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

He was still pushing 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 shifting. 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.

Perhaps . . .

Perhaps it had not been, had never been, her story at all.

CHAPTER 54.

The mountain surged twice more before it burned itself out and lay silent.

The population of Pompeii who had escaped to the south moved as a great herd toward the nearest coastal town. With no belongings, no shelter, they did what any refugee people would do. They relied on the charity of others.

Stabiae welcomed them. From its position on the bay, it had stood witness to the destruction that befell Pompeii and had news of other towns as well.

To the north of Pompeii, Vesuvius had obliterated Herculaneum. Through the previous day the wind had blown ash and rock away from the town, and most residents there had believed they were safe. When the mountain had overflowed near midnight, there was no time to escape. The searing mud flowed over the city and reduced every living thing to ash.

Here in Stabiae, only a smattering of the porous rocks that had first buried Pompeii lay on the ground. They had smelled the gases and seen the cloud, but they had survived.

It was rumored that the famed naturalist and writer, Plinius Secundus, sometimes called Pliny the Elder, had sailed from Misenum, further up the coast, to Stabiae. He apparently had plans to sail to Pompeii to rescue friends, but the prevailing winds confined him to the coastal town, and his weak lungs succ.u.mbed to the odors while watching the flames shoot above Vesuvius from the beach. They had found his body at morning's light.

All this Cato learned in the short time they had spent in Stabiae. The little family group of eight he had led from Pompeii bedded down in a brothel, opened to the refugees by its prosperous owner. His mother and two sisters, along with Nigidia and Ariella, took one small room, and he shared another with Micah and Lucius. There they slept for what felt like days, then took food and wine brought by sympathetic women of the brothel. He smiled to watch Octavia whisper to them when their owner looked the other way.

Sitting on the floor beside Ariella, he worried about Nigidia, the only one of their group with no family. She had lost everything, though they would not abandon her. Ariella's brother Micah hovered over her, a.s.suming the role of protector. Cato caught Ariella's eye and motioned his head toward the couple. She smiled. Despite their disparate background, these two had both known mistreatment, exploitation. Perhaps . . . they could find support in each other.

Later in the morning, Cato led Ariella to the beach, to look out over the sea and breathe the air where the wind had scrubbed it clean. He held her hand, their fingers intertwined, a tranquil silence between them.

She had not asked him any questions, but he had answers. "We will go to Rome."

Ariella did not speak, and he could feel her tremble beside him. He turned her to face him and held both her hands. "We will go to Rome and you will be my wife. We will tend my uncle's vineyards and make wine. We will raise a family and fight against evil, together."

"How can we-"

Cato shook his head. "Do not speak of obstacles. We have defeated a mountain, Ariella. There is nothing left we cannot face."

Her torn tunic revealed the healing scar on her upper arm. He traced the cross with his fingertip, and she followed the motion with her eyes. She whispered, as though to herself. "He was wounded for our transgressions."

Cato brought her face to his own and kissed her lips with all the promise of the future.

Across the bay, the first wave of rescue ships from Rome crested the horizon, their white sails billowing.

Ariella buried her face in his chest, and he bent to hear her words.

"And by His stripes we are healed."

Author's Note.

In some ways, we owe a debt of grat.i.tude to the mountain called Vesuvius, and to those who perished under its flow. So much of what we know of life at the height of the Roman Empire has come to us through the frozen-in-time city unearthed in the region of Campania, near modern Naples.

The eruption buried Pompeii under more than twelve feet of ash and pumice, and preserved so much of the city, exactly as it was on that day, that archaeologists digging 1700 years later discovered entire loaves of bread still sitting on counters, fresh from the ovens!

The plaster casts familiar to most of us from history cla.s.s were created when pockets were discovered in the hardened ash-vacuums created by the decayed bodies of the volcano's victims. The plaster was poured into these cavities, then excavated, giving us a vivid depiction of real Romans in the death throes of the eruption. I used some of these figures in Pompeii, and if you are interested in photos and explanations, you can find them through my Web site, NoPa.s.sportRequired.com.

Much of the details given to us in Pompeii-its graffiti, its buildings, its artwork-formed the backdrop of this novel, though for the most part the characters are from my imagination.

Over two million tourists visit Pompeii each year, and I was privileged to be one of them, during the writing of this book. To walk among the still-vivid frescoes, to stand in the center of the amphitheater, to gaze across the Forum at Vesuvius in the distance, was unforgettable. I hope you'll join me on the web site, to read my travel journal, look at photos, and discover more about what is fact and what is fiction in Pompeii: City on Fire. There is much to experience in this amazing place, and I'd love to take you there, No Pa.s.sport Required!

Author, Tracy Higley, in the Forum of Pompeii with Vesuvius in the background.

end.