“We have received no messenger from Pompeii yet,” Titus said.
“You will receive none, Emperor,” the woman said. “The city is destroyed. Everyone is dead.”
“How do you know?” Titus demanded.
“I could feel them die,” the woman said, which made Falco blink several times to try to get a better view of her.
“And you say this is caused by a Shadow outside the borders of the empire?” Titus asked.
“Yes, Emperor,” she replied. “And it will get worse. This was only the beginning.”
And you, Falco?” the emperor asked. “What did you feel?”
“My children die,” Falco said. He did not address the emperor properly and could care less.
The emperor looked past him. “Epione. Were his children in Pompeii?”
Epione stepped forward, for once looking small. “Yes, Emperor. At my brother’s estate, Porta Vintus, on the slopes of the mountain itself.”
The emperor waved a hand. “Everyone out except these three.”
There was the shuffling of feet on tile, then the large doors swung shut. Titus sat down and placed his elbow on his knee, his chin on his fist as he regarded Kaia.
“How can this Shadow do this?”
“I do not know.”
Titus frowned. “What can I do about it?”
“You can aid me. I will travel to the Shadow.”
“You can defeat it?” Titus asked.
“Yes. It is my destiny.”
Falco heard her confident words, but he could sense the uncertainty inside her.
“How?” Titus asked.
“That is not clear yet. The gods will show me when it is time.”
“The gods.” Titus tapped his staff on the arm of this throne for several moments. “What do you need from me?”
She turned and pointed at Falco. “Him. And soldiers to help me on my journey to the Shadow.”
Titus stood once more. He looked down at the woman. “Let me discuss with my advisor.”
They were escorted out of the room.
“Who are you?” Falco asked the woman once they were in the antechamber.
“My name is Kaia.”
“You helped me in the arena.”
“I helped you help yourself,” she said. “You have the same power I do.”
“And what is that power?” Falco asked.
“To see into the hearts and minds of others. And to hear the voices of the gods.”
“There are no gods.”
“Not as worshipped here in Rome, there aren’t,” she agreed. “But you have heard their voices, haven’t you?”
“If there are gods,” Falco argued, instead of answering, “why do we suffer so?”
Kaia didn’t respond right away. When she did, her voice was very low, so that only he could hear. “You wish to die. We all will die, gladiator. Your time is not now. To die like an animal led to slaughter in the arena is no fitting death of a soldier.”
“Death is death,” Falco said. “You cheated me of mine.
“Then I owe you your death,” Kaia said. “Trust me, I will repay you.”
Titus grabbed a goblet and downed the wine in one long swallow. Then he faced Thyestes as his senior advisor came in.
“An imperial galley landed at Ostia, and a messenger just arrived from there,” Thyestes said. “They report seeing smoke and flame on Vesuvius.”
“So it’s true?”
“I would say so, Emperor.”
“Recommendations on how to deal with this problem?”
“Every problem is an opportunity if looked at correctly,” Thyestes said.
“Speak clearly,” Titus snapped, tired of the Greek’s way with words.
“She wants Falco. Let her have him. This will placate Domidicus. She wants troops. Give her the XXV Legion.”
Titus smiled. The XXV was a legion formed by the rebel Vitellius, who had briefly held the emperorship before Vespasian established the Flavian line. Vespasian had sent the legion to the Regnum Dacae, at the very northeast part of the empire, to face the barbarians out of Asia and to keep it as far away from Rome as possible. Despite Vitellius’s assassination, the XXV Legion was a potential source of trouble.
“And,” Thyestes continued, “give command of the legion to one of your best officers: Lucius Cassius.”
“Very good,” Titus acknowledged. Killing three birds with one stone: the XXV, Cassius, and Falco. “Order them to come in.”
He took another drink of wine as Falco, Cassius, and Kaia were brought in and lined up in front of his throne.
“General Lucius Cassius, your emperor has need of your services.”
Cassius nodded. “Whatever my emperor commands is my duty.”
Titus shifted his gaze to Falco. “Gladiator, you are ordered returned to the army at your former rank of Centurion. You will accompany General Cassius.”
There was no response from Falco, but Titus didn’t care as he turned back to Cassius.
“General, you are hereby directed to use imperial transport to travel to Regnum Dacae and take command of the XXV Legion. You will lead the legion northeast, into Regnum Bospous in search of this Shadow. You will then destroy the Shadow.”
“And then, Emperor?” Cassius asked.
“You are to depart immediately via imperial dispatch to Brundisium. I will give you orders to be opened once you complete your journey.”
CHAPTER TEN
“This is Colonel Felix Shashenka, of the Russian Army,” Foreman introduced one of the men waiting for them outside the elevator entrance. “And Colonel Loomis from our Special Operations Command.”
Dane shook each man’s hand as the elevator’s doors slid open, revealing a short Japanese man and a taller woman. “Professor Nagoya and his senior assistant, Professor Ahana,” Foreman continued the introductions.
When that was done, they got on the elevator and began descending. Chelsea pressed herself against Dane’s leg, nervous about the strange feeling of going into the Earth. Dane had worked search and rescue with Chelsea before being recruited by Paul Michelet to rescue his daughter, Ariana, from the Angkor gate in Cambodia, and neither liked being underground.
“Any updates on the Devil’s Sea gate?” Foreman asked.
“Both probes are still on-line, and we are still receiving and analyzing data,” Nagoya said.
“How will these probes allow us access into the gate?” Dane asked the question that Foreman had been unable to answer.
‘Well, it is only a theory,” Nagoya said, “but we —”
Dane cut him off. “We’re going to be living this theory, Professor. How good a theory is it?”
It was Ahana who answered. “I will be living it also, as I will be accompanying you on this reconnaissance. The theory is as good as we can make it with the information we have. Somewhere inside those gates is the true gate, the access point to the other side, which we are calling the portal.”
“The black hole that Flaherty came through,” Dane said. The elevator was still going down, rock walls sliding by. “That was a portal.”
“As was the black hole you went through, traveling from Cambodia to the Scorpion,” Ahana said. “That along with Foreman’s high-frequency experiments years ago, indicated the gates are connected in some way. The connection between the Chernobyl and Devil’s Sea’s probes again proves that; we’ve been able to gather considerable data.”