull of the Andrew.  Soon he saw a metal cable hanging down the
hull, and he knew he had come frill circle.  Khordas tested the strength
of the cable and, satisfied, began to climb.

Moving along the lamplit promenade, Duncan had made his way to the
starboard bow when he thought he heard a sound in the water, like a
scrape of wood against wood.  He looked over the side, peering into the
inky darkness in the shadow of the Andrew's hull.  As his eyes adjusted
he began to make out what appeared to be a small craft, floating freely
about fifteen feet from the hull.  It was a one-man craft, a rowboat.
Strange.  Strange, and too damnfamiliarfor comfort.

Had Duncan looked down to the end of the promenade, whence he'd come, he
would have seen a figure springing over the rail and onto the deck, turn
briefly towards Duncan, and then go about his business in the other
direction.

Then the packet blew.

Duncan felt the ship rock with the explosion as smoke and fire poured up
past the rail near him.  He leaned over the rail, looked down and saw a
ten foot hole ripped through the hull.

The rim of the hole was burning still, but there was little fire.

Of greater concern was the water that was now rushing into the Andrew
through her punctured side.  The ship was still

pitching violently from the shock of the first blow.  The presence was
still here, and it was going to be nasty.

Somewhere, somebody started to ring a bell.  Duncan heard footsteps and
looked up to see two officers of the cruise line running to the rail to
look over.  One of them shouted at him, almost accusing.  "What
happened?"

"Have a look." Duncan pushed past them and began running along the
promenade.  All right, Duncan sighed.  Where in Hell are you?

There was a sailor, or so he styled himself, named Neville Thurow, who
never quite had the stomach for long voyages away from all the finer
things in life, such as wine.  So after giving up on the merchant marine
Neville Thurow joined the Royal Battalion Cruise Line, where there was
wine aplenty, and where the captain never minded the crewmen having a
nip or two, so long as they could stand to perform their duties.  On the
particular evening that the Royal Battalion Cruise Liner Andrew was
invaded by the pyromaniacal pirate known by some as Khordas and by
others as, simply, the Salamander, Neville was playing guard to the ship
safe.  This was generally a pleasant duty because it allowed one plenty
of time to drink, if one did not mind the cold company of an iron safe.
He was twenty-two, the kind of intelligent person who avoided work when
there didn't seem to be enough gratification in it, not accounting for
taste.

Neville Thurow was one-quarter shy of finished with the particular
bottle of wine he was working on when the door opened and a man stepped
into the safe room, dressed in black from head to foot, his face covered
in dark paint.

"Hullo?" Neville looked up with a quizzical smile.

"If you please," said the figure, "Open the safe."

Neville laughed, and spat wine.  "Why don't you have a nip instead."

"Thanks, but I'd rather see the open safe."

"Nah!" Neville waved a hand in a wide are and nearly fell out of his
chair.  "Don't be ridiculous, I can't do that." He wiped his mouth and
picked up a soiled wineglass which lay tipped on the desk.  "Wine?"

"Why can you not open the safe, please?"

Neville managed to get out, "Because I don't even know the combination."
at which point he barely noticed the glint of metal that appeared so
suddenly, as if from nowhere.  The sword sheared off his head right
below the jaw, and it tumbled to the deck next to the safe that Khordas
had to waste an extra thirty seconds cracking himself.  Luckily, he had
set another explosive already, on the other side of the ship.

God, these mortals were stupid.

Duncan heard hundreds of footsteps on the deck, passengers catching wind
of concern and beginning to move through the chill night air.  The boat
was beginning to list.  He pushed through the crowd and found Gabriela
near the dining hall as the second explosion ripped a hole in the
bulkhead, near the shuffleboard.  The two looked up and saw the upper
deck in flames, and now a confused crowd flew into a full panic.  "Find
the lifeboats," he said.  "Get on one." There was a sailor not far from
them, waving and trying to get the attention of the people, directing
them.  The ship was pitching and Duncan could tell that the stern was
already dipping too low.

"But where are you-"

"I'll catch up.  Don't wait for me."

All right, friend Come out, come out, wherever you are.

Duncan pushed through the crowd, stretching, focusing his mind, hoping
that the presence would grow stronger.  He heard someone running past
him, shouting, "Abandon ship!

All hands, abandon ship!" As the man passed Duncan saw that it was
Captain Savedra.

"Captain," Duncan shouted.  The Argentine looked over his shoulder and
Duncan met him, touching him on the arm.

"Please," said the captain.  "Find a lifeboat and go."

"There's a small boat, a one-man craft, off the starboard side," Duncan
said.  "I think we have a visitor; have you seen him?"

"No," said Savedra.  The boat was beginning to incline, now, and the
captain had to hold to the rail to keep from slipping.  The sad man
looked around him.  Duncan could tell the man was immune to panic
himself-he simply seemed forlorn.  "My ship ...  please, sir, we cannot
control these fires or fix this kind of damage.  You must leave."

Duncan looked down the promenade.  Water was cascading over and onto the
deck at the stern.  Something fired off in his brain and he said, "Does
the ship have a safe?" The captain nodded and the two ran for the stairs
to the upper deck.

Within seconds they reached the door to the safe room, which stood open.
Over the sound of fire and screams the captain shouted as he moved
inside.  "Thurow?  Are you here?" then, back to Duncan, "I think the
guard has run off."

Duncan looked around.  The saferoom was small, about eight feet by eight
feet, holding only a desk for the guard and the safe behind it.  There
was another door to his right as he entered, and through the glass
window in the door he could see that it opened to a stairwell going
down.  Duncan looked back at the desk and saw a pair of feet sticking
out from under it.

"I was wrong," said the captain, who had moved around behind the desk.
There was blood seeping across the floorboards.  "Neville has not run
off."

"Someone killed him to get into the safe," said Duncan.

The captain shook his head.  "He didn't even know the combination." The
captain braced himself as the ship groaned and pitched once more.  He
then turned to the safe and began to turn the combination lock.

Duncan peered through the glass to the stairwell and was about to open
the door when he looked at the hinge and stopped.  Gingerly he pulled
out his knife and ever so delicately dug into the wood next to the
hinge.  He had to shake his head in wonder.  Hello.  This was good work,
for a man in a hurry.  And he had to admit it now.  It was better-a
thousand times better-but it was the same.  The moment the hinge moved,
and the wooden door scraped against what had been wedged between it and
the doorframe-boom.

Up until now it's been just another work of art.  But now, Khordas,
you've gone and signed it.

A chip of wood fell away as he dug into it and the flash detonator fell
from its hiding place.  The fuse curled out in his direction a bit, as
if missing its partner.  Duncan knelt and

looked through the small glass window again and saw the explosive packet
taped above the door.  Praying silently that Khordas had had the
patience to place only one detonator, he opened the door and stepped
into the stairwell.

Duncan reached up and looked and began to remove the tape from the
packet.  Could it really be him?

There are moments in life when a person realizes that if he had acted a
moment earlier, if the tiny electrical currents in his brain had
connected with one another by the tiniest fraction greater efficiency,
he could have changed everything.

But it was only then, when Duncan was pulling the tape off the hinge of
the door, that he thought about the hinges on the inside of the safe,

For a split second he saw the face of Pablo Savedra look back at him,
annoyed, because Duncan was yelling.  Only a split second-for as Captain
Savedra opened the safe, the room exploded in flame, and the man
disappeared in a cloud of crimson.

The blast blew the door off its hinges and sent glass fragments into
Duncan's face as he tumbled head over heels down the stairwell.  Duncan
slammed into two feet of water and realized he was in the engine room.
It was dark, but he could hear the churning of the steam turbines,
wheezing as they were.  A gaslight flickered on and off and Duncan
forced himself onto his feet.  He plucked a few shards of glass out of
his face and felt the wounds healing already.  Damn.

The presence was everywhere.  Duncan rubbed the blood away from his
mouth and said, "Where are-you, Khordas?"

As Duncan's eyes adjusted he scanned the area.  The engine room was
cramped, with tables and apparatuses of inconceivable use everywhere.
Between the turbine and the wall the deck afforded no more than twelve
feet of fighting space, tops.  Fine.  Close quarters makes it morefun.

Behind a churning turbine a voice rang out.  "Duncan MacLeod," the voice
said, chuckling.  A figure slowly emerged.  "What luck.  What an
excellent end to a perfect evening.  However did you know it was me?"

"know your work anywhere, Salamander."

"Little Highland fool.  You mock that which you cannot possibly
understand."

"I understand that you are fevered of mind, Khordas."

"Oh?" said Khordas, as he moved a bit into the light.  Over his
shoulders he carried a sack, presumably whatever he had recovered from
the safe, and his "tools." Duncan heard a scrape of metal and saw that
Khordas had drawn his saber.

"Is this where we fight and one of us takes the other's head?"

"All in the Game."

"I have no interest in a Game which I did not choose.  It is a higher
Law that I serve.  The Salamander will be appeased," he said, "and I
will teach the impious the rites."

Duncan's own katana came into his hand by reflex, spinning into place, a
part of him.  He glanced down.  The water was rising.

Duncan and Khordas circled around one another like two ships of war, the
water splashing around them.  "Do you smell smoke?" smiled Khordas.

"I smell a lot of things."

"I have quite a bone to pick with you, MacLeod," continued Khordas, as
he shifted the weight of his saber.  Light glinted off the metal and the
water.  Beneath the Immortal's dark cap Duncan could see the flaming
hair of the pyromaniac, and he remembered what the man was talking
about.

Khordas' face took on a serious look.  "What has it been now?

Forty years?  We have a great deal of unfinished business, you and l."

"Let's finish it," said Duncan, as he thrust forward with his sword.

"Ah-ah," said Khordas.  "And here I thought you never attacked." And
with that, the Immortal stepped into the stairwell.  "You know, I
wouldn't remain down here; it's not safe.

Not for long."

Khordas ran up the stairs and Duncan followed.  He emerged in the
saferoom, still an inferno, and as he moved through the flames he felt
the crunch of Captain Savedra's bones.  Duncan had his handkerchief over
his mouth and nose, his katana before him, and he moved out onto the
deck.

It was like a painting.  The deck of the sinking Andrew was awash, and
every substance above the water was aflame.  The clouds in the night sky
reflected red.  Duncan ran to the rail and looked around.  The presence
was fading.  "Khordas!"

The Highlander caught sight of Khordas in his rowboat, racing away.  The
Immortal's anus pumped the oars as Khordas shouted from the boat. "Don't
be sad, MacLeod.  I'm on a very tight schedule.  But now that I've seen
you," Khordas cried, "I'll find you." The engine roared and the boat
began to disappear in the night, and with it, so did Khordas' presence.

About four hundred yards away, six lifeboats pitched in the waves.
Duncan looked up and down the burning promenade and realized he was
alone on the deck.  He decided the best option would be to join the rest
of the passengers.  He tore off his shirt and shoes and dove, swimming
furiously.

Duncan stopped for a moment in the water to look back at the floating
infernothat was Captain Savedra's Andrew.  Just then a final charge
blew, deep in the engine room, and the whole of the vessel burst like a
flaming bubble, spewing steam and wood and fire on the water.

Three minutes later, Duncan climbed aboard one of the lifeboats, when he
found the right one, and rested on the wet boards at Gabriela's feet. He
shivered in the January cold and someone put a blanket around him, and
somewhere among his thoughts he heard Gabriela asking him who did this
thing, this thing the half of which she still did not realize.

And swimming in all his memories, spanning centuries, Duncan said, "His
name is Khordas.  He's a very dangerous man."

And we should have killed him, he thought, staring at the flaming wreck
on the dark waves of the Atlantic.  When we had the chance.

Martha's Vineyard

Mrs.  George Drake hated her name, but she used it nonetheless.  She
used it smilingly at the shops, she heard others use it as she strolled
along the gaslit streets downtown.  George Drake was the husband Lauren
had chosen, and she had chosen wisely, but it disgusted her to attach
his name to hers, because she wanted almost nothing to do with the man.

George Drake returned from work at six o'clock on the dot, as usual.  He
announced himself in the usual way, opening the door and dancing in as
if he were on stage, his countenance beaming like a hard light.  George
was always smiling.  He did something he considered terribly important
and impressive at the Bank of Manniver and Trundle, and so he was a
confident little toad who strode into the house as if he owned it, which
he did.

On this particular night, by the time he arrived at their magnificent
house-two stories, nine bedrooms, a swimming pool in an adjoined house
all its own-Lauren had dismissed the servants and given them the day off
and had fixed

George's dinner herself.  She told the servants that she wanted to
prepare for an evening at home alone with her new husband, which though
it made her sick to say was readily accepted by their trio of servants,
who would take the day off for any reason at all.  She could have told
them she was going to kill her new husband, which was true, and they
would have skipped away just the same, cheery bastards.

In any event, didner was prepared and waiting for George as he bounded
into the house and threw his hat on the rack and embraced Lauren, who
tried not to look like one whose skin was crawling.  They had been
married for three months, and she was glad that the whole affair would
be coming to a close in a matter of moments.  George's coat was spotted
with rain, and Lauren turned away from his offered kiss and looked out
the window.  Lightning flashed.  She stopped for a moment, watching the
bolt link its chain across the sky, fire in the air.  Lauren found
herself aching for her love, for his fire and his ice.  The lighthouse
must be empty indeed without her, and she missed it.

George tried not to look annoyed that Lauren would not kiss him.  He
smiled and said something about how she must not be feeling well, and
that being cooped up in the house must be torture.  A vacation was in
order.  Lauren ignored him and told him his dinner was getting cold.

Turning into the dining room George stopped and looked back.  "Why,
there's only one place set.  Are you not up to joining me, kitten?"

Ugh.  "I don't think so, George.  I ate early.  Perhaps if your days
were shorter you'd enjoy my company more." George barely registered, if
at all, that this was an unfair statement.

He disappeared into the dining room and Lauren strode regally to the
den, where she had a fire burning.  She sat down beside it and stoked
the coals a bit, watching the flames.  The embrace of fire, the control
of it, was something these mortals could never understand.  Oh, they
tamed it, all right.  But her love had shown her so much more.  The
element of fire was a force like the Immortals themselves.  Ancient,
never ending, and never changing.  Ruthless and clean.

Lauren looked at the grandfather clock that George's eminent sire had
given them for their wedding.  Six-twenty.  She

I)icked up a small hand-held rolling machine and sprinkled a handful of
tobacco into a paper, gave the machine a twist, and retrieved her
cigarette.  She lit the cigarette on a candle and stood by the window,
watching the smoke between her and her pale reflection.  Lauren
appraised herself for a moment.  She was thin, and stronger by far than
George, although he made great drama of doing manly things about the
place like chopping wood and brushing the horses.  George was absolutely
devoted to his new wife, even regarded her fierce physique as a child
does a marvelous toy.  George saw rio threat in anything, although
Lauren thought a million times that he really shouldn't use sharp
objects near her.

Lauren took a phonograph record off the bookshelfBerlioz, "The Walk to
the Gallows," which was short enough to fit on a record and suited her
immensely.  She placed it on the Gramophone, gave the machine a crank or
two, and stubbed out her cigarette.  As the music began to play she went
to a broom closet, removed a key from a pocket in her gown, and opened
the closet door.

With a resolute thump the body fell at her feet.  Lauren had chosen a
prostitute who was tall and thin enough to pass for Mrs.  George Drake
and had tempted the young woman away with a packet of bills.  "Whatever
you want, darling," the woman of the evening, as society called them,
had said.  This was before Lauren burnt her face beyond recognition and
ruined the woman's hands.  The body had rested in the closet for the
past few hours-it had stopped thumping some time around four-and now
Lauren dragged it over next to the drapes and dropped it there.

Lauren had only to wait, now.  If George acted according to type-and he
always did-he would stay away from her and retire to his study to do
something terribly important.  Indeed, George did not disappoint her in
this regard.  And so at eight o'clock, when Lauren was finishing yet
another cigarette, she felt a delicious, tightening shudder in the pit
of her taut stomach, a rush of emotion, a fire creeping from her belly
to the tips of her fingers.  He was here.

George Drake put down his ledgers for a moment to muse at his good
fortune.  He leaned back in his chair with his quill

playing at his lips, and idly looked out the window of his study.  The
shutters were still drawn, and occasionally a lightning flash
illuminated the many trees on his property.  He had to look twice when
there came a flash and he thought he saw someone moving.  The second
look brought no help, though, because of the darkness, and he was taken
utterly by surprise when a dark figure loomed up to slap something
against the window glass, then darted away.  George stared, transfixed,
wondering if he had seen anything or not.  But a curious dark patch
remained on his window, something had come and left it there.  George
shook his head and was beginning to rise when the window exploded.

There was something pathetic, even Khordas had to admit, about killing
this man.  George dropped to the floor like a stunned child, a peaceful
man suddenly apprised of a capricious God, as shards of glass flew and
melted into his face.

The wave of fire that came at him melted his fingers together like a wad
of candles, and he never really grasped the situation.  Shock. Pathetic.

George lay on the floor and stared at the door of his study and tried to
speak and found that he could not, and he saw that the walls of his
study were in flames, and he watched in awe and terror as the things
that marked his life went away, one by one.  Trophies, melting like his
fused fingers, prized wine bottles which he thought made rather creative
bookends burst and flew apart, sending glass and wine through the study,
and George looked at the floor and could not tell where the burgundy
ended and his blood began.

It was then, as George Drake watched the books catching fire and tried
to think of something to say, as he lay on the ground like the child
that he really was, that he felt a boot kick him once in the side.
George turned his burnt visage up to see a man standing in the flames, a
man standing with his wife.  The man had red hair, just like Lauren, and
a hard, young face, but his eyes were oddly suited (George thought, for
his thoughts were everywhere) to his face and hair.  The eyes of the man
were black as coal, and large, so large that he barely could make out
the whites.  The strange man was standing over him, still, his gloved
hands folded before him.

George was about to call out to Lauren to run, he was sorry,

there was nothing he could do, run, but then he realized that it was
Lauren who had had the gall to kick him.

The red-haired man, behind whom the fire made a flaming halo, stooped
down for a moment near his face, his gloves still clasped.  "It seems
you have," George heard the man say, ,,something that belongs to me."

George gasped out: "Whuh ...  what?" which came out "Whuhhhuh?"

"Why, my good man," and with this the fire man stood up again.  "Your
wife.  Of course."

."Khordas", George heard Lauren say, "here, it's ready."

She handed him a packet wrapped in what appeared to be a sheet of
loosely knit pieces of metal, like chain mail, only larger.  George had
seen chain mail, once.  Must have chafed terribly.  The fiery man took
the packet and lay it next to George's head, before his eyes, and
pressed down the tape that ran along its sides.  "Watch this for me,
would you," said the man.  George only continued to gape, his jaw
hanging slack like that of a village idiot.  He was losing
consciousness, but not fast enough.

George's wife and the strange man who had a halo of fire around him
turned now and headed out the doorway, which was burning.  He barely
heard the man say that since George wouldn't be needing his less
cumbersome valuables, they would be taking the liberty of relieving him
of a few of them.

The red-haired man around whom Lauren seemed to be wrapped dropped a
fuse and lit it, and George watched the fuse begin to burn, and now he
only prayed to wake up, or to go to sleep.

Khordas and Lauren held hands as they ran down the hallway of George
Drake's estate, laughing like children.  Lauren 8was carrying a torch
she had made from a chair leg and used it to set the walls aflame as she
passed.  They had thirty seconds, give or take.

"Did you deposit the goods?" Khordas asked, jumping a settee as they
ewne into the den.  He dropped a flare packet, the trigger connected,
and the settee burst into flame.

"Safely outside," Lauren said.  "Hours ago.  Care for a

swim?" Both of the Immortals were covered in a sheen of soot, and the
idea sounded marvelous.

Lauren jumped over the body of her double and opened the back door, and
she and Khordas made their way into the hallway that adjoined the main
house with that of the pool.

The Immortals entered the pool house and ran along the stones for a few
feet before jumping together in the water.

The two had barely surfaced again when they looked through the glass
wall of the pool house at the fire, and counted down together.

"Five," whispered Lauren, as she kissed Khordas and began to tear off
his shirt.

The Immortal answered her, spoke "Four," into her hair as he tore her
gown away, and buried his face in her breasts, and the splashing water
beaded and trailed in the soot that covered their pale skin.  Lauren
threw back her bead, not caring about how cold the water was, feeling
Khordas' fiery mouth on her, as she watched the feel of the house and
said, "Three.

"Two," said Khordas, as Lauren plunged under water and tore his trousers
away, and burst through the surface again, parting the slick of soot.

"One," and Lauren felt Khordas thrust deep into her, fire inside and
fire without, as George Drake and his house exploded with a force that
mocked the storm, bursting the glass walls of the pool house.  Lauren
laughed as she and Khordas moved together in the water, and the sky
rained glass and wood and soot.

It is not easy to walk in myth and be faced with truth every day.  But
some people are good at it.

There is in myth much truth, thought Khordas, and the reverse is also
true.  And if there were any one thing of myth and truth that Khordas
understood with perfect clarity, that thing was what he liked to call
the element of fire.  No, not an actual element, that had been agreed
upon years hence, but an element of life, yes, always.  Fire endured,
whether people understood it or not.

Khordas laughed at the pomposity of science.  "Here," said the man of
science, "fire is thus because oxygen is thus, and

matter is thus." And yet still it burned, still it lay waste to entire
cities, still it acted according to its own rules, Mortals hunted
explanations as if the explanation made the truth less dangerous.

Khordas knew the myths, all of them: the Christians with their fiery
teeth-gnashing hell, the burning bush, the flaming swords of the
Zoroastrian angels.  The figures of speech: fire in the soul, fire in
the heart, fire in the palm of one's hand, if one were a soldier, and it
all amounted to the mortals taking the element and trying to answer to
it, and use it.  Some mortals were cleverer than others: some could tell
where it would go and win, and never grew tired of the roll of flame,
the way a sailor never grows tired of the sea.

But Khordas was the best, because he did not use, could not even
conceive using fire.  He accepted fire, worked with it, nourished and
lived with it.  Khordas knew the truth.  Fire as the breath of the god
was true.  Because Khordas, the Salamander, was the god.  And somehow,
he would make the mortals understand the power of that truth.

On a cliff at Martha's Vineyard stood Lauren's lighthouse, the one she
had so sorely missed in her lucrative married months, where the spinning
lantern reamed its constant message through the fog and kept the ships
from foundering, and Lauren lived and planned with her love.  Khordas
himself did not go into the lighthouse much, of course.  Child of fire
and water that he was, he preferred the grotto.

The grotto was deep below the lighthouse, underneath and nestled against
the cliff, and protected by an encircling wall of rocks, a natural gate.
The enclosure was accessible in two ways only.  From the lighthouse one
could descend through a series of connected and hidden passages, which
the pair had built during their tenure on these cliffs, or one could
swim between the rocks, negotiating a single passage large enough for a
two-man boat at best.  At the edge of the grotto lay a cave, where ds.
For now, it was the perfect home for a Salamander.  For now.  He would
be moving on, soon.  Already Khordas could feel the change at work. Soon
the God would return.

Lauren lay the last sack of goods on the stone floor and

leaned against the table.  Her hair was dirty and wet, and hung down
across her face, and she pushed it out of the way and drew a cigarette
from Khordas' holder.

Khordas was busy pulling a tarpaulin over the rowboat, which he had
anchored at the back of the cave.  The Salamander stood straight and
turned toward Lauren, held up his hand, and smiled as she tossed the
cigarette holder through the air.  A moment later the match flared and
died, and the cigarette began to glow in the low light of torches,
shadows on rock face.  Khordas held his cigarette before him and studied
it for a second-a cigarette would burn down in seven minutes as he
rolled them, and he had at times employed them as fuses.  The cigarette
as seven-minute fuse was an amalgam of all that Khordas found
enthralling about the modern world.  The capture of fire and the taming
of it, setting it on a short pole, delicately held at one's lip.  And
the seven minutes, the modern separation of the day into hours, minutes,
finally seconds.  Each moment was complete and separate, although a part
of the others, like tendrils of flame, like each tiny ring of paper
along the cigarette that burned before the next ring caught.  Khordas
stared at the sevenminute fuse and said, "I saw MacLeod."

Lauren was toweling off her hair and looked up.  "Connor?"

"Duncan."

Lauren put the towel over her shoulders and strode over to Khordas,
stood behind him and wrapped her arms around his torso, placing her head
against his muscled back.  "He was on the ship?"

"Yes.  The Highlander was a passenger on the Andrew.

Apparently he has come to us.  Who knew?  America!" Khordas smiled,
tracing with his mind his own steps across the globe.

"Did you fight him?"

"No," said Khordas, blowing out a stream of smoke.  Fidgeting, he threw
down the cigarette and crushed it out, instantly regretting it.  "It was
not the time.  But I will see him soon."

Lauren kissed her lover's back slowly, kneading his shoulders.  "So
important to you .  .  ."

Khordas pulled away, and knelt down by the docking bay,

and looked at his reflection.  He lit another seven-minute fuse and
tossed the match into the water, watched it rupture the reflection.  "I
know it is painful for you to hear, Lauren, but yes, it is so important
to me.  MacLeod will be punished for ...  taking my Nerissa."

"I try, Khordas.  I try to understand the Salamander, but he mystifies
me."

"The Salamander values your love and support."

"But the Salamander loves another," said Lauren, crouching beside him.
"I do as he says, I worship him, but his heart is with one who is dead,"
she said, slowly.  "Indeed, with many who are dead."

Khordas felt a flare of anger and quashed it, for it did not befit the
Salamander to be angry with his Companion.  Instead, he said, "I see
that your mind wanders, Companion, to forbidden questioning.  Perhaps it
is time for the root of faith." He looked at her and she seemed to
consider this, and nodded.  Khordas continued:

"You have shown me much about the life of the Immortals, though you are
so much younger.  But my destiny remains," he said, looking at the
water, "although at one time I thought it lost.  And the greatest part
was lost with her: my Nerissa." He sighed.  "She was perfection."
Khordas allowed himself a chuckle.  "Her mind wandered at times, too.
She, too, worked to change me, when we learned the 'truth," when all of
the Children of the Salamander were dead.  When our language died,
replaced by new ones harsh to my tongue.

She tried to show me what we could be.  But I was Khordas, and I am
still.  And Duncan MacLeod's was the last crime this Immortality will
commit against me."

"You've made her into something she can't be.  None of us are angels,
Khordas."

"Not angels, my Companion," Khordas said.  "Gods.  Overseers and rulers.
Princes of the universe.  Nerissa shined; she was the given goddess, the
provided one, the satiator.  The Companion.  As now are you."

'-Me Immortals say we are simply Immortals, like them.

Is it not so?"

"I wish to speak no more of this, Lauren.  Go to the light house.  Leave
me for now.  I am not angry, but I am not well tonight."

Lauren pulled away and turned.  "You are the oldest Immortal I have ever
met," she said.  "You should be proud of what you are."

"I love what I am," Khordas said, and images washed over him and began
to soothe him, fires cleansing, water washing sins away.  Fire on water,
the Salwnander's gauntlet.

"Nerissa," said Khordas, as he sank to the floor.  All the children were
gone.  All the truths were gone.  "Nerissa.  I will still remember you,
with the fires I light.  And I will avenge you," whispered the dead and
living god.  "And Duncan MacLeod will pay for his crime."

Nantucket

[)uncan MacLeod owned and more or less ran a boarding house on
Nantucket, a two-story, twenty-room house that would more properly be
called a hotel, were it not nestled into a private drive.  Duncan had
approached the house as an exercise in salvation, of sorts.  The place
had fallen from use in recent years, and looked it, and when the
Highlander arrived on the east coast, the house seemed an interesting
diversion.  It was certainly a far cry from running a newspaper in
Washington State.  He bought the place outright and set to work
revitalizing it.  New lives for old.

"This is it, for now," said Gabriela, indicating the several suitcases
that now rested in the foyer of Duncan's boarding house.  Mrs. Brandeis,
Duncan's manager and resident crab, was livid.  The house had come with
Mrs.  Brandeis included, or vice-versa.

"I should hope so," said the widow.  Duncan's prize employee turned and
glared at him, as usual, with scorn.  Duncan suspected it was some
primitive form of affectiofi, but he

didn't dare pursue the matter.  "Did you know this woman was coming?"

"I invited her myself," Duncan smiled, leaning on the bannister.  Mrs.
Brandeis ran a tight ship, and sometimes seemed on the verge of
forgetting that Duncan owned the place.  Perhaps it was the hours he
kept.

"Well," snapped Mrs.  Brandeis, "perhaps you can tell me where you'd
like her?"

"I'm sorry?"

Mrs.  Brandeis looked at the mound of luggage that Gabriela had sent
over from her father's house in Martha's Vineyard.  "We're all full on
the first floor," she said.

"Put her on the second floor." Duncan shrugged.  His room was on the
second floor.  There were ten unused rooms up there, five on either
side, and his room was the one next to the east stairwell.

Mrs.  Brandeis shook her head in disgust.  "Without warning you bring a
guest and you want her in rooms that haven't been touched in years. Took
a good month to get your room in order, remember?"

Duncan nodded.  She had him there.  He had honestly forgotten what those
rooms must look like.  Now he looked at Gabriela, standing there in a
muff and yet another smashing hat, considered telling Mrs.  Brandeis to
move upstairs and let Gabriela have her room, but the temptation passed.
May as well keep the old woman this side of volcanic.  "Let's just take
the best one," said Duncan.

Within a minute Mrs.  Brandeis led them down the hall and up the west
stairs, moving as always like a woman twenty years her junior.  She
fished out a key and the door swung open.  "Here.  Two-oh-one.  The best
there is up here.  I warned you, Mr.  MacLeod, I said, shouldn't we
prepare the upstairs, Mr.  MacLeod?. "No, silly Mrs.  Brandeis, when's
the last time we had more than ten rooms rented.  Never." Well, Mr.
MacLeod.  Here we are."

Duncan and Gabriela peered into the room and Gabriela expelled something
not unlike a yelp.  God, what a nightmare.  "T call it," said Mrs.
Brandeis, who really was a bit smarter than Duncan liked to acknowledge,
"Ode to Dust."' As well she should.  Duncan watched Gabriela step into

the room and make her way straight to the window.  She tore a film of
paper away from it and flooded the room with light, and now Duncan could
see the place better.  The room was large-Duncan had chosen the house
partially because of the abundance of large rooms-but there were cobwebs
everywhere, that now caught the sunlight brilliantly, practically
sparkling, oddly beautiful.  The windows were so dirty that it was
impossible to see outside, but Duncan managed to say, in an embarrassed
voice, "That view should be nice ...  when we clean the windows."

Attacking the window with a handkerchief, Gabriela managed to clean off
a spot the size of her hand.  Duncan watched the Argentine, her every,
delicate motion, hying to gauge her mood.  She seemed to be doing well,
but what did he know?

He had told her little, and the two had hardly spoken a word, since
their lifeboat retreat from the sinking Andrew.

All night he had cradled her at the hotel where they stayed, avoiding
reporters and gawkers.  And he had whispered into her silky hair, you're
safe here, you're safe with me.  And when he wanted to give her a better
explanation, of the demise of Captain Savedra, she had shushed him: Let
me rest.  Tell me I am safe, and let me sleep.  This morning he had
looked into a few things in town while Gabriela went back to her house
on Martha's Vineyard.  Arrangements were made, and now she was here. For
how long, he had no idea.

It just seemed like a good idea.  And right now, he felt like having her
around.  Gabriela was a strange mourner.  Or perhaps simply a silent
one.

Gabriela looked out the cleaned spot in the glass.  "Oh!  I can see the
beach from here."

Duncan smiled, looking at Mrs.  Brandeis.  There was no such view from
his room; leave it to this new stranger Gabriela to find beauty wherever
it hid.  Gabriela now sighed and turned around to survey the barren
desert that surrounded her.  She walked to the one mentionable set of
furniture, a brass bed with a wooden table beside it.  She swept a hand
and removed an area of cobwebs, ran her hand along the table, and sighed
again.

"Really, Gabby, this won't do, I can .  .

"No, Duncan," she said.  "It will.  Really, it will."

"But this is terrible."

She shook her head.  "Please.  I told you I don't want to stay at
Martha's right now.  And I don't like hotels." She looked around and
seemed to be calculating.  "I can handle this."

"Are you sure?"

"I actually think I'm going to enjoy it."

Mrs.  Brandeis said, "Well then, yet another lunatic out of the asylum.
Rent's two dollars a week payable on Sunday."

"Fine."

"Nonsense," said Duncan.  "She's a guest." Mrs.  Brandeis blanched at
this, but Duncan ignored her.  It wasn't as if her salary was going to
be affected.

"I love it," said Gabriela, "I'll take it."

"I'm sure you will," mumbled Mrs.  Brandeis, "being free of charge and
all."

"Thank you, Mrs.  Brandeis," Duncan said.  "Don't trouble over the bags,
by the way, I'll take care of them."

"Very well," said the old woman, who retreated into the hall mumbling
something about her 'never-mind," whatever that was.

Duncan felt some dust enter his nose and sneezed, then made his way
around the ruins of countless spider empires to take a seat on the old
bed.  "God, I hope you're right."

Gabriela smiled and walked over to the Highlander, and sat down beside
him on the bed.  She leaned forward, resting her arms on her legs and
clasping her hands, looking like someone forming a grand plot.  "I think
so," she said.  "I feel like a project is a good idea.  Besides," she
smirked, "I think you'll find I have my resourceful moments.  And that
window will be well worth it.  Even though it's winter now.  .  ."

and she trailed off.  She had stumbled into what she seemed to consider
an off-liraits area.  Then she said, "I'm sure it's beautiful in the
spring."

Duncan stroked her hair.  "All things are.  A little rebirth can do us
all a lot of good."

"Well," she said, "this room is a wonderful place to start.

Now.  Where are you?"

"What?"

"Your room.  Where is it?"

"Down the hall.  Exact opposite, next to the east stair.  I don't get a
view of the beach."

"I shall let you visit me then," she said, and she was going to kiss
him, but she collided with a cobweb on the way to his face and started
sneezing instead.

Duncan lay back for a moment but found he wanted to move.  "I can hire
someone to do the room."

"No.  Let me."

"All right," he sighed.  "Want to go for a walk?"

Gabriela was looking at the dusty window, and the tiny space that let
pure light in.  "That would be nice.  Where?"

"I was thinking of heading for the shipyards."

"Buzzards Bay?  A little information hunting?"

"Yes," Duncan said, instantly feeling guilty for banishing some mood,
crushing some brief respite from pain.  "If you don't want to come, I
under-"

"No," Gabriela said.  "Besides, I know the territory.  And this means a
great deal to me."

"I know.  That's why I thought you'd want to help."

"I do," she said, and now she turned to him.  "And I want to take this
as slowly as I can ...  but I have a lot of questions for you, Duncan."

"What questions?"

"Not here."

"Please," he said, propping himself on his elbows.  Duncan felt almost
accustomed to the dust now.  "You can ask me anything," he lied.  Or was
it a lie?

"Not here," she said, turning sideways to kiss him on the nose.  She put
her fingers to his lips and said, "I want this to be a place of peace."

Duncan tried to smile and managed an approximation of one.  Somehow, he
felt sure, peace was going to elude her.

Gabriela Savedra stood with her hand in her coat, and watched the waves
knock against the pilings.  Here and there the lip of foam receded,
chased by bits of broken wood.  How many of those pieces came from the
hull of the Andrew, she did not know.  It was misting, and she did not
feel like crying.

Not anymore.

"You haven't told me how he died," said Gabriela.  Dun can, this
stranger from the cruise, was standing behind her on the dock.  He was
silent.  The man said he was from Scotland, but if this were the case he
hadn't been there for a long time, because his accent was barely
traceable.  Gabriela knew well how hard it was to drop an accent.  And
he had been on the boat just as she had been, but he had seen her father
die, and she had not.  And for this, and because he seemed to be the
only strong thing around, and she was very tired, she had just moved in
with him.  But there were many questions that must be answered.

"Fast," said Duncan.  "I know he didn't.  .

"Not how quickly," she said, calmly.  "How." A song was going through
her head, something her mother would sing to her father, whenever they
went out on the ship.  Her mother would steal the stage from the hired
singer.  Poor unamor, me desvelo y vivo apasionada ...  Passionately,
Sra.  Cuadra de Savedra had lived indeed, and so had her father, even
though his was a sad passion in the end....

"He was caught in a blast.  There was a bomb in the safe and it went off
when he opened it."

Gabriela folded her arms across her stomach, staring'at the clash of the
black gloves on her red wool coat.  She felt suddenly colder.  Breathe.
"Where were you?"

"I was on the other side of the door of the ladder that leads down to
the engine room."

Gabriela turned around, leaned against the wet iron rail.

She was breathing more calmly now, but somehow this wasn't making sense.
None of it did.  Why?  Duncan was standing still, a perfect cipher.  And
she wasn't sure if she trusted him or not.  "You saw the blast through
the window, then.  I don't mean this the wrong way, Duncan, but ...  why
were you not..  ."

"I was thrown down the ladder by the shock.  The engine room was
flooding.  The water broke my fall."

Gabriela bit her lip, and nodded.  "A very lucky man, Mr. MacLeod."

"Gabriela, I.  .

"No!  Don't try to explain.  There is nothing you can say, Duncan."

"But.

"I don't want you dead, Duncan.  That's not what I'm trying to say.  But
my father was all I really had.  And somehow it's just eating at me that
you came in, and he went out.  Just like that."

Duncan had a look that Gabriela couldn't read, either hurt or mad or
annoyed, she couldn't tell which.  "T didn't have anything to do with
it," he said.  "I promise that."

"All right.  You mentioned a name.  Khordas," she said, and this part
did come out as an accusation.  "Who is Kbordas?"

Duncan paused.  "He is ...  a pirate."

"A pirate?  In 1897?"

"He's a late bloomer."

"Not funny.  Not funny at all.  Why did you leave when you did?" God,
don't even think it.  Duncan had broken away, sent her skipping off to
supper, and then ...

"I ...  something came up." Oh, weak, so weak.

"Something came up and then you go around a corner and then a bomb goes
off?" She shook her head.  "This looks bad, Duncan.  This looks really,
really bad.  You've got to tell me."

"I don't see what.  .  ."

"You knew it.  You knew it was going to happen!" And now she was moving
without being aware of her movements, she was raising her fists and
beating on the tall Scot's massive chest.

Duncan let her pound away for a moment before grabbing her hands and
stilling them.  He looked into her eyes, and his eyes spoke the truth,
but it was a controlled truth, tempered by a lot of things Duncan wasn't
being straight about, she knew.  "You have my word, Gabriela.  I had no
idea Kbordas was coming.  I did not know it was him until the first
bomb."

"How do I know you're not making this man up?" She frowned, putting her
forehead to his chest, and then looked up at him.  "Why should I believe
you?"

"Because it's true."

"Oh, that helps a lot."

"I saw him, Gabriela.  I'd recognize him anywhere."

"Does he know you?"

Pause.  "Yes."

"Why?"

"It's a very long story."

Now she yelled at him.  "My father is going to be dead for a very long
time, Duncan MacLeod!  You're evading my questions, why?  You knew
something, because you stepped away when you did.  You were standing
near my father when he was caught in a bomb but you knew better than to
get caught in the blast!  A lot of why's, Duncan."

"Gabriela .  .  ."

"Why!" She stabbed his chest with a razor-sharp nail.

"What in Hell are you not telling me?  Because I want the truth, Duncan.
I enjoy your company very much, but this is hai-I." Duncan looked at her
as if to say that it could get harder.  "I want to be with you, Duncan.
But if you had anything to do with this then there's no way I can get
past it; the very thought is ridiculous." She spat out the words,
feeling so many emotions she couldn't count them.

Now the tall man put his hands to her jaw and stroked it, and she felt
herself calming, hating this power that he had over her, staring into
those perfect eyes, that beautiful, peaceful face.  "Gabriela," he said,
"there is no way I know to make you believe me, but I had nothing to do
with the destruction of your father's ship.  But now that I have seen
this man, I will find him.  I have to do this.  I need your help,
Gabriela, and more than this, I don't want you to go away."

"I'm not going anywhere," she said.  "And I want to find him, too."

"Let me help you."

Gabriela nodded.  Why did she believe him?  She had no idea.  Sometimes,
she thought, trust came down to a risk.  And this was a great risk, but
for some reason, so was her trust.  It knotted in her stomach and bound
her to him, made her feel ill and elated at the same time.  Yes, I do
trust you.  No, it makes almost no sense at all.  "There's more I want
to know, Duncan MacLeod."

"In time."

"You take your time, Duncan, but you have to be straight with me.  All
right?"

"I will."

Gabriela nodded, slowly.  "You never say. "I promise," do you?"

Duncan cocked his head.  "Well.  .

"I understand," she said.  "The very words of a vow are redundant "I
promise' in place o. "I will' only suggests that otherwise, you
wouldn't."

Duncan pursed his lips and nodded in agreement.

"Which reminds me," she said.  The mist was turning to snow, and he put
his arms around her, and they kissed, and Father and Khordas and the
bits of the Andrew were a thousand miles away.  When she pulled away she
said, "Come on.

There's someone on the harbor I want to see."

Gabriela walked fast and talked as they made their way down the docks,
past ship after ship.  "I take it that this Khordas knew where he was
going.  He picked the ship."

Duncan nodded.  "I'll agree with that."

"There are several ways of finding out about the ship trafHe in this
water.  I find the best way is through the Tariff house."

Duncan smiled.  Gabriela seemed to straighten out, taking on an almost
militwy detemnation, as if her own feet tapping against the boards
replenished some lost fuel.  "Tariff house?"

"Right," she said.  "The ships post their itineraries with the keeper,
so that a record may be kept of goods passing through Buzzards Bay."

"To discourage smuggling?"

"Not really to discourage it, but at least to isolate it-the more
secretive the ship, the more suspect."

"Who are we going to see?"

"His name is Barney.  He will help us."

"How do you know?" Ahead of them, a- small house, the boards stained
with salt, mementos of unusually high tides.

"Because he likes me," Gabriela.  "So he doesn't quite know what to make
of me.  And because he's a Quaker." She managed a smirk, one she knew to
be charming in a guileful sort of way.  "They don't make vows either. Do
or do not, Duncan.  Come along."

Gabriela peeked inside and a bell rang at the top of the door.  Duncan
followed her in.  Barney sat in a rocking chair behind the desk,
napping, his chin buried in a mountain of grey cloth.  Gabriela had
never seen the man without the same grey scarf wrapped completely around
his neck and muzzling his chin, connecting his head to the familiar
black

coat of his people.  Barney the Quaker was a smallish man with a few
wisps of white hair, and he was not as old as he seemed at first.  Until
rather recently, Gabriela had believed her father whenever Captain
Savedra told her that Barney wore his scarf because, if he took it off,
the Quaker's head would roll right out the Tariff house and into the
Bay.

Gabriela removed her gloves and hat and stepped to the desk.  She put
her hand over the bell that sat next to a bound ledger.

"Please don't ring that awful thing, my child," said Barney, as he
shifted in his chair and looked up at her.  "I have a headache as it
is."

"Barney.  How good to see you."

"And thee, as usual, Gabriela," the man said, and he rose and stood
behind the desk.  Barney shook his head.  "So sorry, dear heart, so
sorry for thy loss."

Gabriela nodded politely.  "I assumed you'd heard."

"Aye," said the Quaker.  "We dedicated the monthly meeting to the loved
ones of the departed, and we are building a fund.  If thou hast any
needs, please, make them known."

Gabriela smiled, now.  The archaic language charmed her.

The fact that no Quaker, egalitarian to a fault, would ever stoop to the
use of the formal you reminded her of Argentineans she knew, although
there were few of them around.

How like Spanish England could be!

"Our only need is information," Gabriela heard Duncan say.

"Oh?" Barney glanced at Duncan.  "We have not been properly introduced,
dear.  Let me guess." The Quaker looked Duncan over and mused.  "We get
a lot of God's peoples here.  Thou art husky and large, and I am
thinking a Briton, and a Scot, at one time, no?"

Duncan bowed, as if trumped.  "Duncan MacLeod."

Barney nodded in lieu of extending a hand.  "Barney Hale.

Hast thou taken on Miss Savedra's affairs?"

"He certainly has not," said Gabriela.  "He's providing me with a bit of
help."

"Of course, my willful child," said the old man.  "How can I be of
service?  Things are slow today, so I have time." Barney looked around
the small house.  It was a very homey little place of business, with
plenty of books to read during the off hours, and various trinkets given
by friends and sailors and people seeking "help." Not far from Barney's
chair, a teapot began to whistle.  The Quaker turned and went to pour
some water into a cup.  "Tea?"

"Thank you, no," said Gabriela.  "Barney, you have a record of valuables
on board a ship, do you not?"

Barney was busying himself with his tea.  He set it to steeping, and
turned back to them.  "Near as can be kept, I'd say."

"Can anyone ...  peruse these records?"

"Well," said Barney, "not the originals, no.  But I transfer a list of
valuables to this ledger here," he said, indicating the large leather
volume, "in case some argument may come up."

"t thought," said Duncan, "that the Tariff house only concerned itself
with imported and exported goods on which duties might be owed."

"Well, yes," said Barney, "but we record anything that wants recording."

Gabriela nodded.  "What he means is, the Tariff house makes a good
neutral place to keep a record of valuables for insurance purposes.  I
remember my father sending messengers with insuring papers recording the
goods deposited on the Andrew before they set out." She saw Duncan nod.
Captain Savedra would have done so this time, as well.

"You said people couldn't look at the originals.  I take it the ledger
is easy to get a look at?"

"Well, no," said Barney.  "I mean," and now he smiled and shrugged, "one
could, I imagine, easier than the originals, but one cannot simply walk
in and look the ledger over like a library book."

"No?" said Duncan, and Gabriel was slightly annoyed that Duncan sounded
accusative.  Even so, she felt the same way.

Barney said, '-The ledgers are long and heavily coded.  A quick glimpse
wouldn't afford a great deal of help to someone who had never looked at
it before."

Gabriela leaned in.  "Help ...  with what?"

Barney blinked.  "Are you sure you wouldn't like some tea?"

"Why would' she stopped and rephrased.  "Has someone had a look at these
records recently?"

"Of course not," said Barney, nervously.  "Gabriela, thou hast me
confounded.  I don't understand what thou desirest."

Duncan seized the ledger from the counter and opened it.

He was running his eyes down the last page when he stopped abruptly.
"It's all right, Gabriels," he said.  "We're through here for now."
Duncan closed the book as he gasped in a breath, and he gave her a
strange look that Gabriela had seen before, on the Andrew.

"Thank you, Barney," said Gabriela.  "You've been," and she wasn't sure
if she were lying or not, "very helpful."

Duncan and Gabriela stepped out into the February cold and Duncan pulled
his collar around his chin.  "Well," she said, "what do you think?"

"Oh, I think I'll see him again," said Duncan.  "But for now .  .  ." He
looked up and down the boardwalk as they began to walk away from the
Tariff house.  He looked back once more.  "There," she heard him
whisper.

Gabriela looked down the dock past the Tariff house and saw her.  A
woman, tall, in expensive boots and a smashing coat, with a full head of
long, red hair, was walking towards them.  The figure suddenly froze.
The woman was staring at Duncan, who shifted his weight and stared back.

"Wh"

"Sh.  I don't know."

The woman started walking again, and got closer, and then disappeared
into the Tariff house.  But before she did so she looked back at Duncan,
and Gabriela got a good look at the red-haired woman's face.

"I know who that was, Duncan," said Gabriela, "and you are a man with
very expensive taste."

"Who was she?" Duncan seemed to notice that Gabriela was walking away
and he followed her.  Gabriela led them down a flight of steps to the
rocks underneath the boardwalk.

"Mrs.  Lauren Drake.  Quite the socialite, she," said Gabriela. Gabriela
leaned against a post and breathed.  She knew she was glaring.  Now when
Duncan came closer she slapped him.  "Or should I say, was."

Duncan staggered back.  "I don't understand," he protested, rubbing his
jaw.

"What sort of little idiot do you take me for?"

"What?"

"I want answers.  Now.  This is getting strange, Duncan.

And I am not amused."

He seemed to consider smiling, but adopted a blank look instead.  "I
don't understand."

"You don't read the papers, either.  Lauren Drake is dead.

Or at least she should be.  Her body was dug out of the remains of her
house yesterday."

Duncan shook his head.  "What do I ...  how do you know it's her?"

"I'm a well-kept daughter, Mr.  MacLeod.  The fact that I slum with
sailors doesn't mean I don't know my way around a social registry."

"All right," he said.  "All right."

"She wouldn't expect to be seen by anyone who knew her on the docks. But
why was she here?  And why was she looking at you?"

"I don't know."

"Let's get something straight, Scot," she said.  "You lie to me again
and I'll turn you in."

"For what?"

"I think you could be up to your ears in this little game, whatever it
is."

"I'm not."

"Want to try me, Duncan?  Just try."

"No.  I believe you."

Gabriela folded her arms and breathed, and watched the steam coming from
her mouth.  Damn right she was breathing fire.  "You know things I want
to know.  I can't handle secrets, Duncan.  You got that look in your eye
back there, the same as before, and off we go.  You were looking for
this woman before we even got out the door.  Just like on the Andrew.
Kindly explain this."

"I cannot," he said.

"Not good enough.

"I'll explain this," Duncan said.  "Th. "Lauren Drake' part is new to
me; I know that woman from somewhere else.

She's Khordas' .  .  .  Companion.  Where she is, he's not going to be
far behind.  Interested in news?  This morning I paid a visit to the
morgue of the Nantucket Anchor.  Khordas has been busy.  This time last
year he hit six ships, at least, if I'm reading the newspaper accounts
correctly.  Then he lay low.

Now he's back."

"Where were you?"

"I was across the country," Duncan said, and the words themselves
sounded sad.  What are you hiding, Duncan MacLeod?  What is your secret
pain?  "But he's getting his information from your Quaker Barney."

"Barney is a friend."

"Need I remind you that your father is dead, Gabriela."

Gabriela nodded, slowly.  "You're changing the subject, Duncan.  I want
to know what's going on.  How are you connected to these people?"

The waves were lapping cold against the rocks.  Duncan looked out at the
ocean.  "It would be very difficult to explain."

"We have all the time in the world."

The Scot seemed to turn something over in his mind.

"Where do I begin?"

"Try the beginning."

"That's too much," he said.  "I can tell you this, but only because I
suspect it may be important that you know as much as you can.  If you
doubt what I say, I can do nothing about that."

Gabriela nodded.  "All right."

The tall Scot whispered something to himself about different tactics,
and he was silent for a moment.  When he finally opened his mouth again
the words poured out like a litany: "I am Duncan MacLeod, of the Clan
MacLeod.  I was born in 1592 in the Highlands of Scotland.  I am
Immortal." Duncan turned and looked at her, and Gabriela breathed in,
staring.

"Should I go on?"

Lauren sat in a chair at the top of the lighthouse, watching the beam of
light cut through the night, glancing off the rocks below the cliff. She
was a guide to the lost, and somehow she enjoyed that.  All those ships
out there, looking for her light, trusting her to warn them of the
dangers of the rocks.  Lauren played with this role in several ways: On
the one hand, she was the savior of the ships.  On the other, she was a
fiery angel, a beacon warning them to come no closer-a savior only if
they chose to follow her warning, a destroyer should they approach.  She
liked the latter construction more, she decided.

The sound of the scrape of the metal as the light spun around mixed with
that of the waves crashing against the rocks far below, and through this
rhythmic monotony that she found she had missed so, Lauren heard and
felt Khordas coming up the steps.  When his head came through the top of
the spiral staircase, she said, "Welcome above ground."

Khordas went to Lauren's chair and stood behind her, placing her hands
on her shoulders.  "I like to have a look at your world on occasion, my
love," he said.

"I paid a visit to our friend on the harbor," said Lauren.

"And what did you find?"

"I presented him with the narrow list we'd devised from

the suggestions he'd had, and he helped me whittle it down.  I think we
have an excellent target."

Khordas licked his lips.  "Fell me the name."

"The vessel is called Gratiano.  Eighteen thousand tons.

Six thousand tons of cargo.  Diamonds, gold, wheat," Lauren mused, "an
excellent sacrifice."

Khordas put his lips to Lauren's ear and whispered, "How many people?"

"Seven hundred, my love." She sighed.  "Barney was very helpful.  We
should pay him better."

"He is being paid as much as he deserves," said Khordas.

"There's more," said Lauren.

"Oh?"

"I saw MacLeod on the docks.  I'm not sure, but I think he might have
come out of the Tariff house."

"What would he be up to?" Khordas asked himself, aloud.

"Do you think Barney has exposed us?"

"I cannot be sure.  I don't even know how MacLeod would have been led
there.  But there is this-he was with a woman."

"So?"

"So I think I've seen her before, and I think she may have recognized
me."

"Excellent," said the Salamander.  "Soon our plan will come to fruition.
Already I feel the godhead manifesting itself.  I am well pleased." But
then the red-headed god bent low and kissed Lauren behind the ear. "Have
no fear, my love.  Without worshippers I am but a husk, a cocoon.  But
soon we will be born anew."

"After the sacrifices?"

"After the sacrifices are done, and after my Nerissa is remembered."

Lauren rose and looked out the window, and raised a hand so that the
beam of hard light filtered through her fingers.

"Khordas, why do you not play the Game?"

"We have been through this."

"We are Immortals."

"I am the Salamander first, and you my Companion.  That is our life.  I
recognize no Game.  If in the end, as they say, there can be only one,
then of course it will be me.  Of this I

am certain.  But then I will rule, and the people will worship.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with the Game."

Lauren nodded.  She had only learned of the Game from other Immortals
she met, long after finding Khordas, when he took her in.  She did like
his way better.  But still ...

"What if your myths are not the ones to follow?"

Khordas lit a match, and brought it to his cigarette.  "Try this, my
Companion.  What if the Game is but a myth?  A laughable hoax foisted
upon a bunch of Immortal beings.  It keeps them from declaring war on
the mortals by forcing the Immortals to declare war on one another.  How
are they to know?  I play my own Game, Lauren." He approached her, took
her by the shoulder, and turned her around.  He brought his palm to her
square jaw, playing at her lips with his thumb.  Lauren smiled and
nibbled at it, feeling the bony hand against her lips.  Khordas
retrieved a cigarette and pi,-iced it between her lips.  "You prefer it
this way, don't you?"

"There is," Lauren said, as Khordas lit her cigarette, "no other way."

Kbordas smiled, and then his face took on a serene look.

He went to the window and took her into his arms, and spoke into her
hair again.  "I have seen a vision, my Companion.

The time has come for the return of the Salamander, and his Children,
and his worship." There was a goblet beside his knee, and this he used
to scoop a small amount of water.

Khordas ran his hand over the mouth of the goblet and raised it to the
Companion.  "Drink," he said.  "Drink, and all will become clear."

At half past nine o'clock, Barney lay down his book and went to the door
of the Tariff house and locked it.  It was time to count out, and then
he planned to head home and retire early.  He did not feel at ease, and
he had a toothache besides.

The bell on the hinge jingled a bit as Barney pushed the door to,
startling him, and he berated himself for being so jittery.  All over
soon, he thought to himself.  Not very much longer, and then everything
goes back to normal.  Barney pulled the curtains, dingy rags that they
were, closed, and

went back to the cash box.  Alone with his only friend, he began to
count.

It is difficult to live daily with money that is not one's own.  Barney
had been particularly fit for the responsibilities of a tariff
collector, it had been agreed, because of his almost complete lack of
passion.  The Quaker neither drank nor swore, had no weakness for women,
no land, no desire to trade in slaves or molasses, nothing to fuel a
desire for money.  And he was plagued by faith, and thus nearly
impervious to temptation.  Add to that, he was old.

But year in and year out, collecting coins and specie, carefully
recording vast accumulations of wealth in transit, a crack had
developed, through which seeped a desire to have that shamed him
greatly, like a boy with a collection of improper books.  And that crack
had widened when the redhaired man and woman arrived, with a
proposition.  Just a bit, Barney, a handsome tip for yourself.  Odd, he
had not yet decided what thing he would acquire, for no thing really
gave him great pleasure.  But the ability to acquire was a thing enough.

The oil lamp on the counter cast plenty of light for Barney as he sat at
his desk and ran his pen down the length of the ledgers.  At one point
he heard a piece of paper shift on the counter and cursed the rotten
Tariff house with its salt erosion and impertinent drafts.  Barney
glanced up at the counter, saw but did not register a tall, dark figure
standing behind it, and glanced back down.  He began to look back up
when the lamp went out.

A voice, soft, coming from a silhouette behind the counter.  "Barney."

The Quaker froze.  Now the silhouette begad to move to the edge of the
counter and around, coming towards Barney's desk.  The figure moved as
if it were on wheels.

"Who's there?"

"We've met, Barney," came the voice again.

"I have seen thee," said the Quaker, timidly.  "Thou'rt that Scot that
was with Miss Savedra.  If you burgle this place, I can identify you."

"I don't intend to steal anything," said the shape, as it stopped at the
edge of the desk.  "I don't want money.  I don't

need it." The shape leaned in, and the face became visible in the dark,
the haunted, large eyes, the gaunt face.  "Do you, Barney?"

"I don't understand."

"Let's talk," said the haunted face, "about ships."

"All ...  all right."

"Valuable cargoes.  Let's talk about that."

"I cannot divulge privileged information."

"Oh," said the Scot, "but you have, haven't you?  You can do the same
for me."

"I have done no such thing," said Quaker.

"There are things I need to know, Barney.  Simple things, and I know
this is not new to you.  So tell me and we can be done with it." The
figure bent closer.  "Or things can get difficult."

"I have nothing to say.  What makes thee think that.  .

Now there was a flicker of movement, and the manMacLeod, that was his
name-moved his arm and Barney heard a scrape and now he was turning over
a coin he had drawn from the counting box.  "I thought thou intended no
theft."

"I intended no theft," said MacLeod.  "This is a fine coin.

Five quid, no?  Do they pay you in pounds, or in dollars?"

The figure peered at the coin in the dark.  "People are dead, Barney,
and your hand is in it.  You know that, don't you?"

"I don't know what you're talking.  .  ."

"Please," said MacLeod, "don't get formal on my account.

Call me thou.  I like thou."

"Thou?  Thou," said Barney, numbly.  Suddenly there was a hand at his
throat, pinching him behind his jaw.  Barney's mouth flew wide open
despite his efforts.  The dark figure still held the coin in his other
hand and now brought it to Barney's lips.

"You'd give ...  information ...  privileged information ...  for this
coin, wouldn't you," said the soft, vaguely Scottish voice.

"What.  .  ." Barney mumbled, because he couldn't make his mouth work
right.

"What's the next ship, Barney?  Tell me.  It will be a good

one, won't it, because the end will come soon and then it's lay-low time
for the Salamander, isn't it?"

"What.  .  ."

"Dead people, Barney.  Innocent people.  Caught in sinking ships.
Drowned.  Caught in explosions.  Burned alive.  Here!"

Barney felt the coin on his tongue and the left hand shut his mouth.
Then the right was over his nose and he began to gag, and suddenly lie
felt the coin going down his throat.  He panicked and pitched, but the
dark figure with the soft eyes held him still, and he breathed as the
hand came away from his nose.  "Root of all evil, Barney.  If you don't
have a large enough appetite you could choke.  I'm glad to see your
appetite is large, indeed."

"Please.  .  ."

"Ships.  So many.  Which one?"

"Please ...  he'll kill me.  .  ."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk." The right hand now produced two more coins.  "Ten quid.
A goodly amount, eh?  Hungry?"

Barney raised his hands now, my god, fight this man, what are you
thinking?  and he immediately gave up as the left hand tightened a bit
at his throat.  Oh, weak.

"I can't remember.  .  .  ."

"Here," two coins now, on the tongue, "maybe this will help."

Tightening, gasping, gagging, god, the scrape of metal against his
esophagus.

"Please.  .  ."

Barney gasped and bent forward, and the Scot forced his head back.
"Now?"

"Please.  .  ."

"I could go on predictably, Barney," said the voice.  "Now three, then
four.  You're a very hungry man, though, so I think we'll skip ahead."
Barney heard the scrape of coins in the box, now clocking in the tall
man's hand.  "Seven is a nice, prime number for this particular pump,
hey?"

"He'll kill me ...  I know very little ...  I didn't know he would.  .
."

"But you kept giving information even after people died, Barney.  A very
large appetite, indeed." The Scot held the

seven coins in his hands, stacked together.  "Hmm.  You'll need to have
a gullet for this, I think."

"Mr.  MacLeod..."

"Thou."

"Thou!"

"Could be interesting to see, in fact.  Might tear your throat right up.
You won't vomit though," he winked.  "I prorrse.

Open wide."

"Please," Barney shook, and now he felt the coins being laid one after
the other into his mouth.

"One," said the Scot, "a wee amount." Plunk.  "Two.  .

"Ships," said Barney, in a way that came out "shezz.  .

"him-hmm?  Three ...  four?"

"Uh sway uh kand ruhmuhmbub .  .

"Keep trying.  Five, six ...  seven.  That's a full mouth, Barney."

"Shezz.  .

"Down the hatch," said MacLeod, and he began to manipulate Barney's
throat.

"Garshannuhim!  Garshannuhim!"

"What!  I can't understand you.  Are you trying to tell me something, or
just trying to swallow?"

"Pleez, uh! tuhl yoo.  .  ." Barney gagged now, and was beginning to
choke, and suddenly MacLeod brought his head down and he felt the coins
falling out of his mouth, jingling on the floor.  Barney was staring at
the coins lying on the floor and the Scot crouched, and looked up into
his eyes.

"What was that?"

The Quaker spoke in short, panicked breaths.  "Gratiano.

The ship is called the Gratiano.  She'll be here in three days."

What's the cargo?"

"Very big ship.  Lots of cargo.  Everything."

The Scot stood, and fished something out of his pocket that looked like
a small pouch, as for tobacco.  MacLeod began to walk around the counter
and he tossed the pouch on the counter as he opened the door.  Over the
jingling bell Barney heard the dark figure say, "Something for your
troubles.

I know how much you like to get paid."

Later, when he dared move, and he was sure the dark Scot was gone,
Barney gathered the reward.  It was a collection of

coins, and on each coin a name had been carved, and a date of death. And
although he found it distasteful, Barney pocketed them all, just the
same.

"Is there any way I can send a message to a ship?" Duncan asked.  He had
waited by the front door of the Western Union office until the clerk
arrived, bright and early.

"A message?  Like a telegram?" Benjamin Stigmore was a wiry man who
looked like many of the copy editors Duncan had known in his newspaper
days.

"Exactly," said the Highlander.  "There's a ship called the Gratiano
that I'd like to contact."

"Urgent?" Stigmore scratched his head.

"Aye, a bit."

The clerk whistled.  "Can't imagine anything that can't wait until she
puts into a port.  She'll collect her messages then.  What office do you
want to send to?"

Duncan stared at the counter.  At the paper he had more or less relied
on the wires.  "I thought we could wire ships."

"Yes, it's being worked on, I hear.  But just testing on a few ships
here and there.  What kind of ship is this?"

"Passenger liner."

The clerk shook his head again.  "No luck there, I'm afraid."

"You're sure?"

"Yes, son, how many times do I have to say it?"

Duncan was silent for a few seconds, looking over the clerk's shoulders,
out the window, where he could see the Bay.  Inwardly he shrugged.  He
had waited long enough for this move, indeed, he had considered doing it
in any event.

"All right.  Then I do have a message to send, but not to a ship.  To an
office."

"Good then," said Stigmore, happy to be back on the routine.  "What
city?"

"London."

"Addressee?"

"Care of the Royal Preventive Service," said Duncan, and he began to
pour out a message that he hoped would reach its destination in good
time.

As he walked out of the office and back into the shipyards

he saw the hurried movements of the men of the sea, carrying bundles on
and off all manner of ships.  He had to have information, and more,
transportation.

the wind picked up a bit and Duncan pulled his cap over his ears.  He
walked past a sailor, in foul-weather gear smoking a pipe, who appeared
to be waiting for something.  The sailor was looking out to the ocean,
and he stood at the gangway of a merchant ship.  As Duncan passed, he
heard the sailor say, with a shrug, "Red sky."

"Pardon?"

"Red sky this morning."

Duncan nodded.  "Sailor take warning."

Duncan arrived at the boarding house near noontime.  He had made his
rounds among the company men, and had finally laid hands upon the plans
that he wanted.  They had cost him some pretty money and a bottle of
cognac, to boot.

Moreover, Duncan had been forced to give up a goodly amount of money on
a yacht, called the Spanish Lady.  He had taken the Lady out around the
Bay for an hour or so, testing the steam engines, the strength of the
wheel and the top speeds, and found that, as the owner promised, she
could easily reach twenty knots.  Duncan had considered renting the
vessel but knew better than that.  A quick trip to the bank and he was
ready to buy, and within three hours of his first sight of the Spanish
Lady, she was his, and he took her back to Nantucket and docked her
there.

Duncan rushed into the boarding house and straight up to the room he had
given to Gabriela, avoiding, or at least trying to avoid, Mrs. Brandeis,
who was eager to discuss the latest winter boarders with him. Duncan saw
the woman coming and made great drama of an invented hangover, telling
her they could discuss business tomorrow.  Then he bounded up the stairs
and reached the door of Gabriela's room.  When the door opened, the
effect was not unlike that of milk entering one's mouth when one has
reached for what one thought was a glass of rotgut.  The empty room had
been a wreck, he remembered it well, dust deep enough for insects to
swim in, cobwebs galore, and a window so dirty that Duncan feared he'd
have to take a hatchet to it to see through it.

But now, he blinked, and the strands of cobwebs he expected congealed
into something different, fishnet, hung at seemingly random intervals
from the ceiling.  At the far end, the ugly cast-iron bed seemed to have
been polished, actually polished, and on it someone had placed a lovely
set of scarlet bedclothes, complete with frilled throw pillows.  An
oriental rug that nearly filled the whole room left only a bit of the
hardwood floor visible, and this glistened, as if someone had actually
had the time to wax.  Something else caught the light that Duncan
noticed was streaming so brilliantly through the cleaned windows: there
were mementos on the wall, an anchor here, a quadrant there.

And in the midst of this unexpected sight, sitting in a burgundy-draped
rocking chair next to a polished cherry lamp table was the lovely
Gabriela, reading a book.  The captain's daughter wore a dark nightshirt
and a pair of almost homely slippers, and she only casually looked up as
Duncan entered the room.

My God, my God, what have I done.  "What in Hell came through here?"

Gabriela smiled and laid her book aside, and Duncan noted that the
bookmark, too, was burgundy.  "You've been gone since yesterday
afternoon.  You should know your Mrs. Brandeis wants to speak to you
rather badly."

"She intercepted me at the door," said Duncan.  "You really are the most
intriguing creature." He shook his head in disbelief.  Even for the Gay
Nineties, this girl was forward.

Or was that the word?  The word was more likely forthright.

Forthcoming.  Bold as hell.  Whatever.  "I'll ask it again, because it's
worth it, what happened'

"To your fabulous wreck of a room?" Gabriela stood and padded over to
him, and Duncan could smell the rosewater on her neck as she put her
arms around his waist.  "I thought I'd put some of my mad money to good
use.  If I'm to have a room, it might as well be a splendid one.  Like
the sea motif?"

"Splendid," agreed Duncan.  Visions of decorating the whole house were
dancing in his head.  And then it struck him: she was really here.  This
was a bold statement she had just swathed in burgundy.  And here she
stood, her olive flesh

covered by the slightest downy shirt, smelling of rosewater, and he
accepted the statement without hesitation.  Then he blinked from his
reverie and said, "I have information."

"I thought you might."

Duncan nodded and went to the table, and picked up Gabriela's book.  He
laid it in her chair-nice chair, toand unrolled the set of large papers
he had under his arm.

"Here she is," said Duncan, indicating the plans.  "The Gratiano."

Gabriela put her hand on his shoulder and looked the paper over.  Her
trained eye scoured the plans for a second before she shook her head a
bit and let out a slow whistle.

"Are you sure she's the right one?"

"Pretty sure," Duncan said, as he ran a hand along the plans, "and
Khordas is getting brave."

"Aye to that," she said.

"The Gratiano is seven hundred feet long.  Her displacement is eighteen
thousand tons.  Top speed, twelve knots."

"How much cargo?" Gabriela was looking at the plan of the hull.

"Hull is divided into ten watertight compartments, patterned after the
Great Britain subdivision method.  She can carry, and will be carrying,
six thousand tons of cargo."

"Passengers?"

"About two hundred in first class cabins," Duncan paused for a moment,
"but counting steerage, there could be anywhere up to," he breathed out,
"six hundred.  Plus a crew of about a hundred."

"Seven hundred people?"

Duncan nodded.  "She's an older ship.  Now the boats are getting smaller
again, but the Gratiano is a holdover from the days of the giant
steamers."

Gabriela nodded again, and Duncan reminded himself that he didn't have
to give Gabriela Savedra a lecture on ships.

She knew them as well as he did, if not better.  She said, "And why is
she attractive to Khordas?"

"Good question," said Duncan.  "It's not for her bulk.  But among that
six thousand tons of cargo should be a good lot of the kind of baubles
he likes.  He can carry an expensive amount in a gunny sack."

"There's something I don't understand, Duncan," said the Argentine.
"Isn't there something overblown in all of this?"

"How so?"

Gabriela picked up her book and sat down.  She crossed her legs and
clasped her hands about her knees."Couldn't he just rob a bank?  Or a
mine?  That ship has an iron hull, what's the point of going to all the
trouble ...  And this ship is huge, this isn't like blowing up another
Andrew." Duncan was smiling, and she stopped.  "What?"

"Khordas is an Immortal.  After a few thousand years you develop a
penchant for drama.  But I think that ships represent something."

"Something that robbing a bank would not?"

Duncan nodded his affirmation.  Now he sat on the bed and pushed his
hair away from his eyes, and began to massage his temples.  He knew he
looked terrible after being up all night, and he felt a slight headache
coming on.  Pains and aches and love, layer upon layer.  "The ship is
due in Buzzards Bay tomorrow night.  I expect to meet Khordas on the
water."

"I see," she said.  "And I take it you'll chop his head off."

"That's usually how it works."

"Or he yours."

"Right." Duncan rubbed his neck.  He needed sleep.  Then he heard the
words corning out of his mouth, they had to be said, rotten, rotten
Game.  "Gabriela, this could get dangerous.  Perhaps .  .  ."

Gabriela sighed deeply and shook her head.  "I must be going insane. Are
you telling me to leave?"

"I know it's all very difficult to grasp."

"Are you referring to Khordas, or the matter of your bein. "Immortal?"$
Gabriela placed her hand under her delicate chin.

"The whole thing."

"Yes it is," she said.  "It is very difficult to grasp."

Gabriela rose and came to the bed, and climbed up, placing her knees on
either side of Duncan's legs.  She put her hands to his face and Duncan
watched those hands, so throbbing with blood and youth.

Gabriela was unbuttoning his shirt, now, and speaking into

his chest, and Duncan was watching the thin wool sliding along her
thighs.  "But do you know what, Duncan Macleod?  This may be very
difficult for you to grasp, but you seem to have caught me at just the
right time.  I am twenty-seven years old and urunarried.  I have spent
my life watching my father sail ships and making a nuisance of myself My
father followed some sort of dream he could never explain, either.  If
he had explained it, it would have seemed crazy, I think, and so he did
not.  You have explained your dream, or your destiny, or whatever it is,
and I have almost no interest in understanding it.  For all I know, it
could be a lie." The shirt was free now, and Duncan sat wearily,
allowing her to remove it for him as she went on.

"And maybe it is not a lie," she said, as she pushed him back and began
to play at his belt.  "I don't care.  Right now, I am glad that you have
come into my life as another who was dear to me went out.  I need no
more.  Can you handle that?"

"I (don't understand what you're .  .  ."

"You seem to think that you have to spare me, Duncan.

That this great secret destiny of yours is so vast that it will kill me,
one of your enemies will do me in, or you'll God forbid fall in love and
then I'll wither away and die, is that it?" She had the belt away and
was making quick work of removing Duncan's trousers.  "I don't care.  So
you can spare me that."

"But.  .

"Duncan" she said, as she removed her shirt and climbed up to bring her
lips to his face, "callatd.  Shut up."

And maybe she thought she was insane for believing him, or maybe she
thought he was insane, or just a good liar.  Or maybe, Duncan thought,
mortals and Immortals alike can be aware that life is short.

And oh, it was ...

Seven nautical miles south of Iceland

Captain David Carruthers was in his quarters aboard the whaler Dido,
reading a book he had picked up in London the last time he had gone
ashore.  Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac had sat waiting at his
table and the captain had not had the time to give it a glance: old Davy
had been unhappy with them ever since they crept out of port and had
been throwing storms at them for near half a month.  Carruthers had been
as busy trying to keep the ship from turning over as he was trying to
keep the crew from going on a Jonah hunt.

If anyone were the bringer of bad luck, mused Carruthers, it had to be
he.  After all, he had chosen a circuitous route through treacherous
waters to avoid the Preventives, who were constantly combing the seas
for contraband: assuming his pursuers would sail due east from the
channel headed for North America, Carruthers had ordered the ship north,
slicing along the choppy waters south of Iceland, before turning
southeast again.  The Dido had been paying for this.  But at

least they had legitimized themselves a bit-they had managed an actual
whale or two.

Now, after two days of good weather, the captain had finally set aside
time to read, and he was falling asleep.  Maybe it was the rocking of
the ship, or the way the candle at his table swung slowly, like an
inverted pendulum, its flame always perpendicular to the surface of the
water.  Perhaps it was the tired singing of the sailors' crude songs,
like a lullaby to him.  Cyrano was going on about his notion of the
afterlife, an afterlife of the mind where one sat about gabbing with
Socrates and Galileo for eternity.  Carruthers shook his head and closed
the book.  The Vikings had Valhalla.  Now that was an afterlife.  So
perhaps it was a quibble with the book.

The captain looked up as a bell rang at his door.  rEs first mate was
standing there and waiting to be received.  "What is it, Rooke?"

"Preventive ship, Captain."

Carruthers grimaced.  "Where?"

"Two hundred yards off starboard," said Rooke.  "They're signaling. They
want to come aboard."

Captain Carruthers put down his book and stood up behind his table.  He
removed his cigarillo case from his vest and retrieved a French
cigarette, and lit it with the candle.  Hell, he didn't feel like
reading, anyway.  "Are the whales in place?"

"Aye, Captain."

"Then bring them on." Rooke nodded and disappeared.

Smuggling was getting more difficult by the year, and afforded much less
profit than it once did, Carruthers reflected.

This would be the third time in the past two months they would be
boarded by British preventives, hying to sniff out smuggled goods.

Perhaps, thought the captain, as he made his way up to the deck to get a
look at their visitors, it was time for a change.

At this point he had no intention of going aground, oh, no.

He had properties to go to, but Carruthers got enough appreciation of
the land watching his crew run down the plank every time they put in,
the bundlemen taking provisions to near-forgotten wives and children.
All the cities were falling apart, dirty with soot and politics and
ever-sillier wars.  Even

his own ship was fitted with steam engines.  The fact made him cringe,
but they needed the speed.  The ships were uglier now, too, but at least
they were ships.  And at least at sea he had fewer reminders of how the
world was changing.  For the sea was like the desert: man could travel
across it, but he had not yet figured out how to destroy it.

Carruthers strode to the forecastle deck and looked out.

Sure enough, there was a smallish, sleek steamship moving steadily
towards them.  About twelve men stood on the deck, proper limeys all,
and Carruthers took a drag on his cigarette and raised an arm as a
greeting.  When they were within hearing range he cried out, "Ho!  What
newst'

A man in foul-weather gear looks like any other, but one of the men
hoisted a megaphone and spoke into it.  "Captain Jacob Devereaux,
Preventive Ship Gregorian coming alongside!"

Carruthers raised an eyebrow.  Devereaux?  "Nothing but blubber to see
here, and not much o' that," he shouted back.

"Just the same, Captain," replied Devereaux.  "We all have our duties."

Heh.  Whether we like it or not, eh?  "Then we're always happy for
visitors.  Come alongside."

A quarter hour later, Captain Carruthers was leading Captain Devereaux
into the main hold.  He noticed the blanched faces of the crewmen, and
he nodded at each one, silently reminding them with his eyes that they'd
pull through this one, too.

"Having any luck this time of year?" asked Devereaux.

"Some," said Carruthers, who opened an oil lamp and revealed the bloody
skins that formed a great mountain of flesh in the hold.  "It's been a
good season, in fact."

Devereaux nodded.  "This is it?  Just whale meat?"

"We are a whaler, after all."

"So I've heard." Devereaux smiled.

A man in British foul gear, one of Devereaux's crew, came jogging down
into the hold.  The sailor slipped in the whale's blood on the floor of
the hold but caught his balance before hitting the deck.  He stood with
an embarrassed look.

Devereaux rolled his eyes at his young crewman.  "Yes?"

"Everything in the other hold seems aboveboard.  No sign of contraband."
The sailor looked past Devereaux at the mountain of whale flesh. "That's
quite a haul," he said.

The captain of the Gregorian looked at Carruthers.  "Yes, the captain
was just telling me what a fine season they've had, eh, Carruthers?"

Carruthers half-smiled.  "Aye."

Devereaux continued, "Fell the party to return to the Gregorian; I'm
satisfied."

The sailor was still staring at the wall of meat and blood.

"But.  .  ."

"Butts are for scuttle, sailor.  Look alive!"

"Aye, aye, Captain!" The sailor snapped a salute and disappeared as
quickly as he could without slipping.

When the sailor was gone Devereaux looked around to make sure there were
no more crewmen coming down, and sat down on a provisions barrel.
Carruthers took out a couple of cigarettes and handed the captain one,
and Devereaux lit his with the lantern.  Then he said, "He wanted to
look under the meat, old chum."

Carruthers shrugged and blew out a stream of blue smoke.

"I can't imagine why."

Devereaux gave a short laugh.  "Righto.  But I'm sure you wouldn't go to
the trouble of covering contraband with a bloody mess of whale."

"What a novel idea," said Carruthers.

The Preventive Officer looked around, ran a finger along a dusty plank,
and studied the results idly.  "The northeast route was a grand idea."

"How many know we're out this way?"

"It was suspected, but I got the charge, so you're free and clear from
here on, I think."

Carruthers tilted his head.  "Then why bother finding me?

You could have just looked and missed us by a few miles."

"Yes, but then I couldn't have given you this," said Deyereaux, and he
reached into his coat.  "Someone knows a great deal more than one would
expect.  Haven't been giving away too many secrets, have you?" Devereaux
smiled politely, but he was serious.  He handed Carruthers a small tin.

"I wouldn't be concerned," said Carruthers, evenly.  He

I:ook the tin and dropped it in his pocket.  Then he threw (lown his
cigarette and mashed it out with his boot.  Then he fished an envelope
out of his coat and handed it to Deycreaux.  "The usual amount."

Devereaux finished his own cigarette and crushed it as be took the
envelope from Carruthers.  "Of course," said Deycreaux, as he stashed
his pay.  "Pleasure doing business with you, old chum," he said.

"Right," answered Carruthers.  "Fair winds, Captain."

"And following seas," said Devereaux, and he was gone.

By the light of the oil lamp Carruthers retrieved the tin that Devereaux
had given him and sat down on the barrel.  He unscrewed the lid and
withdrew a rolled sheet of paper, and unfolded what appeared to be a
telegram.

To: Captain Jacob Devereaux, Preventive Service For Captain David
Carruthers, Vessel Dido From: Duncan MacLeod

HARD NEWS ON NANTUCKET.

TOO MANY SALAMANDERS.

End.

The man who had once been known as Connor MacLeod looked up from his old
student's note.  He had to move quickly.

There was Hell to pay.

Six hours before Duncan MacLeod reached the hulking Gratiano, the ship
received another visitor.  The man who introduced himself as Commander
James Brimstone, USN, had arrived at 1500 hours in a small naval scout
vessel.  He had signaled that he was alone, and begged to be allowed to
board, saying he had an urgent message.  Captain Bertrand Lewis of the
Crescent Line Ship Gratiano escorted the officer to his own private
dining hall after the scout was attached by tow line to the Gratiano. At
1530, Brimstone had settled into his seat and grimly delivered his
message.

The message, if urgent, was not good.  It was laughable.

"Do you mean to tell me," said Captain Lewis, "that you think we are
going to be boarded and attacked by a pirate?"

The captain's dining hall was quiet except for the whitegloved stewards,
who hovered about Lewis and his visitor like flies.  Lewis liked his
dining hall; it protected him from the odd requests that wealthy
passengers tended to throw at a ship's captain.

"That's right, Captain," said Brimstone.  "I know it sounds incredible,
but we've had trouble with this particular fellow b(-fore.  .  ."

"I fail to see how we could be under any sort of threat."

Lewis smiled.  He had been running this route for eight years, and this
whole conversation seemed just a pleasant diversion.

He held up a hand and one of the stewards came over.  Lewis glanced back
at the visitor.  "Would you care for some tea?"

"No, thank you."

"Coffee?"

"Fine.  Black," said Commander Brimstone.  Brimstone was an odd one, but
even if he hadn't shown up in the scout, Lewis would have been sure he
was Navy by the way he held himself.  Naval officers tended to fall to
extremes, and Brimstone was clearly on the tight, serious end. Brimstone
had red hair, cut short, and a solid, if gaunt, frame.  It was difficult
to tell how old he might be.  Most pleasing to Lewis, the Commander wore
his ceremonial sword.  Lewis called out the orders to the waiter and
looked back at Brimstone, who was talking again.

"I'm not saying for certain, Captain Lewis, that you would be under a
real threat.  But this man is insane.  He's sabotaged a number of ships
of late in the New England shipyards, and

we think he's headed for you."

"Why?"

"People talk.  He thinks you have a valuable cargo."

"That we do," said Lewis.  Lewis was trying to trace Brimstone's accent.
There was something strange to it.  Brimstone's voice was not old, but
it was well-controlled and almost artificial; if he were American, the
man probably had foreign parents.  "But we also have an iron hull
compartmentalized into ten holds.  This isn't the kind of ship you just
set fun to."

"Of course not," said Brimstone, gravely.

"So what do you want us to do?"

"If this man arrives, let him board.  I have orders to arrest him."

"I can let you have a few men."

"That would be very helpful.  Let me confront him firstthere's no
telling; he may come easily.  I hope so, Captain, I truly do.  Then-4o
you have a holding pen?"

"Of course.  Sometimes the passengers can get rowdy," said Lewis, by
which he meant the drunks who got a little over friendly with the
ladies.  He leaned in with a smirk, as if to share a confidence, "And
then, so can the crew, eh?"

Brimstone had no perceptible sense of humor.  "Fine.  Let me confront
him first, and then we'll see if we can get him into the brig.  When we
get back to port I'll escort him to shore, where he'll stand trial, in
time."

"What charges?"

"Murder."

Lewis leaned back and touched his chin.  The waiter arrived with the
coffee and tea and the captain took a sip.

"Why are you alone?" he asked.  "Isn't that a bit ill-advised for the
capture of a dangerous suspect?"

Brimstone dropped his guard a bit and looked a bit embarrassed.. "This
has been a.  .  .  delicate situation, sir.  This man has caused a lot
of trouble, and the Navy doesn't want to draw attention to itself
chasing down one man who should have been arrested a long time ago.  We
think he'll come easily."

Lewis nodded, envisioning the scenario.  This "pirate" was probably a
Navy man, too.  "I understand.  When do you expect this visit?"

"He works at night.  Until then, I should very much like a tour of this
most impressive ship."

"Of course," shrugged the captain.  "She is a sight, at that."

Captain Lewis put down his tea and rose, and the Commander followed his
cue.  As they exited the dining hall Lewis asked Brimstone, "So what's
his name?"

"The suspect's name is Duncan MacLeod," said Commander Brimstone.  "And
I want you to let me handle him.  I'm not very worried," he said, with a
sigh, "but there's no telling what he might try to do."

Lauren the Companion of the Salamander waited until the naval scout was
successfully tethered and her love was away before she boarded the
Gratiano on her own.  At 1520 hours, after shimmying up the tether line,
she hopped over the side, and quickly changed into the sort of outfit
that a passenger on a Crescent Line ship would wear.

She went over the plans of the Gratiano in her mind as she made her way
down the promenade.  The ship had three kitchens, the most difficult of
which to access would be that of the captain's private dining hall.  It
would not pose a serious problem.

As Lauren passed a bevy of shuffleboard players she say; a two-sided
placard on the deck, proclaiming the schedule of the day.  Dinner would
be served promptly at 1900.  Three hours, almost.  Not a problem at all.
From a pocket near her breast the red-headed woman drew a fan and
flicked it open.

Each stern of the fan glistened with opaque brilliance, the mercury-like
substance inside the crystal stems churning with the motion of her arm.

The substance in the spines of the fan had been developed at
considerable time and expense to the Salamander, but in essence it
amounted to a derivative of the same root that the Children of the
Salamander once ingested at the Time of the Return of the God.  As the
steerage dining hall loomed ahead

of her, Lauren laughed inwardly at Khordas' brilliance, and Duncan
MacLeod's apparent idiocy.  There was more to the Salamander than
piracy.  Such a ship as this must tithe, of course.  But it was so much
better if one had worshippers to do it.

The Salamander, her lover, nay, her God, had said so.

Lauren was one of four sisters from Wales, and by Lauren's twenty-fifth
year, the sisters had turned out thus: one was the wife of a cooper in
Southampton, and had three children.  One was a court maid and rumored
to be a mistress of the king.  One was the wife of a blacksmith and
known to be a mistress of the parish priest.  But Lauren, an adoption, a
case of good Christian charity, remained ever the outcast, and
inevitably the outlaw.  By the time her courtesan sister was dallying
for mother and England, Lauren was a highwaywoman in Scotland.

In 1737, at the age of thirty, fairly well-known as the feminine scourge
of the Highlands, Lauren was caught up to and surrounded by a group of
villagers who had tired of her constant waylaying of visiting cousins.
She was run through with a sword, shot seven times, posthumously
declared a witch, and buried in a shallow grave there, where she had
died, at the crossroads.  That was October the sixth.

On October the seventh Lauren awoke to the sound of hooves pounding the
earth over her head.  She gasped, and began to gag on the dirt that
filled her throat.  She lay still, blind, and waited.  After a moment
she tried to breathe and found that air was coming into her nose.

Calm down.  Calm down.  You've been buried alive, but not very deep.

Then, as she tried to move her muscles, and felt the earth falling away
from her, as her lungs exploded with fresh air and she wiped dirt from
her mouth, Lauren began to scream.

Each bullet, she saw, remembering now, flying through the air-that's the
one with my number on it, no, that one seven in all, the holy number,
and she felt the sword once again, thrust into her, breaking ribs and
puncturing lungs, her heart palpitating wildly as she crashed to the
earth she was dead Dead!  Images, now, angels in paintings and
sculpture,

all the things of the church, all the men she had killed, all the men
who had killed her, little by little, before the band of avengers
finally brought her down, horses' hooves pounding and Lauren,
Highwaywoman, buried under the crossroads, dying.  Dead!  No Heaven!  No
Hell, thank God, thank God, no thrashing and wailing and gnashing of
teeth and Lauren was horrified by the joke that she had fought so long
and hard for her punishment and now where is it?  Where is this Heaven,
this Hell?  And what is to become of me?

Senses, now, new senses, blinding her with deeper colors than she had
ever known, vision clearer than even her eagle eyes had afforded, the
specks of the sun brilliant in the dirty strands of her red hair, the
wind howling.  And now Lauren simply had to move, she was frightened and
elated at once, and she jumped from her shallow grave and looked down
the road when she heard, at a distance, another approaching horse.

Laurn knew she must look ghastly, and she felt at her blouse where the
sword had torn it and her, and there was the tear, but no wound.  Lauren
stood by the side of the road, drunk on her new senses, violently
needing action, needing to move, and now the horseman came around the
trees and she saw the rider.

The man on the horse slowed as he drew near the crossroads.  Lauren
looked him over and saw that he was paunchy, but he had an expensive
pistol-so he must have a good purse, as well.  The horse was good.  The
man brought the horse closer and said something to make it slow, and he
looked at her.

"My lady, are you injured?" The man shifted in the saddle and tipped his
cap.  "Is there anywhere I can take you?"

Lauren walked slowly to the horse, feeling the grains of earth in her
boots so clearly she could count them, feeling the very soul of the
steed the man rode.  She was silent, and now she took on a pleading
demeaner and reached up, and touched the man on the chest.  The stranger
smiled, as if a bit confused but not very, and before he could say
another word Lauren jerked on his collar and dragged him quickly to the
earth.  The man landed on his shoulder and Lauren heard a

crack, and she jumped on his back, reached for his head, and gave it a
sharp twist.

Now she had a horse, and a pistol, and some money.  And now she began to
ride, furiously, because whatever euphoria had taken hold of her was
beginning to cede to sheer confusion and panic.

Lauren rode for days, southward, not even paying attention to the fact
that she drove the horse to death.  She left the carcass behind,
wandering madly, now into the swamps near of Loch Rannoch, slogging
through the mud, and it was after she had slogged on for half a day that
she realized she was being drawn by something, something with answers.

And then on the eleventh of October Lauren reached a mound of earth, and
as she stepped past a patch of dark ground she felt it.  Or, more
correctly, Him.

A vision, now, of herself, as outside herself, dropping to her knees,
scratching at the earth, now drawing her dagger and beginning to dig.
Hours upon hours, days passing, blood running from her fingernails and
the wounds healing.  Her brain rocked with the presence that poured
through the mud as a wall of clay broke inward, and she found a tunnel
leading towards the broch, the tunnel itself filled with hard clay.

I know you, already, I who have served nothing, who is alone, I sense
the violence within you, the hatred, the loneliness, it calls out to me,
aye, and I will resurrect you.

And I will serve.

Teach me, for I have come to serve.

Lauren found a lump of clay, like the first man according to the
Judeo-Christians, a lump of clay that contained a preseilce, that was
curled like a babe with a lump in its anus that gave off no presence,
and now she was taking her dagger, slicing away the hardened clay and
seeing blood flow freely, tearing the clay away from the man's nose and
the mouth.

The clay man, bleeding from his wounds, began to move, to rasp with a
voice unheard for near a century, and his darkly covered anus came away
from the prize he clung to and reached up, hardened earth falling away
from his limbs, and the clay man brought his hands to his face and
ripped the clay away from his eyes, and he screamed with the new light.

And the clay man lay staring fOr a long time at the creature before him,
and Lauren knew, somehow, she had found her purpose.

And finally the clay man reached up a hand and touched her on the
shoulder.  "I am weak, my Nerissa.  My companion."

"My name is Lauren."

"Lauren, then.  Lauren the Companion." The face would be comic were it
not so strange and fierce, the swath of white skin showing through the
clay on the flesh of the man's face, surrounding his great, burning
eyes.  The clay man breathed as if unaccustomed to the task, his voice
slicing through the air and taking her soul.  "I am Khordas.  The
Salamander.  The God."

Aboard the Gratiano, Lauren finished scattering a handful of the
powdered root of faith into the water tanks, her last stop after the
three kitchens.  Over her head, she heard crewmen walking along iron
catwalks.  Lauren closed her eyes, and now she felt the edge of Khordas'
presence elsewhere on the ship.  Khordas would now be taking a tour,
guided by the captain, after delivering his warning about the mad
pirate.

Lauren made her way up to the main deck and began to walk along it,
feeling the breeze against her face.  So this was to be Khordas' new
home, the site of the new civilization, the place of the Rebirth.

Something in the back of Lauren's mind flashed a signal, like a glowing
buoy, bobbing on the horizon.  You are mistaken.  Leave, now.  This is
not the way.  There is the Game to play, Lauren.

But Khordas needed his Companion.  And Lauren reached into a pocket and
drew out a small capsule of gelatin, containing a dose of the Root of
Faith.  Lauren put the capsule to her mouth and swallowed, and soon, all
became clear.  There was much work to be done.

After an hour, Lauren saw the crew filing into and out of their early
supper, and the results were already becoming apparent.  Lauren strode
down the deck and spotted a trio of sailors standing limply on the deck
as if hung from a clothes line.  Lauren smiled.  They were emptied,
emptied of the world, and ready to be filled.

"You," she touched one of the sailors on the shoulder.  "Go stand guard
and await my instructions.  Look for an approaching vessel.  Children,"
said Lauren turning to the other two staring sailors, feeling in herself
the root that made the instructions and the wisdom of Khordas so clear.
"The first thing we have to do, is make a lot of mud."

Duncan felt the cold sea air bite against his face as he sped along what
he had planned as a collision course with the Gratiano.  He grimaced
into the mist, seeing no farther ahead than a quarter mile.  The sea was
dark.

The Spanish Lady hit twenty knots and Duncan ducked under the canopy. He
consulted his maps to confirm that he was on a course to match the
Gratiano; now all he had to do was look for her.  Not that he could miss
a ship of that size.

And at about nine in the evening, her vast stacks popped over the
horizon, clearly visible against the clouds.

Duncan went back to choke off the engine a bit.  Naturally, the Lady ran
on steam, and like most private yachts she was fairly efficient in her
use of coal, which no gentleman liked to spend much time in shovelling.

The vast hulk of the Gratiano loomed as he drew close to it, and when
Duncan came within a mile he realized that the ship was not moving.  The
Gratiano had dropped anchor.

Duncan drew a pair of field glasses from the canopy and peered through
them, and he could make out the shapes of men on the deck, keeping
watch.

And now he heard something else, strange, vibrating through the air.
Drums.  Duncan pulled his coat closer to him and walked out to the prow
of the Lady, and began to crank the alarm horn.

As he began to crank the horn, Duncan immediately doubted the wisdom of
the warning, and wondered if he should approach in silence.  But the
Gratiano was not on fire.

The boat was still, but there; people were wawing along the well-lit
deck.  And he would have been completely at ease were it not for the
steady drone of those drums, rhythmic and foreign.  He was coming up on
a ship built in the late nineteenth century.  But the drums defied the
exterior, a strange, tiny, odd detail that threw the whole picture off
balance.  He felt as if he were entering another time.

Duncan's vision went blazing white as a search light turned on him and
he heard the sound of voices shouting orders to one another.  When he
pulled the Lady alongside, he looked up the hull and saw that the men
were dropping him a rope ladder, and Duncan scaled it until he reached
the rail.

Once on deck, Duncan finished pulling the rope ladder after him, saying,
"Can't leave this down, gentlemen-I should like to speak with your
Cast-"

Duncan looked at the sailors who surrounded him and noticed, for the
first time, the curiously dull eyes of the men.

Duncan stepped to one side and the eyes followed, but the crewmen made
no move to stop him.  They stared at him without taking any real
interest in him, it seemed.  Then one said, "You will come with us."

"I understand your concern," said Duncan, slowly.  My god, have you been
drugged?  "It's not often a chap just hops aboard in mid-cruise, eh?"

"No," came a voice from behind Duncan, "no, it isn't."

Duncan reached into his coat and through the carefully concealed pocket
there, and he felt the handle of his katana slip into his hand as he
pivoted on his right foot to meet the voice.

He was met by a man with a deep-blue face, a stylized, ancient
salamander face, one that Duncan had held in his own hands, once.
Khordas' velvet voice was altered by the mask, it expanded within the
funnel and became as a god's.  Duncan eyed the tall, gaunt red-head,
wearing a robe like the one he had worn so long ago, and the katana came
forward with his arm, as of its own power, the coat flying out of the
way.

"Khordas.  That costume proves what I've known all along."

Khordas stood still, hands serenely beside him.  "Proves what, MacLeod?"

"You're out of time," said Duncan.

"Aren't we all?"

"Let's go."

"What is it, Duncan?  In search of a Quickening?  You just don't
understand the elements, do you?"

"What else is there, Khordas?  Money, love, power, and the Game.  The
Game!" Duncan said, "On guard, Salamander.  I won't give you another
chance."

And Khordas only smiled, and when Duncan felt a second presence, coming
up fast, he turned his head.  But something that was probably the hilt
of a rapier smashed him in the back of the skull before he got the
Companion-for who else could it be-in sight.  Khordas whispered, in a
way that boomed and hissed at the same time from the mask, "Oh,
MacL.eod, I think you will at that."

And as he lost consciousness, Duncan heard something about the brig, and
"making preparations."

When the Gratiano was first built, the Grand Ballroom was the most
ambitious undertaking of its kind, a dream come true for its architects.
It was three hundred feet long, one hundred feet wide, thirty-six feet
high, the most space ever afforded to a room that would make no profit,
save that for the eye.  The predominantly white walls were set off by
tapestries brought from the Far East, with silver-oxidized ornamental
ironwork complementing the gilt decor in a way that the Times had
referred to as "somehow avoiding, if narrowly, the gaudy." And at
midnight, February the ninth, 1897, it looked almost nothing at all like
its designers' dream.

At the far end of the ballroom stood a massive fireplace, an orifice
eight feet tall, and now inside this hellish mouth had been placed a
giant cauldron from the kitchen.  In the cauldron, heated by the hot
coals, bubbled a bath of mud.

And in the mud, as at the beginning, curled and waited the god.

Lauren strode through the ballroom and observed the progress of the
evening.  The mud they had made from earth brought on the absconded
naval scout, bucket after bucket, had been thrown across the walls,
covering them, so that in the still-burning chandeliers' light, the
ballroom was no longer a ballroom, but a cave.  The walls dripped
steadily, and the sludgy mud fell in dollops upon the wood floors and
Asian rugs.  Lauren walked along the walls, reaching into her bag, and
out of it she drew a handful of something dust-like,

and this glittered darkly as she threw it onto the walls and it adhered
to the mud, some of it raining down on the heads of the gathered.

And Lauren the Companion reached the front of the ballroom and stood
with her back to the great fire, surveying the Children of the
Salamander.

Six hundred people in all, groaning, swaying on their knees, men, women,
children, people of all the classes of the mortal world.  Lauren vaguely
remembered she had been from a lesser class once; that was when she
inhabited the old world, before she found Khordas.

In the front kneeled the former captain of the ship, Lewis, and he
simply stared forward, like a marionette, his jaw hanging open.

Lauren the Companion stood before the cauldron that bubbled with hot
mud.  It was time for the Return of the God.

"My Children," said Lauren the Companion, now Lauren the High Priestess,
"you have been betrayed by your fellow men, you have not known the
nature of this world.  You have worshipped the wrong gods or none at
all, you have served yourself and destroyed yourself without
compunction.  You have wielded power without understanding it.

"The season has been a long one, Children, and the crops have withered,
and you have lost your spirits, and though the longing has been buried,
you have longed for the guiding force, the force of destruction, the
force of cleansing."

No words from the Children, simply blank staring, waiting, blank slates
taking in the new message, clay waiting to be sculpted, like the clay
that held the god, but not for long.

"In time, my Children, you will understand, you will know your parts,
you will serve your master.  But now you are Children indeed, and it is
time to learn.  Wretched, indeed, is the world of men, that has
forgotten its part in the cyclical drama, and the Return of the God."

Lauren clapped her hands together, red hair swaying with every move, and
now the chemical packets in her palms flashed and burned and she felt
the joy of burning.  She thrust her hands out, sending the dripping
flames to either wall, and now the glittering walls sparked, and
ignited, and the mud walls of the Grand Ballroom exploded in flame.  Now
the

('children began to sway more fiercely, the potion within them causing
them to see the god in the fire, and in Lauren, and t'iey moaned,
waiting for the instructions of the Companion.

Hands thrust high, smoke filling the air, blackening Lauren's face as
she called out: "You are the Children of the Salamander!  Rise, and pay
tribute!  Hear my words and make them your own!"

Now the Children of the Salamander rose to their feet, and lauren the
Companion began the ritual.  And she felt as the (-'children: alive,
Immortal, and content in her calling.

Khordas, we have come to please you ...

Light filtered into Duncan's eyes as he awoke, and he was greeted by
grey plaster.  He saw immediately that he was in a holding pen, on the
deck, his back resting against the iron bars of the cell.  His head was
pounding from the Companion's I)Iow, and he found himself absently
reaching up to his neck, as if to prove that indeed his head was still
attached to his shoulders.  Duncan vaguely heard a sound, like voices
chanting.

Khordas, we have come to serve ...

Duncan rose and looked out through the bars of the cell.

The area outside the cell, the chair where there should have been a
guard, was empty.  And the chanting continued, far off, a slow,
murmuring sound, one voice, answered at intervals by a horde of others
that echoed down through the bowels of the ship.  Khordas, what are you
doing?

There was a reason Duncan was still alive, any idiot could see that.
Khordas had a plan for him, and it couldn't possibly be agreeable.  The
Highlander groaned and felt the headache passing, and he surveyed the
cell for a method of escape.  As he stood he reached into his coat,
slipping his hand through the lining, and was shocked to feel the ivory
handle of the katana in its specially constructed scabbard.  Odd.
Khordas had not taken his sword.  What, did he want a fair fight yet?

At the end of the cell, a small window looked out on the ocean itself.
He was above surface, that was good.  The window was inset by six inches
or so, and could not be more than a foot or so in diameter.  Duncan bit
his lip.  That would be embarrassing indeed, to get stuck in a window
and hang half in and half out the ship, just waiting for Khordas to

come by and chop his head off.  For that matter, a loose cable might do
it.  "And if your head comes away from your shoulders, it's over."

"There would be no breaking through the steel bars that comprised the
cell door.  But the lock was of the standard key-hole variety, and all
that experience with similar scrapes would not to go to waste.  Duncan
now reached for the back of his head and found that Khordas had
absconded with his hairpin, too.  Of all the thieving ...

Duncan sat down on the edge of the folding cot that hung from the wall,
and removed his right boot.  He grimaced at the stench, for he had been
sweating, but lifted the boot to his mouth and used his teeth to tear at
the stitching that bound the leather.  Duncan heard a tiny ripping sound
as the stitching gave, and then used his hands to yank the pieces of
leather apail.  A flash of silver glinted in the dim light.  There,
nestled in a pocket inside the leather lining, was Duncan's own small
set of tools.

]:)uncan had been in a rather raucous prison in Turkey with that chaotic
thieving Immortal Amanda, and although Duncan knew she could be trusted
no farther than she could be thrown, the lovely criminal had taught the
Highlander a thing or two about escapes.  The woman kept more tools on
her person than seemed humanly possible, and Duncan had adopted this
habit along the way to fit his own needs.  Similar pockets could be
found in his coat-next to the hidden scabbard-md in his trousers, and
especially in his belt (which, also, Khordas had taken).  Generally, all
of this had proved a wasted effort, it being much easier to simply avoid
arrest.

But after three hundred years, it paid to be prepared.

Duncan withdrew from the pocket a lockpick, resealed the boot as best he
could, and put it back on.  Now he went to the lock and proceeded to
jimmy it.  Within twenty seconds he was making his way down the
passageway.

Khordas heard the chanting from outside the pit and his meditation ebbed
into full wakefulness.  The new world awaited; the new Children were
calling for him.  Khordas felt the heat of the mud, reddening his skin
to match his hair, and he began to rise.

Khordas, we have come to please you, Khordas, we have come to serve,

Khordas, protect us from ourselves, and make us strong ...

The mud parted as Khordas' head emerged, the deep blue mask attaching
itself, molding itself to his face as the mud slithered across it, and
Khordas opened his eyes and looked out on the six hundred Children.

Khordas, hear our prayer!

"I hear, my Children, and am glad, at last."

Khordas rose, and the mud dolloped off of him as his body slipped from
the glove-like vat, and Khordas called out to his Children.  Before them
all stood Lauren, his Companion.  She had taught the Children well.  But
then, the Root of Faith always helped.  Lauren was smiling, proud of her
god, and Khordas knew that at last, the season of the Return of the God
had come.  Khordas threw back his head, clapping his hands together, and
the chemicals he had been taught to use so, so long ago flared, and fire
burst forward from his hands as he spoke: "I am the Salamander, Khordas!
I hold the power of the earth in my hands!"

We are not puny, like our babes, Nor weak, like our enemies across the
hillsWe are your Children, Khordas, And because wefear you, we are to
befeared!

Khordas was pleased.  "And what tribute do you pay, my Children, that I
might not destroy, but will be pleased?"

Khordas, we beg your mercy, Khordas, we wish to please ...

We give you these baubles, poor though they are, but to us, they are
great things.

And now Lauren stepped aside with a bow, and the Children began to come
forward, some with furs of great value, some with baubles indeed.  Some
with diamonds, some with gold.  Then the Child who once was called
Captain Lewis stepped forward and said, "This and much more we can offer
you, Khordas, for below your feet are vast spaces, and these hold more
treasure than any man can carry."

Lewis bowed and stepped back, and returned to the congregation of the
Children, where he knelt and bowed.

Khordas smiled, and bits of mud fell from his face as he (lid so.  "I am
well pleased, my Children.  Great things will become of you.  .  ." and
Khordas paused, for a feeling had struck him in the gut, a feeling he
knew well.  One of the false gods was coming.  Ah, good.  MacLeod.
"Great things indeed.  But that I might know your love, I beg another
bauble of you."

Lewis cried out, "What can we give to appease the god?"

"I have my Companion, and need no other of that kind.

But your good wishes for a babe, to join him in the hot pit, a babe to
become as Khordas, the Salamander, fearing no flame, succumbing to no
water."

Lauren now began to stride among the six hundred, and presently she
found a child, silent and listless, moaning.

"This girl is a fitting one," said Lauren, as she knelt by the (-hild.
The girl had red hair, like Khordas and Lauren.  Lauren now spoke to the
Child beside the child, and said, "You are the earthly guardian of this
babe, do you give her to the god?"

The woman stared ahead, quivering, Somewhere, sedated, she was an
American named Pamela Devon, but this was nothing, a trifle, for she was
now a Child of the Salamander.

lamela quivered, and Khordas felt sure for a moment that she would deny
the god, but then she spoke: "This babe I give to the god."

Lauren took the girl by the hand, and the child rose, and walked with
the Companion.

"She has a new mother," said Khordas.  "And I am her the%% father.  She
is a child of the god, praise her!"

Praise we give to the child of the god, as we do to the goa himself.
Khordas, we come to serve ...

Lauren came to the cauldron now, the girl walking slowly before her, and
they stopped and waited at the cauldron where Khordas stood.  And
Khordas knew that there was a difference between himself and the babe,
knew that although he could withstand a scaking bath of mud, she could
not, but, it was part of the ritual, and must be done.  Lauren offered
up the child, and Khordas seized her by the waist and held hell high
over his head.

Praise we give to the child!  Go, now, and become as

Khordas and the Companion!

And the babe looked into Khordas' eyes and her green eyes reflected only
dully the fire of his own, for what was she but a mortal?  And would
there not be truth in the myth, would some sort of transformation not
take place?

Khordas now began to lower the child towards the bubbling mud that
surrounded his own legs.  ("Khordas!" he heard someone yell, and he knew
who that was, as the door at the back of the ballroom slammed), and the
girl's shoes began to dip into the pit.

"Khordas!  No!"

The Ffighlander was moving through the crowd now, and Khordas cried,
"Children of the Salamander!  Vanquish this wearisome foe!"

And Khordas watched out of the corner of his eye as Duncan MacLeod was
set upon by the Children of the Salamander, and he was kicking and
pushing his way through, but not fast enough, he was afraid ...

The babe's dull eyes grew wide and the child shuddered, freezing in
fear, if it could be called that, or exaltation, perhaps, and her legs
entered the mud and Khordas heard a slight sizzling sound.

Deafening, the roar of the Highlander, beneath a mountain of Children,
pounding him, tearing at him, biting him, and Khordas took a breath and
prepared to plunge the babe into the hot mud when something snatched the
girl from his amis.

"I reject this child!" came a voice.  "Take her away, for she cannot
serve, I see weakness in her bones!"

Khordas looked up, enraged.  "Lauren!  Dare you defy the wishes of the
Salamander!"

But Lauren was backing away, not herself, and she nuzzled the child in
her arms.  Presently she set the child down before her.  "She is not
fit!" Lauren cried, loudly.

Khordas bared his teeth, now.  "You will pay for your insolence,
Companion.  You will pay dearly!"

The girl seemed to come to her senses as her feet touched the floor. She
screamed, feeling at her burnt legs, and now she began to run.

Khordas surveyed the ballroom, the great cave of mud and

fire, and saw that MacLeod had fought his way out of the onslaught of
Children.

Khordas called out, "The God has returned, MacLeod!

You are too late!"

"Khordas ...  Khordas ...  you ...  are ...  deluded." The Highlander
was staggering, and he pointed at Khordas, then seemed as if he were
about to rush Khor-das himself.

Khordas raised a hand and returned MacLeod's gesture.

"No ftu-their, Highlander!  Look around you!  This room is sacred,
MacLeod.  Holy Ground!"

MacLeod roared, incredulous.  "By your edict?"

"This is the Church of the Salamander," Khordas swept his arms out,
indicating the torchlit bog, "and these are his many worshippers!"
Khordas' silken voice hissed through the mask.  At last you know.  You
will all know.  "And you are not welcome here."

MacLeod was a sight, standing still, the only movement the rise and fall
of his massive chest.  Khordas knew that MacLeod would not break the
taboo against fighting on holy ground, no matter how angry he might be.
MacLeod seemed to consider it, and then he took notice of the only
humansounding voice in the whole place, the screaming, burnt child who
was running madly through the ballroom.  Duncan MacLeod snatched up the
girl and ran, out of the cave of fire and mud, out into the light.

Khordas felt the presence of the Highlander recede.  He had to smile,
even though the Highlander had taken the girl.

"Lauren," said the Salamander, "let us speak in private."

Khordas looked at her and felt her withering under his stare.

She, like the mortals, would come back under his control.  All these
things would be dealt with.

And now, even MacLeod knew there was no hope.

Duncan fired up the engine on the Spanish Lady and sped away in the
night.  The child's burns needed tending to, and he wasn't the one to do
it.  "What is your name?" Duncan asked the child, glancing over his
shoulder and shouting down into his own bunk.  "Hello?" Duncan looked
back behind the Lady, to confirm that they were not being followed, and
stepped down to the bunk.

The girl's green eyes were no longer dull, but now they reminded Duncan
of Christmas tree decorations, so bloodshot they were.  The child was
exhausted.  "Genevieve," Duncan heard the girl say.

"Well, sit tight, Genevieve, everything is going to be fine," Duncan
said, knowing this to be a patently offensive and insulting lie.  Duncan
slowed down and went to Genevieve, and knelt down to talk to her.  "Your
mother, was she on board the ship?"

Genevieve was trembling, very slightly, but she was fighting to remain
calm.  It obviously counted for a great deal that Duncan had spirited
her away from that ship.  She swallowed, and spoke, with a calm that
defied her years.  "Yes."

"And your father?"

Genevieve shook her head.  Duncan grimaced and said, "No father?"

Another shake of the head.  Then, the child grabbed him by

the collar, and Genevieve pressed her nose against his and her bloodshot
green eyes met Duncan's.  "You have to go back.  You have to go back for
my mother."

"Genevieve, I.  .  ."

"You have to!  That ...  man.  .

Duncan cupped his hands around the child's face and said, "I will,
Genevieve.  I promise you, I will.  But right now you must trust me that
you are safe."

Now the child stared ahead, hunmng something, something she had just
learned, and if the eyes reflected the mind, Duncan knew he would have
seen walls of mud and fire, and the Salamander.  "Khordas, I have come
to please you, Khordas, I have come to serve .  .  ."

Duncan lay the child back down and checked her bandages.  She had
suffered minor burns on her calves, but she should stiffer no permanent
damage.

Duncan returned to the main deck of the Lady and looked back in the
direction of the anchored ship that had become a world all its own.

Duncan slammed his fist against the rail, his mind racing with
possibilities and scenarios.  He had underestimated the Salamander.  He
had not taken the Immortal's ravings seriously, choosing instead to
believe that all dark-leaning Immortals were alike, thieves and
murderers.  He had not wished to admit that Khordas was different.
Duncan had been mistaken.  And that was the last mistake Khordas would
allow.

"Lauren," spoke the voice of the god.  Lauren looked around the room
that had been the captain's quarters.  The walls had been covered over
with mud, and the fine, sparkling substance covered them, so that the
walls of mud sparkled like the night sky.  She was sitting on a stool of
clay, her feet and hands encased in some dark, hard substance. "Lauren."

Lauren stared ahead.  Like Dante's vision of Lucifer, Khordas was in a
cauldron, smaller than the ceremonial pit in the ballroom, up to his
chest in mud.  Her eyes burned like fire from sockets that were encased
in mud.  "Yes, my Lord."

Khordas rose from his resting place, and seemed to step out of the
cauldron so smoothly that he appeared to simply

float out of it and set himself before her.  "I want you to explain to
me why you did ...  what you did."

Lauren felt her head quivering, and she wanted to spill out a thousand
lightning thoughts from deep in her mind, Khordas, you've changed, what
are you?  "The child.  .  ." She stopped, searching for the words.

"Was a sacrifice!  From my worshippers, a sacred gesture!"

"Khordas ...  the child," she bit her lip, and fell back to her
statement, "was unworthy.  Infirm."

"What?" The voice of the god boomed through the cave, for it was a cave,
now, the whole ship was a series of caves, wasn't it?

"She was weak.  Her faith faltered, did it not?"

Silence.

"Did it not?"

Khordas held out his hand, and a pool of orange liquid had collected in
his mud-covered palm.  "And who are you," he said, brushing his thumb
past the liquid, and now there was fire in his hand, "to decide the
fitness of the gifts of the Children of the Salamander?"

"I am the Companion."

The fireball in Khordas' hand flared, and he brought the flaming hand
close to her face.  Lauren felt her skin heating and stared, trying to
look past the fire, "Do you have, now, the wisdom of the god?"

Lauren managed to shake her head.  "No.  My Lord."

Flare.  Blinding.  "The strength ...  of the god?"

"No." Lauren blinked, and when she opened her eyes the light had drawn
away, and now she blinked again and it was next to her cheek, and her
eyes would not tear away from the flame, so beautiful, the element of
fire, the gift of the god.

"No, my Lord."

"I think your faith begins to falter, Companion.  Does it?"

Fire.  Fire in her eyes, please, god, what dangerous beauty.

"Does it?"

"No.  No.  No.  Khordas, please..."

"You are the Companion!" Khordas slung his hand to his side and the
flame burst from his palm and hit the walls, and now the walls flared
around him, orange and blue flame surrounding them, heating the room,
and now they were at the dawn of time, and Khordas walked the earth
breathing fire, giving life to the mud.  "You are my love, the symbol of
my eternal love for the Children of the Salamander!"

"And always I shall be so," said Lauren, as she had said a thousaDd
times, and now echoes of the past were moving through her, Khordas,
lying awake at night and telling her of his godhood, and she had
worshipped him, and did still, but Khordas, what are you ...

"You were given to me!" Khordas cried.  "A gift, pitiful though it was,
the best the Children of the Salamander could offer their god."

No, no, I remember, I found you, I did not know what I was, but I was no
gift!  Lauren shook away the thoughts, and the good thoughts came, yes,
a gift, destined to find you, to help you, to be your Companion, like
she who came before.

"I...  have had difficulty ...  with your ...  transformation...  my
Lord."

"Transformation?" roared the god.

"You are.  .  ." Say it.  What can he do, kill you?  different."

"I am the Salamander!  Have you forgotten, my Companion?  Are you
delirious?"

"Khordas, please," Lauren said again.  "I don't know you.  I have done
what you told me, but.  .  ." What could she say?  I didn't think you
would take it all so seriously?  Having second thoughts, madams?

Now Khordas swiped his hand again, and Lauren saw a blue flame fly to
the wall, and all the burning points flared in a chain reaction, and
just as suddenly went out, snuffed by the power of the god.  And Lauren
was in total darkness.

Darkness, as at the beginning.  And the Salamander was there.

"I am disturbed by your loss of faith.  Perhaps it is time again for you
to partake of the Root of Faith."

No, I am Lauren of Wales, I was a highway robber, I had three sisters, I
am not some god's little mistress!  "Yes.  My Lord."

"Good,,, said Khordas.  "When I created man from the

mud.  .  ." Khordas' hand was caressing her neck, the mud sliding along
her jaw.

You?  You?  Do you really believe that now?  Do you believe and at the
same time know it's not true?

And gave man the fire of life, I knew that at times they would doubt me,
for their doubting would make them stronger.  As you will become
stronger, Lauren."

The velvet, funneled, slithering, hypnotic voice, the nimble fingers,
massaging her neck, the smell of sulphur on his hands, it was true, all
of it, yes, Khordas, yes, Salamander, Salamander, I come to serve you. .
.  "Yes.  My Lord."

"Then let us drink of the Root, and refresh ourselves, and renew our
strength," said Khordas, and his voice was velvet fire.  "For we have
work to do, and infidels to punish."

And Lauren partook of the Root of Faith, and her mind washed over in
orange and red, and she was the Companion, given by the Children to
satiate the hungry, lonely god.

A few hours later, Barney sat in the Tariff house, counting out.  When
the sound came, a whistle in the door, a shape moving soundlessly
through the room, he did not look up.

Stay calm.

"Barney?" It was a woman's voice, sweet and languorous, and the Quaker
felt a tingle of excitement and looked up.  His fear fell away like a
shell.  In the dim light she was a silhouette, curving magnificently,
and the red hair caught the light just so that he almost regretted
charging her.  Almost.  "More information, dear?  I've missed thee."

"You spoke to MacLeod, Barney," said Lauren.

"MacLeod?" The Quaker froze.  "MacLeod?" Idiot.

"Idiot.  What sort of fool do you take me for?" The woman was drawing
something from her pouch, raising it up, something that shone in the
light, steel, blazing clean, like a new coin.

"What hast thou," Barney said, trying to remain calm.  He mustered a
smile.  "Is this a dagger I see before me?" Its point moved with her
hand, seeming to float before her, moving in that dark, muscled, woman's
arm.

"This is a dagger indeed."

Which was not so before," he whispered, knowing

what was coming but not believing it, you knew, you knew this mould
happen ...

"No," she said, "it was not so before." The point came to his chin, and
scraped against the faint growth of beard.  "For you had not betrayed me
before."

"He made me tell," said Barney, "I didn't want to, I.  .

"Liar!" The point dug into Barney's chin a bit more, and he felt it nip
at him, knowing it drew the slightest amount of blood.  "Liar.  He paid
you, didn't he?"

"Yes, but.  .  ."

Lauren raised an eyebrow, "'Yes, madame, he paid me, but I begged him
not to," is that it?"

"No!  I swear."

"Liar still!" she cried, and the dagger came down, and Barney felt a
sharp pain and looked down to see his own hand impaled on his desk.  He
moved his hand by reflex and felt raw nerves scream out, and he
trembled, and each tremble brought new pain.

The flowing figure of the Companion moved, and twisting a knob, caused
the oil lamp on the counter to open up and flare, and her face and hair
were clear, burning bright, red as Hell.  Hell awaited.

"Don't reach for it, Barney.  Really.  Do you know something, Barney?"
said the husky voice.  Lauren now rested against the counter and put her
hand to her face, and her head began to move quickly up and down, and
soon it became alldibly apparent that the woman was laughing.

"Madame.  .."

"We all play our parts, Barney.  You're an educated man, yes?. "All the
world's a stage," and all that?"

"Yes," the Quaker said, timidly.  She was going to let him go.  She was
in a good mood.  She had driven a dagger through his hand and yes, by
God he had learned his lesson.

Please go away.  Please.

"The Messiah knew that Judas would turn, did he not?"

Lauren was still laughing, and she spoke to him over her shoulder,
toying with the oil lamp.

"Cor ...  correct."

"Wouldn't have been possible without him, I should think-Judas, I mean."

"Madame?"

"Whence the crucifixion if Judas did not play his part?"

Lauren opened the lwnp more, and the light increased, and her reddish
form glistened, for she was wet with sweat from the lwnp that was so
near to her face.  She seemed to study the flame for awhile, mesmerized
by it, before looking back at him.  "Without the sorrowful greed of
Judas, whence the triumph of the god?"

Barney nodded swiftly.  He had heard as much in Meeting, but ...

"All the parts we play-Khordas, so many of them-and I am happy to report
that yours was played most satisfactorily.

For you delivered MacLeod to us." She tilted her head, lost in the
flames again.  "He has since left, but he will be back.

He, too, plays a part.  As do l."

"And ...  my part ...  now.  .

"That's an interesting question, Barney, and it's perceptive, of you to
ask it."

"I thank ...  thee," Barney whispered.  Please go away.

Please go away.  I just wanted a little extra.

Slowly, the lamp tipped over, and the glass cracked, and Barney watched
the papers, and all the ledgers there, begin to catch, and Lauren turned
to him, lit up from behind by a rising curtain of flame.

"We did our best to help you along, Barney.  We knew you would betray
us, but I like to think there was a part of us that rather hoped you
wouldn't.  Ah, well.  All in the script."

"Please, I ...  he tortured me!  Tortured!"

Lauren glibly clicked her tongue.  "Doesn't really make that much of a
difference now, does it?"

Lauren reached into a pouch that was slung low on her hip and withdrew a
small packet, and began to unroll a cord from it.  She laid it on the
desk in front of Barney, and the Quaker stared at it, and back at the
red-headed goddess.  A match flared and the end of the cord began to
sparkle and hiss, and she patted the packet, as if it were a pet.
"Marvelous thing, this.  My love has something of a talent for these
things.  Watch it for me."

"What.  .  ." Barney moved his hand again and gasped at the pain.

"Don't move, Barney.  Still life, I want to remember you just this way."
Lauren drew a watch from her pouch and consulted it, and said, "I have
my own part to play, so I must be going.  Still life, Barney."

Barney reached with his other hand for the packet and suddenly, so fast
he didn't see it, another dagger was piercing through his hand and he
was stuck to his desk, a fly in a child's collection.

She was moving away, now, around the growing wall of flame on the
counter, and the cord was still hissing at him, moving steadily down
towards the packet.

From behind the wall of flame he heard the bell of the door ring, and
Lauren said, "I thank you, Barney.  Somehow I feel better about my own
part, now.  But as for yours ...  well ...  ten," the door closed, and
outside he heard her lilting, lovely, terrible voice, "nine .  .  ."

Barney stared at the spreading fire and the shrinking fuse.

Two.  One.

Curtains.

"Who did this to her?" Gabriela asked, after she was sure that Genevieve
was asleep.  Duncan had called her at five o'clock in the morning, Mrs.
Brandeis beating on her door and telling her she had a telephone call as
if this were some sort of crime.  When Duncan said that he was at the
area hospital with an injured child, and would she bring some blankets,
she was off.  Gabriela met Duncan as he was carrying the child off the
ferry to Nantucket, and she already had the surrey cab waiting.  Now,
all was quiet outside the surrey, save for the horse's hooves.

"Who else?" Duncan answered, staring out the curtained window.  It was
six o'clock in the morning, and the sun was coming up.

"How did these injuries occur?" All Gabriela knew was that the girl had
received second-degree burns to her lower legs, that thankfully she had
been shod at the time of the burns.  Gabriela lifted the blanket to peer
at the white gauze.

"It looked like Khordas was bloody well going to boil her in mud," said
the Highlander.  "But I cannot be sure.  I had a small army of unarmed
passengers on me at the time."

"The passengers of the Gratiano attacked you?"

"The passengers of the Gratiano," repeated Duncan, "seem to be
thoroughly under Khordas' control.  They've been drugged, I think.
Mesmerized, as well."

"But you got to her in time."

"Her name is Genevieve," Duncan said.  "And no." He ttimed to her and
put his fist to his chin.  "That's the odd part.

Lauren Drake interfered.  The Companion stopped the sacrifice."

Gabriela shook her head.  "I cannot believe any of this.

Human sacrifice on a cruise ship, three hundred year old men.  .  ."

"And women," corrected Duncan.  "And I'm three hundred; there's no
telling how old Khordas is."

Gabriela ran her hand along the sleeping girl's face, and said,
"Pobrecita na.  What's to become of her, does she have a mother?"

"Aye," said Duncan.  "And her mother is a captive of our fliend the
Salamander.  You should have seen this ship.  He's converted it into
some sort of replica of his own myth, and the people are his
worshippers."

"What is he going to do?"

"I have no idea.  Right now he's just sitting there on the water, miles
off.  This much is true, though: when that ship fails to put into port,
someone's going to notice."

"Is that what he wants?  To be noticed?"

"That's too simple," said Duncan.  "And too easy."

They heard the driver shout, "Twenty-two Roderick Lane," and the surrey
began to slow.  As they got out and Duncan turned to pay the driver he
said, "I would very much appreciate it if .  .  ."

"She can stay with me," said Gabriela, with the slightest of smiles.
This would be entertaining.  "I'm just gaining all sorts of loved ones,
aren't I?"

"Don't worry," said Duncan.  "Her mother is on board that ship.  And
we'll get them all back."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to think," said Duncan.  "He's been knocking about for a long
time for me not to have a proper angle on him."

"I do not understand this man," said Gabriels, as she lifted ttic girl
from the surrey and they began to walk in the dawn light to the front of
the boarding house.

"He's an Immortal," Duncan said flatly.  "And I'll deal with him as an
Immortal.  He's just made it more difficult."

That night, Duncan drifted in and out of sleep, and vaguely heard the
curtains lifting in the breeze.  Then the curtains spoke to him,
reciting something.

"The very Salamander lives in's eye," Duncan heard a fanliar voice sing,
"to mock the eager violence of fire."

The Highlander awoke to the sound, wherever it came from, and the
presence flooded his mind.  Here?

The candle at his bedside fluttered a bit, and Duncan saw that the
window was open.  His hand flew to the dragonhead katana where it rested
on the wall, and he rose with it before him, and peered out the window.
When he looked down through the billowing curtains, into the yard of the
boarding house, he saw a dark figure in a hooded coat.  There was no
mistaking it, even if he'd stopped the serenade.  "Khordas."

The figure's arms raised and came to the lip of the hood and lifted it
back, revealing the blue-painted mask of the Salamander.  Now the god in
the raincoat stood still, and then, as if satisfied that he had Duncan's
attention, the Salamander reached his right hand into his coat as if to
draw a weapon.  After a moment he retrieved what looked to be a pocket
watch, and Duncan saw the moonlight glint off the silver casing and
reflect in the Salamander's face.  In the night Duncan swore he heard
the watch click open, and Khordas turn his dark mask towards the watch's
face, look at it, and nod.  And then he looked up at Duncan.

Something below, on the first floor, blew, and Duncan felt the house
shake as flaming boards flew out across the yard.

Duncan leaned across the window sill and tried to see-the explosion
seemed to have come from the foyer.  Duncan looked back and Khordas was
gone.

Gabriels Duncan jumped into a pair of trousers and threw on his coat and
went to the door into the hallway.  Gabriela's room was at the other end
of the hall.  Now Duncan began to hear the screams of the handful of
boarders, people rushing along the lower floor.  The sound of breaking
glass mixed with that of groaning wood.

Oh, Christ.  Duncan threw open the door and stepped into

the hall.  The top floor was quiet, save for the echoes of terror
downstairs.  It was a strange feeling, to hear so many panicked below,
muted by plaster and wood.  It was like seeing someone die a mile away.
Muted, the sound of impotence.

"Count yourself lucky," somebody shouted, somewhere in the noise,
"should you see the creature the Salamander.  For he is myth, alive in
the world, despite all we know.  Myth and the world: the Salamander
knows the difference.  Rare, my son, rare indeed."

Ignore that.  There was no one on the upper floor to worry over save
Gabriela and the girl, for only Duncan's and Gabriela's rooms were
occupied.  But why were they silent, had they not heard the explosion?
The cacophony below continued as Duncan ran down the hall towards
Gabriela's room.  A flash of hope crossed his mind that they had indeed
heard the blast and had retreated down the far stairwell near Gabriela's
door, gone now, they would be safely outside by now near Khordas.

A crash of glass, from Gabriela's room, and an I=ortal presence hit him
in the gut.

Duncan heard something else, now, and instantly deemed it too
strange-no, that was it, someone was playing a phonograph in Gabriela's
room.  Duncan would know the piece anywhere, and now the sound of flames
and cracking wood and the cries of terror far below were met by the
distinct sound coming from the end of the hall, from Gabriela's room, of
Mozart's Requiem.

And Duncan found himself choreographed to the dreadful sound, seconds
stretched out into hours, and someone was on the far stairwell, stepping
around the corner.  Duncan had reached the halfway point of the hall,
and he heard himself call Gabriela's name.

The presence swelled with the Requiem, now, as the Immortal Khordas
stepped out into the hallway, standing next to Gabriela's door, and
still no sound came from within that door save that of the chorus.  The
shadows danced across the blue mask to Mozart, and Khordas was walking,
but he flowed like a bird, or a salamander.

And now the god was walking toward him, fast, surely, but still
everything was slowed to the most minute degree,

dreamlike.  Khordas' coat flew open and he drew out a container, a glass
vessel, and the vessel flared as the gloved hand drew back and then came
forward.  Suddenly Duncan saw it tumbling through the air at him, glassy
and flaming.  The Highlander ducked as it struck the wall behind him.

"This is petrol, MacLeod.  The latest thing."

A wave of heat and flame caught Duncan in the back as the glass bottle
burst, and Duncan felt glass fragments slice past his neck.  The
wallpaper was on fire, now, and he kept moving toward Khordas.  He had
to get past Khordas to reach the room.  "Gabriela!  Gabriela!"

And now, Duncan heard a screaxn from within Gabriela's room, joined by
another, the cry of a child.  Duncan glanced past Khordas at the door
and back at his foe in time to see another flaming jar coming at his
face.  Duncan cursed himself even as he reacted, wrongly, swiping out
with his sword, and the bomb burst before him, glass flying through the
hallway, and Duncan cried out in pain and he knew that he was on fire.
But now, at least, he and Khordas had met.

Duncan gritted his teeth and lunged, and Khordas parried him, bringing
the rapier up, and back down, and Duncan was distracted by the feel of
his own flesh scaring to his coat, and he felt the metal of the rapier
slice through him.

Now, a voice somewhere, a new voice, but a very old one, Don't get
distracted.  If you find yourself surprised, become new.  Rebuild.
Always, again and again, you must rebuild The chorus was singing
mournfully and the flames were racing back and forth and dripping down
with the paste in the wallpaper, and Duncan looked at Khordas and in his
mind he allowed himself to step back.  On purpose, now, half a second
stretched out into a minute, and Duncan breathed, ignoring the pain in
his face, his arms, his body, ignoring the flames, knowing who he was
and where he stood.

There is no surprise.  I stand in the home that I have made, with the
faculties I have earned, and now I am set upon.  Set upon, I yet suffer
no surprise.  Attacked, I yet suffer no loss.

Burned, I yet suffer no pain.  And wounded, I will suffer no defeat.

Duncan dropped a bit and kicked out, landing his right

boot in Khordas' stomach, and Khordas had to retreat a few steps.

"Good, lad, a bit of fire in you yet."

Duncan brought his katana down, hard, in an are from right to left,
meeting Khordas' blade and glancing past it, and he did not stop, but
brought the sword back across from left to right.

Out of the corner of his eye Duncan saw that the hallway was an inferno,
now, a true home of Khordas, and the sound of the Requiem was gone, and
so were the cries of Gabriela and the child.  And so loud were the
flames and the sizzling wallpaper, that he could not tell if he would
have heard these things, had they still been there at all.

"This Game is over, Khordas."

"Oh," said Khordas, as he stepped back and lunged at Duncan, expertly
sidestepping the blow, "you haven't understood me, Highlander.  You're
the one playing the Game.

And you cannot conquer that which you cannot understand."

Duncan felt the rapier slice into his arm.  No pain.

"I understand perfectly."

"No.  Mawkish, impudent youth.  You understand nothing!"

Duncan dove, now getting close to Khordas, and came up and butted his
head against Khordas' chest.  The Salamander only seemed amused by this
and stepped back, and came again, and Duncan circled around him, and
they moved farther down the hall.  "Again and again you come at me,
MacLeod, but if there is any Game, it is only the Gmue of the cat and
the mouse.  I laugh at your attempts, Highlander.  I have no intention
of killing you," he said, as the rapier contacted with Duncan's thigh.
"You?  You and all of your foolish Immortals, like the mortals you were.
You deny me my destiny and I scorn you, and for this you will be
punished."

At the end of the hall, not fifteen feet away, Duncan heard a new sound,
a woman screaming and beating on Gabriela's door, pounding at it.
"Please!  Please!"

Duncan looked over his shoulder and felt himself moving against his own
instinct, running for the door, and when he reached the door he reared
back to kick at it and heard Khordas' voice.

Down the hall, slowly moving back, Khordas was surrounded by flames. And
whatever substance coated his clothing kept him free from harm, and so
he stood like a god in the fire.  "Wouldn't do that it I were you," and
now the screams increased, unseen fists pounding more fiercely at the
other side of the door.  "You never did understand my elements."

Duncan kicked at the door, his foot contacting with the wood at the
lock, and the door swung open.  Khordas was gone, now, but he was
laughing, Duncan was sure of it, and as the door opened he saw the shape
of a woman and a child, orange silhouettes against a yellow and red
field that flared and grew.  And all at once the wave of orange hit him,
and the silhouettes disappeared as the full force of the flame burst
through the doorway, gasping for air, smashing into the Highlander,
bursting the door's frame, knocking him straight back.  And Duncan felt
boards crack and give way as he flew against them, fire scaring his
face, and by the time his back smashed into the window of the room
behind him, all the orange and yellow and red faded to a merciless
black.

"Con-ring around finally, are you?" came a voice, and Duncan's vision
began to clear and he saw a bluffed figure standing over him.  "I had to
carry you back in a sack.  A bloody mess.  I hope you appreciate that."

Duncan blinked, and the blur began to abstract itself, an angular,
tanned face, and oh-so-familiar, small, piercing, Immortal eyes.
"Connor?" Duncan felt queasy, as if the room were moving.  He focused
his eyes and saw that in fact, the room was moving, back and forth.  He
was on a boat.  "You got .  .  ." he rubbed his head.  It hurt to talk.
Duncan touched his face and immediately stilled his fingers away,
because something about his forehead felt ...  odd.  "You got my
message."

The captain of the Dido nodded.  Duncan looked around and saw that he
was lying on a cot in a small room.  Nearby was a table scattered with
maps and ledgers.

"Christ," said Duncan, as he rose, feeling his joints burning.  "Where
am I?"

"You're on board the Dido " said Connor.  "And I'd take it easy there.
You took quite a skill."

"God, I hurt all over."

"Some healings are tougher than others.  Think of them as re-growing
pains."

Duncan expelled a short laugh and his lungs fought back valiantly.  "How
do I look?"

"You look," said Connor, as he expelled a stream of air from his
cigarette, "like hell."

"Well.  I'll live."

"Yes," Connor chuckled, "you will.  But not for lack of trying.  You
should know that your house is rather gone.  And whatever blast you
walked into damn near tore your head off.  Your face has been putting
itself back together again for the last twelve hours or so.  Don't
worry, though, you're still pretty."

"Always jealous, teacher." Duncan grimaced.  God, the pain.  "How bad
was I?"

Connor shrugged.  "Bad, but you were always a quick haler.  The gift
manifests itself in different ways.  At any rate, you were lucky-your
spine didn't break.  That would take some serious time.  But this?"
Connor waved, as if Duncan had fallen and scraped his knee.  "This is
just so much tissue."

Duncan sat up, gasping, "Oh, my Godabriela."

"Who?"

"Damn it all, Connor." Duncan forgot about the pain, or perhaps it was
just going away.  "She was under my protection.  She and a child."

"Where .  .  ."

"Gone.  Right before my eyes," he said.

Connor crushed out his cigarette and sat down next to Duncan on the cot.
"How did he find your house?"

Duncan stared at the deck.  Connor had dressed him in a sailor's
uniform, and the boots were rather tight.  But he was glad to feel his
own feet.  The little things; they all matter.

"My house?  How should I know?  He sensed me."

Connor shook his head.  "Followed you?"

"No."

"Then let me tell you how he found your house.  Or let me guess.  What
name are you using now?  Hmm?"

"Name?"

"Right.  Hello, I'm Captain Carruthers, who are you?"

"Duncan MacLeod."

Connor sighed.  "Of all the ...  are you really still using that old
name?"

"Are you really still using Ramirez's old katana?  Of course I am."

"Mistake," said Connor.  "And a grave one."

"Connor, we've been over this a thousand.  .

"And I'll tell it to you a thousand times more until you get it into
that tenuously attached head of yours.  You have to blend, Duncan."

Duncan grimaced inwardly.  Less than five waking minutes with Connor and
he'd fallen into his old role.  And he just couldn't help playing it. "I
blend."

"Like hell.  I've seen you.  The bits of cloth I peeled out of your
wounds looked rather expensive."

"Aye.  Pajamas.  It was good material, but I've seen better stitching.
.."

"Peacockery!" Connor shook his head before calmly asking, "Have you
learned nothing?  Oh, I've heard of your exploits, all right.  Training
with every great teacher around.

But every time I see you the Highlander is dressed to the

nines, like you're three-hundred years old and have money to burn."

"What does that have to do with.  .

"An Immortal should pass through a crowd of mortals without as much as
attracting a glance.  There is the Game to think of.  You advertise
yourself, Duncan.  Using your old name-no wonder he got to you."

"Connor," Duncan said, coolly, "this is entirely unfair.

Just because I'm Immortal doesn't mean I have to forget everything else
that I am.  Duncan MacLeod is my name.  I am proud of that name."

"Forget?  Never.  Adapt?  Always.  I don't care how proud you are of
your name, you keep that," he said, tapping at his chest, "in here.  But
this is not about you getting to be Duncan MacLeod, Immortal roustabout.
It's not about_fun, Duncan.  And it damn well isn't about pride."

"I don't need this." Duncan reached up to his throbbing temples and
found the flesh more nonual now, accepting the right amount of pressure
from his fingers.  He was coming

along.  But Gabriela wasn't, was she?  Genevieve wasn't.

Congratulations on a job well done.

"Oh, I think you do," said Connor.  "I come all the way out here and
find you refomng under a pile of broken wood, and you tell me you lost
mortals who trusted you.  I think you need this very much."

"Ga(i, Connor, no wonder you travel alone.  .

Connor jabbed his finger at Duncan's sternum.  "What the hell do you
think you're doing?"

"Living, Connor.  It's what we do." But not Gabriels.  But not the girl.
But not Amber Lynn.

"Wrong.  Again.  You're going to get yourself killed, Duncan.  You're so
good a swordsman you forget to watch your back.  The Game is played for
keeps," Connor spat.  "That is what you're supposed to be doing. Playing
the Game.  We will battle down to the last, and if you don't take it
seriously enough, the last will not be you.  And if it's an evil player,
Duncan, the consequences will be catastrophic."

"know."

"Never forget it, Duncan." Connor cursed and fished out his cigarette
case and held the metal in his hands.  He seemed to study his own
reflection in the case and peered up at Duncan, shaking his head.  "I
knew it was a mistake to stand there and watch you go into hiding for
ten years the way you did.

"Oh, I'm so depressed, because my mortal family has been killed; Oh, I'm
so tired of fighting; Oh, I think I'll retreat to holy ground and
meditate." Meditate on this, Duncan.  While you were under, lots of
others were still playing." His voice dropped now, to near a whisper.
"We're whittling down, now, did you know that?  I don't know how many
more centuries this can go on."

"You've always said that." Duncan bit his lip.  Connor was glibly
recalling some of the most difficult years of his life.

Connor nodded, slowly.  "It's more true every time.  What you must
remember, Duncan MacLeod, is that despite what you may think, and
despite what some of the more chaotic Immortals like Amanda may tell
you, you are not in this Game for yourself "

Something flashed in Duncan's brain and he sat up,

quickly.  "Tell me.  Please.  Was there another Immortal there?"

"At your house?  No.  Everyone was gone by the time I arrived.  There
was an old lady being interviewed by the police; I had to get around
them to get to you.  Khordas was gone."

"No, not .  .  ." Duncan shook his head.  "Forget it.  I was ...
confused." But Ifelt sure ...  could I have been wrong?

Connor nodded, and seemed to be studying Duncan's face.

He clicked open the steel cigarette case from his coat and extracted two
cigarettes.  He offered one to Duncan, and Duncan shook his head with an
almost queasy look.

"When did you pick that up?" Duncan grimaced.

Connor shrugged, and finished lighting his cigarette before speaking
again.  "It's all the rage in Paris."

"Ah."

Duncan girded himself for another round before Connor said, "I think
you're finished, now."

"What?"

"Your face.  It looks normal, now.  How do you feel?"

Duncan rubbed his neck and stretched.  He felt back for his hair, and
found it had reached its normal length.  Eyebrows.

Good.  "All in one piece."

"Good, then," said Connor.  "Enough teaching.  Let's go onto shore for a
drink, and you can tell me what happened with the Salamander."

Duncan felt like a man sticking his head out the window after a storm.
All clear.  He breathed deeply, feeling the burn of Connor's smoke in
his nostrils, and said, "All right, One thing I can tell you is, he's
not playing normally."

"He never did," said Connor.

"Oh," remarked Duncan.  "I think you'll be gravely disappointed in his
respect for the Game."

Half an hour later, Duncan and Connor MacLeod sat at a table near the
front window of a pub called the Ratter, from which they watched the
sailors moving constantly up and down planks, swarming like ants about
the shipyards.

Connor downed his Glenmorangie and lit another cigarette.  "So he's out
there, eh?"

Duncan nodded.  "Aye." He was trying to get used to Connor.  When was
the last time?  Would that have been T2, after the massacre?  Less than
thirty years.  It seemed much longer, Duncan decided.  He could not get
over how much, and at the same time how little, Connor had changed over
the years.  The Scots accent was gone, now, entirely erased, so that
Connor could have been from almost anywhere in l-',urope.  He had passed
into another phase.  Duncan won(lered if Connor even particularly cared
about his old home anymore.  They were really less than a hundred years
apart, ,and yet Connor a ways seemed so much older.  Or perhaps, Duncan
allowed himself, the mentor/pupil relationship sim1)ly lent itself to
the feeling.  Connor was near four hundred years old now, but Duncan
could remember the Elder Highlander when he hadn't yet hit the century
mark, and the Elder Highlander had always been this intense.  And, if
Dun(jan dared think it, a bit paranoid.  And often, tiresomely, right.

"So he raided this ship, the Gratiano .  .

Duncan shook his head.  "That's the odd part.  Khordas has moved into a
different area, it seems."

"How so?"

"I expected he'd be his usual self, that's what it had been leading up
to.  He wrecked seven ships and seems to have gotten away with a fortune
in the past few months.  Another fortune in jewelry, silver and gold
from a wealthy man named Drake, who died with his wife in a mysterious
explosion about a week ago.  His wife was declared dead too, but we know
different."

"The woman from the Rosemary," said Connor, remembering the death of
Amber Lynn.  "So he's been stockpiling a lot of money."

"Right.  But he reaches the Gratiano, and suddenly we've got a different
Khordas on our hands.  Incredible.  He's converted the whole Grand
Ballroom into a giant cave-literally, complete with mud all over the
walls and phosphorous flaming substances.  The ship itself is a
floating, gigantic version of the mud house.  He's made his own little
world out there, Connor."

"What about the people?"

"Six hundred passengers."

Connor swore under his breath.  "Wonderful."

"It gets worse.  The people have been drugged, and Khordas seems to have
transformed them into ...  what did he call it ...  the Children of the
Salamander."

Connor nodded, taking it all in.  "Curious Khordas."

"It makes no sense at all."

"Why?" asked Co-nor.  "Because he's not just running around chopping off
heads?"

"Partly that.  Khordas hardly tried to take my head.  He said as much.
Connor, this man could be thousands of years old, and he acts like the
Game doesn't exist."

"And there's our problem, Khordas isn't just cheating, he has no
interest in the Game at all.  He has his own agenda."

"'All very well.  I want to know what he's going to do with that ship."

"I'm very curious about that myself," said Connor.  "What I'm
suggesting, is that Khordas, somehow never learned the Game, and no one
was around to teach him."

"Doesn't help that he was already a local god."

"Remember the mud house?  We said Khordas adapted.

Now I'm not so sure that he has, all that much." Connor chewed on his
lip, then took a drag on his cigarette.  "Think of it.  There you are,
your people think you're a god, and then you never die-maybe one day you
take a fall and crack your head, you wake up-no one around to tell you
you've died and come back.  So you live forever.  You have a belief
system that makes perfect sense to you, why abandon it?  But then your
people, all of that lot die.  And the world changes.

And sooner or later, you start to run into others like yourself.

And the mortals are not very appreciative of you."

"A crisis of identity," said Duncan.  "But why did no one find him?  Why
did he never hear of the Game?"

"He heard, but too late.  Maybe at that time there weren't many of us
around.  Maybe he was the only Immortal in Scotland.  But it's not as if
he never had the chance.  Rememher Nerissa?  She seemed to understand
the Game.  So maybe he simply refuses to play.  Who can say?"

Duncan had to smile.  God, it was good to have Connor

around for a while.  With a protracted sigh he said, "What

now?"

"We start by fighting the evil," said Connor.  "And I have an idea where
that evil is going to make his next move."

While the two had been sitting in the Ratter, Connor noticed a seaman
enter the pub, speak briefly with the bartender, and nail a poster to
the wall next to the door.  When he was gone, Connor rose and read the
notice, discreetly removed it, and brought it to Duncan.

"What odds will you lay," asked Connor, "that Khordas knows about this?"

Duncan took the poster from Connor, setting his drink down.
"'Valentine's Day ...  guests in our waters, tours and entertainment?"

"

"The Troilus and the Cressida.  Right here."

"How big are these ships?"

Connor whistled.  "Big.  These are gunships, mate.  Flotilla leaders
both.  How wonderful that in peacetime such sister ships have time to
host the day of universal love, no?  As it says. "Come one, come all."$

"Come the Salamander," said Duncan, slowly.. "This is no coincidence. Of
all the ports, he picks this one to terrorize.

He knew this was going to happen, that's why he set up here."

"Guaranteed."

Duncan was mulling over the possibilities, going over the poster. "Naval
ships.  Christ, Connor, that's a lot of power in one port in peacetime.
People swamng the docks..." Dun can had a vision of cotton candy and
fire, and melting things.

"Could he want to blow them up?"

"Or take them over?" Connor murmured.  "Light a fire on Nerissa's
birthday."

"Wh-1/2h.  God, yes, of course." Duncan remembered it now, the mud broch
and the burning arrow.  Nerissa was the first Companion of Khordas.  "I
killed her."

"Yes you did," acknowledged Connor, "and quite well, I recall."

"He blames me for that."

"Rather correctly, I should think."

"Is her birthday-was her birthday-Valentine's?"

"Han." Connor was staring into space.  All those dates, over the years.
"Three hundred years is a long time, Duncan.

When was it, when we saw them at Aberdeen.  .  ." Duncan thought he
could see the images flashing through Connor's brain, like a long
painting on rollers, scrolling across his forehead.

" 1624."

"No.  '25.  Carmichael.  .

"Had a feast," said Duncan.  "After St.  Valentine's Mass?"

"Yes.  You were still losing to me, then.  We went to mass after
practice, and then to the feast."

"Right," said Duncan.  "Fight.  And we saw Carmichael off on his ship.
And it blew up."

"Right there in the harbor," Connor intoned, and it was clear he was
seeing it all perfectly now.

Duncan remembered the stick figure evaporating in fire, and Connor,
wading into freezing water, as if he could do anything.  Connor was
young then, but Duncan had no idea how young ...

Duncan nodded, repeating.  "Right there in the harbor."

"Valentine's Day.  1625."

Duncan and Connor's eyes met, both of them staring at the calendar in
their brains.  "That's two days from now, Connor." Duncan felt the air
thick in his lungs, as if it had solidified around them and neither
wanted to move.  They were sitting on a bomb.  "We have to warn the
Navy."

Connor nodded minutely, his eyes distant and scurrying,

as if reviewing a thousand options.  "You make it sound so easy.

"You're saying they won't believe us?"

"I'm saying," said Connor, "that I doubt there's time.  The nearest base
is at Newport, Rhode Island.  What do you suggest we do, send them a
telegram. "No explanations, but an I=ortal pirate is going to attack
your flotilla'?"

"Something like that," said Duncan, although he knew there was no way.
"We could go in the Dido."

"Sorry," said Connor, "but I'm not taking Dido anywhere near a naval
base.  I've been dodging preventives all along, and I don't want that
kind of attention."

"Connor," the younger Immortal said, "you're a privateer, but you're not
still gunrunning, are you?"

Connor simply smiled what amounted to, for him, a sheepish grin.
"There's gunrunning and there's gunrunning.  Look, Duncan, some of the
men are wanted.  Some of them are deserters.  I don't ask questions," he
said, "but I owe them as much as not handing them over."

Duncan nodded.  "Then it's .  .  ." This was insane.  No way.

Connor's eyes met his.  "It's up to us," said the Immortal.

"We have to move."

Bertrand Lewis picked up a bucket of mud and carried it along the
passageway until he reached the stateroom.  His boots sloshed through
the mud that ran across the deck in the passageway, and when he opened
the door to the stateroom his eyes were blinded by the cleanliness of
the room, the white of the walls and the pure color of the fibers in the
oriental carpets.  Something slithered past his foot, a salamander, and
it flopped around on the carpet, horrified by the dryness of the garish
fibers.  Khordas would be displeased if his domain remained in such a
state.  He reached into the bucket with a brush and began to paint the
walls.

Across the wire system, the band was playing something ancient, the
bandmembers chanting out the words the Companion had taught them,
chanting out the praises of the Salamander.  Mud sloshed out of the
bucket and onto the carpet, and the salamander at Lewis' feet was
pleased, and seemed to breathe more easily.  The creature looked up at
him and

lewis was sure it smiled, and Lewis felt that Khordas looked through
those tiny eyes.

Somewhere, Lewis knew something was not right.  But the thought was a
clean one, pristine and modern, and as the mud sloshed down and along
the wall, it obscured the evil thought.  The world of the Salamander was
near complete.

Lewis heard a sound, someone thrashing and crying out, and he looked
through the door and saw several figures moving down the passageway
towards him.

It was the Salamander himself.  Khordas was accompanied by two Children
of the Salamander.  One, a woman, the god himself had by one arm, her
other held by a servant.  In the arms of another servant, whom Lewis
vaguely recognized as one of his own sailors, squirmed a child Lewis
recognized as the sacrifice that Lauren the Companion had found unfit.
The (Zompanion had sent the ill gift away, after which Khordas had sent
the Companion away.  Khordas had then closed the ceremony after
sacrificing a better gift, one he found more acceptable.  He had
sacrificed two, in fact.

The woman had been dipped in the mud and had screamed, Lewis knew, in
appreciation of the power of the god, and when she and the child were
removed alive, Khordas had ushered them away to whatever reward awaited
them.  Lewis knew that he, too, would make an excellent sacrifice.
Something clean and modern at the base of his skull cried out impiously
against the thought and Lewis applied more mud.  Khordas had warned them
that such thoughts might intrude, and to only look forward to the
feeding of the Children, which would come again soon.

Newport, Rhode Island

Jacob Devereaux of the Royal Preventive Service strode down the
passageway toward the brig, sifting through the file in his hands as he
did so.  Next to him, the arresting officer, who identified himself as
Commander Steven Glenn, was spewing his debriefing.

"His name's Crabbe," said Commander Glenn.

"When did you pick him up?"

"'Yesterday.  An informant turned him over."

Dk,,vereaux snapped the folder in his hands closed and handed it to
Glenn as they reached the brig.  The Preventive Offi(,er sighed and
opened the door to the interrogation room.  Inside, a squat, dirty man
wearing a prisoner's uniform sat chained to the table.  Devereaux sat
down across the table from Crabbe as Glenn took his place by the door.

"C'rabbe, is it?" Devereaux did not need to ask this-he knew this man.
Just another smuggler on the list.

The man looked up.  "Do you have a cigarette?"

"That I do," said Devereaux.  The Brit reached into his coat and gave it
to Crabbe, then lit it.  "You stole some very big guns, Crabbe."

"What big guns?"

"Who did you sell them to?"

"I don't remember."

Devereaux snarled, then relaxed.  "I have all the time in the world,
Crabbe.  Soon you and I will be going home to London, and I will go back
to my lovely wife and my luxurious bed and you will get to know the many
luxuries of Hastings.

How does that sound to you?"

Crabbe cocked his head and smiled.  "Doesn't make a lot of difference,
does it, now?  I'm going to Hastings either way."

 of armaments here in Newport and then sold them somewhere farther
north.  Who did you sell your cargo to?"

"Sorry, Captain."

Devereaux leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling for a
moment.  Oh, these boys, they were all alike.  In his career Devereaux
had almost come to view the smugglers as

something like an extended family.  Really, who cared if they tried to
buck tariffs on whiskey, when there was a cooled palm to he had?  But
there were limits.  Whiskey was one thing, guns entirely another matter.

"Let me be straight with you, Crabbe.  You can't just unload a thirty
foot gun and expect that I'll treat it as if you've been selling
schnapps to wayward New Zealanders.  I said Hastings and I meant'

"Two months, tops," sneered Crabbe.  "You know the score."

"Yes," Devereaux leaned in, "I do know the score, and I don't think
we're clear, here.  You're not going in as a privateer, laddy.  You're
going down as a full-fledged cannontrader.  Do you know what that means?
Hastings isn't a threat, it's an offer.  I can leave you here to be
prosecuted by the Yanks."

"So?"

"So they harbor a great deal of resentment against us."

Devereaux antiled at the Naval Officer behind him.  "Something about
burning down Washington, DC a while back.

And if I leave you here, you'll hang."

"Go on," Crabbe smirked.

"Hang!" Devereaux slapped his palm against the table.

"For Christ's sake, Crabbe.  You're one of my boys.  Let's go nicely
back to Hastings.  Just tell me what we want to know.

Or I'll leave you here," he said.  "And it'll be a short internment,
indeed."

Over Devereaux's shoulder, Commander Glenn said, "He's right, pal.  We'd
love to prosecute you, but Devereaux here has first dibs.  Tell us what
we want to know."

"A right smart deal," said Devereaux.  "Death or Hastings.

Information."

Crabbe crushed out his cigarette and cleared his throat.

Pause.  "What was the question, again?"

"Who," said Devereaux, "did you unload your cargo to?"

Crabbe leaned back and scratched his chin, the front legs of the chair
corning off the deck.  A name, Crabbe, that's all we need

"All right," said Crabbe.

"All right."

Crabbe leaned forward again and the chair slapped against the- tiles. "I
sold them to Carruthers."

The Preventive Officer felt his jaw dropping.  "You're having me on,
Crabbe, think harder."

"No.  No," said Crabbe.  "The Dido's been around Massachusetts."

Devereaux nodded.  He knew that, but Carruthers wasn't inl:o big guns.
Then again, could he be sure?  He couldn't, could he?

"I unloaded my cargo to the Dido," said Crabbe.  "What happened to it
after that I have no idea."

Devereaux frowned, shaking his head.  "If you're not being straight,
Crabbe .  .  ."

"Straight up," said the prisoner.

Jacob Devereaux took out a cigarette and lit it.  True as gold, he had
no choice but to pursue this.  This was too big to be smoothed over with
the petty bribes he'd been taking from Carruthers.  Now the telegram he
had read but not understood ran through his head.  "Carruthers.  Glenn?"

"Aye, Captain?"

"Do you have any ships headed for Massachusetts in the next couple of
days?"

"I can check."

"I'm on it," said Devereaux.  "And as for you, Crabbe," he exhaled a
stream.  "Thank you very much."

Devereaux sat at the table while Crabbe was unchained and ushered back
to his cell.  CaTTuthers had some explaining to do.  Most likely, Crabbe
had picked a name out of the air.

David Carruthers knew better than to deal in cannons.  But Crabbe was
right-Carruthers was here.  The telegram, the one with the curious
"salamander" comment, had been an urgent one.

Carruthers was definitely in the area.  And that was too much of a
coincidence.

Connor ushered Duncan back onto the Dido and immediately called the crew
together.  "Gentlemen," he said, as everybody gathered at the mast, "I
know how fond most of you are of the United States Navy."

There was a general murmur of discontent, and a few

harsh laughs.  Duncan took a seat on a barrel and watched Connor with
his men.  He had never seen the Elder Highlander so at home.

"What's the problem, Captain?" called Thomas Rooke, loudly.  Rooke was
slightly drunk, as were the rest of the crew, this being the first time
they had put in to port in quite a while.  Rooke, Connor had said, was a
former Navy man himself, and would be still if not for an embarrassing
incident involving an unyielding and dangerous superior.  People may die
because of an officer's orders, but assaulting one is a federal offense,
he had come to find.  Rooke had found a home on the Dido, bucking
preventives and avoiding his old comrades quite well, indeed.  Most of
the Dido's men had similar vitae, it turned out.

"It seems," said Captain Carruthers, as he was known to them, "that the
squids have gotten themselves into a spot of trouble." The captain
looked at Duncan and said, "This is Duncan MacLeod.  He has served with
me before.  I trust him with my life and I expect the same from each of
you.  He will explain."

Duncan looked up, now, and stood, and suddenly felt glad that Connor had
lent him a dingy suit of clothes.  He cleared his throat.  "There are
two ships, of similar design, coming into Buzzards Bay on Valentine's
Day.  They are called Troilus and Cressida, and they will be fully
armed, ironhulled, steam-propelled battleships.  These ships are in
trouble."

Rooke scratched his head.  "How do you know?"

"There is a dangerous man called Khordas," said Duncan, "and though it
seems incredible, we know he intends to attack the Bay.  With those
ships and all that weaponry floating about, we think our man will be
drawn to the Bay like a moth to flame.  He's been preparing for it.
There will be a multitude of citizens on the piers, gentlemen, and they
will be in grave danger.  Khordas has a ship as well, a steamer of
eighteen thousand tons.  He may have armed it by now, but what we know
is that this man has single-handedly destroyed numerous ships, and with
a full crew he will wield tremendous destructive power." Duncan paused.
"And be assured, he is completely and thoroughly insane."

"What.  can he do against iron hulls?"

"I'm riot eager to find out," Captain Carruthers spoke up.

"This mm destroyed a ship of mine, mates.  It's time to pay him back.
And I hope you will help me."

Rooke looked around at the others, all of whom had fallen quiet.  "What
do you expect us to be able to do?"

"We are a small ship," said Carruthers.  "But we have speed.  We've
outrun many a fast preventive, and we can give as good as we get.  The
Dido is going to rendezvous with the Troilus and Cressida before they
reach the Bay."

Duncan spoke up.  "If they do not listen, we will return to port ahead
of them." He frowned.  The sister ships would be so gunhappy it was
unlikely they'd listen to wild tales of danger.  "I have a yacht called
the Spanish Lady.  She may be used to keep an eye out for Khordas's
ship, the Gratiano."

They had wandered the docks today, and there was an undefinable edginess
in the air about the Bay.  The Tariff house had blown up, Duncan
noticed.  And people were deeply worried about the cruise ship that had
yet to arrive.  A broadside being distributed advertised that the
Daughters of the Ameficwi Revolution would be praying for the safe
return of the ship, and all along Duncan knew its whereabouts-thirty
rrdles off, in the hands of a god.  Or rather, a madman.

"We?" Rooke looked at Duncan.  "Are you coming with us?"

"Aye," said Carruthers, "he is.  Duncan has been on this man for some
time, and I want to provide him with all the help he needs.  This is
catch-as-catch-can, gentlemen.  Only we know the destructive power of
this Khordas, and only we know how much he needs to be stopped."

The men began to murmur now, and Duncan felt as if he were reading a
play.  It was true, what they said in the stage directions.  Crowd
murmurs.  "This is serious, mates," Carruthers continued.  "I may be
asking you to lay down your lives.  But there are many more lives at
stake.  And those lives will not have been spent half as well as I know
ours have."

Carruthers smiled slightly.  Rooke nodded and said, "Then I'm with the
captain.  Bring him on." The mate looked around, and the men seemed
Generally aGreeable.  But Rooke was still watching his captain, and it
was clear that he would demand a friller explanation soon.

Connor turned to Duncan.  "You heard him.  Bring him on."

"Great," said Duncan.  "What now?"

"Now," said Connor, "we wait a few hours, and then we go visit our
friends in Uncle Sam's Navy.  On the water, where we thrive, of course."

"Do you think they'll listen?"

Connor shrugged.  "If they don't try to destroy us first.  I'm afraid
some governments have found this vessel rather unpopular."

"Leave us," Gabriela heard the man in the mask say.  "I wish to speak
with the infidels." Genevieve was crying at her feet, her legs still
bandaged.  What was to become of Genevieve.

What is to become of me?

The light from a few candles flickered and cast serpentine shadows
across the room, and Gabriela got a sense of growing, solid shadows,
creeping past her feet in the form of mud.

She found herself seated in a chair at a large ornate wooden table.  At
her feet, an oriental rug was halfway covered in mud, and now the man
pouring mud along the floor looked up as the two sailors who had dragged
her in here let go and quickly exited the room.  The mudlayer looked at
the masked man, who said, "The room may be completed later, my Child."

"I wait on your honor," replied the man.  The mudlayer was an older man,
and Gabriela recognized the uniform of a captain of a cruise ship in
this line.  There was a brass name plate on his breast, engraved "Capt.
B.  Lewis." This must be the captain of the Gratiano.

The masked man said, "I will have new duties for you shortly.  Please go
to the main deck.  The boats should be arliving now, with special cargo.
Await me there."

"Yes, my Lord." Lewis bowed, and exited the room.

Kbordas went to the table and lifted a bottle of wine and

poured two glasses.  He held one out for Gabriela.  "Drink," he said.
"It will calm you."

G:ibriela stared at the rug, which like the room itself seemed one-half
steeped in mud, as if a new world were creeping across the old one,
covering it over.  She put her hand on Genevieve's shoulder and looked
up at her captor.

"You are Khordas."

"Yes," said the man in the mask.  "Tell me your name."

"Find it out for yourself," she spat.

The mask nodded, as if amused.  The nose of the mask seemed to grow and
shrink in length with the flickering candlelight.  "Tell me your name,"
said Khordas.  "Or the child dies.  I say this simply, so that you may
see the truth of it."

He still held the glass in one hand, but the other hand flicked at the
wrist, and Gabriela saw the glint of a steel razor.  "Tell me, or many
will die, and I will burn each one alive and ask each one as he dies
whether or not he knows your name."

"'?ou won't get it that way." This is ridiculous, she wanted to say, I
am nobody, what on earth could move you ...

"Try me," said the masked god.  "Tell me your name."

Silence.  Then, "Gabriela Maria Cuadra de Savedra."

The mask tilted.  "Quite a name.  And you are the Companion of Duncan
MacLeod?"

"I know him."

Khordas slowly circled the chair in which Gabriela sat, and ran a hand
along her cheek.  "What did he tell you about me, hm?"

"Only the truth," she said.  "That you are a murderer.  A thief A
ladronito.  A two-bit bandit."

Air sucked in through the funnel in the mask and Khordas' head quivered
slightly.  "I like a woman of fire," he said.

"Your insults please me, because they have little force."

"Give me a chance, Khordas." She wanted to move, to flip the mask away,
to scratch out his eyes, but she knew that would be ill-advised.  The
sword at his side told her so, as did the fact that, according to
Duncan, tearing out his eyes would probably not do a great deal of
damage.

"And has he told you we are alike, you and I?" Khordas gave up for a
moment on the wine and set Gabriela's glass down.  He took a sip from
his own goblet.

Gabriela stared ahead.  The girl, Genevieve, was sobbing at her knee.
The girl had not spoken a word since her arrival at Duncan's boarding
house; now she seemed to drift from vague shock to abject fear.  She
shook, and Gabriela bent low to comfort her.  "Shh," she whispered to
the girl.  "We will find your mother soon."

"You know," said Khordas, bending close to her ear, "that doesn't seem
likely."

Gabriela looked up at the mask, and her eyes asked, what do you mean.
Don't say it, please ...

"The woman who provided this child as a gift came in quite handy, I'm
afraid."

Gabriela's mind raced.  She had awakened to the sound of glass breaking
at Duncan's boarding house.  A trio of men dressed as sailors had come
in the window, seizing her and the girl, who slept at her side.  They
had been thrown into a coach and whisked away.

But through the window of the coach she had seen the men torching the
house, and something else, two more figures, another woman and another
child, being dragged screaming into the room and left there.  To die in
her place.

"Why have you done this?" she whispered.  "Such destruction, what do you
hope to gain?  My father died in the fire on the Andrew.  Why have you
spared me?  What do you want from me now?"

"Fate is an interesting thing," mused Khordas.  "Duncan MacLeod on the
Andrew, that was fortuitous indeed.  And a new Companion of his, as
well." Gabriela shot him a look that betrayed her ignorance.  "Oh ...
oh, you don't know, do you?"

"Know what, Khordas?" Gabriela was tired of this.  "I know all I need to
know about you."

"Ah, yes," he said, touching her face again, and she moved away in
disgust.  "But you do not know all there is to know about yoic do you?
MacLeod has been unwise.  He has told you nothing."

"I don't know what you are talking about."

"Your friend Mr.  MacLeod is a very old man, Gabriela, did you know
that?"

"know."

"Tell me what you feel as you sit near me, Gabriela."

She shook her head.  He was insane.  Answer his questions, ingratiate
herself with him, and she might buy time.  "I don't understand."

"Does your blood," the mask drew near her, "curdle?  I'm sure whatever
you've heard about me has been less than flattering." Khordas sighed.

"When the Children of the Salamander walked the earth I found for the
first time that I was not alone in the world, when I found my Companion.
Her name was Nerissa.  She is dead now.  Your Duncan MacLeod, the
Highlander, laid waste to her at my home, now two hundred years ago.  It
is now almost her birthday."

"He ...  he killed her?"

"Yes," said Khordas, "yes, my dear.  Lopped off her head.

Took her soul.  But let me tell you of a happier time.

"I do not know the year I was born, for we had no years, as we speak of
them now.  I was the god, Khordas, educated as such as made so, and
finally I became so.  Understand this.

I am Khordas, the Salamander.  No one else may claim this.

"And every year the Children sacrificed to me a Companion, named
according to ancient truth Nerissa.  And every Nerissa I would draw into
my pit after the sacrifice, and I would hold to her tightly.  I would
feel her pitch and moan under the hot mud, feel her heart beating madly,
the mud rippling around her limbs as she fought, I would hear her cries
under the mud as she tried to become Companion of the god.

"But every year the Nerissa was only a symbol, not a truth, like myself.
And every year the Companion's mouth filled with hot mud and I held to
her, demanding life from her, and I prayed to myself over her as I felt
her finally end her struggle and lie dead, in the mud, a hollow
reflection of the Companion of truth."

Gabriela shifted in her chair.  He was talking more rapidly now, pouring
out his tale of a people long, long gone.  And each syllable was cast
godlike from the funnel mouth of the mask, reverberating through her
body, and she found herself swaying to it as if it were music, and she
stroked the hair of the child and listened as the velvet voice of the
god went on:

"But one day a miracle occurred, Gabriela.  At the Time of

the Return of the God, I rose from the pit and demanded sacrifice, and
after the gifts of valuables were given, the Companion was thrust
forward, and I felt something in my gut.

Not strong, mind you, but different, a feeling that at last my Companion
had come.  She was a vision, unique entirely, with white hair and
reddish eyes and pale skin.  I believe she would riow be referred to as
albino.

"I took this Companion in my arms, this Nerissa for this Return of the
God, and drew her with me into the hot mud.

Down into the pit went she with me, and I held to her as the thrashing
began, and I prayed to myself, and felt her heart beating strong against
the mud, her limbs flailing, her mouth opening, her screams lost in the
hot mud, that pale mouth filling with mud.  And again, against all my
hopes, Gabriela, she stopped.  The heart ceased to beat, the mouth to
scream.

And I clutched her in my arms and cried in the mud, tortured by the
thought that it would be hundreds of Returns more, as it had been
already, before the true Nerissa would come.

"And in the morning, she awoke."

Gabriela was stroking the hair of the child at her knee.

"Awoke?"

"Yes!" cried the Salamander, "I had left her in the pit, to be disposed
of later, and had gone down to the lake to meditate.  And then, as I
contemplated my greatness and my loneliness, I felt a presence, strong
and fearsome, striking me deep in the belly and sending my head reeling.
I turned my head to see the figure of a woman, white as snow and covered
in mud, walking slowly down the hill to where I sat.

She was the true Companion.  The true Nerissa."

"And it was this Nerissa, the true one, that MacLeod stole?"

"Yes, said Khordas.  "And one day I received a visit from another, whom
I thought would be my Companion.  This is only one hundred years ago,
now, more or less.  That Companion was Lauren, and she has tried to
serve me well."

Oh, god.  Oh, no.  Gabriela trembled.  "But Lauren no longer serves
you?"

"Lauren is not the true Companion.  The Companion must be a sacrifice; I
must make her of my own will.  Do you understand?  I think if you asked
the Highlander, he would understand."

"MacLeod is not here," said Gabriela.  "I can ask him nothing."

"He has told you so little, Miss Savedra.  You are so much more than you
know.  MacLeod has been unjust to both of us, but from this injustice we
will find grrat fortune.  You are an unblemished stone, perfect clay,
like the clay I breathed life into in my true form, to make man.
Untarnished by the false truths about the Immortals.  The perfect
Companion.  Here," Khordas said, lifting her glass.  "Drink with me.  We
are to be together."

"Why me?" she asked, slowly, but she knew, didn't she?

And Duncan had known, he had known all along ...  She took the glass,
shaking, what kind of fool had she been played for?  Gabfieta took a
sip.

"Why you?" Khordas chuckled softly through the mask, and now he removed
it, showing his face for the first time.

And it was beautiful, the red hair shining, the eyes burning brightly,
godlike indeed.  "Because it is the time of sacrifice, my Companion, my
new Nerissa, my Gabriela." His voice ...

Now Khordas took her and raised her up, and she looked into his eyes,
losing herself in them.  She felt him draw her to his breast, the
candlelight flickering, casting their shadows on the walls, the god and
the Companion.  And in the flicker of candlelight she saw the glint of
steel, and felt it enter her breast, pushing through, sliding
serpentlike between ribs and slicing through her heart.

And Gabriela's eyes fluttered and she felt herself falling against him,
her head against his breast.  Arid then someone turned the lights out on
the world.

But only for a little while.

Captain Jacob Devereaux of the Royal Preventive Service tapped Captain
Daniel Hendricks, USN, of the Troilus, on the shoulder and pointed.  A
sailing vessel had just come over the horizon and he had recognized it.

"Is that him?"

"Aye, Captain," said Devereaux.  "As I said.  This smuggler Carruthers
has been dodging us for a good while.  If possible, I want him
captured."

Hendricks nodded.  "Do you think he's carrying guns this time?"

"I wouldn't put it past him," said Devereaux.  "I received a tip that
lie would be in and around New England.  It looks like we've just run
into him, headed back to England."

"Well, then," said Hendricks.  "Let's see if we can get his attention.

At the launching of the Dido, the first thing Duncan noticed wa:; that
she was travelling under sail.  "I thought this was a steamship," he
said, as he joined Connor.

"Oh, yes," said Connor, with that bizarre, staccato laugh of his.
C(:)nnor was a dark wire of a figure against the ocean, a face fleating
atop a foul-weather coat.  "But I prefer to keep that under wraps, shall
we say?" By this he meant, as he showed Is student, that Connor
preferred to keep his steam engine for emergencies, the paddlewheel
stowed under a great hood, disguised as a lifeboat and a series of badly
stowed nets.  "Part of strength is in the hiding," said Connor, with a
wink.

"But where's the smokestack?"

"Smokestack?"

"For your exhaust," said Duncan.  Connor shrugged with a coy smile.

The Dido left Buzzards Bay under Captain Carruthers at 1400 hours on the
thirteenth of February.  She travelled thirty miles out before moving
southward, scanning the area for her quany.  Duncan stepped aside when
Thomas Rooke approached.  The sailor glanced at Duncan and made it clear
that he wanted to speak to Connor alone.  Connor and the First Mate
stepped a few feet away and whispered.

"Captain," said Rooke, who Connor sensed was disturbed to even speak
directly to him, "the men are concerned."

Connor scanned the horizon, a pair of field glasses held before his
eyes.  He brought them down for a second and said, "Oh?"

"It's just that, going up and engaging a naval vessel .  .

"We're not engaging them," said Connor.  "We're just

going to give them a message." He smiled.  "Don't worry, our holds are
empty, we unloaded everything."

"Aye," said Rooke.  "But ...  we just wanted to voice our concern."

"Tell the men I understand," nodded Connor.  "Tell them I appreciate
their honesty, and their loyalty."

"Their loyalty is unquestionable," said Rooke.  "It's just that we've
turned around so quickly, and all this strange business with the
Navy-it's him." Rooke tilted his head towards Duncan, lowering his voice
still further, but naturally not to the point that Duncan, a very
skilled listener indeed, could not hear it.  "Are you certain he can be
trusted?"

"Yes, Rooke," said Connor.  "As I said, I would trust him with my life."

"I hope so," said Rooke.  "Because we are trusting you with ours."

As the Dido travelled south, a number of ships appeared, and each time
the sailor at the topmast cried out, and each one Connor inspected at a
distance.  And finally, at 1800 hours, as the sun was going down, a pair
of shapes topped the horizon, twins, gigantic in size.

Connor ran to the rail and inspected the ships, which now seemed to pick
up speed.  He climbed the ladder on the mast about ten rungs and peered
through the glasses again.  Even in the failing light the shapes were
unmistakable: the lowslung decks, looking more like a monitor than a
seagoing ship, the guns at ready.  Oh, the twins were going to put on
quite a show.  "That's them!" cried Connor, as he dropped to the deck of
the Dido.

Duncan ran to the alarm horn and began to crank the handle as the three
ships flew towards one another.  "Go to their starboard side," cried
Connor, "nice and easy."

The Troilus moved steadily north as the Dido changed course, and soon
the battleship was flanking them, separated by two hundred yards of
water.  The twin ships looked like a pair of horses before a carriage,
the Cressida barely visible behind her sister.

Duncan heard a distant sound, an oscillating whine.

"What ...  ?"

Rooke ran up to Connor with a megaphone.  "They're

sounding their own alarm," he said evenly.  The alarm died out and
Connor signalled for Duncan to cease the Dido's call as well.

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know," said Connor, as he held the funnel to his mouth.  "Ahoy!
Troilus!  This is David Carruthers, vessel Dido!"

Someone on the deck of the Troilus returned an amplified greeting, but
the response was lost on the misting waves.

Connor lowered his megaphone and called over his shoulder, "Close thirty
yards!" The sun was down now, and the lights of the battleship were
burning brightly.  Duncan could make out three or four men gathered
together at the starboard rail.

The sails of the Dido shifted now, sailors moving to catch thk, wind
correctly, and several minutes passed until Connor held up his hand,
"Steady," and looked at Duncan, "Let's try again, gentlemen.  Ahoy!
Troilus!  This is vessel Dido, Captain David Carruthers!"

The call was met by silence, except for a distant cranking sound that
Duncan did not recognize, but he notic topped the horizon, twins,
gigantic in size.

Connor ran to the rail and inspected the ships, which now seemed to pick
up speed.  He climbed the ladder on the mast about ten rungs and peered
through the glasses again.  Even in the failing light the shapes were
unmistakable: the lowslung decks, looking more like a monitor than a
seagoing ship, the guns at ready.  Oh, the twins were going to put on
quite a show.  "That's them!" cried Connor, as he dropped to the deck of
the Dido.

Duncan ran to the alarm horn and began to crank the handle as the three
ships flew towards one another.  "Go to their starboard side," cried
Connor, "nice and easy."

The Troilus moved steadily north as the Dido changed course, and soon
the battleship was flanking them, separated by two hundred yards of
water.  The twin ships looked like a pair of horses before a carriage,
the Cressida barely visible behind her sister.

Duncan heard a distant sound, an oscillating whine.

"What ...  ?"

Rooke ran up to Connor with a megaphone.  "They're

sounding their own alarm," he said evenly.  The alarm died out and
Connor signalled for Duncan to cease the Dido's call as well.

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know," said Connor, as he held the funnel to his mouth.  "Ahoy!
Troilus!  This is David Carruthers, vessel Dido!"

Someone on the deck of the Troilus returned an amplified greeting, but
the response was lost on the misting waves.

Connor lowered his megaphone and called over his shoulder, "Close thirty
yards!" The sun was down now, and the lights of the battleship were
burning brightly.  Duncan could make out three or four men gathered
together at the starboard rail.

The sails of the Dido shifted now, sailors moving to catch thk, wind
correctly, and several minutes passed until Connor held up his hand,
"Steady," and looked at Duncan, "Let's try again, gentlemen.  Ahoy!
Troilus!  This is vessel Dido, Captain David Carruthers!"

The call was met by silence, except for a distant cranking sound that
Duncan did not recognize, but he noticed Connor stiffen slightly. Connor
was raising the megaphone to his lips again when suddenly a brilliant
light erupted from the Troilus, blazing hot and white across the water.
Duncan raised his hand and tried to peer between his fingers.

"Steady, steady," said Connor, then, lower, "Oh, Christ, they've been
expecting us."

"No cause for alarm?"

"Tremendous cause for alarm, Duncan, but I'm trying to pretend it's not,
thank you." Connor spoke into the megaphone, again, using his own hand
to shield his eyes.  "We have.  .  ."

"Dido!" came a great cry from the Troilus.  Connor looked at Duncan for
a moment.

"That's a Briton," said Connor.

"Dido!" came the voice again, "prepare to be boarded!"

Connor muttered, "Devereaux."

"Who?"

"Preventive," snapped Connor.

"Captain Carruthers, you and your crew and your vessel are under arrest
by order of the Royal Preventive Service and

the United States Navy on charges of gunrunning and piracy!"

"That sounds pretty official," said Connor.

Duncan folded his arms.  "Wonderful."

Connor barked over his shoulder, "Rooke!  Uncover the wheel!  Benjamin!
Haskell!  To the boilers, quick!  Furl those sails, and be ready!"
Connor turned back to the blinding light and cried, "No time to chat
now, Devereaux!  I have a message for the sister ships!  You are in
danger of attack!"

Silence.  Then, "Are you threatening me, Carruthers?"

Connor shouted to his own men, "Let's go." Even as he said so, the sails
were being wrapped by teams of eight men each, binding cords and taking
positions.  He turned back to the rail and answered "No!  You are the
targets of a plot.  .  ."

Someone far across the sea shouted a command that Dun(:an could not make
out, followed by an odd whistling sound, but when a large pocket of
water near the port hull of the Dido exploded, sending water spray onto
the ship, he knew well enough what the order had been.  Duncan was
frowning at his teacher.

Connor saw his look and said, "You know, and here I thought I could
trust him.  .  ." The Elder Highlander shouted through the megaphone
once more.  "You have been wzimed, Troilus!  Damn it, Devereaux, they're
riding into an attack!"

Another explosion, and the two Immortals were doused in water.  Connor
sighed, "We're under attack." The captain turned.  "Men!" he cried to
his crew, "let's show these squids what we can do.  Move off!  Reinhold!
Vents, if you please!"

A sailor yelped, "Aye, aye, Captain," ran to the bulkhead and began to
turn a crank.

Now the entire body of the Dido began to shudder and move, and Duncan
felt her picking up speed as the water wheel slapped loudly against the
waves.  Another shell ripped into the water and Duncan held to the rail
as the Dido pitched.

"Fear not, oh ye of little faith," said the Elder Highlander.

"You're not actually worried, are you?" Duncan saw the gleam in his
teacher's eye, and then blinked, because his own eyes were full of
smoke.  A wave of smoke buried Connor for an instant and Duncan saw that
the deck had filled

why it.  He looked across the deck of the Dido, and could barely make
out a series of opening wooden vents about half a mile across, scattered
throughout the deck.  They were moving, opening further, spewing black
smoke that filled the air and blackened Duncan's clothes. The vents
locked into place.  Even the floodlight from the Troilus was drowned out
by the black cloud that surrounded the Dido.

Duncan coughed.  "This can't be healthy," he munuured, when somebody
tapped him on the shoulder and thrust a paper mask into his face. Duncan
took the mask and put it on as the sailor disappeared again.

"Don't be ridiculous," said Connor.  "We think of everything-.rig."

The Dido hurtledback to Buzzards Bay in record time, and after a while
Connor had the crew douse the cloud and kill the engines.  By the time
she put back into port, the Dido was a sailing vessel again.

"You don't think of everything," said Duncan, as the ship reached the
docks.  "You didn't know you'd been ratted out."

"Touchd," said Connor.  "All in a day's work, I guess.  You just can't
bribe some people."

As sailors hopped onto the dock and began throwing lines to one another,
Duncan said, "What now?" He looked at Connor, who now resembled, as he
was sure he did too, a chimneysweep.

The chimneysweep Inirnortal fished a cigarette from his case and lit it.
"Now we go to plan B," he said.

"And that is?"

"Get cleaned up," Connor exhaled a stream of smoke.

"And get dirty again tomorrow."

Khordas adjusted the mask on his face and actually considered taking it
off for a moment, but the moment passed without his doing so.  The mask
was here to stay, so long as there remained mortals who refused to
recognize him.  Above him, a system of pulleys and ropes could be heard,
cranking away, as his outfitting of the Gratiano neared completion.

Khordas was supervising the placement of the guns.  All those diamonds
and gold stolen over the years had bought weapons of many kinds, and
now, the Children who were

most able with a boat were ferrying his own small craft back and forth
between the anchored Gratiano and the lagoon he and the Companion had
called home for the past year.  The nine small guns were already in
place around the main deck of the Gratiano, and even now, the final
touch was being placed.

"Excellent," said Khordas, as he climbed the ladder.  Captain Lewis was
supervising the placement of the pikce de risistance.  The gun he had
bought from Crabbe, using George Drake's money, was huge, jutting thirty
feet from its base, an eighteen-inch bore gaping wide.  And plenty of
ammunition.

Plenty.  The smuggler Crabbe had been happy to provide everything he
could get his hands on.  Ah, what fires there would be.

Khordas pulled Captain Lewis aside and put his hand on the man's
shoulder.  "I have a special task for you."

"Yes, my Lord."

"How many lifeboats does this ship have?"

Lewis thought for a moment, and Khordas suspected he was struggling with
the confusing thought that this was his ship, else how would he know?
The Root of Faith would take care of that.  Lewis answered, "Eleven."

"Then I want you to choose ten small crews, led by the most able sailors
among you.  Can you do this?"

Lewis stared forward and answered, "Yes.  What will the men be needed
for?"

"Fireboats," said the Salamander.  "I need crews for when our lifeboats
become fireboats.  Which is, of course, only fitting."

"Yes, my Lord."

Valentine's Day

"Ten o'clock," said Connor, "and all's well." Connor and ]:)uncan
MacLeod stood at the prow of Duncan's Spanish Lady.  The Dido was safely
moorede thoroughly.  .  ."

"Do not ask me to be less than what I am, Companion."

"But.  .  ."

"Enough!" spat the god.  "We have important matters to which to attend."
Khordas' masked head looked down at the fireboat near his feet.  "I have
a special assignment for you.  It is very important that we make no
mistake.  You have been with me for the entirety of my second life, and
I trust you more than any other to accomplish this mission."

Lauren nodded.  "Of course."

"Duncan MacLeod has been cavorting with his former mentor.  They are
aboard a ship called Dido.  It is a woodenhulled sailing vessel, a
whaler.  I want you to lead the fireboat against that vessel."

"Lead ...  a fireboat?"

"Aye."

"But," Lauren blinked.  Was he really asking her to...  "do you not need
me with you here on the Gratiano?"

"I need you," snarled the velvet voice behind the mask of the
Salamander, "where I wish you to be."

Khordas, I have come to please you.  Khordas, I have come to serve.  "Of
course.  As you wish." Lauren looked down at the Children preparing the
fireboat and pulled away from Khordas, and walked to her quarters, for
she felt sure she must partake of the Root.

And as she passed a ladder, she felt sure that she sensed something, for
a moment.  Something like a presence, faint and distant, buried,
somehow.  But the moment, and the presence, passed.

The Child of the Salamander called Genevieve waited where she was told
to, and jumped rope, chanting.

Genevieve held the handle of the muddy jumprope as the rope flew in
great arcs over her tiny body.  With every beat it sliced under her
feet, mud flying into her hair and over her dress.

Down at the pond, I caught a salamander,

Put it in my pocket, and soon it died ...

Hollow echoes throughout the muddy room, the sound of her tiny chant
dripping off the walls and ceiling in mud, dripping hollow against the
cauldron.  In the cauldron baked a surprise, and she waited, chanting.

Down at the pond, I caught a little skink,

Put it in my pocket, and all the girls cried...

Genevieve thought she heard a sound and increased the intensity of her
chant, doubling her speed on the rope as she did so, whipping it twice
under her legs as she soared and splatted against the mud, the mud that
flew against the iron cauldron, sizzling on the flame underneath, mud
from which rose the Salamander, Khordas, I have come to serve ...

Down at the pond, under the mud,

Tell me, 0 tell me, what a good girl am I!

Faster now, and a sound, mud sloshing against the inside of the
cauldron, bubbling against the lid, and Genevieve's tiny mind arced in
the way that only children and the childlike make sense of things.

Down at the pond, under the mud, Salamander, in thefire, Skink smells
blood.  .  .

Something moving in the cauldron, mud slinging off the rope and flying
through the air, mud in Genevieve's eyes, and now she lets go the
handles and the muddy rope slices through the air and sticks to the
walls, sliding down, slowly, like a salamander.  And the worms crawl in,
and the worms crawl out ...

Alive!  Alive!  Genevieve looked around the room.  A heavy wooden
candlestick lay tipped upon the mud-strewn table.

She seized it, wax sliding between her fingers, and began to swing it in
a wide are, clanging it against the cauldron.

Gabriels!

You are the new Companion, like no other before you, great will be your
life.  You are so much more than you have known.

Gabriela Savedra opened her eyes and saw nothing.  She was curled in a
fetal ball, hands clasped around her calves, and there was something
thick surrounding her head and her body.  She moved and felt as if she
were swimming, but swimming through.  ..  finally it came to her: mud
Drums pounded outside the darkness, somewhere, and Gabriela's eyes
closed again, and reopened, and she felt the sting of mud against her
eyeballs.  Alive.

Suddenly Gabriela gasped and mud filled her mouth as she threw out her
arms.  She felt her fists collide with something hard and metallic,
something that surrounded her, like a dark womb.  Her arms went up,
flowing through the mud, up above her head and she struck metal yet
again.  And still, vibrating through the mud, the sound of drums, and
still, snaking through her mind, the voice of the Salamander, You are so
much more.  We were meant to be together, you and I...

Gabriela stopped squimng, and let herself go limp for a moment, feeling
the vibrations in the mud and the pounding drams moving through her. She
thought for a moment, let herself think, as she rested and drifted in
the mud, that the shock of sound was the throb of her heartbeat against
the

womb.  She was about to be born.  Gabriela, a new voice called, in time
with the vibration of the drums.

"Gabriela!  Gabriela!" came the voice again, and now she realized that
there was another set of vibrations besides her heart, detached from the
muffled, distant drums, something solid pounding against the walls.
Gabriela listened intently and felt drunk on the new sounds in her ears,
the new types of sounds, deeper, fuller, like she had never heard
before.

Her eyes saw only darkness and mud, but the darkness and mud werefull.
Oh, what a wondrous gift!

"Gabriela!" called the voice again, and now Gabriela noticed that the
voice was small and high, and still the creature that called to her from
the other side of the womb beat frantically against the walls.  These
vibrations weren't in time with the drums at all, she now perceived.
Someone was beating on the walls and calling her name!

Now, slowly, things began to come back together, as she lay in the mud
and heard the pounding outside.  The Salamander had reincarnated her,
rescued her from a life of mortality, had told her not to fear, that he
was giving her new life in exchange for the old.  And waiting for her,
calling for her now, was another servant, a Child of the Salamander.

"Genevieve," Gabriela spoke, and the mud sucked into her mouth, and the
voice continued to call, tiny and surely exhausted fists beating against
the walls of the womb.  Gabriela reached up once again and began to push
against the ceiling.

No movement from the hard surface.  The Immortal Argentine lay back,
now, a wave of mud displacing and flowing around her as she settled to
the floor.  She winced in the slightest pain, for the floor was very hot
against her back, as if there were a fire on the other side.  She curled
her bare legs above her and placed her feet against the ceiling and
pushed.

Something gave, slightly, and there was a sucking sound as mud escaped
through what must have been a seam, the outer edge of what was not a
ceiling, but a lid.  She was in ...  what, a stew pot?  A cauldron?
Gabriela grunted under the mud and pushed with all her might, the
muscles in her legs straining, and she heard something scrape as more
mud from above the lid flowed around the edge.  The lid was rising, and
Gabriela pushed with her feet until she had raised

the lid half a foot, and now a sound, air sucking and displacing, as the
lid raised above the surface.

Gabriela heard a violent clang as the lid fell to the floor and she
brought her legs under her and began to stand.  Well.

Time to re-enter the world of the living.

Gabriela Maria Cuadra de Savedra stood in the cauldron and blinked her
eyes.  There was something new in her brain, new thoughts, new
sensations.  Something in her blood, leaving her open, something that
had seeped into her pores and exposed her mind, so that she wanted to be
filled with knowledge.  And who would give that knowledge?  She looked
out on a dark room lit with hundreds of tiny fires, each candle anchored
by a small mound of mud.  And before her stood the child, staring up at
her.

"The Salamander instructed me to wait for you, and to wake you, if I
could," she said.  The tiny girl was pleased, (,Tearly, and Gabriela
stepped from the cauldron and slowly lowered herself to the girl's
level.

"Do you know who I am?" asked Gabriels.  "Do you remember me?"

"Yes," said the girl.  "You are Gabriela, the Companion, the true.  You
are Immortal, like unto the god."

Alive!  Alive!  Alive!  The Root of Faith in her blood, reinforcing, why
are you alive?  Because Khordas has made you so!

"Yes," said Gabriela, as she embraced the third member of Khordas' new
family, "yes."

As the sun went down, the Gratiano began to move, and the masked god
stood at the foredeck and addressed the six hundred Children.  "Now, my
family.  We go to the reckoning place."

"There she is," said Connor.  He handed Duncan his glasses and Duncan
peered across the sea, out of the grotto where the Spanish Lady lay
nestled.

"What now?"

"Wait," said Connor.  Duncan turned towards the Bay, and looked through
the field glasses again.  He saw perhaps thousands of people still
walking along the pier, lines of them

shuttling on and off the Troilus and Cressida, where glib tours mere
being given to the cotton-candy crowd.

The Gratiano was decked out in mud.  "Incredible," said Duncan, as he
turned back to survey Khordas' adopted city on the sea.

"Aye," said Connor.  "That's no cruise ship.  That is a Salamander." The
vessel was moving at full steam towards the mouth of the Bay, but now it
slowed.  Within minutes, the vessel had ceased to move once again.  The
dark mass simply lay there, rocking in the waves just outside the Bay.
"Hm," said Connor.  "Full stop.  Hand me those," he said, and Connor
took the glasses and held them up.  "Our Salamander has a bite," he
said.

"Guns?"

"Big guns."

Duncan looked back at the dark Bay.  "What time is it?"

Connor pulled out his watch and clicked it open, glanced at it, snapped
it shut and replaced it in his foul-weather coat.

"Twenty-two hundred hours," he said.  "Ten o'clock."

"This is strange," said Duncan.  "The day is nearly gone."

"Aye.  And I don't like it." They watched the silent hulk for half an
hour before Connor called to the stern of the Spanish Lady.  "Rooke, you
there?"

"Aye, captain." Thomas Rooke stuck his head up from below.

"Let's head back.  We're of no use here," he said, and Rooke began to
fire the small steam engine.  "Back to the Dido."

At a quarter past eleven, back on the deck of the Dido, Connor and
Duncan crawled up to the crow's nest and looked out again.  "Still
there?" Duncan asked.

"Still there."

Duncan rested against the wooden, circular rail of the crow's nest while
Connor watched the silent Gratiano.  "I don't understand it."

"Neither do I," said Connor.  The Elder Highlander put down his glasses
and proceeded to light a cigarette.

"We're missing something."

"We are at that."

Duncan folded his arms in front of him and stared at his boots.
"Valentine's Day.  Here we are.  Lots of people, worshippers not
worshipping and waiting to be punished.  Here they are, all of them.
What is he waiting for?"

Connor blew out a stream and said, "Waiting until the right time."

"But he's iffissing it.  The people will be gone soon."

Connor looked out on the docks.  The crowd showed no sign of letting up
yet.  On one pier not a quarter mile from the Dido, a band was playing
Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean.

The song droned on, warped by its travel over the waves.

Next came Onward, Christian Soldiers.  "Saint Valentine's Day, we went
to mass," Duncan said.

"And then to Carmichael's feast."

p


" right."

Duncan was thinking back, what are we missing 2' He saw again the vision
of the cloud of dust around Carmichael and his ship, and the man
disappearing in flame.  "What time is it?"

Click.  "Eleven-dft." Snap.

.  .  .  marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus ...

"Why are the people still here?"

Connor slowly turned.  "There's a fireworks display at midnight."

Duncan stiffened and Connor met his gaze.  "It wasn't.  .

"After Carmichael's feast," said Connor, "we didn't see him off until. .
."

"We went to sleep, Connor, you were bloody well pissed, and so was I.  .
."

.  "Right," said Connor.  "And when we saw Carmichael off it wasod, near
three hundred years, it just runs together, it was'

"The fifteenth," said Duncan.  "Nerissa's birthday is the fifteenth!"

"Yes," said Connor.  "Yes!" He brought up the glasses again and looked.
"No movement from the Gratiano."

Duncan stared out across the bay with his naked eyes and saw the dark
ship in the distance.  The tiny boats shuttling visitors around the bay
were barely visible save for the lamps they carried.  He saw the lights
of the temporary, floating pier

near the Troilus, and there were several men setting up what looked to
be a mound of sticks.  Two at a time they placed the sticks into
canisters, stopping occasionally to chat.

"The;re's the display."

"E;ut what.  .  ." Connor stopped, then said, "Wait.  Look at this."

Duncan peered through the glasses and looked out to the Gratiano. "Still
no movement."

"Not her," said Connor.  "Look at the lights on the water near her."

Duncan focused the glasses a bit, and now he made out a number of tiny
boats, each carrying a lamp, rowing by team into the bay.  "Lifeboats?"

"I don't think so," said Connor.

Le:was put down his field glasses at the bridge of the Gratiano.  "The
fireboats are away, my Lord," he said.

Khordas strode the deck and watched the ten boats, the men furiously
rowing, and he heard them chanting his praises on the water, mixing with
the distant sound of the band on the docks.  We are not weak, like our
enemies ...  marching as to war ...

"Excellent," said the Salamander.  "Release our little gift."

"She's moving," said Connor.  "The Gratiano is pulling out.  And she's
...  spewing something." Connor touched his fingers to his lips and held
it into the air.  "What does that look like to you?"

Duncan looked out.  The distant hulk was indeed moving, now, and
something besides smoke was pouring from her stack.  A dark, shimmering
cloud flowed out of the smokestack and into the Bay, and every vessel in
the harbor began to shimmer as it drifted toward the shore.  Within
minutes the stuff was upon them, and Duncan felt it on his face and he
suppressed the urge to sneeze.  Connor snuffed out his cigarette with
his fingers and cursed audibly.  Duncan wiped some of the stuff off his
cheek, brought his finger to his nose and sniffed.  "That smells like .
.  ."

"Sulfur," said Connor.  "Remember?"

Duncan's eye was on the floating pier.  "The fireworks."

Connor looked at his watch.  "They're going to be on time."

"I'm afraid so," said Duncan.

"Christ," said Connor.  "I think we're safe with a few sparks here and
there.  But one little rocket and this whole Bay is going up."

"What about the boats?"

"We have to stop them." Behind him, the band played on the docks, and
the cotton-candy crowd still walked the boards, awaiting the fireworks.
Oh, no.  Oh, no.  "Those are manned mines, Duncan."

Duncan nodded.  "Fireboats?"

Now the sound of rowers came to his ears, someone chanting that infernal
praise to the mad Immortal.  A lifeboat full of ten men and women was
moving through the shimmering cloud, chanting.  One of the sailors knelt
at the stern of the tiny boat with a rope in his hands.  "That one's
headed for the dock."

Connor swept the area with his glasses and said, "Plenty more where that
came from."

"I'm for the docks."

"Fine," said Connor.  "I'll take the floating pier." Connor turned and
shouted out, "Fire the engines, men!" Then, as if in afterthought, "And
try not to light any cigarettes!"

As the Dido began to move, Duncan tore off his jacket and dove into the
Bay.

On the Bay, Lauren the Companion stood at the prow of her fir(,-boat,
scanning the harbor with her field glasses.  There were explosives at
her feet, knocking against one another, an(i she saw her target a
hundred yards away.  The Dido had just made its appearance, pulling out
from a line of docked ships.  On the docks, there were children playing,
people pointing, wiping the glistening sulfur out of their hair in
confusion.  Cotton candy, pink and brilliant, in the hands of mortals
who did not recognize the god, and she thought about Khordas' struggle
up from the pit and something within her cried out, No.

I am an Immortal, born in 1705.  I had three sisters, and I rode like a
man and robbed like the best of men.  All these things, I did before
Khordas.  Before Khordas ...

Khordas strode to the prow of the Gratiano and surveyed the scene. Lewis
was standing at the rail with a pair of field glasses, and Khordas
turned to him.  "Report." There was a presence approaching, coming up
behind him, and Khordas had to smile.

"The fireboats are nearing their targets," Lewis replied.

"Excellent," said Kbordas, and he put his hand on Lewis' shoulder.  "My
Children do me great service."

"Yes, my Lord," said Lewis.

A voice spoke from behind the Salamander, "Khordas?"

The Salamander turned and saw a woman, covered from head to toe in mud,
and the glistening substance mixed with the mud and shimmered
brilliantly.  Energy, fire, seemed to emanate from her and Khordas
recognized her as kindred.  At her side she held the hand of his new
child.  "Gabriels?"

The dark brown hair sparkled in the night with fire dust, and she
reminded him, somehow, of Nerissa, the first Companion, whom Duncan
MacLeod had taken.  She stood straight and said, "We are ready."

,"We are indeed," replied Khordas.



Duncan MacLeod tried to keep the sulfurous water out of his nose as he
swam for the first boat he had seen.  The rowers were coming towards
him, headed for the dock, which lay some twenty-five yards away.

Duncan considered his options and decided to take the direct route.
Swimming before the rushing boat, he waved his arms.  "Stop!"

No answer.  Duncan caught the eye of the leader of the tiny vessel, and
saw the look in the sailor's eye.  There was nothing there, just a blank
stare and a moving, chanting mouth.

The leader held a grappling hook in one hand and a rope in the other,
ready to latch on to the docks.  "Please!" Duncan cried again.  Behind
him, people were pointing, some of them laughing, odd, detached
laughter, the kind that fills a crowd for no reason other than that
people have no sense to know they're going to die.

The fireboat picked up speed, the oars slapping against the water, and
Duncan saw the keel of the small boat closing in on him.  Duncan grabbed
the prow of the fireboat and felt himself swept under by the force of
the waves as he clung to the rim.

Lauren looked ahead and saw the dock, the banners, men and women and
children wandering am-dessly, men shooting at plastic ducks and throwing
rings at milk bottles, and they were going to explode, because they did
not know the god ...  And moving toward her, her own target, the Dido,
and now a presence grew, the familiar sick feeling filling her

stomach.  Connor MacLeod was standing at the prow, and she knew that he
saw her.

"Go, my Children!" cried the Salamander, his voice deep and resonating
through the air from the funnel inside his mask.  Lauren looked back
again and saw him standing there, Khordas in his Salamander mask, and
the thoughts came again, overlapping, the thoughts that hurt her brain
and curdled her stomach: I dug you up!  I was alone, and needed
guidance, and over a century I have wasted this way!

And then Lauren's face clouded with a new thought, a resolution, and she
knew what she must do.  She leaned on the side of the fireboat with one
hand.  Lauren drew back and punched herself in the stomach, curdling as
it was with the poison of the Salamander, causing her vision to cloud
and shimmer like the cloud that flowed across the bay.  It was still in
her stomach, from her last feeding, and it must be purged Now she
reached into her pouch and retrieved a tiny pinch of gunpowder, and this
she mixed with salt water, and swallowed.  And Lauren leaned over the
side of the fireboat, seeing the dock closing in, the people who would
die, and she thought of the Salamander and she retched.

"Stop the boat," she gurgled to her men, turning up her bloodshot eyes
to them, and the rowing stopped.

For a moment they drifted, there on the black water.  Lauren was
watching her reflection in the water of Buzzards Bay.  How many years
could one waste following the wrong truth?  How does a killer recognize
how much killing is too much?  How can the closest thing to a god on
earth recognize that calling oneself a god is going too far?

Lauren reached down, still weak from the emptying of her stomach, and
touched her reflection in the water.  Already, with no supply of the
poison Root of Faith in her stomach, the rest of her system was
repairing itself, her mind becoming clear.  My allegiance to you is
purged, Khordas.  Good riddance.

Lauren sat straight and called out, "Pilot!  Change course."

"Aye, Captain."

"Dead astern, pilot."

Lauren worked the rudder as the men rowed, and within a

minute they were headed in the direction whence they came, the direction
of the Gratiano.

"My Lord?"

Khordas strode over to Lewis.  "What is it?"

Lewis lowered his field glasses and looked at the Salamander.  "The
Companion.  She's turned around."

Lauren shouted to her men, "Keep rowing!" The Gratiano was getting
closer, now, she could feel the presence of her love and her god looming
large.

No, not a god, an Immortal, yes, but just an Immortal, like yourself,
like Duncan, and like ...

A glint of light reflected off a pair of field glasses at the prow, You
see my course, don't you, my love?  Too long.  Too long have Ifollowed
you.  I was wrong.  You are wrong.

Lauren heard a muffled scream, and she looked off the port side and saw
a section of the pier exploding, smoke and fire flying outward and
splashing into the water.  It was truly beginning.  And it was going to
end.

On the floating pier, not far from the majestic Troilus and Cressida,
Alderman Brian Forsythe, who had been placed in charge of setting off
the fireworks display, was struggling with a pack of matches.  He lit
yet another match and cursed good-naturedly as the head rubbed clean
against the sulfur, without so much as a spark.  He looked up at his
aide, Carter, with a sarcastic smile.  "Any day now, I know."

Carter coughed slightly, and made a vague comment about the air.
"Exhaust," said Forsythe.  Forsythe had been to London, and considered
high quantities of exhaust to be a mark of extremely high culture.  He
tried to light another match, and looked out at the docks.  Funny.  A
lot of boats running around.  Everyone wanted to get a good view.  The
match seemed to be sludgy, for some reason, and he proceeded to pull out
a new box, hopefully one with matches not so grimy.

Duncan felt his body slam against the underside of the fireboat and
began to move along the rim, until he reached an oar.  He looked up at
the wooden oar and the rower attached.  He thought for a moment that the
sailor would see

him, but no.  You have very specific instructions, don't you?

Row this way.  Tie yourself to a pier.  Simon says.  Duncan grabbed for
the oar and felt it slap him in the chest and he tugged on it, now
grabbing the metal loop through which the oar travelled, holding it in
place.

Using the force of the waves travelling under him, Duncan pulled on the
metal ring and let his legs come up, and they collided with the next
oar.  He scrambled to get into the boat and landed with a thud in the
rower's lap.  The sailor stared at him blankly and Duncan suddenly
realized that the crew had stopped its chanting.  The leader of the boat
leaned forward noWr, an automaton, ready with the grappling hook.

Duncan grabbed the sailor beside him and made short work of tossing him
into the water, and then looked over his shoulder.  They were closing in
on the docks.

"Stop," said Duncan, to the sailors.  "Stop rowing!"

No answer.  viously, they recognized no authority other thain Khordas.

Now the sound of waves lapping against the posts of the boardwalk became
clear.  Duncan looked around the fireboat.

At his feet rolled canister after glass canister of metal and fluid and
powder.  "Where's the device?  What sets if off.?"

The prow of the boat collided with a thunk against the dock and Duncan
felt himself thrown backwards and into the front man, who shrugged
Duncan off and proceeded to rear back and throw the grappling hook.  The
hook caught on a beam overhead.  Duncan looked up and saw shapes-the
travelling feet of bystanders-visible between the boards of the pier.

The leader tugged on the rope, as if judging its strength, and then
threw a second hook to another beam, and the fireboat became steady.

Duncan got next to the drone and said, "What now, brother?"

"Now?" spoke the sailor, quietly.  "Now we wait."

Duncan stared at him, and then back at the other rowers, all of whom had
fallen into what he regarded as almost a state of sleep.  All were
covered in the same shimmering substance that smelled of sulfur and
burned his nose, and Duncan studied the sailors and saw that their
clothes were bulky,

bulging here and there.  Explosives.  These people were catalysts for
the fireboat.

And there was no incendiary device.  Khordas was going to use the air
for that.

Duncan drew his katana and sliced through the ropes, and the boat began
to drift as he began to reach into the bottom of the boat and throw the
canisters into the water.  And now the Children truly noticed he was
with them, and set upon him.

Alderman Forsythe cried, "Finally!" as his match flared and he held it
towards the waiting fuse.

"No!" came a voice, and Forsythe looked up.  "Eh?"

A whaling vessel was barreling down upon the floating pier, and a man
stood at the front of it with a megaphone.

"Do not set off your rockets.  Hold fire!"

Carter swore.  "Who the Hell is that?"

"Got me," said Forsythe, "but we're running late.  I see no reason to .
.  ."

The vessel banked hard starboard and came round, and the waves kicked up
and made the floating pier pitch.  "Don't do it!" came the voice again.
"This is treacherous air!  Don't fire your rockets!"

Forsythe stood straight.  "See here," he said, "I am an Alderman, and I
am supposed to .  .  ." the man at the front of the vessel raised his
arm and pointed what looked to be a large gun at him.

"Don't do it, or you'll be a dead Alderman, friend."

Pause, "I begin to see your point."

A fist collided with Duncan's nose and he felt blood flow and mix with
the sulfur in his nostrils as he kicked viciously and sent the last man
into the water.  They would be no threat to anyone there.  Ten mindless
drones began to tread the water, staring up at him and groping for the
side of the boat.

Duncan began to row away from the dock when he heard someone speaking
through a megaphone from the floating pier.  "Ladies and gentlemen,
there appears to be some cause for delay .  .  ."

Duncan smiled.  Connor had reached them in time.

Kftordas slarm-ned his fist into the rail.  "What?" Someone was shouting
something from the pier but the Salamander had no time to listen.

"The Companion, my Lord.  She's turned around."

"Ridiculous!" Khordas spat.  The damn fool faulty unauthentic self-made
Companion was trying to kill him.  What, was she insane?  He was being
betrayed!

The Salamander strode quickly to the bridge and shouted down to the fore
gunners.  "Children!  Take aim on that fireboat which approaches there."

The gun cranked down, thirty feet of metal turning in the direction of
the woman who had dug him up all those years ago.  After all he had done
for her, she was trying to destroy him.

"Children," cried the Salamander, "blow that damned woman out of the
water!"

Connor called down to Alderman Forsythe.  "I appreciate your help,
Alderman.  Now, please tell the crowd, if you would, to go home."

"Home?  But'

"Alderman, this air is dangerous.  Just to be on the safe side.  .  ."
As he spoke, Connor looked over at the Troilus, and gestured to Rooke,
who began to flash his own floodlight, the shortest message to get the
point across.

Short.  Long.  Long.  Long.  Dit-dah-dah-dah.  Dit-dah-dahdah.

Fire.  Danger.  Hit the deck.  Get clear.

Someone at the Troilus was shouting down at a strange crew of sailors on
a small vessel that had just attached itself to them, and now they began
to return their own signal.

Dit-dah-dah-dah.

Twelve grappling hooks from six fireboats tugged at various beams along
the docks, the crews waiting for the light.

Another boat had just now slammed against the armered hull of the
Troilus, yet another against the Cressida.  Leaving two-Lauren's, and
the boat that Duncan MacLeod was rowing back into the Bay.

All together now, as Duncan and Connor and the rest of the Bay heard a
sharp crack from a gun, a large gun, and a puff of smoke.

Duncan looked over his shoulder and saw the missile fly, in slow motion,
through the air, a red streak following the ball where the sulfurous
mist heated and wisped.

All at once, the messages from the Troilus and Dido relayed to the
shore, captains across the Bay, shouting at the people on the docks,
people in the band trampling chairs and instruments, "Get back!  Get
clear!"

All at once, the shell from the cruise ship Gratiano flew through the
air towards the fireboat led by Lauren, the Companion.  The Companion
was standing in her fireboat and Connor saw the missile fly through her
breast and slam into the pile of incendiary matter in the boat.

All at once, chaos.  Cotton candy.  And fire.  Spectators on the pier
began to stampede back onto the streets, away from the flaming wave that
began to flow across the water.

A cloud of sulfur ignited and the flame ripped across the bay, and the
fire scared Duncan's nose and caught the docks.

The water itself was flaming and Duncan rowed with all his might towards
the Gratiano.

Gabriela, standing on the deck of the Gratiano, saw this:

The Troilus was moving off as the fireboat attached to her hull
exploded, ripping a chunk from her side.  Alarm bells began to ring now,
loud and clear, but these were not as loud as the screams of horror from
the people at the docks.  Duncan saw the crowds, still moving away onto
land, but there were many still on the docks, too close to the fires,
pushing past one another in panic and confusion.  He saw some that
seemed like Carmichael, caught in the wave of fire, matchstick
silhouettes going up.  Now another sound began to grow, fire sirens, and
Duncan saw carriages arriving at the docks, gigantic tanks of water
painted red atop them.  The sirens roared, joining the alarm walls of
the ships.

Aboard the Cressida, the crew had gotten the message from the Troilus in
time to be ready, at least somewhat.  The moment the air went up, they
had hoses running, drowning the fireboat in dousing chemicals.  That
fireboat did not explode, and the Cressida received no breach.  But
Gabrieia gasf)ed at the sight of the Troilus, which was listing badly.

Now a wave of fire swept the deck of the Gratiano, burning like a fuse
as incendiary dust puffed and spewed sparks.

The air around Gabriela crackled and flared and Gabriela pulled her
cloak around her, swatting out the fires on her body as the particles in
the mud ignited.

The ship pitched, gulping the fiery waves, and Gabriela clutched her
stomach, seeing the Andrew on fire in her mind, seeing the image,
described by Duncan, of Captain Savedra evaporating in a cloud of red
nst.  Over the velvet voice of Khordas she heard the songs of her
mother, and the voice of her father, and something snapped.  She ran for
the floodlights and began to signal to the Cressida.  She was term,,)ted
to begin with a surrender, but she took a look at Khordas, who stood
with his arms held up as panicking and burnt Children ran across the
deck, and she called instead for aid.

Dit-dit-dit-dah.  Dit-dit-dit-dah.

Evacuate us.  Render assistance.  Help.

Gabriela stopped signalling for a moment to check Genevieve, who huddled
close to her, protected by a tarp that the new Immortal had thrown on
her.  The rest of the Children did not appear so lucky.  Flames licked
across the deck of the Gratiano, and everywhere the children of the
Salamander ran for cover, finding little or none.

And amid the conflagration, the Immortal called Khordas looked out on
Buzzards Bay at the great sorrow he had caused and felt the hot air
slicing past him, and laughed.

"Why do you falter!  What sacrifice we have made!  What havoc we have
caused!  Are we not strong?"

Gabela hit the signals again, but the beam of light was intermittently
swallowed by the flaming waves.  She coughed.  She would not die, but
these people .  .  .

It was then, as Gabriela Savedra signalled for the lives of the
Children, that the walls of flame on either side of the Gratiano opened
like curtains as a great horn cried out across the water, louder than
the many screams.  Something

welled up, deep inside her, so that she almost swooned, a presence
unknown to her, coming through the fire.

Parting flames licked and stood aside.  Something Gabriela recognized as
an Immortal at the prow of a speeding wooden vessel plunged through and
flanked the Gratiano.  The figure at the foredeck cried out, "Children
of the Salamander!  We grant you asylum!"

Flames everywhere, and GabTiela heard a splash as the anchors dropped
into the water, and now she looked to the other side as the great horn
sounded again and the Cressida burst through the flames as well.

Gabriela picked up Genevieve and began to run, her bare, mud-covered
feet pounding against the fiery deck.  Down the ladder she ran and
across the deck, to where someone had laid out a plank.  A man had
jumped across, now, and he was guiding people onto the plank and over to
the vessel she had no idea was called Dido.

Gabriela ran towards the plank and stopped suddenly, feeling the
presence grow stronger.

The stranger seemed to study her for a moment, and Gabriela felt
ridiculous, standing in the burning, sulfurdrenched mud with a child in
her arms, and no sword.  Whatever question she sought to ask, the
Immortal only smiled, and laughed a strange, staccato laugh.  "Heh.
Don't worry, I'm a friend."

Good enough.  "You can take my head later!" she said, to which the man
only nodded as he pushed her along the plank, for there were many more
to go.

And now, as Gabriela was jostled this way and that by the many people,
the confused and burned Children of the Salamander, she felt yet another
presence.  She cast her eyes across the water to the prow of the
Gratiano, and saw a figure climbing the anchor cable.  His hands were
burning as he reached the rail, and he was roaring a name, a name that
spewed as fire from his Immortal mouth.

"Khordas .  .  ."cried Duncan MacLeod.  "Khordas!"

But when Duncan reached the deck, Khordas was slipping away, through a
door and down a ladder, for he had one last card to play.

Gabriela saw Duncan move in the direction Khordas had

gone, but not before he stopped, as if struck by a strong stench, and
looked straight at Gabriela.  For a brief moment she swore she saw a
smile, but the look vanished, replaced by a look of greater anger than
Gabriela had ever known.

Duncan breathed in the smoke in the air and drew his katana, an(i felt
its weight in his hands.  Where are you?  He caught a whiff of Khordas'
presence as he passed a door under the bridge.

Oh, back where we started, Duncan muttered as he entered the door and
stepped slowly down the ladder, two flights.

When he reached the engine room, he knew it was true.  In the dark,
churning engine room, Kbordas stood, waiting, and now he held something
up in one hand, something that reflected the light in orange.  The
difference lay in Khordas' fa(,,e, which was hidden, now, stuck to that
deep blue mask.

"We keep dancing the same routine, Khordas," said Duncan.

"-You've caused a great deal of trouble.  And killing Gabriela was a bad
idea."

"It was her destiny."

"No!" roared the Highlander.  "Gabriela deserved to live a normal life.
Her time would have come without your help."

It was true.  She would have had years.  Time to get over Captain
Savedra's death, time to enjoy the last of mortal lovehopefully with
Duncan.  Khordas had changed everything.

Duncan moved forward with his katana and Khordas held up the item, and
Duncan saw it to be a glass container.  "What," Duncan smirked, "more
'petrol'?"

"You know better than that.  This is naphtha, Highlander,"

said Khordas, holding up the glass vessel.  In the dark the glass glowed
slightly orange.  There was a separation point at th(: top of the
vessel, where a second, darker compartment butted against the first.
"And next to it, separated by a thin sh(,,et of glass, is black powder."

The steam process was churning behind him.  "The ancients called it
Greek Fire.  It was used to excellent effect by the Byzantines, and
against the Arabs attacking Constantinople.  It is old-fashioned, but I
like it.  It has history."

"Is destruction the only history that interests you?"

"Mortal destruction is the only history that makes sense to me,
MacLeod," said Khordas.

MacLeod stepped forward and Khordas raised the jar.

"No!  One move more, Highlander, and I throw this into the boiler.  I've
blown you up once already, so I know that's old hat to you.  I can
handle it, too.  But there are a lot of people ov(,r our heads and I
don't think they'll pull together quite as well, do you?"

"You're deluded as ever, Khordas.  They're all gone.  All of them.  Even
now, they're being ushered away by the Navy an(i by your own Companion."

The Salamander shook his head.  "Bad bluff, MacLeod.

The Companion you know is dead."

Duncan watched him for a second.  "How does it feel, then, Khordas, to
be alone?"

"I should ask you the same question, because it is no longer a problem.
I have a new Companion, and together we will live out a long and
fruitful life."

Oh, no.  He had sensed another presence.  He had known it wasn't Lauren
even before seeing the Immortal Gabriels, had even smiled Gabriela was
Khordas' companion now?  She's goize, Khordas, I saw her leaving.  "And
where is the new Companion?"

"Doing my bidding!" screamed Khordas.  "Serving me!  As is her duty!  As
is the duty of all!" The arms swung wide, and the jar came dangerously
close to the churning pistons.

"Khordas.  .  .  ." He would keep killing, no matter what anyone did to
him.  "You will never get what you want.  What you want doesn't exist
anymore.  It's gone.  There are no

more Children of the Salamander.  You kidnapped and drugged them.  What
is easily gained is also easily lost."

"No!" cried the god, enraged, and Duncan saw that Khordas was backing up
to the bulkhead.  Khordas reached behind him with his free arm and
turned a circular handle, and a hatch fell open.  He was standing under
the escape trunk, the vertical passageway that led all the way up to the
main deck.

"No!  It is you who are deluded, MacLeod!  I am the guardian of the
Children!  My people are many, and strong!"

"Khordas, stop.  .  ."

Khordas had one hand on the ladder of the escape trunk and the other arm
he drew back.  Duncan saw the jar of incendiary liquid tumbling through
the air, and Kbordas was cursing him as the Salamander ducked his head
into the escape-trunk shaft.  "Hell be thy home, and that of all who
oppose!"

The jar landed with a tinkling sound against the tubes, and fell into
the furnace, and Duncan was moving towards the escape trunk as he saw
the glass cracking, and the orange liquid spilling out, flaring.
Khordas' legs disappeared up the trunk as Duncan grabbed the ladder and
began to pull himself up.

Up the trunk shaft, Duncan could see the swiftly moving limbs of
Khordas, taking several rungs at a time.  The ladder went up for three
stories at least before reaching the main deck, and now Duncan heard a
great, cracking sound, coming up from the boiler.

Duncan's feet were just reaching the first rung when something groaned,
loud and metallic, and the shaft itself was lit up by the great flaring
light in the engine room.  The Highlander scrambled to the next rung,
then the next, and suddenly he heard a great, fiery roar from below, in
the belly of the beast.

Duncan MacLeod cried out in pain as a wave of fire shot into the hatch
below him.  A wave of heat flew past him, and he knew it caught Khordas
as well.  And he prayed that he had been right about all the Children of
the Salamander being off the ship by now.

"Khordas!" Duncan gritted his teeth against the heat.  The air was
drying out, the metal heating up and shuddering ...  move,

damn it, move!  Up above him, clothes blazing, Khordas was laughing
again, laughing in pain, laughing at the destruction he wielded.

The shaft began to shake violently, and the hot metal scared Duncan's
already burning hands as he pushed onward, gritting his teeth against
the burn.

Rung after rung, Duncan chased Khordas, until they reached the first
level above the engine room and the Highlander found the rungs to be a
bit cooler.  He looked up and saw Khordas' boots, not five rungs above
him.

"Khordas!"

The Salamander looked down, and Duncan saw the mask, blue paint curling
away with the heat.  "Are you still with me, MacLeod?"

Khordas reached into his coat and pulled something out of it, a canister
like the one that he had thrown into the boiler, and he shook it and
threw it down the shaft.

Duncan winced as the canister hit his shoulder and bounced, falling down
a few more yards before exploding below him, and hot liquid rose up and
tore into his legs.  "Oh, Khordas, you are going to pay for that," he
growled.  "And you're not getting rid of me that easily."

There was a rumble from below, and the bowels of the ship seemed to
growl and whine as tons of metal shifted and cracked.  Two engines were
about to blow, and the Immortals still had two stories of ladder left to
climb.

It was dark again in the escape hatch now, and Khordas had taken the
moment's diversion to move up several more yards.  And Duncan heard
Khordas, somewhere above him, speaking to him, the voice of the
Salamander echoing down the hatch.

"The Salamander does not tire, Duncan MacLeod.  His home is in the dark,
in the damp, and in the fire.  These are his elements.  What do you know
of his power?"

"I know he is an Immortal!  Just as I am!"

"No," came the velvet voice, and Duncan heard the boots move a few more
rungs.  Duncan kept climbing.  "You are a young fool who has been
blessed with a gift I cannot explain, but we are not the same.  I became
a god.  You are simply an Immortal."

"I'm coming, Khordas," said Duncan.  "You just wait right there." He
looked down at his boots, the leather eaten through by the chemicals
from the canister, and smoke was coming off his scared trousers.  The
blade of the katana batted against his side, waiting to be drawn.  Just
give me room.

Duncan bit down and tried to ignore the pain of Immortality.

"You are coming, aren't you?" sighed Khordas.  He sounded positively
weary.  "We can go on like this, you know.  For centuries.  You taking
my Companions and I taking yours.  You have not thwarted any grand
schemes, Duncan.  You have only interfered with me once again.  But I
will continue.  And one day, I will receive the recognition, the worship
I deserve."

"All you deserve," said Duncan, "is a very painful death."

Two more rungs.  And again.  The sound of the grinding metal was growing
in intensity, but here in the escape trunk it all seemed a world away.
Duncan saw nothing but the rung to which his hands clung, and the metal
in front of him.  All else was pitch black.

Silence from Khordas.  The echoing velvet voice had stopped, and now all
he heard was the distant moaning of distressed engines.  Duncan looked
around and kept climbing.

Two more rungs, and Duncan put his hand on the next rung and screamed.
There was something wet and thick on the metal, and it instantly scared
into his fingers.  The Highlander wrenched free his fingers and reared
back, slamming his head against the metal of the cylindrical shaft.
Duncan sucked in his breath and let his back rest against the metal.

He tore away a sleeve from his coat and ripped the sleeve in half, and
wrapped his hands in the cloth.  Duncan looked up when he heard the
breathing of the Salamander.  He heard something move and a body
uncoiling.  With a whoosh something dropped next to his head.

There, half a foot from his own face, were the masked, burning eyes of
Khordas.  What in ...  ?

"My elements, Highlander!" Two hands came down and Duncan saw a dagger
flying at his throat.  He grabbed one of the wrists and looked up.
Khordas had wrapped his feet around a rung up above and was hanging
upside down.

Khordas thrust at him with the dagger and Duncan twisted it,

and now the other arm slammed into his head, banging it bact: against
the metal.

There was no room to go for his sword.  Duncan reached for Is own dagger
and brought it up, and felt the Salamander's blade slice into his ribs
and glance away.  The tip of Duncan's own dagger sliced into the funnel
piece of Khordas' mask and it ripped away from his face, landing with a
clang against the rung next to Khordas' head.

The Salamander turned a mud-lined face to Duncan and smiled.  "Listen to
the engines, MacLeod.  Not much time," said Khordas.  "She blows any
moment now." The shaft was vibrating again, and Duncan was working hard
not to slip.

"You're off balance," said Duncan, and he grabbed at Khordas' collar and
tugged.  He felt the Salamander's dagger slice: into his face and
growled as it tore away.  Khordas did not budge, so well was he lodged
in the shaft.

"])o you really think you can beat me at my own game?"

"Oh, Khordas, easily!" Duncan tore into the Salamander with his own
dagger and felt part of Khordas' shoulder tear through, and the god
cried out.

Something belched and whined, far below in the shaft, and a new wave of
fire gurgled up, and Duncan was momentarily blinded as he looked down
and saw the distant flash of orange flame.  Almost instantly the
accompanying heat wave tore past him, and Duncan looked up, but Khordas
was nowhere in sight.

"Any moment now!" came the Salamander's voice up ahead on the ladder.
"How far are you willing to go?"

"All the way," seethed the Highlander.  "You're not getting away this
time, Khordas."

Now a metallic, grating sound came from up ahead, not ten yards up, and
Duncan wiped his face and looked up to see light.  The shaft pitched,
now, and Duncan slipped for a second, feet scrambling until he found a
rung.  He steadied himself as the shaft seemed to snap a yard in either
direction and back into place.  The metal was screaming, twisting to the
point of breakage.  Khordas was right, there was no time left.  And
Duncan felt certain that when this ship went, his head was sure to come
away from his shoulders.

A circular vent was opening at the top, and Duncan could

see Khordas' silhouette against the night sky.  "Adieu, Highlander!" The
Salamander scurried out of the shaft and the vent fell closed once more,
plunging Duncan into darkness.

Duncan looked down and saw flames in the engine room, now far, far
below.  He looked up and climbed on.  Not far now.

Duncan felt the shaft pitch again, more violently than ever before, and
he climbed faster, until he reached the top of the shaft and began to
turn the handle.  Another cry of metal and flames, and the ladder began
to buckle under him.  Now a crack, and a distant booming sound, and
Duncan turned the handle once more and pushed, and the vent fell open.

Duncan stuck his head out into the night sky and immediately cursed
himself.  It would be just like Khordas to wait and lop his head off
when he emerged, like a gopher waiting to be shot.  But the Highlander
looked around and saw nothing, save a deserted deck.  The belly of the
ship gave another mighty groan and something heavy blew, and Duncan
jumped from the shaft and onto the deck.  Far across the deck, Duncan
saw a mountain of fire erupt from the bridge, as sheets of metal flew in
all directions.  He stood his ground and kept from stumbling as the deck
pitched underneath him.

"Khordas!"

Duncan ran to the rail and looked out.  Far below, on the water, he saw
the Salamander at the oars of a lifeboat.  You're not going anywhere,
Khordas.  Don't kid yourself

Duncan looked around and spotted a lifeline, travelling from the first
smokestack to the rail.  He ran to the point where the cable connected
to the rail and drew his sword, and part of him said, Oh, Connor would
love this.  The katana came down hard on the cable and bounced clear,
but a couple of the strands snapped.  Duncan drew back again and brought
the blade down once more, and the cable was shorn through, falling back
on the deck.  Duncan sheathed his katana and grabbed the cable, and
leapt onto the rail.

We are men out of time, are we not, Khordas?  We are walking myths, you
and I, the hero and the villain, except that all of it is true, the
lives you have taken were real, they had souls that enjoy peace I never
shall.  Can you appreciate the battle you wage?  I can.

Seared limbs restitching themselves even now stretched and rippled as
Duncan MacLeod sprang from the rail with th(- cable in his hands.  He
gripped the cable tightly and tried to ignore the frayed metal digging
into his palms as he flew through the air.  Duncan looked down, using
his weight to swing out and fly towards the lifeboat, and Khordas was
looking up at him, amazed.  Do I amuse you, Khordas?  This IS a Game,
isn't it!

All in a moment, all things at once, now: a shock-wave, as the boilers
blew, and Duncan felt a hot wind slam against him in midair as he was
torn free from the cable and bits of his hands went with it.  He tumbled
through the air and saw the Gratiano behind him, her side groaning and
pitching in the waves.  Duncan was plummeting towards the lifeboat as
the- starboard hull of the Gratiano burst like an inflamed blister, and
all at once the ship roared and flew apart, spitting hot chunks of metal
and wood and glass.

Duncan slammed into the deck of the lifeboat and the boat flew forward
with the force of the Highlander's landing.

Khordas dropped the oars and kicked at Duncan with his feet, sending him
reeling back against the stern of the lifeboat.  Duncan grimaced with
pain, and grabbed his side.

He had broken a rib or two, at least.  Duncan saw Khordas drawing his
sword, and Duncan jumped to his feet, but not before he noticed the
smell of the water he had landed in.

Naphtha.  The Gratiano belched flame and missiles once more, and bits of
flaming metal flew.  Khordas visibly winced as a burning fragment hit
him in the forehead, and bounced off into the bottom of the lifeboat.
Duncan drew his katana again and lunged at the Salamander as the deck of
the tiny boat roared to life in flame.

"This is it, MacLeod.  My elements!" Khordas in flames, Duncan seeing
him through a wall of flame that engulfed both of them.  Swords clashed
and rang out and Duncan saw sparks fly from the blades as they met.

Duncan shifted to the left and winced, and realized that his ankle had
been badly damaged in the flight to the boat, but there was no time to
think on this.  And in any case, the rest of him was burning.

Khordas lunged at him and Duncan raised his katana to

meet the rapier, and the Highlander stepped back and nearly tripped on
the ribs of the boat.  No surprises.  If you getflustered, rebuild.

Khordas' shirt was on fire, a human torch wielding a sword, and Duncan
ducked and slammed his head against the Immortal's breast, and Khordas
fell back.  No room.  No room to circle, no room to compensate.  No room
for mistakes.

Duncan knocked Khordas' sword aside and brought his katana around and
swiped at the Immortal's neck, but dislodged only a piece of flaming
shirt material.  Khordas seemed to laugh, somewhere inside the wall of
flame, and Duncan barely saw him drop before the Salamander's black boot
came flying and connected hard against his face.  The wound on his cheek
tore open and Duncan felt himself falling.  The Highlander slammed
against the ribs of the lifeboat, his hands landing in a flaming puddle
of incendiary fluid, and the flames came up and sizzled the blood that
flowed freely from his cheek.

With one hand he groped for his sword while with the other he scooped up
a palm full of naphtha, feeling it tear at his flesh as he slung it
upwards.

Khordas roared and staggered, tearing at his own face, which burned with
the liquid.  Duncan saw the rapier fall from the Salamander's hands and
clatter against the deck, and Duncan jumped once again to his feet,
ignoring his burns, ignoring his wounds, ignoring the flames that licked
at his clothing.

Khordas fell to his knees and wrenched a hand free from his face and
reached down for the rapier, which lay near his knees.  God, you regroup
fast, Khordas.  Duncan found the hilt of the rapier with his foot and
kicked, bringing it up and into the air.  But notfast enough.  Khordas
cried out in rage as he watched the rapier spin through the air and
disappear into the water.  He seemed to take a breath, as if for once at
a loss for what direction to take next.

"It's over, Khordas."

"Not yet it isn't, young one," said Khordas, as he drew his knife from
his belt and let it fly, and Duncan felt it tear into his neck and he
gurgled in shock.  Duncan felt blood in his

mouth and growled furiously, and brought the katana up in rage, and he
heard Khordas laughing.

You are an abomination, Khordas.  A mistake I should have taken care of
long ago.  You do not fit, you have no plclce, you are dangerous, and
you will not be allowed to win this Game.  And even if I have no idea if
the Game is real, or if there is really a Prize, I know that if all
these things are true ...

"There can be," rasped the Highlander, "only one." The katana flew
forward in the night air, through the flames, through the pain, and
connected with Khordas' neck, and Duncan felt the familiar pressure of
steel meeting flesh and the equally familiar lack of it as the blade
came through.

The head tumbled off the Salamander's shoulders and into the: water. For
a moment, the head was staring, floating in the water as Duncan felt the
strength drain from his legs.

The Highlander fell to his knees, hardly aware that the dei,,k was still
burning, and he tore the dagger furiously away from his own neck, He
leaned back on his heels and let his arms fall wide apart, and his
scared knuckles burnt against the burning wood.

I am Immortal.  Born in 1592 in the highlands of Scotland I cannot
die....

Seconds warping into hours now, every cell of the Highlander's body
burning with energy that only came to him in one way ...

Winds picking up, whistling, the fire around him dying down, ears
popping the way they did when one sailed into the eye of a great storm,
the lull, the pulse of blood, ready, waiting, before it hit.

This is your destiny, this is our gift ...

The gift must be hidden, but do not be ashamed You are Immortal!

It is Khordas who lies before you, remember the name, it is he who has
passed his part of the gift to you, take it!

Visions now, flying into Duncan's brain, as the sky overhead rumbles and
the clouds burst open and lightning cracks through the sky.  Khordas,
the god, and the dancing Children, in a time before numbers of years
denoted the Return of the God.

Slake your Immortal thirst,- do not fight, for this is what you are.

Lightning arcing wide and bright, flying into Duncan's chest, pounding
through the Immortal heart, crisping his blood inside him, hating out
through his mouth and nostrils and eyes, connecting him to the fallen
foe.

The lightning will speak to you as it burns through you, remember the
name of the presence you have consumed, for he is part of you now, and
you will go on with him....

The drums of the dead, the dancers before Khordas, the god rises from
the pit, happy in his role as king and savior.

Remember!  Remember!

This is the gift, receive it!

Duncan rears back his head and screams, knowing his foe Loneliness!
Terror!  The Children, dead, the land, changed, the truths, untrue!  I
am a god!  I am a god!  Damn you all who say it is not so!

I am Duncan MacLeod, the Highlander!  I accept this tortured soul and
give it rest!  Great was his history, hard was his fight, terrible his
loss!  Deserving of death was he, but Khordas will be remembered!

Lightning tearing through clothing, fusing it to the Highlander's flesh,
the body of Khordas levitating before him, the loser of the Game pouring
out the gift.

Cursed!  Cursed those of us who play the Game, that we know not who we
are and whence we came!

Great are those of us who play the Game!  Immortal are we, and in our
hands lies the fate of all!

This is the Quickening!

Blue and white bolts swirled around the Highlander, pinning him to the
ribs of the lifeboat.  Visions whipping past like stallions at a race:
Amber Lynn, the young one, Nerissa and all of the victims of Khordas,
all the lost Children, all the hopes and dreams of the lost god.  All
these things racing alongside the visions of Duncan MacLeod, the
villagers who cast him out, the father who betrayed him, the truth and
the ignorance.  Years.  Centuries.  Millennia.

Duncan MacLeod felt his eyes about to explode, md they

rolled back into his head as the lightning bolts ripped away from his
body and flew back into the clouds.

And Duncan collapsed against the boards, unconscious and yet seeing all.

Great is the Prize.  What is at stake?

Everything.

It was Connor MacLeod's turn to pay for drinks all around, so he, his
former student, and Gabriela Maria Cuadra de Savedra gathered at the
Ratter, not long before the Dido was to set sail.  Behind them, through
the frosted windows, the harbor outside the Ratter still bore the marks
of the Salamander's rampage.  The docks, still charred, served the usual
offering of ships.  But the wreckage of the Troilus lay in the harbor,
the crow's nest sticking out of the water.  It was being debated what
would become of her; most likely the Navy would salvage the parts that
could be saved.

Lauren, the Immortal with whom Khordas had consorted for so long, had
blown up on one of the fireboats, Gabriela had seen that.  But she was
an Immortal, after all.  Lauren herself was nowhere to be found.

"For that matter," said Connor, "she has a right not to be found.  We
all have a certain amount of rebuilding to do."

"Careful," said Duncan, "I wouldn't go looking for Lauren to turn over a
new leaf just because she lost her religion.  This is a pretty vicious
woman.  You yourself told me what she did to that Quaker."

Gabriela leaned forward, her brow knit with concern.  "But she was under
Khordas' power when she did that, doesn't that-"

"Excuse it?" Duncan asked.  "I am convinced that line of

reasoning only goes so far.  In any case, Lauren will have to deal with
herself, by herself, for some time." The Highlander paused for a moment
before asking, in mock nonchalance, "So.  How does it feel to be
Immortal?"

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked.  "You could have warned me."

"No," said Duncan.  "I tend to believe that we should be allowed to live
out our lives as normally as possible.  What Khordas did to you, killing
you before your time, was wrong.

Even if he knew that you were going to become an Immortal." Duncan
glanced at Connor, for he was reciting the facts sum ounding the Elder
Highlander's own death.

Gabriela nodded, gazing at Duncan.  "So much has happened.  How is it
that you entered my life just before I .  .

she stopped, groping for a phrase.

"'rumed?  Crossed over?  Died?" Duncan shook his head.

"Who can say?  I don't know what leads one Immortal to anothk,-r, much
less one to one who is not Immortal yet."

"Call it," said Connor, "a kind of magic."

"Aye," said Duncan.

Gabriela was looking down at the table now.  "I never could find the
mother of the child."

"Genevieve?"

"Yes." She cleared her throat.  "I fear that Genevieve's mother was the
poor woman substituted for me at the boarding house.  At any rate, I
cannot keep her." She pressed her eyes with her palms, the last vestige
of mortal life and longings leaving her.  "I left her at the hospital
today.  God knows.

Go(I knows what will become of her.  I simply cannot look after her now.
That's correct, isn't it?  My god, Duncan, I'm supposed to be dead." She
looked at him, huge, brown eyes that Duncan had known from the beginning
would burn forever.

"You've been through a great deal," said Connor.  "But what you have
decided is best.  You need to strengthen yourself for the Game, and it
will be hard enough without the child."

"It was not a perfect time to become Immortal," said Gabriela, "but
then, what is?"

Connor looked at Duncan.  "Are you going to train her?"

"I'd thought about it," said Duncan.  "But I don't think I should."

(3abriela looked agitated for a second and Duncan said, "Don't worry,
I'm not leaving you right now.  But I am not the most skilled mentor for
you.  And remember, it is vital you receive the proper kind of training.
Immortals are basically lone wolves, we pair off every now and then, but
we're not a good lot for groups."

"Right," agreed Connor, "I suspect that's because our very existence is
dedicated to killing one another."

]]uncan cocked his head.  "He says that, but there are other theories
surrounding the Immortals.  I like to think you can have friends as well
as enemies-and I think that Connor would be forced to agree to that."

Connor nodded, a wry, almost sad smile crossing his face.  He was
looking out to sea, but his eyes were full of vistas unknown to them
both.  The Elder Highlander said, "I envy you, Gabriela.  You're just at
the start of your journey.

Your name is more than a dusty engraving hidden away somewhere.  You
have a head to protect now, and in the Game your head means as much as
anyone else's.  Yours could be the one that wins," he sighed.  "And you
will be weary."

"You sound as if you're ready to give it all up," said Gabriela.

"No," said Connor, "I am only very tired.  There are older Immortals,
and they tell me it will pass.  I must warn you, Gabriela.  Losing
yourself is easy.  To not do so, to remember yourself, to save a core of
it so that who you are now is still with you, should you win the
Prize-this is our greatest struggle."

Within three hours time Duncan and Gabriela stood on the docks and
watched Captain David Carruthers fade into the distance aboard the Dido.
Duncan watched him go, standing with his hands in his pockets, as if
waiting for something.

Gabriela looked at him and said, "Where to now, Mr. MacLeod?"

"Oh," he said.  "I think we should go west.  There's a teacher that I
think will be perfect for you."

Gabriela put her arms around his neck and pouted.  "Are you sure you
want to get rid of me?"

Duncan laughed.  "I didn't say I was in a hurry.  You had a great deal
of living to do, and I like to think you would have done much of it with
me." He looked out to sea, where the Dido was fading in the distance,
the Immortal presence of her captain long gone.  "I was thinking we
could find some place with no curtains and you could burgundy the Hell
out of it."

"I'd like that," the Argentine said, wrapping her arms around his waist.
"You mean you wouldn't mind travelling with a friend?"

"I mean," the Highlander said, "that sometimes I get tired of being
alone." And with that, they kissed, and clung to one another like
lovers, or mad sailors in a storm.

After a while, Gabriela left the docks and went ahead to her late
father's house, but Duncan remained on the dock until the sun went down.
He sat on the boards and dangled his feet and closed his eyes.  He was
listening to the ocean.

The sound was old, older than the Immortals, a sound that Khordas would
have known in his youth, and one of the few things that would not have
changed.  There were connections to that time that never changed: the
sounds of wind, fire, water.  All the old elements.

Duncan MacLeod, the Highlander, listened to the wind and the ocean and
the seabirds on the pilings, and thought about Khordas and Connor and
Gabriela, that young soul, at her father's house waiting to redecorate
his world.  And he felt, for the first time in a long while, at peace.
For now, that was enough.

Skimming along the stream.  Down through the centuries.

No sign of plummeting.

Yet.