Far Edge of Darkness

Chapter Eight

The guards at the door wore military uniforms, but they weren't Dan's men. They weren't even Uncle Sam's men. They checked his ID suspiciously, even though he was well known to each of them by now. Four months of this treatment had only exacerbated Dan's temper, whipping him with the need to remain submissive at all cost. At one time, this had been Dan's building, Dan's project. At one time, he'd been able to call his life his own... .

His face went stiff and cold as he thought of what lay beyond these doors through which he'd once passed so freely. Of what they had the potential—and the ruthlessness—to do with it. They'd only begun to grasp what they had hold of. God help the world when they started to figure it out.

And God help him—not to mention Lucille and Danny and the others—when they didn't need him any longer... .

Dan had been one of the pivotal engineers on this project from the beginning. Only the physicists understood it better, and while they had the top-security clearances, same as Dan, they didn't have the military connections Dan did. Without Dan to hide behind, the mafioso thugs who'd taken over his life wouldn't have had a prayer of pulling this off.

He drew a ragged breath, hating and blaming himself for that, and clung to the fact that they still needed him, needed what he knew, needed him as a screen to hide behind. As long as he still had access, however limited, to the equipment—

He wondered if Lucille would understand that he had to choose. Soon. Guilt tore at him. Awake or asleep, he remembered Lucy's tears, Danny's quivering attempt at a stiff upper lip. If he ever found out which of his people had originally sold them out... . There wasn't a legal punishment on the books that would come close to what he had in mind.

As it was, he was no longer sure which of his people were still his people. The entire communications section definitely wasn't. Crighton had rotated out and subsequently vanished. O'Keefe had died in a car wreck on his way to visit his wife in Juneau... . The finance officer was definitely in it up to his traitorous little ears. Counterfeit pay vouchers for direct deposit payroll slips for people who weren't even in the army were coming through Tenbroeck's office. Dan wondered how they'd gotten to the man. He'd thought Tenbroeck solidly loyal—until Danny and Lucille had vanished. Someone in Security had to be involved, too; probably Sergeant Manning. Manning was in charge of the duty rosters. Dan wondered how much Carreras had paid him. For all he knew, of course, Kominsky might well be in on it, too. He remembered vividly what First Sergeant Szkolny had said the other day in the mess hall.

"Something strange going on with the MP rosters, sir," Szkolny had muttered in the chow line. "I keep seeing the same dozen or so names pop up for the high-security areas. Come to think of it," he added, glancing at Dan, "that new bodyguard you ordered is always staffed by one of those guys."

"Thank you for bringing that to my attention, Sergeant. I'll take care of it," Dan had answered, trying very hard not to let the man know how very wrong things were on this base. He had not wanted Szkolny's death on his conscience.

Dan thought of Logan McKee and went cold again. McKee definitely wasn't one of his. Nor was Dan certain he was anyone else's. Logan McKee was an anachronism. Ever since McKee's abrupt arrival, Dan had been thinking a whole lot about Dr. Gudekinst's early worries on slippage. And every time he thought about it, Dan began to sweat all over again. If slippage were occurring, severely enough to drop someone through a temporal crack...

Christ—what had these goons been up to? What sort of monkeying around with the time stream had they done without consulting anyone? There were dangers they didn't begin to comprehend. Dangers which—Dan had to shut his eyes and shoulder the guilt which was his alone to carry—dangers which very carefully had not been explained to them.

Explanations would have required revealing aspects of the process which Dan and his physicists had managed so far to keep secret, in the vain hope they could turn this thing into a weapon to fight back. Dan knew the imprisoned scientists were counting on him to stop this madness. He winced a bit. With his wife and son hostages, he couldn't even count on himself.

Dan held fears at bay with less than sterling success and waited for clearance to enter the building. Since Dan was expected this morning, once the scrutiny of his ID was completed, the door guards called for one of their own to escort him inside. The man who arrived was built like a linebacker—or a refrigerator.

Dan hadn't seen this one before. How many of his own people had Carreras brought in by now?

The linebacker confiscated Dan's pistol, then escorted him into an alcove just inside the door. While Dan's bodyguard watched, the man performed a very thorough—and humiliating—body cavity search.

"Satisfied?" he finally snapped.

The linebacker just looked at him. "Get dressed," he said tonelessly.

Dan's fingers shook as he buttoned his shirt and zipped his fly.

He was escorted through a familiar maze of corridors and security devices. An elevator ride dropped them deep into the interior of the mountain which this base skirted. When the doors opened, Dan stepped out into deep pile carpet, as out of place as the man who now inhabited it. Once this had been his situation room. Security monitors were still in place, as were computer linkups to installations across the globe. Inwardly he winced at the thought of the compromised top-secret security installations this room now represented.

The rest of the room had been altered almost beyond recognition. A solid Brazilian rosewood desk at least seven feet long and four feet wide stood opposite the elevator, along one wall of the vast room. Dan recognized some of the paintings. There were ancient marbles, as well, which should have been in a museum, but probably never had been.

Enthroned in a leather chair was the ruling lord of all this. And of Dan's life. Jésus Carreras wasn't yet forty. His body was as sleek and deadly as a rattlesnake's. His eyes were just as cold.

"Colonel Collins," Carreras acknowledged without bothering to rise from his seat. "That will be all, Nelson."

The linebacker retreated silently into the elevator. Dan's personal bodyguard took up a position between Dan and the elevator.

The sweat trickling down his armpits stank. Don't blow this, don't blow it...

"Four months," Carreras said quietly. "Four very interesting, trouble-free months." He shook his head slowly, then rose almost lazily to his feet and strolled toward Dan.

"Do you know, Colonel," Carreras continued quietly, making Dan feel like a dying fish with the shark circling in for the kill, "in those four months I have almost come to like you?" His black eyes glinted briefly with some inner amusement.

A smashing backhand caught Dan's mouth. The blow sent him staggering back a step. Dan grunted and fought the urge to retaliate. He knew better, but his gut didn't. Slowly, to distract the fight-or-flight tension in his belly, Dan wiped blood from his lips.

"How is it, Colonel," Carreras hissed, "that you failed to inform me of this little situation in a timely fashion?"

Dan sounded like a grammar-school truant and knew it. "I wanted to give you as much information as possible on him."

"Ah. I see." Carreras paced a few steps, hands clasped behind his back. "Tell me, Colonel," he asked over one shoulder, "how is your lovely wife these days? And your charming son?"

Dan spat out something profoundly ugly.

Carreras clucked chidingly. "Temper, Colonel. Let me see," he said, tipping his head back in evident reflection, "if we pulled the generators, the temperatures in the shelter would probably drop to fatal levels in, what, six hours? Seven?"

Dan clenched his fists at his sides and didn't dare answer.

"Yes. It would be a pity, wouldn't it? Such a lovely marriage, such a lovely family."

Dan couldn't look at him, couldn't look at the laughter in those reptilian eyes. If he met Carreras' gaze, he'd kill him. And that would be the worst disaster yet.

"Tell me, Colonel," Carreras went on, as though the threats hanging between them didn't exist, "what do you think we should do with this McKee fellow?"

Dan flexed his fingers and risked glancing up. "Lock him in a psych ward. He's crazy. Who'd believe him?"

A brief smile touched the Latin's dark face. "Who, indeed?" Carreras paused for a moment, apparently lost in thought. "No, Colonel," he said at length. "We cannot simply lock the man up." He glanced at Dan. "Do you know what I think, Colonel Collins?"

Dan was sure Carreras would tell him, if it suited Carreras' plans.

"I think our friend McKee isn't crazy at all."

Dan twitched. "What? I questioned him myself, under truth drugs. Carreras, his mind never came home from 'Nam. He's as certifiable as they come."

Carreras smiled. Dan suppressed a shiver.

"I think," Carreras said, leaning easily against the edge of his massive desk, "that our friend is a killer without purpose. Without a job. When he is placed in war, he is like the orca, deadly and efficient in his own element. Take him out of war... Tell me, Colonel, have you ever seen a beached whale? The seagulls peck at it, pluck at its eyes, nibble it to death."

"So what do you want me to do with him? Find a nice, bloody little war for him?"

Carreras chuckled. "No, Colonel. I do not want you to find a war for him." Carreras rested his palms against the desktop and glanced into one corner of the vast room. "He knows too much."

"He doesn't know anything—" Dan protested.

"He knows this place!" Carreras struck the desktop with one fist and propelled himself toward Dan. "He knows that he has been... displaced. When I get my hands on Tony..." Carreras muttered. "I warned that fool... ."

Dan didn't want to hear this. Men had died for knowing less. Men, he realized with a sickening lurch, like McKee.

When Carreras straightened, Dan already knew what he was going to say. He wasn't wrong.

"Kill him, Collins."

Dan shook his head in a hopeless bid to save the man's life. "He doesn't know anything, Carreras. Nobody's going to believe a crazy man. And with his record—"

"Need I remind you, Colonel"—Carreras' voice was an icy whiplash—"that you are in no position to defy my orders?"

Dan bit back the rest of his arguments and swallowed. "I know," he managed.

A polished obsidian gaze caught and pinned him in a puddle of stinking sweat. "I could easily arrange an unpleasant transfer for our mutual acquaintances. You do understand that, don't you, Collins? Judea, perhaps, say, 50 b.c.? I'm told leprosy was quite common—"

"You wouldn't—!" Dan halted abruptly. Carreras would dare and there was absolutely nothing Dan could do to stop him. Dan shrank away from Carreras' contemptuous look, from the knowledge that he was a traitor, a coward, a crawling worm... .

Jésus Carreras' voice was as cold as the Arctic night wind. "Kill McKee, Collins. See to it personally. I don't care how or where. Pick a time, a place, program the jump. I'll send a couple of my men to help manhandle him through, since he is clearly a dangerous fighter, even unarmed. Once you've taken him through, Collins, kill him. Quickly and neatly. Or I'll start sending you pieces of your family."

Dan stumbled into the waiting elevator. He hid his face in the corner, unable to face his bodyguard or the polished metal of the door. One day, he swore, clenching his fists so tightly his hands hurt, one day...

He drove himself home, alone with the hated guard. Dan nearly wrecked the jeep twice and received a jab in the ribs with a gun muzzle for his trouble. Once home, Dan locked himself into his study with a bottle of bourbon. The guard stationed himself, as always, in the hall just outside. He knew from bitter experience there were also guards outside his windows. After three brimming tumblers of straight bourbon, Dan picked up a family portrait and ran his fingertips across the images of his shattered life.

If he'd been any kind of a man, he'd have slid a knife into Carreras' ribs long ago. Hostages never got out alive. Not Carreras' hostages. Dan swore and hurled the picture across the room. It smashed against the wall. The photograph fell with a crash of broken glass and bent metal.

They'd taken him to see Lucille, Danny, and the others, that first week. As long as he lived, Dan would remember the desolation of that place. It wasn't far from the base, actually, a few miles north along the Colleen River, within easy sight of Table Mountain. Not far at all...

But 30,000 years in the past.

The cell where they kept his family was crowded, but livable. Well heated, too, with a small diesel plant and several barrels of fuel. They'd stored plenty of food in lockers. Their jailers had even provided army cots. All in one prefabbed package, complete with guards to make sure no one went anywhere. Not that there'd have been anywhere for them to go in the year 28,000 b.c. Not with an ice sheet covering the Endicott Mountains and the Philip Smith range to the west, another strangling the Alaska Range from Fort Yukon south through Fairbanks and on to the sea, and a third that stretched from the Canadian Yukon all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.

Carreras had dropped Dan's family into a neat little ice-free pocket, surrounded by miles and endless miles of nothing. And if they tried to escape anyway, or if someone attempted a rescue...

Dan swallowed hard. He would finally have access to the equipment—at least until he'd disposed of McKee—but the guards had orders to kill every last hostage at the first hint of a rescue attempt.

But if he could get them out...

Dan narrowed his eyes in concentration and tightened down his fingers on the empty bourbon glass. Whether he got them out, or they were killed in the attempt, as long as he managed to get away again, there'd be absolutely nothing in the known universe that would save Carreras. Dan would get that bastard, somehow. The question was, could he do it alone?

And what was he supposed to do with McKee? Carreras would demand confirmation on the body and he was sending along some of his bully boys to be certain Dan didn't try a double-cross.

Dan Collins poured another glass and downed the bourbon in one gulp, then hurled the half-full bottle against the far wall. Glass shattered with satisfying violence. Bourbon splattered across the wall and drenched the rug like puddled blood serum. Dan stood up. He felt cold all over. But he knew what had to be done.

"Holy shit" was apparently the only thing Charlie Flynn was capable of saying. Sibyl understood at a visceral level, but as a solution to their problem, it wasn't a terribly constructive comment.

"Hey, snap out of it," she muttered.

The numb look left his eyes. "Sorry." He flushed a dull red that left the scar on his throat pale by comparison. "And I'm supposed to be the tough guy." He ran a hand awkwardly through short, matted curls, causing the chains at his wrists to rattle unpleasantly. "So... now what? We're headed for trouble, any way you look at it."

"Amen." She shivered slightly. "Where, exactly, is Bericus' villa?"

He frowned, more from memory of something vastly unpleasant, Sibyl suspected, than from contemplation of their short-term future.

"It's completely outside town, maybe, oh, three or four miles around the base of the mountain, but it's on the northwestern slope, fairly high on a ridge." He squinted slightly, as though staring at scenery in his memory. "It's maybe a third of the way up the mountain, over some very rough roads. You can see Herculaneum when you're on that rise, even Neapolis—Naples, I mean—farther off, in the other direction, around the coastline."

"Sounds pretty," Sibyl muttered.

"Yeah. It is a spectacular view, actually. And very pretty country, if you don't know what you built your house on. Lots of vineyards and groves all the way up to the house, some patches of wilder forest above it. Anyway, the main road out of Herculaneum is paved a short way outside town, but to get to Bericus' villa, you have to sidetrack onto some fairly poor dirt lanes. It takes at least an hour, by carriage, to get up there. He's got a big farm, we'd call it a ranch, I guess, pretty much self-sufficient. They say he bought it so his playthings couldn't escape as easily."

Sibyl shuddered. "Wonderful. We can't afford to be taken out there, Charlie, but I don't see any way around it. Do you? I, uh, suppose that's where Lucania is?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Bericus' town house in Herculaneum is pretty much his wife's refuge, poor woman. She won't tolerate his playthings or their offspring. Anyway, Xanthus will take us directly to the villa rustica. That won't give us much of a shot at breaking loose. And somehow I don't think Bericus is going to be careless with me. Xanthus has already warned him to keep me chained."

Sibyl thought about the scar on Bericus' chin, studied the look in Charlie's eyes, and decided not to press for details. Some things she didn't need to know that badly.

"Can you ride a horse?" she asked hopefully. "If we set Bericus' house on fire, we could steal horses in the confusion. We wouldn't have to elude capture long—just long enough to get lost in the posteruption confusion."

Charlie was shaking his head mournfully. "I've never been on a horse in my life. Of course, some things I can learn pretty fast. I've fought men on horseback from the ground and won." He attempted a dismal smile.

Before Sibyl could respond, Xanthus bellowed for someone to open the hatch and be quick about it. Sibyl exchanged glances with Charlie. She discovered she'd clenched her fingers in the folds of her cheap tunica.

One of the sailors up on deck opened the hatch. Xanthus shouted down, "Rufus! Get your lazy ass over here!"

Charlie paled, then flushed dark red. "Gotta go," he mumbled.

Watching him lose the brief courage he'd gained hurt Sibyl more than she'd thought possible. She bit her lower lip as he struggled toward the ladder and climbed with painful slowness. She heard him say, "Yes, Master?" but couldn't hear Xanthus' low-voiced instructions.

Charlie climbed back down, holding a small ceramic bottle with a stopper. He moved awkwardly toward her.

"Make this look good," he muttered in English.

The next moment, Charlie had thrown her to her back. Sibyl gasped. Then struggled instinctively. He pinned her with astonishing strength.

"What are you—?"

He pinched shut her nose. Then, in a grating undertone, "Don't just lie there, idiot—fight me!"

She fought. Charlie uncorked the bottle with his teeth. She caught the scent of the drug she'd been given before and fought harder. She smashed an elbow into his lower belly, missing his groin narrowly. Charlie grimaced in genuine pain.

"Shit—"

It came out more gasp than curse.

Running out of air, Sibyl was finally forced to gasp, as well. Charlie tipped the bottle—

—and poured the stuff down her cheek, on the side of her face away from the rowers. A couple of droplets, no more, splashed against the back of her throat. Sibyl coughed and strangled as Charlie pinched shut her nostrils again. He tipped more of the drug down the side of her face. Sibyl continued to struggle until he let her go. Charlie sat back. She spat out a few choice words she'd picked up at church camp and curled onto her side away from him.

"Sorry," he whispered. "I had to make that look good. The stuff should make you drowsy in about, oh, five minutes. For God's sake, make that look good, too, or we're both in for it."

"Thanks," Sibyl muttered, aware that Charlie was risking hideous punishment if his ruse were discovered.

"I'll be back," he promised.

Sibyl dragged herself to the edge of the spare sail, using her body to block surreptitious movements. She eased a corner of the woolen sail over to mop up the spilled drug, then collapsed against the folded sail as though dizzy. She lay still while Charlie scrape-thumped his awkward way toward the distant ladder, then returned just as slowly.

"We're almost there," he whispered as he eased back down beside her.

Sibyl shivered.

"Remember, you're supposed to be drugged."

She'd flunked drama class. Involuntary shivers deepened. She hoped Charlie didn't notice.

To distract herself from the coming nightmare, Sibyl started cataloging discrepancies from scholarly theory that the reality of an intact Roman merchant ship represented. She'd reached thirty-eight worthy of doctoral dissertations when Xanthus bellowed, "Rufus! Get that slut up here! Now!"

She met Charlie's gaze and swallowed.

"Remember," he whispered fiercely. "Drugged enough to be stupid, not quite enough to be comatose. Pretend you're drunk, if nothing else."

Sibyl had to bite her tongue to keep from giggling a little hysterically. She'd never been drunk enough to simulate the state Charlie was describing.

Later, she told herself. Survive this now and you can get stinking, roaring, falling-down drunk later, celebrating.

Sibyl let Charlie guide her to the ladder and pasted on what she hoped passed for a look of moronic imbecility. She felt like a fool, but started climbing. The light was already fading when she reached the deck. Vesuvius slumbered in the bloody light of sunset. Xanthus hauled Sibyl onto the deck and dragged her aside so Charlie could clamber awkwardly up, holding his crutch with one hand.

While Charlie was climbing the last few feet, Xanthus tied her wrists together with stout cord. He tied her expertly, too; no wriggling out of these bonds. Sibyl reminded herself to look comatose and endured it. To distract herself, she began cataloging more discrepancies between scholarly theory and reality. Nobody knew much about Roman maritime construction. Not enough had survived. Too bad Professor Clarke couldn't be here with a good camcorder.

A thick central mast supported the main sail. The rigging fascinated her. Christ, I could get a dissertation out of the rigging, alone... . The upswept stern made the entire boat look something like a swan ride at an amusement park or a medieval shoe. Probably where Xanthus' quarters are during long voyages....

Xanthus. She was supposed to be drugged, not gawking like a New York tourist. She glanced up apprehensively.

Damn.

Xanthus was staring at her. Suspicion flared in his dark eyes. Sibyl managed to recover a properly vacuous look only with tremendous effort. If Xanthus suspected Charlie hadn't drugged her... Sibyl cursed the slave-trader silently and held still under his scrutiny until he was satisfied. Xanthus turned his attention to Charlie, who had finally managed to crawl up onto the rolling deck.

The ruddy light of sunset caught the scars on his body, the barely healing welts in his back. Sibyl winced at almost the same instant he did, as scabs pulled and tore visibly. Chains rattled as he dragged himself to his feet with the help of his crutch. His head came up slowly. He towered over Xanthus, taller, even, than the burly sailors. At least six-foot, almost naked, lean and muscled...

The scars on his leg reddened in the sunset. His hand tightened around the crutch. Offshore wind ruffled carroty curls that someone had chopped off, probably with a dull knife. She tried to imagine him in a police uniform, then erased that image. He was a detective, an undercover cop. There'd be no uniform. She adjusted the mental image to jeans, a faded t-shirt, maybe a jacket to hide the shoulder holster he'd probably be wearing... .

Dying sunlight caught a glint of steely determination in his eyes. He met her glance, then looked away without reacting. Professional training. Sibyl ordered herself not to feel hurt and tried to copy his method.

Xanthus, however, had plans for Charlie to ensure he couldn't so much as attempt escape. Without giving him the slightest benefit of the doubt, he ordered Charlie stripped and chained tighter.

Sibyl couldn't watch. But she couldn't not watch, either, risking tiny peeks that jelled her blood. Worse, Charlie yielded to it without a sound. Two years in Xanthus' hands, he'd said... . She found it painfully difficult to breathe. Two whole years. And unless they escaped during the next few hours, every minute of his struggle to stay alive would be for nothing.

We can't die this way. We can't...

They had come into harbor above the town proper. Sailors were busy dropping anchor beside a utilitarian wooden quay completely unknown in modern times. Xanthus, thank God, turned his attention away from the thoroughly subdued Charlie. He huddled at Xanthus' feet, completely submissive, completely naked now, a tight rope around his throat to throttle any fight out of him.

Xanthus hadn't hurt him, he'd just made certain Charlie was humiliated thoroughly in the process of preventing his escape. Although Xanthus hadn't hurt him this time, Charlie was covered, top to bottom, with old, moderately recent, and new scars. Even Charlie's buttocks bore terrible scars that looked as though massive claws had ripped him open.

Leopards...

She shut her eyes, then reminded herself forcibly that she, too, had a part to play. Remember, you're drugged. A zombie. Don't think about what's coming, for either of us. You're a zombie... .

Little frisons of electric terror ran along her nerves every few seconds—every time she thought about Bericus and Tony Bartlett. He'd be waiting at the villa, just to be sure of her. How're you planning your escape, you bastard? Maybe she and Charlie could overpower him, somehow, maybe even get back to the twentieth century... .

Right, Cinderella. Wake up. The party's over and the prince never found the glass slipper. They had to plan their escape to survive in this time. Anything else was tantamount to suicide.

Activity along the shoreline eventually caught Sibyl's attention. Herculaneum, a city of four or five thousand, rose precipitously from the water, built on a series of terraces in a long, steep hillside that formed a small peninsula. That peninsula jutted out into the Mediterranean, faced by a stone seawall that fronted the whole town. A very narrow strand between the stone wall and the sea was littered with beached fishing boats. Their owners were busy dragging them out of the water for storage in the infamous arched boat chambers.

Sibyl knew this waterfront. Knew it well. Too well.

Near the center of the seawall, opposite the quay where Xanthus had tied up his ship, was the stone staircase she remembered. It led up from the beach, then branched like a capital Y into two other staircases. They led in turn up along another steep wall which formed the second terrace of the town. On the first terrace, just to her right, were the Suburban Baths. Beyond them, on the next level up, would be the House of the Stags, where they'd found the glorious statue of drunken Hercules—the patron deity of the town—and another of hounds bringing down a stag.

A vastly wealthy patrician had owned that villa—not only was it near the sea, on prime real estate, giving a breathtaking view of the Mediterranean from its upper-story windows, but the house hadn't been broken up for apartments, which some of the bigger villas had been. Next door was the House of the Mosaic Atrium, another of the most beautiful villas found in any of the buried cities.

Off to the right, back in the heart of town, toward Vesuvius, she could see the rooftops of the palaestra, where athletes trained. To the left, even farther back and marginally away from the mountain, was the 2,500-seat amphitheater. In the distance she spotted a small arena completely unknown in modern times. Dr. Clarke was right. It was squarely beneath modern Ercolano. It would probably never be excavated. Like the theater, which had been found in the eighteenth century, it gleamed in the dying light.

Between theater and palaestra was Herculaneum's basilica, the pulse-point of town, along the Decumanus Maximus. Citizens came to seek justice or to do business at the basilica, which was flanked by famous equestrian statues of M. Nonius Balbus. That wealthy patrician had restored the city's walls and gates and the basilica itself after the earthquake in a.d. 62. Emperor Vespasian had restored the Temple of the Magna Mater—and there it was in the distance, rooftops gleaming in the sunset. The great Magna Mater, Phrygian Cybele, whose priestesses bore Sibyl's own name... .

In her mind's eye, Sibyl recalled the covered portico along the northern section of the Decumanus Maximus, under which were small shops. The other, southern, edge was lined with houses, the monumental entrance to the Forum, the Collegium Augustalium, and the cult center of the Cult of Hercules.

The whole town faced the sunset. Terraces surrounded many villas, especially near the outskirts, open to the cool evening breeze and a spectacular view of the sea. Vesuvius loomed considerably higher than its denuded modern cone. The mountain brooded above the town to the east-southeast, painted by the brilliant dyes of sunset. South along the shoreline, if one followed the road that led through town, one would eventually come to Oplontis and Pompeii, and from there, around the coast to a peninsula that jutted southwestward toward Capri, to wealthy little Stabiae.

The city walls ran along the coastline to gushing, torrential streams on either side of the little jut of land. Water poured down the countryside from Vesuvius and emptied into the Bay of Naples, forming little harbor entrances on either side of the city.

Neither harbor was known in modern times.

Her disseral speculations had been correct, though. The plethora of timbers, half-finished hulls, and stacked planks at the nearest harbor confirmed the theory she was trying to substantiate in her doctoral dissertation. The thriving shipbuilding industry spread out before her must have supported Herculaneum's economy, along with fishing and the vast wealth of patricians tired of the industrial noise and bustle in Pompeii and Neapolis—or Rome, itself. Herculaneum's streets, unlike Pompeii's, were not deeply rutted by the cart wheels of shopkeepers and industrialists producing bread, export-bound fish sauce, or textiles.

Herculaneum's master shipwrights were just finishing work for the day. She could hear shouts and laughter across the intervening stretch of water. It was something, Sibyl supposed, to have one's doctoral thesis borne out so graphically. She'd have traded that confirmation for twentieth-century uncertainty in an instant, despite the awe she felt as the reality of Herculaneum a.d. 79 stretched out before her.

The town was breathtaking, exquisite in every detail... and doomed.

Xanthus grasped her arm. Sibyl jumped nearly out of her skin. Oh, God, you idiot, stop gawking like a fool... . Xanthus stared sharply at her. Sibyl gazed emptily at the sea and let her mouth hang open a little, trying to look doped to the gills. He grunted and dragged her across the deck. They'd run a wooden ramp down to the quay. Charlie, still naked so he'd be conspicuous—and thus more easily recaptured—if he tried to run, was already ashore. Xanthus thumped down the wooden ramp. Sibyl followed, trying desperately to look as though she'd been drugged. She trembled clear through, so badly her knees threatened to buckle. Xanthus' armed escort followed her down, along with most of the sailors. Only a handful of Xanthus' men remained on guard aboard the ship.

The wooden quay was solidly built, although far more utilitarian than the stone quays of the spa-town Stabiae, with their arches and decorative columns. The slap of water against wet wood reminded Sibyl fiercely of home, of summers spent at the beach. Even the smells were mostly the same: salt water, the tang of clean air overlain by the stench of freshly gutted fish... . She had to blink rapidly to keep tears from slipping loose.

At the far end of the quay, on terra firma, an open, low-slung, unsprung carriage waited on the beach sand, evidently for them. Its wheels were fastened directly to the carriage. Axle shafts hadn't yet been invented. A dull-eyed bay horse stood patiently, one rear leg slack as the animal rested. Leather straps around its throat comprised the harness.

How the poor beast could breathe and pull at the same time was beyond Sibyl. She wished, for the horse's sake anyway, that modern-style harness hadn't been invented so late in history. The driver was dressed as a slave, although more richly than any of Xanthus' men; he was too pretty for his own good. Doubtless that was the reason he'd ended in Bericus' possession. Good-looking as he was, the driver's expression mirrored the horse's.

The tone of his voice when he greeted Xanthus was somewhere between respectful and bored. "My master sent me to meet you, sir."

"Very good." Xanthus turned to his valuable secretary. "Achivus, I want four armed men as escort for the journey. Bericus says there have been bandits raiding north of Vesuvius. Then hire a wagon and bring the cripple in it, with four more guards. I have no intention of putting that bastard in the same carriage with me. We'll return to the ship late tomorrow or early the next day. Set a guard on the ship with the remaining men."

"Yes, Master."

Panic hit Sibyl squarely in the gut. Xanthus was separating them? They had to get out tonight. If they were separated and brought up the mountain several hours apart, could either of them get away from Vesuvius?

Charlie's face had lost its color, despite the deep red light of sunset. Clearly, the same thought had occurred to him. Charlie glanced at Sibyl, eyes darkened with fear. Sibyl tried to think what to do and drew only a grey, terrified blank. Xanthus couldn't separate them, not now... .

"Meanwhile," Xanthus said, fumbling at his belt for a small leather purse, "give me the papers on Aelia I'm holding for Caelerus. I'll have Bericus' secretary scribe me a copy. Here." He counted out coins. "Hire that wagon and follow us as soon as you can. I want that cripple off my hands tonight. Let Bericus worry about him."

Achivus took the coins and handed over the scroll case. "Yes, Master."

Xanthus hauled Sibyl into the carriage and shoved her into the corner, then settled beside her. His hand grazed her inner thigh. She managed to remain motionless, slumped against the side of the carriage and apparently drugged, but she had to fight to stay relaxed under the vulgar caress. The guards jumped in. From his perch at the front of the carriage, the driver lit a lantern with flint and pyrite, then shook out a long whip.

As the carriage lurched into motion, Charlie's voice, thin with distance and fright, reached her: "Hang on!" he called in English. "Just hang on!"

She managed to catch a last glimpse of him as Achivus ordered him put down. Done gently enough, Charlie still hit the ground hard and lay still, just watching her go.

Then they turned off the beach onto a long east–west road that ran from the center of town right out onto the beach itself, bypassing the higher terraces near the Suburban Baths. Once the carriage had rattled around the corner, she slumped down against the jolting side of the carriage and blinked back tears.

Charlie, don't do anything stupid, please or they'll kill you... .

Another part of her whispered, Please get me out of this, Charlie Flynn.

Despair blanked out awareness of the ancient city, even her ability to think rationally. She had perhaps thirty hours in which to rescue herself and two others from certain death and almost no likelihood of pulling it off. In the last, dying light of day, the black hulk of Vesuvius brooded silently above the town. The cold shadows it cast left Sibyl shivering.

The mountain wouldn't remain silent long. There was something hideously macabre about winding through sleepy, oblivious streets, knowing what she knew. As they rattled down narrow, stone-paved thoroughfares, shop vendors closed their windows and counters for the night. Poor men and slaves dressed in rags hurried on urgent errands, while fishermen trundled the remnants of the day's catch out of the city market. Wealthy Romans lingered in groups to finish an animated conversation or strolled home for dinner and bed.

None of them suspected how little time they had left.

Sibyl tried to put that out of her mind. She had to distract herself, get her mind focused on what was left of her future. What she needed was a plan. Sibyl studied the city with a scholar's intense scrutiny, hoping to learn something—anything—that might give them a slightly improved edge on survival.

She was aware, at some deep level of herself, that part of her would probably be studying the eruption and panicked behavior of the doomed residents with a certain professional curiosity, even as the fiery avalanche swept down across them. Of course, most of her would be screaming right along with the rest of the poor barbecue candidates... .

She shivered, overcome by a dreadful, reversed sense of déjà vu. There—she realized it with a shock of recognition—was the moderate, middle-class home known as the Trellis House. Sibyl knew what the interior looked like, what was painted on its frescoed walls. Sibyl knew many of these houses, knew how their garden fountains were shaped, perhaps had even cleaned volcanic mud out of the skulls of those patrician gentlemen engaged in a lively debate on the street corner they were passing... .

Quite abruptly, Sibyl realized how Cassandra must have felt on the walls of Troy. And to think she'd begun this twisted, insane adventure by wishing she could have lived up to her namesakes, the sibyls of Cumae... .

Sibyl blinked. Slowly, her thoughts moving at the speed of a gopher tortoise on a slow day, she grasped at the spark of an idea. Hardly daring to breathe, Sibyl risked a glance at Xanthus. He had settled down, all but oblivious to his surroundings. The guards were more interested in ogling the whores who had begun to show up on the streets than they were in watching her.

It was slim—Christ, it was so slim—but she hadn't thought of anything else half as good.

Which said a lot about her chances.

A great deal rested on how religious—or superstitious—Publius Bericus was. Lots of Romans were extremely devoted to their favorite deities. Others didn't care a fig for the gods: any gods. School boys learned classical mythology they didn't believe, because knowing it was considered the mark of a cultured man. Julius Caesar himself, while serving the dying Republic as Pontifex Maximus, had openly admitted his skepticism about the existence of gods he nominally served as the Republic's high priest. And that had been, what, a hundred twenty years previously?

She chewed reflectively at her lip.

Publius Bericus had probably murdered his own father, Charlie had said, but that didn't necessarily reflect his religious convictions. Parricide was a regrettably common social institution because of the paterfamilias laws governing male heirs. For all Sibyl knew, Bericus might pray to the household lares and penates nightly for forgiveness. She probably wouldn't know until she saw the house—or, more probably, until she took the gamble.

Should she take that gamble?

Cumae wasn't that far away. No more than, what, six, six-and-a-half miles up the coast from Misenum? And that was just across the Bay of Naples, no more than twelve miles or so from Herculaneum. What if Bericus had been to Cumae? He could catch her out in a bald-faced lie.

She chewed her lip and chafed under the restriction of the ropes on her wrists and her impossible lack of the right bits of knowledge. How could she formulate a plan when she was operating like a blindfolded bat with cotton in its ears?

At least she'd managed to warn Charlie. Then, as she thought about what she'd said, a gut-wrenching thought struck her. I didn't tell him everything. Oh, God, I didn't tell him everything and we're already separated. What if he tries to bolt before they bring him up the mountain... ?

Sibyl had told him the truth. Herculaneum would be buried just before midnight tomorrow night. But the initial eruption would begin hours sooner—shortly before one o'clock tomorrow afternoon. He might think they had until tomorrow night to actually escape the house, when tonight was really all the time they had.

In the corner of the carriage, Sibyl began to tremble violently. Charlie Flynn had already survived so much. He didn't deserve to die that way, burned and choked by superheated ash... .

Sibyl got herself slowly under control. The surges wouldn't begin until tomorrow night. The afternoon's eruption would only blow the caldera open and send debris into the stratosphere. The lethal phase wouldn't begin until the column started to collapse. She clung to that thought, repeating it over and over.

Charlie's a scrapper, she told herself. If anyone can pull through this, he can.

The carriage rounded a corner, rattling into deepening shadow from Vesuvius' flank. Sibyl drew a ragged breath and scolded herself roundly for useless panic. She didn't have time for panic. With the diligence of a grad student the night before the oral boards, Sibyl began to study the layout of the streets. She didn't have much of a plan yet, but she wanted to know the shortest route through the city to the waterfront.

Just in case.

Sibyl spared a single, malevolent glance at the brooding mountain. Tony Bartlett had dumped her here to die. Tony Bartlett just might be in for a surprise.