Ehyeh-asher-ehyeh (I am that I am)
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| She closed her eyes. Her mind collected those memories that would allow her soul to fly inside the
other world. Once upon a time in a country long forgotten, where the river of life ran toward the final shore— that rocky beach from which there was no return—a girl-child had been born in the crook of a willow tree.
beasts and she could talk before ever she learned to cry. Her eyes were green with the witch-sight and in her thumbs she had wisdom—wisdom enough to know that a willow tree was no proper place for a young Goddess of promise and ambition. That had been where they found her and after the infant sat up and greeted them so civilly, they could hardly leave her there—complaining to the very beasts of the field of the cruel turn they had played on her—so they took her home. They called her Naamah-Zmargad-Aisling-Lillake, for it seemed to them that she must be of the fair folk. How much trouble, after all, could one small girl-child be? To her credit, she did not pine away for her home under the hills until there was nothing left of her but bared knucklebones. Yes, she did run a bit toward the puny side, but that wasn't likely to last long enough to prove much of a bother.
would give the world no peace.
manifest itself. The blackest darkness started to fill the cavern, joining the reds and blues of the energy. Lilitu watched in wonderment. It was almost time for the world to change. Almost time for her world to begin. ==================================== Cabin in the Pampa on the Duran Estancia, near Las Flores, Argentina March 30, 2013
were small but, looking out through the hole Corazón Negro had chopped in the roof of the abandoned barn, Elena could see them, faint comfort that they were. The air itself was not too humid. It was delightfully warm. Elena sighed. Today was the day. Time was upon them. The Endgame was at hand. All around inside the large barn they had lit torches. In the center was the great altar with all its tall Aztec Gods, their spectacular rocky faces and their colorful garb. Duncan was standing at one of the windows on the far end, a shadowy figure whose attention was on the outside. Connor had gone to the loft, to get a better view from the other side of their soon-to-be-approaching enemies.
fill her mind and body with peace. At one end of the edifice, where the wood from the stalls had been torn down to nail over the windows was the unusual bonfire, the coals in it already glowing. On either side were long wooden, rectangular tables on which many different objects had been laid out with obvious care.
standing in the shadows of the loft. The Aztec stood, his face covered by the green-jade mask of Quetzalcóhuatl's, his body dressed in jaguar's skin. He looked like an ancient God himself, and a shock went through her system. The eyeholes and mouth opening of the mask appeared empty; only the brilliant green-jade was filled with reflected light. Corazón Negro's shadowy hair and body were scarcely visible, though Elena saw his hand when he lifted it and beckoned for her to come close.
as he spoke. "If I die, you will be the next Dreamer to humankind." Elena's only eye opened wide—she could feel wonder, and yes, fear, coursing through her at his ominous words. "What are you saying? What do you mean?" "If I die, you will be the next Dreamer, the new Dancer. Remember, one heart and one soul, forever," Corazón Negro's voice responded. Elena stepped backwards. Even at this closeness, the mask was inherently frightening and appeared to float before its lost countenance, perhaps its lost soul. "What do you mean?" Elena asked again, thought it seemed a terrible irreverence, in the midst of this spectacle which had taken on a high beauty, with the Aztec Gods, the stone walls of the old barn rising around them, and the stars shining above through the hole in the roof. "Just what I told you," Corazón Negro said in a low voice. "You are the next Dreamer if something happens to me while I'm inside the other world. No matter what you see or think you may see." He gestured before him. "There, the Dream will come if it is meant to come, but you must not go to it, you must not engage in any struggle with it, unless something happens to me. Do I have your word?"
Corazón Negro was saying, though she couldn't imagine why. It was nonsense, of course, that was why. To call her the next Dreamer for the world if he should die—why, it was absurd! Upsetting enough to think about Corazón Negro dying, but even more absurd to think about herself being the Dreamer.
distance, to let her breathe. Flashes of Corazón Negro came, in this breathing space. Embraces, flesh upon flesh. So much love for so many centuries! "Don't talk that way! You have to survive. I'll do what I can—we all will, that's why we're all here, the MacLeods and I, to protect you—but I'm personally of no importance. Without you ... I can do nothing. It's you, my love. I've seen it. You are the last Dreamer, not me!" Elena said in despair.
was elsewhere, she could only help and succor and support. What was he saying? Was it possible? She looked at him.
mask. She could feel it. Was he giving her the power? Could she truly hold it? What was he saying? "What can I say?" she demanded. "How can I give my inner feelings to this thing? Isn't enough that I stand here?" Elena said crossly. "Black Flower, trust in me," he said. "The Dream needs our magic. Now we must give it what it asked for. Trust that it will be for the good of us. Trust that I can control what I must do." "But..." "Govern your heart, please, Black Flower. Believe it. Pray about it if you must. But know this: If something happens to me inside the Dream, then you must take my place as the next Dreamer." Elena closed her eye tightly against his words, against her tears, to no avail. It all washed over her, now, and through her. "I have prayed about it," she admitted. "I know who I am, what I have to do," she nodded. Openly she wept. "Very well, Dreamer," she finally said, defeated.
objects covering them. Ancient sculptures of Gods. A stone chalice, beautifully ornamented and rimmed with jewels. There was a tall wooden container filled with what appeared to be clear yellow oil. She saw Corazón Negro's weapon, his deadly Maquáhuitl, a wicked and awful thing in her sight, sharp and dangerous, lying close to the bonfire. The weapon was a flat stave of the very hardest wood, a man's-arm long a man's-hand wide, with sharp flakes of obsidian imbedded all around it. Its handle was long enough for two-handed wielding, and it was carefully carved to fit the grip of Corazón Negro. Elena knew that the obsidian chips were not merely wedged into the wood; so much had depended on that sword that even sorcery had been added to it. The flakes were cemented solidly with charmed glue made from precious perfumed resin and fresh blood donated by the priests of the war God of the Aztecs a thousand years before.
contents of the other table, and saw there a rib bone covered with markings, and a loathsome old shriveled hand. There were other items—a fine golden pitcher of honey, which she could smell in its sweetness, another silver pitcher of pure white milk, and a bronze bowl of shining salt. And for the incense, Elena realized it had all been distributed and was already burning before the distant unsuspecting Gods. That's what she'd been smelling, and close up the aroma was almost cloying in its strength.
darkness, had been poured out to make a great circle on the soft ground before her, a circle that she was just noticing.
saw it was covered with incised writing. It was lurid and awful, and the beauty embracing all of this was seductive, potent, and obscene.
ready for this to begin." "What if there isn't enough incense!" Elena demanded in a whisper. "There is plenty of it to burn for hours." Elena resigned herself. She couldn't stop this. And only now did she feel in her resignation a certain attraction to the entire process as Corazón Negro began. From beneath his skin's robes, he lifted a small snakeskin and fed it quickly to the coals in the bonfire.
Spiral of Time witness, make this fire burn for me."
tables. Then he lifted the bottle of oil and emptied its contents into the bonfire. "Spiral of Time," Corazón Negro called out as the smoke rose before him. "I can begin nothing without your intercession. Look here at your servant Corazón Negro, listen to his voice as he calls you, and unlock the doors to the world of mysteries, that Corazón Negro may have what he desires." The dark perfume of the heated concoction overcame Elena as it rose from the fire. She felt as if she ought to be drunk, when she wasn't, and it seemed her balance had been affected, though why she couldn't know.
Make me worthy! If I am to die in battle, let my war-song be sung in the hearts of my brothers! Let the war-cry sound... It is a good day to die! My war-cry is the song of my people, the Immortals! We are one! It is the song of the earth! It is the song of the wind! Free! We are one! Together! We are one!"
center of the altar, a fine effigy of a wooden feathered-snake, its jade eyes glaring back at her, its dark feathers wrapped about its fangs. It seemed to Elena that the air changed suddenly about her, but she told herself it was only her raw nerves. The walls seemed to shift slightly, and dust rose from the dirt floor of the barn in small eddies, reminiscent of the tiny blue tornadoes of light that signaled Immortal healing. The quiet intensified. "Open the gates, Spiral of Time," Corazón Negro called out, as his hands moved atop the flames. "Let the other world hear me; let the Dream be unable to turn away its ears." Elena watched the ritual in ecstasy. Corazón Negro's voice was low yet full of certainty. "Hear me, Dream," he declared. "I'm the Son of the Wolf, I cannot be denied! You are the Great Mother and the Great Father. From your womb sprang all things, from your loins the seed of life! But Lilitu has corrupted what she has touched, brought things into the world of mortals which should never have been born! The tree of life has been twisted!"
command you, open the way to the eternal darkness, to the very souls whom you yourself may have driven out of the afterworld; place your flaming swords at my disposal, for my purpose. I am Corazón Negro. I command you. I cannot be denied!" There was a low rumbling from the statues at the altar, a sound very like the earth made when it was shifting—a sound which no one can imitate, but which anyone can hear. At his window, Duncan made some sound of surprise. Then all was silent again, save for the crackling of the bonfire and the Aztec's voice. "Drink from my soul, spirits of beyond, and allow my words and my sacrifice rise to the Gods. Hear my voice," Corazón Negro continued. Elena strained in her focus upon the statues. Was she losing her mind? They appeared animate and the smoke rising from the incense and candles seemed thicker. Indeed the whole spectacle intensified, colors became richer, and the distance between the statues and her became smaller, though she had not moved. Corazón Negro lifted his Maquáhuitl with his left hand. Instantly, he cut the inside of his right arm. The blood poured down into the bonfire. His voice rose above it. "You arcane spirits, the first to teach mankind magic, I call upon you now for my purpose, or those spirits that answer to your name."
Again there came that sound, as if from the earth beneath them, a low rumbling that human ears perhaps would disregard. Elena looked helplessly at her feet and then to the statues. She saw the faint shiver of the entire altar.
Aztlantaca people, I cannot be denied. Quetzalcóhuatl, powerful teacher of magic to whose who came after you, bearer of the wisdom of the Gods, I call upon you for my purpose."
into the aromatic brew. The smoke from the mixture stung Elena's eyes. "Listen to me, all you have gone before me, I shall cause the Gods to declare you anathema should you attempt to resist my powers. I shall withdraw my faith and withdraw my blandishments should you not grant the wish that comes from my soul. I am Corazón Negro, I command you that I may achieve what I say." The altar before Elena was shivering. She could see the skull moving with the altar. She could not discount what she saw. She could not challenge what she heard, the low rumbling of the ground beneath her. The dust eddies rose again, and old, dry hay swirled with it. Now she could hear outside the movement of the ombu trees swaying, as if in the early breezes of an approaching storm.
continued. Then as the blood flowed down over his right hand, he reached with it for the skull beside the smoking bonfire and lifted it up.
movement, their eyes sweeping the scene before them. Even their limbs appeared alive. The incense burnt bright in the circle, fanned by the breeze that steadily increased, now felt inside although the doors and windows were all covered. Corazón Negro laid aside the skull and his Maquáhuitl. From the table he lifted the gold pitcher of honey, and poured it into the chalice. This he lifted with his bloody right arm as he went on. Then he lifted the pitcher of milk. Into the chalice it went, and then he lifted the chalice, gathering up the deadly Maquáhuitl again in his left hand. "And this, too, I offer you, so delicious to your desperate senses, come here and breathe this sacrifice, drink of this milk and honey, drink it from the smoke that rises from my bonfire. Here, it comes to you through this chalice which once contained the blood of sacrificed ones. Do not refuse me."
had taken shape. She felt her heart skipping as her eyes strained to make it out. It was like a giant mouth, a hole opened in the air. It flickered and wavered in the heat as Corazón Negro chanted. "Come, ancestors, come closer to me." Again he cut his wrist, for his Immortal flesh was healing just as quickly as he opened it, and he again made the blood flow. Elena couldn't take her eye off the smoky darkness. She stepped backwards. She couldn't stop herself, but the black hole in the air had stopped; it remained suspended above the ground. "AS THE WOLF CULLS THE UNFIT FROM THE WILD HERDS, SO SHALL YOU BECOME THE SON OF THE WOLF... HUNTER... HEALER... KILLER... DREAMER AND DANCER... COME INSIDE, CORAZÓN NEGRO... COME AND FIGHT..." a loud voice said before Elena. "IT IS TIME..."
in all her life since she had met Corazón Negro, she understood what her lover had always tried to tell her. For the very first time, Elena heard the voice of the Dream, a loud sound coming from the other world. At that instant, Elena heard other words, a voice, the Voice, coming from outside. Her blood froze. Their enemies had arrived, and they were stronger than she'd ever dreamed. ==================================== Duncan had been positioned at one of the boarded-windows for nearly two hours, and the waiting was playing on his nerves. He hunched his shoulders, stretching them—then saw a branch moving below his position, that meant somebody was moving it. Good, it was starting at last. He felt his blood cool, the endless waiting over, and raised his rifle into position.
toward or away from the barn. The figure outside was sneaking away from the shelter. Only the slight creak of the branch had given him away.
Duncan sighed. Since the peace of Glenfinnan had been broken by the Berserkers' attack, the younger Highlander could no longer block out what seemed to him a world of violence that faced him from just beyond the visage in the window. He was accustomed to violence, of course, and death—at least he had been—but the rituals of the Aztec, Elena's love for the Dreamer, Lilitu herself and the bodies she left in her wake, even the idea of Lilitu creating the Game for her advantage and amusement, all served to disturb him deeply. Perhaps it was the faint but incomprehensible voice in the back of his mind, droning endlessly, that unsteadied him. Or perhaps he was not so immune to such atrocities as he had been in the past. The seconds fused hopelessly together. More Hunters made themselves visible, and Duncan fired again once, only when he was sure, not missing his mark. At that moment, a torrent of gunshots erupted toward him. He ducked for cover as he heard Connor shoot out of his window. They were coming from all sides…
Duncan trusted his friend completely, but he wasn't used to thinking of Corazón Negro as the Dreamer. What did that mean, anyway, the younger Highlander wondered, and what was going on in that ancient, complex mind? Suddenly Duncan heard something from outside that left him breathless with dread… "God, no!" he exclaimed, then rushed to protect Corazón Negro from the enemy within, from Connor, knowing, fearing he, Duncan, would be the next danger to the Aztec. ====================================
frozen, a tomb. As the wind swirled and thickened before him, the clouds faded. Corazón Negro heard the voice of the Dream beside him, disembodied and intimate. "AS THE WOLF CULLS THE UNFIT FROM THE WILD HERDS, SO SHALL YOU BECOME THE SON OF THE WOLF... HUNTER... HEALER... KILLER... DREAMER AND DANCER... COME INSIDE, CORAZÓN NEGRO... COME AND FIGHT... IT IS TIME..." The wind blew his clothing and howled furiously above the wasted land. It was as if the wind's cries were a reflection of the Immortal's pain. Corazón Negro fell to his knees, and the calmness took him away from his deep Dream. The warrior rose once more slowly and he blinked inside the darkness, adjusting his clothes. He watched the shapes surrounding him and his voice became a whisper. "I am here."
stomach resounded in the night. Behind him, a hill rose, and in every direction the hard packed earth wanted to reach the sky. "What direction should I take?" he yawned looking at the twisted immensity, the fantastic world of the Dream. He was walking beside a great river, a sensation of evil growing in his soul. He fought against it, trying to focus on his task. Corazón Negro opened his mouth and started singing. He forced himself to listen to the sounds around him to clarify his thoughts, trying to forget the noise of the people who were chattering far beyond the river. The Dreamer couldn't see those people, but he could feel them inside his head.
LOSE YOUR HEAD. BECOME ONE WITH EVERYTHING AND WITH NOTHING." Corazón Negro shook his head to avoid the self-compassion's mist and continued his song, singing, and singing... He started to Dance in all directions, calling the four elements of nature with his movements.
stopped hearing the sound of his own voice. His song became the Dream, and the Dream was calling him. Once absorbed by the fluid of his mental Dance, the song was no longer needed, and the warrior couldn't stop the cadence movements of his body. The time's fluid sprang as a balsam above his wounded soul. Only his movements existed, mixed with the caresses of his thoughts, until finally, the warrior felt himself floating in the air. Corazón Negro danced weightlessly in the sea of light. Time disappeared inside one eternal present in which an Immortal called Corazón Negro had never existed. In this universe, only one moment existed: the present.
exploded in a huge and silence explosion, and the universe he was aware of was bathed in an enormous wave, which extended over and conquered the darkness.
EXISTS THE ESSENCE OF ALL—THE THING THAT UNITES ALL LIVING BEINGS. THE ONLY VOICE; THE ONE."
DANCER. THERE NEVER HAS BEEN A DANCER," the loud voice spoke, filling the space all around. The mountains and the sky trembled with the grave sounds.
JUST ONE VOICE, ONE MIND. OUR THOUGHTS ARE THE SAME, AND OUR MAKER IS THE ONE. THOSE AMONG US WHO WILL JOIN THEIR SOULS AND QUICKENINGS, WILL BE THOSE WHO WILL RE-ESTABLISH THE ANCIENT WORLD. WE WERE BEFORE, AND WE WILL BE ALWAYS WARRIOR SPIRITS. SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME WE PROTECTED LIFE..."
fell a silence in which he could hear his own breathing. As he rose, steadily, without the slightest reference to any sort of gravity, two things became apparent to him at once. The first was that thousands upon thousands of individual souls surrounded him. He saw shapes in the whirlwind, some completely anthropomorphic, others merely faces, but surrounding him, everywhere, were distinct spiritual entities, and very faintly he heard their voices—whispers, cries, howls—mingling with the wind.
as if on his axis, the tunnel narrowing suddenly so that the souls seemed to touch him, and then widening, only to narrow again.
drained utterly from his own form. His profile was bright and even translucent; so were his shapeless garments. His presence had been replaced by something crystalline and reflective, but which felt pliant, warm, and alive. Words came back to him, snatches of scripture, of visions and prophetic claims and poetry; but there was no time to evaluate, to analyze, and to seal into memory. He needed to do his job, find Lilitu's soul inside the Dream.
more again amid hundred of other individuals, and on the banks of the stream and in all directions he saw beings weeping and crying out. As before, the shapes were in all degrees of distinctness. One soul was as solid as if he'd run into him in the real world; another individual seemed no more than a giant facial expression; while others seemed to be whirling bits and pieces of material and light. Others were utterly diaphanous. Some seemed invisible, except that Corazón Negro knew they were there. Their number was impossible to determine.
not chaos, as he knew it. This was not confusion, as he knew it. This was not a din. It seemed to gather the sadness of a great and final gathering, the perpetually unfolding resolution of something, a marvel of sustained revelation, a growing understanding shared by all who participated in it. He felt that Lilitu's soul was somewhere nearby, inside the Dream, and she was growing stronger every moment. "HURRY... DREAMER... BEFORE IS TOO LATE..." the Dream commanded. The whirlwind once again surrounded Corazón Negro. ==================================== At the barn... Connor had expected one or two Immortals with mortal minions. He had expected guns, and in fact, the enemy was shooting at them. Although he didn't have a clear shot, he fired several times anyway, making the enemy duck for cover, scaring them, and wounding one man at least. He had expected fire, dynamite maybe, and the breaking of every Immortal rule. What he didn't expect was an amplified voice from the trees, ordering, "Connor MacLeod. Kill the Dreamer, Corazón Negro. Take his head, now!" It was a woman's voice, weak and old with age, but Connor was shaken to his very core. He left his post by the barn loft window and walked to the edge, looking down to the center of the barn where Corazón Negro stood in some sort of trance. Helpless.
leaped up, fully intending to kill—but Duncan was in his way, blocking him. "Connor, no!" Duncan said, but by that time Connor had managed to stop in his tracks, get his head together, take a few deep breaths, and shake off the suggestion. "It's the Voice," Connor whispered roughly, just barely in control of himself. "I know!" Duncan cried out. "Are you all right?" "Yes, I … I can just barely fight it off. Duncan, you have to—" "Duncan MacLeod," came the Voice again. "Kill the Dreamer, Corazón Negro. Take his head. Do it now!"
was resting by one of the boarded up windows. Behind him, Connor did the only thing he could. He struck his kinsman from behind, driving him to his knees. "Elena Duran!" the Voice called out commandingly. Connor turned to the Argentine, who was looking at him fearfully. "Dammit!" he murmured. Cassandra had taught him how to control the Voice, but she'd also told him she was the only Immortal left who knew how to use it. He should have realized Lilitu or her followers would surely have that ability. He should have— "Connor, please help me, I can't …" Elena whispered, holding a hand out to him for assistance, while the Voice finished, "Kill the Dreamer. Decapitate Corazón Negro. Now!" Elena's eyes glazed over slightly. She took a deep shuddering breath, put her rifle down, then picked up her sword and walked toward Connor. In the meantime, behind him, Duncan had risen to his feet and, katana in hand, was taking the final steps toward the Dreamer.
and buried his katana to the hilt in Duncan's back, immediately pulling it out. Duncan moaned once, arching his back in pain, and fell forward onto the dirt of the barn floor, just beside the Aztec. Connor rushed to block Elena's blade as she brought it down to behead her prone lover. "No!" Connor exclaimed as steel met steel and drops of Duncan's blood spilled onto the Aztec's face. Connor knew better than to try to reason with the Argentine. She was going to kill the man she loved, just as the Voice commanded her. He pushed her blade down and to the side, then hit her hard in the face. She fell back but not down. Connor took a gun out of his pocket. "Connor MacLeod! Kill the Dreamer! Decapitate Corazón Negro!" The Voice insinuated itself in Connor's head, trying to fill his being with its malignant message. Once again he was forced to concentrate, to shrug it off. He placed himself in front of the Aztec, covering Corazón Negro's vulnerable head with his body, while he took deep breaths for control. Duncan was slumped on the floor, bleeding out, but Elena came at him again. It was a good thing that she was going for Corazón Negro and not for Connor himself, as she tried to merely push Connor out of the way instead of attacking him. Connor put his gun barrel against her chest and fired. Elena screamed and crumpled to the ground, writhing while her heart desperately and futilely tried to keep her alive.
beyond hearing. Elena was still in her death throes, making pained sounds, and Connor looked at the pool of blood under his clansman. Connor knew he had to do something fast before his enemies came in, expecting the MacLeods and Elena to be under the influence of the Voice. He could tie the other two up, but they would still be taking orders from—
There was no electricity in the barn, so they had brought flashlights—and then he remembered the box of candles he'd spotted on one of the shelves. If he could melt some of it and put the wax in the ears of his comrades-turned-enemies … He lit several candles, getting them going together, hoping the troops outside wouldn't rush him right away. They'd probably be waiting for a Quickening, and that would give him some time. Hopefully. Maybe. Using the fire of the bonfire and the heat of his hands, he spent some feverish minutes burning his fingers while molding the wax, then putting it in Duncan and Elena's ears, pushing it in, hoping it would keep out the Voice. He didn't know if the others would come back still under the compulsion of their previous order, so he dragged them back as far away from the Aztec as he could. Then he ran up the ladder to the loft and saw two armed men, not Immortals, rushing toward the barn. Damn confident of them, Connor thought, as he picked up his rifle and cold- bloodedly shot the first one in the head. The second man threw himself on the ground, but he was too close and there was no cover, so Connor shot him, from above, then ducked to avoid the return fire from the trees.
twenty yards on all sides. Connor rushed to look out the boarded-up windows on all other sides, but his enemies were nowhere in sight. Good. As he came back, Duncan groaned and started to move. Connor sent a small prayer upwards, but when his kinsman raised his head his eyes were clear.
carefully, then pointed to Duncan's ears. Sitting on the floor, still unable to rise, the younger Highlander felt in his ears, nodded, and then finally got to his feet. "Thanks," he mumbled, touched his sticky chest gingerly, and then stripped off his blood-soaked shirt. He noticed Elena on the floor.
his rifle with telescopic lens and went to check the windows. While they waited for a target, there was another round of commands from the Voice. This time Duncan was ordered to behead Connor, Connor to behead Duncan, and Elena to kill both MacLeods. Every time Connor was issued a command he flinched and was really tempted, but he knew he could fight it and didn't want to block up his ears. Someone had to know what was going on.
long black hair was badly tangled. Even a casual inspection told him that this was not a normal place for him to stay, but something considerably less dense, yet as primitive of life on earth. But again, he was thousands of years before his time. He was in the creation, the place that knew nothing of where God came from, or why, or how. No one knew this. However, this was the whole purpose of the Dream's realm. Maybe God thought that through watching the universe evolve, He was going to find out. What God had set in motion, was a giant Dream, a giant experiment, to see if the end resulted in producing beings like Himself, the Father, the Mother, the Essence.
universe whose laws would result in the evolution of creatures that resembled Him. They would be made of Matter. Maybe God did originally find out what it would have been like had He been Matter. Maybe God had looked for a clue as to how He got where He was. Maybe in watching man evolve, He had hoped to understand His own evolution, if such a thing in fact had occurred. God's imagination had created Matter, foresaw it, longed for it. Maybe the longing had been the most important aspect of His mind. If God himself did originate in Matter... then the Dream was an experiment to see when Matter can evolve into God again. But if God had not originated Matter, if He had proceeded and it was something He had imagined and desired and longed for, the effects upon Him were basically the same. In the end, God wanted Matter. He wasn't satisfied without it. Or He wouldn't have made it. It had been no accident.
His calculated experiment, and they, Immortals, had been created long after it began. How had it been before Matter began? No one but God knew. One thing was true: when Matter had been created, so had time. Immortals existed to witness and be drawn into time. Matter and time had changed everything totally. They had obliterated not only the pure state that preceded them, they had upstaged it; they had overshadowed it. Matter and time had eclipsed the time before time. God had created Matter and energy, in an interchangeable state, and now Corazón Negro suspected that the key to God laid within the word energy. In the end, God was energy, and in making the universe, in making the Dream, He had caused some of that energy to be changed into Matter, to create a circular interchange independent of Himself. At that moment, Corazón Negro witnessed millions of explosions, sudden transformations. It was the beginning of the human world. Corazón Negro was aware of a rather cool breeze suddenly, and glanced over his shoulder. He witnessed complex processes; some spark of life animated these events; they had a crude form of purpose, and it was as if Corazón Negro could see that spark of life and recognize it as the Quickening!
watched the apes started to walk upright. They lumbered upon the earth, clubs in hands, brutal, savage, tearing the flesh of enemies with their teeth, beating, biting, stabbing to death all that resisted them. But then something changed. Corazón Negro saw the caring for the weak by the strong, the helping and the nourishing of the crippled by the whole, and finally the burial rituals with flowers. Flowers were laid from one end to the other of the body softly deposited in the earth. The meaning was clear: man had commenced to exist. The female of the human species had begun to look more distinctly different from the male. The female grew pretty and seductive; the hair left her face, and her limbs grew graceful; her manner transcended the necessities of survival; and she became beautiful, as flowers were beautiful. Out of the coupling of the hairy apes had risen a female tender-skinned and radiant of face. Mates mated with the loveliest of the females, and those who were most lithe, and smooth to touch, and tender of voice. And from those matings came males themselves who were as beautiful as the females. There came humans of different complexions; there came red, yellow, black hair and locks of brown and starling white; there came eyes of infinite variety-gray, brown, green, blue. Gone was the man's brooding brow and hairy face, apish gait, and he, too, shone with the beauty of an angel just as did his female mate.
heard the voices of those invisible spirits. Their crying reached toward the heavens as the light of God shone on eternal, without change upon all.
man lay dying, twisting in his last pain on the bed they'd made for him of grass and flowers. But the wailing of the invisible ones hovered over this dying victim. The lamentations of the human beings rose more terrible than anything Corazón Negro could endure. Corazón Negro gazed beyond the tiny camp, and saw in the air the spirit gathering and crying. With his soul eyes he saw these spirits once more. He saw them clustering and dispersing, wandering, rolling in and falling back, each retaining the vague shape in essence of a human being. Feeble, fuddled, lost, unsure of themselves, they swam in the atmosphere, opening their arms to the man who lay on the bier about to die.
became an invisible spirit with all the rest. The spirit of the man rose in the shape of the man and joined those spirits who had come to take it away.
outline and their ceaseless voices, he could never again not see them, and like a wreath they surrounded the earth. They were the spirits of the human dead. Souls. Souls had evolved from Matter.
and living, and hovered about the material bodies of the humans. But they could not see the Dream. They just could see but those who had buried them, those who had loved them in life, and were they progeny, and those who sprinkled the red ochre over their bodies before lying them carefully, to face the east, in graves filled with ornaments that had been their own. More important, those humans who believed in them, those who worshipped the ancestors, felt their presence. Corazón Negro was too absorbed to think anything else. Yet all he could sense and consider was the whirlwind, and the souls who had surrounded him in the whirlwind as though the air from earth to heaven was filled with human souls. Souls drifting forever and ever. Where do they go in such darkness? What do they seek? What can they know about the Dream? Corazón Negro was as curious about the dead as he was about the living—these wreath souls he could see and hear—gathered about the world. It seemed to him that the realm of these weeping souls was the realm of pure Dream.
built shelters for themselves, they painted their bodies with various colors, women often lived separate from men, and they believed in something invisible.
They imagined a God who had made the wild beasts and in his honor they made blood sacrifice on altars, thinking this aspect of almighty God to be a personality of very distinct limits and rather easy to please or displease. Corazón Negro drew near to these altars and he heard the specific prayer for the God of the wild animals; then he began to see the care and deliberation of the sacrifice—the slaying of a ram or a deer. Humans that not only had come to look like angels, but they had guessed at the truth!
seemed to spring from the same essence, as did their surviving spiritual souls. Self-consciousness, and the awareness of one's own death—this had created a sense of distinct individuality in humans, and this individuality feared death; feared annihilation. And that it was this very same tenacity—the tenacity of this individuality—that made a human soul stay alive after it left the body, imitating the shape of a body, holding itself together, clinging to life, as it were, perpetuating itself, by shaping itself according to the only world it had known.
perceived to have created the world. Humans knew of the souls of the dead surviving; and they did reach out to these souls and make offerings to them. They brought offerings to their graves. They cried out to these dead souls. They begged for their help in the hunt, and in the birthing of a child, in all things.
living on earth, by the love being sent to them by humans, by the thoughts of them in human minds. Some souls knew they were dead, and sought to respond to the prayers of their children, and actively attempted to advice, speaking with all the power they could muster in a spiritual voice. They struggled to appear to their children. Sometimes they broke through for fleeting seconds, gathering to themselves swirling particles of matter by the sheer force of their invisible essence. Other times they made themselves visible in dreams, when the soul of the sleeping human was opened to other souls. They told their children of the bitterness and darkness of death, and that they must be brave and strong in life. They gave their children advice.
them. They requested offerings and prayers, they reminded the children of their duty. These souls were to some extent the least confused, except for one thing. They thought they had seen all there was to be seen. They have not seen a hint of the Dream. Some of these souls didn't know they were dead. They knew only they were lost and blind, miserable, and they cried all the time. They were so weak they didn't felt the presence of other souls. Other souls were clearly deluded. They thought they were still alive. They chased after their children, trying vainly to get the oblivious son or daughter to listen. Others simply drifted, seeing and hearing the sounds of other living beings but remote as if in a stupor. Some souls vanished away. The vanishing soul would last a few seconds after its separation from the human body, retaining its shape, and then begin to fade. The essence gradually dispersed, went into the whirlwinds, returning perhaps to the energy and essence of God. That was their agony. The hunger for life beyond death. However, there were some souls who understood things in a different way. They knew they weren't Gods. They knew they were dead humans. They knew they didn't really have the right to change the destiny of those who prayed to them; they knew that the libations were in essence symbolic. These souls understood the meaning of the symbolic concept. They knew. They were dead and they perceived themselves to be lost. They would have reentered the flesh if they could have. For there in the flesh was all the light and warmth and comfort that they had ever known and could still see. Sometimes these souls did managed to reenter flesh.
take over his limbs and brain and live in him until the man gained the strength to throw off the soul. There were those living humans already who had become oracles. They would smoke of drink some potion to render their own minds passive, so that a dead soul might speak with their voice. Because these powerful spirits knew only what earth could teach them, they might urge human beings on to terrible mistakes. Corazón Negro saw them order men into battle; he saw them order executions. He saw them demand blood sacrifice of human beings. The new Dreamer saw the creation of religion out of man. At that instant, Corazón Negro's soul understood the very essence of Lilitu's plan. She desired to be a new Goddess, to put the world thousands of years back under her false hope, her corrupted religion in order to rule everlasting.
==================================== At the barn… Finally Elena gasped her way back to life and lay on the floor, whimpering in pain, while her body finished healing. Duncan knelt beside her and spoke into her face. "The Voice," he said. "Can you hear?" he asked her, pointing to her ears.
as Duncan had. They were both bright and quick. Good. Now to put his plan into action. Keeping one eye on the window, he used easy hand signals to outline his instructions. It was a simple plan: he and Elena, who knew this grove so well, would go out the secret entrance, come up into the trees among their enemies and shoot the mortals—and kill, but not yet decapitate, the woman who was using the Voice. That last part would be Elena's job, she would concentrate on that. Connor would fight the others. If there were other Immortals, they'd just have to deal with them. Meanwhile, Duncan would stay behind protecting Corazón Negro. "Elena should stay with Corazón Negro," Duncan objected. Connor shook his head. Duncan, gallant as always, was trying to protect the womenfolk, and this was a woman Duncan still loved. Connor knew Duncan never let go of someone he loved. But the time for sentiment was long gone. Elena knew the area best; plus, if their enemies got past him and Elena, Connor believed that Duncan would better be able to protect the Dreamer. Keeping the Aztec alive was their only priority—their own lives were expendable. He couldn't explain this to people who couldn't hear, so he merely said, "Trust me." Duncan nodded, and Elena went to the center of the large room, to where Corazón Negro stood. She kissed him on the lips. "Que Dios te guarde, mi vida—May God save you, my love, " Connor heard her whisper to her lover. Then Connor and Elena went into the tunnel. ==================================== Inside the Dream…
the eternity of her soul, her night, something new had happened. In her own mind there had been only two things in the beginning: her own soul and the Dream. The Dream had been that perpetual thing, that something as her soul, the vessel where the other world manifested itself. The place of shadows, of silence, of calm and storms.
complete. Inside the mysterious world of Immortals, her Game was at the top of everything, ripping apart her former brother's souls with voluptuous fears, nightly beasts, against their will. Hers was a Game where the loser fell into an infinite abyss. Through millennia, Lilitu's soul had been a container of exquisite Quickenings, of everlasting powers, and now she existed inside a circle of awakening to feed and slumber to dream. Soon enough the Dream would become a place made in her image, and she would watch such a place from her eyes of hellish fires. But something new had occurred. Something unexpected. Corazón Negro. It had not been good enough that Lilitu had killed the first Dreamer, the Náhuatl priest known as Quetzalcóhuatl. No, he had left an heir, a pupil, and a disciple. For the first time in Lilitu's existence, that part of her that dwelled inside the Dream felt pain. A great pain, howling regardless of her efforts. Even more astonishing, Lilitu's soul understood something: she was afraid.
weaponless, hunting her. Infinite rage clouded her gaze. Of course she would kill the Dreamer— there was no doubt about that—but first, she decided to destroy him slowly, torturously, to make him pay for putting fear in her Goddess' soul. Come here, Dreamer, Lilitu's essence thought, hearing the steps of Corazón Negro's soul still far away. Come and enter night. The emotion that turned her gaze into a reddish glare left her, and cold speculation took control. Could she die? Could she lose everything at the last moment? Lilitu's soul started to tremble. She was not afraid of the Dreamer; she was afraid of losing this fight.
cast him away, deep inside her hellish gaze, where his soul would be lost, forever. Fear was her partner, her best ally. The Dreamer was about to meet dread as never before in his miserable life. ==================================== At the barn... When Elena and Connor came out the other end they quickly hid in the trees, peeking out to asses their situation. They were, as Connor hoped, behind their opponents, and he could see two men in the trees—on this side of the barn. Undoubtedly there were others, and he would find them. Connor felt at ease in this wild grove, and he hoped the Hunters were all urbanites. But nowhere could he see a woman, unless she was dressed in men's clothing. He pointed the two men out one by one to Elena, but she'd already seen them. "I don't see the Immortal woman. The one with the Voice," she whispered. "Find her and kill her," he enunciated. Then, taking a deep breath, he left his hiding place. Connor leapt straight at the Hunters. Two saw him coming and dove out of the way rolling and jumping to their feet, leaving Connor with only an armful of air as he grasped for a crushing blow at the space the Hunters had vacated.
them off. Connor's katana flashed through the air like a long-starved viper. It lashed the Hunters cutting both bodies at the same time, pinning both heads to their side.
Burning, searing pain in his eyes. Darkness. Pain spreading deeper. He clawed at his face, at his eyes, not caring that his fingers were also burning. Blind, Connor attacked from one side to another, stabbing with is katana everything in his path. The ground crumbled beneath him, making footing that much trickier. Still his eyes burned. Acid, or something like it.
eyes. That helped only a little. He tried to force open his eyes, squinting and blinking. At that moment, his eyes started to heal.
shoulders, propelling him into the air. The man landed hard on the ground several yards away and didn't get up.
Quickly, the head of the zealot rolled on the ground... ====================================
himself placed inside an uncomfortable and cold black mist. The fog whirled around him, becoming silver with the light before him. Suddenly, the mist seemed to form the features of Lilitu. "Who are you? What do you want?" she asked. "I am Corazón Negro, of the Aztlantaca people. You know who I am and why I am here. You put our world under fire. You are trying to be become a Goddess, which you are not. I am here to cast you from the Dream."
you think you can win? Come then! Come!" Lilitu's shape hissed. Corazón Negro was shot like a comet, forward, always forward. For a moment, he saw himself in Elena's empty barn on the pampa, his body being lifted and punished. "This is just happening inside the Dream!" he roared. "My body is safe outside the Dream. Elena is protecting me, and the MacLeods. I trust them. I must be strong for them, for the Ancient Gathering, for all of us..." The black tunnel narrowed in front of him, hurting his soul. For an instant, the blackness was everything; the blackness was the cosmos, the universe of his mind. "I know about your dreams... dreams of a flower... dreams of love... and I know too about your nightmares... nightmares of an earthquake... nightmares of death... I knew all about your nightmares as my eternal night began..." Lilitu's voice said.
power. Praying. He must pray. "Quetzalcóhuatl, Tleica titechmocahuilli?—Feathered Snake, why hast thou forsaken me?" Corazón Negro whispered in Náhuatl, echoing the eternal cry for help. Lilitu's laugh echoed like thunder. "Oh, are you praying? Well, I can pray too, my child. Powerful prayers..." Corazón Negro ignored her. "Quetzalcóhuatl, tleicanahmo ximoyolnontzaz? A icnapillot ma tumanihui manihuac titoteitl—Feathered Snake, why dost thou not talk with my heart anymore? Give me thy compassion, I am at thy side."
my hell... and know this for sure—in here, there is no God... just me! You are just somebody's dream; somebody who is afraid to wake up, because he knows that even he is a dream dreamed a long time ago by someone else..." An immense heat invaded Corazón Negro's soul while Lilitu's voice continued. "You are no one, and I'm everyone... You are just a delusion... And you don't want to wake up... not anymore. You know that, don't you? You thought you were the Dreamer... you thought you were life... now you are lost... while I am like a dulled stone knife..."
turned in that direction so he could see. Above him, the burning blue-fire shone strongly, and he could feel the wet flames touching his arms when he raised them. He touched the fire and there was pain, an eternal friend... his only friend... his one and only remaining friend. "You are a disgrace to your people and to your lineage. You are no one's Dreamer," Lilitu's voice sentenced. "Remember your orphan children? They are here, with me... waiting for you... they died under my torments, and you weren't able to stop me..."
was so dishonored than he hoped that this was his true death. He wanted to know that he couldn't fall any further than he already had. Please... no further.
color. Lilitu's voice sounded like a rage of thunder, traveling back and forth, echoing all around him. "You know there is no way back, and no way out. You could be the master, if only you would chose to serve me; instead, now you are my slave. I am your lover, light as a feather," she hissed. "No matter where you run, I will find you. You won't hear me coming, or see me; oh, but you will feel me! Without any sign, any warning, I will be beside you, on top of you..." Her laugh was all around him. It was a chuckle encompassing eons of evil.
failure, and Corazón Negro was completely wrapped up inside her demonic presence. Her evil made her perfect, without morals or regrets, without conscience. Even the Dream around her was contaminated by her touch. She was the source; she was the Prize. Alone, vulnerable, Corazón Negro watched her coming toward him, surrounded by the blackest darkness. She was inside him; she was the evil within his own soul. A faultless organism, timeless. Since the beginning of time, she had always been with him.
heartbeat... you are defenseless against me because I am a part of you, the stronger part. You can run, you can retreat, but you cannot escape what is inside you. I am the evil within all. And I am forever... I am that I am!" He looked at her. She was pale and red-haired, with wild emerald eyes, animal eyes, shining like charcoals in a bonfire. Naked, revealing her wet felinity between her legs. Moving toward him, around him, like a scorpion... no... more like a snake... the snake of time, devouring her own tail with pleasure... delighting in her evil... behind her, a couple of black shades were moving alongside her, like a pair of wings.
should have taught you better. This is my everlasting night, and you are lost inside it, lost forever. You will never find your way back to the light. Now you are eternal, just like me, condemned to wandering inside the darkness..." But down in the depths was something more. Corazón Negro sensed it. A great presence lunched forward, deep inside the darkness. A shape. A power. "I trust you are not thinking of Quetzalcóhuatl," Lilitu's voice said. "He was so stupid. The Old Snake died long ago inside my nightmare, along with Ahasuerus ,Darius, Nakano, Ramirez, Angelus, Yenkril, and so many others..."
focused himself. "No, I am the Dreamer! I am the Dancer of Time! You have no power over me!" he yelled, sure of his words. "The power of the Dream commands you to leave this place at once..." For a moment, Lilitu's shape disappeared. But suddenly, she was there once more, looking on, chuckling with uncontrollable, pleased agitation. "You are nothing!" She looked at him, and then repeated her offer. "This is your last chance: join me now."
was the darkness he hated. Not even Lilitu. But the darkness in her. And in himself. The only way to destroy the darkness was to renounce it. For good and all. He realized her urgings for him to join her meant she was vulnerable. She was afraid of what he could do—why else try to destroy him so many times? Yet she had failed every time—as she would fail now. He stood suddenly erect, and made the decision for which he had spent his life preparing. "Never! Never will I be like you! I am a Dreamer, as Quetzalcóhuatl was before me."
situation is." Lilitu's shape nailed her eyes in Corazón Negro. Blinding black bolts of power crusted from her eyeballs, shot across the environment like sorcerous energy, and tore through the Dreamer's insides, looking for ground.
==================================== At the barn... When Connor looked up, he saw Elena was sword fighting against an Immortal man. Where was the woman? He wondered, and then saw her lying on the ground—Elena had done her job after all. She didn't seem to be having too much trouble with her opponent, either, a blond, slim, rather pale man. He was fast, but clearly lacked Elena's skill. She ran him through with a satisfied grunt, and he dropped his sword, clutching at his chest in agony. After a moment he sank to his knees, unable to stand. "No!" the Immortal called out called out, surprised. "You can't!"
behead him?" she asked Connor. Connor was worried about the other Immortal reviving, but to his knowledge, all their opposition was down. Normally he didn't kill mortals, but in this case he had spared no one. Since Elena couldn't hear him, he nodded, then rushed back toward the barn at a dead run. Even as he ran past her, Elena had already decapitated her kneeling opponent. The power of the Quickening was overwhelming, and threw Connor forward several meters, onto his knees. But he quickly picked himself up and ran on, leaving Elena possibly at the mercy of the old woman. He had to get to Duncan and Corazón Negro. The fusillade of shots and the shouts he'd heard from that direction had frozen Connor's blood, and as he arrived at the old stone structure he saw the results. A group of Hunters had obviously rushed toward the house from all directions. They hadn't bothered with the door, crashing in through the windows instead. Two men were shot dead outside and a third lay half inside a window, still alive, moaning. Connor could see the Hunter symbol on that man's wrist, and it fueled his anger toward Lilitu and her whole damned crew. Inside the barn were two more Hunters. One was still breathing, and Connor, unwilling to leave an enemy alive at his back, shot him three times then put in a new clip as he went to the Immortals... ==================================== Duncan was lying in a pool of blood just beside Corazón Negro. He'd been shot several times in the back, probably as he tried to cover the Aztec with his body, but he'd managed to bury his katana in the body of a woman, another Hunter, who had died, sword in hand, and fallen on top of the Aztec's legs. Connor roughly tossed her aside.
blood was dripping down onto the body—glancing up, Connor saw the man who had obviously shot the Aztec. The Hunter had climbed onto the roof and used the hole they had cut out for the bonfire ritual, shooting down at them. He lay partially in the hole, drooping down. Dismissing that corpse, Connor examined Corazón Negro. There were five or six bullet holes, and his breathing was labored. The Aztec was dying. They had failed to protect him. Dammit! "Elena!" Corazón Negro wheezed, his voice muffled by the mask over his face. "Bring Elena!" he ground out. Of course. The Aztec had told Connor that Elena might be able to help with the Dream if he got hurt. He ran outside and called out, "Elena!" then remembered she still probably had wax in her ears. Unhappy about leaving the cabin because there was always the possibility that even one Hunter had survived; he nevertheless plunged back into the trees, eager to bring Elena to the Aztec before the man died.
horrible," she said, shuddering, then asked, breathlessly, "Corazón Negro?" "He's been shot. He's dying and asking for you. Hurry! Go!" "The Immortal woman is still alive!" Elena exclaimed as she ran off, and Connor, cursing, rushed forward, pistol in hand. The two Immortals were lying in a newly created clearing where several trees had fallen to the lightning storm that was the Quickening. As he noticed that, the old lady was just starting to sit up. She was old, perhaps near ninety, and could not possibly fight with a sword; which was, of course, why she used the Voice.
aimed his gun at her. "Detineres—Stop!" she commanded, Her eyes blazed with hatred and intelligent malevolence, and the power in her Voice made him shudder one more time; but he didn't put the gun down, although he also didn't pull the trigger.
calm, reasonable voice he was almost convinced. Almost. "You're right," he said. She didn't look armed, so he put his gun away and drew his sword. "But you've left me no choice. Tell me who you are before I kill you." She'd been looking around and had noticed her dead comrade. "He'd been with me many centuries. I'll miss him." "You won't have a chance to miss him," he said, approaching her. He raged at the thought of breaking the rules and having to decapitate an old woman, essentially a helpless opponent. "He was Gaius Germanicus." "Gaius Germanicus?" Connor repeated. A Roman name. Ancient Rome. Trying to recall his classical studies, he finally asked, startled, "Caligula?" The mad Roman emperor! The old woman smiled at his look of surprise. "I gave him that nickname myself—he didn't like to be called that. He said it made him feel small, weak. But he lasted quite a while, didn't he?" her eyes burned into his. "Tell me, was it the Argentine who took him, or you?"
he talked to this clever old woman, the less he wanted to behead her. Even if he could control the effects of the Voice, she was still somehow charming him, affecting him, keeping him from beheading her. He moved closer to her, almost regretfully. "The young are always in such a hurry," she said chidingly. She sounded like a grandmother, or like his own mother. He really didn't want to kill her. "I thought you wanted to know who I was, child." "I'm not your child," he said between clenched teeth. Dammit! Just do it, MacLeod! He was only a few steps away. She didn't flinch. "I am—was—Caesar's wife. The Empress Livia. Gaius' great-grandmother," she said proudly, holding her head up proudly. "In Rome I was a goddess." Connor was startled again. Livia?! According to the historian Robert Graves, Livia had killed a dozen people, including her own husband, the Emperor Augustus, in order to put her son Tiberius on the throne. She was a poisoner and a murderess—the perfect person to follow Lilitu.
had shuddered at that Quickening. He was sure that Caligula's great-grandmother would be just as bad, and he didn't want her Quickening inside him. As he raised his katana she shot him four times with a small caliber weapon she'd had hidden in the folds of her dress. Furious at himself for underestimating her, he finished the arc of his sword, although his chest burned, and he felt one bullet enter his left eye. Before he went down he still managed to behead her. As he died, he heard the last words she mouthed at him: "Canis filiu—Son of a bitch!" ==================================== The bullets had flown, plunging into Corazón Negro's chest. The Dreamer had doubled over from a pain as sharp as the bullets were. Then the Aztec had crumbled to the ground, blood oozing from his wounds.
Corazón Negro, had been hurt. But she knew Duncan would be fine—the Dreamer, however, had to stay alive, had to be able to fight Lilitu!
trying to keep the blood in. Gently, Elena rolled him onto his back, ripped open the jaguar's skin, to see the wounds...
was Immortal! "God, no," Elena said softly. "No, no, this isn't happening... this can't happen..." But it was, and she knew, and Corazón Negro knew. His eyes under the mask knew. Frantically, Elena tried to cover the wounds with the shredded jaguar's skin, holding on to it, applying some pressure.
keeping pressure on the wounds. "You're strong. You hold on." Corazón Negro shook his head—a small, terrible gesture. Elena's mind whirled with desperation; the ritual had been interrupted. Madre de Dios—Mother of God, what would happen now? Corazón Negro was trying to speak. Touching his lips with two gentle fingers, Elena said, "No... no, don't say anything. Save your strength. Soon you will be all right—" "Listen... Curi-Rayen," he whispered. Swallowing, she held him, held him close, so close even death couldn't pry them apart. "My love... what can I do? How can I help?" His lips moved. He whispered, "You are the next Dreamer... you must go inside the Dream..." He summoned enough strength to bestow her a smile, and uttered, "I love you... wife..." Finally, his body relaxed in death.
away. He was still in her arms, and she held him tight, hugged him tight, but it seemed death would win just the same.
opened in front of her. Carefully, she removed Quetzalcóhuatl's mask from Corazón Negro's face and placed it in her own. Next, she took the Maquáhuitl. Then—jaw muscles tensing—she turned toward the Dream, and strode forward. She cut her own arm. Instantly, blood spilled above the bonfire. "I am Curi-Rayen, daughter of the Mapuche People... I cannot be denied!" she yelled toward the Dream's vortex. ====================================
moment, he thought he saw blood in it. He was at once confused and in agony—and he understood why: outside the Dream, his body was being attacked. He knew it.
Initially, he was successful—the blackness rebounded from his touch, harmlessly into the Dream around him. Soon, though, the shocks came with such speed and power, they coursed over and into him, and he could only shrink back, convulsed with pain, his knees buckling, his powers ebbing away.
too. This time, there is no going back," Lilitu's shape menaced. Soon Corazón Negro felt his substance begin to fade away, as if the energy that held him together was dying inside the Dream under the continuing assault of Lilitu's blackness. Tormented beyond reason, overcome of a weakness that drained his very essence, he hoped for nothing more than to submit to the nothingness toward which he was drifting. Lilitu's shape smiled at the enfeebled Dreamer. "Bastard!" she rasped at him. "Now do you understand? I am the new Goddess; I am the beginning and the end! You will pay the full price for your lack of understanding!"
outpouring of black energy from Lilitu's eyes actually increased in intensity. The sound screamed through the Dream, the murderous blackness of her power was overwhelming. Corazón Negro's soul slowed, wilted, and finally crumpled under the hideous power of Lilitu's psyche. He stopped moving altogether. At last, he appeared totally lifeless. A last thought invaded his mind. "Curi- Rayen," he whispered. Lilitu's shape hissed maliciously. "It is useless..." Corazón Negro had shrunk into himself, awaiting his inevitable doom. But suddenly something sprang to life inside him, something good, something bright. His other side; the part of his soul that was not darkness, not evil. He felt a power behind him and heard a deep sigh.
mountains, dressed in a soft skin robe, a trarilonco—a leather cord around her head—with white feathers in her hair, a trariwe around her waist—a wide beaded belt worn by Mapuche women— and intricate golden chains around her neck, her ankles and her wrists. The figure moved directly toward him with the grace of the deer. The Dream shone around her feet with each step. Her face was calm and beautiful, with gray eyes—no eye patch here in the Dream— like those of a wolf and skin the color of alabaster. Tall for a woman, her black hair hung to her hips.
soul ... and her beautiful eyes, both of them, filled with tears. "Finally I know, my love! Now I understand! One soul and one heart, until the end of time!" "Curi-Rayen," Corazón Negro whispered. "You are nothing, whore!" Lilitu screamed at Elena. "You should not have come! You'll die with him!"
love of what was sundered and undone, of what shall be whole, the two made one again. These numbers matter. This is the way to destroy the ancient enemy. This is the way to cast you out from the Dream, Lilitu."
burning the Dream around them. Then, Lilitu watched as Elena and Corazón Negro's souls melted into a single luminous being. They grew taller, an everlasting being, dressed with the light of the stars.
"This is our Dream," the Elena-Corazón Negro living being said. "And here is our signal, like the fire from the sun, where the divine bonfire is, here inside our soul." "No!!! You cannot!!! I am the tolling of the judgment day!!!" Lilitu's soul screamed as she attacked with her blackness again. However, the energy dissipated before it even reached the luminous being that was Elena and Corazón Negro.
iñ kuitikeceyem, gijatún dugu eli ta Cau, kicuke ñi kimvn, kicuke ñi feyentun, vill ni piuque meu manumeimi, vill antu mo Cai manumaeimi ta mi cume duam—This is the way our ancestors did it, this is God's command, this is our wisdom, this is our belief, and with all out heart we thank the Gods every day for their will." The sound of great blows of thunder interrupted Lilitu's essence's arguments. A strange wind that came from nowhere invaded the Dream. "This is the realm of our Dream, our Lord almighty. We are the Dreamer, we are the Dancer of Time, together as just one being made of love and honor, with love as our sign; we follow the path of God. And He will bring peace; there will be no more anger, and death will be a thing of the past."
Lilitu!!! I have always existed!!! I am the mother of all!!! I am forever!!! Do you hear me??? I am all your fears come true!!! I am your absent father and your eternal mother, your precious love; even your teacher!!! I am your master!!! You are mine now, and I am forever!!! I am that I am!!!" She shuddered right on top of then—but she couldn't touch the Elena-Corazón Negro being. Not anymore.
toward her. "Leave this place at once, never to return!" Disembodied voices rose from the shadows; indistinct, muffled screams overlapped each other. The moaning souls of hundred of individuals invaded the Dream.
up," the Elena-Corazón Negro being said once more. The Darkness surrounding Lilitu's psyche froze as the light illuminated the environment. The dark shapes quickly disappeared away from the light and the fury of the whirlwind. Furious, Lilitu tried to move. But she could not.
You have not won today... as you will one day learn... you have lost!!!" she yelled at last as she abandoned the Dream in the form of a huge black fireball, which flew away, crashing against the remaining shadows, howling like a demon out of hell. The Elena-Corazón Negro being's gaze narrowed as Lilitu left. Then, their single mouth ordered again, "Close your gate, Dream! Close it now!" ===================================
He'd thought taking the Kurgan's Quickening had been bad, but the Kurgan had merely been strong. This woman, Livia, was evil, and he felt her power course through him like poison in his blood. He closed his eyes and took long, gasping breaths, as though he'd been running a long distance, while he struggled to push Livia's soul deep, where it would not affect him, try to overcome him. Duncan MacLeod sat up, cursing in Gaelic. In spite of all his efforts, all the mortals he'd shot, the bastards had gotten past him—fired from above, actually—and shot Corazón Negro. He hadn't been able to stop them; he'd failed, they'd all— He heard Elena crooning softly nearby and thought, damn, she's mourning him. But she wasn't. Because when he turned to look he saw that Corazón Negro was alive, and out of his trance. If he was alive, then they had to have won. Hadn't they?
both sprawled on the ground and she was stroking his brow. Quetzalcóhuatl's mask lay to one side. "Are you all right?" she asked softly, sinking her gray eye into his leopard's gaze. "Yes, my love," he said, almost whispering. "Are you unhurt?" Elena blinked, then smiled. "I—I think so." A shadow blocked the starlight as Duncan stood over them. "Is it over?" the Scot asked. Corazón Negro smiled up at her. "Lilitu is out of the Dream." "She is? Does that mean—" "We did it, brother." Corazón Negro interrupted. Then to Elena he said, "Thank you for your help." "I'd do anything for you, husband," Elena said kissing him deeply. Then they both looked at the statues of the Gods, lying like broken dolls among the tables. "Is it finally over?" whispered Elena. Corazón Negro shook his head as Duncan helped Elena, then him, to his feet. He felt dizzy, weak, but elated. But it wasn't over. "No. Our fight is over—Lilitu won't have time to send anyone else. Now all depends on Zarach and the others. They still have to kill Lilitu's physical body. Behead her. Only then it will be over." As he said these words, he saw out of the corner of his eye Connor MacLeod, climbing out through the secret passage, then nothing more as the blackness overtook him.
safe, my love. We won't let anything happen to you." Connor came closer and looked at the couple on the floor. "Will he be all right?" "Yes," she answered. "Thanks to the two of you." "It was a team effort," Duncan said, shaking his head. "And for a while there, I thought we'd lost." "But we didn't," Connor said, but his voice shook, and Duncan studied him for a long moment. "What happened out there, Connor? You look …" "Bad Quickening," the elder Highlander said, shaking his head. "Ask Elena." Elena merely smiled, and Duncan opened his mouth to ask, but Connor interrupted him. "Enough about us. I hope the others can kill Lilitu. She'll be well protected." Elena shrugged, as Connor looked her over. "He wanted you in the Dream. With him. Were you there?"
"Good." Connor looked around. "We put him in that wheelbarrow and bring him back to the cabin. I could use a drink." "Scotch, of course," Elena said. Connor smiled. "Of course." =================================== Yüklə 2,56 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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