Praetorian Series [3] A Hunter and His Legion (63 page)

I dropped my head.  “Yeah…”

“I’m sorry, Jacob.  No one is perfect, but you know as well as I that your mind is a tortured one.  It always has been,” he finished, pointing off toward my younger self who I saw was leaning against a back wall now, banging his head into it repeatedly in boredom or frustration, maybe both.  “You are a product of your upbringing and your lineage.  Romulus and Remus were head strong and inquisitive as well, but they never lacked in confidence.  You, however, have never had faith in anyone, let alone yourself, and it is that doubt that harms your mind and keeps it constantly thinking, constantly blaming itself for everything, and constantly underestimating itself.”

“I can’t help it, Merlin,” I
whispered.

“I know you can’t, Jacob.  Nobody
can help who they are.  Nobody, not even me, is perfect.  I’ve made my mistakes as well.”

I clenched my hands into fists and shook them above the bar before pounding th
em down upon it.  “I just can’t stop blaming myself, Merlin!  This is all my fault, and I’m so goddamned angry because of it. All the time.  If not for me, everything would be different.  Artie 2.0 wouldn’t exist and my friends and I would be home and not in this shit storm.  I know life wasn’t perfect back home but at least I wouldn’t have been responsible for screwing up their lives and forcing this on them.  And now, after everything I’ve done in the past few months under the orb’s influence… how am I supposed to live with myself?  How am I supposed to expect Helena to keep loving me? 
How?
”

I felt like crying
like the whiney, wimpy, self-absorbed baby that I knew I’d become, but then I felt Merlin’s hand reach out and grip my arm consolingly.  I turned to look into his eyes that were so supportive, so full of forgiveness and understanding that I wasn’t sure he was the same man I’d been with all this time.

My
first tear fell, but then Merlin’s hand tightened. “You learn to live with yourself by realizing that none of this,
none of this
, is your fault.  You must understand that.”

He spoke his words with such force
that they caused my tears to dry up completely, but still I was left unconvinced.

“
Easy for you to say,” I said.

“
It is not easy for me to say, Jacob.  Not at all.  Because the fact is that all the fault you place in yourself should be directed at
me
.  You see, the fault is mine.  Mine, and mine alone.”

“What?”  I asked,
choking back one last tear.

He pulled his hand away and dropped both into his lap.

“You blame yourself for bringing your friends here.  I understand that.  But you have to understand that it’s my fault you encountered the orb at all.  I gave both orbs to Romulus and Remus and because I allowed Romulus to maintain possession of the blue orb, it’s my fault that it was locked away beneath the Temple of Lupercal, and my fault you and Varus connected through them, and, therefore,
my
fault you are now trapped here.  I can’t even begin to explain how sorry I am, because this responsibility has pained me equally as long as it has pained you.”

My first thought was to punch him right between the eyes, but the punch never landed.  In fact, I never let it
go.  Not because I didn’t think it would be of any use, but because I realized that placing blame on Merlin wouldn’t help anyone.  Just hearing his admission of guilt seemed more poignant to me than all the years I’d spent trying to justify my actions, not because I now blamed him, but because I finally realized that there must have been something in Merlin’s own past that had influenced the decision he’d made to give the orbs to Romulus and Remus in the first place.  It may have happened all the way back at the advent of the Big Bang, or the creation of the old god or whoever the hell he was, but something had pushed him as well.

He wasn’t
really to blame either.

Merlin smiled.  “A good st
art, Jacob.  A very good start.”

I
finally wiped away the only tear to have fallen with a hand, and nodded with a smile of my own, feeling a hell of a lot better than I had just a minute ago, also feeling that perhaps when this was all over, I’d never feel quite so bad ever again.

“Thanks, Merlin,
” I said.

“You a
re very welcome, Jacob.  Very.  Your acceptance of this truth brings me great happiness as well.”

I sniffed
and tried not to think of anything in that moment, not really wanting to hear or understand any more.  It really was all too much already.  My eyes wandered around the bar area and I noticed that Foxtrot Alpha had left, possibly to grab a food order.  I continued to look around when my attention landed on a big screen TV off to my left.  Playing there was a football game between the Cleveland Browns and the Chicago Bears, with Cleveland leading by a touchdown at the two minute warning.

There were two minutes left in the game.

I turned back to Merlin, understanding.  “We’re almost done here, aren’t we?”

He nodded.  “You have already stayed far too long.  I apologize for that in advance but I think we still have a little bit of time
left.  So, your final questions, please.”

I sat there and thought, but
I didn’t need long.  They were all there, right on the tip of my tongue, as if they’d been there all along.

“I need the red orb to get home
, don’t I?”

“Yes.”

“Time and space,” I whispered, a smile growing as everything become as clear and vibrant as the morning sun.  “This timeline is shot to hell.  Too many dead and too much changed.  In this timeline, 2021 is completely different.”

“Perhaps not completely,” Merlin interjected.

I bounced my head in agreement.  “Perhaps not, but different enough to have at least caused Artie and Archer’s timeline to come about, although I guess that must have changed by now as well.”

Merlin dipped his head in agreement
.

I continued. 
“But with the red orb, I can find
my
timeline.  My reality.  Blue to get to the year 2021, Red to get to Earth 1.0.  My Earth.  I can even use it to send Artie, Archer, and the rest back to their home as well…”

Merlin leaned back and
smacked the bar.  “Nailed it.”

But
I wasn’t exactly so cheery.  Artie and Archer had come here to change their timeline back into something a lot less horrible, but it can’t be changed.  Their timeline, although recently created by me, was just one among an infinite number.  I couldn’t change their timeline and I couldn’t send them to another because they wouldn’t belong.  I would have no choice but to send them back to the place to which they had no desire to return.

I wondered how Archer would take
that news.

“
What about the orb’s radiation?”  I asked, more worried about that in the short term.  “How do I keep my sanity along the way?”

“The orb is just a device, nothing more. 
Its power isn’t unlimited.  You have not yet reached the point of no return, Jacob; just keep your distance from it and you will be fine.”

“What happens when I need to use it though?”

“Reuniting the orbs is the only way of eliminating their individual radiations.  Find the red orb and you can use them at will.”

“
But I’m a descendent of Remus, not Romulus, how can I even use the red orb if I find it at all?”

“After three thousand years of generations, would you really be so surprised to learn
that you’re actually descended from both?”

I thought about it and then grinned, everything beginning to come together in a surprisingly neat package.  “How incestuous…”

Merlin barked out a laugh.  After three thousand years?  Hardly.”

I laughed too
, unable to help myself.  “Of all those people out there, Merlin… all those people who must share similar genetic lineages… and I’m the one this happens to?  How unlucky am I?

“Among
the unluckiest I have ever met, Jacob,” he said with further chuckles.  “As I said, you are neither the hero of this story, nor
The One
.  You are just an exceptionally unfortunate man now tasked with an arduous duty wrought with untellable danger.  I really am sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I said, meaning it
.  “I don’t want to be predestined for anything.  Too much… responsibility. Besides, if I actually remember any of this once you let me leave, I’ll at least be able to say that I got to meet
you
.  How many people get to meet Merlin the Magician, King Arthur’s personal wizard?

He nodded in amusement.  “Very few.”

I mimicked the expression but then the reality of my situation sank in.  “Wait a second.  How am I even going to find the red orb?  It’s trapped in time and space somewhere!  How did Romulus even get home with the blue orb if he couldn’t control it?”

“He never
explained,” Merlin stated, “and I only have suspicions.”

“But where should I even start looking for it?”

“What was it your father would tell you when you couldn’t find something?”

I thought for a moment, memories about my dad not always so readily
available.  “To… look again in the last place I saw it?”

“There you go, Jacob.  Perhaps you shou
ldn’t be so hard on your father either.”

“But where…”  I started, but then it cam
e to me.  “Rome!”

“Seems like a good place to start to me,”
Merlin joked.

“So that
’s it then?”  I asked, surprised at how easy it all seemed.  “Get the red orb, use it and the blue orb together, and then go home?  How am I even supposed to use them?”

“
Going home is an… option, Jacob.”

I looked at him curiously
, forgetting he’d failed to answer my second question.  “What do you mean?”

“Let me ask you something
first,” Merlin said.

“All right.”

“If you succeed in retrieving both orbs, you will have all the power I had so stupidly given to Romulus and Remus, and you saw the kind of… men… they were.  So what will
you
do with it?”

I leaned back in my stool in complete surprise.  “Wow… I actually hadn’t thought about that.”

Merlin nodded and patted my knee.  “That is exactly why I feel comfortable giving you this power.  For all your faults, you are an admirable man.  You may not always have all the right answers, you place far too much responsibility on your own shoulders, and you are often quick to anger and judgment, but you always try to do the right thing, often at the expense of what you want for yourself.  Sometimes it is misguided, but at least you always have the best intentions at heart.”

“But didn’t you think
the same of Romulus and Remus?  I mean… they were like gods.”

“
Were that even true, you know mythology.  ‘Gods’ are hardly perfect.  You, on the other hand, have been through an experience they had not.  Real gods or not, they were certainly gods among men, and while you are simply a man, you are a man who knows better.  It is because of that fact alone that I think you will do the right thing.”

I took comfort in his confidence, surprised at how much it meant to me.  “But
what did you mean about going home only being an option?”

“Think on it, Jacob,” he said happily as he glanced at the TV behind me.  “Looks like your game is over.”

I didn’t bother looking.  “Who won?”

“Couldn’t care less,” Merlin said
. “I find American football to be quite dull.”

I smiled slyly.  “
You really have gone native, you redcoat, you.”

He shrugged and stood from his stool.  He stretched his arms over his head and twisted at the
waist and I heard bones pop.  When he was finished, he reached into his fanny pack and removed five hundred dollars and plopped it on the bar.

“That should cover us,” he said and moved
toward the restaurant’s exit.

“I’ll say,” I said and once again looked for Foxtrot Alpha, but she was still in the back somewhere.  I frowned, upset I wouldn’t be able to say goodbye.  As much as I’d lusted over her back in high school, she really had been the sweetest person here, and I’d often missed her during my time employed at various other jobs, wishing my
other coworkers could have been more like her.

Taking a deep breath I pushed away from the bar, gave it one last melancholy look, and turned to leave as well.  I walked past the few remaining booths in the bar area, a half full barrel of peanuts, and the kitchen to my left.  As I approached the hostess’ station, I noticed Suzie-Lu and Victoria’s Secret dutifully manning their post.  The night was still slow, so they had little to do
but chat, and both perked up as I passed by.  Victoria’s Secret looked at me like a woman on a mission, flicking her eyebrows at me and pouting her lips, but I simply laughed at her and turned to Suzie-Lu.  Victoria’s Secret scoffed and retreated into the kitchen, leaving Suzie-Lu and me alone.  She looked almost embarrassed that I’d pay her any attention at all while Victoria’s Secret had been right there, but she had always been a professional hostess, even at such a young age, and easily recovered.