Book V: Chapter 2| Cave Canem

"Noble house, Pomponianus, bless and watch over Our family, 

I invoke you most noble gods protect them, keep them safe, help them escape. Help them flee. What I can give I will give. What I offer I will offer."

Pliny awakens to see himself and his colleague stripped down to their undergarments. Both are bound with thick ropes. They are in a large cage, floating above the expanse. Pliny gets up and scrambles towards the cage. He looks around.

Oh, the mass of concrete and metal and structures towers inside of the building, the large colored chutes draped with trophies and treasures. He looks over to his friend who is silently offering his prayers.

His friend Pomponianus speaks, "I was wrong, my friend."

"Wrong about what, or what was I wrong about, Pomponianus?"

Pomponianus says, "When we told Barbara and Alexander that we had never seen something like this before, I was wrong because I kept silent, agreeing with you. But I have seen some place like this before, and I think you have too."

"So enlighten me, friend."

"It wasn't too far from us. It's in ruins now, but in Neapolis, the palace of Tiberius—"

Pliny interrupts, 

"The Villa Jovis, of Tiberius." Didn't you visit it once?"

"I visited the ruins. At one point, I asked Vespasian if he was planning to reuse the palace, and he most virtuously declined."

Pomponianus scoffs at this. "Most virtuously indeed. But that building, even at its height, with its baths and its pools, has no comparison to the ruins of this."

"Perhaps not in scale, but in origin, it is the same. A man thinks himself God, builds a house for his pleasure. The purpose is the same as well. The cause is the same, the reason is the same. It is a building that exists for his pleasure and the misery of others."

"You think negatively of this great God."

"I know what these gods seek when they hunt for their Ganymedes. I remember my grandfather, the original Plotius Firmus, spoke of this, of the Capri building. Apparently, I had a relative who was sent there, a less than scrupulous kinsman."

Pliny turns. He had never heard of this before from his friend Pomponianus, who looked out into the expanse silently. Pomponianus watched as the slaves walked around a large canal, endlessly in chains, like some sort of afterlife punishment from a Greek myth. All to push a large platform, a wheel. All to push a large wheel to power some sort of pool in which the Queen was residing.

Pomponianus said again, "I know little about it, admittedly. My grandfather spoke very little about it, only that those were desperate times for Rome, starving, war-torn people, for any semblance of peace when they're given it. All I know was that they were offered a chance at peace and power when the alternative was terror, and they took it. And as to our Lucretia, I don't know their name or anything else about them. I can't say I ever met them. Figure out how our play ends. All."

"Why do you bring this up now?"

"I suppose this made me think about it," Pomponianus admits. "But I also simply pray that our new children never meet the Tiberius of our world, of this new one. So is this what I was meant to do? Escape one family tragedy just to create another? Maybe House Pomponianus is doomed to fail."

Pliny tries to snap his friend out of it. "Friend, look at what we have accomplished just in the few months that we've been here. Look at Castra. Look at Pollux. Look at Alexander. Look, sir, we inherited the starving children of a great hero, and we have returned true Roman men and women of esteemed virtue and skill."

"Well, we have your science to thank for that, and your leadership, Pomponianus."

"And your leadership. I could not take as many as you could have. I could not have raised so many as you did. And yet, despite taking on more of the youths than I did, nearly twice as many, all of them have your unflinching loyalty, and all of them strive to make you proud, and all of them are healthy and happy and full of vigor."

Pliny smiles, "Yeah, but yours are better fit."

Pomponianus finally smiles. "I thought that was a characteristic of House Pomponianus. You were just inducting them into the family ways. If they could not inherit your bloodline, then they will inherit your waistline."

Both of them chuckle.

"Maybe, maybe, my friend. But old man, I worry. Perhaps I know that perhaps they were too loyal. What if they were caught by surprise, or worse, what if they were captured because they refused to leave? If they did, then we will rescue them again. Just as we rescued them from those 'Blumy Eye.' These cats can't be any worse than those monsters, certainly as intelligent. Did you see how she managed her house? Look at them. Look at those guards over there, and those guard posts. They're half asleep while watching the slaves. The slaves are continuing to work on their own volition while those two bicker amongst each other. And look over there by the large chutes, that post is unguarded. There were three cats who were there originally. As soon as they took their post, they waited for no one to be present, and then they left. They barely stayed for a few seconds. No, no, no, are you? This woman has a tenuous grasp of her own position."

Pomponianus continues, "Then when we take this place over, I think that there's this group is not worth taking. I don't wish to have them in our federation. I think we should just burn this city to the ground."

"Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves, Senator."

"Oh no, I'm serious, Pliny. We come to her to offer negotiation, and she kidnaps us through magic, sorcery. I have no taste for this, and I have no tolerance for it. Those who violate sacred guest right are below thieves and brigands, and they are begging for divine punishment. And woe to us if Zeus is not here to give it to them, that we shall do it instead, if we woe to us, if we neglect our duties in administering it to it."

Pliny looks at him and says, "Are you planning on having your throne constructed here? Shall we call the guards over it already to beg come planning, we need to think of a better solution than this, and can't already start Counting the Treasury before we've even opened the door."

"You. Look, there is a clue right on this. This picture of a happy hey—"

A voice then cries out, "Shut up, both of you. I have no idea what you two are babbling about, but I would appreciate it if you would let me get some sleep before I have to die."

The two look over into a corner and they see buried in the straw, in the foam, a woman, similarly in a state of undress, but also in a state of distress. She is laying on her hands and curled up into her knees, her eyes sullen, yet wide awake. Her hair was completely shaven off, cut with signs of cut marks and bruises and small tufts of blond locks. Curiously, she seemed absent of ears. Her skull completely flat along where the earlobes would be, but instead, on the top of her head were two large folding ears resembling those of a canine. Similarly, her tail with long blonde, golden hair, laid at her side, completely motionless.

"A Cynocephale," Pliny says with amazement. "Apparently they're here as well?"

"A what, old man?" Pompanianus used his legs to move closer and get a glimpse of the woman in the light.

"Dog Headed man. They live in the Periplus sea, brutish animalistic hideos creatures according to Strabo and Herodotus."

"I question their eyes. What are you doing here hound?"

"Same thing as you. What's your background? Are you two—"

The dog woman pulls herself up by her hands into a sort of a slouched kneeling position. "I see we're all in the royal cell. So what background are you? Are you kings, merchants, captains?"

"We are outsiders from another world on divine commission."

"Oh, so you're crazy. But then again, I haven't seen a human before in a very long time, or at least not from outside of pictures. Are there none actually like us? There were stories of types like you, but we've never— I've never seen one in person, and I consider myself fairly well traveled."

"And what about you? What are you here for?"

"I am the daughter of a chieftain. My father, the king, rules the Silver Wolf tribe a little farther to the east. I came here with my retinue to purchase kelp."

"They sent a chieftain's daughter to protect a merchant caravan?" Pomponianus asks.

"These are uncertain times. Since you're new from somewhere else, the crops are starting to wither. The beasts are getting angrier. And people, even people's souls, seem to be getting more tenuous. And meanwhile, it seems even the oceans are starting to fracture. I was here to bring the sacred kelp home so that we could offer petition to the gods. But it's been getting harder to get and more expensive. I came with a large sum of money and a caravan and some of my father's choice men to protect it."

"So why are you here in this cage?"

"Then we were ambushed while we were traveling through the forest. My uncle advised us to travel a different way because the main road was so filled with bandits. We traveled down a longer route, but it seems the bandits were there too. The cat raiders captured me, and my men. Took my armor, took my hair—it sells well in these areas, that color. They said they'd make it into wigs, and then they sold me. And so I am here."

Pomponianus narrows his eyes at her and prepares to ask her questions. "Did you say your uncle recommended you?"

Pliny stops him by waving his bound hand onto his shoulder. "Perhaps another time, Pomponianus. We can ask more about her story later. What do you need this kelp for? What's the purpose of this?"

"My father is beginning a campaign, a great war, to unite the people dogs. We have no choice."

"Surely there's someone you can petition to? The Emperor of the cities, leader, the High King?"

The dog woman laughs. "High King? This Cat Queen's as much of a High King as anyone else in the cities. They're all like this. Every city in this world is like this. The only thing close to a united people were the merfolk. But even that's beginning to change. Heard rumblings that their world is collapsing as we speak. Hence the kelp for trade problems. What?"

Pliny looks to Pomponianus and says, "It looks like perhaps we misunderstood our commission. Indeed, we thought we were supposed to find the Emperor. It looks like we might need to make one. Perhaps these ants and dogs could be of use in the future."

"Well, Herodotus spoke that those the ants were miners of gold and other metals. If they are like that in this world, then I could certainly see some value in this."

"Can you, can you two, just stop yapping, please?" She again spoke in common. "By the way, why do you talk like that?"

"Talk like what? Our language?"

"No, when you're talking to me. Who taught you to speak common like this?"

"Our children."

She shakes her head. "Some precocious children. You talk in some old grammar. You're using fine words, sound like you're about to give a prayer at the temple or speak to the great hero. In any case, it was nice chatting with you, but since they're about to send us to the arenas to die, well, thanks for interrupting my nap, I guess."