by C. E. Murphy
Lorhen sighed. "Excalibur and the Grail are fine, you can handle that, but mention unicorns and you freak out. Why does nobody believe me about the unicorns?"
"Lorhen, come on. I was there when Polo came back from his expedition with his account of seeing a unicorn. It was obviously a rhinoceros. Rhinos, gazelles, whatever they were, they weren't unicorns. Everybody knows that. Nobody's ever found a unicorn skeleton."
"As a point of fact,” Lorhen said acidly, “they have. Siberian unicorns, some merely tens of thousands of years old. Big, monstrous, furry rhinocer…i. I've wondered if the ancient Atlanteans had somehow bred their unicorns down from them. But even if they didn’t, were they there?" Emma opened her eyes again to find Lorhen looking balefully at Cathal. "All these people who know there are no unicorns? Were they there? They haven't found any skeletons because the bloody things all drowned when Atlantis sank, Cathal. If Ghean manages to dig it up, you'll see." He sank into the booth, scowling at his beer.
"So it really did sink," Cathal said softly. "What happened?"
"Wonderful. You believe that Atlantis sank, that’s fine, but unicorns are beyond the bounds of reason. I swear to God, you’re as bad as mortals sometimes. What do you think happened? It all went to hell. Everything went straight to hell."
Ghean avoided him for days. Lorhen made it easy enough, keeping largely to his tent during the heat, venturing out at night to pace the desert chill. He was less concerned with the betrayal of his secret—who would she tell? Who would believe her?—than he was with the probability that he'd lost his lover forever, but there was little he could do about that. The decision to stay away or return was hers alone, and he was left with a twisting regret, wondering if he should have told her of her own potential immortality at the same time. Seeking her out to tell her now seemed likely to add fuel to the fire of her fear and anger, and the fact that she'd run away before he could tell her everything about herself would hardly be an acceptable excuse.
Lorhen sat in the sand with a sigh, looking up at the star-littered sky. Sharp-edged in the desert's clear air, only a few shone with any color, faint traces of blues and reds. The rest were stark, white against black. Lorhen smiled thinly at them. The universe presents itself as black and white, and we're offended when there are shades of grey in between.
He didn't realize he'd spoken out loud until Ghean answered, from not far away. "It's a lot easier to see things in black and white. I thought you were all white, at first. A good scholar, a good man, someone to love." She slipped down the side of the dune, fingers trailing in the sand as she controlled the slide. "Then you told me what you were, and I thought you were all black. Something evil and unnatural, to be feared and hated."
Lorhen closed his eyes against the stars, lips pressed together to ensure no more damning commentary slipped free.
"I have been thinking," Ghean went on, "very hard, these last few days." She sat down in the sand beside him, spreading a cloak out around her. Her hair was long and loose, falling over the cloak to brush against the sand. "I'm not very old, and I've always seen everything in black and white, I think. But you aren't black or white, are you? You're grey. You belong to two different worlds, and that, if nothing else, makes you grey. You have to have different considerations. Do you try to do the right thing, Lorhen?"
"I try to stay alive." He sensed, more than saw, Ghean turning her head to look at him, and shook his head. "I don't know if I try to do the right thing. I thought telling you was the right thing, not for survival, but because I love you. I have done things you would not consider right, to survive."
Ghean nodded, and looked out over the desert again, quiet a while. "How old are you?"
"I don't know. A thousand years. Maybe more, maybe a little less. I don't remember much before I started keeping journals."
"When was that?"
Lorhen's mouth turned up in half a grin. "About ten minutes after they invented writing. Five hundred, eight hundred years ago."
"You've been married before."
Lorhen nodded. "Eight or nine times."
Ghean glanced at him. "How many of them knew?"
"Three," Lorhen said. "Two who saw me die and come back, and a third whom I chose to tell."
"Why did you tell me?"
Another half-smile curved his lips. "Atlanteans are long-lived, comparatively. It's easier than lying or acting out an old age I'm not actually achieving. You would have realized in a few years, ten or fifteen at the most, that something was wrong. You're too intelligent to accept lies, in the long run. I would have to tell you the truth eventually. It seemed better to do it now."
Ghean almost laughed, making a sharp sound. "I'm not sure if I'm flattered or insulted."
"Be flattered," Lorhen advised, adding, "It's not your age that makes you see things in black and white. Most people never learn to see the world any other way."
"Most people," Ghean said, "aren't in love with a thousand- year-old man. Tell me about being Timeless, Lorhen. It's hard to imagine. Everyone dreams of never dying, but what's it really like?"
You'll find out, he assured her silently, and wondered at his continuing reluctance to say it aloud, especially when he'd just been convincing himself he should. That was before it seemed she might forgive him, though. A self-deprecating breath escaped him, and he pushed the thought away to answer her question. "It's exhilarating. And difficult. Watching those you love age and die while you remain eternally the same never ceases to be painful."
Ghean shook her head. "I don't believe anyone can remain eternally the same. Haven't you changed, since you became immortal?" She shrugged a shoulder as he glanced at her. "Mother explained to me how your immortality works. That you live a normal life until you die violently, and then you can't die unless someone takes your head." She glanced back toward the town, and asked, "Will you and Aroz fight?"
"If he makes it necessary."
"Will you kill him?"
"If I can."
Ghean shuddered, drawing her cloak tightly around herself. "How many men have you killed?"
Lorhen shook his head. "I stopped counting. The only time I see the faces clearly are in dreams."
"You frighten me," Ghean admitted in a small voice.
Lorhen sighed. "I don't want to. In most respects, Ghean, I am what you thought I was. I'm a scholar. My interest is in watching history, not making it. All I want is to keep seeing it happen. My luck is in that I have more time than most to do that."
"And you'll really live forever."
Lorhen smiled with faint humor. "Or die trying."
Ghean looked at him, startled, and laughed. "I guess that's what we all do. How many others are there like you? Are they all as old as you?"
"I don't know, and no. New Timeless are Awakened every day, but I don't know how many. There were some who were almost as old as I was, but I don't think I've ever met anyone older."
"Were?"
Lorhen looked up at the stars again. "We fight," he said. "It's what we do. The few I've met so far who were close to my age are dead now. I'm not. That's all that's important."
"Were you the first?"
The image of the ax rising and falling, blood dull in the pale moonlight, danced in front of the stars. "I don't know," Lorhen said. "I don't think so." Had the man he'd killed been his teacher, or some chance Timeless, whose life crossed with Lorhen's, only to end in a rush of primitive instinct? Eyes closing, Lorhen tried to chase down the memories. The images faded again, to a grey blur that crystallized into surety only as the battle with the nameless stranger began. He shook his head, and repeated, "I don't think so."
Ghean nodded, drawing her knees up under her chin, silent again for a time. Eventually, just louder than the wind, she asked, "How can someone like you love me?"
Lorhen turned to face her, slipping his arm over her shoulders and pulling her against him. "How could I not?" he asked just as softly. "You're intelligent and brave enough to beard the lion in his den, even after I to
ld you about myself. Your vivacity and love for life remind me of why life is worth living, even after the long years. Without someone like you, there's just history, and history is about death. In a way, I need you more than you need me." He let the words fade into the darkness, wondering how much of it was true. Enough for Ghean to sigh and snuggle against him. Lorhen smiled at the top of her head, relaxing.
The warning tingle of pain and nausea that flowed through him a moment later made him stiffen, straightening to search the shadowed dunes. Ghean sat up, blinking curiously as she pushed a strand of hair back from her face. "Lorhen? What is it?"
"Company," Lorhen growled, and scrambled to his feet, hand on the sword's hilt at his waist. Ghean remained where she was, seated in the sand, looking up at him in confusion. "Go. There's another Timeless nearby. Go back to the town. I'll meet you there later."
Her eyes widened in alarm, pupils swallowing the brown in the faint moon's light. "No."
A shadow separated itself from the night, easy strides across the sand marking Aroz's approach. He stood several inches shorter than Lorhen, but the inches he lost in height were made up in breadth. His face was sharp-edged, craggier than Lorhen's, with thin white scars under his cheekbones and on his chin standing out vividly against skin so black it veered toward blue. He stopped several feet from the pair, and bowed slightly to Ghean.
"There you are, my lady. Your mother asked me to find you and send you home." Aroz's voice was much lighter than expected from a man with a chest as broad and deep as his; a poet's voice, not a warrior's. He lifted his eyes from Ghean to Lorhen. "Lorhen and I have business to attend to."
Ghean shook her head, coming to her knees in the sand. "No. No, Aroz. Bring me back with you. I'll go back with you right now. With you." She climbed to her feet, hovering between the two men.
"Ghean," Lorhen said gently. "Go on. It's all right. I will see you," he repeated firmly, "in a few minutes." The bronze blade he drew made a whisper of a sound as it left the sheath. Aroz drew his own blade. Lorhen watched it glint dull silver in the moonlight, and whispered a curse under his breath. The bronze blade he had come by was hard won and had taken time to forge, but the color of Aroz's sword suggested it was of legendary Atlantean steel. "Ghean," Lorhen said more urgently, "go."
Ghean whimpered, and then ran, tripping over her cloak and pulling herself up the sandy hillside with hands and feet. In mere seconds the desert swallowed the sounds of her flight. Lorhen's shoulders loosened, and he turned his full attention to the other Timeless.
Aroz paced around him in a wide circle, sizing him up in a ritualistic fashion. Lorhen turned to watch him steadily, waiting for him to press the attack. Only when he had completed a full circuit around Lorhen did Aroz speak.
"You have the reach." His light voice was pitched to carry just to Lorhen, and no further. "But I have the better blade. Make this easier on both of us, and let me take you. I will tell Ghean you fought well."
"Thank you," Lorhen said, "but I'd prefer to carry my own tidings. Are you mad? We don't have to do this."
"We do," Aroz disagreed. "If for no other reason than it is what we do."
"Right," Lorhen grated. "The girl has nothing to do with it."
"She would make a fine prize, wouldn't she?" Aroz sprang forward, the deadly steel blade whistling down toward Lorhen's weaker bronze blade. Lorhen danced backwards, withdrawing his sword just slowly enough that sparks darted along the edges of both blades as they clashed together. Lorhen winced, seeing threads of metal shard away from his sword. It would have to be a fast fight, or he'd be left without anything to fight with.
He spun away from another charge, stepping just outside Aroz's reach and whirling to drive a wide, circular blow toward Aroz's back. Aroz, misjudging the length of Lorhen's reach, turned back to the battle, and all but into the swing of Lorhen's blade. Skin tore in a wide rent along his ribs, and the younger Timeless staggered back with a startled gasp. Hardly defeated, he knocked the bronze sword aside, wrapping his free arm around his side to stem the blood flow while his Timeless healing knitted him back together.
Lorhen pressed the attack, unwilling to let the advantage go. Too tall to effectively step inside Aroz's reach and still leave himself room to maneuver, he met a strike or two with quick parries, watching nicks fly from the edges of his blade as the two swords met. A third blow he deflected badly, deliberately, and crashed to his knees, leaving himself open and vulnerable.
Aroz grinned in triumph, a flash of white against his pain-etched dark face. He took two running steps forward, sword lifted high for the final strike.
Lorhen flicked his free hand to his belt, whipping out the table knife he wore there, and shoved it into Aroz's abdomen, just above the pelvis. Aroz staggered, shocked, and Lorhen rolled out of danger's way, to his feet, the knife in his hand. While the other Timeless swayed, Lorhen smashed his blade against Aroz's wrist, severing tendons. The steel sword fell to the sand. Aroz followed it, crashing to his knees. Lorhen took a breath, then flicked his knife around in his hand again, preparing for the heartstrike blow.
"No!" Ghean's scream made both men jerk, looking up. Lorhen's knife stopped a breath from Aroz's heart. Ghean all but fell down the dune, sliding to a halt a few feet from Lorhen. "Lorhen, no, please, don't. Please. I've known him my whole life. I don't want him to die."
Lorhen rested his knife in the hollow of Aroz's throat, holding it steady and not taking his eyes off Aroz. "May I point out," he said, a little shortly, "that he was just trying to kill me?"
"He won't do it again. Will you, Aroz? Please? Please promise me. I don't want you to die. I don't want either of you to die. Promise you won't try to kill Lorhen. Please?"
For a long moment there was utter silence, broken by the harsh breathing of both warriors. Finally, Aroz inclined his head in agreement. Lorhen crouched and picked up the steel blade, leaving his own knife still at Aroz's throat.
"Spoils of war," he said thinly. "Care to argue?" He waited a few seconds, then straightened again, throwing his bronze sword to the sand. "Didn't think so." He stalked up the shifting sand dunes. Behind him, Ghean hesitated, looking at Aroz. Then she ran after Lorhen, catching up with him in a few steps.
"Lorhen?" she whispered.
"I told you to go back to the town," he snarled.
She flinched, but lifted her chin. "I couldn't. Not with the two of you fighting. I couldn't bear to lose either of you."
He shoved the steel blade into his belt and glared at her. "You shouldn't have interfered. It's what we do, Ghean. I told you that."
"I couldn't sit back and do nothing." Her eyes were angry in the reaching light of the town's fires.
Looking at her, Lorhen's own anger faded. He kept quiet until they'd reached his tent, and held the door flap aside for her. "I don't suppose you could have," he said then, tiredly. He sat down on the floor cross-legged, withdrawing the blade from his belt again. For a moment he tilted it, studying the workmanship, then found a cloth to rub over it, bringing more gleam to the metal. "But Ghean, you have to promise me. Next time, you can't interfere."
Ghean sat down across from him, pulling her hair over her shoulder and braiding it swiftly as she considered him. "No," she finally said. Lorhen looked up, surprised, and she shook her head. "I can't promise. I can't imagine letting you fight to your death if I could prevent it. So I won't promise."
Lorhen stared at her a moment, then laughed, setting the blade aside and placing his hands on either side of her face. Too late, he noticed the blood still staining his hand, from stabbing Aroz. Ghean noticed it as well, and Lorhen waited for her cringe.
Instead, she lifted her small hands to cover his, with a steady strength. "I love you," she said. "I can't promise not to interfere."
Lorhen couldn't stop the smile that worked its way across his face. "You are an impossible woman."
"I am." Ghean nudged the steel sword away with her toes, and reached for the knife Lorhen had put back in his belt. "Let's put
these away for the night," she whispered, "and find a less murderous way to distract ourselves."
Lorhen's smile broadened. "As you wish."
13
The lecture hall lights came up slowly, giving the audience time to adjust. Ghean took the time to scan the auditorium, searching for the Timeless she had sensed when she came onstage. The crowd was shifting, most people collecting their coats and bags and preparing to leave, although a select number began threading their way down to the stage for a question-and-answer session. Ghean ignored them, focusing on the seats that had been abandoned at the beginning of the lecture. She tapped her thumb against pursed lips, building the glimpse she'd caught of the trio leaving into a more solid image.
Two men, and a woman, all dark haired, all tall, the patient one recounted. One of the three had to be the Timeless, but that wasn't much to go on.
Ghean beckoned to Michelle, encouraging her onstage. "Could you field the questions for me?" she asked quietly. "I think I caught sight of an old friend in the audience, and I'd like to look him up." Close enough; the Timeless who had left at least shared the brotherhood of Timelessness with her, and that could be stretched to friendship in a tight pinch.
Michelle smiled. "Of course. I keep telling you that you don't get out enough. Go take a look. Don't forget the flight leaves at eleven tomorrow morning."
"If I got out more, I wouldn't have dedicated my entire life to this dig and we wouldn't have found Atlantis yet." Ghean nodded. "I'll be there with bells on. Thanks, Mich." She hurried backstage to find her coat and to reluctantly switch from the heels she wore to flat black shoes. Even in Atlantis she hadn't been tall, but at least she hadn't stood a full six inches shorter than most of the women, never mind the men. No one took someone her size seriously. Being small makes them underestimate us, the patient one reminded her. We can fight to compensate for it.
