‘The Commander General Augustus Aquila is dead.’
I stiffened, shooting the Equite in front a narrow glance as he led me towards a smaller torch-lit entrance at the back of the antechamber. He marched on as though he hadn’t muttered anything at all, while the remaining guards remained silent, their gazes locked straight ahead.
We were approaching a second stone archway, lit by a pair of fire torches and topped by a golden cage. There was a pure white dove and a black crow, suspended just high enough above the flames to escape the heat. Their fate was clear and I averted my eyes, unable to look at them. For some reason, their incarceration in this place was almost worse than my own.
‘Appeasing gods of the under and upper world?’ I muttered. ‘Cassius is hedging his bets.’
‘You would do well to hold your tongue,’ the Equite in front hissed, turning his head to the side. ‘The Emperor needs no prompting to make another sacrifice. He likes the feral ones best!’
I suppressed a retort, and tried to imagine his face without the ornate Roman helmet and solid nosepiece. A murky image flickered through my mind. I knew him … I was sure of it. And then suddenly I was back there in the moonlit cathedral, the night of the battle of the vultures.
‘Grey?’ I whispered, my head filling with a barrage of violent images.
A muscle flexed in his cheek, but it was enough.
‘It is you, isn’t it? I left them with you … in the cathedral. We found Aelia, but Max … he was in the guard! Where … is he? Where’s Max?!’
My words came in punctuated breaths as I recalled the peacock’s malicious fist reaching out, the crack as my head hit the red stone floor, and being forced into a claustrophobic rock cavern. Before seeing him. The gladiator in sandals. Was it him? My memory swam, but my senses screamed with accuracy. He was resting, then casting a cursory, indifferent glance over me. Forest-green eyes, cold and unknowing.
It was Max; it had to be Max. The whisper ran through me like a river.
And then the peacock leering again … saying Max was dead?
All at once I knew what the forest animals felt like when barbed and caught in a trap. Pain flared through my veins and I struggled to take a breath.
‘Ssssh!’
Grey spun and squared up to me, as the three other guards looked on, fear twisting their faces in the torchlight.
‘Do you want to put us all back in the Flavium?’ he hissed. ‘The girl was dead already, OK? There was nothing I could do. The guy … what happened to him was … unlucky.’
‘Unlucky?’ I echoed and suddenly it seemed the most inadequate word in the world.
‘I trusted you!’ I threw out vehemently. ‘August trusted you! Max fought beside you! And you let that twisted snake take them! Where is Max? What did Cassius do to him?’
Suddenly, the gnarled stone in my chest ballooned upwards and outwards, like a fossilized seed that had finally found water. My mind crowded with Max’s lopsided grin, his rough fingers offering his tiny treehouse dart tube, his shape foreshadowing mine as we flew through the trees, his arms holding me through all the difficult nights, and then that moment in the ruined cathedral, when I asked him to save Aelia. He was always so ready to be a damned hero, always the strongest of us, before the arrow impaled his spine. Piercing him in the most cowardly way, so unworthy of a son of Arafel.
He’d trusted me, run with me, sprinted headlong into danger. For me. And all I’d given him was pain, indecision and half a girl. A ghost girl. For what? So that he could end up here, like some soulless tin soldier, ready to do Cassius’s bidding come what may.
The guilt was a tight choking vice, crawling into every pore and cell of my body and whispering how much I’d let him down. How much that moment had cost.
‘Call yourself an Equite? A soldier worthy of that noble Aquila insignia?’ I forced out, my raw whispering carrying eerily down the stone passage, but I didn’t care. ‘You don’t know the meaning of the word! You’re nothing but worthless cowards, all of you!’
‘Silence!’ the peacock hissed, reaching out to close his hand roughly around my throat and squeezing with such ugly pressure the corridor spun like a leaf caught in the wind.
‘Dimiti, let her go!’
I was vaguely aware of Grey’s hoarse fury, of his hand gripping the peacock’s forearm and forcing it up, so he relinquished his hold.
I sprawled on the floor, the leather straps of their booted feet swimming before my eyes. Eight large Roman boots, versus my tree-flying soles. It shouldn’t be a contest at all. Dazed, I pushed myself up, catching sight of a hazy outline of my reflection in the polished marble floor. It was the closest I’d come to seeing myself in weeks, and the hollow-eyed girl staring back seemed so out of place in these surroundings.
I fought to recover my senses, conscious this was my last chance. Not that there was any real decision to be made – backwards led straight into a battalion of armed guards, forwards led to darkness and Cassius. But I was damned if I was entering as a prisoner. Not while there was breath in my body.
I rolled as though my life depended on it, jumped to my feet and launched into a full sprint. My legs felt stiff and disjointed, but every stride stirred my blood a little more.
The corridor echoed with ugly curses and the guards gave chase instantly, but my tree-running years gave me the advantage and although I was headed only into the serpent’s lair, I felt freer and stronger than I had in a long time. Whatever Cassius had planned, I was meeting him as Talia Hanway.
Chapter 13
The long echoing corridor offered only brief respite before it rounded into another vaulted ceremonial room, twice the size of the entrance lobby. My steps slowed as I passed between a dozen white flame torches, each one slightly bigger than the former, sensing eyes watching me from the shadows behind the room’s wide pillars. I stole forward like a silent cat, too vulnerable without my slingshot or dart tube.
‘I’ve been waiting for you, Talia.’
I tensed, feeling as though my air had been poisoned. It was a voice I’d come to associate with hatred and violence, a voice that haunted my nightmares and had stolen nearly everyone I loved. My blood darkened as I lifted my head high and stalked out to the centre of the empty floor, my bare feet padding like a forest animal’s.
‘And all alone? How extraordinary that an unarmed feral girl should be able to outwit four of my guards so easily … but then, you always did like to make an entrance, didn’t you?’
My eyes alighted on his sardonic figure, reclining on a luxurious settle in the middle of a podium bridging the top half of the ceremonial room. It looked to be some sort of dais or stage.
We locked eyes momentarily before I looked around slowly and defiantly. He’d mown my people down in cold blood, and I would rather die now than give him any idea of the fear dousing my veins.
I returned my gaze to him, and watched, as he reached out and selected a plump, ripened grape, before proceeding to peel it slowly and deliberately with a sharp paring knife.
‘Let’s just say I prefer my own company,’ I returned baldly.
He leered across the space, with barely concealed excitement. He’d been relishing this moment, and I could tell my calm irritated him. He scrutinized me, closing down the days that had passed since we were in his room. Alone. When I was powerless and his to malign. I’d hated him then, and I hated him now. Some things didn’t change.
I set my jaw. Refusing to let him know how he unsettled me.
Silently I looked across to the woman beside him and fought the memory of the Flavium archway collapsing, of staring up through scattered debris and choking dust at a baying crowd – and her triumphant face.
She was young yet mordant, her dark hair pulled back in a tight spiral and every contour of her body clad in rich purple Pantheonite regalia. She was reclining as well but I wasn’t deceived. Every line of her body was alert, and her expression was dark and sour as uncorked wine. If anything, she was more dangerous than
Octavia or Cassius because she wasn’t clouded by revenge. She was interested only in hard science and her preying eyes missed nothing.
‘Livia … what a pleasure.’ I smiled sardonically.
Max? Cassius insisted he join a special investigation project, back at base.
Her last words danced between us as though she had just spoken them aloud, rather than at Octavia’s research centre. Her face twisted momentarily, and I knew she was recalling them too. That she’d used them, like weighted darts, for maximum impact.
Then a strange, sonorous cry interrupted the moment, diverting my gaze to a golden perch to the far right of the dais where a small winged rodent returned my regard without blinking. It was no bigger than a rabbit, with a reptilian snout, spotted front paws and a pair of small downy wings that it kept fluttering in a vain attempt to escape its chains. The tiny beast lifted its small crested head to the air, and released another cry that grated against my nerves. It sounded disturbingly like a shrill human scream trapped inside an oropendola’s hiss, and when it turned its attention back on me, its rust-coloured eyes burned with confused fury.
I sucked in a sharp breath, reality dousing my limbs.
More chimerae? It didn’t look like Hominum chimera, but hybrid species trials had to be Voynich work.
‘Where is he?’
My voice was surprisingly steady, and Cassius’s opal-black eyes narrowed to slits. He reached for another grape languorously, torturously, but it gave me the opportunity to assess my space the way I would in the forest, and right now they were telling me this lair was full of secrets.
The chamber was no less ornately decorated than the outer frescoed room, and fortified by a ring of stone-white pillars. But this one smelled different, and I knew why instantly. Beneath the heady aroma of burning lavender oil and sweet, overripe fruit was a scent I knew as well as I knew the forest. It was the scent of animal life. And as if to answer my thoughts there was a swift flurry of movement among the shadows beyond the pillars – a heavy dragging sound, accompanied by a soft hiss that pushed me onto the balls of my feet.
Cassius glittered as I shot a look into the gloom. Long rectangular shapes lined the dark walls, shapes that looked too much like the animal tanks and cages in the main laboratory.
What could possibly be so special that he’d brought them here for his personal observation?
I knew, of course. Even if I hadn’t seen the tanks, the small double-lidded chimera shrieking its protest to the vaulted ceiling had already confirmed my suspicions.
I’d given him the last part of the jigsaw: the keyword. Requiem: Mass of the Dead. Cassius now owned every ancient genetic secret within the Voynich. And the Cassius in the square, wearing the crown of flames and proclaiming his own divineness to all Pantheon was closer to his ambition than ever before, because of me.
The words floated around my head, whispering their poison. I’d failed.
And the translation of the Voynich meant only one thing: each of the tanks in the darkness was a golden cage containing a golden prize.
Voynich prizes.
Cassius stood up and clicked his fingers, reading my expression with a rancorous smile. He was revelling in my discovery of his menagerie, and intended to take his revenge as slowly as he could. At his command, torches on the back wall faded up until we could see clearly. I sucked in a breath, not wanting to give him any satisfaction, but unable to drag my eyes away all the same.
Two long back walls of his chamber were lined with perfect, concentric cages – occupied cages – and the creatures staring out at me now left nothing to the imagination. There was a complete nursery of perfect, miniature, mythical creatures.
I scanned them swiftly, trying to make sense of the assortment of bodies, limbs, hooked claws and bared teeth. There was what looked to be some kind of achlis, the size of a roe deer with a distorted oversized mouth; and two identical snow-white caladriai, with gleaming pink eyes that bored right through me. I recalled enough of their legend to know they were designed to be carriers of illness, healers of sick people by drawing illnesses into themselves. Somehow, I imagined Cassius had such a purpose in mind for these. An infantile faun nestled in the corner, eyeing me with interest, while beside it, clinging to its bars with tiny pale hands was a dwarf silenus, complete with miniature horse hooves and immature tail.
‘Pan,’ I whispered, catching my breath painfully.
Next to the silenus, a tiny owl peeped dolefully. It was scuffling in the shadows of its small tank, and sounded just like the nightbirds Eli suspended in the nursery baskets from our treehouse living room. But the rat-owls or strix herded into Ludi Pantheonares couldn’t have been any less like the forest creatures I loved, and I had no doubt the pitiful creature was destined to grow into some abomination.
Then, next to the owl, was a final tank. Black. Silent. Still.
Why did the silent tanks always scare me the most?
I reeled as the full impact of Cassius’s ambition reared its brutal head. It was a form of dark and chaotic mitosis; a monster breeding a new pack of monsters to change all that was natural and untouched in our world. He’d already reduced Arafel to little more than ash. But a second apocalypse was waiting right here in this room, watching me as it stole breath from the natural world to grow.
I saw the flames consuming Arafel all over again. There would be no more trials, no more genetic defects and hesitations. Cassius had the blueprint for an army of mythical creatures, creatures with which he intended to repopulate the world, and the destruction of my home was only the beginning.
I had never been more aware that only a series of golden grills separated my world from the seeds of carnage.
The Voynich could change the face of the earth.
Grandpa had predicted this, and his words had never meant more. Eli’s pale face flashed through my head and I sucked in a raspy breath. I hadn’t even looked back when I ran after Mum. Where had he run? Had he survived? And what of any remaining Outsiders? Cassius would obliterate them all, build a thousand Lifedomes and introduce this growing menagerie to a macabre new world he could control. Which only left one burning question.
Why was I still alive?
I spun around to face them both, vitriol coursing like wildfire. My blood was the only known control over Lake, but he had to have a ready supply of that by now. Which meant there was still something else. And that was my one remaining hope. One I intended to use to its fullest advantage. Bluff or not.
‘Where is he?’ I repeated, louder, stronger. More feral.
‘Ever direct and to the point, Talia. Even when you were unconscious, you had that wilful expression. A surprise really. I would have thought the … removal of your home and foolish Outsider friends would have checked it … just a little.’
He’d left the dais and was headed towards me, his black gladiatorial uniform glinting with a thousand cruel edges. He was assessing everything, and though every cell recoiled at the thought of being unconscious and vulnerable in front of him, I forced my feet to stay their ground.
‘Oh yes … I paid you a few visits while you were being batched, but call me old-fashioned, I didn’t really enjoy the one-sided nature of our conversation … Even when you were persuaded to give up that which you held as most precious in the world.’
A flash of memory. Searing pain, poised on the edge of a looming black void, murmuring a word, giving up the keyword. Out of fear, self-protection … and weakness.
I felt myself grow pale, and my gaze lowered as he moved towards me. I was so ashamed I could run, run and keep running for ever. And he knew.
‘Oh yes, Talia, you gave me the greatest gift of all. All for the love of one human, and rather a squalid example of one, if I may say so. At least the gladiator has his uses.’
I froze, before slowly raising my stubborn chin. Cassius could taunt me all he liked, but no one insulted my mother. And he said ‘has’.
He paused to look back at Livia, relishing every second of h
is own performance, and yet clearly confused by my consistent refusal to cede to him and beg for my life.
‘And do tell me,’ he added, ‘what has a girl with presumably no weapon of her own, save for her bare hands, done with four of my most able gladiators? They are, presumably, still alive? Or do I need yet another household reorganization?’
His voice rose dangerously and sure enough four uniformed gladiators, including Grey and the peacock, shuffled into view. They had to have been waiting in the corridor, putting off an appearance unless it was absolutely necessary. Their pale fearful faces flickered in the torchlight, but I quashed any feelings of pity; they’d had their chance.
‘Ahh, how nice of you both to join us at last, and what a shame you can’t stay. Throw them to the dogs.’
It was a simple command, but one loaded with finality as twice the number of guards melted out from the gloom beyond the pillar on the opposite side of the room. I swore under my breath. I should have known Cassius would have an army in the shadows, waiting to do his bidding.
I pushed up onto the balls of my feet, ready to use the brief disruption to my own advantage. To look for escape. And then sank back down again. Standing by and letting four grown men be torn to pieces by molossus dogs twice the size of forest wolves was too much. Despite everything.
‘Really, Cassius? Still needing to prove your control by spilling innocent blood? Guess lies and propaganda will only do so much, huh?’
The words were out of my mouth, whether I wished them free or not.
Cassius turned back, the furious twist across his features saying everything. We were back in his room, hunter and prey, only I wouldn’t play my role and I’d called his bluff in front of his men.
‘Tell me, when did you rise above the rank of vermin in this Civitas?’ he snarled. ‘You’re nothing but the dregs of an under-race that is very nearly exterminated. We have never been closer to re-creating a species worthy of inhabiting this recovering planet, unlike your kind who did nothing but drive it to the brink of destruction!’
Storm of Ash Page 10
