"The butcher's bill is awfully high," Xena said. "Seventy seven dead and fifty one wounded; some of them pretty badly."

     They, Xena, Gabrielle, Maadrik and Akress were gathered around Gander. The chamber they were in was small and between the bed he was laying on and the number of people who were visiting him the room was practically jammed.

     "Nearly twenty five percent casualties," Gander said, shaking his head sadly. "Any casualties are bad but this has been a terrible price to pay."

     "True." said Gabrielle. "But it could have been a lot worse. We could have lost. As it is there aren't many of our people who will end up permanently crippled: Certainly not as many as expected; given the numbers of the enemy and the fierceness of the fighting."

     "What of Lord Riphanay and his sister," Gander asked.

     "They're still in pretty bad shape," Gabrielle said. When we got them out of the cells they couldn't move, they couldn't speak, and if they could hear anything said to them they gave no sign."

     Gander, raising an eyebrow, fixed her with a quizzical look.

     "And how are they now?" he asked, a crooked grin creasing his face.

     "Well," Gabrielle said, "I ... uh ... made a kind of experiment."

     "Yes"... was all Gander said.

     Her own smile was a bit sheepish.

     "I put some padding over their eyes," she said, hesitantly.

     "Yes," Gander prodded.

     "Then I sort of ... borrowed ... Glimmer."

     "Gabrielle!" Xena said, in dismay.

     "Well, after all, we've seen Glimmer used so often, to help heal so many different kinds of wounds and injuries, ... I just wanted to see if it could do anything for these two, poor, people."

     "So, how did you go about it?" Gander asked.

     "Like I said," Gabrielle replied, "First I put soft pads over their eyes. I was afraid they just might react with panic if they saw the blade."

     Gander chuckled a bit.

     "That," he said, "probably was a good idea. What next?

     "I took Glimmer from its staff. But then, I must admit, I was a little hesitant about going on."

     "Why?" Gander asked, his smile broadening.

     "Usually the glowing at its tip is kind of small," said Gabrielle. "But this time it was much larger and brighter. So, at first I thought it might be too much and I didn't want to do more damage by accident."

     "And how," Gander asked, "did you get around that little problem?" Gander inquired.

     It may have been a bit cruel but Gander was beginning to have a little fun. Besides he was, by now, very sure this young woman did, in fact, have a very special gift.

     Not the 'Dubious Gift'; not by a long chalk. Besides, he wouldn't have wished that on any one. But Gabrielle did have a special magic; as did Xena.

     "How did I get around it. ... Well, ... I ... sort of stuck my hand into the light."

     "You did what?" Xena asked, aghast.

     "Hey!" she almost shouted. "If what I was doing was going to turn out wrong I intended to make sure no one else was hurt by it."

     Xena was about to say something more but Gander held up his good hand.

     "Xena, you should know by now that neither of my metallic friends would ever do either one of you harm. Ye gods. They'd sooner be melted down for straight razors."

     "Anyway," Gabrielle continued with somewhat more confidence in her voice, "I put my hand in the light and it felt so warm and good I knew, at the least, it wouldn't hurt Lord Riphanay and it might do him some good."

     "So you held it over the young Lords head. Right?" Gander asked.

     "Yes," Gabrielle said.

     "Not that it matters, all that much, but how long did you hold it there."

     "Until the glowing, suddenly, almost went out," Gabrielle answered. "Then I took Glimmer and did exactly the same for Lord Riphanay's sister."

     "And what were the results?" Gander asked in a more serious tone of voice.

     "When I went in to check on them, a little more than an hour ago," Gabrielle said, a worried expression crossing her face, "they were both weeping, almost hysterically."

     Before anyone could say a thing Gander nodded his head.

     "You have done well, Gabrielle," he said. "In fact I doubt I could have done much better. Weeping and tears are, in any event, a definite improvement over the state they were in. It is entirely likely the healing process has begun.

     "How well they will recover, or how long it may take, are questions even I can't answer with any degree of certainty. But it may take a very long time for them to return to something like a normal state of mind.

     "The power of the Codex, used as it was by Kuhlamann, is capable of inflicting terrible damage. Damage of a sort few if any can even understand, much less treat. So, Gabrielle, it is likely that what you did was not only the best thing which could have been done, it was probably the only thing which had any chance of working.

     "What of the young woman from the village?" he asked. "What shape is she in?"

     "When we went to remove her from her cell," Xena said grimly, "we found her dead. Evidently she, Tanya was her name, was not only one of Kuhlamann's first victims, she was also the last."

     Gabrielle's head was hanging.

     "When I saw her the other night," Gabrielle said, her voice breaking, "she looked right at me and asked, ... pleaded, ... for me to kill her."

     "It would be my guess," Gander said, to no one in particular, "that she had long since reached the point where she no longer had any desire to live; much less the will. In fact it is likely that the only thing which kept her alive, if you wish to refer to it as such, was the Sorcerer's own, malignant, will.

     "When he died her spirit was released at the same time. There are very few cases wherein death may be preferable to life but, in her case, she probably is better off dead."

     Then the discussion changed to the subject of the Sorcerer's warrior vassals; the final tally of their numbers and how many were still alive.

     Maadrik said that although he had not been present in the great hall, or on the outer walls, his lieutenants had told an interesting story. According to them, when almost all of the Sorcerer's warriors had collapsed, senseless, where they stood, eight had remained standing.

     These had attempted to continue fighting. They had tried to close with and engage Maadrik's and Akress' fighters but their people had suffered and bled more than enough.      

     Instead, Kuhlamann's willing minions had been cut down by flight after flight of arrows and Wizards Toothpicks. Only after these last, eight, warriors had been made to look like pin cushions, only after they were dead or near death, did their fighters move in with swords; disemboweling and beheading them where they lay.

     "There were only eight, you say?" Gander asked.

     "Only eight," Akress replied solemnly.

     "How interesting," Gander said. "There ought to have been ten; at least that's the minimum number the Codex calls for. But not to worry. Reflecting back I'm pretty sure I know what happened to the other two."

     "So what do you think happened to them?" Xena asked, an eyebrow raised quizzically.

     "In the course of our first serious confrontation, with that contingent of the Sorcerer's cavalry, at the top of the pass, Gabrielle crippled, and you dispatched, the first of the two. His companion, the second one, was shot from his saddle, as he was drawing his sword, by one of our archers."

     As for all the others, Maadrik told Gander, there had been, by the final count, five hundred and seventy five in all. One hundred and ninety seven of these had died in the fighting. Of the three hundred and seventy eight who had collapsed, at the moment of Kuhlamann's death, only thirty three had eventually regained consciousness and they were in pretty sad shape themselves.

     Most of them were apparently unable to recall so much as their own names. There were only four who retained any memory at all. These had said their last memory had been of sitting in an inn or ale house, having a few friendly drinks with a cordial and generous fellow, who looked to be something of a warrior.

     That had been two or three months before and from then until they woke up in the fortress of Al Fahd, with a number of very unhappy, heavily armed, people standing over them, they had no recollection of anything at all.

     The rest of the black clad warriors, three hundred and forty five of them, were dead: Their will and their minds destroyed.