Xanthippe (Chapter 5)

Template:Xanthippe nav Another morning, another new world of muscle pain. At least the cuts and burns weren't leaving scars, Akara was good for that. Xanthippe dragged herself out of bed to face a new day running; it would work out old aches, and add some new ones. After several stretches, she mused for a moment, then dropped to the ground for some push-ups. Her arms looked firmer now, there were visible muscles under the skin, though that might just be swelling. But she tried to do 10 push-ups. One of the Rogues, Shika, could do 100, or even 5 with only one hand. Four... five... six... siii... that rounds up to 10. Sit-ups were easier, she could already do 20 of those at a time.

Debi was waiting outside. She wasn't one of her "roommates" from this tent. "Hi! What was all that grunting I heard?"

"Maybe it was one of the chickens. Ready to go?"

"Yep. Did you hear about Gheed?"

"What about Gheed?"

"Well, last night, at dinner, there was chicken stew, and after everybody ate, he started farting! I mean really, really, farting! You could hear them from Gaile's position! His coat was blasting out behind him and everything!"

Xanthippe grinned. "Maybe that's what those noises were."

"I swear, it must have been so funny! I think Warriv was wondering about you. This is, like, the third strange thing that's happened to Gheed since you got here."

"What was the other one?"

"When someone rubbed poison ivy inside his underwear?"

Xanthippe silently shook her head. "Who would be cruel enough to do that?"

"I dunno. Kashya just said she was glad she didn't wear underwear."

Trying not to look disappointed, Xanthippe shrugged. "Well, I wasn't even in camp when those things happened, so Warriv shouldn't worry about me."

"Warriv kind of wondered about someone smearing soap inside the bowl Gheed always uses. That's an old trick, he said."

"Gee, I didn't know that." As they went through the waypoint, Xanthippe wondered about Kashya. Maybe poison ivy inside those nice, thigh-high boots she wears. Except she'd break my nose again, without any proof I even did it. Maybe I'll do something to her later; Kashya was actually halfway respectable. At least she knew what a fulcrum was.

The advice Kashya had so tenderly bestowed upon Xanthippe turned out to be very good. She had held her weapons firmly before, with her fingers perpendicular to the shaft. But with her fingers diagonal to the weapon, her hand and wrist were looser, and she no longer just chopped and hacked. The saber almost seemed to leap in her hand, whipping out and slicing deep into enemies from its own weight; she hardly had to exert with her arm at all, merely guide the edge where she wanted it to go. Of course, the "Steel" saber was a really superior weapon, nicer than anything else available. When she switched to the bardiche, it also gave excellent results, putting her shoulders and back into chopping, and parrying like a staff when she needed it. Now, why didn't more mages use these things? Don't have the muscle for it?

Debi kept up a constant stream of chatter through all the killing and death. "So, I was, like, so totally amazed 'cause of all the fireworks, and then it looked like this huge dragon came roaring into the courtyard! It was so cool!"

"Uh-huh." Fireworks, a standard visiting wizard tactic for impressing local yokels.

"And then it like exploded, and all these pretty paper flowers rained down on everybody! I got one, but it was kind of burned around the edge."

Sloppily-made fireworks, too. "What about the mage?"

"Oh, he got to eat at the high table, and they gave him his own room for free, and it was all, like, really neat! Did you ever have wizards where you were?"

Xanthippe turned and stared at Debi. "Debi... I'm a witch, remember?"

"Oh, yeah, they must have come by all the time! Wait, aren't you 'women only'?"

"Yes," Xanthippe returned to hacking a goat demon to bits. "Women only. To escape from brutal, patriarchal domination. That way, we get a taste of brutal, matriarchal domination instead."

"We're not dominated. Women don't do that."

Xanthippe sighed. "Debi... why is your order called the Rogues?"

"Oh, 'cause we're rogue women. Everyone started calling the sisterhood Rogues 'cause we don't do what men tell us to."

"Exactly, men made society, for the enrichment of men. You, like the Zann Esu, left to make a society of your own in an isolated place. It's called radical separatism."

Debi looked a bit confused. Eventually, she nodded. "Uh-huh."

"All right. Now, when's the last time you disobeyed an order from Kashya or Akara?"

Debi shook her head. "Akara is wiser than anybody. And Kashya always knows what to do. We all trust her."

"So, you do what you're told."

"Well... why wouldn't we? I mean, Akara is always right. She's the most blessed by the Sightless Eye, she knows better than anyone."

Xanthippe nodded triumphantly. "So what you've got here is a society where the head is always right, and never to be questioned."

"Um..."

"Yet, when you have a traditional society, where the king, or 'father', is always right and never to be questioned, that's wrong and you should rebel? The only difference up here is that it's women who are on top. Does that make your society any better, just by putting different people on top?" In their wanderings through the marsh, they came to a ruined tower, and stopped beside it. Debi actually looked upset. "That is so not right! Akara is blessed by our goddess, that's better than any king!"

"Don't get me started on religion. Ever heard of the divine right to rule? Everybody who rules claims they're ordained to rule, they know best, the only thing you should do is obey them. From the head of a family, right up to Akara or any king. Women do it as well as men."

"Look, Akara is the wisest, purest, most... wise woman in the world, and Kashya always looks out for us. Women just don't have that, you know, need to dominate."

"You've obviously never met the Zann Esu matriarchs. What is this place, anyway?"

"Maybe your Zen Esus do, but never say something like that about Akara. It's just not true."

Looking at the tower, Debi suddenly went pale. "Oh. This is the Countess' tower."

"The Countess? Countess of where?"

"No one knows her name anymore. She was a Countess, who came to escape her husband. The Order welcomed her, and she lived here. But girls started disappearing."

"Disappearing?"

"She was killing virgin girls and bathing in their blood. She'd drink it too. She thought it would keep her young forever."

Xanthippe nodded. "Maybe she didn't flee here to escape her husband. No idea about her name or where she was from?"

"Her name was stricken away a long time ago."

A cellar door was all that was left inside the tower. It smelled pretty bad down there, maybe there were demons lurking in the dark. "And she was executed a long time ago, right?"

"Yeah... I think."

"I'll bet there are some demons hiding down there. Let's check it out."

The first level looked like a wine cellar. Maybe this had been a winery before, there were reddish stains on the floor. There was a hidden door, now broken in, which led to a stairway down. Below were several levels of cellars, all full of bones. Hundreds of skulls were scattered on the floor, stuffed into wall niches, everywhere. The few whole skeletons looked so... tiny. To dig such deep cellars, and fill them all, this Countess must have been killing and killing for years. Didn't the Rogues' all-seeing Sightless Eye see what was happening? Or were the Rogues were so sure a woman could never do this, they never thought to look at one of their own? Maybe they just didn't see it was happening until it was too late.

There were demons in the cellars. Goat demons, gory red ones, and many, many ghosts. The fixtures in the cellars were valuable, and there were some excellent weapons and armor. Both Xanthippe and Debi got new helmets out of the tower. At the bottom of the cellars, they found quite a bit more. A long hall, full of ghosts, held a cauldron of boiling hot blood; the smell was horrifying. Coins and valuables were scattered all over the floor; rings, combs, silver buckles, pendants and bracelets. In the back of the cellar, a few women, dressed in ragged servants garb, were huddled by the entrance to a final chamber. They were all very pale and thin, their flesh shrunk to their bones, and fell back into the chamber as Xanthippe advanced.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are..." Xanthippe was sure something much worse than those women was in there. If the servants were alive, the master must be with them. "No, no," Debi whispered, "she's supposed to be dead." Something laughed, and hissed, low and slow, "Your blood will boil." Maybe the Countess was dead, had been for years, she and her servants with her. Maybe Andariel had found her in there, and gave her a mockery of the life she'd been willing to kill hundreds of times over for. "Debi, she is dead. We've just got to go in there and remind her." Then the servants rushed out silently. They were terribly strong, and screamed in delight at the first sight of blood. A tall, beautiful, almost translucently white woman followed behind, with an... axe? Her voice hardly rose above a murmur. "Hold them... do not spill a drop."

Xanthippe hardly knew where she found the strength. She tore away from the servants, dropped her saber, and snatched the bardiche off her back. Screaming the silence away, she charged straight at the Countess, swinging wildly, not even looking where the blows landed. Something crunched-- an axe bounced off her helmet-- all Xanthippe could see was red, but she kept swinging. An arrow whizzed past her ear, hands clawed at her back; Debi must be shooting the Countess, she jumped to the side to give her a clearer shot. There was an explosion of gore. More hands clawed at her; Xanthippe hacked and smashed in their direction, eyes shut tight against the blood. Spinning and whirling, suddenly the bardiche wasn't hitting anything. But there was still screaming... no, that was just her. She stopped and opened her eyes.

The Countess was lying on the floor in pieces. She had burst like a bloated tick. The Countess' chamber held what must be her personal treasure; a lot of gold, and several items bearing the crest of a noble family line. Looking at the ornate emblem, Xanthippe knew she would probably have no love for them. But if the Countess was fleeing them, they must have known what she was. Before she returned to camp, she and Debi pried off, chopped off, or obliterated every crest and sign of who the Countess once was. Wiping her name away forever seemed perfectly fitting.