After a fierce, brief spate of weeping, Quintus was silent, at peace as he had seldom been. He rubbed his hands across his eyes, breathing in the overpowering scent of the asphodels. Then he chuckled. For the first time since Crassus’s Legions had entered the desert, he realized he was truly at rest.
The upper air seemed very far away. He had sunlight and growing things and fresh water here: He had his land. What more could he need? This was all his grandfather had taught him ever to want.
Rest with me, stay with me, crooned the spirit. How sweet her voice was. It was no longer mother, no longer sister or friend, but the wife he knew his poverty would never have let him take. And more still: “Wife” would have been a woman of a family equal to his, a practical woman, a keeper of his hearth. This voice promised him not just bread, but dreams.
The bout of weeping had made him thirsty.
There is water, there is even food. It all can be yours. And afterward…
“Why can I not see you? Why can we not touch hand to hand?” he asked. He was suddenly afire, athirst, and for more than water. He reached quickly behind his back, trying to capture the slender wrists of what seemed more woman now than spirit.
With a laugh and a fragrant breeze, she eluded him. The world was vanishing. Names … Syria … Armenia … Crassus … were fading from his consciousness. Another name … Rufus? He ought to remember that one, he thought. A voice roughened by breathing grit and walking too long rang in his head, then faded. No, no point in remembering Rufus, who would soon find his own peace.
First, refresh yourself. Such a small thing I ask….
It was no small thing to Quintus. How long had it been since he could drink his fill in peace? He leaned out over the water, scooped out a palmful of it, raised it to his lips…
…and sneezed at the combined scents of the pollen of the immortal asphodels and the river water. The genius loci laughed playfully.
He scrubbed his hands and dried them against his tunic. Then he dipped again into the river, held up his hands, which dripped with water that smelled more intoxicating than unwatered Falernian, and pledged the woman he could not see.
No! Do not drink!
The water trickled out of his cupped hands, casting rainbows onto the asphodels. Their scent grew richer, and he felt his belly rumble with hunger.
That is real. That is alive, said this new voice. It too was a woman’s voice, but deeper and more strongly accented than the voice of what Quintus thought was his genius loci.
And you can only satisfy it under the sun. All else is illusion.
He heard a scream overhead and looked up to see a flash of brazen wings. Eagle’s wings. The great bird mantled and cried out a challenge. The cry echoed in the rock. Like the horns that called him to wakefulness or battle, it reminded him: a world. A river. Names and living faces, marred by cuts or sweat or tears. The dead, contorted, bloody, or bled out.
A shapely hand held water to his lips. He could see it now, could reach out and grasp it.
Fool! came the second voice. If you remember names, what is the name of this river?
“Why, Lethe, of course,” he mumbled. The water spilled. Memory returned.
Lethe—river of forgetfulness.
No, you must trust me. Stay with me, love me, forget the rest.
Get away from him!
Scented air wafted about him, as if the woman who stood above him was roughly jerked away. Even her hand—which was all Quintus had ever seen—vanished.
A veiled figure appeared before him. Like the vanished spirit, she was scented, but with sandalwood, cinnamon, and cardamom, rather than the flowers he remembered from his childhood. Her perfume was strange, a little daunting, but he found it curiously refreshing. Her face was hidden by the saffron veil of a Roman bride, but the fabric was so thin, so delicate he could see her eyes clearly. They were long and dark, their almond shape marked with kohl. On The Surena, that had been frightening. On this newcomer, it intrigued him. A crimson gem glinted on her brow, and long gold earrings swung enticingly.
He looked up at her. Slowly, she removed the veil. Her hair flowed like a stream at night over shoulders held as straight as any soldier standing in the square, ready to fight. As she had fought for him, Quintus realized, against the creature he had hoped had been his boyhood’s dream, restored to him.
“Why did you drive her away?” he demanded. “My lifelong friend, my companion…” And more, had Fortuna favored me.
“She was the companion of your childhood? That one? She who would have deluded you, given you drink to rob you of your mind, and kept you prisoner here before your time and with your work yet undone? She— your friend? As well go to the serpent mages…” the woman glanced around as if even here she feared danger, “… and ask for kindness.”
Quintus rose. He was much taller than the woman he faced. Taller, but so insignificant compared to her, like a thousand other Romans with his dark hair and eyes, but so less dark than hers; his sturdiness, against her grace, his stubborn mouth against hers—oh Venus, that was a thought! At first, he had thought her a creature of Ch’in, like the officer who had laid arrogant claim to the Eagle with the signifer’s blood still wet upon it. Now, he thought otherwise. He suspected her to be a woman of Hind, far to the south and east of any place Rome’s Legions marched.
“Who are you?” he asked. He was certain he was going mad. Here in Erebus, he must face the judges Minos, Aeacus, and Rhadamanthus, not this woman with skin of amber and the carriage of a dark goddess.
Perhaps he had already drunk of Lethe. Perhaps he could find forgetfulness with this woman. He took a step forward, and she held up a hand.
She stood circled by fires that had sprung up amidst the asphodels. They burned with fragrance, as if she had scattered incense upon their tiny flames. Beneath her veil, she wore gauzes of amber and scarlet. Gems glinted at throat, fingers, wrist, and even on bare feet.
“Did she give you a gift? Was it she who led you to the figure you bear and that saved you when so many good men died?”
Quintus’s hands went to his breast, and he drew out the tiny bronze dancer he had found so many years ago. She laughed with delight, her earlier fire vanishing.
“You gave me my luck piece?” he asked.
She reached out long fingers, tipped with some crimson stain, to touch it. Fires sprang up on the torches that the dancer eternally bore.
“I do not call Krishna luck,” she whispered. “But necessity. And your fate.
“Krishna,” she mused. “Once again, you return to drive us, as you have driven this man across half the world.”
She handed him back the dancer. To his astonishment, the fires did not go out, not immediately. The sound of flute music went up, mingled with a thin, high drumming. As much as the bells and drums of the Parthians had repelled and frightened him, this music drew him. Drew him from this trap of Lethe and the asphodels that looked so much like his lost home back into consciousness. Other voices impinged, other sounds—the rustle of sand, the distant rattle and clang of tethered beasts. His sight went dim, as if he peered under water.
“Are you she—that spirit whom I once knew?” he asked.
“We are all reflections,” she whispered. “Some of us are true, and some illusions.”
Tears—shameful, un-Roman tears—threatened. “She said she had come back for me. Come to take me home.”
The woman shook her head. Dark hair fell smoothly over shoulders the color of amber and the crimson and gold draperies that she wore.
“There is no going back for you. Krishna told you that on the battlefield. Remember? You told me: For a moment, fighting the sons of the man who reared you, you paused, unable to go forward. And Krishna spoke plainly, as he seldom does, and only to those he loves best. There is only the battle, only faring forward.”
“Told me? Who are you?”
The woman’s long eyes filled and her jeweled hands went out. “Do you not remember Draupadi? You—Quintus? You who are five in one, and those five the ones I wore this robe to marry? It was prophesied that Draupadi would have five husbands—and every one of them a prince or king.
“Long ago, and far away, I was Arjuna’s prize. Your brother the king lost me; your brother the hero protected my name. We wandered, we fought, each side using forbidden weapons. We conquered, but we died. Now, we are reborn. Once again, I think, we must find each other.”