Highlander: The Return of the Immortal Read online

  THE RETURN OF THE IMMORTAL

  Back Jacket

  Outside, lightning lit the heavy clouds, and rain pounded down on the car in torrents. MacLeod stared at his hands, holding the blade of his katana like an offering.

  He had not escaped the vicious circle of the eternal battle. He knew it, and it almost drove him to the brink of madness, fueling that nameless rage, but also the despair deep inside him. That was the true reason he had come here, though he had persisted in persuading himself that he was just driving around aimlessly.

  Inner Jackets

  Ever since one of the battles fought between Scottish clans hundreds of years ago in the Highlands, Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod cannot die. Like his ancestor1 Connor, he is cursed to be immortal. Since that day, he has been forced to wander restlessly through time and space, sometimes even walking the shadowy border between life and death only to return to the world of the living.

  But even his time is limited: There can be only one, and so he must face battles to the death again and again with others like him. The katana, his magic sword, is one of the weapons that he can use to defeat other Immortals and finally beat Slan Quince, one of his greatest enemies. But the blade, in whose steel figures and images of bygone eras come to life again and again, is also the symbol of his curse.

  In order to free himself from the curse and to be able to live a life of love with Tessa like a normal mortal man, he hurls his sword into the Pacific . . .

  Martin Eisele/Hans Sommer

  Highlander

  The Return of the Immortal

  The book "Highlander -

  The Return of the Immortal"

  was created on the basis of two screenplays

  by Dan Gordon and Robert McCullough

  of the 22-part television series "Highlander",

  produced by Gaumont Television, Paris,

  in cooperation with RTL Television.

  The German Library - CIP Unit Acceptance

  Eisele, Martin:

  Highlander: The Return of the Immortal/ Martin Eisele;

  Hans Sommer. - Cologne: vgs, 1994

  ISBN 3-8025-2260-5

  NE: Sommer, Hans:

  3rd edition 1995

  © RTL/Marketing/Sales

  © of the book version: vgs Verlagsgesellschaft, Cologne 1994

  All rights reserved

  Proofreading: Dorothee Haentjes

  Cover Photo: © RTL Marketing/Sales

  Cover design: Papen Werbeagentur, Cologne

  Set: photo set Froitzheim, Bonn

  Printing: Freiburg Graphic Arts

  Printed in Germany ISBN 3-8025-2260-5

  Translation

  by hive-mind:

  Google Translate

  Jill Sylvan, U.S.A.

  Gerda Strobl, Austria

  Monika Kumagai, Austria

  Dominik Bear, Switzerland

  Special Thanks to:

  Nicholas Ward, The Netherlands

  Manuela Hartwig, Germany

  Andy Sloane, Highlander WorldWide Locations Master

  Contents

  Chapter 1 The Curse of The Katana

  Chapter 2 The Shadowy Border

  Chapter 3 Insurmountable Yesterday

  Chapter 4 Vancouver Docklands Hospital

  Chapter 5 Futile Escape

  Chapter 6 The Power of Memory

  Chapter 7 Under The Spell Of The Past

  Chapter 8 The Laboratory

  Chapter 9 Under Suspicion of Murder

  Chapter 10 Déjà-vu

  Chapter 11 There Can Be Only One

  Chapter 12 In The Wake of Time

  Chapter 13 No Shadowman

  Chapter 14 The Cliffs of Port Hardy

  A thousand years in your sight

  are like a day that has just gone by,

  or like a watch in the night.

  Psalm 90:4

  Chapter 1 The Curse of The Katana

  It was worse than ever before: The voices of the night whispered behind walls of dark noise, and Duncan MacLeod vaguely grasped that, after hours of aimless driving, he now leaned forward, hunched over behind the wheel of his black '68 Thunderbird, eyes staring straight down. What he had been looking at for a very long time was perhaps part of one of his confused, feverish nightmares of eternal flight and damnation, of madness and death.

  The holy sword . . . the deadly sword . . . the heart and soul of the samurai.

  The blade glistened softly in the weak light of the dashboard. Faceless figures, who seemed to have risen from all epochs and regions of world history, danced wildly on the silvery steel, beating each other with murderous rage, uttering inaudible triumphant shouts, dying with silent groans - victors and defeated, villains and victims.

  But it was not a dream - of course not. This was reality, his reality, and he had lived through it for four hundred years with ever increasing horror; since that day, a truly magical day in the Scottish Highlands, when he was killed in one of those absurd clan skirmishes, but after a few days he had come back to life and not been able to die since.

  Too much blood, he thought numbly, still unable to take his eyes off what he thought he saw in the slightly curved, slightly more than yard-long, razor-sharp blade of the katana. It was dangerous to waste time on these trivialities in such a situation; yet he failed to break their spell.

  For too long he had been on the run, and there was too much of everything; especially too many memories.

  And too many fights, he thought. Too many names. Too many faces of too many dead. And of the living dead.

  Slan. Kiem Sun. Felicia Martins. Walter Reinhardt. Caleb Cole. And Crowley and Pilar Vasquez and . . .

  And Tessa and Richie.

  He did not want to think about them, not just now, because he wanted to bring his old life to a close and begin anew. But such thoughts were dangerous opponents. They ruthlessly scratched old, still festering wounds, and underneath, the painful truth inevitably came to light.

  What also came to light was that this time it had started again after an absurdly few years of peace. And that in the deepest depths of his consciousness, he knew full well why.

  Too many questions were raised about the purpose of this life.

  His consciousness, his memories and the horror - everything returned in a whirling turmoil, like shards and splinters of an old smashed mirror, a kaleidoscope of distorted glittering IMAGES. The death of Pilar Vasquez, his raging aimless crisscrossing of Vancouver. Then up to Whistler, Pemberton, Lillooet and on towards Prince George. Finally, quite suddenly, he had turned around. And now he was here, on the northern tip of Vancouver Island, just about fifty yards upslope of the cliffs of Port Hardy, from whose fishing port the large, majestic car ferries of the B.C. Ferry Corporation embarked every other day in the summer, and cruised the islands of the Inside Passage northward, up to Prince Rupert. If he closed his eyes, he thought he could feel the loneliness and power of the place, as well as the surf beyond the steep cliffs. And the flocks of seagulls which, despite night, storm, wind, and rain, circled about in daredevil maneuvers and braved the forces of nature with a boundless life energy of their own.

  And suddenly it was easy to cross over into that other, alien perspective. The Laterna Magica turned at breakneck speed. Somewhere, hollow thunder trembled. The mirror - this shattered mirror. More shards, more pictures, all in his head - frenzied and of compelling power.

  The great forests of the north, the hunt for Tessa's kidnappers. The fall into that gorge, then the impact. Blood in his mouth. That shadowy border he had once again crossed, as so often befo
re, in one direction and the other. The fight man-to-man . . . Reflections of sunlight on the jagged edge of the war ax . . . Caleb's screams. The smell of sweat, expectation and fear.

  And then, suddenly, Walter Reinhardt appeared, and MacLeod thought: He doesn't belong here, doesn't belong in these picture galleries. It was New Year's Eve 1989. Mighty sword strokes clashed, steel on steel.

  The dark-skinned face of a beautiful woman. He remembered her name the way he always remembered too well: Rebecca Lord. He heard Reinhardt say, "Women are interchangeable."

  He saw her die in the incredibly luxurious and expensive training room she had created for the day of her revenge. But that was far from the end. Reinhardt . . . Reinhardt's damned sword . . .

  And his own death. Again and again his own death. Then a darkness like the shadow of a dead sun.

  Unspeakable pain, screams.

  And more pictures: a storm, the flood of the century, rushing hundreds of yards high, raging and roaring and . . .

  Brian Slade and the others in the Vancouver Courthouse. The thunderous echo of shots. The pervasive howl of alarm sirens. Screams of dying or panicking people. So many hostages.

  Tessa and Richie. The little girl, Belinda, in her own little hideaway: the janitor's room. MacLeod heard himself saying to her, "You have to hide." And she shook her head, as determined and yet vulnerable as only children can be: "First you must tell me a story. Not a scary one, I like fairy stories." So he told her about beings who could never die, who were good and protected little children, while at the same time thinking of killing Brian Slade, and then . . .

  Images of Connor MacLeod, like himself a member of the Clan MacLeod. Connor's laugh. That incomparable laugh. And his memories keep racing . . . faster . . . faster.

  The Holy Island. Connor walking down the long slope to his canoe. And Tessa's anxious smile: "You didn't say goodbye?" And he himself, laconic: "We never do."

  Then China, 1792. Kiem Sun's temple. And Alexei Voshin, 1947. The dissidents. The Sea Witch. Steel that strikes steel and produces flashing sparks. Felicia and Sheriff Crowley. Steel that strikes steel and kills people.

  And finally, Pilar Vasquez.

  She had tracked him down, stalked and pursued him like a tigress who is sure of her prey, but wants to play with her victim for a while before she kills it. He had felt her, again and again, with short, bursting flashes that flared like sparks of a vague realization and already burned out before they let themselves be caught. Oh yes, she had been clever, had managed to dive into the shadows of this world and those of the world beyond, and to elude him when he was about to find her.

  And then suddenly, as unexpectedly as a meteor that flares up in the night sky like a shining beacon of coming doom, she had attacked him in the dark parking lot - truly a tigress but endowed with bloodlust and bloodthirst far beyond the animal drives of a predatory big cat. He had been forced to defend himself, to muster up all his strength and wits in order to withstand her hellish attacks and to ultimately defeat her.

  And then, when she lay soulless and lifeless on the dusty asphalt, and after her power had torturously passed into him, he saw her properly for the first time. She was a child. To all outward appearances, perhaps sixteen years old. Sweet Little Sixteen - the melody of the rock song shot through his mind and brought tears to his eyes. He was fully aware of the fact that her youthful appearance was deceptive, that she could easily be two or three hundred years old. Perhaps even older than he was. But this was a realization of the rational mind. His heart, his emotions as the human being he still considered himself to be, told him even so that she was a child. And he had killed her.

  Death. Again and again, death. But this time . . . one death too many.

  Maybe he was trying to gain time with this procedure of self-torture. Or the sword wanted it. Conscious of the danger emanating from his own sword, he remained in his seat, apparently perfectly calm, while there was sheet lightning outside and the rain was pouring down on the car in torrents. He stared at his hands, which held the katana's blade like a ritual offering, and now tightened their grip.

  Honed steel cut deep into the sinewy flesh of his palms and fingers.

  More blood flowed. But he did not feel the pain. At least not this pain. No muscle twitched in his chiseled features. The all-consuming maelstrom in his skull was like red-hot lava, and it lost more and more intensity with every passing second.

  Do not forget why you are here.

  MacLeod shook his head to finally drive off the images. He felt sick, nauseated. The blood on the blade - his blood - seemed to be dark and malignant.

  No warrior ever touches the polished and sacred steel of his blade. It is a crime. It is like inviting the beast inside to devour him.

  And suddenly he knew that he, himself, was his most dangerous opponent.

  He had not escaped the vicious circle of the Eternal Struggle. He knew it, and it almost drove him to the brink of madness, fueling that nameless anger, but also the despair deep inside him. In the end, he had come here for that reason alone, though he had persisted in persuading himself that he was just driving around aimlessly.

  Find silence. Peace.

  What an absurd undertaking for a man, a creature, like him.

  Death had been part of his life for centuries. This death, though, was not a bony grim reaper but a network of magical dependencies and traditions, of umbilical cords made of pure cosmic blackness, and like a dizzying abyss beyond time. It was omnipresent and stifling, just as a pervasive, never-ending battle of good against evil might dictate.

  Such ghosts could not be driven away.

  Nevertheless, it had to end someday.

  He still hated killing. He hated being subject to the ritual.

  There were days like today when he despaired of the weight of centuries, of his eternally unchanging face, and of the fact that all those he loved who were human and mortal could be for him nothing but comets: a flash of brightness and warmth in his life - and then there would inevitably be nothing but darkness and emptiness.

  A century in his sanctuary on that nameless holy island had not been enough to make the others forget that he existed. And it certainly was not enough to make him one of them, or to make him enjoy, or even delight in this perverted way of being.

  The eternal battle, the blood, the sweat, the tears, and the hurricane and pestilence of death, remained iron law and the curse of all his kind, no matter how far the day of the Great Gathering - or even how near.

  It was not over.

  It would never be over. Not so long as he or one of the others kept his or her head.

  And yet! It had to end, for Tessa and Richie. It had to end - for their sake. He thought that, over and over again, at first with only a faint hint of horror: It was little more than a fleeting touch, something with many hairy legs that scurried over his soul and disappeared again, but finally it trembled with hate and turned into something much, much worse.

  Do not forget why you -

  Thunder drifted closer with unnatural speed and rushed over him like a mountain of rock. He had not noticed the lightning of the thunderstorm, but it must have burned even the last bit of blackness out of the car's interior for a tiny blink of the eye.

  He blinked. It was as if he were awakening from a completely unnatural sleepless sleep. But with the tearing of the blackness, the paralyzing spell was torn as well: he felt abused and miserable - it was as if he had given away a thousand good dreams to remember the bad ones. But there was also determination. Power. He would do what he had come here to do.

  A blue-and-white wisp flickered like a bizarre, ghostly image of lightning over the razor-sharp blade of the katana, making the blood glow and sparkle as if to mock him.

  Do it. NOW.

  Maybe it was the voice of his implacable God he had heard. He did not know. He pushed open the car door and got out with a single powerful gliding motion before the paralyzing spell could regain it
s grip.

  He plunged into the raging, whining pandemonium. The storm nearly threw him off his feet, hitting him in the face with an icy chill that made him gasp, making his long coat billow and flap in the wind. The rain now fell in long, silvery cascades and soaked him to the skin. The air seemed to be rife with sulfur and electricity, and the flashes of lightning, the crash and reverberation of thunderbolts shaking the earth, turned his strides into disoriented staggering.

  After a few split seconds, the car seemed to be swallowed up behind him as though by a giant beast. The headlamp beams that had initially shown him the way were nothing more than meaningless pale cones that crumbled as though under black acid. And the sky itself, under the cover of the tempest and the rain, changed into a terrible maelstrom, in the center of which something attempted to materialize that hopefully never would: something big, black, dreadful, with moist, glittering tentacles, possibly able to span the whole world. MacLeod clenched his hands on the long ivory hilt of the katana, still slippery with his blood. He finally banished all distracting thoughts from his brain and focused entirely on the silhouette of the cliffs, where sky and earth met, in front of a nearly thirty-yard abyss to the seething sea.

  Making headway got easier with every step he took, as if some kind of mystical agreement had formed between himself and the mighty blows of the forces of nature. He also actually felt that something of the impetuous wildness and joy of the seagulls was awakening within him. The darkness was no longer around him, but penetrated him through each of his pores, spreading and probing throughout him, recognizing him as an ally: a son of the night, a shadow warrior; a being of its own kind.

  Later, he could not remember how he had traversed the last few yards over the wet, slippery rocks and clefts. But when he again became conscious of thought and perception, he stood tall, a few inches away from the steep slope - an easy victim for any further squalls. He did not even try to protect himself from the tremendous thrusts and spurts, and it almost seemed as if respect was being paid him. He was not hurled into the abyss. Rain lashed his face, and out of the depths before him rose a roaring as of primeval births. For a moment, he thought he saw the sea spray of the churning Pacific, infinitely far below. In the harsh, almost white flickering of continuing flashes of lightning, the surf threw itself against the rocks, in surreal slow motion, and an ever-increasing vibration spread down his body to the soles of his feet.