Background and tab from Moyra's Web Jewels. Thanx Moyra!by Leetah
"...And so the God Prometheus was freed of Hera's chains!!! And all mankind can thank Hercules and the woman warrior known as... Xena!!!" Gabrielle finished with her usual flourish, and despite the late hour, found herself enjoying yet another chorus of applause as she made her way back to Xena's table at the small village tavern, a grin on her face and her purse heavy with dinars.
"Well done," Xena said.
"One of my better efforts," the young bard replied. "Thirsty work, tho..."
Xena smiled. "Barkeep! Two ales!"
"Yes. A fine story indeed."
Xena and Gabrielle looked up. Standing beside their table was a slender, older woman with pale skin, gray hair and bright eyes. She wore a woolen cape over a simple dress and carried a large rucksack.
"You're Gabrielle, the Bard of Poteidaia," the woman said. "And you must be Xena, the former Warrior Princess who threw off the yoke of Ares."
Xena nodded. "And you are..."
"Thirsty." The old woman sat down at their table, her rucksack in her lap. "My apologies. I'm short on funds, and your exciting stories rather wore me out." She smiled. "But I tell you what... buy me an ale and I'll tell the two of you a story."
"Oh, that's okay..." Gabrielle began.
"The story of the night the warlord named Callisto lost her mind... and let madness take her soul."
Xena and Gabrielle stared at the old woman. The moment was finally broken by the barkeep slamming two mugs of ale onto the table.
Wordlessly, Xena slid one of the mugs over to Gabrielle and the other to the old woman.
"Tell your story," Xena whispered.
*******
It was only two winters past, as the woman known and feared as the Warlord Callisto watched with uncaring eyes at the graceful, laborless movements of the witch dancing before her. The naked figure illuminated by a massive bonfire set against the light of a full blood moon.
The night was cold, with just a hint of winter riding on the wind. Callisto pulled the woolen cloak about her slender frame with a casual arrogance that could mean only one thing... she was getting bored.
Callisto now paced about the circle of light thrown up by the flames, still with her slighty detached gaze on the witch leaping around the orange and yellow tongues of flame that snapped and popped like a thing alive.
The witch continued her dancing. Her naked body was sheathed in sweat, her dark, graying hair slick against her lean, fair face. She was what most men called beautiful... Once upon another time. But as the call of Hecate's power had grown stronger, so did the Maiden Fair turn to Mother. And now the Mother turns to Crone.
The woman's features were merely handsome as time etched its mark on her countenance. She completed a graceful, spiraling kick amid a whirling of her arms... and out of thin air a silver dagger appeared, almost glowing as it floated above her head.
"Hecate!" pleaded the witch as she offered her hands in supplication to the flames that now seared her fingers. "Mother of All Magic! Hear your daughter's plea and grant me the power to aid me in this endeavor! All in the name of Gaia's embrace!"
The blade twirled in the night before flashing skyward. Almost instantly, a single drop of blood fell, staining the white sands just outside the glowing coals of the bonfire. The witch's dance continued, and soon another drop of blood fell beside the first.
Across the flames, a look of rapture deepened across the face of the fair-haired, leatherclad warrioress. She held in her gauntleted hand a milky-white, luminous stone that pulsed and glittered with an inner fire that seemed to keep an eerie pace to the witch's movements.
Callisto pondered the stone as she turned it about in her fingers and balanced it on one knuckle. She held it up to the light of the blood moon, now blazing bright in its zenith position in the winter sky.
A chilled breeze turned the stone ever so slightly. Like a child's beribboned whirly-gig, thought Callisto. Or a heartbeat...
Callisto chuckled at her captive's plight even as she palmed the stone. She toyed with the idea of striking the bloodstone against the hilt of her sword, or smashing it against the cliffside beside her... just to see that old hag cringe in anguish.
But her practical self managed to overrule her emotions. The witch needed all her concentration for this Work and she dared not interrupt, not when she was sooooo close to her much sought after vengeance.
Callisto could be patient awhile longer. She licked her lips in anticipation of the suffering of her enemy, giggling now with girlish mirth.
And still the witch woman danced. A third and fourth drop of blood landed on the sand. The night seemed to grow colder as the red-tinted moon seemed to rise even higher into the night sky. The woman gleemed with her exertions, but her dance did not slow.
Callisto's attention was again brought to the witch turning and twisting around the dying fire. She lifted a bundle of sticks and threw them into the embers. It was Callisto's job to keep the bonfire burning at a good blaze until the ritual was completed.
She pulled the hood of the cloak over her head to ward off the sudden winter chill in the air. Still, Callisto couldn't resist holding the milky-white stone to the flames... just to see what would happen.
The witch woman began to sweat even more profusely and her steps became labored.
Interesting, thought Callisto. In a subtle enough gesture so as not to interrupt the old hag's spellweaving, she placed the stone directly into the embers.
Instantly, something both scaled and feathered slithered with great speed up her right leg.
Callisto flicked open a hidden blade and found herself staring at a pair of glowing amber eyes set in a reptilian head, that were staring menacingly back at her. Dripping, venomous fangs ever so lightly touched her bare leg, but did not break her fair skin.
"Get the ssstone from the flamesss..." the sand lizard hissed. "Or I will ssstrike..."
Using the tip of the blade, Callisto fished out the stone and placed it on the cool sand.
"That isss better..." the familiar said, detaching himself from Callisto's leg with a serpentine fluidity. Leathern wings settled back into place as the lizard glided and leaped back into the shadows of the cliff.
Callisto watched the lovely red, gold and black scaled flesh shimmer in the firelight.
I never saw it coming, she mused to herself. I didn't even know it was there! Callisto shook her head. She disliked being... unsettled in such a manner.
From the darkness she could see the familiar's amber eyes glowing back at her from a high perch in the shadowed rocks. The whisper-like scratch of claw against rock made her jaw clench and her mouth go dry with an emotion Callisto thought she would never experience again.
Fear.
The sand lizard sat there, resting his head dog-like in the crook of his front legs, letting out a long, hissing rasp as he tapped his claws rhythmically against the rocks. Callisto knew the hated thing was laughing at her, but she quelled the urge to stick the pugnacious creature with her blade.
Carefully, she slipped the blade back to its hiding place and put another bundle of sticks on the bonfire, trying to ignore the familiar's chortling.
Callisto looked at the ground. Now there were six drops of blood in the sand. The dance had slowed, and the witch woman began a chant that kept time with her steps. Slower and slower she moved, as louder and louder she chanted.
Then with a mighty flourish worthy of a dancing priestess of Aphrodite, she finished with a whirl of arching sand from a flying leap that landed her cat-like before the flames, knees bent to her breasts. She stopped, sweat dripping off her face, the drops sizzling in the coals before her.
She stood up, still at the edge of the sand, facing the fire and bowing her head in respect.
"Thank you, Mother of All Magic."
The witch dropped to her knees, and with great care and purpose placed her right index finger in the center of the first blood drop... as it transformed into a shimmering ruby bloodstone.
"Chi," she said gently. Then the witch spoke the True Name of the Great Warrior Princess. She made the same gesture to another blood drop as it changed to a second bloodstone. "Gabrielle." And again she spoke the True Name. At the third, "Amphipolis." The fourth, "Family and Loved Ones." the fifth, "Reputation." And after each changing of blood to stone, the True Name seemed to linger and reverberate through the surrounding cliffsides, until the very essence of the Great Warrior Princess could be felt on the cold night wind.
Finally as the sixth blood drop shifted to ruby stone, the witch spoke her captor's True Name. Twice.
With creaking joints, she stood... only to fall exhausted to her knees once more as she gazed at the fruit of her laborous Work. Across the bonfire, Callisto laughed as a cruel smile split the left side of her face.
"Hand them over, crone," she growled, her impatience fairly bursting from her body.
The exhausted witch just looked at her captor with empty gray eyes and sighed as she tried to catch her breath. Her power was drained. Callisto could slay her this instant if she had a mind to... but right now she just didn't give a damn.
The witch knew she had been a fool to have been taken over so easily by this young one, whose heart and soul had been tattered and torn by the events of her past. Events not of her own doing, but painfully etched into the possibilities of what her future deeds might bring.
The witch shook her head. Let the Three Ladies of Fate deal with this upstart brat bitch, who even now grins like a jackel on the other side of this dying fire. My work is done.
"NOW... You spineless old woman." The blonde warlord now seethed with anger. "I want them." Callisto held out her hand.
"First," the witch said, summoning her courage, "you must give me back my soul."
Callisto snorted coarsely, then laughed. She tossed the glowing moonstone through the fire and over the witch's head, where it landed on the cold rocks of the cliffside.
The witch's face remained devoid of emotion as she scooped up the bloodstones one by one and reached over to place them in the warlord's eager hands.
She then turned and left the area of the fire, seeing the moonstone pulsing in the dark. She retrieved it and lovingly cradled it to her breast, pressing it back to her heart. The stone melted back into her body. Soon the witch's eyes glowed with the same luminescence as the moonstone once did.
Now... thank the Mother of Us All, I am whole again.
Callisto laughed once more as she got up and walked from the fire. In her hand, the red stones glowed with an inner radiance. Callisto placed them in a pouch and knotted off the top. She truly hated to rely on sorcery to complete her bloodoath of vengeance on Xena and her loved ones... But where a poisoned dart had failed, maybe a little hocus pocus would succeed. And help bring the proud warrioress to her knees.
"I must tell you something important," the witch said softly as she stood by the dying fire. Her sand lizard familiar circled about her head before lighting on her shoulder.
"Then speak, old hag! What more do I need from you? We had a deal and now the deal is done! What more do I need to know of these bloodstones? Save that with them I can take from Xena all the martial combat skills Ares bestowed on her as his avatar. I can destroy her beloved Gabrielle, her home village, her mother and all who love her... I can even take away all the good she has ever accomplished." Callisto thrust the pouch out to emphasize her harsh words. She couldn't help but to giggle with evil delight at the thought of that proud, raven-haired bitch helpless at her feet... just as she deserved. "And the Great and Terrible Warrior Princess will be powerless to stop me!!!"
"All is as you say, Daughter of Eve," the witch said. "But remember this..." Callisto watched as she started to fade from sight, even as she smiled a truly happy smile. "If you invoke the sixth bloodstone, the power will eat the flesh from your bones and drink your very soul... if you still have one when all is said and done."
"So?" Callisto shrugged. "All I have to do is not use the sixth stone. I'll be safe."
The witch woman faded entirely, till her laughter mingled with the hissing of the sand lizard, and the sound became one with the cold night wind.
"And tell me this... bitchling. Which is the sixth bloodstone?"
Callisto screamed. A scream of pure hatred as she tore at the pouch, spilling the contents on the sand.
Six red stones with an inner fire gleemed up at her, mocking the light of the dying embers.
"W-Which one..." she seethed. "Y-You traitorous, cursed old hag! Which one!!!" Callisto let out a shriek of rage that welled up from the bottom of her very soul, touching off memories of fire and fury that she had long tried to keep buried. Memories of her mother, sister... and a town called Cirra.
Cheated. So near and yet so far.
She sank to her knees, weeping as she dug at the bloodstones.
Sand fell through her fingers, leaving only the six red petrified drops in her hands. At that moment, Callisto's tears and racking sobs turned into a mad laughter as the last traces of her mind and soul were ripped asunder. She finally realized the utter unfairness of the cosmic jest the Gods had played on her.
Flinging the bloodstones high into the night sky, Callisto fell back onto the cold ground. Tears streaming down her face, she giggled endlessly in souless mirth, welcoming with open arms like the very embrace of Eros... the madness that would become her very essence.
*******
"Wow," Gabrielle muttered. "That's... some story."
"Isn't it!" the old woman replied. She picked up her mug of ale and downed it in one long swallow.
"Ahhhh... I should be going." She wiped her mouth and stood up. "Thanks for the ale."
"Perhaps I'm the one who should be thanking you," Xena replied.
"Perhaps." The old woman smiled a truly happy smile and pulled her rucksack over her shoulder. She nodded and headed off for the door. At that moment, Gabrielle's heart skipped a beat as she realized a pair of glowing amber eyes were looking at her from under the flap of the rucksack.
"Or perhaps," Xena called. "I should thank you both!"
Please post any comments, or e-mail JayMarkle@webtv.net
and I'll see that Leetah gets them.
Background and tab from Moyra's Web Jewels. Thanx Moyra!