"Why have you kept her?" Caesar looked over at Callisto sharply. "Why haven't you burned her or buried her or whatever the custom is that you Greeks practice? Don't you have any respect for the dead?" His voice was hot, but it was not the heat of anger; there was a strange, vibrant quality to his tone that Gabrielle had never heard from him before.

"I had to," Callisto replied. "I couldn't bear to let her go, not so soon. She took everything from me. She was all I had left."

Caesar's mouth tightened as he looked at her. "All you had?" His dark eyes seemed somehow darker, deeper in the light from the candles. He shook his head once, then lowered his gaze to Xena's carved form again.

"She was broken."

Gabrielle did not realize she had spoken aloud until she saw Callisto and Caesar look over at her. Not that it would have mattered anyway. She was not afraid anymore, though she knew she should be. The image of Xena was strong in her mind.

"She didn't look like it, but there was some part of her that…" Gabrielle mused. "She was almost as broken as you." She glanced at Callisto; the Bright Warrior said nothing, but a smile flickered at the edge of her lips, there and then gone. "I'd never met anyone like that before…She was broken and yet so—incredibly—strong…." Her voice trailed off. She could not find the words for what she wanted to say—there were no words that could capture Xena.

"As broken as I am…." Callisto's brown eyes were as solemn as a little girl's at temple. Her face was shadowed, reverent. "Now who could have done that to Xena?" she said in a softly wondering tone, then glanced knowingly at Caesar and gave a small giggle.

Caesar seemed to sense it and looked up at the Bright Warrior, startled; Gabrielle, watching, was surprised to see that he did not smile or smirk as she had thought he might. He looked almost taken aback; he dropped his gaze, and Gabrielle could have sworn she saw him flush slightly. What…?

"You know, I never really thought I would kill her?" Callisto mused, resting her own eyes on the coffin. "I said I would kill her. I planned for it, hoped for it, but I never really believed it would happen." She gave a small, reflective smile. "Deep down, I didn't even think she could be killed."

"How could she be?" Caesar didn't look up from the carved image of Xena; his words were almost inaudible.

"She died for me." Gabrielle thought back to the duel she had witnessed between the Dark Conqueror and the Bright Warrior. They had seemed perfectly matched, each invulnerable, each invincible, coming together with flashes of light and darkness. "It was my fault she died…."

"Don't blame yourself, Gabrielle," Callisto's voice was almost maternal. "It was my stroke that killed her…and Xena wouldn't want you to feel guilty about it. I know she wouldn't." Callisto gently touched Gabrielle's shoulder in a gesture of reassurance.

"It's funny," the Bright Warrior mused again, looking at Xena's still image. "All this time, I wanted to kill her, and now that I have…." She trailed off. "What's the point? I thought killing her would make the pain go away. It didn't. It just made it worse. Before, at least I had her; now I have nothing at all." She looked at Gabrielle and Caesar, her brown eyes large and liquid. "Can you tell me?" she asked honestly. "Why go on? What is there left, without her?"

Caesar only shook his head slightly, looking down at Xena's image, touching the carved face again.

"She…she made you promise," Gabrielle volunteered. She didn't know if it was the right thing to say, but she had to say something—she was, despite everything, touched by the open and real suffering she saw in Callisto's face. "She made you promise to take the army after she was gone. To take the army, defeat—" Gabrielle faltered briefly "—defeat Najara, smash Ch'in…."

"She did," Callisto acknowledged. "She made me promise…Wasn't she something?" Again there was that sad smile. "She was almost a goddess."

"She was," Gabrielle agreed, and Caesar added quietly without looking up, "She was."

"I'd never met anyone like her before," Gabrielle repeated.

"There are no others like her." Caesar said forbiddingly, glancing over at them. "There will never be another like her. Ever." He gave the Bright Warrior a hard look.

Callisto's lips curled. "We'll see," she said, her eyes sparkling; then the sparkle dulled. "Yes. She made me promise. I wish she hadn't. It would be so much easier to follow her. Can you imagine that—the two of us, burning side-by-side in Tartarus throughout eternity—together forever." She indicated Xena's gilded sarcophagus. "This isn't quite the same, somehow…."

Caesar glanced up at Callisto again; his dark eyes narrowed, but Gabrielle couldn't read the look in them. Gabrielle turned her gaze to the sarcophagus again and swallowed. The thought of Xena's remains lying unburned—denying the Daughter of War the rest that Gabrielle had sensed she wanted so dearly—hurt her. "How long…how long are you going to—" She couldn't finish.

"How long am I planning to keep her?" Callisto smiled. "Not much longer. Just until tomorrow, actually."

A feather-touch of unease tinged Gabrielle's sorrow. "What happens tomorrow?"

Callisto paused, examining Gabrielle searchingly. "I promised Xena something else, too, Gabrielle," she said. "Do you remember? We were holding her together in our arms when she said it."

Gabrielle did not answer. She only watched Callisto, feeling the seed of unease inside her start to flower.

"She asked me to take care of you. To protect you. I promised her—on my family, I promised her. And that's just what I'm going to do. Why do you think I've been looking for you all this time? You really shouldn't have run away, you know. "

"You're going to…take care…of me?" Far from relaxing her, that assurance on Callisto's part worried her more. She glanced over at Caesar to find him watching, his face unreadable. "What—what happens tomorrow?" she repeated, hearing her voice tremble.

Callisto tilted her head. The look on her face sent chills down Gabrielle's spine. "I'll tell you," she said gently. "I've given the orders for the preparations already. Tomorrow, I'm holding Xena's funeral feast, and you made it just in time."

"I…did?"

"Yes. It's going to be a barbecue. I'm going to do you a great honor, Gabrielle," she told her. "You will have the honor…of joining Xena's body on her funeral pyre."

"What?"

Gabrielle couldn't breathe. Her sorrow vanished before the fear that spread through her. "You—you just said—You said you promised Xena you'd take care of me—"

"I am taking care of you." Callisto replied. Her voice was gentle, almost sad. "This world is really no place for someone like you. Xena knew it. And I know it too. Life is nothing but suffering and pain, Gabrielle," she said quietly. "I'm doing you a favor, if only you could see it that way. I'm sending you from the world while you still have a chance to preserve that innocence, that purity." She touched Gabrielle's hair. Gabrielle was too stunned to pull away.

"Innocence?" She stared at Callisto stupidly. "You're going to burn me to death to preserve my innocence?"

Callisto said nothing but nodded, that slight smile never leaving her lips.

Gabrielle heard herself laughing bitterly. Thoughts of Licinus and Artis rose in her mind of Stallonus, of her parents, of her rage at them, at Caesar, of everything she had gone through since leaving the encampment. She glanced over at Caesar; he simply watched, his expression inscrutable, his dark eyes as unreadable as obsidian. "My innocence. That's a good one. What innocence?" she asked. "Let me tell you, whatever innocence you're talking about is long gone by now—"

"No it isn't." Callisto spoke with quiet assurance. Her deep brown eyes seemed to be looking right into Gabrielle's soul, pulling her in, engulfing her. The madness there was suppressed; instead there was a strange empathy: sorrow and pain more profound than any Gabrielle had ever known. She knows how I feel, Gabrielle realized suddenly. About Potedaia, about Xena, about Stallonus, Licinus, Artis, Athens….She feels like I do. She hates the hell of this world as much as the rest of us….

"No. It's not gone," Callisto repeated again, quietly. "You've lost a lot of it, yes, I can see that. But not all. Not yet." She touched Gabrielle's face again, with that maternal tenderness. "Xena told me: Don't let the light in her face go out," she said. "I won't. I'll protect it, I promise. It's what Xena would have wanted for you." Callisto paused. "I only wish I could go with you."

"Well you could," Gabrielle heard herself saying; her lips were numb, frozen. "You could go right now—"

Callisto shook her head, smiling again. "No. Not now. But soon, I think—very soon."

As the guards dragged her off, the last thing Gabrielle saw was Caesar watching her from the side of Xena's coffin, a strange glimmer in his dark eyes.

The guards dragged Gabrielle down long dark passages and a flight of twisting, uneven steps, to the dungeons underneath the fortress. These were a network of passageways with a row of bar-fronted cells deep underground, with tiny, narrow windows high up on the walls and lit by a single torch burning feebly—gloomy indeed, but somehow less disturbing than Callisto's little-girl bedroom that was coming apart at the seams. Gabrielle had no time to reflect on it; nor was she able to resist the guards. The long stresses and shocks of the day, combined with the revelation of the fate that awaited her, had drained her strength. As the door slammed shut, the footsteps of the guards faded in the distance. Gabrielle could only huddle on the ground where they had dropped her, shivering, a dull leaden sense of fatigue filling her.

You have to get up. You have to. It was the same thing Caesar had said to her earlier. Useless to protest that she couldn't do it; her only other option was to lie there until they came to burn her to death. She got to her knees, then slowly to her feet.

I have to find some way out of here.

Gabrielle crossed the floor to the rusty iron bars that fronted the cell. She reached into her belt pouch and pulled out the lockpick she had fashioned two weeks ago, to get Stallonus out of chains. Thoughts about the impossibility of getting past Callisto's entire army outside wanted to surface. Gabrielle wouldn't let them. The first task was to get out of the cell, just get out of the cell. She'd worry about the guards after she had done that.

It was hard to see in the dim light from the single torch, but Gabrielle bent her head to examine the lock as best she could. What she saw made her heart sink. The lock was a heavy, sturdy thing, which even a quick look could tell her was far, far beyond her minor skills to pick. I can't do it.

You have to. Probably she would fail, but at least she had to try. Gabrielle leaned down to look closely at the lock…

…only to snap upright again at the chuckle that came from the neighboring cell.

"Say, what's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"

Breathing hard, Gabrielle whirled from the lock to stare into the cell adjoining hers. Her pulse was racing. She had thought she was alone…had never thought to look for other prisoners.

"Who are you? Where are you?"

"Right here."

Gabrielle stared into the shadows, straining her eyes to see through the darkness. As she stared, slowly she began to make out the outlines of a most extraordinary figure.

It was a man. He was dressed in a bluish-green tunic and breeches of a particularly fine material; it hadn't held up well to the rigors of prison. He had short, dark hair and merry brown eyes; a mustache and goatee added to the air of puckish mischief that surrounded him. He was chained to the wall opposite the barred doorway, but close enough to the bars separating their cells that she couldn't understand how she hadn't seen him before. He saw her looking at him and nodded. "Hiya."

"Who are you?" Gabrielle repeated again.

The man smiled. "Autolycus is the name, thieving's the game."

"Au—Autolycus?" She knew that name sounded familiar, but for a moment, Gabrielle's overstressed mind could not process the information; then it came to her. The stories she had learned in the bardic canon, the conversations with Jett…. "You're the King of Thieves," she whispered.

"The one and only. At your service, lady," he said with a rogueish grin. "You'll forgive me if I don't bow."

The King of Thieves…Of course, she thought, wondering why she hadn't recognized him at once. The tales about this trickster had always been among her favorites in the bardic canon. She should have been more surprised. But after the grueling events of the day, her capacity for surprise seemed to be at an end. She could only stare at him numbly.

"What…what are you doing here?" she whispered.

Autolycus looked pained. "It's a long story. The short version is that Callisto's men picked me up a while ago during a break-in at what used to be King Midas's palace."

"At….at King Midas's palace?" Gabrielle stared at him. "That place was overrun by Callisto a long time ago. What were you doing there?"

"Thieving, what else?" he asked impatiently. "Haven't you heard the stories about him?"

"Everything he touched turned to gold."

"Not exactly true. But close enough. I figured, a greedy old miser like him, there was no way Callisto's men could have looted all his treasure; he'd have been sure to keep a secret stash somewhere, so I thought I'd try for it." He grimaced. "Big mistake."

"How did they get you?"

Autolycus grimaced again. "Let's just say I…got distracted….and leave it at that. Anyway, Callisto's men kept me with the army. From what they tell me, she appears to be saving me for something, I'm sure I don't want to know what. Have you met her?"

"Twice," Gabrielle said, shivering. "I don't want to meet her again, believe me."

"Smart girl." Autolycus eyed her with interest. "You're that bard she's been looking for—whatsername, Gabrielle—aren't you?"

"How did you know?" she asked him.

"Saw when they brought you in." He nodded toward the small window high up on the wall; he was at the end row of cells, and it was placed in the side wall where he would be able to see out of it, Gabrielle saw. "From this angle, I can see right up into the courtyard. That man Ravenica brought in with you—the cripple—he's Xena's bed-slave, isn't he? That's what I thought." At her questioning look, he nodded. "Oh, I've crossed paths with the Dark Conqueror before, believe me." His expression hardened.

"What happened?" Gabrielle whispered, chilled by his look.

"You don't want to hear any more about me," he said shortly. "Let's move on to more important things, like getting out of here. Is that a lockpick in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"

"What?" Gabrielle looked at the lockpick she still held—she had been so distracted that she had forgotten about it briefly. "Yes, I—I was going to try to pick the lock on the cell, but I—"

"That's what I thought. Hand it over."

Gabrielle frowned at him. "Don't you have your own?"

"If they had let me keep my tools, do you really think I'd still be here?" He raised an eyebrow. "Hand it over," he repeated.

She stared at him. She took a step back. Jett's comments about him suddenly came to mind: He wouldn't lift a finger to save a child from drowning unless there was something in it for him…. "Why?" she asked suspiciously.

"Why? Well, let's see. How about so we might actually be able to get out of here? So you can escape the barbecue Callisto has planned for you and Xena? So that I can escape whatever doubtlessly unpleasant fate she has in store for me? Now come on and give it to me."

She watched him warily. "Will you let me out if I do?"

Autolycus looked hurt. "I'm starting to think that you don't trust me."

"I don't."

He smiled. "Smart girl. Give it here."

Gabrielle bit her lip. She thought of Stallonus and what had happened the last time she had tried to free a prisoner; she thought of Salmoneus, and the merry twinkle in his eye when he had told the guards to cut out her tongue if she spoke again. She curled her hand more tightly around the lockpick—her only chance, however slight, to get free. "Can you give me some reason to believe you when you say you'll free me?"

"Look at it this way," Autolycus said. "Unless you've got years and years of lockpicking experience that you're not sharing with me, there's no way you'll be able to pick these locks yourself. You aren't going to be able to get out unless you give me the lockpick, so you might as well take a chance."

Thinking it over, Gabrielle had to reluctantly agree with him. Even the slight examination she had given the lock to the cell door had shown that it was beyond her skill. With a nervous gulp, she reluctantly passed the pick through the bars to him. By stretching her arm out to its farthest extent, she could just put it in his chained hand.

"You'll free me right away afterward, right?" she asked him.

Autolycus grinned so that his eyes twinkled. "Of course I will, kiddo. You won't regret it."

Caesar watched the door through which the guards had taken the bard. The strange thought occurred to him that it was the first time they had been separated since she had freed him from Xena's encampment—the first time their fates had been separated. In fact, she was going to the fate that Xena had had planned for him.

If our fates truly are separated. He still didn't know what Callisto had in store for him.

"You didn't have to do that," he heard himself say. "There's no reason to have her burned to death. Xena didn't want her harmed." Distantly he wondered why he had said it; he was risking angering Callisto for the sake of that ridiculous blonde girl.

Yet Xena had cared for her. And she had helped him. He looked down again at Xena's sarcophagus. It had been well-carved; there was almost the hint of a smile playing around her lips—an expression far more gentle than he had seen her wear in life.

"I am not harming her," Callisto said. He glanced up to see the twin of that smile on the lips of the Bright Warrior. "I'm giving her a gift—the gift of oblivion."

Caesar spared a moment to wonder at Callisto's strange definition of harm. "And what will you do with me?" His voice was dry, emotionless. He knew that he should be apprehensive—he recognized that he was potentially in very serious danger—yet somehow he felt nothing. It was as if his heart were filled with ashes; he had no will or desire to do anything but sit beside the sarcophagus, looking at the carved features of Xena.

"Do you know why I wanted you….slave?"

Slave. He felt himself twitch as if stung. Xena had always called him slave, and he had hated it then; yet to hear Callisto say it was worse. He looked up to see a sharp grin cross her lips. When she spoke, it was with a strange combination of empathy and something else he could not name.

"I wanted you because you would understand," she said. "That little bard….She didn't know Xena, not the way we do. You're different. She had you as her slave for five years. You know what it's like to miss her." Callisto paused and studied his face; he had no idea what she was seeing there. "Don't you?" she asked softly. "You wake up and she's not there, you go to sleep and she's not there….you hear something that sounds like her and for one moment, just one moment you think she's back before you remember…."

"That she'll never be there again."

He hadn't intended to speak, didn't feel the words as his. The candlelight flickered; he watched the play of it over Xena's gilded features. "She's gone, and there's nothing left in life that can equal her…."

"See?" Callisto said. She gave that two-edged smile again. "I knew you would understand."

The firelight flickered, flickered; it looked almost as if the image of Xena were breathing. He knew that if he touched her, he would find her cheek was cold, dead. "At least you got to kill her."

Callisto's voice fell on his ears like gentle rain. "I may have had her death," he heard her say, "but you had her love."

Her love?

He stared at Callisto stupidly, trying to work through what she had said. It sounded so wrong to him it was almost as if she had said something in the language of Ch'in. It had not been love between them. That had been one illusion that Xena had emphatically not permitted him to keep. She had taken him to her bed to demonstrate to him clearly and in the most direct way possible that she held all the power and he had none. It had been so far from being love that sometimes, especially during the first year, he had felt physically ill as he had lain beside her afterwards. Not that he had been able to resist her, then or ever.

"It wasn't about love." Xena's face was as perfect and beautiful as it had ever been in life. He had seen her sleeping, and the carven image was the same. His eyes were dry and burning. "She had no love for me."

"You're wrong, slave."

Callisto's voice was absolute. She came to stand beside the coffin, joining him and looking down at Xena's face; her slender hand reached out and stroked Xena's carved wooden hair. "You're so wrong," she repeated quietly. "Xena loved you a great deal. She loved you very much more than you realize. Perhaps even more than she realized." She looked at his expression and smiled. It was not a kind smile. "She loved you, in exactly the same way as I love her."

Caesar stared at her in confusion. "No. You're the one who's wrong. She hated me."

"Hate, love—why quibble over words? Really they're just two faces of the same coin." Seeing his expression, she touched Xena's face, then raised an eyebrow. "How could she not love you?" she asked him. "You made her. Just as she made me. Without you, she would never have been more than just another pirate….and without her, I'd be a village girl, safe in the arms of my family." Her voice sharpened with a peculiar bitter envy.

He would have protested at that point, but Callisto held up a hand. "You may have spent years with her, but I am her. Her life and mine are the same. We're mirror images of each other—you of all people should know that…. No, slave. I have her horse, and her army, and her chakram; I had her death…but I never had her love. You had that, not me."

That bitter envy was back in her voice; then she smiled, a strange, secretive smile. "You had her love….and now, I have you."

Startled, he turned and looked at her. Callisto's eyes were large and dark, luminous in the light from the candles. Her face was as solemn as a child's. Her eyes were drawing him in, engulfing him. Slowly, slowly, she reached out to touch him.

Anger surged within him and without thinking, he struck her hand away.

"You're not Xena," he said harshly.

He knew it for a mistake at once. The Bright Warrior's eyes lit, filling with the manic glee that had terrified so many thousands. Her smile grew bright and hard and keen as a knifeblade.

"Neither are you."

The words were a hiss. She was on him. She pounced with the speed of a striking snake, that terrifying grin sparkling in her eyes, broad and bright and insane. She was fast, so fast he could barely believe it, and strong out of all proportion to her wiry frame. Her hands locked around his throat and she slammed him to the floor. He was struggling to throw her off, but she was five places at once, and it was like fighting a wildcat, all hissing, clawing, snarling fury; he could make no defense against such an assault, could barely even come to grips with what was happening. She was too much for him. He could barely breathe. The force of her presence appalled him.

They descended into a red thrashing darkness.