Could she get behind it?
The force of landing jarred her so deeply she couldn't breathe. Sibyl lurched to her knees anyway, flung herself sideways on a perpendicular line away from the open portal. A gagging stench and lethal heat blasted loose behind her. The volcanic surge blew out through the time hole. The portal widened like a dilating camera shutter. Sibyl lunged forward, rolled away from the heat, toward the back side of the rip in reality—
She landed in clear, sweet air the temperature of an industrial-grade freezer. Sibyl gulped reflexively. For an awful moment, she couldn't distinguish the burning of knife-cold air in her lungs from the burning of super-heated volcanic gasses.
Then she collapsed, simply breathing in and out.
She was barely cognizant that she lay belly down on a hard-packed surface of snow and ice.
Chapter Seventeen
A couple of sunny Saturday afternoons on the glassy waters of Biscayne Bay had not prepared Charlie for the maddened seas off Herculaneum. Decius Martis thrust him toward the tiller, shouting, "Hold her on course—got to get the sail down in this storm! My wife will watch your child!"
So Charlie hung grimly to the tiller, manfully not screaming when the broken rib grated. I'm gonna die, it's gonna puncture a lung and I'm gonna drown in my own blood... . He whimpered and clamped his lips and struggled to hold the tiny vessel stern-first to the ravaged swells. Charlie was convinced if punctured lungs didn't kill him, he'd traded death by burning for death by drowning in the Mediterranean. Every time a wave crested above their tiny boat, terror for Lucania's life choked him a little tighter. He was amazed the boat hadn't capsized already. Seas were running at least twelve feet. The ceaseless plunging and tilting was like riding Space Mountain while half submerged on the biggest log flume in the universe—blindfolded.
The lanterns the fisherman had hung earlier had swung so violently on their mounts, they'd gone out. Insane lightning flickered through the black night, strobing across a lightless abyss where the boat hung poised on a wave crest. In the next instant Charlie's stomach would roll over as they plunged straight down into darkness, swallowed by the trough. Then another lightning bolt would reveal more mountains of water towering above them. Salt water surged across the gunwales, all but swamping them with each crashing wave.
Charlie was so scared, he wasn't even seasick.
The fisherman emerged finally from the gloom and caught Charlie's shoulder. "Get forward!" He had to shout in Charlie's ear to be heard. "Don't need you for now! And hang on! Don't fall overboard!"
Decius Martis took the tiller from Charlie's aching grasp. Charlie crouched on his belly in the bottom of the boat grabbing at anything that looked grabable, then inched his way past the footings for the mast. A lightning bolt cracking through nearby clouds revealed Phillipa huddled in the bow. She cradled another child he hadn't noticed before, hiding it protectively under her tunic. Lucania clung to her. The little girl's wide eyes found his in another mad flicker of lightning.
"Papa!"
Charlie hugged her close, wedging himself in as best he could facing the stern. Every time thunder crashed, Lucania's little body flinched in terror. Charlie wrapped his cloak around her and kissed her hair. "Shh... It's okay now, Lucky, Papa's got you safe and sound... ."
The bloody red glow that marked Vesuvius swung violently in a fifty-degree arc as the waves tossed them about like dried leaves in a tornado. His daughter, drenched as a drowned rat, trembled under his cloak. He wrapped it more tightly around her, trying to protect her from the maddened night. If she wasn't afraid of the dark before, she will be now.
The sky was as crazed as the sea. As the little boat gained distance and perspective, the storm seemed somehow to center itself on the tiny, doomed town behind them. Could the eerie display be the time storm effect? Lightning, clouds, and wind all seemed to fit with the descriptions. Something like that would be visible for miles.
Sibyl, where are you?
Had she'd gotten safely away? Did that storm mean she was getting out? Please God, let it be Sibyl... . He was just beginning to appreciate the lesson Marcus the gladiator had learned in the old movie The Last Days of Pompeii: threaten a man's child and he'll do anything.
Anything.
That didn't mean he had to be proud of it.
Charlie managed another look at Vesuvius, then sucked in his breath. The fiery glow surrounding the volcano was bigger. And getting bigger by the second.
A seething cloud of brilliant, glowing gas—orange, baleful yellow, incandescent white in mad, churning patterns—enveloped the mountain. The fiery avalanche ran shrieking down the mountainside, miles wide. It lit up the whole night. The lethal glow split into waves of different speeds, illuminating the doomed town. Herculaneum huddled against the sea like a child's abandoned playset.
Except it wasn't abandoned.
The end had begun.
Charlie discovered he couldn't breathe. Couldn't even move. Fear held him, fear that ran to the core of his genes, like the leftover fears of some cave-dwelling ancestor, echoing down time to take up residence in Charlie's nerve endings. Sibyl had warned him, but not even her dire warning had come close to the reality of that... that...
God...
It smashed down the mountain. Vesuvius throbbed against the blackness. The surge spread over the countryside, churning and discharging lightning through the whole mass. Farms and groves Charlie had passed earlier in the day vanished under it.
Get out, Sibyl, get out of there... .
A third wave overtook the slower-moving second. Charlie shut his eyes. No way that's gonna miss town. He couldn't watch, couldn't not watch. The surge raced down the mountain, on a baleful course for the time storm brewing above the beach at Herculaneum.
Whoever had summoned the time portal... could they get out before it struck? Was this ship far enough away not to get caught in the blast? Numb, battered, Charlie hugged his child close and watched the fiery surge roll down the flanks of Vesuvius. It smashed across the town. Phillipa's hoarse cry reached his ears. She pointed wordlessly. An odd darkness had split the surge, widening even as they watched.
A time hole, draining it off? My God, whoever went through, that surge blasted right through with them. Charlie felt sick, more helpless than he had the night they'd gunned down his grandfather right in front of him, more helpless than when Bericus had held him down... .
Sibyl was dying, he was watching her death, and there was nothing he could do. Grief choked him, but the volcanic surge didn't let him grieve long. The rest of the seething, glowing gas belched out across the sea, right toward their fleeing boat.
Charlie clutched the gunwale, sucked in air against the constricting pain in his chest. It's going to catch us.... Charlie dragged frantically at fishing nets nearby. The darkness around the fishing boat glowed brighter and brighter as the surge raced across wild waves. Gagging fumes set them all coughing. Charlie dragged the nets over himself, dragged Phillipa and her baby down into the lowest part of the boat with him, shoved Lucania under his own body. She was crying, struggling against him. He huddled down right on top of her.
"Don't breathe! Whatever you do, don't breathe! Cover your child's mouth and nose!" He covered his daughter's whole face tightly with his own hands. Then heat and a blast of ash poured over them. The boat rocked madly, lifted stern-first. They slithered sideways into a trough. Water poured over the side. Stinging, cold seawater engulfed them. Charlie held his breath under the flood. The boat threatened to swamp. His lungs ached. Burned. He needed to breathe, had to breathe... .