Chapter 1: An Old Friend Is Seen

Jack and Annie stood under the treefort. Ten years had passed since they last visited here, deep in the woods behind their home in Frogton, NH. The treefort was their place of childhood mystery. Here they had met the Librarian and helped her mission to collect items, mostly writings, but also to deliver messages, to people in the past, or the future. Once, they had been to the moon.

Or so they told one another. Jack doubted his own memories, it all seemed so long ago. "Do you really believe it all happened, Annie? I mean, the way we remember it?"

"Of course it did, Jack!" Annie smiled. She had grown much in the past ten years. Adulthood was being kind to her. To both of them, really. "Come on! Let's go up and see if there's anything still there."

"Oh, brother," Jack said. He pushed back his glasses and looked up the long rope ladder that swayed slowly in invitation. It felt like old times except now the rungs felt too close together, too small. They were meant for feet other than Jack's. They were meant for him when he had been half the size of his current six-foot frame. It had always been Annie who had gone first up the ladder, who had seen the mysteries to be found in the treefort, and who had always had to encourage him. Now he went first. He hoped for an empty, wooden floor.

"Oh, no," he said as he hoisted himself into the treefort. On the floor lay a single book. On top of the book rested an envelope made of a kind of heavy, yellow paper. It felt crisp as he thumbed open the flap. "Annie? There's something here."

She pushed herself up through the square hole. They both weighed much more than they had the first time they'd come up here, but the treefort bore them as if they weren't there at all. Jack would have expected creaking, or swaying, but there was none. The view outside the window said they were many feet in the air but the treefort may as well have been on solid ground for all the movement he felt.

Annie took the envelope and pulled out a sheet of something like parchment from within. She read it out loud:

Dear Jack and Annie. I am so pleased you came back now that you are adults. I have four more tasks to ask of you, tasks I could not give you when you were but children. These tasks require the skills, maturity, and development only adults can possess.

I ask that you find me four more stories, from four more places deep in our past. You will find the story I seek in a dark corner of a dark city, with a man who can be both kind and unkind, and whose drive to seek pleasure reveals the city to have kind of ugliness that can only be understood by those who have lived there. The story I seek is one that has been banned, but he will know how to find it. You know the rest.

"That doesn't sound like much fun," Jack said.

"Were they ever fun, Jack?" Annie's voice made Jack looked up. "We nearly died, time and time again. The river in Japan, or that pyramid in Egypt. People tried to kill us, animals tried to eat us, and I still have nightmares about what would have happened if anything had gone wrong while we were on the Moon."

"But they were exciting! We learned so much." He tapped the notebook he still carried in the pocket of his vest. "What we learned set the course for our futures, Annie." Jack had chosen archeology as his college major and had been accepted into the University of Michigan. Annie was planning on an Art History degree after the summer. "Come on, Annie. You know you want to do it."

"Of course I do, Jack. I just worry. We're not kids anymore. I doubt the Librarian's going to be watching us quite so closely as she used to. I ... I'm scared."

"Funny, it used to be the other way around."

Annie nodded. "Where's the New Hampshire book?" Jack found it, in its corner, in a leather bag. The other book, the one on which he had found the envelope, waited for them. "Rome? We're going to Rome?"

Rome, 67 A.D., the book said. "That wasn't a very nice time in history, if I recall."

"But, Jack ... Rome. Can you imagine it?"

"We've been there."

"No, we've been to Pompeii. We survived Vesuvius. Two years later. We never went to Rome, I mean, really Rome. Say yes, Jack."

"Okay. 'Yes.'"

Annie grabbed the book from Jack's hand and pointed to the cover. "I wish we could go there."

A wind arose outside the treefort. A howling, mournful sound, not at all like the joyous noise they had heard as children. The world outside the window began to spin, and then the treefort began spin with it. Jack's mind reeled at the assault on his senses, an overwhelming spiral down the rabbit hole of time. The howling outside grew in pitch and volume, blotting out all rational thought.

And then everything was still. Utterly still.

Chapter 2: Rome Stinks

Jack groaned and picked himself up off the floor. That ride had been rougher than he remembered. Annie rose too, holding her head in her hands. "Ugh," she said. "Jack?"

"I'm okay." He stepped over to the window, looked down. The faint nausea he felt vanished. "Annie, we're really here!" He took out his notebook and pen, pulled off the elastic that held the notebook shut, and began writing furiously: Marble columns everywhere, and they're painted! Never saw that in the artbooks. Everything is bright and garish. Lots of gold leaf. It's pretty crowded and everyone is wearing a toga, but they don't look like what you see in the movies. Indeed, they didn't, for the cloth looked rougher and heavier, the cut and trim of it more utilitarian.

"Wow," Annie said. She looked down. "Hey, Jack, we've got togas!"

Jack looked down and sure enough, the two of them were dressed in garb similar to that of the people walking. The cloth felt to be linen rather than cotton, and Jack remembered that cotton was a New World phenomenon, not something that would be found in ancient Rome. They also wore sandals, the kind where the straps mounted between their big toe and the rest. "Flip flops," Jack sighed. "I never could wear these things. Annie, your hair!"

"What?"

Jack wished for a mirror, but neither of them had one. Annie's hair, normally long tresses of brown that fell down to somewhere between her shoulders, was now coiled in a striking flattened circular ziggurat atop her head, held in place with gold wire decorated with pearls. "You're beautiful like that."

"I just hope it doesn't mean I'm a prostitute or something."

Something in the Librarian's words came back to Jack, and he wondered if that's exactly what she was meant to be. He hoped it didn't mean they would have to trade her for the artifact the Librarian wanted. On the other hand, every scratch, every cut, every bruise he had received while travelling on the Librarian's adventures had been gone by the time they'd gotten home. So maybe...

"Let's go," Annie said. "Let's find the parchment and go home. By the way, who's Emperor?"

"Nero," Jack said automatically.

"The one with the fiddle?"

"That's a myth. There were no fiddles in Rome. The fiddle is a German invention of the mid-12th century, developed from a Turkish instrument." Jack had learned that just the month before.

"I'm sure they had musical instruments in Rome." Annie started down the ladder.

"Annie! Wait for me!"

They must have descended from the only tree in Rome, Jack thought. The road was just muddy dirt rutted through in places. It had rained recently, but now a bright sun beamed overhead. Citizens of Rome milled about in togas and other elaborate dresses, most of them stained with mud about the lower hems.

"I'm hungry," Jack said suddenly as they broke from the protective spell that hid their treefort and plunged into the very breath of Rome. It stank with the smell of bodily waste, both human and horse. "Rome never had a sewer system to speak of."

"How can you be hungry? I'm about to throw up," Annie said.

"You'll get used to it. These people lived with it every day."

"I'm not these people." Something growled about her midsection. "But I guess I'm hungry too. It's been a while since breakfast."

They walked down the street and found an intersection. The road they met was cobble-stoned and seemed to be much busier, especially in the direction going uphill. Jack and Annie walked in that direction, dodging several people, until an unmistakable smell reached Jack's nose. "Annie, do you smell that?"

"I do!" She looked at him, her eyes wide. They looked about and found the little booth that gave off the delicious smell. Jack checked the purse at his belt and found it full of coins. To his amazement, he could read the numbers. "Two, please," he said to the man behind the counter.

The man put an iron pan on top of a grill and threw two logs into the fire pit underneath it, then put two patties of ground beef into the pan. As he cooked, he would sometimes splash the patties with wine from a earthenware jug, and at the end he tossed on some chopped nuts. He expertly cut open two bread rolls and put the patties in, then handed one each to Jack and Annie. Jack grinned. "Hamburgers. Too bad they don't have cheeseburgers."

"Who knew they made hamburgers in Rome?" Annie said.

"Someone must have. Isn't there a cookbook that survives from this time?"

"You're the archaeologist, Jack," Annie said. They both grinned. Annie said to the man, "What kind of nuts are those?"

The cook looked surprised. "They're pine, miss."

The burgers were actually good. After they were done, Annie said, "We still need to find that writing the Librarian wanted. A dark story in a dark corner of a dark city, by a man both cruel and kind."

"I hope she doesn't mean the Emperor," Jack said.

"I don't think Nero ever qualified as 'kind'."

Jack nodded. A voice cut through the hubbub of the bustling intersection, shouting out "Attention, citizens! The Emperor has announced that today at the Coliseum there shall be lions! Boats! And the gladiator Casus Maximus shall fight two men at once!" The crowd around the crier turned and boo'd briefly at that last, but Jack was already thinking.

"The Coliseum? Annie, you know how these missions go. We probably have to go there."

Annie put a finger to her mouth. "I don't know, Jack. Did you see that crier? He had no scroll, no paper. I don't think most of these people can read. We won't find a story at the Coliseum."

"So what?" Jack said. "And you never know. The Coliseum is certainly one of the darkest corners of the city. And it's where famous people go. We have to go there, just like we had to go to the Olympic fields."

Annie said, "You're probably right."

Chapter 3: Blood and Terror

The Coliseum was easy to find: Jack and Annie just followed the surging crowd until they reached the gates. The Coliseum was a massive construction, a huge round building of concrete and marble, decorated in gold and painted in hues of yellow, red, and green. It was a sight to behold, the most magnificent single building Jack had ever seen, and he had seen many.

Neither had noticed that they were being followed until a short man missing some teeth approached them. "Sir? Lady? Why are you in this line? Are you new to Rome?"

"Yes," Jack said automatically. "We're from ... from the provinces."

"Your clothes mark you as clearly from the upper families." Jack looked down, and could not tell what about his clothes made the difference. He looked at the man suspiciously, wondering if he was facing a pickpocket or a thief. Or some kind of cutthroat. "Through that door, please, kind sir." There were other people, the kind who radiated wealth, going through what looked exactly like a turnstile made of wood. Jack and Annie decided to follow them.

Inside, the Coliseum reminded Jack of a high-end sports arena. People lined the hallways already, and what looked very much like a passel of clowns cavorted in the middle, but their act was not what Jack considered funny. They all sported enormous wooden penises and much of the laughter that the audience gave seemed to arise from each pretending to rape or assault another.

The usher sat them down, handed each of them a leathery cup of watery wine and left them. "I'm not sure..." Jack said.

"I'm not either. Remember, you suggested this."

Jack nodded. More people were settled around them, and Jack noticed that almost all of them were scarred, pocked, or marked in the face in some way. None of them had escaped from the ravages of disease. Jack was grateful, suddenly, to live in a century where most diseases were a thing of the past. This past, he thought.

A blare of horns announced the arrival of the Emperor, who took his seat only a few yards away. Jack could see him clearly, a middle-aged man swathed in a purple toga and accompanied by a tall, thin man who talked animatedly while the Emperor waved him off. "That's Nero, Jack!" Annie said.

"Wow," Jack said. He had never thought of meeting the Emperor of Rome, although he had met a few kings along the way. "He ruled the world, you know."

"What was known of it," Annie said. More trumpets, and the games began. Jack took out his notebook and scribbled in it furiously, but Annie buried her face in his shoulder from time to time as they both watched the mounting horror in the center ring. Men were slaughtered before their eyes. Annie and Jack were no strangers to death and destruction: the San Francisco Earthquake and the eruption of Vesuvius had created no illusions for them. But the blood on the floor of the Colosseum was not wrought by unfeeling nature. Here, men killed one another, apparently for the mere pleasure of the crowd. Even as he wrote Annie said, "Jack, I want to leave."

"Ah, a man of letters!" said a voice behind them. "I am so pleased that they teach writing out in the provinces. I have not seen you here before, and I assure you that I know every literate man in Rome. What is your name, young man?"

"Jack ... us. Yohannus."

"Yohannus. You must be from the Eastern Provinces, then." Jack nodded. "And your wife?"

"This is my sister. Anna."

"Anna." Annie turned away from the butchery in the center stage and looked up at the man who was talking to them. "By Jupiter's beard! What a face! What skin! You have not a trace of the city upon you, my dear. How fortunate you must be! You must both come to my party tonight. You, for your beauty, and you, young man, for your letters."

Jack said, "I would, sir, if I knew where to go."

"Oh! I am Petronius Magister, and I live in a small villa near the palace. Find your way to the Palatine Hill and ask for my home. Make sure you get there just before dusk."

Jack nodded, suddenly sure that this was the man they had been sent to find. "We will do that, sir."

A scream went up from the center stage. Annie turned and blanched. Those slaves who could not perform useful work, those thinned and weak with disease, or those who were crippled by accidents, were being fed to lions. Bloody heaps of human viscera littered the sawdusty floor. "Jack!"