Battle of the Beasts

by Chris Columbus

  “That’s exactly right,” resolved Cordelia. “We’ll start looking for another way home. But first we’re going to have to hug you a little bit longer, because you were so brave.”

  “Uh, Deal?” Eleanor said. “I don’t think you can.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we have visitors.”

  Eleanor pointed to the attic door.

  In person, Emperor Occipus looked like a big thumb. But his posse made up for it. His manservant/announcer was beside him, along with three tall guards who carried spears and stood at attention with shimmering chest muscles and massive biceps. Behind them was a beautiful woman with jet-black hair that had bright silver threads woven into it. They all stood in the attic. The guards had carried Occipus up as if he were a toddler.

  “Well?” Occipus said. Without an announcer translating his words, he possessed a flat, froggy voice.

  The announcer, who had long, curly blond hair that hung to his shoulders, reminded Brendan of Roger Daltrey, the vain lead singer of his dad’s favorite band, the Who. He whipped back his long mane and said, “Emperor Occipus says, ‘Well?’”

  Brendan dropped into a deep bow. The others followed. Occipus was confused; bowing was not a Roman custom.

  “Raise your heads and tell me where you hail from!” Occipus said; it was hard not to laugh at his blatting tone. “And which one of you turned my lions into clumsy, portly creatures?”

  Brendan gulped. “Ummm . . . I guess . . . I did, sir. Your highness. Emperor-ness.”

  “You will address my master as ‘Supreme Emperor,’” the announcer said.

  “Now, Rodicus, no need to frighten the boy,” said Occipus. “Boy? What is your name?”

  “Brendan, Supreme Emperor.”

  “And who are your retinue?”

  “Reti-what?” whispered Eleanor.

  “Retinue, as in people who follow Brendan around,” Cordelia said. “The Supreme Emperor thinks we’re his servants.”

  “Well?” Occipus insisted.

  “These are my sisters, Cordelia and Eleanor, and my friend Will,” said Brendan.

  “What odd names. Where are you from?”

  “Brittania,” said Will, “and New Brittania, for these youngsters. A land you have yet to conquer.” Occipus stared at him expectantly. “Supreme Emperor.”

  “A land I haven’t conquered?” Occipus shared a smile with the dark-haired woman. “How unexpected! You will have to tell me all about it. Now, can you hear the voices outside?”

  They did. The people in the Colosseum were cheering, chanting.

  “The crowd is cheering for Brendan here, who performed magic on the lions. I was certain those lions would drag out anyone they found alive.”

  “You mean they wouldn’t have bitten my face off?”

  “Oh, they would have definitely bitten your face off,” said Occipus. “Then they would have moved on to the more fleshy bits, finishing off with your scrumptious internal bits.”

  “Ohhhh,” said Brendan, the color leaving his face.

  “But they’ll only do it in front of spectators,” said Occipus. “They’re trained to kill in the presence of a crowd, so everyone can get their money’s worth. Are you the same way, Brendan of New Brittania? Trained to kill?”

  “I’m not really a killer, Supreme Emperor,” said Brendan.

  “But you defeated those beasts. I say it’s time to meet your public.”

  “My what?” asked Brendan, but then he realized what was happening. All that cheering and chanting . . . it was for him.

  A slow, satisfied smile grew across Brendan’s face. Cordelia, Eleanor, and Will looked at one another, thinking, This is not good.

  A few minutes later they were all outside, standing in front of Kristoff House surrounded by fifty thousand screaming men and women under a scorching blue sky. The Colosseum smelled of food and sweat and char and dirt and blood. It was as if they had journeyed into a deeper part of humanity, a part that later generations had paved over.

  Occipus spoke and Rodicus amplified his words through his primitive megaphone, which had been wheeled into the arena. As the speech went on, Cordelia saw the black-haired woman rubbing Occipus’s doughy shoulder.

  “The emperor has discovered a shocking secret that will be the talk of Rome for days! Our lions were magically defeated by a band of wild children from afar, led by Brendan of New Brittania!”

  Rodicus ushered the other kids aside so the crowd could get a good look at Brendan.

  “Lion tamer! Lion tamer!” the crowd roared.

  Brendan waved. He had a feeling in his chest that he hadn’t felt for a long time. Back before he started at Bay Academy Prep, at his old school, he had been on the lacrosse team, and this was the feeling he would get when he scored a goal in front of the home-team crowd. It was the warmth that came from admiration, from being a star. He hadn’t realized until just now how absent it had been from his life. At Bay Academy he was never the star; he was always the joke, always out of place. But the glow in his chest now, set off by this crowd, made him feel that the last place he expected was the place he belonged: ancient Rome.

  “Lion tamer!”

  He had done that. He had stopped a lion—no, two. He could imagine people saying, “Did you hear about the boy who beat two lions?” Within a few days he would be one of the most famous people in Rome.

  Brendan wasn’t sure how long this feeling would last, so he kept waving, basking in the crowd’s admiration. Then he turned back to Eleanor and said, “Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that you got rid of the book. I think this might be a great place for us.”

  “You mean for you,” said Eleanor.

  “Watch it,” said Brendan with a smile, “you’re talking to the lion tamer!”

  Eleanor could tell he meant it as a joke, but there was some truth behind it. Brendan was starting to think of himself as someone different. This wasn’t going to end well.

  The Walkers and Will spent the rest of the day in Emperor Occipus’s royal stadium box. Despite being desperate to get home, and worried about their parents, they had to admit it was pretty luxurious.

  First, they were escorted across the Colosseum as the crowd chanted and Brendan stopped every few steps to wave. It took a good ten minutes of him preening and prancing around like a rock star before they finally made it to the gate under the box. Then they went up a secret, guarded passageway and emerged on the platform, which was like the observation deck of a skyscraper. It put them right over the arena, able to see the crowd and battlefield. Occipus’s black-haired female companion snapped her fingers, and the area’s many servants disappeared and came back with food: olives, fresh-baked bread, rich cheese and wine, and a roast suckling pig, which Cordelia thought was disgusting. (Will had no problem snatching the apple from the pig’s mouth and taking a bite, proclaiming, “Lovely.”)

  “Can you believe how many servants work for this dude?” Brendan said. He was lounging on a gold-plated divan, trying not to stare at the blushing girls who served him food but kept their distance.

  “They’re not servants,” Will said. “The word for them in Latin may be servus, but they aren’t getting paid. They’re slaves.” Will turned to Cordelia. “Did you forget that I took Latin in school?”

  “Very impressive,” Cordelia said, rolling her eyes.

  “Do you think I’m allowed to talk to the slave girls?” Brendan asked. “They’re looking at me! And smiling! And that red-haired one . . . she winked at me!”

  “Brendan, they’re not here for your amusement,” Will warned. “They’re trapped here, just as we are.”

  For that, Cordelia gave Will’s hand a squeeze. “Did you do women’s studies in school as well?”

  Will gave her a blank look. “What’s that?”

  “Hold on a minute,” Brendan said. “I thought these girls liked me! I thought they liked my jokes.”

  “Has anyone ever liked your jokes?” Cordelia asked.

  “Well
. . . no.”

  “Don’t worry, Bren,” said Eleanor, patting his hand. “Someday you’ll find a real girl who thinks you’re funny.”

  Brendan flashed on Celene, the girl he had seen all too briefly the last time he was in one of Kristoff’s worlds. Celene would probably declare right away that the emperor was oppressing the people and needed to be removed. Which is what Cordelia would say—but Celene was so much prettier than Cordelia! It didn’t matter. She was in some other book. Brendan bit into a pork chop.

  “Guys,” said Cordelia, “I think we should eat and run. We need to get back to our house, which luckily is still in the middle of the arena. I don’t know how long the Romans are going to let it stay there.”

  “Why do you want to go back to Kristoff House?” asked Brendan, juice dripping down his chin.

  “Because we need to find a way home. We should look around in the library to see if there’s another book like The Book of Doom and Desire that can bring us back to Mom and Dad.”

  “I want to see them too,” Brendan said, “but do we have to start right now? I mean, it’s pretty sweet up here! They’re treating us like royalty.”

  “No, Bren, they’re treating you like royalty,” said Cordelia, nodding to his pork chop.

  “So? You guys are along for the ride. What’s so bad about being my retinue?”

  “I’m going to do you a favor and forget you said that.”

  “I just don’t get it. You’d rather go into a house where we almost got killed by lions than hang out up here, eating olives and drinking wine.”

  “Brendan! You’re not supposed to drink the wine!”

  “I’m just tasting it.”

  Brendan grabbed the silver goblet in front of him and took a hefty sip of wine, sloshing it around in his mouth. His face turned green and he spat the wine out onto the floor. Everyone in the balcony turned, including Emperor Occipus.

  “Ughhh, that stuff tastes like vomit mixed with cat litter!”

  Occipus laughed—and all his slaves laughed too. “Our child warrior has never tasted wine! Bring him some goat’s milk and honey so he can enjoy himself.”

  A slave hustled off and returned with a soft skin like a canteen, full of goat’s milk. Brendan took a sip and found it just as gross as the wine. He stuck with water.

  Meanwhile, below the emperor’s viewing area, a half-dozen gladiators entered the arena and positioned themselves in a circle. One at a time, they began demonstrating their weapons, showing off swords, axes, and daggers in solo feats of spinning skill. Brendan was entranced. It was so cool the way the warriors moved, the way they had complete control over their weapons. Brendan found himself standing up and imitating them, pretending to hold a sword, which Occipus and his entourage found very amusing. When Occipus laughed, it sounded like a burp—and then he often did burp at the same time, which made him laugh more. It was all very hilarious to him and Brendan, less so to Cordelia, Eleanor, and Will.

  Kristoff House was still in the center of the arena, looking like a misplaced toy. Cordelia was trying to figure out how to get down there as Occipus received a tray of meats that appeared to weigh as much as he did. He ate by throwing his food in the air and catching it with his wide, puffy-lipped mouth. The pieces that hit the floor he allowed to be consumed by the slave girls. When Occipus’s belly was full, the slave girls, along with the help of some burly male workers, picked up the emperor and carried him to a sofa. They laid Occipus down there and girls fed him grapes dipped in honey.

  Only when Occipus seemed about to burst, burping constantly, surrounded by the odors of his own flatulence, did he beckon the Walkers and Will over, avoiding eye contact as he spoke.

  “You see how happy the crowd is, yes?”

  “Yes, Supreme Emperor,” Brendan said. Everyone else nodded. (Eleanor held her nose.)

  “A happy crowd means a happy public,” said Occipus. “A man can live on one slice of bread and a thimble of water, as long as he’s entertained. So you see what a stroke of luck this is, all of you appearing in my Colosseum. Everyone is talking about your Hades house, fascinated by it, actually.”

  He pointed to Kristoff House, in the center of the arena. Chariots were racing around it now.

  “They think it’s a trick. ‘An illusion,’ they say. ‘The Emperor spent a mighty bit of coin on that one.’ But I know better. I know that house just appeared out of thin air.”

  The emperor stared at them all in turn, his eyes set back in fleshy lids.

  “Which one of you can tell me how this house got here?”

  “I can,” said Cordelia, “on one condition.”

  “Which is?”

  “Let us return to the house. All of our belongings are inside. Things that we need.”

  “Do you think I’m an idiot? Bwark—” Occipus burped, then sloshed his mouth around and swallowed, as if something had come up. “If I let you back inside that house, I may never see you again.”

  “Would that be so bad?” Cordelia asked. “Look at us! We don’t belong here. Think about it . . . have you ever seen anyone like us? With our clothes?”

  “I must admit, I have been admiring the little one’s shoes,” said Occipus, pointing to Eleanor’s pink Converse high-tops.

  “That’s what I mean,” said Cordelia. “We’re from the future.”

  “The future?”

  “And we just want to get back.”

  “You speak of sorcery.”

  “Yes . . . I suppose. But it wasn’t our sorcery—”

  “I knew it!” said Emperor Occipus. “That’s how you managed to transform my lions! So tell me . . . what is your secret? What else can you do?” He grabbed Cordelia’s collar. “Can you control the weather? Do you breathe fire? Tell me! With your power I will not only be supreme emperor of Rome . . . but the entire world!”

  “Why is it that almost everybody we meet in these books wants to rule the world so bad?” muttered Eleanor.

  “Because armies will fear me,” screamed Occipus. “Foreign leaders will cower in my presence. I will be respected wherever I go! Now tell me . . . how do you perform your magic?”

  Cordelia froze. Occipus’s hands were horribly fat and clammy against her skin. Rodicus leaned over his shoulder: “Maybe she needs a little convincing, master. We can hang her up by her fingernails and cover her body with leeches. That usually makes them talk.”

  “Hold on, there, Supreme Emperor,” said Will, stepping forward. “There’s no need for that. Allow me to show you one of our secrets.”

  “What?” asked the emperor.

  Will pulled a gray cigarette lighter out of his pocket—

  “Wait, what is that?” Eleanor interrupted. “Will . . . you smoke?!”

  “Of course not,” said Will. “I . . . I keep this nearby for emergency situations.”

  “What kind of emergency situations?”

  “You know,” said Will. “If I’m ever in a plane . . . and I’m shot down . . . I could be stranded in the cold . . . I’d need to light a fire.”

  Will showed Cordelia and Eleanor the lighter. It wasn’t a modern lighter—it was an old-school World War I lighter made of tin. Occipus grabbed it.

  “Explain this to me.”

  “Supreme Emperor chap, you just place your thumb on that wheel . . . and look!”

  Occipus lit the lighter. A small flame danced out. Occipus sloshed back and fell off the sofa. Everyone—his mistress, Rodicus, the slaves—gathered around to pick him up as Will picked the lighter up.

  “It’s sorcery!” “A flame from that little box!”

  “Give it to me,” Occipus ordered, standing up. Will handed him back the lighter.

  “I will keep this,” said Occipus. “For it is written that any item inside the Colosseum becomes the property of the Supreme Emperor! Including your home!”

  The Walkers and Will exchanged a worried look. Occipus snapped his fingers. “Rodicus.”

  Rodicus dashed away.

  “No!” said C
ordelia, but it was too late. Below them, in the arena, an army of a hundred slaves or more streamed toward Kristoff House. They were carrying long ropes, fashioned with hooks. They attached them to the house and started dragging it away.

  “Where are you taking our home?” Cordelia said.

  “You mean my home,” said the emperor. “I’m moving it to an area where it can be easily searched.”

  “Searched for what?”

  “First of all, jewelry!” Emperor Occipus said. He held up his arms. They were clanging with jeweled bracelets. “I love precious jewels, foreign jewels most of all, and I’ll add to my collection. Secondly, I will confiscate any magical devices we find. Perhaps another fire machine . . . or a machine that can generate water . . . wouldn’t that be grand?” Occipus tested the lighter again; it gave him such pleasure. Cordelia was about to cry out—What are we going to do without Kristoff House? How are we ever going to get back to Mom and Dad?—but as she opened her mouth, Rodicus grabbed her.

  “Hold your tongue. The Supreme Emperor hates being distracted when his favorite gladiator is in the arena.”

  Rodicus pointed. Down below, with the house gone, it was easy to see the gladiators being quiet and still as a young man stepped into view. He was tall and muscular, not like those creepy bodybuilders who win contests with bulgy veins and skintight briefs, but lean and rock-solid, like an Olympian athlete.

  He raised his sword and began a display of mastery. He cut the blade through the air, diving into somersaults, jabbing and slashing at imaginary enemies. The crowd cheered him on. He executed an upward thrust and stabbed down into the dirt. He called out a battle cry as his sword vibrated back and forth with a bwanggg.

  The gladiator took off his helmet. He was young, with close-cropped hair, piercing brown eyes, a cleft chin, and a killer smile.

  “Who’s he?” Cordelia asked.

  “Felix the Greek,” Rodicus said, applauding loudly.

  The emperor applauded as well. Everyone did. Brendan felt a twinge of jealousy.