The Passion of Cleopatra (Ramses the Damned 2)

Sibyl hurried back to her stateroom. She encouraged Lucy to take a walk about the decks and get some air. Lucy demurred at first, until she saw it wasn't a suggestion.

For a long while, Sibyl sat and agonized over the exact wording of the message, then, after tossing a few crumpled sheets into the wastebin, she settled on one she thought might work.

The wording had to be simple and clear. If the next episode would be anything like the one previous, she would only have a minute or two to display her message to the strange woman who suddenly found herself looking at the world through Sibyl's eyes.

Once she'd written the message, she stared at it for a while.

Should she carry it on her person and pull it from her pocket at the first threat of disorientation? Was the paper itself big enough? Should she use a tube of lipstick to write it on the bathroom mirror, even at the risk of having Lucy think her mad?

Perhaps if her first attempt failed, she would resort to these measures, but for now, she left the note on the dresser, within arm's reach.

MY NAME IS SIBYL PARKER. TELL ME HOW TO FIND YOU.

18

SS Orsova

Teddy was awakened by a great crash.

It had come from the stateroom's washroom. Cleopatra lay sprawled across the doorway, shuddering. She'd suffered from another episode, and Teddy had missed it. He'd drunk almost all the coffee on board, and still he had not been able to stay awake.

What a failure he was. What a miserable, abject failure. He had assured her he would sleep only as little as possible. That he would be there for her if another episode seized her in its terrible grip.

Tears stung his eyes as he leapt from the bed and took her into his arms.

She stared up at him, her eyes wide. Impossible to tell if she was alert, or if her mind had been drained by this seizure.

"I'm here," he whispered, "I'm here, my darling, my Bella Regina Cleopatra."

It would destroy him to watch this beautiful, impossible creature die before his eyes. Perhaps her body would endure. But what of her mind? Would these episodes worsen over time, leaving her a beautiful, blinking doll, as mad as a resident of Bedlam?

He could not let this happen, but how could he prevent it?

Our only hope is this Ramses. We must get to Ramses.

"Sibyl Parker," she whispered, with sudden, startling clarity.

"Who?"

"She has told me her name." Her eyes met his for the first time since he'd taken her into his arms. "I saw the words. When the vision came, I saw the words. She had written the words. In English. My name is Sibyl Parker. Tell me how to find you..."

Cleopatr

a sat up suddenly, possessed of a sudden burst of energy. Teddy was pleased by this, until he saw the fuel for it was not anger or the shock of sudden realization, but despair.

"She threatens me, don't you see? She threatens me as she steals my memories."

"Steals your memories? My queen, how can this be?"

"The barge...the barge that took me to Rome, to Caesar. I can see it no more, Teddy. When I woke again in your hospital, I remembered it. I could describe it. And now, when I reach for it, it's as if my fingers scrape along the wall of a tomb. It is gone, Teddy. Gone. It has been taken from me, this memory. And there are others....The face of Caesar. It fades and is replaced. The faces of men I've glimpsed aboard this ship. Until I am not sure which one is really his."

He'd never seen despair of this magnitude before. He'd never seen the symptoms of insanity married to this kind of terrible awareness.

"And as these memories leave me, she is there. Again and again. This woman, this Sibyl Parker. She is taking them from me. She must be. And now she seeks to find me."

"Don't," he said, pulling her to him. "Don't give yourself over to this explanation. Not just yet. Not before we reach Ramses."

A shudder at the man's name. But she went quiet against him, gave herself to his embrace.