Opening the gate was like drowning; a rush of cold, dark water, and then the chilling acceptance of a world that wasn't his.
Marcus sat on the floor of the tomb, his back against a cold sarcophagus. The laptop was open before him, its blue light the only thing visible in the oppressive dark. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
INITIATING MEMORY ACCESS PROTOCOL, JARVIS's voice stated, no longer coming from the laptop's speakers, but echoing softly inside his own skull.
There was no pain this time. No violent, jarring flash. It was a smooth, controlled flow of information, a data stream pouring directly into his consciousness. He felt a strange tingling at the base of his skull, and then the memories came.
He saw, felt, and understood a dozen perfect gladiatorial counter-moves for a trident-and-net fighter. He knew, with absolute certainty, the precise pressure needed to snap a man's neck. He knew the names and personal shames of three powerful senators who thought themselves his friends. He could taste a specific vintage of Falernian wine he'd never drunk, feel the phantom weight of a lion-pelt cloak on his shoulders.
But with the data came the emotion. A tidal wave of feeling that was not his own.
Arrogance, as vast and empty as the sky. A casual, bored cruelty that saw people as toys to be broken. A deep, gnawing paranoia that saw a potential assassin in every shadow, every friendly face.
JARVIS was feeding him the raw information, but the emotional residue of Commodus, the poison in the code, came with it. He felt powerful. He felt divine. And it disgusted him to his very soul.
He opened his eyes. He pushed himself to his feet in one fluid, powerful motion. He instinctively fell into a perfect gladiatorial stance, his body balanced, coiled, ready to kill. He looked down at his hands, no longer confused by them. He saw them for what they were. Weapons.
Galen of Pergamon arrived at the palace exactly 48 hours later. He was a man in his fifties, with a lean, ascetic face, a neatly trimmed grey beard, and eyes that were sharper than any surgeon's scalpel. He was unimpressed by the imperial grandeur, his gaze sweeping over the gilded halls with a detached, analytical curiosity.
The examination was a public spectacle, just as Lucilla had intended. It took place in a sunlit palace atrium. Marcus sat on a large, carved chair in the center. A safe distance away, Lucilla, the consuls, and a dozen key senators sat as observers, their faces a mixture of concern and morbid anticipation.
Marcus walked into the room not as Marcus Holt. He walked in as Commodus.
His stride was longer, more arrogant. His posture was dominant, his chin held high. He didn't sit in the chair; he threw himself into it, slumping with a bored, contemptuous grace.
When Galen approached and bowed, Marcus looked him up and down with a sneer. "You are the famous physician?"
"I am, Caesar," Galen replied, his voice calm.
"Then heal my sister's hysteria and leave me be," Marcus drawled, waving a dismissive hand in Lucilla's direction. Across the room, her face tightened.
Galen was unfazed. "If Caesar would be so kind as to stand?"
Marcus narrowed his eyes. "You command me, physician?" The threat was unspoken but palpable.
"I merely request your cooperation to silence the whispers that trouble your family," Galen said smoothly, refusing to be baited.
Slowly, Marcus rose. The performance began.
Galen conducted his tests. He checked his reflexes, tapping his knees with a small mallet. He looked into his eyes with a polished silver mirror. He asked him questions about his past, about battles and childhood events.
The Battle of the Danubian Plain, 178 AD, JARVIS's voice whispered in his mind. You led the charge of the Twelfth Legion.
"I remember the taste of Germanian blood," Marcus said aloud, a cruel smile playing on his lips.
He moved through the examination with a flawless, arrogant confidence. Every answer was perfect. Every memory was sharp. He was Commodus, in every detail.
Finally, Galen gestured to a weapons rack that had been brought in. "The poets sing of your skill with a blade, Caesar. Perhaps a small demonstration of your famous vitality?"
This was the final test. Marcus took the heavy wooden practice sword. It felt natural in his hand, an extension of his arm. He fell into a ready stance and began to move.
He wasn't thinking. He was just doing. His body remembered. A flawless sequence of strikes, parries, and lunges. A whirlwind of controlled, lethal motion. He was a dancer, and his partner was death. He ended the sequence with a powerful downward strike that splintered the wooden shield held by a nervous Praetorian guard.
The room was in stunned silence.
Galen stroked his beard, his sharp eyes holding a look of genuine bafflement. He turned to the assembled senators.
"There is no madness here," the physician declared, his voice ringing with authority. "The Emperor's mind is as sharp as his blade. His memory is perfect. His passions are strong, but that is to be expected of a man with the blood of gods." He looked directly at Marcus. "There is no affliction. Only an abundance of... divine spirit."
Lucilla's face was a mask of cold, controlled fury. Her perfect, elegant plan had just been shattered.
Marcus returned to his chambers, the persona of Commodus clinging to him like a sweaty shroud. The arrogance, the power, the cruelty—it was a drug, and he felt its intoxicating effects lingering.
He saw the guards standing by his door and felt a surge of contemptuous rage. "Out!" he snarled, a gesture that was not his own. "Leave me."
The guards bowed and scrambled away.
He strode into the room. Marcia was waiting. She saw the look in his eyes immediately. The cold, reptilian arrogance. The dangerous glint of the monster.
She didn't hesitate. She stepped directly into his path, her voice calm but firm. The safe word.
"My lord, have you reviewed the latest report on the Egyptian grain shipments?"
He stared at her, his mind a fog of borrowed rage. The question was meaningless noise. Grains. Ledgers. The pathetic concerns of lesser men. He was an Emperor. A warrior. A god.
"Do not bother me with such trivialities, woman," he snapped, his voice a low growl.
She held her ground. "The report is urgent, my lord. It requires your immediate attention."
The trigger. The phrase. It was a key, unlocking a door deep inside his mind. The mask cracked. The persona of Commodus shattered, and Marcus Holt surfaced, gasping for air as if breaking the surface of a deep, dark lake.
He stumbled, clutching his head, a wave of nausea and vertigo washing over him. The emotional backlash hit him like a physical blow. The arrogance, the rage, the bloodlust—it all curdled in his stomach.
"It's so loud," he whispered, his voice hoarse with horror. "In his head. It's so loud."
He staggered to a basin of water and plunged his face into it, the cold shock a welcome anchor to reality. He stared at his own reflection in the water's surface, his eyes wide and wild, trying to separate his own thoughts from the toxic echoes of the ghost.
The doors to the chamber burst open. Crixus strode in, his face grim, bypassing all protocol. He had clearly just come from the barracks.
"Caesar, the generals are ecstatic," he said, his voice urgent. "Galen's proclamation has been taken as a divine endorsement from the gods themselves. They see your performance with the sword as a sign."
"A sign of what?" Marcus asked, his stomach sinking.
"They have formally petitioned the Senate," Crixus said, his voice heavy with the weight of the news. "They are invoking an ancient tradition, one not used for a hundred years. For the upcoming campaign in Germania, they demand that the Emperor prove his divine mandate and bless the troops."
"How?" Marcus whispered, already knowing the answer, already feeling the cold steel of the trap.
"By fighting in a public exhibition," Crixus confirmed. "Not a demonstration in the barracks. A true fight. In the Colosseum. To the death."
Marcus stared at him, the irony a physical, sickening blow. In flawlessly playing the part of the warrior-emperor to save his own life, he had been perfectly and completely trapped by that very role.
He had been sentenced to fight in the one place where a man like Marcus Holt could never survive, and where a monster like Commodus had been born.