PART 5

Xena, Hercules and Iolaus galloped into Tricca on separate horses as everyone looked up strange to them. Leading the way on Argo, Xena noticed she was getting a lot of strange looks and reactions from the people around her. Mothers grabbed their children, men grabbed and brandished their weapons and others carefully surrounded them. Why was she getting such a cold reaction? Iolaus looked at them and wondered if they were all under a spell.

"Why are they looking at us like that?" He asked.

"She's been here." Xena didn't need to ask. She looked up and saw Salmoneus and Joxer standing at the helm of the unruly mob. They scowled toward them and pounded weapons into their hands.

"Xena," Salmoneus replied. "Don't worry. We know you're not accountable for what you do."

"Salmoneus," Hercules started. "You don't under…."

Before Xena could do anything, she was pulled off Argo by her feet and almost suddenly bound in straps and chains. Hercules watched Iolaus torn from his horse and then began pushing back himself. Xena began screaming as she tore from her would-be restraints and pushed back from the mob. Someone tried to strike her over the head as Hercules heard a familiar warrior princess battle cry. Xena shot skyward still tangled in her binds, somersaulted over the crowd of people attacking her and landed near a market. She turned over a barrel and pushed it the ones carrying off Iolaus. Fighting sword to clubs, she watched Hercules holding back as he tossed off anyone who came after him. He didn't want to hurt anyone. They had all been deceived as he had been. Who or whatever Gabrielle had become, she had become devious and manipulative, and his friends and allies had fallen under her lies. Watching from a distance, Salmoneus watched as he wracked his brain for a way to save his friends.

"Salmoneus!" Iolaus clawed his way up the wall to where he was standing to escape his confused attackers. "What are you doing?"

"Demon from Hades!!" Joxer jumped toward Iolaus to pummel him and instead sailed past him to the ground below. Salmoneus and Joxer exchanged glances as they checked to see if he was all right.

"Iolaus, please," Salmoneus unspiritedly tried to warn him with a staff. "Gabrielle told us you were cursed. Just let us help you."

"Cursed?" Iolaus couldn't believe it. He knocked, whacked and tossed two more attackers. "And you believed her? I'm not cursed."

"You'd say that if you were, wouldn't you?" Salmoneus answered as Iolaus rolled his eyes at that comment with five more villagers coming to restrain him for his own good. He grabbed a beam over his head and kicked them away then climbed higher to get away from the frenzy around him. Hercules and Xena were barely holding their own as they were forced back to back to a large net dropped from a line over the square.

"Hercules!!" Iolaus screamed from a rooftop kicking away men trying to drag him down. "They think we're the ones possessed! Gabrielle lied to them too!!"

"Figures." Hercules noticed the net as he and Xena looked at each other and jumped out of the way from being nearly scooped up in it. Xena pulled out her chakram as he lifted a huge log from a pile of timber and began pushing back.

"Stop it! Stop it!!! STOP IT!!!!" His voice strained to get over the yells and screams. Except for the animals braying and the rattling chains, it slowly became tolerable for him to talk. Still brandishing weapons, the crowd of concerned farmers and merchants hesitated slowly and held their swords and clubs at the ready.

"Xena, lower your chakram." Hercules whispered to her as he tried to take charge. He tried responding logically rational. "Okay, you want to capture us because you think we're possessed, right?" The crowd agreed with a dozen different voices and responses.

"Okay," Hercules hoped he had their attention. "Well, if we were, which we're not, would we willingly surrender ourselves to you?" Someone almost answered then went quiet. A few voices began mumbling in confused and puzzled tones as Xena lowered her sword. Her bearing was familiar and her stance obvious as she turned and lifted Joxer up from the thorny bushes in which he had landed.

"As well as you know us," She talked to him. "Don't you think you would know us? Can you possibly say Gabrielle was acting normal?!"

"Well, now that you mention it..." He was dropped where he was pulled out.

"Hercules," Salmoneus forced a nervous grin as the embarrassed citizens of Tricca apologized and tried to act as if nothing had happened. "We're sorry, but... You mean… Gabrielle lied to us? She's the one possessed?"

"Yes." Hercules grinned and hugged him for realizing the truth.

"Where is Gabrielle?" Xena stared into his opportunistic eyes.

"Oh," Salmoneus remembered. "She took with Autolycus with her to Antequeria. Supposedly to get something to help you guys. Some sort of amulet…"

"Antequeria." Iolaus had climbed back down from the high roof with confused and embarrassed Triccans apologizing and hugging him. "Never heard of it."

"I have." Hercules glanced around the mess of the courtyard. "Athena told me about it when I was a kid. It's an ancient city that predates Zeus taking over Olympus. They practiced some very dark arts into trying to become gods, but Cronus and the Titans buried the city deep underground to try and destroy it. Some of them survived and taught their dark secrets to other cultures like the Sumerians and the Cimmerians."

"The Celts?" Xena asked.

"Them too."

"Must be who's possessing Gabrielle. One of their mystics or priests." Xena realized. "The Cynthus cemetery is finally being exorcised. Someone must have used Gabrielle to escape it before they sanctified the ground and then to return to the city for something."

"For what?" Iolaus asked.

"An ancient amulet with the ability to give her forgotten power." Hercules replied out loud.

"The secret to become a god?" Joxer finally understood what was going on.

"And Autolycus is blindly leading her to it." Salmoneus now had a new reason to be scared.