Centurion's Rise (37 page)

“I’m beginning to think we over prepared for this assault,” Valnor whispered
while they waited.

“Better to be too ready than not enough,” Hastelloy replied as the rest of the strike
team joined them for a brief huddle.  “There are still sixteen priestesses plus the Vestalis Maximus.  Each has their own bedchamber.  We will incapacitate them one-by-one, leaving only the Maximus so she can take us to the vault and retrieve the documents.”  Every man gave an affirmative nod, and they were on their way.

The sleeping chambers were on the second floor.  Hastelloy quickly located the stairwell
and led them down one level.  Each room ran along the balcony overlooking a courtyard featuring two reflection pools.  Each of the eight men took a door, and proceeded in to carry out their business.

Hastelloy entered a ten by ten foot room illuminated only by the lit torches along the balcony walls outside the ch
amber.  He barely made out  a writing desk in one corner and an occupied bed in the other with a storage trunk at the foot. 

The bed’s occupant was a teenage girl laying flat on her back.  Hastelloy moved in, placed his ear next to her mou
th and covered her nose and mouth with the chloroform soaked cloth.  He waited until the girl drew a deep breath, then removed the cloth and backed his way out of the room and shut the door behind him.

Valnor was the last
one to emerge from his target room.  They all moved down the balcony until each man stood outside another set of bedroom doors.  Hastelloy entered the bed chamber.  He looked to make sure the young woman was asleep, but this time he stayed just inside the door.  He waited for the other men to exit their target rooms and then stepped back out on to the balcony.

“Well done,” Hastelloy whispered. As he pointed to two of the men.  “You two return to the main stairwell and make sure no one approaches. 

The two men acted immediately while Hastelloy gave further instructions.  “Only the Vestalis Maximus is left.  You five rouse her and get to the vault.  She’s bound to make a lot of noise and fuss but the five of you forcing her around should let her know you mean business.  Be firm and get what we need, but do not harm her in any way.  Understand?”

“What will you be doing?” Valnor asked.

“Making sure any residents who do wake up, are dealt with,” Hastelloy responded.

“Understood,” Valnor said and
then led four men around the balcony to the other side of the courtyard.  There they entered the Vestalis Maximus’ bed chamber.  Meanwhile, Hastelloy turned and glanced at the door of the woman he left conscious.  He then walked three doors down the balcony toward the exit stairs.  He opened the door and closed it behind him, leaving it ajar just enough to see back down the hallway.

Moments later all hell broke loose on the other side of the balcony.  Shouts for guards and alarm from a deep female voice rang out.  When those cries for help had no result, the woman leveled an arsenal of verbal assaults on her attackers.  The Vestalis Maximus may have been a religious figure, but she also had a rare grasp of the most profane words in the Latin vocabulary.  Hastelloy almost blushed a few times.

A flash of motion caught Hastelloy’s eye from down the hall.  The young woman stepped out on to the balcony to observe the commotion.  She held her tongue as the Vestalis Maximus was led down the exit stairwell to the subterranean chambers that safeguarded the wills of the Roman citizenry.

The young girl stood frozen in panic for a moment, but then appeared to decide on a course of action.  She dashed into the next room.
  “Vella, wake up,” Hastelloy heard followed by a sharp slap.  “Vella!”

She returned to the balcony and entered the room next to Hastelloy’s hiding place.  Again the young woman fo
und she was unable to wake the occupant.  She returned to the balcony once more and came to a stop just outside Hastelloy’s door.

He held his breath and mentally debated whether he’d misjudged the number of rooms the girl would check before realizing she was on her own.

“The guards,” the girl said to herself and then took off running down the balcony railing toward the stairs.

Hastelloy slinked out of his hiding place and hurried after the girl. 
He reached the staircase and made his way up half a flight until the priestess was in sight again.  She was about to run toward the guard station calling for help until her brain caught up with what her eyes saw.  The guards were on the ground with two sinister looking fellows standing over them

“What do I do now,” the girl whispered to herself.  “Vesta, she’ll know what to do.” 
The girl then dashed up the stairs, past the fourth level and on up to the fifth story of the building.

“Checkmate,” Hastelloy said to himself as he gave pursuit.
  The young woman vanished from his sight into an unassuming room.  A few moments later she came back out carrying a ring of keys. 

She unlocked a flimsy wooden door and entered
a stoically barren chamber.  The only notable feature was another wooden door along the far wall, and a lit torch hanging right next to it on the wall.  The priestess ran to the door, frantically worked the lock and opened the door.  She took the torch off the wall and stepped through the door.

The torch light revealed a narrow hallway that turned to the right after ten feet.  Hastelloy moved through the doorway in pursuit once the young woman
rounded the corner.  He heard her footfalls grow faint as the sound seemed to melt into the floor.

Hastelloy poked his head around the corner and saw
nothing but a solid stone wall with a faint glow coming from the floor in front of it. He dashed forward in fear he’d lost his chance, but was relieved to find a descending spiral stone staircase. 

Round and round he went as he followed the priestess.  He was pretty sure by the time he reached
the last step they were well below ground level.  The young woman had already opened a wooden door that was nearly a foot thick.  Even if an attacker managed to get a battering ram down the narrow stairwell, there was no way that door would open without the proper key.

“Oh noble Vesta, I need your guidance,” a breathless female voice said from just inside the stout door.  “Evil men
are in the house.  They’ve killed the guards and kidnapped the Maximus.”

“And what of your fellow vestals,” a calm, whimsical voice asked.

“I could not wake any of them. I fear they may be dead as well.  What should I do?”

“How were you able to escape?” the
formless voice asked with a touch of concern creeping into the tone.

“I don’t know,” the priestess responded.  “I woke up, saw everything happening and came here for guidance.”

“Stupid child!” the voice boomed, “That’s exactly what he wanted you to do.”

T
hat was Hastelloy’s cue.  He stepped through the doorway and entered the resting chamber for one of the Alpha relics.

“And she did not disappoint
,” Hastelloy said, causing the priestess to turn around in surprise.  “Thank you my dear.”  Hastelloy said, and then applied a white cloth to her face and a moment later eased her unconscious body to the ground.

“Captain Hastelloy I presume?” Elohim asked in a conversational voice.

“The one and only,” Hastelloy answered as he got back to his feet.  He glanced around the small circular room to make sure there were no routes for the relic to escape through as Goron had managed to do in the Temple of Jupiter.  There was nothing though, just a flowing metallic flame hovering in the middle of the chamber over a floor carved out of solid granite.  Elohim wasn’t going anywhere.

“Hmm, I wouldn’t have thought assaulting young girls was your style,” Elohim went on.  “You’ll order men to seduce and violate them, but not actually attack the defenseless creatures.”

“I’d hardly call inducing a brief nap an assault,” Hastelloy countered.

“
I doubt the citizens will see it that way,” the floating flame fired back.  “You and your fellow attackers are dead men, you know that, right?”

Through a sideways grin Hastelloy returned the threat. 
“The only one doing the dying today is you.”

The brightness of the flame suddenly doubled in intensity.  “Hah,
I give you credit for penetrating my defenses to reach me, but you have no way of destroying my life force.  You proved that the last time we met.”

“Before I had no idea what I was dealing with,” Hastelloy countered.  “But now I’ve had some time to think about it.

Hastelloy stepped closer to the flame and swung an open palm at it with all his might.  The flowing fire resisted his blow for a moment, but then gave way.  The yellow and red presence swallowed his hand.”

Hastelloy had the sensation of wearing a water proof glove on his hand and then running it through a stream of cold water.  He could feel the pressure of the material flowing between his fingers and resisting the movement of his hand.  Contrary to the color and appearance of an intense flame, the object was ice cold. Then the odd sensation
suddenly stopped when his hand completed its path through the Alpha relic and came out the other side.

He looked intently at the flowing flame to inspect the damage.  There was none as the material instantly reformed into the space his hand once occupied.

“Uh oh, that didn’t work,” the relic mocked.  “What else do you have for me?”

“Plenty,” Hastelloy responded without missing a beat.  He pulled a dagger out from a holster around his waist and drove it dead center into the flowing relic.  He let go and stepped back to
observe the result.

For a few seconds the dagger remained in place, protruding from the main body of the flame.  Then the blade began sinking deeper and deeper into the flowing metal.  Hastelloy was encouraged at first, but then realized the solid metal blade was melting into the flowing object.  A few seconds later the entire dagger was assimilated into the Alpha relic.

“Nope, maybe you can come back again when you’ve had time to mull it over in that reproduced brain of yours,” Elohim laughed.  “Have you ever considered that every time you regenerate a body it’s like making a copy of a copy so the quality degrades a little bit each time? I’ll bet you’ve been spat out enough times to be a complete invalid by now.”

“Very interesting defense mechanism,”
Hastelloy commented as a bystander watching a science experiment might do.  He then took his time pulling another dagger out from under his sleeve and carefully examined the blade.

“
What, are you going to stab me again?”  the relic prodded further.  “You’re only proving my point Captain. Doing the same thing twice expecting a different result is the very definition of insanity.”

Hastelloy cracked a thoughtful smile as he
removed a glass vial from his belt that held a liquid so dark the light from Elohim’s relic was powerless to penetrate it.  He crouched down onto one knee and laid the dagger on the ground.  Hastelloy then proceeded to uncorked the vial and pour the black fluid over the entire length of the blade.  He turned it over and repeated the process.

“A while back on this planet I discovered the Castor plant and the poisoning properties it contains,” Hastelloy instructed.
  “I made this little mixture special just for you, and I’m pretty sure you won’t be laughing this time.”

Hastelloy
then picked up the blade taking every care not to touch the tainted metal.  He noticed the flame had lost most of its intensity and now cast the room in a deep crimson hue.

“No!” Elohim cried out just before Hastelloy drove the blade home and stepped back to
watch the outcome.

Once again, the dagger was ingested by the flowing metal.  Immediately the luster of the metallic surface
faded.  The free flowing flames slowed to a standstill and then pulled into the main body of the relic until a plain, unmoving sphere hovered in the middle of the room.  Hastelloy watched with satisfaction as the glow of life grew dim.

“Goron still controls your man,” a hollow voice croaked from the now rust covered sphere.  “The last laugh will still be his.”

When the last hint of light left the sphere the brittle rusted out object dropped to the floor and shattered into dust that filled the tiny room with the vile stench of death.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” Hastelloy uttered to himself as he scooped up the unconscious priestess and
proceeded back to her bed chamber.

Albus got down
on his knees and jabbed the knife he held into the seam between two pieces of the tile floor under his bed.  He pried loose the twelve inch square and pulled out the five bags of gold he’d concealed there several years earlier.

Times were different now.  Back then the city was on the verge of rioting so his master’s family fled the city allowing Albus to steal
the coins from his master.  It frustrated him to no end that he couldn’t just pay for his family’s freedom immediately following the riots; it would have been too suspicious.  Instead he had to bide his time, literally sleeping on the small fortune while enduring the indignities of slavery for a few more years.  Finally, the time was right.

A week earlier
, Albus brought up the topic of buying his family’s freedom. His master set aside time this morning to negotiate the purchase price.  At the time he stole the gold, Albus knew he’d taken more than enough to purchase freedom for himself, his wife, and his son.  Since then, he’d fathered two more children. 

Both
girls were born into slavery by virtue of their father’s station in life requiring more money to procure freedom for the entire family.  A bag of gold each should be more than enough, but Albus knew his master.  The bastard was devious, greedy, and utterly devoid of any moral compass to direct him between right and wrong.  The man would take everything he could because he felt entitled to it.

Albus put the piece of tile back into place and
set the five small bags of gold coins into a carrying sack.  He then stood and headed for the master’s office chamber to commence negotiations.

The slave entered the dark chamber where his master conducted business.  The room was well lit with windows, but the master insisted on decorating the
chamber with dark oak wood that seemed to consume all illumination in the room: bookshelves, chairs, shutters, and of course the oversized table that served as the master’s desk.  It was positioned five feet from the entry door leaving the remaining twenty feet of the opulent room for the master to command.  Anyone entering that room to do business instantly knew where he stood with the master.

Albus took
a seat at the table and waited and waited, which was to be expected.  It was a simple yet effective tactic his master employed by forcing the other man to wait.  It let him know the master controlled things, plus it also allowed fatigue to set in.  By the time his master entered the room to conduct business the counterpart was willing to accept any terms just to get on with life.  Albus knew the tactic, he even helped the master employ it on others a few times, but to sit through it was excruciating.

At long last the great man entered the room
.  The frail seventy year old with wispy white hair and neatly trimmed beard made his way to the table and said with a huff,  “Make it quick Albus, I don’t have all day.” 

Albus sprang to his feet and greeted his master with a contrite bow at the waist. 
“Thank you for taking the time to speak with me, Domine.”

The grumpy old man let out a grunt when he sat down then gestured for Albus to do the same.  “You said you want
ed to buy your entire family out of my service.”  The old man let out a laugh that morphed into a coughing fit that only a lifetime spent inhaling tobacco smoke could produce. 

“Well then
, let’s hear it,” the old man finally recovered enough to utter.  “Say what you have to say so we can both get back to reality.”

“I believe a fair price to be ten silver pieces for each of us; fifty in total,” Albus began.

“Ridiculous,” the master said with great insult in his tone.

“You originally purchased me for ten and my
wife for five,” Albus countered.  “I now offer you fifty, is this not reasonable?”

“If she were barren, or you impotent it might be,” the master instructed.  “But seeing how productive the two of you are together ra
ises the market price.  If I were so inclined, I could simply lock the two of you away for the next ten years to spit out children to sell and make ten times that amount. 

“Plus there’s the children you already have,” the master went on.  “The boy may be as worthless as the ten silver pieces you offer, but unfortunately for you
, the girls take after their mother.  Their beauty would be most valued at a whore house a few years from now.”

Albus knew the master was
attempting to antagonize him because an angry man is a terrible negotiator.  Knowing that didn’t make it any easier to push the image of his two girls spending a lifetime on their backs so this pig could make a few extra coins.

“What do you consider a fair price then?” Albus asked in a level tone.

“What does it matter, we both know you can’t afford a fair price so this conversation is pointless,” the old man barked.

“I’ve been saving for a long time
, Domine.  If you would be so kind, I’d like to know the price.”

“Very well.  Ten gold pieces for you, ten for your wife, twenty for each of the girls, and I’ll throw the boy in for five.”

“Gold pieces,” Albus repeated with open mouthed awe at the disgustingly inflated prices.

“I warned you this discussion was pointless,” the master shot back.

“Fifty gold pieces for all five of us,” Albus countered.  “That is ten times the price you would get in the open market.”

“Fifty it is,” the old man said with a dismissive smirk.  “That should take you about twelve lifetimes to save so we’ll talk again then.”

Albus said nothing, he simply reached into his carrying sack and pulled out the five purses contained within and set them on the table.  He opened the first and poured the contents of ten gold coins out.  He repeated the process until all five purses lay empty and fifty stacked gold coins sat in front of him.

It was the old man’s turn to don a shocked expression.  He quickly recovered and soon began evaluating the stack with a doubtful eye.  “
This kind of money does not come to a man of your station through legal means.  Where did you get this?”

“Their source is not your concern
, Domine,” Albus said.  “Your price has been met, do we have an accord?”

A knot tightened around Albus’ stomach as his master picked up the fifty coins.  The man bit into a few to test if they were genuine.  He inspected several with a close eye to verify they were not counterfeits.  He stopped everything for a moment, and then set the coins on the table and looked at Albus with an expression he hadn’t seen on the man in years – a smile.

“By the gods, I never thought I’d see the day,” the old man said with a bright laugh. 

Albus felt his stomach relax with the master’s brightened mood.
  Just when the rest of his body began to follow suit, his entire world came crashing down on top of him.

“I never thought I’d live to see the day a slave would have the balls to steal my coins and then attempt to buy his freedom with it,” the old man said with a rage so intense it nearly set the wood furnishings of the room on fire.  “The gold I
gave you to save the house four years ago, you kept it for yourself didn’t you?  You and your precious family will all suf . . .”

The tirade was cut short by
Albus leaping across the table and delivering a blow with the palm of his hand to the old man’s sternum.  He heard a satisfying snap upon impact letting him know that the bone along with numerous ribs were now broken.

Albus stuffed a wad
of toga into the old man’s mouth to muffle the scream and then pinched his nose closed to cut off all air.  A minute later it was all over.

He removed the fabric from the master’s mouth and smoothed it into its pro
per place.  Albus then took forty of the gold pieces and placed them back in his carrying sack leaving ten on the table.  He then hollered at the top of his lungs.  “Help!  Help, the master is not well.”

A dozen house
slaves along with the Domina of the house came into the room and found the old man dead in his chair. 

“We . . . we just agreed on ten gold pieces for my family and he suddenly clinched his chest in pain and stopped breathing,” Albus said
while projecting the best approximation of shock his limited acting abilities could to pull it off.

The first to regain his wits
was the master’s secretary, a learned slave who ran all the old man’s affairs.  “This is tragic.  Before we can do anything we must know how the master wanted his remains to be treated and his wealth passed on.  Albus, I need you to run to the House of Vestals and retrieve the will our master filed with them.”

The secretary then walked to the corner of the room, unlocked a drawer and pulled out a wax imprinting stamp.  He paced back to Albus and handed him the circular stamp
.  “Show this to the vestals. It will validate you represent the master’s interests so they can release the document to you, now go.  Hurry.”

“What of the accord the mas
ter and I reached for my family?” Albus asked.

“Ten pieces of gold
?  You paid far too much, but that is your issue,” the secretary answered.  “The deal is struck, let this errand be the last service you perform for the master and mistress.”

Without a word Albus turned,
left the villa, and headed for the House of Vestals with a magnificent smile stretching his cheeks.

As he made his
way to the temple the crowds along the street gradually swelled from the usual hustle and bustle to a path obstructing mob with people touching him on all sides.  The delays this caused did not concern him, his dead master wasn’t going anywhere after all.  However, the vulnerability of the bag Albus carried over his shoulder had him on the verge of panic.

Albus did
n’t have time to hide the forty gold pieces back under his bed; it would have been too suspicious.  If anyone around him learned of the small fortune he carried Albus knew he was a dead man, or at the very least, a beat up poor man.  He held the bag of coins with two hands and took extra care that they did not jingle to tip anyone off as to the contents.

He gradually made his way through the dense and increasingly angry crowds. 
Albus expected the crowds to thin out at some point as he approached the temple, but instead the mob grew only more dense and chaotic.

Eventually
, Albus was able to move no farther.  A wall of bodies surrounded him in every direction and moved like a tidal wave toward the forum grounds.  Since he was being forced into whatever situation had the mob in such an uproar, Albus listened closely to the chatter around him to discern what all the commotion was about. 

“The bastards have no morals,”
one man said to another.  “They think they can get away with anything.”

“But I heard no harm was done to the temple or the priestesses,” his friend countered.

“What difference does that make?” another chimed.  “The vestals are sisters to every citizen of Rome.  To assault them is to assault us all.  They should be crucified for what they’ve done.”

“Gentlemen,” Albus asked.  “Please, what has happened?”

“Octavian and his men stormed the Temple of Vesta and have taken the Vestalis Maxima hostage,” the first man responded.

“What!” Albus
exclaimed.  “Has he gone mad?  What could possibly posses him to insult the people like that?”

“That’s where we’re headed,” the man replied.  “
Octavian will explain himself at the Temple of Bellona, so we go to hear his words; most likely his last.”

Albus let the conversation end there.  Despite his preoccupation with th
e gold coins he carried, a deep-seeded anger darkened his heart and mind.  The vestals represented everything that was noble and pure about Rome and to have that purity violated was profound.  He let the tide of people carry him, his gold, and now his unbridled rage to the temple.

When he finally arrived on the forum grounds he saw the Vestalis Maxima standing alone on the temple steps with her angelic gown waving ever so gently in the morning breeze.  She was unharmed, and certainly didn’t look like anyone’s hostage.

Feeling his anger subside, Albus suddenly recalled the significance of where they stood.  Among other things, war was declared against foreign powers on the steps of Bellona’s temple.  He couldn’t piece together how the vestal virgins and a declaration of war went together, so he listened in with the rest of the angry crowd to see if they truly did.

“Romans,” the Vestalis Maxima bellowed with an astonishingly bombastic voice, especially coming from such a frail old woman.  “You have come here for the sake of our sacred goddess Vesta
, the source of all things prosperous in our land.  Her temple, and the house of priestesses devoted to her service were trespassed upon last night.”

Angry shouts and declarations of vengeance rolled across the mob, but the Vestal signaled for them to fall silent and continued.  “No one was more insulted by this affront on the Goddess I hold most dear
than I.  That said, what I’ve learned this morning forces me to declare for every Roman to hear.  The actions taken last night were in the best interests of the Republic and therefore honorable and exempt from prosecution.”