The Imperium Game (16 page)

“SO CLOSE AND YET SO FAR AWAY,” the same female voice said. “DON’T THINK YOU CAN AVOID YOUR FATE THAT EASILY.”

The sound came again, more like a low growl this time. Amaelia blanched. “What fate?”

Something huge and dark stirred on the other side of the gate. She caught a glimpse of large, misshapen heads and long fangs. “Now, mistresssss, now?” it asked in a chorus of raspy voices, then whined.

“NOT YET, MY PET.” The shadowy outline of a huge figure stood by the monstrous shape, one hand resting on its back.

Her heart thudding, Amaelia peered into the dimness just beyond. Three pairs of glowing red eyes stared back at her, set in three heads, all connected to the same body. Three gaping mouths licked their toothy chops.

“When, mistresssss?”

“WHEN I SAY, AND NOT BEFORE.”

There was something familiar about that oversized voice, Amaelia thought as her eyes adjusted to the gloom. She had heard it before, and fairly recently.

“COME INTO MY KINGDOM, CHILD, AND LET ME HAVE A LAST LOOK AT YOU,” the figure said. “POOR CERBERUS HERE HAS NOT HAD A GOOD MEAL IN DAYS, BUT HE CAN WAIT A FEW MORE MINUTES.”

Then Amaelia recognized the voice. “Demea!”

“NOT IN THE FLESH, SO TO SPEAK, BUT CORRECT.” The figure moved closer, and Amaelia saw how her stepmother’s eyes glittered, dark and dangerous. A shimmering sea of black hair billowed around her head as though it now had a life of its own. “SHALL WE PLAY AWHILE BEFORE YOU DIE?”

* * *

When the line of men carrying crates began to descend a winding staircase, Kerickson finally understood what Minerva had been trying to tell him: the Spear and Chicken contained an illicit entrance into the Underworld.

But what possible good could that do? No one
wanted
to go to the Underworld. He could understand someone wanting out of Hades before his or her time had been completed, but this line was headed down. His merchant companion had fallen silent when Kerickson tried to question him about this setup. “You’ll find out,” he had said morosely, then ignored him.

Kerickson couldn’t imagine how any of this could be going on in the Game without him being aware of it. How many years had he worked in the Interface now—six? And never once had he had the slightest hint of another entrance into the Underworld.

The steps wound down and down. He followed the backs in front of him until they reached the bottom and emerged into a large storeroom. Each person stacked his or her crate with the others against the farthest wall, then stood around and stared vacantly into space. Kerickson deposited his crate with the rest and drifted along the wall, looking for a way out. Amaelia was supposed to be down here somewhere. If he could slip out, he might find her.

“You!” a voice rang out. “You there! Just what in the name of Hades do you think you’re trying to do?”

“He’s new, sir.” The merchant bolted from the crowd to seize Kerickson’s arm and jerk him back into line. “He doesn’t know, that’s all.”

Publius Barbus shoved between several taller men, then stood before Kerickson, tapping the blue-gray tube of a neuronic buzzer against his thigh. “Going somewhere?”

Kerickson just stared back, amazed at the sight of an illegal outside weapon here in the Game.

“Let me see your bracelet.”

When Kerickson didn’t move, the merchant grabbed his arm and held it out to Barbus.

“Very interesting. I didn’t know that hit points came in halves.” Barbus stuffed the buzzer under his arm, then stripped the bracelet from Kerickson’s wrist. “This isn’t one of ours.” He looked around. “Who’s responsible for this? This should have been replaced as soon as he hit Hades. Just how long have you been dead, anyway?”

“Not—long.”

“We run a tight operation down here.” Barbus stuffed the bracelet inside his tunic. “Disobey once and you’ll be very sorry. Do it twice and you’ll be dead, in every sense of the word. Do I make myself clear?”

Kerickson nodded.

“I—I—” a voice broke in from down the line of men.

“What?” Barbus grasped the buzzer tightly.

“I know him!” An old man in a ragged tunic shuffled forward. “He was the one!”

Barbus cocked his head back, staring impatiently. “The one who what?”

“The one who came around asking all those questions about the Emperor.” The slave glared at Kerickson. “The one who killed me!”

“Killed you?” Barbus’s lips pulled back over his teeth in a savage smile. “You mean you killed each other?”

“No, sir!” He shook his head. “Just yesterday he was as alive as you are and asking about what didn’t concern him!”

“Well, then.” Barbus thrust the end of the neuronic buzzer into the soft hollow under Kerickson’s chin and pushed his head up. “Maybe we should give him some answers.”

“JEEZ!”
Kerickson jerked
his neck back from the deadly chill of the neuronic buzzer. “What is the big deal about a few stupid questions?” Glaring resentfully at Publius Barbus, he rubbed his throat. “I mean, how’s a guy supposed to ever make Emperor if he can’t ask a question or two?”

His fat-nested eyes glittering like brown marbles, Barbus’s pudgy fingers caressed the buzzer tube. “You’d better wise up, moron. You ain’t in the damn Game no more.”

“Oh.” Kerickson dropped his gaze and studied the cracks running across the stark concrete floor.

“But he was asking questions!” The old Bath slave’s tattered tunic flapped as he danced around Barbus like an angry terrier. “You said—”

“Shut up!” Barbus thumbed the neuronic buzzer on and swiped at the weathered old face. Tithones jumped away from the tip’s lethal green glow, his mouth hanging open and his eyes bright with fear.

Barbus gave him one last sullen glare, then turned back to Kerickson. “You’ll be getting one of our bracelets, and you’d better wear it.” He thumbed the buzzer back to “off.” The lurid greenness died away.

A sigh ran through the assembled work party, and they shuffled closer together. Barbus motioned to a muscle-bound tree of a man wearing the armor and tunic of a Legionary. “That’s a wrap for tonight, Marcus. What with the Saturnalia and all, there’s too many out and about up on the playing field. Give these idiots their fix and put them away. We’ll have to finish tomorrow night.”

“All right, you Briton turds!” The Legionary threw his chest out and swaggered through the crowd of drooping men and women. “Fall in and keep your yaps shut.”

With a little halfhearted shoving, the players formed a ragged line across the storeroom. Kerickson ducked behind the broad shoulders of a gladiator as the line trickled through a narrow door into a maintenance corridor lit only by sporadic naked bulbs.

Two men ahead, Tithones, the old slave. glared back at him. “Think you’re hot stuff, don’t you?”

“Look, I didn’t mean to kill you!” Kerickson kept his voice down. A fat drop of sweat rolled down his back. “And besides, if I remember correctly, you attacked me, not the other way around.”

“You was asking questions—about
him,
about how he
died!”
Tithones darted back along the line until his bald head bobbed just under Kerickson’s chin. “You don’t fool me for a minute—”

“Shut up back there!” the Legionary shouted.

“Barbus doesn’t understand what you was up to, but I’ll get through to him.” Tithones thrust his gnarled finger at Kerickson’s nose. “You just wait. I’ll—”

The Legionary’s fist crashed into the slave’s head. “I said shut up, you old fart!”

Tithones fell to the concrete like a stunned ox.

Kerickson pushed on through the door as the other workers slowed down and turned around to get a better look at the commotion. Several more doors loomed up ahead, the first one open, leaking a pale yellow light into the corridor’s gloom, the second closed. He glanced back; everyone had crowded around the angry Legionary and the old man. Barbus was nowhere to be seen.

His heart thudding, he decided to try the second door. All dome locks were keyed to the high-ranking staff; hopefully no one had yet thought to cancel his clearance down here. He placed his palm on the rectangular hand plate and held his breath. After a second it swung silently inward, and he stepped through into warm, humid air, thick with the sweet scent of hyacinths and lilies. A dark gray, starless sky arched overhead, neither night nor day, but a moody approximation of both. Faint strains of solemn music rambled somewhere in the background, almost subliminal.

He shut the door and slipped into the wall of dark green foliage. The fat leaves rustled closed behind him, and his heart rate eased off. The Underworld covered as much space as the entire playing field above. Once he lost himself down here, he would be safe from Barbus’s collection of thugs.

Cascades of plants stretched out all around him—philodendron, pink-blossomed oleander, tall white plumeria trees, a rainbow of orchids. He must be in one of the Underworld’s gardens, but which one? There were dozens. He sighed and worked his way through the trailing jumble of vines and palm trees and towering live oaks. A dark brown nighthawk burst from a thicket on his left, beating its wings in his face, crying “Peent! Peent!”

Ducking away from it, he broke out onto a cobblestone path before a dark marble fountain. Inviting water sprayed from the mouth of a marble nymph into a circular pool. He suddenly realized how hot and thirsty he was.

Somewhere in the huge, wild garden a nightingale sang, sad and sweet, as he leaned over the pool. The reflection of a bruised and exhausted stranger stared back, one with no job or home, perhaps no future except prison.

He dipped his cupped hands into the clear, cool water and wet his face. Maybe he could stretch out and sleep for a few minutes. He was so tired, he couldn’t think.

“ABOUT TIME SOMEONE SHOWED UP,” a deeply male, resonant voice said.

“What?” His head jerked around, peering into the overgrown thickets of oleander and ivy.

“I WANT OUT OF THIS DISMALLY BORING RECEPTACLE FOR DEAD MORTALS.” Blueness shimmered above the marble nymph’s head, then resolved itself into a man, half again as big
as a human, with dripping seaweed hair and mournful
gray-green eyes. He perched on the statue’s back. “I WANT TO RETURN TO THE WORLD OF PLAYERS, AS IS MY RIGHT. BUT I SUPPOSE, LIKE ALL MORTALS, YOU’RE WORTHLESS AND CAN’T DO ANYTHING TO HELP.”

“Neptune?” Kerickson said. “But you’re not supposed to manifest down here.”

“TELL ME ABOUT IT.” The god brushed a limp lock of wet green hair out of his face.

Kerickson sat down on the edge of the fountain, pulled off one of his sandals, and plunged his foot into the cool water.

“AREN’T YOU AT LEAST GOING TO WORSHIP ME?” The god rolled his eyes. “YOU KNOW—NEPTUNE, FATHER OF WATERS, CALLER OF STORMS, SHAKER OF SHORES, HEAR MY PRAYER—THAT SORT OF THING.”

“It wouldn’t do me much good, would it?” Kerickson removed the other sandal, then sank his foot into the soothing water. “You don’t have any power in Hades.”

“I NEVER FORGET A FAVOR, YOU KNOW.” Neptune slid down the nymph statue’s back and stood with his great scaly legs ankle-deep in the water.

Kerickson’s weary mind struggled to make sense of it—how had Neptune been exiled down here, and why? He wasn’t a major player in scenarios above; his power was limited to water, and there just wasn’t that much of it in the Game beyond the fountains and an abbreviated version of the Tiber River. Still—he wriggled his aching toes in the water—Neptune was a god program, and as such, tied into the main Game computer. “Just how much do you know about what goes on down here?’

Neptune sniffed. “ENOUGH.”

“Could you locate someone for me?”

“NO DOUBT, ALTHOUGH WHY YOU WOULD BE INTERESTED IN ANYTHING THAT GOES ON IN A GLOOMY PLACE LIKE THIS IS BEYOND ME.”

“Then tell me where Amaelia is.”

“AMAELIA, DAUGHTER OF MICIO JULIUS METULLUS, FORMER VESTAL VIRGIN, RECENT BRIDE OF QUINTUS GRACCHUS?”

“Yes!” Kerickson leaped to his feet, sending water flying.

“FOR A MORTAL, THAT GIRL CERTAINLY GETS AROUND.” With a flip of his massive hand, Neptune conjured up a huge trident, then used it to scratch the back of his green neck. “SHE SEEMS TO HAVE INCURRED THE WRATH OF PROSERPINA, QUEEN OF HADES. THEY’RE TAKING HER TO PLUTO’S PALACE.”

“Proserpina?” Kerickson tried to think back. Could that be what Minerva had meant when she’d said that Amaelia had fallen into the power of one who hated her? He and Wilson had worked on a program for Pluto’s consort, but never had gotten it quite right, and anyway, Proserpina would have no reason to hate Amaelia. “It can’t be Proserpina. We never installed her.”

“WELL, SHE’S ON-LINE NOW.” Neptune shook his head. “AND I WOULDN’T WANT TO BE IN YOUR AMAELIA’S SLIPPERS RIGHT NOW, BECAUSE, BOY, IS THE QUEEN OF HADES EVER IN A LATHER.”

* * *

“SUCH A PRETTY CHILD.” From her vantage point high above, Demea watched her black-armored minions escort Amaelia across the deserted stretch of Points Square toward the gleaming black palace.

“SHE CANNOT COMPARE WITH YOUR BEAUTY, MY LOVE.” Pluto drew nearer, teasing her with his electric touch. “SHE IS NO MORE THAN A FADING FLOWER, DYING EVEN AS SHE BLOOMS. WHEN SHE HAS PASSED INTO DUST, YOU AND I WILL STILL BE HERE, MONARCHS OF THIS WORLD AND ALL WHO ENTER.”

“SHE TRIED TO BE EMPRESS IN MY PLACE!”

“AND FAILED.” Pluto’s arms drew her against his broad chest, pulled her face up to his, and crushed her lips in a searing kiss that transcended everything she had known in her other life. “DEAL WITH HER AS YOU WISH LATER,” his torrid breath murmured into her neck. “DEAL WITH ME NOW.”

She buried her fingers in his thick black hair, then met his lips, losing herself in his fire. There would be plenty of time for her stepdaughter later. Let the little wretch cool her heels in Pluto’s dungeons for a while and think that was the worst of it. Then that would make what was to come all the more horrifying.

* * *

The iron door clanged behind her. Amaelia stared at it, seeing her stepmother’s angry face again in her mind. It was still hard to believe—Demea was down here in Hades, and apparently with privileges, too. She’d never heard of such a thing, but then she’d never heard there were dungeons in the Underworld, either. Yet, here she was, so there was no denying their existence. The cramped cell with its dank stone walls was exceedingly authentic, except for the faint glow emanated by the stone ceiling.

Well, all of this was very strange. How had Demea wound up in Hades? She had disappeared rather mysteriously several days ago, but there had been no official notice of her death. Perhaps this was just part of some bizarre Game scenario. Maybe Demea was supposed to threaten her and then some hero would come down here and rescue her. They played out scenarios like that all the time above. Maybe some would-be Hercules or Marcus Anthony was crashing through all sorts of obstacles right this very moment.

She stared at the pile of moldy hay in one corner and a nasty-looking slops bucket in the other. Somehow, this seemed more realistic than any Game scenario she’d ever participated in, even that disastrous Vestal Virgin affair. And one thing she’d learned from living at the Temple of Vesta: it rarely did a girl any good to wait around for other people to help her out. If she wanted something done and done right, she had better see to it herself.

She sighed, weighing her weariness against her desire to get out of this depressing place. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had slept—had it been back at the Palace, in Quintus Gracchus’s bed? Well! She squared her shoulders; she wasn’t going to think about
that.
Even a dungeon was better than the attentions of that—armored ape! Not that he’d ever showed the slightest interest in her in that way.

At any rate, if she put her mind to it, she ought to be able to get out of this cell. The priests of Vesta had locked her behind ordinary key locks, too, but she’d learned to pick them with a straightened wire from her hair clasp.

She prowled around the tiny cell, looking for something similar to use. The crusted-over bucket caught her eye again. Examining it more closely, she saw that it had a metal handle. Perhaps, if she could detach it, the end would be small enough to pick the lock on her cell door. Wrinkling up her nose at the thought of touching the filthy thing, she began to work it loose.

* * *

Kerickson woke with a start. The dim sky arching overhead looked no different than it had when he’d closed his eyes—how long ago? It could have been ten minutes or ten hours or ten days.

“FOOL, THY NAME IS MORTAL,” Neptune intoned morosely from his perch atop the nymph statue in the middle of the fountain.

Sitting up, Kerickson brushed white night-jasmine petals off his tunic and looked worriedly around. “What time is it?”

“OR IS IT, ‘MORTAL, THY NAME IS FOOL’?” Neptune wrung the water out of his weedy-looking beard. “I CAN NEVER GET THAT STRAIGHT.”

“How long was I asleep?” He scrambled to his feet, then grimaced at the protest from his hollow stomach.

“TIME, HOW FLEETING—”

“Put a lid on that stuff, or I’ll erase your entire memory bank next time I get into the Interface!” Kerickson ran spread fingers back through his hair. He felt like he’d been through a meat grinder. “Now, what about Amaelia? Is she still in Pluto’s palace?”

Neptune sighed. “YES.”

“Good.” At least, he thought it was good. If she stayed there, he should be able to find her. He stared down at his wavering reflection in the fountain’s oval pool. “I could eat a chariot—wheels, horse, and all. Are we close to a food dispensary?”

“WELL . . .” Neptune pointed at a slender tree with his trident. “I HAVE HEARD THE POMEGRANATES ARE QUITE NICE DOWN HERE.”

“Yeah, right.” Kerickson stared up at the little gold-red fruits hanging at least five feet above his head, then went over and shook the tree. Several thumped down onto the grass and he picked one up. “I don’t suppose,” he said, tearing at the thick skin with his fingernails, “that you know why Publius Barbus has a secret entrance into the Underworld?”