"Apocalypse Book 2 – Inferno"

By Brigit M. Morgan

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DISCLAIMERS:

VIOLENCE WARNING/DISCLAIMER: This story depicts scenes of violence, graphic violence and/or their aftermath. Readers who are disturbed by or sensitive to this type of depiction may wish to read something other than this story.

LOVE/SEX WARNING/DISCLAIMER: This story depicts a love/sexual relationship between two consenting adult women. If you are under 18 years of age or if this type of story is illegal in the state or country in which you live, please do not read it. If depictions of this nature disturb you, you may wish to read something other than this story.

BLATANT HISTORIC AND SCIENTIFIC DISREGARD DISCLAIMER: I mess with/butcher a lot of names, dates, eras, events, the Latin language itself, etc. Like, totally. If that offends you---are you sure you like Xena?

COPYRIGHT: Xena, Gabrielle, Eve and any other characters featured in the actual TV series are copyrighted to MCA/Universal and Renaissance Pictures while the rest of the story and other characters are my own.

TIMELINE AND CONTINUITY: This story takes place approximately 12 years after "Friend in Need." It also takes place about 5-6 hours after my other book Apocalypse Book 1: Nemesis ended, so if you haven't read that, you probably should---I'll wait… I kinda reference another story of mine: "To Rest" which you might also want to check out if you haven't read it. Now I'll do that Canadian thing and apologize profusely (SORRY!) and we can move on…

BETA BABES: Last, but in no way least, I'd like to thank my fantastic Beta readers. Without a doubt, the best there are---and extremely easy on the optic sensors too, if-you-know-whut-I-mean. I am truly blessed. Their patience and enthusiasm are greatly prized and appreciated. Thank you: Alydar, Angelrad, Beta Barb, JLynn and Xenalicious!

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If you come as softly
As wind within the trees
You may hear what I hear
See what sorrow sees

If you come as lightly
As the threading dew
I shall take you gladly
Nor ask more of you

You may sit beside me
Silent as a breath
And only those who stay dead
Shall remember death.

— Audre Lorde

PROLOGUE - Anxur

Sunrise cast vague light out over the rolling Tyrrhenum, lending the sky an air of hazy uncertainty. It glared pale like polished silver, the azure leeched out. Even the legions of seabirds were out of place against it, exiled from the formless ether that was so often their adopted home. Beneath it all, the sea fell upon the sand in gentle waves as it always had.

She closed Her eyes, listening.

Nothing born into this world was immune to the soothing congress of sea and sand. While unsure at first, She had found Herself to be no exception. As She took in the water's accord with the white beach, the turmoil She had experienced earlier lifted from Her.

She opened Her eyes. The waves rolled toward Her with a sigh.

Hundreds of Her footsteps disappeared into a single point far along the pale coast, mapping out a journey She had begun before dawn. Her red cape whipped in the breeze, in stark contrast to the pale hues of the beach and the water. The sun only enflamed Her mantle, and it burned in reflection upon the anemic palate of the surroundings. Blue eyes traced the steady path of an albatross high over the waves. Its powerful wings beat lazily against the soft push of the wind. She pulled the cloak about Her shoulders.

The sun, the sand, the sea, the sky—four elements revolved in slow harmony as they always had and they always would. This was the universe manifest in its simplest parts, as though She stood witness to the beginning or the end of the world.

At the western horizon She could see a line of dark storm clouds looming, their movement and size obscured by their utter blackness, which swallowed the formless light of morning, confounding any attempt to make their bounds corporeal. Their enigmatic dimensions held Her gaze—the compulsion to be engulfed, lost in such a void fell heavily upon Her.

The breeze that blew to Her from over Hispania and across the sea played in the crimson of Her cape, fat with the sultriness of rain. Her nostrils arched, hungry for the musk of humidity. A flash of something, a memory clutched Her—somewhere else, a heavy downpour pummeling a thin canopy of elms, the leaves heaving, a woman running from Her, laughing, Her giving chase, the water kissing Her smiling cheeks.

A wave unrolled itself, lightly passing over Her sandaled feet. She shook Her head. The visions had followed Her from Rome, clutching at Her as She ran. More than the deliriums She had experienced earlier that had been so much like dreams, these visions were real in Her mind, these were actual memories, She knew that. They had followed Her from Rome, from the temple, where She had held that cold steel circlet and had felt it all, everything torn from Her.

The pull of connections beyond the reservoir of Her memory gripped Her, voices calling out. How was She connected to any of this? Was it Her past or Her future? The visions, the memories confused Her, it was true—not only because they were foreign to Her, but because She enjoyed them. She enjoyed how they made Her feel. Powerful. Alive.

The waves receded as She knelt on the beach; Her hand sank into the sand for balance. These were not Her memories, yet somehow She felt comfortable possessing them, thinking of them as Her own. She shut Her eyes. Mild nausea washed over Her just as the waves did. She had failed in Her task, Her test. She had failed Her master and had been reduced to this—a broken, battered child, grasping at shells in the shallows of the sea. She had nothing for him, not even Herself anymore.

She stood. Sand fell softly through Her fingers. She removed Her helmet, letting the wind play in Her hair and push it from Her like a veil. Weightlessness, or the impression of it, captured Her, threatening to sweep Her from Her feet. There was a wild giddiness to the feeling, one that triggered reminiscence without any visions, just a sensation of a place free from time. Or was it the other way around? There was the vertigo that memory now induced, but She no longer cared. Regardless of whom it belonged to, this nostalgia was something She could clutch, She could make Her own.

Without knowing or caring why, She spun Herself gently, slowly once upon the white sand.

The sun had climbed higher in the sky. Her black hair spilled about Her face as the wind weakened. She blinked, listening to the unchanging rhythm of the waves, Her lips slowly dropping into their customary place. She tasted blood.

"There you are." Her master appeared before Her upon the sand. "Out for a stroll?"

She straightened, Her fingers clutching Her helmet tightly.

"I…I was returning from my mission." She looked to the horizon, the clouds. "I failed you, Master."

"You didn't fail me, kid." The God of War smiled. "Not exactly, anyway."

She bowed Her head. She didn't pretend to understand Her master's intentions, but his mercy and understanding was greatly appreciated.

"Call it a partial victory," Ares said. "Still, I was hoping you would come through a little stronger for me, but no matter."

They walked along the beach together, soon approaching the dunes that poured toward the gradual shelf of land that the old bathhouses were built upon. Neither had spoken a word.

"Okay, you seem dour even for you," Ares broke the silence. "What's on your mind?"

"Nothing, Master."

He looked at Her. "I don't believe that." She bowed Her head. He crossed his arms. "I don't know…maybe I've been pushing you too hard, too soon. Maybe you need a rest."

"I…"

"Sure," Ares nodded. "It's okay. I expected more from you, but maybe I was unrealistic. No one's perfect." He winked. "Even when I make 'em."

"But…"

"I can't have you running around with all this doubt and stress now, can I?"

She raised Her eyes allowing them to meet his. He grinned, putting his hands upon Her shoulders. "It'll only be for a little while. Until you feel better. Take your time." He nodded, smirking. "Figure things out."

Her fists, She finally noticed, were clenched tightly. She opened them, letting blood return with its flood of warmth. She could only nod.

"Good," Ares said. "I'll be by to check up on ya—when I get a chance. Take care." He disappeared into the morning.

The wind picked up again, whipping Her cape, snapping it in the air around Her. She continued up the slope towards the baths, passing absently through the dry patches of beach grass. The sun was now gaining strength in the sky above Her. She followed the line of Her footsteps into the distance, the northern horizon. It was easy to imagine any number of alternate routes She might have taken to arrive here, to arrive anywhere. In the end She knew it was all the same; it all ended in the same way.

Meridian shifted in its scabbard upon Her back. She squinted out across the sea. She had always preferred to wear the sword behind Her, rather than at Her hip. Even this now was ambiguous—was someone else. She sighed.

Holding Her helmet beneath Her arm, She moved toward the baths, Her bed, and the hollow comfort of unfamiliar dreams.

************

PART 1 - The City of Visible History

CHAPTER I. Like Those Hollow Places Between the Stars

The upturned form of Rome was ashen beneath the early morning sun. Buildings, pale and spent, cast the new light in a blinding white glow. The city sprawled stinking and unmoving against the receding Tiberus, curled at the extremities like a crucifixion cut down.

Heat refused to leave the capitol now. It buried itself in the dirt of the street, the porous rock and tile of the buildings, the withered trunks of the trees, the snouts of animals. At night it emerged; pouring, spilling into the streets like an unseen tide to flood the alleys, the forae, the rooms where people lay damp and unsleeping.

Moisture was exiled by the tyranny of the sun; leaving in mass exodus as vapor over the city. Objects betrayed it to the conquering star. Parched pots crumbled or shattered in gardens, upon balconies. Statues buckled or were avulsed by the rays of Helios to be left standing scarred or lying broken in the streets. Clothes disintegrated from the backs of the poor, or from travelers who slept in the parks. It was believed that water was even abducted from reservoirs below the earth; passing through the loose and dusty ground, and lifted into the blank face of the livid sky. Citizens talked of roof tiles popping in quick succession above their heads like vertebrae in a lion's jaws.

The Romans were calling it aestas tartarum—the summer of Hell—for truly, suffering was in abundance and without end. Night was as hot as morning, morning like noon, and at noon the city was a crucible. Children ran through the forae with fingers blistered by toys left too long unattended in the sun. People wandered the streets; eyes vacant, mouths agape. Flies emerged fully formed and hungry from the Styx-like murk of the river.

Upon the palm-lush heights of the Quirinal hill, the conflagration of the Roman morning was somewhat bearable, especially to one raised with the arid summers of Hellas in her blood. Gabrielle had never wanted to admit it, but the choking heat wave often reminded her of Greece; of late summers in Poteidaia, or on the dusty roads of the Peloponesse, although the sun had never burned with such purpose or cruelty in her memories.

She sighed and pulled the light, red linen of her new robe over her shoulders. A gift from the Phoenician merchant Cyrus who had handed it to her in the light of early morning, with a flash of straight, white teeth beneath his noble mustache.

The warrior squinted over the city from a high balcony at the Senator's home. What came before these moments of stillness seemed only a blur: After the rescue, a few restless hours of sleep; Mira complaining as she was shaken awake; the flight along the western end of the city, using the sparse merchant caravans as uneasy cover; avoiding Praetorians; ascending the steep Quirinal; Virgil pointing solemnly at the recently charred ruin of a military fort at the base of the hill; Senator Gallus, the Phoenician, the old man; Eve and Mira going back to sleep; Virgil, his arm around the old man Seneca, who led the poet to a grand peristylium.

During the exhausted commotion, she had held her breath. It's what she did when, as a child, she would hide, her sister trying desperately to find her, running to the barn and back calling Gabrielle! Gabrielle! She leaned against a wall, stood perfectly still and held her breath. In the shaded comfort of Gallus' atrium, she gave herself to the fatigue, hoping it might find her first, before anyone. Hoping it might obliterate her; that she might slide softly down the wall to the floor and into a black sleep, or just crumble silently into dust.

Cyrus had found her, had talked, smiled shyly like a small girl, and handed her the robe—stark, blood red against the dark and muted colors of the meeting room, its fabric as light and thin as a wing. He had left her then; his sensitivity to the depth of her weariness should have made her grateful, but only penetrated to a place that drained more of her precious reserves, increasing her lassitude.

Eventually, she had found the shaded balcony with its palms and its hazy view of the city. She had stepped with bare feet upon the veins of marble passing, like a caress, to the edge. As the sun loomed angrily above, she had stepped quietly from her clothes, bruised skin shining in the morning, and had wrapped the weightless cloth around her. Then she had stared out over the city for the better part of an hour, lost in a numb miasma. Occasionally she focused on features or occurrences below—shouts, the flights of sparrows, the secret business of stray cats. She found it hard to lift her eyes toward the southern horizon, but often felt compelled to do so.

There were still plumes of black smoke rising from the Palatine hill. She shifted against the marble of the balcony. Had She destroyed the temple? Had they destroyed Her? Gabrielle sighed.

The tightness of the fresh bandages caused her to shift with discomfort. Nemesis had struck the warrior viciously in her already broken ribs, and the wound throbbed worse now than before. The entire encounter presented itself to her in that way; more vivid in recall than when she had actually experienced it. The clash of swords threatened to swell in her ears, throbbing torchlight seemed to engulf her, the temple threatening to materialize its columns, its altar, Caesar's statue…

And Her silhouette…

Gabrielle shut her eyes. The marble was cold beneath her fingers, pulsing with the various footfalls within the large home. Mira was approaching from behind, barefoot and tentative across the balcony. Gabrielle turned and nodded to her. The girl squinted in the brightness of the sun, her eyes still adjusting from the shade of the house. She stood beside the warrior and stared out over the city.

"That's a nice color on you." She smirked.

"Thanks."

"There's breakfast inside," Mira offered.

Gabrielle shifted. "Great."

The girl turned. "You know," she began. "We rescued everyone. It was a complete success."

"I know," Gabrielle smiled, a little self-consciously.

"Then why didn't you sleep? Why are you out here?"

"We still have a lot to do before we can stop and rest, you know."

"Yeah, I know," Mira nodded. "That's not what's bothering you, though."

Gabrielle blinked, then sighed. "No… no it isn't."

The girl squinted out over the balcony, watching a group of swallows pop in and out of holes they had dug in an eroded embankment at the side of the hill. She sighed.

"Come inside, everyone is meeting for breakfast. I think they want you there."

Gabrielle nodded and they both headed towards the door.

"You can tell me about it when you're ready…" Mira whispered as they passed from the blazing heat of outdoors to the muted swelter of Gallus' home.

In the dining chamber there was a huge wooden table adorned with a large repast. The inviting smell of fresh bread mixed sweetly with fragrant fruit and cold meats. Gabrielle collected some food and joined the others, who reclined lazily on couches in the lush chamber. She found a spot near the bowing leaves of a large fern. Eve smiled at the warrior as she took a seat nearby. Gallus and Cyrus had already been chewing absently and talking, as everyone arrived. Mira sat on a large couch and looked about, not touching the heaping plate of food she had brought for herself.

Soon, Virgil entered, laughing happily beside the portly form of Seneca. Gabrielle watched the older man. The senator and unabashed Republican was a sight of almost hydra-like proportions in this context. Having been exiled to a small island off the coast of Hispania years earlier for his tireless meddling in Imperial affairs, his attendance added an extra layer of enigma to a room that was already well populated by outsiders, mystics and people who were supposed to be dead. He blinked happily at everyone, though Gabrielle noticed he had a tired cast to the wrinkled outskirts of his features.

Mira shuffled. Gabrielle tilted her eyes to her friend. The girl looked to the hall and back to the lounge. She popped a date into her down-curled mouth and grimaced as she chewed. Her brown eyes kept searching with their wistful quality.

"He's probably still asleep," Gabrielle offered.

Mira sat up. "Huh? Who?"

"Never mind," the warrior yawned.

Mira blinked at her friend and then turned her attention to Virgil who seemed to be acting as the host of the gathering. Gabrielle nibbled on some bread as she leaned back against the plush cushions of the couch. The poet smirked as he stood before them, instantly belittling the gravity of the situation.

"Well, here we are," he said with sure oration. "The makers of Rome and her greatest outlaws."

Seneca snorted. "I hope you're not depending on us to spot the difference, my boy."

Everyone laughed. Virgil shook his head, grinning widely. "I see all those years on a barren pile of rocks hasn't dulled your legendary wit, old man, and that is good, for we need it now more than ever."

The former Senator nodded his agreement, his eyes saddening somewhat. "Rome has certainly seen better days."

"And perhaps it shall again." Gallus rose. "To the point at hand, however. Our friends, the Elians—while they are safe for the time being, they must depart Rome immediately."

Eve nodded. "What do you suggest, Senator?"

The young Senator indicated Cyrus. "The Phoenician traders under Cyrus have agreed to secret you and your friends from the city. They have ships waiting in the ports at Ostia. From there, they can take you anywhere."

Gabrielle tilted her head to the side. "There's no way Nero will just sit around and let us all leave the city after what happened last night."

Eve looked to Seneca. "To what lengths will he go?"

Seneca shook his head sadly, his features darkening in the filtered morning light. "Even in the five years of my exile, I have watched his mania deepen, his judgment fracture. I cannot say for certain how far he will stoop to conquer."

"There's only so far he can go," Virgil said. "No matter how insane the Emperor is, in the end he must serve the will of the people. Romans will indulge his rage only so far."

"Not if that rage is their own," Eve sighed. "It can be difficult with Romans to see where the will of the people ends and the desires of the Emperor begin."

Gallus nodded. "Agreed. Nero has already used the murders and mayhem of recent days against his enemies, wrongfully accusing and detaining the Elians, and just this morning, suspending the meetings of the Senate." A hush fell upon them at this news. The Senator crossed his arms. "After yesterday's escape, I don't expect that these moves are against the will of the people."

Virgil shook his head. "What next? Will Rome just hand him ultimate control?"

"The sun has scorched all reason from this place," Seneca sighed, rising before them. "Nero is cunning when defending himself, true, but he is far more effective and dangerous when on the attack. He is malevolently proactive, and it is important that we realize his schemes go far beyond the walls of Rome, the lands of the Empire."

"Certainly, my friend, no one would know better than yourself," Gallus agreed. "But our immediate concerns are far more pressing than the future machinations of our beloved Emperor, however unsavory they may be."

"I do not think that even Nero believes he can abolish the Senate," Virgil said. "So our first worry is still the Elians. We need to coordinate our efforts and have everyone ready to move as soon as we can."

Cyrus nodded at the poet, who in turn looked to Gabrielle. The warrior was staring absently at the detailing of the Athenian banquet table. The poet blinked, momentarily lost then turned to Eve. "We should begin the preparations immediately."

She nodded, and glanced at the reclining warrior. Virgil clapped his hands, a signal that the meal and meeting, were over. He and Eve left, heading towards their quarters, Gallus and Cyrus trailed behind. Seneca stood and moved toward the balcony, drawing his robe over his mottled skin. Leaving her plate with a thump, Mira got to her feet. "Uh…I'm going for a walk," she said distractedly and was gone.

The marble beneath her toes had become warm from the heat of her body, so Gabrielle shifted them slightly to absorb the coolness of the pale stone. Servants arrived, collecting trays of uneaten food, moving furniture, wending their way quickly and efficiently through her vision. She had trouble hearing the birds chirping outside the mansion. Everyone, everything was moving away from her, it seemed. She shifted the red robe over her shoulders and rose to her feet. Perhaps some rest would help, but she had forgotten the way to her quarters in the haze of their arrival. She sighed.

At the junction of the hall that led to the balcony, the heat and heaviness of morning fell upon her. Her bruised palm slammed upon a nearby decorative table, her arms straining to keep her upright. She looked to the nearby wall, the corner of the room, behind the potted ferns and figs; anyplace to crouch, to hide, to disappear. Her knees slammed into marble and she rested awkwardly on the floor. She put a hand to her eyes, rubbing tiredly. Her teeth ground together loudly in her mouth, the sound not able to drown out the gaping silence, the void around her. Her fist slammed awkwardly into the wall once, twice---in time with the pound of her heartbeat.

Gabrielle rubbed her knuckles. She strained and rose to her feet. Outside she could see the rising haze, the shimmering rooftops and the cresting hills of the city. To the south, she could just make out the shadow of a plume of smoke that continued to rise over the far-off Palatine Hill.

**********

Even with the heavy shutters drawn, the heat of noon was a demanding presence in Gabrielle's quarters. She sat, folded in the lotus position on a rush mat in the middle of the pale marble floor. Heat radiated from the mattress, the cabinets, the oak dressers, the tables, the silk curtains, from every corner and wall of the bedroom. Even the cool stone surrounding her provided little comfort in her richly furnished suite.

The warrior had watched thin beams of sunlight ease silently across the floor, but had yet to reach a meditative state. Sweat ran in drops along her skin as she stilled her breathing, quieted her mind. The heat, the outside world, its trappings, the memories, the aches, the pains were all intangible garments that one must shrug free, leaving the soul naked. She began stripping it all away, peeling the layers from her. But still, her soul remained bashful and aloof.

Birds cackled maniacally somewhere beyond the shutters in sharp, shrill squawks. The footfalls of servants pounded throughout the house, lost in their tasks, bounding here and there with trays and pitchers and glasses clattering away. Gabrielle even thought she could hear Virgil re-reading something he had written to himself, somewhere nearby. She sighed and shook her head.

"Come on…you do this all the time," she said under her breath.

She wiped her brow, moving a lock of hair from her eyes. Shaking the tightness from her, she prepared herself again. She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing.

Her thoughts flowed from her, trickling away in drops, in rivulets. She let them go. Pieces of everything, of the One Thing, of her, of the universe, of universes countless, spilling from her, they streamed collecting in the distance. A pool, a pond, far away from her, far away…

Rings of water had rippled outward, splashing softly against the bank where we stood. I had always been in wonder of water; its contradictions, its dynamics, the sound of it falling from the sky at dusk, rustling the leaves, its capacity for creation.

With the stone settling to the bottom of the pond, your hand had returned to your side, steady, strong. You talked about the past, the darkness you had thrown over the world, which I imagined as a black sheet falling slowly to the ground. I heard your words of warning, the lesson, but could only watch you, could only hear your voice.

And was that the first time I noticed how black your hair was? Or how smooth your skin? I fell in love with you again as you spoke. I fell in love with you so often those days, every day. It was my pastime, my obsession. Maybe I didn't know. Maybe as you spoke those words and made me envious of how effortlessly and wonderfully you had made your point. Maybe as your arm had gently arced and spun the flat stone into the pond. Maybe as you breathed.

It's hard not to laugh sometimes, especially when I think of that dress: that completely impractical peasant girl's dress that my mother had made for me. How did you not laugh at me? I knew you hated it, hated its uselessness. Do you remember that night you sliced it to pieces? You thought I didn't know, that I was asleep.

I never slept much in those days. I used to drift off cursing that we had to turn in, that I had to be away from you for any time at all—until you started to inhabit my dreams. There were times I never wanted to wake, you used to laugh at how long I could sleep, how nothing could rouse me. Only your voice, your words, every one new and wondrous on the air, even when expressing a harsh reality learned over the course of that tumultuous life that you lived. A life that seemed so much longer, so much richer than my own had.

—It's forever changed…

How many times do I remember the words? How often do I feel those stones sunk within myself? How often do I feel ripples stretching into infinity, upsetting a balance, churning and disrupting my stillness, my focus, my connection to my surroundings, to everything? How often do I feel the ripples traveling, rings unraveling becoming untenable, flattening into waves; waves spilling dead into the sea? What sort of bard am I that the rhythm of the sea is lost to me as a source, as a comfort? It's odd how I cannot remember the last time any of that had mattered…

Eve entered the room, tentatively. Gabrielle raised her head. She sighed as she slowly rose to her feet. "It's okay, Eve. Come in." The warrior smiled. "I wasn't having much luck."

They looked at each other for a moment in silence as they sometimes did. Gabrielle tried her best not to linger on the blue eyes of her friend, instead incorporating a sullen flutter between the floor and Eve's gaze. So much like…

Eve broke the silence. "I'm worried about you."

Gabrielle ran her hand through her hair. "Me? Why?"

"You seem," the woman paused thoughtfully. "Preoccupied."

The warrior moved to her bed and sat on the end of it. She sighed, hating to have to lie to her friend. "Well…if you must know, I'm a little concerned that you're deciding to remain behind in Rome. I think it's irresponsible and extremely dangerous."

"Gabrielle…" Eve sat on the bed beside her.

"You know how insane it is, Eve, I can tell. You must be able to feel that something is wrong around here." The warrior motioned outside the confines of the room, beyond the city, to some distant and metaphysical place. "Even I can feel it."

"I do feel it and that is why I've decided to stay. Besides," Eve looked at her calmly. "I don't have a choice in the matter."

Gabrielle crossed her arms. "Oh? And how is that?"

"Because I've dreamt it."

The warrior furrowed her brows. "What exactly did you dream, Eve?"

"Feelings mostly, premonitions of evil. Limitless, undying evil."

"Nothing new, huh?" Gabrielle smirked.

"But there is good also, pure and endless," Eve continued. "Things are in flux and whatever is causing it is centered here in Rome."

"How does any of this involve you?"

"I just know it does. It involves all of us."

Gabrielle sighed. "I don't like any of this."

"You don't have to." Eve squeezed her hand. "You just have to accept it."

The warrior turned to her friend. "Promise you'll tell me about all of your dreams from now on."

The woman rose and moved for the door. "I promise." She paused for a moment, about to speak and then continued out of the warrior's chambers.

Exhaustion gripped Gabrielle. Hunger as well. It was hard to breathe. The warrior sighed as she rose to her feet and moved to the window, her fingertips tracing the frame absently. She felt unnatural heat leaking through the shutters as she rested Her forehead uncomfortably against the heated wood. Pain flared in her knuckles when she gripped the frame.

Turning, the warrior moved aimlessly to the center of the room. She considered resuming her meditations, but thought better of it. Pain seemed to be omnipresent. Her ribs hurt, her back hurt; she winced as she bent over a washbasin. Hair fought against the rough sweep of her hand. She sighed, head down. And this was the sum of a life: one movement leading into the next, tiring, slowing. It pressed upon her, weighed her down. She wanted to stand perfectly still when she thought of it that way.

How did I get like this? When?

She couldn't stop herself taking stock of so many nights sleeping on cold, hard ground. Of walking aimlessly through rain, through snow; wet, hungry, cold. The sleepless nights, the wounded nights, drunken ones slipping away unremembered. They formed this huge weight, wearing her away; thirty-six years seeping into her flesh seemingly overnight.

I can't be like this now…

She rubbed at her sockets, eyelids protesting in red flashes across her vision.

Under the autumn sky in Gaul, Eve had been in high spirits. Gabrielle had watched the woman as she skipped under the red-leaved trees with Mira. The warrior almost cried when she saw the leaves, colors spilling across the quiet woods. She wiped at her eyes.

—Some warrior…

Eve grinned warmly at her friend.

—I can't think of a better protector…

She wiped sweat from her brow with a small cloth, leaving it against her skin for a moment over throbbing eyes. The air in the room remained motionless. She threw the damp cloth at the wall, where it quietly impacted and slid to the floor. She felt feather-light now, weightless, harmless, useless. The will to act was leaving her; she could feel it and she let it go, let it run from her, trickling away. Strength fled as well; peeling from her, leaving only pain, doubt and fear.

I don't think I can protect you anymore, Eve. I don't think I can protect any of you…

**********

It wasn't until she had finished half of the peach that Gabrielle realized how over-ripe it was. Another victim of the scorching weather, she surmised. With some difficulty, she swallowed the mealy flesh and put the sad remains down.

She slouched at a large marble table occupying a silk-canopied spot on one of the balconies at Gallus' sprawling property. A platter of half-touched food, a pitcher of water and several open scrolls cluttered the surface around her. The mid-afternoon sun seethed across the unprotected portions of the terrace, the Quirinal hill and the city beyond. She let her eyes pass over the most-recently opened scroll: a detailed map of the city of Ostia and its extensive series of ports. Stifling a yawn, she pawed it aside, letting it roll up with a gentle swish.

Everything had an unsettling stillness about it, as though buried in sand. She poured some water into an ornate mug and lifted it to her lips. The liquid left a soft film in the back of her throat. She put the drained cup down and rubbed at her eyes.

The scrolls taunted from their cool marble bed. City maps, trade routes, Praetorian protocols, troop deployments lay useless beneath her fingertips, offering up a building pressure at her temples. Mira had brought them, gifts from Virgil and Gallus. The girl had brought their expectations and hopes as well, leaving them upon Gabrielle's ever-slumping shoulders.

The warrior sighed at the thought of her friend, of all of her friends. They all felt far away, like the unknowable murk of the waking world when in the clutches of a dream. They needed direction, a plan, but there was lead in her bloodstream, it weighed down her arms, rested painfully against her tender ribs, crushed her heart. Their pleading looks only made it worse. She found it hard to even push aside the fragile parchment of the scrolls before her. Indeed, she found herself reading them almost against her will. It was impossible, even now, for the warrior to ignore the written word. The churn of language could always draw in her eye. Her gaze passed over the bottom of a scroll, over the enthusiastic sweep of hastily scrawled words set in cheap ink:

Night fell then, soft like whispers at the tops of the trees,
But within the heart of the Warrior Princess,
Peace found no sanctuary, calm no quarter,
And the darkness that fell upon the land like a blanket
Seemed radiant beside the shade within her breast.
Yet beyond the woods, beyond the mists of the lonely plains,
Lay a place darker still, where memories bitter,
And Evil without bounds lay in wait.
But O, her mind was set and her heart proud and clear,
She would press into the depths of the Amazon lands,
Into the heart of darkness, the mystery of the Underworld,
Woeful Tartarus itself, where the Styx moans,
For not even the borders between life and death
Could keep her from the soul of her dearest friend,
Her beloved bard, the sun-haired Gabrielle.

Who was this child who wrote with such a bleeding pen? Who spoke so surely of life in terms of its Darkness and Light, its Good and Evil? Who possessed such clarity, such omniscience, so uncluttered a soul? Who was this with such arrogance, such pride to put anything into words, to try and hold life to any sort of promise of meaning, any form of permanence? Who was she?

The papyrus hissed as Gabrielle pushed it violently away from her. She passed another scroll over it until it disappeared from sight, was no longer a danger. Her head bowed over the parchment-laden chaos of the table. I wasn't even there, how could I possibly have known what she felt, or why… The truth was bitter, but made her laugh nonetheless. Gabrielle hadn't been dead, but the Warrior Princess had gone to Tartarus and back to find her. She hadn't been dead… Where had she been? It seemed she had never known until they had found each other. They always found each other in the end it seemed. Not that time…

So many times we kept coming back. Not that time. We acted as if nothing happened, at least for a while. We pretended, until I would try to touch the skin of your collarbone, or you would slip in behind me for an embrace. Still we tried, through the weariness, the strain.

How tired your eyes had become. How weary your words when you passed them to me across the infinity between us. Ghosts: one in body and one in soul, tracing over the same old ground. I remember how it became impossible, as we passed pale and unseen from place to place. My feet dragging, bog-heavy over roads without names, from task to task. My dreams racing over me, holding me down in leaf-choked depths, night after night. And for you there was no rest…

That morning it had rained. I remember that day, in the moments before sleep. It is a gray memory: the tombs, the sky, the slant of light spinning in fragments like cinders lost in the twilight, as I passed the mute stones, statues, gnarled trees.

That morning it had rained. This wasn't Tartarus, it was Amphipolis; bloody Amphipolis, where your whole family had died one by one. I thought it was what you wanted. You told me yourself it was what you wanted. It seemed like what you wanted.

We tried so hard with everything else, why not this time?

And in the stillness of the grave I couldn't even kiss you, touch you, take you one last time. When was our last time? That night in Japa when you had clutched me to you, smell of cherry blossom, the flat mat beneath me. You knew, didn't you? Cloaked in that dark desperation, your body asking me for what your heart could not. I knew something was wrong, but I didn't care, I didn't ask. It was wonderful to trace you, own you as though my touch could save you. It was that old place, that old game we played and it felt like coming home. And here we were, your home, and nothing but words to set you on your way. I thought it was what you wanted…

Gabrielle wiped at her eyes, the light shattering in the prism of her tears. She blinked hoping to bring the world back to her, to escape from the crush of memories. Swallowing hard could not prevent the dizziness, the nausea, that invisible impact.

Water poured from the pitcher. Focusing on it helped her. She drank it, the liquid cool in her indifferent belly. Her hand exchanged cup for quill, the ink clotted though still useable. In the margin of her old scroll she scribbled, her hand startling her, unknown to her for so long, twisted by the years, by lack of practice, by loathing, though still clear as the words:

Regret, an absence within, black, empty, like those hollow places between the stars.

The day was no less choking in its heat, the air no less still. She left the balcony, her red robe coughing with the speed of her steps. The scrolls remained on the table, unrolled, slumped upon each other. The quill lay bent, shattered, plumes littering the table, broken with vigorous stabs across the words she had written.

**********

Gabrielle was surprisingly comfortable on her back in Gallus' garden. The heat of day floated above her in the darkening sky, but the relative coolness of the earth seeped into her skin through the silk robe. She stretched a bit, feeling her widespread exhaustion groan within. A yawn made her eyes water.

Sometimes, when she lay on the ground like this, she could return to the wonder. Beneath a tapestry of stars, she could find that farm girl who had found every moment of the journey precious, every footstep new. She could forget the yolk of days. She could forget. She could let the world spin, let the breeze pour over her, let her heart beat at a normal pace.

It was difficult: that connection, that stillness went against the current of her life, a life that was about constant motion, about collision, churning and upheaval. There was a kinship she could glean between herself and her surroundings, even the stars above her head, but not a true connection. Perhaps a bond like that shared between travelers, a common ordeal. Indeed, the stars felt like travelers to her. Drifting as they did between heaven and earth, seemingly aimless as they moved. Each with a story that she could never know, could never comprehend; only lock eyes briefly in the night, across the void and move on. And in that way, so much like human beings they were as well, unknown and unknowing, scattered like pebbles across eternity.

But it was there, the wonder, if only for a second and she didn't turn it away. Soon, it faded like an ember and was gone. She rubbed her eyes, pressing the lids roughly upon her pupils.

Footsteps entered the garden, Mira's, and light followed. The girl placed a lamp in a setting and approached. A grin spread across Gabrielle's face when her friend paused suddenly, appraising the warrior's prone position then resumed, tentatively now.

"Uhm…what are you doing?"

"Looking at the stars. I still do that, you know."

"Oh."

Mira sat beside her on the ground, bringing her long legs to her chest. She sniffed at the air.

"It's not too bad out here," she said. "I think there may even be a breeze."

Gabrielle nodded, not expecting the girl to see. Out upon the Quirinal, an owl offered a throaty lament. The warrior took one last look into the sky and lifted herself into a sitting position. "Mira, why did you put that scroll in with the others?"

The girl turned sheepishly. "What scroll? What do you mean?" Gabrielle just glared and her friend ran a hand through her hair. "Okay, okay. I put the scroll there, so what? It was for your own good."

"And what would you know about that?"

"A lot actually," Mira blinked. "I've been traveling with you for almost two years, but I see that doesn't seem to matter to you."

"Mira…"

"Well, it matters to me. It matters to me to see you sulking and upset. It matters to me to see you hurt and distracted. It matters to me that we have all of these people scared and depending on us and looking to you for answers and here's you avoiding everyone lying on your back looking up into the sky not willing to accept any of that responsibility." The warrior sat in silence. Mira shook her head, playing with some leaves of grass. "What happened?"

Gabrielle sighed. "Nothing…"

"That is just so much…"

"What do you want me to say?"

Mira threw the grass to the ground. "You don't have to say anything, I guess. Just put yourself here, now, where we need you." She looked away. "I thought maybe reading about her in your own words…would…well, inspire you a little, y'know?"

Gabrielle looked puzzled. "Inspire me? What for?"

"To snap out of it and, well…"

"What?"

"And maybe to start writing again."

"Mira…"

"It's really a crime that you've stopped, you know…I've read a bunch of The Scrolls and…"

"Stop."

"I think it would help with everything if you started again. You should just try it." Mira shrugged. "It might make life a little easier."

The warrior pursed her lips. "I learned a long time ago that contrary to popular belief, writing and living are two separate things." She changed her tone, trying to make the girl understand. "And right now, living is hard enough." Mira looked down. The night had gone still again, humidity settling heavy on the air. The warrior took a deep breath and put her hand on the girl's arm. "Hey, you were right, reading the scroll helped. I'm…I'm just tired. That's all."

Mira nodded. "Okay. Good. Well…get some sleep and we can work on this tomorrow, huh?"

"I will."

The girl rose to her feet, placing a hand on the warrior's shoulder. She moved toward the house.

Gabrielle sighed, running a hand through her hair. Liar…she threw at herself. The lamp was left in its setting, the seeping light keeping the stars from her vision. She lay on her back again.

There was nothing she could tell the girl that would have mattered. It would be easy for the warrior to fake her way through the next stage of things. She had been doing it for so long now, it seemed. She rubbed her temples. There was still Ares to deal with. Ares and… Her lip quivered. They were no closer to understanding any of the scope of the war god's plans than before. What could be done about it all? About Her?

Gabrielle looked out of the garden, into the vacant black beyond. With a wince, she slowly got to her feet.

—It's really a crime that you've stopped, you know…

The warrior rubbed her eyes.

In some ways I never did.

I distill countless moments of every day into words, shared with no one: the furious rainbow of a dragonfly's wings; the drag of days stretched out like some sad caravan from horizon to horizon; the wan and alien futility of my desire. I collect these, a book of lists without a reader; without a writer. The eye for it, that cold observer never leaves, only the inspiration, the will to scribble, the muse.

I've met kings of men, queens, heroes, gods. I've watched them fall to ruin, kingdoms erode, and civilizations sputter out into darkness. I've been at the side of prophets who are elevated as avatars and martyred into deities. And never once have I met a muse, let alone my very own. Never have I sat in sylvan woods at their pale and slight feet, sated, bloated with inspiration.

Or is that entirely true?

I remember the last time I worked on them, on The Scrolls, on anything—in Japa, in Higuchi, in our quarters, on our bed. I was having trouble capturing this far off and distant land we were in, I felt as though I had to create a completely new language to be accurate, to even approach what I was seeing. You were lying on your stomach as you sometimes did when you were completely at ease, when you would allow yourself to relax. I would stop writing, my eyes would climb the fullness of your calves, the valley behind your knees, and slowly up the perfection, the strength of your thighs as they disappeared beneath your shift, leaving only a delicious hint of what lay concealed there.

I ran the feather of my quill against the skin of your legs, gently up, as my lips, my tongue might. Your smile flashed from over your shoulder, through a dark lock of hair. My eyes fell again upon the smooth and even surface of your thighs. I dabbed my quill in ink and softly inscribed upon your flesh:

—Does the muse flow the pen, or does the pen flow towards the muse…

Each word replaced a kiss, a caress, sliding toward the sloping mystery beneath your shift, to my inspiration. Afterwards, we laughed about the smudged ink clotted across the sheets, our skin. I was hoping you'd ask what I had written, but you never did. You never knew. I should have told you, I think you would have finally been able to appreciate the role you filled in my life. I should have told you…

But that is the true secret, the burden of the bards: that the stories you leave unwritten carry far more weight. What I left out of my scrolls is worth more to me now than anything I ever committed to ink: the smell of her upon me; the half-formed words cried out in her sleep; when she would allow herself to enjoy food, wine, her friends' company---the part of her that was a woman, my part, rather than the Warrior Princess, the myth, my creation…

Gabrielle gathered her robe about her shoulders, wrapping herself in the scarlet bounty of fabric. She entered the long hall that led from the garden to the rest of the Senator's house. Statues, paintings, pottery were placed sparsely down the long passage. Beyond, at the end, she could see the vague outline of another doorway leading into the night. Suddenly, as she reached the halfway point of the hallway, a gust of wind pushed through the home, unfurling the robe from the warrior's body, casting it in a crimson arc down the corridor. The breeze smelled vaguely of the sea, of rain. Just as soon as it had begun, the gust fell away. Gabrielle gathered her robe around her. She moved soundlessly into the dormant vaults of the home, to her quarters and to sleep.

**********

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