Casca lost all sense of reason and became a human whirlwind. The audience gasped in shock. They had never seen the likes of these two mad men leaping and whirling around each other as if in some insanedanse macabre. Jubala was better than Casca would have believed. The Numidian took everything he could throw at him and came back for more. Casca knew that if he received a bad enough wound he would appear dead. The danger of being found out was greater for him than the fear of death was for Jubala. But Casca took another deeper cut along the outside of his thigh and went to his knee. The pain flashed… and settled into a throb. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shiu in the stands, hands folded, a calm expression on his face. He was watching Casca intently as if trying to send him a message.
The teachings of Shiu Lao Tze came back to Casca.
Calmness returned. He rose from his knees and, using his shield like a hammer, beat Jubala back until he had some breathing room. The sweat from his helmet was almost blinding him. To the stunned surprise of the spectators, Casca took his helmet off, showing his face to the crowd. He threw the helmet at Jubala. It hit, bounced, and rang off the black's shield.
Then he threw his shield at the Numidian so hard it almost knocked Jubala to the sand. And finally he took his sword and presented it in a salute to the Roman audience. "For you!" he cried. "For you I dedicate this kill with my hands." And he threw the sword into the stands. The crowd went insane. Several women climaxed in their excitement and tried to throw themselves to the arena below. Only the prompt attentions of the guards prevented them from achieving their purpose. Jubala grinned beneath his helmet, and Casca matched it with a grin of his own. The massive Circus Maximus was silent. Even the emperor was leaning over the railing in concentrated study. Never had anything like this happened in the history of the games.
Casca went into the deep horse stance, hands positioned in knife and hammer positions. Jubala laughed-and lunged. Casca wasn't there. As Jubala lunged, Casca whirled and gave the smashing reverse roundhouse kick with the heel of his right foot, striking Jubala between his shoulder blades and driving the wind out of him. A quick cry of surprise ran through the people in the stands. This was something new. Jubala whirled and tried to close, using his shield. Casca gave a forward snap kick that knocked the sword out of Jubala's grip and then grabbed the edge of the black's shield and, using it as a lever, grabbed the face guard of Jubala's crested helmet. Putting his right foot in the center of the Numidian's stomach, he rolled backward, throwing the black in an arc to land solidly on his back some ten feet behind him. Casca came up still holding the helmet. Jubala lay bleeding from his ears where the forcible breaking of the helmet's straps had almost torn his ears off.
As he tried to rise, Casca came up and gave a flying drop kick straight into his face, knocking him to the sand again. Jubala couldn't register what was going on. What had happened? Casca picked up the gladius Iberius and stood over Jubala. Grabbing the Numidian's right arm in a grip that locked the black's elbows immovable, Casca held him, giving a drawing motion that forced Jubala to his knees. The pointed teeth clenched in pain from the armlock. Casca said softly, "Open your mouth and say, 'ah.' " He kicked Jubala in the balls with enough force to completely smash the two testicles. Jubala opened his mouth to scream, and Casca placed the point of the sword in the gaping mouth, between the pointed teeth. "Die, you piece of shit, die!" He shoved, pushing the three-inch-wide blade out the back of the black's skull just above where the neck bones connected to the head. Jubala's eyes widened in terror. The blade stuck, and Casca began to twist it slowly back and forth in the bone to break it loose.
The last sound Jubala heard was the terrible squeaking sound of the bones in his head being torn apart. The bones themselves amplified the sound into a piercing crescendo that ran through his consciousness. With a superhuman effort he stood up in his death spasms and tore the grip from Casca's hand and stumbled wildly around the arena, trying to scream, the blade of the sword in his mouth and about ten inches of it sticking out the back of his head, the longer part of the sword waving up and down as if he were trying to signal for something. He fell to his knees. The darkness was coming. His gods were near, the terrible dark gods of the jungle.
Casca kicked him over onto his back and took the handle of the sword and twisted and jerked it out of Jubala's mouth. With a quick slice he removed Jubala's loin cloth. Another slice that merely burned in a distant manner for the dying brain, and Casca put something warm and wet in the Numidian's mouth. "You son of a slut, I promised myself that I'd do this some day."
Jubala died in the sand while the mob screamed their approval. "The sword! The sword!" they screamed over and over, crying for the emperor to honor their hero. Grudgingly Nero gave in. It was not wise to offend the public when they were this worked up… even if he had lost a lot of money on the black… Casca stood in front of the imperial box, the Praetorian Guard, gorgeous in their dress uniforms, flanking the emperor Nero. The emperor said: "Here is your freedom." He showed the wooden sword to the crowd first. They roared their approval. Nero graciously gave in and threw the piece of wood to the sand in front of Casca. "Take it. You are free."
Crespas sighed deeply. Well, well. He actually did it. So be it. I have made a nice profit on him, and nothing lasts forever. Piss on Nero, that Greek lover.
I'll keep this book of Cicero's for myself. Nero really wouldn't understand it.
Casca raised the sword to the crowd. Money was brought to him on a silver platter, and coins rained down on him from the excited audience. Several rich ladies offered their homes and wealth to him if he would give them one night to lie in his arms. Never had Rome seen such a fight. Never had the arena been graced with the likes of this godling, this son of Mars, the avenger.
Casca was free. Shiu smiled secretly to himself and left…
Casca was free, but the bitterness was still there in his mouth. We made it, Crysos. Wherever you are, we made it. You are free from your world, but I have not yet finished with mine…
TWENTY-TWO
That night Casca wandered the streets of Rome, the hero of all. He drank and ate as a king might. There was nothing denied him. He spilled his seed into the bellies of faceless women as if trying to find something that could not be, and he thought the blind thoughts of futile rage and pain. Nor did he stop with that night. He stumbled through the streets, sleeping where he stopped. Two days. Then three. The pain would not leave… and all around the smiling faces of the mob… even worse, the degenerate nobility, those of the equus, the knighthood. Supposedly the honor of Rome rested with them. The thought came into his befuddled mind just at the fatal instant when he was standing before a bust of Nero.
He looked at the slack-jawed head of the glory of Rome. The wine fumes were settled firmly in his brain, and good sense was not to be found. He had had enough. He spoke to the bust:
"You, a god? You fat slug, I'm more a god than you are. You and Rome can't do anything to me. I will outlast all of you with your palaces and money and fine clothes and simpering manners. You sick, pathetic imitations of men, at least I am a real man — and a better one than you and your kind will ever be. This for your godlike power, Caesar!" Reaching down, he picked a wet, slimy handful of the gutter that ran along the street. Staggering, he went to Nero's bust and rubbed the loathsome excreta onto the face of the emperor of Rome and was still rubbing when the vigiles knocked him out with their staffs and dragged him to the dungeons.
The scene had been watched.