The Isle of the Fell

IX - Gnaeus' Last Odyssey

IX - Gnaeus's Last Odyssey

2300: The Coronation

The bells rang. They rang loudly, and gracefully, and were then coupled with voices of music.

There was a hymn being sung. It had the gist of Beethoven's ninth symphony, but were the words of Schiller's original Ode to Joy, and the voices gracefully sang:

Whoever has succeeded in the great attempt
To be a friend's friend,
Whoever has earned a loving wife
Add to his jubilation
Yes, and also who has just one soul

The women in the cathedral-like building sang, their beautiful words searching for something beyond the text they were singing.

All creatures drink of joy
At nature's breasts
All the good, all the evil
Follow her trail of roses

A man, his face familiar, who was middle aged and had a mustache, yelled, "Run! Run! The Roman and his army have come!"

The earth blurred and there were the sounds of the shouts of angry men, the feeling of the wind, and the hustling of feet or the galloping of hooves, and the destruction of metal which loomed smoke, yet although the music seemed farther away, it rode without moving down the road, when the night began to become darker and the yelling of men and the hurrying of both men and women became more urgent.

Gladly, as his suns fly
through the heaven's grand plan
Journey, brothers, on your way
Joyful, like a hero to victory

Whoever has succeeded in the great attempt
To be a friend's friend,
Whoever has earned a loving wife
Add to his jubilation
Yes, and also who has just one soul...

The bells rang, and the singing continued and became louder, and the light from the sky became more vibrant and bright. The galloping became harder, faster, and a fur-cloak wrapped around him whilst he was on the back of someone who rode, but the singing refused to cease, and it fought and fought on, persistently, and it continued, as the Roman and his legion fought and burned, and they all seemed to be become quieter once more...

There were only a few weeks before he was sentenced to die. Only a few weeks... "Prisoner 69105," said the voice from a faraway megaphone, which still were widely in use due to their ease in production. "Your date of death has been moved to today."

Gnaeus did not know how to feel. Most likely Gurthag and the rest were dead right now, and the remaining leadership of the Fell had no means of locating him. He had been taken to the room of such announcements in chains, where there were stuffed chairs and windows as opposed to concrete walls and porridge holes. And out of that window, he saw him. And Nepos saw him as well.

Coriolus Gnaeus looked at him, who was flanked by two veterans with arcane swords and mail, and behind them there were perhaps a dozen men led by a veteran decanus. He moved his arms slightly, and felt the weight of the cuffs and chains on him, and the rough texture of his gray-green cloth jumpsuit. They could have been the best of friends or the worst of enemies, or they could always have been fated to be this way.

When Gnaeus went to eat his last meal, in the evening, he ate alone, as he did now in the gaol. A mix of porridge and some kind of mush-meat fell down from a small aperture into the hole on the floor, which had a steel lid on it, and he ate it by himself, without the cover of conversation, in total silence. He had not shaved for a while. Nobody washed him or cleaned him, and he slept his remaining hours before his execution at night in silence, alone, and in the state he was in.

Senator of the Second Roman Empire Francis Peeters was with the Senator Nepos Caesar in the Curia Julia. Peeters, fumbling with nothing, asked, "So, are we ready?"

Nepos thought for a moment, and his mind seemed to glance at the whole world once. "Yes," he said. "We are."

The darkness gathered itself, and light manifested, but only could be seen in places darkness was not.

A crowd gathered before a man and several other senators. Many were in the crowd regardless of rank, although the poorer ones came out of good fortune, whilst the richer came, for they paid money. There were businessmen, equestrians, other senators, even the one who was against Nepos, who simply sat there, legates, soldiers, centurions, salesmen, doctors, and academics, poor farmers, craftsmen, amongst countless other professions. They were not in the Curia Julia, the meeting place of the Senate, nor on Palatine Hill, which once hosted the palace of the Emperor, rather, they were in the amphitheater known as the Colosseum, which had been used and redecorated for entertainment that satisfied the crowd which preferred entertainment similar to general pre-Great War culture which was slowly being given freckles of Roman influence, and so was an amalgamation which represented the Second Roman Empire as it stood, still divided by war, yet having an edge which only seemed to grow.

It was not Severus Domitian Arripan, Imperial Legate of the Africa Proconsularis, who was there, nor was it Senator Francis Peeters, but it was the clerk, the short one, of the prison in Rome, who had served so long and had never consciously betrayed the man, who stood up from the crowd, as was deigned. His true name was Marcellius Ortega.

Ortega rose from the crowd, and his short height no longer mattered. Nepos was on the stage, and Ortega walked towards him, and dust separated from his sandals as he walked.

Coriolus Gnaeus was in the line of executions. He heard the name, "Eric Naomi, treason." A man walked forward, because he had to, because there was nothing else, and a sword was swung, and the body was carried away. The blood was spilled in a region that was like a shallow pit so that it would not spread, and in it was the executioner, and those who carried away bodies.

Ortega said, "My friend, Nepos, I have finally learned your name. I was chosen as the judge of your trial by the Senate and the people, and therefore I stand. Do you swear to protect the cultural identities of the people of Second Rome?"

And Nepos in his toga said, "I do."

Far, far away, the Nephilim were being led near the Alps. They were told that there was still a powerful enemy at the bottom of them, and that they were to charge.

Ortega declared, "Do you swear to protect the religious faiths of the people of Second Rome, and restore the past faiths by as much as you can?"

And Nepos said, "I do."

Gnaeus rubbed his head. He was in a long line of death. These men and women were waiting to die. Someone whimpered near him. He thought of his discussions with Tharizdun and Lucius, and how legendary Lucius was. He thought of the champions of freedom in the past: Washington, Bolivar, Pompey, and others.

"Do you believe in the strength of the Roman people, and in the glory of Second Rome as the successor of the European Union?"

And Nepos said, "I do."

The Nephilim reached the bottom of the hill, hungry for battle, they were charging, and they stopped. They saw nothing but the plain and the mists, nothing but each other, and the grass and the absence of an enemy.

"Do you believe that the role of a dictator is entirely unjustified, and as long as a ruler reflects the values of the people and is motivated by them, they represent true liberty, for they carve a path out of war?"

And Nepos said, "I do."

Gnaeus looked at the woman next to him. She was still young, and began to cry. "Please, please! She was horrible to me. Always she followed me, always she controlled me.. I lived in hell!" She stopped to gasp and weep. "And because I stabbed one of those mercenaries she sent... because I believed..." She continued sobbing. Gnaeus felt the blind sides the eyes of law did not look at, but what made his views better than the law? How could they be fairer, or less fair? Who decided this? It seemed that Tharizdun would have, but in his absence, he was alone in a hall of quick death, and he was moving across the line.

"Are you Nepos Caesar, the man who saved Rome from the Siege of Rome, and was the man who drove Coriolus Gnaeus back when he led the Insurgency?"

And Nepos said, "I am."

The Nephilim were shocked, and they tried to come up with a conclusion, but suddenly Ballistae and Scorpios created an immense fire which refused to cease, and in the open cover, they could do nothing but take it.

"And for the murder of Cato Uripedes, do you renounce evil, and claim that act as justified?"

And Nepos said, "No, I do not claim justification. But nonetheless, Uripedes was a threat to Rome, and so he must have gone, but not as murder, but as the righteous penalty in the court of law. The ideas of such a Man would only grow stronger had he been alive when he joined with Felix Lucius. And so, to the evils of the world, they were of him, and I renounce them."

The artillery bombarded them. They were superhuman warriors, made from forges of the last of pre-Great War gene-sculpting, who had discarded their past identities with their capturing, and wore their characteristic black armor. Yet here there were screams of confusion, there was bombardment, there was an explosion, and there was dust. Many ran up the hill, scattered, to be destroyed by the bullets of Auxilia, and in the end, only four survived, four battle-brothers, who were now scarred and far from what they once were. It was Zumatt once more.

Ortega looked at the ground, and slowly his eyes leveled again, and muttered, "Marmorea civitas oritur, from the ground of glass and clay..."

Coriolus Gnaeus was still in the line, which led to death. If they all revolted now... no, they could not, for they were all in chains and cuffs, and therefore could not fight effectively. He looked at the woman behind him and gave her his dearest sympathy with his eyes, but could not move much farther due to the chains which bound him. A while ago, he was fighting, fighting, and then a rock hit him, and he fell, his arms outstretched, his sword which fell from his hands was still there, and the resistance on the hill he led was gone, shattered and destroyed.

The line continued to become shorter. He heard the name, "Marcus Fischer, murder." It was there again, the coming, the death, and the carrying away. He thought of Odysseus, or Aeneas, heroes who delved to a darker world and rose again, new morals being taught to them. How much he had learnt, yet in the end he had lost, the great cities were destroyed, and the Republic would fall.

Yet he believed, and still believed in something beyond it. That somewhere, he would see the Fell once more, united by a third ruler, who would be aided by a descendant of Magur Gurthag. He saw Cathulk-Kas somewhere, who would tell the orcs in the future of the deeds they had committed. He realized, knowing he could change nothing, that there was a lack of those who knew him who remained alive, and he was the last of them, for Lucius had fallen, and as had the lives of Aelum, Iost, and the other cities, and then Gurthag and his company which had protected him so well. The line continued to thin. They would live immortally as memories, as martyrs, as the leaders of the French Revolution were remembered in the Second Republic, yet he had no control over what could happen past his death, which dissatisfied him.

The line thinned once more. He was the second in line. He heard, "Raul Cruz, treason."

It was his turn. Soon, he would be gone. He would die. Yet, a small amount of light seeped through, and he saw the leader of the Fell in the distant future reading, and it was a tome of Lucius, it was a tome of Gnaeus and their exploits, about what they had done, and what could be derived from them. He saw his father sitting in his armchair, and he would live some twenty more years before the old man passed away, and he saw his brother's wife and him as well, who must have had a child by now, although he had not heard of them since the Insurgency. He saw her playing whilst her grandfather watched, and she would be named after her mother's maiden name, and how happy she would be, for he hoped, as all mortal warmongers did, that there would be a time of peace, and that peace was what was fought for. And as the leader of the Fell was surrounded by enemies from the East, West, and South, the combined forces of dark elves, desert nomads, and tall, armored men, he would fight valiantly, and he would use a black blade which he could truly understand, thus surpassing Gnaeus, and there, the last vision tottered, but Gnaeus believed he knew he would win.

He heard his name. "Coriolus Gnaeus, treason, murder, and conspiracy."

He looked at the woman behind him, who he had heard compassionately, and was then taken away, for he had waited too long.

He struggled, screamed, and yelled, for he continued fighting, for there was always still hope, even when he knew it was hopeless, when the world was caving in, for as long as he had strength left he would fight, in words or actions, mocking or fisting, and he refused to accept that he had fully failed, but nonetheless, it was a useless struggle. But uselessness was a material concept, and the light made an ascension. He was grappled and taken to the shallow pit. The executioner looked at him, and knew of all the horrible things his prisoner had done. Gnaeus's life began to flash through his eyes, and he remembered everything. From his dying vision he saw the champion of the Fell, the third among them look at him, look at him directly as Napoleon admired Caesar, Caesar admired Alexander, and Alexander admired Cyrus. And as he breathed his last breaths, the bells began ringing, and the sound of clouds and heavenly wings, and the voices of his friends were what he heard.

Slowly, as he struggled yet, when there was still a little time before the pain took control, he imagined the two greatest he had ever known, with Felix Lucius and Cathulk-Kas guiding him through halls above, yet he remained, shaking his head spiritually, refusing to die, for there still was time, and he still could fight.

And as his body began to become limp, he decided that he had left the world a far better place, despite all that had happened to him, than the autocracy that was before it, and a better world than he had breathed in and had ever known.

Far away, Ortega continued, "Marmorea civitas oritur, from the ground of glass and clay..."

His ritual-like chant, which had been trained by his service as a clerk, and was amplified by magic, continued. He continued. "Marmorea civitas oritur, from the ground of glass and clay..."

He walked up to Nepos, and at last proclaimed, "You, Nepos Caesar, chosen from gods of all faiths, as the protector of them, the ways of all cultures, as the preserver of them, and chosen rightfully by the will of the people as the champion, you are the imperator, the supreme general, the pontifex maximus, protector of religion, and the princeps senatus, first citizen in all politics. May you lead the people well, Nepos, and let successors follow your footsteps to glory for the eternity that comes."

Nepos smiled to himself in his mind. Caesar had hoped to establish familiarity with the title of Emperor, akin to the title of Rex, Latin for king, as his audience was unfamiliar with the power games of Rome. Had he chosen otherwise, they would have failed to see him as of enough strength as his historic reputation suggested. But he was Nepos Caesar, the successor who had climbed the shoulders of giants. The Fell were islands, they were leaderless, there were but isles now. He heard the commotion. And he had won.