Shadows on the Aegean

by Suzanne Frank

  In far-off Egypt, Imhotep wept as Ipiankhu stared toward the far horizon. They had sought only to protect Egypt; they’d never desired the annihilation of their cousins. Had the room that was now so far under construction been for naught? Ipiankhu looked at him, as though he discerned his thoughts. “We are to be faithful and trust.”

  Imhotep nodded and muttered through his rotting teeth, “May we live forever.”

  In Knossos, Daedelus watched, tears streaming down his face. The palaces were ravaged, razed from oil fires. Daedelus instructed the people to secure their boats and run inland to the mountains. They were blessed to have no Nostrils of the Bull.

  Would the Clan Olimpi escape Aztlan? he wondered.

  In the rush from the villages and towns to the mountains, a young Caphtori girl named Psychro got separated from her mother. She found herself in a wide cave littered with empty votives. Through her tears she heard a sweet voice that comforted, consoled, and convinced her to open herself.

  When Psychro awoke, she carried with her the wisdom and experience of a clan chieftain. Though she was but a child, a wandering spirit had stepped into her body. She stayed in the cave for the rest of her days. Her ability to read omens and foretell the future became known far and wide. The legend of Psychro’s Cave grew. On the eve of her death, the spirit moved into a younger woman, who in her turn became Psychro.

  In the end, nothing save the crescent-shaped land would remain. The island in the bay would sink, then rise as magma flowed again into its subterranean passages. It would grow tall and verdant, seducing the descendants of those who had fled. Like sheep to the slaughter they would return to its heights, settle their country, and in less than four centuries flee one last time.

  Only their legend and artwork would survive. Their destruction would play a role in world history. Days of blackness, a cloud of fire, and rivers of blood delivered by the eruption would serve to convince a leader on a far-off shore to “let my people go.”

  From the ashes of the first great civilization would be born an everlasting race.

  It had been a bright day for humankind, then night fell. A long, pervasive night, which lived on in history and myth forever. A lesson to those who sought to be gods.

  CHAPTER 19

  CHLOE WOKE UP, CRUMPLED IN A HEAP. Walking carefully, as though sudden movement might shatter her, she picked her way down to the hidden cove. Dion’s cove, obviously. Earthquakes rained bits of stairway on her, but it didn’t matter. None of it.

  Was she being presumptuous?

  She had to know; she had to hear it from his lips. Cheftu had assumed the worst when he’d seen her with Dion. Perhaps she had done the same? Nothing sounded like sex except sex, Chloe thought, choked on tears. She stepped onto the rocky landing. Her boat was bobbing wildly, and she dragged it farther on the shore. Looking outside, she saw it was night. Still?

  The air was filled with strange noises and the smell of fire. She’d taken two steps when she saw movement at the water’s edge. Within moments she was dragging a man out, flipping him over and pounding on his back. Her hands came away pink with blood, but he coughed, vomited, and inhaled deeply. With feeble gestures he tried to move farther up the rocks. Chloe grabbed his hand to help him and barely kept from shrieking as she saw the creature she’d rescued.

  In the torchlight it was hard to discern his features, but she knew of only one albino on the island. “Niko?”

  He shook his head, and she pounded his back more, wincing when she saw the burns that covered his upper body. He needed medical attention. He needed Cheftu. Chloe pressed her lips together—could she stand to see her husband?

  Did she really plan to not see him?

  More of the odd noises … bringing to her mind the national anthem “and bombs bursting in air.” Who would have firecrackers or arms in Aztlan? Suddenly she understood and grabbed Niko’s arm, dragging him into the boat. He was burned, but he could still move. She gave another oar to him. “It will take both of us,” she said, and they began rowing out of the tiny cove, into the waters of Theros sea.

  They were both coughing in moments, and Chloe ripped Niko’s sash in half, despite his protests, tying a half over each of their faces. It was still dark; the only light was the reflected lava as it dripped over the edge of the cliff. Aztlan itself looked unharmed. The waters were strangely quiet, placid, the shorelines seemed wide, speckled with darker spots that Chloe supposed were beached aquatic life.

  As they rowed, she recalled her disaster training. She’d heard volcanoes discussed, but not with any real conviction. There were only a few active cones in the Pacific Northwest, about as far away from Texas as one could get. Still, she remembered a couple of things: often those closest didn’t hear them erupt; poisonous gas was a silent killer; water was usually contaminated; there were no rules. Most chilling was that eruptions could set off a series of disasters.

  Often the sea pulled back, then came rushing in with tidal waves called tsunami.

  Mount Apollo had erupted, judging from the lava slithering toward shore. “Turn around!” she shouted, rowing madly. Niko didn’t hear her, so Chloe kicked him, screamed again on the rising wind, and rowed for all she was worth. The waters were still because the tsunami was gaining strength.

  The large cavern, would they be safe there? Her arms were numb, and she felt no pain, only the sensation of having realized too late. Then, as they heard the roar of the returning waters, she saw the entrance, maybe ten feet away. “Jump!” she cried to Niko, then took a flying leap over him and dove deep, fighting her way forward. She felt a shape in the water beside her and broke the surface. Inside!

  Just then a sweep of current dragged at her feet and she felt a hand around her wrist, pulling her to the dock. What was left of the dock. Shaking, trembling, they crawled out of the water, clinging to the splintered wood as they saw the white-capped waves rising and crashing outside. This was where she had come out of the Labyrinth.

  “My gratitude,” Chloe said once she caught her breath.

  Niko waved a burned hand before it fell beside him. Chloe crawled over; he was unconscious. After dragging him up as high as the shore went, she left him. Holding a torch she’d taken from its sconce, she walked the length of the harbor, looking for a way up. The only opening she could find was one leading to the Labyrinth. Raising her light, she saw that a ladder was carved into the side of the chute.

  Eee, shit. Gripping the torch between her teeth, Chloe grabbed the lowest rung and began to climb. Sweating, swearing, and drooling from the torch, she finally climbed out onto the landing. The pungent stink of her own refuse welcomed her, and Chloe realized her life sucked when she looked forward to smelling her scat. Dear God, this was disgusting.

  However, when lit, it did burn! Triumphant, regardless of the grossness scale, Chloe tried to backtrack. This level was a Greek key, the chute was in the center. She found herself on the outside again, another noticeable pile for marking, which she lit. Then, because she had the torch, she could see the ladder and let herself down the outside chute. Once on ground level she walked until she hit the other side, another chute. Holding her torch high, she thought she saw it turn. Another Greek key?

  Wincing at the blisters on her palms, she climbed up. On her right she passed two landings. One whiff of the first and she knew she’d been there, done that. The second was laid out the same way. After peering down the center chute again, she found her way out and back up the outside chute. The torch was getting low, burning dangerously close to her hair and face, so Chloe put the end in her mouth, climbing faster.

  This chute rose high, zillions of steps, but she’d left the other layers behind. The ladder ended, and she saw a ledge above her. Sweaty hands shaking, she moved one, then the other, to the ledge. With a groaning heave and much scrambling for footing, she pulled herself over as the torch fell down into the darkness.

  Resting her head against the stone, Chloe fought for breath, to stop shaking, to calm down. Once she fel
t a little less like screaming and crying, she raised her head. To her right was a doorway. Cold with sweat, she stepped through it and turned back.

  She’d escaped Hades.

  She was in the palace!

  Chloe took off at a run, taking the first set of steps in twos and threes. Niko needed help, she needed answers, and they all needed to get the hell out!

  EVERYTHING WAS BURNING, Cheftu could feel nothing except the heat, smell nothing over the acrid stink of the fuel. Human bodies. Just as Mount Apollo had incinerated thousands hiding on its hillsides, so Cheftu had personally overseen the burning of the corpses. So many, all stricken down by the plague.

  Bathing them, as Aztlantu custom declared, was a massive production lacking elegance. Serfs held the bodies, drooling and jerking but still alive, by shoulders and ankles, dunked them in the lustral bath, and laid them down in almost endless lines. Then, when they died, they were taken out and set on the earth as macabre kindling.

  I will soon be among them, he thought with some effort. His mind grew increasingly confused. The only reason he could imagine he’d lived this long was that he’d not eaten the bull … or the man. Absently he fingered the pink scar on his shoulder. The bull must have bitten him, some of the illness coming through with its saliva.

  He stared across the sea. Patches of flame danced next to rivers of fire. It was beautiful in a hellish way. Cheftu looked away as he arranged yet another body in the position of death. Who would do this for him? Nestor? Dion? Chloe?

  Scampering down the falling, sliding hillsides of Aztlan, the truly desperate were trying to flee, to swim if they could. Frantically they made for Prostatevo, now a place for refuge, far from the fire-foaming mountain and the cruel sea. Cheftu turned back to another patient, checked for breath, did not even pause when he didn’t feel it, then crossed her arms, too.

  Dion came running in. “Niko! He’s been found! Come quickly!”

  Cheftu didn’t even turn. “By whom? Where?”

  “Sibylla,” Dion said.

  Cheftu turned and stumbled back, glimpsing his wife in the doorway. She never ceased to steal his breath; he never stopped wanting to give it to her. She was battered, filthy, yet she felt so good against him, in his arms. He held her until he was trembling.

  Dion left to retrieve Niko. Cheftu felt him go, then tilted Chloe’s face to his, seizing her mouth, groaning against her lips as he felt his blood move, his heart sing, once more.

  Her response was as desperate, as fevered, and Cheftu felt tears slide down his cheeks. She was here! She was his! He broke away from her mouth and held her tight, pressing his cheek against her head. Her hand gripped him, and Cheftu stiffened.

  “I guess this means you are bi?” she asked in English.

  “Bi?”

  “Not gay?”

  “To see you chérie, to touch you, fills me with great joy and gaiety.”

  She chuckled, confused. “I can see we are hitting one of those time-comprehension boundaries,” she said, searching his face.

  Cheftu kissed her again, reveling in the relaxation of her body against his. For moments he forgot he was also ill, that the mountain was on fire and the island sinking. For a short moment he forgot his hopelessness, for when Chloe was with him, he had nothing but hope. Hope they would be together always; hope that they would grow old in each other’s arms; hope that he would see their flesh mingled in a child. Children.

  He felt another quake.

  “Eee, Cheftu, the earth moved,” she said in his ear, her tongue tracing the outer whorls. His hands were on her breasts, his hips moving against her. He needed her, now, here. Before he could voice his need, they were knocked flat.

  Silence.

  “A sonic boom?” Chloe asked in the darkness. Her voice was tremulous. Cheftu took her hand, and they ran out the door, up the stairs to the portico.

  Where once had been the mountaintop, now there was only black smoke. Chloe was transfixed. “It’s stunning,” she whispered. “Red and black: look at the patterns and swirls.’

  As Chloe and Cheftu watched, the pyroclastic cloud rolled down the mountainside like a ball, bouncing and turning, reducing everything it touched to cinder yet leaving some areas unmarred, except for a hot breeze. Temperatures of 750 degrees reduced all other living things into rolling puffs of atmosphere, vaporized even before the citizens heard the eruption. All the dwellers of Kallistae saw were crackles of heat. All they felt was pressurized air. Vineyards and flowers were laid flat, ash even before they touched the ground, bowing in obeisance to the fury of the earth. Buildings of red, black, and white stones were crushed by the hoof of Apis.

  As Chloe and Cheftu watched, two hundred million cubic feet of rock spewed from the mountain. The gargantuan cloud of red and black rose, growing exponentially larger with every breath. It rushed like water down the slope. The cloud grew like a wide-topped pine, branches of scorching death reaching out to encompass the entire horizon.

  To encompass them.

  Cheftu pulled Chloe, running down the stairs, shoving and pushing through screaming, panicked people, never losing his grip on her hand. They reached the underground level, and Cheftu kicked open a door. A storage room.

  For once, being in the storerooms was where he wanted to be.

  A thunderous clap, a noise so pervasive that he felt his blood vessels expand, knocked Cheftu flat. When he could see again, he noticed blood dripping from Chloe’s chin.

  Cheftu ripped off his kilt, tearing it in two. He urinated on both pieces and wrapped a wet piece around Chloe’s face. She tried to back away, but Cheftu forced her face in it, barely finishing tying the other piece over his mouth before they were knocked down again.

  Screams were cut short, and there was no sound except the roar of destruction. He lay across her, his breath shallow through the fabric. His body shielded hers, one arm protecting their heads, the other covering his groin. His bare backside was pelted with falling stone. A jar exploded, and he screamed as boiling olive oil rained down on his head and back.

  PART V

  CHAPTER 20

  IT WAS SILENT, but Chloe knew she wasn’t dead. She hurt too much. The cloth over her face was dry. She pulled it off and threw it away, watching in horror as it burst into flame midair. She tried to swallow but couldn’t. Panicked, she touched her face, only to find that her hands were blistered, scorched.

  Cheftu!

  He lay facedown beside her, his body half shielding hers. His back was a mass of swelling blisters, and one side of his head was now bald. Chloe touched him. He didn’t move.

  Crawling to her knees, which seemed unhurt, as did the rest of her front, she tried to turn him over. Dead weight. No! No! she screamed, though the words didn’t come out. She fumbled at his neck for a pulse—nothing.

  Be calm, she told herself. Check again! His hands were beneath him, and she couldn’t pull them free. She grabbed around him, feeling for the other side of his throat. Something moved beneath his skin, and Chloe held her breath. It moved again. He was alive!

  He wouldn’t be for long. She rose slowly, taking stock of her own body. Nothing broken, burns on her back, but her face and lungs had been protected. She looked down at Cheftu—he’d protected her. Her neck was scorched and she felt her exposed, burned scalp. What remained of her luxurious hair snapped like broomstraws.

  The room was lighter, and Chloe realized the two floors above them were missing. Sheared off. Where had they gone? She walked to the doorway and almost stepped into a puddle of still simmering olive oil. She hobbled into the corridor.

  The cloud had sliced off the two stories of the wing they were in and had deposited the remains twelve feet away.

  Warm snow was falling, covering the crushed buildings. Everything was gray. Without thought Chloe pulled off her apron, her only remaining clothing, and covered her face to breathe.

  Squinting through the falling ash, she began to make her way through the remains of the Scholomance. Nothing stirred. All she co
uld see was wreckage. A low moan caught her attention, and she watched helpless as a man stumbled over ruins, trails of fire following him like an unholy wake. He fell down, and Chloe smelled his burning flesh.

  Chloe walked to the steps and found herself in a haphazard balcony. Bodies were laid in straight lines—a signpost for the direction the cloud had come. One body was moving, and Chloe stepped closer. Before her eyes his chest expanded, as though being pumped with air. His middle erupted, and Chloe saw the snaking form of his entrails before she ran away, gagging.

  Bile burned in her throat, irrigating her scorched esophagus. Dear God, was she the only one alive?

  The building was flat from here to the sea. The Scholomance was a mausoleum, the botanical gardens were cooked spinach. Chloe turned back in despair, then squealed.

  Standing solid, pristine clean and bright beneath the fall of ash, was the residential wing of the palace! It was postcard perfect and cut away from the Scholomance as though someone had taken a cross section. She took off at a run, stumbling occasionally but remaining up-right. Her apron fell from her face, and she was blinded by ash but fueled by hope. She felt the velvet of grass beneath her feet and dropped.

  Voices cried around her. Her mind swam before she recognized one. “Where is Cheftu?”

  She opened her eyes. Dion, looking perfectly normal save the gray in his hair, knelt beside her, Atenis stood behind him. Chloe swallowed with difficulty. Atenis gave her a sip of water, and Chloe almost wept. It tasted good and it burned. “Hurt.” she managed to say. “Badly.”

  Dion picked her up and carried her inside. “Where is he, Sibylla?”

  Having her burns touched was almost enough to make her scream, and Chloe pushed away from him, out of his arms, supporting herself against the wall. “Come with me,” she whispered, coughing.

  “Nay, I will go alone,” Dion said.

  “You need a guide,” she rasped.