I barely had enough in me to realize Remus was kneeling over me. “The pain won’t kill you, Jacob. You will have ample time to think on your decision while we retrieve the orbs.”
***
Time passed, pain consumed. Up was down, down was up, both were hellish phenomena I wanted nothing more to do with. The ground moved beneath me. It felt like I was flying, but I was too weak to even scream anymore let alone levitate. All I could do was shudder, jerk, and convulse instinctively as something propelled me forward. Faces passed through my vision, the ground came up and smacked me in the face again, and…
And then the pain was gone.
At least, new attempts to generate unique forms of torture were gone.
The remnants of the beating from before lingered.
I flopped onto my back, growing more comfortable with every passing moment, sucking in huge gulps of air as I struggled to regain my senses. The earth beneath me was soft and felt of freshly cut grass, but I had little time for rest before a number of hands clawed at me, picking me up, and dragging me behind them. A moment later, I was thrown onto my back again and I took another long moment to drink in the aroma of the morning dew beginning to collect on each individual blade of grass. I turned onto my belly and opened my eyes, immediately spying the twin orbs resting benignly in front of me.
Then a thought occurred to me.
They were right there.
I could take them and go home in the blink of an eye. I’d done it once before already, and I knew I could do it again. I could just go home and forget everything that’s happened, or try to find a way back to an earlier point along the timeline where I could avert this whole disaster. I…
An immense, bare foot stomped suddenly on the ground between me and the orbs, and I looked up to see Remus’ face staring down at me.
“I will crush your hands well before you reach them,” he warned. “Do not attempt any heroics, Jacob Hunter. We are both well aware of how that generally turns out for you.”
I pulled my hand away and rolled onto my back again, glaring at him through puffy eyes and a body that ached and ached. “Fuck you.”
He sniffed out a quick laugh. “Resistant to the end. How commendable. Now, rise.”
I did as I was told, but slowly, forcing myself to my knees first and then my feet. I swayed in place for a moment as I regained my balance, a difficult task since I felt about as bad as someone who had just been struck by lightning.
Worse, probably.
Glancing to my left, I found Agrippina still with Boudicca but they were no longer intertwined together. Instead, a pair of burly Praetorians held Boudicca down on her knees while Agrippina stood behind her, neither woman looking particularly pleased. It was then that I also noticed our Praetorian contingent had also increased considerably since I’d lost contact with the orbs, and I had a sneaking suspicion of why.
I turned back to Remus. “I can’t let you go back and murder your brother.”
He stepped beside me, reached down, and picked up the orbs. He placed them in my hands but never removed his own, maintaining constant skin contact atop them.
“I don’t intend to kill him,” Remus said as he flicked his head at the nearest Praetorian, who nodded back and placed a hand on Remus’ forearm. Like a leashed class of kindergartners crossing a road, each and every Praetorian present took hold of another – as did Agrippina who held onto Boudicca. Once linked together, Remus looked back at me and clinked the orbs together in my hands. “I merely wish to see him again. Now, focus on Faustulus’ vision. Remember what he showed you. Take us to the moment after I disappeared, not before. Do it. Understand that the consequences of your failure will be severe.”
There was no need in reminding me. Remus had me cornered. He could torture me, murder Boudicca, hunt down my friends, or he could do all three – which he probably would eventually anyway. I had nothing to use against him, and I couldn’t escape with his hands upon the orbs. There was nothing I could do. I could stand here and ponder possible scenarios for years, squandering each and every one because there was simply nothing I could do. There was no point. I had to ride this out and be patient.
Eventually, I’d think of something.
Closing my eyes, I thought back to my time with Merlin, trying to remember everything I could about the scene just following Remus’ disappearance, preparing to travel back in time to the actual founding of Rome.
What a story…
***
I was back in Rome, circa 700 B.C.
Or about.
It had been easier than last time, and I wondered if it had something to do with Remus’ presence and influence or if I was simply getting better at it. He knew exactly where he wanted me to take him, and might have helped in some way. I didn’t know, but understanding that we were no longer in imperial Rome was obvious. The land was vacant, bare, without civilization, save for the small town currently being erected atop a hill, a partially completed wall surrounding it. The whole scene looked familiar to what I’d seen in Merlin’s vision, but not nearly so grand and majestic. There were other differences as well. In Merlin’s vision, it had been a bright and sunny day, but currently it was night time and the sky was full of thick clouds. Such deviations made me once again question everything Merlin had showed me, and I was beginning to wonder if Merlin was behind more of this than originally thought. One thing was for certain, he wasn’t going to just show up and save me from all this.
“Forward, Jacob,” Remus said from behind me, offering me a nudge that nearly threw me to the ground.
With no other option, I started to walk, following behind the first few lines of Praetorians who approached the settlement atop the Palatine Hill with all the subtlety of an invading army. We reached the foot of the Palatine in short order, completely unopposed and, as far as I could tell, unnoticed. The Praetorian force moved to double-quick speed, rushing up the hill and storming the settlement, acting on unspoken orders as though they’d planned this operation weeks ago. Remus, Boudicca, Agrippina, and I were left behind to cough up the dirt kicked up by their trampling feet.
Everything next happened very quickly.
The Praetorian force crested the hill and swarmed around the corner of the exposed wall fortification. Remus and I trailed them, followed by Agrippina and Boudicca. Seconds later, we rounded the wall and entered the city. Taking a hard left, we found our Praetorians only a short distance away, having formed a tight circle, three Praetorians deep, shields lock and spears directed inward.
Remus went straight for the circle, taking hold of me by the shoulder and throwing me forward through a gap in the Praetorian formation. I hit the ground, tumbled, and rolled for quite a while before coming to a stop in a heap. Somewhere along the way I’d lost my grip on the orbs and they rolled away, but instead of going after them, I simply allowed myself the respite of just lying on the ground again, no longer caring what Remus would do.
Thankfully, nothing seemed to happen for quite some time. I heard a commotion and a scuffle but nothing seemed directed at me, so I allowed myself a quick fantasy that all of it had just been a dream and that I was about to wake up in bed back home, freshly cooked bacon ready and waiting for me in the kitchen. It was a nice dream, one that lingered for quite some time, but then a hand touched my arm and I knew my moment of relief was over.
I expected Remus to once again haul me to my feet to exact further torture on me, but the hand was gentle, almost cautious as it touched me. I looked up, expecting to see Agrippina or maybe even Boudicca, but when I made eye contact with the hand’s owner, I was again left wondering if I wasn’t, in fact, in some kind of dream.
“Merlin?” I asked, peering deeper into the old wizard’s eyes that, while physically resembling those I remembered, seemed different. Gone was the slight glint of constant amusement or the twinkle of mischievousness, nor was his mouth turned up in his usual small smile that often concealed the meaning behind his words, hiding them in half-truths, riddl
es, and questions without answers.
But worst of all, I didn’t see recognition there. He looked at me like I was a total stranger, and I realized this man wasn’t Merlin at all. He was only Faustulus, a man who had existed seven hundred years before I’d ever met his future self, the one who’d taken on the mantle of Merlin.
The man shook his head at my question and placed a hand on his chest.
“Faustulus,” he said, but it barely sounded like the word I identified as faustulus, his accent so thick and his pronunciation so odd that I barely understood him.
I was still processing his name when he reached his hands under my arms and lifted me to my feet with a strength that belied his wizened visage. Finding my footing, I looked at him and nodded my thanks, but further interaction with Faustulus was cut short by the sight of Remus arguing with another man, another man who could have easily been his clone. They were nearly exact duplicates, except for the fact that Remus appeared slightly older, although not so much that it was immediately obvious.
There was only one person he could be.
Romulus.
Despite it all, I was still amazed, almost awestruck, but I’d experienced too much for such a sight to leave me a babbling, mouth-breathing teenager at the sight of him.
Remus held his brother by the collar of his tunic, speaking intently, almost yelling, about something I couldn’t understand but had a few assumptions about regardless. A few words popped out at me, things like: treachery, ambush, my brother, and few other choice words. It was then that I realized they had to have been speaking Etruscan or some derivation of the dead language or at least something similar… or it was some other completely foreign and long forgotten language I’d never heard of before.
By now I was growing aware of another scuffle occurring around me, and I realized that we were under attack, probably by the troops under Romulus’ command, the shepherd turned soldiers that had helped him recover his grandfather’s throne. I absorbed their scuffle in a glance, and immediately surmised the Praetorians would have no problems holding them at bay. They were a far superior fighting force; better armored, equipped, trained, and disciplined. The one hundred or so Praetorians here could hold out against a force twenty times larger for a week if need be.
I looked away, searching for Agrippina and Boudicca, finding them a few steps away, the latter still under guard. They seemed to be growing more and more irrelevant in all this, so I ignored them and turned to Faustulus, trying to plead for help using my facial expressions alone.
“Do something!” I told him. “Fix this. They’re your responsibility!” But he didn’t seem to understand me at all. I growled and looked away. “For crying out loud, you’ve always been useless.”
He ignored me and turned to face Romulus and Remus, a concerned look on his face. He immediately stepped toward them, leaving me alone with nothing but my thoughts.
What could he do? I wanted to think he had some tricks up his sleeves, some kind of stun gun or mesmerizing gizmo that could incapacitate the twins, or at least just Remus. Maybe he had some kind of portable portal thing he could use to send them to Time-Out Land, making them stand in a cosmic corner for a few hours to cool off. Considering what he’d been capable of doing to me in his little cottage, a thing so far beyond my understanding of reality, he must have been able to put all this right.
But he didn’t do anything. He simply approached Remus with his hands held out in front of him, his tone benevolent and understanding, like an actual father trying to comfort his toddler after he’d done something that had really worked himself up. I watched, hoping beyond hope that he was a better father than a sage-old mentor, but then Remus lashed out and struck Faustulus across the check, sending the old man flying much as I had a number of times in the past half hour.
He landed roughly, hitting the ground with a thud, very near where the orbs had ended up after I had dropped them. To my surprise, Faustulus rose to his feet almost immediately, apparently unfazed by his impact, and continued to plead with Remus in their language that sounded more and more like gibberish than anything approaching a real language. But Remus wasn’t having any of it, and Romulus was incapable of interfering, a dozen Praetorians now subduing him with pila pointed at his body. Remus let out a lengthy speech, his tone furious, his mannerisms wild, and his eyes crazed, and I hadn’t a clue what would happen next.
He was really pissed, and I supposed I didn’t blame him. Being locked away in a cage to contain all cages for centuries couldn’t have been particularly fun. Romulus and Faustulus probably had no idea what he was talking about, or, at least, couldn’t empathize with him since they’d only just sent the other Remus away mere seconds ago.
And Romulus, against what I assumed was his character, look terrified.
Finally, coming to the end of his speech, Remus pointed at the orbs and seemed to order Faustulus to retrieve them, who hesitated, his face awash in compassion and confusion, in apparent denial that Remus was involved in anything so nefarious. But when Remus took a threatening step forward, Faustulus waved his hands like a madman, pleading for him to stop before he shuffled over to where the orbs lay. He didn’t bother paying me any more attention, but then why should he? He didn’t know me anymore than I knew Romulus.
His walk to the orbs was short, and he quickly leaned down so that he could pick them up. Without hesitation, he wrapped his hands around them and started to rise, but then he stopped, hesitating completely, his body rigid and bent over with a straight back. The hesitation lasted a full two seconds, but only I seemed to notice. Without further prompting, Faustulus straightened, wheeled around, and took two steps toward the twins, but on this third step, his head turned so that he could face me.
And then he winked at me.
I blinked in surprise.
Had he just been playing along all this time?! Had he known exactly who I was long before I even arrived here, or had inutility known as soon I had? What the hell had happened that had enticed him to wink at me?
I hadn’t a clue, but I didn’t care either. This was it, the moment I’d been waiting for, the sign I’d needed to know that Merlin/Faustulus had a plan and would rectify this whole thing. All I needed to do was wait a little longer and hope his signal was loud and clear.
Faustulus returned to Remus with my orbs, but it was then that I realized that Remus already had a pair in his hands. They must have been the twins’ original orbs, the ones they’d used during their scuffle in time and space, the same ones I’d found seven hundred years from this point in time.
How confusing.
Instead of handing the orbs to Remus, as I expected, Faustulus held onto them, bowing before Remus in submission as he rejoined the twins. The three conversed again in hushed tones, not that I could understand them anyway, so I looked around for Boudicca. When I found her, I met eyes that were already bouncing around in my direction, waiting. We looked at each other almost immediately, and when we did, I gave her the slightest of nods, hoping she understood to be ready for my signal to act. She nodded back, ever so slightly, and I assumed she understood.
I turned back around, just in time to see Remus walking in my direction, his little powwow with his family unit over. He walked steadily, undaunted by the raging battle around us, his long strides bringing him to me in just a few seconds. He stopped and looked down at me, his expression seething with hate and anger, and then he spoke.
“Your part in this is at an end, Jacob Hunter,” he said, his voice betraying nothing. “I would thank you for bringing me here, but it is not as though you had a choice in the matter.”
“So now what?” I asked. “Throw Romulus and Faustulus in the prison meant for you and build… Remustown instead of Rome? Sorry, but Rome is much catchier.”
Remus smiled, a toothy grin filled with menace and just a little bit of crazy. “Why build an empire when one is already waiting for me? As you know, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and I haven’t the patience to wait longer than even tha
t. And now, Jacob Hunter; time traveler, dimension hopper, soldier, scholar, and imbecile, a man guilty of nothing more than being so unfortunately unlucky, destined for nothing and chosen by no one… your reward…”
In that second, behind that insane grin and wild eyes, I saw the desire to kill. I saw my own death in there, lurking as though it had been destined for me ever since the beginning. And why not? I wasn’t needed anymore for this story to reach its happy conclusion.
My sister was still out there.
I closed my eyes and waited, but nothing happened, so I peeked. Remus hadn’t moved.
“You are so morbid, Jacob,” Remus said. “I will not kill you. Even you do not deserve such a fate. However… you are a threat, a potentiality for disaster, and I cannot have you meddling in my affairs. Therefore, I will leave you here.”
I glanced left, then right, taking in the conflict around us. “Here? They’ll kill me!”
That’s when I threw out a hand and gripped him by the arm. It was among the worst mistakes I’d ever made, and too many of them had already been quite legendary. He shrugged out of my grasp with ease and shot out a hand to grab me by the neck. He lifted me off my feet, and I felt pressure build in my head and around my collar, wondering how much more I could take before my head popped free from my body – probably well after I lost consciousness, which I could already feel happening as my vision blurred and narrowed.
But before I could waste another second struggling for air, Remus dropped me to the ground, and a quick look up told me why. Boudicca was on the move, apparently assuming Remus’ attack as the signal I’d thought Faustulus would send me – who stood miles and miles away, doing nothing. She moved with such strength and fluidity that it seemed silly that I had once worried about safety, especially when Agrippina had wrapped her up and placed a knife to her throat. It helped that her guards hadn’t expected her to act, and they paid for their negligence when she threw one of them over her shoulder, somehow managing to twist at the waist so that the man flew into his comrade.
Praetorian Series [4] All Roads Lead to Rome Page 30