The Path (32 page)

Of their own accord, Duncan’s arms lifted. His
katana
pointed to the sky, balancing him, keeping him on his feet as Immortal energy surged. And in the light and thunder, the fire
and mist, came Nasiradeen. All he had been flooded Duncan in
an unstoppable wave of knowledge and power. Duncan saw each twist and turn that had blackened the Gurkha’s soul; felt the
disdain that he now knew had covered a heart too long without love.

Sorrow piled upon sorrow, loss upon loss. Duncan’s own soul shattered with the pain of it and fell back in ill-fitting pieces.

Then it came to him, soft as laughter carried on the wind, gentle and cleansing as the early-spring rain. A voice, more felt
than heard, whispered his name as invisible arms wrapped around him.

We are one
, the voice said; beloved, it saved him.

Now and forever;
he was not alone.

And for all the lives to come;
Xiao-nan was with him. She would always be with him.

The lightning ended. Duncan fell, spent, to his knees. He felt the ground solid beneath him and knew the chasm had closed,
the blackness had receded.

He had survived.

The body of Nasiradeen lay in a crumpled mass a few feet away, and his head was not far from his body. As Duncan waited for
the effects of the Quickening to pass, for his strength to return and his wounds to complete their healing, he knew what he
must do next.

Slowly he stood and crossed the distance. He bent and picked up the Gurkha’s head, ignoring the expression of shock and surprise
that was now Nasiradeen’s death mask. Then he turned toward the Gurkha camp and the waiting army.

The massive cluster of men were waiting as Duncan crested the rise. Five hundred or a thousand strong—Duncan did not know
their number, but they were an ocean of armored warriors staring at him in wide-eyed terror, they had seen the lightning that
was their leader’s death. Duncan smiled in a grim, unrelenting expression. He wanted their fear. It was, perhaps, Lhasa’s
best hope of survival.

Blood-covered, his hand wound into the hair of Nasiradeen’s severed head, Duncan marched forward. He changed his face into
a wild and savage snarl. He looked like a demon from the darkest depths of Hell as he neared the camp. The men nearest
him struggled and stumbled into one another as they scrambled to back away.

Duncan raised his arm and swung. He let loose the head he carried and watched it arch upward, a hideous missile against the
brilliant blue sky. Within the mass of men before him, an opening cleared as, pushing and shoving, they moved away from where
the head must fall.

It landed with a sickening thud and lay there, sightless eyes staring upward, all arrogance gone.

Now Duncan raised his sword. He brandished it before him like a bright flame of victory.

“The way into Lhasa lies through me,” he shouted. His voice sliced through the morning, sharp as any sword. “Who will fight
me now?”

No one answered. Duncan waited a moment more, then he continued, “This invasion is over,” he shouted. “You will trouble this
land no more. Take the bodies of your dead and
GO
. I will be watching. I stand ready to do battle with anyone who defies these words.”

With that, Duncan turned back toward the city. He kept his head high, his body tense and erect as he walked. He would not—could
not, for the sake of the city below—let the army see his weariness. Although the battle was over for now, shock and fear would
soon fade, and there was still the chance that someone among Nasiradeen’s troops might find the strength to rally the army
for one last attack.

Duncan knew he must be ready to fight again.

Brother Michael and Father Jacques were there when he pounded on the gate. They asked him no questions, though the look in
their eyes said they, too, had seen the fire of the Quickening, even if they had not understood. Together, they climbed the
ladders to the top of the wall and watched.

It was not long before they saw riders from the army come retrieve their leader’s body. Soon a long plume of black smoke rose
from the funeral pyre. When Duncan made no move to turn away from the sight, the others stayed with him, waiting.

Throughout the city, people began to creep from their homes, looking for news. They needed either direction or reassurance.
When Duncan gave them neither, would not turn from his contemplation of the distant pillar of smoke, Brother Michael descended
the ladder and took over the job himself. Soon the news was spreading throughout the city that Duncan had won the challenge
and was now waiting to see that the army was departing. The ordeal was not over yet, but most of the people of Lhasa faced
the morning with more hope than they had known throughout the night.

Up on the wall, while Duncan watched the distance, Father Jacques watched him. The priest did not know the meaning of the
wild pyrotechnics that had risen out of the little hollow where Duncan fought, nor would he try to guess. Father Jacques had
long ago accepted the existence of Mysteries.

What he did know, as he looked at the man next to him, was that Duncan MacLeod had battled with demons this day, demons that
had nothing to do with swords and armies.

The eternal battle
, Father Jacques thought.
Good versus evil, darkness or light. We all tread the narrow precipice between them, making our way warily through this life.
But I think for
this man the edge is much closer, the threat of falling a much more continuous danger
.

Off in the distance came the sound of men’s voices shouting indistinct orders; horses snorted and whickered, carts creaked.
Father Jacques saw Duncan’s shoulders stiffen. The priest could feel the tension radiating from the man as he readied himself
for whatever was to come.

Father Jacques nodded silently. He saw the path this man walked, understood it clearly as he understood his own—perhaps more
clearly than Duncan did himself.

Always at the forefront of the war for what is right—one foot in Heaven and one foot, perhaps, in Hell. I do not envy you
the road
.

The army folded as the wind swept away the smoke of its dead leader. Father Jacques did not have to watch the road to know;
MacLeod’s posture told him everything. As the threat diminished, tension was replaced by release, and then by weariness, as
if a bowstring had been unhooked and the weapon set to rest.

“Monsieur MacLeod,” Father Jacques said softly as Duncan turned away from the view and headed toward the ladder. “What will
you do now?”

Duncan looked at the priest, and Father Jacques saw that he understood the question was not about the next few hours, but
the years to come. There was a sad irony in his eyes as a brief, wan smile barely twitched the corners of his lips.

“Go on living,” he replied as he swung himself onto the ladder and began to descend.

When Duncan reached the Potala, he did not go to his room, though his body cried out for rest. There was no rest in this place
anymore. He went to the audience chamber where he knew the Dalai Lama would be waiting. He knocked once, then entered without
waiting for a reply.

The young man was not sitting on his usual cushion. He stood contemplating a tapestry on the far wall. Duncan saw that his
own belongings had been packed in his travel bundles and were piled at the Dalai Lama’s feet.

Duncan sighed as he came into the room. The Dalai Lama did not turn, did not speak until Duncan was by his side.

“It is done then,” the Dalai Lama stated flatly. “You have killed—willingly, despite my words.”

“Yes, Your Holiness,” Duncan replied. He would give no further explanations, no excuses; he had made his choices as clearly
as Nasiradeen had made his on the hills outside the city. And all that could be said between himself and the religious leader
had been said last night.

The Dalai Lama said nothing, but Duncan saw the tightening around his lips, the slight clenching of the hands behind his back.
The young man continued to stare at the tapestry. Finally, Duncan also turned to look at it.

He had seen it countless times as he sat in this chamber and though its vivid colors and designs had been beautiful, they
had had no meaning to him. Now Duncan saw it for what it was; the great Kalachakra Mandala. The sight of it flooded him with
the memory of days in the sun and Xiao-nan by his side.

Xiao-nan
…

Though her love was still with him, so was the grief. In an odd way he now welcomed the pain of it, but he held it as a thing
apart from this scene he knew must be played. For a moment he felt like a spectator to his own life, watching a half-remembered
play where lines are heard with the dichotomy of recognition and surprise.

“I have spent most of the night in this room,” the Dalai Lama said at last, “thinking of your words. Many things I sought
to understand about you have now become clear. I will keep your secret, as I promised you last night, but you must leave Tibet
and not return. Your path does not lie among my people, Duncan MacLeod. There is no place for a life of violence in the palace
of Enlightenment.”

“Perhaps not,” Duncan answered as he, too, stared at the tapestry, at the elemental circles of time enclosing the gardens
and palace of the way to eternal peace.

“Perhaps all I can do,” Duncan added softly, “is to guard the gates.”

The Dalai Lama turned to look at him. In the young man’s eyes, Duncan saw the disappointment and the flashing anger of a teacher
who knew his words had been abandoned, and of friendship strained perhaps beyond endurance. The look did not surprise Duncan,
but it did sadden him.

“You must go,” the Dalai Lama said.

Duncan nodded. It had all been like a dream, living here, hoping for a different life than the one he lived. It was now time
to wake up.

Duncan looked for a moment longer into the Dalai Lama’s face. He knew that whatever the young man might think at this moment,
his words and the memory of his friendship would stay with MacLeod for a long, long time, changing him in ways he had only
begun to understand.

Duncan bowed to the religious leader. Then he picked up the bundles at his feet and turned away.

Two hundred years older and, he hoped, a little wiser, Duncan MacLeod knew the Dalai Lama had been right to send him away.
Part of him had known it at the time, though he had been too heartsore to realize it.

The long, overland trip back to Europe had been a dark tunnel of grief. He returned to a world on the brink of madness. The
American War for Independence was over, but its repercussions were only beginning to be felt.

In England, King George III teetered on the edge of insanity while his son played at being Regent. The British Parliament
was tightening its hold on its other conquered lands, particularly India, afraid of losing them as they had lost the colonies
in the West. But as their grip tightened, the seeds of future insurrections were sown.

In France, the taxation had become so oppressive, the people were starving, and, with the success of the American Revolution,
they saw a way to throw off their own bondage. Civil unrest had begun the slow boil that would soon lead to their own war
for independence, but one that quickly disintegrated into an era of terror and blood.

The French Revolution opened the way for the Napoleonic era. Looking back, it seemed to Duncan as if the whole century had
been filled with war. He had fought for the causes he found just and, in doing so, had locked the memory of his time in Tibet
away into a secret corner of his heart visited only in the safety of half-remembered dreams.

The sound of the door opening banished past thoughts. It was the present he must deal with now.

Duncan turned; the fourteenth Dalai Lama, exiled ruler of Tibet, stood in the doorway. Duncan kept his face carefully neutral
though once more he felt his stomach tighten. Facing
the past was never easy, even when you have four hundred years experience doing so.