Somany obstacles in this modern era did not involve armies, weapons, orviolence. No, they were barriers of bureaucracy and officiouspoliteness. Venerable institutions of old Rome he ought to know well,passed down to successive civilizations.
Hecouldn’t help but smile, amused. To come so far, and to be confrontednow by a sign telling him the site had closed several hours before andthat he could not enter until daylight. Impossible for him.
Well.He would simply have to find another way. There was always anotherway.
Whatmost impressed Gaius Albinus wasn’t how much the city of Split hadchanged, but how much remained the same and recognizable. Even now,the city felt Roman.
Thecentral palace complex still stood, amidst the sprawl that had grown uparound it. The temple walls were identifiable. Many pitted stone blockshad fallen long ago and were now arranged in artistic piles, in theinterest of archeological curiosity. At some point, cast-off stones hadbecome valuable, worthy of admiration. Entire towns had turned intorelics, museum pieces. And the roads—the roads still marked out routesacross the Empire. The great engineers of Rome remained triumphant.
Thesedays the one-time retirement retreat of Emperor Diocletian was auniversity and tourist town, raucous with nightlife, young peoplecrowding into cafés, spilling onto the beach, drinking hard understrings of electric lights. Not so different from youth cavorting undersuspended oil lamps back in the day, letting clothing slip offshoulders while pretending not to notice, making eyes at each other,offering invitations. That hadn’t changed either, not in all his years.
Now,as then, tourists were easy to spot by the way they wandered throughit all with startled, awestruck expressions. Most likely notunderstanding the local language. Gaius remembered going to Palestineas a young soldier, expecting to hear a cacophony of languages, yet notbeing prepared for the sense of displacement, a kind of intellectualvertigo, that came from standing in the middle of a market and hearingpeople shout at one another using strange words, laughing at jokes hecouldn’t understand. The way people became subdued when he spoke hisnative Latin. More often than not they understood him, even when theypretended not to. They marked him as a foreigner, a conqueror.
Sincethen, he had learned not to particularly care what people thought ofhim.
Outsidethe old Roman center, the city was comprised of the blend of modernityand semi-modernity along narrow medieval streets that marked so manyEuropean cities. After traveling out by car, he stopped at a squat townhouse of middling modern construction: aluminum and plywood. Clearlya product of the time when thiscountry had been part of Yugoslavia, communist and short on resources.That era had lasted less than a century. The blink of an eye. Hardlyworth remembering.
Thehour was late. Gaius knocked on the door anyway, and a mousy-lookingman answered. In his thirties, he had tousled black hair, and woredark-rimmed glasses and a plain T-shirt with sweats. An average mandressed for a night in. He blinked, uncertain and ready to close thedoor on the stranger.
“Ineed your help,” Gaius said, in the local Croatian.
“Whatis it?” The guy looked over Gaius’s shoulder as if searching for abroken-down car. There wasn’t one.
“Ifyou could just step out for a moment.” The man did, coming out to theconcrete stoop in front of the door. People were so trusting.
Gaiusneeded him outside his house, across the protection of his threshold.In the open, under a wide sky, the Roman could step in the man’s lineof sight and catch his gaze. Then draw that attention close, wrap hisown will around the small mortal’s mind, and pull. Inthe space of three of the man’s own heartbeats, Gaius possessed him.
Gaius’sheart hadn’t beat once in two thousand years.
“ProfessorDimic, I need to get inside the palace. You have access. You’llhelp me.”
Hedidn’t even question how Gaius knew his name. “Yes, of course.”
Gaiusdrove the archaeologist back to the city center, navigated the crowdsto the quiet alley where the gate to the lower level was located. Gaiuscould have broken in himself—picked the lock, disabled the securitysystem. But this was simpler and would leave no evidence. No one musttrack him. No one must know what he did.
Dimicunlocked the gate, keyed in the security code, and they were inside.
“Anythingelse?” he asked, almost eagerly. His gaze was intent but vacant,focused on Gaius without really seeing anything.
“Showme how to reset all this when I leave.”
“Certainly.”
Thearchaeologist gave him the code, showed him the lock, and even left akey. He helpfully pointed out restrooms at the far end of the hallway.
“Gohome now,” Gaius instructed the man. “Go inside. Sit in the first chairyou come to and close your eyes. When you open them again you won’tremember any of this. Do you understand?”
“Ido.” He nodded firmly, as if he’d just been given a dangerous missionand was determined to see it through.
“Go.”
Thearchaeologist, a man who had dedicated his life to studying thedetritus Gaius’s people had left behind, turned and walked away,without ever knowing he’d been in the presence of a one-time Romancenturion. He’d weep if he ever found out.
Gaiusmade sure the gates were closed behind him and went into the tunnelsbeneath the palace. The vaulted spaces were lit only by faint emergencylights at the intersections. Columns made forests of shadows.
Hehad to orient himself. The main gallery had been turned into some kindof gift shop or market. The eastern chambers had become an art gallery,scattered with unremarkable modern sculptures, indulgent satire. Butalong the western corridor, he found a familiar passageway, and fromthere was able to locate the series of chambers he needed. He reachedthe farthest, not taking time to glance at any of the exhibits—he knewit all already. Then, he counted seven stones along the floor to theright spot on the wall, two bricks up. Anyone who’d come along thispassage and happened to knock on this row of stones would have noticedthat one made a slightly different sound. A more hollow sound. But inall that time, it seemed that no one had ever done so.
Hedrew a
