Centurion's Rise

by Henrikson, Mark

  The temple’s interior was lit by an enormous open trench fire roaring in the middle of the circular room. Above the fire, at the apex of the domed roof, was a hole to allow the copious volumes of smoke to escape. At the cardinal points of the compass around the fire four priestesses maintained vigil over the perpetual flame.

  Up until he entered the temple, Hastelloy held out hope the Alpha relic would still be featured as the eternal flame inside the temple. Prior to Hastelloy uncovering the Alpha relic’s existence, the flowing metallic flame carrying the life force of Elohim would have hovered where the perpetual flame now roared. Immediately following the discovery, a new Roman tradition was set where every resident would extinguish the fire in their house hearth on the first of March and relight it using the sacred fire of Vesta as the source. This furthered the citizen’s reverence of the Goddess and gave the perfect opportunity to relocate Elohim’s relic to a more protected location within the House of Vestals - somewhere.

  The four priestesses sitting in the temple posed no real threat, but their ability to sound an alarm needed to be eliminated. Four men silently approached the young girls from behind and rendered them unconscious without a sound and lay their bodies flat on the ground.

  Hastelloy allowed the small sack he carried to slide off his shoulder onto the ground. He removed two flowing white gowns complete with head dresses from the bag. He tossed one to Valnor and began putting on the other. To complete the disguise, the two men donned horse hair wigs that flowed over their shoulders.

  In broad daylight the disguise wouldn’t fool anybody, but in the dark of night in the middle of a long night shift, Hastelloy was certain they could slip past the first two men guarding the stairwell leading to the House of Vestals. It was time to put his theory to the test.

  Side by side, Hastelloy and Valnor stepped through the doorway with their hands clasped neatly at their waist, as if in prayer. They turned left and headed for the guarded stairwell. As they approached, both men were careful to keep their heads tilted downward slightly to better conceal their masculine features under the pearly white headdresses.

  Guards stood on either side of the staircase. Both had the look of men who’d just spent the last four hours watching paint dry. A marching band probably could have paraded past them and barely gotten more than a raised eyebrow as a reaction. Two priestesses in flowing white gowns garnered no reaction at all.

  Hastelloy paced his way up the arching staircase alongside Valnor and was secure in the knowledge that two members of his strike team were now in position to take out the two guards they just walked past. At the top of the staircase, two more guards stood their post on either side. These men were more astute than the others. Hastelloy felt their analyzing stare from ten steps away.

  With one last step to ascend, Hastelloy and Valnor each dashed for the nearest guard to them and placed the white cloth concealed by their prayerful hand positions. With mission accomplished they both looked back to validate the sentries at the staircase base were also down. They were, and six barely perceptible shapes were making their way up the stairs and into the House of Vestals.

  “I’m beginning to think we over prepared for this assault,” Valnor whispered while they waited.

  “Better to be too ready than not enough,” Hastelloy replied as the rest of the strike team joined them for a brief huddle. “There are still sixteen priestesses plus the Vestalis Maximus. Each has their own bedchamber. We will incapacitate them one-by-one, leaving only the Maximus so she can take us to the vault and retrieve the documents.” Every man gave an affirmative nod, and they were on their way.

  The sleeping chambers were on the second floor. Hastelloy quickly located the stairwell and led them down one level. Each room ran along the balcony overlooking a courtyard featuring two reflection pools. Each of the eight men took a door, and proceeded in to carry out their business.

  Hastelloy entered a ten by ten foot room illuminated only by the lit torches along the balcony walls outside the chamber. He barely made out a writing desk in one corner and an occupied bed in the other with a storage trunk at the foot.

  The bed’s occupant was a teenage girl laying flat on her back. Hastelloy moved in, placed his ear next to her mouth and covered her nose and mouth with the chloroform soaked cloth. He waited until the girl drew a deep breath, then removed the cloth and backed his way out of the room and shut the door behind him.

  Valnor was the last one to emerge from his target room. They all moved down the balcony until each man stood outside another set of bedroom doors. Hastelloy entered the bed chamber. He looked to make sure the young woman was asleep, but this time he stayed just inside the door. He waited for the other men to exit their target rooms and then stepped back out on to the balcony.

  “Well done,” Hastelloy whispered. As he pointed to two of the men. “You two return to the main stairwell and make sure no one approaches.

  The two men acted immediately while Hastelloy gave further instructions. “Only the Vestalis Maximus is left. You five rouse her and get to the vault. She’s bound to make a lot of noise and fuss but the five of you forcing her around should let her know you mean business. Be firm and get what we need, but do not harm her in any way. Understand?”

  “What will you be doing?” Valnor asked.

  “Making sure any residents who do wake up, are dealt with,” Hastelloy responded.

  “Understood,” Valnor said and then led four men around the balcony to the other side of the courtyard. There they entered the Vestalis Maximus’ bed chamber. Meanwhile, Hastelloy turned and glanced at the door of the woman he left conscious. He then walked three doors down the balcony toward the exit stairs. He opened the door and closed it behind him, leaving it ajar just enough to see back down the hallway.

  Moments later all hell broke loose on the other side of the balcony. Shouts for guards and alarm from a deep female voice rang out. When those cries for help had no result, the woman leveled an arsenal of verbal assaults on her attackers. The Vestalis Maximus may have been a religious figure, but she also had a rare grasp of the most profane words in the Latin vocabulary. Hastelloy almost blushed a few times.

  A flash of motion caught Hastelloy’s eye from down the hall. The young woman stepped out on to the balcony to observe the commotion. She held her tongue as the Vestalis Maximus was led down the exit stairwell to the subterranean chambers that safeguarded the wills of the Roman citizenry.

  The young girl stood frozen in panic for a moment, but then appeared to decide on a course of action. She dashed into the next room. “Vella, wake up,” Hastelloy heard followed by a sharp slap. “Vella!”

  She returned to the balcony and entered the room next to Hastelloy’s hiding place. Again the young woman found she was unable to wake the occupant. She returned to the balcony once more and came to a stop just outside Hastelloy’s door.

  He held his breath and mentally debated whether he’d misjudged the number of rooms the girl would check before realizing she was on her own.

  “The guards,” the girl said to herself and then took off running down the balcony railing toward the stairs.

  Hastelloy slinked out of his hiding place and hurried after the girl. He reached the staircase and made his way up half a flight until the priestess was in sight again. She was about to run toward the guard station calling for help until her brain caught up with what her eyes saw. The guards were on the ground with two sinister looking fellows standing over them

  “What do I do now,” the girl whispered to herself. “Vesta, she’ll know what to do.” The girl then dashed up the stairs, past the fourth level and on up to the fifth story of the building.

  “Checkmate,” Hastelloy said to himself as he gave pursuit. The young woman vanished from his sight into an unassuming room. A few moments later she came back out carrying a ring of keys.

  She unlocked a flimsy wooden door and entered a stoically barren chamber. The only notable feature was another wooden door along the far wall
, and a lit torch hanging right next to it on the wall. The priestess ran to the door, frantically worked the lock and opened the door. She took the torch off the wall and stepped through the door.

  The torch light revealed a narrow hallway that turned to the right after ten feet. Hastelloy moved through the doorway in pursuit once the young woman rounded the corner. He heard her footfalls grow faint as the sound seemed to melt into the floor.

  Hastelloy poked his head around the corner and saw nothing but a solid stone wall with a faint glow coming from the floor in front of it. He dashed forward in fear he’d lost his chance, but was relieved to find a descending spiral stone staircase.

  Round and round he went as he followed the priestess. He was pretty sure by the time he reached the last step they were well below ground level. The young woman had already opened a wooden door that was nearly a foot thick. Even if an attacker managed to get a battering ram down the narrow stairwell, there was no way that door would open without the proper key.

  “Oh noble Vesta, I need your guidance,” a breathless female voice said from just inside the stout door. “Evil men are in the house. They’ve killed the guards and kidnapped the Maximus.”

  “And what of your fellow vestals,” a calm, whimsical voice asked.

  “I could not wake any of them. I fear they may be dead as well. What should I do?”

  “How were you able to escape?” the formless voice asked with a touch of concern creeping into the tone.

  “I don’t know,” the priestess responded. “I woke up, saw everything happening and came here for guidance.”

  “Stupid child!” the voice boomed, “That’s exactly what he wanted you to do.”

  That was Hastelloy’s cue. He stepped through the doorway and entered the resting chamber for one of the Alpha relics.

  “And she did not disappoint,” Hastelloy said, causing the priestess to turn around in surprise. “Thank you my dear.” Hastelloy said, and then applied a white cloth to her face and a moment later eased her unconscious body to the ground.

  “Captain Hastelloy I presume?” Elohim asked in a conversational voice.

  “The one and only,” Hastelloy answered as he got back to his feet. He glanced around the small circular room to make sure there were no routes for the relic to escape through as Goron had managed to do in the Temple of Jupiter. There was nothing though, just a flowing metallic flame hovering in the middle of the chamber over a floor carved out of solid granite. Elohim wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Hmm, I wouldn’t have thought assaulting young girls was your style,” Elohim went on. “You’ll order men to seduce and violate them, but not actually attack the defenseless creatures.”

  “I’d hardly call inducing a brief nap an assault,” Hastelloy countered.

  “I doubt the citizens will see it that way,” the floating flame fired back. “You and your fellow attackers are dead men, you know that, right?”

  Through a sideways grin Hastelloy returned the threat. “The only one doing the dying today is you.”

  The brightness of the flame suddenly doubled in intensity. “Hah, I give you credit for penetrating my defenses to reach me, but you have no way of destroying my life force. You proved that the last time we met.”

  “Before I had no idea what I was dealing with,” Hastelloy countered. “But now I’ve had some time to think about it.

  Hastelloy stepped closer to the flame and swung an open palm at it with all his might. The flowing fire resisted his blow for a moment, but then gave way. The yellow and red presence swallowed his hand.”

  Hastelloy had the sensation of wearing a water proof glove on his hand and then running it through a stream of cold water. He could feel the pressure of the material flowing between his fingers and resisting the movement of his hand. Contrary to the color and appearance of an intense flame, the object was ice cold. Then the odd sensation suddenly stopped when his hand completed its path through the Alpha relic and came out the other side.

  He looked intently at the flowing flame to inspect the damage. There was none as the material instantly reformed into the space his hand once occupied.

  “Uh oh, that didn’t work,” the relic mocked. “What else do you have for me?”

  “Plenty,” Hastelloy responded without missing a beat. He pulled a dagger out from a holster around his waist and drove it dead center into the flowing relic. He let go and stepped back to observe the result.

  For a few seconds the dagger remained in place, protruding from the main body of the flame. Then the blade began sinking deeper and deeper into the flowing metal. Hastelloy was encouraged at first, but then realized the solid metal blade was melting into the flowing object. A few seconds later the entire dagger was assimilated into the Alpha relic.

  “Nope, maybe you can come back again when you’ve had time to mull it over in that reproduced brain of yours,” Elohim laughed. “Have you ever considered that every time you regenerate a body it’s like making a copy of a copy so the quality degrades a little bit each time? I’ll bet you’ve been spat out enough times to be a complete invalid by now.”

  “Very interesting defense mechanism,” Hastelloy commented as a bystander watching a science experiment might do. He then took his time pulling another dagger out from under his sleeve and carefully examined the blade.

  “What, are you going to stab me again?” the relic prodded further. “You’re only proving my point Captain. Doing the same thing twice expecting a different result is the very definition of insanity.”

  Hastelloy cracked a thoughtful smile as he removed a glass vial from his belt that held a liquid so dark the light from Elohim’s relic was powerless to penetrate it. He crouched down onto one knee and laid the dagger on the ground. Hastelloy then proceeded to uncorked the vial and pour the black fluid over the entire length of the blade. He turned it over and repeated the process.

  “A while back on this planet I discovered the Castor plant and the poisoning properties it contains,” Hastelloy instructed. “I made this little mixture special just for you, and I’m pretty sure you won’t be laughing this time.”

  Hastelloy then picked up the blade taking every care not to touch the tainted metal. He noticed the flame had lost most of its intensity and now cast the room in a deep crimson hue.

  “No!” Elohim cried out just before Hastelloy drove the blade home and stepped back to watch the outcome.

  Once again, the dagger was ingested by the flowing metal. Immediately the luster of the metallic surface faded. The free flowing flames slowed to a standstill and then pulled into the main body of the relic until a plain, unmoving sphere hovered in the middle of the room. Hastelloy watched with satisfaction as the glow of life grew dim.

  “Goron still controls your man,” a hollow voice croaked from the now rust covered sphere. “The last laugh will still be his.”

  When the last hint of light left the sphere the brittle rusted out object dropped to the floor and shattered into dust that filled the tiny room with the vile stench of death.

  “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” Hastelloy uttered to himself as he scooped up the unconscious priestess and proceeded back to her bed chamber.

  Chapter 55: Violation of Trust

  Albus got down on his knees and jabbed the knife he held into the seam between two pieces of the tile floor under his bed. He pried loose the twelve inch square and pulled out the five bags of gold he’d concealed there several years earlier.

  Times were different now. Back then the city was on the verge of rioting so his master’s family fled the city allowing Albus to steal the coins from his master. It frustrated him to no end that he couldn’t just pay for his family’s freedom immediately following the riots; it would have been too suspicious. Instead he had to bide his time, literally sleeping on the small fortune while enduring the indignities of slavery for a few more years. Finally, the time was right.

  A week earlier, Albus brought up the topic of buying his family’s freedom. His master s
et aside time this morning to negotiate the purchase price. At the time he stole the gold, Albus knew he’d taken more than enough to purchase freedom for himself, his wife, and his son. Since then, he’d fathered two more children.

  Both girls were born into slavery by virtue of their father’s station in life requiring more money to procure freedom for the entire family. A bag of gold each should be more than enough, but Albus knew his master. The bastard was devious, greedy, and utterly devoid of any moral compass to direct him between right and wrong. The man would take everything he could because he felt entitled to it.

  Albus put the piece of tile back into place and set the five small bags of gold coins into a carrying sack. He then stood and headed for the master’s office chamber to commence negotiations.

  The slave entered the dark chamber where his master conducted business. The room was well lit with windows, but the master insisted on decorating the chamber with dark oak wood that seemed to consume all illumination in the room: bookshelves, chairs, shutters, and of course the oversized table that served as the master’s desk. It was positioned five feet from the entry door leaving the remaining twenty feet of the opulent room for the master to command. Anyone entering that room to do business instantly knew where he stood with the master.

  Albus took a seat at the table and waited and waited, which was to be expected. It was a simple yet effective tactic his master employed by forcing the other man to wait. It let him know the master controlled things, plus it also allowed fatigue to set in. By the time his master entered the room to conduct business the counterpart was willing to accept any terms just to get on with life. Albus knew the tactic, he even helped the master employ it on others a few times, but to sit through it was excruciating.

  At long last the great man entered the room. The frail seventy year old with wispy white hair and neatly trimmed beard made his way to the table and said with a huff, “Make it quick Albus, I don’t have all day.”