Part 35 (1/2)

Taurus clung to hope, fragile and worthless as it was.

He was still pus.h.i.+ng himself up, straining to rise in the gas-filled air, when the next surge took his final breath.

IN THE ENTRY HALL of the house of Emeritus the fuller, the guard dog he kept chained there to protect his riches was dead.

Emeritus stepped over the twisted corpse, its jaw open in the agony of poisoned lungs.

Indeed, the air had grown impossible to breathe. Emeritus fought to take shallow breaths. How could one suffocate in the open?

In the dark street, he stumbled forward, senseless as to where he might go to escape the air itself.

Within minutes, he felt his lungs collapsing.

In a final effort to defeat the atmosphere, he lowered himself with his back to a wall, knees bent in front of him, and used his toga to cover his nose, pressing the fabric against his face.

Still in this position, he was unconscious before the fiery flow swept the city.

DRUSUS PACED THE ROOFED pa.s.sageway that surrounded the gladiator barracks, his thoughts vacillating with his footsteps. All that he had worked for, all that he had, was chained within these cells. Nearly a hundred highly trained men that brought him wealth, fame and freedom. His prize fighters, Celadus, Paris, Floronius. To release them, it was to give up everything.

And yet, could they survive the rising ash and rock?

If he had seen the surge that had come to the north wall, perhaps he would not have taken the chance. But he had been busy securing his future.

Or so he thought.

For in the end, they all perished together.

IN THEIR WEALTHY HOME in the eastern district, Seneca pulled his wife Europa into an embrace where they reclined on the triclinium's couches, and whispered final words of love and rea.s.surance. They would meet on the other side, he had no doubt.

Jeremiah sat nearby. He wore a contented look, his eyes focused far off, as if he saw the dawn of eternity breaking on the horizon.

Across from them, Flora smiled bravely at her parents.

They could have left her there, all those years ago, beside the river. Perhaps things would be different today if they had. But there were no regrets. None. They had answered the call of G.o.d on their lives, and though He should slay them, yet they would trust Him. Always.

Let the fires come.

They would only purge away what was left of this fallen life, this fallen world that twisted feet and twisted hearts and left all men longing for their true home, whether they knew it or not.

As they would have wished, Jeremiah's whispered words were the last that they heard.

Thanks be to G.o.d, who rescues us from this body of death.

She had taught them a lesson, to be sure. Put many of them to sleep, tucked into graves that would become solid rock around them.

Some of them had survived, true. These were the ones who would not forget, who would tell their children, and their children's children, the story of Vesuvius and her mighty power. Of the gifts she bestowed, but also the judgment.

The landscape was changed entirely, for she had remade it. In time, gra.s.s would grow again on the spiny rock ridges. Trees would sprout and become tall, birds would make their nests, and the wildlife would return.

Even the humans would wander back to her foothills, she knew, to take advantage of her fertility, to reap her treasures.

Deep within her, the plates were ever s.h.i.+fting. Waiting.

As she would wait and watch. For they had best not forget what their mother could do.

And yet . . .

Behind the wrath, behind the satisfaction at what she had accomplished, there was something else she was loathe to admit. For in the end, she had seen those who died and seen those who were saved and had known that these were not her choices, not in her control.