Shadows on the Aegean (79 page)

“Just so,” Chloe said.

Cheftu licked his lips, his long fingers picking at the edge of the raft. “The Aztlantu Golden, the people you call Greek
gods, were cannibals.”

“What?”

“It was a religious ceremony. Rather than bury the wisdom and accumulated knowledge of a leader, they would ingest it.”

“Literally?”

“Aye.”

“They ate his brain?” Chloe fought back a wave of nausea. Other cultures did things other ways, she reminded herself. “You
know, the Aztecs ate the hearts of their enemies, hoping to consume their bravery. I wonder if the Aztlantu and Aztec civilizations
are somehow related.” The pyramids were certainly similar, she realized, and that would explain why the Aztlan empire initially
sounded like a Mexican resort.

“So,” Cheftu said, “the illness came from the cannibalism. I don’t know how, but the bulls were infected also. They had the
same holes in their brains.”

“Everyone was dying? Slow or fast, they were all dying? Even you?”

“Aye. Then some of us, notably Phoebus and I, received the elixir.”

“Phoebus is dead.”

“Aye, it must need blood in which to work.”

“You healed,” she whispered. She brushed some ash off the raft.

“The elixir itself was not the thing. The interaction of elixir and the illness, that is what revived Phoebus. Somehow the
sickness and the elixir mixed in the blood, an
al-khem
reaction that resulted in …”

“So …” She swallowed, feeling awkward. He was Cheftu, but he was also someone, something, new. “Are you … immortal?”

Cheftu laughed. “Phoebus died, and he had both. Longevity, I believe, is the most to hope for. It cannot work without a lot
of blood. It does heal, however.”

“Did you eat anyone?” she asked cautiously.

Cheftu just stared at her until Chloe was embarrassed. She fought not to scoot farther away. This was Cheftu! Her husband!
Her lover! But he seemed so eerily alive, especially in these surrealistic surroundings. She’d seen him covered in blood.
Now he was whole? “What now?” she asked hoarsely.

Cheftu reached out to her, laying her hand palm side up. “I have the stones.”

“What stones? What are you talking about? Did you share
anything
with me here? Did you confide even one thought?” Chloe asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Chérie
, don’t be hurt—”

“You didn’t trust me, Cheftu. You kept everything from me!”

“I did not know until the end about the cannibalism.”

“When did you know you were fatally ill? Were you going to tell me or just let me wake up next to a cold body?”

Cheftu had the grace to flinch. “I didn’t want you to—”

“To have a choice? To decide for myself?”

“Chloe—”

“I’m not some sheltered nineteenth-century noblewoman, Cheftu! I’m your helpmate, your partner, I thought I was your best
friend—”

“Chérie
, Chloe, forgive me.” His hand was still held out, palm up, to her. “You did not answer my question. Will you stay with me?”

She looked away, aching without and within. He’d lied by omission, he’d not trusted her enough to confide in her. What did
they have if he couldn’t tell her the negatives? The raft ceased moving, the air turned static and silent. The hair on the
back of Chloe’s neck rose on end. Cheftu was frowning in the half-light.

The night around them turned instantly black. A sudden bone-rattling roar pounded into her skull. Chloe screamed as the air
pressure suddenly changed. The concussive blast flattened her like a rag doll.

T
HE FINAL ERUPTION PELTED FIRE AND LAVA
on them. Chloe and Cheftu lay on the raft, paddling madly as rocks flew by. They hadn’t known they were so close to the volcano.

Within minutes they were alternating the tasks of paddling and kicking hot ash off the raft. The stuff was cloying, irritating
against their skin, clogging their ears and eyes and noses and mouths. Cheftu relinquished his kilt to tear into masks, wearing
only his sash with the stones. He dropped into the water and propelled them deeper into the sea, swimming and kicking as Chloe
directed them through the hazy, burning day. Or night. Who knew.

Chloe couldn’t feel her arms and she wasn’t sure if her eyes were open, because the scenery never changed. She was moving
like a robot—in and pull, in and pull—feeling the water and current tugging against her, hoping that she inched them forward
a little bit more in the gray sea. Occasionally she changed raft sides, always moving onward. They weren’t heading to Prostatevo—Akrotiri—she
guessed. Where were they going? It was too much effort to ask. Her stomach cramped with hunger, and her palms stung from salt
and air.

She worked in a timeless haze of grayness. Cheftu’s face was a paler shade as he moved around her to paddle on the other side.
He kissed her forehead, smoothing back the tendrils of hair that still surrounded her face. The crown of her head was bald,
blistered, her eyelashes and eyebrows singed from the heat. He touched her lips and her nose.

Pockets of hot air rushed by them. “Is the mountain still erupting?” Chloe asked.

“It is. We must find a way out of here, out of this time.” He turned away, paddling again. “If only I knew where Niko’s island
was,” he muttered.

“Niko’s island?” Chloe said into the wind.

“The island of the stones,” was the last thing she heard before pain and exhaustion pulled her into darkness.

C
HEFTU GLANCED OVER
and saw that she had passed out. She was bleeding from a dozen different wounds, though she had worked with superhuman effort
to get them away. His warrior, he thought, smiling. Not only was his own body unscathed, he was seemingly impervious to fatigue.
The elixir had worked.

Dion said he had taken the elixir also, but he’d not had the plague, had he? Did the elixir confer immortality? Or merely
longevity? Not that it mattered right now. They needed to find the island. Cheftu checked to make sure the stones were secure
in his sash. It was such irony! The Urim and Thummim of the Hebrew people had been used by Greeks, whose ways they would shun.
Why did he have them now? Where should he take them? Where were they to go?

Had he and Chloe been in this time period for a year?

Worries engulfed him. He drew Chloe close, cradling her to his chest. She whimpered as the rough pumice tore at her skin,
but she didn’t awaken. Eee,
my beloved, what will become of us?
Brushing his lips over her brow, he held her, facing into the gray unknown.

M
Y SHEETS NEED A HIGHER THREAD COUNT
, Chloe thought. These feel like sandpaper.

Then water drenched her and she reared up, only to be soaked again. Tossing brittle hair over her shoulder, Chloe tried to
get her bearings. Cheftu was paddling furiously in the whipping water.

Cautiously she crouched on the raft, gripping the rough stone edges, resisting the waves. Where were they? Shadows seemed
to lurk inside the gray, a darker, more solid gray.

Another wave almost washed Chloe overboard. Cheftu grabbed her wrist, and she squealed as her stomach and breasts were yanked
over the pumice.

She joined him battling through the rough water. If only I knew how to surf, she thought as another wave hit her.

Ash continued to fall, suffocating.
Who needs bad guys when you’ve got Mother Nature?
Cheftu touched her hand, then pointed to the side. One of the darker shades of gray. Land? They paddled harder, trying to
ride the waves. The breakers were getting more powerful, higher, slamming the tiny raft down onto the roiling surface of the
water. As she was considering the relative benefits of swimming, the raft flipped.

She came up clawing for air. The current tore at her, pulling her, then tugging her away. She spotted an island and swam toward
it, fighting the current.

Then it dawned on her … current … waves … shoreline … duh! She didn’t have to swim, the current could take her.

Chloe tried to float, but the waves were too violent. She let herself be buffeted along until she crashed against a rocky
floor. The jagged pebbles that lined the beach were not much more comfortable than pumice. For a moment she reveled in being
on solid land, until another wave knocked her back toward the sea. Concentrating, she gained her footing and picked her way
up the strange beach, forested down to the water’s edge. Standing on shaking legs, she looked around. Vegetation, encroaching
water, Cheftu approaching, stumbling on the stony beach.

She staggered up the shore to the center of the small island.

“Mon Dieu!”
Cheftu shouted. “Of all the islands that surrounded Aztlan, we found the right one!” He ran to her, grasped her hands. “Chloe
my love, be happy for this!”

Chloe looked above her. A red sandstone archway stretched over a fifteen-cubit span, rising high above them with no central
support. Beneath the archway lay a mosaic made from rocks and shells. Her skin broke out in goose bumps the size of Volkswagens.

They had found the doorway. “What did being in this time mean?” she whispered.