DISCLAIMER: First of all, the characters of Callisto, Xena, Gabrielle and any others from the TV shows Xena: Warrior Princess or Hercules: The Legendary Journeys are the property of Universal Pictures, Renaissance Pictures, and other affiliates. This work is intended purely for entertainment and nonprofit purposes, and no copy right infringement is intended.

This story contains some violent themes as well as moderate depictions of violence, (we are talking Callisto here). I have done my best to keep things more suggestive than graphic however. That being said, should you be offended by such things I would suggest you stop reading.

CONTACT INFORMATION: For anyone wishing to contact me regarding this story or anything else fanfic related, please send an e-mail to    legacycalling@gmail.com . I welcome any and all feedback. Constructive and well-meaning criticism is much appreciated. This thing one was by far the most difficult thing I've ever written and I would love to hear your thoughts on it.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:  This story is actually going to be a bit of a difficult one. It's the one I've dreaded writing the most as at the close of Part Two, Callisto herself was   SPOILER  out of action   SPOILER.  This means that a chunk of this story will be dealing with the supporting cast while Callisto is on a somewhat different journey (similar to episodes of Xena like Destiny). Needless to say this is a big gamble as it relies on the original characters I've created being able to carry a bit more of the main plot so that Callisto is free to go on a journey of self discovery. Callisto is still at the centre of the stories, but she has an ensemble now.

The idea is to tell a story that will move both Callisto and the supporting characters along and set up the events of the big finale to the Cronus stories in Part Four. Needless to say, this is very much a middle chapter in a trilogy (even though its part three of the series, it is in effect the second part of the core Cronus trilogy of stories). For those of you just joining now, if you want any of this to make sense, I highly advise looking at Part One and Part Two especially. Part Two in is very much required reading to understand what has happened and the state of play going into this, Part Three.

SUMMARY : I n the aftermath of the massacre in Sparta and the battle at Thermopylae, Callisto lies comatose and trapped within a terrible mental labyrinth of her own making. As she confronts hates and fears dredged up from the deepest reaches of her subconscious, Ithius struggles to lead what remains of the Helot people to safety before the Spartans can exterminate them all. And, deep in Tartarus, the dead Titan Cronus begins to put his final endgame into action. 

The Legacy of Callisto - Part 1

The Legacy of Callisto

Part Three 

Palaces of the Mind

By Stayce

legacycalling@gmail.com

" I had been the author of unalterable evils; and I live in daily fear,

lest the monster whom I had created should perpetrate some new wickedness."

Frankenstein

Mary Shelley

Prologue: Meddlesome

There should not have been a breeze on the balcony, but that did not change the fact there was one.

Zeus, the King of all Olympus, leaned forward against the cold stone of the balcony rail and gazed out over the scene before him with morbid curiosity as the scorched wind that should not have been washed over him. Distant Tartarus – once little more than a giant fissure ripped in a jagged line across the floor of the seemingly infinite cavern that made up his brother Hades' Underworld – was beginning to spread. Like fracturing ice upon a winter's lake, a long network of ragged tears and ruptured stone was starting to creep inexorably outward, expanding slowly in every direction while each fissure's previously dull red glow had now become a burning, fiery crimson.

From somewhere deep beneath his feet, he could hear the first low rumblings of yet another earthquake, and he tightened his gnarled old fingers grimly around the balcony rail. The black stone of the fortress began to tremble all about him, and a heavy echoing crack sounded clear and strong in the cavern air, reaching his ears even as far away as he was. Zeus' eyes narrowed as a fresh fissure split the rock of the cavern floor asunder in a spray of hot magma and roaring columns of flame. For a moment the fire climbed higher and higher, as if it were trying to reach the cavern ceiling high above. Then, in the blink of an eye, it guttered and died, the magma cooling with the same unnatural rapidity. The fissure remained however, and seconds later a fresh gust of hot, dry air washed up and over the balcony once more.

Zeus straightened, still watching the distant glow of Tartarus warily. Behind him he could hear the sound of footsteps on stone, although in truth he had felt the others' approach even before he had heard her arrival.

"I thought you told us Hades had him contained," the newcomer said, moving to lean upon the balcony next to him.

He cast her a sideways glance. It was Artemis standing at his side. Her glorious mane of red hair today pulled back in a luxuriant braid and left to hang down over one shoulder. Across her back was slung her hunters' bow, the quiver of shining arrows that accompanied it seeming to glow even in the dim light of the Underworld.

"Trying a new look today are we my dear?" Zeus said with a nod toward her braid.

Artemis gave a soft sigh.

"And you are being evasive as always," she said. "Don't try and dodge the question father."

"I wasn't aware you had even asked me one," Zeus replied.

Artemis gave another sigh, this one more irritated and long suffering. She was used to his webs of words by now. All his family were.

"You said Hades could keep Cronus trapped down there. Was that true?"

"Were the situation that simple, I have no doubt that it would've been," Zeus said, "but you of all people should know that there are other forces at work in this. My father was never so dull witted as to face a foe directly when there was no need to."

Artemis leaned further out over the balcony rail in a languid fashion that still spoke of readiness and danger. She was studying Tartarus as he had been moments before.

"And so his little minions go scurrying about their work, while we gaze at our navels, and our own servants struggle to keep pace," she said softly, turning her steady gaze on him as she followed his line of thought. "Sparta was the turning point wasn't it?"

He turned his gaze back to the vastness of the cavern before him, his eyes now the same colour as storm clouds on a cold winter's evening. He knew that it was not a question that required an answer this time, but he shrugged all the same.

"It was the pivot..." he said, drumming his fingers thoughtfully on the balcony rail as he mulled over possibilities in his mind. "...the focal point upon which the balance of this whole conflict was resting..."

"... And now that same balance is tilting firmly in Cronus' favour," Artemis said.

Zeus nodded again, for the first time unsure of what to say. Artemis had always been one of the few of his children beyond Hercules that he felt any real affection for, and to hear her sounding so disappointed in him was more than a little sobering.

"And whose fault is that?" came a new voice from behind them.

The two of them turned as one, looking back into the private dining hall that the balcony was a part of. Along the walls, a selection of torches burned fiercely in sconces, yet none of them produced even the faintest hint of smoke or soot, while down the chamber's center ran a heavy table, shaped as one from a chunk of solid obsidian. Like everything else in the fortress it was plain and unadorned, and a number of simple chairs were arrayed along its length. A single seat was located at the far head of the table, only slightly more ostentatious than the rest, with a high back and a small end table at its side.

That seat and end table were both now occupied by a man and helmet respectively. The helmet appeared to be cast of bronze, and curving serpents worked their way from the nose to the nape of the neck. Its owner - the man in the chair - was dark haired and pale faced, with a thin lipped mouth set in a grim expression.

"Hades," Zeus nodded in greeting. "It is good to see you again dear brother. I was beginning to wonder if you had forgotten about our little meeting."

Hades tilted his head at that.

"I hadn't forgotten," he replied, giving a small gesture with his hand toward the balcony at their backs and the Underworld beyond. "I was just somewhat preoccupied, as I'm sure you can see."

Zeus narrowed his eyes as he regarded his older brother carefully. The God of the Underworld was reclining in his seat at the head of the table, seemingly relaxed, but in truth there was more of an exhausted slump to his shoulders than anything else and the heavy dark circles beneath his eyes only served to reinforce it. His cheeks were hollower than they had been previously and the rise and fall of his chest was shallow and occasionally uneven.

"You should've called upon us sooner," Zeus said softly. "How long have you been this way?"

Hades only cocked an eyebrow at Zeus in response before looking past him toward Artemis.

"So he's involved you in all of this?" he said quizzically, pointedly ignoring Zeus' concern.

"Not by choice," Artemis said, glancing at Zeus out of the corner of her eye. "I simply put two and two together that something was wrong and then the rest fell into place."

"And only when your own interests were threatened no doubt," Hades said with a dismissive wave of his hand that caused Artemis to visibly bristle.

"If I had known sooner…" she began defensively, but Hades cut her off, rising into an upright position as he spoke.

"If you had known sooner you would have done precisely what you have been doing all this time," he snapped viciously. "Nothing! You and all the rest of our kin, up there on Olympus, safe in the worship of your own devotees, all too ready and willing to forget about me and my realm, to pretend like I am beneath you!"

"I would have not had it be so," Artemis said, her eyes slightly down cast, her tone mollified. "I would have helped."

"Of course you would have," Hades sneered sarcastically at her.

"That's quite enough Hades," Zeus cut in, his voice quiet but strong, like the distant rumble of thunder.

Hades turned his angry glare back to Zeus, and the two of them locked gazes for a moment until, finally, Hades looked away, waving his hand in a gesture of supplication and letting out a long, tired exhale.

"My apologies," he said, although he did not sound particularly apologetic. "I was never the best of hosts, as I'm sure you both remember, and recently I've had even less call to be civil."

He gestured to the unoccupied seats along the length of the table.

"Please," he said. "Sit."

Zeus and Artemis both slid obligingly into chairs opposite one another, Zeus adopting his most confident air, but he could not help but notice how uncomfortable Artemis seemed. She was sitting stiffly in her seat, her hands splayed across the table and perfectly still as Hades regarded them both with a tired and resentful gaze.

"Quite the conspirators we make eh?" Zeus smiled, doing his best to appear jovial and at ease in an attempt to lessen some of the tension in the air. Hades just grunted.

"What about Ares?" Artemis asked.

"What about him?" Zeus replied, a little too sharply, and then crossed himself mentally for having displayed his emotions so brazenly. It would not do for him to be seen as overly emotional.

"He knows too," Artemis said. "Shouldn't we be waiting for him?"

Zeus gritted his teeth. If he could have stopped any of his children from learning about what was truly going on down here in the Underworld, the one he would have chosen above all others would have been Ares. He simply could not trust his most wayward son not to put the interests of them all above his own, but then considering the viper's nest of a family he had been born into, Zeus supposed he could hardly blame him.

"No need to wait on my account," came an irritatingly familiar voice, and in a bright flash, both the God of War and his ornate throne appeared, at the opposite end of the table to Hades. Ares lounged confidently in his seat, his booted feet up and resting on the smooth obsidian surface of the table.

"Speak my name, and I shall appear!" He said, flashing each of them that annoyingly confident smile he had when he thought he had the upper hand.

Zeus tapped a finger to the table, and a powerful arc of energy crackled across its surface to burst in a shower of sparks against the war god's feet. Ares let out a pained yelp and withdrew his boots quickly, glaring daggers at his father as he did so.

"My son," Zeus admonished him with a weary shake of his head. "How many times must I tell you to keep your feet off the furniture?"

Out of the corner of his vision, he caught a glimpse of Artemis trying to stifle a laugh, and for a moment the black mood hanging over the room seemed to lift slightly. Then a slight tremor from Tartarus made the table beneath his fingers shudder, and the mood turned somber once more.

Zeus leaned forward in his seat, his gaze flicking appraisingly across the gods assembled at the table. They were none of them the ideal conspirators he would have chosen. Indeed, had he had the choice, he would have preferred to involve no one but himself.

Hades was dour and grim at the best of times, defiant but also stubborn and inflexible. He saw the world in carefully measured terms, a million different checks and balances, each one cast in black and white. It made him thorough and careful, but also slow and methodical, unable to adapt quickly to those more dynamic than he. It might explain why he had always had such a hard time keeping firebrands like Callisto imprisoned in their deserved afterlives.

Artemis was compassionate and caring, much loved by her many worshipers but that strength was also her weakness. It made her softer than many of her siblings, less hardhearted and cutthroat. It was a weakness that she often refused to admit to herself, and with a potential battle for their very existences looming bleakly on the horizon, nor was it one they could afford to entertain.

Then there was Ares. The God of War was, in many ways, the most unpredictable of all his children. Ares' loyalties were fickle and ever changing. On any given day he could be a staunch ally or a fearsome enemy, but in his apparent unpredictability there was one constant that made him the easiest of all Zeus' children to read. His greatest loyalty was to himself. Every desire he had stemmed from it, and could be tied back to it in turn. For that reason, Zeus knew that despite his reservations about his son's character, in this he could trust him to hold true to them. So long as his own interests were under threat, he would remain steadfast.

"Soooo," Zeus began, drumming his fingers impatiently against the table when it became clear no one else was about to speak. "You called us here Hades. Care to enlighten us as to why?"

"I had thought I would just be summoning you," Hades admitted, looking first at Zeus, then flicking his eyes toward Artemis and Ares in turn. "Not half of Olympus."

"Well, half of Olympus you have," Ares interjected smugly. "And a good job too, considering the mess that seems to have been made of things so far!"

"Ares..." Artemis, said, keeping her voice low, but doing little to disguise the hint of warning behind it.

Ares glanced at her then looked to Zeus and Hades. Both were glaring at him darkly.

"Very well then," he said, completely unfazed and leaning back in his chair while he speared Hades with a grim expression of his own. "Why did you call my father here dear Uncle?"

Hades regarded him coldly for a moment longer, then let out a long low sigh and slumped tiredly in his seat.

"Because I do not know how much longer I can hold Cronus unaided," he admitted.

"Thought as much," Ares muttered, but the others ignored him. Instead Artemis leaned forward across the table toward the God of the Underworld.

"So I was right then?" she said. "Sparta was the tipping point?"

"Did our most benevolent King not already tell you that?" Hades replied, shooting Zeus a caustic glance.

"Thermopylae," he continued. "King Leonidas, the Helot massacre, the Spartan Oracle; So many souls and so close together, all crossing the Styx at the same time..." He paused and gave a weary groan, lifting a hand to massage his temples as if they pained him.

Artemis got to her feet and crossed to his side, placing a concerned hand on his shoulder. Hades managed to give the weakest of smiles, but there was no real heart in it. Then he turned back to Zeus, his expression growing darker as he did so.

"It was all I could do to keep him from tearing a hole right through the barrier right then and there. Even now he is clawing his way to the surface of Tartarus, splitting the very fabric of the place apart as he does so."

Zeus sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest.

"This is hardly news Hades," he said. "I can see as much just by looking out of your window. So I say again, why call me here?"

"Isn't it glaringly obvious!?" Ares said incredulously, surging to his feet as he did so. "We need a new strategy! Your plan is failing father! Callisto was supposed to stop this! She was your chosen champion and where is she now? Lying insensate in some dreary forest cottage somewhere, surrounded by a cowering herd of former slaves and farmhands while Cronus' Followers stand completely unopposed with a Spartan army at their back!"

Zeus' expression did not change.

"Your point being?" he said flatly.

"Father please!" Artemis said imploringly. "You know what Ares is saying! It's not too late! We can still change the way this plays out! We have the power to..."

"...to what?" Zeus said, turning his impassive gaze on her. "To intervene? To strike down those Followers with our godly wrath? A poor solution if ever I heard one. After all, didn't you already try that Ares?"

The war god's face fell as he spoke, and a small smile curled at the corners of Zeus' mouth.

"Did you think I did not know my son?" he said chidingly. "Did you really believe me to be so easily fooled? Nothing escapes my notice, least of all your many treacheries, be they big or small."

Artemis and Hades both turned hard eyed stares on Ares.

"What did you do this time?" Hades said, his tone one of complete resignation and one that was not even remotely surprised by Ares' apparent disobedience.

"I... I uh..." Ares paused, speechless for the first time as he struggled to find the best way to admit his actions. "I may have... um... given Callisto a little nudge toward..."

"...The Tomb of Lycurgus, where she was thrown into the Pneuma." Zeus finished for him sharply, then cocked a knowing eyebrow toward Artemis.

"Do you see what happens when I am disobeyed my girl?" he said. "If it weren't for your dear brother over there and his ceaseless meddling, events may have turned out very differently. As it stands now, things happened the way they did because of his interference, and so here we are, left having to pick up the pieces."

"I was just trying..." Ares began.

"And failing!" Zeus snapped at him with all the sudden fury of a thunder clap that made even the God of War wince at the harshness of it. "There is a reason, Ares my son, why I commanded you..." he looked around the room at the rest of them, "...all of you in fact, not to get involved. It is because I am King and, whether you believe it or not, I do actually know what I'm doing."

"Or at least you did," Hades corrected him. "Whatever plans you had concocted brother are no longer any of our concern. We do not have the luxury of contemplating whatever the circumstances might have been; only what they are now." He glanced toward Ares. "As much as I hate to admit it, Ares' point still stands. Callisto has failed, and it's long past time we started looking at our other options."

"And what other options would those be?" Artemis said. "The way I see it, we have been left little choice but to involve ourselves more directly and..."

"And if we should fail too? By even the smallest measure?" Zeus countered before she could finish. "Are you all forgetting who our enemy is? This is not some hedge spirit or foreign deity we are battling with. Cronus was the Lord of the Titans, and master over all that was. He had the hearts and minds of our worshipers in his iron grasp long before any of us!"

He regarded both Ares and Artemis with a pained look as he recalled the struggles he and the others like Hades and Poseidon had gone through in the early days of the Titanomachy.

"You were neither of you born my children," he continued, "but we defeated the Titans as much through trickery as strength. The Titans were powerful and the strength of the natural world was theirs to command. In the beginning we had no choice other than to outwit them, and with those early victories, we turned many of their worshipers to us. The more belief came to us, the more we were strengthened and they weakened, and the more the war tipped in our favour."

"The same could easily be true in reverse," Ares added, making this one of the rare occasions he and Zeus had ever seen eye to eye on anything. "If we were to openly involve ourselves, we would be putting our own belief and believers on the line."

"Aren't we already doing that?" Artemis shot back. "You and I have already lost Sparta to them. My temples were desecrated Ares! Your own Oracle was murdered in cold blood! Cronus' Followers turned whole city against us in a matter of weeks!"

"All the more reason to stop them now," Ares said, turning his gaze back to Zeus. "I stand by what I said the first time we discussed this. A line must be drawn in the sand, where we say this far and no further."

Zeus had to fight the urge not to laugh. Were his children really so slow on the uptake that they could not see that that decision had already been made for them? Did They honestly believe that they were in control here? That that had ever even been the case? Theirs was an entrenched position. It was the price they paid for being the dominant gods of Greece. They were exposed and open, while their enemy was hidden and unknowable save for the most basic of intentions. They had been on the back foot from the start, and whether they liked it or not, that looked set to be the way things would continue.

Next to him Zeus could see Hades shaking his head in weary disbelief at the naivety of the younger gods, and a felt a surge of relief. His brother at least understood.

"The line has already been drawn Ares," Hades said. "Cronus will have his Followers march the Spartans North, to the war which that Spartan 'King' of theirs promised them, and what will be lying in their path but..."

Artemis' mouth dropped open.

"...Delphi!" she gasped and Hades nodded.

"The Navel of Gaia," he said. "Where the barrier between my world and the world of the living is already at its thinnest, and once they are there..."

"...why not scalp themselves another Oracle while they're at it?" Ares said darkly. "Maybe Cronus will try and collect the whole set."

"But Delphi is my brother's city!" Artemis said, ignoring Ares' attempts at levity as her voice rose in concern for her twin sibling. "If they are planning to do there what they did to Sparta then Apollo must be..."

"Apollo!?" Ares interrupted. "That stuck up, arrogant, snot nosed little man child? What good would involving him do? He'd be as likely to just hover over the city on that 'board' of his and watch it burn than he would be to do anything actually useful. I'd be half tempted to let them wreck the place just so I could see the look on his face when they did."

Artemis tensed.

"That's my brother you're talking about!" she snapped.

"And mine too," Ares retorted with a shrug and a nod toward Zeus. "Thanks to dear old dad here and his many indiscretions, we're all of us related somehow. Doesn't mean I have to like it. Or Apollo for that matter."

Zeus rolled his eyes at their bickering.

"That's quite enough!" he barked and the two of them immediately fell silent. "I have made my decision and there really is nothing more to be discussed. You will continue exactly as I have instructed; by doing nothing." He eyed the pair of them darkly. "The both of you."

"But Callisto is..." Ares began. Zeus rose easily to his feet and raised his hand, arcs of lightning dancing suggestively between his fingertips

"Did I not say I had had enough?” he said. “I am done being questioned, Ares, and if you persist in doing so, I will begin to lose my patience. Callisto has not failed. Not yet at least, and until I deem that she has done so, I see no reason to alter my plans simply to suit your capricious whims."

"Then what of Delphi and the..." Artemis started to protest as well, only to be silenced by Hades rising from his seat in a similar manner to Zeus, and giving her a frosty eyed stare.

"Did you not hear what your King said?" he snapped. "This discussion is ended!"

Artemis met his gaze defiantly, but kept her mouth shut. With a loud complaining groan, Hades collapsed back into his chair, one hand raised to massage his temples once more.

"Now begone, the pair of you!" he said with a dismissive wave of his other hand. "You've worn me out with all this bickering, and as I'm sure you will appreciate, I need to keep my strength up at present."

Artemis opened her mouth to speak, but then seemed to think better of it and snapped it shut again. She turned to look appealingly at Ares who only gave her a 'what can you do?' shrug. She let out a long sigh then turned to face Zeus and Hades.

"Father," she said curtly. "Uncle," and with that, she vanished in a flash as bright and dazzling as sunshine dancing off rippling water.

Ares watched her go, then turned to face Zeus, a strange look on his face as he did so, an emotion Zeus could not quite gauge lurking behind his eyes.

"You may not believe it father," he said, "but I was trying to help when I went to Callisto. I've had more dealings with her than you, and I think I may just know her a little better as a result."

"You don't know anyone Ares," Zeus replied. "If you did, you would never have lost your hold on Xena."

The muscles in Ares' jaw bunched tightly at the barbed comment.

"Then I hope you're right about Callisto," he said. "I really do, because what's waiting out there, beneath the surface..." he gestured at the window and out over the balcony beyond toward the fissures of Tartarus, "...will spell the doom of all of us if you're wrong."

With those final words he vanished too, leaving only Zeus and Hades in the chamber.

For long moments everything was silence until finally, Zeus spoke again.

"Thank you for that," he said. "Living down here, I don't think you have any idea how willful some of the others can be."

Hades gave a dry snort.

"Do you think they will do as they're told?" he said.

Zeus shrugged.

“Our family does have a talent for disobedience," he said

"I wonder where that could come from," Hades said dryly, then winced as if a sudden spike of pain had flared inside his head. Zeus began to move to his side, but Hades waved him back.

"It's nothing," he said. "Just a headache." He lifted his head to fix Zeus with a steady gaze. "Just tell me one thing, and I don't want any of your usual half answers or double speak."

Zeus tilted his head at his brother.

"What is it that you want to hear?" he asked.

"Tell me that what we're doing will work," Hades said, "that you're convinced that your way is the best way."

"The only way," Zeus corrected him smoothly. "Besides, when have I ever steered us wrong?"

Hades merely grunted in return.

"There's a first time for everything," he said.

"You still have no faith in me?" Zeus said from beneath arced brows.

"I always have faith in you," Hades said. "It's Callisto I have no faith in. Ares is right you know. This is more than she can handle and I think even you can see that, but you're betting all our lives on it regardless."

Zeus slid down into an empty seat and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table and steepling his fingers in front of his lips.

"Do you remember how our rule began?" he asked.

"I'm a god," Hades replied simply. "I never forget anything, but even were I not, how could I ever forget that?"

Zeus nodded, more to himself than anything else.

"Then you'll remember that it was Cronus who decided our worth, our roles..." he said, tapping his fingers thoughtfully against his lips as he spoke.

Hades just rolled his eyes.

"Oh here we go..." he groaned but Zeus pressed on, ignoring his brother's protests.

"The prophecy said that one of us would destroy him,” he continued, “and with those simple words, our fates were decided before any of us were even born. When he heard them, our father decided that none of us were fit to replace him, that none could ever be greater than he. We were never given a chance to be any more than what he thought we would be Hades. We were destined to be a threat to him and his kind, and so that's exactly what we became. A self fulfilling prophecy it would seem, and a never ending cycle... Who's to say what could have happened if none of that had been the case? Perhaps we could have been so much more if our father had trusted in us instead of fearing us."

He paused and sat in silence for a moment before fixing Hades with a level stare. "Are you saying we should do the same thing to Callisto? Prejudge her? Decide who and what she is before she has ever been given the chance to prove that she can be anything different? Anything more? Should we damn her to being just another link in a never ending chain of hatred and vengeance and not allow her to make that decision for herself?"

"She's had those chances before!" Hades argued, his voice rising in frustration. "She only went and squandered each and every one of them!"

"What happened in Sparta wasn't her fault," Zeus said evenly.

Hades threw his hands up in exasperation.

"But what happened to Strife was!" He snapped. "This isn't the time for your usual sentimentality! Just because you have a weakness for blondes and she's pretty and tragic doesn't mean you get to risk all our lives and the fate of the world we built so that she might be able to live hers happily ever after!"

"Isn't offering someone like her the chance for a better life the exact reason that so many of these mortals believed in us in the first place?" Zeus retorted.

Hades gave a frustrated grunt and slumped back in his seat in surrender.

"We chose her for practical reasons..." Zeus continued.

" You chose her," Hades interrupted, hooking an accusing finger toward his brother. Zeus nodded at that with grudging acceptance.

"Very well then," he said. " I chose her, and for reasons that I stand by even now, but if, out of all this suffering and death, she can prove to others and, most importantly to herself, that she was the one person worth c hoosing, then I would call that no small victory."

Hades regarded him steadily for a moment, then shook his head and gave a dry chuckle.

"You know something," he said, "I think you're finally getting soft in your old age."

A wry smile slid slowly across Zeus' face.

"I think we've both seen what the alternative looks like," he said.

Chapter One: Bad Company

The town of Tryxis stank of fish and salt water.

That was the first thing Ithius noticed about it as he reined in his horse and began to take in the surroundings. The second thing he noticed – and which he was honestly surprised by – was the sheer drabness of the place.

He had heard that Tryxis was considered to be a fairly major port town in the region, an important stop off point for travellers moving between Sparta and Delphi across the bay to the North. Trade ships plied the route regularly, often carrying those travellers who could afford to pay the exorbitant fees the local merchants charged. The bay route was not the only route north. Should one choose to save their money and travel by foot, there was also a coastal road that spanned the distance too. It was, however, a serpentine affair, indirect at best and downright tortured at worst. It passed miles out of its way and could easily add days, if not weeks, to any journey north. Most people preferred to swallow the cost and take the more direct route via ship between the ports at Tryxis and Delphi.

Knowing this, Ithius had expected a bustling market town, full of life and – perhaps more notably – merchant coin. Instead, the town seemed to have seen better days, and the atmosphere of the place was a stark, joyless one, the few people shuffling about the streets all dejected and sullen.

The early hour could perhaps be partially to blame, with only a few fisherman up and about their business, readying nets and baskets for transport down to the docks for the days labours. Normally he would have expected them to be humming songs or chanting shanties as they worked as a way to keep in rhythm and stave off boredom. There was none of that, though. The men worked in silence, their brows furrowed and their faces dour.

One or two of them glanced up at Ithius where his horse had come to rest, and he shifted uncomfortably in his saddle as they regarded him. After a moment, they turned back to their work, and he breathed a low sigh of relief. He had not seriously thought they would recognise him of course. He had never travelled this far north before, and Tryxis itself was outside Spartan territory, but even so, it did not pay to let your guard down. Just because the Spartan's possessed no true authority here did not mean there were not people lurking around the place who were eager for their favour.

Not wanting to attract any more significant attention than he already had done, he quickly dismounted from his horse and pulled the hood of his rough, worn travelling cloak closer across his eye line so as to obscure his features from prying eyes. The previous night had seen scattered autumnal showers that had turned the town's mud packed streets to a heavy mulch that squelched loudly as his boots settled into it. With an irritated grunt, he pulled his left foot free of the mire with an audible sucking sound and regarded it miserably before straightening and squaring his shoulders. A chill breeze was washing in off the coast and he pulled his cloak tighter around him to hold it back.

Behind him he heard a similar annoyed grunt and he turned to see Drogo struggling through a particularly sodden patch of earth toward him.

"Lovely town," the stocky Helot muttered sarcastically as he drew even with Ithius.

"You don't like it?" Ithius said, cocking an eyebrow at the other man. "The local colour isn't to your taste?"

A particularly cold gust of wind blew in from the coast, carrying with it the fresh stench of raw fish and Drogo wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"Let's just say that its not making my top ten list of retirement destinations anytime soon," he said.

Ithius gave a dry chuckle and turned back to his horse, loosening the straps that held the wide bedroll to the back of his saddle. A moment later, he had it free and was slinging the rolled blanket across his shoulders.

"Come on," he said, gesturing down the town's main street with his head. "Let's find the inn and get ourselves warmed up.

Locating the inn proved to take very little time indeed. The main street opened up into a wide town square, less than two hundred metres down the path they had rode in on, and unlike the streets connecting to it, it was blissfully free of mud, lined as it was with plain but well cut cobbles. The two of them led their horses up onto the cobbles, each animal's hooves beating out an even clip-clop rhythm as they walked. The buildings here were more built up than the rest of the town, most boasting two storeys and some even three.

At the centre of the square was a small shrine to Artemis, clearly a popular goddess in the lands around Sparta as well as within Sparta itself. The top of the shrine was a carved stone bust of the goddess herself, her flat, impassive eyes staring out across the village square, unseeing but still strangely watchful. It was only as he drew nearer the shrine that Ithius frowned. There was some kind of marking marring the otherwise smooth stone cheeks of the bust, and as he leaned closer he felt a small sickening sensation in his stomach. Whoever had defaced the statue had not been a stone-worker, that much was clear, but their crude carving was still immediately recognisable as a small sickle.

Ithius straightened and glanced about him worriedly. Were the Followers here too? It seemed hard to believe, but then with Sparta's influence expanding it stood to reason that the Followers might just be spreading theirs alongside it. Were they walking into a trap? Had they known that Ithius and Drogo were coming all along? Could they be out there even now, watching and waiting? Ithius gave a mental shake of his head. He was probably just being paranoid, but still, the sight of the sickle symbol had put him on edge.

Turning away from the statue, he took in the square around him once more, only this time with keener eyes. At the opposite end of the square was a large grey stone building, it's doors built of solid looking oak and flanked by rough cut pillars. It was clearly some kind of central town hall. Between the doors and the pillars, two badly armoured men in tinpot helmets and breast plates, each one of them wielding dusty hand me down spears, stood to a shabby kind of attention, and Ithius found himself wondering if the people who ran the town seriously considered these 'guards' as a real force to be reckoned with.

One of the men was watching him now with hooded eyes. For a moment, it almost seemed to Ithius that the man might have recognised him, then as their gazes met, the guard straightened, his fingers tightening around his spear as if to say 'move along'. Ithius did his best not breathe a sigh of relief and instead gave the guard a courteous nod, then turned away to lead his horse toward a nearby hitching post and water trough outside a sturdy wooden building on two storeys that he assumed to be the town's main inn.

Once the horses were secured and drinking the two men headed inside, loosening their cloaks as they stepped across the threshold from outside and into the comparative warmth beyond. Ithius' assumption was proven right as they entered and were faced with a large and surprisingly well appointed common room. A thick stone hearth sat along one wall, with a bar opposite it and between the bar and the hearth were scattered a number of round tables, each with five seats a peace. A few were already occupied by a small number of people breakfasting – the inn's current guests Ithius supposed – and all of them looked up to regard the new arrivals warily as the door swung shut behind Drogo.

Two men in particular seemed to have taken notice of them; one old and swarthy, the other young, but with a pockmarked face and sullen, sunken jaw. When they caught Ithius watching them, they hastily returned to their drinks, muttering quietly to one another as they did so.

Ithius' eyes narrowed suspiciously but before he could say or do anything, Drogo was stepping up beside him.

"Yeah," his companion whispered under his breath. "Really getting the warm and fuzzies from this place."

Ithius said nothing in reply.

Suddenly, the back door to the common room, a door that presumably lead to the kitchens, began to open to reveal the inn keeper walking through with an armful of empty ale tankards in his grasp. The warm light from the kitchens at his back silhouetted him, making his features difficult to determine until he pushed the door closed with his foot and began to make his way over to the bar. For a moment he did not notice them through the dim light of the common room, but when he finally did he paused for a moment, his eyes sharp and calculating.

He was tall.

Not quite as tall as Ithius, but certainly more so than Drogo, his shoulder's were broader than either of theirs. His hands were thick, calloused and worn, and the ring finger of his left hand was missing down to the knuckle. He had short dark hair with a single tuft of grey at the right temple and a thin, neatly trimmed beard.

For a moment, Ithius and Drogo stood watching him steadily, then Ithius nudged Drogo with his elbow and the two of them headed over to the bar. The innkeeper watched their approach and slammed the tankards he was carrying down angrily. Drogo paused at that, but Ithius ignored the gesture and instead stepped boldly up to the bar, resting his bedroll against it before leaning forward and giving the innkeeper his best ingratiating smile. The man's upper lip twitched toward an out and out snarl in response.

"Nice place you have here," Ithius said as conversationally as he could manage. "Very homely, especially on a morning as dreary as this one."

The innkeeper stared at him in silence for a moment, then picked up one of the tankards and began to polish it with a rag pulled from the belt around his waist. His eyes never left Ithius the whole time.

"It's normal for innkeeper's to greet their guests, isn't it?" Drogo chipped in with forced cheerfulness as he approached from behind Ithius. "Hard to keep 'em coming through the door otherwise."

The innkeeper's eyes flickered to him briefly, then back to Ithius again.

"And how may I be of service to you gentlemen this morning?" he said from between gritted teeth. Ithius would know that accent anywhere. The innkeeper was from Sparta. He shifted uncomfortably, suddenly very aware of the half dozen or so pairs of eyes spread about the common room that he could now feel on him.

"Oh, the usual," he said as conversationally as he could manage. "Just a single room for a pair of weary travellers and a bite to eat will do."

The innkeeper cocked an eyebrow at them as he placed the first tankard to one side and began cleaning a second.

"A single room?" he said. "For the pair of you? You don't want a second one?"

"Gods, no!" Drogo replied, a little too jovially. "Do you think we're made of money?"

Ithius produced a small pouch of dinars and placed it on the bar next to the first cleaned mug.

"Just the one room will do," he said, the dinars clanking heavily in the bag. "That and a couple of bowls of broth. It's been a long, wet ride, and we could both do with a hot meal and a warm place to rest our heads."

"Maybe a nice steaming bath too?" the innkeeper jeered at them. "You could rub each other's backs."

Ithius could feel Drogo tense angrily next to him. The stocky Helot could be remarkably hot headed at times.

"If you'd prefer we found other accommodations..." he began, and started reaching for the bag of dinars.

The innkeeper slammed the second tankard he had been polishing down hard against the bar, blocking Ithius' hand from reaching for the coins.

"No, no," he said, scooping up the bag and tucking it through a hoop in his belt. For a brief instant, his eyes darted beyond Ithius' shoulder in the direction of the two men Ithius had noted earlier, and then a small smirk began to spread across his face. "I think I have just the room for you. Some of the locals call it the honeymoon suite."

With that he turned and began to make his way out from behind the bar and over toward a staircase in the corner of the common room. Drogo seemed about ready to throw himself at the man and attempt to wring his neck. With a long suffering sigh, Ithius reached out and placed a placating hand on his fellow's shoulder. He could still feel the eyes of the others in the room on them and the last thing they needed was to go causing a scene.

"Easy," he said quietly. "We didn't come here to start a fight remember."

The words seemed to have the desired effect, calming Drogo a little... but only a little.

"Well?" the innkeeper called back to them from the foot of the stairs. "Are you gentlemen coming or not?"

Ithius stepped around Drogo, nodding toward the innkeeper and hefting his bedroll as he did so. The two of them followed the man upstairs into a long corridor that ran along one edge of the building before hooking right in an L shape. All the bedrooms were along the right hand side, and the innkeeper led them along its length and around the corner onto a second corridor identical to the first save that it was slightly shorter and that it ended in a single door instead of another corner. They did not walk the length of this one, instead stopping about halfway down, the innkeeper reaching out to hold one of the doors open for them.

"After you," he said without any real hint of politeness. Drogo stalked past him, steam practically pouring from his ears. Ithius followed only a little behind Drogo, with the innkeeper stepping inside on his heels and closing the door quietly behind them.

As Ithius stepped more fully into the room, he paused, his mouth hanging open. At the room's centre was a double bed with four posts that all arced inward to meet at a single point a few feet above the bed's plush looking mattress. Attached to each of these posts was a simple gauze veil that gave the bed a suggestive and luxuriant quality. In the corner of the room sat a single small but well appointed copper bath tub, currently empty, but doubtless the favourite feature of many a couple on their wedding night.

Drogo was standing only a few feet in front of him, his back rigid, his shoulders all but shaking with rage.

"You think this is supposed to be funny?" he snarled, rounding on the innkeeper savagely.

The taller man's openly hostile expression faded slightly to be replaced by a dry smirk.

"Drogo, my old friend," he said, unhooking the pouch of dinars they had given him from his belt and tossing them casually back to Ithius, "you really are just too easy."

Drogo let out a furious snarl and hurled his travel pack at the innkeeper with such force that the other man audibly gasped when he caught it square in the sternum.

Ithius had to fight back a grin himself.

"You have to admit," he said, doing his best not to visibly smile, and finding it all but impossible, "It was kind of funny."

"Funny!" Drogo hissed. "Funny!? This heaving dung mound is the one who called us here in the first place. No small task with all the Spartan patrols out on those country roads! We've risked life and limb getting here, then what does he do when we finally arrive? Plays off colour jokes and makes us look like fools in front of the yokels downstairs!"

"Two things," the innkeeper said, his smirk turning to a grin, as he began to cross the room to stand directly in front of Drogo. "One; I resent being referred to as a dung heap." He drew himself up to his not inconsiderable height so that he towered over the smaller man, "and two; you seem to be under a lot of stress my old friend. Why don't you hop on the bed over there and I'll give you a massage..." even before he finished his voice was already breaking, only for him to collapse into torrent of laughter as Drogo fumed even hotter. The shorter man gave a final disgusted huff and stalked over to where the innkeeper had dropped his bag and began to rummage through it in an effort to avoid further conversation.

Still laughing, the innkeeper turned and seated himself on the edge of the bed, leaning tiredly against one of the bedposts as he attempted to collect himself. Ithius crossed to his side and thrust out his hand.

"Your wit has been sorely missed Plykus," he said. "Still, it's good to see that you're keeping well."

Plykus sobered slightly as he eyed Ithius' hand. For a moment Ithius was not sure the other man was even going to take it, but then, almost grudgingly, he reached up, grasped Ithius' hand, and shook it firmly.

"As well as can be expected these days," he said, his voice growing darker as he looked between Ithius and Drogo. "I must say, it's a surprise to see you both in such good shape considering."

"Considering what?" Drogo said, glancing up from his bag.

"Considering the rumours coming out of the south," Plykus replied a touch too evenly. "I'd ask if any of them were true, but I have it on good authority from other sources that just about all of them are."

Ithius frowned at the other man.

"And what word have you heard out here exactly?" he asked. It would be interesting to see just what the rest of Greece had learned about what had taken place in Sparta.

"Until a week ago, only bits and pieces," Plykus shrugged. "The news about Thermopylae was the first to reach us obviously. The Athenians who fought at King Leonidas' side headed through here just under a month ago. Quite the story they had to tell as well, I can assure you. A lot of people upped and left with them. Thought it would be safer if they weren't directly in the path of a Persian horde I suppose."

Ithius swallowed slightly at the mention of Leonidas. He had managed to push the guilt that had plagued him since the betrayal of his childhood friend to the back of his mind recently. Running the Helot refugee camp and ensuring that its location remained hidden from the marauding Spartans had occupied his waking hours so fully that he had had little time to spend dwelling on his past mistakes. Still the mention of it now had stirred uncomfortable memories to the surface.

"Of course we started to hear other rumours too," Plykus continued. "The Helots all but vanishing over night, some whispered stories about a coup, and that now Sparta had only one King, instead of two serving under the council of Ephors. There were a couple of travellers staying here a few days ago, and they just kept telling crazy stories that some warlord out of the north was involved in it all..." his voice trailed off as he attempted to recall what he had heard. "What did they call her again... it wasn't Xena... It was something like... Calypso? Calemsho? Definitely a Cal-something."

"Callisto," Ithius said quietly.

Plykus snapped his fingers.

"That's the one!" he said. "So you heard that rumour too then?"

Ithius shook his head.

"Not ' heard' as such, no."

Thoughts of Callisto lying unconscious on a rickety old bed back at the camp filled his head, bringing another fresh surge of guilt with them. He had heard all the stories about her of course. Just about everyone in Greece had heard tell of Xena, the Warrior Princess, and if they had heard of her, they had almost certainly heard Callisto being mentioned in the same breath. The two of them had a feud that was fast becoming legendary, and when Ithius had first heard she was in Sparta, he had feared just what devastation she might be bringing with her. Then he had actually met her, and she had not been what he had expected in the least. While the stories about Callisto may have been true, they nevertheless neglected to mention important details about her. It was those little details that had changed everything about the way he thought of her. Even then, when he had thought he had her figured out, she had still managed to surprise him. Of all the people in Sparta Leonidas could have chosen as his ally, she should have been the least trustworthy, the least steadfast, yet for some reason, when all others were deserting their King, she was the one that had remained strangely loyal to him, and at first, Ithius had not been able to figure out why.

He reached inside the folds of his robe and felt a crumpled roll of parchment there, secure and safe; Leonidas' last letter to him, and the one thing he possessed that managed to assuage the guilt he had to suppress daily. He still had a hard time believing that what it claimed about Callisto was true; that she was some kind of a messenger or champion of the gods, sent back to earth to aid them in a struggle against some nebulous threat that a little Athenian historian, Monocles, had later named as Cronus.

Monocles had told him other things too. Ithius remembered how he had spoken of a barrier between worlds, and how the massacre of the Helots by King Demosthenes – followed later by the coup that had made him the supreme authority in Sparta – had all been part of a plot by Cronus' Followers to weaken the barrier and allow their object of worship a way back into the world of the living. Like with the Callisto stories, he had struggled to accept any of it. It all sounded a little far-fetched to him really, but then so too had the idea of Spartans turning on their slaves and overthrowing their own leaders. If something as unlikely as that could become this truly terrifying reality, then perhaps there was some truth to all of this Cronus nonsense as well.

"Soooo..." Plykus said, the word rolling off his tongue as he spoke. "Now you know what I've heard, care to tell me how much of it is true, and just how much of it you've managed to get yourselves mixed up in?"

"I'm sorry," Ithius said, feigning ignorance, and doing a poor job of it. Despite being glad to see Plykus, he still was not entirely sure how much he could trust the other man. "I don't understand what it is that you're asking."

Plykus rolled his eyes.

"Oh Come on Ithius!" he said, his voice heavy with exasperation now. For a moment it looked like he might even become genuinely angry. Then he took a long, calming breath and fixed Ithius with a steady gaze. "Look, I get that you don't want to say too much. I may even agree with it up to a point. What with everything that's been going on you'd be fools to be too trusting. If Demosthenes really has it in for the Helots, and if he is actually trying to wipe us off the map, then the fact that you're still out here causing trouble must really stick in his craw..."

"...And you want to know exactly how much trouble we've been causing?" Drogo finished for him, not even trying to hide the incredulity in his voice. "That's why you dragged us here isn't it? You wanted to find out if we're responsible for all this!?"

Ithius had to admit to himself that the message from Plykus asking for a chance to meet with them had been completely unexpected. He had never thought he would see the big innkeeper again, and indeed, he had not actually thought of him at all in the year or more that had passed since Marathon. Of all the Helots that had fought and survived that battle, Plykus had easily been the most inscrutable and private. He had not stayed in Sparta long after receiving his freedom and the last any of them had seen or heard of him was the day after the ceremony at the mustering fields. His message coming to them so suddenly had been something of a minor mystery; until now at least. If Drogo was right however, it begged the question, why did Plykus even care? Was he about to involve himself? Why would someone as a-political as Plykus even choose to do so, and even more importantly, why would he choose to do it now?

"Are you telling me you aren't?" Plykus said, turning his attention to the squat Helot. "I know you both well enough to know that a Spartan King wouldn't be trying to kill you if you hadn't given him reason enough to do so in the first place." He leaned back on the bed, his gaze moving back and forth between the two of them in a considering manner.

"You did something to stir up the hornets nest didn't you?" he said after a moment's pause.

Ithius nodded, feeling a fresh surge of guilt in the pit of his stomach.

"We did," he said softly. "We played too dangerous a game..."

"...And you lost..." Plykus continued for him. Ithius could only nod again. "...And now our people are dying." There was no malice in his tone as he spoke; just weary resignation.

" 'Our' people!" Drogo snapped suddenly. "Since when were they ever your people? You abandoned us after Marathon! We did what we did for the sake of Helots everywhere, so that all our people could be free and not just the few of us who got lucky! Where were you when we needed you at our side? Where were you when we were at the mustering fields watching our friends and families be slaughtered? Where were you when Demosthenes took the city and started ordering his men to hunt us across the land?"

Plykus jaw muscles flexed, and Ithius could tell the big innkeeper was starting to become angry.

"I never wanted to be a part of your cause Drogo," Plykus said tightly. "I waited a life time for my freedom, and in the end, I had to risk my own neck to get it. I wasn't about to turn around and start risking it all over again for others who didn't have the guts to win it themselves."

Drogo's fists bunched at that.

"So you just thought you'd leave it the rest of us instead?" he sneered disgustedly. "You're a coward Plykus! You should have died at Marathon. At least then you'd have been doing something useful!"

"That's enough Drogo," Ithius said quietly, but somehow managing to make his voice cut over the other man's rant. Drogo rounded on him irritatedly.

"But Ithius," he began to protest, "why are we even here? I'm just saying what we're both..."

Ithius cut him off with a fierce glare and a wave of his hand.

"Then stop saying it," he said. "It's not helping."

Drogo folded his arms and glared at him, but said nothing more.

Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Ithius turned back to Plykus.

"He does have a point though," he said. "Our concerns haven't been yours since after Marathon."

Plykus shrugged.

"Your point being?"

"What's changed?"

Plykus regarded him for a moment, before getting to his feet.

"Come with me." He nodded toward the bedroom's door. "There's something you need to see."

The three of them began to file out of the room, Ithius swiping up his bedroll as he went. Plykus arched an eyebrow at him as he did so.

"Planning on setting up camp?" he said.

"Never know when you might need to lay your head down to rest," Ithius replied evenly, much to Plykus' apparent amusement. As they left the room, the big innkeeper turned right down the corridor and began to head toward the door at its end that Ithius had noted earlier. It was probably a service access, he guessed; a way for food to be delivered directly to the rooms from the kitchens below without the staff having to traipse through the main common room. He found himself wondering exactly what it was they would find themselves confronted by when they stepped through it. He did not think Plykus would betray them... but then he had been wrong about things like this before.

"Just how did you find us anyway?" he asked in an attempt to see if he could dig up anymore information. The more he could find out, the more he might be able to get some kind of a handle on what exactly was going on.

Plykus glanced back over his shoulder at him.

"At first, I wasn't even sure where to start looking," he said. "I knew you had to be holed up somewhere though. There were too many stories about you causing trouble to the Spartans for me to think you'd all just packed up and headed for the hills. Then I remembered the old woodsman's place where you and Trellus, and Soriacles all used to have your little meetings. A regular little conspiracy you had yourselves, wasn't it? Only thing is, it wasn't half so secret as you liked to think. Once I'd remembered that, getting the message to you was simple enough." He sighed softly to himself before continuing. "I honestly thought the pair of you would've had more sense about you than to just come bungling right through the centre of town the way you did, though."

Drogo scowled at him as Plykus reached the door and pushed it open, revealing a long flight of stairs leading back down to the ground floor.

"And what were we supposed to do?" he said, just barely managing to force a note of civility into his voice.

"Use what little tact you possess, and draw the attention of half the town?" Plykus suggested sarcastically. "Do you really think I'm the only one around here paying attention to the rumours coming up out of the south? The Spartans are pushing further north and expanding their territory day by day. It's only a matter of time before they come knocking on our doors and politely inform us that what was ours is now theirs the way they've already been doing to our neighbours. There are a lot of people hereabouts that are looking for a way to appease them before that happens, and you have to admit, handing over a pair of wanted Helot fugitives might just do exactly that."

Ithius could almost feel Drogo tensing next to him.

"So that's what this is?" he hissed. "We're your bargaining chips?"

Plykus scrubbed a hand across his face and let out a long suffering groan.

"Ithius," he muttered. "Would you tell your little spaniel here to stop yapping at me. He's giving me a headache."

Ithius reached out and placed a calming hand on his friend's arm. He could understand Drogo's wariness. So far Plykus had done nothing to engender their trust and everything to put them on their guard.

"I have to say I agree with him," he said. "You've hardly been the picture of trustworthiness through all of this. How do we know you aren't about to hand us over to the Spartans to spare yourself some trouble when they finally sweep through here?"

Plykus actually looked wounded by that.

"You really think that little of me?" he said.

Ithius shrugged.

"Prove me wrong."

They were at the foot of the stairs now, the narrow stairwell opening up into the kitchen beyond. It was a big, well apointed room, and had been kept surprisingly clean considering the overall dowdiness of the town outside. A large stone cooking hearth had been laid into the wall at the opposite end of the of room from the passage they had just entered by, and doors were set into walls to either side of them, the one on the right presumably heading back into the common room, and the one on the left possibly out into some kind of yard, though Ithius could not be sure. A food preparation table had been set up in front of the hearth, and beyond it was a thick rug, upon which lay the single largest hound Ithius thought he had ever seen. It watched them enter with sleepy, placid eyes, it's tail sweeping back and forth across the rug with slow, heavy scrapes.

Plykus turned away from Ithius and made his way across the room to where the dog lay.

"Come on Minos," he said with a clap of his hands. "Up and at 'em."

The dog did not move. Instead it simply cocked its head curiously at its master.

"Dumb mutt," Plykus muttered under his breath. "I said, up and at 'em!"

Minos' response was to crack its jaws open in a wide yawn, its long pink tongue lolling wetly at the corner of its mouth, before settling its head back on its front paws and watching them innocently from beneath bushy brows.

Plykus sighed, and reached down, grasping the dog by those same front paws and pulling it toward him. The sheer weight of Minos lying on it pulled the rug along too, revealing the tell-tale lines of a trap door set into the kitchen floor.

Releasing Minos, Plykus stepped around the dog and grasped a metal hoop set into the trap door's top. With a grunt, he pulled it open and gestured for Ithius to look inside.

Ithius frowned and moved to Plykus' side, staring down into the basement below. The basement itself was not that deep, and it was accessed by a small ladder that ran from the trapdoor to the cold stone floor below. Only a small lamp provided any illumination, but it was what that self same lamp was illuminating that proved the most surprising.

A cluster of faces were staring up at him, most of them blinking in the sudden brightness of the light from above. Some looked alarmed, some defiant, and one or two even looked to be on the verge of tears, but one and all, they looked scared.

"Are they..." Ithius began, and Plykus nodded, kneeling down as he did so and reaching out a hand to help one of them up into the kitchen and out of the cramped basement.

"Helots," he said simply. "Survivors of Demosthenes' culling, or so they tell me."

"My Lord Ithius!" the first man gasped as he scrambled up to meet them. "It's good to see you!"

"Lord?" Plykus grinned, tilting an amused eyebrow at Ithius.

Ithius chose to ignore it, instead reaching out and helping the man to stand upright.

"Please don't call me that," he said. "I'm no Lord and wouldn't know how to begin to behave like one. Ithius will do just fine."

The Helot shrugged.

"As you wish my lo... Ithius," he corrected himself nervously. Ithius' frown deepened. He knew this man. He had once worked as a palace servant for Leonidas. The last time Ithius had seen him was when he had been there in search of Callisto. He had actually been too late it turned out, Callisto having already left for the Tomb of Lycurgus, but he had managed to run into Monocles instead, and this man too if he recalled correctly.

"What's your name?" he asked.

The man blinked in surprise.

"Crius," he said, frowning in confusion.

"And your friends?" Ithius asked, gesturing toward the other Helots clambering out of the trap door. "Who are they?"

"Others like myself," Crius said, glancing back at them as he did so. "I did as you told me at the palace that afternoon. I gathered up those I could find and fled the city. We've been trying to work our way north for the last month or so, avoiding the Spartan patrols in the hope we might be able to escape to Delphi or Athens."

Ithius' mind turned. Could Crius be telling the truth? Had they really managed to survive on the road north for close to a month, all the while being hunted by Demosthenes' Spartans? If Crius was indeed genuine, their survival was little less than a miracle... Or was it? He shook his head. Athelis' paranoia must be wearing off on him, but still, the thought would not leave his head.

"How did you even come to be here?" he asked, but before Crius could speak, Plykus interjected.

"I got word of them from some merchants staying here a few days ago. They'd run into them on the road and taken pity on them. I managed to intercept them before they came wandering into town the same way you did. Good job I did too. There's a lot of people in this town who aren't quite so welcoming as I am."

Drogo frowned at him.

"And what is it you think you can gain from this?"

Plykus turned an irritated expression on him.

"I didn't think it would be this hard for you to trust me," he said.

Drogo folded his arms squarely across his chest and cocked his head at the innkeeper.

"Sign of the times I guess,"

Plykus scrubbed a hand frustratedly through his hair.

"Listen, I know you both think I'm a jackass. You're probably right too, but even I can't just stand by and watch while our people are hunted down and slaughtered like animals." He looked back over at Drogo. "I'm not the heartless opportunist you seem to think I am. There are people around here who are though, and they're starting to get suspicious of me. You need to get Crius and the rest of these poor souls out of here before they're found out, and you need to do it now ."

Ithius frowned at him.

"They've been safely hidden away here with you for the last few days," he said, his voice slow and cautious. "Why the sudden urgency to get them out of here? What's happened?"

Plykus gave Ithius a look that was equal parts irritation and at the same time, strangely pleading.

"There are Spartans coming here," he said simply.

Ithius felt his stomach turn at that. The last he had heard, the lands around Tryxis were still mercifully free of Spartan influence. Apparently that was no longer the case. He heard Drogo groan softly next to him and he could understand why. This was not the news they had wanted to hear. Ever since they and the other survivors of Demosthenes' Helot massacre had gone into hiding, misfortune just seemed to keep being heaped upon misfortune.

"Why?" Drogo said, his hands clenching tightly into fists. "What could they want with this place?"

"News travels fast,” Plykus replied. "The whole of Greece knows about what happened in Sparta by this point, and their sudden expansion is apparently making the other city states nervous. They haven't declared any wars yet, and Delphi and Athens want to make sure it stays that way. There's some kind of diplomatic mission heading through here in the next week or so, a group of would be peacemakers hoping to negotiate a deal to keep Sparta in line. The Spartans are coming to meet them and protect them as they journey south."

"Protect them!?" Drogo snapped. "From who?"

Ithius was fairly certain he already knew the answer. Plykus cocked an eyebrow at Drogo and flashed him a dry smile that never touched his eyes.

"Surely you've heard about the bandits and revolutionaries plaguing the roads around Sparta recently?" he said sarcastically.

"But there aren't any..." Drogo began, then a look of realisation spread across his face. "Oh," he finished simply.

Ithius hefted his bedroll and turned to face the huddled group of fearful Helots. If what Plykus was saying was true, they had no more time to waste.

"That settles it then," he said, doing his best to keep the worry out of his voice. It would not do to tip these already half panicked people into full blown hysteria. "Crius, I need you to get your people to gather what belongings they have and be ready to move in the next five minutes. Can you do that for me?"

The nervous Helot straightened and lifted his chin, swallowing nervously as he did so but still managing to appear at least somewhat in control.

"I'll make sure of it my lor..." he began, then paused and corrected himself. "Ithius," he finished.

Ithius gave him the best encouraging smile he could manage under the circumstances.

"Excellent," he said, then turned back to Plykus and Drogo. "Can I speak to you both in private?" he asked, gesturing toward a corner of the room away from the nervous crowd of Helots.

Plykus and Drogo moved to join him, both of them frowning quizzically.

"So you have a plan then?" Plykus asked.

"Not quite," Ithius said, "but I'm getting there."

Drogo raised his eyebrows at him.

"Care to fill us in?" he said expectantly.

"You're going to head out now," Ithius said. "Take the horses and ride as fast as you can. Find Athelis. If he's doing as he was told, he should still be just outside town where we left him."

"And when I find him?" Drogo asked.

"You head back and meet us where we agreed," Ithius replied. "Make sure to bring the wagon. We'll need it to get these people out of here in any reasonable kind of time."

Drogo nodded and began to head for the kitchen door that led back out through the common room toward the front of the inn.

"Not that way," Plykus said abruptly.

"Huh?" Drogo frowned in confusion.

"There are people out there watching," Plykus said. "It will look suspicious if you head out from the kitchens. Go back up the stairs and round the rooms. It will look less like you've been in here."

Drogo just shrugged and turned to head for the stairs, casting one last glance back over his shoulder as he went.

"Good luck," Ithius called after him.

"You just be safe," Drogo replied, pausing on the first step, then suddenly and unexpectedly he gave a respectful nod to Plykus. "The both of you," he said then disappeared back up the stairs.

Plykus turned back to Ithius.

"So where is this meeting place of yours?" he asked.

"A small copse of trees just outside of town," Ithius said. "You know it?"

Plykus nodded.

"And how do you propose we get them their?" he said, gesturing to the small bunch of Helots. Most were hefting packs and slings filled with traveling gear and keepsakes from homes now lost to them. "Are they supposed to sprout wings and fly?"

"We get them there the only way we can," Ithius replied, "We walk them out of here, and we do it now, while its still early, and before half of Tryxis is flooding the streets."

Plykus scrubbed a hand through his hair, clearly not liking Ithius' plan.

"And once you get them out of Tryxis?" he said doubtfully. "What do you plan to do then?"

"My…" Ithius paused as he tried to think of the correct term to describe Athelis. "…ally…" he eventually managed, "…has brought my wagon with him. We'll load these people into it and head for the hills. With any luck we'll be gone without much fuss, and the Spartans will never even need to know we were here."

Plykus shook his head in mild disbelief.

"As plans go, that has to be one of the weakest I think I've ever heard…" he glanced at the crowd of Helots and sighed. "…but then I suppose our options are limited."

He crossed to a nearby cupboard, and pulled the doors roughly open. Behind a dozen or so sacks of flour, Ithius could just make out the scabbard of a sword. Plykus reached out and pulled the weapon free. It looked like it had not been used in years, but when Plykus unsheathed it, the blade still flashed keenly in the dim light of the kitchens. The innkeeper looked up at Ithius.

"You need a weapon?" he asked simply. "I think there should be a couple of cudgels about here somewhere. I occasionally have to crack some skulls if the locals get a little too rowdy."

Ithius shook his head.

"Won't be necessary," he said, hefting his bedroll. "I'm as armed as I need to be."

Plykus, cocked his head quizzically but said nothing.

"Are your people ready Crius?" Ithius asked.

"As ready as we can be," Crius said.

Ithius nodded and began to make for the inn's back door.

"Then lets get moving," he said, pushing the door open, and peering out into the street beyond. A row of laundry hanging from a line overhead fluttered briefly in the breeze but beyond that nothing moved. Overhead the sky had lightened slightly, but it was still early hours, and in the mud caked back streets themselves, all remained silent.

Taking a deep breath, Ithius crept out into the street, moving quickly but cautiously, his shoulders ever so slightly slumped and ready to drop into a defensive guard at any moment. His eyes darted from left to right and back again, taking in every shadow draped corner, high balcony, stack of fishing gear, or other potential hiding place. Still, nothing so much as stirred out of turn.

The Helots fell in quickly behind him, moving together in a bunch, glancing furtively about themselves as they went. Crius ushered them along as best he could while Plykus brought up the rear, his hand resting warily on the pommel of the sword that was now belted to his hip.

They made good time. The backstreets were almost completely empty, and on the few occasions they did spy other townsfolk, it was always with enough time for them find a way to avoid being seen. Before long the buildings were becoming sparser and the streets even more heavily clogged with mud. Ithius mentally cursed the loud squelching sound his boots made as he moved, but it did not seem to draw any attention from the shuttered windows above. Plykus had moved to his side now, and was glancing warily down the various junctions they passed as they walked.

"Not much further to the edge of town," he said quietly.

Ithius glanced at him.

"You sound nervous," he said, turning his attention back to the street ahead of them.

"Everything just seems a little too easy."

Ithius nodded in agreement.

"I know," he said. In truth, after what Plykus had said about the locals, he had expected escaping Tryxis to be more difficult than actually getting back to the camp once they were clear of the town. "You think it's a trap?"

Plykus rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"Could be," he said, and then shrugged. "Maybe I'm just being paranoid."

They rounded a corner in the street and were immediately confronted by a gang of some ten or so swarthy looking fishermen blocking the way.

"Or I could've been right all along," Plykus cursed, eyeing the fishermen darkly.

Each of them was wielding some kind of improvised weapon, and they came in many different shapes and sizes. Some were holding clubs, while others carried hatchets and filleting knives at their sides. One or two men were even hauling weighted fishing nets, as if they expected to be able to catch people in them the same way they did their daily haul out at sea. Slowly they began to advance down the street toward them.

"Is there another way around?" Ithius asked softly.

Next to him, Plykus nodded.

"We'll have to back track a little though,"

Ithius began to back warily down the street, the crowd of Helots and Plykus moving with him.

"I don't have a problem with that," he said and turned to head in the opposite direction to the advancing gang. He stopped dead in his tracks, not really surprised at the sight that confronted him.

A second group, similar to the first in size and manner, had stepped into the street behind them, barring any possible escape route they might have taken.

"So much for plan A," Plykus muttered. "Do you have a plan B?"

Ithius shrugged and hefted his bedroll, unwinding the moth-eaten sheets to reveal the polished length of a two handed sword gleaming wickedly in the dull morning light.

"We ask them to stand aside," he said, lifting the blade clear and allowing the bedroll to fall away into the mud.

" Ask them?" Plykus said, disbelievingly

Ithius shrugged.

"Politely?" he suggested.

Plykus groaned.

"I take it there is no plan C," he said, grudgingly unsheathing his own sword.

At the sight of the genuine weapons being revealed, both groups of men paused momentarily, before starting forward again. As they walked, a man at the head of the first gang, presumably the ring leader, raised his hands in a placating manner.

"Now come on lads," he said, his words directed toward Ithius and Plykus. "I'm sure we can all talk about his nice and calm, like. There's no call for this to get bloody."

"If you wanted to talk peacefully, you shouldn't have come armed!" Ithius shot back, suddenly recognising the man as one of the pair that had eyed them suspiciously when he and Drogo had entered the inn earlier.

"I could say the same to you," a younger man returned with a nod toward their weapons. It was the younger of the pair from the inn; the one with the sullen jaw. "What makes a 'humble traveler' carry a sword like that?"

"Lynch mobs," Ithius replied smartly, clutching his weapon tighter as the crowd closed in on them.

"This ain't no lynching!" the younger man said defensively "We got no choice! Spartans are comin' here, and they'll put us all to the torch if we don't pay 'em off first!"

"And you want these people to be the payment?" Ithius retorted feeling his frustration growing. He did not want to hurt anyone, but he had lost too many of his people already to Demosthenes and his soldiers, and he would be damned if he was going to let it happen again when he still had a chance to prevent it, no matter how slim that chance might actually be.

"You think you can just hand them over to the Spartans and that that will be enough?" he continued, doing his best to make the mob see reason. "I was at the mustering fields outside the city when King Demosthenes ordered these people slain! He's a man obsessed with the greatness of his city, and he will stop at nothing to see it achieved! He won't stop hunting us until we are all dead, and our names little more than fading memories!"

The separate gangs were beginning to hem them in on both sides, and Ithius could feel the tension in the air rising as one or two of the refugee Helots began to fearfully produce weapons of their own. Like those belonging to the townsfolk, they were makeshift at best, most little more than cooking knives or walking staffs, but the gesture did not go unnoticed and a thin ripple of muttered warning ran through the crowd of people surrounding them.

"You and yours have our sympathies lad," the older man spoke up again, and sounding more sincere than Ithius had expected. "Truly you do, but we can't be caught in the middle of this. We've got to take care of our own. Sparta's a big city with a grand ol' army, and we're just some little town of traders and fishermen. We can't stand against a Spartan King, and more importantly we don't even want to try. We have no quarrel with King Demosthenes and his people, and we plan to try and keep it that way."

Ithius had to do his best not to laugh in frustration at their complete naivety.

"You have no quarrel with them?" he said disbelievingly "You honestly believe it's that simple? That handing these people over will keep the Spartans from your door!? We're nothing more than a distraction to them! An unpleasant obstruction that Demosthenes wants swept aside as quickly as possible so that he can concentrate on the real prize. This won't stop with us, and when we're gone, where do you think they will turn their attentions next?"

The gangs of fishermen paused for a moment, shuffling uncomfortably as Ithius and the other Helots glared back at them accusingly.

"You know he's right," Plykus called out, adding his own voice to Ithius'. "Demosthenes is out there now, picking fights even as we speak. Quarrel or no, he'll pick one with all of you sooner or later. Handing these people over to be murdered won't save you. It will just damn you all that much faster!"

Ithius glanced at the innkeeper thankfully, but Plykus did not even notice. Slowly the tension began to ease, and the crowd of fishermen began to lower their weapons. Ithius began a long, relieved exhale and was about to lower his sword when the great pealing strike of a bell rang out clear and strong in the early morning air. For a moment all fell silent as the Helots and fishermen caste about themselves in confusion. The bell struck again... then again... and again, each strike coming closer on top of the last until they filled the air with a clamoring wave of urgency.

"What is that?" Ithius asked Plykus.

"An alarm bell," Plykus replied, frowning. "But it makes no sense. They only usually ring it when there's a..."

An alarmed cry went up from the back of the mob, and all eyes turned in that direction. Beyond the mob, a column of acrid smoke was rising up over the rooftops above them, staining the grey sky a darker black.

"...fire," Plykus murmured.

"YOU!" The younger man shouted at them from the security of the mob, jabbing his finger accusingly toward the column of smoke overhead. "THIS IS YOUR DOING!"

A rumble of agreement went up from the rest of the crowd, as men began to heft their weapons once more. Ithius could feel his heart racing. What was happening? How had this all gone so badly so quickly? He was about to reply, to speak out in an attempt to diffuse the situation when one of the fishermen standing close to the edge of the Helot crowd made a grab for the nearest Helot to him. His intended victim was a young woman, clutching a burlap sack stuffed with traveling gear tightly to her chest.

What happened next took everyone by surprise. As the man grabbed for the Helot, a keen whistling sound filled the air, and the man stiffened suddenly, a feathered arrow shaft blossoming like the stalk of a crimson flower in his chest. The man stumbled a step backward, falling to his knees as he did so, then finally collapsing onto his back, his eyes already beginning to lose their focus as his life ebbed away.

The mob of townsfolk stood in dumbstruck silence for a moment, all eyes on the dead man lying in the mud. Suddenly, the younger of the two ring leaders looked back up his, his eyes meeting Ithius' and blazing furiously.

"GET THEM!" he shouted.

More arrows from their unseen allies came whistling through the air. Each one struck at the back ranks of the mob, clearly being aimed high and far to avoid striking at Ithius or any of the others. Ithius thought he counted five shots, but only three seemed to find their mark; three of the townsfolk falling to them. Two were simply wounded, the arrows sticking from a shoulder or a leg, but the third was unlucky enough to take one in the throat. Then the distance between the two groups was of no consequence any more as the mob fell upon the Helots like circling hyenas finally closing in to tear their prey apart.

Ithius' sword rasped at the air as he struck out at the first man to come for him. His attacker moved in a lumpy and inelegant way, and Ithius' sword found its mark in his gut as much through the other man's clumsiness as it did his own skill. Someone cried out nearby, and he span toward the source of the sound, but could not make anything out through the crowd of jostling bodies. The older ringleader came at him in the moment of distraction, curved and wicked looking filleting knives clutched in each hand. Before Ithius could turn back to face him fully, the first knife lashed out, raking a long but shallow slash along his forearm as he wheeled backward. The second knife came in high, the older man slashing desperately for Ithius' throat. Ithius back slid, then twisted right, his boots squelching in the mud. His sidestep put him neatly on the flank of the older man, and his attackers follow through carried him past Ithius. Ithius did not waste the opportunity, spinning to face the man's unguarded back and sweeping his sword around so that its tip slashed the man's left hamstring. It was a none lethal strike, but it was doubtful just how well the other man would be able to walk following this.

The older man cried out in pain and surprise as his leg, no longer able to hold his weight, gave out from under him and he began to stumble forward. Suddenly another figure emerged from the crowd. Clad in rough leathers with shaggy brown hair and a mouth set in a grim line, he was carrying a long sword in one hand and a notched dagger almost big enough to be a short sword in the other, while across his back was slung a short bow and a quiver of arrows.

He moved with practiced skill, but not much in the way of elegance, the sword lashing out with efficient deadliness to catch Ithius' stumbling assailant clear through the chest, killing him almost instantly. It was then that Ithius noticed the others at the man's side. There were around five of them, although in the swirling melee, he could not get an exact head count immediately, and they were all of them Helots save for the man with the dagger leading them. They were armed and armoured in a similar fashion to the first man, carrying swords, hammers, flails and mauls that while hardly of great quality, were nevertheless serviceable and deadly. Like their leader, they also carried slung short bows and quivers. Ithius knew them all of course, and he felt a mounting sense of profound dismay as he watched them go about their bloody work. They struck all about themselves mercilessly, and where their blows landed, the fishermen and other townsfolk of Tryxis fell, cleaved and broken.

Ithius felt his stomach lurch sickeningly, and in the back of his throat he could taste the biting, burning sensation of bile. This could not be happening! This was not who the Helots were, or what they should be! He had only wanted to speak with Plykus and then to rescue his people. He had not wanted it to end like this, and he would not allow it now! With a furious snarl he dove at the brown haired man, seizing him roughly by his leather jerkin and, driving him hard against a nearby wall.

"Athelis!" He snarled in the other man's face, his voice filled with fury. "This is not what I ordered!"

Athelis smacked his hands away, his eyes as fierce as Ithius'.

"They were trying to kill you!" he protested.

"I can look after myself..." Ithius began.

"...and what about them?" Athelis snapped sharply, motioning to the Helots refugees. "Could you have taken care of them too?"

"We don't have time for this!" Ithius growled. "I'm ordering you to stop this, and to stop it now !"

Athelis glanced back into the street over Ithius' shoulder, and straightened, lifting his chin and adjusting his jerkin where Ithius had rumpled it.

"Looks like it's already stopped," he said, nodding to the scene playing out behind Ithius. Ithius turned and felt his heart plunge. The fight was indeed over and Athelis' people were the victors. The Helots stood unscathed, Athelis' men having protected them well, but the toll exacted on the mob had been high. They were scattered about the street now, each person lying in bloodied heap where they had fallen. None of them made a sound or even so much as moved save for one; the younger of the two ringleaders. Plykus was kneeling beside the man now, his hands soaked with blood as he pressed them to a gaping wound in the younger man's neck.

Ithius crossed to his side, about to offer his help, but as he approached, he quickly saw that any help he did offer would only be so much wasted effort. The young man was dying, and when he did the body count would be total. None would have survived Athelis' assault.

He knelt beside Plykus anyway, reaching out to place as comforting a hand as he could manage on the dying man's arm.

"I'm sorry," he whispered quietly. "I didn't want it to come to this."

The man's eyes rolled from Plykus to Ithius, and for a brief moment, Ithius saw nothing but hatred staring back at him, and then, a moment later, there was nothing at all.

In the distance, the sound of the rest of the townsfolk of Tryxis attempting to fight the fire that broken out elsewhere in the town filled the air. Ithius had a horrible feeling he knew what had started that fire.

Without a word, Plykus reached out and tenderly closed the younger man's eyes.

"I knew him," he said quietly, his voice distant now, far away and full of sadness. It was a side of him Ithius had never seen before. "He'd come to my inn and drink more nights than he didn't," he continued. "A good kid really. Hot headed, and not very bright, but he didn't deserve this. None of them did."

He lifted his gaze to Ithius, his face flat and unreadable. "They were just trying to protect their homes."

"And I was just tying to protect our people," Ithius replied. It was the truth but the words still rang hollow to him. "Things just... they just got out of hand and..."

"Out of hand?" Plykus said, his voice rising slightly and he let out a bitter laugh. "Out of hand!?" his voice began to rise even more, taking on an angrier, harder edge as it did so. "Out of hand is when a friendly scuffle leads to accidental broken bones! This..." he gestured to the bodies strewn about, "This wasn't out of hand! This was a massacre!"

The innkeeper's fists clenched tightly, his knuckles turning a fierce white and for a moment, Ithius thought he might actually try and lash out for him.

"I know," he said, doing his best to keep his own voice even and sympathetic. "And for my part in it, I'm sorry, but they wanted to lynch us Plykus. They were trying to make us victims and that I can never... no, will never allow. I may not agree with what just happened here, but I wasn't about to stand back and just let the alternative play out either."

Plykus gritted his teeth and took an angry step forward, then paused suddenly, as if he were finally able to truly hear Ithius' words. His shoulders slumped, his fingers un-clenching as he let out a tired exhale.

"You haven't changed at all Ithius," he said shaking his head ruefully "This is why I never wanted to join you and the others. The cause was noble but the price..." He looked around the backstreet, a dark expression on his face. "...always too rich for my blood."

Ithius was about to reply when Athelis appeared behind them.

"If you're both finished, it's time we were getting out of here," he said. "Drogo's waiting with the wagon a couple of streets over and..."

Plykus' fist caught him hard across the jaw, spinning Athelis like a top and sending him crashing hard against a stack of lobster baskets. Plykus was on him immediately, a follow up blow aimed for the smaller man's sternum, but with the element of surprise gone, Athelis was not so easy a target as the taller man had thought. Pulling himself upright he weaved around the blow, bending his arm as he went to catch Plykus' striking fist in the crook of his elbow, and then twisting cruelly. Plykus bellowed in pain and grabbed for Athelis' jerkin, yanking the smaller man in close for a savage headbutt that sent them both reeling. They were just recovering when Ithius got between them.

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" he shouted, pressing a firm hand to chests of both men. "The pair of you!"

"This is all his doing!" Plykus shouted furiously, never taking his eyes of Athelis. "You set the fire didn't you!" he demanded, pointing a finger at the mercenary. "DIDN'T YOU!"

"Of course I did!" Athelis shouted back. "I needed to make sure the rest of the town wasn't about to come down on all our heads!"

"So you just thought you'd burn down some innocent peoples' homes?"

Athelis rolled his eyes.

"Don't give me that," he snapped. "These people weren't innocents. They wanted to hang your heads out as a welcome present for the Spartans. If it wasn't for me and the others, they'd probably be scalping the lot of you right now!"

"Athelis," Ithius growled dangerously.

Athelis glanced at him warily, then stalked off with a dismissive wave of his hand. Ithius turned away from him and back to Plykus. In the distance the bell had ceased its incessant ringing and the thick black cloud of smoke hanging over the rooftops was no longer being fed by the unseen fire below.

"We're out of time," Ithius said simply. "If we don't move now, then there's every chance this could've all been for nothing."

Plykus scrubbed a hand across his face, and gave a bone-weary sigh.

"Go," he said finally. "I was just being naive when I thought it wouldn't come to this."

Ithius gave him a halfhearted smile of understanding.

"I think we both were," he said. Behind him the surviving crowd of Helots, along with Athelis and his own men were beginning to file up and out of the street. Athelis himself was directing them into a quick footed marching formation that kept their pace brisk and progress steady.

Soon only Ithius and Plykus were left standing in the street among the bodies.

"You could come with us," Ithius ventured. "We could use someone with your talent and insight, and I have a feeling that Tryxis is not going to be the most friendly of places for a former Helot come the Spartans' arrival."

Plykus gave a dry smile and shook his head.

"I've been living here for the last year and a half," he said. "This is my home now, and there are good people here..."

Ithius cocked an eyebrow at him, and the innkeeper could only manage a shrug in return.

"...lynch mobs not withstanding," he admitted. "Besides, I can probably be of more use to you here."

"Oh?" Ithius said, his expression turning quizzical.

"I'm an innkeeper," Plykus said simply as if that alone should answer Ithius' question. "People tend to drink around me, and drunk people have loose tongues. I can be an extra set of eyes and ears for you."

"But what if the townsfolk find you out?" Ithius asked. It was a valid concern for him. He had lost more than enough friends this last couple of months, and he did not want to have to chalk Plykus' name on to that particular slate.

Plykus laughed, but it was a dry mocking sound and carried none of the mirth or warmth of his earlier laughter at the inn.

"How would they?" he said. "Your man Athelis put paid to everyone who saw me involved."

Ithius gave a nod of understanding, but gave Plykus a measuring look anyway. There was something more to Plykus' reason for not wanting to join them.

"That's not the whole truth though is it?" he said, calling the other man on his holding back. "There's another reason you're staying isn't there?"

Plykus glanced about him at the bodies one final time.

"To be honest," he admitted grudgingly, "I don't like the company you're keeping."

Ithius gave another nod of understanding, then, hefting his sword as he did so, he turned to follow the rest of the Helots up the street and out of the town.

"If we're being perfectly honest with each other," he said, glancing similarly at the bodies as he did so, "sometimes, neither do I."

Chapter Two: Their Hearts Afire

The ringing gong strikes echoed out over the undulating mass of people in what had once been the temple of Ares. As one the crowd fell silent, turning toward the raised dais. It was made from the same marble as the chamber floor, offset only slightly from the room's centre, and upon it stood a large stone altar.

From the back of the room, Pelion watched them all, a small smile of satisfaction tilting the corners of his mouth upward. There were so many of them! So many Followers, crowding the room in numbers the likes of which he had barely dared to imagine could be possible as little as a month ago. Those numbers looked set to continue growing too. The turn out for today's morning address was even greater than yesterday's, which in turn had been greater than the day before that and so on, and so on. In the last month or so the number of Followers in the city had more than tripled, and Pelion was working hard to make sure that that growth rate did not change.

It had been difficult at first, he had to admit. More difficult than he had thought it would be, even with Demosthenes setting the precedent by publicly abandoning his worship of the Olympians, most notably Ares, and openly worshiping at the temple of Cronus instead. At first many of the high born Spartans had been leery of the temple and the sway it appeared to hold over their newly minted supreme King and the fact that the only Helots to have been spared in Demosthenes' purging were members of the temple did little to disprove that particular belief.

Over time, the balance had subtly begun to shift however. More and more of Demosthenes' inner circle had been converted, and the power politics of the city's upper classes had led to still more high born Spartans – desperate not be left out in the cold as the worship of the Olympians began to fade – to join with the Followers. Fair-weather believers though they may be, Pelion had still capitalised on the sea change, moving quickly to find the cracks through which he could slip the message of his Lord so that he might draw them more fully and securely into the worship of Cronus. The worship of his Lord had spread quickly after that, and now here Pelion stood, surrounded by a throng of the devoted and the faithful, their complete attention hanging on his every word. It was a feeling like no other and one he had waited his entire life for.

Slowly he began to make his way across the chamber. The sound of his long, ornamental walking staff clacking loudly against the stone cut easily through the silence, and there was a quiet rustling of robes, accompanied by soft murmurings as all eyes turned to look at him. Pelion basked in the sensation of it. Every morning was like this. Every time he strode confidently out in front of them to spread the message of his Lord, the fires of belief in his heart were stoked, and he knew that that was precisely what Cronus wanted of him; his passion, his zeal, his faith.

All those around him were clad in crimson robes identical to his own. There was no difference between them, no grades to their membership, or ranks to display a hierarchy. They were all the same, equal under the watchful gaze of Cronus. Nevertheless, it was easy to separate the Followers' Spartan members from those who were Helots. The Spartans carried themselves taller and with straighter backs. While they would divert their eyes from him when he looked to them, they would never bow their heads as the Helots did. A life time lordship had bred stiff necks into them, and one or two of the soldiers even carried their crested helms in the crooks of their arms, the bronze armour oddly incongruous when placed alongside the crimson robes. The Helot members on the other hand were distinguishable only by their hushed and humble reverence. They did not even look to Pelion, instead standing in silent ranks with heads lowered and eyes downcast as they awaited his address.

Pelion nodded to one or two Spartans from the upper classes before stepping up on the dais. While all were supposedly equal, it would not do to alienate those who could still bring more to their cause, and the suggestion of his favour, or the threat of its absence would make them eager to oblige him.

Turning, he gazed briefly at the altar. Much as they had done at the temple of Artemis in the Outer City, the Followers had smashed every statue dedicated to Ares throughout the temple, going on to heap the remains upon the altar that had once been devoted to him. It was a twin act of both defilement and offering at the same time. Pelion paid it little mind. He would see to it that his Lord was returned to his seat on high, and when that happened, all the Olympians would soon be akin to these statues, humbled and shattered in offering to their Lord's might. Pelion's heart almost quickened as he imagined those who had deserted him in his hour of need being reduced to nothing more than fragments; shades of their former glory.

With a broad wave of his arm, he spun back to look out over the sea of faces gathered before him.

"Brothers and Sisters!" he began, his voice echoing cleanly between the pillars at the edges of the room. "We are here again, as we are every morning, to pay reverence and respect to our Lord! He of the Golden Times, King of the Harvest, who was cast down by His children; the so called gods you once held so dear, pretenders to a crown and title not their own..."

His eyes narrowed as he regarded the crowd before him, studying them carefully for any hint – any sign – of discomfort at the words he spoke.

A few people toward the rear of the chamber were shuffling slightly, and Pelion favoured them with a broad smile, lifting his arms in a welcoming gesture.

"Ah!" he announced loudly. "I see we have some newcomers to our gathering." All eyes on the temple floor turned, following the old priest's gaze to fall upon the small cluster of people. They were all Spartan but under the pressure of so much attention, even they bowed slightly. Good. It would teach them the values of respect and obedience Pelion demanded of all the Followers. Theirs was too great a task to afford squeamishness even among the newest of members. Sooner or later, all had to face their fears and passions through the trial of the Pneuma, and those who could not lay aside those fears would... well, there would be other uses for them. In the meantime, a little reminder that no matter their station in the world outside, be they leaders or slaves, fighters or bakers, when they stepped inside this temple, they were one and the same as all others, would do these new members a world of good.

Pelion stepped down off the dais, and the crowd parted around him as he crossed over to the newcomers, being sure to meet each of their gazes in turn as he approached. He was careful not to look away, holding each one with a steady stare until they broke and diverted their eyes from his. With each of them suitably humbled, he began to speak again.

"My apologies," he said softly. "Did my words make you uncomfortable?"

At first none of them answered, each one's gaze meeting nothing more than the floor.

"It is quite alright you know," Pelion pressed on in a calm, ingratiating manner, smiling gently at them as he did so. "A little discomfort is natural at first. The Olympians have been the only worship you have known your entire lives. It is not easy to step aside from ways so entrenched... so ingrained..." he paused, his face suddenly becoming serious. "Remember thought that it is they who abandoned you. When your city needed them at Marathon, and again recently, with the horror of the Persian horde at your doors, where were they? They left you, lost and alone, hopeless and angry..." The group of newcomers shifted uncomfortably, and Pelion smiled warmly once more, satisfied that the seed of doubt had been well and truly planted in their minds.

"But take heart my friends," he said, his tone lighter now. "You are among fellows now. It may take you some time to truly feel what it is all these others have come to feel; to know in your heart of hearts that what we say is indeed truth, and that the world we strive for is indeed a better place, but I can assure you that when you see as we see, and Cronus reaches out to touch your souls as He has done mine, you need never feel lost or alone again."

He leaned against his staff in the manner of an old man, tired and infirm, but nevertheless still able to stand and face the world. It was affectation. Nothing more. He did not even need the staff to stand, but he had found it a useful prop and one that lent him a certain image he worked hard to cultivate.

"What our faith offers us is not what any of you may have known in the past," he continued. "It may even seem strange to you at first. We do not take cold comfort in the simple, unquestioning adoration of some distant deity who may or may not be listening. Nor do we mindlessly toil in service of a never ending parade of meaningless sacrifices and offerings, made in the vain hope that we receive some small boon or favour from uncaring tyrants."

He turned on the spot and began to address himself to the chamber as a whole instead of merely to the newcomers.

"What we offer is agency!" he said loudly. "The world cries out for a new way; a better way! Our great Lord can grant it to us! He is one who knows full well the tyranny and petty jealousy of the gods! He is one who knows better than any the cold sting of betrayal! It is because of these things that He hears us when no others do! He has seen the wrongs and injustices of the world; has experienced first hand the pain that all of us have also felt! Yes my Brothers and Sisters! The world cries out, and on the day of His Return, so shall He answer, our voices raised alongside His, lending Him strength and purpose! Even now He listens, drawing upon your courage and will, to steal Himself for what must eventually be done." He began to stride purposefully back across the chamber, his staff now barely touching the ground, as if some great righteous strength had suddenly possessed him. He mounted the dais in a single bound, spinning and casting his arms wide as if to embrace all who stood before him.

"Our Lord Cronus will rise!" he all but shouted, "And when he does, Olympus itself will fall! The old order will be cast down, and a new age will take its place! A great age of man, a Golden Time as existed long ago, where none shall fear or be feared, where life and death will be one and the same, and none shall ever more be lost! Does that not make him worthy of your worship?"

The crowd all but erupted in a frenzied chorus of shouted 'YESES' and loud cheering, their hands thrown upwards in adoration, their faces utterly enraptured. Pelion gave them all a wide and delighted smile as he waited for the crowd to quieten themselves. Finally, as the fervour began to lessen he spoke again.

"Then go now," he said, gesturing expansively toward the doors to the rear of the room and the world that lay beyond them. "Go back to your lives, practice your weapons, master your crafts, sell your wares and toil in your fields, and when the world seems cruel, harsh and unfair, remember Him and the glory He will one day bring to us! Our pain emboldens Him; our suffering gives Him cause, and our hatred gives Him fire! Think of Him and know that he can hear you, and to those of you new to our ways..." he let his eyes fall back those newcomers toward the rear of the chamber. "...remember that He is always listening."

The address at an end, the temple gong struck another loud booming note, and as one the crowd began to turn and make their way toward the doors, Pelion watching them all with a deep sense of satisfaction, but beneath it there was something else; a bubbling undercurrent of frustration. Today had gone well, as it always did. The word would spread still further and he expected the next day's morning address to be even better attended, but it might all this sermonising might still come to nothing if they were to simply continue sitting in Sparta and waiting.

As the last of the Followers filed out of the room, Pelion caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye, a patch of shadows dancing against the light as if in opposition to it.

"Have you been watching long?" he asked.

"For a time," a disembodied voice replied. It seemed to come from all directions at once and managed to be both resonant, and hollow at the same time. Suddenly the dancing shadows flickered to an opposite corner of the chamber forcing Pelion's gaze to track with them, before they disappeared out of sight. Pelion sighed. It was a clear attempt to wrong foot him and put him off balance. Instead, he merely found it tiresome.

"Your oration is as fine as ever," the voice continued, but now he could place it. He turned to see the cloaked and hooded form of Mortius stepping out of a cluster of shadows around a nearby pillar as easily as if he were stepping into the room through a door. As usual, the shadows seemed to detach from the surfaces around him to trail obediently in his wake, frollicking and skittering madly across the stone as they went. "Soon the Followers will be ready to go out into the world, to unite the remaining fragments of our order once more and spread the message of our Lord Cronus across the face of Greece."

Pelion grunted, and Mortius cocked his head slightly. Pelion could almost imagine him frowning beneath the shadows that filled his hood and hid his face from view.

"You do not think the time approaches?" Mortius said, his voice tightening at Pelion's dismissive tone.

"Quite the contrary I assure you," Pelion said, crossing to the altar, and resting his hands upon the shattered remains of the statue of Ares. "I do not think we need wait any longer. The Followers are ready now. "

"Demosthenes disagrees," Mortius replied. "He says he needs more time to secure the territories and establish his power base before marching the Spartans north."

Pelion shook his head.

"Demosthenes," he muttered. "Always Demosthenes. What need have we of power bases? Of territory? This provincial nonsense of his bores me. When Cronus is free, the whole of Greece will be ours for the taking! I say why wait any longer? More and more Spartans join us everyday. Our ranks swell with belief; with righteous fire!" He looked directly at Mortius' shadowed face. Not so long ago, he would not have been able to do so. When first they had met, he had been too terrified of his Lord's Soul to even attempt to look him in the eye, let alone challenge him in this way. Much had changed recently though, and now it was all he could do to keep from sneering in disgust at the shadowy figure. "Such a fire cannot continue to burn forever," he finished dourly.

Mortius stepped up onto the dais with him, his back straight and imperious, completely unbowed by Pelion's defiance.

"As the Faith of our Lord, it is your responsibility to keep that fire burning for as long as need be," he said darkly. "Are you saying that you are not equal to the task at hand?"

Pelion took the rebuke easily. His self confidence was not so easily shaken.

"Ha!" he scoffed with a dismissive wave of his hand. "You know full well that that is not the case. You also know full well that our window of opportunity is limited and that if we do not move soon, then that window will be closed to us, perhaps for good!"

Mortius continued to regard him in silence, his thoughts and feelings as unreadable as ever.

"The Olympians will rally," Pelion pressed on. "The other Greek cities will ready their defences, and all but the most faithful will begin to doubt the courage of our convictions when we do not move against them. When that happens, the progress we have made here, the momentum we have built..." he shook his head in frustration. "...All for nothing."

Turning, he regarded the rest of the empty chamber, eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

"Yet here we sit regardless," he said "Waiting while Demosthenes 'gathers his forces' and 'secures his territory'." He all but sneered as he uttered the same excuses Demosthenes had spat their way time and again since his ascension to the rank of Strength.

Mortius stepped up beside him.

"You would do better to speak plainly in my presence," he said, and for the first time, Pelion thought he detected a hint of irritation in the other man's voice. "I detest insinuation. Say what it is that you feel you must or be silent. I will not tolerate half measures."

"Am I not the Faith?" Pelion said, arching his brow at the hooded figure in mock surprise. "Are we not all equal the three of us? The Soul, Strength and Faith? If it is indeed so, then who are you to threaten me?"

Mortius' moved quicker than he imagined, the black shadows under his hood roiling furiously as he leaned in, mere inches from Pelion's face. Even this close, Pelion's eyes could not penetrate the blackness beneath that hood. Still, he managed to hold his ground, even as a pale sinuous hand snaked out and pointed a long accusatory finger square at his chest.

"Do not test my patience," Mortius hissed. "Say your peace and be done."

Pelion frowned slightly, his mind ticking over the unusual turn of events. He had never seen Mortius so openly emotional before. Had he really managed to put a crack in the other man's seemingly impenetrable armour? In truth he was not sure if he was really the one responsible. Mortius, once so seemingly cool and unflappable, had been behaving oddly more often than not recently. It had begun shortly after he had returned from the Tomb of Lycurgus and his defeat of Callisto. What had happened down their Pelion wondered. What could she have said or done that had shaken him so? Was she even the one responsible? He could not be sure, but nor did he need to care. Demosthenes and his role as Strength had long been a point of contention between the two of them, and chinks in the other man's armour like this were rare. He planned to exploit it for all it was worth.

"Very well," he said with a slight tilt of his head. "I shall speak candidly then. Demosthenes was your choice. Never mine, and I think these incessant delays are ample proof of his unsuitability to the task at hand."

Mortius drew back slightly, but Pelion could still feel the icy chill of his gaze upon him.

"Go on," the hooded figure said.

Pelion shrugged, as if what he were saying were the most obvious thing in the world.

"The man has lost his spine," he said simply. "He cowers when he should stand tall, bleats like a frightened spring lamb when he should be roaring like a lion."

He watched as Mortius shifted slightly at his words, and fought to suppress a mental grin. For the first time ever, he seemed to have him on the back foot.

"And who would you have chosen?" Mortius said. "Our Lord's plan demanded him. For all the power of your faith, we needed a strong right arm. Who better than the King of Sparta?"

Pelion folded his arms firmly across his chest.

"You know very well who I would have chosen."

Mortius straightened slightly.

"Callisto is dead," he all but snapped.

"Is she?" Pelion said slyly.

"As good as," Mortius said firmly. "No one survives Pneuma poisoning. Not even her."

Pelion smiled darkly. He had the edge now. The power between them had shifted and he could sense that Mortius knew it too.

"And would the Olympians have chosen her if she were so easily killed?" he pushed. "Many before us have tried to do just that. By my reckoning, she has died at least twice already. It never seems to stick though."

Mortius regarded him for moment without speaking, then suddenly and without warning, he turned on his heel and began to stride toward the shadows stretching between the pillars. Pelion's smile widened victoriously.

"Tell me I am wrong!" He crowed triumphantly. "Tell me that Demosthenes was our Lord's will all along! That he was the correct choice and not Callisto! Tell me I am WRONG!"

"You're wrong," Mortius said without looking back, and then the shadows reached out and took him, leaving Pelion alone in the chamber once more.

He stood for long moments, luxuriating in his success, despite a familiar creeping pain growing between his temples.

"My Lord," he whispered to the empty air around him. "You would tell me if I were wrong wouldn't you? You would tell me if I had misinterpreted your wishes; if you did indeed favour Demosthenes?"

For a while silence was his only answer. Then it came to him, a voice both far away and yet strangely intimate at the same time, like the fingers of a lover running up his spine. Something had changed from how he remembered it however. It sounded clearer now, and louder too, as if the distance between Pelion and the unseen speaker were growing less and less with every day that passed.

" You are not wrong," Cronus whispered.

*****

The shadows had long been Mortius' companions, and for most of that time they had been all he had known, trapped as he had been in the strange twilight realm between the worlds of the living and the dead. He had been trapped their so long, cut off from all sensation in that terrible void, that all memory of sight and sound and smell and taste had begun to fail him. The shadows had been the one constant in his existence, his window back into a world where all those senses were still more than hazy imaginings and half formed dreams.

Even after his Lord had come to him their, whispering sweet promises of relief and revenge that cut through the nothingness that had surrounded him and drawing his attention and worship like a single blazing star against an eternity blackest night, the shadows had remained at his side. Indeed they had become more than his companions. They had become him . His arms, his legs, his feet and his hands. They had become his long forgotten senses, letting him see and hear in a way he had never been capable of before. Through their use he had learned to remember himself again, who he had been and what he had become, and as he had learned those things, so too had he learned how to hate again. That fire that he had not felt in so long had blazed hot and hard inside him at first; a welcome relief from the years of senseless ennui in which he had been dwelling, but as the centuries passed, and the hate continued unabated, the nature of it changed. It became dark, brooding and chill, spreading through him and swallowing all other feelings and emotions of which he was still capable, leaving little in its wake save a dry husk. Even with his Lord's words for company and reassurance, the pain of his existence had begun to become excruciating.

Then Cronus had whispered to him again, telling him of a way back into the world of the living and how the opportunity would soon present itself. He had not been lying. First one god had died; the one Mortius later learned to have been named Strife. Then the newborn goddess, Callisto, had followed soon after. Together their deaths had rocked the very foundations of existence, hammering hard on the barrier between worlds and opening a fissure between them, albeit one too narrow for him to squeeze through at first. It had not taken long for that crack to widen however under the constant pressure of souls traveling from one world to the next, and eventually it had become large enough for him to slip back through to the world of the living.

His return had been more than a little jarring, at once both liberating and terrifying. The physical world was almost alien to him so long and he been absent from it, and the shadows had no longer been the sum total of him. In their place had returned those same sensations that he had long thought lost and that he had coveted even longer. The shadows themselves had remained, but merely as a single part of him, an extension of the cold, passionless hatred inside him in the same way that he himself was an extension of his Lord's will.

Now they were wrapped around him like a shield, hiding him from view as he lurked around the edges of what once been Sparta's Council Chambers. It was here that the Ephors, voted for by the Spartan people, had consulted with their generals; the so called Spartan Kings. The Ephors themselves were all dead now, as was one of their Kings. Only King Demosthenes remained, responsible as he was for the deaths of his compatriots.

Demosthenes himself was not faraway. He was seated on his throne that had been moved from its traditional position on one edge of the chamber to a raised platform at the chamber's rear. It was the same platform where the Ephors had once sat in council, and the significance of that fact was obvious to all who came to kneel in audience before the King. Currently standing before Demosthenes were two other men, both clad similarly to the other. They wore molded boiled leather breastplates with capes secured to their shoulders by bronze clasps and at their sides they carried heavy looking helmets, each one sporting a shortened crest. While their armour was identical, the capes and crests of their helmets were different, one being a chill winter blue, and the other a bright crimson. The clasps were slightly different too. Each one was fashioned with a different crest upon it. The man in blue wore the symbol of a charging bull, while the man in red wore the symbol of a roaring lion. Demosthenes' colours matched the man in blue, but the crest of the helmet at his side was far taller.

Silent and hidden from view, Mortius watched and listened as the men spoke.

"...still searching the countryside," the man in red was saying as Demosthenes slumped tiredly in his throne. "So far though, we have been unable to track Ithius or any of his group."

Next to him the man in blue snorted derisively, earning him a caustic glance from the man in red.

"I take it my report displeases you?" the man in red said.

"And does that astonish you?" the man in blue sneered. "Since you returned from Thermopylae, your record of service to King Demosthenes has been a litany of disappointments. You were Leonidas' most capable attendant, Sentos, yet perhaps his trust in you was misplaced. Since you swore allegiance to King Demosthenes, you have consistently failed to bring to heal a band of ill trained peasants, slaves, and farm hands. One has to wonder just how much effort you are actually expending in this."

The man called Sentos glared daggers at the man in blue.

" King Leonidas," he corrected him. The man in blue's eyes narrowed.

"I'm sorry?" he said dangerously, but Sentos did not appear to be in the least bit intimidated.

"I was in the service of King Leonidas, Gracus," he said. "He died defending Sparta..."

"Committing treason against Sparta.” It was Gracus' turn to correct him now. "In a battle unsanctioned by the Ephors or by King Demosthenes."

"Nevertheless, Sparta still stands because of his efforts," Sentos said from between clenched teeth. "You owe him his title at the very least."

"I owe traitors nothing!" Gracus all but spat, and was opening his mouth to speak again when Demosthenes raised his hand, a clear call for silence.

" King Leonidas is deserving of our respect," he said magnanimously, but shooting Gracus a warning glance before turning his gaze to Sentos. "Gracus is correct however. Your failure to apprehend Ithius and his Helots is most troubling. When you swore your service to me, I expected your utmost commitment and devotion to my cause."

"And you have them both, Great King," Sentos said, bowing his head in a gesture of humility, but Mortius could see from the set of the man's shoulders that it was a stiff necked bow. Sentos did not like Demosthenes, and from the way Demosthenes was looking at him, it was clear that fact was not lost on the Spartan King either.

"Then why is it you still have not brought me the traitor Ithius' head?" Demosthenes said, leaning forward in his seat, his voice suddenly cold and imperious.

"Spartan territories are extensive, Great King" Sentos said, not lifting his gaze from the floor, "and they extend day by day as your patrols spread further north. It's simply too large an area for what remains of my men to cover in its entirety, not to mention that the Helots know their lands far better than we do."

" Their lands?" Demosthenes said, tilting an eyebrow at Sentos. The red caped Spartan dipped his head lower.

"My apologies Great King. I misspoke. The lands are of course the property of Sparta. I simply meant that a great deal of the territory we're attempting to cover was once worked by the Helots, and they know the geography far better than my men."

Demosthenes settled back in his seat, and glanced toward Gracus.

"An understandable excuse," he said, steepling his hands before him, "but that's all that it is. An excuse. I have declared Ithius and his people traitors to Sparta. By our laws, such treachery is punishable only by death. By their continued existence they defy my supreme authority."

"I understand Great King," Sentos said. "I will see to it that they are brought to your justice."

Demosthenes shook his head.

"No," he said, looking to Gracus. "I think it's time we put a fresh mind to the task. Who would you recommend Captain?"

"Lieutenant Agrios," Gracus said without missing a beat, almost as if he had known the question was coming. "He's young, but ambitious and tenacious. He will not let the likes of Ithius stand between him and the opportunity prove himself to you, Great King."

Demosthenes nodded as if the answer was of little real consequence to him.

"See to it he doesn't," he said. "I will not march our men north with our own lands still unsecured, and I tire of waiting for Ithius to be dealt with." The last comment came with a pointed look at Sentos who simply shifted uncomfortably where he stood.

"If I'm not to continue the hunt for Ithius and his Helots, how then may I serve my King?" he said, a note of forced humility in his voice.

Demosthenes studied him carefully for a moment, a calculating frown etched across his features. Finally he spoke.

"There is one task you might attend to," he said. "I have received word that the northern city states have dispatched a diplomatic mission to ascertain my intentions now that I'm the sole power in Sparta. Naturally, with Ithius and his Helots still at large, the roads can hardly be considered safe for them." He looked to Gracus. "Lieutenant Agrios was to meet with them was he not?"

Gracus nodded.

"He was,"

"Then the timing is perfect," Demosthenes said, returning his gaze to Sentos. "You will carry Agrios' new orders to him at Tryxis where the mission is to make landfall, then take his place and escort them back to the city."

Sentos snapped straight at his King's command. Whatever he might feel about Demosthenes personally, Mortius still noted the strong sense of discipline the man possessed.

"How many men shall I command?" he said, his tone now rigid and formal.

"I think the mission's safety is of the utmost importance," Demosthenes said. "Wouldn't you agree Captain Gracus?"

Gracus nodded again. "Of the utmost, Great King," he said.

A small smile lit at the corners of Demosthenes' mouth.

"Lieutenant Orestes shall accompany you," he said simply, as if it were the most obvious choice in the world. "His troops are fresh and he has much to prove..." he narrowed his eyes pointedly "...as do you."

Sentos dropped to one knee and bowed his head again.

"I shall not displease you again, Great King. I shall have the mission safely returned to Sparta, even if I have to give my own life in doing so."

"Let us hope that that is not necessary," Demosthenes said. "You are dismissed Captain."

Sentos rose to his feet and turned to leave. He was half way across the council chamber when Demosthenes called out to him again.

"Oh and Captain..." Sentos stopped dead in his tracks and turned to look at Demosthenes warily.

"Yes Great King?" he said, a small knot of worry in his voice.

"I have not seen you, nor any of your men at the temple addresses," Demosthenes said. "Brother Pelion is most interested in meeting you."

Sentos visibly stiffened.

"Is that an order Great King?"

"Merely an observation," Demosthenes said with a wave of his hand. "A man's faith is his business and none of mine. He must find it on his own. Still, you should consider attending. Brother Pelion speaks well, and they can be most enlightening, I assure you."

"I will give it some consideration Great King," Sentos said.

Demosthenes gave a satisfied nod.

"Then you are dismissed," he said. Sentos all but ran from the chamber, much to the apparent amusement of Demosthenes.

"Great King," Gracus said, his head bowed respectfully as Demosthenes turned back to face him once Sentos was clear of the chamber.

"What is it Gracus?" the Spartan King said.

"I would never presume to question your judgement," Gracus began. "You are after all the supreme authority in Sparta..."

Demosthenes rolled his eyes.

"Don't grovel Gracus," he said. "I need soldiers, not toadying lackey's. If you have doubts then spit them out. I won't have my men mincing their words around me."

Gracus lifted his eyes to meet Demosthenes' and Mortius was surprised to see not even the slightest trace of humility behind them. Not only was Gracus ambitious it would seem, but also extremely self possessed. Enough to even stand eye to eye with the King of Sparta and proclaimed Strength of Cronus.

"Very well then," the Spartan Captain said, his voice now plain and no nonsense. "You have entrusted quite the task to him if you don't mind me saying. If anything is to go wrong it may lead us to war much sooner than we are ready for. Are you sure he can be trusted?"

"Don't be a fool Gracus," Demosthenes said. "Of course I can't trust him, but not for reasons of competence. He is still loyal to Leonidas, and though his King may be dead, Sentos still stands by Leonidas' ideals, misguided though they are."

He clambered to his feet, stretching tiredly as he did so, and then walked to Gracus' side.

"Then why send him?" Gracus asked, frowning in confusion.

"Because it puts him in a position where his true loyalties will be revealed," Demosthenes replied. "He doesn't agree with my decision to take us to war, that much is clear. The level of his conviction less so. This diplomatic mission will test his resolve. If he is about to turn traitor on us, this will present the perfect opportunity for him to do so. If or when he does, we'll be ready and waiting to dispatch him accordingly."

"Then why send Orestes with him?" Gracus said. "Why not send me? Sentos and his men would be easy enough for my troops to handle."

Demosthenes shook his head.

"I need you here with me, at least for the time being. Sparta is still not secure and your troops are needed to enforce the curfews. We have no idea how many of Ithius' spies might still be lurking out there."

"I still believe I could be of more use elsewhere," Gracus said.

Demosthenes shot him a sideways glance.

"In time," he said darkly. "Brother Pelion gathers more of Sparta to him each day, and soon we will be ready to sweep out across Greece in the name of Cronus and Sparta. When that day comes, the Olympians will pay dearly for their abandonment of us."

Gracus nodded.

"I understand Great King," he said.

Demosthenes smiled.

"We are Brothers now you and I," he said. "You should use my other title."

"I understand, Brother Strength,"

Demosthenes' smile widened.

"Until the day of His Return then,"

Gracus straightened to attention.

"Until the day of his Return," he said, then turned on his heel and marched from the chamber, leaving Demosthenes alone at its centre.

Mortius watched from the shadows as he crossed back to his throne and picked up his helm, balancing it in the crook of his arm before preparing to leave.

Was Pelion right? Was Demosthenes really as cowed as the old priest claimed? He did not seem that way. From what Mortius had just observed he seemed confident and in control, but there was something else too; something that was slightly off about the Spartan King's manner, and it pressed gently against the doubts Pelion had managed to instill in him.

Mortius had not always been this way. Once he had been utterly self assured, confident in his faith and in his rightness. Recently that had changed though. It had started with the Oracle, Miranda. She had been able to see through him in a way he had not expected, and her final words had touched something inside him. Was he really being lied to as she had claimed, and if so, by whom? Then there was Callisto. He had been so sure of her unsuitability for the rank of Strength that Pelion had wanted to try and bestow upon her. He had been convinced that Demosthenes was the correct choice... no... the only choice. As a Spartan King, he brought a great deal of power with him, and his bitterness over the Spartan defeat at Marathon had made him an easy target for conversion to their faith. Once the King had been turned, together he and Mortius had concocted a scheme that would see Demosthenes ascend to control all of Sparta. With the plan firmly in place, they had begun to focus on how Demosthenes would then be able to use that power to further the aims of Cronus. It had taken weeks of effort and planning, maneuvering all the pieces into position and waiting for the perfect time to strike. Then, in a matter of days, Callisto had nearly undone it all, and if it had not been for Pelion's insight, she very well might have succeeded too.

Both events had served to rattle his cast iron self confidence in different ways, and now it was compounded by the sudden absence of Cronus' voice from his thoughts. Where once he had spoken with his Lord constantly, recently he had had little communion with him, and it was beginning to trouble him more than he would openly admit.

Trying to put the unpleasant thoughts to the back of his mind, he reached out with his will, parting the shadows that enveloped him as easily as one parting a waterfall with their hands, then stepped out into the chamber.

"And when exactly will the day of His Return be?" he asked, causing Demosthenes to start at his sudden arrival.

"Brother Mortius..." the Spartan King said, recovering from his surprise quickly. "...I don't believe I understand..."

"Don't," Mortius said simply, lifting his hand in a slicing gesture that cut Demosthenes off before he could even begin. "Your deceptions will not work on me, so do not even try. Why have you not yet marched on the northern city states? Brother Pelion grows impatient with your dallying..." he cocked his head slightly in a threatening manner. "...and so do I," he finished.

Demosthenes turned to face him more fully, and Mortius was surprised by the man's appearance. At this distance it was clear Demosthenes was unshaven, his jaw marked by hard grey lines of stubble, and his eyes – while still keen – were red rimmed and bloodshot.

"You were watching me I take it?" Demosthenes said, squaring his shoulders and lifting his chin.

"Don't be evasive," Mortius said. "Answer the question. Why have you not marched as you said you would; as we agreed you would."

"You were listening," Demosthenes replied as if that were explanation enough. "Ithius and his Helots are still on the loose. While they're hampering our efforts here, I cannot march north."

"Brother Pelion says that he is ready, and that if we delay much longer the faith of our Lord's Followers will begin to wane," Mortius said challengingly.

"Brother Pelion has never led men into battle," Demosthenes countered. "I have, and I know all that can go wrong should an assault be made prematurely. I will not risk a defeat based solely on his impatience."

Mortius studied him carefully. There was defiance in Demosthenes' voice; spirit too, but there was also a faint tremor of nervousness, and a single bead of sweat had begun to roll mockingly down his temple.

Mortius leaned forward, the shadows around him crawling across the floor and toward Demosthenes like the searching claws of a blind and hungry animal.

"Pelion was right about you," he said quietly, his tone barely above a dry rasp. "You stink of fear. But the real question is of whom? Myself or Ithius?"

Demosthenes' jaw clenched tightly and his expression hardened.

"I fear no man," he said firmly and Mortius straightened.

"You deem these delays necessary then?" he said.

Demosthenes nodded.

"I do."

"Then see to it that adequate preparations are made," Mortius said, and turned to walk back toward the shadows, the doubts still scratching at the back of his thoughts. "Neither myself nor our Lord will be made to wait much longer."

*****

The Helot camp was much as they had left it the night before, Ithius observed as his horse clattered into the overgrown yard of what had once been a woodsman's cottage. Creepers and vines crawled across the low lying building's dry-stone, and its old thatch roof was desperately in need of patching. Still, it had four solid walls and enough roof remaining to provide a reasonable degree of shelter, making it a solid centre point for the camp that surrounded it. All around the cottage were a wide array of dwellings, ranging from small covered lean-to's, through to tents and bivouacs, and even up to makeshift shacks constructed from felled trees. Thin trails of smoke still hung in the air from the morning's cooking fires, and people were moving back and forth among the tents and shanties going about their daily chores. Around the perimeter, the edges of the forest had been pushed back as the camp had expanded over the last month, and with the latest new arrivals, the refugees here now numbered just over two hundred.

Two hundred.

The thought was a sobering one. Two hundred survivors were all that seemingly remained of a population that had once numbered in the many thousands. Ithius clutched tightly to his mount's reins, his jaw working in impotent frustration. There had to be more survivors out there. There just had to be. The alternative was simply too dreadful to imagine... or for his already burdened conscience to bear.

Out of the corner of his eye he spied his old wagon alongside one of the half ruined dry-stone walls that had once marked the boundary of the cottage's yard. It stood empty and unattended now. He had taken a detour in returning here, backtracking and then changing directions in an attempt to throw off any potential pursuers. Clearly Athelis and his men had been decidedly less cautious, having seemingly beaten him back to the camp by a good hour or so.

With an angry growl he swung down from his horse's saddle. A number of Helots ran up to take the animal from him but he waved them back.

"I don't need servants," he snapped irritably at them. "I'm not some lord you need to bow and scrape to. Now, go and make yourselves useful somewhere else."

The Helots nodded and quickly disappeared back into the bowels of the camp while Ithius shook his head sadly. Once his people had had a fire in them, a desire for freedom from Spartan rule so fierce that the Ephors themselves had feared what they might be capable of. Demosthenes' vicious coup and subsequent culling of the Helot population had left the few survivors traumatised, and they seemed to be falling back on what was familiar to them. Ithius himself had been elevated to the rank of saviour by many; an honour of which he felt wholly undeserving, especially since their current plight could be laid almost entirely at his door. Every time one of the others bowed to him, or tried to attend to him in some manner, only served to drive the dagger-like guilt he felt deeper into his heart. He had only wanted them to be free, and now look at them...

He began to lead his horse across the yard to a small hitching post beside the wagon, doing his best to push the bleak thoughts to the back of his mind. He did not have the luxury of allowing himself to be maudlin and self pitying. He could drown his sorrows when he had seen his people to safety, if indeed that day ever even came. It took him a moment to realise one of the Helots had not returned to the camp as he had instructed, and was instead following close on his heels. It was Crius, the defacto leader of the small band of Helots they had rescued that morning.

"What is it?" he said, not looking up as he attached a feedbag to his mounts snout, scratching the animal placatingly behind the the ears as he did so.

"I just wanted to speak with you," Crius said, shifting uncomfortably as he did so. He could clearly feel the tension hanging in the air around Ithius.

"Is it urgent?" Ithius asked, patting his horse one final time before turning to face the nervous Helot.

"I'm not really sure," Crius replied.

Ithius only shrugged.

"Then it will have to wait I'm afraid," he said as he caught sight of Drogo over the other man's shoulder. "I'm afraid I have other business to attend to." Without any further explanation he strode past Crius, who simply nodded.

"Later then," the Helot said and Ithius gave him a vague nod, his attention already focused on Drogo. He caught up to the other man as he was striding between a row of tents and reached out to catch him by the arm.

"Ithius!" Drogo said, sounding surprised as he turned to catch sight of him for the first time. "I was beginning to wonder when you'd be getting back."

"I had to make sure we weren't being followed," he said, then hooked his thumb back over his shoulder toward the battered old wagon.

"Where is he Drogo?"

Drogo only gave a long suffering sigh.

"Maybe you should leave it this time," he said. "He did just save your life after all."

"Like Tartarus I will," Ithius snapped. "People are dead Drogo. People who didn't have to be, and Athelis and his little band of sycophants are the ones responsible. Now tell me where he is."

Drogo regarded Ithius silently for a moment then shrugged.

"Where he always is," he said. "Watching her ."

Ithius grunted and turned to stalk back toward the cottage, Drogo following close behind him.

"What is it with the two of you anyway?" the squat Helot said. "You've been at each others throats since we came here. As far as I can figure it, Athelis is only trying to help."

"Help?" Ithius sneered disgustedly. "He's not trying to help Drogo. He's just using us as a means to an end. He doesn't care what becomes of me, or you, or any one else here for that matter. What he did today, he did as easily as you and I draw breath. Still think I should try and play nice with someone like that?"

Drogo did not answer.

Still angry, Ithius turned and started walking again, Drogo falling silently into step to his rear.

Inside, the cottage smelled musty and dank, but it remained the one good bit of shelter the camp offered and as such, the one good place she could be kept. The two men entered through the front door and moved quickly down the main hall, ignoring the first couple of doors on either side of them and marching for a second set of doors further down. Without even pausing, Ithius reached up and shoved the door on the right open so roughly that it banged loudly against the wall within the room beyond as he passed through it.

The sight before him was no different to how it usually was.

A simple old wooden frame bed with an uncomfortable looking straw mattress had been placed against one of the room's walls. Next to the bed sat an end table, and piled on it in a jumble was a collection of black leather battle gear, held together by thick stitching, silver studs and scraps of finely linked mail. On the bed itself lay a young woman dressed in a simple, plain woolen shift with a tattered but otherwise clean blanket laid across her for warmth. Her hair was long and blonde, and it rested about her head and shoulders in a thick tangle. Her features were sharp and narrow, and her brow was pinched in a pained expression while her eyes darted rapidly back and forth beneath closed lids. Those same eyes were darkly ringed and sunken, and her lips were dry and cracked. Occasionally a low murmur would escape from between them, but otherwise she lay still. She was unconscious, and still completely non-responsive it would seem. Not even the loud bang of the door managed to stir her from her torpor.

Her name was Callisto, and she had been this way ever since Ithius and Athelis had brought her to the cottage nearly a month ago, after she had been left to drown in an underground lake of a hallucinogenic substance called Pneuma.

Athelis himself was seated close to the side of the bed, watching the rise and fall of the unconscious woman's chest with a glazed look in his eyes, as if his thoughts were far away.

"There's been no change," he said simply without looking around.

"There never is," Ithius said, crossing the room to stand beside him. "Do you honestly think sitting here brooding will change that?"

Athelis turned to face him.

"It might," he said with a curious expression on his face that Ithius could not quite read.

"What did you think you were doing today?" Ithius asked, folding his arms tightly across his chest.

Athelis' eyes narrowed.

"Saving your life," he said flatly. "Why do you ask?"

"You know why," Ithius said. Athelis only shrugged in return. It was a gesture he did often, and it made Ithius want to punch him in the face.

"I gave you an order," he said, doing his best to keep his voice even and patient. It was a sterner challenge than he'd imagined. Something about Athelis managed to aggravate him so much that he always felt about half an inch from trying to strangle him.

"And I disobeyed," Athelis replied. "You're still alive in case you hadn't noticed by the way.”

"You expect a round of applause?"

"A touch of gratitude wouldn't go amiss."

"You murdered innocent people!" Ithius all but exploded, his temper finally boiling over. "You turned what should have been a quick and quiet rescue into a bloodbath!"

Athelis shot up from the stool as if someone had just stuck him with a red hot poker, his eyes blazing furiously.

"Oh wake up Ithius!" he snapped. "You think you can save these people without getting your hands dirty? How much longer will it take you to learn you can't pet a rabid dog and not get bitten."

Ithius' eyes narrowed darkly.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he said.

"You think everyone is secretly noble? That deep down they'll always do the right thing? The honourable thing? Thinking that way will get you dead quicker than standing against Persian cavalry with only a washboard and a toothpick! Those people I killed that you're so cut up about? Those townsfolk today weren't noble or trustworthy. They might not have been about to kill you, but they were about to do the next best thing, so I did what I had to do. I may have got a little bloody doing it, but if I hadn't we wouldn't even be standing here to have a shouting match about it."

Ithius took a step toward him, his fists clenched hard at his side.

"Let's get one thing straight, right here and now," he said, gritting his teeth hard to keep from snarling at the other man. "I am in charge of this camp. The people here look to me to see them to safety, and I will not let them down, do you hear me? Not again! So, when I give you an order, I expect it to be followed. If you can't do that, then you should leave now. I won't waste any more time with you and your private vendetta."

"And how do you plan on getting them to safety?" Athelis shot back, ignoring Ithius' not so subtle accusation. "We both know the Spartans have every major route out of their territory blocked by now. Its only a matter of time before they find this place and then what will you do?"

"Tryxis was one option!" Ithius snapped. "The Spartans didn't have it watched yet, and as much power as he has on land, Demosthenes fares less well at sea. After your little stunt today though, I doubt the people there will be welcoming any of us with open arms."

"Which leaves you only one other option..." Athelis began, only to have Ithius shake his head before he could even begin.

"I'm not having this conversation with you again," he said firmly. "We don't have the numbers or the trained troops to mount any kind of resistance."

"But that's the beauty of it!" Athelis interjected, his voice suddenly taking on that edge of dark enthusiasm that always gave Ithius chills when he heard it. "We don't need numbers or training! Demosthenes is spreading himself thin. His forces are big and slow! Ours are small, quick and mobile. We can hit the Spartans hard and fast and be gone before they can even respond. We can pick them apart, or at the very least slow them down and buy time for the other Greek cities to organise against them."

Ithius shook his head again.

"I'm not going to keep having this same argument," he said. "You know we can't absorb the casualties that they can. Demosthenes has reserves of soldiers that we could never hope to match. If even one of these assaults you're proposing went badly for us, it would be devastating. We'd never recover from it."

Athelis fixed Ithius with a steady stare.

"Then we'd have to make sure it didn't go badly wouldn't we," he said. Ithius could only roll his eyes in response.

"You can't win this thing without risk, Ithius," the mercenary pressed on. "But your people need this! I mean, look at them!" He gestured toward a window that looked out over the camp. Outside Ithius could see fleeting glimpses of Helots among the tents. As one they looked, broken, dejected and defeated. He swallowed tightly

"They think they've already lost!" Athelis continued. "They need a victory! If you'd let me and mine off the leash, we could give that to you."

Ithius turned back from the window to look Athelis over appraisingly. There was a pleading expression on the other man's face that made his argument seem genuine, as if he was simply trying to help the only way he knew how, but there, behind the eyes as always, was that other look. It was a dark, hungry look, the same as the one he had noted several times in Callisto. It had made him uneasy in dealing with her, and that had not changed now that he was dealing with Athelis.

"No," he said firmly. "I won't put any more of my people at risk than I have to, and there's too much of that in what you're proposing."

Athelis ground his teeth together in frustration.

"People are going to die, Ithius," he said imploringly. "You can't avoid that. Surely its better they do it on their feet than on their knees?"

Ithius shook his head one last time. "You have my answer Athelis. I'm not going to change it."

Athelis' expression changed in an instant, the mask of desperate pleading vanishing to be replaced by a look of complete and utter fury.

"You promised me," he snarled at Ithius. "You said that if I helped you, you would help me. I can give you victory Ithius, but only if you help me get mine!"

"And how is it a victory if none of us are left to see it?" Ithius asked. The question was supposed to be rhetorical but Athelis answered anyway.

"It will be a victory when Pelion is dead," he said darkly. "Him and all the rest like him."

Ithius said nothing. Instead he simply turned away and began to make for the door out of the room, Drogo falling into step at his side.

"You promised me!" Athelis shouted again, but Ithius only ignored him.

He paused for a brief moment in the doorway as behind him he heard Callisto let out a soft moan from where she lay, tortured and sweating in the bed. He glanced back over his shoulder at her, but she did not stir again. With a heavy sigh he stepped out into the corridor, closing the door behind him and leaving Athelis to his brooding.

"You know, much as we might have a problem with his motivations, you've got to admit, the guy does have a point," Drogo said as they walked back out into the camp. Ithius glanced up at the sky. The thick grey cloud cover appeared to be growing darker. It looked like they were going to be in for still more rain today.

"Please tell me you aren't buying into his nonsense," he said, turning his gaze back to Drogo. "It's hard enough dealing with him and that little gang he's put together without having to keep an eye on you as well."

The squat man shrugged.

"We aren't doing so well these days, Ithius," he said. "I know you're not so blind as to have not noticed, but the others... well, they're starting to talk like we're finished already. Maybe a bit of a fight is what they need. Maybe it will help put some spirit back into them."

Ithius let out a long low breath.

"Maybe," he said. "But if it's a war you're all wanting, you can find someone else to lead it. I'm done seeing my friends die."

With that he turned and walked off into the mass of tents and shanties. He had other business he needed to be about, and he had enough of thinking about death and defeat for one day.

*****

Athelis peered out of the window at Ithius' disappearing back, his fingers wrapped in a death grip around the window ledge, his teeth still clenched tightly together.

Ithius had promised him his aid, and now he was denying him precisely that. Why had he even agreed to any of this? He should have known the Helots did not have the spine to follow through and take the fight to the Spartans and Pelion's Followers. The few of them who saw sense had already joined with him, and he was grateful for their help, but they were not enough. He needed more; more armour, more horses, more weapons, more people! If only he could convince Ithius, he knew that he could find the window of opportunity they needed. The Spartans were tough, it was true. But even the best warriors clad in the strongest armour and carrying the finest Hephaestus forged steel could still be dropped if you found the right gap in their defenses; the right chink through which to slip a dagger. All he needed was one chance – just one – and he could end this brewing war before it had chance to truly begin.

Could he not?

He felt the muscles in his jaw begin to unclench and his hands release their grip on the window ledge as the anger he felt toward Ithius began to drain out of him. If he was being truthful with himself, he had to admit that Ithius might just be right. The Helots numbered barely two hundred. Even with the advantages in mobility that that afforded them, Ithius was not wrong when he said how a single loss could devastate them. It was one thing to try and give someone a hope of victory if you honestly believed it was achievable. It was quite another to do it when you knew for a fact that such a victory was actually nigh on impossible.

He turned back to Callisto, and gave a pained swallow.

"Why did you have to go and get yourself like this?" he said. "I could really use you about now."

She had been his best chance. He had known that then, and he still knew it now if he forced himself to admit it. On his own, Pelion may as well be as far out of reach as the sun. With her help though...

He reached inside his jerkin and pulled out the heavy amulet Pelion had given him. As usual, when he looked at the black set obsidian stone, he felt a strange tugging in the back of his mind. Dark thoughts of his long dead wife, Corrina, and the temple of Asclepius burning filled his head, causing his heart to quicken and bile to rise in the back of his throat.

He crossed to the side of the bed, holding the amulet out in front of him as he had done a dozen times before. Callisto stirred as the black stone drew closer to her, her top lip peeling back in a rictus snarl, while her breathing changed from long but shallow breaths to a series of short, gasping pants.

Athelis held the amulet their for longer than he had ever done before, and the longer he held it above her, the more agitated Callisto seemed to grow. She twisted on the bed, her back arching and her fingers digging into the sheets, then suddenly, without warning, her eyes flashed open and turned to fix Athelis with a look of maniacal glee.

"Hello there deary," she smiled nastily at him, her voice at once so familiar to Athelis, yet at the same time strangely different, laced as it was with a keen, sadistic edge.

He was so startled he dropped the amulet, the heavy gold chain and stone clattering loudly to the floorboards. He bent quickly to retrieve it, his hands suddenly clammy and his brow slick with cold sweat. Grasping the amulet tightly, he straightened, but Callisto had already settled back to the sheets, her eyes closed once more and her breathing back to its usual rhythm.

Athelis swallowed nervously, and tucked the amulet back into his jerkin. Had Pelion really been telling him the truth when he had handed it to him? Could it really bring her back? But if it did, and he used it, did that mean Pelion had won? Could he afford to take that chance?

Could any of them?

Trying to put the thoughts to the back of his mind, he crossed back to the window to stare out at the Helot camp again, wiping the chill sweat from his brow as he did so.

As he watched them go about their daily chores, he felt his determination growing. He could do this. He could take these people and make the Spartans fear them, and when he did Pelion would finally be his.

Behind him, Callisto moaned softly to herself.

Chapter Three: Faceless

The village was not Cirra, but it certainly could have doubled for it.

Callisto was seated astride her horse atop a nearby hill that overlooked the small, pastoral community laid out on the plain before her. Her hands wrapped tightly around the animal's reins, and her eyes narrowed as she surveyed the scene playing out below. A thick layer of tension hung in the air all about her, and her mount reacted to it, snorting and prancing nervously. Callisto just dug her knees viciously into its sides. The animal tossed its head and snorted again, but quickly fell silent and still once more, save for the occasional whinny. Callisto ignored its pitiful protests as her mind turned over what she was seeing.

From the foot of the hill, a group of vicious looking warriors had begun to advance up the close packed dirt trail that led straight into the village square, and Callisto could practically feel their murderous intent. It was a sensation not unfamiliar to her, and it seemed to radiate off these men in wave after wave. She tried to revel in that feeling now, in that blissful, blood-soaked exhilaration as she had done so many times before, but this time something was different. The sight of the men beneath her about to fall upon the unsuspecting town did not excite her the same way it once would have... the same way it once had... Instead, she felt sick to her stomach, the grim tableau before her serving as a stark reminder of the night she had watched her own home burn at the hands of people just like this.

And just like her.

Strangely though, there was something else crawling beneath the queasiness in her gut; another feeling that fed off the first. It was a sense of dark anticipation so strong that it was almost frightening. These men would burn the village to the ground, conduct acts of wanton pillage and murder, and when they did, Callisto knew that she would derive some perverse sense of pleasure from it.

She frowned suddenly.

Wasn't that the way it should be...

...The way it always had been?

Maybe that had been true once, and even not so long ago come to that, but much had happened in her life since then, and the more she thought about it, the more she realised that while it might bring her some small sense of gratification, the destruction of this village would not give her the satisfaction she wanted, or the peace she so desperately craved. It never had before after all, and she had done this countless times before. That sense of hungry anticipation would not go away, no matter what she did to satisfy it. Instead it would lurk, coiled and snakelike in the pit of her churning stomach.

In the valley below, the warriors had already begun to go to work. They fell upon the unsuspecting village like jackals, closing in for the kill on their weak and wounded prey. Their assault was savage and brutal, and Callisto could just make out the distant figures of villagers running this way and that between the buildings as a wave of panic began to sweep through them. Some were already trying to make for the hills, but the warriors had spread out to set up a perimeter line around the edge of the village, a noose that would easily ensnare any and all who tried to escape. Those that chanced it were given no mercy and were brutally dispatched. In the heart of the village itself, some of its inhabitants were trying in vain to mount a defence. They wielded whatever they could find as weapons; rakes, hoes, pitchforks and the like, but none of them could truly hope to match the seasoned fighters they were faced with.

Somewhere on the far side of the village, a pillar of smoke began to rise into the air, the first signs of the settlement's granaries being set alight. Callisto's frown deepened. How had she known it had been a granary being burned? She could not make out the buildings clearly from this distance, but there was a growing sense of familiarity to all of this and it was telling her that it was indeed a granary building that had just burned. If she was right, another building would go up soon too, this one on the opposite side of town. The two fires would spread quickly, she remembered, although she could not remember where the memory came from. Even as she tried, the gleeful hunger stirred inside her as she pictured those same flames in her minds eye, clawing hot and hard at the heavens and filling the air with a thick, choking layer of smoke that would only serve to deepen the already delicious chaos. Wisps of that smoke began to climb gently skyward at precisely the spot she had predicted, and she frowned again. It was all as if she had been here before... as if she had done this before... but when? And why?

Somewhere in the distance, she heard a cruel, mocking laughter, and the sound of it drove her to stir herself and her horse into action. She knew now what it was that she must do. Nothing less than her hate and need for vengeance against Xena demanded it. Silently, she gritted her teeth and drew her sword in one hand, booting her mount to the gallop as she thundered down the hillside and up the trail into the increasingly frantic melee that now had the village in its vice like grip. Her top lip curled upward in a cruel snarl as her horse's hooves pounded against the packed dirt, and she gripped the animal's reins hard between the fingers of her left hand, her sword clutched tightly in her right as it cleaved a thin line through the smoke that drifted all about her. She hurtled between the buildings of the village, their walls little more than muddied brown streaks as she passed between them, only to suddenly rocket out into the square, her hair whipping madly about her as she reined her mount in tightly and took in the battle all about her.

The warriors, clad in dark, mismatched armour and wielding cruel looking weapons of all shapes and sizes, were going about their deadly business with ease, and all around them the villagers had already begun to fall in droves. Now that she was in among the fighting, Callisto felt her pulse quicken in her chest, her eyes widening in surprise and discomfort as she got her first real look at the inhabitants of the village.

They were, to a man, faceless.

Where there should have been eyes, mouths and noses, they instead possessed only blank masks of flesh; dull and impassive and each one utterly indistinguishable from the next. The more she stared at them, the more they seemed to blend together, and almost too quickly they had become little more to her than a teeming mass; one with no identity save than to serve as chattel to be mown down with impunity. Something about that thought caused an uneasy stirring at the back of her mind, but it was quickly silenced by the mad, cackling laughter that was growing in intensity with each passing moment and that she could not shut out no matter how hard she tried.

As the men – her men she now recalled, although she could not quite work out exactly how she knew that – continued their bloody work, Callisto heeled her horse to the gallop once more. A small group of the strange faceless creatures had detached from the mob and were attempting to escape the village square. The smoke seemed to part like the curtains on a stage for her as she rode the fleeing faceless down. Her blade caught the first of them, a larger figure dressed in ragged brown labourers clothes, with a keen cross cut that sent the faceless staggering a couple of steps, before it collapsed to the ground in a heap. All the while, it did not so much as scream or cry out, but Callisto barely even took the time to notice. Her mind was focused now, her purpose clear. So far, the path to Xena had been paved with corpses. What were a few more bodies in the grand scheme of it all?

Her horse carried her past the group and she yanked hard on the reins, pulling the animal up short and spinning it on the spot so that she could make another pass. The fleeing faceless had already turned and were trying to make an escape in the opposite direction. With a banshee wail, Callisto dug in her heels and rode at them again. There were only two remaining now. One taller, and one shorter, their hands clasped tightly together as they ran. As the ceaseless drumming of her horse's hooves began to bear down on them, they seemed to panic. In a single instant they had released their grip on each other and were beginning to separate, the smaller of the two attempting to bolt left while the larger was attempting to escape to the right. It was a critical mistake. The gap between them now was just wide enough for she and her mount to pass directly between them, and pass between them she did. As she flashed through the gap, she laid about herself to either side with her sword, laying low both of the fleeing faceless with almost sickening ease.

Reining her horse in again, she lifted her sword, her tight slipped snarl, changing to a gleeful grin as shining arterial crimson glistened back at her. Whatever they were, whatever they had been, these faceless creatures bled just fine. The laughter in her head went from gleeful cackling, to a dark and disdain filled chuckle, and she did her best to shut it out as she vaulted easily from the back of her horse, her boots meeting the ground with a heavy crunch.

Ignoring the chaos around her, she began to stride purposefully toward the shorter of the two bodies she had just slain, the morbid anticipation she had been feeling unfurling inside her to become a sense of perverse satisfaction.

And then she froze.

The figure lying on the ground was no longer faceless. Instead, the glassy eyes of a small boy stared back at her. They were a clear crystal blue that she could almost imagine had once shone with life and the innocence of childhood. Now though they, were cold, empty and unseeing.

Around her the faceless continued to be murdered by the dozen, and Callisto felt as if ice were being poured through her veins, so chill was the sudden realisation of what was happening. She remembered now! She had done all of this before! This boy had died on the end of her sword when she had attacked the village the first time, and now she was doing it again, reliving it exactly as she had done back then. She looked at the buildings surrounding her as she saw the fires that had been set earlier begin to take hold. Soon they would blaze so completely out of control that nothing would be able to stop them, and when they did, this whole town would be reduced to little more than a memory.

That was all this was, she realised. Just a memory.

Her memory.

Nearby another of the faceless seemed to change before her eyes as it came under attack from a burly looking figure wearing little more than leather pants, a harness and boiled leather pot helm with nose and eye guards that masked their features. The faceless morphed, becoming an old woman, kneeling in the dirt and raising her shaking hands in fear as if she would somehow be able to ward off her attacker's sword strike.

"STOP!" Callisto yelled.

The burly figure arrested his attack just in time, turning to regard her with a questioning look in his eyes. She wasted no time in starting toward him, gripping her sword tightly at her side as she did so. So far all was unfolding as it had the first time, and there was a part of her that wanted it to do just that again this time. There was something else though now, something different that she knew she had not felt before. It was a curious and nagging sense of unease that this was not how she should let things happen, and that if she did not act now to change them, something even more terrible would be waiting for her.

"Let her live!" she snapped at the man.

The big man cocked his head at her,genuinely curious.

"Why?" he asked.

Callisto frowned, unable to think of an answer immediately. This was not what was supposed to happen, nor was it what had happened last time. Something had changed, the big man had been here the first time, but her recollection was still hazy and unclear. Was he not supposed to obey her without question? She could not remember... His voice was little more then a heavy bass rumble that stirred memories inside her, and without thinking - almost instinctively even - she reached up and yanked the helmet from the man's head. A thick mass of curled black hair tumbled out from under it, framing a face with wide features, a mouth with almost non existent lips, and small, greedy eyes beneath a heavy brow.

"Theodorus!?" She said, unable to quite believe what she was seeing. "But how... how is this..." Her gaze narrowed as her surprise turned to anger at the sight of the big warrior. Back in the early days of her battles against Xena, this man had been her chief lieutenant. He had been a lunk of a man really, not terribly bright and only moderately skilled in the art of war, but he had made up for all of that with a kind of dull charisma that had helped her keep the more savage members of her army in line.

He should have been long gone by now of course, out of her life and consigned only to her past. Somehow though, here he was, standing before as if she had never even... She set her jaw and stepped forward, tossing her sword to one side and yanking the dagger she had always used to carry at her hip free, jabbing the point of it up under the exposed skin beneath his chin. "Now this is most upsetting," she said, her voice low and threatening. "I killed you. I know I did. I slit your throat and enjoyed it when I did. Yet somehow, here you are again..." She jabbed a finger against the muscles of his bare chest. "Care to tell me how that's possible?"

"Kill me you did," Theodorus nodded, his face an impassive mask. "You did a good job of it too. All quick and messy. A perfect message that you weren't to be trifled with. That was years ago though. I should be a rotting bloated corpse somewhere by now shouldn't I, but then again, when did you ever let a little thing like death stop you before?"

Callisto's mouth curled up in a tight sneer.

"I'm the one asking the questions here! You're not the only thing that's supposed to be dead and gone," she gestured to the village at her back. "This whole place is! I burned it to the ground as a message to Xena and you helped me do it! We absolutely cannot be here, but that doesn't seem to change the fact that we are, going through the motions like its the first time all over again." She tightened her grip on the dagger. "So, I'm going to ask again..." she continued, her voice dropping dangerously. "And this time, I'm going to be decidedly less polite. What are you and where am I? What is this place and why am I here?"

Theodorus looked back at her, his eyes shining with disdain. Something was wrong with this. Theodorus had been terrified of her. All of her men had. He would never have had the spine to stare her down as he was doing now.

"I don't have to answer your questions," he said.

"Oh?" Callisto sneered dangerously, cocking her head slightly as she pressed the dagger tip still harder under her former lieutenant's chin until a thin rivulet of blood ran down the blade of her sword. He may not be afraid of her now, but she was certain she could change all that. "I think that maybe you do."

Theodorus smiled darkly at her and reached out, grasping her hands tightly in his, his grip firmer than cast iron. "You killed me once already," he said. "What do I have to fear from you now?" Callisto winced as his fingers bit into her flesh, and she tried to pull back, but Theodorus' strength was too great, and he held her fast.

"What are you..." she began, but before she could finish he cut her off, leaning in close, twisting the dagger in her hands so that its edge was placed in a horizontal line across his throat.

"You're not in charge around here anymore, Callisto," he said darkly. "I don't have to take orders from you. Only from her." Suddenly, and completely without warning, he yanked her hands sideways, forcing her to drag the dagger in a vicious cross cut that opened his throat as easily as if she were slicing through grass.

Callisto felt the sticky warmth of his blood flowing over her hands, and stepped back in alarm, releasing her grip on the dagger as if it were made of red hot steel. Theodorus simply stood staring back at her, as if the gaping open wound in his throat were nothing more than an inconvenience. Callisto watched the ghastly figure spin on the spot, whipping his sword up over his head as the old woman began to cower at his feet once more.

"I said STOP!" Callisto yelled in desperation, but it made no difference. Theodorus' sword fell like a headsman's axe, and as the old woman crumpled in the dirt, Callisto felt her stomach lurch as the world seemed to tilt maddeningly all about her. She cast her eyes across the chaos that surrounded them and felt her head spin. She had done this. All of it. It was her who had brought this army together, her who had unleashed it, and her that had reveled in the blood that it had spilled, and all for what? Some deluded quest for vengeance that had ultimately left her broken and hollow? If she had not done any of those things, then none of this would be happening now. Suddenly Theodorus seemed to represent all of that to her; a living manifestation of all that she had ever done wrong. She could feel her frustration and anger building now, and the pounding laughter in her head seemed to be approaching a crescendo.

Without thinking, she stooped low, sweeping the bloodied dagger up out of the dirt and spinning the blade up into a ready position. Then, with a terrific scream of white hot fury, she flung herself at the big warrior

Theodorus did not so much as flinch as she barreled into him, the dagger flashing briefly between them as she plunged it deep into his gut. The force of their impact span them bother around before dropping them sprawling in the dirt. Callisto recovered quickly. Even as Theodorus rolled onto his back, readying himself to stand once more, she scrambled upright to seat herself astride him, thighs straddling his chest while her knees pinned his arms in the dirt. Theodorus' mouth split in a dark smile that revealed broken and bloodied teeth. The sight of his victorious grin only served to infuriate her even more. She yanked the dagger free from his stomach, and then struck again, higher this time as she angled it straight for his heart. The blade cut cleanly, Callisto ramming it home with such force that is disappeared right up to the hilt. With a furious scream she pulled it free once more, then struck again, and again, and again, and over and over until her arms ached from the effort and Theodorus' chest was little more than a bloodied mess.

Finally, her fury completely spent, she collapsed back off him, her chest heaving with exhaustion, the blood soaked dagger tumbling from between limp fingers to land beside her in the dirt.

Suddenly she realised something was amiss. The screams of the villagers, the dry crackle of the flames, and the hollering of the warriors had all fallen silent. Now the only sound was that of her own panted breaths coming in rhythm with the rise and fall of her chest. Even that haunting mad cackle inside her head seemed to have stopped. She looked up from Theodorus' bloodied corpse to see that the massacre of the village had stopped too. Instead, the villagers, all of them still little more than faceless shells, had gathered in a circle around her, those smooth blank masks of flesh regarding her with an almost glacial coolness.

From behind her, there came the sound of slow, mocking applause.

"Oh yes," came a familiar voice that she immediately recognised as her own. "That was most well done my sweet."

Callisto scrabbled back to her feet, her blood slick hands leaving sticky prints in the dirt as she turned to get a look at the newcomer.

It was her own mirror image that grinned back at her.

The other her was seated on a low lying wall nearby. Her hands were pressed to the wall's surface on either side of her, and her legs were crossed girlishly at the ankles as she swung them back and forth restlessly while she spoke. She was clad in the same black leather battledress as Callisto herself wore, and her hair, always long and wild, was held back from her temples by a twin set of braids made from the same black leather as the rest of her armour. She leaned forward toward Callisto, her mouth split in that predatory smile Callisto herself had long since mastered. It was the one she had that showed way too many teeth.

On the one hand, Callisto knew she should be surprised by this, maybe even stunned, but on the other, there was something familiar to it all at the same time. She felt like she had done this before, dozens if not hundreds of times, but try as she might, she could not recall any of them.

She could not think of anything to say either. Instead she stood, stock still and mute. Even without eyes, the steady gazes of the faceless all about her seemed to drill right down to her core, robbing of her of her wits even as the other her's grin widened. It was almost as if she could sense Callisto's growing unease.

"Felt good, didn't it?" the other her continued, hopping down off the wall in a sprightly fashion, and sauntering confidently up to Callisto. "To unleash me again. To let me back in the same way that you used to. You've been doing it less and less of late, and I was starting to get bored."

As she approached, she nodded toward the bloodied corpse of Theodorus where it lay, savaged and broken in the mud. "Poor Theodorus though," she cooed softly as she reached Callisto's side, her hand reaching out to brush tenderly against Callisto's cheek as she passed her. Callisto flinched away from the other woman's touch as if someone were trailing a live adder across her face. The other her just ignored her.

"He was never the sharpest tool in the kit was he?" she continued. "A blunt instrument rather than a precision weapon, but he did his job nevertheless. He worked hard, kept the others in line, and he was loyal as a love sick house dog..."

She crossed past Callisto to squat beside the corpse, lifting the bloodied dagger that Callisto had dropped earlier between her slim fingers to regard it with a careful, measured gaze. For a moment all was stillness and silence, then the other her gave a small shrug and leaned over to wipe the dagger clean on the dead man's leather pants.

"...and then you killed him," she said simply as she straightened and began to cross back to Callisto. "You slit his throat and left him to die in the dirt." she cocked her head slightly at Callisto in a questioning manner. "Did you ever even ask yourself why you did that?"

The devilish grin had disappeared from the other her's face now. Instead her brow was knitted in what seemed to be genuine thoughtfulness. She reached out and took Callisto by the hand, the blood that had been staining Callisto's fingers now straining the other hers hand as well as she pressed the dagger back into Callisto's grip.

"It was because of the others," Callisto said defensively. "I was in Xena, and they didn't want to follow me. They thought I wouldn't hurt them."

She glanced past her doppelgänger toward Theodorus' body and shrugged in a similar manner to the way the other her had done just moments before.

"Theodorus convinced them otherwise," she said, but it sounded half-hearted even to her.

The doppelgänger took a step back from her, those insane brown eyes narrow and appraising as she lifted her hands to clasp them together just above her chest. She tapped thoughtfully at her lips with her bloodied fingers, and slowly the cruel grin began to return.

"Is that so," she said, her voice quizzical, but at the same time rich with dark sarcasm. "I'm sure Theodorus would be delighted to hear your reasoning. That is, if he weren't already six feet under and unable to hear anything at all."

She turned and swept her arms wide in a broad gesture that encompassed the crowd of faceless villagers before them.

"Perhaps you could explain it to all of them instead," she said gleefully, "They seem to be quite literally dying to hear more of your excuses."

Callisto gritted her teeth.

"They were never excuses!" she snarled angrily. "I had reasons for everything I did."

The other her rounded on her suddenly, her face no longer lit with a sadistic grin, but instead filled with outright fury.

"Oh I know the reasons you tell yourself!" she snapped savagely. "I've been suffering through them for quite some time now, and such good reasons they were too; that it was all on someone else's head, that their conscience would have to bear the weight of your crimes instead of yours! Almost convincing enough to make you believe them..."

Suddenly, the world lurched sickeningly, and the faceless were gone, and in their place there was now a single scene of pure, wanton carnage. The village lay in ruins with corpses strewn about the place as all around them fires burned fiercely against a late afternoon sky.

Callisto shifted uncomfortably as the other her took a dangerous step forward, the doppelgänger's eyes burning ferociously.

"...But then there's all of this isn't there," she continued, the dark smile returning once more. "Hard to deny it wasn't you who killed these people now isn't it? Hard to deny that all the innocent blood shed here is on your hands, and no one elses."

Suddenly she span away, turning her back on Callisto with a frustrated snarl.

"But you still do," She said, throwing up her hands in frustration. "And it sickens me to think that you can be so deluded."

"I didn't..."Callisto began staring about herself at the bodies that seemed to be growing more hideously bloody with every moment she looked upon them. There were just so many of them... so very very many. "...I mean it wasn't..." she looked at the other her desperately, her eyes wide and haunted. "I didn't have..."

"...any other choice?" the other her said mockingly, then she laughed and it was the same laugh that had haunted Callisto's thoughts so much recently. "The choice was always yours," the other her hissed. "Yours, and yours alone."

Callisto felt as if she were about to vomit, and the burning taste of bile began to rise in the back of her throat. She collapsed to all fours in the dirt, her heart pounding, and the blood roaring inside her head. Suddenly, the world shifted again, tilting alarmingly all about them, and for a brief instant Callisto felt as if she were falling end over end in a mad tumble down into the depths of some black and bottomless pit. Her hands and feet never left the ground however.

Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, she did her best to fight off the sudden wave of nausea that was sweeping over, chewing her bottom lip so hard, she thought she may very well bite clean through it. Then, as quickly as it had come, the falling sensation was gone, and she opened her eyes once more. The shadows of tree branches played across a sea of long grass all around her and she lifted her head to take in these new surroundings. The scene of carnage was gone, and instead, she was now beneath the bows of a large old tree that overlooked a small farmhouse nestled at the outer edges of a small village.

It was a village she knew all too well.

Beyond it, the ground swept up into a series of low lying hills, and at the opposite horizon a row of figures on horse back had emerged. She could make out little more than their outline, silhouetted as they were against a night sky with a low hanging moon, but it did not take long for her to get a clearer view of them as the torches they carried blazed into life. Flickering orange light danced madly across them, and their weapons glinted menacingly in the darkness. A strong wind pulled thin streamers of her hair this way and that, carrying the voice of her mocking alter ego to her as well.

"Look familiar?" the voice of the other her taunted from behind her, and Callisto rounded on the woman in fury, her fists clenched tightly at her sides.

"Why!?" she shouted after the other her. "Why do you keep dragging me back here? Why can't you just let me leave all this behind?"

The other her was leaning against the trunk of the tree, arms folded tightly beneath her breasts and a dark scowl etched into her brow.

" I don't keep bringing us here," she said, straightening as she did so and walking past Callisto toward the farmhouse at the foot of the hill. " You do."

Callisto started down the slope of the hill after her, her boots swishing quietly in the long grass.

"Why would I do that?" she snapped. "It makes no sense! This is where it all started to go wrong! Where all the pain began!" She stalked furiously past her doppelgänger, cutting the other woman's path short and pointing an accusing finger at her. "Well I don't want it anymore, do you hear me? Any of it! I don't want it in me, and if I could cut it out of me, I would."

The other her cocked her head slightly, a mischievous grin playing at the corners of her mouth while her hand stroked gently at the dagger belted to her hip.

"Be careful what you wish for," she said softly, before stepping neatly around Callisto and starting down toward the farmhouse once more.

"And it actually makes perfect sense," she called back over her shoulder, gesturing expansively at the village before them as she did so. "You keep returning here because you're afraid to face the truth. This place, this grand delusion you keep coming back to..." she shrugged. "...all lies. This is your shelter in the storm, the place you run to when everything becomes too much. It may be the source of our pain, but its also the only place you feel safe."

"Safe!?" Callisto snapped viciously. "What could this place ever keep me safe from?"

"Me," the other her said as they reached the farmhouse door together.

Reaching out, her doppelgänger pushed the door open with a theatrical sweep of her arm. Beyond them, the inside of the farmhouse that had once been Callisto's childhood home loomed like a dark cavern full of unknown menace.

Callisto took a tentative step toward it, a strange feeling of dread creeping in her stomach. Very little in this world could make her feel afraid, but the doorway and what lay beyond it were doing exactly that now.

"What's in there?" she asked.

The other her glanced at Callisto out of the corner of her eye, her gaze full of delighted anticipation.

"Our salvation," she said excitedly. "These lies you tell yourself have trapped us both long enough. It's time for the truth now. All it will take is a few small steps..." she gave another small shrug. "...and a not inconsiderable amount of pain."

Callisto glanced up over the roof of the farmhouse toward the opposite line of hills. Even now, Xena's army was descending on Cirra. It would not be long before everything was aflame, and the hot rush of agony she had felt as she watched her family die would soon fill her soul once more. Could this other her really be telling the truth? Was the answer to all her suffering, the key to the peace she had wanted for so long, really just beyond this door?

"I'm scared..." she whispered quietly, stepping back away from looming portal before her.

She could feel the other her stepping up behind her, so close now that they were almost touching. She leaned in close over Callisto's shoulder, whispering softly, almost affectionately, in her ear.

"I know," she whispered, then without warning, she shoved Callisto roughly forward and over the threshold into the darkness beyond.

The doppelgänger cackled madly as Callisto let out a strangled, inarticulate cry of equal parts fear and rage at the sudden betrayal. Then, before she could even turn to escape, the other her had slammed the door shut behind her with all the booming finality of a cap stone being dropped across a tomb.

Chapter Four: A Numerical Advantage

The morning cooking fires were already being extinguished when Athelis stepped out of the woodsman's cottage. A thin layer of smoke from each fire still hung in the air however, and the fresh smell of a hundred different varieties of broth alongside stale bread teased at his nostrils and made his stomach growl. He had not eaten yet this morning, and given the lateness of the hour, he did not expect he would be getting breakfast anytime soon. Still, there might be some leftovers in the mess tent, but only if he made good time now.

Blowing on his hands to shield them from the early morning chill, he began to stride off between the tents, his long loping stride eating the distance quickly. One or two younger Helots nodded to him as he passed and Athelis returned their nods with a polite incline of his head.

While most of the older Helots – and also those with families or children – tended to favour Ithius, there were a growing number of younger members of the camp who were slowly coming around to Athelis' way of thinking. It was a few of these people, hungry for revenge after the Spartan slaughter at the mustering fields, that Athelis had been training whenever time allowed, trying to forge some of them into fighters who would be more capable when it came to facing down the Spartans. It was those same few whom he had led at Tryxis several days earlier. At the moment it was only a small portion of the camp, perhaps less than a fifth in total, who saw things his way, but with every day that passed, and every day they sat inactive while Spartan influence went unchecked in the wider world, the more their numbers grew. What Athelis truly lacked though, what he needed more than anything else, was a mouthpiece, a representative who commanded respect among the older Helots and who would be able to convince them to see eye to eye with him.

Rounding a corner between two smaller tents, the camp's mess tent loomed up before him. It had been Ithius' idea, and Athelis was forced to admit it was a good one. Fashioned from an old campaign tent one group had stolen from the Spartan's military stores before they had fled for the hills, the mess tent was a place where those without the means to prepare their own meals, or those whose efforts were better spent elsewhere, would be able to find some food. Many of the younger Helot men and women that had taken to following Athelis tended to eat there, and Athelis himself was a not infrequent visitor. As he approached it, he could hear the sound of voices coming from within. Clearly he was not quite so late as he had imagined.

Reaching out, he pushed the tent flap to one side and stepped through into the the tent's interior. A large fire pit with a huge cast iron cauldron had been erected at the centre of the tent, and surrounding it a number of long crudely fashioned tables and benches filled the floor space admirably. They had all been cut from trees felled in the camp's early days, and Athelis had got more than a few splinters from eating at them. Still, it was better than sitting cross legged on the ground.

Athelis could already feel the heat from the blazing cooking fire seeping into his bones, and he crossed quickly to the central cauldron. The Helot standing at it was heavy set and red faced, the heat from the fire causing beads of perspiration to form on his head as he stirred the bubbling broth within.

"Looks delicious as always," Athelis said sarcastically as he stepped up to the man. The big Helot said nothing. Instead he shot Athelis a dirty look, before slopping a ladle full of the lumpy mixture into a wooden bowl and handing him a chunk of week-old bread to go with it.

Athelis looked at the food distastefully.

"I'll do my best to make it last," he said, nodding to the Helot. The big man just grunted and went back to stirring.

Not really caring how little the man thought of him, Athelis turned to take in the rest of the tent. The people were an eclectic bunch. He could spot one or two younger men who had been introduced to him only the day before. They had seemed bright, eager, and hungry for battle. All were qualities that Athelis could make use of.

It was not them that held his attention now though. Toward the back of the tent, seated on his own and away from the small knots of Helots seated at other tables, was Drogo.

Athelis did his best to fight back a grin. He had been waiting for an opportunity like this. Drogo was one of the old guard, a contemporary to Ithius, but one who did not entirely agree with their leader's current stance. Still, out of some misguided sense of loyalty, he continued to tow Ithius' line. Athelis had been trying to talk him round to his way of thinking for weeks, but the swarthy Helot was seldom apart from Ithius, and when he was, he was usually busy with some menial task about the camp that kept him occupied and away from Athelis. Not wanting to waste such a good opportunity, Athelis quickly crossed the room to stand before the shorter man. Drogo was sitting, staring down at the broth in front of him. His wooden spoon was tracing aimless patterns around the bowl and his eyes had a faraway caste to them, as if he were lost in thought.

"This seat taken?" Athelis asked, gesturing to the bench opposite Drogo.

"Feel free," Drogo said absently without looking up, and Athelis, accepted, sliding down onto the bench and quietly placing his own bowl softly on the table as he did so. As he seated himself, he could not help but finger the strange amulet in his pocket and when his fingers touched it, his thoughts immediately turned to Callisto. He did not have to do what he was about to attempt. Pelion had claimed that the amulet could undo what the Pneuma had done to Callisto; that it could bring her back to them in an instant. He had even said that with her help they may be able to stop Cronus. It was a tempting alternative, but was it an alternative he could risk? Leaving the strange piece of jewelry sitting in his pocket, he reached out for his bread, ripping a chunk from it and dipping it in the lumpy brown broth before him.

No.

The day he trusted Pelion was the day he wound up in Tartarus. The amulet was simply too treacherous to make use of. He would find another way, and Drogo was as good a place to start as any.

"The other day was close don't you think?" he said, trying to sound as conversational as he could. Drogo glanced up at him, his eyes narrowing as he looked Athelis up and down.

"It's always close," he said carefully. "It has been ever since we came here."

"And aren't you getting a little tired of it?" Athelis asked, picking a lump of blue mold out of his bread and flicking it casually to one side.

Drogo gave a soft chuckle and dropped his spoon into the broth, the wood of the bowl and spoon clacking loudly against each other.

"Really?" he said. "Really!? You're actually going to try and enlist me in your little gang of malcontents?"

Athelis spread his arms, palms up in a gesture of mock innocence.

"Who said anything about enlisting?" he said. "I thought we were just talking."

" You  were talking," Drogo replied. "I was just trying to figure out what angle you were playing." He shrugged. "Now I know."

"A man's not allowed to express an opinion around here?" Athelis replied, playing wounded. "I thought you Helots valued your freedoms?"

"Oh, freedom we have already," Drogo shot back, casting a caustic glance about the tent as he did so. "Such as it is at least. At this point though, with things as bad as they are, I think I value our lives more." Athelis leaned forward across the table, lowering his voice conspiratorially as he did so.

"And can you honestly say that you think that Ithius' secret scheme is going to keep you from losing people?" he said, seizing on the opening Drogo had just given him. "Remind me again just what his grand master plan is."

Drogo opened his mouth to speak, then snapped it shut again when no words came.

"Exactly," Athelis said, leaning back again. "Ithius' plan was to run as soon as he had all the survivors gathered together, but he waited too long and now the Spartans have us boxed in. His plan hasn't been viable in weeks, so instead we've been sitting here for close to a month waiting for him to come up with something else, and all we've managed to achieve in that time is to rescue a few stragglers here and there."

"Better than leaving them to be hunted down and killed," Drogo said defensively.

"Okay then," Athelis said, smoothly changing tack in response to Drogo's argument. "Answer me this then. How many  have  you saved in that time?"

Drogo cocked an eyebrow at him.

"I'm serious," Athelis said earnestly. "How many?"

Drogo shrugged.

"Fifteen?" he said, although he hardly sounded certain of it. "Twenty maybe?"

"Let's be generous and say twenty," Athelis said, nodding slightly as if in sympathy with the other man. "Credit where it's due'n all that. Twenty's not a bad number really. Not a bad number at all. But think about it for a moment; how many people are there in this camp?"

"Two hundred or so," Drogo replied flatly, as if he were already sensing where Athelis was leading the conversation.

Athelis leaned forward again in response.

"Two hundred," he said, echoing Drogo's words. "Two hundred men, women and children." His eyes narrowed accusingly at Drogo. "And how many of those two hundred lives does Ithius risk every time you ride out on yet another one of his little rescue missions to bring in one or two stragglers? How many did he risk in Tryxis?"

"And how many lives did you end there?" Drogo fired back at him, clearly trying to redirect the argument. "How many people did you kill? How many homes did you burn?"

"As many as were necessary to protect us!" Athelis hissed. "What I did, I did to make sure that there was no way any of us could be traced back here!"

"You keep saying 'us'," Drogo said, his top lip curling derision. "Don't remember you being born a Helot though."

"Maybe not," Athelis agreed. "But this past month I've fought beside you, sweated and bled for you, and if the Spartans find this place, I'll probably end up dying with you too," he gestured to the tent around them. "That's all it will take, Drogo. Just one Spartan finding this camp, and then everything will be done, finished, over with. Why is it so hard to make you people understand that?"

"Because your alternative is even more insane," Drogo replied. "Ithius is right when he says we're too few to fight a war. You can't challenge the mightiest military force in Greece with two hundred untrained men."

"Why not?" Athelis replied simply. "Leonidas did."

"His men were trained..." Drogo began, but Athelis cut him off before he could finish.

"...and outnumbered by an even greater margin than yours," he said, pressing his hands flat against the table, as he pushed his argument home. "Think about it, Drogo. The Persians were threatening everything Sparta stood for. Leonidas and the three hundred were fighting not just for their own lives, but for the very existence of their people."

He glanced back over his shoulder at the various clusters of Helots seated about the tent.

"Remind you of anyone?"

Drogo sat in silence for a moment, then, as if they had never even been arguing, he picked his spoon up again and began stirring aimlessly at the broth in front of him.

"You know I'm right," Athelis continued to press. "Demosthenes isn't just going to let you all waltz out of here to safety. Not without a fight at least, and high minded ideals won't hold him at bay."

He shrugged.

"A bit of pragmatism just might though."

Drogo let out a long low sigh of surrender.

"For the sake of argument..." he began slowly, "...let's just say I don't think you're  entirely  crazy..." He looked up his, steady gaze meeting Athelis' "...what exactly would you be suggesting?"

Athelis smiled darkly. This was it! The chance he had been waiting for; his one and only shot at the Followers and ultimately at Pelion himself. Lacing his fingers together around the bowl of broth in front of him, he leaned in closer to Drogo.

"First thing's first," he said, his voice lowering conspiratorially. "I think it's time we tried to address Demosthenes' little numerical advantage, wouldn't you agree?"

*****

The light sea breeze tugged playfully at Adrasteia's long brown hair and stola as she stepped up to the side of the ship, her arms resting easily on the pock marked wooden railing that ran the length of the vessel's port and starboard flanks. In the distance she could see the low lying coast of the southern Spartan peninsula. It stretched for miles across the horizon to the west, before curving south and emptying out into the waters of the open ocean. To the east, it continued only a few more miles and then swept north and upward into a series of craggy and vertiginous cliffs that formed the back end of the wide bay across which they were sailing. The cliffs themselves were only now becoming visible, their tops just starting to peek above the late morning haze.

Beneath her, the heavy splashing of oars filled the air with noise and spray, and the deep rhythmic chanting of the ships crew that accompanied it lent the whole atmosphere an almost hypnotic air. Her jaw cracked open in a wide yawn, and her eyelids drifted shut for a moment, as her head began to slump forward. With a start, she righted herself again; her head snapping upward as she fixed her gaze intently on the small town of Tryxis that awaited them.

She had not been sleeping well recently, and the previous night had proved worse than any that had come before it. At first she had simply chalked it up to her inexperience at sea travel. This  was  the first time that she had ever traveled by ship after all, and the strange sensation of the vessel's gentle rocking as the waves passed beneath it had been disconcerting to her at first. It had not taken long for it to prove quite the opposite however, and the slow rolling feeling, combined with the creaking of the ship's timbers had quickly become a soothing background patter that had eased her nerves and made her eyelids heavy.

Then, as she had drifted on the edge of sleep, the visions had started to come to her.

They were the same visions that had been the source of her sleeplessness for the last week or so. Every time she lay down to rest they came to her unbidden, images, sounds and sensations of places she had never been before; of people she had never met, all piling up inside her head one after the other in a never ending torrent of sensation. In her mind's eye she had been forced to watch, sweating profusely even in the chill autumn air of the ship's cabin, as cities had burned beneath the dark, storm laden clouds that were racing across the sky above. From between the clouds had fallen great streaks of fire, each one belching waves of smoke heavenwards, and beneath her feet she could feel the earth being split asunder by terrible quakes that shook even the mountains to their core..

Among all this chaos, she had seen armies marching without banners or crests, and between them had walked a strange collection of people she had never seen before. At their fore came a young woman clad in black studded armour and with sharp, manic features that were framed by a wild mass of blonde hair kept only slightly in check by thin leather braids. She stalked across the open ground with all the grace and predatory sense of a great cat on the hunt, and in her hand she clutched an over-large sickle, its blade dripping red with blood. There was something unusual about the woman though. As she moved, the grinning visage would flicker and twist, occasionally appearing quite different to its earlier appearance. The wicked sneer and wild eyes would shift ever so slightly, and suddenly, instead of fearsome and dangerous, she would look wounded, pitiful, and tired, but the change never lasted, and after only a step or two, her visage would flicker back to the look of madness again.

Behind her there came three others. One had the manner of a soldier, a dark glower etched across his face, and a high crested helm carried in the crook of his arm. Another looked vaguely familiar to her, although she could not clearly make out his face. He carried a large and ornate walking staff, but from the way he strode in pace with the others, he did not appear to actually need it. Between these two men came a third figure, although she hesitated to call him a man, more akin as he was to a walking chunk of shadow. Long robes were drawn all about him, and his face was hidden in perfect shade beneath a heavy black hood. Just looking at him was enough to make Adrasteia's heart skip a beat in fear. He was not the worst of it all though. Behind them all came something else. She could not see it but she knew it was there nevertheless. It felt as if a great pressure were weighing down upon her mind, and the more she tried to focus on what it was that followed in the wake of the strangers, the greater that pressure became, building between her temples until it threatened to split her skull like a melon struck by a hammer. Every time the vision ended the same way; with her head throbbing and a single disembodied voice whispering at her quietly from what seemed like a great distance away.

" I hear you,"  it would say.

She adjusted the single leather vambrace she wore on her left wrist, a feeling of discomfort crawling beneath her skin as the memories of the visions returned to her. Even with the soothing sea breeze and the daylight all about her, they still made her spine tingle. Of course, as soon as they had started, she had taken them straight to her mistress, the Oracle of Delphi, to ask for help in interpreting them. The Lady Pythia had been her usual airy, mystical self about it all of course – a habit she had that irritated Adrasteia no end – and had only said that if the gods had seen fit to visit these visions upon her, then she must surely be capable of determining their meaning on her own. Nevertheless, a dark frown had cast its shadow across the Oracle's face as Adrasteia had relayed what she had seen. It was the very next day that she had been told she would be setting out for Sparta on this peacekeeping mission once the Athenian delegation arrived within the city limits.

In the end she had given up trying to sleep the previous night, and had instead sat cross legged on the bed, doing her best to purge her thoughts of all distraction so that she could better concentrate on the puzzle being presented to her. It was a practice the Lady Pythia had been trying to instill in her since she had first come to the Temple of Apollo. She had not known she had the oracular talent then, but it had not taken long for the priests to discover the spark within her. Since then she had spent her time as a hand maiden to the Oracle, tending her needs at the same time as learning her ways. She was not the only girl to be a handmaiden, and she had come late to the position. So later that she often struggled with the simplest of exercises that the other girls treated as a matter of course. For instance, all Oracles supposedly had to be capable of cleansing their minds so that they might be able to surrender themselves to the divine visions that were both their blessing and their curse. Adrasteia always ended up with embarrassing songs that she had learned from her brother's soldier friends stuck in her head instead, much to the frustration of the Lady Pythia and the other, more senior members of the Temple. That the bed last night had had an uneven straw mattress that made her legs itch terribly and her back ache if she tried to lie on it for any longer than a half hour had not helped in her meditation either, and so in the end she had given up entirely and headed up onto deck to greet the morning sun.

"Is something troubling you my lady?" came a voice from behind her, and she twisted at the waist to see a man standing behind her.

His name was Nikias, and he had been sent with her in order that her needs might be tended to during the journey. She was, after all, an Oracle in training, and it would not do for her to be seen traveling alone, or at least that was what the priests of Apollo seemed to think. She had tried to tell them that she would be traveling in the company of the Athenian delegate, but that had only seemed to upset them even more. Upon meeting the Athenian delegate, she had quickly begun to understand why.

Nikias himself was a lean figure, not particularly tall, but far from short. He had a narrow pinched face and his thin mouth had worn a permanent look of disaproval since they had boarded the ship out of Delphi. Clearly less than impressed with their traveling conditions, he nevertheless had more grace and training than to be openly critical of them. In one hand he was carrying a pitcher of what she supposed to be water, and in the other, a dish piled high with food fresh enough that it looked like it may have come straight from the captain's table.

She gave him a sleepy half-smile.

"What gave it away?" she asked in answer to his earlier question.

If it was possible to shrug with just a twitch of your eyebrows, Nikias achieved it.

"You were not in your cabin when I came to wake you this morning," he said, "and then you were absent from the crew's morning..." he wrinkled his nose as if he were recalling some terrible smell. "...Repast," he managed finally.

"I couldn't sleep is all," Adrasteia said. Nikias gave her a concerned frown. "A bit of a head ache," she elaborated quickly. "Nothing to be worried about. I thought the fresh air up on deck would help clear my head."

"And your absence from breakfast?"

Adrasteia shrugged.

"I wasn't hungry," she said simply.

Nikias proffered her the dish he was holding.

"You should eat something."

Adrasteia eyed the dish of food, and shook her head.

"Still not feeling it," she said.

Nikias rolled his eyes in a long suffering fashion.

"Whether or not you are 'feeling it' is beside the point entirely," he said. "The road to Sparta is not even halfway done. You must keep your strength up for the journey, and that requires that you eat."

Adrasteia gave him an irritated look.

"Who's the servant here?" she asked. "You or me?"

Nikias inclined his head slightly in something approximating a respectful bow, but that was actually about as respectful as someone spitting in your drink.

"You are, of course, in charge my lady," he said delicately. "But the Lady Pythia herself instructed me to serve you as I would her. As I'm sure you are aware, the Lady Pythia's well being is my single overriding concern." He paused for a moment. "And now, so is yours."

"Oh come on Nikias," Adrasteia protested, rolling her eyes as she did so. "You should know me better than that. I'm a wool merchant's daughter; not some simpering high born maiden who needs a servant to wash my feet every few steps I take. I don't need to be coddled and a night without sleep and a morning without breakfast will hardly prove the death of me now, will it?"

"I would beg to differ," Nikias said. "The coming talks with this new Spartan King..."

"He's not a new king," Adrasteia corrected him. Nikias slanted a scolding eyebrow at her, as if to say 'I know full well what he is'.

"The talks with this king..." he repeated purposefully "...will be difficult enough as it is without you being half starved and sleep deprived."

"Which is something I've been meaning to talk to you about," Adrasteia said, turning fully around to face him so that she could lean back against the rail and rest her elbows on it. "Why even send me in the first place?"

Nikias adopted a confused expression. Adrasteia could not decide if it was genuine, or merely affected.

"I'm sorry my lady," he said. "I don't understand what you are driving at."

"Let me phrase it another way for you then," came a third voice that caused both Adrasteia and Nikias to turn to face its owner.

The newcomer was a man, and he was taller than either of them, but not enormously so. His was the look of one who had traveled a great deal in his life, or at the very least, one who had spent a great deal of time outdoors, and despite the fact he could not be far into his thirties, the toll of his lifestyles showed. He had a weather worn face and creases around his eyes, while across his jaw he sported a carefully trimmed and oiled beard. His skin was leathery and sun darkened, and his hair was cut down to his shoulders, but tied back by heavy looking bronze bands. In most ways his looks were weather beaten but unremarkable; all save for his eyes. They were a dark, unreadable brown, but they still appeared sharp and cutting, never missing even the smallest detail in the world around him. He was clad in leather pants and an open chested jerkin, while across one shoulder he had slung a horse hair shirt stitched through with small bronze metal discs. At his hip swung an ivory handled short sword that he wore with all the confidence and swagger of a man born to it.

"How does the wise…" the man began as he approached them, "…the benevolent, the all seeing, all knowing, all singing, all dancing Lady Pythia - the Oracle of Delphi no less - end up choosing one of her own handmaidens, a slip of a woman not much more than twenty years of age, to be sent on an important diplomatic mission to face off against an experienced and formidable Spartan King who, if reports are to be believed, just massacred half his city's population and even as we speak, may very well be preparing for war against the rest of Greece?"

"My lord Themistocles," Nikias said, inclining his head in that little half bow of his again. If it was possible it seemed even less respectful this time than when he had done it to Adrasteia. "I was not aware you had risen from bed yet this morning." The slight about the other man's slovenliness was obvious, but Themistocles did not seem to notice it.

"Archon," he replied flatly.

Nikias tilted his head a little further downward.

"I beg your pardon my lord?" he said, sounding genuinely confused this time.

"I'm an Athenian," Themistocles said. "So it's Archon. Not lord. If you are to insist on using my title Nikias, at least get it right."

"My apologies  Archon ," Nikias said, placing a heavy emphasis on the word. "I shall endeavour to remember in the future."

Themistocles nodded. "See that you do," he said and glanced toward Adrasteia. "And you still haven't answered the question."

Nikias' eyes narrowed in irritation at the Athenian and Adrasteia could see his jaw muscles working furiously.

"I cannot presume to judge the Lady Pythia's intentions Archon. Her reasons are her own after all."

"Oh come now," Themistocles said, his voice growing mocking as he spoke. "Surely a man of your..." he looked Nikias up and down distastefully, "...position must have some idea of your ladyship's intentions."

"If I were to hazard a guess, I would say the good Lady Adrasteia was chosen for the opportunity of experience this mission will provide," Nikias replied tightly. "She is one of those several potentials intended to succeed the Lady Pythia after all."

Themistocles gave a disbelieving grunt.

"Nonsense," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "You don't train a child to fear snakes by dropping them into a pit of vipers and seeing if they come out alive. She could've met a dozen kings from the relative safety of the Temple of Apollo and all within a month had the need been there. As I understand it, men of all stations and from all over Greece regularly petition the Oracle after all."

He gave Adrasteia another glance, this one more appraising than the last. "I've met King Demosthenes, and can assure you his reputation as a formidable man is not ill deserved. If the reports that we've been receiving are true, this mission could be the only chance we have of staving off a war with Sparta. Hardly the kind of task anyone – and especially one with the intelligence and experience of the Lady Pythia – entrusts to an inexperienced and untested young woman. There is something more to her being sent along with me and my men, and I think you know what it is..."

It was at this point, Adrasteia could stay silent no longer. Themistocles was a challenging man to deal with at the best of times, but now he was proving entirely obnoxious.

"I can assure you, honourable Archon," she began, using the formal mode of address the Lady Pythia had taught her, "that if our Lady does indeed have ulterior motives for sending us here, then we've not been informed of them." She glanced back toward her traveling companion. "Isn't that right Nikias?"

The smaller of the two men paused for a moment, his mouth snapping tightly shut, and a flicker of doubt suddenly sparked in the back of Adrasteia's mind. Until Nikias had paused, she had not even entertained Themistocles' idea, but now… Was he right? Did Nikias know more than he was letting on? Finally the smaller man gave the curtest of curt nods.

"You are quite correct my lady," he said.

"There," Adrasteia said, doing her best not to let her sudden uncertainty show. "Your question is answered. Perhaps not to your satisfaction, but answered nonetheless."

Themistocles eyed her for a moment, a slight smirk edging at one corner of his mouth. Suddenly, and completely unexpectedly, he let out a sharp bark of a laughter.

"Not quite the shrinking violet I thought you were, are you?" he said.

Adrasteia rolled her eyes again.

"Was there some other reason for your coming to us?" she replied.

Themistocles shrugged, the metal disc shirt he was carrying jangling as he did so.

"Only to say that you should get your things up on deck and be ready to disembark," he said. "Captain Drevus informs me that we will make landfall within the next half hour and not a minute later. A man of Drevus' financial acumen tends to place great stock in his timetables, as for that matter, do I. I want to be moving as soon as we dock. Time is of the essence, and I don't want it wasted dawdling around Tryxis because you want to try and buy some souvenirs."

"You don't have to worry about that," Adrasteia said. "I was just about to head below and pack up my things."

She started toward steps that would take her back below decks, eager to be away from Themistocles. The man made her uncomfortable, although she could not place her finger on why. She had barely gone two steps when Nikias moved to cut her off.

"You should not trouble yourself my lady," he said. "I will make sure that all is seen to."

Themistocles gave him a curious sideways glance.

"You do that," he said.

Adrasteia was about to protest when Nikias fixed her with a look that all but told her that to do so would be pointless.

"Alright," she said with a slight nod. "I want us ready to travel the moment our feet hit land."

Nikias gave her a deeper bow this time, but as he did so he cast one final glance toward Themistocles.

"It will be as you say my lady," he said, straightening, then turning on his heel and hurrying off to do as he had been instructed.

Adrasteia rounded on the Athenian Archon, doing her best not to look annoyed with him and failing miserably. For his part, Themistocles did not appear in the least bit perturbed by her irritated glare.

"Is there a reason you were so rude to him?" she all but snapped at the man.

Themistocles' gave her a level look.

"Yes," he said simply.

"Care to tell me what it is?"

Themistocles shrugged again before crossing to the railing Adrasteia had been standing at earlier.

"Let's just say I don't like obsequiousness," he said, staring out toward Tryxis and past it to the hills beyond, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully as he did so.

Adrasteia watched him for a moment. While he made her uncomfortable, she had to admit there was something about him that was also quite enthralling. From the moment they had stepped aboard the ship, he had had an easy way with the crew, and at the evening meal the night before, even the captain had seemed enamored with him. It had taken her a little while to grow accustomed to the rolling of the ship, and she had been unsteady on her feet at first, but Themistocles had had no such problems, striding the decks as easily as if he were walking on unmoving ground.

She had heard tales of him of course. A preeminent figure in the fledgling Athenian democracy, he had risen to prominence off the back of the victory at Marathon little more than a year ago. It was Themistocles who, along with several other generals, had led the Athenian army to reinforce the Spartans there. To hear the bards tell it, he was pretty much solely responsible for the victory there too – although there were also tales of Xena, the Warrior Princess, being involved as well – and since meeting him, Adrasteia was inclined to agree with the stories. There was a spark of brilliance about Themistocles; that much was certain, and it made it easy to see why the Athenians had elected him as an Archon. At first his naysayers had claimed that Marathon had simply been a lucky victory, one handed to him by the fates, but then, just recently, he had proven his worth again. While the tavern bards were already singing songs of Leonidas, and his brave three hundred man stand against Xerxes' Persian horde, Themistocles had at the same time been leading an Athenian fleet that had harried the Persians at sea and kept Xerxes from using his own fleet to outflank the Spartans on the ground. The naysayers had fallen silent when Themistocles had returned and Leonidas had not.

A savior of Greece he was then, not only once, but twice, and a man accustomed to dealing with the somewhat dour Spartans to boot. The reasons for his selection for this particular task were obvious although not particularly compelling. From what she knew of the Spartans, and in particular their Kings, she doubted they had taken kindly to Themistocles seizing the limelight after Marathon, and that simple truth could as easily end up working against them as it could working in their favour.

"Tell me something," Themistocles said suddenly, his voice jolting her back to the here and now. He glanced back over his shoulder at her. "Nikias gave me his thoughts on why you were chosen for this, rubbish though they were. I'm wondering though, what  you  think those reasons are."

Adrasteia sighed and moved to stand beside him.

"I don't really know," she said. "I've only been at the Temple a year or so. I'm still a relative neophyte compared to some of the other women there. I guess the Oracle thinks this will be the best use of my talents."

Themistocles looked her carefully in the eye.

"And what talents would those be?" he said.

Adrasteia cursed herself for nearly letting her visions slip. Besides the Oracle herself, she had spoken of them to no one and she planned to keep it that way too.

"I used to help my father negotiate trade deals in the Delphi merchant square," she said, hurriedly trying to think of something that might sound like a plausible reason for her having been chosen.

"A job for a son, usually," Themistocles said, still gazing at her steadily.

"And if he had been around, I'm sure my brother would have been the one doing the negotiating," Adrasteia replied smartly. "He wasn't though, and my mother never had a head for the numbers, so in the end it fell to me."

Themistocles' eyes remained locked on her for a moment longer, like the gaze of a cat watching a mouse while it prepared to spring, then suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, he smiled.

"Well said," he nodded, then turned to look back toward the shoreline. They were close now. So close even, that Adrasteia could make out small figures moving back and forth between the village buildings.

"But do you really think that dealing with traveling merchants and trade caravans is comparable to negotiating with the king of a Greek city state?" Themistocles continued.

"Why would it not be?" she answered. "People are people. They're the same from the top of society to the bottom. Merchants usually have heads the size of Mt Olympus too, as do Kings I'm reliably informed. A little ego massage here, a little haggling there, and before you know it, they've got what they want, and you're walking away with enough dinars to buy the goods they just bought from you three times over."

Themistocles chuckled.

"I take it you were good at it then?"

Adrasteia let a small smirk play across her lips.

"The best," she said.

"Confidence," the Athenian nodded approvingly. "It's a good tool to have at your disposal. Spartan Kings have it in abundance as well though, and they're a curious breed; all grim and full to overflowing with 'honour' and 'duty'." He gave a shake of his head. "Naive really, but it does make them tough to deal with. They're pig headed and don't work in half measures. They won't meet you in the middle on anything."

He straightened from the railing, eyeing her once more.

"You see, you're not the only one sent along because they know how to cut deals," he said. "So understand me when I say this. Sparta is not some merchants square where the dealings are civilised and the goods change hands for something as simple as a dinar. The promise of money – of remuneration of any kind really – will carry little weight in Sparta. Men like Demosthenes – and myself for that matter – deal in power first and foremost, and when you're dealing with something that treacherous, the danger involved is very, very real. I will do my best to keep you safe if I can, but my primary concern is stopping a potential war before it starts. I can't afford to be babysitting you the entire time, so you must never let your guard down, even for a moment. Are we completely clear on this?"

Adrasteia cocked an eyebrow at him.

"I don't recall ever asking for, or needing a bodyguard," she said to him.

Themistocles gave her a dry smile again as he stepped back from the railing.

"Funny," he said. "How then would  you  describe Nikias?"

She frowned at him.

"Nikias?" she said, slightly confused now. "He's my..." she paused as she searched for the correct word to use.

"Servant?" Themistocles said, flashing her a knowing grin.

"Companion," Adrasteia replied, a little too sharply.

"As you say," Themistocles said, his grin widening.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Adrasteia said, trying to keep her growing frustration with the other man from bubbling over.

"Only that if that man is a simple servant, then I'm the King of all Olympus," Themistocles answered, then, bending at the waist and sweeping his arm out to the side he dropped into a parody of courtly bow.

"Now my lady, if you'll excuse me, I really must finish my preparations for our landing," and with that he turned and left her standing alone by the rail once more.

Chapter Five: The Potter's Yard

The muffled clip-clop of horses' hooves beat out a staccato rhythm as the procession of crimson and blue caped Spartans passed between the shallow hills that rolled out toward the southward horizon at their backs like great green waves. Some of the men were mounted, but the majority were afoot, their spears held at their sides, and their big bronze shields slung across their backs. Toward the rear of the group, Sentos' horse was plodding steadily along the trail, and the Spartan Captain watched the men in front of him carefully.

There was a general murmur of discussion passing between them, he noted, but unlike in the past where it would have been comradely and friendly, now it felt cagey and guarded. The men in blue capes seldom spoke to the men in red and vice versa, and among the men in blue there was even further division. Here and there among Demosthenes' men, Sentos could spy the occasional sickle symbol stitched into a cape here, often so crudely that it was almost impossible to tell what it was actually supposed to depict. Conversation around those men was often even further stilted and formal, when it took place at all, and they would often draw wary glances from not only the men in red, but even some of their comrades in blue.

Sentos sighed softly to himself.

Was this really what they had been reduced to under Demosthenes' reign? Was this really what they had become? Once they had all been brothers in arms, in service to differing Kings yes, but always holding the service of Sparta in common. It was almost ironic that now, following the deaths of Leonidas, Nestus, and the Ephor council, and with only one King remaining for them to owe their allegiance to, they found themselves more divided than ever before.

"I've seen that look on your face before."

Sentos glanced around at the sound of the familiar to see one of Demosthenes' men, mounted rather than afoot, falling back to join him. The man's name was Orestes. He was younger than Sentos and despite his rank – a lieutenant in command of a single phalanx unit – he was hardly in Demosthenes' good graces, which, if Sentos was being brutally honest, was probably why he had drawn the metaphorical short straw and been sent to babysit Sentos in the first place.

Despite his current standing as the only survivor of Thermopylae lending him some small amount of prestige within the city, Demothenes still seemed determined to marginalise Sentos whenever the opportunity presented itself. This milk run to escort the diplomatic mission from the northern city states was a case in point. Demosthenes sending Orestes with him was just further evidence of the King's attempts to belittle him, if not in the eyes of the Spartan public, at the very least in the eyes of the other commanders.

In truth though, Sentos did not really care. Demosthenes and his cadre of loyal commanders, Gracus among them, made him uneasy, and the manner by which they had seized power positively sickened him. The less contact he had with them, the less involved he would be in their scheming and that suited him just fine.

Orestes gave him a halfhearted smile that was probably intended to be reassuring. Instead it only made Sentos feel even more maudlin.

"Care to tell me what happened in the council chambers?" the younger man asked.

Sentos shrugged.

"Oh, the usual," he said with a heavy sigh. "King Demosthenes demanded to know why I still haven't managed to spit Ithius and his Helots like the cornered pigs he seems to think they are, then Gracus laid a trap for me, which I walked right into incidentally, and finally the King ended up questioning my loyalties." He shrugged. "He believes I'm not trying my hardest out here."

"And are you?" Orestes asked. Sentos eyed him askance.

"Be careful," he said. "I am as loyal to Sparta as any one man can be."

"But you aren't choosing your words carefully enough," Orestes remarked, guiding his horse closer to Sentos and lowering his voice so as not to be overheard. "Remember, these days, loyalty to Sparta, and loyalty to King Demosthenes are not the same thing. Not by a long shot."

Sentos groaned and rubbed at his right temple with two fingers.

"I have no head for all this," he said. "I was born a soldier, Orestes. Raised a soldier. I even expected to die a soldier at Thermopylae. To Tartarus with all these veiled threats and insinuations."

Orestes leaned back in his saddle and let out a long low breath of equal parts sadness and commiseration.

"It would be nice if life was as simple as it used to be, wouldn't it?" he said. "But Demosthenes is our King now, and for the time being at least, there's little we can do to change that."

"Isn't there?" Sentos muttered. He had meant the comment only for himself, but Orestes snagged on it almost immediately. The younger man glanced about them both warily, his eyes coming to rest on the group of blue cloaked Spartans nearby, and especially those wearing the sickle symbols. Finally, when he was sure that Sentos' remark had not been heard, he leaned in close to the Spartan Captain.

"You should be glad it was only me that heard you say that," he hissed. "Last survivor of Leonidas' brave three hundred or no, any one of those men would've happily had your head for treason if they knew that you were even hinting at the idea of betraying Demosthenes."

"Maybe that would be for the better," The Spartan Captain said, turning his gaze firmly on the younger man now, his face set firm and shoulders squared. It was the first time he had not heard the younger man refer to Demosthenes as 'King'. "He killed the Ephors, and he had the Helots massacred on little more than a legal technicality! Can you look me in the eye and tell me that we should honestly call such a man our leader?"

Orestes' expression became pensive as Sentos' voice rose slightly, and he cast another worried glance in the direction of the blue cloaked men, clearly worried about being overheard. Sentos could not really have cared less at this point, but for the man's peace of mind, he lowered his voice once more.

"I've served Sparta faithfully my entire life," he said. "I've honoured our principles to the best of my ability, and within the limits of decency and morality." He leaned closer to Orestes, keeping his voice low, but unable to hide the growing outrage in it. "Demosthenes' ambition doesn't know the bounds of either. He and that new religion of his both are a cancer upon our city; one that will eat away at the heart of it until there is nothing left for us to call our own."

He turned away from Orestes, glaring angrily now at the group of red cloaked men marching in a column in front of him.

"The worst thing though," he continued, his voice becoming faraway as he relived the day of Demosthenes' coup in his mind, "the most terrible part of all this, is that me and my men could have done something about it. We could have cut that cancer out by the root a long time ago, but instead we've left it to fester and grow. Now I'm worried that we've waited too long, and that Sparta may never be cured of it."

Orestes was silent for a moment, but when he spoke up again, his voice was calm and reasoned; a far cry from Sentos' tone of self recrimination.

"You would never have succeeded if you'd tried," he said simply. "Demosthenes had the city in his grasp long before that last council meeting. If you'd moved against him then, the same thing would have happened as if you tried to rise up against him now. Those who followed you would've been killed, and you yourself would've been branded a traitor before they had your head, both to Demosthenes and to Leonidas. What good would any of that have done in the long run?"

"At least I'd have been standing for something," Sentos replied. "What do any of us stand for now?"

"We stand for Sparta," Orestes replied. "Its people, and its laws, but what worth is any of that high mindedness if we don't live to protect it?" He fixed Sentos with a steady gaze and Sentos, not for the first time, was amazed by the other man's firmness. It was rare to see such self possession in a man so young.

"The time for us to fight back is not now," Orestes continued. " We are the guardians of the soul of Sparta Captain; me, you, and those like us. It is not a pleasant task, I grant you, and we might even have to compromise our own personal beliefs more than we already have done before all of this is over, but if that means we can one day see our home free of Demosthenes and his like," he shrugged, "then so be it."

Sentos regarded Orestes silently. He genuinely seemed to believe what he was saying; of that Sentos was certain. He only wished he could agree.

"You're wrong about one thing," he said. Orestes just tilted his head questioningly at him.

"We're not the guardians of the soul of Sparta," Sentos explained. "We are the soul of Sparta, or what is left of it, and if we keep giving in; if we keep capitulating and compromising, well then, will there be any of that soul left at all?"

Orestes did not answer.

The marching column of Spartans began to round the base of a hill they had been following for quite sometime now, and the gentle rolling landscape around them quickly started to give way to a downward sloping plain of low, bristling grass and the occasional waist high patch of scrub that continued for about a mile or so until it reached the wide shingle and sand beaches that separated the land from the glimmering sea beyond. Leaving Orestes behind him, Sentos spurred his mount to the head of the column, raising his closed fist to his shoulder in a gesture for the men at his back to halt as he surveyed the landscape before them.

Right on the coast lay a largish town. It was perhaps only a tenth the size of Sparta, and consisted mainly of low lying wooden huts, cottages, and shacks. From his elevated position, he could see the many piers at the far side of the town that jutted out into the sea and a wide variety of fishing boats, bobbed at their moorings as the morning tide came in.

"Tryxis I presume?"

It was Orestes again. He had ridden up level with Sentos as the other man had surveyed the town.

"I'm guessing so," Sentos said. He had never been this far north before, and he had to admit to being a little disappointed. Tryxis' reputation as a way station for travelers moving between the north of Greece and Sparta's southern territories was a strong one, and while Sentos had not expected a settlement on the level of say Athens or Corinth, he had at least thought the place might be slightly more formidable.

Suddenly, his eyes narrowed. Even at this distance, he could make out a number of burned out buildings toward the town centre, and from the looks of them, the damage had been recent.

"Do you see that?" he asked, pointing toward the blackened structures. It took Orestes a moment of trying to figure out exactly what it was Sentos was referring to, but in the end he nodded.

"What do you suppose happened?" he said.

Sentos shook his head.

"I have no idea," he said, then gestured to the trail before them. "Maybe we could ask them though."

Just down the trail from them, a second column of Spartans, this time clad entirely in blue, had emerged from the town and was beginning to march up the hill toward them. As they drew closer, finer details began to emerge from the crowd. These men had clearly been on the road for longer than Sentos and his own men. Their cloaks were more travel stained, and frequently were caked in dirt across the hems that trailed closest to the ground. Their armour and shields lacked the polish of Sentos and his men as well, but despite all that they still moved with the same rigorously drilled precision as Sentos would have expected from them.

He frowned as they approached. Their commander had ordered them into tighter ranks than Sentos would have thought prudent. Marching in such close file made them easy pickings for any unit of concealed archers. One good volley of arrows could potentially wipe out half the unit before they could bring their shields to bear. That same commander was marching at the head of the unit now and it was a man Sentos knew well.

Doing his best to supress a groan, he urged his horse forward down the slope, Orestes following close behind him. Agrios was one of Gracus' more loyal lackeys; an obvious toady with no real aptitude for command beyond a certain skill at making it through battles with his skin intact. Still, he had somehow managed to come to the conclusion that he was some kind of great battlefield commander, and the way he strutted and preened never failed to put Sentos' hackles up.

"Captain Sentos!" Agrios called up to him as he approached.

"Lieutenant," Sentos said, reining his horse in before the marching column. "It would seem you have some news for me."

Agrios nodded, an eager smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

"Indeed I do!" he said, the tone of his voice one of barely restrained excitement. "Ithius was here!"

Sentos sat very still at that, his eyes traveling past Agrios and back down to the burned out husks in the town below.

"Ithius and his Helots did this?" he said, barely able to contain his surprise. He had known Ithius for years although not particularly well. The man had been a close friend of King Leonidas since the two of them were children, and even after Marathon and being awarded his freedom, the two of theme had remained in contact.

His betrayal of Leonidas mere days before the battle at Thermopylae had doubtless been a contributing factor to the Spartan defeat there, and as he thought about those terrible days in that narrow pass with the scent of blood, sweat and death hanging thick upon the otherwise cool ocean breeze, Sentos felt his pace begin to quicken. No, he had never been close to Ithius, and after what the other man had done, Sentos was even prepared to hate him, but despite all of that he had to admit that attacking a town full of innocents and burning a sizable portion of it to the ground seemed out of character for the Helot leader.

"They did," Agrios nodded in answer to Sentos' earlier question. "The locals say they were trying to apprehend him for us. They thought King Demosthenes might appreciate the gesture as a token of good will on their part."

"I'm sure he would have," Sentos said absently, still regarding the burned out town-houses below. "What exactly went wrong then?" he said eventually.

"They say he fought back," Agrios said. "That he and his people killed all of the men sent to arrest him, and set fire to the town to cover their escape, before fleeing for the hills. A coward's tactics if ever I heard them."

Sentos tapped his chin thoughtfully. Again, that did not sound like Ithius. The man could fight like a lion when cornered it was true, and he had no doubt that if these townsfolk had gone after him, they may very well have found themselves biting off more than they could chew, but setting fire to the town itself? He was almost certain that Ithius would never have willingly indulged in such behaviour.

"So where is he now?"

"Already gone. He apparently headed into the hills with those of his people who survived the attempt to apprehend him. My men and I have been awaiting your arrival so that we may pass our duties to you and give chase."

Sentos regarded the other man carefully. Demosthenes had ordered him to set Agrios to hunt Ithius, but he realised now what a poor choice that was. Agrios was a favourite among Demosthenes' people it was true, but compared to Ithius – a man who had led men into war time and again, and who had always brought those same men home with him from victory after victory – he was little more than a rooster; a strutting, crowing, cock of a man, good at keeping himself alive but not those who followed him. That he could march men in formation on the mustering fields was not in question. Whether or not he was any kind of match for a field commander of Ithius' talent and experience most certainly was.

Sentos – himself with over a decade's experience campaigning – had been hunting Ithius at Demosthenes' order for the last month, and even though he knew the King thought he was not giving the effort his all, the simple fact of the matter was that Ithius was a cannier prey than anyone truly realised. More than once he and his people had managed to slip through search nets Sentos had laid down for him, though in truth each and every time he had managed to evade them, Sentos had felt a touch of relief. To his mind, the Helots had been punished well beyond the severity of their crimes – if indeed they were crimes at all – and what would be done to them should Demosthenes ever get his hands on the last remnants of them did not even bear thinking about. Still, this was the first time in weeks he had been this close to them. Could he really afford to let them go now when there was a very good chance that if he gave chase he may actually be able to achieve the task Demosthenes had set him... but then again, it was no longer his task anymore, and he could hardly be blamed for following the express orders of his King now, could he?

Before he could reach a final decision however, the distant pealing strikes of a bell began to fill the air; first just one, then another, and then another.

"What's happening?" Orestes said, shifting in his saddle as a fourth bell strike sounded. "Is it an attack?"

Agrios shook his head again.

"Not an attack," he said and pointed to the horizon. "A greeting." Way out to sea, a small white square of fabric above a tiny brown shape was beginning to become visible. If Sentos guessed right, it appeared to be a ship of some kind.

Orestes' followed his gesture and the man noted the distant ship with a nod of his head.

"Looks like we arrived just in time," he said.

Sentos straightened in his saddle.

"Looks like," he nodded. "We'd better get moving if we're to make it to the town before they do."

"Captain Sentos, sir!" Agrios called up to him. "What would you have of me and my men?"

Sentos turned back to the man, giving him one last thoughtful glance. If not Agrios, Demosthenes would simply set someone else to the task, and that person might very well be more capable. In the long run, Ithius and his Helots would probably be better off with a man of Agrios' limited talent hunting them than with anyone else.

"Lieutenant Agrios," he commanded sharply, his mind finally made up.

Next to him Agrios snapped immediately to attention.

"Sir!" he barked in response.

"King Demosthenes has ordered that you be set to the task of hunting down the traitor Ithius and his Helot supporters," Sentos continued. “Should you locate them however, you are not to engage directly, but simply to call for reinforcement and then hold your ground until such reinforcements can be made available to you. Are these orders clear to you as I have explained them?"

"Perfectly clear sir!" Agrios said. Without a moments pause he turned and barked a series of orders to his men. The Spartan troops snapped quickly to attention, their spears straightening as Agrios began to lead them off up the trail.

"May the gods watch over you Agrios!" Orestes called after him. The other Lieutenant let out a snort of derision, and for the first time Sentos caught sight of the crudely stitched sickle on the back of his cape.

Turning back to his own men with a barely suppressed shudder, he lifted his hand high, then let it fall in a chopping motion toward the town of Tryxis below.

"SPARTANS!" he barked at the top of his lungs. "FORWARD!"

Behind him, the sound of at least a hundred pairs of booted feet beginning to move again filled the air with a heavy, grinding rumble. He watched as they marched past him in the opposite direction to Agrios and his men. Each soldiers' face had a grim set to it as they tried to mentally ready themselves for whatever it was that might come next. They were not expecting any trouble, truth be told. Despite what Demosthenes maintained about the roads being fraught with 'bandits', Ithius and his Helots were hardly in a position to threaten anyone, let alone mount any kind of serious resistance, and with Agrios and his troops dogging them across the countryside, they were even less likely to cause trouble.

Still, if there was one lesson Sentos had learned recently, it was that no matter how strong, secure or prepared you thought you were, there was always the chance that trouble was lurking, unseen, unheard and in wait and more often than not, right around the corner.

*****

Adrasteia did not have to wait much longer for the ship to reach the dock. Nikias had re-emerged from below decks soon after Themistocles had left her by the railing, and he had come carrying a couple of small packs that contained all the gear they would need for their journey, including tinder boxes wrapped in waxed sheets of papyrus and a few changes of clothes.

At Captain Drevus' shouted commands, the oars down one side of the ship had been lifted clear of the water, while the oarsmen down the other side had redoubled their efforts, their own oars working the water into a churning mass of bubbles and foam as they had turned the ship where it drifted so that its aft was facing the dock. Then the other set of oars had been lowered back into the water once more, and with a keen backward stroke, the ship had begun to reverse into the dock. Adrasteia had watched, fascinated, as the locals of Tryxis had come out onto the dock to greet the ship, catching guidelines thrown down to them by Captain Drevus' crew. Once all the lines had been caught, they had then begun to pull, digging in their heels against the weight of the ship as they heaved it sideways toward the wooden pier upon which they were standing.

Despite all their hard work though, the tide was working against them, and for a brief, horrifying moment, Adrasteia thought they were going to overcompensate in their efforts and set the ship on a collision course with the dock or even worse, set it tilting into a full on capsize. Her fears were to prove groundless in the end though, with the locals and ship's crew both proving far too experienced and steady handed. Instead of capsizing, the ship simply drifted to a halt within almost touching distance of the pier while the locals began to tie off the moorings.

Adrasteia breathed a sigh of relief and hefted her traveling gear. She was about to make for the gangplank that had already been run down to the pier when she felt Nikias' hand on her shoulder. She turned to frown at him, but he simply shook his head.

"Be patient my lady," he said. "Captain Drevus' ship has been a haven for us so far on this journey, but once we're clear of it, we will be alone in potentially hostile territory, with only this Archon and his men for our protection."

As if on cue, a group of ten Athenian soldiers, clad in supple leather breastplates, dull iron helms, and carrying short swords and spears jogged down the ramp and began to spread out quickly across the dock with military drilled precision.

"You see," Nikias said, gesturing down toward them. "First they'll ensure it is safe for us, and only then shall we disembark."

Adrasteia frowned.

"I don't like this," she said, gripping the rail tightly as she watched them moving further across the dock and even down to the shore itself. "I don't like the idea of people putting their lives on the line for us."

"For you, my lady," Nikias said, "and it's their duty to do so."

Adrasteia tried her best not to pout.

"I still don't like it."

For the first time since she had met him, Nikias gave her a smile, and she was surprised by how warm and affectionate it was.

"I'm sure very few people in your situation would," he said. "But you must understand my lady, that you are no longer the woman you once were. The gift of foreknowledge has been granted to you by the great god Apollo himself, and an incredible gift it is too."

"Sometimes it feels more like a burden," Adrasteia said softly, trying not to think of the visions for what would probably be the hundredth time that day. "I don't always like what it shows me."

"No great gift is given entirely free of consequence," Nikias said, his voice now oddly comforting to her. "What you have been granted however, is what so many would gladly give their lives for in exchange; a link, not just to Apollo, but to all the gods, and to Olympus itself. The divine light of the heavens shines upon you, and through you it may touch the lives of many who would otherwise never know its beauty or its grandeur." He paused for a moment, and then glanced toward the Athenian troops on the dock.

"Such a gift is too precious to be lost," he said softly. "It must be protected. You must be protected."

"Not to mention that running about playing soldiers down their makes my boys feel all strong and manly," Themistocles interrupted them, his mocking tone souring the mood as both Nikias and Adrasteia span to face him. Neither of them had heard him approach, although it certainly was not thanks to any attempt at stealth on his part. He was wearing the horse hair shirt he had been carrying earlier, and each of the metal discs sewn into it would clink quietly against another with every step he took. Adrasteia and Nikias had simply been too wrapped up in their discussion to hear his approach.

He came to a stop right in front of them, his own traveling pack slung easily across his shoulder, while his hand rested calmly on the ivory handled sword at his hip.

Nikias cast him a dirty look as if to say 'must you cheapen the moment so?'

"Are you two ready?" Themistocles asked, glancing questioningly between them as the docking ramp began to rattle loudly. One of the soldiers was probably jogging back up it.

Nikias looked to Adrasteia, who gave a small, tight nod. A wave of queasiness had begun to settle over her, and for some reason memories of her vision and the four strange figures in it came to her unbidden. Before it had all seemed so distant and abstract. Now she was about to leave the safety of the ship, the danger they may very well be walking into had suddenly begun to feel all that much more real, and the visions all that much closer to reality.

One of Themistocles' men popped back up at the side of the ship and quickly trotted across the deck to the Archon's side.

"Report," Themistocles said, his voice harder now and filled with military authority.

"The dock is clear," the soldier said. "The locals were expecting us it would seem."

"Hardly a surprise. They must have seen us coming several miles ago."

The soldier nodded. "Yes sir, but there's something else."

Themistocles' brow furrowed and he cast a brief backward glance toward Adrasteia and Nikias.

"What is it?" he said warily.

"There are Spartans here sir."

Adrasteia felt her heart skip a beat and the four of them quickly crossed to the railing. The soldier gestured toward the shoreline, and sure enough, emerging from among the rows of buildings that made up Tryxis proper was a column of men marching in rigid lock-step. Their armour was similar to that worn by the Athenians, although it was dark black instead of tanned brown, and the helms they wore were cast of bronze rather than iron. Each soldiers' helm also sported a crest in either blue or red that matched the long capes they wore buckled to their shoulders, and every one of them had a large, heavy looking bronze shield strapped across their back while the spears they carried glinted wickedly in the morning sunlight.

At the head of the column two men rode on horseback, one of them dressed in red, and coming on slightly ahead of the other, who was in turn dressed in blue. As they caught sight of the ship, the man in red raised a clenched fist, and the other man reined in his horse beside him, the animal snorting and pawing at the banks of sand that separated the dock from the town itself as they watched the ship arrive. The column of soldiers behind them drew to a stop as well, resting the butts of their spears in the sand as they waited silently for their next orders.

Adrasteia found something unnerving about the way they just stood there, waiting and watching the ship in perfect formation and not making even the slightest sound. There was no muttering and none of the uncouth jokes or ribald humour she had learned to expect from the soldiers she had met during her youth. Instead these men looked as solid as marble and twice as immovable.

She did not think she had ever been more intimidated by anything in her entire life.

"What are they doing here?" she hissed. "I didn't think Tryxis was Spartan territory."

"It isn't," Nikias answered.

"Although from the looks of thins, how long it remains that way is less certain," Themistocles added, his brow furrowing as he studied the men on the beach carefully.

"Do you think they've come to kill us?" Adrasteia asked, giving the lines of spears an uncomfortable glance.

Nikias shook his head.

"Almost certainly not," he said. "One doesn't dispatch a whole Spartan Phalanx Unit simply to murder a small diplomatic envoy."

"And what would you know about Phalanx Units or Spartan tactics?" Themistocles asked, shooting the man a suspicious glance.

Nikias did not answer, and after a moment Themistocles turned away, a satisfied smirk playing across his lips.

"Still," he said, glancing to Adrasteia, "Your man is probably right. Demosthenes may be a ruthless bastard, but even he wouldn't order a peace envoy murdered, especially not in ostensibly 'neutral' territory. It would just be so..." he paused, then grinned wider. "...unseemly," he finished.

"Well if they've not come to kill us, what have they come here for?" Adrasteia hissed in frustration.

Themistocles tapped his chin thoughtfully.

"They're probably an escort," he said finally. "It shouldn't really come as a surprise I suppose. I did send word we were coming after all."

"You told them we were coming!?" Adrasteia gasped. This was the first she had heard about it.

Themistocles fixed with a stare that suggested she was beginning to test his patience.

"You don't go marching onto another king's territory with so much as one soldier without telling them you're coming first," he said pointedly. "If we had just turned up unannounced, even as few a number of soldiers as we have, we'd be the ones starting the war instead of the one's trying to prevent it."

He drummed his fingers steadily on the railing.

"I hadn't expected them to be here already though," he continued thoughtfully. "We only sent word four days ago, and Sparta is at least three days march south, and that's if you're making good time." His eyes narrowed. "There's something else going on here. I'd stake my inheritance on it."

"You have an inheritance?" Adrasteia said disbelievingly. Despite his moneyed appearance, Themistocles did not seem like he came from the type of family that had ever stood to inherit anything.

"No," he said with a playful grin, "and that's why I'm staking it."

"Figures," Adrasteia shot back at him.

Themistocles gave her and amused snort, then went back to studying the Spartans carefully for a moment longer. Finally he straightened from the railing and took a deep breath.

"Well, I suppose their isn't much sense in waiting around here any longer," he said, then, without warning, he span on his heel to face back toward the ship's aft.

"Captain Drevus!" he shouted.

It didn't take long for the rotund, ruddy faced ship's captain to come waddling up to them, the few strands of hair he still possessed lacquered to his skull by a seemingly permanent sheen of perspiration.

"Honourable Archon," the man said, sweeping a deep bow to Themistocles. "I trust we have discharged our duties to you admirably."

"You have," Themistocles nodded, "and we are most grateful indeed, but I'm afraid that there is something else we must now ask of you."

"If it is within my power to assist you, then it shall be done," the captain said.

"The Lady Pythia paid you for our transport here, correct?"

"She did indeed," said Drevus. "And a princely sum it was too I might add, but sadly only enough to cover the costs of our journey here."

Themistocles eyed him carefully, and Adrasteia fought to suppress a smile as she realised what was happening. She had seen merchants acting this way before, sizing each other up in an attempt to determine who could afford what and for how much. It was a conversation of body language that took place between the words that were spoken, and the sheer number of times she had been forced to endure it when haggling on behalf of her father had made her an expert at it.

"We require you to remain docked here for the foreseeable future," Themistocles was saying. "When the time comes for us to return to Delphi, we may end up having to do so in a hurry."

Drevus rubbed at his chin in mock concern, and Adrasteia could already see the wheels turning inside the squat man's head.

"And when you say foreseeable future…" he began, but before he could finish, Themistocles cut him off.

"One week at the least," he said. "Perhaps even longer."

Drevus sucked in air between his clenched teeth. "I'm afraid that that is quite impossible," he said. "I have a cargo hold of goods that the tradesmen in Thrace simply must…"

Themistocles thrust a large heavy looking pouch toward the man. It jangled loudly as Drevus reached out to take it from him, doing his best not to let his mouth hang open in slack jawed amazement at the sheer weight of the thing.

"Six hundred dinars," Themistocles said matter-of-factly. "Plus two hundred more for your coffers upon our return. That should be more than enough to cover a whole month's worth of shipping those flea bitten animal skins you have in your hold between Thrace and Delphi."

Drevus could not take his eyes off the pouch Themistocles had handed him.

"How long did you want us to wait again," he said absently, not seeming to have heard Themistocles. The Athenian Archon turned to Adrasteia and winked.

"Two weeks minimum," he said. "Sail before that time, and I'll have the merchant's guild in Delphi revoke your port permissions."

"Two weeks," Drevus nodded eagerly, not seeming to really comprehend the words he was saying. "Of course, of course."

Themistocles slapped the captain heartily on the shoulder and flashed him a broad smile.

"Good man," he nodded, then turned back to Adrasteia and Nikias. "Now let's be on our way before he changes his mind," he hissed, slinging his travel pack across his shoulder and making for the gangplank as he did so.

The four of them descended to the pier quickly, Themistocles and Nikias going first, with Adrasteia stepping carefully behind them down the shaky gangplank to avoid being pitched into the sea while the soldier that had brought the news of the Spartans arrival brought up the rear. Themistocles nodded to the locals that had helped dock the ship as he passed them, flicking each of them a shining silver coin as he did so. One or two of the men smiled happily as they took the money, but most simply hung back, a look of caution in their eyes. Adrasteia had the distinct feeling that, despite Themistocles' generosity, they were still far from welcome here.

"You know," she began as she quickened her stride to keep pace with Themistocles, "You didn't have to pay him so much. He would've almost certainly settled for half the amount you gave him."

Themistocles glanced at her then turned back to stare up the pier toward the Spartans and nodded.

"You're probably right," he said. "But we didn't have time to negotiate, and the good captain is hardly a man of backbone. If we'd paid him only a little over the odds, he'd be less likely to take the risk of staying after we left. The two hundred extra was just added incentive; a bit of a deal sweetener."

His stride lengthened and he strode off ahead of her, gesturing to his soldiers to fall in around them as they stepped off the pier and onto the shore itself.

Ahead of them, the Spartan in red clicked his tongue, and gently spurred his horse toward them at a steady trot. The animal turned as it drew closer to them, presenting its flank and flicking its tail as its rider tugged at the reins to draw it to a stop.

"You are Themistocles of Athens?" the Spartan said. He was a grizzled looking man, with a hard eyed stare. Nevertheless there was something else in the way he looked at them that Adrasteia could not place. It was a strangely haunted look that spoke of dark things he had witnessed. For a moment she felt a strange surge of pity for the man, although she could not really determine why.

Themistocles simply nodded, his hand brushing against the pommel of the sword at his hip.

"I am," he said.

"And them?" the man nodded toward Nikias and Adrasteia

Themistocles half turned and gestured to take in both of them.

"This is the Lady Adrasteia, handmaiden to the Lady Pythia, Oracle of Delphi," he said, before shifting slightly to take in Nikias. "And this gentleman is her...  companion, " he said, giving Adrasteia a respectful nod. "Nikias of... some-where-or-other."

Nikias bristled at that but said nothing, and the Spartan's eyes narrowed. He clearly had not appreciated Themistocles' attempts at levity.

"I am Captain Sentos of the army of Sparta," he said. "Our King, Demosthenes of the line of Akellus, has bid us escort you back to Sparta."

"Looks like I won't be losing that inheritance then," Themistocles grinned, to which the Spartan only responded with a confused frown.

"Your King's offer is appreciated and accepted," Adrasteia spoke up quickly, and Themistocles smiled at her, as if to say  'You're learning'.

"What she said," he smiled turning back to face Sentos. The Spartan captain grunted, and turned his horse.

"If you would please follow me," he said. "The journey is not a short one, and King Demosthenes wishes for us to bring you to him with as much haste as we can manage."

"Well he may be disappointed then," Themistocles said as they started to follow Sentos up the beach, and Adrasteia frowned when she noticed he was suddenly walking with an uneven step, one foot dragging slightly behind the other as if he were lame. She could have sworn he had never walked like that before.

"I have this terrible limp as you may have noticed," he continued and shrugged, "an old war injury. There was this Amazon warrior you see, and she was carrying a spear longer than yours..."

Sentos gave another grunt, this time more irritated, and swung down from his horse. He stalked angrily round the animal to stand in front of Themistocles.

"Then you shall ride," he said thrusting the reins into Themistocles' hands. Themistocles shot him a satisfied smile as he swung easily up into the saddle.

"And my companions?" he said. "Surely you do not expect a handmaiden to the Oracle of Delphi to walk all the way to Sparta?"

Sentos shot him an irritated glance.

"Horses will be provided for them," he said, making a gesture toward the other lead Spartan, who simply nodded then turned and gave a barely audible instruction to the men behind him. Adrasteia watched as several Spartans began to lead a collection of unmounted horses toward the group, clearly spares they had brought along with them.

"Now there's a good fellow," Themistocles said, smiling. With a click of his tongue and a dig of his heels, he turned his mount and began to urge it forward at a steady trot. "Well shall we be about it then?" he called back over his shoulder. "Daylight is wasting after all."

Adrasteia could see the Spartan's jaw muscles tensing as he watched Themistocles ride away from them.

"Try not to let it bother you so much," she said, stepping up beside him. "He has that effect on pretty much everyone."

"He'll be lucky if he makes it all the way to Sparta if he keeps up like that," Sentos muttered. "If one of the others doesn't put a spear between his ribs then I just might." He looked at her out of the corner of his eye and let out a low sigh of surrender.

"My apologies," he said, turning to face her more fully. "You are guests of Sparta after all, and I should not have spoken of your friend in such a manner. Please forgive me."

"He's hardly my friend," she said, starting up the beach with him, Nikias and the five Athenian soldiers in tow. "I only met him for the first time a couple of days ago."

"And did he make as good a first impression on you as he has on me?" Sentos said, giving her a wry smile.

"I think I may have wanted to strangle him within the first five minutes," Adrasteia replied.

"Five minutes," Sentos nodded thoughtfully. "Surely a world record."

Adrasteia laughed at that as they began to follow Themistocles up the beach. It did not take her long to notice the man's slightly uneven stride. It was far less pronounced that Themistocles' more theatrical display, but there was no doubting it. The man was lame.

"Are you injured?" she asked, nodding toward the leg the man did not favour. He frowned at her for a moment then suddenly realised what it was she was talking about.

"A recent battlefield injury," he nodded, then cast a glance toward Themistocles, "and one that is quite genuine I assure you."

"But what battle has there..." Adrasteia began, then stopped as the truth of his words suddenly hit her. "You were at Thermpoylae!"

Sentos nodded gravely.

"I was."

"But I thought Leonidas and his three hundred were wiped out to the man," Adrastei said softly.

"I am the only survivor," Sentos replied, "and not by choice I might add. I was ordered to return to Sparta to carry news of the defeat there."

Adrasteia was not sure what to say. On the one hand, it was almost good to hear that at least someone had survived that terrible battle. On the other though, Sentos did not seem entirely pleased by that fact. She could only imagine the guilt he must feel at being the only man ordered to survive as the rest of his fellows were ordered to their deaths.

For long moments the two of them simply walked in silence until finally they reached the spare horses that the Spartans had provided for them.

"I must admit, I am surprised that someone of your station was sent," Sentos continued, kneeling and presenting his hands to her with fingers laced together like a makeshift stirrup to help her more easily into the saddle. Adrasteia cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Really?" she said, stepping around him to swing herself easily up onto the animal's back without his assistance. Sentos eyed his interlaced fingers, then shrugged and straightened, crossing to another horse and climbing up onto its back. "And why is that?"

"I had heard that the Oracles rarely travel outside of Delphi," Sentos said.

"I'm not an Oracle," Adrasteia replied.

"Not yet at least," Themistocles called back down the column, from where he had apparently been listening in on their conversation.

Adrasteia shot him a venomous glance then turned back to Sentos.

"Just ignore him and maybe he'll vanish in a puff of smoke," she said.

Sentos nodded grimly.

"I shall endeavour to do precisely that and hope that the outcome is as you say."

As one, the column of Spartans did an about face and began to march back off the beach and into the town of Tryxis proper. A number of the locals had gathered in side streets to watch them pass, and Adrasteia could not help but notice the fearful looks in their eyes as the Spartans strode past in their perfectly even ranks.

"Anyway," she said turning back to Sentos, "you aren't the only ones who should be surprised. We weren't expecting any kind of escort."

"We would hardly be the best of hosts if we did not ensure your safety on your journey to our city now, would we?" Sentos replied, a touch too evenly, as if he did not quite believe the words he was saying.

"But you must have known delegates from other city states wouldn't be traveling unescorted,"

Sentos gave a chuckle, and the hint of derision behind it was obvious.

"What's so funny?" she asked.

"Forgive me," Sentos said, "but a mere ten Athenians is hardly what I would term an escort."

"And what dangers are there in these lands that ten well trained soldiers would prove unable to defend against?" Adrasteia asked, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice. Sentos' lack of respect for the men escorting her was beginning to annoy her greatly. Men willing to lay down their lives so readily deserved better than to be spoken of with disregard.

"First, I would hardly call them soldiers," Sentos said, glancing at the Athenians who were walking a little distance back from the main column. "Farm hands and labourers handed swords and told to march to war do not equal men trained for combat. Second, I take it you saw the burned out buildings around the town as you arrived?"

Adrasteia nodded.

"We did," she said. "I was wondering what had happened to them now that you mention it."

Sentos regarded her carefully for what seemed like minutes. So intense was his scrutiny that Adrasteia had to fight the urge to squirm uncomfortably in her saddle. He was about to open his mouth the speak when the second mounted Spartan rode up to them.

"Bandits happened to them," the man said, earning him a strange look from Sentos, as if he had been about to say something else before the other man interrupted.

"These lands are teeming with them," the man continued, ignoring the red cloaked Spartan captain. "King Demosthenes was concerned for your safety, which was why we were sent to meet with you."

"Lady Adrasteia," Sentos said, gesturing to the man in the blue cloak, "allow me to introduce Lieutenant Orestes, my second in command."

"It is indeed an honour my lady," Orestes said, giving as deep a bow as he could manage on horseback.

"The honour is mine Lieutenant," Adrasteia replied, offering him similar supplication. "But you say it was bandits that attacked this town?"

Orestes nodded.

"Yes, in the early hours several days ago. They killed a large number of townsfolk and put several buildings to the torch in order to cover their escape. It's a pity we were not here sooner. It would have been good exercise for our men, and would have made those scum think twice about attacking a defenceless town like this again in the future."

The column had just entered into what looked like the main town square. Around the square were several burned out buildings, all next to each other. Presumably a single fire at one of them had spread to the rest. A large inn was also facing them from the square's opposite side, and at a right angle to that was a large grey stone building, presumably a town hall. Two rather weary looking men in battered armour were standing guard on the building's doors.

"Defenceless?" Adrasteia pressed as she spied the two armed men. "Does this village not have a guard of its own then?"

Orestes' eyes narrowed as she spoke.

"It does," he said.

"Then should they have not defended it?" Adrasteia continued to push. There was something not right about all this, and she was determined to find her way to the bottom of it. Orestes just glared at her.

"Indeed they should have," came another voice that she recognised all too well. It was Themistocles. "But even the best town guard can still find hardened bandits a tricky proposition," he continued as he rode up to them.

"Lady Adrasteia," he said, turning to face her with a polite nod. "A word if you please?"

Giving a mental curse, she turned and gave Sentos and Orestes a despairing smile. Why did he have to interrupt her now? She had just been starting to get somewhere!

"If you gentleman would excuse me..." she said as politely as she could manage. Easing her horse alongside his, the two of them fell back, allowing Sentos and Orestes to continue on ahead. She and Themistocles sat in silence, watching as the column moved by them with the steady pound-pound-pound of hundreds of pairs of feet.

It was only once the last of the Spartans had passed out of earshot, that Themistocles began to speak again.

"I must admit," he began, not so much as glancing at her as he spoke, "my memory is not all it could be, so please try not to take offence if I'm mistaken in this, but I  distinctly  recall impressing upon you earlier just how dangerous this situation is."

"You recall correctly," Adrasteia replied evenly.

"Then do you want to explain to me exactly exactly what it is you thought you were doing just now?"

Adrasteia set her shoulders defiantly

"Getting information."

Themistocles turned to face her for the first time, his head cocked slightly to one side.

"Information?" he said disbelievingly.

"They're lying about the reason they came to meet us," Adrasteia replied, her voice lowered conspiratorially. "They're not here to protect us from bandits. There likely aren't even any bandits around here, and even if there are, they certainly didn't attack this town."

Themistocles reached up and squeezed the bridge of his nose tightly, as if he had a sudden headache.

"Olympus save me,” he groaned softly before continuing on in a lecturing manner as if he were speaking to a particularly dim witted child. “Of course they were lying. Bandits don't operate along major trade routes and they certainly don't attack hub towns like Tryxis. If they did, they'd be all but asking for some local city state or land holder to send an army or mercenary band after them. More to the point; if you do happen to be a bandit, and you just so happen to want to keep your head on your shoulders where it should be, you certainly don't operate within a thousand leagues of Sparta."

"But if all of that's true and there are no bandits to threaten us, aren't you in the least bit curious as to what really happened here?" Adrasteia protested, motioning toward one of the burned out husks that had once been some kind of town-house.

Themistocles leaned in close to her, his voice suddenly low and dangerous.

"Learn to read between the lines!" he hissed angrily. "If you do, maybe we might just make it out of here alive. Whatever it is that happened here is clearly the reason this escort was sent in the first place! Demosthenes obviously wants one eye kept on us to make sure we don't see or do more than what he wants us to. If you start marching around like a bull in a potters yard, asking your bare faced questions all guileless and innocent, these men will clam up tight, and all you'll have succeeded in doing is arousing their suspicions." He leaned back in his saddle, his steady gaze still fixed on her. "If you do that, you put all of us in danger. I for one would rather not have my throat cut while I sleep and, I imagine, neither would you."

Adrasteia gave a slight swallow and nodded. She was beginning to see exactly why it was that Themistocles had been so successful as an Archon in Athens. After less than a half hour ashore, he already seemed to have a better handle on the situation than she did. Maybe it would pay to listen to him more closely in the future.

"Alright," she said. "But we  do  need more information. If your read of all this is correct, then whatever it is that's actually going on out here has Demosthenes worried, and if that's the case, then maybe it's something we can use against him."

Themistocles gave her a slight smile.

"At least you catch on quick," he said. "Yes, we do need to know more, but we're not going to learn it by blundering about asking inappropriate questions to the first Spartans we come across."

His face straightened and he glanced cautiously at the column of soldiers up ahead of them.

"Soon we'll be in a city full of them," he reminded her with a nod toward the soldiers, "so keep your wits about you and learn to watch and listen. Do enough of that, and maybe, just maybe the mists will start to clear, and we'll begin to get a clearer picture of what's really been going on around here."

"And if we do manage to learn the truth?" Adrasteia asked quietly. "What do we do then?"

"Pray to whichever god you think will listen that we make it out of here alive," Themistocles replied.

Chapter Six: Darker Down Below

The time she had suffocated in quicksand was the one and only time Callisto could remember having almost been on the verge of panic.

To this day, the memories of that first death still lurked unpleasantly at the back of her mind and it took next to no effort at all for her to recall them. First came the memory of the sand itself, and the thick, damp texture it had had as it slid uselessly between her fingertips while she scrabbled vainly for some kind – any kind – of purchase. Then she would remember the feeling of her heart thundering in her chest as the cold and creeping realisation that she was about to die, and die horribly, had taken firm root in the pit of her stomach. The sound of her own voice, meek and plaintive as she had cried out to Xena for aid, still disgusted her to this day. At the time, the only thing that had mattered was that she had not wanted to die. Xena, terrible as it was to admit it, had been her one shot at survival.

It was a shot that had not paid off.

One of the last things she could remember seeing before she had sunk down into the the mire was of those icy blue eyes watching her disappear, inch by inevitable inch. The very last memory she had though, and the one that still sent chill fingers clawing along her spine even now, was of the sand closing over her head, swallowing her desperate cries and choking her as it had begun to fill her screaming mouth.

It had been a truly terrible end, that even she, twisted and cruel though she had been, would not have wished on anyone... except maybe for Xena herself. The fact that it was happening to her and not to Xena had only made it that much worse. She could easily recall the loss of all sensation save that of pain as the sand had clung to her, holding her fast while it smothered and silenced her at the same time. Her lungs had begun to burn fiercely, she recalled, and she had wanted to cry out in pure, frustrated rage and agony, but the heavy sand pressing in on her from all sides had made a mockery of that, swallowing her wasted effort as easily and completely as it had already swallowed her. Finally, as her suffering began to verge on the unbearable, the darkness of her end had begun to crawl in all around her, soaking up what little of her spirit had remained until, eventually, there had been nothing left...

...And now that same darkness was pressing in around her again, and just like back then she could feel her heart beginning to pound manically in her chest as the all consuming blackness began to smother her once more. Her breath started to become increasingly rapid, escaping from her in ragged panting gasps that seemed far louder than they should have against the silence that surrounded her. Why had she allowed the other her to trick her so easily? She had never thought of herself as so stupid that she would let her guard down in such a manner, but let her guard down she had, and now she was trapped; shoved through an open door and into this pit of black nothingness as easily as a lamb being sent to the slaughter.

The mere thought of it sparked something inside her; a furious anger that quickly caught aflame in her gut, and burned hot and hard against the blackness.

"WHY!?" she screamed back in the direction she thought she had come from, her anger easily scouring the cloying sense of fear from her. "WHY ARE YOU TORTURING ME? I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING! DO YOU HEAR ME? ANYTHING! IT WASN'T ME! IT WAS NEVER ME!"

The darkness remained silent. If the other her was out there somewhere, she was choosing to remain silent too.

Frustrated, Callisto gritted her teeth and span on the spot, straining her eyes against the inky blackness as she tried to determine what to do next. Her options were apparently limited. She could either stay here, standing alone in the dark and hoping for something to happen, or she could head off in whichever direction she felt like and see what she could find. With a grunt, she started walking, but before she had even gone two steps, she stopped as the sound of her own footfalls echoed back at her.

Frowning, she stamped her foot hard against the floor. The sound of boot leather smacking hard against wooden floorboards drifted through the dark.

Where was she? Inside the house? The house had had windows though, and if they were there, surely there should be some kind of daylight filtering in from outside?

She turned a full three sixty, squinting once again to see if she could make out anything at all. The wooden floorboards creaked ominously as her weight shifted but she ignored them. Finally as she came back around to face the original direction she had been heading, or at least as close as she could judge it considering she could barely see her hand in front of her own face, she caught sight of something out among the darkness. A warm orange pinprick of light was flickering faintly in the far distance. Unless she was very much mistaken, it was the light of a fire. The confusion and disorientation she was feeling grew stronger at the sight of it. Had the light been there before? Had she really been so blind as to miss it the first time around?

She shook her head.

No, she was certain that was not the case. In this otherwise impenetrable blackness, even the smallest hint of light would have stood out to her like a beacon. It would have been impossible not to notice it if it had been there before, meaning that someone or something had lit it. The distance of it was what had her confused now. The light was too far away to place her inside the house. But if that was the case, then where was she? How could she step through a door into a house and yet not be inside the house?

Somewhere in the back of her mind, the memory of a glowing yellow lake stretching away from her though a huge underground cavern stirred briefly to the surface. A memory of the smell of sulfur came with it, and on top of that, the image of a man clad head to toe in black and being trailed by shadows that crept and crawled as if they were living things.

" Palaces of the mind,"  a familiar voice out of the past whispered in her head, and Callisto frowned. What did it all mean?

With a shrug, she cast off the memories and started to make her way toward the distant pinprick of light. All this pondering and procrastination was getting her nowhere fast. There really was no other choice but to investigate. After all, what else was she about to try and do?

She strode quickly through the dark, her earlier caution and confusion now having given way to irritation and curiosity. Her fingers flexed and tensed at her side as she walked and she longed to feel the course leather of her sword's hilt between them. It felt strange not to have it now, as if someone had taken her own arm away from her.

Slowly, as she drew nearer, the light began to grow larger and stronger, and as it did so she was more and more able to make out the details that surrounded it. The glow itself was beginning to resolve into the predicted flickering of firelight, and it danced and capered inside an old, rough-hewn stone hearth. Silhouetted against the prancing flames was a long dining table with a chair at the head of it. The chair was turned away from the table, facing the flames while its high back obscured Callisto's view of any who might be sitting in it.

Even though it spread out to either side of her, the soft warm glow seemed to stop abruptly, cut short to her left and right by two solid, parallel lines of darkness that stretched from the floor to up and above her heard. There, the lines curved to meet one another in a single, unbroken arch. The fireplace, table and chair were in another room she realised, and this hard black arch that cut off the glow was clearly some kind of doorway.

She paused as she drew even with it, reaching out to let her fingertips brush against it. Like the fireplace in the room beyond, the doorway was made of cold, hard stone, imperfectly cut, but still built firm and solid.

From where she stood, she could more clearly see the fireplace and the chamber that it lit, and as she took it all in, she felt a dull ache begin to throb in the back of her throat. She was standing on the edge of the living room of the house she had grown up in, but something about it was not right. It was longer than she remembered, stretching out cavernously before her in an oddly distorted fashion that seemed lengthen unnaturally at the edges. It should have been warmer than it was too; more inviting and welcoming. Now it was dark save for the firelight, and even that did not penetrate the blackness as far as it should.

She could remember spending much of her childhood mooching about this place, getting under her mother's feet while her father would try in vain to fix the leaky roof thatch in the corner for what seemed like the hundredth time. Her sister would have been playing in the bedroom they had shared, or maybe out in the yard, and the scent of her mother's cooking would fill the air. It had always been the scent of freshly baked bread that she had loved most; that and her mother's fantastic roast chicken. None of those memories seemed like they could have ever taken place in this room though. The atmosphere was hard and stark, the stone beneath her fingers as cold as ice, and the table and chair stark and imposing, rather than homely and welcoming. Try as she might to recall the space fondly, the only feeling that her efforts could conjure was a gnawing sense of loss. Almost by reflex, she sniffed, and then recoiled at the faintly sulphuric scent that greeted her.

Cautiously she edged into the room, stepping up to the table and running her fingers over the polished wood grain as she walked along its length. The ache in her throat grew keener as she went and the more she tried to hang on to the memories of her family, and the life she had had stolen from her, the more the details of it all seemed to slip away from her. She could barely remember her mother and father's faces, she realised, and there were other things missing too; things she should be able to remember but could not. Her sister had liked to play, but she could not think with what. Her mother had used to hum while she cooked, but she could not recall what the melody had been. Then there was her father. When she had been very young, before her sister had even been born, she could remember him holding her on his knee and telling her stories before putting her to bed. Like the rest of it though, the sound of his voice and the stories themselves... all gone.

As she approached the chair, she could make out the top of a person's head poking just above its high back, and at the sight of the raven hair, she felt her heart skip a beat in both trepidation and anticipation. She had done this before, she remembered now; more times than she could count in fact, and she knew exactly who it was that was seated before the fireplace.

Sure enough, as she rounded the chair to stand in front of it, she was confronted by the familiar sight of Xena's shrunken and decaying corpse sitting rigid and straight backed before her. Dry, bony fingers curved around the chair's arm rests, and the hair, still a brown so dark it was almost black, hung thin and limp about her skull, its previous sleekness now completely lost. The lips were peeled back over the body's teeth in a taught and terrible rictus grin, and the teeth themselves, once strong and white, were blackened and rotting. It was the eyes that made the biggest impression on Callisto though. Xena had always had an icy blue stare so sharp it could practically carve through stone, but now those same eyes had become a sightless grey, and they stared dry and unblinking into the flames that crackled hotly in the fireplace. If they had not been open, and it were not so obviously a corpse, Xena's body would almost have appeared to be sleeping

Slowly, almost reverently, Callisto dropped to one knee in front of chair, tilting her head as she met the corpse's stare eye for eye. Without really knowing why, she reached out and brushed her fingers softly against the thin papyrus skin stretched tight across the hard tendons on the back of Xena's hand. The only sound in the room came from the dull crack of splintering wood in the fire place. Tenderly, she reached out with her other hand and began to run a finger along the corpse's cheek, tracing the line of the bones beneath.

"You took everything from me," she began softly, "but then you never actually denied that did you? Everything that ever mattered to me... friends... home... family... you stole all of them and left me alone. It took me a long time to even really understand how much damage you did, how deep my hatred for you ran. My uncle wanted me to try and put it behind me; my family... the fire...   you.  I even tried. I don't think you ever knew that, but I honestly did; for a little while at least."

As her finger reached the Xena-corpse's chin, she suddenly seized it hard, long fingers digging sharply into the brittle flesh.

"It never worked, though," she snarled bitterly. "Every morning I would wake up, and for a split second everything would be normal, like nothing had ever happened. Then I'd remember your face, and it was like listening to my mother and sister's dying screams all over again. Whichever way I went and whatever way I looked, there you were. You've been in my life so long, there's no room for anything else, and I don't know which is worse; that you took my family away from me, or that every time I think of them, the only face I can see is yours." Her fingers had begun to dig deeply into the hand she was grasping as she spoke, and now she could feel the small bones in the corpse's hand beginning to splinter and crack as her anger took a firm hold of her.

"I hate you!" she snapped sharply, her voice rising with her choler. She straightened suddenly releasing her grip on the corpse momentarily, only to seize it roughly by its leathers so that she could haul it upright to hold it's rotting face mere centimetres from her own. "For everything you did to me, everything you took from me, I will never stop hating you Xena! NEVER!"

With a final furious scream she span on the spot, hurling the corpse toward one of the room's nearby walls. The body was so light it barely even took any effort at all. It flew from her grip and crashed hard against the wall, its bones shattering as easily as if they were made from fired clay. It slumped to the ground in a broken heap, but none of that was enough for Callisto. She pressed her assault, the barely controllable rage coursing through her veins like wildfire as she delivered kick after savage kick to the downed body. With each fresh strike, the corpse seemed to wither and shrink away from her a little more, becoming increasingly small and pathetic until it was just a crumpled mess of battered arms and legs. Panting hard from the effort of it all, she collapsed back into the now empty chair, eyeing what remained of the body ruefully as she did so.

"You want to know the really twisted part?" she managed to say once her breathing had evened out. "I think I actually used to kind of enjoy it. Me and you I mean. At least when we were fighting there was something I could cling to, some small spark that told me I wasn't completely dead inside."

Her gaze drifted up to the ceiling rafters over head.

"I stopped enjoying it after Solan, though. I mean, what else was there I could do to you? Besides kill you obviously. There was nothing left for me, and I just felt so tired and empty. You had been the worst and best thing in my life, and then suddenly I was done with you. I didn't know what to do with myself after that. I still don't now. All I do know is that me and you, we're finished, over, ended. I want to be able to live without hearing your voice inside my head anymore, and I want to be able to wake up in the mornings without seeing your face and having to remember afresh each time just how much I despise you."

She paused, her eyes narrowing slightly as she continued to regard the broken heap that had once been Xena.

"I never will though will I?" she said softly, then with a final frustrated groan, she slumped back in the chair and hung her head in her hands.

"Gods how I hate you," she muttered.

"You know something?" her own voice echoed to her from somewhere else in the room. "You really are quite pathetic!"

Callisto reacted as if stung, surging back to her feet, and whirling to face the source of the voice at the same time. As she did so, the room seemed to contort madly about her, and she felt bile rising in her throat. She reached out to steady herself against the table, but even that small measure did precious little to help.

Finally, the dizzying sensation began to fade and as it did, and her vision cleared, her eyes widened in surprise. Either the chair and fireplace had moved or she had. She was standing at the opposite end of the table again, the fire burning in the hearth the length of the room away and with the chair positioned how it had been before; between the dining table and the fireplace. Other details had changed however. This time the chair was turned to face her, the corpse seated in it once again, as it had been before, seemingly none the worse for wear after Callisto's vicious assault on it.

These were the least of the changes however.

There were more chairs now, running in parallel lines along the lengths of either side of the table, and each of them was occupied. Two rows of faces stared back at her, all of them familiar. Among them she could make out Theodorus again, the gash across his throat still gaping wide. There was Strife too with a dagger wound in his gut, and Methades, Caelon, Herriod and Sev next to him. All of them wore the wounds that had killed them, and all were watching her, their faces impassive masks save for their eyes which were narrowed and accusatory.

The figure at the end of the table was the one that drew her gaze the most though. It was there that Callisto's own doppelganger was standing. She was leaning nonchalantly against the seat in which the Xena-corpse was seated, a dark and malicious grin splitting her face, while the flickering fire at her back cast her shadow down the length of the table and between the figures seated to either side of her.

"I mean really," the other her continued, reaching out to pet the Xena-corpse's head as if it were some kind of small dog. "After all this time it's still Xena, Xena, Xena with you."

Callisto felt her teeth grinding against one another and her fingers worked the air at her sides in frustration. There was something about seeing her own face smiling cruelly at her and hearing her own voice taunting her that made her want to scream. Instead she took a step toward the table, keenly aware of the many pairs of eyes that were focused on her.

"So this is it?" she fired back challengingly, motioning toward the seated corpse in frustration. "This is the truth you said would set me free? That all my anger, all my hatred; it all boils down to Xena? That I'll have to live with what she did to me for the rest of my days?" She let out a bitter laugh. "Hardly a revelation."

The grin never left the other her's face, but her eyes suddenly turned stoney and cold.

"And again, you're missing the point entirely," she hissed. "It's quite impressive really, this talent you have for self deception."

She gestured toward Xena's corpse.

"This isn't about you and Xena. It hasn't been for a long time."

Callisto felt her anger beginning to bubble to the surface again. Her patience with this endless mockery was wearing thin.

"Then what   is  it about?" she snapped sharply. "What is this place supposed to be, and why are we even here?"

The other her clapped her hands together in delight and smiled broadly.

"Did you here that boys!?" she laughed to the shades of Callisto's past seated around the table. "She wants us to tell her what this is all about!"

None of them replied. They did not even so much as glance at the other her, their many stares instead remaining firmly fixed on Callisto herself. Still smiling, the doppelganger straightened and began to walk toward her. As she went, she pulled a dagger from the sheath at her hip and began to trail the blade playfully across the shoulders of the seated figures as she passed behind them.

"But why have us tell you, when you already know the answers?" she continued, a glint of amusement sparkling in her eyes. "You built this place for yourself after all; your own private little palace of righteous indignation at the injustices of the world. It's the place you would always retreat to when the truth of what you had become loomed bleakly in the back of your mind."

Her grin widened and she turned to take in the rest of the room, gesturing casually toward the fireplace with the dagger as she did so.

"Quite homey down here really, don't you think," she continued, casting a backward glance at Callisto. "Secure and snug, deep in the heart of all your pain and fury, safely ensconced in the knowledge that they would protect you, and that here you could lie, deceive and cheat yourself to your hearts content."

Callisto's jaw tensed, not liking the words she was hearing, and the other her's grin turned sly and calculating as she took note of it.

"Not quite the haven you wanted it to be anymore though is it?" she taunted, turning fully back to face Callisto once more and leveling the dagger at her at the same time. "Not now that I've found it. Well you'd better start getting used to it. I'm like a crashing wave after all. Even the strongest stone can't hold me at bay forever, and now that I'm through your walls, I'll always be here, waiting for you."

Something about what the other her was saying tweaked Callisto's memory, and a hazy recollection of her own face speaking to her, but with a different cadence and rhythm to its speech tickled irritatingly at the back of her mind. She did her best to push it to one side, instead trying to focus on the confrontation at hand.

"If that's the case," she began to reply, doing her best to speak with the same level of nonchalance as her doppelganger, and not really succeeding. "what exactly   are  you then?"

The other her took a calculated step toward her, and Callisto had to fight the sudden urge she was feeling to reach out and throttle the other woman. She was within arms reach after all and it would only take a moment to fasten her fingers around the other hers throat and squeeze...

The doppelganger tilted her head slightly as if she could tell what Callisto was thinking, and her grin widened.

"Me?" she answered innocently. "I thought you'd already figured that part out. I mean, haven't I been giving you enough hints. Well, if I have to spell it out for you, it's really quite simple," her voice began to take on a sing song tone as she spoke, "I am I, and you are you, and... I... am... you!"

She almost giggled to herself at the last part. Callisto just rolled her eyes in response.

"Then I'll have to make a note to speak more plainly in the future," she said. "All this double talk is starting to make my head hurt."

It was too. Somewhere in the centre of her skull, a sharp sliver of pain had buried itself and was gradually beginning to spread outward.

"Awww," her doppelganger replied, her voice dripping with venomous sarcasm. Slowly, she began to circle around Callisto, hands clasped together in front of her, toying playfully with the dagger as she did so. "Poor little thing. Suffering all over again are we? Sometimes, I wonder how you can even stand it. So hard done by the world. So broken and beaten down. It's a miracle you didn't turn out to be a mass murdering lunatic..." She paused as if thinking about what she had just said for a moment, then suddenly clapped her hands together in excitement.

"...Oh wait..." she continued, stepping back into Callisto's eye line. "...Yes you did!"

"If you're really me, you know it wasn't like that!" Callisto snapped back defensively as she whirled to face her. "I didn't do any of it because I wanted to! I did it to get to Xena..." The pain in her head flared sharply, becoming more pointed and keen with each passing moment. Wincing slightly she tried harder to concentrate. "...so that our family could have..."

"...Our family could have what?" the doppelganger cut her off sharply, not giving her the chance to organise her thoughts. "Justice? Peace? You never wanted any of that. Not really. Or at least not for them. Still, I'm sure they would just be   so  proud of you. Mummy and Daddy's darling little Callisto, their beautiful daughter, the apple of their eye, ending lives across across the length and breadth of Greece, and all for what, hmmm? Some paltry, petty need for revenge?"

Suddenly she whirled to face Xena, her finger thrust out pointedly toward the corpse. Her voice was rising now, becoming hard and cutting like barbed steel as she she hit her stride. Callisto could feel her own anger rising in response to it.

"You could have had your revenge anytime you wanted!" the other her continued "You even did! Time and again you managed to hurt Xena, and not only her. Gabrielle, Joxer, Hercules, Iolaus; everyone you have ever met has been made to suffer thanks to   your  misery, but you never really noticed any of that did you? You were too wrapped up in your own pain, your own suffering, and so you started lying to yourself didn't you. You told yourself you were being righteous! You told yourself you were punishing the wicked!"

"I WAS!" Callisto shouted at the other her's back. The pain in her head was becoming more intense as her anger was growing fiercer. "WE WERE! That's exactly what we were doing!"

Her doppelganger looked back over her shoulder toward her, her teeth bared like some hungry cat about to pounce on its prey.

"Keep telling yourself that deary," she snarled, her words haunting to Callisto in their familiarity. "Maybe someday you might actually believe it. When all's said and done though, you can't fool me. I know what you   were , what you   still  are; a spiteful, selfish child, broken, bitter and so self absorbed that you never noticed the scores of innocents paying the price for your actions!"

Something inside Callisto finally snapped at that last accusation, and she thrust a long finger outward toward Theodorus and the others seated at the table.

"You're trying to tell me   he  was innocent!" She yelled, pointing to the next figure in line as she spoke. "Or him? Or him? Are you trying to tell me that I didn't give them   exactly  what they had coming? Theodorus was a thug! The man had all the mercy of child pulling the legs off a spider! And as for the rest; Strife was an obsequious worm! Caelon was a bandit, Sev a sadist, Herriod a coward, and Methades a liar and a cheat! They all got precisely what they deserved, less than that even. If you want to talk about regrets, the only regret I   do  have is that I can't do it all again."

The other hers fixed grin took on a gleeful, sadistic tint.

"Ah," she purred softly. "There I am." Slowly, she turned and began to walk back toward Callisto, her every step gracefully sinuous, and reminiscent of a serpent coiling across the ground toward its next meal. As she came closer, the room around them began to swim dizzyingly at the corners of Callisto's vision. The pain in her head was intense now, burning as hot, hard and ferocious as the fire in her belly. She gritted her teeth against it and did her best to retain as much composure as she could.

It was far from easy.

The other her stopped only a few inches from Callisto. She held up the dagger so that the firelight glinted cruelly along its edge.

"We need this, you and me," she said, gazing at the blade with an oddly mournful expression. "We can't live without it. It's our way out, you see. The only way we have ever, and will ever know..." she trailed off, as her eyes became unfocused, and then she was not even looking at the blade, but staring absently into the space beyond, her head tilted slightly as if listening to something far away. Suddenly, she started as if being stirred from a day dream, her eyes snapping back to Callisto in an instant. flipping the dagger as she did so and proffering it hilt first toward her.

"What say we give it a little test hmmm?" she said, nodding toward the seated figures at the table. "See just how well it performs?"

Callisto glanced between the weapon and the rows of seated figures then back again before finally looking up at her doppelganger, her eyes narrowed and angry.

"Oh don't look at me like that," the other her sneered. "You wanted another shot at them. I'm just giving it to you."

With a cautious hand, Callisto reached out and took the dagger from her, the hilt balanced lightly between her finger tips as she turned it over. There was nothing special about it in anyway. It was finely crafted and well balanced, but there was nothing to place it apart from the hundreds of other well made daggers that might adorn a blacksmith's wall. Still, there was something about the feel of the rough leather beneath her fingers and the way the polished blade caught the flickering firelight that set her more at ease.

Carefully, she let the weapon slide down into the palm of her hand while her fingers closed firmly around the grip. As she did so, she had to fight to suppress an urge to shudder that was coming over her. The weapon settled easily into the palm of her hand and with the feel of its reassuring weight, the pain in her head began to lance cruelly outward in every direction.

Ignoring the spearing sensations between her temples, she hefted the dagger a couple of times. It's balance was so perfectly even that it almost felt like it had become an extension of her, as if it were all her hate and rage given a shape and purpose. Having it clenched tightly between her fingers gave her a sense of strength she could not remember having felt in a long time, and something about that did not just feel good. It felt... right.

This was right.

This was the way everything was supposed to be.

She lifted her gaze from the dagger back to the doppelganger, who in turn was still eyeing her hungrily.

"You want me to..." she began to say, but before she could even finish the other her was already nodding vigorously.

"...Do them,” she hissed. “Yes!”

Callisto returned her gaze to the men at the table. None of their expressions' had changed. They were all still watching her with those hate filled accusatory stares. As soon as her eyes met theirs, she felt a small shard of doubt pierce her thoughts, muggy as they were with the pain inside her head. Up until now, she could not remember ever having regretted her actions before. She had never had reason to. Suddenly though, fixed as she was beneath those intense, hateful glares, she felt decidedly less sure of herself and of the things she had said before.

"Why hesitate?" the other her began, crossing to her side and whispering quietly in her ear. "This is it after all; the opportunity you said you wanted, the chance to punish them all over again."

Her hand came up to push a strand of hair affectionately from Callisto's face, and when she spoke again, her other self's words were little more than a suggestive murmur. "You have the means, you have the skill; you even have the desire. What is it that's holding you back? Don't you remember how good it felt? Don't you want to feel like that again? The rush of fire in your veins? The sweet release when you make the kill and then the blissful calm of the moment after? Admit it to yourself; those moments, they were the only times you ever truly felt alive, weren't they?"

Suddenly a half formed memory drifted to the surface of Callisto's mind. It was of the forest not far from her home, and of the huge birch tree at its centre that she and the other children from the village had loved to climb. She remembered making it to the top once, and the feeling of exultation that that achievement had brought her.

"I..." she began to respond, her voice already starting to waver slightly.

"Weren't they!?" her other self cut her off.

The sharpness of her own voice, so filled with accusation and venom, shattered the hazy recollection in an instant and all Callisto could think to do was nod in response. Her doppelganger was right. She wanted to feel it again; the fire, the heat, the passion and it did not really matter to her which she felt or to what degree. All she knew was that she wanted to feel something... feel anything really, beyond the stark hollowness that had begun to eat away at her.

Slowly, she began to advance across the room toward the table, the sound of her boots on the wooden boards beneath her feet echoing loudly in the sudden silence. Strife was seated nearest and his eyes tracked her as she went. Even with the dagger glinting wickedly in her grasp as she approached, his expression never changed.

"Yes!" she heard the other her whisper darkly at her back. For a moment she paused, standing over Strife. The uncertainty she had felt earlier had returned, gnawing insistently at the back of her mind like a dog worrying at a bone. She shifted uncomfortably, lifted the dagger and stared at it in confusion. Why was this suddenly so hard? It had always used to come to her as easily and naturally as breathing before.

"What are you waiting for?" the other her said, her voice taking on a savage tilt. "You want him dead don't you? Why hesitate? Do it! Gut him the same way as you did before. I promise you, it will not disappoint!"

The stabbing pains inside her head were almost feverish in their intensity now. She wanted them gone. She wanted it all to be gone. This room, this place, these people, the image of her own manically grinning face; all she wanted was to feel something else. Something different.

Tightening her grip on the dagger, her decision made and her course set, she leaned forward, reaching out with her free hand to pin Strife's shoulder to the chair. He made no effort to stop her, his eyes – still so filled with loathing and disgust – finally meeting hers. Callisto did her best to ignore them as she drew back the dagger for the killing strike. Her heart was thundering in her chest now, and her blood raced as the thrill of the kill closed in all around her. The pain in her head had become like a drumbeat of stabbing needles across her consciousness, but it did not seem to bother her so much anymore. She felt separate now, strangely divorced from what was going on around them, almost as if she were floating over the scene and that it was not really her doing any of this.

She barely even registered the resistance of flesh against steel when she drove the dagger forward, or even heard her other self's delighted cackling laughter as she did so. The only thing she could hear was her own scream as she carried out the deed and murdered Strife for the second time. It was a truly wretched sound, full of hate and rage and misery, so cracked and broken that it pained even her to hear it.

Then suddenly it was all over and she was snapping back into herself. The fierce pain inside her head was gone, replaced instead by a stark feeling of emptiness, and her throat was sore and hoarse. Her fingers were still wrapped around the dagger's hilt and her palms were sticky with sweat as her breath came in ragged, irregular gasps. She could not remember ever having felt more drained in her entire life. Even waking up in Tartarus after having been stabbed by the Hind's Blood Dagger had not left her feeling so hollowed out and exhausted.

It took her only a few more moments to realise that the clamminess on her hands was not in fact sweat. Her fingers were soaked with Strife's blood. It had run down the length of the dagger after she had stabbed him, only now when she looked, she did not see a dagger anymore. Instead of the dagger, she was gripping the hilt of a sword and for a moment she could only stare at it in confusion. Suddenly she released it as if it were a live adder. She did not know what she had been thinking or what had possessed her, but none of this was what she had wanted. The blood still pounding terribly in her ears, her eyes flashed wildly up to the figure in the chair and widened in horror as she saw who was now seated there.

It was not Strife.

This man was shorter than Ares' nephew had been, and instead of being clad head to toe in leather, he was dressed in a tan leather jerkin worn over a large, billowing white shirt. That same shirt was now soaked through with a steadily growing blossom of blood across the man's gut where the sword had torn through him, and his hands were pressed around the open wound as if he could somehow push the ruined flesh back together. His hair was a thick dark mop, and his eyes – brown like hers – were already glazing over with that unseeing stare of the dead. He looked familiar to Callisto, but it took her a moment to truly recognise him. When she finally did, she felt her stomach begin to twist itself in knots, and the fury burning in the pit of her stomach, normally so implacable and irresistible, began to splutter slightly.

"Perdicus!?" she all but gasped.

She had never really known Perdicus. The one time she had met him being the time she had killed him. She had not known his name then, only even learning it long after she had already ended his life. He had served her purely as a means to an end, having only the terrible misfortune of being married to Gabrielle, and as such, a perfect target for Callisto's sadistic side. She could still remember the look on Xena's face when she had run the man through, and the way Gabrielle's desperate cries of loss and fury had lent her some small measure of satisfaction. She had hurt them both that day, and up until now, she could not remember ever having given the deed a second thought, let alone actually regretting it.

"Ah!" the other her sighed happily, "Such a familiar face isn't he?" Her dark and gleeful giggle filled the air, giving Callisto's anger a fresh source of fuel. Barely even thinking, she rounded on her doppelganger hotly.

"Why!?" she demanded loudly. "Why did you make me do this?"

"Me?" the other her snapped back, discarding her amusement in an instant. "I didn't make you   do  anything! You've always been the one in charge! The one in control! I've just been the passenger along for the ride. You could have stopped this at any time, and you know it! You didn't though, did you, and why exactly is that?" Her face twisted with disgust. "It's because you wanted it!" she all but spat. "BECAUSE YOU NEEDED IT!"

As her other self spoke, the room around them began to tremble, and as her anger grew, so too did the intensity of the tremors. It did not take long for the whole room to begin to shake violently as tremor after tremor buffeted the rough cut stone. The fire beneath the hearth danced wildly in time with each fresh quake, and its flickering light sent ghastly shadows prancing madly across her doppelganger's face.

So fierce was each quake's shaking of the room, that Callisto was forced to reach out and steady herself against the table to keep her footing. The other her did not even appear to notice them, riding each rippling crack that passed through the stone as easily as if she were standing still.

"So here we are, yet again," she continued, pirouetting on the spot like a dancer, her arms flung wide to take in the entire room, "watching as you try to hide from the truth of what you are, of   who  you are and of what you've done! Well I'm here to tell you that there's no hiding from it, no denying it, and certainly no denying  me . Not anymore. Perdicus died on the end of your sword Callisto, and he did so for nothing! No, not even that much. It was less than nothing, and he wasn't the only one either. There have been so many others too, all of them too numerous to mention..."

At the last words, the tremors reached their crescendo, and a terrible, blunt cracking sound filled the air. Then, unexpectedly, the tremors came to an end and the deafening roar of stone grinding against stone ceased. For a moment all fell completely silent, and Callisto was about to try and say something when the walls surrounding them exploded outward in a shower of knife edged debris, leaving the floor boards they were standing on apparently suspended and drifting in a thick miasma of rolling grey mist.

Callisto shifted, feeling a deathly chill take root inside her, causing what remained of the anger that had been feeding her to gutter and die as if someone had just smothered it with wet sand. There was something moving out in that mist, and she had a horrible feeling she knew what. At first she could just make out a single silhouette shuffling slowly through the mist, then came another, and then another, and another, and so on until hundreds of dark outlines filled her vision.

"... and now they're coming for you," the other her taunted darkly.

Slowly the first figures began to emerge from the mist. They were the same faceless villagers she had seen before, the blank masks of flesh they wore completely devoid of any discernible qualities, yet still somehow able to stare at her accusingly.

There were others moving in among them too, and at the sight of them, Callisto felt icy fingers of despair close around her. These newcomers had faces, and worse still, they were faces she recognised. The first she noticed was Silas. Like Perdicus, the arrow wound that had killed the Penthos blacksmith was still fresh, and it shone wetly in the firelight. He stood in among the faceless, a macabre, ghoul like figure, watching her with an expression identical to all those others whom she had come across in this nightmare. Callisto tried to meet his stare defiantly, but as she tried to reach for the fire in her gut she so sorely needed, a cold, empty nothingness was all that greeted her. Unable to hold his gaze any longer, she turned away only to feel her heart sink in dismay as she caught sight of Atrix emerging from the mist as well. Just like Silas, the dead mercenary's eyes were flat and judgmental with none of the wry humour they had had in life.

"This is wrong!" she said, her voice beginning to crack as she met Atrix's level gaze. "They shouldn't be here. They're not like the rest! They shouldn't be looking at me like this!"

"You honestly think that do you?" her doppelganger said, cocking a darkly amused eyebrow at her. "They're here for the same reason as all the others. They want you to know what you did to them."

Callisto took a cautious step back away from the figures who were all ready beginning to close in on her, shaking her head as she did so.

"But I didn't..." she began desperately, her eyes darting back and forth between the shifting figures in the mist, the words choking in her throat even before she could speak them. "I mean... I never..."

Whatever protests she had been about to utter died unsaid in the back of her throat as a third figure emerged from mist, the faceless around him seeming to step aside almost reverently as he passed them. At the sight of this final newcomer her blood ran ice cold.

It was Leonidas.

Still a part of the crowd, he stepped regally from the clusters of faceless and into the nimbus of light being cast by the crackling fireplace. The look he gave her as he came to a standstill was filled with silent condemnation. The endless taunting of her other self, combined with the sight of Atrix, Silas and the faceless had already served to crack her normally cast iron self assuredness, but the simple sight of Leonidas was like a final, terrible hammer blow. It shattered her spirit into a thousand pieces and with a strangled cry of defeat, she span and fled into the mist, desperate to be somewhere, anywhere, but here.

As the mist closed around her she became disorientated, almost immediately unable to tell in which direction she was fleeing and not even caring. She just wanted to get as far away from that haunting mass of people, both faceless and not. Behind her, the drifting clouds of fog quickly swallowed them up, but her doppelganger's insane giggle still somehow managed to dog her every step.

"Where do you think you're going?" the other her yelled after her, and even with what should have been a growing distance between them, she still somehow managed to sound as if she were right on Callisto's heels. "You can't leave now! The fun's just getting started!"

Gritting her teeth, and trying to ignore the other her's mocking voice, Callisto redoubled her efforts. All around her, the banks of fog rolled and swelled, blinding her to what lay ahead, even as she barreled headlong through them. The mist seemed almost to be reaching out for her, long, cold fingers of it clawing wetly at her skin, chilling her to the bone, and sapping what little energy she had remaining. She had been running for what seemed like forever now, and her breath was starting to rattle hollowly in her chest, while her arms and legs felt as heavy as if they had had ten ton blocks of lead tied to them. She did not stop though. She could not stop. Not until she was far, far away from wherever this place was, and so she continued her mad dash into the unknown.

Suddenly the ground beneath her feet changed from the smooth wooden floorboards of the house, to slick uneven stone, damp and treacherous from the mist that surrounded her. As her foot hammered into the ground yet again, she felt it skid out from under her on a particularly smooth and worn patch of stone. With a shout of dismayed surprise, she brought her other foot forward to regain her balance, and was taken aback when the ground that should have been in front of her proved to be entirely absent. Now completely off balance, she teetered on the rim of whatever precipice it was she had managed to dash head long into. Her arms wheeled madly in the air as she tried vainly to regain her equilibrium; then, with that inexorable lurching sensation in the pit of her stomach that she was starting to become all too accustomed to, the world around her twisted again. It tilted crazily on its axis and Callisto could do nothing but let out a frustrated cry of anger and despair as her balance failed and she was pitched head first into the abyss.

Chapter Seven: All the Way to Nowhere

The spine of the hill curved around in a sharp edged rim that blocked the view from the valley below. A small group of figures, numbering no more than fifteen men were huddled in its shadow, traveling cloaks wrapped tightly around themselves to keep out the crisp bite of the autumnal air. Their efforts to stay warm were not aided by the curtain of drizzle that was hanging all about them. The rain was so fine that it was almost akin to mist, and it soaked into everything, leaving their cloaks damp and clothes damper.

Muttering quietly under his breath, Athelis blew on his fingers and rubbed his hands together, stamping his feet at the same time in an effort to keep warm. The weather this last week had been truly abominable, that was for certain. Even with winter just around the corner, the chill in the air remained unseasonably strong, and the miserable grey skies had become an almost permanent feature.

Still muttering to himself, he unslung his bow and checked the strings for what seemed like the eleventh time that morning. The waxed fabric wrapped around them seemed to be keeping the weapon dry for now, but he was not sure how much longer they could wait here. If the weather did not break soon, or their quarry did not show its face, they would have little choice but to turn around and head back to the Helot camp.

Such an outcome was precisely what Athelis was trying to avoid. In the days since Drogo had agreed to lend him his support, Athelis had been looking for the opportunity to put this new found military strength he possessed to the test and it was becoming increasingly important that he do so quickly. If he was to prove that his strategy for taking on the might of Sparta was sound, and that Ithius' conservative leadership was actually hampering the Helots, then he needed a victory and a solid one to boot. For days it had seemed like such an opportunity was almost stubbornly refusing to present itself, and he had spent long hours bemoaning that fact to Callisto's unconscious body in her bed chamber. When one of his scouts – a young fellow called Dion – had returned a few days prior with news of a contingent of Spartans wandering the back lanes and less traveled trails of the territories surrounding Tryxis, Athelis had almost jumped for joy. That they were doubtless searching for the Helots and their camp was of little concern to him. All that did matter was that now he had a target to aim for.

Each day for the last three they had headed out under the cover of going hunting or foraging so as to avoid arousing Ithius' suspicions of their movements. In truth, their hunting had been of a different sort, as they attempted to track down the roving Spartan unit. Despite their best efforts however, they had had little success. The Spartans did not appear to be following any logical search pattern. They were not quartering the area, or sweeping the countryside in any controlled manner. Instead, they just seemed to be wandering aimlessly about, as if hoping to stumble across the Helots by blind luck. One day they would be heading east, then the next they would double back and head west for half a day before then turning south, only to turn north east the next day after that. Their random meanderings had irritated Athelis almost immediately. While their lack of co-ordination made it highly unlikely they would actually track down the Helot camp, it also made their position at any given time difficult – if not impossible – to predict effectively.

Now it was day number four, and with Ithius beginning to become suspicious of their daily 'hunting' trips' inability to scare up much food, Athelis was beginning to wonder if he might not have to rethink his strategy somewhat. The last thing he needed was for Ithius to work out what he was up to and attempt to put a stop to it. He could not allow that to happen. Not when he was this close to getting to the Followers and ultimately to Pelion.

The soft sound of rustling in the long grasses that covered the hillside beneath him called Athelis' attention back to the here and now. Snapping his head around, he looked down the hill and caught sight of Drogo scrambling up the steep slope toward them.

"What's the word?" he asked quietly as the stocky Helot settled next to him.

"We might have them finally," Drogo replied, his breath coming in short pants after the strenuous journey up the hill.

Athelis pulled his water skin from the supply pack at his feet and handed it to the other man. Drogo accepted it with a nod of thanks, uncorking its top with a sucking pop and gulping down a several mouthfuls.

"One of my boys just came back from his scouting," he continued once he had slated his thirst and was stoppering the water skin once more. "Says there were tracks coming into the valley. Enough for a close formation march, although he couldn't get a read on how many men. Circled back around to let us know. If he's right, they'll be through here before long."

Athelis nodded, feeling his pulse quicken in excitement. Could this be it?

"That's good," he said, trying to keep his tone even, but failing to keep an eager glint out of his eye that made Drogo frown when he caught it. "We'll hold position here and wait. When they come through this part of the valley, we'll attack."

Drogo's frown deepened.

"You heard me say he couldn't tell how many of them there were, right?"

Athelis just nodded again.

"There'll be enough to form a phalanx," he said. "Spartans won't ever send fewer men than that into the field."

"That could be over a hundred men," Drogo replied nervously. "There's only thirty of us."

Athelis eyed the other man carefully. At first he had thought Drogo was eager for the chance to fight back. The man had certainly talked a good game, that was for sure, but over the last few days, anxiety had begun to settle over him. Athelis was beginning to wonder just how wise it had been to enlist his aid. He could bring manpower to the cause it was true, but his increasingly hesitant manner was beginning to give doubt to some of the others as well.

He reached out to grip the shorter man firmly by the shoulder, looking him square in the eye as he did so.

"Don't worry so much," he said. "We always knew that we'd be outnumbered. That's why we've been so cautious tracking them. I don't want the casualties on my conscience anymore than you do and if this were a straight up fight, I'd be thinking twice about leading us into it..." he paused, and glanced at the men around them, and the hillside they were waiting on.

"...It's not a straight up fight though," he continued "We've gone about this exactly the right way. The high ground is ours, so we've got the advantage. The bows and arrows are still dry so we can out distance them. When I give the signal we'll attack them at range from both flanks, pick off the majority before they ever know what hits them and lessen their ability to form a phalanx, then we'll close in and finish off the survivors. They'll never know what hit them."

He released Drogo's shoulder and gave the man's bicep a reassuring slap.

"Trust me, this is going to work."

Drogo regarded him for a moment longer, then gave the slightest of slight nods.

"Alright," he said. "What do you need me and mine to do?"

Athelis peeked up over the rim of the hill they were huddled behind toward the crest of another hill less than a kilometre away. The neighbouring slopes were covered in low lying scrub, and if he squinted hard enough, he could just make out Drogo's men lying prone among the shrubbery. They had chosen their position well. From the valley floor below they would be all but invisible.

"You think you can circle back around to your guys without being seen?" he asked Drogo as he ducked back into.

Drogo nodded again.

"Shouldn't be too difficult," he said, and Athelis grinned at him.

"Then get yourself back over there and hold fast. If your scouts have done their job correctly, then I dare say our guests will be joining us before too long. When I give you the signal, we'll roll out the welcome mat for them."

"What will the signal be?" Drogo asked.

"The first Spartan's dying," Athelis answered grimly. "Now you should get going. If your people are right then we don't have much time."

Drogo's eyes narrowed at that, but he said nothing. After a brief moment of silence he turned and scrambled off down the hill without saying another word.

Athelis watched him go, his mind turning as he did so. That occasional creeping doubt he had was back and slinking across his thoughts like scum drifting on the surface of a lake. He fingered the notched dagger he always carried for reassurance. He was doing the right thing. He was certain of it. This was the only way now, the only option left open to him... was it not?

Without thinking his fingers drifted from the dagger to the amulet Pelion had given him, and he felt that same curious tugging sensation he always felt when he handled it, as if it were stirring some unseen beast inside him. It was not too late, the doubts at the back of his mind whispered to him. He could still use the amulet and have it bring Callisto back from whatever nightmare it was that she had fallen into. Having her at his side would almost certainly give him the edge he needed, he was sure of it, and more to the point, it would just be so  much simpler that way. But then, everything he knew about Callisto being a potential weapon to use against Cronus had come from Pelion, and the more he thought about it, the more he came to realise that he was having a hard time reconciling with the notion that the man who had murdered his wife could be in any way trustworthy.

Shuddering as he realised just how much Pelion's silken words had wormed their way into his thoughts, he released his grip on the amulet, letting it fall back into the deep pockets of his jerkin while he turned to peer up over the rim of the hill again. He needed something, anything really, to take his mind off things. Fortunately for him, the sight of what was marching into the valley at that very moment did exactly what he needed it to.

They were fewer Spartans than he had imagined there would be, their formation being only eight ranks deep and eight ranks wide. All of them were clad in the blue cloaks that Athelis remembered the troops of Demosthenes as having worn, and each man was sporting a crested helm that glistened wetly from the drizzle in the air.

Athelis frowned. There was something amiss with the formation. They were marching in perfect lock step, all coordinated and precise, but there the efficiency ended. Their commander had them bunched too closely together. It was a critical failure in their thinking; the kind of mistake made by someone who had only ever studied combat doctrine, without ever having experienced real combat first hand. The compact formation was doubtless this commander's attempt to maintain unit cohesion in the narrow and uneven terrain, keeping his men close together so that they could quickly form the phalanx if need be. It was a strategy that was openly counter productive however. Clumped as tightly together as they were, it would take the Spartans time to get those cumbersome shields into position, and in the mean time they would be completely open and exposed... Athelis felt a tight smile tug at the corners of his mouth. Easy pickings for his archers.

"It's as if they're begging us to shoot them," he muttered under his breath, before ducking back into cover and motioning up and down the line of fifteen men he had crouched alongside him.

"Spread out," he hissed and with a quiet rustling, the Helots obliged, moving out along the rim they were crouched behind until they were evenly spread apart.

"Ready your arrows," Athelis continued, "but don't fire all at once. Keep your shots staggered and the pressure on. I want them off balance so that when the charge comes, they won't know what hit 'em."

A few of the Helots nodded grimly, but most simply grabbed a handful of arrows from their quivers and jabbed them, heads down, into the dirt at their feet as he had trained them to do so that they would be able to draw and loose more quickly should the need arise.

Satisfied, Athelis peered back up over the ridge. The Spartans were almost close enough now, but the rear ranks were still a little further out than he would have liked. Only a few more paces though, and they would all be within striking distance. Gripping his own short bow tightly, he lifted his free hand. From all about him, there came the creaking sound of bow strings being pulled taught.

This was it; the moment of truth, where he proved not only to the rest of them, but to himself as well that, disadvantaged though they were, they could still win. For a brief moment, he felt the amulet weighing heavily in his jerkin again.

"Steady..." he whispered, more for his own benefit than those around him. The soldiers were drawing closer now... just a few more steps...

Four... three...

A doubt suddenly flared brightly in his mind. What was he thinking? He was about to attack a Spartan phalanx with a handful of barely trained former slaves, and all for what? They could not hope to defeat Sparta on their own, not really, but if there was no real chance at victory, why was he even doing any of this? The answer was simple of course.

Pelion.

The memory of the old priest summoned further memories of Corrina, his long dead wife, burned to death in a fire that Pelion had started. That she had been Pelion's own daughter just added to the pain of it all.

Setting his jaw in a firm line, Athelis pushed the doubts to the back of his mind. The soldiers were still marching up the valley toward them, almost within spitting distance now, and blissfully unaware of what was awaiting them.

Two... one.

"LOOSE!" He yelled, surging to his feet, notching an arrow to his cheek and sighting down the length of it in one smooth motion.

An uneven chorus of twanging bow strings sang on the breeze, and Athelis did not wait any longer, letting fly his own arrow in an easy, practiced shot that took one of the soldiers below clean through the throat. Athelis did not even bother to watch the man fall. Instead, he drew a second arrow, sighted it and then released it in the same manner as the first. Another Spartan went down hard.

All around him, the Helots worked their bows, sighting and releasing in a steady torrent of arrows, while on the opposite hillside, Drogo's men leaped to their feet and began pouring still more arrows onto the hapless Spartans below.

Only perhaps they were not so hapless. Athelis had expected the ambush to throw the Spartans into disarray, and cause them to break and scatter, thus lessening the risk of a close in assault. It was not playing out like that at all the though. Even with their comrades dropping all about them, those that had survived the opening volleys still stood resolute and unperturbed. Even more worryingly, Athelis was beginning to realise, was that the sheer effectiveness of his initial ambush had done something he had not accounted for, thinning the Spartan numbers to such a degree that the apparent disadvantage of their tightly clustered formation no longer mattered. With so many gaps now open in their lines, the Spartan's had room to move again, and at a few barked instructions from somewhere in their midst, they began to lift their shields to form a phalanx. To Athelis' horror, slowly but with inexorable certainty, the Spartan's shields began to lock together, and a rain of arrows battered uselessly against the hardened bronze as the Spartans closed ranks.

Athelis felt a chill wave of dismay wash over him. Even with both his and Drogo's men firing shot after shot into them, the Spartans were too disciplined and their shields too strong. If they finished forming a phalanx, the battle would be over. Lightly armed as they were, there was no way Athelis and his men could penetrate even a small shield wall, let alone the mass of bronze being hefted in the valley below. He could not give them the time to finish. He had to change tactics, and he had to do it now, before it was too late. In the end, there was only one option remaining to him.

Leaping up onto the ridge, he cast his bow and quiver aside, then yanked his notched dagger and long sword from their scabbards.

"It's time!" he yelled loudly, and to his left and right, the Helots followed suit. Some of them looked nervous, some determined, and still others angry as they faced down the men that had done such terrible things to them not so long ago. None of them looked truly scared though, and for that small mercy at least, Athelis was thankful.

"Ready!" he shouted, then, pointing his sword toward Spartans he began a full tilt sprint down the hillside. "CHARGE!"

With a wordless roar, the Helots to either side of him followed his lead and went barreling down the slope toward the Spartan Phalanx, throwing away their bows and pulling free whatever weapons they carried as they ran. It took them no time at all to reach the Spartan line, and when they did, it did not take Athelis long to see why the Spartans were so feared in the first place.

The front rank had not all had chance to get their shields up, but it hardly seemed to matter. Their spears lashed out with chilling precision dropping three of Athelis' men before they even made it within striking distance. The rest fared better, managing to avoid the early spear thrusts and get inside the Spartan guards, but Athelis himself had no time to watch over them now.

The first spear that angled toward him was easily avoided with a quick sidestep, and as he did so, he pivoted on his forward leg, whirling his long sword around and down to catch the spear by its haft. There was loud clank of metal against hardened wood, and his Spartan attacker grunted as the weapon's tip was driven into the ground. Without even pausing, Athelis stamped down on the spot where his sword had already cleaved a heavy gouge out of the haft, and the accompanying splintering sound was music to his ears. His attacker moved quickly to counter, dropping the broken spear and swinging up with his sword in the same movement. Athelis was ready for the move, and caught the blade of the sword in the notches of his off hand dagger. With a quick twist, he locked the blade to the sound of scraping steel, then bringing the long sword back around he caught the Spartan through the gut on his instep. The man gave a pained cry and fell back, his fall marking the first real opening in the Spartan line.

Glancing to he left and right he saw similar openings beginning to appear where the Helots were pressing the advantage of close in combat versus the ungainly spears most of the Spartan's were carrying.

"We're through!" he yelled, "Push harder!"

At his cry he heard a wave of answering shouts, and saw the men around him begin to redouble their efforts. It was not enough though. They simply did not have the numbers and the Spartans' skill was too great. With each moment that passed, he could feel their advantage slipping away, and soon the gaps in the front rank began to close up again as men from the centre ranks moved in to replace their fallen comrades.

Athelis cursed mentally. Where was Drogo!? He was supposed to have their backs in the assault, yet his men were nowhere to be seen.

With their front ranks reformed, the Spartans began to press forward, pushing back the Helots and forcing them to surrender their advantage.

A grim expression settled across Athelis' face as he fought on, his sword and dagger thrusting, parrying and chopping as the coppery scent of blood and sweat began to fill the air around him.

Then suddenly he saw him.

A lucky strike from one of the men at his side downed one of the enemy, and a gap in the Spartan line opened once more. This time, through the heaving mass of bodies, he caught sight of a single individual who stood out from the rest. His helmet crest was slightly taller than the ones of the men around him and he was carrying a short sword rather than a spear. It was clearly the formation's commander. This was it! The perfect opportunity to cut this battle short. Killing their commander would throw the Spartans into disarray! Now if only he could reach him. Before he could take even a single step however, the gap closed and the commander was hidden from view again.

Before Athelis could even process it, he was forced on the defensive as a spear head angled in at him from the right, threatening to skewer him like some kind of wild boar. He fell back desperately, hacking at the spear head with his dagger as he attempted to get his sword around. When another soldier drove toward him from the left though, he knew it was all over. Twisting vainly to try and intercept the second spear, he braced himself for the inevitable...

...And that was when Drogo's men arrived.

The second spear strike never fell as the Spartan formation crumpled in an instant. The men around him cast about wildly as they attempted to turn to face the new threat, and Athelis took brutal advantage of the moment's distraction, stepping up behind his first attacker and burying his dagger between his shoulders.

Breathing hard, he yanked the dagger free, and turned to get a better look at what was going on. It did not take a great strategist to see what had happened. The Spartans' commander, in his effort to fend off Athelis' crazed frontal assault, had completely neglected his rear guard. Drogo had taken advantage of it in a heartbeat, and was now driving his men into the undefended rear ranks of the Phalanx.

Slightly dumbfounded, Athelis watched as the Spartans went from surrounding him, to being the ones who were surrounded. Even with Drogo's help though, the battle was already taking too long. The longer it lasted, the more chance there was of people managing to escape, and Athelis could not take that risk. The Spartans could not know their numbers. They had to be like hunters in the night, striking quickly and decisively and leaving none alive to tell of it. It was the only way they could spread the fear they needed to win. This had to be ended and ended now .

With a grim smile, he held his sword out in front of him, pointing directly toward the centre of the Spartan formation. He knew exactly how to end this. Time to scalp himself a commander.

"HELOTS!" he bellowed over the din of battle. "For the mustering fields!"

It was hardly the most inspirational of rallying cries, but it was the best he could think of in the heat of the moment. Still it seemed to have the desired effect, as a number of other Helots appeared at his side, echoing his cry as they plunged into the heart of the Phalanx.

The commander was waiting for him there, and even with his men dying all about him, he still seemed to be holding on to that distinctly Spartan air of cold superiority.

"I take it you're the one who's leading them?" he said, eyeing Athelis with a look that spoke of both surprise and disdain.

"You sound almost disappointed," Athelis replied as he limbered his sword arm.

"Oh, I am," the commander replied. "I thought we'd finally managed to lure out Ithius. It would appear I didn't give him enough credit if the best I can manage is one of his flunkies."

The rebuke caused the muscles in Athelis' jaw to bunch tightly.

"I'm no one's flunky!"

"Ah!" the commander gave him a knowing smile. "So there's dissension in the ranks is there? My King will be most pleased to here of it."

"If you ever get to see him again," Athelis retorted.

"You think you can take me?"

It was Athelis' turn to smile darkly.

"I think it wouldn't hurt to find out," he snarled and leaped forward, his sword a darting stream of silver that streaked in ahead of him.

The Spartan commander may not have been the best strategist but he certainly knew how to fight. He span left, twisting at the hip to get his own short sword around quickly. Athelis felt his heart rate double. His attack was going to miss!

As his momentum carried him past the commander, he tucked and rolled to avoid the man's follow through slice, raising his sword above his head as he came up to kneeling. The impact of the blow from the commander sang along the length of his sword blade. Athelis mule kicked, causing the man to back step and allowing him time to get back to his feet, twisting to face his enemy as he went.

The commander was the one to charge now, whirling his sword in his grip so fast that it practically whistled. Athelis met it with a square parry from his notched dagger. He just missed the chance to lock the blades together, and instead the weapons squealed against one another. They were close in now, too close for swords anymore. With a snarl, the commander hurled himself at Athelis, catching the mercenary in the gut with a shoulder tackle that set them both rolling in the dirt.

Before Athelis even had time to think, the commander had him by his jerkin and was trying desperately to bash his brains out against the ground beneath them. Athelis answered with a forward thrusting headbutt that sent the other man reeling backward with blood streaming from his nose.

Clambering up into a squat, Athelis dove at the other man, the dagger he was still clinging to, already bloodstained from before, lashing out in a crimson arc before burying itself through the side of the commander's neck. The man's eyes widened in surprise, and for a brief moment it appeared as if nothing were even remotely amiss. Then he gave a gurgling cough revealing teeth already stained as if from too much wine. The cough became a choke, and he collapsed backward with a crunch of leather armour against dirt as blood flecks marked his lips.

The battle did not last for long after that. The Spartan formation was already shattered, and with their commander gone they never had a hope of regaining their former cohesion. Surrounded by the Helots, the Spartans were contained in small pockets and were quickly cut down as if they were little more than chaff. Nevertheless they fought on like lions, not a one of them attempting to surrender or retreat. Exhausted, Athelis collapsed back, sitting in the battle churned mire of mud and torn grass that had become the valley floor as he watched the fighting come to an end.

When it was over not a single Spartan remained alive.

For a while, all Athelis could do was sit there, his muscles complaining bitterly at their ill treatment as the miserable drizzle that had filled the air all morning began to turn to a steadier torrent of rain. Around the battlefield a few ragged cheers went up from the exhausted Helots. Athelis was too tired to join in, but he smiled nevertheless. They had done it. They had actually gone and done it! He could hardly believe it himself. A group who mere weeks ago had been cowering bakers, farm hands, palace servants, leather workers and the like had actually managed to take on the finest armed soldiers that the Greek world had to offer... and they had won. Maybe the path to Pelion was clearer now than he had originally thought. Maybe his vengeance was closer at hand than he had dared dream. He almost took the amulet from his pocket to toss it away there and then.

Almost.

But not quite.

The sound of boots squelching in the mud behind him brought him back to the here and now. He did not even need to turn around to guess who it was.

"Took your sweet time about getting here didn't you," he said, clambering to his feet and turning to face Drogo. The stocky Helot shrugged.

"He overextended himself," he said simply. "I'd have been a fool to let the opportunity go to waste."

Athelis gave a dry chuckle.

"Do you see me complaining?" he said, then turned and began to pick his way through the mud to the dead commander's side.

"Given time, I'm sure you would've started," Drogo said, following close behind him.

"Hey," Athelis replied jocularly, "It won us the battle didn't it?" He stooped low over the body to retrieve his dagger from where it was still buried in the other man's neck. "I think under the circumstances I won't have to court martial you... for..." he voice trailed off, and his eyes narrowed as he caught sight of something that tied his thoughts in knots.

Reaching out, he yanked his dagger free, then, without straightening, he set it to work hacking off a piece of the man's blue cloak. There was something embroidered on the collar that he wanted to take a closer look at. As he ripped the fragment of material free, his suspicions were confirmed.

It was a symbol of a sickle. Crudely stitched by a hand more used to wielding swords than a needle and thread, but still easily discernible as the symbol of the Followers and their object of worship.

"Cronus," he breathed softly.

"Something the matter?" Drogo asked, stepping up behind him. "You went all quiet there for a moment."

Athelis snapped himself back to the present with a shiver.

"Nothing," he said a little too quickly, and he wrapped the embroidered strip of fabric around his dagger as if he had simply cut it free to wipe the weapon clean with. "Nothing at all."

Turning back to face the other man again, he stuffed the now bloodstained piece of cloth into his jerkin alongside the amulet. Drogo was frowning suspiciously at him. His eyes drifted toward the jerkin pocket, but only a for moment. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally gave a nonplussed shrug.

"If you say so," he said, then turned his gaze to the battlefield and the strewn bodies of the Spartans. "So what do we do with all of them?"

Athelis followed his gaze across the corpses and gave a shrug of his own.

"Nothing to do," he replied. "It's not like we have the time to bury them." He began to move off across the battlefield, motioning to his Helot troops to follow him.

"Order everyone to strip the bodies of whatever weapons, armour or equipment they can carry, and to leave what they can't for the crows," he called back over his shoulder toward Drogo. “Their gear is better than ours and we'll need every advantage we can get if we're going to keep this up."

"Keep this up!?" he heard Drogo shout after him, sounding more than a little stunned. "We only just managed to make this into a victory. How much further are you planning to take it?"

"All the way to Tartarus if I have to," he replied, before adding under his breath, "coming back afterwards, though... that part's optional."

Chapter Eight: Where We Stand

"Impressive, don't you think?"

Adrasteia glanced over at Themistocles where he sat his horse beside her, one hand holding easily to the reins and the other clutching tightly to the bone carved pommel of his saddle. She could only nod mutely as she returned her gaze to the city laid out before them.

Sparta had been built across the foothills of a mountain chain, and over the decades and centuries since its founding, it had climbed high up their slopes like some kind of creeping wall ivy. Surrounding the main city was a high stone wall, and if she squinted, she could just make out tiny figures marching back and forth along the ramparts atop it. Within the wall itself the buildings were squat low lying things with a few taller than the rest. Toward the highest point, it appeared the most ornamental buildings had been constructed, but true to Spartan cultural dogma describing them as ornate was doing them a huge service. Almost every building she could see was kept simple, with none of the embellishment she had seen in other cities, and the whole of the city within the walls had a stark and imposing look to it as a result.

Outside the walls was a different story entirely. A ramshackle collection of huts, cottages, lean-tos and shacks had been constructed there. Unlike within the city proper, these buildings were bright and colourful, each one distinct and easily standing apart from the monolithic Spartan architecture. Even with all that colour though, there was a lifelessness to them as they stood now that sent a shiver running through her.

"Is that..." she began, her voice almost tremulous.

"Helot town," Nikias said from where he flanked her on the opposite side to Themistocles. "Where the city's underclasses live."

"Or used to live if the rumours are true," Themistocles said, his tone betraying not even a hint concern or compassion.

Adrasteia suddenly felt sick to her stomach. It was one thing to hear the stories from the various travelers that had passed through Delphi. It was quite another to be sitting here, staring at the ghost town that an entire people had once occupied.

Twisting in his saddle, Themistocles called back to the Spartans assembled at their rear. "And you'd know if they were true wouldn't you?" he shouted toward Sentos.

The dour Spartan Captain bristled at that, but did not reply immediately. Instead he clicked his tongue and urged his horse forward with a slight twitch at the reins.

"We should be moving on," he said, stone faced as ever as he started his horse along the trail that led down toward the city gates. "The city's watch will have seen us by now, which means that King Demosthenes will already be expecting you, and it will not do to keep him waiting."

Themistocles tilted his head slightly, a mocking smirk appearing the edges of his mouth as he did so.

"In Athens a host does not rush his guests," he said.

Sentos drew his horse up tightly and turn to glare at the other man.

"And by my recollection, one is only a guest if they are invited too," he said. "I do not recall any such invitation being extended to any of you, yet here you are nevertheless."

Themistocles nodded, the grin never leaving his face.

"A fair point," he said then gestured toward the city. "Would you kindly lead on then Captain?"

Sentos gave a frustrated grunt and turned away from them, urging his horse to a steady trot as he did so.

"I though you told me  not  to antagonise them!" Adrasteia hissed at the Athenian Archon as the procession began to move out.

"I did indeed," Themistocles nodded, "but we also need to make it clear that we are not a weak-at-the-knees gaggle of bureaucrats. The Spartan's respect strength to a degree, and Demosthenes will have a harder time dealing with us if we show a little backbone. Now if you'd leave me be for a while, I need time to think. The next few hours are likely to be somewhat..." he paused.

“Long?” Adrasteia offered.

“...challenging,” he finished, giving her an unreadable look before urging his horse on ahead of ahead of her.

Adrasteia resisted the sudden urge to stick her tongue out at his departing back, instead letting out a deep and weary sigh. The journey to Sparta had been a long few days. The Spartans themselves had not been unpleasant company, but nor had they been particularly friendly. She had mainly spoken to Sentos, and occasionally with Orestes, but the rest had tended to keep themselves to themselves. She had noticed something of a strange schism among them as well; something she had not at all expected to see.

The men in red cloaks seemed wary of the men in blue and the only two to regularly speak to one another from either side were Sentos and Orestes. Among the blue cloaked men there was even another group, all with crude sickles stitched into their cloaks. One man had even carved the same symbol into the hardened leather of his own breastplate.

It was not the first time she had seen such a symbol. In the last two months or so, a small religious cult of men and women dressed in crimson robes had taken up residence in the ruins of a temple just outside Delphi, and begun to rebuild it. They had even begun to preach around the city and seldom was there an Oracular address where several of their number could not be seen moving among crowds, dispatching quiet words here and there. Their numbers had been growing too, and at a surprising rate. She had even heard tell of strange wagons arriving at their temple in the dead of night, loaded down with barrels coming in from gods knew where.

The priests at the Temple of Apollo were wary of them, but they did not seem want to interfere with the Oracle, or the temple itself, and so they had been left be. Still, she had noticed a doubling of the guard in recent days, but she had assumed that was just due to the growing tensions in the South and the risk of a potential Persian invasion.

Seeing the symbol here was beginning to make her wonder though...

"Is something troubling you my lady?"

Adrasteia started. She had not realised Nikias had been watching her. Then again, she should hardly be surprised she supposed. He had had one eye on her since they had left the ship behind.

"I do wish you wouldn't call me that," she said. "I'm no lady."

"We are all what fate and time make of us," Nikias shrugged and then smiled at her warmly. "I'm afraid you will just have to learn to live with it."

Adrasteia could not quite suppress a grin.

"You can tell you've been serving the Oracle for too long when you start talking like that."

Nikias gave a low chuckle.

"Oracles," he corrected her. "I've served more than one. I knew the current Lady Pythia when she first came to us. If I recall correctly, she was even more stubborn than you."

"I'm sure you wore her down in the end."

"Not without considerable effort."

Adrasteia's grin widened into a full smile and for a moment she managed to put aside all the worry and tension eating away at her gut. Then it all came crawling back again and the smile disappeared.

"I wish I had even a half of her wisdom," she said. "If she was here instead of me, I'm sure she'd know exactly how to handle all of this."

"Perhaps that is true," Nikias nodded. "But even if it is, that does not mean she is the one supposed to be here and not you. Have a little faith in the Fates my lady. They have a habit of making sure we find out way to where we are meant to be."

Adrasteia could only grunt in response.

"You keep saying that," she said. "But do you honestly believe it?"

"It would be awfully presumptuous of me to question the powers of fate now, wouldn't it?" Nikias replied. "After all, I do work for an Oracle."

"So what you're trying to say is that I should just relax and go with the flow, right?"

"What I am trying to say is that you should not wish for that which cannot be," Nikias said. "It doesn't matter what might have been, or what yet might be. All that matters is what is. We live in the moment and while we are here, we must make the best of it. After all, once it is past, we will never be here again."

Adrasteia frowned at him.

"A strange attitude for an Oracle's attendant,"

Nikias grinned again.

"When you meet so many people only with eyes for the future, it makes you appreciate just how precious the present is."

He glanced away from her and up the trail ahead, his expression souring as he did so.

"It looks like we are approaching the city limits," he said warily.

Adrasteia followed his gaze to the buildings beginning to loom around them and gave him a lopsided smile.

"Still think I shouldn't wish I was somewhere else?"

Nikias shot her a sideways glance but said nothing.

Around them she had been noticing small buildings beginning to crop up at infrequent intervals along the trail. One or two inns first, and then a couple of simple shacks, but now the buildings were becoming larger and denser, and soon they were in among the almost gaudy buildings of Helot Town.

All was stillness and silence. Not so much as a shutter stirred, or a door cracked open at their passing, and not a single person was to be seen wandering the streets. The only sound at all was the rattle of the Spartan escort as they marched, and of their horses' trotting hooves. Her own mount whinnied softly, and Adrasteia reached out to pat it's neck, as much for her own comfort as for the animal's.

No one spoke as they moved between the deserted buildings. The Spartans simply marched in their perfect regimented formation while next to her, Nikias simply cast his eyes about the town, a grim scowl creasing at his forehead. Up toward the head of the column, Themistocles and his horse were trotting along at a measured pace. Like everyone else, he was completely silent, but if the sight of the seemingly abandoned town bothered him, he gave no indication of it.

Adrasteia let her gaze wander over the buildings, and was struck by the sudden gnawing sadness inside her. This place should have been filled to bursting with sound and life. To see it reduced to this, a shell of brightly coloured awnings and painted window shutters was almost enough to leave her in tears. Biting her lip, she gave a slight sniff and squared her shoulders. Themistocles had been right earlier when he had said they needed to show backbone. It would not do to let the Spartans see how much the deserted Helot town was bothering her.

Trying hard to find something else to focus on and that would help her take her mind off the deserted town, she turned her attention to Sentos. He was certainly the most interesting of the Spartans she had met so far. On the surface he seemed to be exactly what you would expect from a man who had made soldiering and strict discipline his life's pursuit; all drilled reflexes and rigid posture. Lying just beneath all of that however was something else; a quiet anger that he did well to conceal but that was still there. The question was, just what was it that he had to be angry about?

She was still pondering that thought when they arrived at the Inner City gates. They were high and heavy, and stood wide open, flanked on either side by guards in the same embroidered blue cloaks as some of the men in their procession. Sentos seemed surprised to see them and as the procession approached, he trotted on ahead to rein his horse in in front of the men.

"I thought my men had the watch this week," he said.

The smaller of the soldiers straightened sharply when Sentos addressed him.

"Captain Sir," he barked in acknowledgment, "Captain Gracus had us relieve them."

Sentos' eyes narrowed.

"For what reason?"

"Your men had expressed an interest in learning of Master Pelion and our New Faith," the smaller man said. "The Captain said it was important that all who have interest should be allowed to attend Master Pelion's audiences so that the doctrine of the New Faith can be better understood among our brothers."

"The New Faith?" Sentos growled.

"The Captain's words sir," the smaller Spartan said, shrinking slightly at the threat of the other man's fury.

"But you share their sentiment?"

The other man held his ground and nodded.

"Yes sir."

Adrasteia felt her hands tightening involuntarily around the reins of her horse. Sentos looked furious. His teeth were grinding so hard against one another she was amazed she could not hear it, and for a moment it looked as if he might even lunge for the man. Then Orestes appeared behind him to place a calming hand on his shoulder.

"We shouldn't delay Captain," he said. "King Demosthenes has been kept waiting long enough. There will be time to deal with all of  this  later."

Sentos shot him an irritated glance, but Orestes simply met his stare with a level gaze of his own. Finally the fury began to drain out of the Spartan captain and he gave a curt nod, sighing as he did so.

"Very well then," he said before turning back to the blue cloaked soldier.

"Please forgive my temper," he said grudgingly. "The last couple of days have been somewhat trying."

The man straightened again, a slight look of surprise mixed in with relief rippling across his face.

"You are my superior sir," he said. "If I have done something to displease you, I should be the one asking for forgiveness. Your apologies are not necessary."

As the man spoke, Sentos gestured over his shoulder for the column to begin moving again.

"Nevertheless you have them," he said with a respectful nod to the man before starting his horse to a trot once more.

"Well that was a most interesting little exchange don't you think?"

Adrasteia turned to see Themistocles had dropped back to ride alongside her once more. He had obviously noticed the keen manner in which she was watching events unfold.

"So tell me," he continued, leaning back in his saddle and regarding her measuringly "what nuggets of information did you manage to glean from it?"

Adrasteia sighed. Clearly he was looking to grandstand his intellect again.

"There's obviously more to the politics at play in Sparta than we imagined," she began, weary of his constant self aggrandizement after days spent on the road with it for company. Trying her best not to let it bother her too much, she nodded toward the blue cloaked Spartans with their embroidered sickles. "They're some kind of religious order. New or old I'm not sure. I've seen them around Delphi recently too."

"They're called The Followers," Themistocles said. "They established a small temple on the outskirts of Athens recently as well, and there numbers have been growing steadily ever since." He stroked his chin as he pondered them, and his eyes took on a faraway caste. "Strange to find them here as well. They seem to be coming out of the woodwork everywhere recently."

Suddenly his gaze snapped back to her. "Sorry, I got lost in my own thoughts there for a moment. Please do go on," he gestured for her to continue speaking. "How do you think they fit into all this?"

"Well, one of the soldiers wearing that sickle symbol mentioned a 'New Faith'. There must be some sort of religious schism going on here with these 'Followers' at the heart of it. Maybe some of the Spartans have converted to them."

"Don't mince your words," Themistocles interjected. "Be declarative. You know as well as I that there's no 'maybe' in any of this."

Adrasteia nodded.

"Alright then. Some Spartans must have definitely converted, but if that's the case, then Sentos certainly isn't one of them." She paused for a moment, turning over the facts she had amassed so far. "What I can't figure out is if its just this 'New Faith' converting Spartans to it's cause that has him on edge, or if there's something more to it than that. Whichever the case, he's clearly not happy with the current situation. How any of that helps us though..." she shrugged. "...I have no idea.".

"Very shrewd," Themistocles said, giving her a slight nod to urge her to continue. "And Orestes? What do you make of him?"

Adrasteia shrugged and fingered the pommel of her horse's saddle thoughtfully.

"Hard to say," she said eventually. "He doesn't have the symbol so..."

"Doesn't mean he's not a member of this cult," Themistocles interjected.

"I know," Adrasteia nodded. "But his attitude seems to be... I don't know... different somehow. Protective maybe?"

Themistocles tilted an eyebrow at her.

"Of Sentos I mean," she said quickly, before he could interject while she tried to clarify her thoughts. "Like he's trying to make sure Sentos doesn't put a foot wrong or something."

Themistocles regarded, her his face an unreadable mask, then slowly, a warm smile began to spread across it.

"Not bad," he said. "Not bad at all. With that kind of insight you might just have a future in the political arena if the oracular foretelling business doesn't work out for you. There's still some room for improvement though."

He leaned forward in his saddle.

"Peel the onion," he said, resting his hands on the saddle's pommel. "Expose the layers. Tell me what use any of this is to us."

Adrasteia sat in silence for what seemed to her like an eternity as she tried to see what relevance any of her observations had. Finally she gave up with a loud groan of surrender.

"I can't do it," she said. "So there's some new religion here in Sparta, and Sentos doesn't like it. What does any of that have to do with anything?"

"You're forgetting Orestes," Themistocles said. "Sentos should be a man of respect. He is a survivor of Thermopylae.  The  survivor in point of fact. I know these Spartans and their ways well enough to be able to tell you that hero worship is all but tattooed into them from the day they are born. Sentos is practically an exemplar of their ideals. He should be being held in high esteem. Why then does he need a comparatively low ranking lieutenant like Orestes to watch his back?"

Adrasteia pondered that for a moment.

"Powerful men have enemies?" she offered, but even she did not really believe it.

Themistocles shook his head at her.

"Powerful men don't pull escort duty. I think its fair to say that Sentos doesn't have a lot of power here. He's not in favour, and since he's opposed to this new religious order, it suggests they're the one's with the influence in the city now."

Adrasteia glanced at the soldiers all around them, suddenly beginning to feel very uncomfortable when she realised how many of them were sporting the sickle symbol.

"You think they're behind all of this?" she said, lowering her voice slightly as she did so. "Making Demosthenes the sole King, murdering the Helots and deposing the Ephors? You think they did all that?"

Themistocles gave an emphatic nod.

"Almost certainly," he said.

"But why? And if it is true, where does Demosthenes stand in all of this?"

Themistocles frowned, and it was the first time she thought she had actually seen him look concerned.

"Now that is what we still don't have the answers to..." he said, and as she did so, his gaze shifted up and over Adrasteia's shoulder to whatever it was that she had her back turned to. "...but I think we're about to get a chance to find them."

Adrasteia twisted in her saddle to follow his eye line and felt her jaw drop open. They were being escorted toward some kind of monolithic looking building, built of the same stone as much of the rest of the city, and with a high domed roof that towered above them. Even without almost any ostentation to its architecture, it still managed to look imposing. It's solid grey walls matched the chill, overcast sky that framed its upper reaches, and it loomed like the foot of a giant about to fall and crush them. She sat for long moments, simply staring up at it in awe.

"The city's council chambers," Nikias said, trotting his hose over to she and Themistocles. "The Kings and Ephors used to sit in council here. Clearly King Demosthenes has chosen to keep it as his seat of power."

"Ooookay then," Adrasteia said warily as the column drew to a stop in front of the building. "I think its safe to say that I've now managed to jump from slightly concerned to completely terrified."

Themistocles was already dismounting from his horse.

"What's there to be afraid of?" he asked.

"Oh I don't know," Adrasteia said with mock thoughtfulness, "How about unexpected death? Or just the fact that we're about to have an audience with a king who just staged a coup, had his peers executed, and presided over the genocide of an entire people? What do you say to those hmm?"

"Don't believe everything you hear?" Themistocles offered with a grin.

Nikias shot the man a caustic glance.

"I don't think you should be making light of this," he said, his voice practically seething with irritation. "From what we've seen on our journey here, the Lady Adrasteia has every reason to be concerned."

Themistocles gave a frustrated grunt and rolled his eyes.

"Would the pair of you just relax?" he said. "I have this all well in hand. It's hardly like this is my first time dealing with these people, and Demosthenes and I have known each other for years."

"That's  more  reason to be worried," Nikias replied archly, "Not less."

Themistocles just smiled wider at that.

"If you three have quite finished, King Demosthenes is growing impatient."

Adrasteia was in the process of dismounting when the voice rang out across the receiving yard toward them. Surprised, her foot caught in the horse's stirrup, and she cursed loudly as she tumbled backward, landing in an ungainly heap on the cobbles. Nikias was at her side almost immediately, his surprisingly strong arms hooking under her own as he helped her back to her feet.

"I'm alright," she protested, waving him away. "I'm okay. I don't need your..." her voice trailed off as she lifted her gaze and caught sight of the man who had just spoken.

He was a heavy set figure, thick necked and broad shoulder, with biceps that bulged beneath the leather straps he wore around them. Above one of his eyes there was a livid pink scar that looked to still be fairly fresh, and he wore his hair so close cropped it was almost completely shaved. Her eyes flicked down to his cloak, and she was hardly surprised when she saw the embroidered sickle there.

"...help," she croaked.

"Well, well," the big Spartan said. "This is unexpected..." his eyes traveled down to her feet and then back up again, lingering over her in a way that made her feel unclean. "...but hardly unwelcome."

He twisted so that he could call back over his shoulder.

"Where did you find her Sentos? Some Tryxis fish wife no doubt?"

"She is one of the envoys Gracus," Sentos said, his tone tight and controlled. Obviously the big Spartan was yet another man Sentos had issues with, although in this instance, Adrasteia was pretty certain she could see why.

"Ah, a diplomat then?" Gracus said, turning that hungry eyed gaze back to her. "And what would be your name then, little diplomat?"

His mocking tone annoyed her, and she straightened to her full height, but still found herself wishing for just an inch or two more so that she could at least reach the other man's eye line and keep him from looking down at her and also would not have to crane her neck back to look at him.

She was about to speak when Nikias stepped in front of her protectively.

"And what would be your name my lord?" he said, his voice perfect politeness.

Gracus barely even glanced at him.

"I wasn't talking to you," he said, moving to step around Nikias. The small man moved with him.

"I'm terribly sorry my Lord, but it is a matter of etiquette. Surely you cannot expect my Lady to give her own title without first knowing that of whom she is speaking to? If she were to do so it would be most unseemly."

Gracus' stopped and turned his gaze fully on Nikias, his eyes narrowing as he did so.

"I am Gracus," he said coldly. "High Captain of King Demosthenes' forces, Captain of the Watch, and keeper of the peace in this city." He took a threatening step toward the smaller man. "Now stand aside."

Nikias gave him a pleasant smile.

"I am afraid that's quite impossible my lord."

Gracus' top lip curled upward in a sneer, and he began to lift his hand to gesture to the men that had come with him.

"It's alright Nikias," Adrasteia jumped in hurriedly, stepping around Nikias to face Gracus before the big Spartan could give whatever order he had been about to.

"My apologies," she said as humbly as she could manage. "My man here can be a little overprotective at times, but he means well, I'm sure you'll agree."

"He should be careful with his tongue," Gracus said, glancing past her toward Nikias. "Being so free with it is likely to get it cut off."

Nikias bristled at that, but Adrasteai gestured to him for silence with a hand tucked behind her back. Thankfully, he took note and whatever he had been about to say remained unspoken.

"And I'm sure he will be from this point forward," she replied to Gracus, but with an edge to her tone meant for Nikias.

"Anyway," she pressed on, "you have given me your name, so it is only right that you should know mine. I'm Adrasteia of the Temple of Apollo in Delphi."

Gracus' eyebrows raised slightly.

"An Oracle?" he said, sounding mildly surprised.

"A handmaiden," Adrasteia corrected him. "Unfortunately the Lady Pythia was otherwise indisposed or else she would have made the trip to meet with your King Demosthenes herself. I hope the sending of one so lowly as myself does not cause you or your King any offense."

Gracus' smile was somehow both warm and dark at the same time.

"No offense taken," he said. "Indeed, an Oracle of any stature I'm sure will be most welcome. Our city has been without its own Oracle since the recent uprisings."

"Uprisings?" Adrasteia said, tilting her head quizzically, her eyes widening in mock surprise. "We have heard nothing of any uprisings."

It was a barefaced lie. She supposed being around Themistocles was beginning to rub off on her.

"All in good time," Gracus said, then turned to look past her once more. "And you?" he continued. "In the horse hair? What are you then? Some sort of traveling guard?"

"I'm afraid not," Themistocles said, his smile far too polite and mannered at the other man's veiled insult. He gestured to the Athenian soldiers only a short distance behind him. "These men are  my  guard. My name's Themistocles,” he paused. “Of Athens."

Gracus' eyes, previously amused, turned stone cold in instant.

"And what business does Athens have with our King?"

Themistocles stepped forward, his hand brushing lightly at the ivory sword handle that swung at his hip.

"A great deal I can assure you," he said, still smiling politely. "But that is for me to discuss with King Demosthenes. I did not travel across Greece to discuss important matters of state with some simple captain." He nodded toward Sentos. "Now if you would stand aside, Captain Sentos here was in the process of escorting us, and your little interrogation is causing needless delay."

Gracus' jaw muscles flexed, and for a moment Adrasteia thought he might actually order his soldiers to attack them right then and there. Themistocles did not back down though. Instead, he stood toe to toe with the big Spartan, his face still split by that polite smile that never touched his eyes.

Finally Gracus took a small step to the left, twisting and gesturing toward the doors of the council chambers as he did so.

"By your leave," he sneered icily.

"Thank you," Themistocles said, stepping past the big Spartan and gesturing to the rest of them to follow him without so much as a backward glance.

The huge double doors to the council chambers groaned open as they approached, and immediately inside Adrasteia could make out the huge circular chamber at the end of a narrow passage. As they moved up the steps toward the entrance, Sentos turned to Themistocles.

"Your guards will have to wait outside," he said. "Either that or they go unarmed."

"You'd deny your allies there only protection?" Themistocles said. His tone was affronted, but Adrasteia had learned enough about him now to know that it was only for show.

Sentos regarded him for a moment in silence, then without a word, he turned and stepped through the doors into the council chamber beyond. Immediately one of the Spartan guards within stepped up to him. Neither of them spoke, Sentos simply offering up his spear to the other man who took it from him with the same silence. Now unarmed, the guards parted and Sentos limped past them into the chamber proper, before turning back to face Themistocles again.

"If you are indeed our allies, then what is there here to be protected from?" he said.

Themistocles eyes narrowed for a moment, then that same too-polite smile returned to his face and he gave deep nod of understanding.

"You are most correct of course," he said, then turned to mutter something unintelligible to one of his guards. The man nodded then led the rest of the guard off to one side where they stood patiently, while the Spartans around them looked on.

"You think it's really a good idea to leave them out there?" Adrasteia hissed to Themistocles as they made their way inside.

"You don't go into the presence of a king with a bunch of armed guards at your back," Themistocles replied, offering up his sword to one of the Spartans as he did so. "Not unless you're about to depose him at any rate. Besides, they're really more for show than anything else. Ten men wouldn't really do us any good here. We're on Demosthenes' turf now and we'll just have to play by his rules for a little while longer."

Adrasteia frowned, still not really happy about them being left unguarded and unarmed. She glanced back over her shoulder toward Nikias, and was amazed when she saw handing over a selection of daggers that must have been hidden about his person.

"Care to explain all of that?" she said to him, nodding toward the daggers as she removed one of her own from where it was tucked behind her belt and handed to a guard. That done, they stepped beyond the guards and out onto the chamber floor.

"Simple courtesy my lady," Nikias said softly so that his voice would not echo between the heavy stone walls that surrounded them. "I travel armed so that you do not have to.” He eyed the dagger she had handed over to the guards. “I see that my caution makes little difference however.”

Adrasteia just sighed and turned to look around the room they were standing in for the first time. If the building had looked huge from the outside, it looked positively cavernous from within. The domed ceiling arced high overhead, and row after row of stone seats ringed the walls in concentric circles. The upper reaches were draped in shadows, and something about them made her uneasy. She could almost have sworn they moved when she looked at them.

Glancing left, she noted a single throne off to her side, facing out across the council chamber floor, but when she looked right, there was only a gap in the benches where its equivalent should have been located. The missing throne had instead been set up on a stone platform at the opposite end of the chamber to the entrance, a single long stone bench located just to its rear. The throne itself was the mirror of the one to her right, with a high back but otherwise precious little in the way of decoration. Slumped wearily in its seat was a single man, lean in comparison to many of the other Spartans and with dark hair that was fast turning to grey. His head was propped on his hand, and his eyes were closed, while his chest rose and fell in the easy rhythm of one who is sleeping. With his head down, chin resting against his chest, she could not get a good look at his face, but it was a safe bet that this man was Demosthenes.

Without ceremony, the three of them were marched over to the center of the chamber where Sentos held up his hand, commanding them to stop. There was something about the silence and solemnity of it all that made Adrasteia uneasy. She glanced longingly back over her shoulder toward the exit, only to feel her heart sink as Gracus followed them inside – the only man to be allowed to keep his weapon she noticed – and ordered the chamber sealed behind him. The doors swung shut with a great boom that bounced and reverberated between the rows of benches, and that caused the man seated in the throne to stir.

Slowly he lifted his head, blinking bleary eyed in the dim light of the chamber, and as his face came into view, Adrasteia had to stifle a gasp of surprise. Instead, it took the form of hissing in take of breath that earned a sideways glance from Demosthenes and Nikias both. She barely noticed however, so taken aback was she by what she was seeing.

Demosthenes, if this was indeed him, was one of the men out of her vision! One of the three that she had seen, striding behind the manic eyed blonde woman while destruction and chaos trailed in their wake. The way he regarded them now was the same as well, a dark glower that passed over each of them in turn. When it came to her she felt the sudden urge to look away. She managed to resist it however, and instead only swallowed nervously.

"Great King," Sentos said, dropping to one knee before the throne, his eyes cast down to the ground. "Allow me to present to you..."

"Rise Sentos," Demosthenes said, easing himself up out of the throne. "There is no need to introduce them to me." His eyes swept back across the group once more, coming to rest on Themistocles where they narrowed warily. "I already know who they are.”

Themistocles smiled at him.

"Good to see you again old friend," he said, but there was no sincerity in his voice.

"Friend," Demosthenes snorted and gestured to Sentos. "Well done Captain. I thank you for your efforts in ensuring that your charges were delivered here safely. Now if you would kindly wait outside..."

"Great King?" Sentos said lifting his head questioningly, as if he were surprised to be so casually dismissed.

"King Demosthenes has given you an order Sentos," Gracus said sharply. "I suggest you follow it."

Sentos shot the other man a withering glance, then turned back to Demosthenes, rising to his feet as he did so.

"As you wish Great King," he said before making for the exit.

"I will send for you again when I am done," Demosthenes called after him, but Sentos said nothing more.

Adrasteia watched him go, and for the first time she realised how alone he looked, a single red cloak limping and bowed, surrounded by an ocean of blue and sickles. She squinted against the sudden shaft of sunlight that spilled through into the chamber as the doors creaked open once more, this time only a short way so as to allow Sentos to exit before slamming shut once more.

The room fell deathly silent, and she felt a bead of sweat begin to trickle down her back. Whatever kind of potential ally or friend they might have had at their side with Sentos, they did not have him now, and suddenly she felt as lonely as the Spartan captain had looked. Beside her Nikias shifted uncomfortably in the sudden silence. It was only Themistocles who seemed utterly nonplussed by it, instead meeting Demosthenes' even stare with one of his own.

"So," the Spartan king began, striding purposefully down onto the council floor, never taking his eyes off Themistocles as he went. "You do keep some interesting company these days Themistocles. An Oracle, or at least an assistant to one at any rate, and her man servant..."

"How did you know..." Adrasteia began to cut in, but Themistocles and Demosthenes both threw her a withering glance and she snapped her mouth sharply shut.

"They are my colleagues in this venture," Themistocles answered, turning his heated warning gaze away from her and back to Demosthenes, an easy smile spreading across his face once more. "Delphi is your neighbour as Athens is your ally. It only makes sense that we should stop by and pay our respects to Sparta's new King."

Demosthenes stare did not so much as flicker.

"Is that why you are here then?" he said. "The only reason? To pay your respects to me?"

"But of course," Themistocles answered smoothly, a look of mock confusion spreading across his face. "And to enquire after your health. If you do not mind my saying so, you do not look well."

It was true. The Spartan king did not just look tired. There was a slightly sickly note to his skin and his cheeks were tight and drawn. His eyes were sunken and ringed with dark circles, and whenever he met her gaze, Adrasteia could not help but notice the crisscrossing network of bloodshot lines running through the whites of his eyes.

Demosthenes' lip curled upward in a sneer and he turned away from them to stride back up the steps toward his throne.

"While I appreciate the gesture, and the concern for my well being, let me be the first to say that neither were necessary." he said as he lowered himself back into his throne. "Your journey has been wasted. We Spartans value our privacy, especially at a time of mourning such as this, and you are not welcome here."

"Mourning?" Themistocles said, tilting an eyebrow at the Spartan king. "What is it that you, the newly minted sole power in Sparta, have to mourn if I might ask?"

"The death of a King," Demosthenes said, straightening in his seat, his eyes taking on a faraway caste. "A great man, and a personal friend."

"Leonidas  was  your friend then?" Themistocles said, and the slight hint of jeer in his tone was notable.

Demosthenes' gaze snapped back to him.

"Have a care Athenian," he snarled. "King Leonidas was my friend yes, and more besides. He was my brother in arms, a bond that is closer than any friendship. You are not, and I will not have you mock his memory or insult me by implying anything different."

Themistocles spread his hands in a plea for innocence.

"I imply nothing Great King," he said, using Demosthenes' honorific for the first time. "But perhaps you could explain to us how it came to be that, when Athens sent four thousand men to King Leonidas' aid, and I myself sailed against the Persian fleet in order to protect his flanks, his own  brothers in arms... " the last part was a barely concealed sneer of sarcasm. "...somehow managed to allow him to march to his death at Thermopylae with just three hundred men at his side."

Adrasteia felt her throat run dry, and next to her Nikias shifted uncomfortably. After all his talk about not being antagonistic, it looked almost as if Themistocles was about to get them all skewered by spears, or at the very least locked away in some deep, dark dungeon.

In his throne, Demosthenes' glare turned icy cold.

"You are overstepping your bounds," he snarled. "Those were dark days, and you have no idea what took place during them."

Themistocles spread his hands in a gesture of appeal.

"Then enlighten me."

Demosthenes sat back in his throne, his hands resting lightly on the arm rests at his side.

"The Ephors had reached an accord with the Persians," he said, clearly trying to hold his temper. "Sparta was to stand aside and let the Persians pass us by without resistance."

"Surrender!?" Adrasteia blurted out, unable to hold in her surprise. "Sparta surrendered!?"

Demosthenes glanced at her, and for a brief moment his eyes blazed angrily at the interruption, then the anger faded, and a tired smile began to spread across his face. Her outburst seemed to have punctured the tension in the air like a pin stuck through a wine skin, and slowly, some of the animosity between the two men began to drain away.

"She does speak then," Demosthenes said, turning back to Themistocles once more.

Themistocles let out a sigh and a nod.

"She does at that,” he said begrudgingly, “and entirely too often."

Adrasteia shot the man venomous look, but clamped her jaw tightly shut.

"If Sparta surrendered, then why was Leonidas sent to Thermopylae?" Themistocles asked, doing his best to draw Demosthenes' attention back to himself.

"He was not  sent ," Demosthenes said simply. "He went of his own accord, in defiance of the Ehpors' will I might add. I counseled him against it too, but he would not hear me. Leonidas always was headstrong and impulsive."

Themistocles nodded again in agreement.

"I remember well," he said. "And Sparta's loss is a loss to all of Greece." The tone in his voice was almost believable, and Adrasteia found herself wondering if what he was saying might actually be sincere.

"Indeed," Demosthenes said. "It was his sacrifice that galvanised myself and my men. I could not bring myself to allow the Ephors to hand us over to the Persians so readily. By surrendering they had betrayed their sacred trust to the people of Sparta. I honoured my duty as King to uphold Spartan law, and had them..."

he paused briefly to search for the right word.

"...removed," he said eventually.

Adrasteia felt a small shiver run through her. She could already guess what Demosthenes' idea of removal had been.

"And what of the Helots?" Themistocles said unexpectedly. "Did you have them 'removed' too?

Demosthenes tensed and his eyes became so icy cold that Adrasteia could have sworn she felt the temperature in the room drop by a degree or two.

"I cannot decide whether you are brave or just plain foolish, Themistocles," he said. "to walk into my city,  my house , and level such accusations at me."

"I'm neither I can assure you," Themistocles retorted. "But there are whispers on the wind that can't be easily overlooked. Rumours of genocide against a people, rumours of Spartan troops on the march, annexing any territory not your own between here and the sea. There are even rumours of you consorting with roving warlords. Athens and Delphi would know how much truth there is to these rumours, and of your intentions toward us."

Adrasteia frowned at that. The rest she had heard, but rumours of warlords? She knew of no such stories.

"So finally you speak plainly," Demosthenes said. "I was beginning to wonder just how long you would continue to dance around this."

"I am not dancing around anything, Great King. I am simply searching for answers."

Demosthenes regarded the Athenian coolly for a moment, drumming his fingers against the arms of the throne in deep thought as he did so.

"Very well then," he said finally. "The Helots were fermenting revolution, and the Ephors were bowing to it. I could not allow such a thing to happen, any more than I could allow our city to be surrendered to the Persians. As for the annexation of surrounding territories, it is for protection. Both ours and theirs."

"I doubt the villages your soldiers are marching through feel that way about it," Themistocles said.

"They can feel about it however they wish," Demosthenes said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "It will not change anything. The Persians may be beaten for now, but they will not be gone forever. They will return and when they do, I will not allow farmers and fishermen to be Greece's first line of defence. These villages that we are taking have long benefited from being our neighbours. There has been a silent understanding between us for decades, centuries even, that Sparta would keep the peace in these lands,"

He gave philosophical shrug.

"Now we are merely formalising that arrangement."

"So you are creating a buffer then?"

Demosthenes nodded.

"If that is what you wish to call it, then I suppose yes. The territories we are taking will act as a buffer to our own. They will also benefit from the protection of our soldiers. Protection we would never have been able to afford them otherwise.

"A truly magnanimous act on your part," Themistocles said, tapping at his lips thoughtfully with an index finger. "But what, if you don't mind me asking, is the point of making a buffer to your north?"

Demosthenes' eyes narrowed.

"If you have a point to make, then make it. I'm tired and I simply do not have time to waste on trivial chatter."

"The Persians will come at you out of the South," Themistocles elaborated. "Like they did before. Spreading your troops to the south  and  the north is spreading them a bit thin don't you think?"

Demosthenes sighed.

"Must I explain strategy to you too now? I thought you were smarter than this."

The corner of Themistocles' mouth curled upward in a smirk.

"Perhaps you have overestimated me..."

Demosthenes let out an irritated exhale.

"If the Persians  were  to attack again from the south, Leonidas' defence at Thermopylae has already shown how few a number of soldiers we would actually need to hold that territory," Demosthenes explained, as if he were lecturing a particularly dense child. "The north on the other hand... well, no such defence is possible there."

"So that is all you are doing? Securing your borders in case the Persians attack you from the north?"

Demosthenes nodded then gave Themistocles a challenging smile.

"Do Athens and Delphi not trust us? We have been a bulwark against your enemies for centuries. A line drawn in the sand through sweat and blood. I thought you would have more faith in us than you apparently do."

"It is difficult to have faith when we learn that you are harbouring a known enemy of Athens and Delphi," Themistocles said, his tone as flat and as even as if he were discussing groceries.

Demosthenes' jaw muscles twitched.

"What do you mean by that?"

Themistocles' reply seemed to take everyone by surprise.

"Callisto," he said.

Adrasteia blinked. Callisto's name had come out of nowhere. It was a name she knew well. She had not been a member of the Temple of Apollo when the crazed warrior woman had tried to murder the Oracle, but she had heard plenty said about her since. The most recent word was that she was dead, Xena having finally put her to rest once and for all. To hear that she might be involved here was more than a little surprising.

"What about her?" Demosthenes said, his tone suddenly very tight.

Themistocles tilted his head at the other man's surprise.

"You don't deny she was here then?" he said.

"Why would I?" Demosthenes replied carefully. "Yes, she was here; as an ally of Leonidas no less, though quite where he managed to dig her up from I have no idea. He had some strange notion that she would be of use against the Persians. Of what interest is she to you anyway?"

"Callisto is a wanted woman in both Athens and Delphi," Themistocles said. "She has committed numerous acts of wanton savagery and barbarism across our territories, and we would see her brought to justice. If you were proven to be sheltering her I would have no choice but to demand that she be released into our custody at once."

"Demand?" Demosthenes sneered, his voice beginning to rise in fury. "DEMAND!?"

He rose from his throne again, barely able to hold his temper this time.

"You are in no position to demand anything of me! I am King in these lands now Themistocles! ME! And you are a long way from Athens. Be glad that I don't have her to give up to you. After the way you have spoken to me today, I would be sorely tempted to grant your wish, just so I could watch her fillet you and roast your carcass over an open fire!"

Themistocles did not even flinch under Demosthenes' rage.

"Your pardon Great King," he said inclining his head slightly in apology once Demosthenes' choler had lessened somewhat. "I did not mean to give offence, and perhaps my words were ill chosen, but Callisto is an enemy of both our cities," he gestured toward Adrasteia and Nikias. "I'm sure you understand that we simply cannot allow such an enemy to escape the rightful justice owing to her when she may be within our reach. If you say you don't have her however..."

"I do not," Demosthenes snapped, a little too abruptly.

"...then may I ask what happened to her?" Themistocles continued smoothly as if Demosthenes had never spoken.

"She disappeared shortly after Leonidas left for Thermopylae," Demosthenes said. "Around the time of the Helot uprising. Probably killed in the fighting."

Adrasteia frowned again. Something about this did not seem right. Demosthenes was being too casual and too free with his information about Callisto, yet at the same time vague, as if he were trying to satisfy Themistocles' questions while actually providing as little detail as possible. If that were the case though, it begged the question, why? Did he not actually know? Was he lying? And if he was lying, what reason would he have to lie about Callisto's whereabouts? Try as she might though, she could not answer her own questions, and slowly her mind began to drift back to the here and now.

"You should be careful when dealing with Callisto, Great King" Themistocles was saying. "She has a habit of recovering from death, and at the most inconvenient times too."

Demosthenes groaned and lifted his fingers to massage one of his temples.

"The only inconvenience I'm suffering through today is you," he said, stepping down off the raised platform that held his throne and sweeping past them toward the chamber doors. "Now if you would excuse me, I have other business I must be about. I cannot waste away the whole day with you. Your questions have been answered and I have said all I need to say. Delphi and Athens have nothing to fear from me. What I have done and am doing is all for the protection of this city, and for Greece itself. I will have Sentos come for you now and escort you to your chambers. You may remain in the city tonight and rest, but tomorrow I expect you to return to your homes, and tell them what I have told you here today"

He was about to turn away once more when Adrasteia raised her hand. There was something that had been bothering her since they had spoken with Gracus, another question that had not yet been asked, and she feared that if she did not ask now, she she may never hear the answer.

Demosthenes eyed her raised hand curiously.

"Yes?" he said.

"Your forgiveness Great King," she said, remembering her etiquette this time, and bowing her head in respect as she had seen Themistocles do. "There's one more thing I'd like to ask if I may."

Demosthenes regarded her for a moment, his expression stony and unreadable.

"You may," he said at last.

Adrasteia took a deep breath.

"Your city's Oracle," she said, "The Lady Miranda of the Temple of Ares."

Demosthenes shifted slightly at her mention.

"What of her?"

"We were told your city has been without an Oracle recently. My mistress, and the Lady Miranda would exchange letters sometimes. The Lady Pythia would dearly like to know what has become of her friend."

Demosthenes' answer was as hard and cold as a block of ice.

"She died," he said.

"May we enquire as to how?" Themistocles asked.

"No," Demosthenes replied, eyeing them each one last time. "You may not." With that, he turned his back on them and strode away.

Still watching him leave, Adrasteia swallowed nervously as she got better look at his cloak. Slowly, she stepped closer to Themistocles, her voice little more than a hushed whisper, hey eyes never leaving the departing King.

"Did you see that?" she hissed. "On the back of his cloak? There was a..."

"...a sickle," Themistocles nodded. "I saw it."

"What do you suppose it means?"

Themistocles sniffed and scratched at his upper lip.

"I'm still not sure," he said. "But one thing's for certain."

Adrasteia frowned.

"What's that?" she asked.

"At least now we know where Demosthenes stands."

Chapter Nine: The Spiral

The pit seemed to go on forever.

Down, down, down Callisto plummeted, through the banks of mist and then suddenly out into the darkness beyond. Tumbling end over end, she flailed desperately all about her, hoping against hope that her fingers or feet might snag against something that would arrest her fall. Her hair whipped wildly about her head, thin streamers lashing across her face as she span out of control through the darkness. Suddenly, she saw it, a tiny pin prick of strange sickly light that was growing larger by the moment as she hurtled toward it. As the light grew larger and larger so too did its source become clearer. She was falling toward some kind of cavern, she realised, and at the speed she was going, her descent was likely to end with her brains being dashed across said cavern's floor. She redoubled her efforts, her arms and fingers hooking into the air around her as if she could cling to the breeze itself. There had to be something! Some way to stop her maddening downward plummet.

Then she felt it; that sickening twist in her stomach that sent the world tilting with it and what had been straight down now became straight ahead instead. Even as the world tilted back on itself, her forward momentum continued and she shot out into the dimly lit cave like an arrow fired from a bow. She hit the ground angled sideways and ribs first, yelling out in pain as she bounced and rolled across the hard stone of the ground, before finally scraping to a stop in an ungainly heap a dozen or so yards from the cavern entrance. With a low, suffering groan, she rolled onto her back and lay there, staring up at the cavern ceiling above, her breath coming in rapid, uneven gasps. Gradually she managed to calm herself, and her breathing began to slow.

Still weary, she heaved herself up into a sitting position with another exhausted groan, then, taking a deep breath, she managed to haul herself upright once more, her legs quivering slightly as the adrenaline flooding her system began to drain away. She did not have time to be lying around admiring what little view there was down here. She had a nagging feeling that her doppelganger was probably already in pursuit, and if she were to stand any kind of chance at staying ahead of her and the faceless horde that was dogging her every move, she would have to keep moving.

Squinting against the dim light, she surveyed her surroundings carefully. The mist was still present, but it was not as thick as it had been before. Instead it hung around her ankles, just above ground level, like some kind of shifting grey carpet. It parted silently as she moved through it and swallowed the sound of her boots pattering against the stone. All around her the stone walls glistened with moisture in the strange half-light, and the light itself had an eerie, iridescent quality that seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The cavern walls looked to have been hollowed out by lava flows, and Callisto felt compelled to reach out and run her fingers along them. They were cool to the touch, and somewhat smooth, without sharp corners or hard edges of any kind.

Suddenly, she froze.

Were those footsteps she had heard in the distance? Slowly she removed her hand from the wall and stood stock still, barely breathing as she listened intently. The only sound she could hear was the drip-drip-drip of water.

After a minute or two of standing motionless she started forward. This dallying was needless. She needed to keep moving. Setting off at a brisk clip across the cavern floor, her pace quickened as she weaved among the outcroppings of stone that surrounded her. Nearby was another tunnel entrance like the one she had arrived through. With any luck it might lead her out of here, although deep down she suspected that that was unlikely.

Sure enough, the tunnel simply connected to another cave, and then another tunnel, and then another cave, and so on and so forth. It was like some vast network; a maze of connected caverns, hollows and passages, that seemed to crisscross endlessly this way and that with little rhyme or reason to their layout. Stranger still was that the further she went, the more labyrinthine they seemed to become. Where the first caves had had only one or two exits, now they had as many as six or seven, and no matter how many times she stopped to test the air, or check for breezes that might betray some way back to the surface, there was never any indication as to which tunnel might prove best. In the end she gave up even trying, although she would still occasionally pause to listen intently when she thought she heard those same footsteps as before off in the distance. Each time she heard them they seemed to be moving closer, yet they still echoed as if they were far away. She was beginning to notice that sound behaved strangely down here in the depths. What should have been muffled and quiet would just as often be bewilderingly loud, yet the one time that, out of sheer frustration, she struck out with her boot and sent a stone skittering across the cavern floor, it made no sound at all.

As she continued on through the tunnel and caves, she began to lose all sense of time. The mist swirled hypnotically around her ankles and the more she stared into it, the more a growing sense of familiarity about her surroundings crept at the back of her consciousness. Like every other place she had ended up inside this nightmare realm, she knew she had been here before and at that realisation, a creeping sense of dread began to settle in her gut.

She stopped for a moment to try and steady her nerves, leaning against the tunnel wall and folding her arms as she tried to make sense of everything. Exactly how was it that she had even come to find herself in this sorry state? So muddied were her thoughts and memories that it was almost impossible to recall. The more she strained to remember though, the clearer certain things became. The memory of a lake, yellow, noxious, and glowing softly in the dark swam hazily across the surface of her thoughts, and hot on its heels she recalled that same figure she had remembered earlier, clad in black and with dancing shadows trailing in his wake.

"Palaces of the mind," she muttered to herself, then started. Now where had that come from? Her brow furrowed in deep concentration as she struggled to remember. There had been a man... a man in a boat on a stinking river... or had it been someone else? A man with thick dark hair and a fireplace at his back perhaps? The same fireplace, now she thought about it, that she had just fled from only to find herself here... and that man with the beard and dark hair, so familiar to her, and yet she could not quite place his name.

At the back of her mind, there came a quiet whispering sound, words beyond the edge of hearing, but she could not quite make them out. Still frowning, she glanced down the tunnel in the direction she had been heading.

What she saw there made her blood run cold.

Two of the faceless, their clothes ragged and blood stained, stood still and impassive some twenty or so yards away. They did not move or make any kind of sound, but they stood shoulder to shoulder, blocking her passage down the tunnel.

Callisto straightened from the wall she had been leaning against and began to back slowly down the tunnel in the direction she had come from, being careful all the time never to take her eyes off the two silent figures. When she felt she was a safe distance away she turned and quickened her pace, striding out into the last cave she had passed through only minutes before.

Her knees felt like water as she walked, and that uncomfortable sense of dread was taking firm hold of her now. The strange twilight that filled the caves was slowly dimming, and even though it seemed to have no source, it still somehow managed to cast shadows which were now beginning to lengthen. That strange whispering in the back of her mind had begun to grow louder as well, and it caused her to risk a glance backward.

Her breath caught in her throat.

The faceless had moved to block the entrance to the tunnel she had just left, although she had not heard them do it. Come to think of it, she was not even sure they were the same two faceless that had blocked her way earlier, and that thought added to her already considerable discomfort.

Hurriedly she ducked sideways into another tunnel, pausing for a moment to collect herself once she was out of sight of the eerie, eyeless figures. She did not know why, but the mere sight of them unnerved her in a way she had never felt before, and now, everytime she laid eyes on them, the whispering in her head seemed to climb a notch in volume.

Her ears twitched. Footsteps again. Somewhere in one of the neighbouring tunnels.

Starting to move again, she broke into a steady jog. She really did not want to know who those footsteps belonged to.

She moved quickly from cavern to cavern, doing her best to keep her breathing steady as she went, but still feeling it rattle unevenly from time to time. Why was she scared? Was that even the word to describe it? Fear had never come easily to her. Not since she had watched her home burn to the ground around her, and yet down here, in these caves, surrounded by these strange faceless specters, she could not help but feel... afraid. She had to get out of here. That was all she could think of, and it echoed over and over again inside her head. The real question though, was how? There had to be an exit, she concluded; some tunnel or side passage she had missed that would lead her back to the surface.

If there even was a surface.

She pushed that particular doubt to the back of the long line of them already jockeying for her attention. Thinking like that would only lead to despair, and despair was not something she wanted to feel. Not now, or ever again. No. There was a surface, and if there was a surface, there had to be an exit that would lead her to it. There just had to be!

As she jogged from tunnel to cave and back again, she scanned quickly from side to side, peering into every nook and cranny as she passed them. Maybe the exit was hidden in plain sight, behind an outcropping, or perhaps it was a door shaped like the tunnel walls themselves. She did not hold out much hope that either possibility was true though. The deeper this strange nightmare world led her, the more certain she was becoming that there was no escaping it, or at the very least, no way that would be so immediately apparent as a simple door with an arrow pointing toward it. Still, the searching would give her a way to stay proactive, and to try and stave off that feeling of dread that was still crawling through her gut.

It did not take her long to realise however, that even though she was headed in as straight a line as she could manage, the caves were beginning to repeat themselves as if they were running her in circles. First it was only subtle things; a cluster of rocks here, a distinct stalactite there, but very quickly they started to mount up until the truth was inescapable.

She was going round in circles.

Gritting her teeth together, her hands balling to fists at her side, she skidded to a halt in the middle of the tunnel she was jogging down. She tried hard to keep her temper, breathing slowly and calmly, and reciting old limericks her soldiers had used to sing in an attempt distract herself.

None of it worked.

"HOW!" she exploded finally, slamming her clenched fist hard against the tunnel wall. "How are you doing this to me!? I want answers, and I want them NOW!"

Silence was her only response.

She stood that way for a long time, fist planted against the wall, and chest heaving as she tried to bottle her anger back up again. Eventually, she began to calm herself, and with a long deep breath she unclenched her fists. She held the inhale for as long as she could manage, then let it out again before taking another. She had to have missed something. That was the only explanation. She did not want to think about the other possibility.

Slowly and cautiously she turned, and began to creep back down the tunnel, retracing her footsteps as best as she was able, before emerging back into the last cave she had passed through. She stopped in the tunnel entrance, her mouth falling open in disbelief and dismay. She was back at that very first cavern again somehow. The one she left behind a full half hour ago, where the faceless had been blocking the tunnel. They were still there, shoulder to shoulder and blocking that same exit, but now twisted slightly to face her once more.

At the sight of them, the whispering in her head grew louder again, and she felt the cold dread in her stomach seize hold suddenly. She turned back to the tunnel she was standing in the entrance to, only to freeze when she saw two more of the faceless blocking that tunnel now as well.

Slowly she backed out of the tunnel and into the cave. There were three more exits from it still not blocked. Being careful to keep both pairs of the faceless in view, she pressed herself to the cavern wall and began to edge around it toward the first of the remaining exits. She could hear those footsteps again, coming down one of the tunnels toward the cave. She had had enough of this. She was tired of being followed, taunted, pursued and harassed. It was time to make a stand.

She crept silently to the tunnel mouth, the mist swallowing her footsteps as if she had never even made them. There was a small alcove in the stone wall just to the right of the exit, and she squeezed herself into it as best as she could, before stooping low and feeling around her feet in the mist. Finally her hands found what she was looking for; a loose chunk of stone, smooth and weighty. Clutching to it tightly, she straightened and waited.

It did not take long for the owner of the footsteps to come into view, and Callisto was vaguely surprised by what she saw when they did.

She had half expected to see her doppelganger again, all long limbs and wild blonde hair. This person though could not have been more different. Taller than her almost by a head, with large biceps, broad shoulders and a jaw shaped like an anvil. He wore a dark neatly trimmed beard, and his hair was the same colour, hanging down to his shoulders in curling waves.

He entered the room as if he were striding into a palace some where, confident and completely without fear, his head scanning from left to right as if he were looking something. Callisto felt a small grin play across her face. This was the first bit of amusement she had had since... well she could not exactly remember, but she knew it was a long time.

"Excuse me," she said cordially, stepping out of the alcove and tapping the man on the shoulder. "I believe you were looking for this?"

The man began to turn just in time to take the stone she was clutching in her hand clean across the jaw. He stumbled slightly but did not go down, and Callisto wasted no time following through, tossing the stone to her other hand and striking him from the other direction. This time he stumbled more obviously.

"Who are you?" Callisto demanded sharply, "And what do you want with me?"

When he did not answer, she hefted the stone in both hands, preparing to bring it crashing down over the top of the man's skull.

"Answer me," She snarled, "or else I get to see what the inside of your head looks like."

The man shook his head groggily, then slowly began to straighten.

"I'd rather you didn't," he said, reaching up and rubbing at his jaw tentatively. "If you even tried it would be most uncomfortable for me, but more importantly, incredibly painful for you."

As he finally lifted his head and the two of them locked gazes, Callisto felt a surge of recognition. It was the man she had remembered earlier.

"Palaces of the mind," she muttered almost to herself, then frowned and cocked her head at him. "Ares?"

"So you do remember then," the God of War said, crossing his arms and regarding her impatiently. "Some of it at least." He nodded to himself. "That's good. I was beginning to think the Pneuma had scrambled your wits beyond repair... not that they were ever particularly repairable in the first place."

Callisto lowered the stone, but still kept it clutched tightly at her side.

"Ha. Ha." she said, each mock laugh dripping with scorn. "So what are you doing here then?"

"You aren't pleased to see me?"

"No."

"That's a shame."

"Ares..." Callisto growled warningly.

"Oh would you just save your threats for someone you can actually threaten," Ares retorted with a long suffering roll of his eyes. "God of War remember. Hitting me with a stone is about as effective as tickling me with a feather. Amusing in small doses but irritating in the long run."

Callisto folded her arms and tilted her head at him.

"You're right of course," she said in fake agreement. "Hitting you with my little stone here will probably only annoy you ,"

She paused and smiled. "...but it will be a lot of fun for me ."

Ares gave a tired sigh.

"If you must know I'm here to help you," he said

"Help me?"

"Yes."

"You?"

"Yes."

Callisto frowned at him.

"Out of the sheer goodness of your heart?" she jeered sarcastically.

"Is it really that surprising?" Ares replied.

"Yes it is!" Callisto snapped impatiently. "You're hardly one for charity at the best of times, and if I remember correctly, the first time we met, you were only interested in what I could do for you."

Ares did not answer straight away. Instead he regarded her carefully, his hand lifted to stroke thoughtfully at his beard.

"How much do you remember?" he asked finally.

The question was somewhat unexpected and it made Callisto's frown deepen in confusion.

"What has that got to do with anything?" she snapped, trying to be evasive.

"Just answer the question," Ares pressed. "How much do you remember?"

Callisto stared at him angrily but did not answer. In truth, she was surprised by how little she could actually recall with any certainty now that she put her mind to it. Her memories were full of fog, and even her clearest ones were a hazy mess, difficult to piece together in their entirety. There were moments here and there, flashes and vague comprehension, but so much of it was muddled to the point she could no longer arrange them with any kind of coherency.

"I haven't got all day," Ares said, and Callisto flashed him a dirty look. He was standing in the same place as before, but now his arms were folded and his fingers were drumming steadily against his biceps.

"Not much," she admitted. "Bits and pieces mainly. Not a lot that's really solid."

"But you do remember me?" Ares asked.

Callisto's shoulders slumped, the irritation and frustration seeping out of her as her exhaustion began to take its toll.

"I remember remembering you..." she said, glancing down as she tried to put the feeling into words. "...if that really makes any kind of sense. I definitely remember hating you."

She looked up at him again. "That's what I'm trying to do now, but its not... it doesn't..." she struggled for the words. "It's all so distant. Remote even... like I can't really hold onto it."

Ares was nodding thoughtfully as she spoke.

"And you don't remember how you came to be trapped down here?" he asked.

Callisto shook her head.

"No," she said, then glanced around the chamber at the pairs of faceless blocking the exits.

"But I am trapped aren't I?" she said and nodded toward the nearest faceless. "By them."

Ares followed her eyeline then turned back to her, shaking his head as he did so.

"You don't have to worry about them," he said. "They're nothing. Less than nothing really. They're just shades; spectres out of the past that you've conjured to torment yourself with."

"That I've conjured!?" Callisto said, trying to hide the disdain in her voice and failing miserably. "Are you sure you're really Ares?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Ares said, frowning at her suspiciously.

"I don't remember the real Ares being so incredibly dense," Callisto sneered. "Why would I want to torment myself?"

Ares' expression changed as he stared at her. He was not really looking at her now, but rather through her with a penetrating gaze that was most disconcerting.

"You don't know where you are do you?" he said. "Why you're here?"

Callisto gave a bitter barking laugh.

"If I knew either of those, then I'd know how to get out of here wouldn't I."

"Perhaps," Ares said cryptically. "But then again that would depend on if you really wanted to escape."

"You think I don't want to get out of here?"

Ares' smile was one she had never seen on him before.

"I think you should tell me," he said. "Do you want to be free?"

Callisto glared at him as if he had just suggested she should really try forgiving Xena.

"Of course I do!" she spat.

Ares' smile widened, and he turned to gesture toward the nearest faceless.

"Come on then," he said, starting to walk toward them. "It's this way."

Callisto watched him, a sudden strange feeling of trepidation uncurling in her stomach. Her heart began beating harder in her chest, and her mouth went dry as a desert in the heat of summer. She tried to take a step forward to follow in his footsteps but for some reason her legs would not move. For a moment, she stood there, perfectly still, then swallowed and tried again. Still, she could not bring herself to move, and her back grew slick with a cold, nervous sweat.

Realising she wasn't following him, Ares cast a glance back over his shoulder at her.

"Are you coming?" he said.

Callisto could only shake her head.

"I..." she began, her throat suddenly rasping and dry. "...I can't."

Ares stopped and turned to face her once more.

"Why not?"

"Because!" Callisto snapped at him irritably. "Just BECAUSE! Alright!"

Ares gave a resigned sigh.

"Thought as much," he said, then strode back to her side.

"Alright then," he continued. "Maybe you should try leading the way." He shrugged as she cast him a sideways glance. "You might get lucky."

Callisto rolled her eyes and turned back to the tunnels ahead of her. Directly in front of her there was the tunnel Ares had exited from, along with two more as yet unblocked by the faceless. The air around her felt stale and still, with no hint of a breeze or fresh air stirring from any of the tunnels.

"Can't decide?" Ares tutted next to her. "Sure you don't want to try it my way?"

Callisto ignored him as it occurred to her that he might actually be trying to mislead her; deliberately attempting to steer her away from the tunnel he had entered through as part of some manipulation game he was playing. As to the reason why he might be doing it, she could think of nothing, but this Ares she was talking about. He was bound to have some ulterior motive for even offering to help her.

With the slightest of nods to herself, she made her mind up to it and started for the tunnel he had just left, suddenly confident in her decision. It felt good to have a direction again, some compass by which to gain her bearings and make decisions from.

She had barely gone two steps when Ares spoke up again.

"That's not the way out," he said.

Callisto rounded on him sharply.

"Or that's just what you want me to think!" she snapped.

"You don't trust me?"

Callisto laughed at him.

"The day I trust you, Ares, is the day I get a job juggling snowballs through Tartarus,"

Ares glanced at their surroundings and cocked an eyebrow at her.

"Funny you should mention that..." he began, but Callisto did not let him finish, instead giving a dismissive wave of her hand and starting for the tunnel again.

Even before she had set foot inside it though, she already had the creeping doubt that maybe Ares had not been lying to her after all. Ahead, the floor had begun to slope downward, and the tunnel had started to curve into a blind bend to the right. Something about that blind corner gave her pause. She could feel that dread again, cold and clammy at the base of her spine, and it made her want to turn right around and try one of the other tunnels. She could not do that now though. She could not let Ares see her mistake, or afford the weakness it would display.

"Something the matter?" Ares asked from where he towered over her right shoulder.

"Nothing," she said a little too sharply. Realising how defensive she must have sounded, she squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. When she spoke again her tone was a little more measured. "Nothing at all."

The faceless did not move to stop her as she stepped into the tunnel. Instead, they simply looked on impassively, if, without eyes, they could even be said to 'look' at all.

Callisto moved quickly as she entered the tunnel, trying to appear confident as she strode along with her back straight and her chin lifted. Despite appearances however, the doubts still gnawed at her.

Around her ankles the thick carpet of mist swallowed the sound of her footsteps, but strangely it did not seem to muffle Ares' passage at all. The sound of his boots clattering and scraping against the rocky tunnel floor seemed to echo in every direction. It was no wonder Callisto had been able to hear him long before she had actually laid eyes on him.

"Do you want to try being a little louder?" she hissed at him. "I don't think they can hear you in Chin."

"Why would I need to be quiet?" Ares asked. "It won't make any difference. She'll still find you no matter how quiet we are. Or you'll find her. Either result is much the same as the other."

Callisto stopped dead in her tracks.

"You know about her?" she snapped angrily, whipping around to face the war god. "You know who she is? What she is?"

"I have my suspicions," Ares said with a non committal shrug of his shoulders.

Callisto glowered balefully at him.

"But you're not going to tell me them are you?" she hissed.

"Of course not," Ares said with a dismissive snort, "That would defeat the point entirely." Before Callisto could move to block him and demand what he meant by that, he had already stepped past her and was continuing down the tunnel. He paused at where the tunnel disappeared around another bend up ahead, his brow furrowed as he squinted into the darkness.

"I think I see light down there," he said, then turned and motioned down the tunnel with his head. "Want to check it out?"

"Not really," Callisto said, starting grudgingly down the tunnel after him. "But then I don't suppose I have much of a choice do I."

"You know..." Ares began again, falling into step beside her, "...that's exactly your problem. Always telling yourself that you have no choice."

Callisto clenched her jaws tightly together.

"I didn't choose to be what I am," she growled darkly.

“Beg to differ,” Ares said smugly, and Callisto rounded on him, that oh-so-familiar spark of rage alighting in her gut.

"I didn't choose for Xena to attack my village!” She snapped. “Or for her to burn my home to the ground! Or to have to listen to my family scream as they burned too!"

"But you did choose what came next," Ares pushed. "Sooner or later, Callisto, you're going to have to wake up to the fact that having no choice in one instant does not excuse a lifetime of bad choices in the instants that come after."

"Fine!" Callisto bit off sharply. "You want me to make a choice? I will then! I choose for this to stop! I choose for it to all just go away and leave me alone with absolutely nothing for company!"

She paused for a moment and glanced around the tunnel. Nothing changed, or even so much as flickered . She turned back to face Ares once more, tilting an eyebrow expectantly at him as if to say 'well?'.

"It's not that simple," Ares said.

"It never is with you, is it?" Callisto retorted.

"I'm not the one doing this,"

"Oh?" Callisto sneered sarcastically. "Then who is?"

"You are," Ares replied in exasperation. "How many times do I have to go over it? Look around you. Doesn't this all seem a touch familiar? Like all the other places you've seen so far? You've been here before and you know it."

"If I've been here before then why can't I find the way out!?" Callisto snapped, her own irritation reaching boiling point.

"Because you didn't give yourself one!" Ares shot back, his calm collected exterior beginning to crack ever so slightly. "This isn't a maze, Callisto. It's not some puzzle to be beaten, or a labyrinth that you can find a way out of."

"What... is... it... then?" Callisto spat each word, her voice rising dangerously as she proceeded from one to the next.

Ares straightened slightly.

"A spiral," he said simply. "A whirlpool, a vortex; call it whatever you like, but the point is, there aren't exits, or passages, or ways to escape. Its got a hold of you and its dragging you deeper and deeper down with every passing moment."

"Deeper down to where?" Callisto said, folding her arms and regarding Ares with a questioning stare. Finally she seemed to be getting somewhere.

"Rock bottom," Ares said simply. Before she could ask him what he meant he had started walking again, leaving Callisto to stand in the middle of the tunnel, staring at the cold stone walls as the mist swirled about her feet and she tried desperately hard to work out exactly what it was that was going on. Her brow furrowed.

'Palaces of the mind'

Why did those words keep echoing inside her head? Even now, they still sounded clear and loud above the demented whispering that had been growing more and more feverish the further down the tunnel they had walked.

Her scowl deepening, she started down the tunnel once more, her gaze flicking distractedly from left to right. She was not really searching for a way out. Not any more. Instead she tried to tighten and focus her thoughts.

Ares had spoken those words to her once. She could remember that now, clear as day, but it was one of the only things she could recall with any real clarity. When she tried to remember anything else, like just how long she had been trapped down here, wandering through these shattered visions of people and places past, her thoughts became tangled and knotted.

She could not seem to puzzle any of it out, but the image of the glowing yellow lake proved a constant, and Ares' words to her clues enough. Seizing hold of those two loose ends, she began to try and untangle the mess that the rest had become.

"Palaces," she muttered to herself as she trailed after Ares, trying to stir more of the memories to the surface. "Palaces of the mind. Ares. Palaces, palaces, palaces." Repeating the words seemed to help. With each recital, the knots inside her head seemed to loosen. Then she remembered him again; a man on a boat with her, carrying her across a fetid river.

The River Styx.

It was a minor detail, but it helped her seize a hold of the memory. Charon! The man in the boat had been Charon. Zeus, Hades, Elysium, the deal. Suddenly everything was clear! The more she tugged at the memories, the more the tangled knots in which they had tied themselves began to come undone. Penthos, Dahlia, Atrix, Caelon, Sparta, Leonidas, Ithius, Athelis, Pelion, The Followers, Cronus; she could put it all together now! It was like stepping back from a wall mural. Close in she had only been able to see the colours of it, even the shapes here and there, but now that she had taken a step back, suddenly the entire picture was stark and clear as day.

"The Pneuma!" She gasped loudly at the sudden revelation, a feeling of satisfaction spreading through her as she did so. "HA! This is the Pneuma!" She smacked her fist hard against the cold stone wall. It felt real enough, but suddenly she knew deep down that it was not.

"None of this is here!" she laughed, almost delightedly, looking around the tunnel with fresh eyes. This was all her imaginings. A palace the Pneuma had helped her mind trap her in. Letting out another satisfied bark of laughter, she took off again at a dead run. "I've finally figured it out Ares!" she shouted down the tunnel after the God of War. He had stopped some distance ahead at what appeared to be the mouth of the tunnel. His back was turned to her and he seemed not to have noticed her sudden excitement.

"Didn't you hear me?" she said, slowing her run to confident rolling stride as neared him. "I know what this is now! I remember! It's all just smoke and mirrors; hallucinations and imaginings. None of it's real, do you hear me? None of it's…" Her voice trailed off as she reached Ares side and finally looked past him and out into a chamber that she had not entered before. That did not mean this was her first time visiting it however.

"…real," she managed to swallow as she took in her surroundings.

The cavern in front of her was the biggest she had been through yet. A low hanging arch of natural stone divided it in two about two thirds of the way in. The first chamber that she and Ares were now standing on the edge of was the larger of the two, but it was also empty, with nothing in it save for the mist that hung and thick and heavy across the ground, much as it did everywhere else here. It was the second chamber that had drawn her eye. Unlike the first chamber, this one was not empty. Just beyond the arch, there squatted a massive boulder, lumpy and rough over most of its surface, but flattened down one side. It felt to her now almost as if it were staring back at her, its lack of features reminding her of the faceless and their eerie, preternatural stillness.

If she had had any doubts about where she was before, they vanished at the sight of that stone.

"Looking familiar now?" Ares mocked her.

Callisto nodded, never once taking her eyes away from the boulder.

"This is..." she began.

"...The Underworld, yes," Ares finished for her. "Tartarus to be exact, or at least what you remember of it."

"This is where Hades sentenced me," Callisto continued, not really noticing Ares' interruption. The whispering in her head was growing louder again, and as it did so, the brief moment of clarity she had had was beginning to slip through her fingers.

"Its where Xena made me..." she trailed off as the pain of the memory came back to her, causing the whispering in her head to momentarily surge to fever pitch.

"Where Xena made you what?" Ares prodded after a moment's silence.

"Nothing," Callisto replied, a touch too sharply and with a defiant shake of her head. "She was wrong. That's all that matters."

" Was she?"  one of the whispered voices in her head hissed, suddenly clearly audible above the rest.

A cold sweat broke out on her forehead, and at her sides she began to rub the pads of her fingers against one another. She could not keep her attention off the boulder. It seemed to call out to her, and no matter how hard she tried, she could not wrench her eyes away from the thing. Slowly, almost cautiously, she took a step into the chamber.

Ares frowned at her.

"What are you do..." he began, then suddenly his head snapped sideways to stare back down the tunnel they had just entered through.

"Did you hear something just now?" he asked.

Callisto ignored him. The stone was all she seemed to be able to focus on. It was almost as if it were calling to her. She began to advance across the chamber, her gaze fixed on the boulder as she went. Behind her Ares did not follow, choosing instead to remain just inside the tunnel mouth and to continue to stare intently back the way they had come.

As she drew closer to the stone, the whispering in Callisto's head continued to grow louder. With each step she took, the voices grew more distinct, until, as she came to stand directly before it, they had become easily distinguishable from one another. It was not just one voice now, she realised, if it had ever even been just one at all. There were hundreds of them, all wailing and weeping, and shouting and cursing. There were cries of pain, and cries of sorrow. There were frothing diatribes of vitriol and piteous howlings begging for mercy, and all of them, from the most hate filled spitting down to the most pathetic whimpering, sounded lost and terrified. More importantly though, was that all of them; each and every one, was clearly directed at her. They filled her head to almost bursting, their tone both hushed and deafening at the same time. The combined whispered cacophony was such that she had to try hard not to press her palms across her ears in an attempt to block out the tidal roar of them all.

Her lip peeled back in a silent snarl. The voices all seemed to be coming from the boulder itself, and she could feel the sudden, inexplicable urge to reach out and touch it starting to overcome her. Slowly, she began to raise her hand to do just that. As she did so, the surface of the stone rippled and undulated, as if it were a lake someone had just dropped a stone into, and Callisto froze, her eyes narrowing warily while her hand hovered mere inches from the boulder's surface. From somewhere deep within the stone, a face emerged, its expression one of outright terror, with the eyes wide and the mouth yawning open in a silent howl that still somehow managed to match the whispering in her head.

It was not the only face to appear.

Dozens more of them began to drift to the surface, each one different to the last, but all of them stared accusingly out at her the same way that the specters of Leonidas, Theodorus, Strife and all the rest had. Her heart was beating faster now as more and more memories she had not even realised she had forgotten in the first place began to pile in, thick and fast, on top of one another. She knew these faces, all of them, although she did not know their names. They were the faces of the dead. She wanted to pull her hand back from them, to get as far away from them as possible, but something held her locked in place while the voices in her head cried out in exultation.

"I really don't think you should touch that."

Ares' voice hit her like a dry slap, and suddenly her mind was clear again, causing the voices to bellow in whispered dismay. Slowly she managed to let her arm fall back down to her side and, with a deep breath, she began to turn away from the stone to face the God of War once more.

"You know what?" she croaked, her throat suddenly dry and scratchy. "I think you might be right."

Ares opened his mouth to speak again, when he caught sight of something over her shoulder. Whatever it was, it was terrible enough to make even the war god's eyes widen in surprise.

Before Callisto could look behind her to see just what it was, she felt icy fingers wrap around her left ankle. They gripped as hard as iron and, and she hissed in pain as they bit viciously into her skin. She was about to stoop to try and pry the hand that gripped her loose when another seized her, this time by the right wrist. The second was followed by a third, then a fourth, and then a fifth and so on, until close to a hundred pairs of hands must have had hold of her. She twisted and fought against them but their strength was inhuman, and the hands themselves were cold and grey, the fingers of each as hard as banded steel.

With terrific force, they yanked her backward to collide with the stone, and Callisto shivered as she felt still more hands grab a hold of her. The surface of the stone was alive with them she realised; hundreds of pairs of hands, grasping and clawing at her and no matter how hard she fought against them, she could not break free.

"AREEEES!" She shrieked as loudly as she could manage. "Get these things off me!"

Ares hesitated for less than a moment before starting toward her. He had barely gone two steps when a vicious quake struck the chamber. The deep bass rumble of it filled the cave, dislodging small hunks of stone from the ceiling overhead, then suddenly, with an earsplitting crack, a huge fissure tore forth from the boulder. It raced across the cavern floor like some malignant predator pursuing its prey, running arrow straight, right between Ares' legs, and then, with a terrible shattering sound, yawning wide and opening up beneath Ares like some hideous gaping maw. It swallowed him in an instant, then snapped shut again, the stone closing up with a boom so loud it might have been a thunderclap.

For a moment all fell still in the chamber. The voices in her head had gone mercifully silent and even the hands had stopped clawing at her, though they still held her fast. Callisto could only stare dumbstruck at the cracked stone where Ares had been standing only moments before. She did not like Ares, it was true; could not even stand him to be honest, but he had at least been company. Slowly but surely the whispering voices in her head began to return once more, and she could not help but wish that she was not alone down here.

"Ares," she said softly, but there was no reply. "Ares!" she said again, louder this time.

Still nothing.

Glancing up, she felt that familiar sense of dread again as she saw a thick bank of mist rolling in from the tunnel they had entered through. She already had a feeling she knew what was coming with that mist, and she wanted to be out of here before it arrived.

She began to strain against the hands once more, but even with her renewed desperation she could not so much as wrestle a hand or foot free.

"Ares!" she shouted "I could really do with a little of that unlimited godly power right about now!"

Still no answer. As she tried in vain to free herself, more cold dead hands began to creep and crawl across her skin. A number of them reached out for her wildly thrashing head, grabbing her hard by her cheeks and temples in an attempt to hold her still. With a vicious hiss, she twisted and bit hard into one of the hands. It did not so much as flinch, and the flesh of it tasted cold and bitter, like rotting meat. With a snarl, she ripped her teeth free, spitting a great globule of crusted blood from the hand onto the floor and crying out again.

"ARES!" she yelled desperately. "Answer me, you useless lug! ARES!"

"It's no use you know," her own voice echoed through the cavern, "All your struggling, all your fighting, all your suffering..." there was a brief pause as her doppelganger stepped around from behind the stone, her lips twisting into an amused grin that showed way too many teeth. "...so much wasted effort."

At the sight of the other woman, Callisto redoubled her attempts to get free, not to escape, but so that she could reach out and strangle her. It was all for nothing though, and the hands continued to hold fast.

"Why can't you just leave me alone!?" she growled from behind bared teeth.

"Because that wouldn't be half so much fun!" the other her retorted playfully, but there was a strange undercurrent of yearning to her voice as well. "I've been waiting for this moment for so long, don't you see? So very, very long, down here in the dark, biding my time, knowing that sooner or later you'd find your way to me..."

As she spoke the mist around their ankles began to rise to meet the thick banks of it rolling out of the tunnel mouth. Callisto's back stiffened. In the depths of the fog, she could just make them out, those same silhouettes that she now knew to be the faceless. They were shambling through the mist toward them...

...toward her.

The other her paused, glancing briefly back over her shoulder to follow Callisto's eye line as the first faceless began to emerge from the mist. As she caught sight of them, her grin widened triumphantly.

"...and now you have!" she continued delightedly, turning back to face Callisto. "All the way down here, in the dark, with me." Still smiling, she reached out to touch Callisto's cheek almost tenderly. Callisto tried to twist away from her, but the cold hands just held on tighter, their grip completely unrelenting, even when the other hers touch made her shiver with revulsion.

Other figures were emerging from the mist now; people she recognised all too well. They were the same as those that had tormented her earlier; Leonidas, Atrix, Strife, Theodorus, Perdicus and the rest. They came out of the mist as they had done before, and like before, their baleful stares made her want to turn and run. Held tight as she was though, the most she could manage was to twist and writhe in the grip of the hands from the stone. In her head, the whispered voices were becoming almost deafening; a never ending roar like ocean breakers against a jagged shore.

The other hers smile fell away, and instead she closed her eyes, her hand still caressing Callisto's cheek as a strangely pained expression passed across her face. Slowly her eyes opened again, fixing Callisto with a steady, gleeful stare.

"You understand now, don't you?" she said. "Now that we're together! Now that we're the  same! "

"I'm not you!" Callisto back snapped viciously, still feeling those eyes on her. "I'm  nothing  like you! We're not the same! You're not even real! This whole place; you, the faceless, the caves! You're just some fever dream! Some crazed hallucination created by the Pneuma that I just need to wake up from."

"Oh," her doppelganger grinned with an amused shake of her head. ""You're only half right."

She nodded toward the faceless.

"The Pneuma brought you to us its true. It even gave us the strength to confront you, but it never made us. We've been down here much longer than that." She tilted her head slightly, reaching further back to stroke affectionately at Callisto's tangle of blonde hair. "You were just too busy with your vendetta against Xena to notice."

Callisto worked her jaw tightly, then spat in her doppelganger's face.

"You're lying!" she snarled.

The other hers face twisted in an instant, from a look of almost total bliss, to an expression of utter, all consuming fury. Reaching up, she wiped Callisto's saliva from her face, then smeared it across Callisto's own, while her other hand slid back from Callisto's cheek to coil itself in her hair. Callisto could only hiss in pain as the other her yanked her head back hard.

"No!" the doppelganger sneered harshly in her ear.  "That's  the lie! The delusion you live with every day! You know it is too. You know I'm telling the truth!"

"It's not..." Callisto began, but the other her cut her off sharply.

"Every time you sleep, you hear me. Every time you look in a mirror, you see me. Admit it! You know me. You  are  me!"

Callisto's teeth were grinding hard against each other now as she attempted to shake her head in denial.

"No," she said, but she could already hear her voice beginning to crack "No! I'm not like you. I'm nothing like you!"

Suddenly the other her released her grip on her, stepping back and tilting her head knowingly at Callisto.

"Then explain to me why you hear the voices?" she said smarmily.

"The voices?" Callisto said, suddenly confused. How did her doppelganger know about the voices?

"I know you hear them, because I hear them too!" her doppelganger smiled as if she were reading Callisto's thoughts. "I was born down here with them after all; the whisperings and the murmerings, the accusations and the tauntings. They've been with me as long as I can remember, and the worst part of it all? That its all your fault!"

"My fault!?" Callisto said, dumbstruck.

"Your fault!" The other her snapped, her temperament twisting on the edge of a dinar once more. She flung her arm out in a wide arc that encompassed the entire cavern. "All of it!"

Callisto attempted to shake her head again, but the other her leaned in close and seized her by her temples with both hands.

"Don't!" she hissed viciously, her fingers digging deep into Callisto's flesh. "Don't you dare try and deny this! Look at it! See all that you've wrought and the legacy you've left behind!"

Callisto's eyes rolled desperately. The faceless were closing in around her now, and the hands holding her tight against the stone were growing ever more chill as the voices in her head reached their most feverish pitch yet.

"This is the prison you built for them..." the other continued. "...and for me! This is the pit you left us to rot in!"

"I didn't..." Callisto tried to speak from behind teeth clenched not in anger anymore, but in pain. "I didn't think..."

"Think what?" the other her snapped. "That there wouldn't be consequences? That somewhere down the line there wouldn't be a reckoning?"

Trying hard to focus against the thrumming, buzzing voices in her head, Callisto turned her stare back to her doppelganger.

"Is that what you are supposed to be then?" she managed to growl. "My sin? My punishment? My dues come back to haunt me?"

The other her gripped her tighter still.

"How can you still not understand! I'm not your punishment." She thrust a finger outward toward the encroaching faceless. "They are! And now that you're here, they have you right where they want you!" Behind her, the ring of faceless encircling them was growing smaller and smaller by the moment. Soon they would be close enough to reach out and touch her.

Callisto grunted and pulled hard against the hands that clutched grimly to her wrists. She may as well have been trying to bend steel for all the good it did her.

"They can't be!" she shouted into the other her's face, her frustration and dread peaking sharply as her heart pounded wildly in her chest. "They're not real! They can't hurt me!  You  can't hurt me!"

The other her tilted her head slightly in what appeared to be honest astonishment.

"Why my dear," she said, sounding just as surprised as she looked. "Whoever said I wanted to hurt you? I'm not here to make you suffer."

"Then what do you want!?" Callisto demanded furiously. "Tell me!"

A small smile returned to the other hers face.

"To free you," she said simply.

Callisto's struggles stopped immediately and she fell very very still, looking the other her straight in the eye and scowling as she tried to process what it was she had just heard.

"What did you say?" she hissed.

The doppelganger's smile became wide and victorious.

"Peace" she said softly. "It's what you want, isn't it? Well, I can give it to you..." she paused, and gave a slight shrug. "...if you'll let me."

Callisto was about to open her mouth to reply when another deep rumble interrupted her, rippling through the chamber to an accompanying concussive booming sound. The other hers smile vanished in an instant and instead she scowled darkly.

"Just as I was getting somewhere," she muttered, turning away from Callisto to stare angrily back across the chamber.

A second rumble rocked the chamber, then a third, each one stronger than the last and followed by a series of thunderous booms, until, on the fourth quake, a final pealing boom struck and the floor of the cavern around where Ares had first been swallowed up exploded outward in a shower of stone chunks and sharp slivers. Out of the drifting cloud of dust and debris, the war god emerged, not a hair on his head out of place, yet still brushing himself off as if he were trying to make himself presentable. Callisto did not think she had ever been happier to see anyone in her entire life. The irony that this was Ares of all people was not lost on her either.

"I, uh, wouldn't listen to her if I were you," the God of War said as he adjusted his black leather bracers. "Taking advice from your own psychoses is seldom a good idea."

"And you're suggesting she should listen to you instead?" the other her sneered with barely restrained disgust. "What have you ever done for her except bring her more misery?"

Ares glanced at the doppelganger, then back over toward Callisto.

"Charmer isn't she," he smirked.

"Enough!" the other her snarled.

With disdainful flick of her wrist, the floor beneath them cracked open once more, zigzagging across the room and straight toward Ares as it had done before. Callisto could only look on helplessly as the ground split open beneath his feet once more. This time though, Ares did not so much as stumble. Instead he continued to stride forward, his feet meeting the air as if he were walking on solid ground.

"Are you forgetting who it is you're dealing with?" he said, cocking a quizzical eyebrow at Callisto's doppelganger.

"Maybe you could remind me," the other her retorted, clapping her hands together as she did so. The sound of the clap echoed loudly through the chamber, and suddenly, two huge slabs of stone tore themselves from opposite walls to either side of Ares and rushed inward, clearly meaning to flatten the God of War between them. Ares moved with all the pure self confidence his heritage bestowed him, thrusting his thick set arms out to either side of him, palms raised and flat. As the two slabs of stone met his outstretched hands, they exploded into hundreds of dagger like spikes of stone that hung suspended in the air to either side of him. Then, slowly and inexorably, they turned as one, each sharpened tip pointing toward Callisto and her doppelganger.

"Well, if you're not certain..." Ares said, examining the dust beneath his fingernails casually, "...how about a hint?"

Without warning, the spikes hurtled forward at frightening speed. Callisto squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the inevitable pain that would come when a hundred slivers of stone ran her through. After a moment or two, she cautiously cracked one eye open, and then, when it was clear that she wasn't dead, she opened the other.

Her doppelganger and Ares were still standing toward the center of the chamber, a dozen or more of the faceless now lying prostrate across the floor around the other her's feet, their bodies riddled with the sharp spikes of stone. The rest of the faceless were already turning away from her and moving to encircle Ares.

"Points for effort," the other her sneered, stepping daintily forward and across one of the faceless corpses as she spoke. "but you're playing in my yard now. This little game?  My  rules. You'll have to aim a lot surer than that if you want to take me down."

Ares laughed. It was a deep rich sound, full of honest amusement.

"Oh, you crack me up," he chuckled, slowly beginning to draw the sword he carried from where it hung in the scabbard at his hip. As he pulled it free with a leathery rasp, rolling blue flames ignited along the length of it, lending the whole scene an eerie glow that sent the shadows of the encircling faceless spinning through the mist.

"I mean, after all..." Ares continued. "...who said I was aiming for  you? "

For a moment, Callisto's doppelganger stood in silence, then suddenly she whirled around, a look of dawning horror creeping across her face as Callisto herself realised that the hands that had been holding her were no longer gripping so tightly. Glancing to either side of herself, her eyes widened when she saw that the vast majority of them were now pinned back against the boulder by the remaining dagger like slivers. Only a few of the hands had escaped unscathed, spared when the faceless had stepped in front of Ares' projectiles, and now they clung to her with feverish desperation.

"Callisto!" Ares called across the chamber, and at the sound of his voice she glanced up, just in time to see him leveling the flaming blue sword toward her.

"I'd suggest you duck," he said.

The other her began to whirl back to face him. "NO!" she screamed reaching out to stop him, but it was all too late.

A piercing lance of the electric blue flame burst from the end of the sword, slicing its way through the air toward Callisto. She managed to duck her head just in time as the flaming beam struck the stone squarely where it had been just a moment before. It drilled through the boulder as easily as a dagger pierces flesh, and then emerged from the other side to strike the rear cavern wall. The voices in Callisto's head cried out in an agony so piercing, she almost thought her head was going to burst at the seams from the pressure of their pain.

Instead the boulder did, exploding with a concussive boom that hurled her face-first into the ground. With her arms suddenly free she flung them out in front of her to arrest her fall, but not quick enough, and her head struck off square chunk of cold stone, plunging her into blackness as she felt that strange lurching sensation in her stomach once again.

She stayed that way for a long time, lying in a heap on the ground, blanketed in darkness while the world around her seemed to spin and twist crazily. Finally, as everything began to settle once more, and her stomach ceased its nauseous back flips, she managed to open her eyes.

The cavern and the boulder were gone. So too were Ares, her other self, and the horde of faceless. A soft breeze pulled at her hair, and without thinking she tilted her head back. Stars stared down at her from above, and all about her came a strange whispering sound. It was not the whispering voices she had been tortured by. They had fallen mercifully silent. This was something else; a sound she had heard many times before and one that was almost blissful in comparison.

It was the rustling of leaves in trees.

She was sitting in the middle of darkened forest, lit only by the starlight overhead, and even that was precious little to see by. Clambering to her feet, she groaned and reached up to her shoulder, rotating her arm in its socket and rolling her neck to an accompanying series of pops. Looking carefully about herself, her eyes squinting against the darkness of the night, she did her best to take stock of the situation, only to realise that for the first time in what felt like forever, her thoughts did not seem murky or uncertain.

"Well that's something I suppose," she muttered to herself, peering out into the undergrowth. This forest, wherever it was, was densely overgrown, and making her way through it would not be easy with nothing to cut away the foliage. Still she had precious little choice. She had to keep moving... didn't she?

She reached up and scratched thoughtfully at her nose. Was she still lost in her own subconscious, trapped their by the Pneuma fugue? If she was - and she had seen nothing so far to convince her that was not the case - then what difference did it make where she went or how fast she tried to get there? It would not change anything. She could not just strike out in any direction and keep going until she stumbled back into the real world.

Or could she?

She wracked her brains trying to think of some way out; some means of escape. This was not the first time she had been exposed to the Pneuma. That time had actually been a smaller dose however. Suddenly the image of the noxious yellow lake and the man in the dark hood returned to her, but this time she understood completely what it was she was remembering. She and Athelis had been in the Temple of Lycurgus, when Cronus' creepy servant, Mortius, had attacked them and tossed her into the Pneuma.

Cronus.

He was the reason for all of this, she recalled. The reason Zeus and Hades had elected to resurrect her rather than let her stay dead like she had wanted; the reason that Leonidas had been left to march to Thermopylae alone, and now, most infuriating of all, he was also the reason she was stuck down here in this crazy fever dream, thanks mainly to Mortius!

Well, she would not let it continue like this. There  was  a way out of here. There just had to be. She could not believe that the gods would create a test like this without some kind of solution. In spite of her many nasty run ins with the gods, petty and small minded though they could be, she was forced to admit that there was always some kind of twisted logic to the schemes they enacted.

The real question was, just how exactly was she supposed to beat the test? She tried painfully hard to recall just how she had escaped from the Pneuma's grip previously, but her mind could draw on nothing save a big fat blank.

Just how much of a challenge could it actually be? She had done it once before, so it could not be that difficult. Still, the answer was proving frustratingly vague.

She had been fighting Ares, she remembered, attempting to persuade him to intervene and aid Leonidas. He had refused and so they had come to blows. They had never finished though. Why had they not finished? What had stopped them? Fire. That was what had interrupted them. She could remember the heat of it, and something else too; her own outline, a dark silhouette moving easily through the flames. Her doppelganger, she realised. She had been coming for her even then.

The memory sent a shiver running up her spine, but the momentary discomfort it caused disappeared when she remembered what had come next.

Ares had snapped his fingers and... That was it! Ares! It had been he who had awoken her the first time. Well, if he had done it once, he could do it again.

She frowned. Was it really that simple? If it was, why had he not freed her in the cavern before?

She thought about that for a moment but when no answer was immediately forthcoming, she simply shrugged her shoulders and started walking again. What did it matter at the end of the day? All that  really  mattered was that he had the power to get her out of here, and if he was not willing to help her, well then, she would just have to make him.

All of this did not solve the issue of her doppelganger, though. She gnawed gently at her lower lip as she passed between the shadowy silhouettes of forest's many trees. How much truth was there in what the other her had said? Could she truly give Callisto what she wanted? To do that she would have to know what Callisto herself wanted, and since Callisto was not entirely sure what that actually was, it was difficult to judge her doppelganger's honesty. Was it to get out of this nightmare in which she had become entangled? If that were true, then it only raised the same question as with Ares. If she could help Callisto escape, why had she not done it already?

Something about the other hers offer just felt off to her. She was a part of all this, that much was clear, though how much of her was a creation of the Pneuma, Callisto remained uncertain. Whatever the case may have been, it was clear that she was a piece of the puzzle; the ancient test designed to test her mental strength as some kind of ancient rite of worthiness so that the gods could select their most worthy followers as Oracles. If her doppelganger was truly a part of all that, then the question was, just what was it that her offer was testing?

As she pushed her way through the thick underbrush, Callisto's thoughts began to run in circles. The same questions would keep occurring to her, but when she tried to answer them, they would just spin her off onto another line of thinking that would always drag her back round to the same point eventually.

Grunting in vexation she shoved a particularly large palm frond aside, only to freeze dead in her tracks. Somewhere up ahead, she could spy the dull glow of a campfire flickering between the trees and throwing long dancing shadows through the rest of the forest.

Cautiously, Callisto began to creep forward, flitting from tree to tree and bush to bush as she closed in on the campfire. As she drew nearer, she could see the shadow of a figure sitting at the fire cast larger than life up a particularly thick birch tree at the campsite's edge.

Who could it be? Ares perhaps? Or maybe the other her?

As she had done back in the tunnels, Callisto crouched low, grubbing around in the dirt until her fingers closed around a particularly weighty rock. Straightening, she tested it instinctively for balance, not that it really mattered of course. It was only a rock after all. Hardly a good sword, or even a stilletto dagger.

If it was Ares at the side of the campfire, well, the rock would not really be of any danger to him, and something told her it was doubtful that her doppelganger would bat so much as an eyelid at it either. Still, it felt good to have  something  she could count on in a fight, even if it was just a stone.

Quietly she resumed her stalking movements, pausing only briefly when she heard the person at the campfire shift slightly where they were sitting. Once they had settled, she started forward again, finally reaching the edge of the firelight, and securing her position behind a tree directly opposite the person sitting at the fire.

Taking a deep breath, she hefted her stone and leaped out into the ring of firelight, preparing momentarily to let the rock fly only to have it slip from astonished fingers as she caught sight of the figure at the fireside for the first time.

Sitting on the fallen trunk of a tree and with a sturdy branch clasped in one hand with which she was tending the fire, the red headed figure paused in her ministrations to glance up, a strange and uncharacteristically knowing smile twitching at the corners of her mouth as she did so.

"Gabrielle!" Callisto gasped in astonishment. "What are  you  doing here!?"

The traveling bard, and Xena's most loyal friend straightened slightly, her smile widening as she did so.

"Let's play a game shall we?" she said. "I'll answer your questions, if you answer mine."

Chapter Ten: Enabler

The taught sound of bows being flexed filled the air.

"LOOSE!" Ithius commanded.

There was a discordant thrumming noise as ten bows released their tension, hurling arrows across the small forest clearing to stab into a row of straw filled sacks, each one painted with a series of concentric rings at its center.

Ithius cocked his head slightly, studying the results with an appraising eye as he marched back and forth along the row of sacks. Finally he turned, placing his hands on his hips and giving the line of so called archers his judgment with a disappointed shake of his head.

"That's it?" he said, gesturing toward the arrows. Not a one had hit the bullseye. "That's the best you can do?"

The line of Helots shifted uncomfortably at their poor performance. They had been tradesmen once; bakers, dyers, butchers and the like. Not anymore though. The Spartans had taken all of that from them, and Ithius did not plan on making it easy for them to take any more. There would come a time when these people would need to be able to defend themselves, when the Spartans would again come for them and those loved ones they still had left alive. When that time came, they would need to be prepared.

Still shaking his head and with a soft groan he turned and began to make his way off to one side.

"Again," he comanded, ignoring the chorus of tired groans that were his main response. "Do it again. Remember what I told you. Inhale on the draw, then let out a little to steady yourself. Don't let it all go until after the release."

Once more, the helots tiredly hefted their bows, took deep breaths, then released. Like before, not a single arrow found its intended mark. Ithius scrubbed his palm across his eyes. Never before had he felt such bone numbing weariness.

"Still not good enough," he said. "Do it ag..."

Before he could finish one of the Helots, a former blacksmith by the name of Arkus with shoulders like a bison, threw down his bow with an angry snarl.

"This is pointless!" he snapped. "We've all been on the wrong side of a phalanx! We know how they work! What good is learning to shoot arrows when your enemies already know how to defend against them?"

The gathering of Helots fell silent as Ithius narrowed his eyes and fixed Arkus with an even stare. For a moment the two men stood face to face with one another, then Ithius turned and stalked over to a straw filled training dummy mounted on a single wooden stake that had been driven deep into the ground. Propped up next to the dummy was what had once been a large wooden table top from out of the nearby woodsman's cabin. It was roughly the same size as a Spartan shield and normally it would have been tied to the training dummy to simulate firing on an armed Spartan soldier. Ithius noted ruefully that a few arrows had been left stuck in it following the last set of training drills; all of them off centre of course.

Without a word, he seized the wooden shield from where it lay then turned back to face Arkus once more and thrust the shield toward him.

"Hold it," he said simply.

Arkus frowned at him in confusion.

"Why do I have to..."

"Just hold it," Ithius said sternly "and hand me your bow."

Arkus' brow furrowed deeper, but in the end he just shrugged and took the shield from Ithius while handing over his bow at the same time.

"Okay," he said, a sudden note of suspicion in his voice. "Now what?"

"Stay where you are," Ithius said, turning away from him and heading toward the other end of the clearing. "And hold it like you've seen the Spartans do. I want it covering as much of your body as possible."

With a worried glance at the rest of the Helots around him, Arkus braced his feet and hefted the shield. He clutched it tightly to him, holding it in something approximating a Spartan soldier's locked shield stance with his right arm keeping the shield across his chest and leaving his left shoulder ever so slightly exposed.

Ithius stopped walking when he reached the tree line. Standing here he was almost double the distance from Arkus that the Helots had been from the sacks. He gave a satisfied nod and licked the tip of his finger, testing the wind as he once more turned back to face the group. The breeze was light but he would still need to adjust his aim accordingly.

Without speaking, he lifted Arkus' bow and notched an arrow to the bowstring in a single smooth motion, then, with a deep breath he began to draw.

"Now wait a minute..." Arkus began, shifting slightly where he stood.

Ithius did not wait for him to finish. Sighting down the length of the arrow, he found his target and let fly.

The arrow sailed clear over the shield and Arkus' exposed left shoulder to disappear into the trees at the opposite end of the clearing. Arkus himself let out a pained yelp, spinning on the spot to watch the arrow whistle past. He stood quietly for a moment, his eyes glaring after the arrow. Then he winced, and reached up to his shoulder, his eyes widening in surprise when his fingers came away slick with blood from where the arrow had nicked him as it passed. With a furious growl, he whirled back to face Ithius, his eyes blazing angrily.

"Are you crazy!?" he snapped, holding up his bloodied hand so that everyone could see it. "You could've killed me!"

"How?" Ithius replied, his tone perfectly measured and flat. Lowering the bow to his side, he walked back over to Arkus to bang his knuckles smartly against the other man's makeshift wooden shield. "You had this didn't you? A nice big shield to keep you safe, same as any Spartan."

"But... but..." Arkus spluttered, "...but you hit me!"

"Exactly," Ithius said, his voice remaining level and patient when it would have been so easy to gloat. "The shield doesn't cover everything, does it."

He began to look slowly up and down the line of Helots, his eyes meeting each of theirs one at a time.

"Let this be a lesson to you all," he continued raising his voice so that it carried across the entire clearing. "Spartans are tough, no question about it. They're experienced and well trained, but they aren't invulnerable. Even with the best armour, there are chinks that can be aimed for, weaknesses that can be exploited. A phalanx can be penetrated by just a single person. Trust me when I say this, I should know..." he paused as he remembered a time not so long ago at Leonidas' palace. Callisto had moved like Zeus' own thunderbolt that day, striking hard at one of Leonidas' own rigidly trained and drilled phalanx units. It should have been suicide. Instead the phalanx had crumpled under her furious onslaught. Ithius had never watched a display of skill quite like it before.

"...I've seen it done," he finished softly. The final remark was more for himself than for anyone else, but it still made a few of the Helots look at him askance.

Suddenly, from the edge of the clearing a polite cough sounded that pulled Ithius back to the here and now. Looking away from the Helots, he saw that the source of the cough was an unspectacular figure, of average height, build and appearance. So nondescript was he, it took Ithius a moment to even recognise him as one of the Helots he and Drogo had rescued from Plykus' cellar a week or so before. He was carrying something at his side, a book from the looks of it, and it was one that had a familiarity which teased naggingly at the back of Ithius' mind.

"Continue practicing," he ordered the others, then turned and pointed at the row of painted sacks nearby. "And when I come back, I want to see some bullseyes. Is that clear?"

Another low groan went up from the line of Helots, but again, Ithius chose to ignore it and instead crossed the clearing over to where the slighter man stood.

"Crius," he said with a nod as he finally managed to recall the other man's name. "Is there something I can do for you?"

Crius shifted uncomfortably.

"My apologies my lo..." he began, only to remember just how much Ithius detested being thought of as a lord.

"My apologies," he began again, this time displaying his respect with a simple gracious nod of his own. "I did not mean for this to take me so long. You see, I tried to speak with you when you first brought us here, but at the time you seemed busy, and since then... well..." he rubbed his free hand nervously against one of his pant legs. His hands were obviously sweating. "...with one thing and then another I did not have the opportunity to speak with you again, and then it felt like I'd waited too long, and I was worried you'd be angry at me. It's taken me until now to work up the courage to speak with you again, and now that I'm here I can't help but think I should have come and spoken with you sooner but..."

Ithius held up a placating hand, stilling the other man's nervous patter.

"Crius," he said, doing his best to keep his voice even and measured. "It's alright. You don't need to be nervous around me. I'm sure you've done the best you can. Now..." He paused, and cast a meaningful glance toward the book in Crius' hand. Why did he feel like he should know it? "What is it that you have to tell me?"

"It's about Master Monocles..." the other man began.

At the mention of the Athenian historian's name, something stirred loose in Ithius brain, and suddenly he recalled where he had seen the book before. It had belonged to Monocles, or at least he had been using it to research the cult of the Followers. If Ithius remembered correctly it was some kind of philosophical treatise on the nature of reality and the places of the Olympians and Titans within it. Monocles had had some crazy theories, he recalled. They had been theories about the Followers and their plans; to use the Helots and their massacre as the opening salvo in a bid to create a civil war with the rest of Greece that would ultimately lead to such a tremendous loss of life, it would somehow thin the barriers between the worlds of the living and dead. Doing so would open a window of some kind, a doorway through which the ancient father of the Titans, Cronus, would have the chance to return to the world of the living so that he might wreak revenge on the children that had betrayed him.

At the time, Ithius had thought the whole thing sounded a little implausible; far fetched even, but then with the way things had been going recently, the more Monocles' theories seemed to be beginning to make sense. Leonidas had certainly believed him, even going so far as to pen a note to Ithius, asking him to watch out for Callisto. In the same letter he had claimed that she was some kind of chosen warrior of the gods, set loose to fight against Cronus and his Followers.

All of this had come at Ithius out of left field, and at the time he had been occupied by other concerns; the fate of his people most notable among them. As far as he was aware, Monocles had not been seen or heard from since the Helot massacre and the subsequent flight of the survivors. If Crius knew where he could be found, maybe the little Athenian could shed a little more light on what exactly it was Demosthenes and the Followers might be planning. He might even be able to find some way to help Callisto, and with her back, they might just stand a chance at making it through this!

"You know where Monocles is?" he asked, a slight edge of eagerness entering into his voice. Crius paled noticeably, and gave the slightest of slight nods.

"In a manner of speaking," he said.

"Then out with it," Ithius said, trying to control his impatience and failing miserably. "Tell me how I can find him. I need to speak with him."

Crius shifted uncomfortably and gave a miserable sniff.

"I'm so sorry," he said. "But he's doubtless across the Styx by now. It's been several weeks after all..."

His voice trailed off as he noticed Ithius' expression turn ashen. For a moment he had allowed himself to hope that their situation might not be completely hopeless. Now that that small sliver of light had been yanked away again, the despair of their current plight seemed all the darker because of it.

"I'm sorry," Crius said again. "I should have come to you with this sooner..."

Ithius shook his head and reached out to place a hand on Crius' shoulder.

"It's alright," he said. "At least you  did  come to me."

Taking a moment to collect himself he straightened slightly and took a deep breath, holding it for a moment as a method of calming himself that Leonidas' father had once taught him. Finally, he let it back out in a big exhale that seemed to take at least some of his worries with it for the time being.

"How did it happen?" he asked.

"It must not have been long after I left you," Crius said. "I was preparing my things to run, like you had told me to, and thought I might even be able take a horse from the stables, but I didn't want to be seen in case anyone tried to follow me. I worked my way carefully around the outer edge of the main courtyard, and was coming up on the stables from behind some hay bails when suddenly I saw an old man walking out of them."

"An old man..." Ithius frowned thoughtfully.

"Yes," Crius continued. "Dressed like the Followers do, in Crimson robes. I remember he was smiling as he left. Anyway, I was worried he might see me, so I stayed hidden until a little while after so that he could be sure he wasn't about to come back. That's when I went inside and found..."

"Monocles," Ithius finished for him and Crius nodded. "He was lying face down on the ground with blood everywhere and I... and I..."

"Go on," Ithius said as encouragingly as he could manage.

Crius' eyes turned downcast, and when he spoke again, his voice was softer and full of regret at the memory he was now reliving. "I tried to help him," he said. "With the gods as my witness I did, but it was already he too late. He was dead when I turned him over. Stabbed in the gut it looked like."

"I'm certain you did everything you could," Ithius said reassuringly.

"I... uh... I didn't stay," Crius said as he looked up imploringly at Ithius again. "You'd said Demosthenes was coming, and I didn't have time to... to... he was already dead you see and I..."

"It's alright," Ithius said again. "You did the right thing in leaving. If you'd stayed, you might have been killed too."

Crius sniffed loudly and nodded.

"Thank you," he said. "I'm glad you understand." Suddenly he looked down at the book he was holding as if noticing it for the first time. "Oh yes, he had this with him."

He held it out in front of him, proffering it to Ithius as if it were some kind of family heirloom to be handed down with great care. Ithius accepted the book tentatively, turning the over the worn leather cover as he did so.

"I remembered he was always looking back to it all the time while he was working. Kept saying he was busy and that he shouldn't be wasting time with it, but kept on looking all the same."

Ithius frowned as he turned the book on its side and looked along the edges of its worn brown pages.

"There's blood on it," he said, eyes narrowing at the sight of Monocles' long since dried fingerprints stained across the pages in shades of vivid crimson.

Crius nodded soberly.

"He had it in his hand when I found him," he said by way of explanation. "There's some pages missing too. I tried to have a of it read to see if I could figure out what it was that's missing, but its all a bit beyond me I'm afraid. Lots of talk about the universe, the Titans, the gods; none of it the kind of rhetoric the temple of Artemis preaches mind."

Only half listening, Ithius flipped the book open and began leafing through the pages. Crius was right. A number of pages early in the book had been torn out by hand, leaving behind only a few ragged strips still clinging to the spine.

"Any idea what happened to them?"

Crius only shrugged in answer to the question.

"I really couldn't say," he said. "I remember something had been burned, though. I could smell it in the air, and there was ash on the floor nearby. Maybe he burned the pages before he died."

"Maybe," Ithius nodded absently. The remnants of the torn pages were caked in the same dried blood as other parts of the book, only here the blood was thickest, as if Monocles had deliberately smeared it there. Ithius supposed it could have been the case that it had happened if Monocles had ripped the pages out himself, but the thickness of the blood and how soaked through the pages had become suggested the little Athenian had held onto the torn fragments for far longer than he would have needed to if he were simply trying to remove them. Then there was the old man Crius had seen leaving the stables. Was he involved? Had he been the one who had killed Monocles? The evidence certainly pointed to him, but that left him wondering just who the man had been. If he was indeed one of the Followers, it certainly lent credence to both Monocles and Leonidas' wild theories about the mass human sacrifice being used to split the Underworld asunder, as did their involvement with the Temple of Lycurgus.

The Followers being behind everything would also link up nicely with Demosthenes' sudden rise to power. They had been everywhere among the Helots in the last month or so before the coup, and rumours had been circling that even some of the Spartan nobility had begun to turn to them in matters of faith after it became clear that the Persian invasion was inevitable. It was entirely possible, he supposed, that they had had eyes and ears in various corners of the city, watching, listening and reporting. If that was truly the case did it mean that they might they still have those eyes and ears among the Helots now?

At that thought, Ithius snapped his attention back up to Crius as a sudden wave of paranoia washed over him.

"What made you bring this to me?" he asked, doing his best not to let the sudden edginess he was feeling show. Was Crius telling him the truth? Had there ever even been an old man, or was the unassuming Helot lying to him.

"I brought it to you because it seemed like it might be important," Crius said suddenly sounding worried. Clearly Ithius had not managed to keep the tension he was feeling out of his voice. "You're the only person I could reach who knew Master Monocles and I just thought if it was useful to him, it might be useful to you."

For a moment Ithius eyed the other man suspiciously, then, suddenly feeling exhausted, he let out a long low breath. The pressure must have been getting to him. He was starting to jump at shadows.

"I hope that proves to be the case," he said, then gave Crius the warmest smile he could muster under the circumstances. They were few and far between these days.

"You did the right thing bringing this to me," he said. "But this next part is important. Does anyone else know that you went into the stables that night?"

Crius frowned at him in confusion but shook his head.

"No," he said. "I haven't spoken about it to anyone save you before now."

Ithius nodded and tucked the book into his jerkin, safely out of view from prying eyes.

"That's good," he said. "And probably safest for you. If you want to continue staying safe though, I suggest you take my advice."

Crius looked more than a little startled by that.

"And what would that be?" he asked, swallowing nervously as he did so.

"Forget about this," Ithius said darkly, lifting the book slightly. "Do your best to put it out of your mind and pretend you never even saw it. If anyone asks, all you found in those stables was Monocles' body surrounded by blood and horse shit. Understand?"

"I do," Crius nodded, the blood draining from his face at the severity of Ithius' warning. "It's just a book though. How dangerous could it be?"

"I'm not sure," Ithius replied, his thoughts beginning to wander again as he tried to puzzle out what all of this meant. "But I'm going to do my best to find out."

*****

It did not take long to wrap up the bow training. Ithius' mind was no longer on the drills, and the lack of bullseyes barely registered to him. The best shot in the group turned out to be Arkus who managed to get two arrows in to the second innermost ring, the irony of which was lost on neither him nor Ithius.

Finally Ithius sent them all on their way, back to their daily chores about the camp, or simply to rest their aching muscles. There were a hundred and one jobs Ithius himself could have been doing about the camp. Instead he chose to wander aimlessly, his feet leading him on a twisting route between the myriad tents and makeshift shacks as he lost himself in thought.

Cronus. The Followers. Callisto. The gods themselves. It was all a bit much to truly believe, but he was starting to find that the deeper he delved into what had  really  been going on in behind the scenes in Sparta, the more and more convincing that which had once seemed so crazy was becoming.

The missing pages were a sticking point for him. He could not even begin to fathom what relevance they might have had. For a little while, he seated himself on an old felled tree stump in a quiet corner of the camp, away from anyone who might be too curious, and started thumbing through the book. Whoever had removed the pages – and he was seriously beginning to doubt that it had been Monocles – they had been fairly thorough. Whatever it was that had been referenced in them had not been clearly referred to in any other parts of the text that he could find. All he could ascertain from what little remained of the chapter they had been torn from, was that they had probably contained some kind of history of the Titanomachy, or at the very least, the final battle of it. Unable to glean anything more, he clambered back to his feet and started walking again.

Before he realised where his feet had led him this time, he was standing in front of the old woodsman's cottage at the centre of the camp. Not really knowing why, he started inside, moving unhurriedly down the corridor until he stood outside a plain door at the far end.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed the door open and stepped inside.

Callisto was laid out flat on the bed like always, motionless save for the darting of her eyes beneath her eyelids, and the occasional weak groan that would escape from her. Slowly, Ithius crossed the room, unfastening his two handed long sword in its scabbard and propping it up against the bed's end table before pulling up a small wooden stool and seating himself on it.

It looked like Callisto had been fed not too long ago. She did not chew obviously, and any attempt to get her to drove her into furious, screaming fits. She had nearly bitten the fingers off Drogo the first time they had tried. In the end they had taken to shoving a wooden rod between her teeth and pouring a kind of weak gruel down her throat. It might not have been tasty, but it was certainly nutritious, only required her to swallow, and most importantly, minimized the risk to their digits. Whoever it was that had fed her last had not done a very good job of cleaning her afterwards however, and there were still some dried flecks of her previous meal clinging around the corners of her mouth.

Ithius reached out, retrieving a cloth from where it had been soaking in the water bowl on the nearby end table and reached out with it to dab the remains of the gruel away. Callisto barely even stirred when the cold wet cloth touched her skin.

He did not really know what he was doing here. The letter from Leonidas had asked him to watch out for Callisto, and he was doing just that, ensuring she was kept fed, clothed and otherwise cared for. He drew the line at coming here himself though, mainly because the few times that he had done, he had felt nothing but guilt at the sight of her lying sweating and pained in the Pneuma induced fugue she had lost herself to.

It was all his fault in a way. Leonidas had been his friend. His best friend even. They had grown up together, and yet when the time had come, Ithius had not had his back. Callisto had stayed at his side however, and sometimes Ithius would find himself wondering just how differently things might have played out if he had chosen to do the same, rather than make the decisions he ultimately had.

Finally he finished dabbing away the food stains from her cheeks and set the cloth to one side, letting out an exhausted groan as he did so. He reached up, clasping his hands together high above his head and stretching until he heard his spine pop. Satisfied, he slumped in his seat again, his jaw cracking open in a tired yawn.

He had never felt so drained in his entire life. He could not remember the last full night's sleep he had had. Pressures would pile upon worries that would pile upon yet more pressures, and he would toss and turn long into the night. Now, the revelation of Monocles' fate and everything that that might entail had just added yet another item to the long list of concerns he seemed to spend most of his time trying to mentally categorise and prioritise.

Sometimes he wondered how Leonidas had managed to keep on top of all the responsibilities, but then he remembered that his old friend had been born to them and had never known anything different. Such was not the case for Ithius. He had been born a slave, if a privileged one. The last thing he had ever wanted upon gaining his freedom was to then have to turn around and sacrifice it once more on the altar of his own people's needs. He had never wanted to be a leader and he certainly had not wanted to have the fate of all the Helot people on his shoulders, but then what choice had he had? Soriacles had left to pursue his new life away from Sparta and the responsibilities it held, as had Plykus. The likes of Drogo and Tarthus were too volatile to be trusted to achieve anything noteworthy on their own, and that had just left him. Who else could have been trusted with the responsibility?

At least with Leonidas, he had had a confidant, someone he could turn too when it had all threatened to become too much for him. They had lived in different worlds, but they had understood each other at the same time. Now there was no one left to turn to, and for the first time in his life, he found he had no idea about what he should be doing next. He needed someone to talk to, someone he could strategise with. He had had enough of it being just him alone with his thoughts and doubts. The only question was who? Drogo was absent more than he was present these days, and Athelis was out of the question.

Well, if talking to a crazy warlord with a world sized chip on her shoulder was a good enough way for Athelis to exercise his inner demons, it would have to be good enough for Ithius too.

He swallowed as he tried to think of what it was he wanted to say. Strangely enough, he felt nervous although he was not exactly sure why.

"So..." he managed to begin, rolling the word off his tongue as he struggled to find the words. "...Monocles is dead. Gods only know what that means but it can't be anything good. He seemed to be on to something with that research he was doing, and what with everything that's happening now, well..."

His voice trailed off and he sat in silence for a long time, listening to her breathing. Her breaths were sometimes deep and chesty, other times shallow and rapid, her chest would rise and fall unevenly with each one. He sighed and hung his head.

"I don't really know why I'm here," he said. "I mean... I'm here to try and take care of you, like I promised Leonidas I would, but I just don't  know  if that's the real reason."

He stood up and crossed to the room's single window so that he could stare out across the camp. The rain had finally stopped falling, and the clouds overhead seemed to be thinning allowing a few fleeting glimpses of the stars and moon beyond. Cooking fires had started to be lit around the camp in preparation for the evening meal, and from somewhere nearby, faint snatches of music drifted up into the night sky, accompanied moments later by quiet but enthusiastic singing. Ithius had asked them not to play when it had begun to become more obvious that the camp would be their home for the foreseeable future. He had been worried that passers by on the roads beyond the forest might hear them. For a while they had obliged him, but eventually, with the darkness of the night surrounding them, and the uncertain future pressing in from all sides, they had started again. Ithius did not begrudge them it, and he had not tried to stop it the second time. They needed   something  to lift their spirits after all.

"I know that you hate me for what I did." He glanced back over his shoulder at her, but she had not moved so much as an inch. "I understand it too, strange as that might seem. I mean, trust me, no one's more disgusted with me right now than me! I didn't get the chance to say it to you before – you wouldn't let me – but I am truly sorry. I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I just... I just..."

He scrubbed a hand across his face. Why was this so difficult? It wasn't like she was awake and glaring back at him in that fierce way she had. She was unconscious for Zeus' sake!

"I just wanted what was best," he managed finally.

Callisto stirred slightly, he top lip twitching slightly as he spoke. Ithius smiled bitterly.

"Kind of a weak excuse right?" he said, then sighed and crossed the room to seat himself beside her once more. "I know, I know; I'm probably the last person you want speaking to you now. Well I suppose that's just your tough luck, isn't it? You see, Leonidas asked me to watch out for you. It's the last thing he asked of me actually, one friend to another, and its long past time I started living up to it."

Callisto's eyes fluttered beneath their lids, and Ithius found himself wondering what it was she was seeing. Considering her mental state, he doubted it was pretty.

"I think what I'm trying to say..." he continued, leaning closer to her as he did so, "...is that if – no, not if –  when  you finally wake up from this, I want you to know that, no matter what you think of me, I'll have your back..."

He paused and looked down at the floorboards between his feet.

"...like I should have had his," he finished sadly.

He sat quietly for a while, not knowing what else to say. Was there really anything else that needed to be said? Not really. Not now at any rate.

Outside the sound of hoof beats on the trail running into the camp pricked at his ears. He glanced back over his shoulder toward the window, frowning as he did so. Why had the night watch not sent up a call? They were supposed to do that if anything untoward seemed to be going on. With a frustrated grunt he clambered back to his feet grabbing his sword and stalking angrily for the door.

As he walked he fastened the scabbard tightly across his back so that the hilt of the weapon jutted up over his shoulder. He'd have to have words with the watch for this. What use was it keeping a lookout if they never actually warned you when people were coming!?

In no time at all he was out of the building, his long, measured strides eating up the distance as he moved out of the small yard at the front of the cottage and off between the tents in the direction he had heard the horses coming from.

A strong wind had kicked up, clearing the sky over head of clouds even more and bathing the camp in the cold silver of star and moonlight. The lack of cloud cover also brought a chill to the night air, and Ithius found himself wishing he had brought his traveling cloak as the wind whistled between the tents and bit viciously at his skin.

There was more noise now, almost approaching the level of a commotion, and suddenly the night's chill was nothing compared to the ice that froze Ithius' veins solid. Was this it? Had the Spartans finally found them? If it was true, why had their still been no alarm?

He quickened his pace from a walk, to a steady jog, and then finally to a dead run, his nerves suddenly on edge as he felt the cold dread inside him uncoiling. Around him, other Helots were beginning to emerge from their tents or rise from their cooking fires as they too noticed the commotion nearby. The sight of their leader running past had them unnerved and a few of them broke into a similar run to his own.

Finally he rounded a particularly large tent made of stitched together table cloths, and his jaw all but hit the floor.

He had emerged from the camp into a crowd of Helots all gathered around the edges of an open semicircle of ground that bordered the edge of the forest. A single large camp fire burned close to the middle of the semicircle, the strong winds pulling the flames this way and that, and sending the shadows of the fifty or more people gathered around the space whirling across the dirt.

At the far end of the clearing, a number of rough and tired looking Helots were still emerging from the forest into the relative brightness of the camp. Ithius recognised them all immediately. These were Athelis' little band of followers. One and all they looked battered and bruised, and each of them was loaded down with as much armour and weapons as they could carry, all of it Spartan.

At the sight of all the salvaged gear, Ithius felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. What had they gone and done!?

A few of them were mounted, with spears, swords, breast plates, helmets and shields crudely lashed to their mount's horses. Athelis himself was mounted, riding at the head of the short column of fighters, and when he saw him, Ithius felt the sinking feeling in his stomach hit rock bottom.

Athelis was carrying a blood soaked Spartan shield in one hand, while the other hand clutched to the horses' reins creating a crook at his elbow. Nestled in that crook he carried a broken Spartan helm, the skull cap of the thing cleaved clean through and with still more blood along the edges.

The crowd fell silent as he trotted his horse out toward the centre of the semicircle, and wheeled it on the spot so he could take in everyone about him. No one spoke. Instead they just stood, watching and waiting expectantly.

"My friends!" Athelis announced loudly, his voice carrying in the silenced of the night. "I bring good news for you! Your days of hiding and fearing are over! For the last few days, a small number of your brothers and sisters here joined me in hunting down a unit of Spartans sent to hunt  you ! Today we finally faced them in battle..."

He fell silent for a moment, his eyes sliding back and forth across the crowd. Then suddenly, and with great theatricality he threw the bloodied shield to the ground with a thunderous clang as he hefted the broken helmet high above his head like some kind of ghastly trophy.

"...And ANNIHILATED them!" he yelled triumphantly.

The crowd all but erupted at that, their delighted cheers matching Athelis' own victory bellow and then surpassing it until their shouts of congratulations and thank yous were all Ithius could make out. At first he tried to remain silent, to allow his people their moment of catharsis, but when the cheering did not die down, he began to grow concerned. Did they not realise what this meant? What Athelis' little stunt would ultimately lead to? He could stand it no more.

"Athelis!" he shouted, doing his best to make him self heard as he began to elbow his war forward through the crowd. At first no one seemed to have even noticed him, and his voice was swallowed by the excited cheering and chanting that had sprung up. Then slowly as he grew nearer and nearer to the front of the crowd, and with his own choler beginning to reach its peak, he finally managed to make himself heard.

"Athelis!" he shouted again, emerging into the circle of dancing firelight. All eyes turned to him as he stood there, hands on his hips, his eyes blazing furiously at the other man while the fire burned between them.

"Ithius," Athelis nodded, a note of smug self satisfaction in his voice. "I told you it would work!" He rattled the helmet again causing another wave of cheers to ripple through the audience. "And now I have the proof of it! We can win this if we do it my way, just like I always said we could!"

A few cries of agreement went up from somewhere in the crowd and Ithius gritted his teeth, doing the best he could to hold his temper.

"A word with you please," he said, somehow managing to keep his tone civil.

"We're having a word right now aren't we?" Athelis said, causing a couple of titters to rise up among the men standing at his back. Ithius shot them a venomous glance and several of them paled visibly. Athelis himself was not so easily cowed.

Sliding from the saddle of his mount, he hooked the broken helmet to the saddle's pommel and moved around the camp fire so that he was standing face to face with Ithius. His eyes were shining victoriously in the fire light.

"There's nothing you have to say to me that can't be said in front of them," he said, gesturing expansively to the crowd all around them. "Or are you afraid that if we have this discussion out in the open, they just might side with me?"

"That's enough, Athelis." A third voice entered the argument, and both men turned to see Drogo emerging from the forest, his own loyal men trailing behind him. They looked a little the worse for wear than Athelis' troops, but then Athelis' troops were in general younger and more fresh faced than Drogo's grisled veterans, most of whom had seen battle not only at Marathon but in countless other fields too.

The stocky Helot commander strode up to the pair of them, giving Ithius a look that somehow managed to suggest both defiance and apology at the same time.

"Ithius has long been the truest servant of the Helot people," he began in as best a diplomatic fashion as he could muster, "and he deserves an explanation for our actions."

He turned and nodded in a conciliatory fashion to Ithius. "We will of course speak with you in private," he said before looking sideways at Athelis. "Won't we?"

Athelis shot the other man an irritated look, then finally nodded.

"If you insist," he said.

The muscles in Ithius' jaw flexed.

"This way then," he growled out from beneath gritted teeth.

The crowd parted for the three of them as they made their way out of the semicircle, and with nothing else to see, it slowly began to disperse behind them.

Before long, the three of them had arrived back at the woodsman's cottage, and Ithius escorted the two of them to the planning room, holding the door open for them before following them inside. A small table had been dragged to the centre of the room, and a map of the surrounding territories had been pinned to it. Long benches had been hauled in at the same time and they now ran along the length of two of the room's walls. Athelis strode across the room to plop himself down on one, resting his back and head against the wall which resulted in him having to look down his nose at Ithius.

Ithius just did his best to ignore him, and instead turned to face Drogo.

"Let me say something before you get started," the shorter man said, "I did what I did for our people, same as you, although I will admit that in hindsight I should probably have told you what we were up to..."

"You don't say!" Ithius all but sneered at him. "I expected this from him, Drogo!" He thrust an accusatory finger toward Athelis. "The man has all the self control of an incontinent puppy after all..."

"I resent that!" Athelis interjected, but Ithius just barrelled right on over him.

"...but you! I thought you were smarter than to buy into his idiocy!"

"Idiocy!?" Athelis snarled, rising from the bench he had been sitting on as he did so. "In case you hadn't noticed, I just pulled off everything you've been telling me I couldn't do! With thirty men - half of them not even that well trained I might add - I took apart a Spartan formation of at least double that number, and I did it with hardly any losses."

Ithius took a deep breath, and tried to calm himself. Things were starting to get out of hand, and the last thing any of them needed was for this to turn into a shouting match. Letting out a long exhale, he did his best to blow away the anger and frustration he was feeling in the same way he had done so on the archery range earlier that day. It helped a little, but not  that  much.

"And what's your opinion on all of this?" he asked Drogo.

Drogo folded his arms and shrugged.

"It's how he says," he said. "Man's got talent. No denying that. He picked the ambush spot, laid the trap that the Spartans bundled into the middle of, and he kept his head even when it looked like things might not go our way."

He paused and glanced at Athelis.

"I'll tell you something for nothing," he continued. "I wouldn't want to be fighting against him."

Athelis fixed Ithius with a 'what do you say to that?' stare. Ithius only rolled his eyes and crossed to the war table, bracing his hands, palms down to either side of the map as he stared down at it. Drawn in charcoal, he could see the outline of Sparta, far away to the south and close to the ball of his left hand. Faraway, but not nearly far enough. Reaching up with his right hand, he rubbed tiredly at his jaw.

"Just tell me what happened."

Athelis crossed to the table opposite him, his eyes scanning the map so that he could gain his bearings on it.

"We set our ambush at this valley here," he said, stabbing his finger down on to the papyrus at a relatively unassuming location.

"And they walked straight into it?" Ithius said. "They never even suspected you were there?"

Athelis nodded enthusiastically, completely missing the note of wariness in Ithius' voice, so adrenalised by his victory as he was.

"We peppered them with arrows before they could get into their phalanx," he said. "Thinned their numbers before me and mine led a frontal assault on the formation."

"A reckless move when you're taking on Spartans," Ithius said. "Every one of those men you face down has more martial training than yours could hope to see in two lifetimes."

"Didn't save them in the end did it?" Athelis grinned. "Anyway, we weren't supposed win the day that way. While we had them occupied Drogo and his boys hit 'em in the rear. Didn't take long to mop up the rest once the formation had crumbled. So what do you think? Not a bad showing, was it?"

Ithius reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. He could feel a headache coming on.

"You got lucky," he said, and Athelis' excitement drained away in an instant.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" he snapped.

"You caught an inexperienced commander in a simple pincer move," Ithius replied. "Hardly the strategy of tactical genius."

Athelis jaw tightened. "And how would you know he was inexperienced?" he snapped. I killed him myself and he was far from unskilled with a sword..."

"...Which has absolutely no bearing on his tactical ability," Ithius took over smoothly, steepling his fingers in front of his face as he took on the lecturing tone he had long ago been on the receiving end of when he and Leonidas had taken lessons from Leondias' father. "This commander, whoever he was, made every text book mistake its possible to make. He led his men into terrain where he had to surrender the high ground to maintain his formation, and worse than that, it doesn't sound like he was even suspecting the possibility of an ambush, let alone bracing for one. Then he leaves his rear guard exposed to counter a foolhardy frontal assault, allowing Drogo to slip in and plant a metaphorical knife in his back, when all he needed to do to win the was tighten his formation and let you dash yourself against it."

He straightened from the table and folded his arms across his chest.

"Any halfway experienced commander would have picked apart your strategy in an instant, and most probably wouldn't have even marched their troops right into your ambush in the first place."

Athelis lip curled upward in a sneer.

"You're wrong,"

Ithius shook his head.

"No," he said evenly. "No I'm not. You try that trick again, especially on a commander like Sentos, or, gods help you, Gracus, and they'll make you eat your own sword before they're done with you. Trust me on this. I know these men, and where warfare is concerned, there are none better in all of Greece."

"Well I guess we'll find out next time, won't we," Athelis growled angrily.

"Next time?" Ithius said, rounding on Drogo. "What next time? What's he talking about?"

"Ithius, please," Drogo began, his tone quiet and placating where Athelis' was abrasive and challenging. "You know that this can't be stopped now. That patrol was out here to find us. We couldn't keep hiding from them forever, so we did the next best thing. We wiped them out, and we did it down to the last man. It won't end there though. They'll be sending more, sooner rather than later, and when they do, we need to be ready for them."

Ithius opened his mouth to speak, but he could not find the words. Was he honestly hearing what he thought he was? Had they both gone insane? They were talking about challenging the martial might of Sparta with nothing more than a few stolen weapons and a bunch of half trained goat herders playing at being soldiers. Could they really not see how this was going to end?

Slowly he started to look between them, his eyes narrowing as a sudden stark realisation came to him.

"You want me to help you with this madness, don't you?" he said.

Drogo shifted uncomfortably, but Athelis had no such shame, instead he let out a barking laugh, as if Ithius had just made the most ridiculous joke he had ever heard.

"Of course we do!" he said. "Half the men in this camp that can fight look up to you. You're a hero to them! The man that served at the side of Leonidas! That led them out of the mustering fields! Saying we have you on our side would be like telling them Hercules himself was on his way here to fight for us!"

"You're forgetting why they were at the mustering fields in the first place," Ithius said bitterly. "I'm the one who made that deal. I'm the one that led them there. All those people dead, because of me."

"Ithius," Drogo began softly, "you can't keep blaming yourself for what hap..."

"Can't I!?" Ithius snapped, cutting Drogo off and rounding on him sharply. "It was all me Drogo! I made the deal with Demosthenes. I led our people into the trap he'd laid for us, when every instinct I had was screaming at me that it was wrong thing to do!"

Drogo looked taken aback by Ithius' sudden viciousness, but it took him only a moment to recover, his jaw setting defensively as he did so.

"Are you saying you knew?" he said, his voice suddenly accusatory. "You  knew  what was going to happen?"

Ithius shook his head.

"Of course not," he said. "How could any of us have known!? But don't you understand, Drogo? I made the choice! ME! And it was the wrong one! I won't make that same mistake again."

"So that's it then is it?" Drogo snapped back. "You bring us this far, lead us all this way, and then just leave us to twist in the wind?" He gave a cracked, disbelieving laugh. "You think I want this? You think I like our people having to keep plunging themselves into the lion's maw over and over again when there are already so few of us left? I'm doing this for them Ithius, the same as you do, because I know that this..." he jabbed a finger in the direction of Athelis and the map on the table, "...This is what they need! A fight! An enemy! Someone they can point to and say 'he's the one responsible!' but most of all, they need you!"

Ithius stood silently for a moment or two after Drogo had finished speaking, then slowly he hung his head and shook it sadly from side to side.

"You're wrong Drogo," he said. "This isn't what they need. It's what they  want. " He glanced toward Athelis who was still stood nearby, his arms folded tightly across his chest. "You're all just like him. You know exactly where this will lead you. You only have to walk down the hall and check in on Callisto to see the proof of that, yet none of you even seem to care."

He took a step forward, straightening his back and taking advantage of his height to tower imperiously over the shorter man.

"But I do," he said. "Plykus was right. Our people don't know how to live free and they certainly don't want the responsibility of it. Well I'm done being the one to shoulder it for them, do you hear me? From here on out their decisions are their own, their mistakes are their own, and the consequences of all that..." he shrugged. "...I guess they'll have to learn to live with them the way I've been doing for so long."

He turned and started for the door.

"You can't do this!" he heard Drogo yelling furiously behind him. "You can't just abandon us! Not now! Not like this! We WON for Artemis' sake!"

"This time, yes!" Ithius said rounding on the other man one last time. "But what about the next time that you're already talking about? Or the time after that? Or the time after that? You can't  keep  winning Drogo. Not against these odds. You were both right about one thing. Sooner or later Demosthenes  is  going to come for us, and the more you agitate him the worse it will be when he does! You know we can't win but you want me to be the one to lie and say we can!? I can't do it! Not any more! I can't make the choices you want me to; not when I  know  they're the wrong ones."

"You're just afraid!" Drogo spat in disgust. Ithius rolled his eyes and had only half turned to leave again when Drogo crowed victoriously behind him.

"That's it isn't it!" he said. "That's it! You're just being a coward! Too terrified of Demosthenes' shadow to lead us, and too proud to admit you might actually be wrong!"

"You're damned right I'm terrified!" Ithius shot back. "But not for my own skin, and certainly not of Demosthenes."

He gestured a nearby window that looked out across the helot camp.

"I'm terrified for all of you, and what's going to happen next," he said. "There's a shadow on the horizon, Drogo. Something far worse than anything we could imagine is coming, and its counting on us all being too blinded by our petty issues to take notice."

He hooked his finger accusingly at Athelis once more.

"He knows what I'm talking about, but he doesn't even care! Instead he's busy lining you all up to climb into your own coffins. Well I'll be damned if I'm about to help him nail them shut!"

And with that, he turned and stalked angrily from the room, not once looking back.

Chapter Eleven: Fear and Faith

"Rise and shine my lady, rise and shine."

Nikias' cheerful morning wake up call was like the squeal of nails on slate. Gritting her teeth, Adrasteia rolled over on her bed and pulled the pillow tightly down over her ears.

"Go away," she muttered, her voice muffled by the downy cushion.

She had only just managed to get to sleep an hour or so ago. The mattress she was sprawled across was probably the best one she had slept on since leaving Delphi, but she had still ended up spending half the night tossing and turning as what little sleep she had managed to achieve had been disturbed at every turn by the same damnable visions that had been haunting her for weeks now. Before coming to Sparta, she had been clinging to the vain hope that they were nothing more than a bad recurring dream. She had tried to ignore the Oracle's obvious concern over them, but the realisation that Demosthenes was one of the people she had seen in them had dashed her hopes to pieces.

"Come now, my lady," Nikias' voice continued. "Let's not make this more difficult than it needs to be."

The sound of wood scraping against wood filled the air as Nikias thrust open the bed chamber's pure white drapes, and Adrasteia screwed her eyes even more tightly shut as she felt the harsh glare of sunlight spill across her face.

"How difficult are we talking?" she grumbled.

"Decidedly so for you if you won't get out of bed," Nikias replied.

Adrasteia groaned and rolled onto her back. During her tossing and turning the previous night, she had kicked the sheets off in her sleep, and now she was becoming all too aware of the morning chill biting at her legs.

"Do you just delight in torturing me?" She cracked one eye blearily open in a squint against the sunlight until she could just make out the fuzzy outline of Nikias. He looked to be standing nearby the bed's end table, pouring water from a pitcher into a bronze bowl.

He paused, considering her question for a moment.

"Delight is a strong word," he said finally, returning to pouring the water into the bowl as he did so. "'Mildly enjoy' would be a more apt description."

Adrasteia grunted and pushed herself upright, folding her legs beneath her and resting her hands gently on her knees. Taking a long deep breath, she held it for a moment or two, before exhaling and then taking another. The meditation was supposed to help her clear her mind, but the worries about Demosthenes and her visions were not so easily cast aside. The fact that she feared to tell anyone about them was almost as bad as the visions themselves. What would Nikias – or heaven forbid, Themistocles – think of her mental state if she was to tell them about what she saw every time she tried to close her eyes? They would probably think she was crazy, and if she told them of her suspicions about Demosthenes... well, they would probably gag her and drag her out of the city before she could cause trouble.

"Another sleepless night I take it?" Nikias said, his voice snapping her back to the present as he crossed to her side of the bed and handed her the bowl of water along with a clean white face cloth. Adrasteia glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, then took the bowl and cloth from him.

"What gave it away?" she asked. "The hangdog expression or my sunny disposition?"

"The bags under your eyes," Nikias said simply. "That and I could here you moving around from outside."

"You were outside my room last night?" Adrasteia said, cocking an eyebrow at him.

"Every night," Nikias said, without even a hint of shame at just how weird that sounded, although he did add, "To make sure that you do not come to any harm, of course."

Adrasteia shook her head at him.

"I can take care of myself.” She dipped the cloth in the water so that it was soaked through before bringing it up to wipe her face clean. The water was cold, and when it touched her skin she inhaled sharply. Still, it did the trick, blowing away the cobwebs and sharpening her awareness in a way that the meditation had not. "I don't need a body guard."

"The Lady Pythia would beg to differ," Nikias said. "Remember where we are. This is not Delphi. It's a lion's den, and we are surrounded on all sides by those who do not wish us well."

"So you and Themistocles keep reminding me," she said, turning to one of the many soft pillows she had been sleeping on and lifting it. "but I didn't come completely unprepared."

Beneath the pillow was the dagger Nikias had noted the day before, slim bladed but sharp, and with a carefully wrapped hilt that allowed her to grip it more easily. Now he eyed it warily as she lifted it for him to see.

"A fine looking weapon," he commented with a grudging nod of his head. "May I enquire as to whether or not you know how to use it?"

Adrasteia smiled and flicked the dagger in the air. It span end over end multiple times, the blade flashing against the sun, before she reached out and snared it lightly by the hilt.

"My brother taught me a few things," she said, her grin widening.

"So it would seem," Nikias nodded, his face completely still. "Show me again."

Adrasteia frowned. What was he playing at? Whatever it was, she did not see the harm in it. With a shrug of her shoulders she flipped the dagger into the air once more. Nikias' hand shot out faster than Adrasteia could track it, and before she could even blink he had snatched the weapon out of the air and had it dangling in front of her by the blade.

"Perhaps not so prepared as you might imagine," he said with a soft smile, and then dropped the dagger so that she could catch it once more.

Adrasteia's eyes widened as she grabbed for the falling weapon.

"How did you..." she began.

"Training," Nikias replied before she could even finish. "And experience. Lots and lots of experience." At her still flabbergasted expression he smiled slightly. "You didn't think I spent all those years serving under the Oracle fetching dinner and cleaning tables did you?"

"Actually, now that you mention it..." Adrasteia began again, and Nikias' smile widened.

"If only it had been so simple," he said. Suddenly his expression turned sour and he crossed to the window to stare out over the city, seemingly lost in thought.

"Are you all right?" Adrasteia asked, frowning in confusion at his sudden melancholy.

"I'm fine," Nikias said, squaring his shoulders and turning away from the window to face her once more, his moment of distraction seemingly forgotten. "You should get dressed. It's long past time for us to be leaving."

"What do you mean 'leaving'?" she said, a sinking feeling suddenly settling in her gut. He could not be serious could he? They could not leave now! Not after yesterday and what they had found out.

"I would have thought that that was obvious," Nikias replied matter-of-factly. "I mean we should be returning to Delphi. King Demosthenes has made it quite clear we are not welcome here, and the boat arranged for us at Tryxis will not wait forever."

"But we talked about this last night," Adrasteia protested, recalling the conversation she and Themistocles had had after they had been shown to their quarters the night before. "We can't leave yet. Not until we've found out exactly what it is Demosthenes is planning and what it is that these 'Followers' have to do with it."

"Yourself and the Archon talked about it," Nikias corrected her. "I had no say in the matter. Had I been consulted, I would have cautioned you that King Demosthenes seemed quite sincere in his desire to have us out of his city. Should we not leave as he has commanded us to, I have no doubt in my mind that Sparta will become a decidedly less hospitable place for us come the end of the day."

"To Tartarus with caution!" Adrasteia snapped, suddenly annoyed at him. The answer to her visions was here! Demosthenes' presence was all but proof of it! She could not just turn around and walk away now! Not when that answer was so close, but that was precisely what Nikias was suggesting she do. "I don't care about any of that! There's more going on here than just Spartan chest pounding. We need to find out what."

"And you think they will happily stand aside and let you go snooping around to find out just what that 'more going on' is?" Nikias said, slanting an eyebrow at her. "No my lady. I'm afraid I cannot allow it."

"You can't allow it!?" Adrasteia said disbelievingly. "Just which of us is supposed to be in charge here? You or me?"

"I will, of course, defer to you on most matters, my lady," Nikias said with a respectful tilt of his head, "But I'm afraid that my instructions from the Lady Pythia in this regard were quite specific. I was to escort you here, and then to return you to Delphi unharmed so that you might consult with her on what you have discovered. To allow you to do what it is you intend would jeopardise all of that."

"And what  have  I discovered exactly?" Adrasteia snapped back at him, her temper rising now in the face of his intransigence. "So far, all that we've achieved is to trudge across half of Greece, only to find out there's something strange going on in the country side outside the city, that the Followers have some kind of influence inside the city, probably through Demosthenes, and that Callisto was here..."

"All of which is important, and worth reporting to the Oracle as soon as possible," Nikias said smoothly.

"What about fate then?" Adrasteia retorted, switching gears as she realised she was getting nowhere. "What about destiny and being in the right place at the right time? Was all that talk just for show? If I leave now..."

"Fate, by its very definition, takes care of itself," Nikias cut in. "We cannot hope to second guess it. Indeed, I've found it preferable not to even try."

Adrasteia rolled her eyes and crossed her arms stubbornly.

"Well I'm not leaving," she said, as evenly as she could manage. "Not yet anyway, and if you want to try and make me, you'll have to drag me out of this city kicking and screaming."

"That would be..." a wry smile tugged at Nikias' mouth. "...most undignified."

"For me or for you?" Adrasteia retorted

Nikias shrugged.

"Take your pick."

She gave a frustrated growl.

"Would you just stop being all wise and fatherly for just two minutes," she said in exasperation. "Don't you get it? This isn't about us versus the Spartans anymore! I'm not even sure if it ever really was. There's more at stake here than we realise. Even Themistocles doesn't know the half of it! These Followers... I mean, it can't be coincidence that they're suddenly springing up all over the place, just as everything starts falling apart, right!?"

She paused to catch her breath and to try and calm herself.

"Bad things are coming, Nikias," she continued, "I  know  they are, and the key to stopping them is out there somewhere!" she thrust her finger toward the window. "I can't leave now. Not until I find out what and where it is!"

She slumped back frustratedly on the mattress, all the frustration draining out of her in an instant.

"I just wish I knew how to go about finding it," she said softly.

Nikias stood silently, watching her for what seemed like an eternity before finally moving to perch himself on the corner of the bed in front of her.

"You believe this is important," he said, not looking at her as he spoke, but instead gazing out of the window toward the morning sun. It was a statement rather than a question.

Adrasteia could only let out a dry chuckle in response.

"I thought I made that pretty clear."

Nikias fell silent again, and after a minute or so Adrasteia shifted uncomfortably. Why was he not speaking?

"This is to do with the visions you've been having, isn't it?" Nikias said finally. Adrasteia blinked in surprise.

"My visions..." she began. "...But I didn't... I mean I never told..." Suddenly her eyes narrowed and she turned a hard gaze on Nikias. "You knew about them!" she exclaimed, pointing at him. "All this time and you knew about them! But how did you..." her voice trailed off again as the other penny finally dropped. "The Oracle told you, didn't she?"

"She did," Nikias admitted with a nod.

"So that's   why I was sent then?" Adrasteia said, folding her arms and fixing Nikias with the same chiding look she had used to use on her brother whenever she had caught him misbehaving when they were children. Nikias had been holding out on her, and even if it had not been his choice to do so, the fact that he had known of her visions, but said nothing, even when it was clear they were making her suffer, had raised her ire somewhat. Well, now that he seemed to be in a sharing mood, she was eager for answers.

"It wasn't down to any faith the Oracle had in me was it?" she continued. "She sent me because of my visions."

Nikias turned his head, finally meeting her level gaze with one of his own.

"You shouldn't think that way."

"Why not?" Adrasteia demanded, her voice quavering with only the faintest hint of outrage. "If she trusted me, why didn't she help me try to understand them? She's been doing this for so long, she must know what they mean!"

"But that's just it," Nikias replied, "The Oracle doesn't know what they mean. You're the only one to have had them and..."

"Wait a minute!" Adrasteia butted in, suddenly confused. "I'm the only one having these visions? Just me? Not the Oracle or any of the others?"

Nikias shook his head.

"None of them," he said flatly.

"That doesn't make sense!" Adrasteia snapped. "Why would Apollo send the visions to me? I'm no one important! Just a handmaiden to the Oracle who's only been at the temple for a short time..."

"...But still the only one to have had these visions, nevertheless," Nikias said, taking over from her smoothly and reaching out to place a comforting hand on her shoulder. "The ways of the gods are not always entirely transparent. Even if we do not understand why, it does not change the fact that Apollo has sent these visions to you, and as their sole recipient, the Oracle believes you should be given every opportunity to find out what they mean."

"And you both thought sending me to Sparta would help with that?" Adrasteia said, curiously.

Nikias only shrugged.

"My opinion on the matter wasn't consulted," he said. "The Oracle thought it might be a push in the right direction, though. Those in the business of prophecy do not believe in coincidences, and the timing of your vision fit too neatly with the news coming out of Sparta – not to mention the sudden silence of the Lady Miranda – to be ignored."

"If that's all true, then why didn't you tell me before now?" Adrasteia asked, frowning at him.

Nikias turned back to gazing out of the window once more.

"The Oracle instructed me not to," he said, sounding both matter-of-fact, and strangely apologetic at the same time. "At least, she asked me to keep what I knew to myself unless it became apparent that her assumptions were correct."

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes.

"I take it from you reticence to leave that that is indeed the case?"

Adrasteia nodded fiercely.

"It is," she said excitedly. "and by the gods Nikias, you have no idea how much."

Rising to her knees on the mattress she began to gesture emphatically with her hands as she spoke. It was as if someone had lifted a huge weight from her shoulders. The relief she was feeling at having someone to share all of this with was almost palpable, and it lent her a new found sense of energy to let out all the pent up thoughts and worries she had been having since setting out on this journey.

"In my dreams I see them. Four figures marching at the head of an army under black and storm torn skies," she paused in her pacing and fixed Nikias with a pointed gaze. "Demosthenes is one of them."

"One of the four?" Nikias said, his face suddenly pensive. "You're certain of this?"

"Absolutely," she said.

"And the rest? Do you recognise any of the others?"

Adrasteia shook her head and resumed her pacing. "No, but its got to mean something right? I mean we were sent here to find out if he was actually raising an army against the northern city states, and lo and behold, he's the man in my dreams, marching at the head of an army."

"Is it an army of Spartans?"

Adrasteia frowned at him.

"What?"

"An army of Spartans," Nikias prodded. "In your dream?"

Adrasteia stopped for a moment, pondering his words. She had never really focused on the army. The four figures at its head had always stood out more to her, and had been the resulting focus of her attention. Even they were often muddy and indistinct save the blonde woman out in front of them. She could not remember whether the army were Spartans or not. They had always been a teeming, indistinct mass; ever present but always at the edges of perception.

"I..." she began, her tone one of defiance, then suddenly she sagged her shoulders and sighed. "I don't know." she admitted. "None of its that clear."

"You don't suppose that your mind might just be filling in the gaps?" Nikias said carefully. "Doing its best to make sense of things by slotting Demosthenes into the vision, whether or not it was originally supposed to be him?"

Adrasteia tilted an eyebrow at him.

"I'm certain it's him," she said steadily. "That it's  always  been him."

Nikias fell silent as he sat and pondered for a moment, then finally he braced his hands against his knees and pushed himself to standing.

"Very well then," he said with a sigh.

"Very well what?" Adrasteia replied, feeling her spirits lifting when Nikias flashed her a crooked smile.

"If Demosthenes is the man from your visions, it bares investigating a little further, wouldn't you say?"

A sudden rush of elation seized Adrasteia and she smiled broadly. She would have leaped off the bed and hugged the man if she had not already known that to do so would have been mortifying for him.

"Thank you," she said, still beaming at him. "For trusting me I mean. It's, well..." she paused before raising her gaze to look Nikias in the eye. "It means a lot to me."

Nikias inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment.

"You can hardly uncover the truth from a hundred leagues away now, can you?" he said.

"Hardly," Adrasteia smiled back.

For the first time since they had set out for Sparta, she felt like she had a purpose, a reason for being here, and a mission to achieve. It was a good feeling to have. The only problem now however, was that she had next to no idea how to go about achieving it.

"So..." she began, "What do you think we should do next?"

"I would suggest speaking with the Archon. He seems as driven as you to get to the bottom of what is taking place here, and I dare say he may have more of a plan as to how to about it."

"Sounds good to me," Adrasteia said, starting for the door to the room.

"Er, my lady," Nikias called after her. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

"I don't think so," she said, frowning at him. "What would I be..."

Her voice trailed off as Nikias gave her garments a pointed look, and for the first time Adrasteia realised she had had this whole conversation clad in nothing more than a night shift. She felt her neck flush red.

"...Ah," she said with a curt nod. "Yes. That."

Nikias gave her another of those respectful head tilts as he walked past her toward the door.

"I'll give you some privacy," he said.

*****

It did not take long for Adrasteia to change. Eager to be out in the city searching for answers, she slipped hurriedly into her traveling chiton, apparently freshly cleaned and dried while she slept. Grabbing her wide leather belt from the foot of the bed where she had left it the night before, she cinched the chiton tightly at her waist, and tucked the small dagger she had shown Nikias into a concealed sheath beneath it before heading for the door.

Stepping out into the anteroom, she was surprised to find not only Nikias waiting for her, but in fact a small horde of people present, although whether or not they could be said to be waiting for  her  was not entirely clear. A pair of the Athenian soldiers that Themistocles had brought with them were stationed by the door, and Adrasteia could almost imagine that there were two more outside. Nikias was hovering patiently near the door she had just entered through and Themistocles himself was slouched across one of the anteroom's several reclining couches. He was dressed in more flamboyant attire today than he had been on the journey south, with a finely embroidered jerkin worn across a billowing shirt that tucked into dyed red pants that flared just above his boots. He was also clad in more jewellery than Adrasteia could remember him ever having worn before, with a heavy looking set of gold chains draped around his neck, and several gem encrusted rings spread across the fingers of both hands. Adrasteia found herself wondering if he always dressed like this when ensconced within a city, or if his sudden over the top fashion sense was a purposeful decision designed to irritate the ascetic Spartans.

Whatever the case, even with his extravagant clothes, Themistocles' did not hold her eye for long. Instead it was another figure that caught her attention; an older man seated across from Themistocles and apparently deep in conversation with the Athenian Archon. Clad all in crimson robes stitched through with various strange patterns in a slightly darker shade of the same colour, the man was sitting straight backed – a stark contrast to Themistocles' slovenly slouch – with his hands tucked into the voluminous sleeves of his robes and a long staff propped up at his side. As if the robes were not enough of a give away, Adrasteia could also make out a stitched sickle at the man's neck, marking him as yet another member of the Followers.

More than that though, he was another of the men from her vision.

"Ah," Themistocles said, glancing back over his shoulder at her. "It lives I see. I thought the sun would be past midday by the time you managed to stir yourself."

Frozen by her bedroom's doorway, Adrasteia barely even registered Themistocles' less than mannered comment.

She could hardly believe it. Two people out of her vision in as many days. If she had had even the smallest doubt remaining of the vision's authenticity, it was now reduced to almost nothing.

"I'm sorry?" she said, blinking stupidly as she tried to process this latest information.

"I expected you to be up and about sooner," Themistocles elaborated. "The morning's wearing on, and you've been keeping your guest waiting."

"My guest?" Adrasteia said, her eyebrows knotting together in confusion.

"It's quite alright Master Themistocles," the man in the robes said, climbing to his feet and making placating gestures toward the Archon with his hands. "I assure you I have not been inconvenienced. My schedule today is somewhat light, and I'm positive my Brothers and Sisters can manage without me at their side for a couple of hours."

He began to cross the room toward her as he spoke, using the staff he had with him for support and smiling broadly as he came closer. There was something about that smile that made Adrasteia feel uneasy. It was too slick and calculated; too practised and without any natural friendliness to it at all.

"Besides," he said, drawing to a stop in front of her, his eyes suddenly turning keen and searching, "I could hardly pass up the opportunity to meet an Oracle now, could I?"

Getting a better look at him up close, Adrasteia suddenly realised the man was familiar to her, and for reasons other than her vision, although she was all but convinced he was one of the individuals from it. No, this other sense of familiarity ran deeper and older than that, but try as she might she could not quite place where else it was she felt she knew him from. If the feeling was old, it was perhaps because he looked old, what with his sunken cheeks, heavy laughter lines and the deep creases in the skin around his mouth and eyes. Still, those same eyes shone brightly and there was a sense of vibrancy about him that she would normally have expected from people half his age.

"Then I think you might have wasted a trip," she replied as politely as she could manage, still sizing him up suspiciously. "I'm sorry to have to say it, but I'm no Oracle."

"Not yet perhaps," the man smiled with a mock shrug as he leaned forward in an almost conspiratorial way. "but something tells me you soon will be."

Adrasteia shifted uncomfortably at that. There was a strange hungriness to his expression that she did not like one bit, and the tone of his last statement had had an odd edge to it. Had he just threatened the Lady Pythia? The silence between them was beginning to become noticeable and it took a polite cough from Nikias to cut the sudden tension in the air.

"Excuse me sir, but I do not believe we have actually been introduced yet."

The old man straightened, his face suddenly wearing an expression of polite embarrassment.

"Ah... yes... of course," he nodded to Nikias, then turned back to bow politely to Adrasteia, "My name is Pelion, and it is a pleasure to meet you."

"A pleasure to meet you too," she responded, dropping into a demure curtsy she had often found useful when dealing with traders at the market place. Sometimes playing the meek little lady gave you an advantage, especially if you played it well. Suddenly, that odd feeling of familiarity gnawing at the back of her mind blossomed into full blown recognition, and her mouth dropped open in astonishment.

"Waaaait a minute..." she said. "...Pelion? As in Pelion of Delphi? High Priest of the Temple of Asclepius?"

Pelion looked slightly taken aback by that, but he recovered quickly, the friendly smile that did not quite touch his eyes returning in an instant.

"As a matter of fact, yes," he said. "I see you know of me."

"Hard not to," Adrasteia replied. "Most of the people in Delphi think you're dead, what with the way the temple burned down a few years ago...” she paused before adding, “...and the fact that you disappeared right around the same time."

"Ah yes," Pelion nodded, his expression now sombre. "A terrible business, that. I lost my only daughter to that fire, and yet there were still a number of individuals in the city at the time who felt the need to persecute me for some supposed involvement in it all..."

Adrasteia remembered the fire well. It had been the talk of the city for weeks, along with Pelion's subsequent disappearance. Many people had even suggested that he had been the one to set the fire in the first place, and a few had even gone so far as to suggest, or even flat out accuse Pelion of having murdered her. At the time, she had not known what to think. She had never met him face to face and it was difficult to form any kind of real opinion under those circumstances. Now though, seeing him standing here in front of her, dressed as he was and cropping up in her visions, she  was  beginning to wonder if some of those individuals might not have been right after all.

"...in the end, I thought it best to leave," Pelion was continuing. "For my own safety you understand."

Adrasteia opened her mouth to reply, but before she could do so, Themistocles cut in.

"Of course we do," he said, shooting her a warning look from where he had twisted on his couch to watch the conversation between she and the strange old priest. "An angry mob is nothing anyone wants to be on the receiving end of."

"You appear to have fallen on your feet at least," Adrasteia said, ignoring Themistocles' interruption and trying to change the subject as she eyed Pelion's robes. "I take it you have continued in your worship of Asclepius?" She already knew that the answer would be a no, but she was hoping that by feigning ignorance he might be drawn out a little more on the subject of the Followers. She knew next to nothing about them, but with their apparent popularity here – such that even the King was among their ranks – it seemed prudent to try and learn what she could from the horse's mouth while the opportunity was present.

"Master Pelion here is apparently the high priest of the local temple of Followers," Themistocles interjected once more, cocking an eyebrow at Adrasteia as he spoke. She knew what that look meant.  'Exercise caution'  was his unspoken instruction.

"The honourable Archon does me too much credit," Pelion said, with a respectful nod toward Themistocles. "All among the Followers are equal in the service of our Lord. There is no high priest. I am merely the first among my Brothers and Sisters."

"Your Lord?" Adrasteia said, frowning. "You worship another Olympian then? No longer Asclepius?"

Pelion gave a dry laugh.

"I worship no Olympian at all," he smiled. "For what have they ever done to earn that worship?"

"They are our protectors," Nikias butted in suddenly, sounding slightly incensed by the other man's words. "In a world that would otherwise be filled with darkness, they are the light guiding us forward."

Pelion gave him a patient, but nevertheless patronising smile.

"And how have they guided you so far?" he said. "To triumph? Or to loss? Well, I have lost much my friend. Too much some might say, and it was they who took it from me."

"It is not the responsibility of the gods to ensure our happiness," Nikias countered. "Only that we reach our ordained end."

"And who decides that end?" Pelion replied evenly. "What justice is there in that? What fairness? Why should some be allowed to live their lives in peace and harmony, safe in the knowledge that it is what was  ordained  for them by the gods, while others live in pain and misery, with no hope for a better life beyond the vague promise of the hereafter?"

He shook his head.

"I am sorry friend, but I do not wish to devote myself to beings of such capriciousness, and nor should anyone else."

Nikias looked vexed, although whether it was by Pelion's comments about the gods, or his quick dismissal of Nikias himself, she could not tell.

"And so who should they devote themselves too?" she asked, a note of challenge creeping into her voice. She did not like the way he was speaking to Nikias. "This Lord of yours you mentioned earlier? How would he be any different?"

Pelion was already turning back to face her, a strange smile appearing on his face as he looked her up and down.

"I must say my dear, you do make for a refreshing change," he said, not answering her question.

Adrasteia did her best to appear nonplussed under his stare, but his probing looks were beginning to make her feel uneasy.

"Oh?" she said, adopting her most nonchalant tone. "How so?"

"Despite all my years spent in Delphi, and then here, I never once met an Oracle," Pelion explained. "I had imagined they would be quite dreary to be honest. Completely devoted to their Olympian masters, but coming here and seeing you..."

He tilted his head curiously, as if listening to something far away.

"...seeing you..." he continued, "...I now realise how mistaken I was."

"I worship the great Lord Apollo," Adrasteia said stiffly.

In truth Pelion was right. She was far less devout than the majority of the other girls at the temple. It was something that many of the Priests of Apollo regularly chided her on in point of fact. What could she reply to them though? She had spent so much time helping run her father's business in recent years that she had not really had the time to waste praying and making sacrifices. It did not seem to matter either way. The gift of foretelling had still come to her, although with these visions haunting her nights and dogging her thoughts when awake, she was not sure how much of a gift it could truly be said to be. Still, something told her that letting Pelion know any of that would not be a good idea.

"I'm sure you do," he said smiling at her. "But the real question is, how much of that worhship comes from your head instead of from your heart?" He took a step closer to her. "The gods don't just demand our sacrifices, or our unthinking prayers," he continued. "They demand our faith; our fire!"

He drew to a stop right in front of her, straightening as he did so and looking down at her with righteous stare.

"My Lord has mine, to do with as he wills," he said. "Have you ever considered just why it is your 'Lord Apollo' doesn't have yours?"

Adrasteia opened her mouth to reply, although she was not entirely sure how. Before she could do so however, there came a polite knocking at the door to her chamber.

"My, my," Themistocles said, rising from the couch with another warning glance toward Adrasteia as he did so. "You  are  the popular one this morning."

All eyes in the room with the exception of Pelion's turned to the door. The old priest's stare remained focused solely on Adrasteia, and she did her best to ignore him as she watched Themistocles cross the room and open the door.

On the other side of it stood a man dressed in the same crimson robes as Pelion, and pushing what appeared to be some kind of cart. On it was a large platter, and a couple of fired clay pitchers. The platter was covered, but from the scent of freshly baked bread suddenly wafting into the room, Adrasteia had a fair guess as to what was beneath it.

"Ah! Finally!" Themistocles exclaimed. "I was beginning to wonder if these Spartans even served breakfast. I don't know about the rest of you but I'm absolutely famished."

The Follower did not say anything. Instead he entered silently through the door, closing it behind him, and bringing the cart to a stop in the centre of the room. He was about to lift the cover on the platter when Pelion moved to his side.

"Allow me Brother," the old priest said, ushering the man away. "It would be my honour to serve you my dear," he smiled back at Adrasteia.

"That's really not necessary..." she began, but Pelion waved a dismissive hand at her as he lifted the platter, revealing steaming rolls of bread with a selection of flavoured oils in which to dip them.

"Please," he said, lifting a small plate from the cart and placing a single roll upon it before offering it to her. "I have spent my life in the service of others. Allow an old man his indulgences."

Out of the corner of her eye, Adrasteia could just make out Themistocles giving her a slight nod.

"I thank you," she said graciously, reaching out and taking the plate from Pelion.

"It was my pleasure," Pelion said, tilting his head again in that strange manner he had. Suddenly he straightened, clapping his hands theatrically as he did so.

"Well then," he said, "I really should be going. You have listened to an old man's prattle for quite long enough I do believe, and I have business to be about. We shall show ourselves out. Come brother."

The Follower nodded and began to follow Pelion toward the door. As the two of them opened it, they revealed yet another man standing in the corridor, his hand raised to knock. This time it was someone Adrasteia recognised and she had to admit she felt a touch of relief at the sight of the man.

Captain Sentos' eyes scanned back and forth across each of them in turn, narrowing suspiciously when they fell upon Pelion and his colleague.

"Am I interrupting something?"

"Not at all Captain," Pelion said, ushering the Follower out past him. "We were just about to return to the Temple." As he stepped past the barrel chested captain, he paused and reach out to touch the man lightly on the shoulder. "I am still waiting to see you at our daily prayers. Of all those who come to us, I sense it is you that would benefit most from my Lord's attention. He can give it back to you, you know. The strength you feel you have lost, the control of your life you so desperately crave..."

His voice was soft and languid, consoling almost, but before he could finish speaking, Sentos reached up, and with the same lightness of touch as Pelion had shown, he removed the old priest's hand. When he spoke though, his voice sounded harder than hammered iron.

"I am sorry to disappoint you," he said tightly, "but you will just have to keep on waiting."

Pelion did not appear in the least upset or offended by Sentos' words. Instead, he merely dipped his head in acknowledgement.

"As you wish," he said, then turned and continued on his way, the second Follower in tow.

Sentos watched them for a moment before turning to step into the room, eyeing the guards on duty to either side of the door as he did so. Adrasteia could not help but notice that his lameness seemed worse this morning, perhaps as a result of it still being relatively early and his leg muscles having stiffened after a good night's rest.

"Good Captain," Themistocles said, smiling broadly. "May we offer you some breakfast?"

"I've already eaten," Sentos replied stepping up to rest his hand against breakfast cart.

"Then may I ask as to what it is that we owe the pleasure of your company?"

"King Demosthenes made that quite clear yesterday at your meeting," The Spartan captain said, glancing sideways at Adrasteia and Nikias. "You came here to speak with him, and now that you have done so, he kindly requests that you return where you came from?"

"And if we are not ready to leave?" Themistocles said, crossing to the cart opposite Sentos and smiling in that way he had. "After all, we have barely seen any of your fine city yet, and I was so looking forward to taking in the sights. To leave now would be terribly disappointing, not to mention most inhospitable of your good King."

"I have orders," Sentos said flatly, his expression as unreadable as a lump of stone. "If you do not leave of your own accord, then my men and I have been instructed to ensure your departure by..." he paused, as if uncomfortable at what he was having to say. "...other means." he finished eventually. "We will of course escort you back as far as Tryxis, to ensure that no harm comes to you on the road."

"I see," Themistocles said, his tone changing slightly. It was less friendly now, becoming harder and more impatient. "May I at least ask that we be allowed to finish breakfast? The road north is rather a long one, and I don't wish to begin the journey on an empty stomach."

Sentos eyed the breakfast cart, and its still substantial amount of food.

"Very well," he nodded. "I will return in one hour. By that time, I expect you breakfasted and ready to depart."

"And depart we shall," Themistocles said, that vexing smile returning once more. "You have my word."

Sentos' eyes narrowed and he glanced once more toward Adrasteia. The most she could manage in return was an apologetic shrug. The broad captain said nothing more; simply grunting instead before turning and walking out of the room, the door banging shut loudly behind him.

In front of her, Adrasteia watched Themistocles' shoulders slump slightly, as his gaze fell down to the cart.

"Well that was certainly bracing," Nikias said softly.

"You're really thinking of leaving too?" Adrasteia said, ignoring Nikias and speaking directly to Themistocles. "Even after what we talked about yesterday, and everything we know is going on?"

Themistocles did not reply. It was Nikias who spoke first.

"Perhaps the Archon has finally realised the very real danger we're in."

Adrasteia rolled her eyes.

"Not this again! I thought we had an agreement!"

Nikias shrugged.

"We do," he said. "And I am not attempting to change it, but Captain Sentos all but confirmed for us the very real risks we will be running should we attempt to remain here unwanted."

Out of the corner of her eye, Adrasteia noticed Themistocles reaching out for something on the cart, but she paid it little attention.

"We both know those risks are worth running!" she protested. "We can't just head for the hills at the first sign of..."

Themistocles cut her short, raising his hand in a bid for silence. He appeared to have picked up a small scrap of folded parchment from the cart and was studying it intensely.

"What is that?" she asked, frowning at it.

Again, Themistocles did not answer. Instead, he crossed the room to the two guards by the doors, looking up from the parchment only as he approached them

"Get the others," he said simply. The first guard nodded and span on his heel, vanishing out of the door in an instant.

"And me Archon?" the other guard said expectantly.

"Ready what horses you can. It's a long way back to Tryxis and I don't plan on walking the entire way."

The second guard gave a similar nod to the first and hurried out as well.

"So we  are  leaving then?" Adrasteia said, feeling her hear sink.

Themistocles turned to face her and shrugged.

"We're no longer welcome," he said. "What choice do we have?"

"But I have to..." Adrasteia began, then checked herself at a glance from Nikias. "...I mean  we  still have to get to the bottom of what it is Demosthenes is planning."

"Let me tell you something," Themistocles replied, apparently not having noticed her slight slip. "You do not live as long as I have with the enemies I've made by taking unnecessary risks. The King has made his wishes perfectly clear. We have no choice but to leave."

He crossed back to the food cart and picked up one of the rolls to take a large bite out of it.

"Still," he continued around a mouthful of bread. "I do hate to see effort put to waste, and it just seems such a shame to have come all this way for nothing."

He balled up the parchment as he chewed and tossed it to her. Frowning as he did so, she snagged it out of the air and began to unfold it.

"Maybe a relaxing tour of the countryside as we ride north is in order," Themistocles was continuing, his gaze on her now turning purposeful. "I've heard the scenery around Sparta can be quite spectacular in this season and it would be a shame not to see  all  that it has to offer."

Finally, she got the scrap of parchment unfolded and smoothed it out in her hand. Scrawled on it in handwriting like none of theirs was a message, short, simple, and intriguing in equal measure.

'Be cautious.'  It began.  'Eyes and ears everywhere.'

Then beneath that, three more words that made her heart race were stamped boldly across the middle of the parchment.

'The Mustering Fields'

*****

The main hall in what had once been the Temple of Ares was always quiet at this time of day. It was a fact Mortius was glad of as he stepped out of the shadows and crossed the wide stone chamber toward the altar at its centre. It was not that his presence among the Followers was a secret. Indeed, it often helped to maintain their loyalty if they saw him about from time to time. He had found that fear could be as effective a tool as faith in ensuring the continued support of his Lord, and as his Lord's Soul, he represented a more distant and terrible side of Cronus to his worshipers than Pelion did with his honey drenched sermonising.

He did occasionally find himself wondering just how many of those who came to the worship of Cronus did so out of true reverence for the displaced Lord of the Titans, and how many actually only came thanks to Pelion's admittedly skilfully worded promises of a solution to all their life's problems. If Mortius had had his way, he would have put everyone of the Followers to the Pneuma test to weed out those who truly believed, or at the very least had the strength of character that would make them worthy supplicants to his Lord. Sadly though, there was just not enough of the Pneuma available, and when combined with the tine it took to actually carry out the test, it made that particular method useful only for determining the truth about those who they already suspected of having the greatest loyalty anyway.

Which led him to thoughts of Demosthenes and of their Lord.

Despite his assurances that he would do so soon, the King of Sparta still had not marched his army north, and his lack of action was now becoming almost intolerable. As the Strength of their Lord, he had been nothing but a disappointment in recent weeks, and Mortius was beginning to wonder if in some way his backing of Demosthenes as a member of the Followers had become the reason for the lack of communication he himself had had with his master.

In truth it was the absence of his Lord's voice from his thoughts that worried him more than anything Demosthenes was, or more importantly, was not doing. His Lord had been the one thing in his life he could cling to after his betrayal. In all the countless ages spent trapped in that dark and seething nothingness between the worlds of the living and the dead, it was his Lord that had shone to him like a beacon, conjuring memories and sensations long thought lost to him. Without his Lord to guide him, he would have remained adrift and directionless in that terrible void, without purpose and without meaning, his betrayal by those he had once been loyal to absolute in its horrific callousness.

A fire burned inside him at the memory. It had been the end when the treachery had come, or at least he thought it had been; a final desperate charge to stop the enemies of his masters. He had not expected to survive. In fact, death in the service of those former masters had been practically welcomed, for they had promised great rewards to those who had shown them loyalty should they not survive the struggles ahead of them. What had befallen him though had not been so easy as a quick and simple death. He had been dragged kicking and screaming into the void, and his masters had done nothing but look on in apathy while it had happened.

'You are being lied to!'

The voice came to him, unbidden from out of his memories. It was not that of his Lord either, but rather the dying words of the Spartan Oracle, Miranda. Before her death at his hand, she had said more too; that he was empty and hollow for example. He did not know that she was wrong. The fire of hate had burned at him for so long that it had scoured everything else away. He was cold now, the void inside him like the one that had trapped him for so long. But if he was his Lord's Soul, did that not mean that his Lord, the great Cronus, was the same? Without feeling? Or pity? Or passion? Could a world made without those things ever truly be the paradise he promised?

Mortius checked himself. Such thoughts were filled with doubt, and if there was one thing he knew that his Lord - and by extension himself - would not tolerate, it was doubt.

Reaching the altar, he dropped to his knees and placed his palms flat against its cool stone surface, his pale fingers splayed wide and his hood turned down toward the floor beneath him.

'Great Cronus, all powerful Lord of the Titans, I beseech you to hear my prayer,'  he whispered inside his own mind. He tilted his head slightly and waited, hoping for the strange tingling between his temples that would indicate his Lord's presence.

Nothing.

'Please my Lord, I require your counsel. Much is being done to further your cause, but without your words to guide me as they once did, I worry that the Followers are beginning to stray. I need your help, your wisdom, to return them to their true path.'

He waited in silence, his thoughts still and quiet as he strained to catch the words he knew he should be hearing. Still there was nothing in response.

He was about to make another attempt when he heard footsteps on the stones behind him, every second step accompanied by the loud clack of a walking staff. Lifting his head, he turned to see Pelion moving across the chamber toward him.

"It's been a while since I have seen you at prayer," the old priest smiled. "I must admit to being pleased to see that your faith remains steadfast."

"What concern is my faith to you?" Mortius replied.

"Was it not you yourself that told me I must attend to the faiths of  all  our Lord's Followers?" Pelion said, climbing the small flight of steps up the dais on which the altar was seated. "Surely that must include you as well, for how would we all be equal if one of us was above reproach?"

"I have been in the service of our Lord for centuries before yourself, or any others, were even born," Mortius said doing his best to keep his voice still and calm. Pelion had been doing an increasingly good job of getting under his skin recently. The old priest should have been little more than a bug to him, an insignificant speck whose only job, despite his grand title, was to keep the Followers loyal and in line. The power dynamic between them had shifted though, and most disturbing to Mortius was that he was not entirely sure when or how. Had it been after his killing of Miranda? His dealing with Callisto? Or the rising of Demosthenes to the rank of Strength? He could not be certain, and that - like so many other things recently - bothered him immensely.

"My faith and my devotion are none of your concern," he finished a little too sharply.

Pelion gave a shrug.

"If that's truly your belief then I shall not pry any further," he said. Despite how it seemed, Pelion's backing down was not a win for Mortius and they both knew it. The argument was over simply because Pelion had chosen not to pursue it further.

"I do, however, have concern over the faith of another," the old priest continued.

"And who might that be?" Mortius said, already tiring of Pelion's latest petty manipulations. He was reasonably sure who it was that Pelion was speaking of. He moved easily to his feet so that he towered over the old priest. It was a cheap method of intimidation, but one that Mortius had long found effective nevertheless, and it came to him almost by habit these days. Much to his chagrin Pelion was not even remotely phased by it anymore.

"Demosthenes," Pelion said simply.

"We have discussed this before, you and I, and there is nothing more to be said." Mortius said dismissively. "He is our Lord's Strength, chosen by Cronus himself. On matters of martial tactics it is not our place to interfere."

"But on matters of faith it is mine," Pelion replied. "I have been patient Mortius. Our Lord has been patient, but there comes a time when patience ends. The barrier is thinning and Great Cronus draws ever nearer to freedom. The next stage of our plan is ready. It needs only Demosthenes to do that which he has sworn to do."

He turned to regard the altar, still littered with the broken remains of the statues to Ares from around the temple.

"Do you doubt our Lord's wishes?" Mortius said, moving to stand behind him. "Such doubts are not yours to entertain."

"Does our Lord want a coward as his Strength then?” Pelionretorted. “The man is stunted, Mortius, and our plans stall while we wait on him and this so called 'strategy' of his."

Mortius regarded Pelion from beneath his hood. There was something in the way he had spoken just now, some carefully disguised sleight, and one that was not solely directed at Demosthenes.

"Do you presume to know our Lord's wishes more than me?" he asked, his eyes narrowing suspiciously beneath his hood. In the past, Cronus had only ever spoken to him. Could it be that he now spoke with Pelion? Was that why he had ceased to speak with him? No, that could not be the case. He was his Lord's most faithful and devoted servant, the one who would stand at his right hand come the day of the Return. Pelion, like Demosthenes, was ultimately just a means to an end. " I  am his Soul Pelion. Me. It is my duty to represent him here until the day of his Return."

"I presume nothing," Pelion replied. "Is it not enough that he desires to be free? And was our plan not designed to achieve just that? I don't need a voice in my head to reassure me of him or of his wishes. My faith is stronger than that. It is war that our Lord wants, Mortius, or else why would he have had you lead us to the brink of it? To plunge us over that brink though, we need Demosthenes to march."

"And if he marches now, while he still has enemies at his back?"

"That excuse grows tired, and you know it," Pelion said with a dismissive snort. "What threat are a few ragged Helot survivors now?"

His eyes narrowed as he spoke.

"I am forced to wonder," he said, his voice suddenly low and calculating, "just exactly what it is he believes that this war will achieve?"

Mortius took a threatening step toward him.

"Are you trying to suggest that I have been dishonest with him?" he hissed, looming large over the shorter man.

Pelion stood his ground, even as the shadows around them began to twist an contort threateningly.

"Of what concern is this war's outcome to us?" he answered. "We don't need Demosthenes to win. Sparta and all its people can burn so long as they manage to take the other side to Tartarus with them. Does Demosthenes understand this?"

Mortius pulled back slightly.

"He does," he said flatly. "He also knows strategy better than you I think. A war fought well on both sides will last longer, and the casualties will be higher. Our Lord may not need a victory, but nor does he need soldiers marching blindly to their demise."

"Say what you will," Pelion sneered. "Demosthenes is without spine. We both know it, and if he doesn't lead as he is supposed to, then his rank will be forfeit and  I  will choose another to take his place."

Mortius could hardly believe his ears.

"You would second guess me?" he snarled.

"For our Lord to be free, I would take your head myself if he called for it," Pelion answered.

The two of them stood in silence, glaring at one another for what seemed like minutes. Finally it was Mortius who broke the silence.

"Have a care Pelion," he said. "And know your place. Your ambition and desire to please our Lord are commendable, but see to it that they do not lead you to overzealousness. Sometimes passion is needed, and at others, a cooler head is necessary. You may be a favourite now, but I know full well how fickle our Lord can be. He may yet call for  your  head before all is said and done."

He gave vague wave of his hand.

"Now be about your business. I must be about mine."

With that, he swept past Pelion and began to head for the shadows. They reached out to him, as he approached, claw like tendrils of blackness drawing him hungrily into their chill embrace. It was not truly cold when they took him into themselves. It was more a chill that settled on the spirit, worming its way right down into the very soul. Normally it gave him a discomfiting feeling to have the shadows clawing at the very core of him, but today the fire in his gut held them at bay.

How dare Pelion presume to speak to him in such a way! The priest was lucky he had not struck his head clean from his shoulders there and then. The man's arrogance knew no bounds! Did he honestly believe that  he  was their Lord's most faithful servant?  HIM!? The hotter the anger burned inside him, the more the shadows grew chill around him, their cold gathering at the edges of the fire as doubts and concerns. His comment about a voice in his head had drawn Mortius' notice. Could his Lord really be speaking to Pelion instead of him? If that were the case, had he discovered that Demosthenes had never been Cronus' choice for the Strength?

Mortius had maintained the lie because he had known on his own that, from a purely practical standpoint, it was Demosthenes who had made the most sense. The man already had an army at his back, and he was more malleable than other possibilities such as Leonidas or Themistocles of Athens. He had become disillusioned with the Olympians' - most notably Ares' - abandonment of his people after Marathon. Mortius had felt it best not to tell him that the most likely reason for Ares' sudden lack of interest in Sparta was probably more to do with him being wrapped up fighting both against, and later with, Dahak and his spawn than out of any real lack of interest in the city or its people. Still the war god's inattentiveness had provided Mortius a much welcomed window of opportunity, and he had leaped at the opportunity it provided him. That Demosthenes was not exactly the strongest of characters had hardly seemed important at the time. He was an experienced war leader and warrior, and at the time that had seemed like it would be enough. Mortius had not counted on the man's paranoia, and morbid fear of defeat ultimately paralysing him to the point of inaction. Whatever he had said to Pelion moments before, the priest was actually right about one thing. Demosthenes needed to act, and act soon.

The shadows around him began to peel back as they deposited him at his destination, and at the very centre of his vision he could make out a wooden floor so heavily lacquered it practically shone in the noonday sunlight streaming in from a nearby window. As the shadows retreated further, more details became clear. He was where he had wanted to be; Demosthenes' private quarters. He was standing in the centre of the main living hall, with a number of doors leading off it to bedchambers, servants' entrances and a private study. There was no sign of the Spartan King, but there was a strange, noxious smell on the air. With an irritated grunt, he turned to leave, when suddenly there came the sound of a pained whimper from the direction of the private study.

Scowling beneath his hood, Mortius turned and stalked toward the door. As he drew nearer, the strange smell grew worse, and more recognisable. A sudden feeling of worry struck Mortius when he realised just what that meant. He quickened his pace, crossing the room in less than three strides, and reached out toward the door. The handle rattled in his grip.

Locked.

Without even pausing, he wrapped his fingers tightly around the handle and pulled hard. The sound of a deadbolt snapping echoed through the air, and the door flew open, leaving Mortius free to step through into the study beyond.

What he saw stopped him short. Demosthenes was seated behind a heavy looking pine-wood desk, his head tilted back to rest against his chair's high back. He was still and immobile save for his eyes, which were half open but rolled back in his skull with only their bloodshot whites visible. His breathing was shallow and laboured, and his hands had a death grip on the arms of his chair, his teeth grinding visibly against one another.

It was not the state of Demosthenes that stopped Mortius in his tracks however. Indeed, his condition was hardly surprising considering what was sitting on the desk right in front of him. A small silver bowl had been set up and from it drifted thin streams of yellow smoke. It was the smoke that gave the air its noxious scent, and the smell was particularly pungent this close to its source.

Mortius lifted a hand to cover his mouth and nose, his eyes moving between the bowl and Demosthenes as he quickly put two and two together. Pneuma. It had to be. Quickly, he left the room, returning moments later with a large bowl and pitcher of water that had been left on a serving tray outside. He crossed to the desk, filling the large bowl as he went, then set both the pitcher and the bowl on the table. Holding his breath this close to the Pneuma fumes so as to be sure not to inhale them himself, he reached out and grasped the small silver bowl pausing only briefly to inspect the contents. The dry residue of boiled Pneuma in the bottom of the bowl suggested Demosthenes had only used a pinch or two of the substance. The small amount was far less potent than what the Followers usually used in their upper echelon initiation rituals, but it was still enough to cause strong nightmare like visions in those who inhaled it.

Without any further delay, he dropped the smaller bowl into the water filled larger one he had place down on the table. The small bowl hissed loudly as it vanished beneath the surface. Turning, Mortius stepped around Demosthenes and flung open the window directly behind the man's chair so as to let some fresh air into the room before stepping back around to the table, hefting the pitcher and hurling what was left of the cold water within unceremoniously into Demosthenes' face.

The Spartan King's reaction was almost immediate. His back straightened even more than it had been already and his mouth opened in a surprised gasp while his eyes snapped back to the here and now. For a moment he looked lost, as if he were not entirely sure where he was. Then his eyes lighted on Mortius and his expression changed from one of confusion to outright anger.

"What in Tartarus do you think you're doing!?" he snapped sharply.

Mortius folded his arms tightly across his chest.

"I could ask you the same thing," he said flatly, then nodded toward the large bowl of water that had already turned a toxic looking yellow and had started to bubble quietly. "Care to explain?"

Demosthenes expression suddenly turned ashen, but his jaw took on a defiant set as he straightened shakily from the chair.

"I never under went the purification ritual," he said. "If I am to lead your Followers as well as my Spartans, I should at least know that I am as capable of facing the trial as they."

"This is the first time you've done this?"

"It is."

Mortius regarded Demosthenes doubtfully. The man's skin had taken on a waxy caste, and his cheeks seemed hollower than they had only a week ago. He had his hands pressed against the table before him, but even then, Mortius could just make out the slightest tremor in them. All were signs of repeated or lengthy exposure to the Pneuma.

"There was not enough Pneuma in that bowl," he said, remaining perfectly still as he did so. "The purification ritual requires much more. What you took was enough to induce a mild dream state. Nothing more."

He strode past Demosthenes to the window he had opened earlier and stared out over the city.

"How long has this been going on for?"

"I told you, this is the first time," Demosthenes snapped in apparent outrage. "Or are you calling me a liar?"

"I don't need to call you anything!" Mortius hissed, rounding on the man sharply, his voice sharp and sibilant. "You  are  a liar, and you will answer my questions. How long?"

Demosthenes simply sat, twisted in his seat to watch Mortius, his jaw muscles working against one another furiously. Then, suddenly, the fight seemed to go out of him, and his shoulders sagged. It was an almost alarming change in the man. Once he had seemed powerful, strong, mighty; the very image of Spartan martial perfection. Now though, he only looked old, drawn, and tired.

"Since shortly after I became the Strength," he said.

"Why?" Mortius demanded. "You have no need to prove yourself to our Lord. I would not have chosen you if I did not think you right for the role."

"But much as you wish you were, you aren't  H im, " Demosthenes answered. "And he... he..." He collapsed back in the chair, his chin tilting up and his eyes fixing at the plain stone ceiling overhead. "He doesn't speak to me," he said quietly. "Not so much as a whisper."

He lowered his gaze back to Mortius.

"Am I not his Strength?" he asked, an edge of hardness creeping back into his tone. "Am I not the equal of you and Pelion? Our Lord should speak to me! I've slaughtered a people, betrayed my brothers in arms, turned my back on a god and all of it for HIM! I should be first among His thoughts as He is first among mine! But instead I hear nothing!"

Mortius could stand the man's defiance no longer. His every word was a slight. His every thought a blasphemy against Cronus! His fist lashed out, catching the King with a brutal backhand that sent him sprawling out of his seat and onto the ground. Not since he had fought Callisto had he felt such fury, and before that, he could not remember the last time the fire had burned so hotly in him.

Before he could even think, he was squatting over Demosthenes, seizing him by the cape he wore with one and hand and heaving him up so that he could clamp the other hand around the man's throat.

"You have not made war for Him!" he all but spat in the man's face. "And that is all He needed of you! Instead you have sat and gathered provisions, sharpened blades, polished armour, and made all the preparations one can make, but you have not yet marched! Our Lord grows weary of your inaction, as do I!"

With that he straightened, shoving the man roughly back to the ground as he did so.

"If I march while my enemies are at my back..."

"Don't," Mortius hissed dangerously at him. "Don't compound your folly by lying to me again. This isn't about strategy or tactics, and I'm a fool for having convinced myself to listen to such nonsense for so long. This is about fear. It always has been."

Demosthenes heaved himself up from the floor with a pained grunt, lifting the back of his hand to his already swollen lower lip and wiping away blood from the corner of his mouth as he did so.

"Maybe you're right," he sneered, and for the first time, Mortius saw a disgusted look in the other man's eyes as they glared at one another. "Maybe this is just about fear, but at least I'm trying to face mine."

"No," Mortius snarled. "This is not facing your fears." He gestured to the bowl of noxious water. " This  is being consumed by them!

He leaned forward, his voice growing low and raspy.

"Tell me, what is it that you see? Do you see Ares abandoning you? Or Leonidas returning to stab you with the same dagger you planted in his back? Or perhaps it's Ithius and his ragtag..."

His voice trailed off when he saw Demosthenes' whole body stiffen instinctively at the mention of the Helot leader. If Mortius had been a more sadistic individual he might have smiled at the sudden small victory. Instead he simply pressed the advantage.

"Yesss," he hissed darkly. "As I thought. Ithius. The one man you could never get to truly bend the knee, who never respected you, and who you ultimately betrayed to the loss of his entire people. He'll come for you one day and that frightens and excites you at the same time doesn't it? The beating of your heart, the adrenaline coursing through you... it's the only way you feel truly alive anymore.”

Demosthenes' muscles had gone completely rigid with fury, and with an animalistic growl he leaped at Mortius, his hands trying to find the wraith-like figure's throat. Mortius' movements were as fluid and serpentine as an adder, and in a single slithering sidestep he was behind Demosthenes, twisting one of his arms up in a vice like hold and slamming the man hard against the table. With his free arm, he reached up, grabbing Demosthenes by the back of the skull and pressing his head face low and close over the still steaming bowl of fetid Pneuma-water. Demosthenes bucked and writhed beneath him, but Mortius had a grip on him surer than steel, and even with all his strength, the Spartan could not break free.

"Why the struggle?" Mortius said coldly. "I'm giving you what you want aren't I? The chance to face your fears and best them."

He pushed again, this time driving Demosthenes' face close enough to the surface of the Pneuma that when the man struggled, the disgusting liquid would slosh back and forth in the bowl.

"And what about you?" Demosthenes shouted desperately up at him.

Mortius paused, and for a moment, Demosthenes fell still beneath him.

"What about me?"

"What fears have you faced?" the King snapped.

"I fear nothing."

"HA!" Demosthenes barked derisively. "No man is without fear. Not even you."

"I'm not a man."

Demosthenes' reaction was strange. Beneath Mortius vice like grip, his shoulders began to shake, but not in an effort to get free. No, the Spartan King was not trying to escape. He was actually laughing!

"That's it!” he chuckled. "Now I get it! Now I understand! You've never taken it have you?"

Frowning beneath his hood, Mortius released him, stepping back and allowing the other man to straighten. Demosthenes rose, leaning heavily on the table for support as he continued to laugh. The sound was one without mirth. Instead it sounded dry, cracked and stark.

"Taken what?" Mortius said.

"The trial,” Demosthenes coughed. “The Pneuma. You've never done any of it have you?"

"No," Mortius replied. "My faith has never been in question. I have spent centuries trapped, alone in the dark with only our Lord and the shadows for company. What could the Pneuma show me that I haven't already experienced ten times over?"

"I don't know," Demosthenes said. "But then again, neither do you." He nodded at the bowl on the table. "Maybe you should ask yourself what would be waiting for you if you did. You might be surprised at the answer you get."

Mortius was about to open his mouth to reply, to say that Demosthenes was wrong and that the Pneuma held no answers for him, but those same gnawing doubts that had begun to fester at the back of his mind warned him that there might yet be some truth to the other man's words.

Demosthenes was still waiting expectantly for his answer when their came a loud knock at the door.

"Yes?" Demosthenes called out, never once taking his eyes off Mortius.

"Great King," came a voice that Mortius did not recognise. "Captains Gracus and Sentos to see you."

Demosthenes shot Mortius a glance, and the Soul nodded in turn. The Spartan King straightened back to his full height, scrubbing his hands across his face in an effort to regain some of his composure as he moved back to the seat he had been sitting in when Mortius first arrived. Without a word, Mortius crossed to his side, standing slightly behind and to the right of the King's' chair. The imagery would be immediately clear to any who saw it. Mortius, the Soul of Cronus holding court with the Strength. Even with the relationship between them as strained as it was, it would not do to have it presented as anything but unshakable.

"Show them in," Demosthenes called as he seated himself at the table once more. He had barely gotten comfortable when the door creaked open and one of his personal guard stepped inside, followed closely by Gracus and then Sentos. Gracus did not even flinch at the sight of Mortius flanking his king. Sentos on the other hand gave a momentary pause as he entered, his eyes narrowing warily. Mortius said and did nothing, remaining completely motionless at Demosthenes' side.

"I distinctly remember, Gracus," Demosthenes said, reclining regally in his chair, "leaving orders that I was not to be disturbed,"

"My apologies Great King," Gracus said immediately dropping to one knee at the scolding tone in Demosthenes' voice. Sentos mirrored the gesture, but more slowly, and while Gracus tilted his head down to stare at the floor, Sentos kept his eyes fixed on Mortius.

"I trust you have good reason for disobeying my strict instructions?"

"We do,"

Demosthenes gave a slight gesture with his hand.

"Then rise and speak."

Slowly the two men got back to their feet. Neither man looked happy to be standing before them, with Gracus being the more ashen faced of the pair.

"I take it the news isn't good," Demosthenes said, eyeing them both with the same measuring look.

"No Great King," Gracus said, and for the first time, Mortius caught the man's eyes flicking briefly toward him. The Spartan Captain gave a swallow. "We had heard nothing from Lieutenant Agrios' patrol for several days, so I had scouts despatched to find them..." he paused as if unable to find the words with which to continue.

Demosthenes leaned forward in his seat, the joints of the chair creaking as his weight shifted.

"Dead?" he said.

Gracus nodded.

"To the man Great King. No survivors, Lieutenant Agrios included. From the looks of things they had been lured into an ambush."

Demosthenes pressed his hands flat against the table to avoid balling them into fists in frustration.

"Ithius?" he asked simply.

Gracus took a deep breath.

"Uncertain my King. There wasn't enough evidence at the site for our scouts to determine who the attackers were, but it would stand to reason. There's something else as well."

Demosthenes' eyes narrowed.

"Go on.”

"Much of their equipment had been stripped from them, weapons, shields, armour and the like. We believe our scouts came across the bodies shortly after the attack since carrion had barely had time to gather. With such a short amount of time between their deaths and discovery, it seems reasonable to assume that the missing gear was taken by the original attackers and not scavengers stumbling across them after the fact."

Demosthenes' eyelid twitched at that, and he leaned back in his seat, the fury building inside him barely contained behind a veneer of studied kingliness.

"He's building an army," he said, shooting Mortius a look that seemed to say 'do you see now why I did not march?'

"We can no longer afford to be so complacent about this," he continued, beginning to rise from his seat. "Ithius and his ilk have been a thorn in our side for quite long enough. Gracus you will..."

He was barely half standing when Sentos spoke up.

"My apologies Great King, but there is something else you should hear first," he said.

Demosthenes fixed him with a baleful stare.

"And that would be?"

Sentos squared his shoulders, delivering his bad news with all the stoicism of a man born and raised as a soldier.

"It is the envoys from Athens and Delphi my King.”

"What about them?"

"They've disappeared."

The room fell silent and still for a moment.

"WHAT!?" Demosthenes all but exploded finally. "Did I not give you specific instructions that they were to be escorted from the city before the morning was done?"

Sentos nodded.

"You did my King, but when I and my men came for them they had been served breakfast, and by the time I returned--"

"Breakfast!?" Demosthenes interrupted sharply, his voice on the verge of breaking completely. " Breakfast!"

"By the time I returned..." Sentos continued, apparently completely unfazed by his King's sudden outburst. "...their rooms were empty and their traveling belongings taken as well. I immediately put out the order for them to be found, of course, but they were already out of the city by that time. The last I heard, they had been seen departing the city via one of the west gates under the escort of Archon Themistocles' troops."

"Did you say the west gate?" Demosthenes snarled, his voice now dangerously low.

Sentos nodded again.

"They're heading for the mustering fields," Demosthenes snapped to no one in particular. "That has to be it. If they reach them and see..." he trailed off, not needing to state the obvious. "All our preparations will be undone."

"Only if they are allowed to report what they have seen," Gracus said with meaningful look toward Demosthenes. Sentos glanced at his fellow captain then took a step forward.

"Please Great King. The mistake was mine. Allow me to undo it. I can mobilise all my men. We'll sweep the countryside between here and the mustering fields and return them to the city for..."

Demosthenes hand waved him into silence.

"No," he said dismissively. "You've done enough damage already. What with Ithius wiping out our patrols, and the majority of mine and Captain Gracus' troops are engaged elsewhere at present, I want your men guarding the city."

Sentos did not even flinch.

"I shall see to the defences at once, Great King," he said beginning to turn to leave.

"Captain," Demosthenes called after him as he started for the door. "One last thing."

"Yes my King?"

"Your disappointments of late have been many and varied." Demosthenes continued, fixing Sentos with a penetrating stare. "This was the last time. I do not wish to hear of you failing me again. Is that completely clear?"

"It is Great King."

"Then be about your duties."

As Sentos left, Demosthenes turned back to Gracus. The atmosphere in the room had shifted now, Mortius noted. With the other captain gone,Gracus was less deferential. He still caught him glancing at him nervously from time to time however. Good. Let his reputation speak for itself.

"Keeping him close?" Gracus asked, and Demosthenes nodded.

"We need his men."

"But not him necessarily," Gracus replied. "I could arrange for him to be dealt with..."

Demosthenes shook his head at that.

"Not yet. He still commands some respect among his peers. To kill him now would only be to invite dissension into our ranks once more. No, for the time being we need Captain Sentos. At least until we can bring his troops around to our way of thinking."

"But the envoys must still be dealt with, yes?"

Demosthenes nodded.

"More than that," he said. "It's time we made our move. The other City States cannot be allowed to ready themselves for our approach, but we cannot necessarily be sure we will be able to stop some warning getting through to them."

He walked around the table to stand before Gracus.

"Order your scouts to gather any of our patrols that remain in the field and have them stake out the roads between here and Tryxis. If they cannot be stopped at the mustering fields, they will most likely make for the ship they have waiting there."

"And you?" Gracus asked. "What will you be doing?"

"Following shortly after with our main force," Demosthenes replied. "It will probably take a day or so to make final preparations. We will all of us rendezvous at Tryxis and make it our final staging ground for the march north to Delphi."

"What about Ithius?" Gracus asked.

Demosthenes glanced at the bowl of Pneuma one last time and took a deep breath, appearing to be summoning up the words he was about to say.

"He is unimportant," he managed after a moment or two. "If we can deal with him along the way, we shall. If not... well, what harm can a few former sheep herders do to us?"

He gestured toward the door.

"Now go," he said. "There is no more time to waste, and the day is already wearing thin."

Gracus nodded, and span on his heel to march purposefully out of the door.

When he was gone and they were alone once more, Demosthenes seemed to sag slightly then turned back to face Mortius. Mortius did not think he had ever seen the man look more weary than he did now.

"Well," the Spartan King said, "I guess its time we had our war."

Mortius did not reply.

Chapter Twelve: A Light to Guide You

"Let's play a game shall we? I'll answer your questions, if you answer mine."

Doing her best to hide her astonishment at seeing the red head sitting before her, Callisto placed her hands on her hips and called out over Gabrielle's head and into the darkened forest beyond the firelight.

"Really?" she shouted, her voice dripping with scorn. "Really!? Is this  really  the best you can manage now? You're so desperate to torture me, you're stooping so low as to use  Gabrielle  of all people!?"

"Who are you talking to?" Gabrielle asked.

"Stay out of this," Callisto snapped, hooking a finger at the other woman. "This has nothing to do with you! It's between me and... and..." She trailed off as she struggled to put a name to her tormentor.

"Yourself?" Gabrielle offered with a sly grin.

Callisto shot her a venomous glare.

"I told you to stay out of it!" she snapped. "You're nothing. Just some figment of my imagination. Another piece of me, broken off and sharpened for my own mind to stab me with. What could you know about anything?"

"More than you it would seem." Gabrielle replied, still grinning.

Callisto's eyes narrowed at the other woman.

"Alright," she said. "Want to try explaining all of this to me then?"

Gabrielle smiled innocently.

"Most certainly not," she said, her voice carrying a strange edge of sadistic delight at Callisto's apparent discomfort.

"Then shut your mouth before I hack your lips off," Callisto snarled darkly at her.

Most people would have visibly blanched at such a threat. Gabrielle did not so much as flinch. Instead, she simply shrugged and went back to tending the fire.

"Whatever you say. I was going to try and help you but I guess you're just too afraid to--"

"Oh please," Callisto cut her off dismissively before she could even finish. "Me? Afraid of you?"

Gabrielle glanced up at her and smiled again.

"I didn't say you were afraid of  me ."

Callisto rolled her eyes and plopped herself down unceremoniously at the edge of the campfire, glaring fiercely at Gabrielle across the heads of the crackling flames. It seemed she was in for more meaningless double talk and psychobabble then. It should not have been that surprising to her at this point. That was apparently all the Pneuma was interested in letting her achieve, after all. She pondered Gabrielle's words for a moment. Was she telling the truth? Could she be the key to getting out of here? It looked like there was only one way to find out.

"Okay then," she said, leaning forward threateningly so that the firelight cast dancing shadows over her slim features. "Care to share just who or what it is I   am  afraid of?"

"Ohhhh no," Gabrielle said with an uncharacteristically cruel glint in her eye. "No, no, no. That's not the way this goes, don't you remember? You answer my questions, then, if you're lucky, and you ask the right ones, I might just answer yours."

Callisto sat very still, watching the younger woman suspiciously. There was something not right here, something she could not quite place. She remembered this night well. It was burned into her memory. It had been the final night of her life before she had eaten the ambrosia and achieved godhood. She, Xena and Gabrielle had barely won out in a battle against the mad Amazonian godling, Velasca, just a few hours earlier. It had been a battle in which Callisto had attempted to switch sides and join with Velasca against Xena and Gabrielle. Her plan had not quite worked out that way however. Looking back at on it now, she was hardly surprised. After all, when had any of her plans gone the way she intended or had the results she wanted?

She and Gabrielle had played the same game that night. It had not gone more than two questions in before Gabrielle had been so incensed by Callisto's taunting that she had gone storming off into the darkness.

Good times.

Something was different now, though. She could feel it. But what had changed? To the best of her recollection, the forest and the clearing itself were as they had been that night, but then why would they not be? These were supposed to be her memories after all. That meant it was something else that had changed, then; something almost indefinable.

The more Callisto thought about it, and the more she watched Gabrielle sitting across from her, the more she was able to narrow down the source of the strangeness, until suddenly and without warning, all of it seemed to click into place at once. What had changed was not the forest, or the campsite, or even the stars over head. It was Gabrielle herself that was different. There was just something off about her. Something decidedly un-Gabrielle like. All the other spectres out of her past had seemed somewhat close to the people she remembered. Even Ares had been like Ares, or at least a near approximation of him. Theodorus too had seemed like himself, and her doppelganger almost certainly felt like  her.

But this Gabrielle...

Callisto studied her carefully, trying to take in all the detail she could. She certainly looked the part, what with her red hair – almost verging on blonde - and solid build, but that was where the similarities ended. She was too still for one. Gabrielle had always been so full of verve and life, but this thing sitting across from her had none of that. She did not fidget or shift where she sat, instead being so still it was almost eerie. Her body language was too self assured as well. Gabrielle had always been one of two things around Callisto; strident, or cautious and often both at the same time.

This Gabrielle was neither however, and every fibre of Callisto's being was crying out to her to be on her guard.

She gave a dismissive snort. Caution had never really been her strong suit.

"I don't have time for this," she said, her lip curling upward in a sneer as she rose from her seat, still feeling the not-quite-Gabrielle's gaze lying heavy upon her.

"You're right about that," the other woman said. "In fact you've even less time than you realise." She nodded toward the darkened silhouettes of the forest around them. "She's out there right now you know; hunting for you. Can't you feel her?"

Callisto paused mid stride and twisted to glare at Gabrielle, her ears straining hard against the silence of the night. She could hear nothing beyond the crackling of the fire. The Gabrielle-thing was right though. She  could  feel something; only it was not out there in the night, but instead nestled deep inside her. It was a curious unclean feeling, one she did not like in the slightest but it tugged at her nevertheless, like hundreds of cold, clammy fingers across her skin. She remembered the stone from before, and the many hands that had sprang out to hold her in place. An involuntary shiver ran down her spine. She did her best to hide it, but across the fire, Gabrielle's smile deepened knowingly.

"Sooner or later she  will  find you, you know." she said. "There's no escaping that. You don't have to keep running, though. I can help you deal with her if you'll let me."

Callisto's sneer grew even more scornful

"How could you possibly hope to help me?"

"Now, now,” the Gabrielle-thing scolded her. “You know the rules. Play the game and I'll tell you."

Callisto gave a frustrated grunt.

"Fine," she said, spinning back and flopping down cross legged to the ground to the ground once more. She began to drum her fingers impatiently against her knees. "Truth or dare it is then. Again. Go ahead and ask your questions."

"When you killed Perdicus..." Gabrielle asked, her face suddenly flat and unreadable. "...how did it make you feel?"

Callisto tapped her lip as if deep in thought.

"Which time?" she replied tauntingly, watching the other woman's reaction with great care. "The time just a few hours ago? Or the first time, when you were watching?"

"You know which time I'm talking about," Gabrielle said dismissively, her tone one of irritation rather than the upset Callisto would have expected.

She sat in silence, not really sure how to answer as she tried to puzzle out the riddle of Gabrielle at the same time.

Almost-Gabrielle's eyes flickered briefly to the tree line at Callisto's back.

"You should be quicker with your answers," she said. "The sands are falling, and time is short. Did it feel good when you killed Perdicus? Or maybe righteous perhaps? Did it give you satisfaction to know that you were doing wrong to those who had wronged you?"

Callisto still could not think of an answer so instead she sat perfectly still, never taking her eyes from the other woman who only stared back unblinkingly at her. How had she felt? She had never really given it a lot of thought before. That, she realised suddenly, was all the answer she needed.

"I didn't feel anything," she said, her stare never wavering, but still drifting far away. "Nothing at all."

"And why do you think that is?"

"Ah ah ah," Callisto said, her eyes snapping suddenly back into focus, and she wagged her finger scoldingly at the other woman. "That's not the game, remember? I answered you, now it's your turn to answer me."

Gabrielle rolled her eyes.

"Hey," Callisto said innocently, "I didn't make the rules."

"Alright then," Gabrielle sighed. "Ask your questions if you must."

"Why am I here?"

Gabrielle tilted an eyebrow at her.

"That's your question?" she said. "Haven't you been asking that since you arrived, and hasn't It already been answered to your satisfaction? If the answers aren't immediately obvious to you, then I would suggest you try paying closer attention in the future."

"That's not what I meant," Callisto said keeping her attention locked on the bard. "I mean, I know it's the Pneuma creating everything here. That this is all some kind of hall of horrors that my own mind's eye has decided to torture me with. What I'm trying to ask is, why  here?  Now? This moment? What's the relevance of any of it? I've lost patience with trying to figure it out!"

"Because this moment is the one you need it to be." Gabrielle replied cryptically, causing Callisto to groan and slap a hand to her forehead in exasperation

"Great," she muttered. "Just what I need. More crazy double talk and psycho babble."

Gabrielle pouted slightly at having been cut off.

"You don't want to hear the rest of my answer?"

Callisto grunted, and waved her hand at the other woman, indicating she should continue. Giving a disapproving frown, Gabrielle began again, somewhat less portentously this time thankfully.

"As with everything in life, this place is all and only what you perceive it to be," she said. "Reality is only ever that Callisto. Perception, skewed a million different ways from a million different angles. What you perceive becomes what is. Others may share your reality if your viewpoint is along the same trajectory as theirs but ultimately all that is real is real only for you and you alone. There is a special kind of power in that understanding. Power and truth. Most will never have the force of will to bend the real into the shape they wish it to be, the shape that all others must then accept as true, but for those that can, reality becomes their playground, and the world theirs to shape and twist to their desires. They become..."

“Gods?” Callisto suggested, and Gabrielle tilted her head in answer, a small smile playing on her lips.

“Perhaps.”

Callisto scowled at her.

“Very philosophical,” she said. "But it didn't answer my question."

"It answered it well enough," the bard replied, only to smile coldly at her. "I suppose that would make it my turn again, yes?"

Callisto did her best to appear relaxed, shifting her weight and leaning back while stretching her legs out in front of her to cross them over at the ankles. Despite her attempt at nonchalance, her stomach was twisting in knots as she tried to anticipate what was coming next.

"I suppose it would," she said, sounding more confident than she felt. "So come on philosophy girl; shoot."

"Why did you feel nothing when you killed Perdicus?" Gabrielle said, repeating her question from earlier.

"Are sure you want me to answer that?" Callisto said, tilting her head so that she could grin all the more wickedly at the other woman. "You might not like the answer."

Gabrielle's return smile was equally as cruel and taunting.

"Indulge me," she said.

Callisto could only shrug in response.

"Okaaaaaaay," she replied, stretching out her response as she mulled over the question. Eventually an answer occurred to her. "I felt nothing, because he was nothing," she said. "Less than nothing even. He was weak, and pathetic, and his death... well... it was all of those things at once really wasn't it. You hubby, my dear sweet Gabrielle, was only ever a means to an end for me. An opportunity to cause pain and suffering to the people I hated. Nothing more."

As she spoke she felt her skin crawl at the admission, and the unclean sensation lingering in the back of her thoughts seemed to grow stronger the more she continued on.

Gabrielle said nothing at first, instead leaning in closer to and studying her carefully. For the first time, Callisto realised the light spreading out from the flames did not seem to touch her in quite the right manner. It was as if she was not truly a part of the world around them, but more a crude attempt to appear that way, like a figure added to a painting after the fact, that did not sit right within the shading of the original work.

"None of that is true though is it?" Gabrielle said finally, her voice soft yet probing. "He  was  something. All people are. Perdicus was a man of morals and conviction; a man in love who deserved to be loved in turn, and to live a life longer than the one you took from him. But take it you did nevertheless, and all so you could drag others down to your level and prove that anyone – anyone at all – when given the right push, could be just. Like. You!"

She delivered the final words in a strangely rhythmic sing song manner, that Callisto recognised as an imitation of her own, often times mocking, voice. She gritted her teeth, her lips peeling back in a thin snarl as she leaned in closer to the fire too, her anger beginning to spark inside her.

"Are you trying to tell me that was wrong?" she hissed. "That it wasn't reason enough to do what I did to you?"

"What did it achieve?" Gabrielle countered. "What did  any  of it achieve? You proved nothing to anyone, and everything you did led only to your own death..."

She tilted her head in another imitation of Callisto.

"Don't you ever ask yourself, 'What was the point?'"

Callisto's angry snarl filled the still night air.

"I don't need to ask!" she growled from between gritted teeth. "I know! The point was revenge! I had  nothing  to prove, no agenda to push, no axe to grind! I wanted Xena to be left sobbing over the broken bodies of all those closest to her. I wanted to see their blood in the dirt, and their ashes in the wind. I wanted to hear her scream! That was all!"

"And in the end, that's why you failed," Gabrielle replied, completely unperturbed by Callisto's sinister outburst. "Xena and Gabrielle, they had a cause; a way of seeing the world that drove them to try and change it. Perception equals power, remember. All you ever had was a grudge to bear and a fairly petty one at that."

"Petty?" Callisto said, her voice rising to the level of a furious shout. "PETTY!? You're talking about my FAMILY! MY LIFE! All of it destroyed by your precious Warrior Princess! How can one husband you'd been married to for all of ten minutes compare to any of that?"

"You think your loss is greater then?" Gabrielle said, apparently unimpressed with her outburst. She tilted her head curiously at Callisto. "Why?"

"Because it is!" Callisto snapped, "Let's do the maths shall we?" She held up her fingers theatrically and began to tick items off them like a check list. "We've got my mother, my father, my sister, my home, my friends..."

"So that's all loss is to you?" Gabrielle cut in. "A matter of economics? Checks and balances, all neat, tidy and easily quantifiable? You lost objectively more, therefore your loss was greater?"

"Yes," Callisto bit off sharply.

"I say it's not that simple," Gabrielle said, and Callisto's teeth ground against one another so hard, she thought they might be about to crack.

"I don't care what you think!"

A small smile tugged at the corner of Gabrielle's mouth.

"You should," she said. "All conflict is borne of differing perceptions. The only way to win is to prove your view point stronger. You want to make me believe that you're right, and that you're loss is greater than mine? Prove it to me. Change my perception. Change my reality..."

She sat back on her log, and began to poke at the fire again with her blackened tree branch,

"...If you can that is," she finished, that small smile on her face now verging on outright smugness.

Callisto watched her, her furious snarl slowly turning into a cruel leer as she turned their conversation over in her head.

"Okay then," she said, causing Gabrielle to glance up at her, a vaguely surprised expression crossing her face. "My turn."

"I'm sorry?"

"Our little tête–à–tête," Callisto elaborated. "Q and A, truth or dare, whatever you want to call it. It's my turn to do the asking again."

Gabrielle sighed.

"Very well," she said impatiently. "Ask whatever inane triviality it is you feel the need to waste my time with, then maybe we can get back to the true business at hand here."

"You're not Gabrielle."

She had hoped the sudden accusation would trigger some kind of a reaction, but the Gabrielle look-a-like only shook her head.

"No," she said, "I'm not. And I never claimed to be,"

"Then what are you?"

"That's two questions."

"Wrong!" Callisto's smile widened at her small victory. "I think you'll find the first statement was exactly that. A statement. Not my fault if you thought otherwise."

Gabrielle fixed her with a look that seemed to say  'seriously?'

"Pure pedantry," she said in an imperious manner that could not have sounded less like Gabrielle if she had tried.

Callisto spread her arms wide, with palms up, a look of mock innocence on her face.

"What's the matter," she said. "Annoyed that perception doesn't always equal power after all?"

Not-Gabrielle sighed again.

"You're learning, I suppose," she said. "But I think I am beginning to see now why Xena found you so tiresome."

Callisto only grinned wider.

"Very well," the not-Gabrielle sighed. "I'll allow your question."

She shifted where she was sitting, laying down the stick she had been using to tend the fire, and as she did so, the last vestiges of any kind of Gabrielle impersonation fell away. The sudden disdainful back tilt of her head spoke of nobility, and the way she clasped the knuckles of one hand with the palm of the other as she leaned forward was a far more masculine gesture than Callisto had expected to see. Above all else though, it was her eyes that changed the most. At first they had sparkled with sprightly mischief. Now though, they had turned cold and hard, with a look in them that spoke of great age, experience and not a little arrogance.

"I am not Gabrielle, this is true," the figure said. "Though she and I are much the same in many respects." The voice was still recognisable as that of Xena's pet bard, but the whole register of it had become deeper, icier and more fearsome all at once.

Callisto let out an amused snort.

"You'll forgive me if I can't quite see the similarities," she jeered.

"But that is just it," the not-quite-Gabrielle replied. "You  do  see them! Has that not become clear to you yet? Here, in this palace wrought of sensation and memory, everything is malleable; susceptible to, and shaped by even the simplest of thoughts. Abstracts, concepts, ideas; here all are given interpretation, and after that, shape."

Callisto nodded in mock understanding.

"Is that so?" she said.

"Yes."

"And this shaping?" she continued, with a nod toward Gabrielle. "It includes you?"

Not-Gabrielle nodded.

"It includes me," she said. "I did not choose this shape. Your own mind did, because you see the same qualities shared between myself and the bard..."

"Let me guess," Callisto cut in. "You're both stocky, red headed, irritating..."

"We're both innocent," the not-quite-Gabrielle cut her off sharply, the impatience in her voice growing stronger. "Idealistic. Persecuted, and wrongfully so by those who despised and feared us." She fixed Callisto with a steady, meaningful gaze. “Perhaps this is all starting to sound familiar to you?"

Callisto's disgusted sneer returned almost immediately.

"Gabrielle was no innocent," she said. "She trafficked with Xena, and that alone made her my enemy..."

"And earned her no end of suffering into the bargain," not-Gabrielle replied. "What did she ever do to you to deserve your hatred, mmm? What crimes did she commit that deserved the punishment you meted out?"

Callisto paused at that, struggling to think of a suitably cutting reply.

"She got what she deserved," was all she could eventually manage.

"So you say," the other woman nodded. "But you don't really believe that do you?"

Somewhere in the distance Callisto heard the whinny of horses. Not-Gabrielle's eyes flickered toward the tree line once more, and Callisto twisted to regard the trees herself through narrowed eyes before turning back to face the shade of Gabrielle once more. She folded her arms tightly across her chest, doing her best to ignore the sudden acidic uneasiness that was roiling in her gut

"And what makes you say that?" she said.

"Because you have not made me believe otherwise," not-Gabrielle replied. "Your defences are half hearted, your denials weak. If you want me to believe it, you need to convince me! Shout it to the world Callisto. Tell them that you are right, that I'm wrong, and that Gabrielle deserves what you did to her."

Callisto glared at her fiercely through the firelight. Not-Gabrielle did not seem in the least bit perturbed, simply meeting her furious stare with a flat and inexhaustible patience.

Eventually, the other woman gave a shake of her head and a sigh.

"You can't do it can you?" she said. "Because, yet again, you don't really believe it either."

Callisto felt her anger spark higher at that.

"Of course it's what I believe!" she shouted angrily, but the other woman only shook her head in return.

"Maybe once," she said knowingly "but not now; not anymore, and perhaps not for a long time."

"Alright," Callisto said, doing her best to keep a hold on her blossoming anger. She leaned forward sharply, unfolding her arms as she did so and and resting her elbows on her knees, her fingers hanging taught and claw-like in the air. "For the sake of argument, let's say that you're right. That the truth of it all is that I was wrong, that Gabrielle didn't deserve what I did to her, that none of them did and that the blood of my victims didn't belong on Xena's hands as well as mine. While we're at it, why don't we just assume that all of this is my subconscious trying to make me realise exactly that." She narrowed her eyes. "Even if any of that were true, none of it explains who  you  are."

"I am what I have said myself to be," the other woman said.

"That's a dodge," Callisto said flatly. "I want a straight answer."

The other woman paused for a moment, tapping her lips thoughtfully.

"I am your victim," she said eventually. "Much like Gabrielle before me. I have never once wronged you, and yet you persecute me all the same. And for what? Some empty promise handed down from the Olympians? Some vague hope that one day, if only you can placate them, they will give you that which you most desire?"

Callisto frowned. Something about the manner in which the Gabrielle doppelganger had said the word 'Olympians' had set her mind racing. The venom that word had carried - the sheer force of hatred behind it - had been like a spark in her memories, and she straightened sharply where she sat, her hands clutching tightly to her knees as a sudden realisation overcame her.

"You're Cronus!" she said, her astonishment completely genuine.

The not-quite-Gabrielle figure dipped her head in acknowledgment.

"Yes," she said. "Though I must say, I had thought you would realise sooner. That it took you this long is a little disappointing."

"So I don't get a prize for guessing correctly then?" Callisto said.

Cronus just tilted an eyebrow at her.

"Guess not," she said, then smiled darkly at the not-quite-Gabrielle visage before her. "Sooo," she continued with almost ridiculous casualness, "How's Tartarus? Treating you well? Probably not considering the whole punishment everlasting thing it's got going for it. Can't say I miss the place myself."

"You're mocking me."

It wasn't a question but Callisto nodded all the same.

"Yes, actually."

"I can assure you, it's a fruitless endeavour."

Callisto gave a small shrug.

"Oh I don't know about that," she said. "After all, it does make me feel all warm and tingly inside."

"Another lie, Callisto?" Cronus said, the image of Gabrielle giving a small, sad shake of its head.

"Why would I lie?"

"Because you always do," Cronus replied. "Didn't you just say you felt nothing? In the past have you not told Gabrielle and Dahlia the exact same thing?"

Callisto's brow furrowed in confusion.

"How did you know what I..."

"...Said?" Cronus finished for her and smiled again. "Oh come now! You've been dead Callisto. You know how this works. You've even used this exact same trick. The dead invading the dreams of the living. I'm just better at it than you."

As it spoke, the spectre of Gabrielle got to its feet, and began to circle the campfire toward Callisto, each step so confident and assured in the way that only those accustomed to great power or strength could manage.

"Think of me and I hear you," she continued, her every footstep heavy with silent authority. "For everyone who has ever whispered my name, in dreams or in the waking world, I too have heard theirs, loud and strong across the Styx. In return, for their attention I have seen into the hearts of each and every one of them. You have thought of me much in recent weeks and I have had plenty of time to listen. I would suggest that if you are going to insult my intelligence by attempting to deceive me, you should at least learn to do a better job of it."

Callisto felt her gut twist at his words, at once both furious and sickened by his apparent invasion of her mind.

"I don't lie," she said tightly.

"Don't be petulant," Cronus scolded. The spectre was standing close by now, staring imperiously down at her. "Of course you do. We  all  do! The entire world's a lie Callisto. Perception and perspective are everything after all. When one person's truth becomes the way of the world, how can another person's not become the lie? That was the way with me and my kin, and it is even more the way with my insipid offspring and the festering pit of bile they have allowed the world to become. Was that not the way with yourself too? Railing against the injustice of a world that gave a woman like Xena a clean slate while condemning you to burn in Tartarus for all eternity? How could no one see that you were in the right and that they were wrong, that Xena and those like her were the source of all suffering?"

Callisto remained silent, staring up at the shade of Cronus wearing Gabrielle's face, her teeth grinding tight against one another in quiet fury.

"If you will not answer me, then I will do it for you," Cronus said. "It was because their will was stronger than yours..."

Callisto's jaw was aching now, so hard were her teeth clenched together, and in the pit of her stomach she could feel her temper flaring hotter and hotter the more Cronus spoke until, at the last, she could no longer contain it any more.

"ENOUGH!" She barked, shooting to her feet and taking a step forward so that she stood taller than the Gabrielle spectre, and could now stare down her nose at it instead.

Cronus fell silent, but the corners of the Gabrielle-mask's mouth that he wore tweaked upward in that manner that was beginning to so infuriate Callisto.

Out among the trees, the neighing of horses sounded louder and closer than ever before. She rubbed the finger pads of her sword hand against one another as she spoke and swallowed dryly. Why did the sound of the horses fill her with such dread? She did not really need an answer to that. She already knew what they heralded.

It was  her.

She was coming; that dark mirror image that had been dogging her footsteps since she had become trapped in this psychotic dreamscape. She did not know how she had escaped their last encounter – whether or not it had been with Ares' aid, or by her own will – but escape she had, and now the other her was on the hunt and drawing closer with every passing minute wasted here. She could no longer afford to play Cronus' game the way he wanted.

She stooped, grasping a fallen mouldering tree branch that lay beside her boot and hefting it like a club as if to strike the other woman.

"It's my turn to ask the questions again," she snarled.

Cronus' eyes flickered the branch, and the Gabrielle-mask smirked.

"You really think that a stick is enough to threaten me?"

"Perception is power you said," Callisto said, taking a threatening step forward. "That's the way this is supposed to work, right? Doesn't matter what's being swung. Just the will of the person swinging it.”

"And the will of the person you're swinging at," Cronus said, stepping forward, completely unbowed by Callisto's threat. "Strike me if you wish, but know this..." he shrugged, "...It will do you little good."

"Maybe," Callisto replied then smiled wickedly, "but sometimes a little's better than none at all,"

Cronus sighed and took a step back, the spectre of Gabrielle spreading its arms wide.

"Very well," the tone was challenging. "Test your will against mine. Let us see which one of us has the greater conviction."

Callisto hefted the tree branch, her fingers gripping the dead and rotting bark so tightly that it cracked beneath her fingers and began to drift down through the air in fine flakes. Gritting her teeth tightly, she pictured the branch caving the bard's innocent red head in, and with a terrific scream of raw fury, she swung it up over her head, leaving it poised at the apex of the swing before bringing it crashing down over the spectre's skull.

The branch did not so much shatter as it did explode, dozens of sharpened splinters of wood flying in every direction, and leaving Callisto holding nothing more than a splintered husk of what had been the branch's base. Through it all, Gabrielle did not so much as flinch.

"Guess that proves my point," Cronus said.

Callisto raised the remains of the branch to her eyeline, and stared at it, her mind one half numb and the other half disbelieving.

"Did you really think your fury was anything beside mine?" Cronus said, reaching up to the push the remains of the branch aside so that Callisto was staring directly into the Gabrielle-mask's eyes. "I was the Lord of the Titans Callisto. I strode unhindered across the earth when it was little more than primordial rock and poisonous fumes. Uranus himself could not deny me. What chance did you ever have?"

"What do you want with me?" Callisto said, her voice cracked and numb.

"To make you an offer," Cronus said.

Callisto's eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"What kind of offer?"

"One that will ensure we both get what we desire most," Cronus replied. "Revenge."

Callisto continued to regard him for a moment or so, then snorted derisively and began to turn away.

"Not interested."

"You will not even hear me out?"

Callisto rounded back on him as if he had struck her, her finger jabbing forward furiously at the Gabrielle spectre.

"No!" she snapped. "And I'll tell you why. It's because you're just the same as the rest of them. You don't care even the slightest bit for what it is that I want. You just care how I can be used to get what  you  want!"

She turned to leave again, only to give small start when somehow the Gabrielle-spectre was in front of her again, blocking her way back into the forest.

"And what if we what we want is the same?" Cronus pressed. "Peace! Silence! Freedom from torment! Freedom from pain! Does none of that sound inviting to you? Is that not what you have been truly seeking since the fire took all of those things from you?"

Callisto stood still and silent, unable to answer.

"I can give them to you..." Cronus practically purred, the spectre of Gabrielle stretching out its hand invitingly toward her. "All of them and more! The world Callisto, the whole world, free from tyranny! Free from pantheons and gods and the chaos and strife that trail in their wake! It would be world remade as it once was; a paradise of plenty, where all will want for nothing, and none are divided..." The Gabrielle-mask paused, staring directly into Callisto's eyes now. "...not even the living and the dead."

A memory flashed, sudden and unbidden across the surface of Callisto's thoughts. She was standing high on cold black ramparts. An old man was standing at her side and she was leaning forward over the stone, staring out over a cave almost incomprehensible in its gigantism. She was paying no attention to the size of the place though. Instead her eyes were fixed on a golden paradise in the middle distance and in her mind's eye it shone all the clearer, like amber struck by sunlight.

"...I can give you all that," Cronus was still saying at the edge of her hearing. "But only if you will give me your obedience and undying loyalty."

Callisto snapped back to the present and regarded Cronus, her eyebrows climbing higher as the realisation of what he was asking struck home.

"That's what this is all about?" she said, "This forest, this camp fire, the charming recreation of a woman I despise; it's all your recruitment pitch!?"

"The world needs me," Cronus said simply. "It writhes in agony and cries out for my mercy as it knew of old. My treacherous son knows this, and that disgusting brood of his that squat plotting and scheming atop Olympus know it too. My agents do my work, and faith in my return spreads. The Styx grows shallower with every passing moon, and soon I will stride across the face of the world as I did in aeons past."

"That's quite a 'to do' list," Callisto smirked, and Cronus shot her a poisonous look in return.

"Joke all you like, but when the Olympians lie broken at my feet, and the world is once more under my dominion, remember that I will reward handsomely all those who were instrumental in its manufacture..." He paused, and the Gabrielle spectre folded its arms as it gazed meaningfully at Callisto. "...and punish those who stood against it."

Once more Callisto remembered the shining golden fields, and this time her mother's golden hair as well. Then she thought about the pristine pastoral fields alight and burning and she remembered her mother's screams.

"Let's get one thing straight," she said her fingers clenching and unclenching as she spoke. "No one – and I mean this without any exceptions whatsoever – No one threatens my family."

She took a step forward, her lips suddenly thin and bloodless.

"Not Mortius," she continued, "not the gods, and definitely not you!"

"I could give them peace..." Cronus began to protest.

"They already have it."

"I could give  you  peace..."

"I bore easily," Callisto replied sharply.

"No one denies me..."

"Should I be proud I'm the first?"

"GAH!" Cronus span away from her in frustration. "As if Tartarus were not punishment enough, now I must contend with  you... "

The Gabrielle spectre paused and its shoulder's slumped before it eventually looked back over her shoulder toward her once more.

"Very well, be a puppet dancing on strings for the Olympians then. Do their bidding and be their loyal lapdog, but know this; you may think you have marked a line between us here and now, but it is drawn only in sand. There is a wave of change approaching Callisto, and after it washes over that line, when it finally recedes and sweeps back out to sea, you may yet find yourself on my side of it..."

"Oh I doubt that," Callisto replied, her tight lipped anger splitting into another wicked grin. "Y'see, and Gabrielle can attest to this by the way," she paused for effect, her grin widening as she did so. "I'm nothing if not single minded."

A small answering smile played across Cronus' lips in response and Callisto frowned. It was not the expression she had expected

"Funny you should say that," he said. "I was under the impression that you weren't the only one in here worth talking to."

From close by in the trees, there came a familiar shout of delight that made Callisto's blood freeze. It was her own voice, wicked and sadistic against the night air.

The other her.

She'd finally tracked her down. She must have spied the fire from out among the trees. Before even a moment had passed Callisto heard another cry from her doppelganger, followed closely by the sound of horses hooves beginning to pound closer and closer.

Cursing loudly, she twisted on her heel and took off at a dead sprint for the opposite tree line, hoping to find some semblance of cover out there in the dark. She could not be caught. Not yet. She was not sure why, but something in her gut told her that she was not ready yet, and that to face the doppelganger now would lead only to her ruin.

Behind her she heard Cronus – still using Gabrielle's voice – begin to laugh.

"Run all you like Callisto!" He called after her. "As fast and as far as you are able. You'll never escape her, or the truth that follows in her wake. There's no denying it, like there's no denying ME! We're the same, you and I! The hate and the fire is all we have left! The sooner you admit that to yourself, the sooner you'll come to see things my way! You were meant to be my instrument Callisto! My weapon! My vengeance! MY WRATH!"

Callisto ignored his shouts, vaulting a fallen tree trunk as she barreled away from the camp fire and out into the dense undergrowth beyond. Branches lashed at her as ran and palm fronds whipped painfully across her calves and back as she unceremoniously battered them aside. The firelight receded quickly behind her, as did Cronus' shouts, leaving her only with the he sounds of her own laboured breathing and the loud rustling as she pushed through the forest undergrowth...

...and the horses of course.

There was more than one she realised. Their hooves were beating behind her like the rumble of grinding stone, creeping inexorably closer, even as she ducked hither and thither among the trees in an attempt to throw them off.

Suddenly she burst free of the thick undergrowth, and found herself running among evenly spaced birch trees, each one spear-straight and thrusting into a dark tangle of branches overhead. The sudden open space allowed her to effectively double her pace, but it also increased her visibility and she cursed again, doing her best to follow an unpredictable winding route among the trees. Ahead of her there was something dark and massive looming against the horizon, but so black was it that she could barely make it out. The birch trees just seemed to stop suddenly. Indeed, everything did, even the ground, cutting off short as if swallowed by some great void that stretched to the very corners of her vision.

From behind her their came a victorious cry. Her own voice again, filled with glee and triumph.

"CALLLLIIIIIIISTO!" she heard the other her call out mockingly. "I SEEEEEEE YOUUUUU!"

She did not dare risk a look back over her shoulder, but instead made do with casting short glances to her immediate left and right as she continued to sprint headlong into the night. Hoof beats thundered all around her, and flickering between the trees to either side of her, she managed to catch occasional glimpses of white stallions, ridden by the faceless, and streaking out ahead of her at full gallop. They were trying to encircle her, she realised, to cut her off from whatever thing it was that that she was running toward.

That 'thing' was beginning to become more discernible as she drew closer to it. It was no longer a great waiting void she realised, but a wall; a giant fortress wall, cast of blackest obsidian and standing taller than the trees that brushed against it. Gritting her teeth hard with the exhertion of it all, she redoubled her efforts, and as she grew nearer to it, the surface of the wall cracked, a thin sliver of light from beyond glaring perfect white against the darkness of night.

Doors! There were doors in the wall, and they were opening!

The bar of pure white light grew wider, burning across Callisto's eyes and obscuring the galloping horses at her periphery. A dark shape appeared at the heart of it, quickly resolving itself into the silhouette of a person.

"Faster!" She heard her own voice cry from somewhere behind her, a sudden note of desperation in its tone. "STOP HER!"

The faceless out in front of her turned their horses in perfect unison, arcing inward and creating a barrier between her and the bright light beyond. The animals did not even move as they drew to a halt, standing as impassive and expressionless as their riders. As one, those same riders twisted in their saddles to stare her down, their blank masks of flesh fixing her in that now familiar haunting gaze that still managed to make cold sweat run down her spine.

Callisto's stride faltered as she saw them, but before she could stop completely, she saw the distant silhouetted figure in the doorway raise an arm. The hairs on her arms and the back of her neck rose immediately as the air between herself and the riders suddenly came alive. A tremendous white flash seared through her eyes, causing her to fling her hands up to shield her eyes. There was a vicious cracking sound weighed heavily in on all sides of her, followed by a roaring wash of dry hot air that carried a burned metallic smell with, along with the panicked whinnying of terrified horses.

Stumbling blindly behind her hands, Callisto tried to press forward, only to feel her foot snag on something. With a loud shout, she went sprawling in the dirt, and as she did so, another smell filled her nostrils; that of flesh scorched down to the bone. Scrabbling back to her feet, she finally managed to open her eyes, looking about herself in confusion. All around her, the faceless and their horses were a flight with panic. Mounts reared, their eyes rolling desperately back in their skulls, and the faceless clung to them grimly. There did not seem as many as before though, and that was when Callisto saw them scattered at her feet, five or six riders and their horses, burned, blackened and dead.

Looking back up again, she finally caught sight of her doppelganger. She had dismounted from her horse, and was striding forward toward Callisto through the braying madness of the panicked riders. Her eyes shone madly at the chaos all about them, and wide, white toothed grin split her face from ear to ear.

"You've lead me quite the chase!" she said, the distance between them disappearing one steady stride at a time.

Callisto could feel the warmth of the light from the huge dark fortress across her back, and a quick glance over her shoulder revealed the silhouetted figure still standing there, their arm now stretched out invitingly toward her.

Turning back, she saw the doppelganger following her previous eye line to the fortress too. She stopped, placing her hands on her hips as she returned her gaze to Callisto.

"You know something?" she said. "There were times it felt like this day would never come. There were days I wondered if I would ever have you like this, so open, raw and exposed..."

Callisto's back straightened and she lifted her chin imperiously.

"Well here you have me," she snarled. "Dead to rights, so why don't we get this over with?"

The other her giggled delightedly.

"Ahhh, a bit more fire at last!" she laughed, then reached up and tapped a finger thoughtfully against her lips. "Y'know, I'm not sure I'm ready for this little game of ours to end yet. It's almost more fun this way I think. The longer the hunt, the sweeter and more satisfying the victory at the end of it, wouldn't you agree?"

Callisto's mind flashed back to the memory of hearing Xena's anguished screams, and the emptiness that had followed them.

"Not really, no." she said.

The other her pouted.

"Now, now" she said chidingly. "Don't be like that. You'll spoil this moment we're having."

The smile disappeared from her face, and she sighed and shrugged.

"Still," she continued. "Sooner or later, I supposes all good things must come to an end. WOULDN'T YOU AGREE?"

She was not speaking to Callisto now, but instead leaning slightly to the side to shout to the silhouetted figure behind her. Returning her gaze to Callisto, she reached behind her back, pulling free the sword that was strapped there and pointing it past Callisto toward the shaft of light spilling from the fortress.

"Go to him," she said, flicking her head toward the silhouetted figure. "Hear his lies and his justifications if you have to. None of it can change anything. Victory is still mine to be had, and I'll still get to have my way with you before all is said and done."

Callisto frowned.

"That's it!?" she said, unable to keep the astonishment out of her voice. "Just like that, you're letting me go?"

"Oh don't be silly," the other her sneered. "There is no letting go. If there were, you wouldn't be here in the first place. No, we're together in this, you and me. Always have been and always will be. When you finally come to realise that on your own, that's when you'll come to me."

She turned and began to walk back through the now calmer crowd of faceless to her own horse.

"Until then..." she called back, without so much as rearward glance, "...I'll be waiting. You'll know where to find me."

Callisto watched, still frowning in confusion as the other her reached her horse, and swung herself back into the saddle, before trotting the animal off into the darkness of the forest. The faceless had arrayed themselves in a neat line that parted for her as she passed, then closed up behind her once she was gone. They continued to stand, watching her from behind those blank fleshy masks, before they themselves turned and, as if of one mind, began to disappear back into the night.

Eventually Callisto was left alone with her confusion, her chest still rising and falling from the exertion of her sprint through the forest. Slowly she turned to make her way over to the shaft of white light still spilling out of the fortress, only occasionally glancing back over her shoulder as if she half expected the other to come bursting back out of the trees again, swinging her sword and whooping wildly as she did so. It did not happen though, and deep down insider herself, Callisto knew that it would not either.

With a final exhale, she turned and fixed her attention on the light and the figure silhouetted in it. As she drew nearer to it, and the brightness faded as her eyes adjusted to its glare, she began to be able to make out the outlines of the doors to either side of it. They were enormous, heavy things, just as black as the wall itself, and seemingly carved of the same stone too. Worked into them though, with a care and delicateness quite at odds with the sheer monolithic nature of the doors themselves, were all manner of twisting, curling patterns, each one reminding Callisto of streamers of cloud that had used to fill the sky over her parents' house each and every autumn.

As she approached, the figure standing framed in the light took a step forward, the outline of them seeming to twist and contort until finally it resolved itself into a shape Callisto knew all too well.

"Really?" she said with a long suffering groan. "You again?"

"Remind me," Ares replied with an amused grin, "Just how many times now have I pulled your ass out of the fire without so much as a thank you?"

Chapter Thirteen: The Mustering

The sun that had been shining earlier that morning as Adrasteia and the others had set out from Sparta had fallen behind heavy, rain laden clouds as the afternoon had worn on. The chill autumnal bite of the ride south had returned as well, causing her to fish around in her saddle bags for her travelling cloak.

"Are you alright my Lady?" she heard Nikias ask from beside her as she twisted in her saddle.

"Oh, just fine," she said, finally locating the cloak and pulling it free. "Nearly paralysed with fear, but otherwise doing just dandy. You?"

"This is what you wanted, is it not? For us to be out here, investigating the secrets Demosthenes and his people are keeping from us. I did try and warn you of you how dangerous it would be."

Adrasteia settled the cloak around her shoulders, the reasuring warmth of it settling her nerves somewhat. She gave a sigh and a nod.

"Sorry Nikias," she said. "You know I didn't sleep very well last night, and it's just that... well... I just didn't expect things to escalate so quickly is all. I mean, only a few days ago I was just some temple handmaiden; fetching, carrying, waving incense and offering up prayers to Apollo. Now here I am, in the company of an Athenian Archon..." she gestured up the well trodden dirt trail they were following toward where Themistocles and his men were walking along a good fifty metres or so ahead. "... having audiences with kings, being assailed by weird visions when I sleep, getting secret letters when I'm awake and now creeping through the country side, under guard no less, to spy on Spartan mustering fields while I'm reasonably sure that just about half the Spartan army is probably trying to find us at this very minute..." she paused to take a deep breath and reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose in a bid to relieve the sudden tension she could feel there.

"It's just a lot to take in," she finished.

Nikias regarded her carefully from his saddle.

"Is that really all there is to it?" he asked eventually.

"What do you mean?" Adrasteia said, as innocently as she could manage.

Nikias tilted and eyebrow at her.

"Alright, alright!" she said, tugging her horses reins, slowing the animal to a casual trot, and allowing Themistocles and his men to pull further out ahead of them. "There is something else that's been bothering me."

Nikias followed her lead, dropping back to ride close by her side.

"Is it the visions again?"

Adrasteia nodded.

"You're getting good at reading me," she said.

"You should take that as a compliment," Nikias answered. "Openness, frankness and honesty are rare qualities, and ones that should be preserved wherever they are found."

Adrasteia let out a laugh, expecting it to be dry and hollow, but instead finding it to be one of genuine amusement. It was a good feeling to have, especially now.

"Will you ever stop trying to teach me?" she said.

"Not as long as you're willing to listen," Nikias replied with a smile.

Adrasteia paused, not really knowing how to respond.

"Thank you," she managed to say eventually, her voice nothing but genuine.

Nikias frowned at her.

"For what?"

"For coming along. For helping me through this."

Nikias merely bowed his head slightly.

"Tell me what it is that you've seen," he said, and just like the worries churning in her gut returned once more.

"The old priest," she said tightly. "The one who came to see us at my chambers. Pelion."

Nikias expression soured.

"I remember him," he said with another nod. "And I remember stories of the fire that saw him leave Delphi. I'd thought him dead as did everyone else. I must say that having finally met him, he's as questionable a man as I have ever known. His words are honeyed, but there's venom in them too." He paused and fixed her with a sudden look of realisation. "Is he..."

"...Like Demosthenes?" Adrasteia said then nodded. "Yes. He's another of the ones in my vision."

Nikias' frown darkened and he drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the pommel of his horse's saddle.

"Well," he said eventually, "That  is  a development."

Adrasteia nodded.

"Isn't it just," she said. "It's the Followers. It has to be. These visions I'm having, it's all to do with them."

"You told the Lady Pythia that there were others in your vision," Nikias said. "Four if I remember rightly. Can you describe them to me now?"

Adrasteia pursed her lips for a moment, lost in thought as she tried to recall the others.

"The other two are different to Pelion and Demosthenes," she said finally. "They're less clear. One of them's all dressed in robes. I can't make out his face at all. He's more like a chunk of living shadow than a man."

Nikias looked uncomfortable at that.

"And the other?" he asked.

"She's difficult too."

"She?" Nikias gave her a questioning look, and Adrasteia nodded again.

"Yes," she said. "She. It's hard for me to get a good look at her as well. Her face keeps changing. Sometimes she looks hurt and sad, but then all of that goes away and there's nothing left except for anger and rage."

Nikias leaned forward in his saddle.

"Do you have anymore detail?" he pressed. "Her hair colour maybe?"

"She's blonde," Adrasteia said emphatically. "Startlingly so if I'm being honest. Slim too, but she looks more dangerous then anyone I've ever known..."

As she spoke the colour visibly drained from Nikias' face.

"You're certain of all this?" he said.

"Without a doubt," Adrasteia said. "What's wrong? You look like I just told you the world was ending."

"It's probably nothing," Nikias said, "but after what Demosthenes said, and now your description too, it sounds like the woman from your vision might be..."

"Callisto."

The two of them started in their saddles, looking up from their conversation to see Themistocles sitting his horse only a few metres away. So caught up had they been in their discussion that neither of them had noticed him sidling closer and closer to them. Adrasteia swallowed at the sight of him, but said nothing, stunned into silence by his sudden appearance.

"It's an interesting possibility," the Athenian continued. "Thanks to Demosthenes, we already know that she was in the region not long past, or at the very least that someone with enough resemblance to her has been passing herself off as that witch. If any of it is actually true – and I see know reason that it wouldn't be – it raises all kinds of questions, like why she was here in the first place, what she hoped to achieve by her presence, and why someone with such a solid and honourable reputation as King Leonidas would risk all of that on the gamble of making an alliance with her."

As he spoke, he edged his horse closer to them, until he was so close to Adrasteia that their stirrups were almost touching. Beside her, she could see Nikias' muscles tense, and his hand drifted toward his hip where she knew from watching him at the Spartan council chamber, that he kept several concealed daggers.

Close enough to reach out and touch her now, Themistocles only shrugged.

"Who know's the answers?" he said philosophically. "Not me, that's for certain, and to be honest I don't really care either."

He fixed them both with a hard eyed stare.

"What I do care about," he continued, his voice suddenly turning icy cold, "is why you chose to keep information like this from me and my men."

"Because it was none of your concern," Nikias said before Adrasteia could reply, reaching out with his free hand to place it protectively on her shoulder as he did so.

"None of my concern," Themistocles echoed hollowly. "None of my concern? I had thought you to have more common sense than that Nikias. And as for you..." he returned his attention to Adrasteia. "...You I had high hopes for. Still, I have survived disappointment before. I dare say I will be able to do so again."

"And what about you?" Adrasteia protested, managing to find her voice at last. "You've hardly been the most open and forthcoming person with us on this trip either. Did you honestly expect us to trust you?"

"Yes,” Themistocles snapped back at her in the same way one would address a spoiled child, “because unlike the pair of you, I happen to know what I'm doing. This was not some backwater farmyard politicking, or an under the table market place deal. This was diplomacy, between Kings, Archons and Oracles no less. This is what I  do  my dear, but I can only do it well if I have all the facts at my disposal!"

Adrasteia was taken aback by the sudden Venom in his voice, and she felt Nikias' grip on her shoulder tighten slightly, as if he expected to have to pull her away from the fuming Athenian Archon. She did not think she had ever seen Themistocles so openly emotional before. Still tense with anger, he reached up and scrubbed a hand across his face, sucking air in across his teeth as he did so with a frustrated hissing sound. Finally his shoulders slumped, and when he looked at her again, he seemed to have regained some of his regular composure.

"They were just dreams," Adrasteia said miserably. "I don't even know if there's any real truth to them, or if I'm just going half mad."

"I've had many dealings with the Lady Pythia," Themistocles said. "If you didn't trust me before, trust me now when I say this; in matters of foretelling, I have never once known her to be wrong."

"Never?" Adrasteia said doubtfully.

Themistocles nodded.

"Never," he said, then smiled at her in an odd way that bared his canines as if they were fangs. "And since I'm never wrong either, it would stand to reason that your visions must actually be relevant, no?"

"Your logic is impeccable," Adrasteia said sarcastically.

Themistocles nodded as if she were being sincere.

"Glad that we're finally in agreement on something," he said, clapping his hands together in satisfaction. "So then, now that you and I are seeing eye to eye..." he leaned forward in his saddle, his face suddenly deadly serious. "...I want you to tell me everything. "

It did not take long for Adrasteia to fill in Themistocles on the details, and as she spoke she took in their surroundings, her mind only half on what she was saying. The countryside around Sparta would normally have been beautiful. They were riding through a shallow valley that curled northward around the base of a hill. The side of the hill itself was strewn with patches of wild flowers that ordinarily would have provided generous splashes of colour among the long green grasses. Now though they seemed as drab and lifeless as the grey sky overhead, and the chill in the air was growing worse as the wind began to pick up.

Shivering slightly, she eyed the crests of the nearby hills. She had the uncomfortable sensation that they were being watched.

"...and that's all there is to it," she finished. "That's all I see."

Themistocles sucked thoughtfully at his lower lip, and rubbed at his chin, staring off up the trail they were following as he mulled over what she had told him. His soldiers had disappeared around the bend in the trail just a few minutes earlier, scouting ahead for the rest of them, and there had been neither sight nor sound of them since.

"Not much help is it," Adrasteia prodded, wanting to see if Themistocles had any insight into the potential meaning of it all.

"Not really, no," the Archon said, releasing his lip, but still rubbing at his chin. "Still, it is at least interesting."

Nikias frowned beside her.

"How so?"

"It proves that we were right to suspect the Followers' involvement, and that there is some ulterior motive driving Demosthenes' decisions."

"What do you think that motive is?" Adrasteia asked.

Themistocles started at that, as if, up until she had spoken, she had not really been involved in the conversation. He turned his gaze away from the horizon and back to her, regarding her silently for a moment before finally shrugging and giving a half embarrassed smile.

"I haven't the faintest idea," he said. "But who knows. Maybe what we find up ahead might shed some light on things."

As if on cue, one of the Athenian soldiers appeared back around the bend, moving at a steady jog as he returned to them.

"My Lord," he said, drawing to a halt beside Themistocles' horse, only slightly out of breath after his run. "We're approaching the Mustering Fields. The rest of the men are waiting up ahead as you ordered."

Themistocles nodded at the man in acknowledgment.

"Good," he said, and swung down from his horse, taking the animals reins in his hands and leading it the rest of the way on foot.

"You might want to do the same," he called back to Nikias and Adrasteia. "Better to keep a low profile from this point on. We want to minimise the risk of being seen after all, and a rider on horseback is more noticeable than one off it."

Adrasteia glanced at Nikias, who simply shrugged and followed Themistocles' example. Adrasteia did the same, her boots squelching in the mud of the trail that, despite the earlier sunshine, was still sodden from the rain of the last few days.

"So now what do we do?" she asked, trailing behind Themistocles and stepping lightly to keep her feet from sinking too deep into the mud.

"Now we try and get a closer look at what Demosthenes and his troops are up to out here,” Themistocles replied without turning to face her, “and why someone thought it was worthwhile warning us about it."

As they rounded the trail, Adrasteia caught sight of the rest of the Athenian troops. While they certainly looked competent, having spent the last few days in the company of Spartans, the difference between the two groups was as stark as night and day. The Spartans were just so rigorous, drilled to precision and perfection. Themistocles' Athenians were much more scrappy by comparison. Still, they looked to know their trade. They had formed a loose column along the trail, not so far apart as to be separated from one another, but not so close together as to be easy targets for hidden archers on the hills above.

Themistocles led his horse up to them, handing off the reins to one of the men. He motioned for Nikias and Adrasteia to do the same.

"Captain," he said, addressing the most grizzled looking of the Athenians.

"How may I be of service Archon?" the man asked.

"Keep guard on the trail," Themistocles ordered. "If you run across any Spartan patrols, you do as we discussed, understood?"

The man nodded gravely.

"We will do the best we can manage.”

"Don't sell yourselves needlessly," Themistocles said, "but remember, all of Athens is depending on this."

The captain gave another nod.

"We won't let you down, my Lord."

Themistocles returned the man's nod as Adrasteia handed over her horse to another of the soldiers. She couldn't help noticing how pale the man suddenly looked, and his hands trembled as he took the reins from her.

Themistocles reached out and took the captain firmly by the shoulder.

"Your names will be remembered," he said.

The man gave him a crooked smile in return.

"Only if someone lives to tell 'em.”

Themistocles returned the man's smile.

"Let's hope things don't get  that  bad, eh?" he joked, then turned and gestured to Adrasteia.

"Come on," he said, turning away from the trail and starting off up the hillside.

"What do you think all that was about?" Adrasteia asked as Nikias fell into step beside her. The man's face had darkened and he was scowling at Themistocles' back.

"Better that you don't ask I think.”

They crested the hill in no time at all, and Adrasteia found herself staring out over a rolling landscape that ran for miles in every direction and that was dotted all over with narrow valleys, long grasses and the occasional bowed tree. In the distance the hills flattened into plains to the north and dense forest to the west and south. To the east, the direction they had come from she could still make out the distant shape of Sparta, and the mountain range it was nestled up against ran northward for a few more miles and south all the way to the horizon. There was no sign of the Mustering Fields however.

"Are we sure we're in the right place?" she asked.

Themistocles glanced at her and lifted a finger to his lips, indicating she should be quiet before pointing northwest. Adrasteia fell silent, standing between Nikias and Themistocles and listening intently. For a time, all she could make out was the sound of the wind billowing gently over the hills and whistling through the valleys below.

Then, suddenly, she stiffened as she heard it. The faint sound of voices, carried on the same wind that was even now tugging at her traveling cloak. At first they sounded indistinguishable from another, as if only three or four men were speaking, then as she listened more carefully, she began to realise that it was not three or four individuals, but three or four  groups  of individuals, all calling out in almost perfect unison and rhythm.

"Is that..." she began, and Nikias nodded next to her.

"How far do you think?" he said across her to Themistocles.

"A league from here at the most," Themistocles said. "Maybe as little as a half of that."

"But the soldiers said that we were at the fields," Adrasteia said, frowning in confusion. "Why are they still so far away?"

"Because it's fairly safe to say that we're not supposed to be here," Themistocles replied, starting down the hillside they were standing at the crest of and toward the distant voices. "If Demosthenes is doing what I think he's doing, then he'll have picket patrols watching all the major approaches and giving warning of anyone in the area who is not supposed to be here. It wouldn't do for us to come all this way, and then not get the glimpse we came for by being caught instead now would it?"

Adrasteia rolled her eyes as she started down the hill after him.

"Do you always have to be right about everything?" she asked.

"I don't  have  to be," Themistocles replied. "That's just the way it always seems to work out."

They reached the bottom of the hill, and Themistocles turned to follow a small stream running through a gulley and sandwiched between two exposed rock faces.

"I'd suggest that we put a lid on the chit chat from here on out," he said. "I'm not sure of the precise position of these fields, and we've no idea of the number of patrols that Demosthenes has set up. It would be very embarrassing if we were to announce our arrival by talking all the way there, don't you think?"

Adrasteia glared at him but said nothing. Themistocles nodded with satisfaction.

"Good," he said. "You're learning."

The rest of the journey was spent in almost total silence. Occasionally they would hike up the side of a hill, Adrasteia crouching a little further down the slopes while Themistocles and Nikias would creep up toward each hills crest, only to then slither the last few feet to the top on their bellies. They would lie there for a minute or two, surveying the surrounding landscape, before cautiously making their way back down to her again.

Each time they returned Nikias would shake his head at her before they moved on, Themistocles sticking doggedly to the low lying valleys and gulleys when he was not crawling around on hill tops. After a while, Adrasteia took to crawling up with them, lying flat on her stomach and surveying the landscape with what she hoped was the same attentiveness as the two older men. By the third time she joined them, the voices she had heard earlier were drawing unnervingly close,

"How much further do you think?" she asked, as they turned and began to scramble back down the hillside.

"One more rise," Themistocles replied. "Maybe two."

He had been right with his first estimate. As they crawled on their bellies through the wet grass at the crest of the next hill, Adrasteia could already tell that the voices were coming from the other side, and she felt her heart pounding hard inside her chest as they neared the top of the hill. So close now to their source, the volume of the voices was almost deafening. There must have been hundreds of them, all full throated, all shouting. What they were saying was not entirely clear, but what was clear was that they were repeating it over and over. The three or four groups she had heard earlier were all chanting the same thing she could tell now, but each was chanting it to a different beat.

Themistocles and Nikias reached the top of the hill ahead of her, and both immediately pressed themselves as flat to the ground as they could. Themistocles gestured back to her to do the same, allowing her up to join them only when she had done exactly as he had instructed. Her face was so low to the ground now that blades of grass were all but tickling the end of her nose, and the scent of yesterdays rainfall hung heavy in her nostrils. Finally, she reached the top of the hill, and when she did, her mouth fell open at what she saw.

Her guess that their had been hundreds of Spartan soldiers down there had been a gross underestimation. If she had been on the ground alongside them, she may have only been able to make out a few hundred men, but from up here, with this vantage point, she could make out  thousands  of them.

They were busy arranging themselves into three separate columns of infantry and a fourth smaller column of mounted men. The chanting was being led by men she assumed to be commanders, and they were using it to keep each columns movements orderly as they assembled. Each of the columns was further subdivided into individual units, with each unit being almost completely uniform in its equipment. In one of the columns – the smallest one – the soldiers all wore red crested helmets with a portion also clad in similarly coloured capes. The other two columns of infantry were practically the same, only larger in number, and all the men were clad in blue. The final column of horsemen was divided between the two, with roughly half of its number being made up of one colour or the other.

As Adrasteia watched, rows of men would march into position to the rhythm of their own chanting. Once they were in line with the others, they would stand to attention, locking their spears and shields as their commander marched down the line inspecting them. While this was going on, another line would march into position for the commander to examine when he was through with the previous one. The sheer precision of it all was fascinating in a strangely morbid sort of way. It was as if all the humanity had been stripped from each man and that were now all merely a part of a great multi limbed beast that stood completely still, waiting to be given life by a single command.

"Are they--" she began, her voice hardly above a whisper, partly out of caution, but mostly out of shock at the sight before her.

"Mustering?" Themistocles cut in, then nodded. "That's certainly what it looks like."

"But how did they get so many here?" she asked, "and so fast?"

"This isn't recent," Nikias said, and beside him Themistocles nodded again.

"Your man is right," he said, and Adrasteia stiffened slightly at the way he spoke about Nikias. The Archon pointed toward rows of blackened fire pits, and what looked to be massed scarecrows clad in poor quality armour. When she squinted at them, Adrasteia could just make out various nicks and gouges on the armour of the nearest ones.

"Training dummies," Themistocles explained. "These men have been camped out here for a good while, and they've been spending their days performing drills from the looks of things."

"There probably weren't many at first," Nikias explained next to her. "I imagine that to get an army of this size together has probably taken a week or two."

"Try a month," Themistocles said. "That's likely how long it's been since Demosthenes seized power. He's been building his forces ever since then. Question is, with a hammer like this at the ready, why hasn't he marched yet?"

Adrasteia and Nikias glanced at one another, but before either of them could hazard an answer, the chanting in the Mustering Fields below fell silent, cut short by the distant blast of a horn. As one, a man from the head of each column raised a horn of their own and answered the trumpeted call with one of their own.

"That's it then," Themistocles said hurriedly. "We've seen all we needed to. Time to go. Now."

"Wait a minute!" Adrasteia hissed after him. "Shouldn't we stay here a little longer? Try to figure out what exactly it is their plans are?"

"We know their plans already," Themistocles replied sharply. "They are getting ready to march. That horn..." he gestured in the direction of the first horn blast. "...that was Demosthenes' retinue. He's on his way here now, which means this whole army will be on the move before sundown. Now I don't know about you two, but I for one would like to be long gone before that happens."

Adrasteia glanced at Nikias, who only shrugged then started down the hill after the Athenian. With a soft curse, Adrasteia cast a final glance back at the horde below her, then began to part shuffle, part slide down the hillside to join them.

"We should hurry," Nikias was saying as she joined them. "Demosthenes' horn didn't sound that far off, and we still need to get back to the others.”

Themistocles was already striding away from them, his hand moving to the ivory pommel of the sword at his hip.

"One step ahead of you," he called back. "Think you can keep up?" This was to Adrasteia.

"You set the pace, I'll match it," she replied, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt. A sudden chill that had nothing to do with the weather had settled over her, and her knees felt weak and shaky, as if someone had replaced her bones with water.

"That's the spirit," Themistocles said, "Now if we can just avoid the patrols everything will be..."

Before he could finish, Adrasteia felt her heart rise up into her throat as a small unit of six Spartans rounded the hill in front of them.

"...fine," Themistocles finished with a heavy sigh.

Upon catching sight of them, one of the Spartans immediately pointed toward them, while another at toward the rear – probably their leader – barked out a set of instructions in quick, clipped tones.

The Spartans immediately fanned out, locking their shields and advancing toward the three of them. Themistocles had already drawn his sword, and was now parting his feet for better balance while he gripped the hilt of his blade tightly with both hands. He moved left away from Adrasteia and Nikias, perhaps in an attempt to divide the unit between them. It seemed to work. Three of the Spartans moved to surround him, while the other three began to head toward Nikias and herself.

"Get behind me," Nikias said, and for the first time, Adrasteia noticed the two daggers he held, one in each hand.

Mentally cursing her slow reactions, she fumbled her own dagger free, gripping at it tightly to keep her hands from shaking.

"Your brother," Nikias said, glancing back at her and the dagger in her hand. "you said he taught you how to use that?"

"Kind of," Adrasteia nodded. She could feel sweat beginning to bead on her brow, despite the cold autumn wind gusting around the hillside. “At least, he taught me where the sharp bit should go.”

Nikias adjusted his stance, raising one arm and lowering the other, twisting so that he faced the Spartans from his side rather than his front. Adrasteia attempted to do the same.

"I hope you can remember a little more than that," Nikias replied, his voice low and dangerous like she had never heard it before, "because its time to put it all into practice."

The Spartans were almost within thrusting distance with their spears now.

"Nikias!" Themistocles shouted. "On the count of three!"

Nikias nodded grimly.

"One!" he shouted. Ahead of them, the Spartans paused, bracing behind their shields.

"TWO!" Themistocles yelled louder.

Before the word had even finished leaving his mouth, Nikias launched himself into action before the Spartans were completely prepared.

"Guess that's three!" she heard Themistocles yell as he followed Nikias' lead.

The two men moved like she had never seen anyone move before. She had seen the guards at Delphi of course, even watched them sparring on feast days once or twice, but that had been like watching two bears pound on each other. Nikias moved like a snake, slithering around spear thrusts as if they were coming at him in slow motion. Themistocles on the other hand almost seemed to be dancing, his every step seeming to be co-ordinated to carry him past his opponent's guard while anticipating their counter moves at the same time.

Despite the odds against him, Themistocles seemed perfectly at ease against his three opponents. Every spear thrust at him met nothing but air, or the flat of his blade as he parried and whirled. For a few moments that was all he did; parry, dodge, parry parry, dodge, parry, then suddenly, as if from nowhere, there came the loud, resounding clang for steel against heavy bronze as one of the Spartans just managed to get his shield around in time to deflect a killing blow from the Athenian Archon. Themistocles simply cocked his head at the man and shrugged as he fell back into his previous dance.

Nikias was having more trouble. The shortness of his daggers left him at a significant disadvantage, and while his unexpected charge had given him the edge at first, he was now barely holding his own against the three men arrayed against him. Slowly but inexorably, he was being forced to give ground, each fresh attack from the Spartans driving him further and further back across the valley bottom. As he backed away however, he angled toward Adrasteia's left, and as he turned, the Spartans turned with him, exposing their flanks to her.

There came a sudden dismayed cry from the direction of Themistocles, but Adrasteia barely even noticed.

Gripping her dagger tightly and doing her best to control her pounding heart and thundering nerves, she let out as fierce a cry as she could manage and dove at the three Spartans. The man nearest to her reacted almost instantly, swinging his spear around in a wide arc, not intended to kill her, but instead to crack her with the weapon's haft and put her off balance. With the adrenaline coursing through her, she just managed to duck the spear swing, and get inside the man's guard. Eyes closed now from sheer terror, she slashed blindly in front of her face with her dagger. For a moment it met resistance, and then, as if slicing through the skin of a fruit, she felt the resistance disappear, and the dagger passed on through the rest easily. Suddenly, her hands were wet, warm, and slick, and she heard the sound of something heavy hitting the ground.

Opening her eyes, she saw the Spartan soldier, lying on his back on the wet grass, dark crimson bubbling from between his lips and the thin line she had carved across his neck. Horrified, she watched as the man clawed at the air, the chaos around her forgotten as her victim struggled to take his final breaths. Then, his clawing stopped, and his eyes rolled back in head. His chest fell still, a last rasping gurgle sounding from between his lips, and then he was done.

Dead.

Adrasteia felt bile rising in her throat, but before she could even think to wretch, cold curved bronze hammered into her with such force that it carried her off her feet, and sent her head spinning as it rebounded off the dirt.

Rolling onto her back, she groaned pathetically as she struggled to bring the world into focus. As blurred shapes quickly resolved back into clear images, her eyes widened in fear. A Spartan was looming over her, his spear lifted in one hand to deliver its killing strike.

This was it then. She was going to die.

Strangely, this time, she could not bring herself to close her eyes.

"ADRASTEIA!" she heard a voice shout, and suddenly Nikias was their flying into the man from the side, spinning them both, and carrying them to the ground with such force that Adrasteia was amazed when neither man had managed to break the others neck.

For a moment or two they tussled in the grass, each of them clawing desperately at the other for purchase, until suddenly Nikias was astride his opponent. Without a sound, he slipped a spare dagger that had been tucked into his boot, into his hand, and then plunged it down into the Spartan's heart. The man was dead almost immediately, his head lolling to one side, as Nikias straightened, pulling the weapon free. It's blade glistened wet in the dull light.

Nikias was back on one knee when the third remaining Spartan's spear thrust took him through the side.

He howled in agony as the spear head appeared in front of him, shining wet with his own blood. Cursing loudly at his blow having missed its intended mark, the Spartan attempted to pull his spear free, but Nikias dropped his dagger and clung to the haft, even as his pained scream echoed down the valley. The Spartan cursed again.

"Let go!" he shouted at Nikias. "Let go dammit!"

Adrasteia tried to get back on her feet, her eyes searching desperately for a weapon –  any  weapon – that she could use to help Nikias. Then suddenly she saw it, Nikias' dagger. Up on her knees now, she dove for it desperately, but too late. The Spartan had seen what she was doing and kicked the weapon out of reach.

Before she could get to her feet again, the soldier released his grip on the spear, causing Nikias to collapse sideways, his teeth grinding against one another in pain. Spinning on his heel, the Spartan began to draw the short sword fastened at his hip, a look of grim intent staining his face.

And then, at the edge of her vision, Adrasteia saw Themistocles step up behind the man, already swinging his sword, its own blade stained red like every other weapon about them. The blow was clean and true, striking the soldier's head from his shoulders and sending the body keeling sideways to the ground.

Rolling up onto her rear, Adrasteia scrambled desperately backward on all fours away from the headless corpse, before spinning and finally allowing the nausea that had been roiling in her stomach to overcome her.

She vomited loudly, and by the time she had finished her body was shaking all over.

"No time for that," she heard Themistocles say from behind her. "We have to be moving."

Breathing hard, she reared up, scrubbing the bile from her lips with the back of her hand. She twisted, taking in the carnage behind her. All the Spartans lay dead, and Themistocles was busying himself grabbing what food and water he could from their supply packs. Nikias was still lying on his side, groaning.

"By the gods," Adrasteia cried, clambering back to her feet, the sickness in her belly forgotten as she dashed to his side.

"We have to get him out of here!" she shouted, lifting Nikias as best she could. "We have to get him back to the city!"

"The city!?" Themistocles said incredulously. "We just killed six of Demosthenes' men girl. The only reason they'd help him now is so that they had a healthy victim to string up later."

"The horses then," she said. "He can't travel like this."

"He can't travel, period," Themistocles said, marching to her side and gripping her arm roughly in an attempt to haul her to her feet. "Now come on. I doubt our little scuffle went unnoticed. The only choice we have now is to get moving as fast as possible. Nikias here..." he glanced down at the other man, and for a moment Adrasteia thought she saw a flash of regret pass across the Archon's features. As quickly as it had come though, it was gone again, and Themistocles' face was steely resolve once more. "...he's dead weight."

"No!" Adrasteia snapped at him, twisting her arm free. "He's not dead! Not yet! And he won't be if we help him."

Themistocles gave a frustrated grunt and turned to stride up off the trail. He had not even taken a step though, when he froze. He seemed to be listening to something far away. He stayed that way for a few more moments, then, slowly, his shoulders slumped and he let out a long, low sigh.

"Girl," he said, turning back to face her, "you will be the death of me."

With that, he crossed quickly back to she and Nikias, kneeling in the dirt at her side as he inspected the other man's wound. Taking her hands in his, he pressed them roughly to both sides of Nikias' torso around the spears entry and exit points.

"Press here," he said.

Adrasteia obliged, causing Nikias to cry out loudly. Themistocles handed him one of his own daggers.

"Bite down," he said, grasping both ends of the spear's haft.

Nikias nodded, placing the dagger's handle between his teeth so that he could follow Themistocles' instructions.

"Make sure you keep pressing tight," Themistocles said, returning his attention to Adrasteia. "When I do this, he's going to buck and twist. You need to keep applying pressure. If you don't he could bleed out. Understand?"

Adrasteia paled but nodded.

"Okay then," Themistocles said, looking Nikias purposefully in the eye. "Just like before. On the count of three, remember."

Nikias nodded again, biting down harder on the dagger.

"One..." Themistocles began.

"wwwooo," Nikias groaned around the dagger handle.

Before Adrasteia could say three, Themistocles yanked upward hard on the spear head, causing the whole haft to crack then, snap loudly. Louder though was Nikias pitiable shriek of agony.

"Keep pressing," Themistocles said. Adrasteia did her best to comply, her hands covered in Nikias' blood and shaking from the adrenaline pulsing through them.

"It's okay," Themistocles said, placing one of his hands over hers. They were so calm and still...

"You're doing fine," he said, looking directly at her. "Do you hear me? You're doing fine."

As he spoke, he gripped the rear end of the spear haft, and unceremoniously yanked it free. Nikias howled again, and this time, the pain was more than he could bare. Free of the spear haft, he collapsed backward across the ground, his eyes rolling back in his head as his breathing turned ragged and uneven.

"We need something to dress the wound," Themistocles said.

Adrasteia gripped the hem of her traveling cloak, pulling at it savagely until, with a terrific ripping sound, a long strip of it came away in her hand. Themistocles didn't need to tell her what to do next. Rolling Nikias onto his side, she began to wrap the strip of cloth around him, tying it as neatly as she could manage with her hands shaking as they were.

Nearby, Themistocles lifted the haft of the spear, then brought it down hard over his knee, snapping off a small chunk at one end before crossing back to Nikias side to wedge the chunk of spear haft through a gap between the dressing and Nikias' hip.

"What are you..." Adrasteia began to ask.

"The dressing's not tight enough," Themistocles said before she could finish.

With the haft securely fastened, he twisted it hard, as if he were turning a crank wheel. The strip of cloth wrapped tightly around it, and then pulled the dressing tighter over the wound too, causing Nikias to grown quietly. After two more twists, Themistocles sat back, admiring his handy work for a moment, then he clamberied back to his feet and uncorked one of the Spartan's water skins. He paused only to take a swig from it, then offered it to Adrasteia. Despite the taste of vomit still burning in her throat, she shook her head. After everything that had just happened she was not sure she could even stomach water.

"Suit yourself," Themistocles said, then upended the skin across Nikias' face. The wounded man thrashed, coughed, and spluttered, then suddenly his eyes flew open, and he sat bolt up right, his hands flying to his side as he let out a groan of pain.

"And now we need to get moving," Themistocles said, corking the now empty water skin and tossing it over his shoulder. Stooping, he snatched up a travel pack, and what remained of the spear's haft to proffer to Nikias.

"Do you think you can walk?"

"An idiotic question," Nikias managed from between gritted teeth. Reaching out he took the haft from Themistocles and speared it upright into the dirt like a walking staff. "Our minds drive our bodies," he continued, gripping the makeshift staff tightly. Adrasteia moved to help him, but he waved her away.

"Therefore if we think something hard enough, if we believe in it beyond question..." doing his best to suppress another yell of pain, he pulled himself up using the staff for support, inch by agonising inch, until finally he was standing once more, albeit stooped and round shouldered as if he were a man double his age. "...then it becomes so," he finished, sweat beading heavy on his brow.

"That's still not walking," Themistocles said, then shrugged again. "But I suppose its close enough. Now come on. We've wasted enough time here. It's time we were headed north."

"North!?" Adrasteia said incredulously. "But the others... the horses..."

"Are gone," Themistocles cut her off flatly.

"What do you mean, 'gone'?" she demanded. "We just left them back--"

She stopped short as suddenly the wind changed, gusting up over the hill and out of the south, carrying with it the distant but unmistakable sounds of clashing steel and shouted battle.

"I meant exactly what I said," Themistocles said, turning to glare at her, his eyes suddenly icy cold. Adrasteia felt the bottom drop out of her world. Where before she had always been sure of their safety, now there was only the cold chill of harsh reality.

"But they were supposed to protect us," she said weakly.

"And sometimes that means them dying for you," Themistocles snapped at her. "Which is precisely what they are doing now. Their sacrifice is buying us time. Time that you are currently wasting I might add, so I would suggest, if you do not want to waste any more of it, and if you want to make their deaths mean ANYTHING..." As he spoke, his ire began to rise, crescendoing in a furious shout, before returning to something approaching normal. "...that you stop your inane and useless prattle, and start walking."

With that, he twisted sharply on his heel and stalked off up the valley, swinging the supply pack he had managed to scrape together up onto his shoulders as he went.

Adrasteia stood silently in his wake, staring at the blood on her hands, and the bodies all around them. How had this happened? How had everything gone so wrong? She felt something wet sliding down her cheek. Looking up at the grey sky, she was surprised to see it was not even raining.

"My Lady," Nikias croaked from behind her. Slowly she turned her tear stained face to his, dreading what she was about to see. He looked deathly pale, his skin an almost ashen shade of grey, his hands like hers, red with blood that was already beginning to crust.

"Nikias," she said, doing her best to keep her voice from breaking and failing miserably. "I'm so sorry... this..." she choked back a sob. "This is all my fault."

Nikias regarded her for a moment, then began to hobble toward her.

"Come my Lady," he said. "Help me would you. I've been feeling a bit peaky of late, and a long stroll in the country will do me a world of good."

Adrasteia looked at him dumbfounded for a moment, then finally she let out a genuine laugh.

"Okay then," she sniffed, moving to join him and draping his arm around her shoulder. Immediately she could feel his weight pressing down on her, but it was no more than she could bare, unlike every other burden she had just found herself lumbered with.

Doing her best not to look behind her, she forced a smile onto her face. "I suppose we could walk for a little while at least if it will make you feel better."

"I think," Nikias replied, returning her smile with bloodless lips, "that I already do."

Together, the two of them began to stumble off up valley after Themistocles, leaving the six dead Spartans lying in their wake.

****

The sound of marching feet filled the air like an ever repeating roll of thunder. Seated upon his horse beside the trail, Sentos watched with grim resolve as the lines of Spartan troops marched past, clammy palms wrapped tightly around the animal's reins. They were like a river of flesh and bronze, clad in black boiled leather armour, and sporting Leonidas' red crest and capes.

Despite the chill in the air, Sentos could feel cold sweat beading on his skin beneath his armour, but he did his best to ignore it. He was a Spartan after all, born and raised a soldier, trained for martial perfection from the day he was born. There was no room in that training for nerves, or even worse, fear. Yet even he had to admit that that was what he was feeling now.

Fear.

If he was brutally honest with himself, it was not an emotion he had never felt before, though he would never have admitted that publicly, or even to those closest to him. It was his own private shame that he had not managed to drill it out of himself over the years. Still, he had learned to control it and that was, he suppose, the next best thing. Still, what he was witnessing now had his heart pumping hard in his chest and sent his throat as dry as if he had been three days without water.

He licked his lips and uncorked a water skin, taking a single gulp from it before resealing it and returning to where it had been hanging from his saddle pommel. The water was refreshing, and for a moment what he was watching seemed less terrible. Then the fear was back again, and his stomach tightened reflexively, as if he were about to plunge over the edge of a cliff with nothing to secure himself to.

He had served Sparta his entire life. That was his duty after all. He was born to it, as were all the other soldiers currently marching past him. He had fought in multiple wars and more battles than he could actually remember. Throughout all of that though, there had been one constant. They had never been the aggressor's or the instigators. This was different though. This time they were marching against an enemy who had not even done them harm, and with whom they actually shared a second enemy; the Persian Empire. While Sentos could understand Demosthenes' preaching of this being a necessary step, a means to unify the fractured and warring city states of Greece to better fend off the might of the God King Xerxes and his seemingly endless hordes, he could not make his peace with it. This was not what it meant to be a Spartan. They had never sort to exert their will or ways over others. They had only ever wished to protect themselves and their way of life.

He pondered that for a moment, wondering if it was why Lord Ares had abandoned them. Had they been too passive, too weak, for the Great God of War? If that were the case, it was the bitterest of ironies that their abandonment by the God of War had driven Demosthenes down this path. If Ares were to look upon them now... well, Sentos guessed he would be very pleased with what he saw.

There were just so many of them! So very, very many. Sentos had never seen a mobilisation like it, and the sheer weight of troops Demosthenes was throwing into the field had him nervous. That was without the tiny detail that many of Sentos' own men were being drafted to provide the army's vanguard for the foreseeable future. At first it had struck him as petty punishment for his many supposed 'failures' over the last month. Now though, he was beginning to wonder if there was more to the Demosthenes' thinking than he had first supposed. Politics had never been of any interest to him, but of all the men who had been picked to serve as the vanguard, none were members of this new cult of Followers. That could not be coincidence.

He watched as the river of soldiers changed abruptly from red to blue. Many of the men marching past him now were sporting the sickle symbol somewhere about themselves, and Sentos felt his stomach turn at the sight of it.

Not a coincidence at all.

Up ahead, the column of men in red was about to disappear around a curve in the trail that would carry them out onto the main road leading northward. Sentos clicked the reins of his horse and dug in gently with his heels, easing the animal to a canter so that he could keep pace with his men. As he drew level with the rearmost ranks, he saw a figure jogging back down the trail to him. Clad in a red cape, he recognised the man as a fresh phalanx commander. Sentos had promoted him himself following his assumption of the command of what remained of Leonidas' forces after Thermopylae. On the spur of the moment though, he found himself embarrassingly unable to remember the man's name. How had Leonidas always made it look so easy? He had had thousands of men at his command, and yet he had somehow seemed to have time for each and every one of them. Sentos could not help but feel a poor replacement by comparison.

"Captain!" the man was calling as he rushed down the length of the column. "Captain Sentos Sir!"

Sentos urged his horse forward at a more brisk canter, only to bring it up just shy of the commander.

"Is there a problem?" he asked, his mount frisking beneath him as he tried to settle the animal.

"It's King Demosthenes," the man said, only a little out of breath, despite the run he had just taken. "He wishes to see you."

"Me?" Sentos said, feeling his stomach tighten. "What is it the Great King wishes to see me for?"

The commander shook his head.

"He didn't give me a reason why," he said. "He and his retinue passed the head of the column, heading west. It was then that he instructed me to find you and order you to his side."

Sentos nodded.

"Did he at least say where he would be?" he asked.

"Up ahead, this trail cuts across the North Road," the commander said. "King Demosthenes said he would await you a quarter league beyond that."

"Very well," Sentos said. "My thanks for your diligence Commander Phantus." He was proud of himself for finally having placed the man's name.

"Just doing as my King commanded, Captain," Phantus said with a nod.

"Your King is dead," Sentos replied, a little sharper than he had meant to. "Better that you do your duty, wherever it may lead you."

Phantus blinked in surprise at that, but before he could ask what Sentos had meant, the Spartan Captain had booted his horse to gallop, speeding off down the column and leaving a line of churned hoof prints in his wake.

It did not take long to get out past the head of the Spartan column, and moments later his horse was following the mudstreaked trail over the North Road. It was a much wider passage of compacted dirt and scattered cobble that wound its way northward through the hills and valleys. Eventually it would reach the town of Tryxis, only to then curve east and further north around the massive bay before eventually turning west at the bays northern shore to run on into the gates of Delphi itself.

Sentos' horse sped across it in moments, descending the muddied slope on the other side, before galloping on along the narrower trail that lay beyond. Once he was out of sight of the main road, he slowed to a more cautious canter. He had no idea why it was that Demosthenes had summoned him, and if being a Captain under Leonidas had taught him anything, it was that you did not go charging ahead into unknown territory without doing a little recon first.

A bird call from overhead drew his eyes skyward. Glancing up he caught sight of a group of ravens circling hungrily just over the next hill.

"Carrion eaters," he muttered and slid down from his saddle, leading the horse forward on foot. The animal let out a snort, and he reached up to pat gently at its muzzle.

"Easy boy," he said.

From up ahead he could hear the sounds of voices calling back and forth, and the messy squelch of a dozen pairs of feet in the wet mud of the trail. At his distance he still could not make out clearly what was being said, and so he crept forward slowly, doing his best to keep his horse calm and quiet as he went.

"...think these were Themistocles' men?" The voice was one Sentos did not recognise. The second man to speak however, he knew all too well.

"I don't think. I know," he heard Demosthenes reply.

"But if that's that case my King, where are Themistocles and the two from Delphi?"

"If I knew that commander, I'd have Captain Gracus in pursuit of them already, not scouring half the countryside in an effort to find them."

Sentos felt a tension he had not even realised had come over him slowly begin to ebb away. When he had seen the birds circling above, he had feared the worst for the envoy. Now he could breathe easy knowing that at least some of them had gotten away.

Some.

But not all.

As he rounded the corner he was greeted with a sight he had half expected but still not been entirely prepared for. Sentos had fought in many wares throughout his career. The sight of the recently dead was nothing new for him. Indeed, he had long since grown to accept it as on his life's less pleasant elements. Seeing the dead Athenians lying strewn about the trail now though, gave him a chill in the pit of his stomach he could not remember feeling since that very first battle he had lived through. An envoy of Athenians, supposed allies of Sparta, now dead by Spartan soldiers' hands. There would be no way back from this. War it would seem, was all but inevitable now.

Standing around the corpses were a group tired looking Spartans. There helmets were off, and each of them was still sweating from their recent exertion. One or two of their number had grime streaked across their faces, while others had not even had an opportunity to clean their weapons of, and Sentos could count at least two spear heads still marked with Athenian blood.

Despite their unkempt appearance, all the soldiers were arrayed at attention, and were standing in a perfect inspection line facing up the trail toward him. One of them was standing slightly forward of the rest, delivering his report to Demosthenes no doubt, who was also present and standing before the other man with his back turned to Sentos. Flanking him were four more Spartans, the best of his Royal Guard, each one wearing a high crested helm, and blue cape affixed to their armour with bronze clasps marked with Demosthenes charging bull motif.

Sentos had to fight off a shiver when he saw sickles stitched large across the back of their capes.

One of the guard turned and caught sight of him for the first time, then turned back and whispered something in Demosthenes' ear. The King turned and shot him a withering look.

"Ah, Captain," he announced loudly so all eyes turned to the new arrival. "So glad that you could finally find the time to join us."

Sentos did his best to ignore the slight, and instead simply led his horse over to the group.

"My apologies, Great King," he said, bowing his head as he picked his way between the corpses at their feet. "I had to ensure my men were in their correct formation before I could attend to you."

It was a poor excuse and he knew it. He braced himself as he drew up along side Demosthenes, half expecting a severe dressing down from the man. Demosthenes said nothing however, only regarding Sentos coldly for a moment before gesturing to the bodies on the ground. Sentos had been studiously avoiding looking at them until now, but with his King motioning to them, he no longer had any choice but to look.

"Our missing envoys," he heard Demosthenes say at his side while he did his best to hide his emotions as he looked across the bodies.

The Athenians were all of them fairly ghastly, covered as they were in various marks of combat. Most appeared to have been killed by spear thrusts, and some of them looked to have been pierced multiple times. Brought down from all sides, Sentos assumed. One or two of the bodies sported sword injuries instead. These were likely to have been the strongest fighters, or at least the ones most capable of getting into close quarters. Sentos had to admit he was impressed that even one of these men had had the skill to close with a trained Spartan soldier, let alone  two  of them.

He frowned as he glanced across the faces of the corpses. He had spent days in the company of these men on the journey south from Tryxis, though he had not really spoken to any of them. There were a number of faces notable by their absence however, and he almost breathed a sigh of relief at that. Instead, he stifled it. It would not do to show Demosthenes that he was happy a few seemed to have escaped.

"They're not all here," he said, glancing up at the king.

Demosthenes snorted.

"You can count, at least then."

Someone nearby chuckled at that, but Sentos kept his attention on Demosthenes.

"There were ten soldiers accompanying Archon Themistocles and the Oracle and her attendant," he said. "None of those three are present here, and I count only seven soldiers, meaning there are at least three more Athenians still out there."

Demosthenes nodded.

"Come with me," he said, gesturing to the men standing in front of him to let him pass. The line of Spartans immediately did so, parting for their king, and Sentos followed Demosthenes through the gap. A short distance along the trail, Demosthenes stopped and turned back to face Sentos once more, motioning to the churned mud beneath their feet.

"What do you make of this?" he asked.

Sentos squatted low, examining the mulch more closely. It had been kicked up in a fine splatter, and was shot through with hundreds of lines in an almost crescent moon shape. He reached out to one, tracing the line of it with his finger.

"Hoof prints, Great King," he said simply.

Demosthenes nodded again.

"And what do they tell you?" he said.

Sentos straightened, examining the pattern and dispersal of the prints more carefully.

"Three horses," he said eventually. "Weighed down by riders as they came up the trail. They were moving slowly judging by the distance between the prints. Probably walking the horses." He moved, spreading his arms wide as if he were trying to wrap the hoof prints around him in a bear hug. "They stopped here for a time, then they turn and go back the way they came. They were moving faster on the way out, probably getting their horses up to a gallop."

"And how can you tell that?" Demosthenes said.

"The distance between the hoof prints is wider on the way out than on the way in," Sentos replied. "Longer stride on the horses means they were moving faster. The fact that they were starting from standing, and the distance between prints increases the further from the starting point you go means they were getting them up to speed."

Demosthenes reached up and scratched at his jaw as he watched Sentos carefully. The Spartan Captain suddenly felt very uneasy, as if Demosthenes were testing him somehow.

"So," the King began, "what do you think actually happened here?"

Sentos sucked in a breath of air, then blew it out from between puffed cheeks.

"Best guess Great King?"

"Best guess," Demosthenes nodded yet again.

"The Athenians arrived here, probably with Themistocles and the others. They realised a Spartan patrol was approaching from the north, so Themistocles and the others turned and fled back the way came while the soldiers bought time for them."

It sounded perfectly reasonable when he said it like that; logical, sensible, likely...

...and also completely untrue. It was obvious to him what had really happened, but for some reason deep down inside him, he could not bring himself to tell the truth to Demosthenes. His heart pounded in his chest at the sheer audacity of what he had just done. Lying to a superior, and especially to a King, was a punishable offence. Depending on the severity of the lie, that punishment could be anything from public lashes to an outright execution.

He did his best to keep his expression perfectly studied and still as Demosthenes continued to stare at him steadily. Did he know he had just been lied to? Even if he did, could he prove it? If he was trying to catch Sentos out, this was a poor way to do it. Was he even trying to catch him out, or just trying to discover where his loyalties truly lay?

Finally, the King gave another of those small, barely perceptible nods of his.

"A very reasonable deduction Captain," he said. "Very reasonable indeed." He craned his neck to look back over his shoulder. "Lieutenant!" he shouted.

One of the blue cloaked soldiers came jogging over almost immediately.

"Great King? How may I be of service?"

"We're finished here. You will order your men along the trail to join up with the rest of the army," Demosthenes said.

The man went rigid, then dropped to one knee in the dirt.

"As you command my King," he said, then straightened and turned to return to his men.

Sentos watched him go.

"I don't understand Great King," he said, trying to sell the veracity of his lie. "Should we not order them south in pursuit of Themistocles?"

"Why waste time?" Demosthenes said, turning and beginning to stride back along the trail toward their horses. "Themistocles isn't heading south."

"But the hoof prints..." Sentos began.

"...were a diversion," Demosthenes retorted. "There were only three horses Sentos. Three horses and six people unaccounted for. I know Themistocles and the man is as slippery as a freshly caught eel. Those three soldiers rode south in the hope we would focus our attentions on them, allowing Themistocles a greater head start on us. Unfortunately for them however, I am not so easily fooled."

"Should we not send men south to catch these Athenians anyway?" Sentos asked, hoping he sounded genuinely impressed by Demosthenes' insight. In truth, the fact that Demosthenes had seen through the ruse was hardly surprising. "Or at the very least send a patrol north? If what you say is true, Themistocles is on foot. He could not have more than half a day's lead on us, if that."

"There's no need," Demosthenes replied. "Themistocles will have to stick to the roads and major thoroughfares if he hopes to stay ahead of us, and Gracus is already marshaling our northern patrols. Themistocles will run into him sooner or later, and then we will have them with little expenditure of effort on our part."

Sentos felt his stomach tightening as Demosthenes spoke. When he had heard the envoys had fled this morning, he had been quietly delighted, hoping that they would be long gone by the time Demosthenes learned of their disappearance. He had even gone so far as to deliberately hamper the City Guard's efforts to track them until, eventually, it had become obvious that he would have to report their flight to Demosthenes. Still, he had privately hoped his efforts had given them time to escape and carry word back to their respective homelands. If faced by a united front of all the Greek city states, he had even dared to think that Demosthenes might finally see sense and step aside from the path of destruction and death he had set them upon.

Now, those hopes lay in ruins. Themistocles and the girl from Delphi had not fled north immediately as Sentos had assumed they would. Instead they had headed west to scout at the mustering fields, resulting in the death that was now all about him. He had also not realised that Gracus had been sent on ahead of them, nor that the rival captain would be watching the roads north. Themistocles, Adrasteia and Nikias; they were on their own now, marching onward into the jaws of a beast they did not know was waiting for them.

He pulled himself back up into the saddle of his horse, the damaged muscles in his leg suddenly aching cruelly in the cold air. His horse stirred restlessly, able to sense the tension in him, and he reached out a calming hand to soothe it.

"Are you alright Captain?" he heard Demosthenes say from nearby. There was a note of mockery in his voice as he spoke, and in that moment, Sentos knew the King had had him figured out from the moment he had arrived. Indeed, it was probably why he had been sent for in the first place; to see his response to the situation and to gain a better understanding of just where it was his loyalties truly lay.

"It's nothing, Great King," he said tightly, with a thin lipped smile. "I just uh..." he struggled to find a reason for his sudden nerves that might sound plausible. "I um... I think I must've eaten something that disagrees with me. That's all."

"You should be more careful," Demosthenes chastised him. "I need all my soldiers fit and healthy at my side for what comes next, and we wouldn't want you missing out on all the glory that awaits us now, would we?"

With that he spurred his horse on down the trail, his guards trailing behind him.

"No," Sentos said quietly, watching him leave. "We wouldn't want that at all."

He glanced up at the crows circling morbidly overhead. "Not one little bit."

Chapter Fourteen: Many Roads

Ithius took a deep breath, and as he did so, he drew the bow string to his cheek. Sighting along the arrow, he exhaled slightly, and then let fly. The arrow streaked through the air like a dart, embedding itself deep in the outer ring of the target he was aiming at, equidistant from the three previous arrows he had fired.

With a frustrated grunt, he reached back for the quiver at his shoulder, drawing a fresh arrow and loosing for the fifth time. Once again, the arrow missed its mark, and Ithius felt the sudden urge building in his gut to take the bow and snap it over his knee like kindling. Trying to maintain some semblance of calm, he turned and stalked back over to the weapons table laid out at the edge of the clearing, slamming the bow back down onto it. He stood for a moment, glaring at the weapon, his hands pressed flat to either side of it. Slowly, and with great effort, he closed his eyes, willing the fire in his belly to cool. He took a deep breath and held it, counting backward from ten in the manner he had been taught as a child, balling all the fury and anger up in his chest as he did so. Reaching zero seemed to take an eternity, but when he finally did, he let out a long exhale, blowing away the anger the same way he did the breath in his lungs.

He repeated it twice more, until all the rage was thoroughly purged from him, and everything was calm and stillness once more. He did not know why, but he was quicker to anger these days, and it was affecting his concentration.

Leaving the bow where it lay, he turned and made his way over toward a haggard looking practice dummy. It was clad in battered scraps of leather armour, all marked with various holes punched through by arrows, and deep gouges from various clumsy sword strikes. Drawing his own blade, he went to work, bracing his feet squarely in the mulched dirt and taking up a classic starting stance. He flexed his shoulder muscles as he faced the dummy down, rolling his neck until it gave a satisfying pop.

Strangely enough, the dummy seemed to have the proportions he remembered Demosthenes as having, broad shouldered, but lithe looking. The thought of the Spartan King made his jaw muscles bunch tightly. He could still remember standing on the mustering field, watching in horror as Demosthenes murdered Trellus on the central dais, and then ordering the immediate and brutal execution of Ithius and all those other Helots with him.

Without warning he sprang forward, his sword coming round in a controlled right handed hack that cut through what approximated the dummy's arm at the shoulder. The follow through rebounded off a buckle in the dummy's chest plate, and Ithius span with it, whirling his sword up over his head and bringing the weapon down in a vertical slice to the opposite arm. Withdrawing for a moment, he back stepped, then, with a powerful shout, he came in again, pivoting on the ball of his leading foot and bringing his sword around in a savage swing that cut the dummy's sack-cloth head clean from its shoulders.

His breathing only slightly laboured, he stepped back, admiring his handy work. It was sloppy. The first swing had been okay, but misaimed, and the second and third had grown increasingly wild and frenzied. In a real battle, any decently skilled opponent would have gutted him the moment he opened his guard after the first strike.

"Remind me not to get on your bad side again," came a familiar voice from behind him.

Frowning at the interruption, he turned to see Arkus, the man he had had to put in his place a few days ago, making his way across the clearing toward him from the direction of the camp. A younger man, really little more than a boy only recently of age was trailing miserably behind him.

"I don't recall you ever being on my bad side," Ithius replied, re-sheathing his sword and crossing his arms across his chest as the other man drew nearer.

"You shot an arrow at me," Arkus said, but strangely enough, there was no audible malice in his tone. "I'd say that qualifies."

"I was just trying..." Ithius began.

"...To make a point," Arkus finished for him and smiled. "Believe you me, it was a point well made. I doubt anyone around here will be crossing you again soon. Least of all me."

Ithius could not help but notice the way the man spoke to him. There was no reverence in his voice. No awe or fawning platitudes. It was, as if Arkus were addressing him as an equal rather than a master. Even with the situation around them as dire as it was, Ithius could not help but give a mental nod of satisfaction. At least one of his people had some understanding of what it was to be free. He gave a dry chuckle.

"Not really the message I wanted to send," he said, "but I guess it proves at least  someone  was willing to listen to me."

"Not just someone," Arkus said. "Athelis isn't as popular with so many people as you seem to think he is, and you have the ear of more us than you realise. This freedom we have, such as it is..." he hooked his thumb back over his shoulder in the direction of the village just beyond the clearing. "...It's cost us a lot. A lot of blood, tears, and tragedy. Not all of us are so willing to just give it all up again for Athelis and this war he seems determined to wage."

At the mention of Athelis, Ithius felt his jaw muscles tighten again.

"Could have fooled me," he said, doing his best to sound nonchalant and uncaring, but really only managing to sound bitter and spiteful. "Because it seems to me that most of our people are positively lining up to let Athelis lead them on like lambs to a slaughter house."

Arkus grimaced at that.

"I heard what happened," he said, "with the patrol and everything, and I'm sorry for it. That's one of the reasons I'm here actually. To try and talk some sense into you, and to make you see that this self flagellation kick you've been on has to end. We still need..."

"Stop!" Ithius snapped sharply at him. "Just stop right there. I've already had this argument once before. You don't  need  me. None of you do. You just want me to make your decisions for you."

"That's because you're good at it!" Arkus retorted equally harshly. "Just because people are free doesn't mean they don't need a guiding hand from time to time. Most of us wouldn't be here now if it wasn't for you and yours. Can't you see that? It was  you  who led us out of the mustering fields, Ithius;  you  who brought us to safety here, and all the time since, it's been you who's kept it that way. Not Athelis, or Drogo, or anyone else. Only you."

"And if I make the wrong decision..." Ithius began again, only to have Arkus cut him off imediately.

"Then we roll with it! We accept the consequences, and move on. We're most of us grown ups; not spoiled teenagers looking to lump all the responsibility on you. Give us a little credit at least."

Ithius could not think of anything to say. He could only stand dumbstruck as Arkus continued in front of him.

"We don't expect you to be infallible, or held to account for everything. We don't expect you to shoulder all the responsibility on your own either, or at least most of us don't, and those who do will quickly have the rest of us to contend with if they try. Come what may, Ithius, we'll stand by you, because we have faith in you. We just need you to have a little faith in us too."

Ithius stood quietly, his gaze drifting past Arkus and the camp beyond. All those people out there. Was Arkus right? Was that what they really needed? Just a little faith?

"What's the other reason?" he asked eventually.

"Huh?" Arkus said frowning.

"You said that little speech just now was one of the reasons you came to me," Ithius answered. "Soooo... what's the other reason?"

"To tell you that you might need to make the decision of where you stand kind of quickly," Arkus answered as he proceeded to haul the younger man that had accompanied him around in front of Ithius. This close, he could see the panicked look in the younger man's eyes, and the unkempt, travel stained appearance of his clothing. His hands were black with dirt, and a wispy beard he was attempting to grow had become long and matted by days of sleeping rough.

"Dion here is one of Athelis' little 'lambs'." Arkus explained. "He went south with a couple of others a few days ago; to spy on the Spartans apparently."

He elbowed Dion in the back, causing the younger man to glare at him furiously.

"He needs to know," Arkus said, speaking directly to Dion now. "Tell him what you saw."

"Please!" Dion begged, turning imploringly back to Ithius. "Tell him to let me go! I have to get to Master Athelis! I have to tell him! I have to warn him!"

" Master  Athelis?" he heard Arkus say incredulously, but much as the title annoyed him too, Ithius chose to ignore it.

"It's okay," he said, lifting his hand, palm open toward Dion, and trying to sound as calming as he could in spite of his confusion. The younger man was on the verge of hysteria, and he wanted to know just what it was that had made him that way. "What's happening out there? Where are the others you went south with?"

"They stayed behind," Dion replied. "Hiding in the hills so that they could keep watching. I was the youngest though, and they said it was getting too dangerous, so they sent me back north to warn Athelis about what was coming."

Ithius felt his heart sink deep into the pit of his stomach. Suddenly he had a terrible feeling that he knew exactly what it was that had gotten Dion so panicked.

"And just what is it that's coming?" he asked, although he was almost certain he did not need to hear the answer.

"Spartans!" Dion cried desperately. "A whole army of them heading north with King Demosthenes at their head."

He stepped forward, his eyes wide and wild now.

"Please!" he begged again. "We have to warn Master Athelis! If that army catches him..."

Ithius lifted his hand again, this time as a gesture for quiet.

"Give me a moment," he said. "I need to think."

He turned away from them both, scrubbing a hand across his face and taking a deep breath as he did so.

So this was it then. The moment things had been building toward since Callisto and the Persians had first shown up in Sparta. But why north? What did Demosthenes have to gain by leading his armies toward Athens and Delphi? Suddenly a thought occurred to him.

"Greeks against Greeks," he muttered softly to himself, remembering something Monocles had said to him shortly before the little Athenian had been killed. A barrier between worlds, was what Monocles had spoken of; one that was cracked and falling, with Cronus, the deposed lord of the Titans waiting patiently on the other side so that he could return to the world of the living and wreak his revenge on the children that had betrayed him. Callisto had known all of this, or at the very least, a good portion of it. In fact, if the letter from Leonidas had been anything to go on, the gods had actually sent her to stop it happening in the first place. But it all came back to that one little detail. Greeks against Greeks.

"So what's the plan?" he heard Arkus say at his shoulder.

"Who says I have a plan?" Ithius replied.

"Oh come off! I know you're thinking of something. People like you, you can't help yourselves. So c'mon. Spill. What do you think we should do?"

"Why couldn't he take this straight to Athelis?" Ithius said, striking off at a tangent while he tried to pull his thoughts together.

"He's not here is why," Arkus said. "He and Drogo and the rest of that cadre of theirs went out yesterday. We got word that a number isolated Spartan patrols have been passing through the lands east of here."

"Heading north I presume?"

Arkus nodded.

"Pretty much. Athelis wanted to see if he could pick some of them off while they were there..." his voice trailed off as he noticed Ithius visibly stiffen at his words.

"...he said it was a good opportunity," he continued, slower now, his eyes narrowed as he regarded Ithius. "One that he couldn't afford to let slip through his fingers."

Ithius swallowed, his throat suddenly feeling very dry.

"Yeah," he managed eventually. "He's right of course. It is a good opportunity. A great one even. But maybe, just maybe, a little too great?"

He glanced back and forth between Dion and Arkus to see if either of them had come to same realisation he had, but was met with only blank stares.

This was it. The moment he had been dreading for so long, and that he had even tried to run away from when he had led his people to this place. The choice was simple. Stand aside, and let what was about to happen take place, or instead wade hip deep into the fray, fight and possibly die. Neither was an option that held that much appeal for him. If it had just been himself, the choice would have been simple and obvious. With the fate of his people hanging in the balance however, the decision suddenly became much more complicated. Strangely enough, he found himself thinking about Callisto and wondering what she would do if she were in his place.

That made things easier again.

"How many people can you muster up?" he asked Arkus.

The other man shrugged.

"Fifteen maybe," he said. "Twenty at a push."

"And how many of them know how to ride?"

Arkus shrugged again.

"I think a couple of them know how to hold the reins. One of them might've even fed a horse an apple one time."

"Good enough for me," Ithius said, and began striding back toward the camp. "I need you to go on ahead and gather them up for me. Anyone else you see, tell them to collect whatever's important to them, along with any food and water supplies they can carry. I want you and yours ready to ride within the hour."

Arkus frowned, but nodded all the same and hurried off ahead of them.

"I don't understand," he heard Dion say behind him. He had not even realised the younger man was following him. "Why are you getting people ready to move? The Spartans don't know about this place. We're safe here. It's Master Athelis who's in danger. Shouldn't we be trying to warn him?"

"You're right," Ithius nodded at him "Demosthenes doesn't know where we are. He'd have crushed us by now if he did. That doesn't mean that he's forgotten us though."

He paused, turning mid-stride to regard Dion carefully.

"Right now he's got bigger concerns than us. He's marching an army north, most likely for war. But I guarantee you, when all of this is over, and if he stands victorious, he'll turn his eye back to us again, and when he does, there won't be anywhere we can hide that he won't find us and finish what he started back at the mustering fields. If we stand aside now, we stand alone later, and I for one would rather face one army with another of my own at my back, so its time for us to pick a side in all this and stop dilly dallying in the middle."

He turned and started walking again. He could still feel it, that weight of reponsibility pressing down on him, but now it did not leaden his steps as it had done before, and he strode onward toward the camp with a renewed purpose.

"But what about Master Athelis!?" Dion cried after him. "We can't just leave him and the others out there with an army they don't even know is coming bearing down on them!"

"And we won't," Ithius called back to him, "but it's not the army that you should be worrying about."

"What do you mean?"

"If what you tell me is true, that army is a day's hard march from us. Maybe more than that if Demosthenes moves his troops slowly so as to keep them fresh. No, the army is no immediate danger to Athelis. The patrols on the other hand..."

"But Master Athelis has dealt with them before," Dion protested. "He can do it again."

"But that's just it," Ithius countered as they walked. "Athelis  has  dealt with them before, and Demosthenes doubtless knows that by now, so ask yourself this. Why would a man like Demosthenes, who is not the type to believe himself so unassailable as to make the same mistake twice, send out more patrols just like the one that disappeared? So that whoever picked off the first one can do the same thing again? Doesn't that sound a little strange to you?"

He stared hard at Dion, waiting for the other man to put two and two together. At first Dion just blinked in confusion, until, slowly, a look of horrified realisation began to dawn behind his eyes.

"Wait a minute," he said slowly. "Are you saying that..."

Ithius nodded grimly.

"Yes," he said. "Those patrols that Athelis thinks he's hunting? They're the ones hunting him."

*****

The cold, wet mud clung thickly to the soles of Adrasteia's boots as she trudged miserably along the trail. To say that this road was supposed to be a major through-way linking Sparta in the south with the rest of the Greek cities further north, it seemed remarkably poorly kept. On the other hand, it was remarkably well traveled, or at least it had been recently. An uncountable number of feet had churned the mud ahead and behind her, making what had presumably once been a fairly hard, dirt packed road into a sloppy mire that had been slowing their pace all morning, and now into the afternoon as well. She remembered that the trail had not been this bad when they had followed it south, meaning that those who had done this to it must have passed by in the last few days. She just hoped that whoever they were – and she had a sneaking suspicion that they were Spartans – they were not waiting for them up ahead.

Behind her she heard a tight, wheezing sound, and she turned to see Nikias, leaning against the broken off spear that served him as a walking staff, struggling to catch his breath.

"Are you alright?" she asked, falling back to his side and looking him up and down with a concerned frown. He was not as pale as he had been the day before. When they had made camp the previous night, Themistocles had risked a camp fire so as to heat the blade of one Nikias' daggers. Adrasteia did not think she would ever forget the noise Nikias had made when Themistocles had pressed that same glowing steel to the wound in the other man's side. Not only that but he had done it twice; first to the exit wound and then to the entry wound after that. Nikias had passed out the second time, and Themistocles had let him rest for a time after that.

"Never... better... my Lady," Nikias managed to gasp between laboured breaths. "Do not concern yourself with me. I'm no longer as young as I once was is all, and you are setting quite the pace today."

"Okay then," Adrasteia nodded, laying a hand gently on his shoulder and leading him over toward the side of the trail. "We'll take a break then."

"Not another one," Nikias protested. "That will be the third so far today."

"What can I say," Adrasteia shrugged. "I tire easily. Now sit down and get some rest." She placed both hands on his shoulders and began to push him down. Nikias tried to resist at first, but he simply did not have the strength anymore. After he was seated, his body tilting uncomfortably to one side so as to keep the weight off his injury, she seated herself next to him. The rise and fall of his chest was pained, and every slight fidget he made to attempt to get comfortable sent a grimace of pain flashing across his face. Adrasteia could not help but feel a sickly, hollow feeling in her stomach every time she looked at him.

"Well," she said, trying her best to sound chipper. "The scenery's nice if nothing else." It was too. All around them the rolling green hills closer to Sparta had given way to a more gently undulating plain, covered in long wild grasses and spotted with thickets and patches of wildflowers. Away to the west she could make out a large forest that stretched the length of the horizon in that direction. "Shame the weather hasn't held up, or we really could be having quite a pleasant stroll." Over head, dark clouds blanketed the sky, bleaching what would normally have been vibrant surroundings in dull and muted shades of grey.

She did her best to continue talking, filling what would have been a deeply uncomfortable silence with a ceaseless stream of chatter, hoping against hope she could avoid the conversation she knew was coming. She could feel Nikias' eyes on her as she prattled on, but she did her best to ignore them. Eventually, her spout of nervous patter ran out of momentum and she fell silent. All around them was quiet, save for the sound of the occasional chill gust of wind and the distant chirping of birds. She sniffed.

"It wasn't your fault," Nikias said softly, his hand coming up to rest weakly against her arm. "None of it."

Adrasteia felt a lump in her throat and swallowed.

"Yes it was," she said, rubbing at her nose. It's tip was throbbing. "If I hadn't pushed you... if I'd just left like you said we should have..."

"Then we would never have seen what we saw and had the message to carry back to Delphi," Nikias said firmly. "Lives will be saved because of your actions. That is the truth of it, and it is the only truth that matters."

"And what about you?" she asked.

Nikias frowned at her.

"What about me?"

Adrasteia gestured to the wound in his side.

"Look at you!" she said. " I  did that to you Nikias! Me!"

"A Spartan spear did this to me."

Adrasteia gave a frustrated groan.

"You know what I mean!"

Nikias nodded.

"I do know what you mean. I also know that it's complete nonsense. It is my duty to protect you, and I have done exactly that. You should not blame yourself."

"Easier said than done," Adrasteia replied.

"Like so much in life," Nikias said, smiling weakly at her.

She turned away from him and began to stare back down the trail in the direction they had come from. The sight of the empty road and the thick churned mud gave her a strange feeling of unease as a light breeze game gusting up toward them only to tug insistently at her hair.

"Themistocles has been gone a long time," she said quietly.

"He'll be back," Nikias said. "He's a survivor. A good one too. I'm not sure he even knows how to die."

They sat for a while, watching and waiting, until slowly a figure began to resolve itself in the distance. Adrasteia felt her stomach tighten as it drew closer to them. Eventually though, the figure drew close enough that she could begin to make out details. That confident, even stride, the ivory pommeled sword hanging at his side, and the long dark hair held back by leather bands all pointed to Themistocles. She let out a long breath that she did not even realise she had been holding.

"Another break?" he called out irritably as he came within earshot.

"I was tired," Adrasteia called back.

"Of course you were." He came to a stop in front of the them, eyeing Nikias where he sat. "Not very hardy, this girl of yours."

Nikias shrugged.

"She has strengths as yet untapped," he said.

"Well she'd better 'tap' them soon," Themistocles said. "That Spartan phalanx unit that's been trailing us... they're getting closer."

"How far?" Adrasteia asked.

"An hour at best," Themistocles answered. "But knowing the way the Spartans push themselves, I'd say probably less than that." He gave Nikias a meaningful glance. "They'll be on us before the day is done at the pace we're keeping."

With a pained grunt, Nikias planted his broken spear in the dirt, and began to heave himself to his feet.

"Well then, I suppose you'd best be on your way then."

"Wait? What...?" Adrasteia gasped. "No! You can't be serious!"

"My Lady-" Nikias began.

"Enough with the 'my Lady'!" she snapped. "I'm not some pampered damsel in distress! I have a name. Use it."

Nikias stared at her blinking in surprise at the sharpness of her tone.

"I think you misund-" Themistocles started to say, and Adrasteia rounded on him sharply.

"And as for you!" she growled. "Stop putting ideas in his head! Is it not enough that you already sent your own retinue out to die, now you have to try and do it to mine too? Well I'm not going to let you. This isn't some bard's tale, full of noble sacrifice and tragic heroics. Enough people have died for me already this week. I'm not chalking a friend's name on the slate as well."

Themistocles just regarded her flatly.

"Isn't that why he's here?" he said.

"I don't care!" Adrasteia snapped back. "I'm not an Oracle! I'm not even a good handmaiden for Apollo's sake! Just last week I was ordered to wash the white ceremonial robes for the entire temple. I mixed them up with the Oracle's crimson evening gown! The entire lot of it went pink, and now the Oracle has to attend her weekly public audiences looking like a meringue cake!"

Themistocles glanced at Nikias.

"Does she always get like this?" he asked.

"I wouldn't know," Nikias replied. "I've never escorted her anywhere before."

"The point is," Adrasteia said with an exasperated role of her eyes, "I'm not the Lady Pythia. I'm not even remotely close to being the Lady Pythia! It's bad enough that people feel the need to die for her. They shouldn't have do it for me as well."

She folded her arms and planted her feet firmly in the mud.

"No more people dead for me," she said. "I didn't ask for it, I don't want it, and I'm not going another step until we all understand that. Either we all come through this together, or none of us do."

She glared defiantly at Themistocles, half expecting him to explode in a torrent of invective at her. Instead he did quite the opposite, the corners of his mouth curling upward in an amused grin, and then, finally, he began to chuckle softly to himself.

"Well if that's the way you feel, I don't supposed there's anything I can say that will convince you otherwise," he said, walking past her and off up the trail as he did so.

Adrasteia turned with him as he moved past her.

"You're leaving!?" she said incredulously.

"Why wouldn't I?" he called back to her. "You've already made it quite clear that you'd rather die yourself than have others die for you. Well, if I stay here with you, wouldn't I be doing exactly that? Offering up my life purely to ease your guilty conscience?"

"I..." Adrasteia stammered, struggling for words. "I didn't mean it like that."

"No," Themistocles said, pausing to look back at her. "I don't imagine that you did, but then looking at things from a different angle isn't exactly your strong point is it?" He cocked his head slightly. "I mean, if it were, you might actually take the time to  listen  occasionally, and if you did that, well, I'm sure you'd have heard me say that the road passes through a small patch of woodland about a league or so down the trail wouldn't you? One that would make a terrific spot to hole up in and wait until the Spartans pass us by."

He turned and started walking again.

"But if you want to stay and wait for the Spartans, be my guest. I'll make better time without the pair of you anyway, and the peace and quiet away from your ceaseless bellyaching will be a welcome relief."

Adrasteia wanted to shout back at him; to say something witty and cutting. She could not though. Instead she just stood in stunned silence, staring at the man's retreating back. Nikias hobbled up beside her, his gaze following hers as she watched Themistocles stride away.

"Yes," he said with a nod. "Quite the survivor." And with that he started walking again, his pole squelching into the mud as he set out in pursuit of Themistocles.

Adrasteia could only watch them both leave. She wanted to tear her hair out. Dealing with Themistocles was like trying to ride a charging bull bareback. You could try and predict where it was taking you, even have the illusion that you had managed to steer it right, but in the end it would would as often do the opposite of what you expected as not. She gave a final frustrated grunt, then set off after the pair of them.

The walk to the woodland was passed largely in silence. Adrasteia quickly caught up to Nikias, then helped him hobble forward in an attempt to keep pace with Themistocles. Finally they rounded a bend in the trail, and the distant woods came into view. Separated from the forest to the west by a wide expanse of open tall grass, the woodland was probably two or three miles across and a mile or so deep. Adrasteia remembered making camp beneath the shelter of the trees on the first night's ride south. She also remembered that the undergrowth was dense under the canopy, and if they could cover their tracks, they would probably be able to remain unseen as the Spartans passed them by.

As they drew closer to the trees, and the safety they offered, she felt her pace quickening. It was an effort to hold herself back from breaking into a run, and instead hanging back to help Nikias along. She just wanted to reach the sanctuary the trees provided, yet that still felt so achingly far away. Then, a few hundred metres from the tree line, Themistocles stopped.

Leaving a wheezing Nikias at the trail's side to catch his breath, Adrasteia walked up to stand beside the Athenian. He had a pensive expression on his face, and his eyes were moving slowly across the terrain around them.

"Something's wrong, isn't it?" she said softly, tracking hey own gaze across the horizon in an attempt to to see whatever it was that had Themistocles so spooked. She could see nothing out of the ordinary.

Next to her, Themistocles nodded.

"Very wrong," he said. "We're being watched. Have been for the past mile or so."

Adrasteia scowled at the rolling plains of long grass all around them. In some places it grew almost as tall as she was.

"What makes you say that?"

Themistocles shrugged.

"Just a feeling," he said. "But it's a feeling I've had before, and one I've learned to trust over the years."

"So what do we do? We can't turn back. The Spartans will catch us, and if we turn off the trail, we'll never make it to the ship at Tryxis in time."

"You've just answered your own question," Themistocles said. "None of our other options are viable alternatives, so that means..."

"...we keep going," Adrasteia finished for him.

Themistocles smiled darkly.

"Precisely," he said.

As they started forward again, Adrasteia felt the sense of relief she had been feeling only minutes before quickly start to drain away. Now the small patch of woodland looked dark and foreboding rather than safe and welcoming. Her steps became leaden but she trudged on regardless.

Before long they had hiked up the trail and were across the tree line into the woodland proper. It was quiet beneath the shelter of the canopy of leaves overhead, and thanks to their shelter, the ground here was relatively dry compared to the mire of the trail behind them. Some of the leaves were already turning with the autumn chill and a few more were even starting to drop, drifting softly to the ground around them as they continued deeper into the woods.

"I don't like this place," she heard Nikias mutter behind her. "There's something wrong with it."

Adrasteia nodded grimly.

"I can't hear anything," she said, giving the dense tangle of bushes and shrubbery all around them a suspicious glare. "Not even the birds."

"That might be because we scared them all off," came a new voice, and the small group froze in their tracks as a stocky looking man stepped out of the undergrowth and onto the trail in front of them. He was shorter than either Themistocles or Nikias, but still had an inch or so on Adrasteia. He was, however, broader than any of them, with a powerful build and a heavy brow. A tousled tangle of wild dark hair framed his face, and he carried a heavy looking sword unsheathed at his side. It was the armour he wore that most caught Adrasteia's eye however. He was clad in a Spartan breastplate that he had apparently only just managed to squeeze his heavy set frame into. The armour itself was crisscrossed with dents, sword scars, and even a bloodied rent just above the hip. It was a wound suffered by the armour's previous owner, Adrasteia assumed, as the stocky man himself did not seem any the worse for wear.

Themistocles was already reaching for his sword when the man lifted his hand in a calming gesture.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he said. "Right now they are at least ten different sets of bows trained on you and if you so much as blink wrong, they have my go ahead to drop all three of you."

"A bluff," Themistocles shouted back at the man, his hand still hovering above his sword. "A common bandit trick I've seen a dozen times before. You want to try and threaten us? Show me these bowmen of yours!"

The stocky man shrugged.

"As you wish," he said, and, biting his bottom lip, he let out a screeching whistle.

Out of nowhere, a dozen or more men seemed to appear all around them, stepping out of the bushes and shrubbery where they had been concealed. Most of them carried bows and arrows, and at their sides they all carried swords or knives of some shape or other. Each and every one of them was unkempt and dirty to varying degrees, as if they had been living rough for weeks, and, like their stocky leader, they were all of them clad in mismatched armour, most of it of seemingly Spartan design. In some cases, where the armour was not salvaged Spartan gear, pieces had clearly been cobbled together from whatever they had been able to lay their hands on. Despite their ragged appearance though, they all had a dangerous, hunted look about them. Adrasteia even noted that one or two of their number's hands were shaking as they knocked their bows; a fact that made her all the more on edge having those same bows pointed at her.

"Does that satisfy your curiosity?" the stocky man called over to Themistocles.

The Athenian lifted his hand away from his sword slowly, he was holding it palm open at chest height. His other hand joined it, and he nodded to Adrasteia and Nikias to do likewise. Adrasteia copied him, but Nikias could only lift one of his, the other hand still clinging to his makeshift walking staff.

"More than adequately, thank you." Themistocles replied in a strangely genial manner.

"Good," the stocky man nodded. "Now if you would be so kind as to drop your weapons so that we might have a more civilised conversation..."

Adrasteia glanced at Themistocles and he nodded, unbuckling the belt that held his sword in its scabbard at his hip and tossing it to the ground. Beside her, Nikias was already throwing down his daggers, and with a weary sigh she reached beneath her cinched leather belt and plucked her own bloodied dagger to the ground. Despite Nikias' urging her to clean the blade of it, she had not been able to bring herself to. It felt almost like she would be denying what she had done if she did.

"That's better," The stocky man said, and gave a flick of his head. At the signal, two of his men lowered their bows and darted in to grab the fallen weapons. The man began to make his way over to Themistocles, his sword still unsheathed. "Now, perhaps you might care to tell us exactly who you people are and what it is you're doing out here?"

"We're nobody," Themistocles replied smoothly. "Just travelers heading north."

"That would make sense," the man nodded, walking over to one of the men that had picked up their weapons, and lifting Themistocles' sword from him. He ran an appraising eye over it, then handed it back again.

"It would make sense..." he continued, "...if one of your number did not already resemble the walking dead, and you yourself were not carrying a sword worth more than an entire village."

"Is it really?" Themistocles replied, his voice completely deadpan. "I honestly never knew. Maybe I should try and sell it. Buy myself that village."

The man tilted an eyebrow at him.

"And your friend?" he said, nodding toward Nikias and sounding more than a little irritated now. "Care to try and explain the state of him?"

"A simple accident," Themistocles said. "He's fond of gardening you see, but he's always been a little clumsy, and pruning sheers can be surprisingly sharp..."

The man's face soured visibly, and he took a threatening step closer to Themistocles.

"Quite the wit you've got isn't it," he said darkly. "Well how's about this for a retort. You have a troop of Spartans following you."

Themistocles began to open his mouth, but the man held up his hand.

"Don't bother to deny it," he said. "We've been watching you all morning. It's quite clear they are tailing you. We want to know why."

From the tone of the man's voice, Adrasteia could already tell there was no love lost between this man and the Spartans. What was the old saying? Something about the enemy of your enemy?

Without thinking, she found herself taking a step forward.

"Please," she began. "You're right. We're not just simple travelers, and we  do  have Spartans after us. We've been on the road since yesterday and they've been hot on our heels since this morning. We're cold, wet, tired, wounded, and we can't keep running forever..."

The man's gaze slid from Themistocles to her, and at the sight of the pleading look on her face – the one she had always used to use on her father when he had taken her to the market as a child and she had seen something she wanted – his own expression softened slightly.

"Please," she said again. "You have to help us."

"Maybe we can," the man said slowly, before returning his gaze to Themistocles. "But it would be conditional on you telling us who you are and what you are doing out here."

Themistocles glanced at Adrasteia in irritation, but she just stared back at him expectantly. Finally, he gave a deep sigh and began to explain just who it was they were and how they had come to be here.

When he came to the end of the tale, and began to describe the sights they had seen at the mustering fields, the man held up a hand.

"This army," he said, eyes narrowing. "Where is it headed?"

"North I imagine," Themistocles replied. "Probably along this very road."

The stocky man gestured to one of the bowmen nearby, who promptly lowered his weapon and trotted over to him.

"Go find Athelis," the stocky man said, his voice low but still audible. "Tell him I want to see him now."

Adrasteia's heart skipped a beat. She could not believe what she had just heard. Athelis. It was a name she had not heard in a long time. It could  not  be him though! The odds against it were astronomical. It just could not be him. Could it?

"Something wrong?" Themistocles whispered to her. He had apparently noticed her blanched face.

"Nothing at all," she replied a little too sharply.

Themistocles simply shrugged and turned his attention back to the stocky man standing before them.

"How much of a head start do you people have on this army of Spartans?" the stocky man asked. Themistocles had been economical with details.

"Probably a day I'd say," Themistocles said as the stocky man's messenger shouldered his bow and began to jog off down the trail. "Even with Nikias here slowing our pace, we can still move faster than thousands of armed troops."

Nikias looked somewhat ashamed at the comment but said nothing, instead focusing his gaze warily on the bowmen still training arrows at them.

"But not faster than a phalanx unit," the man said. "Those Spartans following you will be on you before the day is out if you keep headed this way."

"We know." Themistocles said. "That's why we headed for this woodland. It's a place to hide and take stock." He glanced around himself at the armed bowmen. "It would also appear to be a good place to stage an ambush."

The stocky man nodded grimly.

"When the odds are against you, you need every advantage you can get to tip them in your favour."

"Are you telling me you're about to attack the Spartans?" Adrasteia said, then scowled. "Why would you want to do that? I mean you guys look like you can handle yourselves, but these are Spartans we're talking about..." she paused, her eyes narrowing as she spoke. "Just who exactly are you people?"

Themistocles turned to look at her again.

"Isn't it obvious?" he said, then waved his hand toward the stocky man and his compatriots. "These people are clearly the Helots."

"The Helots? But I thought they were all-"

"Dead?" the stocky man cut in. "Most of use are. We number less than a few hundred now, where once there were thousands of us."

"And you're trying to fight the Spartans with those numbers?" Themistocles said, arching an eyebrow at the Helot leader.

"What other choice do we have?" the man replied.

"I'd say running would be a solid option.”

"And who are you to tell them what they should and shouldn't do?" came a fresh voice, that froze Adrasteia's blood in her veins. "You have no idea who these people are, what it is they've accomplished. They've taken down Spartan patrols before. They can do it again."

A new figure appeared, striding confidently out of the trees a little distance down the trail to stand beside the stockier man.

"It's okay Drogo," the newcomer said. "I'll handle this from here."

If Adrasteia had had any doubts before as to who this newcomer was, they were silenced from the moment she laid eyes on him. He was a little older than her, but with hair the same shade of auburn, and he stood only a little taller. The years had not been as kind to him as she would have imagined though, and there was a weariness and wariness to his face she had not seen before.

Before she could stop herself, she coughed loudly, drawing his eyes to her. As soon as they fell upon her, those same eyes widened in complete astonishment.

"Teia!?" he gasped.

"How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?" she said, glaring at him furiously as she folded her arms tightly across her chest.

The newcomer barely even seemed to notice what she had said.

"What..." he began, but his words caught in his throat and he had to cough before starting again. "What are you  doing  here?"

"I could ask you the same question," Adrasteia answered hotly. "Just what mess have you managed to get yourself into this time?"

"Mess?" the newcomer practically choked in outrage. "Mess!? That's rich coming from the girl my men tell me has had a horde of Spartans dogging her heels all morning..."

"Ahem!" Themistocles interrupted, clearing his throat theatrically so that they both turned their attention to him. "This may seem like a pointless observation given the circumstances, but I take it that you two both know each other."

The newcomer's jaw tightened, and he crossed his arms, his pose an exact mirror of Adrasteia's.

"You might say that," he said, glowering at her as he did so.

"Well then," Themistocles said with mock frivolity, clapping his hands together and rubbing them vigorously, "if this is a party, perhaps 'Teia' here would care to play host and introduce us all?"

Adrasteia shot him a venomous look, but Themistocles just raised his eyebrows expectantly at her.

"If I must," she said with a resigned sigh. "Themistocles of Athens, meet Athelis of Delphi..."

She paused and took a deep breath.

"...my brother."

*****

The air was filled with restlessness as Gracus sat his horse by the side of the muddy trail. The animal was facing southward toward a small patch of woodland separated from a large and ominous forest to the west by an open plain. He had troops out there now, to the south of that woodland and marching northward at his command to rendezvous with his other forces already gathering at at the distant village of Tryxis. There they would wait for further orders from King Demosthenes and the main Spartan army, itself just now setting out on its own northward march.

At least that was what it was supposed to look like they were doing.

To anyone watching them, it would be all too obvious that Gracus was moving those forces that had been scattered across the countryside by their hunt for Ithius and his Helots, into a position where they would be better able to march as a consolidated unit. More tactically savvy individuals might question why the rendezvous point was so far north. Strung out and in small units as his men were, it would be all too easy for them to become prey to marauding outlaws, or even Ithius' surviving Helot forces before they even made it there. Most other commanders would have taken measures to avoid this. They would have gathered their forces further south, closer to Sparta and safety. Not Gracus though. He was his King's man, through and through, but that did not mean his orders were to be followed precisely to the letter. Whoever it was that was preying on their patrols, they relied on them being separate and cut off from one another. Gracus' strung out trail of isolated men was a perfect lure, bait on the end of a hook that would hopefully snare them and allow him to haul them out into the light of day. Yes, he would do as his king commanded, but if he could deal with their enemies at the same time, so much the better.

The Helots needed to die. It was just that simple. Lesser men than he might have blanched at the measures required to see such a task through, but Gracus was not a lesser man. He was a true Spartan, a faithful servant, and his King's strong right hand. What Demosthenes desired, he would achieve, not just for his King's glory, or even for his own, but for the glory of all of Sparta. Too long had they sat, languishing and forgotten by the rest of Greece. Too long had they been ignored and undervalued by the gods they had for centuries devoted their lives and tribute to. Well, it would continue no more. Now they had a new god and a new goal. Greece would kneel before their might, and at Cronus' will, he and his king would see it reforged into a new world where none would be forgotten ever again!

Taking a deep breath, Gracus tried to calm his fervor. One step at a time. First they must deal with these Helots that had so far managed to evade their every attempt at engagement. That was before Gracus had been involved though.

Glancing east, he could make out a man on foot, moving at a steady jog and stooped low to avoid prying eyes that might have been watching the main trail. The only reason Gracus even noticed him was because he had known to look for him, and even then he was surprised that the man had actually managed to get so close without him noticing.

As he drew closer, the man's features became clearer. It was Orestes, and as he approached Gracus watched him thoughtfully. Orestes and those beneath him were something of an anomaly. He was not as obviously defiant as Sentos and those others that remained of Leonidas' personal guard, but nevertheless the younger Spartan and those who followed him were hardly the most trustworthy of Demosthenes' men. They had not yet joined the New Faith for one, but that was merely a matter of time. When the first victories in the coming war were theirs, all would see that King Demosthenes had been correct to swear his faith to Cronus. The days of the old Pantheon would be numbered and even the most die hard hold outs would find their support waning then. Until that day though, Orestes' closeness to Sentos and his malcontents marked him as one to be kept on a short leash, which was why Gracus had him at his side now.

"Were you seen?" he asked as Orestes jogged up alongside his horse. The younger man paused to catch his breath, and Gracus unstoppered a water skin to offer him.

"I don't believe so," Orestes said after he had taken a long pull from the water skin. "They've set up their scouts on high ground to better watch the north/south road. That's where they expect us to be moving after all. They aren't watching the wild lands as far as I can tell."

Gracus frowned at that. It was hardly bad news. In fact it was great news. They had been tracking the small force of troops – presumably Helots – since the morning, and he had been moving troops through the myriad valleys and gullies that dotted the countryside all day long in an effort to avoid the other force's scouts from noticing them. That it had worked should have been pleasing, but instead it only tied an uncomfortable knot on his stomach. He had thought Ithius a smarter man than this. It certainly should not have been this easy to outmaneuver him; at least not if it actually  was  Ithius commanding them. That left only one real conclusion then. Ithius was not commanding these men; which meant that even if they won the day here, Ithius himself would still be at large to remain a thorn in their sides going forward.

Doing his best to put aside thoughts of the Helot leader, he regarded Orestes steadily. While the situation was far from what he had hoped for, it was still worthwhile exploiting. At the very least it would thin out the Helot numbers even more. If he was going to be victorious though, he had to focus on the here and now. Not to do so could very well lead to catastrophe.

"What of the others? Do they understand their role in this?"

Orestes nodded.

"They do. They are to advance and hold position just south of the woodland, and await your order to attack."

Gracus gave a satisfied snort.

"Excellent. The ambush party to the west is in position too. I want you to join them. It's obvious they've been using that forest as cover to avoid our patrol up to now. If they attempt to fall back to it, you know what to do?"

Orestes nodded again.

"We fall upon them mid route. Take them to the last man if we can."

His voice was all carefully studied Spartan pragmatism, but there was a slight hangdog look to his expression that suggested he was less than pleased with his orders. Gracus could not have cared less. These Helots were no longer some simple backwater resistance effort buzzing around the countryside like gnats. The soldiers of Sparta were about to embark on a divine mission to unite all of Greece so that it might be saved from both itself, and the poisonous pantheon of false gods at its heart. These Helots were standing in the way of that, and if their destruction meant that precious little Orestes had to get some blood on his hands, then so be it.

"I trust that you will execute your duties to the best of your ability?" he said pointedly.

Orestes straightened immediately.

"I am a soldier and I have my orders," he replied, his voice now completely neutral. "They will be carried out."

Gracus continued to watch him for a moment longer, waiting for some hint of what it was that the younger Spartan was really thinking. Orestes simply stared back at him patiently.

"That is good to hear," Gracus said eventually. "Now be on your way. I want your forces in position before the attack begins."

Orestes nodded one last time, then turned on his heel and made off west, ducking low as he darted across the trail to disappear among the long grasses that covered the slopes on the other side. Gracus watched him until he was out of sight, then turned his horse and trotted it a short distance down the trail until, on the right, the ground fell away in a shallow ridge that swept back up a pair of steep hillsides less than a kilometre away with a narrow valley running between them.

Carefully, he eased his mount down the slope and over the open ground toward the mouth of the valley where, just out of sight from prying eyes, a small force awaited him. There were just shy of two hundred of them, all at ease in among the long wet grass that coated the valley floor. Some squatted, some sat, and some leaned against their spears, but as one, as soon as Gracus rode into view, they all snapped to attention, straightening their armour and weapons under his caustic eye.

Once they had finished arraying themselves before him – a process that they completed in record time – Gracus nodded approvingly to the front ranks before sliding down from his mount to plant his boots firmly on the ground.

"Men!" he announced with enough volume for the back ranks to hear him, but not so loud as to let his voice carry beyond the valley. "After all this time spent chasing these Helot ghosts in the night, we finally have them." A small murmur went up from the soldiers standing before him, but Gracus continued on regardless. "The Helots who betrayed our brethren, sided with the treacherous Ephors, allowed Good King Leonidas to die on the field of Thermopylae, and that just a few days ago, murdered a whole contingent of our Brothers, now lie within our reach!"

He drew his sword, the steel rasping sibilantly off the leather of its scabbard as the blade slithered free. Holding it in one hand he pointed the tip of the weapon back out past the mouth of the valley and to the wider world beyond.

"They are out there now, lying in wait to ambush our Brothers coming north. What they do not know is that after all this time, we have finally turned the tables on them." He began to stalk back and forth along the front line of soldiers, gesturing animatedly as he went. "They think they can stand between us and the grand destiny our Great King has started us toward. Today is the day we dissuade them of this. So forward my Brothers! Let your new faith sing gladly in your hearts, and lend mighty Cronus your strength so that He may Return to us! Let the Helots be our sacrifice to His power and his glory! Let their blood run cold, and let Cronus be free!"

A cheer went up from the assembled troops, and as one they hefted their spears with a terrific bellow. Gracus watched, satisfied as they began to march, the ground around him seeming to shake from the steady drumming of two hundred pairs of feet. Once the first ranks were out of the valley mouth and approaching the ridge that led up to the trail that would carry them toward the nearby woods, Gracus clambered back onto his horse and eased it to a canter that carried him up the line of soldiers to a man marching steadily on the end of the second rank.

"Give the signal," he commanded as up ahead the first rank began to scale the ridge.

The man nodded and reached to his side where, alongside his sword, he also carried a fair sized ivory horn with a carved and polished bone mouthpiece. Lifting it to his lips, he took a deep breath, then blew.

The sound of the horn rolled mournfully across the countryside, and for a brief moment, there was only silence save for the steady thrum of marching feet. Then, from somewhere away to the south, beyond the woodland they were marching toward, there came the answering blast of another horn.

Gracus tightened his grip on the horse's reins and gave them a sharp flick, the animal beneath him carrying him up the ridge in only two or three strides. He reached the top of the ridge at the same time as the front rank of soldiers, and as one, the Spartan unit began to angle southward. He could barely contain his excitement.

This was it.

Today the last of the Helots died.

Chapter Fifteen: Convergence

"Your brother?" Themistocles said, sounding only mildly surprised.

"That's what I said isn't it?" Adrasteia replied, doing her best to avoid looking at Athelis. She could not quite believe it was him, after all this time, standing right in front of her. He looked different than she remembered. In fact, looking at him was almost like looking at a stranger she had never even met before. Athelis had always had mischief in him, a certain twinkle behind his eyes, but now that roguish glint was gone, replaced instead by a hard and faintly hollow expression, as if someone had cut a part of her brother away and never bothered to replace it.

"You never told me you had a brother," Themistocles said, interrupting her thoughts.

"For the past three years I haven't," was her arch reply.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Athelis said, indignantly.

"Exactly what it sounds like!" Adrasteia snapped back angrily as she rounded on him, no longer able to pretend like he was simply not there. "You disappeared, remember? Dad was sick! The family needed you and you just... you just..." She gave an exasperated gesture with her hands. "Where did you go?!"

Athelis opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, he was cut short by a long, rolling call from a horn somewhere to the north. The whole gathering suddenly went very quiet.

"Was that..." the stocky man called Drogo began, but like Athelis before him, he was interrupted as a second horn call echoed between the trees, this one from back the way Adrasteia, Nikias, and Themistocles had come.

"...A Spartan war horn?" Themistocles said, then nodded in answer to his own question. "Sounded a lot like one to me." He turned that steady, measuring gaze of his back to Athelis again. "And it would seem they know where you are."

"But the first one came from the north," Drogo said, turning to face Athelis as well, his face suddenly ashen. "The patrols said there was no one out that way."

"There wasn't!" Athelis said, already shaking his head in disbelief. "I mean, there can't be! I had the road north scouted for three leagues from here. There's no way anyone could make a march like that so quickly."

"And what about the countryside?" Themistocles said. "Did your scouts not bother to check it as well?"

"Spartans always travel in formation," Athelis replied, "If they traveled across country they'd get spread out, and wouldn't be able to form a phalanx quick enough." He was trying to sound confident, the way he had done when he and Adrasteia had been children and he had been trying to lecture her on something, but she knew him well enough to hear the cracks of doubt in his voice.

"Except that that's clearly what they've gone and done," Themistocles said matter-of-factly. "And now they have you as well as us, caught in a classic pincer move."

Athelis looked like he was going to be sick while all around him the Helots shifted uneasily.

"What are we going to do?" one of them said. He looked younger than the rest, and Adrasteia guessed he was not yet even twenty. "Taking on one unit is hard enough, even when we've got surprise on our side. How are we supposed to take on two at once when they know we're here?"

All eyes were now fixed on Athelis, including those of Themistocles, who was standing with his arms folded, watching the younger man carefully.

Adrasteia did not really know how to feel. On the one hand, she felt strangely satisfied that Athelis was being put on the spot like this. After everything he had put their family through, it was no more than he deserved, but at the same time, she realised now was hardly the time for such feelings. They had to figure a way out of this, and it seemed as if, like it or not, he was the one in charge around here. That simple fact alone almost brought Adrasteia out in a cold sweat. Athelis had never been one for responsibility, and seeing him here like this was both unexpected and more than a little worrying. Would he be able to live up to the trust these people had so obviously placed in him, or would he turn and run like he had done so many times before when circumstances turned sour. For a moment she thought he might just do the latter, but then she had to stifle a sigh of relief when his jaw muscles visibly tightened and he straightened his back, staring hard back at Themistocles.

"We stick to the woods," he said. "Use them as cover to retreat back west. When we reach the edge of the trees, we'll make a break across the open ground for the forest and once there we'll split up and make our separate ways back to the camp."

That seemed to satisfy Drogo.

"A good plan," he said, and next to him, Themistocles nodded.

"A good plan indeed," he said, "albeit the obvious one."

Athelis' expression darkened and he took a step toward the Athenian.

"Am I going to have a problem with you?" he said, his voice carrying a hard edge to it. Themistocles did not seem impressed.

"None at all," Themistocles answered. "Not unless you define problem as me pointing out that the Spartans would hardly go to all this trouble to surround you from the north and south, and then leave your most obvious avenue of escape open to you?"

"Maybe they don't have the forces available to completely surround us," Athelis fired back at him. "Did you ever think of that."

Themistocles shrugged. "That could well be the case, it's true, but it could just as easily be a doorway, held invitingly open to lure you in close, only to be slammed shut in your faces when you draw near.

A nervous murmur went up from the assembled Helots causing Athelis to glance to Drogo

"Alright men, that's quite enough of that," the stocky Helot shouted. "Fall in and get ready to march double time! Those Spartans aren't standing out there discussing things and we shouldn't be either. They're coming for us now and we need to be long gone by the time they get here."

More Helots that Adrasteia had not even been aware were there began to appear out of the trees, and despite their apparent misgivings, they began to gather together in a loose formation on the trail in front of them. Like their fellows, they were clad in whatever bits and pieces of armour and weapons they had managed to throw together, and their ragged appearance and lack of iron discipline was a far cry from the Spartans she had seen gathering in their masses on the mustering fields. What had her brother been thinking trying to get people like this to fight against something like that?

As if on cue, Athelis appeared at her side. She had not noticed him approach, but now that he was standing not three feet away from her, she could not help but feel her anger at him bubbling back to the surface. He held out the dagger that had been taken from her earlier.

"We're moving out," he said simply.

"Like I hadn't figured that one out," she retorted, snatching the weapon from him in irritation and tucking it back beneath the cinched belt at her waist.

For a moment, he did not look like he knew quite what to say.

"Teia, I..." he began, then stopped as if he did not know what he had been about to try and say. When he finally spoke again the hardened edge to his voice had fallen away and it was as if the brother she had grown up with was standing in front of her once more, whole and unchanged. "Themistocles says you were trying to head north. Back to Delphi. You'll never make it what with the Spartans blocking the way. I know a place. Somewhere safe where the Spartans won't be able to find you. Themistocles has agreed to come with us, even though he thinks we're almost certainly walking into a trap..." he trailed off again, then, sounding almost embarrassed he added, "...obviously you're more than welcome to come along too."

Something snapped inside her at that moment.

"Glad to hear it," she sneered sarcastically. "After all, I'd hate to think you were about to go running off and leave me to clear up another one of your messes again."

Athelis gave a strangely unreadable look, and for a moment she thought she saw his hand drift toward something he was keeping in one of his pockets. Then his expression hardened, and he was again the almost complete stranger of earlier. His gaze shifted to where Nikias was standing, leaning heavily against his makeshift staff, and looking even worse than he had that morning.

"Your friend over there. Can he keep up?"

Adrasteia nodded.

"He can and he will," she said firmly.

"See to it he does," and with that, Athelis was striding off up the line of Helots.

Adrasteia watched him leave, taking a long deep breath and trying to calm her frayed nerves before moving back to Nikias' side.

"How are we doing?" Nikias asked as she reached him.

"You tell me," Adrasteia said as she dipped her head under the arm at his wounded side, allowing him to keep his weight off it as he walked. Nikias obligingly shifted the walking staff to his other hand.

"I'd say we're a little frustrated, and more than a little surprised. Would I be right in saying so?"

"You wouldn't be far wrong."

"Thought as much."

While they were speaking, the column of Helots had begun to move out with Athelis and Drogo at its head.

"Come on," Adrasteia grunted as she did her best to take some of Nikias' weight. "Best foot forward 'n all that."

Slowly, almost painstakingly, the two of them set off, hobbling along at the back of the column and with every other step drawing a pained grunt from Nikias. At first it was tough going, with the bone numbing weariness of having already spent the entire morning on the move hindering their efforts considerably, but after a hundred metres or so they had begun to find their rhythm and were just managing to keep pace with the Helots' rear ranks.

"Your brother," Nikias managed to say breathily as they moved along the trail. "He's the one who taught you how to use the dagger isn't he?"

Adrasteia merely nodded in answer to his question,

"You said he left you," Nikias pressed. "That your father was ill..."

Adrasteia cut him off sharply.

"Now's hardly the time," she said.

"Perhaps not," Nikias agreed as they moved along the trail after the Helots. "Forgive my curiosity, but time is something we may only have a short amount of remaining."

Adrasteia sighed. She had was quickly learning that when Nikias wanted to talk about something, there was very little that could actually stop him

"Alright," she said, deciding in this case that the path of least resistance was preferable. "I suppose we don't have much else to talk about anyway." She paused as she tried to figure out how best to begin. i8l"Father always wanted Athelis to take over the family business," she managed eventually. "Of course what father expected of Athelis, and what he would actually get seldom matched up. They never could see eye to eye on anything, and so, when Athelis managed to get out of dodge by running off to join up with some mercenary band hired to fight in the Trojan wars, dad ended up stuck with me instead. He never said it obviously, but I could tell I wasn't quite what he'd had in mind. Still, he taught me how to cut deals, how to haggle in the Delphi market places... I don't think I let him down. I  hope  I didn't let him down."

"I'm sure he was very proud of you," Nikias said gently.

Adrasteia gave him a small, thankful smile, but she could already feel a painful lump welling up in her throat as she recalled what had happened next. Without really thinking, she carried on with the story, worried that if she stopped she would never be able to get started again.

"After a year or two – I can't really remember how long – dad got sick," she continued, her voice starting to crack ever so slightly. "All my life he'd been this... I don't know... this rock I suppose. He and mum both. No matter what bad things happened, they were always there. Even when Athelis left, they just kind of squared their shoulders and got on with things. But suddenly it wasn't like that anymore. Dad was sick and not getting better, and mum... well... she didn't seem to know what to do anymore. If she was the one at the ship's wheel, he had been the wind in its sails, and without him we were just adrift. Didn't matter which way you steered, we weren't going anywhere."

She paused again, looking straight ahead and up the trail to where her brother was walking at the head of the Helots.

"Then Athelis came home," she said. "Him coming back was like a fresh wind blowing through the family. Dad started to get better, mum had direction again, and just like that, it was as if he'd never left. I don't think I ever thanked him for that. Maybe I should have. If I had then maybe he wouldn't have..." she paused and sniffed. "...anyway, he tried to help dad run the business, started to settle back down, even had a girl he liked. Her name was Corrina if I remember rightly. I only met her once or twice, but she seemed nice, and Athelis certainly liked her well enough. I remember him telling me she had a bit of a crazy father; an older man and the High Priest of Asclepius no less..."

She glanced at Nikias out of the corner of her eye. He said nothing, simply allowing her to continue with the story, but she could tell he had already put two and two together as to who Corrina's father had been.

"...anyway, everything seemed to be going fine, better than fine even. Everything was going perfectly, as if the gods themselves had smiled on us. And then the Temple of Asclepius burned down, and Athelis lost Corrina to the fire."

Nikias remained silent.

"He was never the same afterwards," Adrasteia continued hollowly. "I tried to reach out to him. We all did, but he wouldn't hear anything of it. One morning I woke up and found our mother weeping in the kitchen. She'd been up to stir Athelis out of his bed only to find him gone, and his old mercenary gear with him. We all knew what it meant; that he wasn't coming back." As she continued to speak, she could feel her voice becoming more heated and anger filled as the outrage and pain from those first few days came flooding back. "Dad started to get worse again and within the year we'd lost him. I don't even know if Athelis knows about that, or if he'd even care for that matter. After dad died, mum was just... just lost I suppose. It was like a light went out inside her. I did my best to keep the business going so that we wouldn't lose our house or go hungry, but without my dad behind me, the local merchants stopped taking me seriously. It was one thing dealing with me when I was old Atreon's daughter, quite another when I was just the girl trying so desperately to hold together a failing enterprise with both hands."

She shrugged as philosophically as she could manage.

"We managed to limp on for a little while longer, but a year after my dad passed, the business was in ruins and I needed money if I was going to keep me and my mum from losing absolutely everything. That's when I went to the temple. I knewbI could use the stipend it would provide for me to take care of my mother, and I suppose the rest you know."

"And now you are here, as is your brother..." Nikias said, then added darkly, "...as is Pelion. Strange are the ways of the Fates, wouldn't you agree?"

Adrasteia tilted an eyebrow at him.

"You're saying that the Fates engineered this?"

Nikias did his best to shrug, which was not easy with one arm clutching a staff and the other slung across Adrasteia's shoulders.

"Perhaps," he said. "Or maybe some other agency."

Adrasteia gave a curious look.

"What are you saying?" she said.

"Think about it my Lady," Nikias replied. "You have seen this man, this Pelion, in your dreams, and at the same time, here you find him. It seems far more than random chance that all this should be tied up so neatly with you and your family, wouldn't you agree?"

"On the other hand, it could all just be an enormous coincidence," came Themistocles' voice, and Adrasteia had to keep herself from starting. She had not realised he had been nearby. Looking around, she also realised that so lost had she been in the telling of her story, she had not even noticed them passing through the edge of the woods and out onto the plains of gentle rolling hillocks between the woods and the forest. The sky over head was leaden and grey, and a chill wind was beginning to blow, rustling the long grasses all around them as they walked. She was suddenly struck by how cold and exposed she felt, and she tried to pull the traveling cloak she was wearing closer with her one free hand.

"Were you eavesdropping?" she said, watching Themistocles as he fell back from where he had apparently been walking a rank or two deep within the Helots.

"I was," Themistocles nodded shamelessly. "After the secrets you've tried to keep from me so far, I'll be damned if I'm about to let you keep anymore."

Adrasteia's even gaze became an annoyed glare.

"Well I hope my own personal problems were entertaining for you."

Themistocles gave the facial equivalent of a shrug.

"I've heard greater tragedies," he said, "but none so informative." He nodded toward the front of the line where Athelis was still striding along. "This brother of yours; just how capable is he?"

"Athelis has been in one fight or another since he was as high as your knees," she said. "He was a mercenary for a little while, eeking out work at the end of the sword wherever he could."

She fixed Themistocles with a measuring stare.

"Why ask me though?" she said suspiciously.

"You're his sister," Themistocles said as if the answer were plainly obvious.

"Yes, but I'm hardly a soldier. That's more your forte. Plus you're hardly a bad judge of character yourself."

Themistocles gave her an oddly weary smile.

"All true," he said. "I was asking in the hope that you might be able to tell me something that would change my opinion of him. What I overheard before hasn't really encouraged me."

Adrasteia frowned.

"You don't think he can get us out of this do you?"|

"Was me expressing my doubts publicly and vocally not enough to persuade you of that already?"

"But Athelis told me you were going to follow him!" Adrasteia blurted out in complete surprise. "I thought he'd told you some plan he had to get us past the Spartans."

Themistocles shook his head.

"Not really. I just realised he was not going to be dissuaded from his course of action, and we stand a better chance of coming through this alive if we have some numbers on our side."

Adrasteia felt as if someone had just punched her in the stomach. Themistocles was walking willingly into what was in all likelihood an ambush?! It just did not seem believable.

"But you have another plan, right?" she said hopefully. "A better plan than just running for the forest and hoping the Spartans haven't got another bunch of troops sat out there waiting for us?"

Themistocles puffed up his cheeks, then let out a long, tired breath.

"That's a 'no', isn't it." Adrasteia said, and Themistocles gave a half amused snort.

"The truth of it is, the trap has already been sprung," he said, "and once that happens there's very little likelihood of escape. At least not without some sacrifice along the way."

He glanced meaningfully at the Helots around them.

"Do you really think it will come to that?"

Before Themistocles could answer, another dull horn blast drifted up from somewhere chillingly close at hand. A shouted order from Drogo came back down the line, and the Helot column shuddered to a halt. They were standing in a shallow basin in among the long grasses that grew in the shelter that the surrounding hillocks provided. Less than a half mile ahead, the ground rose gently upward in a slope to crest some twenty feet up. All eyes in the column were fixed straight ahead and as she followed the lines of their gazes, she felt her heart miss a beat, only to then thunder harder than ever in her chest.

She could see spear heads, bolt upright and getting larger by the second, swaying only slightly above the line of the not so distant horizon. Very quickly those spear heads were joined by actual heads, clad in blue crested bronze helms with heavy cheek and nose guards that obscured most of their wearers faces. Two more horn blasts sounded at their rear from slightly different locations, but they were far more distant and few of the Helots paid them any mind as the Spartan unit ahead of them crested the hill.

Adrasteia remembered how she had been intimidated by the sight of them standing to attention on the shoreline at Tryxis when she had first stepped off the ship. Then they had been as fearsome as anything she had ever seen. Now, in their black boiled leather breast plates and heavy helms, carrying those huge shields and spears, they looked like death itself marching toward them.

"ARCHERS!" She heard Athelis shout, and a group of about fifteen Helots – some of them the same men that had held her at arrow point less than an hour before – trotted out of the ranks to form up in a line at the head of the column.

"READY!" Athelis commanded, and the line of men unslung their bows, nocked an arrow each, and prepared to fire straight at the approaching Spartans. For a more distant foe they would have fired up into the air, but the Spartans were drawing so close that their was almost no need. You could practically see their eyes by now.

"LOOSE!" Athelis commanded.

The sound of fifteen bow strings twanging filled the air, and Adrasteia's breath caught in her throat as she waited for the front line of Spartans to fall. Not a one did. Instead, with perfectly practiced movements, so smooth they might as well have all been the same person, the entire Spartan formation dropped to one knee and raised their shields. The front ranks lifted theirs to directly face the Helots, while the rest lifted them to over their heads. The effect was of a giant, bronze shelled turtle, crouching in the grass before them.

The first arrows struck home with hollow clangs as they either bounced off or managed to puncture the bronze, but not a single one found a human mark. Following the first arrow shots, the Spartans as one regained their feet.

"READY!" Adrasteia heard Athelis shout.

An unrecognisable barked command echoed out from the midst of the Spartan formation, and then, with a single shout of answer, the formation began to creep toward them, still keeping its shields hoisted.

"LOOSE!" Athelis shouted again

The result was the same as before, and so was the volley after that, and all the while, the Spartans were inching closer and closer and closer.

"SKIRMISHERS!" Adrasteia heard Drogo shout, and the archers immediately dropped back. The remaining Helots began to heft their many mismatched weapons and brace themselves for the inevitable charge.

She glanced back toward the woods they had come from. They were only a few hundred metres away. Reachable at a run if they went now.

Nikias' hand tightened on her shoulder, and she turned to look at him. There was a resignation in his eyes and he shook his head at her.

"There's no more running," she heard Themistocles say at her side. She glanced over at him to see him slowly sliding the blade of his sword free. "Not any more."

He cast a glance back at her.

"By the way," he said with a resigned smirk, "You know how some people hate to say 'I told you so'?"

Adrasteia reached beneath her belt and drew her dagger, before nodding.

"I do."

"Well it should come as no surprise to you that I'm not one of them."

Ahead of them, the Spartans broke formation and charged.

*****

Ithius moved his horse along the narrow gully that led out from among the forest trees. The gully was shallow, and the only way that he and the procession of mounted Helots behind him could keep their animals below the hill line above was to trot along the stream at the gully's very base.

There twenty of them in total, making for a little more than Arkus had predicted, and Ithius was amazed that they had actually managed to find each of them a horse to ride with enough spares left over that they actually had a reserve to bring along. He had half expected Athelis to have made off with the few horses they had, but according to Dion, who was now riding two or three people back behind Ithius, Athelis had decided against taking the horses so was to able to move less conspicuously through the countryside. Ithius could understand that, and had he been in Athelis' place, he may even have done the same thing. Unfortunately, with the need for speed almost paramount in their current situation, he had had little option but to mount up and ride out. There were other obvious advantages to being mounted too, but so far he had been hoping that he would not have to rely on those.

At his side he heard a gentle cough. Twisting in his saddle, he found that Dion had rode up to his side and was looking nervously ahead now that they were clear of the forest trees.

"Do you think we'll actually find them?" the younger man asked.

"Why wouldn't we?"

Dion looked at Ithius as if he had gone mad.

"They could be anywhere!" he said, sounding almost incredulous. "The Spartans have spent the better part of a month searching for us out here, and all to know avail. How are we any different?"

"Because we have more information than they did," Ithius replied patiently. "Athelis has been using ambush tactics. That means terrain dictates where he's going to have to fight. It also means that once the Spartans figure that out, which they likely already have done, they'll have some idea of the kind of places to find Athelis as well."

"But why this way?" Dion pressed. "Why here?"

"The patrols," Ithius said, as if it were blatantly obvious. "You told me there had been a lot of them passing north recently."

Dion nodded, but said nothing, listening intently to Ithius as he spoke.

"That means there likely using the main north road that runs from Sparta to Delphi," Ithius said, then pointed of east in the direction they were riding. "It's right that way, not more than a league from here."

Dion frowned.

"So?"

"So I've ridden the length of it a couple of times. There's only so many spots that are really good for trying to stage an ambush along it."

He shifted his finger so that he was pointing toward a small patch of woodland, barely visible over a nearby hill rise. "That's one of them, and if I realise that, you can bet the Spartans will too."

"But you can't know for certain that that's where..." Dion began, but before he could finish the wind shifted, carrying with it the sounds of desperate shouts and clanging weapons.

Ithius took a deep breath.

"No," he said with a mirthless half smile. "You're right. I can't know for certain," and with that he booted his horse to a gallop, its hooves churning the stream through which they were pounding into a fine spray as he angled it toward a slope that would lead him up to crest the hillside before them. Behind him, he heard Dion give a cry and a shouted order from Arkus, that set the rest of the Helots to the gallop too. Some of them were more tentative on their horses, uncertain of their skill, but most managed to acquit themselves well enough to not fall from their saddles as they galloped up the hill. One or two did have trouble stopping their horses there however, and almost all the animals besides Ithius' pranced nervously on the hill top as their riders fidgeted with the reins.

"I can be lucky though," Ithius said as he stared down over the rolling plains below.

The sight beneath them was not quite as bad as he had expected, but it did look to be about to take a turn for the worse. From his vantage point, he could make out a group of Helots, locked in close combat with a larger unit of Spartans. If Ithius squinted, he could just make out the outlines of Athelis and Drogo, fighting side by side, along with several other people he did not recognise.

Frowning at the appearance of these strangers, he did his best to turn his attention to the battle itself. The Helots were managing to keep their attackers at bay, although their resistance already seemed to be close to the tipping point. What was worse though, was that the full Spartan unit had not engaged. A large contingent of them were hanging back from the brutal melee taking place before them. A quick glance toward the woods was enough to confirm why the unit commander was holding back his full strength. He had committed only what troops he needed to hold Athelis and his people in place. Already a larger force of at least two phalanx units was emerging from the woodland, and at there head, Ithius could see the familiar high crested helm of a Spartan captain.

Gracus. It had to be.

"I don't understand," Dion said, watching the scene unfold before him with mounting horror. He too had noticed the advancing formations. "Athelis has lost! Why doesn't he run?"

"You've not seen a real battle before, have you?" Ithius said. He did not really need an answer. "You're right though. Most battles are lost in the melee, but lives..." he took a deep breath. "...Lives are lost in the rout. If Athelis tries to flee now, the Spartans holding on the hillside will charge and cut him down."

"But if he stays, he'll be completely outnumbered once the other units arrive!"

"Looks like he's already outnumbered to me," Arkus said, joining the conversation as he rode up beside the pair of them. He looked pale, and a sheen of nervous sweat was covering his brow. "Those last units are just an extra bit of sharpened steel to make the end that much quicker."

"There won't be an end if we can get there first," Ithius said, eyeing the distance between themselves and the battle raging below. "We still have time to change this."

Arkus straightened in his saddles, his fingers twisting around the reins. "What would you have us do?"

Ithius turned to look back over the men seated behind him. As one they all seemed to sit taller under his gaze.

"Okay," he said. "This is the truth of it. We've all of us got people down there. If we are to ride, and ride now, some of you may not survive, but if we don't act now,  none  of them will. Arkus?"

The man nodded to show he was listening.

"You take half the men," Ithius said, and pointed toward the Spartans standing apart from the battle. "Ride hard for them. Clip there wings a little but don't commit to an engagement. Pull back and then make another charge."

Arkus swallowed.

"And the rest of you?" he croaked.

"We'll be lending our strength to the melee," Ithius replied. "Hopefully with you keeping those Spartans out of the battle, our charge may just be enough to tip the scales."

Arkus nodded again, then turned his horse away, gesturing for a number of the men to follow him. They began to sweep gently off at an angle, leaving Ithius and his remaining Helots seated on the hillside.

Turning away from them, Ithius returned his attention to battle playing out below. He reached down and began to tighten the straps that fastened his greaves to his wrists.

"Dion," he shouted. The young man trotted his horse closer. "I want you to stay here and look after the reserve horses."

Dion scowled.

"No," he said, with a firm shake of his head. "I have friends down there that need my help and I'll be, damned if I..."

"Listen to me boy," Ithius cut in, his voice suddenly harder than hammered iron. "The thick of a melee is no place for someone of your age or experience. Don't fool yourself into thinking it will be like some glorious fable that the bards sing songs about for ages to come. It will be bloody and deadly, and that's all."

Dion clenched his teeth, his jaw muscles working against each other as Ithius drew his sword, its steel glinting in the dull afternoon light.

"There's no more time for discussion," he said. "Do as I tell you, and you may yet have your chance to fight. I daresay we'll have need of those mounts before this is through."

The younger man opened his mouth as if to speak once more, then thought better of it and with only a single glower, he turned his horse and went trotting off to the rear of the line to take control of the reserve horses.

Ithius wasted no more time, turning back to the rest of those still waiting behind him.

"It's time," he said. "Ready your weapons and pray to whichever gods you hold dear..." He turned back to the battle, lowering his voice so that none of them would overhear him. "...we're going to need it."

Leveling his sword toward the melee, he raised his voice once more.

"CHARGE!"

*****

The battle had been raging for what seemed like forever around her. Adrasteia, clutched grimly to her dagger at the heart of the Helot formation, hoping against hope that she would not have to use it again, but knowing deep down that what she dreaded most was really only a matter of time. She could not really tell what was going on beyond the tight press of bodies around her, but the air already hung thick with the scent of sweat and blood. From what she could gather, it seemed that the Spartans were making testing jabs at different points in the Helot lines, seeking for some small weak spot they would be able to exploit if given half the chance.

Next to her, Nikias clung to his makeshift staff with one hand, while holding tight to one of his daggers with the other. Themistocles had disappeared at the beginning of the battle, vanishing off into the heaving mass of people with his sword drawn and a determined look on his face. A shout went up from somewhere out in front of them, and the Helots all seemed to stiffen at once.

"You'd best stay close to me my Lady," she heard Nikias say. "I think the Spartans are pressing their advantage. I fear it won't be long before they break through the line."

Adrasteia felt her heart racing in her chest, then suddenly, as if they had heard Nikias' words, the sound of fighting began to intensify and the Helot line contracted sharply. Nearby, two men cried out in alarm, and suddenly one of them was on the ground, a spear wound – red and raw – right through his centre, his eyes already glazing over. The second man back pedaled desperately as the Spartan who had felled his comrade thrust with his spear once again. The retreating man just managed to turn the thrust aside with his own weapon, but the move left him wide open, and the Spartan quickly followed through, casting his spear aside and drawing his sword in a slashing maneuver that sent the Helot sprawling in the dirt with a terrible gash across his chest.

Nikias was there in an instant, moving with such practiced ease in the heat of the moment, it was almost as if the wound in his side did not bother him in the slightest. His makeshift staff swung out as best as he could manage in such close quarters, its tip catching the Spartan hard in the stomach and causing him to double over in pain. Nikias' follow through brought the dagger he was holding up under the man's chin, only to then yank it back as crimson stained the dirt beneath them. The Spartan pitched forward, as dead as the two Helots he had just felled, and Nikias quickly moved to plug the gap in the line, the hand holding the dagger pressed tightly to the injury in his side, and for the first time Teia noticed that his hip and upper thigh were slick with fresh blood.

"Oh gods!" she cried, pressing close behind him. "Nikias! Your wound! You can't do this!"

"I see precious few other options," Nikias replied, his voice tight with pain. His concentration quickly returned to the battle before him, when, from somewhere further down the line, a cry went up.

"THEY'RE BREAKING THROUGH!"

All about them, the Helot resolve started to break and what meager discipline had been present to hold the line together began to fail entirely.

Chaos engulfed everything as around her, Adrasteia watched the line collapse. Nikias threw his staff aside and drew his second dagger, each weapon flashing wet and slick as he worked them against the pressing horde of Spartan warriors that suddenly seemed to be everywhere. Dirt and screams flew and Adrasteia could feel the press of bodies jostling her. Her fingers tightening around the knife in her hands, she willed herself to keep her eyes open, and not to shut them against the horror that was unfolding before her.

Then, above the calamitous din of battle, there arose another sound, like the rumble of distant thunder, only drawing closer with each passing moment.

"What is that...?" she began to say, but her question was answered before she could even finish speaking.

Out of nowhere there were suddenly horses, ridden by ragged looking men in the same mismatched armour as the Helots around them and led by a figure expertly wielding a long bladed sword from the back of his mount. Though there were not many of them, the horsemen hit the Spartans in their left flank with all the force of a dozen charging Minotaurs, and the reaction was practically immediate. A ragged cheer went up from the Helot line, and where only moments before they had been about to turn and flee, now they rallied, suddenly revitalised by the arrival of the newcomers.

"ITHIUS!" she heard a few of them chanting loudly. "ITHIUS! ITHIUS!"

The Spartans slowly began to draw back, completely overwhelmed by the unexpected assault they had just endured. The horsemen pressed their advantage, pulling back from the battle only to wheel about and charge again. This second charge was less effective than the first as already the Spartan formation was beginning to adjust its tactics to meet the threat head on, their shields lowering once more, and their spears rising to catch the charging horses before they could ever reach their line.

Suddenly able to catch her breath, Adrasteia finally had a moment to take stock of the wider situation. The Helot line had been devastated. Everywhere she looked she could see bodies of both Helots and Spartans, and where there were not bodies, the survivors were blood stained and exhausted. On the hillside before her, she could make out a second set of horsemen mounting attacks against a larger Spartan force. Like the one that they had been battling against, this unit had dropped into a defensive stance, and was slowly inching away from the charging horsemen to meet up with the smaller force further down the hill. When the two forces met up, they would be more than a match for the men on horseback. Glancing to their rear, she felt her heart sink as she was able to make out the waving tops of spears approaching from the direction of the woodland to the east.

They were surrounded. The horesmen's charge had bought them a brief respite, nothing more.

Turning back, she saw Nikias, breathing hard, collapse to his knees in the dirt. She was at his side in an instant, pulling back the ragged makeshift bandages to try and get a better look at his injury.

"It is... alright... my Lady," she heard him say, his voice coming in pained, rasping gasps.

"I'll be the judge of that," she said, only to bite back a curse as she peeled the last of the bandages back. The burned skin that had sealed off the wound had broken under the exertion of combat and his blood was flowing thick and fast now. Quickly, she reached down and ripped a fresh series of strips from her already ragged cloak, pressing them hard against the injury in a vein effort to stem the flow.

"TEIA!" she heard a voice calling, one that she barely recognised as belonging to her brother. "TEIA, WHERE ARE YOU!?"

Barely even glancing back over her shoulder, she caught sight of Athelis picking his way toward them. With a grunt and a shake of her head, she went back to tending Nikias.

"Teia, thank the gods, there you are," she heard Athelis say as he walked up behind her. "For a moment there I thought... well, I'm just glad to see that you're safe."

He reached down and she felt his grip close around her forearm.

"Come on," he said. "The battle's lost, and we need to fall back."

"Fall back," she said, her voice rising quickly as fury overwhelmed her and she wrenched her arm free from his grip. "FALL BACK!? How? Where to?" She was on her feet in an instant, her eyes blazing hot as she pointed back toward the east. "In case you hadn't noticed brother, you only went and marched these people straight into a trap. Now you're surrounded and there's no way out! Everyone of these men is going to die, and it will all be your fault!"

For a moment, Athelis looked taken aback by her anger, then his face set, and that bleak hardness settled over him again.

"I was just trying..." he began, and Adrasteia gave an exasperated groan.

"I don't care!" she said. "I don't care about your justifications, or what good you thought you were trying to do, if you even thought of that at all! Look around you Athelis! Look at these people! Can you honestly tell me what you wanted was worth all of this?"

The muscles in her brother's jaw flexed, but before he could answer her, there came a polite cough from nearby. Turning, they both saw Themistocles, now mounted on a horse and seated not a few feet away. Beside him, also on horseback, was the man Adrasteia had seen leading the horse charge earlier. Behind them, she could make out a young man with a cluster of spare horses, helping those survivors still able to ride up onto their mounts. Beyond that, the Spartan unit they had been fighting against was in the process of forming back up with its twin from further up the hillside while the mounted Helots, now also consolidated as a single group circled them warily, keeping them boxed in so as to allow the remains of Athelis' force to regroup.

"I don't normally like to involve myself in domestic quarrels," Themistocles said, "but I hardly think now is the time or the place to be casting blame." He glanced at the tall man with the long sword seated beside him and then toward Athelis. "I find that is usually best done elsewhere."

For the first time, Adrasteia noticed the way the tall man was also watching Athelis. He was sitting straight backed and imperious in his saddle, his eyes narrowed accusingly at the younger man standing before him. Athelis, for his part, appeared only slightly chastened, glaring steadily back at the other man.

"I agree," said the tall man on the horse, and then suddenly his eyes darted past Athelis and to the few milling survivors still unmounted.

"Drogo was with you," he said. "Where is he?"

The question seemed to give Athelis pause, and when he spoke again, his voice was dry and raspy.

"Dead," he said, then swallowed as the man's gaze became all the harder. "A Spartan spear took him in the first charge."

"Excuse me," Adrasteia said, stepping forward, "but who are you exactly?"

"My name's Ithius," the man said, then sighed as if what he were about to say was not actually the truth. "I suppose you could say I'm the leader of these people." He shot Athelis another dangerous look. "What's left of them anyway."

"Well, thank you for your help," Adrasteia said. "My name's..."

Ithius lifted his hand to cut her off.

"There's no need," he said. "Themistocles has already told me who you are and what your purpose is, and we really don't have time to be going through it again." He twisted to face Themistocles. "You're welcome to come with us by the way."

"That offer is accepted and much appreciated," Themistocles said, with the first genuinely gracious nod that Adrasteia thought she had ever seen him give. Ithius returned the nod as behind him, the young man she had seen earlier appeared, leading a few of the remaining spare horses with him.

Athelis wasted no time in mounting up, his face a stony mask as he seated his animal. From beside her, Nikias let out a pained groan as, with great effort, he managed to heave himself back to his feet.

"Come my Lady," he said, his voice almost painfully thin now. "We should get you up on one of these horses yourself."

"Come with you?" she said frowning over at Ithius as she clambered up into the saddle of her own mount, a dirty blonde mare with a shaggy mane. The animal pranced lightly, but standing at her knee, Nikias soothed it with a quiet whisper and a surprisingly gentle touch. "But the Spartans have us surrounded," she continued. "Where are we supposed to go?"

Ithius, who had been gesturing over his shoulder for the distant mounted unit to pull back, turned back to face her.

"They're Phalanx units," he said simply. Behind him, Adrasteia could see the main mounted force peeling off from the battle and starting out toward the not so distant forest to the west across the crests of the shallow hills. "They don't go mounted. We can easily outpace them if we leave now."

"Which is why I am afraid this is where I must bid you all farewell," Nikias said.

"What..." Adrasteia began, her brain scrambling as she tried to process what Nikias had just said. "...wait... no! Nikias, no. You can't. I won't let you..."

"My Lady, please," he said, cutting off her protests with a single raised palm. "We both know that in the state I am now, I am hardly fit to ride, and that were I to even try, I would only slow you down. Speed is of the essence, and I am afraid there is no more time to discuss it."

He turned to glance at Themistocles.

"My Lord Archon," he said, holding out the reins of Adrasteia's horse. "If you would be so kind."

Themistocles eyed the bloodied man before him with a newfound look of respect, then trotted his horse over to them, leaning down from his saddle and taking the reins from Nikias, pausing only to reach out and shake the other man's hand before straightening once more.

"It has been an honour," Nikias said weakly, the life already seeming to seep out of him.

"The honour was mine," Themistocles replied, before turning his horse and starting to lead Adrasteia away.

"You can't do this!" she shouted at him, tears stinging her eyes, as her horse started to turn with him. "He's not a thing! Not just some tool to be used and then discarded!" Themistocles said nothing, only squaring his shoulders in response and continuing to lead her horse away.

Without thinking, she let out a curse that would have made a seaman blush, and began to swing her legs free of the saddle. She was about to jump down to the ground, when she felt Nikias press a hand to her knee.

"My Lady, no," he said, his eyes desperate and imploring. "Since this journey began I have done all for you. If you do indeed hold me dear, and respect me as a friend, then please, I beg of you, do this one thing for me now."

Adrasteia paused, staring at him for moments that seemed to stretch on into minutes.

"Please," he said one last time, and for the first time she could remember since her father had died, Adrasteia let out choked sob, before finally managing a pained nod in return.

"It was an honour," she said, echoing Nikias' words to Themistocles earlier.

Nikias flashed her one of those fatherly smiles of his.

"Not just an honour," he said, "a pleasure too I should hope."

Adrasteia felt the pained lump in her throat growing, and she gave a final nod, then turned away as ahead of her, Themistocles clicked his tongue and the horses started to move away.

She could not bring herself to look back again.

*****

The battlefield loomed large before Gracus as he ordered his men to a standstill. With a clattering of spears against shields and armour, the two converged Phalanx units ground to a halt. Orestes' men were milling about ahead of them, picking through the remains of the men lying about the battlefield, presumably searching for survivors, while the silhouettes of departing horses still loomed small but distinct against the outline of the distant forest. It took all his self discipline to keep from letting out a frustrated cry of rage at the sight of the retreating Helots.

"Orestes!" he snapped loudly, sliding easily from his horse's saddle and marching with long, purposeful strides through the churned mud and blood toward the centre of the battlefield. "Orestes!"

The younger Spartan appeared quickly from out of the crowd of milling men, jogging over to Gracus, only to fall immediately to one knee before him when he came within swords reach of the older man.

"Sir!" Orestes barked loudly. "Grave apologies for our failure here today. Please allow me to offer up my own life for this most grievous of..."

"Oh stop it!" Gracus snapped, in frustration. "And get up. I need you to tell me exactly what just happened, not have my time wasted by you grovelling disingenuously in the dirt!"

Orestes lifted his head and eyed Gracus warily before clambering back to his feet.

"It was a cavalry charge, sir," he said, his voice still that same tight military clip, even though his eyes were narrowed and angry.

"One you didn't anticipate?"

"I had no reason to anticipate it sir. Upon my joining up with the unit, we took up position as ordered. When the Helots came into view they matched the information you had already provided us with, so I gave the order to intercept them, leading in some of my force personally, while holding the rest in reserve."

"If you had led in your force in its entirety, the cavalry charge would have been far less effective," Gracus said.

Orestes nodded.

"I understand that sir, but again, I had no reason to suspect such a charge."

Gracus' hand shot out and seized the younger man the neck rim of his breastplate. Hauling him in close, he moved his face to within inches of Orestes', a dark snarl curling across his lips.

"Then let this be a lesson in warfare!" he growled. "Always anticipate the worst. Because of your incompetence, Ithius and those treacherous Helots of his have not only managed to escape once more, yet again making a mockery of us I might add, but in doing so they have also managed to inflict huge casualties on your unit!"

Shifting his grip, he caught Orestes by the throat, and slowly began to squeeze. The younger mans eyes bulged wide, but he put up no resistance as slowly but surely, Gracus cut off his ability to breathe.

"If you fail to learn the lesson you've just been so thoroughly taught, then at least understand this. If I see you caught flat footed like that again, I will have your intestines fed to the nearest pack of wild dogs! Is that clear?"

Orestes, eyes still bulging, nodded, and with that, Gracus shoved him roughly back, causing him to lose his balance and collapse, gasping into the mud. As he did so, he caught sight of a familiar looking figure lying nearby. Frowning, he made his way over to the motionless body, drawing his sword as he went. While the man looked to be dead, it was better not to take any chances. Squatting within arms reach of the apparent corpse, he reached out and gently prodded it in the side with the tip of his blade. Nothing. No movement at all. Not even the rise and fall of the man's chest. Still being cautious, he straightened, and stepped closer to the body, all the while keeping his sword trained on it. Finally, he stuck his boot beneath the corpse's shoulder, then pushed it over onto its back. As the face came into view, Gracus could barely suppress a delighted smile. The man's eyes were open, yet there was no life in them. Still, it was the face that Gracus recognised, and seeing it gave him a small thrill of pleasure.

"Orestes," he called back over his shoulder, but still not taking his eyes off the corpse at his feet. "You may have managed to do some good here today after all."

Behind him, Orestes had apparently finished picking himself up out of the mud, as when he answered he sounded much closer than Gracus had expected him to.

"I don't understand sir," he said, coming to stand at Gracus' side so that he too could look down at the body. "Who is it?"

"His name is – or at least was – Drogo," Gracus said. "Back in Sparta he was a fairly influential Helot. One of the two thousand freed after Marathon like Ithius. We had hoped he had perished at the mustering fields though he was never counted among the dead. Looks like he survived after all, although not any longer."

He turned to look Orestes straight in the eye. The other man betrayed no expression on his face, but again Gracus could read mixed emotions behind his eyes. There was relief there he could see, but also regret. A cruel sneer curled across his face. Orestes was far too soft by half.

"Him being dead will come as a great relief to King Demosthenes," he continued almost conversationally. For a brief moment it looked to him as if Orestes might actually be sick, but the instant passed quickly, and before long Orestes had his face schooled back to stillness again. "One less prominent Helot to deal with after all, eh?"

"Yes sir," the younger man said stiffly.

Gracus was about to speak again, when a shout went up from the milling crowd of Spartans nearby. Frowning in confusion, Gracus watched as two men appeared, dragging what appeared to be a third figure between them.

"Ah," Gracus said, glancing disdainfully at Orestes. "It looks like today might be a more fortunate day for you than you have any right to. If this is what I think it is, there could yet be something we can salvage from this mess." He strode past Orestes, leaving the other man to continue staring down at the dead body in the dirt while he went out to meet the newcomers.

"Report," he said sharply as he came closer to them. "What do you have for me?"

"A survivor sir," one of the men said.

Gracus looked down at the ragged figure they carried between them. He was not a Spartan, his head slumped forward across his chest, and his breathing was shallow and rasping. There was an open wound in his side, but from the looks of it, it was days old and not healing well at all. "Indeed," he said, eyeing the fresh blood oozing from the wound and the man's sickly pallid skin. "But perhaps not a survivor for much longer I fear."

Once more, he squatted down in the dirt at what would be the survivors eye level, before slowly reaching out to cup the man's chin and lift it so that he could see his face. What he saw shocked him more than he had thought it would.

It was the man he had met only a few days before outside the Spartan city council chambers when the envoy had first arrived. If memory served, he had been the young girl's body guard. She had been a pretty one, Gracus remembered, and feisty too. He had liked her. For a brief moment, he wondered if her body was somewhere among the other corpses littering the battlefield, but then quickly discarded it. If she were dead, she would probably have been found already. Her body would stick out like a sore thumb after all. That meant she must have left with the horsemen, which meant this one might know where they had been bound for.

Slowly, he reached down to his boot, pulling free a back up dagger he carried there and lifting it so that the blade rested beneath the man's jaw, it's tip pressing lightly against the soft skin on the underside of his chin.

The man groaned, and his eyes slowly fluttered open as he lifted his head once more. At first he did not seem to be able to focus, which Gracus supposed was hardly surprising considering how much blood he already looked to have lost. Eventually though, the man's vision cleared, and when he finally saw Gracus squatting before him, he let out a low groan.

"Such a shame," he said. "I had hoped to be in Elysium by now."

"Sorry to disappoint you," Gracus replied, then pressed the dagger up tighter under the other man's chin. "I could send you there sooner if you'd like. It would be quick and clean; a painless death far better than the one you're experiencing now."

The man fixed him with a disbelieving look.

"And the price of this magnanimous offer would be me telling you the location of my friends, yes?"

Gracus only shrugged.

"Sounds like it would be a fair trade to me," he said. "You get a pain free ride on Charon's ferry, and myself and my master get what we want too. I fail to see any reason not to take me up on my offer."

The men let out a weak and hacking sound that could have been a cough, or that could have been laughter. Gracus could not quite tell.

"Perhaps the fact that you are a disgusting pustule of a human being, and that I would rather be flogged by all the whips of all the torturers in Tartarus before doing a deal with such as you is reason enough," he said, then smiled irritatingly. "Or of course, the other reason may be that I simply do not know where they have gone." He did his best to shrug. "Take your pick."

Gracus' teeth clenched angrily, and he leaned in closer to the man.

"One would think a man in your situation would be inclined to be more co-operative!" he hissed.

The other man let out a barking, coughing sound that was definitely supposed to be a laugh this time, though Gracus could not help but notice the blood now speckling his lips.

"I'm already dying, Spartan," the man said, all hint of wry amusement draining from his face as he worked his jaw, then spat a bloody wad of sputum at Gracus' feet. "Your threats are empty, your words false. You have no power over me; not you, nor... whatever creature it is... you... now... worship..." as he spoke, his words became slower and more slurred, until his eyes drifted shut once more. He had fallen back into unconsciousness.

Gracus leaned in close to the other man's ear. "That's where you're wrong," he whispered sharply. "I know that you can hear me, so understand this. When our Lord Cronus is reborn into this world, there will be a reckoning for all those such as you who defied him. It will be a fierce and terrible thing, and even the lands of the dead will prove no safe haven from his wrath!"

With that he straightened.

"He has nothing of note to tell us," he said to the two men holding him. "Take him away and cut off his head. Make sure to bring it with us though. I want it stuffed and mounted on the city walls when we return to the city as message for all who would stand against a divine mission. Once you are done with him, ready yourselves and the others to move out. We march for Tryxis in the next ten minutes."

Both men simply nodded then turned, dragging the dying man away with them. Gracus heard a crunch from behind him, and he turned to find Orestes standing at attention behind him, his cloak still muddied from when Gracus had sent him sprawling in the dirt.

"Are you sure that that's a wise decision, sir?" he asked, nodding toward the two men dragging the prisoner away. "Executing him I mean. After all, there may be more information we could glean from him and..."

His voice trailed off as Gracus began to shake his head at him.

"He is next to worthless to us," he said. "He and the girl have not set foot in these lands before, and while the Athenian might have, I doubt he knows them well enough to have worked out ahead of time where Ithius and his Helots are hiding."

"So that's it?" Orestes said, quickening his pace to keep in step with Gracus as the Spartan commander started back toward his horse. "Because they got away this time, we're just letting them go?"

He took a step round in front of Gracus, blocking his path.

"Please sir, allow me this chance to correct my earlier mistakes. I can send some scouts into the woods. The horses won't be that hard to track and-"

Gracus waved him quickly into silence.

"Enough," he said, then fixed Orestes with an even stare. How much could he really trust Orestes? More than Sentos? Less? Was there some ulterior motive for him wanting to send out his scouts to find the Helots? Did he seek to warn them of Spartan approach, or was this instead exactly what it sounded like on the surface? Simply a Spartan soldier doing his duty for the good of the city? Gracus could not quite be certain, but one thing he was certain of, was that he was not about to let Orestes get off a potential warning to the Helots. Still, it might do well to tell him some of the is new plan, if not all of it. Doing so would likely keep the young Spartan mollified, whatever his loyalties. If he was loyal, then he would be happy to have been accepted back so quickly into his commander's confidences. If he was not loyal, well, the results then would eventually speak for themselves,

"Tell me something boy," Gracus asked as he reached his horse and began to swing himself back up into the saddle. "Did you ever used to go hunting as a child? With your father perhaps? Do you even still go now?"

Orestes shook his head.

"Not in a long time sir. Not since I was ten to the best of my knowledge. Why do you ask?"

"Because I have another lesson for you," Gracus replied, a sly smile creasing his lips as he grasped the reins of his mount. "When you've lost something, and you seek to find it again, it's best to use a blood hound that already has the scent."

Chapter Sixteen: The Potential of Stars

"Just how many times now have I pulled your ass out of the fire without so much as a thank you?"

Callisto folded her arms where she stood on the threshold to the strange dark fortress and regarded Ares levelly.

"I don't remember asking for your help," she replied archly. "Not now, or any time before that."

"Funny," the war god replied. "You always seem to need it."

"Doesn't mean you get a 'thank you'."

Ares just smirked at her.

With a long suffering sigh, she uncrossed her arms and stepped past him into the warmth of the light and the fortress beyond. Ares turned to watch her go, then lifted his hand and, with a snap of his fingers, caused the huge heavy doors to slam shut behind them with a percussive boom louder than even the mightiest thunder clap. Callisto just ignored the ostentatious show of power. She had been a god once herself after all and such displays did not impress her; not when she knew they were really all just parlour tricks. Instead her eyes moved carefully back and forth over their surroundings. This nightmare world she was trapped inside was a treacherous place, and she was learning the hard way that nothing was ever as it first appeared. Perhaps if she paid more careful attention to everything around her, she might find some clue as to what was really going on, or at the very least, keep herself from being blindsided again.

She was standing in some kind of courtyard, before what looked to be a larger keep. The ground was laid with hundreds of tiles, each one too smooth and evenly cut to be called cobble stone. Instead they were made from sheer white marble, so flawless and even that it almost seemed to shine. The huge dark walls she had seen from outside were still present, their solid black lines contrasting sharply with the white floor tiles. From this side, they seemed to be almost infinitely tall, making her head spin dizzily when she tried to see the tops of them but if she craned her head right back, she could just make out a hard line of pitch black obsidian carved across a dark night sky that shone with stars much further away than seemed entirely natural.

Even with the strange distortion of reality all around her, where nothing felt entirely in scale and correct, the very presence of the night sky above was like a balm for her nerves. Since Mortius had dropped her into the Pneuma, and this whole ordeal had begun, she had not realised just how pervasive the sense of tension and dread had been, and how, even in open spaces, she had had the constant feeling of walls closing in all around her. Everywhere she had been, from her village conquests with her army, to the shades of Cirra, to her own reliving of the tortures of Tartarus, she had never at any point been able to shake the feeling of eyes and ears all about the place, all of them listening, judging and waiting. Here though, that feeling was gone. The whole place had a strangely relaxing quality that, somewhat paradoxically, put her all the more on edge as she struggled to remain alert. When people got complacent they tended to end up dead, especially where the gods were concerned.

"Nice summer home," she said, turning to face Ares once more.

The war god gave her a deeply sarcastic head bow.

"So glad you approve," he said and Callisto snorted in response.

"What is it really?" she asked.

"What does it look like it is?"

"A fortress."

Ares smiled at her as he lifted his head once more.

"Then that's precisely what it is."

Callisto rolled her eyes.

"Oh c'mon," she groaned. "Knock it off already would you? I've been trapped in this psychological mind game for long enough to know there's more to it than that. What part of me is it supposed to represent? Some deep dark secret I've buried from conscious thought for years and years? Some horrible truth I'm too afraid to face, carefully locked away behind mile high stone walls?"

Ares did not answer straight away, instead, he just strode past her toward the keep, shaking his head as he went.

"You really do seem to think that the world revolves around you, don't you," he called back to her. "Your needs, your wants, your desires. Tell me something," he continued as she lengthened her stride so as to fall into step with him. "What makes you think that this place has anything to do with you?"

"Everywhere else the Pneuma's taken me too so far has done," Callisto said matter-of-factly.

Ares gave a philosophical shrug.

"It's hard to argue with reasoning like that I suppose," he said. "It might even be true.." he paused for a brief moment, his smile widening, "...if this place were indeed part of your own mind."

"Are you saying we're not inside my head any more."

"Oh, absolutely."

"Then who's head are we in? Yours?"

Ares only smiled at her.

"Yours," Callisto nodded to herself in affirmation, "That explains a lot actually."

She glanced at the pure white floor tiles beneath her feet, and the shining starlit night overhead. Something was not quite right here. She turned a questioning gaze at Ares. "Why exactly am I here then? I thought this was all supposed to be my little hall of horrors, not yours."

Ares just shrugged.

"I wanted to have a quiet word with you," he said, as if pulling people into his own mindscape were something he did every day. "And I couldn't very well do that with your own neuroses dogging you at ever turn now, could I?"

Callisto's eyes narrowed.

"My own neuroses?" she said. "Is that what you're saying  she  is?"

Ares did not reply immediately. Instead he turned away and started back toward the keep.

"Come on," he said. "This will need some privacy?"

Callisto gave a confused frown as she started after him again.

"Your own head isn't private enough?"

"Certainly more so than yours, but nothing is completely private where my family is concerned."

"Your family?" Callisto echoed, not even trying to hide the surprise in her voice. "Why would they be spying on you?"

She had a feeling she already knew the answer. It had been provided to her by Ares himself, not so long ago as it happened. Still, she was working on a theory in her head, and the question was one way of testing it.

"My father," Ares said. "He's given orders that none are to interfere in this. Least of all me."

"I wonder why," Callisto jeered sarcastically at him.

Ares did not take the bait. He just kept walking.

They were almost at the keep doors now, and as they approached, those doors swung wide, sending the light beyond spilling out into the courtyard. It was quite different from the light that had spilled from the fortress into the forest. That light had been pure searing brilliance. This light on the other hand was all gold, filled with warmth and radiance. It made Callisto think back to the time she had stood on the walls of Hades' own fortress, staring down at beautiful golden Elysium.

She did her best to push the thoughts aside. She could not afford the distraction. Not now.

Out of the light, two figures marched; soldiers clad head from head to toe in beetle black carapace armor with an oddly opalescent sheen. Their helms had heavy face and nose guards, both so thick that they cast their wearers features into shadow. Each of them also carried with them a heavy shield in one hand and a short sword in the other. Callisto eyed them suspiciously as she walked past and into the entrance hall beyond. As they passed, the two figures straightened, their shields held rigid at their sides, and their sword hands raised to their chests so that the blades of their weapons ran in straight lines up their chests and over their helmets' nose guards.

"An honour guard?" Callisto said disbelievingly. "Inside your own head? Seriously, Ares, just how colossal is your ego?"

"I'm a god, Callisto," he replied, as the doors hammered shut behind them with the same thunderous boom as the ones from before. "By our very nature, we're all about ego."

Callisto looked around them at the grand hall they had just walked into. It was a long rectangle running down to a pair of smaller doors at the opposite end. The walls and floor were all cast of the same stark marble as the tiles outside, while overhead, the ceiling was a beautifully painted fresco of blue summer's sky that, even with her extremely limited artistic taste, Callisto recognised as the work of a master craftsman. It appeared so real in fact, that it took Callisto a moment or two to realise that the sun at the centre of the fresco was not the source of light in the hall. The actual light source she could not quite place, but she was becoming so used to that now strangeness by now that it seemed almost normal in comparison to some of the other bizarre landscapes through which she was traveling.

Along the walls to either side of her were more doors, leading off to rooms and hallways unknown. All appeared of a piece with the wall, except that each was decorated with uniform golden inlays that suggested to Callisto the lines of an unseen wind blowing through the hall. The same was true of the columns that stood inset from the walls, but between the doors all the same. They lined a long carpeted walkway, raised up from the rest of the hall's floor by a couple of steps. The carpet itself was a rich sky blue to match the fresco over head, and Callisto's boots left grubby footprints in her wake as she walked along it. Flanking the walkway at regular intervals were the same guardsmen that had met them at the doors. As with those soldiers, these guards would spin and salute as she and Ares passed, their black armour a stark contrast to their rich surroundings.

It was that contrast that clinched it for Callisto. She had had her doubts already of course, but seeing these men in their black armour against such obvious Olympian splendour was the final kindling on the funeral pyre of Ares' credibility.

"Soooo," she said rolling the word off her tongue as they approached the smaller doors at the far end of the hall. "Mind telling me exactly which god it is you are? If you  are  even a god at all for that matter."

Ares stopped by the doors between two of the guards, his back turned to her.

"And what makes you believe I am anything other than what I say I am?" he said a shade too evenly.

"Lots of things," Callisto said. "I may not be sure who you really are, but one thing's for certain. You're definitely not Ares."

The thing wearing Ares' face turned to look at her, a knowing and most un-Ares-like smile playing across his features.

"Very good," he said with an approving nod. "I confess, the clues were there on purpose, but if you would be so kind as to elaborate all the same. I wish to see how many you picked up on."

Callisto grinned devilishly.

"I suppose I can talk you through it," she said, feeling some of the confident swagger that used to come so naturally to her begin to return. "It's not like I've got anywhere else to be."

The Ares-a-like's smile widened.

"You may be wrong about that," it said, then gestured for her to continue. "But please, do continue."

Callisto shrugged, and held up her hand, fingers splayed to begin checking items off them as she spoke.

"One:" she began, "nothing in these mindscapes is what it appears to be. I've learned that the hard way. Two: the way you talk. Ares never takes my jibes with such good humour." She checked off another finger. "Three: when I asked you why your own family would be spying on you, you actually answered my question."

The Ares-thing's eyebrow tilted upward.

"Was I not supposed to?" he said, sounding faintly amused.

"Not when I already asked Ares himself the same question, and he answered it," Callisto replied. "That's assuming that was Ares, obviously, but I think it was. Whoever it was isn't the point. The point is that  you  are clearly not the same person that that Ares was."

"If this occasion was when you first attempted to contact Ares using the Pneuma in Sparta, I can all but assure you that on that occasion, the person you met was indeed Ares," the Ares-a-like said. "But please do carry on. This is most interesting."

Callisto shrugged.

"Four:" she said. "the décor." She gestured to the walls of the hall and fresco overhead. "Something tells me this isn't the way Ares chooses to decorate the inside of his head."

"And why not?" the Ares-a-like said. "He is an Olympian after all and were you to visit, I think you would find that much of Olympus looks like this."

"Oh please," Callisto sneered, waving away the argument dismissively. "I've seen Ares' Halls of War. The place is testament to testosterone. There's a not a wall in their he doesn't have covered in spears, swords or other shiny phallic objects. His taste certainly doesn't run to cloudy paintings and gold leaf."

She paused for a moment to arrange her thoughts, then pointed to the soldiers lining the chamber. "The guards were a nice touch, I have to say, but I don't think any of the gods, least of all one as vain as Ares, would let them clash so badly with their surroundings. It doesn't really speak of 'glory and power everlasting'. More 'King on a limited budget'"

The Ares-a-like nodded.

"Quite right too," he said, "All these nasty, ugly things cluttering up the place." He snapped his fingers and in a burst of light, all the soldiers save the one standing closest to the Ares doppelganger, had vanished to be replaced with solid gold statues of the whole Olympian pantheon, Ares included. The only member missing from the lineup that Callisto could see was Zeus himself.

"I must say I'm quite impressed," the Ares-a-like nodded. "No actually. Very impressed. You did miss one detail however."

Callisto folded her arms, and regarded the doppelganger challengingly.

"Oh really?"

"Really," the Ares-a-like replied, stepping over to the single remaining soldier. "You were right of course. Ares' ego is quite colossal. More so than almost any of the gods truth be told." He paused as if considering something for a moment, before shrugging. "Apollo might give him a run for his money, but that's neither here nor there."

"Stop making a meal of this," Callisto said, drumming her long fingers impatiently against her biceps. "Just tell me what I missed."

"Please, my dear," the Ares-a-like said with mock pain in his voice. "I allowed you your moment of glory. It would be most improper of you not to allow me mine."

"Propriety was never my strong point," Callisto replied.

"Indeed," the other man said with a sigh. "Very well then..." and without any warning, he reached out and knocked the soldiers helm from his head.

Or what would have been a head if their had actually been a soldier inside. The illusion no longer required, the armour clattered noisily to the floor, as empty as any suit of display armour Callisto had ever seen.

"Ares  is  an egotist..." the Ares-a-like explained as Callisto stared at the armour, no longer having to even try to fake surprise. "...but he is also insecure. He requires far too much adoration to surround himself with such hollow automata, not when he could be surrounded this..."

At a gesture the sound of thousands upon thousands of voices chanting the name 'Ares' over and over again filled the air like rolling thunder.

Callisto just cocked her head to one side and raised an eyebrow at the Ares-a-like.

"Are you finished?" she shouted over the din.

The smile vanished from the doppelganger's face and he gave a deflated sigh.

"Apparently so," he said, and the voices ceased with startling abruptness.

As all fell silent once more, the Ares doppelganger lifted a finger and tapped it thoughtfully against his lips.

"Now that all that is out of the way, there is only one question remaining I suppose."

"And that would be?"

"Just who it is you think I am,"

"Isn't it obvious?" Callisto said, honestly surprised he even had to ask the question. "You're Zeus."

"And why would that be obvious?"

Callisto shrugged.

"Simple really," she said. "I just met your dad after all. After the way I left him, I doubt you'd be him again, and a love of playing dress up does seem to run in your family, or are you going to try and tell me that Alkmeme seeing you as her husband was just a trick of the light?"

The Ares-a-like paused for a moment and then began a slow round of solo applause. As he did so, his appearance began to shift before Callisto's very eyes. While his stature remained the same, his head tilted back slighlty, taking on the imperious air of a King upon his throne, while the black leathers Ares was so fond of began to lengthen until they hung down to the floor, their colour shifting from stark black with silver embroidery, to rich crimson with gold linings. The face aged too, as did the eyes, turning a stormy grey, while the mann's beard lengthened and whitened until it spilled midway down his chestchest. Before long, the image of Ares standing before her had vanished completely, and the it was the King of the Gods who remained.

"Bravo," he said, still applauding. "I really must say, bravo. I am glad to see you've regained some of your wits. The last time we met, the Pneuma seemed to have stripped them from you."

"The last time we..." Callisto frowned in confusion, then suddenly her eyes widened in realisation. "Wait a minute!" she said, pointing a finger straight at Zeus. "In the tunnels. That was you!?"

Zeus gave a slight bow of his head.

"But why the disguise?" Callisto said, still not quite able to put two and two together. "If you wanted to speak with me so badly, why not just... you know..." she wiggled her fingers in imitation of the flash of light the gods tended to use to announce their arrival.

Zeus tilted an eyebrow at her, taunting her to think more carefully. Suddenly Callisto snapped her fingers.

"The rule!" she said. "Ares told me you'd forbidden the others from interfering."

"And with good reason," Zeus replied. "My family have a tendency to make a huge mess of things when left to their own devices. Just look at where Ares' interference landed you."

He paused, then sighed.

"Still," he continued. "Rules are rules, and even the King of the Gods must abide by his own edicts." He shrugged. "Or at the very least appear to."

Callisto rolled her eyes. Why was it that when the gods were involved, nothing was ever simple?

"So the Ares disguise was just so you could help me, without your family actually knowing you were helping me."

Zeus nodded.

"A bit of obfuscation on my part, I must admit. Ares had already made contact with you once, and that boy has always had trouble doing as he was told. The others would hardly bat an eye to see him defying me yet again, and were one of them to actually inform me of it, well, what would I do? Punish myself?"

He chuckled at his own little trick, causing Callisto the rub at the bridge of her nose impatiently. When his mirth had finally subsided, Zeus gave her long, appraising look.

"I have to admit though, I am impressed. Of course, I knew you had a keen wit when I chose you. Indeed, it's one of the reasons I did, but it is good to see that you can use it for something other than mayhem when you put your mind to it."

Callisto placed her hands on her hips.

"That's the reason then is it?" she said.

Zeus smile vanished.

"Among others, yes," he nodded.

"And among those others reasons would be that I'm expendable, correct?"

To his credit, Zeus did not even blink when she spoke.

"Ares told you that did he?"

Callisto nodded. "And more besides."

"I may actually  have  to have words with him when we next meet," Zeus muttered, more for himself than for Callisto.

"Oh don't go out of the way on my account," she sneered sarcastically at him. "After all, we wouldn't want the disposable champion to go causing trouble for the god of war now, would we."

Zeus fixed her with a steady gaze that she met defiantly with an angry glare of her own. She was tired of playing games with gods. For once she just wanted someone to talk straight with her and if that meant staring down the King of Olympus, well then, so be it.

Eventually, Zeus sighed and turned back toward the pair of doors he had been about to walk through before Callisto had started all this.

"Come with me Callisto," he said. "There's still much we need to discuss."

Callisto had to fight the sudden urge she was having to hurl herself at the old god, and instead stalked after him, her fingers hooked into claws and working the air furiously at her sides.

"What you have to remember," Zeus continued as the doors swung open, revealing a long corridor with a low ceiling beyond, "is that I never do things for a single reason alone. There are many reasons for every action I take, and none of those choices are made lightly. Much has to be considered, checks and balances weighted, etcetera, etcetera..." as he spoke, he twirled an index finger in a lazy circle to better emphasise his point. "The choice of yourself to act as my champion in this matter was not an easy one, for obvious reasons, but if it matters so much to you to know, then yes. You were the most practical of choices. Not only could I afford to lose you, you yourself had nothing more to loose. Does that not sound like the perfect match to you?"

Callisto felt her anger rising inside her, and clearly Zeus had not missed it either.

"I guess not," he said casting a backward glance at her.

"I'm no tool," she said sharply. "You don't just use me up and then throw me away."

"I never said you were," Zeus replied, "Expendable, Callisto, is not the same as disposable."

Callisto barreled on with her protests without really listening to him.

"We had a deal!" she snapped. "Me, you and Hades. We had a deal. Me as your champion for the price of entry into Elysium."

"The deal still stands Callisto. It has never changed."

"Then tell me the other reasons," Callisto pressed.

"I'm sorry?" Zeus said, his tone darkening.

"You said there were other reasons you chose me" she said, ignoring the threatening edge that the Olympian's voice had taken on. "I want to know what they were."

"What do they matter?" Zeus said. "None of them are relevant to you."

"I'll be the judge of that," Callisto hissed angrily, causing Zeus to stop short in the corridor.

"I would remind you to watch your tone with me, Callisto," he said tightly. "I may be Hercules' father, but cross me and you will very quickly discover I do not have his forgiving nature."

"Is that why you buried your own father in Tartarus?" she replied, not even remotely intimidated. "He's really got it in for you by the way. You, and all the rest of your family, and boy, you should hear the way he talks." She cocked her head slightly. "The phrase is 'single minded' isn't it?"

Zeus expression soured.

"I don't suppose that would happen to remind you of anyone?"

Callisto grinned.

"Is that one of the other reasons?" she said. "Find a dog who'll eat a dog?"

"You are addressing the Lord of Olympus, Callisto. I don't have to answer your questions."

Callisto gave a shrug in response.

"And I don't have to bow and scrape for your answers either. You came to me remember, not the other way around. If you wanted someone who was going to let you walk all over them, I daresay you'd have found yourself a different doormat."

Zeus eyed her measuringly for a long while before finally letting out a sigh.

"And in that you are a quite right," he said, then turned and began to make his way along the corridor again. "If it really is solid answers you want, I'm afraid I do not have any. Much is in flux, Callisto, yourself most of all, or else I would not have desired to speak with you so urgently. You and your fate are tilting upon a knife edge, though I'm not sure that you realise it. The answers you seek are yours to find, not mine to give." He gestured to the average sized and completely unassuming oaken double doors that were at the opposite end of the corridor to them. "What lies beyond those doors may help you, but again, I offer no guarantees. All that I can guarantee is that I will not lie to you. If there is one thing your efforts so far have earned you, it is my honesty. Is that satisfactory to you?"

Callisto just shrugged again.

"Honesty from a god," she said. "Who'd have thought it. Of course, you could be lying to me right now."

They had just reached the doors, and as he reached out his hand to place it against the handle, Zeus' smile returned.

"I could indeed," he said. "But ask yourself this. If the ends are justified, was the lie not worth it?"

With that, he turned and pushed hard against the doors. They swung open slowly, being thicker and heavier than they at first appeared. As they opened the air filled with a strange sound; a never ending clanking of metal against metal, combined with a low yet omnipresent rumble.

Zeus paused at the threshold, casting her a backward glance before ducking through the door. Callisto followed close behind him, doing her best not to let her jaw hang open. There was little she had seen in her life that could actually be said to have overawed her, but what waited beyond those doors did just that.

The chamber beyond was higher than any other Zeus had led her through so far. It was circular, with a domed roof that towered high overhead, and that had been painted, as far as Callisto could tell, with all the constellations of the night sky. It was not the chamber itself that practically had her jaw hanging to the floor in shock however, but rather the huge contraption at the centre of it. It was quite unlike anything she had ever seen. A giant central pole was raised vertically up to what looked to be the exact centre of the chamber, and mounted at its top was a huge brass replica of the sun as it shone at the very height of the day. From this rod jutted nine hinged arms, all at differing heights and lengths, and all of them L-shaped. On the end of each of these was a large spherical object, and though all were the same shape, each sphere was different in size, with the ninth and most distant from the sun being by far the smallest, while the fifth was by far the largest. Two more of the spheres had large engraved discs mounted around them, giving the impression that each was surrounded by multiple banded rings. Arrayed across the floor, beneath the mass of rods, arms and spheres, were a series of large wheels with what Callisto could only think of as teeth that interlocked with one another. These wheels were turning even as they entered the room, the huge teeth biting hard against one another, so that the momentum of one wheel turned the next, and then the next, and so on, until the wheel to which the central pole was attached also turned. Even with how heavy the contraption looked, cast as it was almost entirely of solid bronze, there was still a strange hypnotic motion to it all. The sun turned, the arms swung and the spheres twisted ceaselessly, while all the while the bronze and metal clanked and ground heavily against the background thrum of the chamber.

"Something the matter?" she heard Zeus ask, his voice tinged with amusement.

"With me?" Callisto said, still staring up at the mechanism as it twisted and turned loudly in its intricate dance of bronze and brass. She shook her head, completely unable to look away from the spiraling spheres overhead. "Nothing's the matter. Why would anything be the matter?"

"Oh, I don't know," she heard Zeus say, his amusement clearly growing. "You just seem somewhat distracted."

"Can't imagine why that would be," Callisto said, finally managing to wrench her eyes away from the massive contraption. She pointed up at it. "What is this thing?"

A smile creased Zeus' face beneath his thick and bushy beard.

"This 'thing', Callisto, as you so eloquently put it, is my domain, or at least the nearest form of it that those like yourself can grasp at a conceptual level." He spread his arms wide to encompass the entire tableau before them. "These are the very heavens themselves, if only a small portion of them."

Callisto folded her arms again, and regarded Zeus askance.

"And you have them here because...?"

Zeus glanced at her, seemingly a little put out by the fact she did not seem more impressed. In truth, the huge bronze orrery was a sight to behold, but it would not do to let Zeus see her as being any more amazed than he already had done. Even with the King of the Gods, she had a reputation for irreverence to uphold and standing staring like a slack jawed farm girl was not about to help her case any.

"Because this is the deepest recess of my mind," Zeus said. "And that means the most secure. There are very few who can invade my privacy here without my say so, and none who have cause to be watching. Here we can talk safely, away from prying eyes..." he paused for a brief moment. "...for a little while at least."

"So, what?" Callisto said. "I should be honored then?" She paused and glanced about herself. "Sorry," she said after a long moment. "Not feeling it."

Zeus gave a chuckle.

"Is nothing sacred to you?" he asked.

"You've seen inside my head," Callisto replied. "That's what the Pneuma is for, right? Why don't you tell me."

Zeus regarded her carefully from beneath his thick white eyebrows.

"What do you know of the Pneuma?" he asked.

Callisto's brows knitted together in thought. While she could now remember everything, she still had difficulty recalling it all with absolute clarity. Some things were still jumbled and mixed up, and it took effort to piece them all together in a way that made sense. Before too long had passed though, she was remembering an Oracle of Ares, Miranda, telling her what the Pneuma was.

"It's a test," she said, "A drug the Oracles take to prove they're worthy of speaking with you."

Zeus nodded, but did not seem impressed by her knowledge.

"The lay person's descriptive," he said. "But what does it actually  do ? How does it work?"

"You expect me to know that?" Callisto said incredulously.

"Considering how long you have been under its effects, and your own intelligence, I thought you might have figured it out by now, yes," Zeus said.

Callisto's jaw tightened in irritation.

"It gives you nightmares," she said, "makes you see things you're afraid of so that you can prove your strength of will by overcoming them."

"And what did you see?" Zeus said, leaning forward slightly with interest.

The image of her doppelganger standing beside the withered corpse of Xena flashed across Callisto's mind, and she tilted her head back defensively.

"You know what I saw."

Zeus nodded.

"I do," he said. "But this isn't about me. What I saw is entirely beside the point. I want you to tell me what  you  saw."

"Nothing that makes sense!" Callisto snapped in irritation. "Your Pneuma must have curdled in all those centuries it was underground, because nothing I've seen has meant anything!"

A small knowing smile tugged at one corner of Zeus' mouth.

"Oh, it means something," he said. "Of that I can assure you. You just need to look at things from a different angle."

"Care to tell me which angle?" Callisto retorted sarcastically. "Ninety degrees maybe? Or from underneath?"

Zeus just shook his head.

"You mortals," he said with a long suffering sigh. "Always so literal minded. Well how about this then? Pneuma, Callisto, is far more than a simple drug. It is a force for change. It shows us truth, where once all we perceived were lies. In overcoming those myriad deceptions our minds build to protect us, we can be renewed, set free of the chains we trap ourselves in, and be at once both greater and wiser than we were before."

" If  that's even true," Callisto said, "it doesn't seem to be working on me."

Zeus shrugged.

"All change is borne of pain," he said matter-of-factly. "You're running from yours."

Callisto felt her muscles turn rigid.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" she hissed.

"You see yourself," Zeus said, his tone no longer one of wry amusement. "Tell me something; this other you, the one that's been chasing you through that twisted labyrinth of horror, suffering and sadness you call a subconscious," he folded his arms as he continued to watch her. "Who is she? Or better yet, what is she?"

"I don't want to talk about her," Callisto said, her jaw setting defiantly.

"What you want is irrelevant," Zeus said. "You will have to face her sooner or later. She is, after all, the key to all of this. Better you do so prepared than not, so I ask again. What. Is. She?"

"I don't know," Callisto spat back at him so quickly that the response was practically automatic.

"Callis-" Zeus began softly, but before he could even finish saying her name, she cut him off again.

"Stop doing that!" She snapped, feeling her anger and frustration building. "Stop saying my name like you know me; like you think we're friends!"

Zeus paused, then nodded.

"You're right of course," he said. "We're not friends. I doubt we ever will be, but you are wrong when you say I don't know you." He took a step toward her, his eyes taking on a steely caste as he did so. "I  do  know you, better than you know yourself it would seem, which is why I can tell you with absolute certainty that you do know what she is."

"NO I DON"T!" Callisto yelled, her anger finally boiling over and spilling out of her in a raging torrent. "Would everyone stop telling me I do! If I could figure it out, don't you think I'd have got myself back to the land of the living by now? That I'd have dealt with her and managed to drag myself out of this hellhole?"

"I would only answer that, since you do know what she is, the question should be why have you not already done exactly that?"

Callisto could not help herself. This was all too much. She span on the spot and kicked out at one of the huge bronze toothed wheels spinning nearby, letting out a pained and frustrated scream, when her foot rebounded off it without leaving so much as a dent.

"Stop talking in circles!" she cursed loudly, her head and foot both throbbing, but with different kinds of pain. She pressed her fingers to her temples and began to rub at them fiercely, turning her back on Zeus as she tried to refocus her thoughts. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she heard them again. Those voices that had come at her before, sharp and insistent now, like a hundred stabbing needles whispering across her brain. From a place deep beneath their feet, the ground began to rumble.

"If I am going in circles, it's because you're making me do so," Zeus said from behind her, his voice patient, but with a cold, hard edge to it now, and apparently completely unperturbed by the rapidly strengthening tremors beginning to rock the chamber. "You are always running Callisto, from the living and the dead. Always running, and yet at the same time, never actually getting anywhere. Does that not sound like the very definition of one who is lost? Whose every step leads them back around to where they started?"

"I don't run," she hissed from between teeth gritted and bared against the pain in her head as she rounded on Zeus sharply "I fear nothing! Do you hear me!? Not man, or god, or beast! NOTHING!" The shaking was becoming worse now, and overhead, the sound of bronze, creaking and groaning under strain, filled the air as the ground beneath it shifted and bucked. Callisto barely noticed any of it. Beneath the hundreds of whispering voices, she could hear something else now. An insane giggle, growing louder and more raucous with every passing moment. It was her own laugh she realised almost immediately, and she felt bile rising in her throat, the very sound of it sickening her.

"Don't you?" Zeus replied, then shook his head in disbelief.

"It's always the same with you isn't it," he continued, and there was a note of weariness in his voice now. "The same old excuses, the same old tired reasoning; that it wasn't your fault, that you never had a choice. Everything you did could be transferred, every act of evil you committed could be swept aside like so much chaff, and why? Because you lost something."

"I didn't just lose 'something'!" Callisto snarled, her voice rising wildly as she continued on. "I LOST EVERYTHING!"

Zeus gave a derisive snort.

"Oh do grow up. Loss is a part of life. It is something we must all come to terms with sooner or later. You are no exception, and it is a poor justification for everything you've done."

"What would you know about it!?" Callisto growled dangerously. "You're a god. You have all the power in the world. You live forever! What would you –  any  of you and your kind – know of loss?"

"We understand it more than most," Zeus replied. "I have lived for more lifetimes than you can count. I have loved in each and every one of them and in each and every one of them I've had to say goodbye." He fixed her with a steady stare. "By your childish yardstick Callisto, I have lost more than you could ever even conceive."

His eyes had turned the colour of swirling grey storm clouds, and for the first time, Callisto thought she could see the immense age and knowledge resting behind them. Looking into those eyes was like standing on the edge of a precipice, and staring down into a black and bottomless abyss. For the first time, she found herself unable to meet his stare.

"I don't want to hear any more of this," she said.

"Afraid that someone besides you might actually be right for a change?"

Callisto squeezed her eyes shut. The pain in her head, the voices and the laughter, were becoming all but unbearable.

"Leave me alone," she hissed, turning away from him again. The giggle had changed into an outright laugh now, wild and terrible, its insane cackle matching the quakes that were now causing the stone of the chamber to crack and rumble with a deafening roar.

"I'm not finished yet," Zeus continued, his own voice as unrelenting as the laughter in her head. It was all starting to become more than she could stand "I won't let you run from this Callisto. Not anymore. Will you never learn to move on with your life? To let go of the past and to forgive-"

Callisto could stand it no more. Her head felt like it was going to split right down the middle, and the laughter was a wild mad cackle that seemed to fill every corner of her.

"I SAID," she yelled, throwing her head back and howling up at the spheres as they span above her. "LEAVE ME..."

Before she could finish, the quakes, the laughter and the voices all came together to reach a terrible crescendo, and with a great cracking sound, huge fissures began to appear in the chamber walls all around, the sound of cracking and grinding stone filling the air as the massive bronze orrery tilted wildly, its central rod finally beginning to bend. Then, with a tremendous scream of tearing metal, the whole thing came crashing to the ground, sending shards of jagged bronze flying through the air, while spheres larger than Callisto rained down to the ground with reverberating booms of metal against stone.

One such sphere landed beside Callisto, it's great weight causing it to list sideways and begin to roll, threatening to crush her as it did so. Startled into motion, Callisto leaped away from it, and the moment she moved, it seemed as if the spell had been broken. The voices and the quakes stopped almost immediately, with only her own cackling laughter taking longer to fade away. Straightening, Callisto turned to survey the damage around her. The chamber was a ruin, the walls and roof shattered, and the remnants of Zeus' orrery lay strewn about the place. As she took it all in, her gaze passed across the sphere that had nearly crushed her, and there, in its dented yet finely polished surface, she caught her own distorted reflection staring back at her. Her hair was its usual wild self, sticking out madly in every direction, and her teeth were still bared, her lips peeled back in an ugly rictus snarl. The image was one of rage, unadulterated, pure and unreasoning.

It made her feel sick to her stomach.

"...alone." she said raggedly, forcing her face back to a more neutral expression, and trying hard to calm the racing of her heart and the blood pounding in her ears.

There came the crunching sound of feet behind her, and slowly she turned away from the reflection. Zeus was standing behind her, ignoring the wreckage all about them, his eyes focused only on her.

"Now do you understand?" he said.

She gave the barest of nods.

"Then tell me," he said. "What is she?"

Callisto swallowed, her mouth suddenly bone dry.

"She's everything I hate," she managed to rasp throatily. "Everything I've taught myself to loath and despise."

Zeus' expression did not change.

"And she wears your face."

Callisto took a deep breath and nodded again.

"Because she was always telling the truth," she said. "She's me, isn't she? She's always been me."

"Perhaps not always," Zeus said, thoughtfully, "but over time, hatred festers in the heart; as powerful a force of change as any Pneuma induced vision quest."

Callisto stood in silence for a while, staring at her distorted reflection in the dented sphere.

"The deal," she said eventually. "Elysium. It was all a lie, wasn't it? I can never go there. I can't ever be with them again."

Zeus said nothing.

"I'm not their little girl anymore," she said, her voice completely still and emotionless. She did not know what to feel. Should she even feel anything? Her chest was hollow, empty, like someone had reached inside and scooped out what last vestiges of her soul still remained.

"I've done so many terrible things," she continued. "How could I bring all that with me? Would they even still recognise me?"

Zeus moved to stand beside her, reaching out to place a hand on her shoulder. In an instant, she felt that familiar fire ignite inside her again and she jerked out of his reach.

"Don't touch me!" she hissed. "I don't need your pity!"

She glared at her reflection. "She was right all along!" she said, her lips peeling back to reveal her teeth once more. "I did this. Me! All those people dead! All those bodies piled high! All me, me, me, me, me!"

She stalked over to the sphere, pressing her hands to either side of her reflection as she leaned in to leer at it from less than an inch away.

"Does that make you happy!?" she snarled. "You were right all along!"

She slammed her palm hard against the bronze of the sphere.

"Well I don't want you to be right anymore! I don't want to be you anymore! I want it to be different! I want it all to change!"

She paused to catch her breath, and in doing so, the fire in her chest guttered slightly.

"But it's too late, isn't it?" she said, turning her head to look at Zeus. "Too little will, and far, far, far too late..."

Zeus studied her carefully, then gave a mild shrug.

"Who's to say?" he said. "Where there's a will there's usually a way, and you may not be quite so far gone as you seem to think you are."

Callisto frowned at him.

"Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?" she said. "Your own son, the glorious, can-do-no-wrong, wouldn't-hurt-a-fly-if-it-looked-at-him-sideways Hercules couldn't even bring himself to see anything in me worth saving. Are you trying to tell me that you do?"

The wry smile returned to Zeus' face.

"Callisto," he said in his best fatherly voice that she assumed was supposed to sound warm and benevolent, but to her only sounded infuriatingly condescending. "Hercules is my son, and I love him dearly, but he is a man without guile. He sees the world only in black & white. Such people rarely make the best judges of character, or of who among us is worthy of redemption."

He turned and began picking his way through the ruins of the orrery, his eyes cast down at the various shattered chunks of bronze and brass about his feet.

"I say let those of us with some shades of grey judge the world," he said, sounding half distracted. "We are in the majority after all... Ah HAH!" He paused, standing over something. Callisto craned her neck to try and see what, but it was too far away and low to the ground to make out. Zeus bent and scooped whatever it was out of the ruin with a single hand, then turned and tossed it to Callisto.

"Catch!" he shouted.

Callisto did so, only to feel the breath driven out of her by the sheer weight of the thing as she took it in the stomach. Looking down, she saw that it was the replica of the sun that had been sitting at the very centre of the orrery.

"A present," she said sarcastically, "for me? I'm flattered."

Zeus' smile widened.

"More of a tiny bit of insight," he said, making his way back through the bronze ruin hitching his glorious red robes slightly so that they did not snag on the rubble all about him. "What do you know of the stars, Callisto?"

Looking back up at him, she scowled angrily.

"What has that got to do with anything?"

Zeus only sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Do you always have to be so uncooperative?"

"I don't  have to , " Callisto said with a girlish shrug before giving him her best demonic grin. "It's just a hobby of mine."

Zeus nodded as if that were the answer he had expected.

"Indulge me," he said, causing Callisto to give an exasperated groan. "Even you must have some thoughts on the matter."

"They're points of light in the night sky," she said impatiently. "Some say they are the souls of the dead watching over us, but I don't see how that can be true, seeing as most of the dead are down in the underworld."

"That's it?" Zeus said, giving her a surprised look. "That's all that you've thought of them? From time immemorial, your kind have sat alone under the blackness of night and wished they could reach out and touch them so that they could know what the truth of them was. Can you honestly say that you have never tried to do the same."

Callisto frowned. Something in what he was saying had jogged a memory in the back of her mind.

"Maybe," she said. "If I did, it was a long time ago, before..." her voice trailed off. "I don't remember," she said eventually with a shake of her head, and a note of finality to her voice that warned the Olympian king not to pursue the matter further. Zeus ignored the hint and carried on regardless.

"Well it just so happens I do," he said. "There was a tree by your parents farmhouse. Do you remember it at least?"

"I do," Callisto said, recalling the great oak a short distance up the hillside from her home. The memory brought with it a dull ache that latched itself onto the back of her throat. "I used to climb it to hide from my mother when she was looking for me to do chores." The ache in her throat grew worse as the old thoughts came flooding back to her.

"It never used to work," she continued, losing herself for a moment in the old memories of a different, less painful life. "She'd always find me eventually, and then I'd end up with double the work to do. I don't really know why I never found a better hiding place. Just a different one would've been enough..."

She trailed off, the dull ache in her throat now crawling up the back of her mouth.

"Don't stop," Zeus said, taking a step toward her. "Hold the memories close. Don't fight against them."

Callisto glared at him, and even though her eyes were stinging, she refused to blink.

"This is pointless," she sniffed indignantly. "What does any of it have to do with anything?"

Zeus gave a weary sigh.

"The stars," he said again. "You  did  used to watch them, and you used to wonder; about the truth of them, and the magic that made them."

Callisto just shrugged in response.

"So?"

Zeus smiled at her.

"So what if I were to show you that magic?"

Before she could answer, the bronze sun between Callisto's fingers let out a cracking sound. Brows knitting together in confusion, she looked down just in time to see a jagged crack appearing in the surface of it. There came another squeal of tearing metal, and suddenly the sun had become two halves, one clutched in each hand. Still frowning, Callisto peered closer into the crack. All inside the sun was darkness; a blackness more impenetrable than was entirely natural.

"What the-" Callisto began, but before she could finish, something inside the sun moved. Eyes widening in shock, she jerked her head back as the cloud of blackness that he been lurking inside the sun began to roll out of it. Like ink dropped in water it spilled up into the air, flowing all about them and obscuring the walls and ceiling as if someone had just dropped a curtain of darkest night over the room.

Callisto moved to press the two halves of the sun back together in a vain attempt to stop the transformation taking place, but Zeus waved her to be still.

"Just wait," he said, “and watch.”

The room was almost entirely lost in blackness now, and Callisto could feel her pulse racing. What in Tartarus was happening?

Suddenly, hundreds upon hundreds of tiny specks erupted from the sun, each one shining stark and silver against the dark. They sprayed through the air in all directions, speckling what had been complete void with a thousand points of light.

"They're the stars..." Callisto said, her voice low and breathy, as she tried to take in everything she was seeing. It was like nothing she had ever imagined, even as a child staring up at the sky, and certainly like nothing she had dreamed of since Cirra. There was something not quite right about these stars though, and it only took her a moment longer to realise exactly what it was.

"...but they're not the same. The positions are all wrong. I can't see any of the constellations."

Beside her, Zeus nodded.

"Very good," he said. "You're quite right. They are stars, but they're not  our  stars."

"I don't understand," Callisto said glancing at Zeus. "Why are you showing me this?"

"Patience my dear," Zeus smiled. "All will become clear if you just have patience."

Callisto had been about to bite off a retort, but already something else was happening. Strange clouds were beginning to form overhead. They were like nothing she had ever seen before. Each one was a different colour and they had all the weight and heft of smoke on the breeze. They wound in great sweeping sheets through the empty void, thin tendrils creeping out and curling around one another. Where they met, the clouds would begin to merge, warm and vibrant tones mixing with others cool and remote. Before long, all of them were touching in some way or other, drawing closer and closer as their old hues changed, becoming heavier and darker until the expansive brilliance of what they had been was lost, and only a dark roiling mass that covered the stars behind it remained in their wake.

Something about that chaotic, bubbling mass of cloud made Callisto feel uncomfortable, and her thoughts turned to the feeling of her own rage, welling up uncontrollably inside her in the moments before it would explode.

Something in the great black cloud overhead flashed, like lightning in a storm thick sky. So bright was the flash that it caused Callisto to blink, and when she did, its afterimage was burned across the inside the of her eyelids. She opened her eyes again just in time to see a second flash, this one more brilliant than the first. A third followed it, then a fourth, and then a fifth, and so on, until the entire inside of the cloud was aglow with strobing light. Callisto could do nothing except stare as the intensity of the flashes grew and grew, causing her to squint painfully against their brilliance. Then, without warning, the flashes stopped all together. The cloud seethed and boiled silently, but it appeared that nothing more was to come of it.

"You might want to look away," Zeus said beside her.

Callisto turned to look at him.

"Why would I want to-"

A flash a thousand times stronger than anything she had ever seen filled the air, whiting out her vision and forcing her to throw her hands up to cover her eyes.

For a long while she stood that way, eyes squeezed tightly shut behind her palms, the dull red after glow of the flash still filling her view while charred black spots swam within it. Then she felt the glow. It was barely noticeable at first, a slight warmth down the right had side of her face where she had turned away from the flash, but quickly it became stronger and stronger, until the heat was such that she felt as if she were sitting before a campfire.

Slowly, she lowered her hands, then tentatively cracked one eye open, blinking away the last of the burned spots that still seemed to be dancing in front of her. Zeus was watching her, that same idiotic smile he always seemed to wear plastered across his face.

"Care to tell me what all that was about?" she snapped angrily at him.

Zeus' smile widened.

"Why don't you look up?" He pointed up toward the chamber's ceiling.

Scowling at him, Callisto gave an an irritated grunt and craned her neck back. The scowl disappeared from her face almost immediately.

Where the cloud had been mere moments ago, there now floated an almost perfect sphere of incandescent light. So brilliant was it, that she realised almost immediately that it was the source of the heat she was feeling.

"It's the sun!" she breathed.

"Not  the  sun," Zeus corrected her. " A  sun. A mere one among countless more."

Her attention still focused on the sphere, Callisto stepped forward so that she was directly beneath it. She wanted to spread her arms wide and bask in the glow of the thing. There was something soothing about the warmth of it spilling across her, but she could not quite place her finger on precisely why.

As she peered at it more closely, she realised that it was growing larger, albeit it at an extremely slow rate. Even so, she could already make out more clearly defined edges as its light dimmed slightly. Where at first she had thought it to be solid, she now realised that its surface was anything but. It rippled and churned, and occasionally great tongues of flame would lick out at the air around it.

"Fire," she said quietly, then turned to stare at Zeus. "It's made of fire!"

Zeus nodded.

"As are they all," he said, gesturing at he night sky that surrounded the sphere and the stars that dotted it. "Fire given form and shape," he said, glancing at Callisto. "Fire given purpose."

He walked up close beside her.

"No do you see? There is no magic in the stars, Callisto; no gods hunting bears across the sky, or nymphs exiled to the heavens by wrathful masters. There is only what you saw... gas, dust, and a miracle of random chance. Nothing more..." he paused for a moment, watching her steadily. "...but ask yourself this. If that is indeed the truth; if that simplest and most hollow of definitions is really all there is to them, then how do they hold our imaginations so? Does knowing the truth of their sum total total only diminish them, or does it make them something more?"

Callisto was beginning to feel dizzy. Above her head the stars were beginning to turn, and she suddenly felt very small and far away from everything, the enormity of it all almost impossible to grasp. She turned to look at Zeus, only to see him smaller than he should be, as if she were moving away from him at speed.

"What are you trying to say?" she said, blinking to try and arrest the sudden sense of vertigo that was overcoming her.

"Only this," Zeus replied. Even his voice sounded distant. "Stars are life, Callisto, and their potential is all but unfathomable."

Those same stars were swirling fast now, whipping around and around in a dizzying spiral that moved so quickly, they appeared as little more than streaks of dazzling white light. Zeus was not even visible anymore, far away and lost among the whirling madness all about her.

"And now for the real question," his voice echoed all around her. "Is she  your  sum total? Is she really all you are and all you ever can be?"

Callisto tried to take a step forward, wanting to shout out in protest, but suddenly, she felt her stomach lurch sickeningly as the ground beneath her seemed to disappear, and then she was falling, tumbling end over end into darkness, the spiraling stars winking out of existence one by one above her.

"Or, like the stars in the night sky," Zeus' voice continued, "do you have the potential to be something more?"

The final star, the one she had seen born, was all that was left now. Despite her dizzying tumble, it seemed to always be in view, as if it were chasing her down, down, down into the darkness below. It was then she realised it was not chasing her, but expanding at a terrifying rate and swallowing up everything it touched, the once glorious white light dying to sickening blood red as its size grew ever larger. The heat of it grew too as it drew closer to her, and soon Callisto could feel the tongues of flame that belched across its cooling crust reaching out for her. She twisted and turned, suddenly desperate to keep them from her, but it was all in vain. They reached out and seized her, their slightest touch more full of searing pain than even the hottest branding iron. She opened her mouth to scream but the star washed over and through her, filling her up and burning her away from the inside out.

She closed her eyes, losing herself in the pain as, piece by agonising piece, the dying light of the star proceeded to tear her apart.

*****

For a long time she could not feel anything. The pain was gone at least, and the heat too. The sickening sensation in her belly was gone as well, and all she could feel in their place was emptiness and exhaustion. She did not think she had ever felt  this  tired in her entire life. She lay there for a long time, stretched out flat and luxuriating in the glorious numbness of nothing.

Then she shivered.

A cool breeze was tugging gently at her hair, and belly. It was a stark contrast to the fiery agony of the star, and even mildly pleasant by comparison. After a while though, the wind grew colder, and its touch more biting. With a groan, she opened her eyes, blinking hard to get her blurred vision to settle. She nearly groaned again when she saw what was above her. A distant night sky, filled once more with stars, stared almost innocently back at her. For a brief moment she wondered what Zeus was playing at this time, then she realised that the stars were actually the ones she was accustomed to and had grown up with.

Where was she now then? Where had the Pneuma delivered her this time? Had it even delivered her anywhere? The more she thought about it, the more she began to wonder? Had she passed the test? Was the realisation of the truth of her doppelganger what the Pneuma had been trying to show her all along? Was that the challenge she was supposed to overcome?

Gingerly, and with bone aching weariness, she pushed herself up on her elbows and looked about herself. She was lying on a hillside covered in tall grass. In places it came up to her knees, and from where she was sitting, she could see an opposing hillside a mile or so away. Already starting to get a sinking feeling, she glanced back over her shoulder, half expecting what she was going to see.

She was not disappointed.

The gnarled bark of a tall and lonely tree stared back at her, and Callisto cursed softly. She knew where she was. She was sitting at the base of the very tree she had talked with Zeus about; the one she had used to climb as a child and where her doppelganger had brought her to start this whole crazy journey into the mouth of madness.

Reaching back, she braced herself against the tree trunk and began straighten herself to standing. It took a minute or two after getting herself upright for her to feel some semblance of strength returning to her legs and for her heart to stop doing laps around her chest cavity.

Slowly she lifted her gaze, dreading the sight she knew she would see, but almost drawn by it at the same time. Sure enough, there, at the foot of the hill and in the wide valley between it and the next one, was Cirra as it had been when she was young. It would not be that way for much longer though. The warm glow of flames was staining the sky a gory crimson, and the whole village was in the process of being reduced to little more than charred husks and ash. This was the way it always happened when she relived it. In another hour or so, rain would come and end the inferno, but the damage would have already been done, and Callisto's life would be in tatters once more.

Gritting her teeth, she took a single halting step forward, and then another, this time leaving the tree's support behind. It took a hundred or so metres for her to regain her composure, but by the time she was halfway down the hill, she had managed to regain some semblance of herself.

As she walked, the village grew larger and larger in front of her. It was funny. There was a time when this would have seemed like torture to her, being forced to watch Cirra burn yet again, but now something had changed inside her and she was not entirely sure what.

"I suppose this is it then," she muttered, as she strode down the hillside. "Time to put an end to this nightmare." She was not really one for talking to herself that much, but something told her on this occasion that talking to herself was exactly what she needed to do.

And so she continued, down the hillside, across the fields and into the burning village beyond.

She already knew what she was going to find there.

Chapter Seventeen: Plans within Plans

The small, windowless chamber was lit only by candle light as Mortius stepped inside. In one hand he carried a small water skin that had a thick, yellowish crust around the rim. In the other, he carried an equally small metal frame and a simple clay bowl.

Standing just inside the doorway, he paused a moment to listen for any sounds of people nearby. What he was about to do would require the utmost privacy, and the last thing he needed would be for some wet behind the ears acolyte to come bungling in while he was in the middle of it. From somewhere deep in the temple below him, he could make out the faint sound of muffled voices. While he could not distinguish the individual words being spoken, from the cadence of the speech, and the righteous indignation of the speaker's tone, he guessed rightly that it was Pelion's evening sermon. That was good. Everyone would be indisposed and he would be less likely to be interrupted.

Without sound, he turned and bolted the door shut before crossing to a plain wooden table at the chamber's centre. In the middle of the table there burned a small cluster of candles. He wasted no time, immediately kneeling beside the table and placing the metal frame he carried over the candles, and then next the clay bowl on top of that. Once that was done, he reached down and uncorked the water skin. A pungent odor immediately assaulted him, but he did his best to ignore it, and extended his arm, so that he could pour the foul smelling liquid into the bowl. Before he could do so however, he found himself hesitating.

Was it really about to come to this? Had he fallen so far from his Lord's graces that he was about to test himself in the same manner as those new to the Faith?

His eyes narrowed as he glared at the water skin. A single drop of yellow Pneuma fell into the bowl below, a thick, mucus-like string of fluid trailing in its wake. He wanted to hurl it across the room, to cast it away from him and shout to the world that he was the Soul of Cronus, and had no need to be tested.

He could not do it though. Much as he wished he could, the doubts would not let him. He had to know the truth.

" You are being lied to."

It was not his Lord's voice that he heard inside his head, but instead the voice of Miranda; the Oracle of Ares he had slain within this very temple. Normally such simple words would have meant nothing to him, and her death, even less. However, the more time that passed from it, the more he found himself unable to put her words out of his mind. She had said she'd known him; that she had felt his pain. Then she had told him he was being deceived. Could it be true? He had been betrayed before after all. It would hardly be a stretch to imagine that same being done to him again.

"What did you mean!?" he hissed aloud to the empty room, "Who is lying to me?"

The silent chamber was his only answer.

He gritted his teeth together and focused his attention on the bottle once more, but at the same time his thoughts were already turning inward as he willed himself to picture his Lord, imprisoned deep within the bowels of the earth and tortured within the darkest reaches of Tartarus.

"Great Cronus," he said softly, a note of appeal in his tone. "For some reason I cannot fathom, you have chosen to no longer share the gift of your words or your wisdom with me..."

He paused, waiting for some – any – kind of response. The room was as silent as ever, and he did not feel the familiar mounting pressure between his temples that heralded his master's presence. His throat suddenly dry, he swallowed before continuing.

"...and where once I was confident in carrying out your wishes, I am now forced to guess and wonder at your will."

Still no reply.

"Am I not your Soul?" he said, louder now, growing more frustrated."Am I not supposed to be your every desire manifest upon this earth? How then do you propose I do this? Without your guidance, without your power, I am... I am..." he trailed off, unable to find the words. "...I am as I was before you came to me. Weak... empty... filled with nothing save the dark you rescued me from."

He fell silent again and waited.

"I am afraid," he admitted finally, his voice barely above a whisper now, "and if I must debase myself like this in order to cleanse myself of that fear, and prove myself worthy of your grace once more, then so be it."

His mind made up, he upended the water skin in a single easy motion, squeezing it at the same time, so as not to waste a drop of the precious Pneuma within. The bowl was full to the brim in moments, and Mortius settled himself back, kneeling before the table with his pitch black robes settled all about him and his hands resting on his knees as he waited patiently for the Pneuma to take effect.

For a long time, nothing seemed to be happening, then he felt it; the growing of that familiar noxious scent. He did his best to put the disgusting scent to the back of his mind, but that made fresh room in his thoughts, and before he could stop them, more doubts began to run rampant through his head. Should he really be doing this? Was it really what his Lord wanted of him? What would it even prove? He was sure of his loyalty, and had been for longer than most of this current crop of Followers had even been alive. Why, after so long spent in faithful service, should he have to prove himself now?

His fingers clutched tightly at his knees. No. His mind was made up and his course set. He would not change it now. To do so would be to admit his uncertainty, and to admit his uncertainty would be to betray his position. He  was  the Soul. Cronus' will as flesh, and therefore whatever actions he carried out were those intended by his Lord. This was what Cronus wanted him to do; what he  needed  him to do.

The smell was so strong now that it was practically eye watering, and thin yellow strands of mist were beginning to curl up out of the bowl and creep through the air toward him. Mortius took a deep breath, inhaling as much of it as he could while every muscle in his body tensed in anticipation of the terrible pain he knew was about to overcome him. It did not happen immediately, but he knew that it was only a matter of time. He had seen this process before many times with the initiates, and knew what to expect, even from a dose of Pneuma as relatively small as this one.

When the pain did come it was not a gradual, growing thing, but instead a seizure inducing lightning flash of agony that set his nerves aflame. His jaw clenched down so hard and suddenly, that had he been capable of thought in that moment, he would have been amazed that his teeth did not shatter under the pressure. His fingers hooked themselves into claws and his back arched as his hands shot up to rake futilely at the air. He could think of nothing... remember nothing... all there was was the pain. Pure, and unadulterated, it coursed through him, scouring away everything he knew in an instant and leaving him cut loose from reality and tumbling down down down into a darkness more complete than any he had ever known.

*****

It took Mortius a moment to realise exactly where he was, and even then he was not entirely sure his assumption was correct.

He was standing in a huge marble walled chamber; part of a palace that, judging by its sheer opulence, he could only assume to be one of the palaces of the Gods high atop Mt Olypmus itself. He could not be certain that was the case however. Having never set foot within a hundred league radius of Olympus, let alone actually within the palaces of the Gods that crowned it, he could not really be sure that he was correct, but strangely enough, it did not seem to matter to him. The chamber was at least close to how he had always imagined Olympus to look, and that, in and of itself, was enough to satisfy him that where he was was indeed the very seat of Zeus himself.

That thought alone set his nerves tingling with trepidation as he stepped forward onto a thick crimson carpet that ran the length of the chamber, down from where he was standing to a raised dais at the opposite end upon which was seated what appeared to be some kind of throne. Mortius knew well his capabilities. He was as fine a warrior as one could find in the world, with the added advantage of possessing his unusual power to control and move through shadows, granted to him by the centuries he had spent trapped in a strange limbo-like void between the worlds of the living and the dead. He was also keenly aware however, that he was no match for a god. Any Olympian, from the lofty heights of Zeus right down to more minor members of the pantheon like Asclepius or Erebus, had more than enough power to wipe him off the face of the earth with no more than a glance in his general direction.

This was why, as he strode the length of the chamber, he could feel his heart pound fearfully in his chest. Was this the the source of the fear that had recently gripped him with such ferocity, he wondered. Was this truly the reason for all the doubts he had been having? Was he afraid of this moment? The moment where he would be forced to face down those who had betrayed him so very long ago?

Even as he pondered that, he knew it was not true. The trepidation he had been feeling as he made his way toward the dais was already fading, and very quickly he realised it was because that moment of confrontation he had thought he had been dreading was actually already passed. To either side of him, he could see them now; myriad bodies, all of them unique and distinct from the next. Some were clad in draped finery, all sheer velvets and gossamer silks. Others were clad in simpler, rougher garb – leather and boots and such – while others still wore armour of gold, or silver, and worked with such care and craftsmanship that any king or queen would have been delighted to possess it.

They were the gods of Olympus he realised...

...and they were stone dead.

One and all, the figures lay completely still, and where their faces were upturned, he could see only blank, lifeless eyes staring back at him. Some had been gored by unseen forces, while others had suffered even worse fates. Their blood and viscera stained what had once been pristine white marble, and Mortius knew at once that a terrible darkness had descended over this place.

Swallowing, he turned his eyes away from the ghastly scene around him and back to the dais he was now approaching the foot of. He had not noticed it before, but there were people upon the dais. Three to be exact, although the nature of each was different. The throne that sat upon the dais was cast of solid gold and looked as if it had once shone with the radiance of the sun, but now only looked dark and tarnished. At its base, twisted, broken and bloodied almost beyond recognition, lay the crumpled body of Zeus himself. To either side of the throne stood Pelion and Demosthenes, their expressions quite different from one another as they both looked out over the carnage of the throne room. Demosthenes' look was pensive and nervous, and he noticeably fidgeted as he saw Mortius approach. Pelion's expression was almost the polar opposite. He looked delighted by what he saw, his mouth twisted in a cruel, satisfied sneer, and his eyes shining with madness.

The third and final figure was seated upon the throne itself, but try as he might, Mortius could not seem to make it out. It's form was like smoke at the edges of his consciousness, ever shifting and changing, and all but impossible to make out. Still, there was  something  there, and almost instinctively, he knew that it was Great Cronus himself, and that he was waiting for Mortius to come to him.

He quickened his stride, reaching the foot of the dais with only a few more steps. He was about to mount the first of the steps and approach the foot of the throne when Pelion stepped out in front of him.

"That's quite far enough," the old Priest said, clanking his long walking staff heavily against the ground.

Mortius looked him up and down, the thin line of his mouth twisting into a disgusted sneer that matched Pelion's own.

"Stand aside," he said dismissively. "Our Lord summons me."

For a moment, Pelion only seemed to stand and stare at him in complete surprise, then, slowly, that irritatingly smug sneer on his face became a genuine smirk of amusement.

"Does he now?" the old Priest snickered. Mortius was growing impatient. With an irritated grunt, he moved to shove his way past Pelion, only to find Demosthenes moving to block him as well.

"Please," the Spartan King said, his voice carrying a note of warning to it "what's done is done. Better for you to just stand aside now and let this happen the way that it was always meant to."

"Let what happen?" Mortius demanded, his eyes darting between the two of them. "What is going on here?"

Pelion shot an amused sideways glance to Demosthenes.

"Did you hear that, Demsothenes?" he snickered. "He wants answers."

Demosthenes only shook his head.

"He won't like them.”

"No," Pelion agreed, "he most certainly won't."

Mortius could feel the anger in him growing.

"I've had enough of this," he snarled, and moved to step around them, only to find Pelion moving to block him once more.

"I'm warning you old man," he growled dangerously at the old priest. "I am our Lord's Soul, and I wish to speak with him. You have no authority to stop me, and so I demand that you..."

Pelions sudden laughter brought him up short. At first it was rich and filled with mirth, but very quickly it became dark and malicious.

"You!?" he managed eventually. "Demand!?" He shook his head in disbelief. "You have  no  power over me Mortius, no authority, and you certainly cannot  demand  anything!"

"Our Lord will be the judge of that," Mortius replied.

Pelion shook his head again, this time in disappointment.

"Mortius, please," he heard Demosthenes implore again from the edge of the conversation. "Don't make this any harder than it needs to be. Our Lord has already judged you..."

Even as he spoke, Mortius' attention was caught by a new figure on the dais. Stepping out from behind the golden throne, there came a stranger, clad all in black robes much the same as his own and with a hood drawn up to keep their face concealed in shadow.

"...and He has found you wanting," Pelion finished with a victorious smile as the newcomer made their over to them. "Our Lord has no more use for you Mortius, and like all useless things, it's high time you were replaced."

Mortius' jaw muscles flexed as pressed his teeth tightly together.

"This isn't real," he snarled pointedly at Pelion. "None of it! Not you, or Demosthenes, or this  thing  that you are parading in front of me! I am His SOUL! He would never do this to me."

"Do you really believe that?" said the newcomer.

Their voice was immediately familiar, and Mortius felt his heart pound harder in his chest as his choler rose. No. It could not be her. The Pneuma was supposed to show him that which he hated; that which he feared. What was their to hate or fear from a dead woman.

"I do believe it, yes," he said, squaring his shoulders defiantly. "With every fiber of my being, and I do not fear you."

Before he could even react, the newcomer was moving toward him with a speed like nothing he could match. There was a cold flash of steel, and suddenly something chill and sharp had been driven into the pit of his stomach. Looking down, his mind still not quite registering what had just happened, he was stunned when he saw the sword driven through him with such force that it's blade was buried in him right up to the hilt. That hilt was being held by the robed newcomer. The hand belonged to a woman, long fingered and slender, and as he watched, the newcomer gripped the sword tighter then twisted. Pain exploded through him as the steel tore at his insides, but when he opened his mouth to cry out, no sound came, his voice driven from him by the sheer force of the newcomer's attack.

Gasping for breath, he sank to his knees, his hands clawing at the newcomer's robes. He still could not see her face, but he did not need to. The excitement radiating off her as she watched him spasm and die on the end of the her blade was palpable.

Slowly, inch by agonising inch, she pulled the sword free, and immediately, Mortius pitched forward, only just managing to catch himself on all fours. His arms trembled weakly, and he coughed, spilling blood onto the rich red carpet beneath him.

Nearby, Pelion and Demosthenes simply watched impassively as the robed figure moved to squat at his side. Slowly she reached up, drawing back the hood that had obscured her face. Mortius was not even remotely surprised at the sight that greeted him, but he felt his heart sink all the same. Her face was thin, with high cheek bones, and a sharp chin. Large brown eyes sparkled madly as they regarded him, and framing it all was her most distinguishing feature; a wild mass of blonde hair that appeared to almost have a life of its own.

"It can't be..." he managed to croak. "Not you! You're dead. I killed you."

"Doesn't seem to have stuck, does it?" Callisto replied.

"But... but..." he struggled to lift his head as he felt the last drops of life ebbing away from him. "...Mr Lord... He would never betray me... not for him, or him," he nodded toward Pelion and Demosthenes in turn. "...and certainly not for  you! "

Callisto's face split with a dark smile that showed way too many teeth. Tauntingly, she leaned in close, her lips only inches from his hear.

"Then why am I even here?" She whispered.

*****

When Mortius finally awakened, he was lying on his back, his robes damp with sweat, and his throat so completely dry it was as if someone had just poured a goblet full of sand down it. The chamber was dark now, the candle that had been lit upon the table at its centre having long since guttered and died. The only light by which he could see was a flickering orange glow seeping in from beneath the door.

Swallowing painfully, he pushed himself upright, feeling his head throbbing as he did so. He could not remember ever having felt so weak before and it was a most unpleasant sensation. He sat there for several minutes, alone in the dark, before finally clambering upright. As he straightened, he felt his legs tremble, barely even able to take his weight, and he stood stock still for a while longer, trying to summon up the strength to move.

Eventually, when he was sure they were not about to collapse from under him, he began to sthe huffle forward toward the table. The bowl that had held the Pneuma was barely visible where he had left it, perched on top of the metal frame above the melted remnants of the candle. Picking it up, he peered into it. In the dim light, he could not see very well, but the ceramic felt cold to the touch, and when he ran his finger around the bowl's inside, all that he disturbed was a fine yellow residue.

The vision was done he realised – the Pneuma had run its course – and already the memory of it was fading quickly from his conscious mind. Unfortunately, the effect it had had on him was not. He had taken only a small dose, not wanting to be incapacitated for too long, and he was not sure how long he had been unconscious. Judging by the lack of sound from the rest of the temple, it could not have been much more than an hour. Perhaps two at a push. The decision to take so small a dose had been a mistake, he realised now. Even with the memories of the vision fading, the creeping doubt he had felt before lingered even stronger, only now he could put a name and a face alongside them.

Callisto.

He wracked his brains, desperately trying to think of another solution. He could not continue like this, paralysed by the words of one dead woman and the thoughts of another, but nor could he admit to the likes of Pelion what he had just done. He needed another option, he realised. The Pneuma had not worked, and he could not take more for fear of being discovered. There had to be another way; some other path to confronting the doubts and fears that were eating away at the heart of him.

Suddenly his mind stopped racing. There was another way, and he knew exactly what it was and where to find it.

Reaching out to the flickering shadows, he felt them reaching out to him too. Their touch could almost be described as cold, but it was both more and less than that at the same time. It was in truth the feeling of absence that they carried with them, and every time he embraced them, he felt the the memory of his void like prison eating away at him all the more. He tried to fight it every time, to rage against it as he had done for so long, so very long ago, but there was precious little of the fire he had had then left to him now, and the night was closing in all the more.

Surrendering to the shadows, they wrapped themselves around him, and in an instant it was as if someone had simply turned off his senses. Sound and smell and sight all disappeared, leaving him utterly alone in all consuming nothingness. Then came the knowledge – understanding – that he was now in two places at once; both the room where he had been and the main altar chamber below. The moment was both fleeting and at the same time stretched, as if it would last forever. It did not though, and suddenly he was no longer in the first place, but only in the second, standing among high columns off to one side of the altar, while the shadows peeled back from him, releasing him from the dark and allowing sensation to flood back in from all sides.

He was alone, just as he had known he would be. The altar chamber was seldom used when Pelion was not holding one of his sermon's, and that suited Mortius just fine.

Glancing left and right to ensure that he was most definitely not about to be disturbed, he stepped out from between the pillars and onto the main aisle, dancing shadows capering madly in his wake. Despite the effects of the Pneuma, his strength was quickly returning and in a few long strides he had covered the length of chamber and was stepping up onto the dais upon which was located what had once been the altar to Ares.

Like every temple the Followers converted to their cause, the remnants of a statue to Ares were piled high atop the altar as a ceremonial offering of the Olympians to Cronus' inevitable vengeance. Mortius ignored the mess of broken limbs and disfigured busts, and instead moved to kneel to the rear of the altar, pressing his fingers to the floor tiles and running them along the lines in the stone until he found what he was searching for.

This was the one.

Hurriedly, he dug his fingers in around the sides of the tile and pulled. It came up easily, revealing a small hollow in the dais beneath it, in which had been nestled a small and simple box. He wasted no more time, tossing the tile uncaringly to one side, and reaching down to pull the box free.

This was it. The Pneuma had shown him his doubts and fears, giving them form and substance in a way he had not known before. Inside the box was the logical end point of that equation; the final trial that, if it could be overcome it, would free him forever more of those terrible things that were beginning to increasingly plague him as it had once done for the great Spartan warriors of centuries past.

Slowly, almost reverentially, he cracked open the lid of the box, and his breath caught in his throat.

Empty.

The box was empty.

Casting ceremony aside, he straightened, slamming the box down on the surface of the altar in frustration and yanking the lid more fully open. Still that same emptiness stared back at him, and for the first time in long years, Mortius felt something akin to despair clawing at the edges of his thoughts. Doing his best to remain calm, he pressed his fingers searchingly around the box's confines. He did not remember any secret compartments or false bottoms, but considering how valuable and unique the item normally contained within had been, it would not be entirely without cause for it to be better concealed. Moments later though, his search was becoming more and more frantic. There was no false bottom, and most certainly no hidden compartments. The item that the box had once held had simply vanished.

With a fierce shout, he grasped the box with both hands and slammed it down hard on the edge of the altar, causing the whole thing to splinter in two with a terrific crack that echoed up and down the length of the chamber.

"I missed you at my evening address," he heard someone say behind him.

It was Pelion.

The mere sound of him sent a ripple of anger through Mortius, but he did his best to hold his temper.

"Your endless sermonising is of little interest to me," he replied, not turning around but doing his best to shift his balance so that his robes concealed the secret cavity in the dais and the missing floor tile that had covered it. "I had no need to be there."

"So you claim," Pelion said, and Mortius could hear him mounting the dais behind him, his staff clacking loudly in the otherwise soundless chamber. "But I think that you of all people would benefit from the words of our Lord at this juncture."

"They are not his words," Mortius said, finally turning to face him. "Only yours."

"Not true," Pelion replied confidently. "He speaks through me, as he does through you..." he eyed Mortius carefully. "...if that is indeed still the case?"

Mortius went very still.

"Remember who you are speaking to," he said coldly. "Tell me what you meant by that, and speak plainly. I have neither the time or the patience for your games today."

"I speak as plainly as is required of me," Pelion replied, spreading his hands graciously in a gesture of submission. "No more, no less. Nor do I play games. I can assure you that everything I do and say is meant only with the utmost sincerity."

"So you are trying to claim that my faith is somehow less than it was before, is that correct?"

Pelion only shrugged.

"If that is what you believe I meant, then would that not make it true?"

Mortius felt his anger rising, and for the first time in as long as he could remember, he struggled to hold onto it.

"And so, what?" he bit off sharply at the other man. "Do you presume to lecture me? Sermonise to me as you do the witless cattle who flock to your pretty words of a better world?"

"Those 'witless cattle' have faith in our Lord," Pelion replied perfectly evenly, Mortius' sudden outburst not seeming to have bothered him even in the slightest. He tilted his head slightly, frowning as a note of pondering entered his tone. "I am forced to wonder though, why else would you be here, scrabbling around on the ground on all fours, if your own had not deserted you?"

At those words, Mortius felt his heart stop.

He knew.

Pelion knew, and not just what he had been doing mere moments before. He knew everything. Mortius could see it in the gleeful twinkle behind the other man's eyes that mocked Mortius even as his voice remained calm and reasonable, and there was only one way he could know so much. Cronus was speaking to him, as he had once done for Mortius. The revelation, combined with Pelion's relentless smugness made him want to reach out and strangle the other man where he stood. Instead, he simply held up the broken halves of the box for the old priest to see. It was pointless to hide them now. Not when the other man knew why he was here in the first place.

"The amulet," he said, his voice brittle and tight. "You know where it is, don't you."

Pelion nodded.

"I do," he said.

Mortius took a step forward, his pale fingers tightening around the splintered remains of the box, while at his back the shadows began to stretch out in all directions, like writhing talons clawing at the chamber's stonework.

"I need it," he said threateningly.

Pelion's eyes flicked to the box and then back to Mortius and the capering shadows dancing on the walls behind him. For the first time, Mortius thought he saw a look of fear flash across the other man's features.

"The amulet cannot restore what you have lost," he said, swallowing slightly. "Nothing can."

"I've lost nothing," Mortius said icily. "The amulet will merely prove to me that which I already know beyond a shadow of doubt."

"If that's the case, then why would you need it at all?" Pelion replied, and Mortius took another step toward him.

"I do not have to answer your questions. I am our Lord's first servant. As such, the amulet is mine to do with as I wish, as is all of this," he gestured to the temple around them. "It is not yours to keep from me. This is all so very simple, Pelion. I want it. You have it, and it is high time that you gave it to me."

Pelion was backing away now, but Mortius circled left, putting himself between the old priest and the rest of the chamber and forcing him to back right up until he pressed against the altar itself.

"Unfortunately you are wrong," he said, his voice steady, but Mortius could see the beads of sweat forming on his brow. "I do not have it..."

"Then you know where it is," Mortius cut him off, and suddenly the shadows were no longer dancing at his back, but skittering out across the dais to touch at the hem of Pelion's crimson robes. The Priest eyed them nervously.

"It's-" he began, but before he could finish, Mortius had stepped right up to him placed a pale hand upon his shoulder.

"Have a care with your next words," he said, his grip on the other man tightening. "My patience is all but exhausted, and soon I will begin to get angry."

Pelion swallowed again.

"It is with the one who needs it most," he said. "The one our Lord had chosen to serve him, but who you, in your unbridled arrogance, chose to attack and leave for dead."

Mortius' jaw muscles tensed, and he released his grip on Pelion as if the other man had just stung him.

"You mean-" he hissed, and Pelion gave an indignant sniff, straightening himself and tugging at the rumpled shoulder of his robe as he did so.

"Yes," he said archly. "Callisto."

*****

The light outside the inn was beginning to fail as Plykus shuffled quietly across the common room to collect the latest batch of empty tankards from a table recently vacated by some of the local fisherman. Usually around this time of day, the common room would have already started to fill up, becoming awash with life and vibrancy, bellicose laughter, and bawdy shanties as the locals, ready for drink and song, retired for the day and tried to put their labours behind them. Tonight was quite the opposite. Only a few of the tables were occupied, and a persistent murmur of hushed conversation drifted around the room, but it was a far cry from the norm.

It had been like this for the last week or so, ever since Ithius and his people had blown through town, trailing death and havoc in their wake, and leaving the local villagers shocked and withdrawn. The Spartans that had arrived not long after had done little to help the situation. At first, a few of the locals had dared to hope that they would bring the perpetrators of the attack to justice, but the Spartans had apparently had other priorities. They had asked a few questions of course, but their main purpose seemed to have been to escort some people from a ship that was still docked down at the harbour even now. They had been on their way almost immediately after that, leaving Tryxis to tend to its wounds by itself.

Plykus sighed as he gathered up the pewter mugs in a single hand and wiped the table down with a cloth tucked in at his waist before turning and heading back toward the bar at the other side of the room. This quiet was beginning to bother him, and worse yet, bother his coin pouch. The mood of the villagers in Tryxis had been subdued since the fire that Ithius and his associates had started, and that was putting it mildly. Downright morose would have probably been a more accurate way to describe it, and it meant that a lot of people were staying home in the evenings, off the streets, and most certainly away from Plykus' establishment.

He sometimes found himself wondering if his part in the whole sorry affair had had something to do with it. He had not been seen out and about with Ithius, or at least he thought he had not, but Ithius had been seen coming to him in the inn, and even that brief contact would doubtless have served to tarnish his reputation and set tongues wagging.

As he reached the bar and placed the empty tankards among the stack of empties at the far end, he heard the sound of chairs scraping back from a table somewhere across the room as yet another party prepared to leave. Turning with a sigh, he offered his thanks for their coming to the group of men now heading for the exit. They said nothing in return, and Plykus found himself wondering just how long he could keep the business running with this poor-a level of custom.

Moments before they reached the door, it swung open, and a disheveled looking older gentlemen stumbled in. The customers in the process of leaving stepped wide of him as he shuffled past them, shooting him wary glances as they went. Meanwhile Plykus had to try his hardest to stifle a groan.

Was it really that time of day again again?

The old man's name was Herapates, and even in a village known for the smell of raw fish and poor hygiene, he stood out as having a particularly noticeable odor. Not only did he stink, but he also stood out as being the biggest drunk in Tryxis. He worked odd jobs here and there, whenever there was call for an extra pair of hands, or another strong back, but regular and gainful employment seemed always to elude him, and considering his stench, it was hardly surprising. Everyday he would come hobbling into Plykus' inn, looking to trade what meager earnings he had managed to scrape together this time to pay for a bottle of the cheapest wine Plykus had available. He'd then seat himself at the bar and proceed to drink himself into oblivion, while at the same time wittering on at anyone who came close enough about whatever crazy new conspiracy he had come up with. Last night it had been that the local fishmongers' guild were concocting a means to price fix the latest catches between them as a way to undercut the local independents. The night before that, it had been that Esta, the blacksmith's mother, was sacrificing all the local cats in an effort to appease some crazy goddess he had seen depicted on an imported urn one time. Most people did not have to listen to his nonsense, but Plykus, being a good bartender, was consistently on the receiving end of it. Still, business was business, and in the current climate, beggars could hardly be choosers now could they?

Forcing his best welcoming smile onto his face, he stepped behind the bar and moved to meet the old man. Herapates looked strangely alert today. Normally his eyes, were hooded and bloodshot as a result of the previous night's drinking. Today though, they were wide and oddly focused, darting left and right shiftily as he moved.

"And what can I get for you tonight, Herapates?" Plykus asked, his voice warm and friendly, even as he wrinkled his nose against the man's stench. "Same as usual?"

Herapates started at his voice, as if realising exactly where he was for the first time. Then his eyes slid to Plykus, and he hurried the last few metres to the bar.

"Shhhh..." he hissed, flapping his hands in Plykus' direction conspiratorially. "You shouldn't speak so loud! They'll hear you!"

Plykus frowned in confusion.

"Hear me?" he said. "Who'll hear me? Not the ghosts of the village Founders again?"

"Not them!" the old drunk hissed and gestured back toward the door he had entered through. "Them! The big men in blue cloaks. They were asking after you."

"Blue cloaks?" Plykus said, still not understanding the other man. Then suddenly, his heart froze in his chest. "Spartans!" he said, leaning toward Herapates. "Spartans are here? Again? And they're looking for me?"

Herapates nodded.

"Not just looking," he said nervously. "Coming for you. Maybe even for all of us..."

He started back across the room, gesturing for Plykus to follow him as he went. His throat suddenly dry, and his stomach churning with dread, Plykus slipped out from behind the bar and moved to follow the old man to one of the inn's shuttered windows.

"There!" the old drunk hissed, opening one of the shutters barely more than a crack as Plykus reached his side. The former Helot pressed his eye to the opening and peered out over the main village square.

Sure enough, the old man had been telling the truth. A group of Spartans were filing into the square at that very moment. There were probably around a hundred of them, a man barely in his twenties marching at their head.

"They cornered me on the edge of town," Herapates was muttering at his side. "Kept asking me the same questions, even once I'd answered them already. Didn't tell 'em though. Didn't tell 'em anything. You were always good to me, Plykus. Always ready with a warm hearth and warmer smile. Wouldn't ever tell 'em anything."

Not looking away from the scene outside, Plykus reached out and placed a hand on the other man's shoulder. It was only supposed to silence his rambling, but it seemed to make him all the more jittery.

In the square, a number of locals had gathered to stare at the assembling Spartans. After the patrol had picked up the envoys a few days back, he had not expected to see their kind again for a good long while, so what had brought them back so soon? To the best of his knowledge they had no other business, so why were they were back looking for him?

Almost as soon as the question occurred to him, so too did the answer. It was plainly obvious.

"After your friends," Herapates said, strangely on cue. "So now they're after you too."

Plykus glanced at the man.

"How did you..." he began, but the older man snorted disdainfully.

"Everyone knows," he said. "No one sees, but everyone knows. Friends of yours started the fire. Lots of people are angry with you. But not me. Never me. You were always good to me..."

He began to trail off into more semi coherent ramblings, craning his neck to see out of the window. Plykus turned his attention back to the courtyard as well, and immediately felt his stomach turn. A man he recognised all too well had just entered the square at the head of a second column of Spartans. He was broad shouldered and thick necked, with a cruel caste to his mouth and a scar across his eye that was new since the last time Plykus had seen him a little over a year ago.

"Gracus," he grunted in disgust. Demosthenes' most trusted lieutenant had always had a reputation among the Helots as bad as that same reputation among his peers was glowing. Plykus had had very little contact with him, but he knew the man's face nevertheless, and seeing him here was enough to set his heart pounding.

There had to be two hundred Spartans in the square now, and the locals were beginning to look increasingly nervous. The younger man that had led the first column was walking forward to meet a couple of representatives of the local town council. It took only a few moments of conversation between them, before one of the native Tryxians was gesturing toward Plykus' inn.

"You should go," Herapates said nervously. "Now."

"You know something," Plykus said warily. "I think you might be right." The last thing he saw before stepping back away from the window was the younger man gesturing to the five or so Spartans at the head of his column, and directing them toward the inn.

"Come on," he said, turning and starting hurriedly toward the door at the rear of the common room that led into the kitchens.

Herapates shook his head.

"Oh I don't think so," he said. "Too old and too tired by half. Not built for chases," he gave another shake of his head. "nope, not me."

"But..." Plykus began. Before he could finish though, the old man was shooing him toward the door.

"Nope, nope, nope," he said emphatically. "You be on your way now, y'hear. Think I'll stay a while. It's warm in here. Good for the old bones."

Plykus stared at the old man a moment longer, then nodded his thanks, before hurrying for the door in the rear again. He had no more time to waste.

In an instant he was into the kitchen, his stride lengthening as the door swung shut behind him. Minos, the huge hound so prone to sleeping on the kitchen floor, lifted his great head, alerted by Plykus' hurried clip and the sudden tension in the air. The dog watched him as he crossed to the cupboard close to the rear door and yanked it open.

"C'mon boy," he hissed over his shoulder. The sound of the inn's front door banging open echoed in from the common room, and Minos sprang to his feet almost as soon as it did. He trotted obediently over to Plykus' side as the former Helot pulled a couple of bags of grain aside to grab his concealed sword.

Raised voices came drifting in and the sound of Herapates drunkenly answering them almost made Plykus turn back. Could he really leave the old man to whatever fate the Spartans had in store for him? Before he could take a step though, Minos let out a low growl. Frowning in confusion, Plykus turned to follow the dog's eyeline to the inn's backdoor. The door handle was turning ever so slowly.

Someone was outside.

Hissing at Minos to stay by his side, he moved to one side of the door, clutching his sword tightly but not daring to unsheathe it for fear of being heard by the people outside. As the tension in the air rose, time seemed to slow. The voices in the common room were growing louder and angrier, and the door handle had almost completed a full rotation. Soon, whoever was outside would be coming in. Plykus held his breath, moments seeming to stretch on forever as his heart pounded in his chest.

A loud shout from the common room, and the sound of wood crashing against wood as a table was turned over jolted Plykus into action.

Not waiting for the door to be opened, he reached out and seized the backdoor knob, yanking on it with all his strength. The door jerked open suddenly, carrying the Spartan who had been trying to open it stumbling into the room. Plykus lashed out with the pommel of his sword, hammering it into the man's temple and sending him sprawling on the ground. Two more men were already attempting to push into the room from behind him, the first of them reaching to draw his sword from his hip while the second carried his at his side and had a short bow slung across back. Plykus stepped up squarely to meet the second man, one hand seizing his wrist to keep him from freeing the blade from its scabbard, while the other caught him by the throat. With a furious shout, he shoved the man back hard into the other Spartan behind him, and the three of them, now off balance, tumbled back out into the alleyway at the rear of the inn in a mad tangle of limbs.

Coming down hard on top of his attackers, Plykus quickly managed to roll clear of his attackers and take in his surroundings. He could see two horses less than a hundred metres away. Both were hitched and had been drinking from a water trough, but the sound of Plykus and the two Spartans had clearly startled them, and now they pranced nervously, or at least as much as their hitchings would allow.

The first Spartan was beginning to right himself by now, and Plykus wasted no time coming up to his knees and throwing all his weight into an ungainly punch that caught the other man square in the face. He felt something in his hand crack as his fist caught the nose guard on his victim's helmet, and he gritted his teeth against the sudden wave of pain that washed over the damaged fingers. His adrenaline was surging now, and even as the Spartan he had just punched slumped back to the ground, he was aware of the third and final Spartan's quick recovery. A brief thought flashed across his mind as he wondered whether he would actually be able to take a Spartan in a one on one, evenly matched fight.

The sound of the kitchen door crashing open behind him brought him springing back to the present. What was he thinking!? This was not a one a one fight, and if he did not want to be overwhelmed, he had to make a move now!

Already, the third Spartan was almost back on his feet, when out of nowhere, Minos barreled into him, barking loudly as he drove the soldier back to the ground once more. Plykus was already back up and on his feet, and he took off at a dead run, heading straight for the two horses even as the sound of angry shouts filled the air. Hurriedly, he unhitched the first animal he came to and jumped up onto its back, seizing the reins and urging it to turn and run. From nearby he heard Minos barking, and he turned just in time to see the younger Spartan he had seen earlier emerging into the street with his arm outstretched toward the third Spartan, who by now had his short bow off his shoulder and an arrow knocked. Too late, the younger Spartan reached the third man, grabbing him by the arm just as he let his arrow fly.

There was an ear piercing whistling sound, less than a moment long, and then suddenly cut short as Plykus felt a sickening rush of pain just beneath his arm. Adrenaline still pumping, and not wishing to waste anymore time, he snapped the horse's reins loudly and booted it hard in the flanks. The animal shot forward with gusto, pelting off down the alley and away from the Spartans at a fierce gallop that had Plykus clinging to it's neck almost for dear life.

It was only once they were nearing the edge of the village and once the adrenaline began to fade, that the pain bowed him forward in the saddle. Hands still gripping tightly around the galloping animal's neck, he risked a glance back and down at the source of the pain, only to let out a low groan as he saw the feathered shaft of an arrow staring back at him.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, he turned his attention back to the road ahead. They were out beyond the borders of the village now, and speeding southward up the gently sloping trail that, if he were to follow it far enough, would eventually lead him all the way to Sparta. Not that he would be going that far of course. There was no shelter there. No respite. There was only one place safe for him now, and with this arrow sticking in him, he knew that getting even that far would be no small feat.

Still grimacing with his mount's every bounding footstep, he clutched grimly to the reins and urged it onward, away from Tryxis and onward toward what he hoped would be sanctuary.

*****

The sounds of fighting had all but died down as Gracus strode confidently into the inn. Judging by the state of the interior, all had apparently gone according to plan. A table had been overturned, and toward the centre of the room, three of Orestes' men were standing guard over an old man, seated on a chair and nursing a split lip as he glared angrily up at them.

"...weren't supposed to hit me!" he was saying. "That was never part of the..."

His voice trailed off as Gracus slammed the front door behind him, finally drawing the old man's attention to him.

"...deal," he finished, swallowing and licking his lips nervously as Gracus strode across the room toward him.

"Is something the matter?" Gracus asked, fixing the old man with a cold stare. The old man looked down at the floor.

"Just didn't think you'd be so rough is all," he muttered, rubbing at the blood on his lip ruefully.

"You were paid to be convincing," Gracus replied, then shrugged. "Without a little violence, he'd never have believed he was actually in danger."

"So what happens to Plykus now?" the old man asked, his voice growing low and regretful.

"Now?" Gracus said, then shook his head. "You don't need to concern yourself with any of that."

He unfastened a pouch of dinars from his belt and tossed it to the old man, feeling sullied even as he did so. Normally he would not have resorted to such devious measures as this, considering them as he did quite below his standing as a warrior. Still, Ithius' recent escape had galled him more than he cared to admit, and the thought of having to face his King, not to mention the Strength of his new faith empty handed, was doubly worrying.

"Here," he said, putting aside his distaste as best he could. He had done all that was necessary to achieve his goal. Nothing more, nothing less, and certainly enough to justify the deception to himself. "Double the amount we agreed upon. More than enough compensation for any small injuries you might have incurred in our service."

The old man quietly pulled the draw string open a the top of the pouch, gazing at the pile of dinars inside, his expression souring as Gracus watched.

"I..." he began, then coughed and swallowed again. "...I didn't think it would feel like this."

"Then I would recommend a bottle or five," Gracus remarked. "I've heard it works wonders for a guilty conscience, but then I suppose you'd probably know that already."

The old man said nothing, instead just clambering to his feet and beginning to shuffle toward the door. As he passed it, he grabbed a cheap bottle of spirits from where it had been sitting on the bar, uncorking the top of it and taking a swig as he disappeared outside. Gracus just watched him go, a disdainful sneer spread across his features.

As the common room's front door banged shut behind the old man, a second door toward the rear of the room swung open and Orestes came stalking angrily back in, three of Gracus' men in tow.

Gracus frowned at them.

"I am assuming all went to plan?" he said.

"If the plan was to kill him, then oh yes. It all went just dandy," Orestes sneered as he shot a poisonous glance back over his shoulder at each of three men behind him in turn, his gaze lingering on the last of the three who shifted uncomfortably as Gracus' eyes came to rest on him too.

"Plykus is dead?" Gracus said, his voice as measured and calm as he could make it. If true, this would be a disaster

"Not yet," Orestes said. "But judging by what just happened I'd say he soon will be."

Gracus scowled darkly.

"Explain," he said.

Orestes sighed and gestured toward the Spartan sheepishly clinging to his bow.

"Bellios here got a little overexcited in the heat of the moment," he said. "Decided to use Plykus for target practice."

Gracus' gaze turned on the other man.

"Is this true?" he asked, his voice perfectly even.

Bellios stepped forward, his back straight and chin raised, but Gracus could practically smell the fear on him.

"Captain Gracus," Bellios began. "If you would allow me to explain-"

"IS IT TRUE?" Gracus bellowed, his voice cracking like a whip that made the other man flinch, before giving a slight nod.

"It is," he said quietly.

Sniffing loudly, Gracus stepped up to other man, now visibly paling as the Spartan commander's gaze speared him like a wild boar.

"You were only supposed to surprise him," he said, low and dangerous now, "startle him into fleeing like the frightened rabbit he is so that he would dash for the nearest bolthole."

"I am sorry, Captain," Bellios said, no longer able to meet Gracus' furious stare, and instead turning his eyes toward the floor. "He came out of nowhere and-"

"No excuses," Gracus said, cutting him off sharply. "You've failed me, you've failed our King, and worst of all, you've failed  him ." He stabbed his finger forward so that it jabbed at the stitched sickle on the soldier's blue cloak. "Do you understand the seriousness of this?"

Bellios bowed his head in supplication and nodded. "I do," he said. "Punish me how you see fit."

"Lashes," Gracus said without even pausing. "Fifty of them. And you will keep our Lord in your thoughts as they are administered. Your pain will give him strength. Then at least some good may come of your ineptitude."

Bellios said nothing, instead only nodding again in complete defeat.

With a sigh, Gracus turned back to Orestes, his mind already turning to how best they could salvage this mess.

"The arrow," he said. "How bad was it?"

Orestes gave a shrug.

"Plykus was already mounted, and starting to move," he said. "Had it been under different circumstances, I would have commended the shot for finding its mark at all. I didn't see that well how the arrow took him, or how deep it penetrated. He could have hours, or days even. It all depends..."

Gracus waved him into silence.

"And the scouts," he pushed. "They were in position?"

"I've heard nothing from them to suggest otherwise," Orestes said. "With any luck they are already trailing Plykus now, as per your instructions."

Gracus nodded.

"That's something at least," he said. "All going well we might still be able to salvage this."

"All going well," Orestes agreed, but there was an undercurrent of sarcasm that Gracus noted almost immediately.

"All that remains is to see that King Demosthenes learns of this," he said, ignoring Orestes' barbed comment. "I have new orders for you."

Orestes immediately snapped to attention.

"I am at your command, Captain," he said.

"You will head south," Gracus continued on as if he had not even spoken. "Report all that has taken place here and inform him that I recommend he move his forces in position, and await further signals from the scouts as to Ithius' potential location."

"May I ask why I am to be sent?" Orestes said. His tone was perfectly acceptable, but Gracus could detect a note of suspicion in his voice, as if he suspected some ulterior motive in Gracus sending him south above any of the other lieutenants with them. He was right to as well.

"Quite simple really," Gracus replied. "I and my men will be holding position here, within Tryxis."

Orestes looked confused, and Gracus simply smiled back at him.

"You might say we will be acting as insurance," he said in answer to the other man's unspoken question. "Do you understand?"

Orestes only shook his head.

"No," he said. "But then, understanding is not required."

"Quite so," Gracus agreed.

Orestes wasted no more time, snapping off a salute then turning and heading for the door.

"If you'll excuse me, Captain," he said. "I must round up my men."

"Make sure you do it quickly," Gracus called after him. "Time is pressing, and we've already wasted too much of it as is."

Orestes glanced back and nodded, before disappearing out of the door as the old man had before him, the other Spartans following not far behind him and leaving Gracus alone in the common room.

He stood silently for a moment, contemplating all that had just happened. Finally he looked down at the floor boards beneath his feet, imagining what lay beyond them.

"Do you hear me Great Cronus," he whispered softly. "All the way down there? Do you hear my thoughts? For this failure I can only offer my apologies..." Reaching down he yanked a dagger free from his boot, then, without preamble, raked the blade across the palm of his hand, wincing only slightly as he did so.

"...and my penance," he hissed, holding out his wounded hand so that the blood from the injury dripped thickly on the floor. "Let this be the first," he continued, "the first of the blood I will spill in your name. The noose is tightening around your enemies. My King, your Strength, stands ready even as I speak. All that remains is to find what rock Ithius and his Helots have been hiding under, kick it over..." He smiled darkly to himself. "...and crush them."

Chapter Eighteen: Something to Believe In

Dusk was failing quickly into night as Ithius and the survivors of the battle wound their way among and through the forest trees. What few shadows there were being cast by the clouded twilight lengthened all about them as a biting chill began to settle in.

Adrasteia took her right hand from her mount's reins and flexed her fingers against the cold, hoping to keep the numbness she could feel creeping into them at bay. They had been riding for hours, and at first she had thought they were heading directly away from the battlefield, but as time had worn on and the daylight had faded, she had begun to realise their route was actually circuitous, winding this way and that through the trees as they pressed deeper and deeper into the forest.

Glancing about at the hushed and ragtag band of survivors, she felt more than a little uncomfortable. It was a strange group to be sure. Themistocles was riding a little back from her, his eyes closed even as he steered the horse deftly between trees, up and down slopes, and through narrow gullies. He seemed to be dozing, but even now there was an alertness to him that suggested the closed eyes were nothing more than an affectation. Her brother was hovering somewhere toward the rear of the group, and the few times she had seen him since they had set out he had seemed distant, his gaze far away and his hand fumbling with something inside his jerkin. She had to admit that the reason she had seen so little of him was mainly due to the fact she was doing her best to avoid him. If she was being even more brutally honest with herself, it was not even because she was angry with him. She  was  angry at him, of that she had no doubt, but she was also somewhat relieved. They had been close when they were younger, and for the last few years she had often wondered at what had become of him, or if he was even still alive. Now she had that question answered, and she was frustrated by the fact that she could not quite decide how to feel about it.

Doing her best to put her thoughts about Athelis to one side for the time being, she found them instead drifting toward Nikias. The moment she did so, she realised it had been a mistake. Her throat began to ache and the tip of her nose began to tingle. She sniffed loudly, wanting to hate him for leaving, but at the same time hating herself for being the one to actually let him leave.

Suddenly she frowned, all of her depression momentarily forgotten as she caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye. It was a tree stump, nothing more; just the rotten, moss ridden remains of some once great oak that had been felled by terrible storm. It was the familiarity of it that caught her attention more than anything; that and the churned earth around its base already marked by passing horses.

Gritting her teeth in irritation, she booted her horse to trot and started off up the length of the column, quickly outpacing those beside her until she was approaching the man who called himself Ithius.

"Hey," she said called to him, causing him to glance back over his shoulder at her, and for the first time she realised just how tired he looked. His eyes had dark rings beneath them, and despite his size and broadness, there was a gauntness to him that suggested weeks spent living on far less than plenty. When he saw her expression, he pulled on his horse's reins, slowing the animal to a standstill as she rode up to meet him.

"Hey?" he said tilting an eyebrow at her, and in spite of the cold, Adrasteia immediately felt her face flush hot. "Funny way to address the man who just saved your life."

She ground her teeth furiously against one another, but refused to be cowed by him.

"And for that I'm grateful," she said as graciously as she could manage. "But we've been riding for hours, and now I see that we're not even getting anywhere." She thrust her finger back through the trees toward the stump they had passed. "You've got us going in circles. We passed that stump already."

Ithius looked back past her, then gave a slight nod.

"We did at that," he said with a tired smile. "But I can assure you there's a reason for it."

"Did you ever think about telling us what that reason is?" she said.

"He's trying to throw off a pursuit," came Themistocles' voice, cutting into the conversation before Ithius could answer. Adrasteia twisted in her saddle to see him trotting up the column toward them. "At least that's what I'd do if I were in his situation."

Ithius angled his horse away from the trail and into the deeper spaces between the trees. Behind them the column turned too.

"You think we're being followed?" Adrasteia said, turning her horse as well.

"I think when you're being hunted by a city's worth of the greatest soldiers known, it pays to be cautious," Ithius replied.

"A man of wisdom," Themistocles smiled wryly as he finally drew level with them. "It does beg the question of why exactly they're hunting you though. What does Demosthenes stand to gain from it?"

Ithius eyed him suspiciously.

"You seem familiar," he said. "Have we met before?"

Themistocles shrugged.

"Perhaps. I take it you were at Marathon?"

Ithius nodded.

"Then we may have crossed paths," Themistocles said. "I led the Athenians there. Demosthenes has never quite forgiven me for it either."

Ithius gave a dry snort of amusement.

"He's not a forgiving man," he said.

"On that we can definitely agree," Themistocles replied.

Ithius gave him another searching look, then let out a weary sigh. It was as if the weight of the world were pressing down on his shoulders.

"I suppose it makes no real difference whether you know or not," he said, and both Themistocles and Adrasteia leaned forward in their saddles. Maybe they were finally about to get some answers.

The horses trotted clear of a treeline along the bank of a shallow stream.

"Demosthenes used the Persian threat to leverage a military coup in Sparta," Ithius began, and as he spoke, he gestured to the rest of the column.

Following his instructions, the rest of the survivors began to lead their horses down into the stream bed. Instead of trotting out the other side though, they turned and followed the stream west, each horses hooves splashing quietly through the shallow water. Adrasteia could not help but notice the sour glances exchanged between Athelis and Ithius as the former rode past.

"Helots have long been a thorn in the side of the Spartan military though," Ithius continued, turning away from her brother and back to the conversation at hand. "We're their foot troops, and we know a lot about the ways they fight. Demosthenes always chafed against being reliant on us, and when the Ephors made a deal to us that we couldn't refuse, he saw us squaring up on the opposite side to him. None of us knew what he was planning. Not even the Ephors until it was too late..." he trailed off sadly, his gaze growing far away and thoughtful. "...or maybe  someone  did," he muttered under his breath, before snapping back to the present.

"Anyway, he used a loophole in Spartan law, and had the majority of us killed, then used that same argument and a groundswell of public sympathy after the death of Leonidas to take down the Ephors as well. Since then, he's had his men scouring the countryside for us, and securing territory beyond Sparta's usual borders. Now he's gathering an army to march North on the rest of Greece, and those of us left are the only loose ends remaining to him. We've managed to avoid his direct attention so far, but after what just happened, I'm not sure just how much longer that can last."

Adrasteia frowned. He had given them an explanation as to what had taken place, but something wasn't right with it. The vision from her dream flashed in her head and immediately she knew what was missing.

"What about the Followers?" she asked, only to feel suddenly uncomfortable when Ithius turned his keen eyed gaze on her.

"What about them?" he said.

"Did you know that Demosthenes is one of them?" Themistocles said, giving her a half smile as he did so. Clearly he had been thinking along similar lines to her.

The question gave Ithius pause. He sat in silence for a moment, then turned his horse down the slope into the stream bed and set off after the rest of the column.

"I had my suspicions," he said. "But I didn't  know. "

"Glad we could confirm that for you then," Themistocles said, trotting his horse after Ithius while Adrasteia brought up the rear. "But it still doesn't tell us what part they played in all this. And don't try and tell me it's coincidence. A man like Demosthenes doesn't just switch his faith at the drop of a hat."

"All I can tell you is what I know for sure," Ithius said. "The Followers came to Sparta a couple of months ago and very quickly established themselves as an up and coming cult. They made inroads with my people first, but they quickly caught the ear of the Spartans too. Dissatisfaction with the Olympian pantheon had been growing since Marathon, and they capitalised on it. As to if they were involved in any of this," he shrugged. "Who can say for sure?"

It was obvious he was not telling them everything he knew, and Adrasteia was about to call him on it when she caught a sideways glance at her from Themistocles and fell silent.

They rode another league or so along the stream bed, and to either side of them, the slopes grew sheerer and rockier until eventually they were just bare, grey rock faces. Then suddenly, the head of the column disappeared. It took Adrasteia a moment to realise that the rider had actually just angled off through a narrow crack in the rock face; one just wide enough to allow a single rider at a time through.

The column drew to a halt as the rest of the group lined up awaiting there turn. When Themistocles' turn came, he drew his horse to one side and gestured to Adrasteia.

"After you," he grinned at her, and she just rolled her eyes in response.

She trotted her horse up to the mouth of the gap, eyeing it warily as she did so. The light was well and truly failing now, and the crack's high sides had plunged the narrow passage into almost total darkness. Doing her best to slow the sudden hammering of her heart, she guided her horse carefully forward, hissing in occasional pain where the pass grew so narrow that it scraped at her knees. For a moment she felt a kind of claustrophobic panic threatening to settle over her when she realised she could not see any way out, but after another moment or two a thin slit of fading grey light came into view, widening quickly as she hurried her horse toward it.

Soon she was out of the passage and found herself seated beside the rest of the column in the base of a high sided valley. Dead leaves carpeted the ground, muffling the sound of their passing. At least the chill here was less, the slopes of the valley itself providing some shelter from the gusting autumn wind.

The procession waited for a few minutes longer, horses shifting uneasily as the last few people passed through the gap in the rock face to join them. Finally once they had all assembled, Ithius gave the order and they began moving again. It did not take them long to leave the valley behind, and soon they were riding through nothing but forest once more. The trees were denser here than they had been, and the undergrowth thicker too, but it was still possible to move their horses through it. Still, their progress was slowed now, and the line of survivors had become spread out and scattered.

Slowly but surely, some of the undergrowth began to give way around them, and Adrasteia quickly realised the first traces of another trail were beginning to appear. It was old, and largely overgrown, but still able visible in places, and once people began to find their way to it, the procession quickly fell into line once more more, their pace quickening as a result. The light was fading fast now, and she was just beginning to wonder if they would have to stop soon to make camp when she saw the hints of firelight shining between the trees in the distance.

For a moment she felt her heart jump into her throat. Was it the Spartans? Had they some how managed to circle around and head them off? Her growing panic was short lived however, when she noticed that no one else seemed even remotely concerned by the sight of firelight. Indeed, the moment the distant lights came into view, the spirits of the rest of the group seemed to lift considerably, with some of the group even quickening their pace as if they wanted to reach the lights faster.

It did not take long for Adrasteia to see why. As they drew nearer to the lights, she quickly saw other details begin to resolve themselves. The lights themselves appeared to be freshly lit cooking fires, and here and there between the trees, she could make out the odd tent or awning. It appeared as if they were riding toward some kind of campsite, but it was only when they cleared the tree line and emerged on the edge of a huge forest clearing that the full scale of what she was seeing became apparent.

There must have been close to – if not even slightly more than – a hundred or so shelters set up across the clearing. They were clustered in bunches around the cooking fires, and she could even see one or two larger shelters that seemed to act like communal dining areas. At the centre of it all stood an old, half dilapidated cottage that appeared to have had some minor repair work done to it, but that had still seen far better days. All about the camp was hustle and bustle as bedraggled looking people moved this way and that, gathering up what they could, and in some cases even taking down shelters when those shelters could be made compact enough for transport. Their expressions were a mixed bag, ranging from grim stoicism to jittery nervousness, and in some cases even barely suppressed panic.

"Are these people..." she began, edging her horse toward Ithius again, and the other man nodded before she could even finish.

"The last survivors of Demosthenes' culling," he said sadly.

"And you've been hiding here all this time? Why didn't you try to get further away from Sparta?"

"There are reasons," Ithius said. "Demosthenes had the roads watched for one. Also, not all of them came here straight away. We spent a long time trying to round up as many survivors as we could, and by the time we did..." he shrugged. "...by that time it was just too dangerous to move so many people so openly."

"So instead he had us sit here and do nothing," came Athelis' voice, and at the sound of it, Ithius' eyes narrowed.

"For a month we were forced to just sit and watch and wait," Athelis continued, riding into view now. "All the while food stores dwindled, despair grew, and all because fearless leader here didn't want to put lives on the line."

"And I still don't," Ithius replied sternly. "Not without good cause."

"So what cause would that be?" Athelis retorted. "I don't see that things are any different now than they were this morning. Spartans are still out there hunting for us, we're still cowering in the woods like frightened mice, and you're still the sanctimonious ass you always were."

Ithius' jaw muscles worked silently, and for a moment, Adrasteia thought he might just be about to throw himself at the other man. Instead he spoke again, and when he did, his voice was controlled ice.

"After everything you just did, all the lives you just cost us, you want to be very careful how you speak to me," he said, with a nod toward the camp. "You're lucky I don't just hand you over to them; tell them exactly what kind of a disaster you just led them into, and even worse, why you did it in the first place. I've seen an angry mob go to work before, and believe me, it wasn't pretty."

He sidled his horse closer to Athelis', his stare now hard and filled with anger.

"Also, just so we get this absolutely clear; there is no 'we'. There is no 'us'. You didn't do any of what you did for the sake of my people. You did it for yourself, and all of it stops now."

Athelis stared back at him defiantly.

"You came to me," he said.

"And you set a price," Ithius replied. "I'd say my people have paid it by now, wouldn't you?"

Before Athelis could reply, the Helot leader had turned away from him.

"ARKUS!" he shouted back down the line. Almost immediately, another Helot appeared, trotting his own horse quickly up the line.

"You called?" he said, flashing Ithius a tight smile.

"I want you take everyone into the camp, and divvy up the preparations to leave between them. I want us ready to leave by sunrise. I don't care if everyone has to go the entire night without sleep; you get it done. Understand?"

Arkus nodded.

"We'll be ready," he said, then turned to face the rest of the column. "Did you people all here that?" he shouted.

A resounding chorus of affirmatives answered him, and he gave another grim nod.

"Then consider the order given!" he shouted, and immediately the column began moving again.

"You can't do this," Athelis snarled and the seething anger in his voice took Adrasteia aback. She had never heard him speak that way to anyone, not even their father when he and Athelis had had their... disagreements over the fate of the family business. "You promised me a war, and for a war I need soldiers."

"I promised you no such thing," Ithius replied. "And my people aren't just spear fodder for you to throw at the Spartans in your vendetta. You want to wage a war Athelis? You can do it on your own from here on out."

"But I-" Athelis began, but before he could finish, Ithius cut him off sharply.

"But you what?" he snapped. "Were winning? Is that what you were about to try and say? I warned you Athelis! I told you! You could have won a hundred battles against them. It would never have made a difference. With our numbers versus theirs, you only ever needed to loose once for your so called war to be left in ruins, and guess what? You just did exactly that! Count yourself lucky that I came when I did. I seriously doubt we'd be having this conversation otherwise."

The two men fell silent, both glaring at one another furiously. Adrasteia wondered if she should perhaps say something, but before she could, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Twisting in her saddle, she saw Themistocles seated beside her and shaking his head.

"Don't," was all he said.

In front of her, she could see Athelis' spine had gone bolt straight, his hands so still it was obvious he was concentrating hard to keep them from shaking with rage.

"So where will you go?" he managed to say finally. "Nothing's changed out there, and the only way to really get clear of Spartan territory is still to strike out north for Delphi. Demosthenes won't have stopped watching  that  road, I guarantee you that."

"That's my problem to worry about," Ithius replied, "and I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. In the mean time I want all of you to-"

"Actually, I might have an option for you," Themistocles cut in, raising his hand in a childlike gesture that Adrasteia realised was affected purely to make him appear deferential and that what he was about to say was only a mere suggestion.

Ithius turned to look at him.

"Which is?"

"The ship we came south on," Themistocles said. "We paid them to wait for us at Tryxis. If the captain has lived up to his part of the bargain, and given that we overpaid him somewhat I have no reason to believe he wouldn't have, they should still be there waiting for us."

Athelis turned his angry glare on Themistocles.

"And why should we trust you?" he said. "For all we know, you're just spinning us a line; some little ray of hope so that we'll continue to help you."

"Okay," Adrasteia snapped. "That's it. I've had enough now."

She clambered down from her horse and stalked angrily over to Athelis' own, glaring up at him as she did so.

"You might not believe Themistocles big brother, but are you really going to tell me that you think I'd lie about this too?"

She turned to face Ithius.

"There is a ship," she said emphatically. "We came here on it, and we paid it to stay in port for a week. That was only a few days ago, so it should still be there."

Ithius regarded the three of them for a moment, his gaze flicking from one, to the other and then to another.

"This ship," he said eventually. "Can it take us all?"

Athelis gave a frustrated growl, and dismounted from his horse, stalking angrily off through the camp in the direction of the cottage at its centre while the others watched him go.

"How many of you are there?" Themistocles asked once it was clear that they were not about to be interrupted again.

"There were two hundred," Ithius said, then glanced back the way they had just come from. "Less than that now."

Themistocles waved his hand dismissively.

"Not a problem," he said. "It's a big bellied merchant ship, and the captain's enough of a skin flint to keep his crew hiring to an absolute minimum. There'll be more than enough room for everyone."

Ithius continued to watch the Athenian with a careful, studying look. Finally he said:

"What's the price?"

Adrasteia looked confusedly between the two men.

"Price?" she said, not really understanding. "What price are you talking about."

Ithius didn't look at her as he spoke again.

"Themistocles here has a reputation," he said.

The Athenian smiled, but it never touched his eyes.

"A good one I trust."

"That would depend on how you rank 'unbridled ambition'."

"Highly," Themistocles said smartly and without so much as a pause. "Does that pose a problem for you?"

Ithius just shrugged.

"I've known a lot of ambitious men in my life," he said, "and they were all capable of a great many things. Some good, but just as many terrible. In all that time though, I've never known a one who was capable of charity."

He turned and looked out over the camp.

"My people aren't wealthy," he continued. "We've have little to offer save for our gratitude, but if you name a price, I will see to it that you get what you asked for."

Themistocles glanced at Adrasteia who was watching him patiently, waiting to see what his answer would be.

"My price is nothing extravagant," he said. "Adrasteia here and I are all that remains of a diplomatic envoy sent to ascertain the strength of Sparta after the battle at Thermopylae, along with their current intentions. That we have done, but now we must report what we have found back to our respective cities. In order to make it that far, we'll need an escort..."

"...and you're hoping for us to provide it." Ithius finished for him.

Themistocles nodded.

"I scratch your back, n'all that," he said.

Ithius sighed.

"Very well then," he said and held his hand out for Themistocles to shake. "You'll have our protection, or what little of it we can provide at any rate, but..." his voice trailed off as his gaze shifted to Adrasteia. She shifted uncomfortably.

"But what?" she said.

"...but I have another condition."

Adrasteia brow furrowed and she glanced at Themistocles.

"Go on," the Athenian said, prompting Ithius to continue.

"There's a lot of open ground between us and Tryxis," the Helot said. "A  lot  of open ground, and many of the people making the trek will be families, young and old. If they're going to survive this, we'll need some of the best scouts and soldiers we have to help us avoid the Spartans..." he said.

"...and unfortunately some of the better scouts and soldiers you had just died in that ambush," Themistocles cut in helpfully, and Ithius nodded in return.

"That's about the size and shape of it, yes," he said. "And those those few that did survive... well, let's just say that recently, they and I haven't really been seeing eye to eye on how to handle this whole situation."

Adrasteia's frown deepened.

"You really think after what just happened that they wouldn't be willing to follow you?"

Ithius shrugged.

"Who can say, but rationality hasn't exactly been in ready supply among my people these last few months. There are quite a few of them who'd rather die fighting for something they've already lost, than to admit defeat and move on. With those people on our side, our chances of escape are poor. Without them, they're truly abysmal."

"Those are problems, it's true," Themistocles said. "But, when all is said and done, they are  your  problems, and in case you hadn't noticed, we've barely been here five minutes, how do you expect us to be of any help with this?"

Even as Themistocles spoke, Adrasteia had a horrible feeling she knew what Ithius' reply would be. When he spoke, she was not disappointed.

"Her brother," the Helot said, nodding in her direction. "He's been the one leading this losing fight."

Both sets of eyes turned toward her in an instant, and she gave a slightly embarrassed cough.

"Alright," she said eventually with a miserable sigh. "I'll try talking to him."

"That's all I ask," Ithius said with a thankful smile.

Adrasteia flashed him a withering glance before turning and starting off in the direction she had seen Athelis go only a few minutes before.

"Might as well have asked me to rip the horns off a Minotaur bare handed," she muttered to herself as she walked. "Would have been eaiser too!"

*****

The door to Callisto's room banged loudly back on its hinges as Athelis stalked inside, rebounding off the wall and swinging back toward him with only a slightly lesser force. With a frustrated grunt he caught it with the flat of his hand then slammed it shut behind him with a bang even louder than the first. On the nearby bed that she had spent the last month insensate upon, Callisto shifted only slightly at the sound.

The sight of her lying there, unconscious and sickly looking lessened his anger, but only a little. Without thinking, he crossed quickly to the centre of the room, pacing back and forth with his hand shoved inside his jerkin. Outside, dusk was rapidly turning to night, and someone had already been into the room to light a candle on the bed's end table. It flickered now as Athelis passed it, casting his shadow stark and massive across the wall at his back.

"Why!?" he demanded. "Why did it all have to go down that way!? Tell me that, huh! WHY!? And what is  she  doing here!? Like I didn't have enough on my plate already, and then suddenly she comes waltzing in without any warning with her haughty attitude and holier than thou bull, and I... and I..."

Giving up pacing he moved swiftly to Callisto's side, kneeling beside her and trying to will her to open her eyes again with every fiber of his being.

"I was this close..." he said, holding his thumb and forefinger slightly apart. "...this close to having Pelion exactly where I wanted him! I just needed one more chance... just one more Corrina and I could have..."

He trailed off as he realised what he had just said.

"Callisto," he corrected himself. "I meant Callisto. That was just... I mean it was a mistake and..." he gave up and shook his head. "What's the point? It's over now. This was my – our – best shot, and I blew it."

And deep down he knew that he had. It was that sense of failure that cut into him so deeply. He had had everything he needed handed to him; a willing people, the tactical advantage of maneuverability, and the burning drive to see vengeance meted out to those who deserved it. That it had all now come to ruin, and that Pelion, the very target of his rage, had all but predicted it was the most bitter pill to swallow.

Looking down at Callisto, he noticed for the first time how pale she had become, even over the last time he had visited her. Her skin had an almost deathly pallor to it now, and her breathing seemed shallower than he remembered. Was this it? Was this really how this was going to end? Her just fading away like this, and him, alone and furious in his inability to change what was going on?

No!

He could not let it end this way – would not let it end this way!

Slowly he withdrew the amulet that Pelion had given him from where he had been clutching it beneath his jerkin, and held it out from himself at arm's length. He knelt there on the ground beside Callisto, staring at the inset obsidian gem for what felt like forever. It seemed to soak up the candle light that hit it rather than reflect it, and like always when he looked at it, he felt that same strange tugging sensation at the back of his mind; as if something from deep inside him were being dredged up to the surface of his thoughts. Doing his best to ignore the strange feelings that it conjured, he found himself wondering again if Pelion had been telling the truth about what the amulet could do, and moreover, if it could actually bring Callisto back, was that worth playing into whatever ulterior motive Pelion clearly had?

Slowly, he extended his arm, dangling the amulet over Callisto as he had done what felt like a hundred times before. Her top lip peeled back as the amulet came closer to her, and she shifted and murmured unintelligibly to herself.

"I'm sorry," Athelis said, continuing to lower the amulet toward her. "But I can't keep doing this on my own anymore. I need you back."

The amulet was almost touching her skin now, and Callisto tossed her head suddenly to one side, flinching sharply as she did so.

"What are you doing?"

Athelis started at the sound of the voice from the door. Quickly he straightened, shoving the amulet back into his jerkin as he did so and spinning to face the speaker. Adrasteia was standing in the doorway, watching him with a dark frown drawn across her face. He suddenly felt very relieved that he had his back to the door when she had entered and likely had not been able to see the amulet in his hands.

"Nothing," he said, feeling as if she had just caught him up to no good again, like she had always had a knack for doing when they were younger. He remembered how she had very quickly mastered the concept of blackmail, even if she had not known the name for it at first. "Just checking on a friend is all."

Adrasteia stepped into the room.

"A friend?" she said, the corner of her mouth curling upward in that way she had always had when she was about to tease him. "You actually still have friends? And a girl no less! This I have to see."

She moved to look past him, and the moment her eyes fell on Callisto, her expression soured.

"What is  she  doing here?" she demanded, rounding sharply on Athelis, much to his surprise.

"You know her?" he said, feeling genuinely confused.

"Yes!" Adrasteia all but shouted, then paused, seeming to be trying to calm herself again. "I mean... I've never met her before but..." she trailed off.

"She's Callisto, isn't she," she said finally, sounding more her usual self again, but still shooting curious looks toward the unconscious woman nearby.

"She is," Athelis said.

Adrasteia walked over to the side of the bed, peering down at the one time fiercest warlord in all of Greece, an unreadable expression on her face.

"We'd heard she was involved in everything that was going on," she said quietly.

Athelis turned to look down at Callisto as well. There was sweat on her brow and her eyes were darting wildly beneath their lids.

"I'd kind of hoped she was dead," Adrasteia continued. "If she had been then maybe the dreams would have been just that..."

Athelis gave her a sideways glance.

"What dreams?" he said, and Adrasteia started as if she had not realised that she had been speaking aloud.

"You never answered my question," she said, ignoring his. "Why is she here?"

"She was helping Leonidas," Athelis said. "I was too. We were trying to find some ancient tomb. When we did, we found out that it was filled with a lake of liquid Pneuma. That's the stuff that..."

"I know what Pneuma is," Adrasteia cut him off curtly. "Oracle's hand maiden, remember?"

"Right," Athelis nodded. "Well, the Followers had found the place first, and they wanted the Pneuma. When we got there we were attacked by some kind of... I still don't know what it was... but it was fast and dangerous. I was knocked unconscious, and when I came to the monster was gone and Callisto was face down in the Pneuma."

Adrasteia looked back to the blonde woman on the bed.

"May as well be dead then," she said. "And probably for the best too."

"Don't say that," Athelis said tightly. "She's not what you think she is."

"Is she the same Callisto who raised a gang of marauders then set them loose around Delphi?"

"Yes, but..."

"Then so far she's exactly what I think she is."

Athelis felt his fists tightening.

"You don't know what you're talking about," he said, doing his best to control his temper. "You don't know her..."

"I was  there  Athelis!" she snapped sharply, cutting him off for the third time in as many minutes. "I may not have seen her, but I saw everything she left in her wake; families utterly destroyed or left in pieces, whole villages wiped off the face of the map and a body count a mile high! She had Delphi on its knees, and the whole time where were you?"

"I was..." Athelis began, but again she cut him off.

"You know what? I don't even care," she snapped. "Wherever you were or whatever reason you give won't be good enough. Your family had a murderous, rampaging army on its doorstep and you weren't even around to notice!"

"Is that this is all about then?" he said, folding his arms and glaring at her. "You're still pissed at me that I left?"

"Of course that's what it's about!" Adrasteia said, all but shouting now. "It's what it will always be about. The first time you went away I kind of understood. I might not have agreed with it, but I knew why you did it. The second time though, you knew! You knew what it would do to us and you left anyway! We needed you, Athelis!  I  needed you, and you weren't there! Did you ever even think about that while you were headed for the hills? Did you even care?"

"Did I even care?" Ithius countered sharply, his temper finally beginning to fray at the edges. "Did I even CARE!? Do you know what I was going through? What I'm still going through even now? Do  you  even care about that? I lost her, Teia. The only thing in my life worth a damn was taken from me, and I just couldn't suck it up like the brave little boy everyone wanted me to be and pretend that that was ever going to be okay!"

"Were we not worth a damn then?” Adrasteia protested, now sounding more hurt than angry. "No one wanted you to be anything, Athelis. We just wanted to help you. You didn't have to run off the way you did. Mom, and dad and me; we'd all have been there for you if you'd just let us in. You know I'd have been there for you. When was I ever not before?"

"Maybe that's the reason I left," Athelis fired back at her sharply. "Did you ever think of that? Maybe I couldn't stand the idea of you sitting there at every family meal, with your holier-than-thou piety, and your big pity filled eyes. I didn't want pity! I didn't want to mope around feeling sorry for myself while everyone patted me on the back and told me it was all going to be okay!"

"We were just trying to help..." Adrasteia began, but this time it was Athelis' turn to cut her off.

"No!" he snapped viciously. "You weren't trying to help me! You were trying to feel better about yourself. You were always the one dad wanted really. He tried with me, because I was the elder child, and a son to boot, but I always knew that deep down, even if he didn't realise it himself, he wished I was more like you."

Adrasteia was silent now, her eyes big and full of sadness and hurt. He should stop talking now. He knew what he was saying was hurtful, barely even true, and that he had done the damage he wanted to, but for some reason he carried on regardless.

"That's the reason I left the first time. I wasn't the son he wanted, so it was better if I just got out of your way. The second time..." he paused and swallowed. "...the second time something more precious to me than all the gold on Olympus was taken. I didn't want to forget that. I didn't want to move on from that. I only wanted to see the one responsible punished. I still do. You couldn't give me that then Teia – none of you – and that's why I left. Has anything changed since? Can you give it to me now?"

Adrasteia's mouth had fixed itself in a tight pale line, by the time he finished, and he could see her eyes shining wetly, from sadness or rage he could not tell.

"What about them?" she asked pointing toward the window that looked out over the camp.

"What about them?" Athelis echoed, not really seeing her point.

"Can they give you whatever it is you want? Could they ever?"

"I..." Athelis began to answer, then stopped short as he really considered what she had just asked. She had always been good at this; at finding the one truth that he did not want to face up to and forcing him to look it square in the eye. "I don't know."

"You don't  know ?" Adrasteia said, her voice dropping low with disgust. "You went out there, gained their trust, led them into battle, and watched them die, and all the time you didn't  know !?"

"I was giving them what they wanted too!" Athelis replied. "They wanted the same thing I did. It was mutually beneficial."

"Horse shit!" Adrasteia snapped. "That's what dad would say if he was here – that you're full of horse shit – and he'd have been right too! It wasn't mutual Athelis, none of it. You used them!"

She motioned toward Callisto on the bed.

"Why were you helping Leonidas and her? Was that 'mutually beneficial' too?"

Athelis felt his chest tightening as his anger really took hold.

"You don't know what you're talking about," he sneered. "You want to take about using people? Where's your friend, huh? The one who was hurt when we caught you in the woods?"

"Don't you dare..." Adrasteia began, but Athelis continued on regardless.

"Left him behind pretty quickly didn't you?” he pushed. “His head's probably mounted on a Spartan spear somewhere by now, but what would you care about that? He'd outlived his usefulness anyway and-"

Her flat handed slap cut him short in an instant, snapping his head sideways and setting his jaw on fire. Straightening, he tried to turn his head back so that he could glare at her, only to take a second slap hard across the opposite side of his face that stung even worse than the first.

"Nikias," she hissed darkly at him. "His name was Nikias, and he died for the same reason everyone else did today. Because of you."

"Now who's the one that's full of horse shit?" Athelis replied. Adrasteia just glared at him icily.

"I give up," she said and started for the door, pausing with her back to him as she reached out to push it open. The two of them stood there like that for a while in silence, and slowly Athelis began to feel the tightness in his chest lessening as his anger began to lessen too.

"You know you can't win this, right?" she said without turning around.

Athelis gritted his teeth in frustration.

"I know," he said tightly.

"But you're not going to stop are you?"

For a moment Athelis felt his chest tighten again, but before the anger could flare up again he gave a long exhale in an attempt keep calm and stopping saying anything worse than he already had done.

"Truthfully?" he said, then shook his head in defeat. "I don't think I know how to."

Adrasteia nodded to herself, then turned to look at him again

"The brother I knew," she said sadly,"the brother I grew up with; he's not the brother standing in front of me now is he?"

Athelis could not think of an answer.

With a sad shake of her head, Adrasteia turned and pushed the door open.

"Just don't get anyone else killed," she said, and with that she was gone.

Athelis stood for a while, staring at the empty doorway, then slowly he turned to look at Callisto. She let out a soft groan and stirred slightly. Athelis blew out a small exhale from between pursed lips.

"Tell me about it," he said, then reached back inside his jerkin and pulled out the amulet once more.

The tugging sensation was still there, and he suddenly felt tired. Very very tired. In truth, he'd felt this way for a long time. He had been pursuing Pelion relentlessly for nearly three years, and with every day that passed, the memories of the temple burning, and of how happy he had almost been ate away at him all the more. Even the merest thought of Corrina only brought anger with it now, and he did not want it to. That was not the way she would have wanted to be remembered, but for some reason, he could not help himself.

He crossed back to the bed, the amulet swinging at his side.

"Is this what it's like for you?" he said quietly, then tapped at his chest. "I can feel it in here, burning and hot, like its the only thing left of me. I want it gone, but no matter how hard I try, I just can't get it out of me."

Callisto groaned again and shifted on the bed. Athelis watched her silently, then glanced at the amulet in his hand. For some reason, he did not even need to think about it this time. Without ceremony he leaned in close, lifting her head and slipping the amulet over it and down so that it settled around her neck.

The reaction was immediate.

Her eyes did not open, but her lips peeled back in a rictus snarl, and her fingers wrapped themselves tightly around the linen that covered the straw mattress. Without warning, she twisted sharply at the shoulders, her entire upper body bucking left, then right. A flush of colour rose in her cheeks, and she grunted something unintelligible as sweat began to pour from her brow.

Something about the performance unnerved Athelis. Backing away from the bed, he turned and started hurriedly for the door, not wanting to see what might come next.

"I'm sorry," he said pausing at the threshold and glancing back at thrashing body on the mattress, "but I don't know what else to do anymore, and I can't let this be how it ends."

With that, he stepped out into the corridor, letting the door swing shut behind him.

*****

Adrasteia stalked angrily out of the old woodsman's cottage, crossing the small courtyard at the front of it in only a few hurried steps, and then trying to loose herself in the crowd of busy Helots moving this way and that as they made their preparations to break camp. She was not sure how long she wandered between the tents, but soon what little daylight that remained had failed and the Helots had begun to light torches so that they could continue to work into the night.

Nearby, a number of old wagons had been arrayed with a lit torch staked upright in the ground nearby. Helots would emerge out of the dark and into the circle of flickering firelight carrying with them various supplies and equipment that they would then toss onto several ever growing piles at the rear of two of the wagons. All the while several more beleaguered individuals tried desperately to keep up with the growing heaps, loading them onto wagons in a desperate race to carry away as much as they could.

A sudden desire to feel useful overcame Adrasteia as she watched them. She had failed so utterly to convince Athelis to lend them his aid, that loading these wagons was now the least she could do.

She crossed quickly to one of the piles and began to transfer items from it to the back of the wagon. The others doing the same thing barely spared her a second glance, although one of them did give her a brief nod of thanks before returning to his own work. Adrasteia did her best to concentrate on what she was doing, but quickly the anger from her meeting with Athelis returned, and as it grew, so too did the aggressiveness with which she began to toss things into the back of the wagon.

"I take it things with your brother didn't go so well?" came a voice from behind her. Adrasteia cast a glance back over her shoulder. Themistocles was standing nearby, watching her.

"What makes you say that?" she said, picking up a small wooden box of what looked to be cooking utensils. "Things went fine. Great even. Absolutely peachy." Without really caring, she threw the box a little too hard into the back of the wagon, only to wince when she heard the wood splinter.

Themistocles only slanted an eyebrow at her.

"Alright," she admitted. "Yes. It didn't go quite as well as we hoped it would."

"Did he agree to help with the escape?" Themistocles asked, moving to join her in loading the wagon, but using significantly more care in the task than she had so far been showing.

"Would you class us not even really talking about it as him not agreeing?"

Themistocles sighed.

"So he's not going to help then?"

"Would it really be that bad if he didn't?" she asked, feeling completely downtrodden by his reaction. "Would it really damage our chances that much?"

Themistocles shrugged.

"Not really," he said. "And in truth it's no more than I expected."

It was Adrasteia's turn to look quizzical now.

"Seriously?" she said, and Themistocles nodded. "Then why did you let me go blundering on in there like that in the first place?"

"He's your  brother, " was Themistocles' response, as if that somehow made it all make sense. "Considering the relationship he seems to have with Ithius, if anyone was going to be able to talk him round, it was going to be you."

"You clearly don't know my brother that well," Adrasteia replied, then scrubbed a hand across her face in frustration. "So what happens now?"

"Nothing changes I should imagine," Themistocles replied. "The Helots will up sticks and make for Tryxis, and we'll go with them when they do. If your brother has any sense he'll come along anyway. After the defeat he suffered today, there's precious little sense in him staying behind..." he paused thoughtfully for a moment. "...Unless he's suicidal of course."

Adrasteia gave him an askance look.

"And if I were to tell you that I'm not entirely sure he isn't?"

"Then I'd say him staying behind might be of greater benefit than having him at our side."

Adrasteia could only groan at that.

"So far today isn't turning out too well is it,"

Themistocles just shrugged.

"Not really, no."

"At least tell me that you think Ithius' plan will actually work."

"Who knows," Themistocles said philosophically. "It may well do, but then again it may not. We have little choice at this point but to let the gods decide."

Adrasteia gave a dry snort of amusement.

"Now you sound like Nikias," she said, and regretted it almost immediately. The thought of him standing there on the trail at their back, wounded and pale as they rode away, was almost too much for her to bare right now. She felt an ache begin to grow in her throat, and sniffed before bending back to the pile of gear at their feet, doing her best to put the memory of him out of her thoughts.

Themistocles regarded her silently for a moment, then knelt before her as she rummaged distractedly through the pile.

"What happened to him..." he said with far more tenderness than she would have expected of him, "…it wasn't your fault."

His words were all it took to push her over the edge from sorrow to outright grief, and, despite her best effort to stifle it, a single choked sob managed to escape from her.

"He died for me," she managed to say eventually, blinking hard against tears as she did so.

Themistocles nodded.

"My brother," she said miserably. "He said I used him." She turned her tear stained face to Themistocles "Was he right?"

Themistocles seemed to consider that for a moment before he finally answered.

"No," he said. "You didn't use Nikias."

Adrasteia nodded, but before she could thank him for his kindness, he spoke again.

"Nikias used you," he said, his voice harder and more resentful now. "He built you up... put you on a pedestal... made you into something greater than you are."

Adrasteia looked at him through red rimmed eyes that shone with hurt and confusion.

"Why?" She demanded hotly. "Why would you say something like that."

Themistocles could only shrug in response.

"Because you need to learn," he said. "People need something greater than themselves to believe in, Adrasteia. They do it because they want to have something beyond themselves worth living, and yes, sometimes even worth dying for."

Adrasteia shook her head firmly.

"It shouldn't be me," she said tightly. "I'm not that person. I'll never be that person."

"You don't seem to understand," Themistocles replied, and there was a note of pity in his voice now. "You don't have a choice. You don't get to be the one who tells them to believe in you or not. They'll do that on their own. The truth of it is that Nikias believed in you, and he did so before he even came on this journey. He believed in you so strongly that he was ready and willing to pay the ultimate price so that you didn't have to. The tragedy of it is that now you have to believe it too, whether you wanted to or not. You owe it to him, Adrasteia. Him, and all the others who will come after, and believe me when I say, there  will  be others. Now you have no choice but to be what they already think you are."

He straightened up so that he was standing over her.

"Anything less and they will all have fought and died for nothing."

He extended his hand toward her, and Adrasteia regarded it as if it were a live snake.

"It sounds like you've given this a lot of thought," she said, looking up at him. "Is this how you justify it to yourself? Sending people out to fight, knowing that they'll never come home?"

Themistocles gave her a small, tight smile.

"It's the only way I get to sleep at night," he said, "Now come on. If you really must feel useful, I'm sure there's something more appropriate we can be doing elsewhere."

With a final sniff, Adrasteia nodded and took his hand, letting him haul her back to standing.

"Oh yeah," she said, suddenly remembering as she straightened. "There was something else I meant to tell you. When I met with Athelis, I saw something. Something I think you should know about."

"Go on," Themistocles said with a frown.

"Callisto," Adrasteia replied. "She's alive, and she's here."

For the first time since she had met him, Themistocles looked genuinely taken aback. He was just opening his mouth to say something, when suddenly from the far side of the camp came the sound of shouted voices and excited commotion.

"What's going on?" Adrasteia said.

Themistocles' frown deepened.

"I'm not sure," he said, "but it seems like it might be a good idea to find out."

The pair of them set off quickly, hurrying between collapsed tents and through the gradually thickening throng of people until they hit a tightly packed wall of Helots, all standing shoulder to shoulder and staring in the same direction. Themistocles wasted no time elbowing his way through the crowd and Adrasteia followed in his wake, doing her best to ignore some of the irritated glances being shot their way.

Before long, they were through the crowd and found themselves standing at the front of a tight semi circle of people standing and staring out into the forest. Ithius was standing just ahead of the rest of the crowd, while to either side of him stood men with arrows nocked and bows trained on a shadowy figure emerging slowly from the trees on horse back. They were coming from the same direction that Adrasteia and the others had approached the camp from earlier, and the horse was moving at a slow, seemingly exhausted trot. More unnerving was the rider itself. The figure seated on the horse's back seemed to be slumped in the saddle, not even moving and when Ithius shouted out for them to identify themselves, there came no reply.

Adrasteia felt her stomach tighten nervously at the sight of the mounted individual. Nothing about this felt good.

"I'll only ask one more time," Ithius called out again to the slowly approaching figure. "Who goes there? Tell us your name or I'll order for my men here to put you down before your horse goes another step."

That seemed to work. The horse stopped a few paces from the line of Helots, just beyond the ring of flickering orange light created by torches carried by some of the watching Helots. Finally the figure moved, their head twitching upward as if they were just awakening from a dream.

"Ithius?" came a voice that wavered weakly, and the speaker did not sound cogent of their surroundings "Is that you? Did I make it?"

"Plykus," she heard Ithius reply, his own voice suddenly worried. "What's going on? Why are you here?"

The rider did not answer. Instead they listed sideways, tumbling from the saddle to crash heavily to the ground, and it was only then that the arrow sticking out their side was suddenly visible to the crowd. A few hushed gasps went up immediately. Ithius was already moving, running to the fallen rider's side.

"I need help over here!" he shouted. Themistocles turned and wordlessly snatched a torch from one of the stunned nearby Helots.

"A healer," he said shortly at them. "Find one. Now."

Before the Helots could even acknowledge the instruction, the Athenian Archon had turned away and was striding off after Ithius.

Suddenly curious, Adrasteia followed after both of them. As the rough ring of flickering torchlight reached the downed rider, she finally was able to make out more of their features. It was a man, but she had figured that out already. He was tall, and unkempt, his clothes splashed with dirt from careless travel. The arrow in his side seemed to have taken him in between the ribs, making every rise and fall of his chest look like it must be causing him incredible pain. Ithius was kneeling at his side now.

"I'm sorry," the man was saying, his voice weaker than before. "I'm so sorry..."

"It's alright," Ithius replied, reaching out to lay a comforting hand on the fallen man's shoulder. "It's okay. You're safe now."

The man called Plykus' eyes fluttered weakly past Ithius to the rest of the Helots before settling back on the Helot leader.

"Not safe," he said, licking at parched lips that had dried and cracked hours ago. "None of you... not safe at all..." Ithius reached for his belt, pulling free a water skin, uncorking it and offering it to the wounded man.

"Easy," he said. "Here. Take some of this."

Plykus took a grateful pull on it, craning his neck to do so, and even that small effort seemed almost too much for him. When he finally let his head fall back to the dirt, he was breathing heavily, and beads of sweat were forming on his forehead.

"Gracus..." he began. "Came for me..."

Ithius gave the man's shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

"All of that can wait," he said. "We need to get you away from here, and get that arrow out of you."

"No," Plykus shook his head firmly, his eyes finally seeming to focus. "Too late for that, and you know it. There's no more time! They came for me Ithius! Had to get here! Nowhere else to go..." he paused, trying to catch his breath, his eyes glazing over once more. "...so sorry..." he managed finally, the heaving of his chest lessening, and his eyes beginning to drift shut.

"Don't you dare," Ithius said tightly, gripping the other man's shoulder tightly. "Stay with me, you hear. You stay with me. Help's coming!"

"So... sorry..." Plykus said again, his voice sounding strangely distant now, his eyes finally closing. "...because now... they're... coming for... you too..."

And with that, his chest stopped moving altogether as a final whisper of breath escaped his lips.

"Plykus?" Ithius said, giving the other man's arm a shake. "Plykus!?"

Plykus did not answer. He did not so much as breathe.

A nervous murmur began to rise up from the assembled Helots as Adrasteia walked up beside Ithius.

"Who was he?" She asked, her tone soft and as comforting as she could make it.

"A friend," Ithius replied stonily. "Another dead friend."

Adrasteia could not think of anything to say to that. Instead she turned back to look at Themistocles.

"Do you think he was followed?" she asked.

From somewhere not too far away, a thin high pitched horn blast sounded, followed by a blazing fire arrow streaking up above the tree tops. Then from away in the distance there came another, deeper answering horn blast, then another, and then another, and another, and another until the night air all but rumbled with them.

"Does that answer your question?" Themistocles said.

Chapter Nineteen: An End to All Feeling

There were bodies everywhere. Even from the hillside, Callisto had been able to make them out as she had approached Cirra. Now, as she drew closer to her childhood home, she could see them all the clearer. One and all, the corpses wore the blank, featureless masks of flesh she was by this point growing strangely accustomed to, and judging by the wounds on them, they had all met violent ends.

Cautiously, she hunched low as she reached the foot of the hillside and moved in a quiet, scuttling run across the open grass to the dry stone wall that marked the edge of the old house's yard. There she squatted for a moment, peering over the top of the wall and scanning the rest of the nearby village for any signs of life. When none were apparent, she sprang up and over the wall, her boots touching down on the loose dirt of the yard on the other side without even making a sound. Still being cautious, she crossed to the nearest of the downed faceless. This one had been stabbed multiple times with what looked to be a dagger before a sword thrust to the gut had finished the job. Her first instinct was that a couple of Xena's troops must have ganged up on it, but she quickly cast that thought aside. The night of Xena's attack had been utter chaos, the air alive with the screams of the panicked and the dying. Now however, all was silence, the yard and the village both as quiet as the grave, and the only sound being the dry rustle of the grass as it was tugged at by a steadily growing wind.

Frowning, she inspected the wounds on the faceless corpse more closely, and then nodded to herself. This had not been the work of multiple attackers like one would expect from a band of marauders. There had only been one attacked, stabbing with a dagger in their off hand before bringing their sword arm to bare for the killing stroke. She had done enough frenzied stabbings of her own to recognise those same wounds on another now. She reached out and pressed her finger tips to the downed faceless' throat. There was not so much as a murmur of a pulse, but then something told her that even if the faceless had been up and moving around, it's heart would still not have been beating.

Straightening she felt an uncomfortable stickiness between her fingers. There was blood on them. She gave a soft sigh. Her subconscious was nothing if not unsubtle.

Suddenly she saw something; an outline in the dirt behind her fingers. Lowering her hand and crouching once more for a closer look, she found a boot print. More importantly though, it was not just any boot print. It was  her   own  boot print, only she knew for a fact, having just come from the opposite direction, that she could not have made it. Stranger still, she realised that despite all the bodies laying about her, there were no other sets of footprints. Only her own.

Lifting her head, she tracked the line of prints back across the yard. They left the same way they had entered, and trailing in their wake were the lines of dead faceless. Gritting her teeth, Callisto started forward, following the trail clearly left for her out of the yard and down through Cirra itself.

She did not know how to feel about the bodies. There was a time she would not have cared about them, where she would have happily climbed over a mountain of them if it meant she could reach her goal. A lot had happened to her since those days though, not least of which were a couple of trips to the Underworld. On the other hand, the sight of them did not move her to the kind of moral outrage she knew so many people wanted her to feel. Instead she just felt... what? Uneasy? Guilty even? She could not be entirely sure.

She turned a corner onto a long avenue that ran between a number of small houses and one or two artisan's workshops. Cirra had primarily been a farming town, but they had had one or two craftsmen to their name as well. She paused, standing silently at the mouth of the avenue, the hazy half forgotten memories of a life that barely seemed like her own anymore drifting across the back of her mind. As they came to her, she felt the blood in her veins begin to race, and the fire in her belly grow hotter and hotter. Like the rest she had walked down, this avenue was littered with bodies, only here they lay in greater numbers, and at the sight of them an ominous feeling of dread inevitability settled over her. She was nearing the centre of town now, and deep in her gut, she already knew that waiting for her there would be her doppelganger.

A heavy gust of wind came rushing down the street, tugging insistently at her hair and battledress, yet strangely not so much as ruffling the clothes of the fallen faceless. It was as if they were not even truly a part of the world around them. Overheard, the sky was darkening, and heavy grey clouds were gathering, driven by the strengthening wind and turning in lazy circles around one another like wolves circling their prey. It didn't take her long to realise they were churning and circling right above Cirra's central village square. As she looked in that direction, her eyes were immediately drawn to a warm orange glow that was beginning to appear over the thatched rooftops. Her teeth clenching harder now, she took a deep breath and started forward again.

She recognised a fire when she saw one.

*****

Sentos was doing his best to see between the trees in the darkness, but the rapidly falling night was making it difficult. The sun had dropped below the horizon less than an hour ago, and beneath the leafy canopy of the forest, darkness had come on quickly. Along the stretched Spartan line, torches were springing up, but at Demosthenes' orders they were only being lit at every other company, a means of minimizing the risk from enemy arrows should any Helot archers be lurking out there in the forest.

"Company HOLD!" he heard shouted from somewhere down the line, only for the cry to be taken up in turn by each of the companies in sequence over toward his own.

Lifting his clenched fist, uncertain if the rest of his men could even see it given the dimness, he gave the same order when his turn came, and the sound of tromping feet immediately came to a stop. The line stayed that way for several minutes, silent and waiting, the only sound the occasional clank of weapons or creak of leather as the men shifted at ease.

Then from out of the darkness, he saw a single flickering torchlight emerge, moving quickly but erratically between the trees and casting long streaks of whirling shadows across the massed Spartan line as its wielder approached at the pace of a steady canter.

"Captain Sentos?" he heard a familiar voice calling out searchingly. "Captain Sentos?"

"Over here, Orestes!" he called back, and the rider, silhouetted by his own lit torch, quickly changed direction.

Moments later he could make out the younger Spartan's weary looking features as he drew close, his horse looking as bedraggled as he himself did. Sentos could hardly blame the man for looking as tired as he did. Judging by the report he had delivered earlier in the evening when Orestes had rendezvoused with the army as it marched north, he and Gracus' smaller force had already had an extremely busy day.

Sentos remembered the sight of him, riding out of the twilight, looking even more disheveled than he did now, and passing on word that even as they marched, Gracus had set in motion a plan to track down the last of the Helots. Demosthenes had been delighted of course, immediately ordering a large portion of the army to redirect away from the main road north under his personal command while leaving the rest to continue its march onward.

Sentos had been made the vanguard of the excursion, he could only assume so that Demosthenes could keep a watchful eye on he and his men, and so they had marched with Demosthenes' troops at their back right to the edge of the forest that Orestes said they had witnessed Ithius and his people retreating to earlier that day. Ordered to hold position, they had then waited for close to an hour until suddenly, as dusk had begun to turn to night, a fire arrow had streaked up from the forest, a clear signal from Gracus' scouts that the quarry they had been following had just led them straight to their target.

So now here they were, sitting between darkened trees, marching blindly through the night as they waited for the scouts to make contact and lead them the rest of the way.

"Demosthenes sent you," Sentos said, as Orestes finally reached him. It was not a question, but the other man treated it like it was all the same and gave a curt nod.

" King  Demosthenes wishes to see you," he said, his voice taking on a note of warning as he glanced about himself, nervous that Sentos' lack of propriety might have been noticed. He need not have bothered. Sentos would have personally vouched for the loyalty of any one of the men around him, if he could have been sure that their – and indeed his own – loyalties were not being misplaced.

"The scouts have made contact?"

Orestes nodded again.

"Just ten minutes ago," he said. "King Demosthenes has ordered all the commanders to convene for a strategy council. I was sent to collect you."

"Understood," Sentos said, before turning and giving orders to the men to hold their position until further notice.

As they rode off down the line, Orestes guided his horse further out into the trees, Sentos following close behind him until they were out of earshot of the rest of the men.

"You should be more careful!" the younger Spartan hissed at him. "If you think Demosthenes is blind to your malcontent, you're sorely mistaken, and tonight is not the night to test the boundaries of his patience."

Sentos eyed the other man steadily under the flickering torchlight.

"The boundaries of his patience?" he said. "Demosthenes' patience is the least of my concerns right now Orestes. Look around you! He's brought our entire army north on some mad dream of conquest, and now he's brought almost half of it into a forest at night! There could be anything waiting out there in the dark, but he's too blinded by this insane need to wipe the Helots off the map to even see it."

"You're forgetting that I've already faced the Helots today," Orestes replied. "They're no threat to us. Especially not with the kind of numbers we have now."

"All the more reason not to engage in this foolishness!" Sentos said. "I don't care that we know they can't possibly defeat us. This is not sound strategy. It risks lives that do not need to be risked, and all to destroy an enemy that I'm not even sure we should be treating as such!"

Orestes' glanced past him sharply toward the lines of massed Spartans. They were past Sentos' men now, and only a sea of blue capes – most marked with a bloodied sickle – stared back at them.

Doing his best to calm himself, Sentos took a deep breath.

"If Leonidas could see me now..." he muttered, staring down at the ground passing beneath his horse's hooves, before looking up at Orestes once more. "I don't care how you dress it up or justify it anymore. This is wrong.  We're  wrong, and you know it as well as I."

Orestes did not reply, instead staring morosely out into the night before turning his horse with a click of his tongue and riding back toward the Spartan line.

It did not take them much longer to reach Demosthenes. The Spartan King was standing atop a small hillock, partially bare of trees and surrounded by a nimbus of torchlight. Around him were the rest of the company captains he had brought with him on this expedition, along with several scouts looking as similarly bedraggled as Orestes. Demosthenes looked up from a small hand scrawled map he was studying as they approached, nodding to both as they swung down from their horses and made toward the circle of light.

"Sentos," he said curtly. "Orestes."

"Great King," Orestes said, dropping briefly to one knee.

Sentos paused for a moment then did likewise, never once taking his eyes from Demosthenes. The King watched him thoughtfully as he rose, then turned his attention back to the map. From what Sentos could make out, it had been scrawled by the scouts and depicted the geography of the surrounding area. At its centre had been sketched a few random baseless triangles, meant to depict the Helot camp Sentos imagined.

"Gracus' scouts have done good work," Demosthenes said, this time without looking up. "In just one day they've accomplished what you and your men struggled to do for nearly a whole month."

Sentos' back straightened at that.

"Captain Gracus is a talented commander," he said, doing his best to keep his voice even.

"Or just a loyal one," Demosthenes replied.

A number of the other captains glanced and Sentos, but he said nothing, instead standing even straighter than he had before, his gaze fixed just above Demosthenes' head. The barely healed wound in his thigh throbbed painfully under the effort of having to stay standing at attention for so long, but he bore out the pain. He would not show weakness.

"Well, let's not cast blame just yet," Demosthenes said with a magnanimous sigh, folding the map and tucking it beneath his leather breast plate. "Today is our day of triumph, and there will be plenty of time to reward success and punish failure when our other business has been finally put to rest."

He motioned down the slope of the hillock toward the distant trees.

"Beyond that tree line, some half a league or so, there is a small stream with a sheer stone ridge line on its opposite bank that stretches north and south for a league in either direction. Past that ridge there is a sheltered valley that runs to a series of clearings, some natural, and others cleared by the Helots after they made camp there, or so the scouts tell me. We cannot get our men over the ridge, and the passage through it that Ithius and his people use is too narrow for a force the size of ours."

He paused, scratching thoughtfully at the days worth of stubble building up along his jaw.

"That leaves us only one option if we wish to end this tonight," he continued eventually. "We will divide our force. Captain Caracticus."

One of the other Spartans stepped forward, a slim man by Spartan standards, with a narrow, saturnine face and dark, watchful eyes.

"Yes Great King?"

"You will lead your men south to the edge of the forest. Beyond the forest you will await our signal."

Sentos frowned at that. What was Demosthenes planning? They had the Helots dead to rights. If he wanted them defeated, a simple assault would easily crush them.

"Sentos and Theselon, you will both circle around the camp to cover its north and western borders respectively," Demosthenes continued. "I will command the company remaining here on the eastern flank. On my signal you will both advance in concert with me and drive Ithius and his Helots south. When they break from the cover of the forest, Captain Caracticus' forces will cut them off, and there we will crush them."

He looked from each company captain to the next until his gaze finally fell on Sentos.

"You doubt my plan?" he said.

Sentos' jaw muscles flexed. Was he really  that  easy to read?

"I only question the need for such an elaborate strategy," he replied. "We have them, cornered and outnumbered-"

Before he could finish, Demosthenes waved a hand to cut him off.

"It's a dark night Sentos," he said, "and this forest is thick. If we attack with our full force here, there is too much risk of them slipping away."

"Then wait for daylight-" Sentos protested.

"No!" Demosthenes snapped, spittle flecking his lips. "I will not wait! Not anymore! They die. All of them. Here. Tonight. I will not countenance any other outcome."

"So you do not mean to break them then," Sentos said, his voice hardening. "You mean to exterminate them."

"To the last man," Demosthenes replied darkly and without even the slightest hesitation. "They are traitors to Sparta. Each and every one of them. When our darkest hour was upon us, they played games that would've led to the ruin of all we had built. We are, all of us, about to embark on a great mission. Our New Faith will lead us out of fear and uncertainty, all the way to salvation, and not just for Sparta, but for all of Greece!" He pointed out into the darkness in the direction of the Helot camp. "They would stand against that! They would cling to the past while we march into the future! We cannot allow that. To do so would be to leave a dagger pointed at our backs."

"Ours?" Sentos said evenly, tilting an eyebrow at the ranting king, "Or yours?"

Demosthenes' expression turned cold and hard, and he took a threatening step closer to the lame soldier.

"You have your orders  C aptain, " he hissed, stressing the other man's rank. "Will you follow them?"

Caracticus and Theselon's hands dropped to the swords at their waists, but Sentos preempted them, dropping to one knee and smacking his closed fist hard across his heart.

"I will do as my King wishes," he said, finally lowering his eyes.

There was silence for a moment, and at the edges of his vision, Sentos thought he saw the shadows cast by the trees and the torchlight shifting strangely.

"Very well then," he heard Demosthenes say, dragging his attention back to the matter at hand. "I want all of you to return to your companies. We move out within the hour."

Clambering back to his feet, Sentos was about to turn to leave when Demosthenes motioned to him.

"A word with you captain," he said.

Sentos watched Caracticus and Theselon disappearing into the night and felt his pulse quicken. In moments it would just be himself, Orestes, and Demosthenes alone on the hillock. All it would take to end this madness would be for him to draw his sword and... and... what? He would die himself, of that much he was certain, but then again, should he not already be dead? He had been living on borrowed time since Thermopylae, and he found himself oddly sanguine now he was faced with the prospect of that time coming to an end.

The real question was, what would it accomplish? Thermopylae had been a sacrifice. Sparta's future had been paid for there with the blood of three hundred good men. What would adding himself to the total now achieve? The answer was a chilling one.

Nothing.

Demosthenes may be king, but now, staring at the sickle etched into the man's armour, Sentos knew instinctively that he was as much a prisoner of circumstance as Sentos himself was. He may have had a hand in setting these events in motion, but like a stone set rolling down a snow covered mountain side, those events had gathered mass and momentum. Even Demosthenes' death would not halt them. Others like Gracus, or Caracticus would step in, and the stone would continue to roll dragging, half the mountainside in its wake.

He sighed. The ache in his thigh seemed worse than it had ever been, and a deep sense of weariness had settled over him. Killing Demosthenes, or at the very least attempting it, would change nothing. That left him only one other option, and it was an option that, in the long run, would prove to be far more costly.

"What else would you command of me Great King," he asked.

"I would speak with you about your men," Demosthenes said. "Their numbers are fewer than I would like for covering the north edge of this Helot camp. I expect that Ithius and his people will try to break through at your location, and your men will need to hold that line with absolute conviction if we are to win the day. Can you assure me of this?"

Sentos eyed the Spartan King warily. He knew what Demosthenes was really asking him. His answer came to him more quickly and easily than he had thought it would

"I can assure you, Great King, that my men will not waver."

Demosthenes stood, regarding him silently, then gestured to Orestes.

"Lieutenant Orestes here and his men will accompany you," he said, with a victorious half smile. "Their numbers should bolster your own most handily."

Sentos looked to Orestes and then back to Demosthenes once more.

"Their support will be very welcome," he said, and Demosthenes gave a satisfied nod.

"I'm glad to see you agree," he said, then gave a dismissive wave of his hand. "That will be all captain."

Sentos slapped his fist across his heart once more in salute, then turned and began to make his way back toward his horse, Orestes following close behind him.

"Why did you bait him like that?" the younger man hissed. "He could've ordered you executed right then and there."

"If he had, then who would he have had to guard the north?" Sentos replied quietly.

Orestes gave an exasperated grunt.

"One day Sentos, you'll outlive your usefulness to him, and on that day, he'll take great pleasure in sending someone to collect your head."

"I don't doubt that at all," Sentos replied as he reached his horse and began to clamber back into the saddle. "The only question is, who will get to be the lucky headsman? Play your cards right Orestes, and it may even be you who gets to swing the axe."

Orestes gave him a wounded look.

"That's not funny," he said.

Sentos nodded.

"You say that now," he said. "But just you wait until he gives the order; it'll be even less so then."

He was about to turn his horse and ride off back down the Spartan line when once more, at the corner of his vision, he caught sight of the shadows twisting and shifting in that unnatural way he had noted earlier. Turning in his saddle he glanced back up the hillock. Demosthenes was still standing there, surrounded by torchlight, but now he wore a pensive expression, and at his side stood the strange shadowy figure Sentos had sometimes seen in council with him over the past few weeks. To the best of his knowledge, the stranger – Sentos hesitated to call him a man – was some kind of high up in this new cult that Demosthenes and so many other Spartans had joined. Beyond that he knew nothing, but seeing the stranger here was... troubling, and it seemed that with his presence, there might be more to tonight now than Demosthenes simply trying to finish what he had started.

"Who  is  that?" he heard Orestes say. The younger man had re-mounted his own horse and ridden up to Sentos' side. Like Sentos, he was staring up at the hilltop, his eyes fixed on the hooded stranger.

"I don't know," was Sentos' honest reply. "And I think it would be best if we didn't find out."

*****

All around the Helot camp, people were dashing this way and that, frantically trying to salvage what few things they still had time to, as what had already been a relatively fragile mask of collected calm slowly began to crack at news of the Spartan arrival.

Ithius knew it was all so much wasted effort. What few wagons they had were already filled to bursting with people and supplies, and those that had the strength to make the trek north on foot had long since been loaded down with anything they could carry. Still, so long as they were not scattering into the woods in panicked hysteria, he could afford them the illusion that they still had time to make their preparations to leave. It was time he needed to gather his thoughts and come up with a plan after all.

"...Scouts say they were massing just beyond the ridge line," Athelis was saying, pointing down at the tatty map that had been marked, edited, drawn and redrawn over the last month as he spoke. There were a few of them standing around the old dry stone wall outside the cottage now, the map spread out over the uneven surface between them. Themistocles and Arkus were flanking Ithius, while on the opposite side of the wall stood Athelis, and Adrasteia.

Athelis was the surprise appearance at this little meeting. After speaking with Themistocles and Adrasteia, Ithius had not expected any help to come from the one time mercenary, yet as they had gathered around the map to discuss their options, he had emerged sheepishly out of the crowd of people to inform them that a couple of the scouts who still owed him some loyalty had already reported back to him with the Spartan's movements. Ithius could not say he was entirely happy about having Athelis yet again putting people's lives at risk, but, if he was honest with himself, there were few other options at this point.

" 'were'?"  he said, fixing the other man with a questioning look.

Athelis pointed at the map again.

"The last the scouts were able to see before they had to fall back to avoid being cut off from us were three Spartan companies splitting off from the main force." He traced his finger in a curving line from the ridge line round to the north of the camp. "Two companies went this way," he said, then reset his position, tracing in his finger in another line, only this time curving south and with a much wider arc than the previous one. "The last company went this way."

Ithius stood for a moment, turning over the information Athelis had just given him.

"What do you think?" he said eventually, turning to look at Themistocles.

The Archon could only shrug in response.

"Looks fairly obvious if you ask me," he said.

Adrasteia studied the map for a moment.

"He's trying to encircle us," she said eventually.

"If only it were that simple," Themistocles replied dourly.

"Then we should break west," Arkus said, ignoring Themistocles and indicating the open forest to the west that the Spartans would not have had time to cut off yet. His face was pale and he was clearly making a great effort to keep his hands from shaking. "Escape before they get themselves into position."

Ithius shook his head.

"Look at the wagons Arkus," he said. "Look at the people. You've seen Spartans on the march. Moving together there's no way we can move fast enough to get clear in time, and moving separately they'll find us and pick us off one by one."

"We could always wait," Athelis said, proffering his own solution. "Demosthenes is probably expecting us to strike out west, or failing that, hit the company to the north since that's the most likely direction we'd flee once we were clear of the forest."

Themistocles gave the other man a condescending look.

"And waiting would help how?"

"When they encircle the camp, their forces will be divided," Athelis retorted. "I can lead a small group out to assault the company to the north, like Demosthenes thinks we're going to anyway. He'll try to close the net on us, and while he does that, the rest of you strike out south and try and break through the company there. They're already further out than the other companies, and if the north, west and east companies are engaged trying to deal with me and mine, it gives the rest of your all the more time to break through before reinforcements come."

Themistocles let out a derisive snort.

"A fine plan for committing suicide," he said. "Your group would never be large enough to pose a threat to even one Spartan company, let alone three." He turned to face Ithius. "Demosthenes is an aggressive commander, it's true, but he's not reckless. He won't commit his entire force unless he is absolutely certain of victory. A simple feint won't fool him."

"You don't know it's Demosthenes commanding those Spartans out there," Athelis cut in. "He hasn't taken to the field since Marathon. Why would he do it now?"

"Because he's about to start a war," Themistocles said, riding rough shod over the younger man's protests without a second thought. "He's a Spartan King, and Spartan Kings lead from the front." He looked over Ithius once more.

"He wants to see you all dead too. That much was clear in my meeting with him, and I know the man well enough to know that what he wants, he'll move heaven and earth to get."

"Remind you of anyone?" Adrasteia jibed, but there was a note of playfulness to her tone. Themistocles only glanced at her then turned back to the map, stabbing his finger down hard toward the south of the forest.

"He's not trying to encircle you," he said. "He's trying to flush you out."

"Flush us out?" Arkus said. "What are you talking about? He already knows we're here, and he has enough men that he could crush us like an egg under a wagon wheel. Why would he start playing games now?"

"Precisely because he  can  crush us," Ithius said, staring thoughtfully at the map for a moment. What Themistocles was saying made a grim kind of sense. The truth of it was so stark he almost wished it did not. "He's setting up a killing ground isn't he?"

Themistocles nodded.

"That would be my guess."

"I don't understand," Adrasteia said, peering down at the map, looking as if she were desperately trying to figure out what it was that Themistocles and Ithius could see that she could not.

"There's too much risk attacking us directly here," Ithius explained. "Not a risk for his troops, but a risk of us being able to use the forest and the night to slip past him." He drew his finger in a horseshoe shape around the camp site on the map. "He's going to try and herd us at the centre of his formation, drive us south and out into the open where it will be much harder for us to outwit or outrun him, then, when we're completely exposed..." he slapped his hand palm flat on the map, and said nothing more.

Adrasteia swallowed nervously.

"So how do we get out of this then?" she asked.

Ithius did not answer. He did not think he had ever felt so completely powerless as he did right now. He could see clear as day what Demosthenes was planning, and yet there was nothing he could do to prevent it. Very soon now the Spartans would come for them, marching in full phalanx's and with that terrible lock step they had. The Helots would be herded south, driven before the advancing Spartan spears like cattle, and after that... well, it hardly bore thinking about.

Suddenly, a cry came up from the crowd, and young Dion emerged, running hard and apparently completely out of breath.

"Athelis!" he shouted. "I need to find..." he trailed off as soon as he saw them, and started forward again.

"What is it?" Athelis asked, moving to meet him. "What's going on?"

"I was on watch like you told me..." the young Helot babbled, his breath coming in short ragged gasps from running. "And then I saw them... The Spartans I mean...They were carrying torches and spears... and... and..." he pointed desperately back toward the trees. "They're here!"

Ithius looked up from the map toward the tree line at the eastern edge of the camp. It took a moment for him to make them out against the glare of the still crackling campfires that had been left to burn and smolder while the Helots went about there business, but once he did, his throat went dry. Flames. Small points of flame flickering in the dark beyond the edge of the camp, and silhouetted against them, the outlines of Spartans with spears raised.

It did not take long for the rest of the Helot camp to notice them too. A panicked cry went up, and like an animal recoiling from a source of pain, the entire populace of the camp drew back from the treeline. A second shout went up from somewhere along the northern edge of the camp, and then again from the west. With each shout, the crowd would contract all the more, coiling tighter and tighter around the wagons at the centre of the camp and away from its edges.

Glancing in both directions, Ithius quickly sighted the tell tale flickering of torches, and yet more Spartans outlined against the darkness. His mouth went dry and he felt the sudden urge to draw his sword, but he managed to stop himself before doing so. There must have been hundreds of them out there, if not even thousands, and all just standing and waiting. The question was, for what?

It did not take long for him to get his answer. A single Spartan emerged from the tree line, advancing out over the clear ground between the edge of the forest and the camp as if he were taking a summer stroll. He wore the familiar blue cape of one of Demosthenes' men, and his helm sported an officers crest, although from this distance, Ithius could not make out it's length, or indeed the man's face.

"They're sending someone to parley?" Themistocles said from behind him. Ithius had not noticed the Athenians approach. " That  I did not expect."

Ithius frowned. Themistocles was right. Why do this now?

"Helots!" the Spartan shouted, his voice carrying well against the sudden silence. He had stopped a short distance from the line of tents. "Is there one called Ithius among you?"

Themistocles gave Ithius a knowing smirk.

"Looks like you're being called out," he said.

Ithius took a deep breath. The whole camp had gone silent now, and he could all but feel the weight of his people's expectation pressing down on him. Still, playing for time was about the only choice open to him at the moment, and entertaining this envoy's request would certainly do just that.

"I'm right here!" he shouted back. "What business do you have with me?"

"King Demosthenes would have me give you a message!"

Ithius glanced at Themistocles. The Athenian Archon just shrugged.

"Very well then," Ithius shouted back, then turned to face Arkus. "Come on," he said.

The Helot gave a nervous nod and fell into step beside him. The two of them moved quickly past the mass of worried Helots, Ithius doing his best to appear confident and straight backed under their watchful gaze. It did not take them long to get out past the deserted tents and campfires to the edge of the camp and the barren stretch of empty scrub covered dirt that had been trodden down to almost nothing by the comings and goings of hundreds of pairs of feet over the past month.

They found the Spartan waiting for them, his helmet now off and held in the crook of his arm. His face was one that Ithius did not recognise, but then that was hardly surprising. He had spent most of his time with Leonidas' men, and had had precious little contact with Demosthenes' supporters, save for those in the upper echelons of his command like Gracus. This man did not carry a spear or shield, but a short sword hung at his hip, and from his taught stance, Ithius could tell the man understood how to use it. There was something else too, a sickle stitched clumsily into his blue cloak. It was the same symbol he had seen on bodies at the battlefield earlier in the day, and before that, worn by the cult of the Followers before Demosthenes' coup and Leonidas' defence of Thermopylae. The sight of it sent a chill running down his spine. Just how far had their influence spread now? How much of what Monocles and Callisto had hinted about them was actually true...

"You are Ithius?" the Spartan said, dragging his thoughts back to the present.

"I am," Ithius said, his mouth setting in a hard line. "What's this message you have for me?"

The man glanced at Arkus who was standing only a pace or two behind Ithius.

"You needn't have brought the oaf," he said. "I can assure you, I mean you no harm."

Ithius glanced back over his shoulder at Arkus who looked somewhat put out by the comment, and then back over the Spartan's shoulder toward the assembled army waiting beyond the trees. Demosthenes was out there somewhere, cowering behind his wall of troops. Ithius was not sure entirely why, but something about that irked him, and stoked the simmering embers of anger that were still smoldering in his gut.

"I'd beg to differ," he said in a voice that was far too even. "But then I doubt it would make any difference."

The Spartan's jaw muscles tightened, but he managed to remain composed, despite Ithius' blatant disrespect.

"King Demosthenes has bid me tell you that there need be no struggle tonight," he said. "If you would lay down those arms you possess, he is prepared to be merciful-"

"Merciful!?" Arkus snorted, "The man doesn't know the meaning of the word."

The Spartan shot Arkus a poisonous look.

"You should learn to watch you mouth, slave," he snapped. "If you don't, when we bring you and your people to heel, I will personally see it stitched shut!"

Ithius raised a hand.

"Enough, the both of you," he said, doing his best to keep his voice even before returning his attention to the Spartan. "Now, just what is it Demosthenes is offering exactly? Forgiveness? Clemency?"

The Spartan shook his head.

"Hardly," he said. "Your crimes against Sparta, along with your continued and blatant defiance of his rule cannot be forgiven. Spartan law is most clear in how it deals with matters of rebellion and insurrection. The punishment, I'm afraid, is most severe..."

"And don't we know it," Arkus muttered quietly to himself.

The Spartan shot him an irritated glance but continued on as if he had never even spoken.

"...however if you were to lay down your arms and offer your complete surrender to him as I have already described, Great King Demosthenes would be willing to consider ending all your lives quickly and painlessly."

Ithius listened to the man without saying a word. Finally once the Spartan had finished speaking, he nodded

"Quickly," he said, as if he were actually considering the offer, then looked at Arkus. "Painlessly even." His voice took on a sarcastic edge. "Sounds almost too good to be true."

Arkus said nothing.

Before the Spartan could even react, Ithius had spun back to face him, his two handed sword practically flying from it's scabbard as he turned. The blade was so polished, it flashed a fiery orange as it arced through the air, reflecting the firelight all about them. The Spartan could do nothing except squeeze his eyes shut, anticipating the killing strike that was surely about to fall.

It never did.

Instead, Ithius arrested the swing just short of the other man's neck, tapping the blade lightly against his unarmoured skin.

"Do you see this Demosthenes?!" he yelled over the Spartan's shoulder toward the assembled mass of troops. " This  is mercy! This is what it looks like!"

He pulled the sword back, and as he did so, the Spartan messenger slowly opened his eyes, sagging visibly when he saw that the sword was no longer pressed against his throat.

"To the rest of you," Ithius continued to shout, turning and taking in the rest of the assembled Spartan army that surrounded them. "To all those of you who believe us your enemies, without honour or loyalty, I can only say, we are not now, nor have we ever been such!"

He turned back to face the direction the messenger had come from, and where it was he assumed Demosthenes was probably lurking.

"But to you Demosthenes... to you I can say only this. The betrayal was both mine and yours! Or have you forgotten? It was  you  who came to me! You offered me your hand, and you promised me freedom for my people. The price was the betrayal of a man – a friend even – whom I held as dear as my own brother. For such a betrayal, I don't deny punishment is deserved, but it is deserved by me, and me alone!"

He paused, taking a deep breath before continuing.

"But I spoke of two betrayals before, so what about yours hmmm? You swore a vow to me Demosthenes, and to the Ephors as well. You promised us freedom but delivered only death. These people..." he gestured toward the camp and the mostly cowering crowd of Helots. "... they are innocent..." suddenly he pointed toward the army of Spartans "...and so are yours! This is nothing to do with any of them. It is only about us. So what do you say, eh? Is all that talk of mercy and forgiveness only that, or do you have it in you to be the better of the two of us, and let this end the only way it should? Face to face, between you, and me, and no one else?"

For a moment all was silence, then there came a piercing whistling sound followed by a dull thunk from between Ithius' feet. Glancing down, he saw the feathered flight of an arrow sticking up from the ground beneath him, the shaft still juddering from the impact with the ground. It had clearly been fired from the Spartan lines.

"Something tells me you're not getting that face to face meeting anytime soon," Arkus said.

A shouted command went up from somewhere beyond the trees, and with a thunderous retort, the Spartans locked their shields and began to advance, the sheer weight of their numbers making the ground rumble.

Ithius took a deep breath, and a step back toward the camp.

"It doesn't look like it, no."

*****

It did not take Callisto long to reach the village square. Simply following the trail of bodies led her straight there, but she remembered Cirra so well she would have been able to find her way blindfolded. The square itself had had the town well at its centre, and surrounding it had been plenty of open ground for the various market days the village would host, including the once a week farmers' market, where the locals had been able to sell and buy various crops and other produce from the many different farm lands that had been spread for miles around.

When the village had died, so too had the farms. Even those that had survived Xena's marauding army had perished soon after, left without a central market to sell their goods, and with the next nearest village being too far to make the trip worth it for many of the locals. Gradually the rolling farmlands that had once been so alive had been given back over to nature, weeds and creepers growing over walls and fields alike, and slowly but surely, Cirra itself had been forgotten. Just another village lost to yet another rampaging warlord.

Callisto had never forgotten though, and nor had she forgiven either, and as she rounded the final corner onto the village square to be confronted by half the town set ablaze before her, she felt that same familiar fire surging inside her that she had felt then. Time had not dimmed it, and if anything it burned even hotter now, the fuel of years feeding its intensity all the more.

The wind that had been growing steadily stronger since she had entered the village carried the heat of the flames with it now. It whipped and curled around her, surging and then receding in great dry waves that drove the tongues of fire higher and higher into the sky, showering clouds of fresh embers into the dark night air. Overhead, where the wind was even stronger, the overcast sky was fast becoming a vortex as the clouds began to swirl upward in a huge inverted cone-like shape.

Strangely there were no bodies in the square, save for one lone corpse lying at the foot of the village well. Unlike the rest, this one was not faceless. Indeed, it was a face she recognised all too well.

Leonidas lay flat on his back, his eyes, glazed and unseeing, staring up into the churning sky above. Glancing warily left and right, but seeing nothing, Callisto started forward across the square toward the prone corpse of the Spartan King.

There was a sword sticking straight up from his chest, and as she grew nearer, Callisto felt her stomach turn. The weapon's hilt was wrapped in black leather, and it's pommel was ornate and cast in gold.

It was her sword, she realised; the one she had used to fight Xena with on many an occasion, and that she had thought lost after Zeus had returned her to the world of the living following her stabbing with the Hind's Blood dagger. It was the same sword she had used to kill so many people...

so very many people...

She paused, standing over the body and eyeing the weapon as if it were a rabid dog about to bite her. It's blade was coated in blood, some of it fresh, and some of it dry. This was the weapon that had been used to kill the faceless. She had no doubt of that.

"Like what I've done with the place?" came her own voice from somewhere nearby.

Callisto's eyes shot upward immediately, scanning the square around her for any signs of movement. It did not take her long to find them. Her doppelganger was leaning against a dry stone wall, the corner of what had once been the blacksmith's shop, a lit torch held at her side, and burning hotly. A devilish grin was splitting her face as she watched Callisto's obvious discomfort at the sight of Leonidas' body and the whole of Cirra burning yet again.

"Can't say I'm a fan," Callisto replied as evenly as she could manage. She was not this woman she told herself; would not  be  this woman.

The other her cocked her head slightly, her face taking on a look of mock surprise and hurt.

"Really?" she said, then straightened, taking a sinuous step away from the wall toward Callisto. "Well I like it. Before it was all so dull... so maudlin, cold and sterile..."

Before Callisto could stop her, the doppelganger span on her heel, whipping the blazing torch up over her head, and then hurling it over-arm onto the smithy's thatched roof. For a moment, the torch just lay there, burning ineffectually. Then, with a soft  whump,  the thatch ignited and a wave of fire rushed hungrily outward. In moments the whole roof was ablaze, and starving tongues of flame – driven by the increasingly strong winds – were licking at the neighbouring roof tops as well.

"There," the doppelganger said with a satisfied nod, before turning back to face Callisto and dusting off her hands with a theatrical flourish. "Now it's got more of a homely glow to it, don't you think?"

Callisto gritted her teeth, feeling the anger growing inside her.

"Why?" she hissed. "Why are you doing this!?"

The other her's dry amusement disappeared in a flash, her smile transforming into a derisive sneer.

"Why?" she echoed Callisto mockingly. "WHY? Because this..." she waved her hand at the square all around them. "...all of it, is a lie!"

Callisto shook her head firmly.

"It's not a lie," she said. "I lost-"

"We're really going to go through this again?" the doppelganger cut her off. “ 'I lost this, such and such died' , yada, yada, yada, yada. Do you never get tired of hearing yourself trot out the same pathetic excuses time and time again?"

She took another step forward, her expression changing again, becoming darker and more sinister.

"I know what Zeus told you. I know what you saw while you were gone... what he showed you and what you realised because of it."

Callisto stiffened at that.

"How did you-"

"Inside your head, remember," the other her sneered, tapping at her temple. "We  are  the same, you and me. You were right about that. I see and hear all."

Callisto could feel the anger building inside her. The other hers sneering face infuriated her. She wanted to reach out and grab the sword at her side, pull it free, and charge the doppelganger, all the while screaming for her blood. She was everything that was wrong in her life, she realised now. Not Xena, or the burning of Cirra, or the loss of her family, or anything else. The fingers on her sword hand gave an involuntary twitch, but she managed to still them quickly.

Not quickly enough, however. The other her's eyes darted toward her hand and then back up to her face. Slowly, she leaned forward, her own face lighting up with a delighted smile.

"Hurts doesn't it," she purred. "Knowing that you're your own worst enemy." She nodded toward the sword. "Why don't you use it, mmm? It's what it's there for after all."

Callisto did her best to hold herself completely still and straight. She would not be baited. Not this time.

"I won't use it, because it's what you want me to do," she said.

The satisfied smile on the other her's face disappeared again, and her eyes turned cold and hard.

"Is that a dash of reason in your voice, I hear?" she said disgustedly. "Logic doesn't suit you my dear. Don't forget, it was your broken reasoning that got us into this mess in the first place."

"And what?" Callisto retorted, tilting her head in mockery of the other her. "You think  you  can get us out of it again?"

"Yes."

"How?"

The other her paused for a moment, looking her up and down in a measuring way, then suddenly she closed her eyes and tilted her head back. Callisto watcher her in confusion, her eyebrows drawing down in a tight frown.

"Listen," the other her said. "Do you hear that?"

Callisto stood silently, straining her ears. All she could hear was the dry roar of flames, and the howling of the ever strengthening wind that was now whipping both of their hair out sideways in long blonde streamers.

"I don't hear anything," she said, and a beatific smile spread across the doppelganger's face.

"Exactly!" she said. "There's nothing! No voices to torment us, no pain to eat away at us, and no guilt to destroy us!" Her eyes snapped open, and she fixed Callisto with a wild eyed stare of triumph. "Don't you see? I did that! It was all me! ME!"

She spread her arms wide, gesturing once more to the burning village around them. The fire had all but engulfed the buildings surrounding the square now, and was starting to spread outward, devouring everything in its path as it went.

"All of this..." the doppelganger continued, spinning on the spot, arms still outstretched and fingers splayed wide, trailing against the howling wind, "...the memories, the lies, and the excuses; it's all so much kindling! Let it all burn and let the loss burn with it! You don't need any of it!"

She turned her gaze on Callisto once more, her face lighting up with a strange earnestness. Slowly she reached out a hand toward Callisto, palm up, as if in offering

"Just let me back in the way you used to," she said almost imploringly. "You don't need to shut me out. You can loose yourself in me. I can burn it all away; the pain, the loss and the guilt. You don't need any of it, and you're as tired of it as I am! Just let me back in and I can be the purging flame that frees us both..."

Callisto just stared at the other hers outstretched hand. The fingers were her own, tapered, and all but quivering in anticipation. And it was then that the anger building inside her died as quickly as it had risen. Something had changed she realised. This other her was not the same anymore. Or perhaps she was. Perhaps that was the truth of it. Maybe in truth it was only Callisto that had changed. Where before the doppelganger had seemed to fill whatever void there had been left inside her, now she just seemed... lesser somehow. It was as if Callisto were really seeing her for the first time, and she was surprised by how pathetic she seemed. But this was herself she was staring at. She could see it now and there was no denying it.

How had this happened? How had she gone from being so full of life and fire, to being this... this  thing;  this worthless broken wretch, standing before her and begging for the pain to end? Had she really been right when she had stared at the smashed orrery. Was this really all that was left of her?

She looked around the square, and for a brief instant she did not see the flames or the destruction they wrought. Instead she saw the life she could have had, and the person she could have been, but in an instant it was gone again. Was that it? Was there really nothing left? Was there nothing remaining of the person she had been, but only the creature she had become?

"What are you waiting for?" the other her said, a note of impatience creeping into her voice. "You want this! I know you do!"

The words jolted Callisto back to the present again.

"Want  'this' ?" she stared unblinking at the other her's hand again, then shook her head. "I don't know what I want. Now that I think about it, I don't know if I ever really have." she reached out toward the other her's hand, then almost dismissively, she batted it aside. "But whatever it might turn out to be, I know one thing for certain; you aren't going to be the one to give it to me."

The other hers expression transformed in an instant, the expectant look in her eyes vanishing, only to be replaced by one of complete fury.

"Well, well, well..." She said, withdrawing her hand and regarding Callisto strangely. "Looks like you've found your spine after all."

Without any warning, her hand whipped back over her shoulder, grasping the sword that hung there, and she twirled it out of its scabbard and into a ready position, bringing it to rest with the sharpened tip pointing skyward toward the swirling vortex of cloud above. Her eyes traced their way up the cold steel hungrily, and Callisto's did the same. There was fire reflected in the metal.

"Took you long enough," the other her said, then with an ear piercing shriek, she charged.

*****

Sentos was standing at the head of his troops when he heard the command to advance being shouted down the line. He was a Spartan, trained from birth to obey every order without question or hesitation, and yet that was exactly what he was doing now. Even as he heard the rest of the army begin its advance, he could not bring himself to give the order. Instead he stood, resting his weight against his spear, the pain in his thigh throbbing terribly as he sweated beneath his helmet.

Behind him he could hear the rustle of men shifting uncomfortably as they awaited his orders, and Orestes – standing beside him – was beginning to glance about nervously.

"Captain?" the younger man whispered.

Sentos did not reply. Instead he let himself take in the sight of the camp below. Despite his words to the contrary, these people did have a danger to them. Agrios and his men would attest to that at the very least, had any of them been left alive. And yet that had been only a skirmish, and Agrios a poor commander. Standing here, looking out over their camp, Sentos was having difficulty really seeing that danger for himself. Instead all he could see were cooking fires still burning and sleeping tents abandoned as people fled for wagons already overloaded.

"Captain!" Orestes whispered again, more urgently this time.

Still, Sentos did not reply. It was the little details that stood out to him at this point. There were stacks of firewood beside the tents in some places, and in others even washing lines strung up between them, some with clothes still hanging. It was the clothes that did it. They were aprons and gloves, workers shirts and traveling cloaks.

"Sentos!" Orestes hissed sharply.

Sentos turned his gaze coolly to the other man.

"Are we disregarding rank now Lieutenant?"

Orestes straightened as if Sentos had just slapped him.

"King Demosthenes has given the order to advance," he said, his voice losing its familiar edge again and taking on a clipped military tone.

Sentos just nodded.

"Yes he has..." Sentos said, returning his attention to the camp before them.

They were not the clothes worn by soldiers.

"...and were he my King I would follow that order."

Before Orestes could even open his mouth to protest, he had turned to face the men standing at his back.

"You all know me," he said earnestly, his gaze moving across the assembled throng of red cloaked Spartans standing before him. "You all know that I'm a soldier, and a Spartan, and you know it's my duty to follow the orders of my King. Are all of you not the same?"

A faint murmur went up from the massed ranks of troops, and Sentos raised his voice.

"ARE ALL OF YOU NOT THE SAME!?"

"YES!" Was the sudden and not unexpected answering roar.

Sentos gave a satisfied nod.

"I thought as much," he said, then suddenly he thrust his arm out eastward, toward the flank he knew Demosthenes to be commanding from. "Well Demosthenes is a king, it's true..." He shouted. "...but he is not  my  King."

Slowly he reached up and removed his helmet, so that he could see each of the men standing before him more clearly.

"My King died," he said gently. "He and so many of our brothers gave their lives, not only in defence of Sparta, but in the defence of all of Greece. Demosthenes would make the price they paid worthless! He would set us against one another, and send us to war, not to defend those who need our shields, but to conquer and murder them instead. My King would never have ordered that.  Our King  would never have ordered that; and if he were here today to lead us, I know what his orders would be. I think all of you do too. Am I right?"

There was a round of enthusiastic cheers and vigorous nodding, but not nearly enough for Sentos' taste.

"AM I RIGHT?" He bellowed again.

This time his men erupted in another roar of affirmatives and hollering cheers. Sentos gave them all a grim smile.

"That's my boys," he muttered. "First Phalanx! SHIELDS UP!"

"HOH!" The soldiers roared, locking their shields and raising their spears to ready positions.

"Second Phalanx! SHIELDS UP!"

Another chorus of shouted chest pounding echoed across the line as the second phalanx followed the example of the first.

"Third Phalanx! REAR GUARD!"

Yet more shouting as the remaining soldiers formed into a tight line guarding the rear of the first two formations. Sentos paused, eyeing the three formations of troops.

"We're all that's left," he said flatly. "All that's left of the Sparta our King gave his all to protect." He placed his helmet back on his head, and hefted his own spear. "Let's remind the rest of them what it is that makes us Spartans."

He turned back to regard the two advancing lines of Demosthenes' troops to either side of them.

"On the order, First Phalanx to engage west. Second Phalanx to engage east. Standard formation! Third Phalanx to hold the rear and maintain our line of retreat."

With instructions given, Sentos turned and made his way over toward his horse, swinging himself up into the saddle, and clutching at the reins with one hand, while he adjusted his grip on his spear with the other.

There was a brief moment of silence, and the air hung thick with tension as his men awaited the command to move into action.

"Sentos!"

Frowning, he looked down from the back of his mount to see Orestes stalking angrily across the open ground toward him, a look of fury burning on his face.

"My rank is Captain," Sentos replied evenly, but with an edge of warning creeping into his voice. Orestes chose to ignore it.

"To Tartarus with your rank!" He snapped angrily, stopping directly in front of the Sentos' horse and squaring his shoulders. "What exactly do you think you're doing?!"

"What should have been done the day Demosthenes ordered the Helots and the Ephors murdered," Sentos snapped back. "We're soldiers, Orestes. All of us. We fight wars, against others like us. Here, now..." He gestured toward the camp with his spear. "...this isn't a war, and these people are  not  like us."

"You think I don't know that!?" Orestes protested desperately. "You think I like any of this? I want to see this ended just as much as you do! I want to see a new council of Ephors elected, and for the worship of Ares and Artemis to be restored! Demosthenes and these so called Followers of his have made a mockery of us and all that we stand for, and I want to see them stripped, flogged, and beheaded for all that they've done!" He paused, and took a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself. "But not here. Not now. Rightly or wrongly, he has the loyalty of the army commanders. He tells them what they want to hear, and so they listen to him. Just give it time Sentos, and sooner or later, when this mad crusade of his fails, and the others begin to see him for what he really his, then we will be able to take back everything that he's stolen from us..."

"Everything except our honour," Sentos replied. "He asked us to murder a people in cold blood and we said yes. He asked us to murder our leaders and we said yes. Now he asks to murder families and children whose only crime is to have survived our first attempt! How many more times do we keep doing this Orestes? How many times do we keep saying yes? Too many more, and the commanders won't even remember how to say no."

Orestes' jaw muscles flexed and he folded his arms across his chest.

"You know my men and I were sent to make sure this didn't happen, don't you?" He said. "That if I give the order, my men are to march on yours."

"They'd be outnumbered," Sentos said flatly, not liking what Orestes was driving at.

"Yes they would," Orestes said with a nod. "But they are no less Spartans than you are. They would fight to the last man to fulfill their duty."

"And they would have to do so," Sentos said grimly.

Again, Orestes nodded.

"You could join us-" Sentos began, but Orestes shook his head before he could even finish.

"You were right when you said your King was Leonidas," he said. "You swore your oath of allegiance to him. I and my men... we sore ours to Demosthenes."

"A man far from worthy of it," Sentos said, but Orestes only shrugged in response.

"Be that as it may, the oath is binding. With all your talk of what it is to be a Spartan, what would it say about me if I were to break it?"

Sentos regarded the other man steadily for a moment, then, with a click of his tongue he trotted his horse around him. Orestes did not move. Instead he simply stood staring at the spot where Sentos had been moments before.

"And if you weren't able to give the order Demosthenes expected of you?" Sentos said, settling his horse alongside the other man. "If you were... oh I don't know... incapacitated for example..."

"My men are trained to follow my orders," Orestes said tightly. "Without my say so, they wouldn't so much as take a step."

"You're sure of this?"

Orestes turned finally and fixed Sentos with a steady stare.

"I'm as sure of my men as you are of yours," he said firmly.

"Then I suppose they'll be waiting a long time for that order then," Sentos said. Looking back up at his men, he raised his spear high above his head.

"SPARTANS!" He bellowed. "Orders! MARCH!"

With the bass rumble of hundreds of pairs of feet tramping the ground in almost perfect unison, the last soldiers of King Leonidas began their advance.

Sentos watched them go.

"You're doing the right thing," he heard Orestes say beside him.

He looked back down at the other man. Orestes was watching the red cloaked Spartans with a look of complete defeat on his face.

"You could too," Sentos said. "You're a better man than this Orestes."

The young Spartan shook his head.

"Maybe one day," he said, then he looked up at Sentos with a sad half smile. "But not today."

Sentos sat quietly for a moment, not sure what else to say.

"I'll have to give the order soon," Orestes said. He was watching the marching phalanxes again.

Sentos just nodded and hefted his spear. "I know," he said.

"Sentos," the younger Spartan said, looking up at him again.

"Yes?"

"Just one thing," Orestes said with a sheepish grin. "Make it look good."

Sentos nodded, and as the other man turned to walk away, he brought the haft of his spear up sharply, only to slam it down again over the back of Orestes' skull, sending the younger man plunging into unconsciousness.

*****

The wind was practically a gale now. It whipped past Callisto and her doppelganger in great gusting waves, feeding the flames that roared through the village and carrying the baking heat of them along with it. Overhead, the churning inverted funnel of heavy grey cloud had split apart at its apex, revealing nothing but a pitiless obsidian black void, darker even than the night sky and deeper than the vastness of the ocean.

Callisto barely had time to register any of it. As the other her launched herself forward, the air between them ringing with her blood curdling scream, she back peddled desperately, her hand flashing out sideways and ripping the sword at her side from Leonidas' chest so that she could bring it up in a clumsy two handed guard that only just kept the other hers vicious downward swing from cleaving her straight down the middle. The doppelganger reacted immediately, springing sideways and bracing her foot against the rim of the nearby well, only to push back toward Callisto, her own blade flashing in the firelight as she brought it round in a backhanded swing that was clearly intended to take Callisto's head off.

Callisto ducked and rolled, coming up to her knees as she exited the roll, then twisting at the waist, her own blade cutting a hasty arc that, if it connected, would take out her doppelganger's knees. It was a wild, uncoordinated attack, and the other her cartwheeled away as tidily as if she had seen the swing coming all along, but the moment's respite it provided bought Callisto enough time to regain her footing and square off against her opponent on a more even keel.

The other her was grinning manically by this point, her eyes wild and flashing with the fire that was growing stronger and hotter all around them.

"So this is what it comes down to then," she said from between gritted teeth. "I can't say I'm disappointed. In a way I always knew it would end this way. You and me, dancing the dance we've always done, from now, all the way to oblivion."

Callisto gritted her teeth tightly together, mirroring the other her, and shifted her grip on the hilt of her sword.

"Good job I know the steps then," she snarled, and without warning she surged forward again, her sword flicking out in a rapid series of strikes designed to drive the doppelganger onto the defensive.

It did not work.

The other her moved to meet her, her own sword flashing through parry after parry quicker than Callisto could follow, and stopping her charge dead in its tracks. For a moment it seemed they were at a stand still, there weapons clanking against one another almost faster than either of them could follow as they both sought an opening. Then it happened. A sudden feint that Callisto had not seen coming put her back on the defensive again as she was forced to break out of a hacking horizontal swing to bring her sword up to block an unexpected thrust for her gut.

The swords screamed along the length of each other, and then the doppelganger twisted with her wrist, locking their blades together, and forcing the two of them to step into one another. The other hers grinning face was now mere inches from Callisto's own, and she could feel sweat beading in the middle of her shoulders while between them, the sharp blades glowed blue with reflected fire.

"Closer than a whisper," the other her smiled darkly. "Closer than a lover... We've always been this way. You can't deny me. You never could, and why would you even want to? We want the same thing and this is the only way! You know that as well as me. The only way we'll ever be at peace!"

Callisto gritted her teeth, and tightened her grip on the hilt of her sword. The doppelganger's strength was incredible, and slowly but surely, she could feel her feet sliding backward through the dirt as the other her pressed harder and harder against her guard.

"You might be right..." She said, “...but there's something else I want to try first.” Suddenly, and without warning, she slammed her head forward between the locked blades, catching the doppelganger unawares with a devastating headbutt.

The other her staggered backward, momentarily dazed and shaking her head. Callisto did not waste the opportunity. Too close now, and without enough time to bring her sword to bear, she cast the weapon aside and dove at the doppelganger, raising her clenched fist just in time to catch the other woman across the jaw. The doppelganger stumbled again under the force of the blow, only to step straight into Callisto's follow up hay-maker swing coming in from the opposite direction. This time, the punch threw her sideways into the the dry stone wall of the well, her knees buckling as she sagged against the rough cut stone for support.

Callisto was dimly aware of the fire burning ever hotter at the periphery of her vision, and the wind's howl was fast becoming a roar as all about them it's power built to the point where occasional eddies in the current of it were enough to throw her off stride. She did her best to ignore it. Her only focus now was on the other her, bowed before her and struggling to pull herself upright against the well. Callisto was on her in an instant, her hands flying for the other woman's throat. The doppelganger's eyes widened as she felt fingers close tightly around her neck and begin to squeeze.

"I don't think I ever told you this before," Callisto snarled as she tried to wring the life out of the other woman, "but I hate you. And I mean that sincerely. I really, really do. I. Hate. YOU! You're what's wrong with everything! You're the reason I can't sleep properly at night, and why the memories torment me so much! You're the reason that even after all this time, I still can't be the person I should have been!"

Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the other hers hand shoot out, snaring the well bucket that swung over head in the roaring wind, only to yank it down and swing it with all her might. Callisto managed to get her arm up just in time to keep the bucket from hitting her in the head, but the impact was still enough to throw her off balance and allow her doppelganger time to regain her feet.

"And you think I'm sorry for any of that?” the doppelganger sneered derisively. “I gave you exactly what you needed, and exactly when you needed it!" She took a step toward Callisto, whirling the bucket around for a second strike that Callisto was too dazed to avoid this time, or even attempt to block. The bucket caught her under the chin, and sent her flying into a backward somersault, only to land hard face down in the dirt. "Zeus told you what I am. What  we  are. Why even fight it anymore? You  know  it's true."

She tossed the bucket aside, and hunched down beside Callisto, wrapping her fingers through her opponents mad mass of blonde hair and yanking her head back savagely.

"I am your Omega, Callisto," she hissed darkly in her ear. "Your sum. Your total. Your end point. Your final destination. All roads lead to me. You might try to persuade yourself otherwise, you might even believe it – for a time at least – but deep down you'll always know I'm inside, hungry and waiting."

She shoved Callisto back down in the mud, then straightened and strode off, her every step rolling, and sinuous.

Callisto could feel her anger boiling over inside her. It was not true. It was not true. It was not true.  IT WAS NOT TRUE!

Summoning up all her willpower, she heaved herself first back to her knees, and then back to her feet. The wind was so strong now, it was carrying the fire on its back like a living thing. It buffeted her mercilessly causing both she and the doppelganger to struggle to remain upright. The flames eating away at the village had become a wall to all intents and purposes; a twisting, impenetrable cyclone-like barrier that spiraled up into the clouds above, and that circled the two of them on all sides.

Something glinted in the warm glow of the flames, and Callisto's eyes darted sideways. Her sword was lying only a pace or two from her. If she could get to it she could... Wait. There was something else out there, something walking through the flames.

Turning to get a better look, she saw them first in silhouette, her mouth turning dry as she realised what was coming. It was the faceless. Covered in wounds, and shambling like the walking dead they were, they came on the through the fire relentlessly. The heat did not touch them, and nor did the wind. They were coming in from all sides too, a wall of flesh and bone as impenetrable to her as the roaring fire.

"Now do you see?" she heard the other her say. Turning back to face her once more, Callisto saw the other her standing with her back to her, her head thrown back as she stared up into the churning sky and the black void lurking beyond it. Her hair was streaming wildly in the wind, and she seemed to be waiting for something. "They're what's waiting for you without me."

Callisto stepped sideways, sweeping the sword up from the ground and bringing it up into a ready stance, spinning on the spot as she tried to take in the faceless all around them. There must have been hundreds of them, all standing in complete silence, their heads tilted back to stare sightlessly up into the void in the same manner as the doppelganger.

"If they want me, then what are they waiting for?" Callisto snapped angrily at the other her, before turning her attention back to the faceless. "What are you waiting for!? I'm right here! You want me? COME AND GET ME!"

"Why should they rush?" said the other her, and Callisto's gaze darted back to her again. She had taken her eyes off the void now, and was sauntering casually back toward Callisto. "Vengeance is a thing best savoured after all, and they have all the time in the world to wait. One of the benefits of being dead."

She drew to a stop only a pace of two from Callisto.

"Me and you though," she continued, the wind tugging her hair across her face, "we don't have forever, and besides, this is all starting to a get a little tiresome, wouldn't you agree? I'd say a change of venue is in order, wouldn't you?"

Callisto scowled at her.

"Tiresome?" she snapped angrily. "Venue? What is it you're babbling about now!?"

The other her flashed her a devilish smirk. "If I told you, that would spoil the fun wouldn't it?"

Suddenly, she tilted her head, as if distracted and trying to listen to something far far away, and her smirk became a delighted grin.

"Guess what!" she yelled excitedly above the now almost deafening roar of the fire as she straightened her head again. "Time's up! I'd say hold onto something, but that would kind of defeat the point."

"Point of what?" Callisto shouted back over the howling wind, but before the other her could answer, there was a terrible crunching sound that drew both of their attention as nearby one of the ruined thatched rooftops finally surrendered to the roaring wind. The timbers that had been supporting it groaned, splintered, then broke. They hung for less then a second, suspended as if in water, then the wind took hold of them, sucking them up to join the roaring cyclone of fire and thunder twisting off into the sky. Moments later another rooftop gave out, its debris spiraling skyward in the same manner. Then another gave, and another, and then another, and this time the stone walls began to break away too as slowly, but with terrible inexorability, the firestorm proceeded to scour the remains of Cirra from the face of the earth.

A huge chunk of flying masonry came hurtling through the air, and Callisto dove to the ground, only just managing to avoid it as it whipped overhead. Before she could regain her feet, she felt the wind take hold of her too, dragging her through the dirt and tugging her up into the air. She spiraled dizzyingly head over toe through the air until, without warning, her fingers snagged against something. It was the crossbar at the top of the village square's well. Clinging grimly to it, she felt the howling cyclone force winds drag her legs up, first horizontal to the rest of her, and then, slowly but surely even further up, until her whole body was inverted, head facing down toward the ground while her feet trailed above her, pointing up toward the huge black hole in the sky above.

Straining with every muscle in her body, she tried desperately to pull herself back toward the ground, only to feel fingers wrap tightly around one of her wrists.

It was her doppelganger. She two had been swept up by the wind, and was now holding tight to the crossbar beside her.

"You don't have to fight it!" she shouted, still gripping Callisto's wrist. "This what you wanted, isn't it?"

"This..." Callisto shouted back, then shook her head, struggling to find the words in the midst of the maelstrom. "...This isn't... I just wanted it all to end!"

"And it will!" the other her shouted. "I guarantee it!"

And with that, she pulled hard on Callisto's wrist, dragging her hand free from the crossbar. The cyclone did the rest. It surged in all around them, an irresistible wave of sound and scorching heat that yanked Callisto so hard she screamed as her shoulder joint all but dislocated, causing her other hand to release its grip too. The cyclone caught her before she could fall, tipping and rolling her end over end, and as she span, she saw her doppelganger being thrown similarly this way and that through the air, laughing manically all the way.

Up, up, up they tumbled, through fire and fury, away from all that had been, and into the terrible waiting nothing.

Chapter Twenty: Alive Again

The camp had erupted into chaos as Ithius made his way hurriedly back to the centre where he had left the others earlier. Arkus followed close on his heels, glancing uncomfortably toward the shadowed forest that surrounded them, only to suddenly stop as the first Spartans began to appear.

"By the Gods!" he gasped. "There's so many of them."

Ithius glanced back over his shoulder at him, and then to the the troops beyond. He felt his heartbeat quicken in his chest, and a familiar surge of adrenaline wash over him. To the east and west the Spartans were emerging from the trees like flood waters after the first spring rains. They moved as one, a long line of bronze and boiled leather, almost inhuman in appearance beneath their flared helms as they marched forward in perfect lock step while their spears drummed rhythmically against their shields.

"We need to hurry," he said. "The longer we wait, the smaller the chances are of us making it through this."

"Like they weren't small enough already," Arkus said, his voice taking on a distant, detached quality that Ithius did not like.

"Hey!" he said, stepping up to the other man and placing a hand firmly on his shoulder. Arkus span to stare at him, his eyes taking longer to focus than was normal.

"We'll make it through this," Ithis said, then nodded his head with as much conviction as he could muster. "We will . But first I need you to calm down. In battle, Arkus, the most people are lost during the route. When one side turns tail and runs like we're about to, all it takes is for one of them – just one – to crack, and the resulting panic will spread like wild fire. There's no coming back from it when it happens, so I need you calm and I need you collected. Understand?"

The other man swallowed and nodded, cold sweat beading on his brow.

"I understand."

"Good," Ithius said firmly. "Now this isn't your first time going through something like this today. You handled yourself well before. Just remember then. How did you feel?"

"Terrified," Arkus replied, and Ithius gave him a grim smile.

"Me too," he said. "But we're still here. Now come on. We've got work to do."

With that, the two of them turned and started off again, Ithius shouting out commands to various milling crowds of people as he made his way back through the camp. Arkus broke off before they reached the wagons in an attempt wrangle a group of families bordering on the edge of panic over toward the rest of the Helots.

"So what's the plan then?" Athelis said, emerging out of the crowd as Ithius drew close to the wagons. Ithius fixed him with a level look.

"You're happy to let me be in charge again?"

Athelis shrugged.

"Even I'm not crazy enough to think we can beat  that,"  he said, and pointed toward the approaching Spartans.

"I have to say..." came Themistocles' voice, and Ithius turned to see him appearing out of the crowd from the opposite direction "...now hardly seems like the time to be having that particular conversation."

Adrasteia was walking at his side, and Ithius could not help but notice the wary looks she was shooting Athelis' way. Her brother, for his part, did not so much as glance at her.

"Still," Themistocles continued with that half amused tone he had that Ithius was already finding grating, "If you have a plan to get us out of this, then who am I to argue.” He paused to consider what he had just said, then furrowed his brow. “You do have a plan, don't you?"

"We head south," Ithius said, continuing on quickly when he saw both Athelis and Adrasteia open their mouths to protest. "It's not perfect, but its the best shot we've got,” he said, forestalling them. “If we can stay ahead of the Spartan line, maybe some of the wagons can slip the net and get away...

"While those that can't will be driven straight down the lion's throat," Athelis snorted. "Some plan."

Ithius shot him a dark look, doing his best not to rise to the bait. Adrasteia did not manage so well, and was turning to chastise her brother when she was cut off by a distant, hundred throated roar, followed by the sounds of battle. The entire Helot crowd froze, turning as one to stare off west toward the sounds of fighting.

"What on earth..." Themistocles said, turning with the crowd and squinting against the gloom. With so many torches now gathered tightly together as the Helots clustered around the wagons, it was difficult to see exactly what was taking place out beyond the flickering circle of orange light. "...what's happening out there?"

"I can't see anything," Athelis replied, also having turned to peer out into the darkness. After a moment, he gave a frustrated grunt. "Anyone out there able to see what's going on?"

The distant sounds of battle to the west were beginning to grow stronger when a second roar went up, and more battle cries sounded, this time over to the east.

"Something's wrong," Ithius heard Adrasteia say. Like the rest of them she was staring out into the darkness, but her gaze seemed keener than the rest. "Someone else is out there. I can see... men, I think. Men attacking the Spartans..." she paused and frowned. "That can't be right..."

"What is it?" Themistocles asked. "What do you see?"

"These men," she replied, still not taking her eyes off the distant trees. "I think they're-"

"ITHIUS!" It was Arkus' voice, calling over the nervous chatter all about them and cutting of Adrasteia mid-sentence. "ITHIUS!" Ithius scanned the crowd, only for Arkus to come bursting through it into the small circle of space that surrounded them. Like before, there was a nervousness to him, but there was also a strange look of release behind his eyes too, as if he had just seen something remarkable.

"What have you got for me Arkus?"

"A Spartan," Arkus breathed excitedly. "Alone and coming toward us on horseback." He paused. "And Ithius?"

"Yes?"

A small smile split the other man's face.

"He's wearing Leonidas' colours."

That was enough for Ithius. Without a word he started forward again, pushing his way hurriedly through the crowd of his people, Themistocles and the rest trailing behind him until he reached the edge just in time to see this Spartan drawing his horse up before the expectant gathering

The Spartan was not as tall as him, but he was broader, with a thick barrel chest that lent him a sense of power and solidity. His helmet was on, making it difficult to make out his features, but Ithius would have recognised that physique anywhere.

"Captain Sentos!" Adrasteia gasped beside him. "What are  you  doing here?"

The Spartan's head turned, his eyes immediately sharpening against the fire light as he picked her out of the crowd. It took him less than a moment to spot Ithius too.

"Not a Captain anymore I think," he said, removing his helmet and hanging it from the pommel of his saddle, before dismounting and making his way hurriedly over to them; or at least as hurriedly as a limp Ithius did not remember him ever having had before would allow him at any rate. "Not in the eyes of Sparta's current ruler anyway."

He glanced between Adrasteia and Themistocles.

"Your friends didn't make it?" he asked.

Adrasteia swallowed and shook her head. Sentos responded with respectful tilt of his own.

"I'm... sorry for that." he said, pausing mid sentence to think of how best to continue. "But it is something of a relief to see that at least you made it." He studiously ignored looking toward Themistocles, while Adrasteia did not even reply, her thoughts seemingly far away.

Turning away from them, Sentos switched his attention to Ithius.

"It's been a long time," he said.

"I thought it wouldn't be ever again," Ithius replied. "Didn't you die at Thermopylae."

"No thanks to you and your people, but almost, yes," Sentos replied, but there was only a touch of bitterness in his voice as he look about him at the cowering crowd of Helots. "I might not see out the rest of this night either, especially if they continue to huddle around like frightened cattle."

"Does that mean..." Adrasteia began and Sentos glanced at her and nodded.

"We've engaged Demosthenes' forces and are holding the way north open for you," he said. "Out beyond Demosthenes' line, there is a rearguard waiting that have orders to escort you as far as you need. The rest of my men and myself will continue to hold Demosthenes at bay for as long as we can..."

"But that won't be for long, will it?" Ithius said, noting the tightness in the other man's voice.

Sentos shook his head.

"No. We had the element of surprise, which has given us a temporary advantage but that won't last, and soon, Demosthenes' sheer numbers will begin to overwhelm us. I plan to order a withdrawal before that happens." He fixed Ithius with a steady gaze. "There's much blood on your hands Ithius. Thermopylae foremost among it. I don't blame you for trying to protect your people, but I will not blindly throw my own mens lives away entirely for the sake of yours."

"Then why help at all?" Ithius asked, trying not to think about what Sentos was driving at.

"For the Sparta that I was raised to defend," Sentos answered "And for the memory of a man who was the best of friends to both of us."

With that he turned and swung back up to his saddle, resetting his helmet on his head as she did so.

"Your people need to move now," he said, "and move fast. Demosthenes will be merciless once he sets himself to your pursuit. You are heading for Tryxis I assume?"

Ithius nodded. "It seemed the most logical place to head for."

"Agreed," Sentos said. "After we withdraw and regroup, I will order my men to rendezvous with you there. If I can figure out where you're heading, Demosthenes can too, and I get the feeling you'll be needing our help once you get there."

"I would imagine we will," Ithius said grimly. "Oh and Sentos?"

The Spartan Captain had been turning his horse, preparing to gallop back to his men, only to pause when he heard Ithius speak.

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

Sentos did not seem to know what to say to that. He simply sat there for a moment, his horse shifting beneath him. Finally he nodded, then, with a loud cry and a kick to its flanks, his mount shot forward, its long legs eating the distance as it sped out of the camp.

"Alright," Ithius said, turning to address the crowd of Helots. "You all heard what he said. We head north, and we go  now , while we still have time."

For a moment everyone stood in silence, milling about uncertainly. It was frustrating, but Ithius could understand why. His people had already been betrayed by Spartan promises before, and the result had been almost total devastation. It was hardly surprising that they were reluctant to trust in Spartan help now. At the same time however, none of them knew Sentos. Ithius did, and the man was without any true guile. He was a soldier, plain and simple, but an honourable one, and he would never knowingly involve himself in a scheme like this. Of that Ithius was almost certain. He was about to speak up again when Themistocles beat him to the punch.

"Well?" The Athenian shouted, stepping forward, his voice ringing with vexation. "What are you all waiting for? Someone to pull out a chair for you? Or a gilded invitation perhaps? In case none of you have realised it yet, Demosthenes wants you dead. All of you. Right down to the very last. Going anywhere but north will all but guarantee he gets it too. But, if you all want to just sit here and  debate  some more, then I won't stop you. I and my associate here..." he nodded to Adrasteia "...will just strike out for Tryxis on our own. We have better things to do this night than die, and its time we were about them." He began to turn, then paused before adding, almost as an aside, "I doubt we'll even bother to look back when the killing starts."

And with that said, he span on his heel and flashed Ithius a wink before striding off past him.

"Give it ten seconds," he said as he passed by.

It only took five.

The crowd all but erupted into commotion, people running for the last spaces in the wagons while others began hefting their traveling packs and starting forward. Not quite as quickly as Ithius would have hoped, but still faster than he had imagined, a lumpy column of people and possessions began to form with the many loaded wagons forming its spine while those healthy enough to walk crowded in bunches around them. A few of the Helots carrying weapons took up positions along the length of the column, glancing nervously all around as they finally began to file northward out of the camp.

Ithius could only look on in wearied disbelief as they began to shuffle past him, the pace slow at first, but gradually quickening as they found their walking rhythm.

"Clever bastard," he muttered to himself, shaking his head and looking over at Themistocles' shrinking figure.

"I know," Adrasteia said, walking up beside him and giving him the same tired smile he imagined was plastered across his own face right now. "And isn't it just infuriating?"

"How did you put up with it?" he said, and Adrasteia shrugged.

"I'd like to say I learned to appreciate him," she said. "But it wouldn't really be the truth. I didn't learn to put up with it." She started walking back toward the column. "He learned to put up with me." she shouted back to him.

Ithius stood, watching her as she walked up to the column, pulling a dagger free from her belt and falling in beside Dion. There was fear in her step, but determination in her eyes. It was the same determination he saw in her brother, and even at times that he had seen in Callisto too, but Adrasteia's was purer, without the raging taint to it that marked the other two.

The thought of Callisto made his eyes narrow, and he scanned the length of the column. Where was she? He could see no sign of her. Feeling his chest tighten suddenly, he started down the hill, jogging quickly for the head of the column where Athelis and a few of those Helots still loyal to him had formed up as a kind of vanguard. The column was just beginning to pass into the gap opened up by Sentos' soldiers, and all around them the sound of battle was intensifying as Demosthenes' troops began to understand what was happening, and started to bring their full force to bare in an attempt to break through Sentos' lines to the vulnerable Helots beyond. The tension in the air was practically electric, and Ithius could feel all eyes on him as he ran up to the vanguard.

"Athelis!" he shouted.

The younger man turned glanced back to see him approaching, then tapped one of the men behind him on the shoulder. The man stepped up to take his place in the formation, and Athelis walked clear of the column to meet Ithius on its flank.

"Fearless leader," he nodded, a cutting edge to his tone. "How may I be of assistance?"

Normally, Ithius would have dressed him down for his sarcasm, but there was no time for that now. Indeed, he was almost thankful that for the first time, Athelis was being even remotely deferential.

"Callisto," he said, not even bothering with preamble. "Have you seen her?"

"She's in a coma," Athelis said. "People like that don't tend to get about much."

Ithius rolled his eyes.

"Would you just listen to me for once," he said, doing his best to keep his voice calm. "I mean she's not in the wagons. Did no one to put her in one?"

"I..." Athelis began then paused, the disdainful look disappearing from his face to be replaced by a confused frown. "I'm not sure," he finished and took a step back so that he could see further down the line.

Ithius followed the other man's gaze as it traveled the length of the line, settling on each wagon in turn. There was no sign of her in any of them.

"I have to go back for her," Athelis said, his face suddenly pale. Before he could take a step however, Ithius had him by the arm.

" I'll  go back for her," he said, but Athelis was already shaking his head.

"You don't understand," he said. "I need her. She's the only one who can..." his voice trailed off as he caught sight of Ithius eyeing him steadily.

"Can what?" Ithius said.

"It's nothing."

Ithius folded his arms.

"Can what?" he repeated.

Athelis straightened, giving him a defiant glare, but saying nothing.

"We don't have time for a debate on this," Ithius said. "I made a promise, to Leonidas and to her, that I'd do whatever I could to help her. I'm going back."

"Then we go back together," Athelis said. "You'll need my help to carry her anyway."

Ithius raised an eyebrow at him.

"She's been in a coma for the better part of a month, and she was hardly the bulkiest of individuals before that. I think I'll be able to handle her just fine on my own. Besides, I need you to lead the vanguard out of here."

"I'm not-" Athelis began, but Ithius cut him off sharply.

"No more arguments," he snapped. "No more discussions. You're doing as I say. You've been leading these people into danger for weeks now. You owe it to them to lead them out of it now. There's also the matter of your sister..."

Athelis' jaw tensed at that, but Ithius pressed on regardless.

"...I don't know what bad blood lies between you both, but are you seriously telling me you'd abandon her to the mercy of the Spartans, just so you could get another shot at whatever revenge it is you so desperately want?"

Athelis looked from Ithius, toward Adrasteia, then over to the old woodsman's cottage, then back to Adrasteia again, before finally turning back to Ithius, his shoulders slumping in defeat.

"Alright," he said miserably. "You win."

He turned to trot off after the column, then paused and glanced back at Ithius one last time.

"Just one thing," he said.

"What?" Ithius replied impatiently. Already he could hear the shouts of the battle turning and his people were barely past the Spartan line. Time was running short and he needed to get moving.

"Get her out alive," Athelis said, then turned and jogged off back up the column.

Ithius did not waste any more time. Heading in the opposite direction, he started back between scattered remnants of the camp at a dead run, his legs swallowing the distance in under a minute. The next minute, he was vaulting the dry stone wall that ran around the cottage's yard, and then sprinting toward its front door. The door itself had been left standing ajar, and it let out a loud bang as Ithius hammered through it, swinging it back hard on its hinges. He was standing in the single hallway that ran up the centre of the cottage, and gloom and shadows were everywhere. A strange feeling began to rise in the pit of his stomach. Something was not right here. Outside he could still hear the distant strains of battle, but in the cottage, even with the door open at his back, they seemed oddly muted somehow, almost as if he were listening to them from underwater.

He took a step forward, then froze again almost immediately. Had the shadows just... moved? He shook his head, as if making the denial physical would reduce the possibility of something that strange happening even more. Even as he did so though, a memory stirred in the back of his mind of Athelis' tale of what had happened deep underground in the Tomb of Lycurgus. A monster had come for he and Callisto, he'd said; one that could move like a snake and bend the shadows to its will. Ithius had thought he was addled, misremembering what had happened as a result of blow to the head he had sustained in the same fight that had landed Callisto face down in a lake of Pneuma.

From outside, there came the sound of a horn blast echoing over the shouts of battle. Ithius had fought enough battles beside Spartans to know their various signals. This one was the signal for retreat. Sentos was beginning to fall back.

Jarred into action by the sudden realisation that his time was all but up, he started forward again, doing his best to ignore the creeping feeling of unease that was still clawing its way up his spine. The door to Callisto's room was at the end of the hall. As he neared it, he paused. There were sounds coming from within, dry rustlings that were barely there at all, but were still just about audible from his position outside. Taking a deep breath, he reached out and pushed the door gently open.

At first the room appeared as it always did. Largely empty save for a single bed push up against the back wall with a table beside it, and on that table, a single guttering candle. Callisto was laid out in the bed, clad in her plain grey shift, the same as always.

At least at first glance.

It took Ithius only a moment to see the difference. A large amulet, mostly plain but with a large set stone of polished obsidian, had been placed around her neck. Callisto herself was different too. Normally immobile and passive save for eyes darting back and forth beneath their lids, she had now thrown off the sheet that covered her, and her fingers and toes were clawing desperately at the bed. Her breathing was short and laboured, coming in rasping pants from between teeth gritted as if in agony, and her wild blonde hair was lank and soaked through with the sweat that was streaming off her.

At the sight of her, Ithius crossed the room in two steps, crouching cautiously at the bedside.

"Callisto?" he said, doing his best to keep his tone calm and measured. "Callisto? Can you hear me? If you can, then just listen to the sound of my voice, and follow it back, okay? Just follow it back..." Gently, he reached out to check her temperature by placing his hand on her forehead. At his merest touch, she redoubled her crazed straining. Her arms and legs' wild thrashing almost doubled in intensity, and her teeth ground across each other so tightly he could practically hear the scraping of enamel. Then, suddenly, her spine snapped up into a rigid arch, as if someone had inserted a curved iron brace along the length of it. Her neck craned back so far back that she was almost entirely balanced on the balls of her feet and the crown of her head, and her arms stretched up toward the ceiling, her fingers working at the air an almost desperate rapture. Her jaw cracked open, yawning wide, and she let out an ear piercing screech like nothing Ithius had ever heard before. Equal parts rage, misery and absolute despair, it hung in the air long after her muscles had relaxed and she collapsed exhausted back to the mattress.

Staring at her in astonishment, Ithius released his hand from her forehead. Her whole demeanour had changed completely. Whereas before she had always seemed strangely pensive, even in her unconscious state, now, to Ithius at least, she looked almost as if she were sound asleep. Her breathing was all of a sudden much more normal, her chest rising and falling in a deep and steady rhythm, and beneath her lids, her eyes had ceased their relentless backward and forward darting.

Watching her silently, Ithius pondered what exactly had just taken place. Callisto had only spoken to him once since her Pneuma dunking, and that had been only shortly after it had happened. Since then she had been practically insensate; completely unresponsive. She had certainly never given a performance like the one he had just seen, of that he was certain. The only thing to have changed in that time was the amulet. He did not recall ever having seen it before, which only begged the question, where in all of Tartarus had it appeared from?

As he eyed it suspiciously, he felt a strange feeling deep within the recesses of his thoughts. Something cold and dreadful stirred, as if the mere sight of the amulet were enough to pull it to the surface. Before he could stop himself, he reached out toward the obsidian stone, and attempted to lift it from where it was nestled against Callisto's chest. The moment his fingers brushed across its surface, he hissed and withdrew them sharply. The thing was scalding hot to the touch, almost as if it were a lump of coal pulled from the heart of a roaring fire. Strangely enough though, despite the heat of it, it did not seem to be harming Callisto in the slightest. On her, to all intents and purposes, it was just a regular, if somewhat morbid, piece of jewelry.

Another horn blast sounded from outside, this one more distant than the first. Leaving Callisto where she lay, and doing his best to ignore the pain in his singed figures, Ithius straightened again and crossed hurriedly to the single window that looked out across the camp. Despite the gloom of deepening night outside, and the relative brightness of the room itself, he could still just about make out movement from the beyond the edge of the camp. Sentos' troops had definitely pulled back now. That much was evident simply from the sudden quiet that had descended outside. The quiet also meant that Sentos probably had the majority of Demosthenes' troops in pursuit of him. He wondered briefly how much longer Sentos would try to defend his people as they marched north before he cut his losses and called a full retreat. He might even have already done it, and if he had that meant that...

Ithius shook his head. He did not have time to worry about any of that now. If he knew Demosthenes as well as he thought he did, then the camp would not simply be left unsecured. There would be at least one patrol sent in to check for stragglers. Demosthenes was nothing if not thorough – some might say obsessive – in his dedication to a plan. Fortunately, so was Ithius, and  he  did not plan on being present when they came.

Already trying to think of the best way to get Callisto out of here, he span back toward the rest of the room, only to freeze in mid step.

The bed was empty.

A floorboard beside him creaked and he turned just in time to catch Callisto angling in at him from his right. Before he could even finish coming around to face her, she was on him. He tried to raise his arms to defend himself, but she was already inside his guard, the edge of her left hand lashing out to catch him across the windpipe. Choking as the blow struck home, his breath caught in his throat and he fell back against the wall of the cottage, desperately trying to fend her off as she closed in again. The element of surprise was serving her well however, and in the next moment her knee came up, taking him hard in the stomach and causing him to double over in pain. In the same instant, she seized him by the shoulder and hauled him back upright, slamming him back against the wall and pressing her right arm in tightly across his throat once more. This close he could see the fury shining in her eyes at the sight of him, and her top lip curled upward in a cruel grin.

"Well, well, well," she sneered darkly at him. "I can't say yours was the first face I wanted to see when I woke up, but then again, I've been a long time without a plaything and I did promise to disembowel you if we ever met again." she reached up with her free left hand and trailed a finger playfully across the length of his exposed collar bone. "But first things first. I have questions, and if you manage to answer them to my satisfaction, maybe – just maybe mind – I might not have to slice your throat here and now for everything you did." She tilted her head and smiled at him. It was an expression that never reached her eyes. "Are you ready?"

Ithius tried to speak but her arm was still pressed too tightly across his windpipe, cutting off his breath while small sparks of light were beginning to flicker in and out at the edges of his vision. In the end he could only manage a slight nod.

"Leonidas," Callisto said, the smile disappearing from her face as quickly as it had come. "Where is he?"

He felt the pressure on his throat ease slightly allowing him to gulp in a fresh lungful of air that chased away the dancing lights.

"I..." he began hoarsely, then seized and coughed, before managing to start again. "I don't know."

The snarl returned to Callisto's face.

"You don't know!?"

Ithius shook his head.

"How could I? The Persians... they... they took his body. I don't know what they did with it after that."

"His body?" Callisto said, and suddenly she did not seem to be looking at  him   anymore, but instead through him and on toward something he did not even want to try and imagine. Slowly her gaze refocused, and she locked eyes with him once more. "He's dead?"

Ithius could only nod sadly. Her teeth gritted together hard.

"Then so are you!" she hissed, and back-stepped, yanking him clear of the wall so unexpectedly that as he stumbled forward, he was barely able to see her leg sweep in and take his own out from under him. He went down hard, his head bouncing off the wooden floorboards so viciously that it made the room spin. There was no time to regain his composure. Callisto was astride him almost as soon as he was down, sitting across his stomach, her knees pinning his arms tightly at his side.

Gritting his teeth, he strained to pull his arms free, but Callisto just squeezed her knees tighter and tutted at him scoldingly.

"Now, now," she said, all trace of her fury from moments before seemingly having vanished to be replaced by a casual, almost conversational tone. "Fighting against me is all well and good, but really, it'll just make what's coming next hurt all the more."

"And what is coming next?" Ithius growled at her, finally able to draw a bit more breath now that she was no longer clutching him by the throat.

"You don't remember our little chat?" she said, pressing her hand to her chest in a mock wounded fashion. "Why, I'd almost be offended if I wasn't about to enjoy this so much."

She leaned in close once more, her face now only inches from his own.

"I promised you I'd take your heart," she hissed, her voice changing again, now turning low and sibilant. Her eyes slid back and forth around the room and she straightened again.

"Unfortunately I don't have anything sharp to do this with, but, well..." she cracked her knuckles and grinned devilishly at him "...improvisation always was one of my strong suits."

She began to lean forward again, her fingers hooking into claws as she reached out for him. Ithius redoubled his efforts to get free, muscles straining against hers while his legs thrashed desperately against the floorboards but all to no avail. She had him held tight and there was nothing he could do about it. Her hooked fingers were now only centimetres from his eyes.

"Greeks killing Greeks!" he shouted. He did not know why. It was just the first thing that popped into his head. It seemed to work however.

"What did you say?" Callisto snarled, pausing with her arms still outstretched.

"Greeks killing Greeks," Ithius repeated, a little calmer this time. "You were right Callisto; you and Monocles both. Right about the Followers, the war with Persia, the conspiracy in Sparta, all of it. There was only one little detail you got wrong."

He stared up at her, trying to judge what thoughts must be running through her mind right now. She had that far away look again, as if she could not quite decide how to feel about what was going on around her. Suddenly, her eyes narrowed, and she fixed him with a wary stare for a moment, then, without any warning, she released him.

"Alright," she said, straightening. "You've got my attention. I'll give you a minute to explain what exactly it is you're ranting about."

Ithius rolled clear of her and pushed himself upright, taking the opportunity to rub gingerly at his throat now that his hands were free. He could already feel what would no doubt be a livid purple bruise forming.

"We've got even less time than that," he said, and tried to make for the nearby door. Callisto moved to block him, and for the first time, he realised how unsteady on her feet she seemed. Whatever adrenaline rush had given her the strength to come at him seemed to be wearing off. She was blinking hard too, as if she were trying with all her might to stay focused on the here and now.

"I didn't say you could leave," she hissed, . "Try that again and I'll crack both your kneecaps before you can take another step."

"Callisto," Ithius said warningly, "we don't have time for this." He pointed toward the bedroom window. "Threaten me all you want. It won't change the fact that at this very moment, outside this house, there's a Spartan army bearing down on us, and if we don't leave this instant, then it won't matter which of us gets the upper hand the next time you go all homicidal lunatic. They'll make sure that neither of us get out of here alive."

"Why Ithius," Callisto said. "Did you just call me insane? I'm flattered-"

From the front hall came the sound of voices as the front door slammed back on its hinges. Callisto immediately lifted a finger to her lips indicating for him to be quiet and backed carefully toward the bedroom door that still stood open. Ithius watched as she peaked out silently into the gloom. Almost immediately there came angry shouts from out in the corridor and Callisto ducked back inside, slamming the door shut behind her.

"Well what do you know," she grinned at him as she rammed the door's single wooden dead bolt into place. "Looks like you were right."

Ithius moved hurriedly to the bed, dragging it across the room with a loud scraping sound only to up end it over the doorway. Even as he did so, there came a loud series of bangs from outside as the Spartans began to hammer on the rotting wood from the other side.

"That should hold them for a little while at least," he said turning only to pause when he saw that Callisto had already crossed to the window and was trying to force the latch.

"What do they make these things out of?" she grunted. "Hephaestus' own steel?"

Shaking his head ruefully, Ithius crossed to the small bedside table and the stool that sat beside it. In one hand he grabbed Callisto's black leather battle gear, and in the other he grabbed the stool itself.

"What are you doing with that?" Callisto asked.

"Making us a way out," Ithius replied. "Stand aside please."

For once, Callisto was obliging, taking a step back from the window as Ithius hoisted the stool and swung it with all his might. The window practically exploded from the impact, shards of grimy glass scattering in the mud outside.

He turned to face Callisto with a triumphant look in his eye.

"I meant that," Callisto said nodding, toward the gear in his other hand, as she stepped back up to the window and began to climb out.

"It's yours isn't it?" Ithius said, following her through into the chill night air beyond. "Won't you be needing it?"

Behind them, the hammering on the door had increased in intensity at the sound of shattering glass, and already Ithius could hear footsteps pounding back down the corridor and out of the front door.

"I don't want it," Callisto snapped as Ithius dropped to the ground beside her. "Any of it. Understand?"

Ithius frowned. She had collapsed to all fours as she had landed on the other side of the window, and her shoulders were shaking with exhaustion as she tried to hold herself upright. He reached out a hand toward her.

"Are you al-" he began, but she slapped his hand aside.

"Don't touch me!" she snarled. "I don't need help, and even if I did, I'd rather push a boulder up a hill in Tartarus while hungry buzzards pecked out my eyes than accept it from you!"

With seemingly great effort, she managed to compose herself and force her body back to standing. Even then, her steps were still tottering and unsteady, but they seemed to be getting surer the further she went. Ithius watched her for a moment, almost in awe of her sheer strength of will, then clambered back to his own feet before jogging over to her.

"If that's the case," he said, "then by all means, keep doing what you're doing. Demosthenes will make sure you're pushing that rock in Tartarus before sunrise."

"Demosthenes?" Callisto said shooting him a quizzical look. "What's he got to do with any of this?"

Ithius proffered his arm to her.

"You want those answers?" he said. "Then let me help you."

Callisto glanced irritatedly from his face to his outstretched hand and back again, before letting out a frustrated grunt.

"Okay then," she said stepping forward and wrapping one arm around his shoulders so that he could in turn wrap his own around her back, supporting her as they reached the dry stone wall of the courtyard and ducked behind it just in time as the Spartans rounded the corner of the cottage. "But if you tell anyone I was such a push over, then I'll strangle you in your sleep."

"I can think of worse ways to go," Ithius said with a smile. "Better ones too, of course. Either way, your secret's safe with me."

With that, the two of them started moving again, keeping low behind the wall, and then using the cover of darkness to creep out among what was left of the camp's tents. They paused once or twice as they went, listening to the voices of the Spartans calling out to one another in the dark. The majority of Demosthenes' forces seemed to have moved, most likely in pursuit of the rest of the Helots as Ithius had predicted. Only the patrol sent back to search the camp remained, and they had apparently fanned out following Callisto and Ithius' disappearance at the cottage and were now attempting to cover as wide a search area as possible. The moon being shrouded behind a thick layer of grey cloud was hindering their efforts however, cloaking the camp in an almost impenetrable darkness save for the few embers of campfires that still glowed weakly here and there about the place. The fact that only a few of their number appeared to have torches also seemed to help too.

Pausing to catch their breaths for a moment to the rear of one of the large food tents that had been left behind, Ithius saw Callisto glancing around them, seemingly taking in her surroundings for the first time. She was barely visible in the gloom beyond a vague human shaped outline, though her blonde hair did make her a little more visible, but Ithius could still the read the confusion coming off her in waves.

"What is this place?" she whispered.

"It's where we've been hiding for the past month," he replied.

"Who's 'we'?" Callisto hissed, and Ithius shrugged, although he wasn't sure if she even noticed the gesture in the dark.

"Me," he said. "Athelis, what's left of my people."

"What's left of your-" Callisto began questioningly only to stop short as something occurred to her. "Hey, wait a minute! Did you just say 'month'!?"

"Yes."

"I was out for a whole month?"

"Maybe closer to four weeks, but yeah, something like that."

Callisto fell silent for a moment before speaking again.

"You know what?" she said.

"What?"

"I'm hungry."

Ithius did his best to stifle a chuckle.

"I'll make sure to get you something to eat as soon as he don't have two dozen or more angry Spartans chasing after us." He leaned out around the corner of the tent, straining his eyes hard against the gloom. There was no sign of movement, but there were no more tents across the eighty or so yards of open ground between them and the tree line. He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. The darkness would probably cover them if they went now, but there was always the chance of being seen. Still, they could not stay here and a dash for the tree line was the only option left to them.

"Come on," he said, helping Callisto up into a hunched position. "Coast is clear and its now or never."

Beside him, Callisto nodded grimly, and the two of them started forward in a hunched run, darting quickly across the open ground and into the night shrouded forest beyond.

Neither of them noticed the tall, hooded figure trailing silently in their wake.

Chapter Twenty One: The Last Stretch

Captain Drevus' cabin was much like the man himself. Neat, tidy and fastidious to a fault. Seated at his table, he counted out the dinars for what seemed like the hundredth time, the metal clinking softly as he piled them into small stacks of fifty coins apiece. A thousand dinars all in all. The number was always the same obviously, but the simple act of counting money relaxed him, helping him to settle his mind and focus his thoughts on other things.

Or at least it usually did.

Two weeks was what Themistocles had said. Two weeks to just sit and wait and not only could he keep the six hundred dinars the Archon had paid him, but he would receive a further two hundred more. So far not even a week had passed, but already he was beginning to regret the deal. He could leave now of course. Just keep the six hundred dinars he had already been paid and make for other ports. Safer Ports. Ports where the locals did not look at him suspiciously every time he stepped off the ship and where Spartans did not keep turning up unannounced and unwanted. If he did that though, it would mean Themistocles following through on his threat, and Drevus would lose his standing with the Delphi Merchant's Guild, and if Themistocles was feeling particularly spiteful, most likely the Athenian Guild as well. A merchant could get by without trade with Delphi of course. After all, Oracles were hardly an exportable commodity, and whatever else the city could supply he could find cheaper or better quality elsewhere. Athens on the other hand, was a much harder pill to swallow. A seafaring merchant like himself, cut off from that great city's many market places and the cornucopia of goods its skilled craftsmen supplied, stood little chance of being able to secure profitable trade with other cities around Greece, and certainly next to none with neighboring lands.

He clinked the final dinar into place and sat staring at them for a while. It was always amazing how small such a large amount of money could look when it was laid out neatly before him. Sometimes all the effort to obtain it hardly seemed worth it.

Only sometimes though.

He started at the sound of a loud knock coming from his cabin door.

"Who's there?" he called out, hurriedly cracking open the strong box he normally locked the coins inside, and sweeping them off the table and into it in a single great armful.

"First mate Segur," came a rough old seaman's voice.

"I thought I told you I wasn't to be disturbed.

"That you did Captain," Segur answered, his voice muffled by the door. "But I thought it best to let you know. They're back again."

Drevus let out a quiet string of curses he had learned over the years from some of the more colourful members of his crew and slammed the lock box shut.

"On my way," he said, sealing the box with a small key that he then tucked beneath his shirt.

Segur was waiting for him when he stepped out of his cabin and into the small, dimly lit corridor that ran only a few feet before it swept upward in a staircase that led up onto the main deck.

"What do you think they want this time?" Segur asked as Drevus, ever security conscious, produced another key, this one large and cast from iron. He shrugged as he locked the cabin door behind him then started toward the stairs, pocketing the key once more as he went.

"Who knows?" he said, patting his pocket to make sure the key was securely back in place as he started up the stairs. Segur followed close behind him as they made their way out onto the deck. "But I'm almost certain its the same thing they wanted last time. And the two times before that."

The sea breeze was deathly chill tonight, and Drevus shivered as he felt a sudden gust of it knife through him. Even from the centre of the deck, he could see the lights of Tryxis glowing warmly less than kilometre away. The night was wearing on, and normally Drevus would have been asleep by now, but tonight there was a restless quality to the world. The Spartans had made their presence known earlier in the day, around the late afternoon. There had been some kind of commotion in the village around the same time, and a local inn keep had been run out of town apparently with a whole host of Spartans in pursuit.

Drevus was not keen on Spartans. There city was land locked which gave him little reason to care about their affairs, and the few he had met had been so universally bad at bargaining that he found it hard to believe any merchant could make a profit in trade with them. They seemed to view everything in terms of duty and obligation, with very little wiggle room for interpretation. Such obsessive fanaticism to anything other than dinars was something Drevus knew he would never understand. Still, they did carry big spears and had demonstrated a propensity to use them when unhappy, so he had learned to be as accommodating as he could when forced into dealing with them.

"Hoh up there!" came a shouted voice whose owner Drevus was quickly learning to tread lightly around.

With a last despairing glance toward Segur, he made his way across the deck, forcing his best 'lets do business' smile onto his face as he neared the guardrail that ran around the edge of the ship.

Standing on the dock down below the ship, where the gangway joined the two, stood a burly looking Spartan captain, flanked by two of his men each as big as he. So alike were they in their armour that it was only the crest of his helmet, slightly longer than the other two, that allowed Drevus to distinguish which of them it was that had spoken. That and the man's irritatingly superior tone.

"Captain Drevus," the Spartan nodded. "You weren't sleeping I trust?"

"Good evening sirs," he said. "Again." This was, so far, the third time they had visited the ship since their arrival in Tryxis earlier that day. So far their visits had been fairly innocuous, but the crew, and Drevus himself, had begun to become uneasy about their unannounced and unwarranted comings and goings. "And how may myself and my men be of service to you this time?"

"We have some more questions for you," the Spartan captain replied. Gracus was his name if Drevus remembered rightly. "Only shouting at one another like this is becoming a little tiresome, wouldn't you agree? If we had your permission, I would come aboard and we could discuss things in a more civil fashion."

Drevus felt his stomach tighten. So far they had never been aboard his ship, and if possible he wanted it to remain that way. He had nothing that would interest them really, but at the same time, the thought of having them up here walking the decks made him feel... uneasy.

"Please do not trouble yourselves," he called back, hoping he sounded casual. "Allow me."

Doing his best to look unhurried, but still moving as quickly as he dared, he started for the gangway, reaching and then descending it in no time at all until he found himself standing directly before the Spartan captain. If it was possible, the man seemed even brawnier this close up. Drevus did not recall ever feeling quite so... inadequate before.

"There," he said, smiling a little too broadly. "Much better, don't you think?"

Gracus gave him an unreadable look before speaking again.

"Your ship," he said, a large portion of the friendliness he had had only moments before seeming to have drained away in an instant. "Why has it not set sail?"

Drevus frowned.

"I'm sorry?"

"You brought the Athenian, and the Oracle and her assistant over from Delphi did you not?"

"Oracle's handmaiden," Drevus corrected primly, "And yes, I did."

He could already predict which direction the conversation was about to head off in. You could hardly call yourself a successful merchant without at least that basic skill.

"That was almost a week ago," Gracus continued, his voice lowering dangerously as he spoke. "Your business is done. Why then do you remain?"

Drevus shrugged. There was little point in lying.

"We were paid to remain," he said simply. "Quite handsomely too I might add. Archon Themistocles clearly expected to be returning this way before too long."

"Well I can assure you now, they will not be returning," Gracus said and for the first time, Drevus noted the dark glint in the other man's eye. "So there is no need for you wait here any longer."

"Nevertheless, we um... we were uh... we were paid, a deal was struck and we uh... we..."

"We what?" Gracus said, his eyes narrowing as he watched Drevus sweat.

The merchant captain licked his lips and swallowed. "We... um... we still have some business here."

"Such as?"

"Oh, you know," Drevus said, trying hard to think of something. "Loading cargo. Unloading cargo. Loading more cargo. That kind of thing." He all but winced at how painfully pathetic that sounded.

"And that has taken you a week?"

"My men aren't that efficient?" Drevus ventured tremulously.

"It would appear that way wouldn't it," Gracus said with a nod. Suddenly his hand flew out to seize Drevus by his collar and yank him forward. "The Athenian is not coming," he snarled into the quaking merchant's face. "You have no further business here. I will give you until sun up to put whatever other affairs you have here to rest. After that, I expect to see whatever cargo you have to offload piled on this dock and your ship's sails on the horizon. Is that clear?"

"You... you can't..." Drevus stammered, swallowing nervously again as he tried to find his backbone. "You can't order me. Tryxis is a free port!"

"Not for much longer," Gracus snarled and shoved him roughly back. Drevus stumbled but managed to keep his footing. "Now go! Take your quivering mass back to your ship. The mere sight of you is enough to make my stomach turn."

With that, he and the other Spartans turned on their heels as one and stalked off back up the dock and over the beach toward the dimly lit village proper.

Drevus stood for a moment, his breathing rapid and uneven while his heart thundered so hard he thought it might just burst right out of him. Eventually, when they were a good distance away, he made a rude gesture to their departing backs and turned to shuffled back up the gangway.

Segur was waiting for him on deck.

"That didn't look like it went too well," the first mate said. Segur was an old hand at maritime travel. He had seen just about every port there was to see from all across the Aegean Sea and even some beyond if the tales he told when he was deep in his cups were to be believed. Very little phased the man, but even he looked uneasy after what he had just witnessed.

"They want us to leave by sun up," Drevus said, his hands still shaking.

Segur frowned.

"Without Archon Themistocles or the girl and her manservant?" he said.

Drevus looked at him askance.

"I'd imagine so, yes."

"What does it matter to them?"

"Clearly it matters a great deal if they feel its worth their time and energy to threaten an independent merchant," Drevus said. "And whatever it is that's that important to Spartans, I want no part of."

"Then you want us to leave now?"

Drevus looked up at the heavy overcast sky above.

"In the middle of the night?" he said, not really needing an answer to the question. "With no moon or stars to guide us, and this close to the shore? I'd lay odds against evens that the tide would carry us back onto the rocks without us knowing it before we'd even gone a league. No. We'll leave at dawn like he said."

"What about the money the Archon promised us?"

"We have well over half of it already," Drevus said. "Plus the profits from the cargo we've just offloaded. Tempting the wrath of a temperamental Spartan captain hardly seems worth another two hundred dinars now, does it?"

Segur shook his head.

"No sir, it doesn't," he said. "So we have until sun up then. What would you have us do in the mean time?"

"Pull up the gangway," Drevus replied. "I don't want any more uninvited guests. After that, make the ship ready for a quick cast off should the need arise, then extinguish the deck lamps and order the men to their bunks. If our Spartan friends come knocking, hopefully they'll think we've all gone to sleep. Now if you'll excuse me, I feel a headache coming on. A glass of something stiff and knee weakening is in order I believe."

He started back toward his cabin, his thoughts turning to the bottle of ten year old Roman vintage wine he had stashed away in there.

"And if the Archon and his entourage should miraculously reappear?" Segur called after him. "What do we do then?"

Drevus paused and felt his shoulders slump.

"What we always do when we've been paid," he called back. "We honour the deal. But let's pray it doesn't come to that shall we?"

*****

She was floating on the edge of consciousness, the trials of the recent past for the moment seemingly behind her. Everything was stillness now. At least on the surface. She could still feel the anger however, the pain and the hate simmering beneath, while reason and rationality drifted on top waiting to be overwhelmed at as little as a moment's notice. Still, she did her best luxuriate in the quiet, hoping that it would last just that little bit longer. Unfortunately it was not to be.

"Hey there, come on now. Rise and shine. We've got to be moving again."

The voice seemed to be coming at her from a long way away, as if it were speaking to her from underwater. She countered with a protesting groan, but like the other voice, it too sounded distant and muffled.

"I said rise and shine," the voice answered. "It's not much further now."

Blearily, Callisto cracked one eye open. It was dark all about her, but she could feel fresh open air blowing down her right hand side. There was a strange sensation down her left side too, both soft and yet oddly brittle at the same time.

It was grass.

She was lying on her side in grass, and she was outside beneath a night sky.

The simplicity of that realisation brought everything else rushing back in on her with it. She remembered it all now; how she had awoken in a small musty room in a cottage in the middle of a forest, lying beneath an itchy woolen sheet, and with a head and throat that had both ached like nothing she could remember. Even when she had spent time as the walking dead, trailing through an underground maze with Hercules in tow, she did not think she had ever felt quite so fatigued as she had upon coming to in that dark, dusty place.

Slowly another memory began to drift to the surface. There had been someone with her when she had awoken, standing with their back to her by the window and-

Suddenly she sat bolt upright, her every muscle taught.

Ithius.

Twisting at the waist,k4tighj6igg5it she turned and, sure enough, there he was, squatting nearby, dragging a whetstone slowly across the edge of his sword, the occasional spark flaring from the metal and briefly lighting his face.

The rest was already coming back to her. Spartans had had them surrounded, although she was not really sure why, but somehow they had managed to escape the patrols around the house and in the camp beyond before slipping away using the darkness of the forest for cover. Eventually they had emerged onto a series of rolling hills and valleys carpeted in lush grass and little else. Ithius had immediatley struck out northward, and Callisto, having few other options at the time, had followed after him. They'd been walking half the night, and she had been about ready to collapse from sheer exhaustion when Ithius had finally suggested a short break and some food. Callisto, having never felt so hungry or tired in her entire life, had readily agreed although she silently hoped her eagerness had not been too apparent.

Her eyes darted to Ithius' side and sure enough, there beside him was a small white sheet spotted with dark crumbs; the last remains of the week old bread he had shared with her what only seemed like minutes ago. How long  had  she been out?

"Sorry to have to wake you," Ithius said, sounding genuinely concerned as to her well being. "How are you feeling?"

Callisto fixed him with a heated glare.

"You let me sleep?!" she snapped at him, ignoring his question.

Ithius finished dragging the whetstone down one side of his sword's blade, then flipped it and started to work on the other.

"You needed it," he said. "You'd been unconscious for close to a month, and then spent half the night on the run with me. Neither of those is particularly good for your health I might add. Put them both together and I'm amazed you didn't collapse sooner than you did. Oh, and you're welcome by the way." Callisto shot him a venomous look and he added hastily, "for me saving you, I mean."

"you didn't save me from anything I couldn't have handled," she said indignantly, "and I don't collapse. Ever. Understand?"

Ithius gave a weary sigh, lifting the hand carrying the whetstone in a gesture of peace.

"Alright, okay, calm down, I misspoke is all. I just thought you looked like you needed to stop and take a breather."

"And some shut eye?" Callisto jeered nastily.

Ithius just shrugged.

"You were the one who fell asleep," he said. "After you finished eating, you said you were just going to rest your eyes for a minute. Next thing I know you were out like a light and snoring." From among the crumbs on the sheet, he picked up a half full water skin and proffered it to her. "Here. You look thirsty."

Callisto regarded the water skin for a moment. She did not want to take any charity from Ithius, but at the same time, her throat did feel like it had been vigorously rubbed down with shards of broken glass.

"I don't snore," she muttered churlishly, snatching the water skin from him. "And I could've kept going." She took a tug on the water skin, the cool, crystalline liquid, normally so tasteless, felt sweeter than honey to her parched throat.

"If I'd carried you, maybe," Ithius replied. "But if you remember the last time I tried to help you, you threatened to kill me in my sleep."

"In you sleep?" Callisto retorted nastily, “Now where would be the fun in that?”

She paused as a shiver ran up her spine. She was cold. The grass she'd been asleep on had been slick with rainwater and the dull grey shift she was wearing was half soaked as a result.

"You should change out of that thing," Ithius said. He had laid aside his whetstone now, and was beginning to clear away what remained of the food. "Your leathers are better for travel."

Callisto glanced at the stack of black leather battle gear lying to the other side of him, and another chill ran up her spine, only this time it had nothing to do with the cold. She could barely remember what had happened to her before she had woken in the cottage. She remembered a fight, deep beneath the earth in... in... Leonidas' tomb? No, that was not it. Lycurgus! It had been the tomb of Lycurgus. She remembered the fight, and the man made of shadows. No. Not made of shadows, but with shadow at his beck and call. She remembered losing too, then being thrown into that lake of stinking Pneuma. From there until she had awoken in the cottage was much less clear. She remembered images mainly, and sensations too. She remembered anger, despair, guilt, and fury. She remembered a Gabrielle who was not Gabrielle, but actually something far far worse. She remembered the dried and dessicated corpse of Xena as well, and people without faces, or had they all simply worn her own? It was all so muddled and unclear, and the more she tried to piece it all together, the more she began to wonder if she should even try. She did not know why exactly, but she had the feeling that whatever had been happening to her had not yet entirely run its course, and that single thought made her feel very, very uncomfortable indeed.

As she sat there, her mind turning everything over, she began to notice an unfamiliar weight tugging at her neck. Glancing down, she saw a lump of cut obsidian staring back at her, hanging from the ends of a rather plain necklace.

Frowning, she reached up to touch it, but before her fingers even made contact with the smooth black of the stone, an image flashed in her mind of a roaring cyclone of fire and of her own self grinning wickedly back at her from inside it.

She let her hand fall back to her side, leaving the stone untouched, but it took a great deal more effort to tear her eyes away from it. Even without looking at it, she could still feel its presence, crawling through her mind just beneath the surface of her thoughts. The simple presence of it unnerved her, and something told her she should take it off and cast it away somewhere it would never be found, but another inexplicable urge forced her to stay her hand.

"You were wearing it when I came to get you," Ithius said by way of explanation, noticing how the amulet had caught her attention. "You didn't have it before that. I've no idea where it came from."

His voice finally seemed to cut through the thrall the stone held over her, and she managed to drag her up to meet his.

"Before?" she said, having only half been listening to what he had been saying. "Before what, exactly?"

"We'd been doing our best to take care of you," Ithius said. "Me and Athelis. We found you face down in the Pneuma. After we dragged you out, we took you to the camp and set you up with a bed in the cottage. All that time, you barely moved a muscle, and you certainly couldn't have moved to put that thing on. Yet when I came to get you when the Spartans attacked, there it was, around your neck."

"And then I woke up," Callisto said, still trying not to look back down at the stone again. "You're telling me that you think this thing is what did it? This necklace brought me back?"

Ithius gave a non-committal shrug of his shoulders.

"Could be," he said. "Any idea where it came from?"

Callisto shook her head.

"You're asking me!?" she said. "I was unconscious, remember? How would I know?"

Ithius gave another shrug.

"Well it had to come from somewhere, and you do seem to know the answers to a great many mysteries that have been cropping up recently."

Suddenly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was headed, Callisto decided to try and change tack.

"Speaking of mysteries,” she began, “what did you mean before?" Ithius gave her a quizzical look and she clarified, "I mean what you said about Greeks killing Greeks?"

Ithius took a deep breath.

"That might need a little explaining," he said.

Callisto swiveled to face him more fully, crossing her legs and propping her elbows on her knees before lacing her fingers together and resting her chin on them girlishly.

"Go ahead," she said, a little too innocently. "I have all the time in the world."

"I don't," Ithius replied.

Callisto smiled.

"Well that's a shame isn't it," she said, "because I won't be taking another step until you tell me."

Ithius gave her an exasperated look before speaking again.

"Alright," he sighed. "After you left, I ended up having a chat with a friend of yours. Monocles was his name, wasn't it?"

The image of the chubby Athenian historian floated to the surface of Callisto's thoughts. It was the first time she had really given him any serious thought since awakening from the Pneuma fugue.

"Ah yes," she nodded, trying to cajole his story along. She leaned forward, her face lean and cruel in the darkness "Strange little man. Never quite on the same level of reality as everyone else; always with his head in a book, and with a tendency to run for the hills when things became less than simple."

She smiled when Ithius gave her an impatient look.

"And what, pray tell, did you 'chat' to him about?"

Ithius gave a tired shake of his head before continuing.

"He told me that you'd had it right all along," he said. "That the Followers were out to start a war so that they could put pressure on some kind of barrier between the worlds."

"I remember all this," Callisto said. "But you said I got one thing wrong. What was it?"

"Persians don't go to the underworld," Ithius said simply. "That's what Monocles realised. You were right about everything, Callisto, except who the Followers were trying to start a war with. Demosthenes didn't seize power in Sparta to fight the Persians. He seized power to fight the rest of Greece. The Persians were just the threat he used to gain political traction."

Callisto lifted her finger to her lips and began to tap them thoughtfully. Could what Ithius was saying really be true? Were the Followers really planning to drive the Spartans into a war with the rest of the Greece? It would certainly make sense. The death toll on both sides would be horrendous, and the pressure on the barrier, maybe even enough to allow Cronus...

She straightened where she sat, her playful taunting suddenly forgotten as she remembered the whole reason Zeus and Hades had resurrected her in the first place, and the price they would all be about to pay if the mad father of the Gods managed to escape his bondage.

“If you're right then I need to speak with Monocles," she said. "Where is he?"

Ithius regarded her for a moment, then he reached inside his jerkin and pulled out an old and battered looking book. Without a word he tossed it to her, and she snagged it easily from out of the air.

"Open it," he said.

Callisto obliged, not really understanding, but thumbing through the pages anyway until she came to almost a whole chapter that was missing, ripped from the book, and in its place, only a few torn shreds remaining, soaked through with blood and left clinging forlornly to the book's spine.

"This is all that's left of him?" she said, looking back to Ithius without so much as batting an eye.

Ithius nodded.

"He never made it out of Sparta. My guess is the Followers killed him."

"Because he was onto something he shouldn't have been..." Callisto ventured thoughtfully, speaking more to herself than to Ithius.

"That would be my guess, yes.”

"Greeks killing Greeks?" she suggested.

"Maybe," Ithius replied. "Or maybe something else. Without those missing pages it's impossible to know."

"Then I guess I'll just have to find out what they said then, won't I?"

Ithius nodded.

"Yes," he said. " We  will."

"Oh no," Callisto said, shaking a finger at him. "No, no, no, no. You really think I'm about to trust you to get involved alongside me on this?"

"Any reason you wouldn't?" Ithius said.

"Oh I don't know," Callisto retorted. "How about that old 'Leonidas-is-dead-because-of-you' chestnut?"

"Leonidas is dead because he was in the way of whatever crazy scheme it was the Followers were hatching," Ithius replied.

Callisto shot him a withering glance, her tolerance for him evaporating in an instant.

"No," she snarled viciously. "I was there Ithius. I saw what you did first hand. Don't you dare try and weasel out of this. You and he had a deal. All those things the Followers and Demosthenes had planned? It all would have come to nothing if you'd just upheld your end of that bargain."

Ithius opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, his whole body slumping slightly and his shoulders sagging as he gave a miserable sigh.

"You're right, of course..." he said.

"I usually am," Callisto cut in sharply.

"...but how was I supposed to know?" Ithius protested. "You and all your crazy rantings about tombs, long gone kings, different worlds, and mad dead Titans trying to come back into this one. Did you honestly expect anyone to take any of that nonsense seriously? Especially coming from  you  of all people?"

"Don't you try and pin this on me," Callisto snarled darkly. "I was trying to stop this from happening, remember!? And incidentally, I wasn't the one who ended up stabbing my closest friend in the back!"

Even as she spoke, a gnawing doubt took root at the back of her mind. She may not have stabbed Leonidas in the back as she had said, but she  was  the one who had stabbed Strife, and in so doing, kicked off this whole chain of events. The Followers would have had no way to free Cronus in the first place if not for her, and Leonidas and Monocles, maybe even Atrix and Silus in Penthos, were all dead because of what she had done. Ithius might be somewhat to blame, but if she was going to hold him accountable, did that not mean she had to hold herself accountable too? Again, the thoughts of those figures filled her mind; hundreds of them, standing in a circle around her and all of them without faces.

'How many?'  they seemed to ask.  'How many dead because of you?'

She gritted her teeth as she tried to push the thoughts away. When she did though, the only thing that replaced them was that same image of her own taunting face, grinning back at her maniacally. As if in concert with it, she felt the amulet beginning to grow warm about her neck.

"No," Ithius said bitterly, his voice bringing her thoughts crashing back into reality. "You're right again. I was the one who betrayed Leonidas. It was all of it down to me, but I say again, how was I supposed to know? How were any of us? I had a people to look out for Callisto, and hundreds of them would've died if I hadn't done what I did. I made the only choice I could, and in doing it, I made a huge mistake by trusting Demosthenes! I know now I shouldn't have, but he was a King of Sparta for Zeus' sake! He was sworn to uphold the city's ancient laws. How could anyone have predicted that he was about to pervert them so that he could massacre a people?"

Callisto tilted her head slightly.

"Oh I don't know," she sneered mockingly, "Exercise a little common sense maybe?"

She could tell Ithius was getting angry. It was obvious in the way his jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed. Good. That was how she wanted him. It made her own fury for him easier to justify.

"And if you'd been there to see it coming?" he said, his voice still deceptively even. "What would you have had us do?"

Her own fury was burning hot now. She wanted to hate him. The fact that he was trying to wriggle out from under the responsibility infuriated her. He had so many excuses, so many outs. How could he not see that this was all his fault? And yet he was going to try and turn it around and make it sound like he was the victim!? Even as that thought came into her head, the sheer hypocrisy of it was obvious. After all, had she not been the one to kill Strife? Could his death not be said to be the ultimate trigger for everything that had taken place in Sparta? Or even Penthos? Was she as much to blame for all the death and misery as he was? Had she not always been, even before her unwanted resurrection?

"I  did  see it coming!" she snapped, her voice starting to rise right alongside her anger as she tried to push those uncomfortable thoughts to the back of her mind. "But alright then. If you want to play this little game of could'a, should'a, would'a, then lets go all in shall we? First off, you could've tried listening to me for one. Or how about honouring your deal with Leonidas? That would have been a good start. What about this one? You could have told Demosthenes exactly which cliff to walk off of when he asked you to betray your  closest friend!"  Her voice was almost at fever pitch now. "You could've done a hundred different things a hundred different ways, Ithius, and all of them would've changed the way things went!" Suddenly her tone dropped deathly low. "But you didn't, and in the end your friends, your people, your city even... all died for nothing, and it was all. Down. To. You."

When she finished she could feel her heart racing in her chest, entirely fueled by the anger she had for him. Or was it for herself? She just did not know anymore. Ithius for his part, just continued to sit and stare at her, obviously struggling to contain his own fury. Then suddenly the life seemed to go out of him and his whole posture changed as he let out a miserable sigh.

"Again, you're right," he said. "I've made mistakes, its true, and I guess that truth is something I'll just have to learn to live with."

"That's it?" Callisto sneered "That's IT? You  guess  you'll have to learn to live with it? Don't give me that same tired old line. I've heard it more times than I can count and it never ceases to piss me off!"

She surged up to her feet, lips curling back in rage.

"You don't get to learn to live with it!" she snarled viciously. "That's not what the people who died or suffered because of you want to hear! They don't want to hear how sorry you are, Ithius, or how much you regret what you did and how it will torture you for the rest of your days! They only want to see you dead! Strung up, burned, beheaded, or maybe even cut into itty-bitty pieces, it really doesn't matter so long as - in the end - they see you get exactly what it is that's coming to you!"

Ithius' expression did not change in the face of her fury. Instead, he just continued to listen to her, his expression stangely thoughtful as she ranted on at him. Finally, once she had finished, he gently turned and laid his hand flat on her old leather gear.

"Are we still talking about me now?" he asked, his voice perfectly even.

Callisto gritted her teeth. She might have been able seen through him, but with Ithius, that flash of insight always seemed to cut both ways. How did he manage to do that? See through her as if she were made of glass? Frustrated and having nothing else to say, she instead thrust her hand forward with her palm open. He was not right. She would not let him be.

"Just give me my stuff," she hissed.

Obligingly Ithius handed over her gear, only to blush and turn his back to her when, without any prior warning, she dropped her night shift to the ground and stepped neatly out of it.

"Modesty Ithius?" she jeered, seeing a way to get back at him as she pulled her leather skirt on and tied the strings at its back that kept it cinched tight around her narrow waist. "You shouldn't bother. It's not like I've got anything you haven't seen before."

"You might be surprised at that," Ithius said, and Callisto paused halfway through the process of pulling on a boot.

"Seriously?" she said, cocking an eyebrow at his back.

Ithius gave an uncomfortable cough.

"Just tell me when you're finished, would you?" he said, somehow sounding both impatient and embarrassed at the same time.

Callisto grinned, a wicked idea springing into her head.

"Already have done," she said.

Ithius turned back around, only to turn an even deeper shade of red – almost burgundy really – and then turn away again.

"Should have known you were lying," he said.

Callisto laughed, delighted by his discomfort, as she lifted her arms and shrugged into her top, settling the shoulder pads into position and adjusting the fit before tying it tight like she had done with her skirt.

"Alright," she said with a grin. "I really am decent now."

Ithius turned back around again, and all but breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that she was telling the truth this time.

"You know what," Callisto said, continuing before he had a chance to speak again. "I don't understand you sometimes. I mean, you're a soldier. You've been to war, killed people, probably lots of them, and even felt their blood on your hands, and yet for some reason me in a state of undress is what gets you worked up?"

Ithius shrugged.

"You can hardly blame me for that," he said. "I'm just a man after all, and I doubt I'm the only one who you've made a little hot under the collar in your time."

Callisto flashed him a wicked smile as she finished buckling up the straps on her leather bracers.

"Awwww," she cooed, her tone quite at odds with the cruel, taunting grin she was wearing. "So sweet of you. For a minute there, I almost reconsidered killing you when all of this is over."

"Almost ?"  Ithius said.

Callisto returned his shrug.

"Hey," she giggled nastily. "Personal growth can be tricky thing. I'd say I'm doing remarkably well under the circumstances."

In an instant, her grin disappeared, and she had stalked off past him.

"Now come on," she said, her amusement cast aside as quickly as it had come. "After all, like you said; Time's a wastin'." She paused, glancing at the scenery around them, completely unable to discern any recognisable landmarks. "How far is it to this village of yours anyway?"

"If you keep going in that direction, then it might take a while."

She glanced back over her shoulder at him darkly.

"Okay," she said irritably. "which way is it then?"

Ithius gave her a half amused smile of his own and hiked a thumb in a direction off to the right. Callisto nodded.

"I knew that," she said, and turned on her heel to stride off in the direction he had just indicated.

"Of course you did," Ithius said innocently, still grinning as he fell into step beside her.

"You were just getting a little revenge on me weren't you," she replied accusingly, "Just a little tweak of the nose for what I just did?"

Ithius nodded.

"Damn straight."

*****

Adrasteia's eyes felt heavier than she could ever remember them having felt before. If she did not know any better, she would have sworn that teeny tiny cupids had been tying weights to her eye lids, so leaden did they feel.

She was trudging along exhaustedly beside the lead wagon, Themistocles striding along head of her all but indefatigable, his hand resting on the ivory sword pommel at his hip, his steady pace never once faltering. Beyond him were the spread out vanguard of armed Helots, formed up in a rough arrow head formation with her brother at the tip. Like Themistocles he seemed anything but exhausted, moving confidently across the plains with the various wagons trailing behind him. Besides the two of them though, exhaustion among the rest of the column was beginning to show.

They had been marching all night, Themistocles and her brother setting a driving pace that the rest of the column had struggled to match even from the start. They had stopped to rest only once, since they had cleared the Spartan lines and escaped into the forest, and that had only been for ten minutes while Athelis and the young Helot Dion crept off into the dark to check the route ahead. It had been slow going at first, navigating the forest in the dark, but Athelis had surprised her in how capable he was, pausing every now and then to assess their surroundings, or occasionally disappearing into the night, only to return a little later to redirect them if they had gone astray.

Eventually they had emerged from the forest however, and from that point on, the march had been relentless. The Spartan rearguard that had protected their escape had accompanied them at first, and Themistocles had occasionally fallen back to have words with their commander. She had almost felt safe knowing they were back there, but then gradually they had begun to fall back more and more, increasing the distance between themselves and the column until eventually, Adrasteia had looked back as they had crested a particularly high hill, only to realise they had dropped completely out of sight. It was only when she had suggested stopping to wait for them that Themistocles had informed her that the Spartans had been covering their tracks as they had followed along behind them, and that they were now veering away over the countryside in an attempt to confuse and misdirect any pursuing forces.

"More people dying for us?" she had said at the time, feeling the same bitter taste in her mouth at the thought of yet more lives being lost.

Themistocles' reaction had not been what she expected. Instead of another lecture about the nature of belief in something greater than themselves, and the need for sacrifice, he had simply given her shoulder a comforting squeeze.

"You're learning," he had said, and that had been the end of it.

Now they were nearing the bottom of a shallow valley with a steep hill climb awaiting them. The summit of the next hill was not so far away as to be insurmountable, but the thought of trekking up yet another difficult rise and having to chivy along the already exhausted mass of Helots was almost more than she could stand. From the groans arising from the Helots around her, she knew she was not the only one feeling that way.

Quickening her pace – no small feat considering how tired she was – she started forward to draw even with Themistocles. Arkus, the tall Helot she recognised as basically being the voice of Ithius in the other Helot's absence was nearby too, and Themistocles was apparently in deep discussion with him.

"Hey there," she said, walking up beside them. "I realise you'll probably just say no like the last ten times I've asked, but shouldn't we take a break? Everyone's looking pretty tired, and I'm not sure how much longer they can all keep going like this. If we don't stop soon, I'm worried that we're going to start losing the stragglers who just can't keep up."

Themistocles glanced at her, then turned and muttered something to Arkus, who simply nodded then jogged off up the line toward Athelis.

"I was just saying..." Adrasteia muttered, feeling a little put out that her suggestion had been so summarily rejected.

Up ahead, Arkus reached Athelis. Words were exchanged, and after a moment or two, her brother lifted his arm, his fist clenched, and the vanguard stopped sharply, causing the column to grind to a halt behind it.

"Yes you were," Themistocles said, shooting her a knowing grin.

Adrasteia raised her eyebrows in mild surprise.

"You're actually going to listen to one of my ideas?"

Themistocles shrugged.

"You're right about the pace we've been setting," he said. "A short break for rest was long overdue, but even if it wasn't, we'd still have had to stop here anyway."

Adrasteia frowned at him.

"Why's that?" she said.

"Just listen for a moment," Themistocles replied.

Adrasteia paused, but all she could here was the general hubbub of the Helots as they came to rest, many of them complaining about empty bellies and aching muscles.

"I don't hear anything," she said, and Themistocles smiled.

"Try closing your eyes," he said.

Still frowning, Adrasteia did as he said.

"Alright," she said. "Now what?"

"Shut out the noise," she heard Themistocles say. "Cut out the hustle and the bustle, and listen to what's really happening beneath all that."

"I don't..." she began.

"And stop talking," Themistocles said. "How can you learn how to really listen if your mouth is always flapping."

Adrasteia opened one eye and shot him a poisonous glance before closing it again and doing her best to shut out the noise of the column. It did not take long. With her eyes closed, it was easier to cut through the immediate sounds surrounding her, and focus in only on what she suddenly realised was there beneath it. The distant roar of waves and surf upon a not so distant shore.

"The ocean," she said, opening her eyes. "I can hear the ocean, and that means..."

Themistocles nodded.

"Yes," he said. "We're almost there. Tryxis is just the other side of this next hill."

Adrasteia frowned again.

"So why are we stopping now?" she said. "If it's just a bit further shouldn't we..."

Themistocles raised his hand, and she fell silent. If she had learned anything traveling with he and Nikias this past week, it was that both men always had a reason for what they did. As usual, the thought of Nikias was like a dagger of misery stabbing straight through her heart, but she did her best to ignore it.

"Do you honestly think it's that simple?" Themistocles said. "That we were just going to go wandering down to the village, onto the ship, and then set sail without any fuss?"

Adrasteia's frown deepened.

"Well... yes," she said. "Why wouldn't it be?"

Themistocles turned and gestured for her to follow him.

"Come on," he said.

"Where are we going?" Adrasteia asked.

"Just to have a look at the road ahead. A little caution never hurt anyone."

As they walked past the vanguard, Athelis moved to join them, but Themistocles waved him back.

"Someone should stay to watch over the rest," was all he said.

Athelis opened his mouth as if to protest, then closed it again and nodded, although he did not look particularly happy about the situation. Adrasteia stood watching him for a moment, until his gaze slid sideways to rest on her when he realised what she was doing. Suddenly feeling awkward, she turned away and started off after Themistocles again.

It did not take them long to reach the top of the hill but just before they did, Themistocles crouched low like he had done before at the mustering fields, and proceeded to wriggle his way along through the grass and up to the peak in a snake like fashion. Adrasteia did the same, squirming forward on her chest until she was beside him, looking down at the land beyond.

The other side of the hill dropped away from them in a long shallow slope that ran all the way down to Tryxis on the coast. The coast itself ran straight west as far as the eye could see, but to the east, after a few miles, it curved northward. She knew that a long way to the north, maybe three or four days travel on foot, that same coast would curl back west again, forming a series of southward facing black sand inlets and dunes, with high cliffs and green hills beyond. Just over the hills, the city of Delphi itself waited in her thoughts, like a shining beacon of safe harbour. If they could just reach Captain Drevus' ship, then they would be able to sail across the massive bay to the safety of the city, leaving Demosthenes and his Spartan army forced to take the long way round, trailing the coastline while Delphi had time to prepare for the invasion, and maybe even get reinforcements from some of the other city states like Athens.

"Nearly there," Themistocles said, almost as if he were reading her mind. "But not quite."

"What do you mean?" she asked, frowning as she glanced at him.

"You have sharp eyes, don't you?" Themistocles said. He tilted his head toward the village. "Take another look. Tell me what you see."

Squinting against the darkness, Adrasteia did her best to focus on the village. Here and there torches had been lit in the streets, and in a great many buildings candles and lamps were also burning, giving the village a patchy but ever present glow. Thanks to that glow, even from this distance, she could make out people moving through the avenues and streets, their figures dark but clear silhouettes moving against the light. For a moment, she thought they were simply villagers going about their business, but then who in their right mind would be out and about at this late hour? They could be drunkards, she realised, finally tipping out of taverns to stumble home before the sun came up, but that idea did not really seem right. It was then that she noticed something. The figures were moving in large numbers, she realised, often in gangs of anything between five and ten people, and they never intersected with one another. Not once did one group cross the path of another. These were not fishermen drunkenly ambling the streets. These were soldiers on patrol.

"Are those Spartans?" she said quietly.

"I'd bet dinars on it," Themistocles said next to her.

"But how?" she asked, feeling her heart sinking into her feet in despair. "We left Demosthenes' army behind! They should be south of us right now!"

"Clearly we didn't face all of it back at the camp," Themistocles replied. Adrasteia did not know how he could sound so calm. They had almost made it, almost been safe, but now, instead, everything had fallen apart.

"I mean how did they get here before us?" She said, trying hard to keep the sense of defeat out of her voice and failing miserably.

"My guess," Themistocles replied, "They were always here. Most likely these are the Spartans that helped ambush us on the road earlier. They probably knew Demosthenes was coming north, so came here to head us off if we were to try and flee."

Slowly he turned, sliding down the slope a little way until he was below the crest of the hill and then clambering back to his feet so that he could walk down toward the column. Adrasteia gave a final despairing look toward the village. She could see Drevus' ship was still docked at the port. It loomed like a large black shadow against the ocean, its profile shifting as it bobbed at its moorings alongside the various other fisherman's boats.

"So what should we do?" she said, mirroring Themmistocles by sliding back down below the crest of the hill then clambering back to her feet and hurrying to catch up to him. "Demosthenes is still after us, and we can't sit up here forever trying to come up with a plan."

"Contrary to what you might think, I don't always have the answers," Themistocles replied calmly as they approached the column. "What would you propose we do?"

"You're actually asking for my advice!?" Adrasteia said, more than a little stunned.

"All advice is valid," Themistocles said simply. "Not equally so of course, but it's still best to be presented with the widest possible variety of information and opinion before you make a choice of your own."

He paused as they approached the vanguard, his eyes narrowing as he noted that her brother was nowhere to be seen.

"You there," he said, turning suddenly and pointing at the young man Adrasteia knew as Dion.

The moment Themistocles turned his attention to him, Dion's chest puffed up defensively. The younger man was well into Athelis' thrall, and he still did not entirely trust Themistocles.

"Yes?" he said, his voice wavering slightly.

"Where's Athelis? I told him to remain here."

"He got word that we were being tailed," Dion said. "He left me in charge here and went back with Arkus to check on it what was going on."

"He left you in charge?" Themistocles replied, and cocked an eyebrow at Adrasteia.

"Is there a problem with that?" Dion said, sounding somewhat put out.

"Oh no," Themistocles said, his attention already wandering away from the younger man. "None at all." He turned to look at Adrasteia and gestured down the length of the column with a nod of his head. “What say we go find out what's going on?"

Adrasteia just shrugged. The news that there was someone apparently following them was worrying her, but she could already feel the eyes of the Helots around them focusing on her and so she did her best to seem as nonplussed by the news as Themistocles apparently was.

"So," he said, as they carried on down the line, the gazes of over a hundred Helots following them, "your plan. Care to share it?"

Adrasteia swallowed nervously, suddenly feeling very on display.

"Well... um..." she began, not really sure how to continue. "Couldn't we try splitting in two? We don't stand a chance against that many Spartans, but if one group – Athelis' people maybe – were to make themselves known first..." she shrugged. "I don't know... maybe they could draw some of the Spartans away or something."

In front of her, Themistocles stopped and turned to look at her.

"You're proposing a feint," he said.

"If that's what you call it."

For a moment he just stood studying her thoughtfully. Adrasteia was reminded of the Lady Pythia. The Delphi Oracle had a way of just look at you and somehow divining what it was you were thinking. Themistocles had that same air about him, as if she were made of glass and he could see right through her. She found herself wishing she had the same talent. Maybe then she would not have to feel quite so naked whenever he looked at her.

Suddenly, the Athenian smiled.

"A solid plan," he said with a nod. "Or at the least, the kernel of one."

For some reason Adrasteia felt a surge of pride. She had never sought his approval, yet suddenly having it made her happier than she had thought it would. The pride did not last long however. Themistocles' smile disappeared and was instead replaced world weary frown, and a resigned shrug of his shoulders.

"But sadly it won't work," he sighed.

"I..." Adrasteia began, only to realise what it was he had just actually said. "Wait... what? Why not?"

"For a feint to work it has to look threatening," Themistocles explained, turning and striding off again. "It has to look like you're going in for the kill." He gestured back toward Athelis' Helot vanguard. "Now tell me, what do they look like?"

Adrasteia sighed as she started after him again. She could see the logic in his argument of course, but the fact that he always seemed to be ahead of everyone was beginning to grate on her nerves.

"Point taken," she said with a frustrated sigh. "So what about yours?"

"Yours?" Themistocles slanted and eyebrow at her.

"Your plan!" Adrasteia exclaimed angrily. "You always seem to be three steps ahead of everyone else. "Don't try and play dumb with me and pretend you don't have one."

"My plan's the same as yours," Themistocles replied, only to glance back over his shoulder and flash her a knowing smile. "The only difference is, I've got a better way to execute it."

They had just passed the rear of the column, and as they did so Athelis, Arkus and a third man in boiled black leather armour and sporting a red Spartan cape came into view.

"Sentos!" Adrasteia announced in surprise, causing the three men to start at the sound of her voice. She rounded on Themistocles.

"You knew he was the one tailing us all along, didn't you!"

Themistocles gave her a sideways look.

"I never  know  anything for certain. But the plan was always to meet with us here. It stood to reason that if we waited long enough, sooner or later he'd show up." He gave a respectful nod toward Sentos "A pleasure to see you again Captain."

"Likewise," Sentos said, though from his dour tone it did not sound particularly like he meant it. He glanced at Adrasteia and his expression softened slightly. "It's a relief to see you're all still in one piece..." His eyes narrowed as he did a quick headcount. "...or perhaps not. Where's Ithius?"

"He's not with you?" Arkus said, the perpetually worried frown he had been wearing since the Spartan attack becoming even more so. Sentos shook his head.

"Should he be?" He glanced between them appearing to be genuinely confused.

"He stayed behind," Adrasteia elaborated. "He was trying to get Callisto out of the camp."

"Callisto's alive!?" Sentos sounded completely caught off guard by the news.

Next to her, Adrasteia saw Themistocles roll his eyes, before taking a step forward with his hands raised between the various people in a conciliatory fashion.

"Gentlemen, please," he said, sounding only mildly irritated. "While I would dearly love to stand around here for the rest of the night going round and round playing catch up until we all feel sufficiently up to date, something tells me that we don't have time for this right now." He fixed Sentos with a steady stare. "Demsothenes and his army are hot on your heels aren't they."

Sentos frowned.

"How did you-"

"Know?" Themistocles cut in quickly. "You have approximately two facial expressions Captain, which is almost exactly double the amount the rest of your ilk possess. Said Expressions are grim and grimmer. Since grimmer is the current one you're wearing, I'd say it means bad news, and under the current circumstances, the worst news I can think of is that we have even less time than we thought we did."

Adrasteia glanced between the two of them.

"Is he right?" she asked Sentos. "Are we really in danger here?"

Sentos nodded.

"How long do we have?" she asked.

"Hard to say," Sentos replied, answering her question, but glancing at Themistocles at the same time, as if he were trying to gauge the other man's reaction. Themistocles for his part, said nothing.

"My men have been hard pressed since we fell into retreat at the camp," the Spartan continued. "We've managed to gain some ground and a bit of distance, due mainly to the mobility afforded us by our smaller numbers. That won't last however. I'd say we've less than an hour before they catch up to us here."

Arkus let out another groan.

"And here we are," he said, his voice tightening in a way that made Adrasteia wary of him, "trapped with our backs to the sea."

Themistocles flashed Adrasteia a warning glance. Men under pressure could break quickly, she was learning, and he wanted her to be ready if Arkus was about to do just that.

"Then no more sitting and waiting," he said to the other man, pretending not to have noticed the creeping panic in Arkus' voice. "It would appear our brief moment of respite is over. We should get moving again. Spread the word Arkus. We've no more time to waste."

The despairing Helot nodded, and was about to take a step when Athelis spoke up.

"Aren't you missing something?" he said.

Arkus froze, looking back across the group, sudden understanding lighting across his face. "Ithius!" he said.

"And Callisto," Athelis added, stepping forward to square up to Themistocles. "Tell me, were you about to try and leave without them, or did you just forget we were two people short of what we were supposed to be?"

Themistocles stood his ground, completely unfazed by Athelis, as he speared the younger man with a dangerous glare.

"Boy," he began, and the tone of his voice was so patronising, that it made Athelis visibly bristle. "The day I start to forget things is the day you get to place me atop a funeral pyre and then set light to it. Ithius didn't slip my mind, and nor did Callisto. Nor too did the fact that we have an army of overzealous Spartans led by fundamentalist loon bearing down on us. As far as I'm concerned, there is no choice to be made. We leave now, and were it up to me, we would already be well on our way." He switched his gaze to Arkus. "But then the choice isn't up to me, is it?"

The Helot swallowed nervously.

"You're saying  I  have to lead these people now?"

Themistocles shrugged.

"And why wouldn't you?" he replied. "You've made yourself Ithius' right hand man in all but name it would seem. It stands to reason that in his absence, he would expect someone like yourself to take charge, no?"

The colour was draining from Arkus' face at this point.

"But I..." he stammered nervously. "...I never..."

Athelis let out a small sigh from behind the other man.

"Olympus save us," he muttered.

Themistocles just ignored him, instead continuing to look Arkus straight in the eye.

"You're worried," he said smoothly. "I understand that. These are troubling times we live in, and in them we all have to take on responsibilities that we may not want to, or that we are ill suited for. If Ithius were here, the burden would be his instead of yours." He stepped up beside the other man and placed a firm hand on his shoulder. "But he isn't here. Only you are, and so the choice is yours. That is the price of leadership, Arkus. To be the one who, when the time comes, steps up and makes the hard decisions no one else will." He gestured back over toward the column with a sweep of his arm. "Right now you have close to two hundred lives depending on you. Will you risk them all for the sake of one?"

Arkus looked at the column, then back to Themistocles and gave a grim nod.

"You're right," he said. "We should be moving on."

"But-" Athelis began, only to be cut off before he could even begin.

"If it were Ithius here instead of me, he'd say the same thing," Arkus said, his voice hardening now that the decision was made and he was committed to a course of action.

Beside him Themistocles gave a nod.

"Good man," he said, clapping Arkus heartily on the back. "Now you should go and get your people ready to move. I'll follow shortly to assist, but there's still one or two more things I need to discuss with Captain Sentos here."

Arkus nodded again.

"Alright," he said, wiping away some of the cold sweat he appeared to have broken out in. "I'll make sure everyone's ready to go."

With that, he turned and left. As soon as he was out of earshot, Athelis rounded on Themistocles sharply.

"You're a manipulative bastard," he growled. "Did anyone ever tell you that?"

"Many times," Themistocles replied evenly. "And recently, increasingly often." He tilted his head slightly as he regarded Athelis. "But before passing judgment on me maybe you should ask yourself this... Is it not equal parts manipulation to goad a desperate people into a fight they can't possibly win, and all to satisfy your own personal obsessions?"

Athelis stared at Themistocles hard for a long time, his jaw muscles working silently against each other before he simply turned away and stalked off in the same direction as Arkus.

"Thank you for that," Adrasteia said, feeling a strange sense of petty satisfaction at her brother's outrage.

"When all else fails, the truth will do the job almost every time," Themistocles replied, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully as he watched Athelis leave. "This brother of yours..."

"What about him?"

"You should keep a close eye on him in the future. There's a lot of pain in him, and those in pain have a tendency to lash out at those around them."

Adrasteia followed his gaze, looking at Athelis' departing figure.

"Do you think they'll be okay," she asked. "Him and Arkus? You didn't tell them that there were Spartans in the village."

"Because at that moment, it did them no good to know," Themistocles said, and Adrasteia felt a chill run through her. He had just persuaded Arkus into getting his people to march onward to Tryxis, without warning them beforehand of the dangers they would face in doing so.

"You should have told them," she said softly. "Arkus at least had a right to know."

Themistocles turned to face her, his face and eyes harder than iron.

"They'll both know soon enough," he said. "Besides, if he had known, Arkus wouldn't have made the choice I needed him to." He fixed Adrasteia with a cold, hard stare. "Be under no illusions. The stakes here are higher than even these two hundred Helot lives. Delphi, Athens, and all the cities beyond them are depending on us to carry the news of Demosthenes' army back to them. Arkus was willing to sacrifice one for two hundred. I am willing to sacrifice two hundred for countless more. The difference is merely a matter of scale."

"And honour," Sentos said from nearby. "After all you said to the mercenary, you're no different. A victory here serves you personally as well as it does all of Greece. Or do you deny that you have something to gain politically from all this?"

Themistocles turned and smiled at him.

"Why Captain Sentos," he remarked. "I had taken you to simply be a blunt instrument; a tool for sharper men. I'm glad to see there's a little keenness to you after all."

Sentos' top lip curled darkly.

"Be careful how you speak to me Athenian," he said, his voice little more than a low growl.

"Or else what?" Themistocles replied, sounding genuinely curious. "You'll abandon us? Take those last 'True' Spartans of yours and march off into the night? We both know you can't do that."

"What makes you think that?" Sentos said, still glowering at the Athenian.

"Because of this honour you espouse so highly," Themistocles replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You have it, I don't, and for that I am eternally grateful."

Sentos' eyes narrowed dangerously, as if he were lion stalking prey and waiting for an opportunity to pounce. Themistocles continued on regardless, completely ignoring the other man's obvious displeasure.

"Honour you see – or at least honour as you understand it – is overrated," he explained. "It harms more than it helps and can bind people to some most distasteful courses of action. Take right now for instance. You've pledged your support and aid to Ithius, but now he's not here and instead, because of some insubstantial code of ethics you align yourself to, you're stuck dealing with me. But maybe you're flexible? Maybe you could argue that the deal was with Ithius, and not to his people, giving you an out if you found such an allegiance insulting to your sensibilities. Again though, you are trapped. You see, you've made yourself an enemy of Demosthenes and in so doing, my survival, and the support I can bring to you if I do, has become your only real hope at victory."

He smiled at Sentos in that infuriating manner he had when he knew he had already won.

"Honour has trapped you, Sentos," he said, "in a way that it can never trap me. I am free to do what must be done. In this case it works out in the Helots' favour. I needed their support to reach the ship. I still do, and because of that they just might live through this, but only with the help you promised Ithius." He paused and shrugged. "So which will it be? Leave us here to die, betraying two separate causes in one night and proving that your much vaunted Spartan code of honour is nothing but hypocrisy, or will you instead take that force of yours and march it in toward Tryxis from the east, draw out those Spartans camped there, and give us cover while we make our escape?" He paused, and for a moment the two of them simply stood staring at one another.

"It's a tough decision, isn't it?" Themistocles said eventually. "I wouldn't want to be the one having to make it."

Sentos stood a while longer, then leaned in close to the Athenian.

"Be careful," he hissed. "There is only so far any one man can be pushed. Keep it up, and we'll both find out exactly how far I'll go, honour be damned."

He turned to leave, then halted and glanced back over his shoulder at Adrasteia and the nearby Helot column.

"My men and I will do as you ask," he said. "Like at the camp though, you must move quickly. When Demosthenes arrives I plan to already be marching north, following the coastal road to Delphi. It would be best if you were gone by then."

"We will be," Themistocles replied. "The alternative doesn't bear thinking about."

Sentos just ignored him, giving Adrasteia one last nod.

"Be safe Oracle," he said, then set off out toward his horse that was grazing only a few metres away.

Adrasteia could only stare as he mounted up and started back out into the night. Twice that night he had risked his life and the lives of his men, and until now she still had not thought to thank him.

"He called me Oracle," she said softly as Themistocles walked up beside her.

"Won't it be true one day?"

Adrasteia gave him a questioning look. "You really think that?"

Themistocles just shrugged again.

"Who can say," he said.

"Not me, apparently."

"Then why even ask?" he grinned at her, and Adrasteia groaned.

"Tell me something," she said. "Were you ever married?"

"No," Themistocles said. "Never."

Adrasteia nodded, already feeling a great swell of pity for whichever poor, unfortunate soul wound up with the unenviable task.

"That's probably for the best," she said.

Chapter Twenty Two: Sanctuary's Calling

The inn that had once belonged to Plykus had become Gracus' impromptu headquarters within Tryxis. Since arriving in the late afternoon, and after Orestes and his forces had set out south, one or two other Spartan units that had been making there way north in advance of Demosthenes' main force had arrived. Gracus had wasted no time consolidating them under his command, then dividing them up to keep a watch over the village. It was not that he felt threatened by the villagers. Far from it. It was more that, under the cover of darkness and in a village the size of Tryxis, it would be relatively easy for people to slip quietly through the streets and past his forces to Drevus' ship unless a constant watch was being kept.

So now here he was, sitting before the roaring fireplace, watching as the flames danced and he waited for some news – any news really – of what had taken place to the south. Had his plan worked? Had the Helot camp been located and had his King crushed them? At first he had been certain that it had all gone well. After all, how could it not? They were Spartans, and their cause was righteous. How could a band of former slave goat herders and artisans stand against them? Yet as the night had grown longer, and nothing but silence came up out of the south, he began to feel doubts creeping at the corners of his mind. Now he was all but certain something had gone wrong. Dawn was not far away, and had all gone well, he had thought he would have heard something by now.

"Mighty Cronus," he muttered softly. "Please, I know that you hear me. You hear and see all. I have given you so much. If you have any power, any power at all, I beg of you, send me a sign. Show me that all went as it should, and that I have not failed you."

For a while the only answer was the dry crackle of the flames before him. They flicked and fluttered wildly, licking hungrily but ineffectually at the dry stone of the fireplace. Their dance was almost hypnotic in its randomness and Gracus felt his concentration wandering, and his thoughts beginning to fog over. He had been awake for almost thirty six hours, and had marched many miles in that time.

His jaw cracked open in an exhausted yawn as he slumped back in his chair, his head tilting back away from the flames and toward the shadows dancing on the ceiling above. Like the flames that birthed them, their movements were unpredictable and wild. Gracus' eyes were just beginning to drift shut when suddenly, the shadows all slanted the same way at the same time as a cold breeze gusted over him and the fire, taming the flames and tugging them all in one direction. He sat up straight, the fog in his mind quickly clearing as he turned to see that the door of the inn had been thrown open and one of his lieutenants was standing at the threshold. The man had a look of worry on his face.

"You have news?" Gracus said, straightening from his seat and grabbing his sword from where it rested on a nearby table.

The lieutenant nodded.

"A number of Phalanx units sir, coming in from the east."

"The east?" Gracus said with a frown, already starting toward the door. "Not the south?"

"Yes Captain," the lieutenant said. "Definitely from the east. But that's not the strangest part."

Gracus paused only a stride or so from the man.

"So what  is  the strangest part?" he said, his voice suddenly low and dangerous.

"They're wearing Leonidas' colours."

Gracus' eyes narrowed.

"What!?" he snarled, elbowing past the other man and out into the village square.

A small unit of around twenty Spartans had been milling about outside the inn for most of the night, trying to keep themselves occupied while waiting for orders by playing dice, or sparring. Now though they had all fallen silent, and were staring out eastward over the roof tops toward a not so distant hillside that was just now being crested by three Spartan Phalanx's, all clad as the lieutenant had said, in red cloaks and bearing the roaring lion crest of Leonidas.

"Sentos," Gracus growled under his breath, then turned back to face the lieutenant that had brought him the news. "Pull in the patrols and order them to assemble in a defensive line along the village's eastern flank.

"You mean to engage?" the lieutenant said, sounding more than a little surprised. "But they're Spartans-"

"Who shouldn't be here," Gracus cut in sharply. "Sentos and all his men should be at King Demosthenes' side. Why then are they here? And without our King in sight? Something is not right here and I plan to-"

Before he could finish, a shout came up from the edge of the square as another lieutenant, from one of the patrols emerged from around a corner, running flat out and waving a hand in the air to get their attention. As one, the milling crowd of Spartans turned to face him.

"What now!?" Gracus snarled under his breath and striding forward to meet the man. "Report," he called.

"A... wagon trail... Captain," the man said, drawing to stop in front of him and breathing hard from his headlong sprint, "coming out of the south with what looks to be an armed vanguard marching at its head."

"Any banners?" Gracus said. "Any heraldry of any kind?"

The second lieutenant shook his head. "None sir."

"Helots," Gracus hissed, more to himself than to anyone else. "It has to be."

"If they are the Helots, then shouldn't we redeploy our troops?" the first lieutenant said, and Gracus rounded on him, eyes narrowing as he did so.

"And why would we do that?" he snapped sharply.

"Our... our orders?" the man stammered nervously. "We were to find and eliminate Ithius and his Helot forces."

"And the fact that they have not emerged, marching toward us bold us brass, while at the same time a force of our own troops that has no reason to be here, and that in the past has demonstrated questionable loyalties to our King and the New Faith is simply pure coincidence, is it?" Gracus sneered. "Sentos and his men are the greater danger. If we adjust our line to face the Helots, we leave our flanks exposed and he and his troops will devastate us."

"But if we just let the Helots get away-"

"Did I say we were going to simply let them stroll right on by?" Gracus snapped, cutting the lieutenant off mid sentence. "Hold back three of the patrols in reserve, along with our archers. The rest go to face Sentos as planned."

"And the reserve?" the second Lieutenant asked. "What are your orders for them."

"They are to form a small but mobile unit and move to intercept the Helots as they enter the village."

"What about the archers?"

Gracus glanced around at the various ramshackle buildings that made up Tryxis. Only a few were made of stone. The rest were largely made up of wood and thatch.

"Tell them to douse their arrows in oil," he said. "Where we lack the numbers to cover the streets, fire will serve just as well."

"You mean..." the first Lieutenants voice trailed off as he looked about the village too. "But the people..."

"Are a necessary sacrifice!" Gracus snapped. "Spartans do not fail Lieutenant. Our Great King and Cronus himself expect nothing less than absolute success. There is no room for compromise. Tonight Ithius dies, and if I have to see Tryxis burn to accomplish it then so be it."

He paused for a moment, waiting expectantly for some kind of response on their part. When neither man moved, his lip curled upward into a sneer.

"Did you not hear my orders?" he growled dangerously. "Or perhaps you would like to discuss it all some more?" He took a threatening step toward the first Lieutenant. "If you cannot carry out my instructions to the letter, first I will have your head, and then I will find someone else who can. Am I making myself absolutely clear?"

A bead of sweat appeared on the first Lieutenant's brow, and he swallowed then nodded.

"Perfectly clear Captain," he croaked, then slammed his fist over his heart. "Your orders will be carried out to the letter."

"See that they are," Gracus snarled, before turning to look at the second man. "And you? Do you also wish to treat this like its some kind of Athenian debating society?"

The soldier shook his head. "No sir."

Gracus gave a satisfied nod.

"Good. You are dismissed, the pair of you."

The two lieutenants both bowed their heads in supplication, then turned and hurried off in opposite directions. Gracus watched them go for a moment before turning and striding off in the opposite direction toward the twenty or so Spartans, all of them now staring out of the village at Sentos' approaching force.

"Attention!" he barked loudly. With the efficiency of men drilled for a lifetime to obey, the soldiers turned and stood straight, chins raised slightly as he approached. Gracus paused in front of them, his eyes running down the line.

"The ten of you," he said finally, gesturing toward a cluster of men a little further back than the rest. "You will join the patrols on the eastern flank."

Without a word, the men nodded and turned as one, forming into a column two wide and five deep as they jogged off to carry out their orders.

"The rest of you are with me," Gracus announced turning to the remaining soldiers. "FORM UP!"

The soldiers moved quickly but with almost mechanical coordination. In an instant they had formed a similar column to that which had just departed the square. This one however, had Gracus at the head of it.

"Aaaand... MARCH!" Gracus ordered. As one the column began to move out, trailing in perfect lock step behind him.

His back to the troops, he allowed himself a small, grim smile. Sentos and Ithius thought they had him, that this two pronged assault would divide his forces and allow enough of an opening for Ithius and his Helots to slip through to the merchant ship that Gracus had been eyeing suspiciously since his arrival. It was a solid plan, probably the best they were capable of, and were there any other commander against them, who knows, it might even have succeeded. He was not some other commander though. He was a true Spartan, loyal to his duty, his King, and now the oaths he had sworn to his new God. If they planned on his resolve cracking, or his conviction to fail at the last, then they would be sorely disappointed. The majority of his men would hold Sentos' forces at bay to the east. Meanwhile, the fires his men were about to light would funnel the Helots into his reserve unit where, without the element of surprise they had relied upon so much in the past, they would be crushed once and for all. His victory would be absolute, and he would have proven beyond doubt his true worth to King Demosthenes' glorious cause...

...but only a fool did not consider every possible outcome, and it never hurt to have contingency plan in place.

Quickening his pace and with little time to lose, he and the small unit at his back made their way northward out of the square and on toward the coast.

*****

At first glance the village looked peaceful to Callisto as she and Ithius crested the final hilltop before the ground fell away beneath them in a gentle slope down to the ocean. It only took her a moment to see that in truth it was anything but. Stepping up onto a large granite rock outcrop that sat at the hill's apex, she took in the scene playing out before her. Off in the distance she could make out no less than three separate groups. The first, and most visible, were the red cloaked Spartan troops descending on the village in full phalanx formation out of the east as the light of dawn began to creep up over the horizon at their backs. Waiting for them were a second force of Demosthenes' blue cloaked troops, arrayed along the eastern edge of the village and from their positioning, apparently dug in and preparing for battle. Closer than the rest, but still some distance away, was a small train of wagons overloaded with exhausted looking people in ragged clothes and spearheaded by a motley assortment of armed men.

"My, my," she said, glancing at Ithius out of the corner of her eye. "Isn't this a to do." She gestured toward the distant Spartans in red capes. "Friends of yours?"

Ithius nodded.

"Perhaps," he said. "Allies at least. For the time being anyway."

"And those are your people in the wagons?"

Ithius nodded.

"I thought they were going to wait for us," he said. "Looks like they decided to make their move without me. Sentos must be the distraction." Callisto let out a short sharp bark of laughter.

"Quite the mess you managed to get yourselves into while I was gone," she jeered turning her attention back to the village.

"Would we have been any better off with you awake?" Ithius asked, his tone completely even. "Would you have even been on our side?"

Callisto's face darkened.

"Don't test me, Ithius," she said. "I'm here now, aren't I?"

Not waiting for an answer, she turned her gaze back to the village and the ship waiting at dock on its coastal side. As she stared down at it, her eyes narrowed as she caught sight of movement in the streets; small silhouetted figures dashing between lamp lit buildings in a pattern far too organised to be random panic.

"Looks like your friends might not be here for much longer though," she said, and pointed.

Ithius followed her gaze, the colour draining from his face.

"An ambush," he said, and Callisto smiled.

"I guess your Spartan pals over there weren't quite distraction enough, huh."

"We need to get down there now!" he said. "From where they are, they can't see it coming. They'll be slaughtered if we don't do something." He started forward for a few paces, only to stop short when he realised Callisto was not following him. "Well?" he demanded shortly. "What are you waiting for?"

"Me?" she replied, grinning wider as she hopped down off the granite outcrop with wicked gleam in her eye. "I'm just waiting for it to sink in."

Behind him, in the heart of the village, a small orange glow appeared, small at first but quickly growing larger and larger. Callisto's eyes darted right as a second appeared, then back left as a third blossomed as well. Tryxis was beginning to burn. With his back turned, Ithius could not see it.

"We..." he began, then paused as he realised what she had just said. "For  what  to 'sink in'?"

"That feeling worming its way through your gut right now," Callisto said, stalking up to him, her grin disappearing to be replaced by a look of outraged contempt. "That feeling of complete and total despair when you realise something terrible is about to happen and there's nothing you can do to stop it, like when a girl is forced to watch her family burn, or when she sees a man betray his closest friend!"

"That's what this is about?" Ithius said, his jaw tightening, but somehow still managing to keep his voice even and restrained. "You'd let my people die, just to get back at me for what happened to Leonidas?"

"In a heartbeat," Callisto replied sharply. "It won't undo what you did, but it might give me some small measure of satisfaction." Her eyes glanced quickly over his shoulder toward the spreading fire, before she returned her gaze to match his. Images of Cirra burning and of herself locked in combat with another her over the body of Leonidas came swimming to the surface of her mind. In truth her memories of the Pneuma visions had become a quagmire of foggy recollections and half remembered images. It was all more than a little disconcerting. Something had changed inside of her. She knew that for a fact, but she could not quite figure out what it was, and she was no longer sure quite where the doppelganger ended and she began, if they were even divisible at all. Normally she would have taken comfort by wrapping herself up in her hatred, but she needed a target for it. Ithius was the most convenient, but for some reason she could not quite focus her anger on him the way she wanted to, and in its place came just more cold fury. The more she tried to hate him for what he had done, the more the anger built inside her with nowhere to go, instead just sitting there, roiling in the pit of her stomach without purpose or direction.

A small flicker of motion at the corner of her eye brought her back to the present, and she felt her blood run cold in her veins. Had the shadows just moved? Doing her best not to let her discomfort at the implications of what she thought she had just seen show through, she forced a smile back onto her face.

"But on the other hand," she said as cheerily as she could manage "I guess helping you  this time  might be a good way to work out some of the kinks." She rolled her arm in its socket until it gave a satisfying pop, her grin broadening at Ithius' confused stare.

"So you will help us then?" he said.

Callisto just shrugged.

"I  was  unconscious for a month," she said playfully, "and a girl's gotta keep in shape, doesn't she? Besides, you might have been the one to do the betraying, but it was Demosthenes and the Followers whose schemes you played into the hands of. That doesn't excuse it, and given the choice, I'd just as soon watch you all bleed and not shed a single tear. Under these circumstances though, you get lucky, and they get to be the ones who bleed first. Who knows, I might even just enjoy this that much that I work through some of my issues, and you and your people get cut a little slack in the future."

Ithius just stared at her.

"I'm beginning to think asking for your help might not have been the best idea." he said finally, and Callisto answered him with a dark laugh.

"Probably not, but then, what have you got to lose that you haven't already lost?"

"Nothing," Ithius sighed, and Callisto smiled at him again, although the expression never touched her eyes.

"There's a good boy," she said, patting him on the shoulder with mock affection as she strode off past him and down toward the village. "Now are you just going to stand there all day while I do all the work, or have we got some Helots to save?"

Ithius turned and followed after her, jogging to keep up.

"So the plan is-" he began, but Callisto waggled her finger at him.

"Ah, ah, ah!" she tutted chidingly. "I'm nobody's attack dog. We do this, we do it my way."

"Does your way involve more bloodshed than is strictly necessary?"

Callisto slanted an eyebrow at him.

"It's like you know me," she said. "But this time, for once, I'll rein it in. The priority here is getting your people to that ship. Meteing out a little blood and thunder retribution in my own inimitable style..." she shrugged, "...that'll have to wait for a special occasion."

Ithius gave her a long studying look, then nodded.

"Alright," he said grudgingly. "Your way it is then, for now at least."

Suddenly he paused, reaching down to his boot and pulling free a dagger to proffer up to her. It was clearly a back up weapon for if he ever found himself cornered without a sword. It was not like the slim bladed stilettos that she normally favoured, instead being a much broader thing, with a heavy grip and a thick blade. Still, it was well kept, seemingly razor sharp, and with a wicked gleam at its point.

"And this is for...?" she said.

"You're unarmed, aren't you?" Ithius nodding toward the empty sword scabbard that hung from her back. "Use your imagination."

*****

Athelis was at the head of the vanguard when he saw the first tongues of flame licking up at the night sky from above the rooftops of the village. Tightening his grip on the sword and notched sword breaking dagger he carried, he set his jaw in a grim line.

"Brace yourselves everybody!" he heard Themistocles shout back down the column. "Things are about to get... interesting."

From all around Athelis came the sounds of nervous clattering as the Helots he had spent the last month training with did their best to steady their weapons and steel themselves for what chaos was about to engulf them. He swallowed, his palms sweating around the hilts of his weapons as he mentally cursed the Athenian. Themistocles had told them there were Spartans waiting for them up ahead of course, but only after Arkus had committed them to this insane forward march. By that time it had been too late to turn back, and besides, where would they go? Demosthenes and his army might be arriving at their backs to crush them any minute now.

No, much as he disliked the man, even Athelis could see that Themistocles' way was the  only  way. A full size army was not something you simply turned and tried to batter your way through. The only escape now was forward, not back. Still he felt... how could he describe it? Wrong? Was that the word he wanted? Torn might be a better one. A dark, gnawing sensation had taken root in his gut, and even as he tried his best to ignore it, he could feel it growing and consuming everything else in him a piece at a time.

He should not be leaving.

He knew it as surely as he knew that the earth was flat and that the sky was blue. Callisto was still out there, and more to the point, so was Pelion. The Followers had not been destroyed, and in fact, despite his best efforts, they were actually winning. How could he let that stand? The answer was obvious. He could not. Pelion had taken everything that mattered to him, and he knew that the pain of that loss would not go away until he could return the same in kind.

But then he remembered Adrasteia. Glancing back down the column, he saw her helping along a particularly frail old man who, out of sheer self sacrificing stubbornness, had been refusing to ride in one of the wagons in place of a woman half his age ever since they had left the camp behind. She was still the same girl her remembered. Kind and caring, like their mother, and yet as no nonsense and stubborn as their father when she wanted to be.

Their father...

He had not wanted him to die. No matter how much Adrasteia might blame him for it, he had not meant for things to end that way. All their lives, their father had been the centre of their family's universe. Athelis had never imagined that his leaving might have had such an effect on them all, but apparently it had, and now he could blame Pelion for that loss too.

The old man had not taken everything from him though, not yet at any rate, and if he had his way he would not succeed in doing so either. Adrasteia was his sister, and for once in his life, he would see to it that she was safe, whether she wanted him to or not. It would not be easy though. A horde of Spartans sat between him and the ship that would carry them both to safety and it would take everything he had in him to see them through it.

Doing his best to push all distractions aside, he concentrated on the village ahead. They had just reached the fringes of it, the first buildings sprouting up to either side of them to form a sparse, but obvious street. Somewhere in the distance, he heard a Spartan war horn sound, a clear signal that battle was about to be joined. He had no idea which side had announced to the other that they intended to attack, but it did not really matter. All that mattered was that the moment Sentos launched his assault, their window of opportunity began to shrink. Sooner or later, Demosthenes and his army would arrive, and when they did, Sentos would be forced to retreat. What happened after that, when the force of Spartans already occupying the village turned their attention toward catching the Helots, did not bear thinking about.

As they moved along, the density of the village buildings surrounding them increased, and with it, so too did the tension in the column. Ahead of them the glow of fire from above the rooftops was growing brighter and angrier with every step they took, and over in the east, the first sounds of battle were already drift upon the night breeze.

Athelis found himself glancing apprehensively from side to side at the various side streets and alleyways they were passing by. The Spartans could be waiting anywhere and for the first time, he found himself wondering if this was what that first Spartan phalanx he had ambushed had felt like, walking into that valley, not knowing when or where his attack would come from. The tension was almost unbearable, but fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, it did not last long.

As the column advanced around a corner, they found themselves confronted by a roaring wall of fire, the whole street ablaze, and the inferno quickly spreading into neighbouring streets and buildings. Athelis thought he saw a number of locals panicking and running to grab pails of water, while still others simply ran as fast and far from the fire as they could. Athelis could already tell it was pointless. The fire had spread too far and too quickly. Tryxis was doomed. None of it really mattered to him. All he could think about was that the fire had trapped them, cutting off the street as effectively as if it had been a solid wall. To get away they would have to turn around and find another way.

Themistocles apparently agreed with his silent assessment.

"Not this way," he heard the Archon shout over the nervous whinnying of the horses and concerned chatter of the Helots. "We'll have to go round."

And so the column reversed itself. It took some doing getting it turned around in the narrow confines of the street with the fire burning at their backs, but eventually, through a combination of cajoling and manhandling they managed, and soon the column was moving on again.

"Don't you think this is taking too long," Athelis heard a concerned voice say at his side. Glancing over, he saw his sister had moved to join him, looking furtively between the buildings that, all of a sudden, seemed to loom larger than they should.

"And what would you have me do?" Athelis replied shortly, trying and failing to keep his frustration in check. "Get the wagon drivers to turn their whips on everyone? There was a fire in the way. We had no choice but to turn back."

The column was moving back into a small town square they had just crossed earlier, and Themistocles was now leading the way toward a wide side street that sloped downward. Athelis thought he knew what Themistocles was doing. He did not know the exact lay out of the village, but he obviously figured that if they just kept heading downhill, sooner or later they would reach the coast.

"And who lit that fire do you think?" he heard Adrasteia say next to him.

She gave a frustrated sigh. "It's all a little  too  convenient isn't it? A fire springing up right in our path, and when we were getting so close too. Sentos was supposed to distract those Spartans, but I'm not so sure that he distracted all of them, and the longer we spend trying to reach Drevus' ship, the more chance there is that Demosthenes will arrive and that those Spartans we saw from up on the hill will come and find us."

Her words gave Athelis pause, and he began to eye the buildings around them with more suspicion than he had had before. The whole column was in the side street now, hemmed in from all sides by a tight crush of two storey warehouses and craftsmen's workshops. Up ahead, a pair of large warehouses facing one another had a rope and pulley system rigged between two big second floor openings. The pulley system was designed for quickly and easily shifting large, heavy barrels of fish and the like between them. A few of these barrels dangled above the middle of the street now, secured by netting with the rope sagging under their weight. Apparently the locals had left them their when they had turned in for the night.

Beyond the warehouses Athelis could see a number of smaller side streets that intersected with this main one like smaller veins joining a main artery. As soon as he saw them, Athelis felt his blood run cold. This was it. This was the place it would happen. He could almost feel the presence of the Spartans. It hung in the air like a strange electricity that made the hairs on the back of his neck rise up.

They emerged with no ceremony; no shouting or hollering, no horn blasts and no triumphant battlecries. Instead the Spartans simply advanced out onto the main avenue from opposing side streets that bisected it at almost perfect ninety degree angles; two lines of soldiers moving in perfect co-ordination with one another until they formed two shortened parallel lines, at which point they locked their shields and turned as one to face the column. A panicked ripple went through the Helots, but Athelis did his best to ignore it. He was too busy measuring the size of the Spartan force and trying to figure out their odds against it.

They weren't good.

There were perhaps thirty soldiers arrayed against them all told. They looked unkempt and travel stained, as if they had seen a lot of hard marching already that day, but none of that dulled the aura of power they gave off. Indeed, it just made them all the more menacing. These were professional soldiers, trained for battle and nothing else, and arrayed against them were nothing more than a small group of terrified former slaves. At a shouted command, the frontline the formation lowered their upraised spears to jut through the crescent moon shaped gaps in the shield line, and the whole phalanx tightened up reflexively, removing any and all all chinks in their armour.

"Well," Athelis said to Adrasteia, hefting his sword and starting off toward the front of the column, "Looks like you were right. I guess you can stop worrying now."

As he advanced, he realised just how completely entrapped they had become, and with comparatively little effort on the Spartan's part as well it would seem. They had not even had to split their forces to hem the column in at either end of the street. The bulk of the wagons and the sheer number of Helots crammed shoulder to shoulder had done their work for them. In the close confines between the buildings there was simply not enough space to turn the column fast enough, and the Spartans would just use any attempt to try as an opening to roll up the whole length of the wagon train, slaughtering all as they went.

"Am I addressing Ithius of the Helots?" one of the Spartans shouted toward the line, most likely the Phalanx's lieutenant if Athelis had any guess. Arkus stepped forward from the line before anyone could stop him, his brow soaked with nervous sweat but nevertheless managing to hold his back straight and his gaze up high.

"Ithius isn't with us," he called back. "You're addressing me now."

"Then I'll make this quick and simple," the Spartan said. "We have you cornered. There's no way out, but this need not end in blood shed! Lay down your arms, surrender peaceably to us, and spare yourselves the needless suffering that will most assuredly result should you choose to resist!"

To their credit, the few Helots in the column that could fight were already making their way forward to join the vanguard, carrying with them whatever passed for weapons that they could muster. Still, their chances of a victory here were slim to none. Even with the added men, the vanguard numbered perhaps twenty at the most, and had already spread itself too thin in an effort match the breadth of the Spartan formation. It was exactly the wrong tactic to try, Athelis knew. Their best bet was not to spread themselves out, but to concentrate their force, amassing what man power they had and then driving it at a single point on the Phalanx in an attempt to weaken and then break it. He was about to step forward and give the order to do exactly that when Arkus spoke up again.

"Peace!?" he shouted. "What would any of you know about peace? You offered it to us once before, and when we reached out for it, you cut off an arm! Do you think we're fools!? Your promises are empty, and your words meaningless. There will be blood shed here today Spartan, and I swear to you, it will be yours!"

Athelis could have throttled the man for his stupidity, and judging from the look on Themistocles' face, the Athenian did not feel much different. Their one hope right now was to play for time until another solution presented itself. Goading the Spartans into a full on assault was exactly the opposite of that.

The air between the two groups stood heavy in the sudden silence, thin streamers of smoke from the rapidly spreading fire reaching out across the street like ethereal grey fingers.

"Is that your final answer?" the Spartan lieutenant called back eventually.

Athelis watched Arkus take a deep swallow as he summoned up the last vestiges of his nerves to make his final stand.

"It's your only answer," he said, his voice cracking only slightly as he shifted his weight so as to better draw his sword.

"Very well then," the Spartan called back, a note of grim resignation in his voice. "SPARTANS!" He commanded. "ATT-"

"I wouldn't give that order just yet if I were you!" a third and chillingly familiar voice echoed out of seemingly nowhere, cutting the Lieutenant short in mid order.

Every gaze in every group turned in unison to see who the newcomer was. Athelis already knew though, and the mere sound of her voice set his spirits soaring. He turned like the rest anyway, but more out of eagerness and surprise than in the complete confusion of everyone else.

Sure enough, there she was, striding confidently out of a narrow alleyway between two warehouses, larger than life and as if the last month spent in a coma had never even happened. Her face wore a strangely neutral expression that nevertheless did not touch her eyes. Instead, they sparkled with the same gleeful wickedness he had seen in them before.

It was Callisto.

"What the..." Adrasteia said, her whole body stiffening in alarm at the sight of the warrior woman. "I thought she was... how is she even-" Athelis gestured for her to be quiet, trying hard to pay attention to what was taking place out in front of them. In truth, just the sight of Callisto walking and talking in front of then had sent an enormous surge of relief racing through him, as if some great weight he had had been carrying had suddenly been lifted from his shoulders. Then he noticed the amulet still hanging from around her neck, and a quite different weight came pressing back down on him again. Was that amulet what had brought her back? Pelion had said that it would, and the fact that she was now standing in front of him wearing it made him wonder just how much else of what Pelion had said might be true. Even the thought that Pelion might actually be right was enough to make him feel uneasy.

"So sorry to interrupt," Callisto was saying with mock cordiality as she drew to stop at the dead centre of the temporary no man's land that existed between the Spartans and Helots. "But before you all go crazy and start trying to stick one another with pointy things, maybe you should hear me out first. I cross-my-fingers-hope-to-die promise not to keep you from killing each other for too long if you do."

"Who... what..." The Spartan lieutenant spluttered indignantly, elbowing his way to the front of his formation. "It doesn't matter. No more words. Stand aside or be run through woman. You're interfering in a matter of Spartan justice."

Callisto clapped her hands together delightedly.

"Oh, so it's justice is it?" she grinned sarcastically. "I do so love a good bit of hypocrisy. It makes this next part all the more fun."

"Next part?" the Spartan said, pulling his helmet off as he spoke and cocking a quizzical eyebrow at her. "Just what exactly do you think is about to happen here?"

"The same as you," Callisto replied. "Your shiny little phalanx down there is going to advance, the Helots here are first going to try and stand their ground. It won't work though, because no one stands against a Spartan phalanx. Eventually they'll break, and then finally they'll run, only for you to chase them down and kill them in the rout after that." She paused and gave one of her most winning smiles. "So what do you think? Sounding pretty accurate so far?"

The Spartan smiled darkly at her.

"Astoundingly so."

Callisto gave a satisfied nod.

"Thought as much," she said, and took a step forward toward the Spartan. "I have another way this could all work out, though. A way you haven't thought of. Care to hear what it is?"

The Spartan lieutenant rolled his eyes.

"This ought to be good," he said, throwing a long suffering glance to the soldiers at his back, before returning his gaze to Callisto again. "Go on then. Spit out whatever nonsense bile you feel you must. If it means we can move on and get this over with, I'm game to tolerate it."

Callisto just shrugged as if what she were about to say were the most obvious thing in the world.

"It's simplicity itself really," she said, then suddenly her expression darkened and she took a dangerous step forward toward the Spartan formation. " You  should stand aside." she paused to glance over the lieutenants shoulder and toward the rest of his men. "All of you. Go back to polishing your armour, sharpening your spears; whatever it is you people actually do when you're not oiling yourselves up and pounding your chests. If you do that, and right now, I can all but guarantee I won't have to murder every last one of you."

The column of Helots shifted nervously at that.

"She's insane," Athelis heard Adrasteia hiss beside him. "Is she trying to get us all killed?" He did not answer, instead preferring not to take his attention from the scene playing out in front of him.

The Spartan lieutenant had stiffened at Callisto's jibes, his top lip curling up in a furious sneer.

"You think you can threaten us?" he snapped sharply, jabbing a finger in her direction. "You think we're afraid of you?"

"Not yet," Callisto said, flashing him a dark smile. "But ask me again in another five minutes. Assuming you live that long, obviously."

The Spartan gave a disgusted snort and span on his heel to make his way back to his formation.

"I've had enough of this!" he shouted back at her without turning around. "You want a fight girl? You've got one! SPARTANS!" He reached the line of his troops, finally turning back to face the Helots and seating his helm back on his head. "CHARGE!"

The Spartans started forward almost before he had even finished speaking, the sound of their feet pounding across the packed dirt street increasing as rapidly as their speed did.

Callisto did not interrupt the Spartan's command this time. Instead, she took a few carefully measured steps backward up the street, then stopped, placing her hands behind her back as she stared down the charging Spartan phalanx, not appearing in the least concerned at the sheer number of soldiers bearing down on her.

The same was not true for the rest of the column. Around him, Athelis could feel the tension growing as the Helots nervously tightened their grips on their weapons and braced themselves for the worst.

The Spartans were only fifty metres away now.

Forty.

Thirty-five

Thirty.

At just under thirty metres from her, Callisto suddenly threw her head back up toward the sky.

"ITHIUS!" she yelled. "NOW!"

Completely taken aback, Athelis look up as well, following her eye line just in time to see Ithius. The Helot leader had shimmied out along the overhead rope between the two warehouses while Callisto kept all eyes on her down below, and was now bringing his sword arcing down in a blur of steel to cut through the netting that held the cluster of weighted fish barrels aloft. The netting gave way to a single slice, spilling the barrels into the open air. Athelis felt his breath catch in his throat as for a moment the barrels just seemed to hang there, suspended as if by magic. Then they began to fall, crashing down less than a second later right in the middle of the charging Spartan formation just as it passed beneath them.

The Phalanx broke almost immediately as the falling barrels crunched into them. In some cases they took Spartans with them, crushing whichever poor unfortunate had the misfortune to be standing beneath them at the time. The rest simply split like ripe melons as they hit the ground, spilling stinking raw fish all across the surface of the street.

It was the perfect opportunity. With the phalanx suddenly in disarray, Callisto lifted the dagger she was holding and charged the Spartans, emitting a high pitched shriek of fury as she went. Ithius' follow up was similarly dramatic, bringing his sword down again in a second strike that this time cut through the rope he was clinging to. As soon as it was severed, he was swinging down, riding the arc of the falling rope right into the midst of the Spartans and to Callisto's side.

"This is it everyone!" Athelis heard Themistocles shout up over the chaos that had engulfed the street. "The moment we all knew was coming!" He leveled his sword toward the Spartan formation "ATTACK!"

The Helot vanguard did not waste the opportunity. Some of them had not even waited for Themistocles' order and were already running down the street to join Callisto and Ithius in the general melee. Others were hot on their heels, joining them mere moments later, and soon the entire street had descended even further into anarchy.

Athelis ran toward the centre of the fray, leading with his notched dagger as he joined the battle. The first Spartan to come at him had already cast aside his spear in the close quarters and drawn his short sword. Athelis caught a glimpse of crimson splashed across its blade as he moved to intercept it, the notches in his dagger easily snaring the blade. With a twist of his wrist, the two blades locked, and then he yanked hard, dragging the sword from the Spartan's protesting fingers. Before the man even knew what was happening, Athelis had brought his own sword around on his next step, and then driven it up and into his opponent's gut. The boiled leather armour took some of the force, but not enough, and the Spartan choked up blood as he fell, clutching at wound in his stomach as Athelis yanked his sword free.

He paused for a moment, breathing hard, then realised the dead Spartan's sword was still dangling from the notches of his dagger. He moved to dislodge it, but as he did so, slim tapered fingers reached in and snared the weapon by its hilt. Lifting his eyes as she lifted the sword, he found himself staring at Callisto across the bared steel.

"Nifty trick," she said nodding toward his notched dagger. To the best of his knowledge she had never seen him use it before.

"I... uh..." he began, then swallowed, not really sure what to say. "I'm glad to see you're okay."

Callisto shrugged.

"Okay's a relative term-" she said, then suddenly without warning she stepped around him, burying the blade of her new sword through the heart of a Spartan that had been attempting to sneak up behind him. "-and perhaps now's not the best time for catching up," she finished, turning back to face him with a playful gleam in her eye. She was enjoying this.

"Perhaps not," he said, and she nodded in return, then tossed him a jaunty wave before spinning around and dashing back into the thick of the melee.

Athelis was about to follow after her when out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of a small group of three Spartans on the periphery of the fight. They were not directly engaged he realised, and instead were using the battle as cover, skirting its edges to make for the now unprotected wagons behind him.

The wagons where his sister was.

His heart suddenly in his throat, all thoughts of Callisto momentarily forgotten, he turned and sprinted toward them, a move that did not go unnoticed by the Spartans. They quickened their pace, abandoning stealth and breaking into a headlong charge at the wagons.

Athelis fell upon them as they charged, coming in at a diagonal, his sword flashing in the dim light as it took the first soldier in the side, dropping the man almost instantly. With a grunt, Athelis tugged his blade free, but before he could bring it around to face his next target he was forced to backpedal furiously as a darting spear tip tried to stick him in the gut.

Eyes darting wildly, he took in the situation around him. The two remaining Spartans were circling him now, their spears leveled as they broke to his left and right. He back-stepped again, doing his best to keep them both in sight, but he knew now that it was only a matter of time. One of them would lunge for him soon, and when he turned to meet it, the other would take the chance to stab him through the back. Gritting his teeth, he chose not to wait for the inevitable.

With a vicious snarl, he went on the attack, flinging himself at the nearest of the two. The Spartan lunged early and clumsily, clearly surprised and making it easy for Athelis to slip around the man's guard and go for his throat with the notched dagger. Unlike the spear, and with it being such close quarters, the dagger strike was an almost guaranteed kill.

It did not quite work out that way.

Before he could reach the second Spartan, he felt the flat of the third Spartan's spear smack hard across his shoulders. With a cry of pain he went down face first in the dirt, rolling onto his back just in time to see the second spartan readying a follow up thrust aimed for his gut. There was nothing he could do. This was it. He was going to die. He had imagined this moment a lot since Corrina's murder; the moment that she and he would finally be reunited, never to be separated ever again. Strangely enough though, he was not thinking of her now. Instead he could only think of Adrasteia, and what would happen to her if he was not there to protect her.

Bracing himself for the final spear thrust, his mouth dropped open in complete amazement when a dagger hilt blossomed red in the centre of his Spartan attacker's chest. The man stood for a minute, his gaze fixed on the hilt staring up at him from between his ribs as if he could not quite understand what had just happened. Then, with all the inexorability of a felled tree, he toppled backward, hitting the ground behind Athelis' head with a crash of leather and bronze.

Still stunned by the sudden reprieve, Athelis lay still for a moment, then rolled onto his front, staring at the body lying in the dirt just beyond him. Twisting at the waist, he looked back over his shoulder in the direction the dagger must have been thrown from. Adrasteia was standing there, arm extended from the throw and with her fingers trembling. Her face was pale, but her jaw was set and her eyes resolute and determined.

"Did you just-" Athelis began scrambling back to his feet and retrieving his fallen weapons.

"He was going to kill you," his sister replied brittlely.

Before he could reply, Themistocles appeared at her side, his ivory pommeled sword dripping with fresh blood. Athelis' guess was that the blood had come from the third Spartan, and a quick glance to his right proved it when he saw the man's corpse lying face down in the mud.

"Are you alright?" Themistocles said, placing a hand on Adrasteia's shoulder.

She did not reply. Instead she just nodded, unable to wrench her eyes away from the body of the man she had killed.

"I'm fine," she managed eventually. Themistocles regarded her thoughtfully for a moment then, seemingly satisfied, he removed his hand from her shoulder and began to walk toward Athelis.

"You taught her how to use the dagger didn't you?" he asked.

"I did," Athelis said tightly, not taking his eyes off his sister.

"Time well spent then," Themistocles said with a smile. "And quite fortuitous too. Had you not, you'd be on the wrong end of that Spartan's spear by now."

Was it time well spent? Looking at his sister, with her eyes still fixed on the corpse nearby, her face pale and drawn, Athelis was suddenly not so sure. Was this the first time she had killed someone? He did not think so, not judging by how quickly she had acted. That simple realisation made everything all the worse. How had it come to this? His little sister forced to do the kind of things he would never have wished upon her in a million years. He knew the answer of course. He just did not want to admit it to himself. Still he could feel it back their, worming its way through his mind like a maggot working its way to the warm heart of a carcass.

"Looks like things are starting to die down," Themistocles said beside him, jolting him back to the here and now. "Never thought I'd see the day that I had Callisto, of all people, to thank for something like that."

Frowning, Athelis finally dragged his eyes away from his sister to the battle still going on behind them. The killing was almost done now, the Spartans having managed to pull back and regroup, but not before they had lost over half their troops to Callisto's surprise attack. As they pulled back, the Helot vanguard began to cheer victoriously. They had done it again. Against all odds they had survived and safety was now only a few more streets and a beach away. Athelis could not see Callisto in the crowd of people, but he knew she was down there all the same.

"She does have a way of surprising people," he said softly, and Themistocles gave him a curious glance.

The Athenian was opening his mouth to speak when suddenly his eyes were dragged back to the crowd of Helots, the cheering cutting short as surprised cry came up from their front ranks.

"Now what!" he muttered in exasperation and started forward only to freeze in his tracks after just a few steps as he caught sight of something emerging at the far end of the street. "Oh no..."

A second formation of Spartan troops had appeared behind their retreating brethren. At first Athelis thought that they were merely reinforcements, moving in to back up their beleaguered fellows. Then he saw that they were not carrying shields or spears.

They were carrying bows, lowered to point down toward the ground but their arrows, each with a blazing head, were nocked and ready to fire.

Themistocles was already moving forward at a run, waving his arms desperately.

"SCATTER!" he yelled loudly. "EVERYBODY SCATTER! GET TO THE SHIP HOWEVER YOU CAN BUT FOR ZEUS' SAKE, DON'T JUST STAND THERE!"

Similar cries were going up from the wagons behind them, as well as the vanguard in front, and already Helots were running for whatever cover they could find. Most were ducking for safety in the side-streets that connected to the main avenue, or were abandoning the wagons and what few belongings they still had to flee back the way they had come and into the village proper.

Athelis realised he was not even thinking anymore. The moment he had seen the archers with their flaming arrows drawn and prepared to let loose, he had turned and started running. In only a few strides he was at the corpse of the second Spartan, stooping to yank the dagger his sister had thrown free, and then carrying on over to her where she was still standing. She looked lost, her gaze only just beginning to refocus on the here and now from wherever her thoughts had been for the last few minutes.

"Come on," he said. "It's time to go."

"What..." she replied absently, finally managing to lift her eyes from the corpse of the dead Spartan at the sound of his voice. "I don't understand. What's going on?"

"Archers," Athelis said sharply, shoving the bloody dagger roughly back into her unresisting hand. "This whole avenue is about to be peppered with arrows. If you want to avoid becoming a human pin cushion then we need to move! NOW!"

Without waiting for her response, he grabbed her by the arm and began to haul her toward a nearby side-street. From off in the distance there came the distinctive thrum of the tension on a dozen taught bow strings being released all at once. They reached the cover of the side-street just in time. The first arrows fell in burning streaks of heat and smoke, most landing harmlessly in the dirt, but one or two hitting the few remaining Helots who had not cleared the main avenue fast enough. The rest thunked down heavily into the surrounding rooftops. There came a soft 'woomph' sound as the flames from the burning arrows took hold and began to hungrily devour thatch.

Taking a moment to catch his breath, Athelis peered back out into the avenue. Most of the street was clear now save for those few Helots that had been hit. Those that had not been killed outright lay screaming from their wounds, and beyond them the first Spartan formation was already readying shields and spears to advance again. Further beyond them the archers were readying a second volley.

"Sounds bad out there," he heard Adrasteia hiss from behind him. "What do you see?"

"Nothing good," he replied, ducking back behind the warehouse wall that hid them from sight. "The Spartans are regrouping and sweeping for survivors. After that, I imagine they'll split up and start to search for the others that ran."

"Sounds like we can't stay here then," Adrasteia said, then paused. "Do you think any of the others are alright?"

"We'll have time to worry about them later," Athelis said, then turned and offered his hand to her. "Right now we need to be leaving."

Adrasteia eyed his open palm then tilted an eyebrow at him.

"What's this?" she said. "You think I need you to be some kind of hoplite in shining armour to save me now?"

Athelis let his hand fall back to his side and scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably with the other.

"I just... I mean I thought..." he paused, and shook his head. "I don't really know what I want to say. I guess I just thought you could use your big brother right about now."

Adrasteia's eyes narrowed as she stared up at him, then, completely unexpectedly, a small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

"That's the Athelis I remember..." she said, then suddenly she was elbowing her way past him and starting off down the street. "...but you should just keep right on guessing. We should get moving. We still need to get to the ship and what with Spartans crawling all over the place and half the village burning down around us, I doubt Captain Drevus will wait that much longer." She stopped and glanced back at him. "So, are you coming?"

Athelis raised his eyebrows at her. He was not sure why, but all of a sudden, the tone in her voice reminded him of their father.

"Yes ma'am," he said.

*****

Ithius side stepped the incoming Spartan spear thrust and used the momentum of his move to turn on his heel, whipping the heavy blade of his sword around in a vicious sideways cut. The weapon clanged loudly off his opponent's shield with such force that it staggered the Spartan soldier. Ithius pressed the advantage, tracking with the dazed soldier and stepping into close quarters, whirling with the rebound to bring his sword around faster than he would have normally been able to. The Spartan did not stand a chance. Even as he was recovering from the first strike, Ithius' second attack – this time from the opposite side – caught him completely off guard, and as the steel bit into him he went down hard, his shield falling from his grasp and rolling a foot or so from the body before toppling flat in the mud in a sad imitation of its master.

His adrenaline still surging, Ithius brought his sword back up into a guard stance, eyes darting warily from side to side as he waited for the next assault to target him. Nothing. The fight was dying down now, the Spartan's falling back as Callisto and the rest of the vanguard put pressure on them ahead of him. He did not think he had ever seen anyone fight with quite the same savagery as she did. There was little finesse in her technique. She was all raw aggression and unadulterated viciousness. He sword would dart like a striking snake, and everywhere it went, soldiers fell. Just watching her was exhausting. Sagging with fatigue, he lowered his blade to prop it upright in the mud, leaning hard against it while he did his best to summon up the energy to join the fray once more.

He need not have bothered.

At a shouted command from their lieutenant, the Spartans finally managed to regroup, locking their shields into a wall once more, and beginning to retreat in a more orderly and dignified fashion than they had been managing prior. Even Callisto, as caught up in the battle as she was, seemed to realise there was little point in pursuing them further. The Spartans were beaten, but the Helots simply did not have the numbers or skill to press the victory and truly break them. Still, a victory was a victory, no matter how small, and as the Spartans retreated, a ragged cheer went up from the Helots.

"What's the matter," Callisto called out at the sight of him leaning exhaustedly against his sword. "Having trouble keeping up?" Her own sword's blade – he had no idea where she had got the weapon from – was slick with crimson and her hair hung wild and untamed about her head and shoulders.

"Not at all," he lied. "Just surveying the situation is all..." his voice trailed off as between them, a long line of shadow cast by the overhead lines of rope began to twitch and twist strangely. Looking up at Callisto, he realised she had stopped dead in her tracks at having noticed it too.

"Did you see that?" he said.

Callisto nodded grimly, her eyes sliding back and forth across the avenue as if she were searching for something. She  knew  what it was they had both just seen, he realised. She had seen this happen before, and suddenly he was remembering what Athelis had told him when he had found both he and Callisto unconscious in the Tomb of Lycurgus. What had Athelis said? Something about a monster coming for them, like a man made of living shadow. He felt his blood run cold. There was something desperately wrong here, and a creeping sense of dread at what it might be began to uncoil itself deep in his gut.

In front of him, Callisto was opening her mouth to speak when the cheering of the surrounding Helots died suddenly and unexpectedly.

"SCATTER!" A voice that sounded like Themistocles began shouting from the direction of the wagons. "EVERYBODY SCATTER! GET TO THE SHIP HOWEVER YOU CAN BUT FOR ZEUS' SAKE, DON'T JUST STAND THERE!"

Even before he had finished, the people all around Ithius were already doing exactly that. In the moment's distraction caused by the strangely moving shadow, neither Callisto nor he had noticed the Spartan archers appearing at the far end of the street. He had barely had chance to process their sudden arrival before he realised they were raising their bows, arrows nocked aflame and ready to loose.

Seconds later he was in motion again, his weariness forgotten as he, dove for Callisto. Even with his quick reactions, he was almost a hair too slow. Bowstrings twanged distantly, and the air came alive with the hiss and sizzle of flaming arrows.

"Get down!" he yelled, colliding with Callisto hard and carrying them both to the ground just behind an abandoned fisherman's cart loaded down with crates of fresh shellfish. It made excellent cover. At least two of the thirty or so arrows filling the air thunked home into the crates, and mere seconds later, the soft crackling sound of burning wood could be heard.

"Get your hands off me or I'll break every bone in them and then some," Callisto snarled beside him, and Ithius suddenly realised he had his hand pressed squarely between her shoulder blades, holding her flat to the ground in an attempt to shield her from further volleys. It had been a purely instinctive reaction, but he still recoiled from her as quickly as he could and moved instead to squat near the rear of the wagon.

"I don't get a thank you for saving your life?" he retorted as she joined him, glaring daggers at him the whole time.

"Never thanked anyone for anything before," she replied frostily. "I don't plan to start now either."

Ithius ignored the comment. It was about what he had come to expect from her by now, and he still was not entirely sure he did not deserve all the scorn she kept heaping on him. Doing his best to put such bleak thoughts out of his mind for the time being, he turned to look back up the street a sudden knot of apprehension forming in his belly at the thought of what he might see. The reality was not as bad as he might have feared. Most of his people seemed to have got away in time, and street was almost mercifully deserted.

Almost.

The sight of a dozen or so Helots who had not got clear in time still hit him like a particularly savage gut punch. Some had been killed outright when the first volley had fallen, but others had not been so lucky and were even now crying out in agony. Clenching his jaws tightly together, he tried hard to block out the cries. There was nothing he could do for them. Nothing except get himself killed.

Next to him, Callisto had moved close to the back of the wagon and was peering up between the crates that were now burning ferociously.

"What do you see?" he asked.

"I'll give you three guesses."

"Spartans?"

She shot him a siddeways look and grinned.

"Got it in one."

The sound of bows releasing, followed by the whistle of arrows came rushing down the street once more and Callisto cursed, ducking back into cover as the second volley hit home and cut short the cries of the few remaining Helots.

Ithius swallowed.

"We can't stay here," he said. "They'll be on us any minute now and then..." he trailed off when he realised Callisto was not paying any attention to him. It did not take him long to realise why. Across the street, a number of fire arrows had hit the side of one of the warehouses and the flames had finally begun to take hold of the wooden building's timbers. The dancing light of the fire cast long shadows across mud caked ground and Helot corpses. Strangely though, the shadows twisted and weaved as if alive, like black talons crawling across the ground in a way that suggested unspeakable hunger. They seemed to be amassing around a nearby side alley that arced off deeper into the village and toward the burning inferno which the Spartans had lit elsewhere and had cast the sky to the west a cruel, raging crimson. The way the shadows moved there was almost hypnotic, and the longer Ithius found himself staring at them, the more he began to think that it was almost as if they were beckoning for he and Callisto to follow them. He turned to glance at Callisto now. Her face was perfectly still, but her whole body had gone rigid.

"You know what's doing that, don't you?" he said, voicing his earlier suspicions and Callisto nodded as she had done before.

"I do," she said.

Ithius frowned. He did not think he had ever heard her sound so distant before. It was a far cry from her usual intensity, and that alone was enough to make him uneasy.

"Is it Cronus?" he asked. That seemed to break her out of her reverie, and she shook her head, immediately breaking her eyeline to the crawling shadows and instead fixing him with an even stare.

"No," she said. "But it is the next best thing."

A third volley of arrows made them hunker down once more.

"Those Spartans will be hear any minute now!" Ithius shouted above the growing roar of the fires consuming the warehouse. They had reached the rooftop of the building now, and the wind up there had dragged them over to its neighbour where they had eagerly set about consuming the thatched roof with a dry crackling sound.

"I guess it's time to make a move then, wouldn't you agree?" Callisto replied, the shadows apparently forgotten for the moment.

"I would!" Ithius shouted. "So come on. You're the one in charge? What's the plan to get us out of this without us becoming human kebabs in the process?"

Callisto appeared to think about it for a moment, then dropped low, scrabbling in the dirt around the wagon's wheels.

"What are you-" Ithius began, only to be cut short when she popped back up again, a triumphant grin on her face as she waved a wooden chock at him that had apparently been wedged beneath the wheel to keep the wagon from rolling down the sloped street.

"Know what a battering ram is?" she asked.

"No," he answered, and Callisto's grin widened.

"Well then," she laughed. "This will be the perfect opportunity for you to figure it out then won't it. Might want to be quick about it though. Something tells me you don't have that much more time to waste."

"Me!?" Ithius replied. "What about you?"

"I've got some personal business to attend to," Callisto said darkly.

Suddenly, and before he could stop her, she tossed the wheel chock to him, then pivoted on her heel and took off at a dead rundown the side street where the shadows were clustering.

"Hey!" Ithius shouted, moving to follow her. "What do you think you're... Shit!"

The whistle of arrows filled the air again, forcing him to duck back into cover behind the wagon. Pinned down, he could only watch as she sped away from him, straightening from her crouched run as she reached the cover of the alley and then disappearing out of sight around a corner when she reached the end of the street after that. The strange contorting shadows seemed to follow after her, creeping and crawling along the walls of the buildings that flanked the street as they went.

He did not have time to think about what any of that might mean though. The Spartans were already closing in and he was out of time. With a grunt, he flattened his back against the wagon, braced his fingers under the rear of it, and heaved. At first nothing happened. He may as well have been trying to lift the world onto his shoulders for all the good his efforts did, then, slowly but surely, he felt the back wheels begin to slide in the mud. Encouraged, he redoubled his efforts, pushing as hard as he could, until suddenly, the whole weight of the wagon seemed to lift from him as, driven by the force from the rear of the wagon, the front wheels began to turn and downhill momentum took care of the rest.

Releasing his grip on the wagon, he turned and jogged hurriedly after it. It was picking up speed quickly now, and if he did not keep up he would be left standing out in the open; an easy target for the next volley of arrow fire. Gritting his teeth, he moved at a brisk, hunched jog, his pace growing to keep him always tucked in just behind the wagon. Before long, it was rumbling along at such speed that he was forced to grab onto the back and hop up onto its rear loading step to keep from being left behind. From his new vantage point, he could see the advancing Spartan phalanx had already scattered to avoid the oncoming wagon but Ithius barely paid them any attention as he sped past. At the rate he was going only the archers could hurt him now. The distance to them was such that they did not even bother to aim up in the air, instead pointing their bows straight at the wagon in the hopes of picking him off. Cursing again, he ducked briefly for cover behind the flaming crates, and yet again the arrows hit nothing but wood and dirt.

It was the final volley the archers would have time to launch. The wagon was moving at such speed now, and bouncing around so terribly that he was having difficulty holding on. Then he saw it, a large grey stone jutting jaggedly out of the mud directly in their path.

Without even thinking he turned, and jumped clear. Not a moment too soon either. The wagon's front right wheel impacted off the rock with such force that the rim and spokes just exploded in a shower of splinters, throwing the wagon up onto its rear axle. It skittered along unevenly for a moment, then the back right wheel collided with the same stone as the first which turned the wagon over into a sloughing turn that flipped it up onto its left hand side before setting it tumbling over and over in a thundering roll that sprayed bursts of flame, smoke and mud all around it.

Picking himself up out of the dirt, Ithius watched the chaos unfold. The archers had held their ground too long for their final volley to get clear in time, so when the wagon came crashing into them it felled a good half the unit in a single stroke and sent the rest diving for cover.

Even with half the unit out of action, and the remainder in disarray, he still had the phalanx at his back to contend with and he did not fancy his chances of trying to do so alone. If he was going to get to the ship, he had to go now. With only the slightest sigh of weariness, he started running again, holding his sword unlimbered and driving pell-mell for the middle of ruined formation of archers. They put up no resistance at all, most of them still being too stunned by the ridiculous stunt he had just pulled to even take stock of what he was doing.

Before he had was even round the corner at the end of the street, Ithius found himself smiling, unable to contain the sudden elation he was feeling as he left the Spartans behind. They had done it! THEY HAD DONE IT! With just two of them, he and Callisto, they had managed to stall an ambush and... and...

He drew to a stop three or four streets away, breathing hard and hunched over with his hands on his knees as he tried to gather his strength. What  had  they done? Nothing was the real answer. Or at least nothing of any real consequence. Sure, they had splintered the attack, but at what cost? More Helots were dead, and the rest were scattered, hopefully trying to find their way to the ship, but he could not be certain of that.

No. They had not succeeded.  He  had failed. Completely and utterly.

And again.

Why was it he could never keep people safe? He tried. Gods knew he tried, but no matter what he did or how much he gave, nothing ever seemed to work. Now here he was, all alone and the last man standing, what was left of his people fleeing for their lives in panic, while Callisto went running off into the unknown to do Hades knew what. And here was, yet again, all alone and powerless to change anything!

Slowly, tiredly, he straightened and took in his surroundings for the first time. He had been running blindly once he had cleared the street of the battle, but somehow fortune seemed to have smiled on him for once. He was standing on a second main avenue, this one a little less wide than the previous one, but more importantly, it opened up at its northward end onto a wide beach that ran all the way down to the ocean, and right down there, rocking slowly on the waves was the ship that he needed to reach. His spirits soared all the more when he saw that a group of figures making for the vessel and silhouetted in the pre dawn light were Helots. They had survived the battle and were making their way quickly but cautiously to safety of the waiting ship.

Maybe he could do some good tonight after all. Maybe this was his chance to salvage what little of the situation he still could. He began to jog down the street as fast as his suddenly aching legs would carry him, only to pause after a few steps.

Without really being sure why, he glanced back over his shoulder. The fire that had been set along the western side of the village was spreading fast now, carried eastward in a great sweeping wave that would most likely consume the entire village before the night was done.

And somewhere in the heart of that maelstrom was Callisto, the woman he had sworn himself to protect, or at the very least watch over. Was he really just about to leave her there, on her own against something he did not even have a name for?

He swallowed, glancing back at the Helots on the beach, and then back again toward Tryxis. He could not remember having been this torn over a decision since Demosthenes had come to him in Sparta and offered him freedom for all his people if only he would betray his oldest friend. Then the choice had almost made itself. There had only ever been one real answer then, as there was only one real answer now.

And so, he made his choice.

Chapter Twenty Three: Here Comes Trouble

From where Athelis was crouched behind a stack of wicker lobster baskets he could see that the street that ran past the mouth of the alleyway he now occupied appeared to be quiet.

Appeared to be.

"Do you think it's safe?" Adrasteia asked from behind him, but he just motioned for her to be quiet. For all he knew there could be a whole horde of Spartans waiting out of sight around the corner, just waiting to fall upon them when they stepped out into the open. But then, if there actually were that many of them, why even stage an ambush? Why not just overwhelm them here and now with sheer weight of numbers and have done with it?

"The ship won't wait long," Adrasteia whispered. She had crept up to crouch beside him and was eyeing the end of the alleyway with the same intensity as he was. "We can't just sit here and wait any longer."

Athelis glanced at her, then back to the mouth of the alley and took a deep breath.

"Just stay low and wait here," he said, creeping off down the alley as he did so.

He paused for a moment just short of the street, listening carefully for any sound of Spartans. Beyond the distant sound of battle caused by Sentos' men from away to the east, he could here nothing. Cautiously he peeked his head out onto the street, looking first right back toward the village proper, and then left where the street ran down to the shore line and the docks beyond. There was not a soul in sight. Just a few crates stacked at intervals and ready to be loaded onto a nearby cart.

Stepping fully out into the street, he double checked his first observation, then turned back to the alleyway.

"All's clear," he called, only to suddenly hear footsteps squelch in the mud behind him, follow by a shiver running down his spine as a sharpened steel blade was pressed in on the side of his neck.

"You might want to rethink that statement," came a familiar voice.

"Themistocles!" Adrasteia gasped in front of him, leaping up from behind lobster baskets and running over to them both.

Behind him, Athelis heard is ambusher give a low chuckle as he withdrew his sword. A moment later, the rasping hiss of the metal sliding back into its scabbard signaled that it was safe for him to turn around.

With an irritated sigh he did just that and, sure enough, there behind him was the Athenian Archon giving him that same smug, knowing smile he seemed to have had ever since Athelis had first met him earlier the day before.

"You should be more careful," Themistocles said. "From where we're standing, I can count almost half a dozen blind spots." He nodded toward the crates. "And they're just the obvious ones. If you don't want the nasty end of a Spartan spear poking out your kidneys next time, then I suggest you start learning how to look for them better."

Athelis was about to open his mouth to answer when Adrasteia arrived beside him.

"Thank the gods your alive," she said breathlessly "I was beginning to wonder if we were the only ones left..."

"Not the only ones," Themistocles replied. "The Helots may have scattered but enough of them seem to have the wherewithal to have headed for Drevus' ship. I saw a couple go by just a few minutes ago as a matter of fact."

"And you didn't go with them why exactly?" Athelis said, folding his arms tightly across his chest.

"Because I was waiting for you," Themistocles said, then nodded toward Adrasteia. "Or more specifically, your sister. Now if you don't mind, I think it's high time we were moving on. Or would you rather stand here waiting for a group of angry Spartans to cut us off from our only means of escape?"

With that, he turned and started striding off down the street.

Athelis shot Adrasteia a disbelieving glance.

"Is he always this obnoxious?" he said. She just tilted an eyebrow at him.

"You're one to talk," she said, then started off after Themistocles.

Athelis watched them both go for a moment, suddenly feeling the overwhelming urge to stab something. Instead, he just gave a frustrated grunt and set out after them.

"I don't buy it," he called after Themistocles as he jogged along to catch up.

Themistocles glanced back over his shoulder at him.

"What, exactly, don't you 'buy'?" he said, sounding more than a little annoyed at having to explain himself yet again.

"You waiting here for us," Athelis said. "There's no way you could have known we'd be coming through  this  street, of all streets."

Themistocles nodded without looking back at him again.

"You're quite right," he said. "But this particular street does offer a good view of the approach to Drevus' ship. Especially from certain vantage points. I was actually planning on making my move once I saw your sister on her way to the ship. If I hadn't seen her in the next few minutes, I was actually going to start back out into the village to look for her."

Next to Athelis, Adrasteia was frowning.

"But why?" she said, sounding confused. "Haven't you been saying this whole time that all that matters is for us to get the news of Demosthenes' army back to Delphi?"

"I have indeed," Themistocles said. "But the Lady Pythia would hardly be in a congenial – not to mention cooperative – mood with me if I were to let one of her prized Lady's in Waiting go and get herself killed now would she?"

The conversation was cut short before either Athelis or Adrasteia could speak again in reply. As they stepped out onto the fine but damp sand of the beach, they heard a gaggle of panicked voices go up from another part of the village. Pausing a moment to see where the voices were coming from, Athelis watched as a crowd some twenty Helots strong appeared, moving at a dead run with a group of raging Spartans close on their heels. Among the fleeing Helots, he could see Arkus, Dion and a couple of the others he had taken under his wing back when he had first come to their little refugee camp.

"They're in trouble!" Adrasteia said, taking a step forward. "We need to do something!"

Themistocles had already reached out and caught her by the arm.

"We're already doing it," he said. "All of us getting to the ship is our priority. Not rescuing Helots."

Adrasteia looked down at his hand. "You can't be serious?" she said. "You'd just watch them die? These aren't soldiers like your men Themistocles, or even a bodyguard like Nikias. They're innocent people caught up in something completely out of their control."

"Be that as it may, they're not our concern."

Adrasteia's jaw set hard, and Athelis knew in that moment that her mind was made up. Just like their father, and even a little like himself, she had made a decision now and there would be no changing it. Before he could stop her, her foot lashed out, catching Themistocles hard across the shin and causing him to hiss in pain and release his grip on her a moment later. She did not waste the opening, turning on her heel and taking off at a hard sprint toward the fleeing Helots, yanking her dagger free from her belt as she went. Letting out a soft curse, Athelis set off after her, drawing his own weapons too. He had to get to the Spartans before his sister did. If he did not... well, he doubted she would last more than a few seconds.

"Help the others!" he yelled at her as he lengthened his stride and began to outdistance her. "I'll deal with the Spartans!"

Seeing him sprint past, Adrasteia nodded and angled off to intercept the Helots, waving her arms to get their attention as she did so.

"Don't stop," she started shouting at them, gesturing toward the ship at the same time. "Keep moving! You're almost there."

With that Athelis turned his attention forward. Ahead of him, the first Spartans would be within striking distance soon and he needed to concentrate. They were not carrying spears he noted, or even shields come to think of it. Instead they carried short swords, and had slung bows and half emptied quivers hanging from their backs. These men were the archers from earlier he realised, but there did not seem to be as many of them as there had been before, and those there were looked dirty and unkempt, their normally pristine blue cloaks covered in mud and in some places even singed or burned. Whatever had overcome them, it had obviously left them furious. There was bloody murder in their eyes as they ran, and Athelis suddenly wondered if this insane one man charge he was mounting had really been the best strategy.

Fortunately he was not alone for much longer. Glancing left and right, he realised that Dion and Arkus had joined him, and together the three of them plowed into the charging Spartans. The first strike to come at him came from his left. He ducked and sidestepped, then advanced another step, bringing him up beside the lunging Spartan. He did not even turn to face the man, instead bringing his sword around in a sideways hack that caught his opponent in a diagonal line across the spine. The Spartan cried out in pain as he fell, but Athelis was already twisting to meet the next threat. This time he was forced to block, his sword meeting his next opponent's blade and scraping along the length of it only for the two weapons to lock together at their crossguards. Athelis had spent a large part of his adult life in pitched melees like this, and he had learned quickly that wasting time locking weapons with one enemy was a sure fire way to end up with a second blade through your back. Without even pausing, he stamped down hard on the other man's foot, and when his opponent cried out in pain and tried to pull back, Athelis twisted his sword free, spinning to meet a third Spartan who had been coming up behind him. His notched dagger met the sword perfectly, and with a vicious twist he snapped the blade in two before it could reach him and then stepped forward, ramming the butt end of his sword pommel into the Spartan's nose. The man howled and went down, but even as he did so Athelis knew he had taken too long. The second Spartan had recovered and was coming for him again, and this time he did not have time to turn back to face him.

That was when Themistocles entered the fray, weaving in to intercept the second Spartan, his ivory pommeled sword dancing gracefully through a form that first disarmed the soldier and then disemboweled him. As the man collapsed into the dirt, Themistocles joined him standing at his back as three more Spartans closed in.

"Tell me," Themistocles said, eyeing the circling Spartans warily. "Your parents... Were either of them as stubborn as your sister?"

"Our father definitely," Athelis replied, gripping his sword tightly between clammy fingers. "Our mother? Doubly so."

The Spartans charged as one, and Athelis and Themistocles broke apart to meet them. The first two went down easily, leaving them both to dispatch the third.

With those latest attackers dealt with, they had room to breathe once more. Bending to wipe the blade of his sword clean against the cape of face down Spartan corpse, Athelis took the moment's respite to survey the carnage. Pretty much all of the Spartans had fallen, and as he straightened again he saw Arkus picking his way over to them. He looked pale, his eyes wide and his hands shaking. He was also alone.

"Dion?" he asked to the Helot.

Arkus just shook his head.

"They..." he began then swallowed. "I mean... I... He..."

Before he could finish, from somewhere to the east came three short, sharp horn blasts and all three men turned and stared off in that direction.

"Was that..." Athelis began, and next to him Themistocles nodded.

"A call for reinforcements," he said. An answering call sounded out of the south, this one on a larger horn that sounded only twice, but that held its notes longer and louder than the last.

"Demosthenes," Themistocles said simply. "He's here. Sentos will no doubt be preparing to pull his men back as we speak."

"Which means just about every Spartan in the region is about to descend on this place," Arkus muttered, clutching nervously at his sword.

Athelis eyed him cautiously. "Well," he said. "If it wasn't time to leave before, it definitely is now. I say we get moving before..."

All of a sudden, an angry cry went up from the mouth of a nearby street, and the small trio of men turned just in time to see a second unit of Spartans pouring out of the village and onto the beach. These men carried spears and shields. Like the archers before them, they were bedraggled and mud spattered, the survivors of the ambush on the main avenue Athelis was guessing. Also like the archers, they had murderous intent all but etched across their faces, and he nearly took an involuntary step back at the sight of them as they angled toward him.

"...before something like this happens," he finished.

Themistocles and Arkus were already turning to run.

"That may just be the single most sensible suggestion I've heard you make all day," Themistocles called back to him as Athelis set off after them. He started out at a jog, but quickly lengthened his stride until he was moving at a dead sprint. Up ahead of them he was relieved to see his sister herding the last of the Helots onto the gangplank of the ship until finally she was the only one left waiting for them.

"DON'T STOP!" he yelled to her. "GET ABOARD NOW!"

For a moment she just stood, staring past him at the horde of Spartans hot on his heels, then, giving a grim nod, she turned and hurried off up the gangplank herself, disappearing onto the ship's deck and completely from sight.

Satisfied that she was safe, Athelis risked a glance back over his shoulder, only to think better of it when he saw that the Spartans had quickened their pace and were starting to close the distance. Turning his attention back to the ship and the dock ahead, he redoubled his efforts, pumping his arms and legs harder, his feet hammering down into the sand as he, Arkus and Themistocles barrelled down the beach and out onto the dock.

At the far end of the dock, just beyond the ship itself he could make out some kind of wooden crane that had been rigged with a series of ropes and pulleys designed to load heavier cargo onto the ship. Now it stood unattended, a single palette holding barrels of raw fish having been hoisted high above the dock and then left to dangle there, while the pulleys themselves had simply been tied off and abandoned. Something about that observation made Athelis uneasy. Why would Drevus' crew simply leave cargo hanging there like that? He had known a lot of merchants in his time, and wastefulness was not a common trait among any of them.

He had no more time to worry about it now. He had reached the foot of the gangplank a good three or four strides ahead of Themistocles and a good half the dock length ahead of Arkus. The Helot was clearly out of breath, and as he took another desperate, faltering step, his foot snared on an even plank of wood and sent him sprawling across the dock.

Themistocles had reached the gangplank by now, and had already moved past Athelis to make his way up it when he saw that Arkus had fallen.

"Leave him," he said, seemingly knowing what Athelis was about to do before even Athelis did. His words gave Athelis pause, but only for a brief moment before he squared his shoulders and set off down the dock again.

He reached Arkus just as the first Spartans reached the far end of the dock, stooping to grab the man and haul him back upright.

"Come on!" he shouted. "Move your ass or we're both dead, you here me?"

Glancing back to see the Spartans charging up behind them, Arkus paled and nodded, and the two of them set off again as fast as their legs would carry them. Athelis reached the gangplank only a step or two behind Arkus. Indeed, he was moving at such speed that he nearly overshot the thing. Instead he managed to snare the gangplank's guide-rope as he passed, using it to arrest his momentum and swing himself around onto the gangplank behind the taller Helot. It was then that he noticed something else that gave him pause.

Fire arrows.

Three of them were jutting from the side of the ship, apparently fired into the hull where they had promptly been dowsed, but just the sight of them sent doubts whirling through his mind. Doing his best to push those doubts away, he gripped the guide-rope tightly and began to haul himself up to the ship's deck.

"That's it!" he shouted as ahead of him Arkus vanished out of sight onto the ship's deck. "We're all aboard! Now run up the gang plank and let's get the f..."

Even as he was saying them, the words died in his throat when he reached the top of the gangplank and was confronted by the awful reality that the abandoned crane down on the dock and the arrows in the side of the ship had only hinted at.

Not just the Helots, but apparently the whole crew of the ship along with her captain were kneeling in the middle of the deck beneath the central mast, a ring of spear wielding Spartans surrounding them. Themistocles and Arkus had apparently already surrendered, and were in the process of being frog marched over to kneel with the rest of the Helots. Athelis gritted his teeth in fury. They might be willing to give up, but not him. He refused to go out so meekly. If they wanted him dead then fine, but by Tartarus, he was going to take as many of them with him as he could before they sailed him across the Styx.

Gripping his sword, he began to take a step forward, when from somewhere nearby a chiding voice sounded.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," it said.

Athelis turned, and felt his heart drop down into his feet. There, only a few feet away, was a big Spartan wearing a blue cape and high crested helm. He had one hand securely gripped around Adrasteia's throat while the other held a traditional Spartan short sword with its tip pressed up against her kidneys.

Seeing Athelis being given pause, a wide victorious smile spread across the Spartan's face.

"So good to have your full attention," he said.

*****

After she left Ithius behind, Callisto did not waste any more time. She moved quickly from street to street, watching the shadows carefully at every corner, intersection and junction she came to. If she spotted even the slightest unusual twitch or curious twist, then that was the way she went. She always did spot it too. It was almost as if the shadows were reaching out to her, beckoning for her to follow them so that they could lead her further and further from the shore and the safety of the waiting ship with every step she took.

She did not care though. She had never cared about her own safety before, and she was not about to start now.

She knew the architect behind the shadows of course. With every hour that passed, she had had more time to sift through the jumble of memories the Pneuma had left in her head. By now she had managed to almost completely reconstruct the chain of events that had led up to her unceremonious defeat and subsequent dunking, and the more she recalled, the more the anger inside her grew. She did not know if she was angry at what had happened, who had done it to her, or even about her own failure in the Tomb of Lycurgus. All she did know was that this was the chance to undo, if not all, at least some of that failure, and excise some of her pent up rage in doing so against a foe far more deserving of it than Ithius.

The air was growing hazier with smoke as she worked her way deeper into the village. Fingers and tendrils of it tugged and turned on the hot dry breeze almost as eerily as the shadows dancing around the edges of her vision. Well over half the village was aflame now, and she had seen enough towns burn to the ground to know that it would not be long before the rest followed suit. Still the shadows beckoned her on, deeper and deeper into the inferno, until she found herself stepping out into a large square that had probably been Tryxis' most central point once upon a time. Now it was like the surrounding village in a macrocosm. A full two thirds of the buildings around its edges were already blazing furiously, and the wind was sending flames leaping from thatched roof to thatched roof with astonishing rapidity.

Memories of Cirra burning the same way filled her thoughts, and with them came another memory too; that same one she had had earlier of herself surrounded by faceless observers and a roaring cyclone of fire that spiralled up into a terrible black void overhead while all throughout, a doppleganger that either wore her own face, or simply was her, battled with her at its heart. The heart of Tryxis was a little less dramatic but no less disturbing for the memories it conjured. There was a time seeing a sight like this would have made her feel alive – indeed, would have been the only thing  capable  of making her feel alive – but now it just rang hollowly inside her. There was no life here. No peace. Just rage and pain. This was where he was waiting for her too. She could feel it as soon as she stepped out onto the square, clouds of smoke washing over her like cresting waves while the scorched wind pulled her hair out in pale streams behind her.

"I know you're here," she said loudly above the roar and crackle of the fire. "You've been trailing me like your master's loyal dog since I left the Helot camp. I don't know what it is you want from me this time, but this whole hiding in the shadows thing is getting really old at this point, so whatever it is, why don't you save us both the hassle, and just come on out and face me so that we can get it over with?"

For a moment there was no response, then suddenly, echoing in at her from all sides came the hollow, emotionless tones she remembered first from the Temple of Artemis, and later from the Tomb of Lycurgus.

"As you wish..." the voice said, and suddenly the shadows came streaming in from every corner of the square, groping, crawling, skittering and dancing, until they reached its exact centre. There they began to coalesce, seething together to form an enormous roiling mass of blackness that suddenly seemed to split, sloughing away like scorched meat off the bone to reveal a single tall figure, robed and hooded, and carrying a silver bladed sickle with a long haft.

"...although," Mortius continued, "it may be a wish you come to regret."

"You know," Callisto said, ignoring his threat and tilting her head at him, twirling a finger girlishly in the ends of her hair as she did so, "that party trick of yours... Getting a touch worn around the edges don't you think? Maybe you should try expanding your repertoire a little. Have you considered learning to juggle?"

Mortius did not move, but Callisto knew she had managed to irritate him. That in itself was surprising. It had never been so easy before.

"You have something of mine," he said flatly.

"Can't imagine what that might be," Callisto replied honestly. "I was never big on personal property, and other than a taste for black outfits, it's hardly like we share fashion sense either."

If his hood had been down and she had been able to see his face, she was sure his nostrils would have been flaring in outright annoyance by now. Instead he took a step toward her, his long pale fingers tightening around the haft of his silver sickle as he hefted it and pointed it in the direction of her neck.

"That amulet," he said simply, "it belongs to me."

Callisto reached down and lifted the thing delicately by its chain so that it dangled a little in front of her chest.

"Yours?" she said. "Funny, because from where I'm standing, it looks like it's around  my  neck. Surely that would suggest it's belongs to me, no?"

"I am not here to play games Callisto," Mortius said, taking another threatening step forward. "That amulet is the property of my Great Lord Cronus. As the first among equals, and in my role as my Lord's Soul, it is my duty to reclaim it.”

“Such a fuss,” she said tilting a head curiously at him. "Why do you want it? You're not the type to be maudlin, so sentimentality can't be the reason.” She narrowed her eyes. “Care to tell me what it does?”

Mortius did not so much as flinch.

“Give it to me now, and I assure you, your end will be merciful and quick,” was his only reply.

"My end?" Callisto giggled, letting the amulet fall back to her chest. "Like the last time we did this song and dance you mean, when you tried to drown me in toxic hallucinogens and then left me in a coma for the better part of a month? Sorry Mortius, but no deal. I'd rather take my chances on the business end of your nasty little sickle there."

Mortius paused, regarding her silently for a moment as clouds of smoke drifted between them.

"After everything you've been through," he said quietly, almost wonderingly even, "after all the pain and heartache you have endured, still you resist? Why? Can't you see what we are trying to do? The world we are trying to make? The Olympians have made this life nothing more than one of heartache and suffering, and all for the promise of paradise at its end. That promise is empty Callisto, and It shackles you to them as it once did me, but it doesn't have to be that way. Cronus can undo those shackles and remake the world anew as it was of old, where all were one and the same and no one ever wanted for anything."

Callisto frowned. Something had changed in him since the last time they had met, but she could not quite put her finger on what. Whatever it was, he seemed more substantial to her now, less the shade of a man he had been and more a very real presence standing before her.

"Heard that sales pitch a few times now," she retorted "Like any good customer though, I have questions about the deal before I sign on the dotted line. Answer me this. When Cronus returns and casts down the Olympians, where will he stand, hmmm? First among equals, like the rest of you, or will he be apart and above, reveling in your adoration?"

Mortius said nothing, and Callisto nodded, her lip sneering up to reveal her teeth.

"Thought as much," she growled. "Don't  you  see? The more things change, the more they stay the same. In the end, he's no better than Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Ares and all the rest of them. We're playthings to him, Mortius; tools to be used, abused and then cast aside when our worth runs dry and he has what he wants. Given the choice, I'd rather take the devils I know than the devil I don't."

"And what would you know of devils!?" Mortius hissed with a sharpness that surprised her. "I was once what you are now. Chosen... selected... favoured... and then, when I had served my purpose, I was nothing. Less than nothing even." He stretched out a hand toward her in an almost imploring gesture. "The same fate awaits you. A cold, quiet end, with nothing left of you to be mourned but dust and ash."

Callisto grinned.

"Ah for the peace and quiet," she mocked. "You almost make it sound like a reprieve!"

Mortius' imploring hand twisted, his fingers hooking into claws as he pointed savagely at her.

"I should've known it was useless to try and reason with you," he spat. "No more talk. One more chance. Give me what is mine!"

Callisto hefted the Spartan sword she had taken from Athelis earlier. It was a short bladed thing, and heavier than she would have liked, but still, it beat trying to fight him hand to hand.

"No more talk it is then," she said, sliding her right foot forward slightly and bracing with her left. "You want the rock? Come and get it!"

Recognising her fighting stance, Mortius answered it with one of his own, whirling his sickle up into a ready position.

"That is your answer?" he said, his voice turning flat and hollow once more.

Callisto nodded at him.

Before she could so much as blink, he sprang forward, tensed muscles uncoiling as he came at her, his movements so smooth and assured he almost seemed to be gliding. Callisto launched off her braced foot to meet him, sprinting in at him with her sword lifted for a killing strike aimed at his throat. It was a bold move, a wild attempt to end the fight in an instant, and Mortius saw through it almost immediately. He raised his guard to counter it...

...and did exactly what Callisto had wanted him to.

As the sickle raised to meet her strike, she dropped to her knees instead, her momentum carrying her through the mud at waist height so that she could lash out with her sword in an attempt to hamstring him. Mortius leaped to one side. The move was as graceful as all the rest, but Callisto could sense the desperation in it. She had surprised him, and she did not intend to give up that advantage. It might be the only one he allowed her after all.

Twisting at the hip as she came back to standing, she dug in with her leading right leg and launched herself back after him, her swords tip flicking out in a series of lightning fast snake-like strikes. Mortius back pedaled, his sickle blade practically whistling as it cut this way and that, knocking each of her probing attacks aside. Suddenly there was an opening, a chink in his guard, and she moved closer, adjusting her balance for a killing thrust.

Mortius moved as if he had known the strike were coming all along, and considering his skill, that might not actually be far from the truth. Could he really have just baited her? If so it was a very risky move. Whatever the truth of it, she did not have time to think about it any longer. Mortius slid around the tip of her sword as if the weapon were moving in slow motion, spinning as he did so to bring his sickle blade to bare so that he could bury it through the side of her ribs.

Callisto managed to arrest her follow through just in time to bring her sword back around to intercept his strike, and the two blades hissed loudly off one another. Before she could recoil, Mortius twisted his sickle, hooking its edge behind her blade and yanking hard. Unable to pull back now, Callisto had no choice but to move with it, her face suddenly mere inches from the eerie darkness of Mortius' hood.

"I was right to doubt you," he hissed at her as the alloy of their weapons screeched and sparked against each other. "You are not worthy of his grace. The Pneuma was your chance to prove me wrong, but it has taught you nothing! You are the same as you ever were, letting rage drive you without thought or reason behind it." He shoved hard, forcing her back a step or two, and inching his blade closer to her belly. Another inch or so and he would be able to gut her as if she were a guinea fowl. Desperately, she threw all her strength behind her sword and pushed back hard enough that sweat began to bead upon her brow. His sickle barely moved an inch.

"So pathetic," he whispered, leaning in close. "So predictable."

She bared her teeth in a rictus grin at him.

"Oh I don't know about that," she said. "After all, you didn't see this one coming."

Suddenly she brought her boot up hard between his legs, the front arch of her ankle colliding with his nether regions. Mortius gasped in surprise and pain, yanking his sickle sideways and ripping her sword from her grip to send it sailing a short distance from them as he withdrew from her. Unexpectedly free all of a sudden, Callisto staggered slightly, then, when Mortius did not recover immediately, she charged at him, fists raining down blows on him in an effort to keep him off balance.

As always, it did not work for long. Mortius was nothing if not resilient. Straightening under her assault, he tossed aside his sickle, the long bladed weapon being useless so close in, and then began blocking every punch and kick she threw his way. Then suddenly he was not where he should be. As if he were made of water, he stepped around one strike, catching her latest punch in an elbow lock, and then delivering a vicious snap kick to her side that felt like it had the same force as a battering ram. It drove her sideways, lifting her clean off the ground, only to see her crashing back to earth a few feet away with a howl of pain.

"You cannot keep what I want from me," Mortius said, striding purposefully over to her sword, and placing his foot on the blade, only to then yank the hilt up with such force that the whole thing snapped clean in two. "It is useless to even try."

With a groan, Callisto rolled onto her back and heaved herself up out of the dirt, straightening her back with a loud pop as she did so.

"Well, you know what they say," she replied. "If at first you don't succeed..."

“...Try again?” Mortius offered.

Callisto just smiled, then threw herself at him once more. Mortius did not so much as flinch. Moving to meet her, he ducked around her first strike, blocked her second, and then countered the third, catching her fist in one hand and then punching her square in the stomach with the other. Callisto doubled over, coughing and winded from the force of the blow, but Mortius would not even allow her that respite. His fingers tangled in her hair as he yanked her head up and back.

"But you won't succeed," he snarled. "When have you ever? You could not chase away the demons that haunted you all your life, or stop the pain that torments you. You could not avenge your family. You could not protect Leonidas, and now, you can't even stop me. If only you had understood the Pneuma. If only you'd learned from it. Maybe then the amulet would've served you, maybe even freed you..."

She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could do so, he delivered a savage chop to her throat, and swept her legs out from under her, sending her crashing to the floor while she gasped desperately for air.

"...but now it will free me..." he continued almost casually, "...from fear, from hate, from doubt, and before this day has even begun, I will be his favoured son once more."

Still choking and struggling for breath, Callisto could barely find the energy to move, let alone resist as he stood astride her. Still, she tried to reach for him, her hands clawing defiantly up at him. He batted them aside disdainfully with his sickle's long wooden haft, before lifting it and preparing for a vicious downward arcing slice that would open her in a perfect line from sternum to groin.

"When you reach the afterlife, tell the Olympians they'll need to choose another champion," he said flatly. Then he began his downward swing.

It never reached her.

From seemingly nowhere, a sword appeared, ducking in low and intercepting the sickle when it was mere inches from Callisto's chest. Her eyes rolling sideways, Callisto's eyebrows raised as she caught sight of the sword's owner for the first time.

It was Ithius.

"I think they're doing fine with the one they've got right now," the Helot grunted, his teeth gritted with the effort of holding Mortius' weapon at bay.

Granted a moment's reprieve, Callisto finally managed to catch her breath. Tucking up her knees, she rolled backward and out from under Mortius, before scrambling upright a few feet away. No longer having to keep Mortius' blade from her, Ithius withdrew, his sword scraping against the silver of the sickle as it went. Mortius withdrew too, drawing his sickle in in a tight guard as he watched the newcomer warily.

"So you're the bogeyman that Athelis kept on talking about," Ithius said, circling Mortius in careful, slow sidesteps that put him directly in front of Callisto and between herself and Mortius. "Gotta say, I thought you'd be taller.

"This is not your fight, Helot," Mortius said, his voice low and threatening. "I suggest you stand aside."

"So you know who I am then," Ithius said, his eyes moving up and down Mortius. "Then you should also know that that's never going to happen."

“So be it," was Mortius' simple response. "If you won't stand aside, then you will be gone through." Suddenly he surged forward, his sickle whirling so fast it practically sang as it carved through the air.

For a moment, all Callisto could think was that Ithius was a dead man. He may have been one of the best swordsmen she had ever encountered, but Mortius was something else entirely. The speed with which he moved was almost preternatural. He always seemed to know where and when the next attack would be coming from and how to counter accordingly. Alongside that was the sheer strength of him. Of all the people she had fought against save for the gods themselves, only Hercules had had such raw power. Against a foe like that, what chance did someone like Ithius stand?

She was quick to get an answer, and to her surprise it was the opposite of what she had expected. Ithius moved with almost the same grace as Mortius, sidestepping and turning as he went, his sword arcing in a perfect flashing line as it cut in at Mortius' side. The weapons clashed with a loud clang, and the two fighters leaped apart again to circle each other once more. Ithius was the next to make an attack, half stepping right, then sliding suddenly left, his sword swinging in again. This time Mortius parried, turning the sword aside, and swinging the blade of his sickle around and down in a harsh overhead cut. Ithius parried in return, using the opportunity to launch into another offensive, and so the fight went on. The two would attack, exchange strikes, pull apart and circle each other before launching into another rapid fire exchange. It was almost as if their clashes were merely tests, cunning strike after strike designed to get the measure of the other, and the one that learned faster would be the one that walked away at the end of it.

After what seemed like a dozen such exhanges, Ithius committed himself in earnest, his sword singing in in an erratic pattern that Callisto almost could not follow. Mortius countered every single one, although not without effort. Then suddenly something changed. A guard by Mortius turned into a parry, and Ithius was forced onto the defensive as Mortius pushed the change in the cadence of the fight, coming in at Ithius hard, his sickle practically a blur. Like Mortius before, Ithius parried every strike, but it was obvious now that this fight was not about to be decided by skill, but rather stamina, and the Helot leader was visibly tiring. If Mortius kept up his relentless assault it would not be long before he overcame Ithius' guard through sheer brute force.

There was a time when Callisto would not have cared either way if Ithius lived or died, but for some reason that was not the case now. Maybe it was because he had been Leonidas' friend, and that the Spartan King would have not wanted to see him dead, or perhaps it ran deeper than that. Perhaps she really had changed in the months since Zeus and Hades had resurrected her. Whatever the truth may be, she knew she could not just stand there while Mortius carved him up like a meal time goose.

Stepping forward she reached up and grasped the chain that secured the obsidian amulet around her neck. The moment she did so, she felt something stir eagerly in the back of her mind, as if it had been waiting for this particular moment. Suddenly she felt doubts rush through her. Was this really the best idea? Before they could take root, she brushed them aside as best she could manage. She did not have time to debate the pros and cons of what she was about to do. If she did not act now, Ithius would be just another corpse cooling in the dirt like so many others this night.

With a sharp tug, she yanked the amulet free, the soft gold of the chain snapping easily under the pressure. The moment the amulet was clear of her flesh, she felt that strange eager sensation in the back of her mind abate as if it were somehow satisfied. Doing her best not to think about that and what it might mean, she reached up and held the amulet aloft.

Ithius was down practically on his knees now, still desperately batting aside Mortius' ever more ferocious strikes. Sweat was pouring from his brow, and Callisto new she had mere moments left, if even that, before Mortius finally overcame him.

"HEY!" she yelled, brandishing the amulet as if it were some kind of holy talisman. "You still want this?"

Mortius paused mid-strike to glance at her, and beneath him Ithius visibly sagged in the dirt, his energy all but spent.

"Be careful with that," Mortius said, leaving Ithius exhausted in the dirt and starting toward her. "You have no idea of the power it holds... the power it might unleash-"

"What?” Callisto said, tilting her head as she regarded the amulet. "This little thing? It's really that dangerous is it? Then you don't think I should do this?"

She dropped the amulet and Mortius tensed as if he were about to leap and try to catch it, even from as far away as he was. Callisto spared him the trouble, grabbing the chain again before it had even fallen a few inches. Looking back up at him, she smiled darkly at his reaction.

"So it really is  that  important to you," she said. Mortius did not reply, instead standing stock still. Lifting the amulet again, her smile widening devilishly, she began to turn toward the nearest flaming building, whirling the amulet above her head like a sling as she went. "Then why don't you be a good dog and go fetch!"

"NO!" Mortius yelled out almost desperately, reaching out his hand as if he could somehow stop what she was about to do.

Callisto just ignored him. As she completed her turn, she released the amulet, letting it fly at the nearest window she could see that was filled with flame. Her aim proved true, and the amulet dashed a hole clean through a sheet of fire-blackened glass and disappeared into the roaring inferno beyond.

Mortius' reaction was immediate. The shadows rushed in at him from all sides, and in an instant he was gone. The shadows did not return to normal however. Instead they raced across the ground toward the flaming building in a great dark mass bordered along its edges by skittering slivers. A moment later they had disappeared inside, and the flames flared hungrily, leaping high from the burning thatch overhead as if they were trying to claw at the sky itself.

Callisto wasted no time waiting to see what would happen next. Instead, she span on her heel and ran for Ithius who was still struggling to get back to his feet. She did not know how long it would take Mortius to retrieve the amulet, or if he even could, but she had a feeling that waiting around to find out what he would do afterward was hardly the best idea.

"Time to go," she said, grabbing Ithius by the wrist with one hand and wedging her other beneath his armpit so as to lever him upright.

"You..." Ithius began, still trying to catch his breath but nevertheless managing to sound astonished at the same time. "You... came back... for me?"

"Very observant of you," Callisto retorted.

"Why?"

Callisto shrugged.

"Not really sure. Does that answer your question?"

"No," Ithius said. "In fact, it just makes me all the more confused."

"Welcome to the club then," Callisto said. "We should have badges made."

A thin keening horn blast sounded three times in the distance, causing Ithius to straighten suddenly. Moments later, two low, rumbling calls answered it from out of the south.

"I take it that's not good," Callisto said, eyeing him as he stared out over the rooftops toward the hills that surrounded the village.

"Not good," Ithius confirmed. "Definitely not good."

"Demosthenes?" Callisto ventured, and Ithius nodded.

She sighed.

"Why can I never catch a break?" She glanced back over her shoulder toward the flaming building into which Mortius had disappeared, and froze, Demosthenes and his army suddenly forgotten. "Do you think you're able to run?"

Ithius followed her gaze. Already the shadows around the building were beginning to twist and contort in that now oh-so-familiar way. Mortius would not be gone much longer.

"I think I don't really have much of a choice."

Callisto nodded, releasing her grip on him and starting out at a steady jog for the nearest avenue that led away from the square.

"Good answer!" she called back to him as she ran.

*****

"Drop your sword boy!" the Spartan Captain commanded threateningly.

Athelis made no move to do so, instead adjusting his grip so that he could hold the hilt of his blade tighter in case someone should try and take it from him. Truth be told, he had no idea what he hoped to achieve with his little display of defiance. He was surrounded, out numbered, and the Spartans had his sister at sword point to boot. Still, something told him that the sword in his hand was the only reason he was still alive right now.

"How do I know you won't kill me the instant I do?" he said, eyes darting left and right as he saw two soldiers slipping quietly around to either side of him. To counter them, he took a careful step back, pressing his back up against the safety rail that ran around the edge of the deck.

"You don't," the Spartan replied. "But I guarantee you this; if you do not drop your sword this instant I will order my men to take you. You will definitely die then, but not before the girl. I'll personally make sure she goes first."

As if for emphasis, he prodded Adrasteia lightly in the back with he point of his sword, causing her to wince in pain.

For the first time since they had spoken at the woodsman's cottage, Athelis managed to meet her gaze, and gave her an imploring look. She glared back at him and shook her head.

"Athelis," she growled. "Don't you dare-"

"ENOUGH!" the Spartan yelled, clamping a hand across her mouth and nodding toward Athelis' blade. "Your sword, now, or this pretty little thing is going to have to learn to breathe through her spleen."

Athelis could feel sweat trickling down his spine. The Spartan had him, and he knew it too. He may not have known Adrasteia was his sister, but he did know there was no way he could resist any longer. The Spartan was not bluffing – he was almost certain of it – and the danger was far too great.

"Okay!" he said hurriedly, "Alright! You win! I'm putting it down, see?"

Lifting one hand palm open to show that there was no attempt at deception, he stooped and placed his sword flat on the deck planks. One of the captain's soldiers swept in almost immediately and grabbed it out from under him.

Two more soldiers ran forward, grabbing him beneath the arms and at the same time one of them delivered a savage kick to the back of his knee. Hissing in pain, Athelis was forced down to his knees, his arms pulled out tightly to either side by the two Spartans holding him. Calloused hands roughly patted him down, and he nearly groaned when one of them paused, then removed his notched dagger from where he had tried to secure it behind his belt and close to the small of his back.

"Captain Gracus?" the soldier said, straightening with the dagger in his hand and making his over to the Spartan captain.

The man called Gracus looked down at the weapon as it was proffered to him, his eyes narrowed in an appraising fashion. Finally he took it from the soldier, and flipped it on its edge, testing the balance, before snatching it back and shoving Adrasteia aside into the waiting grasp of another soldier.

"Watch her," he growled as he started toward Athelis.

The soldier nodded grimly, twisting one of Adrasteia's arms behind her back as he did so to prevent her from trying to escape as she writhed and kicked in his grasp.

When the captain finally came to stand before Athelis, it was difficult not to feel intimidated by him. On his knees as he was, Gracus towered over Athelis like some great colossus out of legend. His neck was thicker than some trees Athelis had seen, and his arms were heavily muscled, the result of years and years of constant military training.

"I know this weapon," he said, brandishing the dagger almost directly beneath Athelis' nose. "Which means I know you."

"Can't say I've had the displeasure myself," Athelis retorted, only to feel the wind rush out of him as the captain delivered a savage kick to his ribs.

"That's for back talk," Gracus said, his voice harder than stone.

"Leave him alone!" Adrasteia shouted across the deck. "He surrendered didn't he?"

"That he did," the captain nodded, turning and handing the dagger to one of the Spartans holding Athelis' arms. The soldier took it and secured it at his hip.

" This time at any rate," Gracus continued, squatting down on his haunches in front of Athelis. He rested his forearms across his knees and studied the younger man closely. "Yes," he nodded eventually. "I remember you. You came to the city with that witch Callisto, didn't you. I never did catch your name then, but I have it now. You're Athelis, am I right?"

Athelis gritted his teeth in pain, bracing for another kick and said nothing. The big Spartan's hand moved surprisingly quickly for a man of his size. In an instant it had flashed across the intervening space between them and caught him under the jaw. "Am I right?" Gracus repeated, this time from between bared teeth as he squeezed Athelis' face in one giant hand until the mercenary thought his jaw might actually crack under the pressure.

"Just tell him!" Adrasteia shouted at him. "Please! Just tell him what he wants to know!"

"You're..." Athelis began, struggling to speak with the Spartan crushing his jaw so tightly. "You're... right..."

Gracus smiled, releasing his grip on him and patting his head as if he were some kind of loyal puppy.

"There now, you see," he said. "It wasn't so hard was it? Keep on cooperating like that and maybe this will go well for you. Cross me however and, well..." he trailed off, allowing the threat to remain unsaid. "Now, moving on to the next question. Did you kill Agrios?"

Athelis went very still, not entirely sure what to say. Any answer he gave would be as damning as the next.

"There's no point lying to me," Gracus said. "I already know the answer. Your 'friends' over there told it to me." He gestured toward the crowd of cowed Helots. "What? You thought they would keep your secrets? Protect you? Lie for you? Perhaps even die for you?" he gave a derisive snort. "They'd all have needed a spine for that.”

"If you already know the answer, then why even bother asking?" Athelis growled, trying hard to summon up whatever defiance he could still muster.

"Because I want to hear it from you," Gracus replied "I want to hear you damn yourself with your own words. It will make avenging Agrios, along with all the other loyal men you killed that much more sweet."

"Well when you put it like that," Athelis said as if Gracus' words were a revelation to him. "Let me just try to remember... I've killed so many of your men see, and they all kind of start to blend in to each other after a while, what with the helmets and every-"

Gracus' powerful backhand brought him up short, catching him across the jaw and setting his vision spinning. Before he had even recovered from the first blow, the captain aimed a follow up kick to his side. The sheer force of the blow wrenched one of his arms free from his captors and sent him pitching sideways to the ground. His head bounced off the deck, and the edges of his vision began to darken. The copper tang of blood filled his mouth as the Spartans moved in to pick him back up again. Even though the fog filling his head, he noticed the flash of silver at the top of one of their boots.

It was a back up dagger.

A moment later they had seized him by the arms again and were hauling him back upright. The sensation of movement and the thought of the dagger so close at hand helped him cling to consciousness.

Gracus was waiting for him once he was righted again, his face a passive mask, but Athelis could almost feel the anger radiating off him.

"That was the least of the punishment you are owed for your crimes," he said. "Before we are done here today, I will see you broken and begging on the floor for mercy, but not just yet. There is still more that I must know first."

Athelis worked his jaw and spat a globule of bloodied phlegm onto the deck.

"You're not very good at giving incentives are you?" he said, his tongue feeling thick in his mouth.

An amused smile crossed the captain's face.

"You have spirit," he said. "I'll give you that. You'll be a fine sacrifice to our Lords most worthy cause."

"Your Lord..." Athelis retorted, eyeing the sickle symbol carved into Gracus' armour, "...is dead, and I'll send you to see him soon."

“Now that was uncalled for,” Gracus said.

His powerful gut punch doubled Athelis over in pain.

"My patience is not inexhaustible," he continued, his voice hardening and taking on a clipped tone. "No more games. The man called Ithius is these people's leader. You know him. You know where he is. Now you are going to tell me."

Suddenly a dagger was in Gracus' hand, and he had the tip of its blade tucked up so tightly under Athelis' chin that the younger man was forced to crane his neck back to keep it from being pushed right up through the bottom of his jaw.

"You think if I knew, I wouldn't have told you already?" Athelis hissed from between tightly clenched teeth. "I don't even like the guy!"

The captain started at him down the length of the dagger's blade for a moment.

"Perhaps you are telling the truth," he said finally, pulling the dagger back and allowing Athelis to hang exhaustedly in the grip of his two Spartan captors. "But do you know what I actually think? I think that you're a burn out; that you don't even care what I do to you. The way you figure it, your life's already spent and so what have you got to lose?"

"Sounds reasonable," Athelis said, as conversationally as he could manage given his present situation.

Gracus nodded.

"It does, doesn't it," he said. "However, much as I am loathed to be the one to tell you this, your logic is flawed."

"Oh?" Athelis said with mock fascination. "Please explain how."

Gracus smiled and straighened, striding back across the deck toward Adrasteia.

"First of all, you should not merely take when you die into consideration. The how of it is equally important. Not all deaths are short and sweet." He glanced back meaningfully at Athelis. "Some are long and lingering."

"And the other flaws?" Athelis asked. His jaw ached, and his head felt like it had been stuffed with sheep's wool.

"Only one other major one," Gracus said stepping up behind Adrasteia and wrapping his arm across her chest so he could yank her back in close to him again. "That being that you do have something to lose!" As he spoke, he drew his dagger up to press it against her throat once more, turning the blade against her skin to force her to lift her chin as he had done with Athelis just moments before. Athelis' muscles tightened almost reflexively as he was forced to watch, and he strained hard against his captors. It was all in vain though. His arms may as well have been locked in vices for all that the Spartans' grip gave to his efforts.

Gracus watched his futile struggles with an almost sympathetic look.

"I thought as much," he said with a nod, as if seeing Athelis' reaction had confirmed something to him. "I watched you approach the ship you see. The way you threw yourself into danger ahead of her was most impressive. At first I thought that maybe you were lovers – call it the romantic in me – but then I saw the two of you up close, and now I see the resemblance as plain as day. Siblings it is then."

Slowly he drew the blade of the dagger back, until it's razor sharp point was resting lightly against Adrasteia's jugular.

Athelis redoubled his efforts, straining as hard as he could against the two men holding him. Again, neither of them budged an inch.

"This is your final chance," Gracus said, and pushed ever so gently against Adrasteia's skin with the dagger point. She winced, and then a tiny drop of blood beaded from her skin and ran along the blade of the knife. "All I need to do is push, and you become an only child," Gracus continued. "You want your sister to live, then you'll answer my questions. Where. Is. Ithius?"

Athelis looked imploringly at Adrasteia. She said nothing, barely able to move her jaw with the knife pressed up beneath it, and instead just fixing him with that same look she had given him when he had first arrived on deck; that look that seemed to say 'you tell him, and I'll kill you myself'. At the same time, he knew that he could not do what she wanted him to. He simply could not lose anyone else.

Fortunately, he would not have to make that choice just yet.

Before he could open his mouth to answer, he heard shouts from down on the dock, and the coordinated growling of Spartans moving into formation. The men that had pursued them to the boat had remained on the dock, and from the sound of things, were about to come under attack. Frowning in confusion, Gracus motioned toward one of his men.

"Find out what's happening," he said.

The soldier nodded and hurried for the side of the ship. Athelis' gaze never left Adrasteia the whole time. When they had been little, they had always been very good at reading each others intentions. They had become so good at it that a single tilt of the head, or a twitch of the eyes could communicate volumes. Mother and Father had had a nightmare of a time trying to keep up with them because of it. Now, despite all the years of separation and alienation between them, he found himself praying that they still had that same unspoken connection.

"Well?" Gracus snapped at the soldier. "What do you see?"

Finally Adrasteia's gaze met Athelis'. He gave a slight tilt of his head, and she in turn gave the barest of perceptible nods; one only made all the more difficult with Gracus' dagger being forced up under her chin.

"I see..." the Spartan soldier began to reply, clearly straining his eyes to make out what was going on out in the gloom. "I see... our men. They're trying to get into formation, but they look to be coming under attack by... wait a minute... is that...?"

"Who?" Gracus demanded in frustration. "Who's attacking them."

As he spoke, he leaned forward slightly, instinctively craning his neck as if to try and look over the side of the ship himself. It was an unconscious action, but all the opening Adrasteia needed nevertheless. As he leaned forward, the hand gripping the dagger lowered slightly. With more room to move, she twisted her neck and sank her teeth into his forearm.

Gracus' response was immediate. He howled in pain, shoving Adrasteia roughly to the ground as he did so. At the same time one of the Spartans holding Athelis took a step forward, most likely to aid his captain, and in doing so released his grip on Athelis.

One arm suddenly free and now able to move again, Athelis pivoted on his knees, snatching the back up dagger he had spotted earlier from the other soldier's boot and then ramming it down hard into the man's foot. The soldier cried out in alarm, and as he stooped to tend to his wounded foot, Athelis tugged the dagger free then buried it in the man's neck.

Chaos erupted across the whole deck. A few of those Spartans guarding the Helots and the ship's crew turned to see what all the sudden ruckus was about. Even as Athelis was tugging his dagger free for the second time, Themistocles, Arkus, and others were seizing the opportunity his distraction had given them. Almost as one, they surged to their feet and pounced upon the Spartans. It did not take long for numbers to win out, and as the first soldiers fell, their retrieved weapons gave the ship's crew and the Helots the edge they needed.

Athelis had his own issues to worry about. The soldier that had released him moments before was already turning back to face him.

"You little-" the man began, but Athelis cut him short, scrambling back to his feet and thrusting the dagger hard at his gut.

The leather breastplate took much of the force, but he still managed to get the point of the weapon through. The Spartan gasped, as he felt the tip of the dagger pierce him and tried to step back. Athelis simply reached up with his free hand and grasped the back of the man's neck tightly, while pulling the dagger back and thrusting again at the same spot. The Spartan struggled against him, trying to get his sword around in the moment or two he still had but fortunately, Athelis' dagger found its mark again. This time the armour proved no obstacle and the dagger slid easily into the other man's gut. With a winded gasp, the soldier began to drop to his knees, his sword clattering noisily to the deck as he reached up to clutch at the hilt of the dagger. Athelis, for his part, did not even bother to retrieve it. Instead he stooped, grabbing his notched dagger from where it hung at the man's hip with one hand, and reaching for the fallen Spartan's sword with the other. Before he could grab it however, he glanced up and saw Gracus, looming over his sister with a face like fury as blood streamed down his arm from a ragged injury surrounded by fresh teeth marks. His sword was drawn and poised to strike. With an animalistic roar, Athelis flung himself at the Spartan captain, his shoulder hammering into the man's stomach in a savage tackle that carried them both to the ground. Landing on top of Gracus, Athelis wasted no time in trying to pin the man down, kneeling on his shoulders and delivering a vicious snap punch to his face as he tried to get back to his feet.

"Cast off!" he heard someone shouting desperately. "We have to get clear while we have the chance or they'll burn the ship like they threatened to do before!"

Suddenly alarmed, Athelis glanced up at the chaos unfolding around him. In such close quarters there was no room for fancy strategy or tactics. The fight unfolding before him was a brawl, plain and simple, and one that the Spartans were losing. They had done some damage to their attackers, but they had taken a beating themselves and were now badly outnumbered. Another couple of minutes and the fight would be all but over.

It was the crew members, carrying axes and running for the tied off rigging and dock ropes, that had him worried now. There were still people down on that dock fighting. If they set sail now, they would be left behind to face the wrath of Demosthenes alone, and worst of all, he had a feeling he knew just who those people doing the fighting out there were.

"Wait," he shouted, reaching out imploringly. "Don't cut the-"

Gracus' clenched fist smashed into his jaw, sending him sprawling across the dock. As he rolled onto his back he saw the big Spartan again, already on his feet and coming at him with sword held high for a nasty downward hack that would split him in too. Spreading his legs wide and shuffling backwards, he dodged the swing by the smallest of margins, leaving Gracus with his sword buried in the decking mere inches from Athelis' nether regions. As the big Spartan struggled to tug the blade free, Athelis backward rolled and leaped to his feet, then charged in again.

Nearby he heard the familiar chunk-chunk sound of metal against wood as the axes were driven home. Overhead the sails rustled as they fell, and even before they had unfurled, the wind that had carried the fire so quickly through Tryxis took hold of them, causing the ship to lurch forward.

The lurching motion of the boat threw him off stride and sent him tottering sideways, giving Gracus time to yank his sword free again. Even with the fight dying down around them and with his troops almost to a man lying dead or dying, the big Spartan showed no signs of surrendering. Instead he just lifted his sword and began to circle Athelis. Athelis raised his notched dagger and did the same, sidestepping in time with his opponent. For a moment there was only that small distance between them, then suddenly Gracus snarled, throwing himself forward and lashing out with his sword at the same time.

Athelis met him halfway, his notched dagger coming up in an expert parry that caught Gracus' blade and held it fast. Gracus tried to pull back, but with their weapons locked he only succeeded in dragging Athelis after him.

"You can't win this," Athelis grunted, muscles straining as he struggled against Gracus' considerable strength. "Your men are dead, the ship's already heading away from shore, and you have no way back. Stand down!"

"You think that's all it takes to stop me?" Gracus sneered over the screeching of their locked blades. "I am a Spartan! I am a Follower! I live only to do my duty and serve my faith! There is nothing else!"

Athelis just sighed.

"There really is no reasoning with you people sometimes is there?" he said.

Gracus' answer was a headbutt that sent an explosion of pain racing through his skull and set him reeling. It also gave Gracus the leverage he needed. With a twist of his wrist and a sharp tug, the big Spartan's sword locked even tighter against Athelis' dagger and yanked the weapon from his stunned fingers.

Still suffering from the headbutt, Athelis struggled to open his eyes. Blinking blearily against the pain, he finally brought the deck around him into focus. Gracus filled his view, bearing down on him, sword up and with that familiar look of murder in his eyes.

Suddenly, something struck the mast above them, the impact causing the ship to tilt slightly and throwing Gracus off balance. Athelis only had one chance left. Flinging himself forward, he caught Gracus' sword arm with both hands as the man struggled to bring the weapon down in a diagonal cut designed to cleave him from right collar bone to left hip. Straining with all his might, he attempted to arrest the downward arc of the blade, but it was no use. Gracus was simply too strong for him, and inch by terrible inch, the sword's gleaming edge crept down toward the exposed flesh of his neck.

"Now which of us can't win?" Gracus growled.

Athelis had no answer. All his concentration was on the sword above his head. Then he saw it, something else just beyond that set his spirits soaring. Hanging overhead from the ship's lower rigging was a familiar rangy blonde figure with a dagger in her hand that she was using to hack furiously at the ropes that held the lower most sail aloft.

"Take a wild guess!" Callisto yelled down at them as the dagger bit through the last strands of rope and sent the sail crashing to the deck, completely enveloping Athelis and Gracus both beneath a blanket of white canvas.

*****

Callisto and Ithius were moving at a dead run down the narrow alleyway, buildings flashing by as behind them, all that was was left of Tryxis succumbed to the flames. Neither of them looked back. There was nothing they could do to save the village now. The fire had progressed too far, and every second counted if they were going to reach the ship in time.

Out in front, the mouth of the alley yawned wide, and Callisto skidded out into the street, mud flecking her boots as she did so. Ithius arrived hot on her heels. Pausing to catch her breath, Callisto bent at the waist, placing her hands on her knees as she tried to summon up the energy to continue. She was still not back at her full strength, and this mad head long dash for the beach was taking more out of her than she had expected.

She felt Ithius' hand fall upon her shoulder in what was supposed to be a soft, comradely gesture. She reacted as if someone had just placed a poisonous spider there, batting it aside and straightening sharply to glare at him. Ithius, for his part, appeared completely nonplussed by her attitude.

"Nearly there," he said nodding over her shoulder.

Callisto turned to see the beach looming large beyond the end of the street and the ship beyond that. Narrowing her eyes, she squinted against the gloom. Something was wrong down there. Behind her, Ithius appeared to have noticed the same thing.

"Are those..." he began, and Callisto nodded.

"People," she said. "Running for their lives if not I'm not mistaken." She turned and grinned at him. "Reminds me of the good 'ol days."

"They've got Spartans after them," Ithius said, ignoring her attempt at levity. "And they're running right into a trap. See?" He pointed toward the ship's deck.

From this distance it was difficult to make out the details, but if she strained her eyes hard enough, from this angle she could just see the Spartan soldiers already aboard the ship and waiting for the fleeing Helots to arrive. From down on the beach, the Helots would not be able to see the ship's deck at all.

Callisto let out a long suffering groan.

"Are your people taught to behave like lemmings?" she complained. "Or were they all just born that way?"

"If we save them, you'll get to ask," Ithius replied starting out at a jog again. "Now come on! We don't have long left."

Taking a deep breath, Callisto set off after him.

"So what's the plan?" she shouted as they passed the last buildings and sprinted out onto the beach. Ahead of them the Spartans had reached the dock, but appeared to have given up the chase once the Helots had reached the gangplank and boarded the ship."We just go charging through twenty or so Spartans like they aren't even there, board the ship, and save the day?"

"That's about the extent of it, yeah," Ithius replied. "Why? You have a problem with that?"

"Well let me see," Callisto panted back at him. "It lacks creativity, subtlety and most importantly, forward thinking." she grinned. "Naturally I love it."

As she ran, she readied the dagger he had given her, and shortened the length of her stride while pushing harder into a full on sprint that finally put her in the lead ahead of Ithius. With such a short range weapon, she would need the speed to close the distance before the Spartans could prepare for her.

The rear rank of the Spartan formation clustered at the end of the dock was just beginning to turn back to guard it when they saw Callisto and Ithius bearing down on them. A panicked cry went up and the whole formation began to turn more quickly. Not quickly enough however, and Callisto went barreling into them with all the force of a charging jaguar. Her dagger weaved left and right with grace and ease, and everywhere it bit into flesh, screams would sound and the warm scent of blood would fill the air. Ithius joined the fray mere moments after she did, his sword rising and falling, hacking and slashing as he plowed his way through the Spartans too.

Callisto had almost broken through when seemingly out of nowhere, a Spartan with his shield up charged her from the side. In such close quarters she did not have room to dodge aside, and the shield hammered into her as if she had just run headlong into a brass wall. The sheer force of the impact set every bone in her body trembling and threw her sideways. Stumbling to regain her balance, she still managed to dodge at first one, then two, and even three spear thrusts before replying in kind, her dagger working her attackers until none remained.

And then she was free and clear, just like that, and with Ithius only a few steps ahead of her. He was just reaching the end of the gangplank, when a spear from a pursuing Spartan lashed out, it's head grazing Callisto's side and causing her to cry out in pain. With a furious snarl, she grabbed hold of the spear before it could retract, yanking so hard as to carry the Spartan wielding forward and right onto the end of her back thrusting dagger. The man let out a quiet grunt, barely even able to make a sound and clutching at the gaping wound she had opened in him as he pitched sideways off the dock and into the ocean water.

Pressing a hand to the wound in her own side, Callisto turned back to see Ithius starting back from the gangplank toward her.

"Are you alright?" he asked, but she waved him back.

"Don't bother!" she shouted. "I'm fi—"

Before Ithius could step down off the gangplank, the ship lurched into motion, it's sails filling with the wind and dragging the gangplank with it. Ithius was thrown off balance by the sudden motion, clinging to the guide-rope and staring about himself desperately as the ship began to pick up speed.

"Come on!" he shouted, turning back to Callisto and reaching out his hand. "RUN!"

Cursing under her breath, Callisto burst into a dead sprint up the dock, the wooden planks it was built from clonking hollowly beneath her boots. She was almost within arms reach of Ithius now. Lifting her hand, fingers outstretched, she pushed herself to her very limit, feet pounding and arms pumping while her breath rang hollowly in her chest and the ship's prow kicked up spray that coated the dock and her in cold salt water. She was rapidly running out of dock she realised as she passed by a crane that had been used to load heavy cargo onto the ship, but with every step she took she was carried closer and closer to Ithius.

"Just a little more!" he shouted to her. "You can do it!"

Wringing every last drop of strength out of her complaining muscles, she hurtled forward, her fingers finally brushing against his...

...and then the ship cleared the dock. She skidded to a halt just in time to keep from plunging straight over the end and into the ocean, and could only watch as Ithius lurched away from her, clinging desperately to the guide-rope of the gangplank as it swung out into open air. No longer supported by the dock beneath it, it hung for a moment and then went crashing back against the side of the ship so forcefully that it nearly jarred Ithius loose. His grip held however, leaving him dangling against the hull of the ship as spray and waves battered at him.

Callisto had no more time to worry about Ithius. Already she could hear what remained of the Spartan formation coming at her from behind and the last chance of escape was already gathering speed as the wind pulled it out to sea. Wracking her brains, she tried to think. This could not be it. There had to be something she could do... some other way to get aboard the ship... Much as she was loathe to do so, she could not help but think of Xena. Xena would have come up with something; some crazy stunt that would have defied every law of nature and somehow got her onto that ship. The real question was, what would she have have done...

Then suddenly, like a blinding flash of sunlight after months spent living in darkness, she had the answer. The crane! Without another moment to loose, she turned and ran back down the dock to the collection of wooden frames and taught ropes. A flat palette, weighed down by barrels full of raw fish swayed slowly above her, held there by ropes that had been tied off in a hurry and then abandoned. Not wasting any time, she reached out and grabbed hold of one of the taught ropes, pulling it out an angle counter to the direction of the ship and readying her dagger in the other hand. By the Gods, she hoped this worked. If it did not, she would either end up splattered against the side of the ship or being forced to swim for shore. Neither prospect filled her with excitement.

"Well boys," she said jauntily to the Spartan charging up behind her, "It's been a real hoot, but it looks like this is goodbye!" tossing them a jaunty salute with her dagger, she suddenly whirled back and sliced through the knots holding the palette in place. The tension suddenly released, the palette dropped like a falling boulder, yanking the rope Callisto was holding upward and her along with it. Releasing her grip on the rope as she neared the apex of the pulley system, her momentum carried her out in a soaring arc over the water, like an arrow fired from a bow and straight toward the ship.

For a moment she was certain she was not going to make it, but fortune was on her side for once, and the winds changed, pulling the ship toward her slightly so that instead of falling short of it, she ended up crashing into the lower reaches of the rigging around the ship's main mast instead. Her impact was such that it actually caused the ship to tilt slightly with the force of it, before bobbing back in the opposite direction with such strength that it nearly flung her back out to sea again.

Clinging grimly to the ropes of the ships rigging by one arm, and with her feet dangling in the open air, she took stock of the situation on deck below. There had been a fight of some kind. From what she could tell, the Helots and ship's crew had battled against the Spartans she and Ithius had spied from the beach. Now the battle was all but over, and while a few Helots and crew lay dead, nearly all the Spartans were so. As far as she could tell, only one Spartan remained alive; a thick necked brute of a man, who she remembered having met before but whose name she could not recall, was currently struggling against Athelis, who himself looked to be on the losing end of the fight. The two men were locked together, Athelis struggling to keep the Spartan's hefted sword from falling and cutting him into two neat little pieces.

Glancing over at the rigging, another idea occurred to her. Rocking with her hips to gain momentum, she swung into the mast, wrapping her legs around it to hold herself fast, and then using her dagger to hack away at the rigging that held the ship's lower sails aloft.

"Now which of us can't win?" she heard the Spartan growl at Athelis.

"Take a wild guess!" she yelled down at him, much to his surprise, and causing him to crane his neck back just in time to see her cut through the ropes and send the sails crashing down around them.

Chapter Twenty Four: The Message

Less than a half hour later, with the ship well and truly out of the range of Spartan arrows from the shore, the clean up began. Callisto did not participate. Instead she simply perched herself atop an empty water barrel, one of several dotted about the deck with the intention of collecting fresh rain water from any storms that the ship might endure, and watched the battle's aftermath.

Shortly after she had hacked down the sail, Ithius had been hauled aboard from his precarious perch clinging tightly to the ship's hull. At the same time, several of the now fully armed crew and Helots had surrounded Gracus and disarmed him as he and Athelis had scrambled clear of the fallen sail. Now, with all but one Spartan dead and Demosthenes' army safely behind them, Ithius, Athelis and the rest were setting to work cleaning up the fallen. Those crew members and Helots that had perished in the fighting were laid out neatly and respectfully toward the rear of the ship, ready to be bound in funeral wrappings with coins placed over their eyes, and for weights to be tied to them before they could finally be delivered to a watery resting place. The Spartans on the other hand received no such ceremony, with a few of the crew simply carrying them one at a time to the side of the ship and then pitching the corpses overboard. One or two of the ship's crew even spat over the side after the bodies. The tide would carry the corpses into the shore, and there they would serve as a stark warning to Demosthenes and his troops – 'follow us and you get the same'.

Nearby Callisto could hear raised voices, and she turned her head to see two men she did not recognise arguing with one another.

"...never said anything about a hundred refugees!" one of the men was shouting, a portly fellow with a florid face and draped all in garish finery. This being a merchant vessel, she assumed he was the captain.

"The money you were paid should be more than enough compensation for your trouble," replied the other man, a slightly less decadent but nevertheless refined looking man with an Athenian accent. She had learned his name was Themistocles and that he had been on some kind of diplomatic mission to Sparta that had gone disastrously wrong... or perhaps incredibly right. It depended entirely on what he had wanted from it in the first place, she supposed.

"The money?" the captain spluttered. "This money you mean!?" he jangled a small pouch of dinars in front of the Athenian. "Look at my ship Themistocles! Look at the mess you and your herd of cattle of have made of her! It'll cost me double what you paid me just to get her sea worthy again!"

"You're exaggerating," Themistocles said.

"Maybe," the captain bit back at him, "but I'm not lying!"

Themistocles sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

"Captain Drevus," he said tightly. "I am willing to accept that the precise nature of our deal may not have led you to anticipate these particular..." he glanced around at the deck and shrugged. "...circumstances. I also hope however, that you will appreciate that this day has been an exceedingly long one. I myself am thoroughly exhausted, as are the rest of these people. If you are unhappy with our agreement, I would be happy to negotiate further reimbursement..."

Drevus began to open his mouth to speak.

"... after  I have slept," Themistocles cut him off with a degree of finality. "And not before. Do I make myself clear?"

It was Drevus' turn to look around the ship now. Slowly his eyes came to rest on Callisto. She smiled and waved cheerily, causing a shiver to run through the man and his several chins.

"And her?" he said, his voice wavering slightly as he turned back to Themistocles.

"What about her?" Themistocles said innocently.

"Don't play coy with me," Drevus protested. "I'm not some backwoods yokel. I know full well who she is. The refugees I'm not happy about but can probably just about handle. The journey to Delphi isn't that far, although it will take longer with only one sail..." He stared ruefully at the ruined muddle of heavy canvas that Gracus had hacked away at in his effort to get clear of it. "My point is, I'm not some heartless monster," he said, finally dragging himself back to his original point. "Giving the Helots their safe passage will be good for my karma if nothing else. Maybe Poseidon himself will even smile on my charity. Carrying a wanted fugitive though, especially one like her..." he glanced in her direction again "...definitely was not part of our arrangement."

Themistocles also glanced at her. Something told Callisto he would not be so easily intimidated as the portly merchant, so instead of smiling at him, she fixed him with a hard stare. The Athenian did not so much as flinch, meeting her steady gaze with one of his own before turning away again.

"A fugitive from who exactly?" he said to Drevus.

"Take your pick," the Captain replied. "I can't think of any city my ship could dock at where she'd be welcomed."

Themistocles turned away from her, and the two men began to stride off toward prow of the ship.

"Athens and Delphi have no authority here," he said, "and Ithius and his Helots consider her their ally. When we land at Delphi the situation may change, but in the mean time..." As they grew distant their voices began to fade. Callisto leaned forward in an attempt to catch the last strains of their conversation but a woman's voice from behind her made it impossible to make out what was being said.

"Excuse me?" the woman's voice said.

With an irritated sigh, she sat back on the barrel top and span abruptly to face the speaker. The suddenness of her movement caused the newcomer to take a small, instinctive step back from her.

She was smaller than her, this other woman, and clad in a short chiton with a cinched leather belt at the waist. She looked tired and grimey, with bags under her eyes and with hair – normally wavy and brown – now darkened and matted to her scalp by sweat and sea spray. Even through all of that though, there was something about her, a vibrancy that reminded Callisto somewhat of a certain redheaded bard. Remembering Gabrielle immediately dragged her thoughts back to the Pneuma and Cronus, and her mood soured.

"Yes?" she said shortly, trying to push her sudden feeling of discomfort to one side.

"I..." the other woman began nervously. Then she seemed to remember herself, and straightened slightly. "I wanted to talk with you a moment if that would be alright." Her voice sounded surer than it had before, but there was still a note of nervousness in it, as if she were only just managing to hold her emotions in check.

"I appear to be available," Callisto said, leaning forward toward the younger woman and smiling like a cat toying with a mouse. "I think it's only fair to warn you though, I'm not exactly a sensational conversationalist."

The woman glanced down at the deck for a moment, then nodded slightly as if she were committing herself to what she was about to say.

"I just thought someone should say thank you to you," she blurted out unexpectedly as she tried to meet Callisto's gaze once more. "I mean, no one else looked like they were going to, and what you did...well, it deserves thanks."

Callisto eyed the other woman curiously.

"What's your name?" she asked eventually.

"Adrasteia..." the girl replied. "...of Delphi. You already know my brother I think. Athelis is his name."

Callisto tilted her head in amusement.

"So Athelis has a family then does he?" she said and grinned. "He kept that one quiet."

She hopped down off the barrel and took a step closer to Adrasteia to get a better look at her. Now that she knew the relationship between them she could definitely see the similarities. They both had the same set to their jaw line that spoke of stubbornness, and there was the same quiet fire burning behind her eyes.

"Well then Athelis' sister," she said, reaching up and stroking a finger back and forth along the line of her own jaw as she spoke. "As platitudes go, I've heard far worse. But I'm forced to ask, what exactly did I do to earn them?"

Adrasteia frowned in confusion.

"You saved us all," she said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, "in the village and then again with my brother here on the ship."

"Us?" Callisto said slanting and eyebrow at her and then glancing back and forth around the deck. "You mean the Helots?"

"Of course," Adrasteia said. "Why wouldn't I?"

Callisto let out an amused chuckle that seemed to set the other woman on edge.

"And you think about yourself and them in the same breath do you? Like you're one of them?"

"We've all been through a lot together," Adrasteia replied with and indignant sniff. "I'd say that makes us friends at the very least."

"Friends," Callisto nodded still smiling. "And do you know what exactly it is they do to their 'friends'?"

"I have a feeling you're about to tell me."

Callisto's grin widened.

"Maybe I was," she said. "But now? I think it might just be more fun to let you find out for yourself. A word of advice, though. You should watch your back around them, otherwise they might just stick a knife in it."

"They're not like that," Adrasteia said firmly. "They're good people."

"A good judge of character are you?" Callisto sneered back. "Look who you're talking too. Look who you just  thanked  for Zeus' sake." She leaned forward, her grin disappearing in an instant to be replaced a look of complete disgust. "People don't thank me, Athelis' sister. Flee in terror at the sight of me, yes. Curse my name, most definitely, but never  thank. "

"I'm beginning to see why," Adrasteia answered, her voice hard and flat.

Nearby, a series of loud, angry shouts of protest cut through their conversation, causing both Callisto and Adrasteia to turn their attention toward their source. A crowd of booing Helots were beginning to gather as Ithius led a bound Gracus toward the side of the ship and a single lone life raft that had been lashed together out of emptied fish barrels and strips of the fallen sail.

"Oh look," Callisto jeered. "A lynching. Just the proof I need to show how kind, loving and fluffy these Helots aren't."

Adrasteia shot her an annoyed glance but said nothing.

Ithius and Gracus were through the crowd now, and another Helot Callisto did not recognise was keeping pace with Ithius, gesturing animatedly toward the burning silhouette of Tryxis in the middle distance.

"You can't just let him go," the Helot was saying. "Not after everything he's done."

"He's just one man, Arkus" Ithius replied. "He can't be held accountable for everything that's happened to us."

"Maybe not," Arkus said. "But he can be the first."

Ithius paused as they approached the side of the ship where the hastily constructed life raft was being heaved overboard and into the ocean by several burly crewmen.

"Are you seriously telling me you want to go down that road?" he said, turning to face Arkus more fully. "Don't you remember the Mustering Fields? The lies Demosthenes told about us and what we had done? We execute him here and now and we make all of that come true, so I'll ask you again, is that what you really want?"

Arkus' jaw clenched but he said nothing.

"How about the rest of you?" Ithius said, raising his voice as he turned to face the rest of the onlookers and drawing his sword. "Is this what you want?" he continued, lifting the blade so that it rested at the side of Gracus' neck. "His head on a pike to be spat and jeered at?"

For his part, the silent Spartan Captain did not so much as flinch. Instead he just stared fiercely back at the crowd of gathered Helots, completely unafraid of them. Callisto almost felt a twinge of respect for the man.

Almost.

"If that's it," Ithius continued, "If that is really what you all desire then I'm done with the lot of you." He tossed his sword to the deck with leaden clang. "I'm no executioner, and I will not be made one by the will of a mob. If you trust me to lead you, then trust me when I say that our actions now may very well decide the fate of us all later. I cast aside those morals once, and the result was nothing less than a massacre! If you all want him dead, then one of you will have to be the one to swing the blade that does it."

Suddenly Gracus wrenched his arm free of Ithius' grip and took a step toward the crowd, his eyes blazing fiercely as he did so. His hands may have been bound but that did not necessarily lessen the danger he posed. Callisto's hand went to the dagger at her waist, but before she could draw it, Ithius had stepped up and grabbed him by the arm again.

"Well then?" the Spartan taunted the crowd. "What are you all waiting for? Your leader's spoken. Will no one take him up on his offer?"

Nothing but silence met him. His lip curled upward in a disgusted sneer and he spat disdainfully on the decking between himself and the assembled Helots.

"Thought as much," he sneered. "Cowards. Were my hands free I would wring the necks of each and everyone of you."

Ithius fist caught him hard in the gut, doubling Gracus over in pain and causing him to cough loudly.

“I said I wouldn't be the one to kill you,” he hissed. “I never said anything about not hurting you.”

"Come on then Helot," Gracus snarled viciously as he straightened again. "You think you can take me? Untie these ropes and then we'll find out!"

Ithius' jaw muscles tightened, and Callisto could see his knuckles whitening as he clenched his fists.

"Don't think I'm not sorely tempted," he growled from between gritted teeth. "A lot of my people died today, as did yours, and much of that death was needless and at your order. Despite what I said earlier, it would not be a great injustice for me to do exactly what they want," he gestured to the crowd watching them, his voice pulled taught with the sheer effort of restraint it took him to keep from running the Spartan through there and then. "In the end though, sending you back wearing the ignominy of your own failure is a far more fitting punishment for you than any I might be able to mete out." Reaching out he grabbed Gracus by the arm and began to drag him back toward the side of the ship again. "Before I do just that however, I have a message for you to give to your King."

"More words Ithius?" Gracus sneered. "I thought you were better than that. I thought you, of all these pathetic chattel you call your people, were at least a warrior I could respect. I guess I was wrong."

Ithius' fist clenched tighter, but he continued on as if Gracus had never spoken.

"You tell Demosthenes that the Helots are free, understand? That they are no longer Spartan slaves and will never again suffer under the yoke of his oppression. If he sees fit to try and change that... if he comes for them unbidden again, then I will come for him. Is that clear?"

Gracus fixed Ithius with a fierce stare.

"Crystal," he snarled, and Ithius nodded in turn.

"Good," he said, reaching down and cutting the ropes that bound the big Spartan with a dagger Arkus passed to him. "Now get off this ship."

Gracus stood for a moment, his hands untied and his eyes sliding back and forth between Ithius and the crowd watching, as if he were calculating the odds of survival should he lunge for the Helot leader. Finally he seemed to think better of it and began to turn to clamber down onto the life raft where it bobbed beside the ship.

It was then that Callisto stepped forward.

"WAIT!" She shouted, and Ithius and the Spartan both turned to stare at her.

"You have something you want to say too, Callisto?" Ithius asked, sounding generally curious.

Callisto nodded.

"I do," she said, striding across the deck toward them. "A message of my own as it happens."

Gracus turned to face her as she stalked up to him.

"I'm no errand boy," he said. "Whatever it is you want me to tell King Demosthenes, make it short. I don't have all night."

"Or the best memory I'd imagine," Callisto said, eyeing his massive biceps. "All that raw material put to one purpose usually leaves other things... how shall we say... a little underdeveloped?"

Gracus bristled but did not take the bait.

"Just get it over with," he growled from between clenched teeth. "What would you have me say?"

"But that's just it little man," Callisto said starting to pace back and forth in front of him. "The best messages – the ones that really get the point across – they're never about what you say. They're about  how  you say it. It would be all too easy to get you to tell your King that if he comes for the Helots he won't just have Ithius to deal with, but me as well. Even easier to say that he and that 'Lord' of his have now officially made the top of my shit list, and that that's never a good place to be. If I wanted to really hammer my point home, I could even beat you to within an inch of your life before sending you back, or at the very least have someone do it for me. I've used that little trick before actually..." stepping in front of him again, she stopped her pacing and instead moved right up to his face, staring directly into his eyes. "But you know what? All of that, it just lacks poetry, don't you think?" she smiled pleasantly at him. "And besides, I just realised something."

Gracus fixed her with a look that practically oozed disdain.

"And what would that be?" he sneered.

Before Ithius could move to stop her, Callisto lashed out with the dagger he had given her and that she had been keeping concealed in her bracer. The blade opened the soft flesh of Gracus' throat as easily as if it were cutting through paper. Almost immediately blood began to poor from the wound, soaking the Spartan's armour a hideous crimson, and with a sickening gurgling sound he sank to his knees, his hands lifted almost imploringly toward her.

Callisto batted them aside and leaned in close, resting one boot against the Spartan's chest and tilting her head sideways as she waited for the very last moments of his life.

"That this way says it so much better," she snarled as the light began to go out in his eyes, and with that she kicked hard, sending Gracus keeling back over the edge of boat. There came a sickening crunch as his body hit the life raft below. Callisto watched for a moment as it bobbed aimlessly on the waves, then the tide took hold and began to carry it in toward land. With a satisfied nod, she turned to be confronted with a sea of horrified faces staring back at her.

She did not say anything or try to offer any kind of explanation or defence of herself. Instead she just started walking, tossing the bloodied dagger to Ithius as she passed him.

"How's that for using my imagination?" she said.

*****

The winds of the previous night had finally cleared the sky of the dull, overcast autumnal clouds that seemed to have been filling it for so long, and the first rays of sunlight were finally beginning to peak over the horizon to the east as Athelis stepped back out onto deck, yawning and stretching as he did so. After helping clear up in the aftermath of the battle he had descended below decks and discovered a few simple bunks for him to lie down in. He had even managed to get in a few brief minutes of sleep before the bunk's actual owner had arrived and turfed him out of it again.

"You're not crew," the man had said roughly. "Your lot will be sleeping in the hold. Don't let me catch you pulling this again."

Athelis was fairly sure he had nothing to worry about in a one on one with any of the crew, but at the same time, it probably was not a good idea to go making enemies of them either. Not when they were well out to sea and they likely would not be reaching land again for a couple of days.

Shuffling tiredly across the deck, he found himself a nice quiet corner between a few crates where he could prop his back up and just sit with his eyes closed, letting the warmth of the early morning sun wash over him and the fresh sea breeze fill his lungs. It was not quite enough to rid him completely of the conflicting feelings he was having, but it did help at least.

On the one hand, he knew that, rationally speaking, he should be relieved. Finally, after close to a month of skulking around the countryside with not enough to eat, and with the constant threat of discovery and assault by the Spartans looming, they were free and clear, and on their way to somewhere safe. On the other hand however, he could not shake that gnawing feeling he was having that he was running away from Pelion; that the old man who had killed his wife, and whom he had vowed to make sure suffered for an eternity in Tartarus as his punishment, had actually defeated him and sent him scampering for the hills with his tale between his legs like some kind of whipped dog. That thought was the one that burned him more than any other.

But then there was Callisto.

As if the current situation were not complicated enough for him, her return to the scene had just served to set him into a tail spin of emotions from which he could fully extricate himself. It was good to have her back of course. Not a day had gone by in the past month that he had not hoped for that to happen, if only for what her return would mean. With her actually back, he felt some small sliver of hope that all was not lost, and that if he stayed at her side, his chance for revenge may still come round again. But then he had to ask himself, how was it she was back? He was almost certain it was the amulet. The timing was too perfect for their to be any other answer. Just thinking about how, by doing what he had done, he had played right into Pelion's plans sickened him to his very core. She did not have the amulet anymore to the best of his knowledge, but rather than set his mind at ease, it just raised more questions instead. Who had taken it from her? Had anyone actually taken it from her? Had she cast it aside on her own, or did she still have it somewhere? He had no answers for any of them, and it was that simple fact more than anything else that had kept him from trying to talk with her. She could not know what he had done, obviously, but he could not shake the feeling that somehow, if he were to talk to her, she would still be able to figure him out.

Fidgeting where he sat, he did his best not to think about it anymore. He was just making himself paranoid now. What he needed was something to take his mind off everything. As if on cue, his stomach grumbled loudly.

"That didn't sound good," came a voice from nearby.

Athelis cracked one eyelid blearily open and was amazed at the sheer effort it took. If he had not known any better he would have sworn someone must have taped lead weights to his eyelashes. Adrasteia was standing in front of him, holding a relatively fresh looking hunk of bread plus a third of a cheese wheel.

"Mind if I join you?" she asked and proffered him the roll. "I bring breakfast!"

Athelis' stomach grumbled again and with another tired yawn he nodded, and pushed himself slighlty more upright than he had been before.

"Have a seat," he said. "But only if you're willing to share."

"Deal," Adrasteia said as she slid to the deck next to him, ripping off a chunk of bread and cheese and handing it to him as she did so. Athelis took it and tore into the bread with relish. He had barely eaten since the morning of the day before, and even the slightly stale bread tasted like ambrosia to him right now.

For a while the two of them just sat in silence, chewing at the bread and watching the sun continue its slow ascent above the horizon. Athelis shifted uncomfortably. Was she waiting for him to speak? Did she want him to say something?

"I..." he began, and at the same time she said "Listen..."

The two of them paused, and then Adrasteia laughed.

"More alike than we realise sometimes," she said, and Athelis gave a rueful nod.

"Certainly looks that way," he said, before taking another bite out of the hunk of bread. "Alright," he continued around the mouthful. "You go first."

"Okay," Adrasteia said, then suddenly went quiet, drumming her fingers awkwardly on her knees as if she had lost the words she was trying to say. "About yesterday..." she began eventually. "About the things we said to each other at the camp... Well, what  I  said really..."

"What about it?" Athelis replied, swallowing the last of his bread and dusting the crumbs off his hands.

"You know I was hurting when I said those things right?"

Athelis went quiet for a moment, then sighed and nodded.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah I do."

"I mean..." Adrasteia continued uncertainly. "What I'm trying to say is... At Tryxis, on the road there..." she paused herself this time, then gave a shrug of surrender. "I thought you were amazing. There. I've said it."

Athelis narrowed his eyes in confusion at her.

"Amazing?"

"The way you tried to protect people," Adrasteia said. "The way you tried to protect  me . I just... I hadn't seen you like that in a long time. You didn't flinch. Not even once, no matter how serious the danger."

Athelis turned away and sniffed, suddenly not able to meet her gaze.

"Not that amazing," he protested, picking idly at some stray crumbs of bread that had managed to fasten themselves to his pant leg. "I mean, people still died didn't they?"

"Don't do that," Adrasteia said. "You were always too hard on yourself. Yes it's true, you couldn't save everyone, and yes, some people did die, but they didn't die because of you, and that's important. Yesterday was like..." She gave him a small embarrassed smile. "It was like having the big brother I remember growing up with back again after all this time."

Athelis shot her a sideways look.

"Don't do that , " he said, and Adrasteia's face twitched in surprise.

"I don't know—" she began.

"Yes you do," Athelis said, cutting her off before she could finish. "You know exactly what it is I'm talking about. It's the same thing you did that time we took the dinars from dad's money pouch and then you had an attack of conscience and wanted us to give them back."

He twisted at the waist so that he could look at her dead on.

"It's the guilt tripping, Teia" he continued, using his nickname for her that he knew irritated her. "The big doe eyes, and the overly earnest expressions. I've seen it all before. You think I should stop. That I should just give all this up and come back home again and this is how you're trying to make me do it."

"Of course I do!” Adrasteia replied honestly. “Is that so wrong?"

She pointed in the direction of Callisto. The lean, blonde warrior woman was at the rearmost point of the boat, leaning against a wooden railing and staring out over the ocean toward the burning silhouette of Tryxis in the distance

"I had a chat with your friend over there..." she continued, placing an almost mocking level of emphasis on the word 'friend'. "She seems nice by the way. A little unhinged and I honestly think she'd stab you a hundred times if you looked at her funny, but amiable enough for the most part."

"What's your point?" Athelis said, ignoring her sarcasm.

"My point is that if that's what this life has done for her, I don't want to see it do the same for you."

Athelis regarded his sister for a moment then gave a sad chuckle and shook his head.

"You don't get it, do you?" he said. "You think she chose any of this? You think I did? People were taken from us Teia, people we cared about, and the ones who did the deed were never punished the way they should have been. Have you any idea how that feels?" He lifted his hand to his chest and made gnawing motions with his fingers. "How it eats away at every fibre of you until you honestly can't remember anything else but the pain and the hate?"

"That's not how it works," Adrasteia protested. "You think you're the only two people in the world who know what it is to feel this way? That losing people somehow makes you both special? All I can say to that is that you should both just grow up! You do have a choice, Athelis. There are always choices, and right now, if you want to, you can choose to stop all this madness; just put it behind you and come home."

"And if I don't want to put it behind me?" Athelis replied.

"Then I guess I'll never get my brother back again, will I?"

Athelis did not have an answer for her.

*****

The ship was more than a mile out to sea now, leaving behind it a wide trail of white froth and churning ocean waters as the wind in its one remaining sail and depleted numbers of oarsmen strained to carry her ever further out from the shore. Callisto was leaning out over the stern, her eyes following the hypnotic, swirling mess without really seeing it. Instead her mind was far away, still trying to make sense of everything that had happened to her over the past month. So much was still a muddled mess, but slowly she was managing to put some of the pieces together. The trouble now was that she was not entirely sure she liked the picture those pieces were forming.

From everything Ithius had told her, it sounded like they had been playing right along with Cronus' plans this whole time. The death of Leonidas and his men, the Helot massacre, the murder of the Ephors, and then the ascension of Demosthenes and his subsequent warmongering; all of it was starting make a dreadful kind of sense to her. Greeks killing Greeks. Monocles had been right all along. It was the perfect means to shatter the final barrier keeping the long dead Lord of the Titans from making his return to the world of the living, and when he did finally return, he would undo the world the Olympians had made. Everything would change. There would be no more Olympus, no more Styx, no more Tartarus...

...and no more Elysium.

She could not let that happen. Her family may not have been the mightiest of warriors, or the greatest of thinkers, but they had earned their place in paradise, and she for one was not about to let anyone threaten that, least of all some moldy old patricidal lunatic of a corpse god.

Setting her jaw firmly, she lifted her head and stared back across the open ocean toward the shore and the distant outline of Tryxis. Or at least all that was left of it. The sun was up above the horizon now, but the daylight was still dim and the village itself was little more than a dark outline at this point, standing starkly beneath a sky choked with acrid black smoke. The fire had spread to almost every building from the looks of things, and was now proceeding to gut the village from top to bottom just like with Cirra before it.

She frowned.

Why had she just thought of Cirra? Her home village and Tryxis were nothing alike really. One was a seemingly rundown fishing village while the other, at least to her recollection, had been an idyllic farming community. She had seen a dozen villages more akin to her home than this one burn to the ground, and not been bothered by a one of them. She'd even started a few of those fires herself. Yet standing here, watching Tryxis being consumed was for some reason more affecting than any of the others. Was it simply because she had just been thinking of her family and Elysium? Or was there more too it than that? Again she felt herself being assaulted by a whirlwind of memories. There was a boulder at the centre of a mist shrouded cave, and all around it she could see faceless silhouettes standing shoulder to shoulder like some kind of morbid tribunal. Next came memories of a newborn sun blazing above her head and close enough to reach out and take hold of with both hands, then finally she saw the village square from Cirra at the centre of a roaring cyclone of flame and beneath a sky blacker than darkest night,while all the while her own manic laughter mocked her.

No longer able to look at Tryxis, she turned back to the ship and caught a crewman standing behind her, carrying a coil of rope on his shoulder and clearly having stopped in the middle of whatever he was doing to look her up and down approvingly while he did not think she had noticed him. Callisto bared her teeth and hissed, causing the man to visibly pale before turning and hurrying on his way.

Smirking slightly, she was returning her attention to the waves below when she felt a rush of pain run through her side, causing her to list slightly and prop herself up against the wooden railing that ran around the stern while pressing her hand to the source of the pain. It was the spear wound she had taken on the dock. Since then she had been running on adrenaline, the high of battle still coursing through her. Only now was it beginning to fade, and with it came not only the pain of her injury, but also a sudden wave of complete exhaustion. She did not remember ever having felt so tired before in her entire life, and that was saying something when you had actually spent time as a walking corpse.

Still holding herself upright against the railing, she looked down at where she had her hand pressed to her side and peeled her palm back, taking her first really good look at the wound in her side and letting out a soft groan as she did so. She could hardly believe she had ignored it for so long. It was not life threatening, not by any stretch. The spear head had only grazed her really, but the wound would still need to be washed and bound if it was to heal quickly and avoid infection.

"You should probably get that looked at," came a familiar voice from behind her. Glancing back over her shoulder, she saw Ithius approaching.

"What do you want?" she said, her voice raw and sharp edged. The pain from the wound and her sudden exhaustion had left her ill tempered.

"I noticed the blood earlier and thought you might want to try this," Ithius said, stepping up beside her and placing a bottle of something thick and amber coloured on the railing within easy reach of both of them. "From the Captain's private stash," he said by way of explanation. "He didn't want to part with it, but when I explained that it was to help you he changed his mind. I don't think he wants to get on your bad side."

"Smart man," Callisto said, eyeing the bottle suspiciously. "What is it?"

"Spirits," Ithius replied simply. "I think he picked it up on some jaunt west or other. He said it was from a land where men wore skirts and painted their faces blue."

"Sounds like a party," Callisto said, "but I don't drink."

"You don't have to drink it," Ithius said, producing a length of torn sail and further ripping it in half. One half he laid across the rail and the other he held to the top of the bottle before up-ending it, the liquid inside staining the fabric a dark brown.

"Hold your arm up," Ithius said, nodding toward the wound.

"And if I don't?" Callisto replied, only for Ithius to roll his eyes at her.

"If you don't, maybe nothing, or maybe you get gangrene and keel over dead before the week is up. Now which of those options would you prefer?"

Fixing him with a steady glare but without speaking, Callisto lifted her arm and watched as he stepped up beside her and lifted the soaked-through cloth.

"This might sting a bit," he warned.

"How much is a bi-" Callisto began, only to take a sharp intake of breath, her toes curling in her boots and her finger tips digging into the railing as he pressed the cloth to her side.

"That much," Ithius said, holding the rag to her side. "Now just hold still. This will clean it."

"If it doesn't burn right through it first!" Callisto snapped angrily at him.

"Oh come on," Ithius said. "It's alcohol, not molten lava. I'd have thought someone who's reputedly died twice might have a slightly higher pain threshold than this."

"I don't know," Callisto said, her voice becoming a little more playful as the pain began to fade slightly. "Lava's not so bad. It burns away the nerve endings so fast you almost don't have time to feel it."

Ithius glanced at her.

"The scary thing about that is I'm not even sure if you're joking."

"Show me to the nearest active volcano," Callisto replied. "I can demonstrate for you."

Ithius gave an amused snort of laughter and then went back to tending her, peeling the damp cloth away and placing it to one side, her blood joining the brown liquid to form a disgusting mess of dark, clotted gunk. Leaning in close he inspected the wound more closely now that it was somewhat more visible.

"You'll live," he said. "It's a neat enough cut. A single binding should help it close."

Reaching out, he picked up the second length of sail, ripping a strip of the end of it and using it to wipe away the excess liquor that still clung to her skin before taking what remained of the sail and tying it off around her so that it bound the edges of the wound tightly together.

"You didn't need to kill him you know," he continued, pulling the binding tight enough that it caused her to breathe in sharply.

"Yes I did," she said, the memory of Gracus tumbling off the ship with his throat cut all she could see in her mind's eye. "You might think it was all noble of you, trying to let him go like you did, but I can tell you now, it made no difference to him. People like Gracus don't care about your charity, Ithius. They won't forgive you because you show them mercy. They'll probably only think you're weaker for it."

"That sounds depressingly familiar," Ithius said giving her a sideways look.

"I do nothing to them they haven't already done to others, or won't do in the future," she replied defensively.

"Doesn't make any of it right," Ithius said, "or even better for that matter."

"No it doesn't," Callisto snapped rounding on him, "but then I hardly think  you're  the person to be telling me what it takes to be a better human being."

Ithius turned away from her, gazing out over the ocean and back toward Tryxis burning on the shore.

"You're probably right," he said finally. "I'm not perfect. I know that. I've made my mistakes..."

"Too many of them," Callisto cut in, but Ithius ignored her.

"...and people have suffered because of those mistakes," he continued. "But you know what? Why I'm here now, why I'm talking to you about this? It's not about me, much as you might try to make it seem that way."

Callisto frowned at him.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" she demanded.

"It means that it's about you," Ithius said. "The reason I'm standing here taking your abuse Callisto, is because someone believed in you. They believed in you so strongly that they made me believe in you too, and they asked me, with their final wish upon this earth, to make sure you got the chance to be the person they thought you had it you to be."

Callisto raised an eyebrow at him.

"Remind me to avoid this person," she said sarcastically. "They don't sound like they're playing with a full deck."

Ithius gave her a small sad smile as he reached into a pocket and produced a small, rolled piece of parchment.

"I don't think avoiding him will be a problem," he said, holding it out to her.

Callisto stared at the parchment for a long time before taking it.

"This is from Leonidas, isn't it?" she said.

Ithius nodded.

"I see," Callisto said.

Without even unrolling it, she looked up at him, her gaze locking with his, then, unceremoniously, she tore the parchment in half. Ithius' face barely even flinched, but she could see the pain behind his eyes as she continued to tear into smaller and smaller pieces what was possibly the last part of Leonidas' will remaining in the world.

"It doesn't matter what he wanted, Ithius," she said her voice cold and flat. "It doesn't matter what he asked you to do. He's dead because of you, and there's no absolution for that. None from me at any rate."

With that, she tossed the scraps of the torn up parchment out over the ship's stern where they fluttered on the breeze before being scattered across the water.

Ithius watched them go sadly, then turned and looked at her again. She could see the anger in his eyes, but somehow he was managing to hold onto it, much to her surprise.

"But it does matter," he said tightly. "You can keep on denying it, Callisto. You can keep trying to tell yourself how much you hate me and how much I'm to blame for everything. You can shout it to the world, or bottle it up inside for all I care. None of that makes it true. I  know  the truth about you. I see it every time I look at you, and so did Leonidas. All that pain and hatred inside you; you can't be rid of it and you have no way to use it that doesn't scare the crap out of you. We each of us have our own issues to deal with, but I'm here because Leonidas didn't want you to have to do it alone.”

With that he turned and started to walk off across the deck.

"So that's the offer. Take it or leave it. Whenever you're ready to get out of your own way, I'll be waiting to help. Just don't let it take too long or I may very well die of old age in the meantime."

Callisto watched him go, her mind turning over everything he had just said. No way to use it that did not scare the crap out of her. What had he meant by that? She had a feeling she knew, but she did not want to admit that he might actually be right. Turning her back on him, she unrolled the final piece of parchment she had secretly palmed in her hand before casting the rest to the wind. She would have thrown the whole lot away, but curiosity had got the better of her. She just hoped she did not wind up like the proverbial cat.

Leonidas' hand writing was an elegant flowing script. She could hardly say she was surprised. He had been a Spartan King after all. She had hardly expected him to be illiterate. Slowly she let her eyes track along the scrap remaining to her, a low ache beginning to throb dully in the back of her throat.

'...to help her find her way again. Peace has never been an easy path to tread – for any of us it would seem – but for her, I think it will be most difficult of all. The results though, should she achieve it, could very well be glorious.

Your friend,

Leonidas'

Staring at the words, she suddenly could not help but feel hollow inside. Those memories of a newborn sun drifting in the void and surrounded by stars drifted back to the surface of her thoughts, and with them this time came the voice of Zeus, speaking to her from what seemed like a great distance, asking if she was only the mad raving thing out of her nightmares, or whether she could be something more.

Lost in thought she did not really notice when a sharp gust of wind tore the final scrap of parchment from between her fingers and set it dancing on the air as the ship sailed on and left it behind.

"Ithius?" she called suddenly, not really thinking what it was she was saying.

The Helot leader paused, and looked back at her, frowning as he did so.

"Yes?" he said.

"Can you do it?" she asked absently. "Can you make me better?"

"What do you mean?" Ithius said. "Better, how exactly?"

The note of confusion in his voice snapped her back to the hear and now almost immediately. What  did  she mean. Now she thought about it she realised that even she was not really sure.

"Mortius," she said, scrambling desperately for something to say that might actually make sense of what she had just asked him and that might actually save face for both of them. "You managed to go toe to toe with him."

"An interesting assessment," Ithius said. "But I suppose I managed to hold my own, for a little while at any rate."

"You did better than I ever managed," Callisto said. "I want you to teach me how. Can you do that?"

Ithius stood very still, his eyes locked with hers, studying her carefully.

“That depends,” he said.

“On what?”

Ithius shrugged.

“On if you're actually willing to learn.”

Callisto paused for a moment,considering his words, then, with a nod to herself, she stepped down from the stern and began to make her way toward the centre of the ship's deck.

"Okay then," she said as she strode past him, reverting to her usual brusque manner. "Let's get started then."

Epilogue: Born of Fire

The ship was little more than an indistinct black blot on the horizon by the time Mortius arrived on the shore. He came out of the shadows, as was his way, the faded darkness of those cast by the ruin of Tryxis jittering, then cracking and spilling him out onto sand warmed by the morning sun. A line of Spartan troops stood at his back, a single file formation spread out over roughly half a kilometre. They were Demosthenes honor guard, here to attend their King.

Demosthenes himself was standing apart from them down by the water's edge, watching with an unreadable expression as a troop of his soldiers waded out into the shallows and dragged in a makeshift raft made up of a roughly bound together bundle of empty barrels. There were no occupants of the raft save for a body sprawled face down atop it.

"Not the best start to the day, was it?" Demosthenes said as Mortius walked up beside him. The comment was meant in jest but Mortius met it with a question of his own.

"You will work to redeem yourself I trust?" he replied, and Demosthenes jaw muscles worked silently in frustration.

"The failure was not mine," he said. "Nevertheless I shall endeavour to undo it."

"Beginning with Sentos and his men?" Mortius suggested, and Demosthenes nodded.

"They've retreated east," he said. "My guess is that they will swing north, taking the long way round to Delphi. I've ordered outriders dispatched to harass them and slow their march. Sentos is a dogged commander, but he's no grand strategist. I'll have him soon enough."

Mortius nodded.

"It's a start at least," he said, and nodded toward the soldiers splashing out of the water in a spray of surf and salt, dragging the barrels and the body behind them as they came. "Who do you think it is?"

Demosthenes glanced at him, then went down to the barrels. "I already know," he said, removing his helm and setting it aside in the sand. "I just want to be sure. Leave us please."

That last part was to the soldiers standing around the raft. They delivered their traditional Spartan salute, then backed away to a respectful distance before turning their backs and marching back to the formation.

Mortius did not move from where he stood, instead watching as Demosthenes reached down and gripped the corpse's head by its hair, pulling the head back to get a better look at its face. The barrels beneath the body were stained with crimson, and it took only a moment upon Demosthenes' lifting the dead Spartan's head for him to see why. Someone had slit the Spartan's throat and left him to bleed out before setting the raft to drift in to the shore. The Spartans had obviously been meant to find it.

"That's Gracus," he said flatly as he took in the dead man's features.

Demosthenes nodded and dropped the head back to barrels with a heavy thump before picking up his helmet and straightening.

"Looks like Ithius' handy work," he said, but Mortius shook his head.

"No," he said. "This was far too vicious for Ithius. It's Callisto's doing."

Demosthenes frowned at him.

"Callisto?" he said. "But she's-"

"Dead?" came a third voice that they both knew only too well. "Gone? Lost? Shuffled off this mortal coil? All evidence points to the contrary it would seem."

Doing his best not to let his irritation show – a fact made infinitely easier by the shadows obscuring his face – Mortius turned to face the newcomer. It was Pelion, arriving on the beach in the back of horse drawn wagon, a number of Followers clad in their embroidered crimson robes riding with him.

Demosthenes was less skilled at hiding his annoyance than Mortius was.

"And you couldn't be more delighted could you?" he snarled angrily, stepping up beside Mortius as he did so. "If you knew she was still alive, why didn't you tell us? This whole catastrophe could have been avoided had we known what we were up against."

"And what were you up against, prey tell?" Pelion replied, sounding genuinely curious, but no less smug as he did so. "If the might of Sparta and the mind of one of the greatest military leaders in Greece cannot stand before a single unhinged warrior woman, and several dozen bedraggled refugees, perhaps our judgment of you as a fit representation of the Strength of our Lord was in error."

Demosthenes took a step forward, his hand moving to the sword that hung at his hip.

"You want me to display my strength?" he snapped. "Stop hiding behind pretty words. Take up a weapon like a real man and let me show it to you!"

"If it were my Lord's will I would not hesitate to face you," Pelion said calmly. "But I am a man defined by my faith. My death would prove nothing, save your ability in a sword fight to outclass a man who would barely know which end to hold."

"You're missing the fact that it would also make me feel much better," Demosthenes retorted.

"I thought the Pneuma was supposed to do that?" Pelion replied cuttingly, silencing Demosthenes with a glance. "What's the matter, oh Great King? Did you think I didn't know? I can hardly blame you. You are merely using the Pneuma how we intended it be used. As a crucible for your faith. Were time not so pressing, your devotion would be laudable, but He has entrusted you with the duties of His Strength. There is no more room for fear or doubt for one such as you. There is only His will, His Return, and the perseverance needed to see it done..."

As he spoke, a strange look overcame Demosthenes. At first his brows knitted together in confusion at the other man's words, and then slowly, that look of confusion turned to one of outright horror as he began to understand the truth behind Pelion's what Pelion was saying.

"All this time I wondered,” the Spartan King said. “All this time, I tried to figure out how they knew where to go. What to see. At first I thought it was Sentos told them. But it wasn't was it. It was you!" he pointed at the old priest. "You started all of this."

A small smile crept across Pelion's face as Demosthenes turned to Mortius.

"Themistocles and the girl! They knew to go to the Mustering Fields when they did because he told them to! Now they're free and clear, sailing across the bay to warn the other city states that we're coming with Ithius, Callisto and several dozen Helots in tow to back up their story! When we march this time, it won't be on an unsuspecting enemy, but one ready and waiting for us with spears raised!"

"And what does any of that matter?" Pelion replied, his voice infuriatingly even. "You were wasting time, Demothenes. Time we no longer had. The longer we delayed, the more time you were giving the Gods to rally and repair what damage we had already wrought to Hades' barrier. In the grand scheme of things, the nature of the war we fight was never a cause for concern, only that a war be fought. Your men can die, or the Athenians can. Both at the same time would be preferable, but I'm happy with either of the other possibilities as well."

"You rancid puddle of piss!" Demosthenes snarled, all pretense at civility as his hand flew to his sword again. "My men are not some tool for you to simply use up and cast aside when you-"

"ENOUGH!" Mortius shouted, his voice echoing in from all sides of them as his temper flared, and the shadows cast by the Spartan soldiers began to roil and twist strangely.

The two men shifted nervously as those shadows began to lengthen, crawling in across the sand and pawing at their heels with a desperate hunger that set them both on edge. Mortius used the distraction to step up and place one of his pallid hand's across Demosthenes', his fingers closing around the wrist of the man's sword hand like a vice and forcing him to resheath the weapon he already had halfway clear of its scabbard.

"Pelion is not wrong, Demosthenes," he said. "This war needed to be started. Our Lord could wait no longer. We always knew a time would come when sacrifices were demanded of us. Now they are being demanded of you. The real test now Brother, is are you true enough to stay the course?"

Demosthenes jaw muscles clenched tightly as he glared at Pelion, and for a moment Mortius wondered if he might have to behead the Spartan King there and then if the other man were to try still try and attack Pelion. Eventually though, Demosthenes nodded, relaxing the tension in his muscles and taking a step back.

"Glad to see you finally showing a modicum of wisdom," Pelion said, and Mortius rounded on him almost immediately.

"That you are not wrong does not make everything you have done right!" he snapped viciously. "Much of the damage done today was avoidable had you simply cooperated with us instead of working to your own agenda. Themistocles and the girl could have been handled, news of the troop build up leaked to Athens and Delphi in a more subtle and controlled fashion..." he paused, reaching into the folds of his robes and finally pulling out the amulet that Callisto had worn. Pelion's eyes widened when he saw it, although Mortius could not tell whether the expression behind them was excitement, horror, or maybe some strange mixture of the two. "...and then there's this to consider," he finished.

"You found it then?" Pelion said, swallowing nervously, and Mortius nodded.

"I did," he said. "As you suggested, it was around Callisto's neck. One might question how it came to be there, or more importantly, how you knew where to find it."

"One might indeed," Pelion said, his eyes fixed on the amulet. "It looks damaged."

And it was. When Callisto had thrown the amulet through the window of the burning house, the impact had cracked the obsidian stone at the heart of it. Mortius had retrieved it from the fire as quickly as he could, but the sudden heat changes had only worsened the damage and caused the crack to widen all the more. The stone still burned hotly after the fire, although it should have long since cooled, and the inside of the crack seemed somehow blacker even than the obsidian surrounding it. Now, when one looked upon that crack, it was almost as if they could see the void inside the stone pulling at the blackest reaches of their own soul. Mortius did his best not to do just that, but it seemed to have ensnared Pelion and the old priest reached out his hand imploringly. When his fingers were mere inches from the stone, Mortius yanked it back out of his reach, causing the other man to glare at him furiously. It was the first time Mortius had seen such open hostility on Pelion's face.

“Mortius,” the old priest said, struggling to keep his voice even. “Be very careful with that. You should probably give it to me. You don't understand--”

"I understand well enough,” Mortius hissed dangerously, cutting the other man off mid sentence. "We are the chosen three, Pelion. Me, you and Demosthenes. Together we are his Soul, his Strength and his Faith. Our will should be as one, united and unbreakable, yet you have chosen to act alone and counter to our wishes. You have undermined Demosthenes, and you have challenged me! A battle was fought and lost today because of your actions and now this..." he waved the amulet for emphasis, "...this most precious treasure of His cause has been defiled, and all for what? To reach a goal that could just as easily have been achieved had we worked together and not against one another."

He span on his heel and started back down to the water's edge, the amulet swinging carelessly at his side as he went.

"There will be no more games," he said as he reached the water and held up the amulet, preparing to cast it into the ocean. "There is too much at stake, and far too much has already been risked. I want your word that from this moment onward, your schemes stop. I have waited a long time for the day of His Return and I will not see it all come to ruin thanks to your vainglorious and self aggrandising behaviour. Do you understand me?"

Pelion eyed him warily, his gaze darting quickly between Mortius and the amulet.

"I understand," he nodded eventually, forcing a note of humility into his voice "and I concede that I perhaps should have been more open in my intentions, but I only ever acted in His interests as I understood them. If you require me to be more cooperative in the future, then I shall endeavour to be just that. All I ask in return is that you hand me the amulet..."

With that, he held out his hand, palm up and waiting expectantly. Mortius watched him silently for a moment.

"Your word," he said finally. "Do I have it?"

Pelion nodded almost eagerly.

"Absolutely," he said. "Now please, just give me the amulet. You don't know the lengths I went to... the risks I took to see it come this far..."

"You're right," Mortius said with a nod, lowering the amulet slightly. "I don't know. I do know, however, how important it must have been to you to risk so much."

"Yes," Pelion nodded eagerly, motioning with his hand for Mortius to pass him the amulet. "Yes, indeed! More important than anything short of His freedom! Certainly more important than anything that has happened here today!"

Mortius nodded again.

"Then that will make this a fitting punishment then, won't it?" he said, and before Pelion could stop him, he had whirled the amulet above his head and sent it spinning out over the water.

"NO!" Pelion cried in desperation, hitching his robes to his knees and splashing out into the shallows, vainly trying to pursue the amulet as it sailed away from him.

The reaction when it hit the surface of the water was immediate. The cool ocean surf caused the heated obsidian – already cracked and weakened – to shatter into a dozen pieces that each bobbed for a moment on the surface of the ocean before sinking out of sight.

Ignoring Pelion's anguished cries, Mortius turned and began to make his way back up the beach. It was only when the other man stopped shouting that he paused, frowned, and then turned to look back in the direction he had thrown the amulet. Pelion was still standing in the shallows, but he was slowly beginning to back out onto the shore again, his hands raised nervously as if to ward off something. Beyond him, where the amulet had sank from view, the water was now a ferocious, boiling mess, great clouds of steam billowing up from the churning broth as the water super-heated and burned away into the cool autumn air.

"What in Tartarus is going on?" Demosthenes said, stepping up beside him. Mortius did not have an answer for him, but a cold dread was beginning to settle in his gut.

Suddenly, the bubbling mass of water exploded in a great shower of saline spray as a torrent of smokeless fire erupted out from beneath the ocean's surface. It shot straight up some thirty feet or so, forcing all those watching to crane their heads back to keep track of it. Then, as if some malign hand were guiding it, the fire arced ferociously back down through the air, before hammering down onto the beach with such force that the impact cast huge clods of glassed sand out in all directions. Where it had hit, the fire burned a little while longer, slowly shrinking in size and intensity, until eventually all that remained of it was a blackened, smouldering pile of ash.

Slowly and cautiously, the three men edged closer to the remnants of the fire. On closer inspection, Mortius quickly saw that the ash was not simply some misshapen pile. Somehow it had arrayed itself in the shape of a person laying face down and limbs splayed out in the sand. Still being cautious, he leaned forward, lifting the haft of his sickle and prodding at the ash pile.

A hand burst from the ash, causing both Pelion and Demosthenes to take an alarmed step back. Thin tapered fingers grasped the haft of Mortius' sickle and clutched tightly to it as, slowly but surely, the figure lying beneath the ash began to stir. With an angry snarl, Mortius wrenched the haft of his sickle free and took a step back himself, watching in horror as the figure clambered painstakingly to its feet. Beside the streaks of ash, dirt and sand covering her from head to toe, the figure was naked as a new born babe, but that did not seem to bother her in the least. As she straightened, she rolled her head and neck on her shoulders to a loud series of accompanying pops, before letting out a satisfied sigh and tilting her head back to let the warmth of the morning sun wash over her. Even under the grime of the ash, it was obvious her hair was a wild and fierce blonde, and her features were sharp, thin, and all too worryingly familiar.

Frowning in confusion, Mortius took a step forward.

"Callisto?" he said, studying the newcomer carefully.

The woman lowered her face to his and opened big brown eyes, pupils shrinking in the morning sun as they fixed him with a steady stare. There was a madness shining behind those eyes that gave even Mortius the chills. Slowly, the corners of the woman's mouth began to creep upward, forming a familiar wicked grin

"My dear Mortius, what ever is the matter?" she said mockingly. "You look like you've seen a ghost!"

THE END

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