Part 4:
The large bed was inhabited by one alarmingly small form. Even from the door, Arlath could see that Xena had lost precious weight. Arlath reverently, timidly approached her Mistress' bedside and knelt to get a closer look. Xena's eyes were glazed and a little milky. Her skin was clammy in spite of a roaring fire. She'd been bedridden for two weeks, and Arlath nearly cried to see the great warrior brought so far down. She ached to take the pain from the battered body, but could only watch as Xena drifted off to sleep, apparently unaware of her surroundings.
Gabrielle took up station in a chair at the head of the bed, and Arlath stayed where she was, though eventually her head drooped onto the edge of the mattress and she drifted off. She was awakened hours later by a cool hand on the top of her head. Arlath looked up and found her Mistress peering down at her. The centaur grasped the light, fragile hand and gently tried to rub some warmth into it.
"I didn't want to leave you," the warrior rasped. Arlath nodded tearily.
"I know. It was the right thing to do."
Xena nodded wearily and seemed to relax a little. She fell back against her pillow, and Arlath sat up to stroke her Mistress' silver hair; an intimacy that never would have been allowed in the old days. She whispered softly, telling stories of her quiet life, but Xena didn't seem to hear. Arlath quietly left the room to give the old lovers a few last hours of privacy.
Alkaios stood up and met her halfway across the antechamber.
"How is she?"
"Not much longer now, my love," Arlath replied, pulling him to her. He embraced her forcefully, and she rested her head on his shoulder, her veins throbbing with fear and anticipation of what was to come.
The sun rose and set only once more on the old warrior. Arlath watched Xena's faltering breath with growing serenity. She turned to Gabrielle urgently.
"Go get Alkaios, send him in," the centaur ordered.
"Why? What are you doing?"
"I'm going to save her. Isn't that what you wanted?"
"But you said-"
"That was then. That was different," Arlath replied, "Please, hurry before the moment passes."
Gabrielle nodded and rushed out of the room. At the sound of her mate's approach, Arlath picked up the old sword that hung on the wall over the headboard. She unsheathed it and fingered the familiar blade. It was scarred from battle, but sharp still as the day it was forged. She flipped it in her grasp so that she held the hilt out to Alkaios.
"Take it, my love," she whispered, "You owe me this favor."
He took the weapon without thinking, then said, "No. Don't ask me to do this."
"If you don't, then I'll have to do it myself. Please don't let it come to that."
"What about Epona and Tyldus? You'd leave them without a mother?" Alkaios demanded.
"Please don't," Arlath begged, unable to meet his gaze, "They'll go on without me. You will go on without me." Her eyes were then on the pulse point in Xena's throat. She pressed it and listened with her body to the fluttering of the warrior's heart as it beat to a halt.
"Do it. Now. You'll know what to do afterwards."
"I can't."
Hearing the decisiveness in her mate's voice. Arlath lunged suddenly, throwing her full weight against the blade he still held. It slid with horrifying ease through her abdomen and out the other side. Alkaios jumped back, shouting in alarm, and pulling the sword a few inches back out.
She was smiling.
"I give you this gift," she muttered, speaking clearly to Xena, "and fulfill my duty." Her knees buckled and she slid heavily to the floor. Alkaios grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to hold her up, as if this would save her somehow. He shouted for the healer, unwilling to believe that the black arterial blood that gushed from his love's chest could possibly be real. She was dead by the time the Amazon healer ran through the door.
Riala, the healer, gasped and shouted for the Queen's guards. She closed Arlath's green, staring eyes and then moved on to the consort, ignoring the shuddering centaur that, to all appearances, had murdered his own mate. Shaking her head, Riala reached to pull a fur over Xena.
"Stop," Alkaios said, arresting the healer's motion. He dipped a trembling hand into the blood that still oozed from Arlath's chest and made his stumbling way to the queen's bed. He made three shaky lines of crimson down the warrior's grizzled face.
"I did it," he whispered, returning to his mate's side, "I did it for you, just like you wanted."
"I don't know what's going on," Riala said, feeling more confident when two heavily armed women stormed onto the scene, "but I want you to come outside with us."
She ordered the guards to extricate him from the corpse. All four stopped dead at the sound of an unfamiliar but very clearly threatening voice.
"Get away from her. All of you," it said. Even in his stupor, Alkaios shuddered at the fury in that voice.
"Xena!" Riala squeaked, staring openmouthed at the vision before her. Alkaios shook off the hands of the guards and stood up, the agony in his soul suddenly replaced by fury. He was completely unfazed by the sight of her wild countenance or the chakram she held cocked and ready to sink into his chest. Her hair was black and unruly, her eyes wide and menacing, and her feet were planted firmly and defensively; even naked she was more than a match for this centaur.
"Get out," she snarled in a voice that brooked no disobedience. Even Alkaios stopped and backtracked. When they were gone, Xena let herself succumb to the fire that crawled through her veins as the ravages of time were suddenly reversed. She bit her lip against a scream and crumpled into a heap on the floor, shuddering until at last it passed.
She stood up uneasily, and circled the pool of blood on the floor. It was with horror that she watched Arlath's hair go grey before her eyes, and the centaur's delicate hands knot up with the same crippling joint disease that had ended Xena's wanderings eight winters previously. Time was catching up with its new victim. Some analytical and detached part of Xena's brain noted with satisfaction the new ease of her movements and the flexibility of her body. The warrior fell to her knees, mindless of the sticky blood that splashed her legs. She silently drew her sword from the centaur's chest, watching as the wound closed itself with the iron's removal. Xena did not notice when Gabrielle ran in and stopped, standing with her fists to her mouth just inside the doorway.
Xena realized what the centaur had done, and she closed her eyes. She did not want to see this.
"I should have known better than to come here," the warrior whispered, "I had no idea that you could . . . that you would. . . How could you?" Xena brushed a lock of grey hair out of Arlath's still face.
"Xena?" Gabrielle interrupted, padding towards her resurrected lover. Xena jumped at the sound of her lover's voice, and their eyes met in a moment of bitter sweet reunion.
"I want to give it back," the warrior actually began to cry. Gabrielle had not seen her break down since before the beginning of her decline. Xena's stoic facade collapsed.
Gabrielle stumbled forward and tried to take her love into a comforting embrace, but the warrior remained aloof. The Queen lowered her arms awkwardly, hurt. She scooped up a blanket instead and draped it over Xena's quaking shoulders. The scratchy wool seemed to bring Xena back to her senses and she suddenly calmed. She reversed her grip on the blood stained sword and was about to use it on her own wrists when Gabrielle snatched it from her grasp.
"Guards!" She yelled, "Take her to my dressing room, make sure she doesn't hurt herself."
Gabrielle had three buff warriors take her broken down warrior away from the body in the hopes that the distance would help a little.
"At least let me bury her properly," Xena shouted, too weary to escape her captors.
"Xena," Gabrielle reached up and placed her hands on the dark warrior's cheeks, "Leave her to those that really need to do it. She's not yours any longer, let it go. I love you."
But Xena wasn't listening anymore. She watched a heartbroken centaur stumble back into the hut.
"Come back to me, Xena," Gabrielle desperately pleaded, "Come on, we can do whatever you want to now. It can be just like it used to be."
But she knew that her words rang hollow. It would never again be like it used to be. Xena had her life and her strength back, but at a price that the warrior never would have been willing to pay if she'd had a choice. Gabrielle had her Xena back, but things would never be the same. She honestly hadn't known what to expect when she'd sent that messenger.
"C'mon, let's get you in some clothes," the Queen gestured for her guards to release the warrior. Xena straightened herself in an attempt to restore some of her dignity and simple strength. It almost worked.
Dressed in simple leathers, a fighting skirt and top, the warrior looked a little of her old self. She regarded her reflection in a mirror as Gabrielle brushed her hair. Her face was smooth and showed no signs of the pains and cares of the last twenty years. Her bones were straight and strong, her muscles lean and taut. Her life had been erased from her body, but the years sat like lead in her stomach. Her soul was far from pure and pristine.
Gabrielle peered over the warrior's broad shoulder at the miles that seemed to lay between them. The lines on her own face and the silver of her hair gave her a strangely knowing look, and she was strong still, but for how many more turns of the seasons?
She couldn't worry about that yet though. She needed to be more concerned with the ominous glint of self hatred in the eyes of her love.
"You sent for her, didn't you?" the warrior accused dully.
"Yes," the fearful Queen replied, "I didn't know. I'm sorry."
"I told you that I never wanted to see her again."
"I know. I'm sorry," Gabrielle whispered, wrapping her arms around an unresponsive Xena, "I'm sorry, but I'm glad that you're alive."
"I need to be alone," the warrior coldly replied.
Gabrielle closed her eyes against the sting of those words.
"All right, but promise me that you won't . . . hurt yourself."
"I won't. I'm living her life now. It would be like murder."
"I love you, Xena," the bard touched her warrior's shoulder hopefully. The only reply she got was silence.
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