Alps in the distance. I serve a minor prince. He’s going to war with his brother, who has conquered a lot of territory and never been defeated in battle...I am his witch. I touch the prince I serve and see his future.” Mariella’s lips twisted in disgust. “In the future, I see his armored men in rows for the battle. His brother, the ruthless war-maker, has his own witch, and she casts a spell. My liege’s men begin to die of the plague. They rot on their feet, the tattered flesh dropping between the plates of their armor, blood running out from the slits in their face visors...This witch, I tell him, is the reason his brother has never lost. He listens to me and sends assassins to his brother’s camp the night before the battle, to kill the girl with their crossbows.”
“I remember,” Jenny said. “I was drinking a cup of wine, and the bolt hit me in the throat. I died fast.”
“The next day, your prince tried to surrender to mine, because he couldn’t win without you, Jenny,” Mariella said. “My prince defeated yours and carried his head on a pike until it rotted. His own brother.” Mariella looked sadly up and down the row of stones. “So many lives, full of so much suffering and death, so little love.”
“That’s true,” Jenny said, touching her arm. “It’s hard, but it’s better to know the truth. It’s up to us to make our lives different now. Don’t let your past trap you.”
Mariella nodded and wandered toward the next stone, looking dazed, but Jenny had successfully calmed her. Far ahead, Seth let out a high scream, loud enough to wake the French farmer on whose land they were trespassing.
“Seth! What’s wrong?” Jenny ran to catch up with him. He was gripping one of the standing stones and leaning against it, his eyes closed. She took his hand. “Seth, talk to me.”
“You tortured me!” His eyes flew open, and his mouth curled into a snarl. “You tortured me, Jenny.”
“Can you be more specific?” Jenny asked, thinking of too many past lives that he might be seeing. “Sorry.”
“Egypt,” he said. “I was an Egyptian swordsman, the best in the kingdom. I’d come home from battle without a scratch, and so would the men around me. But then you...and Alexander...invaded from Persia...”
“Cambyses,” Jenny remembered. “That was Alexander’s name. Son of Cyrus of Persia, the king of kings.”
“Cambyses and the famous ‘immortal’ swordsmen of Persia,” Seth said. “They were immortal enough. Undead. Not very skilled at fighting, but relentless and almost impossible to kill through their armor and shields. Thousands of them came into Egypt with you and Alexander. He conquered and declared himself pharaoh, making all the Egyptians worship him.”
“That’s very Alexander,” Jenny said.
“I didn’t know my touch would damage his zombies,” Seth said. “You and Alexander eventually hunted me down. You tortured me for months, letting me heal up each time, before you finally killed me. By then, I was begging to die.”
“I’m sorry, Seth.” She touched his face, but he pulled away and continued on down the row.
Mariella passed by, absorbed in her own vision. Jenny watched both of them wander ahead, absorbing their long line of past lives.
Something small and fast shot past Jenny’s eyes like a comet trailing smoke, and she gasped, getting a lungful of cold gas. It ricocheted from the stone beside her and landed in the grass between her feet. She had a quick glimpse of something like a kid’s smoke bomb, and then the gas rolled up over her legs like a fog.
Jenny ran towards Seth, trying to hold her breath, but she’d already taken a lungful of the stuff. Mariella was lost in her trance, but Seth saw Jenny coming and started toward her.
“No...not this...not this way...” Jenny said, but she couldn’t speak above a whisper. She felt like she was trying to run in quicksand, her legs dragging, all her muscles shutting down. More of the smoke-bomb devices rained down around her and around Seth. They weren’t actually smoke bombs, because smoke bombs didn’t come loaded with powerful tranquilizer gas.
A fog rose around Seth, and he staggered and slowed, then fell to one knee.
“Jennifer Morton,” a stern male voice said. “Don’t bother running. We’ve got you.” Men approached from the shadows of the stones with electric devices crackling in their hands, prepared to zap Jenny if the tranquilizer didn’t take her out.
Jenny tried to continue on toward Seth, but she lost her balance