The Path Read Free Page A

there’s no reason
     to think he’ll see you.”
    “I don’t know, Richie—”
    “Think about it, Mac. It’s not like he’s one of us who’d be able to feel your presence, right? You’ll just be a face in the
     crowd, same as everyone else.”
    “Okay, Richie.”
    “What—you mean you’ll go?” Richie could hardly believe it. This had gone a lot more easily than he expected.
    Then it hit him. He had not talked Duncan into anything. MacLeod had given in this easily only because he had already changed
     his mind. That made it Duncan MacLeod 2—Richie Ryan 0, all in the space of an hour.
    Someday
, Richie thought,
someday I’ll win one
.
    “So what time does this thing start?” MacLeod asked him.
    “Eight o’clock.”
    “Fine. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
    Eight rows back and on the aisle, and just as Richie had promised, they were good seats. The indoor playing field at the Seacouver
     Municipal Stadium had been transformed into the site of an
Event
. Across the field that usually hosted football, soccer, and baseball games, folding chairs in neat sections and rows and
     a large wooden stage had been assembled. The quest for victory had, at least for a single day, given way to the quest for
     world peace. In spite of his earlier reluctance, Duncan found that he was glad Richie had invited him.
    The place was filling up fast. Richie turned to MacLeod and smiled at him triumphantly.
    “See, Mac, it’s like I said—hundreds of people. Nothing—”
    “—to worry about, I know. And thanks, Richie.”
    “Hey, anytime.”
    Out of the corner of his eye, MacLeod watched the young man’s face beam with pleasure and pride and felt a certain gratification
     at having changed his mind. Richie, the foundling, the child of orphanages and foster homes, had had few people in his life
     he cared enough about to want to please. MacLeod was glad he was among the few.
    Duncan, too, had been a foundling, but he had been lucky enough not to learn of it until after he “died” the first time, as
     a grown man. Then his father had cast him out and the people of his clan had turned from him in superstitious fear, but they
     could not take from him the memories of a childhood filled with love and belonging. He was still Duncan MacLeod of the Clan
     MacLeod—and always would be.
    But that first winter alone, bereft of all that he had known and loved, had been one of the worst times of his life: days
     and nights of cold and loneliness, belonging nowhere. Duncan could only imagine what Richie’s early life had been like, when
     that feeling of never belonging, never being at home, was his constant existence.
    Well, Connor MacLeod had eventually found Duncan and given him more than the rules of the Game and the training to stay alive.
     Connor had given him friendship, a sense of belonging again, and a reason to go on living. It was a gift beyond price that
     Duncan could only repay by passing the gift on—to Richie.
    The room around him quieted, then erupted in applause as a group of men walked onto the wooden stage. Most of them were dressed
     in business suits, but at their center, dressed in the saffron and maroon robes of his religion, walked the fourteenth Dalai
     Lama.
    He was of unremarkable appearance. Dressed in other clothes he would be easy to pass on the street, merely an oriental man
     of late middle age, with a balding hairline, a slight paunch, and glasses. But even from where he sat, Duncan could feel a
     special aura about the man. Others must have felt it, too, for the arena quieted again.
    The master of ceremonies stepped up to the single microphone. MacLeod recognized him at once. It was Victor Paulus, a mortal
     and onetime student of Darius—priest, Immortal, and to Duncan a good friend. Duncan had not seen Paulus in a couple of years,
     not since he had twice saved him from the Immortal Grayson, who was systematically killing all of Darius’s protégés in an
     attempt to draw the priest off of