Gabrielle felt a desperate need to search for Xena in the land of the dead even though she didn’t know which spirit world Xena might be in. She knew this desire was irrational on several levels. For one thing she believed Xena was finally at peace. Finding her would only bring them both more pain. For another she wasn’t sure she would be willing to return to the land of the living if she succeeded in finding Xena. That was too much like suicide for her tastes. Lastly, she accepted that the Higuchi 40,000 would be at peace only so long as Xena remained dead. She wouldn’t do anything to further torment those souls.

Xena would expect her to go on so that’s what she would do. She was almost glad to be on a ship heading into a long journey whose twists and turns others would decide. But it still hurt, more than she could bear at times. At those times her tiny cabin seemed like a coffin and it was all she could do to wait for the morning so that she could escape to the deck, there to distract herself in chores or weapons practice.

& & &

The men watched secretly as she practiced with her sai and the sacred sword against the fighters, and wondered often about the round metal weapon always on her hip. Gabrielle paid little attention to the sailors. They did their job well which was all she could ask of them. She shared their meals at first but understood that made them uncomfortable, so she took meals in her cabin instead, increasing her loneliness. Several days out from Higuchi she noticed a young man writing on a scroll. She asked the captain about him.

"Elders sent him for you, to help," was the cryptic reply.

She walked over to the young scholar who bowed. "Why are you here?"

"To learn about the world." He was deferential but seemed willing to engage in conversation.

"The captain said you were sent to help me. I don’t need your help." She walked away.

He never approached her and was careful not to get in her way. But seeing him every day scribbling on a scroll piqued her curiosity. She stood at the rail, not looking at him sitting in his usual spot on a coil of rope. "What do you write?"

"I write about you and Xena and what you did for Higuchi. And about our travels."

She didn’t talk to him again for several days. The loneliness got to her and she didn’t like what kept filling her silences. Everyone else treated her as unapproachable. Everyone except the young scholar.

She sat beside him on the deck and rested her hands in her lap. They had gotten more calloused because she insisted on doing her share of chores. She had explained to the captain that it was a way of staying fit. He and some of the older sailors recognized her need to stay busy but none of that mattered. Something about her could not be denied, whatever her request. Her stillness was part of it, as though she wasn’t there.

"I used to write about Xena. Sometimes I think if I hadn’t…"

"Hadn’t written about her?" Yoshi asked, when he sensed she needed prompting.

"People knew about her from my scrolls. That’s how Kenji was able to find us. Or so he said."

"You blame yourself for her death."

Yoshi was wise beyond his youth and saw into her heart. Gabrielle responded to his challenge with a cold expression and a tone that was like a sword held between them. "She died because I did what she wanted me to do."

& & &

Gabrielle spotted the pirate before anyone else. A flash of light where light shouldn’t be, or a distant sound, warned her. She glanced up at the lookout but he had not reacted. She ran up the stairs toward the helmsman and looked out over the water, squinting in the bright light. As the captain came over to her, his face polite and unalarmed, she pointed toward an island barely visible on the horizon.

"There. A ship."

Then the captain saw the speck on the horizon, a vessel bearing down hard powered by wind and oar just as the lookout called a warning. He shouted orders. Gabrielle remained by the helmsman, staying out of the way along with Yoshi who was not a fighter. She had respect for the crew, their training and discipline. They wouldn’t need her efforts and she might distract them.

The pirate ship pulled alongside and men swarmed aboard the Japanese ship. Both sides fought fiercely but the Japanese were outnumbered. Still Gabrielle stayed out of the fight. Then one of the Japanese fighters was killed. Two sailors followed soon after. The Japanese crew began to fight with more desperation, sensing defeat.

Acting instinctively Gabrielle threw the chakram that broke several pirate swords as it caromed around the ship before returning to her waiting hand. The affected pirates were stunned, unsure of what had happened to their weapons so fast did the chakram fly. Gabrielle joined the fight, using her sai. The pirates were thrown further off balance by the sight of the small blond foreign woman who fought like one possessed yet refrained from killing. One pirate took her restraint as weakness and pressured her back with hard and fast sword strokes. She caught his blade with the sai and wrenched it out of his grasp. She swept his feet out from under him and as he fell kicked him in the head, knocking him out. The fight ended soon after that. The Japanese wanted to kill the remaining pirates and toss them overboard.

"I won’t have that," Gabrielle said firmly.

The crew looked toward the captain. They didn’t take orders from her but neither would they go against one whose stillness reminded them of a dragon. "What would you have us do with them?" the captain asked.

"Put them back on their ship and cripple it so that it can’t make speed."

The captain gave the order.

& & &

After the wounded were taken care of Gabrielle retired to her cabin. She couldn’t recall fighting with such skill before. The pirates seemed like children to her. And the chakram – she had used it once before, assumed that was a fluke. As before it went exactly where she wanted it to go, did what she wanted it to do, and returned.

She thought about other strange things that had happened since she walked off of Mt. Fuji. There was that large man who tried to clean her chakram. She tossed him away from her as though he were a child. Had she killed Morimoto?

She only meant to get him out of her way. Maybe Yoshi would know.

Gabrielle sighed, recognizing that she was trying to avoid the question. She stripped and washed off sweat with a wet rag then rinsed out her clothes and hung them up to dry. She put on the thigh-length blue silk robe that was one of the gifts the people of Higuchi wouldn’t let her refuse.

She forced her thoughts back to the question at hand. Seeing in the dark, that was new. Sensing danger from afar. Taking on much larger opponents and defeating them with ease. Able to shrug off hard blows. Healing quickly. These skills had come to her after Xena died. Her heart beat faster and she paced the two steps in each direction allowed by her tiny cabin. Was Xena’s spirit inside her as she had been in the past? Is that how Gabrielle was able to do all the things she couldn’t do before? Hope surged through her and died almost as quickly.

She couldn’t feel Xena’s presence, hadn’t felt it since Mt. Fuji. She stopped pacing, understanding finally. She had put some water into her mouth as a precaution in case she had to fight. Then Yodoshi’s fire bolt hit her, she was thrown forward losing the water in her hands as the dragon tattoo deflected the bolt back at Yodoshi. She must have swallowed some of the water but still had enough left to give Xena. Xena’s spirit had gained the same strength and power Yodoshi had. And now Gabrielle had some of that strength and power.

She felt at once comforted and trapped. Comforted because it was like having a part of Xena with her. Trapped because she wasn’t sure of her path, but she was fairly certain it wasn’t Xena’s path of old. Wandering the countryside looking for fights, or waiting for fights to seek her out, did not appeal. And at the end, before they went to Japan, it was clear it wasn’t appealing to Xena. Her comment about Egypt was Xena’s way of saying it was time to try something new, she wasn’t sure what. And neither was Gabrielle.

She forced herself to plan one step at a time. First she had to find Eve and tell her about Xena, then to Amphipolis to place Xena’s ashes with her brother and mother. After that would have to wait.

     & & &

Her contacts in Chin smoothed the way for trade negotiations as well as providing her with the information that Eve had already gone to India. She spent a few days with K’ao Hsin. Lao Ma’s daughter had restored her mother’s realm and kept it intact through treaty and by playing warlords against each other.

As they left Chin Gabrielle thought about K’ao Hsin who was effective in maintaining peace and prosperity for her people yet she was not a fighter. She had not used her mother’s powers since the time she and Xena defeated her sister. Gabrielle recalled times with Xena when they helped people without killing, and even the fighting seemed secondary.

Thinking about their adventures from a new perspective engaged her in a way that nothing had since Japan. She borrowed a blank scroll from Yoshi and began making notes on her journeys with Xena. There were times when fighting was absolutely essential, as when Xena defeated the likes of Callisto, Sinteres, Agathon, and Prince Morloch. There were other times when fighting had little or nothing to do with the outcome: convincing King Silvas to stop being a tyrant, showing Cecrops where to find love, helping Autolycus return Pax, convincing Marmax to stop the Thessalian civil war.

Sometimes Xena succeeded by looking into someone’s heart, finding a key to their behavior, and changing them. Sometimes she changed a situation so that she and Gabrielle and the people they were fighting for could win.

Gabrielle knew she could never be Xena’s equal in tactics, in outsmarting an opponent or someone she was trying to help, but she began to believe she could find a way to use what she was good at to make a difference in other people’s lives.

And if fighting was part of it, she would fight. Killing was a different matter, but she knew that remained a possibility. Once when they stopped on a remote island for fresh water they were attacked by a savage group of people who wouldn’t listen when the captain tried to explain their peaceful intentions. Of necessity Gabrielle killed three of them with her Japanese sword to save the lives of her shipmates. For days after she would hardly speak to anyone, and she knew killing would always weigh heavily on her soul, no matter what the reason for killing.

For a time she seriously thought about doing something completely different, something that wouldn’t put her in a situation of having to hurt others. She could be a bard, nothing more. But that no longer appealed. She had skills that could be used to help people, and she could not turn on back on those she might help. His knowledge of other people and other lands was less extensive than hers, but different, and so they talked about how the ordinary people lived, what they wanted, how rulers affected them for good or ill, the nature of rule.

Gabrielle wrote down some of her ideas about peace, and ways to help it along. And then they reached India, and thoughts about the future were put aside for a time. Walking through a marketplace that reminded her of the one where she and Xena had met Eli, Gabrielle had to savagely suppress memories to keep them from paralyzing her again. Her new plan had engaged her intellect and kept her emotions at bay. The featureless sea, the trading ports that were different only in minor details, had helped her avoid thinking about her loss. But India brought it all back. So much had happened here that changed her as well as Xena. It was in India that they discovered they were soul mates, destined to be together in many lifetimes. Recalling some of the best and happiest times of her life made her more aware of the pain of losing Xena. She determined to find Eve and move on as soon as she could.

She found Eve in one of the desert regions along the west coast. After arranging travel by horse, Gabrielle, Yoshi and two of the fighters headed inland. She reached Eve’s encampment a few days later.

A dozen small tents and two larger tents had been erected on a desert plain not far from a city. Her companions were taken to one of the large tents for food and rest. Gabrielle was guided to a small tent at the northern edge of the encampment. Eve was dressed in traditional Indian garb and looked more radiant than ever. Her bright smile at seeing Gabrielle lasted only an instant. Her gaze went from Gabrielle’s face to the hand clutching the small ornamental vase to the chakram on Gabrielle’s hip.

Eve reached out and hugged Gabrielle for a long moment. "Come, sit. Tell me what happened." Her voice was steady but deepened in sorrow. Gabrielle’s face was too easy to read.

At first Gabrielle gave the barest version of events in Japan. But Eve drew her out, probing for details, not for her but as a way to relieve Gabrielle’s pain. Eve loved her mother and mourned her loss, but she had known her only a short time and they had shared a painful past. Eve was grateful that Xena had found peace, however horrible the circumstances of her death. And now it was Gabrielle who needed her.

At dusk Eve lit candles and started a fire against the chill. The light danced around the small tent and the two mourners, bouncing off shiny objects, changing the shape of a small black object that never left Gabrielle’s possession. Eve glanced once for a long moment at the dancing light and the vase.

Someone brought tea and food. As they ate and drank, Gabrielle mechanically and without her usual gusto, Eve observed the changes in her friend. Gabrielle was thinner, stronger, her features lacking the gentleness that marked them the last time they met. Her hands and body moved with the controlled restraint and deliberation of a warrior, not a bard. She looked like she hadn’t smiled in years.

Eve knew she was haunted by the image of Xena’s headless body, naked and strung up like so much dead meat. To the warrior Eve once was what counted was how one died, not what happened to the body after. From Gabrielle’s account her mother had acquitted herself well and saved thousands, living as well as dead. There should be comfort in that. But Eve had never seen that body restored to life against all hope not once but several times; she had never held that body as a lover.

Eve let Gabrielle talk herself hoarse while her hand stroked the chakram on her hip as she might stroke Xena’s arm. Eve imagined she could see Xena sitting close to her friend, Gabrielle touching her arm in a way that was casual yet intimate. And then Eve could see her mother sitting beside Gabrielle, Xena’s head cocked to one side as though listening to Gabrielle’s story, yet something in Xena’s expression was lost and Eve knew Xena could not see or hear her soul mate.

Ave, Mother, Eve thought.

Xena glanced at her, her face brightening in recognition. And you, Eve.

Eve watched Gabrielle stare at the flickering candlelight unable to take comfort from the form beside her that was intermittently revealed in the light to Eve’s eyes but not Gabrielle’s.

     & & &

Gabrielle still viewed Eve with some ambivalence. Not a daughter nor a sister, no relative at all, merely the only living child of her dearest friend, her lover and soul mate. Eve and Xena had some mannerisms in common, not related to their experiences as young women on the fields of battle. Both had a habit of looking at her from under lowered brows when they were challenging her. Gabrielle hadn’t seen that from Eve today, only love and acceptance. Gabrielle wasn’t at all ambivalent about that anymore. Ever since they rescued Sarah from Gurkhan’s harem Gabrielle had fully accepted Eve as Eve, rather than Eve-who-was-Livia who killed Joxer and many of Eli’s followers. She couldn’t imagine Eve – the person she was now – harming anyone for any reason.

But she wasn’t weak, Gabrielle knew. She had the strength of her faith that hadn’t diminished one bit since Gabrielle last saw her. It seemed to help her deal with Xena’s death. Gabrielle wished she had something like that. She had experienced so many different faiths. She believed in all of them, and none of them touched her. Only her faith in Xena and that…

She closed her eyes against the pain. Xena did what she had to do. I wouldn’t have wanted to her do anything else despite what I said. It was the surprise of it … She felt the tears coming again and clamped down on her emotions. There had been enough tears. No sense in causing more sadness for Eve. It was time to move on. Xena, I wish I could see you one last time.

     & & &

As Gabrielle slept Eve thought about their relationship. Friends, certainly. Mother and daughter? Not quite. Their ages, for one thing. Eve was a few years older than Gabrielle. But Gabrielle had helped throughout Xena’s pregnancy and delivery, had defended the infant Eve with her life, and had given Eve her right of caste in Gabrielle’s Amazon tribe. Eve had a deep and abiding love for the woman who made it possible for her mother to find peace, love and happiness. More than that, she loved Gabrielle for the person she was.

Watching Gabrielle hurting now – not at rest even asleep, her hand clutching the black vase against her chest – hurt Eve. She prayed for guidance – from Eli who would listen, and from Xena who might not be capable of listening despite their earlier contact. Eve had a definite sense of her presence but it was fleeting, tentative and anxious, not at all like her usual sense of her mother, or the solid light that was Eli.

After a few hours of sleep Eve awoke refreshed. Gabrielle was already awake, drinking cold tea from last night. "How do you feel?"

Gabrielle looked up at her. Eve wished she could take back the question. Gabrielle’s face looked bruised, yet no discoloration showed on the clear tan skin. "How do I feel? Like my right arm was cut off." She said it without emotion, as though describing a flesh wound.

Eve checked on Gabrielle’s companions and then prepared a tray of fruit, nuts, cheese and bread to take back to her tent. They talked throughout the day and again into the night. Eve let Gabrielle’s thoughts take them where they would. At first it was about Eve’s travels to Chin, what she found there, and her decision to move on to India. In the evening, after Gabrielle looked in on her shipmates, the talk turned to sacrificing oneself for others.

Gabrielle was still trying to make sense of Xena’s death. "If you had the opportunity to make up for your past but it meant your death, would you let yourself be killed? As Eli did?"

Eve responded: "Without hesitation. What do you think I was doing in Caligula’s Rome? Fortunately mother knocked some sense into my head. She never was one to waste talent." Eve smiled in memory of her frustration and anger when Xena ignored Eve’s plans and kept her alive. "I would still die to save others but I’m not going to seek it out as a way to make up for my years as Livia. I feel I have a purpose and that purpose isn’t to die. Not yet."

There was a long silence. Eve listened to the night animals, taking great pleasure in sounds that Livia had considered nothing more than a tool to reveal the presence of an enemy.

When Gabrielle spoke again her voice was tired, her eyes bruised with grief. "I know Xena did the right thing in Japan, for the right reasons. If there had been a way to save those souls and come back to life she would have taken it. She wouldn’t leave me alone without a good reason."

Eve stood and paced. Eve’s intensity was like Xena’s while considering a problem. Eve’s role of Eli’s messenger hadn’t changed how her mind functioned, Gabrielle realized. They each had military generals inhabiting their brains. Eve faced her from across the tent, her hands holding her forearms. "Where are you going from here?"

"Amphipolis. To bury Xena with her mother and brother."

"After that?"

 "I don’t know. I have some ideas but I haven’t worked out anything firm yet."

Eve looked to one side, thinking. When she turned to Gabrielle her resolve was clear. "I’m going with you."

Gabrielle’s voice became rough and she spoke more harshly than she intended. "Eve, no. I have to find my own way. It’s not Xena’s way, it’s not your way, or Eli’s."

Eve quirked an eyebrow and said gently, "I want to be there for mother’s burial. That’s all. After Amphipolis we can go our separate ways."

Gabrielle flushed and her voice lightened. "Oh. All right. I guess the captain won’t mind. When can you be ready to leave?"

"Tomorrow morning."

"What about your mission?"

"I have a strong feeling I’m needed elsewhere." She added, "It really isn’t all about you, or even Xena."

"You can share my cabin. It’s small but …"

"I can sleep on the deck."

"No arguments, Eve."

Eve deferred to Gabrielle judgment and was glad she did. The crew modified the small cabin so that two could sleep in hammocks hanging from the ceiling. Gabrielle found it more comfortable than the bunk, and she ended up with more space that easily accommodated Eve’s few possessions. Eve had a place where she could pray and think without interruption.

Gabrielle’s heart was still heavy, but she felt some of the burden was shared now that Eve was with her.

The voice spoke inside Xena’s head, if she had a head. "Suicide is a mortal sin."

If Xena could sigh she would have. "I didn’t commit suicide."

The voice challenged: "You tricked your partner and the defending army into being elsewhere while you went into battle against impossible odds wearing no armor worth mentioning."

Xena imagined waving away the disembodied voice. "Fine, I committed suicide."

"Your sentence is eternal damnation."

"I’ve earned it." Xena scanned her surroundings. She could almost make out figures in the periphery of her nonexistent vision.

"And all those whom you saved by your actions?" The voice persisted.

"It doesn’t balance the evil I did."

"What about Gabrielle?"

Xena stared with imagined eyes at forms dimly seen. They appeared to be tall trees. "What about her?"

"Alive she had a chance to restore you to life. Dead she couldn’t. Your decision to hide your plan from her was a selfish one."

The trees formed into a forest, a low-lying mist obscuring the forest floor. "I accept that judgment."

"In condemning yourself, you condemn her."

The voice now had Xena’s complete interest. As she imagined herself turning, looking for the individual behind the voice, the forest grew and formed around her. She heard drumbeats in the distance.

"Why?"

"Because she participated in your sin."

"She had nothing to do with my death. She wasn’t even there."

The forest disappeared and was replaced by a scene showing two women sitting on a mountain, facing the sunset. The arm of the taller woman encircled the waist of the smaller woman. Xena wanted nothing more than to close her eyes as she had then and let everything stop. "She obeyed my wish not to be resurrected."

"Agreed. She conspired in your sin."

"That’s not true!"

"Are you angry?"

"I’m a disembodied spirit. How can I be angry?"

"Xena has died many times," the voice reminded her. "It has never kept her from being angry before."

"What do you want?"

"To judge you."

"Go ahead." Whoever the voice was, it was taking its time getting to the point.

"It’s not that simple. You have to be aware of your sin, and Gabrielle’s, else you stay in this place forever."

The forest reformed, pushing back the light. She could see forms moving through the forest, men. An army or two. Apparently hell was to be the final moments of her life. So be it. She wished she could see Gabrielle just once more. "Who are you to judge me?" she asked with asperity.

"Eli."

Xena wasn’t surprised. However confrontational the words, the tone behind them was driven by love. "Then you know me."

The familiar voice replied, "Better than you know yourself. I want you to understand what you did wrong. Now that you know me the answer should be obvious."

Continue to Part 2

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