Praetorian Series [3] A Hunter and His Legion

by Edward Crichton

  “So you created as simple a time machine as possible,” I deduced.

  Merlin shook his head. “I already told you that I did not create the device itself, but I crafted the orb as a physical analog for it so that the people of this time could understand it. Simplicity, as you stated, was key.”

  “An analog…” I said as I thought. “… so the orb is just a physical representation of something else? Just a façade? So you’re saying your time machine really could be anything?”

  “Not mine,” Merlin uttered, sounding frustrated.

  “But how? Where’s the actual time machine?”

  “The mechanics are quite beyond you, Jacob,” Merlin said, recovering. “You are neither an engineer nor a scientist, just an amateur who watches way too much TV – not that a scientist or engineer from your world would make much sense of it anyway. Besides, knowing would do you no good, and we are running short on time. I must return you to your friends soon or else too much time will have passed.”

  I glanced at my watch, wondering if such an action actually meant anything in this odd place. When I caught the time, I was surprised to learn that I’d only been in Merlin’s company for the better part of an hour, although it already felt like a lifetime.

  I shrugged. “I’ve only been here an hour. Trust me, my friends won’t miss me. I’m kind of on their shit list lately.”

  Merlin didn’t answer, and only gazed at me with a hint of sadness in his eye. He let the silence continue, so I kept up with the questions.

  “So the blue orb is a time machine,” I explained to myself. “It itself isn’t exactly a time machine, but that’s what it does because of some vague explanation about analogs. Fine, I get it. Let’s move on. Then what does the red orb do?”

  Merlin remained silent, his expression suggesting he was still deeply lost in thought.

  “Merlin?”

  Finally, he turned to me, looking like he’d never seen me before.

  “The red orb?” I prompted.

  Without hesitation, but without any excitement, he said, “It allows you to travel into other dimensions.”

  I processed this new information very slowly. I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. “Say again?”

  “The red orb allows a user to travel to parallel worlds, Jacob.”

  “I’m…” I started, still processing, “…I’m not sure I understand.”

  “You do understand, Jacob. This is a popular concept in your culture as well. The red orb allows its user to tap into the Multiverse, as some might call it.”

  “I… but…” I uttered, my mind whirling at the implications. I looked down at my left hand and raised it to shoulder height. “The blue orb controls time.” I looked at my right hand and watched as it rose to shoulder height all on its own. “The red orb controls… space?”

  “Quite right,” Merlin said. “Since time immemorial, every decision made at every nanosecond, in every place within the universe simultaneously has created an alternate timeline in which life takes different paths. Uncountable, infinite, beyond even the scope of my imagination, these timelines, dimensions, parallel worlds, whatever you choose to call them, exist, and are quite accessible with the red orb.”

  I looked back at my left hand, and jerked it up. “Time.”

  I turned to my right hand, and jerked it as well. “Space. Dimensions.” Finally, I returned my eyes to Merlin. “Whoever controls both would be unstoppable!”

  Merlin nodded, very much in agreement. “Alone, each is quite formidable. Blue is time. Red reality. But together… well, together a person could go anywhere and do anything.”

  “With that kind of untapped potential,” I pondered out loud, “a tyrant could alter the past, control alternate civilizations, steal technology from the future, and strip mine parallel Earths to the bone, leaving them empty husks, all the while keeping his Earth pristine.”

  The words streamed from my mouth without thought, years of thinking and contemplation on the effects and abilities associated with time travel had finally coming to fruition. With the addition of multi-dimensional travel thrown into the mix, everything was beginning to become crystal clear.

  With my arms at my sides, it was an easy task to lash out and grab Merlin by the shoulders. “You’d better hope somebody like OPEC doesn’t get ahold of the red orb one day!”

  “I do not think that will be a problem,” Merlin said, but before I could seek clarification, he continued. “But while you immediately assume the worst in man, I saw the orbs as an opportunity.”

  I dropped my arms and backed away. “An opportunity for what?”

  Merlin looked to the twins and his double, as though embarrassed, and it seemed to take a great strain of will for him to gather his thoughts and speak again. He’d seemed so flakey throughout this latest experience, and it was also becoming very clear that Merlin regretted much and was still struggling with implications that were beyond me.

  “In the right hands,” he explained, “the orbs could allow great leaders to do great things. Rewrite wrongs, ensure prosperity, and build empires that would throw off the negative connotation of the word ‘empire.’ In the right hands, users of the orbs could be true paragons of virtue and empathy. Benevolent masters of the universe that would right all the wrongs of the past and… ensure certain futures never came about. They could do great things.”

  I took a step toward the fire and threw a hand out toward Romulus and Remus, still suspended in time like a paused movie. “Who, these knuckleheads??”

  Merlin shook his head and closed his eyes. He seemed frustrated. “You do not understand…”

  “Then help me understand!”

  He looked to the twins, held his eyes on them for a few moments, then turned back to me. “I’ve shown you too much as it is.”

  “Quit it with that shit!” I yelled. “Don’t cop out on me, Merlin. Don’t think you can bring me this far and then just leave me with shit like, ‘I’ve shown you too much as it is. Telling you more could potentially destroy the space/time continuum. Blah blah blah.’ That isn’t fair! I’m going to have to explain all this to my friends sooner or later and I don’t think they’re going to settle for just that.”

  “No,” Merlin said firmly with a single shake of his head. “No. It is too much. Even for you.”

  “Just give me something then,” I pleaded, craving every iota of information I could get. “Anything.”

  Merlin closed his eyes, his strain still evident. “The world was different in their time… very different, in ways you would both understand and be completely incapable of understanding.”

  “Try me.”

  “I will not. As I have already said, it is too much and too irrelevant to your situation. I have done enough harm and I will not do more by attempting to satiate your insatiable curiosity.”

  I almost smiled. “People always tell me I’m too curious for my own good.”

  “An admirable character trait in many instances; it’s just one that will do you no good today.”

  I sighed. “Fine, but can’t you give me something? At least tell me how the twins are so big and why they’re so charismatic.”

  “You have a vivid imagination, Jacob. I believe, in time, you will come to understand on your own. Just remember that sometimes the simplest answers are the right ones.”

  I really hoped that didn’t mean what I thought it did; that my initial random thought – the same one shared by mythologists the world over – was actually correct. The one that stated that the twins were in fact descended from gods. Mars in particular. Mars of the Gray Eyes, like his sister Athena, eyes like mine, and…

  I looked at the twins.

  They had gray eyes as well

  I glanced quickly at Merlin, hoping to catch some kind of affirmation in his expression, knowing he could read my mind quite easily, but his face was neutral. I suppose he was too good at all this to just give up that piece of information so easily.

  “Will I ever learn the
truth?” I asked

  “In time, perhaps, but not from me.”

  “More of your centuries of honed intuition at work?”

  He smiled. “Who said anything about centuries?”

  I shook my head as I gestured back toward the frozen trio. “You were right about one thing, Merlin. This had gone on way too long, and I’m starting to lose attention.”

  Merlin nodded in understanding and raised a hand toward his more ancient counterpart, but then he hesitated. “You realize it won’t be hard to cut this part down a little when you write your book, right? Just have Helena edit it.”

  “Just fucking start the movie again!” I yelled, throwing a hand toward the twins.

  “All right, all right. I don’t know how she puts up with you…”

  I glared at him, but his smile simply widened to look just like one of Santino's as the show finally resumed.

  “Wait!” I called out as something came to mind.

  The scene paused again, and now it was Merlin’s turn to look at me impatiently. “What is it?”

  “Why did you need to pause it at all? Why not let the other you explain all this to them?”

  Merlin looked at me steadily. “Because they already knew enough.”

  Before I had even a second to think on that revelation, the scene restarted.

  “Faustulus… father…” Romulus stammered, “…but such power, so easily accessible… It is a great responsibility.”

  “It is,” the other Merlin confirmed, “which is why I entrust it to you, my sons. Such potential I see in you, more than I’ve seen in over four hundred years…”

  I shot Merlin a look, and he flicked an embarrassed face at me, but didn't say anything. I shook my head and turned back to the focus of this particular story.

  “…but I do not bestow these gifts on you easily, which is why I offer each of you only one half of the old god’s third power. Alone you have been given something powerful, but only together will you change the universe.”

  “Old ‘god’…” I whispered. “Singular?”

  Merlin didn’t say anything.

  Romulus clutched his red orb to his chest like a newborn, dropping his eyes to study it intently before meeting his father's eyes steadily. There was love in their eyes, the kind shared between a father and son who respected each other greatly, and understood each other more than any other two people. There was no question that Merlin had legitimate feelings for these boys, it was only a question of the source of that love that eluded me.

  Unlike his brother, however, Remus seemed less pleased with their situation. He held his orb in a single, massive hand down near his leg, like it was something that didn’t really concern him or was something of menial importance. Interrupting the moment Romulus and the other Merlin were sharing, Remus took an imposing step toward his “father” and spoke.

  “But Faustulus, why not grant each of us complete power? It would be more efficient that way. The two of us, acting independently, could do far more simultaneously than if were we restricted to working together.”

  The other Merlin turned his head, opened his mouth to speak, but then stood suspended in time again. I turned back to my Merlin who looked as sad as I’d yet seen him yet look.

  “I should have known then and there.”

  “Known what?” I asked.

  He replied simply with an upraised arm. I followed the arm, unsurprised to find that we were no longer in the tent of Romulus and Remus. The scene had shifted again, and Merlin and I now stood out on one of the great hills of Rome with the sun shining down on us brilliantly. I retrieved my sunglasses once again and placed them over my eyes, the sudden shift to daylight nearly blinding me again.

  “One month later…” Merlin whispered, his voice acting much like a subtitle in a movie indicating the very same thing.

  I saw nothing in my immediate field of vision, so I turned around, but when I did, I took a step back in surprise at what I saw. Where little more than a camp of tents had stood no more than a month ago, the makings of a city stood just beside it on a hill. Small but lavish buildings and paved streets dominated the area, carefully organized in a tight, neat grid. The city was not quite recognizable, but something about it made me instantly understand that this must have been Rome.

  I turned to Merlin. “All of this in just one month?”

  “With great power…” Merlin uttered, again in a whisper.

  I looked back toward the city and shook my head in wonder. What I saw before me was beyond amazing. It was an engineering feat unparalleled even in the modern world. There, this city would still be little more than a field of grass, as it would have taken them years just to plan the city, let alone begin the process of hiring workers and gathering resources.

  Truly amazing.

  On an impulse, I started walking toward the ancient beyond ancient city of Rome. Merlin, as always, fell into step beside me. As we grew closer, I was able to notice a wall being erected around the city. From this vantage point, I surmised that it was perhaps only half complete, but it, like the city behind it, was both opulent and seemed highly effective as defensive barricades go – at least it would be once it was complete.

  I strode down the hill and toward the city with purpose, but pulled up just short of entering it when a commotion to my left drew my attention. I looked and saw Romulus standing atop a completed portion of the wall, thirty feet above the ground. He was looking away from the city with a hand held up and pointing in that direction, gripping his red orb with the other. I tracked his outstretched arm and saw Remus standing on the field before the wall, a good forty meters away. I took a step forward but something else caught my eye. A bird was only a foot away from me, suspended in motionless flight, an indication that the scene before me was paused again.

  I turned to Merlin, waving an arm toward Romulus and Remus.

  “Don’t tell me this is actually going to happen.”

  “It is.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “Amazing. Simply amazing.”

  “What is?” Merlin asked, his voice indicating he was curious.

  “That historians could get so much just flat out wrong about Roman history,” I replied, “but stories of Remus leaping over Romulus’ wall, the key event that drove Romulus to murder his twin brother, or as certain legends go, managed to survive for almost three thousand years. That’s what’s going to happen, isn’t it? Unless you’re fucking around with me here…”

  “I most certainly am not, Jacob.”

  “Amazing then,” I muttered. “But that wall is thirty feet high!”

  “Just watch,” Merlin said.

  I nodded and turned as time resumed, just in time to have the nearby bird fly right into my face. I batted my arms at it as it tried to claw my nose off, but was lucky to defeat it with minimal injury. I shot a glance at Merlin, spitting out a feather as I did.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  I glared at him but the commotion between Romulus and Remus saved him from feeling the torment of my gaze.

  “This is a fruitless argument!” Romulus shouted down at Remus from the wall. “You may have won the right to choose your choice of locations for our new city first, but I won the actual choice of where to build it!”

  “An unfair decision, brother!” Remus shouted back. “It is no fault of my own that the mating pattern of birds precludes my chosen location as the superior one. It is of no surprise that you saw more than I!”

  “Good grief,” I muttered. “Did you really entrust the fate of the universe to a pair of kids who actually relied on augury to determine where they were going to build their city?”

  “Hush,” Merlin shot back.

  I rolled my eyes but did as I was told.

  “Silence your whining, brother!” Romulus shot back. “We both agreed on the terms. It was all the men would understand. Father assured us it was the best course of action.”

  “Father…” Remus grumbled, his voice dripping with disdain, “…I
am not quite convinced of his impartiality in all of this as well.”

  “Again with your whining, Remus,” Romulus said, clearly impatient. “I tell you, it grows old.”

  I crossed my arms but then held out a hand toward them. “Seriously, Merlin, these two schmucks?”

  Merlin looked at the sky as he shook his head but didn’t say anything. The two twins continued throwing jibes and insults at each other, and I was beginning to think this seemingly epic brawl was going to turn into nothing more than a pissing match between irritated brothers. My suspicions of just that grew with every passing moment, but then Remus pulled his orb from behind his back. It was a simple gesture but something about it seemed threatening.

  “And my orb is useless!” Remus yelled, shaking his fist with one hand and waving the orb in the air with the other. “It serves me no purpose to revisit my own past and nothing more unless used in concert with your orb, while you can go off and play in other worlds without the need for me! I will not stand for it! We achieved everything to this point together, and I will not merely reside in your shadow now. I refuse!”

  Romulus, to his credit, did not appear angry or upset. He simply stood patiently atop his wall and extended both hands to his sides, his right hand still gripping his orb. “You are my brother, Remus, but if you wish to challenge me, you are free to do so. I welcome you into my city by going through or around my wall, but if you attempt to go over it… you will be well met by me personally!”

  I suddenly felt myself walking forward again, too interested in what was to come to realize what I was doing. The air was as still as I’d ever experienced it before, and for a second I thought Merlin had stopped time again, but the distant rustling of leaves and the patter of feet off in the distance proved that not to be the case.

  I looked to Romulus, still atop his wall, his arms spread wide, and then to Remus, who now knelt in the grass coiled like a viper. The man looked ready to jump, but even after everything I’d seen, I didn’t for a second entertain the thought that he was about to jump thirty feet in the air and cross such a distance. Such athleticism was beyond even these impressive young men.