~ X:WP - Apocalypse Book 2 - Inferno Part 2 - Anamnesis ~
by Brigit M. Morgan
bmmorgan3000@hotmail.com

For Disclaimers and Author notes: See Part 1


Chapter V. Perfect Circles
The grass is whispering.

The wind arcs through its sandy reeds, pushing--matting it down like a scolding mother with her child's mess of hair.

The wind is in Her ears, groaning and blustering in lunatic whispers. She lets Her eyes follow the weft of the grass. It points away, off in the opposite direction, back the way She came.

Borne on swelling thermals of air, seabirds pass overhead, wings stretched wide. Waves taunt Her from over the hill, lapping and splashing playfully, hidden, out of view. She remains motionless, the crimson lash of Her cloak the only movement.

Around Her feet, the tall strands wave in the warm winds pouring over the rise. Beyond is the sand, the sea, She knows, yet She has halted here.

Salt is apparent on the air, it haunts Her palate, nostrils, but there is more--something else now. Stalking the winds is the menace of atmosphere, tense humidity, poised and trembling like tendons taxed beyond all reserve. It is pulling Her, it is pulling everything toward it.

She can fight it no longer and strides up the tressed dune, taking its crest. Here the wind fights Her, possessing the crimson of Her cloak, levitating Her hair in spools about Her face, folding Her in half for a moment. Straightening Herself, She is soon eye-to-eye with it.

Stretched out low, just above the roiling supplication of the Tyrrhenum, is the storm. Gaping black across the entire western horizon it throbs and tumbles and roars toward the mainland, falling over itself like a thing delirious. Her skin tingles at its far-reaching touch.

Lightning arcs through the rippling darkness, followed by the snarl of thunder, steady and deliberate on the winds. The storm will hit the coast within an hour, maybe two. By night, most of Latium will be trampled beneath its inky heel.

She removes Her helm, shaking out Her hair into the wild and uncertain air. The wind spins it back in ebon bolts scattered and flung over Her shoulders. Shutting Her eyes, She draws the essence of the sea's gusts, the musk of tempest into Her lungs in a slow, building breath. The peal of thunder stretches in sheets, coppery folds flung up and out, reverberating and collapsing finally in brassy tumbles far into the unseen edges of heaven.

Lost now are the slough of Her footsteps in Her ears, lost is the madness of the world around Her to the blue, blue eyes in Her skull. The sky could shatter and shiver into black shards as numerous as the stars and tumble splashing to the sea and still She would stand, staring back into one moment, one memory.

That face. Older, but still the face from Her dreams, from Her memories. And the weapon--the weapon that is rightfully Hers to bear--in the woman's possession. And all of it here, now. Not in dreams, or blurred visions that belong to someone else.

And what of the feelings? Her feelings?

She shuts Her eyes, teeth grinding, thrusting toward the jaw, the bones beneath the skin of gums.

The beach is dry, secluded, deserted save for the two of us. Our fire crackles, snapping lazily at fingers of driftwood. In the distance, pulled taut over the Aegean is the black sheet of the coming storm, still silent, toothless in the firmament.

But beneath my fingers, lips, I feel a softer pulse, there just below your skin, or gazing into your eyes. I recognize this hunger, this fever; it is mine as well. I am its servant as you push against me or beckon with mouth open. I am its slave, chained by every small word, or tiniest utterance threaded along your breath falling upon me. Where it goes I am dragged on my knees, bent in two.

I have not hands enough for what my mind, my soul wishes to visit upon your skin, your golden flesh, quaking, tracing mad designs in the sightless sands. Your fingers wrap in the strands of my hair, pulling gently, pulling me upon you, as you spill across my lips. And you are a flavor that I will always know as my home, the flavor of tears, of laughter, of carelessness embraced.

Then I am above you, black as the slate of storm clouds, held aloft with tension, with impatience, with mischief. There is sand in your hair, dusted and dried across the perfection of your neck. I kiss it free, grinding it in my teeth as I pull away and look to your eyes. From over the sea, high in the forgotten sky, there is thunder and you smile…

A word, a name trembles from Her lips like a sob, a choke. It is swallowed by the violence of the air around Her, as is the vision before Her eyes, across the surface of Her body.

Spray settles upon Her skin now and She flutters Her eyes open, watching the steel-hued fury of the waves, breaking in caps of white and green, incited to frothing rage by the onslaught of the storm. A call to arms, She returns Her helm to Her head and continues along the eroded borders of the coast. The grass whips her bare legs as Her feet sink into the soft, sandy earth.

The abandoned villa, the temples slouch out of the gray sand and peek over the blowing stubble. She wanders toward the low collection of buildings, through the winds and the weight of the storm to the west. Soon she is ascending the dune to the flat stretch before Her master's domicile.

Inside, the halls are without torchlight, shade clasping to stone, obscuring it in curtains of gray. She senses a presence, but is unsure of its identity. Moving silently she passes through the length of passage leading to the large chamber opening onto the cliffs over the sea. At the balcony is a coral clothed form She mistakes for another vision, until the woman turns to face Her. It is the Goddess of Love.

Against the apocalypse of sky above the sea, her form achieves a sad beauty or a soft bravery. She turns, a smile light across her lips. "You look like Tartarus," the Goddess says. "What happened?"

She turns away from the question. "I am here to speak with my Master."

"No time for girl talk, huh?" Laughing, the Goddess crosses her arms. "We should really have a chat…"

The assassin tilts Her head, blinking with confusion at the coral robed deity. "How can I be of service to you, Goddess?"

Aphrodite's face grows dark, shadowed with a jagged, multi-faceted sadness. "I think you've done enough already," she says, with a black chuckle. "You killed my family."

"I…" Her jaw drops. The accusation settles, finding no ground, no truth in Her memories. "That is impossible."

"That's what they thought," Aphrodite smiles sadly. "But, yeah, you pulled it off."

The assassin stands tall, now. "I can't believe this. I won't." It was preposterous-the fanciful inventions of a distracted, feeble-minded troublemaker. If this was to be believed, it would mean She had slain Her master's kin as well.

"Don't worry about it, hon." The goddess waves her hand in dismissal. "I forgive you. It's what I do-it's one of my greatest creations, y'know."

She shakes her head. Aphrodite laughs. "Aw c'mon, it's all water under the bridge. That's the beauty of forgiveness," she smiles, leaning back against the marble balcony. "It's the closest thing you mortals come to getting a brand new life."

Thunder spills across the heavens. Her hands tremble, collapsing upon themselves. She looks at them as though they are no longer Her own.

"But you were never big on forgiveness, were you?" The goddess crosses her arms. "At least when it came to yourself."

Her head bows, shakes. The goddess approaches, easily crossing the span of tile between them. She places her hands upon the assassin's naked biceps and leans in to whisper. It falls without breath upon Her ears.

Then the goddess is walking away, returning to her view of the storm. "My brother is coming," she says over her shoulder. "We'll talk, Sweetie! Ta-ta!" Aphrodite disappears in a shower of light.

She stares at Her hand hanging outstretched before Her, as though beckoning. The enigma of the gesture makes Her briefly nauseas. Then the savor of blood floods Her palate, and She turns to face Her master. Ares appears at the balcony, his back to Her, staring up into the yawning expanse of storm. He gestures.

"I think I've really outdone myself on this one." He turns, a cruel smile on his lips. "Wouldn't you say?"

Swallowing heavily, She bows. The God of War crosses his arms. "So, crazy lady, what can I do for you?"

She kneels. "I am here to offer my sword to you, Master."

"Oh yeah?" He appears amused by this. "And why should I accept it?"

She falters here, Her head raising in confusion. He nods. "Yeah. Why should I?" His footfalls echo flatly in the open space. "Why shouldn't I just blast you into dust, right now?"

She can only stare up at him, even though his reaction had been anticipated. "I accept my…failures…"

"Oh, you do, do you?" His laugh swells with incredulity. "And why should I accept them? Huh?" He begins to count off on his fingers. "I mean, you botched the whole mission with that glorified sidekick. Then--this was a good one--then you go and attack me, I mean, what were you thinking there? You were very, very lucky I spared your miserable little life, I gotta tell you. And then…let's see…then you kill all of the men that are actually doing something right for me and allow all of my prisoners to escape." He shook his head. "I gotta hand it to you, you are nothing if not thorough."

She bows Her head. Could She explain the turmoil? Her loss of control? The visions? The emotions? And how could She tell him of the warrior's face-the face from Her past?

The God of War glares at Her. "So…you go on and tell me why I shouldn't blast you and just dig up somebody else to take your place? I did it with you I can do it with anybody…" He nods with condescension at Her confused look. "That's right…you're recycled goods kid, get used to it." He leans back on the balcony. "I'm waiting…"

The quivering that begins in the joints of Her wrists, that pull long fingers together, collapsing them into fists, passes up Her arms, settling in hunched shoulders. With a deep breath, She masters it, sublimates it-wills it into something that can be used, fuel to be burned, devoured, redirected.

She raises Her head. "Because without me, you will fail," She says.

For a moment, it is as though he has not heard the words, that they are so far from what he expects they pass useless from Her lips, invisible on the air. Then rage, brief, fleeting, flickering, but enough that even diluted the God's anger would cause all but the most steadfast or wicked to tremble. Finally laughter erupts from him, slow at first but quick to build, rich, deep laughter. "You are awesome, you know that?" He keeps chuckling. "Hoo hoo…okay, okay…you've got your shot-but it's your last one."

"What is your bidding, my Master?" She asks, suppressing the pride that threatens to erupt from Her.

"Don't be so smug, 'cause it isn't going to be easy." His eyes smolder. "I want you to be ready to leave by mid-morning. You're going to take care of my biggest obstacle."

She bows, honored by the charge. "Who is my prey, Master?"

He smirks. "Only the most difficult target in all of Rome…" Crossing his arms, Ares prepares to leave. "Be ready," he says as he disappears.

Slowly rising, She stands, Her cape catching gusts of wind that pour over the balcony from the sea. A laugh swells in the cage of Her chest, breaking free into the air. Her redemption is well at hand, and soon Her master would reinstate his full trust in Her dark abilities.

Thunder-distant, foreboding peels of thunder break off and fall through the cavernous sky above the Tyrrhenum.

Her laughter is quickly swallowed by the groaning storm. Tears fill Her eyes and She coughs at them, hoping it might ebb their flow, that it might choke down the memories that are upon Her now. Her head throbs with them and She throws Her helmet from Her head so it crashes against a wall.

There is no escape.

Her fingers clutch for the balcony's rail to remain upright. Her teeth are barred, as She pants rabidly.

And through it all-the conflation of senses both past and present, the pain of emotions spanning separate lifetimes, through the mystery of her beautiful and painful face-the words of the Goddess of Love, Aphrodite's whispered question rings in Her ears.

Who are you?

**********

The morning allows breezes--cool breezes--to slip through its tightening fist. From the west, this wind rustles the palms surrounding the balcony, making them bow and titter and gossip--as though they feel unease about this stranger traipsing through the city streets.

I watch the birds slip into the rhythm of the rocking branches, eyes lulled closed as their feathers plump with the null of a nap. Here, on the balcony at the mansion, all is quiet. The girl sleeps beside me, wrapped in a blanket, curled on a couch. A deep dreamless sleep, if she is lucky. Her face is smooth, motionless--it betrays nothing save for the furrowed folding between the brows.

We returned to the mansion in the middle of the night. Navigating the streets, the checkpoints and patrols, had been an arduous ordeal that we managed in total silence and undead movement. The girl had been docile and almost unconscious of our task, easily led. After hours of careful stealth, tense hiding and fevered chases, we lighted upon the Quirinal and soon the cool marble shelter of Gallus' mansion.

Eve had helped keep the questions and prying eyes of everyone at bay. Mira was almost feverish with shock and exhaustion and I craved space, isolation, silence. The girl had moved to the balcony and was soon asleep.

Another sunrise-shavings of gold blown from the lips of horizon, spiraling, falling like birds through the encrimsoned ether, swollen now with light, milk white and heavy that drops upon the rising fog of the city. When was it that I began to wake before the sun? And how many sunrises has it been?

I remember the morning I realized I had now watched the sun take the sky more times than you ever would. I remember the sunrise--flat, the color of tarnished brass, like a coin pressed into the gray sheet of cloud. Thin, frail bands of white stretched without ceremony across the flat and wide horizon. It was a cold, Britannia sunrise, damp fire popping on a bed of pine needles, and the girl asleep, with many hours before she would wake. I remember the chill, sunk to the marrow and deeper, the pain in my limbs.

How old I felt then. Older than you, watching the sun climb into the heavens above the last place on Earth I ever wanted to be. I remember trying to think of home and not knowing where that was really.

Nothing fit. Nothing that existed anymore, anyway. Can you imagine feeling like you've outlived history?

What was left?

Greece had fallen into disarray, much of it annexed by Rome. Lila, Sarah and her family moved to Phoenicia, out of reach. The family farm was now kindling, the land given to Perdicus' brother, Ghreus.

The flame of the Amazons, dwindling for years, sputtered out--prey to bounty hunters and warlords and slave traders. I watched a Roman governor drag Varia's body through the streets of Thebes. He shouted in drunken barks about his 'victory' over the 'last Amazon.' Perhaps he was right--I never sought revenge, the prudent Queen to the last.

Eve and Virgil didn't need me. I had made myself unavailable for many years. When I returned to their lives I found that I was welcomed but unnecessary, like a freed slave returned from travels.

Virgil's face when I approached him after a reading of his work in Athens was an odd mix of surprise, concern and relief. Though beneath it all was the feeling that my return was a disturbance of some kind, an unwelcome upset to a life he had grown happily accustomed to.

Still, he spirited me away to the corner of the room and over bowls of wine we talked. And through it all, that same look of upset, of unease that I imagine all walking relics illicit in those who have moved on.

--Where have you been?

--Egypt, mainly.

--Eve looked for you in Egypt…

--It's a big place.

--Gabrielle…It's been four years…we thought you were…

I suppose the smile I peeled mirthlessly from my teeth was unconvincing. He blinked with concern, his hand grabbing mine.

What to say, really? How could I put into words all that which I deigned to speak? That Virgil wished not to hear? That the sands of the desert, the winds named like favored children, could not scrape all the layers upon me clean. That becoming everything I despised and loathed about the world, that letting it pick me up and carry me along as a baby could not dull or reduce me. That I could not break or bend or mortally wound or heap scar upon scar over my useless soul and so never lose that part of it of which you are everything.

How could I tell him that I failed you, once again? That I could not let myself die? Not even for you.

What to say? Years passed as though outside the body--as though floating uselessly above. Years passed as though reading a scroll. As a spy, a separate entity--those years in the sand, in a haze, the roar of the arena, the sour nausea of wine-drenched mornings and the cold mechanics of my body and the kill and no way out. And then…

And then…

Sand and sky, two meditations on emptiness, face-to-face--and I passing between, gliding upon the sliver of dust that fades into horizon and daylight, in soughing steps to the southwest.

The caravan had given me enough water for the final leg of the journey, no more. From the Dakhia oasis it was four skins to the center of the wastes, following in the fading tracks of the sun. These were the terms in which Nomads understood travel, distance measured in necessity. I held my own methods for equating such things.

I travel slow and steadily, only at night. In the flame of day, sleep is fitful under a silk and linen blind, sharing shade with scorpions and beetles against the shrugging shoulder of dunes. Dreams fall upon me, tattered and dissolving like autumn leaves, only pieces remembered. I wake with sand grinding against my teeth.

The walking is done at night, in absolute darkness. My footsteps sink into sand with a whisper, one after another, again, again--the Secret the desert tells. Perhaps I sleep while walking, breaths ebbing and flowing in time with my movement, one after another, again, again. Just as slumber settles, I feel it and start awake and there is again, only the sound of my feet sinking into sand.

How fitting it is, the reversal of the body's rhythms, night for day, dusk for dawn. There is a gradual acceptance of this dark synchronization. It is rehearsal, tuition for what is to come.

Men came out of the dust changed, even when falling short of paradise, if they returned at all. It was a Nomad belief that one could stray upon heaven if one had water enough, continuing upon this course into the whitest of sands, the deepest desert, into memory. To me, it is as though the way is lined with ghosts, sighs churning on the wind, faces like drops of ink evaporating from the sides of my vision. Perhaps this is a path into the land of the dead, a gradual descent, a slow fade. Hope is a tiny thing, lost in the hollows of me, like a pebble rattling in the gut of a copper pot.

I sleep naked, waking from the quagmire of dreams, with nothing save my own flesh, rust-hued in the shade of the tent, as an anchor to the waking world. My eyes open, appear lost as they track along the sway and slouch of an abdomen that could be my own, the pale legs, feet, and onto the sandy floor where it meets the silk flap, hiding the world beyond. I can feel the pull of the journey, the inescapable pulse of it sink into me once more.

The sand is white here. It grows fairer beneath every footstep, as though being cleansed, spurning impurity. If there were moonlight, I would see as if by day. There is no moonlight.

Eventually, my eyes have swallowed enough starlight to see with some clarity. Tracks of spiders that slide like spinning wheels down the nape of dunes lay scrawled to my side like script, black gouges gulping light. What would be the poetry here? Psalms to the winds, named like sons and daughters? Odes to rolling emptiness and grit, the lament of the sand for the heat that slips through its shifting grasp at the passing of darkness?

I eat less and less. There is no reason to even stop walking. Here a slice of dried meat, there a date or two, the seeds spat uselessly onto the barren dust.

My mouth presses to the skin, and I remember how it is to kiss, innocently, or hungrily, greedily, or shamefully, upon lips and lips and tongues. The water sloshes into the groaning cistern in my abdomen, swelling there and I remember.

Occasionally, I feel an odd compulsion to pour out the water, to watch it clot and fade into the thirsty, greedy sands.

Waiting for sleep in the tinted shade of the blind, through the flaps of linen, I can see three birds soaring silently, in slow circles. The simplicity of this brings tears to my eyes.

Still the dreams--the arena, its walls, the stands stretching ever upward, a cylinder that towers into the hollows of the heavens, blocking out everything else. The seats filled with people, yelling, screaming, crying. If I stop killing, the arena will collapse, falling into dust around me. Why don't I stop?

Water is running low. There is a nagging welt where the leather straps have chaffed me; it is red upon the freckled knife of shoulder, swollen and round like the setting sun. The pain is a whisper in the night. So alive it even throbs with the quiver of my forgotten pulse. I rub at my eyes not caring about the smudge of kohl.

One night, I reach for a drink and find that the skins are gone. There is a liberty to the lack of occasion, a welcome anti-climax that is fitting given the circumstances. I crest a wide dune, pale and barren as bone, and stop.

I can feel the entire weight of the desert, stretched wide around me. Its vast emptiness shifts with discomfort, groans in the night. Maybe I am afraid. I laugh, because it is a flavor of fear I have not savored in many years. Not since sleeping next to Lila deep in the uncertainty of night, the haunted wind creaking through that tiny sleeping village. Eventually it leaves.

Dawn begins here unlike anywhere I have ever been. I lean back on the great dune to watch, to wait, finally. A thin ribbon of pink trembles into view at the horizon, throbbing into violet, and scarlet, and incarnadine, raising the brightening sky over the stars who are now lost in the shifting wash of dawn like tadpoles in a river. I lay back against the soft dune and feel the air bubble with heat over me, watching the three birds circle against the spinning ripples of morning…

And then…

What?

What would I tell him? Poor, Virgil. Poor, poor, Virgil: the idealist, the poet-always grasping for the sense, for the understanding, for the endings of everything.

We sat and spoke of the past. And of the future. It was something he still believed in.

Then, from across the table, he looked concerned through a gossamer of curiosity.

--And what did you find in the desert?

What could I tell him?

That I lay there waiting for yet another death, singing a hymn mother had taught Lila and me?

That then impossibly, from out of the sands, through thirst, through delirium, you came to me? That, lying on my dune waiting for death, for miles I watched you approach. That I let tears spill knowing you had come to finally take me with you?

And then…

That you asked me to stay…to carry on…to return…

It wasn't you, was it? How could it have been? I had watched you fade into the humming dark of the grave, my back tired, sore against your brother's old sarcophagus.

Somehow I knew it wasn't you but cared little, if at all. It looked so much like you, felt like you. For so long, I had been afraid that I had lost even the smallest remembrance of you, that the you who met me in my dreams was something I had created, and as such, had rendered flawed.

Do you remember my visions? The voices I sometimes heard?

You never believed in them, did you? Or at least, not the way I did.

Was it because you secretly blamed yourself for their cause? Thessaly--you said I was without air for too long, that it hurt me in some invisible sort of way, caused me to see things that weren't there--like spots before the eyes after squinting into the sun for too long.

But you forget: I stood in Elysium, strolled in its grasses, tasted its air, touched it. Is it not possible that some of it touched me as well? That it left its mark? That I could in some way see the dead? How many tales speak of those who journey to the realms of the dead and return with special gifts?

Did you ever think that it may have been more than our bond that allowed you to appear to me for those years after Jappa?

Until…

And then, there in the desert, on my deathbed of dust you appeared again--whether or not you were real or conjured by my fevered mind you told me to return, to carry on. What part of me wanted to survive? Where had she been hiding? Why had she surfaced now? What did it matter?

I staggered back, northwest through the sand. No water, no food. Soon I was delirious. I don't remember falling into the dust, but I remember the dream…

The grove, when you moved above me like a night soft with dreams, whispering, your voice in my ears, the wind, or gentle rain through a window settling like soft mist over my skin…

I awoke in a covered cart, creaking over the sand, beside slabs of dehydrated meat. My laughter broke from me in shreds of coughs, my tears as dry as the cargo I lay upon. Then it was the simple transit of day poured into day, the cities, the sea, set heavy upon my eyes like a veil--Kharga, Alexandria, Knossos, the Peloponnese.

And through it all, I knew it hadn't been you. And through it all, I knew the depth of my failure…

I smell rain on the wind. It will arrive by nightfall--a storm--and the Romans will have relief. Cries rise from the Forum, the markets opening one by one, the customers arriving through the dust for their goods after a quick breakfast.

Another morning in this place--I should be sick but I feel light. My heart flutters in my chest and I feel color in my cheeks. I peer out across the Roman morning, toward the thrust of the Capitoline. The memory, hours old, swells my breast, scalds my eyes.

It was you, oh, it was you--the crimson of your cloak disappearing through the hole into dusk, like a wound flowing backward, resealing…

On the couch, Mira stirs but stays asleep. She has called out a few times, but never breaks the surface into consciousness. I push a strand of hair from her face.

Beyond the balcony the city could be empty, mine alone, my dominion, once again a Queen. I stretch, it relieves exhaustion but the weight of the next hours, my responsibilities, still bends me. I should be sick but I feel light.

Another morning, another sunrise--I walk back toward the door. The servants are stirring, the house is waking. Preparations must be made. I let the girl sleep through the dawn.

**********

Contained in all things are their origins and their terminus--their beginning and their ending.

Whether we experience it or not, all things are born and end within us as well. Plants, birds, our families and friends, millions of others we will never meet or know, every death or birth exists as part of us, as ours exists within them. It is arrogant to assume that they do not have their own affect upon us, every one. It is dangerous too. The Universe, Nature, life and, as a consequence, society and civilization are about interconnection. Existence is intimate. Misunderstanding and war should be impossible. What is it that keeps us apart? We all share that common bond, hidden in each fiber of our souls.

In each of us is the beginning and the ending.

Alpha and Omega…

…beginnings and endings and beginnings and endings and…

Beginnings…

Beginnings are always frayed, fuzzy in the memory, undefined.

At what point does one begin to love another, for example--or to hate?

At what point do we pass from waking into dream?

Into dreams--do we actually pass 'into' dreams, like into some shadowy land? Or do dreams pass through us? Do they fall like ghosts upon us, smothering the mind in smoky gauze until morning peels them free? Passing like strangers through our lives, some changing us forever, some immediately forgotten.

Eve cannot remember the slide into sleep--that sweet loss of self, as momentary as it is; that blissful eradication of the 'I,' that internal muting that is but a brief overture to dream. It can only be savored as an afterthought, a blank recollection, but it impacts upon her, and she is buoyed on by its influence.

With ease, Eve dreams…

…The hill is a soft rolling one, gently curved and lush. As she ascends it, Eve can see only green grass and then sky, nothing of what lies beyond. There is a comfort in it. Looking back she sees the sheep in the valley, pebble white and tiny among the jade--their bleating warbles in her ears like the voices of gnats. She smiles, letting the soft shiver of happiness sink through her and ease her steps.

There is a large, white blanket set out against the hill. Two figures sit upon it. They occasionally rise and shift positions then sit once again. Eve approaches slowly, an easy warmth still swelling in her bones.

One of the women on the blanket is her mother. She sits looking as strong and as beautiful as she always was and always is in Eve's dreams. In her hands she holds a strange puzzle that she has been intently assembling from pieces scattered about the blanket in front of her. Her mother wears a face that is focused and intense in its task--one that Eve remembers fondly and well.

The other woman is of interest. She is blonde, but not Gabrielle. She watches Eve's mother with a vague curiosity, biting her lip when the puzzle poses a challenge and smiling when the challenge is overcome. Her eyes are dark and smolder with a troubled intensity that isn't frightening so much as it is sad. There is a sense that this woman has been learning to be happy, but hasn't gotten it right just yet.

Her mother has only one piece of the puzzle to go, but it lies at the far edge of the blanket, out of her reach. She looks at the blonde woman.

--I don't suppose you'll help this time?

The woman shakes her head, grinning with the mischief of a little girl.

--Uh-uh.

Her mother smiles in resignation.

--Didn't think so…

She places the almost-complete puzzle down and stands, moving toward the final piece. Grabbing the puzzle, the other woman begins to disassemble it, scattering the pieces upon the blanket, a passive look on her face. Her mother turns just in time to see the woman scatter the pieces of the puzzle. Her shoulders slump and she leaves the final segment where it lays. She crosses her arms.

--Why'd you go and do that again?

The blonde woman raises her nose haughtily.

--I have my reasons.

--That's not an answer.

--It isn't, is it?

They smile at each other, and Eve's mother returns to her former place, her former task, assembling the puzzle one piece at a time while the other woman sits entranced by the task.

Eve watches as the two women repeat the same sequence of events again and again-only their banter changes. It is somewhat frustrating for Eve to watch, as she is saddened that her mother must continually restart her task, only to have it ruined before its completion. However, the acolyte feels that she should not act, and the two women's easiness with each other seems to enforce this course of inaction.

Suddenly, Eve realizes who the blonde woman is. From her readings of Gabrielle's scrolls she recognizes the woman as Callisto, her mother's old nemesis. She does not know why but she begins to move to help her mother. Surely Callisto has some sort of foul intention in all of this.

Someone grabs Eve's arm, stops her. It is Eli. She never met him, but she knows it is. He smiles.

--Can you be sure?

She is not…

…Eve lies in bed. The sheets are brought up to her chin. It is cold outside, the wind howls beyond the windows, but she is warm. There is a fire painting the room in soft orange light and slow heat. She smiles. Gabrielle--a younger Gabrielle-sits at the bedside, smiling down at her. Eve stretches her toes hoping they won't pop out from beneath the covers. The bard pushes a strand of hair behind Eve's ear. Eve smirks.

--Tell me a story…

Gabrielle laughs in that way she used to. Shrugging, she begins.

--The land of India is a strange and wondrous place…

Eve knows this, she has been there, but hearing Gabrielle tell the story is important to her, and so she listens…

--Perhaps the strangest I have ever traveled to…well…on this world, anyway…

The bard smiles and Eve returns the grin. She snuggles further into her pillow as Gabrielle continues.

--All manner of performers and performances can be found there. The streets, the countryside is alive with jugglers, acrobats, storytellers, musicians, clowns...you practically trip over them or get swept up into their performances--which can make for a lot of trouble when you're traveling with a crabby ole warrior princess…

She winks. Eve giggles then yawns. She has to stay awake. Gabrielle's voice bends and waves like smoke on the air.

--Of all the legions of performers throughout all the kingdoms of India, none are more revered than the puppet masters known simply as Dalang. The Dalang are lonely performers who travel from village to village, carrying their entire life on their back. They make their puppets, the stage; write the music, fashion and play the instruments and perform the great fables that have been passed down from Dalang to Dalang throughout the ages.

Gabrielle pauses, becomes stern, a great storyteller herself.

--Their performances span hours, effortlessly weaving several small stories into the fabric of a sweeping, grand tapestry. The puppets are simple but, within the grasp of a master, are able to convey all manner of emotion and action and soon you find yourself lost within their tale. While the characters and small stories are never the same, the main story is.

Firelight plays gently, hypnotically upon the ceiling, holding Eve in its drowsy spell--does she see the shadows of puppets there? The bard throws another log on the fire before she continues.

--A great war rages, and has been raging since the beginning of the world--a war between Light and Darkness. Every being has their part to play; everyone is a soldier, a warrior. While there are those who play grander roles, those who are unaware of the struggle, in their ignorance, influence its outcome as well. From the most powerful gods and kings to the lowliest beggar, every being plays a part.

Often the battles are catastrophic where thousands suffer and die, in the heavens and on the earth. Other times conflict is lost or won without the slightest hint of carnage or sorrow.

And still the war continues, each side keeping the other in check, year after year, throughout millennia. What is its purpose? Why is it fought? What are its spoils?

The audience is soon lost in the tale, pulled along, hanging on every nuance. And the puppets, they become more and more lifelike captivating the audience deeper in their spell. Soon, there is no longer a crudely fashioned stage, props, music there is only the struggle for mankind, the universe. There are no longer puppets there is only the battles, the characters, Light and Darkness. There is Good and there is Evil and the Great War between them that holds the universe hanging in the balance.

Eve is falling asleep…she cannot force her eyes open…she struggles to clutch on to Gabrielle's voice in the wavering throes of consciousness…she has to…

--But in the end, there is no war, no struggle, there are no sides--there is only the Dalang…

…Eve walks along the Via Appia toward Rome. It is early summer and the countryside is still verdant and untouched by the sun's full wrath. Despite the relative ease of the day, Eve cannot free herself from the tension in her belly. Birds chatter loudly in dissonant tongues, lost in the slivers of Cypress trees scattered over the hills.

Soon the road leads up a large hill. The loose pebbles nag at the soles of her sandaled feet. Her legs tire against the steady incline and sweat begins to slide in droplets along her skin. Sometimes she wants to stop and rest, but she presses on, feeling the summit just ahead.

Then she has crested the rise, the road pouring over it like a rushing river. Her eyes follow its course toward the city, visible now, nestled in the bosom of its seven hills.

She stops cold.

Lining both sides of the road, beginning at the bottom of the descent, are hundreds of crucifixions. The tall crosses stretch out across the miles toward the distant city. Eve begins to move down toward them. She can hear the weak cries of the dying. Crows and other scavengers fight at the crosspieces for bits of carrion. And there is the smell, hanging like soot in the air.

The faces, she recognizes them all--the followers, the faithful of Eli. Faces of her friends, family, her wards--her failure. She passes sadly, each step erasing some of her, until she feels as ragged and useless as a phantom.

More faces: Mira--frightened and lifeless eyes, dry, unmoving, her young body slumped sickeningly against the nails through her wrists; Virgil--bloody mouthed, his tongue cut out, his body picked at by birds. Joshua--his face, eyes shaded, sad, noble in the dying light. Tears well up in Eve's eyes, sadness closes her throat.

She stops.

Gabrielle--poor Gabrielle--looking strangely at peace now, though pain has contorted her face, her body. A scream escapes the acolyte's throat and she turns, her vision tracing along the road, passing the lines of crosses, toward Rome.

On the road, heading toward her is a figure, obscured by distance. Eve begins to run toward her. Surely she must be the one responsible. The figure breaks into a run as well, heading directly for Eve.

As they near each other, Eve recognizes the woman who chased her through the markets of Rome, her face hidden again behind the blue cowl. She knows that this is the one responsible for the death of her friends, family. The familiar taste of wrath, though long absent from her, swells within Eve.

Finally they are within striking distance of one another, but both come to a halt. Even crows mute their cackles as the two women lock eyes between the groaning crosses.

The woman begins to remove the cowl from her head. Eve hopes that she won't, but her own curiosity prevents her from stopping the action. The blue fabric falls from the woman's opened fingers and blows off toward the city.

Eve's mouth hangs open. It is her own face she is staring into--but it is the eyes of Livia that stare back, her mouth twisted into a black smirk.

"Surprise," she says…

...The passage leads down into the earth and darkness. When Eve turns to see where it is she has come from, she can only make out a shaded street, buildings close, suffocating--she could be anywhere. Eli grabs her wrist, makes her continue along the descending tunnel carved into the ground.

Crude torches, forced into imperfections in the wall, light their way. She follows. They walk along, passing chambers in the rock, doorways half covered with silk. A small, simple engraving of a fish carved into a support beam catches the torchlight. Shadows, silhouettes seen through cloth, voices of men, of women, of children. Some watch from their doorways--a young man, a young woman, an odd necklace around her neck, vaguely familiar--looking to Eli, to Eve, their eyes wide. The smell of cooking food, of mold, of sewage, of battered hope is incense on the air around them, and still they walk.

Soon they arrive at a chamber, plain, sparsely furnished. Eli sits, flopping wearily to the ground. He motions for her to join him. Crossing her legs, Eve sits across from the prophet.

Eli smiles at her, "Now, it is I who walks in your dreams."

She blinks. "I don't understand," she says.

"You will," he says. With a wink, he pats the floor between them. "This is where I buried my dreams..."

…It is twilight in the woods near Comum, the woods surrounding the summer home of Augustus, the woods of her childhood--her woods. Eve skips between the lanky watch of trees, half-rendered in the blue of dusk. She can hear the lake lapping at the shoreline. Fireflies pulse distractedly above her, their light painting the leaves in a honey-hued glow.

Leaves crackle under her feet and sometimes maybe she understands their soft little language and it makes her laugh. She darts off toward her secret flower patch, giggling away.

She stops. There are voices. She steps carefully toward them, hiding behind a tree.

Xena and Gabrielle sit at a robust campfire. They are younger than Eve ever remembers seeing them. The warrior sharpens her blade. The bard concentrates intensely on a piece of parchment. She looks up at the quiet warrior, her long hair bobbing and catching the firelight.

--Would you say that a Griffon roars or shrieks?

Xena looks up, distracted.

--Huh?

The bard is not fazed.

--I'm writing about that Griffon we chased off the other day. Would you say that the noise it made when it ambushed us was a roar or a shriek?

With a shrug, Xena goes back to sharpening as she answers.

--Roar, I guess.

She smirks.

--I think you were the one doing all the shrieking.

The bard giggles with a blush, throwing her scroll case at the warrior who bats it away with her forearm. They smile warmly at each other…

Eve skips off again, ducking below the slouching branches. For a moment, the dusk darkens around her as she passes beneath the thick lace of canopy. Soon, there are more voices, more campfires. She hides…

Xena sits at a campfire, sharpening her sword. Occasionally, she turns slightly and sighs in frustration. A twig snaps in the woods behind her. The warrior stands, sheathing her sword.

--Come out.

There is no movement. The warrior crosses her arms.

--I said: come out. I'm looking right at you, for Hera's sake.

Gabrielle, just a girl, steps sheepishly from the woods. She recovers her composure and stands tall.

--I've been following you for days, sleeping on the ground and…uh…other places…and I won't stop, so you might as well get used to it.

Xena swallows hard.

--Look, Gabrielle, there is no way in Tartarus that I can be responsible for myself and some little farm girl. I don't have the time. I don't have the patience and most of all, I don't…I don't want you around. So…so just go home.

The two of them slump their shoulders. The warrior softens somewhat.

--Go home, Gabrielle…

Heartbroken, Gabrielle turns to leave…

Eve crawls upon the forest floor. There are bugs, beetles, slithering things under the blanket of fallen leaves and mud, beneath her fingers. She pretends she is one of them. Light flickers ahead, she moves toward it…

Xena and Lila sit at a robust campfire. They are younger than Eve ever remembers seeing them. The warrior sharpens her blade. Lila concentrates intensely on a sketch. She looks up at the quiet warrior.

--Would you say that a Griffon's beak is pointed or serrated?

Xena looks up, distracted.

--Huh?

Lila droops her head, sadly.

--Never mind…

Xena resumes sharpening her blade…

A wind blows through the disappearing trees, rattling branches. Eve drags her feet, pouting as she wanders into the growing dark. Flames paint shadows against rustling leaves...

In the firelight, Gabrielle kneels beside the body of a dead child. She is sobbing as she looks at the mass of red-gold hair--so very like her own--with regret and revulsion.

A wolf howls in the night, another answers mournfully.

She looks across the small clearing to the second body, scorched and broken, the whorls of the armor crusted and black even in the firelight, the familiar face all but unrecognizable.

--I'm sorry...I'm so sorry I didn't listen...

She sadly caresses the unmoving girl's cheek. She opens her hand and gazes at the black phial resting in her palm.

--Solan. You. Hope...

She uncorks it and brings it quickly to her lips...

--A perfect circle...

Thunder breaks above the forest, shaking it gently beneath Eve's feet. She jogs through the trees, branches whipping against her legs and arms. Her breathing is loud in her ears. She runs for a clearing, toward the light…

Eve is five years old. She sits with her mother by the fire. Her mother looks sad and very tired--older than her years. She is constantly checking over her shoulder and starts at even the slightest sound in the darkness.

Eve places her head upon her mother's shoulder.

--Tell me a story…

Her mother sighs, wiping at her eyes, whose blue appears washed out, pallid in the glow of the meager fire.

--Okay, sweetie, just close…close your eyes…

Eve listens to her mother, finding a comfortable spot against the armor. Xena's voice is sad, but not entirely without hope.

--The land of India is a strange and wondrous place. Perhaps the strangest I have ever traveled to…

…Eve walks along a road. It is a Roman road somewhere--where?--Gaul, Germania, Britannia? It doesn't matter. It is late fall and the trees stretch naked off to the sides. The air is crisp but free of the whispers of winter's approach. Occasionally leaves blow across her feet, thrown about in the angry wind of dusk.

Following the road, slouched against its side, is a long ditch. Its crease is filled with dry and damp leaves and twigs. Occasionally a mouse or larger animal will dart from beneath and into the shelter of the bare woods. Eve continues, her sandals scraping the loose earth of the road. She smells rain, feels a storm press against the land. The wind is heavier now.

Ahead, in the ditch, there is someone lying down. Are they dead? She jogs over and halts at the crest of the trench, looking down into it. Joshua sleeps his hand on his stomach, his breathing slow and deep. There is a smudge of dirt on his cheek, flakes of twigs on his forehead, leaves on his clothes and Eve must resist an urge to descend into the channel and brush them aside. She smiles.

Thunder claps across the steel of heaven and the wind bends Eve in two. Grit hurts her eyes and leaves assault from all sides. She needs to get Joshua up, they need to go now.

In the ditch, standing over the boy, is Eli. He watches him sleep, an odd look upon his face-close to pity, fraternity, love…

Eve takes a step forward.

--Wake him up.

Eli looks up and smiles.

--It's your job.

Eve looks to the boy.

--Joshua, wake up. Wake up.

The boy remains happily asleep. The wind howls, hurling leaves and twigs at them. Lightning forks above their heads. Eve starts to cry.

--I can't…

Eli smiles.

--Try harder…

…endings and beginnings and endings and beginnings and…

Endings…

An ending is more defined than an origin, although it too fades, becoming a new beginning, vague and lost in the ponderous caverns of memory. Night is the Day's death as Day is the Night's as waking is dream's and as dream is the death of waking life. These dualities, all dualities, flow in this way, fusing as river into sea and back--a perfect circle.

In the end (or the beginning) we have love or hate, good or evil, peace or war, Light or Darkness, Alpha, Omega. We have the lines we draw in the sand and the sides we stand on. We have the rivers, we have the seas. And we have this endless stream of choices.

Yet who among us chooses the circle?

Eve opens her eyes, the light of the Roman day filtering through the shutters. She rises; the air, helped by the marble of the room, cools her naked body. Stepping slowly, softly she makes her way to the window, opening the doors.

With a sleepy grin, she greets the birth of the day, the end of the night.

**********
"Well, for once in my life I'm going to advocate patience as a course of action," Nero said with a smirk.

He turned to watch his decision settle upon the faces of Terrence and Octavia. Their strategic meeting, held in the bizarre splendor of the Hall of Mirrors, had been lacking focus and the Emperor felt that he had to inject some form of leadership and direction into the proceedings.

Octavia crossed her arms. "Caesar, we have most of your enemies within our grasp, why shouldn't we crush them while we still can?"

"Indeed, Caesar, considering their tendency to scatter," Terrence concurred. "It would make sense to hit the Senator's compound now, rather than to wait."

Nero smiled, stretching languidly, his pale form multiplied a hundredfold along the odd reflections of the hall. "Now, I understand your impatience, and I completely sympathize. But let me ask you this: would you rather eat a meal of many sparrows, or one of a healthy boar?"

The general and the bodyguard both stared guardedly at the emperor. He adjusted his laurel, using a far off mirror as a guide. "True, we have most of my enemies within our grasp, but not all of them." Terrence was about to speak, but Nero silenced him with a wave of his hand. "As they gather, they grow bold, they draw alliances and they become one target." His eyes clouded over. "The little party at the Senator's manse, Seneca's homecoming, that is but the beginning. Soon, all the little birds in the Senate will come gathering and grow bold. And then…" The Emperor left the thought for the others to finish.

The two advisors nodded. Smiling, the emperor walked along the mirrored hall toward a tall doorway that opened up onto a sprawling balcony. Two braziers blazed, heat hazily rising into the morning air. "Now," he said. "What of the excavations into the mountain?"

"I've a report out of Alba Fucens from yesterday, Caesar. Janus Maximus has been unable to make progress on the entrance chamber."

"And the day had seemed so promising." Nero pouted. "What's Janus' problem, hmm?"

The general gave a quick glance to Octavia then returned to the Emperor. "His men lack focus, Caesar. While the discovery of the entrance was indeed propitious, there has been a definite lack of results," Terrence said, with diplomatic aplomb. "And we all know how working men thrive on results."

Octavia clenched her jaw. "What are you holding back? What are the men saying?"

The General sighed. "In their parlance: they feel they are on a fool's errand--not unlike any of Caligula's grand fancies."

"Treason," Octavia said. "Janus should have them hanging from crosses in the middle of the work camps." The bodyguard was livid, the muscles in her neck and arms corded and taut.

"Then who, my dear, will be left to do all the heavy lifting, hmm?" Nero shook his head. "Still, this won't do," he said.

"Send me, Caesar," Octavia stood proudly. "I'm sure I could find ways to motivate the workers."

"No, no, dear Octavia," the Emperor smiled. "I need you here." He turned to the general. "Ride out there. Set the men back to work. Do what needs to be done." His blue eyes hardened. "Terrence, I cannot impress upon you the importance of this task I reward you with."

Terrence bowed. "I will ride for Alba Fucens as soon as my horse is ready, Caesar." The soldier left, his cloak trailing regally behind.

Octavia watched him go then turned back to Nero. "Given the current situation in the city and what's approaching from the north, can we really afford to have him leave Rome?"

Nero smiled mysteriously. "I'm sure we'll be alright."

The bodyguard seemed unconvinced as she looked out into the sweeping garden below the balcony. "What next, Caesar?"

The Emperor set himself to adjusting his laurel once again. "Patience, my dear, Octavia." He smiled. "Patience."

**********

The servants always gave her a wide berth as they darted through the halls, moving with determination to their various tasks. They carried their trays, or platters or urns and, upon seeing her, averted their eyes and stepped to the side, allowing her easy passage. It had been an ongoing occurrence since she had arrived, but Gabrielle only noticed it on this morning.

When did I become that person?

While the servants had been at work for several candle-marks, and preparations for the day were well underway, much still needed attending to. The warrior was on her way out to the balcony where Mira slept--she needed the girl's help and energy.

Warm air and sunlight swelled in the corridor as she approached the doorway. Breezes were still flowing over the city, washing lightly over Gabrielle's skin as she stepped outside. She looked to the west, following the twist of the stagnant Tiberus beyond the hills of the city, out toward Ostia and the sea. A shadow of cloud lay along the horizon. Her instincts had been right, a storm was moving in. Just in time, she thought, looking to the tinder-dry trees with their withered and browned leaves. The warrior was surprised that no fires had erupted anywhere within the capitol up to this point.

She walked around to the east-facing section of the balcony, where the girl had fallen asleep. Sparrows eating crumbs in their anxious way, scattered to the air as she approached. She smiled at them as she rounded the corner. The bench was empty. Gabrielle ran a hand through her hair.

Shrugging, she moved back toward the house. The warrior carried a scroll in her hand, one of 'The Scrolls' as Mira referred to them. In between the chaos of preparation, she had managed to find it among the others scattered about her chambers. Without knowing why, she had taken it.

How old it looks...

And in truth, it was--over forty years old--but to the warrior it wasn't that simple. Parts of her felt as though the scroll came from another life, an artifact written by an entirely different person. Other parts remembered the work, the flow of words, as though they were written seconds before, ink still sinking into papyrus.

The parchment was smoothed to a shine in places, the morning light crowning the cylinder with a soft glow. She smiled at the bindings, repaired and upgraded by an Argive craftsman hired by Virgil years ago. Embroidered there upon the straps, in a bold crimson, was the title of the work: One Against an Army. Gabrielle smirked. I wonder if Aeschylus ever knew I gave him a nod with the title... Her grin splintered into mirthless dissonance and finally a soft frown. No one read this... no one read any of them...

The breezes feathered away, allowing the full heat of the climbing sun to fall upon the balcony. Gabrielle walked almost aimlessly into some shade. She unrolled the scroll just a sliver, letting her eyes pass over the fading words.

And in the face of insurmountable peril, in the shadow of Death Herself,
With poison washing cold through one,
And brutal doubt coursing through the other,
In the light of the cooking fires of the Great King's hordes,
In the shadows of the Persian darkness that settled upon their land,
The fair and true-eyed Warrior Princess
And the flaxen-haired bard that was her soul's mate
Prepared for their last night under the stars,
For surely they would be dead by the end of the next day,
And while doubt and fear for the life of her friend still plagued her,
The steadfast Xena did not run or cower,
She whispered to the poisoned girl, hoping to comfort her with some kind of joy or hope,
"If this is to be our destiny, let's see it out together.
Even in death, Gabrielle--I will never leave you."


The warrior's hand crushed the scroll causing it to slouch at the middle. With a choked cry she hurled it to the ground. She brought a gauntlet across her eyes.

Nothing can be done, can it? Not yet...

She padded slowly to the balcony's edge, looking out, again, over the city to the Capitoline hill, to the Temple of Ares. Carefully, she slipped her finger within a pouch on her belt and lifted something before her eyes. The single strand of ebon hair trembled on the morning air, held between her fingers. Closing her eyes, Gabrielle gently ran the thin hair along a damp cheek, the caress causing a small shiver to thread through her. "Soon," she whispered. The warrior returned the hair back to its safe place and turned toward the home.

The scroll lay on the marble, open and shining in the sun and Gabrielle walked toward it, bending to pick it up. Her eyes passed over its browned surface.

"I love you, Gabrielle," said the jet-haired Warrior Princess,
Causing the sick and poisoned bard's heart to leap with soft joy
And--as fleeting and beautiful as sunlight in darkest winter--hope.



She rolled it up and fastened the bindings. The western breeze began again causing the trees to whisper softly as they shrugged into one another. With a sigh, Gabrielle moved toward the house.

Turning around the corner and heading to the balcony's north entrance, she stretched her ribs. They still throbbed with pain, though no worse now than before. She shook her head. There was no telling when she would have the time to rest long enough for them to heal. She tested her breathing. While labored and somewhat painful, she could tell that the ribs had not punctured her lungs at all. I've had worse...

Eve poked her head out of the door to the mansion and smiled with a squint at the warrior. "There you are."

"Good morning," Gabrielle said with a slight grin.

The acolyte had a long robe of green linen draped about her and it flowed lightly in the breeze as she stepped out to meet her friend. She blinked looking slightly perplexed.

Gabrielle furrowed her brow with concern. "Are you alright?"

"I'm...I just..." Eve bit her lip. "I think so...just strange dreams..."

The warrior stiffened. "Of what?"

"Hard to say, really," the acolyte smiled. "Nothing. Everything. The usual."

Gabrielle laughed. "Haven't figured them out yet, huh?"

"No...I don't think I have." Eve moved to the edge of the balcony, looking out into the haze rising slowly over the city. "You were in them...and mother..." Gabrielle bowed her head slightly. Eve continued. "And other people... people I never met, never knew... Callisto...Eli..."

"Eli?" The warrior spoke incredulously. She clutched Eve's wrist with her free hand. "Did he speak? What did he tell you?"

Eve turned to face Gabrielle, a mysterious smile upon her lips. "Nothing. Everything. Riddles, I guess." The warrior's grip on her arm faded and they both turned back out toward the shimmering rooftops of waking Rome. Eve wrapped her arms about herself. "I'll need to think them over, meditate. There was a lot to take in, to understand, and I'm afraid the meaning of it all completely escaped me." She shut her eyes, rubbing the lids. "Maybe they were just dreams..."

Gabrielle slid her fingers through her hair. She turned to her friend. "I'm sorry, Eve…I wasn't around…I…"

The acolyte shook her head. "Don't," she said, smiling sadly. "Things are...complicated." She held the warrior's hand, looking deep into her eyes. "You're here now, right?"

"Right."

"Good. Then I know we are all safe," Eve said with a sure nod. "And that my friends will be rescued wherever they are."

Gabrielle averted her eyes, looking down onto the road that passed by the mansion far below the balcony, leading with a sweep down the Quirinal. She felt the acolyte move with uneasiness. The warrior turned back. "What is it?" she asked.

"There was no sign of the boy, no sign of Joshua, when you rescued Mira?"

"No. None." Gabrielle shook her head. Mira had made a frantic search, even as the warrior had protested, but there had been no clues to the boy's whereabouts or whether he was alive or dead. "Just like the rest: he had disappeared without a trace." She narrowed her eyes. "Why?"

Eve met her friend's question with a veiled gaze then shook her head, smiling dismissively. "I'm not sure, other than I'm worried about him." She patted Gabrielle's hand. "I need to speak with someone before this morning's council." Gathering her robe she moved to go. "I'll see you there?"

The warrior nodded. "Of course," she said. She watched Eve walk away and into the home. Her gaze passed back over the wide forum, to the Capitoline hill.

And here we are again, full circle--the Greater Good against the will of my heart. Do you remember on Fujisan, when I told you I didn't care about those forty thousand souls, about what was right? For a brief second, your resolve disappeared. Did you not realize the absolute endlessness of my love for you, even then, after everything? Is that why you smiled? It was then that I finally understood what you had been troubled with at Tripolis, when I was poisoned, and why you had listened to me. It was then that I understood, as I still do today. But it was a slow suicide. "You're my whole life," I said. And what has become of it now without you? No wonder I am impatient, no wonder every impulse I have is a selfish one. How many times since sunset have I made up my mind to come for you only to shake such fancy away?

The warrior's hand clutched at the balcony's marble balustrade, muscles twitching throughout her body. Her breathing quickened. Her mouth went dry. She shut her eyes and sighed, her shoulders slumping.

Gathering her scroll, Gabrielle turned and wandered into the mansion with a pensive expression. In the shadowed, marble halls, servants evaded her once again as she passed silently among them. Soon, she arrived at the door to her quarters. Someone was inside; she could hear them breathing--Mira. She opened the door and entered.

The girl sat on the bed staring at her feet. Gabrielle walked calmly over to the table and tossed the scroll onto it. The warrior tilted her head at the girl. "Where'd you go? I've been looking all over for you."

Mira's face contorted. "Oh yeah?"

Gabrielle nodded. "Yeah. There's a lot that needs to get done around here."

The girl's laugh was clotted with bitterness. "So you're actually doing things around here now, huh?"

The warrior crossed her arms. "Uh, yeah I am, and I could use your help."

"You could use my help?" Mira scowled. "You could use my help? A lot needs to get done around here and you could use my help?" She pulled at her hair. "Gods, Gabrielle. Do you hear yourself?"

"I..."

"Where in Tartarus have you been for the last week? Haven't you noticed what you've been doing? What's been happening? You've been a ghost, moping and haunting the streets of this damn town." The girl was shaking, her teeth barred. "Getting you to actually do something to help these people--your friends, your living, breathing friends--is like pulling teeth. Then you disappeared when we needed you the most--when I needed you the most."

"Mira--"

"We got chased across half the city, shot at, trapped, captured by some jerk, saw a bunch of slaughtered guys and then I almost got killed by Nemesis."

Gabrielle bowed her head. "I'm..."

"And now... now Joshua...they're all missing..." Tears welled up in the girl's eyes. "I hate you right now," she said, her voice breaking.

"I'm sorry." The warrior said simply. The bones in her cheek, her jaw became pronounced. "I haven't been myself lately, and I let you down." She took an unsure step toward her friend.

"That's not good enough for me right now," Mira said coldly. She sat down on the bed again.

Gabrielle's eyes narrowed, brows drawing together. Quickly keeping her anger in check, the warrior's lips remained closed in a tight line. With a small nod, she moved to leave then stopped. "Are you coming to the council?"

'Nope." Mira began biting absently at a fingernail.

Sighing, Gabrielle left the room. The hallways were busy with activity, servants moving with purpose, busy with their various errands. They avoided the warrior as she made her way toward the meeting chamber and the council.

**********

There was a tomcat on its back, rolling decadently in the dust. Eve smiled at it. It righted itself and watched her, somewhat disinterested, while still maintaining a certain degree of aloof suspicion.

The acolyte continued along the path from the mansion to the large building that was the Senator's stables. The senator's horses had been moved to one of the three buildings, allowing the Elians who had gathered space to live. She passed many families and followers who greeted her as she moved along.

Sitting upon a stone bench, shaded beneath a stretch of palms sat Analea, who smiled as Eve approached. The acolyte nodded. "Good morning."

The girl bowed her head in greeting. "How are you, Eve?"

"Curious and confused, actually."

The young woman tilted her head with concern. "Oh?"

Eve shook her head. "It's nothing to worry about," she mused. "Dreams and dreams and dreams…"

Analea looked skeptical. "My mother always said that dreams are doorways beyond which time and the soul were one." She became serious. "What is it you dreamed of?"

Doves took flight from beneath a tall pine, staying clustered as they arced over the senator's grounds and out across the rooftops of the city beyond the mansion's tall, plant-covered walls. Eve watched them then smiled at the woman's words, choosing to avoid the question. "Your mother was a wise woman." The acolyte became serious, saddened. "And a good friend."

Both women remained silent, pensive. Eve put her hand on Analea's. The still odd morning breezes hissed through the treetops, throwing a stuttering trickle of light through the shade where they sat. Eve watched the tomcat stroll off into the high golden grass, disappearing in its lazy sway. "You've been a follower of Eli all your life, haven't you?"

The young woman nodded. "Mother and father were some of the first. They followed Eli through Phoenicia, Egypt, back to Greece."

Eve smiled sadly. "Rhea always spoke fondly of those times, even though they were so hard, so tragic."

"Eli changed my parents' lives." Analea met the acolyte's gaze. "As you have changed mine."

Eve shook her head, began to speak. The young woman waved her off. "It's true. Do you not believe it?" Her eyes filled with a wondrous gratitude. "I grew up a follower of Eli, but only in birth. He had been dead for almost twenty years when I was born and his followers were scattered and hiding across the world.

"Romans hunted us, warlords killed us for sport and worshippers of other gods ridiculed and reviled us." She shook her head, forlornly. "I passed through countless towns and cities. I saw how other children lived, with homes, with families, with…with happiness." She looked up, somewhat ashamed. "I was a girl and I wanted those things, that happiness for myself, for mother and for father.

"When I asked them why we couldn't have those things, they couldn't understand why I wasn't happy. 'Didn't I feel loved?' they asked. 'Didn't I feel wanted?' And I suppose I did, but something was missing."

Her face drooped with an old pain. "Then father died--the Romans, as you know--and for a while even mother seemed to give up.

"But somehow, given time, she carried on. She told us all of Eli, his words, his beliefs. She even spoke of your mother, and of Gabrielle."

She bowed her head. "Still I felt nothing, only emptiness. These were only words and every day our numbers dwindled. I was only nine years old and already so accustomed to death--so accustomed to thinking of my own death that a part of me wanted it, would have welcomed crucifixion and the afterlife.

"It was a dark place to be."

Analea raised her eyes to Eve, passionately capturing her gaze. "Then you came to us, Eve. You came to us, you united us, you taught us the way of light and of love again." A tear flowed along her soft cheek. "And finally--much to my surprise--because of you, I believed. All of us did."

Eve squeezed the woman's hand. She turned away slightly. "I couldn't protect your mother."

"Because of you her life was only made greater and her death given a purpose. Don't you see?" she asked. "She always spoke of Eli, of his greatness and how we should never forget; never lose faith in his teachings. And when you came along, she knew she had been right, that her faith had been vindicated."

Eve hugged the woman, kissing the back of her head. Her eyes filled with tears. "Thank you," she said.

They remained that way for a few minutes then Analea sat up. "Mother often said you and Eli were so much alike. She had spoken with him many times while he was alive, and said you had similar spirits, similar trials."

Eve looked at her, becoming pensive. "Did Eli ever talk to your mother about the future?"

"Prophecy, you mean?" She shook her head. "No, I think he always enforced how important it was to stay in the present and focus on the here and now."

The acolyte seemed disappointed. She rubbed her hands. "Do you think he knew he was going to die?"

Analea blinked at her, thought about it then nodded sadly. "My mother said there was a sense that day that Eli knew his fate would be sealed in Ostia and had accepted it. But he never mentioned it to anyone."

Eve seemed lost in thought.

Analea fussed with something around her neck, preparing to get up. "He did have strange dreams that he sometimes told everyone about. They didn't seem to make sense, so he told them to everyone to pass the time, whenever they were in hiding, like stories."

Eve smiled, humoring her. Analea continued, still playing with a chain around her neck. "I remember this one, my father told us about it when we were hiding out in the sewers around here one time when I was very young. He told me Eli had told him the story when they had used the very same sewers about a month before he died. I think there was a gorgon in it or--"

"What did you say?" Eve turned back.

"When?" Analea leaned forward, her hands falling to her sides.

"About the sewers…you hid out in the sewers under Rome?"

"Yes, we stayed in an abandoned part of them for a few weeks. Much like you, Eli felt that hiding in plain sight was a good strategy." She smiled then proceeded to play again with the necklace which now hung above her robes.

Eve's eyes went wide. "Your necklace…may I see it?"

"Of course." She leaned forward.

Eve held the small medallion in her hands. It was the same as the one worn by the young woman in her dream--the young woman who was Analea's mother, years before. "Your mother gave you this. I didn't recognize her so young--and your father, I never knew him."

Analea started. "Yes. Yes she did. How--how did you?"

The acolyte's mind raced, reevaluating aspects of her dream. She turned to the woman, grabbing her shoulders. "Can you find the abandoned sewers where you stayed? Can you take me to them?"

Analea straightened. "Of course."

Eve stood. "Be ready to leave in two candle-marks."

The acolyte passed several of the followers. They smiled and bowed as she moved quickly past them. Small glimpses of hope could be seen upon their faces, like smudges of dirt at the corners of their mouths.

Eve left, not sure what she was about to embark upon. She knew that it was essential for the future of the Elians for her to meet with her friends, now, to discuss the plans to smuggle the followers out of the city. But this new turn of events, born from out of her dreams, why did it seem more important to her now? She had to follow it through, she knew she did. The acolyte walked steadily to the mansion and the council that was about to begin.

**********

On couches in the dinning chamber, Virgil laughed heartily in conversation with Seneca and the merchant Cyrus. It echoed warmly across the marble walls.

Gabrielle and Gallus paced through the room, the warrior gazing distractedly at the artwork adorning its walls and the senator detailing each piece's history. She stopped before a strange fresco, painted in muted tones near the doorway.

The painting depicted the earth seen from high above, with all of its animals and plants and people going about their daily lives. The animals preyed upon one another, the people toiled in the fields or fought or loved. Cities grew and fell into ruin. Looking down upon this--also seen from above, closer, in more detail--were the Olympian gods. They stood boldly in their gilded halls, or sat watching, laughing upon their thrones, by blazing hearths and braziers. Only one among them was not laughing, only one was not watching the folly of man and animal--Aphrodite. The Goddess of Love's gaze was directed up, beyond the peaks of ponderous Olympus, up to something beyond the scope of the painting, something all-encompassing, enormous. Aphrodite's expression remained enigmatic, which lent the whole painting an air of uneasiness and dread.

The warrior smirked. "Quaint picture."

Gallus tittered. "Yes, not the most warm, I'll admit. The painter was never well; prone to visions and voices." He smiled. "Quite insane, really."

Gabrielle nodded solemnly. "What's it called?"

The senator turned to her. "Higher Powers," he said.

The warrior looked at the painting one last time before moving to a nearby couch. Gallus remained at the painting, finally turning as Eve entered the room.

"Sorry I'm late," she said, sitting near Virgil and Seneca.

"Not at all, my dear," Gallus said with a smile, moving to the circle of couches where everyone sat. The senator put his arm on Gabrielle's shoulder and addressed the room. "If we are all present and ready?"

Virgil motioned for Gallus to begin. The senator adjusted his robes, and moved to the center of the room, pacing around the low table that had a map of the city draped across it. A cautious smile brightened his face. "I begin today's council with good news," he intoned. While he directed the announcement to everyone, he turned to Eve, speaking directly to her. "I have word that the missing Elians have been found."

A collective wave of relief passed through the room. Eve glowed with joy. Gallus continued: "While my friends and the followers themselves have no idea how, they appeared at the safe-house on the western edge of the wall during the night. Some of my kitchen staff are bringing them here now, as we speak."

Virgil winked at Gabrielle. "Hidden in some apple carts," he whispered. The poet pointed to his temple. "My idea."

The warrior nodded, smiling, trying to ignore the warning, the uneasiness in her heart. "They 'appeared,' you say?" She asked.

Gallus nodded. "That's the best anyone can describe it as. They woke up in a storage room in the safe-house, and no one is sure how they got there."

The old man, Seneca, shook his head. "From what I've heard the last thing they remember is being in the dungeon at the temple of Ares," he said. "Then the storage room; hours later."

Virgil rubbed his chin. "Perhaps we should not stare down Fortune's favor, especially during days such as these."

Gallus nodded. "We should attend to more pressing matters, yes." He moved back to the map. "As you can see, the Praetorians have increased their stranglehold on the city overnight." He pointed to the various chits representing cohorts of troops dotting the map at various intersections. "Checkpoints have been increased, and most of the troops have moved into the city from the Praetorian camp to the north, strengthening the Urban Cohorts."

Seneca closed his eyes, sighing. "They're using the library as a temporary headquarters."

Gabrielle stood and walked slowly toward the map. Her eyes never left it, darting across it with a pinpoint focus and intensity. "Are we still going with the original plan?" she asked.

Gallus and Virgil looked to Cyrus, who nodded confidently. The senator turned back to Gabrielle. "Unless you think otherwise, yes, we still plan on smuggling them out with Cyrus and his friends."

A soft draft of air entered the room, bringing the scent of the arid morning on its threads. The warrior stood over the map, green eyes unblinking. "But we need to get the caravan through these checkpoints?"

"Indeed we do." Virgil stood, a little excited to participate. "We have a route to the west that will take us through the least amount of checkpoints--only three."

"What's the standard procedure at these checkpoints?" Gabrielle asked.

Gallus shrugged. "Praetorians search the cargo, take names then check permits." He smiled. "It's annoying and time consuming."

"But the false bottoms are undetectable," Virgil said with a smirk. "The oafs will never find them."

"And Cyrus and his men are foreign traders, so they're used to the hassle," the senator finished. The merchant nodded with a wink at his friends.

Gabrielle never took her eyes off the map. She shook her head. "I don't like it. It's still too risky."

Virgil moved in beside her. "There's no way to avoid all the checkpoints--three checkpoints is the best we can do."

Crossing her arms, Gabrielle began to straighten, her small form appearing to increase in mass, in stature. The warrior looked to Gallus, to Seneca. "How do Imperial supplies move through the city?" she asked. "The Praetorian infrastructure would need speedy supply lines. Any contracted merchants and workmen would need the ability to avoid the checkpoints somehow...or at least be able to move through them quickly, right?"

The old man nodded with a smile. "They do indeed. We had thought of this already child, but it is too risky."

Gabrielle met the old man's gaze. "Let me be the judge of that."

Virgil and Gallus exchanged looks, while Seneca grinned at Eve, who watched Gabrielle intently. Gallus shrugged. "Those merchants contracted by the Empire are given special passwords to move through the checkpoints with ease. The passwords are changed each day."

"Who has the passwords and where do I find them?" the warrior asked.

Seneca chuckled. "The passwords are no doubt scrawled on some document somewhere, most likely kept at the temporary headquarters--"

"The library," Gabrielle finished.

"They're sent out with riders to the various checkpoints each morning." Gallus nodded.

"It's settled then," Gabrielle motioned to the map, the small square that was the library. "I'll get us the passwords from the library."

"Gabrielle." Virgil shook his head. "You can't just waltz in there and steal the passwords--"

"Watch me."

For a moment, there was silence then Seneca looked to the warrior. "Child, how do you plan on achieving this? At any given time there would be at least five-hundred men in the building. Not to mention the several cohorts stationed at checkpoints within a five hundred yard radius." He shook his head gravely. "They could have over two thousand men at the library within minutes."

Gabrielle looked to the map and then to the old man. "No matter how intense this state of emergency is, there has to be soft spots in the armor." She addressed the room. "There has to be a point where regular citizens--or slaves, even--are allowed to enter and exit that building." Eve smiled at Virgil who was beginning to understand. The warrior continued. "I just need to get close enough to the building, the rest is easy."

Gallus shook his head. "That's the problem. You know how difficult it's been to get around the city? Well the difficulty is doubled now."

"Maybe not for everyone." Virgil grinned. "I'm sure there are still those who move around the city freely and without a care."

Gabrielle nodded. "Thieves."

"Indeed." Seneca chuckled. "I suppose times are dark enough that it has come to this, hmm?"

Gallus looked skeptical. "Can we trust some cutthroat to help you avoid the Praetorians and lead you to the library?"

"We can trust they would do it if the price was right," the warrior said with confidence. She looked to Virgil. "Where do the better thieves tend to congregate?"

The poet looked insulted. "Why, Gabrielle, what makes you think that I would know?"

"Because thieves throw some of the best parties in the city," Eve retorted with a smile.

"And no one else would invite you, my boy," Seneca added with a laugh.

Virgil chuckled, a far away look veiling his eyes. "True...true..." He straightened, clearing his throat. "There is a bar, Orion's Belt, down in the Boarium. You'll find someone there, of that I am certain."

"It's settled then," the warrior nodded. "I'll leave as soon as soon as I can."

The senator looked to Virgil, to Cyrus, to Eve, to Seneca. "And we'll continue with our preparations. If that is all--"

"It's not." Eve stood.

Gabrielle met the acolyte's gaze, questioning it. "What is it?"

Eve's face calmed. "It's best if I ask that you trust what I must do right now. The purpose of my task will only be understood upon its completion."

Looking confused, Virgil blinked at his friend. "What is it, Eve? What do you have to do?"

"Again, I ask that you trust me." She met his gaze. "I must return to the city--there's something I have to find."

Gabrielle approached Eve. The warrior moved her lips to speak, but stopped as she looked into her friend's eyes. She nodded. "How long will you be gone?"

Virgil exhaled loudly, exasperated. "I can't believe this," he strode over to the two women. "You're just going to let Eve march off into the city with every soldier in town on the lookout for her?"

Gabrielle turned to the poet, but it was Eve who spoke, her voice remaining calm and even. "I have to do this, Virgil." Her eyes were clear, determined. "My safety is irrelevant."

"To you maybe," the poet said intensely then blushed. "B-but what about to the rest of us?"

Eve smiled her eyes warm, apologetic. "I'm sorry, but I must."

Sighing, Virgil softened with resignation. "Can I help, somehow?"

"Continue with the preparations," she said. "I'll be back by nightfall."

"Well, I don't like this," he said. He grinned throwing his arms in the air. "Then again since this whole heat-wave-state of emergency thing started, there hasn't been much I've fancied going on around here."

Gallus opened his arms. "It would seem we all have our grievous errands on this day." He turned to Virgil and Seneca. "Preparations must be finalized for the meeting later today. Perhaps we should begin immediately."

Gabrielle nodded. "Good luck to you all," she said and took her leave.

Eve gathered her robes and prepared to exit. Virgil got her attention. "Be careful, Eve," he said, somewhat gravely then self-consciously, he brightened. "I won't be around to protect you this time," he said with a wink.

She laughed. "I'll do my best." The acolyte left, heading down the hall to her chamber.

Virgil watched her as she left.

"She'll be okay," Seneca said.

Virgil nodded with furrowed brow, obviously preoccupied. "I know they will."

The old man smiled, putting his hand upon his friend's shoulder. He expanded his chest, taking in a great breath. "If we're going to do some serious preparing today, gentlemen," he blustered. "I'm going to need some food in my belly. Gallus, why was there breakfast at the meeting the other day and none today? I thought you said you were a Roman senator..."

The three men chuckled and headed off for the kitchens, voices clouding with echoes as they disappeared down the high marble halls.

**********

Ivy spilled down the high walls of the mansion, still quite green despite the lack of water and the intense heat of the last weeks. Curling and hanging like locks of hair softly dangling just above a woman's neck the plants provided a lush accompaniment to the glorious marble-work of the home. The ivy swayed in the slowly strengthening breezes. Nestled within its shade sparrows made their nests, poking in and out of the shadows, flying to and from various errands.

A long staircase led down to the courtyard and grounds surrounding the mansion, etched out in wide, shallow steps and bordered on the outer side by an ornate banister. There were large flower pots, empty now, the flowers long burnt and dead, dotting the steep flight up to the mansion. Brown and dead leaves fell through the western breezes tumbling with soft crackles down the stairs--they drifted end over end until spilling past the legs of Mira, who sat chin on hand at the bottom.

The girl watched as the tiny birds lighted into foliage behind her, rustling and chirping with their families. She sighed. This was the simplest of moments--something that she had never truly appreciated before. Not until…

Until I almost died…

She had been too angry before, too self-pitying to think about it, but as she had walked through the senator's gardens an overwhelming sense of how close to death she had come descended upon her. Her breathing quickened, becoming shallow and almost useless. Eventually she was forced to sit at the base of the stairs, haunted by images from the night before and their terrifying weight…

The assassin, beautiful, tall, cloaked in blood red strides toward her. Her smoky blade shivers in the timid light. Amplified in the wide space around them Her voice is rough with neglect…

--This is the end, little one…

The blade goes up, so close and she can hear the woman breathing: steady, even and her own breaths: ragged, quick and thinks how it's the last thing she will hear and that soon only one of the breaths will remain and she is sad because it won't be hers...

Mira wiped at her eyes. With a growl, she kicked at a loose stone near her feet, sending it spinning into the dirt. A cloud of dust puffed in its wake.

Some sidekick…

With a self-loathing scowl she recalled Britannia, the long journey there, and for what? Gabrielle had been her usual laconic self and remained withdrawn, absent through much of the time in that damp and miserable place. Mira had caught a cold and sniffled up and down the lush green hills, through the slop of the shadowed moors.

Then the dreams began, the nagging dreams about how she was no good, would never be. How she was useless. How she would get Gabrielle killed because of her incompetence and rotten streak.

Then things became peculiar. She remembered how they came upon the village, the inhabitants lost in sleep. The dreamscape bled into the surrounding countryside, at first bizarre, but eventually terrifying and dangerous. Gabrielle told her to stay behind, but of course, she hadn't. Mira had figured she could play the hero, save the day.

Then things became worse. She was captured, brought to that terrible place, to the dark castle--where every part of her soul was turned and sunk into her like hundreds of tiny black pins, each with its own unique and exquisite agony. The castle of the Dream Queen, on the borders between sleep and waking life, and she spent what felt like decades in its dungeons. She remembered the words of Maeb--she could see the viciously beautiful face of the Dream Queen, smirking at her, the cruel, violet gaze, the voice, hypnotic, soft and terrible:

--You're more of a hostage than a hero, my tasty sweetling…

With glee, the evil spirit had twisted the girl's insecurities and cultivated a self-loathing and font of doubt that she had yet to shake free. It had only been over the last few days in Rome, and after last night's encounter with Nemesis that she had even thought of them, let them affect her.

Eventually, of course, Gabrielle had come for her, pale faced, after clawing her way through the castle's horrifying caverns. The warrior had rescued her and together they had stopped Maeb. Not before Mira had learned many of her new friend's secrets, much of her past.

Later, she had tried to apologize, but Gabrielle shrugged, throwing wood on the campfire.

--Everything turned out fine in the end.

--I guess.

The warrior had become pensive, forlorn.

--I'm sorry I made you come here…

She hugged her knees. The birds chirped happily behind her.

While she was furious with Gabrielle's lapse in responsibility and blamed the warrior for Joshua's disappearance, Mira's heart sank whenever she considered her lack of abilities and remembered how close it came to having her killed. She ran a hand through her hair.

Someone took to the stairs behind, but she didn't lift her head to look. They paused briefly then steadily descended to her.

"There you are." It was Gabrielle.

"Here I am," Mira mumbled.

The warrior stopped a few steps behind the girl. "I'm going to be leaving," she said. "Soon."

The girl nodded, didn't turn.

Gabrielle shifted. "It's going to be dangerous."

Mira bit at a nail. "Be careful."

"Mira…" The warrior sighed. "Look…I…I want you to come with me…I need your help." The girl turned eyes wide. Gabrielle nodded. "I just didn't want to speak for you…like I said, it's dangerous."

Mira's head sank. "I can't."

"What?"

"I can't." The girl repeated. "I'll…I'll only get you captured or killed or something…"

Gabrielle moved to Mira's step, leaning against the marble banister but not sitting. She crossed her arms. "Listen to me, I know you're upset about what happened, but that wasn't your fault. It was mine--I let you down and it almost got you killed and I'm sorry."

Mira turned to her. "I'm scared," she said simply.

Holding back tears, Gabrielle knelt beside her friend. "I know. That's okay. It's okay to be afraid of…of what happened." She put her hand on the girl's shoulder. "But you can't let this stop you from moving on, from helping. I promise I'll do everything I can to make sure you won't be that afraid ever again, okay?"

"Okay." The girl nodded, obviously touched.

"Okay. Good."

They remained in silence for a moment, the morning swelling around them. The warrior ran a hand through her hair. "Look…I'm--"

"If something is hurting you, why won't you let me try and help?" Mira met the warrior's eyes, tears welling. "What good am I to you if I can't even do that?"

"Hey," Gabrielle put her hand on the girl's shoulder. "What are you talking about?"

"You heard me."

The warrior sighed. "What's been going on right now is…" Every attempt to find words, to give meaning to what she knew in her heart fell short and faded into nothing. "I don't even have words to explain it to myself, so how can I tell you?"

Mira turned to her friend, crying. "You could at least have told me that."

"You're right." Gabrielle knelt and ran her hand along the girl's damp cheek, causing Mira to almost jump back in surprise. "I'm so sorry."

They smiled sadly at one another. Birds took flight in the air near the gate. Mira squinted into the rising dust kicked up by a caravan of wagons entering the estate. She sniffed back tears. "Who's that?"

"A surprise," Gabrielle said, smiling.

"Huh?"

"C'mon." The warrior grabbed Mira by the hand and they descended the stairs, heading for the approaching wagons.

"Are you gonna tell me what's going on?" Mira asked, being dragged along.

Gabrielle winked. "Don't you like surprises?"

The girl scowled. "Not anymore."

"Fair enough," the warrior conceded. "The missing Elians turned up during the night."

To her credit, Mira hid the explosion of emotion that coursed through her, managing to have it appear as an acceptable and appropriate form of relief upon her face. "They're alright?"

"They're alright."

"Good." The girl nonchalantly peeked over the side of the carts as they passed her.

Soon, the caravan had come to a stop and the servants began to help the tired but healthy followers of Eli from beneath their baskets of apples. They hugged and stretched happily.

Mira looked about confusedly. She approached a familiar face. "Where is Joshua?"

The man's face grew sullen. "We…we don't know."

"What do you mean 'you don't know'?" Mira asked pointedly.

Gabrielle stepped to her side. "They don't know what happened, Mira. They just disappeared from one place and re-appeared in another. I guess Joshua…"

The man nodded. "Joshua never returned to the cell."

The girl's shoulders sank. "What's that supposed to mean? He could have re-appeared somewhere, too, right?"

"Of course he could have." The warrior put her hand on her friend's shoulder.

"Then we have to find him." Mira turned. "There's no time to waste."

Gabrielle shook her head. "Mira, we can't. There are more important--"

"What's more important?" There was anger growing in the girl's eyes. "He's our friend."

The warrior sighed. "We have a mission. Hundreds of people's lives depend on us and depend on what we do right now. We can't just throw that aside and start looking for someone who may not even be in the same city as us right now."

Mira crossed her arms. "Is this where you tell me about the 'greater good' and all that crap?"

"Yes it is." The warrior swallowed, taking a deep breath. "Right now you're going to have to put aside your feelings and just get the job done." She brought her green eyes to meet Mira's. "If you can't understand that, then I've taught you nothing."

The girl slouched, though the scowl remained on her face. "Fine," she said as she headed back toward the house. "But I don't have to like it."

Gabrielle watched her leave. The breeze picked up again and the warrior closed her eyes as it cooled her skin. She sighed.

That makes two of us, my friend…

**********

Morning was dying in the valley below the Domus Aurea, slumping tragically over the temples and grand Senatorial homes that led off to the northwest and the broad Forum. One could see it, a sallow nimbus lit by swelling sunlight, draped over the buildings there. It suffered in the growing heat and was pushed into hiding by the light western breezes. Soon it would collapse, shudder, expire behind the nearby Palatine, fingers outstretched and grasping--until it is finally crushed beneath the heels of the afternoon.

Birds soared listlessly over the city, turning one way then another, seemingly lost, without a destination. Echoing over the seven hills, dogs barked out to one another, growing desperate as though unable to hear the far off responses. Still the people crowded the streets. As afternoon approached, the thoroughfares became crowded, clustered, as people took advantage of the slight change in weather.

From his place upon the grand balcony at the Domus, Nero sighed, shaking his head. He turned and walked back inside, into his sprawling bedchamber. Shrugging the lion skin draped over his shoulders, he moved naked toward the large bed, upon which the also nude Octavia sat, watching him. She raised an eyebrow. "Caesar?"

"Rome is such an ugly place, isn't it?" He said, sadly. "And not just the buildings, the people--its soul is." The bodyguard blinked at him, listening. He shook his head again. "The sad thing is: I know how to fix it. I know how to fix it but the pathetic old fools won't let me."

"There's no way the Senate can stop you now, Caesar." Octavia said.

He smiled. "As stupid as people are, my dear, it wouldn't work." The emperor gestured outside. "This little coup that's developing out there, it would only be fueled by such a maneuver. Things are too fragile right now."

They sat in silence for a moment. Octavia tilted her head. "You have a plan, I take it?"

Nero grinned. "Why Octavia, of course I do." He stood again, a gaunt sliver of restless energy. "Of course I do." Moving to a table strewn with refreshments, Nero poured himself a glass of wine. He turned, leaning against the table. "It's all but a matter of time, my dear." He winked. "And time is something we will soon have on our side." The Emperor sipped at his wine.

Octavia leaned back, resting on her elbows. Nero admired her tanned form, its sleek muscles. She nodded. "Mount Vigilis," she said.

He smiled mischievously. "My 'fool's errand,' you mean?"

The bodyguard tilted her head in curiosity. "What is buried beneath the rock?"

"Change, sweet Octavia. Change is buried there."

She seemed more and more intrigued. "Change of what sort?"

"Of the greatest sort," Nero said. He paused for a moment, thinking. "Yes…

"Change, destiny, the greater Good--these are not the concern of ordinary men. If anything, they are things to be avoided, to cower in fear from, evaded at all costs.

"No my dear, these are not the concerns of ordinary men--they are the concerns of an Emperor." Nero grew somber. "The days are dark and strange now, Gods shuffle hidden through backstreets, bartering for power like cattle sellers, while men talk of having the power to heal, to destroy as though born of Olympus.

"The days are dark and strange indeed, yet glorious, too. Rome grips the entire world in her grasp, is the greatest Empire history has known--yet frail and shrivel-witted old men attempt to rule where the power of a God is needed. They grasp pitifully at what Rome once was, never visualizing what it can become with only the proper will to shape it.

"These are the thoughts I have pondered long into the night, sweet Octavia. It is a new era and a new Rome is needed--with a new face, a new body, a new soul--with a new kind of Emperor to guide it. The decisions I make will not be popular ones but they are mine to make." He smiled at the bodyguard. "And no old fools shall stand in my way. And no rabble of moth-eaten peasant filth, either. No armies. No gods." His gaze became veiled in a silent dissonance trapped within his skull. "For I will call upon the elements as my allies--to the earth, to the noble air, to water…"

He came back to himself, grinning at Octavia. "And to fire, of course…"

The Emperor walked back to the bed, sitting upon it. "I have a small task for you." He stopped himself. "Well two, actually."

Octavia nodded. "Caesar."

"There are some preparations that need attending to this afternoon." He smirked.

"Of course," she said with a bow of her head. "And the other?"

Nero clutched her arm roughly throwing her to the mattress. He slid on top of the bodyguard, smiling with a subtle cruelty. With a quick snap of his head he bit her lip, drawing a small drop of blood. She groaned, not without pleasure. Pulling his lips away, Nero shrugged, pressing himself against her. "I still haven't finished from last time…"

**********

The sky is groaning.

It spins in swells of darkest ash, of charred bone, of ink. The winds, strong and swollen limbed, hurl it ever westward and it tumbles across the sea, over the spread wings of the pale coast. Its voice shudders overhead, breaking into pounding echoes thrown like so much shrapnel across the horizon.

And the sea boils against the rocks, swallowing great gulps of sand, tearing stone from the broad cliff-faces to the south. Advancing, marching over itself in green armored waves and spilling onto the land where it is vanquished, only to return, to continue the onslaught. Spray streaks through the air, hanging silver, hanging gray in sheets, in volleys spun through ether, chains of it glinting in the strobes of lightning.

More thunder--it shakes the abandoned villa. Eroded bits of marble crumble and spill to the ground in mute puffs of dust. She is oblivious to it, watching, feeling the storm from the long balcony over the sea. There is a charge that plays over the silk of her skin, setting the fine hairs on end, sinking to bone. Her muscles tingle, drink blood, swell with life. As lightning tumbles through the sky, there is a wash of invisible current or force that strikes her body and she feels flush with power.

Clad only in her crimson shift, Her skin is not pressed upon or suffocated by the weight of armor, but caressed to life by the soft cloth, by trickles of air. Without Her helm, She feels a part of Her surroundings, that She can gain strength from the violence around Her. Her hair is the night, wind swept and dark as hatred, as fear. Tresses whip unruly, free around Her face, shoulders. There is the soft satisfaction of Her bare feet stretched upon marble. She feels the blood coursing through Her, the strength in Her limbs--the life pulsing inside Her.

The life...

She opens Her hands, looks at them--scans the palms, flips them and looks at the knuckles, the tendons. Strong, slender hands more familiar, somehow, more familiar than ever before. They twist--too easy--into fists.

Always so easy...But why?

A flash of lightning stretches into the turmoil with fingers of pale light spread over the Tyrrhenum, spiking into the churning waves. She moves to the table, to Her weapons, to Her armor. Glittering in the shadows and arcing light they lie sharpened and perfect. She passes Her fingers over them--the finery of Her armor skirt, Her helm polished to a mirror-like shine, Meridian silent in its inlayed scabbard, Her bracers, gauntlets, the rest.

She begins to dress, losing Herself in the ritual of it. The armor slides onto Her shoulders, over Her body, it weighs next to nothing. The gauntlets, Her cloak--meticulously crafted, slip on without effort.

Then She holds the blade in Her hands. More thunder. She frees Meridian, glimpsing its clouded face.

The dividing line...

A perfect name--the line of division between so much. Between life and death, true, but also, as an instrument of the Gods'--Her master's--vengeance, the sword was the division between Good and Evil, Light and Darkness. The blade polarized while simultaneously destroying. On one side She stood, a tool of retribution, on the other those who would oppose divine will and in-between: Meridian.

She straps the blade, the scabbard over Her shoulder and reaches for the polished helm. In it, Her face stares back, blue-eyed, resigned, more familiar, somehow, more familiar than ever before...

The dirt is rough with pebbles and it scrapes at Her fingers as She digs the hole. She remembers digging holes with Her brothers in the hills, the woods beyond Amphipolis. It is staggering how far in time and place--and in spirit, She is from there right now. Sighing, She keeps digging.

Soon there is a trench sunk into the dark earth, shallow but enough. She places them there--Her leather, Her armor, the sword She had used for more than half Her life--She places them into the ground. Pausing, She looks at them then picks up Her sword. She slips it free from the scabbard using Her thumb, exposing the well-maintained, well-loved blade. Her face is reflected there, blue-eyed, resigned.

Finally, She thinks. The last day…

Then she is covering it all with dirt, smoothing it over. To Her feet now, already forgetting where it is behind Her, She moves off into the mists, toward the army.

When She was younger, angry, this death was the one She valued most, the one She would dream about. The glory of battle, of death or victory, was an ultimate goal. Now it seemed tragic and unfortunate and something She hated Herself for. And lonely, so lonely... But it was the only way, wasn't it?

There is a moment where She almost turns back--when She thinks of Gabrielle. She has no other plan, but perhaps they could find one together. A wave of shame takes Her as She realizes She doesn't care if they do, as long as She could press Her lips to those lips, Her body against the heat, the desire of the bard one more time.

Gods, how I've loved you…how I love you…

Stopping for a moment, She sighs, must stem the flow of tears, again.

With a growl, She takes the chakram in hand.

The last day…

There is the point, before the arc of the throw, where She and the weapon are divided, where both are harmless, crude things, separate. But soon, there is the moment, just before the release, when it is impossible to distinguish between them. When both are the weapon, when both are deadly, when both are beautiful and alive--when both are one.

It occurs to Her here that in Her best moments, She has lived Her life in this instant…

After the fireball, the explosion She is ready and slips into the fog, the ash. Through the ghost trees, the twisted underbrush, the small fires, She moves without a sound.

Already a ghost, she thinks with a smile.

Then, heavy-footed, they come for Her and Her blade meets them in the soot and they fall--ten, twenty, one hundred. Glorious, but it only makes Her tired to think of it.

Soon She is injured. The arrows fall black from the sky, piercing Her flesh. The first few hurt the most, but soon they are like the bites of gnats. There is a point where She knows She is hurt far worse than any other time in Her life and it is refreshing, to find something new in the midst of the familiar monotony of battle. And still--too easily--She kills them.

Until the one.

As Her vision blurs, She knows it will be him. Looking into his eyes, She knows She has fought and defeated scores of better warriors, but it will be him. She makes sure he knows, with a look, that She has let him do this, that She holds the power in this. That death was a door and it was She who decided to walk through it.

It is an acceptable death.

For a while--She knows not how long--it is like a dream fading into nothingness at the end of the night. And as She lies numb, winking out, there is but one soft name in Her mind--one soft name and one unshakable truth…

She will return...

Thunder again.

Meridian echoes the loud shudder across the sky with its own pulse. With a choked sob, She drops the helmet to the table where it clatters, adding more chaos to the world outside of Her. The leather of Her gauntlets feel strange, alien against the skin of Her face, through Her hair. She holds Her head and truly fears it may shake free from Her shoulders. A part of Her wishes it would, if only to be free of the visions, the confusion, the clatter in Her mind.

Her face, shadowed, distorted, twisted in the reflection of the helmet, which now lies on the floor. She blinks at it, tears in Her eyes. Meridian pulses again, in time with the acceleration of Her heart, with the roil of thunder, of the waves of the sea. Her breathing becomes shallow and ragged, an animal's panting.

The reflection stares back, pale, from a thousand moments, from somewhere, but never instants She can remember as Her own. But whose are these? Whose memories? Whose?

Who am I?

Lightning, a crash of thunder, Meridian is in Her hand and passes effortlessly through the air. There are sparks and a crash and then the hum of blood and breathing in Her ears. After several moments, She opens Her eyes.

Her helm lays ruined, cleaved in two upon the floor. The force of the blow has clouded the silver with black scorch marks. In places the metal has bubbled, distressed by the power.

With a deep breath, She straightens. Soon, Meridian has returned to its scabbard. Soon, the rest of Her vestments have been prepared. Soon, she is ready.

Feeling the wind whip through Her hair, the first droplets of rain on Her skin, She becomes anxious to begin Her mission, to be within the walls of city.

She is already miles away as the storm hits the coast around Anxur with its full howling, crashing force, on its dark path toward Rome.

* * *

Continued in Chapter VI


The Athenaeum's Scroll Archive