The hands opened and closed.
MacLeod thought that his enemy was going to reach up and replace the severed head on its stump. But the final gush of energy died. The body collapsed. It lay twitching at MacLeod’s feet. Finally, it was still.
MacLeod stood for a moment, in silence. He felt a conflict of emotions: relief battled with supreme egotism. He had triumphed. The Kurgan was defeated. He was the one. There could be only one, and he was the solitary survivor.
‘I am the one,’ he cried, holding the Samurai sword aloft. ‘Me!’
Then he was overcome with humility. He had not done it on his own. He had been helped by others: Heather, Ramirez, Brenda. All had played their part. MacLeod’s strength, his superiority over the Kurgan, had been in his ability to trust in others. The Kurgan’s weakness was in the fact that he had stood alone. Not because he was stronger alone, but because his fear of betrayal was greater than his trust. He had had faith only in himself.
MacLeod stood in silence.
MacLeod stood, with head bowed, incandescent. MacLeod awaited the Quickening.
It came.
Windows began to implode. The whole studio shook and Brenda screamed, cowering in a corner, as a blizzard of glass filled the room.
The energy was now visible in the air, flowing through the storm of powdered glass. There was a swirling, circular motion to the energy, as it formed itself into a maelstrom, a vortex. MacLeod felt the power blazing through him, burning through his veins, searing through his spirit. His whole being was alive, glowing with the reward of his success.
He felt light. He was lifted from his feet through the eye of the vortex: lifted high above the floor, hidden from Brenda’s view by the swirling white dust of the glass. The pain and the pleasure mingled. His brain was full of colours, full of light. He could hear himself screaming, the wind and the rain of energy still lashing into his body. He felt god-like, yet undergoing the punishment of a god. Then he blacked out.
When he came back to consciousness, his head was resting on Brenda’s knee. They were both sprawled over the floor of the studio and she was stroking his brow.
‘Are you all right?’ she said.
‘Yes. Are you unhurt?’ .
‘I - I think so.’
He smiled up at her. ‘It’s over. It’s all over.’
They both looked at the body of the Kurgan, lying like a broken doll amongst the shards of glass.
‘Is he really dead?’ whispered Brenda.
MacLeod nodded. .
‘At last,’ he said. ‘At last. . .’
Chapter 35
‘RACHEL, THERE ARE some instructions in the desk drawer. I want you to follow them.’
Rachel crossed the room and put her hand on his arm. ‘You’re going away then?’
He hated goodbyes, especially to those close to him. He touched her cheek with the back of his hand.
‘Rachel, you knew this would happen one day. Russell Nash dies tonight. It’s time again. There’s been no one in my life but you since the war. But now I have to go . . .’
She was crying, softly. ‘I’m afraid.’
‘A woman like you need never be alone or afraid. You have so much to offer.’
‘What about Brenda?’
‘She’s coming with me.’
Rachel nodded. ‘I understand.’
He kissed her cheek. ‘I knew you would. Goodbye, my dearest Rachel - my daughter - my good friend.’
‘Goodbye, Russell Nash.’
He left her then, picking up his bags and moving to the door. On his way out he turned. ‘It’s - only a kind of magic.’
She smiled.
He took the cab to the airport, where he met Brenda in the departure lounge. She was dressed in a smart suit and had her luggage with her.
‘All set?’ he said, taking her hand.
She looked up at him. ‘I telephoned my father... told him. Then I took leave of absence from my job...’
‘You’re coming back then?’
‘I don’t know. I’m a little confused at the moment. I need a little time to think things out. It would be silly to burn all my bridges.’
‘Of course.’
They caught the night flight to Glasgow and on arrival hired a car to drive further up into Scotland - to the north-west coast. It was early afternoon when they arrived in the Glenfinnan hills. Conner stopped the car and took Brenda’s hand, leading her through the heather to a good vantage point.
‘This is where I used to play, as a young boy, over four hundred years ago. It’s hardly changed at all. That burn stream - over there. That’s where Dugal caught the salmon we ate for my tenth birthday...’
Brenda was looking around her. ‘It’s - beautiful,’ she said.
He knew she was not just making conversation. It was beautiful. The low, rounded hills with the purple heather covering them like royal robes. Close by, some ptarmigans were strutting through the grasses. The long silver sliver of the burn cut deeply into the moss and found its way down into the valley. It was a beautiful country, with many faces. Out of the gentle valley, sudden mountains would rise up, bare rocky brows frowning. Sometimes the heather would run up against a thick fence of pines, hiding a herd of deer. He had not realized how much he had missed it. Loch Shiel glistened in the distance.
‘To think that this was once a battlefield,’ he said, ‘with men dying in the hollows and blood drenching the grasses. It seems so peaceful now...’
‘Yes - I can’t imagine it,’ she replied.
‘I think,’ he said, ‘that I’ve fought my last battle...’
He was glad it was all over. Now he could settle to a life without having constantly to look over his shoulder for the face of the Kurgan, or listening to the night, for the Kurgan’s footsteps. His enemy was dead. At last.
‘The prize,’ said Brenda, interrupting his thoughts. ‘You know what it is?’
‘Yes - but I cannot explain it to you. It has no name. It’s something that I feel. I’m changed - I’ve never felt so alive, so complete. I’m not as I was before, but I can’t explain what I am now. You’ll just have to see how I cope with this change - if you stay with me, that is.’
‘Is it a drastic alteration?’
‘I think so. Can you guess?’
She took his hand. ‘I can hope. Yes, I want to stay with you Conner MacLeod. I want us to be together - forever.’
He kissed her lips. ‘Forever,’ he replied. ‘Everywhere I turn, I sense my old friends, too. That Spanish peacock...’
Brenda took a bottle of wine out of the basket they had brought. ‘Let’s have a toast,’ she said.
‘Yeah - I think we should.’ He looked at the label on the bottle and laughed.
‘Nineteen seventy-six,’ he said.
Brenda nudged him.
‘Nineteen seventy-six was a very good year. America celebrated its two hundredth year of independence from Britain. “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” won five academy awards. And...’ He was laughing at her now. ‘... And Pittsburgh beat Dallas in the Super bowl.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. Twenty-one to seventeen.’
MacLeod said, ‘Well here’s to nineteen seventy-six.’ They clinked glasses.
He added, ‘To a great woman - Brenda Wyatt, whom I love. . .’
She looked into his eyes. ‘And I love you.’
They spent two months touring Scotland before going down to London, where they opened an antique shop in Camden Alley. On one occasion he had to go to Scotland on business and stopped off at a small village in the Southern Uplands. From there he climbed up, taking a mountain path, to a shelf overlooking the valley.
There was no croft there now, but he found some of the stones from the old tower and the spot where they were buried.
‘You would like her, Heather,’ he said. ‘I know you would. She is much like you...’
He said nothing more. Instead, he found two old timbers and built a rough cross, laying it ov
er the place where his friend, Ramirez, and his wife, Heather, were resting together. He stayed there until nightfall, in the company of distant loved ones, comfortable with the ghosts of a different life.
THE END
Highlander Page 20
