Dr. Janice Covington

General Delivery

Provincetown, Massachusetts

December 17, 194_

Dear Janice,

I have such a surprise for you! I just had to write to you right away!!! Oh, first, I hope you're enjoying your business trip to Provincetown. Things are quiet here without you banging around (smile!). I have used the time to do a little translating and I think you will be amazed at what I have figured out!

I know that you've been down since that dreadful Ares told you that you were descended from "that annoying little blonde." Well now, you know that I, personally, think that Gabrielle was a perfect little lady hero and nothing to be ashamed of, but if you need any more of a reason to admire your heritage I think I have one for you!

You know those scroll fragments we recently acquired? The ones they found near that cave by the Aegean? I am sure now that we were right in our initial assumption that they are by different authors. One set of fragments is certainly by Gabrielle herself -- we both agreed that those were easy enough to identify. As for the others -- I think we hit the motherload! I postulate that some fragments were written by Xena herself!!! Yes indeedy -- you heard me right! Xena the Warrior Princess herself!! And after her fight in Japan, if I don't miss my guess!

In the pages to follow I want you to look at something. I have translated the scroll fragments and then I started trying to arrange them to figure out the story they are telling. If you'll look at my notes that follow I think you will have to agree that when you put them together this way they tell a really remarkable story! I think we have found the key to your Gabrielle ancestor and it explains why your eyes have that cute little slant to them when you smile! Just look through these pages and you will see why!

Your friend and collaborator,

Mel

Let's start with the title part of the "blue scroll" fragment -- the one that we both agreed must be by Gabrielle:

"The Flood -- A Tale of the Bard"

I sing of the days after the noble XENA was slaughtered in mortal combat with the samurais of Japa. As a living woman she fought with the living evil warriors of Japa and as a ghost she fought against the demon dead -- the foul Yodoshi. Against my advice and will, XENA acquiesced to death to wander with the shades of Japa. But how was I to live? All my existence was reduced to the ghost of XENA by my side.

I have written about her death. I told all that I met of her heroism but her legend was no comfort to me. She was all the world to me and now that world was one of shadows. I departed for the land of Chin to be with her last living memory. I went to seek out her daughter, Eve.

"Eve?" asked my Ghost. "Good, let's go see Eve!"

"Will Eve be able to see you?" I asked.

"I don't know," my Ghost answered. "Let's see."

I could not fathom how this Ghost exists. She was very like my love, so very reminiscent of my Warrior Princess, yet, not at all the same. All the world seemed joyous to her, she smiled and laughed. Where my Warrior could be quiet and sullen this Ghost was ever open and cheerful. When we were among others she stood behind me where I could not see her but I felt her touch at my back. When we were alone she often faded from me until I was nearly asleep. Then the last thing I would see before I closed my eyes was her face, smiling upon me and the last memory was always of her lips upon my forehead. Then came oblivion until I awoke as the sun rose, tears from the lonely night flooding my eyes.

For five weeks I traveled in Chin. I asked everyone I met for news of Eve. At first people smiled when I asked about Eve, the messenger of Eli, but, as I traveled on fewer seemed to recognize my description and I began to wonder how she could have disappeared from everyone's sight so completely. Perhaps I should have feared for her but somehow my heart would not accept despair. Every time I filled my thoughts with Eve a joy entered my heart that dispelled all doubts about her welfare.

However, my confidence was sorely shaken one day as I passed through a village in my search. I asked an old man tending sheep if he had heard of the tall, fair woman who spoke of a prophet called Eli.

"A tall woman, " he asked; "pale like death with eyes the color of an empty sky?"

"Yes, I think," I answered. "She is called Eve!"

"No," answered the shepherd. "She is called the Vandal from the West! A curse! A plague!" He spit upon the ground and called loudly to a young man who also attended the sheep. "Wu Pao!" he yelled, "Bring your staff!"

A lanky boy who had been tending the ram came to him. He gave me little notice despite my foreign visage. "What is it?" he asked indifferently.

"Another fair devil is here! This yellow-haired demon seeks her Vandal sister!" said the old man.

"This one here?" the boy answered. The old man nodded and with no more talk the boy swung his staff and struck me to the ground.

"Get out! Get away or I shall kill you with my next blow!" said the boy.

"No! " I said and I crawled away from him. Both of the men pursued me with hatred in their eyes.

"We want no more of you in this valley!" called the old man.

"I am not a devil!" I cried as I regained my stance. "Nor is the woman I seek. She is a woman of peace! I am also! I don't wish any harm..." But as I spoke the old man grabbed my tunic and as the young one swung back to strike me again. I twisted away and my tunic loosened in his hands to reveal part of my back where I bear a tattoo of a dragon.

The old man released me like I was made of fire. The two of them sank to their knees and wept for me to leave them immediately. "Do not harm us!" they cried, "leave us we pray you, Blue Dragon! All we ask is to be left in peace!"

"Why did you attack me?"

"Because of your demon sister, the Vandal, that lately attacked our village," said the old man with a sneer. "We want no more like her! She gave us one day to gather all our possessions and flee into the hills while she burned our village at our backs!"

"No," I said. "That's impossible! That could not be Eve!"

"Follow the road on the other side of that great Gingko tree," said the old man, "and reunite with the demon you seek! Walk the road until there is nothing but destruction and you will be face to face with your destroyer sister!"

I did not believe that any destroyer would bring me closer to Eve unless she was comforting the victims. In any event I had no better clue to follow than this so I left them, kneeling and wailing, and took to the road they had indicated.

Okay -- now let's add to that a fragment from the "red scroll" that I think was written by Xena herself:

From the "Red Scoll" by Xena?

Now, from the Gabrielle Scroll, continued:

The Land of Chin is hilly, fair and green. There are mountains as there are in my home in Greece. But these mountains seem older and more aloof. I know little of the gods of Chin but I believe them to be more unyielding than those of my home and more alien to the passions that swept through the Mediterranean gods of my acquaintance.

The hillsides had farms sculpted into their side like many braids lovingly combed by handmaidens waiting upon a reclining mountain empress. I had seen nothing like this in my craggy Grecian home, but my land, unlike Chin, was grasped at all its shores by rushing blue fingers of the sea and the inlands had many feathery waterfalls. The land of Chin had tamed its rivers with huge earthworks that dammed the water to create farms in the fertile valleys. It was a remarkable assertion of human will over nature, which, while awesome, left me homesick for my free and sparkling waterfalls of home.

As I followed the road the old man had sent me upon, I chanced upon a waterfall in Chin. My sense of mission left me and I leaned against a tree, silently captivated by the interplay of the green water, white air and yellow sunlight.

As I stood there I felt the presence of my Ghost and I was swept into the memory of another morning by a waterfall. It was a time with my Warrior when the love between our bodies was new and intensifying with every new morning, every look and heated touch.

I remembered that I had awakened saturated in the essence of my Warrior, for we had given ourselves over deeply to passion the night before. My Warrior, already awake, stood over me.

"Up!" she had said, "Go bathe." I knew there was no point in arguing with her. It was the habit of the stealthy that they should not be easily detected and that habit was gospel to her. She had already bathed and now demanded the same of me.

Reluctantly I emerged from our sleeping covers but willingly I stood naked before her. I searched her eyes and found what I sought -- the love, the remembrance of our enchanted night. The kisses we gave so freely, the sighs we shared together -- I could see them in her eyes and I knew she could see them in mine. I put my hand to her cheek and she bent down to me one more time to caress me. Her brass breastplate was cold against my skin but I enjoyed it. I enjoyed everything. I could have stayed there forever, which is why, I suppose, that she stood tall again, released me and pointed to the waterfall. "Go on!" she said sternly and I submitted.

I walked to the waterfall as slowly as I could. I took advantage of my every inhalation to smell the acrid sweat from her limbs that brought back to my mind the rapture of her furious embraces. I sighed as I stood by the water's edge in remembrance of her love until I felt a sharp shove between my shoulderblades that hurled me into the cold waters. I surfaced and saw her laughing softly to herself and climbing upon a rock to watch over me. I dipped my head to sweep my hair from my face.

"Such a pretty girl," said my Warrior from her rock, "with such remarkably big ears!"

"Xena," I cried out, "I love you so!" I know it wasn't a clever reply to her teasing -- she often found my magnificent and abundant Grecian ears a source of amusement -- but it was the only thought that had occupied my poor head that whole morning. Xena blushed. I swam into the waterfall, reluctantly to lose my scented journal of my exploration of Xena's shores.

So much time had passed since that day -- so many heavens, so many hells. But that day by the waterfall in Chin, my Ghost reached to me and put her hand to my heart. Instantly I was so suffused with love and longing that I lost all strength in my limbs and slumped to the ground. My feelings of love returned and rushed over me as mighty and as fresh as they had been on that day long ago. My Ghost smiled gently as I lay motionless with my head propped up against a tree, captured in an enchantment woven of remembered love.

She pointed toward some trees and I saw two youths emerge. Their expressions were mischievous as they approached me, but I was unable to move. As my Ghost watched, the youths, a young man and woman, walked to me and nudged me with their feet.

"Do you think she's dead?" asked the boy.

"Her eyes move," said the girl.

The boy knelt beside me and hollered "Halloo!" into my ear, but I could not respond, just as though I was in a living dream.

The boy rose and said to the girl "Drunk perhaps?"

"She'll find that this is not a very good place to be drunk!" said the girl and she reached down and picked up my bag. They rummaged through it.

"Not much money," said the girl, as she pocketed what she found.

The boy pulled my scrolls from the pack. "Some kind of writings," he said and sniffed my scrolls. "They don't smell very good. It's not rice paper. What is this... some sort of animal hide?" He took them and tucked them into my tunic where they stood like tiny pillars. "There you go," he said, "something to read when you sober up!"

They laughed and shared my bread and cheese between them. "What's this?" asked the girl as she took a black urn from my pack. These were the ashes of my Warrior, my only treasure. I desperately tried to move, to seize the urn but my will over my body was stolen -- I could no more move my arms than I could move the limbs of the tree that supported me. My Ghost watched them casually with no sign of care.

The girl opened the urn and felt the ashes. "Ugh!" she cried, "it's black and greasy!"

"It's death!" said the boy and he took the urn from her hands and, while tears streamed from my eyes, he flung the urn of my love's ashes into the waterfall.

"All gone now," said my Ghost, shrugging her shoulders. She looked one last time at me, saying good-bye as she faded from my sight. My heart was breaking. That was the last time I ever saw my Ghost.

I got to the portal eventually and what did I find? A big dragon sleeping in front of it. Yup, big scaly thing, big teeth, big claws. Well, what did I expect, virgins doing a May dance? We warriors always get the butt end of things.

Okay, I think this Gabrielle fragment comes next:

My strength began to return to me slowly as the boy and girl were tugging off my boots and trying to untie the silvery chakram that I wore bound to my side. The great, round, chakram was a weapon like no other. My Warrior could fling it against ten enemies and it would rebound to her hand. Now it was mine. The youths got the boots but I had managed to hold fast to the chakram when suddenly we heard the thunder of hoof beats and a dark rider approached uttering a fierce and shrill war cry. "Uh-Oh!" said the boy.

"Get out!" screamed the rider. "I told you to stay away from here!" The rider cracked a whip over the youths' heads and they ran. "Go! Go fast!" the rider called after them.

The rider leaped from her horse and seized me, throwing me up upon the horse. She mounted behind me and urged her horse to a furious gallop as we ascended from the valley with the waterfall. The ground beneath us began to shiver and the earth began to roar. The horse trembled; the rider wrapped her one arm tighter around my waist and with the other she urged the horse on harder.

"Get up! Gallop on!" she called out as great crashes resounded behind us and deer, rabbits and all the woodland creatures joined us in our flight from the valley. I clutched the rider's arm and put my hand over hers. I knew this hand as well as I knew the face of the rider. It was Eve.

Our panicked horse reared at the fearful sounds, slipping, falling and spilling us onto the ground. We scrambled up and grabbed the horse's reins. I dared not look behind us -- there were rushing sounds like I had heard on the ocean and screams of breaking trees and terrified animals. We got the horse to its feet, climbed upon its back and resumed our flight.

We reached a craggy bluff where there were about twenty ragged young men and women holding staves and long knives, a ragged band of vandals. They were staring into the valley with shock and surprise. With our appearance, several cheered and sang out Eve's name. They took the horse's reins while Eve and I dismounted to walk to the edge of the craggy overlook and watch the destruction below.

"An earthquake," said Eve. "It has broken the earthworks and the river has reclaimed this valley." I saw where the wall of water was breaking trees and sweeping them before it as the trembling valley flooded.

Eve shifted her gaze from the valley to me. "Aunt Gabrielle," Eve said with a wry smile. "I would be surprised except I have learned that the extraordinary is the ordinary thing for you and my mother!"

I could not be so nonchalant. I had a thousand questions but before I could ask them I had to yield to my joy in seeing her again. I threw myself upon her, embracing her, kissing her chin and rejoicing in saying her name. "Gabrielle!" she said. "You're not usually so demonstrative!"

"Oh Eve," I cried, "They told such terrible things about you! They said you had burned villages!"

"Villages?" said Eve. "I don't see any villages." I followed her gaze to the valley below as the flood washed away the charred remains of the villages that had bordered the river when it had been small and contained by the dams. They were underwater now and gone. Had the village folk still been there they would have perished.

Eve turned and walked into a tent. I followed her. She knelt inside and I knelt next to her.

"Eve, what has happened," I asked. "Are you no longer a messenger of love?"

"Not exactly a messenger, not the way it was" she answered. "Gabrielle, I have learned something about the spirit. When you devote yourself to the spirit the spirit will devote itself to you."

She swept her hands through her hair, worn more loosely than her old custom. "Yes," she said, "I discovered that giving oneself over is the easy part. The harder part is when the spirit speaks back."

"Eve, you knew this flood was coming!"

"Yes," she said, "I knew. I tried to tell the people of this valley but," she smiled, "the people of Chin are a stubborn lot and were not eager to leave their homes on the word of a stranger with odd eyes and peculiar clothes. Some left, most did not.

"I left the village to pray for guidance and came upon my young gang of disaffecteds." She swept her arm to indicate the young people standing at the crag. "They didn't seem to have anything to do so -- I gave them something to do!"

"Did you tell them this earthquake and flood was coming?"

"No, I think that would have taken all the fun out of it for them. They were happy to chase away the people and burn the village as a lark. Well," she sighed, "they follow me now. Let them be surprised where it leads them!"

"I see. The Vandal is a prophet!"

"Shh, let this be between you and me," said Eve. She seemed easier, happier than she had in the past. "The spirit finds a use for our ... many skills."

"Oh Eve," I cried as my greatest sorrow returned to my mind. "Xena, your mother -- she is gone. She is dead."

"Dead?" asked Eve. She became quiet, closed her eyes and breathed slowly. After a while she opened her eyes and looked at me. "No, I don't think so. Trapped, perhaps. Betrayed. But I don't feel that she is dead."

"Alas, she is!" I said and I told her the story of how Xena had entered death to combat the evil demon Yodoshi in the land of Japa. I told her how Xena prevented me from spreading her ashes in the Fountain of Strength on Mt. Fuji to bring her back to life. I told how Xena had she said she had to stay in death to could redeem the lost souls of the town of Higuchi. Eve listened quietly and thoughtfully.

When I finished the story Eve said "What you told her was correct -- her remaining in the land of shades was not right. I wonder who made her believe it was." Eve asked me to leave her alone for a while and I left the tent. Her words left me crushed, confirming as they did that my loss was unnecessary.

I distracted myself by looking over the camp of Eve's ragtag gang. The tents were fabricated from cloths of many different and foreign fabrics. Possessions were hung around them -- pots, furs, decorations of divergent sorts. The faces of the gang were also varied -- outcasts of many different peoples.

I heard more cheering at the overlook and saw the mischievous boy and girl climbing safely to the camp. I went to the edge and stood over them. "Boots," I said. Surprised and sheepish they handed me my boots and bag, shrugged their shoulders and turned to marvel at the deluge they had escaped.

We were all in awe and I sat silently with them overlooking the changed landscape until the sun set. They wandered off to eat and sing with the cheerful resignation to the forces of fate that blesses youth. These outcasts were a family of souls that their homes had disowned. Now they were in Eve's hands, just as I, a voluntary exile from my family, had given my destiny over to Eve's mother. The gang left me alone, lost in my memories but someone threw a blanket across my shoulders and shoved a roasted rabbit's leg in my hand. I ate and shortly thereafter I crawled beneath the blanket a gave myself over to sleep there at the edge of the precipice.

Okay, I am going to take a leap here and continue the story with this Xena fragment:

This pierced me right through and even though Callisto was there I had to cry a little bit. Poor Gabrielle. Poor us. Me in limbo here, her in limbo on the other side, never meeting. "She should go back home," I said. "If you see her, tell her to go back west." Callisto nodded. Me, I felt, I felt crummy. More than ever I wanted to get my turn to go off in a puff of smoke into the nothingness of that portal. If only that stupid dragon would move.

"I wish I had my chakram," I said. I figured a couple of pops from that might shake up that dragon.

"Oh yes, your chakram," Callisto said. "What happened to that? Did you toss it one day when your sense of geometry was off?"

"It's not geometry that makes it come back. I mean, it's not just geometry. You have to will it back, really hard. Then, one way or another, you get it back. Really, it returns to your hand because you want it to return to you strongly enough. I felt like that chakram was a part of me."

"Then I noticed that even though I couldn't hold my chakram as a ghost Callisto was decked out like an armory. Real fast, I reached over, snatched her sword and made a rush for that dragon.

I was all ready to make some dragon sashimi, but halfway to the dragon the sword disappeared. I didn't want to play dodge the claw again so, sadly, I turned back. As I got back to Callisto the sword reappeared in my hand. Somehow she had another sword and she was holding it pointed right at my throat.

Now -- compare that with this Gabrielle fragment! Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

I awoke at the dawn. The flooded valley had a mist rising, a peaceful cloud over a valley restored to its primitive, wild glories. I felt someone sitting near me and a soft hand stroking my neck. For a moment my heart raced, but the blue eyes I looked into were Eve's. "Good morning, Aunt Gabrielle," she said. Eve tugged on my collar and looked down at my back. "Hm, a dragon," she said, "Gabrielle, you have changed."

"As have you, Eve."

"Yes, I suppose that's true. But now I understand some of the signs in my meditations last night."

"What did you see?" I asked eagerly.

"Well, first I must ask you a few things. Gabrielle, what troubles you?"

I sat up amazed. "You need ask? Xena is gone and I am lonely and lost!"

"Lonely I understand -- you no longer have your lover. But why lost?"

"Xena was my path!"

"No, Gabrielle. Xena was your friend. Your path is friendship." Eve put her arm around me. "In my meditation, I saw the Blue Dragon, the symbol for a friend of humanity, and the dragon was sleeping. Gabrielle -- you are asleep and lost in a dream of Xena. But with or without Xena, you must wake up! You have a destiny of your own!" Eve rose and walked to the edge of the cliff to gaze at the flooded valley.

Was this the child I had cradled? Eve has grown beautiful and elegant even as a vandal -- but still she carries the arrogance of her Roman foster parents. The path of Eli had brought her some wisdom perhaps, but there was still something cold about her, something that seemed to blind her to the comfort that I longed for. I stood up and walked to her side.

"Eve, when are you going to fall in love?" I asked. This made Eve laugh.

"Ha! That's what mother said last night too!"

"What?" I asked.

She looked sidelong at me. "Ah, I see I have your attention at last!"

"What else did she say?" I asked.

"There were some things that some others in my meditation said first about her. Gabrielle, you must know that the life of a Warrior is a short one and that is Xena's destiny as well. But, they said, Xena left too early, that there remained important quests for her. It wasn't her time yet to die."

"I felt that too!" I said. "Can Xena return?"

"It was said that she has not passed through the final portal of death .-- she is being blocked. There is a power that won't let her go."

"Where is she?" I asked frantically.

"Well, I don't know Gabrielle," said Eve. "Where is she?"

I looked into the valley with the wild river racing through it. "The last of her is there," I pointed down, "her ashes were flung into the pool that was there before the flood!"

Eve gazed off into the valley. "That pool was overtaken by the flood. Now I suppose her ashes are racing with the river, flowing westward. Through the ravines, through lakes, through seas. Ashes making their way to the Aegean, then the Mare Nostrum, Our Sea, the blue Mediterranean."

I sighed. "Perhaps that is for the best. There was nowhere that Xena loved so much as the sea," I said.

"Yes, I recall that she did," said Eve. "It was her fountain of strength!"

"So it was," I mumbled as a light slowly ignited within my mind.

"So, you see, there never was anything in Japa that could bring her back to life. Well, enough of that," said Eve. "I see that you have Xena's chakram. Can I see it?"

I fumbled with the leather thong that lashed it to my belt as my mind began to race. I handed the chakram to Eve. She tossed it into the air and caught it a few times. "Do you want to know what Xena said to me last night?"

"Yes! Of course! Tell me!"

Eve rubbed her thumb along the chakram. "She said that there is a secret to the chakram. Do you know why it returns when you throw it?"

"Why?" I said impatiently, "Because it bounces off of things, that's why!"

"Oh, lots of things bounce off of things. But not like this does. Xena said that the chakram returns because one wills its return. If the bearer of the chakram wills it enough, it returns." With that Eve, to my shock, turned her back to the rising sun and flung the chakram far into the sky, disappearing from our sight.

"There," said Eve. "The chakram has gone west. So should you. That is your land," she pointed. "West. And that, Gabrielle, is all that my mother told me!"

I immediately turned from her and fetched up my bag. I found it already packed with my scrolls, my quill and provisions for a journey. Nearby stood a horse with a bedroll coiled behind the saddle.

"Take the horse," said Eve. "We'll scare up another I'm sure."

I embraced Eve to my heart and then mounted to go forthwith. I shouted down to her "Eve! Fall in love! It makes all the difference!"

"Yes, yes so I see," said Eve. "I'll see you again before long, Aunt Gabrielle. And if by some strange chance you meet my mother again, tell her to stay out of Japa!"

"I will! I feel it in my heart that I will see her again!"

"One more thing Gabrielle!" said Eve. "Don't forget your own destiny! Before you leave Chin you should have someone sing to you 'The Song to the Blue Dragon!' Promise me!"

I promised and Eve waved good-bye. I turned my dragon to the east and the horse to a fast gallop to the west.

There is so much I could tell about my return journey. I saw and did many things and I learned something about the dragon that slept. There are two important meetings that I must tell you of.

First, I met a musician a while after I left Eve. He came to my campsite and asked for food. I told him I would trade food for a song and asked if he knew The Song to the Blue Dragon. He did. Here is the song:

Song to the Blue Dragon

At my Child's hand shall I die

But as thy Child I’ll return.

Oh Blue Dragon, Faithful Friend,

Young as a sunrise

Unsounded as Seas

One day willst thou call to me.

When thy need is like mine own,

Our love removÉd from our grasp,

Then we shall join.

I the Water and Thou the sea

Shall swell as one

When thou callest me.

When thou willest the Phoenix from paradise

Thou callest me also and I shall arise.

"It is a very lovely song," said the musician. "It is said that it was written by a very holy one, perhaps the great Lao Tzu himself!"

The second meeting is a difficult for me to relate. I will not keep this scroll with the others, no I shall not! Because I am a bard I must tell the tale, but there is shame in the tale for me, so I shall hide this away. The second meeting was caused by a dream I had. In the dream I saw Eve with a sword like Callisto's sword in her hand.

This is what Eve said to me in my dream: "You must speak to her and soon for she is near the portal and cannot much longer be restrained. With every day she grows more resolved and soon she may turn on the guardian with all her will and then she will be beyond your grasp! It is up to you! You must guide her -- and soon!" I awoke from the dream with a scream, cold and frightened.

My scream alarmed the musician who arose and ran to my side. I said "I must find a way to talk to the dead!"

My words alarmed the musician even more. "Don't talk like that!" he said. "You will put yourself in the clutches of a wizard!"

"Can a wizard show me the dead?" I demanded.

"You would be wise to stay away from him! He dabbles with the most fearsome things and consorts with the mightiest of the dead! He will use you ill, I promise you! Stay away from him!"

As the musician spoke I noticed his glance returning over and over to a cave in a nearby hillside. "That cave!" said I, pointing. "Is that where the wizard resides?"

"I will say no more!" cried the musician and he grabbed his pack and fled.

Perhaps it was foolish of me, but I felt entirely sure in my soul that I must talk to Xena and that should I fail to enter that cave on the hillside all would come to naught, just as Eve had said in my dream. With that, I went to the cave to seek out the wizard.

This is what the wizard in the cave said to me when I told him that I needs must speak to one who is dead. He asked: "Are you willing to trade places with the dead one you seek?"

"No," I said. "That would be wrong."

"You are correct," said the wizard. "Had you said otherwise I would not have helped you." He lit an incense bowl and knelt beside it. The wizard said: "There is a mighty one in the realm of the dead who wishes to return to the land of the living. It is one mighty enough to assist you and give you entrance and a few words of speech briefly in the anteway of the land of the dead."

"A mighty one?" I asked. "I will not accept the help of a demon."

"It is not a demon," murmured the wizard. "The spirit is human, but mighty. One who has done great deeds as well as committing grave human errors that welled up from her greatness of heart. This mighty one wishes to breathe again in the land of the living."

"Yes, that is the one! I seek to bring her back to the life that was stolen from her!"

"You accept to bind yourself to this mighty one?"

"Yes, yes! It is the one I seek!"

The wizard smiled to himself. "No, I think it is not the one you seek," he said. "The one you seek has not yet entered the portal of the dead. You do not know the mighty one who seeks to aid you, yet there is apparently a reason why the mighty one has chosen to assist you in particular. There will be, however, a price."

"What must I give?" I asked.

"You will offer the mighty one her next chance to be in the sun."

"How do I do that?" I asked.

The wizard laughed gently and even seemed to blush. "The usual way," he said at last.

This much I will tell you, reader of this scroll. I paid a dear price to speak only one sentence to Xena in the land of the dead. I will say a little more -- that the wizard said that he did not demand this, this ... payment, for himself but for that great spirit that filled him. Perhaps. For me only the thought of Xena filled my soul and it was to her that I felt I gave my acquiescence.

Now -- the last thing I must tell you what occurred when I again saw the shores of my homeland. To tell you that I flung myself joyously into our sea and danced on the shore is to tell you little more than that I'm a Greek. I camped by the shore and for two days I looked off into the blue sea and in the night I dreamed of a blue dragon, waking.

I thought of paths, I thought of philosophies, I thought of legends. I thought of gods and their whims and mysteries. Perhaps there are things I should do and be, some fate that awaits my sense of duty. But just as all the world heeds the cycle of the sun, so the governance of this small woman is my heart. All friendship, all quests, all meanings are emanations of our hearts. The mystery of all mysteries is that we love and care. It's what rounds out life. Some wear their lover's ring as the sign. I wore my lover's weapon and I wanted it back.

On the second day, just before the sunset, I saw a light glinting from metal a little way off shore, round and red with the sunset's rays. As the tide came in it came closer and I saw a hand holding the chakram. Then emerged the graceful arm, the swirling black hairs, the glowing smile and gleaming body of my Xena, returning to me from our sea.