“Run!” she said, pointing to the flames.

  She and Titus ran, hand in hand, in the direction of the sea. They stopped to catch their breath and saw that the fire had stopped some distance from the city, but then the darkness came again, bringing with it a far heavier weight of falling ash than before.

  Titus and Flavia were forced to shake the ash off again and again, to avoid the danger of being crushed by the sheer weight of it.

  It grew lighter, but Titus and Flavia knew by now that the smell of sulfur along with the darkness suddenly receding was a warning of flames approaching. As they ran, they saw people sheltering from the falling rocks under porches and in partly collapsed buildings. They passed people burdened down by carrying large bags of possessions.

  As Titus and Flavia ran, as fast as their exhaustion and the falling ash would allow, they saw by the light of the flames that roads, bridges, houses, and most buildings lay destroyed by the weight of the ash. Many were on fire, whether from the flames or the fallen oil lamps caused by the earthquake, they did not know.

  Every time they thought they had escaped the crowd, another group of panicking people appeared and swept them along, presumably people who had just now changed their minds about sheltering in buildings. At times, the crowd proved an obstacle to them, at other times it swept them along so fast that they struggled to keep their footing.

  The ground was still shaking, but even this to Titus and Flavia was becoming normal, so accustomed they were to the continual vibration.

  Titus and Flavia stood for a moment in the opening to catch their breath and shake off the ash. Flavia looked up in terror at the giant, towering column of fire spurting with enormous force high into the sky from the top of Mount Vesuvius. While she was distracted, a group of people burst into the street and carried them along. This time, the force of the crowd pulled Titus and Flavia apart.

  When Flavia was finally able to detach herself from the crowd, she saw that Titus was gone.

  27

  OPLONTIS

  THE PRESENT DAY

  When she reached the other side of the boiling stream, Abigail threw her arms around Riley’s neck. He held her tightly. It was all she could do not to burst into tears.

  She detached herself and said, “Sorry. I don’t like being underground, and I don’t like being so close to boiling water, or to a live volcano for that matter. Or to scorpions.”

  Riley pulled her back to him for a moment and gave her shoulders a quick squeeze. “Come on. As soon as we find the spear, we can get out of here.”

  Suddenly, Abigail grabbed Reilly’s arm and halted his progress. “Wait! We forgot the last riddle.”

  Riley was clearly puzzled. “The last riddle?”

  Abigail nodded.

  “What can go in the face of the sun, yet leave no shadow?”

  “That’s right, you said the answer to that riddle was ‘wind’.”

  “Yes, and we haven’t found anything corresponding to that riddle yet.”

  “When we discussed that earlier, you said the clue was different, because it wasn’t an ancient Greek riddle like the others. Do you have any idea what it could mean?”

  Abigail thought hard.

  “It must indicate the actual location of the Spear of Destiny.”

  She shook her head. “What if it isn’t? We’re in a geothermal area. Even the ancient writers surmised that various underground places in this area were the Underworld. People usually call the Underworld ‘Hades’, but Hades was the name of the ruler of the Underworld.”

  Abigail could see Riley did not share her interest in this fact, so she tried to make her point. “The mythological Orpheus went to the Underworld to fetch his wife, Eurydice, who had died from a snakebite. Hades told him he could take her out of the Underworld if he didn’t look back. However, he did look back, so she vanished. Hades’ wife, Persephone, ate a pomegranate, so she wasn’t able to leave the Underworld forever.”

  “I don’t follow what you’re saying.”

  “I’m thinking out aloud, trying to piece it together in my own mind,” Abigail said. “I’ve always believed that myths are based on facts maybe hundreds if not thousands of years earlier. What if there was something that prevented people from actually getting out?”

  “Like a booby trap,” Riley said.

  Abigail took a deep breath. “Like a booby trap, perhaps something natural that could be used as a booby trap.”

  “Such as the boiling stream behind us?”

  Abigail nodded. “Yes, but what if it’s something worse? The temperature is hotter with every step we take, and the air is foul and sulfuric. What if the ground gives way to a pool of lava or something like that?”

  “But the poem mentions wind,” Riley said.

  Abigail bit her lip and thought about that for a moment. “Well then, what if it’s a burst of air? A burst of poisonous air.”

  “Poisonous air?”

  “Hydrogen sulfide. Or maybe a burst of steam.”

  “In other words, we should proceed carefully from here on.”

  “Very carefully,” Abigail said. “The ancient Greek geographer, Strabo, said Lake Avernus emptied poisonous fumes that even overcame birds flying overhead.”

  “Where’s Lake Avernus?”

  “It’s on the other side of Naples from here, near Baiae. Let’s watch out for crevices or anything that could emit steam. The more I think about it, the more I’m sure that’s the meaning of the last riddle.”

  In the eerie light of the flashlight, she saw Riley grimace. “All right.”

  “Maybe there will be skeletons of bats or animals that have fallen prey to it. We should look on the ground as well.”

  “Bats are usually at the entrance to caves,” Riley reminded her.

  “We don’t know the tunnel system here. There could be an entrance to a cave nearby.”

  Riley nodded and pushed on. Another wave of panic overwhelmed Abigail. What if they forgot the way they had come? She knew Riley had a compass, but what if he broke it? Or what if it didn’t work down here for some reason? She shut her eyes tightly and then opened them before walking forward. She had no option but to find the Spear of Destiny. After that, she could get to safety and to fresh air.

  They presently came to another S-bend and this one did have a door on it. Riley ran his hands over it. “That’s interesting. It looks as though it’s been repaired in recent times.”

  “Recently as in the last thousand years?” Abigail asked him.

  He shrugged and stood aside. Abigail ran her hands over the back of the door. One of the brass pivots was shinier than the other. “Yes, this does look more recent,” she said. Riley pushed the door open, but she grabbed his arm. “Remember, look for steam from fissures or crevices.”

  Riley stood back, extended one hand to open the door, and then held it with his foot. He pulled a chem light from his backpack and cracked it before throwing it inside.

  Abigail gasped. There was a narrow passage directly to their left, but before them was a vast underground cavern. To one side was a rectangular stone vault. “The Spear of Destiny!” she gasped.

  As she went to move forward, Riley caught her around the waist. “Look! Skulls.”

  Abigail looked down, expecting to see the skeletons of bats, but to her horror, human skeletons lay in front of them. “How did they die?”

  A strong smell of sulfur followed by a hissing of steam answered her question. Abigail and Riley jumped backward just as the steam hissed and hit the cavern wall to their left.

  “The wind of the riddle,” Abigail said, when she had recovered sufficiently to speak. “And I’m sure that vault holds the Spear of Destiny. The only question is, how do we reach it?”

  “The steam was at face level,” Riley said. “We could crawl on our hands and knees.”

  Abigail’s intuition told her to wait a while. “Let’s observe for a few minutes. There could be more steam vents and they might come at intervals.” She had barely gotten the words out when a steam vent closer to the stone vault issued a hissing stream of air.

  Abigail went cold all over. Are we going to die down here? she wondered. Aloud, she said, “How will we ever get to the vault?”

  “It must be possible. Gaius Benedict wouldn’t have left all those clues if the spear was unreachable.”

  “I suppose so.” Abigail was doubtful. “But when did he write those clues? Volcanic activity could have changed since then. The steam vents could have gotten worse.”

  “And they could have gotten better,” Riley said. “Abigail, you wait here.” He pressed the compass into her hands. “Do you remember the way out of here?”

  “I hope so, but I’m going with you.”

  “It’s not safe,” Riley said. “You wait here. I’ll go across and retrieve the spear and bring it back.”

  “No, Riley, I’m going with you, but let’s wait until we time the steam emissions.”

  They waited there for what seemed to Abigail to be an age. The steam emissions did at first appear to be at random, but eventually, a pattern formed.

  “I think I’ve got it now,” Riley said.

  Abigail watched in horror as he dropped to his knees, crawled quickly across the cavern floor in front of her, stood up, and then crawled again. Suddenly, he stopped.

  “What is it?” Abigail called out.

  “There’s another stream of boiling water with a wooden plank over it, forming a rudimentary bridge.”

  Abigail didn’t like the sound of that. “Does the bridge look safe?” She stood on her toes, but the pile of rubble in front of her cut off her line of sight.

  Riley bent down. “It looks as though it was put here in the last hundred years, if that’s any consolation.”

  “I suppose the stream’s too wide to jump across?”

  “Yes it is, and I can’t see anything to tie ropes around.”

  “Then you had better come back.” Abigail’s words were drowned by another blast of steam in front of her face. She had forgotten herself and had edged forward. Now, she jumped backward.

  When she looked again, Riley was on the other side of the bridge. “Riley!” she said in horror. “I can’t believe you crossed that plank.”

  He simply waved over his shoulder and went over to the vault. He slid off the lid with some difficulty.

  “Is it in there?” Abigail called out.

  “Yes, it’s the Spear of Destiny. It’s an ancient spear, at any rate.”

  Abigail breathed a big sigh of relief. She didn’t know whether she was more pleased they found an ancient priceless relic or that she would be able to leave this ghastly place.

  Just then, the barrel of a gun pushed into her back.

  28

  POMPEII 79 A.D.

  SECOND DAY OF ERUPTION

  Flavia was relieved Rufus had found her on the beach and followed him as fast as she could. Despite the ash piling on her faster than she could brush it off, she ran, desperate to be reunited with Titus.

  In what seemed an age, they reached the carts, and although she thought she was exhausted, Flavia leaped into the closest cart when she saw Titus.

  They embraced.

  “Titus, are you hurt badly?”

  Titus shook his head and then winced from the pain. “I’m feeling better now. One of those bigger stones fell on my head. Rufus found me and promised to go and get you. I wanted to go myself, but I kept falling down.”

  Rufus was now in the cart and had given orders to flee the city.

  Flavia hugged Rufus. “I don’t know how I can thank you for saving us both. Did your family get away?”

  “Yes, I sent them north to Neapolis by four-wheeled carriage just before the first ash fell, as I thought there was going to be another big earthquake like the one here years ago. Then I came looking for Titus, as I assumed that Gaius had locked him in his private jail. You must have got there first.”

  Flavia smiled, despite her desperate situation, and then sat next to Titus, cradling his head in his arms. The wound did not look deep, and the bleeding had stopped, but he had a deep bruise all over one side of his forehead. Still, their situation remained critical, as they had not yet reached safety.

  By now, they had come to the outskirts of town and were on their way to the northern city of Neapolis. Although the road was perfectly flat, the cart was rocking as though it were bobbing on the crest of a furious wave. Flavia marveled that the horses had not bolted in sheer terror, but noted that the driver was controlling them only with some difficulty. At least the horses appeared keen to leave Pompeii as fast as possible. Now if only the cart doesn’t overturn, Flavia thought.

  After they finally passed the road to Herculaneum, Titus was able to sit up, and he, Flavia, and Rufus looked back at Mount Vesuvius with horror. They saw a horrible cloud, clearly of rock fragments and burning ash, rush down the side of the mountain at a speed they could not comprehend, and head straight for Pompeii. It was followed by huge rocks and smaller rocks spewing from the mountain. Even from their now-safe distance, they could smell the pungent odor of sulfur. Fragments of cinders drifted over them.

  The three watched Vesuvius belch out rocks until they could no longer see the mountain. They feared for anyone who had not managed to flee Pompeii by this time.

  Flavia and Titus stayed in Neapolis along with Rufus’ family for several days, until the report came that Mount Vesuvius had finally stopped its deadly activity.

  It turned out that many of the residents of Pompeii as well as the neighboring city of Herculaneum had taken refuge in Neapolis, a town only fourteen miles from Pompeii, on the northwest side of Mount Vesuvius.

  They heard that Mount Vesuvius had continually thrown out rocks and poisonous air from the time they had left. They heard too that rescue parties sent to Herculaneum discovered that that the city had completely vanished under an avalanche of hot mud that had destroyed everything in its path.

  It was reported that only the very tops of the highest buildings could be seen in Pompeii. They also heard the sad news that the naval commander, Pliny, had died trying to rescue people in the southern port of Stabiae, and that at the port of Misenum, the ash was piled high and deep.

  There was no word as to the whereabouts of Flavia’s family, although Rufus had made inquiries on her behalf. There were, however, accounts of sightings of them leaving by four-wheeled carriages around the time the first ash fell. Flavia was greatly relieved by the accounts.

  On the fifth day, when the sun was shining again and only the faintest remnants of the eerie glow remained, Titus, Flavia, and Rufus returned to Pompeii in Rufus’s four-wheeled carriage.

  Mount Vesuvius now weakly spurted a feeble column that looked like smoke or fog but no longer prompted a feeling of pure terror in Flavia.

  Flavia had expected destruction but had not in her wildest imagination expected the sight that lay before her eyes. Her world was buried, covered by a pile of ash and stone. It was as if Pompeii had never existed. She got down from the carriage and stood where she guessed that her family’s villa lay, buried deep beneath. The earth was still vibrating faintly beneath her feet.

  Titus hopped down beside her, then turned her to him and gently wiped a tear from her eye. He ran a trail of caresses down her arm. Flavia looked up into his eyes.

  “Lady Flavia, will you consent to marry me? I love you more than words can say. I loved you from the minute I saw you by the Fountain of Plenty. I love you more than I ever thought humanly possible to love somebody.”

  Flavia was overjoyed. She flung her arms around his neck and gave him a quick kiss by way of an answer. Titus grasped Flavia firmly by the waist and pulled her against his hard chest. Flavia found it hard to breathe. Titus touched his lips to Flavia’s. She went weak at the knees, as she was sure that the earth had moved again.

  The two of them stood, arm and arm, and looked over the bleak, gray, dead landscape which only days earlier had been a magnificent scene of lush and abundant greenery, superb artwork, and magnificent architecture.

  They spun around at the sound of someone clearing his throat.

  Titus gave a little jump. “Rufus! I had almost forgotten you were here.”

  “I noticed,” Rufus said dryly.

  “Are you certain the Spear of Destiny is safe?” Titus asked.

  Rufus shook his head. “I’m afraid to say that it will never be found, not in our lifetime at least.” He waved his hand expansively. “I gave it to my personal servants to hide when I guessed Gaius had taken you, before the Lady Flavia confirmed to me that he had. It looks as though the Spear of Destiny is buried deep below us, to lie hidden forever. ”

  “Better to lie hidden forever than to fall into unscrupulous hands,” Titus said.

  Rufus readily agreed. “Flavia, I gave you the codex to keep safe. In it, I had written the whereabouts of the Spear of Destiny, although that seems unnecessary, for the Spear of Destiny is safe now. Nobody will ever find anything buried in Pompeii.”

  The three looked out over the fields of ash and pumice.

  29

  OPLONTIS

  THE PRESENT DAY

  “You have found the Spear of Destiny.”

  Abigail expected the voice to be that of Charles. It took her a moment or two to recognize the owner of the voice. “Milo? How did you find us?”

  “I put a tracking device in your left hiking boot. The Spear of Destiny is in that vault over there?”

  Abigail figured he had heard everything they had said, so there was no reason to lie. She simply said, “Yes.”

  “How heavy is it?” he called to Riley.

  “It’s extremely heavy,” Riley called back.

  “Take it out and bring it to me,” Milo said.