Immortal Beloved

by C. E. Murphy

  Only when she looked up to see that her wedge was almost covered by the tide did she think to move. The shell still clenched in her hand, she pulled the hair close to her, trying to capture as much as possible in her arms, and then she stood, staggering to shore with her burden. At the water’s edge, she dumped the armful and rescued her stone, putting it higher on the beach with shaky, off-balance steps. Then she returned to her hair, pulling it length over length higher up onto land, until, for the first time in thousands of years, both it and she were free of the ocean.

  Ghean sat in the sand, staring at the water, trying to encompass the thought. Freedom. The water isn’t my home any more.

  The water is always home, the frightened one whispered. It’s safe, there. We should go back.

  We will, the patient one said. When we go back to recover Atlantis. We will rebuild and we will have revenge. But not now. Now we have other things to do.

  Like eat, Ghean told the other two, and pushed to her feet without grace. The water’s bouyancy was a welcome respite, even after so little time out of it, and she dove, searching for fish and admiring the ease of movement, without the hair to dodge.

  Later, she cut her hair into shorter segments, each a little longer than she was tall, and braided each one. The seaweed shrank as it dried, holding the braids tightly enough to be carried without losing the hair. When she was done there were ten lengths, more than fifty feet of hair. She would sell them one at a time, when she found a city.

  -o-O-o-

  The next weeks blurred, as much as the time under water had. She stole clothes from the first town she found, under the cover of dark. Certain memories stood out: the first car that whisked by, and the first plane that flew overhead. She fell to her knees, shrieking in fear, when the plane buzzed over. To her untrained ears, it was the sound of the world ending.

  She hid her hair away, and begged or stole food, gaining strength and a smattering of language. She wanted to go to Egypt, that she knew, but she no longer had a word for the country that anyone could recognize. After days of watching, she recognized pieces of paper that people referred to, and then left town: maps. She understood maps, and found an abandoned one stuffed into a trash container near a hotel. Hours of intent study of the shoreline gave her an uncertain belief that Egypt was to the east, but she wasn’t sure; the maps looked different, and the coast had changed from what she could barely remember. But she took the map, and a length of her hair to a man she’d identified as a wig-maker, and displayed the braid. His surprise was evident; the length was as long as she was, but Ghean’s lack of language prevented him from questioning her deeply. He gave her money, and she stared at it, having no idea if it was a fair price. Lifting the handful of coins and paper, she flattened out the map, and jabbed a finger at the corner she thought was Egypt. “Will this take me there?” she asked, knowing the tongue she used would be utterly foreign to him.

  Despite that, he seemed to understand, and pointed elsewhere on the map. “You’re here,” he told her, and gestured with a finger, circling himself and her with the movement, and then touched a point on the map again. “You’re here,” he repeated, and Ghean touched the same point.

  “Here,” she echoed. The wig-maker grinned and nodded. Ghean tapped the money, and drew a line with her finger across the map to what she thought was Egypt. “Here?” she asked.

  He nodded again. “You can take a bus. They’re rickety and they take a while, but you can get to Egypt.” He touched her end of the map, and said, “Egypt,” again.

  “Egypt,” she repeated dutifully. “Here, Egypt?” She touched the two points on the map again.

  Another nod. “On the bus.”

  Ghean shook her head. “Bus?”

  The wig-maker pointed over her shoulder, at one of the four-wheeled vehicles. “Bus,” he said, and then, taking pity on her, he brought her to the bus station, and arranged her ticket across the top of Africa. As she boarded, he gave her another handful of money, and she folded her fingers around it with a grateful smile. “Thank you,” she said. Those words she had learned.

  The bus terrified her at first. Leave this, run away, back to the ocean, back to Atlantis where it’s safe, no fast strange things to carry us across the sand, go back home where it’s safe, where we’re safe in the darkness, the frightened one chanted, an overwhelming litany that drowned out even the patient voice for hours.

  It faded, though, as Ghean began to become fascinated with the speed the vehicle travelled with, the efficiency of crossing the country on the rough roads. Once the fear fell away, she concentrated, with the patient one’s encouragement. The language was vastly different, but people on the bus were friendly, and they gave her words for things. She would ask and point, and they would laugh and answer. By the time she reached Cairo, she could make rudimentary sentences, and she knew the year was 1914. It meant nothing to her.

  In Cairo, she found caravans that went into the desert, ferrying people to see the Sphinx and the pyramids. She sold another length of hair, for a lesser price than the first had gone for, but she didn’t have enough words to barter. Without worrying, she joined a caravan, riding her camel with the ease of muscle memory. She refused to think about that too deeply, afraid thought would tumble her off the animal’s back. Instead, she idly stroked her wedge of stone, and waited for the familiar Sphinx to appear ahead of her.

  When it finally did, she let out a cry of dismay, turning to the guide and gesturing at her face. “Nose! Nose gone!”

  He laughed, white teth bright in a dark face. “Shot off by Napoleon’s cannon,” he explained.

  None of the words made sense to her, and so she simply turned back to the great Sphinx in horror. It had been new, not quite completed, when she’e left Egypt, and now it was so worn and old. Nervously, she turned back to the guide, pointing to the Sphinx again. “How old?” she demanded.

  He shrugged easily. “Forty-five hundred, five thousand years old. About that.”

  Ghean stared at him blankly, trying to understand the numbers. She shook her head unhappily, and held up her hands, fingers spread. “How many?”

  “What, fingers? Ten. Ten fingers.”

  “Ten,” she repeated, and looked worriedly at the Sphinx. “How many tens?”

  The guide hesitated, then slid off his camel, encouraging her to do the same. She did, crouching in the sand next to him. He drew out ten marks in the sand. “Ten,” he said patiently. Ghean nodded, short hair brushing along her chin.

  Rapidly, but neatly, he made nine more rows of ten marks. “Ten tens,” he explained. “One hundred.” She nodded again, and he made a box around the one hundred. “Ten of these make one thousand. Do you understand?”

  Ghean did, but lapsed into her own language to express her understanding. “Yes. Ten times one hundred is a thousand. I understand.” She nodded, dark eyes on his face. “Ten one hundred,” she said carefully, in his words. “One thousand.”

  He grinned. “Good. Yes.” Then he pointed at the Sphinx. “Five,” he said, and held up five fingers. “Five thousand years old.”

  Ghean’s chin jerked up and she stared at the Sphinx. “Five thousand years?” The brilliant blue sky around the Sphinx dimmed and fogged, and blackness swept in to comfort her.

  -o-O-o-

  She woke slowly, to a familiar scene: the desert left in darkness by the sun, and the crackle of a fire just beyond the edge of the tent. For a moment she relaxed, smiling, wondering when her mother would come get her for the evening meal.

  Firelight glinted on the metal post of the tent, and memory rushed home with a painful blow. Her mother had been dead five thousand years. Five thousand years.

  Not even the patient one was prepared for that much time to have gone by. A wordless sound of loss ripped out of Ghean, shattering the quiet night. Camels, close by, bellowed in irritation at the unexpected scream. Ghean curled on her side as she had done for so long, no longer floating free, but weighed down by gravity and unfathomable years hav
ing passed. Panicked fingers reached out far enough to find her stone, and she drew it close to her chest.

  The guide came running, kneeling at her side to check on her. Ghean rocked violently, the patient voice trying to sooth her terrified thoughts while she tried to force her mind to encompass the number of years that had passed.

  She could not do it. Five thousand years! the frightened voice screamed at her. Five thousand years! Too much has changed! Go home! Go where it is safe, where nothing ever changes! Go home to Atlantis!

  Five thousand years is a long time to wait for vengeance, the patient one whispered in counterpoint. If we go back now, we’ll never get what we want. We’ll never have revenge. We’ll never rebuild Atlantis. The years aren’t so important. That we’re free now, that’s what’s important. We’re free now. Stay free. The world has changed. If we don’t change with it, we’ll never survive.

  Ghean whimpered softly, as the guide sat beside her, helpless. Get up, the patient one urged. Look at the world as it is now. Find a way to accept it. We’ve survived this long. We’re learning new words, and we know we can sell the hair for money. Get up, and face the world. Let us survive.

  Ghean hiccuped, an unhappy sound, and climbed blindly to her feet, her stone held against her chest by crossed arms. The guide came to his feet as well, following her beyond the perimeter of firelight. There, Ghean looked up into the sky, seeing it for the first time.

  She had looked up every night while she was in the water, but she had denied what was there, never truly seeing it. The stars had wheeled in their cycle, no longer where they’d been, distorted almost beyond recognition. Shaking, she searched the skies, and slowly picked out the sign of her House, the great ram.

  She was the last member of her House. “Mother,” she whispered, and then turned towards the Sphinx, a great shadow in the darkness. Never looking at the ground, she worked her way through the cold desert night, over spilling slopes of sand, until she reached the ancient structure. Slowly, methodically, she circled it, fingers trailing along the stone, until finally she came around to the front of it again, and knelt in the sand.

  Five thousand years. Ghean sat before the Sphinx, letting the factions of her mind war between retreat and acceptance, detatched from the battle as thoroughly as if it took place in another mind entirely. She watched the quick desert sunrise color the stone structure before her, as it had done thousands of years ago, and still she did not move. In very little time, she could feel the sun burning her pale flesh, as it had once burned Methos’, the same sun in this same desert, hundreds of lifetimes ago. She smelled the sand heating around her, and tasted sweat forced from her body, and she listened distantly to the argument in her mind.

  As the sun reached its apex, she decided. Slowly, she leaned forward from the waist, bowing deeply to the great Sphinx, until the sand touched her nose. Eyes closed to the heat rising from the sand, she chose the patient voice, and folded the frightened one away, deep into her mind. With a grace remembered from a childhood long gone, Ghean unfolded from the sand, lifting her piece of Atlantean stone with her, and walked out of the desert to claim a destiny five thousand years delayed.

  Chapter 6

  “Your what!” The whisper came in outraged stereo, slightly louder than was prudent for a darkened auditorium. Heads turned irritably, while Joe and Duncan sank guiltily into their seats, still staring openly at their companion.

  “It’s a little complicated,” Methos muttered, without taking his eyes off the petite woman onstage. “I think we should get out of here.”

  Duncan shot a glance at the stage, then back at Methos. “We just got here,” he protested. “She’s just starting her speech.”

  “You don’t need to hear it,” Methos growled softly. “She found Atlantis for them. I really think we need to leave, Mac. Now.”

  “Don’t you think it’s a little bizarre to run out at the start of the lecture?” Joe asked, voice quiet and reasonable. Methos shook his head.

  “She shouldn’t be alive,” he whispered. “I had no idea she was alive. I’d rather have the whole audience watch us leave than be here when the lecture gets over. I need some time to think this through. She shouldn’t,” Methos repeated, “be alive.”

  Duncan looked across Methos at Joe, who shrugged. “All right,” Duncan said. Methos lurched to his feet, offering a hand to Joe. The mortal man stood less awkwardly than Methos had, an odd reversal of grace. Methos jerked his head towards the far end of the aisle.

  “Closest exit,” he hissed, and flapped a hand at Joe, encouraging him to step over people. In a slow, annoyed wave, everyone in the row stood, expressions ranging from mild exasperation to outright indignation. Methos kept his face averted from the stage as he climbed over expensively shod feet, just behind Joe. Behind them, Duncan murmured, “Excuse us,” to the last woman in the row, favoring her with a quick smile. She smiled back, remaining on her feet until her date plucked at her sleeve, frowning. Even in the darkness, she colored visibly, and sat. Duncan grinned, as Joe pushed the exit door open.

  As the door swung closed behind Duncan, Joe wheeled to face Methos. “What the hell was that all about?”

  “Not here,” Methos said flatly. “There must be a bar or a coffee shop nearby. Anything. Just not here.”

  Duncan and Joe exchanged glances again, the Watcher shrugging and shaking his head. “This had better be good, Pierson.”

  “Oh, it is.” Methos’ voice sounded thin. “It is. Come on.” He stalked out of the building, shoulders hunched, to choose a direction and walk for several blocks. Joe and Duncan trailed behind him, taking turns watching the tense walk, and regarding each other from the corners of their eyes.

  A guttering streetlight flickered above a badly stenciled sign, the letters worn to illegibility. Methos stopped below the light, frowning up at the sign, then ducked into the bar. Joe scowled after him. “Do you have any idea where we are?” he asked Duncan.

  The Highlander shrugged a shoulder. “No.” With a faint smile, he suggested, “Maybe he’s still hoping to get himself killed.”

  Joe pushed the door open, stepping inside the bar. Orange and olive glass light fixtures, left over from the seventies, barely lit individual booths, small pools of light coloring one end of each table and leaving the far ends dimmed. Smoke hung in the air, barely stirring with human movement through it. As the trio entered, sound fell away, a few men at a time. Joe shot a look at Duncan. “Looks like the right place for it,” he muttered.

  Methos ignored both the silence that flooded in front of him, and the hubbub that picked up again behind him, pushing his way to the back corner of the bar. He stood a moment, hands shoved in his pockets, scowling at the back door. Two bathroom doors, both marked ‘Men’, hung slightly open. Around a corner, another door was nearly lost in smoke. Duncan and Joe hung back, watching Methos as he went down to the third door, twisted the knob, and shoved it open on a dank alley. He hesitated there, looking down the alley, before closing the door and coming back to sit in a grungy booth.

  The two other men, after a final exchange of glances, joined him. “Well?” Duncan asked pointedly after several seconds.

  “Did you know,” Methos said, “that they had coffee in Atlantis? I don’t know who crossed the Atlantic to find it, but someone did. I didn’t have coffee again for almost forty-five hundred years after Atlantis sank. They guarded the plants jealously. No one knew where they’d come from. There are people who would argue that Western civilization wasn’t, not until they rediscovered coffee.”

  “Methos,” Duncan said deliberately. “What about the girl?”

  “Who is she?” Joe asked on the tail of Duncan’s question. “I don’t recognize the name or the face.”

  “Her name is Ghean.” Methos looked up to watch unfamiliarity write itself across Joe’s face. “She won’t be in the records anywhere. I can’t believe she’s alive.”

  “You mentioned that,” Joe said dryly.

  “She’s your wi
fe?” Duncan spoke at the same time, the question incredulous.

  Methos lifted a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. “I’m sure not anymore. Not with the way Atlantean law was written … maybe I’d better start at the beginning.” He looked up again, flagging down a waitress. “Beer,” he said. “A pitcher. Or two.” He lowered his head, pinching the bridge of his nose again, and went determinedly silent until the beer arrived.

  -o-O-o-

  Heat seared down, thickening the air. Methos grinned at the woman clinging to his arm. “You’ll have to let me go,” he said. “I can’t go talk to your mother while you have a death grip on my arm.”

  Ghean looked down, loosening her fingers a little. “I’m nervous,” she whispered.

  “Why? You’re not the one who has to go present a case to your mother as to why you should marry a penniless scholar she’s never met instead of a well-employed bodyguard she’s known for twenty years.”

  Ghean looked at him severely. “You’re making fun of me.”

  Methos grinned again. “Maybe a little bit. It’ll be fine, Ghean. A kiss for luck?” He bowed his head, touching his lips to hers, and she smiled into the kiss. “I’ll meet you in the market later, all right? Don’t worry. It’ll be fine,” he promised again.