SECTION-SPECIFIC DISCLAIMER: Major historical tweaking going on here, as with the previous section. At this point, accuracy becomes irrelevant, as it was sacrificed to the narrative. This is the Xenaverse. Deal with it.

There was a tremendous thundering of hooves as the united Cymry warbands rode into Boadicea’s camp. At the fore, her green cloak streaming behind her, came Rhonwyn on her horse Alaeth. To her left rode Balach, and to her right Cuall; the three torcs about their necks glittered brightly in the sun like a herald of glory.

The young Druid swung down from her saddle to greet Boadicea, who had come to meet them. Grasping the Iceni queen’s arm in greeting, she said, "Queen Boadicea, I give you King Balach of the Cymry, and his Druid, Cuall. And with them, the warriors of Balach’s warband."

"King Balach." Boadicea addressed the king, who had dismounted and come to his daughter’s side. "So today we meet on common ground. I never thought I would say this, but today I’m honored to fight side by side with you."

Balach smiled. "Side by side, and not crossing blades with each other. Were it not for Rhonwyn, this would not be so." Rhonwyn flushed and bowed her head, unaccustomed to such open praise from her father, who chuckled and continued, "But as she says, we have a greater enemy than each other now."

"That is true." Boadicea’s voice was quiet. "But come. We leave to join the battle now. Caesar surely would not wait for such . . . pleasantries as these."

"That he will not." It was Cuall, dismounting from his chestnut gelding, who spoke. "Queen Boadicea, will you summon the warband?"

"At once," the queen agreed. "We have no time to lose." Within moments of her giving the order, the warriors of the Iceni were assembled in full force, armed, mounted, and ready to fight.

Cuall laid a hand on Rhonwyn’s shoulder. "Cymodwr, will you speak the lorica? It is only fitting."

The young Druid nodded and took her rowan staff in hand. She stood on the field between the assembled warbands of the two tribes, raised the staff above her head, and addressed them. "Fellow warriors, companions of the sword, I give you good greeting!" she shouted. "Today you face each other, not as enemies, but as friends. Today we ride to confront Caesar and his legions, who lay waste to this land that we share. Today we fight together to save our homes and our lives. Hear, if you will, a blessing upon the battle we must now join."

She closed her eyes and descended deep within herself, to the place in her heart where the awen found her. That Otherworldly inspiration, which only a bard could seek, alighted upon her, unlocking her tongue and sending the words flowing from her mouth with an ease and volition all their own.

"Light of sun, radiance of moon, fury of fire, force of wind!

Might of bear, cunning of snake, swiftness of deer, majesty of eagle!

Earth, sky, and sea bear witness:

Five fifties of the Iceni ride forth;

Five fifties of the Cymry join them.

Few are they in the face of the legions,

But fierce and fearless in the defense of their land.

Lleu guide their swords with sureness;

Epona speed the hooves of their steeds.

Manawyddan grant them the strength of the waves;

Cerridwen lend them wisdom for battle.

Righteous wrath is the spear at their side,

Justness of cause the shield before them!"

A massive cheer rose from the assembled warriors, the voices of the Cymry and the Iceni mingling in fervor. Rhonwyn lowered her staff and called to Alaeth, who loped obediently toward her. Swinging up into the saddle, the young Druid took her place at the side of Boadicea, who was already astride her own horse. Likewise, Cuall and Balach mounted their steeds, the elder Druid flanking the king. And at a joint command from the two rulers, the united army set off to face Caesar.

Rhonwyn rested the point of her sword on the ground long enough to wipe the sweat from her brow with the already-damp sleeve of her checked siarc. She had long since abandoned the hampering folds of her cloak, and left Alaeth behind at the Celts’ encampment. Though she was a good rider, she was not trained to fight on horseback like the rest of the warband, but on foot, she knew, she was more than a match for most of Caesar’s men. That said nothing, however, of how weary she was of battle.

Countless weeks of fighting had gone by. Samhain had passed, the second one since they had first ridden off to battle. Alban Arthyn, the Winter Solstice, was soon to come, and the way things looked, they would be seeing not only Imbolc, but possibly Beltane and the next Lughnasadh as well, from the confines of a war encampment.

The Celts were faring rather well, having lost relatively few warriors in the continued series of skirmishes. To be sure, they were outnumbered, but a longsword in the hands of a Celtic warrior had a distinct reach advantage over the short, broad blade of a Roman gladius, and sheer number was not enough to overcome experience and a canny battle sense. The Celts’ well-trained war horses were an asset as well, with their lethal hooves that could serve as an extra set of weapons. All the same, Boadicea and Balach knew that they could not last forever. Skirmish had led to skirmish, and battle to battle, and the continuing clashes between the two armies had stretched into a full-fledged campaign. Neither army had much time to rest, but the constant warfare was taking a much more severe toll on the considerably smaller Celtic forces.

Rhonwyn gripped her sword again in both hands and, quicker than thought, whirled to bring the blade crashing against that of an attacking Roman soldier with enough force to send sparks flying from the meeting of metal. The soldier’s shorter sword glanced easily off the curving length of the blade named Lludchen—Lightning—and his sword arm went flying out to the side, leaving his body exposed. Before he had time to regain a defensive position, Rhonwyn’s right foot slammed into his chest and knocked him back several steps. He staggered forward again, but Rhonwyn switched Lludchen into a single-handed grip and whipped her arm up so that the sword’s pommel punched the hapless soldier in the face. He crashed to the ground and did not get up again.

Reaching out with her senses, the young Druid caught the faintest movement in the air to her left and brought the sword around in a hard, fast arc. It neatly deflected a javelin that had been hurled at her, not only out of her way, but into the chest of another Roman soldier.

"Damnation," she muttered. "I hadn’t wanted that." But there was no time for regrets, not in the middle of a fight. The javelin-hurler was making his charge. The warrior-Druid faced him, dancing easily out of the way of his swordpoint run and batting the blade from his hand. Lludchen cut a quick pattern in the air, and the dull edge of the sword hooked around to deliver a painful blow to the soldier’s kidney. Rhonwyn redirected the remaining momentum of the swing to smash the flat of her blade against the back of the man’s neck, so that he crumpled into an unconscious heap.

She looked up. On the slope of a nearby hill stood Cuall, rowan staff upraised, upholding the Celt warbands as was the Druid’s way. When the fighting had first begun, she herself had been atop that hill alongside Cuall, but it had become clear that her steel was needed more than her staff. And this time, her former teacher had made no attempt to stop her, but instead had urged her to go.

Rhonwyn winced as the haft of a clumsily-thrown javelin glanced off her mail shirt. Daydreaming now, Rhonwyn Bach? That’s a sure way to get yourself killed! She snatched up the fallen javelin and rammed its butt into the pit of a soldier’s stomach before throwing it down and punching him with Lludchen’s hilt. This man was good, better than most she had faced today; he wielded the short gladius like an extension of his arm, and cut much closer to Rhonwyn than she would have cared for him to reach.

He was forcing her onto the defensive far too often. Don’t make me do this! the Druid pleaded inwardly, parrying his overhand blow and shoving back to smash the dull edge of her sword into his chin. But still the Roman pressed on with a series of vicious thrusts, the last of which Rhonwyn only barely managed to dodge. The expression on her face was acutely pained as she countered with a whirlwind of glinting steel that culminated in Lludchen’s point plunged through the Roman’s throat. She ripped the blade out with a strangled cry and reversed her grip, bringing the sword to bear behind her to stab another soldier who was approaching at her back.

Just then, she caught a glimpse of Boadicea signaling to her from a few spearlengths away. She grimaced, kicked the dead man off her sword, and ran to the queen’s side. The Iceni ruler was facing off against three soldiers, and Rhonwyn quickly flanked her, drawing some of the attacks toward herself and away from the queen.

"This war is not going well, Rhonwyn," hissed Boadicea, countering one soldier’s thrust with a grunt and a muttered curse. She slashed at his leg, opening a long gash in it and diverting him long enough to reverse the direction of her sword and slit his throat. "I’m afraid we’ll need . . . help."

With the sickening sensation of knowing that a dreaded confrontation could no longer be delayed, Rhonwyn understood. "Xena. You want me to go find Xena." Her stomach churned at the thought of having to go and seek out the friends whose future she had foreseen, a troubled future that was by now, no doubt, a reality.

"I’m afraid so," said the warrior queen, ducking a sword-swing. "I’m loath to lose you, Rhonwyn, but we need her help. This has gone on too long . . . far too long." A devious cut of her blade hamstrung the soldier she was facing. When he fell, she drove the sword point through his chest, half out of the frustration that came with admitting she needed the assistance of the Warrior Princess. But Rhonwyn’s words echoed in her mind, and she knew that personal strife would be a poor ransom for the freedom of her land and her people. So she raised her head, let the last of her rancor flow away from her, and said in a clear voice, "Rhonwyn, you must go find her. Bring her back here, and tell her we need her . . . Cymodwr." The final word held a note of pleading.

Rhonwyn nodded and slashed with Lludchen, leaving the last soldier’s sword arm useless. Undaunted, he switched his sword to his other hand, but the Druid slashed again, mangling his fingers. The pain was too great to allow him to maintain his grip on the weapon, slick with blood as it was from his ruined hand, and he dropped it. A smash to his temple from the flat of Rhonwyn’s blade killed him instantly. She winced, and muttered a curse.

Time to stop running, Rhonwyn Bach, she chided herself, calling herself by the diminutive epithet—Little Rhonwyn—that had been her father’s pet name for her throughout childhood. Yes . . . time to stop running away. You knew you’d have to face this sooner or later. Galvanized by Boadicea’s invocation of her new title, she swallowed hard and spoke. "I’ll leave right away then, my queen." You are the Cymodwr, after all . . . it is your duty.

Boadicea laid a hand on the young Druid’s shoulder. "Thank you, Rhonwyn. Lleu of the Long Hand be with you."

"And with you, my queen," Rhonwyn responded in kind, touched by the Iceni queen’s usage of the Cymry name for the god. "I’ll . . . inform Cuall of my departure right away." And seek encouragement from him for what’s to come, she added mentally. For I’ve a feeling that what I have to face is no less of a battle than what we face here.

With a final salute to the queen, she was off and running back to the encampment, stopping only long enough to wipe every last trace of blood from Lludchen’s blade onto a fallen soldier’s cloak, before sheathing the sword again.

The galloping of a horse caught Cuall’s attention, and he turned to see Rhonwyn, her cloak once again about her shoulders, riding toward him on her horse Alaeth. Without averting his gaze from the battle going on below him, he addressed his former student.

"Then the time that you feared has come," he said softly.

Rhonwyn dismounted, and strode to his side. "Yes. Boadicea has sent me to bring Xena and Gabrielle back to Prydein. The battle goes badly, as you know, and we will need their aid."

Cuall looked at her. "It is a necessary thing. You know this. Yet you hesitate. What frightens you so much about the task set before you?"

And she told him. Told him of the strife she had perceived beneath the surface of the relationship between the warrior and the bard, of the vision she had seen in the forest pool, and—most secret of all, her most shameful fear—of her feelings for Gabrielle, and how she feared that her willpower had wrought some kind of magick to bring about this turn of events.

"This . . . this Rift, Cuall. Have I caused this to happen? How can I face them, knowing this?" The gold-flecked hazel of the young Druid’s eyes glimmered with pain. "How can I go to them, and witness this turmoil, when I am the one to blame? How do I find the strength to fix what I’ve caused?"

"Rhonwyn." Cuall’s face was stern. "You know that you have not seen the cause of your vision. How can you be so sure that you are at fault?"

"Cuall, what else could it be?" Anguish ripped at Rhonwyn’s voice as she turned and began to pace in agitation.

The elder Druid gestured to the side, where a black-oak seeing bowl rested, half-filled, on the ground. He waved to one of his filidh, a Druid apprentice named Cynan, and gave him the rowan staff, instructing him to take over the task of upholding the warband.

Cuall got to his knees next to Rhonwyn, who already knelt reverently beside the seeing bowl. He held out his hand to her; a fire-roasted hazelnut rested in his palm. Rhonwyn readily accepted the profferred Kernel of Knowledge and ate it, savoring the sharp, bitter taste that brought new insight to her mind.

"Look into the seeing bowl, Rhonwyn," instructed Cuall, his voice low, steadfast, compelling. "Think of your friends, and what has brought them to this pass."

Wordlessly, Rhonwyn obeyed. The tang of the hazelnut still lingered in her mouth, somehow transporting her beyond conscious thought and onto a plane where she understood with her heart rather than her mind. The awen came to her as she gazed into the dark water of the bowl, and a new vision greeted her there.

It was the recent past she saw this time; she knew it to be so. She saw Xena traveling to a land in the far East, in order to fulfill a debt to an old mentor. She saw Gabrielle making a deal with the war god the Greeks called Ares, in order to reach Chin before Xena did. She saw an arrogant young prince—one they called the Green Dragon—and the bard, preventing Xena from taking his life through an elaborate deception.

The black-oak water of the bowl showed her that same prince throwing Xena into prison for her attempt on his life . . . and then, the sorrow of secret betrayal etched onto the warrior’s face as she and Gabrielle turned away from the Green Dragon, dead by the warrior’s hand, despite her promise to the bard to spare his life.

The vision shifted again, and Rhonwyn saw the near future: Gabrielle lying to Xena, saying that she had killed Hope, the child who, in a previous vision of the Druid’s, had been set adrift in a basket. That same child, supernaturally grown several summers older, conspiring with a mad immortal woman to kill Xena’s son. The images grew steadily more familiar to Rhonwyn, and as she saw, for the second time reflected in water, Xena cradling the dead form of her son in her arms, the awen faded away.

Rhonwyn raised her eyes from the seeing bowl and looked at Cuall. "But how do I know that I had no hand in forcing these things to happen?"

"You love her, do you not?" asked Cuall simply. "And the warrior as well, though not in the same way?" His erstwhile student nodded, and he went on. "Do you remember the story I told you long ago, of the men who stumbled upon the foundation-stone of this worlds-realm?"

"They lifted up the foundation-stone, and what they found beneath it was love," responded the younger Druid in tones dull and wooden, weighed down by fear and guilt.

"Love," Cuall repeated, the majestic ringing of his voice etching the single word like a firebrand into Rhonwyn’s mind. "Love is the foundation of this world, Rhonwyn. And no matter your experience as a warrior, no matter the extent of this wild will-talent of yours, I know all too well that love is what truly drives you. And—what did you call it? What Gabrielle helped you to understand? The greater good. Your love for Gabrielle, your concern for her well-being and that of Xena, and your desire for the greater good: these things would never allow your power to tear them apart. Love speaks to love, and thus unified, the currents of love in your heart far overpower your will-magick and its harmful effects. The forces behind this Rift are not of your making. You have only to search your heart, in order to know that this is the truth of it."

He fell silent, and sat calmly, expectantly, as his words sank in. At his side, the young warrior-Druid was lost in contemplation.

"Yes," said Rhonwyn after a long pause. You are right, Cuall. I thank you—that assurance was what I needed." There was much more to be said, but emotion threatened to overwhelm Rhonwyn, and for once she did not care to entrust it to the far-too-expressive channel of her voice.

The elder Druid smiled, understanding what had been left unspoken. "Then go, Cymodwr," he admonished gently. "Your love did not cause this Rift to happen, but it must be used to help end it! For their sake, and for ours. That, you see, is now the greater good: the future of their love, and the freedom of Prydein. The two will be intertwined. Ah, to be sure, it is a problem worthy of solving! But the solution of it . . . that, Rhonwyn y Cymodwr, is entirely for you to find out."

Cymodwr. Rhonwyn raised her head high at the title that had been bestowed upon her, and got to her feet. "So then . . . this is my destiny. Enough words—for Xena and Gabrielle, and for Prydein, I have to fulfill it!" She gripped Cuall’s arms in embrace, and sprinted for Alaeth. "Farewell, Cuall!" she called as she leaped into the saddle.

The last thing she saw, as she rode away at full gallop, was the sight of her old teacher standing upon the hill, his hands raised toward her in a gesture of blessing.

"Daaaaaaaaaaaamn." Kaitlyn stretched the word out so long, she could make out at least four extra distinct phonemes. She sat up and yawned, and glanced at the mess of papers strewn across her rumpled bedspread, then picked up her notebook and looked at what she’d scrawled just before falling asleep. Sure enough, all the details matched up. Rubbing a hand across her face, she mumbled, "Second time I’ve dreamed my translation. I’ve really got to stop doing that, especially with a touch of a hangover . . ."

She groaned, cleared the papers off the bed, and fell back onto her pillow, covering her eyes with her forearm and trying to shut out the sound of the rising voices that she figured were what she deserved, after all that scotch.

Janice looked up at the faint click of the front door latch. Mel, looking calmer and more subdued, slipped into the house and quietly shut the door behind her.

"Where have you been?" Janice’s voice was tight.

"Out for a walk," came the equally tense response. "I thought Kaitlyn told you."

The archaeologist stared into the tumbler she held, half full of scotch she’d swiped from Kaitlyn’s ample supply. "Oh yeah." She took a gulp of the alcohol, felt it burn her throat, and continued, "You shouldn’t have been gone so long. Something could have happened to you."

Why she’d said it, she wasn’t really sure. To tell the truth, she’d been worried sick the whole time Mel had been gone. As always, she was fiercely protective of her lover, but in her current state of mind, irritation was the only way she felt . . . well, comfortable expressing that instinct. A shake of her head, and the glass was drained of its contents.

Irritated by the condescending tone, Mel strode across the room and snatched the empty glass away. "Janice Covington, I am an adult, you know! And I think you’ve had quite enough to drink. Besides," she added, before she could help herself, "I’m Xena’s descendant . . . I should think I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself!"

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them horribly. Melinda Pappas, what an awful thing to say! There was no taking them back now, though.

That was the last thing Janice needed to hear. She leapt off the couch and stormed up to Mel, glaring furiously. "Damn it all to hell!" she exploded. "I’m not exactly a kid either, and I think I know better than you how well I can hold my liquor!"

"Oh, I’m sure," retorted Mel. "That explains why we nearly got detained in Paris on our way back to the States, doesn’t it? I’m sure you were holding your liquor quite well when you picked a fight with that customs official!"

"Don’t even bring that up," growled Janice. "You know Smythe’s men would have wasted you a dozen times over back in Macedonia if I hadn’t bailed you out!"

"Well, do you think you would have found the Scrolls if it hadn’t been for me?" retorted Mel. "You’d probably still think Xena was Callisto now, and you wouldn’t have those Scrolls, either!"

"I would have found them eventually," the archaeologist muttered sullenly.

The argument had descended into being truly petty, and they both knew it . . . but neither one would back down now.

So Mel struck the next blow. "No, you wouldn’t! I declare, Janice, you’re just as stubborn now as you ever were, even back then!" Sparks were snapping in her eyes, her face was flushed with anger, and her lips were trembling.

Janice flinched, and lashed back with the only thing that came to mind, inane as it sounded. "I may be stubborn, but I never would have found the Scrolls if I weren’t, God damn it, Mel!"

Ouch. The voices were too loud to shut out now, and they were starting to sound awfully familiar. Kaitlyn recognized Mel’s singular accent, and the sound cut through the fog in her brain, jolting her awake.

"Shit!" The linguist jumped out of bed, flinging herself out the door and into the hallway.

"Bullshit, Mel!" the archaeologist bellowed. She was dangerously close to losing control now—her lover’s accusations had stung, and as much as she hated to admit it, even to herself, most of them were right on.

"Don’t you take that tone with me, Janice!" Mel shot back. "After everything we’ve been through, you can’t just brush me off like that! You may not want to admit that Gabrielle was more than you like to give her credit for, but I’m not about to let you dismiss me—or her—that easily."

Back to this again! She’s not going to let it go! raged Janice inwardly, quite forgetting in the heat of the moment that she wasn’t about to let go of the topic either. Resentment simmered in the pit of her stomach and finally exploded into boiling rage, and almost before she knew it, her right hand was curled into a fist, her arm drawn back and tensed to strike. She barely saw the horrified shock in Mel's blue eyes.

"Janice Covington, don't you fucking dare!" The hoarse bellow from the doorway stopped her cold. Both she and Mel snapped their attention toward Kaitlyn's disheveled figure.

The linguist was haggard, exhausted, her two-day old clothes in a sad state. "Take a step back, Janice," she said, her voice cold. "Breathe, drop that arm, and take a step back, now."

The pain in Kaitlyn's voice was just as intense as that in Mel's eyes, and the one gnawing at Janice's own insides. Suddenly dumbfounded, the archaeologist quickly complied and fell back a few paces, her shoulders sagging.

Kaitlyn sank into a chair, running her fingers through her tangled mop of hair. "I didn't bring you two out here to beat each other up," she said, intensity crackling in the quiet of her voice. "You're out here because you wanted to get a job done, and this was the only way we could accomplish that. And I hope you both know, I cannot continue to let things slide like this. Damn it all, I'm doing my best to help you with these Scrolls, but I can't do that if all this fighting is going on."

Both Mel and Janice were silent, their downcast eyes showing that they both felt somewhat ashamed of their behavior.

Fixing each of her friends with a piercing look, Kaitlyn continued, "Watching the two of you carry on this way is tearing me up—which leaves none of us in any condition to accomplish a damn thing. Now please—Janice, go take a walk, get out of here and try to calm down. Mel, get some rest. Spend some time apart. You're only going to hurt yourselves and each other more if you stay in this house together right now."

She stood up, buttoning her shirt collar and tucking its tails into her pants before picking her keys up off the coffee table and heading for the door. "I’m going into town for a little bit . . . I’ll see you both soon."

Janice was already halfway out the back door, Kaitlyn’s unspoken "And behave yourselves" nagging at some corner of her mind, when she heard the jeep’s engine roar to life and fade away down the driveway, on the road toward Housatonic.

The little café was already half full when Kaitlyn entered. She scanned the crowd, finally settling on the familiar face of her friend Pete, who sat alone at a corner table. With a tired smile, she threaded her way through the crowd toward him.

"This seat free?"

The musician looked up. "Velasquez! Sit your bum down," he exclaimed heartily. "Where are those friends of yours?" After a pause, he examined her face closely. "My God, you look terrible . . . what’s going on?"

"I feel like a civil war in hell, Pete," groaned Kaitlyn, collapsing into the empty chair. "Mel and Janice are at each other’s throats, and I’ve barely slept in days. I’m trying to get this project done, but . . ."

"The conditions aren’t exactly ideal," finished Pete, nodding sagely. "And you’re trying to fix things up between them, but you don’t know where to start."

The linguist managed a weak smile. "That obvious, am I? Damn . . . I’ll have to work on that."

Pete chuckled. "You wear your heart on your sleeve sometimes, Velasquez. Comes with the sensitive folk musician bit." He looked across the table, gazing thoughtfully at her. "Have you ever considered that maybe you’re not in the right position yet to really help them?"

Kaitlyn’s brow furrowed, her head tilting slightly in confusion. "Not in the right position? The hell you talking about, Pete?"

"Well . . . here’s what I think." The older man leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest and scrutinizing Kaitlyn. "If you’re going to make peace between two people, you have to understand what peace is. You have to be at peace, yourself. Do you have any unresolved issues eating at you, for one? I know you haven’t been on the best of terms with your family . . ."

Sudden understanding racked Kaitlyn’s body. "You mean . . . unless I stop resenting them for practically disowning me . . ."

Her friend’s smile was gentle, encouraging. "Right."

"But once I do that, how do I help them?"

Pete patted her hand. "I can’t tell you for sure what to do. All I know is . . . just do what you do best, kiddo." He canted his head in the direction of the stage. "Shakespeare said that music has charms to soothe the savage breast, you know. And you’ve always been good at touching people with your music."

"Words of wisdom from the Bard." A broad grin broke out across Kaitlyn’s face. "It’s always the bards! Pete, I’ll owe you forever for this!" She leaped up and circled the table to grab him in an uncharacteristically fierce hug. "Thanks . . . thanks a whole fucking hell of a lot . . . and I better get going now. Things to do and all, you know."

"Think nothing of it, Velasquez." The knowing twinkle in Pete’s eyes matched the one in Kaitlyn’s. "Now get out of here and do what you have to do . .. and get some sleep sometime soon, huh?"

"You bet I will. Bye, Pete!" Kaitlyn just barely managed to avoid several near-collisions with other patrons in her mad sprint for the front door.

It was dark by the time she pulled the jeep up outside the Cambridge cemetery. She hadn’t been here in more than three years, but the memory was still vividly raw, and Kaitlyn headed toward the Leyton family burial plot with no hesitation.

"Hey."

The linguist knelt tentatively beside a gravestone, tracing the inscription with a trembling hand. Joni Elizabeth Leyton, it read. October 5, 1918 – August 19, 1941. Forevermore sheltered in God’s loving arms.

"Hey, Starshine . . . it’s me." She stumbled a bit over the affectionate nickname, nearly forgotten for so long now, but the words tumbled freely after that, rough and honest. "I know it’s probably damn rotten of me to show up now . . . I didn’t even show up at your funeral . . . isn’t that awful? I came with you when they buried your father, and he hated me, but when they put you here, I was drunk out of my mind over at the Plough and Stars. And I’m sorry, Starshine, I really am . . . but the truth is, I just couldn’t face up to you."

Kaitlyn stopped and sighed, running her hands back through her tangled hair. Her voice cracked as she continued brokenly, "Our relationship wasn’t the most stable, I’ll admit . . . loved you more than anything, though. Never could find a way to tell you that."

She stretched out next to the grave, the marble of the headstone cold against her cheek. "Ironic, huh?" she managed. "Good with words . . . you were always telling me I was . . . how I wasn’t afraid to express myself . . . in my songs, I mean. Some crowd I didn’t even know, I could stand there in front of them and be pouring my heart out . . . then come home and just shut you out. I saw in your eyes, that it hurt you . . ."

A gulping sob wrenched its way out of Kaitlyn’s chest. Taking a deep breath, she regained some semblance of composure and went on, more coherently now. "I never treated you right, Starshine, and I’ll be paying for that the rest of my life, ‘cause you won’t be here to share it with me. You never heard me say I loved you—do you know how that’s been killing me slowly ever since?"

The young linguist groaned, letting the tears flow freely for the first time since she’d fled that North End apartment two years ago. "And now I’m watching the two best friends I ever had start into that same spiral . . . while something inside me screams the whole time that I have to do something, stop it. But I can’t even get over you . . . how can I help them? And I can’t forgive my family unless I forgive myself first."

Kaitlyn ran her fingers through the grass that grew over Joni’s grave. "I gotta go on with my life, Starshine. You’d want me to. So I’m here to tell you that I’m sorry, and that I never blamed you for what happened to us." A smile edged her lips. "I read once that the dead can hear our thoughts . . . I have a lot of respect for the writer, and I believe it’s true, so I know you can hear me now. It feels like I finally have something besides my work to really live for again. I just want you to know that you’ll always be with me—always have been. I love you, Starshine . . . and now if you’ll excuse me, I have some things to take care of." She pressed her lips against the gravestone, closing her eyes. "I promise I’ll come back soon, but right now, I have things to do, and you’d kick my ass if I let them slide any further."

She got to her feet, bone-weary and emotionally drained—but the silent gravestones were the only witnesses as Kaitlyn Velasquez strode out of the cemetery and jumped into the front seat of her jeep with more energy than she’d felt in nearly two years.

Janice saw the headlights pulling into the driveway just as she was emerging from the woods at the side of the house, and jogged over to meet Kaitlyn.

"Hey, kid. Where’ve you been?"

"Cambridge." Kaitlyn looked up and met Janice’s gaze, and the older woman was surprised to see that whatever had been weighing her friend down seemed to have partly lifted; her eyes were less shadowed, and she was walking a little bit taller. "I . . . was visiting an old friend. We had some unresolved issues to take care of."

"Help any?"

"Yeah." A grin broke across Kaitlyn’s face. "You have no idea. And you, Covington—taking a walk do you any good?"

Janice nodded slowly. "A little, maybe. You’re right, it’s calming out there."

But . . . ? Kaitlyn sensed that there was more left unspoken. She only reached up to put a hand on the archaeologist’s shoulder, and pulled out her cigarette case, offering it to Janice before helping herself. It was quiet for a few moments, except for the clicking of the metal lighter.

"It’s damn late," Janice remarked finally, exhaling. "Think I’ll go in and get some sleep. You should too. And, uh . . ." She flicked a slightly diffident look at Kaitlyn. "You, uh . . . have any extra blankets lying around?"

Aha. "Couch?" Kaitlyn posed the question as nonchalantly as she could.

"Yeah."

Well . . . better that than pretending nothing’s wrong, I guess, the linguist conceded to herself. That’d be more harmful in the end. She tossed her cigarette butt into the driveway and ground it out with her heel. "Sure. I’ll get you some when we get inside. Come on . . ."

Kaitlyn laid the fountain pen down and picked up the sheet of paper, blowing on the still wet ink and scanning over what she’d written.

"Well, Rhonwyn could have made this sound much better than I did, but it’s from the heart . . . it’ll do."

The linguist sighed as she neatly folded the letter, slipped it into an envelope, and addressed it. When it would reach her parents, she didn’t know. But she’d done her part—her cards were all out on the table, and it was all up to them, from here on out. At any rate, she felt a whole hell of a lot better.

Kaitlyn looked around her mostly-tidy bedroom and announced to her desk lamp, "And now, to do something about this Rift . . ."

She wasn’t really sure she knew which one she meant. But she didn’t really think it mattered.

"Morning, kid . . . don’t tell me you’ve been up all night again?"

Kaitlyn glanced over her shoulder at Janice, deftly flipping the pancake she was cooking at the same time. "Afraid so."

"For God’s sake, Velasquez, why? You keep this up, and I’m gonna walk in one morening and find you dead on the kitchen floor!" Janice’s expression was more than a little concerned as she made her way across to the stove and grabbed the younger woman by the shoulders, looking at her intently. "I’m worried about you, kid . . . we don’t need you killing yourself over this project!"

"Hey now . . ." protested Kaitlyn, trying for a diversion. "Easy! I’ll burn your breakfast if you don’t let me keep an eye on it!"

Janice let her hands drop, but persisted, "Come on, Kaitlyn . . . what’s the deal? Are you afraid to sleep or something? All you ever do is work on translation these days." She jerked her head toward the notebook and parchments on the table. "I know we all want to get to the bottom of all this, but it won’t do a damn bit of good if you go and die on us because you were so wrapped up in working!"

"All right, all right." Kaitlyn slid the pancake atop the stack that rested on the counter by the stove, buttered it, and turned to face her friend. "You want to know the truth, Janice . . . I’m scared of dreaming." She spit the words out and turned away, looking disgusted with herself.

That made no sense. "Of dreaming?"

"Yeah. I know it sounds crazy, but . . . lately, whenever I sleep, I start dreaming about Rhonwyn. I don’t know what’s triggering it. Hell of it is, I’m dreaming things from her lifesong.." The graduate student crossed to the table and sat down heavily. "And not only that . . . I’m dreaming things from her point of view, almost reliving them, and I wake up feeling as drained and battered, physically and emotionally, as she gets in those dreams. Bad enough that the things I’m reading in those scrolls take as much of a toll on me as they do, but with what these dreams to me . . ."

Janice blinked in confusion. "You mean the accounts in the Scrolls are wearing you down? How?"

Kaitlyn raised haggard eyes to her friend’s face. Fatigue and stress were slowly driving her to hysteria. It was beginning to show. "You don’t understand. Mel might, but you don’t. I’m not just sitting here, finding a word, and matching it up with one in English. I’m translating an account that’s the combined effort of two very formidable bards. These words don’t just sit here on the page, Janice . . . they live. They burn. And with every word . . . with every phrase, every line, every chapter, this story becomes more and more real to me. And dammit, Janice, it hurts. It’s one thing to know in my mind what happened, but this—" She smacked the notebook with her pencil. "This is driving it into my heart with every word I write down!"

"You’re right," Janice responded evenly. "I don’t understand. Translating’s not my strong point . . . never has been. It’s always . . ." She paused, visibly struggling with the next words. "That’s Mel’s specialty, not mine."

"So what are we going to do about the two of you?" The question was blunt and direct; it came out of nowhere and caught Janice off guard.

"What about us?" Defensiveness crept up around the edges of the archaeologist’s voice.

"You slept on the couch last night, every time we’ve started to discuss the Scrolls you two start arguing, you’re barely speaking to each other . . . and now you can hardly even bring yourself to say her name." Kaitlyn’s gaze was intense and steady, and Janice found herself wincing under the scrutiny. "Speaking of keeping things up, this can’t go on any longer either."

Janice tried a halfhearted evasive tactic. "What can’t?"

Kaitlyn saw right through the maneuver. "You know damn well what I’m talking about, Covington."

"All right, all right . . ." Janice had fished a cigar out of her pocket, clipped it, and lit up. "So what do you propose we do about it?"

"We? She’s your lover, Janice . . . it’s between you and her." Kaitlyn picked up her mug of lukewarm coffee and took a gulp, continuing, "But there is a bit that I can do. A couple of days ago, you yelled at me for ‘dancing around the question,’ as you put it. And I realized you were right—I’ve always tried to run away from issues that I don’t want to deal with, usually if they hit too close to home. It’s really kind of funny—I can get up in someone’s face and be the millennium bitch from hell if I want to be, but let the issue get too personal and all I want to do is run like a scared rabbit."

"Like with the question of who’s to blame in the Rift?"

Kaitlyn nodded, looking somewhat ashamed. "Right. I’m damn well afraid to take sides here. You know that. So I’m trying to stay neutral, and all it seems to have done is make things worse. I could have taken a stand from the start . . . maybe none of this would’ve happened. Stupid mistake on my part, but I intend to do something about it."

"Like what?" asked Mel, who had slipped into the kitchen unnoticed.

Janice jumped, nearly swallowing her mouthful of cigar smoke. "Jesus, Mel! You’ve got to stop scaring me, sneaking up like that!"

The Southerner laughed, and apologized. "Oh, Janice . . . I didn’t mean to . . . I suppose it’s a bad habit."

"Well, you’d better break it, or I’m going to have a heart attack for real one of these days." Janice was amused despite herself—she didn’t sound quite as disgruntled as she had a few minutes ago, and a bit of a smirk was defeating her last efforts to hide it.

Kaitlyn observed the two women carefully. Oh, good, she noted with satisfaction, some of the ice has been broken here. Beneath their anger with each other, there was still that familiarity and love between Mel and Janice. It was still there—it always had been. All she had to do was figure out how to bring it to the surface again.

The scrolls she’d spent the night translating, as well as Pete’s words from the night before, gave her an idea, and her mind quickly put it into motion. "Well then," she began slowly, a grin forming on her face, "are you two up for a night on the town?"

The jeep pulled into the parking lot outside the small Housatonic café known as Richfield’s. It was still early in the evening, and only a few of the die-hard regulars had already trickled in and staked out their tables. Therefore, since tonight was Open Stage Night, there were still ample performance slots open.

Kaitlyn, as one of those die-hard regulars, was counting on that fact. She launched herself out of the car seat and sprinted to the back of the vehicle as soon as her feet touched the asphalt, snatching her guitar case and barely stopping to wait for Mel and Janice.

"Hold on, kid! What’s the rush?" demanded the archaeologist, catching up to Kaitlyn, Mel two steps behind her.

Kaitlyn paused, a bit thrown off by the question. "You know . . . I’m not sure, really. Just feeling this sense of urgency about tonight?"

"Like getting a chance to perform, maybe?" Janice ribbed her.

An enigmatic expression scampered across the young woman’s face. "Yeah . . . that has something to do with it, I suppose."

Mel sauntered up next to Kaitlyn and cast a sidelong glance down at her. "Why," she asked teasingly, "do I get the feeling that whatever you’re not telling us, we’re going to find out later tonight anyway?"

"Because you’re damn intuitive, that’s why," was the amused retort. "Now come on, let’s get in there."

"What? You afraid we’ll get inside and all the tables will be gone?" Janice pulled her fedora down over her eyes and arched an eyebrow.

Kaitlyn snorted and made for the front door. "I am not dignifying that with a response."

Richfield’s was less crowded than Mel remembered it from their first night in Housatonic, but the same easygoing atmosphere rippled through the room in the currents of laughter and low conversation. It was soothing and comfortable, and put her somewhat at ease.

That was a welcome feeling after the day’s tension. Breakfast had been a fairly benign affair, but from then on it had all been downhill. Only Kaitlyn’s presence seemed to maintain the uneasy peace, and without her there to serve as neutral ground of a sort, Mel found herself and Janice at odds again. She’d taken her cue from the previous night and discovered that it was easier to just get away for a while. So she had, retreating into the library and immersing herself in Kaitlyn’s wealth of linguistics texts. The graduate student’s passion for languages equaled her own, a fact that pleased her despite the difference in the tongues they studied.

Could it really be a coincidence that this girl, whose ancestor had been such a trusted friend to Xena and Gabrielle, was working with them on the Scrolls now? She didn’t think so. Some circumstance, far greater than she understood, had brought Kaitlyn to them, and Mel was grateful for that, whatever it was. Another person could have translated these Rift Scrolls, but probably wouldn’t be trying as hard as Kaitlyn was now to heal the account’s effect on her relationship with Janice.

She wondered about the strange twists of destiny. A telegram amongst her late father’s papers had led her to Macedonia and to the love of her life; a naïve mistake on her part had catapulted her and Janice into Ares’s Tomb, where the first Xena Scrolls had been found. A few stray clues in those Scrolls had eventually sent them to Wales, where the discovery of that peculiar replica scrollcase had brought Kaitlyn, and this moment, to them.

The thought that the Rift Scrolls were more trouble than they were worth still bothered her—if it hadn’t been for them, she and Janice wouldn’t be having these problems now. They’d committed themselves to learning Xena and Gabrielle’s whole saga, but now because of that, the strength of their commitment to each other was under threat. She wanted to resent the Scrolls, blame them for what had happened, wish that they had never been found . . . just go back to the way everything had been.

But could she? Could they both? Even if it were possible, Mel wasn’t sure she would want to go back and act as if none of this had ever happened, as if they’d never brought up these buried problems and lost their tempers. The look she’d seen in Janice’s eyes the previous night was so completely foreign to her that she’d been shocked to realize that it really was her lover who’d been about to hit her. She couldn’t go on, pretending that she’d never seen that look. So really she had no choice left but to deal.

The preface to the Rift Scrolls was lingering in her mind, for some reason: It is by going through the fire that we emerge stronger; it is by weathering the storm that we truly grow. She seized onto that line and began to build her own hopes up from it.

If they made it through this—she and Janice together—nothing would be able to tear them apart again.

Janice felt someone studying her, and looked up to see Mel’s blue eyes locked on her face, contemplating. "You okay?" The words sounded gruff and awkward.

"Just thinking."

The archaeologist nodded silently and glanced down at the table. Kaitlyn had gone off to talk to someone or other, and left her alone with her lover. For being the first time all day that they’d been in each other’s company, she was actually surprisingly glad that this encounter was in a public place—the prospect of making a scene here in the café was decidedly unappealing. She didn’t really want to, anyway.

A tightening of the muscles in her hand caught her attention, and she looked down to see her fist clenched, white-knuckled, on the tabletop in front of her. That fist had so nearly had an up-close-and-personal encounter with Mel’s face the day before . . . the thought shook her. Had she really let things slide this far? She was tired of arguing, tired of keeping up this front of not caring if Mel was shutting her out, but feeling so vulnerable that she didn’t dare show what lay behind that façade. She wanted to make amends, but her stubborn nature was in the way, and she didn’t know how to take the first step.

It didn’t look like she had much of a choice, though. Caught in the visegrip of learning the full truth of the Scrolls or losing the only person she wanted in her life forever, she was willing to give up her life’s work. No question about it. If only she knew how to admit that to Mel . . .

"Can I have everyone’s attention, please?" A rotund, affable-looking man—the owner of Richfield’s, Janice surmised—had stepped up onto the small stage platform and was holding his hands up for quiet.

Accordingly, conversations trailed off, and the café’s patrons awaited his announcement.

"I’d like to welcome you all to the weekly Open Stage Night here at Richfield’s. This is where you get to hear some of the finest musical talent the Berkshires have to offer, and I hope you’ll find that you’re in for a good time tonight!" Applause seemed to indicate that the audience agreed. He continued, "Our first performer has been performing for us for several years, even though she’s away a lot more than we’d like her to be. So please, give a warm welcome to Housatonic’s very own Kaitlyn Velasquez!"

The audience broke into another round of applause that peaked and then faded as Kaitlyn stepped up onto the stage, the leather strap of her guitar slung over her shoulders.

"Evening, everyone," she said, offering a smile to the crowd. "I’ve only got one song for you tonight . . . not a song, really, so much as a poem, or just a story set to music, I guess; I’ve had new influences on my writing as of late. It’s new, anyway—I wrote it just last night, in fact, and it doesn’t have a title yet. And . . . it’s dedicated to two very good friends of mine."

She plucked out a soft, flowing accompaniment on the guitar, closed her eyes, and began to sing.

Dizziness overwhelmed Kaitlyn as she opened her eyes—a strange feeling, as though she was just now coming back to awareness. It wasn’t until she saw the audience break out cheering that she realized what she’d been doing. It’s done. Rhonwyn, she whispered internally, I hope you’d be proud of what I just tried to do.

The cheers and applause erupted all around them, practically shaking the café, but Mel and Janice were oblivious to it, silent, still lost in the world Kaitlyn’s song had woven for them. Somehow their young friend had managed to make every note of that simple ballad strike a sympathetic resonance with everything in their hearts, and they had been transported by it.

It seemed like forever and no time at all before Janice turned to look deliberately at her partner, her green eyes locking firmly on Mel’s own blue orbs.

"She’s right, Mel," she said slowly. She reached across the table, and Mel responded in kind, her soft, slender hand closing over Janice’s rougher and more calloused one. It was their first physical contact in three days—it electrified them both. Such a simple little gesture, but so much was wrapped up in it.

"I know," the Southerner responded simply as her fingers brushed the back of Janice’s hand.

"I’m sorry, Mel, I really am . . . I know I shouldn’t have taken my anger out on you. You never realized just how much it’s hurt me to know that Gabrielle was my ancestor, not Xena, like I always dreamed it would be. And yeah, it hurt me, and I was jealous of you. I never admitted it though . . . I was ashamed to. Pretty stupid of me, huh?" Janice swallowed hard, trying to fight back the tears and failing. The unbelievable relief that came when the first warm drops rolled down her cheeks, though, was enough to make her forget her tough demeanor. She hardly noticed the cracking of her voice as she continued, "And then we found all this out . . . about the Rift and all . . . and it just scared me so much to find out that their relationship could fall apart like that. Because if a love as strong as theirs could be hurt so badly, then . . ."

"Then what might that mean for us?" Mel finished. "I felt the same, you know. But I thought I could just forget about my doubts if I kept them to myself, and everything could go on and be just fine. But it came to this anyway . . . I couldn’t forget . . . and I got so scared that I started to forget just how much I love you."

"Yeah. That’s exactly how I felt, Mel. Can you believe we were so stupid that we didn’t even talk to each other?" Janice raised their joined hands to her lips, brushing a kiss across Mel’s knuckles. "You’re the first person I’ve ever loved enough to let into my life the way I have, and I love you more than . . . God, I don’t know what. And the one thing I kept back from you is the one thing that nearly took that away from me. It’s all my fault, Mel."

"Now, Janice, honey, don’t you go blaming yourself for everything! I made you think that I didn’t care if you were upset . . . I was too afraid to talk to you. We were both wrong about that." Mel squeezed her lover’s hand tightly. "I don’t blame you for being angry about what Gabrielle did. You’re right, it wasn’t the best thing to do . . ."

"But she was only doing what she thought was right," interrupted Janice. Now, she felt like she could concede that point—whatever ridiculous pride had kept her from it before was gone. "I’ve realized that. It’s just the way she was. Hell . . ." She paused, a wistful look coming into her eyes. "I wish I could be that trusting, sometimes. But with the life I’ve led . . . that’s damn hard to do. And you know what? I’ll admit it. Xena was wrong, too, to go after Caesar in the first place and then leave Gabrielle behind to get duped by Khrafstar."

Mel smiled. Hearing those words from her lover’s mouth gave her a new perspective on the Rift account. "After what he did to her, though, I can see how she would have wanted to."

"Well, we all make mistakes. Big ones, sometimes—really damn big ones. But I guess the important thing is to make up from them, and learn from past mistakes. Even the ones that run in the family."

"Especially those."

Janice enclosed Mel’s hand in both of her own and gave the taller woman a tender look. "Look, sweetie, promise me something? If there’s ever anything—anything at all—bothering you, or hurting you, I want you to tell me, and not be ashamed to admit to anything with me. I might not take it so well at first, but I love you enough to work through things with you."

Grateful tears slipped down the aristocratic planes of Mel’s face. "I promise . . . and I promise to do the same for you." She held Janice’s gaze, her eyes full of more love and trust and devotion than she thought a glance could hold. "We won’t let anything get between us again, will we? I love you, Janice Covington."

Blue eyes bored into her own, and to her immense relief, Janice no longer feared what that piercing gaze might discover in her soul. "Melinda Pappas, I love you too."

Kaitlyn came back to stand beside her friends’ table. She had her guitar in hand, and her whole face was transformed by a grin she just couldn’t suppress. "I see you two have worked things out."

Janice reluctantly pulled herself from the warmth of Mel’s gaze and looked up. "Not completely, but I think we’re off to a good start. Thanks, kid . . . I needed a damn good kick in the rear to do this, but does it ever feel great!"

The linguist chuckled. "Yeah, I bet it does, doesn’t it?"

Mel agreed, then asked, "How did you know, Kaitlyn?"

"Know what?"

"How to make us realize what we needed to do. That song was incredible . . . it said everything we needed to hear."

"Oh, that. Yeah . . ." Kaitlyn shrugged dismissively. "I’ve done better, I think. Anyway, I noticed at breakfast this morning that you two were still being distant. But when Mel sneaked in and surprised you, Janice, I caught a glimpse of that old familiarity between you, and I knew that if I could remind you that it was still there, you'd fill in the rest for yourselves." She reversed a chair, straddled it, and stowed her guitar in its case, pulling a manuscript from the case as she did so. "As for what gave me the idea for how to go about it . . ." She tossed the manuscript on the table. "Last night's work. Read up."

The sea voyage from Prydein was, perhaps, not as long as it seemed to me, but my mission was urgent, and every day stretched into an eternity. As soon as the ship was docked, I was astride Alaeth—and it had taken no small amount of persuasion to bring her with me—and away, riding in search of my friends.

The search took me to a village of the Greek Amazons, where the Regent Ephiny greeted me.

"Gabrielle is here, yes . . . I'm concerned," she admitted, guardedly. "She's in the sweat hut, undergoing the Amazon purification ritual. She's been there since yesterday morning—two nights ago, the funerals for Hope and Solan were held, and Xena left shortly afterward. You can't imagine what it's done to Gabrielle, her falling-out with Xena and her daughter’s death. The whole village is frightened for her. She's more dead than alive."

I shook my head. "Then it's already begun."

Ephiny regarded me with curiosity. "What has? Why are you so insistent on finding the Queen?"

"I'm a friend, Ephiny." I saw her start in surprise; she had not yet told me her name. "I knew them in Britannia and I fought at their side, and I know of all that befell them there. I also know what will happen to them next. I need to stop this tragedy before it goes too far!"

She looked doubtful. "Is there anything you can do to stop it? Who are you, in the first place?"

Bran's head, there was no time for this! "Rhonwyn," I told her shortly. "Daughter of Balach. A Druid. Regent Ephiny, please believe me when I say that I can and will do all in my power to heal this Rift between the Queen and Xena!"

She studied me a moment. I held my breath. Then I saw hope flicker faintly in her eyes, and the Regent extended her arm to me. I clasped it. "I welcome you, then," she said. "Losing Xena has been a cruel blow to Gabrielle. If you can bring them back together, the whole of the Amazon Nation will be in your debt."

"Na, na . . . there is no debt, Regent Ephiny. I don't ask for such a thing. Xena and Gabrielle have a destiny that far outstrips anything we could imagine. Knowing that alone makes the fight well worth it."

She pressed, "Is there anything we can do?"

"Protect Gabrielle, at all costs. Until I find a way to reunite them, that's all that can be done."

Her eyes narrowed. "And how do you intend to do that?"

I sighed. That was a question I had no answer for—just the germ of an idea, but no answer. I needed to find one, and quickly. "Do you have any place where I can be secluded?"

"There's a vacant hut on the far side of the village. No one will disturb you there."

Ephiny was true to her word; the hut was indeed secluded enough that no one would interrupt what I had to do. There was a small firepit in the center of the floor that would serve my purpose admirably; I set to work kindling a fire and sprinkling a special mix of wood chips and herbs over the embers. The hut began to fill with a sweet, heady smoke that cleared my mind even as I stripped of my garments and stood before the flames, sinking deeper and deeper into the inner recesses of my heart where the awen trance awaited me.

For those who walk this realm, the paths of the Otherworld are winding at best, shrouded with mist, for we do not know the Otherworld in all of its glory. It is a place where the limits of the body, as imposed upon our world, can be transcended, and for that reason I chose to dare my arduous journey into its depths.

Time there passes differently than it does here; nearly a full moon of sweat, danger, and endless travel had gone by before I found myself at the gate to Hades's realm. (For the Greek gods, you see, are not so different from our own, and the Otherworld extends through the godsrealms of all beliefs, whether or not they choose to acknowledge it.)

He must have known I was coming, for the lord of Greece's underworld met me there at the gates, grim and forbidding. "This isn't your place, mortal," he told me. "I suggest you stay with the dead of your own people, or better yet go back to the land of the living, where you belong."

"Lord Hades, I am loath to interfere, but the matter I am about does concern you," I told him urgently. "Right now your nephew Ares is stirring Xena to levels of hatred that she had long ago put behind her, and both Greece and my own land, and likely many others as well, may suffer dire consequences if his plan is not thwarted."

He sighed. "Will he never learn?"

I pressed on, trying to sway him. They say Taliesin had such skill as could sway the gods themselves—could I do the same? "He hopes to turn Xena and Gabrielle against each other for good, thereby upsetting the balance that the two of them bring to the world. You know, Lord Hades, that he will not rest until Xena rides at the head of his army again . . . and that cannot be."

Hades turned aside in thought, pacing and looking, as always, slightly distracted. "You must know I can't directly involve myself in Ares's affairs. I'm really far too busy, besides . . ."

I stepped in front of him; he stopped his pacing and glared at me. "I am not barred from doing what I can, am I?" I asked. He shook his head, some of the anger melting from his face, and before he could speak I continued, "All I ask, Lord Hades, is that I be allowed to speak with Xena's son, who is now, as you know, within your domain. I believe that he is the key to reuniting Xena and Gabrielle."

He stared at me for a moment, as if to gauge my intent. "All right then," he said at last. "I'll allow you to come in, but you can deal with Solan, and no one else, understood? No one else."

I bowed my head, grateful for his concession. "No one else should be needed. I thank you, Lord Hades, and I will keep to the agreement."

"Think nothing of it." I was almost certain I saw a smile on his face as he faded from view. "Someone has to help keep my nephew in line . . ."

Shortly, a young boy, perhaps twelve winters old, appeared before me.

"You sent for me?"

I nodded. "Solan, I know you don’t know me, but I need your help."

"It’s about my mother, isn’t it? You’re her friend, Rhonwyn." His intuition surprised me, but I agreed. "And she needs to come clean with me before she can stop hating Gabrielle. Otherwise she’ll listen to Ares, and turn back to evil. Forever this time."

"That’s right," I said softly.

His eyebrows knit in contemplation. "I can help with that," he said. "I can forgive her for not telling me who she really was . . . but she needs to know that I do. She needs the chance to tell me herself. That’s what’s cutting her up inside, that she never got to look me in the face and spend time with me as my mother, not just a friend. She thinks she’s lost that chance forever now, and that’s why she hates Gabrielle. I don’t want her to hate Gabrielle though, Rhonwyn. I don’t want to see her go back to being evil." There was a pleading expression in his eyes that broke my heart.

"None of us do." By Lleu, how much I agreed with him!

"I think," he remarked slowly, "that once she gets the chance to set things right with me, she won’t have a reason to hate Gabrielle any more. I just don’t know how to get in contact with her."

"Solan, you leave that to me. I can arrange it. Only tell me one thing: how do I help them get beyond the hatred?"

Xena’s son sat on a rock and cupped his chin in his hand, his long fair hair falling across his face. "They have to get away from the rest of the world . . . to a place where it’s just them, and their emotions. No distractions. No warlords to stop, no friends’ problems to set straight. They have to confront each other . . . understand where their pain’s coming from. Remind them of their love, and let them reach out to one another again." He smiled shyly. "I had to do that, you know, just to make friends with her . . . stop hating her for killing my father—even though I know now she didn’t do it—and just let the love take over. After that, it’ll be easy for her to forgive herself . . . and my death won’t be a sore spot, and they can work through everything else. And then they can go on with their lives."

I shook my head and felt the tears forming in my eyes. "Solan, you are truly a wise young man. No wonder she was so proud of you."

He shrugged, trying like any boy his age to disguise his emotions, and betraying them even more clearly in the action. "It’s the least I can do for her. I know she loved me, or she wouldn’t have given me to Kaleipus."

"Then I’ll create the place for them to go, and see to it that they get there."

"And I’ll wait for them at the end."

We clasped hands resolutely. "I have to get back to them," I told him. "When this world is created, I’ll summon you there."

"All right. Oh . . . one other thing." His face lit up with inspiration. "I think you should make everything have a familiar face. It’ll mean more to them."

"Brilliant, Solan. And now I’d best hurry . . ." I gripped his shoulders and gave him one more smile before I turned and hurried back the way I came.

When I awoke from my awen, my fire had burned out, and the shouts of fighting carried clear across the village into my hut. Shaking the stiffness from my body, I dressed, seized my weapons and rowan staff, and rushed out to see what had happened.

The scene was not at all to my liking. Wounded Amazons were sprawled in the dirt. Among them was Ephiny, nursing a broken arm; also there was the young man named Joxer, an angry bruise spreading across his face.

"What’s happened?" I demanded. "Where’s Gabrielle?"

Ephiny pointed to the east, where the earth was scored with hoofprints and a curious trail, as though someone had been dragged across the ground. "Xena came," she said, her teeth clenched against the pain.

"Mighty Manawyddan," I groaned, "I have to hurry! Ephiny, I’m so sorry it had to come to this . . ."

"No time for that," she hissed through her teeth. "Just go, Rhonwyn, quickly!"

I wasted no further breath. Throwing myself astride Alaeth, Lludchen at my hip and rowan staff in hand, I galloped off, following the tracks. I knew where they would lead; my visions had shown me that. I drove my horse on, racing against time, straining my every sense forward as if the effort might speed our way. On we galloped, finally reaching the base of that oceanside cliff. It suited my intentions perfectly, for water is the element from which all life takes its beginning, the element upon which life is fully dependent.

So I came to a stretch of sand on the shore near that cliff, raised my staff above my head, and listened with every nerve in my body—listened for the sound of Oran Môr, the Great Music.

Music, understand, is the great force that can stir the depths of the human heart, and in the hands of those trained as I was, it can move people far better than mere words can.

So I listened. Then I heard it—a golden thread of melody, countless layers of complexity ringing in every pure note. I gave myself over to it, let it absorb into every part of my being, allowed it to take the desires in my heart and spin them into a separate world. I drew on every emotion I had experienced in my visions of my friends, reached out to them, and pulled them into this Otherworldly web.

As a result, the world created by Oran Môr was one familiar to them in many ways. Each was given a guide in the form of one she knew, though the unlikely guises chosen—Callisto as Xena’s guide, Joxer as Gabrielle’s—were no exertion of my will, but rather the doing of the Great Music.

I set them at extremes, showing them what life might have been like, had they never met; with each step they took, I let them peel back every layer of the resentment between them. Each thing from the past that had wounded them became one more obstacle to confront and overcome—Xena was even allowed to strike an apparently mortal blow to Gabrielle. Here, such a thing would not truly harm her, but it would show Xena the consequences of the hatred she believed she felt, and make her realize that vengeance would not ease her pain. The outright brutality of the attack would also bring the deadly reality of their enmity into stark focus for them both.

The Great Music plumbed the depths of my friends’ hearts and brought the shadowed things there to light before their eyes. Even though I hated to do so, I let them revisit the moment when the true seed of hatred had been planted in their lives: Xena’s crucifixion by Caesar, and Gabrielle’s terror in the Temple of Dahak. The significance was this—they had to realize that they were not so different after all, and that the only way they could overcome their hatred was by reaching out to each other.

And so they did, realizing that hatred only causes old wounds to fester, while love and trust can heal them. Once that was accomplished, Solan revealed himself to them. What happened next, though, was not of my doing.

The death of Ming T’ien, the truth of which Xena had kept back from Gabrielle, had to come out into the open. It was the last thing she had withheld from Gabrielle, and it had followed her like a shadow throughout her journey through Illusia. It took shape before her, preventing her from passing through the barrier of water that separated her from Solan and Gabrielle. Once she admitted to the deed and pleaded for Gabrielle’s forgiveness—as well as Solan’s, for never telling him that she was his mother. Both readily gave absolution, true to their natures, and Xena was allowed to cross the barrier.

The events that followed, I cannot easily remember. I only know that upon witnessing the reunion of Xena and Gabrielle, I was overwhelmed by joy, and the strain of holding Illusia together finally took its toll on me—for Oran Môr was using me as a conduit, taxing my strength. At the same time, exerting my will on Illusia and its events was draining my mental energy; in truth, the endeavor might very well have killed me. Therefore, it was little wonder when the flood of elation, pouring into me as I saw the hatred between my friends melt away, proved to be too much for me to handle.

Gabrielle tells me that she and Xena later awoke upon the beach and found me lying there, unconscious, in the wake of my awen’s passing.

That was the true test of my abilities, and the one that ultimately fufilled the destiny bestowed upon me. Sad to say, we never did make it back to Britannia in time; when I finally returned to my homeland the next summer, Boadicea and my father had been defeated, but not before wearing Caesar’s forces down to a nonthreatening size. So many of my friends had been killed . . . my father had survived, but would never fight again . . . both tribes had been decimated. Heartsick, I stayed only long enough to help rebuild, but as soon as I could, I fled back to Greece to join my friends again. It is a bittersweet ending to the saga of the war with the Romans, to be sure, but that is the way of it.

* * *

"Wow. What a thing to go through." Janice handed the manuscript back to Kaitlyn, amazement still evident on her face. "Wow," she repeated dazedly. "Rhonwyn must’ve been one hell of a friend to put herself through that for them."

Kaitlyn smiled. "The way I see it, she felt that Xena and Gabrielle were worth it, and much more. She’d have done anything for them, I think."

"Including risking her life to bring them back together," Mel marveled. "So that’s where you got the idea."

"Yeah. I took my cue from the line about music being the great force that can stir the depths of the human heart and all that, and an idea Pete gave me. Only I was determined not to let things get as bad between you two, this time around." The linguist gave an apologetic shrug, grinning warmly.

"Well, I’m glad," the translator responded. "Thank you again, Kaitlyn."

"It’s the least I could do . . . you two mean a hell of a lot to me." Kaitlyn paused reflectively. "Hell . . . I’ll come right out and say it, since I know now that I can’t afford not to. I love the both of you. I hope you know that."

"Speaking for us both . . . right back at you, kid." Janice punched the young woman playfully in the arm.

A brief round of hugs and friendly swats ensued before Kaitlyn leaned back and stretched. "How about we get back home?" she asked. "I’m kind of tired, and besides, I found out who my Greek ancestor is."

Mel raised her coffee mug and drained the last of it. "I’ll drink to that!"

"Your Greek ancestor, huh?" Janice asked as they headed for the door, never noticing the figure who slipped away from a corner table and followed them outside. "This I have to find out . . ."

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Kaitlyn hummed cheerfully to herself, maneuvering the jeep through the winding Berkshire backroads that led from Housatonic back up to the summer house. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of Janice and Mel snuggling up in the passenger seat and grinned. She still wished she had someone like that—a few short days wouldn’t be enough to heal that void, but after that night in the Cambridge cemetery the ache was duller, less insistent. She felt . . . Pretty damn good, actually, she admitted to herself.

. . . And then there was that tingling at the back of her neck again, and the sick feeling in her stomach that had nothing to do with not having eaten much all day. Kaitlyn looked down at her hands. Her fingers, wrapped around the steering wheel, were twitching slightly in reaction to her body’s strange silent alarm.

A glance into the rearview mirror showed her just what she didn’t want to see—a pair of headlights, following close behind the jeep.

Shit . . . shit . . . how goddamn stupid can you be, Velasquez? Kaitlyn hurled deprecatory, accusing remarks at herself with bruising impact, fighting off her rising panic. You were so wrapped up in trying to get them back together that you completely forgot why you’re up here in the first place . . . and now you damn well went and blew your own cover! Velasquez, you stupid little idiot!

Then the rational part of her mind took over, pleading, Beat yourself up over it later, Kaitlyn . . . after the trouble’s over.

Because more likely than not, those headlights meant nothing less than trouble. That was for sure.

"Um, Mel, Janice . . ." she ventured. The feeling in her mouth suddenly reminded her of that trip she’d once taken to Death Valley.

"Hmm?" Janice’s query was lazy, muffled by Mel’s hair.

"You know, I hate to be the one standing here with a bucket of cold water to throw, but, uh . . . you ever get that feeling of déjà vu?"

Mel jerked upright. "We’re being followed?"

Janice twisted to look over the back of the seat. "Again."

"Gods, I swear . . . if it’s not one thing, it’s another. Brace yourselves and get ready to duck; it’s deserted out this way and nobody will hear if they fire on us out here." Why was she getting images of guys with tommy-guns? Muttering evil-sounding imprecations about getting upstaged by dumb bastards who couldn’t mind their own business, Kaitlyn eased off the gas pedal and watched the speedometer needle drop. It hit 35 as they climbed uphill on nothing but momentum, and she jammed her foot down hard on the pedal to send the needle leaping up to 55 miles per hour again.

Janice monitored the headlights behind them, watching as the other vehicle kept up with the jeep’s fluctuating speed. "They’re matching you, kid," she warned.

"Wonderful. I haven’t got more than half a tank . . ." The linguist peered ahead, anticipating a particularly sharp curve in the road, and took it as fast as she dared, applying the brakes judiciously down the slope of the hill. Their pursuer followed close behind. "Can’t keep this up, can’t outrun them . . . wish we had your car that you don’t drive, Mel. Could lose these guys easy if all three of us could fit, you know? Two-seater drop-head coupe . . . hundred twenty-five miles an hour, supercharged . . . now that’s a Duesy."

Janice and Mel both groaned.

"Hey, just trying to lighten the mood a bit! Don’t take it as punishment or anything!"

"Oh, you’ll be punished for it later on, all right!" Janice returned. Her voice tensed, and her green eyes darted between the curving road ahead and the vehicle behind. "First things first, though. How the hell do we shake these guys?"

Kaitlyn glanced up at the mirror, then winced as she nearly missed taking the next curve. "Don’t know. It’s not like I need to worry about paved road with this jeep, but in the darkness, in these hills? I’d rather just have them shoot us."

"Be less painful, that’s for sure." The archaeologist rubbed her chin. "Anywhere we can get them to flat ground?"

"Yeah, there’s a lake around here, coming up pretty soon."

Mel spoke up. "Go there."

"I don’t think now is the right time for that, Mel . . ."

"Kaitlyn, really, go there. Please. I think they’re trying to pressure you into driving off the road." There was stubborn insistence in the translator’s drawl.

Janice agreed, "She’s right, kid. You may know this area, but you’re starting to watch that car more than the road. Keep that up and we’ll all be smashed to pulp at the base of one of these hills. Get ‘em to the lake. We can take ‘em out." Her hand tightened purposefully around Mel’s. "Right, Mel?"

"Right."

The linguist exhaled through her teeth. "Okay, Covington, but you two better come up with a plan, ‘cause I sure as hell don’t have one."

"They were looking for a fight last time," Mel remarked, grabbing the dashboard as the jeep swerved hard around a series of hairpin curves. "And the time those men tried to beat you up, Kaitlyn . . . I doubt they were interested in talking."

"Probably not." Janice slipped a hand inside her jacket and touched the smooth wood and metal of her revolver. "But if they are . . . well, that’s your department, sweetie." She gave Mel a gentle nudge.

"All right, but don’t expect me to just stand around and let the two of you do all the fighting!" Mel returned, feeling relieved that she’d opted for a casual ensemble tonight.

"Wouldn’t expect you to, sweetheart. Some Southern gentlewoman you turned out to be." Janice chuckled.

The jeep slowed. "Here’s the road to the lake." Kaitlyn turned left onto an unpaved stretch of dirt and watched the headlights in the rearview mirror, following them. "There’s a cricket bat in the back if you feel the need to swing something."

"A cricket bat?" Twin voices were incredulous and amused all at once.

"Smack ‘em now, I’ll explain later." Kaitlyn shifted her battered vehicle into park and cut the engine. She pointed toward a small cluster of boulders outlined in the moonlight. "Right over there, if we need to take cover."

The three women clambered out of the jeep and stood side by side, watching the car behind them pull into the clearing.

"Well, well, well," muttered Janice. "1938 Packard Rollston town car . . . aren’t we just the high rollers? Anything we can do for you, boys?" she yelled to the four sillhouettes that emerged from the vehicle.

"Four on three? Call this odds?" Kaitlyn recognized one particularly massive figure among the advancing bunch, flanking a smaller, slighter figure, and quickly added, "Although, with our dear friend Tubby over there . . . and Mr. One-Track-Mind . . ."

"Anything you can do?" Dobson’s cultured tone was so sinister it was disgusting. "You can do as we’ve told you several times, and simply give up your work on the Scrolls. Permanently, that is. Or better yet, you can hand them over to us." He was face to face with Janice now, staring down a furious pair of sea-green eyes.

"And why would I hand over the biggest archaeological find of the past hundred years to an idiot who’s afraid of what they say?" she growled.

Suddenly the polished demeanor was gone, and Dobson was screaming, "Because we don’t need your kind in the world, Doctor Covington! Because this world doesn’t need a band of godless, corrupt degenerates making sure they’re accepted into society! I know about the relationship between these precious ancestors of yours, believe you me—how dare you insinuate that those despicable heathen women had anything to do with the great men of the Bible? That they had any bearing on the civilized culture that we have today?"

Kaitlyn growled, Janice took a deep breath . . . but it was Mel who snapped first.

"How dare you, Mister Dobson!" she raged, pushed to her breaking point. "Call yourself civilized and enlightened, while you try to shape the world to your own agenda? Try to deny people the basic right to knowledge, and assume that your way is the only right one?" She was taller than he was, and when she stormed up to him and glared dangerously down into his face, there was a certain twinge of satisfaction that came from watching him fall back a step. "If there’s one thing I abhor, it’s censorship and those who promote it, and you have just proven yourself to be one of the most small-minded, bigoted creatures I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting, you and your efforts to stop our work!"

Dobson’s face twisted in anger. "Don’t think I’ll back down, you wanton—" Mel’s fist crashed into his jaw before he could finish.

The blow shocked them all, the translator herself no less than anyone. I can’t believe I just did that . . . but oh, did it ever feel good!

"Whoa. Go, Mel!" Kaitlyn mumbled, just as everything broke loose. Yelping, she ducked the meaty fist that came whistling toward her head. She jabbed out hard with her elbow and heard the rush of air as it was expelled from the lungs inside the chest she’d just hit.

The graduate student scrambled clear and whirled to face her attacker. Even in the darkness, he was familiar all right . . . she’d seen that leering face before, in a side street outside a South Carolina tobacco shop. Right before she’d planted her boot in it, that is.

Height advantage definitely didn’t favor her at the moment, but luckily, Kaitlyn Velasquez was not above throwing a few low blows if she had to.

Now was one of those times.

Her heel slammed into the man’s stomach, followed by three or four quick punches and finally a knee to the groin that left him curled up on the ground, whimpering in a voice that shouldn’t have belonged to someone of his size.

Rule number one: Never mess with an angry Southern woman, especially if she happens to be descended from a certain Warrior Princess.

Dobson, apparently, had less common sense than that, because he wiped the blood from his mouth and went after Mel again. But he hadn’t had any fighting experience, really. He was used to having other people do his dirty work for him.

Mel, on the other hand, had spent the past three years traveling around with Janice, from Macedonia, through war-torn countries, and finally back to the States. While she preferred to leave the fighting to her more aggressive partner, she did what she had to.

"I see your eye still hasn’t fully recovered from our first meeting," she told him sweetly, and decked him again. This time, he went down for the count. Mel flexed the fingers of her right hand, which still stung from the impact. "Oooh. I’m still not used to that."

Rule number two: When your supposed victim is a self-avowed clothes horse with a volatile temper, tripping her into the dirt is a very bad idea, especially if she happens to be wearing a very big pair of boots.

Kaitlyn heard Janice yelling for help, and spun to search her friend out. Dobson’s big flunky Ming and a lean redheaded man in a dark suit were circling her; their growls and grimaces were meant to be intimidating, but the rough-and-tumble archaeologist had met the god of war face to face. These two were just annoying in comparison. Not that it made her feel reassured . . . Ming was easily twice her size. The redhead looked pretty agile and conniving, too, judging from the catlike way he was prowling around her.

The graduate student started toward Janice. "On the way . . . oof!" A hand snaked out and grabbed her by the ankle, dropping her flat onto her face. "Ouch." She quickly rolled out of the way as a booted foot came hurtling down toward her head. "Oh," she growled, taking hold of the boot and yanking it and its owner to the ground, "you’re gonna pay . . . all my laundry bills! You know how hard it is to get mud out of these pants?"

A split second later, she made good on that promise, crawling over the thug’s body and slugging him twice in the jaw for good measure. He was more resilient than she’d anticipated, though, and caught Kaitlyn in a headlock, turning the tussle into an all out wrestling match. She’d have a real score to settle with him over the laundry bills when it was over. And it had better be over soon—she was leaving Janice hanging.

Rule number three: If the archaeologist has a history of being a magnet for trouble, she probably has more tricks up her sleeve than you do.

And Janice Covington certainly did have such a history. A very long and colorful one.

"Hey . . . hey Tubby!" Janice glanced around Ming’s bulky frame and saw Mel creeping up behind the redheaded guy. "Yeah, you . . . come on and get me!" The bullwhip came off her belt and struck a taunting crack across his knuckles; its wielder then turned and ran for the trees, hanging onto her fedora as she hurdled a rock or two.

Ming lumbered after her, but Janice had had a good head start, and he lost her in the dark woods. Annoyed, he glared into the woods around him as though he hoped they might give away her hiding place.

Green eyes twinkled devilishly at him from above. "Thanks for teaching me how to climb trees, Dad," Janice whispered amusedly, from where she crouched on a heavy limb. She shifted her weight forward, felt the uneven, rough surface of the tree limb beneath her boot soles, and let herself drop suddenly, landing on the big man’s shoulders and pummeling at his head with both fists. "Ha-ha!" she whooped, hanging on tight despite all his efforts to dislodge her.

She heard his nose crunch after a particularly well placed blow—a lucky one, really—and jumped to the ground behind him. A swift kick to the back of his knee made him stumble, which gave Janice enough time to wrap her whiplash around the branch overhead, pull up, and swing into his back with both feet extended. He slammed into a tree head-on and crumpled with a grunt.

"Yeah . . . that’ll linger," muttered Janice as she threaded through the trees again, back in search of her lover.

The redhead was quick all right, and Mel was hard pressed to remember everything Janice had taught her about reading her opponent. She hadn’t had as much practice as Janice had, though, and he was wearing her down. She’d dodged a dozen or so punches that came so close they made her sweat, but this time around, he didn’t miss, and swept her feet out from under her.

Mel felt the air rush out of her lungs when she hit the ground hard, a split second before pain raced through her body. Her head hurt and her vision was blurry, but the redhead’s low chuckle and the glint of metal in his hand were unmistakable enough.

"Mel!" Kaitlyn heard Janice’s terrified shout ringing across the clearing, and looked up to see the archaeologist tearing toward the man who now stood over her fallen lover with a knife in hand.

She’s not going to make it in time! The realization made her sick and forced tears to her eyes.

The Colt .45 was in her hand before she had time to think about it, before she’d even finished hauling herself back to her feet. He was in her sights now. Kaitlyn knew she had to stop him. Her mind screamed in protest, but she forced herself not to listen. No choice! Either I do this, or we lose Mel, and Janice will never be able to take it, and I’ll never forgive myself . . .

She raised the handgun before her face, training the barrel on him with practiced speed. Her aim was good, she knew; she’d been the best shot in her training unit. A quick glance, a slight twitch of the wrist, and she was lined up. Her stomach clenched in revulsion as her finger tightened on the trigger, and she shut her eyes as the shot rang out.

She didn’t open them again until the last echoes had died away.

She’d seen Kaitlyn draw the Colt automatic and aim it, but before she’d even had time to process the image, the gunshot brought Janice to a skidding halt. Oh, kid . . . she lamented.

But a howl of pain followed just afterward, as the redhead dropped the knife and clutched at his bleeding hand.

Damn. Nice shot, kid! Janice launched into action again, hurtling herself across the space between her and Mel’s attacker. She closed on him, spun savagely, and whipped her boot up to catch him under the chin and dump him unceremoniously into the dirt.

Her eyes were concerned as she reached out to help Mel to her feet. "You all right, sweetie?"

Mel adjusted her glasses—how they’d stayed on her face was anyone’s guess—and nodded. "A little dizzy and sore, but I’m fine."

"You got that right . . . and I’m damn glad you are!" Janice pressed the taller woman against her in a crushing hug, tightening her grip even more when she felt her lover’s body trembling with shock. "It’s okay, sweetie, I’m here, you’re safe now . . . "

They stood that way a moment, clinging to one another in the wake of the terrifyingly close call they’d had, treasuring the sensation of being in one another’s arms. It was a stark contrast to just twenty-four hours ago, and such a welcome sight that Kaitlyn hated to break it up.

Unfortunately, the supernatural sense of danger that seemed to have awakened in her was flaring up again, complete with more overwhelming nausea than ever.

So she holstered her gun, loped across the distance between herself and her friends, and rasped, "I think we better get home, ladies . . . I’ve got an extremely bad feeling about all this. Literally."

"The first time they came after the Scrolls," Mel remembered, alarmed. "They were going to . . ."

"Shit!" Janice seized Mel’s hand and yanked her back toward the jeep, following Kaitlyn, who had already bolted toward the driver’s seat. They clambered in breathlessly, grabbing onto the dashboard to brace themselves as the young linguist gunned the engine and peeled back out onto the road home, not even bothering to spare a second thought for the three unconscious men they’d left behind them.

They could worry about personal safety later . . . after they made sure the Scrolls were safe.

It was nearly dawn by the time they reached the house. When they got there, the front door was open. The lock was broken.

"Oh, no . . ." Mel was the first one inside. Kaitlyn and Janice were close behind her, guns drawn and every sense on the alert.

It was a mess—the furniture thrown everywhere, books and papers all over the floor, the framed paintings torn from the walls.

"This doesn’t look like a warning." Janice’s voice was tight. "Too haphazard. Oh, they were here, all right, and they were after the Scrolls . . ." She stormed into the library, scanning the room for the locked desk where the precious documents had been secreted.

There it was—she approached the ruined mass in numbed disbelief, oblivious to the splinters and chunks of mahogany that crunched underfoot. The desk was smashed open, practically split in two—completely ransacked.

"Dammit!" her voice exploded into the hallway. "God fucking dammit!"

Mel rushed into the library. Her blue eyes widened as they took in the sight, and her stomach wrenched into something unrecognizable. "No."

"Tell me what I don’t want to hear." Kaitlyn, her tones rigidly calm, followed behind Mel, shoving her handgun back into its shoulder holster. The young linguist’s face grew grimmer with each slow step into the library.

"Looks like you’re out a perfectly good desk, kid." It was all Janice could bring herself to say, and more than any of them wanted to know.

"Well." Kaitlyn ran her fingers through her hair. "Lucky for us I took the liberty of doing a little research on our dictatorial friend, now, isn’t it?"

Janice stared at her. "No wonder you’re so calm."

"Only barely," Kaitlyn replied. "He’s got an estate of some sort over in Schenectady, I know that much. A compound, more like, from what my friend Ondre tells me."

"Ondre?"

"Former colleague of mine from Harvard. He was researching on the history of Celtic Christianity . . . working with the theory that a lot of it was adapted from the indigenous Celtic beliefs. Things started happening—he was getting threats, running into the most unexpected opposition from the people funding his research . . . and when he kept going, he got railroaded out of the University."

"Dobson," Mel murmured.

"Yep."

"He’s certainly being much more aggressive now."

Janice shoved her hands in her pockets and paced around the ruined room. "Maybe he thinks he can’t take chances with us. We’ve got too much support at the University in Columbia, no matter what Mitchell says. Damn stupid, though, to go the witch-hunt route." She looked up at Kaitlyn. "You think the Scrolls are at that estate of his?"

"I’ll take a bet on it," answered the linguist. "Seems Dobson likes to know all he can about the information he . . . ah . . . confiscates, before he destroys it. Gives him grounds for justification, supposedly." She tapped her fingers against her lips, thinking. "I doubt he’s had time yet to secure a translator. That should buy us time to get them back."

"Well then!" Mel declared. "What are we standing around talking for? We have to get those Scrolls back." She crossed her arms and delivered a positively superior look to Kaitlyn and Janice over the rims of her glasses.

Janice stopped pacing and straightened her jacket. "You’re right, sweetie. Enough of this. What do you say we take a little trip to New York?"

Kaitlyn was driving as fast as she dared; angry as she was, she didn’t think she could trust herself at any greater speed. They’d left just after breakfast, since there wasn’t enough gas in the jeep to get them across the state line, much less the full seventy-odd miles, and finding a gas station open at night was no small feat in the Berkshires, so they’d had to wait. It had given them time to change into clothing more suited to this espionage sort of mission—that is, all black—but the waiting had frayed all their nerves. No sooner was the fuel cap on the gas tank than they headed off toward Schenectady, hoping all the while that they’d find the Scrolls intact when they got there.

Janice felt in her pockets for the fiftieth time, fingering the extra ammunition she’d so hastily stowed there. "God. This guy must really have stuff to hide if he’s working out of here. We’re in the middle of nowhere!"

"No doubt." Kaitlyn shrugged, swore at a rock in the road, and kept driving. Night was falling, and they were somewhere outside of Schenectady by now, following the directions Ondre had given her.

The poor guy. He’d been kidnapped and brought there, where some of the men in Dobson’s pay had tried to force him into writing papers countering his own research. But Ondre was a good guy, with a lot of integrity . . . he’d never walk again, now.

That was what made the linguist madder than anything—that anyone would have the gall to physically and financially cripple someone else for the sake of furthering an agenda, especially one as dubious as Dobson’s seemed to be. At least they hadn’t been able to touch Ondre’s mind, though; he was as sharp as ever, and he’d remembered the way to the compound. And he’d been only too glad to supply Kaitlyn with that information.

She owed him one now. This had gone beyond just the Xena Scrolls—Kaitlyn would be damned if she’d let anyone try to control academia the way Dobson wanted to.

"Dear lord," Mel whispered, breaking into Kaitlyn’s thoughts. "Is that the place?"

Ahead of them loomed a large stone complex, looking very much like a Gothic cathedral. Spiked iron gates surrounded it, outlined and glimmering weirdly in the moonlight.

"Talk about ostentatious." Janice whistled. "It’s gonna be a bitch to get in there. Fortunately, I have—"

"Look, I don’t want to hear about your many skills again, okay?" Kaitlyn interrupted as she parked the jeep behind a gnarled set of hedges. "Just leave the lockpicking to me."

"You can do that?" Mel’s eyebrow shot up.

"Don’t let her monopolize the skill department." Kaitlyn tugged the black wool fedora down over her head.

As quietly as possible, they slipped out of the jeep, skirting the compound until they came to a small gate probably meant for the grounds staff. Kaitlyn squinted at the latch for a few moments, studying it carefully in the scant silvered illumination.

"Looks easy enough," she whispered. A tiny black-bladed knife came out of her left boot, much to Mel and Janice’s surprise. The linguist poked the knife into the lock, twisting, manipulating, providing a colorful stream of muttered curses to accompany the soft clicks and scrapes. "Nice lock."

It took a bit more work, and taxed Kaitlyn’s not-inconsiderable supply of multilingual expletives, but the latch finally popped open. "That’s more like it . . . I knew you’d see it my way," she commended the recalcitrant lock.

Janice took hold of the gate’s bars and bunched her muscles in an experimental push. "Damn . . . it’s heavy. Help me push, Mel?"

"Wait." Kaitlyn pulled a small oilcan from her coat pocket—typical of her, thought Mel, to have a trenchcoat to match her outfit, and to have thought of this—and set to work lubricating the gate hinges. She strained for the top one, but owing to her lack of height, came a good foot or two short. "Give me a boost here."

"Good God." Janice laced her fingers together to give Kaitlyn something to stand on, grunting at the weight as the linguist shoved off the makeshift foothold and scrambled up the bars of the gate. "Okay, up you go, kid."

"Much appreciated, Covington. Can’t take chances." Kaitlyn let herself drop to the ground again and nodded to her friend.

Working carefully, the three women eased the gate open and slipped through to find themselves faced with a wide stretch of open ground that lay between them and the mansion proper.

"Oh boy." Janice looked at the expanse doubtfully. "Should we just make a run for it?"

Mel strained her eyes into the darkness, searching for a bush, or a shed, or some cover of any sort. "I don’t think we have a choice," she admitted.

"Great." The rough whisper betrayed the archaeologist’s agitation. "Well, what the hell." She held a hand out and gave each of her companions a glance. Steady, affirmative gazes met her own, and she dropped her hand abruptly.

On the signal, all three sprinted toward the mansion, covering ground with a desperation and speed that drove them up against the rough stone wall almost before they realized it. They pressed themselves against its cold surface, panting.

"So far, so good," whispered Janice. "Now . . . there a back door to this place that we can sneak in through?"

Mel was already inching along the wall, searching for an entrance. Her eyes were just adjusting to the darkness, and she could barely make out an outline a little bit further down to the left. "Janice, Kaitlyn . . . over here."

It looked like some kind of maintenance door, plain but sturdy wood braced with riveted metal bands, with no sign of a latch or hinges. Janice ran her fingers along the seam between the door and the doorframe.

"Sliding door, looks like, but I think it only opens from the inside. No go." She sighed. "Come on."

They kept moving, peering around a corner before heading further. "Wait a second," murmured Janice. "What’s this?" She pointed upward to what looked like a fire escape landing on the second floor. A ladder was folded, accordion-style, in ready position beneath a darkened window. "Huh. Modern household improvements, fused to this hunk of old stone. Dobson’s no slouch, that’s for sure." The archaeologist crossed her arms over her chest and chuckled.

"I think we may have found our way in," Mel breathed. "If we can get that ladder down."

Janice’s hand was halfway to the handle of her bullwhip, but Kaitlyn’s voice was coming from somewhere overhead, and she looked up in surprise.

"Consider it done." The linguist was already scaling the corner of the wall, clinging precariously to the barely protruding edges of rough-cut stone. One good thing about playing guitar . . . strong fingers. Her calves were burning with the strain, and her arms were shaking, but she forced her way upward. Oops! One hand slipped, and Kaitlyn barely managed to claw another handhold in time.

"My god, you insane little daredevil, what the hell are you doing?" Janice hissed. "Oh, I’m gonna kill her . . ."

"I’m getting us in, that’s what I’m doing," muttered the daredevil, who was feeling, at the moment, quite insane indeed. She came level with the fire escape and inched over as far as she dared, forcefully suppressing her awareness of just how much air was between her and the ground. Stretching her arm out, she strained for the iron grating of the fire escape. Just barely out of reach . . .

Wonderful. Kaitlyn gulped. I’m going to have to jump for it.

She climbed up further, about four feet higher than the fire escape. Shifting about a bit, she placed her feet as securely as she could; tensing, she focused all her concentration on the fire escape landing. Cool night air filled Kaitlyn’s lungs as she took one deep breath, held it, and launched herself sideways, off the wall and down toward the fire escape.

The shock of gravity, warring with momentum, ripped through her every nerve and nearly terrified her into paralysis. Can’t freeze up, she told herself fiercely. Can’t freeze up! She was getting a little too much of that cool night air for her liking . . .

Then the welcome kiss of cold iron brushed the palms of Kaitlyn’s hands, and her fingers wrapped themselves fiercely around the railing. She dangled for a moment, kicking against empty space, and pulled herself up with one final, exhausted hand-over-hand effort. The oilcan was out of her coat pocket and dispensing its contents onto the ladder’s hinges in the space of her next gasping breath.

"Heads up," she whispered, extending the nearly noiseless ladder down through the hatch. Mel and Janice were scrambling up as soon as it was in reach, and reached the landing in no time.

"Nice work, kid . . . but I’m gonna kill you if you scare us like that again!" Janice swatted Kaitlyn’s shoulder. "Now, give me a hand with this thing, will you?"

"You got it." The linguist crouched down to examine the window. It was a simple casement, with a single large pane of glass held in a wooden frame. "We could force it . . . be noisy though."

"Yeah." Janice ran her fingers along the seam where wood met glass. "Got a better idea . . . give me that knife of yours, will you?"

"Good idea." The linguist handed over the boot knife and produced another blade, this one much longer, from a sheath on her belt. Together, they pried off the wood panels and freed the glass, which Mel carefully removed and set aside.

"Thanks, kid." Janice gave the knife—which promptly disappeared into a certain army boot—back to Kaitlyn and reached for her holster. "Ready?"

"No gunfire." Kaitlyn put her hand over Janice’s gun. "One shot and they’ll all know we’re here." The archaeologist grumbled, but dropped her arm.

One by one, they slipped through the window, Janice in the lead, Kaitlyn bringing up the rear with her combat knife in hand. The hallway was dark except for the moonlight shining through the ruined window, but by now they’d become accustomed to the scant light. Creeping along with a barely restrained urgency, they rounded a corner only to find themselves faced with another interminable stretch of hallway.

"This place is huge," Mel whispered. "The Scrolls could be anywhere in here!"

Kaitlyn nudged Janice with her elbow. "Finding scrolls in ancient structures . . . that’s your department, Covington."

Janice shot a dirty look at her friend, but thought quickly. "Nowhere too secretive, I don’t think . . . this place is so secluded to begin with, I don’t think Dobson believes we’d know where it was."

"In the library, maybe?" guessed Mel.

"Most likely, if they’re trying to translate them. Okay . . . so we find the library." Janice swore softly. She’d grown up in tents on dig sites, and cheap housing between those digs. Living in Mel’s family estate was still something she hadn’t gotten used to; she wouldn’t know what to do with a place this size. "Wherever the hell the library’d be."

"Second or third floor." Mel gave a decisive nod. "A place like this would have servants’ quarters and the kitchen on the first floor, a small study or two . . . more elegant society rooms like the library and the parlor would be higher up."

"Then we’re starting off from a good spot." Kaitlyn tucked the knife under her left arm and took the lead, sneaking down the hallway. "Everyone, on your toes now."

The sharp click of a chambered round echoed off the walls and froze all three in place.

"You should learn to take your own advice, Velasquez. Looks like you started off from a very bad spot."

Kaitlyn looked up, straight into the barrel of a 12-gauge. Sneering at her from the other end of the shotgun was another one of Dobson’s thugs, one of the guys who’d come after her back in Columbia. There was a pale, newly-formed livid scar running across his cheek, left over from when her fist had left it there, splitting his cheek open.

Oh shit. She didn’t dare turn around, but she was sure that Mel and Janice were frozen in place behind her. Mel was probably standing rigidly, blue eyes darting nervously between the gunman and Janice, who in turn was probably fixing the gunman with a hard-eyed stare, fists clenched at her sides, poised to lunge. Kaitlyn let her shoulders relax and forced a nonchalant shrug. "Well, I’ve been known to be wrong before. Happens to all of us."

A snort. "Just drop the knife, Velasquez."

She gave him a poisonous glare, and flung the blade away to clatter away down the stone floor.

"Better." Scarface gestured at Mel and Janice with the barrel of the shotgun. "Now, all three of you are coming with me. The boss will be very happy to see that you decided to drop in."

Continuned - Part 5

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