1596 C.E.
(1)The loch was still. It sat in between the steep green hills remembering years of awe and legends and secrets. It waited underneath the cloudless blue sky, anticipating the days when boats powered by noisy machinery would plumb its depths looking to reveal Mystery. They would not succeed - that was the nature of Mystery, of myth and of magic. To understand such things, the loch knew, one must look with the heart, not the mind or the logic of Science. Science was not anathema to Mystery, both could exist side by side, but Science was not the way to understand Mystery.
(2)The loch had seen many things, watching the world pass by from the day it had been formed, so many millions of years ago. It had seen the bloody battles of great monsters in the hills around it. It has seen the endless weight of winters, the terrrible beauty of the white cold deserts that were called glaciers. It had seen the gloaming, and the creatures and peoples populating the magic-enchanteed land. It had seen their glorious battles and the great heroes and the evil cowards. It had seen the coming of Man, and the retreat of the first peoples. It had seen its waters washed in the blood of both races in that terrifying battle. It had seen religions rise and fall. But since the coming of Man, it had mostly seen fisherman, trawling the rich waters of its depths.
(3)But the fish were not biting for the lone rowboat a mile off the south shore. Though perhaps as many as five poles were secured to various positions about the craft, and it had been out most of the day, the blond man lounging in it did not have a single mackeral to his name.
(4)Connor sighed as he watched the sun slowly sink behind the craggy hills. He wasn't really concerned with his lack of success; renting the boat had mostly been an excuse to be alone for the day. Today was the anniversary of Heather's death, and it was as painful now as it was twenty years ago.
(5)At least she has Ramirez with her. Be happy, my bonnie Heather. And you, Ramirez, you Spanish Peacock, take care of her.
(6)It made him feel better to think of Ramirez taking care of her. He smiled to himself. For all he knew, they were sitting up there trading stories about his most embarrassing moments.
(7)He got up as the sky turned orange and began to gather the poles to stow them in the bottom. The fisherman who owned this boat would want to be in the water soon, and the fish would not wait for him. He had just packed the last pole when he saw it, or rather, them.
(8)Legends of waterhorses flickered through his mind as the two creatures surfaced, prismatic rainbows reflecting off their shiny skin in the setting sun. Long necks twisted and twined, paddle flippers slapped at bodies, small teeth snapped at, but not close to, small triangular heads. They were playing, he realized, just like children. Somehow, it seemed entirely natural that they should be there. Celtic legends spoke of waterhorses as one of the ulitimate evil creatures in the world, but Connor could not reconcile these playful beasts with that image.
(9)/Thank you./
(10)He turned slowly around to face the whispery voice. Another one of the creatures had risen up out of the water just a few feet away from his boat and was watching him with a disconcerting intelligence. It was much larger than the others, and Connor could see the body dissappearing into the murky depths of the loch. A tail wound its way away from him, flicking occassionally to keep the creature by the human vessel. Their mother...
(11)/Affirmative/ the creature agreed, turning to face her children. The voice was so strange, not the least because it was speaking inside his head. It seemed to speak in pictures, concepts, instead of individual words. There were undertones and depths to it that he wouldn't be able to fathom if he spent centuries studying it. Connor had the feeling that he was missing entire concepts that filled out and enriched her thought mode.
(12)He watched the "kids" play with a half-smile lightening his normally saturnine features. He liked kids. His one regret was that he has not been able to give Heather any children of her own. She had never complained, but the years were surely made longer by the absence of little rascals underfoot. Ah, how Heather would have loved to see this, he thought with a pain in his heart.
(13)/You will love another./ That was the impression he got from the flood of pictures, anyway. They showed him in a strange glass and steel building, making love to a beautiful redhead. There was an overall impression of gentle warmth and comfort to the picture, as well as a sense that this was a long time into the future.
(14)"What are you?" he asked in an awed whisper, startled at this bit of prescience. "Where are you from?"
(15)She regarded him with her large eyes, considering, evaluating. The answer came in a confusing spate of images. He saw huge fish-like creatures that surfaced for air and sped through the water. They had long snouts with teeth that grasped their prey and shoved it down their throught. He saw, from a watery distance, land that was a riot of strange greenery, which was broken by a large two-legged creature with short forelimbs and huge teeth. It balanced over something that was half-in, half-out of the water. What he could see of the downed animal gave him the impression of scales and striking colors. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw large plates sticking out of its back.
(16)He saw the loch, but from a perspective closer to the old castle some fifteen miles north of his present position. He watched as a small figure covered in brown with a single white slash across its middle walked out on the second-story balcony. A monk, Connor realized, and knew, intuitively that the waterhorse had no conception of a monk at all. He felt the fear, then, and knew from the memory that the monk was the source. The monk crossed himself, and hurried back to tell his brothers of the monster.
(17)The loch again, but a different position. A large boat, filled with humans, was moving around the loch faster than any human vessel she had seen before. Under the water, a low roar sounded as curved pieces of metal whirred at high speed like windmill blades in a high wind. The humans pointed in excitement and took out little black boxes that flashed brightly. High above, in the deep blue sky, a high-pitched whine sounded. The focus of the picture shifted up and he saw a strange metal bird fleeing across the sky, leaving a white stream of waste behind it.
(18)The pictures faded away, leaving Connor breathless in the boat. The waterhorse's last impression stayed with him though. It had obviously been of the future, like the image of himself and the mysterious redhead. But it was also ... frightening. She is afraid, and doesn't understand the things there, which aren't anywhen else. She doesn't think there will be a place for her there.
(19)A last flash of the first image, with the huge dragons, came to him then. That must be when she first lived. Even without the technological progress that seemed so magical in her images, the world had changed beyond recognition from when she was first born. What would it be like to outlast all that you've known? It must be exceedingly lonely. Fearsome. He supposed he would know such fear and loneliness soon enough. He wished this journey to fight till the last on was not so lonely, though.
(20)/There is another./ A picture came to him, no overtones this
time, just an identification. A dark-haired man sat staring morosely into
a fire. He wore the familiar Clan tartan of the MacLeods. Connor had never
seen him before, but rumors were that the Chieftan's son had been invested
by the devil, and banned from the Clan. History repeating itself,
he thought wryly.
Connor knew from personal experience how cruel their mortal kinsman
could be. This young one would have to have help in getting over his bitterness.
(21)Ping!
(22)/To remember me by/I want to be remembered, too./ Connor shook himself out of his reverie. In the bottom of the boat, a large pointed tooth lay, curved back to help hold prey. He picked up the gift and put it in his sporran. He turned to the thank the maternal waterhorse, but the creatures were gone, sliding back into the waves as soundlessly as they had emerged.
(23)Once again, the loch was still.
TWO DAYS LATER
(24)Duncan MacLeod, Clanless man, outcast from all society, held his head in pain. It was the most massive headache he had felt since he had killed Kanwulf the Viking.
(25)"Heh heh. You'll have to react faster than that to keep your head." He snapped his head up at the husky voice to see a Clansman, with a MacLeod kilt no less, holding a light curved sword to his neck. Duncan scrambled to his feet and backed away. The other let him go, watching with an amused smile lurking at the corners of his mouth.
(26)"Who are you?" Duncan asked, trying to keep his teeth from chattering. It wasn't manly to show fear in the face of the enemy, even if he had come out of nowhere - like a mist - and you had almost lost your life to him because of it.
(27)"Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod."
(28)"But he's just a legend!" Duncan blurted out. Then he berated himself - that was hardly a thing to say to someone who so obviously could have killed him any time he wanted to. Doubts about said peron's sanity notwithstanding.
(29)Connor smirked. "Heh. I guess I am. But then so are you, Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod."
(30)Duncan shook his head in denial; he hadn't been tainted by the devil like the legendary Connor of a hundred years earlier. But the blonde Clansman continued ruthlessly. "You are Immortal; you cannot die unless someone takes your head. That is how you survived your final battle with the Clan; that is how I survived battle against the Frasers a hundred years ago."
(31)Duncan shook his head again - "This cannot be," he pleaded desperately,"how could it possibly be so?"
(32)Connor grinned at his new student. He was going to have a lot of fun bating this one - as much or more fun than Ramirez had had bating him. Silently, he thanked the Mystery that had shown him young Duncan. He listened to the faint rattle of the waterhorse's tooth as it bumped against a fishhook in his sporran, and an answer came to him.
(33)"Hey," he told Duncan, "it's a kind of magic."
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