=XENARIO= Swedish fanfic: A Chill Down the Spine

Third place in the Swedish Fanfic Challenge, January 2003!

Disclaimer: Xena: Warrior Princess and its characters are the properties of Renaissance Pictures, Studios USA and MCA/Universal. This text is a strictly non-commercial piece of fan fiction inspired by and celebrating this wonderful show.
This is general fan fiction intended to read as an episode, not really as a piece of literature.
Spoiler Alert: The plot takes place during season 4, between the episode 4.72 (In Sickness and in Hell) and 4.73 (A Good Day). There are no conscious spoilers for episodes 4.73 and onward.
Sex & Violence: Some violence, some hurt/comfort.
Don't miss out on Christopher and Sofia's site The Chakram Arcs! http://medlem.spray.se/chakramarcs

A Chill Down the Spine
by Christopher Härnryd

The horned head was stone, coated with a soft film of frost. There was no life. Yet it spoke. Not with its snarling lips that was as still as a mountain, not with sounds that travel the air. But it spoke. And she heard.
"Why won’t you help me?" it asked. "You loved me once," it continued, hoarse with bitterness.
Ice cracked softly under dainty boots in white with high heels and pink fur at the brim. A glove to match, white and pink, was slowly taken off to expose more and more of a slender hand with perfect nails.
"Oh," she said in a low voice. "I still love you."
She put the tip of a finger to a brow of stone and held it there for a moment. The frost around the fingertip began to melt instantly. She withdrew her hand with a slight gasp. A drop of water, free for an instant, made its way down the side of the eye and continued out on the cheek where it came to a halt, glass-like and frozen.
"But you hurt too many."
Golden locks rustled slowly as she shook her head.
"You’ll have to watch instead of play now."
"Watch!?" roared the voice that was not a voice. "What’s there to watch?"
The eyes were deep, dark cracks in the bluish-grey coldness of the bestial face.
"Like, memories," she answered with annoyance. "It’s not like you’ve got a coach to miss."
"Memories," the voice growled. "That’s all I am. But I could be so much more again!"
"You know, I dropped by for the holiday and old times, but, if you’re going to be like this, I’ve invitations to catch. So…later, Bacch."
"No. Don’t go yet! Aphrodite. Aphrodite!"
Golden sparkles filled the air, danced to the ground and disappeared.
"APHRODITE!"

"You realize we’re running from fish," Gabrielle panted as she edged sideways on the narrow, snow-covered ledge. She wore a grey fur-coat that was open in the front from the waist down. She grasped her staff firmly but used it less as a physical support than as a moral one. Next to her Xena led the way, dressed in a coat of similar cut but coloured black with a few white stripes. While Gabrielle concentrated on looking down with the occasAchaeal glance at Xena, Xena was doing the opposite, glancing down now and then but mainly watching where she was going.
"No-no. We ain’t running. I told you, this is strategy."
Angry shouts were heard and both women looked down briefly. Then Xena continued:
"We can’t block the only pass for many miles just because some idiots want to kill us."
"Yes we can," Gabrielle interrupted. "I’d say that’s a very good reason to block a pass."
"And," Xena continued, "since these particular idiots are no friends of the Romans, I prefer not to kill them."
"All right, fair enough. And I’m all for less killing, especially on the Day of the Souls. Which, incidentally, I prefer to spend in a more dignified fashion. But you don’t understand, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with running away. I just want you to admit that’s what we’re doing. Applying the strategy of running away."
"Just running away is tactics, not strategy," Xena remarked and stopped to briefly scan the way ahead.
"Yes, Warrior Princess." Gabrielle looked down. "But you’ve got to admit the fish part."
Ten yards of near vertical mountainside below, a group of warriors shook their tridents to the sky. They wore trousers with metal scales sewn on, leather jackets and a kind of helmets that looked very much like enormous fish heads with gaping mouths, the frowning faces of men looking out from beneath piscine lips.
Xena shot a glance down below and gave a brief nod.
"Not the kind I like for breakfast, though," she commented.
"Back at you."

As the narrow valley turned, an obstacle became visible. An avalanche had covered the ledge, and also made the slope down to the road more climbable.
"Okay," Xena said, "You stay here while I deal with our friends down there."
"No! After all this time, you still don’t trust my fighting skills."
A shout of triumph was heard from below and the fish-capped warriors began converging around the debris.
"Look, it’s not about that," Xena said hurriedly, "We promised Nicklio we’d deliver the herbs to Helvetia to stop the plague. You’re carrying the herbs and there’s no sense in risking loosing them in a fight."
Gabrielle sighed between clenched teeth.
"Couldn’t you be wrong just once?" she near-groaned.
Xena tilted her head enigmatically and kicked at a lump of ice. It broke loose and began tumbling down, spraying snow and splinters and dislodging more ice as it speeded up. One fish-head who had begun climbing was warned by the shouts of the others, but not fast enough. He fell backwards and landed an instant before a rain of debris covered most of him. The lump of ice had bounced off him and was coming to a halt nearby.
"But I’m not going to just sit here," Gabrielle continued, "I’ll see if there’s anything higher up."
And with that she began to climb the debris.
"Just be careful," Xena said as she began descending in short jumps. "This won’t take long."
A collection of tridents were pointed at her, following her every move. She appeared oblivious to them as she rapidly approached. When her boots were almost within touching distance from the sharp points, she kicked off with explosive strength and a piercing cry and hurled herself out from the slope. She turned head over heels and rotated her body so that she landed facing the backs of the warriors. Then she grabbed the lower rim of the nearest helmet and yanked it upwards, thus blinding the wearer and exposing the back of his head. She struck with her other hand and he went limp. Before the others had time to turn, she grabbed a trident from the next man and struck his head with the butt end.
But now the other seven was facing her. They fanned out slightly and grinned with battle-lust. The tridents were lowered. She grinned back and struck out with her captured weapon, but not at any of the attackers, but rather at the forked tip of a trident. The twin weapons caught each other and she quickly wrenched her shaft to one side, entangling another trident. Besides preventing the use of the weapons involved, it also interfered with the other attacks. She caught another one and then raised the impromptu umbrella of pole arms high, deflecting the other weapons even higher. As everyone for a short moment stood with raised arms, she delivered a lightning fast sequence of kicks towards unprotected bellies.
The tangle broke as two men fell. The mêlée entered a more conventAchaeal phase. A trident struck at her and she danced aside, her own trident held tucked under one arm like a ceremonial stick of some kind. One warrior added an abandoned weapon to his own and came at her with two tridents.
"All trespassers must be sacrificed to Poseidon!" he stated and shook his weapons.
"For Poseidon!" another one shouted and attacked from her right side. She jerked back and as he passed her, she kicked him towards the two-weaponed one, who agilely jumped aside. Then he attacked, alternating between his left and right weapon. She brought her own trident to play, using it quarterstaff fashion to parry and feint. The rest now joined the fight, surrounding her.
She changed her grip and began whirling the trident fast, first on one side, then on another, deflecting thrust after thrust.
"Xenaaa!"
Gabrielle’s shout from somewhere above was cut short.
Every trace of battle-joy evaporated from Xena’s face. She made a short jump, landing on trident, thus disarming its wielder. Then she struck his helmeted forehead hard with the long side of the trident, breaking it in two. She instantly threw the parts in opposite directions. Each one caught a fish-warrior in the head. As they slumped to the ground, she whipped out her sword, just in time to deflect twin tridents striking at her. She struck the attacker’s arm, sending him to the side, shouting and tumbling, and knelt low as she whirled around to strike at the legs of the last standing fighter. In an instant, he was no longer standing.
Xena rushed back to the slope of debris, sheathed her sword and began to climb fast.
"Gabrielle!"
She reached the ledge, the sword still in her hand, and climbed onwards, following the tracks made by Gabrielle that led even higher up towards the upper limit of the pass.
Up here, the view was magnificent. The sun beat blindingly on snowy hills and cliffs in the mountainous landscape.
Xena looked down. She was on a narrow crest. Just a few feet away, there was a slope on the other side, nearly as steep as the one she had just climbed. The tracks ended here, or rather changed. Something bard-sized had evidently glided down the mountainside, exposing sheer ice under the thick snow. The new valley on the other side was shallower and smaller, though, and a glide or a fall need not have been fatal or even dangerous.
Then she saw the hole. And the staff lying across, supported on a fraction of an inch on either side of the hole.
Gabrielle’s hands were gripping it tightly, red and white from the effort. She was hanging from her hands over the hole.
"I’m coming!" Xena said in an anxious cross between a shout and a whisper, "Gabrielle, hold on!"
The staff moved ever so slightly.
"Xena! Hurry!"
The voice of Gabrielle was strained and hollow. Even as she spoke the words, the staff moved again. Small particles of snow drifted down. With a minute groan and a more audible crack, the edge supporting the staff gave away. It disappeared instantly, taking Gabrielle with it.
Xena was already in the air, tumbling wide-eyed down towards the hole and diving straight into it.
Tranquillity once more descended upon the little valley, the still slopes and the round hole.

Gabrielle grazed the bottom of the hole before tumbling on. The thick, green ice under here did nothing to diminish her speed, and she shot away into the sloping tunnel that the hole curved into. The passage was more of a chute than a tunnel, with ice covering every inch of the rounded interior.
The chute turned to the left and Gabrielle glided with it, feet first, eyes wide, the long, blonde hair whipping behind like flames and her arms desperately trying to bring the staff to work as some kind of stabilizing device.
There was a sound like dragonbreath, but she realized that it was only the sound of her passage, fur on ice.
Now there was a sharp right turn and Gabrielle was unable to hold back a most girlish yelp as she glided to the side and further up almost to the ceiling with the force of the turn. Her speed was now very great.

Xena dove into the hole in mid somersault and landed incredibly on her feet. But she too was unable to stop and continued the same way as Gabrielle, who’s passage was sending small clouds of powdered ice into Xena’s face as swarms of albino gnats. With slightly bent knees and legs wide apart her balance was precarious at best, and she struck out with her bracers to the sides, thus forming a four-way connection with the smooth ice.
Gabrielle screamed. Under the circumstances, that was a good sign.

The chute split in two, both sloping downwards. Gabrielle realised that she in fact had a third of a second or so to choose which way. She also realised that the very narrow space between the two chutes was in effect a huge axe-blade should she fail to make that choice.

After the first gentle turn, this second one came as an escalation rather than as a surprise. With a grin, Xena held on with feet and arms on the walls and rotated full circle without loosing contact for even an instance during the sickening turn.

Gabrielle dodged a thick icicle hanging down the middle of the chute, tumbled left as the chute turned and stared at the veritable row of fangs that greeted her, icicles half her height and too tin to support any weight but sharp enough to cut her to pieces, she imagined.
She swung her staff in a mighty sweep that caused an explosion of shards to pass her by without causing anything but a glittering bleaching of her hair and face.
Then the chute split again.

Which way? Xena strained her hearing to distinguish a direction among the echoes and screeching noise of her own passage.
Left.
Very soon a thick icicle blocked her way. This was an opportunity to try to stop, but Gabrielle had evidently not taken it.
Xena bent her right knee and pressed against the right side of the chute, while she kept her left leg outstretched, immediately above the rushing floor. The icicle passed above her thigh and next to her back. The passage turned left and a swarm of descending shards hammered against her, accompanied by a cloud that nearly blinded her. She became aware somehow of the bifurcation ahead.
Choose instantly! Which way?
And there was the tip of Gabrielle’s staff, disappearing down the left way. Xena pushed away from the right side and followed.
Only then did she see that this chute was much steeper than the passage so far, and that it was only Gabrielle’s staff that was bouncing down the depth, not the Bard herself.

To Gabrielle’s immense relief, the slope lessened gradually, even as the passage narrowed. She exited the chute at a modest speed and came to a halt after four yards or so of horizontal gliding. There was firm ground under her and a space of some kind around her. She shook her head to dislodge at least some icy dandruff and sat up. She struggled to her knees in an effort to stand, the smooth ice having given way to a rocky floor covered with powdered ice and small, splinters. It crunched softly under her legs. But she stopped, still kneeling, and stared.
The cavern was huge. Several villages could easily have fitted here. The curved ceiling, like a natural vault, was high as a tall tower. A thick plating of ancient ice covered walls and ceiling alike. A faint pale-blue light filtered in somehow through some segments of the sides of the cavern, and gave Gabrielle the fleeting impression of being inside the ribcage of some titan of primal cold.
She became gradually aware of the pain in her knees and finally rose, absently brushing crusty flakes from her kneecaps while she continued to look around.
Further in, there appeared to be a field of tree-stumps. But that couldn’t be right, could it? Trees underground. She peered more closely, curiosity still overriding every other emotion. They were pale grey, covered with frost most likely, but there was something regular about them, something artificial, eerie…
Tombstones. As the new context slammed down on her vision, she shuddered with cold and realisation. That was when she heard the footsteps.
A quick look around confirmed that the staff she had lost hold of during the uncontrolled descent had not chosen this way at the latest split. It also indicated that although some parts of the cavern wall were uneven enough to offer concealment or maybe even exits, nothing nearby would hide anything larger than a mouse.
Except her way in. The footsteps were getting steadily louder. Her pulse, still high from the wild glide, was rising as well. She took a tentative step onto the ice that led back to the sloping tunnel. Still standing, she took another. She became bolder and started walking, with arms slightly lifted for balance.
Near the entrance, the ice began to slope ever so gently. She slipped and fell. As she tried to scramble to her feet slow enough to succeed, she shot a glance over her shoulder. The cavern appeared empty still, but the footsteps were without question nearer now. They changed character abruptly, going from a muted clicking to the crunch of boots on broken ice, the composition of the floor of the cavern. But Gabrielle only heard that for a short moment, before her own pulse drowned out everything. In near panic she crawled the last few feet to the entrance and began fumbling for handholds. There were bulges in the thick ice, but nothing that offered friction enough to hold even part of her weight. Realizing that she was kneeling with her back towards an unknown threat, she turned, half crouching, half kneeling, her heartbeat thundering in her ears.
About twenty feet away, someone stood and watched her.
Tall, but from her present position anyone would seem tall. And armed. He wore a russet cloak over a dun leather jacket and trousers, with boots in the same material and colour. He was completely bald and his skin was a peculiar amber hue. He leaned on a bronze halberd, grasping it at head level.
Gabrielle froze, conserving the fragile balance she had for dodging when he attacked. But after some indeterminate time, she dared to try to stand up. He looked at her with keen seriousness, but did not move.
"Hi," she said, somewhat unimaginatively. "My name’s Gabrielle."
He did not answer, even when she managed a smile. She began moving in a diagonal, trying to reach the edge of the slippery area while approaching him slowly.
"I hope I wasn’t rude to drop in like this," she continued, her confidence returning as she began hoping that words could be of use here. She reached the limits of the blank ice and stepped onto the gravel-like shards. Almost sighing with relief at having a somewhat stable floor under her feet, she smiled more warmly.
"This is quite a place you have here. Speaking of which, where is 'here? Just out of geographical interest, I’m something of a lay-cartographer…"
"I am Deucalion. You have come to the Hall of the Dead Gods."
His voice was hoarse but not hostile in tone. His stab with the halberd came therefore as a near-fatal surprise.
Gabrielle jumped to the side fast enough to survive, but her coat caught in the spearhead. He yanked at the tear with his weapon, but the thick fur was at the moment stuck around a thin part of the halberd, between the spearhead and the axe. The coat held. It kept Gabrielle fixed too.
Deucalion released his right hand from the halberd and stepped forward, his arm outstretched to catch her. She wriggled her right arm free off the coat, whirled around and at the same time slipped her left arm out too. As she completed her turning, she grabbed the coat with both hands and yanked with all her strength. The halberd, held only in his left hand, was turned sharply, effectively blocking his attack with his own weapon. Then she let go of the coat and started to run as fast as she could.

Xena fell through the soon completely vertical shaft. She kept her body tumbling to absorb the impact when it came…
When she opened her eyes, she was laying in snow. She spit out some crushed ice from her mouth and a familiar shape came into focus a couple of yards away. She stood and grains and flakes left her coat and body in miniscule avalanches. Then she went and picked the staff up. For a moment, she closed her eyes and made as if to clutch the staff near to her body. But then she began looking around.
The bottom of the shaft was an uneven cave like a deformed five-pointed star. Xena looked this way and that, higher and higher up until she saw the narrow upper end of the shaft like a halved and inverted glass marble a long way up. Climbing up that way was not a pleasant prospect.
But several of the “points” of the star were narrow cracks that could conceivably be wide enough for her, sideways. She went to the one that appeared to continue in the right direction. The ice-lined crack was ten feet high but uninvitingly narrow.
"You’ll have to stop making those dumplings, Gabrielle," she muttered as she sucked in her stomach and pressed herself sideways into the crack.
After a short distance, the crack widened somewhat so she could breathe unhindered. A natural stairway of stones and lumps of ice led upwards, steeply but climbable. But far more steeply rose the ceiling. As Xena began to climb, the sheer walls of blue ice on either side towered higher and higher up.
Gradually, the passage widened to allow unhindered climbing movements. Xena jumped up on smaller “steps”, climbed the larger ones and could even walk a couple of steps at a time before having to negotiate the next lump of ice. And the next.
Her reflections were twin ghosts of blurry sapphire in the walls at her sides.

Gabrielle reached the middle of the cavern and halted involuntarily, at a loss which way to continue. Ahead lay the alleged graveyard. There must be at least one more entrance somewhere, and not too far away from the chute from which she had come. Giant folds in the ice at the walls hid numerous possible passages, but she dared not remain still and try to spot them.
She turned her head to gauge the distance towards Deucalion, who was in all likelihood walking up to her with raised halberd and a comment like: "There’s nowhere to hide" at ready.
She was wrong. He was running at her in silence. But the part about the halberd was correct.
Gabrielle darted to the left and heard him change direction to intercept her. After a few steps she turned sharply to the right, having the satisfaction of hearing a frustrated panting from him. This time she ran for a little longer before turning left again.
"It works for hares, yes?" she whispered to herself and glanced back. Deucalion was uncomfortably close but had slowed down to await her next move. He held his halberd at chest level and horizontal. When Gabrielle realized this, she slowed down too. The eerie mood of the cavern had given way to the more straightforward element of fight/flight. Now, it almost gave way to childhood memories of playful chases in the fields of Poteidaia.
From behind one of the huge vertical folds in the ice, another shape in russet emerged. She had the same complexion as Deucalion, and with the exception of a crescent of long, black pigtails on the back of her neck, she was bald as well. In her hand she held a sword, seemingly made from a single, large sliver of sepia flint.
Deucalion charged. And the newcomer as well.
Gabrielle, standing straight between them, started to run as well. The pursuer’s paths became mirrored curves as they closed in on her. She was faster, bereft of the encumbering coat and even of her staff. They were slightly encumbered by their weapons, a thought that didn’t cheer her up much. Especially as she was running out of cavern. The symmetrical positions of the pursuers did not leave much room for anything else than running straight on, hoping that the folds immediately ahead concealed an exit, or at least an armoury.
As it turned out, the fold was indeed the beginning of a tunnel, but when the tunnel turned after a few steps, it ended in a reasonably flat wall of translucent ice. By careful observation it was possible to make out some sort of cavern on the other side, separated from Gabrielle only by a foot or so of rock-hard ice.
She turned and took two deep breaths. The taste of cold air was suddenly so sweet. It tasted of life. A life that she likely did not have many moments left to experience.
Deucalion rounded the corner with raised halberd. From just around the bend, Gabrielle charged and knocked him towards the opposite wall. He stumbled, unbalanced but unharmed. She struggled past him and recoiled as if from a hissing snake when the sliver-sword of the woman suddenly was in her face. The woman withdrew a step, nearly as fast and began swinging the sword to and fro to block the tunnel-stump’s exit. Gabrielle darted to one side, then to another, partly to seek an opening, but mostly to present a mobile target. She heard rather than saw Deucalion’s halberd and ducked. The axe-blade whooshed past her bent neck causing strands of her hair to dance but no other damage.
The sword came down in a vertical sweep and Gabrielle continued her downward bend into a diagonal roll that took her to one side of the woman. Even as the woman’s sword was sending a tiny fountain of shards from the impact with the floor, Gabrielle jumped to her feet and ran without looking, breathing or hoping as fast as she ever could past the woman and out into the huge cavern…
…straight into a muscular man, also in russet clothing and holding in one hand a couple of bull’s horns joined by a short but sturdy piece of wood with extensive leather wrapping. This he dropped to grab her by her arms. Although he was not completely bald like Deucalion, his only hair consisted of a small, dark ponytail on the crown of his head.
"I have her, Achaea!" he exclaimed in a rumbling basso voice. The woman, Achaea, had turned and came forward.
"Look, if this is about me littering your slide with staffs, I’d be happy to retrieve it and be on my way," Gabrielle panted but fell silent. Achaea’s sword stopped a very short distance from Gabrielle’s mouth.
"Bring the desecrator here," Deucalion said from within the short tunnel, and the man who had caught her turned her roughly around and led her back in. Achaea followed after him.
Gabrielle opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, she was thrown to the floor. Deculaion stood next to her and raised his halberd, his stance now not that of a fighter or even a guard, but that of an executioner.

The climb had not been excessively long, but very steep. It was with some relief that Xena reached an area of flatter ground. “Smooth” was not the word, there was plenty of small and large ice-formations and rocks on the floor of this cave, but at least it was horizontal on the average.
Her reflection to the right changed. She turned and faced her image, lighter and at once sharper in details and more transparent. Something in it moved. Xena squinted and tried to discern more.
Several red shapes were in the clear ice. Something yellow was slowly raised up. Something else, yellow, green, pale was laying on the ground.
As the shapes suddenly made horrid sense, Xena exclaimed in shock and the word came out as very nearly a cough:
"Gabrielle!"
In the middle of the cave stood a huge icicle, like an inverted Solstice tree wrapped in glass. It had reached the floor. Xena glanced at it, then at the wall of ice, and then grabbed her Chakram and hurled it with a grimace. It seared through a significant part of the upper icicle with a shrieking sound and sprayed ice like sparks. The icicle broke loose from the ceiling and began to lean over in a slow fall towards the wall.
Too slow. The halberd had reached its apex and stopped, the wielder’s muscles tensing for the stroke.
Xena caught the rebounding Chakram and jumped high in the air, whirling around in mid flight and kicked out, connecting to the stem of the icicle and speeding it up. As it crashed through the wall like a log through a thin window she landed on its back, catlike, and then leapt on.
The sound was like a roar from an enraged bull in a glassware shop. Shards of ice like clumsily made windows rotated through the air. Deucalion turned and reflexively tried to use the halberd as a shield. The noise had not even begun to abate when it changed character and went shriller, sharper, undulating…
Xena crashed into him, feet first, and propelled him far back. She landed next to Gabrielle, having transferred most of her considerable kinetic energy into Deucalion. Xena smiled at her, stretched out a hand and helped her up.
"What kept you?" Gabrielle asked weakly.
"Here," Xena said and thrust the staff into her hand.
Energized by the return of her weapon, Gabrielle whirled it full circle and ended the motion by holding it in one hand, her arm outstretched to the side and slightly back. Her eyes gleamed.
"Now," said Xena as she drew her sword. "Who’s first?"

They all were. After a brief pause when the ponytail man got his double-horned weapon and Achaea helped Deucalion to his feet, they charged.
It was Xena who got to fight the bizarre combination of the horn weapon and the halberd, as the Ponytail and Deucalion attacked her. Both weapons were slow and not hard to block with her sword. Her retaliating cuts drew them backwards almost from the first instant.
Gabrielle faced Achaea. The shard-sword darted out but was deflected by a rotating staff. Achaea feinted right, then cut to the left, only to have her attack disrupted by a sharp smack to the arm. Gabrielle withdrew her staff instantly into a balanced position, ready for a new attempt. Achaea gripped her blade in two hands.
"You shouldn’t have tried to destroy the herms," she said grimly and attacked anew with several overhand blows. Gabrielle blocked them, but was unable to deflect them and felt her arms hurting from the force of the blows. Angrily, she kicked out when both weapons were still high in the air. Achaea jumped back and avoided the kick, her attack-routine broken.
"I didn’t destroy anything!" Gabrielle said in a tight, controlled voice. She took a step forward, aware that Xena was driving the other two out of the tunnel and into the cavern itself.
"Of course you did," Achaea said. She whirled around and swept with the sword against Gabrielle’s midriff, but Gabrielle stepped back and whirled her staff again. She caught the blade, but to push it on, not to stop it. Achaea hade to stumble along or let go. Gabrielle pressed her advantage and hit her on the shoulder with one end of the staff, and in the stomach with another. Achaea staggered but remained standing. It was all she could do to hold her sword in a defensive stance, though.
"I fell into a hole, ended up in this cavern and was attacked when I tried to climb up again," said Gabrielle rapidly and with some of her control slipping. Unjust accusations and physical attacks at the same time was more than she could presently handle.
Achaea recovered somewhat, but held still. Hesitation flickered in her eyes.
"What’s a herm, anyway?" Gabrielle asked. Then her eyes widened and she jumped aside. Achaea was not so lucky and got her legs swept out from under her when the ponytailed man came gliding from behind like a rogue sleigh. She landed on him, but he was evidently already unconscious. A bit further behind, but coming nearer every second, was Deucalion, furiously deflecting an almost lazy array of cuts and thrusts from Xena.
Achaea struggled to her feet, glanced at her fallen comrade, and then shouted:
"Deucalion, stop!"
"It’s our sacred duty!" he hissed over his shoulder.
"Killing people?" Xena asked conversationally and suddenly whirled and kicked at the halberd. Deucalion did not exactly drop it, but it came loose in his hands and the lower end swung up and caught him in the crotch. Xena went past the panting man as if he had ceased to exist.
"You all right, Gabrielle?"
She nodded. Achaea swallowed as Xena stopped in front of her. Both carried their swords.
"It is our sacred duty," Achaea admitted then. "Protecting the herms. And killing desecrators if need be."
"She…must…be killed," Deucalion managed and straightened up slowly and painfully.
Achaea shot Xena a troubled look and went to him, but she did not help him.
"Deucalion, what herm was she trying to destroy?"
"I caught her in time," he answered sullenly.
Achaea was silent for a few moments.
"We have acted rashly," she then said to Xena and Gabrielle, and sighed. "Forgive us if you can. Deucalion should not have attacked you. When Dorius and I saw the fight, we assumed he had proper cause for his action."
"Destroying a herm," Xena stated.
"Yes," Achaea nodded. "Come. I will show you."
"No! Achaea!" Deucalion shouted and gripped his halberd.
"Yes!" she burst out. ‘We almost killed the girl. The least we can do is to show her why."
"I…" Deucalion growled.
"What?" Achaea asked angrily and pointed at Xena. "She is of copper and of iron. You cannot defeat her! Did you not try?"
Gabrielle and Xena exchanged looks and followed Achaea past Deucalion. Xena glanced at him and sheathed her sword. He glared at her but held still.

They crossed the plain of crushed ice to the field of raised stones. They were all of the same size and general shape: a short, square pillar of stone, about half the height of a man, and crowned by a head, also in stone. Only the heads differed. Thick frost covered every surface.
"We are the Daimonia," Achaea said, as they made a short detour to retrieve Gabrielle’s coat.
"Demons?" Gabrielle asked incredulously.
"No, we are humans," Achaea answered with a slight smile. "We were the first. Created by the gods during the Golden Age, long, long ago."
"When our time came to die, others had already died."
"The Hall of the Dead Gods," Gabrielle whispered, in sudden, enormous realization. She swept her coat tighter around her.
"Yes," Achaea said. "This is the Hall. When the first gods were killed, during the war with the Titans, the survivors realized one thing."
"Even if a god is utterly destroyed, one thing always remains. The memory of the god."
"But people forget eventually," Xena remarked.
"Yes. They do. But the world does not. A god is tied to the world in a special way. He is forever a part of it. You could as well try to destroy all light or all sounds."
"The herms are the memories of the dead gods. And we, the Daimonia, were chosen by Zeus to guard them, forever."
Gabrielle was torn between awe, fear, and curiosity. The usual victor emerged. She looked closely at the nearest herm. The layer of frost was thin. Whoever it was, it had a lot of unruly hair. The mouth was set in a cross between a snarl and a smile. The face was angular, the eyes…
"Callisto!" she gasped.
Xena glanced at it.
"Yes. She’s dead. Now, let’s go. Achaea, is there a way out of here?"
"There is a stairway. I will show you."
"Mother…"
Gabrielle froze. Xena said something, but she did not hear. She looked around. Herms were everywhere. Callisto, a horned head…Bacchus? And there, another shape, very different from every other…
"Mother."
"Remember the deal."
"You? Hope…you’re…" Gabrielle whispered. The voice was familiar. It was forever connected to her heart.
"Mother, remember the deal."
"What deal? Hope?"
"It wasn’t a question, mother!"
And the flames roared up and swallowed her.

Despite the fact that everything glowed, it was hard to see. Smoke hung heavily before her eyes, and the very air was like vibrating jelly. She could not move! Yes, she could, but she was waist deep in some kind of red and yellow mud…
Magma. Gabrielle screamed. The next instance she would at the very least burst into flame and melt into a charred skeleton.
"It doesn’t hurt!" she gasped, after a few moments of screaming. Then she coughed violently, clearing her lungs of smoke.
Like a parting curtain, the smoke rolled away and revealed the cave that the magma filled. There were islets of dark rock jutting up from the fiery liquid. And sitting on one of them, at ease like a princess in her private chamber, sat Hope. She wore the red robe of a high priest of Dahak and her hair waved and flailed from the intense thermals. Whether the fire in her eyes was reflections from the magma or from her inner nature was impossible to determine at that moment.
"'It doesn’t hurt',” Hope repeated with mockery, triumph and bitter venom in her voice. She stood and began walking the few steep steps down to the lazily bubbling magma.
"Why...who saved me?" was all Gabrielle could think of saying. The context was still too surreal.
"Oh, we sent that one away," Hope replied. "The daughter of Dahak doesn't need saving by outsiders. As for my mother..."
She immersed herself into the lake of molten stone to the waist, just like Gabrielle.
"Aren’t you going to ask why you’re still alive?" Hope asked. Gabrielle was silent.
Hope began moving towards Gabrielle. Sluggish waves rippled away from her progress. Gabrielle started backing away but dared not take her eyes of Hope.
"My Father saved you and me for a reason. He has revealed the next step in His plan to me. But you look surprised. Can it be that you truly believed you could stop the god of all gods by plunging me into this pit?"
Gabrielle felt rough stone against her back. She darted a look over her shoulder, which confirmed that she had indeed reached the end of the cave.
"You’re near the heart of Dahak. He is the fire in the darkness, the light in the depths, the supreme entity beyond the feeble walls of this world. Protecting His daughter and His spouse from some heat is nothing. Nothing at all."
Gabrielle glanced up. There was the hole they had fallen down through. The walls of the cave were very uneven. She turned suddenly around and began grasping for handholds in the wall. With frantic strength she pulled herself out of the magma and started to climb. Hope seemed not overly concerned. She stopped and looked at her slow progress.
"Pain is a warning, Mother," she said loudly. "Pain isn’t always a wound. Some mothers would feel pain when their daughters were in danger."
Gabrielle climbed on. The easy part was coming to an end. Now the wall began sloping over her head. There seemed to be handholds enough in what was rapidly becoming the ceiling, but she couldn’t possibly have strength enough to hang like a fly from them for any length of time.
"Dahak protects us from both the searing of the fire and the pain it causes," Hope continued in a softer voice.
After taking a deep breath of air that would have boiled her lungs, Gabrielle stretched out her arms and got hold of a fold in the ceiling. She let go with her legs and rocked back and forth to get enough leverage to reach the next handhold.
"Or, He can choose just to do one or the other," Hope said, almost whispering and looking intently at the dangling Gabrielle.
Pain like being rolled in needles and razors overwhelmed her. For a short moment she held on. Then the convulsions of her body replaced any conscious action and she fell heavily into the magma. A yellow fountain erupted around her. Hope smiled broadly and wiped magma from her cheek.
The pain subsided slowly. Gabrielle got to her feet. She breathed heavily of the superheated air that somehow did not hurt.
"Why are you keeping me alive?" Gabrielle asked, fighting to keep the fear out of her voice.
"A precaution, nothing more," answered Hope, still smiling. She waded towards Gabrielle who resisted an urge to try to flee again. Instead, Gabrielle held her head high and waited.
"You’ll accept, of your own free will, a tiny part of Dahak’s essence to enter your mind."
"Never," Gabrielle almost smiled as she shook her head.
"It will never be needed, most likely,’ Hope continued without acknowledging the denial. ‘And you’ll never know it’s in there. Think of it as a…birthmark. A mole."
Gabrielle continued to shake her head slowly.
"You won’t accept?" Hope asked. The smile took on a hopeful aspect.
"I will not. You can kill me if you want, it won’t matter."
Her legs began to hurt. A burning sensation, like stinging, like flaying. It spread upwards. She gasped. The air burned her mouth. The pain was increasing every second. She closed her eyes and shut her mouth tight.
"No, Mother. There will be no release in death. This isn’t hurting you. But it hurts, doesn’t it? Only the pain of burning, not the burning itself, no sizzling skin, no smoking flesh…"
Gabrielle breathing was shallow and very rapid. She clutched at her stomach with hands balled up into fists.
Suddenly the pain was everywhere and impossibly strong. Her breathing changed to raw screams.
"You will succumb, you know," Hope’s voice said somewhere. "If it’s any consolation, you probably won’t remember this. It’s a little too much for an ordinary human mind to handle."
The pain went on forever.
Then it ended. And there was only shame left.

Xena caught Gabrielle as she staggered and fell. The Bard seemed to be in pain and gasped, and then she opened her eyes wide and stared at Xena.
"Hey. You all right?" Xena asked in concern as she knelt, holding Gabrielle in her arms.
"Xena, I remember it all! I failed!" Gabrielle stuttered breathlessly.
"What are you talking…about?" Xena asked. But in the middle of the sentence, her eyes caught the shape of the herm immediately beyond Callisto’s. It had no face or even head. On top of it was just a chaotic jumble of what looked a little like kelp or bent spearheads.
Or flames.
"I was trapped in the lava pit. But Dahak protected me from the fires. But not from the pain. I felt myself burning and burning…" Gabrielle continued, near-crying.
"Gabrielle…" was all Xena could say as she held her close.
"And when I couldn’t stand it anymore, I did what he wanted."
"I let him put a part of him, his essence, in my mind."
Tears appeared.
"And afterwards, I didn’t remember. The people that rescued me from that stream said I didn’t want to come up. It was freezing cold in the water but they said I thought it too warm. I wish I had…no…"
Xena hugged her and rocked her like a baby. Achaea was standing, a look of concern and confusion on her face.
"I think you should leave now," she said. "This is the Day of Souls, and…"
Gabrielle took a deep breath.
"I’m all right. Actually, I’m not, but I’m fit to travel."
"Okay," said Xena, and they rose together. "Just one more thing. Achaea."
Xena pointed at the herm with the petrified flames.
"Which god is that?"
Achaea looked at it and closed her eyes for an instant.
"Dahak."
"Right," Xena said and stepped up to it and pulled out her sword. Achaea stared and then ran to her side and grabbed her arm.
"Achaea, let go of my arm. Whatever is left of Dahak must die."
"But you can’t!"
Xena’s raised an eyebrow, “watch me” written all over her. She gripped Achaea’s wrist with her free hand and forced it away from her sword arm.
"If the herm is destroyed, he’s released!" Achaea exclaimed and rubbed her wrist.
Xena lowered her sword but stayed at the herm. She turned.
"You said they’re only memories."
"Yes, but the memories of a god have power. Something of the god might be reborn, given the right circumstances. And during the Day of Souls, the circumstances are the best possible."
Xena glanced at the herm and then let her gaze glide over the rest of them; a veritable forest of grey faces in stone.
"I see now why you guard them," she said and turned back to Gabrielle, who was picking up her staff and watching, wide-eyed. Gabrielle cleared her throat and asked:
"Where are the stairs?"
"This way," Achaea answered and began walking rapidly along the rows of herms, towards the side of the cavern. They followed.
"Where are you going, Mother?" the voice said and it sounded as if the speaker smiled, although the voice was thick with restrained hate.
"No!" Gabrielle gasped and started running. Ahead a high doorway of sorts was visible between gently curved vertical folds of blue ice. Steps had been cut into the ice and led in and up before curving out of sight.
"Any obstacles we should know of?" Xena asked Achaea quickly.
"No, the stairs goes all the way up, out into the open."
Xena nodded and ran after Gabrielle.
"What are you running from?" Hope’s voice asked. Gabrielle had reached the stairs and began climbing them, taking two steps at a time and pushing at the walls with hand and staff for balance and greater speed.
"Do you think you can escape what’s in your mind?" the relentless voice continued. Gabrielle stumbled on the slippery steps, but Xena was behind her and caught her and lifted her to her feet again.
But as Gabrielle started to run up the stairs again, red fire exploded in her soul. Her body convulsed so violently that it seemed as if someone had picked her up and slammed her against the wall. She began clutching her arms and her face, gasping for air.
"I’m burning! I’m burning!" she managed.
"No!" said Xena and gripped her by the shoulders. "Listen to me: you’re not on fire. It’s only in your mind."
Gabrielle nodded, wide-eyed and clutched her fists. She took a deep breath, but let it out in a harsh moan.
"But the pain…"
"It’s Dahak doing this!" Xena leaned forward until their foreheads almost touched. "You can fight it! Gabrielle, you can fight it!"
Sweat was breaking out in Gabrielle’s face and she was beginning to shake.
"I can…I…" but Gabrielle suddenly threw back her head and screamed and screamed and screamed.
"Xena."
The new voice was very faint but somehow yet audible through the screams that pierced Xena’s heart to the core.
"I think you can hear me," continued the voice. It was male.
"Dahak," she growled, startled.
"Dahak? No. Don’t you remember me? I remember you. You DID kill me, after all."
Xena clutched Gabrielle in her arms and held her helplessly. But that voice…
"Bacchus. You have nothing to say to me that I want to hear. I don’t even want to know what you’re doing in my head."
"Xena, Xena, I’m not in your head. But this is the Day of Souls. The walls between the worlds are weak. Weak enough for…"
Gabrielle screamed again, softer this time, like a child without much strength.
"Yes, yes, and you’ve some plane to come back to life and need my help! No."
Achaea was approaching.
"What is happening?" she asked. "If she is in pain, perhaps I can help."
Xena glanced at her with doubtful hope in her eyes.
‘There is a point on the neck, just below…’
"No," Xena shook her head. "Pressure points won’t work. It’s all in her head."
"I see," Achaea paused. "But at least let me help you carry her down to something softer than icy steps."
Xena glanced up briefly at the continuation of the stairs.
"Thank you," she said then, and lifted up the moaning Gabrielle, one arm around her back, one under her knees. Achaea moved forward to help but Xena halted her with a look:
"Just lead the way."

The bed looked much like a bier, but had a soft, white fur on top. Gabrielle lay twitching in a foetal position. Xena stood bent over her, stroking her hair, holding her hand.
"I didn’t know…" Gabrielle whispered, her lips drawn back from her teeth in a face distorted by extreme agony.
Xena forced a smile to her own lips:
"What?"
"I didn’t know that there could be…so much pain…anywhere."
The web of furrows on Xena’s forehead deepened, but she held her smile in place.
"We will find a way," Xena said with desperation that would have to serve for conviction. "What exactly does Dahak want you to do?"
"Topple his herm," breathed Gabrielle. "I won’t. But…I…"
They held hands so hard you could imagine the creaking of skin and tendons.
"Still not interested?" Bacchus said in Xena’s head. His voice was now completely recognisable, deep, almost an echoing growl. "I can make you strong enough to devour that fragment of Dahak."
"Remind me again why I should trust you," Xena said, softly but with menace.
"So sure are you that there’s a catch! But you’re right, of course. I need you to surrender your soul to me. You nearly did, once. The night you killed me, if you remember. It’s quite a sacrifice, I agree. But consider: you save your friend, and you save the world from the threat of Dahak."
"And let you loose again."
"Ah, but give me some credit, will you? I wasn’t always as you knew me. I am capable of gentler things; I was the god of wine once. Ordinary wine, the simple pleasures of the vineyard and the joyful party. My time as a ravaging monster is past. As is yours, I believe…"
Xena stared at nothing. Then she asked, still with a low voice, but measured, rather than menacing:
"If you eat Dahak’s essence first, then we can talk."
"Ha! Would that I could, but that’s not possible. My presence in her mind would devour him, oh, yes. I wouldn’t even be able to help myself, mine is the gift and the curse of draining. But in my weakened state, his flame would kill me, instantly. He is no mere god of the hearth, this Dahak, even now. No, only if I had the use of a living mind, such as your own, would I have the strength to do it. So you see, you have to invite me first by crushing my herm and opening your mind to me…"
Xena closed her eyes.
"I’ll think about it," she said.
"Don’t take too long," chuckled Bacchus. "As I think you know, mere pain can indeed kill…"
"I said I’ll think about it!" she repeated with an iron edge that caused his echo to instantly disappear from her mind.
Achaea looked at her, confused and troubled. Then she glanced out of the ice alcove to the main cavern. Deucalion was standing at the opposite wall, leaning on his halberd, his scowl apparent even over this great distance.
"Xena, how long have…I been…like this?" asked Gabrielle. She did not seem to breathe apart from sudden, hissing gasps at irregular and long intervals.
Xena grabbed her hand with both of hers. This time, she could not manage a smile.
"Nearly half an hour," she said. Her voice, at least, was gentle.
"All this time…half an hour…" Gabrielle seemed to shrink, becoming at once very young and very old. When she spoke again, it was so softly that Xena barely heard her:
"Please. Xena. I can’t…much longer. Please. Kill me."
Xena could only shake her head. Her "No!" sounded guttural, alien.
Gabrielle looked up slowly, hopeful, almost happy, the contorted face relaxing for just an instant:
"I know you can do it fast. I won’t feel a thing. Even if I do, it will be nothing compared to this…"
Xena shook her head again, violently. She pressed Gabrielle’s hand to her lips.
"No!" she said then. "But there is something I can do."
She glanced over her shoulder:
"Achaea! Leave us."
"What are you going to do?" Achaea asked, moving her hand slowly towards the sword in her belt.
Xena returned her gaze to Gabrielle, but her answer was meant for Achaea:
"Leave now, or I’ll force you. And neither of us wants that. Go!"
Achaea backed a few steps before she turned and left the alcove.
"Dahak," Xena said. "I think you can hear me."
After a brief pause, she continued:
"Stop lurking in the back! What’re you afraid of?"
"Xena," said Hope’s voice in Xena’s head. But it was hard to hear as if muted by a roaring fire. "My dear mother is screaming so loud in her head that I didn’t hear you at first. What can I do for you?"
"Are you Hope or Dahak?"
"You don’t know much about the mystery of Dahak to ask something like that."
"I asked a question."
"And hoped for an answer you’d understand…"
"Dahak, do you want back or not?" Xena asked sharply.
Silence.
Then:
"What did you have in mind?"
"You. In my mind, not in Gabrielle’s."
Hope laughed. Gabrielle jerked and clawed at the air with her free hand.
"We’re having so much fun in here."
"Yes you’d say something like that," Xena answered in a flat voice. "But you aren’t in this for the fun. You’re a masque, an interpreter. Dahak can’t communicate directly to mortals so he must use something like you. But it’s Dahak’s will that matters. And you know that whether or not I can kill Gabrielle, I sure can stop her from walking to that herm. Isn’t that right, Dahak?"
Again, there was silence for a short while. There was not even a whimper from Gabrielle. Xena did not look down, dared not look down. She must not waver now.
"So, you are willing to let Dahak enter your mind?" Hope asked, suspiciously. "Prove it. Open wide!"
Nothing visible happened. But then Xena closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, the flicker of a flame was visible for an instant between her eyelids.
Then a rattling intake of breath was heard from Gabrielle. She convulsed several times, each time less violent than before. Her eyes were open but unseeing. Her hand in Xena’s relaxed, gripped once, hard, and then went completely limp as unconsciousness set in.
Xena slowly put down Gabrielle’s hand on the white fur. She brushed her fingertips against Gabrielle’s neck, held them there for an instant, and nodded. She straightened, and looked at Gabrielle. It was not sleep, but it was not death either.
Achaea, Dorius and Deucalion watched Xena leave the alcove. As it became clear that she was walking straight at the herms, the three started moving.
They met her when she only had a third of the distance left to walk. In the middle was Deucalion, his halberd held pointed to the floor in front of him. To his left was Dorius with the horn-bar raised. Achaea was to his right, her sword still in her belt.
Xena slowed down slightly but did not stop.
"I don’t have time to explain, and I can’t expect you to pull out of a sacred duty just because a stranger tells you. So this is really the only way. I’m sorry."
At this, the Daimonia raised their weapons, and even Achaea reluctantly pulled out her sword.
Then Xena moved so fast as to make the other three seem like they were trying to swim in congealing liquid. Xena darted forward, yanked Deucalion’s halberd from his hands, and swung it to her left, where it caught Achaea’s sword. A twist with the pole arm caused the blade to dance far away. Next, she thrust the butt end at Dorius and connected with the exact middle of the bar holding the horns of his weapon together, thus blocking his attack. She dropped to one knee and let go of the halberd. As it was still falling the short distance to the icy ground, she formed twin daggers with the long- and index fingers of each hand and thrust them at Deucalion’s thighs. She rolled to the side to avoid him falling on top of her. Instead, he landed on the side of the still bouncing halberd. By then she had arrived at Dorius, who clumsily tried to stamp on her. She caught his foot with both hands, twisted it hard, thus stunning him with pain and unbalancing him. Then she heaved at the foot and felled him backwards. She jumped after, and delivered the same thigh-thrusts as Deucalion had received.
Then she was on her feet, turning towards Achaea. Achaea was ignoring her lost weapon and was instead crossing her arms.
"Go ahead," Achaea said. "Though I do not know which god has managed to possess you, your intent is clear. I cannot stop you. We of the Golden age can stand against the copper of heroes or the iron of slayers, but not against one who is both. So go ahead. Paralyse me if you wish. And then go and doom us all. A dead god will not be lenient when he can unleash his rage against the mortals who forgot him."
Xena met her gaze in silence and then continued towards the herms.

The petrified flames of Dahak seemed now like a hideous clawed hand, striped, deformed, half melted. But it was still only a piece of stone. Xena glanced at it. Then she knelt and picked up a small stone from the ground and closed the fingers of her right hand around it.
Then she did nothing, for a long while, at least nothing that could be readily seen. She shut her eyes for short periods now and then. A few times her lips moved almost imperceptible as if echoing an inner monologue.
After some time, she turned slowly away from the herm. She walked carefully towards another of them.
Xena halted in front of the new herm. She did look straight ahead, her gaze fixed above the horned head with the frozen tear on the cheek.
"Bacchus," she said in a dreamlike monotone. "I need to know if you’re really ready. Maybe you’re better off standing here, chewing frost."
"Oh, I’m ready, have no fear," Bacchus’ voice was booming, eager.
"Only, I don’t want to be the vessel of some weakling that doesn’t know that life’s for the taking."
"Don’t play with me!" he growled. "Free me now!"
Xena lowered her unblinking eyes and stared at the herm. Her face was blank with sweat. She slowly assumed a stance with slightly bent knees and her elbows raised a little. Something dark dripped on the ice gravel at her feet. Then she whirled around and delivered a fast kick that connected just below the head of the herm. It cracked apart, the stem falling heavily backwards and the head tumbling straight down, while splinters cascaded and dust rose upwards.
That dust was grey of stone and sparkling of ice, but instantly began to darken. And instead of dispersing, it just expanded in a controlled fashion, holding together to form a horned face, waving slightly as if seen through the waters of a pond when something stirs slowly in its depths.
Bacchus rolled with his eyes as if trying to take in all of the surroundings at once. Xena spread her arms slightly and raised an eyebrow.
With a thunderous roar, he dived into her head, his essence trailing behind like a fiery comet’s tail.

Bacchus, the whole of him, no longer a disembodied head, walked rapidly through the dark-blue corridor towards the great, black doors. They were decorated with brass swirls forming chakrams, swords and breastplate patterns of familiar design.
Snarling like a beast closing in for the kill he flung them open. Inside was a fire-lit hall with long rows of windows. Through them could be seen a wide variety of landscapes. A dark-haired girl fishing, two women in oriental silk dancing in the air, a warrior princess beside a sarcophagus turning towards a blonde girl entering the crypt…
But Bacchus did not look at those, he stared at the tall apparition in the middle of the room. The light came from her, from the flames that danced in her hair and boiled her flesh. Yet she held still, and even smiled with a burning face.
Then an opposite pair of windows far down the hall exploded and spewed out rolling balls of fire. Almost instantly the next pair erupted. And the next. And the next. And so on, with each pair flaming with louder thunder than the one before.
Bacchus opened his eyes wide but gaped even wider, and even as he put his hands out in front of him to ward them off, the flames raging on the woman began to stretch towards him. As the first glowing ribbon touched his mouth, he tried frantically to back, but could only stumble a single step. Like solar snakes, the flames left the woman’s body and shot sinuously through the air to his open mouth. His fingers, where they touched the fires, burst into flame themselves. His skin, dark red to begin with, began to glow lighter and lighter…
The last pair of windows bellowed with deafening strength as titan fists of flame shot out and caught the horned god as if he was nothing more than soft wax and paper.
Xena sunk to her knees with eyes glowing eerily. A moan escaped her lips. Blood seeped through the fingers of her clenched right fist. Then she doubled over and black smoke billowed out between her lips. She coughed and gagged. The light in her eyes flickered and then died.
Shaking, she managed to get to her feet.
Slowly, she relaxed and straightened up. The smoke near the floor dispersed and was gone. She opened her hand and let the blood and the pulverized stone drain away.

Xena and Gabrielle emerged at the top of the stairs. It was late twilight and a cold wind rustled their hair. Only at the far horizon was a sliver of amber glow seen. Overhead, stars twinkled where the clouds left thin openings.
Gabrielle sat down on a lump of ice. She was panting, but it was hardly the steep climb up the stairway that made her stare out over the mountains. She touched her cheek with her fingertip, slowly as in wonder. Her hand unfolded and she looked at it, seemingly without recognition.
Xena put a hand on her shoulder, but Gabrielle shuddered and she pulled it back.
"I'm all right," Gabrielle whispered in apology. "Or at least I will be."
She turned to glance up at Xena:
"How about you?"
"Well, you know," Xena smiled thinly.
"Yes," said Gabrielle, "I do know."
A smile was beyond her for the moment, but her face held a kind of serenity.
“It’s funny,” she said and let her eyes wander for a moment before returning to Xena, “but I feel…lighter. I mean, every piece of me aches and I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again…”
“Oh, you will,” Xena nodded, still smiling.
“…but it feels as if I had carried this huge lump of rock around and forgotten about it, and then it disappeared and I didn’t feel its weight anymore.”
And she stood up abruptly. The wind tore at her coat and she used one hand to hold it together.
"How could you be so sure that Bacchus would drain Dahak’s essence from you and die in the process?"
"I wasn’t sure," Xena answered and looked intently at Gabrielle:
"What I was sure about was that I didn’t want you to continue like that. But neither did I want to let either of those gods loose in the world again. And I learned a long time ago that doing nothing is usually the worst choice. You can fail even when you do something, but you can’t succeed if you don’t try."
"That’s almost a proverb," Gabrielle said with a smile.
"It’s worse than a proverb, it’s the truth," Xena smiled back. "Now, lets find that pass to Helvetia again. We’ve a plague to stop."
"Those fish-heads will be waiting for us," Gabrielle commented as they began walking along the ridge were they had emerged.
"Maybe, but I think we can handle them."
"'We'”? As in 'I don't' want you to hide away from the battle, Gabrielle'?"
"Yup. Can’t have you falling into holes and getting possessed by old gods all the time."
"That’s very funny. Thank you."

Aphrodite squatted gracefully, not an easy task but made possible by her fur-coat. It was cut so low over the bosom and so high over the hips that she seemed to wear a fuzzy ‘V’, in addition to her white boots and long, white gloves, and a voluminous hood carefully aligned expose quite a lot of her golden hair. She shot out her chin a little and rested it on a gloved hand.
"You never did know when to hold back," she commented in a nostalgic tone. The broken stone head on the ground was silent; it looked for all the world like a bizarre bifurcated teakettle.
Then she stood.
"Later," she said with a wistful smile. Then she bit her lip and added in a subdued voice: "Kinda."
And she left the truly dead god in a rain of gold.

AFTERWORD

Fan fiction is by definition derivative, but this piece maybe more than most. Dahak, Hope, Bacchus, forgotten memories that bring pain by fire, all this is old news. Nevertheless, I couldn't resist writing it in this manner. I simply had to construct a more thorough solution to Gabrielle's survival and subsequent amnesia and one thing gave another.
This made the piece somewhat lacking in innovation and slightly more simple in construction than the intricacies of a good XWP episode.
Thank you for your patience! :-)