[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

tired of the sea.
But Khordas was the best, because he did not use, could not even conceive
using fire.
He accepted fire, worked with it, nourished and lived with it. Khordas knew
the truth.
Fire as the breath of the god was true. Because Khordas, the Salamander, was
the god.
And somehow, he would make the mortals understand the power of that truth.
On a cliff at Martha's Vineyard stood Lauren's lighthouse, the one she had so
sorely missed in her lucrative married months, where the spinning lantern
reamed its constant
message through the fog and kept the ships from foundering, and Lauren lived
and planned with her love. Khordas himself did not go into the lighthouse
much, of course.
Child of fire and water that he was, he preferred the grotto.
The grotto was deep below the lighthouse, underneath and nestled against the
cliff, and protected by an encircling wall of rocks, a natural gate. The
enclosure was accessible in two ways only. From the lighthouse one could
descend through a series of connected and hidden passages, which the pair had
built during their tenure on these cliffs, or one could swim between the
rocks, negotiating a single passage large enough for a two-man boat at best.
At the edge of the grotto lay a cave, where ds. For now, it was the perfect
home for a Salamander. For now. He would be moving on, soon. Already
Khordas could feel the change at work. Soon the God would return.
Lauren lay the last sack of goods on the stone floor and leaned against the
table. Her hair was dirty and wet, and hung down across her face, and she
pushed it out of the way and drew a cigarette from Khordas' holder.
Khordas was busy pulling a tarpaulin over the rowboat, which he had anchored
at the back of the cave. The Salamander stood straight and turned toward
Lauren, held up his hand, and smiled as she tossed the cigarette holder
through the air. A moment later the match flared and died, and the cigarette
began to glow in the low light of torches, shadows on rock face. Khordas held
his cigarette before him and studied it for a second-a cigarette would burn
down in seven minutes as he rolled them, and he had at times employed them as
fuses. The cigarette as seven-minute fuse was an amalgam of all that Khordas
Page 57
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
found enthralling about the modern world. The capture of fire and the taming
of it, setting it on a short pole, delicately held at one's lip. And the
seven minutes, the modern separation of the day into hours, minutes, finally
seconds. Each moment was complete and separate, although a part of the
others, like tendrils of flame, like each tiny ring of paper along the
cigarette that burned before the next ring caught.
Khordas stared at the sevenminute fuse and said, "I saw MacLeod."
Lauren was toweling off her hair and looked up. "Connor?"
"Duncan."
Lauren put the towel over her shoulders and strode over to Khordas, stood
behind him and wrapped her arms around his torso, placing her head against his
muscled back. "He was on the ship?"
"Yes. The Highlander was a passenger on the Andrew.
Apparently he has come to us. Who knew? America!" Khordas smiled, tracing
with his mind his own steps across the globe.
"Did you fight him?"
"No," said Khordas, blowing out a stream of smoke. Fidgeting, he threw down
the cigarette and crushed it out, instantly regretting it. "It was not the
time. But I will see him soon."
Lauren kissed her lover's back slowly, kneading his shoulders. "So important
to you . .
."
Khordas pulled away, and knelt down by the docking bay, and looked at his
reflection.
He lit another seven-minute fuse and tossed the match into the water, watched
it rupture the reflection. "I know it is painful for you to hear, Lauren, but
yes, it is so important to me. MacLeod will be punished for ... taking my
Nerissa."
"I try, Khordas. I try to understand the Salamander, but he mystifies me."
"The Salamander values your love and support."
"But the Salamander loves another," said Lauren, crouching beside him. "I do
as he says, I worship him, but his heart is with one who is dead," she said,
slowly. "Indeed, with many who are dead."
Khordas felt a flare of anger and quashed it, for it did not befit the
Salamander to be angry with his Companion. Instead, he said, "I see that your
mind wanders, Companion, to forbidden questioning. Perhaps it is time for the
root of faith." He looked at her and she seemed to consider this, and nodded.
Khordas continued:
"You have shown me much about the life of the Immortals, though you are so
much younger. But my destiny remains," he said, looking at the water,
"although at one time I
thought it lost. And the greatest part was lost with her: my Nerissa." He
sighed. "She was perfection." Khordas allowed himself a chuckle. "Her mind
wandered at times, too.
She, too, worked to change me, when we learned the 'truth," when all of the
Children of the Salamander were dead. When our language died, replaced by new
Page 58
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
ones harsh to my tongue.
She tried to show me what we could be. But I was Khordas, and I am still.
And
Duncan MacLeod's was the last crime this Immortality will commit against me."
"You've made her into something she can't be. None of us are angels,
Khordas."
"Not angels, my Companion," Khordas said. "Gods. Overseers and rulers.
Princes of the universe. Nerissa shined; she was the given goddess, the
provided one, the satiator.
The Companion. As now are you."
'-Me Immortals say we are simply Immortals, like them. Is it not so?"
"I wish to speak no more of this, Lauren. Go to the light house. Leave me
for now. I
am not angry, but I am not well tonight."
Lauren pulled away and turned. "You are the oldest Immortal I have ever met,"
she said. "You should be proud of what you are."
"I love what I am," Khordas said, and images washed over him and began to
soothe him, fires cleansing, water washing sins away. Fire on water, the
Salwnander's gauntlet.
"Nerissa," said Khordas, as he sank to the floor. All the children were gone. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]