Göring, grossly fat, uttered a nervous rumble of laughter. “We shall not rule the world, Colonel von Minct, until we defeat the Royal Air Force. We have the numbers. We have the ordnance. What we need now is the luck. A little magic would help.”
“The luck has held. Because it is not mere luck, but the workings of destiny.” This was Hitler muttering. “But there is no harm in ensuring our victory.”
“It’s always a help,” said Göring dryly, “to have a god or two on your side. By this time next week, I assure you, Colonel, we’ll be dining with the king at Buckingham Palace, with or without your supernatural aid.”
Hitler seemed buoyed by his Reichsmarschall’s confidence. “We shall be the first modern government to reinstitute the scientific use of the ancient laws of nature,” he said. “What some insist on denigrating as ‘magic.’ It is our destiny to restore these marginalized disciplines and skills to the mainstream of German life.”
“Exactly, my Führer!” Hess beamed, as if at an outstanding student. “The old science. The true science. The pre-Christian Teutonic science, untainted by any hint of southern decadence. A science which depends upon our beliefs and which can be manipulated by the power of the human will alone!”
All this I heard in the distance as my life began to ebb away from me.
“Nothing will convince me, Colonel von Minct,” said Hitler with sudden coldness, as if taking charge of the situation, “until you demonstrate the power of the Grail. I need to know that you really have the Grail. If it is the actual Grail it will possess the power of which all legends speak.”
“Of course, my Führer. The virgin blood shall bring the cup to life. Von Bek is dying even now. In a short while he will be thoroughly dead. With the Grail, I will restore him to life. So that you may kill him again at your pleasure.”
Hitler waved this last away. A distasteful necessity. “We must know if it has the power to restore the dead to life. When this man is dead, we shall expose him to the Grail’s influence. If it is the real thing, he will return to life. Immortal, perhaps. If its power can then be channeled to help our air fleet defeat the British, so much the better. But I will only believe that if its most famous property is displayed. And you have yet to produce the Grail, Colonel.”
Gaynor laid the white sword beside the black sword, end to end, upon the stone altar.
“And the cup?” asked Göring, borrowing authority from his master.
“The Grail takes many forms,” Gaynor told him. “It is not always a cup. Sometimes it is a staff.”
Reichsmarschall Göring, in pale Luftwaffe blue and many trimmings, brandished his own elaborate mace of office. His was encrusted with precious stones and looked as if it had been made, with his uniform, by a theatrical costumier. “Like this one?”
“Very similar, Your Excellency.”
For a few moments I lost consciousness. Bit by bit my spirit was leaving my body. I made every effort I could to hang on to life, in the hope I might find a way to help Oona. I knew I had only minutes left. I tried to speak, to demand that Gaynor spare Oona, to say that this ritual of virginal sacrifice was savage, bestial—but I would be talking to savage, bestial men, who embraced the monstrous cause. Death called to me. She seemed my only possible escape from all this horror. I never realized until then how easily one can come to long for death.
“You have still to produce the Grail, Colonel von Minct.” Göring spoke precisely, mockingly. Plainly he thought this whole thing a nonsense. Yet neither he nor any other member of the hierarchy dare express skepticism to Hitler, who clearly wanted to believe. Hitler needed the confirmation of his own destiny. He had already presented himself as the new Frederick the Great, the new Barbarossa, the new Charlemagne, but his entire career had been based on threats, lies and manipulation. He no longer had any idea of his own reality, his own effect. But should these ancient objects of Teutonic power respond to him, it would prove that he was indeed the true mystical and practical savior of Germany. Something he did not always believe himself. All his actions were now determined by this need for affirmation.
Suddenly, as if he realized I was looking at him, Hitler turned his head. His eyes met mine for an instant. Staring, hypnotic eyes. Hideously weak. I had seen them in more than one obsessed lunatic. He dropped his gaze as if he were ashamed. In that moment I understood him to be a creature thoroughly out of its depth, fascinated by its own luck, its own rise from obscurity, its successful dalliance with oblivion.
I knew he could destroy the world.
Through a haze of death I saw them throw Oona onto the altar. Gaynor raised a sword in either hand.
The swords began to descend. She struggled, trying to fling herself off the granite block.
I remember thinking, as I lost consciousness again: Where is the Cup?
My mental turmoil was not made better by the knowledge that this scene, or a variant of it, was being played out on every plane of existence. A billion versions of myself, a billion versions of Oona, all dying horribly in violence at the same moment.
Dying so that a madman could destroy the multiverse.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Hidden Virtues
I had not expected to return to consciousness. Dimly I was aware of other forces struggling within me, of some commotion at the altar. For a moment I had the delusion I stood in the doorway of the armory, the Black Sword in my hand. And I called Gaynor’s name. A challenge.
“Gaynor! You would slay my daughter! So no doubt you understand how much you have angered me.”
I forced my head up. Gradually I opened my eyes.
Ravenbrand was howling. She was giving off her weird black radiance. Red runes formed agitated geometries within her blade. She hovered over Oona and refused to carry out Gaynor’s actions. The runeblade shook and writhed in his hand, trying to wrench itself free. Stormbringer lusted to kill, but Ravenbrand could not kill certain people. The idea of harming Oona was repulsive. Its semisentient constitution did not permit it to harm an innocent. In this it differed from Elric’s Stormbringer, which more closely matched the attitudes of Melnibonéans.
Gaynor snarled. The light from the swords and torches painted the watching faces into Bosch grotesques. Those faces turned to look in astonishment at the man who stood in the ruined doorway—an identical black sword in his right hand, a sprawl of brown-shirted bodies behind him. The black blade ran with crimson. He wore torn armor and his own blood-soaked silks. He had the death heat in his wolf’s eyes. He must have been through several battles single-handed, but Stormbringer was still in one bloody fist and his face betrayed the memory of a million deaths.
“Gaynor!” The voice was my own. “You run like a jackal and hide like a snake. Will you meet me here, in this holy place of power? Or will you scuttle as usual into the shadows?”
Slow footsteps, the weariness of centuries. My doppelgänger entered the armory. For all his exhaustion he radiated a power, a glamour, which the charismatic creatures of the Nazi elite could not begin to match. Here was a true demigod. Here was what they pretended to be. And he was all they claimed, because he alone had paid a price not one of them could even conceive of paying. Had faced such horror, stood his ground against such terror, that nothing could move him.
Almost nothing.
Only a threat to one whom, with all his complex and contradictory emotions, he had given his love. Love most Melnibonéans would never understand. With heavy, measured steps he made his way to the altar.
Gaynor attempted again to strike down with Ravenbrand at Oona’s heart. The sword resisted him even more vigorously.
Gaynor screamed an oath, flung the screeching black sword at me, and seized the ivory blade in both hands. This time he would finish Oona.
The black blade did not reach its target. In fact it scarcely moved at all. It hovered in the air long enough for Oona to lift her bonds, cut through them, and scramble clear of Gaynor while making a grab at his belt. I was astonished at the blade’s appare
nt sentience.
With a great deal of shouting and shuffling, Hitler and his people had already retreated behind their storm trooper guards. They trained a score of efficient modern machine guns at Elric as he made his way to the altar. He ignored all danger. He was oblivious to the Nazis, as one might be in a dream. There was a hard, savage grin on his handsome, alien features. Once certain that Oona was not in immediate danger, he turned his attention to Gaynor.
The ivory sword hummed and bucked as if it, too, would refuse to kill. I wondered if the swords were sentient or if something else checked them.
Gaynor displayed greater control over the so-called Charlemagne Sword. He stabbed again and again at the hobbled Oona, who had yet to cut her feet free. But the sword simply would not do what he wanted. Wild, mystical language began to pour from his twisted mouth as he summoned the aid of Chaos.
But no aid came.
He had not had time to fulfill his bargains.
Elric darted now, swift as a snake. His black blade firmly blocked the white.
“There is no pleasure in killing a coward,” he said to Gaynor. “But I will do it as a duty if I must.”
An arc of black and red. A crescent of silver. Elric’s sword met the ivory blade. The two swords screamed in unison in every kind of anguish.
The Black Sword arced again. There was a dull, flat note as it met Gaynor’s weapon. The ivory blade began to crack and flake like rotten wood, disintegrating in Gaynor’s hand.
Gaynor cursed and discarded it. The thing had always been something of a forgery, with an unclear provenance. Jumping away from the altar, he sought to grab a weapon from the wall. But the weapons had been there years too long and had virtually rusted together. He screamed at the storm troopers to kill Elric, but the guards could not fire without hitting Gaynor or Klosterheim, who leveled his pistol at Elric. The demonic swordsman murmured a single, smiling word.
Ravenbrand plunged towards Satan’s ex-servant. Klosterheim gasped. He understood all too clearly what his fate would be if she reached him. He shrieked in Latin. Few of us could understand him. Certainly not the sword, which barely missed him.
Klosterheim flung himself to the ground and Gaynor did the same. At once the machine guns began their mad cacophony, with bullets and spent shells bouncing everywhere in that huge, stone room.
Elric laughed his familiar wild laugh, dodging their fire as if charmed, then ducking behind the altar to be certain that his daughter had not been hit.
She smiled briefly to reassure him and then raced from her cover to where I lay against the wall. Gaynor’s razor-sharp Nazi dagger was in her hand. Quickly she reached out, cutting my bonds.
Suddenly Ravenbrand settled herself in my fist, deflecting bullets as the guards turned their attention on me, still surrounding their precious leaders. Hitler and his gang backed hastily toward the ruined main door.
Power surged through me. I too was laughing. With fearless amusement I advanced on Klosterheim. Elric already engaged Gaynor. Oona had only Gaynor’s dagger for a weapon, but she ducked behind the altar as the bullets ricocheted around us. They hit only one of the soldiers, causing a yelp of terror from the ranks of the Nazi elite.
Hitler had relied on his luck. But now the luck was with us.
They stumbled through the gap Elric had carved in the door. They tried to cover the ragged hole. They began to move heavy furniture into it. They could not know what we would do next. They gained time to make a plan.
I made to follow, but Elric held me back. He pointed.
Gaynor and Klosterheim remained at the far end of the hall.
“We still have the Grail,” cried Gaynor. In his black armor, almost a parody of Elric’s own, he looked like a massive, leathery bird prancing in rage as the firelight flared and faded and his shadows joined the dance. “And we still have aid coming from the Lords of the Higher Worlds. Be careful, my cousins. They’ll not be happy if their ally on this plane is unable to bring them through.”
Elric snorted. “You think I fear the disapproval of gods and demigods? I am Elric of Melniboné—and my race is the equal of the gods!”
But it was not the equal of Klosterheim’s automatic which barked twice more and caught Elric entirely by surprise. “What’s this?” Frowning, he fell backwards.
I leaped forward but Oona’s dagger had already caught Klosterheim directly in his heart. He looked about to vomit, bending double and trying to pull the Nazi blade free.
Gaynor pushed his dying ally aside and made for the low oaken door which led to von Asch’s abandoned quarters. Klosterheim did not move. He was evidently dead.
I was too weak to catch Gaynor. He was through the door and barring it after him as I reached it. I put my shoulder to it and felt a jolt of pain.
I looked down at my side, expecting to see more blood. Only a ragged scar remained. How much time had actually passed? Or was time disrupted as a result of Gaynor’s selfish interference? Was the multiverse already beginning to disintegrate around us?
“Friends,” I heard Elric gasp. “Up. We must go up . . .”
Oona tried to make a barrier in front of the ruined main door but the Nazis had done much of the work from their own side! We had no means of escape. By now Gaynor could be far ahead of us, taking the Grail back into the Grey Fees.
I continued pushing at the small door, but without success.
The miscellaneous furniture began to move in the main door. It looked like the Nazis had gathered their courage and were returning.
A crash came from the doorway. Hess stood there, waving his machine gunners forward. He was the only one of his kind with the guts to confront us. Now we had no chance at all of getting free.
I tried my shoulder against the other door, but I was still too weak. I called for Oona to help. She was supporting Elric. He was leaning on Gaynor’s altar. Blood poured from his wounds and stained the dark granite.
Impatiently the Melnibonéan straightened himself and took hold of his sword, telling me to stand aside. “This is becoming my habitual method of opening doors,” he said. Though full of bravado, his voice was feeble.
He gathered his strength and let the sword carry the blow as he brought it down upon the door, splitting the ancient oak in two. The pieces fell aside to admit us. We scrambled across it and up the stairs in Gaynor’s wake. Behind us I heard Hess shouting hysterically to his men.
The tower had not been used for years. As we carried Elric through we discovered that many of von Asch’s possessions were still where he had left them. Trunks, cupboards, chairs and tables were covered in deep dust. Books and maps were long neglected. He had taken his swords and some clothes, but little else. We could see from marks in the dust which way Gaynor had gone. While Elric lay in a collapsed state against the wall, Oona and I dragged heavy furniture out of the rooms to block the narrow staircase. Oona glanced quickly through the books and papers, found something she wanted and put it in her pocket. Carrying Elric, we continued upwards until a short corridor led us out onto a broad quadrangle surrounded by narrow battlements broken by chimneys.
Miraculously, Gaynor was still there. He had expected to find help or easy escape. But there was a sheer drop on all sides.
I flung myself after the dark figure I saw ahead of me. It dodged around a buttress, a chimney breast, but I kept it in sight. Then suddenly Gaynor had turned. He was in horrible pain. His whole body vibrated and shook with a wild silvery light. He was growing in size. But as he grew, he dissipated. Like ripples in a pool, each one a slightly larger representation of its predecessor, Gaynor grew bigger and bigger, pulsing and expanding like a great chord of music, high into the sky, into the fabric of the multiverse. He fragmented and became whole at the same time!
I stumbled on, still trying to lay hands on him. I reached him, tried to hold him. Something electric tingled in my fingers, I was blinded for a moment, and then Gaynor was gone. Silence.
“We have lost both Gaynors,” I said. I shook with violent a
nger mixed with fear.
Elric gasped and shook his head. “All of them, for the moment. He has fled in a thousand directions, playing his most dangerous card. Fragmenting into a multitude of versions, each one a slightly larger scale. He dissipates his essence throughout the multiverse, so that we cannot follow. He is at his most unstable. His most dangerous. Perhaps his most powerful. He exists everywhere and nowhere. The risk is that he can be everyone and no one. He spreads his essence thinly. But one thing we do know of him—he has failed to keep his bargain with Arioch. He was attempting to bring the Duke of Hell into this realm.
“If Gaynor hasn’t driven himself completely insane, he will do one of two things. He will seek to escape the Duke of Hell, which would be foolish and probably impossible. Or he will go to seek a compromise with him. Which means he must find a place of convergence. Bek denied him, he needs another place of convergence through which he can admit his patron. There cannot be many others in this world.”
“Morn,” said Oona. “It will be on Morn.” She held up the paper she had taken.
“A place of convergence?” I asked. “What is that?”
“Where many possibilities come together,” she said. “Where the moonbeam roads meet. I know this realm well. He will go to the Stones of Morn and attempt to gather all his many selves back into a single whole.”
That was all she could tell me before there came a hammering from within the tower.
“How can we possibly follow him?” I asked.
“I have brought friends,” murmured Elric. “Gaynor sought to use them for his own ends. But he lacks our blood. It is how I followed him from Melniboné. Swords call to swords. Wings to wings.”
Hess and his men were breaking down the door.
I looked over the battlements. The drop would kill us. There was nowhere left to go. We had no choice but to take a stand. Elric stumbled back towards the tower dragging his sword with both hands. As the door came down he swung the sword. It took the three leading storm troopers by surprise. They went down at once and the blade shrieked its glee. Elric’s breath hissed as he absorbed the blade’s strength. The stolen energy was quickly restoring him.