"Does it have anything to do with my cure? Has he got into trouble because of me?" asked Nagorno, looking concerned.
"In part, it is, son. But at this point it's not just about you. Now it's about the Ancient Family, and if we're not together, we won't survive. None of you, I can promise you that. I've hidden the most terrible of truths from you since you were born, from all of you. But the day I was afraid of has arrived, the day I have to tell you what happened, because the truth has caught up with us and has put us in danger."
"Just say it!" shouted Gunnarr impatiently. "What's going on and why is my father in danger?"
"Because we're not the only longevos, Gunnarr. Because there is another clan, called the Sons of Adam, whose matriarch wants to see me dead, me and all my descendants."
"What?" Nagorno whispered. "There are more longevos, more longevos in the world?"
"That's right."
"And you were able to hide that from me for three thousand years?" he shouted, furiously. “You know how I've longed to find others like me, other longeva women who didn't share my blood. Women I didn't have to write off just because they were ephemerals."
He stared at him, and for a moment I think that he regretted his words, but he was too distraught.
"That's exactly why I hid it from you. Because you would have ignored my warnings and you would have gone to the Sons of Adam. And that, son, would have killed you."
"Why do you say that they're a threat to us, grandfather?" Gunnarr was keeping his cool, his brain always worked faster than others. "What's the background story to all this?"
Lür sat down and told us about his first millennia, the time when he wandered alone, running away from his longevity. He told us about his coming across the Sons of Adam, he told us about Mother, the matriarch who protected her descendants. He told us about their time together, of the children they had.
"So, many of the Sons of Adam are your descendants," Gunnarr interrupted.
"No, none of them. All of our children died, one after the other, without reaching puberty. None of them had the chance to have children, so there was never a real link between Mother and I."
I knew what Lür was holding from Nagorno and Gunnarr, and that was that longevos didn't necessarily have longevo children. They also needed to pass down the cancer inhibitor gene to overcome the tendency of creating tumors from the activated telomerase. All those children had died from thousands of tumors. But only Lür, Iago and I knew about that part of the research.
Lür continued with his story. He told us of the fear, of the massacres that followed, that all the descendants and companions that Lür had, ended up dying in the worst possible way. Millennium after millennium, relentlessly.
How could Lür go through all of that and still want to live?
And finally, he told us the story of Ilur, the son who pretended to be him. He told us that Mother thought he was dead and the carnage had ended.
In the castle's huge dining room, Nagorno had sat back down in his chair and Gunnarr, without even realizing, had sat on the table we were eating at. Both had listened to Lür totally engrossed and with a serious face, aware of the severity of the situation.
"Nagorno, I'm sure you understand why I never told you," Lür continued, facing his son. "You would have gotten swept up in finding the Daughters of Adam, you wouldn't have listened to my warnings. You would have gone looking for them, going after your dream of having a longevo lineage, but they've been trained to kill all of my descendants when Mother tells them to. Mother protects all her children, but in exchange she calls in favors, or else they are punished for disobeying her. They don't normally have a choice. They would have gone after you."
"That's not an excuse, I prefer to have the freedom to make my own decisions. How could you have hidden this from me? You know my obsessions and desires better than anyone."
"Well, now you have that freedom you're talking about. Let's see what you do with it, because you're coming with us."
"What exactly is going on right now, why is my brother in danger?" asked Nagorno.
"I think that we have been detected again by the Sons of Adam. I think that they're also after the longevo gene. Right now Urko is on a plane headed towards the Thousand Islands, on the border between Canada and the United States. He's been tricked into going there, thinking that he would find Adriana and could rescue her. I need you to come with me because I want to call a truce, or maybe make a deal. Anyway, we need to show up there as a family, and as a close family, so right now you need to forget your differences with Urko, because otherwise the Ancient Family will not survive. Gunnarr, you wanted your father to suffer, and I can assure you that he has. You have no idea what you've put him through by kidnapping Adriana. She's never just been another wife to him. The union between them is different, more powerful. And that's not all, now he's in danger of being killed thanks to this whole situation that you've created. Urko will never be able to make up for the pain he caused you in Ireland, but believe me, what you've started could end up being much worse than the battle of Kinsale."
"And what about me, how can you ask me to forget about what Urko's done to me?" shouted Nagorno, banging his fist on the table and standing up.
"Let's be clear about this, son. If your brother dies, the probability of someone repairing your heart and you surviving are nil. And it's about time that he owes you a favor again, don't you think? Maybe that way you can respect each other for the next few thousand years."
He looked at his watch and walked to the door, knowing that we would follow him.
"Adriana, you don't have to come. The kidnapping is over."
"Iago's gone into the lion's den for me, so I'm in this all the way," I replied.
"I know, but you're the weakest piece."
"I always have been, and I've played the game at your level."
He thought about it for a while, although I'd already decided that I was going.
"As you wish," he finally gave in, and turned to face the three of us. "I've told you the essentials, but time is running out for Urko. The more hours he spends with whoever's in charge of the Sons of Adam, the more danger he's in. Let's go. I'll tell you the latest chapter of this story on the plane."
"Is there more? Didn't Mother assume that you died in the Nile Valley?" I asked, without understanding. "And why did you say that Mother is no longer the leader of the Sons of Adam?"
Lür sighed, as if it was hard for him to share that memory.
"It happened in the year 79 of Our Lord. You may have heard of the eruption of Vesuvius and the city of Pompeii, which was buried beneath several meters of ash."
"Just a minute," Nagorno interrupted. "Are you saying that you managed to save yourself from the eruption of Vesuvius? Were you there? I remember those years, after Boudicca's death. You told me that you went East, I was in Rome when Pompeii was destroyed. It was a sunny colony of prosperous patricians, in Campania. We heard about the disaster, but there were no rescue efforts, there wasn't a soul left to save. When the ashes cooled, many went there to scavenge all the works of art that they could get their hands on. I took and became rich from the morbid market that was generated in Rome. How could you have gotten out of there alive?"
"I'd lived through other eruptions before."
"And what happened?" Gunnarr interrupted. He was trying to remain calm, but I saw him clench his fists and his knuckles turned white. "Did the Sons of Adam find you in Pompeii and kill your family again?"
"No, because you were my family then: Urko, Nagorno, Lyra. The Ancient Family. For thousands of years I've protected you from the presence of the Sons of Adam, whenever we established ourselves somewhere new, I sent trackers ahead to ask about them or about Mother, and if nobody had heard of the legends, we went there. But that was when I thought that we were all immortal and that if Mother found out about us, she couldn't kill us. Boudicca's death put an end to that belief. When I discovered that we were just longevos, and not immortals, I began to worry a
bout you. But I didn't expect to find her again, after so many millennia, I didn't expect..."
"Did you find her in Pompeii?" muttered Gunnarr, clenching his teeth.
"I did."
"And what happened?"
"On that day, August 24 of the year 79, I killed Mother."
We all looked at him in disbelief.
It was very difficult to imagine Lür in such a situation.
"Come on, I'll tell you whatever you want to know on the flight," he said.
We followed Lür in silence, each caught up in our own world, trying to take in what he had just told us. Nagorno and his father spoke along the way, discussing strategies, bringing each other up to date.
Gunnarr took the opportunity to come over to me, without taking his eyes of his uncle and his grandfather.
"Adriana, we have to talk," he whispered in my ear. "Alone. What's going on here is more important than your life or mine.”
40
Pompeii
LÜR
Pompeii, 79 AD.
"So you'll soon be leaving for Alexandria, my good friend Nestor," said the mayor, taking some olives from the plate. "It's a shame that you won't be here to see the results of the elections."
Lür smiled at the mayor, who was getting on in age and had bright red lips and barely any hair left.
"Based on what I've been reading on the posters in the streets, my dear Vettius, I think that the voting is pretty much decided. It looks like the people are behind you. Even Asellina, at the tavern, is having a campaign and speaking well of you to the patrons," he smiled, holding up his hot drink to toast the gossip.
"It seems that way. The Pompeians are grateful and they haven't forgotten my efforts over the last seventeen years in helping with the reconstruction. We just want to get over it all and go back to being the prosperous colony that we were before the earthquake."
"And aren't you Pompeians worried about the tremors over the last few days?"
"If we were afraid of every little shake, we would have left these magnificent coasts decades ago. No, my dear friend. These weak tremors are so common here that we barely notice them."
How many times have I heard those same words, Lür thought, eating some vegetables that Asellina had heated up for him.
"Which brings us on to more practical matters," he said, changing the subject. "I have to speak to the master painter and give him all the bags with the colors you asked me for, for the walls of your domus. I've only selected the best colors that are available: flint based blue, black from charred minerals and bright red extracted from cinnabar. They've already been unloaded and are in the port, tell me where to take them.
"To Adania's villa, on the outskirts."
"Adania?" Lür repeated, hiding his concern with a smile.
"She's a very wealthy woman, based on the work you are doing at her home. She's always surrounded by an entourage and she has many children. I'll give you the directions to get there."
Lür said his goodbyes to Vettius Caprasius and went the way he had been told, away from the crowded streets. It was summer and many patricians had left their domus, which were under construction, to vacation in more northern provinces, trying to get away from the summer heat.
But Lür was on edge, the wind had changed direction several times over the last few days and the tremors were weak, but continuous.
That was when he looked down at the path he was walking on and stopped dead in his tracks, swallowing hard: the path was covered in lizards.
He knew what that meant. He looked up at Vesuvius, the imposing mountain that loomed over the city. The hillside was covered in vineyards that had given such fame and fortune to Pompeii, but he knew that every now and then, the land charged its price.
Lür, run away, his inner voice told him. He knew he should, it was his instinct talking to him. He put his hand in his pocket and squeezed Negu's amulet.
Not yet, not yet.
He walked faster and finally came across the entrance to the villa, at the end of a long road of cypress trees. Everything seemed to be calm there. He found servants busily working in the fields, and asked for the painter, without identifying himself. He didn't need to. His expensive merchant outfit was enough to open any door.
He found him in the atrium, in the central courtyard. A tiny, determined man who was giving orders to an army of workers who were plastering one of the walls with a thick layer of lime and sand.
"I'm here on behalf of mayor Vettius Caprasius. I have all the paint you asked for at the port, you can send your men to pick them up. I'll be leaving this afternoon.”
"I will, this villa is keeping me very busy, and the mayor is also in a hurry to have his domus decorated for election day," he said, waving his hand around to show off his work.
Lür followed him until he was standing in front of a wall where the painter had already started painting some pastoral landscapes.
And that's when he saw it.
Adana's portrait. The woman who was serenely watching him from the wall. With her black, slightly slanted eyes, bronzed skin, dark hair braided on either side, like the patricians, and dressed in a white tunic. Always dressed in white. That much hadn't changed.
He felt nervous, if Adana found him there, in her own villa, he had no chance of survival. He looked around him, trying to see whether there was any member of the Sons of Adam clan hidding amongst that army of slaves and servants.
"Where is your client now?" he asked the painter.
"In the baths, she tends to spend her mornings there, requesting all kinds of services. She can easily pay for them."
"What baths, the ones at the Forum?" Lür asked, walking towards the exit of the villa.
"No, a woman of her standing only goes to the Stabiae baths. But you can't talk to her right now."
"Why not?"
"I can see that you're not from around here and you don't know our customs, but in Pompeii, the women go in the morning and they don't mix with the men. We go in the afternoon, when we've finished work."
"Fine, I'll wait then," Lür answered, with a smile. "I have to go now, don't forget to collect the paint."
He ran back to Pompeii. The sky was taking on a strange appearance and the wind was blowing a fine powder to the east. When he found the building with the baths, many Pompeians were nervously looking up to the sky, where a far away explosion had been heard. Light stones began to fall from the clouds, and nobody knew what they were. A strange rain, a kind of black hail.
Lür knew what was about to happen, but to his horror, instead of fleeing, the Pompeians began to seek refuge in their houses.
"What are you doing?" he shouted at everyone he passed. "Flee from the city right now. Why are you staying?"
"It's seems to be an earthquake, the best thing to do is hide until it's passed," a shopkeeper replied, closing the door of his business.
"It's not an earthquake," he replied, but the man wasn't listening to him, he had hidden in his silk shop, together with all his customers.
He finally found the impressive building with the Stabian baths. He went inside and a robust woman with a blond wig stepped out in front of him.
"No men are allowed to enter until the afternoon. Anyway, we're advising all our customers that the tremors are getting stronger. They can't be felt in here and many still aren't aware."
"That's why I´m here. I'm looking for Adania, tell me where she is and I'll let her know."
"I can't do that, you can't go through to the..." she stubbornly repeated.
Lür took out his leather bag and pulled out some coins to the value of one thousand sesterces. The young woman's eyes grew large and he pushed them into her hand.
"She's in the sweat baths, she's ordered a massage."
Lür followed the woman's instructions and walked down one of the corridors. Everything was quiet inside the huge building with the thick walls, and only the sound of water could be heard.
He finally reached the domed room. A tall, mus
cular servant was waiting for his mistress next to the door. Lür paid him another small fortune and the slave left, no doubt thinking that Lür was a wealthy patrician about to indulge his perversions.
He crept into the room, where he could feel the hot hypocaust floor under his feet. His lungs breathed in a strong smell of pine. Through the steam he could make out the silhouette of a woman resting in a marble bath in the centre of the circular room. Next to her, on a small bronze, three-legged table, were all the items needed for her pampering: bottles of oils, a mirror and strigils, the metal scrapers that the Pompeians used to remove excess ointment from their bodies. At the foot of the bath was a copper amphora for the hot water and a large brazier, with its heavy marble lid lying to one side.
He slowly walked over to the bath. The woman was relaxing in it with her eyes closed. Lür stood behind her head, looking at the immense black hair that he already knew so well, and which was now floating in the hot water, covering Adana's naked body.
"What's happening out there, slave?" Adana asked without opening her eyes.
Lür picked up the small ointment jar, rubbed the oil into his hands and began to massage her face.
"The Pompeians believe that they are earth tremors," Lür replied, without trying to cover up his voice. "Just like seventeen years ago."
"So the best thing we can do is to stay here, the walls are strong, we'll be protected."
"There are lizards on the paths..." he whispered in her ear, and poured hot water from the amphora onto the brazier, until they were surrounded by a thick cloud of steam.
"The lizards have come out?" she repeated, starting to become nervous. She opened her eyes, but Lür kept her lying down, holding onto her shoulders so that Adana couldn't see him yet.
"Small black stones are falling, they're not heavy," he continued calmly. "Nobody can explain it. But the Pompeians aren't trying to leave the city."
"It's the mountain," Adana muttered. "Fire will come out of it."
The Sons of Adam: The sequel of The Immortal Collection Page 22
