Fifteen and twenty miles away, where the distant rumble of the mountain was all but forgotten in the confusion following the earthshock, the night was disturbed by the whistling impact of foot-wide chunks of superheated lava. The bombs rained down into courtyards and forums, smashing roofs and setting fires in a wide swath across the land.

High above, where the glowing clouds lit by hellish fires and burning cities seemed distant and serene, the Engine flew. A stupendous cloud had formed above the mountain, rising like a temple pillar into the sky. At a vast height, it stalled on a layer of bitterly cold air and began to flatten. The Engine whispered through these rarified strata, circling the mountain and the plume of dust and ash that now leaned away from it.

In the control room, Maxian lay on the heavy chair, his mouth slack, his hands trembling. The gory light reflecting from the windows lighted his face. One pane had survived intact, but the other had cracked and then flaked away, letting chill air whistle into the chamber. The Prince shuddered from foot to crown, his eyes distant and unseeing.

Below him, under the pretty clouds that pulsed and glowed in so many colors, tens of thousands were dying; poisoned by gas, consumed by fire, crushed by falling stones, buried alive in slithery ash, drowned as they attempted to flee in ships from the burning harbors. Others were trampled in the press of the frenzied crowds fleeing the dying cities of Oplontis and Baiae and Pompeii. Each life perished in fear and terror and the minute spark of life that motivated them and drove them into the world was set free.

The Engine plowed through the upper air, heedless of the death and disaster below. The rain of ash was spreading downwind, to the south, and would bury a hundred miles of Campanian countryside under a black shroud. The hammer-head cloud of dust that had vomited into the sky was already beginning to spread in the upper air. By the following noon, the skies over Rome would be a dreary brown and flakes of pumice would rain down for days.

Maxian shuddered, his legs quivering, as he drank in all the power and souls that had been so violently liberated from their mortal shells. He had opened himself on the mountaintop, standing at the maw of the power that now shook the land. He had tasted the dying life of the swordsman and supped greedily at the strength it offered. Now ten thousand times more rushed into him, charging each atom of his being with incalculable force. His mind dissolved, overwhelmed by the millions of memories that rushed past, fleeting and brilliant.

The Engine flew on, drifting out over the sea, a dark shape in a moonlit sky.

The Sea Off of Neapolis

A red-hot block of ejecta, trailing a long streamer of smoke, plunged into the sea not more than a dozen yards off the bow of the Pride of Cos. The sea heaved at the impact, throwing up a billowing cloud of steam. Spray pattered down on the foredeck of the Cos, hissing and steaming. Clinging to one of the guy lines, Shirin stared at the shore in utter horror. The sky was streaked with falling stones, glowing and smoking in flight. The debris from the burning mountain rained down all across the bay, intermittently lighting the thick murky night.

Ash was falling too, and it slithered down out of the sky to coat everything- her hair, the deck, the ropes, the other passengers huddled below. Land-ward, huge fires were burning. Smoke belched from glowing windows. A long line of villas crowded the beach of Oplontis, the Cos's destination of record, and most of them were afire. In the dim flickering light, Shirin could see that the beach itself was crowded with thousands of people fleeing the ruin of their homes. Many were in the water, bundles of belongings held over their heads, wading out as far as they could. The air was foul and filled with noisome vapors. Above the town, rivers of flame crawled down the flanks of the mountain, carrying burning trees, wagons, and all kinds of debris.

Another stone shrieked down out of the heavens and arrowed into the sea within a dozen feet of the ship. Shirin, her face wrapped with a gauze veil to keep the hot ash from her throat, turned and shouted at the ship's captain.

"Get us away from the shore, fool! We'll be holed by one of these meteors! Back us away!"

The captain stared back at her, his face blank with fear. He had been useless since the shockwave from the exploding mountain had torn the sail away and nearly capsized the ship. Shirin had been below, in her tiny cabin, sleeping, when the sky lit up with a sudden new dawn. The boom of the eruption had shocked her awake, just in time to be thrown fiercely against the wall. She would sport a fine bruise on the right side of her head for that. By great good luck, the ship had been angled almost directly in line with the mountain, and the hell-wind that had rushed after the sound had only torn the lesser mast away and shredded the main sail.

By rights, the Cos should have been moored off one of the headlands by Surrentum for the night. But this same captain had thought that he could make up time lost off the coast of Sicilia by tracking on the lights of Oplontis and Baiae and Herculaneum to bring him into harbor. Now his fat-bellied merchant-man wallowed in an uneasy sea just off the burning shore.

"You men, put out the harbor oars!" Shirin strode across the deck, her cloak billowing behind her in the hot fetid air. She had taken to wearing a long severe gown with a veil and a woolen wrap. Since taking passage on a leaky coaster from the island port of Naxos, she had been forced to do bodily harm to five or six different men who thought that a woman traveling alone was fair game. Too, at Brundusium, she had purchased a fine knife, two hands long, with a glittering sharp edge. "Now!"

The sailors stared up at her in fear. They had been praying and sacrificing grain and wine from the moment that the mountain had cracked open. They cowered on the main deck, huddled and miserable. Shirin cursed and jumped down the steps among them.

"The oars!" She shouted, kicking the nearest sailor. The man rolled over, curling up into a ball. "We must move away from the shore!"

The others inched away, avoiding her eyes. The Khazar woman stepped to the railing. It was no more than a mile to the beach. She squinted. The strand was seething with dark figures outlined against the burning buildings behind them. More meteors lashed down out of the sky. It seemed that the ash-fall was becoming heavier. I could swim that, thought Shirin, sorting possibilities in her mind like a gambler shuffled ivory tokens. She wrenched the cape loose, ignoring the tugging of a cheap copper brooch that snapped and skittered away across the deck. Quick fingers checked her belt, her money, and the knife. Red burned at her throat, where the Eye lay, reflecting the sullen glow in the sky.

A glowing meteor the size of a chariot screamed down out of the sky and crashed through the rear deck of the Cos, shaking the whole ship from stem to stern. The deck jumped like a goosed horse and Shirin went sprawling, banging her head on the planks. Splinters and lengths of wood scythed across the deck, killing three of the sailors instantly. Black water vomited up from the gaping wound and the whole ship groaned in pain. Its hull shattered, the Cos tipped as the rear hold filled with rushing water.

Shirin lay, dazed, on the decking, staring at the sky swimming queasily above. It was a constant roil of black and red and deep orange. Clouds billowed and surged, driven by the columns of heat rising from the burning cities. Meteors streaked across the sky. Above everything, the mountain glowed and pulsed as it bled fire onto the surrounding land. She blinked, trying to clear hot ash from her eyes. The deck was tipping fast and she began to slide down toward the gaping hole. Struggling, she tangled a hand in a rope and swung to a halt. Soon the ship would be near vertical as it slid into the depths of the sea.