A somber atmosphere, like low, dark clouds laden with the threat of rain, hung over Ilium in the days leading up to the full moon of Pyenepsion. Rumors of the massive Argive buildup had filtered through cracks in walls that were impervious to the mightiest barrage of rocks and projectiles. The sandy plain of the Scamander and the marshy banks of the Xanthus at the point where these convergent streams flowed into the great western sea were mere days away from becoming a now-or-never land, and all the souls that were crowded into the fortress city or stood bunched together on the busy beaches seemed to be aware that the instant of truth was rapidly approaching.

Penthesileia's Amazons, led by the formidable Thermodosa, "glorying with the spear", were concluding their training of Ilium's sword- and lance-wielding infantry. These would be the shock troops who’d compose the phalanx that would advance across Scamander’s plain in front of the archers' hail of arrows that would be aimed to rain down upon the ranks of the Argive hoplites.

Troilus and Helenus, King Priam's fourth and fifth sons, would head up the cavalry on the left and right flanks, a cavalry now rendered inferior to the Argive cavalry due to the theft of King Rhesus' horses.

Paris, King Priam's second son and putative heir, would oversee the placement of the artillery, the massive and deadly war machines positioned to strike their lethal blows although, unfortunately, to a lesser extent than the Argive capability to give back the same.

Deiphobus, King Priam's middle son, bruited about the palace, the quartermaster of Ilium's provisioning and the man in charge of internal security, a task to which Gabrielle contributed her skilled assistance.

Aeneas coordinated the operation in its entirety. In consultation with Xena, Gabrielle, Penthesileia and Cassandra, he made the crucial decisions which would impact the fate of thousands.

Meanwhile, from the pedestal under the fly of his commander's tent, on a bluff overlooking the mild surf of Ilium's broad, gleaming shores, the scene of the wanton bloodshed which had resulted in Velasca's pointless death and in the subsequent deaths, in retribution, of two platoons of Argive soldiers, Diomedes sadly shook his head and let go a long, languorous sigh. If the Houses of Atreus and Priam could only have forged an alliance, if Cassandra might only have been given in marriage to Agammemnon's son, Orestes, if Iphigenia's hand might only have been pledged to Hector or to Paris as a symbol of the union of these two great houses, each the other's equal in pride and stature, perhaps this bloody and world-wasting conflict might have been avoided. Though far smaller in size and possessing not the fourth part of Hellas’ material resources and productive capacity, the Trojans, when necessary, could fight like Spartans. Yet, unlike the Spartans, the Trojans knew how to live as well as to conquer so that the greater part of what life had to offer, including many of its refined and subtle pleasures, wasn't lost on them.

But Paris had accepted Aphrodite's bribe, had bestowed upon her the Golden Apple of Eris and, for his own reward, had received divine assistance in accomplishing the theft of Helen shortly afterwards. Agammemnon had butchered Iphigenia, draining her lifeblood on the stone of some sybaritic goddess' altar to pacify the ill winds in the harbor at Aulis whose recalcitrance had prevented the Argive fleet from setting sail and launching its retaliatory attack on Ilium. Orestes had been banished from the halls of Atreus by Clytemnestra, Agammemnon's wife, who, with her lover Aegisthus, was now plotting to avenge the sacrifice of Iphigenia by murdering her husband upon his triumphant return to Attic shores. Hector had married Adromache for the worst of reasons in the internecine world of diplomacy and intrigue -- love. Deiphobus, on the surface, was possibly the least attractive man ever to have sprung from the loins of Ilium. Troilus was hopelessly infatuated with Cressida whose uncle, Chalchas, was a double agent. And Helenus was a mere pup.

To make matters worse, the Olympians had chosen to meddle in the conflict. Poseidon, Athena and Artemis favored the Argives, though Artemis was ambivalent in her support, given her affection for the Amazons, the greater part of whom weren't Argive. Ares, Apollo and Aphrodite favored the Trojans. Zeus was neutral, wimping out as usual. And Hades, favoring neither side, was delighted at the prospect of continued full employment in the factories of Tartarus and at the grain elevators of the Elysian Fields.

How useless this squandering of life and resources, Diomedes shook his head and bit back a bitter laugh. To whom could he confess that at the culmination of his career as a loyal soldier and respected general, all he could feel was empty and barren with the waste and futility of pride, greed and ego armed for battle in a world where Might, by default, made Right? Not to Agammemnon who couldn't understand or to Menelaus who wouldn't understand or to Odysseus who, having exchanged the best in his soul for the worst, understood all too well or to Nestor who might have only the vaguest inkling or to Ajax who, between the ear flaps of his helmet, was a lost cause or to Achilles who had the intellectual propensity but not the moral proclivity to understand. Only to Xena, of all people, who was now ranged against him as his enemy. And perhaps... he hadn't thought about her in many moonmarks and, in the past, when he had thought about her, he hadn't taken her very seriously, although Diomedes now began to wonder if maybe he'd been a bit precipitate in his judgment... his liege lady, Queen Admete, who may have been -- after the war would be over, he'd make a point of going to see her -- a woman of slightly more substance and discrimination than he might previously have given her credit for.

Meanwhile, alone in her quarters for many candlemarks of the day, not sleeping much at night but spending a great deal of time in meditation and prayer, Penthesileia had been composing her last will and testament. It was a call to Amazons to meet in a grand council for the purpose of reviewing their history and charting their future course; of asking themselves basic questions about the nature of Amazon community and vocation, identity and commitment, structure and institution. Had the time of autocratic queens and pyramidal hierarchies passed? Was it time to raise empowerment to the next level and to vest authority in the integrity and conscience of the individual Amazon, taking into account the accumulated wisdom of the collective, the tension between the individual and the group being forever modulated and adjusted by giving hands and receptive hearts?

The Amazons had been blessed with wonderful queens: Harmonia, Otrere, Lysippe, Antiope, Melanippe, Hippolyte, Cyane, Tarandel, Melosa (Penthesileia modestly declined to inscribe her own name on that august list). A new generation of leaders had arisen, no doubt as wonderful and gifted as those of the past: Ephiny, Oteri, others she could name, Velasca were she still with them. And then there was Xena and Gabrielle, Amazons in spirit whatever their formal affiliations. In any event, the blood of Lysippe had run its course to completion. Penthesileia was the last of the line. This was truly a time of fresh beginnings, and such times come rarely in the life of a people, a nation, a community, a family. Carpe diem, sisters, make the most of it.

Then there were personal letters of farewell. To Ephiny with love, thanks and admiration. To Oteri with a grateful heart and Penthesileia's blessing as Oteri assumed leadership of the Amazons in the Anatolian hill country, far from the halls of Themiscyra. To Yakut with warmth and encouragement as Yakut continued, at great personal risk, to walk between the worlds for the sake of her Amazon sisters. To Gabrielle and Xena, a simple note saying thank you... for everything. And to Lila... that would be the hardest to write, the last attempt to put quill to parchment even as, in her nightly prayer chain, clicking a silent, incorporeal rosary of Gaiamitros, Basilissa Lamprotita, Penthesileia whispered, "Mel, forgive me for taking your life when I would gladly have served you to the end of my days, and Polly -- sister mine, hearts entwine -- be there to meet me on the other side of Claw Mountain; I want to tell you about Lila, mo roisin dubh, whom I loved and yet did not betray you..."

Penthesileia, who also drilled with weapons and worked out with weights for many candlemarks each day, being, after all, by training and vocation, an Amazon, dashed off a note to Xena which Deiphobus was kind enough to have Sargon deliver:

"I know you're extremely busy and I'm hesitant to impose, but if your schedule permits, I'd greatly appreciate a brief visit. If I know when to expect you, I'll be sure to make myself available."

Xena responded promptly. She and Penthesileia met late in the evening after Xena had reviewed the day's ballistics progress with Joxer and had checked in with Gabrielle who was in charge of the initial phase of their secret evacuation plan.

"Tell me about Lao Ma," Penthesileia said when she and Xena were seated on the divan in the Queen’s apartment. Penthesileia had offered to prepare mugs herb tea, but Xena had declined.

"Not my cup of tea; tea," Xena had shaken her head.

"I wish I could offer you a mug of stag blood," Penthesileia had smiled her charming smile full of twinkling humor and moist compassion, "but Deiphobus tells me there's none to be had anywhere in Ilium. One of the drawbacks of life in the city."

"I'll stick to warm beer," Xena had said matter of factly, having taken a seat without being asked.

At which point Penthesileia had gone to sit down beside her.

"Is it true that you're planning to cut down a hundred Argive hoplites to avenge Velasca's death?" Penthesileia stared into and drew strength from Xena's ice blue eyes.

"I was," Xena replied. "Now I’m not sure. I met with Diomedes. He gave me some things to think about."

"I never dreamed that Velasca would predecease me," Penthesileia said. "I'm trying to see some good in it but I can't. I believe that she and Ephiny were on the verge of a breakthrough to the level of a deep and abiding friendship."

"So do I," Xena said.

"Tell me about Lao Ma," Penthesileia said, after a pause.

"What do you want to know?" Xena answered.

"Tell me how she died. I know the details, but what I want to know is how she met her death, how she endured, how she... made the transition."

"I wasn't there. I didn't see."

"But you must have some idea."

Xena sat back and looked around Penthesileia's private chamber. Like Penthesileia's dress and personal care, the furnishings were simple with barely a trace of adornment. Yet they held a beauty at once elegant and austere. The simplicity of refinement was everywhere apparent – the lone gardenia in its fluted bud vase over which, on the wall, hung Penthesileia's sword with a single diamond on its pommel. Xena felt awkward and outclassed in her brass and leather which she wore more frequently these days as her duties now called for her to travel armed about the city and its environs.

"I failed her in the end," Xena said. "Lao Ma went to her death knowing that I'd let myself get sucked back into my old destructive ways. She'd risked her life for me with Ming Tsu -- several times -- and had invested a great deal of time and devotion in my physical healing and emotional rehabilitation. And how did I repay her care and kindness? I went riding off with Borias straight back to my cynicism and negativity. All my thoughts about Lao Ma have to be placed in that context. She gave me her hand and I lost my grip on it."

"Temporarily," Penthesileia said.

"Yes," Xena said, "I owe what good there may be in me to Lao Ma more than to anyone else except, possibly, to Gabrielle. I don't know but that Lao Ma may have had some hidden sense that it would one day turn out that way. Could she have known, at the moment of crossing over, that I would devote the rest of my life to trying to be like her, to trying to re-capture something that had kindled between us? All she had, when she went to the block, was the seed of her faith, not the fruit of it. The fruit was long gone on the back of Borias' horse. And later on, after Solon came along, when I stood aside, ready and willing to let the Centaurs be slaughtered, it was Borias who did the noble thing and stepped up and fought -- and died -- by their side. I watched impassively while Borias paid for his good deed with his life, the father of the child whom I was holding in my arms. That's how I repaid Lao Ma's faith in me, with desertion and betrayal."

"Yet her faith in you changed you forever," Penthesileia said. "It turned you away from the darkness that was devouring you. And it's clear that her light lives on in you."

"Whatever I may have... or might be... that's of any value," Xena said, "comes from her. And from Gabrielle. And my mother. And Herc. But Lao Ma was the pivot. She was the turning point. She died horribly. Ming T'ien tortured her to death. I made it simple for him in comparison. One thrust of the hair clip through the temple and all was forever darkness. If Gabrielle hadn't been there to ride herd on my conscience, I don't know that I would have been nearly so... efficient in disposing of him."

"Was Lao Ma's pain... unbearable, do you think?" Penthesileia said.

"That's hard to say," Xena said. "Lao Ma could do things with her mind, things that the rest of us can't begin to fathom. I don't know. Ming T'ien said her death was excruciating, but he would have said that anyway. I'm sure she'd stopped willing at that point, stopped fighting, stopped hating. She'd once been Ming Tsu's slave. Then Ming Tsu sold her to Lao Tse when Lao Tse was in the market for a concubine. Her only standing was as Lao Tse's consort. Though she ruled a kingdom, she wasn't a queen as you are. As far as that goes, she was simply a... place holder."

"Would that I might have met her," Penthesileia said. "Would that I might have served her."

"I doubt you'll suffer," Xena looked into Penthesileia's mutably iridescent eyes. "One blow from Achilles' sword or spear could nearly bring down a mountain. Achilles is vain, puffed up, spoiled, conceited and egotistical, but he's not a sadist. And he's not a coward. He'll kill you clean. He won't let it drag it out."

"He did terrible things to Hector's body. He strung strips of rawhide through the puncture holes he made in Hector’s ankles, and then he dragged the body ten times around the city walls," Penthesileia said. "After that, he humiliated King Priam who practically had to get down on his knees to get Achilles to give Hector’s body back, all that was left of his beloved son and the heir to his throne."

"Achilles should die for what he did, and he will," Xena said. "No one will rejoice at your death. Thousands will rejoice at his. You can take that to the grave. When Caesar’s toadies had hung us on the cross and I was nailed up beside Gabrielle, at the very end, I found that, in spite of everything, I was able to let go. I didn't think I could, but I did. There was rage. There was hate. There was fear. There was shame. There was incredible guilt. And, last of all, there was will. And I let it all go. Me, who, all through the dark and lonely time, could let nothing go. But I did let go. That's what you'll need to do at the zero point. Let it all go. You can. I know you can. Lao Ma did. That much I know. You asked how Lao Ma died. Lao Ma died as she lived. In radiance and beauty. So will you. If you have faith. Love will give you that faith as it gave it to Lao Ma. Love is stronger than Achilles' spear."

"Thank you, Xena," Penthesileia said. "It's kind of you to share that with me."

"Forget it," Xena smirked. "You're an Amazon. You'll do fine."

Xena left Penthesileia's chamber and headed down the hall to look for Gabrielle. "Me? Talk about faith? Love? Letting go?" Xena shook her head and frowned. "What's gotten into me? That's not what I do with my day. That's not what I spend my time thinking about. Hey, where's the old Xena? What dark dungeon did some conniving warlord dump her in? C’mon, let her out. She's my buddy. She's my pal. She's my ace in the hole. Without her, I'd be sitting in a box, alone and shivering in the lost and found, except for..."

"There you are!" Gabrielle exclaimed when Xena got down to the stable to check on Argo who, going a week now, had been lolling around the paddock, bored out of her bridle. There's nothing to do in this town except eat, sleep and poop, Argo had long since concluded. By now Argo was chomping at the bit and raring to go. Gabrielle was brushing her coat and checking her shoes for chips and splinters, and that was nice, Argo appreciated the attention, but the place was dullsville all the same. How about some action, Argo whinnied at Xena when Xena popped her head into the stall. You know: busting warlords' butts, routing Caesar’s' legions, conquering foreign nations or, most challenging of all, rescuing Joxer from being brained by Meg’s hurled pots, pans and silverware at the tavern.

"We've got a zillion things we need to touch base on," Gabrielle tossed the Xena the brush and went to fill Argo's feed bag with hay and oats.

"Do we have to do it now?" Xena took the brush and began to stroke Argo's mane.

"Yup," Gabrielle lifted the door of the grain shunt and let the oats pour into the bag. "And then we've got some decisions to make."

"Dee-cizhons, dee-cizhons, I hate to make dee-cizhons," Xena crooned, plying the brush, "sometimes I'd rather take a bag of nuts and feed the pigeons..."

"Tough," Gabrielle came back with a full bag and looped its strap over Argo's neck, then straightened the loops to make the strap run flat behind Argo's ears. "First off, we need to map out all the available escape routes. Next, we've got to come up with a way of assigning which sectors of the city go to each one. Then we need to have a way of coordinating the massive outflow without triggering pandemonium so that masses of people won’t get trampled in the rush. Then we need to figuring out which way to run, the best way to get people under cover and finally, what to do if and when we get to wherever we think the best chance for sheltering everyone will be."

"You mean you haven't got all that figured out yet?" Xena adjusted the feed bag and checked Argo's eyes and ears for ticks.

"Well, I do, but I didn't want to embarrass you by making it seem as though I didn’t need your help," Gabrielle took down a blanket from the slider between the stalls and, after unfolding it, tossed it over Argo's back.

Xena hung the brush by its rawhide loop on a nail driven into the wall. "Before we finalize things, I’m going to need to have another look at something that's been bugging me since I first began to piece it together earlier this afternoon. So tomorrow, while I'm checking this stuff out, I want you to spend the day with Jox..."

"Oh, no!" Gabrielle shook her short, brushy hair as she and Xena left the stable and started hiking up the inner staircase to the palace's guest quarters. "I know what you're going to say and the answer is that we're not even gonna go there!"

"But all you need to do is to help Joxer out in the kitch..."

"No," Gabrielle put her foot down on each stair of the staircase until they got to the upper landing which opened onto the corridor of the now sparsely occupied Amazon suites. "What is it about the word 'no' that you have trouble understanding?"

"Not even for the greater good?" Xena said.

"Ask me to drag your dead body miles overland through the ice and snow to get you to Nicklio’s cabin below the summit of Mount Nessus," Gabrielle pleaded. "Ask me to infiltrate Thalassa's headquarters on Shark Island in time to keep her from hanging you on the gallows. Ask me to tie myself with straps to Aphrodite and bury myself neck-deep in the mud at the mosh pit in the Gemini Club so we can get the Castor oil you need to get your body back. Ask me to swim the River of Woe and the River of Fire to atone for my jealously which nearly got you killed when Ming T'ien took you prisoner and tossed you into that flooded basement. You can even ask me (shudder...) to play kissy face with Autolycus if that will help to keep you earthbound for the next little while, but don't ask me to do... that."

"To do what?" Xena said.

"To be a gofer for Joxer while he's whipping up the black powder," Gabrielle said.

"Not even for a day?" Xena said.

"Well, maybe for a half a day," Gabrielle said, softening.

"Three-quarters of a day not counting lunch," Xena said.

"I can't tell you how many times Joxer nearly lost his life at my hands when you sent us to scout out the black powder in Chin," Gabrielle said. "And then he had the nerve to come bursting into the tent unannounced when me and Lin Qi were getting a little... better acquainted. And I will not, under any circumstances, run my hand up the leg of Joxer's britches to pull a bag of whatever it was out of Joxer’s... never mind."

"Then at least try to make sure that Cressida keeps her distance," Xena said. "We wanna blow the horse, not the plan."

"The horse?" Gabrielle said.

The monster machine that the Argives are constructing at the mouth of the Scamander, the huge siege engine we can't see from the walls," Xena said. "The thing I thought might be getting moved on those underground wooden tracks we spotted, remember? I don't know why but something about it makes me think of some kind of a giant horse."

"Don't let Argo hear you say that," Gabrielle said.

"Right," Xena said. "It's not just the batches of black powder that need to get whipped together. There's lots of canisters and larger tubs that need to be filled to specs. Joxer’s gonna be needing a steady pair of hands to help him pour the stuff out. Especially tomorrow when one of you needs to keep stirring while the other one spoons it out of the vat. And I'd rather it was you and not Cressida who was there to make sure that things run smoothly."

"Why do I have to be the one who rides herd on Cressida?" Gabrielle said. "Why can't one of Sargon’s crew lend Jox a hand if Deiphobus says he can spare the help?"

"What we’re doing is too sensitive," Xena said. "Rumors go banging off the walls at a time like this. Besides, have you noticed that Cressida seems to have taken quite an interest in Jox? I think she’s been coming on to him, and he’s been very erect... um, direct with her."

"So it’s up to me to make sure that Jox shirks her off?" Gabrielle said.

"Only that he maintains a stiff upper lap... er, lip," Xena said.

Muttering her displeasure, Gabrielle went to sack out for the night, and Xena followed close behind when suddenly, from one of the cubicles down the hall, there came a high-pitched, feminine giggle.

"Jock-surr, you'd better zip that big, hard, pointy thing back up before it gets really long and you go poking somebody with it..."

"Aw, this sweet little sugar stick won't hurt you, honey," Joxer's voice came gliding out into the hallway. "It's just Gabby's Amazon staff."

"What?!" Gabrielle's eyes lit up with frosty fire as she went tearing down the corridor, bellowing, "Joxer! What in the name of Hades do you think you're doing?!"

"Hey, Gabby...," Joxer materialized in the doorway with a dim-eyed smile, "I'm showing Cressie what you trip the bad guys up with when you go, 'fight-ting with your lit-tul stick...'"

"Fold that up and put it back in its case," Gabrielle snapped, "and don't go playing with other people’s toys without permission. That includes her."

"I'm not a toy," Cressida came to the door, her blouse and skirt disheveled, her long, brushy, enticingly crinkled, strawberry blonde hair scattered in sweaty strands about her pretty, puffy face. "I'm an emancipated minor."

"Oh, great," Gabrielle rolled her eyes. "Who needs the largest Argive buildup in the history of the known world when we've got Trojan jailbait to turn us into toast. Tomorrow morning, Joxer, at oh-eight-hundred candlemarks, be in the kitchen, fully dressed and ready to roll. And you," Gabrielle glowered at Cressida, "go get a bottle of Welch's if you want a drink of statutory grape juice."

Then Gabrielle stalked off to her room to try and get some shut eye.

"A little P.M.S.'y, that one, isn’t she?" Cressida stuck a saucy hand on a nonchalant hip as she watched Gabrielle skitter down the hall.

"Never need a place to hide, Jox?" Xena passed by and gave Cressida the once over. "You will if you keep it up."

"See if I show you the Dagger of Helios that I've got tucked away in my drawers," Joxer snapped as Xena floated off down the hall.

"You've got the Dagger of Helios tucked in your drawers? Really?" Cressida's pretty golden eyes got round and big.

"I've got sum'm that’s a whole lot sharper and more finely honed than Helios’ dagger in my drawers, honey bun," a goony look came over Joxer's blissed out face. "It might not kill a god but it’ll sure make the sucker jealous."

And for some time after that, down the hall, as Gabrielle and Xena tossed and turned on their pallets trying to drop off to sleep, the guest wing of the palace echoed with the muffled, intermittent cries of... "Oh, Jox..., Ooh, Jox..., Whoa, Jox... ssurrr..., Oh, gods..., oh, yes..., oh, gods, yesss..., the Dagger of Helios, oh, yehhhsss...!"

Groggy from a poor night's sleep and not in a very good humor, Gabrielle spent most of the next day in the kitchen, Gal Fridaying for Joxer. His moony grin made Gabrielle want to pick up a pie and moosh it in his face. Cressida dropped by in the morning, dilly dallying and making a pest of herself until, to Joxer's chagrin, Gabrielle told her to take a powder.

"My uncle's cousin’s the King in case you didn’t know," Cressida pouted. "I'll make sure he hears about how rudely I've been treated. Joxer, stick up for me. Tell this nasty lady to leave me… to leave us alone."

"This nasty lady happens to my friend," Joxer said, his chef's hat askew on his noggin.

Gabrielle gave Joxer a steely-eyed look.

"I mean this is a friend of mine who isn't really a nasty lady. Not when she's not being nasty. Which is most of the time...," Joxer dithered, trying to have the cake of his carnal desire for Cressida and eat the frosting of his loyalty to Gabrielle too. "Aw, Cressie, don't go 'way mad. How about let's you and me meet up after I'm done in here, and I'll show you my collection of Warrior Women posters. I've got seven of nine of them. The two that I haven't got are Xena and Gabby, in fact."

But Cressida took off in a snit much to Gabrielle's relief. "Now quit dorking around," Gabrielle scowled. "We're on a tight schedule and any unprogrammed delays could blow us clean out of the water."

Joxer began to attend more stringently to his duties, mixing and stirring, in their proper proportions, the ingredients that went into brewing batches of the black powder. "I've got Callisto, Alti, Najara, Boudiccea, Mavican, Satrina and Pao Su hanging up in the back room at Meg's," Joxer said, referring to his Warrior Women poster collection. "But I haven't got you and Xena. Isn't that wild?"

"I'll see if I can get them for you," Gabrielle said through clenched teeth. "Just keep your nose to the grindstone. Hmm, on second thought, maybe there's something that’s almost as long and even less useful to the cause that you might profitably apply to the grindstone."

"My stirring spoon?" Joxer lifted the object from the vat of swirling brew.

"Yah, right," Gabrielle snapped. "Now whadaya want me to do?"

Joxer nodded in the direction of the large, wooden crates that were piled nearly to the ceiling. "Pry the lids off the cans, lug 'em as close as you can get ‘em to the stove, then take these different size measuring cups and those metal scoops over there and start filling 'em up according to the instructions I jotted down on this pile of paper napkins. Then each time I pour the stuff out, take one of those buckets -- but be careful ‘cause they’re hot -- over to the windows to set out to cool. In between things, you can be hauling the cooled-down stuff over to where those canisters and big containers are that need to be taken out back and hosed down and scrubbed 'cause there can't be any impurities in 'em when we start to load ‘em up. Then, when you've finished doing that, you're gonna wanna fill up those other canisters and containers with the dried-out stuff but not before you've measured out the right lengths of cord to stick into each one for fuses which means you're gonna have to dig through the crates that are all the way in back ‘til you get your hands on the one that’s got the big, wound up spool of double-wrapped..."

"I think I’ve got the idea," Gabrielle growled. "And you were going to have Cressida doing all this while you were whipping up these black powder batches?"

"Cressie?" Joxer said and the pie-eyed grin came back to his face. "Naw, Cressie was just gonna stoke the fire."

"The fire that’s in the stove," Gabrielle said.

Joxer gave Gabrielle a funny look. "The fire that’s in the stove? Oh, the fire that’s in the stove! Ha, you mean that fire. Sherrr. The hot trail of flame that made the barrels of black powder go boom when Pao Su had tied us up. Yeah, I remember how that zippy line of fire got started..."

As Gabrielle counted off the candlemarks until her day's chores had come to an end, Xena was down in the bowels of Ilium's vast network of dank conduits, musty storage areas, fresh water ducts and waste water traps.

For every candlemark spent sword-wielding and chakram-hurling on the field of battle, Xena devoted many more candlemarks to the tedious, repetitive, unromantic job of mucking through the grundge of underground passageways, with quill and clipboard in hand, making notes, sketching diagrams, taking measurements, computing fractions and trying to make head or tail of clues that, more often than not, refused to make a lick of sense. When the curtain would have rung down on the Glory That Was Ilium, Xena would have spent far more time wading through subterranean puddles and enduring the putrescent stink of moldy walls and poorly lit corridors than she would have spent delivering or fending off blows with a pike, mace or slasher. And the quill that was now in her hands was a far more familiar and frequently used tool of the warrior's trade than was her sword, dagger or chakram. Xena's sage advice to Gabrielle had been: if you really want to be a warrior, get used to spending a lot of time snooping around in damp basements. What goes on beneath a building's interior has much more to do with the success or failure of various courses of world-changing activities than what goes on in, around or on top of it.

Ever since the day that Xena had first noticed the shunts, vents and grates that led outside the walls to the buried wooden tracks which seemed to have had their origin smack in the midst of the Argive encampment on the beach, Xena had also noticed curious patterns of cracks and fissures in the rocks, stones and mortar that shored up the bastions of Ilium's mighty walls and its leagues of underground tunnels. At first, Xena hadn't thought anything of these apparently random series of splits and gaps in the rocks. Ilium's walls were hundreds of sunmarks old. Tremendous weight rested on these dug and trenched foundations. Naturally, they'd begun to heave and jut over time. Still, Xena had made a note of this natural weathering process as she'd made notes of dozens of equally nondescript facets of the city's underground construction with its inevitable signs of erosion, scaling, crystalline chipping, and a mass of other geologic details of purely marginal relevance.

All week long, Xena had been examining Ilium's subterranean network of shafts and mazes, with an eye to coming up with effective escape routes, while the Amazons and Gabrielle had been drilling Ilium's latest round of recruits, Aeneas had been drawing up his battle plans and Lila had been experiencing, in and out of the loving arms of Penthesileia, the first crí de coeurof her fairly sheltered life.

At one point, Xena had instinctively begun to jot little diagrams of the cracks, chips, chinks, splits and, sometimes, wider rents and crevices which she'd begun to notice throughout the great city's broad expanse of foundation materials. No good reason for this doodling; she just did it out of some sixth sense or nervous habit. Yet now, as Xena glanced at the offhand sketches she'd been making, she saw a pattern slowly begin to emerge. As the pattern began to assume greater clarity, the individual sketches arranged up and down alongside one another, Xena found herself staring at the composite portrait with increasing interest. Gradually, as Xena added more and more detail to the overall sketch, the pattern of the breaks in the walls, each one insignificant in itself, began, more and more, to resemble the shape of a human body.

The city's foundation wasn't cast in a humanoid shape. One couldn't build a towering metropolis based on such an odd-sided, curving design. Its stresses would never hold. Building materials couldn't comport with such ransom strains. Most of the interior space would be rendered useless. The pattern which Xena now discerned was overlaid upon a series of conventional squares, rectangles, trapezoids and the occasional circle or polygon. For all that, though, these structural degradations in the city's foundation materials didn't seem to be occurring at random or according to any known mechanical principles. Some process of material deterioration appeared to be supervening the laws of physics, and Xena wondered could possibly account for it.

"Look," Xena showed Gabrielle her findings that evening after Gabrielle had endured the day's black powder preparation with Joxer still, miraculously, in one piece. Xena and Gabrielle were seated at a table in the refectory where Xena had laid out her sketches and notes. "There's the arms, there's the legs, there's the torso, and there's the head. There's even a neck and two ears."

"What do you think this means?" Gabrielle said. "It's only an outline. There's nothing to fill in the details."

"No, but look at where the head is," Xena tilted her scroll sheets to the side for Gabrielle to get a better view. "Smack under King Priam's command post where the war rooms are. The heart seems to be located under the main weapons depot. And the index finger of the right hand -- at least it looks like a finger -- is pointing right here where you, me and the Amazons have been holing up."

"Very strange. And this is a picture of the cracks in the cellar and the chinks in the basement?" Gabrielle said.

"That's right," Xena said. "Brought about by water drainage and frost heaves and the stone and mortar drying out over the centuries: things that happen, over time, to any natural formation or man-made structure."

"But not in a pattern that looks like this," Gabrielle said.

"No, not like this," Xena said. "I'm going to check this out with Cassandra. Maybe she knows if there's anything to it."

"Cassandra doesn't open up to many people," Gabrielle said. "Maybe she's been burned too many times."

"I think she’ll open up to me," Xena said.

"Why, what makes you different than the others?" Gabrielle said.

"Do you remember hearing the story about how Apollo chased Daphne through the woods?" Xena said.

"The horny sucker was hoping to have his way her if he could catch her," Gabrielle said.

"And Daphne cried out in panic to Zeus, remember?" Xena said.

"Then Zeus changed her into a laurel tree before Apollo could get his mitts on her," Gabrielle said.

"Apollo was on the rebound when he took a shine to Cassandra, but Cassandra didn't want to cry out to Zeus for help in case Zeus might change her into poison ivy or something," Xena said.

"Did Cassandra cry out to you for help?" Gabrielle said.

"No, Cassandra made a deal with Apollo but then went back on it," Xena said.

"Which is why Apollo put the hex on her," Gabrielle said.

"Apollo told Cassandra, 'You double crossed me just like Xena double crossed Ares. I’m putting a curse you.'"

"But you never double crossed Ares, did you?" Gabrielle said.

"Not the way Cassandra double crossed Apollo," Xena said. "I never said one thing and did another. I always left myself an out. I was honest with Ares. I told him I wanted no part of him and that he couldn't buy me back for all the tea in Chin," Xena said.

"Not that Ares has ever stopped trying," Gabrielle noted.

"No, he hasn't," Xena said. "But Apollo got it wrong. By virtue of him explicitly but erroneously naming me when he cursed Cassandra, he made it so the curse doesn't apply to me. You have to be very exact when you lay a curse. The Fates don't like to hassle with curses, curses interfere with them, so they put very strict conditions on them."

"Which means that if Cassandra tells you something, you’re not automatically obliged to disbelieve it," Gabrielle said.

"That’s right," Xena said. "Cassandra can do her prophesy thing with me without having to circumlocute. That’s why I wanna dig into these pits and gouges a little more. How'd it go with Joxer today?"

"He survived. Barely," Gabrielle said, helping Xena fold up the sketches.

"You showed great restraint. I wasn't sure you would," Xena grinned. "What's Jox up to now?"

Gabrielle glanced down the hall with a displeased look on her face. "He says he needs posters of you and me to complete his poster collection of women warriors."

"Don't look at me," Xena shook her head. "I don't know where you get those things."

"I think he wants them to impress his latest squeeze," Gabrielle said as the sound of giggling pleasantries began to waft into the corridor from behind closed doors.

"I thought Cressida was Troilus' girlfriend," Xena said, "and that she was mostly interested in Joxer 'cause her Uncle Chalcas is a spy."

"She's a horny teeny bopper, what can I say?" Gabrielle rolled her eyes.

"Maybe you can get Aphrodite to ring her little bell. That oughta stifle Joxer for a while," Xena got up from the table and started moving toward the main wing of the palace.

"And guess whose skirt he'll be chasing once Aphrodite's made him swave and de-boner," Gabrielle shook her head. "Uh uh, if Jox wants to run the risk of getting sent to the old rock pile for messing around with girl who’s underage, I'm not gonna stand in his way."

"Just keep an eye on the black powder and make sure that the fruits of dalliance don't ripen on the branch of blank explosives," Xena called back to Gabrielle as Xena filtered down the corridor and made her way to the main residents' quarters where she eventually found her way to Cassandra's suite of rooms and knocked on the door.

"Come in, Xena," Cassandra appeared at the threshold and escorted Xena into her den of beautiful, unearthly furnishings. "I've been expecting you."

"You have?" Xena looked around the heavily gauzed sitting room where the aromatic mist from any number of scented candles and pots of burning incense bathed the air in a thick, heady sweetness.

"Since the day you arrived nearly a week ago. Please..., have a seat," Cassandra motioned to the chair across from the divan, the same chair on which Lila had lately sat.

Xena sat down and looked rather uncomfortably at the luxuriant surroundings. Xena noticed that the passage of time had etched its lines on Cassandra's still attractive face and that Cassandra's hair was quite the same color and texture as Cressida's, though Cassandra's was bound behind her head in a twist whereas Cressida's hung long and sparkly with golden crinkles at the ends.

"Shall we come to the point or have you come to reminisce about old times?" Cassandra took a seat opposite Xena.

"We haven't got much time," Xena said. "The full moon is the day after tomorrow. Then it's anyone's guess what’ll happen."

"No, not anyone's," Cassandra smiled.

"Do you know what I came to ask?" Xena looked Cassandra in the eye.

"Pretty much," Cassandra kept smiling.

"What's your answer?" Xena said.

"That there's no point in asking Apollo -- or in appealing to Zeus -- to lift the curse simply because it’s lasted long enough and its continued enforcement is petty and cruel," Cassandra said. "If things were going to turn out differently, I might consider making such an appeal. As it is, the wheels of fate have been set in motion. My only advantage -- for any fool who may choose to call it that -- is to know how, when and where the motion of those wheels will come to rest. You've made your peace with Callisto, I hear. I'm glad for the both of you. It was a long time in coming. Your enmity caused you each a great deal of heartache and suffering."

"Yes, it did," Xena nodded.

"Your sword weighs heavier in your hands than it used to, Xena," Cassandra said. "And that's not the result of flagging muscles or advancing age."

"No, it isn't," Xena said.

"I see that you're sad on my account. I'm flattered," Cassandra said. "But don't be. Post molestem, senectutem... as the great Cicero said before his enemies led him to the block. The burdens of old age impose disabilities from which one might gratefully be spared. There's a measure of comfort in knowing that one won’t live to be a decrepit burden on others."

"I would grant you a long and happy life if such things were mine to bestow," Xena said. "I'd say the same for Penthesileia except that she's chosen her fate. For you, the die has been cast by other hands."

"Everything in its own time according to the will of the Fates," Cassandra said. "If you know me, you know that isn't easy for me to say, and yet I say it freely."

"Is there anything I can do? Me and Gabrielle?" Xena said. "I'm not afraid of Agammemnon or those who serve his house. My sword isn't bound by the Oath of Tyndarius. I'm not fighting to bring Helen back to Menelaus. I'd rather see her let loose to fly free on the wind."

"I appreciate your offer but no, Xena," Cassandra said. "I’ll be present to witness the fall of the House of Atreus -- me, the sole survivor of the House of Priam -- and then I, too, will fall. Aeneas will carry on, though he doesn't know that yet. Make sure he gets out of these walls alive and in one piece. That's what you and Gabrielle can do. A mighty race will spring from his loins, though I believe he has no idea that the Fates have so decreed."

"These walls. That's what I've come to see you about," Xena said.

"You want to know about the homunculus that's been etched into Ilium’s foundation," Cassandra said. "The human form cast by shapes that have worn between the stones."

"Yes, I've only just discovered it," Xena said.

"In the grand scheme of things, man and nature conspire, with a united will, to a single end, don't they?" Cassandra said.

"Perhaps. But how did it get there?" Xena wanted to know. "Did someone put it there or did it simply evolve over time?"

"Yes," Cassandra said with a mildly flirtatious smile.

"For what purpose, though?" Xena looked with confusion at Cassandra and was struck, as was everyone who came to see her, with the youthful timbre and clarity of her voice.

"That the decree of the Fates might be fulfilled," Cassandra said.

"I don't cotton to the Fates. I never have," Xena said. "I'd be paralyzed if I did. Besides, I don't believe in them anyway."

"But you believed Lao Ma," Cassandra said.

"Yes," Xena said.

"And what did Lao Ma counsel you to do? Not once, not twice, but as many times as she brushed the strands and wove the plaits of your long, dark, beautiful hair?" Cassandra said.

"To stop hating, stop desiring, stop willing," Xena said.

"There's your clue, then," Cassandra said. "Lao Ma taught you many things. Sum them up for me in a sentence."

"Sum up my precious guide and mentor in a sentence when the stars and the planets couldn't sum her up in their courses?" Xena said and a pained look swept over her strongly chiseled features.

"Yes, in a single sentence," Cassandra said without batting an eye.

"To conquer others is to have power; to conquer oneself is to know the way," Xena said from the depths of her heart.

"Very good," Cassandra said. "Keep meditating on that mantra. And keep three things in mind as you do. Beware the horse that has no rider. Beware the bow that has no arrow. Beware the sound that makes no noise."

Xena was silent for a long turn of the sandglass. "You know that the curse you labor under doesn't apply to me," Xena finally said. "I'm under no compulsion to disbelieve you."

"You're unique in that way," Cassandra said. "So to you I may speak in the plain riddles of prophesy and needn't mask them in the guise of straightforward prediction."

Xena got up to go and, in a spontaneous gesture, embraced Cassandra as they arrived at the door.

"Take care of yourself," Xena said. "And if you need me, put it out on the wind."

"And you’re to do the same, Xena," Cassandra said. "And be sure to look after your dear Gabrielle. She, too, is precious. As is her lovely sister who may engage your attention sooner than you might expect."

"Lila? She's gone back to Poteidaia with Ephiny and the Amazons," Xena said.

Cassandra smiled and nodded as Xena stepped over the threshold into the long, shadowed corridor. "Of course," Cassandra demurred, "I must have forgotten."