Chronicles of Logos Quest For the Kingdom Parts IV, V, VI, and VII Revised With Index (Quest For the Kingdom Set) (77 page)

Iacomus sat on
his throne and fumed in aggravated fury. Where was that Minister of State of
his? Really, Decimus was too unreliable, and quickly becoming more of a
liability than an asset in the eyes of his Emperor.

He snapped his
fingers at one of the Guards who hovered near by.

“When our
Minister of State should happen to return, send for him at once.”

The Guard
bowed and inclined his head. Iacomus jumped up from the throne and paced the
floor, his uncertainties returning to plague him, as he reflected on the
behavior of his Minister of State.

He recalled
their conversation shortly before Decimus left on business for Lycenium.

“Did you or
did you not help Dag Adalbart escape this Palace? Why is it that both he and
Justus Lucius are friends of Marcus Maximus and yet they somehow escaped when
no one ever has. I say that you helped them to escape!”

Decimus had
turned rather pale but stood firm.

“I did not
help them escape. And if you knew how much I loathe Marcus Maximus you would
realize that he is the last man on earth I would do a favor.”

“Then why did
you permit your son to marry his daughter if you hate him so much?”

Decimus
groaned.

“They met and
married before any of us knew about it. Indeed, Maximus and I discussed
possibly dissolving the marriage, as it was not even known yet. But I realized
that the maiden’s reputation would be ruined by such a move, and as much as I
detest the man, I would not hurt a maiden so pure and blameless.”

Iacomus
laughed uproariously at this explanation.

“You!
You
would not hurt a maiden so pure? Oh, Decimus, how you have changed! I remember
our youth; I remember how you thought it good sport to lead a maiden on and
break her heart after first seducing her. Do you honestly expect your Emperor
to believe that you would not sully this maiden’s reputation?”

Decimus
clamped his mouth shut tightly and gave Iacomus a withering stare.

“Yes, I do
expect you to believe it. This is not the days of our youth any longer. If you
were a father you would understand how feelings can change. And my son loves
her: I would not part them for the world.”

The tone in
which Decimus uttered these words was so firm that the Emperor blinked at him.
He was not accustomed to any defying him, and he wondered if he had made a
mistake in making an old friend a member of his government…

“Ah, so it is
the maiden herself? You would do a favor for her? Is that right, Decimus?”

“No, it is
not, Your Grace. And I do not forget she is the daughter of the man I loathe
above all others; the last thing I would wish is to benefit him in any manner.”

The emphasis
of this statement finally satisfied the Emperor. The snapping of Decimus’ eyes
when he mentioned Marcus, the way he bellowed his words convinced Iacomus that
he told the truth.

“Very well,”
he said at last. “We shall consider the matter closed.”

Now Iacomus
had need of Decimus and he was nowhere to be found. He desired to speak to
someone, for a matter was puzzling him. He had never been a great thinker, and
to try to solve any riddle frustrated him and brought home to him his
limitations in a manner that he did not like to admit. He preferred to think
out loud and “invite” others to join in the riddle solving, never letting on
that without their input he was utterly at a loss to solve anything.

At last he
heard footsteps in the ante-chamber and a Guard approached him.

“I have the
Minister of State, sir,” he stated.

“Ah, at last,”
Iacomus said as Decimus entered the room

Decimus bowed
and waited before the throne.

“Decimus,”
Iacomus plunged in without wasting time on further greetings. “We have a
riddle, and we wish to know whether you can solve it. We think we have the
answer, but it is always amusing to include others in the pursuit of riddles,
so let us play the game together, shall we?”

“I am ready,
Your Grace.”

“Right. We
were consulting Logos this morning, and a strange word appeared on the blade.
Now you know how fond we are of Logos and the words that appear, but this one
puzzles us greatly. We wonder if you may have some insight.”

Decimus’ face
was as blank as a new scroll. It was evident that he did not consider this game
with the same sense of enjoyment that the Emperor did.

He merely
shrugged his shoulders.

“I am ready,
Your Grace,” he replied.

“Very well;
here is the word. ‘You shall love the
Lord
your
God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all
your strength.
’
We
already have everyone bow down to Dominio, so why should this word appear to
vex us? Are we to further enforce the worship of Dominio, do you think?”

Before Decimus
could respond, if indeed he could respond which did not appear likely judging
by the blank look in his eyes, the sound of scuffling came from the
ante-chamber. The Guards cried out, but Antonius Hadrianus burst into the
Emperor’s throne room, followed practically on his heels by his wife and Marcus
and Tullia Maximus.

“I can answer
that riddle for you!” Antonius cried.

Decimus
finally came to life, quickly and painfully.

“Son, no! You
must never burst in on a private royal audience. You must apologize and leave
at once!”

Antonius
laughed, a harsh jeering laugh that wrung the heart of Marcus as he heard it.
It was clear to him that the young man had not recovered from the shock of his
father’s hidden crime, and still bore bitterness against the man he had
formerly adored.

“Royal?”
Antonius said. “Is he indeed royal? If he is none of the Imperial family ever
knew about it, for Urbanus died childless and there was no mention of any blood
relative. And that he made this usurper the Emperor is clear evidence of how
deeply he deluded Emperor Urbanus in his last days.”

Iacomus gasped
in outrage, but before he could react, Decimus thrust himself between his
furious sovereign and his foolish son. Antonius dodged around him and stepped
forward to the Emperor’s throne.

“And as for
your riddle, I know exactly what it means: would you like to hear the meaning?
But before I tell it to you remember this: Logos is a two-edged Sword. If you
receive a word and do not obey it, it shall destroy you.

“Now, shall I
tell you the meaning of the word?”

Marcus viewed
the scene before him with horror and anxiety for the rash young man who seemed
to be openly courting his own destruction.

He and Tullia
along with Felicia and Decimus had arrived at the harbor about an hour before
the ship Antonius had sailed on, and so arrived at the Palace first. He and his
wife and daughter stood waiting on Decimus in the ante-chamber, in the event
that Antonius might do exactly what he did, which was to rush to the Emperor’s
throne room as soon as he arrived in Potentus. Marcus had struggled with him,
but the young man in his zeal seemed possessed of super human strength, and had
easily escaped his grasp.

He prayed as
he stood there, imploring Dominio to protect this impulsive, wounded young man
from the wrath of the cruelest ruler the Empire of Valerium had ever seen.
Indeed, Marcus could not believe that Antonius was not already dead, for
Iacomus thought nothing of ordering a man’s death and then seating himself at a
banquet where he indulged freely with no further thought given to the life just
ended.

The Emperor
stared at Antonius, his eyes as hard and black as that of a viper about to
strike.

“What does it
mean? Tell us, if you know. For we have already ordered the people of the
Valeriun Empire to bow down to none but Dominio, so why should this word appear
on the blade?”

Antonius did
not flinch but stared boldly at the Emperor.

“The word
means to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your
mind, and all your strength. Yet, you do not do that, for what you force the
people of Valerium to bow down to is
not
the Dominio that true believers
know and worship. What you have forced them to bow down to on pain of death is
a mockery, an idol of your own making, and not God at all.”

Antonius’
breath was coming in shallow gasps as he challenged Iacomus. The Emperor rose
from his throne slowly and with death in his eyes. He raised his heavy scepter
with its hard pointed end and took a step forward.

“I am not
finished,” Antonius declared. “That word is for
you
! You must repent for
taking the name of Dominio in vain, for forcing others to bow down at your
order instead of with the free will that He gave to man. And it is
you
that
Logos is calling to bow down to the real Dominio, and not the idol of your own
making.”

Decimus
groaned and slumped down to the floor, his head cradled in his hands. To
Marcus, it did seem that Antonius had just signed his own death warrant. At
that instant, Iacomus stepped forward again and raised his scepter to strike
Antonius.

It merely
bounced back up in the air as if it had hit a soft surface that sent it back
from whence it came. Iacomus gasped and stared at the scepter. He raised it
again to strike Antonius; this time it flew back and hit the Emperor on the
head.

“It is his
ring, Father!” Felicia whispered. “It is the ring I gave Antonius on our
wedding night. It was specially blessed to protect whoever wore it from danger.
And it is protecting him now from the Emperor!”

Decimus’ head
whirled around and he stared at his daughter-in-law and then at Marcus. He
raised an eyebrow at Marcus, who nodded his head slowly. Yes, the nod meant; it
was possible.

Iacomus was
now in the full vent of unbridled rage. He flung the scepter across the throne
room, where it landed on and destroyed a marble statue of the first Emperor,
Valerianus. Then he reached for Logos and approached Antonius.

Marcus decided
at this point to intervene. He stretched out a hand to the Emperor.

“I should not
do that if I were you, Your Grace. Logos is never to be used in violence. And
to disobey the word you were given is to invite your own destruction, for it is
a two-edged Sword.”

Iacomus
laughed at Marcus and swung the Sword in the air. The whooshing sound it made
was both thrilling and frightening. Decimus rose to his feet and stepped behind
his son.

Antonius
merely stared at Iacomus and did not back down.

“What is it to
be: shall you bow down to the real Dominio? Or will you disobey and pay the
penalty, even as you have made others pay the penalty for not bowing down to
your idol?”

Iacomus rushed
at Antonius with drawn Sword, but Decimus was quicker. He grabbed the Emperor’s
wrist with one hand and tore Logos out of his grasp with the other hand. He
then stood between his son and the Emperor with the Sword raised and ready to
use.

Iacomus
clutched his wrist and stared in disbelief at his old friend.

“Decimus, you
would not strike your old friend, would you? You would not use Logos against
us, would you?”

Decimus snickered
suddenly and then laughed openly at the Emperor.

“Use
this
against
you? Logos? Indeed, I would not; I dare not! For it is not mine to use!”

Without
warning he whirled around and threw the Sword to Marcus, who was so stunned
that he nearly dropped it. Then Decimus turned back to the Emperor.

“But I would
use
this
against you!” he exclaimed, as he whipped a dagger out of the
pocket of his robe. “I warn you: one step more toward my son, and I will plunge
this into your heart.”

“Father, no!
Please do not kill for my sake!” Antonius pleaded.

“Stand back
son, this is not your fight,” Decimus told him. “Logos was not the Emperor’s
for me to take for him, but I did not know that, did not know what it was I
stole.”

He shot a look
at Marcus briefly before returning to face Iacomus.

“But this man;
this man has done great evil, forcing others to bow down to what he did not
believe in himself, or die for their refusal. Is there anything more wicked
than that?”

Decimus shook
his head. The Emperor reached out a placating hand and Decimus raised the
dagger. The Emperor quickly drew back his hand.

“Well, what is
it to be, Iacomus? You heard my son: are you going to obey the word or not?”

The face of
the Emperor turned as purple as his royal robe. His lips drew back in a snarl
and he whipped out his own dagger and raised it against Decimus. But before he
could drive home the thrust he clutched at his throat, dropping the dagger, and
sank to his knees. He struggled for breath and his eyes rolled in his head. The
Guard rushed to his side, and the Emperor lay writhing on the floor, gasping
for air. After a long and agonizing struggle in which no one dared speak, he
lay still and did not move.

It was Decimus
who voiced the thought of them all.

“I suppose
that meant no.”

Felicia rushed
to her husband and clung to him. He appeared to have recovered himself, as if
confronting the Emperor purged the pain in his heart. He extended a hand to his
father, who clutched it against his cheek.

Marcus looked
with a renewed sense of wonder at the Sword that now lay inert in his hand.
Three years, it had been nearly three years since he last held it. He was awe
struck by the beauty of it as if holding it for the first time. Suddenly he
felt seventeen again and felt the thrill of receiving his very own Sword. He
swung it through the air, the whooshing sound made his blood run in his veins.

Tullia,
Felicia, and Antonius now came to join him, and to marvel at Logos. And he
became aware that Decimus stood silently before him, waiting to catch his
attention. When at last Marcus looked at him, Decimus raised his arm high and
out toward Marcus in the Valeriun salute, the mark of respect that the men of
the Empire gave to their equals. Marcus looked into the eyes of his old enemy
and returned the salute.

And then he
laid a hand on Decimus’ shoulder in the gesture that the men of the Empire
accorded only to family and friends; and Decimus in turn laid a hand on the
shoulder of Marcus.

Behind him he
heard the excited voice of his daughter exclaiming.

“Father, look!
Logos is speaking. It says; ‘The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word
of our God stands forever.’ ”