Disclaimers & Warnings: See Part 1

Once she had thought that the years she'd spent traveling with Xena had ended too quickly, leaving nothing to follow. She could look back at those times with fondness and thankfulness now. The years had enshrined them, inscribed by her heart on the golden pages of her memory. These days she realized that it was the nature of life. As she grew older, the days flitted by ever faster, the weeks as if in a blur, and the years with the irresistible turning of the seasonal wheel. Like the plants and animals, like all of nature, everything grew, reached maturity, and then withered, to be replaced by something new. She held Xena in her memory, like the perfect rose that had graced her garden six years before, or the antics of her children at a certain stage, before they grew into another. Though each was special, never to be repeated, each loss was tempered with a discovery, and she let it go, holding the memories dear, but continuing to live.

She had come to the Norselands fleeing her disillusionment with her beliefs. Her journey had become a mission to repair the damage done by her soulmate's actions so long before. She had stayed for reasons that still continued to appear.

At first it had been to nurse Beowulf back to health, and then to preside over the return of a very different Odin to Valhalla. Aphrodite had done her work well. The King of the Norse gods had returned, somber, remorseful, and ready to embrace many changes. He had rekindled his romance with Grinhilda, and for many years afterwards she had been the sole Valkyrie. She still chose those who joined her ranks.

A longer task had been returning the love of peace to the people of the Norselands, yet after a generation, the young sought their happiness and renown not only on the battlefield. Now fighting was reserved most frequently for the enforcement of the Thing's laws, and also rarely for the repulsion of foreign invaders. Somewhere along the way, things had gotten more complex.

Xena's ghost, for a time her constant companion, hadn't appeared to her since a night in Denmark long ago, when she'd rescued Beowulf and his men from the feud with Hrothgar and the Danes. Also back then, she had at times heard from Brunnhilda, and felt her warmth of spirit, devotion, and love. That too had passed, but at least she knew what had happened to the spirit of the lost Valkyrie.

She remembered that it had been nearly a year after the battle with Odin's army, and she was still living out of the room at the inn in Kaupang. Though she had often been away for short periods, she always came back. Beowulf had recovered from his battle wounds, and then he too had begun to travel, working hard to restore peace and justice in the Norselands. They had been working toward the same goals, and now they worked together. They had also recognized that they spent their time together in comfortable and warm companionship, at ease with each other, and secure in their mutual caring and respect. They could have gone on forever as best friends, but they had each realized that they wanted more.

He had found her alone one night in the forest that surrounded Kaupang. It was a favorite spot of hers. When she hadn't appeared for the evening meal, he had sought her there, where an upthrust wedge of granite kept the old growth trees that seemed to reach to Valhalla itself at bay. It was a place that allowed her a view of the sky. He had felt drawn, as if by his destiny. On this night a year before, they had sat across a table from each other in a shabby camp in Denmark. It had been the last time that she had seen Xena's ghost. Tonight she seemed melancholy, contemplative, and he could sense that she felt some loss. At first he hung back among the trees, content to have found her safe.

"Join me, Beowulf," she had invited in her soft voice, never turning, but somehow knowing he was there. He had moved onto the rock and taken a seat beside her. He'd glanced at her profile in the starlight. He felt his heartbeat quicken as it always did when she was so close.

"Sometimes, looking out at the cosmos makes me think," she had told him, "of where I've been, and where I'm going." She had seemed both sad and hopeful to him.

"Gabrielle, none can know where their life will lead them, and yours has been a harder journey than most," he had observed. "I want you to know, that wherever you are called, you will always have a home in my heart. I will always welcome you."

"That means a lot to me," Gabrielle had told him, turning to favor him with a small smile. "I've traveled the world, but my heart has been homeless too long."

"That I can understand. You still feel the loss of your soulmate. You can't replace Xena, and you will never forget her, but you have survived her. Tales speak of souls being rejoined after this life fades, Gabrielle, and this life is short. There is no guilt in embracing the years you have left, and those things that the years may bring."

"You speak the truth, Beowulf. But I would still feel guilt, knowing that a heart received in this life would be cast aside in the next."

"Gabrielle, I once told Xena that for you I'd walk through the fires of hell…I should have told you instead. In this life I have defied the Valkyrie and my god, as well as my friends and enemies. What comes after, I cannot foresee. Yet perhaps, with Odin and Valhalla restored, there may be a seat at that banquet for me after all."

"So you would give me your love in this life, even knowing that we will be separated in the next?"

"My heart was given long ago, Gabrielle. The question is, can you accept?"

For a long time they sat, staring at the stars, while Gabrielle thought. He had offered her a love with no strings attached, not just in this life, but in the next. She had only her own guilt to overcome. Overcoming guilt, she knew, was a hard thing indeed. Atonement had overshadowed all of her time with Xena. It had been the theme of their relationship, and at times it had been so tiresome. What would it be like to let go of the guilt that she could do nothing to atone for, and leave it behind? She realized that there was no deception in this decision on her part, and no false expectations on his. There was no guilt, unless she created it to poison her own chance for happiness. And she had seen where that could lead. Gabrielle, just promise me you'll take the chance to be happy someday, if you find someplace, or something, or someone that can bring you joy. She had promised herself that she would be all that her soulmate had tried to be.

"Beowulf, I can take this step, I can accept."

The kiss that followed was tender and deep, and it had been more fulfilling than she had expected. Through the years that they shared, their kisses never ceased to amaze her. The weight that had been lifted from her heart with those words had also surprised her. She had carried it for so long that it had become almost unnoticed. She would always cherish Xena, and she would hold the memory of their years together close to her heart. One day they would be together again. But instead of living for that day, she would live for the day she saw before her, and she would hold it just as dear. She had finally let go.

A week later they had married, and the joy that filled her heart was a feeling she'd once thought forever lost. When they lay together on their wedding night, Gabrielle had found the gruff warrior gentled by his adoration of her. Beowulf's passion and her own ignited a mutual flame that burned through her body and soul. Her cries of ecstasy, as she writhed from his lusty rhythmic movements, rose up the planes of the ether, bringing a smile to the face of her soulmate's ghost. The depth of the peace and contentment she felt afterwards, as they lay together sated, was a blessing she'd thought she'd never feel again. The Fates owed me this, she thought with a grin, as she sank into slumber in his arms.

Beowulf and Gabrielle chose a piece of land with both great trees, open fields, and outcroppings of granite that sheltered a spring. They had set to work, clearing land and felling trees, beginning the process of building a lodge. Almost as soon as the sounds of their axes rang through the forest, neighbors, friends, and old comrades-in-arms had arrived to help. Beowulf had many friends, and Gabrielle had become a legend. The construction was done in a single moon.

In the field, Gabrielle planted herbs and let her mount run free. The Amazon horse was expected to foal the following spring, bearing the young of a stallion of the Valkyrie. The mating had occurred while the eight steeds belonging to Grinhilda and the seven fallen Valkyrie had been kept in Kaupang, prior to Odin's return and the restoration of Asgard. It was after nine months that Gabrielle began to feel nauseous each morning, and she understood that life was growing within her again. She and Beowulf both rejoiced, and she had seldom in her life been as happy.

After another three months, a visitor rode in from the east, arriving in the dead of winter. She had traversed steppes and the lands of the Scythians, turning north before entering Germania, for she still had many enemies there. She had ridden up through the lands of the Swedes and then crossed west into Norway, asking directions in many villages and towns, before finding her way to Kaupang, and finally Gabrielle and Beowulf's home.

Dusk was fading, and the couple had started their evening meal, when a knock came on the door. Beowulf answered it, and found a gaunt woman, wrapped in strange robes, standing on the threshold. She was a stranger to him, and he was very surprised when his wife joyously leapt from her seat to greet her, enveloping her in a hug that lasted a long time. Shortly, things would just get stranger.

Eve had received several "messages", as she called them, directing her to the Norselands with all haste, to find her remaining parent. At first that was all she would say, and so after Eve had cared for her horse, the three shared a meal, and then settled down for a night's rest.

In the dark of their room, Gabrielle filled in Beowulf about the amazing details of Eve's life. He seemed most impressed that she was Xena's daughter. He was functionally speechless when she told him of her origins, how she had changed her life, and that she was now the Messenger of the One God's Way of Love. In the Norselands, they had heard only rumors of the rise of this southern faith. They had heard more of Livia. With all his questions, her tale took a couple candlemarks to relate. Afterwards, they both lay in silence, thinking and wondering about Eve's visit. Neither got much rest. In a nearby guestroom, Eve had spent a little time praying. Then she had curled up on a bed for the first time in what seemed like weeks, and had quickly fallen into a deep sleep.

The next morning, Eve took Gabrielle aside and explained her mission. Gabrielle, having been through so many odd things already, sat and listened to every word without panicking or protesting. It was as outlandish as anything she'd heard yet, and for that reason she believed it. After all, Eve had spent four months in the saddle, racing across the known world all alone, just to be with her. Her only source of tension was what to tell Beowulf.

"Don't tell him anything, Gabrielle," Eve advised, "there's really nothing to say."

"Now how can I do that? He's her father and he has a right to know she's not his daughter."

"Gabrielle, you haven't been listening. He is her father, and you are her mother. It's just that her spirit comes from someone else."

"Well, of course, Eve. He and I are both keeping our spirits, thank you very much. I guess I'm just shocked that this baby's spirit is getting the chance to choose its parents."

"It is a little irregular, Aunt Gabrielle, but Eli told me it was right."

"Somehow the idea of Eli and the spirits around here getting together strikes me as strange. Now if it had been Xena's spirit, I could understand that…"

"Gabrielle," the Messenger said with a sincerely shocked expression, before starting to laugh, "that almost seems…incestuous." Gabrielle joined Eve in her mirth.

"So if this spirit has already chosen my baby to be born in, why did you have to come all the way here?"

"Because her spirit is vying for its place in your baby with another spirit that is waiting to be reborn. I can keep the other spirit at bay with my prayers and rituals. You might have been able to do it alone, but only if you had known of the conflict."

"And this other spirit is evil?" Gabrielle asked, remembering Alti's attempt to use Xena's baby as a bridge into the world.

"She is willful and selfish, and seeks to be born out of her proper place and time, but she is not really evil."

"And the spirit who should be born into my baby?"

"She loves you, Gabrielle, and she gave up her life for you."

"Well then I guess I'll welcome her with all my love."

"I'm sure you will, Gabrielle. I just wish my mother was here to see it."

"You know she's been gone, Eve?"

"Oh yeah. She's with Eli, chewing the fat. He said that at first she was resistant, but now they're making progress. It sounded like it could take a while though."

Gabrielle was silent for long moments, wondering about her soulmate's path in the afterlife. Something had taken her away from the world; away from me, she thought, and I guess that even in death some new mission has found her. A hero's work is never done.

For the next five months, Eve gave Gabrielle special herbs, and led her in prayer twice a day. The warrior felt the baby growing strong, and knew she was doing the right thing.

Eve eventually came to be accepted in Kaupang. The Norsemen found her odd, and seldom listened to her if she got preachy, but they treated her well once they got to know her. Her relationship to Xena, Gabrielle, and Beowulf stood in her favor, and since the land was at peace, she didn't stick out so badly as she would have in times of war. In her own right, Eve's knowledge of herbs and healing was an asset to the village, especially when Gabrielle's pregnancy kept her from travelling to visit the injured.

Sometimes Gabrielle would look out into the field and see her Amazon horse with its leggy colt, together with the very same horse she'd bought in Kalkut. It was happy and healthy now; hardly the same anemic beast she'd once thought would die under her any day. Eve had kept it and ridden it all the way from Indus, and it had turned out to be a spirited and loyal companion. She watched them one afternoon, feeling her baby kick and turn. It was almost her time to deliver.

It feels like home here, she thought. I've found a place where I can grow and build new dreams. You were right, Xena. There was a place for me…with happiness and love.

"Many here love you, Gabrielle." The whisper in the air told her. The movements inside her stilled as the baby slept.

"I know Brunnhilda, and there are many here that I love as well. It'll be time soon, won't it?"

"Yes. Tomorrow night you'll be a new mother."

"And somewhere, Akemi will be reborn in her own rightful time and place."

"Yes, mother."

As Brunnhilda had informed her, Gabrielle had given birth the following night. Beowulf had ceaselessly paced outside her door, even driving the visiting Wicglaf to distraction. Eve had burned frankincense and myrrh, filling the room with billowing clouds of the mystical resins. The midwife had coughed like an asthmatic.

The robed Messenger knelt on a colorful ground cloth, softly praying beside the bed. The air tingled with a static charge though the weather was fair, and at times, objects in the room shook or swayed. The baby had moved into position to begin its journey into the world, when Eve leapt up and stood facing the window. From under her robes, she had drawn a gleaming sword, and she held it en guard against an unseen foe.

"Beloved spirit, ensoul the vessel of your incarnation, I stand for you to battle the one who would usurp your appointed place," Eve declared.

She began the parrying and attack against an invisible antagonist, each move performed in deadly earnest, driving back her enemy as she had once done in Caesar's name. At times it appeared that she struck her target, for they heard an unearthly wailing that seemed to come from a great distance. At other times, rents appeared in her robes and she bled. They could hear the swords clashing at each exchange. The furious battle continued as Gabrielle cried out in the pains of her labor.

Just before the sound of a baby's first cry filled the air, they saw the spectral being of a girl in white robes, holding a katana, her head of midnight hair bowed in defeat. She looked up once, eyeing the mother and daughter with envy, and then she slowly vanished.

At the sound of the baby's cry, Beowulf had burst into the room, his jubilation turning to shock when he saw Eve holding a sword, her clothing rent with battle wounds. As he stood frozen, a beam of light had appeared in the center of the room. It had grown in intensity, directed from ceiling to floor; the brightness at its zenith barely to be withstood by the naked eye. It had rapidly faded, revealing an armored figure with black wings. The archangel had smiled and reached out to Eve, and she had laid the sword, hilt first, in his hand. Then he'd made a gesture of benediction and Eve's wounds had vanished. The glow had returned to surround the figure as it sheathed the sword, and the archangel vanished, dissolving into the beam of light. Then the newborn cried again, breaking the spell, and all eyes had turned to Gabrielle and her daughter.

"Can we open a window and get some fresh air please?" Gabrielle had asked weakly.

Eve had looked around in embarrassment at all the smoke from her ritual, and opened the window wide.

Beowulf and Gabrielle had spent many candlemarks deciding on a name for their child. The obvious choices for a daughter had been the names of Gabrielle or Xena's own mothers. Somehow, Gabrielle just didn't feel satisfied. She had named her first daughter Hope, for she had hoped that her child could defeat the influence of its demonic father. It had been one of the biggest disasters of her life. When Gabrielle had come to the Norselands she'd been nearly bereft of belief in the possibility of any rightness in her life. Now she felt that her life was right again. It had seemed incomplete for such a long time. Her originally positive nature had reasserted itself, and so she and Beowulf had agreed on a name for their daughter. They had named her Tillit, in the tongue of Norway, because the name translated as Faith. (Somehow Gabrielle just couldn't saddle her child with the Greek version, Pisti. She knew how children thought. Her daughter would soon have been nicknamed Pis).

The Messenger of Eli had stayed on, helping Gabrielle care for her daughter, but as the summer began to fade, she told Gabrielle and Beowulf that she would soon be leaving. Her time in the Norselands was drawing to a close, and she felt her mission calling her back. When she returned, she would teach in Chin.

"I thought you'd stick around and maybe try to bring Eli's message to the Norsemen," Gabrielle had said one afternoon, as the three had sat on an outcropping above their spring.

"No, Gabrielle, this is not the time." Eve told them. "The Norsemen must first find their way with Odin. The coming of Eli's Way is far in the future. When I was first called here, I thought that was to be my mission, but the conversion of these lands will not come for a thousand winters."

"Then you've completed your mission?" Beowulf had asked. He had come to esteem Xena's daughter. "I shall be sorry to see you go."

"I have one more thing to do," she'd told Gabrielle. "I must return the Right of Caste you once gave me. I can never lead the Amazons, but your daughter will."

"Then we'll have to travel soon," Gabrielle had said, "the remnant of the northern tribe is over a month's ride to the southeast, and winter comes early in these lands."

"Can you travel?" Eve had asked, glancing quickly at Beowulf.

Beowulf looked back and forth between the women in confusion. He didn't like the idea of his wife and baby daughter out on the road for a season. The idea of her returning alone, with winter following on her heels, was even worse. He knew the Amazons would not welcome him if he tried to accompany her.

"Gabrielle, many dangers lie in travel for a woman with a baby. My heart is uneasy at this trip. Must you go now?"

"I'll be ok traveling with Eve," she assured him, "it'll be like when Xena and I traveled when Eve was a baby."

"Well, I suppose you're right," he reluctantly agreed. Eve was certainly alive, and Gabrielle had no gods trying to kill their daughter. He suggested that maybe he could arrange to meet her for the trip home.

"Beowulf, I am a queen of the Amazon nation. When I return, it will be with an escort. Our daughter will stand in line to rule their people. Believe me, they will take no chances."

"Then I shall have faith in them, and I have always had faith in you," he finally said, "I shall miss you, and I shall pray the gods bring you favor on your journey."

They had left two days later on the autumnal equinox. Gabrielle remembered the familiar feel of riding and camping while on that trip. She had always enjoyed Eve's company, especially since she wasn't so tortured with her old guilt anymore. At times she wished her soulmate could have found the forgiveness that Eve had found. At other times she could almost feel Xena's spirit sitting beside her on her bedroll by the campfire. But she never appeared, and she never spoke, and Gabrielle chalked it up to her memory and wishful thinking.

It took five and a half weeks before Eve and Gabrielle had found the camp of the northern Amazons; those who had not gone south with Cyane, to join Varia before Helicon. They numbered barely two dozen, including Aliah, their queen, and Backari, their shamaness. All were in their late teens or early twenties.

They met Gabrielle with something approaching hero worship, while looking askance at Eve. It had been barely five years since she had ravaged their sisters, as Livia. After a meal of welcome, they had traded news, and Gabrielle had approached them about the ceremony for passing on a caste of royalty. With both a queen and a shamaness present, her daughter could be born into the tribe, and Eve could formally pass on her Right of Caste. The queen and the shamaness seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

"Gabrielle," Aliah said in her direct way, "we hoped you'd reclaim the Right of Caste for your daughter. Eve is an Amazon in name only."

"Yes, no one here would accept Eve as our princess," Backari added, the shamaness no less blunt than her queen, "she can't serve us when her heart is commanded by the god of Eli. We are warriors, and we must have a warrior queen."

"You speak the truth," Gabrielle agreed diplomatically, "Eve was never trained to lead the tribe. She has been called onto her own path." She was trained to lead the army of the known world's greatest empire, she thought to herself, and she'd knock out any of your warriors that I've seen here.

"You have led our nation and shown us bravery and wisdom," Aliah continued, "your daughter could become a great queen. Your decision makes us hopeful for our future."

Though Gabrielle would have preferred that her daughter not become a warrior, she knew that only time would tell. One thing she had learned from her own experiences was that a child would find its own path in life, beyond the guidance of its parents or culture. If her daughter became a queen of the Amazons someday, Gabrielle could accept that too, so long as she was the best queen she could be.

The next day they had stood on the ceremonial dais in the center of the village, a basin of clear water on a pedestal before them. Gabrielle had held her daughter. On her right, Aliah administered the oaths naming Tillit an Amazon and a member of their tribe, while on her left, Backari anointed the babe's head with water. Based on the southern ritual, it was the new ceremony that she and Xena had instituted at Eve's christening, almost thirty years before. Gabrielle couldn't help but sense the universality of symbolism…that her daughter was being born into the tribe with pure water, just as Eve had been reborn with water by the Baptist. Then Eve spoke the ritual words passing on her Right of Caste, making Tillit a princess of the nation. Gabrielle glanced at her soulmate's daughter and saw tears tracing down her cheeks. My daughter is twice blessed, she thought, born and reborn, with both salt water and fresh.

Later, Gabrielle had spoken with Backari, for though she was a queen, and it was her right, the artifact was an heirloom of the northern tribe. Due to its occult nature, it was in the keeping of the shamaness. The tribal spiritualist had reluctantly ushered her into the hut where she conducted her magick. After rummaging around and stalling, she had dragged out a rolled skin. Gabrielle had noted that the woman's hands were trembling, and when she'd handed over the weapon, she'd refused to touch it. Gabrielle had taken it, thanked her, and sat on a bench draped with furs. Backari had eyed her nervously. For a long time she'd only looked at the Utma Dagger, running her hands along its smoothed curved length. Finally she had gripped it just below the carved animal head as Xena had done, and raised it.

"Show me your truths, from the future through the past," she had called out, "your queen would know your wisdom."

The vision had exploded into her head. She was in a flea bitten yurt on the northern steppes, and a chill wind blew in through the open door flap. A dried horse dung fire crackled on the floor in the center of the space, its draft blown flames casting a wildly spastic light and giving off an acrid scent. Before her stood the Utma, the first Cyane. She was young; as young as Gabrielle had been when she'd run away from Potidaea. She was dressed in her strange blue pants, and her blue striped top. Even stranger were her black canvas shoes. Cyane made an odd gesture, extending a fist with her thumb pointing up, and she tossed her mousy brown hair back from her face. She was smiling at Gabrielle as if happy to see her.

"So, yeah," Cyane said in greeting, "it's been a while, but like, anyway, welcome back."

"Cyane," Gabrielle began formally, "in the visions I saw of you, I recognized your clothing as being like what I have recently seen in dreams of times yet to come. I need your help."

"Okaaaay…I'll tell you what I can," the Utma said, sounding almost apologetic, "but I'll probably wish I'd read Aquarian Times. I'm not much into New Age dream stuff."

"Huh?" Gabrielle asked, confused.

"Uhhh, nuthin, never mind. How about just telling me what you saw."

"Well, I saw armies marching in a city with a domed building on a hill. Carts without horses followed the soldiers, some had these metal ribbons that chewed up the streets. And there were flying things, machines I think, hundreds of them."

The Utma thought for a moment, then snapped her fingers and looked up, meeting Gabrielle's eyes. "Whatcha got there is a big military parade, with trucks, tanks, and airplanes overhead. Might have been in D.C….that's the capitol of the U.S.A. Anything else?"

Most of what she'd said hadn't made a bit of sense to Gabrielle, so she tried telling the Utma about what had disturbed her most.

"There was a flag with red and white stripes, and sixty white stars on a blue field in one corner…and there was a red banner with the Sigil of War. The army worshipped Ares."

"Ok, now you're freaking me out. The 'Stars and Stripes' is definitely the American flag, but it only has fifty stars. You sure you counted 'em right?"

"Six rows of ten stars, yeah, it was sixty all right." Gabrielle confirmed, watching the Utma bouncing on her toes in those weird shoes. She seemed hyperactive or manic.

"Then I guess they were busy…in my time there were only fifty," she stated with certainty, before musing to herself, "I wonder if they took over Iraq, or maybe they bought Canada and Mexico."

"Well, it was really the other flag I'm worried about. It was Ares' banner."

"Who's Ares?" The Utma, Cyane asked, chewing a thumbnail experimentally.

"Ummm, the God of War?"

"Okaaaaaaay," the Utma said looking theatrically perplexed, "I'm sure we never had one of those where I came from…Satanists and the Ku Klux Klan yes, but war gods? Who needs them? We've got politicians."

"I had another dream."

"Sure, go ahead," Cyane coaxed sympathetically.

Gabrielle thought she was being humored. The Utma was a kid, she realized. She'd thought so before, but she hadn't felt right about bringing it up when she and Xena had seen her before.

"Well, I was in one of those airplanes, and it dropped something really bad. The whole country below was under a huge fireball, and then there were more and more. Pretty soon everything was in flames, under clouds the shape of mushrooms, and even the airplane we were in got knocked around."

The Utma had stopped stock-still. She was staring at Gabrielle with an undisguised look of horror on her face. Finally she composed herself enough to speak, and she was pissed.

"Those stupid, wrinkled up, dumb ass, war mongering, bastards. They actually ended up doing it. Even after the Russians gave it up. They went ahead and blew up the planet. Fuck a duck!"

Gabrielle looked at her inshock. "Blew up the planet? Is that like destroying nations?"

The Utma finally looked back at Gabrielle after her tirade. "Gabrielle, what you're describing is a nuclear war. Not only do they destroy nations, they poison the earth so nothing much can live there, for like…ten thousand years. I saw it on Discovery in '97."

Backari, the shamaness, had watched Gabrielle's eyes roll back in her head, right before she dropped the Utma Dagger and passed out on the bench. It had been embarrassing, Gabrielle remembered, coming to with Eve, Aliah, and Backari staring down at her. Behind them, a ring of curious faces pressed in through the door. She was wet, and she found out they had doused her with a bucket of water. Backari was the worst, wearing an insufferable, "I told you so", expression. The dagger had been carefully rolled up and hidden away, treated like a poisonous snake that had swallowed a rotten egg. In the end they had been loath to let her out of their sight for the rest of her stay in the village. When it came time to leave, half the tribe had accompanied her back to Norway, thinking she was permanently damaged. Eve had left the day before, heading to Chin on her horse. Gabrielle was sure the Amazons had been relieved to see her go.

She could laugh about it now, so many years later. The Amazons had been very disturbed. Unlike the Amazons of earlier times, these were almost paranoid about the spirit world and their own magick. They had decided among themselves that during that winter, half the tribe would accompany their queen as an escort. They had been quite a spectacle in Kaupang. At least some of them had taken the opportunity to increase their tribe and had gone home pregnant. Her conversation with the Utma still chilled her bones though, and she added it to her fund of distant foresight. Sooner or later it would become clearer and she would understand what she had to do.

In the meantime the years had passed. Gabrielle had undertaken a project. Her scrolls were scattered across the known world. She wanted her descendants to understand what she had learned, and she wanted them to know of the Warrior Princess. So she set to work, reproducing to the best of her ability, the tales of her adventures with Xena. The tales of six years' travels and adventures took her as many years to rewrite, working off and on. There were always other things to take her time. She and Beowulf both spent great energy, as citizens of their community, exercising what influence they could over the Thing. By building coalitions, they managed to change the local laws to favor the poorer people, as well as the privileged lords, and to reflect the Greater Good. Gabrielle taught the healing techniques she'd learned from Xena and the Amazons, while Beowulf was sought by many for quests against outlaws or the encroachment of invaders. Still, there was time for home.

She and Beowulf had watched their daughter grow. Tillit was spunky, precocious, and head strong, though she didn't talk needlessly. In some respects, she reminded Gabrielle of what she guessed Xena would have been like at her age. She really hadn't known Brunnhilda well enough to envision her as a child. Now she suspected the two might have had some traits in common. Gabrielle could see that she would be tall, probably slender, and had a head of beautiful, wavy, light brown hair. In bright sunlight it glinted with reddish highlights. She had inherited her mother's eyes, which appeared sometimes blue and sometimes green, but there was a seriousness in them that belied her age.

They had rejoiced again when Gabrielle had borne a son, whom five-year-old Tillit had immediately become protective of. They named him Lyceus in honor of Xena's lost brother. Gabrielle hoped he would hold the same love of life that her soulmate had always described when she'd spoken of her younger sibling. In one respect this proved true. He grew to idolize his quiet older sister.

Gabrielle often still woke to meet the dawn, for she had never tired of the sense of peace it inspired in her. Since that first dawn in Macedonia so long ago, it had been a special time. The time for believing that anything was possible; it was a legacy from her soulmate, and her soulmate's mentor, Lao Ma. At times she felt a tingling of the power that had once allowed her to see and hear across the miles before a battle, but always she felt the blessed stillness and emptiness. In the nights, sometimes, she dreamed.


Stone walls surrounded her, but this was no rude cavern. Before her stood an altar to Ares, the God of War, backed by a huge horned skull, and above it, a black patinaed relief of rays projected from the largest ruby she had ever imagined. Along the walls stood tripods, their bowls lighting the space with dancing flames. Reflecting their flickering light were shields, swords, and racks of javelins and spears.

Suddenly, in the space before the altar, the whirlpool of blue light that signified the opening of a vortex appeared. It revealed an unbelievable vision to the astonished warrior. Her eye point was high above the ground, and below her lay a city of such size that she could see its buildings curving to the horizon. It seemed to have overgrown the harbor before it, and the rivers that bracketed its center were spanned by great bridges that could have carried many ranks of troops. To her eyes, its greatest buildings seemed to reach for the heavens. It lay below her, a proud accomplishment of mankind.

Now from the east she felt the air compression that revealed the passage of an arrow, but when she looked towards it she saw instead a rocket, like those Khan's army had used in Chin. As she watched, it continued to grow, speeding towards her. She realized that the distance had tricked her eyes. This rocket was many times the size of anything she had imagined. The flame at its tail withered, flickering and finally disappearing, and the rocket's nose tilted down, beginning its fall to the target.

Gabrielle watched helplessly, knowing what was in store. As the rocket's arc curved down towards the city, she spied a formation of many smaller, faster rockets leaping into the air, and she perceived that they were a defense. Hitting a rocket with a rocket seemed like a fool's hope to her. It would be like hitting a spear with an arrow. One by one the smaller rockets shot past the falling warhead, speeding uselessly into the sky above. Finally the warhead dropped past her, and on its side she saw a tilted cross with the ends of its arms extended at a right angle, pointing to the right.

Though gravity took the rocket in its embrace, still the accelerating descent seemed to take a long, long time. Heartbeat after heartbeat she watched it grow smaller as it dropped in free fall. When it was too small to see Gabrielle held her breath. Surely such a small thing couldn't cause much harm to a city of this size. It dwarfed even Rome.

It was as though the desert sun had risen to noon in an instant. The brightness pierced her lids even as her reflexes snapped her eyes closed against the flash. Then there was a fireball growing and she was enthralled, powerless to keep from watching. The sphere of brightness leapt to engulf the central island of the city, snapping the bridges like harp strings before the fire overtook them. The ball of flame continued to expand until it covered four leagues and the roaring and tremors shook her very soul. Now she could see buildings, originally spared by the fireball, being flattened by the expanding ring of a shock wave that rippled the ground like a tsunami, and the destruction covered ten leagues. But the worst part was the voices. Behind the sounds of the destruction came the screams of the dying, all six and a half million of them, bereft in an instant of their hopes and dreams. They would not go unavenged.

From places she couldn't see, far to the west, a flock of rockets lifted slowly into the sky. Gabrielle watched them gaining altitude and speed. They seemed to be converging in flight, moving to follow the trail of the attacking rocket. There were scores of them. The warrior watched as they labored, passing closely by, struggling against gravity to fulfill their distant destiny of blood. Painted on their sides she could see the flag with the sixty stars and the Sigil of War. Now the rockets had passed her and their arcs curved across the horizon, and for a while they were gone from view. The sky was at peace, and looking down, she beheld a smoldering crater where the great city had been. Then from beyond the curve of the globe came flashes, greater than any lightning bolts of Zeus, and a brightness flared in the sky that overpowered the night. The very earth shook, groaning in pain. And now rockets arced back and forth across the globe, the flashes and fireballs multiplied a hundredfold, and the screams of the dying, scores of millions, deafened her ears. She saw that it was June 21, 1956, and it was Armageddon Day.

The vortex snapped shut, and when it had disappeared she saw that on the altar sat the God of War. He blew on his nails, and buffed them on the leather of his vest, then tilted his head and eyed her with a grin.

"Like I told Xena," he said, flashing a winner's smile, "it's what I do."


For the first time in all the years that she had dreamed, Gabrielle awoke in a rage. Maybe it was the level of destruction and the massive loss of life that she had seen. Maybe it was the immediacy and the size of the counterattacks. Or maybe it was the appearance and the gloating manner of the God of War. They had never really gotten along. Her blood was boiling even before her eyes were fully open.

She sat up in bed and quietly got to her feet, grabbing a robe and stalking to the window. She could see that it was the silent time before the dawn, but today it didn't calm her heart. Outside, the stars still shone with perfect crystal brilliance, twinkling and unconcerned by the trials of the mortals below. They symbolized the impersonal power of the cosmos, and on this morning they focused her anger.

Slowly, as she sat seething, the stars began to dim, and she could perceive the shades of the trees in the forest, where before all had been black. The world is driven by a will, blind and ruthless, Lao Ma had once told her soulmate, and on this morning Gabrielle had no doubt that it was true. But the lives of mortals, she thought, are driven by a will easily corrupted, easily compromised, and easily led by false promises. If the will of the universe cares nothing for the destiny of mankind, then mankind alone must seize its fate. Only if humanity cares for itself can it escape the ruthlessness of the will of others. Only by fighting for their future can they escape the will of the God of War. There had been the Twilight, and the destruction of the Loom of the Fates. Yet still mankind was trapped by the power of a god that even Xena had realized must continue to exist. Outside, the night relinquished its sovereignty over the heavens and the world held its breath. On this morning, Gabrielle didn't even notice it as her rage peaked, the warrior's fire burning in her veins for the fate of her race. Then for a moment she didn't think, she didn't will, for it was no longer personal; she didn't hate, for it was no longer her rage. For a moment time was not linear. She felt the spirits of the hundreds of millions of future dead act through her, and she cast their anguish at the world.

A hundred yards away at the edge of the forest, a tree trunk thicker than a barrel shattered like glass, its spray of splinters exploding outwards to impale the trees surrounding it. The air expansion boomed across the landscape like thunder. Then, slowly at first, but with increasing speed, seventy feet of unsupported trunk and crown crashed to the forest floor. And Gabrielle was at peace.

At the sound of the explosion, Beowulf bolted upright in bed. In the darkness, his eyes were drawn to the only source of light in the room. Through the robe his wife wore, glowing like an ember, he could distinguish the coils of the Eastern Dragon tattooed on her back. It was already fading as she turned to look at him.

"By the gods, what was that?" He asked, his voice urgent with alarm.

"Just a dragon raging against the world," she told him softly, "I'll go check the children."


She's made amazing progress, Eli.

"You both have, my friend."

Ya know, once I'd have been worried to death for her safety, just like I was during all the years we spent together. Now I realize that truly believing in her means letting her find her path and rely on her own abilities."

"And now you see she's capable of fighting her own battles, of seeking her own inspiration, and enjoying her own happiness."

I still love her dearly, Eli. I'm so proud of how she's grown. I can see now that what my training and love gave her was a promise of the greater things to come…I guess you'd call it confidence.

"She's come so far from the girl that followed you from Potidaea. With your inspiration, she has driven herself to be all she thought you tried to be, and she has succeeded in becoming what you hoped to become."

I'm just happy that she's learned to live again. She's found a home, found love, started a family, and made peace with her past. I guess those are the same things I'd hoped for, aren't they?

"And you say it with real joy, without jealousy or possessiveness. You have found joy in her joy, and freed both of you from the losses of your past. You see, Xena, you too have let go."

And I have faith that whatever her destiny is, she'll be able to meet it.

"Yes she will, and so will you."


The morning sun was bright, but the air still held the night's chill. Not like the nurturing warmth of the sun in my homeland, Gabrielle thought. Still, she'd made a life here, found a home, and was raising a family with a man she loved. They had worked hard to bring an appreciation of peace to their fellow Norsemen, and had struggled to undo the damage Xena's darkness had once brought to these lands.

Under her heavier winter furs she dressed in buckskins now, in the manner of the northern Amazons. The skimpy outfits of her southern sisters would offer too little protection from the elements here in the Norselands. How long had it been since she'd parted with them last, she wondered? Eight summers? Ten? No, when she counted back, she realized it had been more. She sent a silent prayer for their safety, and for the strength of the nation, then chuckled to herself as she thought of Varia and Cyane, probably still partying in their forest homeland. If she reckoned the years right, her friends would soon turn over the nation's rule to a new generation of leaders.

It made her aware of her true age. Queen Melosa was long gone. Ephiny, her own regent, Solari, Eponin, and a generation of others, also gone. Amarice and Yakute, young when they'd first met, killed in battle almost forty years ago. Sixty-one winters had followed her birth, and she had lived thirty-five of them.

Across the cleared yard that lay before her lodge, a girl and her brother approached. The girl, Tillit, ten summers old, had her father's wavy brown hair and serious demeanor. She walked solemnly, with her hands held behind her back, just the hint of a grin curling the corners of her lips. The boy, Lyceus, half his sister's age, had her own pale hair and mischievous eyes. As usual, he spoke first, anxious to relate their day's adventures to their mother. He could already tell a story.

"Mother, you'll never guess what we found in the bog," he reported with shining eyes.

"You went to the bog? You know you've no business there, and it can be a dangerous place." She scolded, trying and failing to hide her love behind a maternal frown.

"But mother, father was with us, and we didn't go far." He argued his case well, as usual. Beside him, his sister nodded in agreement. She seldom wasted words if a gesture would suffice. So like my soulmate when I first met her, their mother thought.

Finally Gabrielle gave in to her curiosity. "Ok, what did you find?"

"Show her, show her!" Lyceus demanded, turning to his silent sister.

The girl favored her younger brother with a smile. She was his self-appointed protector and champion. With a dramatic gesture she revealed an object wrapped in a rag, which she had concealed behind her back. She slowly unwrapped their day's treasure as though it were a piece of the Rheingold.

Gabrielle looked at the contents. The dagger was almost two hands long. The double-edged blade gleamed in the sunlight. The cross guard was of steel, the pommel of brass, the grip covered with black leather cord. She lifted it from the rag, and an ominous feeling grew as she felt its weight. Only memories now. Engraved on the pommel was a design of paired ravens, encircled by Norse runes. It was the emblem of those who served Odin…the emblem of the Valkyrie.

"Where did you find this?" Gabrielle asked gravely. "How lay the land nearby?" It was part of the training she was passing on to her children.

"We found it beneath a gnarled oak, near a clearing surrounding a flattened boulder," Tillit answered precisely. "Nearby lay the entrance to a mineshaft that father examined, though he didn't allow us to enter," she added with some disappointment.

"Then I will tell you that this came from a battle, fought between your father's warriors and the Valkyrie," she said, watching their eyes grow with interest. She saw that Tillit had a look on her face that said, I knew it. "Remember the scroll about the Warrior Princess and the Ring?"

"Yes, yes, I remember!" Lyceus excitedly claimed. Tillit simply nodded her head, guessing what was to come.

"Well, remember in the battle outside the Ring of Fire, when "Uncle" Wicglaf was wounded by the Valkyrie who threw her dagger?"

"Yes! I remember! It was right after he'd thrown his sword to Xena."

"That's right, Lyceus," Gabrielle said, rewarding him with a smile for remembering the details of the story so well. "From what you've told me about where this was found, I'm guessing it's the very same dagger."

"So how come he didn't die?" Tillit asked gravely. "She was a Valkyrie."

"Well, he said that the Valkyrie threw the dagger like this," Gabrielle demonstrated a backhanded cast, and sent the dagger into the wall behind her without rotation. The tip embedded itself in the wood. Tillit moved to retrieve it.

"Wicglaf was wearing leather armor under a bearskin. The leather was doubled, and small squares of steel were riveted between the layers. It's called a brigandine. Anyway, because the dagger wasn't thrown very hard, it didn't allow the blade to penetrate far, and it saved his life." Gabrielle explained. "Here, Tillit, bring that back, please."

Tillit put the dagger in her mother's hand.

"If she'd taken the time to throw the dagger overhand, with rotation, he probably would have been killed," Gabrielle told them, mostly for her daughter's instruction.

This time when she threw the weapon it whistled in flight and stuck two fingers deep in the wood. Tillit had to wiggle it back and forth to work it loose. The difference was obvious.

"So the Valkyrie weren't any more invincible than anyone else, right?" Tillit asked.

"Honey, not even a god is truly invincible." Gabrielle told her thoughtful daughter.

The girl had only one question left that she had really wanted to ask, and she had waited since finding the Valkyrie's dagger. Ask your mother, her father had told her, before they'd headed back from the bog, not adding that an Amazon princess should have at least a dagger...all the Viking kids did.

"So can I keep it, mother?"

"Well, I guess so," Gabrielle said after thinking for a moment. On the farm where she'd grown up, kids usually carried a small knife, and among the Amazons, girls her age also commonly used blades. "Just be careful with it, and I'll have to show you how to clean and sharpen it. A dull knife is more dangerous than a sharp one."

"Thanks, mother," Tillit gushed in a rare show of emotion. Her mom trusted her with a Valkyrie's dagger, a real weapon, and wasn't treating her like a little kid. Plus she was going to teach her how to care for it too. It had been a good day.

"First thing I need to do is show you how to make a sheath for it," Gabrielle told her, "I don't want you landing on that blade if you trip and fall."

"I'll go get some leather and…what else?" The girl asked.

Geeeeze, I didn't mean right now, Gabrielle thought. She looked at the enthusiastic expression on her daughter's face and relented. "Bring the thick stiff leather, an awl, a heavy needle, and the deer sinew," she instructed, "oh yeah, and a pan of water."

The project occupied them for a couple candlemarks, and then Gabrielle went to prepare their evening meal. Beowulf would be home from Kaupang and the meetings with members of the Thing about an upcoming vote. She glanced at a table in the adjoining room and watched Lyceus slowly reading the scroll they'd mentioned earlier, the one about the Warrior Princess and the Ring. His brow was furrowed with concentration, and his lips were silently forming the words. Outside, she could hear the repeated thump of a dagger being thrown at a straw target and an occasional grunt of frustration when it wouldn't stick. Tillit was practicing, and Gabrielle expected she'd still be throwing the blade when she was finally called for supper. The girl was persistent, determined, and eventually usually successful. It had been a good day, Gabrielle thought.

Another five years of good days passed, and they seemed to vanish all to quickly. Gabrielle was forty, Beowulf was forty-two, Tillit was fifteen, and Lyceus was ten. Outside in the field, a small herd of a dozen horses roamed, broken to the saddle, but shaggy and spirited. Next to the lodge, a wide garden of herbs and flowers waved in the early summer breeze. From the back yard, the sounds of swords clashing could be heard.

A small blonde and a tall brunette traded blows with unsharpened practice swords. Both wore padding and armor. The blonde's movements sharp, precise, without any excess motion, and blindingly fast. The taller figure was in her mid-teens, well coordinated, but still with the residual ungainliness of a body she was still growing in to. Her movements were just as fast, but less assured, less focused, and a little forced. A sort distance away, a man and a boy went through basic drills with fighting staffs, the difference in their sizes and expertise strongly marked.

"You know all these moves, Tillit," Gabrielle instructed, "don't think, just let your body act."

"Easy for you to say," her daughter muttered, swiping her sweaty hair from her eyes before moving to attack. After a few exchanges, she found herself on her back again.

"Tillit, training the body is hard," Gabrielle said sympathetically as she offered her daughter a hand up, "but training the mind is harder. Don't be fooled because it is the hand that wields the sword, it is the mind that controls the hand."

"But you tell me not to think," Tillit declared in frustration, "I'll never understand this."

"The mind controls the warrior's body, but thinking takes time. Once your body knows the movements, there's no need to think how to perform each one, right?"

"Well, I guess."

"Do you have to think of how to make each parry? How to swing your sword each time you strike? When to move forward with an attack, or step back in defense?"

"Well, no, I guess not."

"Then don't think of anything having to do with technique while you are fighting, it only slows your body down."

"But I have to think about the tactics I'm going to use," Tillit said, "what I want to do next."

"That's where you're wrong. You have to let the tactics come as the battle demands, keeping your options open so you never plan yourself into a corner…that's why I get you every time. I can see what you intend to do before you do it."

"So I should have no strategy?"

"No, strategy and tactics are different. A strategy is a flexible plan for a campaign, aimed at achieving a particular goal. A tactic is a tool, a means to achieve that goal. The tactics have to be flexible to meet any response, and you do that by applying techniques. The more techniques you have, the more flexible your tactics can be. The more flexible your tactics, the better your chances of achieving your goal."

"I think I understand most of that," Tillit said, trying to think it through.

"When we made your dagger sheath we used leather," Gabrielle reminded her, "but we could have carved wood, or forged steel. The goal was making it safe to carry the dagger. The strategy was to make a sheath to safely carry the dagger in. The tactic was to make a sheath by sewing together pieces of leather. The techniques were the skills of sewing, cutting leather to fit and shaping it."

"Ok, I understand that," her daughter said happily, grasping the concept, "but as a warrior I guess I'll need to understand mostly techniques and tactics, right?"

"Yes, but as a queen you'll need to isolate your goals and devise strategies to achieve them. Look, sweetheart, you should never limit yourself. Often the best warrior is one who can command, and the best commanders knew how to be soldiers first." Gabrielle was remembering her soulmate's abilities…and her own. "Anyway, you'll need to understand those things to do your best in life. Not all fighting is done with swords."

"You've said that so many times, that a warrior's skills are an application of life's skills."

"It's true…goals and strategies are universal. Tactics and techniques vary depending on the task. Think about it, hon."

Tillit sighed and moved to the edge of the outcropping, setting aside her sword. She turned the things her mother had told her over and over in her mind as she watched her father and brother spar with the staffs while her mother practiced with her sais.

The sais had always fascinated her and she watched closely. Years ago she had been doubtful about them. They had no sharpened blades, no great length, and weren't as threatening to an enemy as a sword. She had been surprised when her mother's first move in sparring had been to trap her sword in the prongs and wrench it from her grasp. She had done it over and over, and then the last time, her mother had launched the blade back at her. The dulled point had bounced off her chest armor directly over her heart. After almost twenty years, Gabrielle had mastered the sai, as she had the staff and her sword. Her life had depended on those skills many times. Now she practiced something else, and it was something that the fifteen-year-old didn't understand at all.

Sometimes Tillit would find her mother seated quietly in the yard, staring at nothing, and barely breathing. Her eyes would be open, but they were empty, and it had scared her. It was as if there was no one inside. In front of her, on a stump six feet away, sat a rock. No porcelain vase resting on a carved stand, as Lao Ma had once confronted her soulmate with. She would sit that way for candlemarks, unmoving. Tillit would go off to do her chores, and then return to find Gabrielle still in the same position. Sometimes though, the rock seemed to have moved. Eventually, her mother would wake up and go off to do something else, but for a moment as she rose, Tillit would see a flash of determination in her eyes. It had been going on, usually several times a week, since one night when she was five.

Summer passed, and Tillit turned sixteen. Autumn followed. Almost eighteen years had passed since Gabrielle had left Mt. Fuji brokenhearted. Life was good.

Winter was fast approaching. They could feel the change of the seasons in the air. It held a dryness and a chill that hadn't been there just a week before. Now darkness came sooner and dawn was delayed, shortening the candlemarks of daylight and lengthening the night. Gabrielle had harvested the last of her herbs, and in the field, the horses had grown in their shaggier winter coats. They stayed closer to the lodge, where they knew the field grass stood in bales under a windbreak. In the mornings and at nightfall, Tillit would go and break away the ice that grew on the surface of their watering trough. At night they sometimes heard the howling of wolves in the distance, maybe from the higher ground towards Hentsridge. The first snow came early that year, accompanying the full moon just past the equinox of autumn, and it stayed, drifting on the frozen ground.

It had been late on the night of the next new moon, and the lands had been dark. They had heard the horses whinny in fear. Beowulf and Gabrielle had leapt from their bed and Tillit had awakened at the commotion. From a window they had seen the shadowy forms stalking their horses. The three had quickly thrown on their clothes and armed themselves. At the door they had grabbed torches, lit them, and run towards the field. They could see the dark shapes of wolves, distracted from their hunt, turning towards the humans who were rapidly closing in on them. They were a pack of seven, desperately hungry, and the humans were only three, so they stood their ground and faced the threat.

The horses had moved off, and they stood in a phalanx, the stallions at the front with the mares and colts behind them. Beowulf and Gabrielle arrived a few strides ahead of Tillit, and the wolf pack growled their challenge, spreading out to form an arc to face them. The three had grimly advanced, shouting, while waving their torches and swords, and moving to put themselves between the wolf pack and the horses. The wolves lunged and feigned attacks, growling and baring their teeth, hoping to separate the three and bring down the one left alone first. With this strategy, two attacked Gabrielle and Tillit from each end of the arc, while Beowulf was suddenly faced with three wolves in the center.

On the left, Gabrielle held her two wolves at bay. She hadn't given ground or advanced. With a torch in her left hand, and the katana in her right, she thrust at them when they moved in and withdrew when they retreated. In the center, Beowulf guessed which wolf was the alpha, and when he moved near, the warrior slammed his sword across the wolf's skull, immediately pivoting to swing his torch and keep the other two at bay. It was a good move, for seeing their pack leader injured; the other two withdrew a little further for a moment to regroup. On the right, Tillit got into trouble.

The first wolf that lunged at her got a torch thrust in its face, but while she was distracted, the second wolf leapt up and grabbed her arm. Now she was frantically trying to stab the second wolf that held her torch-bearing arm. Then the first wolf attacked again, lunging for her throat. By reflex, she slammed her sword blade across the first wolf's gaping jaws and the wolf caught the blade in its bite. She had advanced on the first wolf, and was more than two long strides from Beowulf. Tillit was defenseless and out of position.

The pack leader had shaken the dizziness and blood from his head, and while the two others kept Beowulf occupied, he charged past the man to attack Tillit from behind. Tillit was close to panicking, and her terror gave her strength. With a yell, she managed to draw her arms closer together, and the torch lit the fur of the wolf that held her blade. Then something heavy struck her from behind, moving fast, and she felt herself starting to fall forward onto her face.

Beowulf had seen the alpha male dart past him, and he did the opposite of what the others he fought expected. In the past, mainly against elk, this situation invariably caused the mother to lunge toward the alpha who had moved to attack her calf. At that point, the guard of the mother's antlers would be out of position, and the other two would attack. When the alpha bolted past Beowulf, the other two started to move in, anticipating his reflex lunge, but it didn't come. Instead the warrior held his ground, and ran his sword down the throat of the nearest wolf, then shoved his torch into the face of the second. The smell of burning fur was coming from in front and from his right, but he couldn't turn away from the burned but still dangerous wolf, and he couldn't leave his wife alone against the two she was fighting off. Instead, he wrenched his sword out of the dead wolf and moved away from his daughter, taking his wife's place.

Gabrielle turned and saw Tillit on the ground, the alpha male searching for purchase with his teeth on her neck, confused momentarily by her heavy coat. Another wolf held grimly to her left arm, while a third with a burned pelt held her daughter's sword by the blade. Behind her she could hear her husband shouting and swinging at the two wolves she had fought. There were only moments before the girl's throat was crushed, and Gabrielle stood ten feet away.

Gabrielle loved her daughter dearly, and she had loved her before her birth. Her daughter had loved her in her past life, and had given that life to protect her. Gabrielle owed Brunnhilda a life debt. The world was driven by a will, blind and ruthless, but the warrior believed that a cold heart and ruthlessness could be overcome with love. Anything is possible, the memory of her soulmate whispered, and so she took a leap of faith…she closed her mind to the world. She stood, her eyes empty, her being, a channel for the power that made anything possible. Without the dimming of the stars or the hinted glow of the dawn, she willed her mind to have no will. She forced herself to exert no force, and for the first time the power came and moved through her at need. On her back the Eastern Dragon blazed. Suddenly the night was silent save for the sputtering of the torches and their own heavy breathing.

Gabrielle opened her eyes to the living world and blinked. Before her, Tillit was struggling to raise herself from under the dead weight that pinned her to the ground. Behind her Beowulf was beginning to move towards their daughter. Around them, lay one dead wolf, stabbed through the throat…and six more graven of stone, perfect and precise down to the least detail. She was a little numbed by what she saw, but she had no trouble believing it had happened. Xena's stone rabbits had been smooth and less than lifelike, she remembered, and Khan's army had become flat slabs of men. She took a deep breath and moved to help her husband free their daughter.

A week later, Tillit found her mother sitting in the yard in two feet of snow. She was staring blindly forward at the stump, the same rock sitting on top, covered with snow. As usual she was barely breathing. Tillit worried about her. She didn't normally do this when there was snow on the ground, and the daughter decided to keep watch over her mother. She waited almost a candlemark, and had looked back at the lodge in boredom when she heard a soft sound. Gabrielle hadn't moved. The sound, like the crunch of something heavy moving on snow came again, and she turned just in time to see the rock shift. She stared at it, not believing her eyes. It was in this way that she happened to be looking right at it when it burst, exploding violently like an ember in a fire. By reflex she ducked away as chips of rock whizzed past her. When she looked back, her mother was just beginning to move. There was a wide smile on her face, and a trickle of blood, from a flying shard of stone, marked her cheek.

And now in yet another way, I have become what you were, my soulmate, Gabrielle thought to herself. Her glow of achievement was tempered by bittersweet memories. She wrapped an arm around her stunned daughter and led her into the warmth of their lodge.

Before that winter had succumbed to the thaw of spring, Gabrielle could shatter a row of rocks, one after another, with increasingly less preparation time. It was as if, after all her years of trying, a dam had burst. At some time during those weeks, she realized that she could do something that Xena had only been able to do for a short time; she could control the force that came with emptiness. To her knowledge, only Lao Ma had been able to do that at will. In the harnessing of a destructive potential, she found herself more at peace than she had ever been. It humbled her, and it had all begun on a morning in Macedonia.

But there was still another problem that occupied Gabrielle. It was something she had wondered about for a long time. Seventeen winters before, she had dreamed of a city in a time yet to be. She had watched a parade of military might, ranks of troops, with trucks, tanks, and airplanes, the Utma had called them. She had seen their nation's flag bearing sixty stars, though the Utma had claimed that it bore only fifty in her time. And she had seen the banner of the God of War, whom the Utma didn't know at all. That had been on September 2, 1945. Several weeks later, on the night before her battle against Odin, she had dreamed again. This time it had been August 6, 1945, and she had seen the forces of the U.S.A. leveling part of Japa with nuclear war. The Utma had been completely horrified by it, back when Gabrielle had questioned her, over sixteen years ago. Since then, she had seen one further vision of the future. Eleven years ago she had seen the end of the world, on Armageddon Day, June 21, 1956. The men of that time had poisoned the planet for ten thousand years in a spasm of war. The Utma had, "seen it on Discovery, in '97." And now that she thought about it, it didn't quite add up.

Either the Utma was from 1897, half a century before the events she had seen, or she had come from half a century after, and the horrors of her dreams had never been. If the Utma had seen something in 1997, but the destruction she'd dreamed of had been in 1945 and 1956, then there was a disparity in the timeline. As she had in Germania when she'd first dreamed of Odin's plot, Gabrielle felt destiny squatting on her back like a harpy…maybe two harpies this time. If anything, the feeling was stronger now than it had been then. To make matters worse, her epiphany had come on the Ides of March. If nothing else, Gabrielle had learned to trust her instincts. With a sigh, she realized that once again she needed to visit the Amazons.

Gabrielle waited out the worst of the winter and prepared to leave in early April. This time, Beowulf had fewer reservations. He believed that his wife was well neigh unbeatable, and their daughter was a very competent sixteen-year-old fighter in her own right. He agreed that there was a strong sense of destiny at work, and he had benefited from his wife's dreams in the past. He had no doubts that what she had seen was important. When Gabrielle had broached the topic of taking Tillit with her to visit the Amazons, he had agreed, thinking it would be good for their daughter to meet the people she might someday rule. They decided that he would keep Lyceus and await their return.

Tillit was excited to the point of distraction and insisted that she hear every tale of the Amazons that her mother knew. Gabrielle had finally turned her loose on Lyceus, who had memorized the warrior's stories as if they were his own. At eleven, he earned many free meals and dinars as the Boy Bard, in Ubchulk's tavern in Kaupang. He was overjoyed at having his favorite and only older sister as a captive audience.


Continued in Part 7 (THE ROAD SOUTH)