Shadows on the Aegean (74 page)

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 could 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.

“It is chaos out there,” Atenis argued. “She can show you where he is.”

“Get her a traveling chair.”

“She cannot sit, Dion,” Atenis said, gingerly taking Chloe’s hand. The dark chieftain walked around her, and Chloe heard his
hiss when he saw her back. “By the gods—lead,” Dion commanded Chloe, touching her cheek gently.

Back through the falling ash, which now covered everything like two thousand years of dust, they walked. Somehow Chloe led
them to the room where Cheftu lay. Dion pushed past her, running to kneel beside Cheftu. He issued a series of curt commands,
and Cheftu was lifted and laid on the stretcher, still facedown. Dion walked beside the stretcher, and Chloe wondered if he
knew he was crying. They reached the undamaged section, and Chloe saw people had begun to gather.

People. They barely looked human. Faces and bodies burned, pummeled with falling debris, coughing up blood. Those who could
move fetched and carried water, oil, and the few herbs that were available.

Of Kallistae’s 55,000 inhabitants, a few hundred remained. Vaporized, Chloe thought. Heat so extreme that the meat and bone
of human and animal instantly became gas, air, mist. Vapor. Lava had flowed north, covering the towns of Hyacinth and Daphne,
and flowed south over Echo.

Indeed, the strangest thing was how the pyroclastic cloud had bounced from the shore of Kallistae to the shore of Aztlan.
They’d thought they were safe being on a separate island; the lava hadn’t touched them. They’d not counted on the cloud’s
demonic ability to bounce from shore to shore. She glanced over the mass of destruction.

Now the volcano rested, but for how long? Hours or aeons? They needed to flee. They could run to Caphtor, though no swallows
had returned with news of how the Caphtori had fared or the fate of the other islands.

Chloe doused cloth strips with wine and poppy and dribbled it into the mouths of the victims. For those who had no lips she
set it on their teeth, letting them suck the liquid drop by drop.

Mechanically she moved, her body screaming with pain, but activity kept her from thinking about Cheftu, about what had happened.
She tried to barter with God. She’d always sucked at negotiating, but the outcome had never been more precious. Let him live,
please. Just to breathe and laugh and smile?

If I were in a movie, Chloe thought, I would vow to God that if Cheftu were allowed to live, I would let Dion have him. I
would sacrifice his love and my happiness to save his life.

This was not a movie and God knew her better, Chloe realized.

No amount of lying to the Almighty was going to be convincing. Cheftu was hers. Please let him get better and she would be
a faithful, understanding, wonderful wife.

And if Dion stepped in her way, she’d stomp him.

“F
IND HIM
,” D
ION SNAPPED
.

Nestor sighed. “We combed the cavern Sibylla said he was in. What more can be done? He is one man, Dion. There are thousands
who need aid.”

Dion looked at the back of the man lying so still before him. Imhotep was gone—as was the intellectual wealth of Aztlan. The
snake goddess’s temple, enclosing the Kela-Tenata, had been shattered during the last earthquake, pieces of column and fresco
crashing into the sea as the island seemed to slant more each decan. Dion possessed simple healing skills, but Cheftu needed
more, far more. “There must be someone, some way.”

Nestor laid a hand on Dion’s shoulder. “It is not destined, brother. The man is beginning his journey. Leave be, Dion. Bathe
him if you will, but others need you more.”

Dion ground his teeth. Others might need him more, but he needed Cheftu. He would not let him die, even if he had to face
death in his place. He shrugged off Nestor’s grasp. “Return with Niko or die in the fires!”

Night had fallen, though how they were supposed to know the difference between night and day, Dion couldn’t say. He sluiced
water over Cheftu’s back, trying to cool the angry red welts. A fine coating of glass splinters had showered him, so Cheftu
looked as though he’d been pierced by a thousand pins. Instructing two serfs to hold lamps so that the tiny particles, almost
amber in color, caught the light, Dion had plucked them out.

The opening door made him turn. Nestor, stained with sweat and gray with ash, entered. “We found Niko, Dion. But I doubt you
will be able to use him.”

Dion barely had time to turn before he vomited. Nestor handed him a cloth for his mouth. “It strikes without warning,” he
said.

In the name of Apis, what had happened? Dion looked again. Niko, distinguishable only by his violet eyes, seemed to be wearing
a cloak. Nay, no cloak; his skin was so badly burned it left him a pulpy, massive wound. His hands were twisted into claws.
Next to him, Cheftu seemed an ideal of health.

Dion caught Niko’s gaze. “What happened?” Dion asked.

Niko tried to blink, but his eyelids were burned.

Nestor whispered in Dion’s ear, “His throat is scorched. It’s hard to speak.”

Dion bit back his howl of frustration. If Niko could not help, why had Nestor brought him here? To watch him die?

“You wanted him. No one should die alone, Dion. No one,” Nestor said softly. He began to wash Niko’s face and shoulders, preparing
him for the Isles of the Blessed.

Shaking his head, Dion looked over at Cheftu. He wouldn’t die alone. Sibylla had collapsed, and they’d taken her outside to
lie with the other corpses. It was some small satisfaction that he’d have Cheftu to himself, if only for a while.

“Aeeeh … Aeeeaaah …”

“He’s trying to speak,” Nestor said.

“Bring him drinking water!” Dion shouted.

“And a reed!”

“A reed?” Dion asked, then watched as Nestor deciphered the agitated sounds from the thing that was Niko. Slowly Nestor began
to hover his hands over the length of Niko’s body, moving down. He stopped at Niko’s groin, where amazingly he seemed mostly
undamaged.

The serf returned, and Nestor took the water and reed, sucking water through the reed, then slipping the other end into the
cavern that Niko had left for a mouth. Slowly Nestor released the drops of moisture into Niko’s throat, drop by drop. Dion’s
eyes filled with tears as he watched.

“Try the pouch.”

Nestor again searched, following Niko’s raspy commands. Nestor slipped his hand in and brought out a flat black stone, the
length of his palm and oblong.

“Uuurrrrmm.”

“What?”

“Uurrmm.”

“Try the other one, Dion.”

His hands suddenly shaking, Dion felt in the pocket of Niko’s kilt. His fingers closed around a stone, and he brought it out.
Like the other, it was oblong and sized to fit in his palm. But it was foamy white, pearlescent. He held it up.

“Thhhhhmn,” Niko panted. His violet eyes were wide, excited. “Urrmm thhhmm urmm thmmnn,” he repeated, then choked. They turned
him to the side, trying to clear his throat. His breathing was even more labored. Dion listened as Niko fought for breath,
the painful gagging sounding magnified. His eyes ran with tears of staring, but they didn’t plead or beg for life. Frantically
Nestor bathed his legs and chest, blessing him, wishing him
Kalo taxidi
.

A long hiss signified his death. Nestor slipped his hand inside Niko’s pouch again and brought out a vial. “The elixir.” Gently
Nestor laid a linen over the mage’s face, gesturing for the corpse to be taken outside.

The rhyton-shaped vial of blue glass was the purpose of it all. The true method for living eternally. Dion snatched it from
Nestor and ran to Cheftu, pulling out the cork. He poured the liquid on the man’s wounds.

“Nay, Dion!” Nestor caught his hand. “Think, brother. Do you have the right to change his life?”

“If I do nothing, he will die!”

“If you give him this elixir, he may live, blind and crippled! Do you have the authority to decide his destiny? Aztlan lies
in ruins because we believed we were gods. We thought we could order men’s lives. Spiralmaster was wrong, we are not gods.
Do not make this man
athanati
, Dion. Prepare him for eternity and leave be.”

Dion felt the sobs gathering in his throat. His chest convulsed painfully, and his hands fell to his sides. “I love him,”
Dion croaked. Nestor pulled him close, standing between Dion and Cheftu.

Tears and mucus smeared on the Golden’s chest as Dion sobbed, racking, painful gasps that made Nestor hold him closer. Behind
Nestor’s back, Dion’s hand held the unstoppered vial. Carefully he moved his finger from the top and poured it into Cheftu’s
slack-jawed mouth.

Easing the vial to Cheftu’s side, Dion clenched Nestor closer, looking over his shoulder. Cheftu’s lips glistened with moisture,
and Dion felt a fierce surge of delight.

He had the authority because he loved Cheftu. Now there would be time enough to wait for his love to be returned. Dion would
take it, too.

We
are
gods, he thought. Nestor just didn’t know it yet.