Wolf’s Empire: Gladiator (97 page)

This was a vision of the real world, and he couldn't bear for me to see him like this—weak, vulnerable. My dispelling his illusion struck a chord of fear. He knew my words rang with truth, and if there was one thing that terrified Aquilinus, it was the very thing he accused the citizens of the empire of fearing the most: uncertainty, confusion, lack of control.

A new projection appeared in front of the tube. A hologram of the emperor, a projection to hide his encapsulated body.

I reached out to touch Licinus' control box. There was a memory there—of the first attack on Olympus Decimus, the one that killed my mother and brother. As Aquilinus reached out through Crassus to rape me, so too did he reach out through Licinus to throw the switch. It was his pleasure, his impulse, that decimated this world the first time, and right now he was ready to relive the event.

“Seven is the total number of lines you can hold at any one time,” I said. “That's why Lurco was on the team; the other line was redirected to control the emperor's nephew,” I said.

Laid out before his tube was a great holographic strategy board depicting the surface of the planet below. There they all were, shining digital markers. There was me on the field, surrounded by shining triangles representing his ships. All this time I'd been a piece on the board, in his private war game; that was how he saw us. But now I could be a player of the game, an opponent with perspective who saw the board objectively, with clarity and detachment, his pieces against mine.

“You like to talk, don't you?” I asked. “I like to act.”

“Don't try to bluff me,” he said. “I know what you are capable of. I've had much time to study you.”

“My whole life, people have told me what they think I'm capable of. You're about to be the latest in a long line of disappointed fools,” I countered. I was all bravado. It took all my effort to keep things where I wanted them, but I'd had plenty of practice at this, thanks to Crassus' machine—keeping parts of myself hidden and strong while letting others seem weak. While I kept my focus on the battle for control over Licinus firm, I let my guard slip a little so the proconsul could see more of my mind than I might otherwise allow. He was swearing at me, his mouth dripping curses.

“You bitch. You little slut. You are the one who's nothing. I will crush you and turn you into a pet for my amusement. You will crawl. You will never be empress, you will be my pet wolf. As you were before, so will you be again. A toy for my entertainment. The pleasure and pain centers of your brain wired to my satisfaction. There is nothing you will not do to amuse me and the senators of my court. You will be the laughingstock of the empire. I will imprison your family for the sole purpose of watching you suffer.”

This was the true form of this so-called emperor-god. The red face, the spewing invectives like a child throwing a temper tantrum when he didn't get his way.

“Caligula wished that the empire had a single neck so that he could cut through it. I will surpass him in vision and realization. I will unite Rome under House Sertorian, one neck ready for the leash.”

I let him rant and chased the line of consciousness that ran to Licinus. He sensed what I was up to and raced after me, throwing more energy down the line he used to control his puppet.

He drove Licinus to push the button, commanded him to release the bomb, but I was already there, freezing the muscles of his hand in place as I froze his ship, locking the tendons that controlled his fingers.

Aquilinus applied his pressure to Licinus' mind, and we fought over control of the tribune like a pair of wrestlers, testing each other for the slightest weakness that would cost the match.

“You can't win,” Aquilinus said. “I've been with Licinus so long, he is mine.”

The proconsul was right. I couldn't win this particular battle because it was two against one. Licinus wanted to kill himself. Aquilinus had pushed some buttons, pulled some wires in his brain. He was an adrenaline-pumping suicide bomber. All fear gone, he was desperate to blow himself up for the glory of House Sertorian and the proconsul.

“You're growing weaker,” he said. “You can't fight me and keep your mind closed at the same time. The Hyperboreans are preparing to leave. They think that they can escape me. You think I haven't anticipated that? I won't allow it.” I felt him reach out to my mind. “As you see into me, so I see into you,” he said. “They're not as strong as they pretend, and neither are you. Their power is already burning you up. You can't hold on much longer.”

He was right. The power was burning me up, threatening to destroy my body. I couldn't allow him to bait me, to lead me down a path that would see the energies turn back on me. It was such a subtle balance, justice. I could not indulge even for an instant, or the power would set me on fire, burn me from the inside out. Desire, fear—they were the same thing. Different ends of the same stick. One burns, the other freezes, both would kill my goal and end my life.

“I don't need to hold on,” I said.

I let my control over Licinus slip and rushed back to my body. Things were as I'd left them—the entire mind-to-mind encounter with Aquilinus had only taken a matter of seconds.

I felt the surge in Aquilinus as he thought he'd achieved victory.
Incitatus
drew closer. He'd positioned himself to fire on the mountain in case the bomb wasn't enough to stop the Hyperboreans.

I could still hear him too. His voice was like a distant echo, making the
tch-tch
sound of a disapproving schoolmaster. “You are a disappointment, Accala Viridius. I was right to reject you.”

Licinus was like an archer who had held a bow pulled and at the ready for too long. The moment I released my mental grip, he fully embraced his master's command and slammed his hand down on the button.

But Aquilinus had missed a move. He was spread out, distracted, too smart for his own good. He'd put all his focus into a heavy-handed push for control over Licinus' body and whether the button would be pressed or not.

When I'd first trapped Licinus' ship in my ice hand, he'd activated his thrusters to drive him up in an effort to escape. They'd been running this whole time, and Aquilinus never noticed, never realized their significance. I'd lured him into position, made him doubt and act out of fear. Like Aulus' magic trick, I'd kept Aquilinus' attention focused on one hand—Licinus'—while the other hand—my fist of ice—had been working its magic, slowly letting go, slowly opening. So much focus on who was in control of Licinus, neither of them noticed that I'd let go, neither noticed the bomber's ascent. Up, up into the sky it flew. Aquilinus realized my final move in the same instant that he became aware that Licinus was no longer on the ice world but above it, beneath
Incitatus.

He had time for one final word—“magnificent”—and then the bomb's atmospheric detonation claimed
Incitatus
and his entire fleet in a matter of seconds, incinerating them in the blast wave as rings of expanding light and nuclear fire once more brought fire to a world of ice.

LIII

T
HE SKY WAS RAINING
metal, hot iron hail. Like shooting stars, the flaming ruins of
Incitatus
fell to the earth, a meteor shower of sculpted metal. This time the explosion had taken place in the upper atmosphere, and the surface of the planet was spared the worst of the bomb's destruction. The Rota Fortuna had been hit. The emperor, all the empire's best and brightest. Had they perished or been spared? The station hung, burning, above the planet. I was burning too. The queen's power was more than my mortal frame could bear. I looked back to the mountain, to the canyon entrance. I fell to my knees and then to my side on the icy ground. I looked on as the last of the Hyperboreans entered the mountain, which glowed like a burning spear tip. And then they were all gone, rejoined, and now the only question was whether all of this had been worth it. Had enough ichor got through for them to leave?

Now that the other distractions had been removed, I could hear the Hyperboreans' song again, the collective harmony of millions of minds. The same power that was burning me was also connecting me to them. The mountain was a vehicle of light and sound—architecture, design, power source, passengers all bound up in a perfectly proportioned collective thought. Their song was loud, vast, and beautiful. The sound of a songbird, stretched out across eons, spread out on a course that took them away from here, to another realm. No longer broken-winged birds, this droplet of the gods was stretching its healed limbs and preparing to soar to a place where the human mind could not follow.

But it was not enough. I could sense that. There was something missing. I felt panic creep over me.

Accala?

Aulus stood before me as I knew him, bright and shining. Dressed in his toga. Freckles and ruffled hair blown by the wind.

“Aulus? You must go.”

Now my mother stood beside him. Beautiful, resplendent in her robes.

One last thing remains,
she said.
We must take back that which we have given you.

Of course. They needed to take the pin back, the last spark of power. It was the difference between success and failure.

I was not thinking straight. I tried to reach into my chest, to pull it out and give it to her like an apple I had in my pocket, but I couldn't move my arms.

I could sense scout ships, reinforcements, Praetorian Guards heading out from their deceres-class supercarriers now that the shield enclosing Rota Fortuna had been destroyed by the bomb blast. They were coming for the imprisoned emperor Caesar Numerius Valentinius, and when they freed him, everything would change.

“You must go,” I said. “Now.”

Mother stepped forward and tenderly touched my face. So warm. And then her hand was reaching into me, plunging into my breast, to my heart. I gasped as I felt it come out of me, and my eyes rolled back into my head. I felt my heart open like a flower releasing pollen. The burning was fading away, but I ached for the loss of that power. And then I was sinking, falling. I thought I was in my body, but I wasn't. I was above it, below it, in a hundred places in proximity to it. Now I was hurtling back from that point of divine perspective, back into my mortal body and all its emotions, weaknesses, wounds, and limitations. It came out like a splinter and I found myself suddenly reanimated. I was on all fours, covered in sweat despite the cold, my stomach empty but retching. Merely human, I felt the tide of emotions threatening to overwhelm me. If I hadn't been through a similar process of recombination with Lumen back in the caves, I think the shock might have been enough to kill me. I sat up on the ice, reaching out to Mother and Aulus as they began to move away. I still didn't know what these beings were to me, but so much had taken place, so much, and now this final good-bye. I couldn't bear to see them go.

Aulus took my hand.
It'll be just like the old stories, Accala. Mother and I will travel to the home of the gods. We'll be set in the stars like the old heroes.

“And I'll be left here, in the dark, again. I'll be alone.”

No. We'll always be with you. I can already sense it. It's a realm not limited by time or space as ours is. Every time you think of us, we'll be there.

I felt a sudden pang, a sense of loss and wishing that things could go back to how they were before any of this happened.

Nothing is forever,
my brother said. He released my hand and walked toward my mother's outstretched arms.

He stepped into her, and her light enveloped him like a mother bird closing its wings around a chick.

“Stay with me,” I pleaded.

We are always with you,
they said.

The light of the mountain beyond grew strong and encompassed their bodies, dissolving them. And then they were gone.

I had the sense of a door being closed, of a ship sailing out from a port.

I looked for as long as I could stand the radiance—I wanted to see them go, wanted to make sure the job was done—and then I had to turn away before the light consumed me. It was too much. There was a streak. I looked up to see the sky ablaze, and then the mountain of light was gone, a flash already fading into the distant sky, joining with the stars. I was left in this world that was crumbling, cracking, falling to pieces. The still burning Rota Fortuna threw cyan-phosphorus light onto the landscape.

I'd done it, completed my mission. The Hyperboreans were gone and the mountain of ichor with them. All that remained were its foundations, a twenty-foot-high mesa in the center of the crescent valley.

I just lay there. Weak, limp, willing my eyes to remain open. Victory. I'd completed what I'd set out to do, overcome the odds, set things right. But I didn't feel triumphant. No radiant glory. A vacuum of feeling, a black hole of nothingness. Aulus was wrong. It was not like the old stories. All I felt was dry-throated exhaustion.

This world didn't have long now that the Hyperboreans had taken their power from it. I had to find Crassus and Julia and flee its surface.

The cold bit into my body. Back to reality—survival first. I was naked, exposed to the elements. There was no shortage of armor in the mouth of the crescent valley. I didn't know how long it would be until the emperor's administrators arrived, but I didn't want to die of exposure. There was a reasonably intact suit of armor on the body of a dead Viridian nearby. It was my uncle. After checking that its internal power cell was still functioning, I tore the battered armor off his body and dressed myself in it. A merciful heat covered me.

Holding the queen's power had healed many of my wounds, and I couldn't feel the ambrosia addiction anymore, but I was weak, like a newborn calf. Barely able to stand, I staggered over the icy ground, back to the canyon. Crassus and Julia. We could work together to escape this world, but they were nowhere to be seen. The command tank was burning faintly, ruined and useless. I stumbled and fell to my side. Lying there in the cold of the weckage-strewn battlefield, I slipped in and out of consciousness. Some time must have passed, because when I opened my eyes next, it was dark.