Gates of Rome

CHAPTER 48

AD 54, Imperial Palace, Rome

Caligula felt a tremble of excitement course through his body. This place, this large chamber was once a temple to Neptune. Now it was a temple to… himself; more than that, an act of homage to his approaching destiny. Its large marble and tiled walls echoed his light footsteps as he walked among the artefacts inside. With those large heavy doors closed, the daylight outside was entirely gone, the only illumination the flickering flame of the golden oil lamp he held in his hand.

Objects that the Visitors left behind. He crouched down and picked through the strange-looking things.

‘Incredible.’ His voice echoed round the chamber. Such curious possessions they had brought with them. He never tired of looking at them.

There was a shuffling coming from the wooden cage in the middle of the chamber.

‘But you see… that is something I find so fascinating. These devices of yours…’ He picked up an empty hydro-cell. The smooth metal glinted in the gloom; a residue of liquid sloshed around inside its casing. ‘I always believed gods needed nothing. That a mere wish, a desire, was all that was required for a thing to happen. And yet you and your friends brought with you all these odd contraptions. Objects you needed.’

A mewling whimper came from the cage.

He tilted the hydrogen fuel cell, listening to the liquid inside. ‘Objects that stopped working for you eventually.’ He smiled. ‘Not particularly godlike.’ He tossed it on to the pile of other items — empty ammo cartridges, guns, backpacks, first-aid packs, flashlights — and wandered over towards the cage.

He remembered how utterly bewitched he’d been when they’d first arrived. Such a stunning, remarkable arrival. Such noise, such spectacle. That day in the arena… like every other Roman citizen looking on, he was certain he’d been gazing upon heavenly beings. His heart had thrummed in his chest with the thrill of it and, of course, there had been an almost paralyzing terror at the idea of it. Gods, or at the very least, emissaries of the gods… here… in Rome. Right before us!

Caligula recalled that childlike wonder…

… approaching those enormous chariots and seeing up close the remarkably human-like passengers emerging from them. Some of them as fair-skinned as those barbarous savages in the northern parts of Germania. Some of them as dark as Egyptians. All of them wearing such delightfully strange garments. He’d been trembling like a leaf, fearful as a small child before an enraged parent.

The voice had boomed out across the floor of the arena and bounced off the stalls all around them. A thunderclap voice announcing in heavily accented Latin that they had come from above to enlighten them, to show them new ways. To offer them the gift of enlightenment, wisdom.

And finally, emboldened by the knowledge that several thousand of his subjects were watching, that a Roman emperor ought to be the one to lead the way, he had slowly reached out with a trembling finger and dared to touch one of them. Caligula had done that half expecting that at the first slightest touch of this creature from Heaven he would burn instantly to cinders as the power of Elysium itself flooded into him.

Caligula pulled the viewing slot of the cage to one side and peered at the darkness within. It stank of human faeces and stale urine. An appalling stench worse than any of those awful plebeian marketplaces or perilously tall, topsy-turvy apartment blocks. By the light of his oil lamp he could see the wretch inside, like a caged wild animal, restless and wide-eyed.

He realized now. Even back then, all those years ago, the moment his finger had touched warm skin damp with sweat, flesh just like his own… that the Visitors were just ordinary people. Not gods or messengers of the gods.

‘Hello,’ he uttered.

The man murmured and gurgled something behind his muzzle.

‘I apologize. It’s been some time since we talked,’ said Caligula with a gentle smile. ‘Quite rude of me.’ He produced a bronze key, waved it so his captive could see it.

‘Come here. I shall take your muzzle off… and you and I can talk.’

The man moved suddenly, like a wild animal, grabbing for the key. The viewing slot was wide enough for a hand of claw-like fingers to thrust out. Caligula took a step back.

‘Uh-uh. Turn round… there’s a good fellow.’

The man glared at him through the slot for a moment. Caligula could only see his eyes above the corroded bronze face mask and the gunk-encrusted hollow of the feeding tube, a dark, rigid oval frozen in a permanent corroded ‘o’.

‘Turn round,’ he said, waving his key again out of reach of the waggling claws.

The glaring eyes disappeared into the darkness and then a moment later, Caligula could see the back of his head, the bronze padlock securing the brace and one or two tufts of lank hair drooping over, and the sore-ridden skin rubbed completely bald by the rough metal band.

Caligula reached through the slot, inserted the key and twisted. With a dull click, the padlock sprang open and the brace fell away.

The head instantly spun round, those glaring eyes on him once more, but now he could see the man’s slim nose, and below that a thick nest of moustache and beard bristles clotted with dried mucus and rotten food. In the middle of it — like a pair of newborn, hairless rats in the bottom of a coarse nest — two lips mottled with scabs and abrasions old and new. They flexed and fidgeted, revealing bloody gums and the rotted black stumps of a few remaining teeth.

‘Hello, my old friend,’ said Caligula.

The man struggled to move his mouth, savouring the freedom for his tongue to actually wander around, his claw-fingers probing his crusted lips pitifully.

‘It is the month of Sextilis once again. So… it’s not so very long now, is it?’

The man was still flexing his mouth, relishing this fleeting moment of freedom from the mask.

Caligula suspected the crazed old fool was getting ready to cry out in that strange garbled language of his. He tried the same thing every time the muzzle came off. The same strangled word.

‘Save your breath. Your Stone Men won’t be able to hear you. The doors are closed and they are all on the other side of the palace. It’s just you and I in here.’

The pitiful wreck of a man tried anyway, sucking in a lungful of fetid air then screaming. ‘System… o-over-ride… en-enable… S-sponge — ’ His voice was a frail and feeble gasp like a faltering breeze across marshland reeds.

‘Trust me,’ smiled Caligula. ‘They really can’t hear you.’

Nonetheless, he tried again. This time his croaking voice had a shrill and desperate power behind it: the asylum scream of some unhinged wretch. And it was the same meaningless word over and over again. Gibberish to Caligula.

‘SpongeBubba! SpongeBubba!! SPONGE… BUBBA!!! ’