Seacouver, Washington

June1997

The long, narrow columns of numbers began to blur before his eyes. Richie Ryan let his pencil drop to the desk and raised both hands to rub his eyes. A tension headache throbbed on one side of his head, and his shoulders felt knotted into huge lumps. He'd been trying to balance the dojo's books since late afternoon. A crushed can of soda and half-eaten cupcake - his lunch - sat on the corner of the desk. Night had fallen during his epic battle between accounts payable and accounts receivable, and the last customer had left about nine p.m. The dojo lay shrouded in darkness, with the large windows open to the hot summer air and the sounds of traffic below.

"Face it, Ryan," he told himself. "You were never meant to be an accountant."

He propped his head on one hand and gazed through the office's glass windows to the dojo beyond. The faint glimmer of a street lamp reflected off the Nautilus equipment, and he could pick out the silhouettes of the weight benches and the stacked exercise mats. Every other detail remained shrouded. Something - someone - could easily be standing there staring back at him, and he'd never know.

Stupid, foolish thought. He was alone in the dojo, as he was most nights, with only the wretched accounting books and a useless computer program for company. He told himself to get back to work. The bank accounts wouldn't reconcile themselves. But the darkness held him and mesmerized him, conjuring up the low, chilling dread that had been with him ever since a cold spring night in Paris.

His imagination didn't need much prompting to equate the dark dojo with the dark, abandoned racetrack where he'd almost lost his head. He could almost smell the dust and the dank breeze off the Seine. Echoes rang faintly in his ears - Mac talking to someone, his sword slamming again and again against plaster and concrete.

Richie rose from the chair, only half conscious of his own movement. He stepped away from the light and into the inky blackness, a cold shiver working down his spine. Common sense told him to run for the elevator or stairs. Get out while he could. Slam the loft door against all demons, ghosts and bad memories -

Something moved out there.

Definitely moved.

He could see it now, a silhouette fractionally lighter than the layers of black around it, an enemy revealing himself by degrees.

Almost ten weeks had passed since that horrifying night at the racetrack when Mac, suffering from a nervous breakdown, had tried to take Richie's head. Ten weeks, but he could still feel the spot where Mac's katana had sunk so deeply into his shoulder that his arm had almost been amputated.

His shoulder began to ache with that phantom, remembered pain as he lifted his sword.

Ten weeks.

Should have practiced swordfighting once or twice since then, he thought dismally to himself as icy coldness spilled out of his gut and worked up his chest. Should have found some sparring partner and kept his skills honed. He'd been badly wounded in Mac's attack. Severed arteries had surrendered quarts of blood, and he'd lain weak and dying in Joe Dawson's arms while Methos subdued Mac. After Richie revived, Methos and Mac had both left for Nepal with a prescription of rest and therapy for Mac. All's well that ends well, Richie supposed, but he'd returned to Seacouver with only Joe and a shitload of bad memories for company.

Still, he should have practiced. Kept his guard up.

The thing watching him moved again, as if readying for an attack. Richie again fought the urge to flee. He would stand his ground. In Mac's absence the dojo belonged to him, was his responsibility and burden and battleground.

"Who's there?" he demanded, stepping carefully and deliberately across the wide expanse of hardwood floor toward the shape. Adrenaline and fear pulsed through him. His hands felt clammy around the swordgrip. He should have eaten dinner, lunch, breakfast. The weak, watery feeling in his knees might have been preventable. Too late to worry about that now.

The shape moved, raising an arm, but it didn't answer. Richie's fears skated back to a different night almost a year earlier, when Mac had returned from a meeting with his old friend Coltec consumed by a Dark Quickening. That night Richie had also been forced to fight for his very life against his mentor.

And a year before *that,* Richie had come over after a movie date with Angie and found Mac battling an invisible foe in the middle of the dojo. Mac had swung on him then, too, inflicting a thin piercing wound across the very center of his chest.

Three times Mac had injured him with maniacal intent. Twice in this very room. Methos had promised to give Richie ample warning if Mac decided to flee Nepal, but Richie couldn't afford to take any chances.

"Bastard," he hissed. "I won't let you get me again."

He lunged and delivered a killing blow. His sword ripped through a towel that had been left hanging on the pull-up bar and shredded the cheap terrycloth into two.

Richie stood shaking in the dark, ashamed and cold and sick to his stomach. A towel. He'd allowed his fears to rule him, to drive him like a child afraid of the bogeyman. He snatched the offending cloth and flung it to the floor.

"You're an idiot," he told himself.

Another shiver spiraled down his spine, but its origins had nothing to do with cold or an overactive imagination. Richie raised his sword and pivoted toward the dojo's front doors. The glass windows looked out into the entrance hall. A figure moved in the odd, reddish shadows of the emergency light there - someone solid and slim, wearing a trenchcoat, carrying a sword.

Richie let out his held breath and switched on the hallway lights, causing both Immortals to squint in the fluorescent glare.

"Connor," Richie said through the closed doors. "What are you doing here?"

end of part one

"I'm visiting my favorite nephew," Connor MacLeod said, a small smile on his face as he lowered his weapon. "Aren't you going to open the door?"

Richie undid the lock and hoped Connor didn't see the trembling in his fingers as he did. He held the door open for Mac's kinsman and then locked it again. The older Highlander moved with the same grace and strength as always as he sheathed his weapon in the folds of his coat. His white tennis sneakers made no sound on the floor. Connor surveyed the dojo with one quick glance before turning back to Richie.

"A Saturday night," he chided softly, "and this is the best you can do? Haven't you learned anything from me?"

Richie picked up the shredded towel. "This is the best," he echoed, with as much of a smile as he could muster. "You caught me on an off night."

"Hmmm." Connor looked Richie up and down with the same fair, even scrutiny he gave everything else. "Are you up for a little trip?"

Richie had learned the hard way not to accept any offer from Connor MacLeod without asking a few questions first. "A little trip where?"

"Paradise. Also known as Bali."

"Bali?"

"Bali. You want to come?"

Richie didn't even know where Bali was. He stared at Connor for a full moment but gleaned no clue or hint from the older Immortal's expression. "Is it far?" he asked, going to the office.

"A few thousand miles," Connor admitted, following him as far as the doorway. "Easy by plane. Harder by tramp steamer."

Richie closed the ledgers, turned off the adding machine and switched off the desk light. He left the computer on, its spiral screensaver shifting and twisting in a dozen different colors. "Which way are you going?"

"Plane. Definitely by plane."

"Come on upstairs." Richie headed for the elevator. He didn't think he wanted to fly a few thousand miles to anywhere, but he needed more time to decide. "Did you just get into town?"

"I had business to take care of in San Francisco." Connor didn't elaborate as the old elevator car clanked up past the darkened third and fourth floors of the building. "Now I have business to take care of in Bali."

As Richie led Connor into the loft he felt a mild sense of shame at the untidiness of the place. Mac would have been mortified at the mess. Richie had never been a great housekeeper - Tessa had always complained about the dirty dishes and piles of laundry in his bedroom at the antique store. Since returning from France he'd found it hard to muster any energy to care about how the place looked. He hadn't been expecting company, after all.

"You want some beer or something?" Richie asked as he pulled crumpled towels from the edge of the sofa and picked up the remains of a microwave dinner.

"I was thinking of something stronger." Connor helped himself to a glass of Scotch and drank it with the deep, satisfied air of a man reaching water after trekking across the desert. "Did you give up your apartment?"

"Yeah. Before I went to France. The guy was trying to raise the rent on me anyway. I just haven't had time to go find a place yet."

"You don't have to devote your life to running this dojo for Duncan, you know."

"Who else is going to?"

"Let it close."

Richie shook his head as he tried to cram more garbage into the overflowing kitchen bin. "There are customers paid up in advance for several months, and regulars who come every day. They expect the place to be open six days a week, fifteen hours a day."

"Who ran it while you and Mac were in France?"

"A college student named Jon Mull. But he got married and moved to Phoenix." Richie completed a wide circle of the loft, piling dirty laundry in his arms. Connor hung his coat up on the stand and sat in the armchair, saying nothing. Richie dumped the dirty clothes in the bathroom hamper and collected a stack of old motorcycle magazines from around the toilet. He went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, pretending to inspect the nearly empty shelves Connor couldn't see.

"You want something to eat?" he asked, hoping Connor would say no.

"No," Connor answered. "I want you to come sit down."

Richie recognized that tone of voice. He'd heard it as a homeless teenager, eavesdropping on Mac and Connor's conversations. He'd heard it a lot more on Mac's island, where Connor had taken him in the first precarious days of his Immortality while Tessa was being buried in France. Richie grabbed the last cold beer and went to the sofa. The antique clock on the wall chimed midnight. Richie avoided Connor's gaze by moving one of the black pawns on the standing chessboard. After a moment of second thought, he moved it back.

"Bali is very pretty," Connor said. "White beaches and great snorkeling."

Richie moved a knight without strategy or plan.

"And pretty girls," Connor added.

Richie looked up. "How pretty?"

"Come find out."

"Can't. Someone's got to watch the dojo."

"What if I found someone?"

Richie immediately dismissed the idea. "You won't be able to. Not on short notice. Besides, I think I've done enough traveling lately."

Connor's reply was solemn and quiet. "Hiding won't save you from anything, you know."

"I know." Richie forced a grin. "Trouble always comes knocking on the door. Just like you."

Connor lifted an eyebrow. "At least you can make jokes."

"Yeah. I'm a laugh riot." Richie gave up on the hopelessly muddled chess board and reached for the TV remote. "You want to watch a movie? The midnight creature feature?"

"No. I want you to get off my bed so I can go to sleep."

"You're staying here?"

"You want me to go somewhere else?"

"Of course not." Richie didn't know whether to be pleased or annoyed at Connor's presumption that he could just drop in anytime and make himself at home. Well, of course he could. Mac owned the loft, and Connor and Mac were family. Richie retrieved the last set of clean sheets for Connor to use, then excused himself to take a shower.

He stood under the hot water for a long time, almost lulled to sleep by its strong, steady pulse. As he climbed out of the tub, black spots began to dance before his eyes. He sat down and put his head between his knees until the faintness passed. When he emerged from the bathroom wrapped in towels, he found Connor and Joe Dawson sitting at the kitchen island eating chicken wings and nachos Joe had brought from the bar. Their low conversation stopped when Richie appeared.

"Hey, Richie," Joe said, looking glad to see him. The Watcher and Connor had never been friends, and Richie wondered what leverage the Highlander had used to get Joe to come over before closing time. Still, it had been a few weeks since Richie had last seen Joe, and he'd missed him.

"Hi, Joe." Richie pulled on one of Mac's old bathrobes. It hung ridiculously large on him, and he had to run the belt twice around his waist. He slid up onto the third stool. "What brings you this way?"

"It's a slow night at the bar," Joe shrugged. "I heard you had company, thought you might be hungry."

Connor picked up one of the chicken wings and dipped it into a bowl of ranch dressing. "These are good. Try one before you waste away to nothingness."

Richie had known it wouldn't take long for Connor to remark on his weight loss. He couldn't figure out, though, if Joe had planted some seed of concern by telephone or letter, or if Connor really had come to the West Coast to take care of that unnamed business in San Francisco. A deep, flooding wave of weariness kept him from worrying about it too much. He wanted to do nothing more than crawl into Mac's big old bed and pull the embroidered cover over his head.

If he did, Connor and Joe would probably turn it into an issue, another point of well-meaning but unnecessary concern.

Richie picked up a piece of chicken for Connor's benefit and very deliberately tore it into little pieces. "What is this? An intervention of some kind?"

Joe sipped at his beer. An import label; he must have brought it with him. Amiably he answered, "If you want to turn it into one, we're up for it."

"Joe will watch the dojo," Connor proposed. "Come to Bali with me. It will do you good to lay on the beach and have naked girls bring you alcohol."

"Hell," Joe said. "It would do any man good."

Richie popped a piece of meat into his mouth. Like everything else since Paris, it had no taste to it. "Joe, what do you know about running a dojo?"

"How hard can it be?" Joe asked dismissively. "Mike will take over the bar. I'll take care of this place. You and Connor go fly off to some exotic tropical island and send me a postcard once in a while."

"Just say yes," Connor prompted.

"Yes," Richie said.

end of part two

"Exotic tropical island, huh?" Richie asked late the next afternoon as they stood in line at the airport counter. "Why does the State Department warn against visiting it?"

Connor's gaze skimmed past the posted warning and landed on the departure board. He hated flying. He hated everything connected to flying, including airports, long lines, insincere airline personnel, and airplanes themselves. But at least their flight seemed to be departing on time.

"Political unrest," he said. "Nothing to worry about."

"Political unrest," Richie muttered, shifting his carry-on bag from one shoulder to the other. Connor wondered how the younger Immortal could even carry it. He looked skinny and pale, a fragile shadow of the strong young man he'd been just months ago. Duncan had been correct in asking him to go to Seacouver and check on Richie. Somehow, in the depths of his own emotional problems half a world away, his kinsman had sensed Richie needed help too.

The line inched forward. Connor mustered his patience and studied the other passengers. A Japanese family. A young Korean couple. Five young Indonesian men wearing baseball shirts and caps. Some Americans, here and there, looking like exiles. Beside the Japanese family stood two middle-aged American women, sisters by the look of them. The one with frizzy blonde hair had sharp features and ridiculously long nails. The other, larger and with brown hair, looked stoic and colorless in the late afternoon sun. Their excessive baggage, including two laptop computers, sat on the floor around them, blocking the aisle.

"Sometimes there is no sight more hideous than the spectacle of Americans abroad," Connor mused.

"We haven't even left the airport," Richie reminded him, shifting his bag back to his other shoulder.

"Who's your Watcher?"

"Joe. Sometimes Mike, his bartender. But you know they're not coming. Why? Do you see yours?"

"I left her in New York City." Since Connor had grown aware of the Watchers, he'd been careful to know exactly when and where he was being observed.

"So what's the problem?"

"No problem," Connor said. Surely Joe wouldn't assign to Richie and Connor those two blatant women. It would be an insult. The fact they both wore long sleeves that hid any tattoos on their wrists had to be a coincidence.

"How long did you say this flight was?" Richie asked.

"Twenty hours."

Richie's bag landed with a thud on the floor. "Twenty hours?" he exclaimed, loud enough to turn some heads.

Connor nodded. "Well, we have to go to Honolulu first. Then we change planes again in Guam. I told you it was easier than going by ship. I didn't say it would be much quicker."

"Twenty hours," Richie repeated, dazed.

"That's why we're going first class," Connor said, and patted his arm for comfort.

The brown-haired sister sat precariously on the edge of her suitcase and opened up her computer. Her sibling folded her arms across her chest and shot dark looks at anybody not speaking English. The line shifted forward fractionally. Connor wondered if the air conditioning was working properly. Finally an apologetic employee opened up the first-class ticket queue, and Connor dragged Richie forward until they were second in line. As they checked their baggage and swords, the two American sisters reached the coach ticket counter just a few feet away.

The women gave their names as Gwen and Clara Tiller, and they were going all the way to Bali. They demanded to sit as far forward in the cabin - as close to the first-class section - as possible.

"It's imperative," said Gwen, the blonde one.

"It's non-negotiable," said Clara, the other one. "I know people very high in management. You don't want me to complain, do you?"

Connor took Richie to wait in the secluded lounge for airline club members. They sat at a corner table overlooking the runway and drank beer while watching jets race into the sky. Richie looked exhausted, with dark circles and worry lines no twenty-three-year old should have. From the comfort of the sofa Connor had heard him rise early that morning, around four a.m., and creep downstairs. He wondered how long the kid had been getting by on such minimal rest.

"You're staring at me," Richie complained.

"Sorry," Connor said. "To Bali."

He raised his glass. Richie matched him, but only half-heartedly.

"What am I going to do on a plane for twenty hours?" the younger Immortal complained.

Sleep, Connor almost said. He refrained and instead pulled a thick, worn paperback from his bag. "I thought you might like reading this. It's very well written."

Richie took the book skeptically and read the title aloud. "'The Happy Islands of Oceania?'"

"It's about a man who kayaked around the South Pacific on his own."

Richie read the back cover in silence. He thumbed through the dog-eared pages. "Is this your copy?"

"Yes. I read it a few months ago."

"Thanks."

Connor knew Richie didn't read much, but Paul Theroux had done an excellent job of describing the islands, people and cultures of the region. A little education couldn't hurt the boy. Richie put the paperback into his own bag, sipped his beer, and looked at another plane lift gracefully and thunderously from the tarmac.

"It's not going to be like Europe, is it?"

"It depends on which way you mean. Many Europeans have lived in Bali, and their influence has rubbed off. The Dutch owned the place until the Japanese invaded. The caste system and religion resembles India."

"Mac killed a guy from India once."

Connor had no idea which direction Richie's thoughts had turned toward. "Your point?"

Richie blinked at him, his blue eyes cloudy. "I don't know."

Connor risked a stab at a sore point. "I never tried to kill Duncan, you know," he said in a casual way. "It's not some twisted rite of passage between teachers and students. In his right mind, he would never have tried to kill you."

"Three times."

"What?"

"Three times." Richie cocked his head. "Not once, not twice, but three times."

Connor knew bits and pieces about Duncan's Dark Quickening, but he'd never quizzed his clansman on the exact details of the catastrophe. "Last year?"

"Yeah."

"When else?"

"In the dojo once. He was flipping out over some invisible enemy. Turns out this guy was planting these visions in his head."

"I didn't know about that," Connor admitted. He wondered if Methos knew, if it was an important event to address if Duncan were ever to be healthy again. "So you don't think you can ever trust Duncan again, is that it?"

Two pink dots appeared on Richie's cheeks. "I don't know."

"I wouldn't know either, if I were you." Connor said. Before they could explore the issue more, a woman's voice on the overhead speaker announced their flight. The two Immortals finished the last swallows of their drinks and rose in unison.

"Richie," Connor said, "you're safe with me. Do you know that?"

Richie gave him a rueful smile. "I know. But that's what I always thought about Mac, too."

They went and boarded the plane.

end of part three

Richie read little of Theroux's book during the first leg of their journey. He obviously preferred playing the Nintendo game and watching movies on the screen built into the back of the seat ahead of him. Connor kept himself distracted from the grinding engine noise and impossibly high altitude by reading steadily through two new science fiction books. He liked science fiction enormously. Jules Verne had been a friend. So had Isaac Asimov. He enjoyed watching their predictions of life in the future fail or succeed with each passing decade, and had even toyed once with the idea of writing a novel of his own.

"What kind of book would you write, if you were going to be an author?" Connor asked Richie as dinner was being served.

Richie poked at the chicken cordon bleu on his plate. "I'm never going to write a book."

"Never say never."

"I don't know. I'm not big on writing things down."

The younger Immortal met Connor's expectations by eating barely half his dinner and pushing the rest aside. Still, it was more than he'd seen Richie eat at the loft. The flight attendants dimmed the overhead lights. Richie stared out the window at the full moon rising in the sky and Connor settled back for a doze. He tried not to analyze the throb of the engine for any odd- sounding noises, and refused to think about the stale, tired oxygen being recycled and reused with the whush-whush of the ventilation system. He fell asleep remembering Leonardo DaVinci's graceful flying machines and came awake some time later at the sound of an argument.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but these lavatories are reserved for our first-class passengers."

"That's discriminatory. I paid for my ticket, just the same as these people."

The flight attendant replied, "Yes, ma'am, but these are reserved. There are others at the aft of the coach section."

"It's too far for me to walk."

Connor cracked open an eyelid. Clara Tiller stood arguing with the attendant just a foot or so away. She had a little notebook in her right palm, and she kept stealing glances at Richie and Connor as if to catalog their every snore or twitch.

"Ma'am, it's not very far at all - it's just this way - "

"I'm going to complain to the management," Clara Tiller announced, and with a grumble let herself be escorted back to the coach section.

Connor glanced over at Richie, who had fallen asleep with the Theroux book in his lap. The Highlander studied Richie's drawn features and wondered, not for the first time, what would have happened to him if he'd never broken into Duncan's shop that long-ago fateful night. Had his life been made better or worse by Duncan's friendship, shelter and training? By the tragic loss of Tessa, the constant upheaval between Seacouver and France, the turning of Duncan's sword against him three times? They would never know. They could only deal with the here and now, not the might-have-been.

Connor fell asleep thinking about Duncan. When he woke again, the plane was beginning its long descent into Honolulu. He added his thin airline blanket to the one on top of Richie and went to use the bathroom. When he returned he stood in the aisle, carefully stretching his back and legs. Other passengers began to move and stir.

"Are we there yet?" Richie asked, yawning and rubbing at his eyes.

"Almost." In fact, it took forty more minutes before the plane pulled up to the gate and they stepped off into the icy air-conditioning of the Honolulu airport. Connor had lived all over the South Pacific, and he preferred the time when Honolulu had been a dirt-road town of natives and explorers over its present tourist-ruined state. During their one-hour layover they toured the gift shop. Connor bought a new book and Richie discovered an entire table full of macadamia products in every form imaginable.

"I love these things," Richie said, and because it was the first time he seemed enthusiastic about anything, Connor bought him a box of chocolate- covered nuts and a large jar of plain ones.

The flight to Guam had fewer passengers than the flight from Seacouver. The bothersome Tiller sisters settled into the coach cabin again, pecking away with soft click-click-clicks on their keyboards. Connor wondered, caustically, what possible interest the Watcher Chronicles could maintain for Richie's preference of snacks or his own choice in reading material. The first-class section had enough empty seats that both Richie and Connor claimed a row and spread out for the long, steady flight over the black ocean.

Connor ordered himself a nightcap from the pretty flight attendant before settling back on a pillow with a blanket for warmth. He wished Duncan were along. He wanted to converse with someone in his native tongue, someone almost his own age. Through no fault of his own, Richie couldn't understand how arduous and difficult travel had once been. Connor could remember spending months criss-crossing the South Pacific in rickety, leaky, cramped, rusty boats of every size and shape imaginable. Now all he had to do was climb on an airplane and pray for the best and, through the miracle of modern aviation, he'd arrive at almost any destination he wanted.

He imagined tiny men in tiny canoes thirty thousand feet below, paddling through the lonely swells of ocean waves beneath the all-seeing sky of stars. Then he fell asleep again. He jerked awake three hours later with drool on his chin and a row of empty seats across the aisle. Richie returned to his seat several minutes later with an armful of magazines. He put on his overhead light, and the glare was bright enough to make Connor wince even at a distance.

"Why don't you try to sleep?" Connor asked.

Richie shook his head. "Nah. I'm not tired."

In Guam they disembarked into a hot, humid waiting area whose ancient air conditioning system had broken down. The lounge had large windows that had been pried open to the thick, sweet, moisture-laden night air. Connor tried to discern as much as he could of the landscape past the dirty windows. He'd last been to the island on the eve of World War II. He wondered if the landmarks he remembered - the Pan American hotel, the Main Gate bar, the stunning view from Two Lover's Point - still existed, or if they'd been trampled to dust by the passage of time.

"This is where I first met Methos almost sixty years ago," he said.

Richie, who'd been sitting slumped in a hard plastic chair, perked up a little. "Yeah? What was he doing here?"

"Teaching elementary school, I think."

"I have a hard time picturing Methos and a classroom full of little kids."

"I didn't say he enjoyed it."

Connor spent the rest of the layover telling Richie about his adventures on Guam, including the typhoon that had nearly destroyed the island and his and Methos' unmasking of an Italian spy. Richie listened with only an occasional yawn. The younger Immortal guzzled two cans of soda while they sat in the lounge, and by the time they boarded the plane to Denpasar, he was already restless with a caffeine high.

Connor watched the lights of the island disappear beneath the wing and then put his hand on Richie's bouncing knee. "Why don't you read your book?"

"It's depressing," Richie said. "Poverty and alcoholism and lots of waste. I don't see why they call Bali the 'Island of the Gods.'"

"There are a lot of problems," Connor admitted, "but there is also a great deal of beauty. Theroux notes that, too."

"How long are we going to stay?"

"As long as we want. The return is open-ended."

Richie flipped down the tray table in front of him and just as quickly shut it again. "What if I get sick of it before you do?"

"Then you can return before I do."

"Okay."

"At least give the island a chance," Connor said, somewhat annoyed. "I wouldn't take you there if I didn't think you'd like it."

That last, crowded flight south wore roughly on Connor's nerves. He was thoroughly sick of planes and wanted nothing more than to reach and stay on solid ground. Richie wouldn't sit still for a single moment, constantly shifting his attention between his book, a new magazine, the mechanics of the tray table, the operation of the overhead light, and a fidgety exploration of each and every one of the music channels through the headphones. He poked at the in-flight meal, flirted unsuccessfully with the flight attendant, and walked around the first-class section several times. Connor wanted to yank him back to the seat and restrain him with his seatbelt, but held himself in check. He felt cramped and constrained himself, his skin sucked into dryness by the plane's lack of moisture, his eyes gritty from the haphazard snatches of sleep.

South they flew, over the vast reaches of ocean, the endless night turning pale and blue at the horizon until the friendly sun made its return appearance at the edge of the sky. Breakfast came, a light selection of pastries and fruit with large cups of coffee on the side. Although Connor's own internal clock still functioned on New York time, where it was 4 p.m., he dutifully reset his watch to the local standard of 6 a.m. and added a day to the date wheel. He told Richie to do the same, but the younger Immortal made no move to adjust his large digital watch. Exhaustion had finally caught up with Richie, and he sat slumped in his seat looking down at the ocean.

"We've come a long way, haven't we?" he asked.

"Yes," Connor said. "And we're not done yet. We still have to get to Ubud, where my house is."

"You've got a house?"

"Well, a bungalow."

Richie raised an eyebrow.

"More like a shack," Connor said, putting a note of defensiveness in his voice. "But at least it has running water. Or it did when I left."

"You're dragging me halfway across the world to live in a shack?" Richie squeaked out.

"Don't worry, you'll like it." Connor took a pen and quickly wrote the information on a napkin. "Here's the address - put it in your pocket in case you get lost."

Richie squinted at the napkin. "I'm not planning on getting lost."

You already are, Connor almost said. Instead he opted for, "No one plans on getting lost. It just happens."

Richie fixed on Connor with a somber gaze. "Connor, you're not taking me to see Mac, are you?"

The question surprised the Highlander. "No. Of course not. Why do you ask?"

"Just wondering if this was some sneaky Scottish way to show me he's all better now, ready to get back to his former life, whatever. I thought maybe he's fine now but he just doesn't want to come back to Seacouver, so this is like neutral ground. Methos promised to tell me if he left Nepal, but sometimes . . . sometimes people forget their promises, you know?"

Connor shook his head. "Duncan is not 'all better now.' That's going to take a lot more time. I saw him two weeks ago in Nepal."

"You went there?"

"Yes."

Richie looked like he wanted to ask more, but he bit his lower lip instead and shifted his gaze to the rising sun.

"He's in a secluded monastery," Connor said. "Very spartan. Lots of time to rest and think. Methos is with him, as well as a therapist friend of ours."

Richie nodded tightly.

"He asked about you. He's worried about you."

That last comment provoked a spark of anger. "Why the hell should he start worrying about me now?" Richie asked.

"He never stopped."

The anger drained away as quickly as it had appeared.

"Yeah, well, next time you talk to him, tell him I'm doing fine," Richie said.

A lie, and they both knew it. Connor judiciously let the truth pass by and instead handed his and Richie's breakfast trays to the flight attendant. Richie settled back in his seat and closed his eyes. Within a few minutes he was dozing. But rest had come too late for him. Only a half hour later the plane landed in Bali, Island of the Gods, where Duncan MacLeod was not waiting for them.

end of part four

Richie's brain felt like a large lump of mud as he trailed behind Connor through the bustling airport crowds. The myriad smells of the foreign land burned up his nostrils - exotic perfumes, unwashed bodies, Asian cigarettes. Echoing, static-filled announcements in the local language confused him, and the unfamiliar alphabet and symbols on signs didn't help his comprehension a single bit.

Suddenly afraid he might actually lose track of Connor, Richie fought the temptation to reach out and snag the Highlander's shirtsleeve. Connor strode through the airport as if he owned the place, looking alert and refreshed despite their long journey. After clearing Immigration they collected their bags from the luggage carousel and went through the lines at Customs. Once into the main terminal, Connor turned to him and asked, "You want some coffee?"

"No." Richie had gulped down two cups of coffee on the plane, and neither had produced much of an effect. "So what now? Are we going to get a cab?"

"Dayu should have sent a car."

"Who's Dayu?"

"Don't worry. You'll meet her."

"How far is it to this Ubad place?"

"Ubud, not Ubad. Say it like this: OO-bod."

"OO-bod," Richie repeated, although he felt like an idiot. "So how far, huh?"

"About an hour and a half."

"An hour and a half? How fast do they drive around here, anyway?"

"You'll see," Connor said, sounding a little irritated. Maybe he wasn't as alert and refreshed as he looked.

Connor led Richie out the sliding doors and into a mass of hot, humid, sticky air. Bamboo, palm and other trees shot up into the clear blue sky, weathered wooden carts displayed a hundred different tourist souvenirs, and all sizes of buses, vans and cars fought for parking space near the curb. Airport employees in blue vests tried to keep order as shouts of "Transport! Transport!" rang through the air. A half-dozen women descended on Richie and Connor like sharks, their arms full of cheap watches, silk scarves, silver bracelets and beaded necklaces.

"Don't encourage them," Connor said, stonily ignoring the women as he scanned the mayhem.

Richie remembered the street children that had surrounded them outside the Rome train station during a trip with Duncan and Tessa, begging for change with dirty hands and pleading faces. These merchants masked their aggression behind smiles and a dozen questions.

"Hello, welcome to Bali, what's your name - "

"Hello, you like to see jewelry, jewelry for your girlfriend - "

"Very cheap today, just for you, have you been to Bali?"

Richie couldn't mirror the cold indifference of Connor's display, but he intensely disliked being surrounded and set upon as a tourist mark. "No, thanks, nothing - excuse me - goodbye - "

He fought his way out of their circle and found Connor shaking hands with a tall, thin Balinese man standing beside a blue van. "This is Nyoman. He'll drive us to Ubud and wherever else we need. Nyoman, this is Richie."

The other man's handshake was light and sweaty. "Selamat Pagi, Richie."

"He means 'hello,'" Connor supplied. "He doesn't speak English."

"Selamat Pagi," Richie said, stumbling a little over the syllables but at least making the effort. Nyoman couldn't have been more than a few years older than he was. He wore loose blue pants over stick-thin legs and a ragged white shirt with a coffee stain on it. The driver loaded Connor and Richie's luggage into the back and locked the rear doors. He slid open the side door for Richie, and a wave of chill air-conditioning swept down on the sidewalk.

"I love this guy," Richie said gratefully. Already it had to be ninety degrees out, and he'd been imagining an hour and a half worth of sweltering car heat.

Connor's attention swung back to the curb, and Richie followed his gaze to the two American women they'd first seen back in Seacouver. They emerged from the terminal bossing around the hapless porter who'd loaded their suitcases, laptops and other bags on his cart. He wheeled them toward a public bus just as the merchant women descended with their wares.

"Get away!" Gwen Tiller said sharply, batting at one woman's arm.

"They should outlaw this kind of harassment," her sister complained.

Connor said something to Nyoman, who just nodded.

"You really think those are our Watchers?" Richie asked doubtfully. "They don't exactly blend in with the scenery."

"Doesn't matter," Connor said. "We should be able to lose them easily."

Richie slid into the van. He settled on the back seat, with its worn but clean blue upholstery. Connor took the passenger seat. Nyoman started the engine and pulled the van out into the chaotic airport traffic. Richie's gaze fell on the small, intricate baskets of flowers and grass sitting on the dashboard in front of Nyoman. Richie had read about those. Ritual offerings to the gods. He was about to comment when Nyoman started asking Connor questions. Connor's replies were slow, a little halting, as he obviously tried to remember words and phrases.

Excluded from their conversation, Richie looked out the window and fought down an increasing onslaught of yawns. The road took them through the large city of Denpasar, with its traffic jams and office buildings and incredible amount of stray dogs. Jeeps, buses, vans, scooters, bicycles, motorcycles and private cars fought for space in the maze-like streets. Once they cleared the city, the road up through the hills began to twist and turn sharply. He saw wild flowers, deep ditches, and rice paddies. Rice paddies made him think of countless movies about Vietnam, where Joe Dawson had once fought in war and lost his legs.

A short time later Nyoman was stopped by a policeman in the road. Their conversation seemed amiable enough, and after the exchange of a few dollars in the local currency the policeman waved them on.

"Just a little bribe," Connor explained. "Some things never change."

Nyoman couldn't have been going more than forty miles an hour at his fastest, but he drove with the deftness and confidence of an Indy 500 driver. Soon a series of villages on the mountainous road began to slow them down. Richie didn't realize they were villages at first. He thought the worn stone buildings, weathered by time and gray moss, might be abandoned houses. But Connor corrected him and added, "We'll come back along this way later. There are lots of things to see."

Richie rather doubted that. No offense to Bali, but it bore absolutely no resemblance to Paris, with its museums, monuments, shops and cafes. He'd hated the museums at first, having been dragged by the ear through at least a dozen by Tessa, but he'd been just an impatient kid then. He'd come a long way from that younger version of himself.

"How much longer?" he asked Connor.

"Just enjoy the scenery," the Highlander replied.

Richie leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes. He dozed lightly, aware of occasional conversation between Nyoman and Connor, the low American rock'n'roll coming out of the van radio, the stop-and-go traffic on the road. He must have fallen fully asleep, though, because the next thing he knew a hand was shaking his shoulder and the van had stopped.

"We're here," Connor said. "Home."

Richie groggily left the van and followed Connor through a gate down a stone path. Thick, perfume-like fragrance filled the air, although it seemed cooler here in the mountains than it did at the airport. The sound of running water made him focus on a lily pond off to his left, where white petals floated in the gentle waves of a small stone water fountain. A garden of lush, colorful flowers spread out as far as he could see behind the fountain. Statues of guardian spirits stood in alcoves by the large, carved wooden door of the house. The wood and stone structure towered up into the trees for at least forty feet.

"This is your 'hut?'" he complained to Connor.

The Highlander laughed softly. "I may have exaggerated."

A young girl of twelve or thirteen opened the front door and ushered them into a room that seemed as much a part of the outdoors as a part of the indoors. Plants flourished in all corners beneath the high beams and thatched grass of the ceiling. Brilliantly-colored birds chattered from wrought-iron cages. Bamboo furniture stood on the hardwood floor - two sofas, three chairs, little coffee tables with delicate lamps and wooden carvings. Bright pillows made the room even more lively, and a mural of the sea took up one entire wall.

Rooms on the second and third floor opened into the large atrium above, and Richie peered up at a number of shy servants trying to get a peek at Connor.

"You're pretty popular," Richie observed.

"I'm a rich foreigner," Connor said. "Co-owner of the company that employs them."

The giggles and whispers from above fell silent at the sharp snap of a woman's voice. Richie turned to see a short, incredibly old woman standing in the doorway to another room. She might have been beautiful once, he thought, but those days had long since passed beneath decades of lines and wrinkles. Although one trembling hand held firmly to a sturdy cane, her shoulders retained the crisp bearing of a princess or noblewoman. Pearl combs held back her wispy white hair, and the stiffness of her long formal gown gave her an appearance of stability where there probably was little.

"Connor Davison," she said, her voice low and firm.

"Dayu MacLeod," he answered softly, bowing his head in deference.

And then he explained to Richie, in a voice only the two of them could hear, "She's my widow."

end of part five

Perhaps he shouldn't have come.

Connor stood in his room overlooking the river and gorge, undecided and uncertain. The sun overhead reached its zenith and began to slip downward in the sky. The house had settled into its afternoon routine, the servants quietly deferential to their sleeping mistress and guests. Connor had stretched out on his four-poster bed in hopes of snatching a nap for an hour or so, just something to tide him over until his jet lag subsided, but found it impossible to relax. Being back on the island stirred too many memories he thought he'd forgotten, and the passage of years that had virtually ruined Denpasar made him hyper-aware of his own age and changes.

Denpasar was only a city, though. Dayu - well, once upon a time she'd been everything to him.

All mortals die, he reminded himself. Immortals, too, if they didn't watch their heads.

He peered through the leaves below and picked out the wooden structure she'd had constructed as his dojo. She'd sent him the blueprints of the house before having it constructed, since the money came out of their profits. Over the years she'd been careful to keep him updated on all aspects of their business - more frequently in the first few decades, less frequently later on. In any case, he usually had little input to give from his home in New York City. She'd always been the smart one in their relationship, except for the one fatal flaw that had kept them apart the last sixty years.

Something moved on the wall, and Connor's gaze flickered to the small outline of a baby gecko hanging near the lamp. He admitted to himself that 'flaw' was perhaps too harsh a word. He couldn't begrudge her the love of her homeland, the call and thrum of Bali in her veins. He'd felt the same way for centuries about the highlands of Scotland, and still did at times. She'd been only twenty-eight years old when she refused to follow him from the island. How could she have known that the world beyond could sometimes make up for a world abandoned?

Now it was too late. He saw that in the papery-thinness of her skin, the subtle wheeze in her breathing, the fading light in her eyes. She had called him to Bali for her death, and he was bound by old ties and old promises to stay through the very end.

Connor decided that exercise would clear his head. He slipped into a pair of loose pants, a light shirt, sandals. On his way down to the dojo he stopped in Richie's room to check on his friend's sleep. Richie lay in his own large bed, lost in a tangle of cream-colored sheets, his breathing deep and even. Connor fully expected him to sleep until at least midnight and be disconcerted for days about the time change.

The Highlander made his way through the gardens to the dojo and found an open- aired building perfect for his needs. Small statues of the gods lined the low wooden walls, and grass shades could be unfurled in case of rain. Connor started with a number of easy stretches, loosening up muscles from neck to toe. He'd almost forgotten the smell of frangipani flowers, but their sweet essence in the air threatened to tumble him back in time to his younger, more reckless days in the South Pacific.

He kept himself grounded in the present by a series of katas. It only took a few to work up a good sweat and make him feel looser, stronger, better. After an hour of steady movement he almost felt like his old self. The brush of footsteps on the path alerted him to the presence of an observer, but he waited until he'd completed all the moves before turning to see a Balinese woman watching him. She couldn't have been more than thirty years old, and in stark contrast to Dayu's traditional garb she wore modern slacks and a blouse over her woven sandals.

"You must be Mas," he said, recognizing her from photographs Dayu had sent.

"Mr. Davison," she smiled. "I'm happy to meet you."

"Call me Connor."

"Connor. If I may say so, you look remarkably like your great-uncle."

"So they tell me," Connor said easily. "Don't tell me they have his portrait hanging over the office."

Mas Sasilawati smiled even wider. She had a lovely smile, Connor thought. "No. Dayu would never let them put one up. But I've seen it in the old company records, back from the 1930's."

"I'd love to see those," Connor said. And burn them, he almost added.

"I trust your journey was pleasant?"

"It was long," he admitted. "Excuse my appearance. If you'll let me clean up, I'd love to sit down and chat with you for a bit."

She nodded and agreed to meet him in a few minutes. The house had a shower but Connor used the old-fashioned method of cleaning, scooping water with a ladle from the mandi in his room. In clean clothes, he descended the stairs and found Mas sitting in the living room, chatting amiably with one of the caged birds. Over the years Dayu had come to treat her like the daughter she'd never had, and he could see why.

Ten years earlier Mas had taken over the day-to-day running of the company, and Connor was interested to hear her experiences. One of the servants brought them fresh mango juice and fried banana to munch on while they talked. Mas told Connor about the rising export taxes, the surge in business during the last year, the problems they were having with their fabric dyers. She impressed him as being smart and practical. She had a husband and two children, which disappointed Connor. He'd been thinking of setting her up with Richie, despite the difference in their ages. A little fling might just be what the younger Immortal needed. At four o'clock Richie himself appeared, looking as lost and confused as any sleepwalker.

"What are you doing up?" Connor asked.

"Hungry," Richie complained.

Connor took him to the kitchen and the cook produced some lumpia for the younger Immortal. Richie poked at the fried rolls, decided he liked them, and ate a half-dozen before heading back to bed. Connor made sure he was settled and closed the door to his room. Mas came out of Dayu's room at the same time, her expression full of sadness.

"It won't be long now," she said. "You know her time has almost come?"

"I know."

"She wants to see you."

Connor nodded. The time had come to fully face the past. He opened Dayu's door and went inside, crossing the threshold of six decades, the gulf that had pushed him and his love thousands of miles apart, the rift between the man he was now and the husband he'd once been.

***

Her room smelled of jasmine. Jasmine and lotus, and perfumes of ages past. The sun had dipped below the ridge, and diffused golden light spread over the low balcony wall with the warmth of honey. She kept photographs of people he didn't know in silver frames on her dresser. That surprised him. She'd always been the most unsentimental of women. The mosquito net around her bed had been pulled back to reveal her frail form, propped up on a thick wedge of pillows. A small brown monkey sat in her lap.

"He's mine," Dayu said, opening her eyes. "You can't have him."

Connor almost laughed. Not only unsentimental, but very possessive. "He's yours," he agreed, and sat on the hardwood chair at her bedside. The monkey nibbled on a nut and then swallowed it.

"You never did age," she observed.

"I told you I wouldn't."

"I didn't believe you."

He remembered that long ago night with painful clarity - stealing through the window, waking her from her tear-stained pillow, persuading her he was still alive despite his death in front of hundreds of people.

She must have been remembering the night also, for she said, "I want you to know that for years later, I couldn't entirely convince myself you weren't an evil spirit."

"You don't believe in evil spirits."

"I do now. I've seen too much not to."

Connor thought of Duncan and his Dark Quickening. Perhaps she was right. Solemnly he said, "I am not now, nor have I ever been, an evil spirit."

He paused, then added, "It is true that I haven't always been the best of men."

A smile turned up the corner of her mouth. "Nice to hear you admit that part."

Dayu stretched her hand toward him a few inches. He took it, feeling the fragile bones beneath her skin, life ebbing away with each pulse. The monkey watched them closely.

"Where did you go, when you left here?" she asked.

She knew; he had written to her from every place. But he indulged her anyway. "Europe, first. I wanted to see for myself what was happening. Then I went around the world, enlisting support from my friends, calling in favors where I could. I was in France when she fell." Connor skipped over the unpleasant details of his war years. "After that I traveled quite a bit, went to Africa for a while, lived in Norway and Finland. I finally settled in New York, and I've been there ever since."

Dayu closed her eyes. "Names on maps," she said bitterly. "They don't exist for me, because I've never seen them."

He couldn't argue with her on that point.

"This island is my home," she said. "You wanted me to leave it, and I couldn't."

"I needed you to leave it, because I couldn't stay." Connor brushed a wisp of white hair from her crinkled forehead. "You chose between us."

He wanted to hear her say she had chosen wrong. That she fully regretted staying in her homeland over staying with him, wherever the winds took them. But she would not give him that final satisfaction, and he had been foolish to expect it.

Connor couldn't tell if she had fallen asleep on him or was dying. He sat in the still, silent room at the end of day, holding her hand. The monkey looked at Dayu's face, then at Connor's. It made its own decision, and climbed into the Highlander's lap to curl up and wait for the inevitable.

end of part six

When Richie woke up, the clock on his bedside read two o'clock. It took him a fuzzy moment to realize that the lack of sunlight meant it must be nighttime. Someone had left a lamp burning in the corner and rolled down the netting that kept moths beyond the half-wall separating his room from the jungle. Richie stayed in bed for several more minutes before he realized he wasn't truly tired anymore. He went to the window, his attention drawn as if by a magnet toward the northeast. He thought he could feel something out there, something huge and ancient, a beacon of some sort. But all he could see were the dark shapes of trees, the night-time jungle shifting in the breeze.

His stomach prompted him into action, as it often did. Richie tiptoed as quietly as he could down the stairs and through the unfamiliar, moonlit rooms of the house in search of something to eat. Not surprisingly, he was the only one awake. His quest ended in success in the kitchen, where the stainless steel sink lay nestled in a bed of plants and the modern refrigerator held a dozen different unfamiliar foods. Richie poked at a platter of noodles that had been wrapped in plastic film and grabbed a can of cheap soda. He sat on a stool at the kitchen island and ate until he was full. Crickets and other insects kept up a steady symphony of noise outside the house, but inside all remained still and quiet.

He decided to go back to his room to read more of that book about the guy kayaking around the islands. In a few hours it would be dawn, and maybe Connor would appear to show him the better parts of Bali. Richie still had trouble wrapping his thoughts around the idea he was in the middle of the South Pacific. The long journey on planes seemed like a fuzzy, faded ordeal. He only vaguely recalled the airport and trip to Ubud. He did remember Connor saying that the old lady of the house was his widow, an interesting choice of words. He imagined Immortals like Connor and Methos had tons of ex-wives and girlfriends all over the globe, waiting to come out of the woodwork.

Not Duncan, though. No, Mac had been a little more selective when giving away his heart. Tessa had been his love for twelve years. After her tragic death had come any number of one-night stands, beginning with Annie Devlin, that Richie had always thought disrespectful to Tessa's memory. None of them had meant anything, though. Then Anne Lindsey had succeeding in winning and breaking Mac's heart. Richie wondered if her rejection had anything to do with Mac's downward spiral into the depression, the Dark Quickening, and then the total collapse of believing some demon had set its sights on him and that he, Duncan MacLeod, was Champion of the World.

He told himself to stop speculating. Methos had told him it was useless - no one would ever know exactly why or how Mac had fallen into such an obsessive, guilt-ridden, bizarre fantasy of religious prophecy and ultimate evil. He supposed that was true, but Richie dearly wanted to know why Mac kept turning on *him,* why it was always *his* head his mentor sought.

Richie washed the empty plate and put it on a rack to dry. He tidied up the kitchen, turned off the lights and started across the living room. Directly in front of him, a shape moved on the stairs, turning and raising a sword in his direction.

Shit. Not again.

Richie immediately stepped backwards, colliding with an end table, tripping over a Japanese-style lamp with thin paper shades. He landed heavily in the darkness and tried to scramble away, but the electrical cord wrapped around his ankle jerked him back. He let out a yelp and ripped it from the wall. An overhead light flicked on, flooding the room with glare, and Connor peered down at him from the second floor of the stairs.

"What are you *doing* down here?" Connor hissed.

A small monkey on the stairs, clutching Dayu's cane in one hand, jabbered its innocence.

Richie slumped back on the floor, too embarrassed to even begin explaining.

More lights came on as the servants appeared. He'd managed to wake the entire household, it seemed. Richie stayed exactly where he was until Connor came down the stairs and righted first the table, then the broken lamp. He climbed to his feet on his own, brushing off the helpful hands of one of the servants.

"I'm fine," he said, although he could feel the lump on the side of his head where he'd hit the floor. He could also feel the warmth of redness in his cheeks. "Thanks. Sorry, everyone."

Connor didn't ask him how he was, but reassured everyone and sent them all away. The Highlander didn't say a word of reprimand as he took Richie back upstairs to his room. Only when Connor closed the door on the hall did Richie try to explain.

"I'm sorry - I thought I saw something - I'm an idiot, okay?"

Connor pointed to the bed. Although Richie had slept enough for a week, he obediently climbed up and sat against the pillows. Connor took a seat in a large bamboo chair and rubbed his face. He looked very tired. When he spoke, he said nothing Richie expected.

"She's dying."

"Dayu?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry."

"It's to be expected. She's eighty-eight years old, and has been in poor health these last few years. But she only asked me to come last week."

Richie studied the older Immortal. "You didn't have to bring me. I don't want to be a burden or anything at a time like this."

Connor's gaze pierced him. "I came because of her," he said. "I brought you because I wanted family - my family - along. Not as a burden, as a support. And if you benefit as well, that's even better."

Richie's cheeks grew even warmer. When Connor referred to him as a nephew, he'd always taken it as a joke. Mac, to be certain, had never tried to identify himself as Richie's father - had even refuted it once, when they were arguing over who got to kill Haresh Clay.

"Thank you," Richie said to Connor. "But I'm not sure how much of a support I can be. If you haven't noticed, I'm kinda my own miniature basket case at the moment."

The self-admission surprised Richie. Where in the world had that come from? But he knew it was true. Since Paris he hadn't been eating or sleeping properly, he barely lifted his sword in practice anymore, and he'd taken to being afraid of towels and small animals.

Though to be fair, no one had told him there was a monkey in the house.

Connor gave him an appraising look. "You're not a 'basket case.' You just need some rest and relaxation."

"Still . . . " Richie was about to argue, but he held himself back. Dayu's imminent death deserved to be more of a topic of conversation than his own personal problems. She'd been Connor's *wife,* after all. "How long does she have?"

"Anywhere from a few hours to a few days."

"How did you meet her?"

"You don't have to humor me, Richie."

"I want to know."

Connor didn't answer immediately. He seemed to be searching deep within himself for somewhere to start. "After the Great War - that's the first World War for you - I was living in Australia. Living a little largely, in fact - too many girls, too many parties, too many debts. That lasted about ten years. Then I had a bad period - too many Immortals came knocking on my door, and the police were getting suspicious. I ended up moving here for a while for the peace and quiet. I got a job working for Dayu's father. I learned his business, married his daughter, and started my own company.

"We lived happily for five years. Then I started hearing about Hitler's rise in Germany. Letters from my Jewish friends there did not bode well. In the summer of 1937, the Japanese invaded China. Wars all over the world loomed closer and closer. I just couldn't stand by and do nothing."

"So you left her to fight in WWII and never came back?"

"Don't jump ahead, Richie. It wasn't like that. Before I could decide what to do, I died a very public death here at the end of 1937. It was a stupid way to die - a bar fight in Denpasar. The drunk son-of-a-bitch shot me in front of a hundred witnesses. I died in front of all of them."

"Ouch."

"I couldn't stay here. The island was too small in those days, and I knew too many people. But Dayu wouldn't leave with me. She loved Bali too much to let it go. So ended our marriage."

Richie tried to imagine what it would be like, to be married to a woman who preferred a place over her husband. Some of his thoughts must have shown on his face, for Connor said, "It wasn't an easy decision for her. She faced a lot of pressure by remaining here. They used to burn widows, you know."

"Burn them? But that's murder!"

"Most of the time the widows went willingly. It was a guarantee of swift ascent into heaven."

"Dayu didn't believe in it, huh?"

"The Dutch outlawed it. But still . . . " Connor shook his head, dispersing old memories. "In any case, Dayu didn't burn. She never remarried or had children, either. She faced severe criticism for that."

"She loved you so much she never remarried, huh?"

"She was always stubborn - did exactly what she wanted to do. I don't know how much love for me had to do with it." Despite his denial, though, Connor looked a little uplifted at the idea of Dayu having loved him for so many decades despite her refusal to leave.

"Connor, when the time comes, I'll do whatever I can to help."

"All you have to do, Richie, is eat. Relax. Practice. Stop blaming yourself for Duncan's illness or decisions. He loves you like a son, and when I saw him he was worried sick about you."

"He was?"

"Yes. He's ashamed to have brought such pain to your life. I told him you were resilient enough and strong enough to overcome it."

"Oh." Richie didn't know quite what to say to that, and opted for silence.

"I'll see you in the morning," Connor said, and left. Richie lay back on the bed, the kayaking book in hand. After several minutes of reflection he searched the writing desk in the corner and found a pen and several pieces of paper. He sat down by the window and descending moon and began to tentatively compose a letter to Mac.

end of part seven

In the morning, Richie met Mas Sasilawati. He liked her immediately. He liked her sister Mayke even more. Mayke, twenty years old with a sunny disposition, also worked for Dayu and Connor's fabric business. After a leisurely breakfst Mayke drove him down into the village of Ubud, whose main street was lined with arts and crafts stores of every imaginable variety. Australian, American and Japanese tourists already crowded the shops, haggling over masks, baskets, furniture, jewelry and other local specialties. In the store that Dayu and Connor MacLeod had started - the business Connor "Davison" inherited - Richie learned all about ikat, the prized home-spun cotton that was dyed and woven into intricate designs.

"We use them in weddings, funerals and even circumcisions," Mayke told him.

Richie hadn't realized they even *performed* circumcisions in Bali. He preferred not to think about it. Mayke showed him all sizes and colors of ikat until his head started to spin. They watched a puppet show in the main plaza, and for lunch retired to a little cafe in the shade. She quizzed him on his food likes and dislikes and ordered several small dishes - little meatballs, stuffed pancake, mixed vegetables with peanut sauce, and even a bowl of chicken soup.

"I think I'm beginning to love this place," Richie said, just as the worst band he had ever heard began to play unfamiliar instruments in the street outside. "What the hell is that noise?"

"The gamelan orchestra," Mayke giggled. "Don't you like it?"

"It's certainly . . . unique," Richie said, opting for a diplomatic response. The drums, whistles and strange gamelan certainly lent the cafe an exotic air. He tried to imagine booking the act into Joe's bar - somehow, he didn't think Joe or the jazz enthusiasts of Seacouver would go for the idea.

Two loud voices complaining about their meal snapped his attention toward the next cafe on the street, where the obnoxious Tiller sisters sat at an outdoor table.

"This tastes like some kind of squirrel," Gwen Tiller said, pushing her soup bowl away. "Or maybe a rodent."

Clara relocated a glass of lemonade to the center of the table, away from her laptop computer. "This isn't bitter enough. It's too sweet."

"Oh, man," Richie sighed. "They're *everywhere.*"

"Who are they?" Mayke asked.

"People with nothing better to do with their lives," he muttered. Apparently Connor's previous life in Bali wasn't a secret from the Watcher Chronicles. Coincidence couldn't explain the Watchers' presence in Ubud. He knew the Highlander would be unhappy to hear about it.

They toured the marketplace after lunch, with Richie being careful to keep out of the Tiller sisters' view. The searing midday heat began to bother him, and he felt a headache coming on. Mayke suggested a scenic stroll outside the village on a popular walk called the Monkey Forest Path.

"I've had enough monkeys already today," Richie admitted.

"You look tired. Would you like me to take you back?"

He hated to wimp out on her but yes, he did. They returned to a house silent and still in the afternoon sunlight. Dayu had not yet died, but her shadow hung heavy in the airy rooms. Connor's expression tightened at the news of the Tiller sisters' arrival and he immediately put through an overseas call to Joe Dawson.

"I can't believe you sent those women after us," Connor said angrily.

Joe feigned innocence. "What are you talking about?"

From the extension Richie said, "Joe, come on. They're loud, they're rude, they're obnoxious - "

"Clara and Gwen," Joe sighed. "Look, I'm sorry about that. But your regular Watchers couldn't drop everything and fly off to Bali at a moment's notice. Those two could. They're not actually field agents - they mostly do research. Okay, usually they *only* do research. They're not too bad once you get to know them."

"Joe Dawson, I'm going to get you back for this," Connor threatened.

"It's my job, Connor. What did you expect? Give a guy a break, will you?"

After the contentious phone call Richie took a nap, his body still trying to adjust to the time difference. That night Connor went with him to Ubud to see a ritual fire dance in the village's main meeting place. They saw no sign of the American Watchers. Over brown bottles of the local beer - strong and cheap, just the way Richie liked it - Connor vented his anger over Watchers in general.

"They have nothing better to do than to watch us?" he growled. "Their lives are so horribly boring they have to devote themselves to being voyeurs?"

Richie, who felt more charitable about Watchers in general even though he disliked their occupation, offered, "They think it's important to document history as we live it."

"Bullshit." Connor drank some more. "Clicking away endlessly on computer keyboards, living in the shadows or in the dusty aisles of libraries - probably placing bets on which of us will win the Game - commenting on affairs they have no business discussing - it's a pathetic way to live one's life. Look at Dawson. He's one of their leaders, and he doesn't even follow his own rules."

Richie shrugged. He'd never understood, personally, why Joe kept insisting that Watchers never interfered, when it had become patently obvious time and time again they did. "I know Mac would be still locked up in some cell if Joe didn't break the rules," he said.

Connor ignored that. "They're thieves, that's what they are."

"Thieves? What do you mean?"

"They track Immortals so that when one loses his head, they can swoop in with dirty lawyers and fraudulent wills to claim the abandoned estates. Where do you think they get their operating money? It must cost a small fortune to keep them all employed - plus benefits, plus computer and telephone costs, plus that nice fancy headquarters in France."

"I don't believe they're stealing - "

"Ask Joe sometime. Ask him where he gets his salary from."

Richie frowned but didn't provoke Connor into any further rants about Watchers. He hoped the Tiller sisters stayed out of the Highlander's way, for their own sakes.

Over the next two weeks Richie's days fell into a pattern - an early morning workout with Connor, sightseeing around the local villages, lunch, nap, dinner and more sightseeing. Dayu had a small pool in the back of the house, right next to the household temple. Richie floated for hours in the tranquil blue water, and for more vigorous swimming went down to the river. Mayke had several friends Richie's own age who took him in hand as one of their own. Sometimes he met American or Australian tourists in Ubud and spent time with them. Sometimes he spent the day by himself, walking through the fields and rice paddies or along the river, thinking about Mac and Tessa and his life back in Seacouver.

The early morning workouts frustrated him. He needed them desperately, and it felt good to be getting back into shape again. But every time Connor feinted toward his left shoulder - and he did so with alarming frequency - Richie lost his concentration and balance.

"You have to get past this," Connor told him one day, as they toweled off and drank water.

"I know," Richie replied, irritated. The phantom pain from Mac's savage cut didn't bother him as much as it had back in America, but he could still feel its twinges every now and then.

Dayu lingered near death with either Connor or Mas almost always at her side. Richie knew she had died the day he and Mayke returned from a tour of local temples and found the servants crying. Connor was dry-eyed and stoic, but Richie had learned a thing or two about the Highlander over the years and wasn't fooled. The local priests came to begin the funeral and celebration rites - death in Bali, Richie had learned, lasted a lot longer than it did in most other corners of the world.

First off, the proper ceremonies had to be performed with all of their intricate symbols and sacred rituals. It was immediately decided that Connor Davison, Dayu's foreign great-nephew, could not possibly be effective in that regard. Mas proposed to take over - an unusual dilemma because she was a woman and not even a blood relation. The offer caused the priests great distress until the ancestral spirits were consulted and agreed to the arrangement. The body was laid out in the room for several days while mourners came to pay their respects. Each visitor had to be fed and offered drink, which kept the servants busy enough.

Richie stayed out of the way, mostly. He didn't feel right about sightseeing every day while Connor and Mas dealt with the funeral arrangements, but Connor persuaded him to go anyway. It helped to get away from the house - Richie had grown accustomed to many facets of death since becoming Immortal, but he still felt squeamish knowing the wrapped corpse of a dead woman lay just a few rooms from his each night. So while Connor helped with the intricacies of satay stick invitations and the collection of holy water from sacred springs, Richie went with Mayke to the Hard Rock Cafe, reptile and zoological parks, a temple cockfight, and even an art museum or two.

On the last night Dayu's corpse would reside in the house, Richie found himself standing at his bedroom window and responding to the subtle call to the northeast. He felt its tug as surely as he felt the fragrant breeze on his face. Connor and Mas stopped by his room on their way out.

"What do you see out there?" Connor asked, looking and sounding tired.

"I don't know," Richie admitted. "Something that way keeps calling to me."

"Gunung Agung," Mas said.

"The mountain?" Richie asked skeptically.

Connor said, "Not just any mountain." He seemed disinclined to discuss the topic, though. "We'll be back at dawn."

"Can I come?" Richie asked.

The Highlander studied him for a moment. Richie had been doing all the things Connor prescribed for him. His sleep was not entirely restful each night, but he figured that came from having the corpse nearby. He'd put on ten pounds since their arrival in June, and felt stronger with each passing day.

"Are you sure?" Connor asked.

Richie nodded.

Nyoman drove them in the van to the outskirts of Ubud. Mas explained to Richie that Connor had volunteered to perform the ritual gathering of water from five streams by himself. The ritual had to be done at midnight without any lamps or torches for illumination, and although Connor had to do it alone, his friends could watch from afar. It was considered to be dangerous in that any dark magic during the ceremony could doom Dayu's soul to wander the earth for all eternity.

Richie looked for a moon that night, but saw only the twinkling stars and constellations of the Southern Hemisphere. He stood with Mas and some of Dayu's oldest friends as Connor collected the water, his back bent to the task. The gentle sounds of running water in the streams and the sound of insects cloaked the deep, encompassing quiet. Only Richie knew how far Connor had come for this task - a Scottish sixteenth-century warrior bending to the ritual gods of Bali. He quietly marveled at the sight. The next morning they buried Dayu's corpse in a shallow grave covered with flowers. On the fortieth day after her death they would dig her up again for the cremation ceremony, and her spirit would ascend.

The burial brought Richie a measure of relief, but he couldn't tell how Connor felt about it. The Highlander had withdrawn into himself. Richie wasn't sure sorrow had pushed him into the action. He thought, maybe, that Connor was regretting events and decisions that could never be undone. They resumed their practice in the dojo, but Connor's heart didn't seem to be in it. Richie tried for two days to think of some way to cheer up his honorary uncle. He settled for renting a motorcycle with a sidecar and inviting Connor along for a ride.

Connor eyed both the bike and Richie dubiously. "I'm afraid to ask."

"Come on," Richie said, climbing onto the seat and motioning toward the sidecar. His fingers brushed the ritual offering tied to the handlebars. Even motorcycles had gods to appease in Bali. "This belongs to Mayke's cousin, and I promised him I'd have it back to him after dinner."

After a moment of obvious doubt, Connor climbed carefully into the sidecar. Richie drove them down the twisting road toward the village of Petulu, and turned onto a country lane that ran clean and true to the east. The sun sat low in the sky, promising another beautiful sunset.

"Where are we going?" Connor shouted over the rush of wind.

"We're already there!" Richie answered, and pointed skyward.

Connor looked up. Richie divided his attention between the road and overhead as safely as he could. The air thickened, the sky darkened, and the cries of a hundred graceful white birds rose above the throb of the motorcycle engine. Another hundred herons followed. Hundreds more joined from the north. Soon thousands of birds filled the sky, a fluttering sea of white wings spread in joyous flight. They converged in a single perfect "V" before starting to take up residence in the tall trees that lined the road.

The Immortals raced along beneath them, part of the spectacle, and soon even Connor was laughing at the rush of birds, wind, speed and sunset.

When they reached the outskirts of Petulu, Richie pulled to the side of the road and killed the engine. He and Connor sat quietly in the gathering dusk as the last of the birds settled in for the night.

"Thanks," Connor finally said. "I needed that."

"I know." Richie didn't tell Connor that Mayke's cousin had taken him on the exact same trip a week earlier. Let Connor believe Richie had discovered the marvel on his own. Richie studied the lines in Connor's face and the weary set of his shoulders. "Can I say something?"

"Can I stop you?"

"I just think - and maybe I've got it all wrong - I just think it's okay to admit you stopped loving her a long time ago."

Any lingering amusement left Connor's face, warmth skittering away from icy coldness. "You do, eh?"

"Yeah." Richie knew that tone of voice. He shifted his gaze away from the mistake he'd just made and to the open road. But he refused to take the words back, no matter what sarcastic retort Connor might be mustering.

A full moment passed in silence before Connor said, "I suppose you're right."

Richie glanced back at him, surprised and relieved. "I am?"

"I feel like I have a duty to still love her," Connor admitted. "But behind that duty there's only emptiness. Perhaps I'm heartless."

"You're anything but heartless!" Richie protested swiftly. "Sixty years is just a really long time."

"I suppose."

Richie took another risk. "If we're on the subject of your failings, though, let's talk about that promise you made me that you haven't followed through on."

Connor gave him a suspicious look. "And which promise is that?"

"The one with white sandy beaches, lots of alcohol and naked girls."

"Oh. *That* promise," Connor said.

Two days later they set out east, toward the coast.

end of part eight

"Now *this* is more like it," Richie said as he surveyed the view from their rented townhouse. The two-story bungalow looked out onto the lush garden from Connor's room, and beyond the terraced flowers stood Gunung Agung, the holiest of the island's volcanic mountains. Richie's windows offered an even better view - that of a gorgeous split-level swimming pool and, beyond that, the shimmering blue of the Bali Sea. The dark paneling, bamboo furniture, ceiling fans and colorful decorations marked the bungalow as part of a first-class luxury resort. The living room even had a large television that carried CNN and a movie channel. Richie, who hadn't watched TV in over a month, immediately claimed the sofa as his own and didn't move for three hours.

Later that day they went snorkeling with a group from the hotel. Richie had snorkeled in Mexico once, but he didn't remember nearly as many bright fish on that trip. The wreck of an American cargo ship lay just off the reef, and he found it a little eerie to watch squid and barracuda darting in and out of the metal hulk. Connor managed to strike up a conversation with two lovely young women from New Zealand named Cynthia and Katherine. The four of them ate by torchlight that night in the hotel's outdoor restaurant, feasting on fresh seafood, thick steaks and very expensive wine.

Richie knew from previous vacations with Connor that sooner or later the Highlander would seduce some lovely and bring her back to his room. He didn't exactly share the Highlander's enthusiasm for casual sex - he liked to actually date a girl for a while before undressing in front of her. One notable exception to that rule had been Kristen Gilles, who had tried to kill him in the end. But, he figured, he was twenty three years old, on vacation in a foreign country, he hadn't had a date since Marina LeMartin had dumped him, and how could a guy go wrong following the lead of Connor MacLeod?

That night he made love to a woman for the first time since France. He hadn't forgotten how to do it, but he found himself fumbling awkwardly in the darkness. She took his trembling hands and guided him to her secret place. Richie fell into a dreamless sleep after they finished, and he woke at dawn convinced the mountain was calling him. He slipped away from the bungalow and sat in the hotel gardens, staring up at the mammoth shape. Connor found him there an hour later, just as the sun started to burn away the mountain mists.

"You have a calling to climb that mountain, don't you?" Connor asked, offered him half of a peeled orange as he sat down on the bench. The Highlander looked bedraggled in his shorts and thin shirt. He also looked enormously pleased with himself, as he usually did after a conquest.

"I guess," Richie said. "I never had a calling or anything before."

"Sometimes places call to you from far away. Places you've never even seen or heard of."

"This, from the man who doesn't believe in visions or dreams or any of that psychic mumbo-jumbo?"

Connor ate a slice of orange. "I don't believe in most 'psychic mumbo-jumbo.' But occasionally, every once in a while, I'm willing to suspend my disbelief."

"Will you climb it with me?"

"Yes. But not today. I have plans for today." Connor smiled that sly smile of his and popped the last wedge of fruit into his mouth.

On the way back to the bungalow they detoured toward the main desk to inquire about hiking tours. A familiar whining voice stopped them before they even reached the lobby.

"This is a Four Seasons Hotel," Clara Tiller complained to a bewildered Balinese clerk. "Isn't there someone who speaks better English than you do?"

"Just sign the damn form and get our keys," her sister advised. "They have to be around here someplace. We'll find them."

"How'd they find us?" Richie asked, as the two Immortals ducked for cover near a bank of payphones.

"Someone at Dayu's house must have told," Connor said. "I had to leave an address in case Mas had problems with the ceremony."

"What do we do?"

"We do whatever we want to do," Connor said decisively. "We're the Immortals here."

Nonetheless, the Tiller sisters' arrival put a slight damper on Richie's mood. Maybe Connor was right when he said Watchers were useless and bothersome. Connor didn't brood on the issue, but instead settled in for a pleasant day of making love to Katherine at the bungalow. Richie and Cynthia went snorkeling and swimming, and ended up sunbathing in a secluded cove. In the late afternoon the four of them hired a driver to show them a nearby palace and water garden. The sisters tried to follow, but Connor had already bribed the next driver to take the women on a long, circuitous ride to nowhere and claim to have gotten lost.

"The poor man doesn't know what he's in for," Richie said ruefully.

Over the next few days it became obvious that Joe must have told his Watchers to be more subtle in their activities. Richie saw them trying to camouflage their observation from behind shady trees, hedges and statues. Nancy Drew and Bess they were not. Connor studiously ignored them until a group of German salesman arrived at the resort, and then he started sending the sisters large tropical drinks with German love sonnets attached.

Richie noticed Clara and Gwen both took pains to improve their appearances after that, and would sit out by the pool for hours with their laptops and giggle whenever new drinks arrived. Connor sent notes to the ugliest of the German men and put Gwen and Clara's room numbers on them.

"How long do you think you can tease them like that?" Richie asked.

"Until I run out of Teutonic love poems," Connor replied. "It might be soon - there aren't that many."

Cynthia and Katherine had to return to New Zealand and their jobs. Richie hated to see them go. The Immortals walked the women out to their waiting taxi and gave them lingering kisses. Just as they drove off a van from Denpasar arrived carrying a dozen tourists. The buzz of a new Immortal hit both Connor and Richie at the same time, and they turned in wary apprehension to locate the stranger.

Not the Japanese newlyweds, not the middle-aged Americans with two whining children, not the giggling Australian teenage girls - though they certainly were cute, Richie noted - but there, the Balinese driver wearing a blue checked shirt and a straw hat.

The driver returned their stare for a few seconds, sizing them up as competition, and then went to unload the luggage from his van.

Connor and Richie waited until he finished before coming within striking distance.

"I don't want any trouble," the driver said, his face stony cold.

"Neither do we," Connor agreed. "Let's all just keep it that way, all right?"

The chance encounter unsettled Richie. He hadn't sensed an Immortal other than Connor since their arrival. The reminder of the Game and the outside world brought the phantom pain twinging through his shoulder again. Connor made some discreet inquiries and found out the driver's name was Wayan, which didn't help. Wayan was the traditional name for a first-born child, just as Nyoman was the name for third-born.

"What are we going to do about him?" Richie asked.

"We're going to do nothing," Connor asked. "Like the man said, he doesn't want any trouble."

They made plans to start up Gunung Agung the next day. A guide would take them to the highest village on the route to register with the police for the climb. At Sebudi, seven thousand feet or so below the rim of the crater, they would catch a few hours of sleep in a peasant household. Shortly after midnight another guide would start them up the twisting mountain paths. The goal was to reach the summit by sunrise.

"You sure you want to do this?" Connor asked as they sunbathed on the resort's beach.

"Yes. You?"

"It's been a long time since I've climbed a volcano," the Highlander admitted.

Richie lowered his sunglasses. "I know you're getting on in your years, so if it's too arduous or something, just let me know."

Connor answered with a fistful of sand flung through the air.

Shortly thereafter Connor announced his intention to go find an afternoon snack to eat. Richie remained where he was, happy to be soaking in the sun's hot rays. Around four p.m. Richie walked back up to the resort. He found no sign of Connor in the restaurant, the lobby or their bungalow. He realized, with a sudden and not unwarranted chill, that Connor's sword and sheath had disappeared from his room.

A missing Connor and a missing sword could only mean trouble.

end of part nine

Richie waited for hours in the bungalow, anticipating Connor's imminent return, ready to chide the older Immortal for disappearing so suddenly. Sunset brought red and gold to the sky, and the hotel's gamelan band started playing by the pool. Richie had grown no fonder of the strange music during his island stay, and he ended up slamming the windows shut against the noise.

He tried watching CNN and doing sit-ups to distract himself. He ordered dinner from room service, but the food tray remained untouched in the living room. Richie's anxiety grew worse and worse by the hour, but he tried to tell himself he was over-reacting. Finally, in a fit of frustration, he stomped down to the pool and confronted the Watchers.

They sat at a secluded table, their faces eerily illuminated by the blue screens of their laptop computers, dressed in identical ikat dresses in the hopes a German admirer might wander by.

"Where's Connor?" Richie demanded.

The two sisters blinked at him, startled.

"What do you mean?" Gwen asked. "We don't know anyone named Connor."

Clara added, "We're just tourists. Go away."

"You're not tourists, you're the worst Watchers a guy could ask for," Richie said, struggling with his temper. "Where did Connor go? I know you must have seen him. All you do is follow us around, day and night."

The two women looked at each other, obviously stumped at what to do. Richie wondered if they taught confrontational tactics at the Watcher Academy. Clara started typing into her laptop, and that pushed Richie right over the edge.

"Stop doing that!" he said, and in a fit that surprised even himself, he picked up her computer and threw it into the shimmering blue pool. The laptop sank swiftly to the bottom.

"That was my baby!" Clara screeched.

Richie wrestled the second laptop from Gwen's sharp fingers.

"This one is next," he threatened. "Right into the pool. All that valuable data, lost to chlorine forever."

"Animal," Gwen hissed.

Two large German men appeared out of the shadows. "Was ist los?" one asked.

"Going once . . . " Richie threatened. "Going twice . . . "

"All right!" Gwen surrendered. "He came up from the beach at 2:35 p.m. and was confronted by one of the van drivers. They went to your bungalow and then walked off into the jungle, down that path over there."

Richie turned his head in the indicated direction. Gwen tried to snatch the laptop from him. He let it go, and she stumbled backward over her chair with the prized computer wrapped in both arms. The Germans moved to help, Clara started yelling, the gamelan band launched into another awful tune, and at that very moment a sheet of hot-white light lit up the sky.

Richie stood rock-still, paralyzed at the sight.

"Connor," he breathed.

No, no, no. Not now. Not ever. He couldn't deal with Connor dying on him, losing his head, leaving his life. Connor had brought him far and wide from the pain and emptiness of his life after Paris, but he felt its black teeth start to bite at the edge of awareness, ready to make an awful, staggering comeback.

Thunder rolled down on him, the rumble rocking his bones.

Another sheet of light.

Lightning.

Thunder.

"I think it's going to rain," Connor said, choosing that moment to stumble out of the jungle with one hand clutching a wine bottle and the other wrapped around Wayan, apparently his new best friend in the world.

Wayan agreed in his native tongue and reached for the wine bottle.

"No, no, no," Connor said, keeping the liquor away. "Not until you memorize the rules."

Richie didn't know whether to be furious with Connor or just be relieved he still had his head. Before the poolside scene got completely out of hand he ushered them back to the bungalow. Sheets of rain began to pour from the sky, and wind sucked the linen curtains in and out the window.

"Wayan here had no idea what it meant to be an Immortal," Connor explained as he draped himself on a chair and began to pick at Richie's room-service tray. Cheerfully inebriated, he seemed to have no idea that Richie had been worried. "All he knew is that whenever he got that tingling sensation - and you know the one I mean - men tried to kill him."

"You don't have a teacher?" Richie asked the Balinese man.

Wayan shook his head ruefully. "I died almost six months ago. Died - such a strange thing to say. What does this mean for my wife? For my ancestors, for the descendants I'll never have?" He shook his head forcefully, as if to dispel nasty thoughts. Quietly he said, "I thought the gods wanted me to live. But now I learn they want me to kill. My spirit is doomed."

"It's not quite that way," Richie said, but he didn't know quite the way to put it, either. Wayan came from a culture rooted in hundreds of gods, spirits, rituals, ceremonies and superstitions. His interpretation of the Game would be framed in the beliefs he'd held all his life. Just as Connor had once had to overcome accusations of being the devil himself, Wayan would have to find a way to live his life around the expectations of his upbringing.

They stayed up for most of the night discussing Immortals and the Game. Richie gave in to Connor's urging to at least try the wine. Things got a little blurry after that. The younger Immortal finally dragged Connor off to bed, chastising him all the way about going off and scaring him the way he had.

"But I left a note," Connor protested. "With the front desk clerk. Didn't you check?"

Richie thought back to the anxious afternoon. No, he had to admit sheepishly, he hadn't checked. "Why did you take your sword, though?"

"My sword? Who took my sword?" Connor lurched over the side of the bed and peered underneath. "No, it's still there."

"You were keeping it in the closet the other day," Richie said, exasperated.

"I moved it," Connor said, falling back on to his pillows. "I got lonely without it."

Richie draped a blanket over Wayan, who had passed out on the sofa, and then he turned the lights off in the bungalow. The rainstorm had moved entirely inland, leaving stars again twinkling over the ocean. He climbed into his own bed, feeling just a little guilty about throwing Clara Tiller's laptop into the pool. Finally he decided she could just write the damn thing off as a business expense and went to sleep.

end of part 10

Moonlit clouds stretched out across the valleys beneath them as they hiked up the mountain. Connor pulled his jacket tighter around him and burrowed his ice-cold fingers as deep as possible in his pockets. He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other on the steep, wide trail that had been plowed through the eucalyptus trees and wild brush. Their hired guide Ketut, who spoke only Bahasa Bali, led the way. An uncharacteristically quiet Richie followed at Ketut's heels. The countryside fell away in receding levels of silver light toward the distant and dark sea.

"You know what sucks?" Richie asked in a low voice, pausing at one point.

"No. Why don't you tell me?" Connor fought to keep irritation out of his voice. This climb had been Richie's idea, after all - his own personal calling, his unidentifiable quest. Connor would have much rather been stretched out in his own bed back at the hotel, preferably with a warm woman beside him. The days when he'd enjoyed roaming the cold, dark countryside at all hours of the night had long since passed into history, leaving him a more sensible and well-rested man.

"Getting huge blisters and then having them heal up, and getting more blisters and having them heal up. The back of my foot itches like you wouldn't believe."

Connor thought about pitching Richie over the side of the mountain to give him something worthy of worrying over, but the sheer ordinariness of the complaint made him pause. And, to be truthful, his own feet tingled madly beneath the ill-fitting contours of a borrowed pair of leather boots.

Still, he couldn't help but chastise, "I thought you were going to complain about something serious."

Richie looked out at the farms, fields, paddies and streams stretched beneath them on Gunung Agung's slopes. The moonlight made his features look hard and chiseled, and the breeze moved a stray curl just above his right ear. "At this minute, I can't think of single serious thing to worry about," he offered.

Connor clapped him on the shoulder and they resumed their climb.

A short time later the last of the mountain temples materialized out of the mist and darkness, a simple structure perched on the edge of the sky. Ketut busied himself setting out flower baskets to the gods. Richie and Connor tried to light the incense, and it took several attempts before the tiny flame flourished in the thin atmosphere. They sat for several minutes in the cold air, listening to the deep silence.

"It's hard to believe there's a whole world out there," Richie finally said. "Highways and traffic jams - bills to pay, appointments to keep, deadlines and hassles - none of it seems real from here."

Connor nodded. He slowly chewed on some dried figs, his concession to breakfast. "Maybe none of it *is* real."

Richie's gaze narrowed. "No. It's real. It's just . . . not important, really."

"You have to find those things in the world that are important, Richie, and cling to them for all you're worth."

"What things are most important to you?" Richie asked.

Centuries of life and love had solidified the answers in Connor's heart. "My family and friends," he said, without hesitation. "The love of good women. Keeping my head."

Richie looked away. "Mac would say 'honor.'"

"Honor's on my list, too," Connor reassured him. He had wondered if and when the topic of Duncan would arise during the climb. "It's just not in the top three."

The solid trail to the summit ceased at the temple, and they set out on a far narrower and more slippery path in the blanketing darkness. Tree roots and volcanic rock blocked the way in several places. Under the flashlight's beam the black earth turned red with rusting minerals, and the trail abruptly vanished into a smooth slope of barren rock.

"It looks like the moon or something," Richie said.

"This is part of the lava flow from the last eruption," Connor replied. "Back in 1963."

"You didn't mention anything about erupting volcanoes." Richie sounded a little nervous.

Connor grinned. "You didn't ask."

Everything holy on Bali pointed toward the top of Gunung Agung. Connor remembered that much at least from his years as Dayu's husband. From the temple to the peak was the most sacred of ground. As they continued to climb he wondered what would happen if the last two Immortals in the Game found themselves trapped on these same steep slopes, waging battle on the hard and unforgiving paths of nature's fury. Did the rules of holy ground apply at the very end of the Game? Would he live long enough to ever find out?

Soon the exertion of the climb drove the puzzles from his head, and he let his mind fall open. His memories spiraled back through time to the long-ago day in battle when the Kurgan had ripped his mortal life away. He was half a world away from the Highlands, but he thought he could very faintly hear the chaos and thunder of battle, the forceful clash of steel, the cries of dying men. The eastern sky grew gold beyond the mist as the island spun inexorably toward daybreak, and he felt as if he was being pushed backwards in time.

"Richie," he said, stopping.

The younger Immortal turned on the path. "Is something wrong?"

The Highlands fled from the edge of some unnamed sense and instead he felt only the mountain, the looming presence of something with awesome power. "Nothing," Connor said, unnerved. "I just thought I heard something."

"Me, too," Richie said. "I thought - I thought I heard Tessa. I was remembering the night we were killed."

They shared a long look, and then gazed up toward the peak now visible above them. Ketut had paused halfway up the slope and now called back to them in his native tongue.

"Maybe we should go back," Richie suggested.

"Do you want to?"

"Not really, I guess. We're so close. Let's keep going."

Richie's voice trembled a little, but he began climbing again. Connor listened as hard as he could but heard no more sounds of battle as they navigated the last few hundred yards to the peak. Instead he heard the soft, pleasant song Heather would hum to herself while she watched him practice swordfighting with Ramirez. He heard the sound of Dayu's laughter on those rare occasions he had managed to delight her, and the voices of Methos and Darius as they sat on a church roof in Paris, swapping tall tales over a shared bottle of wine.

The voices fell away to the wind. Connor stood at the peak of the mother mountain with Richie at his side, and together they gazed at the world unfolding from night in the glow of sunrise. They had come very far and very high, and the magnificent view made Connor's blood rush.

"Immortality gives, and then she takes away," he said suddenly. "This is one of the times she gives. By all rights, both of us should be dead in our graves."

Richie nodded slightly, but he seemed caught up in his own interior view, a landscape to which Connor was not privileged. In a distant voice he said, "I'm not afraid of new places, you know. Just new pain."

"All wounds heal, if we let them," Connor supplied. "Like those blisters on your feet."

"What about Mac's wounds?" Richie turned to him, some unresolved emotion carried in the clear blue of his gaze.

"No one knows why people fall sick, whether it be in body or in mind. It's not Duncan's fault that he's ill. His only responsibility is to try and get well with our help."

"Do you think he will? Will he ever be well again?"

Connor hesitated, reluctant to confuse his own desire with a medical opinion. "I hope so."

"Yeah," Richie said. "Me too."

The younger Immortal took a piece of paper from his pocket. It had been folded and unfolded, ripped up and taped together again. The words on it had been scratched out, rewritten and revised again with blue and black ink.

"This is a letter to Mac," he said, turning the paper over and over in his hand.

"I have his address. We can get it to him."

"I was thinking I'd like to deliver it in person."

Connor didn't answer. Richie amended, quickly, "When he's ready, that is."

"Are *you* ready?"

"Yeah. I think I am." Richie dropped his attention back to the letter and the words in it. "I know he loves me, and that he never meant to hurt me. Even if it did happen three times."

Connor asked, "What made you finally realize the truth?"

"I guess I already knew, way deep down. I just needed you to remind me."

Connor put his arm around Richie's shoulder and squeezed him close. "Consider yourself reminded," he said. "Mac's not the only one who loves you."

"Thanks," Richie said, twin pink dots rising on his cheeks. His boots scuffed the dirt beneath them. "Likewise, you know?"

"I know."

The full disk of the sun rose above the eastern horizon, sending a long trail of light across the shimmering ocean and burning away the morning mist. The sound of birds singing far below lifted up on the breeze. Mortals live and mortals die, Connor thought to himself, but Immortals survived and moved on. He knew they would have to return to Ubud to see Dayu cremated. He wanted and needed to see to that final duty. Afterward, perhaps he could persuade Richie to go knock about Australia with him, visit his old favorite spots in Sydney and the Blue Mountains. And after that, if Duncan was strong enough, they could visit a monastery in remote Nepal and see to the healing of hearts.

Connor and Richie stood for a long time looking at the world Immortality had given them, then turned and followed their guide back down the mountain.

The End

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