Fate watched the scale tilt even farther off balance, and hummed a perturbed note that would have told Luck to find someplace else to visit for a while.  For more than ten thousand years, Fate had been watching this particular contest; never before had the balance swayed so far to either side.  Some of the oldest pieces lay scattered in the trays and shattered on the ephemeral fog beneath the scale.  A sad waste, that.

Even as Fate watched, another piece materialized in the higher tray.  Young, though, and inexperienced.  A lightweight, in far too many ways for a contest this important.  It didn't begin to swing the scales back into alignment.

"No."  The single syllable echoed, rolling back from non-existent walls, and Fate smiled.  Capricious as ever, It reached down for one of the pieces which, while fallen, was not so easily broken as some of the others had been.  An old, old favorite:  scarred, battered, skilled... and easily restored, with a simple nudge here and there around the edges of the ultimate Game.

Fate weighed the piece thoughtfully in its hand, pressed it into the scale and watched.  No, the scales wouldn't tip far enough, even with his return.  Fate considered one of the pieces that hovered close to the edge of the lower balance.  In the service of the light, yes, but... a bit grey.  More suited to balance than many, and in no great hurry to end the contest, either.  So.  Perhaps the old one could move him, too, were this done properly....  Fate chuckled then, and pressed through the universe's reluctance to set the piece back in the upper scale.

Yes, this might do very well to even out the Game again.  After all, everyone owed favors to Fate.  Even the other gods.

~*~*~*~

Chance's Favor

They never knew what hit them, sad to say.  Skilled warriors, with more than six millennia of battles and deceptions and machinations between them -- which did none of them any good against a single slender, unassuming young man asking for directions at twilight.

Alex Raven vanished out of Geneva on a Tuesday night, leaving her foster-son dismayed... and frightened for her.  He had no idea, however, if she had run afoul of an immortal, or one of the mortals still trying to cover up their activities in, or inheritances from, World War II.

Kyra vanished between her apartment and a restaurant three nights later.  Her date simply assumed she'd had to work late... until he couldn't reach her on Saturday, either.

Ceirdwyn left the Musee de l'Armée late on Sunday and neither her Watcher nor Constantine's had any clue where she'd gone, or when they'd lost her.  Sometime between 8 pm Sunday and 9 am Monday, when she hadn't gone running or walked up to the patisserie to buy her usual morning croissant, she'd simply... vanished.

No one connected the disappearances to the date, either.

~*~*~*~

Chaos' Favor

Jean-Philip Gerard had always liked fire.  It burned so beautifully, never the same twice, always changing, always dangerous....  Lightning was even better, if a more instantaneous pleasure.  Incandescent flash of fear and pain and power... and gone again.  Quickenings, though -- quickenings were best of all.  Fire and lightning, screams and howls, death and blood, and the atavistic pleasure of a fight to the death concluded--  Oh, there was nothing else as good as a quickening.

He'd always been sorry he hadn't been born into the Game.  No immortal had ever paid him so much as a second glance, though, so he knew he wasn't slated to be a player.  And if he couldn't have the quickenings, no one else should.

Horton had seemed like a godsend... until he allied himself with one of the immortals.  Blatant treachery.  So Gerard had edged out of the Hunters, been a good little Watcher and kept his head down during the purges when Horton lost to his own brother-in-law.  Until Jean-Philip Gerard figured out a way to enjoy quickenings and still not have anyone else win.  The only thing he couldn't decide was whether to have the immortals alive or dead when they took the lightning.  There'd still be a quickening either way, after all.  He just wasn't sure which would be more fun.

~*~*~*~

Death's Favor

The thunder still echoed through Gerard's mind as he sat there, blissfully unconcerned about being disturbed by anything short of rain.  No one was going to come into a graveyard at midnight, even on Midsummer's Night.  And this way, he didn't have to take the bodies far at all.

He'd dug the hole for them just before sunset, shielded from the road by a convenient mausoleum.  The sweaty labor had been worth it, too.  He leaned against the marble, cigarette in one lax hand, and sighed with the bliss of a man who'd just watched two glorious lightshows.  The stone felt pleasantly cool against his back, even in the middle of June, and he rolled his head to settle the nape of his neck against it before taking another puff of the nicotine and clove mix.

Two down.  He'd bet himself that Ceirdwyn's quickening would be more impressive to watch than Kyra's.  It was a bet he hadn't minded losing, though.  From the rush and crackle of that quickening, the tall blonde must have been even more of a man-eating bitch than her Chronicles made her out to be.  One more woman left to kill now, because, really, he couldn't let Alex Raven keep the quickenings she'd just taken.  If he didn't get them, no one did.  And she'd just gotten her teacher's.  She might try to commit suicide rather than keep it.  Immortals had done stranger things.

Damn shame, though.  Gerard loved watching lightning.

He stood up, stubbing the cigarette out on damp earth, and sauntered over to the chained woman.  Blood gleamed, red and wet in the flashlight beam, and he shook his head.  "I can tighten the wire if you like," Gerard offered with a nastily sweet solicitousness.  Her eyes spoke volumes on what he could tighten the wire around, but he'd gagged her before he took the knife out of her heart.  No sense in having her screams distract him from the light show.

He used Kyra's sword to roll Raven over, ignoring the way the blade cut through muscle before hitting bone.  The bloodstained dirt was only going to go back into the grave, after all.  She tried, futilely, to kick him with both bound legs.  Gerard simply kicked her in the hip and forced her onto her face, then stepped on the small of her back as he swung the sword down to take her head, too.

Lightning screamed up past him, making his skin twitch as nerves fired randomly.  His hair stood on end, and stray threads on his shirt stood up, making him look like he was wearing angora instead of cotton.  Gerard stood there, shocked and spellbound, as a quickening erupted up out of the open grave to mound above him in fog and lightning.  And when that hovering energy hit critical mass, it exploded back down, striking into the tomb he'd just been leaning against.

The lightning hadn't hurt him; the mausoleum was another matter entirely.  The first lightning bolt seemed to hover in place as the quickening sought access to its intended target.  That much power, concentrated in one place, had an inevitable result:  the granite wall exploded in a cloud of steam and rock shards.  Gerard hit the ground without quite understanding why his legs would no longer hold him up.  His mind didn't seem to work properly at the moment, and his vision was full of black and white, edged with more and more red.

Then the world was first crimson, then black, and all he could hear was thunder rolling away.  Odd, though.  It sounded an awful lot like shifting rock.

~*~*~*~

Kronos gasped in foul air and opened sticky eyes to see moon-traced darkness here and there above him.  His hands tightened convulsively and felt the familiar hilt in his hand.  So, whatever else you may have done, brother, at least you didn't bury me unarmed.  He set the blade aside, though, because he needed both hands to push the stone lid upward.  He managed, with a bone-shaking effort that left him cursing in explosive puffs of profanity, to force it up enough to get his legs under it, but it took the full strength of his thighs and back to lever the remains of the lid off.  It hit with a thunderous crash and crack of stone breaking on stone.

His pulse hammered through his veins in a violent, stuttering rhythm.  Kronos lay there for a long moment, trying to catch his breath against the remnants of at least one quickening, maybe more.  His right hand tightened around his sword's hilt; with his left he rubbed dust and grime from his eyelashes, clearing up gummy vision.  The moonlight steadied in front of him, but Kronos paused, caught by something that felt wrong.  Or rather... didn't.

The air tasted of ozone and dust when he sat up; the night wind eddied through the mausoleum, swirled along the walls, and was gone again.  Always disdainful of weakness, Kronos pushed himself upright, caught his balance, and stepped down onto the floor.  The ground was uneven, covered with bits and pieces of rock, but he moved along it easily enough.  Kronos trusted very little in his life, and suspecting the ground under his feet was child's play compared to maneuvering around Methos' plans.

The moonlight came in through a shattered wall; the door of the crypt had been set into a different wall, and still stood adamantly locked.  Kronos stepped into the night, settling his jacket more comfortably around his shoulders with a shrug, and keeping his sword in his hand for the moment.

A few small fires still smoldered near the crypt and to his experienced eye the moon looked to be two days past first quarter.  Still rising in the sky, still waxing in brightness:  a good omen, as was the fire.  The night wind rustled across leather and denim, brought him the familiar tangs of blood, fear, and death.  Only then did Kronos realize what was wrong.  Those weren't the right constellations.

It's summer.  With his free hand he reached up and rubbed his chin, ran his palm over one cheek, and up into his hair.  No beard.  My hair hasn't grown out.  The nails are still short.  It was March when Methos betrayed me with MacLeod.  I should have hair to my shoulders, nails two inches long at least.  What happened?

His hand had slowed in its motion and he cursed his own weakness reflexively as he forced himself to run a hand along his neck.  Memories flashed through his mind, burned their images over his sight:  MacLeod, hair wild around his face and triumph rising into his eyes with Methos' betrayal -- Did the fool really come thinking to oppose three of us by himself? -- and that damned sword of his laying Kronos open....  Searing pain had burned along his abdomen, nothing new, and he'd fought it, trying to parry the shot that would come at his head.

And then the memory released him as he felt rough, thick silk under his fingers.  Stitches.  Someone, probably a coroner, had gone to the trouble of reattaching his head for burial.  The smoke and fire felt appropriate now, as did the smell of death and the stickiness of eyes and lungs.  Before Kronos had fallen into the Game, he'd died and been reborn in the shaman's cave, seen his own life and totem in the smoke and never been sure if he'd gone to the afterworld or not.  Now he shuddered again, his entire body torn by the travails of the long journey back.  This time, no shaman waited to ask the ritual questions and ground him back into this world.

Sparks flared under his hand, biting into his palm as they ate at the silken intruders in his flesh, and Kronos gasped for breath.  Roses, blooming late and sweet, spread their fragrance under the metallic taste of blood.  Water's cool freshness shifted along his skin as the wind forced him into his own form, tracing the borders of his body for him with the sudden gust that forced back short strands of hair and billowed into the thick leather jacket, slid through the thin wool of the sweater.  Leather and steel settled into the calluses of a hand that had, over the years, nearly shaped itself to that blade, and Kronos threw his head back and laughed with pleasure.

The sound settled him even farther into his body again and he looked around thoughtfully.  "Nice, brother," he congratulated Methos, feeling the familiar pulse and thrum in his bones again.  "And you're still alive, too, then."  He moved easily forward and considered the dying man who lay among the flames, who'd managed to raise his hand at the laughter.

"--mine."  The word came out in a hoarse whisper laced with anger and thwarted possession.

Kronos considered that, then smiled at him and answered softly in the same language.  "You don't even own your breath, child.  Death has come for you."

"Bastard."  The insult nearly finished him, but he forced out, "Quickenings.  Not.  Yours."

Kronos raised an eyebrow.  "One of the stalkers, are you?"  He lifted the man's arm, heedless of the broken bones or the gasp of pain that drove a broken rib farther into the lung and produced a blood-spattered cough.  "Oh, yes, I know that tattoo.  Fools.  You must think we're all blind."

The immortal shrugged lightly, then pushed him onto one side, disregarding the weak cry of pain.  "I'll take this, thanks."  He pocketed the man's wallet; time enough in the morning to see what money it held.  "Now, how did you manage to do this, I wonder."

Kronos glanced around, his eyes washed to a nameless pale hue by the moonlight as he looked for signs of some ritual.  There was nothing, though:  no smoke, no signs drawn in blood, no robes.  He laughed softly, and turned back to the mortal.  "Ah.  Dead."  Kronos shrugged, uncaring, and tore the man's shirt off him.  Dry shreds went around a broken branch, then a small fire lit them, and Kronos examined the area with his makeshift torch.

He recognized the three women and shook his head.  "Fool.  Their quickenings would do you no good.  They seem to have been good for me, though."  He dropped Alex Raven's body into the grave, though, and her head after it.  Kronos smiled and deliberately broke the man's left leg -- his only unbroken limb -- before throwing him into the far end of the grave from the immortal women.  "When they catch you in the afterworld," Kronos purred, "I'd hate for you to leave before they finish talking to you."

The lift and pitch of the shovel as he filled the grave in felt right, and Kronos hummed to himself as he worked.  He had some money; he had his head and his life; he had time, again....  Almost casually, he wrapped his hand around his sword's blade and felt skin and muscle give way to razor-edged steel.  Lightning sparked and burned along the edges, healing him as quickly as ever, and he remember the feel of sparks along his throat.  With the back of his hand he scrubbed along the column of his throat and felt a last few fibers fall away, but no scar.

Kronos picked up the shovel and went back to work. First I hide my return, he mused.  Then I decide what to do.  Methos didn't turn against me until I tried to revive the Horsemen.  Silas and Caspian are dead, and the Four Horsemen with them.  However... I might still have Methos, in another century or so.

He shrugged, thoughts moving steadily with the constant thud and patter of falling earth.  This society will fall, sooner or later.  Too many people, and the Earth heaving under them.  She's restless, just beginning to fight off this plague of locusts with her own plagues.  He'd been Pestilence for centuries, after all.  Kronos knew how such things rose and spread at need, and in the last few years they'd been erupting in Asia, in Africa, in South America, and North America....  Oh, yes, the signs were on the wall, if you knew how to read them.

The last of the earth dropped onto the mound, and Kronos dropped the shovel into the crypt where he'd been interred.  Let his brother ponder that message.  It didn't mean anything, after all, which would drive Methos half-mad trying to decide if that had been deliberate.  In the meantime, he had his coat, the mortal's money and ID, his sword... and his head.  Everything else could be managed.

~*~*~*~

Fate watched in the momentarily clear patch of reality as the cocky, ancient immortal strode down a moonlit road towards the faint light in the distance.  Forces shifted, realigning themselves as It watched, like phantom crystals in quartz.  Fate studied the shimmering patterns with the eye of a connoisseur.  "Almost," It murmured thoughtfully.  The balance was slowly shifting back, but Fate disliked half-measures.

One careful alignment of forces, one more favor called due, shifted another piece from sleep towards a restless waking state and an awareness of destiny approaching from the west.  Now all the pieces were in play, and the game within the Game had begun.

Fate smiled and turned Its attention to other matters.  But It would have to check on them in a few weeks.  The maneuvering promised to be entertaining.

~ ~ ~ finis 4/01 ~ ~ ~