Praetorian Series [4] All Roads Lead to Rome

by Edward Crichton

  I shook my head. “It’s not going to happen, Agrippina. We’ve already covered ninety percent of it. What makes you think we’ll find anything in the last ten?”

  She poked a finger against my chest. “Because I believe in you, Jacob. You are destined for great things, we both know that. This was just a cursory inspection of the pomerium. It is still early in the day. We have plenty of time for a more extensive search.” Her smile grew again, and she stepped up on her toes to kiss me, which was sweet and wonderful. She pulled away slowly and smiled up at me. “We have all the time in the world now, and in it, we’ll do such great things. Together.”

  ***

  Fate had bitch slapped me far too many times as of late, and I was getting sick of it.

  We were just about finished with another rotation around the Palatine Hill, again with no results, each step like an enormous slap to the face. One way or another, I would take control of my life today. I’ll give Agrippina a few more rotations around the pomerium, but I wasn’t about to grow obsessed over the red orb like I once had the blue one. If I couldn’t find it, then I would simply learn to live without it.

  My cadre of companions were again approaching the Forum Romanum, enticing an odd sense to infiltrate my mind as we approached it. The feeling wasn’t specific, just a tingling of familiarity, so I chalked it up to the fact that we’d been here earlier, and that I’d been here a number of times in the past. Agrippina, however, seemed more agitated. She glanced around distractedly, her eyes and head jerking every which was nervously.

  “What’s wrong?” I demanded, stepping up beside her and grabbing her arm.

  She snapped her head around and locked eyes with me, and calmed almost immediately. She sighed, placed her free hand against her chest and squinted her eyes for a moment as though clearing her head. Finally, she looked up at me and smiled.

  “Nothing is wrong, Jacob,” she reported. “Perhaps a slight bout of excitement, I am not sure. Tell me, do you feel anything now?”

  I analyzed her face, hoping for some clue into the reality behind her demeanor, but found none, so I looked away and decided to be honest. “I may have felt something a moment ago. Some kind of familiarity, but it’s gone now.”

  “Perhaps that is good,” Agrippina suggested. “The Forum Romanum is so steeped in history that it is a likely location for such a momentous event as Romulus and Remus’ argument.”

  I shrugged. “Seems like a stretch, but maybe.”

  She smiled. “Maybe indeed. Come, let us explore the area more thoroughly.”

  I nodded and let her pull me along after her as she veered the two of us and our escorts off to the left and deeper into the forum, pulling us off the original pomerium route. We reentered the opulent forum, where I found the body of the dead Roman who had attacked us earlier still lying on the ground, forgotten and abandoned, as well as the orator’s platform empty. He must have been done for the day, or at least the hour, and had gone home to rest and recuperate from his embarrassing ordeal.

  I wondered if he’d quit or if he’d have the dignity to return.

  In any case, these memories were left far and behind as I returned my attention to the world in front of me. I allowed a faint thought to drift toward Boudicca, as I wondered if she was following her instructions. I hadn’t yet seen her in the crowd, which seemed easy to do considering her appearance, but she was a skilled woman. If she was out here, it was quite possible I’d never find her if she didn’t want to be found, but I assumed she’d reveal herself if and when I found the orb, just as we’d discussed in the bathhouse.

  We continued to walk, passing buildings and road intersections by the handful, my mind clearly not as focused on my given task as it should be. I looked up, noticing that we’d reentered the opulent forum, where much of Rome gathered as a part of daily life, going about their business to and fro. I glanced down and noticed the dead body of the man who had attacked us earlier. It was still lying on the ground, forgotten…

  I stopped and cocked my head to the side as I stared at it, thinking that we’d just passed this guy’s dead body a second ago. I glanced up at Agrippina who was staring at me intently. I pointed at the body. “Didn’t we just pass him a second ago?”

  She shook her head, although while I couldn’t place her expression, it didn’t seem neutral. “Only upon our last visit. We have only just arrived Jacob.”

  “We did?” I asked myself,

  “Come, Jacob,” Agrippina suggested. “There is still much to explore.”

  I nodded, slightly shaken, as I was suddenly reminded that repetitious events like this had happened before recently, although I couldn’t remember where or when. I shook my head and fell into step with Agrippina again, trying to ignore the body and focus on searching for more clues. But I found my mind drifting again, wondering if Boudicca was following as I’d instructed her to do. So far, I hadn’t yet seen her, which seemed an easy thing…

  I had to remind myself that I’d already thought about that.

  Hadn’t I?

  I hadn’t a clue anymore, but I didn’t have much time to think about it as we reentered the opulent forum where so much of Roman life and commerce was centered. I watched as citizens and residents of Rome milled about, acting much like anyone in any society did on a quiet, peaceful, weekday afternoon. It was a tranquil sight, one that was so distracting that I barely noticed the body on the ground in front of me. Unfortunately, I was only able to notice it after I had tripped over one of its legs, sending me tumbling to the ground.

  I fell in a heap, although if there was a silver lining to the pain that shot up my left elbow, it was that I hadn’t landed upon the dead body but next to it. As I hit, my shoulder bag came loose and fell to my side, causing the blue orb to roll free. My eyes widened as it attempted to escape, and I threw out an arm to catch it, but I came up just short. Although if there was a silver lining to the pain that shot up my left elbow, it was that I hadn’t landed upon the dead body, but next to it. As I hit, my shoulder bag came loose and fell to my side, causing the blue orb to roll free. My eyes widened as it attempted to escape, and I threw out an arm to catch it, but as I hit, my shoulder bag came loose and fell to my side, causing the blue orb to roll free. My eyes widened as it attempted to escape, and I threw out an arm to catch it, but my eyes widened as it attempted to escape, and I threw out an arm to catch it, but…

  My mind couldn’t comprehend the repetitious nature of what was happening at first. My consciousness was stuck in a loop, unaware that the same events were occurring over and over, not realizing that each moment had already happened and happened and happened and… It could have been going on for millennia for millennia as far as I knew. I had no way of understanding the passage of time of time as the sequence of trips, falls, trips, falls, stumbles, and unsuccessful snatch grabs for the orb continued, continued, continue…

  All that keyed my mind into the endless loop at all was the orb, its presence in my vision acting as a kernel of awareness that somehow gave me hope that one day, one week, one month, one year, I’d successfully reach the orb and take it. Once I did, everything would return to normal and normal again, but such a concept seemed impossible as the sequence seemed to speed up, repeating faster and faster, always out of reach, never in my grasp, one fingertip too far…

  My eyes widened as it attempted to escape, and I threw out an arm to catch it, but my eyes widened as it attempted to escape, and I threw out an arm to catch it, but my eyes widened as I threw out an arm to catch…

  And then the orb was in my hand, placed there so suddenly by an Agrippina who had entered the psychedelic vision of repetition so elusively that she didn’t seem real. I’d watched her move, as though immune to the time distortion, her body a rock in a storm of persistent motion. She waded through my vision like a drawing on a series of cards, held and flipped one after another quickly as a trick to generate a motion picture. With each repetition of the scene, she seemed just a little closer, until finally
she was able to kneel down, take it in her hand, and place it in my own.

  And then the cycle ceased, and time, space, and reality exploded into normalcy once again.

  I rolled myself onto my back quickly and clutched the orb in both hands against my chest, my lungs heaving for air as though I hadn’t taken in a breath in hours. I tried to tilt my head back so that I could find Agrippina, but found that she was already standing and looking down at me.

  “What happened?” I asked breathlessly, but then another second passed and I became aware that I had no trouble breathing at all.

  I stared at Agrippina, demanding answers with my eyes alone.

  She shrugged. “You fell, Jacob, and the orb rolled out of your bag.”

  “But… it happened over and over,” I said, still at a loss as I pulled myself into a sitting position, placing the orb in my lap. “It was like an overdose of déjà vu, experiencing what I’ve already experienced before, except over and over and over with only a vague understanding that I’d seen it before. And it wouldn’t stop…”

  My head started to hurt at my own explanation, just having to recall the memory of it all. I still didn’t understand what could have possibly happened, but I was beginning to think that the simple awareness of it in of itself was valuable. I’d experienced a similar phenomenon before, minutes ago and in this general area. First, with the man that had attacked our escorts, second with the comically fat orator who’d experienced an equally comic vegetable-thrashing. Now that I thought about it, both had also felt like déjà vu, although a hyper-intense variant that couldn’t be natural.

  A revelation that made me think.

  The experience had to have been related to the orb, as what was déjà vu really if not some form of time distortion? I recalled reading something back home about a theory that the phenomenon was simply the brain reacting to an event before the conscious mind had time to catch up, therefor tricking the mind into thinking that the event had already happened once before. I could live with that explanation, even now, but something told me there was more to it than just that.

  But nothing like this had ever happened to me before. I’d had the orb back in Rome seven years ago, and I’d had it for the last six months as well. I’d taken it from Syria to Judea to Egypt to Britain to Gaul to Italy, and now to Rome, but never had I experienced something like that. There was only one logical conclusion: that it had something to do with the red orb.

  But even that theory was flawed. If the red orb was here, someone would have found it, so its effects certainly wouldn’t be prevalent in this location anymore. Nor did it make any sense that the red orb would act in such a chaotic way. I had the blue orb, so if the red orb was nearby, technically, neither orb should display any of their negative effects – whatever negative effects the red orb actually had. And I certainly didn’t feel any less angry all of a sudden, which is what I expected would happen once I finally paired the orbs together.

  This was something else, but as I hauled myself to my feet, ignoring Agrippina’s outstretched hand completely, I found myself at a loss for what it could be… which is when I finally saw the source of the time disruption. It couldn’t be anything else, and I’d never seen anything else like it before either. Hyper-déjà vu wasn’t enough to confirm my theory that I’d experienced something to do with the red orb, but my eyes no longer needed convincing. Only a few yards in front of me, situated at the entrance to a narrow alleyway formed by two nondescript buildings I didn’t recognize, at quite possibly the southernmost tip of the Forum Romanum, was a column of floating, white light that teased my senses like nothing I’d ever experienced before.

  It made no sound, I felt no heat, I tasted and smelt nothing in the air, but my eyes weren’t lying. Only slightly higher than I was tall, and easily wide enough for me to walk though, the beam of white light was ovoid in shape and pulsated to the beat of some unknown source. Little tendrils of light swirled around the beam and fought to escape like wisps of plasma venting from the sun during a solar flare only to come snapping back, either by their own volition or some other power. It was both startling beautiful and terrifyingly ominous, and was an entity that did not belong in this world.

  I turned to Agrippina, hoping that she too saw it, but her face was blank.

  I gestured at the object. “Tell me you see that.”

  She glanced to her right and then back to me. “See what?”

  “That! That…” I shook my hand it, words escaping me. “That!”

  “I see nothing, Jacob,” Agrippina said, taking a step toward me. “But if you see something I cannot, then perhaps you have discovered what we have been searching for.”

  I looked back at it. “It isn’t a red ball, that’s for sure. It looks like… a doorway.”

  “A door?”

  I shook my head. “Not like a door, but a gateway, an entranceway. It’s almost like a… hell, let’s go with a tear in the fabric of reality. An…” I narrowed my eyes at it, thoughts churning, “…entrance to another world? Like Merlin’s cottage door only not camouflaged?”

  Agrippina peered at me. “Where do these deductions come from, Jacob?”

  I shrugged. “Not sure. Intuition? Too much TV? Or maybe Merlin implanted me with memories of this thing when I was with him to prepare me for this. Who knows?”

  Agrippina looked back at the area of the world that glowed brightly for me but I assumed appeared empty to her. “Then perhaps this is what you sought after all.”

  I placed my hands on my hips and nodded but never took my eyes off the light. “If it is, then that’s where I’m going. If it’s a doorway to another world, then it’s one I need to enter.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Exactly as I said,” I replied. “Everything I’ve suffered for, everything I’ve sacrificed… the very reason I came to Rome at all is because of whatever resides within that… portal.”

  “But surely it isn’t safe.”

  “Who cares? Nothing’s ever been safe before.”

  “But…”

  “Enough,” I snapped, throwing my head in her direction. “I’m going. Why are you trying to stop me now?”

  “I am attempting no such thing,” Agrippina countered. “I only wish to offer you aid on your trip and… perhaps company?”

  I looked down into her puppy dog eyes, and I was again reminded how much I had come to trust this woman. But she couldn’t come. Boudicca I may need, but despite how resourceful Agrippina was, I couldn’t have her diverting my attention or becoming a liability.

  “Not this time… if you even could come. You can’t see it; I can. Perhaps that means something. Since we don’t have the red orb, who knows what will even happen if I try to step through.”

  She looked up at me and her mouth tightened in a warm smile as she placed the palm of her left hand against my chest, and her other against my cheek. “You are most brave, Jacob Hunter. You deserve to find everything you seek. Now. Go. You must prepare.”

  ***

  An hour later, I was ready.

  I had my rifle slung across my shoulder, along with my SR-25 Sniper rifle right beside it. My trusty Sig P220 was holstered at my thigh, and I had spare ammo for each weapon held within dozens of pouches scattered across my MOLLE vest, web belt, and secondary thigh holster on my left leg. I carried a large backpack in my spare hand as well, one that contained enough food for a week, spare clothing, sleeping equipment sans an actual tent, and a myriad of other tools and gear that I may need.

  There wasn’t much left, but it would have to do. There was no way of knowing whether this was a one way trip or not, so I was going to take whatever precautions I could… what few were available. Everything I could carry comfortably was coming with me.

  The process of gathering and equipping my gear hadn’t taken long; it never did anymore. After so many years and so much hardship, preparing for violence had become second nature, as familiar to me as brushing my teeth. It was a comforting act now, one I oft
en looked forward to because it empowered me, giving me all the confidence I ever needed.

  Nor had I wasted any time, returning to the tear in reality within an hour of my decision to cross over to wherever or whatever it connected with. The multitude of questions that hung over my head remained, and I knew the answers to each rested beyond that tear. I wasn't about to let those answers stay unanswered any longer, no matter how brash and insane my decision to walk the dimensional planes of reality seemed to be.

  It was right there, directly in front of me now, as physical and real as a fruit vending stall or a horse stable. It glowed white hot and pulsed like an artery but did not move and went completely unnoticed by everyone other than me. Agrippina’s Praetorians had cordoned off the area, using their bodies like a string of police tape, which of course had created a scene, which in turn had brought curious onlookers hoping to catch a glimpse of what was so interesting. I gave one curious citizen a look as she too glanced within the circle of Praetorians, and smirked when a confused expression crossed her face just before she was shoved aside by a Praetorian. She left grudgingly with another look over her shoulder, and shrugged at another woman who caught up to her and whispered in her ear. The two rounded a corner and were out of sight by the time I reached the perimeter of Praetorians, who parted and allowed me access.

  Agrippina was there already, waiting patiently beside the pulsating phenomenon as though she too knew where it was. I approached her, repositioning the heavy pack against my back so that it was out of the way of my shoulder bag, and adjusted the SR-25 slung across my shoulder. It was a lot of gear, but I would probably need all of it, and once through the tear, I could repurpose gear as I needed.

  “Are you prepared, Jacob?” Agrippina asked.

  I didn’t need to answer for the benefit of either one of us. We both knew I was ready. So much so, in fact, that I had no intention of waiting for further conversation at all, but as I moved my hand to my shoulder bag to retrieve the orb, Agrippina took hold of my wrist and looked at me almost reluctantly.