The Path (30 page)

Finally, long minutes later, he could breathe again. He dragged himself to his feet and once more put his hand to the great
doors.

They opened silently and he stepped inside. The Dalai Lama stood waiting for him. The young man’s face was an impassive mask
as he looked Duncan over. His expression held neither welcome nor condemnation, but MacLeod could feel the sudden unassailable
resolve about him, several lifetimes strong. In that instant, more than any other, Duncan felt an absolute certainty that
all the Dalai Lama’s claims of reincarnation were true and that youth was only a facade.

“Come with me, Duncan MacLeod,” the Tibetan leader said in a tone as hard as forged steel. “We must talk.”

Duncan bowed. The Dalai Lama turned away and began walking; with heavy steps Duncan followed. He knew what now must come.

They went into the audience chamber where so many pleasant hours had passed in conversation. Today, however, when the Dalai
Lama took seat upon his cushion, he sat it like an imperial throne. The atmosphere in the small room felt charged with the
energy of his emotions.

Is it anger I’m feeling from him?
Duncan wondered.
For what—trying to save his city from invasion and his people from death?

One look in the Dalai Lama’s eyes and he had his answer. There was nothing merry in them today. They did not twinkle; they
stormed as they looked Duncan over, stopping at the sight of the blood on his clothes and the sword hanging at his side. Duncan
waited for the storm to break.

“Have you understood nothing I have said to you, Duncan MacLeod?” the young man said. “Have my words fallen on a heart of
stone, that you would bring violent death into my city?”

“I did not bring it here, Your Holiness, nor was the first death at my hands,” Duncan replied.

“Do you deny that you have killed this day?”

“No, Your Holiness, I do not—but I had no choice.”

The Dalai Lama’s eyes flashed like lightning in a thundercloud face. “There are
always
choices, Duncan MacLeod,” he said, repeating the lesson he had used before.

Duncan closed his eyes for a moment as again weariness engulfed him. For all his incarnations and the ancient wisdom that
came so easily to his lips, the Dalai Lama lived in an ivory tower of dream and ideals. It was a beautiful place when those
around you shared your views. When they did not, it was only a place that invited death.

Duncan opened his eyes and straightened his back, standing unrepentant and unflinching before the Tibetan leader’s stare.

“Yes, there are choices,” he said, lifting his chin a bit higher, “and I made mine. He
killed
Xiao-nan. I killed him.”

“One death begets another.”

Duncan nodded. “Yes,” he said, “it often happens that way, too often. But the man I killed today was a spy for that army out
there. He opened the gates to them—gates you had ordered closed. Two of your own monks are dead at his hand. Should I have
stood back and done nothing while that army swept into the city? There would have been hundreds of deaths.”

With this last word, the grief closed in again. It took almost all his strength to push it away. Control; he still must remain
in control.

“And was this your only intention, Duncan MacLeod?” the Dalai Lama asked. “Look into your heart and tell me you felt no anger.”

“Of course I was angry,” Duncan snapped, nearly shouted. “I was almost blind with anger. Must I say it again?
He killed Xiao-nan.”

“And you took pleasure in
his
death.”

“Yes,” Duncan answered through gritted teeth. He would not deny what he had felt, still felt. He began to pace restlessly,
feeling like a trapped animal.

The Dalai Lama watched him silently, waiting for the worst of his inner storm to pass. “And what of tomorrow, Duncan MacLeod,”
he said at last. “I know you go to meet the leader of the army in combat. Will you kill again?”

“If I must.”

“And will this death also give you pleasure, Duncan MacLeod?”

Duncan stopped pacing. He closed his eyes again, against the despair he felt welling in his soul.

“No,” he said softly. “There is no pleasure—only necessity.”

“Why, Duncan MacLeod? The death today might be called justice by some, but not tomorrow. I forbid you to do this.”

“I must,” Duncan said. He was tired, suddenly so tired his legs almost refused to hold him up. He wanted no more questions,
no more half-said explanations. He was what he was. It was time the Dalai Lama knew the full truth.

“You said there are always choices, but that’s not true, not for my kind,” he said, turning to look at the youthful face of
the Tibetan Priest-King.

“Your kind?” the Dalai Lama cocked his head to one side in his old familiar gesture. “You are a man as other men.”

Duncan found he wanted to laugh a the black, sardonic humor of the Dalai Lama’s words. But it was the laughter of tears and
exhaustion so close a hand.

“No,” he said. “Not as other men.” Once more he pulled himself up straight and looked into the Dalai Lama’s eyes.

“I am Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. I was born in 1592 in the Highlands of Scotland. I am Immortal….”

The Dalai Lama listened while Duncan told him of his “death” in 1622 during a battle with a neighboring clan and of his many
“deaths” since then. Duncan was not sure whether it was horror or sorrow he saw on that gentle face when he told of the many
true deaths that had come at the end of his sword. He held nothing back, speaking of the wars he had been in, the causes he
had supported, the deaths that had brought him the satisfaction of justice and the others that had shown him only grief. The
tale of his life unfolded like the lotus flower of Buddhist lore, revealing at its heart a man of honor who longed for peace
but who was also a warrior; a man who accepted, sometimes with deep remorse, that he must kill to stay alive. It was both
his weakness and his greatest strength.

They talked long into the night. It was better to accept death, the Dalai Lama said, than to carry the stain of killing into
the next life. Duncan listened, sometimes in silence, sometimes vocal in his disagreement. He wanted to believe as the Dalai
Lama did, but he could not.

Finally, they both knew there was nothing more to say. The Dalai Lama remained seated while Duncan went wearily to the door
of the audience chamber. He must now get what sleep he could before the dawn. As he put his hand to the latch, the Dalai Lama
spoke one last time.

“I tell you again, Duncan MacLeod,” he said, “do not do this thing. Do not go to kill.”

Duncan stopped and turned around. He stared at the young man who for the last weeks had been teacher, mentor, and
friend, wishing there were some way to make him understand. But the differences were too great. Duncan had never felt so very
alone.

“I’m sorry, Your Holiness,” were in the end the only words he had left.

Duncan walked through the door, closing it softly but firmly behind him.

A half mile outside the city gates the Gurkha army made camp, spreading like a blight across the gently sloping land. Smoke
from their campfires filled the air like a thousand specters, and the wind carried their voices through the silence of the
night.

Nasiradeen walked among his men. Everywhere he went, the eyes that watched him shone with pride and devotion. He was their
leader and their champion. Nowhere did he see the slightest doubt that he would win on the morrow.

Nasiradeen drank in his men’s surety. It fed his own confidence. Why should he
not
expect to win tomorrow? The Immortal he had seen today was good, and the sword he carried was an impressive weapon, but over
the centuries Nasiradeen had killed hundreds of men, mortal and Immortal. He knew his own power was formidable.

He left his men to their food, drink, and song. They were in good spirits tonight. Their campaign was nearly over; Tibet was
nearly theirs. Once Lhasa fell, their claim to this country would be complete.

Nasiradeen went to stand at the top of the rise where he could see the holy city and the great palace of the Potala. In the
moonlight, its whitewashed walls shimmered like silver. The light shining from the many windows made it look studded with
slabs of gold. The sight of it made the hunger grow in him again.

Yes
, he thought,
it is a fitting palace for a conqueror—and a King. An Immortal King
.

Then Nasiradeen frowned as he noticed the dark spot outside the gates where the body of his spy still lay unattended. The
man had been a nuisance through much of his training, given to flights of fantasy his skill with a sword had never been great
enough to fulfill. But he’d had other talents and had been a useful tool. He deserved to have his soul sent home to the gods.

Nasiradeen turned and called back to the camp. Immediately, half a dozen men left the nearest campfire to answer his summons.

“Build a funeral pyre,” he told them when they reached his side. “Then go down to the gates and retrieve the body. Prepare
it, but do not light the fire yet. Tomorrow I shall lay the body of an enemy at his feet as an offering to Shiva.”

“Yes, Great One,” the men said, touching their hands to their hearts. Then went quickly to do his bidding.

Nasiradeen turned back to his contemplation of Lhasa. His thoughts went to the battle the would face at dawn.

A man from the West was a new experience for Nasiradeen.
Who are you, Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod?
he wondered.
What will I gain from you when I drink your Quickening?

And there was the Quickening itself. It had been too long since he had felt that raw power surging through him like the thunderbolts
from Shiva’s hand.
How long?
Nasiradeen tried to remember.
Ten years, twelve?
No matter; he had kept his skills sharp, honing them on mortal blood.

In Kathmandu, he had often spoken to the boy-King of the glories of a warrior’s life, trying to convince the boy to become
a man. But such glories were nothing compared to a Quickening. Riding into battle, sword tasting the blood of the foe, seeing
your enemies fall at your feet, even taking a dead man’s woman when the battle was won—these mortal pleasures paled when compare
to what one Immortal felt when the Quickening of another entered him in the searing, savage ferocity that shook the heavens.
Here was proof, Nasiradeen believed, of an Immortal’s power, of their strength and superiority over the poor mortal creatures
that surrounded them.

And you, Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod?
he thought, staring down at the city of Lhasa.
What are these mortals to you? Have you lived long enough to see them for what they are—instruments of passing pleasure, tools
to be used and discarded at leisure—or do you foolishly still count yourself among them?

Nasiradeen hoped MacLeod’s time in Tibet had not made
him soft. The Gurkha was tired of conquest without fitting battle. He had hardly unsheathed his sword since they crossed the
mountains; the villages his army had destroyed had not been worth the effort.

But tomorrow, he grinned into the night, tomorrow he hoped for better things. First a Quickening—and then
Lhasa
.

Nasiradeen turned back to the camp behind him. With strong, purposeful strides, he reentered the circle of firelight and called
for wine. Men scurried to serve him, returning not only with drink but with a platter of hot meat carved from one of the yaks
they had taken from a village.

He squatted by a fire and his men clustered around him, eager for anything he might say. Looking at their faces, Nasiradeen
knew that not even the gods held as high a place in their hearts as he.

And he accepted their devotion as the fitting tribute a mortal must pay. He grinned at them in the dancing firelight.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “we dine in Lhasa.”

To a man, they cheered him, their cries slicing the silence of the Tibetan night.