Muses of Terra (Codex Antonius Book 2) (40 page)

Before Aquilina could say anything, Dariya asked, “Where is Cordus? The Praetorian bands said he was on the roof.”

“He’s still in the Temple and still in danger,” Aquilina said. “You coming with us?”

She put a hand on the pulse pistol holstered at her hip. “Well we did not come back to save
you
.”

“Understood. Thanks anyway.”

As the three jogged toward the gathering Praetorians and Custudii, Dariya laughed. Aquilina glanced at the Persian woman. Dariya nodded toward the semi-spherical gouge in the temple roof. “I suppose it was not a complete waste of time. Ahura Mazda will be most pleased with me.”

Despite all that had happened, Aquilina wanted to laugh, too. But the laughter died on her lips when she saw another wave of drones streak over the temple and land in the same place the empty drones had just left. Dariya saw it, too. They shared a determined look, and then all three sprinted for the temple entrance near the administrative building.

48

Aquilina, Dariya, and Daryush arrived at the back entrance to the temple next to where it was attached to the administrative building. Tarquitius and the rest of his men arrived at about the same time. He came to a stop near Aquilina and Dariya, his chest heaving from the run.

“I thank you for saving our lives,” Tarquitius said to Dariya and Daryush. “But you will need to answer for destroying the Republic’s greatest religious relic.”

Dariya looked at Aquilina. “Is he serious?”

“Yes,” she said.
 

She studied the ancient, ornately carved doors, and then spotted the discrete control pad on the left. She flipped open the bronze cover and placed her palm on the control pad. Nothing happened.
 

“The temple is locked down,” Tarquitius said. “No one can get in or out.”

“And those things are coming this way,” Dariya said, staring behind them.

Aquilina turned to the parking lot wall. The breaking dawn illuminated it well enough for her to see aliens climbing over. Sparks and smoke erupted when the fence at the top electrocuted those who touched it. But the alien corpses simply draped over the fence, allowing other aliens to climb over them and leap down to the ground.

“We could go through the administrative building,” a Praetorian centurion suggested.
 

“By the time we go through all the hallways and locked doors, the aliens will have Cordus. This is the most direct route. Tarquitius, you try the control pa—”

Dariya gave an exasperated grunt and fired her pulse pistol at the door handles. The handles exploded into cinders and smoke, and a gaping hole appeared where the locking mechanisms once existed. She pulled the doors open and glared at the Romans. “Are we going,” she said, “or will you arrest me for destroying more relics?”

Aquilina nodded to Dariya, then charged through the doors. She still clutched the dish with both arms, checking it every now and then to make sure it still transmitted. As far as she could tell, it did.

The white-columned hallway emptied into the temple’s main, circular altar chamber. Aquilina skidded to a stop in shock. The temple’s backup generators still functioned; the lights in the high roof above illuminated hundreds of people standing, sitting, or laying prostrate on the floor around the altar. Black-robed flamens led them in prayers. Holo-monitors on the walls surrounding the main altar area displayed either the flamens or the text of the prayers they were chanting. The people seemed be a mixture of commonly dressed plebeians, senators in white togas, and well-groomed patricians; though it was hard to tell who was who since the clothes of all were torn, dirty, bloody, and burned. Mothers and fathers tried to comfort crying children. Most heartbreaking of all were the blank-faced children who sat alone without parents to console them, all the crying ripped out of them by the horrors they had witnessed.
 

Will they ever smile again? Will I?
 

Thankfully, the roof here seemed intact and had not suffered from the chunk Dariya had taken out of the temple.

Temple Custudii in dented ceremonial armor and uniforms stood near the doors, some with pulse rifles, others holding a ceremonial gladius that Aquilina doubted they’d ever been trained to use in battle.
 

Three Custudii jogged toward Aquilina and the others. One of them, a bald man with a bloody right ear and a centurion insignia on his chest, was red-faced with fury.

“You fools!” he shouted. “Why did you destroy that door? Now they can get in!”

“We didn’t know all these people were in here,” Aquilina said. “Gods, if the aliens come through that door…”

The Custudae gaped at Aquilina. “Aliens? I’m talking about the golems! They’ve gone crazy. Started destroying things and killing people. Most of the wounded you see here are from
caccing
golems.”

Aquilina flinched, knowing Cordus’s fears had come true.
Destroying the Republic to save it...

“We didn’t see any golems outside,” she replied.

“Well they were pounding on the front doors ten minutes ago.”

Tarquitius said to Aquilina. “You go to the Consul. My men and I will stay here and hold the door.”

Aquilina stared at him.
Hold the door with what?
All of his Praetorians and Custudii were either out of ammunition or down to their last few pellets. But his tired eyes said he was well aware of the situation.
 

“Prefect Tarquitius,” the Custudae centurion said, calming himself, “I did not realize it was you, sir. My apologies. We have a gladius cache if your men need them. They’re ceremonial, but they’ll cut anything you swing them at.”

Tarquitius nodded to the centurion. “Get them.”
 

The Custudae centurion turned to his men and ordered them to gather the rest of the gladius cache.

Tarquitius said to his soldiers, “Now we fight like the Legions of old at the birth of the Republic. A gladius worked well for them, so why not us, eh?”

The men gave him grim, determined nods. They turned and jogged back down the hall to the doors Dariya had ruined.

Aquilina said, “Fortuna be with you, Prefect.”

“And you, Praetorian.” Tarquitius then jogged after his men.

She looked at Dariya and Daryush. “Ready?”

Daryush grunted, gripping his pulse pistol in both hands. Dariya said, “Lead on, Roman.”

Aquilina led the two Persians through the praying and wounded masses to a set of ornate doors on the other side of the altar area. Once through the doors, Aquilina was happy to see that the generators also continued to power the elevator. They filed in and she tapped the controls for the top floor.
 

As the elevator rose, Dariya asked in a quiet voice, “How is he?”

“He’s trying to save us all,” Aquilina said, glancing down at the com dish.
 

Dariya cleared her throat. “Our…sympathies on your mother.”

Aquilina clenched her teeth and stared at the elevator’s level monitor, watching the floor numbers rise. She nodded once. She didn’t want to move her eyes or blink, for fear they would fill with tears.

“Our mother died before our eyes, too,” Dariya continued. “Same day our old Roman master took ‘Ush’s tongue.” Her voice grew hard. “Same day I killed that Roman, and me and ‘Ush escaped.”
 

Aquilina shifted her eyes to Dariya. “Did it help? Killing your mother’s murderer?”

Dariya stared at her brother as he gazed at the elevator floor with a haunted expression. “It did not bring our mother back or ‘Ush his tongue.” She then gave Aquilina a level stare. “But yes, it helped.”

The doors to the elevator opened, and all three brought up their pulse pistols. Aquilina shifted the com dish in her left arm as she aimed down the hall. It was empty, just as it had been when she, Cordus, Ulpius, and Gracchus arrived. The Praetorian guards were gone, likely to answer Tarquitius’s earlier calls for all units to the roof. There seemed more dust in the air, though; unsurprising since a section of the temple roof had been removed nearby.

All three ran down the hall, Aquilina in the lead. When they got to the com room door, Aquilina shouted, “Ulpius, it’s me.”

After several long seconds, the door clicked open. Ulpius stood to one side, his pulse rifle in his right hand. He glanced at the com dish in Aquilina’s arms.
 

“Too hot up there for it?”

“You could say that,” she said as she pushed her way in past him.

“Why are you two here?” he asked Dariya and Daryush.

“Nice to see you too, Praetorian,” Dariya grumbled.

“Gracchus?”

Aquilina shook her head once.

“
Cac
,” he whispered. He shut the door behind Daryush and locked it.

Aquilina hurried over to Cordus, who was still strapped into the com chair. He still looked asleep, his features peaceful and calm.

But the drama unfolding on the holo-monitor seemed anything but calm. Cordus knelt next to the body of a dark-haired, bearded man wearing ancient Roman armor. A blackened hole the size of two fists ran all the way through his chest. The man appeared dead.

Cordus’s eyes—and the view of the holo-monitor—swung around and focused on what looked like Jupiter pulling a gladius out of his leg. Juno and Minerva sat on their thrones behind him, javelins through their hearts.

“Ulpius, what in the name of Dis is happening?”

Ulpius stood next to Aquilina. “Best I can tell, that fellow on the ground was Marcus Antonius Primus. He appeared suddenly, then conjured up some javelins to throw at Juno and Minerva there. Jupiter didn’t take that well, so he threw lightning at Primus and killed him.”

When he saw Aquilina’s incredulous look, he grunted. “Yeah, it’s like some godsdamned religious drama up there.”

Cordus faced the angry Jupiter. Juno and Minerva also began to move. Both regarded the javelins in their bodies, and then each pulled them out with one powerful motion. They tossed the javelins to the floor and then walked down from their thrones to stand next to Jupiter.

Cordus seemed to be fighting three gods.

An idea struck Aquilina. She set the dish down next to Cordus’s chair, then hurried over to the holo-monitor’s controls. She activated the interface and then scrolled through the options. She found the data feed she wanted, entered several passwords, and then verified the feed was active.

Ulpius said, “You sure you want to broadcast this to the world? What if he dies up there?”

“Then we all die,” Aquilina said. “But if he lives, and he saves us…not even Arrius will dispute his claim. Who would defy the man who can defeat gods?”

Ulpius grunted. Aquilina stared at the holo-monitor, but became aware of Dariya and Daryush standing on the other side of Cordus.
 

All four watched the drama.

49

Cordus faced the three gods of the Capitoline Triad, the most powerful in the Pantheon.

That’s what they want me to think. They’re no more gods than I am.

“We do not want to kill you, young Antonius,” Jupiter said. He yanked the gladius out of his leg and threw it away. The wound and blood on his leg evaporated until Jupiter’s bare, muscled thigh was once again smooth and bronze.
 

The blood gushing from the chest wounds in Juno and Minerva had stopped. The blood on their white togas evaporated as well, leaving their gowns as immaculate as they were before Marcus attacked them.

“We want to help you,” Juno said. Kindness softened her eyes as she tilted her head, looking at him like a mother would a son.

“We can give you your heart’s greatest desire,” Minerva said. Her owl, now whole again, sailed from the floor behind Cordus and landed on Minerva’s alabaster shoulder.

“What is my heart’s greatest desire?” Cordus asked.

Ocella and Kaeso appeared beside him, just as Marcus had, and they both said at the same time, “Freedom.”

Cordus flinched, then looked at the two people he had loved most.
 

“I know, kid, I’ve been there,” Kaeso said, putting a hand on Cordus’s shoulder. “Everyone wanting
you
to solve their problems. When all you want to do is be free.”

“No more taking care of someone else,” Ocella said from the other side. “You can travel the stars, explore new worlds and old. Have new experiences that nobody has ever had. It’s what you’ve always wanted.”

Juno stepped forward, towering over Cordus by almost six feet. She knelt down on one knee, her eyes kind. She lightly touched his cheek with her fingers. “We desire peace. We always have.”

“Then why destroy Libertus? Why attack Terra?”

Minerva approached, her steps light despite her size. “Because of them,” she said, nodding toward the body of Marcus Antonius. “They, and all the other strains, are the infection that rots the soul of the universe. They upend the natural order by serving mundanes. It is the mundanes who should serve
them
and provide the experiences all the strains need to survive.”

Ocella took his hand in hers. “We can be together again, like it used to be. Only now we can go wherever we want.” She nodded to the three gods. “They encourage us to explore because it gives them new experiences.”

“It took me a while to accept it,” Kaeso said. “But once you do, you cannot imagine the freedom.” He shook his head with a smile. “It’s what I always wanted. And I know it’s what you’ve wanted, too.”

“The price?” Cordus asked Jupiter. The god stared at him from behind Juno and Minerva.

“Your faith,” he rumbled.

“Give up your body…” Minerva said.

“…and become immortal,” Juno soothed.

Cordus looked from Ocella to Kaeso. They both regarded him with all the love that proud parents would show their son. Cordus’s real mother and father had never looked at him that way.
 

Only Ocella and Kaeso had.
 

They had taken the time to get to know him, to teach him how to be a real human being. They had raised the real Cordus, the person he was beneath the Muses and the Consular Heir. They knew his dreams for the future.