Volume 1 Chapter 1
Rhesus held his hands tightly against his throbbing head, in an attempt to suppress the sharp pain inside as he slowly roused himself from the mental fog that addled his mind.
Confused, he looked around for some perceptible spark of recognition. The air was cool and humid, a last gift from the night. The room he was in was silent except for the sound of thick liquid dripping into puddles from nearby corners. It was coming from frozen shadowy figures. Tiny shards of recollection slowly crept through as confusion still lammed at his conscious thoughts. His awareness was ungraciously awakened by the raw iron and musty earth smell of blood. Slave blood and Roman blood alike, lots of it.
Rhesus looked around the room cautiously as he regained his bearings. He groaned lightly as he slowly pulled himself disobliging from the marble floor that reached out to the ends of the room. Blood was dripping from his wool tunic. It sounded loud in the echo of the room. He used the back of his hand to wipe blood and saliva from his handsome, battle-worn face. It's salty, coppery taste invaded his mouth as he silently scanned the room with his glacial blue eyes. He searched the floor with his sandaled foot until he found a fallen Roman guard and armed himself with the dead man's sword. His steps were placed with careful scrutiny, as the floor was slick with thick, wet blood. Hours had gone by since the assault, but the dampness of the night air forbade it to dry in many places.
Rhesus now felt an undeniable, burning pain in his leg. When he looked at it, he couldn't believe such a small cut could cause so much agony. He endured much worse in the arena. Yet, his injury felt as if it were filled with a molten metal straight from a blacksmith's forge. Stranger still, it looked as though the wound above his knee had already begun to heal. The places where it healed were somewhat iridescent and saurian in appearance. He tried to cover it with his hand, thinking the pressure would offer some comfort. When he did, it burned his hand slightly. He shook his hand in the air, trying to remove the sting of it. It was unnatural. He did not like it. He tried his best to ignore it.
First morning light waltzed with the shadows as it began to impregnate the sumptuous atrium. It crept through windows and the open compluvium. Rhesus was lurking in the darkest parts of the room not yet kissed by dawn. Something about the light seemed dangerous to him. As if it would betray him, or spy on him to some unseen enemy. He slid along the shadows.
The atrium was the most significant part of the villa, where guests and clients were received. It was was open at the center, surrounded by lofty porticoes that were supported by perfectly spaced colossal granite Corinthian columns. It contained scant, eloquent furnishings to give the effect of a voluminous space. Around the room, there were Roman-style sofas that were dyed radiant colors and inlaid with ivory and tortoise-shell. Flagrantly spiced oils diffused into the air. In the middle, there was a rectangular roof opening, the compluvium, where rain entered. It drained inward from the slanted, bronze tiled roof down below to the impluvium, a magnificent and alluring pool to collect rainwater. Its beauty was amplified by the surrounding kaleidoscope of mosaics made from colored glass tesserae tiles in shades of yellow and green. Fountains of half-naked marble women holding grape-etched wine vases and small silver statues of dancing fauns playing flutes eagerly waited to greet visitors. The impluvium had a soothing and cooling effect on the room, perfect for the unbearably hot climate. Beneath the impluvium was a cistern used to store excess water. This was used to water a lush garden at the rear of the villa. If the cistern was full, slaves would also have the luxury of a bath, although this wasn't for the benefit of the slaves. It was for the benefit of the dominus, to show that he had an expanse of wealth grandiose enough to splurge on such extravagances. If there was not enough water in the cistern, whore baths were satisfactory enough.
Rhesus finally assembled his thoughts. He realized he was looking at the aftermath of the onslaught he and his band of gladiatorial mutineers unleashed on the house of a cruel, callous dominus. His dominus.
With his mind unclouded and eyes adjusted to the room, the massacre carried out during the night unfolded before him. While inspecting the carnage, he pondered what it was that only rendered him unconscious when everyone else in the room had clearly perished.
The former beauty of the atrium was now consumed in a spectacular scene of broken and bloody grandeur. Cold, uninhabited eyes peered into emptiness all around the stiflingly silenced atrium. Inanimate corpses of villa slaves, Roman guards, and house guests littered the floor or were strewn across damaged, capsized sofas. Lifeless bodies were dispersed across the complex tesserae tiles near the center of the room. Blood dripped from bodies forming little pools that mixed with spilled aromatic oils. It masked the beauty of the mosaics. Crimson streaked statues lay toppled on the ground, crumbled pieces departed from their former singularity. Blood seeped into the lavishly detailed impluvium, swirling into the cool water like a spiraling serpent at first, then blending in. It altered the waters hue to a diluted ruby Adam's ale.
Some of the faces Rhesus saw were known to him. The domina of the house was lying breathless on the ground, a grisly and twisted expression on her thin, made-up face. Her hair and what was left of her clothes soaked in blood. She had suffered a particularly brutal death at the hands of two slaves who slit her throat while spitting on her, spouting venomous insults, and forcibly occupying her defeated body. No doubt a fate less atrocious than what she delved out to the many unfortunate slaves she amused herself with. He was glad to see her fate delivered.
Several paces away he saw the face of a villa slave he knew well, Darnus. His black lackluster eyes were staring into an empty abyss. Darnus was a great storyteller and Rhesus spent many nights listening to his fabricated stories of Centaurs. These were mythical beasts with the head, arms, and torso of a man attached to the body and legs of a horse. They ate a lot of food, drank wine, and were habitually symbolic of the aphotic, rebellious side of nature. He always listened to every interesting tale that seemed to leap from his lips, which were now silenced forever.
It seemed that those still left alive of Rhesus's fellow serfs fled in the darkness while the opportunity presented itself. He didn't blame them. He knew that the longer he stayed in the villa, the greater the risk of discovery. Everyone knew the penalty for a slave revolt was death to each and every slave owned by the dominus, regardless of age. He saw this once before with a neighboring dominus. Slaves from infancy to old age were crucified along the main road to the city. It took some of them days to drop into the void. It was meant as an all too visual warning for the fate that awaited rebel slaves. Still, he had to look around to be sure his dominus was truly dead. He had to know that the vile beast would never inflict his inhumane cruelty on another living thing again.
Rhesus searched every room in the Villa for his Dominus while keeping to the shadows. He found no trace of the man. Apparently, he fled during the night too. But why didn't he alert the street guards for assistance? This deed was surely still unknown or he'd already be crucified.
Rhesus looked out the window from his hiding place in the shadows. The sunrise was as radiantly beautiful as the goddess of love and light, Ennia Etruscilla. Yet at the same time, the light seemed queerly intimidating. He was harrowed by it. He decided to enter its presence to get the foolish notion from his head. His fingers slowly and deliberately reached out to touch a beam of light that came through the window.
A myriad of energy moved through his body, unfurling as an unstoppable sidereal force. The ground trembled and the wind howled. Thunder boomed while lightning danced in giant blinding streaks, yet there was not a cloud in the sky. At that moment he felt more alive than he ever had and at the same time like he was being intimately kissed by death.
The sky went dark with ominous clouds that appeared from nowhere and he fell, into a limp herculean heap on the ground.