For Ephiny and Haemerasia, it was not hard to track the parallel paths of Velaska and of the thief, and the intersection of those paths was obvious, marked with splintered and burning trees.

Ephiny smiled when she saw where the tracks led then—the thief moving fast, Velaska following, pulling Velaska well off her journey. Clearly he'd had significantly more success than they'd had in distracting the new goddess.

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By the time the black began to turn to gray, Autolycus noticed something odd—the agonies running through him had begun to back off, just slightly. Perhaps he was simply exhausted, or a numbness was taking over, or he was getting used to it—he had no idea, but he welcomed the greater clarity of mind it brought.

As cool light increased, he tried to take stock of where he was. It was forest, no path visible nearby. He could feel leaves and rocks underneath him, and he looked up at the outlines of tree branches high above. Then he saw what was left of Velaska's work. To his right, too far away to reach, something glimmered in the early morning light—a different shade of red-brown than the leaves—and he recognized it as the dagger of Helios which Velaska had gotten from him again and that she had found so very useful. It was covered in his own blood.

He saw a rope hanging down from a branch—his own rope, the one attached to his grappling hook. That had been one of Velaska's surprisingly effective techniques, suspending him by his arms pulled sharply behind his back. It had hurt in every part of him, and that was before the sudden dropping to the rocky ground and the broken bones.

He abruptly turned his mind away from such thoughts, feeling the shock of the pain all over again, and instead, instinctively, he tried to figure out where the grappling hook itself would be, in the leaves somewhere above his head. Then he stopped, and would have laughed harshly at himself if it would not have meant movement and more pain—what use would the grappling hook ever be to him again?

Now that the pain had receded somewhat, the thirst became overwhelming, and demanded that he try to move. He faintly remembered a stream nearby, and his left arm and hand were not completely useless and broken. Tentatively, he tried moving, wincing as he did so—but no, not impossible. He spotted a sturdy looking root nearby, and reached his hand toward it, grasped it with a faint parody of his normal strength, and carefully pulled—no. His body convulsed with pain as bad as earlier, and he cried out hoarsely and then choked. Slowly, far too slowly, it receded to previous levels, and he lay there, trembling.

No, he wasn't going to be dragging himself anywhere—he was stuck.

He tried to resettle himself into a position that did not involve agony—a rather impossible task, as he kept discovering—and to calm himself. There was little else he could do.

Now that his mind was clearer, his thoughts returned to Gabrielle and Xena. He wondered what their plan was, and thought how today might be their confrontation with Velaska. He realized with a twinge of despair that he would never know if they succeeded.

He was alone. True, he'd chosen to be a loner, to act without partners. Now, though, he felt a sense of intolerable isolation settle into him. He longed for anyone to come and help. To bring water. He knew no one would be doing so.

His mind occupied with these depressing thoughts, he at first didn't notice the warmth. It was most decidedly day now—he thought fleetingly of the rosy-fingered dawn of the poets, just now visible to him through branches.

He had not realized how extremely wound his muscles were until they began to ease, replaced by warmth, and with that, the pain not only receded began to vanish. The sensation was bliss, as he felt every muscle relax, as though he were settling in to sleep after an exhausting day. He deliberately avoided thinking of his injuries as he lost himself in the feeling. It was like a warm blanket, comforting, protecting him.

Now only the thirst tormented him. His mind tortured him with the memory of the last drink he'd taken, at the temple, the soothing coolness of the water from that spring.

Sunlight made its way to him then through high branches, bright, blinding him slightly. It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. He suddenly knew how very much he wanted to live. After all that pain, death itself didn't seem so very frightening—the pain was so much worse—but this joy…he did not want to leave it, and he watched the play of light above him, entranced.

Now that the pain had mysteriously disappeared, replaced by this protective heat, he wondered what was going on. Maybe this is what happened when someone was so close to death—but no, none of his injuries were immediately life-threatening: he'd die of thirst before they'd do him in, and wasn't that a pleasant thought.

After a while he realized what the warm sensation was—fever. Of course, with these injuries untreated—of course. That's what would kill him. But, he was puzzled: fever should not be overcoming him so completely, so soon, unless more time had passed than he knew about, and he'd never experienced a fever like this, that seemed to free him from pain.

Ah, it didn't matter—perhaps this was better, faster.

He wondered how much longer he'd last. It was not a great ending for the King of Thieves, he mocked himself, to die alone in the forest. No grand story there for his admirers. If he did die here—wait, who was he kidding?—when he died here, he hoped they never found his body. He hoped Gabrielle and Xena—after somehow having brilliantly defeated that monster—never knew. A mysterious disappearance, around which his admirers could weave some fantastical stories, of his own daring and clever exploits—yes, that would be more fitting.

He tried distracting himself with what these stories might be like, but thirst dissipated his thoughts—or maybe it was delirium he felt take him over. Soon he was imagining someone come to give him water with a kind touch.

He had been wound up, so tight, every muscle, that the only thing that had made sense was to scream, endlessly. But now the warmth had made all that go away, and he unwound, was unwinding, into the leaves, the forest floor—no pain, but also soon he'd be gone, unwinding out like balls of string, fraying—

The lack of pain was still unutterable relief, but a deep fear tightened in his guts—he did not want to dissolve, disappear, there was something too dear not to keep hold of—

He reached his arm out into the distance, in the direction where the sun had risen, and he knew he could not let go. Malacus, he muttered—he knew with complete certainty then, the memories of his brother were the only thing of value that he had, were all that he had left. Malacus, he called out again—and heard the mournful tone in his own voice. I am so sorry, he choked out, throat dry, for all of it. His brother's death had been wrong, and he'd been culpably helpless to do anything, nothing he'd ever done since—the pitiful attempt at revenge, any of the rest of it—was of any use whatsoever, and if he forgot, that would be the final, unforgivable wrong. He must remember—but the warmth and the unraveling of everything meant he would not, no one would, no one would know—

So this, this was dying, to forget everything, to feel himself lose everything, even the dearest memories of what he'd lost, all of it unreeling and fading into nothing—

He clutched helplessly at the thought of his brother, and felt the treasured memory give way to a stark isolation, felt what he knew with certainty was of most importance elude him with a twisting despair.

Just as everything unraveled utterly into the shaky warmth, he had one last coherent thought, that he would not be waking up again.