Highlander(TM): The Measure of a Man

by Nancy Holder

Genres: Science Fiction

Synopsis

One of the ages-old race of Immortals, Duncan MacLeod has tried to turn his back on tradition and live his life as a mortal. But as the time of the Gathering draws near--when the few remaining Immortals will fight to the last--he finds himself being drawn back to battle. If he wins at the Gathering, he will acquire all the powers of the losers; if he does not succeed, he loses his life forever.

Release date: September 9, 2009

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 224

Sample

The first part of Measure of a Man was inspired by Ashley McConnell’s HIGHLANDER novel, Scimitar. My thanks to her and to authors Jason Henderson and Jennifer Roberson, and to all those who created and have subsequently
enriched the universe of Duncan MacLeod and his kinsman, Connor.


Very special thanks to my researcher and friend, Hodge Crabtree, Jr. Any errors in this book are mine. Mythenos is a fictional
colony, although the Venetians were indeed hard put to maintain their Greek colonies, and Crete was always a thorn in their
sides. The six-month celebration of Carnival developed gradually and reached its culmination in the eighteenth century. In
1655, Venice had a terrible reputation for its torture chambers, but historians tend to agree that the Republic was relatively
mild in this regard. Also, the Inquisition tended to slap the hands of accused witches rather than execute them.


I used the Thomas Cleary translation of The Art of War and the John Stevens translation of The Art of Peace. The unattributed quote about samurai in the epilogue is from The Art of Peace. There are dozens of good books about chess; one is The World’s Great Chess Games, edited by Ruben Fine. There is absolutely no historical evidence to support my fictional explanation for Machiavelli’s “will
to power.”


Without Maryelizabeth Hart, this book would not have been written. My deep thanks to her for her generosity and friendship.
I would certainly be the poorer without them.


I’m very grateful to executive producer Bill Panzer and to staff writer Gillian Horvath for saying yes. They and script coordinator
and Watcher Chronicle CD-ROM author Donna Lettow worked hard to help me find the right story to add to Duncan’s chronicle.


Thanks to my Warner editor, Betsy Mitchell, for being everything an author dreams of. Thanks also to Wayne “Zelig” Chang for
his assistance. And to you both for walking, and walking, and walking.


To my terrific agent, Howard Morhaim, mahalo and aloha nui nui.


To Jeremy Lassen, Elizabeth Baldwin, Patrick Heffernan, Jeff Mariotte and Christopher Golden, my thanks for their wonderful
imaginations and their support.


Also, my sincere thanks to all the fans who have built HIGHLANDER web sites. To Queen and Roger Bellon, thank you for the
evocative music I have listened to all day, every day, for months. Memento mori, Freddy Mercury.


My everlasting gratitude to my husband, Wayne, whose love makes me immortal. To everyone at Reproductive Sciences, bless you:
Samuel Wood, M.D., Ph.D.; David Smotrich, M.D.; Lila Schmidt, M.D.; Elaine Epperson, Ph.D.; Steven Chan, Ph.D.; Catherine
Adams, Ph.D.; Vickie Stocker, R.N.; Becca Hansen, Cindy Miller, Jennifer Bantle, Jannell Terry, R.N., Amie Baldwin, and Linda
Anderson.


Finally, I would like to thank Mssrs. Christopher Lambert and Adrian Paul, and the casts of Highlander: The Series and the films, for creating a kind of magic that has made me, quite simply, lose my head.




“When you want to fight, do not face an enemy near water. Watch the light, stay in high places, do not face the current….”

—Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Here we are,


Highlander.

Princes.


But there can be only one king.

So, listen. Listen to my voice that stretches across the universe and tells you a story of once upon the end of your time:

This is how it will be when you die,

Bonnie Prince Duncan.

And this is the nature of the life you will lose:

Into the misty Highland dawn you come, (or you believe that you did), and as any wee, trusting bairn, you smile and reach
out your chubby fingers to faces that croon and hearts that embrace. You are held within the band, the tribe, the clan. You
belong. You have rights, privileges, duties, and obligations.


Then, slashing deep, lightning upon a battlefield, the sword hacks into body, heart, and soul. You are not the longed-for
son, the mother’s mirror, the prayers of your grandparents.


You are no one.

You are outcast.

Although your body heals, your soul and spirit are forever maimed, and will never again be whole.

From this moment on, you are alone inside yourself for the rest of time.

And alone, you are abandoned, driven out to hunt your own kind, who hunt you in return. You may love fiercely for centuries,
but at the Gathering, your beloved may take your head. You may protect, but your student is a hunter, too, and there can be
only one.


The mortals you love will prove their fragility, and you will mourn in darkness over their rose-strewn graves.

If you attempt to stop loving, you will be more alone than ever. And of everything in the world, you arc the most alone already.

Forever apart, forever waiting, forever watching, and Watched.

But no, not forever.

For imagine the heartbeats of your days and nights, pulsing endlessly like star bursts. Is there a limit to the heavens?

Infinity is a mortal dream.

Is there a limit to eternity?

There can be only one.

And so you go through your life a being unlike any other, even the ones who are of your kind. A lifeless object—katana, scimitar—is more vital to your existence than your blood or your breath. You are a secret, a cipher, a legend even to yourself.
Since you do not know the who and why of yourself, you must cling to what you have become. Motherless, fatherless, a family
dynasty of one.


Who wants to live forever?

You do.

Because this is how it will be when you die.

You’ll start out, of course, in battle. The particulars don’t matter, but for the sake of argument, let’s say you’re challenged
at a beach in the south of France. Of course, you could be confronted on the ravaged Russian plains, or in a Chinatown warehouse,
or along the shore of the Pacific Ocean. And then there arc museums, castle ruins, and secluded rural cabins. Terrible battles
can take place in antique store showrooms. Have taken place.


But imagine that it’s a warm, sunny day at this remote French beach. By some lucky chance, few locals know of its existence,
and no tourists at all. You’ve arrived not half an hour before with a lover, a mortal woman who has no idea what’s in store
for her. As you unpack your Citroën, you satisfy yourself that you are, for the moment, safe. There are no other Immortals
around.


Your adored one looks to you, sees that you are satisfied, and reveals her relief in a quick smile. She is in your care; though
she doesn’t grasp it, she is your responsibility. If harm comes to her, you will try to forgive yourself, but you know from
experience that you will never succeed.


While you fold your duster around your sword and pull off your shirt, she spreads a blanket, takes off her top, and puts on
her sunscreen, chatting to you of the things that are still important to women: her friends and perhaps a new hairstyle and
wondering what she should do about her career. She is clever anc witty, and never ceases to fascinate you intellectually as
well as physically.


Ah, physically.

You help her oil her back, making slow, teasing movements as you cup the sides of her breasts with your hands. So firm. So
yielding. Your women are always beautiful, MacLeod. Even your bitterest enemies, if they are female, want you. And this one
stretches like a pampered cat. She loves you. loves it when you fondle her. A man who has lived for centuries knows much of
pleasing women.


She turns her head for a kiss, and then she is in your arms. You lower her to the blanket. She smiles. You take off your boots
and stand barefoot in the satiny sand as she raises her hips to pull off her shorts and bikini bottoms. Your jeans come next,
and she knows that you’re hungry for her, and that you must have her.


When you lie on top of her, holding your weight above her, she lightly scratches your back and arms, traces the whorl of hair
on your stomach that plummets to places you reserve for her touch only. When you enter her, she arches her back and cries
out with animal pleasure, feral, lusting joy. Her fingernails dig into your back, your hips. You kiss her as you move, slowly
at first, and then faster, faster, taking her to the heights of ecstasy. When she cries out, you allow yourself release.


Your eyes tightly shut, you feel the warmth of her contented sigh against your ear and kiss her hair. She wears a perfume
you buy for her. You’ve never bought it for anyone else, and you never will.


After a time, she returns to her previous conversation. She asks for your opinion; drowsily you give it, feeling yourself
drift away into memories of other good days long past. Wandering cobbled streets that now are car parks. Supping on the flesh
of animals now extinct. Hearing music no one knows how to play, not really, not anymore.


Wondering if this day will melt into your parade of memories, and knowing that if it does not, it will be because today you
died.


“What do you think, Duncan?” asks your love, and you pull yourself back to the present and apologize. You know Immortals who
laugh at you for your preoccupation with mortals, even with other Immortals. The Game insists that every man be for himself.


But you know others who don’t accept that. Methos, the oldest Immortal, once offered his head to you so that you could beat
Kalas. Rebecca allowed herself to be slain to save her aging, mortal husband, who would have died soon anyway.


You would do the same for this woman, and you know this can be used against you.

Now, as your beloved sighs at your silence—she accuses you on occasion of being too closed and brooding—you open your eyes
and stare out to sea. The water is a deep, azure blue Mediterranean, beckoning. You kiss her deeply and tell her that you’re
sorry, you’re preoccupied, and suggest you both take a dip.


Softening, she shakes her head, says it’s too chilly. But she urges you to go because she loves you, and she wants you to
enjoy yourself.


Nuzzling her firm, flat belly, you rise and walk through the sand as the sea rolls gently toward you. The uneven ground is
soft and stretches the muscles in your feet in a pleasant way.


You reach the water’s edge. The rippled flow is cool but not cold. It will be good for swimming. Again you glance at your
duster, at your woman. You look up and down the deserted coastline.


You walk into the water.

A breeze laps at your skin, tickles the hair on your chest, legs, and arms. The water swirls around your ankles, your shins,
your thighs. You crouch forward and push off, swimming toward the horizon. The water is colder now. She calls, asking how
the water is. You mimic shivering. She laughs and tells you she will warm you when you come back.


You ride the waves as they take you farther out, the color changing from deep blue to blue-gray. The sun shines brightly overhead.
A seabird whirls above you, flies away.


The waves rock you up, down, and you swim with long strokes. You swallow sandy salt water, throw back your head to slick your
hair away from your face. A piece of seaweed brushes your thigh. You grab at it. Not seaweed, but a small fish. It submerges
perhaps another five centimeters; the water is too dark to watch the little creature’s escape.


Then, in one instant, you feel a presence. The prickling of your skin; for some—but not you, you are too seasoned—a disorienting vertigo. Another Immortal is nearby.


And you are naked, and unarmed.

Your blood floods from your face. As you have done for centuries, you quickly look around. You concentrate. You feel.

There is a shadow behind your lover, who is innocently pouring herself a glass of wine.

You wave your hands, call out. She does not hear you.

You begin to swim with all your strength, swearing at yourself, swearing at the shape, willing it to be a friend who has sought
you out for some good reason.


But you know you mustn’t waste your time with idle thoughts. You must assume the worst. You must begin to prepare your assault
on the beach. You play out various scenarios: if he holds your woman hostage; if she runs away; if she grabs your sword; if
she is killed.


It is taking too much time and too much strength to get back to shore. Dimly you realize you were probably caught in a rip
current that carried you out to deeper seas. Today you might have drowned once, twice, three times; no matter now. No matter
at all.


You are closer. You must stop to survey the scene. The shadow stands alone, farther back, sword drawn.

Your beloved lies inert on the sand. For a panicked moment you see her head a meter away; then you realize it’s the picnic
basket.


You charge the beach. There is nothing else you can do.

And while I have already sensed your presence, it did not dawn on me to look for your sword. And so you surprise me. I give
you that, as you grab up your duster and extract your sword. So we are on a more even footing, you and I, but I know my gods
arc with me today.


I know that I will kill you, Highlander.

You are fierce. You have always been fierce. Though you cast away your warrior’s role, you have never cast away your warrior’s
heart. You fly at me; you thrill and terrify me. Unclothed, you are more vulnerable than I, and I take every advantage. I
slice your chest, I pierce your shoulder socket; you stagger back, chancing a glance at your sweet darling. You know she’s
not dead. You know that if you look at her again, you will be.


For I am on you. I slash and slash, impressed by your lightning parries, your riposte, your lunge. You are relentless. Everything
they say of you is true. I almost begin to doubt myself, but you have been in the cold water, and you have worked harder than
I this day.


You cuff me with the hilt of your dragon blade. You hit me with your fist, you knee me. You push me backward and leap on top
of me. You are a savage. You have never left the heather forest primeval.


You are hitting and punching and I hear the bones in my face crunch and shatter. I see the sun on your blade as you raise
it; I hear your grunt as I throw sand in your eyes and slam you with the full force of my upper body.


Mortals never fight like this. Their guns do the work. If they use knives, they are cautious. They hold back. We do not. Every
hit, every thrust, produces noise and pain. Sweat flies; we heave with effort. Mortals may battle to the death, but we battle
to the Death. We, who have fought for centuries, who have survived, do so because in our ferocity we are fearless. It is as
if we are possessed. There can be only one. It is our kata, our mantra, the consuming drive that controls our muscles and arteries and nerve endings: Survive, survive. survive at any
cost.


At any cost.

But you are weak: You want to protect your love. I love no one. You want to maintain your honor. I have no honor.

I am stronger.

And I am winning.

I see nothing of defeat in your face. You cannot know it yet, cannot accept it. But I have you.

Hidari-do, blow to the left; migi-do, blow to the right. Ryote, sword in both hands, katate, in one hand. You are skilled in lai-jutsu.


As soon as I answer your kata, you switch to another school—Ichiden-ryu. Then to pure Highlander fury.


But you misstep.

You smack backward against a boulder and slide to the sand, the rough rock ripping the skin off your back. Oblivious, you
charge. Bloodlust burns in your eyes. Your teeth gleam, bared, and there seems to be no mind to you, no thought to you. You
dervish like a machine, like the energy of a hurricane.


For me: survival, survival.

For you: survival, tempered by the need to protect.

I know you. I know that in your soul you believe you will never die. You think you are the one.

I thought the same about you. But today something told me to take you. Today I knew I could beat you.

Only today.

And what mythic power compelled me, what force of nature or supernatural being whispered in my heart, “Today,” I may never know. It is not important.


All that matters is that it was telling me the truth.

And you die, Duncan MacLeod. You see the blade, you see the flash and shine of it colliding with your future. You feel the
first tissues of your neck separate from your head.


You whisper a name I cannot hear. The name of a love, perhaps. Or a teacher. Or the parents who cast you out.

And is there relief? Is there the knowledge that, at last, the Game is over and your burden is lifted?

Or is there only terror and despair?

I cannot say. Your dark eyes are hooded; I half suspect a trick. But then your head comes off, so cleanly, so easily, and
falls upon the sand. I am almost sorry, but I have come so close to dying that I cannot spare the confidence necessary to
have such a thought.


The Highlander is dead.

I have killed Duncan MacLeod.

And your Quickening? The violent death of a legend?

The earth shakes; the waters rise up in a tidal wave and engulf and overthrow the beach. Lightning shrieks down the breakers,
down the blackened sky. I writhe and shatter and roar out your name and remember with your life force the lives you led: I
am Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. I am MacLeod.


I lose myself utterly in your spirit. I am you; I am consumed. Such a heart! Such a mind.

We roll into the sea; we are whisked by the undercurrent as we sizzle and explode.

And then, it is a baptism. I am myself again.

And you are dead.

I will stand over your grave and laugh. In pace requiescat.


Rest in peace, Duncan MacLeod.

And that is how it will be. And, more or less, how you will die. Oh, it may not be at a beach, or in a museum, or an antique
store showroom.


But you will die.

By my hand. And by my name, which today is one thing, and tomorrow another, but remains this: your last adversary. The one
who is stronger. Down through the centuries, I will come to you one day, and you will surely leave this world to me.


There can be only one, Scotsman.

And I am coming.

It was almost dawn when Duncan MacLeod completed the first of the bare-hands forms of the Seven Star Praying Mantis kung fu
style, Secret Force. Frowning, he bowed to his imaginary adversary and slowly exhaled. He had hoped a good workout with the
soft southern Chinese style would calm him, but he was more charged up than before he had begun. Adrenaline coursed through
his body as if preparing for a fight, not ending a training session. But better to hone his body and his reflexes than stay
in bed, tossing and ruminating, and watching the sun rise.


He grabbed a towel off a wooden chair, dried off, and pulled back his hair. On light feet he crossed to a Chinese lacquer
table containing a large glass of water, a café au lait, a croissant slathered with marmalade, and the certified letter he
had received late yesterday afternoon. Again he took the letter from the envelope, though he had done so at least a dozen
times already, and reread the cryptic message, inked in a swirling hand:


P-K4.


The advance of a pawn. The opening move in a chess game.

He had no idea what it signified, but there was no question who had sent it.

“You old devil,” he murmured. “I shouldn’t be surprised that you’re still alive, but I am.”

He turned the letter over with his left hand as he downed the water and looked at his own name and address in a nondescript,
typed font. The postmark was Tokyo. The water gone, he sat on an ornately carved bench beside the table, picked up his cafe
au jait, smooth and pungent, and took a small sip.


P-K4. A very standard opening for a thousand different potential games. But not sent, he knew, by a standard opponent. How long
since the two of them had played? More than three hundred years. How long since he had received an opening move in the mail?
Perhaps sixty years. He counted backward, and was startled to realize it had been precisely one hundred. Was this some sort
of anniversary, then? Or was the ancient Italian merely bored?


“Or up to something,” MacLeod said, and put the letter down. Like the others, he would not answer it.

And as with the others, the memories flooded back:

Italy, 1655.


Venice, to be precise.

Niccolo Machiavelli, the deceiver, the murderer, who wore a smile as easily as a dagger, whose every gesture of friendship
cloaked a carefully planned scheme of betrayal.


One of the most dangerous Immortals MacLeod had ever crossed swords with.

MacLeod crumpled the letter and aime. . .