Jenny paced. Her cell was exactly six steps by five and a half. That half step difference drove her crazy. It wasn’t right! One-two-three-four-five-six, okay; one-two-three-four-five and a half—ridiculous! Couldn’t these people do anything right?
Hans didn’t eat. He drank his slimy, copper-tasting water, but he refused the tiny portion of boiled beans or stale bread. Eating it would only make him suffer agonies of hunger. If he was going to die, he didn’t want to go cringing and moaning. The jailer said nothing, but took away the uneaten food each time.
Julie cried for a whole day, and then she ran out of tears. Dirty, backward SOBs, who did they think they were? This wasn’t ancient Rome. Did they think they could get away with executing people in this day and age? Man, the UN needed to know about this place. The FBI, too.
In her cell, Eleanor sat very still. She prayed to Apollo to rescue her. The god did not appear.
France Martin used a stone chip to scratch a description of his plight onto the floor. He spent most of his first day doing this, ate his prison fare, and then went to sleep. When he awoke, all the writing was gone. It was dark in his cell, but he had clearly felt the deep scratches he had made in the floor stones earlier. Now the floor was smooth again.
Objective reality does not work here, not all the time, he decided. He made a list of all the impossible things he’d seen or encountered. The loss of the Carleton and the officers headed the list. This island, this strange ancient Roman fantasy world came next. The flash of light in the night, their learning Latin spontaneously, talking god statues, and everything else that followed made no sense unless everyone involved was controlled, brainwashed to believe what was happening was normal reality.
How could this happen? France had no idea. Who was behind it all? There were all kinds of candidates—cults, secret societies, intelligence agencies, rogue government bureaus—who knew? What mattered was that they get out of here and warn the world.
Footsteps in the corridor put an end to his reasoning. It sounded like more than just the jailer. France heard other doors being opened and, for an instant, imagined they were being set free. He could not hear what was being said, but after a short speech the doors thumped shut again.
His turn came. The jailer opened the door and stepped in, carrying an oil lamp. An armed guard entered next, and a Republic official in a spotlessly clean white toga.
“Newcomer Gallus?”
France slowly stood up. By lamplight he could see for sure his writing had vanished from the floor.
The thin gray-haired official unrolled a scroll and read from it. “By the order of the Senate and People of the Republic of Latium, you have been found guilty of blasphemy against the gods, treason against the state, and designs for murder against the First Citizen of the Republic.” He rolled the parchment into a cylinder. “Do you have anything to say?”
The treason charge he understood, but why blasphemy? That’s what he asked.
“You did aid and encourage a sworn priestess of Ceres to desert her temple, her goddess, and her sworn superiors, did you not?”
“There are no goddesses,” France said. “And no Republic. You’re living a fantasy.”
The official shuddered. “Condemned out of your own mouth! Very well, the sentence stands as written.”
“What is the sentence?”
“Death at the hands of the public executioner.”
Something inside France trembled hard. He put out a hand to keep from falling.
“Tell me, how do you kill prisoners here?”
“The penalty for blasphemy is inhumation.”
Inhu-what? Exhumation meant digging something up; so inhumation must mean being buried . . . alive.
He made no attempt to disguise his alarm. France sank against the back wall of his cell. In a small voice he said, “Are we all to be killed that way?”
“The soldier Levius, having betrayed his oath to the army, will be beheaded. The slave Aemilius will be sent to the mines to work until he dies. The newcomer Ioannes will be sold into slavery and sent to the mines—”
“I get it. What about the girl Linnea?”
The Latin clerk consulted his scroll.
“Inhumation.”
France slid down the wall. “Is there any hope?”
The official tucked the tightly wound scroll under his arm.
“The laws of the Republic are fair and just,” he declared. “The pillars of the nation must be upheld. The honor and discipline of the army, the gods, and our divinely inspired leader must be preserved.”
With that, he turned on his heel and strode out. The jailer and guard followed, leaving France alone in the dark.
He cried. He hadn’t done that since his mother left his father, three years ago. France thought he wouldn’t cry ever again after that. Tears changed nothing and he felt weak for shedding them, but sitting in that lightless, chilly, damp cell there was nothing else to do.
Buried alive. He hoped at least they would put them all together, Linh and the others. Surely, they would—the Latins were too practical to dig so many individual graves.
The lump in his throat swelled until he thought he would choke then and there. Forcing himself to be calm, France drifted off in despairing slumber. Tiny terrors lit his dreams, like fireflies in a tomb.
He thought he heard the clank of the door bolt. France was in the rear corner of the cell, knees drawn up to his chin, his head resting against the hard wall. When he detected the bolt moving, he flinched awake, unsure what he heard was real. Cracking an eye, he couldn’t see any telltale lamplight under the door. Maybe he imagined it.
Then he heard, quite distinctly, the scrape of sandal on stone floor. All the fear and anger bottled up inside him drove France to his feet and across the black cell in single flash of fury. He tackled whoever had come in, smashing them to the hard floor. His opponent gasped on impact.
France grabbed a handful of cloth and made a fist with the other hand, ready to smash the face of whatever Latin lackey had come in.
“Stop,” said a mild voice.
France froze. “Who is it?”
“Aemilius.”
He held his position. Emile, who had betrayed them on the march to Eternus? He had disappeared the day the Carleton people were parceled out. France assumed he had been brainwashed like the others.
“Can I get up?”
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to let you out.”
France tightened his grip on the younger boy’s garment. “Why? How?”
“Does it matter?”
He gave Emile a hard shake. “Yes! It does matter!”
Coughing, Emile said, “Do you want to be buried alive?”
France got off him and stood. Emile gripped his arm and hauled himself to his feet.
“My master sent me,” he whispered. “All right?”
“Who is your master?”
“He is Mercury, son of Jupiter, messenger of the gods—”
Without thinking, France slapped Emile hard. The Belgian boy sobbed in the darkness.
“I know about your ‘gods,’” France said coldly. “I’ll not be run around like puppets on a stage!”
“Don’t you want to live?” France didn’t answer such an obvious question. “I am your way out of here, or do you want to die with dirt in your mouth?”
“What’s in it for you?”
Quietly Emile said, “I am restoring balance to this place.”
“Why do you care?”
“I prefer it to home.”
“Do you remember?” France said. “The Carleton, Cherbourg, the shipwreck?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then why did you act so—so—”
“Like a zombie?” France could sense Emile’s grin in the dark. “To throw them off g
uard. If I showed too much memory, they would have come down on me, hard.”
“Who are ‘they?’”
“The powers that run this place.”
He moved away. France reached out and caught him. “What is this place?”
“Have you ever heard of Hy-Brasil?”
The name stirred a long-faded memory, a history lesson from middle school. Not confident, France told Emile to go on.
“There are stories of a fogbound island west of Ireland called Brasil, or Hy-Brasil. It’s not the country Brazil in South America; that was named later. Hy-Brasil was a phantom island inhabited by a magician in a stone castle guarded by giant black rabbits.”
“Fimus,” France hissed. This was how merde was rendered in Latin. “There are no magicians or superbunnies here.”
“No, but navigators in the fifteenth century reported spotting Hy-Brasil west of Ireland. It was lost when ships from Europe became common in the Atlantic.”
France clucked his tongue. “You might as well say we’re on Atlantis!”
“Some people have called this place exactly that.”
He pushed past Emile and made for the door. Time was too short to waste on stupid fairy tales.
Emile hurried after him. In a loud whisper he said, “But suppose there was such a place! Suppose the people who lived there could make their island invisible to the outside world?”
France turned abruptly back. “Why?”
Emile bumped into him. “To live as they pleased. To keep their secret arts and technology to themselves. To avoid the outside world, its wars and its agonies.”
France didn’t even waste profanity on Emile’s theory. He stepped boldly into the hall. At the far end of the corridor, a smoky pine knot burned in a wall bracket. No sign of the jailer. He tried the cell next to his and found Leigh curled up inside on the cold stone floor, asleep. He kicked Leigh’s feet then stepped back out of the way of the American’s flailing limbs.
“Quiet,” said France. “We’re going.”
Leigh sprang to his feet. “Where are the others?”
“We still have to let them out.”
They freed the others one by one, Leigh taking one side of the corridor, France the other. Emile hovered behind France, his hands tucked into his armpits. Whenever France glanced at him, Emile was grinning stupidly.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“This is exciting.” Even without his black ensemble, he was still weird.
Soon, five of them were in the passage, hugging and whispering. Jenny, Linh, and Eleanor were not there.
“Where are they?” said Hans.
“They were taken away before I got here.”
France shoved the smaller boy against the wall. “Where are they?”
“I don’t know! Outside the city—the Hill of Skulls, I guess.”
That didn’t sound like a resort. Julie asked if that was where executions took place. Emile nodded.
“We’ve got to find them!” France declared.
Leigh said, “Which way out?”
He pointed to the torch-lit end of the hall. Julie and Leigh leading, they made for the flame.
Around the corner, they almost tripped over the jailer, sitting upright on a bench against the wall. Leigh cocked a fist and Julie tensed to pounce, but the bony jailer sat motionless, staring into space. Puzzled, Julie waved a hand before his eyes. He didn’t even blink.
“What’s he been smoking?” she muttered.
“He’s interrupted,” whispered Emile. “Make haste! The effect does not last.”
At the end of the intersecting corridor, a set of stone steps led up. Julie and Leigh took the lead again. France lingered, studying the paralyzed jailer.
“I’ve seen this before,” he said. “At the farm. The night the soldiers tried to carry off the girls.”
“Yes,” said Emile. “It’s called ‘interruption . . .’”
“How do you know what it’s called?”
“My master knows these things.”
France grabbed the back of Emile’s slave robe. “Who is this master?”
Emile squirmed. “I told you!” France was about to repeat the question more forcefully when the jailer’s arm slipped off his lap and dangled at his side.
“You see? It’s wearing off! Hurry!”
France and Emile were the last to leave. On the steps, they passed the Latin official who had read the death sentence to them. Behind him were two guards. They were interrupted, too.
Leigh relieved one guard of his sword. Hans took the other. Emile swore they didn’t need weapons, but they kept them just the same.
In the corridor above, Leigh decided to open all the cell doors they passed. To his surprise, the cells he opened were empty. On the other side, Hans unbolted doors, too. Stranger still, the doors on his side of the hall didn’t even close off rooms. Behind them were blank walls of solid stone.
“Now there’s an escape-proof cell,” Julie remarked.
Everyone they met in the prison building was paralyzed. Even the guard dogs chained to a stake in the courtyard stood stiff as statues. Hans wanted to examine the interrupted animals and people, but the others dragged him away.
“But how is it done?” he protested. No one else cared, as long as they got away.
At the door of the prison, Leigh stopped, holding a hand to warn the others to halt. It was early morning by the slant of the shadows in the street. A rustic wagon stood at the prison door, drawn by a pair of scruffy-looking horses.
“Wheels,” said Leigh.
“Thoughtful of you to provide them,” France said to Emile. Grinning, the latter accepted the ironic compliment.
Moving with careful nonchalance, the escapees emerged from the prison in groups of two, leaving Emile to come out last, alone. They climbed in the wagon. Hans took the reins. He knew how to drive a team. Growing up, he had handled horses at the Bavarian Summer Folkfest.
Emile stood by the back of the wagon, hands still oddly stuck in his armpits. Leigh offered a hand up.
“No.”
“Aren’t you coming?” asked Julie.
“No.”
“Why? Do you like being a slave in this costume hellhole?”
“It’s complicated. I am—”
“You’re not the Aemilius who arrived on the ship with us, are you?” said France. The grin faded from Emile’s face.
“No, I’m not.”
Latins walked by. Vendors rolled pushcarts. Now and then someone wealthier clattered past on horseback. So far no one paid them any mind, but it felt like any moment their escape would be discovered.
“Who are you, then?” Leigh asked, perplexed.
There was no time for explanations. France told Leigh to get Emile in the wagon. Leigh jumped down and took him in hand. Emile dug in his heels.
“You can’t force me. What has been done can be undone in an instant—”
Leigh put the guard’s sword to Emile’s back. “Get in the wagon, man. We’re going to save the girls, and I think you know the way.”
The sword tip in his back did not dim Emile’s crazy smile, but sweat glistened on his pale forehead as he climbed aboard.
“You should escape now. Suppose the girls are already dead?”
“Shut up,” France snarled. At his nod, Hans snapped the reins.
A horse wagon was no Zonda supercar, but they were away. They were an odd group—a slave, a soldier, Julie in a tattered courtesan’s gown, and a pair of artisans—rolling through the streets of Eternus in a farm wagon. Leigh sat in the wagon box with his sword on his lap. They attracted a few stares and rude remarks (mostly due to Hans’s inexpert driving), but no one tried to stop them.
“What happens when the Consul’s people come to the jail and find us gone? Won’t they hunt us
down?” Leigh wondered.
“They will forget you ever existed,” Emile replied.
France said, “More interruption?” The Belgian boy just grinned.
“How is it done?”
“You could call it magic.”
Hans said, “The technology behind this place is impressive enough. You don't have to be childish and call it magic.” Emile did not argue. France and Hans plied him with more questions, but since being forced into the wagon, he was no longer as talkative as he had been.
Winding about, turning this way and that, they eventually reached the north wall of the city. Everyone leaving Eternus had to submit to inspection by Republic troops. Legionnaires ringed the wagon when it was their turn. Leigh hid his blade in loose straw in the bed of the wagon.
“Where are you bound?” demanded an aquilifer bearing the marks of the III Legion.
“My father’s farm,” Hans said.
“Who are these men?”
Hans waved a hand casually behind him. “Papa sent me to the city to hire some new hands.”
“And the girl?”
“My new wife.” Julie batted her eyes and laid a fond hand on Hans’s leg.
The Latin soldier made a notation on a wax-covered board. “Four departing: farmer, wife, and two laborers.”
He let them through. With an enormous sense of relief, they drove through the great fortified gate.
“Strange, he said four departing, not five,” France said.
“Slaves don’t count,” suggested Emile.
“Oh yes, they do. Slaves are valuable property. He didn’t see you at all.”
Emile shrugged. “How is that possible?”
“How is it possible to paralyze an entire building full of people?”
Outside the city, Hans urged the horses to trot. No one knew what might have happened to Jenny, Linh, and Eleanor.
Emile directed them. The Hill of Skulls was a mile from the north gate. Road traffic was thick for a while, but as they took three right-hand forks, fellow travelers became fewer and fewer. The terrain grew hilly and wooded, with the hilltops cleared of trees. They rode in silence until Hans reined in the team.
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