Return of the Highlander (Immortal Warriors)

He felt it first. A sensation he could remember
but had not experienced in a long, long time. His fingers uncurled, feeling, stretching out. He was in a cold and silent place, with the faint echo of breathing. He felt marble, smooth and icy. It was beneath his body, an unbending slab of stone, and he was lying upon it.

He opened his eyes.

Sunlight poured through the windows on both sides of the building, golden shafts that intersected as they reached the floor. The rest of the interior was dim. Gloomy and splendidly solemn.

Cautiously, wondering if he should, he pushed down with his palms and sat up. He was in a great cathedral, the architecture soaring above him, the stained glass of the windows brilliant as they were struck by the light outside. The air was cool, scented with incense and age. Beneath him was a marble tomb, only there was no effigy on the top of it.

He
was
the effigy.

As he turned his head, gazing about him, he saw the others. They lay upon their marble tombs, still and pale, as if they had been sculptured. But they were men, living men, with only the faint lift of their chests to tell him they were still breathing.

Nothing else moved.

The Highlander swung his long legs over the edge of the tomb and stood up. He felt remarkably strong and fit for a man who had been sleeping for…but how long was it? He did not know. And he did not really understand why he had been awakened now, at last. He was grateful, of course he was, but a sense of unease flickered across his senses.

“Your time has come.”

The voice was close by, but it seemed to echo all about him. The Highlander turned swiftly to face his foe, his kilt swinging about his powerful legs, the
claidheamh mor
at his hip ringing as he drew it from its scabbard.

There was no one there.

Now the Highlander turned, slowly, holding the blade before him. The chapel was empty, and the effigies who were men did not move.

“Who is there? Show yourself!” he demanded, with all the arrogance natural to him in his previous life.

Once he knew he would have been obeyed instantly, and in his heart and mind he still expected that immediate response. The voice came again, above him this time.

“The world has moved on. Things have changed.”

The vaulted ceiling soared overhead, but it was empty.

“
You
must change, too, Highlander.”

“Where are you?” he spoke through his teeth. His dark hair swung loose about his shoulders as he turned from side to side.

“Once you were too blind to see. Now you will learn what it is not to be seen.”

A step behind him, the swish of cloth over stone. The Highlander turned and there, at last, was his adversary. He blinked in surprise.

It was a woman, and though he knew it was a fact that women weren’t any match for a man like himself, this one increased his tension rather than eased it. And so he kept his sword between them.

She was small, her face round and sweet like an angel’s, her hair as red as flames. She wore a cloak, silver fur that gleamed like ice in the sun where the light from the windows touched her. Her eyes were ocean-blue and calm, and yet when he caught her gaze there was something dreadful in it that made his breath hitch in awe.

He knew that this was no ordinary woman. This was a
Fiosaiche
. A Gaelic Sorceress.

“I can only give you one chance to make recompense. To show me you are the man I think you are. To redeem yourself and cast off the burden you carry upon your soul.” She shook her head at him, her expression fierce. “So many lives lost unnecessarily, Highlander. You must right this wrong.”

The Highlander’s brain was turning over her words, trying to make sense of them.

“Why?” he asked, and though he would not beg, he would never beg, his voice was husky with pain and inner turmoil. “Where am I? What must I do?”

“You have been asleep in the between-worlds for
over two hundred and fifty years, neither living nor dead,” said the woman with the eyes that could see into his soul.

“The between-worlds?” He cast a quick glance about him, at the chapel, the windows, the sunlight outside. The between-worlds was dark and frightening, nothing like this, he remembered that much.

“I have created this place from memories of my own past,” she said with a little smile. “It is not what you think. Nothing is as you think it, Highlander.”

“I am dead, then?”

“You last walked this earth as a mortal man in 1746, but you will do so again. You are going home.”

The
Fiosaiche
smiled. He felt dizzy and shocked at the same time, as if he had looked upon something he should not. “Take the chance I give you, Highlander,” she whispered. “Use it.”

There was a flapping, a whirling of the still air in the cathedral. A large eagle brushed past him and he ducked down, suddenly afraid. The
Fiosaiche
was gone, and so was the bird, and he was once more alone with the effigies. Other men, sleeping as he had been. Only now he was awake.

The Highlander slid his broadsword back into its scabbard. There was a doorway through the thin arches that formed a path forward. He began to walk toward it, his boots ringing out on the stone floor.

He didn’t understand what he was doing here. The
Fiosaiche
’s words meant nothing to him. What wrong must he right? The Highlander never admitted he was wrong, not about anything. Such admissions meant
weakness and the Highlander had never been weak. He was a chief, a leader of his clan, a king to his people.

He pushed the half-open door and stepped out and suddenly the light was too bright, blinding him, and he covered his eyes with a cry of pain. When he felt able, he peered through his fingers, and realized the brilliance was gone. He looked about him at the grim, deserted hills. He took a deep breath and the air was chill and sweet.

And it smelled good.

It smelled like home.