Chapter 223 - Vesuvius

It happened shortly after noon, 24 Augustus, in the year 832 Ab Urbe Condita.

There was first a mighty explosion, a great thunderclap that could be heard as far away as Rome, as the earth gave vent to the inconceivable pressures that had been building for hundred of years beneath the surface of the volcano. The kinetic energy of the explosion rolled across Pompeii like a vast invisible boulder, knocking people off their feet, shattering glass and causing the walls of the buildings to tremble.

Cornelius Varus was in his home when the mountain first erupted. He was consulting a wedding planner, a man named Aulus Rutilius. Both men cried out as the wave of sound crashed upon the villa like a tsunami, clapping their hands over their ears. Cornelius's slave, Cirio, was pouring wine and dropped the pitcher he was holding, which shattered on the floor and splashed their feet with the sticky, honey-sweetened liquid.

Next door, in the Villa Eyya, the magician leapt from his bed, baring his fangs instinctively. The explosion for the blood drinker, with his amplified senses, was a hundred times more painful than it was for the mortal citizens of Pompeii. It felt as if someone had impaled his skull with a blunt iron rod. He spun around in the dark chamber, searching for an attacker in his confusion, fingers curled into claws. In the adjoining room, his young wards, Apollonius and Julia, woke with matching cries of anguish, clutching one another in the dark.

Screams from the servants in the villa, and, more faintly, from the pedestrians outside.

The magician rushed into the corridor, wincing in the light. An instant later, Apollonius and Julia spilled into the hallway, crying out in pain.

"What was that?" Apollonius hissed, forearm covering his eyes.

"Return to your chambers," the magician said. "I will go and see what it was!"

"Dominus!" Fulvius cried, stumbling up the hallway. "The mountain!"

"Vesuvius?" Julia said.

The old man nodded, the wattles of his neck jiggling. "The mountain is on fire!"

The ground shuddered, a minor quake. The old major domus tottered into a wall and almost fell. Dust drifted down from the rafters.

"Stay here," Gon said. "Find something sturdy to hide beneath. Tell the rest of the servants to do the same."

The magician started toward the courtyard, Murcella's prophecy echoing in his thoughts. She says that the ground will tremble as of a great beast rising from its slumber... The explosion of sound and the trembling of the earth could only be the disaster she had envisioned! They should have fled Pompeii the moment the children returned.

Ears still ringing from the thunderclap, the magician raced down the corridor, caroming into a wall as the ground lifted and fell beneath his feet.

"Father!" Apollonius cried behind him. He and his bride had followed, were knocked to their hands and knees by the jolt.

"I told you to go to your room," the magician snapped.

"We want to see," Julia objected.

He continued on with a snarl. No use arguing with the headstrong girl. He crossed the terrace, stepped out into the courtyard, and froze in disbelief. Mount Vesuvius, her peak just visible over the red tiled roof of the terrace, had sprouted a vast column of churning gray smoke. It did indeed look as if the mountain had caught fire, only there were no flames. None that he could discern.

The magician's eyes wept in the sunlight. He swabbed them from his cheeks with the back of his arm. It was only then that he realized, his pale flesh tightening in the noonday heat, that he was standing in the middle of the courtyard naked.

Enuk, the porter, was standing on the other side of the courtyard, staring up at the heavens. He turned to look at his employer and seemed just as surprised by his master's nakedness as he was the smoking mountain. The white, ossified flesh of the striga glinted in the sunlight.

"Clothes," Gon called to the Nubian. "Get me some clothes!"

The giant porter raced toward the main house.

"This is the disaster you spoke of last night, isn't it?" Julia said. "The one the sybil predicted."

The magician nodded. "I'm fairly certain it is."

"What do we do?" Apollonius asked. "Do we abandon the city? Do we flee, or is it too late already?"

"I do not know," the magician said. He glanced around, making sure there were no mortal witnesses, then leapt to the roof of the terrace. Apollonius would have laughed at his maker, crouching there naked on the roof, his bulbous parts swinging in the breeze, if he were not half blind and in pain. If the world were not ending.

The magician rose. Shading his eyes with his hand, he stood on the tips of his toes to get a better view. Five miles away, the roiling column of smoke continued to rise into the firmament, thick and gray. It was beginning to fan out at the top, dispersed by the wind. It's shadow angled down the eastern slope of Vesuvius, casting the foothills in darkness.

Enuk rushed from the villa with his employer's robes. He looked around in confusion, then realized his master was on the roof.

Gon pivoted to return to the ground. He saw that the porter had returned with his garments so he descended as a mortal man would do, scooting clumsily over the edge of the roof, legs dangling, then dropping in a sprawl.

"Dominus," Enuk said, approaching with his garments. "I—I mean, Germanis."

"Thank you, Enuk," the magician said. As he clothed himself, several servants ventured into the courtyard. They cried out in horror, pointing at the mountain. Herminia, ladle in hand, shrieked.

"It is not a fire on the mountain," the magician said to Apollonius and his new bride. "I believe it is a volcanic eruption. Like Mount Aetna, in Sicily."

"Vesuvius is a volcano?" Julia cried, aghast.

"Yes, and it is erupting."

Again, Apollonius asked, "What do we do?"

Lowering his voice, the magician said, "It is not we three I am worried about. Save a flow of molten rock, the volcano poses little danger to us, and we could outrun that, too, if need be. My concern is for Julia's father, and all our mortal servants. We must evacuate them from the city."

Cornelius let himself into the peristyle then, his face red and glistening with sweat. "Julia!" he yelled. "Are you unhurt?"

Julia raced to her father and embraced him. "I am fine, but Germanis thinks we should abandon Pompeii. He says Vesuvius is a volcano, like Mount Aetna."

"A volcano?" Cornelius said with a scowl. He squinted toward the north. "It is just a fire on the mountainside… Isn't it?"

"I do not think so," the magician said.

"A volcano, you say?"

"Yes."

"Well, we won't be escaping by Nola Gate," the retired senator said. "The people have gone mad with fear. They have rushed the Nola. It is completely blocked. All the rest as well, I'd wager. There are people being trampled. Women. Children. It is a terrific sight."

The magician sighed, gazing down at his feet. "We will not be leaving by the gates," he said.

Apollonius and Julia gaped at him, realizing what he meant to do.

The magician raised his head, looking at his neighbor. He opened his mouth to speak, and that is when a shadow passed across them.

They looked up as one, and watched in horror and fascination as the first thin billows of ash and dust from the spewing volcano drifted across the sky overhead. The day dimmed as if a storm cloud were passing in front of the sun. A moment later, flakes of ash drifted down like snow. A large flake of ash settled on the senator's cheekbone and he wiped it away, leaving a smear of black on his sweaty face.

"What is this?" he demanded. He still had not accepted the reality of what was happening.

"Ash," Julia said. She shook her head, brushing out the soot that was accumulating rapidly in her hair.

"It is falling more and more thickly," Apollonius said.

As the wind carried more of the volcano's ejecta over the city of Pompeii, the haze of ash in the sky thickened. Within minutes, the cloud of ash grew opaque, then darker still. The sun faded from a blazing disk to a faintly glowing coin and then vanished altogether. A tremulous half-dusk fell over the city of Pompeii, though here and there a beam of light would stab down from the heavens, as the vagaries of the wind opened momentary tatters in the cloud cover. The churning veil flickered faintly as bolts of static electricity leapt like silver fish upon its waves. It was a darkly beautiful sight, awesome and frightening.

Enuk cried out as something struck him in the shoulder. He squatted and picked up a small gray pebble, held it out for them to see.

And she saw a storm of stones…

"Inside!" the magician yelled. Waving his arms, he herded them all toward the terrace. As another stone fell from the sky, splashing in one of the fountains, and then another, and another, he cried, "Inside! Inside! Everyone inside!"

Stones rattled on the tiled roof of the terrace with an ever-quickening tempo. Stones thumped and popped in the courtyard. The peacocks yowled and flapped their wings indignantly before seeking cover with their human counterparts. More screams drifted from the streets outside, while the servants babbled and sobbed and spoke of the wrath of the gods.

"The gods are not punishing us!" the magician said sternly. "This is a natural phenomenon. Vesuvius has erupted, and her ash has mixed with the moist air of the sea." That seemed to him to be the most logical explanation, though he had never seen it rain stones—not even he, who was old before Babylon was born.

Already, the grounds had vanished beneath a layer of small, gray pebbles. The stones were lighter than water. They floated in the fountains and in the garden's shallow pool.

"They are like sponges," Julia said. She had bent to pick up one of the stones. She turned it in her hand as everyone peered at it over her shoulder, then crumbled it between her fingers. She brushed the fine dust from her palms.

A minor quake shuddered through the earth and everyone cried out.

"Cornelius, perhaps it would be best if you brought your servants over here," the magician said. "We should gather under one roof. There is safety in numbers."

The senator nodded, looking distractedly out at the courtyard. The day was growing ever murkier. It was full dark now. A dark that smelled of ash and sulphur.

"Yes, I think you're right," he said. "That is a wise idea. If we are to die, let us die together, in the company of those we love."

"We are not going to die," the magician said, and he shot Apollonius and Julia a meaningful glance.

"I will go and summon your slaves here," Enuk volunteered, and he ducked his head and loped across the courtyard. He ran through the pelting stones and vanished through the front door.

Apollonius slipped beside his maker and whispered, "You mean for us to carry them away from here, don't you?"

The magician didn't speak, but he nodded.

"We will have to reveal ourselves to them."

"I know," his master said.

Apollonius returned to Julia and told her what his maker planned to do. She nodded. "Of course we must. It is the only thing to do."

Enuk returned a short while later, the Varus household trailing after him like baby ducks. There were not half as many of them as the number of servants the magician employed. The tall Nubian raced across the courtyard, head tucked between his shoulders, young Cirio right behind him. Before the group could join the others, however, Cirio slipped in the loose covering of tephra and sprawled on his hands and knees. Enuk turned to help him up as the others hurried past.

Something dark, about the size of a man's fist, whistled out of the sky and struck the slave in the temple. The force of the impact threw him onto his back.

"Cirio!" Julia cried, and she raced out into the stonefall.

"Julia, get back here!" her father bawled, but she paid no attention. She pushed the tall porter out of the way and lifted the boy into her arms. As the three ran toward the terrace, another large stone smashed into one of the fountains, causing it to shatter explosively.

"A stone," she explained, laying the boy on the floor. "Much denser than the others."

Blood gushed from a four inch gash in the slave boy's temple. He was unconscious, his body twitching.

"He's dying!" Julia wailed.

"No," the magician said.

Apollonius's maker dropped to his knees beside the boy. He brought his hand to his mouth and smeared his living blood on the wound. In the dark, in the confusion, the act went mostly unnoticed. There were too many bodies pressed around them, too many men and women sobbing and praying and talking.

The injury to the boy's flesh healed within moments, but it was several minutes before the living blood penetrated deeply enough to heal the internal damage. His twitching slowed and he began to rouse. He opened his eyes and blinked up at his mistress.

"What happened?" he croaked.

Julia smiled and patted his cheek. "You were struck by a stone. It knocked you senseless, but you're all right now." And then to her husband's maker: "Thank you, Germanis."

The magician rose. In the courtyard, another great stone thumped to the earth. It bounced and struck a wall with a loud crack. The cover of ash and pumice on the ground was now several inches deep. The ancient striga raised his arms and called for everyone's attention.

"Listen to me! Be quiet!!" he shouted. "I SAID BE QUIET!" 

When the crowd of slaves and servants gathered under the terrace had fallen silent, he spoke: "I am not the man you believe me to be. My name is not Germanis Vulso, and Paulo here is not my son."

The group mumbled in confusion.

"We are gods, and we have the power to save you all, if you will put your trust in us."

The mumbling grew much louder. They believed the man had gone insane.

"If you're a god, why didn't you foresee this?" someone shouted. One of Varus's slaves.

"I was forewarned, but I did not know it would happen so soon," the magician said. He went on: "My name is Gon, and I am older than you can possibly imagine. I hail from the lands of the north, from the country you call Germania. I was a mortal man long, long ago, but my tribe was set upon by a terrible magician, a demon-creature who fed on the blood of men. My people made war on this creature, and we defeated him, but he cursed me with his dying breath, cursed me so that I can never die. Along with this curse came gifts of great strength and speed. I shared this curse with Paulo, a boy that I met many months ago, because I was lonely, and because he reminded me of one of my children, and he has shared it with Julia, because he loved her."

"Julia?" Cornelius cried. "Julia, is it true?"

The magician went on before the young woman could answer her father: "Together, we can save you from this catastrophe. We can carry you to safety, take you beyond the reach of this exploding mountain, but you must trust us, and you can never speak of what I've said to you, or how you were delivered from this disaster. You must carry the secret to your graves."

"Give us this curse!" Herminia cried, her voice shrill with fear. "We want to live forever, too!"

Several others shouted in agreement.

"I cannot!" the magician shouted. "I have no time to prepare the rites, and even if I did, there is no guarantee that you would survive the ritual, or that you would not be transformed into a ravening beast. The curse kills as often as it gives life, makes monsters as often as it makes gods. So get that thought out of your minds right now. I cannot and I will not do it. But I will save you all today. You have only to promise that you will not share this secret with the world of living men, for it is forbidden for any mortals to know about our race. If it were ever discovered that we had revealed ourselves to you, we would be hunted by our own kind and punished most severely-- perhaps even destroyed, if they have discovered a means to do it!"