Chapter 15: Chapter: 15 Mesmers

Music and laughter and the smells of roasting meat filled the air as we rode into the Mesmers camping grounds. Their brightly colored tents and wagons were arranged in a large circle around a roaring bonfire. On the side of the camp was an animal enclosure with a few horses and a young pony grazing on lush grass.

I could make out a few people sitting around the fire. One of them stood up and walked towards us and I could tell from the swaying hips that it was a woman.

She drew nearer and I saw she was wearing a revealing white dress and she had a garland of flowers in her purple hair. She greeted Baskin with a kiss on his cheek and the old man pulled her aside and they spoke for a while.

I took that time to thank Flint for his hard work and to compliment him on his strength and stamina. He told me his strength and stamina were always available for whatever I wanted and then he winked at me. I returned him to his card.

Baskin and the woman finished their talk and she turned to me and ran her eyes down my body like a farmer inspecting cattle. She licked her lips and when my face turned pink she gave me a mischievous smile.

“No sleeping with the guest, Ysolda,” Baskin said as he began unloading his caravan. “He's recovering from a broken heart.”

I shook my head.

“All recovered.”

Ysolda laughed and slung an arm around my shoulder squeezing me against her large breasts. She leant close to my ear and whispered, “Baskin says you're quite the card mage. Would you like to help me out with my performance? It's bound to be memorable, there’s a lot of role playing involved.”

---

I held my hands over my crotch as Ysolda introduced me to the rest of the Mesmers and the smiling faces that greeted me told me that my cover up job had not worked at all.

“This is Griever the animal handler,” she said.

A man nodded at us then shuffled off towards the animal enclosure.

“He's a quiet man. He cannot speak or will not, nobody knows but he makes up for his lack of communication with other skills.”

I didn't want to know what she meant by that so I just smiled and waved as she led me to the fire.

I sat down on a log beside the bonfire and Ysolda introduced me to a young couple named Jinn and Zoey Townsend. They looked familiar somehow. Zoey had short golden hair and puffy eyes and Jinn had dark hair, sunken cheeks and wore a sword on his hip.

Ysolda then left to get me something to eat as I warmed my hands by the fire and tried to figure out where I knew the woman from.

Zoey smiled at me shyly and handed me a jug of water.

“The Mesmers have a habit of adopting strays,” she said.

Her face flushed as she realized that she was probably insulting me.

“I mean that in a positive way,” she said quickly. “They took us in as well.”

I laughed and took a sip from the jug of water and then wiped my face with the back of my sleeve.

“How long have you been with them?” I asked.

Zoey smiled sadly.

“It's been six days.”

She then looked at her husband and he nodded but said nothing. I didn't need a mind reader to realize that this couple had been through some shit recently.

I wasn't someone who trusted people easily but these folk seemed nice enough. I decided I’d ask some questions before I decided to stay the night with them. For all I knew I could wake up the following morning with my organs harvested with a dog’s chew toy replacing my heart.

“Has life on the road been pleasant for you?” I asked.

Zoey wrapped her arms around herself and stared into the fire.

“Change was needed. But tell us about yourself, what brings you to your bonfire this night?”

“I got into a fight with a friend and we parted ways.”

“The gods bring friends into our lives for a season,” she said. “It's our job to know when the season is over.”

Zoey was the first religious person I had seen since coming to this world. I was beginning to think that gods meant something very different in this world.

“What do you know about the goddess Ahri?” I asked.

Zoey picked up an iron rod and poked the fire with it.

“Ahri is one of the new gods,” she said. “There’s not much known about them. There were one hundred of them, they were mortal back then and they came together to exile the elder gods. Not much else is known about them.”

Jinn cleared his throat and said, “One hundred and one.”

“Yes, you are right,” said Zoey. “They had a leader, they called him the Sword Saint. As for Ahri. She has no temples or shrines raised to her, no worshippers. The story goes that during the elder war her family was murdered. She was there but she was too afraid to fight so she turned into a spider and hid away.”

“A spider?” I asked.

Zoey shrugged.

“Oh yes, that's how the story goes.”

That didn't tell me much but Ahri’s violent side was beginning to make sense.

Jinn stood up and dusted off his coat.

“I must patrol the grounds before we settle in for bed,” he said. He adjusted the sword on his hip and walked away.

Zoey watched him leave before turning back to me.

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“Excuse him, he's not been himself lately.”

I didn't bother checking her status. I knew if I did it would only confirm what I already knew. They were in mourning, the grief was obvious in their downcast eyes and their sad smiles.

“You lost someone close to you?” I asked.

It was probably an insensitive question but I was terrible at dealing with all this emotional stuff. But I felt like I needed to ask the question so we could get past the awkward tension.

Zoey’s lip quivered but she quickly forced a smile and stared into the flames.

“When we got married,” she said. “Jinn and I had two dreams. To have kids and to travel the world. We tried to have kids many times and finally I fell pregnant.”

She brushed a stray tear from the corner of her cheek.

“Our child died at birth… but a miracle happened. The gods favored us and our little boy came to life.” She sniffed loudly and took a deep breath. “I don't know what we did wrong but minutes later our boy died again.”

“And this was a few days ago?” I asked as a gut wrenching feeling came over me.

Zoey nodded but said nothing.

Her story triggered a memory in my mind of my first moments in Umbra.

Oh shit it can't be.

A song I’d heard sung as I’d entered this new world came to mind.

I whispered the lyrics and watched Zoey for a reaction.

“The harbingers come, the harbingers come to take us away.”

As I spoke a picture took form in my mind. An attractive woman with golden hair raising her blouse to breastfeed a child-no, to breastfeed me.

Zoey stared at me, the shock clearly evident on her innocent face.

“How?” she asked.

I couldn't tell her that Ahri had brought me into this world and shifted me between a bunch of dead bodies and one of those bodies just happened to be her dead infant.

“Sorry,” I said. I wasn't sure if I was saying sorry for her loss or sorry for my part in it.

“My mother used to sing that song to me when I was very little,” I said. It wasn't a complete lie, Zoey had technically been my mother for a few minutes.

We fell silent for a moment, each of us tangled in our thoughts and I tossed another log on the fire. It crackled and smoldered before catching alight.

Zoey poked the fire with the iron rod and sparks rose up into the air like fireflies. She held the rod tight in both of her hands and then she began to sing.

“When the skies turn red-

Run and hide or join the dead.

The harbingers come, the harbingers come.

When your blood turns cold and your knees grow weak-

Close your eyes and do not speak.

The harbingers come, the harbingers come to take you away.

Pale the shield and silver fanged-

Hood the traitor alive but hanged-

Beholder sees with sightless eyes-

The harbingers come to find their prize.”

I remained motionless as my mind unfurled and memories that had been intentionally erased came flooding in.

“Pale is the man with silver fangs,” I said. “Hood is the one with a glowing cane. The woman Beholder is a cold blooded killer.”

I had seen them all in a village burnt to the ground. They were hunting for something, something so important that they had killed an entire village just at the hint that it might be there.

Leaves crunched underfoot, startling me and it was as if a spell had been broken. I looked up and saw Baskin and Ysolda watching us. Ysolda frowned at me and then handed me a bowl of stew.

“Enough of that,” she said. “The harbingers are superstitious nonsense. You'll give us all nightmares with that talk.”

Baskin sat down beside me.

“If it's only superstition then why are you so nervous?” he asked her. “If you’re scared the harbingers are hiding under your bed, Ysolda, I’ll come and tuck you in tonight.”

Ysolda tossed a fork at Baskin and he caught it easily and began poking her with it. The two laughed and as they did pain lanced behind my eye socket and I reached up and touched my face.

I remembered a man… No, I remembered Hood planting a worm into my brain. He’d spoken to me and said that I had a mission and the mind harvester would make sure I did my part.

I swallowed a lump in my throat and realized that Zoey was still watching me from across the fire.

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