Chapter 9

A few minutes had past since that they had all heard their explanations, a few minutes since the confrontation of the two Xenas.

Now they were all sitting down for a few moments, gasping for their breath. They were all using the time to think over what they had just heard.

They weren´t even sure which part was the most shocking. The revelation that most of them were the tyranical rulers of a conquered and subjugated Greece in their reality, that Eve had murdered Sarah in that world, the fact that the two Xenas had just crossed swords with each other about this, that Perdicas had been resurrected as a `plaything´ for this other Gabrielle, multiple times actually

and there was also the not exactly comforting information that `Delilah´ was in fact a Destroyer. Xena and the Gabrielles remembered the first one all too good, well one of the Xenas at least.

They were all standing in a more or less safe distance to her and most had their weapons drawn.

"There is no reason for you to be so worried. I won´t attack you, I promise. Unless of course I am ordered to," she told them casually, with an obviously fake friendly smile.

At the same time, she gave a side-look to Eve who simply seemed to be pretending that she hadn't noticed the entire exchange.

Even if they believed her words, the message was clear. She wouldn´t attack them unless Eve told her to. For the moment at least, they had nothing to fear from her. The problem was they didn´t know if they could believe her words.

xxx

There was also one other thing -one that was perhaps more important than all the others- but it was only known to one of them so far. She was waiting now for the chance to share this information.

"Ares, I have to talk to you," Discord said quietly to him.

He was once again reading in the dark book that they had stolen from the cult.

"Does it have to be now?" he asked her.

"Yes," she replied impatiently.

Damn it, he thought. He had just found a passage that looked promising. Hopefully, whatever she had to tell him was truly important.

"What is it?" he wanted to know.

"This woman, the one we have found out here. I have to tell you something about her."

"And this is that important that you have to interrupt me while I am looking for a way back home for us?" he asked her.

"Yes, believe me it is," she responded, "unless you want to place our entire world at risk."

xxx

Others of their group wanted to `talk´ as well. It was only meant to be a short break, to give them all a chance to recover and for Ares to study the pages of the book better.

"Now," Xena1 addressed her other self, "maybe we should speak about what has just happened."

"About what?" she questioned.

"You know….about the way you reacted not long ago, how you have murmured how, `it is all your fault´. Do I need to say more?"

"No. I understand perfectly what you mean."

"And?"

"You really want to know? You may not like hearing all the details.

"I can deal with it," Xena1 stated confidently.

To her surprise however, her counterpart kept looking silently at her and began to laugh.

"I was once like you as well, so sure of myself, so arrogant. I paid for it with everything I had in my life and everything that meant anything to me. Do you still want to know?"

"Just tell me," she responded.

"If that´s you wish. It all began in Britannia, or better said, just a short time before we headed towards it, when Dahak´s followers first baited me. But you already know that, don´t you? Something similar had happened in your world as well as I have heard."

"Yes," Xena1 answered.

"But it obviously did turn out quite differently as in mine. You have no idea how lucky you were."

"This entire affair had cost me my son. There was nothing `lucky´ about it."

"You don't have the slightest idea. You think you have suffered? You know nothing."

xxxxxxx

Callisto was by now nearly constantly observing her partner for the last few years. At least whenever she thought Sarah didn't notice it. But they both knew that she was kidding herself, of course she had noticed her stares.

Since they were in this place, she had more than once questioned and also be questioned by others, how they two were really standing to each other. From time to time she asked herself if Gabrielle had been right, had she only taken Sarah along with her as a twisted mockery of Xena´s relationship with Gabrielle?

And could she have not even noticed it until now? Was she really that sick?

"This sure got to you, didn´t it?" Sarah finally addressed her.

"Can you tell?" she asked her.

"Oh I think I know you well enough by now."

"Are you sure that you know me at all?"

"I see, so it is that again," Sarah responded.

"Yes, exactly that," she repeated. Callisto now turned her gaze around and was looking straight at her. "Whatever you say, this Eve is a reincarnation of me. In some sense she is me. We share the same soul, even if not the same memories or heritage.

And she killed you in the world where she comes from. She is a manical murderer, just like I have been, maybe even worse. You know, sometimes I ask myself if it is even a good idea that you are travelling with me. I am dangerous, you see..."

"Don´t say something like that," Sarah replied. "You might have been like her once, but you aren´t anymore. You have changed. People change..."

For a short moment, her words hung in the air. Then Callisto did something that actually surprised both of them. She started to laugh out, loud and for everyone around to her.

For a second, the other members of their group started at her in surprise but then decided to continue whatever they were doing. They all had other important business to take care for right now.

"I hear your aunt speaking," Callisto said to her. "This form of dog-like loyalty truly seems to run in the family, right?"

She regretted her words the moment they left her mouth though.

"I am sorry, I shouldn't have said this."

"No, you shouldn´t have" Sarah replied bitterly.

"I am sorry," Callisto whispered once again.

xxx

Perdicas was sitting a few meters aside from the others. He knew these people weren´t the ones from his world, but he couldn´t help feeling uncomfortable around them.

It was at this point when the two Gabrielles came closer and sat down next to him.

"We wanted to talk to you," the older version of them said.

"Yes, I thought you would," he told them, "about her, right?"

"About the Gabrielle of your world, yes," she replied. "At least that is one of the things we wanted to talk about. You have already guessed this?"

"Despite everything, I think I know you quite well," Perdicas stated, "or at least I knew the girl you used to be, before she became like...this." For a short moment, he seemed distracted. "It doesn´t matter," he suddenly said sharply.

"The things you have told us...How did she turn into something like that?" the older Gabrielle wanted to know.

"To be honest, I am not completely sure either. I was dead over most of that time, after Callisto killed me. Then, somewhere nearly 30 years later Ares and Hope came and brought me out of the underworld. At first I thought she was you, that means of course the Gabrielle of my world, until she told me about herself. It was a shock, to say at least. They claimed that they were there for me, that Gabrielle wanted to have me back.

At first I was happy as you can guess, but it quickly turned out that I was only a way for her to entertain herself, another distraction.

It was crazy actually. I was then told that Callisto had died, but was reborn as Xena´s daughter. She was as I quickly realized, if at all, even more evil than before. I found out that Xena had decided to join her and Gabrielle, as always, was following her, along with Hope. It was explained to me that they had formed an alliance with Ares of all people, despite that they were his enemies only a few years earlier. I was told the Xena and Gabrielle had been frozen in time for 25 years and that was the reason they had barely aged. As you can imagine, it was a lot of information to take in.

I have seen Gabrielle killing innocent people just to make a point or just for fun. I have seen her send soldiers to a senseless death in Xena´s or her own name. She was no longer the woman I married a long time ago, but a cruel, heartless monster. But I was forced to stay, for whenever she was in a sentimental mood and wanted to talk about the `old time´ or just to have sex with her. The rest of the time she barely acknowledged my presence."

Perdicas' thoughts traveled back to the past, over one year before in his own reality.

"Beside that, I was used as a warrior. I received personal training from Xena herself and was given the title of `elite captain´, in this case this meant not much more than `slave´.

I remember the time I was ordered to fight one of Xena´s favorite gladiators in front of the assembled court. I won, quite quickly actually. The training seemed to pay of. Then Xena told me to kill him, but I refused. She said then that she would kill me if I didn´t do it. But I responded that I died a long time ago and didn´t fear it anymore.

Then…" he hesitated for a moment. "… Eve called one of the `other slaves´ in the palace, a little girl, and held a dagger to her throat. She then threatened to kill her instead if I didn´t do it and I...the gladiator who I had just beaten nodded at me. He knew that there was no other choice and I did it.

Then Xena took the dagger from Eve´s hand and killed the little girl herself anyway. She told me that it was a lesson, to follow the orders of my superiors in the future. During all this, Gabrielle, my `wife´, didn´t say a single word, not even a whisper of protest."

Both Gabrielles were looking at him horrified. At least one of them had tears in her eyes.

"But the following night," Perdicas continued, "she actually berated me and told me that I should never disobey Xena again and that I could be happy that they brought me back from the dead, that I should be thankful. That gods-damned..."

"You hate us don´t you?" the younger Gabrielle asked him.

"I hate her," he corrected. "There is a difference, I guess there is at least. I know you aren´t like her. I have known since the first moments I met you. It wasn´t hard to notice. You are far more like she used to be before, both of you. But somehow that makes it only harder to even look at you, he admitted. But how she became like this? I don´t know.

I could blame it on Xena, since Gabrielle was following her path like always or I could blame it on Eve, since she was the one who came up with their alliance in the first place or I could simply blame it on time, on the things that had happened to her and what she had gone through. But that is all too easy. In the end she made the decisions that led her down this way."

The two versions of Gabrielle shared a glance at his statement. They knew that all too well.

Perdicas seemed to be in deep thought for a few moments, before he returned his eyes to them.

"Gabrielle," he said.

"Yes," both of them answered nearly at the same time.

"I wanted to tell you, it is good to see you again after all these years."

xxxxxxx

"I killed Hope," Xena3 admitted, "in Britannia when she was still a baby."

"I tried to do the same thing," Xena1 responded, "but Gabrielle stopped me, she deceived me and convinced me that Hope was dead, that she had thrown her down a cliff. In truth she had only abandoned her out in the wilderness."

"Then you should thank her. You don´t know what kind of favor she did to you."

"A favor?" Xena1 exclaimed. "Hope came back a few months later and murdered Solan. How would you call that a favor? If I had known she was still alive..."

"Then everything would have happened anyway or do you truly think you could have changed something? Are you really that naive?" she asked her other self. "How did he die?" she wanted to know a few moments later.

"What?"

"Solan, how did he die?" she repeated.

"As I said, Hope killed him."

"Was it quick, did he suffer much?"

Xena1 hesitated for a moment. She had thoughts running through her head. What kind of question was that? About her own, their, son. She felt the old pain about the loss coming back up in her while her counterpart asked her these questions.

"No, it didn´t seem so," she finally answered.

"Then you are truly lucky. Do you want to know how things turned out in my world?" she asked darkly. "After I had killed her daughter, Gabrielle wanted nothing to do with me anymore. She left me. I haven't seen her again until today.

A few months later, I came to the centaur village, just like you, to visit my son. What I saw however was only blood and ash. Someone had attacked the village, burned it down, killed everybody who fought back and crucified and burned the entire rest...Then I found Solan. They had hung him unto a burning cross," she told her.

Xena1 felt how the legs under her were starting to give out and she sunk to the ground.

"One person exactly was still alive," Xena3 continued, "Ephiny. They had purposely spared her, so that she could tell me everything and she did...It were Dahak´s followers...revenge for what I did...and Callisto, the one from my world. They killed everybody, everyone in the village had died...because of my actions, including Ephiny´s son. She cursed me to Tartarus and beyond. She naturally blamed me for everything..."

Xena1 winced. She remembered once putting the blame on Gabrielle in a very similar situation.

"...and she was right," Xena3 stated. "I was the one to blame. I had messed with a god I didn´t know and it turned out I was in far over my head. I killed a child because I somehow convinced myself that it would make the world better and I paid for my arrogance. What in the world have we thought, that we could just murder the off-spring of a god and he would do nothing about it?"

Xena1 wanted to respond something, but she didn´t know what to say.

"But that was only the beginning," she continued. "As it turned out I had solved absolutely nothing. Then Ares came to me. He offered a partnership, to work together against Dahak, he offered me revenge and I took it. I was a fool. Me and Ares, we fought for months, we searched all of Greece and tried to wipe Dahak´s cult out. During that time, we killed hundreds of his followers. We realized too late that he had been only toying with us all along.

As he took over Iolaus' body, we thought we knew exactly what to do, we damned idiots. Ares encouraged me to do it, to kill Dahak along with Iolaus."

"But that wouldn´t have helped," Xena1 answered, remembering what she found out when she herself had been possessed.

"No, on the contrary, it made everything worse. Hercules, he tried to warn me, he told me that this was exactly what Dahak wanted, but I didn´t listen. I listened to Ares instead. This was my greatest failure, my great sin.

The death of the possessed Iolaus destroyed the balance of the world and made Dahak only stronger in my reality, unstoppable. He became the supreme force on our planet.

Since then, my entire world has been turned into a living Tartarus. Ares was the first who ended up dead, killed, by Dahak´s own `hand´." She shrugged. "If not, I would have probably done it myself," she stated.

"What followed was war after war, bloodbath after bloodbath, tumult, unrest everywhere. The last 30 years were a neverending string of bloody violence To that came natural disasters that destroyed cities, devastated entire areas. Hercules tried to stop the madness, but of course he couldn´t make it.

Millions over millions died...All because of me.

A few years later, I heard that Potidaea had been raided by marauding hordes and Gabrielle had been killed. All I could find were her grave and that of her family as I arrived there a short time later. I don´t even know who buried them. Later, Amphipolis met a similar fate. At least that time I could find the body of our mother and could take care of it myself.

Since then, I have been travelling the world, that means what is left of it, alone. On top of that, it seems that Dahak has cursed me with immortality, so that I always have to live with what I have done. Yes, I didn´t have the luxury to be put on ice like you, I had to live every single miserable day since then and I didn´t age a single year.

I single handedly ruined my entire world. So don´t tell me ever again you know something, you know nothing at all."

Xena1 once again wanted to reply something, but she couldn´t. Not only did she not know what to say, she couldn´t bring a single word out of her throat.

"Is that the reason you came here? " she finally asked, "you wanted to be released from your curse?"

"No," she answered, "I wanted to die."

xxxxxxx

Then, at this point, all of a sudden, everything changed. A deep distorted growl haled through the air. Then, a few seconds later, they saw them.

They came out of the mist, out of the dark corners, the hidden places between the realms. Creatures like out of the worst nightmare.

"Look out! " Callisto shouted. She was the first who had seen them and reacted. "Form a line," she ordered the others, "don´t let them come anywhere near you."

They all followed her words without hesitation, even the two Xenas and Ares, seeing that it was a good idea. All of them were shocked, overcome with horror at the appearance of those beings, but they tried not to show it.

The creatures had twisted, deformed bodies, their skin was in a grey or in a few cases greenish color, their size ranged from that of a human man to three or four times that. Their eyes were empty, lifeless holes that seemed like glaring abysses if you looked into them.

One of them had large wings on its back, a face that only consisted of black eyes and a broad, lipless, slit like mouth. Another had oversized arms with long sharp claws on its four fingers. A third was more or less in the shape of a man, but with green skin, a large maw with sharp long teeth and four tentacles that grew out of its upper body.

They were all standing still, preparing themselves to try to fight them off. Only the strange, seemingly insane, woman they had found inside the mist wasn´t listening and stepped forward.

To everyone's boundless surprise however, with the exception of Discord and now Ares, the creatures were actually drawing back from her.

"Oh, are they not cute? " she said with a wild grin as she was took a look at the assembled abominations.

The monsters were falling back whenever she moved, nearly as if they were...afraid.

Then suddenly, before all their eyes, her body seemed to disintegrate into something that looked like black smoke and reformed itself seconds later.

"Chaos," Xena1 whispered as she finally realized who was standing before them.