The Multitude

by J M Fraser

  She didn’t argue the point, rambling instead about her shop and its scent of strawberries. Carla explained she didn’t sell berries of any kind, but the fragrances of different herbs combined into that singular aroma, and she even noticed the scent in her dreams sometimes.

  She shifted around and faced him, eyes gleaming out of the shadows as she spoke about the mystery of dreams and what they might mean. She worked her way up to the description of a specific nightmare she’d been having—her struggle with a mysterious man in a subway station and her inexplicable urge to jump in front of a train.

  “The last time I had the dream, I thought it might be from a previous life. But that makes no sense. Everything in the scene is modern.” She shuddered. “Let’s face it. This is my subconscious telling me I’m suicidal.”

  He ran his fingers though her hair. “No, you aren’t. We could probably interpret that dream a hundred different ways.”

  “I pay good money for a professional to tell me that. You need to come at this thing from a different angle.” She pulled a pillow over her head.

  Brewster lifted it away. “You’re seeing a shrink?”

  “I was afraid my minister would bring in an exorcist. Anyway, I’m sure you’ve noticed how crazy I am.”

  “Not really. You’re eccentric and free-spirited.”

  She giggled. “So, you think I’m a modern-day Tinker Bell?”

  Good. He’d eased her mood. He ran his fingertips up and down the warm flesh of her arm. “Tinker Bell had a mean streak. I’m thinking more along the lines of a forest nymph.”

  Carla went quiet.

  “What?”

  “You called me a forest nymph.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Then listen to this.” She bounded past him, out of bed, and paced the room, describing her passage from the suicide dream to a woodland where she existed as someone named Maynya. “The forest dream comes with its own language.”

  That little tidbit sent a tingle down his spine. “Sometimes I dream in Latin,” he said.

  She stopped pacing. “You and I weren’t thrown together by accident, were we? Not many people dream in tongues.”

  Brewster swallowed. As creepy strange as the world had gotten lately, it hadn’t redefined itself until that moment. Carla stood as living proof his Latin dreams didn’t have a logical foundation. Yes, as a child, he might have overheard his language-professor dad spouting some Latin when preparing lesson plans, but she hadn’t been there.

  His head swam. He shifted up to the edge of the bed to clear his vision.

  She came down beside him, gripped his hand, squeezed tight.

  “Weirded out?” The shakiness of his voice certainly betrayed his own anxiety.

  “I have been for a long time. But now I’ve got this…vulnerability. What happens when I get swept away again? What if I forget we ever met?” Her voice cracked. “Or you forget me?”

  “No way.”

  She touched his nose with a fingertip, smiled, and got back in bed, this time facing him, not the wall. “You bring to mind a line from Anne of Green Gables. Ever read it?”

  He eased down beside her. “I’m not sure a guy should admit that.”

  “We’re kindred spirits,” she said.

  He gazed into her steady eyes, basking in the warmest glow he’d ever experienced.

  “Tell me what happened last night, from your perspective,” she said.

  “You raced for the door like Cinderella and disappeared, but instead of a shoe, you left your card behind.”

  “That’s when I woke up.”

  “I looked for Rag Thyme today,” he said.

  “It’s fourteen hours east of here by car…and a year ago.” Carla rolled. “Spoon with me some more.”

  They’d both had too much wine. A complete loss of inhibition lurked only one wayward touch away. He shifted closer but took care to put his hand somewhere relatively safe—on her arm. And he stayed on topic. “Let’s compare notes about our dreams.”

  “Tell me your life story, instead,” she whispered.

  “Which one?”

  “The one where Latin isn’t spoken.”

  “I’m a wannabe with a big mortgage.” In the darkness of the room, in a world gone so wacky that possible embarrassment was the least of his fears, he manned up and told her everything. Bad career choices, failing finance companies, struggling Russian truckers, unpublished novels, and his theory that life was like a running game in football, requiring its players to keep pounding away, pounding away, until finally, by the third or fourth quarter, holes would open.

  She took his hand. “You’re a brave man.”

  “Nah. Just some random clown who dreams in Latin. What about you? What’s your story?”

  She went quiet for a long moment. “I’ve been falling through cosmic wormholes lately. My soul keeps drifting away from my body.”

  The fear in her voice shook him as much as the haunting imagery. He scrunched closer and paced his breathing with hers to form an alliance against shared anxiety.

  “I like your touch,” she said.

  “Same here.” Their remarkably easy bond triggered his fear of bad luck, and his mind raced to memories of the failed relationships he’d glossed over while telling Carla about himself. He’d always suffered the effects of too much ambition, only rarely allowing himself to feel content. For the ambitious, anything other than purpose and accomplishment was a distraction. As a result, he’d been labeled too serious or humorless or—worst of all—boring by the various girlfriends who’d had enough of him sooner or later.

  Beth Holiday, the most recent of his flings, was a high school English teacher who had enough starry-eyed cheerfulness in her own disposition to carry the both of them for six great months but not quite enough to keep her from bolting to Denver when an opportunity to teach creative writing at a private college presented itself. She left with kind words and sage advice, telling him to find someone who needed a hero. He’d kill two birds with one stone that way. The woman would fulfill his romantic needs while simultaneously satisfying his inner need to save someone.

  He hadn’t followed Beth’s advice, choosing instead to go it alone after she dumped him. Playing the role of somebody’s hero would have required long-term commitment and plenty of energy, but his job at Crestview Finance sapped everything he had.

  Now, though, he lay beside a woman who needed a champion and offered an elixir of beauty, creativity, humor, and intelligence in return. In comparison, his career came across as a cold-hearted, passionless bitch of a mistress. The time had come to put a good relationship ahead of a lousy job. “Are you seeing anyone?” he asked.

  “I’m seeing you.” Carla’s soft answer came with no small hint of pleasure. She intertwined her fingers with his.

  “I have to warn you, I’ve been called selfish and boring and a workaholic and—”

  “I’m seeing you,” she insisted, “for as long as you’ll have me.”

  Brewster squeezed the hand of a damsel in distress who thought she lived eight hundred miles and a dozen months away. “And I’m seeing you, for as long as you’ll put up with me.”

  Carla wasn’t eccentric or a little off or downright crazy anymore. Brewster cast his lot with heaven-sent. He couldn’t freeze time at this moment of contentment forever. Sooner or later, whatever forces had swept her away a night ago might do so again. But he took comfort from the notion any wormholes hovering nearby had already proven to be benevolent. They’d brought her to his home twice so far, and they surely wouldn’t end a game unfinished. Otherwise, the first two visits would have been pointless.

  If Carla wanted to see him for as long as he’d have her, the wormholes would be there at the ready.

  The gentle hum of arousal crept over him. He sensed heat in Carla as well, but a hero would want her to feel protected, not craved. So he controlled his urges and surrendered to the sandman, ready to drift away whenever and wherever, as long as the forest nymph breathing con
tentedly at his side came along for the ride.

  But she didn’t.

  CHAPTER 14

  Across the portal, in Virtus

  Quintus Laskaris eased his horse around a clump of scrub brush baked brown by the sun. He’d likely be skirting these patches of thirsty vegetation for a few more days, until he reached the somewhat wetter capital city of Dubris. Then, should he continue into the woods, he’d cross the Sanctimonia border. Thoughts of fiery Mystic women and the hard-drinking, story-telling men of that territory tempted him sorely. He enjoyed their company far more than that of his own brutish lot. But border saloons were rife with the king’s spies. Albus wouldn’t be amused to hear about any side trips to consort with the “enemy.”

  Meanwhile, well outside his ruling brother’s reach, a trinity of more immediate scourges shaped Quintus’s day—drought, dust, and danger. A little ahead, Bertramus and his band of six soldiers had already pulled up short. “I smell trouble,” the lieutenant said. He pointed east.

  Quintus squinted toward the horizon. Anything greater than a mile out faded into the same dusty haze that had turned everyone’s blue uniforms gray—capes, shirts, trousers, and boots all gone to chalk.

  Winds gusting across the scorched earth stirred up an earthy powder he could taste. He longed to rinse the bitter flavor from his mouth, but he’d stolen too many swigs from his canteen already. Rationing would be the word until they came upon the next creek.

  “I don’t smell a thing.” Quintus hoped Bertramus hadn’t jinxed them by bringing up the possibility of trouble. Although the region was notorious for its dangers, the first day and a half of their journey had proven blessedly uneventful. They hadn’t skirmished with any of the hostile gangs of fugitives, bandits, or indigenous savages who favored the area for its general lack of soldiers. Despite their side trip to fetch Quintus from his border patrol, Bertramus’s principal orders were to root out these scoundrels. Thus far, though, they’d come across only a few dry-land farmers—peaceful folk for the most part, if somewhat crazy. No sane man could expect hardy crops to spring out of the cracked earth. Quintus admired their pluck.

  “One o’clock.” Bertramus continued pointing east.

  Quintus could barely make out a distant hint of smoke at a slight angle from the path they’d been following. The time had come to say his good-byes and move on. These other soldiers had been assigned peacekeeping duties, whereas he’d been summoned to see the king. But he couldn’t abandon this small troop to face an unknown danger, could he? In a skirmish, one extra gun might make all the difference. Besides, why hurry to visit a brother he despised, whether he’d been summoned or not?

  He stayed with the men.

  They advanced with caution, using undulations in the land as cover. When they rounded the last hill, they had their weapons at the ready, the soldiers with rifles in their hands and Quintus with a pistol. As a scout and occasional spy, he traveled lightly armed. Now, approaching the unknown with only six bullets in his chamber and a relatively short range of fire, he prayed he could count on the soldiers as good marksmen.

  But the time for shooting had already come and gone. They rode up to the smoldering ruins of a cabin where the bodies of a homesteading couple lay outside, riddled with arrows. The man had been scalped.

  “They were unarmed, by the looks of it.” Bertramus shaded his eyes and gazed toward a fenced area south of the cabin. “Bound to happen sooner or later. I’m surprised these fools survived long enough to plant their crops.”

  Quintus longed for the ability to stave off emotion and make such a callous comment. He’d seen plenty of death in his thirty years, more than enough to harden the hearts of most men, but his remained too soft. As usual, he couldn’t stop his thoughts from straying down a path littered with pointless empathy. Had the couple been happy? Had they been living their dream? What of their parents who’d eventually hear the sorry news from the soldiers? And what of those others whose lives might have been touched by these two? Homesteading was the best means for taming a forbidding land, but this couple had found death doing it.

  He escaped the heart-wrenching carnage and wandered to a brook some hundred yards away. An irrigation canal had been scooped out, and he followed it to the fenced plantings—a row of corn waist high, a small field of wheat, another of soy. The wind triggered rippling waves across the unburned plots. The region’s warring indigenous tribes never touched crops, focusing their wrath solely on settlers and their dwellings. Perhaps the savages considered the isolated pockets of splendor in a fallow land akin to hallowed ground.

  He closed his eyes and tried to imagine a world where one might carve out a homestead in peace. But he saw only two bloodied corpses.

  Bertramus came up, stooping to fill his canteen in the clear canal water. “The northern tribe hates settlers.”

  “They see these plains as their land,” Quintus said.

  The bearded man stood, took a swig from his canteen, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “You and I share a history. How many battles have we fought side by side?”

  “Counting saloon brawls?”

  Bertramus split the dust at his mouth with a wide grin. “Whatever they were, you fought with conviction. Don’t go soft on me now. You’ll be traveling alone, across their land, the rest of the way.”

  “And you’ll be traveling?”

  The lieutenant jerked his chin to the north.

  The possibility of action tugged Quintus like a magnet. “I can lend a hand in a fight.”

  “I doubt we’ll catch them.”

  “If you do, you and your soldiers could use the help. I’ve never known the northerners to travel fewer than two dozen strong.”

  Bertramus took another pull at his canteen, then squinted at the sky as if looking to God for an answer. “I have my orders, and you have yours, no matter how unmilitary the reasons behind them.”

  Quintus knelt and washed the dust from his face with blessedly cold water. He gulped straight out of the canal before filling his canteen. When he stood, he found Bertramus lingering rather than helping his men dig the graves. “Tell me why I’ve been summoned.”

  The lieutenant shook his head. “You know how Albus loves his little surprises.”

  “Give me a hint.”

  Bertramus tried to turn away, but Quintus stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “You and I are old friends.”

  They locked eyes for a long moment before the lieutenant relented. “You’ve been summoned to a wedding.”

  “Summoned from the front for a wedding?”

  “Not just any wedding. Albus’s wedding.”

  Quintus stalked away. Either that or strangle the man.

  “Where are you going?” Bertramus asked.

  “I saw a hoe in the field. It’ll make a good club.”

  “I’m only the messenger.”

  “Then here’s your message. Tell Albus you never found me.” Quintus shaded his eyes to look west across the baking prairie. One day’s ride and he’d be back where he started. Two days and—

  “We shoot deserters, Quintus.”

  “Even the king’s brother?”

  Bertramus slung his canteen over his shoulder and headed toward the men. “Act surprised when Albus announces his wedding, or I’ll be the one getting shot.”

  Quintus turned east and sighed. Given his blood ties, he could have been stationed wherever he wanted, but he’d chosen a distant scouting assignment to escape Albus. He and his brother had always been like oil and water. The situation had worsened when birthright crowned Albus king and elevated the man’s ego to the clouds. Still, maybe his brother had turned a new leaf.

  Marriage. He’d never expected Albus to grant any maiden the honor. In the past, the man had taken and discarded woman after woman without regard to the virtue he’d ruined each time. Perhaps a visit was in order.

  * * *

  Several hours after bidding the soldiers farewell and continuing his eastward trek, Quintus again enjoyed a
cold splash of water. He’d come upon a spring-fed fountain within the square of a ramshackle town. He used cupped hands to drink his fill.

  He’d packed his military cape in his saddlebag earlier when the sun had grown too hot. Now he unbuttoned his shirt, stripped it off, and lowered his upper body into the pool. After a long moment, he lifted out and felt human again.

  A scream pierced the all-too-brief moment of peace. He hurried to a group of eight ragged monks who’d formed a circle around a golden-haired angel of a young woman dressed in a floral shift and silver sandals.

  The zealots surrounding her had murder in their eyes.

  He’d come across their kind in other settlements, men who carved out a station by terrorizing the local populace into following an ancient creed of purity and sacrifice. Like the others, these men had shaved their heads, and also like the others, their long robes probably concealed the scars of self-scourging.

  The woman quaked in their midst with fists clenched, chest heaving, and terror in her eyes. “I’ve done nothing!”

  He worked his way into the circle and nudged the man on his left. “What’s this all about?”

  “It’s about traveling gypsies whoring in our god-fearing town!” The monk sprayed Quintus’s face with his angry words, then bent to a small pile of stones he’d gathered at his feet. A quick glance around the circle revealed similar stashes collected by the others.

  The irony of fate never failed to amaze him. Two law-abiding settlers might have been spared a flurry of arrows had he and the others arrived an hour earlier. But no, destiny decided he should risk his life saving a gypsy, instead. Backing away wasn’t an option he could consider. Any man unwilling to protect a maiden was no man at all.

  He took three long strides into the center of the circle, wrapped an arm around the woman’s waist, and turned with her, slowly, looking each man in the eye. “Who among you hasn’t lusted for a woman? According to your creed, the thought is as great a sin as the deed, is it not? Maybe you should stone yourselves.”

  Fear—a welcome friend—made his voice tremble. He’d always known a dose of it during battle and perhaps he’d stayed alive for that reason. Fear could keep a man from underestimating his adversary and getting his fool head knocked off. Although Quintus had a weapon, these monks, all larger men, had him surrounded and could strike from his blind sides. The element of surprise might be counted on to freeze them at first, but he couldn’t rely on them to stay that way for long.