The Dark Prophecy

Meanwhile, Meg guided her ostrich under the swinging karpos. She stood on the bird’s back (no easy task) and reached as high as she could, but Peaches was much too far above her.

“Turn into a fruit!” Meg shouted up at him. “Disappear!”

“Peaches!” Peaches wailed, which probably meant: Don’t you think I would if I could? I guessed that the ropes were somehow magically restricting his shape-shifting, confining him to his present form, much as Zeus had shoehorned my awesome divinity into the miserable body of Lester Papadopoulos. For the first time, I felt a kinship with the diapered demon baby.

Commodus was now halfway around the track. He could have gone faster, but he insisted on swerving and waving to the cameras. The other race cars pulled over to let him pass, making me wonder if they understood the concept of racing.

Meg leaped from the ostrich’s back. She caught the goalpost’s crossbeam and began to climb, but I knew she wouldn’t have time to help the karpos.

The purple car rounded the far end zone. If Commodus accelerated in the straightaway, it would all be over. If only I could block his path with something large and heavy.

Oh, wait, thought my genius brain, I am sitting on an elephant.

Engraved across the base of the massive Colts helmet was the name LIVIA. I assumed that was the elephant’s.

I leaned forward. “Livia, my friend, do you feel like stomping an emperor?”

She trumpeted—her first real show of enthusiasm. I knew elephants were intelligent, but her willingness to help surprised me. I got the feeling that Commodus had treated her terribly. Now she wanted to kill him. This, at least, we had in common.

Livia charged toward the track, shouldering other animals aside, sweeping her trunk to smack gladiators out of our path.

“Good elephant!” I cried. “Excellent elephant!”

The Throne of Memory bounced precariously on my back. I spent all my arrows (except for the stupid talking one) shooting down combat ostriches, fire-breathing horses, Cyclopes, and cynocephali. Then I snatched up my combat ukulele and played the bugle call for CHARGE!

Livia barreled down the center lane, heading for the purple race car. Commodus veered straight toward us, his grinning face reflected on every video monitor around the stadium. He looked delighted by the prospect of a head-on collision.

Me, not so much. Commodus was hard to kill. My elephant and I were not, nor was I sure how much protection Livia’s chain mail would give her. I’d been hoping we might force Commodus off the road, but I should’ve known he would never back down in a game of chicken. Without a helmet, his hair flapped wildly around him, making his golden laurels look like they were on fire.

Without a helmet…

I pulled a scalpel from my bandolier. Leaning forward, I sawed through the chin strap off Livia’s football helmet. It snapped easily. Thank the gods for cheap plastic merchandise!

“Livia,” I said. “Throw it!”

The excellent elephant understood.

Still charging full speed ahead, she curled her trunk around her face guard and flung the helmet like a gentleman tipping his hat…if that hat were allowed to hurtle forward as a deadly projectile.

Commodus swerved. The giant white helmet bounced off his windshield, but the real damage had been done. Purple One vaulted onto the field at an impossibly steep angle, canted sideways, and flipped three times, bowling over a herd of ostriches and a couple of unlucky gladiators.

“OHHHHHHH!” The crowd rose to its feet. The music stopped. The remaining gladiators backed toward the edge of the field, eyeing the overturned imperial race car.

Smoke poured from the chassis. The wheels spun, sloughing off shavings of tread.

I wanted to believe the crowd’s silence was a hopeful pause. Perhaps, like me, their fondest wish was that Commodus would not emerge from the wreckage, that he had been reduced to an imperial smear on the artificial turf at the forty-two-yard line.

Alas, a steaming figure crawled from the wreckage. Commodus’s beard smoldered. His face and hands were black with soot. He rose, his smile undimmed, and stretched as if he’d just had a good nap.

“Nice one, Apollo!” He grabbed the chassis of the ruined race car and lifted it over his head. “But it will take more than this to kill me!”

He tossed the car aside, flattening an unfortunate Cyclops.

The audience cheered and stomped.

The emperor called, “CLEAR THE FIELD!”

Immediately dozens of animal handlers, medics, and ball retrievers rushed onto the turf. The surviving gladiators sulked away, as if realizing no fight to the death could compete with what Commodus had just done.

As the emperor ordered his servants around, I glanced toward the end zone. Somehow, Meg had climbed all the way to the top of the goalpost. She leaped toward Peaches and caught his legs, causing a great deal of screeching and cursing from the karpos. For a moment, they swung together from the chain. Then Meg climbed her friend’s body, summoned her sword, and slashed the chain. They dropped twenty feet, landing on the track in a heap. Happily, Peaches acted as a cushion for Meg. Given the soft, squishy nature of peach fruit, I imagined Meg would be fine.

“Well!” Commodus strode toward me. He limped slightly on his right ankle, but if it caused him any serious pain, he gave no sign. “That was a good rehearsal! Tomorrow, more deaths—including yours, of course. We’ll tweak the combat phase. Perhaps add a few more race cars and basketballs? And, Livia, you naughty old elephant!” He wagged his finger at my pachyderm mount. “That’s the sort of energy I was looking for! If you’d showed that much enthusiasm in our previous games, I wouldn’t have had to kill Claudius.”

Livia stomped and trumpeted. I stroked the side of her head, trying to calm her, but I could feel her intense anguish.

“Claudius was your mate,” I guessed. “Commodus killed him.”

The emperor shrugged. “I did warn her: play my games or else. But elephants are so stubborn! They’re big and strong and used to getting their way—rather like gods. Still”—he winked at me—“it’s amazing what a little punishment can accomplish.”

Livia stamped her feet. I knew she wanted to charge, but after seeing Commodus toss a race car, I suspected he would have little trouble hurting Livia.

“We will get him,” I murmured to her. “Just wait.”

“Yes, until tomorrow!” Commodus agreed. “You’ll get another chance to do your worst. But for now—ah, here come my guards to escort you to your cell!”

A squadron of Germani hustled onto the field with Lityerses in the lead.

Across his face, the Cornhusker had an ugly new bruise that looked suspiciously like an ostrich’s footprint. That pleased me. He was also bleeding from several new cuts on his arms, and his pant legs were slashed to ribbons. The rips looked like grazes from small-game arrowheads, as if the Hunters had been toying with their target, doing their best to eliminate his trousers. This pleased me even more. I wished I could add a new arrow wound to Lityerses’s collection—preferably one right in the middle of his sternum—but my quiver was empty except for the Arrow of Dodona. I’d had enough drama for one day without adding bad Shakespearean dialogue.

Lityerses bowed awkwardly. “My lord.”

Commodus and I spoke in unison. “Yes?”