Prophecy of Darkness (8 page)

The strange old fellow hopped to the road in front of them, and Xena saw that he carried no weapon. She sheathed her sword and smiled at him, raising her hands to show that they meant no harm.

“Hello,” she said, and then motioned Gabrielle and Alesandra to step forward with her. “My name is Xena, and these are my friends, Gabrielle and Alesandra—”

The old man's lined and dirty face melted into an expression of gleeful surprise. “Xena! The warrior woman, I heard of ye! Ye're a story I heard! Men be travelin' through, years ago, said Xena was a mighty slayer!”

The odd little man danced around in a circle, delighted with himself, dust rising from his tattered clothes. “I met the great Xena! Truth, is truth! Ol' Binjer met great Xena—no one can said it ain't so!”

Xena relaxed a little more. He was insane, all right—but not in a dangerous way, it seemed. He wasn't threatening in the slightest, dancing and cackling to himself with the open smile of a child.

“So you're . . . Binjer?”

He stopped, out of breath, and nodded eagerly, his rheumy eyes twinkling. “'Tis truth! I be Binjer, hunter of rabbit and squirrel, fisher of frogs and baker of bread! That's me! Lived here most my life, not a week out from the Great Dark!”

Xena nodded. “Is that what you call Hades?”

Binjer's childish grin faded a bit. “Aye. That an' Avernus. They be the Great Dark, the black places. Been there once. Wouldn't go again, not me . . . You neither, aye? Don't be goin' to the Dark, ain't no good there.”

He grinned again, and stepped closer. “Stay here an' I'll make bread, yes I will! You an' yer girls is welcome with Binjer!”

As he moved closer to them, Xena could see that he was very old, more ancient than anyone she had met personally. The average life of a man wasn't much more than sixty, and Binjer had that beat by at least twenty years. He was sprightly, though, and seemed to be in good health.

Perhaps being a few arrows short of a quiver has its benefits
, she thought mildly, and then shook her head in apology.

“I'm sorry, Binjer, but we have urgent business farther along. Maybe on the way back—”

He frowned, the crinkles of his face almost swallowing his bright eyes. “Ain't no one come back from the Great Dark! Stay now—bread, I say—and I got fresh frog meat!”

Xena shook her head again, wincing inwardly at Binjer's idea of a taste treat. “Thank you—but as I say, we have to go.”

He grinned again and shrugged. “I can go a few miles along, aye? Just a walk for me, good for the heart! Aye? 'Tis all right?”

Xena glanced at Gabrielle and then Alesandra. They both nodded, smiling, obviously agreeable to the idea. A break from routine for them . . . and she
was
curious—how did he know they were going to Hades? And what had he seen on his single visit to Avernus? Xena turned back to a hopeful-looking Binjer and nodded.

“All right. We would be glad to have your company—for a few miles.”

Binjer laughed and clapped his hands, then danced around in another small circle, almost singing the words: “Binjer goes with Xena, Xena and her friends!”

Xena grinned, suddenly glad that they had happened upon the old man. Alesandra and Gabrielle both clapped their hands when he finally stopped his dancing, and the four of them started walking, the mad Binjer smiling happily at his newfound friends.

“So how
did
you know we were going to Avernus?” Gabrielle asked.

Binjer grinned his broken smile. “Only place this road leads, ain't it? There's other roads, yes, but this be the one that takes ye straight there.” He glanced at Xena and Alesandra, then back to Gabrielle and added, “Besides, ye all got that
look
.”

“Look?”

Binjer nodded, then set his face in a grim, determined expression, staring straight ahead. He squared his shoulders and raised his chin, puffing his scrawny chest out.

Gabrielle smirked. “I get it. We look like we're on a mission, right?”

Binjer grinned again, a more natural look for him. The sham of seriousness hadn't suited him. “Truth, 'tis truth! A mission, and one ye don't look forward to, neither! Ol' Binjer sees 'em all, all those men and women that pass me by. I can tell. And I don't see many of 'em come back through, neither. Thems that does, that don't have that look no more, aye . . .”

Xena was riding Argo again, the others walking alongside. It had been almost an hour since they'd met, and the afternoon sun was heavy in the west, the air hot and still. Binjer had already proven himself useful; besides telling some truly awful jokes and merrily singing along with Alesandra and Gabrielle, he'd pointed out a kind of berry that grew in this region, one that no none of the others had seen before. The fruits were mottled green, blending into the leaves of the bushes, and they were sweet and plentiful. Gabrielle had already picked a bag full, and Binjer had sworn up and down that they made the best wine he'd ever tasted.

“I may be dim, but I ain't a liar,” he said happily, prompting Xena to take a closer look at him. When he wasn't grinning or frowning, the lines of his face seemed to melt away, making him look like an untroubled man. The wrinkles of his skin were from age, not worry or heavy thinking; he'd been born a little slow, she figured, and had apparently lived most of his life alone; no wonder he was a few coins short. He'd had to learn how to keep himself amused.

“Binjer,” Xena said gently. “You said you'd been to Avernus once, and to Hades—what was it like?”

Binjer looked up at her and frowned, his lips pursing. “Bad, bad,
bad
. That lake ain't got no fish. No hunting in the woods there, neither, just ugly black birds,
caw
!
Caw!
Like that.”

“Crows,” said Gabrielle. Binjer nodded, still frowning as he continued.

“That be Avernus. And then in the castle, that's where Hades be. I seen the wall, 'tis truth! Wouldn't step inside, no—”

Xena felt her pulse speed up. “Castle?”

“Aye, where Bain was. Martus Bain, nice, good man. He and his wife and son—the lady died, though, sad to say, long time ago.”

“Martus Bain, the scholar?” At Binjer's confused look, Xena rephrased the question. “The man who studies books?”

Binjer grinned. “That's the one! He'd be old now, mebbe. Older than me, mebbe, and that's
old
!”

Xena was suddenly
delighted
that Binjer had joined them; she knew of Martus Bain—he was from a village near where she had grown up, and she still remembered stories from her childhood about the man who was a counsel to kings. Bain had written books on everything from warfare to penmanship, and had been widely renowned for his intelligence and scholarship.

He had disappeared when she was still a young woman, and stories had it that he had married and become a recluse, hiding away somewhere to devote himself to his studies . . .

Hiding in a castle near Avernus, perhaps? Xena nodded to herself, and could almost hear the pieces falling into place. Although she had never met the man, he was said to be a fighter for good; could it be that he had chosen a place so close to Hades in order to study the place, perhaps to try and unravel the mysteries of its darker side?

“When was the last time you were at this castle, Binjer?”

The old man cocked his head to one side. “Oh, not so long. Well—a few years, I guess. Mebbe ten? Martus was old, yes, but his son was yer age, I think.” He nodded at Alesandra.

Gabrielle and Alesandra exchanged looks with Xena and each other. Xena could see that they were coming to the same conclusions.

“A
young
man with no evil in his heart—” said Gabrielle.

“—who has a book—a book of spells?” said Xena.

“Who will not heed his father's words,” said Alesandra softly, and she finished for them. “This young man makes a mistake with this book, and he undoes a beast that
allows
evil into the world.”

“Cerebrus,” said Xena, “the guard at the gate.” All three of them stared at one another.

Binjer gazed at them, smiling, and then laughed. “Hey, that's a good one! I got a story about a king that loses his pants and the whole kingdom goes around without
their
pants, just to be fashion-like! Can you picture such a thing?”

Xena turned to him. “Binjer, can you show us where this castle is? It's very important that we find it.”

A look of unease flashed across his pleasant old face. “No, I not be goin' to Avernus no more . . . but say, I could draw ye a map, I guess! That would be good, aye?”

Xena smiled at Binjer, and his expression went back to one of simple happiness.

“That would be fine, just fine,” she said. “Maybe you can join us for dinner, and you could show us then.”

Binjer grinned and broke into another dance. “Eat with Xena, and her friends! Show them where the castle stands!”

Xena smiled for him, but felt an overwhelming urgency to get to Avernus. The moon would be full soon, and in this instance, figuring out the puzzle didn't mean that it was solved.

Martus Bain's son was going to open the gates to Hades, and unless they could stop him in time, his actions would bring about the doom of their world.

They camped early, so that Binjer would have time to find his way home before it got too dark. Using a stick in the dirt, he drew a simple map to the castle, apparently only a few hours from Avernus. In spite of the childish drawing, the directions were clear and Xena thought they could find it easily.

Binjer exclaimed over Gabrielle's roasting of the two rabbits that Xena had caught for dinner. “This be better'n frog, 'tis truth! I can say to anyone, Xena found rabbit an' Gabrielle cooked 'em good! Dinner for Binjer, ain't that nice?”

When they had finished eating, they all stood to wish their strange companion a safe trip home. Alesandra even hugged him, and smiled up at him with a light in her eyes.

“You won't be lonely for long, Binjer,” she said, and hugged him again. “You'll be with new friends soon.”

Xena and Gabrielle glanced at each other and then bid their own farewells. Binjer made them promise to come visit him when they came back from their quest.

“You can try my wine, the
best
,” he said, and with another big grin, he turned and walked away, singing to himself. A few minutes later, there was only the sound of crickets, warming up to their own twilight music.

Gabrielle looked over at Alesandra. “Did you ‘see' something when you touched him?”

Alesandra nodded. “Yes. He's going to be moving soon, although I didn't see where. But the people there will like him, and he'll be happy.”

Xena studied Binjer's map for another moment, fixing the image firmly in her mind, and then joined the other two by the crackling fire. She gave them a brief account of what she knew about Martus Bain.

“It all makes sense, doesn't it?” said Gabrielle. “At least we know what we're up against now. It doesn't sound like this Bain character
means
to do anything wrong; that's something, isn't it?”

Xena nodded, but suddenly remembered a phrase that she had heard many times throughout her life. “The road to Hades is paved with good intentions,” she said, and then shrugged. “Meaning well is a fine thing—but it's the action taken that matters most in the end.”

All three of them considered that silently, watching the flames dance in the gathering night—where the moon rose cold and high, almost full now.

The journey had taken longer than they'd expected. It was the night before the full moon, which meant they had less than twenty-four hours—and they still hadn't seen the waters of Avernus. Or much of anything, for that matter.

The days and nights passed faster than Argo could travel, even if he had been able to carry all three of them. The war-horse, though in her prime, could not have borne the extra weight for such a journey—no horse could have. Xena and Alesandra rode, while Gabrielle hurried alongside; Gabrielle never had gotten the hang of riding easily. The large animal, though nice enough, just made her nervous.

Not as nervous as this place does
, Gabrielle thought worriedly.
Or that moon.
It
looked
full as it rose heavy into the night sky, and although Xena said she was sure that they would find the castle at first light the next morning, Gabrielle had seen the concern in her usually unreadable pale eyes. Even looking up at the nearly round orb now made Gabrielle's heart pound. What if Binjer's directions were wrong? What if they
couldn't
find the castle?

“Tomorrow night,” said Alesandra. “Tomorrow night it's going to happen.”

The girl was also gazing at the moon, looking as scared and exhausted as Gabrielle felt. The surroundings didn't help their moods much, either—never in all her life had Gabrielle seen such a desolate and ugly place. Xena said that it meant they were very close, and they didn't dare travel any farther after dark or they would risk the nightmares that were said to haunt the area.

This
place
is a nightmare;
thought Gabrielle. She and Alesandra sat close to the fire, waiting for Xena to return from her hunt. The gnarled, gray trees seemed to come to life by the dying light of day, creeping toward them as twilight faded. She knew it was just her imagination (well,
probably
), but the whole area was . . .
forbidding,
straight-out spooky.

Gabrielle smiled at Alesandra, hoping that she looked more confident than she actually was. “Hey, we're almost there!
Nothing
is going to happen tomorrow night; we'll find the castle, and Xena will explain things to this Bain person, and that'll be it. End of story.”

“Maybe,” said Alesandra. “I hope so.” She didn't sound particularly hopeful.

Gabrielle moved closer to the girl, as much for Alesandra's sake as for her own. This was a place that seemed to suck the hope out of everything, although at least the crows had finally shut up . . .

Every day for a week the landscape had grown stranger, more ominous—the trees, the air, even the quality of light had become like something out of a bad dream, a dream of a desolate emptiness. With each step they took toward Avernus, Gabrielle had discovered some new bizarre feature that made her skin crawl: brittle yellowed grass covered the rocky soil in fungus-like patches; the few animals they'd seen peered out at them from behind the knotty trees, their eyes wild and red, almost feral; just the absence of any other human beings was bad enough—but those squawking crows! From sunrise to sundown for two whole days the skies had been filled with their horrible shrieks, like a mocking chorus aimed at their very humanity.
Leave
, those cries seemed to say.
Leave or be lost forever . . .

Xena stepped into the flickering circle of light so suddenly that Gabrielle jumped, her heart thumping loudly.

“Gods, don't
do
that!”

Xena arched a delicate brow. “It's not my fault that you wouldn't hear anything approaching short of a herd of cattle.”

“Yeah, well, you don't have to be so
quiet
all the time,” Gabrielle muttered. She noticed that Xena wasn't carrying anything and felt her spirits drop even lower.

“No luck?”

Xena shook her head and reached for their food pack, still on Argo's saddle. “If there's anything alive in these woods, I didn't hear it.”

Gabrielle sighed. “Then there isn't anything alive,” she said, and then shuddered slightly at the words. Binjer hadn't been exaggerating; except for the crows, the woods near Avernus held no life—yet another unsettling thought to add to her already long list of them.

Xena frowned as she sorted through the last of their supplies. Enough for another full day, if they ate small meals. Beyond that, they'd have to leave the area so that she could hunt.

If we don't find Bain's castle tomorrow; eating well will be the least of our troubles.
She winced inwardly at the thought and then portioned out one of the last hunks of jerky. It wasn't like her to think so negatively, but in truth, it worried her that they hadn't even reached Avernus yet, let alone the castle. She had underestimated how long it would take them, that was all—but she couldn't help feeling as if they were moving in slow-motion, that no matter how hard they tried, they wouldn't arrive in time . . .

She had considered going out alone while the other two slept, to scout for the lake and the castle—but in spite of the fullness of the moon, the land was treacherously dark, as if the ground were somehow absorbing the light. She didn't want to risk Argo on a scouting mission in these conditions. And besides, it didn't feel safe to leave Gabrielle and Alesandra alone, even for a short time.

She sighed again; it was this place, the air here—hope was an unwelcome thing, she felt it deeply. It was as though they had journeyed into a blasted land, poor in both beauty
and
spirit—and the lack of essence was like a sponge, draining the life from the people who passed through.

Xena sat down across from Gabrielle and Alesandra after handing out their meager supper. They both looked worn out and yet anxious, their faces like mirrors of her own concerns.

“We'll be there tomorrow,” said Xena. “Try not to worry overmuch. It won't help matters.”

Gabrielle sighed. “Binjer didn't say anything about there being any guards, did he? Will we be stopped?”

Xena shook her head. “No, he didn't say. I doubt there are many, if any at all; the castle would be too isolated to support a large number. And I imagine that once we explain the situation, we'll have no trouble getting in.”

Alesandra looked up from the fire. “What if we do, though? What if they try to stop us?”

Xena shrugged. “Stay behind me. I haven't met a man yet who wouldn't stand down at the point of a sword.”

Gabrielle smiled. “Oh, really? What about that time—”

“Sorry, let me rephrase that; I've never met a
smart
man who wouldn't stand down at the point of a sword.” Xena grinned. “And now that you mention it, I've met quite a few with poor survival skills. If it comes to that, just try and keep out of the way until they . . . gain some wisdom.”

Gabrielle nodded. “And once we get inside?”

Xena thought about it. “We find Martus, and talk to him—or his son. Alesandra said that he's not a bad young man, and I know that Martus Bain could not have changed so much, even in twenty years. He was renowned for his kindness as well as his intelligence.”

Gabrielle turned to Alesandra. “You said that both you and I needed to be there . . . ?”

Alesandra nodded. “Yes, that was a very strong impression. I still don't know what we're supposed to do, if anything at all—but I know we have to be with Xena when she meets with the younger Bain.”

Gabrielle chewed at her lip uneasily. She had hoped that Alesandra would have seen something a bit more specific by now, the roles that they would play in the prophecy, for example—obviously not. That worried her as much as anything else thus far. What if the final outcome somehow depended on what
she
did, or didn't do?

“You'll do fine,” said Xena, smiling at her with a glint in her eye.

Gabrielle sighed. How did Xena always know? She wasn't
that
obvious, was she? Maybe her expressions needed some work . . .

Alesandra dropped her gaze back to the fire. “Sometimes when the outcome of a situation can be changed, my feelings about it change—or they go away altogether. It's happened a couple of times before. Like once, I saw that Otus was going to trip and fall really bad when he was out cutting wood. And when I told him that, he stayed home that day, and the feeling went away. He went the next day instead, and suffered no incident, nothing.”

She kept her gaze on the moving flames, her small shoulders hunched. “My feelings about what's going to happen tomorrow have become kind of cloudy, as if things
may
happen differently—although they may not; I can't say for sure. But I still . . . What I said, a couple of weeks ago, about one of us not coming back—that feeling hasn't gone away, or changed. It's gotten
stronger
.”

Xena reached out and gently patted her shoulder. “Hey—we're not going into this with our eyes closed. Once we explain the situation to Martus and his son, there won't be any problem . . .”

Alesandra hugged her knees even tighter. “Yes, there will,” she said, her voice small and pitiful. “There's going to be trouble. The closer we get, the more I'm sure of it.”

She looked up then, and met Xena's eyes, her own despairing and frightfully, painfully young. “
I'm
the one who won't be coming back. I feel it as clearly as I see you now.”