The Imperium Game (17 page)

“PUBLIUS BARBUS IS NOT A PLAYER.”

Kerickson ripped at the tough rind with his teeth. “What do you mean, he’s not a player?”

“HE IS NOT ENROLLED.” Neptune watched him for a moment. “MAYBE YOU SHOULD GO TO A FOOD DISPENSARY AFTER ALL. THAT LOOKS DISGUSTING.”

“What is he doing on the playing field, then?” Giving up, he squeezed the partially peeled fruit and let the sweet juice dribble down his throat.

“HE HAS MANAGEMENT-LEVEL ACCESS TO THE GAME, BUT NO RECORD OF POINTS.”

“Points?” Kerickson remembered the merchant’s comment from the night before—something about how they wouldn’t let him keep his points anymore. “According to the guy I talked to last night, someone is accruing points that don’t belong to him. Just who currently holds the most points in the Game?”

“QUINTUS GRACCHUS.”

“And after him?”

“GENERAL OPPIUS CATULUS TRAILS HIM BY A THREE-TO-ONE MARGIN.”

Three-to-one . . . Kerickson shook his head. That was an almost unheard-of gap between the first- and second-place players. “How long has Gracchus been playing, anyway?”

“FIVE POINT SEVEN MONTHS.”

“And Catulus?”

“TWELVE POINT ONE YEARS.”

Kerickson kneaded his forehead. “But that doesn’t make sense. How could Gracchus become so successful in such a short amount of time?”

“CERTAIN PLAYERS WEAR SPECIAL BRACELETS, AND THE GAME COMPUTER RECORDS THEIR POINTS IN QUINTUS GRACCHUS’S ACCOUNT AS THEY ARE EARNED.”

He threw the drained pomegranate aside. “But this sounds like it’s been going on for months. I would have noticed something like that in the computer’s activity logs. Of course, I wasn’t the only programmer, but I’m sure Wilson would have reported an anomaly like that, too, if it had turned up.”

“GILES EDWARD WILSON?” Neptune arched a green eyebrow. “ROUND FACE, SQUINTY EYES, LOOKS LIKE A RABBIT?”

“Well, maybe a little,” Kerickson admitted. “Why?”

“IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT HE SAW, YOU SHOULD ASK HIM YOURSELF.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Kerickson picked up another pomegranate and rubbed it on his tunic. “He’s—”

A nebulous shape drifted into the clearing from between two palm trees, its pale blue eyes staring.

“—dead.”

“OF COURSE HE’S DEAD. WHO ELSE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING TO FIND IN HADES?”

Kerickson walked all the way around the nearly transparent body. It was Wilson, all right, dressed in the long dark Syrian merchant tunic that he had used for occasions when it had been necessary to actually go out on the playing field.

“Wilson?” His voice came out in a hoarse whisper. “Is that really you?”

“Of course not.” The shape looked at him blearily. “So, have you managed to run this place into the ground yet?”

It had to be a personality print. A number of so-called shades had been programmed for Hades from recordings of real people, but Kerickson hadn’t known about Wilson using himself. “I—” He closed his mouth and tried to think. “When—were you recorded?”

“So you’re going to play it that way, are you?” The shade seated itself on the edge of the fountain and crossed its bony legs. “Not very smart, if you ask me, but of course no one ever does.”

Kerickson shook his head; poor old Wilson never had looked good in a tunic.

The shade jiggled its foot. “Talking about recordings and such out here on the field costs you—”

“Yeah, yeah, authenticity points.” Kerickson rolled his eyes. “Not exactly a big issue on my mind at the moment. Let’s get back to when you were recorded.”

“Two months ago.” The shade scratched its nonexistent nose. “I came into work one morning while you were out on the field and found an error message from the computer: the entire repository of recorded personalities for the shades had been erased somehow in the night. Hades was unpopulated, except for the few players currently in residence. I immediately had a dozen of myself copied off, then issued orders for everyone who had ever died to report in for rerecording as soon as possible.”

“And I was out on the field?” Kerickson couldn’t believe he hadn’t known about any of this.

“Yes, some nonsense about the Tiber River Adventure.” Wilson folded his arms.

Then Kerickson did remember: it had taken him almost a week to repair that ride, which was one of the biggest attractions in the whole Imperium, even if it did cost players two authenticity points for each run. “But why didn’t you tell me about the damage when I got back?”

“How should I know?” The shade frowned.
“I
was recorded before you returned. What happened afterward is your problem.”

“TALK, TALK, TALK!” Neptune grumbled from the top of the fountain. “AND NOT A SINGLE WORD OF WORSHIP IN THE WHOLE LOT. THAT’S MORTALS FOR YOU.”

“Shut up!” Kerickson paced up and down under the pomegranate tree, trying to dig some answers out of his brain. “What do you know about special Game bracelets that record a player’s points under a different name?”

“I never heard of such a thing, but—” Wilson sighed. “There were a lot of complaints about this place down in the Subura and—”

“The Spear and Chicken?” Kerickson broke in.

The shade nodded. “And the Gladiatorial School. Things just weren’t running right out on the playing field. And the computer was having problems, too, like important programs going down at the worst possible moment and the shade file being erased. I suspected someone was fiddling with the computer at night, when you and I were off-duty.”

Could all of this simply be a computer malfunction? Kerickson stared through the image of his old friend. The computer might lose data, or let Mars go beyond his parameters, or even put new programs like Proserpina on-line without authorization—but it couldn’t physically walk the playing field to set fire to the Baths or plunge a dagger into Wilson’s heart.

Quintus Gracchus, however, was another matter. Gracchus could do any or all of those things—and he had an illegal Interface in his villa.

“It’s really boring down here, you know.” The shade’s voice was resentful.

Kerickson swallowed hard; he had been so overwhelmed with problems that he’d forgotten the sight of Wilson’s dead body lying before the Oracle, his blood spreading across the marble like thick red syrup, wood-hafted dagger buried deep in his chest. “I’m—sorry.”

“About what?” the shade replied.

“That you were killed.”

“Happens to all of you mortals in the end.” The shade studied its fingernails. “No concern of mine.”

“Yeah, right.” Kerickson climbed onto the fountain’s rim and tried to see over the wild tangle of overgrown trees and bushes. “Look, I’d love to stay and chat, but I’ve got to find Amaelia, then get back up above.”

“OH, THAT.” Neptune slithered down the nymph’s back, his damp green hair stringing into his face. “I’M AFRAID THAT SHE’S SCHEDULED FOR TORMENT AND EXECUTION JUST AFTER BREAKFAST.”

Kerickson glanced reflexively at his watchless wrist, then swore. “How long do I have?”

“FIVE MINUTES.”

AMAELIA
woke to the sound of footsteps
echoing down the stone corridor. She still clutched the bucket’s wire handle in her hand so tightly that the flesh had swollen around it. She stirred, then slipped and smacked her head on the stone floor; she’d been using the door for a pillow. “Damnation!” she muttered hoarsely, shocked at how good that word felt on her lips.

The footsteps grew louder every second: two sets of them, not quite in synch, heavy and menacing. She thrust the wire handle into her pocket and began to rub the circulation back into her palm, remembering how she had tried and tried to pick the lock until sleep had crept up on her. Well, they were probably coming to let her out anyway. She stumbled to her feet, staring down at her long gown, still ripped and dirty from that hellish trip across the Styx—not to mention yesterday’s fracas at the Temple of Jupiter. Too bad Jupiter had no power in Hades. Her stepmother had made so many threats last night that, despite the obvious drawbacks, even that old scoundrel might be preferable.

The footsteps stopped. A key rattled in the rusty, reluctant lock that had foiled her best efforts, and the door creaked outward. Two black, armored
things
stood there waiting, their faces replaced by screens displaying different scenes from above. On one, several gladiators stood talking in the middle of an arena of dazzling white sand. On the other, slaves lounged on low couches before tables loaded with steaming platters of roast pork and piles of tamarinds and pomegranates, looking quite merry as their patrician masters served them in accordance with the ancient traditions of Saturnalia.

“The Dark Queen summons you,” one of the devices said in a harsh metallic voice through a speaker grille in its neck. “Come with us.”

She followed the first one out into the narrow passage, then up a dank, winding set of stone steps. The other guard boxed her in from behind. At the top of the stairs she paused at a rampart to look down on the overgrown gardens encroaching upon the palace like a dark army. Above, the slate-gray sky was caught permanently at dusk. The breeze gusted, heavy with the scent of jasmine. A sense of emptiness pressed in upon her, as though she were the only living soul in this whole murky place.

“This way.” One of the faceless guards pulled her away from the ramparts with relentless metal fingers. She flinched away from its chill touch and walked between them as though they were two poles and she were a magnet suspended in the middle. They entered another door and started down a sweep of twisting stairs. Somewhere ahead a woman laughed, low and husky and throbbing.

With a final turn, they entered a huge round room open to the twilit sky. Two immense, gleaming thrones of obsidian sat empty and waiting. The guard devices thrust her into the center of a polished floor blacker than the inside of a hole, then posted themselves along the curving wall.

“Demea?” Amaelia rotated, looking for her stepmother. “What do you want?” Her voice lost itself in the vastness of the great room. Overhead, a nighthawk swooped low over the open roof, then twitched its wings and disappeared back into the gloom.

She put her hands on her hips. “Look, just tell me what you want!”

“WANT?” The voice shrilled from a dozen places, transformed into something magnificent and ringing, altogether bigger than life. “YOU TRY TO STEAL MY PLACE AS EMPRESS, AND YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT
I
WANT?”

“Steal your place?” Amaelia frowned. “The only thing I did was resign.”

“OF COURSE YOU SAY THAT NOW.”

“Oh, come on, you’re not talking about all that nonsense about marrying Quintus Gracchus?” Amaelia edged backward, her eyes searching the throne room. “That wasn’t my idea. The last thing I ever wanted was to be Empress.”

“IN HADES, ALL YOUR SINS ARE KNOWN, AND YOU MUST NOW ANSWER TO EACH AND EVERY ONE.”

“Now, listen here, Demea—”

As though heated, the air shimmered in front of the pair of black-glass thrones. “THAT NAME IS FROM ANOTHER LIFE, NOW LEFT BEHIND FOREVER.” The distortion solidified into the tall form of a woman arrayed in a shining, pure black gown that bared her flawless neck and shoulders. She put a hand to her hair and settled gracefully into the right-hand throne. “YOU MAY ADDRESS ME AS PROSERPINA.”

“But—” Amaelia stared at the transformed woman; light glinted from her white, white shoulders and intricately coiffed black hair. “Proserpina is a—
goddess.
No one
plays
the gods.”

“I PLAY AT NOTHING!” Demea’s arm swept toward the sky.

Thunder cracked. A hurricane blasted Amaelia to the floor. Icy rain sheeted down until she couldn’t breathe.

“I AM PROSERPINA, QUEEN OF HADES!”

Soaked and shivering, Amaelia covered her head with her arms. She didn’t have the faintest idea how to play this; it was certainly nothing like any Game scenario she had ever seen.

A second blueness wavered beside Demea, forming a huge man with long, tumbled black hair and piercing black eyes. Almost in slow motion, he tossed a shimmering black cloak off his shoulders, his strong-boned face indifferent. “YOUR JUDGMENT ON THIS WORTHLESS SHADE, MY LOVE?”

“SHE IS GUILTY OF BROKEN VOWS WITH OUR SISTER ABOVE, VESTA, AS WELL AS ENVY AND THEFT.”

Murmuring voices filled the room. As Amaelia turned, a sea of ghostly figures drifted into the throne room, their translucent faces all looking at her. “Guilty!” they said in wispy, half-there voices. “Sullen, ungrateful wretch! She had it all and threw it away!”

The dark man leaned back against his obsidian throne, his full lips curved in a sensuous smile. “YOUR SENTENCE?”

Demea rose and stepped forward, her black gown trailing like the tail of a shining snake. “TORTURE, I THINK—FOR AS LONG AS SHE LASTS. THAT WON’T BE LONG ENOUGH, OF COURSE. THERE NEVER WAS MUCH BOTTOM TO THIS BIT OF FLUFF.”

Feeling like a rabbit caught under a descending airhopper, Amaelia stared into her stepmother’s eyes, transfixed by the raw power there. How had Demea managed all of this? No one was ever allowed to play a goddess. She, who had practically been born into this game, knew that as well as anyone else. “Torture?” She made herself nod. “Well—”

She bolted for the door. Both guard devices moved to intercept her, but she pulled the wire out of her pocket and buried it deep in the first one’s speaker grille. It staggered for a second, the picture on its screen flickering, then toppled to the floor.

The second one, however, snagged her by the arm and held her so tightly that she sank to her knees with a moan.

“ENOUGH!” Proserpina’s thunderous voice filled the room, so loud that Amaelia gasped with pain. “YOU HAVE DEFIED ME FOR THE LAST T—”

“Alline?” a man’s voice cried. “Is that you?”

Amaelia glanced up through tear-blurred eyes. A man stood in the doorway, wearing the tattered remains of a tunic. His build was slight, his hair an undistinguished sandy-blond, his face— unassuming, but tense. Her heart gave a leap; it was Gaius!

His eyes, though, were only for her stepmother. “Alline, what are you doing down here in Hades?”

“ONE MIGHT ASK THE SAME OF YOU.” The corners of Demea’s mouth quirked upward as she laid one hand on Pluto’s shoulder.

Amaelia looked back at her stepmother. The two of them obviously knew each other, but how?

“It’s all right, Amaelia. Don’t be afraid.” Looking grim, Gaius took a step toward her. “No one’s going to hurt you.”

“YOU THINK NOT, ARVID?” The Dark Queen glided into the gleaming black circle, her lips twisted into a tight, red smile. “THEN PERHAPS YOU SHOULD THINK AGAIN.” She motioned with one crimson-nailed hand, and the black guard tightened its grip on Amaelia’s upper arm until her head swam from the pain.

Gaius paled. “Stop that!” Then he looked at the mechanical guard. “Code four-A override!”

Amaelia felt it stiffen. Twisting and squirming, she managed to pry herself out of the now motionless fingers. Gaius pushed her behind him. “How did you do that?” she whispered.

“HE’S A PROGRAMMER, IDIOT, ONE OF THE REAL GODS OF THIS WORLD—OR AT LEAST HE WAS WHEN HE SAT UP THERE IN THE INTERFACE, SO HIGH AND MIGHTY, PLAYING WITH YOUR FATE AND MINE AS THOUGH HE HAD EVERY RIGHT.” With each step, Proserpina grew taller. “AS THOUGH HE CARED.”

“I did care.” The man Amaelia knew as Gaius seemed unable to take his eyes off Proserpina’s crackling black eyes and bloodred lips. “I gave you everything you asked. I even let you go because that was what you asked, not what I wanted.”

“AND WHAT DO YOU WANT NOW, MORTAL?” Like a great cat studying its prey, she tilted her head to one side. “ACCORDING TO THE COMPUTER, YOU WERE DISMISSED FROM THE STAFF AND ESCORTED FROM THE GAME. YOU’RE NOT ENROLLED. IN FACT, AS FAR AS THE COMPUTER IS CONCERNED, YOU DON’T EVEN EXIST.” She trailed her fingers across the snowy column of her throat. “PERHAPS YOU’VE COME ALL THE WAY TO HADES JUST TO BEG MY FAVORS ONE LAST TIME.”

Amaelia’s stomach tightened. Gaius was staring at Proserpina as though she were an expensive work of art and he was the prospective buyer. Amaelia stepped forward to stand between them. “As a matter of fact, he came for me.”

“FOR YOU, TWIT?” Proserpina’s laughter rolled through the audience room like thunder.

Gaius seemed to shake himself. Then he took Amaelia’s arm, his fingers warm as sunlight on her rain-chilled skin. “Well, actually, I did.”

“OH, BUT LOOK AT HER BRACELET.” Proserpina turned back to her black-garbed consort. “THE BRAT IS DEAD, AND THEREFORE, MINE.”

The King of the Dead stood up, threw back his star-studded cloak and crossed his muscular arms across his chest. Their misty faces rapt, the crowd of shades pointed and murmured among themselves.

“HOW CAME YOU HERE?” Pluto’s wild, dark eyes smoldered across the throne room at Gaius. “THE GUARDIAN OF THE GATE, CERBERUS, DID NOT REPORT YOUR PASSAGE, NOR DOES THE COMPUTER KNOW YOU. WHAT SORT OF PLAYER IS IT THAT WEARS NO BRACELET?”

“One that comes to rectify a mistake.” Gaius’s arm pulled Amaelia closer to his side. “You see, this player’s enrollment has been canceled, but through some foul-up, she wound up down here instead. She must leave the playing field immediately.”

“NO!” Proserpina tossed her head back and increased her size until her head brushed the open sky above. “SHE ONLY WANTS TO TAKE MY PLACE WITH YOU, JUST AS SHE THOUGHT TO TAKE MY PLACE AS EMPRESS!”

“AND WHAT IS IT TO YOU IF SHE DOES?” Pluto’s intense gaze transferred to her, and he too grew until he equaled her size.

“Well, Pluto, old boy—” Towing Amaelia, Gaius edged toward the door. “—it’s just that Proserpina, here, used to be married to me.”

Amaelia shuddered as Gaius dragged her straight through the nebulous crowd of shades.

“I mean, what can I say?” Gaius winked. “I guess, in spite of everything, those old fires are still burning.”

“THEY ARE NOT!” Proserpina extended one arm toward the door. It swung shut with a hollow clang. “BUT I WILL NOT BE CHEATED OF MY REVENGE. I HAD TO PUT UP WITH THIS CLINGING, WHINING BRAT FOR YEARS AFTER I MARRIED MICIO, AND NOW SHE HAS THE UNMITIGATED GALL TO TRY AND TAKE MY PLACE!”

“You had to put up with me?” Amaelia struggled to free her wrist from Gaius’s grip. “My father and I were doing just fine before you pushed your way into our lives! If it weren’t for you, he’d probably still be alive right now!”

“YOUR FATHER COULDN’T HAVE MADE ENOUGH POINTS TO PLAY CHIEF EUNUCH WITHOUT MY GUIDANCE!”

“STOP!” Pluto’s enhanced voice thundered through the chamber until the floor quivered and Amaelia swayed, almost too dizzy to stand. He seized Proserpina’s shoulders and blue electricity crawled over their two huge bodies. “YOUR OLD LIFE HAS PASSED AWAY AS THOUGH IT NEVER EXISTED. THERE IS ONLY NOW AND TOMORROW, NOTHING MORE. I FORBID YOU TO THINK ABOUT YOUR MISERABLE MORTAL EXISTENCE EVER AGAIN!”

Proserpina writhed within his grasp. “YOU FORBID—” Then she stiffened, her head arching back, her black eyes staring.

Pluto looked down at Amaelia and Gaius. “GO, AND WALK THIS DARK REALM NO MORE!”

The door swung open. Without another word, Gaius pulled her through it and into the long, dark hall.

* * *

There were limits to her new powers; the realization flooded through her like a bitter black river. Even she, a goddess, could still be overridden!

“LET—ME—GO!” She longed to smash his proud dark face into a thousand million pieces.

“I AM YOUR LORD!” Pluto buried his fingers in the plaits of her hair. “LONG DID I WAIT WHILE YOU DALLIED WITH OTHER, LESSER BEINGS, BUT UNDERSTAND THIS—I WILL WAIT NO LONGER!”

“I DON’T WANT HIM!” Even as she tried to resist it, Pluto’s touch stirred her. “I ONLY WANT THE GIRL.”

“THAT LITTLE SNIPPET?” His finger traced the line of her jaw with a fire that made itself felt all the way down to her toes. “SHE IS NOTHING, EVEN LESS THAN THE DUST BENEATH YOUR FEET. FORGET HER AND THINK ONLY OF ME.”

Without even meaning to, her arms reached out. He was the flash of lightning and the heady, sweet scent of jasmine, the deafening roar of a waterfall, but . . .

She gave herself up to him, knowing that she would not forget. Her time would come later.

* * *