As the others crowded around the box, he took the opportunity to flick through the book’s contents, squinting to see in the flickering light of Eric’s torch. It looked like Latin, but he couldn’t make head or tail of it. The letters were jumbled, though separated into what might have been words. A cipher maybe?
“Louis Le Prince,” Finch said, distracting Cade from his thoughts. “Anyone know who that is?”
Cade abandoned the book and approached the wooden box. Upon its top, embossed in gold letters, was the name that Finch had read aloud, though he had butchered the pronunciation.
“A French king maybe?” Eric suggested.
“Maybe,” Spex said. “There were eighteen kings called Louis.”
The group stared at him in surprise.
“I’m a trivia nerd, sue me,” Spex explained, looking suddenly as worried as Cade had been. “I watched a lot of Jeopardy! growing up, always wanted to be on it.”
“Any ideas?” Gobbler asked, turning to Cade.
Cade examined the box more closely. On one side were two lenses, one above another, in a seeming separate compartment, while on the opposite, a handled crank was embedded. As for the side that faced the mountain wall, there was a single lens embedded in the center. Stranger still, the wall in front of it seemed to have been flattened and whitewashed in a square the size of a bedsheet.
The box looked old, but not ancient. He would have guessed at its being an oversized old-timey camera. Certainly not something that any Romans would have been using. It didn’t make sense. But then, nothing did in this place.
“Doesn’t seem like a Roman name,” Eric ventured as Cade examined the box further.
For once, Cade didn’t mind being the group’s test subject, curiosity getting the better of him. There was a crank on the side of the box, as well as what appeared to be a switch.
Not much good had come from messing with the last piece of technology they had come across, but he needed to know what it did. He flicked the switch. Immediately, a light came on somewhere inside the box. On the wall opposite, a square of light appeared.
“Dude, what are you doing?” Jim hissed.
But Cade knew what it was now. Carefully, he began to turn the crank. An image appeared on the wall, flickering in black and white.
“Madness!” Yoshi exclaimed.
The sight was beyond anything Cade could have imagined. There couldn’t have been more than sixty-odd frames to the blurry black-and-white film, and they sped up and slowed in tandem with Cade’s turning of the crank. It repeated over and over, cycling the short clip until the outline was seared into Cade’s retinas. It was a battle scene.
There were Roman soldiers in the foreground, their shields aligned in a rough wall, while a centurion on horseback held his sword aloft, the crescent of horsehair on his helmet delineating his rank. A standard-bearer encroached on the image’s right side, a long-fanged lion’s pelt and head resting on his helmet.
But it was not these soldiers that drew Cade’s eye. No, it was the creatures that were charging toward them in the background, smashing into the front ranks with unparalleled ferocity. Tentacled monsters, ripped straight from H. P. Lovecraft’s nightmares.
One was as large as a horse on its hind legs, a bipedal behemoth that threw men aside like pinballs, its clawed arms slashing, its tentacled maw open and lined with razor teeth. Others were the size of wolves, much the same as the giant but running on four legs. Still-smaller iterations seemed to lack any arms at all, running on two legs and as large as turkeys, swarming over the men as they stabbed and slashed with their short-swords.
And far in the back, too blurry to see in much detail, were veritable giants, lumbering toward the Roman lines. Larger than elephants. Much larger.
“What the…,” Cade whispered.
But there it was. The scene lasted no more than six seconds, and it was scratched and unfocused. Yet this looked as real as anything he had ever seen in a cinema. More so, even.
Most damning of all, Cade recognized the twin cliffs on either side and the desert beyond them. This had been filmed just outside the walls.
“What are those things?” Cade whispered.
They were like nothing he’d ever seen. Best guess, tentacled sea monsters pulled from ancient Roman myths. What else could they be?
“If they can fake everything else, they can fake this,” Finch said, clenching Cade’s arm and freezing the film.
“You call this fake?” Yoshi asked, motioning around them. “Feels pretty real to me.”
Finch flicked the switch, and the room was cast in darkness once more.
“It might be fake,” Cade said, half to himself. “But do you think they went to all that trouble just for a few seconds of film?”
“Why go to the trouble to make any of this?” Finch snapped, motioning at the fort around them. “None of this is real. None of it.”
Cade sighed and gently pulled his arm from Finch’s grip. He hated to admit it, but the kid had a point.
“It looks like it’s not just vipers we have to worry about,” Eric said. “Whatever those things are.”
“Never thought I’d say this, but I miss the vipers,” Scott said. “At least we had a chance against those.”
“Who cares?” Gobbler groaned. “I’m starving, and there’s no food.”
Cade’s own stomach twisted at the mention of food. He was ravenous, and the copious amount of water he had drunk was no longer sating the feeling of emptiness in his belly.
But even as he considered it, the gloom seemed to deepen around them, lit only by the dying torch in Eric’s hand. Looking through the ragged curtains, Cade could see the sun had set.
“Let’s get some rest,” Eric said. “Unless you want to go wandering in the dark alone.”
CHAPTER
13
Cade woke to Yoshi gently shaking him. The snores from Spex and Scott permeated the room, but he could see the morning light filtering through the window.
“Come on,” Yoshi whispered, motioning for him to follow.
They were in what Cade had come to think of as the Commander’s Room, where the box and book had been found. Finch, Jim, Gobbler, and a reluctant Eric had gone to sleep in the bed chamber opposite, since the two rooms were the only ones with doors on them—giving them a semblance of security in case of any vipers.
Cade had thought it would be hard to rest, knowing what he did now about the creatures that inhabited this world. Yet as soon as his head had hit the straw-filled pillow, he had fallen asleep. That had been small comfort though, for his dreams had been filled with flashes of teeth, tentacles, and blood. He had woken several times, only to see the ominous light of the timer, glowing beneath the door frame.
He groaned and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and saw the tables and chairs they had piled up against the door had been moved. Beckoning with a finger to his lips, Yoshi led him through, back to the stone table. The drone—for that was what Cade had begun to call it in his head—still hung in the air, its countdown ticking away.
05:08:56:27
05:08:56:26
05:08:56:25
Yoshi pulled him closer, and they sat together, one on each stone chair. For a moment Yoshi stared at him, his dark eyes boring into Cade’s own. Finally, he spoke.
“I heard you almost went to juvie,” he said. “What happened?”
Cade shook his head. “I didn’t do anything,” he said. “They made a mistake.”
Yoshi nodded slowly, his gaze never leaving Cade’s face. It was quite disconcerting.
“I could ask you the same thing,” Cade said.
Yoshi finally broke his stare. Cade could hardly read his expression. Was that regret? Or pride?
“I got done for fraud,” Yoshi said. “So my mom shipped me off.”
“Fraud?” Cade asked, surprised. That wasn’t the most common crime for kids.
“Yeah. My mother sells antiques from Japan; it’s how our family make a living. Mostly to rich American Japano
philes. So, I … took on the family business, so to speak.”
Cade furrowed his brows in confusion.
“Basically, I started selling fake antique swords to neckbearded anime obsessives,” Yoshi said, catching Cade’s expression. “Knew enough to get by. Then I got caught. Simple as that.”
“Was it worth it?” Cade asked.
Yoshi looked down, twisting his hands.
“Nah,” he said. “My mom can’t even look at me now.”
Cade nodded. He knew what that felt like.
“I think you’re telling the truth,” Yoshi said, looking back up at him.
Cade nodded, feeling pathetically grateful. He realized it was the first time someone had directly told him they thought he was innocent. Even his parents had never said it out loud.
Yoshi outstretched his fist and opened his palm. Cade saw he was holding three coins.
“You understand these, don’t you?” Yoshi asked, pouring them into Cade’s hand. “I found them in the baths.”
Cade examined them one by one, his heart pounding. Each coin was in far better condition than he could have expected. Better than anything he had ever found metal detecting with his father while vacationing in Europe. But what they had stamped on them was stranger still.
“What’s wrong?” Yoshi asked.
“See here, this one,” Cade said, holding up a bronze-colored coin. “It’s a copper sestertius with Emperor Hadrian’s head on it, which puts it right around the time the Ninth Legion was in Scotland. But look at this.”
He held up another one, a heavier, silver coin.
“A silver sestertius. It’s too old; they stopped making them from silver long before the Ninth Legion disappeared. It’s from the old Roman republic, before there were even emperors at all. And even if some legionary was holding on to an old coin for good luck, this one’s the strangest.”
Cade proffered the third coin.
“Emperor Constantine from the fourth century. Almost two hundred years after the Ninth Legion.”
Yoshi frowned.
“What does this mean?” he asked.
“It means that if there were Romans here, they were from at least three different time periods, maybe more. Which doesn’t make any sense.”
But Cade wasn’t so sure anymore. If they had been transported to another planet, would time travel be so out of the question? He didn’t want to believe it. That this was all part of some cruel trick, or a vivid nightmare he could not wake up from. Perhaps this was what all dreams felt like, until you woke up from them.
Yoshi shrugged.
“Nothing here makes sense,” he replied. “And I don’t really get what you’re talking about. But Finch and his cronies are dangerous … let’s keep this a secret.”
He motioned at Finch’s door with his chin.
Cade nodded and slipped the coins into Yoshi’s pocket.
The revelations, such as they were, came with new worries for Cade. It seemed now a mad coincidence that he, someone who knew about Roman coins, was now here among … well … Roman coins.
This wasn’t a random selection. He, and perhaps even the others, were here for a purpose. Though what purpose that was became less and less clear with each new discovery.
* * *
It wasn’t long after that the others began to stir, emerging with yawns from their rooms. Few were in the mood for talking, and barely a word was exchanged as they gathered their paltry belongings.
“Time to leave,” Finch announced, hefting his pickaxe on his shoulder. “Come on.”
Cade took one last look at the drone, still hanging in the air with its ominous timer. He was glad to be seeing the back of it. Frankly, he wanted to smash it in with his rock.
As they trooped down the stairs, Cade regretted not going for a dip in the baths as Yoshi had. He was sure he smelled like a barnyard animal. Still, there was enough time to dunk a bucket of water over his head as they drank long and deep from the well outside, refilling their amphorae and their bellies. Cade caught Finch looking regretfully at the shards of the amphora he had smashed the day before, and Cade couldn’t help but smirk.
“Well, looks like we know what the previous occupants were eating,” Spex said.
“What do you mean?” Cade asked, turning around.
Spex pointed toward the shadow of the building, where what looked like a second pile of bones had been scattered haphazardly among the cobbles and weeds.
Cade approached, examining them. It was hard to tell what the creatures had once been, for the bones had been smashed open, likely to get at the nutritious marrow within. A few leering skulls stared at him, but they could have been anything from dogs to giant lizards as far as Cade could tell. Certainly no humans.
What he did recognize were the piles of shells. What looked like oyster shells, snail shells, even ostrich-sized eggshells. This was their trash pile. Somewhere in this place, there were animals. Edible ones.
His heart leaped at the thought. There was an ecosystem here. Maybe somewhere they could hide. Somewhere they could survive.
Even with that twinge of hope, Cade felt despair. To be thinking of staying here for good—he might never go back home. Never see his family again.
Cade looked around, but apart from the weeds that grew between the cobbles, the place seemed bereft of life. And somehow he doubted that the creatures came from the black tunnel in the mountain directly ahead of him.
“I don’t like the look of that cave,” Eric said. “There may be another way out of here.”
“I second that motion,” Spex said. “Lead the way.”
There was only one place they hadn’t explored—the left side of the building, beyond the derelict stables. Even as they rounded the corner, Cade saw what they were looking for, cut into the mountainside itself.
A stairway, one so broken and poorly carved that it looked more like a goat trail than anything else, but a stairway nonetheless. It twisted all the way up the steep cliff, and Cade found himself swallowing at the sight of it. He didn’t like heights at the best of times.
But it was the only way out, other than the dark cave. And it would give them a better lay of the land.
“You want us to walk up there, don’t you,” Scott groaned.
“Would you rather go into that dark hole in the ground instead?” Eric asked, pointing in the direction of the yawning cave mouth.
Scott grumbled under his breath.
“It could give us a better look at our surroundings,” Cade said. He didn’t care anymore about being the guinea pig. It was more important to find a way out of this terrible place.
“I’m going,” Cade said. “You guys can do whatever you want.”
“Like you’d come back for us if you found anything,” Finch spat. “I’m going too.”
Cade shrugged and mounted the first steps. He thought for a moment, then placed his amphora carefully against a large rock. If this was a dead end, he’d be lugging the jar up and down for nothing. If it wasn’t, he’d come back for it.
He didn’t look behind him as he climbed, but he could hear the panting of at least one other as he pressed on, stones scattering as he pulled himself up toward the skyline.
He saw green vines dangling down the side at the top, and other vegetation growing in along the upper reaches. A good sign—where there were plants, there were likely animals. And both could mean food.
Cade quickly realized that with an empty belly and a half gallon of water inside him he was almost too weak to keep going. When he was halfway up, he collapsed onto a flat rock and surveyed the view behind him.
He was pleased to see that all the others had followed him up, though Finch, Jim, and Gobbler had brought their pickaxes with them. This fact sent a twinge of fear through Cade’s stomach. Were they for protection from potential vipers … or to keep the group under their control?
Letting his eyes drift upward, Cade saw the vast expanse of the salt flat stretched out to the horizon, broken only by the
rock formations they had emerged from the day before. The desert surface shone glaringly bright, so much so that he could not look at it for too long. Beneath, twin spits of cliffs branched outward from the mountain on either side of the keep like extended arms, embracing the valley of bones. Whatever he found at the top, there was no going back the way they had come. There was only desert that way.
As Finch caught up to him, Cade pushed on, leaving Finch panting behind him. His legs screamed for rest, but a will to survive pulled him onward. What lay above would likely shape the rest of his life … however long that might last.
CHAPTER
14
Chest pounding, Cade resisted the urge to slow as he neared the crest of the mountaintop. Here, the steps were in better shape, and he mounted them two at a time. Then he was at the peak, buffeted by the breeze. The sweet smell of vegetation hit him.
He was standing on a mountain ridge, as wide as three football fields, stretching across in a flat plateau that was framed by two jagged spires on either side. The other end of the ridge was obscured by rows of trees, and the chirr and buzz of insects filled his ears.
Fruit trees. The scent of fallen fruit was unmistakable, and Cade hardly saw the purple figs that littered the ground before he was on his knees, sinking his teeth into the overripe fruit.
He gorged. There was no other word for it. Fig after fig disappeared down his throat, until his face was coated with their thick syrup. He barely registered the arrival of the others as he crawled on his knees in the shade of the orchard, tossing rotten figs over his shoulders before seizing a fresh specimen and reveling in its sweetness once more. There were other fruits here too, farther away than he wanted to move before the next fig was in his mouth. Apples, oranges, even grapes, they could all wait.
Finally, his hunger sated, Cade stood and took in more of his surroundings. The trees ended somewhere to his left, so he headed in that direction, clutching his distended belly, already churning at the sudden influx of food.
As he stumbled into the light, Cade found himself in a field of overgrown wheat swaying in the breeze. It came up to his chest, but beyond that, he could see vegetable gardens with broad leaves overflowing the wooden fencing that surrounded them.
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