THANK YOU, DEL KAIDEN!
Howdie Hails, Saharrah!
Copyright Statement "PENUMBRA" (FEBRUARY 6, 1997; revised OCTOBER 16, 1997) © Copyright 1997 by Ann Logan (wilma3), Manorville, New York. Characters from Xena: Warrior Princess used in "PENUMBRA" are the sole property of Universal / MCA USA Studios. The author intends no copyright infringement through the writing of this fan fiction, her story.
PENUMBRA
by wilma3(Ann Logan)
CHAPTER ONE
Gabrielle usually enjoyed downhill walks in woodland trails, but a late morning's mist matted her hair and itched her cheek. She felt so sure, she knew a refreshing spring nearby, and with Xena skeptically following on Argo, she wanted to prove herself, right. She pointed to a clearing approaching beyond a bend.
"It wont be long now." She nodded and continued, "Where are we camping tonight?"
Xena looked at the sky. "There's rain clouds coming in. As much as I would like to wait for your allusive spring, we should consider shelter soon."
"Xena, don't you ever get tired of this nomad stuff?" Gabrielle arched her achy back, realizing she was lost. "I know it's part of what we do..." She slapped her thigh for an imaginary gnat.
"You want a home?" Xena dismounted walking towards Gabrielle.
"Yeah! " Gabrielle stopped and waited as Xena caught up. "I'd like to be half-awake stumbling over my own chair for a change." She chuckled, scouting a clearance to their left with prairie grass billowing in a mild breeze. " You know, a ceiling, a stove, a place I can store my stories."
Xena grinned. "Yes, Argo would appreciate the relief."
"No, now I'm serious!,"she replied. "Can't we purchase a cabin or something, to vacation in? When we're away, we could have a neighbor care for the place."
Xena stopped Gabrielle. "What do you think would happen to that neighbor if word leaked out? Do you really think Ares would let that advantage go by?"
"We could move next to Hercules!" Gabrielle looked to Xena saying nothing as Xena walked ahead. "It was just a thought."
Pulling Argo left, into the clearing, Xena noticed an abandoned hunter's shelter within a sloped forest ahead. She didn't alarm Gabrielle with a reminder of Deianeira and Hercules's killed family. "We'll see what Salmonius might have available. I could use a place to train horses. A farm perhaps, close to town, and a blacksmith. We'll need funds though."
Suddenly, an arrow raced across their path and Xena slapped Argo's side. "Gabrielle head for that cover." Xena pointed to the hunter's shelter invisible from the road.
Following and crouching, Xena drew her chakram, searching their wake for hint of the arrow's owner in the mountain trees behind, nothing. Then, she heard Gabrielle groan as branches snapped within a thicket of trees beyond the shelter and carefully hid herself on the edge of the forests. Listening towards the road, she heard a single set of hoofs racing closer.
Xena spied a light-weight rider dressed in a long white hooded cape with blue trim, pulling the reigns too hard stopping a stallion into a limping stride, for a quick scout of thier area. Creeping carefully to be a shadow as the rider veered into Xena's clearing, Xena watched the rider stop near the forest where Gabrielle hid. But as the rider hastily dismounted pushing horse aside, Xena noticed no bow, a sharp ring of a short sword being pulled, and a growing grumbling of other gallops with threatening war cries. Xena took to the trees as the rider crouched facing the clatter, grating to thunder. Then, the forest froze until the parade passed by with and sounds diminishing to the rider's grateful sigh.
Xena watched the rider turn for the stallion, suddenly gasping as Argo walked into view. But, Xena leaped from behind, clamping her arm about the rider's shoulders and pressing her bootknife at the rider's throat.
"Drop your sword, or you'll drop with it!", she warned.
Xena oddly towered over the petite rider who tossed the sword and raised shaking palms for Xena to see. "Who are you? and whose Army just passed?"
The young woman cleared her throat. "I don't know who they are, they just cropped up out of nowhere, last evening. I'm Sahara, there is a ma-message for Xena? in my saddle bags. I was told you were heading in this direction, in the last town."
Gabrielle emerged from bushes yanking prickle vines from her shoulder and waist. "My own little garden, an indoor tub, a big dog, and roses bushes but no I have to have thorns up my .."
"Gabrielle!!" Xena eyes pointed towards the rider's horse and leaned closer to Sahara's ear. "Any surprises in that saddle you want to tell me about?"
Sahara nodded no. "just the scroll. I swear!"
"....on YOUR LIFE!" Xena watched as Gabrielle stepped a few paces forward, then stopped to kill a mystery critter under her dress. "Try the saddle bag, Gabrielle."
Gabrielle glared back, but was too curious as to the scroll contents. "Yep, it's here." She removed a beige parchment but notice a glimmer in a tree ahead of her. "Hey, Xena, there's the arrow they shot at us" She grinned proudly pointing to a nearby tree and looked back at Xena, no smile for Gabrielle's discovery. "Right! The scroll."
Xena waited a few moments more, watching GAbrielle open the scroll and say nothing. "Gabrielle, aloud. Please!"
Gabrielle peeked up, playfully. "Oh, Yeah! Well it says that someone named ANTIGONE requests your help from, ...from, Wow!! The people of Argive Canyon??!! Is this for real?!"
Xena looked at the golden arrow embedded in the tree and released Sahara. "What does Antigone want from me, Argive is a protected province of mystics?"
"Argive, yes, but Penumbra, sort of." Sahara moved to her horse slowly leaving her knife on the ground. "My senior sent 40 of us to find you, we were sworn not to view the scroll before your acceptance. I am supposed to help you with safe passage."
Xena nodded yes, using her short knife carved the golden arrow free. "Well, this definitely not an average band of thieves. Golden arrows, what do they mean to you?"
Sahara, shrugged. "I'm not tall enough to make warrior class. My partner was killed, just outside that last town. We learned you were near; and as we headed out, war-cries resounded behind us. She told me to go on..." Her eyes glanced to the ground. "I cant believe this is happening"
Xena picked up Sahara's short sword, not a nick and it's mosaic hand-grip, damp but new. "40 messengers risking their lives!" She handed the sword to Sahara. "We'll need to double-back and find a place to camp. Those riders wont ride forward forever, and there's a rock trail, I know, where we can lose them. But this horse of yours has had it!" Xena stripped the horse, passing Sahara two canteens, a bed-roll, and a loaded saddle bag, then tossed the saddle into bushes.
Whistling for her horse, Xena packed Sahara's armload onto Argo. "Gabrielle take Sahara back to that abandoned cabin, we camped at last spring with the double-chimney? and wait for me there."
Gabrielle grabbed Argo's reigns. "Yes, Xena."
"No fires!", Xena warned. "Sahara, pass me your cape. It makes you an easy target." Xena held Argo as Gabrielle fought to get on. "A soft trot." Xena pushed Gabrielle into saddle and Sahara jumped on from behind.
"Thanks.", Gabrielle fired. "A soft trot?"
"You're in no hurry Gabrielle! And that's just what I want Argo's strides to say!" Xena took Sahara's cape and began ripping it into strips. "Keep to the road and try to stay on."
"Ha ha", Gabrielle said weakly and felt Sahara grabbing for the reigns. "That'll work, she likes you!"
When Gabrielle and Sahara disappeared around the bend, Xena erased their footprints with a branch, pinning a piece of white cape on a low branch at the edge of their forest. She slapped Sahara's stallion watching it trot almost limpless into the vast clearance. Then, she continued, back-tracking, and erasing their human prints till she crossed the warn path of the mountain road, no extra eyes to her left or right. She tossed the branch, jogging up a ways, then again checked her handiwork: a torn strip of white cloth and the faint wake of Sahara's stallion blazing a trail across the tall grass clearing.
"Well, boy and girls, that ought to keep you busy!" Xena jogged leaving no tracks, as part of her Xena-manner, and was thrilled with the onset of another delightful challenge.
Five passersby, Xena avoided in brief detours off the main road. She noticed no hint of lingering warriors, ahead or behind, then veered for a mild deer-pass. Hearing Gabrielle's laughter faintly grow as she jogged near a stone cabin appearing in brief clearing, Xena smiled knowing Gabrielle and Sahara were safe. But, she crept to the cabin door releasing it's latch then noticably backing away stomping a twig.
Seeing the crested door opening, Gabrielle mashed its jam with her staff, nobody there. She listened to nothing, then hopefully whispered, "Xena?"
Xena said nothing, stepping from the door and whistling for Argo.
"It's Xena." Gabrielle turned to Sahara half-mast from a crawl in the corner but squeezing a large rotted timber. "It's okay, it's just time to move on."
"Great." Saharah dropped the timber and followed Gabrielle to where Xena was saddling Argo. "Are you okay, Xena?" She looked around, woods left and ahead and a wide field stretching towards a large sandy mountain, and back to Xena.
"I'm fine." Xena studied the woman, a foolish girl, maybe 14 if a day. "When was the last time you ate?"
Gabrielle smiled widely patting her stomack and winking to Sahara.
Xena issued Sahara a hand up onto Argo. "We'll make up the difference tonight at camp. I know the way to Dagman's bog, but it's a real short mission, if you can't navigate the passage."
"I know the guides who do, yes. We wont get far without them."
Gabrielle looked for the story. "What's up with Dagman's bog?"
They walked and Sahara talked. "The perimeters of Argive Canyon and Penumbra are protected from the Olympians by a force of the Mystics. Though their force doesn't directly forbid a mortal from entering, there are deadly traps except through one secret way in Dagman's bog."
Gabrielle nodded. "Yeah, I heard of when Hercules tried to capture a band of thieves. He was teleported from Dagman's bog to Argive Canyon. Iolaus told me, he would use it as a shortcut, but one day tried to take Argive Canyon in reverse and returned, soaked in sea water!"
Sahara thought for a moment. "Well, there are three possible ways for a human to try: Dagman's bog, Argive Canyon and the sea entrances of Claudius' kingdom. The reef barriers prevent all shipping directly to and from Penumbra, and Claudius does a pretty good job of protecting Argive Canyon's pass and the sea."
Xena climbed the first steps of a rock passage watching Sahara dismount and Gabrielle glide off. "Tell me more, about Dagman's bog. Is that how you came through?"
Sahara nodded, tugging Argo's reigns to follow. "Four days ago. I was taken through blindfolded, a tradition. When the time comes, I can find a trail-guide living in the villages close to Dagman's bog. Then, we can proceed."
Xena knew this was Sahara's maiden mission, and of the mysterious guides capable of crossing Dagman's bog, the towns of Dagman where formitable against suspicious outsiders. Yet letting Sahara unload, and unwind, distracted her careless preoccupation over the friend she lost in battle. Xena thought, 'fourteen and a half-shocked zombie, a messenger to a noble, or was there more?' She thought of Sahara's strange cape. 'Was she a slave', Xena wondered, 'A last resort in desperation?'. Three days untouched provisions and a prize stallion lame, meant to Xena, an unskilled traveler lucky to be alive. Regardless, they had three days to make Dagman's bog where many an adventurer died or disappeared trying to reach a legend, a mystical kingdom, the magical providence of Argive.
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