The sun was rising. The sky was awash with blue, pink and blazing yellow. The birds were a chorus to the beginning of the day. Xena and Gabrielle walked along in silence, Argo by Xena’s side. As they crested a hill they could see a great cluster of huts and other buildings in the valley below them.

“Nice village,” Gabrielle’s quiet voice momentarily broke the silence, which was immediately shattered beyond retrieval by a blood curdling scream.

A man’s body broke through a wall, followed by angry pursuers. Women and men burst out of their homes to head toward the commotion. The man that originally seemed to have been thrown through the wall, staggered to his feet and began sprinting away, armed men and women following. A woman snuck out the other side of that building and headed for a nearby woods. A young woman followed after her.

Xena and Gabrielle watched, stunned.

“Yeah, real nice,” Xena replied.

Xena mounted Argo with a leap and called out to Gabrielle, “I’ll try and stop the villagers, you –“

“I’ll go after the two who headed into the woods,” Gabrielle was already sprinting away.

Argo raced into the melee and Xena hurled herself into a somersault through the air, drawing her sword as she landed. The wounded man was behind her trapped against a wall. The villagers closed in. Xena, sword in hand, launched a series of kicks and punches that sent the attackers sprawling. One woman, knocked to the ground, got up and grabbed a nearby iron pike and raced at the warrior princess. The sound of metal on metal rang out through the air. Xena divested her of her weapon and sent her backwards into a nearby horse trough filled with water. She then turned her attention to the man behind her, fighting for his life against three others. One had him in a head lock with a thick piece of cloth and was squeezing the life out of him as the others punched him in the face and body. The man was gasping and choking.

“Where is it!” one of the attackers screamed, his face twisted in rage. He landed a devastating blow on the man’s face. “Where is it?!” he screamed again. His accomplice landed a blow to the man’s solar plexus.

One swift kick from the warrior princess knocked the face puncher’s hands out of the way, the second kick sent him flying. A blow to the head twirled the second assailant into an unconscious heap. Xena’s sword curved through space with incredible accuracy, slicing the victim free from the cloth that was choking him without scratching either him or the third man who wisely jumped back out of the way.

Xena took her place beside the man who was the object of all of this fury, sword out to ward off any fool that might rush in.

“Alright, that’s enough!” she shouted. “Now what has this man done to any of you? What are you after?”

The man by her side was still coughing and trying to recover.

“The necklace!” one woman shrieked. “He’s got the necklace!”

“Yeah!” “Yeah, the necklace.” the crowd murmured in assent.

“What necklace?” the warrior woman snapped in contempt. The thought that the entire village was beating up one man for the sake of a simple piece of jewelry confounded her.

“The necklace of the Goddess of Lerenika!” the woman snapped back as though everyone would understand. “The famous necklace, with the Plague Star Diamond! He brought it back to impress his wench!”

“She’s not a wench!”

“She is too!”

“It causes outbreaks! See look at the spots on my baby!”

“It doesn’t cause the outbreaks! It cures them!”

“It cures the outbreaks, I want it for my sister!”

“We need to get rid of it! It’s killing my family!”

“We don’t need the diamond for a cure, we need an exorcism!”

The villagers began to grow more angry, both with each other and with the hapless man that Xena had chosen to defend. They moved in closer, threatening and shouting. Xena swung her sword through the air in a great horizontal arc, forcing the closest in the mob to jump back and maintain their distance.

“Alright already, just hold on there!” she shouted back at the crowd. She turned to the frightened man beside her. “Just where did you get this necklace, anyway?”

“I bought it from a man who said that he stole it from the temple of Lerenika. He said he had to get rid of it because the penalty for stealing from the temple was banishment and death and it was too late for him, because he was dying.” he paused then continued. “He was dying of the plague.”

A gasp ran through the suspicious crowd.

Xena eyed the crowd, then turned back to the man and considered the situation.


Deep in the woods Gabrielle was sitting with the two women under a tree, clearly trying to understand their situation.

“It’s not just a diamond,” the slightly older woman explained. “It’s part of a magical instrument, it enables you to see the wonders of the world in a whole new way. It’s a part of a tool,” she continued. “Sabina, my bag.”

The younger woman reached around and handed her a velvet bag. The older woman detached the huge stone from the beautiful and elaborate necklace in her hands. It was banded around with a metal casing that formed a simple frame for the enormous clear round jewel. She reached into the bag and pulled out two beautifully decorated tubes. She detached them and dropped the jewel into one where it seemed to slide down into the end. She manipulated the end, then she reattached the tubes and handed the instrument to Gabrielle. “Look through it.” she said.

Gabrielle peered downward through the tubes. “I don’t see anything,” she said.

“Not down. Look up. Look up where there is light, and color.”

“Oh!”

“Now twist the tubes.”

“Oh My!”

“It’s called a Kaleidoscope.”

Gabrielle looked at the woman in amazement. “How did you get this? Where did it come from?”

“It’s from the temple of the Goddess of Lerenika.”

Gabrielle looked serious. “You stole it? No, you had someone else steal it.”

“I had someone else retrieve it. I’m the high priestess of the temple.”

“Then why hide it? It belongs to you. And what are you doing in this little village if you’re the high priestess of a temple.”

“Because…because I’m guilty of murder. And the punishment is banishment and death.”

The look of confusion on Gabrielle’s face faded to a look of dismay.


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