Out of the Darklands
By Absinthe
Disclaimers: These characters belong to Rennaissance pictures and Universal Studios etc etc. No harm is intended by this little story. There are a few references to Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman" series. If you've read his work, you'll see them, if not, don't worry too much, they're pretty minor.
I don't remember what first alerted me to her presence. She was a woman who roamed the darklands. She traveled through our village occasionally, making no friends, speaking nothing beyond a few guttural commands. She had the look of one lost in the ocean, of one drowning in it. Yet she did not fight, she was resigned to the fate of wandering in the dark of her own mind. My father said that she was insane, but I didn't want to believe him.
Our village, Kyan, existed on a narrow delta at the mouth of the Regulan River, suspended between the desert and the sea. Ships came to us from all over the world for supplies and brought to us news from distant lands and exotic foods, money and strange ideas. We owned the only inn in town, a place for sailors to wait for their next berths, or for the members of the precious few caravans of traders that made the perilous journey across the desert to the north into Kyan to enjoy a little luxury. A dark skinned sailor once offered to pay for a month's room and board with a city in a bottle. Father reluctantly accepted the bottle, but made the sailor work for his food. The jar is still down in the cellar. Sometimes, if I took it out into the sunlight, I'd swear I saw something moving among the tiny buildings.
It was such things as this that circulated through our little town. Strange that we could see so many pieces of the outside world without leaving home. They were tantalizing bits of a larger society. But there were only two ways out of Kyan; through the desert, or over the sea. No ship would take on a girl as a sailor, and I had no money to pay for passage on a passenger ship. The desert was a strange place. My father would never let me go alone. My father would never let me go.
So I was trapped in Kyan as much by geography as by my obligations to my family. I had two sisters, and we all worked to run the inn. Sorah cleaned rooms, Jessa waited on customers in the small restaurant below the rooms, and I cooked. We all pitched in for the really nasty jobs. We raised pigs and chickens and kept a few cows for milking in the courtyard behind the inn. I hated those pigs. They were terrible, muddy sows. Being the oldest, I was stuck with their care, for if you fell into the pen, you ran the risk of being trampled by the distemperous animals.
I longed to get out. Sometimes I dreamed of walking untouched by the heat, or need of water, through the desert and into the lush forests over the mountains. I'd heard stories of them, but only second hand. I had never met anyone who'd been there. Father said they didn't exist.
I tossed a bucket of potato peelings into the pig's enclosure, turning away distastefully so that I wouldn't have to watch them swarm over the scraps. Sorah was waiting for me inside, and the moment I stepped over the threshold she whispered,
"Dad's drunk again."
The shouting from the tavern confirmed that he was indeed up to his usual tricks. He was out there harassing the customers, telling bawdy jokes, and trying to provoke a fight. Why I would never understand. It was OUR furniture that always got smashed up in the end. I dropped the metal slop bucket and ran for the eating hall. I slowed down to a more decorous pace only when father came into view. He was leaned over the bar, his florid face twisted into a grimace of anger, his finger poking into a brawny nomad's chest. I approached him carefully.
"Papa." I cajoled, "I need your help upstairs." I took him by the hot, sweaty hand and pulled him gently away. "Come on, I need you to move one of the beds for us." I said, but when we were up the stairs, I just took him up to his own room. He was to the point where he would probably pass out once I got him to his bed. The pine frame creaked with his weight.
Back downstairs, I apologized profusely for his behavior, though the regulars were taking it all in stride.
"That man is your father?" The big man who'd been the object of my father's drunken ire asked.
"Yea," I shrugged.
"Mm," He replied, pursing his lips. And that was the end of that, or so I thought. I bobbed my head at him. Women didn't exactly fit in high on the ladder of power in their society.
"Then I will take your services as payment for my inconvenience and insult," he announced, grabbing my arms and pulling me way too close for my comfort. I got in a good solid kick before he slapped me across the face so hard that the edges of my vision went black.
"Your customs don't apply here," I said, or thought I said, who could be sure? He was taking us toward the stairwell. I wrapped my legs around the newel post and held on, trying to bite him. His companions were cheering him on good naturedly as though this sort of thing happened all the damn time.
I heard the door slam open, but I couldn't see what was happening. My captor's grip on me slackened a little, but not enough for me to get away. The entire room fell silent for a moment, then my "friend" stepped out of the stairwell and I got a good view of what was going on. She was here, the scary ass woman that father said was crazy. She looked like she couldn't have been happier to flay all these guys alive. I gave her what I calculated to be a beseeching look. Those cruel blue eyes flicked over me and made my skin crawl a little. I just hoped she was on my side.
"Let the girl go," she said in the voice of sand blowing over sand. She swallowed hard as though she hadn't spoken in a long time and said, "Let her go Cid, she's not worth what I'll do to you."
"Oh and what's that?" Cid sneered, then shoved me to one of his companions for safekeeping I guess. He was gonna get it. I hoped. She made no reply other than to step forward and strip off her outer robe. Cid did the same and they circled each other slowly, like fighting dogs. He was the first to make a move, and it was over almost as soon as it had begun. I couldn't believe my own eyes; the speed and assurance the woman moved with astonished me. But then, most of the fighting I'd seen had been between drunken men. I had never imagined that there could be such intense beauty to it.
When the rest of the desert men saw their cohort slide down the wall behind the bar into an ungraceful heap on the rough floor, they exchanged a sinister look and I found myself released with a hard shove against the stairs.
"Let it go boys," the woman warned, her voice beginning to sound more human. Their friend's honor had been insulted, however, and their traditions dictated that they attempt to destroy the offending party; even if they knew they would lose. Smelling disaster in the air, I crawled around the railing and into the safety of the shadows behind the steps. Something told me that this was going to be beyond my abilities to defend myself.
The three remaining nomads drew their swords. My defender held up a deceptively delicate hand in protest.
"Outside," she snapped before, in an act of either utter foolishness or self-confidence, she turned her back on them. She strode outside, the leather of her armor so well cared for that it didn't even creak. I heard the sounds of metal against metal, but I refused to leave my hiding spot until I was certain of the outcome.
I recognized her boots when she came back inside for her robe. I scrabbled out into the bar and tried to stay calm and suave as I poured her a drink. When I looked up I realized that she was staring at me with a wild, animal look in her eyes. I set the mug on a table close to her hand without getting too close; unsure now if she was a friend or not. She looked at the mug as though it were a purple spotted horse. Then she looked back at me and nodded her thanks.
"Thank-you for saving my ass," I stammered, hearing my voice stumble despite my best efforts to keep it under control. She said nothing but sat down lightly and sniffed the contents of her cup. Grunting approvingly, she sipped delicately from the potted mug.
"Uhm," I tried again, taking a seat across from her, "my name is Anrea, my father owns this place . . . And you are?"
A perfectly arched black eyebrow quirked upwards.
"Xena," she intoned, "My name is Xena."
"Are you going to be in town tonight?"
"Maybe."
"We have some empty rooms, I could get you one with a tub," I suggested, unable to keep a note of hopefulness out of my rebellious voice. I wanted her around a little longer. Perhaps she was my ticket out of here. She knew the ways of the desert, and she knew what was on the other side. Something about the way she spoke, the way she sat there sipping the best liquor we had as though it were ambrosia, fascinated me.
"Just to let me try to repay you a little for your help?" I wheedled. She stared back at me, a moment longer before finally replying.
"Thanks."
It was on that night that I learned the value of simple kindness. I don't pretend that it was selfless kindness. She was lonely. She was an outcast among outcasts. Xena made her living as one of the strange and gifted few that could sense her way not only through the deserts, but around the many dangers it presented. She could safely navigate the faceless, seemingly endless sands that were pockmarked with invisible dangers; soft places that left the mind of a man empty as the desert, and flat regions that gave off an undetectable force that destroyed the organs and caused slow and painful death. There were sands that could change their faces overnight without alerting a sleeping man in the dark. There were brigands and predators that lived somehow out there. She led caravans through these dangers, but she was never with any one group long enough to form bonds. By the nature of her skills, it was unlikely, however, that even a lifetime spent with a caravan master and his train would ever allow her to forge friendships.
People like her were valuable but feared. They were believed to be touched by the hands of the gods. The nomads were highly superstitious. Even the mobile villages of the desert had one or two people like Xena amongst them. Being born and raised in the desert did not guarantee that a person would develop the gifts of a Guide. And still they did not have the acceptance of the people that depended upon them. For a Guide though, leaving the desert was a nearly unthinkable act. I am told that they are somehow linked to the land.
That night, though, she revealed herself as flesh and blood to me. I drew a bath for her, carrying the buckets upstairs for her myself. When I opened the door to her room after a discreet knock, she had shucked off all but a once white cotton chiton. Pressed to her body by her tight fitted leathers, they looked none too clean.
"Is there anything you'd like me to wash for you?" I asked, hopefully without revealing my distaste at the state of her underclothing.
"Thank you, but you have enough work, I'm sure, without doing mine as well," she said gruffly as she poured one of the buckets of cool water into the copper tub that I'd moved into the room for her to use. I dug into my pockets for the bottles I'd brought for her. She smiled gratefully at the little glass jar of lavender oil and the stoppered bottle of sweet soap that made up my personal toilette. At least here my father insisted that his daughters look and smell clean. The lavender oil was more to keep the fleas away than to make us smell nice, but I'd always appreciated its dual nature, and I was sure that Xena would as well.
I stood there awkwardly until she had filled the copper tub. I don't know what I was waiting for, and I know she didn't either. When she started to pull the straps of her chiton down I blushed and left the room. I wandered a few steps up the narrow hallway, lost in thought. How much did a Guide charge for passage through the desert? I rushed suddenly back into my room and rummaged desperately through my things. There was nothing here, nothing of value that I might offer her. All I had was a pair of tiny gold hoop earrings that had once been my mother's. And the city. I could offer her the city. Who could refuse something like that? Father would never miss it.
I couldn't sleep that night for worrying that Xena would leave too early in the morning for me to catch her. It was still dark out when I crept down into the cellar and stuffed the finely wrought glass and filigree globe into a burlap bag. I tucked the bundle into one of the many hidden pockets in my skirts and went to wait in the dining area, if you could call it that anyway.
I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I remember was waking up and seeing the orange of sunrise outside. She was in the room. She was looking out the window with her white desert robe draped over one of her arms. A saddle bag was draped over her other shoulder. I didn't remember her bringing it in with her, but the origin of her baggage was the farthest thing from my sleep fogged mind at that moment.
Her face was limned in red light, and at that moment she looked like either an angel or a demon to me. I took the liberty then of getting a good look at her freshly polished armor. She wore a bronze or light copper , whorling breastplate and intricate serpentine strips of metal entwined the two circles and joined them to a back plate and her impressive shoulder guards. A few strips twined down her stomach, drawing the eye to what lay beneath the tasses of her skirt. She wore high boots with greaves that went over her knees. If she sensed my eyes on her she gave no indication until at last she turned to face me.
I feigned a yawn and said,
"Can I get you some breakfast?"
She looked hesitant for a moment and then nodded.
"Thank you."
I bustled into the kitchen and quickly prepared two plates. Sitting down next to her, I felt my palms begin to sweat. What if she said no? I picked at my food until she had eaten hers and as she was about to stand up I felt my heart leap into my throat.
"Wait," I blurted, "Please?"
She looked at me with those hard, unreadable eyes and lowered herself back onto the wooden seat.
"Yes?"
"I want you to take me with you. I can pay," I said, reaching hurriedly into my pockets and producing the earrings and the jar. Without waiting to look at what I had to offer she gave me her answer.
"No."
"I can find more. Please. I have to get out of here."
"It's out of the question Anrea. The desert is no place for you. You'd never make it."
"Not alone. But with you to guide me through . . ."
"No. Even with a guide only the strongest survive the journey. You don't think I take half my payment up front because I think my clients could escape me on the other side do you?"
I felt suddenly helpless. She saw me only as the coddled daughter of a wealthy inn-keeper.
"It'd be my risk to take," I stubbornly replied.
"What good reason could you possibly have for leaving this place? What do you expect to find?"
"You tell me."
"You don't even know," Xena laughed suddenly and swept to her feet. She walked with feline grace to her pack and lifted it to her shoulder as though it weighed nothing.
I watched her go without saying another word. I had already proven myself nothing more than a little girl in her eyes. I had no hope of following her either. But there was a bond between us, that I knew. I sensed it in the single backward glance she threw in my direction as she paused, silhouetted in the door of the inn.
"I'll see you next time," I told her. She might have nodded, but it might have been my imagination. Jessa skittered into the room as soon as she disappeared, proving to me that she'd been listening the whole time. I felt myself go red in the face.
"Who was that?" she asked mockingly.
"No one that would interest you Jessa. She's gone now anyway," we both looked up at the sudden groaning of the floorboards directly overhead, "Go take care of him before he comes down here."
Jessa looked fearful, but knew better than to refuse. I followed her up to tidy the room that Xena had occupied before father noticed that anything was amiss. Her scent hung subtly in the air. It was the sun, sweat, leather, horse, and over it all, a little bit of nutmeg mixed with the lavender from the oil I'd given her. It should have been revolting, but it was not. I felt myself drawn to bury my face in the pillow on which she'd slept. As I picked up the down pillow, my hand brushed something other than the usual bunch of dried lavender that I kept under all our pillows. I set the cushion aside and picked it up. It was a scroll. Intrigued and absolutely unashamed of myself, I unrolled it.
It took me a few minutes to figure out what it was. It was a map. A very old and strange map. The representation of the coastline was indubitably familiar. It was the coast of the Regulan Delta. The roads and buildings that crisscrossed and pockmarked the land were, however, completely unfamiliar. Between the buildings, ran a network of meaningless dotted lines. I stared at it uncomprehendingly until I heard Jessa's footsteps patter towards the door and her girlish voice call my name. I feverishly wrapped the parchment back around its sprocket and shoved the scroll into my skirts.
"Yeah? What's wrong now?" I shouted back, busying myself with making the bed up.
"Anrea! Father wants you to rub his head!"
"Tell him to rub his own head, I have breakfast to cook!"
"Anrea! He'll kill both of us!"
"Fine. Go downstairs and start cooking. The fires are already going in the stove."
"But-"
"It has to be done Jessa. Life goes on," I snapped as I walked out into the hallway, and then on to my father's room. It stank of alcohol and sweat and man. Wrinkling my nose I braved the closed room and flung open his window. He groaned from his perch on the edge of his bed.
"Close that damned window," he begged.
"The fresh air will be good for you sir," I said quietly, my brashness of earlier forgotten in the immediacy of my father's sheer physical strength. As much as I would deny it, the man scared me. He'd never laid a hand on any of us, but that didn't mean he couldn't start if provoked at the wrong time.
"Anrea, I feel like I got a fucking mule in my head."
"Yessir," I muttered, sitting down on the rumpled bed to rub his greasy temples. It took me a while to get him calmed down enough to lay down and just wait out the rest of his hangover. I couldn't resist a tiny "I told you so" as I crept outside. From downstairs I could hear the scraping of chairs and the sounds of voices as people sat down to breakfast, but more distressingly, I smelled burning eggs. I fairly flew down the stairs. As I said, life goes on. My curiosity about the scroll would have to give way to the stifling weight of the ordinary.
The caravan was freshly loaded up from its trip to the docks. Xena checked the packs, grunting with approval or disapproval as the case merited. She was preoccupied however. The innkeeper's daughter, the pretty one with the blonde hair and green eyes; Xena couldn't stop thinking about her. She looked a lot like Gabrielle. It seemed that every now and then she stumbled across someone that reminded her so much of her old love that it hurt. Xena had tried to make it work once, but all it seemed that she did was replay the old relationship, and with every step was the niggling sting of foresight like a rose thorn in her heel.
Although she had pretended not to notice it, the memory of the city that Anrea had offered her stuck in her mind. It brought back memories of the shadow gods: the entities older than the gods that had spawned her. The city, Xena recalled, had been a product of one man's desire for power. Absolute power. One of the endless ones had granted him that. His budding trade town, a city of wonder and magic, was now a worthless trinket.
Shaking her head over a poorly balanced pack, and perhaps a little over the past, Xena snapped her fingers and one of the caravaneers jumped forward wordlessly to fix the problem. When Xena nodded her approval he ceased his efforts and stepped out of her way. These moments always reminded her of her days as a warlord. It wasn't unpleasant to her anymore. It was just another phase of her life; something to be learned from, but not to regret. She had no regrets anymore. Even her present loneliness would only last so long. As would the state of love or friendship that followed. Nothing lasted. Time ran on Hermes' winged feet for her in comparison to the short lived mortals that surrounded her.
She wondered idly if the girl would understand the scroll that Xena had left behind for her. It was possible that she wouldn't see it as the invitation that it was. But Xena thought that Anrea was a little more inquisitive and perceptive than that. She hoped that the gift had not been wasted on the girl. Shaking off her meandering thoughts, Xena turned her mind back to the task at hand.
She only ran with the caravans to keep herself occupied and sane. She was the best in the business. Sought after by countless potential employers, Xena picked and chose who she would work for. She never lost her caravan. She occasionally lost her mind though. That was one of the curses of immortality. Her past consisted of long periods of blurry time followed by periods of painful clarity in which she did her best to avoid the insanity. But time wore her down until she was not only ready but eager to succumb. It happened again and again and again. She was about due now, but she was sure she had enough time for another crossing. If it was going to happen, she would rather that it was on the other side of the desert. The darklands would wait.
The sun had long disappeared and I finally retreated to the privacy of my little room. I pulled out the map and unrolled it cautiously. The more I looked at it the more puzzling I found it. A few small marks appeared to have been made recently; the ink was still pristine. What could they possibly mean? I knew that the only way to find out the answer would be to find the places that the marks signified. But how?
I ran a tentative fingertip down the coastline until I stopped at a crescent shaped bay that I identified as being three streets up from the Inn. It was the main harbor. Not sure what to expect, I went downstairs to the kitchen and picked up a six inch long cutting knife and stuffed that into a pocket along with a few apples and a candle.
Outside the moon was full and high in the sky. I cast a brief prayer up to her before stepping out into the street.
Once I found the spot at the edge of the harbor that was closest to one of the red marks, I turned back almost the way I had come and started walking. I didn't have the faintest idea what I was looking for. But I was looking. In harshly dim yet brilliant white light of the moon, the familiar town looked unearthly. Perhaps I was simply being overly paranoid, but the air even felt different.
I remember that night like it was yesterday. It was the beginning of a journey that I sometimes wish I had never embarked upon. But I did, and the gods only know how I wound up where I did.
Now I am the old one, and she is the youth. She knew it would happen. So did I. I wouldn't trade a moment of our time together for all the bottled cities in the world. She has taught me so much.
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