Immortal Beloved

by C. E. Murphy

  Methos has told me the most incredible story. I’m reluctant to even write it down, to keep his secret. He trusted me with it, not a choice he made easily, I think, and so I’m left to be circumspect even in my own journals. So many of our journals end up in the library, though, and I think Methos ought not be undone by my clumsiness.

  I’ve been up most of the night thinking on the tale he told. I find I believe it, though I can’t say exactly why. Perhaps because it’s so outrageous that no one would bother making it up. He said Minyah knows the truth. I may talk to her about him. If it really is true, dear gods, the stories he could tell! No wonder he’s so well-learned. I admit, I was jealous, when I first met him. He seemed so young, and knew so much. Now that I understand him a little more fully, I wonder at his ability to deal with pompous asses like myself.

  “You look like you’re reading it,” Michael observed. Methos looked up, blinking, and shook his head.

  “Most people staring intently at a piece of paper look like they’re reading it. Wondering about the person who wrote it, I suppose.” Not only do I remember you, Ragar, but if they manage to translate this, you’ll become one of the most famous men in history. I hope that pleases you, my friend. You were a good man. You deserve to be remembered. Methos smiled, shaking his head. You weren’t a pompous ass, he added silently. Far from it.

  A chill ran through him as Ghean came down the hall. Methos lifted his head, waiting for the door to open, a little nervous. If she’d decided in the last half hour that making love had been an error, the next several days were going to be extremely uncomfortable.

  She smiled as she came through the door, licking the last bites of dinner off her fingers. “Hello,” she said cheerfully. “Have you translated everything yet?”

  Methos grinned, relaxing a little. “Not yet,” he said. “Give me another fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  Ghean laughed, coming to his side. Methos caught Michael eyeing them surreptitiously and lifted his eyebrows at the mortal man. Michael smiled faintly and shook his head, looking like the proverbial canary-catching cat.

  Ghean clucked her tongue. “You’re getting lazy,” she said to Methos. “Slipping. I mean, you were useful this morning, but if you haven’t gotten the translations done, well, what have you done for me lately?” She blinked mildly at Michael as he burst into laughter. Ghean tried hopelessly to not grin. “What?” she demanded of Michael. “What?” The grin got away from her, and she laughed as well.

  Methos looked at both of them through his eyebrows, shaking his head and smiling. “Are you quite finished?” he asked without rancor, and Michael dropped into a chair to laugh again.

  “I’m sorry,” the archaeologist eventually said, pulling his glasses off to wipe at his eyes, “but you two make a really wonderful couple. You’re so tall,” he accused Methos, and laughed again.

  “I’m not that tall,” Methos protested. Not anymore, anyway.

  “Next to Mary you are.”

  “Next to Mary, Napoleon was tall, Michael.”

  Chortling, Michael put his glasses back on, trying to get down to business. “Look, I know it’s completely unreasonable to ask, but do you want to take a look at these and see if you can make heads or tails out of it? We probably won’t go down for another three days, with all the loot we brought up today. Do you know that knife looks like it might really be steel? Can you imagine? Forty-five centuries ago someone had the ability to make steel? At any rate, we’ll be doing photography and reports and tests and maybe we’ll even get the press out here to admire us. My God,” Michael said, standing up, “has anyone called the University?”

  “It’s four in the morning there,” Ghean said.

  “Oh. Yes, of course. They’re planning a party tomorrow night, you missed the talk about that.”

  “Why not tonight?” Methos asked.

  Michael shrugged, smiling apologetically. “Tonight the general consensus is studying the artifacts. Tomorrow we’ll celebrate. Everyone’s eating right now, but this place is going to fill up again. You’ll have company, Adam, if you decide to work on these at all tonight.”

  Methos looked at the papers he still held. “I think I can do that,” he agreed. “Put in a few hours’ work, anyway. I’m not sure I have anything else to do.” He looked sideways at Ghean, who elbowed him.

  “Like I said, what have you done for me lately?” she asked, and tilted her head at Michael. “Come on, let’s let our boy wonder here get some work done.”

  “You’re the boss,” Michael said. “Adam, that laptop over there is mine. Feel free to use it.”

  “Mmm,” Methos said. “Thanks.” He put the papers down and went to get the computer, setting up as the other pair left the room.

  Michael walked Ghean up to the deck, leaning on the railing. “I want to know what’s going on,” he said eventually.

  He knows! the frightened one shrieked. He knows, he’s found us out! We’re caught, we’ll die, Atlantis will never return!

  Quiet, Ghean ordered sharply. “What?” she asked aloud.

  “I want to know what the hell is going on,” Michael repeated, and jerked his head down towards where they’d left Methos. “With you and Pierson.”

  Ghean smiled slowly, lazily. “What do you think?”

  “Not that.” Michael looked exasperated. “That’s pretty obvious. No, I’m talking about that fight you had this afternoon. That was no made-up kid’s language. I’ve been thinking about it all evening. There was structure to it, even to an ear that doesn’t know it. Kids don’t do that. I remember. What the hell was it?”

  Tell the truth, the patient one hissed. Parts of it. It will make the lie more plausible.

  “It was my native language,” Ghean answered. “What does it matter?” She reached for her ring to play with, only to remember she’d taken it off while Methos undressed her earlier. She tugged her necklace instead, the pendent in the palm of her hand.

  “I’ve never heard anything like it. What is it?” Michael frowned at Ghean as she played with the necklace. “Adam’s got a tattoo of your necklace,” he added, shortly. “He said he got it when you two were going to be married. When was that?”

  “A long time ago,” Ghean answered. “We were a lot younger then.”

  “He also said your mother gave it to you.”

  Ghean frowned up at Michael. “She did. What’s wrong, Michael?”

  “You told me you were adopted.”

  “I was.” Ghean sighed. “So?”

  “So you have a picture on your bookcase in Chicago. From your grandmother. Who looks exactly like you. And she’s wearing that necklace. Which has bullets around the outside, just like those bull decorations we found.”

  Ghean closed her eyes momentarily. “I found my birth mother,” she said impatiently. “The picture of my grandmother was from when she was young, in the twenties. Mother gave it to me because we looked so much alike. Michael, why are you grilling me like this?”

  Good, the patient one whispered. Put him on the defensive. He’s noticing too much.

  Rather than answer, Michael studied her face intently. “You’re not wearing makeup now,” he observed. “You haven’t gotten older, have you, Mary?”

  “Michael.” Ghean opened her eyes, irked. “Everyone gets older. It’s dark out, for goodness sake. The light’s just kind to me right now.”

  “It’s not your grandmother,” Michael continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. “It’s you. It looks exactly like you. Exactly. And Pierson’s just like you, isn’t he? It’s why you both know so much even when you don’t look old enough to. How do you do it? What was that language?”

  He knows, the frightened one gasped.

  He’s guessing, the patient one snapped.

  Ghean pressed her eyes shut. “It was Atlantean,” she said, forcing as much sarcasm into the words as she could. “Adam and I are both really five thousand years old and we were there when Atlantis sank. Is that the kind of story you want to hear, Michae
l? I can make some more up if you want.”

  Don’t tell him! the frightened one shrieked. The patient one was, for once, stunned into silence. Ghean opened her eyes to see Michael staring down at her, shocked belief in his eyes.

  “Gods of heaven and earth,” she said, and stepped away from the railing. “I suppose you’d better come down to my room and hear the whole thing.”

  It took nearly three hours to tell Michael an abbreviated version of the tale, approaching midnight as she finished. Over the objections of the voices, she explained the artifacts, and the very different Immortality that kept her alive. Through the entire telling, Michael sat in numb silence, examining her face, as if he were trying to find the years she’d lived somewhere hidden in her eyes.

  “So they’re all lost?” he asked, when she finished. “The House artifacts?”

  Ghean shook her head, picking up the lion’s-head ring and tossing it to him. “This is one of them,” she said. “I didn’t even know it until a few days ago. I just thought it was something my mother’d left me, a reminder of Atlantis. You can keep it, after I’m done with Adam. I won’t need it then, and if I regain the Book, I should be able to learn how to make them. I’d make one for you anyway, but wouldn’t it be more fun to have one of the originals? I think there are two more, still in Atlantis somewhere. We won’t find one at the House we’ve found; it’s Taurus, and they had the unicorns.”

  “Unicorns?” Michael asked, incredulously.

  For one brief moment Ghean understood how Methos felt, and rubbed a hand over her eyes. “Unicorns. You believed the rest of this and you don’t believe in unicorns?”

  “Unicorns aren’t real, Mary,” Michael said, as if he were talking to a small child. Ghean stared at him until he flushed, looking away. “All right,” he mumbled uncomfortably. “Unicorns. Right.” He eyed the ring in his palm, looking back at Ghean.

  “I think I should have told you a long time ago,” she said. “When I’m finished with Adam, and you have the ring, well, call it a repayment for the deception.”

  “Thank you,” Michael finally managed, handing the ring back to her. “After you’re done with Adam?”

  Ghean smiled, putting the ring down beside the bed before standing to pull her rapier down from above the bed. Despite the story she’d told, Michael stood up, taking a step or two backwards.

  “Christ Almighty, you actually use a sword?”

  “It would take a very long time to remove someone’s head with a Swiss Army knife, Michael.” Ghean unsheathed the blade, letting it catch the light.

  Prove it to him, the patient one said. Like Methos did for us. Then he’ll believe.

  Don’t! He knows too much already! Don’t show him anything else, the frightened one begged.

  Ghean pursed her lips, leveling the sword horizontally across her torso, holding it in her right hand. With deliberation, she folded her left hand around the blade, then jerked the sword sideways. She winced, feeling skin and flesh separating, and released the blade, turning her hand up to show Michael the gashes. Horror warped his features, slowly turning to amazement as the wounds healed before his eyes.

  That, Ghean thought, must have been what I looked like when Methos showed me this, the first time. “I am Immortal,” she said softly. She cleaned the blood off the sword and resheathed it, slipping it into the shelving above the bed again. “I’m going to take Adam’s head,” she answered finally. “He heals the same way you just saw me do. The ring is my buffer. In fair combat, I’d never beat him. He’s got too much experience, and I reach I can’t possibly match.” Ghean gestured briefly, indicating her height. “The ring will counter it. If I can’t be hurt, eventually I’ll be able to take his head.”

  “You really only die if someone takes your head,” Michael breathed.

  Ghean nodded. “Anything short of that and I’ll survive. I can be killed, but unless my head leaves my shoulders, within a few minutes I’ll be back on my feet again.”

  Michael asked, uncertainly, “You have to kill him?”

  Ghean glanced up at the sword again as she regained her seat on the bed. “He’s less use to me now that you know the truth,” she said. “You can have your share of epiphanies about the site now. I’ll tell you what we’re dealing with. I think we should stick with the House findings for several dives, before going back to the city and the temple. We’ve obviously found a site worthy of excavating. It would look strange to go back to the temple right now. Adam would wonder why you agreed to it.”

  “I thought you were lovers,” Michael said slowly. “But you’d still kill him?”

  Ghean dimpled. “We were,” she agreed, “and we are again. He’s still in love with me. Since that’s the case, I thought I might as well enjoy myself while he was useful to me. I have you, now, though, and I’d rather work with you than him. I imagine Dr. Pierson will meet with a fatal accident in the next few days.”

  She hesitated, watching Michael’s face. “Understand, Michael,” she said quietly, “Adam and I are part of a Game that most mortals know nothing at all about. I won’t like to you. I’m motivated by revenge. But our Game has Rules, and it tells us that in the end, there can be only one. I’m not eager to lose my head. With Adam’s power combined with my own years, I should be undefeatable.”

  With a smile, Ghean lifted the golden ring of Leo between two fingers. “As soon as I’m done with this, you’ll gain Immortality, Michael. Wouldn’t it be a pity to lose me to a silly Game now?”

  Michael glanced at the ring, then at Ghean, a sheepish smile creeping across his face. “I guess I’m just a little squeamish,” he said, “but you’re the old hand at this. It’s just a little much to take in all at once.”

  “I know,” Ghean said wryly. “You’re doing better than I did. It’ll get easier, in a few days. Just try to stay steady until then. It’s probably best if Adam doesn’t find out you know the truth.” She lifted her head as a chill shuddered through her, and stood. “Speaking of which, here he comes. It’s about bedtime anyway, hm?”

  Michael’s eyebrows lifted a little. “It’s been quite a day,” he said in agreement.

  Ghean nodded. “I’ll take a look at the papers and tell you what they say, tomorrow. For now, good night, Michael.” She opened the door as Methos was about to knock and smiled up at the tall Immortal. “There you are,” she said. “Michael was keeping me company. Any luck?”

  “Conjecture,” Methos said, rubbing his eyes. “Frequently repeated words that could be articles, theorized letter-to-letter translations. I just came by to say good night, Mary.” He smiled tiredly. “And Michael,” he added, as Michael stepped past him out the door and opened his own door just down the hall. As Michael’s door closed, Methos smiled down at Ghean. “These beds are a little small for two people to actually sleep in.”

  “Sleep?” Ghean asked. “Who said anything about sleep?” She caught his hand, drawing him into the room. “You can go back to your own room later.”

  Chapter 28

  It was too easy to forget himself, and simply turn the pages, reading the journal of the last decade of Ragar’s life, instead of painstakingly noting out letters and acting out the deciphering of the text. Methos caught himself reading for the fourth time in an hour, and sighed, pushing the pages away.

  “You’ve been at it all day, Adam,” Anne said, poking her head in the door. “Come have a drink with the rest of us. The party’s started.”

  Methos looked up, around the emptied-out laboratory. “I didn’t even notice everyone had gone,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “What time is it?”

  “About seven thirty. You look tired.”

  Methos smiled a little, straightening the papers before standing. “I am,” he admitted. “I think it’s going to be an early night, party or not.”

  Anne laughed. “You’d better be able to sleep through a ruckus, then. I don’t think anybody is planning on going to bed until the sun comes up.”

  Methos came to the door, switch
ing out the light as he followed Anne out. “I’m wearing my brain out, looking at all that writing. I keep staring at it and expecting it to suddenly make sense.”

  Anne shook her head. “I’ll just drive a robot,” she said. “You can do the hard part.

  “Without you and your robot I wouldn’t have any work to do,” Methos pointed out. “Funny how it all kind of works together, isn’t it?” The shiver of an Immortal’s presence ran through him as they approached the conference room that had been emptied out for the party. Ghean was waiting inside the door, and slid her arm through Methos’ possessively.

  “I thought you’d run out on me,” she said. “Jerry wants to get a picture of all of us with our pretty stone chair.”

  “Not yet,” Methos said. “Someone kept me up all night, and I’ve been thinking all day. That sort of activity makes for tired researchers. I really don’t want my picture taken.”

  “Smile and bear it, Adam,” Ghean said. “They already think you’re crazy for not letting Michael film you.”

  “You painted me as the eccentric scholar,” Methos muttered, as Jerry waved them over. “Couldn’t you have mentioned I thought cameras stole souls, or something?”

  The submarine crew crowded around the chair, temporarily brought out of safekeeping for the photograph. The flash went off, followed by half a dozen more as other people snatched the opportunity to take pictures of the research team. Methos closed his eyes, pained. There are times that I wish Immortality had a more exotic side to it, like vampires not being able to have their pictures taken.

  He escaped from the crowd as quickly as he could, sharing a glass of champagne with Ghean. Then, pleading mental exhaustion, he kissed Ghean’s cheek and took his leave, catching Michael’s amused glance on his way out the door.

  “‘Mental’ exhaustion?” Michael asked quietly, and Methos grinned a little.

  “I have to sleep sometime. Good night, Michael.” The door closed behind him, and for a moment Methos stood in the relative silence of the hallway, sighing with relief. Virtually the entire crew was at the party. As good a time as any, Methos decided, making his way down to his cabin. At least I’ve got all night. He glanced out the window as he pulled his suitcase down from the shelving above the bed. The sun had almost set, vivid colors fading to grey. In a few more minutes, it would be dark. With the party going on, it was unlikely anyone would notice him creeping around on deck.