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It was just before dawn, on the longest day of the year, as he stood before the
Temple of the Rain God and the Feathered Serpent.
He was clad in his finest cotton loincloth, his head adorned with the multicolored
feathers of tropical birds. His arms, legs and neck bore ornaments of exquisite gold,
silver, and turquoise. The priests were chanting at his side, and women were singing his
praises as he paused at the pyramid's base. The stepped temple platform was ornamented
with rows of stone carvings, the alternating faces of two gods. The Rain God, who would
someday be called Tlaloc, had stylized eyes like huge flat rings -- they signified a depth
of vision that could cut through appearances. The Serpent, to be dubbed Quetzalcoatl,
had a fearsome, roaring countenance, surrounded by a wreath of feathers. His was the
union of heaven and earth, spiritual and material energy.
These things had been taught to the richly-dressed man in his years living among
the priests. They told him he had been found at the foot of this very temple as a babe
exactly twenty years before, and he had been reared in this temple precinct, the Citadel,
the College of the Priests. He had lived his entire life for this day.
The gray pre-dawn twilight grew silvery bright as he mounted the narrow stairs
of the pyramid to the temple structure at the top. There, with incense burning, and the sun
cresting the horizon, he poured libations of the precious rainwater, so vital to the people
of this huge city in an arid valley. Using an obsidian knife, he sacrificed a rare bird
brought from the jungles to the south. With its blood, he anointed his cheeks with the
symbol of the quincunx -- four dots forming a square, and one in the center. This
represented the heart of life, the vital point in a man where opposing forces met and
became unified. The pyramids themselves, four-sided with their central temples at the
apex, were three-dimensional expressions of the holy symbol.
His first offerings finished, he descended from the temple and emerged from its
holy walled enclosure onto the wide North-South Avenue. Across from the Citadel was
the Great Marketplace, and these were at the juncture of the main North-South and East-
West Avenues. The streets were thronged with people waiting to see him.
He set out with his entourage of priests and women, turning north, along the
broad thoroughfare. Ahead of him, to the right, lay his objective -- the mountain-like
silhouette of the Pyramid of the Sun. It was the largest structure in the world, he had
been told. It was so huge that it looked much, much closer than it really was -- nearly
a mile away. Real mountains loomed on the distant horizon.
He led the procession down the Avenue. This was not a flat street -- at this
point, it was a series of sunken courtyards separated by stepped walls. In the centers of
some courts were temples, at which the proper ceremonies had to be performed. Other
courts were used to play the Sacred Ball Game. He had seen this game many times, but
he had never been allowed to play. He was meant for even greater things.
They continued, through the courts, past the brightly-painted murals of the
palaces and temples along the street. They could see before them, at the northern end of
this street, beyond the Pyramid of the Sun, the Temple Plaza, a square court with several
smaller pyramids surrounding the Pyramid of the Moon. They would not be traveling
that far down the avenue this day.
Finally, the sun was high in the sky as the ceremonies were fulfilled, all the
proper temples visited. The priests blew on conch shell horns (a precious commodity
imported from the south) as they reached the Pyramid of the Sun. It loomed, impenetrable,
a giant 200-foot-tall sloping edifice forming three main steps, with narrow, steep stair-
cases leading to the nearly-imperceptible summit. The Pyramid was faced with red
volcanic stone, and within its mass, he had been told, lay the Sacred Cave of Creation.
He began to climb. It was hot in the near-noon sun, the mountain air thin. But
there was a song in his heart, for soon he would fulfill his destiny.
The sun was directly overhead when he reached the temple at the top, where
white-robed priests awaited him. All of the city of Teotihuacan, the City of the Road of
the Gods, lay below him. Before him stretched the great Avenues, from the Citadel to
the Pyramid of the Moon. Beyond were the neat rows of houses -- large for the nobles
and priests, smaller for the commoners, laid out on a square grid street plan. He could
see into their central courtyards, with their murals and gleaming white plaster walls. He
could see the stalls in the Marketplace, where the precious obsidian mined nearby was
traded for other goods. He could see the silvery gleam of the irrigation canals in the
fields at the edge of the city. He could see the gathered mass of his people, so tiny below
him that they looked like the stitches in a tapestry.
He closed his eyes, and held out his arms. He turned his face to the sky, to the
warmth of the sun. He was not afraid. He was beloved of the gods, and soon he would
become one with them...
Then came the white-hot agony as the priest's obsidian blade plunged into his
chest...
She awoke with a start and sat bolt upright in the bed, clutching at her breast,
dragging in her breath with labored gasps.
She cast about the room, disoriented. Where was she? This wasn't Teotihuacan!
It was dark, it was cold...yet she was sweating, the soft bedsheets clinging to her naked
skin.
She had to pull herself out of the vision, like swimming up from the bottom of a
dark lake, towards the surface light of her identity.
I am Brianna Belmont! she reminded herself.
I am a Time Lord!
I am an Agent of the Celestial Intervention Agency!
I am a G.I. Joe pilot!
I am a Bene Gesserit!
She felt her hearts slow down to their normal pace. Now she remembered
where she was. Moonlight came in through the window, illuminating the blond wood
panels and simple furnishings of a bedroom. She turned to the light, and saw outside
wooded streets, and beyond, the mirror surface of Lake Ontario. The tiny, reassuring hum
of a Queen song still ran in the back of her head -- the instrumental version of "Who
Wants To Live Forever?" Another familiar Buzz rang through her awareness as well...
"Brianna, are you all right?"
Duncan MacLeod was awake. Her stirring must have roused him. He sat at
her side, slightly behind her, with his hands lightly resting on her shoulders. She leaned into
his embrace and closed her eyes, reveling in the feel of his bare skin against hers.
"I'm okay now." She could feel his heartbeat, slow and strong.
He spoke softly into her ear. "You sound like you had a nightmare."
The sound of his voice quieted her anxiety. A rush of warmth filled her as she
recalled how they'd spent the last few hours. It had been, mind-bogglingly, some of the
best sex she had ever had. It was truly astonishing what a man with four hundred years
of experience could do. It rivaled even some of her sessions with the great metapsychic
Aiken Drum. She wished she could bask in the afterglow some more, but the bizarre
dream had truly rattled her.
"It was more than a nightmare, Duncan...it was...so weird..."
He turned her face to his. His luxurious hair spilled over his shoulders, and his
dark eyes were bottomless pools. "Tell me about it."
She described the vivid scenario of the ancient Mexican city. "I've been to
Teotihuacan, but only as a ruin, of course," she added. "It was already in ruins hundreds
of years ago when the Aztecs found it. This was the city at its height...and the sensations...
I could feel the sandals on my feet, the feathers in my hair....the knife cutting into my
chest...." She rubbed the space between her breasts again, reminding herself there was
no gaping wound where her still-beating heart had just been torn out.
"It was more like a memory than a dream?" Duncan asked her.
She nodded.
"That Immortal you killed -- he was a Mexican Indian, wasn't he?"
"Yes!" her eyes flew open in realization. "He must have come from Teotihuacan!
That would make him about 1500 years old! When I took his Quickening, I learned he
was a Toltec, though I had thought he might be Aztec at first. The Aztecs believed
Teotihuacan was founded by a people called the Toltecs -- the word came to mean 'great
craftsman'. The Aztec capital, which is now Mexico City, isn't far from the ruins. They
thought of the place like a Pre-Columbian version of Camelot. They believed it was built
in a Golden Age. They considered themselves the Toltecs' inheritors."
He nodded. "I've lived in Mexico."
She looked away, then scratched her head. "Duncan...that dream was more like
a vision. It was the Immortal's First Death. I know from the emotions he was experiencing
that he didn't know what was going to happen next. He had been taught he'd join the gods,
but the shock and pain of death came as a surprise. I think he'd been led to believe
somehow he wouldn't feel the pain, and he felt betrayed when it hurt so much..."
Duncan asked, "What do you remember, exactly, about that Quickening you had?"
"Umm, I remember there was a flood of images, like his life passing before my
eyes. But that went by in such a rush, I could hardly register what I saw. This was
different. It happened at a high level of detail, as if I were actually living it." She paused.
"Duncan -- how does the power of a Quickening usually manifest itself?"
MacLeod exhaled thoughtfully, absent-mindedly caressing her upper arm.
"Well...we receive the Immortal's energy, his power, his strength...the power expresses
itself in different ways. Sometimes you get to move a little faster, think a little more
quickly, have slightly better reflexes..."
"What about memories?"
"Not usually that specific..."
"Duncan...what about personality traits?" Brianna asked. "Like the story about
Darius. How he supposedly was a rampaging warlord until he beheaded a peaceful man.
Then Darius became a pacifist, took up holy orders..."
"Hmm..." Duncan nodded thoughtfully.
"Do you think..." Brianna whispered, "This could be the opposite...a Dark
Quickening?"
The Highlander's eyes flew open and he instinctively drew away from her. He
pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He shook his head
violently. "No, no...trust me, this is not a Dark Quickening. I would know, believe me."
He shuddered.
Brianna recalled an episode of the "Highlander" show she had seen. There had
been an Immortal who had absorbed so much evil energy from Quickenings that he had
become evil himself. When Duncan took his head, the Dark Quickening possessed him.
MacLeod's personality had twisted and warped to such depravity that he came inches
from beheading Richie, ran off and committed heinous sexual acts, and even murdered,
in cold blood, a good Immortal friend who was trying to help him. Only through the
efforts of Methos, his 5,000 year old chum, had MacLeod returned to his senses.
"Maybe not, Duncan," Brianna ventured, trying to calm him down, "I don't feel
like a different person. I mean, I don't want to hurt anyone or commit hideous acts of
violence. I just...know precisely what it feels like to be sacrificed on top of a Mexican
pyramid."
"Can you remember anything else?"
Brianna thought for a while. Then she shook her head. "No...I can't get anything
but that experience. I don't know what happened to him afterward. I can't remember
much before the scene, either. It's like I can only access what was going through his head
at that moment."
"No, I'm pretty sure this isn't a Dark Quickening. Your entire way of thinking
would change, suddenly. You don't seem any different today than you were yesterday."
Duncan shook his head thoughtfully. "Maybe this effect is happening because this was
your first Quickening...though of all my students, I've never seen anything quite like this.
I wonder if Joe and the Watchers might have some ideas..."
A sudden idea came to Brianna herself. Among the Bene Gesserit, there were
those who could access the memories of all their female ancestors. This usually was
achieved at a very high level of training, and required a harrowing initiation called the
Spice Agony, which Brianna had never undergone. But, what if the physical trauma of
the Quickening had acted like the Agony, somehow catalyzing this Bene Gesserit ability
in Brianna, but in a weird Highlander-universe way? It was an intriguing thought. But
she wasn't sure how to explain this to Duncan...
She was spared this problem by the ringing of the bedside phone. MacLeod
answered it. She could hear the voice on the other end.
"Hey, Mac, it's Rich."
"Where are you?"
"I'm at Brian's house. We spent all day hanging out at Ontario Place and this
wild Hockey Museum. We had a ball. We just got back from dinner."
"That's nice."
"I just wanted to let you know that I'm staying over at Brian's tonight. I, uh,
gather you're not alone?"
Duncan looked to Brianna and smiled. "No, I'm in good company with Brianna,
here."
"Uh, if she wants to stay over there, it's fine. I've got things covered over here."
"Fine with me...Jesus, what time is it?" Duncan peered at a clock on the
bedstand. "Ten o'clock."
"We might as well call it a night," Richie proposed. "We can get a fresh start
early tomorrow."
MacLeod considered it for a moment, then conceded to the suggestion with a
sigh.
"Cool. Call you at breakfast time." Richie hung up.
That was interesting, Brianna thought. She didn't think Richie and Brian Orser
would have become such good pals so quickly...
"Are you hungry?" Duncan asked her.
She grinned. "Yeah...we kind of worked up an appetite, there."
"I can fix us something..." He got up.
All thoughts of strange Quickenings and Bene Gesserit lore were dispelled as
Brianna feasted her eyes on the sight of Duncan MacLeod, gloriously nude, limned in the
light of the waning moon. He was so tall, so well-formed, so fit. Michaelangelo could
have used him as a model.
Suddenly, the doorbell rang.
The show ended as Duncan donned a cotton kimono from a nearby wardrobe.
"Who could that be?" Brianna asked.
Duncan frowned. "I don't know. I'm not expecting anyone now that Richie's been
accounted for." He walked over, reached under the bed, and took up his katana.
Like a proper paranoid Immortal, Brianna picked up hers from under her side of
the bed. She got to her feet and found another kimono in the same wardrobe. She pulled
on the oversized garment, gathering up its excess length in the belt and rolling up the
sleeves.
They descended the stairs. There was no Immortal Buzz as they entered the
living room, so she presumed their visitor was mortal.
Duncan cautiously opened the door.
Brianna was wrong.
Their visitor was Detective Nicholas Knight.
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