30

Potter sensed Methos' unease. This tale was not one he was comfortable with telling. For the very savvy man had learned on that long-ago hill outside Jerusalem that he still gave a damn, and it frightened him.

"Ya know--I thought that when Lacroix put the bite on, my faith would shrivel up like old prunes. But I found out--certain things don't change. Hearing about that place, and that time--gives me the chills, same as when I was a mere lad."

Methos looked up.

"How much have things not changed since you were brought over?"

The vampiric Missourian smiled. He pulled out a neck-string from beneath his shirt. At the end of it lay--the impossible. Methos, a man who had literally seen everything, had not ever seen this before.

"How--how can you--that's impossible. No nightkind I know of can wear--a crucifix?"

Potter shrugged.

"Not precisely sure, myself. But that's nothin'. Watch this."

Methos now thought the man must be plainly insane. For the former CO now moved his right hand--toward a sunbeam.

"Shall I call you lefty, now?"

Potter's hand was quite unaffected, and again Methos was impressed.

"How long can you do that for?"

Not wishing to press his luck, Sherm pulled back.

"Ten minutes. With light cloud cover, an hour. I can even go outside at noon. Keeps the skin from paling out too much, and that keeps folks oblivious."

"Not a difficult task, Sherman. Oblivousness is not a state, its a whole blasted country. So, limited sunlight does not effect you at all?"

"Oh, I still have to watch it. Too long, and I start to burn, same as anyone else. Also, I pass out pretty easily. If a rain hadn't come along once, I'dve been a goner."

The Oldest nodded.

"You have Lacroix's survival skills. A pity that I could not pass them on to my own adopted son. Heh. He was a bit like Macleod, now that I think about it. Determined to save the world--no matter the cost."

JERUSALEM, 33 AD

In Rome, Tiberius nursed Caligula like a viper, a grim gift he prepared to unleash upon his mercurial people, when he was gone. Unknown to anyone, the 'Little Boots' thought he was Zeus. But it was not only bloodthirsty madmen that thought along those lines.

"Yeshua--hear me! Hear the man who raised you, like you were his own. Those soldiers of Rome come to arrest and then destroy you."

For the little boy he raised and instructed, Methos had broken his cardinal rules of survival. He had stuck around, and he had gotten too blasted close to someone who seemed intent on self-sacrifice.

"You are not my father, but such I have called you. Father--I have told you that this thing must be. You have shown me to be a carpenter. But what I build is a new world. You must allow this."

The Prince Of Life knew that the man who was Death did not understand. He proved this when the soldiers first appeared.

"Who amongst you is that Teacher, That Carpenter, That Nazarene called Yeshua?"

Before Judas could identify and thus betray his master, Methos stepped forward.

"Iscariot need say or do nothing, for I am that Nazarene, who is called Yeshua."

To the Romans, Methos looked much more like a leader than Yeshua, and they moved to arrest him. But no plan proceeds perfectly. A voice cried out in anger.

"Hold--that one has no beard, and his hair is cropped short! He is not Yeshua. He is merely a cursed one, like myself. So swears the Jew Of No House!"

And in those bitter, hate-filled eyes there was no trace of the man who would one day become Sidney Freedman.