Richie's own house sat bleak and forbidding in a lonely row off Herrington Street. He always kept the shades pulled and hadn't attempted any work in the ruined garden in years. As he approached he realized that he could just keep on walking, just point his nose to the horizon for the long haul, and he'd never even miss the place. But instead he climbed up the cracked steps, let himself in and hung his coat in the dusty front hall. No one called out a greeting to welcome him home. No one came at him with a sword, either. Fair trade-off, he supposed. Although, truth be told, he wouldn't mind much at all if someone came at him with a sword and won the battle.

Richie pushed that depressing thought out of his head and fixed himself dinner. The canned soup tasted oily - everything did these days - and he pushed it aside after a few swallows. After stacking his dishes in the sink along with dozens of other used ones, Richie drifted to the living room and watched a few hours of very bad television. Five thousand channels, and nothing on worth watching. He told the TV to shut itself off and sat without will or ambition in the battered green armchair he'd scavenged from the curb several months earlier.

The cold, shivery awareness of another Immortal brought him out of the chair with one fluid movement. Regardless of his earlier morbidity he reached for his sword and slid toward the door as a sharp, solid knock echoed through the house.

"Open up, Richie! It's cold out here!"

Methos. Sounding as insufferably bold and confident as always. Richie lowered his sword and leaned his forehead against the door. Did he really want to let Methos in? To find out what horrible news the ancient Immortal had probably brought with him? No good things had happened to Richie since Connor's call two years earlier, and he suspected no good things would ever happen again.

He opened the door. Methos stood on the stoop in a long black trenchcoat, his hair slightly longer than he'd previously worn it, a carton of beer in one hand. He hadn't aged, of course. His face was smooth and unlined, marked by high cheekbones and glittering eyes that always hid one secret or another.

"It's not the good stuff," the world's oldest living Immortal said as he stepped up and thrust the alcohol into Richie's hands. "No one has the good stuff anymore."

Richie sidestepped before Methos could knock him over. "War will do that."

"I suppose," Methos conceded. He walked into the living room and studied the solitary armchair that sat three meters away from the large TV Richie had wedged into the fireplace. The powdery beige walls showed marks where paintings and bookcases had once stood, long before the battles and missiles, before ruined continents and millions of corpses.

"I love what you've done with the place," Methos said.

"Suits my needs." Richie closed the door and put his sword away. "Why are you here?"

Methos gave him a raised eyebrow and a quirk of a smile. "Because I wanted to hear your warm words of welcome."

"No one died?"

The words echoed through the nearly empty room. Any trace of humor seeped from the other Immortal's expression as he solemnly answered, "No one died."

Richie studied his face. "Sit down."

Methos obligingly plopped down in the armchair. Richie pulled out a beer, inspected the smudged Bosnian label and tossed the can to his older friend. Methos opened it with a practiced flick of his finger. Richie sat on the floor, his back against the wall, legs straight in front of him. He popped open his own beer and took a tentative swallow.

"Tastes like swill," Richie said.

"But it's the only swill we have." Methos raised his can in a mock toast before draining half of it down his throat.

"So why did you really come, Methos?"

The ancient Immortal spun slightly in the chair. "I need your help. I have to go get something tomorrow, and I need your assistance in order to do it."

"And why should I help?"

"You owe me."

Richie snorted and took another sip of the swill.

"It's true," Methos said, with an insufferably smug expression on his face. "Think back. You owe me at least - oh, I don't know - twelve or thirteen times over."

Richie raised his eyebrows.

"Besides, what better things do you have to do? I don't hear your vid-phone ringing off the hook, and I bet your social schedule still has a hole or two in it."

"I have a job."

Methos asked, "Doing what?"

"I work with disabled war veterans. Therapy and job rehab mostly. Building prostheses . . . " Richie trailed off. Of all the tasks he did at the Veteran's Center, assisting men and women who'd lost their arms or legs or both disturbed him the most. They reminded him of friends long dead and times long gone. He ran his dirty right thumbnail around the ridge of the can and glanced up at his longtime friend. "It's important work."

"And it's the holidays. Surely they give you just a few days off?"

"Where are you going? What do you have to get?"

Methos stood up. "I'll show you when we get there."

Richie shook his head. "I didn't say I would go."

"Fine." Methos gave him an appraising look, a head-to-toe measurement that reflected disappointment but no surprise. "Stay here. Drop a line once in awhile, why don't you, just so I know you still have your head."

Richie let him get as far as the door before he said, "Methos."

"Yes?"

"This isn't just some sentimental scheme you or Connor cooked up to get me out of my funk, is it?"

"Are you in a funk? I hadn't noticed."

Richie scowled at him.

Methos sighed. "No, it's not some scheme. If you want to wallow in your own depression, it's not my job to wade in there to pull you out. I gave up the rescue business a long time ago."

Gave it up after Duncan, Richie almost said, but didn't.

"This is something I do every year to honor Natalis Solis Invicti."

Richie looked at him blankly.

"The birthday of the unconquerable sun god Mithras," Methos said, as if everyone knew the fact. "The same date the Roman Catholics then picked to celebrate the birth of their savior."

"Just say 'Christmas,' Methos."

"Not Christmas. The winter solstice. So, are you coming or not?"

Richie pitched his can of swill to the side and climbed to his feet.

***

They took a high-speed train out of London that night and got off in New Carlisle. The lasting ravages of the war, famine and plague had left the town as decimated as the rest of the north. Obviously confident of his persuasive abilities, Methos had made reservations for two rooms at the only bed & breakfast in town. The building looked ready to topple over at any moment, and the badly tilting Christmas tree in the front window didn't inspire Richie's confidence or sentimentality in the least. His bed came with a sagging, mildew-ridden mattress expressly designed to poke him in the back with broken springs. That mild torture and the strange sounds of the countryside - dogs barking, wind in the trees, a nearby half-frozen stream - kept him tossing and turning until early morning. When he finally stumbled downstairs he found Methos finishing a breakfast of stale toast and bitter tea and fiddling with two backpacks.

"For our hike," he said cheerfully.

Richie sat down and growled, "You didn't say anything about hiking."

"It's the only way to get there since the bombs destroyed the roads."

"Get where?"

"You'll see."

They set off at ten o'clock, clad in rain ponchos against the cold drizzle falling out of the gray sky. At noon the weather cleared enough for them to sit in a glade and snack on some cheese, crackers and sour apple cider. The wind pushed threatening clouds across the sky and set bare tree branches scraping against each other. As much as he hated the wet and the cold Richie found himself enjoying the absence of concrete and architecture, of partially destroyed cityscapes and the pinch-faced inhabitants who lived in them. When they began walking again they saw a cow pastured on a near hillside - a skinny, sickly looking cow, but a cow nonetheless.

"I thought they were all dead now," Richie said. "That mad-cow epidemic thing back in the 50's."

Methos shrugged. "Don't believe everything you read."

"You've been awful quiet this morning."

"That bothers you?"

"No, it relieves me," Richie said truthfully. "But it's not like you."

Methos smiled enigmatically. An hour later they crested a slope that offered inspiring if foggy views of the valleys ahead. An ancient wall ran east to west before them, a low stone snake that twisted up the hills and down again as far as Richie could see, sometimes standing proud and weathered on its own, in other places disappearing into embankments and mounds before reappearing on opposite sides. It twisted back on itself in some places, and in others ran clear and straight toward the edge of the horizon.

Methos unslung his pack and slapped his hands together. "This is it!"

Richie stopped. "This is what?"

"What we came to get."

Richie's voice rose in disbelief. "We came to get a wall? You want to carry back a wall?"

"No, of course not. Just a stone."

"You dragged me out here to carry back a stone?"

"Maybe we'll take two." Methos spread his arms wide, as if he were an engineer presenting his newest work. "It's held up pretty well, don't you think?" he asked, his voice containing an odd mixture of pride and regret both.

Richie squinted off into the distance. "Where does it go?"

"From sea to sea, that was the plan. For about seventy miles, I think. Don't you know anything about the Roman history of Britain?"

Richie concentrated. History was still one of his weaker areas, but after living in London for eight years he'd picked up a few tourist tidbits here and there. "This is Hadrian's Wall?"

"It sure isn't my Aunt Edna's."

Richie snorted in disbelief. "So now you're going to tell me you were the Roman king Hadrian, the guy who had this built two thousand years ago?"

"No, Hadrian was a mortal. And the correct term isn't king, it's emperor."

"So if you weren't the emperor, who were you?"

"One of his slaves," Methos said, and moved up the hill to the wall.

Richie digested that revelation with no particular surprise. He knew Methos had a colorful past - after all, five thousand years brought a lot of ups and downs to a man's life. Sometimes he'd been the victor, sometimes the victim. Sometimes the hero, sometimes the arch-villain. Joe Dawson had once alluded to some horrible crimes Methos had supposedly committed, but Richie had never found any good reason to broach the subject or investigate for himself. That his friend had been enslaved at some point was disturbing but hardly unexpected.

He asked, "For how long?"

"Oh, I don't know - ten or twelve years, perhaps. Not very long."

"Ten or twelve years? Why didn't you just fake your own death or run away or something?"

Methos put his right hand against the stones almost reverently. "It was a time in my life when I liked having someone else make all the decisions. When all I had to do was work hard and keep my place. Being a slave back then isn't what you think - we were treated well, all things considered, and could make money working extra jobs to buy our own freedom if we wanted."

Richie shook his head. "You let yourself be a slave. I don't get it."

Methos locked gazes with him. "You don't understand taking a vacation from free will for awhile? Letting the course of your life carry you along without trying to influence it in any way?"

Richie didn't like the clear ring of Methos' voice or the unflinching honesty in his eyes.

"Besides," Methos said, turning back to the wall, "working for the Romans brought me back here to the British Isles after being away for a few hundred years. It gave me a goal - get this bloody wall built to keep out the Scots and Picts from the north. There were women and wine, not necessarily in that order, and it kept me busy for a long time. Believe me, I've spent years - I've spent centuries - doing less productive things."

Richie didn't answer. A wind gust brought a few drops of rain down on them, but most of the darker clouds had rolled east. Methos surveyed the wall before him, poking and prodding experimentally before settling on one large rock wedged near the top. "Well, what do you think? This one look good?"

"It looks fine. Just tell me why we want to steal it, will you?"

"Because, after several hundred years' reflection, I don't think walls are very good things." Methos said, and started pulling tools out of his sack. "Or maybe I'm just nostalgic. Every year I come back and carry away another one. It's my goal to dismantle the whole thing."

Richie laughed. "That's a pretty lofty goal, old man."

Methos didn't smile. "I aim high."

"You're serious? You really think you'll live long enough to reduce this - what did you say - 70-mile-long wall to nothing? There must be hundreds of thousands of stones - "

"Millions, I'd wager," Methos corrected. He pulled on a pair of work gloves.

A headache began flaring at the back of his skull. Richie closed his eyes for a moment and tried, unsuccessfully, to will it away. No luck. "Methos, this is a national monument. A part of Britain's heritage. You can't go around desecrating it just because you helped build it!"

"Of course I can. People have been doing it since it was first built. First the farmers looking to build their own houses, then the scholars and archeologists, don't forget tourists lugging home souvenirs for their shelves and coffee tables - "

"It's a stupid idea!"

Methos straightened grimly. "It's the one flight of whimsy I allow myself each year. No less fantastic than making little children believe in a fat man in a magic sleigh who slides down the chimney bearing gifts."

"Well, just in case you haven't noticed, Santa is dead! They hit the magic sleigh with the same nuclear warhead that took out Manhattan twenty years ago. Go ahead and dig up your stupid stone. I'll see you later."

The harsh, caustic words slipped out faster than Richie could stop them. Once let loose, he had no choice but to turn away from Methos and start walking. He cut down the slope back the way they'd come, his ears filled with the rush of his own blood and the squelch of wet mud beneath his boots. He imagined Methos' eyes on his back as he retreated, but didn't turn to confirm the suspicion. At the bottom of the hill he headed back through the trees. He felt sure of his direction and ability to get back to New Carlisle, but after only a few minutes he found himself bumping up against a low section of the Roman wall again. He must have gotten turned around somehow, and Methos had their only map in his backpack.

"Crap," he said. He turned in all directions, trying to pick out landmarks, but he hadn't been paying much attention as they walked. He could feel anger and embarrassment burning their way up from his collar as he slung off his pack and, because it seemed like a good idea, gave the wall a good solid kick.

"Shit!" he yelled again, but not so loud Methos would hear him.

Fine. The wall was still a national monument, and although Britain's tourist infrastructure had collapsed with just about every other industry, Richie knew there had to be leftover signs or heritage maps somewhere on the route. The British had always been ruthlessly organized that way. Besides, he didn't have any specific reason to go back to New Carlisle. He had his wallet and could buy his own rail ticket back to London. He started east, walking atop the wall wherever possible, easily keeping pace with his own gloomy thoughts and the occasional smattering of rain. His insulated clothes and the exertion kept him warm enough, and although he wished he'd had something more substantial for lunch he had a canteen for water and a pocketful of crackers to munch on.

He wondered why he'd grown so angry with Methos, who had always been a little unpredictable in his views and actions. So the man wanted to dig up a rock and lug it across the British countryside. Richie had seen far more eccentric behavior than that in his century of life. After thinking hard on the matter he decided his anger came from the ancient Immortal's blatant disregard of heritage. Richie had managed to convince himself that nothing Immortals ever did really made a difference. The antique store Tessa and Duncan had run back in Seacouver had been successively remodeled into a trendy Pakistani restaurant, an occult bookstore, a jeweler's workshop and finally a branch of a Hong Kong bank. The beautiful estate Gina and Robert diValincourt had kept up for so many years had fallen into disrepair after their deaths and finally razed to make way for a French retirement community. Even Duncan's beloved old village of Glenfinnan had become part of an industrial metropolis, and the graves of his ancestors covered with concrete. Time ground everyone and everything into the dirt - mortals just fell easier and earlier.

But this - Hadrian's Wall - this was proof the ravages of time could be delayed for a couple thousand years or more. That something could be made to matter.

The persistent rain moved off, leaving a layer of thin clouds that shrouded the rolling countryside with a diffused light of yellow and gray. His anger and disappointment gradually dissipated, leaving room for an odd sense of quiet and calm in his body. He imagined time shifting beneath his feet, the world spinning back through centuries to the days when Duncan and Connor had been young and adventurous. They had walked a world where weapons of mass destruction did not exist. No matter the battle of the day, they had slept each night safe from enemies with nuclear triggers thousands of miles away. Their youth had been filled with violence, to be sure, but also with a Renaissance of art and music and knowledge, with virgin frontiers and fortunes to be made, a world which knew no boundaries.

Richie's youth had fled before it started, with gunshots in a street and the irreversible death of a beautiful woman. He'd taken his first head at age nineteen. He had never felt sorry for himself, but he did sometimes wish he'd had a longer life in the mortal world devoid of hunters and the hunted. Joe Dawson might have led a life full of its own particular dangers, had even fought for his country in a bitter overseas war, but he'd never had to worry about countless strangers seeking his violent, impersonal death at the edge of their swords.

Richie didn't like to think about Joe. About any of the men and women who'd been part of his life and then ripped out of it. December was always an especially hard time of the year - no matter how hard he tried, memories of his first and only Christmas Eve with both Tessa and Duncan always tried to intrude. He could hear the French songs Tessa played on the stereo and taste Duncan's famous punch, the one that had left Richie giddy and giggling after three small glasses. Later Richie had spent some holidays with Joe, both at his house and later the nursing home. Joe would prop the most pathetic artificial tree known to mankind on top of his TV and top it with a golden angel fashioned from the garter of a bar girl he'd once known in Vietnam. Richie's first wife Cindy had liked cozy, intimate Christmas Eves spent on a mattress pulled before the fireplace. His second wife Angie had preferred huge, boisterous family gatherings at her parents' lodge in New York, with private celebrations reserved for later . . .

Richie stopped walking. He stood absolutely still on Hadrian's Wall, a lone figure beneath the dome of the sky, his ears catching the faint sounds of songs and laughter that existed only in his head. He pulled his glove off his right hand and felt his face. Wet from rain no longer falling, salty with the warm drops of some far off ocean.

Oh, Methos, you asshole, he thought. You made me come here to face my own wall, didn't you?

Two hours after he'd set out he came to the crumbled remnants of what had once been a tourist center. The small Roman remains backed up into the wall with tumbled-down stones and broken columns. The modern structures revealed a dilapidated information desk, long-ruined bathrooms and smashed and looted display cases. Most of the printed signs and maps had faded or been ruined by the weather, but from a few legible ones Richie identified the Roman site as part of an ancient fort. He sat on one of the sturdier walls, kicking his legs lightly against the stones and listening to the lonely sounds of the wind through the ruins.

The spine-tingling awareness of another Immortal came to him several minutes later. He didn't even look up as footsteps approached.

"I used to live here," Methos said, his voice quiet and tentative. "We slept in a building down that way. I used to watch the stars through a hole in the roof."

Richie nodded slightly. Methos sat beside him and looked down at the rocks and uneven ground. A sheet of scratched plexiglass covered one exposed facade, behind which ancient letters had been carved into stone. "What does it say?" Richie asked.

Methos tilted his head. "Graffitti. 'Tyrus was here.' 'For a good time, call Flavia.' Stuff like that."

"Did you get your rock?"

"Two. I brought one for you."

Richie glanced at Methos' bulging knapsack. "Must be heavy."

"I've carried worse. Did I tell you Duncan and Amanda used to come out and help me some years?"

"Our Amanda? She carried a rock around for you?"

"Mostly she just offered encouragement. You remember how she was about getting her hands dirty."

"I remember. I remember a lot." Richie looked away at the horizon. The day, which seemed to have lasted longer than any other in recent memory, had started to slip toward night. The yellow-gray light had a faint reddish tinge to it, almost rosy, almost pretty.

"So, old man," he asked finally. "What are you doing for Christmas?"

"No particular plans," Methos admitted.

"Me neither."

They stood up on the wall, gazing at the ruins, each locked in his own thoughts.

"We could always come back for more rocks," Methos offered.

"I was thinking more along the lines of a nice hotel." Richie said. "With a four star restaurant and a Jacuzzi."

"In England? That's a pretty lofty goal, young man."

Richie jumped down to the ground. "Call it a flight of whimsy. I'm thinking . . . I don't know . . . Singapore. Sydney, maybe. You've got money for traveling, don't you? I'll owe it to you. Which way is Carlisle, by the way?"

Methos pointed down the hill.

Richie started walking. He felt as if he'd been breathing with only one lung for years, and the heady sense of being able to fill both lifted his head and his heart. Not as high as the sky perhaps, but certainly higher than the ground.

And although it was still a day early, he cast his wishes and recovered love for a Merry Christmas toward the friends and family he'd lost and the friends and family he still had.

"Hey!" Methos called out after him. "Aren't you going to help me carry these rocks?"