Chapter 1

She ducked her head under the shower spray. She didn't know how she'd gotten like this. She was beginning to hate teaching. The grad students didn't care about history anymore and the undergrads wanted everything spoon fed to them. No one wanted to take the time to learn, to research, to verify anything. They just wanted it to be.

She couldn't believe how much she missed her grandmother. Being the granddaughter of the famous Greek Archeologist Dr. Janice Covington had made her collegiate career fun. She'd gotten to go on digs. She'd learned more about Greece than most Greeks knew. She enjoyed her summers digging around in old caves and areas. She knew that every summer she was going to Greece, but then her grandmother died. She was still in Grad school at BCU. As prestigious as the school was, she had to prove herself to her professors. She had to prove to the boards that she truly was a "Covington" and worthy of their support.

Now, she was the head of the Ancient History department at BCU. She was the lead researcher and her annual sabbatical was coming. She didn't have a dig lined up this year, though. She had nothing. And, the Covington Historical Research Society wasn't going to fund her if she didn't come up with something quick. But, she still had bupkis. She was the generation to use the CHRS and she had jack shit.

"Grandma would be so proud," she mused as she turned around under the high powered spray.

She let out a huff and went about washing her hair. She couldn't just stay under the hot water, no matter how good it felt, all day. She heard some arguing in the hall way just outside her bathroom, but she didn't pay it any mind when she heard Ashby's voice. She knew that he would take care of whatever problem was out there and she continued her shower.

Minutes later, Ashby opened the door and called out for her.

"Doctor Covington?"

"Yes, Ashby?"

"There is someone insisting on seeing you."

"Who?"

"He says that his name is Ares Spiros," Ashby answered.

She thought about the name. It rang some bells, but she couldn't a face to go with it. Then it hit her. He was her grandmother's last Grad student. She'd read his thesis. He had potential but after her grandmother's death he'd fallen the radar.

"What does he want?" she called back.

"He says that he found Amazon Falls."

She stopped showering. She grabbed a towel off the rack on the wall. She quickly wrapped it around her body and ran for the bathroom door. Once there, she ripped the door open and found herself, dripping and wrapped in the towel, staring at Ashby.

"He what?"

"He said that he's found Amazon Falls."

"Where is he now?" she asked.

"I left him downstairs in the foyer. He agreed to wait there for me. Where would you like me to put him? Your office?"

"NO!" she exclaimed as she hurried down the hallway to her bedroom. She knew that Ashby was following her. He said nothing as they entered her room and she went straight for her closet. "Take him to the parlor. I don't want him in my office yet. I have to see what he has. Get him something to drink. I'll be there, soon."

"Yes, ma'am," Ashby replied.

"Oh, and Ashby," she said as she threw the towel out of the closet and at the chair near her bed.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Can you get me a glass of water and something stronger?"

"A martini, ma'am?"

"Not that strong?"

"I'll have the shot waiting with your water, ma'am," Ashby replied.

"Thanks, Ashby."

"It is no problem, Alena," he stated as he walked out the door and quietly shut it.

She heard the door shut as she looked around it to fuss at Ashby for using her first name. She shook her head as she finished drying off and dressing. She'd have fired him years ago when she inherited "Convington Manor," but he was just too loyal to the family. He'd been with her grandmother, Janice as she was dying and for that reason alone, she kept him. He would still tell her stories of her father and her grandmother. They made her happy.

When she felt ready to face this Ares person in her house with knowledge of something that was little more than myth, she went downstairs to meet him. She'd only seen him in photos from her grandmother's excursions. The photos didn't do him justice. Her was an Adonis and damn it if that didn't draw her in.

"Dr. Covington?" the man asked as she entered the parlor unannounced.

"For some things, yes, I am Dr. Covington."

"I need your help."

"Ashby mentioned something about Amazon Falls," Alena replied.

"Yes, well, I've gone over the texts that your grandmother and I found on Lesbos."

"Texts?"

"Yes, they were related to the Xena Scrolls and later the Gabrielle Scrolls," Ares told her.

"Go on," she told him as she took the shot of whatever Ashby had left her.

"The Gabrielle Scrolls speak of Amazon Falls."

"Yes, the place that the Amazons fled after Rome tried to wipe the out. They'd merged with the Northern Tribes from Russia and the steppes. I know all this. Supposedly, Gabrielle and Eve found an island that they could inhabit without any outside interference, but it doesn't exist," Alena told him.

"But, it does."

She looked at him skeptically. She'd been scouring maps since she was little to find it. Every new piece of information that her grandmother had brought home gave her new hope, but she never found it. It was her Holy Grail. She gave time and resources to it, but still even with her digs and new information, she couldn't find it.

"Where?"

"To the west of Britain."

"Ireland?"

"No, but yes, think a little more west," he replied.

"Why wouldn't it be in the Mediterranean?" she asked.

"Easy, it would have been found. Gabrielle used all her contacts thanks to Xena to help the clans of Amazons. They all knew that eventually 'man' would destroy them completely. They needed some where to go and they found it. Mostly by accident, but they found a place that they could settle. Gabrielle wrote about it during her travels with Eve. She knew that they would have to keep a secret so she used code."

"Well that much is obvious," Alena replied.

"Yeah, well, we all fell for it."

"Meaning?"

"We were using Latin translations. The Greek was translated into Latin and that is what we based it on. By the time that she was writing them, Latin would have been the universal language and not Greek. Aramaic would have been lost, too. We know that Gabrielle at a minimum spoke Latin, Greek, Egyptian and Aramaic. But, we know that Xena knew more. So it would have been feasible for Gabrielle to have learned the other languages, too. Xena was more traveled, but Gabrielle knew what to do. She hid the answer in the text and no one saw it."

"So, what was it?" Alena asked him.

"Norse Runes," Ares answered.

She looked at him like he had four heads. And, then her head snapped backed. She felt like an idiot. She knew from the writings that Gabrielle had no love for Rome, so why would she use Roman words to hide the location of the Amazons. She knew that Gabrielle and Xena had met Beowulf. It made sense in a way when nothing else did. She jumped up from the seat she'd taken.

"Follow me," she instructed as she walked out of the parlor and into her study.

The room, once her grandmother's, looked nothing like anyone would believe. There were large screens on the walls and two centralized computers. There were scrolls being decoded and translated on one of the screens by a program that Janice and Alena had both written. There were pictures of the digs, maps of ancient Greece, Rome, and the Mediterranean. Artworks from Greco-Roman times to modern decorated the dark wood in-layed walls. The lush carpet was dark, money green. There were weapons and suits of armor. If Ares hadn't known that he was in the Covington Manor, he would have thought he was some museum backroom.

"What is this?" he asked as she went to one of the computers and began pulling up the Gabrielle Scrolls in question.

"My office," she said quickly.

"This is your office?"

"Well, yes, I have one on campus, but I don't use it that often. Well, only for classes and office hours for my students. Speaking of students, what are you doing about your graduate thesis? You disappears years ago only to come to me today? Why?" she questioned him as she continued to type.

He watched as she pulled up a map of Ancient Europe. She moved in closer on Greece and then also on Britannia. She zoomed out a little as she read the scroll.

"Go west towards Iceland and you'll find it. It is a tiny speck on a modern map, but you won't see it on that one. Overlay it with a modern map and you'll see it."

She did as asked. She highlighted the area in question and zoomed in. There clear as day was "Krigerøen."

"Warrior Island?"

"It was the name that the Vikings gave it. Many people just believed that was where ships sailed and were lost. It was so named after all the warriors lost at sea. Problem is, no Viking ever set foot on the island or if they did, they never left alive to talk about it. Vikings stirred clear of it, believing that it was cursed by the gods. They called it 'Ghost Island'," he told her.

"And over time the story expanded and no one tried to colonize it," she theorized.

"Seems that way. The Scots even have stories about it. They called it 'oileán longréitigh.' Like I said, no one that's landed has ever come home."

"Shipwreck island...wonder what we would find there besides some rocks in the middle of the sea," she mused not really paying attention to him anymore.

She continued to read the scrolls that were about the mysterious place that Gabrielle and Eve had dubbed Amazon Falls. She looked for anything else that might tell her more about the place. But nothing had changed in its description. The text still read like it had when Gabrielle wrote it thousands of years ago, but somehow Ares decoded the hidden message.

"How?"

"How what?" he replied.

"Where did you see the runes to break the code?" she asked him.

"May I?" he asked as he pointed to the computer in front of her.

She gestured for him to go ahead. He quickly figured out the program that she had the scrolls entered into and their translations. He pulled up the original file of the scroll and zoomed in on the text to the right of the Greek words. As it came into focus, she could finally see some small glyphs. Upon closer inspection, she finally saw what they were. Norse Runes and they were the exact location of the island.

"How did we miss that?"

"You did the same thing that we all did upon reading them. We took them at face value. The writing on the scroll is obvious a mixture of Eve and Gabrielle. You can tell that here," he told as he pointed to the large screen in front of them. "The handwriting changes. It's slight, but a graphologist would see the difference. We didn't because we weren't looking for it. I think that Eve altered the scrolls after Gabrielle died. I had the rest of the runes from this scroll and others translated. At first I thought they were gibberish until I put them all together."

"Are they not in order?"

"No, they aren't. Eve was smart. She used the Runes because she knew that anyone that read them would discount them as doodles and such. It was the key to it all."

"What do you mean?"

"On what you call Gabrielle Scroll thirty, Gabrielle is talking about traveling with Eve back to Greece to see Sarah in Poteidia. Something must have happened on the way, because the voice changes. I think something happened to Gabrielle's hands or hand. Eve starts writing. They visit Pella and then talk about going back to Amazonia. But, it was gone. They knew it was gone. The Greek Amazons were very few, but there were other tribes."

"Yes, but what does that matter?"

"Gabrielle was still a queen and Eve was her Amazonian daughter. Which meant that Eve would take her rite of caste should anything happen to Gabrielle. Eve talks about taking Gabrielle home to her sisters, plural, not to Lila and Sarah. They went back to the island and it is the last scroll that discusses Amazonia. The rest are just recounts of Xena's adventures or Eve's teaching. They aren't in chronological order and Eve used that to hide the truth."

"Okay, so if this right, we should just go."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"I am not a woman. By the tales, if I tried, I would be murdered on the spot or die on the island with no hope of ever seeing the mainland again. I cannot go with you."

"Then, why would you bring me this information."

"Because only a true Amazon can find it."

"Okay, well where would we find that?" Alena asked him.

"Well, Dr. Covington, being that you are a desendant of Gabrielle, you already qualify."

"Okay..."

"But, I think that it would be better if you had a descendant of Xena with you."

"Eve had kids?"

"She must have or your grandmother's translator, Melinda Pappas would have existed."

"Okay, but Mel didn't have any kids."

"But, her sister did," Ares told her.

"Who?"

"Melinda had a younger sister named Athena. They weren't that close. And, after Athena married she basically disowned the Pappas family because of Melinda helping Janice translate."

"Why?"

"Ask her husband," Ares stated.

"So, I need to find her granddaughter?"

"Yep," Ares replied.

"Where is she?"

"I don't know. All I have is name. She was a Greek national until she began fighting in her early twenties. I lost her then."

"Got a name?" Alena asked him.

"Xora Pappas," he answered.

"Then, we find her. Go get your notes. Write up a thesis and get it to me soon. I have a feeling that you will be co-writing any papers on this with me. Which means that I will get your either your graduate or your doctorate, depending on how lengthy this gets. Go. Go. We have work to do," Alena told him.