He collapsed like a sack of grain in her arms, dead weight and full of blood. Even her strength could bear aloft the body of a full-grown bull. It pushed her to her knees, her arms still linked about his neck. She set his head gently down, aware of the absurdity of showing care for something she had just killed. But it brought a tenderness out in her, the sight of his closed eyes. Death was not Sleep, but the gods were related. If she tried, she could imagine the bull opening his eyes, breathing, lifting his head.
Waking.
The axe stood on a wooden base, the handle upright, the blades displayed. It was ancient: fashioned from stone, double bladed with sweeping wings like a butterfly. Labrys. Axes such as this had stool for a thousand years flanking altars of the Goddess in Crete, in the Labyrinth- the House of the Axe. The oldest symbol of the Goddess, from before Minos. Long before Achilles and his Myrmidons strove and hacked with bronze. When weapons were still formed from flint, when women might dream of a weapon as a symbol of the Great Mother. Going to this axe, naked and spotted with blood, seemed exactly right.
It was as heavy as she imagined; a flint axe of this size would be murder to wield. Nothing delicate about it. The thews of her shoulders and back creaked as she swung it aloft. The cut had to be clean, the blow perfect. Few people could expect to sever the neck of a full grown bull with one stroke. The god was dead, but she was a professional. The mass of the axe made it easier; she began the stroke, and the axe completed it. The flint edge scraped on the bull’s spine, turning the stroke, but it cut through. A river of warm blood washed over her feet.
The Apis has spoken about her having blood on her hands. Xena dipped her right hand into the bull’s blood, then set the print on the blade of the axe. It seemed right. The head would be too bulky to carry with her, but the Horus pectoral would not. She took the massive gold and lapis necklace from the body, and draped it like a sash over her shoulder. She stood over the body, with the axe in her hands.
“Thank you.”
The path back out of the labyrinth beckoned. The urgency came back to her, she had to catch up with the Phoenician.
Seven turns, spiraling back out from the center. It should have been an easy run. Yet the ground started to change under her feet, from the soft combed sand of the labyrinth, to a rough mix of sticks and fallen leaves, loam and moss.
The labyrinth path opened out into a forest. Xena stood glaring at it, accepting the evidence of her splendid senses, but feeling cheated by them as well. She had been somewhere in a dark cavern, before the door opened on the labyrinth. What was this? The boles of trees stood rich in darkness against a perpetual twilight, pearl gray between the silver and iron of the leaves. A mournful wind rattled through the upper branches, obscured with the thick gathering night that hung above, perching like a bird on the highest bough. The ground was covered with a park like trimmed silverine grass, and rolled slightly away into distant purple hills.
After pure darkness, twilight was bright enough to make her squint.
Her road must be through the forest, then.
She set out in long graceful strides, not looking back. She knew that the labyrinth would already be gone, and behind her the forest would have closed like the shell of an egg.
The baying of hounds, long and tremulous, sprang up from many directions. Xena strode the open spaces between the trees, not having a path to follow, she made her own. Hounds, in a wood like this, meant hunters with spears and nets, perhaps following a wild boar or a stag. The wood rang with the baying of dogs on a scent, coming ever closer in the ragged enthusiasm of the chase. Must be a full pack of them, from the growing cacophony.
Lights splintered the twilight. Torches, held by running forms, following the hounds that now became living shadows like the waves driven before a storm.
Xena stopped and watched them come on, until she could make out the glint of teeth and the roll of the beasts’ eyes in the reflected torchlight. Xena recognized that the dogs were in the grip of the hunt, ready to tear and rend their prey if their handlers did not beat them off. What did they follow so passionately through this forest on the outskirts of Dis?
She sniffed the air, but the scents were so strange in this forest, the layer of decay so complete, that no recognizable scent came to her, save the living reek of bull’s blood that hung about her.
The dogs seemed to catch that scent; they paused in their mad gallop, confused by the new stimulus, barking and yodeling their confusion across the hills. The torches wavered, then turned, coming toward her. Xena smiled and raised the axe.
Let them come.
The dogs ringed and shouldered one another, waiting for their masters. The torch bearers ran to the stalled hounds and began to berate them. One noticed what the dogs were staring toward, and shoved at his fellow.
They were young men all, six of them, dressed as huntsmen in the country leathers and rough chitons of farmers in the hills of Attica. In their right hands they bore torches, in their left, nets or javelins. The javelins came up into an attack posture when they all turned and stared at her.
Their reaction gave her a measure of satisfaction. She’d become accustomed to the strange logic of the afterworld and lost a sense of herself. These huntsmen, these youths-epheboi, eighteen years old at best, gave her a glimpse at herself through their eyes- a naked woman, six feet tall and draped with a pectoral of gold, feet and hands coated with drying blood, holding aloft an ancient double bitted axe. In Hades or Acheron or Erebus or Tartarus or the Field of Reeds, she still inspired fear.
She smiled at them, and greeted them warmly. “Evening, boys. How’s the hunt going?”
They started, as if hearing their own good Greek from this barbarous figure were the last thing they expected.
One of them took a half step forward, the leader.
“Are you of Hellas, as we are?” he asked. His accent was Athenian.
“I’m from Amphipolis, originally.” Xena said. It did not seem to comfort them.
“I am Myron, son of Alexias. These others are my companions, gentlemen of Athens. We profaned the Rites of Artemis, now we hunt souls along the Cocytus for all time.”
“Ouch. The River of Lamentation. So you boys went unburied.” Xena said.
It was strange to speak Greek again with someone other than Gabrielle. They had been so long in Africa that they were used to being the barbarians. The outsiders, in a sea of other languages. To speak in her own tongue to people who knew the same gods was a taste of home. She noticed it and found it interesting. She’d never been tied to one land or city, never saw herself as being of a certain place. All the world ran under her horse’s pounding hooves. Yet, meeting these young men in the forest of the dead was understandable, and thereby comforting. Something about the madhouse underworld was familiar.
“May we ask who you were?”
“I am Xena.”
She hadn’t thought it possible for the dead to turn pale, but the epheboi looked white as sun bleached skulls. The dogs picked up on their fear and started to whine.
“The Destroyer of Nations.” Myron said, taking a step back.
Xena sighed. “How long have you kids been dead?”
“Calicrates was archon basileus in Athens when we left the city.”
Xena ran through the information. “A hundred years. How’d you hear about me?”
Myron looked at her from the side of his eye. “You’ve sent many people here. We tend to talk.”
“Let me break it to you, times on earth have changed. I’m not a warlord anymore.” She waited, until her inner voice gnawed at her, saying what Gabrielle would have added, had she been at the warrior’s side. “I’m a hero now.”
“How did you die? Forgive me, but your appearance is strange.” Myron asked.
“I’m not dead. Its a long story.” She knew that she was unnerving them, casually chatting while naked and dipped in bull’s blood. “One of you have a spare chiton?”
Myron gestured to one of his companions, who swiftly stripped off the sleeveless tunic and kept only his leathers. Myron took the deep blue garment and handed it to Xena, eyes averted, as he might approach a snarling wolf.
She slipped the woolen garment over her head. It fell high on her muscled thighs, but was better than being naked. The Horus pectoral made a gorgeous and strange sash over the sobriety of the Greek cloth.
“That’s better.”
“Forgive me if I offend you, but how is it that you are here, alive, and, er, outfitted as you are?” Myron asked.
“I was traveling with the Amazons of Dahomey up the Nile to Alexandria, to deliver the new ambassador- never mind. I’m here to follow a recently deceased Phoenician workman to the Hall of Truth. You boys know the way?”
“Phoenician? Lysis! Your father was a tradesman on the route to Tyre. What gods do the Phoenicians follow?” Myron called out.
Lysis was tow headed and squinted as if meeting his own reflection in full sunlight.
“There’s Mavet, the god of death and sterility. A son of El. Baal, of course. Yam of the Sea. Resef, but he’s another Mavet. Melkart, more than any, is honored in Tyre.”
“Melkart- that’s what the necromancer said when he closed the lid on the sarcophagus.” Xena said.
“He’s the Phoenician Heracles.” Lysis added.
“Ok, go with Melkart. What do I have to do?”
The hounds began to whine, ears flat against their skulls, tails tucked between their legs, then fell silent. The silence was profound, lapping at the humans like waves on the shore of the river of Night. The leaves on the trees hung mute with the wind gone down to death. No sound came from the rolling hills, nothing stirred between the boles of the trees. The stars gleamed like points of frost, like spearheads. All the sphere held its breath. Then-
The ground underfoot began to mutter. The ridges, off in the distance, began to quake. The half light rolled back, like a river to its source, pure blackness set in. Darkness swallowed the moon and the stars, boiled between the trees, came on like fog across the grass. Aghast, the epheboi shrank bank, but Xena stood her ground.
From the forest came the tread of brazen steps, ringing and deep.
“She is coming!” Lysis shrieked.
“Lover of desolation, threefold Queen, she of the crossroads, lady of night- woe to them that invoked her!”
Myron was stammering in his terror, plucking at Xena’s chiton.
“What are you yammering about?” The warrior demanded, as the epheboi all collapsed and averted their faces.
“It is to late to fly! Fall on your knees and do not look upon her.”
The tread grew louder, like the beating of a kettledrum struck with a bull’s thighbone.
“Hekate.” Xena said, her blood freezing. Here was a goddess she had never met, though she’d faced Hades himself. Hekate did not mix with mortals. She was associated with bringing souls down to the Underworld, with Persephone and Demeter, but most of all with witches. What was the mistress of the crossroads doing here?
Then it came to her, cold sweat breaking out on her skin. Hekate Enoidia, Triodite, lovely dame...the words to the Orphic hymn. She had invoked Hekate, in multiple forms, when reciting that prayer. Why hadn’t that impressed itself on her? Where was her mind?
Too late for questions. The goddess had come.
Black snakes came before her, writhing a path for her fair feet to tread. In her train roamed spirits of the dead and troops of spectral forms, none inviting a closer look. The light of two torches heralded her, one held in each hand, revealing the saffron of her veil and dress, the gilding of her fillet, the spark of ice in each of her eyes. Three faces the goddess wore, all at one, three faces looking off in three directions, that she might guard the crossroads. The foremost of these fixed on the bloodstained warrior.
Xena imagined her voice would be hollow as a cave, as an amphora after the last of the wine had been poured out. She spoke; all three mouths moved, two in echo of the first so that the Goddess provided her own chorus. The tones were ringing and full; underneath a black bubbling rose menacingly.
“You have strayed far from your road, woman.”
Xena hefted the massive stone axe and tapped the haft with her fingers. It galled her that the goddess, one she’d never met, but one from her own Greek pantheon, addressed her so coldly. Even enemies are companions in a foreign land.
“Sometimes you just gotta get lost before you get found.”
“You’ve upset the order of the kosmos by coming here. The lyre is unstrung, the melody discordant, all harmony has fled. Have you any idea what you’ve done in the world above?” Hekate asked. The dogs cowered in blind terror, digging their muzzles into the dust.
“I’ve done many things in the world above.” Xena said, feeling her hackles start to rise. The cold hand of fear stroked her neck to wakefulness.
The three mouths of the goddess spoke, layering the words. “You will have this, this to undo.”
“You’re one of the guides, right, Lady? You work with Hermes and Persephone to bring souls to Hades. I’m a soul, and I need to get into Hades, or out of Hades and into the Egyptian Hall of the Two Truths. Or wherever else in Tartarus the damned Phoenician went. You follow me? I care nothing for fine religious points, or threats, or speculation. Lead me, or get out of my way. I’ve already killed one god today.”
Lysis gasped in horror and raised his eyes from the ground. The dogs began to back away on their bellies. In the train of her attendants ghosts gibbered and shrieked; snakes hissed in wrath. Hekate, Lady of the Crossroads and mistress of witches, laughed.
It was a dark bubbling sound birthed far below human habitation and brought up, like the fumes of sulphur, through ancient cracks in the living rock. Yet, she laughed.
“A bull lay down for you, and you call that slaying a god. You amuse me, daughter. Medea had some of your dark fire, undone by Jason. You should be on your knees before me as a suppliant, else fleeing my wrath with all your mortal strength. None call my attention to them lightly.
I will therefore give you three gifts, though you will wish soon that I had not. I will grant you what you ask- follow in my train, and I will lead you to the Egyptian Hall of the Dead. Second, I will forgive your insolence- I see that you are already under a goddess’ curse. As she and I are not entirely unlike one another, I can tell you that I see its end, though the way will be twisted and painful for you. Last- when the moment comes that you at last despair, look for two torches. She that holds them will be your succor.”
“Great. Thanks.” Xena barely restrained herself from asking if they could go now.
She’d gotten herself into enough trouble from the sound of it, though she couldn’t make sense of what Hekate had said. The baleful humor of the goddess was fragile, as fragile as her own rampaging temper. She wanted to hit something, smash something, tear into flesh, feel the great stone axe swing and chop. The goddess did offer to guide her to the Egyptian hall. So Xena bid a curt farewell to the cowering epheboi, and walked to the middle of the goddess’ train. Her skin crawled at the sight of the hungry dead, the shades of the unburied and the accursed. Their insubstantial hands plucked at her hair, they mouthed like the touch of eels at the blood on her limbs.
“Away!” Xena growled, and shook them from her.
Hekate took her stride, and her attendants followed in her wake, through the forests of Dis. Time had no meaning in the Underworld, nor were mortal senses equipped to apprehend the passage of eternity. It could have been a month or more that she walked in the train of the goddess, or the span of heartbeats. It was all the same to Xena. She was headed where she needed to go, even if she couldn’t recall exactly why. She was armed, she knew her own name. That seemed sufficient. Many of the dead no longer knew theirs.
The creeping feeling of horror grew on her, as the disembodied things crowded behind her, growing from scarves and wisps of ether into more substantial form, led on by their emotion. Xena acted as a magnet, her own brutal seething calling out to the hungry deads’ thirst. She promised blood, they ached for it. So they followed her, and become more solid as they walked in the wake of the goddess. The forest gave way to caverns, echoing as wombs, lit with red flame that writhed like corybantes.
Xena heard voices in the shadows, spilling over, talking all at once. All spoke Greek: both Attic and Doric, some the barbarous Macedonian dialect, some rural Boeotian, harsh Thracian mingled with softer Arcadian. It was a tour of the cities of Hellas, done in words. The words came clear as she passed the source of the hidden voices, each seeming fixed in a place along the wall.
“Are we dead? Is living a state that can be set apart from death, or are they reversed, and the divine spark the gods grant us imprisoned by the tomb of the body?”
“I will swear on the waters of the Styx, the most solemn and terrible oath the immortal gods may make...”
“Hermes Psychopomos! Lord Herald, guide us to the hall of the Host of Many, the dread god, the Lord Increasing in Wealth, but set us before the throne of his most merciful bride...”
“I am initiate! I have seen the Mysteries of Eleusis, I am Twice-Born; my portion is all good things that issue forth from Her..”
A thunderous growling filled the cavern, and for a moment, Xena believed that the father of the gods had unleashed one of his heavenly bolts. Her eyes fixed on the source- a dog with a body the size of an ox, blocking the way out of the cavern. From his massive neck sprouted three heads, all with lips drawn back over vicious teeth. His lashing tail was a serpent, hissing and dripping poison. Even the axe in her hands would not be enough to stop that monster, but she intended to go down in a welter of violence. Xena pushed to the fore of the train, shoving the dead out of her way. The low growl that came from her own throat was foreign to her. The axe swung on the same note. It bit deep, severing the third head cleanly below the skull. Teeth still snapped at her leg as it fell, and she had to dance backward. The remaining two heads howled in agony, and turned on her.
Hekate grabbed Xena by her flying hair and threw her down the cavern. The warrior rebounded from the stone wall and sat, dazed. Through blurred vision she thought she saw the goddess pick up the gory, still snapping head and set it back on the monster’s neck, stroking it like a puppy.
The spinning lights receded, her eyes cleared. The goddess was sitting on the floor of the cavern with the monster’s heads in her lap. The beast looked over at Xena, not mad with bloodlust, but accusingly, as a dog who’d been struck for doing his job. The third head was back in place, with only a few spots of blood mottling its fur to mark the wound.
The dog whined, ears down, and the goddess looked up.
“By striking Cerberus, you have forfeited my protection. I will not rescind the gifts I’ve promised you, but you are no longer in my favor.”
“It was going to attack us!” Xena said.
Two of Hekate’s heads looked away, averting their eyes in sorrow or weariness. “How far you have traveled from being Greek, if you cannot recognize the hound of Hades. How far you have traveled from being yourself if slaying is your only response. I must have a word with Oya over this; she’d never tolerate it if I did such a thing to one of her Amazons.” Hekate had stopped petting; the beast’s head’s nudged at her hands until she continued.
“You need to learn a lesson.”
All three of the goddess’ heads came up, looking fixedly off into different directions. “Yes. I can see where the road branches. I could go into the chamber with you, and tell him that he’s mad as a mortal, and drunk besides. Stop this, before it happens. But I will not. You struck down Cerberus, you’re on your own. There, down the road- oh, it will cause her pain that she has not earned. She is bound to you, so that is her choice and her portion. She can always walk away; that will be her crossroad. Very well.”
Hekate gave the beat a final scratch behind the ears, then stood up and dusted off her skirts. The dog leaned against her, nearly knocking her down.
“This is the door to the Hall. Go on, Cerberus won’t attack you now. Good luck, mortal. I hope I see you back in Greece at some point.”
“Lady, wait- ”
But the goddess was gone, with her train of attendants. The monster remained, but refused to acknowledge her. Xena did the only thing she could- raised her weapon headed toward the conflict.
Instantly everything was light, golden and brilliant as the sun. She stood in a long sandstone hall flanked by lotus pillars. Everywhere was light, from all directions but particularly from the end of the hall, where a great throne sat. Before the throne stood a ring of beings, gods of Egypt. On the throne sat Osiris mummified, his skin green as new plants, holding the crook and the flail of rulership. On his head was the White Crown. Behind him stood Nepthys, before him, his son Horus, the falcon-headed Avenger of the gods, Thoth, the Scribe, ibis-headed and serene, recording everything.
Down the hall, halfway, stood Anubis, holding the hand of a man. He wore white linen and a collar of gold set with faience, as an Egyptian might, but he also wore the curled beard of the Phoenicians. This was the man she sought. In the very center of hall was a set of scales taller than the human. Anubis led the Phoenician there, and halted.
Had no one seen her entrance?
At this thought the pectoral sash she wore warmed, like gold left in the sun. Osiris knew she was here. And from the backward flick of Anubis’ ear, he knew as well. They were in the middle of solemn business, and did not see fit to interrupt it for a single foreigner. They trusted her to keep her peace until they were ready? –she wondered. It seemed easier to do here, in this saffron and amber hall, than it had in the mad darkness and dancing flames of the Greek caverns. The calm swept gently though the hall like a summer’s breeze. No violence or need for violence here. This test was of other virtues. Not, even, her test. The axe felt heavy in her hand, she let it’s blade rest on the floor.
Anubis led the Phoenician to the scales. In one shallow dish rested his heart. The goddess Ma’at came from behind the throne, and took her feather of Truth and held it above the balancing dish.
The dead man saluted Osiris with palms raised above his head in a posture of adoration. “Homage to thee, O great God, Lord of Two Truths! I have come unto thee, O my Lord, and I have brought myself hither that I may behold thy beauties. I know thee, I know thy name, I know the names of the Forty-two Gods who live with thee in this Hall of Two Truths, who live by keeping ward over sinners, and who feed upon their blood on the day when the consciences of men are reckoned up in the presence of the god Un-Nefer. In truth thy name is Rehti-Merti-Nebti-Maati. In truth I have come unto thee, I have brought Truth to thee. I have done away sin for thee.” It was a passage from the Book of the Dead, the book of Coming Forth by Day, the spells and secret names and words of power the dead needed to achieve immortality and happiness in the next world. Osiris was the judge of the dead. Thoth, the Scribe, set his stylus to the tablet. What Osiris judged, he recorded for all eternity.
The Phoenician turned back to the goddess Ma’at, who held the feather above the scales. He began speaking to the goddess, but also to the assembled gods in the hall.
“I have not done crimes against people,
I have not mistreated cattle,
I have not sinned in the Place of Truth.
I have not known what should not be known,
I have not done any harm.”
It took Xena several moments to catch what he was saying. This was the Negative Confession, the declaration of innocence and righteousness. Without it, the dead would be cast away into the outer darkness and his heart would be eaten.
”I did not begin a day by exacting more than my due,
My name did not reach the bark of the mighty ruler.
I have not blasphemed a god,
I have not robbed the poor.
I have not done what the god abhors,
I have not maligned a servant to his master.
I have not caused pain,
I have not caused tears.
I have not killed,
I have not ordered to kill,
I have not made anyone suffer.
I have not damaged the offerings in the temples,
I have not depleted the loaves of the gods,
I have not stolen the cakes of the dead.
I have not copulated nor defiled myself.
I have not increased nor reduced the measure,
I have not diminished the arura,
I have not cheated in the fields.
I have not added to the weight of the balance,
I have not falsified the plummet of the scales.
I have not taken milk from the mouth of children,
I have not deprived cattle of their pasture.
I have not snared birds in the reeds of the gods,
I have not caught fish in their ponds.
I have not held back water in its season,
I have not dammed a flowing stream,
I have not quenched a needed fire.
I have not neglected the days of meat offerings,
I have not detained cattle belonging to the god,
I have not stopped a god in his procession.
I am pure, I am pure, I am pure, I am pure!
I am pure as is pure that great heron in Hnes.
I am truly the nose of the Lord of Breath,
Who sustains all the people,
On the day of completing the Eye in On,
In the second month of winter, last day,
In the presence of the lord in this land,
I have seen the completion of the Eye in On!
No evil shall befall me in this land,
In this Hall of the Two Truths;
For I know the names of the gods in it,
The followers of the great God!”
During the confession, Xena’s attention wandered, bored by the list of things this workman hadn’t done. What sort of life was left for him to live, if he’d never offended anyone or anything? Just as well I’m not Egyptian; I’d never make it through a third of the confession.
I have not caused pain...unless it was needed.
I have not caused tears...unless accompanied by pain.
I have not killed. I can’t even imagine saying that.
I have not ordered to kill...anybody I wouldn’t kill myself.
I have not made anyone suffer...
Xena’s humor dried up. Gabrielle’s face came to her, the last moments they’d been together. The shock of seeing fear in those beloved eyes, fear of her. I have caused suffering, to one who has earned nothing but grace. I don’t deserve the favor of the gods.
The dead man was done speaking. Ma’at set her feather in the dish of the balance.
For a moment there was a silence in the hall. Xena saw, for the first time, something lurking between the lotus columns. It lumbered into sight, and the dead man shook from head to foot. It was a figure out of nightmare, composed of parts of a lion, a crocodile and a hippopotamus. Ammit, the demon, the Devourer of the Dead. If the Phoenician’s heart failed the test of the balance, it would be devoured by the demon and he would die forever.
The heart sank down, sending the opposite dish up. Xena felt her ribs grow tight. Then the heart rose, and the feather of Truth came to rest exactly equal. The Phoenician, now as much an Egyptian as his wife, was justified.
Horus, the young Avenger took him by the hand, and lead the dead man to the throne of his father. Isis, Nepthys and Osiris Un-nefer welcomed him to the joys of the afterlife with words of welcome and gladness. Thoth recorded forever the dead man’s name as Osiris Resef-Melkart.
The joy in the hall, the murmur of gladness and pleasure wore away the last of Xena’s anger. The axe rested on the floor, unnecessary. There was the hint of flutes and cymbals on the breeze as if a procession grew closer. The sense of peace was extraordinary.
The sounds of revelry grew louder, and more distinct- singers, dancers, musicians in a grand, chaotic processional snaked into the hall. Acrobats led the way, accompanied by gamboling baboons. Egyptians all, save for the center of the train, where two young men danced with their arms about each other’s shoulders, alternating shouting encouragement and swilling wine from poorly held kylixes. Both were young, both slender and well defined, both with the air of men who spent their time traveling. One was Greek, with a cap of short bronze-gold curls clipped tight to his neck. He wore a traveler’s cap, pushed back on his head, a half-cloak such as a messenger might wear, high strapped sandals that blurred the air about them suspiciously. In the crook of his right arm was a herald’s wand, entwined with snakes. His companion was so similar in feature that he might be a brother, but he wore the eastern garb of the Asiatic Greek, the loose tunic over trousers replacing the chlamys and chiton.
Thoth, beholding this, put his hand to his head as if in pain.
“Ho! Anubis! Your workday is over, come have a drink!” The Greek called out.
The jackal headed god looked guiltily over his shoulder. “We’re not exactly done here, Hermes. I thought you and Candaules were in Sardis.”
“We were! But we got to thinking, what is better than a party with two psychopomps?” Hermes asked his companion.
“A party with three psychopomps! So we came to find Anubis!” They both shouted, winecups hoisted high.
Osiris cleared his throat. The good and the beautiful god looked down from his throne at the drunken revel.
“Welcome to Kemet, Hermes. Candaules, how is life in Lydia these days?”
“Well enough, Un-nefer. Come have drink with us!” Candaules extended his winecup.
Osiris shook his head. “No, thank you. Anubis, oh, go on, I know you don’t have company all that often. Gentlemen, my hall welcomes you. Be at peace.”
Thoth glared at the drunken herald-gods. Anubis ducked his lead, looking more than a bit guilty, but took the cup Hermes pressed on him. Thoth made a note on his tablet.
“Old spoilsport. Never met a scribe god that had a sense of humor.” Hermes said.
“Thoth is alright, in his way. He’s just older than the rest of us, save Osiris.” Anubis said.
None of them paid the least heed to Xena, standing at the back of the hall. The dancers spread out, the musicians started to play a tune in the Lydian mode, causing Candaules to cry out sharply and begin to dance. “Come on Greek, let me show you how to dance!”
“You’re more than half a Greek anyway, Candaules,” Hermes said.
“This, from Hermes Trismegistus, more than half Egyptian, though he is loath to admit it.”
“Oh, stop it, both of you, or I’ll call Thoth and you will see who is Thrice-Great,” Anubis said.
“Who’s new life are we celebrating?” Candaules asked.
“Osiris Resef-Melkart, newly justified,” Anubis said, indicating the dead man standing before Osiris’ throne.
“Hail and well met to him, may he rest in the Elysian Fields and dine on nectar and ambrosia with the divine heroes,” Hermes said.
Anubis smacked his brow. “That reminds me. We have one of your Greek heroes here, who got lost in the underworld.”
“Heracles wandering around Hades again, or Orpheus?” Hermes asked.
The dog-god pointed his long arm down the hall at Xena. “No, her.”
Hermes handed his winecup to Candaules and, markedly more sober, came to greet the warrior.
“How did you get lost? Did Charon drop you off at the wrong stop?”
“I’m not dead.”
Hermes Psychopompos, Lord Herald and Guide of Souls, knew that occasionally, a living being found its way into the halls of the dead. He didn’t waste time asking if she were serious, or disbelieving what he’d heard. He was god of travelers, rouges and thieves- it warmed his heart to see an individual get around the systems of order.
“How’d you do that?” he asked, casually, taking in the warrior’s strange attire.
“Got buried, followed the Phoenician there, navigated a labyrinth, strangled a bull, ended up in a forest. Hekate led me to this hall.” Xena said. Her hand began to itch for the axe, currently resting on the floor by her feet. It was the energetic, mercurial nature of Hermes that carried comfort and threat alike.
“You don’t say. Three pantheons at least at play here. If I’m not mistaken, that’s your symbol, Un-nefer.” Hermes said, touching the gold pectoral with his herald’s wand. Xena reacted without thought, slapping the wand away as if it were a poisonous serpent.
“She strikes at you, Hermes! That is no Greek.” Candaules called out, a good deal drunker than his fellow messenger gods.
“No. I thought she was Greek, from a distance, but the scent of the outlands is on her. No Greek would consider such blasphemy, striking at the Herald of Zeus. No wonder Charon didn’t know what to do with her.” Hermes retreated to where Candaules and Anubis stood. He accepted a kylix from Candaules, and poured red wine into his mouth.
“If she’s not a Greek, what is she?” Candaules asked.
“Ask her yourself, but don’t get too close. The mortal bites.”
“She smelled like a Greek to me, when we met along the river.” Anubis said. “Now, I’m not so sure.”
“We have a puzzle! I love a good mystery. Come, brothers, let us settle this with a drinking game. The god who can empty an amphora of Thracian red first, gets to claim the mortal.” Hermes said.
“Osiris?” Anubis asked, looking toward his lord.
The mummified god was calm as a pure spring in the desert. “This is your area of influence, gentlemen. Do as you will.”
Hermes clapped his hands, and some of the dancers ran off to fetch the amphorae. Each clay jug was as tall as a man, tapering to a point on the bottom and so impossible to balance on the floor. It would have to be emptied at a single draught.
Anubis took up the amphora first. His muzzle thrust deep, he drank like shore drinks the waves of the storm ridden sea, but it was not enough. With a choking gasp, the dog-god set the amphora aside, still half full.
“The wine runs too deep for me. Brothers, which of you shall attempt it?” Anubis said.
“Candaules will go next.” Hermes said.
The Lydian god took the clay jar from the dancers who struggled under its weight.
“You are a fool, Hermes, to give me your turn. If I drain the amphora, the contest is ended.”
“Speak less, Candaules, drink more.”
The Lydian took the amphora in both hands and swung it aloft, as no mortal man could. In one great draught he drank, enough to empty rivers and bring floodplains barren. The wine filled his veins and the chambers of his heart; the god was steeped and filled with it. The last garnet drop clung to the edge of the clay, reluctant to fall between the parted lips of the drunken god. All things fall, all time passes, and so the wine passed into the mouth of the Lydian. He hurled the amphora away with a great shout of triumph, and wove back to his fellows on shipboard legs.
“Dry as dust, dry as bones, dry as the witch’s-“
“Careful, Candaules, you’re drunk.” Anubis set a cautioning hand on Candaules’ arm.
The last amphora was brought forth. “Care to try it, Lord Hermes?” The dancers asked.
“Why not? A wager is a wager.” Hermes glanced sidelong at Xena, and for a moment, she thought she could see silver flare up like a shower of stars in his eyes.
The amphora swung aloft, and the herald god gave a might effort, but in the last few mouthfuls, he choked. Wine stained his lips and spilled onto the floor.
“The woman is yours, Candaules. You decide what becomes of her.”
“You touch me and I’ll varnish the floor with your brains,” Xena snarled, the stone axe back in her hands.
“Candaules, could you handle this?” Hermes asked, waving in Xena’s direction.
“Silence, mortal, ” The Lydian said, and she was silent- her lips opened, but no sound issued forth. The axe swung back over her shoulder. “And be still.”
Candaules circled around the warrior, examining her as one might examine a statue in a pleasure garden. Xena felt the fighting madness pound in her temples, nearly blinding her. There was only one answer to this pain; pure, physical, violent and complete. Cleave the author of that pain with the stone axe, and she would be free. Her desire was forged in the fires of torment, but her body betrayed her and refused to move.
Jets of agony lanced through her. In an act of will that set her muscles to screaming, Xena forced her lips to move. “Resef...”
Anubis, whose ears were keener than any of the other gathered immortals, stepped forward. “She speaks!”
“Nonsense. I set silence on her.” Candaules scoffed.
“She doesn’t like to listen to authority,” Anubis said.
“But I’m a god!”
“Listen, both of you! She invokes the Phoenican,” Hermes said. “Free her, Candaules, so she might explain.”
“Very well. Speak, mortal.”
“I’ve fought my way through the underworld to follow him. The necromancer set this task on me, so that I might be healed. I am not leaving this hall until I am."
Hermes, swift footed, bright eyed, brilliant shining youth who’d stolen Apollo’s cattle as a baby from his cradle, mercurial Hermes, trickster Hermes, heard these words through the haze of the Thracian red wine. He could see the geas on her when he looked- the heavy hand of a foreign goddess that had misshapen the mortal’s spirit. The warrior had summoned so much steel into her soul to carry the anger of the goddess Oya, that she’d cut off all other emotions. The woman had been set aside in favor of the warrior. How unbalanced, thought the lord of thieves. How interesting. She needed healing, thought the lord of travelers. Very well.
The beautiful youth walked forward with the grace of a roebuck, his caduceus extended. He sighed extravagantly, as if this task were onerous as Sisyphus’ pushing the rock. “I’m the closest thing to healer here, Asclepius is in Delphi.” He tilted the staff sideways and tapped Xena on the shoulder carelessly. The twined serpents hissed at her, but did not strike. “Be healed.”
Xena felt the silver wand touch her flesh like a kiss on a winter night. She shivered. Other than the ripple of her flesh, her body refused to move. Speaking was an agony.
Candaules, staggering now, started to pout. “You promised the mortal to me. She’s my winning.”
“All yours, brother. What will you do with her?” Hermes asked, over his shoulder. Candaules frowned. “I’ve no idea.”
“Why not leave it up to Tyche?”
“Fortune? How?’
“The next person that prays to you; send her there,” Hermes said, innocently.
The Lydian smiled brilliantly. “I like that.”
“Not ...going,” Xena spat through clenched teeth.
Candaules looked at her as a child might look at a broken toy. Arrogance rose in his face, heady as the wine. “You will. Wait- there, in the slums of Sardis. A dove is sacrificed on the altar, the libation is spilled. My name is invoked.” Candaules stood, listening. Nodding. “She has asked me for help. For a miracle. I’m sending her my winnings.”
“To Sardis? Just drop her from the sky?” Anubis asked.
“No, they will meet up in Alexandria. My worshipper has business there; I’ll let their meeting be a surprise. You know, she’s of the old bloodline, of the kings of Lydia. Before the Persians grabbed everything. Yes, this pleases me to help her. Fear not, daughter. I am sending what you asked.”