Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2008 22:24:13 -0700 (PDT) From: Daniel Miller Subject: The barbarian and the boy, Ch. 8 This is a fictional story. The characters and events described herein are fictitious. The story and its contents are the sole property of the author. It has been posted on the Nifty Story Archives page with the permission of the author. Any act of copying or plagiarism will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. If you are offended by sex or sexual acts between two consenting males, or by a relationship between an older man and a significantly younger one please do not read any further. Please do not read any further if you are under the age of 18 or it is illegal for you to be viewing such material where you reside. For the rest of you who don't need this read on and enjoy. Let me know what you think. Copyright 2006 Author's Note: Again it seems that i must apologize for my tardiness in posting this next instalment. Also, I realize that there has been very little sex going on lately. This is primarialy because the story, as all good stories do, has begun to take on a life of its own. there will certainly be more of that to come, but not at the expense of the story. So if I have not as yet lost your attention here it is, read on and enjoy. Chapter VIII They rode away into the night, to the west. Kreshtar drove the stallion as hard as the horse would go for over an hour. After that he slowed down but kept a steady pace. The horse was breathing hard, as was the mare tied to him by the halter. But the pair had been worth the price paid for them and more, they kept going. At day brake they stopped at a small stream to water the horses and let them rest for a minute. "Kreshtar...," Tristan began hesitantly but Kreshtar silenced him with a gentle finger to the young man's lips. "Whatever it is you are about to say," Kreshtar spoke softly, "it can wait for no. all that matters is that you are safe for the time being. When we stop for the night we can talk, I've a few things to say to you as well. For now we concentrate on getting away." "You're bleeding," Tristan pointed to Kreshtar's shoulder and side. Kreshtar looked down and grimaced as the pain that had been forgotten in the heat of the fight and the urgency of their escape came flaring back to life. "We may not have time to treat those properly," Tristan insisted, "but you need to at least have those bound with some linen." Kreshtar acquiesced to Tristan's insistence. As Tristan found some clean linen from the supplies they had picked up he tried not to think too deeply about what had occurred over the last twenty-four hours. The chaos of the last day let him feeling almost numb. Tonight, tonight he could let it all in, for now they had to continue their escape. He did the best he could with the time they had. Using river water and a small chunk of soap Tristan cleaned the woulds hurriedly and wrapped some of the fresh linen around Kreshtar's torso. By that point Kreshtar deemed that the horses should be sufficiently watered, at least for now. Mounting back up he kept a steady pace, not as fast as he would have liked, but they did not lag. They rode with out stopping. Finally, when the sun passed its zenith and began to make its descent to the horizon Kreshtar rode the horses into a small copse of trees. They offered little cover but there were no homesteads in sight. So long as they were careful they should be safe for now. Tristan went about making a small fire. The look on his face told Kreshtar that he would brook no argument about it. Fatigue, finally catching up with him, drove Kreshtar into a deep slumber. Fire, screams, darkness, and Tristan's voice. Tristan was calling out to him, pleading, begging, screaming for him. Kreshtar couldn't find him, he couldn't tell where Tristan's voice was coming from. He stumbled about in the darkness, his eyes couldn't pierce the blackness. The light from the fires made it so his eyes couldn't adjust to it. His sword was a stone weight in his hands made slick and difficult to hold from the blood of those he had slain. "You will never find him, Beast," a man stepped from the darkness into the light of the fires. The flames painted the man's torso in a livid relief, but the light of the fire lent no warmth to the man's form. The man was naked save for a linen cloth wrapped about his loins, coming up through his legs. The first feature that Kreshtar saw was a scar, though that seemed a mild term for it. The mark began on the middle of the man's thigh, disappeared under the linen, only to reemerge at his waist and run up the man's torso and terminate somewhere on his face, his features indistinct. "I will have your boy beneath me, I will feel him struggle, hear his pleas and cries and his begging for it to end. All the while it will make every moment all the sweeter for me. And in the midst of all that I will hear his release. "I will see you caged. Like an animal in a menagerie. Poked and prodded and made to perform for my delight. You shall watch, bound, chained and helpless while I take your young man and use him for mine own entertainment. "Woe and despair are all that await you barbarian." Kreshtar screamed, wordless in his answer and in his defiance. He charged headlong at the figure and swung mightily. His sword passed through the apparition like smoke, the figure dispersed leaving a chilling laugh in it's wake. "Kreshtar!" Tristan was calling out to him, "Kreshtar!" Kreshtar riped himself from the depths of slumber with a start. The sun was in the last leg of its descent, closing in on the western horizon. Tristan had his hand on Kreshtar's shoulder and he was shaking gently but firmly. Tristan's face looked haggard but he was smiling wanly. "You were dreaming," Tristan spoke softly and gently. "I...," Kreshtar's voice was thick, his tongue felt lazy and words seemed heavy, but it was more than that. "...I couldn't... couldn't find you. You were calling out to me, crying for me... and I didn't know where you were. "It was dark, there was fire, and smoke and screams. No matter how many I killed I couldn't find you. You called to me and I couldn't follow." Kreshtar's voice was husky with emotions he had never had before.. "Ssssshh...," Tristan soothed, "I'm here now. You found me. Against all impossibility you found me." "Come Ragnarök and the end of all things," Kreshtar whispered, reaching his hand out and cupping Tristan's face, "come Fimbulwinter, I will find you. Though Loki, Fenris, Hel, the frozen wastes of Helheim and the underworld itself stand between me and you I will find my way to you. If I have to carve a path out of blood and broken bodies or if I must give up some part of myself, I will find my way to your side. "Tristan," Kreshtar hesitated, he did not rightly know how to express what it was that he was feeling. Words seemed to fail him. "Tristan, I cannot lose you. I don't know how or rightly when it happened exactly, but in these few short weeks you have become precious to me. More so than I really can say. "I would do anything to keep you, give up anything, just tell me that it's what you wish." Tristan looked into Kreshtar's eyes for a long moment. Then he smiled a small smile, an echo of the innocent yet mischievous grin that Kreshtar now adored, but it was there. He reached up and gave the hand cupping his face a small squeeze. "Don't you dare," Tristan spoke softly. "I've had a lot of time to think. You were right, about all of it. "I knew exactly who and what you are since that night I first heard your name, Kreshtar. And while the idle of boyhood fantasy is not even close to the reality of the man, having the reality is better, in every way. "Since I am choosing to be with you I am going to have to accept all of you. I don't want to change you." "But I am changing," Kreshtar insisted. "Already I can feel it. Your opinion and what you have to say matters to me. Simply because I am who I am and I do what I do... I don't want you to just meekly go along with anything I say, whatever whim I have at the moment, that's not right either." "the young man that I've come to admire, the Tristan that I know, is strong willed, possibly to the point of being stubborn," Kreshtar added affectionately. "That more than anything is what I've come to admire about you." "Don't think," Tristan said after a moment, "that because I don't want to change you that I won't still speak my mind and tell you what I'm thinking. That's not what I'm trying to say. Rather, I am going to be who I am, and you are going to be who you are, and somehow we can still meet each other in the middle." Kreshtar smiled easily. "I think I can live with that." "Good," said Tristan with mock harshness and a wide smile on his face. "Now, I've got a patient to see to, so if you don't mind I need to get to work." And with that Tristan began to see to the wounds Kreshtar had received. The small fire Tristan had built had since died to embers. Nestled in the middle of the burning coals was a small iron cauldron. Tristan dipped a small wooden bowl into the cauldron and brought up some of the steaming liquid. He handed the bowl to Kreshtar with orders to drink. The infusion tasted of several different herbs, but the strongest was garlic. Next, Tristan took another bowl and dipped his fingers into a paste that he had mixed. He began to liberally apply the mixture on Kreshtar's wounds. On initial contact the poultice stung, but soon gave way to a tingling numbness. After he had finished with that Tristan wiped his hands off on a small cloth and began to rummage through their supplies till he found what he needed. He pulled out a needle and a small spool of thread and returned to where Kreshtar sat against the tree. Tristan set down the spool and turned to the embers. Using a spare tree branch he stoked the coals till he had a small open flame. Carefully, he ran the very tip of the needle through the flames. He came back to Kreshtar and knelt again. Handing the needle to Kreshtar, Tristan measured out a span of thread the length of his arms. He took the needle back and threaded it, tying it of in a well practiced motion. "What are you going to do?" Kreshtar asked, a confused expression on his face. "Stitch me together as though I were two pieces of cloth?" "As a matter of fact yes," Tristan explained nonchalantly. "This is something else my mother taught me. "Usually, when a person receives a heavy wound that is open and bleeding you cauterize it. Take essentially a branding iron and heat it in a bellows and run it along the wound so the flesh melts and creates a seal to stop the bleeding." "I know what cauterizing is," Kreshtar grunted, a little irritated. "Sorry," Tristan gave a small smile, "I don't mean to lecture but it's how my mother taught me, I can't quite help it I guess. "Anyways," he continued, "by the time you heat the branding iron to where it needs to be you can sometimes lose a patient. And in some cases it is not possible to move an injured person to where you can cauterize the injury. So my mother began experimenting, this was the best she could come up with. And, admittedly it works rather well. "Now," Tristan began stitching the largest cut, "the infusion and the poultice I gave you both serve two purposes. First, they will both help fight off any infection and keep the cuts from festering. The second effect is that they dull the pain from me pushing a needle into your skin, the poultice does that directly but it's relatively weak. When we bought all this I wasn't expecting to do this much. The infusion is not much stronger, but with both I believe that they should be enough." At that point Kreshtar began to feel a little lightheaded. The sensation of Tristan pushing a needle in his flesh was disconcerting, there wasn't any pain really, it was more a focused pressure. By the time Tristan finished it was almost to dark to see, and it seemed that the infusion was wearing off. Tristan wiped his hands off on the small cloth and used some water to rinse off the stitches. After that he reapplied some of the poultice and bound the wounds with some more strips of fresh linen. Finally, Tristan grabbed a pouch and collapsed next to Kreshtar. Leaning on the side that wasn't wounded. Out of the pouch he produced a small loaf of bread and a chunk of a yellow cheese. They both ate sparingly. "So," Tristan began, "where do we go now?" "West," Kreshtar answered without hesitation, "we go west. Find somewhere where we can live out of their reach. And then, who knows." With that Kreshtar kissed the top of Tristan's head tenderly, grateful for the opportunity to be able to do so, and they both drifted off to sleep. * * * * * Light, it hurt. It felt harsh, oppressive. That was the first sensation he was aware of the, next was a literally painful awareness of his own body. Bruises, cuts, and he was sure his right shin must be broken. Baraethius slowly opened his eyes, the sight that greeted him was a dirty straw strewn floor. He was naked save for his small clothes, the only decency and dignity afforded him. He was not sure how long he had been in this cell, he had been slipping in and out of consciousness at that point, from fatigue, from hunger, from thirst, from loss of blood, from pain, from despair. After the fire had been brought under control and all the survivors grouped together, there had been only thirteen including himself and the commander, Remaeus ordered him be bound and stripped and tied behind a horse. The men had been reluctant, but their training to follow orders won out. Baraethius didn't begrudge them that. The return trip had been one long, agonizing humiliation. People spat upon him as he trudged along, they threw rotted vegetable at him and uttered curses at his passing. There had been no possible way that they could have know what he had done, they had simply surmised that he was scum from the circumstances. Three long days Baraethius endured such hardships, and then the gods in their good graces had finally let him succumb to exhaustion. Then he had woken in this cell. He could only assume that he was back in the capital, back in Rome, but he did not know for certain. The guards would not speak to him. He had known they wouldn't, but that hadn't stopped him from trying all the same. He could only take small comfort in the fact that he had a cell with a window, though right now the light hurt he knew it would be better than the dank darkness that he could and very probably would be lost in. The sound of voices drew his attention. The hall outside was long and wide and sound was distorted by the dimensions of it, echoing across the distances. The voices stopped but in their place came footsteps advancing down the hall. They came closer till they stopped just outside the door to his cell. Baraethius pushed himself up to sit, the pain just this side of excruciating and the effort winded him, but he managed to at least lean against the wall with his legs out in front of him. The door opened and a man walked through, had the circumstances been any different Baraethius would have jumped to attention and saluted. Even so, had his shin not been so badly hurt he might still have. The general looked down at the broken form of the soldier in front of him. Beaten, bruised and bloody somehow the man on the floor in front of him still managed to maintain his dignity, if even only by shreds. Baraethius raised his eyes to meet the gaze of the man in front of him, a man who he had seen a number of times before, a man who had been in part a benefactor to him, and he fought to keep the shame and humiliation off his face. This man was grizzled and old, the hair on his head spars on the sides and bald on the top, sunlight reflecting off the pate. His beard and the hair on his head were more gray than black. His limbs had begun to sag, the result of staying back and making tactical decisions rather than charging with the front lines. Yet there was still a powerful air about the man. He commanded respect almost instantly, and though his features were weathered his face was still shrewd, his eyes had a critical gaze that took the measure of everything he saw, and every man. Those deep brown eyes were currently anchored on Baraethius, utterly expressionless. Baraethius kept his expression neutral as best he could, well aware of the fact that he was fooling no one, least of all the general in front of him and least of all himself. But he did it anyway. "Regretfully," the man began at length, "the responsibility has fallen to me to inform you that for the crime of treason against the mighty Empire of Rome, and against his mightiness, the Emperor, you have been cast into slavery. More specifically you have been made into a gladiator and shall be sentenced to fight in the coliseum until such time as you are either dead or have earned back your freedom." "I," Baraethius choked, "I understand, sir." "Your understanding has nothing to do with it, slave," the man spoke harshly, "and do not refer to me as sir. You lost that privilege that same night that you betrayed your country. You are property, chattel, understand that and make such peace with it as you can," the man turned away and strode from the room. "Someone will be in to tend to your wounds, you must be restored and able to fight as best you can," and with that the man disappeared out of the door. Baraethius sat back against the wall and tried to let the pronouncement of his sentence sink in, slavery, or more rather, a gladiator. In a fit of black irony the thought struck him that his life would really be no different, only now he would have an audience to cheer on his butchery. The thought also occurred to him that he was only fooling himself. War was bloody and war was violent to be sure and men died, but not in the ways that they died in the gladiator's arena. In the arena the more painful and agonizing the death the more the audience loved you for it. This would be different. He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he had not heard the approach of footsteps that announced the arrival of the physician to come and tend to him. The unbolting of the door was what got his attention. Baraethius looked up and his heart stopped, his breath caught in his throat, a painfulness that had nothing to do with his body and everything to do with his heart clawed his way up from his stomach. "No," he whispered, "no. I must be dreaming, the cruelest and most horrible of dreams the gods can conjure up for a traitor such as I, but even so just a dream. There is no way that you can be real. They would never..." his words trailed off and his vision blurred with tears, one falling down his cheek. "Ithukas?" Baraethius breathed the name more than said it. "Gods may send dreams to men and men may dream of terrors," Ithukas said gently back, his own voice thick with emotion. He approached and knelt beside Baraethius, he raised his hand and gently cupped Baraethius' cheek. "but was there ever terror such as I? Are the first thoughts that enter into your mind when you see me here of cruelty and horror?" "No, never," Baraethius breathed back, "but they would never let you anywhere near me, knowing what they do about how we felt for each other. And so I must concluded that you are a dream, a phantom or a spirit conjured to torment me. Can it really be you?" "As you see me, so I am," Ithukas answered. "How?" Baraethius asked in disbelief. He raised his hand up and cupped his former comrade and lover's cheek in return just to reassure himself that he truly was not dreaming. "That night, when you attacked the commander in order to rescue the boy I fled, just as we agreed. I got to Rome probably only a few days ahead of you, but that was time enough for me. I pulled in every favor that I had left to me and I have been transferred back here, helping train field physicians for the military at one of the schools for medicine. "How it is that I am the one to tend to you, that I could not say. And even more so I am amazed that I have received no discipline for what almost amounts to desertion. Some one surly had a hand in it. That is for certain." Baraethius finally let himself believe that this was real, and then it all sank in at once. He wept freely at that point, clutching to Ithukas as though he were a floating piece of driftwood in a raging tide. The sobs subsided after a time. When Baraethius' weeping had finally ceased Ithukas spoke up again. "There is something I wish to ask you. Something I feel I have a right to know." "But speak it and I will tell you," Baraethius replied without hesitation. "Why?" Baraethius paused for a moment, trying to collect his thoughts and decide how best to start down this path. One thing he was certain of though, Ithukas had a right to know. "I never did tell you about my family did I?" Baraethius stated plainly. When Ithukas shook his head Baraethius continued, "My father was a merchant, is a merchant. He never has been exceeding rich, but things were well enough. Enough so that my father was able to afford a slave. And so he bought one, a serving girl that was not much younger than him at the time, a woman from the north. "He was not a harsh master and she came to love him, and in time he her. I was the result. They never married, but my father never had another woman in his life after that. She was forbidden to teach me the language of her people, but he never said anything about learning about them. "We have faced the barbarians in battle, and I have fought them knowing that I may very well be slaying a kinsman. To my knowledge they find it honorable to die on the field of battle as opposed to dieing old in bed, in fact most of them prefer it. "But, that was just a boy, a boy that the commander was going to... it was different when it was you, or myself, or any of the other soldiers. If any one of us had really wanted to at anytime we could have said no. It might not have been the wisest choice in the world, but it was still within our means to get out of it if we wanted to. "Put a sword in another man's hand and set him upon me and I can kill him. Take the weapon away from him and tell him to fight me whilst I am armed and armored and I cannot strike him for mine own honor. I will defend myself yes, but I will not kill an unarmed man." Ithukas looked at Baraethius for a long moment. Then a small smile crept across his lips. "You stubborn, sentimental fool," he shook his head. He kissed Baraethius on the for head and then set about binding and cleaning the man's wounds. The task was arduous, and it was a wonder that no infection had settled in. And it would also seem that fortune would favor them, for his leg was not actually broken, just very badly bruised. Ithukas finished his labor and began packing up his things. Neither of them said anything. When he stood to go Baraethius finally broke the silence. "Will, you," he hesitated, "will you be able to come again?" "Along with teaching at the school one of my duties is to help care for some of the gladiators, you happen to be one of them. So, yes, I will be able to come as often as I can. But even with that I don't know how much it will be." "It is enough," Baraethius sighed, tired. "Get some sleep," Ithukas ordered, "you will need it to help speed the healing. Pleasant dreams, my love," he whispered the last as he walked out the door. "No dream that the gods could devise to send me could be sweeter and more pleasant than the small bit of grace I have seemingly found." Baraethius declared to everyone and no one. * * * * * Ithukas stepped from the compound on the prison and stood for a moment, closing his eyes and concentrating on smooth, even, deep breaths. Gods, but this was hard, to see him broken and battered, to be allowed to see him but not really allowed to touch him, to hold him, to kiss him. As far as Ithukas was concerned his comrade, his lover, had done the right thing. He didn't care that the boy was only a savage, a barbarian from the north, stopping the commander had been the right thing to do. Ithukas desperately wish that he were as strong as Baraethius, then this might be a little easier. Baraethius had always been stronger than he, not just physically, but in every way possible, otherwise the events of that night might have played out a little differently. Ithukas inhaled deeply and heaved a great sigh. He pointed his feet in the right direction and began to walk. The streets and alleyways criss-crossed in every direction and people went on about their business. Some marked the man walking down the street on his own, and to those that witnessed his passing it looked as though he had taken the burden of Atlas upon his own shoulders, holding the sky upon his back for eternity. But otherwise they payed him little heed. The cobbles of the streets and the stone houses eventually gave way to the open fields and less crowded dwellings that dotted the country side. Ithukas' destination was not far, but it seemed to him that, with every piece of him feeling leaden down, that it should have taken the better portion of the day. As it was it was the middle of the afternoon when he arrived at the estate he was looking for. He made his way down the dirt road, not far off in the distance a building was a building stood in the midst of the easy fields and soft hills. The house was not grandiose by any stretch of the imagination, but it was sizable. The stone work was masterful, crisp, clean lines hewn from the smooth white rock by experienced hands, but without many of the embellishments that other manors might have. Two guards stood outside the the low wall that surrounded the structure, they nodded to Ithukas, recognizing him as a soldier and let him pass. Ithukas stepped inside. The house was cool without being cold, spring having finally thrown off the grasp of winter, and was simply furnished. The halls were rich without being pompous. A soldier stood at a juncture here or there guarding the passage but for the most part the manor was devoid of slaves and servants and anyone for that matter. Ithukas made his way through, pointed in the right direction by the soldiers standing guard. At length he came to a great oak door with one guard standing outside it. "He is expecting you," the soldier announced, opening the door. Ithukas went through the doorway and heard it shut softly behind him. The room was occupied by a single desk and oak chair in the center of it. An oil lamp hung to either side of the desk, providing light and smelling slightly of frankincense. Behind the desk, occupying the chair, sat the same general that had proceeded Ithukas in the dungeon where Baraethius was being held. Parchments littered the desktop, the man pouring through them, but upon Ithukas' entry looked up. The general gathered the various reports and letters up into one pile and set them aside. The man laced his fingers together and gazed at Ithukas across the tops of his knuckles, studying him for a moment. Ithukas stepped forward and gave a disciplined salute, then waited anxiously as the man studied him for the space of a few more long heart beats. "Report," he commanded. "Sir," Ithukas responded, "the prisoner Baraethius should be ready for combat within a few weeks. His wounds, while many, are not grievous. His leg, which is not actually broken, a miracle quite frankly, should be back to its full use in three or four weeks. He will be ready for the Colosseum on schedule." Ithukas almost choked on this last. The thought of Baraethius fighting in there was torture, and the fact that he had been assigned to tend Baraethius seemed to be rooted in cruelty as well, but this he did not voice. "Succinct, to the point, and excellent news," the general commented, lovering his hands and resting them on the desktop casually. "I can see why you hold the regard of every field officer you've served under. You are indeed fortunate for that. "Now, what do you think of his will to fight? How long do you think he will last as a gladiator?" Ithukas' face hardened in an instant, open fury and anger naked on his features. "Why?" "Bold as well," the general commented, pleased. Had that one word been a blade he would be bleeding right now, it certainly showed promise. "Let me explain a few things to you soldier, Ithukas, a man of no birth or standing, yet who has proven himself an adept and even talented field physician, one of the very reasons we are even having this conversation right now instead of your suffering a fate as equally as tragic, or worse, as you lover." Ithukas blanched at that last remark and averted his gaze. "What? Did you think that I had not informed of that little detail? "Know right now that you could have faced execution, even with the connections you have with a number of the officers, had but a few circumstances been different. Not the least of which is the fact that commander Remeaus has decided not to peruse it. Know full well that you have very narrowly escaped punishment for your perceived desertion. Is that clear, soldier?" "Yes, sir," Ithukas responded dejectedly, his gaze on the stone floor. "Now, that having been said, I will tell you your 'why'," Ithukas looked up, puzzled. The general stood behind his desk and began to pace the length of the room. "It is my wish that Baraethius might one day earn his freedom and be released from the Colosseum. He is a soldier with far too much promise to be wasted as a gladiator. Which is precisely why you have been assigned to tend him. If he has a reason to fight then the chance that he might survive with be significantly better." "Excuse me, sir," Ithukas said almost timidly, "but I don't quite understand." "Then you shall," the general responded. "It is my opinion that the former lieutenant Baraethius is responsible for the lives of those who survived that night of catastrophe. His actions, while to begin with were treasonous, resulted in the immediate withdraw of the attacker, the lone attacker I might add, against fifty well armed and well trained and proven soldiers. If anyone bears any of the burden of responsibility for this entire debacle it is Remeaus himself, having been the one in command and having neglected his duties in the pursuit of other... entertainments. "Remeaus is like a rabid dog in need of putting down. However, despite the views he holds of politicians he is surprisingly well connected. The principal reason for this being that he has endeared himself to the emperor, specifically when he earned his scar and his freedom during his own time as a gladiator. The emperor has shown him much favor, and as a result others in the senate follow him about hoping to earn favor with the emperor as well. A sickening display quite frankly. "Now," the general stopped pacing and looked at Ithukas sternly, "have I explained myself to you sufficiently?" the implied indignity of a man of his rank and authority having to justify himself to a mere soldier hung in the air unsaid. Ithukas only nodded. "Good," the general resumed his seat at that and began to shuffle through the parchments once more. It was safe to assume that Ithukas was dismissed, yet there was one other thing that he wanted to ask. "Sir," Ithukas began hesitantly. The man looked up expectantly at him and Ithukas swallowed a lump in his throat. Yet he continued on. "If... if I might humbly request... would it be possible for... might I ask that... Baraethius might be further encouraged if..." "If you might visit him for reasons other than treatment?" the general finished, not unkindly. "Well, that depends on him entirely. Gladiators that do well are rewarded occasionally with companions, and it can be arranged that that is you. But that must be earned by him. And you are now under orders not to let him know that, or that we have even had this conversation. But let it be of hope and consolation to you. "Now, dismissed," and with that the general returned his attention back to the parchments in front of him. Ithukas let himself out and closed the door securely behind him. Upon Ithukas' exit the general sat up and pondered for a moment. Gods but he was getting old. Things were getting out of hand. The emperor seemed more and more out of his mind, a lunatic. He had thought it uproariously funny when the emperor had elected his own horse to the senate, a jest and a comment on the senate surely. But then other similar events happened, and the humor was lost to the sheer madness of what was going on. The worst yet was the emperor's current folly. He had sent Remeaus out after this Beat, with commands to use any means necessary to bring him in alive. It seemed that the emperor was obsessed with possessing him. He did have it on good authority that the emperor had not been pleased by the loss of nearly fifty troops to one man. Should Remeaus fail in this it would be better not to return to Rome. Trouble was rearing its head in other areas too. This cult of the crucified god for instance, some new contrivance from the Jews he guessed. The emperor was killing them in the Colosseum in droves, feeding them to lions and what not. Yet they seemed to be gaining in numbers, spreading their faith across the city, possibly even across the empire. The general felt that days of the very empire itself might very well be numbered. "Where ever you may be beast," the general said aloud, "keep running. Lest the wolf should happen upon your scent and track you down."