The Last of the McLeods
by Maureen S. O'Brien

"Have you come to plead for your brother's life?" Kortan asks me,
completely rhetorically. He looks my almost-twenty body over with
interest. Pig. "Or have you come to deal?"

"I came to ask what you intend to do with him."

He smiles coldly, the only way he knows. "Do not fear, girl. Your
brother Quentin will not lose his head. Now that he and Ramirez are
both in my power, I have hostages that the rebels will not endanger.
As for the rest, either he will pass his knowledge to me or he will
not. Either way, he will not be leaving my prison ever again, my dear
young Clyde."

"I wouldn't bet on that!" I say defiantly.

"Oh. I forgot. Quentin is the last of the McLeods, the first new
Immortal in 800 years, and thus the only Immortal other than myself
who didn't take the Oath of the Jettators that we would never again
take a head or play the Game. He is destined to defeat me and end my
reign over this post-meteoritic world of ours. And so on and so forth.
Pardon me if I yawn."

"For that I'll pardon you," I say. "But not for the rest you've done."

And I reach inside my trenchcoat and draw my sword and strike off his
head all in one motion, the way Ramirez taught me. His headless body
continues to stand for a moment, his arms flailing. Then the body
falls like a puppet with its strings cut.

"Quentin's not the last of the McLeods," I tell it scornfully. "Not
when he has a younger sister, he's not."



A storm gathers in the room, and lightning begins to rumble. I'm no
fool, and I don't intend to get myself killed the first time by
hanging around to watch an indoor Quickening. I dash out the door and
past all of Kortan's stunned henchfolk. I pause a moment to block the
door to the private room and collect my truce flag. Then I saunter
back out into the public room of the inn, where Kortan's bodyguards
are discussing whether or not they hear thunder.

"I'm supposed to get to speak to the prisoners," I tell them. "And
some of you guys are supposed to go with me."

"Whatever you say, Clyde," one guard snickers. Jerk. "Clyde. What kind
of name for a girl is Clyde?"

"It's the name of a Celtic river goddess -- Clutha to the Romans,
Clwyd to the Welsh, and...."

"Whatever," he cuts me off hastily. "Let's hurry up and get this over
with. Who do you want to see first?"

"Quentin, of course."

He snickers and pretends to fumble with the keys. "Oh, I'm sorry. I
can't find that one. You'll have to go see the Spanish guy first."

"Fine," I say, pretending to be annoyed so he can get his jollies
without more ado. Actually, I don't mind. Quentin's my brother -- all
right, my adopted brother -- and the leader of our cause. But Vincente
Ramirez is the man I love.

Okay, given that he practically raised Quentin and me, it sounds a bit
Electra. But do you know the man? Have you looked at him?

I decided real early that he was gonna be mine and did everything I
could so he'd think of me as a companion, however small, and not a
daughter. And it paid off. It paid off big time. 

It would be even better if I could get the guy to sleep with me!
But no, he wanted to get married first. And if we got married that
might change my name enough that the whole Last of the McLeods thing
might not work, and then he'd be back relying on Quentin to off
Kortan.

So let me put it this way -- I didn't work hard at sword practice
_just_ because I wanted to save the world from Kortan's oppression.

Jerkboy the Guard fumbles with his keys a little bit more, and then we
hear a clap of thunder.

"Dang! That was close!" says Jerkboy, and opens the door into the
storm. No rain -- just lightning twisting around Ramirez' helpless
form while his cloak floats around him like a stormcloud. The guards
take a moment to stare at the scene, and I take the opportunity to
club them over the head with my sword's basket hilt. They fall
satisfactorily.

There's nothing I can do for Ramirez. I watch him for a moment,
worrying. Then I take Jerkboy's keys and let Quentin out.

"Clyde!" he yells out. "I told you to forget about us and get on with
the revolt! What are you doing here?"

"Shh!" What, is he nuts? Fortunately, I doubt anyone heard him above
the thunder. "Come on, big brother," I say, unlocking his chains.
"Help me drag these guards into your room, and you change into guard
clothes. As soon as Ramirez gets done with his Dose'o'Quickening, I
want us to be able to get out of here."

"Quickening? Who's dead?"

"Kortan."

"Ramirez killed Kortan?"

"No, I did."

Quentin suddenly looks like a bird that's fallen out of its nest in
the middle of the winter and frozen on the snow.

I sigh. Maybe Ramirez and I should have clued Quentin on our plan.

Naaah.

I look up at Quentin. Still goggling.

"Hey!" I demand. "You gonna help me strip these guards or what?"

He comes back from wherever he's been and glares at me. "Whatever
happened to 'Good morning, Quentin'? Don't you believe in 'Hello'?"

I grin at him. "I've become a godless asalutationist. Quitcher
bitchin', Quent, and get a move on."

We strip the guards and chain them up in their undies, or in one case,
lack thereof. Yuugh. One of them is about the same height and weight
as Ramirez, so there's one less problem. Quentin goes back into the
room to change clothes while I wait, and watch Ramirez.

The damn Quickening isn't over yet. I guess that's not really so
surprising, given that Kortan was one of the oldest and most ruthless
Immortals. It's quite a sight, and I bet there's not a glass left
intact anywhere in the inn. I ponder my mortality as a pre-Immortal. I
wonder if I will ever have to take another head, or avoid having my
own taken. But as the Quickening goes on and on, I start to tap my
foot impatiently. "Come on, come on," I mutter. "Enough with the
stupid lightning already, and let me get on with this escape."

Finally, the pyrotechnics end and my favorite man slumps to his knees.
To make a long story short and cut out all the hellos that are _not_
your business, I get him dressed in the other guard's clothes. Then
Quent and I hustle him down the hall and down the staircase -- or
rather, two of Kortan's guards escort the rebel Quentin's sister out
of Kortan's territory. By the time the bodyguards figure out that
Quentin and Ramirez have escaped and try to report to Kortan, we are
long gone.  I know, because our rebel agent at the inn, a barmaid,
took great glee in reporting the confusion that ensued before and
after they discovered Kortan's corpse.

Yes, we get away. And we get home. And there is much rejoicing, not to
mention much utilization of the fruits of Quent's Knowledge of
fermentation processes. Quentin is hailed. I am hailed. Ramirez is
hailed.

But after a certain portion of the evening is gone, so is Ramirez.

I go after him. At first, I assume he's somewhere close, getting some
quiet time away from the party. Then I look in his rooms. His stuff is
gone.

I swear. Then I start to track him.

He was relying on nobody noticing him being gone till late in the
morning. I catch up with him only with difficulty. He was really
making tracks.

"Leaving so soon, Ramirez?"

I actually manage to startle him. This worries me, but I act like I
didn't notice anything strange.

"Clyde?" He swallows hard.

"Who else?" I walk over to him, anger and fear and love humming
together in my blood. I wonder if this is how it feels to sense an
Immortal. "We won, Ramirez. What happened to living happily ever
after?"

He looks at me with no expression. "This is not a fairy tale, Clyde."

"I am aware of that."

"I am sorry that I led you to believe...."

"Bullcrap," I say. "I know how you feel. That hasn't changed. You've
got another reason. What is it?"

He stares at me. The oldest Immortal left in the world. Twelve
centuries of Castilian arrogance against twenty years of wandering
semi-Scottish pre-Immortal mutt.

His eyes fall first.

"There is something I never taught you or Quentin," he said. "The true
reason I sent a pre-Immortal up against Kortan, all prophecies aside."

I keep silent and thus make him continue.

"You know already that the Quickening and the Knowledge pass along
memories of all that an Immortal has done and thought and felt. What
you do not know is that these memories can be so strong as to possess
a man's soul. It is called a Dark Quickening, and the results are...
unpleasant, to say the least. As I am finding out, courtesy of our
friend Kortan."

So he was protecting me. The humming in my blood eases a bit. Not
much, though. He should have trusted me.

"Is there a cure?" I ask at last.

"I do not know." He shrugs. "I have heard that certain Immortals were
cured by being plunged in a holy spring, but that rumor was several
centuries old when I first heard it."

I look at him, carrying everything he owns in his beast's pack. "It
would take you weeks to get to Lourdes on foot. It's an hour away by
aircar."

"I wouldn't trust myself to fly one there, at the moment."

"I'll take you."

But I'm not stupid. If the man I love is being possessed by the guy I
just chopped, I want some backup. Luckily, Quentin didn't get drunk
last night, as he was too busy contemplating his awesome
responsibilities as rebuilder of civilization. I collect him, tie
Ramirez up even tighter than Kortan's men would have, and we're off on
what may be the strangest, grimmest pilgrimage Lourdes has ever seen.

The great church still stands, and though many are the pilgrims there,
they cannot begin to fill its dark halls. We dip two fingers in the
holy water the way Ramirez taught us, light our tapers from the fat
candle by the door, and begin our walk to the spring. Ramirez
struggles with us, and we have to frogmarch him down the aisle. He
curses us and Our Lady. Quentin and I glance at each other, and my
stomach sinks. No, this is not my Ramirez. Not at all.

As we get closer to the grotto, Ramirez stops struggling. "This is a 
fool's errand. Release me and let us go home."