The dark plume rose high above the horizon to the north.

It had been there for days now, an ominous sign lurking at the edge of the people's

sight as they looked outward from the shore of Crete onto the Aegean Sea.

It hung there in the sky, grabbing the fisherman's attention as they took their small boats

out to net sea bass or collect lobster.

It distracted the shepherds, drawing their eyes away from wayward sheep on the rocky slopes

of hills and mountains.

The scribes incising lines and curbs into clay tablets with their stylists stopped to

stare.

Potters left their wheels, kilns, and decorative paints in their workshops, stepping out onto

the streets to gays of the sight.

The days since the plume appeared had been unsettling.

Ash fell from the sky, leaving thin layers of ultra-fine particles covering the cobbled

streets and white stone buildings.

The ground shook, time after time.

A few unsteady walls had collapsed at various places around the city of Nossos.

Houses had burned, set a light by flames knocked loose from braziers, lamps, and cookfires

by the earthquakes.

Fine pottery, red and white designs emblazoned on black fields fell and shattered into dozens

of shepherds.

In one horrible instant, the sky to the north grew darker still.

Lightning flashed in the distance, brief eruptions of light against a pitch black backdrop.

...