Atlantis: Devil's Sea (5 page)

“Some of the visions are from now, some are from the past through the bloodline.” The oracle paused, then continued, “But some are from times to come.

“You must go to Rome. Tell the emperor of the threat.” The oracle reached into her robe and pulled out a ring. “Given to my grandmother long ago. It will gain you an audience with the Emperor. Convincing him of the danger, that is another matter. You must keep your eyes open for signs. You have more power than you know. You would have taken my place if the Shadow had not come.”

“My mother--”Kaia began.

“Yes?”

“Where is she buried?”

“In the sacred grove.”

“I wish to see her grave before I leave.”

*****

Steel on steel, the sound of mortal combat echoed off the stonewalls of the arena, rising above the screams of the bloodthirsty crowd. Forty thousand people lined the stands of Rome’s amphitheater, and they were on their feet, as the highlight of the first day of the games was under way, a fight to the death between local favorite Falco and four
retiarii.

Falco was a
mymillo
, the most heavily armed type of gladiator, the name coming from the fish symbol on his helmet. He had a breastplate, metal rings guarding his sword arm, a heavy shield in his right hand, and a sword in his left to complete his armament. The
retiarius
, or net men, were more lightly armed, each having just a net, trident, and dagger. They were also the only class of gladiator that did not wear a helmet. All four had light skin, prisoners from the northern territories, perhaps Britain.

A net flew, and Falco sidestepped, shoving it away with his shield, careful not to get the edge of the shield caught on it. The four men were working in pairs, two approaching, two waiting, trying to wear him down, waiting for him to make a fatal mistake.

Falco was a large man, as befitted a
mymillo
towering over the net men. His body was solidly muscled and covered with scars from former engagements. His skin was burned dark from the hours he spent training outdoors. His hair was clipped close to his skull and prematurely gray, a normal thing among those in his occupation. His most intriguing feature were his eyes, deep blue, which spoke of foreign blood.

As the man who had cast scuttled to recover his net, Falco bellowed and charged forward toward his partner. That man took a step backward, and Falco whirled toward the first man, slashing with his sword. He caught the first
retiarius
as he was gathering up the net. The man was good, blocking the blow with his trident and trying to rip the sword from Falco’s grip by twisting the haft, pinning the blade with forks. He might as well have been trying to move the arm of the statue of the emperor that gazed down from above the imperial box.

Falco’s arm not only didn’t move, he slid the sword down until the guard rested on the base of the trident, then thrust upward with his shield, the metal edge catching the
retiarius
under the chin, smashing into his jaw and lifting the smaller man off his feet. Falco was still going with the flow of the blow, turning, knowing what was coming even before he saw it, that the second
retiarius
was casting, trying to catch from behind. He still had the first man hanging on the edge of his shield, and as he completed the turn, he heaved with all his strength, tossing the body at the net. The man went down in a tumble.

The other two
retiarii
had used the opportunity to fan out, one fighter on each flank of Falco as he faced the third survivor. Falco forced himself to relax, to focus on the three men who were trying to kill him. They were going to double cast; he knew it a second before either on the flank moved. Falco charged the one he sensed was the better fighter of the two, his shield now over his head, his sword held forward. The caster behind him missed, but the man he was charging, settled his net perfectly over Falco, or at least his shield, which Falco let go of a split second before the net completed its drop and caught him. The net fell to the ground, the shield it’s only captive. Falco dove to the ground at the feet of the
retiarius
, his sword point now extending forward and up, slicing into the man’s upper thigh as he tried to dance away, severing the artery.

Falco rolled twice to the right, feeling the sand against his exposed skin. The dying
retiarius
was brave as he stuck with his trident, narrowly missing pinning Falco’s neck to the ground. Falco was on his feet, giving ground, letting the wounded man bleed out as he struggled to approach. Falco could feel the wounded man’s pain, the faintness as his blood pulsed out with each beat of his heart. The other two
retiarii
were behind, recovering their nets.

The wounded man raised his trident and screamed something in his native tongue, charging forward. Falco stood his ground and met the trident with his blade, stopping the man’s charge as if he had run into a wall. With his free hand, Falco grabbed the man’s throat. He squeezed, massive muscles in his forearm rippling, and the man’s trachea gave way. Still Falco kept the pressure breaking though the skin, his fingers reaching the carotid arteries, popping into both like into grapes, blood flowing over his hand. The
retiarius
went limp, and Falco threw the body from him.

The last two
retiarii
were approaching very slowly, trying to maneuver him to have their backs to the late afternoon sun. Falco risked a glimpse toward the imperial box. A large awning shaded the box, but Falco knew she was there: he could feel her evil presence. His hatred grew.

Falco turned his attention to the approaching gladiators. He could pick up fear from them now. Their numbers were halved, and he wasn’t even scratched. They had recovered their nets, and he was without his shield, which gave them a slight advantage.

One said something to the other in their tongue. The second replied. Falco didn’t understand the language, but he picked up their intent. He had always been able to do that, a trait he possessed that he had only told one other person about in his entire life, his wife Drusilla. He had known since he was a small child that he was different, and he had instinctively known that showing off that difference would not endear him to others. The difference, though, had saved his life many times in the army and the arena and made him the crown at the gladiator school at Roe for the past two years.

They were going to attack him full on, at the same time. Nothing fancy. Casting simultaneously, side by side, and then charging, hoping to get in an incapacitating strike with their tridents and then finish him with daggers.

Falco smiled. He spread his arms wide apart, bloodstained sword glinting.

The crowd roared its approval and began to chant his name.

He turned his back to the two
retiarii
, which surprised them. It was his trademark to turn his back on his enemies, to acknowledge the crowd all around. It was as if he sought death, but it never quite found him.

He knew they would be charging a split second before they moved. Still he kept his back to them, sensing their approach, feeling their anger and fear bearing down on him. He even knew when they threw their nets, fifteen feet out as they had been trained. Time had slowed down for Falco, each second passing as if a minute. He could see details in the crowd, the crazed faces of the men and women who came here to see others die and then go home and make wild love, their lust provoked by the sight of the blood. Their roars were a faint sound in his ears, the sound of his own heart beating much louder to him. The dark seed in his heart wanted him to remain still to let the nets settle over his head and body, to allow the barbed trident points to do their job and release him from the pain of life.

Falco whirled, sword slashing getting caught in one net, and he let go of the pommel, the weight of the heavy weapon taking the net with it to one side. The other net fell to his left harmlessly. He could pick up the trill from the two men charging, tridents leveled, as they saw that although they had not captured him with their nets, he was now unarmed.

Falco anticipated the first thrust, coming from the
retiarius
to his right. The three prongs of the trident narrowly missed, and Falco jumped toward the weapon, jumping in, putting the shaft against his side, looping his right arm over it and clamping down, even as he turned to face the charge of the second man. As the second man thrust, Falco bobbed left, still holding the shaft of the first trident, catching the
retiarius
who held the haft by surprise and pulling him forward, right into the path of the second trident. The
retiarius
screamed as the three prongs pierced his skin, spitting him.

The
retiarius
desperately tried to pull his weapon out of his comrade’s body, but the barb on the end of each prong refused to release from muscle and bone. Falco let go of the other trident and raised his empty hands toward the last surviving
retiarius
. The man stepped back, whipping his dagger out of its sheath. He retreated as Falco came forward.

The crowd was in a frenzy, screaming Falco’s name. The
retiarius
turned toward the emperor’s box and cried out, begging for mercy, tossing his dagger away to make the point obvious and getting to his knees. Falco paused, peering into the shadow, out of which the new emperor Titus stepped. The flames were in honor of him, as he had just taken office two months ago after the death of a Vespasian, his father. Titus scanned the crowd.

Falco suddenly felt tired. When he had begun fighting, more often than not, mercy was shown, and a man who fought well would be spared. But each year the crowd’s thirst for blood could not be slacked so easily. They could not see beyond the immediate moment and the fact that every gladiator who died was very difficult to replace. Life was cheap in the arena and growing cheaper with each new set of games.

The thumbs were almost all down. Titus then gave Falco the same sign. He picked up the
retiarius’
s dagger and walked up to the man whose head was now bowed, his lips moving in some prayer to his gods.

Falco didn’t waste any time in showmanship now, slicing the blade across the man’s neck and stepping back out of the way of the flow of blood. The body slumped forward onto the sand, the blood soaking into it.

Falco turned and raised the blade to the emperor, then slowly spun about, showing it to the stands. The crowd roared its approval. When he completed the turn, he saw that the emperor was in his seat, another man leaning over, talking to him.

Gaius Marcus was the
Ianista
or head of the emperor’s gladiatorial school at Rome. When men had first been pitted against each other in such contest, the
Ianista
worked for private factions, and it had been a business. But the revolt at Capua in 73 B.C. led by Spartacus had forced the emperor to put all such schools under his own control. It was a move that went beyond security, though, as considerable sums of money flowed from such schools.

Now gladiators were a mixture. Many were slaves, sold into the life. Some were ex-soldiers who entered the arena for their own reason, most to make money, but some with a darkness inside that only found solace in combat. Falco was both, having been born a slave and sold to the
Ianista
while still young. Then he’d been drawn into the army during the desperate civil war of ’69. When his service was up, he returned to the arena.

Falco saw the darkness not only in his own heart but also in most men’s souls, and nothing could quiet the voices in his head. If his blood were to flow on the arena sand, he could say little, but in all his fights, he had always won. He knew, in a way, his lack of normal fear of dying gave him a large advantage over those who entered the arena with debilitating fear. And every time he was in a situation, as today, where he could have allowed death to over take him, something had burst forth and caused him to fight, to survive, but he didn’t know what that was.

A legionnaire ran out with a red-hot poker in his hand and laid it against the skin of each of the
retiarii
to insure none was faking. Occasionally, gladiators used bladders of pig’s blood inside their armor to simulate wounds. Certain they were all dead, slaves ran out and began removing the bodies and raking the sand, covering the blood, preparing for the next contest.

In the shadow of the imperial box, he saw her. Smiling as she always did, leaning forward, scented scarf covering her mouth. He had been freed years earlier, but she owned him as securely as any of his former masters.

Falco slowly walked toward the entrance that led to the tunnels below. Today was only the first day of the games, which were to last a month. There would be much more death.

He paused just before going into the tunnel, and his head turned toward the south. Unbidden, a vision came to him. A mountain, looming above a city, a cloud at the peak of the mountain. He’d seen that peak before, that city, but it would not come to him at first; then he recognized it. The city was Pompeii, where he had fought on occasion. And the mountain, Vesuvius.

It was as if he could see into the Earth itself, and he saw a darkness, like a disease, boiling up below Vesuvius, clawing its way toward the surface. An overwhelming sense of dread blanketed him.

Then a gladiator entering the arena bumped into him, the man’s eyes glazed with fear, knocking the vision from Falco’s head.

Falco entered the tunnel.

*****

Kaia had both hands on the grass that covered her mother’s grave. A small piece of marble marked the spot. She was surrounded by the trees of the sacred grove, where only the priestesses of Delphi were allowed to enter. She turned as she sensed someone behind her. The oracle stood there, wrapped in her fine robes. The old woman’s face was lined and pale.

“Why did you never tell me who I was?” Kaia asked as she stood.

“Your thoughts must be pure,” the oracle said. “There is so much that I do not know, that I thought it best not to influence you one way or the other. It is the way it has been for a long time.”