Masseo sighed, but there was little relief in his exhalation. Marco read the words behind his deep glower.
Plague had not claimed all of those who were lost.
His father repeated more firmly, as if saying would make it so. It is over.
Marco glanced up at the two older men, his father and his uncle, framed in fiery ash and smoke against the night sky. It would never be over, not as long as they remembered.
Marco glanced to his toes. Though the mark was scuffled off the sand, it burned brightly still behind his eyes. He had stolen a map painted on beaten bark. Painted in blood. Temples and spires spread in the jungle.
All empty.
Except for the dead.
The ground had been littered with birds, fallen to the stone plazas as if struck out of the skies in flight. Nothing was spared. Men and women and children. Oxen and beasts of the field. Even great snakes had hung limp from tree limbs, their flesh boiling from beneath their scales.
The only living inhabitants were the
ants.
Of every size and color.
Teeming across stones and bodies, slowly picking apart the dead.
But he was wrongsomething still waited for the sun to fall.
Marco shunned those memories.
Upon discovering what Marco had stolen from one of the temples, his father had burned the map and spread the ashes into the sea. He did this even before the first man aboard their own ships had become sick.
Let it be forgotten, his father had warned then. It has nothing to do with us. Let it be swallowed away by history.
Marco would honor his word, his oath. This was one tale he would never speak. Still, he touched one of the marks in the sand. He who had chronicled so muchwas it right to destroy such knowledge?
If there was another way to preserve it
As if reading Marcos thoughts, his uncle Masseo spoke aloud all their fears. And if the horror should rise again, Niccolò, should someday reach our shores?
Then it will mean the end of mans tyranny of this world, his father answered bitterly. He tapped the crucifix resting on Masseos bare chest. The friar knew better than all. His sacrifice
The cross had once belonged to Friar Agreer. Back in the cursed city, the Dominican had given his life to save theirs. A dark pact had been struck. They had left him back there, abandoned him, at his own bidding.
The nephew of Pope Gregory X.
Marco whispered as the last of the flames died into the dark waters. What God will save us next time?
Dr. Susan Tunis smiled at her husbands voice as she pushed off the dive ladder and onto the open stern deck. She skinned out of her BC vest and hauled the scuba gear to the rack behind the research yachts pilothouse. Her tanks clanked as she racked them alongside the others.
Free of the weight, she grabbed the towel from her shoulder and dried her blond hair, bleached almost white by sun and salt. Once done, she unzipped her wet suit with a single long tug.
Boom-badaboombadaboom erupted from a lounge chair behind her.
She didnt even glance back. Plainly someone had spent too much time in Sydneys strip clubs. Professor Applegate, must you always do that when Im climbing out of my gear?
The gray-haired geologist balanced a pair of reading glasses on his nose, an open text on maritime history on his lap. It would be ungentlemanly not to acknowledge the presence of a buxom young woman relieving herself of too much attire.
She shouldered out of the wet suit and stripped it down to her waist. She wore a one-piece swimsuit beneath. She had learned the hard way that a bikini top had the tendency to strip away with a wet suit. And while she didnt mind the retired professor, thirty years her senior, ogling her, she wasnt going to give him that much of a free show.
Her husband climbed up with three perspiring bottles of lager, pinching them all between the fingers of one hand. He grinned broadly upon seeing her. Thought I heard you bumping about up here.
He climbed topside, stretching his tall frame. He wore only a pair of white Quicksilver trunks and a loose shirt, unbuttoned. Employed as a boat mechanic in Darwin Harbor, he and Susan had met during one of the dry-dock repairs on another of the University of Sydneys boats. That had been eight years ago. Just three days ago, they had celebrated their fifth anniversary aboard the yacht, moored a hundred nautical miles off Kiritimati Atoll, better known as Christmas Island.
He passed her a bottle. Any luck with the soundings?
She took a long pull on the beer, appreciating the moisture. Sucking on a salty mouthpiece all afternoon had turned her mouth pasty. Not so far. Still cant find a source for the beachings.
Ten days ago eighty dolphins, Tursiops aduncus, an Indian Ocean species, had beached themselves along the coast of Java. Her research study centered on the long-term effects of sonar interference on cetacean species, the source of many suicidal beachings in the past. She usually had a team of research assistants with her, a mix of postgrads and undergrads, but the trip up here had been for a vacation with her old mentor. It was pure happenstance that such a massive beaching occurred in the region hence the protracted stay here.