HEARTDANCE

The village of Altyrus loomed out of the late afternoon shadows as Dart picked his way along a widening track. Both Kendaa and Hercules had been unnaturally quiet.

Hercules, riding behind and holding the reins once again, had made no attempt to touch her or make love to her either during their meal or since they'd resumed their journey.

While it was true that both were on edge in expectation of another attack from Hera's warriors, there was something more, and neither had been able to pin it down. Eventually, Kendaa's nerves grew so brittle that she spoke.

"Something's wrong," she said into the silence.

"Uh?" Hercules grunted, rousing from far away thoughts of his own.

"I said, I think something's wrong," she repeated irritably.

He halted the stallion. "You too? That's too weird."

Kendaa shook her head. "It's Khyra who has the seeing. I'm just getting jumpy because Hera's been way too conspicuous by her absence."

"You're telling me?" Hercules agreed. "Let's hope the people of Altyrus know something about these fake Amazons of yours, so we can meet Iolaus and Khyra in Thessaly and find out what they know."

And if they're okay...Kendaa finished off silently. He really can feel it too.

Hercules pushed Dart into a beautiful floating canter, Kendaa painfully aware of the almost minute grunts mixed with each of Hercules' breaths.

A much larger settlement, a city almost, Altyrus had a lot more to offer than Gola. Kendaa used the last of her saved dinars to put them up in the best room of the best inn in town, an ostentatious stone building, even for a place like Altyrus.

Hercules was still shaking his head when he opened the door to their room. His mouth dropped open.

"You...you knew about this place?" he asked, bemused.

Kendaa chuckled. "I was here once before. It's their VIP room. If we were merchants, or royalty they'd have charged me a king's ransom."

And when Hercules cocked his head endearingly in a question: "I was with some of the Amazons. It had been a long campaign, and we wanted to get CLEAN..." Her face fell. "To wash away the death, and the pain."

He nodded wordlessly, but there was a warrior's understanding between them.

Hercules surveyed the big room again. The floor was of clean, colored flagstones, fitted together by a mason so that they were almost seamless. The bed was wide and soft, not the usual lice-ridden straw mattress he was accustomed to, and the fireplace, already blazing, was solid oak, oiled and polished with great care. Set, apparently permanently, on one side of the fire recess, and back into the wall, was a huge copper cauldron with a spigot near the bottom. In the middle of the room, set in the floor, and lined with polished stones, was a bathing pool about four feet deep and six feet square. It was empty, a drain in the bottom of it unsealed.

"Oh yeah," Hercules cracked as he passed it to dump the backpack and Kendaa's war-staff next to the bed. "Like a lodger could really fill that in one night."

When he turned Kendaa had already found a huge length of bamboo split longways, which he judged, by the smoothness of its edges and the black soot on one end, to have been there for a very long time. She pushed it under the spigot into a wedge shaped notch Hercules had missed earlier. Predicably, it reached the bath.

By the time she turned the spigot and the steaming water began to run along the sluice, Hercules had replaced the seal and discovered another stoppered pipe in the side of the bath. Puzzled, he followed the direction it appeared to come from, to the window and looked out. On the wall next to the room was a bamboo downpipe. Curious, he hung out the window, turned around on his butt and looked up. A huge water tank sat on a tower next to the low-set building, a rainwater sluice running from the roof to the top of it, and slightly lower down, a pipe from it to the roof. He shook his head. Daedelus would have been proud.

When he slid back into the room, grunting and wincing because he'd pulled the now-scabbed over wound as he did so, he discovered that Kendaa had put something in the water in the bath. The scent was at once intoxicatingly fragrant, and relaxing. It wafted in the clouds of steam filling the room.

The sluice had done its job, and Kendaa had put it back along the far wall. Now she was monitoring the temperature as cold water tumbled in from the pipe on the side of the pool. There were also cloths, sponge and soap scattered along its edge. When she was happy she stoppered it again and stood up. flushed and sparkling with anticipation. It had been weeks since the two Amazons had been able to do more than wash in cold streams or boil water on the fire and wash themselves with cloths.

Hercules' color, too, had risen with the temperature, and deepened to crimson when it finally occurred to him that she was actually going to use the bath.

"Ah, I um..ah, maybe I'll go get an ale--"

"Oh please," Kendaa drawled, her eyes dancing with amusement, though something else sparked in the gold flecks. Perhaps annoyance, or frustration. "Anyone would think you'd never seen a woman before..."

She didn't think a man could get any redder, but Hercules did, the painful flush spreading down his neck. Now she was puzzled. Hercules was known to respect people's privacy, and demand his own, but this was ridiculous.

"What?" she demanded, the puzzlement, the frustration in her voice.

Hercules turned away, moved back to the window and rested his hands on it, and leaned on them.

"I--"

Kendaa waited, but he didn't continue.

Eventually she moved to his side, aware of the tension in his shoulders. She touched his arm and was surprised when he jumped like a startled cat.

"Hercules? Is your wound bad?"

He didn't look at her, studying his feet instead. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I...I shouldn't have kissed you, before, on the horse."

Suddenly things began to make a crazy kind of sense. He'd mistaken her earlier embarrassment for withdrawal. Kendaa reached up and stroked his hair with her fingers, pushing it behind his ear, and caressing the wisps of fringe from his brow.

The blue eyes finally raised themselves and looked into the dryad-green eyes, puzzled, questioning.

"I thought..." he began softly, but she touched a finger to his lips.

"You think too much," she whispered, leaned up and kissed his mouth.

For a moment he stood, unmoved, only his lips responding to hers, then suddenly she felt herself swept into his arms, lifted and crushed against him. The kiss seemed to go on for a lifetime, hungry and searching, and then tender and teasing, then hungry again.

When their heads finally lifted it was Kendaa's turn to be red. "I've wanted you to do that for a very long time," she whispered hoarsely.

He half smiled, half frowned. "I didn't know. I--not until that night, when you had the nightmare. Before that you were my friend, someone I cared about, someone...I loved...but now..."

He kissed her again, his lips soft as velvet, holding hers gently, lingeringly, lovingly. When he lifted his head he touched her flushed cheek gently, his finger tracing the red spot tenderly.

"I don't--this isn't supposed--I don't ever want to hurt you..." he stammered.

Kendaa's eyes glistened in the firelight. She would always love him, his gentle, caring nature, his innate honesty.

"Hercules, I know exactly what tomorrow will bring for us," she told him tenderly. "I'm not planning any tomorrows, only tonights."

The big fingers trembled against her cheek. "I've destroyed the tomorrows of too many people I've loved," he rasped.

She covered the big hand with one of hers. "No...It was Hera, never you. You have to understand that. They would all do it again, in a heartbeat--"

His eyes searched hers.

"--Your family, Iolaus, Serena, all of them--they'd choose to have every moment they shared with you, all over again, even knowing what was in their tomorrows," she elaborated. "Just as I choose tonight."

He watched her turn, walk to the pool, the emerald green vest falling to the floor, leaving the soft blonde hair to brush the creamy back as she walked. Her long legs stepped out of the leather-work skirt just before she entered the water, and coiled the hair easily into a knot that somehow contrived to stay where it was.

She immersed herself and turned to Hercules. For a moment he didn't move, then he turned away, and Kendaa's heart fell. She slid her body through the deliciously hot, fragrant water and turned her back on him.

Moments later she was still there, trying to hold back tears of temper, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge her hurt, when there was a movement behind her.

Then she was being turned and large, gentle hands were cupping her face.

"Don't cry for me," he said almost brokenly. "It's just--I can't bear the thought of hurting you--of you being hurt, because of me."

And then his arms were around her, engulfing her, and she was resting her face in the crook of his neck, holding him just as tightly.

It felt as though both of them had found sanctuary in a lifetime of tempest, as though both were as afraid to hold on, as they were to let go.

She could feel his heartbeat hammering against her breasts, hear her own hammering back, the touch of his skin against hers lighting a fire no water would quench.

And then they were turning slowly in the water, Hercules drifting in a deliberate spiral, from one side of the small pool to the other, just holding her close. Long minutes passed unnoticed as they held each other in the steaming water, Hercules' slow water dance almost hypnotic in its tenderness.

It was Kendaa who eventually just needed to see his face again, to know that it was all right. She drifted back and looked up, surprising naked emotion in his eyes.

She wondered what echoes of the past the moment must have touched in him to hurt him so. She deliberately slid to the side of the bath and took a sponge and the soap.

He said nothing as she began to soap his back, and to work the sponge in circles across the massive shoulders. Nor did he move as she continued to wash his smooth back, working her way down below the water line before soaping the sponge again. She slide her arms around him to move it in slow circles across his chest, before working it down over his ribs to his abdomen in even slower, lazier circles, her cheek resting contentedly against his back.

As it descended further she heard his sharp intake of breath, the quickening of his heartbeat beneath her ear, and moved it in the final arc, finding what both knew she would find, and listening to his low growl of pleasure as the sponge continued to circle.

And then it was in his hand, so gently that she could exactly say when he'd taken it, and he was turning, and turning her at the same time. He was gentle, covering her entire back in soft, sensual strokes before moving the sponge down her spine and over the gentle curves of her buttocks, sighing with desire, as he traced them.

Kendaa's heart raced, her body burning as he drew the sponge across her abdomen, and upward to her breasts in agonisingly slow, sensual, circles, gasping when he finally reached them and lingered there, his lips kissing her hair, the tip of her ear, the soft curve of her shoulder as he washed her.

And when the sponge began to descend again the gasp became a low groan, which became a moan of pure pleasure as it slipped below the curve of her belly.

Then she was taking the sponge and dropping it in the water, turning to face him again, just in time to meet his lips as they came seeking hers, hungrily, demandingly.

As she kissed him back, her hands slid with the urgency of need, down the rock-hard torso, made soft now by the oils in the water, found and held him, making him shudder and gasp suddenly against her lips.

A moment later she was in his arms, being carried up the corner steps out of the bath and across to the bed, pausing just long enough to hook one of the bathing sheets folded on the end of it before laying her in the middle of it.

Hercules dried her swiftly, impatiently and then drew the sheet across his own body in a cursory fashion before casting it on the floor.

He was more beautiful than she could ever have imagined, towering over her, on his knees on the bed, the firelight playing across the muscled, golden body, the intensity of his desire, there for her to see, matched only by her own.

She couldn't know the picture she made, her golden hair spilled out of its knot, spread over the pillow, her full, creamy breasts signalling her own desire, love burning in the brilliant green eyes.

While she had been prepared for urgency, strength, even impatience in his love making, she was completely unprepared for the gentleness of it, the almost agonizing sensuality of his exploration of her every curve. For an endless time her body burned under his touch, his mouth lingering tenderly over the soft, silkiness of her breasts, her throat, before returning to caress her lips again, while her hands traced the muscled contours of his back.

And then his fingers were trailing over her breast, down across the soft thigh, feather light in their salute, yet provoking a sensual explosion that travelled the length of her body before the whispered cry was torn from her.

"Hercules..!"

He came to her with the same loving tenderness, the urgency of her own desire mixing with tears of love as they were joined. When he was finally deep inside her, he stopped, just to look at her, and to kiss away the tears.

And then both succumbed to their passion. Kendaa was almost overwhelmed by the strength of her need for him, as physical, as demanding in their loving making as he, not realizing until long afterward, how long he waited for her to be with him at the end, to share with her the joy, the overwhelming sensual tidal wave of their completion.

For a long time afterward, they lay together, joined, unwilling to be parted. Then they slept.

Kendaa woke to the pressure of Hercules' lips brushing hers.

"Hi, sleepy head," he smiled. "You aren't going to sleep all day as well, are you?" he teased.

The morning was still new, the sun barely free of the horizon.

"Hi," she smiled back, then shrieked as he lifted her bodily into his arms and carried her back to the water.

"It'll be freezing!" she laughed, as he walked down into the pool, and was amazed to find it really hot.

"I've been awake for a while," he explained, turning her so that she was facing him.

Kendaa stretched up hungrily and kissed him, smiling in the kiss when he returned her hunger several fold, his hands lovingly caressing her entire body, until she pulled back a little, sniffing.

"Where is that glorious smell coming from?" she asked dreamily.

"You mean the rose oil in the bath, or the food I also got from the market?"

She pulled his hair playfully. "You don't have any money--and I used the last of mine on this place."

He smiled and pulled a lock of hers in reply. "Somebody always needs help with something. The blacksmith paid well." Then his hands cupped her head and he kissed her again.

"Hungry?" he asked playfully when he lifted his head.

In reply Kendaa claimed the strong lips again and fitted her body to his, her legs sliding around his hips.

"Definitely not hungry," Hercules chuckled a few moments later, and ran his hands down her back to her seat, lifted her and arched his hips beneath her, bringing them together again, Kendaa crying out in undiluted ecstasy as she strove to reclaim all of him.

Then Hercules was moving inside her, his mouth exploring her lips, her face, her throat, the soft inner curve of her breasts as their love-making intensified.

This time it was wild and joyful and if possible, even more sensual than the first time, both of them crying out as their passion rose to an almost unbearable crescendo, straining to each other, reaching for that final ecstatic moment.

It was Kendaa whose body exploded first, held by an exultant Hercules as she jolted and cried out, then slid her arms tightly around his neck as a slow growl grew in his throat, his body moving in long, sensual movements, until the growl became a gasp and then a roar, and she was moving with him again until he too wrapped his arms around her, holding her as though he might never let go.

It was a long time before they extricated themselves from the warm water, content and hungry, to find some clothes.

They sat by Hercules' rekindled fire to eat.

Kendaa had always thought of love as a quencher of appetites, and was therefore surprised to find herself ravenous. She looked up from her bread and cheese to find Hercules eating every bit as hungrily as she. He'd even found a little fruit juice for them to share. He poured it, then told her to close her eyes. A moment later something sweet touched her lips, melted luxuriously on the tip of her tongue.

"Open," he said.

She opened her eyes and bit into the sweet, sugar-coated, spiralled pastry.

It was heavenly. "Mmm," she sighed, still chewing, her heart leaping at the contentment in his eyes, the relaxation in his amused grin.

He bit into the rest of it and nodded. "It's good," he mumbled, dribbling crumbs, his mouth full of cake, and they both laughed, each of them graced with a sugar moustache.

It wasn't until breakfast was over, and they were ready to leave that reality moved them both to silence.

Hercules moved the backpack and staff to the door, then turned as Kendaa finished throwing their leftovers into the fireplace.

When she reached him he took her in his arms and kissed her again.

"I wish--" he began, but Kendaa pressed her fingers against his lips. "Don't," she said softly. "I wish too, but it can't be."

"Why not?" he asked, almost plaintively. "It worked with Daenaira...why can't we, either of us, just once, have some happiness?"

Kendaa's heart contracted at the pain in his voice. There was nothing fair about this world, not while it was controlled by the gods. Nor was there anything fair about either of their pasts.

"Do you really think the gods would allow us to stay together, any more than they left you and Serena alone?" she asked him, her voice trembling. "What kind of target do you think we'd make? That our children would make? Children of a demi-god and a half-dryad? Zeus himself wouldn't allow such a thing."

Hercules closed his eyes, his face screwing up in pain and closed his arms around her, as though he might protect her from truth's hurtful daggers, holding her until a rap on the door separated them.

It was the innkeeper with new customers for the room. They parted awkwardly and Hercules didn't speak again until they were on the road. Kendaa was too unhappy to argue with him when he decided to walk, and joined him, leading a very fresh Dart on a loose rein.

They walked in silence for a long time, their introspection punctured only by Dart's periodic nudges. It was not until the big horse pushed his way between them, stuck his nose in Kendaa's ear and blew that the silence was finally broken by laughter.

Hercules gave the stallion a good natured shove out the way, still chuckling, turned and looked down at Kendaa.

Their laughter faded. He swallowed, his feelings bright in his eyes.

Kendaa reached up and touched his face. "I know," she said softly, her own overbright with moisture, and trembled when he covered the fingers with his own.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, picked her up and put her on the horse, then swung up behind her. He pressed his lips to the top of her head, one hand on her shoulder. "I'm just tired of being a plaything of the gods...of being..."

But Kendaa already knew. She covered the hand on her shoulder with one of her own. His family had been killed at the whim of Hera, the same god who ordered the death of her own people. Serena had been murdered, and Hercules himself almost died, at the hands of the gods.

"We'd better get going if we're going to find Iolaus and Khyra. We aren't going to make the rendez-vous as it is. They'll wait, but I still have a bad feeling," she said a few moments later, much more coolly than she intended, as she stamped down the surge of empathy threatening to engulf her.

Hercules too, straightened, a hardness coming into his face, and gathered the stallion before wordlessly putting him into a canter.

They'd made no more than five or six kilometres when a great shadow passed over them. Hercules pulled a less than happy Dart up, and looked up as the stallion danced on the spot with impatience.

"Sky'ree," he said, the tone of his voice sending a tremor through Kendaa.

Sky'ree spiralled down to land on the road in front of them.

"Finally," he snorted. "I was beginning to think you'd fallen off the face of the earth."

"What's wrong?" Hercules demanded, all his senses pricking.

The dragon showed the whites of his eyes. "We stopped at a farm to barter for food. Hera had incapacitated the family who owned it. Iolaus and Khyra were taken."

Hercules fists clenched, his knuckles white. "But you're bonded to Khyra, right?"

"Yes...but Hera is blocking the link. I...I haven't felt Khyra since they vanished."

Hercules threw his head back and roared with frustration and rage.

"Does it ever end?!" he cried. "Hera, you bitch, you hurt them and I'll see you rot! You hear me!"

Even the stallion was intimidated by the power of Hercules' rage, its ears flat against its head as it backed up.

Sky'ree on the other hand, was almost drooping, the effects of the severed link obviously having a profound effect on him.

Kendaa went to him, her own face white and pinched, both with rage and fear.

"Sky'ree, isn't there anything you can do? Any way you can break through the block? We have to find them--"

"Before Hera kills them," Hercules finished bitterly, "because of me."

"Don't," Kendaa and Sky'ree began in unison. "No purpose will be served in blaming yourself for this, Hercules," Sky'ree finished. "There's more at work here than just Hera's hatred for you. We must find these pseudo-Amazons, and quickly. I believe they were at the farm house. They're the key to all of this, I'm certain of it."

Kendaa's face set in resolve. "Did you see anything before you came for us?"

The dragon's head drooped again. "I came to find you, first. Hera knew that cutting the bond between dragon and rider would cloud my mind, make it difficult, if not impossible for me to help her alone."

Hercules collected the stallion's reins and brought it to where Kendaa had placed a hand on the dragon's neck.

"It's all right, Sky'ree," she told him. "We'll find them together. We'll follow the road at the best speed we can make. You scout ahead for their villages, then find us at dusk and tell us what you found."

Sky'ree blinked and straightened. "I can do that," he said, and spread his wings. "At dusk," he told them, and lifted himself into the air.

Kendaa and Hercules where already mounted on Dart when the dragon wheeled majestically and flew out of sight.

Hercules patted the stallion's neck as it pranced. "How fast can he go?" he asked.

"He's one of the fastest Amazon horses ever bred," Kendaa told him, "and one of the strongest."

Within seconds of Hercules asking for speed, the stallion was flying along the road, his tail banner-high, his feet barely touching the ground, his riders bent low on his neck...

Khyra woke stiffly. She'd dozed off sitting up, her neck kinked from the awkward position it had fallen into as she slept. Her fingers went immediately to Iolaus' throat.

There was still a pulse. She exhaled, and her heart-rate, which had exploded, began to slow again. A beat later it leaped again, when Iolaus' eyes fluttered and opened.

The familiar blue eyes were clouded and dazed, but they seemed to recognize her.

"Iolaus? How do you feel?"

Iolaus tried to smile, but his mouth was dry and the corners pulled. "Great," he cracked in a hoarse whisper.

Khyra's face crumbled. "There's nothing I can do," she told him, tears rising in the beautiful eyes. "I can't even feel Sky'ree any more. I think Hera has blocked our link."

Iolaus closed his eyes for a moment, fighting the effects of the poison, the pain, then opened them again.

"I'm sorry...but they'll find us. Hercules will f...find us. I know he will."

Khyra didn't think so. No one had visited them, or brought food or water since they'd been locked in the strangely designed building. Even the drums had stopped.

She touched his face and nodded reassuringly, then slid out from beneath him. She rolled a soft goatskin, put it under his head and went to try the doors and windows again. They were almost unnaturally resistant to force.

Khyra stopped shouldering a shuttered window and straightened. That was it. They were being held here by more than just mortal force.

She went back to Iolaus, whose face was pale and sweat drenched. His eyes were closed again, and he was shivering. Khyra gathered up all the best skins and covered him.

He opened his eyes again as she was adjusting a deer skin around him.

"I think that's enough," he smiled, in spite of the strain in his face. "They'll find us," he repeated, when he saw the fear in her eyes.

She ran a small hand through her hair and sat down along side him. "And if they do? Will she kill them, too? What is it with the gods?"

"Khyra," Iolaus croaked, "I..I'm not going to die, not if I can help it."

She bit her bottom lip and nodded, then buried her face under his chin, obscuring both the tears that would not be held back, and the terrified doubt in her eyes.

Iolaus sighed and rolled equally uncertain eyes skyward, not at all happy about the prospect of seeing Hades again...

Sky'ree searched without rest, looking for villages or camps where there were no men, where there was some sign that Khyra or Iolaus might be hidden there, but his search was fruitless. There were no pseudo-Amazon villages, no budding new tribe settled anywhere in the eastern districts.

He wheeled to the south and wondered what Hera was up to. It seemed almost certain that the so-called Amazons were nothing of the kind, rather they were servants of Hera, sent to do her bidding, then vanish when they were done.

The south was less populous, but he needed to keep going, at least until it was time to find Hercules and Kendaa. Farmhouses, shanty villages, forest and lakes passed beneath him, but nothing extraordinary, nothing that might lead him to his friend.

Eventually he had to stop, not through lack of stamina, but through the burden of melancholy, of grief from the severance of his life-bond with Khyra.

Sky'ree landed near one of the lakes, flushing quail as he did so. Two plump adults which flew too close were dispatched and consumed without enthusiasm, the big dragon knowing that without sustenance he would be of no use to his friend.

There was a rustle behind him as he drank from the crystal clear lake. He turned with equally little interest when he was done and was surprised to find himself being watched by a man --a man with apparently no fear whatsoever of dragons.

The big dragon walked toward the man with as much menace as he could muster, which wasn't much, and was more than a little miffed when the creature actually laughed.

"You don't actually think you can frighten me, do you, Sky'ree of the far-eastern province of Sichuan?" he asked.

Sky'ree's head came up, and a deep flush came into the scales around his eyes, snout and throat.

"How do you know my name?" he demanded.

"The same way I know the names of all the dragons, from Praxis to the farthest of the far-eastern nations," the smiling stranger replied.

"I have to go," Sky'ree said suddenly, tiring of the games. "I have to find my friends--"

"Iolaus and Khyra, the little Dragonrider queen?"

Sky'ree snorted smoke in annoyance. "Identify yourself, human!"

The other laughed again. "Not, actually. It doesn't matter who I am. All that matters is that you find those two before Iolaus dies. He's been poisoned, by Hera's hand. He has maybe another ten hours at the most. She wants Hercules to see him suffer before he dies."

Sky'ree snorted again, and this time there were flames with the smoke.

"If that is so, then why doesn't she lead Hercules to them? What point is there in this futile search?"

The other's weathered, craggy face grew serious for a moment.

"She's leading him there now, through the Dryad. He'll be there before you, but he won't be able to do anything but hold Iolaus while he dies."

"Hercules made a bargain with Hades once before--"

The other's face turned dark. "That cannot happen again. If Iolaus dies this time there is no return. You must hurry. Look into your thoughts. You'll see where they're trapped. If you can reach them quickly enough you can save him. Take this, and hurry."

The man gave him a small phial, tucking it into the pack still strapped behind his wings.

"Now go," the man ordered. "Give him all of it. It will work quickly. And tell Hercules...tell him that this time, I was watching," he said sadly.

"But who--?"

But the man had vanished, not even the scent of him remaining. Sky'ree blinked. He didn't have a scent. It was a puzzle he had no time to solve.

He looked inward, and saw a strange building, set low, and nestled among trees; saw the way to it.

He pulled himself into the air with a sense urgency he hadn't felt since...

Khyra? The dragon wheeled to the north east and set himself at speed towards his destination. Something brushed at his thoughts again.

Khyra?

And then finally, came the answering whisper, a tiny thread of their former link: Sky'ree! And behind the word, a wall of fear and grief.

"I'm coming," Sky'ree's re-energised mind called. "I'm coming!"

Hercules and Kendaa had made many miles down the road to Thessaly when Kendaa suddenly brought the stallion to a slewing halt.

"What's wrong?" Hercules demanded as the dust settled. "Dart is still as fresh as he was when we started out--"

"Wait," she snapped. "Hercules, I--" She held her head for long moments, then cried out in pain. "I know where they are."

He suddenly felt apprehensive. "You know--? How can you know where they are?"

Kendaa turned in the saddle to look at him. "I don't know. It just crashed into my mind. A vision. I know where to go, where they are. You have to trust me. Iolaus has been poisoned. If we don't reach him in time he's going to die."

"Poisoned? What--? It has to be a trick. Someone is manipulating your thoughts--"

But Kendaa's eyes flashed with defiance. "I'm right. I know this is right. We have nothing to gain, and Iolaus' life to lose if we don't go!" she cried, turned the horse north-east and kicked it into a headlong gallop.

Hercules knew a sense of terrible foreboding, but Kendaa was right, they had no choice. For whatever purpose the vision had been sent, it was all they had.

For fifteen kilometres they galloped, the stallion's endurance almost unearthly. When Kendaa finally brought the beast to a halt they were within metres of a low building formed of polished olivewood beams and woven panels of different kinds of leaves and timber, nestled amongst a grove of olive trees and vines.

Hercules slid down and ran to it. There seemed to be no door or window, or any orifice, or seam anywhere in the building, but he would not be stopped.

He tore at the panelling, pulling it to pieces, Kendaa racing to his side to help. When they'd made a big enough hole in the wall they stepped through it, only to have it seal up again behind them.

"I knew it," Hercules roared as they watched it reform, as though they'd never touched it. "Hera!"

"Hercules!"

He wheeled. "Khyra!"

Kendaa was already at her side, stroking the brow of a cadaverous Iolaus.

Hercules was there in a heartbeat, pulling the hides off his friend and drawing the death-white body into his arms.

"Iolaus?"

The blue eyes opened very slowly. "Herc...You did it. You...you found us." He paused for breath, obviously extremely weak.

"We're going to get you out of here," Hercules promised. "We'll get you to a healer. You'll be fine--" There was near hysteria in the big man's voice.

Kendaa put a hand on his arm. "The walls," she reminded him.

"Damn the walls to Hades!" he roared. "Not again! You can't do this to me again, Hera!"

"Herc..." Iolaus managed.

Hercules looked down to see his friend's eyes close despite a valiant struggle, and his head roll sideways. <[>"NOOOOOOO!" he screamed, drawing Iolaus even closer.

Khyra panicked, leaping forward to put her fingers desperately beneath his nostrils.

She grabbed Hercules arm. "Not yet!" she cried. "Hercules, he's not dead yet." She found a pulse at his throat. "But he's dying now. He'll be gone in a few minutes."

Hercules put his friend down gently on the hides and strode to the back wall of the building and began slashing, tearing and kicking at the wall.

But for every sheet, every millimetre of material he tore away, there was another layer beneath. He kept tearing, raging, tears running down heedless cheeks, as he screamed at the gods, at Hera, but there was no way out. He didn't even pause when the opposite wall began to burn.

All he knew was that it was Hera's work, and that if he didn't find a way out Iolaus would die. Worse, if Hera was trying to immolate them all, that he would save no-one.

Before Hercules even knew he was there Sky'ree had burned through. He remained outside, but flicked the phial out of the pack with the tip of his tail, to Khyra, through the residual flames and smoke.

He'd already told Khyra what to do. Their link had burst back into full bloom as he burned his way through.

She poured it down Iolaus' throat, holding his mouth closed to prevent it escaping, coughing as the smoke thickened, and Hercules continued to tear almost insanely at the other wall.

Iolaus roused almost immediately, choked against Khyra's hand and swallowed what was in his mouth.

Kendaa and Khyra laughed choking laughs of relief as his color turned from the blue-white of death to a vivid scarlet, as though he was flushed to his roots. The festering mess of his wound faded and vanished as they watched, then the slash sealed itself and was gone.

Kendaa was about to call Hercules, to stop him, when Iolaus sat up, put his hand on her arm.

"Let me," he said, as they all continued to choke on the smoke.

Both women helped him to his feet and to take the first faltering steps toward his friend.

"Herc--" Iolaus called when he was just a couple of feet away. HERC!" he repeated when Hercules didn't hear.

The big man wheeled around, moisture flying from his eyes, from his now filthy, scratched cheeks, his arms and hands torn to shreds from his hacking.

"Iolaus?" he croaked, dazed. "Iolaus?"

There were tears now in the smaller man's eyes. "I'm okay, Herc. You can stop now," he said tremulously.

Hercules red-rimmed eyes were almost disbelieving. He reached out and put his hands on Iolaus' shoulders, as if to convince himself that it was real.

"Iolaus..." he said hoarsely. "Iolaus...you're dead."

Moisture tracked down the flushed face. "Almost," he grinned. "But no visit to Hades this time...thanks to Sky'ree."

Hercules half laughed, half choked, then swept his friend up in a jubilant embrace, Iolaus returning the salute with equal feeling, before being set down again.

The smile faded from Hercules' pale face.

Before he could speak, Iolaus, trembling again from the exertion, held up a hand.

"Don't, Hercules. Hera is my problem as much as yours. I made her my problem the day I became your friend. Just...don't," he said tremulously.

The moisture had returned to the bigger man's eyes, but he managed a smile and a nod.

"Good to have you back, Iolaus," he managed, with feeling, then looked up at the dragon, still watching from outside the burning edges of the wall.

"How..?" he asked.

He was denied an answer by the arrival, out of thin air, of nine or more of the masked mignons of Hera.

In seconds Khyra had her fighting staff from Sky'ree, Kendaa had snatched hers from where she left it, near Iolaus' deathbed of skins, and both had joined Hercules in battle, forming a wall between the attackers and Iolaus.

As tired as they were, and as bad as the smoke from the fire had gotten, Kendaa and Khyra made short work of several before Khyra was knocked to the ground by one of them, while another engaged her with a sword.

As the sword was raised, Khyra looked up to see Kendaa's war-staff crash across the owner's face, its mask flying across the room, to reveal a face Kendaa recognized as identical to the one she and Hercules had unmasked days before.

When the attacker had crashed to the floor, she stepped over it to another of the unconscious ones and pulled its mask off. Identical. And when another went flying across the room off Hercules' fists she checked that one too, and another, and another...

All the same.

"Hercules, look out!" Iolaus cried as one of the many already down staggered to its feet and raised an axe to Hercules' back.

Hercules spun and engaged the groggy assailant. They fought for several moments before he was able strike a blow that broke the mask and decked the seemingly mindless drone once again.

And then there was an unearthly shriek, and all of the drones vanished in blue flashes, leaving nothing but blue-grey smoke, to mingle with the billowing white smoke. The fire had gotten into the ceiling, which was ablaze.

Hercules signalled the women to leave and immediately turned back to Iolaus, who was leaning drunkenly against Hercules' shredded wall, coughing. If Iolaus didn't fight, there had to be something very wrong. He took his friend's weight, and helped him out side into the fresh air.

"Iolaus? What is it? Are you--?"

Iolaus swallowed and sat down on a soft tuft of grass near the tree Dart was tied to.

"I'm fine. I just...I'm as weak as a kitten...and I didn't want to get in the way. After all you had the two best Amazon fighters I know, plus a thumping great dragon in reserve."

Sky'ree chuckled. "He's right," he added. "If there had been any trouble you would have seen blue smoke a lot sooner than that."

"You're sure you're okay?" Hercules asked, stooping to Iolaus, his eyes searching the now wan face.

Iolaus met those eyes and sobered when he saw the emotion in them.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said and pressed Hercules' bicep. A couple of moments later he smiled. "Go make sure the girls are still in one piece."

Hercules grinned back, his teeth flashing in a filthy, tear-streaked face made all the more stark by the sudden loss of color moments before.

At that moment the roof of the building collapsed, sending the last of the walls up in a fireball. They were all amazed, then, when the fire--and the remains of the building--seemed to collapse in on itself until there was nothing left but a whisp of smoke. Not even a leaf on the olive trees was scorched. Hercules shook his head and turned to their companions.

Kendaa and Khyra were fine, nursing a number of impressive bruises on arms and legs, and a rather awkward one in a place Kendaa preferred not to elaborate on.

When he got to Kendaa she had eyes as much for his wounds as he for hers. When they were both satisfied they held each other for several long moments, before Hercules turned to the dragon, his arm still around Kendaa.

"How--?" he asked simply.

Sky'ree raised his head thoughtfully. "I'm not really sure," he said carefully. "I was resting for a moment...and then there was a man. He gave me the antidote. He knew Iolaus had been poisoned. And he knew who I was."

Hercules frowned. "Wh--? He knew you? Did you recognize him?"

Sky'ree shook his great scaled head. "I felt as though I did, but no, I have never seen him before. He gave me a message for you, though."

At that Hercules' eyes widened.

"He said: 'tell Hercules this time I was watching,' if that means anything to you."

Hercules stared. Then he stepped back, slid down in a boneless heap to sit on the ground, the adrenalin drained away, the shock more than his over-wrought nerves was prepared for.

Kendaa, who understood the words as well as Hercules, knelt beside him.

Khyra stopped Iolaus, who was halfway to his feet, from getting up.

"Leave them," she told him.

"Them?" Iolaus parroted.

"Them," Khyra confirmed, not needing the Seeing to read what was in Kendaa's eyes. "You need to rest anyway. Do you want me to sit on you?"

"Is that a trick question?" Iolaus shot back, his wits recovering far faster than his body.

Khyra thumped him hard in the newly-healed chest.

"Hercules," Kendaa said softly, "he always loved you."

Hercules shook his head. "They died...they all died. He didn't care..he doesn't care," he muttered dazedly.

"How can you say that?" Kendaa retorted. "He saved Iolaus--he knew how much you loved Iolaus and he went against the gods for you--"

"And for her," a voice said behind them.

Hercules and Kendaa scrambled to their feet.

"Father--"

"This isn't the time for recriminations, Hercules," Zeus said wearily. "I have never stopped loving you, and I'll never stop paying for what Hera did." He looked to Khyra and smiled. "But when that little girl challenged me I had to come, even if it had been a complete stranger. She has courage that one. And she was right. I love you too much to let your friend be sacrificed to Hera's hate."

Khyra stepped closer. "You're really Zeus?" she ventured, wonder-struck.

Hercules laughed in spite of himself.

Zeus smiled at the young woman. "Yes, little queen, I am. I was sorry to see your people lost..." He turned and looked deep into Kendaa's eyes. "And yours," he told her, infinite sadness in his timeless ones.

And then he was turning to Hercules again. Their eyes held for long moments, and then Zeus was, reluctantly, moving.

"I can't stay. Not this time--not in these circumstances," he said with genuine regret. "But I'll be back, this time I promise..."

They all blinked. Zeus was gone.

"Well that hasn't changed," Hercules said quietly, emotionlessly, and went to untie the stallion.

He was undoing the knot when Zeus reappeared next to the tree. Hercules tilted his head to one side. "Father?"

Zeus grinned lop-sidedly. "I forgot something," he said sheepishly, then sobered in the quicksilver way of the gods. "Hercules, I wanted you to know--I'm not the one who'd stop you..."

"Stop me?"

"You...and the Dryad. She was right, you'd both suffer--and your children, perhaps even die, but it wouldn't be by my hand." The old face grew sad. "I loved the Dryads...which is probably why Hera destroyed them."

"But you still can't stop her?"

Zeus shook his head. "There's far more going on than you'll ever know, boy, and in that Hera is only one of my...worries, shall we say. I'm sorry I can't do more, didn't do more. I truly am."

Hercules looked away. "I wish you'd come to me earlier."

Zeus closed his eyes. "There's no fool like an old fool. Hera played me like a harp. She knew exactly when to strike. And for that I can only carry the sorrow and the shame of it forever. I couldn't come to you earlier, Hercules, because I had no answer, no truth that could ease your pain, and, to tell you the truth, I was in no state to bear your rage and your sorrow as well."

Hercules turned back to his father. "You could have saved them--brought them back if necessary," he argued, because he had to.

Zeus shook his head. "We've been over this ground before. Undoing what the other gods have done is one of the most dangerous things I could do. Do you know what would happen to you, to the Earth if the other gods revolted against me?"

Hercules' eyes widened in surprise. "They wouldn't," he said warily.

Zeus gave his son an 'oh wouldn't they' face.

The younger man nodded reluctantly, knowing in his heart that given the right circumstances they would, in a cool minute.

Yet Zeus could still see the shadows of long--carried anger and condemnation in his son's eyes. It would take more than a few words to erase the kind of pain Hera had put Hercules through.

He reached out and put a hand on a scratched and torn arm.

"Son, I love you. Whatever else happens, whatever you think of me, never forget that. I don't."

And then he was gone.

For a few seconds Hercules felt as hurt, as deserted as always, and then the words came back to him and the sound of his father's voice as he said them.

Warmth finally returned to the blue eyes...and then Hercules smiled to himself, before bringing the horse back to the group, who seemed completely oblivious to Zeus' return.

"You okay?" Iolaus asked. "We figured you needed some time, you know..?"

Bemused, Hercules nodded. "Thanks," he said, turning to Khyra, Sky'ree and Kendaa. "So where is everyone going? We missed the wedding. And your Amazon wannabe problem has been taken care of for the time being." He looked around. "And just for once there's nobody calling my name."

Iolaus grinned. "I'd say that was an omen. Sounds like vacation time to me."

Sky'ree chuckled. "Me too," he added.

Khyra laughed. "Last time you were on vacation we were chased out of Mikonos because you ate half the chickens on the island, and I ran out of dinars after the tenth."

The dragon had the good grace to look sheepish. "I promise I won't eat anything you haven't paid for," he swore virutuously.

"So where are we going?" Kendaa asked. "Apollena isn't expecting to hear from us for at least a week."

"Islands..." Hercules mused. "The ocean sounds good. How about Cyros? Or Delos? I hear the fishing's great."

Iolaus lit up. "Perfect," he pronounced. "Let's go."

It was Hercules' turn to grin sheepishly. "Ah..I kinda figured you might like to go ahead. You can get there in half the time with Khyra and Sky'ree."

Iolaus shrugged. "Sure..makes no difference to me. You got something you have to take care of?"

The bigger man turned to Kendaa, blue eyes dancing with intent as they encountered the calm green ones.

"Oh, not really. I think we'd just like to take it slow, maybe even three or four days," he said without taking his eyes off her.

Kendaa's smile widened to a grin and her eyes flashed an answering gleam.

"I kind of liked Altyrus," Hercules mused mischievously, "didn't you?"

Kendaa glowed. "Absolutely," she grinned at others. Then she looked straight at Hercules.

"The kind of place you want to visit over and over again," she purred.

Everyone laughed as Hercules turned crimson from his a hairline to his throat.

He grinned sheepishly. "And over again," he agreed good-naturedly, as Khyra and Iolaus seated themselves on Sky'ree's back.

He picked Kendaa up by the waist to put her on the stallion, but she turned nose to nose with him.

"With bubbles this time?"

Hercules laughed in spite of himself, his color deepening by degrees, and lifted.

"Just get on the horse..."

THE END