The Chiron Confession (Dominium Dei) Read Free

and fading into the black void. “Do you know who I am?”
    “The great Caelus, chief astrologer to Caesar.”
    Jupiter! They know who I am. This was not a mistake!
    “Yes, I am. I am counselor to Caesar. And he will have your heads for this!”
    Unfazed, the big Watchman pressed down on him and pinned his arm to his side while the smaller one, who was not small at all, produced a large sword. It hovered over his forearm for a moment like a snake.
    “He’s the one you want!” Caelus cried out, nodding to Virtus. “He’s young, strong, perfect for hard labor. Let me go! My hands are of no use to you!”
    “God has a purpose for everyone.”
    Caelus looked up in horror as the hulking figure above him raised his blade to reveal a black
Chi
tattoo under his arm.
    “If your right hand causes you to sin….”
    The blade came down, and Caelus wailed in unbearable pain.
    The Watchman held up a finger in the dim light.
    Caelus could see it clearly enough through the blur of his tears. It was his finger! His own finger and signet ring! The rest of his hand lay on the floor like a piece of red, bloody meat.
    They’ve cut off my hand!
    “Don’t kill me!” he moaned, suddenly aware that he could see only one Watchman.
    He heard a
whoosh
from behind and felt something strike him in the back of the head. He fell flat on his face into the earthen floor, then rolled over to see a headless corpse, blood spurting up from the neck.
    They had beheaded Virtus!
    He tried to scream but heard only a whistle passing through his slack jaw. Then he recognized the medallion on the chest of the collapsing corpse and realized it was he himself who had been beheaded.
    They’ve cut off my head! My head!
    He felt the breath of life escaping him as this last, grotesque visage before his eyes began to fade.
    Thus Spurius Balbinus, the spindly son of gypsies who had risen to become Caelus of Rome, Chief Astrologer to Caesar, passed from this world to the next.
    And he never saw it coming.

II
    T he small, ornate box took three weeks to arrive in Rome. It was delivered to Caesar in his private box at the great coliseum known as the Flavian Amphitheater during the afternoon gladiator contests. As Titus Flavius Domitianus, the 11 th emperor of the Roman empire, read the attached note, his fingers trembled:
Due to unforeseen circumstances, Caelus has retired forever. Soon you will join him. The next government of Rome will be ruled by reason, not by dark arts.
It was stamped with the
Chi-Ro
symbol of Chiron, the pseudonym of the mastermind behind the militant Christian group Dominium Dei.
    Domitian opened the box and saw the severed finger and signet ring of his chief astrologer. Shaking with rage, the 44-year-old emperor rose to his feet on buckling knees and wordlessly exited the stadium through the
Passaggio di Commodo
, a newly constructed private tunnel that led back to the palace on Palatine Hill. Close behind him were three key
amici
from his inner circle: Titus Petronius Secundus, prefect of the Praetorian Guard; Titus Flavius Clemens, consul and his cousin; and Lucius Licinius Ludlumus, a scion of Rome’s wealthiest family and the Master of the Games.
    Only when they were a good distance into the tunnel, where he was sure they could not be overheard, did Domitian unleash his fury and scream, “Will it take the death of Caesar for anyone to believe the conspiracy is real?”
    Dressed in royal purple and embroidered gold, the balding, pot-bellied Domitian was in the 15 th year of his reign, longer than any Caesar before him since Tiberius. He was also the first to demand to be officially addressed as
dominus et deus,
or “Lord and God.” But this humiliating assassination of his chief astrologer by Dominium Dei or “Rule of God”—itself a mockery of his own divinity—only made him more paranoid than usual. He was terrified that he would not live to see a day beyond September 18, the day the stars said he would die. Worst of all, the