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XL. THE SCROLL IN THE JAR
You are back in the main entrance hall of Ulpian’s library. Startled, you land on the hard floor and skid several feet before coming to rest in the middle under a bar of light that shines down. There is no sign of Polybius, although he was just a few yards and a few seconds ahead of you. Likewise, there is not even a shadow of Petasus, whom you glimpsed while traversing from 753 B.C. to 284 A.D. The noise of your arrival brings slaves running. First it is little children, who take one look at you and run screaming to fetch bigger slaves. They, in turn, come running behind Ulpian’s private guards. You stand in the center of the foyer, dusting yourself off and nursing a whack you took on the hip while falling.
"I knew you would return!" cries the familiar, nasty voice of Querculus, the Quaestor who is working for Emperor Carinus. "Seize that one." As rough hands take you by the arms and you are forced to march through the corridors leading to the main residence, Querculus runs alongside. "It will go easier on you if you tell the truth. Where is Polybius? Where is the item he was to bring back with him?"
"I have no idea," you tell him, and receive a slap on the head.
Querculus says: "We can torture you until you tell us. Don’t trifle with me, simpleton!"
"Luckily, I know nothing," you say.
"We will see about that!" Querculus says as the whole tramping lot of you march along marble corridors, past startled slaves peeking from every doorway, across the gardens where you scare butterflies from their flowers, and into the main house. There, in his large audience room, sits a very grim Ulpian wrapped in his purple-bordered Senatorial toga. To one side of him is a smoking brazier, where a priest with the edge of his toga over his head tosses incense while murmuring prayers to Jupiter, Venus, and Mars. You see other figures standing about. Those are the clients and onlookers of Ulpian, for whom it may not go well if their sponsor falls into ill grace with the emperor. Querculus says: "We captured this one, but the others are missing."
"What about Polybius?" Ulpian demands harshly. His fleshy face looks pale, and his watery eyes reveal a deep fear. In times when bad emperors are on the throne, it is the look of the wealthy and powerful just before they are sent into exile or killed at some crazy whim of a Nero or a Caligula or a Commodus or at the moment a less memorable but nonetheless all the more scurrilous creature like Carinus. Ulpian leans forward and yells in your face: "I made a pact with Polybius, and my entire world depends on getting him back here alive. Did you see the Sibyl?"
You find yourself tongue-tied and unable to answer. You don’t want to see Ulpian hurt. You understand that much is at stake. You wish you knew what to say so that Ulpian is better served and Carinus to the least degree possible. Querculus jabs you in the side, and you go down in a heap. You are blinded with pain. "That is just the first taste," Querculus says with a harsh, humorless laugh. His eyes bulge like those of a violent and angry pig. "I will personally pull your inner organs out with hot pincers, one quaking and bleeding inch of intestine at a time, if you defy the authority of your emperor another instant!" The powerful Ulpian looks helplessly on with ashen face, as the ruffian Querculus makes ready to torment you in an escalating series of acts that can only have a terrible and protracted ending.
At that moment, Petasus steps forward from a wall niche. It happens so fast that nobody else sees him, and you only have a glimpse. Petasus walks toward you, and it seems he only takes one gliding step but crosses the entire hall, and then he wraps himself in his billowing cloak. Only you can see or hear him, and your communication with him is mental. He Plants in your mind an image of where Polybius hid the scroll. Then Petasus says: Go ahead and tell them what you know. It will not matter to Time, but it will save both you and Ulpian.
"I do have an idea," you tell them.
"Please," Ulpian begs you as the air escapes from him, and he looks crushed. He knows that Carinus will take away his wealth, his villa, his women, his library, his very freedom, and most likely condemn him to a horrible death that will be memorable only for the inventive cruelties of Querculus and men like him who torture and kill others for amusement. "Please help me, and I will give you whatever is in my power by the Divine Emperor’s majesty and holy grace." Sweat pours down his face, and he wrings his hands. Everyone in the room seems rapt. They all know that this drama is about to turn one way or the other, and both will be electrically entertaining.
You turn to Querculus. "You are bound by the Divine Emperor’s grace to let me go and not bother the master of this house again if I give you the scroll." The Quaestor licks his lips and makes a series of cold, hard mental calculations. You add: "I understand what pleasure you derive from tormenting the innocent, and in assaulting the dignity of a Senator who is as far above your mean stature as the clouds are above the lowest alley in Subura. However, think about the horrible torments to which you will be subjected by those just like you, who also serve the Divine Emperor, and who will express Great Carinus’ rage if it turns out you, by your stupidity, have cheated the Augustus of a divine treasure."
Querculus turns several shades of green, and cringes. "I beg you, please. I will never again set foot in this house, nor bother you, if only you will help me bring to His Divine Majesty the scroll of the Sibyl. My very life depends on it." He is practically in tears.
"Very well," you say, "witnesses here will testify whether you were loyal or disloyal to the Divine Emperor’s genius." Eyes all around widen at your impudence, perhaps even blasphemy. Querculus regards you with leaden, veiled eyes that suggest he isn’t sure whether he should order you imprisoned, or hailed as his personal deliverer from Carinus’ wrath. For effect you add: "Querculus, admit that the only thought on your mind should be what His Divinity will say when you either present him with the scroll, or with some excuse why you cannot find Polybius."
Querculus nods. You can almost hear his knees knocking together. He can only croak a faint "Please," much like that of Ulpian a minute earlier. Everyone lives in terror of a cruel and unpredictable emperor.
"Follow me," you tell Querculus and Ulpian. The two men, and several retainers, follow you while the rest remain in the audience chamber. You lead them down the corridors, into the main library, and to the vase that sits proudly in its glass cabinet underneath the household gods. "Open it," you command.
Several assistant librarians, slaves from Spain and Syria, bow their shaved heads. "Master, the jar cannot be opened. It has been tried."
"When was it last tried?" you ask.
Keep going, Petasus says at your side, it’s the right thing. He is still wrapped in his cloak, and you are sure only you can see him, or ‘hear’ his thoughts. You are puzzled. Why is he helping you? Does it set Time right? Where has Polybius gone? Then it dawns on you, and you ‘say’ to Petasus: Polybius never existed, did he?
Petasus responds: He did, but he forfeited his existence. Give them the scroll, and everything will turn out as it was supposed to.
You tell Ulpian: "Lord, have your slaves open the receptacle, being very careful not to break it or to dishonor the dead."
Ulpian waggles his finger, and several slaves rush forward. They straddle the jar and twist its top. The top has fused shut over the past 1100 years and won’t budge. At last, one of the slaves brings an awl used for bookbinding. Several men hold the jar among them, while the first pries at the stone stopper with his awl. The awl breaks, and slaves fetch another. Finally, the top cracks with a soft sigh of weary mortar. Over the centuries, birds or bees, perhaps under the direction of protective gods, have glued the jar shut tighter than a swallow’s nest under the eaves. Now the jar yawns open, and a smell emanates that is musty like old cheese, but faint with age. Several men bring tiny clay oil lamps, whose light shines down into the receptacle. "There it is!" one says.
"Take it out," Ulpian says. "Handle it carefully."
Gingerly, a slave reaches inside. He grimaces as his arm descends to the bottom of the jar, which might as well be like reaching into a well full of scorpions and leeches, for the expression on his face. Your own skin crawls, and your eyes are large. All those present hold their hands over their gasping mouths. Ulpian involuntarily throws the edge of his toga over his head, as if he were in mourning, which is appropriate since one is dealing here with the ghosts of long-ago people. "Prepare a ritual," he orders his priest. "Have the temple readied to receive this vessel. It will need to be enshrined with all the proper propitiations."
Out comes a metal canister, off comes its top, and out comes a scrap of material that has grown brittle with age. Even as the slaves, who are familiar with old books, carefully coax it open on a wooden desk, it appears to age quickly. It turns gray in the air and light of the living, whereas until now it was, one could say, in the possession of a librarian of the dead. "Quick, what does it say?" Ulpian asks. Querculus and the others crowd around the slaves to look. Ulpian waves his hand, and a scribe comes running with ink pot, paper, and pen. On the desk, the ancient scroll starts to disintegrate one flake at a time, faster and faster.
"Quick, what does it say?" Querculus asks wringing his hands. "Oh my Hercules, dear Fates, somebody. I can’t read. Tell me, or the emperor will kill me, and if he kills me, he will kill you all."
"Don’t worry," Ulpian says drily, "if he kills you, please don’t come back and kill the rest of us. Your death, the passing of such an exalted personage, will more than atone for all crimes."
"I have it," the scribe says. "I’ve written it down. It says: "Beloved child of the Dear One, victor in defeat, the loser reaps the four winds."
"What does it mean?" Ulpian says wonderingly. "Carinus is the child of Carus, and Carus means dear. That much I understand. But what does the rest mean?"
"Oh Hercules," Querculus wails. "Maybe it would be best if we--"
"What," you say, "burn it and lie, and tell Divine Augustus we never found it?"
Querculus starts blubbering in terror. He knows that he may now end up being tortured by the capricious ruler, which would be ironic indeed. Meanwhile, Ulpian seizes the opportunity to restore his own lost dignity. He knows the game has turned. "Querculus, you fool, you can redeem yourself simply by bringing the words of the scribe to His Divine Majesty. More than that, none of us can do." Ulpian winks at his recent tormentor, now that the tables have turned. "His Divine Majesty is perhaps the only one whom the gods can inspire to comprehend this typical hysterical riddle told by the Sibyl."
Leave it to men like Querculus to be relentless in their plots, and thorough in their treacheries. No sooner has Ulpian busied himself about what to expect from Carinus, and Querculus has gone off to carry the strange message to his master, than agents of Querculus appear at Ulpian’s back door, seize you, and drag you off to prison. They pay the guards not to keep you, but to dispose of you as quickly as possible. For a brief time, you are held in a slimy tower that drips with water and sewage. The guards, however, are corrupt and sell you to a broker for a small sum of money, to be thrown into the Colosseum as just one more tidbit of entertainment. So you now find yourself in a position more terrifying than anything you have ever faced, or ever could have imagined.
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