Far Edge of Darkness

Charlie peered around, trying to get his bearings from the mountain and the sun. He'd need to work his way back downstream. Judging from the angle of the sun, he'd been unconscious not only the whole night, but most of the morning. The sun was rising rapidly toward its zenith. Midday, or close to it. How much time was left? He bitterly regretted not getting as many details from Sibyl as possible, but Xanthus' timing had prevented it.

All he knew for sure was, Vesuvius was supposed to blow sometime between now and about eleven o'clock or midnight tonight. Either he had enough time to break Sibyl and his daughter out of Bericus' villa and get them both to safety or he did not. Charlie chose the likeliest direction that would take him toward the villa and set out.

Sibyl woke in darkness. Her body was sluggish, her mind lethargic. Her mouth tasted like live bait. From the far corners of her cell, blackness crept toward her, touched her with slimy tendrils of panic. Half-suffocated, Sibyl struggled to push herself up off the hard bed. When the bar rattled loudly on the far side of the door, she gasped, an airless shriek in the darkness.

The door creaked open. Weak sunlight streamed across the floor and came to rest on her skin.

Morning? Or evening? She couldn't hear anything resembling the preliminary stages of eruption... .

She blinked away the blurry aftereffects of the drug and focused on Quintus' surly face. He was flanked by two women.

"Get up."

So much for a cheery "good morning."

She could barely stand. The women hurried forward to support her buckling weight. They escorted her through a long, open, airy corridor. Sunlight poured warmly through the open portico. She squinted and stared into the light. Flawless blue sky, pale golden light... Shadows streamed out long and distorted toward the west, where sunlight poured in through the open peristyle roof. Morning, then. Early morning, at that.

She allowed panic-born tension to drain from her muscles. Sibyl would have fallen without the support of the women holding her arms. The preliminary steam explosions which would herald the main eruption—due to begin at approximately one-o'clock this afternoon—hadn't occurred yet. But she didn't see any way to escape, either.

She didn't dare think about where Charlie might be, or what might have happened to him. The wagon he'd have been in must have arrived while she was unconscious. What had Bericus done to him during the intervening hours? What if he were too injured to be moved? Or already dead?

If he'd tried to rescue her while she was drugged...

At least she hadn't seen any evidence so far to think he had, and Sibyl had a feeling Bericus, at the very least, would have dragged Charlie in front of her, just to see her horrified reaction.

They finally entered a thick-walled room which served as a bath. Murals painted on the walls depicted a garden with nymphs at play. The air was steamy and moist. Light came from dozens of oil lamps set about the room. A marble basin the size of a child's wading pool, set into a beautifully tiled floor, was filled with heated water.

"Come, Aelia," one of the women urged, "sit down."

She let them guide her to a backless chair. They removed her rough, travel-stained tunic. When she glanced up, she discovered Quintus' gaze fastened on her body. There wasn't much she could do about that, but she felt her cheeks redden.

The shorter of the two women murmured, "I am Livia, dear. This is Alcesta. Master has ordered us to ready you for him." Alcesta was an inch or two taller than Livia and very pale. She looked like a rabbit run to ground by a dog—a rabbit that's lost the strength to run any farther.

Sibyl shivered.

"You are cold, Aelia," Livia murmured. "The water will warm you. Master keeps the fires lit beneath the pool day and night."

Sibyl couldn't quite disguise momentary surprise. That was an expensive luxury. No wonder he'd needed the old man's money, if all his habits were that decadent.

The water steamed. She sank down cautiously, then sighed. It felt heavenly, a balm from the gods on her roughened skin and knotted muscles. But she hadn't been bathed by someone else since her fifth birthday. Sibyl was deeply embarrassed to have someone else performing the chore for her. Livia and Alcesta were experts. Sibyl was washed and shampooed—with a horrible mixture of sand and mud that took forever to rinse out. Then she was oiled, scraped, oiled again (more lightly, with a scented sweet oil), and finally perfumed in places she'd never used perfume.

Once she was clean to their satisfaction, another woman arrived to begin work on her hair. Long, pale blond hair had been pulled back with combs and simple ribbons to create a stu

The child's mother, barely out of her teens, also smiled shyly and set to work, carefully combing and toweling Sibyl's wet hair. "Here, let's bring her out of this damp room. Her hair must dry in the sunlight."

"Yes, Benigna," Alcesta murmured.

Sibyl started violently. "Benigna?"

The young woman glanced into her eyes. "I am. Do you know me? I don't know you."

Sibyl dragged her gaze down to the child, the little strawberry blond child.... "Dear God. Lucania?"

Benigna cast a frightened glance at Quintus, who ignored them. "Please," she whispered frantically, "how do you know me and my child?"

Sibyl swallowed hard. "I—I know Rufus."

Benigna's eyes widened. "Rufus? How can you know Rufus?"

"He's—he's not here?"

"No. Should he be?"

"Yes. They should have brought him last night. By wagon. We came on the ship together from Rome."

"But—why?"

Then realization struck the young girl. She fell to her knees and threw protective arms around her child. "No! Please tell me Master won't sell her to that horrible Xanthus, please..."

Lucania clung to her mother's tunica, eyes suddenly dark with fear. Sibyl touched the little girl's bright hair. "Shh... No one's sold anyone yet. And they won't. I swear to you."

Benigna's glance was frightened, hopeful, skeptical in rapid succession. "You, a slave, swear to me?"

Sibyl drew a steadying breath. No time like the present to start the ball rolling. "Yes. I swear it. As I am sibyl, I swear it."

All three women started violently.

Sibyl plunged on. "The mountain on which this house is built will roar with fire and thunder before Bericus does such an evil thing."

All three women turned frightened gazes toward the unseen summit of the volcano. Everyone had felt the earthquakes all through the night, for miles around.

Sibyl whispered, "And if the mountain does roar, Benigna, try to get into a doorway. The house may fall. And if it does, a doorway is the only safe place."

"Yes," Benigna whispered, face white with terror. "As doorways represent the gateway between this world and the next, such a gateway could be the only safe place. I thank you for the warning, sibyl. But how can you be here? Enslaved to Bericus?"

"By a mistake he shall regret," Sibyl said tightly. "Soon."

Again, all three women blanched.

"I— Please forgive me, but Master will beat me if you are not prepared as ordered," Benigna whispered miserably, still clinging to her child. "I am only a poor slave, far from my home. Please do not blame me or mine."

Sibyl shut her eyes. So much for asking help to escape the house. She just nodded. They wrapped her in a soft robe and escorted her out to the peristyle garden, where they sat her down in a chair placed on the su