The Imperium Game (11 page)

“Don’t be afraid, Amaelia.” He glanced over his shoulder, then edged into her bedchamber and closed the door behind him.

“You’re . . .” She studied him more closely. “You’re the one who fetched me out of the temple when Vesta was so angry.”

“Yes.” He sounded relieved. “I’m Gaius Lucinius. Are you all right?”

“Oh, sure.” She sat on the edge of her bed and picked at the white silk coverlet. “In the last four days, my father has been murdered, and instead of going to his funeral, I’ve been tricked, demoted to slave, and then married against my will! Everything is just—” She broke off.

“I’m sorry.” The Adam’s apple bobbed up and down in his
neck. “About your father, I mean. That was—terrible.”

She glanced up at him. He looked so earnest and sad that she somehow felt better for the first time. “Thank you.” She hesitated. “You wouldn’t know where the Interface is, would you?”

“The Interface?”

“I asked to leave the Game, but the computer doesn’t answer me.”

“Really?” He sat down on the bed across from her. “That shouldn’t happen.”

“If I could find the Interface, I bet someone would let me out.” She shivered. “I don’t feel safe here anymore.”

“Well, that might work.” He sounded unsure. “I guess I could take you there.”

“Really? You wait right here!” She stood up, feeling hopeful for the first time in days. “I’ll change. If anyone comes in, tell them I’m taking a bath.”

“YOU’LL DO NO SUCH THING!” a female voice commanded. “I WON’T PERMIT A MARRIED WOMAN OF YOUR CLASS TO DISGRACE HERSELF BY RUNNING OFF WITH A MERE FREEDMAN.” Blueness shimmered by the door, then became the oversized figure of a woman in a flawless, off-the-shoulder white gown.

Amaelia blinked in surprise. The voice seemed familiar.

“YOU MIGHT HAVE GOTTEN AWAY WITH BEHAVING LIKE A LITILE STRUMPET DOWN AT THE TEMPLE OF VESTA, BUT I EXPECT MORE OF MY PLAYERS.” Angry blue-green sparks flashed in the goddess’s eyes.

“Juno?” Amaelia ventured weakly.

“YOU BET YOUR SWEET BEHIND, HONEY, AND HAVE I GOT A FEW THINGS TO LAY ON YOU!”

“I remember now,” she said slowly. “You came to me in Gracchus’s villa—on his screens. Only you were a peacock then.”

“WELL, THAT IS ONE OF MY BEST MANIFESTATIONS.” Juno delicately patted her intricately looped hair.

“Screens?” The man, whom she had almost forgotten in all the fuss, stepped forward. “In a
villa?”

“NEVER MIND THAT.” Juno waggled a huge digit. “DON’T YOU THINK I’VE GOT ENOUGH TROUBLE KEEPING THAT RANDY OLD BIRD, JUPITER, IN LINE WITHOUT NEW BRIDES RUNNING OFF WITH THE FIRST MAN WHO TWITCHES HIS LITTLE FINGER?” The goddess cocked her head, then studied the man more closely. “A MAN WITH NO CHARISMA, AT THAT—AND WHAT IN THE NAME OF HADES IS THE MATTER WITH YOUR TRANSPONDER? YOU DON’T EVEN REGISTER IN THIS ROOM.”

He glanced at his Game bracelet, then thrust his arm behind his back. “Not working? Guess I’d better get it fixed.”

“JUST LIKE A MAN TO BE SO HELPLESS.”

“So, Lady Amaelia.” He gestured at the door. “Could I prevail upon you to show me the way to the Palace repair shop?”

“What?” She stared at him for an uncomprehending second. “Oh! Sure. Just let me throw on some proper clothes.”

“WELL I NEVER.” Juno’s size-fifteen foot tapped the floor impatiently as Amaelia plunged into her closet. “DON’T YOU KNOW WHAT SLAVES ARE FOR?”

“Of course I do,” she answered from inside the closet, as she looked for something plain enough to pass for slave clothing. Finally she selected a simple tunic of plain white cotton, then threw a sturdy maroon cloak over her shoulders and fastened it with a silver brooch. Emerging from the closet, she looked around brightly. “But I don’t see any slaves at the moment, so I just guess that I’ll have to go myself.”

“YOU’LL LOSE POINTS ON THIS, MISSY, BIG-TIME.”

“No doubt,” Amaelia muttered under her breath as she tucked her arm under the young man’s and pulled him through the door.

“AND NOT JUST AUTHENTICITY, EITHER!” Juno called after them. “JUST YOU WAIT AND SEE, YOU LITTLE HUSSY! DID JUPITER PUT YOU UP TO THIS?”

Closing the door behind them, Amaelia pulled Gaius down the hall at a half run. “Do you really know where the Interface is?” she asked breathlessly.

“Sure.” He slowed to a walk as several naked Sardinian dancers passed them in the hall, bangles clinking around their wrists and ankles. “That’s not the real problem.”

“Oh?” She dodged an orangutan and its trainer. “Then what is?”

“Well, I’m, uh, investigating your father’s murder and I need some information.”

Startled, she studied his face, then pulled him into her father’s old suite and closed the door behind them. “Investigating his murder? But aren’t the police supposed to take care of that?”

“They . . . uh . . . kind of . . .” A red flush crept up his neck. “They . . . think that . . . I did it.”

“You—a freedman?” She started to laugh, then looked away, embarrassed. It didn’t seem nice to mention his lowly rank when she wanted his help.

“Well, I could have,” Gaius said defensively. Two brilliant specks of red appeared in his cheeks. “But I didn’t. At any rate, after your father was murdered, someone killed my friend, Wilson, and then abducted the Empress. I think it all ties together.” He took her by the shoulders and steered her over to a long, low divan in front of the window. “Do you have any idea who really sent the message instructing you to go to the Baths that day?”

Amaelia thought back. “It was signed by my father. It said he needed religious advice, but a grubby little bald-headed man in a torn tunic delivered it. I’ve seen him around the Palace once or twice, but I don’t know his name.”

“Someone wanted to compromise your status as a Vestal Virgin. You were set up so you would lose all your points.” Sitting down at her side, Gaius kneaded his forehead. “It’s all so frus—”

A sudden frenzied fit of screaming from outside the Palace interrupted him. Amaelia bolted to her feet. Through the window she saw yellow-orange flames leaping high in the morning air. Out in the Imperial Gardens, a laughing, three-story-high figure dressed in red hurled lightning bolts into the leafless shrubs and trees.

The flames were burning toward the Palace.

KERICKSON
jumped to his feet and started for the door.

“Wait!” Amaelia clutched his hand and drew him back. “Where are you going?”

“To stop Mars, of course.” His heart pounded as he glanced out the window again. “I can’t just stand here while he burns down the entire dome!”

Still holding his hand, she followed his gaze to the roiling black smoke outside as the mulched flower beds burst into flame. “But what can you do about it?”

He suddenly became conscious of the warm, tingly pressure of her slender fingers over his.

“And anyway, look.” Standing on tiptoe, she pressed her soft cheek against his ear and pointed over his shoulder. The silvery fuselage of an automatic fire drone shot past, laying down flame-smothering foam. Than another darted into place beside it.

The towering figure of Mars beat his great fists against his armored chest with crashes that reverberated like thunder, then stomped through the gardens toward the Market District.

“See?” Her breath was warm against his neck. “He’s leaving. It’s going to be all right.”

Kerickson shook his head. “No, I don’t think he’ll stop. A lot of people could get hurt, even with the fire drones, just like—” He paused, unwilling to say the name.

“Like my father.” She pulled back, then noticed that she was still holding his hand. She blushed as her fingers loosened and she drifted out of reach. “Well, I suppose you could buy a bull or a goat to sacrifice at his temple.”

Mars hurled lightning bolts at the terrified players as they fled his path. His height ballooned to over four stories. Inwardly, Kerickson cursed himself for listening to Wilson’s idea of allowing the gods to manifest themselves physically—and HabiTek for agreeing to it. “I think you’re right,” he said to Amaelia, “but I might have more luck at the Temple of Jupiter. After all, as the chief god, he rules all the rest.”

He tried to think. “You stay here and I’ll come back to take you to the Interface when I’m done.”

She lifted her chin. Her green eyes gazed steadily up at him. “No, I want to go with you.”

“You’ll be much safer here in the Palace.”

“Are you kidding?” A faint smile flitted across her face. “Would
you
want to stay here and play Quintus Gracchus’s wife?”

He was suddenly aware of her soft, pale almond skin, the way she smelled of soap and roses, and how her hair was the color of newly polished copper. The room’s temperature seemed to jump ten degrees. He swallowed hard and held out his hand.

Her fingers curled around his, bringing a warmth that vied with the sun itself. For the first time since Micio’s body had been found in the Baths, he felt as though things might work out. “We have to hurry,” he said, and in return she only nodded.

* * *

“Morning, your ladyness.”

Demea sat up in the middle of a huge four-poster bed and stared around her in amazement. She was in a large apartment filled with lavishly carved ebony furniture and frescoes and even a gurgling fountain. And wherever she looked, everything was black, from the sheer draperies about her sumptuous, over-soft bed to the daring nightgown she wore. Placing a hand over the plunging neckline, she tried to remember arriving here last night.

“I brought you a bit of the bubbly, to celebrate.” A hand parted the hangings, revealing the pudgy, unshaven face of Publius Barbus. He winked. “After all, it’s not every day that a girl becomes a goddess.”

She shuddered, remembering now: that vile little inn . . . Barbus . . . and Pluto. “Don’t be ridiculous. I am no more a goddess than you are a—” She searched for the proper word. “—a . . . gentleman!”

Setting his tray down, he handed her a midnight-black, cut-glass goblet filled to the brim with fizzing champagne. “You just need something to calm your nerves—hair of the dog, as they say. Go on, now—bottoms up.”

Hair of the dog? Then the rest came back to her: downing glass after glass of wine in that deserted, depressing plaza last night while all around her those miserable screens showed her fellow players going on about the Game, piling up points while she languished in Hades, a pointless prisoner. No wonder she didn’t quite remember arriving in this vast bed.

Her hand shook as she reached for the goblet. She probably should have just a sip, purely for medicinal purposes. The bubbles tickled her nose as she drank, and she had the most undignified urge to sneeze.

“MY TRUE HEART.” The bass whisper had the distinct undertone of a funeral organ. “I AM MOST PLEASED.”

She drained the goblet, then slammed it back down on the tray. “Well, I am not! When are you going to let me go? I can’t just stay down here drinking wine and champagne with you while everyone else has all the fun.”

The curtains rippled as though someone had opened a window. Pluto, Lord of the Underworld, peered beneath the canopy top. “LONG HAVE MY PANGS OF LOVE GONE UNNOURISHED. LONG HAS THIS DARK WORLD FAILED TO SATISFY MY MOST BASIC NEED.”

The air crackled with the strange electricity that accompanied him wherever he went. Even though he was only a holographic image, Demea couldn’t escape the feeling that some presence was actually with her in this room. Feeling vulnerable, she slipped farther beneath the silken bed sheet.
“I
have a need also—to return to the Game.”

His face shining with fierce pride, he knelt beside her bed, his black cloak tumbling around his broad shoulders. His insubstantial finger traced the length of her arm up to her shoulder, somehow sending a strange tingle through her. “WHY?”

“Because I’m bored!” She hated him for luring her here, yet at the same time she found his clean-cut face and full, sensual lips attractive. If he had been real . . . Her cheeks suddenly burned as she realized she would have been mightily tempted to stay.

“BORED? IN HADES?” His wickedly black eyes sparked. “BUT THE WHOLE GAME PASSES THROUGH THIS REALM. YOU HAVE ONLY TO SAY WHAT YOU DESIRE,
FROM ABOVE OR BELOW, AND IT WILL BE PROVIDED.”

“Well, I came to learn about Micio’s business.” She glared over his shoulder at Barbus, who didn’t even seem to notice. “Suppose you start by telling me what he was doing down here.”

Pluto lifted his right hand. “SHADE OF MICIO JULIUS METULLUS, FORMER EMPEROR OF ROME, YOU ARE SUMMONED!”

A sudden chill wafted through the room, bringing with it the smell of damp stone. Demea’s eyes went wide as the air shimmered with a gray mist, then formed itself into the translucent image of a man—a man with thinning red hair, a familiar beaky nose, and lips that curled as though they had just tasted a rotten fig.

“So what is it this time?” it asked in the insectlike, nasal whine so characteristic of her late husband.

“REVEAL THE NATURE OF YOUR ASSOCIATION WITH THIS REALM,” Pluto commanded so loudly that it rattled her eardrums. “AND KEEP IT SHORT.”

Micio’s image sneered. “You’re kidding, of course.”

“TRY ME.”

“Okay, okay, don’t get your tunic in a twist!” The image turned to Demea. “But you don’t know this broad like I do. Don’t blame me if she doesn’t like it.”

Demea was familiar with holographic recordings, as well as robot surrogates programmed with personality prints, but this was something new to her. From the jowly jaws to the nervous tick under his right eye, it was her late husband in every unpleasant detail. She turned to Pluto. “Is this a recording?”

“THE DEAD BELONG TO ME.” The god’s black eyes burned down at her with a heat that had nothing to do with flames. “EVERYONE KNOWS THAT.”

“You were so hot to know about the business, so shut up and listen.” Micio crossed his arms and glared at her. “Back when I first enrolled in the Game as a lowly Syrian wine merchant, it came to me that this place was the perfect hideout. I mean, it’s private property, so the police don’t patrol inside, and there’s lots of nicely inaccessible little nooks and crannies where no one ever looks. I did some exploring, struck up an acquaintance with a few of the priests, and realized the gods have more than a little say-so here. They’re all hooked up with the computer, and they know exactly what’s going on.

“So I made a few sacrifices, proposed a few deals, and then Pluto and I decided we could be a lot of help to each other. I brought in Harry, here, and his boys from the outside to oversee the details while I played for points so I could advance and gain even more power.”

“That’s why you married me,” she said slowly. “For the points.”

“Yeah.” The shade stared at her sourly. “You’re a damn good player, especially in authenticity. You not only brought me a bundle of your own points, but your little scam of installing Amaelia as a Vestal Virgin was absolutely inspired. That put me over the top—to Emperor.”

“So the business between you and Publius Barbus was smuggling.” Her mouth went dry as the sand in the arena.

“Yeah.” The shade scratched its prominent nose. “Frankly, old
Ball-and-Chain, I don’t think you’ve got it in you. I mean, I know you worked a little deal with Juno once in a while for a case of contraband sugar or a bag of illegal pork rinds or even a liter of cola now and then, but you don’t have the grit for a true life of crime. If the police ever ran you in. you’d crumple like a paper doll.”

“Oh, really?” She straightened her back.

“BEGONE!” Pluto waved his hand again and the image dissolved.

“See, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” Barbus refilled the black goblet to the brim with champagne and pushed it into her hand. “You don’t want to deal with all them messy details. Me and the boys will take care of everything, while you kick back and enjoy life. Think of the possibilities.”

“YES, THINK.” Pluto’s huge hand caressed her cheek. She felt the bite of static crawling over her skin. “WE SHALL REWRITE THE MANUALS OF PLEASURE, YOU AND I. WE SHALL MAKE THE DARK HALLS OF THE UNDERWORLD SINO WITH THE HEIGHTS OF OUR PASSION.”

Holding the glass of champagne with both hands, she tossed the wine down without even tasting it, then held it out for more. This looked to be a long siege.

* * *

Through the hour it took them to cross the city, Kerickson kept having to detour to avoid new fires and the smoldering ruins of others the fire drones had already put out. Mars was out of control; there was no doubt about that. What in the name of Jupiter could the new programmers be doing—or had HabiTek even bothered with new programmers at all? He toyed with the idea of trying to access the Interface himself. But if the board ever realized he was on the playing field, they would turn him over to the police at once. Until he found out what was going on, he had to stay in the Game.

Amaelia’s face was rosy with exertion, and even though the day was cold, she had thrown her woolen cloak back on her shoulders.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to wait for me in a shop?” He gestured at a linen merchant’s and a butcher’s. “Or maybe a restaurant? Romulus’s is just around the corner. I could come back for you.”

She sighed, then tucked a damp tendril of red hair back behind her ear. “Are you kidding? I don’t think there’s a safe place in this whole city.”

“Well, we’re almost there, anyway.” He rubbed his burning eyes, which were tearing from the smoke. Taking her arm, he pushed through the anxious, milling crowd and towed her along in his wake. They rounded the corner and entered the Forum, the broad square that held the city’s major temples as well as numerous fortune-tellers’ booths, statues, massive monuments of past wars, dealers of sacrificial animals, and a million or so pigeons.

It was also filled at the moment with at least half the terrified populace of the Game, most of them pushing and shoving in an attempt to enter the red-marble Temple of Mars at the farthest end. Fortunately, Jupiter’s temple, in the middle, didn’t seem to be doing nearly so brisk a business.

Keeping tight hold of Amaelia’s hand, he pulled her into the frightened crowd. They had come out at the Forum’s lower end, three temples down from Jupiter. The gigantic figure of Mars was not visible at the moment, and it did seem as they fought their way past the Temple of Vesta that the smoky air was clearing. Perhaps, he thought, the supplicants down at the Temple of Mars have managed to appease the angry god alrea—

With a roar of flames, a towering Vesta manifested before her little round temple. “THERE SHE IS!” Red-orange burning hair swirled around her face as she pointed down into the crowd. “THE ONE WHO NOT ONLY BETRAYED ME, BUT ALL OF ROME!”

The crowd looked around, trying to see where the huge finger pointed.

“SHE
LET THE SACRED FIRES GO OUT!
SHE
LEFT THE CITY UNPROTECTED! JUST BECAUSE SHE’S THE EMPEROR’S DAUGHTER DOESN’T MEAN SHE IS ABOVE THE LAW!”

Kerickson’s whole body went cold. He should have thought of this before! Of course Vesta would hold a grudge. “Hide your face,” he whispered quickly to Amaelia

She looped a fold of her cloak over her copper-colored hair as they worked their way through the milling mass of people.

“DON’T LET HER GET AWAY!” Vesta shrieked. “THAT’S HER, THE CARROT-TOP IN THE WHITE GOWN WITH THE SCRUFFY-LOOKING FREEDMAN! STOP THEM!”

A murmur ran through the mixture of aristocrats and plebes; then an armored Legionary seized Kerickson’s cloak. “Stop, in the name of the Senate and the people of Rome!”