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 episodes 4.84 (The Way) and 4.85 (The Play's the Thing). But there are no true spoilers to speak of even if you haven't seen season 4. It is describes events after the fan fiction episode The Enemy of My Enemy.
Sex & Violence: No sex. Some minor violence, but this is mainly a comedy piece.
Don't miss out on Christopher and Sofia's site The Chakram Arcs! http://medlem.spray.se/chakramarcs
THE HERMIAD
by Christopher Härnryd
The shadow of a bird passed by one of the many sails still not hauled among the masts in the harbour. Down on the gently rocking deck a stocky seaman, his dirty head cloth winded many times around his head, handed over a basket with a lid. Gabrielle accepted it happily and skipped down the gangway to where Xena stood waiting, leaning against a stocky pole.
"Let me guess," Xena begun. "You've bought a pet cobra."
"Xena," Gabrielle answered like a benevolent mother teaching her child. "What is Egypt known for?"
"Are you saying you have got a pyramid in the basket?"
Gabrielle tilted her head and opened her eyes wide in an eloquent way.
"All right," Xena continued. "Sand, toy crocodiles, mummies, nice wigs, statues with funny heads..."
"Papyrus. Papyrus, Xena."
Having established that, Gabrielle put the basket down on the cobblestones of the quay, removed the lid and extracted one of half a dozen scrolls of papyrus.
"What's wrong with parchment?" Xena wondered, straightening up.
"There's nothing wrong with parchment, but imagine the feeling when writing on the same material as the one used by the Egyptian wizards for their holy spells."
"Well, I wouldn't want to extinguish that particular gleam in your eyes, but you did try out those clay tablets when we were in Mesopotamia."
Gabrielle smiled and held the scroll in her hand, feeling its weight, almost massaging it with her fingers:
"Yes, they were to heavy and to fragile, yes you were right that time too. It is just that now when we are on Rhodes, I want to make the most of it. Egyptian traders don't come to the mainland that often, as you know."
The Warrior Princess neither denied nor confirmed the last statement. Instead she whirled around, coming face to face with a man in dark pantaloons, dark shirt and a dark and flat turban. He raised a short, single-edged blade against Xena's head, but before he had time to use it Xena deflected his right arm with her left and his left arm with her right, making the attacker stand with open arms for a moment, making an excellent target for a kick in the stomach. Doubled over, the man went flying backwards, landing heavily on some bags leaning towards another pole. Xena stepped forward with some measure of curiosity evident in her face, but the man suddenly scrambled to his feet and ran away at top speed.
"What was that all about?" Gabrielle wondered, more surprised than frightened.
After a quick glance to the town to make sure that no other attackers were coming, Xena smiled: "I haven't the faintest."
She asked a fisherman, sitting nearby repairing his net, evidently unconcerned with the event: "Do you know who that was?"
The fisherman answered slowly: "That, I do not know at all."
Xena and Gabrielle left the quay and went in to the town proper. A peddler of miniature colossi got himself an amused glance by the duo, but they did not buy anything. Gabrielle asked Xena: "Any news about that pirate dealing in stolen charts yet?"
"Nope. And unlike some, I have been busy the last few days."
That rendered her an offended look from Gabrielle: "Xena, I do in fact help in the hospital of the Sister of Gaia."
"Oh, yeah. Your work very hard telling stories to the sick people. Just remember to use your legs, not your back when lifting a large scroll."
"Mockery, mockery. Peaceful and uplifting surroundings are important to the healing process. The Sisters of Gaia are good with herbal medicine and care, but a hospital is not a very stimulating environment. I have an opportunity to give the sick people stories that are amusing and thought-provoking."
Xena glanced at a stand with shiny spears but kept walking. Gabrielle continued: "You're great at treating battle wounds in the field, but long-time care of the sick is something else. But keep patronizing, by all means. People always mock what they don't understand."
"No way! What people don't understand they fear and destroy. I'm only teasing you. I'm sure they will leave the hospital in no time with you being there bragging about me."
"I'm not bragging about you!"
"Oh, yes, you are. Okay, maybe not in the battle sequences and the major stuff, but you skip illness, all the practising, these days after big battles when I can barely move..."
"I too mention illness and practising, just not all the time. It would be boring to read."
"About as boring as reading about battles all the time, wouldn't you say? But you do spin a good yarn, I grant you that. And the Sisters, you haven't tried teaching them that yoga thing?"
They were once again interrupted, but this time no apparent danger was in sight:
"Haircuts," an older man in unruly white hair, a sharp nose and bulbous eyes offered. "May I offer you a new haircut? Bargain prices for newcomers! A fringe such as yours needs looking after. My fee is beyond reasonable."
"No thanks," Xena declined with a faint smile.
"Only two dinars? One dinar? Credit is no problem. Hair wash, full shampooing, the hairstyle of your choice and colouring at no extra cost all included." He made cutting motions with a pair of scissors in the air, evidently using the sound as an extra argument in itself.
"One dinar?" Gabrielle asked. "I could use some trimming..."
"Sorry," the hairdresser dismissed with an insulting wave of the hand. "The offer is only good for warriors."
"Half a dinar?" he offered to Xena who had begun to walk away. "Twice for half a dinar?"
"No," she answered calmly but no longer smiling.
" Excuse me," said a young voice belonging to a big-eyes and frail-looking teenage girl. "Miss? Are you really Xena, the Warrior Princess?"
The girl had placed herself in Xena's path and she halted with a questioning look.
"I'm a huge fan of yours!" the girl exclaimed. "Could I have just a tiny lock of your hair as a memento?"
"You have your own hair and I'd rather keep mine," Xena answered, pushing her gently but firmly out of her way.
The pair continued walking but didn't get more than four steps when a woman appeared behind an octopus vendor. She wore a complicated beige and crimson dress, full of creases and golden embroidery. Her nose was tilted upwards and her eyes narrow. Her bearing was one of cool elegance. She held a bundle of brushes in her hands: "Might I interest you in my brush collection? In order to prove the excellency of my brushes, I trade in your old, used ones at no charge. One old brush for a brand-new, elegant, ivory-inlayed hog's hairbrush."
Xena stopped, glancing at the collection. Then she looked up at the woman, grabbed her puffy sleeves and yanked her close, making the brushes clatter on the cobbles.
"Okay, spit it out!" she snarled. "What's going on?"
With remarkable control, the woman kept her calm and was silent. Gabrielle, clutching her basket of scrolls watched uncertainly: "Let's just say 'no, thank you' and move on, Xena?"
"Talk to me!" Xena hissed, not heeding her friend's suggestion.
The woman shrugged, at least facially, and answered: "The Hermiad, dear."
Then she made a motion with her shoulder blades and simply stepped out of her dress, evidently carefully designed to allow for this. Underneath, she was dressed in a light brown leather tunic. Immediately after, she executed a series of backward somersaults, carrying her out of reach in no time.
Gabrielle stared wide-eyed after her, trying out the unfamiliar word: "The Hermiad. -iad. Olympiad? Games of the Olympian gods. Hermiad? Herm...Hermes, god of thieves!"
Xena nodded, holding the abandoned dress firmly: "The Olympic games for thieves."
The cellar was warmly lit by torches and lamps. Autolycus and a middle-aged woman, her dimples a contrast to her serious eyes, sat next to each other behind a small table. On the table were several partly unfurled scrolls and a couple of inkhorns. In addition, there was a short staff entwined with twin ribbons.
"Coal from a Hestian temple fire," he said after a glance at the black lump held forth by the sooty hand. "Okay, Clepto the Magnus was it. Any other done with the featherweight class? No? Then I call upon the contestants in Hermian heavyweight to present their results."
An empty glass jar with a lid on was presented proudly by calloused hands. Autolycus finished scribbling a note in a scroll. Then he leaned forward and looked frowning at the jar, before glancing inquiringly at the stocky man in a round hat and bone white robe.
"The footsteps of a cat, Your Honour" the man beamed.
Autolycus took the jar, opened it, and put his ear to the opening, waited for a couple of moments and the shook his head. "Nope. Any more cat steps?"
The big-eyes teenager that had tried to hair-beg Xena pushed her way stealthily to the table, carrying a flat box, which she opened. The floor of the box was covered in sand, in which clear paw prints were visible.
"Okay, Autolycus approved. Thank you, Microphagia. Next!"
The beak-nosed hairdresser approached, also carrying a glass jar. The stocky man muttered something about theft of intellectual property. "The breath of a fish, Your Honour!"
Autolycus looked at the jar. It was filled with water.
"That appears to be the case Moriartus," he acknowledged and made a note. "Any more fish breaths?"
A huge man in ultramarine clothes stepped forward.
"Yes, Tyrannosaurus?"
The giant presented a small fish in his huge fist. Autolycus leaned forward until his nose was half an inch from the fish's mouth.
"This fish is dead. How do you propose making it breath?"
The man smiled and squeezed.
"Thank you," Autolycus said, slowly lifting a handkerchief and beginning to wipe excess fish from his face, paying special attention to his moustache. "Any more who have finished in the heavyweight class? No one?"
He leaned back in his chair. While continuing to clean his moustache, he then asked: "And, finally, the usual question at the end of the day. Have anyone achieved anything in the super heavyweight class, a goblet from the inn Pericles or a lock of hair from…"
A well-muscled and sabre-armed man came tumbling down the stair noisily, getting everyone's attention. A pair of knee-length boots in metal-adorned leather became visible at the top of the stair. With every step more and more of their wearer became visible. Muscular thighs, a short skirt of studded leather with a very characteristic circular throwing weapon dangling in the belt.
"…Xena," Autolycus finished, lamely. Apart from the moanings of the fallen doorkeeper and the footsteps of Xena, the room was silent.
"Autolycus", she said in a deceptively calm voice. "What do you think you are doing?"
Xena, Gabrielle and Autolycus stood in a corner of the room. The gathered thieves were divided into hostile coteries in the other corners. Autolycus co-judge remained calmly seated at the small table. Autolycus himself was in the middle of a defensive speech, the imploring tone of which contrasted sharply against the worldly smiling mask on his face: "Xena, you know exactly how fun it is to get challenged by an idiot a week and a complete lunatic a month. Besides, unlike you I have an active reputation to uphold."
Gabrielle interrupted Xena's reply before it had begun: "I thought you were a different kind of thief, someone who stole from the rich for the challenge of it. But with this you're gathering every rogue in Greece on one spot, exposing an innocent city to a crime wave!"
"But Gabrielle. Xena. Gabriella. Xena. This isn't what you think. These people aren't here to take children's candy and rob widows. I have only purely symbolic things that no one truly misses on the list. See for yourselves!"
He waved a scroll that Xena snatched and presented to Gabrielle without taking her eyes off him.
"I'm not here to talk law," Xena said. "But if you think that I'll accept that someone I call a friend sets up a contest in making me bald…"
"Xena," Autolycus grimaced, facing the increasingly difficult task of keeping his face out of sync with his words. "I'd never have written it had I for a moment believed that there was a flagon of sherbet's chance in Tartarus that anyone would succeed! You know you can eat any one of the contestants for breakfast with just a wave of your finger."
"Hum," she answered. "You put it next to nicking mugs at a tavern."
"Ha, ha, ha, I can tell you've never been to Pericles'!"
"It's still irresponsible," Gabrielle scolded. "Thieves are per definition criminals."
"And you know what they say about blondes," Autolycus replied, getting only cold silence in response. He continued: "Isn't it better that these criminals, as you call them, put all their efforts into chasing fish and stealing hairs than doing what you think they usually do?"
"What I don't get is why you so easily let them compete for your title, the King of Thieves?" Xena asked.
"Ha! That's the beauty of it! They are not competing for that title. All they are competing for is the honour of winning the first Hermic Games."
"In the real Olympics the winner gets a wreath of laurels and some olive oil," Gabrielle objected. "Are you telling me that these…individuals will be satisfied with just the honour?"
"Well, of course they do get the wreath, the oil and mumble, mumble."
Gabrielle cocked her head, frowning, in a quintessential listener's pose, and when Xena raised one eyebrow as well, he broke: "Yes, the wreath, the oil and the Girdle of Crius."
A short silence ensued, to be broken by Gabrielle: "Crius! The Titan?"
"Do you know many Criuses?" Autolycus confirmed, his face pejorative.
"Wouldn't a Titans girdle be just a tad large for a human?" Xena asked.
"It is really the ring of Crius," Gabrielle answered, the fires of a storyteller flaming up in her eyes. "When he pointed his ring-clad finger, he could summon earthquakes and bring down castles and mountains. But to humans, the ring is big as a girdle."
"Autolycus," Xena said. "Are you out of your mind? Are you really going to give away a thing like that to this bunch?"
He waved his hand in denial and regained some of his confident looks: "Naturally it isn't…"
He stopped and then continued in a lower voice: "Naturally it isn't the real Girdle. If it ever existed, it sits firmly on the finger of Crius and he sits firmly imprisoned in the earth since times immemorial."
Xena and Gabrielle glanced at each other. Gabrielle frowned in recollection and shook her head slowly.
"What?" Autolycus asked in irritation.
"We met Crius once," Xena answered. "It's a long story, but we did see his hands a lot. He didn't wear any ring."
Autolycus tried a joking smile, not managing very well. "You two are a real pain sometimes," he said. "But all right. If it means that much to you, this is what we'll do." He leaned forward and continued in a tone suggesting a conspiracy of the highest level: "I'll get a copy of the Girdle and present that as the prize instead."
"And the real one?" Xena asked, but there was nothing questioning about her tone.
"You take it and sink it in the sea or do something else productive with it. But we have to wait for a couple of days. It'll take some time to get an acceptable copy. But don't worry, it is in safe hands in the meantime." Sensing their scepticism, he would have had to close his eyes not to, he continued: "You see that woman at the table? Her name is Albanigra and she's a priestess of Hermes. She is here so we can make sure to no one tries to fool us with false goods. No thief wanting a careere dares cross Hermes. I may be the King of Thieves, but even I plan carefully before doing anything like that. She is the keeper of the entrance fee and the prizes for the time being. I'll talk to her and get her up to date with the problem. She thought it was a copy in any event, so this is not likely to cause any trouble."
"Good," Xena said. "You'll of course cross out my hair from the list. And there is one more thing I'd like you to help me with."
"Sure, anything!"
"Someone is stealing Greek navigational charts and selling them to a Roman admiral. I want the charts stolen back, given to me, and then returned before the admiral misses them."
"Er, oh…"
Xena patted him on the shoulder and started walking: "Make it a Hermic event!"
A lot of pairs of hostile eyes watched Xena and Gabrielle ascending the stair, as well as two pairs of thoughtful ones. One belonging to Autolycus, the other belonging to Albanigra.
The next day Xena was in the harbour, questioning a Phoenician skipper in striped clothes about the Roman man-o-wars he claimed to have seen at sea. In the background, partially obscured by a multitude of loud seagull and other birds, the giant bronze statue could be seen between whose legs the ships passed the jetties.
Some men came running, carrying a smaller chest. This they hauled aboard a small boat and then jumped on themselves, starting to untie the boat and push it away from the quay. The procedure itself was hardly original in a harbour, but the hastiness of it caught Xena's eye. But what shortly got her undivided attention was the three women who came running. Two of them wore the dark veils of the Sisters of Gaia. The third one was Gabrielle.
"Stop! Thieves! one of the Sisters cried. They took the hospital's funds!"
Seeing her friend, Gabrielle simply shouted: "Xena!"
Calmly, Xena dislodged her chakram, raised it, and let it fly towards the escape boat, still not many yards out. It severed a couple of vital frames and caused the half-raised sail to collapse like a net over the thieves. Inefficient chaos ensued onboard as several people blindly tried to disengage themselves from heavy canvas aboard a rocking boat.
But as the chakram bounced a final time against the quay and began its return trip to her hand, a grotesque scream was heard and a large russet bird swooped down from the sky, snatching the flying metal circle, and returning up towards the clouds.
Gaping uncharacteristically and with wide eyes, Xena stared after the pilfering bird, already a diminishing dot against the bright sky. Surprised, Gabrielle also followed its flight with her eyes for a few moments, but then she snapped out of it and grabbed a grappling hook atop a neat coil of rope. She whirled it a couple of times in the air and then let go, making it fall almost lazily towards the wildly rocking boat. With a thud it landed on the rail. Gabrielle began pulling with all her strength, but realizing that it was hardly sufficient, she cried out to her companion.
The Warrior Princess tore her gaze from the sky, made a running jump and somersaulted out to the thieves' boat. She landed on the fallen sail. A thief, newly emerged from its clutches, jumped to his feet and smiled inspired, while grabbing the sail and yanking it. Xena made a modest jump, the thief tumbled backwards, knocking himself out cold against the rail, while Xena put her foot on one of the suddenly exposed thieves' arm. The third and final thief rose to his knees but appeared to lack a good plan. Xena pointed at the oar by her foot: "To the quay."
Xena marched quickly with the chest in her arms. Gabrielle and the Sisters of Gaia followed, running to keep up, the latter gasping words of gratitude. Looking exceedingly grim, Xena refrained from saying anything at all. As they reached the white-chalked wooden building that was the hospital, she entered, put the chest down on the floor and turned around. Immediately by the door, a bearded man sat clutching his shoulder while whining to a crouching Sister: "But isn't it very painful to put a disjointed shoulder into position?"
Xena halted for a moment, grabbed the man by his upper body and arm, yanked, and resumed her march out past the newly arrived Sisters.
"Aargh! Oh. Hum."
"What kind of bird was that?" Gabrielle asked as they continued briskly through the streets of Rhodes.
"Any ordinary bird would have had its beak cut in half," Xena answered, grimly. "That was a Stymphalian copper bird."
"But, didn't Hercules kill them?" A glance that practically shouted evidently not was all she got in return. "So, what are we going to do?"
"Find the rotten bird, get my chakram, and have coq-au-vin for a week."
"Okay," Gabrielle nodded thoughtfully. "So, what are we going to do?"
"And then there is this type, the shopkeeper droned," picking up from a shelf what seemed like a midget recorder.
The store was in the hunting trade. Little cages, harpoons, crossbows, wooden bird replicas, Phrygian conical hats with little feathers, fishing rods and the like was hanging or laying in claustrophobical closeness in the little room.
Xena snatched it and made a test blow: "SQRAAK!"
Gabrielle shook her head with a frown. "Try the other one again," she suggested, presenting a whistle with bubonic plague and was deprived of it: "BREEK!"
With a headshake, Xena put the whistle atop a lobster trap. The servile and, taking into account the wealth of food-collecting devices around, suspiciously thin shopkeeper had meanwhile put forth a bulimic panpipe.
"BLERK!"
Xena and Gabrielle nodded thoughtfully and then shook their heads, equally thoughtfully. Smiling, the shopkeeper presented what he evidently saw as a true trump card in the circumstances. Unlike the previous contraptions in various organic materials, this was a miniscule brass trumpet. Xena accepted it, put it to her lips and filled the room with a chilling: "GARK!"
Unable to conceal a small smile, she nodded and held it between her thumb and index finger: "We'll take it."
While the shopkeeper collected the offered coins, Gabrielle asked: "What is it designed for?"
"It is an Etruscan crocodile chaser," he smiled and nodded. "Very popular."
As they were leaving, she halted and half-turned back to the waving shopkeeper: "But, are there crocodiles in Etruria?" His smile broadened, he shook his head and made an emphatic thumbs-up. Gabrielle smiled slightly in return, turned her face forward and then shook her head herself.
A shepherd was sitting peacefully outside his hut, listening to the bleating of his sheep. An ewe was grazing by his legs. The spry singing of little birds was the only divergence from the soothing sound of safe, grazing and calm sheep…
"GARK!"
Terrified, he managed to get up from the ground, kicking away the stool that had landed on his stomach. Holding his shepherd's staff like a halberd he glanced around, only seeing a couple of women on a nearby boulder.
After peering lengthily at the sky, Xena shook her head and jumped off the boulder. A couple of sheep ran past her, narrowly avoiding being landed on by Gabrielle, following her friend down. A shepherd came running.
"Have you seen," Xena began.
"Just let me catch these last ones," he panted in response and ran on.
They looked at his retreating back, but Xena shrugged and put the crocodile chaser to her lips: "GARK! GARK!"
"Baah! Baaaaaah!"
"No!"
The fisherman at the scenic mountain creek waded angrily ashore, dripping wet and with his lunch- basket floating upside down next to a sinking loaf of bread and a bobbing amphora. Xena and Gabrielle passed by some ten yards above, their eyes fixed on the sky.
"Are you sure it lives on high ground?" Gabrielle asked.
"Do you have a better idea?"
"…"
"GARK!" it resounded at the peak of the mountain, and a multitude of birds of moderate size took flight.
"GARK!" it echoed in the glade, and the hares dispersed in panic.
"GARK!"
"GARK! GARK! GAAAARK!"
By dusk, the pair was on its way back to the city of Rhodes. They were somewhat coloured by the elements of the wild and, at least as far as Xena was concerned, not very happy.
"Xena, Rhodes is a large island. There are more places to search."
"Hrumph."
"We can put up posters: Lost: metal circle with inlays of gold and gems, reward: one hundred dinars. One thousand dinars?"
"Hrumph!"
"What kind of metal is that, by the way? Steel? The metal of Hephaistus? That Amazon alloy?"
They continued in silence.
Gabrielle glanced compassionately at her friend: "Is there anything I can do for you?"
Xena managed half a smile, brief as lightning far away, but did not reply.
"It's only a weapon after all. There are thousands of weapons in the world. Weapons are not everything."
"Hrumph!"
By now they had reached the city proper and entered between the stone houses. Gabrielle bit her lip and tried to come up with something encouraging to say. Finally, she sighed and shook her head: "Maybe you'll simply have to get use to its absence."
Xena whirled to face her and stabbed the air with her index finger like a sword: "I WILL NOT accept defeat!" She calmed quickly but straightened her back and began watching the nearby roofs with a calculating eye: "I think I have an idea…"
Gabrielle smiled to herself.
As they approached the inn where they were staying they noticed a torch lit crowd nearby. By the looks of it, someone had opened a quarry in the middle of the city.
"What's happened?" Xena asked.
"It just collapsed!" a distraught woman exclaimed. "The house began to shake and I barely got out before everything just collapsed."
"Earthquake," a big-eared man noted almost smugly.
Xena glanced around. Despite the evening gloom, this area was well lit by all the torches and lights spilling out from nearby windows. "If it was an ordinary earthquake, these houses would have been damaged too," she pointed out.
"Bah," said the big-eared one. "Sloppy construction work."
"Are you calling my late husband, may he rest in peace, sloppy!" the woman snarled.
"Calm down," Xena intervened with a tone of veiled steel that got through. "Did no one of you others notice anything in your houses?"
People looked at each other, scratched their hair and shook their heads thoughtfully.
"Nothing besides the noise when Xanthippe's house came down," someone said and got mumbles of agreement from those around.
Xena leaned towards Gabrielle: "Find out if anyone knows anything else."
"Okay. Where are you going?"
"To see Autolycus and that Hermian priestess."
Xena entered the other, exceedingly shady inn. Various unshaved and muscular folk stared at her. Ignoring them, she went straight for an inner door, in front of which a sabre-armed thug with a bandaged head stood with arms crossed. She stopped in front of him and said: "Knock, knock."
Reflexively, he touched his aching head, swallowed, and stepped aside while opening the door. The steady din of angry words rose like flames from down below.
"…and I say she is delayed," Autolycus said with strained patience.
"And I say this," Moriartus answered. "If she is not here very shortly, we will reclaim the entrance fee from your own pockets."
"With interest," Tyrannosaurus rumbled, pulling a knife that was more hook than blade.
Autolycus jerked when Xena put her hand on his shoulder, but he exhaled with obvious relief when he noticed whom it was that stood behind him in the stair. The angry gathering below the stair glared at the newcomer, but refrained from making more threats.
"Autolycus," Xena said, leaning towards him. "How are the charts doing?"
"They're fine, thank you. But do you mind discussing that later, I've something of a situation here." The last part of the sentence was whispered with over-the-top articulation.
"Where is Albanigra?"
"That's the situation. Let's go upstairs."
He raised his hand at the contestants and smiled broadly: "Ten minutes recess for consultations. Be right back. Everything is under control."
Then he turned and began ushering Xena upwards. She gave him a look and he immediately withdrew his hands, still smiling. They continued up. When they were in the bar, they went to an empty rectangular table, showed the empty mugs aside and sat down, leaning towards each other across the table.
"Autolycus, has she stolen the Girdle of Crius?"
"Looks like it. And the entrance fee."
"Was it worth stealing?"
"Only if you consider a thousand dinars a piece worth stealing."
"You said earlier that no one would dare tricking a Hermian priestess. Do Hermian priestess trick people?"
Autolycus wiggled his head this way and that as he turned his hand around in the air: "Hermes IS the good of thieves. And wayfarers. But never in circumstances like this. There is something called honour among thieves."
"Is there?"
"Hum, evidently not to the extent I would wish. But this is most odd."
Xena drummed her fingers on the table and glanced over her shoulder. Then, she fixed him with her gaze and asked slowly: "How do you know that she really is a Hermian priestess?"
"What a question! The very thought! I can tell it has been a while since you last used, erm, creative allocation of resources."
She repeated the question by raising an eyebrow.
"Yup. Perfect. Capital. The King of Thieves is fooled. She stole the staff of office or made it herself in arts and crafts."
Autolycus leaned his head on his right palm. His face was one big frown. "I don't even know where she lives," he muttered. "I need a drink."
He raised his hand to attract the attention of the innkeeper. When he and Xena had a goblet each in front of them he stretched out his hand, grasped the goblet, lifted it with troubled autopilot to his mouth and halted. Xena held his wrist in an iron grip. Autolycus stared at the goblet, glanced at Xena's hand and then looked up, questioningly. She moved her eyes meaningfully and he turned his head in a controlled manner. By the bar was the stocky thief in bone-white robes, carefully tying shut a small bag while maliciously peering at Autolycus. Autolycus echoed his grin and returned his gaze to Xena. She had released his wrist. Nodding thoughtfully, he put down his goblet with its content untouched. Then their eyes began to wander.
Tyrannosaurus had positioned himself by the door out, his large curved knife in his hand. Next to him stood the dark-clothed villain that had initially approached Xena. Through the door entered now Moriartus followed by four crossbowmen in brown leather and small helmets with nasal guards. At a table Microphagia sat, cutting a paper-thin slice of an apple with a narrow dagger. And next to her was the elegant woman who hade tried to exchange brushes. She now wore a different creation in green and gold. She was just finishing screwing on the last spikes on a large morning star. She smiled and nodded.
Moriartus stopped at some distance from Xena's and Autolycus' table while the crossbowmen quickly stepped into separate corners of the room. The few guests unaccounted for began discreetly to slide under tables or behind wooden pillars.
"I speak as ombudsman for the contestants," Moriartus began. "We want to declare our unhappiness with the present management of the competition. But, we would very much like to continue with the Hermiad. Accordingly, we want you to relinquish the prize to us, as well as the entrance fee and any other valuables on or about your person. We do, after all, have a reputation to uphold."
"Old Moriartus," Autolycus answered with a smile, making an elegant half turn in his chair. "Old Moriartus, and I hope you will excuse my use of the epithet 'old' in a derisive context, you run the risk of becoming disqualified for the use of unlawful substances and aids." He indicated the crossbowmen.
"Funny that you should mention them," Moriartus said, also smiling. "And concerning you, Xena, I could not help but noticing that your signature chakram seems to have been displaced. You can hardly catch four crossbow quarrels coming simultaneously from four different directions. It would seem like you, Autolycus, will have to cope without her protection in a few moments."
"Kill her."
While Autolycus dived headlong to the floor, Xena grabbed two of the table legs and manoeuvred the table onto her back, letting it hang supported by the two table legs now resting on her shoulders. Two quarrels struck the improvised back-shield with a single thud, the remaining two she caught deftly, one in each hand. She dropped them and grasped the table legs anew, bending forward and hurling the table over her head, making it crash into one of the shooters who had time to open his eyes wide and then closing them hard, but not anything else.
The remaining crossbowmen began reloading, but Xena rushed one of them, snatching a carafe in passing. Carafe in hand, she kicked the crossbow from his grip and the consciousness from his head, spun around, dodged a quarrel and threw the carafe. It hit a torch on a pillar next to one of the crossbowmen, the potent alcohol causing an explosion of fire and shards into the face of the third shooter. Number four had her in his sight but seemed determined to make his shot count, thus hesitating a little. Xena strode up to him, cold murder in her eyes, and his resolve began to waver. The crossbow shook, wavered and was then lowered and he began to back away. Since he was already in a corner, he did not get far. Xena locked eyes with him and he heard more than he felt how his crossbow turned to splinters by her kick.
Autolycus watched how Microphagia and the woman in green and gold nodded to each other, rose, and began walking towards him with their weapons high.
"Microphagia, Rafflesia, you do know that you are not yet disqualified. You still have the opportunity to…"
Swish! Crash!
He jumped out of the way of the knife flashing against his belly and dodged the morning star that struck a wooden pillar. While crouching on the floor, he snatched a wooden plate and threw it straight at Microphagia's forehead, making her strike out with arms and legs and then fall symmetrically like a dropped doll. Rafflesia, on the other hand, struck again with her morning star, and again, and again. She smiled eagerly like a child getting hold of a long desired toy. Autolycus managed to keep the pillar mostly between them.
"Need some help?" Xena asked as she walked past calmly.
"Me? No, no! Why?"
Tyrannosaurus and his companion choose this moment to rush Xena with their knives. She sidestepped but put out her leg, making Tyrannosaurus stumble and falling into a couple of stools. The black-clad companion stabbed several times in rapid succession without quite reaching her. When he made a brief pause, Xena went for him, catching the knife arm, turning it until the knife was dropped and the thief made a painful somersault to the side. By now, Tyrannosaurus was standing again, having enrichened his arsenal with a stool held in one leg like an unwieldy club. While clumsily waving both stool and knife he approached Xena.
She awaited him with a confident smile, but suddenly her smile froze and she turned around. There was Microphagia, a red bump on her forehead but otherwise wide awake. She held Xena's sword in two hands.
"You're good," Xena admitted.
"I am," Microphagia answered with a smug smile.
Without turning, Xena planted a rapid back-kick in Tyrannosaurus' stomach, making him stumble back away from her.
"And what do you plan to do now?" she asked Microphagia. Still smiling, Microphagia gave the sword back.
"Good plan," Xena nodded. "And don't ever do that again."
"Nah, it's no challenge if you've done it before!"
With that Microphagia ran behind the counter and began pouring herself a drink. The innkeeper who was hiding there gave her an angry look.
"Don't worry, I can pay for it."
Given the circumstances, the innkeeper accepted this and retreated into hiding.
"I just won't," she mumbled, sipping the drink from the long, thin wooden cup.
Autolycus managed in desperation to get a hold on the shaft of Rafflesia's morning star. Fixed by two pair of hands it was now effectively neutralized as a wepon. With a sudden look of wild inspiration, Autolycus began unscrewing the head part of the weapon. Not only were the spikes screwed on, the whole weapon was a conglomerate of smaller parts, all for ease of discrete transportation. Angrily Rafflesia showed her knee up into his crotch, making him gasp for breath and release his grip. He staggered backwards, stumbled over a stool, but transformed the involuntary backward fall into a controlled backward flip and landed on his feet. In his hand he now held another wooden plate. While Rafflesia was still fastening the head of the morning star more securely, he took careful aim and threw the plate straight at Rafflesia's forehead. She staggered but remained standing. After a shake of her head she began walking to him.
Xena waited for Tyrannosaurus to approach, but decided after one quick look to the side to get two for the price of one. With a cheerful cry she jumped up into the air and kicked out with one leg towards Tyrannosaurus' head and with another leg at Rafflesia's.
Moriartus, by now standing at the door out, decided that this was a good moment to leave. This made him collide with Gabrielle. His fear gave him an edge were reflexes were concerned and he pulled a tiny knife, lightning fast, and pointed it at her throat. Gabrielle tensed, but was clearly more annoyed than afraid: "Xena! When you arrive at a thug's den I expect it to be safe to enter by this time."
"Stop," said Moriartus. "Not a step closer if you want her alive."
"Stop the nagging already," Xena retorted, the elation of the double kick evaporating quickly. "You haven't lost your favourite weapon recently."
"I have lost all weapons, remember?"
Moriartus appeared to feel his initiative slipping and got behind Gabrielle, putting one arm around her throat and the knife immediately below her ear: "Stay where you are and no one will be hurt."
"Did you find out anything?" Xena asked as she took a wooden plate from one of the few tables remaining upright.
"Well, there had been some trouble with the stability of several houses in the neighbourhood earlier, but several people could testify that the one that collapsed was very sturdy."
Moriartus rallied and even smiled: "I suspect that your forced chitchat is a way of not dealing with the fact that in the absence of your chakram, you have no means whatsoever to harm me without penetrating the young lady."
Xena appeared to take notice of the situation for the first time and glanced at him with an unreadable expression. Then she punched her fist straight through the centre of the plate. Having everyone's undivided attention, she then weighed the remaining wooden circle in her hand, calculating. She then threw it.
It bounced against one pillar, then against another, then against a wall, and finally struck the side of Moriartus' head, where it burst into pieces.
"Ow!" Gabrielle exclaimed and disengaged from the arm of the unconscious thief.
"Are we done?" Xena asked straight out into the air, but clearly addressing those thieves still clinging to consciousness. "Good. The Hermiad is cancelled. If I ever see any of you again I will be irritated."
"Ditto," an anonymous thief mumbled into the floor.
"Okay," Gabrielle said to Xena as they stood on the quay in the morning sun. "Autolycus is on his way to get the charts. Why aren't we on our way, and where to?"
"Because," Xena said, "someone wants us to go."
"Er, yeah…you for example to get your chakram."
"Precisely."
"You mean that your chakram was stolen just to lure you away from the city? That's pretty advanced thinking for a bird."
"I'm fairly certain there's no birdbrain behind this."
"Hum. What animal are you suspecting then?"
For answer, Gabrielle got a tired look.
"When will Autolycus be back, by the way?" Gabrielle wondered.
"Well, I have to locate the Roman admiral, get in, find the charts, leave without any trace of him being there…I'd say in about fifteen minutes."
Just then one of the houses in the harbour began to shake. Wooden dust filtered down the partly visible people inside began nervously to make for the door. It was opened by a man who ushered out children of different ages. Now the building began to collapse. The cries of panicking children could barely be heard over the rising rumble. Xena leapt forward and pulled out the man who obviously could neither leave the children, nor summon the courage to run in and get them. Inside, a mere toddler of a girl and a marginally older boy was standing. All around them disjointed parts of planks from the ceiling and splinters of wood were falling.
Xena rushed in and lifted the little girl in her arms and turned to the exit, where Gabrielle appeared. Xena hurled the girl towards Gabrielle, who wide-eyed managed to catch her. Now the ceiling broke entirely and parts of the walls folded and shattered. A massive beam fell down straight att Xena and the boy, who curled up like a ball. Xena landed on her back next to him but managed to brace herself with both arms and legs against the descending beam. Grimacing with effort, she brought it to a halt, while everything on the sides became crushing and crushed debris.
Gabrielle jumped back with the girl held hard against her as the final collapse occurred.
"Xena? Xena!"
Gabrielle handed over the girl to the panting man and threw herself into the devastation, but she had hardly began lifting remnants of planks when an angry scream was heard from the middle of the heap. The scream was initially muffled but increased in intensity as a thick fallen beam slowly began to rise. Xena became visible underneath, pressing with arms, chest and forehead against the weight of the beam, getting it up into a vertical position. She gave it a final push in the opposite direction and it fell with a crunching thud. Then she lifted the boy up and stepped out of the ruin with him in her arms. But she did not look at either Gabrielle, the presumed father or any of the people gathering around. Instead she looked past the enclosed body of water at the jetties and up at the immense colossus in bronze that stood guard over the entrance to the harbour.
"Are you all right?" a worried Gabrielle asked.
"Oh, yeah. Apart from this."
Xena got the crocodile chaser from her belt. It was bent and dented.
"But I think I now where to find another one."
"Do you think the shop has more of them? Does it matter if we aren't looking for the bird anyway?"
"I wasn't talking about the shop."
Having said that, she handed over the boy to the man, ignored his stuttering thanks and began walking briskly along the quay towards the pire leading out to the jetties. Gabrielle glanced at the children, found them physically unharmed, and thus began hurrying after her friend.
With wooden dust and splinters in her hair, face and other visible areas of armour and body, Xena was a somewhat ruffled apparition, but despite or because of that, people went to great lengths to get out of her way, one thin man stepping so close to the edge of the quay that he was left flailing his arms for balance for several seconds before the passing Gabrielle, steadied him out of harms way.
"Do you believe the bird is in the Colossus?"
"Yup! And I think I know who else is in there."
"Who?"
They rounded a statue of a triton and entered the pier. Clouds of seagull infested the air and Gabrielle shot them a nervous glance.
"Think, what could have caused the collapse of those buildings?"
"Freak earthquakes, sudden material decay…"
"Come on!"
"Okay, the Girdle of Crius. But it's missing along with…Albanigra."
Now they were approaching the giant statue itself. It was a happy man in loincloth and sandals with ribbons going up nearly to the knees. The man's feet were firmly planted on opposite sides of the entrance and in his lifted right hand he held a torch. From this distance you could actually see a door in the foot. Xena went up to it, tried to yank it open and then kicked it a few times. Metallic bangings was the only result.
"Locked and barred. Good. She is still in there." Xena backed a couple of steps and looked up, here eyes thin slits against the blinding sky. Up in the head of the Colossus, there appeared to be windows in the formalized hair. "Just before this latest collapse I was watching the Colossus, she said while continuing to look up, measuring, calculating. And it was as if the air was quivering just then and just there."
She nodded, more to herself than to Gabrielle, and jumped up on the Colossus' foot, clinging. Then she began to climb upwards. She made rapid progress. The leg was leaning and had plenty of hand- and footholds because of the ribbons of the sandal. Soon she reached the knee. From here, the ascent was slower. The statue was pretty realistic and the marked muscles were rounded and difficult to hold on to. But she continued, albeit slower, and finally grabbed the lower end of the loincloth.
"GARK!"
"Watch out!" Gabrielle shouted.
Holding on hard with her hands but unable to get a stable foothold, Xena looked around. From out of one of the windows in the head the coppery bird shot, unfolding its wings into a questing glide. It circled the Colossus once, glaring with bloodshot eyes. It was slightly shorter than Gabrielle, but its wings measured many yards. The talons looked powerful and the beak was like a pair of swords.
Now it appeared to have decided a target and flapped towards Xena. She gripped the loincloth hard with her hands and swung her lower body out of the way of a fly-by bite. A kick after the turning bird made little impact. GARK-ing loudly, it rose a number of yards before taking a sloping dive at Xena. She pulled her sword with her right hand and held on only with her left while she rocked out of the way, cutting at the metallic feathercoat. Unfortunately, the feathers appeared to be truly metallic. A clang and a rustle signaled the inefficiency of the cut. Xena braced herself as well as she could against an unpleasantly rounded muscle of the tigh and showed the sword back into the scabbard. Then she pulled herself up onto the loincloth. Here were som folds that eased the climbing somewhat, but the there was no slope to speak of.
The bird attacked again, but Xena grabbed hold firmly with her hands at level with her head and kicked out with both feet against the bird's head. Momentarily stunned it lost height and struggled to flap its wings while trying to regain equilibrium. Xena climbed on and was now past the waist. Now the left arm of the Colossus came as a relief, boldly resting the hand on the hip and thus creating a hollow where there were plenty of holds and above all somewhere to stand. Now the copper bird was on the move again and came sweeping against her where she stood. But now she ducked deftly away from the attack and grabbed both claws in her hands.
The bird was halted and tried to stabilize by flapping its wings, but the space between arm and torso was to narrow for that. Not wasting time, Xena squeezed the claws together, transferred her grip entirely to her left hand to hold them in place, and struck out with her fist at the clapping bird's head. She caught the neck in an iron grip, cried out high on adrenaline and wrung the beast's neck.
Gabrielle watched the cadaver make ground contact with a terrible rattle next to the foot of the Colossus and called up: "A feather in your cap!"
"Better than ten in the woods," Xena answered and resumed climbing.
"GARK!" something sounded again, down from the head of the statue. GARK!
By now Xena had reached the shoulder and made good use of the smiling countenance to get up to a window in the hair. Without hesitation she rolled in through it and landed. The room was not very large, but the view was breathtaking with windows in all directions, letting in the rich city of Rhodes, the glittering harbour, the wind swept sea outside the jetties and the sapphire sky. And seagulls, seagulls and seagulls.
Xena did not however register this in anything but a most peripheral way, but immediately noted the improvised bed, the treasure chest with the abnormally large lock, the hole in the flood revealing a stair leading down, and Albanigra, standing accessorized with a gleaming golden girdle, broad and made of intricate but somewhat coarse filigree. Between her lips she also held an Etruscan crocodile chaser.
"Blow it if you want to," Xena said as she jumped to her feet and took a step in her direction.
Albanigra shrugged and spat it out. Then she pulled out the chakram from a fold in her robe: "You want this, don't you?"
"Among other things," Xena said, slowly coming to a halt. To slowly come to a halt while already walking slowly is a skill, but the dignity in the motion was impossible to describe in any other way.
"You would not like me to throw it into the sea, then?" Albanigra continued with a soft smile.
"The important thing is that you give me the Girdle," Xena answered, echoing the smile with her mouth only.
"I think I will hold onto both objects for the time being, if you don't mind. You appear to have cost me the Stymphalian bird."
"A relative of yours?"
"Indeed. I am, or was the poor things stepmother. Hercules, with his usual thoughtfullness neglected to destroy all the eggs after having defeated the adult birds. I was in the neighbourhood, heard about his mighty deed and went to look for scraps. One egg appeared to be alive, I managed to hatch it, raise and train the resulting bird and there you are."
"Just give me the Girdle."
"Have you no vision?"
Xena tensed involuntary.
"Aren't you going to at least ask me way a destroyed those houses?"
Relaxing somewhat, Xena said: "No. Since I have no vision I simply believe that you want to scare the city into coughing up some money."
"Hum, that is in fact partly right. But you don't know what I intend to do with the money or the wonderful twist of fate that my use of the Girdle is."
"No, and I don't care."
"You had the chance yourself once, but wasted it."
When Xena did not offer the expected or indeed any response, Albanigra continued regardless: "To awaken the Titans and control them!"
"Ta-da," Xena said dutifully. "By rattling coins until they complain about the noise?"
"Exactly! Money can buy a lot of things, knowledge, virgins, much more than you think."
"I think, that I will take the Girdle from you. Last chance. Give it to me and we don't have to meet again."
With this, Xena took a step forward. Albanigra smiled broadly and threw the chakram out through a window. A surprisingly substantial splash was heard. Xena continued and Albanigra stepped quickly to a window overlooking the city. She raised her right arm and pointed at the city.
"YOUR last chance, Xena! Leave or watch me destroy the entire city."
But Xena did not stop but broke into a run. Albanigra's face contorted in rage and she clenched her right hand into a fist and then opened it. A wavering as from superheated air became visible in her open palm and began spilling out into an expanding cone, out through the window, out towards the city. But Xena leaped forward and grabbed the arm, forcing it down so that it pointed against the floor.
"You're mad!" Albanigra cried. "We will both die!"
A sound like the mother of all gongs rose up through the floor and intermingled with a mounting din of rattles and screaming metal. The floor shook and began to slope, first one way, then another. The wrestling women tumbled this way and that. Now the slope stabilized in one direction but began to increase in an accelerating manner. Albanigra managed to kick herself out of Xena's grasp, a triumphant open-mouthed smile on her face. But the triumph changed into terror as Xena caught a window-frame and heaved herself out with all her might into the empty air.
Xena flipped to get into a suitable position for the brutal landing in what would hopefully be deep water and experienced a few sickeningly long moments. Behind her, the Colossus folded and shattered slowly with a rumble that seemed to fill every last corner of the Universe.
When Xena struck the water and disappeared into its depth she was followed by large chunks of bronze.
Eventually she resurfaced, noisily sucking in the air she had sorely missed. Treading water, she looked at the rampaged half of the jetties and the bronzed junkyard atop. She had landed outside the jetties in the open sea. A short distance away she could make out a familiar beacon: "Gabrielle! What are you doing here?"
They swam towards each other smiling. Gabrielle held up a dripping ring in the air with a smile well as triumphant as Albanigra's: "When I saw you chakram fall, I jumped in straight away."
"I was hoping you did," Xena gasped. "That splash I heard was a tad large for a tiny chakram, more like a stout bard."
"What! Are you calling me fat!"
"Nonono, just well built. That yoga stuff is good for you. Now give me my chakram."
"What's the magic word?"
"Do you really want to know?"
Autolycus proudly presented a pair of navigational charts to Xena as she was toweling her hair dry. They were in a small room in a different inn. Gabrielle was changing clothes behind a screen. Xena accepted the charts and sat down with them in her lap and Gabrielle's bag at her side. She began rummaging around int it, but Gabrielle stuck out a ruffled head and a barer shoulder and interrupted: "Hey! The writing material is always in the little pocket on the outside. I don't want my scrolls messed up."
Xena snorted, but opened the little pocket and extracted inkhorn and pen, which she offered to Autolycus: "Hold."
"Don't worry," he said. "I'm not leaving."
Not deigning to answer, Xena pulled out her chakram. After playfully swirling it balancing on the tip of her finger she grasped it more securely and bent over the charts. "Now then, the Shoals of Hades, off you go." She scratched carefully with the sharp edge against the parchment, erasing. "Charybdis…" Scratch, scratch. "The Razor Rocks…"
Autolycus, immediately bored, glanced at the screen. An oil-lamp inside with Gabrielle projected an interesting but incomplete silhoutte on the screen. He turned his attentions back to Xena: "Those warrior hands of yours shouldn't be doing delicate stuff like that. Let a trained manual equilibrist assist."
"Glad to. Keep holding."
Gabrielle emerged, now dressed in identical silks. These were dry, however. With mounting astonishment she watched Xena's endeavours: "Do you know how many times I have BEGGED to borrow the chakram for that?"
"How many?" Autolycus asked, all attentive compassion.
"Stop whining," Xena mumbled, deeply focused. "There."
She took the pen from Autolycus, but stopped and offered it to Gabrielle: "Could you write what I say so that it looks like the same handwriting as the rest of the chart?"
Appeased, Gabrielle smiled and took over the writing part. Autolycus looked hurt and bored but had to be content with holding the inkhorn.
"The Shoals of Hades, put it in the middle of that fairway. We can put Charybdis out here…"
After a while a knocking on the door interrupted them. Autolycus leapt to the occasion and put the inkhorn on the bed. He opened the door and looked into a wall of stern guardsmen. Smiling, he nodded in greeting and slammed the door shut.
"Xena, it's for you!" he announced, striding over to the window through which he swung out and away.
Frowning, Xena looked up from Gabrielle's meticulous penning and went to the door and opened it: "Yes?"
A man in a long red robe and a hat in pink and gold pushed forward through the guards, wearing studded leather armour and helmets in the likeness of the Colossus' head.
"You are Xena, aren't you?" he asked, frowning with bushy white eyebrows.
"Yes. Who're you?"
"Mithrates, ruler of Rhodes. I have just inspected the damage in the harbour." When he did not get an answer, he cleared his throat and glanced at the guards as if to summon some courage: "There are divergent stories about you. Those of more recent origin seem mostly to be in your favour. Because of this, I came here to informally hear your version."
"Sure. A bad guy wanted to destroy the city and I got her to destroy the statue instead. Cheaper to clean up, no victims apart from the baddie. You want anything else, Mithrates?"
"Erm, yes, I would like to hear some specifics, if you don't mind…"
Xena sighed and said over her shoulder: "Gabrielle!"
After carefully putting the charts away in an out of the way location, Gabrielle went to her side, smiling politely at Mithrates and looking questioningly at him and Xena.
"Bard time," Xena said, making space for her and returning to the room.
She threw herself on the bed. Then she sat up and touched her thigh. The hand became dark with ink. Something else on the edge of her vision made her react, and she hurled herself to the side, yanking away Gabrielle's bag, where the charts was sticking up, out of reach from a large drop of ink on its way down from the edge of the bed.
Mithrates tried to look past the shoulder of Gabrielle, who thoughtfully met his gaze, deducted where it was going and with great presence of mind put herself in the way. She took a deep and calm breath, closed her eyes briefly and then began: "I sing of Xena, who…"
She realized something and interrupted herself: "What is it you want to know, by the way?"
"You know Moriartus, that thing with Gabrielle, it really was extraordinary clumsy, even for you."
Autolycus sat at the head of a large rectangular table. They were at the shady inn, but the table was set with an impressive feast, contrasting sharply against the unkempt scruffiness and battlescars of the surrounding walls and furniture. Moriartus sat next to Autolycus, and Rafflesia as well. Microphagia, Clepto the Magnus and all the others, even Tyrannosaurus was present.
"Autolycus," Moriartus answered in an irritated voice. "I answered your invitation out of professional courtesy, not out of a desire to be scolded like a novice cutpurse."
"Of course. The thing is, many have tried that approach but very few have survived it. I thought that was common knowledge."
"At least I made a serious attempt. What was the business with that absurd blunt instrument?"
Rafflesia took a chicken leg away from her mouth and waved it playfully: "It's a hobby. I pride myself of sophisticated larceny second to none, but sometimes I just want to smash things."
At the other end of the table, Tyrannosaurus smiled and nodded, a fried horse leg in his hand. Autolycus turned to the man in the bone-white robe, except by now the robes had some pink stains: "And you Pilferic have clearly no idea what Xena does when holding a drink in a threatening situation in an inn."
"You mean that fire-breathing trick? What?"
"Only that the resulting cloud of boiling poison would have killed us all. But no matter!" He stood and held up his hands for silence. When he had everyone's attention he continued: "Dear fellow purloiners. I am overjoyed that so many of you accepted this invitation for a friendly snack. Especially since our glorious competition came to a somewhat premature halt. But this brings me to the real reason behind my invitation."
All the professionals became extremely attentive. Autolycus basked in their undivided attention for several moments before continuing: "I want you all to raise your glasses, and barrels Tyrannosaurus, and join me in a toast to someone very special."
An expectant and curious silence followed the muffled sounds of raised drinking containers.
"Xena ending our Hermic games did in fact do me and us all a great favour."
The silence throbbed with confused curiosity.
"The Hermic games are in fact wholly unnecessary."
Autolycus reached down and then held up a wreath of laurels.
"Because we can all agree that the absolutely best thief in the known world is me! We drink to Autolycus, the King of Thieves!"
When the angry voices had died down and the other thieves had left the inn, Autolycus was sitting, smiling, with his feet on the table, the wreath of laurels on his head, a jar of oil beside his plate and put down his goblet.
An idealized head could be seen engraved on it and the letters P, E, R and I. The rest was hidden by his hand.
The seagulls cried. One landed on the mast. Or at least on that two-yard long part of the mast that was still floating. A pair of hands shot out of the water and grabbed the mast. A sputtering head, crowned in a Roman helmet, followed suit. Soon after, another man with similar headdress broke the surface. The two Romans clung to the mast and gasped.
"When Pompey finds out it's your head," one hissed to the other.
"But, Admiral! I followed the charts very carefully. The depth here in the Xena Strait is supposed to be a hundred and twenty fathoms…"
"The Xena Strait?"
"Uhm…"