“Yes,” said Adolf Hitler with a display of almost ridiculous self-importance. “Rhinemaidens. Valkyries. Wotan himself. This chalice merely signifies their presence.”
This ludicrous debate continued for a few moments. I believe they had never wanted this vision. The rituals they performed were a kind of reinforcement of their need to believe in the rightness of their actions. This vault in the depths of the Nuremberg castle, the robes, the incantations, were all a means of revivifying their flagging, drug-dependent energies, a way of making themselves believe in their mystical destiny.
And now it dawned on me that the Grail had not appeared in answer to Dr Goebbels’s summoning. It had appeared because we were there—or, specifically, I guessed, because von Bek was there. I looked at my friend. His face was rapt as he gazed upon the Grail. Plainly it had not occurred to him that the golden cup had a special affinity with him, in spite of his family’s legends.
Now Hitler stepped forward, his strange little face suddenly sober as he stretched shaking hands towards the Grail. The radiance from the cup emphasised the horrible pallor of his skin, the unhealthiness of his appearance. I could not believe that such a corrupted being would be allowed even to look upon the Grail, let alone touch it.
Those clutching fingers, which already had the blood of millions upon them, reached towards the singing cup. The eyes reflected the glow, glittering like little stones; the moist lips parted, the features twitched.
“You realise, my friends, that this is the source of energy we seek. This is the power which will allow us to defeat every enemy. The Jews as usual look in the wrong direction for the means of creating an atomic bomb. We have found it, here in Nuremberg. We have found it at the very core of our spiritual stronghold! Here is energy to destroy the entire globe—or to build it again in any image we desire! How paltry is the thing they call science. We have something far superior! We have Faith. We have a Force greater than Reason! We have a wisdom beyond mere knowledge. We have the Holy Grail itself. The Chalice of Limitless Power!” And his hands seemed like black claws reaching into that pure light; reaching towards the Grail; about to despoil something of such wonderful holiness I felt sick at the very thought.
But now the Cup was singing louder. It was almost shrieking its alarm at Hitler’s intention. The note changed to one seemingly of warning. Yet still the dictator made to grasp it. His fingers touched the glowing gold.
And Adolf Hitler’s shriek was louder than the cup’s. He fell backwards. He sobbed. He stared at his fingers. They gleamed black as if the skin had been fused to the bone. Then, like a little child, he put the fingers into his mouth and sat down suddenly on the flagstones of that ancient vault.
Goebbels frowned. He reached out, but more cautiously. Again the Grail sounded its warning. Göring was already retreating, covering his face with his arm, screaming: “No, no! I am not your enemy!”
In tones of placatory reasonableness Joseph Goebbels said: “It was not our intention to violate this thing. We merely sought its wisdom.”
He was frightened. He looked around him as if he sought a means of escape, as if he had grown appalled at whatever it was he had accidentally brought there. Meanwhile his master remained upon the floor, sucking his fingers, staring thoughtfully at the Grail and from time to time murmuring something to himself.
Afraid that the cup would now disappear as readily as it had appeared, I reached forward to grasp it. In the light I understood suddenly that they could see me. Hitler in particular had focused on me and was shading his eyes to try to get a clearer view of me. I thought better of taking the cup. I said to von Bek: “Quickly, man. I am certain that only you will be able to set hands upon it. Take it. It is our key to the Dragon Sword. Take it, von Bek!”
The three Nazis were advancing again, perhaps fascinated by the shadowy figures they saw, still not absolutely certain that what they observed was real.
Now Alisaard stepped between them and the Grail, raising her hand. “No further!” she cried. “This cup is not yours. It is ours. It is needed to save the Six Realms from Chaos!” She spoke to them reasonably, having no knowledge of what they represented.
Plainly Hermann Göring at least believed he had seen his Rhinemaiden. Hitler, however, was shaking his head as if trying to rid it of a hallucination, while Goebbels merely grinned, perhaps convinced and fascinated by his own insanity.
“Listen!” Göring cried. “Do you recognise it? She’s speaking the old High German! We have summoned an entire pantheon!”
Hitler seemed to be biting his lower lip, trying to come to a decision. He looked from us to his fingers and back again. “What shall I do?” he said.
Alisaard could not understand him. She pointed towards the door. “Go! Go! This cup is ours. It is what we came here for.”
“I would swear it is High German,” said Göring again, but it was plain he could understand her hardly any better than she could understand him. “She is trying to tell us the correct decision. She is pointing! She is pointing to the East!”
“Take the cup, man,” I said urgently to von Bek. I had no idea what would happen to us if we remained much longer. The Nazis were not stable. If they fled from the room and locked the door behind them we would be thoroughly trapped. It was even possible we would die in that vault before they dared open it up again.
Von Bek responded to my cries at last. Very slowly he reached out his hands towards that beautiful chalice. And the thing seemed to settle into his palms as if it had always been his. The voice grew sweeter still, the radiance subtler, the perfume stronger. Von Bek’s own features were illuminated by the chalice. He looked at once heroic and pure, exactly as the true knights of the Arthurian legends might have seemed to those who accompanied them on their quest for the Grail.
I led both him and Alisaard past the uncertain Nazis and towards the door of the vault. We took the chalice with us. They did not attempt to stop us, yet they were not sure whether to remain or to follow us.
I spoke to them as I would speak to a dog. “Stay,” I said. “Stay here.” Alisaard drew back the bolt.
“Yes,” Göring murmured. “We have our sign.”
“But the Grail,” said Hitler, “it is to be the source of our power…”
“We shall find it again,” Goebbels reassured him. He spoke dreamily. It seemed to me that the last thing he wanted to do was to set eyes on either the Holy Grail or ourselves ever again. We had threatened the strange power he had over his fellow Nazis, especially over his master, Hitler. Of the three men in that vault, only Goebbels was truly glad to see us go.
We closed the door behind us. We would have locked it if we could.
“Now,” I said, “we must return as quickly as possible to the room we were first in. I suspect that is the way back to Chaos…”
As if entranced, von Bek continued to hold the cup in his two hands, moving with us, though his attention remained fixed on the Grail.
Alisaard looked at him with a lover’s eyes, holding him gently by the arm. And now, when SS men approached us, they fell back, blinded. We reached our destination without difficulty. I turned the handle of the door and it opened onto blackness. Cautiously I entered, then Alisaard followed, leading von Bek, whose eyes had never left the Grail. An expression of rapt sweetness was on his handsome face. For some unknown reason I was faintly disturbed by it.
Then Alisaard had closed the door and the Grail’s radiance filled the room. We were all dark shadows in that light.
Yet now I counted three such shadows, besides my own!
The smallest of these now drew its little body closer to mine. He grinned up at me and saluted.
Jermays the Crooked no longer wore his marsh armour. Instead he was clad in more familiar motley. “I note that you’ve lately experienced what’s common for me.” He bowed. “And know the power as well as the frustrations of being a ghost!”
I took his offered hand. “Why are you here, Jermays? Do you bring news of the Maaschanhee
m?”
“I am presently in the service of Law. I bring a message from Sepiriz.” His face clouded. He added slowly: “Aye, and news from the Maaschanheem. News of defeat.”
“Adelstane?” Alisaard came forward, pushing loose hair away from her lovely features. “Has Adelstane fallen?”
“Not yet,” said the dwarf gravely, “but Maaschanheem is completely reduced. The survivors, too, have rallied to the Ursine stronghold. But now Sharadim sends even the great hulls through the Pillars of Paradise in pursuit of them! No realm is free of invasion. Each is violated. In Rootsenheem the Red Weepers are enslaved, swearing loyalty to Chaos or they are slain. This, too, is true of Fluugensheem and, of course, the Draachenheem. Only Sharadim’s forces occupy Gheestenheem now. All humans are defeated. The Eldren and the Ursine Princes continue to resist, but they cannot hold Adelstane much longer, I fear. I have just come from there. The Lady Phalizaarn, Prince Morandi Pag and Prince Groaffer Rolm send you messages of good will and pray for your success. If Sharadim or her creature reaches the Dragon Sword ahead of you, it cannot be long before Chaos breaks through and Adelstane is engulfed. Moreover, the Eldren women will never be reunited with the rest of their race…”
I was horrified. “But do you know anything of Sharadim and her dead brother?”
“I’ve heard nothing, save that they returned to Chaos on unfinished business…”
“Then we must try to return to Chaos, also,” I said. “We have the cup Sepiriz told us of. Now we seek the horned horse. But how can we get back to Chaos, Jermays, can you say?”
“You are here,” said Jermays the Crooked in some surprise, and opening the door he revealed daylight, a rich, exotic smell, dark fleshy leaves and a trail which disappeared into what was apparently a tropical forest.
And, when we had passed through the archway, Jermays had gone, together with the door and any sign of the Nuremberg dungeons.
It was at this point that von Bek lowered the chalice, an expression of dismay on his face. “I have failed! I have failed! Oh, why did you let me leave!”
“What is it?” cried Alisaard in surprise. “What is the matter, my dear?”
“I had the opportunity to kill them. I did not take it!”
“Do you think you could have killed them in the presence of this cup?” I asked him reasonably. “Aside from the fact that you had no weapon?”
He calmed a little. “But it was my single opportunity to destroy them. To save millions. I surely will not be given a second chance!”
“You have achieved your ambition,” I told him. “But you have achieved it obliquely, according to the methods of the Balance. I can promise you that now they will destroy themselves, thanks to what happened in that vault today. Believe me, von Bek, they are now as thoroughly doomed as any of their victims.”
“Is this truth?” He looked from me to the chalice. The golden cup no longer glowed, but although it was plain, it still possessed enormous power.
“It is the truth, I swear.”
“I did not know you possessed the power of prediction, Herr Daker.”
“In this case I do. They can last only a short while longer. Then all three will die by their own hands and their tyranny will collapse.”
“Germany and the world will be free of them?”
“Free of their particular evil, I promise you. Free of everything save the memory of their cruelty and barbarism.”
He drew a great, sobbing breath. “I believe you. Then Sepiriz kept his word to me?”
“He kept his word in his usual way,” I said. “By ensuring that your ambition and his own coincided. By gaining something which serves his own mysterious ends and which in turn serves ours. All our actions are linked, all our destinies have something in common. An action taken in one plane of the multiverse can achieve a result in quite a different plane, perhaps millennia (and who knows what kind of distance?) apart. Sepiriz plays the Game of the Balance. A series of checks, adjustments, fresh moves, all designed to maintain ultimate equilibrium. He is only one such servant of the Balance. There are several, to my knowledge, moving here and there through all the myriad planes and cycles of the multiverse. Ultimately we cannot any of us know the full pattern or detect a true beginning or an end. There are cycles within cycles, patterns within patterns. Perhaps it is finite, but it seems infinite to us mortals. And I doubt if even Sepiriz sees the whole Game. He merely does what he can to ensure that neither Law nor Chaos can achieve a complete advantage.”
“And what of the Lords of the Higher Worlds?” asked Alisaard, who already knew something of this. “Can they perceive the entire scheme?”
“I doubt it,” I said. “Their vision is perhaps in some sense even more limited than our own. Frequently it is the pawn who perceives more than the king or queen, by virtue of having less at stake, perhaps.”
Von Bek shook his head. Quietly he murmured: “And I wonder if there will ever be a time when all those gods and goddesses and demigods will cease their warring? Will cease to exist, perhaps?”
“There may be such periods in the cyclic histories of the myriad realms,” I said. “There could be an end to all this, when the Lords of the Higher Worlds and all the machinery of cosmic mystery shall be no more. And perhaps that is why they fear mortals so much. The secret of their destruction, I suspect, lies in us, though we have yet to realise our own power.”
“And do you have a hint of what that power may be, Eternal Champion?” said Alisaard.
I smiled. “I think it is simply the power to conceive of a multiverse which has no need of the supernatural, which, indeed, could abolish it if so desired!”
And at that point the jungle heaved once, turning itself into a flowing ocean of molten glass which somehow did not burn us.
Von Bek yelled and lost his footing, keeping hold of the chalice. Alisaard grabbed him and tried to help him up. A noisy wind was blowing. I made my way to my companions. Von Bek was up again. “Use the Actorios!” I cried to Alisaard, who still had the stone in her keeping. “Find the shadow path again!”
But even as she reached into her purse to find the stone the Grail had begun to sing. It was a different note to the one we had first heard. It was softer, calmer. Yet it held an astonishing authority. And the glassy undulations slowly subsided. The smooth hills of obsidian grew quite still. And we could see a path leading through them. Beyond the path was a sandy beach.
Holding the chalice before him, von Bek led us towards that shore. Here was a force, I realised, far stronger than the Actorios. A force for order and equilibrium able to exert enormous power upon its surroundings. It dawned on me that much of what had happened up until now had been engineered by Sepiriz and his kind. I had already seen that von Bek had an affinity with the Grail the way that I had a similar affinity with the Sword. Von Bek had been needed to find the Grail. And now he was bringing it into this realm, close to the place called The World’s Beginning. Was there significance in this action?
We had reached the shore. Above us were grassy dunes and beyond that a horizon. We tramped up to the dunes and stood looking out over a plain which appeared to be without end. It stretched ahead of us, an infinity of waving grasses and wild flowers, without a tree or a hill to break the flatness. There was a subtle scent all around us and, when we turned, the ocean of glass had gone. Now the plain stretched away in that direction also!
I saw a man approaching us. He strode with a leisurely gait through the tall grass. The light wind tugged at his robes. He wore black and silver. I thought for one wild moment that Hitler or one of his henchmen had followed us into this realm. But then I recognised the grey hair, the patriarchal features. It was the Archduke Balarizaaf. Almost as soon as I noticed him he stopped, raising his hand in greeting.
“I will not advance much closer, if you’ll forgive me, mortals. That object you carry is inimical to my particular constitution!” He smiled, almost in self-mockery. “And I must admit I do not welcome its presence in my realm. I have come t
o strike a bargain with you, if you’ll listen.”
“I make no bargains with Chaos,” I told him. “Surely you understand that?”
He chuckled. “Oh, Champion, how poorly you understand your own nature. There have been times and there will be others when you know loyalty only to Chaos…”
I refused to be drawn. Obstinately, I said: “Well, Archduke Balarizaaf, I can assure you that I possess no such loyalty at this moment. I am my own creature, as best I can be.”
“You were always that, Champion, no matter what side you seemed to serve. That is the secret of your survival, I suspect. Believe me, I have nothing but admiration…” He coughed, as if he had caught himself in a moment of discourtesy. “I respect all you say, Sir Champion. But I am offering you the chance to alter the destiny of at least a full cycle of the multiverse, to change your own destiny, to save yourself, perhaps, from all the agony you have already known. I assure you, if you pursue this present course, it will bring you further pain, further remorse.”
“I have been told it will bring me at least some peace and the possibility of being with Ermizhad again.” I spoke firmly. I resisted his arguments, for all their apparent sense and certainty.
“A respite, nothing more. Serve me, and you will possess almost everything you desire. Immediately.”
“Ermizhad?”
“One so like her you would come to forget any difference. One even more beautiful. Adoring you, as no man has been adored before.”
I laughed at him then, to his evident surprise.
“You are truly a Lord of Chaos, Archduke Balarizaaf. You have no real imagination. You believe that all a mortal seeks is the same power as you possess. I loved an individual in her complexity. I have come to understand that even more since I have suffered the delusions this place imposes upon the human brain. If I cannot know again the woman I loved, I want no substitute. What do I care if I am adored by her or not? I love her for herself. My imagination delights not in control of her, but in the fact that she exists. I had no part in her existence. I merely celebrate it. And I would celebrate it for eternity, though I be parted from her for eternity. And if I am reunited, even for a brief while, that is more than justification for the agony I suffer. You have stated, more concisely than I, what Chaos stands for, Lord Archduke, and why I resist you!”