Lost Republic (21 page)

“Who are you? What is this place?” France demanded.

“The Republic of Latium, of course.”

“You know this isn't ancient Rome!” said Hans. “This is the year 2055!”

“What do such numbers mean? Here, time and place are what we make it.” Antoninus leaned forward to cup a snow-white iris in his hand. The flower and vase had not been there a moment ago.

“But who makes it?” asked Julie. “You? Those plaster gods stuck all over town?”

At that, the old man looked annoyed. “The gods—have you been talking to them?”

“We're not crazy!”

“No, you're not, but here the gods do speak to mortal ears despite my best efforts to block them out,” said Antoninus.

He let go of the flower and clasped his hands behind his back. The iris, vase, and short marble column on which they stood silently vanished. Leigh groaned and closed his eyes.

“We were close once, our little band. When we began, everything was equal, and we shared this place without jealousy or fear. Over time—over a very long time—we grew apart and became rivals. Then we became enemies.”

“Which are you, John, Paul, George, or Ringo?” said Julie, folding her arms.

Antoninus ignored her. “Those ‘gods' were once my colleagues. Now they spy on me through statues and witless worshippers . . .”

France understood at once. Antoninus was the First Citizen! He yelled as much and declared, “Let's get him!”

Leigh and France tried. They rushed Antoninus from either side, meaning to trap him between them. Instead, they ran right into each other so hard, France sprawled on the mosaic tiles.

“Where'd he go?” Julie cried.

“There!”

Hans pointed dramatically. Antoninus was back on his couch, scroll in hand.

Julie uttered a single coarse word. The boys slowly converged on the elder man, quietly reading his document.

“Ah,” he said. “I wasn't expecting visitors.”

“You already said that,” Julie said.

“Have I? I do tend to repeat myself. The burden of age, you understand.”

“None of this is right,” France said. “People don't just vanish and reappear!”

“Some of us do,” said Antoninus with a smile. “As you shall see.”

The scroll rolled up into two soft cylinders and hit the floor.

“He's gone!”

They converged on the spot where Antoninus had been.

“I don't get this at all,” Hans said, running his hands through the spot where the old man had been. “Is it drugs? Are we dreaming?”

“Maybe we can still find the First Citizen,” Leigh said. “If we have him, they'll have to let us go.”

France was grim. “The only way we deal with all this is to accept it. This whole place is like some crazy reenactor's paradise—if we dig into it far enough, we'll find out who's really in charge.”

“You stay and play D&D if you want to,” said Julie. “I'm leaving.” Leigh and Hans agreed with her.

A shaft of light fell from the atrium overhead, brightening the room. At first, France thought it was more “magic” from the Latins, but Julie saw what it was.

“It's daylight,” she said. “The sun's come up.”

Impossible. They couldn't have been here all night! It wasn't even midnight when they freed Julie from Luxuria's. Their fight and flight may have taken an hour or two, but not all night.

“Let's get out of here,” Leigh said. They hurried back the way they came. On the way, Hans picked up the scroll Antoninus had left behind. He spread the rolls apart.

“It's blank,” he said, puzzled.

The lightening halls filled Leigh with dread. He had overstayed his night out. Rufus Panthera would be furious. When the fracas at the brothel and the death of Ramesses came out, the centurion would have his head on a pike, for sure.

Racing behind Leigh, France started worrying about Linh. Had she, Jenny, and Eleanor gotten away? They were supposed to meet at the city's north gate and escape together. The army, Luxuria's protectors, even the consul's lictors were probably after France and friends. Had anyone intercepted the girls? Their chances of getting there now seemed to be vanishing faster than night in Eternus Urbs.

Leigh reached the outside door first. Julie and France piled into him when he stopped abruptly, filling the door.

“What the hell?” Julie said. Then she saw what halted her brother.

The courtyard outside was filled with legionnaires—rank upon rank of infantry in helmets and shields, bowmen with electric arrows nocked, and half a dozen mounted officers. In command was no one less than Consul Marius himself.

Hans, bringing up the rear, suggested they flee in the other direction. Staring over Leigh's shoulder, France said no.

“Why not?” Hans said. He looked past Julie and saw why his friends were paralyzed.

Kneeling in a line were Jenny, Linh, Eleanor, and a fourth figure none of them recognized at first. Julie said under her breath, “It's the weird guy from the boat!”

It was Emile, no longer in black. He wore the simple homespun shift and headband of a Latin slave.

“Throw down your arms!” Consul Marius exclaimed. “Either you give them up or your fellow criminals will be executed on the spot!”

There wasn't anything to do. Leigh flung his sword to the ground. It rang on the pavement and skittered away, to be picked up by one of the consul's guards.

A dozen soldiers trotted forward and took the defeated teens in hand, two men to each of them. They were separated and driven forward to the waiting Marius.

“Infamous criminals!” he declared. “Did you think you could get away with your crime?”

“I only wanted to save my sister,” Leigh replied. A centurion cuffed him hard on the back of the head.

The consul frowned. “Sister? I speak of your attempt to assassinate the First Citizen of the Republic!”

Now France was alarmed. “My lord, we meant no such thing! We came here seeking the protection of the Princeps for taking the girl Julia from a life of forced prostitution!”

“And failing to secure his help, you resolved to kill him,” Marius said. “Take them away!”

With swift and brutal efficiency they were chained hand and foot and dragged away to prison. They weren't taken to the army camp this time, but to a squat stone building on the southern side of the city, near a great stadium where public games were staged. Hans saw the arena and mumbled aloud that he always knew they would end up dying in some place like that.

Everyone was confined to a cell alone, but they were all on the same hall in the lower level of the prison. It was dark down there, no windows, and the stone walls and floor were always filmed with frigid dew. The prisoners were fed once a day (morning or night, no one could tell). France asked the jailer questions every time he brought food, but the gaunt, scarred man never answered.

Six times they were fed, so possibly six days went by. Leigh had horrible dreams even while he was awake. He saw himself marching to a chopping block to have his head cut off. His executioner was the giant Ramesses. The big man still had a huge bloodstain on his belly where Leigh impaled him. Leigh was forced to kneel with his head on the chipped slab of wood. Up went the axe—

Linh saw things, too. In the dark, dimly glowing figures walked past her door. She pressed her face to the barred slot and tried to make out who or what they were. Gradually she realized they were her friends being led one by one to the place of execution. On the fifth night, she saw herself drift by, shuffling unseen feet. Linh called out to herself, and the phantom looked straight at her with empty sockets where her eyes should have been.

Jenny paced. Her cell was exactly six steps by five and a half. That half step difference drove her crazy. It wasn't right! One-two-three-four-five-six, okay; one-two-three-four-five and a half—ridiculous! Couldn't these people do anything right?

Hans didn't eat. He drank his slimy, copper-tasting water, but he refused the tiny portion of boiled beans or stale bread. Eating it would only make him suffer agonies of hunger. If he was going to die, he didn't want to go cringing and moaning. The jailer said nothing, but took away the uneaten food each time.

Julie cried for a whole day, and then she ran out of tears. Dirty, backward SOBs, who did they think they were? This wasn't ancient Rome. Did they think they could get away with executing people in this day and age? Man, the UN needed to know about this place. The FBI, too.

In her cell, Eleanor sat very still. She prayed to Apollo to rescue her. The god did not appear.

France Martin used a stone chip to scratch a description of his plight onto the floor. He spent most of his first day doing this, ate his prison fare, and then went to sleep. When he awoke, all the writing was gone. It was dark in his cell, but he had clearly felt the deep scratches he had made in the floor stones earlier. Now the floor was smooth again.

Objective reality does not work here, not all the time, he decided. He made a list of all the impossible things he'd seen or encountered. The loss of the
Carleton
and the officers headed the list. This island, this strange ancient Roman fantasy world came next. The flash of light in the night, their learning Latin spontaneously, talking god statues, and everything else that followed made no sense unless everyone involved was controlled, brainwashed to believe what was happening was normal reality.

How could this happen? France had no idea. Who was behind it all? There were all kinds of candidates—cults, secret societies, intelligence agencies, rogue government bureaus—who knew? What mattered was that they get out of here and warn the world.

Footsteps in the corridor put an end to his reasoning. It sounded like more than just the jailer. France heard other doors being opened and, for an instant, imagined they were being set free. He could not hear what was being said, but after a short speech the doors thumped shut again.

His turn came. The jailer opened the door and stepped in, carrying an oil lamp. An armed guard entered next, and a Republic official in a spotlessly clean white toga.

“Newcomer Gallus?”

France slowly stood up. By lamplight he could see for sure his writing had vanished from the floor.

The thin gray-haired official unrolled a scroll and read from it. “By the order of the Senate and People of the Republic of Latium, you have been found guilty of blasphemy against the gods, treason against the state, and designs for murder against the First Citizen of the Republic.” He rolled the parchment into a cylinder. “Do you have anything to say?”

The treason charge he understood, but why blasphemy? That's what he asked.

“You did aid and encourage a sworn priestess of Ceres to desert her temple, her goddess, and her sworn superiors, did you not?”

“There are no goddesses,” France said. “And no Republic. You're living a fantasy.”

The official shuddered. “Condemned out of your own mouth! Very well, the sentence stands as written.”

“What is the sentence?”

“Death at the hands of the public executioner.”

Something inside France trembled hard. He put out a hand to keep from falling.

“Tell me, how do you kill prisoners here?”

“The penalty for blasphemy is inhumation.”

Inhu-what? Exhumation meant digging something up; so inhumation must mean being buried . . . alive.

He made no attempt to disguise his alarm. France sank against the back wall of his cell. In a small voice he said, “Are we all to be killed that way?”

“The soldier Levius, having betrayed his oath to the army, will be beheaded. The slave Aemilius will be sent to the mines to work until he dies. The newcomer Ioannes will be sold into slavery and sent to the mines—”

“I get it. What about the girl Linnea?”

The Latin clerk consulted his scroll.

“Inhumation.”

France slid down the wall. “Is there any hope?”

The official tucked the tightly wound scroll under his arm.

“The laws of the Republic are fair and just,” he declared. “The pillars of the nation must be upheld. The honor and discipline of the army, the gods, and our divinely inspired leader must be preserved.”

With that, he turned on his heel and strode out. The jailer and guard followed, leaving France alone in the dark.

He cried. He hadn't done that since his mother left his father, three years ago. France thought he wouldn't cry ever again after that. Tears changed nothing and he felt weak for shedding them, but sitting in that lightless, chilly, damp cell there was nothing else to do.

Buried alive. He hoped at least they would put them all together, Linh and the others. Surely, they would—the Latins were too practical to dig so many individual graves.

The lump in his throat swelled until he thought he would choke then and there. Forcing himself to be calm, France drifted off in despairing slumber. Tiny terrors lit his dreams, like fireflies in a tomb.

He thought he heard the clank of the door bolt. France was in the rear corner of the cell, knees drawn up to his chin, his head resting against the hard wall. When he detected the bolt moving, he flinched awake, unsure what he heard was real. Cracking an eye, he couldn't see any telltale lamplight under the door. Maybe he imagined it.

Then he heard, quite distinctly, the scrape of sandal on stone floor. All the fear and anger bottled up inside him drove France to his feet and across the black cell in single flash of fury. He tackled whoever had come in, smashing them to the hard floor. His opponent gasped on impact.

France grabbed a handful of cloth and made a fist with the other hand, ready to smash the face of whatever Latin lackey had come in.

“Stop,” said a mild voice.

France froze. “Who is it?”

“Aemilius.”

He held his position. Emile, who had betrayed them on the march to Eternus? He had disappeared the day the
Carleton
people were parceled out. France assumed he had been brainwashed like the others.

“Can I get up?”

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to let you out.”

France tightened his grip on the younger boy's garment. “Why? How?”

“Does it matter?”

He gave Emile a hard shake. “Yes! It does matter!”

Coughing, Emile said, “Do you want to be buried alive?”

France got off him and stood. Emile gripped his arm and hauled himself to his feet.

“My master sent me,” he whispered. “All right?”

“Who is your master?”

“He is Mercury, son of Jupiter, messenger of the gods—”

Without thinking, France slapped Emile hard. The Belgian boy sobbed in the darkness.

“I know about your ‘gods,'” France said coldly. “I'll not be run around like puppets on a stage!”

“Don't you want to live?” France didn't answer such an obvious question. “I am your way out of here, or do you want to die with dirt in your mouth?”

“What's in it for you?”

Quietly Emile said, “I am restoring balance to this place.”

“Why do you care?”

“I prefer it to home.”

“Do you remember?” France said. “The
Carleton,
Cherbourg, the shipwreck?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then why did you act so—so—”

“Like a zombie?” France could sense Emile's grin in the dark. “To throw them off guard. If I showed too much memory, they would have come down on me, hard.”

“Who are ‘they?'”

“The powers that run this place.”

He moved away. France reached out and caught him. “What is this place?”

“Have you ever heard of Hy-Brasil?”

The name stirred a long-faded memory, a history lesson from middle school. Not confident, France told Emile to go on.

“There are stories of a fogbound island west of Ireland called Brasil, or Hy-Brasil. It's not the country Brazil in South America; that was named later. Hy-Brasil was a phantom island inhabited by a magician in a stone castle guarded by giant black rabbits.”

“
Fimus
,” France hissed. This was how
merde
was rendered in Latin. “There are no magicians or superbunnies here.”

“No, but navigators in the fifteenth century reported spotting Hy-Brasil west of Ireland. It was lost when ships from Europe became common in the Atlantic.”

France clucked his tongue. “You might as well say we're on Atlantis!”

“Some people have called this place exactly that.”

He pushed past Emile and made for the door. Time was too short to waste on stupid fairy tales.

Emile hurried after him. In a loud whisper he said, “But suppose there was such a place! Suppose the people who lived there could make their island invisible to the outside world?”

France turned abruptly back. “Why?”

Emile bumped into him. “To live as they pleased. To keep their secret arts and technology to themselves. To avoid the outside world, its wars and its agonies.”

France didn't even waste profanity on Emile's theory. He stepped boldly into the hall. At the far end of the corridor, a smoky pine knot burned in a wall bracket. No sign of the jailer. He tried the cell next to his and found Leigh curled up inside on the cold stone floor, asleep. He kicked Leigh's feet then stepped back out of the way of the American's flailing limbs.

“Quiet,” said France. “We're going.”

Leigh sprang to his feet. “Where are the others?”

“We still have to let them out.”

They freed the others one by one, Leigh taking one side of the corridor, France the other. Emile hovered behind France, his hands tucked into his armpits. Whenever France glanced at him, Emile was grinning stupidly.

“What's the matter with you?”

“This is exciting.” Even without his black ensemble, he was still weird.

Soon, five of them were in the passage, hugging and whispering. Jenny, Linh, and Eleanor were not there.

“Where are they?” said Hans.

“They were taken away before I got here.”

France shoved the smaller boy against the wall. “Where are they?”

“I don't know! Outside the city—the Hill of Skulls, I guess.”

That didn't sound like a resort. Julie asked if that was where executions took place. Emile nodded.

“We've got to find them!” France declared.

Leigh said, “Which way out?”

He pointed to the torch-lit end of the hall. Julie and Leigh leading, they made for the flame.

Around the corner, they almost tripped over the jailer, sitting upright on a bench against the wall. Leigh cocked a fist and Julie tensed to pounce, but the bony jailer sat motionless, staring into space. Puzzled, Julie waved a hand before his eyes. He didn't even blink.

“What's he been smoking?” she muttered.

“He's interrupted,” whispered Emile. “Make haste! The effect does not last.”

At the end of the intersecting corridor, a set of stone steps led up. Julie and Leigh took the lead again. France lingered, studying the paralyzed jailer.

“I've seen this before,” he said. “At the farm. The night the soldiers tried to carry off the girls.”