Immortal Beloved

by C. E. Murphy

  The earth gave a final violent rumble before making a sound almost like a sigh, the shaking dying away again. Karem’s shout of outrage overpowered the last sounds of the earth settling. “You bitch! You’re wearing one of the artifacts!” He surged forward, swinging over the corner of the altar and drawing his sword to strike at the woman on the floor.

  “No!” Ghean’s scream cut through Karem’s shout, as she flung herself forward across the floor, putting herself between the man and her mother. Karem’s expression registered feral delight.

  “You first, then,” he snarled. “I always wanted to taste the power of an untapped Quickening.” The sword swung down to the sound of Ghean’s scream. The tiny woman flung her arms up, twisting away from the falling sword, cries abruptly silenced as the blow cut her nearly in half. Kicking the body out of his way, Karem raised his sword a second time, to strike at Minyah.

  Methos dove for the man’s knees, knocking him off balance, at the same time Aroz vaulted the altar to lift his sword and drive it down towards Karem. Methos rolled to his back, kicking Aroz’s sword arm and sending the blow astray. “Holy ground!” he screamed. “You can’t do this! We’re on holy ground!”

  Aroz’s black eyes filled with rage, looking down at Ghean’s body. “I can,” he growled. Karem scrambled to his feet, regaining his blade, and whirled to face Aroz. An instant later their swords clashed, an angry ring of metal. A fresh roar of tearing earth followed the first exchange of blows, and Methos struggled to his feet.

  “You can’t do this!” he screamed again. Another violent lurch of the earth sent him sprawling to the temple floor. Metal smashed against metal above him as Karem drove a blow at Aroz, and Methos pulled himself to his feet. There was blood on his pants, Ghean’s blood. For an instant he hesitated, looking through the tangle of people for her body.

  The sun went out. Methos shot one frantic look through the pillars, watching black clouds boiling through the sky as Aroz and Karem slammed their blades together again. Lightning shattered down from the clouds, rendering the people in the temple into stark fragmented images. Methos hauled Ragar up by the collar and shoved him at the door. “Run!” he shouted, snatching at Minyah’s wrist, dragging her with him towards the door. Wind sprang up, howling agonized octaves above the frightened screams as people bolted from the temple and the square surrounding it. “Run!”

  Minyah pulled back, trying to return to the temple as Methos herded her out the door in front of him. Curls lashed in her face as she cried, “Ghean!”

  Methos grabbed the front of Minyah’s cloak, hauling her centimeters from his face. “Ghean is dead!” he screamed. “Unless you want to be, too, run! And keep the cloak on!” For a moment, he looked over his shoulder at the battle being fought within the temple walls. Aroz had the advantage, but Methos could see grief blinding him, and knew it would be mere minutes, at best, before the fight was ended.

  “What’s happening?” Minyah remained at Methos’ side, screaming. Methos snatched her wrist again, preventing her from returning to the temple.

  “Holy ground — the Rules — run!” he shouted again, and ran, pulling Minyah with him. The earth buckled and bent beneath their feet, sending them leaping from point to point. Behind them, as if orchestrated, the temple pillars shattered, sending the dome crashing down against its thick walls.

  -o-O-o-

  Aroz flinched at the implosion of sound, staggering to keep his feet as the ground twisted violently again. Lightning smashed outside the temple, blackening the ground and sending acrid smoke into the flower-scented room. He met another blow from Karem, silently cursing the inferior bronze blade he carried. Had he still the steel sword Methos had taken from him, the battle would already be over.

  Karem leapt onto the altar, beckoning with one hand as he tracked Aroz’s movements with his sword. “First you,” Karem growled, “then your precious Ghean and all her sweet untapped Quickening. And then that bastard Methos, and that bitch Minyah. And then the cloak is mine, and the world with it.” He grinned, leaping off the altar and moving to the attack.

  Aroz backed up, fury blinding his defense. “Over my dead body,” he grated. Karem laughed.

  “Exactly.”

  Across the room, Ghean inhaled sharply, the sound entirely lost in the crash of swords and shaking earth. Pain shrieked through her, and she tested her ribs with disbelieving fingers, searching for the gash where the sword had struck. There was blood, blending with the crimson gown, and a wound, but far smaller than it seemed it should have been. As she pulled the dress away from the cut, the bloody injury inexplicably knitted itself before her eyes. Ghean pushed to her feet in confusion, swaying on the rocking floor, reaching up to touch her head. I must have hit my head. The golden crown was crooked, nearly falling off her head. With a rough movement she pulled it off, throwing it on the floor and watching it roll towards the door. Just beyond the opening, it curved to roll in a circle, clinking against the outer wall of the temple. As if the tiny sound were a catalyst in the raging storm, the doors were moved by the wind, slamming shut with a resounding boom that shook her to her bones.

  “Aroz?” Ghean whispered blankly, as the opponents in the battle before her became clear. Although he couldn’t have heard her, Aroz suddenly looked her way, breaking off the fight to run towards her.

  “Ghean! Stay out of the way — it will be all right — run!”

  Karem’s laughter followed the words, harsh over the sounds of the storm, and he crossed the temple behind Aroz. “Enjoy this, Ghean,” he advised. “Aroz’s death is going to be the last thing you ever see. How does it feel, knowing your pathetic beloved preferred keeping his own neck whole to saving yours? Betrayal is such a bitter dish.” Karem’s expression became perfectly even, his voice flat. “Now, Aroz.”

  Aroz wheeled, sword at the ready. “Now,” he agreed.

  Ghean slid to her knees, tears draining down her cheeks as she watched in silent, miserable confusion. The wind outside suddenly stopped, as though a wailing woman had lost all the air in her lungs to sob with. The earth’s rumblings shuddered and came to a halt, leaving the collapsing temple unbearably quiet.

  Half a dozen blows were exchanged, rapid and loud in the eerie silence. Karem threw a series of strikes at Aroz’s head, each parried with unbelieveable speed. The fourth time, Karem jerked his sword around halfway through the blow, an ugly, awkward motion that Aroz didn’t expect. Before he could rework his defense, Karem slammed his blade into Aroz’s side, the same motion that had felled Ghean only minutes earlier.

  Aroz slid to his knees, defeat etched in his face, more colored with regret than despair. Very calmly, he turned his head to smile gently at Ghean. “I loved you,” he said clearly. The words were left hanging in the air as Karem’s sword swept down to take Aroz’s head.

  Ghean screamed.

  Outside, the wind began howling again. The temple stone roard out as the earth convulsed again. Within the temple, there was a moment of utter stillness, while power gathered. Karem flung his head back in a shout of triumph, waiting for the rush of strength that was the Quickening. He held the pose a long moment, then his eyes widened and he looked at Ghean.

  “Something’s not right,” he whispered with great precision. Lightning slammed into him, bombarding him through the temple roof and windows. The pain of the Quickening exploded into agony, a thousand times worse than any Quickening Karem had ever felt. Pain fogged his mind, scoring his throat raw with screams. Dimly, the warning Methos had shouted came back to him: holy ground.

  Holy ground is our sanctuary. We cannot fight there.

  “No!”

  The blade fell from Karem’s hand, only inches from where Aroz’s lay. Lightning turned to pure fire, hammering into the blades, leaping from bronze to stone to flesh. It burned hotter than open fire could, melting the temple’s stone floor into liquid smoothness, and Aroz’s body into a grease patch on the floor, charcoaled bones shattering into dust. Karem disintegrated more slowly before G
hean’s horrified eyes, flesh melting from his bones as he collapsed towards the floor, screams echoing above the fire’s roar.

  The stone boiled. Frantic, Ghean ran to the altar, perching on it as she sobbed a supplication to the gods. “Please, please, please save me. Please save me. Please.”

  The litany provided no release as the fire swept up the walls, melting away fractures in the stone, rendering imperfections invisible. The door faded into obscurity, the windows reduced to smooth curves in the walls.

  The air was too hot to breath. Under her, the altar slipped, beginning to melt into the boiling floor. Ghean closed her eyes and screamed until she could take in no more oxygen from the broiling temple air. She fell unconscious before the flames reached her.

  Chapter 18

  In the moment that the winds stopped and the earth ceased shaking, Methos skidded to a halt, jerking around to stare back through the fractured city towards the temple.

  “What?” Minyah gasped. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Methos replied shortly. “Maybe they’ve stopped — ”

  “Stopped?” Minyah demanded breathlessly. “Then Ghean — ”

  “Maybe,” Methos said again. Stop, he prayed, to gods he didn’t believe in. Don’t let them do this. Stop while we’re all still alive.

  The wind screamed anew, and Methos swore, yanking Minyah back around. “Dead,” he grated, and began to run again. The earth’s shaking redoubled, stones crashing in pieces into fractures that appeared around the runners.

  “Methos!” Ragar’s bellow came from above, as he waved wildly. “This way!” He turned and continued up the hill. Methos glanced around in search of a better path before giving chase, hauling Minyah with him. The road Ragar’d chosen was the one leading out of the city, to the harbor. As good a choice as any.

  Ragar, panting, stopped to wait for the duo below him. “There are boats,” he puffed. “If we can get to them we should be safer — ”

  Beneath his feet, the earth split open. Ragar fell, silent with surprise, flinging a hand up in a cry for help at the last moment. Methos sprang forward, reaching for Ragar’s hand, only narrowly snatching his hand back in time as the earth slammed shut again, centimeters from his fingers.

  “Damn!” For a few futile seconds, the Immortal beat his hand against the stone. “Damn!” This time, it was Minyah who grabbed Methos by the arm, pulling him to his feet.

  “Run,” she whispered in near exhaustion. “We have to run.”

  Methos nodded silently. They darted forward again. Screams punctuated the sounds of grinding rock as others tried to survive the maze of randomly opening stone. The road to the harbor was frighteningly empty, given the numbers of people in Atlantis. Methos cast one last rapid look over his shoulder at the black sky swallowing the city whole, wondering how many had already died in the streets.

  He tripped, crashing onto his face as he looked back towards the road, pulling Minyah on top of him. A boulder broke off from the cliff wall above them, falling with deadly speed. Methos flinched, and the stone ended its fall with a soft bump, bouncing off Minyah’s cloak, rolling to settle a few feet away, harmlessly. Methos lifted his head to stare at it in combined shock and relief, and blurted, “Thanks for wearing that today.”

  Minyah’s laugh was high-pitched with hysteria. She clambered to her feet without answering, once more tugging Methos up as well. They ran, intent on avoiding the opening fissures, jumping madly over those that appeared.

  The ground fell away as they leapt. Minyah screamed, watching the black stone of the mountain road drop fifteen feet as she plummeted towards it. She expelled a hard gasp of air as she landed, unharmed, and began running again, pulling Methos along with her.

  Again and again the land fell away, until an abrupt drop plunged them into the salt water of the bay instead of onto stone. “Keep the cloak!” Methos yelled frantically. Minyah clutched one hand to the throat of it, the other still clinging tightly to Methos’ hand. “Boat,” he whispered, panicked. “There must be boats.”

  “Forget the boats!” Minyah screamed. “Swim!” She released his hand and struck out through the grey waves, intent on putting as much distance between herself and Atlantis as possible. Methos stared after her for a split second, then set out swimming himself, less agile but equally enthusiastic.

  The scream of stone minutes later made them both turn, against their will, to look at the drowning island. Stone continued to shatter as Atlantis dropped in surges, yards at a time, easily visible. Fire flung up from the sea, and steam billowed in huge clouds, streaking the boiling black sky with grey.

  “Swim!” Methos shouted again. “The undertow!”

  Minyah blanched, setting off again with a stronger, steadier stroke. The waters around them roiled, each new breaking wave bringing with it the bodies of drowned Atlanteans. Minyah came up short, cutting off a choked scream. Methos turned to see what caused the scream, and for a moment ceased swimming, closing his eyes with dismay.

  Ertros floated in the water beside Minyah, the boy’s expression peculiarly content in the chaos. In the black sky’s strange light, he might have been sleeping, living color no less washed from his skin than it was from Methos’ or Minyah’s. A wave lifted the child’s body up, rolling it over, and Methos looked away. “We can’t help him. Come on.” It hurt to speak, his throat rough from screaming. He began swimming again, putting the image of the dead boy out of his mind.

  “Methos.” The weak cry came many minutes later. Methos turned in the water just in time to see Minyah disappear under a wave. Cursing, he dove, searching murky water for her, fighting against the pull of the waters back towards the sinking island. An impossible amount of time seemed to pass as he snatched at bodies, drawing them close to study their faces in the greyness. A frighteningly strong current drew him back the way he’d come, and he swore again, kicking towards the surface. Breaking through, he cast about in a frenzy, shouting Minyah’s name as the water towed him back towards Atlantis.

  “Damn,” he whispered once more, and put his energy into escaping the determined pull of the drowning civilization.

  Hours later, the sky began to clear. Methos rolled over in the water to search the slowly calming water for the remains of Atlantis. As far as he could see, there was only unbroken water, no land masses to meet the eye. The wind carried the scent of blood to him, as sharks found the meal left for them by the drownings. He drifted a while, weary, then began to swim again.

  Days later, the sea washed him ashore. Trembling with exhaustion, he lay in the sand, staring at the flawless sky.

  Methuselah’s grandson was right, he realized fuzzily. The world ended. I wonder if he and his boat got away. The thought was sickly amusing. Methos laughed a little, then turned over to vomit seawater. The motion knocked his hair over his shoulder, and the tie Minyah had given him slipped free, falling to the sand. He folded it into his palm, shaking with the effort, and knocked his elbow against the sword’s hilt.

  Legacies of Atlantis. He curled onto his side, shuddering and waiting for his body to regain some strength.

  Long before strength returned, the painful throb of another Immortal’s approach slammed through him. What a stupid way to die, he thought faintly, and closed his eyes, gathering the will to stand. He struggled to his feet, barely able to keep his balance, and waited to see if he would have to fight.

  The other Immortal stopped several feet away from Methos, an unpleasant smile creeping across his face. Not quite as tall as Methos, he was broader, and the right side of his face was badly scarred, the injury running over his eye. He regarded Methos for long moments before speaking. “Hello, brother.”

  Methos rocked back in the sand, staring at the stranger. “Am I your brother?” he asked with light-headed curiousity.

  The other man folded his arms across his chest, jerking his head out at the water. “Ships say a whole island sank out there. Did you have anything to do with that?”

  Methos, slowly, said
, “In a manner of speaking.”

  “And you’re half dead now.” The unpleasant smile fixed itself firmly on the scarred man’s face. “I think you have two choices, brother.”

  Methos lowered his head, staring through falling hair at the man. “Do I?”

  “You could be my brother, or you could be dead.” The scarred man let the words hang a moment, and added, “I could use a man who can sink an island.”

  Methos turned his head slower to look out over the water, where Atlantis had been. If, he thought. If I’d killed Aroz in the first place. If they’d listened, hadn’t fought on holy ground. If I had told Ghean what she was.

  The Rules be damned.

  I can’t remember who taught them to me, anyway.

  He turned his regard back to the scarred man. “I’ve never had a brother.”

  The smile turned to a grin, no more pleasant as it split the scarred man’s face. “You do now,” he said. “I’m Kronos, and you and I are going to rule the world.”

  Chapter 19

  Silence lay heavy over the living room a few long moments, as Methos and Ghean’s combined story came to an end. Joe looked away from the pair, scanning the room for something less unsettling to rest his eyes on. Instead, his gaze landed on the scarred white stone at the end of the bookcases, so out of place with the other elegant decorations. For an instant he stared at it, then turned horrified eyes back towards Ghean.

  She followed the look, then turned a smile on the mortal man, full of bitter resignation and betrayal. Over his years as a Watcher, Joe had become accustomed to the suddenly weary expressions that would settle in the eyes of his Immortal charges. To Joe, it had always marked the greatest difference between mortal and Immortal. Much as he loved life, the grief of losing friends over his mortal span of years was pain enough. To continue through the centuries, watching loved ones fade and die, was the worst kind of hell the Watcher could imagine.