Gabrielle, Goddess of the Unknown
"So where are we going again?" Xena asked Gabrielle.
"I really don't know."
"If you don't know where we're going, then how are we supposed to get there?"
"I know where we’re going, I just don't know the name of the village."
"So why didn't you say that in the first place?"
"I thought I did."
"And we are going there because...."
"Because I can sense something's not right. There is far too much fear. It's like the whole town is afraid of something."
"Could it be they heard about an army heading their way?"
"No. It's not that kind of fear. It's like they don't know what they are afraid of, but they just are."
"And everyone feels that way?"
"As far as I can tell. We should be there by tomorrow afternoon."
"If things are that bad, why don't you just pop on over and Argo and I can get there when we can?"
"I don't think so. After you almost dying at the bottom of that ravine, I'm not letting you out of my sight."
"So now you're MY protector? Like I can't take care of myself?"
"Say what you will. Get all defensive if you want to, but you and I might as well be joined at the hip. Where you go, I go; where I go, you go."
"I wouldn't have it any other way," Xena said, smiling affectionately at her best friend. "I was just poking a little fun."
"I know. Besides, I don't think there is any real emergency. What I sense has been an ongoing thing. One more day shouldn't make a difference."
Gabrielle and Xena arrived at the nameless village about an hour before sunset. But from the look of the town, it might as well have been midnight.
"Are you sure there is anyone living here?" Xena asked. "It sure looks deserted."
"They're here, all right. It’s just that no one’s out."
"Let's check the local tavern. If there's one thing I've discovered, no matter what kind of crisis, there is always somebody needing a drink."
As the two approached the front door of the tavern, it suddenly slammed shut, and they could hear the bolt being thrown; they were locked out. As Gabrielle started to talk about options, Xena kicked the door open, leaving it hanging by one broken hinge.
"Was that really necessary?" Gabrielle asked.
"Probably not. But it felt good."
As they entered, they heard a door slam in the back of the building. "Sounds like someone just ran out the back way," Xena commented.
"Not everyone is gone," Gabrielle whispered to Xena, and pointed to the far end of the bar.
Xena silently walked over where Gabrielle had indicated, reached over the bar and pull the proprietor up by the hair.
"Well, well." She said. "Who do we have here?"
"Please, don't hurt me. I'm just a poor tavern owner, trying to make an honest dinar."
"Nobody's going to hurt you," Gabrielle told him. "We just want to know what's going on around here. Why is everyone hiding, what are they all afraid of?"
Instead of answering, the bartender just cowered down, begging them again not to hurt him.
"Looks like we're getting nowhere fast. Any ideas?" Xena asked Gabrielle.
"Well, there is still a little light out, maybe I can get someone to talk to us."
Gabrielle walked out into the middle of the street, and began to yell to the people hiding behind their doors, in a voice that was just a little too loud and booming for a woman her size.
"People, listen to me! I am a Healer! I am here to help you! You don't have to be afraid! But I can't help you if you won't tell me what is wrong! I will be in the tavern! All you have to do is come in and talk to me! I am here to HELP you!"
"Why didn't you tell them you're a goddess?" Xena asked Gabrielle as she reentered the tavern, repairing the broken door as she passed it.
"Because we don't know that some evil god isn't responsible for whatever they're afraid of."
"Wouldn't you be able to sense him, or her?"
"Not if he wasn't here right now. But I think they would trust a Healer before they would a god."
For several hours Xena and Gabrielle sat alone, waiting. The bartender had run off while Gabrielle was making her appeal to the villagers. Xena had tipped her chair back, "resting her eyes" while Gabrielle was trying to make some sense of the fear that was all around them.
Then Gabrielle felt another psence. "Xena, someone's here."
"I hear him, and I can smell his fear. It's like an over-used outhouse."
"Whoever you are," Gabrielle said. " Please, come out. We aren't here to harm anyone."
Slowly, out of the backroom, a poorly dressed man timidly came forward.
"Hi there. My name's Gabrielle, and this is Xena. I'm so glad you came. You don't have to be afraid. Please, sit down. Would you like something to drink? Or eat? What's your name?"
The man shook his head, but with trembling hands took the cup of wine Xena offered to him. He turned it up until it was empty, and then held it out for more.
"M-my name is Milos, I have a farm a quarter day's walk from here."
"Can you tell us what's been going on?" Gabrielle asked him.
"Are you really a Healer?"
"Is there someone who is hurt?"
Milos nodded. "My daughter."
"What's wrong with her"
Milos shrugged his shoulders. "No one knows, she's been like that ever since IT happened."
"Been like what? Since what happened?" Gabrielle asked, becoming slightly annoyed. "I can't help your daughter if I don't know what is wrong with her."
"She's not the only one. There have been others, three others. They're all the same."
"We're not getting anywhere like this," Xena said, becoming aggravated with the farmer. "Maybe if you took us to see her, then Gabrielle could find out what is wrong with her.
Suddenly becoming terrified, Milos cried out. "No! No! We can't go out at night! It's not safe! We can't go out! We can't!"
"Milos," Gabrielle said in her most reassuring voice. "Believe me, there is nothing out there that can harm either me or Xena or you."
"No! No! We can't go out there! IT's out there!" he repeated
"Taking Gabrielle aside, Xena half whispered to her, "Maybe a little demonstration of your powers will convince him."
"What kind of demonstration?"
"Do the fire trick, that always impsses them."
Gabrielle nodded, then walked back to Milos. "Milos, look at me. Look At Me! It's true that I am a Healer, but I am also a goddess. I have the powers of the gods, and nothing can harm a god."
Milos looked up at her, a blank look on his face. Then slowly it began to sink in what Gabrielle had said. "A god? You're a god? No! You can't be! No!"
"Milos! Look at me." Gabrielle put out both hands, palms up. And from her hands arose two, then three, then four, pomegranate sized orbs of fire, which began to spin and dance in the air. After a short while, the four merged into one.
"Give me your hand." Gabrielle told Milos. Shakily, he extended his hand. Gabrielle took it by the wrist and turned it palm up. The fiery orb slowly lowered onto his hand. Then fingers of flame began to weave in and out of his fingers.
"It doesn't burn," he said in wonderment.
"That's because I am a goddess. And just as I didn't let the fire harm you, there is nothing outside that I will let hurt you. Now, will you take us to your farm?"
Unable to speak, Milos only nodded.
As Xena and Gabrielle followed Milos, who spent as much time watching the skies as he did the trail, Xena leaned down to Gabrielle and asked, "Where'd you learn that little trick with the fireball."
"I don't know, it just came to me. ptty nifty, huh?"
"Yep, I have to admit, that was ptty nifty."
Eventually they approached Milos' farm. "See?" He said as he pointed to the middle of his wheat field. "See the markings?"
Try as they may, neither woman could see what he was pointing at.
"Any chance of making us some light?" Xena asked.
Once again Gabrielle produced three fireballs. And as they ascended higher and higher, they grew larger, and the orange color change to yellow and then to white. Soon the field was lit up as if it were midday. And in the middle of the field, which was still green with unripened wheat, was a large, circular depssion of brown, dead vegetation, five times the length of Argo, and shin deep.
"It looks as if something large and heavy was set down here," Xena noted. Suddenly, Milos cried out, "Look! Look there! It has happened again!"
When they got to where Milos was pointing, they saw that a cow had been butchered.
"I don't understand," Gabrielle said. "Someone has cut this animal open, mutilated it, and pulled out all the entrails, but no meat has been taken. It's as if someone was just looking at what's inside it."
"You say this has happened before?" Xena asked Milos.
"Yes, and not just cows, but swine and sheep, on many farms, not just mine."
"Any other strange things?"
"The lights. High in the sky, and on the ground. They move very fast. We think they are gods coming to punish us. But we don't know why. We don't which god to pray to, to ask forgiveness."
"I don't think it was any god. At least, no god I know of," Xena said.
"Maybe I should take a look at your daughter," Gabrielle said to Milos.
Milos' farmhouse was little more than a one-room thatched hut. As they walked in, Milos lit several candles. Milos' daughter, Alylla, about fourteen years old, was sitting in a chair, a rope wrapped around her and the back of the chair several times.
"This is to keep her from falling to the floor. She eats if I put food in her mouth. And she drinks if I put a cup to her lips. But if I didn't, she would die of thirst and starvation."
Bringing one of the candles closer, Gabrielle brightened it so she could see better. It was obvious there was something seriously wrong with Alylla. Her hair was stringy and dirty. She smelled of sweat and urine. She was very much underweight. And there was a blank, empty look in her eyes.
"Alylla? Can you hear me? My name is Gabrielle. Your father brought me here to help you. I am a Healer, a Goddess of Healing."
There was no response; she didn't expect one. Gabrielle slowly moved her hands over Alylla, starting with both sides of her head, down to her neck and shoulders, then her chest and back, her belly and hips. When she had finished the examination, a concerned look was on her face, worry in her eyes.
"There is something very wrong with her. Her insides have been -- tampered with. I don't understand what was done to them. Her heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, everything has been altered."
"Can you Heal her?" Xena asked.
"I think so. There is no damage like there would be if she was sick or wounded. Milos, is there a cot or bed we can lay down on?"
Milos brought up a crude cot he had made himself. Looking suspiciously at it, Gabrielle reinforced the strength of the joints. She gently lay Alylla down on it, then lay beside her, Alylla's head cradled in the crook of her left elbow, Gabrielle's right hand on the young woman's midsection. As Gabrielle closed her eyes, a soft violet glow surrounded the two. It gradually deepened to a dark Royal purple.
They lay together, neither moving, for half the night. Then, as the purple started to fade from Alylla's body, Gabrielle's hand moved to the side of Alylla's head. and the Healing violet and purple reappeared. The sun was beginning to come up when Gabrielle moved. Xena had to help her up, she was so exhausted her legs wouldn't support her.
Seeing Milos' anxious look, Gabrielle smiled weakly and said. "Let her sleep. When she awakens she'll be fine, as good as new." Milos, with tears in his eyes started knelt down and tried to take Gabrielle's hand.
"There'll be none of that," she said. "What I would like is a drink of water." And Milos quickly went outside to the well.
"Are you all right?" Xena asked her.
"I can't remember the last time was this tired. That poor girl, what she went through. Let me rest a little while, and I'll tell you all about it."
Without drinking the water Milos had brought, Gabrielle folded her arms on the table, put her head down and was instantly asleep. Xena had Milos bring up the other bed, and she gently lay Gabrielle on it.
"Let's go outside so they can sleep," she said to Milos. "I want to look at that field again."
Gabrielle and Alylla slept most of the day. Xena looked the entire farm over and questioned Milos repeatedly, trying to understand what had happened.
When Gabrielle finally woke up, Alylla was already awake and Xena and Milos were explaining how Gabrielle had Healed her. After her thanking Gabrielle, over and over, Gabrielle suggested that Milos and Alylla go to the other farms whose sons and daughters were similarly affected, and tell them that Gabrielle would meet them, and Heal them, the next day at the tavern.
"Xena, you wouldn't believe all the things that were in that poor girl's mind. Most of it doesn't make much sense, and I'm not really sure what came first or second, or last. But as far as I can tell, Alylla was in one of the fields, trying to gather up the last of the cows before it got too dark. Then there was a noise of some kind. Like a very high pitched scream, very high. And then a bright light was moving along the ground, like a beam of light shining through a hole in the roof of a cave. The light caught up with Alylla, who was running. She looked up at the light, there was pain in her head, there was blackness, and all of a sudden she was in a room, tied down to a bed. There were more of the sounds, and an awful smell. It's like nothing she, or I, have ever smelled before, almost like sharp smoke, I don't know how to describe it. Then there was a bright light in her eyes. And someone was talking, but screechy. Then there were faces that she could barely see because of the light in her eyes. But the faces didn't look like anybody. They were like something a child would draw in the dirt - a large head, no hair, big eyes that were too far apart. There wasn't a nose, just slits, and a mouth without lips. Then there was pain in her body. Whatever was done to her was what I had to Heal. And then there was nothing."
As the sun slowly set, Xena and Gabrielle sat talking, each trying out their own theories of what it could have been.
"Xena, do you hear that? That high-pitched squeal? THAT'S what was in Alylla's mind. We've got to see what it is!"
And grabbing Xena's hand, Gabrielle transported them both to the field they had come to the night before.
"Look, Xena! Over there - the light!"
As the two women watched, a light was moving erratically over the ground, as if it were searching for something. Xena glanced up at the sky. "Gabrielle, look up there. That's where the light is coming from!"
Gabrielle looked up where Xena was pointing, and she could barely make out some kind of gray, shimmering ball. Throwing her hands skyward, four fiery orbs sailed toward the ball, the orbs glowing yellow, then white. By the time they had gotten to the height of the large ball, the entire area, again, was lit as if it were midday. But the ball was still blurry and indistinct.
Suddenly a blue ray of light flashed from the ball to one of Gabrielle's orbs. There was a slight discoloration of the orb as it absorbed the blue ray, then went back to its former white color. Many more times the blue rays of light hit the orbs, with no effect.
Then the ball dropped lower, away from the globes of light, and its spotlight centered on Gabrielle and Xena. As the gray ball dropped even closer to them, the high pitch scream got louder and more intense. Xena and Gabrielle could felt pain inside their heads, as if a vise was closing in, squeezing their brains.
Instinctively, Xena threw her Chakram at the shimmering ball, but it was still too high, and it just circled back to her, but she couldn't catch it, she was becoming increasingly disoriented by the pain and screeching sound.
Gabrielle threw both hands upward and the black swirling clouds that left her fingers blotted out the light and dampened the sound. As they watched, the clouds merged into one and slammed into the gray ball, forcing it higher and higher.
Gabrielle continued to produce the cloud, but now it was like a solid black column of liquid pushing the ball away from the earth. Then the ball seemed to take on a life of its own, and accelerated upward away from the pillar of pure, black energy. Sensing it was gone, Gabrielle let the column swirl its way into nothingness. As she did, she fell to her knees, and Xena was there to catch her.
"Are you all right?" She asked.
"Xena, there were people in there, like the ones in Alylla's mind. I could feel them, hear them thinking!"
"Did they say, or think, why they were here or what they were doing?"
"No. They were scared. They kept saying to each other something about, about...."
"What?"
"I'm not sure. Something about an unexpected - something. A word I've never heard before. I think it was an unexpected tek -- tek-nol-lo-gee."
"Maybe that's their word for magic," Xena suggested.
"No, I don't think so. I got the impssion they were talking about a machine, or - or an elaborate tool or weapon we built. But whatever it was, it scared them enough that they won't be back anytime soon, if ever."
"Come on, let's get you back to the house. You need rest."
The next morning Gabrielle slept late, it was almost two hours past daybreak when she awoke.
"Why did you let me sleep so long? We've got to get to the tavern. Those people will be there with their children, waiting for me to Heal them."
"Are you sure you'll be up to it? It took you almost all day to recover from the first time."
"That's because I didn't know what I looking for. Healing Alylla's body wasn't that bad, it was what was in her mind that was so draining. But now that I know what to expect, what to look for, it shouldn't be a problem at all."
"...and in addition to Healing them," Gabrielle was saying as they left the village, "I also did a little something to lessen the terrible memories. They'll remember what happened, but it will only be like bad dreams."
"Like the ones I have about you playing the panpipes?" Xena asked, suppssing a smile.
"Yeah, something like that."