An Evening at Joe's (11 page)

Abraham and I had been working together to finish one of the many buildings that were currently in progress, when an Immortal who Abraham had met previously made an appearance. He was called Joshua, and he was collecting heads. He was barely 100 years old, but had recently learned of this way to gain power and was very dedicated in his pursuit of the task. Because he already knew Abraham, it was him that was desired for combat. I accompanied my friend as far as I could, in case I might be of some help, although I had no intention of interfering in their affair.

Abraham was over 500 years old, much younger than my 1380, and well versed in warfare so I was confident that he would be victorious. Neither of us had any respect for the men like Joshua who were so concerned with their acquisition of raw power that they usually completely neglected to learn how to do anything with it other than apply it as might against weaker individuals.

It was without much sympathy for the plight Joshua had made for himself that I followed them at a discreet distance to the place they were to meet, outside of the city walls. As they engaged, it was apparent that Joshua was all brawn and had little skill at actual combat; he had probably enjoyed considerable success by intimidating others with his size and great strength. I was confident that he had met his match in Abraham, who was a student of strategy and technique: I had learned a great deal from him myself, from our many practices together over the years. It was no surprise to me when Abraham repeatedly frustrated Joshua's bullish challenges stylishly, while conserving his own energy for the kill. What was surprising was that as they fought, they approached the boundary of an old burial ground, used long before people moved inside of the city walls for protection, and it made my senses tremble. I had never felt anything like it before; it was a dread so deep and specific that it was immediately apparent to me, and I assumed, then, that there should be no warfare upon that place. This knowledge was so acute that it was as though it was inside of me, like the life force of another Immortal when you take his head. Observing Abraham's face made it clear that he felt it too, but Joshua's look betrayed no such emotion.

He continued to attack, but with considerably less energy than when they began. I could hear Abraham speaking quite clearly; he was asking Joshua if he felt this strange force but received no reply, so Abraham began to edge away from him to exit the boundary that they had crossed. At that moment he stumbled, losing his grip upon his sword, and was caught without protection. Joshua struck him with a mighty death blow.

At the exact instant of contact between blade and neck, Joshua's sword stopped as though he had struck solid stone and he disappeared, his weapon landing on the hard ground where he had stood only a moment before. It was as though he had never been there. A profound silence occupied the space that had just been full of the sounds of battle, and I moved quickly to remove my friend from it. My mind was racing for an explanation for what we had just witnessed; I had never heard of anything like this happening before, even as I knew the answer: no sacred site could be desecrated by the combat of Immortals. The insensitivity of that act was somehow not permitted by whatever forces ruled our existence. What that energy might be and what else may be forbidden was not something that I was prepared to consider at that moment. I knew only that we had been warned, perhaps by magic or one of the gods that they worshipped in the city. Whatever it was, neither of us was prepared to define it at that moment. We left those grounds as fast as we could, not even stopping to erect Joshua's sword as a warning, and returned to the safety of the city and its comforting sounds of life.

After considerable discussion, we decided to stay in Ur for a while longer so that we could try to figure out what it might mean. Joshua's disappearance caused Abraham to seriously consider that he had been a sorcerer and the whole event was a warning to us that we could not do as we pleased without facing retribution for our actions. I found that hard to believe: If Joshua was magical, why didn't Abraham vanish? It made little sense to me that the punishment would be administered to the enforcer of unspoken laws, especially since we had both felt the dread and Abraham had actually warned Joshua that they should move elsewhere to continue. Abraham hadn't tried to stop their fight, he only wanted to finish it in a place that was safe. I was unable to assist him in resolving his fears about this apparent sorcery that he would carry to his death, nearly eight hundred years later. He was a good friend and his absence from the world still causes me great sorrow.

After Abraham's death, I decided to make my way to the City of Jerusalem to join the world again. I had always avoided big cities before, because I desired anonymity from Mortals. However, I reasoned that there was no better place in which to be faceless than where there were too many people living to keep track of each other. There was plenty of construction going on there at the time and I, having become a very good stone cutter, had no difficulty in obtaining employment as a master cutter.

There were many other Immortals being drawn to the cities at the same time as we had: some for similar reasons to mine, others because there were so many heads to be collected in these places. I began to enjoy my life, and shared in the bounty of camaraderie prevalent among the various groups of Immortals. Allegiances were being forged and organisations formed between like-minded persons, some based on status or trade, but many were dependent only upon shared ideals or aspirations of the moment.

This was also the place where the Watchers first became known to me as a serious association. They had existed previously as small groups of men and women who were obsessed with sourcing out the tales of people who greatly outlived their normal lifespan, which was about 75 years at that point in history. One night, I overheard a group at a nearby table discussing certain Immortal names that I recognised, while I was enjoying the company of some co-workers at a drinking house. My interest was piqued, so I allowed myself to be observed displaying interest in their conversation. Eventually, acquaintances were struck and I was invited to a meeting the following evening.

My intention was to find out who they were and why they were so interested in Immortals, but since I needed to be cautious so as not to tip my hand, I decided to appear interested in their Organisation for primarily social purposes. In this way, I would not be taken too seriously at first, and I could make use of their rather unorganised ways to find out exactly what they knew.

I soon met Ruth, a tall, lovely woman who I would have been pleased to make the acquaintance of whether she was a Watcher or not. She possessed a long mane of unruly hair with a personality to match. She was outspoken about her beliefs on every topic, with an education to back it up. She had taught herself to read and write so that she could study various subjects as they interested her. Certain men found her enthusiasm towards education to be off-putting; she was often the most well read person present at their meetings, and not many men appreciated her for it. I was definitely not one of those. Ruth had an exhilarating zest for everything that she did, and in any other time she would have led the group. Later on, she did, but only after changes had occurred with regard to respecting women's rights in their social structure.

In order to avoid recognition as an Immortal, I chose the name Alexander to be used as long as I lived among them. Certainly they had heard of Methos, I reasoned, and such effrontery would easily tip my hand. I was disappointed to discover that I was virtually unknown to their records, having been mentioned only in passing. Apparently my rather low profile had paid dividends of anonymity. I eventually became a member and gained access to a treasure of information. There was a good deal to be learned from them; their records confirmed a lot of what I already knew and added much more to my knowledge of who we were and where we all were located. Still, I was uncertain about what purpose this association with them might serve, other than my own curiosity.

Ruth and I, however, found a great number of shared interests outside of the work we performed for the Watchers, and we became man and wife in 904 B.C., soon after I shared my secret with her. She told me that she had seen something in my eyes that had betrayed me to her, so she was not hard to convince. I was disappointed to find out that fathering a child with her was something that I was unable to do, now that I was with someone who inspired me to become more firmly rooted in a proper life. Upon further consideration, I realised I had never heard of an Immortal man or woman having children. Towards Ruth I felt more deeply and with greater respect than I had ever known or thought possible to exist between men and women. My entire outlook was inexorably altered and I became a better man for the experience she gave to me.

The Watchers, meanwhile, continued to grow in membership and reach, even as it began to diverge in direction. Various smaller groups were beginning to form within the Organisation, with most of them supporting the official policies, but a few held more extreme beliefs regarding the presence of Immortals. The official hypothesis was that Immortals should be watched in order to protect humanity from an outcome similar to the abuses committed by the Horsemen. They were much more knowledgeable about the Immortal condition than I was because they had the benefit of an immense store of information, gathered over many hundreds of years. I was only aware of those I had personally met or heard of from the few Immortal friends with whom I shared such confidences. The renegade groups, however, were of the opinion that Immortals were an abomination of creation and therefore not worthy of any life. Tempers flared at the meetings and I listened to speeches by some really spiteful individuals who were, in my opin- ion, embittered by the limitations of their own Mortality.

There was a lot for me to learn at these meetings. They inducted me into their ranks with a ceremony and a complete (as much as they knew at the time) explanation of the who and why of Immortal existence. Some of this information was welcome because it confirmed and explained a great many questions and feelings that I had had over the last 2,050 years. For example, I was very interested to learn that the exchange of power from a beheaded Immortal was referred to as a Quickening and could increase a warrior's power greatly.

They also confirmed for me that Immortals were not able to have children but there was no finite number of Immortals yet; more were being born all the time. Apparently, we were the participants in a struggle that they referred to as The Game, with a Prize being granted to the last surviving member who was going to rule the Earth with great powers. This was the central tenet of separation for the Watchers' rank and file; the majority of members were content simply to observe and record our Immortal conquests, but the extremists were concerned that an evil one would win and the earth would be doomed to eternal subjugation. Since the Immortal victor was to be granted an Immortality that would be free of other competitors, he or she would then be unable to be killed by human means and it would be too late for them to affect the outcome.

The extremists proposed killing us all now, before a winner was declared and it was too late, regardless of the individual Immortal's inclination towards method of ruling. At least they agreed that Immortals were the same as Mortals; either good or bad by individual choice. I appeared to be the only one who felt that the odds were at least even that the champion would be one who walked a more discerning path, so I kept my opinions to myself for the time being.

All of these discussions proved extremely informative to me, in that I could now tell if trouble was in store for any of my friends and make an effort to assist them.

Ruth and I were in complete agreement with respect to trying to positively influence the outcome of The Game, although she recognised that we were treading on dangerous ground. How were we any more entitled to make those choices than someone that we considered to be holding divergent views? If we sought entitlement, she cautioned that we couldn't deny it to those who would use the same information to hunt Immortals. After considerable discussion, we agreed that it was an improper use of the Watchers' database to forward such a personal agenda. My previously malleable moral structure that had permitted me to ride with the Horsemen was beginning to develop into a more cohesive substance.

Not long after, I had to leave my building job and devote my full attention to the Watchers because they needed the help. There were not enough agents to cover the individual Immortal assignments; each Watcher was trying to cover two or three often very disparate people. This started to involve frequent travel in order to keep tabs on them, and Ruth and I turned down several assignments because we didn't want to move anywhere else quite yet. We reasoned that there were enough Immortals who were passing through Jerusalem that we could observe them and concern ourselves more with the organisational structure that was emerging.

Because of my status as an Immortal, we knew that we would have to leave sometime, in about 15 to 20 years, because I would not be showing any advancement of age by then. Hopefully, we would be able to take an assignment following an Immortal who had settled somewhere far enough away for me to maintain my cover when the time came.

I was becoming concerned that I would eventually end up running across an Immortal that I knew or one who wanted my Quickening. In this town I would be found out pretty fast if I picked up my sword against someone who was being covered by a Watcher. If I was exposed, my main worry was what would happen to Ruth, both within the Organisation and regarding her personal safety from the radical elements who could use the opportunity to justify their anxiety towards Immortals. The events that would follow my exposure would also serve to drive the Watchers deeper underground, making it harder for me or any other Immortal to ever infiltrate them again. If I had to choose between concealing my identity and revealing Ruth's involvement, I knew that I would give myself up to them, hoping that eventually Ruth and I could escape and start over somewhere else.