“How did Kore and Frederick know each other?” I asked, since he seemed to be in an informative mood.
But Keller had finished for the day. “Kore’s life is her own to discuss,” he said curtly. “She has been loving and faithful to me, and that is all that concerns me. You asked me what I knew; I have spoken.”
He swung on his heel in a neat military about-face and walked away.
Jim sat down on the rock, pulling me down with him. He let out a long whistle.
“That hit the jackpot, didn’t it? Sandy, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know it was your uncle’s discovery. I don’t remember exactly what Frederick told me, but he certainly implied that he found the ships himself.”
Jim was silent, but his silence was suggestive. I went on, answering the question he hadn’t asked.
“Maybe your uncle told him.”
“Maybe,” Jim said dubiously. “We’ll never know, not if we expect Frederick to tell us. I passed the house on the way up here. He was in the courtyard washing pots, as if that were the most important thing on his mind.”
“I’m not sure he believes in the ships himself,” I said. “His behavior has been so erratic, almost as if he were afraid to pursue the idea for fear it will turn out to be a mirage. Jim, now that you know, what are we going to do about it?”
“Damned if I know. It’s too big to take in all at once, and too amorphous. And there are more pressing problems.”
“Like what?”
“Like you. I can understand now why you’re reluctant to leave Thera. I was pushing you too hard. How about a compromise?”
“Such as?”
“You could move to a hotel in Phira for a few days while we consider the situation. I know you’re worried about money, but that’s a minor consideration. With what we know now, we can blackmail Frederick if we have to. We need time and freedom from pressure to sort out all the possibilities.”
“What about the hotel in the village? Does Angelos still refuse to rent me a room?”
“I wouldn’t take it if he offered. Things have gone from bad to worse down there. We haven’t gotten any work done for days. The men show up, but they don’t do anything; they stand around in groups muttering.”
“What is Sir Christopher doing about it?”
“Sir Christopher,” said Jim, “is one of the people I want to talk to. I think we need a high-level conference, with everybody being candid for a change.”
“Okay,” I said. “It’s a good idea, Jim. I’ll go today if I can find transportation.”
The look of relief on Jim’s face made me realize how worried he had been.
“I’ll get you there,” he promised. “I’m glad, Sandy. I was afraid you were going to insist on staying with Kore and her crazy boyfriend.”
“I don’t ever want to see that place again.”
“Why? Has something happened?”
“Yes.” I brushed at the knees of my jeans. They were covered with a thin layer of dust. “At first I thought I was just having peculiar dreams. I’ve had them before-about Theseus and Ariadne and the dancing floor-”
His expression stopped me at that point. “Where did you hear about the dancing floor?” he asked sharply.
“A book I was reading last night.”
“Oh.” His face cleared. “I thought maybe you had been up the mountain. You shouldn’t go by yourself; the terrain is pretty rough.”
“Why should I go up there?”
“There’s a level spot higher up, with the remnants of stonework,” Jim explained. “The local people call it the dancing place. There may actually be a folk memory of some ancient ritual. The dances weren’t for entertainment, they had a religious function-”
He broke off with an exclamation, as the rock on which we were sitting shifted sideways. We were facing north, toward the flank of the mountain and the center of the island. We were almost ten miles away from the action, but that wasn’t far enough.
A thick column of slate gray went straight up toward the sun. It looked like one of the pillars that held up the sky in the old legends, and when it broke and spread outward, it was as if the vault of heaven were collapsing in a rain of stone and crumbling mortar. Ash began to fall, and then my ears were overwhelmed by a thundering, bellowing roar-the herds of the Earthshaker in stampede. Solid ground became unstable as water. Deafened, and blinded by terror and the spreading dust, I felt the rock on which I sat heave like a living thing, flinging me flat on the ground. I tried to press myself into the dirt, clawing at it with my nails. Even after the sound stopped, I could hear the echoes inside my head.
Hands caught me around the waist and tried to pull me up. I clutched at dusty weeds with both hands, resisting. Another roar, and another shifting of the earth… I couldn’t breathe. Dust filledmy mouth and nose. I was being buried alive, but the earth wouldn’t let me stay buried, it was shaking and heaving, trying to eject me from its womb.
I must have passed out from sheer terror. When I came back to consciousness, Jim was holding me in his arms and yelling in my ear.
“Come on, Sandy, snap out of it. We’ve got to get down to the village; see if they need help.”
He yanked me to my feet. I looked up. The smoke was a dark, menacing cloud, covering half the sky, hiding the sun. Ash was falling over everything. I was coated with it.
“What about them, up there?” I gasped, nodding in the direction of the villa.
“The villa is solidly built and fairly new. Some of those shacks in the village have been on the verge of collapse for years. There may be a tsunami, a tidal wave. Hurry, Sandy.”
His face was a grotesque mask of dust and streaked blood and rising bruises. My own must have been as bad. My nose and forehead stung where I had rubbed them against the ground.
“Okay,” I said. “Sorry I lost my nerve.”
“Don’t blame you. I’m supposed to be used to quakes but that was the worst I’ve ever experienced. Volcanoes aren’t in my line either. There may be poisonous gases as well as ash in that cloud. We’re in for a rough time.”
We staggered down the path. Tumbled rock had obliterated sections of the way, and at one point we had to jump a foot-wide fissure that had not been there before. We had reached the lower slopes before I realized that something was missing. I should have seen the roof of our house from this point. It was no longer there.
“The house,” I shouted. “ Frederick -”
Jim didn’t stop running, he just changed direction. The closer we got, the more appalling the damage appeared. The house was gone; the tumbled heap of plaster and rubble that had taken its place bore no resemblance to a man-made structure.
We found Frederick in the wreckage of what had been the outer wall of the courtyard. He had gotten a few feet along the path when the wall gave way and caught him. The most horrible thing, to me, was the way the ash had already covered his motionless body with a thin gray film.
He had been thrown down with considerable force. One side of his face was scraped raw. Aside from that, the only damage seemed to be a badly bruised and possibly broken arm. He was out cold, but he groaned when I ran my hands up and down to check for broken ribs, and soon he opened his eyes.
“Yell if it hurts,” I said, and jabbed my thumb into his side.
“My books,” said Frederick. “Are my books buried?”
“They are, and you’re lucky you aren’t,” I said. “How are your legs? Can you walk? There’s no point hanging around here; we haven’t even any water left, much less medical supplies.”
Frederick sat up. He surveyed the situation, his eyes moving from the heap of rubble to the clouded sky, and then back to me, passing over Jim as if he had been invisible.
“I think my arm is broken,” he said. “You had better start digging out-”