The words on the parchment seemed to burn themselves onto Alex's retina. His name… the name he calls himself is 'The Traveler.'
A chill, colder than any Danube winter, crept up his spine and settled in the base of his skull. He looked up from the dispatch, his eyes meeting those of the Speculatores officer. The man was a statue of professional discipline—lean, dusty from the road, his face a leather mask of impassivity—but he could not hide the flicker of unease in his gaze. He, too, understood the gravity of what he had carried across half the empire.
"You are dismissed, Centurion," Alex said, his voice a low rasp. "See the palace quartermaster for provisions. You will await my further orders."
The officer gave a crisp salute, turned on his heel, and was gone. The moment the heavy oak doors closed, sealing Alex in the silence of his study, he lunged for the laptop. His hands, which had commanded legions and signed death warrants with unshakable steadiness, now trembled slightly as he placed them on the cool, metallic casing.
"Lyra," he commanded, the name a sharp exhalation. "New priority one directive. Analyze the designation: 'The Traveler.' Run probabilistic linguistic models. Origin, etymology, cultural context. Cross-reference with every database you have. Elara's logs, historical records, mythology. Everything."
The laptop's screen shimmered, lines of code scrolling too fast for any human eye to follow. For a few seconds, Alex felt the familiar comfort of his ultimate weapon spooling up, the god in the machine preparing to deliver him an answer, a strategy, a path to victory.
Lyra's voice filled the room, as crisp and clear as ever, but for the first time, it sounded hollow, devoid of the certainty he craved.
Analysis complete. The term 'Traveler' is of Terran, English origin. Its common usage dates from the post-16th century AD. It is not a name. It is a descriptor of an action or identity.
"I know that," Alex snapped, his frustration boiling over. "What else?"
Cross-referencing with the Stell-Aethel personnel manifest. Negative match. Elara's final mission log entry confirms she was the sole survivor of the atmospheric entry and crash event. The probability of a second survivor from her vessel is less than 0.01%. No data within Elara's logs pertains to other off-world visitors to this planet in this temporal period.
Alex slammed his palm down on the marble desk. The sharp crack echoed in the study. "So you have nothing? No data? No historical precedent? Nothing?"
Correct, Lyra stated, her placid, logical tone a stark contrast to Alex's rising panic. The individual designated 'The Traveler' represents a statistical anomaly outside of established parameters. There is insufficient data to form a strategic hypothesis. Recommended course of action: Gather further intelligence.
It was a brick wall. A polite, clinical, computational brick wall. Lyra wasn't a god; she was a calculator. She could analyze the known, but she could not divine the unknown. She could give him the precise structural tolerances for a dam or the optimal firing solution for a catapult, but faced with a ghost, a true mystery, she was as blind as any Roman augur staring at a goat's entrails. The realization left him feeling naked and profoundly alone. His cheat code had just been rendered obsolete.
He needed something Lyra couldn't provide. He needed human cunning, human fear, and human instinct. He needed his council.
An hour later, they were assembled. The air in the study was thick enough to taste. Maximus stood near the window overlooking the city, his arms crossed over his massive chest, a granite statue of military might. Perennis hovered near the door, a wraith in a toga, his sallow face drawn and tight, already imagining a thousand new conspiracies. Sabina had taken a seat, her posture radiating a tense energy, her sharp mind clearly processing the economic implications of the report Alex had just read aloud. And Senator Rufus, his face a roadmap of weary integrity, simply watched Alex, his gaze heavy with a sorrow that went beyond simple strategy.
The dispatch lay on the desk between them, a declaration of a new kind of war.
Maximus was the first to break the silence, his voice a low rumble. "A warlord from the steppes using Roman tactics is an abomination. An insult to the eagle and to the memory of your father. We cannot allow this… this Traveler to build a legend on our border. Caesar, authorize me to move the Third Gallica from its garrison in Syria. We will march east, find this nomadic rabble, and erase them from the face of the earth before they become a credible threat."
"And you would be marching blind!" Perennis shot back, his voice thin and reedy with alarm. "General, with all respect, your sword is useless if you don't know where to swing it! We know nothing of his numbers, his supply lines, his true objective! Is he a Parthian proxy? A king in his own right? Something else entirely? To attack now is to charge into a fog bank filled with sharpened stakes. It is suicide." He turned his pleading, fearful eyes to Alex. "Caesar, we need spies, not soldiers. Give me six months. My agents will infiltrate his camp. They will pose as merchants, deserters, healers. We will learn who he is, who funds him, and what he truly wants. Only then can we formulate a plan."
Sabina let out a short, impatient sigh, drawing all eyes to her. "Both of you speak of war and shadows as if Rome has the luxury for either. This Parthian civil war was meant to be a controlled burn, a quick cauterization of a wound. The Traveler is a wildfire sweeping towards our most vital trade routes. Maximus speaks of moving legions, Perennis of waiting six months. In that time, the grain shipments from Egypt will be threatened and the flow of silk and spices from the East will grind to a halt. The treasury cannot withstand that shock, not now. Our priority must be to secure our assets, build a defensive line on the Euphrates, and let the barbarians kill each other. We cannot afford another campaign."
The room devolved into a low, heated argument. Maximus argued for honor, Perennis for caution, Sabina for economics. They were the three pillars of Alex's new Rome—military, intelligence, and logistics—and for the first time, they were pulling in opposite directions. The perfect, well-oiled machine of his government was sputtering, its gears grinding against each other. Alex watched them, a cold dread seeping into his bones. He was no longer the sole conductor of this orchestra; he was just a man trying to quell a cacophony.
It was then that Senator Rufus, who had remained silent throughout the entire exchange, spoke. His voice was not loud, but it possessed a weight that cut through the noise, silencing the others instantly.
"You all speak of how to fight him," he said, his tired eyes fixing on Alex, ignoring the others. "You debate tactics and timetables and tretise the matter as you would any other barbarian chieftain."
He rose slowly from his chair and walked towards the desk, placing a wrinkled hand near the dispatch.
"Has no one stopped to ask the more important question? An English name. Tactics my sources say mirror our own with unnerving precision. A personal standard of a single, dark star."
Rufus looked directly at Alex, his gaze stripping away the imperial purple, seeing only the man beneath.
"This is not a Scythian warlord, Caesar. This is another anachronism." He let the word, their most guarded secret, hang in the air like poison gas. "This is another you."
The room fell into a dead, chilling silence, broken only by the faint hum of Lyra's cooling fans. Every eye—the soldier's, the spy's, the economist's—was now locked on Alex.
"And you must consider the terrifying possibility," Rufus finished, his voice dropping to a near-whisper, "that he is not a rival to be defeated, but a judgment to be faced."