When All is Null and Void

Chapter Eight

"They're so vicious," said a woman to another. "Remember last month?"

"I wasn't there," the other woman with dark hair and hooded eyes said.

"One of the men was foaming at the mouth. One bit another's throat out."

Titus nearly stumbled over a man walking in front of him at that very moment. Thiswas the sort of thing he was looking for. People losing their minds, acting out of the ordinary. But that shouldn't have been a Timewalker in the arena. Maybe it was simply a coincidence. Titus glanced at the meat stands once again, wondering if perhaps that was the cause of it, but no.

This had to be Void Sickness.

He hung around the market for a while longer, until the exodus began. The people of Trier moved in a steady stream toward the amphitheater built into the eastern wall of town. In the future the seats would be gone, covered in grass and fresh dirt, but today, it could hold 25,000 people easily. The seats surrounded a dusty pit with guards strategically placed around the fighting ring. Titus craned his head as he followed people into the arena. He could see a road over the ledge that probably led to the slave quarters.

Glancing around, he made sure no one was watching him. With barely a thought, Titus Hopped to the road and the entrance to the lower levels. Titus could see guards on the other side of the heavy fence in the wall, but they faced away from him. They didn't need to worry about someone breaking in, only people breaking out. He Hopped inside the gates, just out of sight from the centurions. Shadows were useful when it came to using his ring. It wasn't easy to get the correct location, but he'd slowly been getting better at it.

Titus took slow steps into the dimness. Sconces of fire had been placed along the wall in 20 foot intervals, but they did more for air pollution than visibility. He turned a corner, and his ring gave a fluttering pulse. Titus was reminded of the heartbeat of a lovesick man who'd, moments before, seen the person of his dreams--not that he'd ever experience something like that. The leak was near. His ring always did this when he was close to them. It would pull him nearer and nearer until he was upon the black hole that called out.

In the wan light, Titus heard moans and grunts and snores. Somewhere someone with a broken mind babbled. If a Timewalker had somehow been forced into slavery, that wasn't good. But a Timewalker with Void sickness in these gladiatorial games? His mom had told him not to engage with anyone with Void sickness. They couldn't be reasoned with, or fought for. The Void Sick wandered time, insane ones who spread unease and depression like wildfire at best. At worst...

Titus took slower steps when he came to a group of men in chains. They all seemed so...defeated. His eyes had adjusted, but somehow Titus wished he could have been semi-blind again. They were pathetic men: Half naked—muscular, sure—but each one exuding lifelessness. They watched him, and though he had his ring on him, Titus felt fear lick at his brain.

The Void leak was near. These men might have been ruined by what society had done to them, by what they'd been forced to do to each other, but they were barely moving. Fear hung in the air, and the Void avidly sought to devour it. A ravaging beast that took and took until it controlled. He could feel the tug at his own heart, though he was immune to its sickness. He could feel its attempt to seep into him. His ring pulsed with it.

As he rounded another corner, Titus heard the crowd above shouting for the match to begin. Blood was in the air, crying out to be shed, and Titus shivered as fear gained a stronger hold.

The archway stood in the far corner. In the same way Natalee did when she woke, this was a writhing, seething mass of darkness. It was contained, but it would open further. The shouts grew louder, the ceiling above rumbling with their intensity. Titus stepped closer. Closing a Void leaker was dangerous. Not only to Timewalkers, but to anyone within fifty feet. It was unfortunate how close it was, but these men were all dead anyways. The blast from the Void might kill them now, but it would suck up any of the repercussions it might cause in future timelines. If anyone had a life after this point, which Titus was fairly certain wasn't the case, those would be preserved. He didn't know how the Void did it, how someone who died could still be tethered to the world he didn't exist in anymore. But Titus didn't care about answers. He cared about closing the Void.

Titus was inches from the Void leak when he reached out to touch it. Hand sliding into the icy innards of the shadowy archway, Titus attempted to keep his mind blank of anything but this moment. If he strayed, allowed a moment's foggy lack of concentration, the Void would know he was there. Even now, Titus could feel that inky blackness probing against his arms, his legs. Whatever sentience existed in these leaks knew Titus' desires, his fears. Any distractionand the archway would whisper in his ear, a lover calling to him. The darkness would conform to Titus' body, press against his skin. And Titus might give in. He wouldn't; once before he'd nearly lost himself.

With a shuddering breath, Titus twisted his hand, and the Void's doorway fell into itself, crumbling like disturbed dirt over a hole. Soon, the leak and its eerie, whispering song was gone.

Silence.

It would close for now, open somewhere else. Titus' ring stuttered, and his ability to Hop disappeared. Every time he closed a Void leak, his ring would shut down. It was never the same amount of time. Normally, Titus wasn't stuck in a dungeon of men about to kill or be killed. Normally he could go on a walk through the town, but for now he was stuck in here.

He walked away from where the Void had left a dark stain on the wall. The men from before were gone, but the sounds of the crowd above still thundered and roared for spilled blood. Who would fight now?

A heavy hand fell onto Titus' shoulder with enough strength to buckle his knees to the dirt floor. A centurion said something, pulling him. Because his ring had shut down, the ability to understand the language was gone.

"No," Titus said, "I'm not--" but he stopped talking when the centurion grabbed him by the neck. He squeezed tightly, and then dropped Titus as if he were no more than a sack of rotting vegetables. Titus had read a long time ago that gladiators weren't treated horribly. That they were an expensive investment. So why had the centurion been so brutal to him? He followed, only because he was afraid if he didn't something worse might happen.

The crowd above was growing restless, and Titus' knees trembled beneath him.

They stopped in front of a gate which led into the arena, and Titus tried to talk again. "I'm not supposed to be fighting. I don't know how I got here." Normally Titus would have tried to sound stronger, to be authoritative, but he'd never held a sword in his life. His hands didn't have a single callous on them. The centurion scowled at him, but said nothing. Instead, he shoved loose, leather armor at Titus.

The centurion commanded Titus in his gruff tone. He assumed he was meant to put the leather armor on.

Titus followed the instructions, and when he'd strapped the armor on, the centurion handed him a large bronze trident and a net. Titus had muscle, but the trident was heavy enough that he could barely lift it higher than a few inches from the ground. "What am I supposed to do with these?" Titus asked, his voice trembling, for he knew exactly what was expected of him, and the thought brought bile to his mouth.

The centurion opened the gate and shoved Titus out. "Lucror."

And the gate closed.