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Maybe Angels
Part IV
By Trey
trey@pumkin.globalnet.co.uk

Copyright Trey 1998

See Part I for full disclaimers.

Not only was Gabrielle caught in a web of confusion, but numerous spiders were battling to spin their silk around her, wrapping her Egyptian-style in their threads.

As far as she could gather, Rel's brother had apparently been killed by Xena in one of her past's dark attacks on defenceless villages. Somehow Rel herself had survived, and ended up becoming an Amazon - as which she had seemingly lived out the past years - but had recognised the Warrior as being the assassin.

'But how did Niakari manage to drink the poison instead of Xena?' she asked.

This was a question which Rel had scrutinised herself with over the preceding time, but no one else appeared to share her bafflement - they weren't concerned how it had happened, only what would be done now.

'Death by the sword of the murdered is Amazon law,' the Queen drawled, an exclamation of surprise from the young fugitive rending the silence, 'however, I decree that your intentions were, indeed, honourable. This punishment is therefore ruled unjust.'

Relief celebrated victory within Rel - she was judged innocent!

'Yet this does not excuse your act.' Melosa continued, the blonde felt as though she had just been stabbed in the chest.

'...but..?'

'You killed another Amazon, Rel,' the Queen defined, 'I cannot simply let you go free.'

'...but..?' Rel repeated dismayed.

Xena felt sick. Every thread of her being had been strained and torn, her soul disintegrating within her.

'Your sentence,' Melosa was trying to do what she knew had to be done, 'is.....exile.'

Black silence, red silence, white silence, blue silence.

'Your oath will be broken and you will no longer be considered and Amazon, choose the one you will pass on your Rite of Caste to, and they will hence own all your possessions.'

The whole tribe had hushed. Some, like Toak, rejoiced inwardly - Rel could see their smirks - while others, Gabrielle....Miaska, looked as stunned as herself. She felt her best friend's anger and sorrow at her for lashing out, and guilt - no, remorse - repented itself at the betrayal sin she had committed to the older woman.

'Miaska,' she whispered. It wasn't the start of a sentence, but the end of her heart. The two stood facing each other, all others melted away into blurs of slurred colour. This was too much, it was asking too much. How could she - how could she say...

Rel's lip quivered and she swallowed hard.

'Miaska,' her voice was barely audible, she could barely mouth the words, 'I...I want you to take my Rite of Caste.'

There was a pause.

'All that was mine, is yours.'

Her friend, cheek still vanquished with blood, looked tearfully into the green eyes, '...I can't, I won't...'

'Then don't,' Rel wanted to cry, 'don't and we'll stay together, we'll ride off, escape them all. Don't.'

Friendships are very rare things. True friendships, that is. When two people know each other so well they can predict every thought, every movement of the other. Every member of the tribe felt it at that moment, the dependence they all held with each other, the closeness they bore and relied upon, but never spoke of. It personified itself in Rel and Miaska at that one cross-road of time, and ironically, it had taken the condemning of their happiness to unveil the magnitude of their desire to remain together.

Xena found herself unconsciously inching closer to Gabrielle.

'Everything that was mine, is yours,' Rel repeated, 'please, I'm asking you, take it.'

Miaska didn't want it, what good were possessions without people to share them with? But she could not reject her friend's plea, 'This isn't the end.'

Rel hoped, with all her heart, she was right. Self-disgust shamed her, she couldn't believe it had been only a cloud-passing since she had assaulted her other half.

'I...' she didn't know how to say it.

'I forgive you.' the Amazon answered, knowing what troubled her mirrored soul, 'I forgive you.'

She pulled the young outlaw to her heart, they hugged. Rel's tears were unleashed, how could this be happening? How could a law break a friendship? Words, laws were just empty, hollow words...they had no right to govern love, they had no right. Words were doing now what Xena's sword had done before, wrenching her from people she cared about...THEY HAD NO RIGHT!!

But her anger subdued itself. This was not the time.

'Then go,' Melosa said, 'the Rite has been accepted.'

Miaska released her, the blonde trembled with sobs, but drew her sword for the last time. Her fingers clenched around its hilt, the cold metal stinging her skin, as she stared at her reflection in its blade. Then, raising it high above her head, she gave a cry of torment and plunged it deep into the ground.

Silence. Stillness.

All eyes focused on it as Miaska stepped slowly forward. She exchanged a blurred gaze of departing pain with Rel, before taking a deep breath and reaching down for the sword. With one tug she freed it, twirling it high above her head, catching the early morning sun before sheathing it at her hip.

Rel gave a weak smile, a last smile, and turned towards the stables.

'The gates are that way, Rel.' Melosa called.

'But Seass, I - '

'You just gave him to Miaska. The gates are that way.'

Rel could have collapsed. It took all her strength to keep her knees from buckling - how could they do this? "Death by the sword of the murdered" would have been a much more welcome fate, but to strip her of friends, belonging, and now her horse?

She glanced across to the stables, where Seass was probably already worried about her not appearing to feed him, 'Don't I even get to see him?'

'Don't put off the inevitable, Rel.' Melosa moved over. She owned no cruel heart, taking the girl's hard-earned heritage was something which pained her, but Rel was young - she could still re-build her life.

Her voice softened, 'Just leave. Walk and don't stop, find a new life...and live it.'

Rel took her eyes from the one she had pledged to serve, and cast her gaze around the tribe. Xena and Gabrielle stood, side-by-side, at the outer rim of the crowd; they were the last people she saw before turning to step away from the existence she had treasured. Clouds eclipsed the sun as she went, and the melancholy cry of a wolf was all that she left behind.

***

Rel stood in the shrine and stared down at her once-home. She hardly acknowledged the rain which soaked her, hardly noticed it drowning her spirit, death was her only release now. It should have come a long time ago, in her other home, with Jason. Xena should have ended it then. She had had a second chance in the river that day, if only the "Warrior Princess" hadn't been so weak she could've been with her brother now. Did he still remember her? Did he hate her for leaving him? It was Xena's fault, everything was Xena's fault. If she had just died from the poison instead of Niakari as planned, if the warrior were dead now instead of watching her be cast from the tribe...

She had tried to shift lives before, it didn't work. Once she had been an innocent peasant, with a family and a place of belonging. She had tried to adjust into Amazon ways, and on the outside she had, she learned to fight, learned all there was to know of nature and history, but Melosa was wrong - she wasn't 'as much an Amazon as any.' She was Rel. Rel was a peasant. Rel was a daughter, a sister.

Rel was the girl of seven years and two months which had died with Jason.

Rel was dead.

'Then why am I still here?' she whispered to the drops of salty water, 'I don't belong here...'

All the people she had killed in the past few years, all of the lives she had ruined with her sword, they were a part of Amazon life, not hers. She thought of the children who would grow up just like her - alone - all the people who would try to merge themselves into new lives. Her soul was grated to shreds by their futures, she had become Xena. In battle she had killed so many, yet never thought of them - they were simply the enemy, that was all that was important.

'Wars aren't fought to decide who's right,' she recalled her own words, 'only who's left.'

Fog descended into the valley below, preventing her from seeing the village.

'But the people left don't have anything to live for,' she continued, 'so no one can ever truly win.'

She hadn't come here to pray to Artemis again, just to say good-bye to a place which had been a diary of her thoughts, her worries and joys. Passing through the Pegasi for the last time the words of some distant melody fazed through her mind...

'Tides of life and
Tides of death
Angels doth bestow us
Into lands of fears
With faceless leers
Their innocence doth throw us

Paths of dark and
Paths of light
We're free to choose
The way to fight
But never near their silver wings
Where innocence doth sin us

Clouds of freedom and
Clouds of peace
They swirl and curl above us
With thunder pales
And wide-terror tales
But no innocence to veil us

Streams of guilt and
Streams of lies
Burn glares of hate
In calm blue eyes
But never near their silver wings
Where innocence doth sin us...'

'You didn't do it.'

The voice startled Rel from her song and she twisted, grabbing for her sword, but clasping nothing but air.

'You didn't do it, and they disowned you. They took everything you possessed, everyone you cared for and everything you loved. They even took your sword I see - how heartless.'

'Leave me alone.'

Rel tried to pass Knol, he blocked, 'It's such a shame, how could you fail your brother like that? You let him down...you let me down.'

His words patronised her, but her emotions were exhausted beyond the point of feeling. Every shred of her soul had been exploited and sapped of all possible passions. Hate, Love, Anger, Calm, Fear, Bravery, Denial, Acceptance, Sorrow, Humour - they had torn her apart like a pack of hunting dogs...or wolves, and left her with nothing. She lived, but wasn't alive. Her spirit had been stripped of all that made it so, just as her exile had to her being.

'Your wrong.' she stated simply.

'How so?'

'You used me. You used me, and your plan failed, not me.'

'Your confused, my dear,' Knol mocked sorrow, 'I know how you must feel - to lose those you love, all you've worked for. But there is still hope.' he stepped closer.

Hope? Was that all she clung to now? There was nothing left to hope for, but perhaps that one day she would, again, feel the touch of Miaska. She closed her eyes, visioning them as they had often been - sitting in the shrine at dusk, sharing in each other's dreams, prayers...hopes. She thought of Xena and Gabrielle, and the realisation suddenly hit her that by killing Xena, she would have ripped them apart as she had now done to herself and her best friend. She had to believe, keep faith, that somehow this would turn and everything would work itself out for the best.

'There is always hope.' she said quietly.

'Yes. And there will be no more plans, no more creeping around - this is your last chance to aid in revenge against Xena.'

Rel glared at him sharply, 'You don't get it, do you? Because of you I was exiled, because of you I lost all I loved and all I worked for. It was you, not Xena.'

Knol resisted pulling his sword, 'No, you got yourself into this one. And however you try to put the blame on me, it was you who tried to kill Xena, and Xena who killed your brother.'

'How do you know all this? How could you possibly know all this? That I'd been thrown out of the tribe, that I failed, that Xena - '

' - I'm observant. Unlike others, I am loyal to my duties and like to make sure I know everything, and I do mean everything, that happens.'

Rel wasn't convinced. Had he watched her deliver the poison into the Warrior's mug? Had he been watching all this time?

'We have nothing more to discuss.' she concluded.

Knol grabbed her arm, 'Oh but we do. You agreed to the plan - to kill the Warrior Princess - and I'll hold you to that.'

'Do as you like, but I'm not interested.' she jerked her arm from his grasp and brushed past him.

'Then you won't be at the attack on the Amazon village, I suppose.'

Rel stopped dead and span round, 'Attack?'

He laughed, 'I thought that might get your attention. Yes, an attack. It takes place when the sun is directly above your shrine - oops, slip of the tongue, you're not an Amazon anymore, are you? Still, Artemis will be close to hand when every Harlot in that tribe passes on to the next world, along with Xena, of course.'

A sneer curled his lips, Rel was stunned.

'Are you people suicidal?! The Amazons will crush you!' she scoffed.

The sparkle in Knol's eye said otherwise, 'Hmmm, ''crush'' you say? All the Raiders and Drays ''crushed,'' now there's a thought...'

'Drays?' Rel had never fought a Dray warrior - when they had been at war with the Amazons two summers previous, she hadn't even been allowed out of the village - let alone near any battles. How they were in combat she could only guess from the sever culling her - for she still felt it her - tribe had suffered at their hand, 'What do the Drays have to do with this?'

The Raider luxuriated in her anxious concern, 'Oh not to fear, Rel; be it only a small number of them who - how shall I say - owe us a debt.'

The blonde didn't want to know what sort of a ''debt'' he referred to, people did many desperate things in war, what alarmed her more was the thought of Drays and Raiders slashing through her home. She saw the flames and blood, the Amazons fighting with courageous-terror against the invading shadows...and she saw Xena fighting with them. The dark warrior would be standing as she should have been - with Miaska and Ephiny, the Amazon Princess and Queen.

She had to warn them.

'Just think of it,' Knol continued, waving a hand across an imaginary scene, 'you'll be able to fight the Warrior Princess face to face, kill her with the sword which you were exiled from; this battle will be glorious!'

'For Aries maybe.' Rel couldn't help quipping.

Knol's expression faltered from excitement to something she couldn't interpret, but was quickly masked, 'Not all Angels are white.'

'And not all devils are red, what's your point?'

'My point is that goodness comes in many forms, of which revenge can be one.'

'Revenge is only good for those who can't see beyond it. After all, Cupid's arrows are never coated in blood.'

Knol leered, 'Well maybe Cupid should try shooting a Harlot - or a Warrior Princess...'

***

Xena sat on the rough bed in their Amazon hut and thought. She seldom let her mind wander through her past voluntarily, but there were times when it decided to stroll into the present without consent - over which she had no control.

'Xena?'

Gabrielle's voice was so soft, yet so close, it carried her from the land of Memories back to the real world. She turned her gaze to see the bard offering some food, and took it without feeling hungry - the comfort of her best friend being all that held her together.

The red-head sank down in silence; she didn't question the blacked-out windows or sulleness of her friend, she merely sat. They listened to each other's thoughts and tried to find some way of voice them out loud, but Gabrielle didn't like to pressure and Xena didn't like to confront.

A beetle crawled across the floor. They both watched as it scuttled a few inches flat out, and then froze, only to continue and repeat the action until it found security behind a large water jug. It was universally known, within the confines of that room, why the creature had not simply raced the entire distance in one - for having done so it could have risked detection by some reclusive predator. Survival was thus its main priority.

'Rel's a survivor,' Xena found herself murmuring.

Gabrielle didn't reply, instead she looked sidelong at her soul mate's distant form. The dark mane which famed Xena's mysteriousness now hung loosely as her figure hunched itself over the edge of the bed. The warrior herself hugged her arms tightly across her cold leather, and the bard noticed that every few seconds the older woman would shiver delusivly.

Before the Tormented could object, she felt the warmth of a blanket being wrapped around her shoulders. She drew it closer, her fists clenching at its comfort - but it didn't stop the shuddering of her soul.

'I killed Niakari.' she whispered, 'I killed Jason, I killed Rel.'

The bard ignored her confusion, 'Xena, you can't blame yourself for this, whatever's chasing you - it's not your fault.'

'Not my fault?' the trance had been broken, 'How can you say that? You don't understand, you can't under-'

'- No, I don't, but I can...so tell me, please.' Gabrielle knew the warrior wasn't good at expressing her feelings sometimes, but she had to know what was going on...

Xena turned and sighed the way the wind does between dusk and nightfall.

'It...it was just like Orphido,' she began, 'a small, isolated town.'

The bard nodded, acknowledging that her friend was talking of a time which she had now turned from, but never escaped; a time when attacking peasants was Xena's routine.

'My army was small then, but its power was well-established, well-feared. We rode in, and looting was easy as all the villagers were cowering in the temple, hoping for the protection of the gods, no doubt. It never came. We stormed the building, paid no mercy, and the ''battle'' moved outside while they tried to flee.'

Gabrielle didn't need her gift of imagination to see the image Xena was conjuring.

'Most of the town's inhabitants died within minutes, but I spotted two of my men jeering at a couple of terrified children,' she locked her eyes with her companion and continued with a slight shrug and weak smile: 'and compassion was never one of my fortes back then...'

The younger woman rolled her eyes - humour cloaking their true feelings.

Xena returned her stare to the beetle's hiding place, '...and before I knew it the boy - Jason - I'd...'

All the blankets and fleeces in Greece wouldn't have helped any with the warrior's mental demons. Gabrielle leaned closer, she couldn't hold back against the desperation. All the pain Xena had pounded down inside herself, all the years of blood and loss, all was released as she hugged her bard; tears stinging her cheeks as she buried them in the golden hair.

'How, how could I have done this? Why is it that no matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, I always hurt someone? Why do I wreck so many lives in so...in so...'

'Shhh, shhh.'

Gabrielle fought against the currents which threatened to drown them both. She had never seen Xena cry, the warrior was always the stronger of them, 'Xena, please...' she didn't know what she was asking, didn't know why, of all the things to say, the only comfort she could offer, she couldn't put into words.

She tried again, 'I'm here, I'll never let you go through anything alone...you know that, you know I'll always be here.'

The love for her friend was trying to see itself heard amidst the confusion, but Gabrielle couldn't say anymore. She needed to know about Rel, Rel and Jason.

Xena drew back a little and smiled faintly through her tears, realising that she had to be stronger now than she had been in any battle.

Perhaps it had been her sword that had forged the carelessness and disregard for life with which the young Amazon - ex-Amazon - now fought. The one stroke on Jason had slashed the only rope Rel trusted enough to hold her, the only strand within her grasp which anchored her to the real world.

'She wanted to die,' the warrior resigned, 'to stay with her brother no matter what the cost. In my time as a warlord I had grown so used to...to taking, stealing, lives, that when was offered to me I just.....refused.'

Gabrielle was, at last, beginning to understand. The reverse psychology seemed absurd given the situation and circumstance, yet there was something incoherently logical about it which camouflaged itself nocturnally into the fabric of the plight.

'So, over the years,' the bard mused, 'she learned to live with the pain. She wove herself into Amazon life, but she had lived in hate and anger for so long that she knew no other way. And when you showed up, there was a vent for the torment. Her act was in vengeance, as she claimed, because she somehow thought it would cure her grief.'

Time allowed a few heart-beats to pass.

'Another Callisto.' Gabrielle finished.

Much to her surprise Xena pulled away sharply, 'No, there's a difference. Callisto tried to destroy everything I love, all that I own and care about, in retaliation for what I did.'

'And Rel?'

'Rel's...Rel never wanted anything more than to belong, and her true heritage...it died with her brother.'

'But what about all this time that she's tried to fit in with others, I mean she seems to have done well with the Amazons - why give that up?'

Frustration was setting in on Xena, she let the blanket drop from her shoulders and leapt from the bed. The unexpected aggravation was met with silent curses from Gabrielle: screams at herself for faulting a volley in the conversation, and screams at Xena to simply relax and talk to her.

The Warrior Princess rubbed her forehead and tried to contain her anger. It wasn't directed at her best friend, but at the events of the passing days. She gathered as much patience as could be raked from her shattered soul, and tried to approach the topic from another angle:

'You remember in the village, the first time we met Rel?'

'How could I forget? It proves my point, she fought with a fire lit by vengeance - it gave her strength and courage. The Amazons presented her with a society in which fighting to survive is routine, and surely the bonds she formed with other members - Miaska, Ephiny - surely they gave her security, the sense of belonging she wished for?'

Xena drew nearer, 'But that's just it! Rel had strength, yes, but that came from pervious experience. Her life was tough - and just like anger, it's all she's known. And courage? That came merely from lack of fear. Every man - no matter what they say contradictory - is afraid of death, but Rel longs for it. That is all she's ever asked of the world since I raided her life.'

'Then why doesn't she just kill herself? Why persist in harming others?'

To this, the dark warrior held no answer, but shouts from outside prevented her from speculating further.

Free from the curbs of the hut, Gabrielle split from her friend as she spotted a dazed Miaska in the distance. Xena, meanwhile made for Ephiny.

'What's going on?' she questioned, falling in step with the other woman heading for a group of standing horses.

'Rel's back,' came the reply, 'and apparently she has something important to say.'

Xena untied Argo's reins and swung her leg across his back as the Amazon did the same with her mount, 'You sound doubtful.'

Ephiny spurred her horse in response, her answer plain as others of her kind dodged hastily from its raging gallop.

Melosa's words from two days earlier - when the cogs of the plot had but begun to turn - spiralled through her mind:

Xena was dubious of any celebrations that night, 'But there is always hope,' her optimism told her as Argo's hooves spurned the dust, 'there's always hope...'