Rune Warrior

by Frank Morin

“You know it wasn’t Gregorios responsible,” Eirene pressed.

  “What?” Sarah asked. “Why would he think Gregorios did it?”

  Gregorios answered. “We’ve received reports that the attackers planted evidence that suggests we were connected.”

  “They did more than that,” Alter said. “My father saw John there!”

  “Why would John go to Jerusalem?” Harriett asked. “He hasn’t been there for centuries, and he only eats those nasty sweetmeats.”

  “He’s still missing,” Eirene said. “We have no idea what he’s up to.”

  “I bet he’s somehow connected with the man in the wide-brimmed hat,” Gregorios said. “That’s the only explanation.”

  “Or this is all a setup so you can get your hands on the forbidden runes.”

  “What about the forbidden runes?” Sarah asked.

  “They were stolen. That’s what the attack was all about.”

  “This is serious,” Eirene said. Although she had eavesdropped on the conversation, she didn’t have to pretend to be worried.

  Gregorios nodded. “They’ve twisted our powers around to the point they’re almost unusable. With more forbidden runes, who knows what they could do?”

  Alter still glared, trying to hold onto his anger.

  Eirene beckoned and was relieved when Alter approached and crouched beside her. She placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Search your heart. I know your family is angry now, but consider everything this enemy has done. They’ve been executing a highly sophisticated plan of attack against all of us while we’ve been stumbling around in the dark. Do you honestly believe that Gregorios ordered that strike?”

  When he still hesitated, Sarah added, “Besides, I owe the hat man another kick in the nads.”

  “The what?”

  “You know, the family jewels.”

  He didn’t want to agree, but Sarah’s point helped win him over. He gave an angry nod. “Fine. Maybe you’re right. Let’s find this guy and kill him.”

  Gregorios smiled. “Now we’re talking.”

  Alter pointed at the machine. “Go get him.”

  Gregorios shooed Francesca away from the primary chair and took her place. He fixed Alter with a serious gaze. “I know you have a lot of reasons to think you hate me, but I’m showing you my trust.”

  Then he turned to Sarah. “Join me, won’t you?”

  “Of course.” She looked nervous, but sat in the secondary chair.

  Alter looked ready to spit rocks as he handed out their escape rune pendants. Eirene silently applauded. With Sarah along as the ringer, Alter would be motivated to keep them alive.

  “I’ll run the machine,” Eirene said.

  Harriett pushed her back into the chair when she tried to rise. “I don’t think so, Mother. Frannie and I will take care of it.”

  “Don’t call me that around other people,” Francesca hissed, glancing at Alter.

  “You’re too old for him,” Harriett muttered as she helped Gregorios with the helmet.

  Francesca blushed, and Alter looked like he wanted to flee the room.

  “Be careful in there,” Eirene said as Francesca closed the faceplates.

  “And kill him this time,” Alter added.

  Gregorios gave them a thumbs up.

  Harriett slipped her hands into the helmet and Francesca linked to her with one arm on her shoulder. That forced Alter to place his hand onto Francesca’s shoulder and trace his rune onto her neck. She smiled at the contact. He hesitated, then gave her the barest smile in return and completed the rune.

  “Ready,” he said.

  Harriett drew upon her nevron and her eyes and hands began to burn with amber fire. It spread to Francesca, then to Alter. Eirene could feel the strength of their souls like a gentle breath of wind against her skin. It drifted across from all three of them.

  Very interesting. The machine whirred to life and everything seemed to be working fine. The purple fire that rimmed Alter’s hands like ethereal northern lights had to be caused by the binding rune clashing with the effects of the forbidden rune. The boy was taking a terrible risk by immersing so deep into the girls’ nevron, but Eirene could think of no other way it could work.

  “Alter, thank you for doing this.”

  He grunted. Given the circumstances, it was enough.

  Eirene wished Gregorios good hunting.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Reports claim that Eirene leads the vanguard, with enforcers threescore. To Spartacus alone should befall the honor of closing in glorious battle with the most-hated facetaker, but the lot has fallen to me. I will stand for my brother’s honor and restore the prestige of his house. Let trepidation flee before my face, and may the gods grant my enhancements suffice to stand athwart the purpose of so valiant a foe.

  Glory and Honor to the victor!

  ~Crixus, one of Spartacus’ generals, the day before his death, 72 B.C.

  Gregorios stood in the Forum and breathed deep the familiar smells of ancient Rome. He always loved the city. The people tended to wash more often than most other places he’d lived prior to the modern day, and the Forum in particular held a savor all its own.

  This was the original Forum, crowded with temples, statues, and shops, paved with limestone, and filled with people from every economic strata. It smelled of incense and fried food and a nearby bakery. The air hummed with the noise of a thousand conversations spilling over each other. It felt like returning home.

  Sarah appeared next to him, dressed in fine robes of the upper class. Her American good looks blended in surprisingly well in Ancient Rome.

  “Where are we?” she asked as she took in the sights and smells just as a priest of Athena took to a nearby rostra and started loudly proclaiming the virtues of his goddess.

  “The Roman Forum.” He pointed out the Palatine Hill to the south and the Capitoline Hill to the northeast.

  While Sarah took a minute to orient herself to the reality of the city as compared to the modern world that overlay its ruins in her day, he scanned the crowds.

  “Do you think they’re here?” she asked finally.

  “No doubt. This was not the memory I’d been planning, so we were drawn here.”

  She flashed a smile and a dagger appeared in her hand. “I like how they can’t slip around us.”

  “Alter does good work when he’s focused,” Gregorios agreed. “No one else would have figured out how to leverage those runes to help us sync to active memory visits by other machines.”

  “I still don’t understand how it works,” Sarah said with a frown. “We’re in your head, right?”

  “We are, but we’re not,” Gregorios said, leading her through the crowds. He hated to stand idle while everyone walked around them. It would be too easy for an assassin to approach. “The runes draw us back to our memories, but also draw us somehow alongside the fabric of history.”

  “History is real, despite what the books say, and it has residual power from all the souls that pass through it. With our nevron-powered memories, we can draw close enough to the veil of time that we actually link to it. While we’re in one of those linked memories, they become an anchor point that other memory walkers can connect to as they approach history.”

  “Thinking about this is giving me a headache.”

  “I’m not saying I understand it completely,” Gregorios said. “But it appears to be working, so let’s not question it too much. The man with the wide-brimmed hat must be using a similar machine, and that helps the pieces fall into place.”

  “If he wanted to hide from us, could he change the runes and block us from connecting?”

  “Possibly,” Gregorios said. “Let’s not give him the chance.”

  “Right.” She looked determined. He approved.

  “Don’t make any big moves,” Gregorios cautioned. “Let’s see if we can get closer this time.”

  “Yeah, no armies.”

  Gregorios continued through the Forum and spent t
he next few minutes pointing out the buildings and examples of everyday life in ancient Rome. Sarah drank it all in and the process helped tie him more tightly to the moment. The crowds were thick and the citizens appeared happy, excited even, not carrying the fearful undertone so common in the waning days of the empire. He felt himself putting on this ancient day, like slipping into a pair of worn jeans.

  Then he spotted a familiar form exiting a small temple.

  “Spartacus.”

  Sarah picked out the Thracian gladiator as he pushed through the crowd not far away. He was dressed like a merchant, but he walked like a fighter. He didn’t appear to have seen them through the press. They followed him across the Forum and around Capitoline Hill. The air smelled less of food and more of incense as they passed a string of temples.

  “Where do you think he’s going?” Sarah asked.

  “Let’s find out.”

  Gregorios chose not to voice his growing suspicions. He didn’t want to intercept Spartacus before they found the man in the wide-brimmed hat, but he might not have a choice. Following Spartacus into the heart of his lair would be a mistake.

  “Everyone seems pretty excited today,” Sarah commented.

  “They have good reason to be.” He had caught snippets of several conversations as they wove through the crowds, finally pinning down the date. “It’s February, 44 BC. Caesar was just appointed dictator for life.”

  “That makes people happy?”

  “He was popular.”

  “Didn’t they realize what was about to happen?”

  Gregorios laughed. “How could they? It hadn’t happened yet.”

  She frowned. “Sorry, that was stupid. It’s just, I get confused jumping around history so much. It’s hard to keep straight.”

  “Harder for you because you don’t know the full truth.”

  “Don’t tell me Julius Caesar was a facetaker?” she asked, sounding disgusted.

  “No, he was a mortal, although an exceptionally brilliant one. He and Shahrokh formed an alliance early in his career.”

  “That’s right,” Sarah said with a nod. “That’s where the connection to the Tenth legion comes in.”

  “Exactly. Shahrokh supported Caesar as his first test case in wielding power from the shadows. Prior to that, too many facetakers tried to take over their kingdoms and rule. It generally ended badly.”

  “Why was that?”

  “People are superstitious, and those early rulers weren’t circumspect enough with their soul transfers. They assumed their subjects would consider them gods.”

  “Didn’t work out?”

  “It might have, but the hunters were very good at infiltrating the populace and convincing them their rulers were possessed by demons.”

  “They’ve been at it for a long time,” Sarah commented.

  Gregorios shrugged. “They help keep the heka under control. We don’t have as many direct conflicts as we used to.”

  “So Shahrokh worked out a deal with Caesar?”

  “Indeed,” Gregorios said as they rounded a street corner, working through the crowds about fifty yards behind Spartacus. “Shahrokh gained tremendous power without much public attention. Julius received soul transfers.”

  “How did that work out with him getting assassinated?”

  “Better than you might think.”

  Sarah scowled. “You changed history again, didn’t you?”

  Gregorios smiled. “You have no idea.”

  “I will,” she promised.

  Spartacus took the turn that he had been fearing and he grimaced. “We’re going to have to intervene after all.”

  “I thought we were waiting for the man in the hat.”

  “We were, but Spartacus is headed for Quirinal Hill.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The location of the temple of Quirinus.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “He was the god of War. The heka loved infiltrating the Quirites.”

  “The who?”

  “The men of the oaken spear.”

  “I remember the spear.”

  “It became Spartacus’ signature weapon,” Gregorios said. “For a while he was the high priest of Quirinus.”

  “I thought Mars was the god of war.”

  “Eventually. It took us a while, but we sidelined Quirinus so much that he’s hardly remembered today.”

  “So Spartacus goes into the temple and he gets a lot of help?”

  “Undoubtedly. Spartacus was always lurking around Rome, with his rabid followers causing trouble. He was like a tick, looking for a soul to suck dry.”

  They closed on Spartacus as he began climbing the road up the Quirinal Hill. Another quarter mile and he’d reach the imposing temple. Maybe that was where the man in the wide-brimmed hat had been hiding all along? If so, the only way to get to him would be to fight through Spartacus and his followers. Again the mysterious enemy had maneuvered them into a position of weakness.

  Well, Gregorios could play that game too.

  Before he could launch a new plan, Spartacus turned off the road and entered a palatial building whose purpose Gregorios didn’t remember.

  “Is that the temple?” Sarah asked.

  “No,” Gregorios said slowly, trying to piece together what the hat man might be planning.

  “I wonder what he’s up to,” Sarah said, fiddling with her dagger.

  “I know one way to find out.”

  They entered the wide entrance and caught sight of Spartacus passing through a doorway into an inner court. There would be other exits, but that would be a good place to beat some answers out of the gladiator.

  Gregorios jogged across the wide, tiled atrium, with Sarah close behind. He paused in the doorway to the inner court and grimaced.

  Spartacus waited for them with fifty fully-armed soldiers.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Men in general are quick to believe that which they wish to be true, to fear that which might be true, and to ignore what really matters.

  ~Julius Caesar

  “I really hate this guy,” Gregorios muttered.

  Spartacus raised his oaken spear, preparing to order the charge. The soldiers were armed with gladius and shield, a deadly combination in the tight confines of the building.

  “Watch the rear for a flanking maneuver,” Gregorios said to Sarah.

  Instead of dropping his spear forward in the signal to attack, Spartacus spoke. “The stage is set, my old enemy, for a confrontation the likes of which the world has never known.”

  “You always thought every little skirmish was a grand battle,” Gregorios replied, summoning a fifty-caliber machine gun mounted on a tripod, with a full box of belt-fed ammunition in place. None of the charging soldiers had ever seen a gun before.

  He introduced them.

  The armor-piercing bullets shredded shields and breastplates like paper. Flesh and blood fared no better. The explosive reports of the heavy machine gun echoed in the small space with painful intensity. Gregorios summoned ear protection for both him and Sarah even as he mowed down the ranks of shocked soldiers. Smoke blew across the room and the space filled with the stench of gunpowder, blood, and the stomach-turning reek of opened bodies.

  It took only seconds to kill every one of Spartacus’ soldiers.

  Sarah shouted something he couldn’t quite make out through the ear protection and he turned to see her impaling a four-armed apelike creature with a long spear.

  Spartacus stood alone in the carnage, stunned by the destruction of his men.

  Gregorios removed his ear protection and rose from behind the smoking machine gun. “Now that our epic confrontation’s over, I have a few questions you’re going to answer.”

  “The world has gone mad,” Spartacus said, still staring at the machine gun. “What incantation is this that so easily kills my men?”

  “I’ll give you a taste of it in a minute. First, tell me where the man in the wide-brimmed hat is hiding.”<
br />
  “How did you escape my wall?” Spartacus asked, a glimmer of his normal belligerence in his expression.

  “Oh, a lot’s changed.” Gregorios had felt irritated before, but dredging up that bit of memory was making him downright cross. “Welcome to the new world.”

  “I prefer the old one.” The Thracian actually looked troubled. He wasn’t talking like a figment of a memory.

  “You’re really here, aren’t you?” Gregorios asked.

  Spartacus gestured at the blood-splattered room. “I wish I really was. This world I understood.”

  “And the hat man restored you.”

  “Indeed. I owe him a debt of honor for opening my cage and releasing my soul.”

  “You’ve picked the wrong side again,” Gregorios warned him.

  “I am beyond sides now,” Spartacus declared with a slow shake of his head. “My purpose is my own, but the man in the wide-brimmed hat is about to declare war upon you and yours.”

  The ground shook as if from an earthquake, but only part of the memory lurched. A section of the memoryscape ripped free from Gregorios’ control, wrenched away by another will so powerful it left him feeling stunned. Gregorios flinched and glanced to his left, toward the doorway where he had left Sarah.

  She was gone.

  Spartacus saluted. “We will speak again soon, and perhaps cross swords for honor and the glory of days past.”

  “You bet we will.”

  Spartacus faded from the memory.

  Gregorios stared after him. Spartacus really was a player, but for the first time in two millennia, Gregorios wasn’t sure what the man was preparing to do.

  It didn’t matter. Spartacus he could deal with. It was Sarah he worried about. The will that had snapped her away from his memory was perhaps even more powerful than Mai Luan’s had been. He had to find Sarah before there was nothing left to find.

  He only hoped they could both escape the memory-turned-trap alive.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  It becomes an emperor to die standing, every time.

  ~Emperor Titus, 81 A.D.

  Sarah regained her balance after the surprise lurch of the memoryscape and found herself standing in a huge, vaulted space. Thick alabaster columns lined the sandstone walls and held up the high ceiling. The floor was paved with smooth, green tile, and a set of marble stairs rose to a wide archway that led to another room.