Curses and Smoke

by Vicky Alvear Shecter

  “Run!” Tag breathed, as if the people in the streets of Pompeii could hear him. “Run! Run!”

  With moans of horror, they watched as the immense cloud rolled over the city — like a giant hand pushing a face under water, Tag thought, and holding it there until all signs of life were gone. The land went black, and when the roiling mass hit the sea, the ocean writhed and hissed as if in agony, emitting great billows of steam.

  A wall of heat reached them then, bringing with it a whiff of poison and sulfur and death. Pluto’s breath, he thought. No, Mephistis’s, and he was awed by the goddess’s destructive reach. He pressed both Castor’s and Lucia’s faces into his chest to keep the worst of it from their lungs. Within seconds, the smell receded, just as the cloud reversed its course back over the city and up the mountain’s flanks, like a wave being sucked back into the sea.

  He blinked away the burning air. It took a moment for him to make sense of what he saw.

  Where Pompeii had been flickering to life only moments ago, there was nothing. Every small winking light had been snuffed out. Every sign of hope had been obliterated. Nothing was left of the city except a sea of smoldering, hissing blackness.

  I don’t understand,” Lucia murmured. “The mountain … It swallowed Pompeii.”

  Castor began to cry into Tag’s neck.

  “What’s happened?” a voice roared. “What’s happened?”

  She turned, stunned. “Father?”

  Lucius Titurius was weaving from exhaustion, his eyes wide with horror as he stared at the obliterated city below them. Tag pulled Lucia away as her father lurched toward the edge of the ridge. Tag put Castor down and murmured to him to go to the ridge facing Nuceria. But the boy refused to move, clinging to Tag’s tunic.

  Titurius threw down the torch he’d been carrying and fell to his knees. “Where did it go? Where?” he cried.

  “The mountain took it,” Lucia said again. Even as the words came out of her mouth, she could not fully fathom their meaning. How was it possible? And yet the evidence was right there — everything was gone. Their home. The school. The gladiators. Metrodona and everyone else in the house.

  And, oh, gods! Cornelia and her baby. She covered her face. Oh, no, no. Cornelia must have escaped! Surely Antyllus would’ve sent them out of the city at the first sign of trouble, maybe even when the earthquake hit. Perhaps they escaped via his boat. Didn’t Cornelia say he had one? Yes, they were probably bobbing on the bay that very moment, safely away from the black destruction that swallowed Pompeii.

  Yet even as she tried to convince herself that her dearest friend had survived, her heart grew heavy. She knew Cornelia had been too far along with child to run. She would have stayed in Pompeii with her husband and family in the hopes that whatever this was would soon pass. And now she was gone. No one could have survived that.

  Her father moaned pitifully.

  “We need to run,” Tag whispered into her ear.

  Lucia stared at the smoking blackness that had once been her beloved city, feeling as if each leg was a block of marble sunk deep into the earth. How could she move when Cornelia never would again?

  Lucia’s father finally spoke. “It’s your fault,” he wheezed, rising from his knees, pointing. “Your fault.”

  “No, Father, please,” Lucia said. But Tag knew he wasn’t talking to her. He was looking at him.

  The old man unsheathed his gladius, and a jolt of fear flooded Tag’s limbs.

  “You both need to go down to the other side,” he told Lucia and Castor as coolly as he could manage. Castor began whimpering. “Go,” he repeated.

  Titurius pointed the tip of the sword at Tag. “You. You are the curse-bearer. You made this happen. Everything started falling apart after that day.”

  “What’s he talking about, Tag?” Lucia asked shakily. “Father, what are you saying? What curse?”

  Tag clenched his teeth. “Lucia, get away with Castor, please. I will follow,” he urged. He lifted his chin at Titurius and called in as strong a voice as he could muster, “No, you cursed your family. The gods are punishing you for your outrage.”

  “I should have killed you when I had the chance,” Titurius said.

  “Stop. This is madness!” Lucia cried. “Father, go back to Pompeii. Perhaps … perhaps the school can still be saved. We were on the edge of the city. The mountain may not have reached it. It may not be too late.”

  She glanced at Tag, and then back at her father. Tag instantly understood. Despite the fact that everything had almost certainly been destroyed, perhaps her overwhelmed father could be convinced to go back to Pompeii and see the devastation for himself, which would give them enough time to disappear.

  Titurius hesitated for a moment, but then the mad gleam in his eyes grew brighter. “I will go back. But not without you, daughter, and not before I kill the source of all my misery.”

  Titurius and Tag began to circle each other. The ridge overlooking Pompeii loomed dangerously close. Tag’s right hand twitched in want of a sword to defend himself. “I didn’t curse you,” he shouted, trying to buy time. “Your wife did.”

  He heard Lucia take in a breath. Gods, why wouldn’t she listen to him and get away?

  “I could have had it reversed,” Titurius said. “I know I could have, if only you hadn’t plunged the iron nail into it.”

  “Father, what are you talking about?” Lucia cried again.

  Tag put his hands up in a calming gesture. “Lucia is right. The school may yet be saved,” he lied, grasping at their only hope. “Go back.”

  “Not before you die,” he said, lunging at Tag. Lucia screamed, but Tag easily dodged the blade. Titurius came after him again and again, Tag dancing away every time. The old man was weaving and wheezing. Surely Tag could disarm him. He just had to wait for the right opportunity.

  If only he had a weapon. If only he had kept his shield …

  “Father, stop!” Lucia cried. “Don’t hurt Tag. Let him go. Go back to Pompeii and leave us be.”

  “I am not going without you, girl. Your marriage to Quintus is the only thing that will save us now.”

  Tag looked beyond the ruined city, realizing that not just Pompeii had gone dark. The whole region was blacked out — even Herculaneum, which meant Quintus was likely gone too. Despite his dislike for the spoiled patrician, Tag felt a pang. Nobody deserved to die in such an awful way.

  Lucia pointed at the coastline. “I see no lights around Herculaneum,” she said, as if reading his mind. “Quintus is dead. Your only hope now is rescuing what remains of the school. You must go back.”

  “There may yet be gladiators who live,” Tag added. “If they are in the cells, they’ll be waiting for rescue as we speak.”

  Titurius slid his red-rimmed gaze to the still-smoldering city. Tag could tell he was considering it. He really had gone mad if he thought anyone survived the mountain’s attack. But if they could convince him it was possible, they had a chance.

  Tag felt Lucia’s small hand move into his as she gently tugged him back. “Go,” she said to her father in a soothing tone. “Pontius will not be able to control the men for long without you. He needs you.”

  Staring into the blackness, Titurius nodded over and over again, clearly wanting to believe it was true. But then he turned, saw their linked hands, and his eyes grew wide with outrage. “You dare touch my daughter in front of me?” he bellowed.

  What happened next occurred in an instant, yet somehow, at the same time, with dreamlike slowness.

  Titurius pulled his sword arm back and lunged. Tag tried to pull Lucia away, but she leapt forward, arms out in appeal. In the space of a blink, the sword thrust meant for Tag’s left kidney plunged into Lucia between her lower ribs instead. Tag heard the faintest clang as the sword tip stabbed the hoard of coins and jewels slung on her back.

  The three of them froze — all staring with disbelief at the weapon sunk deep into Lucia’s chest. Black liquid blossomed around the sunken blade. Titurius b
egan to pull the sword back.

  “No!” The medic in Tag took over. “Don’t take it out!” he shouted. He needed to assess the damage before he could allow the sword to slice backward through her flesh. But he hadn’t spoken quickly enough, and in horror, Titurius pulled the sword out of the front of his daughter’s chest. He staggered, moaning in shock.

  Tag quickly untied the shawl containing Lucia’s hoard; the sack fell to the ground with a clattering thump. He cursed at the sight of spreading blood on the back of her tunica where the sword tip had gone through. He pressed on the cut, trying to contain the bleeding. Lucia gasped in pain and stumbled toward her father before he could look at the entry wound. Titurius keened and backed away, the sword still dripping blood. It seemed to Tag that they were all moving as if underwater.

  With a dazed, uncomprehending look, Lucia stared down at herself. She looked up at Tag with enormous eyes.

  “I can fix this,” he said. “I promise. It’s going to be all right.”

  Lucia shuddered with pain as he continued pressing on the wound in her back, reaching to apply pressure on the front too. The movement propelled her forward again, which made her father back up even more. Tag gripped her arm, trying to steady her. “No, no, Lucia, don’t move. Let me —”

  “You,” she gasped, staring wild-eyed at Titurius. “You killed all your girls. You cursed us all.” Her voice, thick and dry, sounded like it came from the underworld.

  “No,” her father said, hands still on his head, his expression contorted with horror. “No. I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “I curse you,” she wheezed. “The Furies will haunt you for eternity!”

  “No, please,” Titurius cried as he continued backing up. His back leg slid on some loose rocks, and his knee buckled under him. He tumbled backward, his arms waving as he tried to catch himself.

  But he was too close to the edge of the outcropping. It happened in eerie silence. Titurius’s mouth moved, but Tag heard nothing. In a blink, the man who owned him disappeared over the ridge, hurtling to his death, back toward Pompeii, his demolished city.

  Castor began to sob behind them.

  “Father?” she managed. One moment he was in front of her, the next he was gone. Had she blacked out? This pain clawing at her side made it hard to concentrate. To think. To breathe. She needed air, but even as she gulped, it wasn’t enough.

  “He … has gone to Pompeii,” Tag said, his voice cracking. “Now, I must treat you.”

  “Hurts,” she said, gasping.

  “Shhhh, I will take care of it. You must follow my instructions,” he said. But his voice and hands were shaking. He sat her down when she began to sway. The movement was excruciating. “You’re going to be all right,” he chanted over and over again, and she couldn’t be sure if he was saying it for her benefit or for his.

  Air. She needed more air. Fire flashed through her side. She clutched at Tag’s arm as he gently laid her on the ground. “Castor!” he called.

  She could see that the boy was crying as he ran toward them.

  “I need your help.”

  Castor nodded even as he continued weeping.

  Lucia tried to say, “Good boy,” to encourage the child, to tell him not to be afraid, but her mouth was filled with a thick paste of hot metal, and when she tried to speak, only a gurgling sound came out.

  Poor little boy. He was so scared. But Tag was here. Tag was going to take care of everything. It was going to be all right.

  If only she could take a breath. Searing pain tore through her again. Gods. She needed air — the clean air that was just on the other side of this hill. The pure air in Nuceria. They could see it. Why couldn’t she breathe it? She gasped and clamored for it — for any air now — dirty or not, but it didn’t come.

  She heard fabric tearing. Tag was going to wrap her wound, sew her up, and everything would be all right. He was a good medicus. He’d often described how he stitched up gladiators. He’d stitched up worse wounds than this. She knew he had.

  Then why was he crying?

  “Stay with me,” he kept whispering. “Please stay with me.” Which she did not understand, because she had no intention of going anywhere without him, now or ever again. Her father hadn’t hurt Tag. That was the most important thing. Tag said he’d returned to Pompeii. They were finally free. It was going to be all right.

  She gasped again for air, yet also felt it rushing out of the opening in her chest. Despite the pain, she tried to press her hand on it, so the air would stay in.

  “It’s collapsing,” Tag murmured. Pain — white-hot and blinding — tore through her. She wanted to scream, but only a dry, desperate gasp emerged.

  She forced her eyes open so that she could look at Tag, even as small lights exploded around the edges of her vision. The massive wave of pain threatened to make everything go black. Why couldn’t she move her mouth to speak? She wanted to tell him everything would be all right. She wanted to tell him she loved him. And she would, once she was on the other side of the pain. Once she could take a breath. She would definitely say it then….

  But the wave hit again, and she went under.

  Gods, no, please, no, please, no …

  His hands weren’t moving fast enough.

  No no no no no no no.

  He’d torn strips of fabric from her tunica, but he didn’t have enough. And gods, the cloth was so filthy, caked with dirt and ash. He pictured the basket of clean linen strips he was always trying to get Castor to roll up for him in the medical room. And his surgical tools. His tools! The ones that would allow him to clamp the bleeding, to sew her up, to keep her with him. But he didn’t have them. He didn’t have anything he needed.

  This is just a bad dream, he told himself over and over again. Yet he knew there was no way around the fact that her father had slashed through both sides of her lung. And that they were stuck at the top of a dark hill, thick with sulfurous air, without water, without medicine.

  Still, he would save her. Somehow, he would save her. He would just have to carry her to Nuceria, where he could get the tools to sew her up, where he would find medicine, clean water, and help. It wasn’t that far now. He could do it.

  Castor made a choking, sobbing sound.

  “Castor, you have to stay calm. Now listen, I’m going to pick her up, and you’ll have to carry everything else. Do you understand?”

  “Her lights are gone,” the boy wailed, staring at Lucia’s face. “Her lights are gone.”

  Tag froze. No, no, no, no, no …

  He’d seen death before, seen the emptiness in the eyes, but he refused to believe it. His shaking fingers searched her neck to feel the pulse he always loved to kiss. Even when he confirmed its absence, he wouldn’t admit the truth. Because she couldn’t be gone. It was not possible. Simply not possible. Not when they were so close.

  As the truth finally pierced him, the pain roared through him with the raw, incoherent force of the spewing mountain. And like the mountain, he felt turned inside out with it. He was beyond speech. Beyond understanding. This wasn’t happening. Couldn’t be happening. Not now.

  Tag could do nothing but curl around her as the rage and grief washed over him, stealing his breath, splintering his insides into endless jagged points of misery. Frightened, Castor wept too, their sounds an echo of the mountain’s last thundering act of destruction.

  He felt a tug at his shoulder. A frightened, hoarse voice breathed into his ear. “Healer?”

  Tag did not respond.

  “Apa?” the voice called louder. “I’m scared. I’m thirsty.”

  Tag didn’t say anything. Couldn’t say anything. He never wanted to move again. How could he, knowing he had borne a curse that came true? Titurius attacked another innocent of his household and died right after, just as the curse foretold. Had Tag set it all in motion when he pierced the curse tablet with iron so long ago? Was it his fault?

  The weight of that possibility immobilized him. He wanted to d
ie here next to Lucia. Death was the ultimate freedom, wasn’t it? Let a blanket of the still-swirling ash enshrine their entwined bodies for eternity. They would be free together forever.

  But the sound of the little boy’s desperate, fear-filled cries broke through his fog. Castor was coughing and hiccupping, and something about his terror reached Tag and shook him.

  He needed to help the child.

  Tag stirred and looked at the boy. Castor’s eyes looked sunken and dull. No tears made tracks down his face, even though he was crying. Tag knew that meant the boy’s humors were deeply, dangerously out of balance. Too much fire and earth, not enough water. He needed to get the boy liquids, as well as food and shelter.

  But when he thought about Lucia, his will to move, to do anything, fled yet again. His eyes closed, weighed down by grief and ash. Yet he could not block out the sound of the child’s weakening whimpers.

  It was almost as if he heard Lucia’s voice in his ear: “Tag, this was not your fault.”

  He groaned in misery. Would he ever believe that?

  “You are a healer,” Lucia continued in his mind.

  But he hadn’t healed her! Hadn’t protected her. And so what was the point?

  “You must help Castor.”

  Despite his despair, he pushed himself up, sloughing off the ash that had accumulated over him like powdered snakeskin. He stared at the ring on his soot-covered hand, the ring she herself had put on him, the ring that would keep him from ever being a slave again. But he didn’t want life — or freedom — without her by his side. Without Lucia.

  The boy whimpered weakly. How long had they been out there? Years? Decades? Lifetimes?

  The boy needed care. His care.

  He croaked the boy’s name. Castor looked at him, dull-eyed. He needed to carry the child who now called him apa to safety. The thought kept him from lying back down. Castor needed him.