Hero of Rome

Chief Hiawatha's lament for Tadodaho quickly turned into a coughing fit when his courier arrived with news of the defeat—and a mysterious, rather unpleasant rash.

The midnight moon still loomed over New Rome as I rushed through its dark skies, being six hours behind Rome.

My feet pounded into the dirt as I landed at the main entrance of the fortress. As always, the Romans around me balked at my sudden entrance, only to greet me with royal respect once they recovered.

“Imperator!” Lucius called, emerging from my tent. And not just him, but Tiberius and Gaius, my more stout Camp Prefect.

Odd.

“What is it?” I said, noticing the worry and frustration in each of their eyes. They looked like they had been arguing.

“It’s the prisoners,” Tiberius said, sighing in defeat.

“How many are dead?” I said, but I had a feeling I knew his answer already.

“All but one. The disease took them in their sleep.”

“Let me see the survivor!”

The three men looked at each other with concern but nodded.

The holding area for the prisoners stood adjacent to the headquarters building. It was fortified by stone walls, iron bars over a heavy wooden door, with no chance for light or ventilation. The guards around it moved aside and opened the door as we approached. The corpses of the recently deceased were covered just outside of the holding room, filling the air with a stench.

“Have those bodies buried outside the fort immediately,” I said, holding my nose. The smell was so pungent that it made my eyes water. The stench inside was even worse.

The native, covered in filth, bumps, and vomit, lie shivering on the floor. He looked to be in his early twenties. So much life ahead of him, now gone. He didn’t even lift his head to acknowledge us.

This translation better work. For almost becoming a human sacrifice, if it didn’t work, I would be having a very unpleasant meeting with Fors Fortuna.

“Friend,” I said, speaking soft and low. “Can you understand me?”

The man broke into an agonizing cry, heaving on the ground.

“Why?” was all he said, repeatedly. “Why did you do this to us?”

Guilt swelled in my heart. “Friend, the disease was not our intention. We tried to prevent this from—”

“Lies!” The native screamed, shaking his head. “Hahgwehdiyu has turned from us because of your arrival. You have angered him.”

This was going nowhere.

“When did you first get sick?” I said, needing a different angle.

“This morning,” he finally said after a minute of nothing.

“What about your friends who were in here with us?” There must have been at least a dozen bodies out there.

The native shook his head again, still refusing to look up. He could barely speak. “The night before.”

“Oh god,” I said, backing away in horror. I turned to look at my top men who looked at me with confusion, unable to speak the native tongue. We stepped out of the prison room to get some fresh air, what little it helped. It would be ill advised to speak about this so publicly. We went inside the headquarters next to it.

“If what he says is true,” I continued, sitting down at our central table illuminated by candles, “whoever caught it today will be dead by the afternoon. If the System world update is any indication, this disease will wipe out the natives in just a few days.”

The room was silent as the information sunk in.

I couldn’t believe this was happening. Someone deliberately poisoned the vaccines so that the natives would be wiped out. The only problem was that everyone here, from my top men to Caesar to the lowest infantry would have a motive for wanting that. No war, only treasure? Who wouldn’t want that? An entire continent of resources with no toil?

The research and developments I began as emperor would only further incentive that. I had knowledge of the technology needed to cross the seas, and in my free time between colonizing and being with my family and friends, I had used my growing wisdom to get the ball rolling on all of it. Everyone had a stake in this, so therefore, everyone was susceptible.

“Uh, imperator,” Lucius said, clearing his throat. “As tragic as their demise is—”

One sharp look from me cut him off.

“If you are going to say something along the lines of ‘This will make it easier for us’, then I would caution you to rethink what you are about to say.”

Lucius nodded, his eyes darting away from my glare. The others dared not to meet my gaze either. Of course they would feel this way. The new world promised riches beyond compare, and one less person in the way of that meant greater success to them, not to mention less chances of dying.

“I need to consult the gods,” I said, breaking the silence. “There is supposed to be a meeting tomorrow, though I fear it will only bring more sorrow. Perhaps if I am alone at the meeting, that will bode well. I can speak in their tongue, thanks to Fors Fortuna. If they can just hear what we have to say, if they can listen to our true intentions, we can find a way to protect their people. We might need to quarantine them and do daily inspections of the men to see who has smallpox. And starting tonight, all of the Salve of the Unyielding Aegis is to be immediately confiscated and brought to my tent. No one is to touch it, it is only making the disease worse. It’s possible that if we close contact with them for a brief period, giving Valerius enough time to develop a cure, perhaps then we can resume our efforts.

“I will not be responsible for the death of an entire civilization, an entire continent for that matter. Am I understood?”

The three older men nodded, though I could tell they weren’t too pleased with my efforts to not commit mass genocide. They weren’t heartless people, merely self interested and very morally gray.

Dismissing them, I returned to my tent, swarmed by dozens of my Praetorian Guards. I entered my tent alone, taking off my armor until I was just in a normal toga. My body felt exhausted, but I needed to think. More importantly, I needed to see. As messed up and faulty as my Historical Insight was recently thanks to the vaccine, it was my only measure to go off of right now. It wasn’t completely inaccurate. I still saw the most effective methods to defeat Tadodaho. It was just that I was seeing futures that, though close in nature, were not the futures that would occur. It was like seeing a majority of possible futures, only for the futures I needed to see, the ones that would happen, were obscure from my poisoned mind.

Still, a foggy crystal ball was better than nothing at all.

I took a deep breath, fighting to keep my eyes open and sitting cross legged as I prepared to reset my Historical Insight and look into the futures. Half of my stamina and health would evaporate until I got some sleep. Sleep sounded very good right now. It was a good thing I was about to go to bed.

“Let’s try this again,” I said, my surroundings disappearing as my mind endured a paradox for resetting it, making me live through a potential past, present, or future reality.

What appeared before me blurred the lines of present, past, and future. It was impossible to tell.

In this seven day temporal paradox, I was still co emperor of Rome with Caesar, as evident by both of us wearing our regalia and residing in Domitian’s Palace. Cleopatra stood by my side, still pregnant. Titus, Umbra, Livia, and Decimus were there. Everything seemed normal.

I sat back in my mind and watched as the week unfolded. I would have to live this alternative week first before returning to my present.

The first couple of days were normal. Regular bureaucratic businesses, meetings, strategizing, the like. Flying around with Umbra and Cleopatra. Plenty of downtime with my wife. Only, there was no mention of the new world. Did we abandon that idea here? We would need the resources to counter the kingdoms around us.

Watching myself, I tapped into the futures in this reality, which was really trippy. Historical Insight grew ever closer to exploding mental capacities with how much information I had to process.

The futures were even stranger.

In the coming days, we would see reports from our armies that the Greeks were completely obliterated in just a couple of days. Not a single Roman would die. Against Alexander the Great, that was logistically impossible.

In the futures where I investigated, arriving at Alexander’s army before our attack, I could see why.

During the day, all of the Greeks were asleep. I checked their bodies, finding their pulses. Nothing I could do could wake them up.

There was only one reason for this: the Orb of Morpheus.

The futures shifted, millions of possible realities altering at this new information. My future mind seemed to know who to suspect. Really, there was only one person who would dare temper with this power, and my Historical Insight proved correct.

“Caesar,” I said, approaching the legendary man in the Curia Julia. Scores of senators surrounded him. “You have it, don’t you?”

Caesar smiled, as if proud that I figured it out. “I knew you would see, eventually,” he said. “You have quite the foresight.”

“You told me you would destroy it, send it down to the Underworld!”

Caesar shook his head, as if chastising a child. “You have much to learn about power, Maximus. Anyone would be a fool to throw this away. Entire armies will kneel to us without a single drop of blood shed. This is the key to Pax Romana. Finally, peace for Rome.”

“This isn’t right,” I said, shaking my head. The senators came closer to me as we argued. “I will not let you use it. I should have destroyed it instead of trusting you. Give it to me now, Caesar.”

Caesar smirked, closing his eyes for a brief second. “It is unfortunate it has come to this. I thought you would see this by now.” Caesar held my gaze for a moment before whispering, “Rome needs a leader, Maximus, not a hero.”

Before I could respond, a knife flashed from his hand and rammed into my stomach. It was too fast for me to block. It was as if it were already submerged into my flesh, faster than a blink of an eye. The senators around me mimicked Caesar, wielding knives and hacking me to death with their own. It was precisely like my dream from the labyrinth.

My altered self changed course while scanning the futures, trying to find a different way through. It seemed all of Rome was in his hands. There was no path but submission. If I fled, I would be his once I fell asleep. But if I stayed, he would spare me, making me a puppet instead.

This dark reality played out for the rest of the week. Julius Caesar became a god, and I his slave to conquer the world if I wanted my friends and I to live.

The temporal paradox ended, resetting my Historical Insight.

It took me a second to reorient myself back in the present after having spent a week elsewhere in my mind.

The experience made me so thankful that I had destroyed the Orb of Morpheus. Yet, it still made me wonder who was behind the natives' downfall. From that future, Caesar became my number one guess, but he was just as liable as any other Roman.

I closed my heavy eyelids again, preparing to look into the future and then promptly sleep.

Wow, I was really tired.

Maybe I should…

Wait, no… I need… to…

“DIE!”

My eyes opened wide in panic as the diseased native lunged at me, driving a gladius into my stomach.

Hot white pain seared in my mind as I reflexively summoned my Pilum of Mars through his face. In an instant, the native ceased. I couldn’t breathe with the sword rammed through me. My heart was pounding so fast I thought it was going to explode.

“Imperator!” Lucius screamed, running into my tent with Gaius and Tiberius. The three of them looked at each other with panic and then ruthless resolve.

As one, Gaius and Tiberius pinned down my hands while Lucius hacked away the native with his sword.

I struggled to speak, blood flowing from my lips. Reflexively, I clutched the figurine of Cleopatra for comfort. “What are you—”

In one fell swoop, Lucius rammed his gladius into my heart. As my life drained away, he withdrew his sword and planted it into the back of the native.

“Forgive us, imperator,” he said, dropping to his knees and cradling my head. The older man looked with sorrow upon me. “It was the only way our families could live.”

There was so much pain overwhelming my mind that I could not speak. All I could do as I died was watch Lucius yell at the Praetorian Guards who came rushing in that the native slave had killed me while I slept. While partly true, Lucius, along with Gaius and Tiberius, left out the part where they finished the job.

Lucius wept bitter tears over me as my consciousness began to fade. And then, the dark embrace of death consumed me.