Stuff was weird for a few days. Joxer kept feeling like he could jump out of his own skin at every little noise, and Xena and Gab were pretending like he wasn't there, which usually meant they were annoyed but they weren't acting annoyed. Maybe they were just busy, but still. Weird stuff.
He didn't really feel like going out and exploring the town for some reason. Probably still tired from his trip and all, he figured; besides, there was plenty to explore within the palace walls. The palace of the kings of Sumeria was a fable, something in a street poet's story, and here he was, actually inside it.
And the stories, fabulous as they were, didn't do it justice. He'd seen real, honest-to-Zeus cities with walls and everything smaller than the palace. It took the Guard a full day to make a circuit on the road atop the surrounding wall, and that road was broader and better-laid than most he'd seen on the ground. Intricate mosaic murals lined the endless hallways, every one different, scenes from a history and a lineage that was so ancient that the griots apprenticed for fifty years before they knew it all. And underfoot in those same halls were more mosaics, intricately patterned and here and there inlaid with the indecipherable script of the holy scrolls, every single inch of it different. There were many open areas with small gardens and fountains, and then there was the hanging garden.
The hanging garden. It took Joxer two days to find his way to it, and when he finally did he allowed himself to feel smug for a long while as he looked and looked and tried to take it all in. The garden was at the exact center of the palace complex, as large as the Athenian agora and just as crowded--but where home was crowded with people and pushcarts and merchants and warriors, the garden was crowded with ruins and rocks and running water and the green fronds of a thousand different kinds of plants. Hardly anyone had ever been to the garden. Heredotus had written about it, and Hercules had been here once, and he thought maybe the Argonauts, or maybe Achilles, he was always getting the Argonauts and Achilles mixed up because they both started with alpha. But whoever it was that had been here, they were brave and fearless explorers who had gone where almost no one dared to, and now he was one of them. Joxer the Wanderer. It had a nice ring to it.
The rocky terraces and tumbled-down stones of the garden were said to be the remnants of another palace, even more ancient and more wonderful than the one that stood here now on its same site. The invaluable water allowed to run freely in streams and cascades spoke more about the wealth and power of those long-lost kings, as well of that of Nebula's Lion House, than any display of gold and pomp ever could. Joxer closed his eyes for a moment and breathed in the air, damp, ozone-tinged, sweet-smelling; it was air like that at home, not like the dry Sumerian winds that blew in from the mountains, or the salt-soaked breezes that came in from the sea. He followed the winding dirt paths away from the garden's edges into its center, away from the odd looks of the nobles walking along the marble-paved main walkways, and deep into the ruins. This path, deliberately left worn and bare like a pilgrim's road, led to the most famous of all the palace's legends. Joxer stopped respectfully before the huge structure and waited to see if it would allow him to approach. You never could tell with gods.
This was supposed to be some long-forgotten god, his name lost along with that of the people who worshipped him. In fact, a casual onlooker might think it was no crumbled statue at all but a tumbled-down wall or merely a pile of lichen-covered rocks, but a casual onlooker would never make it here. The remains of the statue, and the fountains and overgrown pools flanking it, were as famous in Sumeria as the statue at Rhodes was at home, but much harder to access. Only those invited into the palace grounds were ever allowed to see it. Only those with the best connections were allowed to approach it and bask in its faded, sad beauty. Joxer had no connections, but the ancient god seemed not to mind. He edged up to the fountains and trailed his fingers in the water. Small fish darted up and nibbled before deciding he was inedible, and diving away in disgust.
Joxer grinned. The water spilled over the edge of the basin through a crack and ran down away behind the statue. He wondered if the fish came from there, or if they went there. Following the small creek, he pushed aside the brush and wriggled through the branches, and around the back of the statue.
And here the stone remained solid, a lichen-covered wall blocking the worst of the sunlight, leaving a patch of mossy ground in its shadow. There was sun, trickling through the branches of the trees that arched overhead, but not so much as to allow the large plants of the rest of the garden to run riot. The small clearing that resulted was cool, and mossy, and wonderfully private, and such a beautiful spot Joxer was amazed he'd never heard of it. But the brush was awful thick around the statue's base, and maybe, just maybe, no one had ever thought to go around the back of it. Until now.
Hardly daring to breathe, Joxer edged into the open space. It was a perfect place for being quiet, and alone, and thinking. It looked like one of those places Gabrielle always sought out to meditate in and seldom could find. It even had the running water she loved so much. He stretched himself down on the ground, looking up into the pure blue Sumerian sky. Yes, Gabrielle would love it here. There were even some nice flat rocks for her to sit on. She'd love it! He bounced to his feet, too excited with the secret to hold still. He'd tell her as soon as he saw her again. The very minute!
"That's nice," Gabrielle said. She didn't quite look him in the eye as she unlaced the belt around her hips that held the scabbards for her sai, and kept her blousy shirt from falling entirely open in the front instead of only as far as her navel. Gabrielle seemed a little odd, had looked a little odd ever since he'd arrived, and Joxer worried that there might be something wrong with her.
"No, really," he said. "It's a perfect place for meditating."
"I meditate out in the garden. When I have time."
"Yeah, it's just like out there. Except more hidden, and the rocks are all with moss all over them, and..." Joxer tried to draw the scene in the air in front of him, frustrated beyond measure that he couldn't find the right words to describe it. Because if he did, she would love it. He knew she would. She just had to go look, that was all.
"I'll have to check it out sometime." Gabrielle straightened up, assuming a brisk air. "I'm glad to see you're getting around, Joxer. Maybe we can find something useful for you to do in a few days."
"Gabrielle--"
"I've got to catch a nap before tonight's patrol. See you." She turned and walked away, slipping behind the curtain, and Joxer hissed softly at himself. His fault, he hadn't made it clear enough. And Gabrielle was still acting weird. Not get-lost-Joxer weird, but some other kind of weird, and he was starting to worry about her.
And he couldn't do what he would normally do, which would be go to Xena and tell her he was worried about Gabrielle and trust her to take care of it, because if Gabrielle was only talking to him in short sentences with her face averted at least she was talking to him. Xena wasn't talking to him at all. And he couldn't blame her.
She was as cold as ice and as distant as the mountains in Italy. She wasn't mad at him, she was beyond mad, and he had simply ceased to exist. He dropped his head when she went by, tried to remain invisible, tried not to bring the shame and disapproval that he deserved down upon his head, but he was living right there with her and she was impossible to avoid. She knew. He realized this in his gut. She knew everything that happened, everything that he'd done, and she despised him for it. And what this might ultimately mean--well, whatever it was, he couldn't bear to think about it. So he didn't think about it. There were so many things right now he couldn't afford to think about, and he wound up sitting behind the ancient god in the garden not thinking about them a whole lot. The world was wrong and this time he didn't know how to fix it.