Xena and Gabrielle are relaxing in a small lake, and fishing for breakfast, when a boy (Icus), fleeing a group of zealots, runs toward them. Xena saves the boy. Fighting the zealots, she drives the first lot off, and the rest are ordered to retreat when Maell comes on the scene. Icus explains to Xena that the zealots (and Maell, who is his older brother) were supposed to take him to be sacrificed -- by his own father. While Icus insists that his father is a good man, Xena and Gabrielle can't believe it. Xena leaves Gabrielle and Icus sheltering in a cave, while she goes in search of Icus' family.
Learning that Anteus intends to sacrifice his son because "Almighty God" has commanded it, Xena comments dryly, "And I thought Ares was cold." She simply cannot understand this kind of religion. Even more surprising to her is Anteus' insistence on non-violence, though Maell seems eager to use his sword. Maell stirs up the other zealots against Xena, claiming that she is a challenge sent by their god: an obviously unnatural woman who cannot be allowed to live.
Meanwhile, Xena has found Icus' mother praying at Hestia's shrine for her son's life. From Zora, Xena learns that two months earlier their God instructed Anteus to make Icus his heir, displacing Maell. Xena begins to smell a rat. And when Zora talks about her husband's changing personality, and gives Xena some of the nutbread the Maell makes especially for his father, Xena realizes the bread must be poisoned or drugged. She rushes to the cave, where she finds Gabrielle unconscious...*very* high on henbane. Gabrielle had eaten all the nutbread Icus had (apparently it's one of her favorite foods) since he wasn't hungry. Xena convinces the hallucinating Gabrielle to wait in the cave while she hurries to find Icus.
When Gabrielle passed out, Icus panicked and went to his mother for help, believing Gabrielle to be very ill. He is found there by the zealots. Another group of zealots attempt to stop Xena on the road, but she easily evades their clumsy trap. She follows the zealots up the mountain and distracts them while she rescues Icus. Thunder from the sky as the zealots realize Icus is missing: "God" is displeased. Anteus is at the place of sacrifice, praying, begging to be allowed to spare his son. He hears the voice of "God" insisting the sacrifice go ahead...a voice both Xena and Icus hear clearly. Xena attempts once more to reason with Anteus, but her logic is no match for the old man's faith: it is clear that Anteus desperately wants to save his son, but that he will obey his God even if he doesn't understand the reasons for the sacrifice. Xena returns Anteus to his wife, revealing that the old man is ill because he has been drugged by Maell. When Gabrielle turns up at the house, still suffering the effects of the same drug they have to believe Xena.
The zealots attempt once again to take Icus by force. Icus, by now convinced that it is God's will that he die, goes with them willingly to prevent more violence. Icus leads his father by the hand to the place of sacrifice. Now it is Anteus who's afraid. But as he shouts to the heavens his refusal to sacrifice his son, the thunder comes again from a clear blue sky, terrifying the old man into submission. The thunder is being created by Maell, amplified by the echoes of the valley. The "Voice of God" is him, too: he has some sort of loudspeaker. Maell is insane with jealousy, believing that his father loves Icus more than him, and furious because he was displaced as Anteus' heir. To stop her interfering, the zealots throw Xena and Gabrielle down a well (I'm not quite clear on *how*, but hey, it's funny). Somehow this experience helps Gabrielle shake off the effects of the henbane and she starts behaving more like herself. Escaping from the well, both of them hurry up the mountain. Maell tries once again to kill Xena, but falls from the chasm himself, despite Xena's attempt to save him. Gabrielle tries to reach the loudspeaker while Xena rushes to stop the sacrifice. Before Xena can reach Anteus and Icus, a voice comes from the sky, telling Anteus to halt the sacrifice: "Your faith is enough." Father and son rejoice.
Xena believes that voice was Gabrielle with the loudspeaker, but as they leave the valley Gabrielle denies this. Both look nervously at the sky...
Guest Starring: David Ackroyd (Anteus), David de Lautour (Icus), Karl Urban (Maell), Teresa Woodham (Zora), Sean Ashton-Peach (Zealot #1), Graham Smith (Senior Zealot), Jack Dacey (Brawny Zealot), Peter Ford (Zealot Guard)
Starring: Lucy Lawless as Xena, Renee O'Connor as Gabrielle
Written by Chris Manheim
Directed by Michael Levine