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A call out in the night

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8. A call out in the night

The same evening as my failed try at reconciling Ares with Xena the peace treaty between The Hellas Commonwealth and the Kingdom of Anatolia was signed, in a sacred place not far from the city of Darangorlad. The Litvinia hill held a temple to The Eternal Zeus, a god held in revere by both Greeks and Anatolians, and in consequence a place where both groups could meet without anyone feeling lesser or intimated by the other party. The event - which was more like a ceremony than anything else - took place in the grand hall of the temple, beneath the inscrutable face of a marble statue of the great god. The large hall lay in dusk in spite of the many burning lanterns and the air was reeking with incense and lack of oxygen.

It was amazing how those magnificent temple halls seemed to look more or less the same wherever you came. From Karkheidon to Kolchis to Inthorergon to Darangorlad. Same rows of pillars, gilded ornaments, marble statues and uncomfortable seats. Same art more or less focused upon celebrating the god in question and same kind of altar cluttered with gifts and fading flowers. And the same almost intimating statue of the god observing it all. This crowded place was no exception, far from it, even though it was a bit more run down than the temple halls I had seen in the in the Hellenic cities.  

That was another reason for me to not wanting to become a goddess. I sure didn't want any temple like that to be raised in my name. I didn't want to become a stern-faced statue which looked down upon mortals who bought me commodities in return for a desire to be cured from one illness or another. Just the thought made me cringe; I couldn't imagine anything more embarrassing.

The procedure was as well overseen by two present gods, the Greek's Ares and the Anatolian goddess of justice - Chizay. Two generals, one from each side represented their monarchs and signed the treaty in sacred ink and in four copies. One copy was to be kept by the Greeks and one by the Anatolians and then the third was to be stored in the temple in a special, airtight container which became placed in a crypt which held innumerable documents of the same kind. Very few - if any - of the other documents were as important as this treaty which mattered for thousands and thousands. Most of them were minor agreements to settle disputes or confirm contracts between two or a few more people.  A way to somewhat try to establish that justice was witnessed and warded over by the gods.

Then the regular procedure was to burn the fourth treaty, to symbolize that it was sent to Zeus himself. But since one of the divine overseers was a son of Zeus, the treaty was given to him. At this moment there were some protests raised among the Anatolians but they were silenced by Chizay.
"We came here to give up our claims" she said. "They were too costly to us. We lost this war and we need to accept this defeat in an honorable way or we will lose our faces as well."

The murmur died down, Chizay's words may have sounded reasonable and just, but a few of us saw the looks she was giving Ares at the same time. Her obsidian eyes were filled to the brim with venom; it was as if she wanted to attack Ares right there on spot, to avenge the humiliation dealt to her people. But she was wiser than that; she refrained from striking out because she knew it would be futile - at best. Ares had killed her uncle Taniroth in a battle that people would be talking about for generations. Taniroth had been one of the most brutal and most skilled fighters of the Anatolian gods and he had been put down by the Greek god in a way that showed without doubt who was the strongest and the best at the art of war. Ares' victory had been no lucky shot, far from it.

Still the hostility remained. I regarded Chizay where I stood next to Ares with my arm under his. To her I was nothing, just a consort of Ares, so she paid me no attention whatsoever when I looked her over. She was dark-skinned but not as black as an Ethiopian and she was tall and lithe with flying raven black hair over a face that would have been beautiful - on a man. But I found it too chiseled for a woman and she did nothing to dampen that with make-up. Instead she had concentrated all her vain upon a large hair-decoration which might have looked tacky on a sweeter woman and a crimson coloured dress, cut so that it showed quite a lot of her lithe body. And with her stance she tried to radiate off as much power and strength as possible.

Now she was looking at Ares as if she expected him to say anything, but he just bowed ever so slightly as he put the wooden cylinder with the treaty in a pocket inside his ox-blood coloured leather cloak, a polite smile emitting from his full lips. The tense feeling remained in the large hall, but some people were starting to rise and take leave. And then more followed their example, the hall become filled with the sound of people moving about and talking. I cast a glance at some of the dark warriors who stood guard and they too showed that it was time to go, although we were to be the last to leave, the dark warriors Achilles, Dovan, Oranthes and Astymache taking up the rear as an escort of honor.

As the hall was emptying of people Ares looked up at the Zeus statue and made a bow of honor towards his father. Once more I laid my eyes upon the representation of the powerful god. There was not much in the admirable features of Zeus that reminded me of the son I loved; still there was a sense of strength and endurability in him which I had seen in Ares too. Now, when I was certain that it would be just a matter of time before I was eye to eye with the great god, I really understood that I would have to overcome the awe I felt while regarding Zeus. He was to become my father in law, how strange that sounded, and I had to start considering him as a normal person and not some kind of super being.

The next moment my love took my arm again, and leant over me:
"So what do you think?"
"About the ceremony? A bit pompous to be true."
"Aye, but it has to be like that. For the solemn people to take it serious. I guess us laid-back day to day ones could as well have done it in the tavern down by the road and get a good meal together. "   

"You're always thinking about food!" I mocked him with twinkles in my eyes and he smiled back:
"You might think it's funny, but there's a reason behind that argument as well. People who drink and eat together find it easier to get along. Knots of tension loosen up and the mood gets better, perhaps even merry. Maybe even the lady Chizay could relax a bit with a cup of wine in her hand."
"So you saw it too, her hostility towards us?"
"I sure did, I haven't been in this business for centuries for nothing. I recognize the problems and sometimes even the solutions too. "
"So what's the solution to Chizay?"
"I don't know - yet. I'll have to ponder that. If it is necessary to do so, after all she will be returning to her pantheon soon - and we'll be heading towards mainland Greece."

In the entrance to the hall we passed by Chizay who was talking to some warriors of her escort. Lean, swarthy men with leopard hides covering parts of their chainmail and those toppy helmets which were so typically Anatolian. And there was something with the looks Chizay was giving the two of us that were so utterly hostile that it sent shivers down my spine and it took all my will power to not give away any discomfort.

Ares with his sensitive mind noted how I felt though. When we had passed through the large doors and out in the slanted evening sun my love let go of my elbow and placed his arm around my shoulders instead, squeezing them lightly.
"Don't let Chizay upset you, Didi-mou! This was probably the last you saw of her in a long long time anyway."

Little did we know how wrong Ares would be on that account.

¨*¨*¨

The dear Kalian came rushing up to us as we returned to the headquarter. He had been pouting because we didn't take him with us, but now it seemed forgotten. Sthenephon had been showing him some daggers and even taught Kalian a bit about how to use them.
"Sthen threw them at dummies and I got to try too and I even hit one. And it was really far. Sthen says I can become really good with knives if I practice hard enough."
"That's the spirit, lad!" Ares replied. "You want to show me?"
"Yeah!" Kalian began to jump up and down and grabbed our hands so we had to follow him downstairs to the rooms where some of the Greek warriors were still practicing all kinds of martial art.

I became quite fascinated by some warriors who fought with just their bare hands and were kicking and lashing out, not with the aim to hit hard but rather to touch certain body parts, just to show that they could hit. A kind of mock fight to practice moves, speed and reflexes. Others were throwing their opponents to the floor, and the latter ones were rolling away, obviously unhurt and were standing up again in a blink of an eye. Ares saw my interest and dropped some Asian names I forgot in an instant.

The knifes on the other hand were less exotic, Ares handed some of the smaller, lighter ones to Kalian and then they walked over to the dummies and agreed upon a position to aim from. There they practiced for a while and I sat down on a bean sack by the wall and watched them interact. Ares sure was a good teacher, patient and accurate and he took enough time to explain the techniques to Kalian without making it boring or tedious. He showed our son how to hold the knife and how to move the hand and the arm to make a throw which went both far, hard and precise. Thus Kalian came to hit the dummy several times, and they both beamed when he did so.

"Show me what you can do, dad!" Kalian asked after a while. "Sthen told me you can do amazing stuff!"
"Well then go sit over by your mother and I'll show off a bit!" Ares ruffled Kalians hair and then our son came running up to me and threw himself in my arms and I lifted him up in my lap, hugging him hard, nuzzling my cheek in his dark hair. Meanwhile Ares went over and picked up a handful quite a bit larger knifes and daggers from one of the wooden boxes next to the entrance door and then he backed off almost to the wall opposite of the dummies, some twelve steps away. He gave us a salute and then he began to show all kind of stunts. Regular throws first and then tossing the knife under his knee or over his shoulder, from behind and between his legs, repeating with his left hand and in the end he tied off his scarf and blindfolded himself with it instead, spun around a bit and did it all over again.

At the end Kalian and I were applauding him joyously and as he removed his blindfold and bowed gracefully to us there were three more people in the room applauding. I recognized Sthenephon plus two of the Greeks who had been fighting weaponless combat in the adjacent room. Those were a tall, stocky man with broken nose over a huge chin and a striking woman who would have been a miracle of beauty hadn't several scars marred her face. None as bad as the one Cleodice had worn but nevertheless tainting her features. She had worn her hair tied up with leather ribbons and now she was removing them, letting dark curl fall down across shoulders shining with sweat.
"Awalda!" Ares called to her. "Come here!"

"You wanna do your 'performance'?" Awalda grinned.
"I sure will! Kalian and Didi haven't seen it!"
"Whatcha gonna do, dad?" Kalian asked with excitement in his voice.
"You'll see, Little Hero!" Ares replied and then Awalda went over to the dummies and moved one of them over, posing herself against the wall instead with her arms outstretched. At the same time Ares went and removed the knives from the dummy and I so wondered what was going to happen.

"Good for you, Awalda, we have a medic in the room" Sthenephon called out. "And you Ares as well!"
"Aw, shut up. Sthen!" Awalda replied. "If it wasn't Ares I wouldn't be volunteering this and you know it."
"You guys are crazy, do you know it?" the broken-nosed said.
"Yeah, we haven't been able to avoid hearing you saying so a thousands of times before, Gylas." Ares replied.

He posed himself by the far end of the room again and then he was throwing his knifes once more, deliberately missing Awalda with just fractions of thumbs. And the gracious warrior woman hardly looked scared; she was smiling all the time. Not even when she split her hands and Ares placed a knife between each of her ten fingers did she flinch a second. So assured of Ares' accuracy was she. The last knife buried itself right between her legs in an almost obscene way. And in the end Ares blindfolded himself again and repeated some of the stunts. Needless to say neither Kalian nor I had ever seen anything like it.

Meanwhile even more people had gathered in the room, lined up by the wall or sat down on the floor. There were the Dark Warriors Achilles, Meliklea, Agarak, Dovan, Xantippa, Syrios, Astymache and Penelope together with a handful more fighters I had yet to learn the name of. It amazed me that Ares commanded thousands - and yet he seemed to know the name of every single one in his armed forces - down to the teenage youths who tended the horses and the veteran Amazon who could pick an apple from a tree by shooting an arrow from twenty steps away.

To more ringing applauses both Ares and Awalda bowed gracefully and then Ares called it a night.
"I'll need some supper now before it gets too late, so good evening and thank you for your ever so kind services, Awalda."
"My pleasure, great Ares" The dark-haired girl smiled back. Then Ares was assaulted by Kalian who was asking if he could teach him all those stunts.
"In time I will, Little Hero" Ares smiled and lifted up Kalian on his shoulders.
"Tomorrow?" Kalian persisted.
"Perhaps we can practice some more tomorrow, yes."
"And those kicks and rolls the others were doing too!" Ares smiled and met my looks when he told Kalian that he could not have everything at a time, and that first and foremost it was supper time now.

¨*¨*¨

In my dream I was walking a long beach which might have been the one in Salenda, but at the same time it was far too long and wide and the ocean was wilder, with heavy breakers crashing far up on the sand. When the waves were retreating back into the sea again they made the sand muddy and almost pulling my ankles away under me. The skies were lead gray and fast moving and there were birds calling out above. They sounded like gulls but were black as crows, which made perfectly sense, just as absurd things tend to do when you are dreaming.

I was alone at the beach; there was no one around me to be seen. No Kalian, no Ares, not a single soul around. There was just me, the wild sea and those black seagulls above.

No, not really, there was someone walking ahead of me, far away, almost where the dunes of ash-gray sand met the overcast sky. Someone with raven black hair flying like a cloak behind her. In an instant I knew I was trying to catch up with her, so I sped up my steps, but the wet sand made it even harder to sprint. And the woman I had just caught sight of was getting further away instead. For some reason I kept on walking like a mortal, not taking in the air as any goddess in my situation would have done. Meanwhile the woman ahead of me was getting further and further away.

"Wait" I called out, but my voice was ripped away by the wind and became yet another sea gull call.
"Wait, please!" I tried even louder.

Then the woman turned, and it was as if I suddenly could see her close up. Thus I recognized Xena. She reached out and called for me, fear burning in her green eyes.
"Help me, Narinda, Help me!" Her scream became louder, assaulting my ears, and she reached for me with desperate hands "Help me, Narinda, You must help me, please!! They're taking me away!"
"Who? Who are taking you?"
"Help me, Narinda!"

Then I was wide awake, my body stiff with fear as the nightmare still held me in its razor-sharp talons.
"Ares!" I heard myself call out with fear contracting my throat. "Ares wake up!"
"Didi?" My beloved woke up in an instance and sat up in bed, soft flames of emerald divine light burning from his index and middle finger.
"Ares, they have her. They have Xena!" I said and met the eyes of my beloved in the comfort of the familiar sheen.
"Who?"

"I don't know." Then, in an instant I understood. "Chizay. Ares, Chizay has her!"
Army Postal Service chapter 8. A call out in the night
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