This work is based on characters and situations from Xena: Warrior Princess that are copyrighted by MCA/Universal Studios and their use in this work is in no way intended to infringe on those rights. Antares, Messenger and Champion of Gaea is my original creation and I retain all rights to her.

This work contains sex and violence comparable to what appeared in the series Xena: Warrior Princess.  However, certain assumptions are refuted and toes no doubt will be stepped on.  Be warned.  In addition, the Goddess Eris, Goddess of Strife and Discord appears in a role that is not entirely accurate mythologically.  I ask the followers of this Goddess to indulge me for the sake of the story. Likewise, the generally unfavorable depiction of "Eli's God" is in keeping with the original series.  No disrespect is intended.   



2109 BCE

     There was no peace in Heaven.  The normally serene skies were filled with storm clouds and thunder rumbled in the distance.  The Archangel Michael mantled his wings like a bird of prey as he confronted the figure in front of him, his handsome face contorted in most unangelic fury.
     “I forbid it!”
     The object of his ire regarded him calmly.  The shrouded figure was female, that much was certain, but no other details were visible.  The dark blue robe covered her from her ankles to the top of her head, her face hidden in the depths of her hood.  Only her hands, slender and strong, were easily visible.
     “You.  Forbid?” Her tone was as cold and dry as the air that swirled around them.  “I was unaware that your job description included giving me orders.”  Her voice hardened.  “The Great Mother has given the order.  I will carry it out.  The Power you serve has neither the authority nor the will to countermand that order.”
     “I will stop you!”  Michael roared into the rising wind.
     The woman laughed.  “You and what deity?” 
     Before Michael could reply, the sky turned black.  They both looked up as a whirlpool formed in the sky.
     “Let’s see what you’ve got,”  she murmured to the sky.  It answered with lightning that fell like rain, striking the place where she stood again and again.  The force of the strikes drove Michael back to a safe distance.
     “Great is your power, my Lord!” He bellowed to the heavens and laughed.  The lightning stopped and Michael the Archangel choked on his laughter.
     The woman stood unscathed on a circle of blasted rock.  In her left hand she held a ball of brilliant, seething energy the size of a human head.  Horrified, Michael realized that she held the lightning that had struck her.  She looked to the sky.
     “Is that all you’ve got?” Her contempt obvious, she addressed the energy in her hand.  “Return to sender,” she commanded.  “Times three!”  Obedient to her will, the captured energy left her hand at lightning speed.   It flashed upward through the center of the whirlpool and disappeared.  A second passed.  Two.  Then the flash and the thunder.  And in the thunder, a howl of pain.  The shock wave knocked Michael to his knees.  He raised tearing eyes and recoiled. The woman stood, cool and unconcerned, watching the whirlpool disappear and the sky clear.
     “What have you done?” 
     “I’ve reminded your Lord of the rules by which we operate.”  She turned from the sky to regard the Archangel. “Now, where were we?” Michael got to his feet, defiant.  “Oh yes,” she continued.  “The Great Mother was willing to overlook your obsession with Xena until it interfered with your duties.  After all, you’re hardly the first immortal to have the hots for her.” 
     “ I do not...” Michael roared, which seemed the only tone of which he was capable.  She found it tiresome.
     “Silence!” she snapped.  “Save your explanations for Her.  She is aware that you tried to murder Aphrodite instead of rescuing her as She ordered you to do. She is aware that the Power you serve removed Xena’s belief that she could kill Gods just when she needed it most.  She is aware that you, under that Power’s orders, tricked Xena into remaining dead when the manner and circumstances of her death were more than sufficient atonement for her crime.  She is not happy and She will be along presently to speak to you and Him about it.” 
     “My God...”  The woman gestured and the words stopped in Michael’s throat.  His masculine posturing was getting on her nerves.
     “Your god is manipulative, petulant, vindictive and spoiled.  He uses people ... and angels ... until they displease Him, then He discards them like broken toys.  He has no honor and no loyalty.  You have both forgotten who you ultimately serve.”  She noticed Michael turning an interesting shade of purple and released his voice.  He used it.
     “You have no authority to speak to me in this manner.  I have been alive since the Beginning!”
     “Check your organizational chart, wingboy,” she replied flippantly, having decided to get what amusement she could from his outrage while she could.  The coming days promised to be devoid of such rich opportunities.  “I may be considerably younger than you but I outrank you by a bunch.”  She stepped up to him and for the first time, he could look down and see her eyes.  He looked and was afraid.  She saw his fear but gave him no relief.  “Your God overstepped His authority when he tricked the Olympians into believing that Xena was a threat to them.  Then, He used Xena to murder them, hoping that she would take the blame and He would be able to escape the consequences and step into the power vacuum He created.  Trouble is, it isn’t His turn on the Wheel of Time.  He doesn’t have the power or the right to this time and place.  The power vacuum He created is going to be filled, all right, but not by Him and He hasn’t a prayer in Hell of stopping what’s coming.  Xena is the only hope we have and it may already be too late!”  She turned from him and stepped away, preparing to leave. “Good bye, Archangel.  I go to undo what you have done.  May the Divine Source grant that I am in time.”
     “You can’t use a resurrection spell on ashes!  I made sure that Gabrielle cremated her!”  Michael laughed.  “There is no way to bring that defiant bitch back!”
     She turned slightly, looking back over her shoulder at the outraged, impotent Archangel.  He really looked like nothing so much as a small boy, caught in his misdeeds and facing punishment, indulging in one last defiant outburst.  She could almost feel sorry for him.  Almost.  She lifted her head and listened.  She could feel the approach of the Great Mother.  Time to go. 
     “Is that so?” she laughed.  “Who says I’m going to use a spell?”  Still laughing, she pirouetted in place and was gone.

It didn’t take long to find one, a small clearing not too far from the town and just off the path.  She took a moment to feel the energy of the place and smiled.  Aphrodite had been worshipped here, often and vigorously.  It was lucky that it wasn’t being used for that purpose presently.  The followers of Eli’s God didn’t have much use for physical love, believing that it detracted from their devotion to their God.  A rather shortsighted God who didn’t approve of fun in any form, especially that sort of fun. The fact that His disapproval of sex, if universally adhered to, would result in the extinction of the human race was of no consequence to Him.  Only obedience to His Word mattered.  Fortunately for the continuation of the human race, Aphrodite’s influence was bred into the blood and bones of every living thing and the urge to indulge in an energetic tussle in the woods, which could perhaps result in new life, could not and would not be denied forever.  The Messenger indulged for a moment or two in the lusty joy that permeated the place and then settled down to work. 
     She sat in the middle of the clearing and visualized a circle of energy running around the outer edge of it.  Divine meddling by Eli’s God had made it nearly impossible for a mortal to work effective magic.  It was still possible, otherwise the miracles He used to win followers wouldn’t happen, but for those working outside His purview, it was hard, slow and unreliable.  The Messenger was most definitely outside His purview but, for her, magic was easy, fast and reliable as the sunrise.  Such were the benefits of being Gaea’s Messenger.  She spent a few moments defining the purpose of the spell.  Then she reached out with her mind and gathered in the abundant energy around her into a compact ball.  Then she reached for the distant clouds and linked them to the energy ball.  She felt/heard a tiny pop as the spell worked.  She smiled, dropped her protective circle and settled down to wait.

     Gabrielle leaned back against the back of the single occupancy wooden bathtub and sighed.  Hot, fresh water.  Soft, sweet smelling soap.  No keeping watch for gawking sailors.  Feeling really, really clean for the first time in months.  It simply didn’t get any better than that.  This was her third tubful of water.  The first two had been for cleaning off the ocean voyage that had brought her here.  This one was for soaking, relaxing, enjoying.  A throaty chuckle made her open her eyes and look toward the foot of the tub.  Xena sat on the edge of the tub, trailing immaterial fingers in the water.
     “What’s funny?” Gabrielle asked, quietly, lest she be overheard talking to herself.
     “The blissful expression on your face.  I haven’t seen it in a while.”
     “It’s been a while since I had a bath this good.  Mountain lakes are fine for getting clean but for pure, unadulterated luxury, give me a hot bath in civilized surroundings.”
     “This village is hardly the apex of civilization.”
     “It’s close enough.” Gabrielle considered.  “Besides, I never really cared for the Roman Baths.  Plenty of water, soap and towels but too many onlookers and spies.”
     Xena grinned.  Gabrielle still found being naked in the presence of strangers unnerving.  “Since you are presently occupied, I thought I’d scout ahead, maybe find out where Eve has landed this time.”
     “Go ahead.  I hope she’s stopped long enough for us to catch up with her.  We’ve been a week behind her since she left India.”
     “I know.  If she could see me, I could have told her to wait for us.  Unfortunately, you seem to be the only person who can.”
     “I wonder why that is.  You’d think your daughter would be able to see you.”
     “Eve and I have never had a chance to be close.  She was a baby when you and I were frozen and we were together only a few months, at most, before she went to India and then...” Xena let the thought trail off unspoken.
     Gabrielle wouldn’t let the thought go.  “You died.  To pay for a stupid mistake.   Then you remained dead to satisfy some twisted idea of vengeance and honor!  Your death supposedly freed ten thousand innocent souls to pass to the Afterlife.  What kind of deity would hold even one innocent soul hostage?” Xena didn’t react to Gabrielle’s vehemence.  “No god I would honor, that’s for sure!”
     “We’ve had this argument before, Gabrielle.  I won’t go over it again.  Even if I were having second thoughts, it is too late.  I’m dead and that’s that.” Xena looked off into the distance, through the wall, to where Eve likely was.  “I’ll be back soon.”  She faded to transparency and was gone. Gabrielle resumed her soak, no longer as happy has she had been.

Far to the north of the village where Eve taught, Ares ran. The hills and valleys of Thrace were among the Wargod’s favorite places on Earth and it was to them that Ares came when the oppressive silence of the deserted Olympus became too much to bear.  Inactivity plagued him as well.  The Pax Roma, the Roman Peace, was taking hold, leaving very little in the way of work for a God of War.  So, with inactivity and memories gnawing at his soul, Ares had fled the silent halls of Olympus to run.  He was also hungry and rather that simply producing what he wanted by magic, he would hunt. During his rather lengthy stint as a mortal, he had developed an appreciation for the mortal condition which he was only beginning to recognize.  The satisfaction of preparing his own food, especially when the result was edible, was one of the the first he recognized.  The value of fatigue when reality was too much to bear had also become quickly evident.  So Ares revived a long neglected practice of his, he put limits on his power.  With his powers cut back to a demigod’s level, he stripped himself naked in the manner of traditional Greek athletes and week after week, he trained.  He lifted weights until his muscles screamed. He trained with sword and staff and spear alone and with opponents he sought out.  And he ran.  And at night, exhausted, he slept deeply and without dreams.  It was good.
     Ares paused in this headlong run, his attention caught by something on the trail.  He crouched to examine the thing that had caught his attention.  A fierce grin lit his handsome face.  It was the track of a wild pig, a large one to judge from the depth of the track.  Roast pork sounded good.  Taking on several hundred pounds of enraged pig barehanded was even better.  Artemis had never done that, she preferred to kill from a distance.  At one time Hercules could have done it but as far as Ares knew, he never had.  Ares rose easily from his crouch, a vision of grace and power carved of bone and muscle, and followed the trail his quarry had left.

Hidden in the bushes some fifty feet from where Ares’ quarry had fallen, the woods nymph Panphila and her sisters Amarande and Tyro watched the hero. He had to be a hero or maybe a demigod (!) as he stretched and flexed his magnificent body, presumably to check for injuries.  First, he rotated his head, stretching his neck, then his shoulders.  After rotating his shoulders, flexing his back, chest and arms, he moved to his legs.  The nymphs were transfixed by his display and consequently, were not as quiet as they should have been.
     Ares smiled to himself as he knelt beside his kill and discreetly cast the small spell that would preserve the unbled carcass until he could tend to it.  He’d spotted the nymphs in the bushes and intended to invite them to a pig roast. But first, he had decided that they’d engage in some brisk, vigorous exercise.  In one smooth movement, he came to his feet, vaulted the carcass and charged, full speed, toward the nymphs who, as he had expected, exploded out of cover like a covey of birds.  Each fled in a different direction.  Two were blondes, the third had black hair.  Ares  followed her.
     Nymphs were fast and impossible for a mortal man to catch. Even a demigod could be hard pressed to catch one if she didn’t want to be caught.  Gods had no such problems.  Ares stayed close enough to deep her running with no opportunity to hide.  When they broke into a beautiful glade equipped with a running stream and a deep pool, Ares made his move.  Between one stride and the next, Ares vanished.  The nymph glanced back over her shoulder fully expecting to see her pursuer behind her.  When she didn’t see him, she slowed and then stopped.
     Ares appeared right in front of her.  With a squeal of fright, she tried to bolt but he grabbed her before she could take a step.  With his left arm holding her against him, he pressed his right hand against the base of her spine and fed energy directly into her nervous system.
     There was a reason why Zeus had always been so successful with women even though everyone knew what Hera did to his lovers.  God energy, the Divine Fire, fed directly into a mortal woman’s body at the base of her spine caused uncontrollable desire.  A semi divine creature, such as a nymph, was also susceptible.  Only a Goddess who, by her nature, possessed her own Divine Fire, could resist the advances of a God.  That was why they ran.  Why they were willing to be changed into streams, or reeds or trees if that was the only avenue of escape.
     Tyro had no wish to escape.
     “Who?” she gasped as Ares withdrew the Fire.  He had never used it to coerce a woman, it was a point of pride with him.  The Fire was for the enhancement of his partner’s pleasure, nothing more.
     “Ares,” he answered.  She threw her arms around his neck and he took her mouth in a kiss that burned like Divine Fire.              No more was said for a long time.  Much later, after the other two and joined them and each had received an ample share of Ares’ amorous attention two or three times (Ares lost count), they told him how, terrified after the fall of Olympus, their patron Pan had fled to the safety of an adjacent dimension.  They had been gathering flowers and teasing shepherds that day and had been left behind.  Ares kissed away their tears and promised to open the way that Pan had taken so that they could follow him.
     “Keep us with you, Lord Ares,’ they pleaded.
     “No,” Ares replied firmly.  “This world is changing and not for the better.  You will be happier and” he raised an admonishing finger to silence their protests, “safer in the world Pan has fled to.”
     “Can’t you protect us, Lord Ares?” Tyro asked quietly.
     Ares looked away to the horizon for a long moment before he answered.  “No, I can’t,”  he said quietly.  “I’m not sure that I can protect myself.”  That admission, that Ares, who had no equal in physical combat, was unsure of his ability to protect himself sobered the three nymphs.
     “It will be as you say, Lord Ares,” Tyro replied.
     “Will you come with us?” Amarande, the most timid of the three, asked.
     “No, little one,” Ares replied, gently lifting her chin and wiping away her tears.  “There are still those in this world who worship me and I will not abandon them.”
     “Unlike Pan,” Tyro said.  “We will go, my Lord, but I will not return to Pan.  I will wait for you.”
     “And I.”
     “And I.”
     Ares was touched and kissed each one in turn.  Then, with a wave of his hand, a luxurious pavilion appeared with a feast laid out on a long table.  The centerpiece was, not surprisingly, roast boar.      
     “I will open the door tomorrow at dawn.  Tonight, we will eat and drink and make love as if all eternity lay before us,” he proclaimed.
     And they did.

In the common room, the party was preceding nicely.  Gabrielle and another bard had been engaged in a competition of storytelling that was edging toward epic.  The fact that she had a nearly unlimited supply of “Xena, the Warrior Princess” stories that no one had ever heard gave Gabrielle a slight edge.  She sat to one side, quenching her thirst with water -- no more wine to muddle the brain! -- while the other bard wove the tale of an Amazon champion named Antares, who had, according to the tale, claimed a magic sword, rescued a Spartan prince and saved the Amazon Nation all at the tender age of fourteen. 
     “Have you ever heard of this champion?”  Xena asked as the bard described in gory detail the rescue of the prince and his Amazon honor guard from the bandits that had kidnapped him for ransom.
     “No.  She must have been after my time,” Gabrielle replied quietly.  “What story do you think I should tell next?”
     Xena took a moment to consider before answering.  The tale of Antares the Avenger (a number of her Amazon sisters had been killed when the prince was kidnapped, hence the avenging) was certainly a crowd pleaser and Antares sounded like Xena’s sort of woman.  “How about the one where Ares’ sword was stolen and he lost his powers and we had to help him get it and them back?”
     “You weren’t in your own body then.”
     “So explain.  It makes the story better.” 
     Gabrielle turned her attention to her next tale while Xena listened to the story being told.  One disadvantage of traveling with a bard was that you heard the same stories over and over again.  Gabrielle was a gifted storyteller but since the overwhelming majority of her stories were about Xena and since Xena had been there when they happened, they didn’t hold her interest as much as they might have.  Xena listened as the tale of Antares unfolded.  So absorbed in the story was she that, at first, she didn’t notice the “itch” that began to nag ever so gently at the edges of her consciousness. 
     Suddenly, she knew.  “My ashes,” she cried, “someone has stolen my ashes!”  And disappeared. Gabrielle, being material, had to settle for bolting for the door, knocking over her chair and causing several patrons to dive out of her way. Several of the other bard’s partisans, angry that her departure had interrupted his story, came storming outside in time to see a furtive shadow race with impossible speed across the roof tops with Gabrielle in hot pursuit on the ground.  The hue and cry went up and in short order every able bodied male, and no few females, in the town were following Gabrielle.

     The Messenger traveled fast.  Her grav-belt reduced her weight to about a sixth of normal and she needed the advantage. Gabrielle was hot on her tail with Xena giving her directions every time the Messenger tried to elude her.  Without breaking stride, the Messenger said three words, paused and said four more.  Then she ran another few feet, changed direction and hid.  The pursuit passed by.  The spell had made her invisible to ghosts and other similar spirits.  As long as she evaded detection by living humans, she could pass unnoticed.  Grinning, she slipped toward the next shadow.
     “I’ve lost her!” Xena snarled.  “One second she was there and the next, she was gone!” Only Gabrielle heard her but the rest of the pursuers realized that their quarry had given them the slip.
     “Spread out,” someone yelled, “he couldn’t have gotten far!”  The crowd dispersed and Gabrielle headed for the main gate, intending to be in position to give chase if the thief made it outside the walls.  She wondered briefly if Autolycus had had any children.
     “Here!” someone shouted.  “He’s gone over the back wall!”
     “Damn!” Gabrielle swore as she ran out the main gate and started around the town’s wall.  She knew from previous visits that there was no back gate.  The town had an escape tunnel that led to the sea but only one gate to defend.  A swarm of townspeople followed her.
     The Messenger heard the sounds of pursuit and knew that she didn’t have much time.  Fortunately, having planned ahead, she didn’t need much.  She had run straight to the clearing where she had done her previous magic and placed the urn containing Xena’s mortal remains in the center of the space.  Then she pulled a small, rectangular device from one of her pockets and pointed the narrow end at the urn.  Numbers appeared on the tiny display.
     “Ninety-nine point nine nine.  Not bad,” she observed.  “Gabrielle did a good job.  I won’t have to use Plan B after all.”  She had not relished the thought of cloning a complete new body for Xena under the current, less than technologically adequate conditions.  Just getting a clone casket into this time would have been a major project in and of itself! She tucked the scanner away and pulled out another, somewhat larger device. Under the plate that read: Property of the Temporal Enforcement Agency  One Time Use  another display clicked away counting the seconds as they added up to minutes then hours and then days.  The Messenger had learned of Xena’s plan to commit Suicide by Samurai too late to reach her and kick some sense into her thick head. She had had barely enough time to retrieve this unit and activate it.  She later learned that she had been barely in time.  She had started the unit only an hour before Xena had allowed herself to be killed.  The display now showed, in days, hours, minutes and seconds the elapsed time since then.  She set the device down next to the urn.  The mob was getting closer.  Everything was preset. All that remained was to push the button.  She pushed it and ran.

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