Chapter 4

All their gazes turned from Callisto to the young woman who had just entered the inn.

Judging by the clothes and the appearance, she was looking quite different from what they remembered, but Gabrielle and Xena recognized her nearly instantly. This was no wonder.

It was nobody else than Gabrielle´s own niece. They had only met her once before, as they had freed her from the warlord Gurkhan.

This was clearly her, the same person. But at the same time, there was something different about her. The way she was dressed, her posture, the way she was holding herself in front of others. Somehow she wasn´t the same as they remembered.

But given the location they were in and everything that had already happened so far, this should have been a minor surprise. Still, it unnerved Gabrielle that her niece didn´t react to her question at all.

"Sarah…" she addressed her again.

"Yes?" she finally replied, her voice sounding a bit unsure. To Gabrielle´s shock however, there was no sign of recognition in her features.

"How do you know my name?" she wanted to know.

What was even more unsettling, it was an honest question, no sign of irony or deception in her voice.

As unbelievable as it seemed to the bard, the woman before her, her own family, had obviously no idea who she was. What was going on here? How could that be? Her gaze suddenly turned to Callisto.

"What have you done to her?" she asked the immortal, angrily.

"Done to her? nothing bad, even by your puny standards." she grinned. "I have only been good to her. In fact I even saved her once from slavers, beside many other things. The real question is, how do you know her? Sure, she is your niece, I am aware of that. But I am quite sure you Gabrielle have never actually met her."

"What are you talking about?" she exclaimed. Then suddenly she realized something...

Callisto was very different from the last time they had met her. She didn´t know who Eve was. Her memories seemed to be different from their own. Nearly as if she wasn´t the same Callisto that they had known. And maybe, indeed she wasn't.

Was Sarah the same? Was she not the same person she knew either?

`Sarah´s´ face now turned to her in complete surprise.

"You mean... you are Gabrielle?" she asked. "My mother´s sister that she always talked about? We all thought you were dead. But you look so young…."

"We have been...well, you could say suspended for a long time. As you said, we were supposedly dead and someone conserved our bodies. So we were put in a cold sleep for over 20 years. Only that we were not dead."

"Wow."

That was all that Sarah had to answer to this incredible story.

This was truly not her niece, Gabrielle thought, at least not as she knew her. The Sarah she knew was carrying deep mental scars from the time she had been enslaved as Gurkhan´s `head-wife´. She was very often depressed or angry and had traces of self-doubt and self-hatred. This woman here however showed nothing of this, as if nothing of this had ever happened to her.

She remembered what Ares had told them about where he came from, a parallel world. He seemed to have the same idea.

"I think I have an idea what is going on here," he said to Xena. "I don´t think that this is the same Callisto that you knew. Maybe we should all lay down our weapons now. I have the impression that we are all here for the same thing after all."

"You are one to talk, Ares! " Callisto countered. "What are you even doing here with Xena? Why have you brought her back of all people? I thought you were not exactly on good terms the last time you met."

"Well, to be honest I don´t know anything about the things you have mentioned," he replied. "Like I said, I am also not the Ares that you know. This town is drifting more and more into another dimension. I think that the line between the worlds is dangerously thin here. This might explain how we all were able to meet in this place."

"Oh really? I will give you that, you at least don´t sound like the Ares I am used to. But that doesn´t mean that I'll just go on and believe you your crazy story."

"You are the one to talk about crazy," Discord commented sarcastically. "Just think about it. Why would our doubles send you here and then still come by themselves anyway? And that without telling you. Why should they do this?"

"You have a point here," Callisto admitted. "Normally it is always me who your kind sends to do your dirty work. Actually coming here yourself for once, moving your lazy hides out here is in fact out of character for you."

"Hey...you," Discord yelled at her, but then stopped herself. Even she had to admit they had truly other thing to worry about than to start another argument right now.

"Xena, you know what I am talking about right?" Ares asked her.

She indeed understood exactly what he meant. Xena had heard about this phenomenon of identical people from different universes before, multiple time actually. The `Sovereign´ and his world, who was basically an evil alternate version of Hercules, was only the first example. Ares here himself was the last one.

"I see," Xena responded. "Callisto," she addressed her, "maybe you should tell us about your past, your version of it."

"Of course," she answered smugly.

xxxxxxx

Somewhere else (the third group of travellers - Xena2 and Gabrielle2)

At about the same time, another pair of travelers, another Xena and Gabrielle had just arrived at the border, and was on their way to town. They were the versions of them from one of the many parallel worlds that existed.

This two however were at the same time very alike and quite different from the first ones, who had arrived together with Ares and Discord. While the course of their lives itself was very similar, they were at a completely different period of it.

The town and the cult existed in pretty much the same way in a number of different worlds, different versions of Earth with different versions of Greece.

In their version however, at least at the point where they came from, it was several years earlier in time. They had never lived through their 25 year sleep, never been killed by Ceasar or resurrected by Eli. Eve had never been sired and born and the Twilight had not happened. For them nothing of all that had happened, yet.

And for all they knew it never would. There was no way to tell if the events in the different dimensions would develop in a similar way or not. Given the things that were very soon about to unfold however, it was more than likely that their future would play out in a completely different manner.

For them, their last battles against the Romans or their great journey to India had only happened months ago.

It was at this time when they first heard of the town lost between the realms, years earlier than in the other realities. But the `curse´, the distortion of reality and the cult had existed for a long time. In their world however, the effects had become visible far earlier.

The town had become a nodal point, the center of a widened twist, between the planes, between the worlds and even between times.

Similar looking, but still completely different paths were now all leading to the same place, the cursed town.

This second pair of Xena and Gabrielle was now travelling one of this many ways.

What they didn´t know was that, since the moment they had crossed the border, they had been followed.

xxxxxxx

The Inn (hiding-place of the first and second group that had arrived - Ares, Discord, Xena1, Gabrielle1 + Callisto and Sarah)

It took them some time to change and describe a few basic details about their different lives, while at the same time waiting for the night to come.

"...and so it happened that I came to work for the Olympians," Callisto just ended her explanation. "Now, tell me more about you," she added.

"So you have been `recruited´ by Zeus after...the events in the centaur village," Gabrielle stated. She did not want to say after Solan´s death.

"Yes, some time after that at least," she replied. "To be more precise, it was actually after Hope had sent me back into the past and I attempted to save my parents from being killed."

She was looking straight at Xena as she said this.

"After this failed then and I finally realized that everything had become senseless for me, I just wanted to end it all."

They were all looking at her in various ways. All of them were curious, like Ares and Discord. With Xena and Gabrielle however it was also mixed with anger and sadness.

"Where we've just come from, Zeus is long dead," Ares told her.

"Well, that is interesting, since Zeus was one of the group of gods who sent me on this mission only a few weeks ago," Callisto responded, "and he was certainly not dead, in opposite to others here." she looked around, her gaze however ultimately landing once again on Xena.

"Oh, I don´t really doubt that, but in `our´ world he has been dead for decades. That only shows that I was right."

"That means we are all only doppelgangers of the persons we actually knew." Callisto was grinning.

"Basically yes," Ares replied.

"So tell me, what had happened with me...where you come from?"

"You died," Xena answered in his place.

"Oh and I guess it was you who killed me right?" she asked curiously.

In another world it was, Ares thought silently, the one where he originally came from. It was another reminder that these were not the Xena and Gabrielle he had known for most of his life, even if they were really close.

In his original reality it was Xena who had killed Callisto, after a very provoking word exchange.

"Actually it was me," Gabrielle replied. "Xena was...well...indisposed at that moment."

The pair of `strangers´ were both looking at her now, Callisto in downright curiosity, Sarah however, as she realized, in horror. What in the world was Callisto to her?

"It was you who killed me, you, the peaceful little Gabrielle? Somehow I find that hard to believe."

"You find it hard to believe? After what you have done to me?" Gabrielle´s eyes hardened. "Is that truly so unlikely that I could do it?"

"Maybe not," Callisto admitted. "I guess I did the same thing in my world…"

Like killing her husband, rubbing it into her face whenever she could, helping to kill Solan? the Bard thought.

"Yes," she just replied angrily. "If you want to know, you wanted me to do it. By then you had figured out that your entire existence was pointless and only wanted for someone to put you out of your misery."

"Well, that is something I can believe," Callisto responded. "I was feeling pretty much the same way once. To my luck, I got better."

"How nice for you," Gabrielle replied with obvious sarcasm.

"Later, you were reincarnated," Xena spoke up, "…into a girl named Eve. We...know her quite well."

There was no point in telling Callisto that Eve was actually her own daughter. Knowing this detail would probably drive her old opponent insane right again.

"So, now tell us a little more about you," Xena requested. "How do you of all people come to work for the gods?"

Callisto gave her a smile in return.

"In some way, you could say I became your successor. I admit my new `carrier´ only truly started after you had this genius idea to stab Hope with the Hinds' Blood Dagger and as a result only got possessed yourself.

Well, I was already in contact with Zeus at this point. In fact he wanted me to infiltrate Dahak´s cult for him. But after you basically became Dahak´s little hand puppet, this task had become mostly pointless. As it turned out, he had been looking through me right from the beginning. So we were all working together trying to stop you."

Xena and Gabrielle flinched slightly. The same had happened in their own world as well, but obviously it had turned out quite differently where this Callisto came from.

"What shall I say, in the end you were both dead and I was officially working for the Olympians from then on," she continued. "After Dahak...retreated from our world, I kept doing it.

Well, I have to admit it wasn´t exactly by choice in the beginning. Zeus and the others said something about `making up for my past trangressions´. You know what I mean Xena," she remarked.

"Okay, I have only one last question," Gabrielle inquired. "Why exactly are you travelling with my niece. What is she to you?"

"Why, she is my partner and friend of course, my companion, just like you are for Xena."

"When I first met Callisto, she saved me from the soldiers of a warlord who wanted to take me as a slave," Sarah spoke up.

"You mean Gurkhan?"

"Yes."

This explained a lot, the Bard thought. This version of her niece never seemed to have been captured by Gurkhan in the first place, so she was acting quite differently. It also explained how she became Callisto´s, of all people, travelling-companion. Her thankfulness obviously blinded her for the darker aspects of her `partners´ character.

A few moments later she remembered the irony that she had originally joined Xena for exactly the same reason.

Gabrielle´s face however became grim.

"Do you know what I think?" she asked. "I believe you are only keeping her around because of me. That is your way to create some sort of twisted mockery of me and Xena. That is the reason right? Even if Xena is long gone in your world, you just can not resist the chance to mock her, even in death."

"That is not true at all," Sarah exclaimed.

Callisto´s face however was unreadable.

"The sun will set very soon," Ares reminded them all. "That means it will be soon time for us to go and find that damned book."

"Even if we do find it," Callisto questioned now, "who of our group will get to take it with them?"

"This question is not as important as keeping it out of their hands. We can still discuss that later," he responded.

"If you say so," she answered.

This `discussion´, she knew pretty well, would probably mean that Ares or Xena would take the book , keeping it as far away from her as possible. She could live with that. Her mission was to get the book away from the cult, not keep it for herself.

"We should go now," Xena said to the others.

They were getting on their way.

The bizarre looking man, if he could even be called that, who was running the inn, was nowhere to be seen. Very likely he had joined the other citizens who were slowly coming out right now.

"Ares, I have another question," Gabrielle addressed him a few minutes later.

"Yes? What can I explain to you now?"

"You said something about the fact that this town might be drifting into the Realm of Chaos. What is that?"

The expression on Ares face changed now. He became more serious.

"Chaos," he answered, "is something we gods don´t like to talk about very much. It is part of our heritage, but one old and quite forgotten."

"Well, it surprises me that you of all people know about it," Xena remarked.

"Like I told you, I am not exactly the Ares you remember."

"Okay. Now continue, if your suspicion is correct, this is certainly the right time to talk about it."

"Chaos is actually an ancient deity itself. It is probably the first being who had ever been created," he said, "a force that existed since before the beginning of our world."