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Yahurum's teacher many times told him that he had been found nestled between two goats in the pen in his teacher's home in Ur. The goats had defended him so vigorously, butting and bleating and leaping with such bravery, that his teacher had been black and blue and nearly helpless with laughter by the time he lifted the infant from the pen.
"Remember that, child," he'd said, laughing as he spoke. "Be kind to your brother the goat!" And Yahurum always gave them extra treats, looking solemnly into their alien eyes.
When Yahurum was ten years old, his teacher packed two small bags, tied ropes around the necks of the goats, and took the child and himself to the wild forests far northwest. They never saw the city-states of Sumer again. "I have had my fill of cities," his teacher said, and after that he would speak no more of it.
They joined a wandering tribe--not his teacher's people, but similar. His teacher said his people were long gone. Some four years later he became a man; his face and the masculine parts of himself were decorated. Twelve years later Yahurum died for the first time: bitten by a snake, the same symbol tattooed on his face. His teacher told him that was not a coincidence.
Some twenty years after that he struck out on his own. Some hundred years later, he came across another of their kind for the first time; they fought and he won, and thus he took his first head.
He'd thought he was an ancient and powerful man then. He'd come back to his teacher, posing and bragging, and his teacher had laughed and tripped him into the mud. "You're an old man, but still a human man," his teacher said. He'd helped Yahurum up and then tripped him back into the mud again.
Yahurum was eight hundred years old now, give or take. He kept a notation on a strip of hide: this year I lived; this year I died and rose again; this year I met another of our race; this year I took a student. It was a strange compulsion, to keep a record of his life. Perhaps it was to prove that he had lived it.
His notation for this year read: I have met another Immortal, and he has followed me for twenty days.
Yahurum stood at the top of the hill, looked back and saw his pursuer again. The man was on foot, but he was tireless.
"You're a fool! You're chasing your own tail!" he shouted down. His pursuer looked up and quickened his pace. They did not share a language.
Yahurum turned and ran down the hill, hoping to lose his pursuer by nightfall.
By his campfire that night, he unrolled his fur cloak and checked it for damage after the long summer's run. He could smell the frost coming soon.
One of the ties snapped when he tugged it. He cut it free and set to fashioning another.
The Presence of his pursuer wavered in and out of range as he circled the camp. No sound betrayed him, though; he was very good. Probably he didn't realize what the shiver in his mind meant.
Finally Yahurum threw down his work and shouted, "I can feel you, you crazy bastard! Show yourself!" And for a moment he heard nothing, only the shocked stillness of the forest creatures, but then a twig snapped deliberately and his pursuer appeared between two trees.
He was a warrior, black of hair, strong of body, harsh of face. A thick scar crawled down his face, crossing his right eye--probably his death wound. He wore the dark, plain clothing of a hunter.
"You have the feet of a horse and the head of a goat," Yahurum told him--admiring him despite himself. His pursuer crouched beside of the fire and tossed a rabbit down between them. He raised his eyebrows invitingly.
"No," Yahurum said.
His pursuer looked down at his work, then shifted into his knees and rummaged through the pouch at his belt. He pulled out a braided strand of leather bound with copper at both ends and tossed it into Yahurum's lap.
Yahurum picked it up, noting the fine working of the copper and the softness of the leather. "This? For a place to sleep, or a companion on your travels? Or is it a teacher you want? No. This is for a way into my heart. I have been wounded already, child. You will not gain what you seek." He tossed the strap back, and the rabbit as well.
His pursuer bent his head regretfully, but took them both and vanished back into the darkness.
Yahurum buried his head in his hands and worked no more that night.
Twenty days later, the frost came and Yahurum was still pursued.
He made camp as night fell. As he coaxed fire into life, he considered killing his pursuer. It was a grave thing to kill a man without provocation... but hadn't he been provoked?
He would think on it.
He felt Presence in the trees and let out his breath angrily. He'd thought the man had learned to keep his distance, but apparently not. "Go away!" he shouted.
His answer was a dagger in the chest. He cried out once, toppling sideways, and died.
Yahurum awoke to the sound of his pursuer talking to him urgently. He didn't understand a single word.
He felt a second prickle of Presence beside him and turned his head. Lying across the burned sticks that had been his fire was a third Immortal with a bronze knife pinning him to the earth.
This, then, was the man who tried to kill him. Yahurum's pursuer had fought him to temporary death. He recognized the urgency of the man's tone, then; he didn't know how to kill the other Immortal.
Yahurum sat up. His pursuer aided him. "The neck," he wheezed; "the--oh, damn you for not speaking my tongue!" He stumbled up and drew his own knife. He drew a thin line over his attacker's throat and looked up at his pursuer.
His pursuer nodded, miming a strike to the throat.
Yahurum drove the knife into the ground beside the attacker's neck and mimed separating the head from the shoulders. He looked to his pursuer again, but he seemed puzzled.
Yahurum reached over and pressed his fingers to the back of his pursuer's neck and rubbed the vertebrae, hard, trying to get the idea across. He sat back, pressed his two fists together, and jerked them apart.
His pursuer's eyes widened. He nodded sharply. Yahurum pulled his knife from the earth, picked up his pack, and retreated into the trees.
His pursuer pulled the knife from the attacker's body and struck clean and true. Yahurum saw him lever the bones apart, and saw the mist rise.
Yahurum's pursuer scrambled backwards in confusion--then writhed in pain as the lightnings struck. The branches of the trees whipped around them and the earth quivered beneath their feet
The lightnings died down. The man knelt on the ground, shaking.
Yahurum's cloak was soaked in blood--all his clothes were, in fact. He needed to find a river before they became unbearable. He stepped out of the trees and the man looked up, his eyes shocked and wide.
Yahurum offered his hand. "When you are chased so heroically, what is there to do but be caught? That was your first battle, my student. Perhaps if I had been less of a fool, it would have gone more smoothly."
The man gave Yahurum his hand and Yahurum pulled him to his feet.
"I had a student once, but she is dead," he said, looking at the stars to determine the direction. There was a river only two days' walk to the east. "I had a teacher, but... he died too. Now I have a man with the head of a goat. Who knows what will become of you?"
The man was silent. He held tight to Yahurum's wrist, staring into his face as if trying to see his soul.
Yahurum clapped his hand onto his shoulder. "I have a fur cloak that we may sleep in. I have weapons we may use. I have--some little wisdom to share." His teacher gave him the cloak; his teacher taught him to make the weapons; his teacher gave him the wisdom, when he gave him his head.
His head, and his name. He could deny it, but the truth remained: his teacher, his father, had loved him enough to ask him to be the one to kill him. He could run, but his teacher was always there. He could try to shut away his heart, but there would always be someone to break it open again.
Better to stand and shout into the wind. "Old men can still be very great fools," he said. "My name is Methos. I would be honored to be your teacher."
The man clasped his arm in a warrior's embrace. "Methos," Methos repeated.
"Methos," said the man.
THE END.
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