“During the last outbreak of the Bermuda Triangle gate,” said Ariana. She quickly related what Dane had seen happen to Sin Fen on top of the sunken pyramid. When she was done, Van Liten turned to the skull on the table. She reached out with her wrinkled hands and ran her fingers lightly over the cheeks. “So this was indeed a person. A priestess. Who died to stop the Shadow.”
“It appears so,” Ariana confirmed.
“Amazing,” was Van Liten’s summary.
“You said there was a spear with the figure of a seven headed snake on the end,” Fleidman said. “How come none of those have turned up?”
“I don’t know,” Ariana said.
“And the master skull — if there is one—” Van Liten said, “What about that?”
“Maybe,” Ariana said, “that’s still in someone’s head and hasn’t been transformed yet. I do think, though, that we need to start gathering up the pure ancient skulls. Just in case.”
“You can have mine,” Van Liten immediately offered.
CHAPTER NINE
The blast of war trumpets echoed down the stone tunnel to the ears of the waiting gladiators, indicating that the next contest was about to begin. Falco lay on a bench, the fancy armor he’d worn during the pompa, or procession into the arena, to one side, his battered fighting gear on the other. A slave carefully oiled his body, paying particular attention to the numerous scars, kneading them to loosen the knotted muscle beneath the skin. It was the last day of the games. He was underneath the arena floor, the place dimly lit by smoky torches. The bellow of animals deliberately starved so they would perform — if eating poorly armed or even unarmed people were performing — adding to the din of the crowd above. The entire place stank of fear and death.
Tomorrow. It was all he could think of. He would travel to Pompeii. And he would see Phaedra and Fabron. His son would almost be a man now and his daughter approaching womanhood. He had last seen them when they were barely able to walk.
Falco heard the shuffling of feet and turned his head slightly to watch those going by, heading for the arena: a quartet of criminals, their eyes dull from the drugged wine they’d been given. He could tell from the inexperienced way they held their swords that none of them had any combat training. Execution in the form of entertainment. They had been condemned to the sword by the state court and sold to the Ianista under the provision that they enter the arena within one hundred days.
Falco lay his head back down on the scented pillow and relaxed his muscles, allowing the slave to do his job. Falco had never known his parents or even his country of origin. He’d been a slave from birth, his large size, apparent even as a baby, saving him from being exposed, placed on a hillside and allowed to die. His earliest memories were of working in the fields in Sicily at four. At seven, he was sold to the lanista of the emperor’s gladiatorial school outside Rome. The first three years were spent doing menial work around the stables. Then he was chosen to train for the arena. Every day of the year. From before dawn until after dusk. When the issue at stake was one’s own life, such training was taken seriously. His muscles grew as he matured, but more importantly, because attuned to instinctual moves with the various weapons he handled until they were an extension of his body.
He’d been pressed into the army during the civil war of ’69 and spent eight years serving in the X Legion, most of that time under the command of General Lucius Cassius. It was in Palestine that he had come to the general’s notice. He had been part of a cohort chosen to accompany the general on an inspection tour of the relay forts that allowed messengers to move speedily about the territory, exchanging horses at each small post.
Encamped at a post near the Sea of Galilee, the centurion in command had failed to properly encamp, feeling that the small enclosure of the pose was sufficient for the general and himself, deploying his troops around the wall. It was standard procedure for any element of a legion to erect a barricade around any camp and for sufficient sentries to be posted. But the Jewish rebels had been smashed, only a few hands left, and the campaign was winding down.
Falco had noted the lack of preparations, but he was only a soldier, so he’d pulled his cloak over his body and immediately fallen asleep, always amazed how cold it could get at night after the boiling temperatures of the desert day.
He’d awakened to the screams of men dying. Grabbing his sword, he leapt into the fray, not even knowing who he was fighting, simply swinging at anyone he didn’t recognize as a legionnaire. All was chaos, the camp thoroughly infiltrated, many men having been slain in their sleep.
In the starlight, Falco made out a group of men, Jewish rebels, no doubt, in a tight formation, cutting their way toward the small post. And on the low wall, General Cassius sword in hand, yelling orders, trying to rally the soldiers.
Falco made his way toward Cassius, where five rebels were also headed. He reached them just before they got to the general. He killed two before they even knew he was upon them. Two others came at him, the one in the center continuing toward the general.
Trained for the arena, Falco’s skill and speed were no match for the rebels. He feinted at the one on the right, and when that man jumped back from the blade, he slashed left, severing the other man’s sword arm from his body, blood spurting from the stump as the man screamed and went to his knees, staring in disbelief at his arm lying on the ground. Falco went at the other man with a flurry of jabs and slashes, penetrating his defenses on the fifth strike, the edge of his gladius splitting the man’s head like an overripe melon.
Then he turned to the general, whose withered sword arm forced him to fight with his left hand. He was doing a credible job, off the wall now, giving ground slowly to his attacker, until he tripped over a rock and fell on his back. Cassius blocked the first blow aimed at his face. There was no second blow. Falco took the rebel leader from behind without warning, severing his head from his body in one vicious swipe of his blade.
Falco reached down and picked up the head, eyes still blinking as the blood drained out of it. Falco held it over his head, screaming loudly. The other attacking rebels, seeing their dead leader, scattered, disappearing into the dark.
Cassius slowly got to his feet and called for the centurion. When the officer arrived, Cassius had him remove his armor and strip naked. Then the general banished him to the desert on the spot for failing to camp properly. Falco knew that was a death sentence for the centurion. Either the desert would get him or the rebels; either death would be slow and cruel. Then Cassius turned to Falco and offered him a commission as the cohort’s centurion.
“On one condition, General,” Falco replied.
“A condition?” Cassius slapped dust from his cloak. “I would say you were impertinent and not very grateful if it were not for the fact that you saved my life. What condition?”
“You buy my wife and children when we return to Rome and free them, General.”
Cassius had stuck out his hand. “My word as a Roman, Centurion.”
But it was not to be. While he was away, his wife Drusilla died of the plague, hurriedly buried in a mass grave. And Epione had swooped in, buying the children, sending him a copy of the bill of sale and a promise to take care of them if he returned to the arena. If he did not… the threat was obvious.
Offered a discharged from the army when the campaign was over, he did as she demanded and went back to the arena, the only life he knew, to ply the only skill he knew.