Time to Kill
Part Two
Continued from Part One
Xena slowly descended the stairwell, each step causing her face to contort more into a mask of rage. That damn bard, didn’t she know when to leave things alone? A murderous smirk crossed Xena’s face. She’d teach the girl a lesson later. Now was her time for a different type of fun.
Once she reached the bottom of the stairs, Xena headed toward the door Gabrielle and she had been unable to open earlier. This time, however, Xena passed her hand over the doorknob and it swung open easily, flinging back into the shadows. Xena sauntered confidently down the stairwell revealed by the open door. The door, once again untouched by human hands, swung shut as if by magic.
The stairwell was encased in darkness, the only light coming from the torches at the bottom of the winding stairway. When Xena reached the bottom, her terrible, homicidal visage was revealed completely by the orange light.
“Miss me?” she cooed. The bandit who she had knocked unconscious earlier was just now regaining his bearings. The sight that greeted his eyes was not a pleasant one, though. He was this crazy woman’s prisoner, strapped to a wooden table reclining slightly from a totally usual upright position. His dull eyes opened widely when he saw the evil look on her face, and he struggled against the leather straps binding him tightly. “I thought you might,” she laughed.
She ambled toward the bandit, taking her time. As she did so, her eyes appreciatively took in the room. She gestured around the small, dark dungeon and turned her eyes to look at the despairing bandit. “Do you like it? This room used to see a lot of business, but lately ... oh well, it’s great to be back here. It’s like a second home to me, and I hope to make this place very busy again soon. I’m sure you’d like to help me with that, too.”
The man’s eyes darted around the dark room, taking in all that lay inside. It was obvious that the room’s main purpose was torture. Many different blades hung on the walls, ranging from huge scythes and axes to tiny daggers. An enormous, rounded, extremely sharp blade hung ominously from the ceiling, a pendulum to the stone altar in the middle of the room. A shelf of chemicals and potions lay on the nearby wall, but even they seemed dangerous. The most noticeable thing in the room, however, was the dark red substance splattered upon nearly every space. The bandit turned his eyes quickly from the sight. He didn’t have to look too hard to figure out what that coloring came from.
Xena circled her prisoner like a cat, her eyes delighting in every squirming movement that he made. He kept his eyes fixed on his boots, trying not to look the beautiful yet deadly woman in the face. He knew it would be his undoing, and he didn’t want to die like a coward. As long as he didn’t look at her, he wouldn’t start crying.
Xena’s index finger ran lightly across the gag on the bandit’s face causing a shiver to run down his spine. His breathing became more labored as fear tugged at his heart and lungs, and he could have sworn he just wet himself. Whatever slight degree of self-control he had was slipping.
“No, no, this just won’t do. It’s much more fun to hear you scream.” Xena drew a dagger from her boot and cut the dirty gag in one swift movement, letting the cloth fall to the floor. Xena came to a stop before her prisoner, twirling the knife in her hand. “Now comes the hard part: deciding how you’re going to die.”
The bandit’s lip started to tremble and he was ready to burst into tears. Xena laughed at his reaction. “Ready to cry, are you? Big man!” Xena quickly drew her hand back and struck him across the cheek. A long, thin, red line appeared where the dagger she’d held tore into his skin. The man whimpered in pain as blood started to seep out of the wound.
Xena’s eyes lit up. “That’s it, that’ll do nicely! You’ve given me the perfect idea!” Xena wiped the blood off her dagger with the man’s tunic before returning it to the sheathe on her boot. The man hung his head forward, resigned to his fate. Xena joyfully moved over to the vials of chemicals.
“You know, most people always give some sort of speech about doing this the hard way or the easy way. I don’t believe in that,” Xena informed the man. “I believe that the hard way is the only way. It’s certainly more interesting.” Xena chuckled to herself as she poured and mixed some chemicals in a crude glass beaker. She picked up a wooden rod off the shelf and stirred the mixture until it was a ghastly shade of yellow. She moved back toward the man and held it to his lips. “Drink up, dear,” she ordered.
When the man didn’t move to obey her command but instead kept his head limply hanging forward, Xena’s eyes flashed in rage. She grabbed hold of his dark, long, curly hair and slammed his head back against the wooden table. “I said drink it!” she shouted. The contents of the beaker were forcefully poured down his throat, and Xena held the choking bandit’s mouth shut until she was sure he’d swallowed it all. Then she smiled and playfully slapped his wounded cheek. “Good boy.”
Xena carelessly tossed the beaker to the stone floor and it exploded into tiny shards of glass. Xena moved over to the wall to examine the many weapons hanging there. “Decisions, decisions...” she murmured, tapping her fingers lightly against her jaw. Finally she picked a blade and took it from the wall. When she moved back to the prisoner, he seemed more alert than before.
She held the tiny scalpel before his eyes and smiled. “Let’s call this an anatomy experiment, shall we?” she laughed. Xena trailed the dull edge of the blade under the man’s throat. He trembled at the contact.
“You’re probably wondering what that drink I gave you was, correct?” The man didn’t respond so Xena continued. “It’s a potion to keep you fully alert and awake no matter what. It’s rather useful at times, like now. It would take all the fun out of our experiment if you passed out before it was done. Now that’s just not a concern anymore.”
The man’s eyes widened in sudden understanding, and Xena laughed once again. “Oh, yeah, maybe I should warn you against the side effects. The potion also amplifies all your feelings of pain and such. It’s gonna hurt like Hades...”
Xena licked her lips in anticipation and eyed the man’s distressed reaction. She brushed the blade lightly across the man’s Adam’s apple and giggled when he yelped. “Now, where shall we begin?” she asked, trailing the scalpel down his chest, looking for a good spot to begin her little experiment.
Gabrielle bolted up from her troubled slumber. She could have sworn she had heard a horrifying scream of pain moments before, but now she wasn’t sure if it wasn’t caused by her condition. Xena’s sudden mood shift had left the bard on edge, and in her state anything was alarming. Also, the thunderstorm outside had just ended, and the eerie stillness that was left behind troubled the bard.
Gabrielle hopped off the bed and debated whether or not to go searching the house for whatever woke her. She finally decided against it. Xena had told her, or *threatened* more like, to stay in the bedroom. Gabrielle had never been one to follow orders, but Xena had been acting unusually testy lately. It wasn’t a good idea to try her patience.
Gabrielle paced by the bed, agitated. Without actually hearing the shrill screams, she *felt* them. And their intensity was growing. As she walked back and forth, the dirty mirror caught her eye. Grateful for anything to do to take her mind off other matters, she decided to clean the mirror. She needed something mindless to do.
Gabrielle pulled a rag out of her bag by the foot of the bed and stuck it out the window. It caught a few large drops of water that were running off the roof. Satisfied, Gabrielle turned to her work. The wet rag smeared the layers of dirt and grime on the mirror at first, and Gabrielle scrubbed harder. As the hair on the back of her neck stood up on end even more and her sense of the painful shrieks increased, the intensity with which she cleaned grew. By the time the sun sets, this damn mirror is going to be spotless, Gabrielle vowed.
A few hours later Xena entered the bedroom to find Gabrielle passed out on the edge of the bed, a dirty rag clutched in her hand. She walked over and stood next to the bed, examining the small bard for what seemed like forever. Finally she shook her head and started towards the door.
On the way, however, she noticed the newly shining mirror. She chuckled to herself and went to stand in front of it to admire her reflection.
Xena looked in the mirror, but it wasn’t Xena looking back out at herself. Instead of the warrior’s steely blue eyes, two blood red orbs shone out. The warrior’s body was replaced with a black cloud of smoke in the image reflected back. There wasn’t a trace of the warrior princess from Amphipolis in the mirror -- a demon stared back out instead.
Xena laughed and clapped her hands in delight before striding purposefully from the room. Little did she know that a pair of saddened green eyes were wide open and staring at the mirror in disbelief.
Gabrielle’s heart was racing. “What in Tartarus is going on?” she silently whispered to herself. She closed her eyes tightly, trying to convince herself that everything over the past couple days had been a dream. The sound of the front door slamming shut downstairs dispelled that comforting thought and Gabrielle was left with the knowledge that Xena wasn’t *Xena* anymore.
Gabrielle’s hands shook as she sat herself upright on the bed, staring listlessly at the doorway. Her eyes moved toward the mirror and she looked herself in the face. Her eyes were blank and spiritless, her mouth was pulled in a despairing, grim line, and a nervous sheen of sweat dotted her eyebrow. Gabrielle reached up a trembling hand to wipe it away, but once she realized she still held the filthy rag she let it drop from her fingers. As she let her suddenly aching arm drop back to her side, she heard and felt the rustle of parchment.
Gabrielle looked down confused at the scroll sticking out from her waistband but quickly remembered picking it up in the library earlier. With no idea what else to do, she pulled it out, opened it up, and picked up reading where she left off.
The tale it told was a horrible one. The main character of the story, Thaddeus, had built the castle she now sat in and for years he ruled his dominion with a just and wise hand. He married his childhood sweetheart, the beautiful Sofia, and together they had to lovely children: an older boy, Kristopher, and a baby girl, Odele.
Thaddeus’ passion was for books and knowledge. He collected any sort of writing he could get his hands on and pored over the words long into the nights. He could often be found in the library seated at his desk with naught but a candle and an open manuscript for company. To him, the thirst for knowledge was unquenchable. When one day he got his hands on a strange book covered with human skin and written in blood, it wasn’t seen as unusual that he would look over the book into the wee small hours of the morning.
After his strange new acquisition, however, something in him changed. His behavior became more erratic and violent. Where before he would never think of laying a hand on his wife and children in anger, now it became commonplace. His servants were also prone to savage beatings, and little by little his staff disappeared. With his flared temper the dealings of his land were laid aside. The prosperous days of his kingdom were over.
One day Thaddeus took his young son hunting in the woods. From this little excursion, Kristopher never returned. When Thaddeus returned bloody from his expedition without his son in tow, Sofia became enraged. Her husband drew his hunting knife from his belt and savagely slashed her throat before turning the vicious attack on the baby Odele clasped in Sofia’s arms.
When the deed was done and mother and daughter lay dead in a pool of their own blood, Thaddeus went mad. He shrieked horribly, ran from the room in a rage and cut down anyone that got between him and the library. Once there he dropped his bloody knife, grabbed a book that he had acquired along with the human skin covered one, and ran down towards the end of the hallway. He disappeared in the last room on the right and was never heard from again.
The few servants that remained, as terrified as they were, hadn’t left immediately. They scoured the forest for Kristopher’s body, and once they found the boy’s bloody hulk, they brought it back to the castle. The mother and her two young children -- Kristopher only a few days past his sixth birthday and Odele not even a year old -- were given a proper, respectful funeral pyre as the innocent victims that they were.
While all this was going on, the court scribe recounted all the horrific events on to a scroll. When he had finished writing, he decided that the tale was too horrible to go past the castle walls and the events best left forgotten. The scroll was left in the master’s library, and the castle abandoned. The few servants who had survived left and scattered across Greece to find peace and forget the terror of Lord Thaddeus’ insanity. The tale would die with them.
Gabrielle rolled the scroll back up and wiped the tears from her eyes. Whatever demon had caused Thaddeus to murder his family was back, but this time Xena was under its control. Gabrielle tossed the scroll aside and stood up purposefully. “This can’t go on,” Gabrielle told herself. She looked up at the portrait of the woman above the fireplace. Sofia’s eyes burned brightly from the painting, and Gabrielle imagined the murder that put an end to their sparkle. “It has to be stopped.”
Xena stalked silently through the forest towards the village that lay several miles away. It was almost night now, and with the dark clouds overhead the forest was pitch black. Perfect, she thought. Just how I like it.
The usual sounds of the woods -- birds singing, bugs chirping, and wild game racing around -- were not present this evening. Something had scared them all away. Something six feet tall with blue eyes and black hair to be precise. Something carrying a rusty old axe.
Xena neared the village a couple hours later. As she reached the outskirts, she peered through the trees, looking for a certain place. Once she saw it, she smiled and started skipping happily towards the building. Xena’s eyes shone with bloodlust as she loomed closer and closer to the small hut.
As expected, the small building had been built apart from all the others. The decrepit log hut had been placed close to the road leading away from the forest, but luckily for Xena it was also near enough to the trees for her to remain hidden a while longer. She whistled a jovial tune as she stepped from the woods and walked up to the front door. Xena rapped sharply on it before hiding her hands, along with the axe, behind her back.
An old fellow with white hair and a long, curly beard answered the door, peering cautiously through the small crack in it. He looked up into the face of a smiling, beautiful woman. She seemed innocent enough, but he could never be too sure. Evil lurks in the most unlikely places, he reminded himself.
“Who are you and what do you want?” he asked suspiciously.
“Are you Simeon? The scribe who used to work up at that old castle in the woods?” she asked, ignoring his questions.
He tightened his grip on the door, ready to slam it shut if she pulled any stunts, before answering. “Yes I am. What’s it to you ... and how did you know who I am? I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
“Oh, but I’ve seen you before,” she answered ominously, her eyes twinkling. “I’ve come to deliver a message...”
The man sensed the evil in her voice and tried to slam the door shut in her face. She forcefully kicked it wide open, laughing at his feeble attempt to get rid of her. The old scribe flew back a few steps and looked up, eyes wide in fright, at the woman who hovered over him. She raised a hefty, old axe over her head and looked down at him, sneering.
“Say hello to Hades for me,” she told him before bringing the hatchet down in a wide arc into his chest. A loud, gutteral scream tore from his throat, but it was cut short suddenly by the blade.
Xena looked from side to side, checking to make sure there were no witnesses to be disposed of, before running out the door and fleeing into the woods. A ruckus erupted soon after in the village. Torches were lit in every house as the men cautiously went outside to discover just what had interrupted their peaceful slumber.
Gabrielle stepped into the last room on the right at the end of the hall. Her eyes passed appreciatively over the large canopied bed but she quickly pulled her attention away. She wasn’t here to sightsee. There were far more important things to do than ogle the furniture.
Gabrielle set quickly to searching the room, trying to find a clue as to why Thaddeus had run into this room so long ago in his maddened state and where he had disappeared to. She checked under the bed. No secret panels or compartments. Nothing. She lay flat on her back on the dusty floor to see if there were any conspicuous objects from that vantage point. Something over by the fireplace caught her eye, and Gabrielle jumped up quickly, brushed the dirt off her palms, and ran over to that side of the room.
To anyone who wasn’t paying attention it wouldn’t be very obvious, but a slow trickle of crimson was flowing through some uneven stones in the back of the hearth, occasionally dripping down into a tiny puddle near the edge of the wall. The slowly growing pool of red would have been hidden behind the few logs piled in the fireplace, but as Gabrielle got closer she could clearly make it out. She didn’t need to examine the liquid to figure out what it was, either. She recognized the sight of blood all too well.
Gabrielle averted her eyes from the messy puddle and determined instead to find its source. She crouched slightly and took a few small, tentative steps into the fireplace. She leaned her face in closer to the stones from where the trickle of blood emanated and reached out a trembling hand. She tried at first to probe the hole and make it wider with her finger but it wasn’t working. Finally, she desperately strove to pry the stones apart or push them in with much more force. With no luck, she finally gave up. She glared darkly at the bleeding stone wall before her, wishing it would give her a sign. Something had to be behind it, but what?
After a few moments of quiet contemplation, Gabrielle cursed and pounded her fist against the wall. “Ow!” she yelped as a jagged edge on the rock scraped her hand. She stood up quickly, banging her head on more stones. Her search for answers had so far yielded no more than pain.
Gabrielle slowly backed out of the enclosure, nursing her wounds. When she finally reached safe ground, she stood up straight and eyed the fireplace again, determined to find whatever was behind it. “You wanna play it tough, huh?” she quietly growled at the stones.
Gabrielle looked up above the fireplace. A shelf fashioned from rock held a few trinkets, and behind that a large color portrait of a young boy hung on the wall. Gabrielle looked into big green eyes and noticed the golden hair that reached down to the shoulders of the handsome youth. Kristopher, Gabrielle thought sadly.
She gazed remorsefully at the young boy’s visage a while longer before shifting her attention to the objects on the shelf. An ornately designed pewter box lay at the left end, and Gabrielle gently picked it up. She lifted the lid to find a couple of old coins stored away along with some finely forged bronze arrowheads. She closed the box and set it back in its place.
Next to that lay a short, wooden sword. Gabrielle picked it up and smiled. She remembered the boys in her hometown used to play with similar toys. They’d band together and defend the water well from rival boys, or whatever other mission they chose for the day.
My, how times change, Gabrielle mused sadly. All the young boys had grown up by now. The ones she remembered had by now set aside such play things. Most were farmers with young children of their own by now, or else they had taken up the sword for real and were now killing and dying all across Greece. The times of innocent games were long gone now. Gabrielle set the small toy sword back in its place and shook the sad thoughts from her head.
The last thing on the shelf was a silver candelabra, three long candles protruding from their bases. Some of the ordinary yellow wax had dripped down onto the silver. Gabrielle had no interest in the candles, however, so she turned to look around the rest of the room. As she moved, a faint gleam from the candles caught her eye.
As Gabrielle went back over to inspect the candelabra, she found a small amount of blood smeared on the bottom of one of the candles and also on the silver. Gabrielle reached forward inquisitively to grasp the candlestick holder but the sound of a door slamming shut downstairs stopped her movement and made her jump back a few paces.
“Xena’s back...” Gabrielle muttered, different emotions raging within her. Normally she’d be delighted to know that, but right now she was terrified. Quickly, Gabrielle raced out of the room and back to the bedroom the warrior would expect to find her in. There was no reason to make Xena suspicious or to provoke any confrontations. Not when Gabrielle felt so optimistic about her little discovery in the other room.
When Xena entered the bedroom, she found Gabrielle asleep on the bed. She narrowed her eyes at the bard, watching Gabrielle’s chest rise and fall in rhythmic, even breaths. Satisfied, she stepped into the room and sauntered over to the window.
On the way over she kicked something and heard the crumple of parchment underneath her feet. She looked down and saw a half-flattened scroll on the floor. She eyed it suspiciously as she leaned down to pick it up. Once it was in her hands, Xena stood and opened the parchment, scanning its contents.
After Xena had read a few lines she quickly averted her eyes and stared at Gabrielle, asleep on the bed. The warrior’s eyes narrowed in distrust and for a moment she rocked in place, debating whether or not to shake the bard awake and question her. Finally she decided against it. Xena crumpled the parchment up in her hand and stalked angrily out of the room. She didn’t hear the large sigh of relief that Gabrielle let out soon after.
Gabrielle awoke with a start the next morning after a long, grueling, exhausting night. She’d tried to stave off sleep for as long as she could, afraid to sleep knowing of the evil that was controlling Xena. And that was what she had convinced herself had happened. It explained everything. Gabrielle had never had a reason to fear Xena before, the warrior wouldn’t dream of hurting her. Whatever was in control now, however, *was* cause for alarm. She could feel it.
When she was rudely awakened, Gabrielle felt something else entirely. A strong hand was roughly strangling by the neck, causing her to gasp for breath. One of the fingers from the offending hand dug into a sensitive spot on her neck and Gabrielle cried out in pain.
“Oh, I see you’re finally awake. Good morning, dear.” Xena leaned her face close to Gabrielle’s face and looked her coldly in the eyes. She smiled as she tightened her grip on the bard’s neck suddenly before giving a sharp shove and letting go. Gabrielle coughed and tried wretchedly to catch her breath. Xena just laughed and watched the little display. “Having problems, are we?”
Gabrielle coughed some more as she slowly backed away from Xena towards the headboard at the end of the bed. When she got her breath back, she gathered up her courage and spat out accusingly, “Who are you and what have you done to my friend?”
Xena slithered up the bed closer to Gabrielle, keeping their eyes locked. “Who am I?” she laughed. “Hmmm, I fear you have completely lost your mind once and for all. If after all this time you don’t know, something must be really wrong.” Xena pressed up against Gabrielle’s body, pinning her right side to the wall. She grinned wickedly at the uncomfortable look on Gabrielle’s face.
“I know Xena. You’re not her.” Gabrielle tried to edge away from Xena, but one of the warrior’s hands shot out and planted itself against the wall by the bard’s head, effectively blocking that avenue of retreat.
“Just where do you think you’re going, little girl?” Xena purred into the bard’s ear, running her free hand through Gabrielle’s tousled hair. Gabrielle cringed at every touch.
“I’m going to stop you and help bring my friend back.” As soon as the words left her mouth, Gabrielle’s head was slammed back forcefully into the stone wall behind the headboard. Gabrielle moaned in pain but didn’t back off. She kept her defiant gaze directed into Xena’s eyes.
“Oh, really. Well I’ve got news for you. *I’m* in charge here. You’d better just sit back and enjoy the ride, or I can make it extremely unpleasant for you.” Xena’s tone was sharp and threatening, but quickly her voice and eyes softened. She craned her head forward, near the bard’s neck, and saw Gabrielle’s neck move with each belabored breath. “Your friend is history, my dear. Long gone,” Xena whispered.
Gabrielle closed her eyes, feeling Xena’s hot breath against her neck. Weakly, she whispered, “I don’t believe you.”
Xena slowly craned her neck to where her and Gabrielle’s foreheads met. She pushed the bard’s head back up against the wall again, gentler this time. She looked deeply into Gabrielle’s eyes which had opened widely from the intense scrutiny. Xena, her voice slurring, chuckled and said, “You should ... and soon you will.”
A loud, sharp rapping noise came from downstairs and a male voice drifted up through the window. “Hello!? Is anyone there?”
Xena kept her position against Gabrielle a few moments longer, trailing her fingers down the bard’s jawline. Finally she opened her mouth to speak. “I’ll be right back. I have to go take care of our *company*.” Xena practically spat the last word out. Almost as an afterthought, she added, “Don’t you dare go anywhere. If you cross me, I swear you’ll be in for it later...”
With that, Xena quickly hopped off the bed and strode angrily out the door, grabbing her sword off the table as she left. Gabrielle regained her breath as soon as the warrior left the room. That had been a little too close for comfort.
Downstairs, Xena threw open the door to see two middle-aged, poorly clothed men. They looked shocked when the door suddenly opened to reveal an attractive woman in leather, but they quickly regained their composure and smiled at the angry woman before them.
“What do you want?” she impatiently growled.
“Uh, we’re from the village on the edge of these woods,” one man, tall with dark brown curly hair, a mustache, and a short beard, told Xena. He pointed in the general direction of the town before continuing. “We saw some smoke coming from the chimney of this place so we figured someone must have moved in here. We came to welcome you and see if there was anything you needed.”
“Did you?” Xena asked rhetorically, eyeing the two villagers. A smile crept slowly onto her face, replacing the darkness that was there before. “Well, since you’re here, there are some things I could use your help with...”
Xena stepped out of the doorway and motioned with one arm for the two men to come in. Once they were inside, she closed the door and stood in front of it, blocking it.
Gabrielle had overheard the whole exchange from the top of the stairs and blanched white when the men agreed to come in. She could let these two innocent villagers become victims to whatever controlled Xena. She stood up and ran over to the railing overlooking the large room below, shouting. “Run!! You’re in danger! She’s going to kill you!”
All three people downstairs looked up at the hollering bard. Xena bared her teeth in anger and turned her attention to the two men before her. While both were looking up at the hysteric woman at the top of the stairs, Xena picked the closest one -- a tall, stocky, red-haired man -- to start with.
She screamed in rage and her eyes flashed as she swung her sword around at the man. Surprised, he turned to look at her but it was too late. The sharp blade clove into his skull and dug deep before getting caught in the bone. He fell to the ground, dead instantly. Xena snickered at the easy victory.
The other man saw the savage attack and froze at the sight of his friend dead on the ground and the imposing woman standing over him. His thoughts were interrupted by the shouts of “Run!!” coming from upstairs.
He turned and fled up the staircase toward the young woman. As she watched the terrified villager, Xena put a foot on the dead man’s neck and yanked hard on her sword, wrenching the blade from his skull. With a short outburst of laughter, she quickly ran up the stairs in pursuit, twirling the bloodied sword in her hand.
The man reached the top of the stairs and ran to the frantic young woman there. “Go!” he said, pushing her off in the direction of the hallway. “I’ll hold her off!”
“No, look, you don’t understand. You can’t!” Gabrielle insisted, knowing the man was no match for the crazed warrior running up the stairs.
“Go!!” he shouted again, louder this time. He shoved Gabrielle towards the hall, quickly spun on his feet, and struck out at Xena with his fists when she reached the top of the stairs. His punch connected solidly with the warrior’s cheek and he laughed nervously in triumph.
Xena glared at the man who had just hit her and snapped. She tossed her sword over the railing to the floor far below and let loose with a flurry of punches at the man’s face.
Gabrielle thought aboug jumping in to help the man but soon realized it was too late for him. There was no way she could hold Xena back, especially with her being so enraged. The only hope she had left of ending this whole mess lay at the end of the hall behind a fireplace. She took off towards her objective.
Meanwhile, Xena furiously kept up her barrage on the villager, pounding him into the wall. A movement off to the side caught her attention for a split second and she saw Gabrielle running down the hall. Xena bared her teeth in fury and threw a few more half-hearted punches at the man’s bloody face.
He leaned battered and broken against the wall, his nose bashed in and blood gurgling from his mouth. Xena glared into his half-closed eyes and said, “I haven’t got time for this.” She grabbed him by his dirty collar and tossed him toward the railing. With a thunderous crack the villager and the wooden safeguard went plummeting down to the hard stone floor far below.
Not stopping to admire her handiwork, Xena flew down the hall looking for Gabrielle. “Where are you, you little bitch!!” she screamed.
She stalked furiously down the hall, her face contorted into a mask of rage. That annoying little bard was about to find out just how painful the consequences could be when the rules were disobeyed. She’d make sure of it.
Xena looked into each room for a sign of Gabrielle, her breathing ragged and rapid from anger. There was no sign yet of the little blonde. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” the warrior shouted. Where could that girl have disappeared to?
Suddenly, Xena heard a distinctive sound coming from the room at the end of the hallway. She ran as fast as her feet could carry her towards the noise, determined to teach the bard a lesson she'd never forget.
Gabrielle tried to push the dead body off herself. The heavy corpse was disgusting to look at but even more so to touch. She felt a sharp object jabbing into her stomach and pulled a dagger off the dead man’s belt. She switched the knife over to her left hand and used her right palm to topple the revolting carcass away. It landed on another dead body right behind it with a thud.
Gabrielle all of a sudden heard a scraping noise behind her and she quickly turned to see Xena at the entrance to the dark passageway behind the fireplace. “Uh oh, this isn’t good,” she muttered to herself. The warrior didn’t seem too happy at the moment.
“Oh, here you are my insolent little bard. I warned you not to defy me. Now you’ve got to pay the price...” Xena said, reaching forward to grab Gabrielle. Unmindful of the dagger in her hand, the bard tried to push Xena’s hand away. The warrior quickly caught Gabrielle’s hand and pulled her forward. Off balance, Gabrielle lunged forward and the dagger dug deep into the warrior’s thigh. A loud howl emitted from Xena’s throat, and she immediately let go of the bard’s hand and grasped her wounded leg.
“Now you’ve *really* got it coming...” the warrior warned, her eyes full of murderous intentions. If the bard thought she was in trouble before, just wait until she got her hands on her now.
Gabrielle’s eyes grew wide in both regret and fear, and she ran off down the dark passageway, beyond the warrior’s reach. She found a stairwell about ten feet back and took it, going up the short stone steps. Gabrielle hoped that the accidental stabbing would at least slow Xena down enough so that she could escape and perhaps find a way to end this craziness.
Once Gabrielle reached the top of the stairs, she pushed open a wooden door that was ajar a few inches and ran into the room behind it. She slammed the door shut behind her at once and put down a large, heavy wooden bar that was on the wall to block it.
Gabrielle sighed in relief at being away from Xena and leaned up against the door. It just didn’t feel right to see her friend so enraged. Quickly she regained her bearings and her breath and turned her attention to her surroundings, looking for anything that could help her out of this predicament. Xena wouldn’t be too far behind, after all.
Tattered black curtains blew slightly inside from the breeze coming through the window. To the right of that in the small, circular tower was a simple, weathered desk. Long scratch marks were dug into the desktop and raked over onto the side. A lone, long door in the middle of the desk was shut, and Gabrielle curiously stepped forward to open it.
On the way, however, Gabrielle tripped over a loud, clattering object. When she regained her balance, she looked down into the empty eyes of a large skeleton still clothed in tattered old rags. Gabrielle imagined they were once finely woven and beautiful, and she bit her lip to keep from crying out. “Thaddeus, I presume,” she whispered to herself.
After another long moment of staring at the bony remains, she turned and hurried over to the desk. She side-stepped an overturned, broken chair and grasped the handle of the drawer. She yanked hard but it wouldn’t budge.
“Great, just great!” she cursed, and she jerked on the drawer once again, harder than before. It resisted for a split second before flying open, sending both the bard and the drawer to the ground with a thud.
Gabrielle winced at the shock of striking the stone floor as the drawer overturned due to the momentum. A single, old, gray book hit her in the chest and fell down to her lap. Gabrielle tossed the now empty drawer aside and looked hopefully at the book. The cover was worn, and the same claw marks that were engraved on the desk had carried over onto the book. The corners were also slightly torn. An old scrap of torn clothing protruded from the middle of the book, marking someone’s place. Gabrielle opened the book up to that page but was dismayed soon after.
The writing was, although familiar, not something she could translate very well ... or quickly. A loud pounding on the door behind Gabrielle reminded her that time was of the essence ... if the book even really held the key to helping Xena, that is. Everything depended on the slim hopes of the bard. She hoped that the answer was indeed in the book, and that she would be able to read it in time to restore her friend to her sensibilities.
“Open this damn door right now!! I swear, when I get my hands on you...” Xena’s threats were muffled by the sounds of her new assault on the door.
“Okay Gabrielle, here goes nothing.” The bard studied the strange writing before her, mentally blocking out the pounding at the door and Xena’s angry voice. Everything depended on her ability to read this book.
The language was one Gabrielle had studied briefly at the bard’s academy in Athens one summer while Xena and her had investigated some mysterious murders in the area. The fact that her short time spent on the language was repeatedly distracted meant that her knowledge was little more than passable.
Gabrielle ran her index finger under the words, stammering a bit as she repeated them out loud, hoping the pronunciation would trigger some memories. “Okay, let’s see what this is in proper Greek...” she mumbled to herself. “D ... d ... dispelling ... demons.”
“Gabrielle, open this door!!” Xena shouted.
“I guess I’m on the right page here,” Gabrielle commended herself. She moved down onto the next line. After a long while, she had it translated to the best of her abilities. “Take an object of the possessed one’s and place it on the proper shrine? Shrine? What shrine?”
Gabrielle looked around desperately. “What are they talking about shrine?” she repeated to herself. A loud banging on the door interrupted her thoughts momentarily, and she wondered how much longer the door would keep Xena out.
Gabrielle turned her head to search the room. As her eyes came upon the low stone altar on the other side of the room, a huge grin broke out on her face. “Yes! That’ll work!!” she shouted. She jumped to her feet and ran over to the dirty altar. She wiped away some of dust and grime that had built up over the years on the sacrificial stone as she pondered the other part of the instructions. “I need something of Xena’s. Something...” Gabrielle snapped her fingers as a thought struck her, and she quickly lifted a necklace from over her head.
Gabrielle looked tenderly at the token Xena had given her the Solstice before. She had said that it signified their friendship and the bond that couldn’t be broken. Gabrielle fingered the silver wire token that was carved into the design of neverending knotwork before laying it down gently on the altar. Then she read the next part of the passage.
Suddenly a hole splintered in the rotting door. The wood was beginning to give way to Xena’s persistent pounding. Gabrielle shuddered at the sound of the wood giving way to Xena’s strength but continued on with her translation.
“A fresh drop of blood must join with the possessed one’s object. Great! How in Hades am I going to do that?” Gabrielle looked around the room in search of any sharp objects. The only thing she could fathom using disgusted her, but she decided it was the only way. Gabrielle slinked over to the skeleton in the middle of the room. Hopefully, she searched the ragged clothes, but there was nothing to be found. Tentatively, she reached down and grabbed hold of a bone. With an repulsed expression on her face and a quick jerk of her hands, the brittle bone snapped in half.
Gabrielle looked at the snapped edge of the bone. There was a jagged piece protruding from it that would do nicely, but it needed to be sharpened a bit first. She quickly scraped the uneven piece on the floor to put an edge on it.
Xena’s fist came crashing through the door while Gabrielle worked, causing the bard to jump slightly in surprise. “Oh, I’m almost there, my dear! Just wait ‘til you see what I have in store for you when I’m through!” Xena threatened, laughing wickedly.
Satisfied with the sharpened edge on the bone, Gabrielle hurried back over to the altar. She held her trembling hand over the silver token Xena had given her and, after a deep breath, slashed her hand diagonally across the palm. While the pain was excrutiating, Gabrielle didn’t cry out. She squeezed her hand into a fist, causing a few drops of blood to collect together at the bottom of her hand. After a few tentative moments, the red droplets splashed down onto the silver token.
Gabrielle turned her attention back to the book and read over the next, and last, section. From the looks of it, this was the hard part. The other passages had been relatively short, but this last one was at least twice the size of those.
As Gabrielle read over the foreign text, all the letters started to jumble together in her mind, and a trickle of sweat fell into her eyes. She cursed and wiped at her eyes with her forearm, throwing the sharpened bone away. The sound of the object clattering on the stones over by the door distracted her, and she was getting very nervous. She couldn’t fail her friend, that was just not an option. Once again, she tried to focus on the words, and this time she succeeded.
The problem now, however, was Gabrielle’s poor knowledge of the language. After a short while of studying the words, she had a vague idea of what it said but she wasn’t sure. She couldn’t decide whether the instructions called for her to repeat the next five lines in a chant or to translate them for more instructions. She growled to herself in frustration and slammed her wounded fist on the altar.
Suddenly, the image of her friend Orion, or Homer as he had finally admitted to being named, appeared in her mind. He had become a scholar at the academy, a master of this strange language, and he was the one who had been appointed to help Gabrielle learn it. “When you see this letter coming before this one, the word means to repeat. When it’s the other way around, it means to read on,” he had repeatedly advised her. She remembered being totally perplexed at all the strange, complicated rules of this language.
Gabrielle checked the letters in the word, and sure enough Homer’s advice helped her: repitition it was. “Thank you, my friend,” she appreciatively muttered before turning her attention to the text. After a short time looking it over, she began to chant the lines out loud.
Xena was making even more progress in her assault on the door. Both of her bloody fists had punched through the battered wood by now and a huge, gaping hole had appeared. She reached down through the space and lifted the heavy wooden beam that barred the door. It fell to the floor with a loud clatter, and Xena kicked the damaged door in. The hinges broke and it came crashing in on top of the skeleton, crushing the brittle bones into a large puff of dust. When the dust cleared, Xena was revealed standing in the doorway, bloodied. Her lip, thigh and knuckles all dripped the same red substance, and her eyes were full of fury.
“Oh Gabrielle!” she called out in a sing song voice. “Time’s up.”
With that, Xena began to run towards the chanting bard. Gabrielle remained in her position behind the altar, loudly repeating the foreign text. She wasn’t about to be distracted, not when she was this close. Hurried, yes, but not distracted. There was just one line left...
Xena stooped down quickly as she ran by and picked up the sharpened bone Gabrielle had discarded earlier. Once it was securely in her hand, she lunged toward the bard, holding the weapon out in front of her to stab Gabrielle in the heart.
“Sumani brak dala prandur!” Gabrielle shouted, finishing the incantation. A bright green light shone forth from the bloodied token on the altar and enveloped Xena as she passed over the shrine toward the bard. The warrior was seized by the intense light, and her momentum instantly halted. Xena’s body hovered over the altar, bound by the light, and frozen in place. Suddenly, bright electric bolts shot out from the token and struck Xena, the waves from the impact visibly moving down her body.
Gabrielle squinted her eyes against the blinding light and turned her head away slightly, but she kept her gaze focused on her tortured friend. The electric blasts sent Xena’s body into convulsions and Gabrielle had to try hard not to run into the dazzling light to help her friend. A loud scream pierced her ears and resounded off the walls. Gabrielle wasn’t sure if the sound came from Xena or herself.
Suddenly a dark cloud started oozing quickly from Xena’s body and her eyes rolled back up into her head. The shrill cry that had been present when all this started reappeared, and Gabrielle clasped her hands over her ears. As the black cloud seeped through the floor and back down to the second level of the castle, the blaring sound died off.
The light disappeared a second later and Xena’s limp body collapsed onto the stone altar. Her weak arm still held onto the sharpened bone, and as she went down it narrowly missed Gabrielle. As her long arm struck the floor, the bone went clattering away from her infirm hand. The warrior’s jaw struck the side of the stone altar, and her head went lolling off to the side.
Gabrielle looked silently at her unconscious friend and tentatively reached out a tired, shaky hand to brush the raven hair from the warrior’s face. She used her thumb to open Xena’s eyelids and check on her. The electrifying blue eyes seemed normal, or as normal as they could be under the circumstances. Gabrielle shifted Xena’s body so that her head would rest comfortably on top of the altar before she lay down herself and passed out from exhaustion.
Gabrielle lay on the thick, cushy bed beside her friend. The bard had woken up a couple of hours ago, long after the events in the tower above. After treating the warrior’s many wounds, she’d carefully moved Xena’s body down to their bedroom. When ... *if* ... she woke up, she’d be in terrible pain. Who will even wake up beside me, Gabrielle wondered. Xena or the demon? Despite all that had happened, or perhaps because of it, Gabrielle had learned the wisdom of caution.
A slight shift in the position of the warrior’s body alerted Gabrielle, and she turned onto her side and looked hopefully at her friend.
“Ugh,” Xena groaned, her throat dry and her voice cracked. She squinted her eyes shut even tighter than they were before due to the pain coursing through her body.
“Oh, thank the gods! You’re awake!” Gabrielle exclaimed, caution taking a distant second place to relief. Hearing the distressed tone of Xena’s voice, Gabrielle quickly got the canteen from beside the bed. She put a hand behind the warrior’s head and tilted it up a bit, putting the container to Xena’s parched lips. She drank gratefully before collapsing back to her pillow.
Xena lay there quietly before she gathered the strength to open her heavy eyelids. Her dazed, bloodshot eyes looked up into Gabrielle’s concerned ones.
“Gabrielle...” Xena whispered, a small smile making its way onto her lips.
“Shhhh! Xena, you’ll be all right. It’s all over now,” Gabrielle said, fighting back tears. She could tell by the look in the eyes that Xena was back. She couldn’t stand to see her friend looking so weak and helpless, though. This picture of Xena did not merge at all with the one she kept close in her heart and foremost in her mind.
Xena gulped and coughed a little bit, inflaming her dry throat. Gabrielle gave her some more water, gently wiping the excess liquid off the warrior’s chin. She smiled tenderly at her friend and was rewarded with a lopsided, albeit somewhat fragile, grin from the warrior.
“What happened?” Xena quietly asked after a few moments of the companionable silence. For the life of her, she had no idea how she had become so battered. It hurt to just talk.
“I’ll tell you later. You got beat up pretty good, but you wounds shouldn’t take *too* long to heal. You may limp for a while, but it’s not that bad at all.” Gabrielle smiled reassuringly at Xena, trying to cover up the regret she felt at stabbing her friend in the leg, even if it was an accident. At least she could seek solace in the fact that the wound was not as serious as it had first seemed. Still, she’d felt awful knowing that she had hurt Xena and that the warrior’s sticky blood had, for a little while, been on her hands.
“What about you? What happened to your hand?” Xena asked, concerned by the bandages wrapped around Gabrielle’s hand.
“Oh, that! It’s nothing. The bone didn’t go very deep; it’s just a flesh wound.”
“Bone? What happened? I think I’d rather hear this story now, Gabrielle.” The smile disappeared from Xena’s face as she assumed a stern, commanding air.
“Later. You need some rest, miss warrior princess,” Gabrielle ordered warmly. Xena tried to look intimidating at the bard, but she failed miserably. Gabrielle had her number. She groaned in defeat, but soon drifted off to sleep once again.
“Thank Zeus we’re leaving this place!” Gabrielle exclaimed, casting a wary eye over the dark castle which had been home to so many horrors recently. There were many tales she immortalized in words about the adventures she and Xena faced, but this was one she’d rather forget.
“Yes. Let’s just hope that no one comes back here for a long time. This places is best forgotten,” Xena added thoughtfully. Gabrielle had told her everything that she knew about that had happened in this castle, and a new sense of guilt weighed heavily on her shoulders. Even if she didn’t remember actually doing any of the things that she’d heard about, she couldn’t help feeling responsible.
Sensing Xena’s thoughts and mood, Gabrielle rested her head on her friend’s shoulder and put an arm around her waist. “Xena, you can’t blame yourself for what happened here. That wasn’t you doing all those terrible things.” Xena responded by putting her arms tightly around the bard’s shoulders and laying her cheek lightly atop Gabrielle’s head.
“Maybe not, but I was the one who insisted on staying here, and I was the one who opened that book. I should have paid attention to you when you warned me about this place. I’ll try to listen to you more often.” Xena closed her eyes and settled into the warm embrace. It felt so right to have Gabrielle in her arms. Nothing seemed quite as hopeless or intolerable in these moments.
“Yeah, well that would be a good move. You *should* listen to me and take my advice more often.” Xena groaned and rolled her now open eyes. Gabrielle laughed. “Well, at least we hid that book. Now no one else can just stumble upon it like we did.”
“Mmm hmm,” Xena agreed, nodding her head. “Let’s just get out of this place. I’m sure Hercules and Iolaus won’t mind if we aren’t here when they arrive. Maybe we’ll even run into them on the way out.”
“Yeah, they probably use the road, unlike *some* people I know,” Gabrielle teased, giving Xena a knowing look.
“Ha ha,” Xena whispered in her friend’s ear, but she smiled nonetheless at Gabrielle’s good natured ribbing.
The pair slowly turned, Gabrielle acting as a crutch to help Xena get around with her leg injury. Xena hobbled a few steps with Gabrielle’s assistance before the two friends were stopped by a large mob of villagers coming up the road towards them.
“Hello,” Gabrielle greeted them suspiciously. “Can we help you?”
“You two can turn yourselves in peacefully for a trial,” an older man at the front of the crowd called out, planting his pitchfork firmly on the ground beside him. He narrowed his brown eyes hatefully at the pair.
“Excuse me?” Gabrielle asked, caught off guard. “What are you talking about?”
“You two will be tried for murder. We found old man Simeon slaughtered in his own home, this ax sticking out of his chest,” another man from the crowd answered. Both Xena and Gabrielle immediately recognized the hatchet the villager held up, and the warrior began to lean more heavily on her friend, defeated. Another victim of hers, from the looks of it. She shouldn’t have been surprised.
“If I’m not mistaken, we should also find two good men of ours in that castle back there. Dead, of course. You didn’t really think that we would let you get away with this, did you? You didn’t think we’d let you kill good men and just move on?”
“Look, I can explain all this...” Gabrielle started.
“There’s nothing to explain. You have to pay the price for your crimes...”
“We didn’t do any of this!” Gabrielle shouted defensively. “There was a demon...”
“Nonsense! Your lies will be held against you!” The lynch mob behind the old man shouted their agreement and raised their farm implements threateningly into the air. The murderers would be brought to justice, one way or another.
“I’m not lying!” Gabrielle insisted.
“She *isn’t* lying. She’s telling the truth,” came a deep male voice from behind the crowd. Everyone turned to see who had spoken on behalf of the killers.
Two men walked up to Xena and Gabrielle through the crowd as the villagers moved from their path. Both were obviously warriors. One was tall, very muscular, tan and handsome. His long dirty blond hair reached down to his shoulders. He wore a yellow vest and brown leather pants that clung tightly to his body. His gait was long and powerful.
His companion was nearly a foot shorter, but he was no slouch either. His hair was more golden than his friend’s, and his tan not as pronounced. He wore a purple vest and black leather pants, and he strode confidently beside his friend. Unlike his unarmed companion, he carried a sheathed sword in his right hand. His bright smile widened when he saw the two women accused of murder.
“Hercules! Iolaus! I’m so glad you’re here! Maybe you can help us explain what’s going on here since you seem to know. We’re not murderers,” Gabrielle swore. She put a small smile on her face to welcome her friends despite the hostility of the situation they were all in.
“We know,” Hercules reassured her. Then he turned his attention to the crowd. “A few weeks ago we received word from a reliable seer that an evil spirit would be released into this province. He described this castle in detail and said that the demon, after being freed, would wreak havoc on the area. We sent a message to Xena and Gabrielle here to meet us at this castle. We figured we might need their help to defeat it.”
“Yeah, I guess this was part of the prophecy, though. It’s already been out. What happened, and how did you two trap the demon again?” Iolaus asked, focusing on the two tired, battered women.
“It was all her,” Xena said proudly, hugging Gabrielle to her side. Gabrielle blushed at the praise and smiled sheepishly.
The crowd was quieting down, many apparently satisfied with the story. In a last ditch effort, the leader of the mob shouted out, “And why should we believe you?”
“He’s Hercules, Philip. He wouldn’t lie,” one villager answered.
“Yeah, I recognize him. He saved my brother once,” another chimed in. “I trust him.”
His cause lost, the leader shook with anger before he finally caved in and nodded his head. “All right, then. You can go. Just don’t come back!” he shouted at the two women. Xena raised her eyebrow, and Gabrielle opened her mouth to reply but changed her mind. It’s not worth it, she thought, as the crowd dispersed. She sighed in relief that the tense standoff was over.
“I’m glad that’s over with. Thank you two,” Gabrielle said, smiling at the two men.
“Hey, it’s the least we could do. You two did vanquish a demon for us, remember?” Iolaus grinned.
“How could I forget?” Gabrielle laughed.
“So, how did it all happen?” Hercules asked, curious. The four friends moved off down the road together, Xena’s arm around Gabrielle’s shoulder for support.
“Well, it all started with Xena being stubborn, as usual...” Gabrielle joked, laughing.
“Gabrielle...” Xena warned her friend good naturedly. Hercules and Iolaus exchanged confused glances but laughed anyway.
“Well, all right. Here’s how it went...”
THE END
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