If the gladiator were reported-and questioned-the result would be the same. The damned gladiator would be given refuge, but Skeeter would be kicked uptime to fend for himself in a world he had grown to hate. And if that gladiator caught up with him, he was a dead man.

"Great," Skeeter muttered to the listening walls. "Not only do I gotta win this bet, now I gotta stay alive while doing it."

He straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin. The boy who'd survived life in Yesukai's camp wasn't a quitter. He was no professional fighter-certainly no match for someone like Lupus Mortiferus-but he knew a few tricks. He wasn't happy, but he'd cope.

He always had, no matter what life handed him.

Tired, hungry, and thirsty, Skeeter headed for his little apartment, hoping Lupus Mortiferus didn't tumble to the fact that any computer in La-La Land listed his address bold as a Mongolian sky, on an entry screen Skeeter couldn't hack into and purge-not without drawing serious attention to himself from Mike Benson's sharp-eyed gang. He thumbed open his door and retreated into his private little refuge to fret over the problem, knowing as he opened the fridge for a beer and turned on the shower that wishing would not make this particular problem vanish.

He took a long pull from his beer and made the wish anyway.

From his viewpoint, Skeeter figured the gods owed him a break or two. For once, maybe they'd listen?

Lupus Mortiferus stood panting in the middle of an empty corridor, hand on the pommel of his gladius, eyes narrowed in a rage that filled his veins until his ears roared with it. Where had that little bastard slipped away to? So close ... and the rat had vanished into thin air.

Again.

"I will find you, odds maker,- Lupus swore under his breath. "And when I do.. ."

Meanwhile, he had to find someone to communicate with. That dark-skinned man had answers Lupus needed. It took him nearly an hour of confused wandering through the mad place before he found it again, but find it he did. And the man was still there, perched comfortably behind a wooden counter. Girding on courage as though it were armor, Lupus strode up to the counter and greeted him in Latin.

The man glanced up, surprise showing in deep brown eyes. "Hello. Guide? Or scout? Don't think I've seen you before. Just in from another station? Brian Hendrickson, Station Librarian."

The man stuck out a hand.

Lupus stared at it, wondering what in the world the man was babbling about. The words were Latin, but their meaning ... He might as well have been speaking some obscure desert tongue like Palmyrene or the incomprehensible babble of a Scythian horseman.

"Well," the man was saying, staring at him with rising curiosity, "the computers are at your full access, of course. With that getup, I'd thought you were headed down the Wild West Gate. Planning on a freelance trip to Rome? It's a lucrative gate, certainly, and thanks to Kit's leaning a little on Bax, Time Tours is giving freelancers a freer hand with the customers. You shouldn't have any problem at all making a good living if you decide to stay."

The man made no sense at all. With a rising sense of panic he couldn't control, Lupus tried to marshall a single question, but found his tongue glued to the roof of a mouth gone dry with fear. The gods make sport of me for fun ... .

Whatever the man said next, it wasn't in Latin. His brow furrowed in open puzzlement. That was more than Lupus could take. He couldn't afford to be found out as an imposter in this place of divine madness. He bolted for the door. Mithras, help me, he prayed in growing misery. I don't know where to go or what to do. Lupus didn't quite run down the bewildering confusion of staircases, ramps, shops, ponds, and imitation streets that made up the main room of this world, but he moved fast enough to put distance between himself and the man who was most certainly coming to the conclusion that Lupus did not belong here.

He was halfway down the long, long stretch of room when he realized he was being followed. The man was younger than he, brown-haired and slender enough that Lupus could easily break him in half with bare hands. Lupus knew a jolt of fear that stabbed from heart to groin, anyway. The gods who ran this mad playground had found him out.

Then anger, pure and simple, scalded him to his bones.

I have been swindled, cheated, and dragged out of my very world. I will not submit meekly to this!

He took a side corridor that led into a quiet, private part of this world and hid in a shadowed niche. Sure enough, the young man following him took the same turn. Lupus gripped his sword and slid it sweetly out of its scabbard. Someone would give him answers or pay the consequences of their refusal.

He waited patiently for the quarry to come close enough to strike.

One moment, Marcus was completely alone in the Residential corridor, having lost sight of his quarry. The next, he was crushed painfully against the wall, sword at his throat. He gasped. Lupus Mortiferus ...

Shock detonated in the other man's eyes. Marcus only realized he'd gasped the man's name aloud when the gladiator demanded, "You know who I am?"

"I-" Marcus thought he might well faint from terror. How many men had the Wolf of Death killed during his bloody career? The thought of leaving Ianira and little Artemisia and Gelasia alone, trying to survive without him, drove him nearly to gibber. "I know-I know you, yes. I saw you, once. Many years ago. Before a fight. At-at one of the gladiator feasts-"

The sword blade stayed pressed against his throat. "Where am I? What place is this? And why have the masters of it sent you trailing my steps?"

Marcus blinked in surprise. ",`Nobody sent me. I saw you earlier and thought I recognized you. I-I just wanted to ask what you were doing here. You shouldn't be here at all. Please, I beg of you, Lupus Mortiferus, don't kill me, I have children, a family-"

The blade remained at his throat, but the pressure eased up just a bit. "Kill you?" the gladiator snorted. "The only man in this mad place who speaks Latin that makes sense? Do you think the Wolf of Death a complete fool?"

Marcus began to hope he might survive. "How did you come here? The Roman gate is very well guarded-" His eyes widened. "Those boys who got sick, when the gate cycled. You must have come through during the confusion."

Lupus Mortiferus narrowed dark eyes. "Gates? Talk sense. And answer my question! Where am I?"

Marcus knew he'd once been a slave, but it had been years since anyone had used that tone with him. `The last time I saw you," he dared flare back, "you were still a slave. Where is your collar? Or have you run from the school?"

Lupus' dark eyes widened. For an instant, Marcus saw his own death reflected there. Then-shocking him beyond all reason-the Wolf of Death lowered his sword. "I bought my freedom," he said quietly. "Then the money I earned with this sword, the money I was saving to start a new life, was stolen by a blackhearted street-rat of a foreigner. I followed him here." The threat returned to his eyes. "Now tell me, where is `here'??"

Marcus blinked several times, struggling with emotions that ran the gamut from pity to terror and back again. "If you will put away the gladius, I will tell you. In fact, if you put away the gladius, I will take you to my own rooms and try to help you as best I can. What I have to say will not be easy for you to understand. I know you are a proud man, Lupus Mortiferus-you have a right to be-but you will need help to survive here." Some glint in Lupus' dark eyes toll Marcus he'd hit a raw nerve. "I have a woman and daughters to support, but I will do my best to help. From what I remember, you didn't begin your life in Rome either. In that, we have something in common. You have asked for answers. I offer them and more. Will you come with me?"