PART 2

Xena glanced over the inside of the temple as one of Apollo's priests left her, walked over to one of the others and whispered a message. It was a large chamber around a sacrificial fire with a vague corridor off to the side and few furnishings. These priests had taken a vow of poverty. She took a deep breath against her breastplate and clutched her package bound in leather within her fingers. One of the men bowing to the symbol of the sun on the wall stood up crossed himself with his hand and came up to her.

"I am Father Caber," He began with a Gaelic accent. "You have the talisman from Corinth?

"Yes," Xena grinned pleasantly as she handed over the package.

"Thank Apollo and our brothers in Corinth," Caber spoke eloquently and religiously as he unwrapped the large opaque sandstone rock imbedded with symbols and ancient writings. The light passed through the huge gem and created a rainbow of lights on the wall. "With their help, we can bring prosperity to the land and exorcise the demons from the cemetery. You told your companion to stay away from it."

"She does what I say." Xena looked around the temple and its three priests. "Why is this talisman so much more important than the others?"

"It was a gift to Apollo from Oenghus of my people in uniting the prosperity of our respective gods." Caber spoke. "Oenghus's spells have never been able to contain the evil out there so it became that much more obvious we needed power from your Greek gods more powerful than it."

"Hundreds of years ago," Caber continued as he turned and prepared a place of reverence for the stone. "The Celts took this land from your people and staked the sick and the dying and the cursed to the ground out there. They spilled blood and created dark and forbidden ceremonies long forgotten. The land has hence forever been cursed and shall remain so until the power of the two sun gods cleanse it and allows their presence to touch it once more. If you knew the sheer numbers of people the Celts sacrificed here…"

"I thought curses were permanent." Xena asked.

"They were meant to be thought so." Caber had his men gather food and provisions for Xena to take with her as repayment for her delivery. "Last month we had a young girl chase her sheep out there. The sheep died, the child became mad and killed her family to drink their blood. We had to remove their heads and burn the bodies."

"I'm not one for demons and exorcisms." Xena's delivery had turned into a tasteless ghost story as she idly smirked with a roll of her eyes, took the provisions granted her and turned to the door. "Good luck." She turned out as the priests blessed her and slowly closed their doors behind her, latching them tightly with a brief casual thud. Argo was waiting for her just outside the door as she clicked her tongue to him and pulled out a carrot for him from the provisions. He chewed at it as she looked around for Gabrielle. Her eyes panned the deserted and barren courtyard and looked reluctantly to the cemetery with its ghosts and demons. She saw no one in sight but for darkness and scant faraway lights.

"Gabrielle!" She called out with barely an effort.

"Yes!" The blonde bard popped up behind her from out of a shadow and leaned on her staff with childlike abandon and feminine flair. She grinned harmlessly and looked back at her with such sheer unbridled exuberance that Xena couldn't stand it.

"Where'd you go?"

"Call of nature." Gabrielle smirked and stepped back from Argo who neighed and bucked in her presence. Alarmed, Xena grabbed his reins and calmed him by stroking his withers, clicking her tongue in his ear and offering him another carrot. She knew he was jealous of Gabrielle, but he had never acted like this before to her knowledge.

"I set up camp out here in the trees." Gabrielle continued with a weird glimmer in her eyes. "Ready to eat?" Her eyebrows arched earnestly.

"We didn't have anything." Xena recalled.

"I caught a rabbit."

"I thought you were tired of rabbit."

"I also didn't know you would be getting food." Gabrielle turned with a smile and turned from Xena to step down the incline beyond the temple toward a grove of oak, pine and elm. A few cubits within was a clearing with a large fire already ablaze and reaching six feet high. Hanging over it on a spit was a skinned rabbit being cooked to roasted brown. The light cast odd shadows around them. Leading Argo with her, Xena tied him to a tree and pulled his blanket over him. She then glanced from it to Gabrielle taking and drinking from the water flask. Her attitude, her personality, her demeanor… It was all entirely different. She was practically… trying to be normal. Taking the flask from her, Xena hesitated from drinking from it watching Gabrielle stretch her arms out tiredly and then pulling her hands down tightly against her shoulders, breasts and abdomen. Her head turned up to Xena grinning ear to ear.

"We should be making Larissa by daybreak." She panned around looking around her; her voice becoming cold and intellectual. "It will be good seeing your family again and getting some home cooking."

"It sure will." Gabrielle smiled turning to look back to the cemetery. "I can taste mom's home cooking now."

"If only your family lived there!!" Xena scowled and grabbed her sword, pulling it out with declared force and holding it on her trusted friend. Gabrielle had now turned and looked back at her, her eyes solid white and glowing in the darkness as she realized her tiny indiscretion. Friend and ally clashed and lunged at each other as sword met staff. The would-be bard fought with the unusual ferocity and strength of someone a bit more than human as she backed, parried and swung at Xena. She was now proving to be nearly the equal of Xena herself. Faster and stronger, she could now hold her own against the experienced warrior princess. Xena leapt up unwilling to hurt her friend, but Gabrielle hissed as if she were some bacchae or lamia and tried to push her into the fire. They fought around the blaze trying to best each other as Gabrielle swung hard and knocked the sword hard from Xena's hand. Xena's eyes rounded with fear realizing that she was no longer fighting Gabrielle. She would never have wanted to hurt her, and yet, she was trying to knock her into the fire. Watching her sword land in the fire, Xena grabbed her chakram and threw it hard, but she watched in disbelief as it slowed and froze in mid-air inches from Gabrielle, just short of knocking her friend to the ground. Gabrielle smiled, her eyes back to normal and chided her for trying to hurt her.

"Xena," She sounded like a little girl. "Don't you like me anymore? If I didn't know better, you might be trying to hurt me." She beamed viciously and gestured outward with the suspended chakram now bounced backward along its path with a fury. Knocking the rabbit off the spit, Xena was knocked off her feet and felt herself flying and landing in several thorns and tangled weeds that she had passed on her way to the clearing. Grunting and ranting, Xena quickly jumped to her feet with her chakram back in her hand. The clearing was empty except for her and the fire. The roasted rabbit by her foot though cooked had burst open and was pouring out with maggots. She kicked it into the blaze as the maggots began screaming their tiny voices of pain. She whistled for Argo to come to her.

"I don't know who she is now." She grabbed the provisions and mounted the large Arabian horse. "But then she doesn't know who she's messing with."