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Chapter Eighteen
Early Morning History Class
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"What do you mean, channel?" Cassandra said, looking at Adam in confusion.

"Once before, a long time ago. I had two friends. Immortals. They both knew me, but they did not know one another." Adam began.

"Euclopities had known me since just after I left the Horsemen, about two thousand years before, and we had been friends for the better part of the past thousand by that point. Rojor on the other hand was a newly Quickened Immortal. Less than thirty winters in his life and not a head to his name at that time. He was almost a student to me, since the mentor he had been studying under had lost his head the year before. I lived along the ocean at the time. My home was a reed shack, located atop some bluffs overlooking the sea. I was out one day when they both decided to visit. I still don't know what happened in my absence, but I believe Rojor concluded that Euclopities had taken Samuel's head, which he had. I returned to find them engaged in combat, and there was nothing I could do other than watch.

"Rojor and Euclopities fought alongside the edge of the cliff, it was a sight to see, the wind blowing inland, and the waves crashing below them. Then, all of a sudden the ground they were standing on gave way. And as they tumbled towards the waves, Rojor apparently got in a final telling swing against Euclopities. There were three separate splashes in the water below, the smallest of them caused by a lone head.

"I never saw a sign of the Quickening. Not a flash, not a spark even. Over an hour passed, before Rojor heaved his body ashore at the base of the cliffs. I made my way to him, but when he spoke to me, it was in Greek, not the language which he had always spoken, and he addressed me as though he were Euclopities, not Rojor."

Eadgils felt a cold chill run through his whole body, as Methos/Adam regaled him with his tale. The parallels to him and Sue were glaringly obvious.

"Are you saying that somehow the older Immortal replaced the young one?" Cassandra asked, with a glance at Eadgils.

"No, although that was what I also thought at first. Rojor truly believed himself to be Euclopities. And yet, at the same time, he knew things only Rojor had known before."

"I know the feeling," Eadgils said.

"Gods, I had hoped I was wrong. I am so sorry to hear that." Adam said, his face falling.

"Why? What more is there to the story that you haven't told us, Methos?" Cassandra asked sternly.

"For that first day, all I could tell was that Rojor had somehow obtained quite literally all that was Euclopities. All his skills, his talents, his knowledge, his memories, even his personalities. It was like the percentage of Rojor which was left had been diluted almost out of existence by the sum of Euclopities. But the next day, things had changed. It was more like Euclopities had faded. Even his Quickening was no longer there. He felt no stronger than he had before."

Again, Cassandra looked at Eadgils appraisingly, then turned back to Adam, "Continue."

"Well, we spoke long that day, and he told of his experience, how he was quite literally possessed by the ghost of the man he had bested. He was concerned that this was normal. I assured him it was not. He named the process, based on the one used by the spiritualists to contact the dead, he called it 'Leiden', 'Leiden de geest van Euclopities' as he said, which translates into English as channeling the spirit of Euclopities, or simply Channeling. It was as if he had been possessed by the spirit of the dead, and his people had many stories about this happening. He was frightened."

"Sue is still here, but so am I" Eadgils said, truly acknowledging the situation to Adam for the first time.

At that statement, Adam's face fell even more, until he looked like he would cry, "That was exactly what I most feared." He continued, shaking his head.

"For that second day, Rojor was fine, shaken by his experience, but otherwise fine. It was after the dawn of the third day that he started to truly lose his mind. He awoke the next day, his Quickening, like yours, again showing the presence of Euclopities. But more than that, he was cursing in Greek. When I asked him how he was, he looked at me as if I were a stranger, and attacked me with bare fists. I fought him off, and knocked him out. When he revived, he was rational again, but once more acted as though he was Euclopities. Throughout that day he would pause, as though hearing voices only he could here. I didn't know what to make of it. Late that afternoon, he started answering the silent voices, arguing with himself in a dozen languages."

"He must have been hard to deal with like that," Cassandra said, "Did he get better?"

A tear actually formed at Adam's eye, and started to run down his cheek as he shook his head. "No. Worse. The next day, he awoke before Dawn, screaming about the ghosts. 'Ik moet de geesten in mijn hoofd vrijgeven! De geesten ontkom!' he screamed, waking me from my sleep. He grasped a rock from the earth from outside my house, and pounded his head until he died, screaming all the time about the ghost in his head, 'De geesten in mijn hoofd!'

"When he revived, he was if anything worse. He tried to take my sword, but I fought him off. Somewhere, he got a stick though, and he shoved it in his head, killing himself again. I pulled it out, and he revived, to resume screaming and fighting. He had truly gone mad, screaming over and over again 'Verhuur hen uit mijn hoofd! Krijg hen uit mijn hoofd!' I tied him up, and gagged him so he couldn't scream any more or hurt himself again. His eyes were wild. I kept him like that for almost three days, for three days I cared for a genuine madman, screaming over and over about the ghosts in his head, and pleading for me to somehow let them out. It was the fifth morning after the fight that was the worst though. I awoke early, again before dawn, but it was to silence for a change. I looked over at Rojor's pallet, but it was empty.

"I climbed out of bed, and retrieved my sword. I could feel Rojor's Quickening at the cliff, outside the hut. I went out into the early pre-dawn light, and there I found him. Somehow he had freed himself from the bindings I had tied him with the night before. He must have climbed down the cliff to the sea below, because he now held Euclopities bronze blade in his hands. He looked at me with wild eyes, and said the longest and most coherent thing he had said in days, he said in a calm monotone. He said. 'Ik moet u doden om de geesten. enig je ziel kan doden de geesten in mijn hoofd te doden. Ik moet u mijn vriend doden. Dood alstublieft de geesten, alstublieft doodt mij.'

"Roughly translated, he said that to kill the ghosts in his head, he had to have my soul, to kill me. He then asked me to kill the ghosts, and to kill him. Before I could respond, he attacked. It was one of the hardest fights of my life, either before or since. You may have heard of someone who fights like a madman, well Rojor genuinely did so. He kept on long after he should have collapsed from his injuries. He came close to taking my head several times. It was only the rising sun which saved me, its first rays striking him in the eyes, and making him pause just long enough. Long enough for me to take his head."

Adam looked at Eadgils, and a second tear fell down his cheek, following the track of the first, and he said, "That was my experience with one Immortal Channeling another one. Pain, Madness, and the end of a friend and a student, at my own hand. Taking his head was the hardest thing I ever did, but what made it worse was what he said, even as I began my swing. 'Bedankt.' It meant, Thank you."

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