They had searched the palace from top to bottom, suffering through pangs of deja vu as they passed the places they had searched the morning before, in another time.

As they approached the door to what once was their chambers, Maeve and Sinbad paused and Sinbad looked at the door with a raised eyebrow. Maeve’s hand clutched at her necklace in an effort to ignore the blackening bruises on her neck. They both sighed and cautiously opened the door, this time searching the corners and shadows of the room.

Maeve searched the chambers with her powers, her tense shoulders relaxing, a small laugh of relief escaping her lips. "He’s not here."

Sinbad laughed slightly as well. "Isn’t it odd that you and I should be acting like timid children? If Doubar had seen this he would have never let me live it down."

"Aye, Dermott as well."

"It’s getting dark now, Maeve, the shadows are deepening; should we press on, or do you want to rest for the night?" Sinbad rested a hand upon Maeve’s shoulder, seeing the tired lines around the young woman’s eyes.

"I think we should keep searching; it’s hard to say what Xaldar will do if we were to let down our guard."

"Are you sure you’re up to it?"

Maeve rolled her eyes and sighed deeply. "Are we back to this conversation again? I’m pregnant not dying, I’m fine."

Sinbad backed away, he was not risking another one of her punches; his woman could be viscious when she wanted to. He grinned at the thought, and turned to go out the door. "So, my sweet, any idea where we should look next?"

Maeve followed Sinbad out into the corridor. "If you were a powerful sorcerer who has lost touch with reality, and you had an entire palace in which to hide, where would you go?"

"To the most isolated spot in the building."

"Aye, meaning the old page towers. They were boarded up when we were staying at the palace, according to Isabelle there was a massacre up there, so King Andrais... well, Old Xaldar quardoned it off. I think that he would go there if he wanted to hide."

"You’re probably right." Sinbad paused, drawing in a deep breath. "Maeve, I’d feel much better if you were to stay here and let me go on alone." He had given up trying to give her orders, she would never listen to him, perhaps if he pleaded.....

Maeve shook her head violently. "Not a chance, sailor. Xaldar is just as much mine to kill as he is yours; we go together, for Dermott, for Doubar, and for Declan. Together we will try and piece our lives back into what they should be." Sinbad could only nod and start down the corridor. Maeve sighed and softly caressed her stomach. "As together we tear our lives apart."

***************************

Xaldar peered into his black mirror with dark mirth; Maeve was being ripped apart by the recent events and Xaldar was loving every moment of her pain. Sinbad’s emotional distress was an added bonus for the sorcerer, and as soon as he was strong enough again, he would make sure Sinbad never felt anything again.

All of this was worth it just to see the wench suffer; she had brought so much misery into his life over the last twenty years; the entire village beleived her insane for she hardly ever showed up in public, and never without those bloody books of hers! He never did figure out how she had taught herself to read without the use of her eyes; she had once told him that her mind’s eye had not been blinded so she could see with her thoughts, but that made no sense to him. All he knew for sure was that he hated that stupid peasant witch, and eagerly awaited her death.

He looked around the dusty tower where all his sorcery supplies awaited his attention; he had a world of dark magic at his fingertips, and he was going to make excellent use of his talents. Picking up a small statue of a dog, Xaldar murmered a slight incantation, and the statue dissapeared from his fingertips. He laughed mirthlessly, and turned to watch out the window.

*******************************

Sinbad watched Maeve closely as she carefully picked her way over the cobblestones of the courtyard. The sun had set, and their only light was the dim glow on the horizon. Sinbad had just turned to ask Maeve if she wanted to rest when a low growl reached their ears.

"What was that?" Sinbad hissed into Maeve’s ear.

"You tell me!" With a thought Maeve formed a glowing ball of light to illuminate their surroundings.

Sinbad looked in front of them to see the form of a gigantic black dog growling down at them. As the light glinted off the dogs foot long fangs, and a stream of drool dripped down at their feet, Sinbad turned back to Maeve.

"Turn out the light."

The fear in his voice killed any hesitation she may have felt, and she sank their world back into darkness. They stood, her blind, him as good as blind, waiting to see what the monster would do; they got their answer in moments as the ground shook under the great dogs step. Sinbad swallowed hard and took Maeve’s hand.

"On the count of three, you throw a fireball directly in front of us, and dive to the right; I’ll follow the fireball with a quick sword thrust, and then come after you."

"Aye," Maeve said, nodding her head, bracing herself for the use of her magic.

"One," Sinbad muttered lowly, as the dog came closer. It was with in ten feet. "Two." Five feet. "THREE!" He hollered out, and Maeve threw her fireball directly into the dog’s face. Sinbad paused for a moment, watching as the dog yelped in pain, "Nice shot, Maeve."

"Thank you!" Maeve called as she dove into the long grass on her right. Sinbad drew his sword out of it’s sheath and charged at the stunned animal.

The dog had braun but obviously no brain as it made no move to protect itself from Sinbad’s attack, at first. Once the blade of that mightly weapon penetrated the dogs thick hide, sinking into its haunches and drawing vast amounts of blood, the creature turned, screaming out in agony, and with the bat of a paw sent Sinbad flying across the courtyard to land directly across from Maeve.

"How’d that work?" She asked as she helped him to his feet.

"Pretty well, I’d say. Shall we go again?"

"By all means captain, just tell me where."

They smiled at each other, almost glad to be back in a physical battle, and Maeve formed another fireball.

"All right, Maeve, again directly in front of you and on the count of three. One, two, three." As the dog again approached the duo, Maeve hurled her fireball in its direction. This time the dog was smart enough to duck, but as it did, the fur on the back of its neck caught fire and began burning it. It howled out miserably, and Sinbad rushed forward, cutting his sword across the dogs exposed neck.

As the dog came crashing to the ground, shaking the entire palace grounds, it howled it’s death’s lament. Finally, panting and whining, the great beast drew its last breath and shuddered its last movement.

Maeve sighed as the beast died. "I wish people would stop using these poor animals to do their dirty work; it gets rather depressing after a while having to destroy what could have been beautiful creatures had they been givent the chance."

Sinbad nodded in thoughtful agreement, giving her an afirmative sound from deep in his throat. He took her arm and began to lead her around the carcass of the great beast. They were rapidly approaching the entrance to the page towers, and Allah only knew what they would find in there accompanying Xaldar.

*****************************

Xaldar frowned; so they had evaded and killed Porthyro.... oh well, never mind, a dog is just a dog, there were always other beasts to be used for his little chores.

Still he frowned. It was too easy for them to defeat his creation, he must find something more substantial, more blood thirsty. He began scanning his shelves, looking at all the various statues with which that wonderful sorcerer Turok had provided him. What luck it had been meeting that vengence obsessed warlock; apparantly his beautiful daughter had worked herself into quite a state trying to win the heart of that blue eyed sailor. When the sailor had died, the witch lost her thrill for the hunt; it seemed that some of the feelings she had held for him were real, though it could be argued Rumina was only upset at never having achieved the final goal of claiming Sinbad’s body, or for that matter his life. Either way, the dark sorceress had rather shrivelled after Sinbad had been killed, and she had never quite been the same again. Turok already craved vengence against Sinbad for his own demise, a moot point, seeing as he was returned to life with in a year, however he felt Sinbad owed him his life for destroying the sorcerer, and then the sorcerer’s daughter. Turok had bestowed upon him not only the powers of the dark side, but also the powers of the dark life benefactor; Xaldar could give life to any animated or non animated object.

He smiled lowly as he came across a statue of a scorpion; this one wouldn’t be so hard to defeat. He spoke his incantation and watched as the statue dissapeared. "Go with the force of Aries, my friend, and bring me back that sailor’s bones!"

*********************************

The click of sharp somethings on the cobblestones was what caught Sinbad’s attention this time. He turned to his wife who shook her head. "After last time, I don’t think I want to know."

Sinbad laughed tensely at the sorceress’s sense of humor. "Well, you may not want to know, but I have to know to figure out how to fight it."

Maeve sighed. "Wonderful... I want into your mind so that I can see this thing too. If you’re going to fight it, so am I."

"Did I ever have any doubts about that?"

Maeve scowled in his general direction and slipped gently into his mind. His world was not much brighter than her own on that moonless night, so she quietly formed her ball of light. She wished then that she had not, or at least had not been able to see it. The scorpion was as tall as the palace walls, its talons standing up to the windows on the second floor. It’s huge, poisonous tail was clicking against the rimmings of the roof; Maeve swallowed and extinguished the light.

"How do we fight something that collosal."

"The same way we fought the king of collosal himself."

"What, you want me to lock up one of it’s knees?"

"That’d be a start."

Maeve shook her head. "Men. They always think that just because they can fathom an idea, we can carry it through. Who ever said males were the dominant race?"

Sinbad smiled softly at Maeve’s mutterings, and watched with awe as she prepared herself to duel with the giant creature. This time swords would be no help, the scorpion’s armor would prevent any serious harm, that left only magic.

Maeve braced her body and began to call forth the power of her soul; a great energy began to fill her veins, coursing through her very being, and she turned to face the creature. Maeve reached down and focused that energy into two beams of pure magic that emminated from her finger tips. Her first attack did nothing more than stun the animal which thereby began heading straight for them, rather rapidly.

"Maeve, come on! Firouz could do better than that! Concentrate!"

Maeve rolled her eyes, knowing that they had had this conversation once before. "I am concentrating!" Redoubling her efforts, Maeve again lashed out at the scorpion, her magic slaming into the creature, this time driving it back a step and leaving a smokey trail on its armour.

"Atta girl! One more time!"

"I’m not skipping rope here, Sinbad! I don’t know if I have one more time!"

"You have to! It’s still coming! Now blow that oversized insect back to the hell that spawned it!

"Aye, aye, Captain!" Maeve drawled, as she closed her eyes, and focused every last ounce of her energy upon destroying that scorpion. It took a step towards them.

"Maeve, now would be a good time!"

With a final thought, she let loose; the magic coming from her had changed utterly, instead of being a red stream as normal, the magic apeared as a white stream; clean magic, innocent magic, magic that ruled over all.

The creature couldn’t deal with the purity of Maeve’s attack, and it’s armor caved in upon it; it never cried out, nor did it move at all once it dropped to the ground, rolling onto its back. The scorpion had finally been vanquished.

"Good work, Maeve," Sinbad muttered as he looked over at his wife; she was drained somewhat of her energy, and looked a little more than peaked. "Maeve? Are you all right?" He took her arm and sat her down on a nearby bench.

"Aye, give me a moment and I will be fine." She drew in a deep breath. "Which way to the page tower?"

"The way you aren’t going to be headed. You’re too weak to fight Xaldar."

Maeve’s eyes darkened. "No way, sailor. We’ve been through this a thousand times, I’m not staying behind. That’s final."

Sinbad glowered at his wife, but said nothing. He wasn’t going to win this battle; he sighed, he doubted he would have ever won any battle with Maeve as his wife, she always had a way of getting around him.

Without saying a word, Sinbad took her arm and they entered the page tower. Slowly they began climbing the hundreds of steps to the top of the tower, where they would face their destiny.

**********************************

Xaldar scowled out the window; nothing was going to work on those two! Argh, they were becoming an extreme nuisence, why wouldn’t they just die already?!!!

He scanned his shelves for a statue of another creature,but it was too late; he could hear them on the stairs getting ever closer to his domain. Well, fine then, let them come. Once they were here in his hideaway, in his center of magic, then he would have them.

The mistake he had made was trusting in his creatures to do his work for him; once they were here, standing before him like the weak mortals they were, Xaldar would kill them both himself, just like he did their son.

Xaldar smiled, now the only question was who was going to die first, the sailor, or that wench sorceress. His eyes hardened and he knew his answer.

********************************

They reached the landing at the top of the stairs; Sinbad looked around suspiciously as Maeve scanned their immediate surroundings with her magic. Something was not right, Xaldar had made no further move to stop them from reaching him since the scorpion. Neither were anxious to discover why. Moving forward slowly, the two entered the door at the head of the landing, seeking this time line’s Xaldar; they were not dissapointed.

The room glowed and flickered with what appeared to be firelight, but there were no torches in the room. Books spanned one end to the other, and thousands of tiny statues filled every open place. In the center of the disaster sat Xaldar, crosslegged, surrounded by the many statues of grotesque creatures. Sinbad grimaced as he peered at the tiny creatures; he had just discovered where the monsters had been coming from.

"Xaldar, I assume you know why we’re here?" Sinbad stepped forward, staying between the sorcerer and his wife.

"Don’t even presume to believe you can kill me, Sinbad; I have a power greater than any the world has ever scene, and I will win this battle as I have all others."

"What power would that be, Xaldar?" Maeve asked, moving out from Sinbad’s block; she felt him frown at her.

Xaldar held up a book of incantations, it’s paged marked to a rare and ancient spell. "I hold in my hands the spell of omnipotence; the instant I cast this spell, I became undefeatable."

Maeve’s jaw dropped. "You didn’t... you haven’t... you couldn’t..."

"Yes, my dear, I did, I have, and I could. It’s done. I am now the most powerful being ever known to man. Zeus holds no power to me!"

It was at that point a rumble of thunder could be heard over head, thunder that caused both Maeve and Sinbad to raise their heads and take a step backwards.

"Xaldar, I don’t beleive insulting Zeus is the best way of going about this." Sinbad said, slowly.

Xaldar laughed with glee. "Zeus, who? Oh that petty, weakling, so called King of the Gods? More like loose link of the gods! Zeus holds not a candle to my powers, he means no more to me than a field mouse in the altar rafters." Xaldar made a brushing motion with his hand. "I dismiss Zeus with barely a thought."

"WHAT DID YOU SAY YOU POOR EXCUSE FOR A MORTAL????" Zeus’s booming, enraged voice filled the small area of the room. "YOU THINK YOU ARE BETTER THAN ME??? YOU THINK YOU CAN DEFEAT ME IN BATTLE???? WELL, MORTAL, I CHALLENGE YOU TO A DUEL RIGHT HERE AND NOW! A DUEL TO THE DEATH!" Zeus misted into the room, his face purple with his anger, his eyes flashing dangerously.

"Zeus, were we not supposed to deal with Xaldar," Sinbad asked quietly.

"You were, but I have since changed my mind. Stay here or go, it means nothing to me, but I will kill this petty mortal where he stands."

Xaldar turned to Zeus. "You have yourself a challenge. Step aside mortals." He muttered distractedly to Maeve and Sinbad, having utterly forgotten his need for blood.

Zeus smiled lowly. "Now you will face the consequences of insulting a god, not once, but twice. When you used my daughter for information, you insulted me and you insulted Aphrodite, that cannot be forgiven. Now you insult me to my face and laugh at it, that cannot be forgotten. Face your destiny, mortal, face the wrath of Zeus!"

Xaldar pulled around him a veil of obscurity, trying to make himself less noticable to the god while he cast his first spell. Zeus’s eyes followed him humourously, raising one eyebrow, watching the form struggle to speak the incantation. Zeus allowed him his little pleasure.

Xaldar lashed out at Zeus with a series of formidable fireballs, each fireball was three times the size of one of Maeve’s glowing with a power neither mortal had ever scene. They backed out into the corridor to avoid the burning ash falling from the weapons. The fireballs hit Zeus dead on, but he merely peered down and laughed.

"Haven’t you ever learned, mortal, the only thing that can kill a god is the blood from a golden hind? A creature that is quite extinct."

Xaldar raised an eyebrow to copy Zeus’s amusement. "I am no longer mortal; I am a god, a better god than you will ever be. Do as you will, godling, I will reign supreme!"

Sinbad choked back his shock as Xaldar spoke the words that were going to get him very killed very quickly.

"He is delusional, you know, Sinbad." Maeve whispered.

"What?"

"He actually believes what he is saying; he believes he is a god and cannot be harmed."

"Then he’s going to die."

"As soon as Zeus chooses to allow him to die."

As they spoke, Zeus formed a lightening bolt, seeminly without effort, and hurled it to one side of Xaldar’s head. The king’s hair singed as the lightening bolt whizzed passed him, and the king looked at Zeus in surprise.

"Well, you’re a wee bit more powerful than I had thought," Xaldar said with a snarl. "Never mind, I’ll get you with this one." Muttering his incantation and moving his arms as the book showed, Xaldar began conjuing a great iron disk; a disk that was hurled at the neck of the god; a disk that sliced straight through the gods neck and implanted itself into the wall behind.

Zeus cocked his neck, checking for damage in a calm manner that infuriated Xaldar. "Why are you still here you piteful, crazy, weak, worthless god? I want you gone!"

Zeus finally scowled deeply at the man. "And I want you dead." In that instant, without a thought or a word, lightening bolt after lightening bolt flashed out of nowhere and an straight into Xaldar’s body. The first bolt caused his body to jerk wildly, burning his skin black; the second opened a hole in his chest, similar to the one he opened in Declan’s; the third burned his body beyond recognition, while the succeeding lightening bolts merely served to calm the god’s anger.

When Xaldar was well and dead, his body turned to ashes upon the tower floor, Zeus turned to Maeve and Sinbad who were standing in the hallway, both with expressions of horror upon their faces. Determined not to be left out, Maeve had watched through Sinbad’s mind the atrocities which Xaldar had suffered. Though both mortals felt horror at the god’s actions, neither felt remorse.

Sinbad looked up at the approaching god. "Zeus, we owe you a debt of gratitude for completing our vengence for us."

"I did nothing for you. Petty mortals must learn their places in the world; this one took his too far for his own good."

"Well, thank you anyway."

Zeus sniffed. "Your job here is done. Aphrodite will come in a few minutes to escort you back to your own time."

Without another word the god misted away into the night, leaving Maeve and Sinbad alone to deal with the rapid approach of their final destiny. Their life together had come to an end and now was the time to say goodbye.

Concluded in Shared Admissions: Part Fifteen

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