Wolf’s Empire: Gladiator (27 page)

She giggled like a schoolgirl. “That's funny. You're funny, Accala. We're going to be great friends, I can see it. As clear as crystal.”

“Then maybe you should get your eyes tested.”

XIV

T
HAT NIGHT
I
CLIMBED
onto my bunk and curled up, my whole body trembling. Despite the long and difficult day, sleep would not come. The carousel of images from Crassus' circular room kept flashing into my mind, round and round—powerful Sertorians in shining armor, the great heroes of their past. The anthem of the great song that drove them forward had Aquilinus' precepts as its lyrics. The gods were dead. Will and power. Mercy and compassion were weak. Power was civilization. All those notions were wrong. Intellectually I knew that, but Crassus' words lingered, needling my mind.
Filled with dark potential
. Were my actions selfish rather than noble? Putting my own need for revenge above the duty I owed my father? And if so, maybe I was more like the Sertorians than I thought. I did have a choice, I could have told my father everything, trusted him to act to save Aulus.

I'd made progress on one front though. Crassus had told me that he and the other Hawks regularly held a private meeting whenever we exited hyperspace. Partway through my third week, that was the next time we'd exit the Janus Cardo. That would be my first and only chance to break into Licinus' quarters.

Fitful sleep finally came, bringing dreams of my father and Aulus. No sign of my mother. As Father turned to me, he vanished and in his place was Gaius Sertorius Crassus. He was smiling at me, he approved of me, and that made me happy. He reached out to me and I took his hand in mine, our fingers interlocking. An electric charge of pure arousal rushed through my body. And then I remembered Aulus was there, and I was mortified with shame. My little brother wouldn't show me his face, wouldn't respond when I spoke to him. I pulled him around and found myself staring right into Mania's face. She smiled at me, a smile like a poisoned dart, driving terror into my heart. “Do you want to see a magic trick?” she asked.

My screams woke me, my body tense, covered in sweat.

“It's all right, Accala, calm down.”

It was my cabinmate, Julia, shaking me like a rattle.

“It's okay, you're just having a bad dream.”

“Don't touch me,” I said.

“You're welcome. Next time you wake me up with your screaming, I'll just smother you and do us both a favor.”

I took some deep breaths. Bad dream didn't begin to describe it. I felt like a dehydrated spider, but the smell of the morning tisane stimulated me and helped me to stir. My head was pounding, buzzing, my mouth parched. Alba placed a fresh pot down on the shelf.

“Gods, I need some of that,” I said, crawling awkwardly down the bunk's ladder out of bed.

“Well, you're officially a pleb now if you've got a tisane addiction,” Julia said.

“Don't say that.”

“That you're a pleb?”

“No. I'm happy to be a plebeian, but don't say I need this.” I sipped the drink, which began to calm me at once. It was saving my life, I couldn't face the arena without it. Julia's suggestion that I did need it, was becoming reliant upon it, rang a warning bell somewhere in my mind, but I didn't care. If I needed a crutch to keep me standing and fighting, then the tisane seemed harmless enough. It gave a lot and asked for nothing in return. “I don't need anything—not slaves, or this, or you,” I spat at Julia. Except the first cup was gone already and I was reaching for a second.

“Domina!” Alba exclaimed. “Your friend is right. Not too much.”

“I don't want an argument,” I said forcefully. As soon as the hot liquid of the second cup passed my lips, relief flooded through me. My head cleared, my stomach settled. I sat on the bench and took a deep breath.

“Everybody needs something, but not everything we need is good for us,” Julia said. “Take Crassus, for instance—”

“I don't know what you mean,” I snapped.

“I do. You were calling his name out in your sleep.
Oh, Crassus. Take me, Crassus.
”

“Shut your mouth.” I gave her a look that told her that she'd better pay attention, and she held her hands up in mock surrender and grinned.

“Pax. Pax. We don't need to bicker, I was just teasing. Besides, you should pay some respect to your elders.”

“You can't be much older than me.”

“Twenty-two,” she said, “but I left my homeworld to start my apprenticeship when I was sixteen. It's been a busy six years. I've traveled through four Janus Cardos, seen nine planets and two wars.”

“Which ones?”

I had to admit she had caught my interest.

“Planets or wars?”

“Wars.”

“Sirius Terminus on the galactic frontier and a yearlong campaign against the Ichthyophagi in Mare Byzantium province. I volunteered for service with the forty-seventh legion. They have the best engineers in the galaxy.”

“That last one was a nothing fight,” I said dismissively. “But you were on the frontier at Sirius Terminus? That was a battle between the Viridians and Sertorians, the first land battle after the bombing of Olympus Decimus. You fought against my people. Aquilinus himself led that battle.”

“I didn't kill anyone. I just did the same thing I do here—fix things that are broken. Don't hold it against me.”

“I won't.” I said, my regained sense of well-being making me magnanimous.

“Why don't you take the tisane pot away for today,” Julia said to Alba. The Iceni hesitated, looking to me.

“Send her away with the pot and I'll tell you my secret,” my cabinmate offered.

“Secret?”

“Where I'm going to go after the games.”

“I don't care,” I said, dismissing Alba just the same. A part of me did want to hear Julia's fantasy escape plan.

“All right,” I said. “This had better be good.”

“The cloud cities of Quatrus Lycaonia,” Julia said with an impressive flourish. “The emperor has his equinox palace there. No war, no intrigue, it's a place of peace and beauty, an idyllic paradise.” She sighed.

“You think there's really such a place as that?”

“Why not? I mean, there should be, shouldn't there? A place where there's no suffering. They have big air-recirculation systems there that need specialized servicing. Without them, everyone would die, so the engineers there are treated like royalty.”

“There's no place where we can get away from ourselves,” I said. It was one of my mother's sayings and it sprang to my lips without effort.

“Yeah? Well, when I get there, I'll let you know.”

I stood up to begin dressing but stumbled and fell back against the bench. Julia pulled her privacy cube out and activated it.

“They had you in the machine, huh?” she asked in a quiet, conspiratorial tone. “I was servicing the hypnogogic projector a few months back. It messes with your head, unbalances your body and your mind. That's why you're having problems standing in one place without moving.”

“More advice for the underdog? I'm fine. It's just made me a little dizzy, that's all,” I said.

“Yeah, it won't last. You'll be back to normal soon enough,” she said. “But they'll have you back in it again. Reckon they want to wipe the wolf out of you, huh? Worst thing you can do is try to fight it. You can't beat the machine. The Sertorians feed your genetic profile into their database. They've refined that thing over hundreds of years so it goes right into the deep mind.”

“What would you recommend?” I asked. What was she up to? What did she want from me?

Her eyes narrowed, and for the first time her face lost the flippant, carefree attitude I'd come to expect.

“You want some well-meaning advice? If you want to survive the machine, then find a thought or idea that is strong—a fixed point that is part of who you are. Hold on to it and don't let go. No matter how stupid the idea seems, no matter how ridiculous they make it sound. You hang on to that and don't let go.”

“Why would you want to help me? What do you want in return?”

“If I need anything, I'll let you know. I help you because I build things, I fix things. I don't like seeing things get pulled apart and broken. That's what they do with that machine.”

“You mean me? Then how do you tell if something's broken? Don't you have to pull it apart first to see inside?”

“Well, there's always something wrong; there's no perfect machine. But as a general rule, we mechanics say—if it ain't broke, don't fix it.”

“Crassus says he has to do that. That I
am
broken, inferior.”

“Really? I think you're fine just as you are,” she said with a grin. “And seriously, lay off the tisane. That variety they're feeding you, I think it's more potent than the usual brew. Much more potent.”

*   *   *

D
AY AFTER DAY,
L
URCO
and I were sent into the maze. It was reconfigured each time but the results were the same—the pair of us emerging after a half-dozen or so bestiarii fights. The only difference was Lurco's willingness to cooperate with me and a gradual familiarity that made exiting slightly more efficient with each repetition. Despite our enmity, the giant would have piggybacked me through the maze if I'd asked, rather than face Barbata's tender mercies again.

Next the entire team lined up, and fifty feet opposite us were more black cages, stacked in a long row, brimming with deadly barbarians. Licinus signaled and the first four cells burst open, revealing blue-skinned Ichthyophagi with poisoned spines on their arms and back, red-maned Leonii with black tentacles, and more Sauromatae. There were a dozen, four of each.

“Right, any of you barbarian scum that can understand me,” Licinus said. “Get past us and reach the other end of the training area, and you'll be granted your freedom. I give you my word of honor.”

Some of the more sentient creatures registered signs of interest and excitement at the offer, but they didn't know that Licinus had no honor and certainly no intention of granting them freedom.

The Sertorians charged at top speed, and I was surprised to find that I was ahead of them, at the front of the pack. How had that happened? I wasn't as fast as they, but there I was. The momentary confusion allowed them to roar past me, leaving me to confront a wounded Ichthyophagi that had survived Crassus' first pass. They whittled away at the aliens, breaking them down and then killing by the most ruthless and painful means. All their moves were designed to incapacitate and then mortally wound, ensuring a prolonged death—arterial cuts, broken spines, stomach wounds. Even skinny little Mania, the white-haired slip of a thing, proved herself to be a killing machine, shooting with her bow staff, stabbing with her needle knife. Joining the fray, I was able to distract and wound, but their sudden brutality cooled my fire, and I found myself a spectator, watching on, even feeling pity for the beasts as they were slaughtered.

After bestiarii training, I'd return to Crassus' brainwashing room and recite his precepts, and he'd reward me with tisane. Why not? If he wanted me to put on a show, it wouldn't cost me to oblige him. It would be the least ridiculous of a long list of absurdities to be endured. I even embraced the absurdity, reciting his precepts like some revolutionary fanatic.

At night I'd ask Julia to tell me again and again the stories of Quatrus Lycaonia and its cloud cities (of billowing aerial landscapes peppered with floating platforms that housed the colonial towns, and at their heart, one enormous palace filled with carefully cultivated fruit trees from all eight provinces). Who knew if I'd survive the Ludi Romani and ever see those cities, but knowing they were out there, great towers and domes rising up through the billowing peach-colored clouds, gave me some small comfort. It suited me to stay friends with Julia. She felt comfortable around me, so much so that she left her toolbox on the bench without worrying about whether it was sensible or not to do so. In return for her stories, she asked me to tell her about the things that were most important to me. “You'll need to keep them in mind to survive the machine, fresh in your short term memory, so telling me about them will help you a lot.”

I told her about my own fruit trees that I carefully pruned on my balcony, and some stories about Roman heroes I admired, Mucius Scaevola in particular, and finally I opened up to her about Aulus. I didn't tell her the Sertorians had him.

“He sounds like just the thing. I've got a younger sister. You should keep your brother in mind. Hold on to the thought of him when Crassus has you in the domed room.”

One night, when Julia was sound asleep, I made a play for her toolbox. It was just close enough to get my hand to if I stretched out my lead to its limit. I drew the box slowly and quietly back to my bed and then tried the combination on the locked compartment. Damn. She'd changed it. But there were other things of use. A microscanner for recording data. I couldn't remove the blocks placed on my armilla, but I could still use its power to run the scanner. It was paper thin and transparent, fitting in neatly between the skin of my forearm and my armilla. The only other thing I took was some black foil tape that would help me with my little Iceni minder. I concealed the roll between an exterior rail of my bunk and the wall. Steadily, I was crossing things off my checklist, one item at a time. Everything was going to plan and then, when I woke for the second last day of bestiarii training, there was no tisane to be had.

“You must be joking,” I said to Alba. “Where is it?”

“I was ordered not to bring it in this morning,” she said.

My head was starting to ache; the dull buzzing headache I'd experienced during my first week aboard
Incitatus
was back. This was Licinus, trying to pull the rug out from under me.