THE LAST GAME
BY MAGGIE
The water looked warm and welcoming; the light from the torches reflecting off the slowly rippling surface, the glow in its depths ...
Almost ceremonially he withdrew the sword from the water and laid it on the rocky bank at the pool's edge. Images of his old friend began to crowd into his mind as he divested himself of his clothing and stepped forward into water. The feel of it against his skin was an invigorating experience in itself and already he could feel a peace beginning to pervade his being. Allowing the water to move itself around him rather than invading it with his presence, he moved deeper into the pool; the warmth eased the ache of tension in his tired muscles and he breathed in the slight fragrance of woodland and rose petals which the pool gave off as he entered it.
He sighed deeply, eyes closed and, for a moment, revelled in the touch of the water and the relaxation it wrought in him. Then, his thoughts returning to the reason he had come here, he opened his eyes once more and his face took on a more serious mien.
"Darius ..." he whispered. The name echoed slightly in the air around him and came back to him, bringing with it more remembrances from the past. Their last game of chess ...
It was cold and wintry outside, so the vestry fire was welcome and cheerful. Their outsides warmed, the same job was being performed on their insides by the jug of Darius's excellent mead from which they had been drinking for the past hour. It was Darius's move and he was taking an extraordinarily long time to deliberate over it.
"I think I've got you this time," muttered Methos,leaning back and taking another sip of the sweet alcohol.
"No, I don't think so," Darius replied, appearing a trifle smug as he moved his one remaining knight into an unexpected position before one of Methos's boldly positioned bishops. "Checkmate in ... three moves, I think."
Surprised at his friend's off-the-wall strategy, Methos swept his gaze over the board once more. He was right; without his queen, which he had sacrificed earlier in the game, he had no way of effectively counteracting Darius's latest move. He really had no choice but to concede, which he did by placing his king on the same square as the offending piece, in the time honoured way between them.
"Obviously, being a priest has taught you more than just how to say your prayers, you rogue," retorted Methos, sitting back in his chair once more and finishing off his mead.
Glancing up at the grandmother clock on the far wall, Darius realised that their time together this day was almost over. He had meant to spend it in ways other than playing chess; the Watcher Chronicle which Methos had lent him to study had raised many questions in his mind over the past few weeks and he doubted he could answer them without Methos's help, but somehow this afternoon had not seemed the right time, and it had been so much easier and safer to just play chess with Methos than to ask him all those searching questions. The old timer had a nasty habit of coming up with answers that one didn't necessarily want to hear, and he was feeling too tired lately to risk having more demons to wrestle with than he already had.
"Duncan will be here in a few minutes," he told Methos. "I take it you haven't 'bumped into him' yet?"
"No, not yet," replied the elder Immortal, his eyes just about revealing that he wasn't altogether looking forward to revealing his existence to the much younger and much more reckless Highlander. "But the way he's going, I suppose I shall have to do something about it soon ..."
"Your opinion of him hasn't changed? Not even with all that 'irrational chivalry' that he keeps spreading about?"
"That's why I shall have to do something," replied Methos, appearing more than a little put out by the thought. "And, no, my opinion still hasn't changed; I still say he's humanity's best hope."
The blaze of millenia of experience in his eyes pierced the armour of Darius's calm and a shiver of fear escaped his soul, sending a wash of uncomfortable uncertainty through him, he couldn't say why. For a moment he heard screams in his mind and they sounded uncomfortably like his own.
He shifted a little in his chair, and, noticing the movement, Methos straightened up, setting his glass down on the table. "Darius ... you okay?"
"Oh ... yes, I'm sorry, it's nothing; I just keep getting flashes of a dream I've been having lately ..."
Darius had had dreams before that had a disturbing habit of coming true, but never before had any of them touched him so personally; never before had he dreamed of his own death, right here in his own church ... He shook the sounds and vague images of a man he didn't know with a sword away, and concentrated on the present.
He noticed Methos staring intently into his face; he knew that look. He was hoping for some answers and anticipating some resistance from the two thousand year old priest.
"It's nothing," Darius repeated quickly and glanced at the clock once more. "You'd better leave now if you don't want to meet up with MacLeod," he said, collecting the chess pieces together and putting them away.
Methos stood reluctantly, still not happy with Darius' attitude towards this dream, whatever it was. He intended to prise the facts from him, but realised that it would have to be at another time. Picking up his coat from the back of the chair, he made a move for the back door.
"Darius ..."
The younger Immortal looked up and knew what he wanted to say. "I will tell you, Methos, the next time we meet, I promise."
No more words passed between them, but Darius was aware of the unspoken affection that Methos bore him, and he smiled in acknowledgement of it, the innocence born of wisdom in his face expressing how much he appreciated their friendship.
A swift nod and Methos was gone.
~
And that had been the last time Methos had seen his old friend alive.
All of the thoughts that Darius had had over their last chess game, he had been able to pick up from a few hours of deep meditation in that very room, just days after Darius had been murdered.
It had been an intense shock to his mind to discover what had happened; as soon as he had heard about it through the Watcher grapevine, he had maintained a secretive vigil near the church, waiting until he could secure the place for himself long enough for his purposes. He had lost friends without number, over the course of five thousand years, but this incident was without precedent and demanded some action on his part.
~
{48 hours earlier...}
On entering the church he could sense immediately that the attack had taken place in the main body of the church, even though everything was tidy and in its place once more. Calming his mind, he focused his awareness on the pervasive energies of Darius' death and Quickening; they emanated from a place just to the left of the nave, near a pillar, and he knew without question that that was where MacLeod had discovered Darius' headless body. The energies swirled outwards and upwards, spiralling towards the roof. They were so powerful that he realised it wouldn't be difficult to tap into them.
Settling himself next to the pillar, he began the pattern of controlled-breath that would take him into the semi-hypnoidal state he required to gain access to the deeper levels of those energies and find out what exactly had happened.
... Alone in the church, Darius was in the process of saying his daily prayers before the altar when he heard the South West door open softly. He had at one time considered oiling the hinges of that door so that it wouldn't creak, but had rejected the idea; if someone entered the church in need of his help then, as a priest, he needed to know they were there.
He got up off his knees and turned to face the strangers who advanced along the Nave towards him; spreading his arms a little in harmless greeting, he smiled.
He noticed that none of them smiled back at him, but knowing that there were no Immortals amongst them, he ignored the fact; he could sense trouble here, but hopefully he could defuse it. He wondered about their purpose here; they didn't look like they were after the silverware.
"Welcome, gentlemen; how may I help you?"
There was silence for a moment; in that moment, Darius pinpointed the focus of the dangerous energies he sensed as being the first man facing him. Shorter than some of the others, with light hair and pale eyes, he was their leader. There were youngish men in the group, but none of them were dressed for rebellion; nevertheless, that was the feeling he got from these men. They looked like no gang he had ever come across before, but that was what they were; a gang, and they were here for blood.
Darius had died a few mortal deaths in his time, and although never pleasant, he had of course, always survived. Would it come to that this time, he wondered, and would he have to leave this place and start again somewhere else because of it? He hoped not; he had been here so long that he had grown attached to his life here, and was therefore out of practice at moving on.
Some dark intuition began to make its presence felt inside him; it threw up images from his dream which, this time, slammed into him, with a frightening force. His death, here in his church ... but why? And how was it possible?
The images drained suddenly from his inner sight and he froze, knowing that they were true and had left him, only to make way for the moment that they had predicted. The man before him suddenly had a sword in his hands and in his face was fear and triumph. These men had come for his head and this time Darius would not escape; he had nowhere left to run to. This sanctuary had protected him for so long that he had lost the art of defending himself, except with words, and he knew that would not work with these men.
He had been closeted here too long; he should have given up this safe haven centuries ago and learned, as MacLeod had, to balance his own life with those of others. Perhaps though, he would not have been able to; had he sensed that, all this time, and stayed here as the only alternative for survival?
None of that mattered now. Within a few minutes his life would be over and he prepared his soul for that event; he was determined, however, that he would not go down without a fight. His life meant something - even in all his humility he recognised that fact - and he readied himself to escape them long enough to get to the vestry and retrieve his sword, shut away in a chest these too many long years. He knew he had no chance, even against the inexperience of these mortal Watchers, for so he now knew them to be, but he had to do something to fight in the name of his right to survive.
He turned swiftly, running even as he did so, but now there were other Watcher cohorts behind him, and they laid merciless hands upon him before he had gone two steps. He struggled with them, but was hampered by his robe and the knowledge of Fate hanging heavily on him. Still he struggled, dragging the men into the body of the church, chairs overturned; victims and witnesses to his fight for life.
It was no use. He was surrounded now by these hounds of death, pinned down, his strength traitorously ebbing from him as the man with the sword came forward to pronounce sentence.
"You are an abomination among us!" the man told him, his voice high and loud, coloured with fear and revulsion. "We are the Hunters and we will rid the world of you and all the others like you!"
"Why!?" Darius cried out, trying to focus what remained of his strength into one last desperate effort to avert their deadly purpose. "What have I ever done to you? I have lived here for centuries, providing solace AND sanctuary for many of your kind! Why kill me now? I thought Watchers never interfered!!"
The man's aggressive stance faded a little and in his eyes once more was the triumph that Darius had witnessed earlier.
"So; you do have the book. Where is it, monster?" the voice now holding the revulsion which had been in the eyes but moments before.
"I don't know what you're talking about!" yelled Darius, seeing and grasping now, a hope which had not been there before. As long as he could withhold his knowledge of the existence of the Watcher Chronicle and its whereabouts, they might spare his life long enough for him to escape them.
'Your fate is what you make it,' Richie had told him, in a discussion they had once had while Duncan and Tessa were off around town celebrating their love and Duncan's survival of yet another Immortal challenge. Some quote from a film, Richie had told him. Darius had never seen a movie, never having left his sanctuary since way before the cinema had ever been born; maybe he should have taken the time to see at least one ...
Ignoring the weight of the moment brought to him by the dreams, he summoned courage and readiness once more, in the event that he came across an opportunity to save himself. The river wasn't all that far away; if he could get away from these men long enough to reach it, he could disappear for a while, start again somewhere else ...
He held himself in patience and continued to deny all knowledge of what they were seeking.
What furniture hadn't been touched by the struggle was now given the same treatment, whether out of spite or frustration, Darius could not guess. Two men entered the vestry as the search for the book continued, and Darius had to force himself to hold in check any sudden sign of fear; he had hidden the tome in a self-made cubby hole in one of the walls and left a ragged piece of Duncan's tartan held there by a loose brick which concealed the hiding place.
The dreams had prompted this action; Darius had thought the matter over carefully and realised that, should his death fall upon him, it would be Duncan who would be in the best position, not to say the best equipped, to deal with the situation. Methos, although he had given him the book in the first place, was too close to these people, and didn't have the aggression necessary to avenge his death, and anyway; Darius considered it necessary that Duncan find out about these people for the sake of his own safety.
When the two men returned empty-handed, again Darius had to steel himself not to utter a sigh of relief.
"It's not here, Horton!" called out one of the men. "He must have given it to someone."
Horton! So that was who this man was! Methos had mentioned him a few times with a mixture of loathing and pity in his voice; he had told Darius that Horton was a xenophobe of the first degree and that he had been trying to catch the man breaking Watcher rules for years now.
'I'm glad that you are not here to witness this now, Methos old friend,' thought Darius grimly, 'or you would almost certainly lose your head as well.'
With a shock, he recognised this final thought as a re-acknowledgement of certain death; nevertheless he still said nothing about the book, no matter how Horton ranted, almost to madness, against him.
Finally Horton fell silent, breathing heavily, frustration clear in his face. Without another word he raised the sword over his head.
Fear squeezing his heart and lungs in a rictus of agony, Darius closed his eyes.
He heard the blade fall ...
~
Blackness fell like a blade, cutting off the images suddenly and, the trance broken, Methos collapsed to the floor, a cry of pure, blind reaction ripping from his throat. Death, like this, should not have come to one such as Darius and he could not keep from weeping silently for a few moments, his shaking shoulders and the tears which escaped his eyes, the only witness to his grief. Grief over the waste of such a life and the Quickening which even now haunted the church with its power; grief over the loss of such a friendship as theirs had been.
Regaining control of his emotions, rarely as wayward as this, he made to stand and leave the church when he felt it; just behind him, it was almost a touch, and he turned, but of course there was no-one there. Even so, he felt a sense of calm flood through him, and a presence near him. He sat once more, with his back to the pillar, and closed his eyes, breathing deeply. Images appeared in his mind again, images of a chess board, complete with pieces and those long, strong fingers moving one of them. He heard the soft germanic tones voicing thoughts in his mind ...
*Look at the time; Duncan will be here in a few minutes, and so you will have to leave, my friend. A pity; I had meant to spend this time in ways other than playing chess ...*
Kneeling in the pool now, allowing the water to touch every part of him, wrap him in its purity and warmth, Methos opened the floodgates of memory again and summoned other images. In his time, Methos had been a monk himself; at several different periods in his life, in fact. Enjoying the ample solitude in which to work without having to worry about losing his head, it was under such circumstances that he had formally met Darius for the first time. He had been aware of him for centuries, even before the great general had changed his life forever, at the gates of Paris. His victories across Europe were well known, and Methos had discovered a long time ago that this man was an Immortal.
It was in 1584 that he had fled from the Inquisition in Italy, the entire membership of the rather obscure and free-thinking order that he had joined seven years previously, having been arrested by the Inquisitors; only Methos and one of the novices had escaped their attentions by virtue of the fact that the order had been on a mission of mercy at a nearby town when the Inquisition had come upon them before the dreaded agents of the Pope had even arrived at the Monastery. Father Ignatius had known of Methos' secret and had excused him the journey on the official grounds that the work he was doing was too important to leave. He had allowed one of the novices to stay with him to help.
When questioned by the Inquisitors, Father Ignatius had told them that the entire order was with him and had managed to delay their captors long enough for news of what had happened to reach Methos' ears.
When this happened, Methos and the young novice, a Greek by the name of Nikolas, had fled, taking some of the order's most important written works with them. Methos had thought to go to Paul who had established a theological sanctuary in mid-Western Europe; there he would not have to so well hide his being an Immortal as Paul was one himself, and there would be others of his kind there too. However, he knew also that Kalas was there, and he had had disturbing reports of him in the past. So, finally, he decided on Paris and Darius. It was farther to go, but at least he would be safe with him.
It was an arduous journey which took longer than he had hoped as they had to avoid the more travelled ways to keep from meeting up with more agents of the Holy Church of Rome. It was Winter and, on the course of their journey, Nikolas became sick with a fever and died before they got to Paris. When he finally reached Darius' door, Methos was exhausted and more than a little heart-weary.
Bang, bang, bang, bang!!
Using the last of his strength, Methos thumped on the wooden door of the church for the third time, beginning to believe, against all sense and logic, that Darius was, after all, not in there.
'Don't tell me you've finally given up the cowl and gone back into the world, Darius, not today of all days!' he thought miserably to himself. 'Don't do this to me, please,' he pleaded, raising his eyes to Heaven whilst he shivered in the biting wind.
Then he felt it; the Quickening of another Immortal somewhere nearby and, rousing himself, he thumped on the door again. 'Come on, Darius, hurry up! I am wet and cold and feeling miserably sorry for myself, which doesn't become someone who is wearing what I am. Come on, open this damn door, will you!?'
With a creak, the door opened slowly and a tall, priestly figure poked its head through the opening. When he saw the state of his visitor, Darius stepped out hurriedly and Methos practically fell into his arms, sighing with relief.
"Thank God! If I had known you were such a heavy sleeper, I would have brought a cannon!"
"I am sorry, my friend, please forgive my tardiness; but explanations will wait until another time. Come in and warm yourself and I will see if I can find you some dry vestments."
Staggering inside on shaky legs, Methos finally plunked himself down at the end of a pew, his eyes already beginning to close, preparatory to sleep. He heard the door creak closed and the rush of warmth brought by the cessation of the cold wind around his body, fell on him like a blanket, pushing him the rest of the way into welcome oblivion.
When he awoke, he found himself on a bed, covered by rough blankets, and all trace of weariness was gone. Daylight streamed in through a high window, catching and illuminating floating dust motes in its beams. He lay there watching them for a while, innocently hypnotised by their lazy movement, spirits lifted by the brightness of the sunlight which held them in suspension.
A knock at the door to the chamber broke into his reverie, and he looked up as the door opened to see Darius bearing a tray from which some delicious odours were emanating.
"I take it you are hungry?" the priest asked him rhetorically.
Methos didn't turn a hair when his stomach growled loudly in reply. "Apparently. What do you have there?"
"Bread, honey, cheese, pottage and some rather excellent mead, if I do say it myself."
Laying the tray down before him, Darius sat on a stool at the side of the bed and watched with obvious pleasure as Methos attacked the contents with as much control as he could muster.
"Mmm ... Thank you," muttered the starving Immortal between mouthfuls.
"I take it you have had a hard journey to get here," commented Darius sympathetically. "Where have you come from?"
The bread and honey finished, Methos waited a few moments before eating any more. "We fled from a monastery in Italy ... The Inquisition," he added, finally allowing himself to start on the large hunk of cheese.
Darius nodded, needing to know no more. "They are everywhere these days," he said sadly, "and many are suffering under their heavy penalties for 'heracy'."
"Our entire order was arrested," Methos continued. "Nikolas and I were the only ones to escape."
"Nikolas?"
Methos eyes grew heavy once more as he recalled the earnest young mortal, cut down by circumstance in the prime of his youth. "He was a novice who escaped with me; we started the journey together, but over the weeks of hard weather with not enough food or shelter, he fell ill. He died ten days back."
A phantom of pain returned and caught him between the shoulder blades and in the small of his back, as he remembered the hours he had spent trying to dig a deep enough grave in the frozen ground, with only his sword and his bare hands for tools. After years of sedentary work in the monastery, the journey and this final task took its toll on him, and on completing the task he had collapsed in total exhaustion, falling asleep despite the cold even before he could lay the body to rest. Hours later he had awoken blue and stiff with cold, and it had been all he could do to complete his task, his teeth chattering constantly so that he could hardly get out the few words of prayer that he had said for the young novice's soul.
Wiping his hands over his face in an effort to rid himself of the worst of the memories, he resolutely returned to the cheese.
"How are you feeling now?" Darius enquired. "I can see that there is nothing wrong with your appetite, but the condition of your soul may be another matter."
Seeing the look in Methos' eyes at this last statement, he raised his hands quickly. "Do not worry, my friend; I have not the least intent of preaching to you. I am only here to help; to ease the burden if I can. I will be in the vestry when you have finished," Darius told him, getting up and heading for the door. "It is to your right as you leave the passage outside. If you wish to talk, I am willing to listen."
Feeling a little more comfortable in himself now, Methos smiled in return for the generous words. "Thank you; I believe I will."
Rising up slowly from his knees, Methos broke the surface of the pool and stood finally, pushing his hair back from his forehead with his hands, water running in endless, meandering rivulets down his lean torso and arms. The waters of the pool had left him feeling invigorated and fresh; the blood racing round his body, his flesh alive with a pleasant burning sensation. Catching some of the water in cupped hands, he brought it up towards his face, looking into it for a moment before sluicing his flushed cheeks with it.
"You did ease the burden, Darius," he whispered softly, sensing strongly that the dead Immortal was not completely lost and that he could hear him somehow. Methos was not one for being overly sentimental, and yet this might be the last time he could ever say what, up until now had never been said, and know that his words would not fall unheard and useless into emptiness. It had happened before; there had been times when he had left the expression of his feelings until it was too late, and he did not intend for that to happen now.
He looked down into the glowing, swirling waters and fancied he could see that disarming smile gazing knowingly back at him. Out of habit his thoughts ran on unchecked until he became aware of the silence; stilling his mind once more, he corralled the thoughts, thence beginning to let them out one by one, holding the rest back until each one was uttered.
The whispering echoes of his voice were hypnotic and comforting, almost as if it were Darius uttering them rather than himself. Each thought set free made him feel progressively lighter, which had the effect of drawing the awareness of his body into a central, balanced focus.
All his thoughts finally set free, his mind temporarily empty, Methos felt peace fill him. He could feel it expanding inside him, drawing in more and more of it with each breath ... It became a single, perfect moment, time halted in its tracks, there being nothing but the cave and the water and the silence. Not even himself. As if his solitary being had ceased to exist, he felt himself in the line and weight of the rock, in every drop of water, in every breath of air. He was the world and he was the tiniest dust mote which floated before his eyes.
Slowly he could focus on his own being once more. He felt the gentle lap of the water around his hips, the breath-touch of the air on his skin as it moved in lazy currents around the cave. This was what it meant to be alive, and the awareness of it was more than enough. Strangely he felt that having experienced this, he could die tomorrow and not care.
Without reluctance, the moment of grace complete now, he stepped up out of the pool, and without bothering to dry himself, began to dress. He was certain now that the essence of Darius had not been lost; he had a part of him inside him, and the energy - powerful even though it was no longer focused in a physical body - would pervade the church for a hundred years, dissipating only slowly and only when there was someone who could receive however much of it that they could hold.
~
It was dawn when he finally returned to Paris, and he drove up to the church once more, parking the Volvo around the corner, near the little side gate. Instead of going back inside, not feeling the need to now, he sat on one of the benches in the church yard, breathing in the air and listening to the birds who sounded as if they had already been busy for hours. Perhaps they had. Possibly, down the years, they had sensed Darius moving about in the early hours each morning and had come to tie their wake up call to his; even though he was no longer there to disturb their slumbers, it seemed they couldn't get out of the habit.
'Like life itself,' Methos reflected, calmly. 'They go on, and in that, do reverence to his life, even without knowing it.'
He continued to sit there for another half hour or so and then got up, resolved to make an early start on his research for the secret database that he and Don had recently started working on. The old man would grumble about having to struggle with his new-fangled computer that Methos had insisted they use, but he knew that the chief historian for their chapter of the Watchers was secretly pleased to have a co-conspirator so eager to help with this task.
Unlocking the off-side door of the Volvo, Methos looked up at the church once more and wondered in passing, how many more people it would provide sanctuary and help for. He thought about the hidden underground pool and wondered how many centuries would pass before he visited it again.
He had no way of knowing that both questions would be answered so very much sooner than he could have imagined ...
~Finis~
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