(All my stories are on my webpage at <http://www.erols.com/darkpanther>)

When he woke, it was still dark.  He was hungry, but he knew he could not ask for food.  If he asked, the big man with the angry voice would hit him again.  He was scared, too, in this new village, but he did not cry.  They didn't like it when he cried.

Tesba used to hold him when he cried.  He had felt safe then, with her arms around him.  She used to share food with him, too, and sing songs.  There had been another woman before that, in a house somewhere.  She had played games with him, using pebbles and pieces of grass.  He didn't remember her name.  He had been little then.  He was almost five now.

But Tesba was gone.  A man had come and bought her, three villages ago, just like a man had taken the other woman, long ago.  The man who bought Tesba didn't want him, of course.  He was too skinny, and wasn't strong enough, the man said.  Not even worth feeding.  Tesba left with the man, walked away with him.  She didn't even look back at him when he called out her name.  The big man hit him, though, for making noise.  Hit him again and again with the stick.

No one had held him when he cried that day.

He huddled close to the ground and wrapped his arms around his legs.  He was cold, and the only clothing he had was a loincloth.  Later today it would be hot, and then he would be thirsty, but the sun wasn't even up yet, and it was still cold.  He crawled into the corner of the slave-pen and lay down close to one of the men, but he did not touch him.  They didn't like it when he touched them.

He cried himself to sleep, but he did it quietly, so no one would know.

~~~~~

Later that day, when the sun burned hot and the marketplace was crowded and noisy, they brought food to the slave-pen.  Tesba used to make sure he got some food, but he didn't know any of the slaves now, and none of them knew him. They were all new ones, bought at the last two villages.

There was only a crust of bappir left.  He scraped the hard bread with his teeth, letting the crumbs melt in his mouth before he ate anymore.  It took him a long time to eat the bread.  He was still hungry.

The big man came and told them to stand up, so he did.  He tried to stand up straight, to look strong.  The big man hit him anyway.  He did not cry.

Two of the men-slaves were bought right away, by a woman dressed in long red veils.  He hoped someone would buy him today.  He was tired of walking from village to village.  His feet were bleeding again, and they hurt.  Another woman-slave was bought next, and then another of the men-slaves.  He tried to keep standing straight, but he was tired.

The big man yelled at him, and he froze, then stood as tall as he could.   But the man came over and hit him, then grabbed his arm and pulled him along.  He walked fast, half-trotting, trying to keep up.

"A fine boy, Lady," the big man said, when they reached the gate to the pen.  "Biddable, young enough to train.  Cheap, too, at this age."

He did not look up, knowing they would hit him if he did.  He stared at the lady's feet.  She was wearing sandals, instead of bare feet, and copper toe-rings.  The hem of her long green gown was embroidered with red butterflies.  They floated above her ankles.  Maybe she was rich.  Maybe she would feed him.

He heard the money being counted, but he kept his head down.  The big man moved away, and he was left alone with his new mistress.  He did not move.

The lady bent her knees gracefully so that her face was at the same height as his, but he did not look at her.  The red butterflies dragged in the dust of the street, and the straps of her sandals had creases in them now.

"What's your name?" his mistress asked.

He had to think about that.  No one had called him by his name for a long time.  "Roland," he said finally.  Her hand moved toward his face, and he froze, knowing she was going to hit him for not answering soon enough.

Her hand stopped, and she said, "I won't hurt you."  Her voice was soft and gentle.  "Look at me."

Roland did, slowly.  She was smiling, and her eyes were as green as her dress.  Her long red-brown hair was braided, with little bells at the ends of each braid, and she wore a light-green veil over her head.  She was very pretty.

"My name is Cassandra.  You can come home with me," she said.  She held out her hand to him, and waited for him to take it.  "You're safe now."

~~~~~

He didn't believe her, not at first, but she fed him as soon as they got to her house, cucumbers and barley porridge.  He was hungry, but she gave him only a little.  "You can eat more soon," she promised.  "You'll be sick if you eat a lot now."

Roland didn't care.  If there was food, you ate.  Everyone knew that.  But she put the food away, and he knew better than to ask.  She would hit him.

But she didn't.  Not all day, not even once.  She washed him, twice, and scrubbed his hair, and put some cold oily paste on his feet.  It hurt at first, but then he couldn't feel it anymore.  Then she gave him more to eat, a roasted turnip this time.  He didn't like the washing, but the food was good.  She asked him some questions, like how old he was and where he came from and how long he had been with the big man.  He couldn't answer them, not really, but she didn't get angry even then.

"Do you have any questions for me?" she asked, sitting across from him on a small wooden bench.

Roland said nothing.  Slaves didn't ask questions.  They were silent.

"Anything," she said, smiling again.  "Go ahead.  Ask."

"What work do I do, Mistress?" he asked finally.  Asking about work should be safe.  He hoped.  Masters liked slaves to work.

His mistress nodded gravely.  "Yes, you need to work."  She looked about the little house.  It was one room, with a sleeping place hidden by a curtain, and a long table along one wall.  There were a lot of pots on the table, some painted, some not.  The walls were painted, too, bright patterns on one wall, a picture with birds and trees on another.

Then she looked at him, and Roland tried to sit up tall.  She said, "I want you to sweep the floor, and carry water, and keep the fire going."

Roland nodded, relieved.  He already knew how do those things.  He would be careful, and then she wouldn't have to hit him when he made mistakes.

"I'm going to teach you how to pound the clay when we make pots."

Roland wasn't quite so sure about that, but it didn't sound too hard.

His mistress smiled at him again.  "And you have to eat and sleep and play."

His mouth opened in surprise, but he said nothing.

But his mistress had seen and she wanted to know.  "Tell me," she commanded.

He had to answer her now.  "Slaves don't play, Mistress," he whispered, staring at the floor, digging his big toe into the hard-packed earth floor.

She nodded.  "I know," she said, not smiling now.  "But you are not my slave, and I am not your owner."

"But you bought me!" Roland said, shocked into speaking, then freezing in fear as he realized he had just told her she was wrong.  Would she sell him now?

"Roland," she said, taking his hands in her own, "I did buy you.  But you are not my slave, and I don't want you to call me mistress, or lady."

"Then, what...?"

"You can call me Cassandra, if you like.  But I would like it if you called me Mother."

Roland could only stare.  He had never had a mother.  Only Tesba and the other woman, for a little while, and they were gone.

"You're safe now, Roland," Cassandra said again, and she took him into her arms and onto her lap, and she held him while he cried.

~~~~~

"Mother?" Roland called, as he and their neighbor Jarie came back from the marketplace.

Cassandra was painting a pot, but she set it down and held her arms open to him.  Roland took off running and she swooped him up and twirled him around, his feet flying out.  Roland laughed.  He liked that.  They did it every time he came home.

"How's Roland?" she asked, setting him down.  "How's my boy?  How was the market?"

"I saw the most biggest ram ever, Mother.  He was huge, and his horns were that wide!"  He held his hands as far apart as he could.  "And he was loud, too!  When they fed him he went BAAAA!"

Both his mother and Jarie laughed, and Roland said, "I carried Jarie's basket for her, all the way home."

His mother bent down and hugged him.  "You're very strong."

Roland stood tall and proud.  He was getting stronger every day, and bigger. He was six now, and he had already lost two of his teeth.

His mother said, "Roland, I am going to visit Haram tonight, so you will stay with Jarie until tomorrow morning."

Roland nodded, a little sad and a little excited.  He liked staying with Jarie, but ever since spring Cassandra had been spending a lot of time with Haram, the tall man who made drums and lived by the village gate.

She added, "But, this afternoon, before I go, we will paint the pots together, yes?  And you can help me pound out some clay."

Roland smiled.  He loved to do that.  And tonight, he and Jarie could play with the kittens. "But first, Mother, can we eat?  I'm really hungry."  He spread out his arms again.  "I'm this hungry!  Hungry as that ram!"

Cassandra and Jarie both laughed, and his mother said, "As hungry as that?  Well, little ram, let's eat."

Jarie went home, and he and Cassandra ate lunch, then painted some pots and pounded the clay.  When they were finished, he went next door to Jarie's, and Cassandra said good-bye.  "I'll be back tomorrow morning," she said and gave him a kiss.  Roland and Jarie played with the kittens, then ate dinner and went to bed.

~~~~~

When Roland woke up, there was a man standing by his bed, and they weren't in Jarie's house anymore.  Roland's head hurt, and when he touched it, his hand came away sticky with blood.  "Where's Jarie?" he asked.  "Where's my mother?"

The man shook his head, his eyes dark.  The moonlight made his face look half-gone.  "Didn't she tell you?  She sold you to me this afternoon."

Roland shook his head, and that made it hurt even worse.  But it didn't hurt as much as the cold knot in his stomach.  "She wouldn't," he said.  "She promised.  She said she would keep me forever."

The man just laughed and sat down next to him on the bed.  His eyes showed white at the edges, and his teeth looked gray.  "She lied.  Women do that."

Roland swallowed hard.  "She's my mother.  She wouldn't."

"She's not your mother," the man said.  "Not really."

"She is!" Roland insisted.  The man slapped him, hard, and the room went around.  Roland held onto the edge of the bed and tried not to throw up.

"Don't talk back, boy," the man said, and now his voice was cold.  "She should have taught you better manners.  She told me you were a handful.  She told me she didn't want you anymore."

Roland shook his head numbly.  It couldn't be true.  She wouldn't do that.  But the numbness turned to coldness as he looked at his new master.  She had.

The man's voice was warm again as he smiled and laid his hand softly on Roland's bare shoulder.  "I'll teach you what you need to know."

~~~~~

There was no one to hold Roland that night when he cried.

~~~~~

By the third day, he had given up crying.  The man hit him when he cried.  The man had left for a while, but had tied him to the post in the center of the room.  Roland couldn't untie the knot.  He huddled under the table and waited.

The door opened, and a woman came in.  "Roland?"  It was her voice, sounding strange.

He didn't move, and he didn't open his eyes.  She came closer; he could hear her clothes rustling.

"Roland?" she said again.  "Oh, Roland."  Now she sounded sad.

He didn't know why she had come.  He didn't belong to her anymore.  He opened his eyes a little when he heard a scraping sound.  She was cutting through the rope.  His master would be angry at her for doing that.  She cut all the way through it, then held out her arms.

Roland didn't move.

"Please come to me, Roland," she said.  There were tears on her face.  "Please come."

He shook his head.  He knew the law.  He belonged to his master.  She had sold him.

"I've been looking for you," she said.  "Three days.  Three nights."

"Why?" he asked, surprised into forgetting that slaves didn't speak.

"Why?" she repeated, a soft whisper now, looking surprised, too.  "You're my son."

He shook his head again, feeling nothing.  "You sold me to him."

"Oh, no, Roland," she cried.  "Oh, no."  Her face was crumpled.  "I would never do that.  He lied."

"I called you," Roland said.  There were tears on his face, too, even though he knew he should not cry.  "I called you, and you didn't come.  He said you didn't want me anymore."

"He lied," she said again, so soft he could hardly hear it.  "I love you, and you are my son."  She held out her arms again.  "Please come to me."

Roland could not move.  The man had told him not to, and he was afraid of that man.  He was afraid of her, too.  Maybe she was lying now, the way the man had said she lied before.  The man had said that all women lied.  The man had said that all women left you, went to be with someone else.

But Cassandra was still there.  "I swear to you, Roland," she said, her voice strong.  "I swear I did not sell you.  I swear I will never leave you, never sell you.  By the Mother of All that is Living, I swear to you that you are my son, and I will never hurt you."  She held out her hands again, and her voice was soft now.  "Please, Roland.  Please come home."

Roland didn't want to stay in this house, with that man.  He wanted to go home.  He crawled out from under the table, and he went into her arms.

~~~~~

But they didn't go home.  They left the village and went somewhere else.  Roland didn't like that, but he didn't say anything.  On the way there, Cassandra started to teach him some special words.

"What does the word mean?"  He could not call her mother, not yet.  He needed to be sure.

"It's just a word, little one," she said.  "A new language for you to learn.  You're good at languages, and this one will be useful to you."  She sounded very serious when she said that, but Roland didn't ask her why.  He didn't ask her about Jarie, either.

That night they slept by the side of the road, and she held him in her arms and sang him to sleep as she usually did, but he didn't really feel safe.

He never felt safe again.

~~~~

When he was sixteen, and they had moved twice more, she stopped teaching him the language.  Roland knew what it meant now.  It wasn't really a language; it was the Voice --a way of speaking other languages, hearing the tones and the special way the words went together, and using words to tell people what to do.

Roland liked knowing how to do that.  It was fun to tell the baker to give him a flat-cake, and then tell him to forget all about it.  His friends Terg and Sheqru thought so, too, even though they laughed at him when the Voice didn't work, because then the baker got mad.  The Voice only worked sometimes for him.

Cassandra was better at it, but she almost never used it.  Only once, when soldiers had stopped them and started to take their money.  Roland didn't understand why she didn't use it more often.  She told him he would understand later.  She said that about a lot of things. He was tired of hearing it.

His friend Terg didn't have to hear things like that.  He was an apprentice, living with the beer brewer near the well, with wages of his own and a place to live, and he was two years younger than Roland, only fifteen.  Cassandra had taught Roland a lot about pottery, but he didn't want to be a potter all his life.  He had told her that once, and she had said simply, "You won't be," but it was still the only real training he had had.  He had started to work for a smith in the last village, but then Cassandra said they needed to move.  She didn't say why.  Roland hadn't found a new smith to work for yet.

Sheqru was sixteen, and he wasn't going to be a potter.  He didn't live with his parents, either.  He was apprenticed to the weaver, and she had said he would be his own master in just a few more years.

But it was the Feast of Marduk, and no one had to work now, on this three-day festival honoring the God of the Sun.  "What should we do?" Terg asked, as the three of them wandered about the marketplace.  The drums were already beating in the temple ziggurat.  "Watch the donkey races?"

"I heard they are going to have camel races in the village down the river," said Sheqru.  "Let's go there!"

"I need to tell Cassandra," Roland said.  He never called her mother in front of his friends.

"Why?" Terg demanded.  "Do you tell her everything you do?"  He sniggered.  "I hope not."  Sheqru started to laugh, too.

Roland didn't laugh.  "Let's go then," he said, heading for the gate in the village wall.

"Don't you need to stop and tell your mother?" Terg asked, still snickering.

"No," Roland said, then used the Voice on him.  He knew how to use it on Terg.  "Be quiet."  And Terg was.

They went to the village and watched the camel races, and then joined the dances at the temple.  They spent the night in an abandoned house outside of town, and went swimming in the river the next afternoon.  There were girls swimming there, too.  "I like that one," Sheqru said, watching the water drip off the girl's nipples as she stood naked in the water.

"You like any girl as long as she even looks at you, which that one won't," retorted Terg, lying on his back in the shallows, squirting water between his hands.  "No girl will."

Sheqru came up from behind and dunked him.  "Like any girl looks at you, either."  The two of them started to wrestle then, in the water and the muddy sand, and the girls began to laugh, pointing.

Roland stood and bowed, knowing the girls would look at him.  He had all his teeth, unlike Terg, and his eyes weren't squinty like Sheqru's.  The three girls looked, and one of them even smiled.  Roland smiled back.  Sheqru and Terg stopped thrashing about, realizing something was happening, and then the three of them approached the girls slowly.  The girls were still laughing, but it sounded more like giggles now.

There were more smiles exchanged and more giggles, and then all six of them went swimming.  The water was cold though, fed with the melting snow from the surrounding mountains, and they soon climbed out and lay on the sandy beach.  Two of the girls were sisters; the other was a friend, the one who had smiled at him.  The six of them paired off, and Roland got the friend.  She was the prettiest, with black hair that hung to her waist and eyes the color of dates.  Her name was Astip.  They talked some more, and told jokes and laughed, but the sun grew lower in the sky, and the girls started for home.

"Don't go," said Terg, but the girls shook their heads reluctantly and kept walking.

Roland caught up to Astip and took her by the hand.  "Don't go, Astip," he said, using the Voice with all the power he had.  She stopped walking immediately, and Roland blinked in surprise.  Terg and Sheqru looked surprised, too.  The two sisters had stopped, waiting for their friend.  "Don't go," Roland said to the sisters, and now they were just standing there, too.  He looked at his friends, and both the boys were grinning.

Roland grinned, too, as he realized what he had done, and what he could do.  "Come with us," he said, and the girls did, back to the empty house.  They didn't need a lot more convincing after that, but if they did, Roland knew how to do it.

~~~~~

His friends weren't laughing at him the next day, as they made their way back to their own village.  They were impressed, and eager to be with him again.  Roland liked that.

Cassandra wasn't laughing, either, when he finally got home near mid-day.  "Where have you been?" she demanded.

Roland did not feel like answering that right away.  He sat down at the table and picked up a bunch of grapes, then leaned his back against the wall.  He carefully selected one, then popped it in his mouth.  "Out."

"For three days?" she asked.  "With who?"

Roland waited before he answered that, too.  "Friends."  He knew she didn't like Terg and Sheqru, but he didn't care.  He could have his own friends, go where he wanted.  She did.  She had a lover again, a new one, the soap-maker, near the center of town.  Terg and Sheqru had seen them together and told him all about it.  As if he needed to hear.

"Where?" she demanded now, but he didn't answer that at all.  "Where were you?" she repeated.

"Why should you care?" he demanded in return.  "Why shouldn't I go out?"

"Roland," she started in on him again, "you're only seventeen."

"So?"  That was old enough to be a man.  He popped another grape into his mouth and chewed slowly, knowing how much that irritated her.  "Do you really want to know where we were?"  He smiled, wanting her to know, just like he knew about her.  "We were with some girls.  They weren't very happy at first, but I convinced them to be.  After that, they had fun."  He grinned at the memory.  "And so did we."

"You didn't...," she whispered. "You didn't use the Voice on them.  Not for that."

"It wasn't the full Voice," Roland said.  Not the way she could use it anyway.  "I just talked to them a little at first.  They didn't mind after that."

She shook her head.  "Roland, you cannot...!"  She started again, "It's a violation, it's...."

"It's just talk, like a lot of my friends talk to girls."  He was just better at it than Terg and Sheqru were.

Cassandra shook her head again.  "You shouldn't --"

He dropped the grapes on the table, then stood.  He was sick of her telling him what to do.  "You go out at night, too.  You aren't here."

Her face flushed at that, and Roland continued, glad to get some reaction out of her, "Who are you to care what I do?"  He walked over to her, and realized suddenly that he was taller than she was.  "I've heard the stories about you in the marketplace, on the street."  Terg and Sheqru weren't the only ones who had told him about the soap-maker.  And the tanner in the other village before that.  And the drum-maker, long ago, when she had left him behind.

She was just glaring at him now.

He didn't like that, either.  "Are you out at night with one man?" he asked, remembering something else he had heard in the marketplace about her.  He made an abrupt and unmistakable gesture with his hands, a gesture Terg had taught to him.  "Or maybe two?"

Cassandra went white, and her hand started to come up, then fell to her side.

Roland had seen it. He knew what that meant.  He remembered.  "Are you going to hit me now?" he taunted, wondering if she would break that promise, as she had broken her promise to keep him safe, all those years ago.

"No," she whispered, then continued more firmly, "But what I do is no concern of yours."

Roland was not going to put up with this anymore.  He was not a child.  "And what I do is no concern of yours."  He looked her up and down, seeing her now as a woman, a woman who had not changed since he had met her.  He had no idea how old she was, and he didn't care.  He wanted her to know that.  "You are not my mother."

Cassandra's eyes darkened, but with rage, and she snapped at him, "I do not want to be!"

Roland blinked once, then nodded, a hollowness spreading in his chest, an empty, aching loss.  So it was true.  She did not want him.  She never had.

"Roland...," she began, not looking angry now.

He could not stand to be around her anymore.  "Fine," he said, telling himself fiercely not to cry, to feel nothing, to show nothing.  "I'll leave then."

She called his name again, but he ignored her and walked out the door.  She followed him down the street and out the gate, and still he did not answer.  She caught him by the sleeve to stop him, but he shoved her away.  "I never want to see you again," he told her, then he said some more things -- ugly, hurtful, hateful things -- desperately needing to be alone so he could cry.

If she really loved him, she would stay no matter what he said, and he desperately needed her to stay.
But she didn't.  She bit her lip and nodded, her face wet with tears, then she turned and walked away.

Roland waited until she disappeared behind the village walls before he started to cry.
 
 

Kronos had almost finished the last of the killing when he felt the faint presence of a pre-Immortal.  He slit the throat of the camel-driver and dropped the still-gurgling body on the sand, then started to search.  There it was, under the corpse of the caravan master.

The pre-Immortal was a young lad, not quite a man.  He probably only had to shave every few days.  His blue tunic was torn and filthy, mended in several places and worn thin at the elbows.  The dust had powdered his long curling hair from brown to white, and his gray eyes were frightened and bewildered, yet ready to fight.

Delightful.

~~~~~

He didn't kill the boy, not right away.  There would be plenty of time for that.  He invited the lad to join him by the fire and gave him food and drink.  "Quite a bump you took there," Kronos commented.

The lad nodded, his fingers cautiously exploring the swelling on the side of his head.  It was already turning yellow and purple.

"Did you see much of the fight?" Kronos asked, lying on his side and using his fingers to scoop the paste of cooked barley and chopped dates from the wooden bowl.

"No," the boy said, not eating his food.  "I was hit by a rock, I think, early on."

It had indeed been a rock, and Kronos had thrown it.  The caravan had been easy pickings, four donkeys and a camel guarded by only five men and this boy.  Kronos had taken out the boy and the camel-driver with his sling, while his two companions had waited for his signal.  Then the three of them had come in for the kill with their swords.

"And then ...."  The boy swallowed hard, looking white even under the sun-browned skin.  "Then when I woke up, they were all dead.  Except for you."

Kronos nodded.  "It's a good thing I came along.  There were two bandits."  Kronos surveyed the rocky hillsides.  "I hear this part of the trail is thick with them."  He looked back at the boy, serious now.  "But they won't be stealing anything anymore."

The boy's eyes went wide with admiration and wonder.  "You killed them?  Both of them?  By yourself?"

Kronos permitted himself a modest smile.  His erstwhile companions had not expected Kronos to stab them from behind while they argued over loot.  "But I'm afraid I was too late," he said, giving a discretely sorrowful glance at the neatly piled bodies.  "I couldn't help your friends."

"But you helped me," the boy said, the admiration turning into something like veneration.

This time Kronos's smile was genuine.  Maybe he would keep the boy around for a while.  "And who have I helped?" he asked, politely inquiring for the boy's name.

"Roland," the boy answered.  He smiled back at Kronos, and then he started to eat.

~~~~~

Kronos and Roland covered the bodies of Roland's former companions with rocks, making a waist-high cairn.  They left the bodies of Kronos's former companions to rot in the sun.  "Even vultures need to eat," Kronos said, and Roland nodded.  Kronos would have left all the bodies there and just taken the animals and the goods, but Roland expected something different, and Kronos didn't want to disappoint him.  Yet.

They traveled to the nearest town the next day, a collection of mud-brick huts by a slow reed-filled river.  It was market-day, and the central plaza was crowded with booths and people, alive with laughter and vituperative voices.  A tantalizing whiff of broiling fish floated above the aroma of manure and ripe fruit.

Kronos sold all the goods and the donkeys and the camel.  He had no intention of catering to a stinking, spitting camel one day longer than he had to.  He didn't know why people were starting to use them for caravans anyway.  Donkeys were better.  He preferred horses himself, of course.  He beckoned Roland into a shady alley between two mud-brick huts, then gave him a handful of coins.

"But it's not our money," Roland protested.  "The camels and the goods belonged to someone else."

"Who?" Kronos asked.  "Do you know his name?"  Roland still looked doubtful, and Kronos added, "It's a reward, for killing the bandits."  Roland looked at the money, the square coins gleaming in the shadows, then slowly closed his hand.  Kronos smiled.

"Come," he said, clapping Roland on the shoulder.  "Let's get you some new clothes."

"Can we eat first?" Roland asked.  "I'm hungry."

This time Kronos laughed.  "Yes.  I'm hungry, too."  For a lot of things.  But he could wait.

~~~~~

They spent a few days in the town, and Kronos satisfied some of his hungers.  Roland did, too.  The boy wasn't that young.

"Fancy her, do you?" Kronos asked, nodding toward the tall girl who was busy filling cups and carrying food in the crowded tavern.  The dust-filled sunshine came through the small openings in the wall and sparkled on her wheat-colored hair, bringing out gold highlights.  Kronos rather fancied her himself.  Maybe they could take turns.

Roland jerked his gaze away and shrugged, then stared at the beer in his cup.  "She looks like ... someone I knew."

Kronos leaned forward a little, setting his elbows on the small wooden table between them, and allowing soft concern to edge his voice.  "Is she dead?"  Acting was such fun.

"Dead?" Roland repeated in surprise.  "No.  At least, I don't think so.  I haven't seen her for a couple of years."

"Ah."  Kronos settled his back comfortably on the mud-brick wall behind him and sipped at his beer.  "She loves someone else?"  He watched in fascination as quick flickers chased across the boy's face -- resentment, love, anger, desire, regret.

"I'm just ... not very important to her," Roland said, then took a drink of his own.  He held onto his clay cup, turning it absently between his fingers, caressing the faint lines left from the potter's tools.

There was more to it than that, and Kronos wanted to know what.  He shook his head slowly, pretending to be concerned and bewildered.  "I don't understand."

Roland shrugged.  "She bought me from the slave market when I was about five."

Kronos nodded in apparent sympathy, hiding his surprise that this was not just some village girl.  But it was not a surprise that Roland had been bought.  Most Immortal children were slaves.  They had no families to watch out for them.  He himself had been a slave as a child, many years ago.

"But she didn't treat me like a slave," Roland said, still tracing the patterns in the cup.  "She took care of me, said I could call her Mother.  But she didn't really want me around anymore, once I was older.  I got in the way."  The jealousy in his voice made it quite clear what he had been in the way of.  "And then she tried to tell me that I couldn't go out with my friends and have my own life."

"She treated you like a child," Kronos said, summarizing the boy's resentment for him.  She had treated him like a child in more ways than one.

"Yes!" Roland agreed, leaning forward, glad to have someone who understood.  "She was always telling me what to do."  He swallowed the last of his beer and set the cup down with a thump.  "So I left."

"Good for you!" Kronos exclaimed, slapping his hand on the table.  "Don't ever let a woman think she can order you around.  They need to learn their place."

The serving girl came by and refilled their cups from the heavy stone jar.  Roland didn't look at her now, but Kronos did.  Perhaps fifteen, breasts still high and firm, haunches tight, long hair, smooth skin.  A good ride, if Kronos was any judge.  And he was.  He gave her an extra coin and smiled at her, and she smiled back.

"I wouldn't mind teaching that one her place," Kronos murmured, watching her rump as she walked away.  The girl looked like someone he had known once, too, someone who had definitely needed to be taught her place.  Kronos would love to have a chance to complete the lesson he had started, all those years ago.

The boy was staring after the girl again, now that she was farther away, out of reach.  That same jumble of emotions was showing, desire and resentment most evident this time.

Kronos was still curious.  "So, this woman who took care of you looked like that girl?  But older, of course."

"Yes, older."  The girl ducked through the curtained doorway that led to the kitchen at the back of the tavern, and Roland looked at Kronos again.  "I think she's about your age."

Kronos smiled as he lifted his cup.  He doubted that.  He was around four hundred years old, though he hadn't counted recently.  But he looked to be perhaps thirty, frozen forever at the age of his first death.  Immortality was a wonderful thing, for those strong enough to appreciate it.

"It's odd, though," Roland was saying, "she looked exactly the same when I left as she did when I was little."

Kronos stopped smiling, and this time he was the one who leaned forward.  Could it be...? "Exactly the same?"

"Yes," Roland said.  "One of the women in the town asked her once how she stayed so young-looking, and Cassandra just smiled."  He was staring at the curtained doorway again, waiting for the girl to reappear.

Cassandra.  So that was what the bitch was calling herself.  She hadn't had a name when he had known her, of course, she had just been one of the slaves.  If it was indeed her. Kronos needed to be sure.  "Was she as tall as that girl, too?"

"Taller.  The tallest woman I've ever seen."  Roland looked Kronos up and down.  "She was about your height, maybe half a handspan shorter."

Kronos didn't respond to the comparison.  Cassandra had been tall, the tallest woman he had ever seen.  When she had been on her feet, that is, which hadn't been often.  A woman's height didn't matter once she was on the ground.

"And her eyes were green, not brown," Roland said.  "Her hair was a little redder, too, especially when the sunshine was on it."

Kronos leaned back against the wall and smiled in complete satisfaction.  It had to be the same woman -- same eyes, same hair, same height, and an Immortal.  He had found her, after all this time.

She had been one of the slaves in his camp, but she was an Immortal, just like Kronos.  She healed almost instantly, and if she were killed, she revived.  Again and again, as long as her head stayed on her lovely neck.  Kronos had only had only just begun to train her when she had killed him with his own knife.

She had run away from his camp that night, run off into the desert on foot, without food or water.  When he had revived in the morning, Kronos had searched for her all day, and then all night and all the next day.  But a great storm had arisen, and he had not found her.

That had been over a hundred years ago, and Kronos had never forgotten.  He still had that knife, and now he would have her.  Cassandra's adopted son had come into his hands.  He could finally start to finish the lesson.

Delightful.

~~~~~

Kronos and Roland took the girl back to their room after they ate.  She was willing, even eager, and the three of them had a good time.  Then, while she napped on the rush-woven pallet on the floor, Kronos invited Roland to join him in teaching the girl her proper place.

The boy was reluctant, though interested.  Kronos could see the desire in his eyes, desire not just for the girl, but for revenge.

"We can't let women tell us what to do," Kronos reminded him.  "You know how they try to control us, how they think they can own us."

"But this one hasn't --"

"All of them," Kronos said.  "They're all the same."  He stood close by Roland as they watched the sleeping girl, a little behind him, speaking softly.  "Think of it," he urged.  "After you've taught her her place, she'll do whatever you tell her to do."

"But she already did what we asked," Roland protested.

"But if we didn't have to ask?" Kronos said.  "If we could simply tell her?  Think of it," he whispered, and knew by Roland's slightly open mouth that he was.  Kronos knew the allure was in the power, not the sex.  Roland was not so much breathing as panting, and Kronos added seductively, "She'll be yours.  Completely."

Roland turned his head slightly, unwilling to take his eyes off the girl as she lay naked on the pallet, her waist-length hair spread over her in a revealing blanket.  "Mine?  But, don't you --?"

"We'll share, of course," Kronos said, laying his hand on the boy's shoulder, pleased that Roland had thought of him.  "She's just a woman.  And brothers share everything."

Now Roland turned to him completely, his gray eyes still dark with desire, but of a different kind.  "Brothers?" he repeated, the loneliness and the longing plain in his voice.

Kronos smiled and placed his hand on the boy's other shoulder, an affectionate brotherly --- and fatherly -- gesture.  He squeezed both shoulders, feeling the lean muscle over hard bone under his hands.  The boy showed promise.  "Brothers," Kronos affirmed.  Perhaps.  Time would tell.

Roland swallowed hard and stood tall, grasping Kronos's upper arms with his hands.  "I'd like that," he said.

They nodded gravely to each other, then Kronos slapped Roland playfully on the back to break the serious mood.  He turned to look at the girl again and grinned.  "Shall we?"

~~~~~

They took her into the hills, away from town.  The girl was reluctant at first, but she learned quickly.  They let her go after a few days.  Kronos knew that Roland wasn't quite ready to finish the lesson.  Soon, though.  Roland was a quick learner, too.  Kronos had forgotten how much fun it could be, slowly seducing a new one into the dark pleasures of life.  And death.

Roland and Kronos headed for another town, another caravan, another raid.  Oh, yes, the boy learned well.

~~~~~

Kronos lay on his back, his head pillowed on his hands, enjoying the softness of grass under him instead of sand or rock.  The spring air was cool, the stars brilliant in the sky.  Their horses grazed contentedly nearby, soft crunches of teeth tearing grass mingled with crickets' songs.  It had been a profitable winter, and they still had plenty of money.

Roland was nearby, lying on his side, looking at the fire instead of the sky.  "Where are we going next?" he asked lazily.

Kronos glanced over at him.  Roland had filled out, the leanness of late adolescence hardened into a broader, sturdier frame.  He had hardened in other ways as well. There had been many raids and many women these last three years.

"I think," Kronos said, "that it's time to join the others."  It had been almost ten years since he and his three brothers had decided to separate and travel, to scout out different territories.  Kronos missed them.

"The others?" Roland asked, propping himself up on an elbow.

"Yes."  Kronos stretched luxuriously, then sat up to face the boy.  "I have three other brothers -- Methos, Silas, and Caspian.  We're brothers not by birth, but by choice.  Like you and me," he added, reinforcing that bond.  "I know they'll be glad to welcome you."  Probably.  Possibly.  "You could be our little Brother," he offered.

Roland scrambled to a sitting position, very interested, pathetically eager, a puppy waiting to be patted.

"Except ...."  Kronos stopped, then picked up a stick and poked at the fire, pretending reluctance.

"Except what?" Roland asked.

"It's about -- Cassandra."  He kept a close eye on the boy.  Kronos had waited three years for this moment.

"What about the bitch?" Roland demanded.

Kronos hid his smile.  That part of his plan had certainly worked.  Kronos had not said much, but he had listened sympathetically to all the boy's stories. Kronos had slowly and carefully played on Roland's fears and resentments; magnified his annoyance over petty grievances into righteous indignation; and reinforced the boy's anger and hate.   He had eventually convinced the boy that Cassandra had betrayed and abandoned him.

"I didn't want to bring this up before," Kronos said, still acting reluctant.  "After all, she is your mother."

Roland snarled, "She's not my mother!"

"Oh, that's right," Kronos agreed, as if surprised.  "She told you that she didn't even want to be your mother, isn't that true?"

Roland did not answer, but his eyes were dark and angry.  Roland had walked out on Cassandra minutes after she had told him that.  It had been stupid of Cassandra to throw that in the boy's face.  Very, very stupid of her.

But very, very nice for him.  Kronos nodded sorrowfully.  "I wasn't really surprised when you told me about what she did to you, Roland, because...."  He let his voice trail off , then said quickly, as if it were distasteful, "I've seen her do things like that before."

"You knew her?" Roland asked, his eyes blank with shock.  "All this time, and you didn't say anything?"

Kronos shrugged and stared into the fire.  "I wasn't sure, not at first, that it was the same woman.  And then ... there didn't seem any point to it.  But, if you're going to meet my brothers, they'll find out that you know her."  He looked straight at Roland now, serious and intent.  "And my brother Methos hates her."

"Why?" Roland asked, shock turning to curiosity now.  "What did she do to him?"

Kronos considered the matter carefully, then spoke.  "She pretended she loved him, pretended she cared.  But she really wanted to keep him for herself, to break up the Brotherhood.  She didn't like Methos having his own friends."

Roland was nodding in recognition.  Of course, he was.  That was exactly what Roland said Cassandra had done to him.  Kronos kept talking.  "I warned my brother that she was trying to control him, trying to own him.  And do you know what she did?" he asked, leaning forward earnestly.

Roland shook his head, all wide-eyed seriousness, responding to the intensity of Kronos's voice.

"First she came into my tent and tried to get me on her side by offering to go to bed with me," Kronos confided.  "She's a faithless, heartless bitch.  A slut.  She was just trying to use me, to come between me and Methos."  That was certainly true.  Cassandra had started to come between him and Methos, but Kronos had soon put a stop to that.

Kronos reached for the waterskin and took a long refreshing drink.  "I told her I wouldn't betray my brother like that.  Then later that night, she tried to kill me."

"No!" Roland whispered.

"Yes!"  It wasn't at all hard to seem angry about that.  "In my own tent, with my own knife!  She even managed to cut me."  She had stabbed him and left him to bleed to death on the floor of his tent.  Kronos had not been happy when he had revived.

"What did you do?" Roland asked.

"I couldn't chase her, wounded as I was.  She ran away, and we haven't seen her since." Kronos shook his head again, sadly.  "My poor brother.  He trusted her, but she lied to him.  Then she left him."

"Just like she did to me," Roland said softly, his eyes hazy with memory.

Of course it was.  Kronos had made it so.  Yet everything he had said was true, in a way. "Methos hasn't spoken of her since, but I know he still remembers."  Kronos remembered, too.  "And he still hates her."

"But you hate her, too, don't you?" Roland asked.  "After all, she attacked you."

"Yes, she did."  And yes, Kronos hated her.  "But the wound wasn't that serious.  It's not as if she could kill me."  Permanently, anyway.  She hadn't even known how, the stupid bitch.  "I hate her more for what she did to Methos, than for what she did to me."  That lie was perhaps less true than the others.  Kronos stared at the fire, letting his full hatred show.

Roland wanted to help.  He wanted his brother to be happy.  "Let's go find her," he suggested.  "I can lead you to her, and we can take her back to Methos."

That would not do at all.  Kronos didn't want that woman anywhere near the camp.  Methos hadn't totally forgotten her yet, and Cassandra might actually think that Methos cared for her in some way.  She had certainly cared for him.  Kronos rubbed at his chin thoughtfully, then shook his head.  "Methos doesn't even want to see her.  But I know he'd be glad to hear that she was dead."

Roland shrugged.  "Then let's go kill her."

Now that was a very tempting offer, the most tempting offer Kronos had had in years.  But he had thought about this already.  It would be more effective if Roland were by himself; Cassandra would be taken totally by surprise.  Roland would probably be surprised, too, soon after he killed her.  Cassandra had never told him she was an Immortal.  And she had never told Roland that someday he would be an Immortal, too.  Another stupid thing she had done.  Of course, Kronos hadn't told Roland, either.  He had plans for the boy.

And Kronos could wait.  He could wait for a very long time.  The anticipation was part of the pleasure -- pleasure for him, and fear for her.

"I need to meet my brothers," Kronos explained.  "I promised to meet them at the summer solstice, and I need to start on my journey north soon, to Scythia.  Didn't you say that Cassandra lived to the east?"  Roland nodded, and Kronos said, "But you could go.  You don't need my help.  Do you?"

"No."  The answer was swift.  Roland wanted to prove himself to be a man.

"Why don't you go, and tell her that Methos sent you?" Kronos suggested.  "So she knows why you've come.  So she knows that you know all about her little tricks.  So she can see that you're not going to let her push you around anymore."  So she would hate Methos as much as she hated Kronos, and never come between the brothers again.

Roland was nodding, a slow grin spreading across his face.

Kronos grinned back in the same way.  "When you've finished with her, you can join us at our camp.  I'll give you directions."  He leaned over and slapped Roland on the arm.  "That will be a good way to introduce you to Death, telling him you took care of her."

"Death?" Roland repeated, confused.

"Methos," Kronos explained.  "Death is ... just a little nickname he picked up.  Cassandra will remember it, I'm sure."

Kronos smiled again.  Cassandra was going to remember Death for a very long time.
 
 

It took Roland a long time to find Cassandra, almost two years.  She had moved again, to another village.  She hadn't even waited for him.  But he did find her.

"Mother?" he called, standing in the doorway, holding his cloak in his hands.

She dropped the pot she was painting, and it broke when it hit the edge of the table.   She turned around, her blue pleated skirt swirling around her legs as she twirled.  "Roland?" she asked, sounding unsure.

Who else would call her mother?  Or maybe she had found another child.  She hadn't changed, not in five years  -- still the long braided hair looped back from her face, and tied with tinkling bells, still tall and slender, still beautiful.  "It's me, Mother," he said, forcing himself to use that word.

She came to him then, walking slowly.  "Roland?" she asked again, then stopped a few feet away, looking him up and down.

Roland didn't move, didn't let anything show on his face.   She hadn't even recognized him.

"Roland," she said one more time, finally remembering who he was.

He looked around the house quickly.  It was much like all the others they had lived in over the years; a single room with a sleeping alcove, pots on a table and baskets hanging from the ceiling.  She had to have money somewhere.  He would find it first.  He swallowed, pretending to be nervous.  "Mother, I...I'm sorry."

"Oh, Roland," Cassandra said, then held out her hands to him. "I'm sorry, too."

She was going to be sorrier.  She had betrayed his brothers and him, and he was going to make her pay.  Roland took her hands and let her take him home.

~~~~~

She fed him, then washed and mended his clothes.  He knew her care for him was all a lie, just as she had always lied, but he pretended to believe it.  He even helped her paint the pots she was going to sell at the Festival of Ishtar in two days' time.  He could wait.  She would have more money after that.

On the afternoon of the festival, Roland helped her carry the pots to the marketplace, then went off on his own.  She didn't try to stop him, didn't even ask him where he was going or when he would be back.  She just assumed he would come back to her, the arrogant bitch.  This time she was right.

He came back to the house well after dark.  The music was still playing at the temple; people were still dancing in the streets.  Cassandra stirred in her sleep and started to wake, but he used the Voice and whispered, "Sleep, Cassandra," in her ear, and she did.

He stood there for a long time, drinking beer and watching her.  The moonlight was bright tonight, silvered shadows on her face and breasts.  He was surprised she was alone, but perhaps her lover was coming later.  Roland hoped so.  He could make the man watch.

Roland set down his cup and got the ropes and the gag.  It was time to teach Cassandra her place.
 
 

Methos did not move from his comfortable sprawled position against the curved wall of the tavern, but he looked very closely at the man who had just entered the smoky circular room.  A gust of chill air slammed the wooden door shut behind him, and the tavern keeper immediately stood.  She scurried over to the man, her skirts swirling, and welcomed him warmly.

The man was tall, with a petulant set to his mouth and cold gray eyes that weighed, measured, and priced everything in the room, including the people.  The dark-green cloak that covered his stocky body was dust-covered from the scouring winter winds, but of good quality.  Methos had been a cloth merchant many years ago, and he knew how expensive such a tight weave of cloth would be.  The brooch at the shoulder of the cloak was gold, and his leather leggings were embroidered with rare crimson thread.  No wonder the tavern-keeper was greeting the man with such effusive politeness, and leading him to a table near the fire.

The stocky man grandly arranged his cloak about him, then waited impatiently until the serving girl brought him beer and a bowl of mutton and lentil stew.  He kept his eye on the girl while he ate, and he still looked hungry.

Methos snorted.  The man would have no luck with that girl, no matter how rich he was.  Methos had tried to entice her to his bed earlier, and she had informed him that she was to be married in three days.  Methos didn't mind an unwilling bed-partner, but he really wasn't in the mood to wrestle, and there were other girls.

He looked at the man again, wondering just how old he was.  The elaborate braids of the man's long gray hair did not hide the thinness of it, and the lines on his face were not just from exposure to the sun and wind.  The man was past forty, which was unusual enough, but he was also a pre-Immortal.

Methos shrugged and went back to his evening meal of pigeon pie.  He wasn't in the mood for fighting right now, either, and taking the head of a brand-new Immortal was hardly worth the effort involved.  Methos was on vacation, visiting the towns and the brothels after twenty years in the desert with his brothers.  He wasn't looking for trouble.

There was another gust of cold air, and two more men came in -- slave-herders by the look of them - scruffy, dirty, smelling of dung.  They sat down at the pre-Immortal's table, but did not eat.  So, the man was probably a slave merchant, and doing well at it, what with all the wars of late.

Methos grimaced.  Of late.  There hadn't been peace in this part of the world for centuries.  After the death of Hammurabi the King, the Kassites had started to raid, and then over three centuries ago the Hittites had swept in from the north.  The Hittites had razed Babylon, burned and looted and destroyed the magnificent city, and they had built nothing in its place.  Instead, they fought their neighbors, and themselves.  Even though the Hittites had just signed a treaty with Ramses II of Egypt, Methos knew this peace wouldn't last.  Peace never did.

He drained the last of the beer in his cup.  It didn't matter.  Everything that men built, they destroyed.  Methos didn't know why they even bothered to make anything.  He didn't bother.  Not anymore.

The girl brought him another beer, and Methos drank it slowly, enjoying the flavor of the red barley brew the Egyptians called haq.  At least that treaty was good for something.

The slave-herders left with a pouch of money, and the pre-Immortal called the girl to his table, then made a quiet, but obvious, suggestion.  She shook her head, her dark braids swinging, then the pre-Immortal spoke again, even more quietly, a single word, "Follow."  This time she nodded, and the man smiled.  He tossed some coins on the table, then left the tavern, the girl following close behind.

Methos straightened and dropped a few coins on his table, then trailed the pair at a distance, pulling his brown cloak close about him.  How had the slave-merchant managed that?  Certainly not by charm or good looks.  Methos caught up with them at the doorway of a brightly-painted house, then called to the fellow.   "Merchant?  I have a deal for you."

"It's late," the man snapped.  The girl was standing at his side, her head down.  "And cold.  Come back tomorrow."

Methos shook his head.  "This deal won't wait.  Of course, if you're not interested, I'm sure Senach would be," he said, giving the name of an important slave-merchant in Hattusas, the Hittite capital.  His gaze flicked over the girl.  "And the deal needs to be quiet."

The man paused, his lust for the girl warring with his lust for money.  Money won.  "Go home," he said to the girl, and she immediately left.  She had never once lifted her head.

Methos followed the man into his house and waited near the door.  The man took a wick from the glowing brazier of coals in the center of the room, then lit the hanging bronze lamp over the table.  The circular chamber was not large, but the sparse furnishings were well-made, and expensive.

Methos took the stool at the table, leaving the man to sit on the bench built into the mud-brick wall.  Methos wanted room to maneuver.

"The deal?" the slave-merchant asked, leaning back and cleaning his nails with the tip of a thin dark-metaled knife.

"Your name?" Methos asked, looking curiously at the knife.  He had heard rumors of this new metal that was stronger than bronze.  It was very rare and very expensive, and only the Hittites knew how to work it.  Methos was going to learn.  Knowledge was power -- including the knowledge the merchant possessed over the girl.

The man's eyes narrowed.  "You know Senach's name, but you don't know mine.  And I don't know yours.  And I haven't heard anything yet about this 'deal.'"  He leaned forward, the knife still in his hand.  "Talk.  Or get out."

Methos smiled at him, relaxed and at ease.  "I can give you something beyond your wildest dreams."  That was certainly true.  This pre-Immortal had no idea what was in store for him.

"Give?" the trader repeated with elaborate sarcasm.  "Or trade?"

"Trade," Methos agreed, still smiling.  Methos could give him Immortality, and then the merchant could give Methos his head.  A fair trade.  But not yet.  Methos leaned forward himself, surreptitiously drawing his own knife from his belt.  "What did you say to the girl?"

The merchant drew back and shrugged, pretending total confusion.  "The girl?  What about her?  I offered her a pretty gown."  Now he switched to anger and leaned forward menacingly, the knife two handspans from Methos's eyes.  "You're wasting my time.  What has this to do with any deal?"

Methos was neither intimidated nor impressed.  He shot to his feet and reached across the table in one swift movement, knocking the merchant's knife to the floor and bringing his own blade a hair's breadth from the other man's throat.  "The deal," he said pleasantly, gripping the man's hair tightly in his left fist, enjoying the terror in the man's suddenly wide eyes, "is that you tell me what you did to that girl, and I let you live."  Methos eased up a touch on the blade, and waited.

The terror in the eyes became craftiness, and the man said calmly, "Release me."

Methos blinked and faltered, his grip on the knife suddenly loose.  Then he blinked again, and slammed the man's head onto the table, knocking him unconscious.  He slammed him into the table again, just to be sure, then shoved the man onto the floor, shaking slightly as he realized what had almost happened.  Somehow, the merchant had ordered the girl to follow him, and she had done it.  Then he had ordered Methos to release him, and Methos had started to do that.  This merchant had some kind of power in his voice.

Methos knew how to protect himself from this power.  He stuffed a cloth in the man's mouth, then gagged him tightly and tied him.  Methos took the knife and what money and small valuables he could find, then carried the still-unconscious man through the silent dark streets to the stables.  He threw the man over the back of his pack-horse and stuffed the stolen goods into his own saddlebag.  Then he headed out of town, back to his brothers' camp.

This pre-Immortal was worth keeping alive, at least for a while.
 
 

Silas came out to greet Methos, near the shallow stream that ran near their camp at the base of the mountain.  "Brother!" he cried, lifting him off the ground in an enormous hug.  Methos laughed and pounded the much larger man on the back.  It was good to be home.

"What's that?" Silas asked, peering at the figure lying on his stomach across the back of the pack-horse.  "You carried a slave all the way here?"

"This one's different," Methos answered.

"He's old, for one thing," Silas observed, yanking the man's head back, ruining what little remained of the braids.  The man didn't even open his eyes.  He had been on the back of horse, gagged and tied, for three days.  Silas let go of the head, and it dangled helplessly against the side of the horse.  "He won't last a month."

"You may be right," Methos answered, knowing that Silas could not sense pre-Immortals.  But Kronos could, and Kronos was coming to greet him, too.

"Have a nice time, Methos?" Kronos inquired, staring at the body on the horse.

"Yes," Methos answered, "and I found something interesting.  Let's eat while I tell you about it."  Methos spoke to the slave standing silently nearby.  "Take him off the horse and tie him in a tent.  Do not remove his gag."

The three brothers walked to Methos's tent, and Caspian joined them there.  While they ate, Methos told them what had happened.

"He told you to release him, and you started to?" Caspian asked, still not quite believing it.  He started to laugh again, sprawling back on the cushions on the floor.

"Want to have him try it on you?" Methos asked, popping the last of the dates into his mouth.

"We're going to have to ungag him sometime," Silas observed from his place at Methos's side.  "He'll die of thirst, otherwise."

Methos and Kronos exchanged glances, but said nothing. Both of them knew the man would revive; neither Silas nor Caspian did.

"He can't control all four of us, not in the condition he's in," Kronos said.  "Let's talk to him now."

The brothers all looked at each other and nodded, and Kronos ordered the slave at the door to fetch him.  A few minutes later, the man was placed at their feet on the floor of the tent.  He was awake, but hardly alert.  Silas took off the gag, then dribbled some water into the man's mouth.

Slowly, after a few more dribbles, the man's eyes cleared.  He stayed on his back on the floor; trussed as he was, he could not sit.  He looked about him, taking in the faces of the four brothers who surrounded him - first Silas and Methos on his right, then Caspian and Kronos on his left.  He gazed longest at Kronos, and his already-pasty face went white.  "Kronos?" he whispered, a hoarse croak of a sound.  "Brother?"  Then he passed out.

Methos looked across the prone body of the man to stare at his brother.  Kronos was grinning, the satisfied grin he wore when prey finally came into sight.  "'Brother'?" Methos repeated sharply, demanding an answer.

"Little Brother," Kronos clarified, then started untying the man.  "This is Roland."  He grinned again and pulled off one of the ropes.  "Help me untie him," he said, as he moved to the rope at Roland's feet.  "He won't give us any trouble, once I've talked to him."

"Sure of that, are you?" Methos asked, remembering the unnerving sense of being controlled.

Kronos stopped untying the ropes long enough to lock eyes with Methos.  "Yes.  And you're going to help."

~~~~~

This time when Roland awoke, he was unbound and reclining on soft pillows, and only Kronos was by his side.  Methos was in the far corner of the tent, and Silas and Caspian were gone.

"Kronos?" Roland asked again, his voice still a croak.

"Yes," Kronos answered soothingly, as he held a water-soaked rag to Roland's cracked lips.  "I'm here."

It took several rags and several minutes before Roland spoke again.  "I looked for you.  I tried to find you."

"We waited at that site for almost four years," Kronos said.  "When you didn't come, I thought you were dead."  Or imprisoned.  Or lost.  Or beheaded.  Not that Kronos cared enough to actually go look for him.  Kronos reached out and squeezed Roland's shoulder gently.  "I'm glad to see you," Kronos said, smiling, and Roland nodded and smiled back.  "What happened?" Kronos asked.  "Why didn't you come to me?"

"I was wounded," Roland explained.  "On my way to the camp.  I couldn't travel all winter, and then there was war.  When I did get there, you were gone."

Kronos nodded.  There was always war.  Damned inconvenient sometimes, very convenient others.  "But now you're here!" he exclaimed cheerfully.  "With the brothers!"

"Yes," Roland answered, but his gray eyes were cold as his gaze slid over to Methos, and his smile disappeared.

"Brother!" Kronos called across the tent.  "Join us!"  It was time to mend this little spat.  Methos rose lazily to his feet and strolled over to where Roland lay, then squatted down on his other side.  Roland struggled to a more upright position and glared at him.

Kronos performed the introductions.  "This is Roland.  I know I've told you of him."  Methos nodded, hints of amusement glinting at the corners of his eyes.  Kronos turned to Roland.  "And this," he announced, "is Methos, my brother."

"Methos?" Roland repeated, shocked from his anger into disbelief.  That didn't last long.  He turned to Kronos in a rage.  "But he --!"

"I had asked you a question," Methos cut in quietly.  "Next time, answer it."  He smiled openly now.  "That way you and I will get along fine."

Roland stared at Methos again, a tic working along the side of his jaw, his face white with fury.

Kronos laid a hand on his arm, turning Roland to him, and spoke soothingly again.  "It was a misunderstanding.  For both of you."  He flicked a quick glance at Methos, who graciously inclined his head.

"I'm sorry, Roland," Methos said now, his apology sounding sincere and heartfelt, his eyes serious with regret. "I didn't know who you were.  I didn't know Kronos had met you before, and made you his brother."

Roland looked back and forth between two Immortals, seeing only sincere contrition on the one side, and a hopeful eagerness for the brotherhood to be united on the other.  He nodded slowly, and Kronos relaxed.  That part was over.  The rest should be easy.

But Roland was looking again, and he stared at Kronos, gradually realizing what he was seeing.  "But you...."  He shook his head and said in wonderment, "You haven't changed at all!  Not in twenty years!  And he's not old enough to be Methos.  Not the one who knew Cassandra before I was even born."

"Cassandra?" Methos questioned.

Kronos was not smiling now.  "You remember her, don't you, Brother?"  He chose his next words with care, not wanting to disturb Roland's version of the truth.  "The woman who slept in your tent, and then one night tried to kill me in mine?"

Methos nodded slowly, and Roland was nodding, too.  "I strangled her," Roland said proudly.  "Just as you said."  He turned to Methos and added, still the eager puppy hoping for a pat, "And I told her it was for you."

Kronos grinned across at Methos, daring his brother to say anything, betray anything for that bitch.  Methos just shrugged minutely, then nodded to the boy.  The man, now.  Roland had grown up.

"Thanks," Methos said dryly.  "But next time, let me do my own killing.  I like it, and I'm good at it."

Roland licked some of the dried blood from his cracked lips at that, and turned to Kronos, seeking reassurance, and some answers.  "But she didn't die.  Not really.  I thought she had, but when I went back in the room, she was gone.  And she hadn't changed, either."  His voice grew slower and more speculative.  "Any more than you have."

Kronos smiled at the lad.  "Methos told me he offered you a deal."

"Yes," Roland snapped, the anger coming back.

"I'll tell you about the deal," Methos said, "after you answer the question.  What did you do to that girl?"

Roland's gaze flickered from Methos to Kronos, but he was trapped, and he knew it.  "It was the Voice," he answered finally.  "I can control people just by talking a certain way."

"Where did you learn it?" Methos demanded.  "And how long did it take?"

"Cassandra taught me.  She started when I was about six, and we stopped doing lessons when I was sixteen or so."

"But why didn't you ever tell me about this before?" Kronos asked gently, surprised that Roland had had the self-discipline to keep his mouth shut.  "You never even mentioned it."

Roland shrugged.  "I wasn't very good at it then.  It was just ... a trick.  Something silly that didn't always work.  But then, these last ten years or so, I've gotten better."

Kronos and Methos exchanged glances, and nodded.  This would do very well.

"Well, this is the deal," Methos said.  "You teach us the Voice, and in return...."

"Yes?" Roland snapped again, with more impatience than anger now.

"In return," Kronos said smoothly,  "we'll make you Immortal."

Roland stared at him blankly, shock erasing his anger once again.  "Immortal?" he croaked, his voice hoarse once more, though not just from thirst.

"Yes," Kronos said, thoroughly enjoying himself, and the little plan he and Methos had concocted.  "Immortal.  Just like us."

~~~~~

They held a ceremony for Roland that night, very elaborate with drums and darkness and a sacrifice to the gods.  Methos planned it, and Methos was the one to whisper, "Trust me," as he stabbed Roland in the heart.

Methos was the one to give Roland his new name when he revived.  "I am Death," Methos said, as Roland knelt before him.  "And you are the Voice of Death."

The others echoed the name, and Roland spoke it with them.  "The Voice of Death."  Then there were more drums and another ritual, a blood oath between the Brothers, five of them now.

For now.

~~~~~

"Did you do the same for Cassandra?" Roland asked, the next day in Kronos' tent.  Kronos had invited Roland to live with him, until the slaves finished making Roland his own tent.  "Make her Immortal, too?"

"Yes, Methos made her Immortal," Kronos answered, motioning to a slave to fill his cup.  He chose his next words with care, following the story he and Methos had agreed upon yesterday.  It would not do to arouse Roland's suspicions, at least not until he had taught the Horsemen the power of the Voice.  "I didn't know he had done that, or I would have told you, of course."  He sipped at his drink and reached for a handful of dried berries.

Roland straightened, his eyes narrowing.  "But, didn't you sense her?  Couldn't you tell he had made her an Immortal?"

A smart lad, this Roland, but Kronos had already thought of a way out of this.  He shrugged and said easily, "With five of us in the camp?  I didn't see her very much, and when I did, I always thought I was sensing one of the brothers."

Kronos spat on the ground in disgust.  "Methos thought she would stay with him through the years.  I could tell she was using him, but I didn't know exactly why.  And then when I tried to warn Methos about her, she tried to kill me."

"Didn't she know she couldn't kill you?" Roland asked, spotting another hole in the story.

Kronos shrugged again.  "Methos hadn't gotten around to telling her everything.  He only told her she wouldn't grow old.  She liked that idea.  You know how vain women are about their looks."

That satisfied Roland.  He wasn't all that smart.  "Did Methos make you Immortal, too?" he asked, holding his own cup out for the slave to fill.

This time, Kronos could tell the truth.  "Yes.  Methos made me Immortal, many years ago."  He smiled, remembering that day long past, when he and Methos had truly become brothers.  Kronos had been dying anyway, a wound gone bad.  Methos had held him in his arms and killed him, and Methos had been there when he revived.

"Methos made all the brothers Immortal," Kronos said, telling the truth again, lifting his cup in a toast to Roland and including him in the family.

Roland smiled and raised his cup in return.  "But how does he do that?"

"He's the oldest," Kronos answered, not really answering at all.  He was amazed at how well the truth was working.  Some of the truth, that is.  Eventually, Roland would find out that Immortals were born, not made, but when he did Kronos could simply pretend surprise and profess ignorance.  It wouldn't matter, anyway.  They would be finished with Roland in a few years.

It was time to distract Roland from this topic.  Kronos beckoned to two of the slaves, and the women came and knelt near them, one for him and one for Roland.   "Tell me what happened when you found Cassandra," Kronos said, curious to know how his little plan had worked out.

Roland leaned back on the pillows, the slave massaging his feet.  "It took me almost two years to find her after I left you.  She was glad to see me.  I stayed with her for a few days, let her think I had 'come home' again."

"And then?" Kronos asked, sitting up to let the slave rub his shoulders.

It was Roland's turn to smile at a memory.  "Then I taught her a lesson, just as you suggested.  Just as you showed me."

Kronos grinned.  "In her own bed?"

"And on the floor," Roland answered.  "And on the table."

Kronos pulled the slave from behind him and leaned back on the pillows, then pushed her head down towards his lap.  "Tell me more."

And Roland did.  After all, brothers shared everything.

~~~~~

The Voice training started the next day.  Kronos was best at it, Caspian the worst.  That did not surprise Methos, but it annoyed Caspian no end to be slower at something than Silas.

After thirty years of training, they were all annoyed.  The Horsemen had learned to resist the Voice, but only Kronos showed any signs of being able to dominate people, and his control was erratic.

Methos called Roland into his tent to discuss the problem.  "How did she teach you?"

Roland shrugged.  "The same way I've been trying to teach you.  Maybe it worked better because I was young."

"Maybe," Methos agreed, "but she learned as an adult.  Somewhere.  She never told you where she learned it?"

"No," Roland answered.  "She never talked about her past."

That was hardly a surprise.  Methos didn't like to remember the past, either.  "Why don't you find her?" he suggested to Roland.  "Bring her to us."

Roland smiled slowly.  "She won't like that.  And she won't want to teach us."

"Think I care?" Methos answered.  He didn't, not at all.  The power of the Voice would be immensely useful.  He had seen what Roland could do with it, and he wanted that power for himself.  And for his brothers, of course.

"Find her," Methos said.  "I can make her teach us.  I know how."

~~~~~

Roland left the camp to search for Cassandra, and the brothers waited.  They had time.  Ten years passed, then twenty, and then another ten.  "Do you think he's dead?" Kronos asked Methos one day, as they rode across the grassy plain.

"Maybe," Methos answered.  "Or maybe she's just hard to find."  He shrugged, enjoying the warmth of the summer air and the smooth gait of his horse beneath him.  "Even if he doesn't come back, no one will be able to use the Voice on us."

"True," Kronos agreed.  "That's a good thing to know."

"Knowledge is always a good thing," Methos said.

"You think so, Brother?" Kronos challenged him.  "I know I can beat you to that hill."  He motioned to the rounded hill on the horizon.

"I don't know about that," Methos answered.  "But I want to find out."

"Then let's race," Kronos said, grinning, and they were off.

Kronos won, but not by much.  They dismounted and let the horses graze, while they lay on their backs and stared at the clouds above.  "I want to go to Sparta," Methos said suddenly.  "I've heard things about their army, and their new king, Menelaus.  I think we should learn their tactics."

His brother looked over at him, chewing contentedly on a piece of grass.  "Knowledge again, Brother?"

"Always," Methos said.  "It helps us survive.  So we can live, grow stronger..."

"... and fight!" Kronos finished for him, grinning again.  "Yes, go," he said.  "But not too long.  I miss you when you're on your trips."

Methos reached over and clasped his brother's hand.  "I miss you, too," he said.  He missed Silas and Caspian as well, but it wasn't quite the same.  No one was quite like Kronos.  "I won't be long," he said.  "Maybe ten years.  Maybe twenty.  Not that long."

The brothers shared a smile at that.  Twenty years was not long at all, not when you lived forever.
 
 

Methos went to Sparta, stopping at various temples along the way, talking with the priests who kept track of Immortals.  The priests were most cooperative, for Methos spoke all the right passwords, knew all the proper codes.  He should.  He had helped write them, over five hundred years ago.

Methos had been in Sparta only two years when Roland showed up, still hunting for Cassandra.

"I almost had her," Roland said, as the two men left the parade ground and headed for the market place.  "Near Troy."  His hands flexed and unflexed as he spoke.  "I almost had her."

Methos nodded, bored and impatient.  "She's on the Isle of Lesbos," he answered.  "At the Temple of Artemis."

Roland stopped and stared at him, his jaw tight with anger.  "I've been looking for forty years, and you knew where she was?"

"No!" Methos protested in all innocence.  "Not at all."  He had found out only recently, through the Watchers.  But he must reassure Roland, stroke his ego a bit.  "But when you chased her in Troy, she was in a such a hurry to get away from you that she wasn't very careful, and someone noticed her."  He smiled and laid his hand on Roland's shoulder.  "That wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for you."

That helped.  Roland was more than willing to accept the credit.  Unfortunately, he was also paying close attention to what Methos said.  "How did you hear about it?"

Methos shrugged and started walking again, carefully stepping around the dung that lay in the middle of the narrow street, threading his way among the crowds of people. The city was busy today; there was to be a procession for the visiting Prince Paris later in the afternoon.  Queen Helen and King Menelaus were to be in it, too.  Methos explained, "I work for the king.  Much information comes to the palace."

Roland wasn't that gullible.  "Information about one woman?  Leaving Troy?"

"Sometimes," Methos answered coolly.  "If you tell people to look."

"Quite a position you have," Roland observed, looking him up and down, evaluating Methos's clothes and status.

Methos merely smiled.  "Find her, Brother," he said once again, not smiling now.  He reached over and clasped Roland's forearm.  "Bring her to us."

Roland returned the grip and nodded.  "Yes, Brother.  I will."
 
 

He didn't.  Oh, Roland found her, of course.  She was at the temple on Lesbos, just as Methos had said.  But Roland didn't take her back to the Brothers.

Roland used the Voice to control the guards who patrolled the temple complex until he got close enough to kill them.  He found one of the priestesses, a pretty little thing called Marit, and she told him what he wanted to know.  Cassandra was in the temple doing some ritual, and she would be there until well-past moonrise, but her house was in the village.

Roland took Marit with him and waited for Cassandra at her house.  While they waited, he amused himself with the girl.  She did exactly what he told her to, of course, the Voice took care of that, but she did it very well.  "Where did you learn that?" he asked, for she was no more than sixteen.

"At the shrine of Aphrodite," she said, her eyes vague.  "All the novices train there, before they can become priestesses."

Roland grinned.  Cassandra must have trained there, too.  He asked the girl some more questions, and told her to do some more things.  She was good at all of them.

Cassandra showed up eventually.  When Roland felt her approaching he hid in the shadows in the corner, holding Marit's naked body tight against him, his sword across the girl's neck.  "Come in, Cassandra," Roland called.  "We've been waiting for you."

She was surprised he was there, just as before, but this time she recognized him immediately and started to back away.

"Oh, don't go, Cassandra," Roland said.  "Marit will be very disappointed if you leave.  She might even -- die from it."  He stepped into the moonlight and smiled, pulling Marit closer to him and tightening his grip on his sword.

Cassandra slowly came in and sat on the bed.  She looked very tired, dressed in a white robe and wearing a necklace of crescent moons, but she was still young, still beautiful.  She hadn't changed, not since the last time he had seen her, over a hundred years ago.  He had changed, though.  He looked older.  He would always look older.

Roland had a few questions for Cassandra before he started to teach her a lesson.  Marit had piqued his curiosity.  "This one told me about the little seance you witches had last night.  You do remember it, don't you, Cassandra?"

Cassandra said nothing, but he knew she had been there.  Marit had told him.

"I'm certain you remember the words, Cassandra," he said.  Marit hadn't remembered; Roland hadn't been able to get any details of her at all.  But he could get them out of Cassandra.  "Why don't you tell them to me?"

She was still silent, but Roland knew how to make her talk.  "Do you want me to make Marit repeat them again?" he asked, hiding his smile at the lie, using his sword to cut into the girl's neck.  Blood ran down her throat and dripped onto the girl's breasts.

"Stop!" Cassandra cried, and he did.  For now.  "Stop," she said again desperately.  "I'll tell you."  She took a quick breath and started to speak, a singing tone coming into her words.  It had been a long time since Roland had heard her sing.

"There will be a child, born with the sun.  Born in the north land, the high land, alone.  A child, and a man."  She stopped, and he lifted the sword again, and she continued, "Darkness and Light will be his path, to challenge the Voice of Death."

"So that's what it was," Roland said.  "Marit didn't seem to remember the words." He laughed in delight as her shock turned to dismay.  "You really are much too trusting, Cassandra," he taunted her, and laughed again at the fear on her face.  He wasn't afraid, even though the prophecy was about him.  He would simply kill the child before it grew up, and then no one could stand against him.  He was Immortal; he had four Brothers to help him, and he was the Voice of Death.

"Enough talk, Cassandra," he said.  "I grow weary of standing.  Perhaps --"  He stopped, surprised.  Another Immortal was coming.  Had many people had Methos made Immortal?  Or had Methos followed him here?

But it was not Methos who came in the door; it was an old woman, dressed all in gray, with a headdress of three crescent moons.  "Cassandra?" she said, stopping just inside the door, looking at Cassandra.

Roland saw a flicker of movement from the bed, and he turned just in time to see Cassandra leaping for him.  He slit Marit's throat with a practiced slice, then shoved the bleeding body on top of Cassandra.  They both fell to the floor in a heap, but the hag had pulled a knife and was coming at him.  Roland smiled.  He pivoted slightly and swung, his sword slowing as it cut its way across her neck and through her spine.

The old woman's head bounced a few times, then rolled under the bed.  The body crumpled and collapsed, landing across Cassandra's legs, drenching her with more blood.  Cassandra struggled to her feet and headed for the door.

Roland tried to follow, but he couldn't move.  A mist was rising from the beheaded woman, and his skin was tingling.  Was the woman really dead?  Could Immortals die?  Methos hadn't told him about that.  "Cassandra?" he asked, turning to her, looking to her for help, for answers.  She was staring at the body, her eyes wide and dark in the moonlight, horror etched on her face.

Then the lightning started, and Roland couldn't look at anything anymore.  He could only scream.  The lightning ripped through him, struck him in the back and the fingers and the eyes.  It tore open his heart and put it back together beating.  It stripped the skin off him and left his raw flesh quivering in the warm night air.  It squeezed the breath from him and hammered away in his skull, shattering his soul and slicing through his mind.

When it was over, he lay gasping on the floor in a pool of blood, a dead woman on either side.  Cassandra was gone.  Roland rose slowly to his feet and picked up his sword.  His hands were trembling and his head ached.  Methos hadn't told him about the lightning, either.

Roland left the burning ruins of Cassandra's house and headed for the temple.  Maybe she had gone there.  He set fire to the building and watched the women run screaming from the flames, like ants scurrying from their nest.  Cassandra was not among them.  He killed those who came near him, until arrows took him down.

~~~~~

When he revived, he was in the sea.  Cold waves washed over him, and it was late afternoon.  A ship was sailing by, its red and white sail billowed with the wind.  Cassandra was on the deck, and she watched him as she sailed away.

Roland smiled to himself.  He would find her, no matter how long it took.

~~~~~

It didn't take long to find her, but it took ten years to get her.  She had gone to the temple in Troy, and the walls were barred and high.  Roland joined the Greek army, and joined in the war.  When the walls finally fell, Roland was among the first to enter the city.  He headed straight for the temple, and straight for her.  This time, she had nowhere to go.

She tried to kill him with a sword, but she didn't have a chance against him.  Methos and Kronos had taught him well, in many things.  Roland killed her easily, and when she revived she found herself naked, bound, and gagged, and he was by her side.  "You said you would never hurt me, Cassandra," he said softly, stroking her cheek and the lines of her throat.  "You promised.  Remember?"

She nodded, her eyes wide with fear, but it wasn't enough.  He needed to be sure.  "I'm going to make certain you remember, Cassandra.  I want you to understand."  He took her then, made her his own, there in the burning city of Troy, as the screams of the people rose to the heavens with the smoke, and the slaughter went on.

When he was finished, he dragged her into the temple, so she could watch as the soldiers amused themselves with the priestesses.  These women had trained at the shrine of Aphrodite, too.  It seemed almost a shame to kill them, but Roland knew that some of the priestesses knew of the Voice, so they all had to die.  "Behead them," he ordered the soldiers, and Cassandra watched from her place against the wall as the heads rolled and the temple floor ran with blood.

Roland crouched by her side and grabbed a handful of hair to yank her head back.  "If you try to hurt me, or leave me," he said softly, "everyone you care about will die.  Remember that, Cassandra."  Her hair was soft between his fingers, warm silk in his hand.  He loosened his grip and caressed the curve of her cheek.

Her eyes were dark-green with anger and hate, and she turned her head away.  Roland yanked her head back, then knocked her to the floor.  She had no right to turn away from him!  He took her again while the soldiers watched and cheered, and then he invited them to take their turns.  She belonged to him, and he could share her with whoever he chose.

When they were finished, he pulled her to her feet and held her close against him.  She was still defiant, still angry, but he knew it was only a matter of time.  Methos had tamed her, and so could he.

~~~~~

It took almost five years.  "What was Methos to you?" Roland asked her, again and again, needing to know.  She didn't answer at first, but Roland persuaded her.  And eventually, Roland got the truth from her -- all of it, every last bit of information, every single intimate detail.  Cassandra told him everything he wanted to know, all about the Horsemen, all about the Voice and the temple, all about Immortality, everything.

Roland didn't like what he heard, but he had to believe it.  Cassandra wouldn't lie, not anymore, not to him.  She knew better.  But Kronos and Methos had both lied to him.  Roland hadn't need to make that deal, to teach the Horsemen about the Voice in return for immortality.  He would have been Immortal anyway.  They had lied to him about beheadings and about the lightning, too.

They had lied to him about Cassandra.  Methos had owned Cassandra -- body, mind and soul.  She had given Methos everything, and then Kronos had taken her for himself and hurt her.  Roland was going to make them pay for what they had done to her.

And he was going to make her pay, too.  She had never told him he would be an Immortal.  She hadn't told him about the Horsemen, or about Methos.  She had lied to him and left him, but she would never do that again.  Roland wanted everything from her, just like she had given Methos, everything and more.  And he was going to get it, no matter what he had to do to her.  She owed it to him.

The Horsemen owed him, too.
 
 

Roland hadn't seen Methos for years, not since their meeting in Sparta just before the Trojan war had started, nearly four centuries ago.  He hadn't wanted to.

But that was Methos walking towards him through the crowded marketplace, and Methos was smiling.

Roland smiled, too.  "Brother!" he called, and the two men embraced.  "A drink?" Roland suggested, and they walked together to a tavern that had a splendid view of Jerusalem, with the temple outlined against the sky.

"Where have you been, Little Brother?" Methos asked, sitting cross-legged on the carpet under the shade of the tavern's awning, and sipping at the milk from a coconut.  Roland had paid for his drink.

Roland kept the smile on his face and allowed none of his irritation at the nickname to show.  "Traveling," Roland said lightly.  "There's a lot to see."

"Yes," Methos agreed, then gave him a piece of advice.  "You should go see the pyramids in Egypt, and the circle of stones in Albion."

Roland smiled and nodded, but said nothing.  He had already seen the pyramids, and the standing stones.  He didn't need Methos to tell him what to do.  What did Methos know?  The four Horsemen spent their lives skulking around the edges of civilization, scraping out a meager living by terrorizing tiny villages and slaughtering defenseless tribes.  Roland preferred a much wider range of power, and a much more civilized way of life.

He was a wealthy merchant now, with interests and homes in many cities.  Right now, his primary residence was here in Jerusalem, but he was going to move soon, to the new Phoenician settlement of Carthage, on the coast of Africa.  Things hadn't been the same in Jerusalem since Solomon had died, over a hundred years ago.

Carthage -- with its mines of gold and iron and rare tin; its oceanbeds of the shellfish that gave the extremely expensive Tyrian dye, its excellent location -- Carthage was the place to be.  One day, that city was going to rule the world, and while it ruled, Roland was going to be a part of it.  Then he would move on, as he always moved on.

"So, are the four of you still together?" Roland asked pleasantly.  "The Brothers still ride?"

Methos nodded.  "We've been traveling a lot, too.  We thought that might have been why you didn't come back.  We thought you might not have been able to find us."

The four of them might have wondered about him, but they hadn't bothered to look.  Roland hadn't bothered to look for them, either.  "Well, you know how it is," Roland said easily.  "I joined the Greeks during the war against Troy, and after we won, I decided to live in Corinth.  Then I went to Phoenicia and met a girl, and then I ended up here."

Methos laughed and took another drink.  "Well, we have time, don't we?  After all, we live forever."

Until someone cuts off our heads.  But Roland didn't say it.  Methos hadn't bothered to tell him about that.  Methos hadn't bothered to tell him a lot of things.

"Did you ever find Cassandra?" Methos asked, suddenly remembering.  "Was she at the temple on Lesbos, like I told you?"

"Yes, she was there," Roland answered.  "Cassandra got away from me, though, and went to the temple in Troy."

"Is that why you joined the Greeks?" Methos asked.

"One reason," Roland answered, sharing a predatory smile with the Horseman.  "Cassandra was taken prisoner when Troy fell."  He smiled again, remembering.  "We had a good time with the captives, especially the priestesses.  They teach them a lot of things in those temples."  And not only music, medicine, and sex; the temples were where women learned the Voice.

Over the centuries, Roland had set out to destroy the women's temples and eliminate any competition.  He didn't want anyone else to learn about the Voice, or to learn how to use it.  The local Hebrew tribe had been quite helpful, especially after Roland had used the Voice to "encourage" the priests to do away with the worship of the Goddess.  The priests were still at it, too.  He didn't even need to say anything anymore.

Roland said, "After we were done with the women, we beheaded them."

"Ah."  Methos nodded and leaned his back against the wall.  "So, Cassandra's dead then.  Permanently."

She wasn't, of course.  Roland had sold her ten years after Troy fell, knowing he could always find her again.  Cassandra was his.  Then, and now, and forever.  The Horsemen would never have her again.  Methos would never have her again.  Roland wasn't going to let Methos have secrets from him again, either.  He kept his voice mild as he said, "You didn't tell me about the beheadings.  Or about the Quickenings."

Methos merely shrugged.  "It's not information that we share easily."

I was your brother! Roland wanted to scream, but he said nothing.  Silas and Caspian had known; he was sure of it.  And others knew, too.  Just ten years ago he had been challenged to a duel for the Prize, and it hadn't been the first such challenge.  The Brothers had never told him about the Game, either.  They had never told him that the last Immortal left in the world would receive all the power of every Immortal who had ever lived.  They had never told him that people would come hunting for his head.

But now he was a hunter, too, and Methos was his prey.  And Kronos, and Silas, and Caspian.  He wouldn't challenge them, of course, for he knew they were all better at fighting than he was.  He couldn't even use the Voice on them; he had given up that power over the Horsemen for nothing.

Well, he had other kinds of power, and he was going to use all of them against the four men who had pretended to be his "brother."  The Horsemen had laughed at him and used him, and he was going to make them pay.

Someday.  He could wait.  The anticipation was part of the pleasure.  And besides, now that Methos thought Cassandra was dead, the Horsemen wouldn't bother to look for her anymore.  He would tell Cassandra, the next time he found her, and she would be proud of him for protecting her.

Roland smiled and bought Methos another drink.
 
 

Roland waited for a very long time.  He didn't mind; he wasn't in a hurry.  He didn't have to worry about the Game the way others did; the Voice took care of that.  He had all the time in the world -- time to pull the strings and watch the puppets dance.  Later, he would cut the strings and leave the puppets in a tangled heap on the floor.

Still, it took longer than he had expected to start his revenge on the Brothers, over fifteen hundred years.  He found Cassandra five more times after Troy.  She wasn't very cooperative at first, but he tamed her.  She was much better trained now, and he knew she would never hurt him, never try to take his head.  She had learned that lesson.  Cassandra would never break that promise again, no matter what he did to her.

He usually kept her for a few years, then sold her.  She fetched a good price, and he didn't mind letting her go, when he knew he would always find her again.  Besides, hunting was fun.  Immortality could get boring sometimes, and Cassandra knew he was looking for her, so she was always looking for him.  It was nice to be wanted.

Roland was looking for the Horsemen, too, but he almost didn't recognize Kronos when he first saw him in the mosque.  Only the scar down the side of his face gave him away.  Kronos was dressed in flowing robes and a turban instead of a leather tunic and face-paint, but Roland was used to ignoring local costumes.  The difference went deeper than that.

It was in the eyes, Roland decided later, as the two men sprawled naked in the warmth of the steam room and smoked from the hookah.  The eyes were brighter, more gleeful, more intense.  Angrier.  Insane.

Roland took another puff.  It was not his concern.

"So," Kronos began, leaning back comfortably, but not relaxing, "have you seen the others?"

The "others" meant only one thing to Kronos, Roland knew -- the other three Horsemen.  Kronos had not even asked Roland a single question about himself.  Not that Roland would have told him the truth.

"Not lately," Roland answered   "I saw Caspian outside Constantinople, a few decades after the fall of Rome, and Silas passed through here, oh, about fifty years ago.  I've been in Damascus for almost a century."

Kronos nodded, but he obviously did not care.  "And Methos?"  This, he cared about.   He was trying to hide it, but it was betrayed by the curling of his fingers, the furrowed line between his eyes, and by his voice.

Roland knew voices.  Kronos was angry.  This was very intriguing.  Roland stretched and smoked before answering casually, "I haven't seen Methos for ... two hundred years, maybe?"

"Where?"  Kronos wasn't even trying to hide his interest anymore.  That hadn't been merely a question, it was a demand for information.  Kronos wanted to find Methos, but not to clap him on the back and call him brother.  Kronos wanted to kill Methos.  Or worse.

Roland smiled to himself.  So, the Brotherhood had been broken, somewhere, somehow.  Good.  Excellent.  Roland would help Kronos in his quest.  It was only fitting, after all.  "Methos was living far to the west, on the island of the Scotii."

Kronos shook his head.  "Never heard of them."

"It's a small island, just beyond Britannia."  Methos had been living in a monastery, of all places, acting like a monk, hiding on Holy Ground.  It was quite funny, in a way.  Roland had found Cassandra on that island, too, and brought her back with him.  He had kept her in his harem for a time, then sold her to the caliph for a tidy sum.

Kronos obviously hadn't heard of Britannia, either, and Roland tried again, "Off the coast of Gaul, where Julius Caesar fought."

"Who?"

Roland looked at him curiously.  How could he not have heard of Caesar?  "Where have you been these last eight hundred years, Kronos?" Roland asked lightly, smiling.  "In a cave?"

Kronos smiled back, but not before Roland had seen the flare of hatred in his eyes.  Intense hatred.  Murderous hatred.  Oh, now this was interesting!  Maybe Kronos really had been in a cave, and maybe Methos had been the one to put him there.  Even better.

Roland added smoothly, offering Kronos an easy excuse.  "Or have you been traveling in the Middle Kingdom, to the east?  I doubt they care what happens over here."

"It's a big world," Kronos said, pretending to be relaxed again, trying to hide the hatred, reaching for the pipe.  "We can't keep track of every little king and emperor."

"True enough," Roland answered.  "After all, we live forever.  Don't we?"
 
 

Immortals can live forever, but they usually don't.  Not with the Game.  But Roland lived for the next twelve hundred years.  Who could challenge the Voice of Death?  Cassandra survived, too, and all of the Four Horsemen were still alive.  Kronos hadn't found Methos in the land of the Scotii, in Ireland.

Roland knew that, and he knew where Kronos and Cassandra were, and Silas and Caspian, too.  He even knew where Methos was.  Methos had joined the Watchers again, and his picture was in their files.  Roland knew all about the Watchers.  The Voice made it easy to get answers, and computer passwords.

And Roland finally knew who the Solstice child of the prophecy was -- a young Immortal named Duncan MacLeod.  Cassandra had gone to him yesterday, and Roland had been watching Cassandra for a very long time.

"Find him," Roland said to the two policemen, using the Voice to control them.  "He's armed and dangerous.  His name is Duncan MacLeod.  Bring him to me."

They did, just an hour later.  The policemen dragged the barely conscious Immortal into the empty warehouse and dumped him on the floor, then handcuffed him to a pipe.  Roland dismissed the policemen, telling them to forget everything they had seen.  Then he studied the man -- tall, dark of hair and dark of eye, handsome in an overdone sort of way.  Cassandra had probably been flat on her back two minutes after she saw him.  Or on her knees.

MacLeod was recovering rapidly.  "You waited four hundred years for this?" he asked, getting his feet under him, watching Roland cautiously.

Roland smiled.  He had waited a lot longer than that.  And he would wait just a little bit more.  "I'll be back when I'm ready," he told the younger man, then dodged MacLeod's pitiful attempt to grab him.  He tossed MacLeod the key to the handcuffs, and headed for the door.  There was no sport in killing an unarmed Immortal, and besides, he could use the Voice.  He was not worried.

But still, Roland wanted to take care of a few things before he faced this particular duel to the death, just in case.  He locked the door behind him, and left MacLeod alone.

Roland went to the library, a quiet place without children, and sat down to write.  Four letters should do it -- two for Cassandra, one for Kronos, and one for the survivor, whoever that might be.

The letter to Kronos was easy to write.  There wasn't much to say.
 
 

------------------------------------------------ Kronos, I have interesting news for you, Brother.  Methos is alive.  Look for him in Paris, or in Seacouver with a man named Duncan MacLeod.  I know you've been looking for him for a long time. Oh, and Cassandra is alive, too.  She and MacLeod are lovers.  I've enclosed some more ... intimate information about her in the envelope.  I thought you'd like to hear it.  She's all yours, Brother.  I'm done with her now. Fraternally yours, Roland ------------------------------------------------

Roland smiled as he sealed the envelope.  Kronos was a smart lad. He could take it from there.

The first letter for Cassandra was easy, too, especially one part.
 

------------------------------------------------ You believed me in Aberdeen over three and a half centuries ago when I told you that Kronos was dead, but Kronos is alive.  I saw him ten years ago.  He's reading a letter from me now, just like you are, and finding out that you are alive, too.  I told him a lot of other things in the letter, but I don't have time to write them all down for you just now. Maybe he'll tell you, when he finds you.  And he will find you, Cassandra.  Just like I did. ---------------------------------------------------

Roland sealed that envelope, too, and wrote her name in large Greek letters across the front.  He would have the letter sent to the Isle of Lesbos, to a hotel near the ruins of the temple.  Roland knew she would go there, and he knew that once she found out Kronos was alive, she would hunt him down, no matter how long it took.  Cassandra was dying to kill.  She would love to kill Methos, too.

The letter to the survivor was simple, too -- just a quick outline of his plan, so the survivor could appreciate what he had done.  What was the point of a splendid plot if no one knew how clever you had been?  The Watchers would deliver it for him; he had already arranged for that.

The last letter to Cassandra, though ... that one was difficult.  He had so much to say, and he was running out of time.  How to start it?  Mother?  Cassandra?  Witch?  Mommie Dearest?

He settled for all four.
 

------------------------------------------------ It's been a long time, Cassandra -- a long time together, and a longer time apart.  And if you get this letter, it will be forever.  The Solstice Child will have killed me.  I'm going to fight him later today, now that I finally know who he is.  You hid him well, I'll grant you that.  You protected him. Much better than you protected me. But did you know just what you were protecting, Cassandra?  Do you know what MacLeod really is? MacLeod and Methos are best friends. Just think of it, Cassandra.  Your precious little Highland Foundling, the child you protected, the man you wanted all these years, your champion, your lover -- MacLeod is best friends with Methos, with Death, with your first master, the man who killed you, and raped you, and enslaved you.  The first man you loved. That surprises you, doesn't it? It surprised me, when I realized earlier today that MacLeod was the Foundling, when I saw the two of you together on the beach. Do you think MacLeod and Methos talk about you at night?  The way the Horsemen and I used to talk about you?  Do you think Methos tells MacLeod how you were his obedient slave, how you begged to be allowed to service Methos in bed?  Do you think Methos tells him what you like to hear, how and where you like to be touched?  Do you think he tells MacLeod the same things he told me? Think about it. I've been thinking about a lot of things these last few days, Cassandra, ever since I realized the waiting was almost over. I've been thinking about the Voice, and how useful it has been over the centuries, how ... influential.  Did you know, I started the witch hunts in Europe?  Well, that's rather immodest of me.  I helped.  It didn't take much.  The women were starting to forget their place, and the men didn't like that at all. Not at all. Religion is very useful, too.  Of course, you know that.  You were a priestess once, a long time ago.  I helped to get rid of all that.  Women can't be priestesses anymore; you're not even really human.  There is no Goddess.  Oh, a few of you women are running around now, wearing silly clothes and chanting stupid prayers, but it won't last.  The men won't allow it.  Their God and their religion tells them not to.  Amazing.  It's even better than the Voice. And I've been thinking about the Horsemen.  I can still remember the way Kronos looked when he first smiled at me -- speculative, weighing, yet pleased.  Later, the speculation became satisfaction.   But I wasn't the one he was satisfied with. I can still remember, even now. I believed Kronos, you know.  I believed everything he told me.  Every near-truth, every half-truth, every lie.  Kronos was my elder brother, and I trusted him.  I didn't know then that he was really laughing at me, instead of smiling at me.  He won't be laughing now. He might be dead.  Or maybe Methos, or maybe MacLeod, or maybe two of them or all three.  The four of you are quite the tangled little love-nest, aren't you?  Even if you don't all kill each other, Methos will have to choose between MacLeod and Kronos, and MacLeod will have to choose between you and Methos. However it happens, I get my revenge.  I wish I could be there to see it.  One way or another, some of you are going to die.  Or be left alone, forever. After all, it's what you deserve. Your loving son, Roland

Roland smiled as he sealed the letter.  That should keep her awake at night.  He put all four letters and some instructions into a large envelope and mailed it to his lawyer.  The letters would be mailed at the appropriate times, to the appropriate people, if he did not return to claim them.

Right now, he had an appointment to keep.  Roland walked briskly down the street, his hand on the hilt of his sword.  The waiting was over.

Maybe for all of them.

=====================
Historical Notes:

Within 150 years of the death of Hammurabi in c. 1750 BCE, his empire collapsed.  Warring tribes included the Kassites, the Hittites, and the Mitanni.  The Hittites started using horse-drawn chariots, and in 1375 BCE, they defeated the Mitanni kingdom and took over most of Syria, an area rich in metal ores.

Ninety years later, under Pharoah Ramses II, the Egyptians tried to force the Hittites out of Syria.  They failed, and a treaty was signed between the two countries in 1269 BCE.  Seventy years later, in 1200 BCE, the Hittite cities were destroyed by the Phygians, and their kingdom collapsed.

Iron had been used from about 2000 BCE, but the Hittites developed better ironworkng techniques, and iron became wide-spread in that area by 1200.  (However, the Trojan War (1194-1184 BCE) was fought with bronze weapons.)

OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER STUFF
Not my characters, not my universe.  Not-for-profit, just-for-fun. (Www.fanfic.org, not www.fanfic.com)  Belongs to Widen, Panzer, Davis, Rysher, Gaumont, etc.

THANKS TO:
- HWRC, a marvelous group of writers and readers.
- Lisa Krakowa, who wanted to know more about Roland, and so prompted me to double the length of the story.
- R. J. Ferrance, for insisting on style.
- Genevieve, Methos-lover extraordinaire, for her timeline and her time.
- Cathy Butterfield, for excellent research into Watchers, camels, barley, and beer.
- Selena, who spots plot holes and plot pinpricks.
- Vi Moreau, who (of course) offers wonderful suggestions.
- Bridget Mintz Testa, who read it even though it didn't have Connor in it, and gave (as always) very good advice.

RELATED STORIES:
- For Cassandra's version of this story, read "Hope Forgotten" and "Hope Remembered."
- For Methos and Kronos's vision of the Horsemen, read "Long Have I Waited."