The Keep

"No it's not! And I'm sorry to be the one to tell you. But better you hear it from me now than later when it's too late!"

"They'll kill him!" she cried as panic filled her. Frantically, she tried to pull away. But Papa held her tight with his newfound strength, all the time whispering to her, filling her ears with awful things:

"No! They'll never kill him. They'll just take him over for questioning, and that's when he'll be forced to reveal his link with Hitler so as to save his skin." Papa's eyes were bright, feverish, his voice intense as he spoke. "And that's when you'll thank me, Magda! That's when you'll know I did this for you!"

"You've done it for yourself!" she screamed, still trying to twist free of his grip. "You hate him because—"

There was shouting in the brush, some minor scuffling, and then Glenn was led out into the open at gunpoint by two of the troopers. He was soon surrounded by all four of them, each with an automatic weapon trained on Glenn's middle.

"Leave him alone!" Magda cried, lunging toward the group. But Papa's grip on her wrist would not yield.

"Stay back, Magda," Glenn said, his expression grim in the dusky light as his eyes bored into Papa's. "You'll accomplish nothing by getting yourself shot."

"How gallant!" Kaempffer said from behind her.

"And all a show!" Papa whispered.

"Take him across and we'll find out what he knows."

The troopers prodded Glenn toward the causeway with the muzzles of their weapons. He was just a dim figure now, backlit in the glow from the keep's open gate. He walked steadily until he reached the causeway, then appeared to stumble on its leading edge and fall forward. Magda gasped and then saw that he hadn't actually fallen—he was diving for the side of the causeway. What could he possibly—? She suddenly realized what he intended. He was going to swing over the side and try to hide beneath the causeway—perhaps even try to climb down the rocky wall of the gorge under protection of its overhang.

Magda began to run forward. God, let him escape! If he could just get under the causeway he would be lost in the fog and darkness. By the time the Germans could bring scaling ropes to go after him, Glenn might be able to reach the floor of the gorge and be on his way—if he didn't slip and fall to his death.

Magda was within a dozen feet of the scene when the first Schmeisser burped a spray of bullets at Glenn. Then the others chorused in, lighting the night with then-muzzle flashes, deafening her with their prolonged roar as she skidded to a stop, watching in open-mouthed horror as the wooden planking of the causeway burst into countless flying splinters. Glenn was leaning over the edge of the causeway when the first bullets caught him. She saw his body twist and jerk as streams of lead stitched red perforations in lines across his legs and back, saw him twitch and spin around with the impact of the bullets, saw more red lines crisscross his chest and abdomen. He went limp. His body seemed to fold in on itself as he fell over the edge.

He was gone.

The next few moments were a nightmare as Magda stood paralyzed and temporarily blinded by the afterimages of the flashes. Glenn could not be dead—he couldn't be! It wasn't possible! He was too alive to be dead! It was all a bad dream and soon she would awaken in his arms. But for now she must play out the dream: She must force herself forward, screaming silently through air that had thickened to clear jelly.

Oh no! Oh-no-oh-no-oh-no!

She could only think the words—speech was utterly impossible.

The soldiers were at the rim of the gorge, flashing their hand lamps down into the fog when she reached them. She pushed through to the edge but saw nothing below. She fought an urge to leap after Glenn, turning instead on the soldiers and flailing her fists against the nearest one, striking him on the chest and face. His reaction was automatic, almost casual. With the slightest tightening of his lips as the only warning, he brought the short barrel of his Schmeisser around and slammed it against the side of her head.

The world spun as she went down. She lost her breath as she struck the ground. Papa's voice came from far off, calling her name. Blackness surged around her but she fought it off long enough to see him being wheeled onto the causeway and back toward the keep. He was twisted around in his chair, looking back at her, shouting.

"Magda! It will be all right—you'll see! Everything will work out for the best and then you'll understand! Then you'll thank me! Don't hate me, Magda!"

But Magda did hate him. She swore to always hate him. That was her last thought before the world slipped away.

An unidentified man had been shot resisting arrest and had fallen into the gorge. Woermann had seen the smug faces of the einsatzkommandos as they marched back into the keep. And he had seen the distraught look on the professor's face. Both were understandable: The former had killed an unarmed man, the thing they did best; the latter for the first time in his life had witnessed a senseless killing.

But Woermann could not explain Kaempffer's angry, disappointed expression. He stopped him in the courtyard.

"One man? All that shooting for one man?"

"The men are edgy," Kaempffer said, obviously edgy himself. "He shouldn't have tried to get away."

"What did you want him for?"

"The Jew seemed to think he knew something about the keep."

"I don't suppose you told him that he was only wanted for questioning."

"He tried to escape."

"And the net result is that you now know no more than you did before. You probably frightened the poor man out of his wits. Of course he ran! And now he can't tell you anything! You and your kind will never learn."

Kaempffer turned toward his quarters without replying, leaving Woermann alone in the courtyard. The blaze of anger that Kaempffer usually provoked did not ignite this time. All he felt was cold resentment... and resignation.

He stood and watched the men who were not on guard duty shuffle dispiritedly back to their quarters. Only moments ago when gunfire had erupted at the far end of the causeway, he had called them all to battle stations. But no battle had ensued and they were disappointed. He understood that. He, too, wished for a flesh-and-blood enemy to fight, to see, to strike at, to draw blood from. But the enemy remained unseen, elusive.

Woermann turned toward the cellar stairway. He was going to go down there again tonight. One final time. Alone.

It had to be alone. He could not let anyone know what he suspected. Not now—not after deciding to resign his commission. It had been a difficult decision, but he had made it: He would retire and have no more to do with this war. It was what the Party members in the High Command wanted from him. But if even a whisper of what he thought he'd find in the subcellar escaped, he would be discharged as a lunatic. He could not let these Nazis smear his name with insanity.

... muddied boots and shredded fingers... muddied boots and shredded fingers ... a litany of lunacy drawing him downward. Something foul and beyond all reason was afoot in those depths. He thought he knew what it might be but could not allow himself to vocalize it, or even form a mental image of it. His mind shied away from the image, leaving it blurred and murky, as if viewed from a safe distance through field glasses that refused to focus.

He crossed to the arched opening and went down the steps.

He had turned his back too long waiting for what was wrong with the Wehrmacht and the war it was fighting to work itself out. But the problems were not going to work themselves out. He could see that now. Finally he could admit to himself that the atrocities following in the wake of the fighting were no momentary aberrations. He had been afraid to face the truth that everything had gone wrong with this war. Now he could, and he was ashamed of having been a part of it.

The subcellar would be his place of redemption. He would see with his own eyes what was happening there. He would face it alone and he would rectify it. There would be no peace for him until he did. Only after he had redeemed his honor would he be able to return to Rathenow and Helga. His mind would be satisfied, his guilt somewhat purged. He could then be a real father to Fritz ... and would keep him out of the Jugendführer even if it meant breaking both his legs.

The guards assigned to the opening into the subcellar had not yet returned from their battle stations. All the better. Now he could enter unobserved and avoid offers of escort. He picked up one of the flashlights and stood uncertainly at the top of the stairway, looking down into the beckoning darkness.

It struck Woermann then that he must be mad. It would be insane to give up his commission! He had closed his eyes this long—why not keep them shut? Why not? He thought of the painting up in his room, the one with the shadow of the hanging corpse ... a corpse that seemed to have developed a slight paunch when he had last looked at it. Yes, he must be mad. He didn't have to go down there. Not alone. And certainly not after sundown. Why not wait until morning?

... muddied boots and shredded fingers...

Now. It had to be now. He would not be venturing down there unarmed. He had his Luger, and he had the silver cross he had lent the professor. He started down.

He had descended half the steps when he heard the noise. He stopped to listen ... soft, chaotic scraping sounds off to his right, toward the rear, at the very heart of the keep. Rats? He swiveled the beam of his flashlight around but could see none. The trio of vermin that had greeted him on these steps at noon were nowhere in sight. He completed his descent and hurried to where the corpses had been laid out, but came to a stumbling, shuddering halt as he reached the spot.

They were gone.

As soon as he wheeled into his darkened quarters and heard the door slam behind him, Cuza leaped from his chair and went to the window. He strained his eyes toward the causeway, looking for Magda. Even in the light of the moon that had just crested the mountains, he could not see clearly to the far side of the gorge. But Iuliu and Lidia must have seen what had happened. They would help her. He was sure of that.

It had been the ultimate test of his will to remain in his chair instead of running to her side when that German animal had knocked her down. But he had had to sit fast. Revealing his ability to walk then might have ruined everything he and Molasar had planned. And the plan now was more important than anything. The destruction of Hitler had to take precedence over the welfare of a single woman, even if she was his own daughter.

"Where is he?"

Cuza spun around at the sound of the voice behind him. There was menace in Molasar's tone as he spoke from the darkness. Had he just arrived or had he been waiting there all along?

"Dead," he said, searching for the source of the voice. He sensed Molasar moving closer.

"Impossible!"

"It's true. I saw it myself. He tried to get away and the Germans riddled him with bullets. He must have been desperate. I guess he realized what would happen to him if he were brought into the keep."

"Where's the body?"

"In the gorge."

"It must be found!" Molasar had moved close enough so that some of the moonlight from the window glinted off his face. "I must be absolutely certain!"

"He's dead. No one could have survived that many bullets. He suffered enough mortal wounds for a dozen men. He had to be dead even before he fell into the gorge. And the fall..." Cuza shook his head at the memory. At another time, in another place, under different circumstances, Cuza would have been aghast at what he had witnessed. Now ... "He's doubly dead."

Molasar still appeared reluctant to accept this. "I needed to kill him myself, to feel the life go out of him by my own hand. Then and only then can I be sure he is out of my way. As it is, I am forced to rely on your judgment that he cannot have survived."

"Don't rely on me—see for yourself. His body is down in the gorge. Why don't you go find it and assure yourself?"

Molasar nodded slowly. "Yes ... Yes, I believe I will do that ... for I must be sure." He backed away and was swallowed by the darkness. "I will return for you when all is ready."

Cuza glanced once more out the window toward the inn, then returned to his wheelchair. Molasar's discovery that the Glaeken still existed seemed to have shaken him profoundly. Perhaps it was not going to be so easy to rid the world of Adolf Hitler. But still he had to try. He had to!

He sat in the dark without bothering to relight the candle, hoping Magda was all right.

His temples pounded and the flashlight wavered in his hand as Woermann stood in the chill stygian darkness and stared at the rumpled shrouds that covered nothing but the ground beneath them. Lutz's head was there, open-eyed, open-mouthed, lying on its left ear. All the rest were gone ... just as Woermann had suspected. But the fact that he had half-expected to face this scene did nothing to blunt its mind-numbing impact.

Where were they?

And still, from far off to the right, came those scraping sounds.

Woermann knew he had to follow them to their source. Honor demanded it. But first... holstering the Luger, he dug into the breast pocket of his tunic and pulled out the silver cross. He felt it might give him more protection than a pistol.

With the cross held out before him, he started in the direction of the scraping. The subcellar cavern narrowed down to a low tunnel that wound a serpentine path toward the rear of the keep. As he moved, the sound grew louder. Nearer. Then he began seeing the rats. A few at first—big fat ones, perched on small out-croppings of rock and staring at him as he passed. Farther on there were more, hundreds of them, clinging to the walls, packed more and more tightly until the tunnel seemed to be lined with dull matted fur that squirmed and rippled and glared out at him with countless beady black eyes. Controlling his repugnance, he continued ahead. The rats on the floor scuttled out of his path but exhibited no real fear of him. He wished for a Schmeisser, yet it was unlikely any weapon could save him were they to pounce on him en masse.

Up ahead the tunnel turned sharply to the right, and Woermann stopped to listen. The scraping noises were louder still. So close he could almost imagine them originating around that next turn. Which meant he had to be very careful. He had to find a way of seeing what was going on without being seen.

He would have to turn his light off.

Woermann did not want to do that. The undulating layer of rats on the ground and on the walls made him fear the dark. Suppose the light were all that kept them at bay? Suppose ... It didn't matter. He had to know what lay beyond. He estimated he could reach the turn in five long paces. He would go that far in the dark, then turn left and force himself to take another three paces. If by then he found nothing, he would turn the flashlight back on and continue ahead. For all he knew there might be nothing there. The nearness of the sounds could be an acoustical trick of the tunnel... he might have another hundred yards to go yet. Or he might not.

Bracing himself, Woermann flicked the flashlight off but kept his finger on the switch just in case something happened with the rats. He heard nothing, felt nothing. As he stood and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, he noted that the noise had grown louder, as if amplified by the absence of light. Utter absence. There was no glow, not even a hint of illumination from around the bend. Whatever was making that noise had to have at least some light, didn't it? Didn't it?

He pushed himself forward, silently counting off the paces while every nerve in his body howled for him to turn and run. But he had to know! Where were those bodies? And what was making that noise? Maybe then the mysteries of the keep would be solved. It was his duty to learn. His duty...

Completing the fifth and final pace, he turned left and, in so doing, lost his balance. His left hand—the one with the flashlight—shot out reflexively to keep him from falling and came in contact with something furry that squealed and moved and bit with razor-sharp teeth. Pain knifed up his arm from the heel of his palm. He snatched his hand away and clamped his teeth on his lower lip until the pain subsided. It didn't take long, and he had managed to hold on to the flashlight.

The scraping noises sounded much louder now, and directly ahead. Yet there was no light. No matter how he strained his eyes, he could see nothing. He began to perspire as fear reached deep into his intestines and squeezed. There had to be light somewhere ahead.

He took one pace—not so long as the previous ones—and stopped.

The sounds now came from directly in front of him, ahead ... and down ... scraping, scratching, scrabbling.

Another pace.

Whatever the sounds were, they gave him the impression of concerted effort, yet he could hear no labored breathing accompanying them. Only his own ragged respirations and the sound of his blood pounding in his ears. That and the scratching.

One more pace and he would turn the light on again. He lifted his foot but found he could not move himself forward. Of its own volition, his body refused to take another step until he could see where he was going.

Woermann stood trembling. He wanted to go back. He didn't want to see what was ahead. Nothing sane or of this world could move and exist in this blackness. It was better not to know. But the bodies ... he had to know.

He made a sound that was almost a whimper, and flicked the switch on the flashlight. It took a moment for his pupils to constrict in the sudden glare, and a much longer moment for his mind to register the horror of what the light revealed.

And then Woermann screamed ... an agonized sound that started low and built in volume and pitch, echoing and re-echoing around him as he turned and fled back the way he had come. He rushed headlong past the staring rats and beyond. There were perhaps thirty more feet of tunnel to go when Woermann brought himself to a wavering halt.

There was someone up ahead.

He flashed his beam at the figure blocking his path. He saw the waxy face, the cape, the clothes, the lank hair, the twin pools of madness where the eyes should be. And he knew. Here was the master of the house.

Woermann stood and stared in horrified fascination for a moment, then marshaled his quarter-century of military training.

"Let me pass!" he said and directed the beam onto the cross in his right hand, confident that he held an effective weapon. "In the name of God, in the name of Jesus Christ, in the name of all that is holy, let me pass!"

Instead of retreating, the figure moved forward, closer to Woermann, close enough so that the light picked up his sallow features. He was smiling—a gloating vulpine grimace that weakened Woermann's knees and made his upheld hands shake violently.

His eyes... oh, God, his eyes... Woermann stood rooted to the spot, unable to retreat because of what he had seen behind him, and blocked from escape ahead. He kept the quaking light trained on the silver cross—the cross! Vampires fear the cross!—as he thrust it forward, fighting fear as he had never known it.

Dear God, if you are my God, don't desert me!

Unseen, a hand slipped through the dark and snatched the cross from Woermann's grasp. The creature held it between his thumb and forefinger and let Woermann watch in horror and dismay as he began to bend it, folding it until it was doubled over on itself. Then he bent the crosspiece down until all that was left was a misshapen lump of silver. This he flipped away with no more thought than a soldier on leave would give to a cigarette butt.

Woermann shouted in terror as he saw the same hand dart toward him. He ducked away. But he was not quick enough.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Magda drifted slowly back to consciousness, drawn by rough prodding at her clothing and by a painful pressure in her right hand. She opened her eyes. The stars were out. There was a dark shadow over her, pulling and pulling at her hand.

Where was she? And why did her head hurt so?

Images flashed through her mind—Glenn ... the causeway... gunfire... the gorge...

Glenn was dead! It hadn't been a dream—Glenn was dead!

With a groan she sat up, causing whoever was pulling at her to scream in terror and run back toward the village. When the vertigo that rocked and spun the world about her subsided, she lifted her hand to the tender, swollen area near her right temple and winced in pain when she touched it.

She also became aware of a throbbing in her right ring finger. The flesh around her mother's wedding band was cut and swollen. Whoever had been leaning over her must have been trying to pull it off her finger! One of the villagers! He had probably thought her dead and had been terrified when she had moved.

Magda rose to her feet and again the world began to spin and tilt. When the ground had steadied, when her nausea had faded away and the roaring in her ears had dimmed to a steady thrum, she began to walk. Every step she took caused a stab of pain in her head but she kept going, crossing to the far side of the path and pushing into the brush. A half-moon drifted in a cloud-streaked sky. It hadn't been out before. How long had she been unconscious? She had to get to Glenn!

He's still alive, she told herself. He has to be! It was the only way she could imagine him. Yet how could he live? How could anyone survive all those bullets... and that fall into the gorge...?

Magda began to sob, as much for Glenn as for her own overwhelming sense of loss. She despised herself for that selfishness, yet it would not be denied. Thoughts of all the things they would never do together rushed in on her. After thirty-one years she finally had found a man she could love. She had spent one full day at his side, an incredible twenty-four hours immersing herself in the true magnificence of life, only to have him torn from her and brutally murdered.

It's not fair!

She came to the rubble fall at the end of the gorge and paused to glare across the rising mist that filled it. Could you hate a stone building? She hated the keep. It held nothing but evil. Had she possessed the power she would have willed it to tumble into Hell, taking everyone inside—Yes! Even Papa!—with it.

But the keep floated, silent and implacable, on its sea of fog, lit from within, dark and glowering without, ignoring her.

She prepared to descend into the gorge as she had two nights ago. Two nights ... it seemed like an age. The fog was right up to the rim, making the descent even more dangerous. It was insane to risk her life trying to find Glenn's body in the dark down there. But her life did not matter as much now as it had a few hours ago. She had to find him ... had to touch his wounds, feel his still heart and cold skin. She had to know for certain he was beyond all help. There would be no rest for her until then.

As she began to swing her legs over the edge she heard some pebbles slide and bounce down the slope beneath her. At first she thought her weight had dislodged a clump of dirt from the edge. But an instant later she heard it again. She stopped and listened. There was another sound, too—labored breathing. Someone was climbing up through the fog!

Frightened, Magda backed away from the edge and waited in the brush, ready to run. She held her breath as she saw a hand rise out of the fog and claw the soft earth at the gorge's rim, followed by another hand, followed by a head. Magda instantly recognized the shape of that head.

"Glenn!"

He did not seem to hear, but continued struggling to pull himself over the edge. Magda ran to him. Gripping him under both arms and calling on reserves of strength she never knew she possessed, she pulled him up onto level ground where he lay face down, panting and groaning. She knelt over him, helpless and confused.

"Oh, Glenn, you're"—her hands were wet and glistened darkly in the moonlight—"bleeding!" It was inane, it was obvious, it was expected, but it was all she could say at the moment.

You should be dead! she thought but held back the words. If she didn't say it, maybe it wouldn't happen. But his clothing was soaked with blood oozing from dozens of mortal wounds. That he was still breathing was a miracle. That he had managed to pull himself out of the gorge was beyond belief! Yet here he was, prostrate before her ... alive. If he had lasted this long, perhaps...

"I'll get a doctor!" Another stupid remark—a reflex. There was no doctor anywhere in the Dinu Pass. "I'll get Iuliu and Lidia! They'll help me get you back to the—"

Glenn mumbled something, Magda bent over him, touching her ear to his lips.

"Go to my room," he said in a weak, dry, tortured voice. The odor of blood was fresh on his breath. He's bleeding inside!

"I'll take you there as soon as I get Iuliu—" But would Iuliu help?

His fingers plucked at her sleeve. "Listen to me! Get the case ... you saw it yesterday ... the one with the blade in it."

"That's not going to help you now! You need medical care!"

"You must! Nothing else can save me!"

She straightened up, hesitated a moment, then jumped to her feet and ran. Her head started pounding again but now she found it easy to ignore the pain. Glenn wanted that sword blade. It didn't make sense, but his voice had been so full of conviction ... urgency ... need. She had to get it for him.

Magda did not slacken her pace as she entered the inn, taking the stairs up to the second floor two at a time, slowing only when she entered the darkness of Glenn's room. She felt her way to the closet and lifted the case. With a high-pitched creak it fell open—she hadn't closed the catches when Glenn had surprised her here yesterday! The blade slipped out of the case and fell against the mirror with a crash. The glass shattered and cascaded onto the floor. Magda bent and quickly replaced the blade in its case, found the catches, closed them, then lifted the case into her arms, groaning under its unexpected weight. As she turned to leave, she pulled the blanket from the bed, then hurried across to her room for a second blanket.

Iuliu and Lidia, alerted by the commotion she was making on the second floor, stood with startled expressions at the foot of the stairs as she descended.

"Don't try to stop me!" Magda said as she rushed by. Something in her voice must have warned them away, for they stepped aside and let her pass.

She stumbled back through the brush, the case and the blankets weighing her down, snagging on the branches, slowing her as she rushed toward Glenn, praying he was still alive. She found him lying on his back, weaker, his voice fainter.

"The blade," he whispered as she leaned over him. "Take it out of the case."

For an awful moment Magda feared he would ask for a coup de grace. She would do anything for Glenn—anything but that. But would a man with his injuries make so desperate a climb out of the gorge just to ask for death? She opened the case. Two large pieces of the shattered mirror lay within. She brushed them aside and lifted the dark, cold blade with both her hands, feeling the shape of the runes carved in its surface press against her palms.

She passed it to his outstretched arms and almost dropped it when a faint blue glow, blue like a gas flame, leaped along its edges at his touch. As she released it to him, he sighed; his features relaxed, losing their pain, a look of contentment settling on them ... the look of a man who has come home to a warm and familiar room after a long, arduous winter journey.

Glenn positioned the blade along the length of his battered, punctured, blood-soaked body, the point resting a few inches short of his ankles, the spike of the butt where the missing hilt should be almost to his chin. Folding his arms over the blade and across his chest, he closed his eyes.

"You shouldn't stay here," he said in a faint, slurred voice. "Come back later."

"I'm not leaving you."

He made no reply. His breathing became shallower and steadier. He appeared to be asleep. Magda watched him closely. The blue glow spread to his forearms, sheathing them in a faint patina of light. She covered him with a blanket, as much for warmth as to hide the glow from the keep. Then she moved away, wrapped the second blanket around her shoulders, and seated herself with her back against a rock. Myriad questions, held at bay until now, rushed in on her.

Who was he, really? What manner of man was this who suffered wounds enough to kill him many times over and then climbed a slope that would tax a strong man in perfect health? What manner of man hid his room's mirror in a closet along with an ancient sword with no hilt? Who now clasped that sword to his breast as he lay on the borderland of death? How could she entrust her love and her life to such a man? She knew nothing about him.

Then Papa's ranting came back to her: He belongs to a group that directs the Nazis, that is using them for its own foul ends! He's worse than a Nazi!

Could Papa be right? Could she be so blinded by her infatuation that she could not or would not see this? Glenn certainly was no ordinary man. And he did have secrets—he had been far from totally open with her. Was it possible that Glenn was the enemy and Molasar the ally?

She drew the blanket closer around her. All she could do was wait.

Magda's eyelids began to droop—the aftereffects of the concussion and the rhythmic sounds of Glenn's breathing lulled her. She struggled briefly, then succumbed ... just for a moment... just to rest her eyes.

Klaus Woermann knew he was dead. And yet... not dead.

He clearly remembered his dying. He had been strangled with deliberate slowness here in the subcellar in darkness lit only by the feeble glow of his fallen flashlight. Icy fingers with incalculable strength had closed on his throat, choking off the air until his blood had thundered in his ears and blackness had closed in.

But not eternal blackness. Not yet.

He could not understand his continued awareness. He lay on his back, his eyes open and staring into the darkness. He did not know how long he had been this way. Time had lost all meaning. Except for his vision, he was cut off from the rest of his body. It was as if it belonged to someone else. He could feel nothing, not the rocky earth against his back or the cold air against his face. He could hear nothing. He was not breathing. He could not move—not even a finger. When a rat had crawled over his face, dragging its matted fur across his eyes, he could not even blink.

He was dead. And yet not dead.

Gone was all fear, all pain. He was devoid of all feeling except regret. He had ventured into the subcellar to find redemption and had found only horror and death—his own death.

Woermann suddenly realized that he was being moved. Although he could still feel nothing, he sensed he was being roughly dragged through the darkness by the back of his tunic, along a narrow passage, into a dark room—

—and into light.

Woermann's line of vision was along the limp length of his body. As he was dragged along a corridor strewn with granite rubble, his gaze swept across a wall he immediately recognized—a wall upon which words of an ancient tongue had been written in blood. The wall had been washed but brown smudges were still visible on the stone.

He was dropped to the floor. His field of vision was now limited to a section of the partially dismantled ceiling directly above him. At the periphery of his vision, moving about, was a dark shape. Woermann saw a length of heavy rope snake over an exposed ceiling beam, saw a loop of that same rope go over his face, and then he was moving again...

... upward...

... until his feet left the ground and his lifeless body began to sway and swing and twist in the air. A shadowy figure melted into a doorway down the corridor and Woermann was left alone, hanging by his neck from a rope.

He wanted to scream a protest to God. For he now knew that the dark being who ruled the keep was waging war not only against the bodies of the soldiers who had entered his domain, but against their minds and their spirits as well.

And Woermann realized the role he was being forced to play in that war: a suicide. His men would think he had killed himself! It would completely demoralize them. Their officer, the man they looked to for leadership, had hanged himself—the ultimate cowardice, the ultimate desertion.

He could not allow that to happen. And yet he could do nothing to alter the course of events. He was dead.

Was this to be his penance for closing his eyes to the monstrousness of the war? If so, it was too much—too much to pay! To hang here and watch his own men and the einsatzkommandos come and gawk at him. And the final ignominy: to see Erich Kaempffer smiling up at him!

Was this why he had been left teetering on the edge of eternal oblivion? To witness his own humiliation as a suicide?

If only he could do something!

One final act to redeem his pride and—yes—his manhood. One last gesture to give meaning to his death.

Something!

Anything!

But all he could do was hang and sway and wait to be found.

Cuza looked up as a grating sound filled the room. The section of the wall that led into the base of the tower was swinging open. When it stopped moving, Molasar's voice came from the darkness beyond.

"All is ready."

At last! The wait had been almost unbearable. As the hours had edged by, Cuza had almost given up on seeing Molasar again tonight. Never had he been a patient man, but at no time could he remember being so consumed by an urgency such as he had known tonight. He had tried to distract himself by dredging up worries about how Magda was faring after that blow to the head ... it was no use. The coming destruction of "Lord Hitler" banished all other considerations from his mind. Cuza had paced the length, breadth, and perimeters of both rooms again and again, obsessed by his fierce longing to get on with it and yet unable to do a thing until word came from Molasar.

And now Molasar was here. As Cuza ducked through the opening, leaving his wheelchair behind forever, he felt a cold metal cylinder pressed against the bare skin of his palm.

"What—?" It was a flashlight.

"You will need this."

Cuza switched the flashlight on. It was German Army issue. The lens was cracked. He wondered who—

"Follow me."

Molasar surefootedly led the way down the winding steps that clung to the inner surface of the tower wall. He did not seem to need any light to find his way. Cuza did. He stayed close behind Molasar, keeping the flashlight beam trained on the steps before him. He wished he could take a moment to look around. For a long time, he had desperately wanted to explore the base of the tower and until now had had to do so vicariously through Magda. But there was no time to drink in the details. When all this was over he promised himself to return here and do a thorough inspection on his own.

After a while they came to a narrow opening in the wall. He followed Molasar through and found himself in the subcellar. Molasar quickened his pace and Cuza had to strain to keep up. But he voiced no complaint, so thankful was he to be able to walk at all, to brave the cold without his hands losing their circulation or his arthritic joints seizing up on him. He was actually working up a sweat! Wonderful!

Off to his right he saw light filtering down the stairway up to the cellar. He flashed his lamp to the left. The corpses were gone. The Germans must have shipped them out. Strange, their leaving the shrouds in a pile there.

Over the sound of his hurried footsteps Cuza began to hear another noise. A faint scraping. As he followed Molasar out of the large cavern that made up the sub-cellar and into a narrower, tunnellike passage, the sound became progressively louder. He trailed Molasar through various turns until, after one particularly sharp left turn, Molasar stopped and beckoned Cuza to his side. The scraping sound was loud, echoing all about them.

"Prepare yourself," Molasar said, his expression unreadable. "I have made certain use of the remains of the dead soldiers. What you see next may offend you, but it was necessary to retrieve my talisman. I could have found another way, but this was convenient ... and fitting."

Cuza doubted there was much Molasar could do with the bodies of German soldiers that would truly offend him.

He then followed him into a large hemispherical chamber with a roof of icy living rock and a dirt floor. A deep excavation had been sunk into the middle of that floor. And still the scraping, louder. Where was it coming from? Cuza looked about, the beam from his flashlight reflecting off the glistening walls and ceiling, diffusing light throughout the chamber.

He noticed movement near his feet and all around the periphery of the excavation. Small movements. He gasped—rats! Hundreds of rats surrounded the pit, squirming and jostling one another, agitated ... expectant...

Cuza saw something much larger than a rat crawling up the wall of the excavation. He stepped forward and pointed the flashlight directly into the pit—and almost dropped it. It was like looking into one of the outer rings of Hell. Feeling suddenly weak, he lurched away from the edge and pressed his shoulder against the nearest wall to keep from toppling over. He closed his eyes and panted like a dog on a stifling August day, trying to calm himself, trying to hold down his rising gorge, trying to accept what he had seen.

There were dead men in the pit, ten of them, all in German uniforms of either gray or black, all moving about—even the one without the head!

Cuza opened his eyes again. In the hellish half-light that suffused the chamber he watched one of the corpses crawl crablike up the side of the pit and throw an armful of dirt over the far edge, then slide back down to the bottom.

Cuza pushed himself away from the wall and staggered to the edge for another look.

They appeared not to need their eyes, for they never looked at their hands as they dug in the cold hard earth. Their dead joints moved stiffly, awkwardly, as if resisting the power that impelled them, yet they worked tirelessly, in utter silence, surprisingly efficient despite their ataxic movements. The scuffling and shuffling of their boots, the scraping of their bare hands on the near-frozen soil as they deepened and widened the excavation ... the noise rose and echoed off the walls and ceiling of the chamber, eerily amplified.

Suddenly, the noise stopped, gone as if it had never been. They had all halted their movements and now stood perfectly still.

Molasar spoke beside him. "My talisman lies buried beneath the last few inches of soil. You must remove it from the earth."

"Can't they—?" Cuza's stomach turned at the thought of going down there.

"They are too clumsy."

Looking pleadingly at Molasar, he asked, "Couldn't you unearth it yourself? I'll take it anywhere you want me to after that."

Molasar's eyes blazed with impatience. "It is part of your task! A simple one! With so much at stake do you balk now at dirtying your hands?"

"No! No, of course not! It's just..." He glanced again at the corpses.

Molasar followed his gaze. Although he said nothing, made no signal, the corpses began to move, turning simultaneously and crawling out of the pit. When they were all out, they stood in a ring along its edge. The rats crawled around and over their feet. Molasar's eyes swung back to Cuza.

Without waiting to be told again, Cuza eased himself over the edge and slid along the damp dirt to the bottom. He balanced the flashlight on a rock and began to scrape away the loose earth at the nadir point of the conical pit. The cold and the filth didn't bother his hands. After the initial revulsion at digging in the same spot as the corpses, he found he actually enjoyed being able to work with his hands again, even at so menial a task as this. And he owed it all to Molasar. It was good to sink his fingers into the earth and feel the soil come away in chunks. It exhilarated him and he increased his pace, working feverishly.

His hands soon contacted something other than dirt. He pulled at it and unearthed a square packet, perhaps a foot long on each side and a few inches thick. And heavy—very heavy. He pulled off the half-rotted cloth wrapper and then unfolded the coarse fabric that made up the inner packing.

Something bright, metallic, and heavy lay within. Cuza caught his breath—at first he thought it was a cross. But that couldn't be. It was an almost-cross, designed along the same eccentric lines as the thousands laid into the walls of the keep. Yet none of those could compare with this one. For here was the original, an inch thick all around, the template on which all the others had been modeled. The upright was rounded, almost cylindrical and, except for a deep slot in its top, appeared to be of solid gold. The crosspiece looked like silver. He studied it briefly through the lower lenses of his bifocals but could find no designs or inscriptions.

Molasar's talisman—the key to his power. It stirred Cuza with awe. There was power in it—he could feel the power surge into his hands as he held it. He lifted it for Molasar to see and thought he detected a glow around it—or was that merely a reflection of the flashlight beam off its bright surface?

"I've found it!"

He could not see Molasar above but noticed the animated corpses backing away as he lifted the crosslike object over his head.

"Molasar! Do you hear me?"

"Yes." The voice seemed to come from somewhere back in the tunnel. "My power now resides in your hands. Guard it carefully until you have hidden it where no one will find it."

Exhilarated, Cuza tightened his grip on the talisman.

"When do I leave? And how?"

"Within the hour—as soon as I have finished with the German interlopers. They must all pay now for invading my keep."

The pounding on the door was accompanied by someone's calling his name. It sounded like Sergeant Oster's voice ... on the verge of hysteria. But Major Kaempffer was taking no chances. As he shook himself out of his bedroll, he grabbed his Luger.

"Who is it?" He let his annoyance show in his tone. This was the second time tonight he had been disturbed. The first for that fruitless sortie across the causeway with the Jew, and now this. He glanced at his watch: almost four o'clock! It would be light soon. What could anyone want at this hour? Unless—someone else had been killed.

"It's Sergeant Oster, sir."

"What is it this time?" Kaempffer said, opening the door. One look at the sergeant's white face and he knew something was terribly wrong. More than just another death.

"It's the captain, sir... Captain Woermann—"

"It got him?" Woermann? Murdered? An officer?

"He killed himself, sir."

Kaempffer stared at the sergeant in mute shock, recovering only with great effort.

"Wait here." Kaempffer closed the door and hurriedly pulled on his trousers, slipped into his boots, and threw his uniform jacket over his undershirt without bothering to button it. Then he returned to the door. "Take me to where you found him."

As he followed Oster through the disassembled portions of the keep, Kaempffer realized that the thought of Klaus Woermann killing himself disturbed him more than if he had been killed like all the rest. It wasn't in Woermann's makeup. People do change, but Kaempffer could not imagine the teenager who had single-handedly sent a company of British soldiers running in the last war to be a man who would take his own life in this war, no matter what the circumstances.

Still ... Woermann was dead. The only man who could point to him and say "Coward!" had been rendered forever mute. That was worth everything Kaempffer had endured since his arrival at this charnel house. And there was a special satisfaction to be gained from the manner of Woermann's death. The final report would hide nothing: Captain Klaus Woermann would go down on record as a suicide. A disgraceful death. Worse than desertion. Kaempffer would give much to see the look on the faces of the wife and the two boys Woermann had been so proud of—what would they think of their father, their hero, when they heard the news?

Instead of leading him across the courtyard to Woermann's quarters, Oster made a sharp right turn that led Kaempffer down the corridor to where he had imprisoned the villagers on the night of his arrival. The area had been partially dismantled during the past few days. They made the final turn and there was Woermann.

He hung by a thick rope, his body swaying gently as if in a breeze; but the air was still. The rope had been thrown over an exposed ceiling beam and tied to it. Kaempffer saw no stool and wondered how Woermann had got himself up there. Perhaps he had stood on one of the piles of stone block here and there...

... the eyes. Woermann's eyes bulged in their sockets. For an instant Kaempffer had the impression that the eyes shifted as he approached, then realized it was just a trick of the light from the bulbs along the ceiling.

He stopped before the dangling form of his fellow officer. Woermann's belt buckle swung two inches in front of Kaempffer's nose. He looked up at the engorged, puffed face, purple with stagnant blood.

... the eyes again. They seemed to be looking down at him. He glanced away and saw Woermann's shadow on the wall. Its outline was the same—exactly the same—as the shadow of the hanging corpse he had seen in Woermann's painting.

A chill ran over his skin.

Precognition? Had Woermann foreseen his death? Or had suicide been in the back of his mind all along?

Kaempffer's exultation began to die as he realized he was now the only officer in the keep. All the responsibility from this moment on rested solely on him. In fact, he himself might be marked for death next. What was he to—

—Gunfire sounded from the courtyard.

Startled, Kaempffer wheeled, saw Oster look down the corridor, then back to him. But the questioning look on the sergeant's face turned to one of wide-eyed horror as his gaze rose to a point above Kaempffer. The SS major was turning to see what could cause such a reaction when he felt thick, stone-cold fingers slip around his throat and begin to squeeze.

Kaempffer tried to leap away, tried to kick behind him at whoever it was, but his feet struck only air. He opened his mouth to scream but no more than a strangled gurgle escaped. Pulling, clawing at the fingers that were inexorably cutting off his life, he twisted frantically to see who was attacking him. He already knew—in a horror-dimmed corner of his mind he knew. But he had to see! He twisted further, saw his attacker's sleeve, gray, regular army gray, and he followed the sleeve back ...up... to Woermann.

But he's dead!

In desperate terror, Kaempffer began to writhe and claw at the dead hands that encircled his throat. To no avail. He was being lifted into the air by his neck, slowly, steadily, until only his toes were touching the floor. Soon even they did not reach. He flung his arms out to Oster but the sergeant was useless. His face a mask of horror, Oster had flattened himself against the wall and was slowly inching himself away—away!—from him. He gave no sign that he even saw Kaempffer. His gaze was fixed higher, on his former commanding officer ... dead... but committing murder.

Disjointed images flashed through Kaempffer's mind, a parade of sights and sounds becoming more blurred and garbled with each thump of his slowing heart.

... gunfire continuing to echo from the courtyard, mixing with screams of pain and terror ... Oster inching away down the corridor, not seeing the two walking dead men rounding the corner, one of them recognizable as einsatzkommando Private Flick, dead since his first night in the keep... Oster seeing them too late and not knowing which way to run ... more shooting from without, barrages of bullets ... shooting from within as Oster emptied his Schmeisser at the approaching corpses, ripping up their uniforms, rocking them backward, but doing little to impede their progress ... screams from Oster as each of the corpses grabbed one of his arms to swing him headfirst toward the stone wall... the screams ending with a sickening thud as his skull cracked like an egg...

Kaempffer's vision dimmed ... sounds became muted... a prayer formed in his mind:

O God! Please let me live! I'll do anything you ask if you'll just let me live!

A snap ... a sudden fall to the floor ... the hangman's rope had broken under the weight of two bodies ... but no break in the pressure on his throat ... a great lethargy settled upon him ... in the fading light he saw Sergeant Oster's bloody-headed corpse rise and follow his two murderers out to the courtyard ... and at the very end, in his terminal spasms, Kaempffer caught sight of Woermann's distorted features...

... and saw a smile there.

Chaos in the courtyard.

The walking corpses were everywhere, ravaging soldiers in their beds, at their posts. Bullets couldn't kill them—they were already dead. Their horrified former comrades pumped round after round into them but the dead kept coming. And worse—as soon as one of the living was killed, the fresh corpse rose to its feet and joined the ranks of the attackers.

Two desperate, black-uniformed soldiers pulled the bar from the gate and began to swing it open; but before they could squeeze through to safety, they were caught from behind and dragged to the ground. A moment later they were standing again, arrayed with other corpses before the open gate, making sure that none of their live comrades passed through.

Suddenly, all the lights went out as a wild burst of 9mm slugs slammed into the generators.

An SS corporal leaped into a jeep and started it up, hoping to ram his way to freedom; but when he slipped the clutch too quickly, the cold engine stalled. He was pulled from the seat and strangled before he could get it started again.

A private, quaking and shivering under his cot, was smothered with his bedroll by the headless corpse he had once known as Lutz.

The gunfire soon began to die off. From a continuous barrage of overlapping fusillades it diminished to random bursts, then to isolated shots. The men's screaming faded to a lone voice wailing in the barracks. Then that, too, was cut off. Finally, silence. All quiet as the cadavers, fresh and old, stood scattered about the courtyard, motionless, as if waiting.

Suddenly, soundlessly, all but two of them fell to the courtyard floor and lay still. The remaining pair began to move, shuffling through the entry to the cellar, leaving a tall, dark figure standing alone in the center of the courtyard, undisputed master of the keep at last.

As the fog swirled in through the open gates, inching across the stone, layering the courtyard and the inert cadavers with an undulating carpet of haze, he turned and made his way down to the subcellar.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Magda awoke with a start at the sound of gunfire from the keep. At first she feared the Germans had learned of Papa's complicity and were executing him. But that hideous thought lasted only an instant. This was not the orderly sound of firing on command. This was the chaotic sound of a battle.

It was a short battle.

Huddled on the damp ground, Magda noted that the stars had faded in the graying sky. The echoes of gunfire were soon swallowed by the chill, predawn air. Someone or something had emerged victorious over there. Magda felt sure it was Molasar.

She rose and went to Glenn's side. His face was beaded with sweat and he was breathing rapidly. As she pulled back the blanket to check his wounds, a small cry escaped her: His body was bathed completely in the blue glow from the blade. Cautiously, she touched him. The glow didn't burn, but it did make her hand tingle with warmth. Within the torn fabric of Glenn's shirt she felt something hard, heavy, thimblelike. She pulled it out.

In the dim light it took her a moment to recognize the object that rolled about in her palm. It was made of lead. A bullet.

Magda ran her hands over Glenn again. There were more of them—all over him. And his wounds—there weren't nearly so many now. The majority had disappeared, leaving only dimpled scars instead of gaping finger holes. She pulled the ripped and bloody shirt away from his abdomen to expose an area where she felt a lump beneath his skin. There to the right of the blade he clutched so tightly to his chest was an open wound with a hard lump just beneath its surface. As she watched, the lump broke through. It was another bullet, slowly, painfully extruding from the wound. It was as wonderful as it was terrifying: The sword blade and its glow were drawing the bullets from Glenn's body and healing his wounds! Magda watched in awe.

The glow began to fade.

"Magda..."

She jumped at the sound. Glenn's voice was much stronger than it had been when she had covered him. She pulled the blanket back over him, tucking it around his neck. His eyes were open, staring at the keep.

"Rest some more," she whispered.

"What's happening over there?"

"Some shooting before—a lot of it."

With a groan, Glenn tried to sit up. Magda pushed him back easily. He was still very weak.

"Got to get to the keep ... stop Rasalom."

"Who's Rasalom?"

"The one you and your father call Molasar. He reversed the letters of his name for you ... real name is Rasalom... got to stop him!"

He tried to rise again and again Magda pushed him back.

"It's almost dawn. A vampire can't go anywhere after sunrise, so just—"

"He's no more afraid of sunlight than you are!"

"But a vampire—"

"He's not a vampire! Never was! If he were," Glenn said, a note of despair creeping into his voice, "I wouldn't bother trying to stop him."

Dread caressed her, a cold hand against the middle of her back. "Not a vampire?"

"He's the source of the vampire legends, but what he craves is nothing so simple as blood. That notion crept into the folk tales because people can see blood, and touch it. What Rasalom feeds on no one can see or touch."

"You mean what you were trying to tell me last night before the soldiers ... came?" She did not want to remember last night.

"Yes. He draws strength from human pain, misery, and madness. He can feed on the agony of those who die by his hand but gains far more from man's inhumanity to other men."

"That's ridiculous! Nothing could live on such things. They're too ... too insubstantial!"

"Is sunlight 'too insubstantial' for a flower to need for growth? Believe me: Rasalom feeds on things that cannot be seen or touched—all of them bad."

"You make him sound like the Serpent himself!"

"You mean Satan? The Devil?" Glenn smiled weakly. "Put aside every religion you've ever heard of. They mean nothing here. Rasalom predates them all."

"I can't believe—"

"He is a survivor of the First Age. He pretended to be a five-hundred-year-old vampire because that fit the history of the keep and the region. And because it generated fear so easily—another one of his delights. But he's much, much older. Everything he told your father—everything—was a lie ... except for the part about being weak and having to build his strength."

"Everything? But what about saving me? What about curing Papa? And what about those villagers the major took hostage? They would have been executed if he had not saved them!"

"He saved no one. You told me he killed the two soldiers guarding the villagers. But did he set the villagers free? No! He added insult to injury by marching the dead soldiers up to the major's quarters and making a fool out of him. Rasalom was trying to provoke the major into executing all the villagers on the spot. That's the sort of atrocity that swells his strength. And after half a millennium of imprisonment, he needed much strengthening. Fortunately, events conspired against him and the villagers survived."

"Imprisonment? But he told Papa..." Her voice trailed off. "Another lie?"

Glenn nodded. "Rasalom did not build the keep as he said. Nor was he hiding in it. The keep was built to trap and hold him... forever. Who could have foretold that it or anything else in the Dinu Pass might someday be considered of military value? Or that some fool would break the seal on his cell? Now, if he ever gets loose in the world—"

"But he's loose now."

"No. Not yet. That's another one of his lies. He wanted your father to believe he was free, but he's still confined to the keep by the other piece of this." He pulled the blanket down and showed her the butt end of the sword blade. "The hilt to this blade is the only thing on earth Rasalom fears. It's the only thing that has power over him. It can bind him. The hilt is the key. It locks him within the keep. The blade is useless without it, but the two joined together can destroy him."

Magda shook her head in an attempt to clear it. This was becoming more incredible every minute!

"But the hilt—where is it? What does it look like?"

"You've seen its image thousands of times in the walls of the keep."

"The crosses!" Magda's mind whirled. Then they weren't crosses after all! They were modeled on the hilt of a sword—no wonder the crosspiece was set so high! She had been looking at them for years and had never even come close to guessing. And if Molasar—or should she start thinking of him as Rasalom now?—were truly the source of the vampire legends, she could see how his fear of the sword hilt might have been transmuted into a fear of the cross in the folk tales. "But where—"

"Buried deep in the subcellar. As long as the hilt remains within the walls of the keep, Rasalom is bound by them."

"But all he has to do is dig it up and dispose of it."

"He can't touch it, or even get too close to it."

"Then he's trapped forever!"

"No," Glenn said in a very low voice as he looked into Magda's eyes. "He has your father."

Magda wanted to be sick, to shout No! at the top of her lungs, but she could not. She had been turned to stone by Glenn's quiet words ... words which for the life of her she could not deny.

"Let me tell you what I think has happened," he said into the lengthening silence. "Rasalom was released the first night the Germans moved into the keep. He had strength enough then to kill only one. After that he rested and took stock. His initial strategy, I think, was to kill them one at a time, to feed on that daily agony and on the fear that increased among the living each time he claimed one of them. He was careful not to kill too many at once, especially not the officers, for that might drive them all away. He probably hoped for one of three things to occur: The Germans would become so frustrated that they would blow up the keep, thereby freeing him; or they would bring in more and more reinforcements, affording him more lives to take, more fear to grow strong on; or that he might find among the men a corruptible innocent."

Magda could barely hear her own voice. "Papa."

"Or you. From what you told me, Rasalom's attention seemed to be centered on you when he first revealed himself. But the captain put you over here, out of reach. Therefore Rasalom had to concentrate on your father."

"But he could have used one of the soldiers!"

"He gains his greatest strength from the destruction of everything that is good in a person. The corruption of the values of a single decent human being enriches him more than a thousand murders. It's a feast for Rasalom! The soldiers were useless to him. Veterans of Poland and other campaigns, they had killed proudly for their Führer. Little of value in them for Rasalom. And their reinforcements—death camp troopers! Nothing left in those creatures to debase! So the only real use he's had for the Germans, besides the fear and death-agony gleaned from them, is as digging tools."

Magda couldn't imagine... "Digging?"

"To unearth the hilt. I suspect that the 'thing' you heard shuffling around in the subcellar after your father sent you away was a group of the dead soldiers returning to their shrouds."

Walking corpses ... the thought was grotesque, too fantastic even to consider, and yet she remembered that story the major had told about the two dead soldiers who had walked from the place of their dying to his room.

"But if he has the power to make the dead walk, why can't he have one of them dispose of the hilt?"

"Impossible. The hilt negates his power. A corpse under his control would return to its inanimate state the instant it touched the hilt." He paused. "Your father will be the one to carry the hilt from the keep."

"But as soon as Papa touches the hilt, won't Rasalom lose control over him?"

Glenn shook his head sadly. "You must realize by now that he's helping Rasalom willingly ... enthusiastically. Your father will be able to handle the hilt with ease because he'll be acting of his own free will."

Magda felt dead inside. "But Papa doesn't know! Why didn't you tell him?"

"Because it was his battle, not mine. And because I couldn't risk letting Rasalom know I was here. Your father wouldn't have believed me anyway—he preferred to hate me. Rasalom has done a masterful job on him, destroying his character by tiny increments, peeling away layer after layer of all the things he believed in, leaving only the base, venal aspects of his nature."

It was true. Magda had seen it happening and had been afraid to admit it, but it was true!

"You could have helped him!"

"Perhaps. But I doubt it. Your father's battle was against himself as much as against Rasalom. And in the end, evil must be faced alone. Your father made excuses for the evil he sensed within Rasalom, and soon he came to see Rasalom as the answer to all his problems. Rasalom started with your father's religion. He does not fear the cross, yet he pretended to, causing your father to question his entire heritage, undermining all the beliefs and values derived from that heritage. Then Rasalom rescued you from your would-be rapists—a testimony to the quickness and adaptability of his mind—putting your father deep in his debt. Rasalom went on to promise him a chance to destroy Nazism and save your people. And then, the final stroke—the elimination of all the symptoms of the disease your father has suffered with for years. Rasalom had a willing slave then, one who would do just about anything he asked. He has not only stripped away most of the man you called 'Papa,' but has fashioned him into an instrument that will effect the release of mankind's greatest enemy from the keep."

Glenn struggled to a sitting position. "I must stop Rasalom once and for all!"

"Let him go," Magda said through her misery as she contemplated what had happened to Papa—or rather, what Papa had allowed to happen to himself. She had to wonder: Would she or anybody else have been able to withstand such an assault on one's character? "Perhaps that will free my father from Rasalom's influence and we can go back to the way we were."

"You will have no lives to go about if Rasalom is set free!"

"In this world of Hitler and the Iron Guard, what can Rasalom do that hasn't been done already?"

"You haven't been listening!" Glenn said angrily. "Once free, Rasalom will make Hitler seem a suitable playmate for whatever children you might have planned on having."

"Nothing could be worse than Hitler!" Magda said. "Nothing!"

"Rasalom could. Don't you see, Magda, that with Hitler, as evil as he is, there is still hope? Hitler is but a man. He is mortal. He will die or be killed someday ... maybe tomorrow, maybe thirty years from now, but he will die. He only controls a small part of the world. And although he appears invincible now, he has yet to deal with Russia. Britain still defies him. And there is America—if those Americans decide to turn their vitality and productive capacity to war, no country, not even Hitler's Germany, will be able to stand against them for long. So you see, there is still hope in this very dark hour."

Magda nodded slowly. What Glenn said paralleled her own feelings—she had never given up hope. "But Rasalom—"

"Rasalom, as I told you, feeds on human debasement. And never in the history of humankind has there been such a glut of it as there is today in eastern Europe. As long as the hilt remains within the keep walls, Rasalom is not only trapped, but is insulated from what goes on outside. Remove the hilt and it will all rush in on him at once—all the death, misery, and butchery of Buchenwald, Dachau, Auschwitz, and all the other death camps, all the monstrousness of modern war. He'll absorb it like a sponge, feast on it and grow incredibly strong. His power will balloon beyond all comprehension.

"But he'll not be satisfied. He'll want more. He'll move swiftly around the world, slaying heads of state, throwing governments into confusion, reducing nations to terrified mobs. What army could stand against the legions of the dead he is capable of raising against it?

"Soon all will be in chaos. And then the real horror will begin. Nothing worse than Hitler, you say? Think of the entire world as a death camp!"

Magda's mind rebelled at the vista Glenn was describing. "It couldn't happen!"

"Why not? Do you think there will be a shortage of volunteers to run Rasalom's death camps? The Nazis have shown that there are plenty of men more than willing to slaughter their fellows. But it will go far beyond that. You've seen what has happened to the villagers today, haven't you? All the worst in their natures has been drawn to the surface. Their responses to the world have been reduced to anger, hate, and violence."

"But how?"

"Rasalom's influence. He has grown steadily stronger within the keep, feeding on the death and fear there, and on the slow disintegration of your father's character. And as he has gained strength, the walls of the keep have been weakened by the soldiers. Every day they tear down a little more of the internal structure, compromising its integrity. And every day the influence of Rasalom's presence extends farther beyond those walls.

"The keep was built to an ancient design, the images of the hilt placed in a specific pattern in the walls to cut Rasalom off from the world, to contain his power, to seal him in. Now that pattern has been tampered with and the villagers are paying the price. If Rasalom escapes and feeds on the death camps, the whole world will pay a similar price. For Rasalom will not be as selective as Hitler when it comes to victims: Everyone will be targeted. Race, religion, none of that will matter. Rasalom will be truly egalitarian. The rich will not be able to buy their way out, the pious will not be able to pray their way out, the crafty will not be able to sneak or lie their way out. Everyone will suffer. Women and children the most. People will be born into misery; they will spend their days in despair; they will die in agony. Generation after generation, all suffering to feed Rasalom."

He paused for breath, then: "And the worst of it all, Magda, is that there will be no hope. And no end to it! Rasalom will be untouchable ... invincible ... deathless. If he is freed now, there will be no stopping him. Always in the past the sword has held him back. But now ...with the world as it is ... he will grow too strong for even this blade reunited with its hilt to stop him. He must never leave the keep!"

Magda saw that Glenn meant to go into the keep. "No!" she shouted, her arms reaching to hold him back. She couldn't let him go. "He'll destroy you in your condition! Isn't there anybody else?"

"Only me. No one else can do this. Like your father, I have to face this alone. After all, it's really my fault that Rasalom still exists at all."

"How can that be?"

Glenn didn't answer. Magda tried another approach.

"Where did Rasalom come from?"

"He was a man ... once. But he gave himself over to dark power and was forever changed by it."

Magda felt a catch in her throat. "But if Rasalom serves a 'dark power,' who do you serve?"

"Another power."

She sensed his resistance, but she pressed on.

"A power for good?"

"Perhaps."

"For how long?"

"All my life."

"How can it be...?" She was afraid of the answer. "How can it be your fault, Glenn?"

He looked away. "My name isn't Glenn—it's Glaeken. I'm as old as Rasalom. I built the keep."

Cuza had not seen Molasar since descending into the pit to uncover the talisman. He had said something about making the Germans pay for invading his keep, then his voice had trailed off and he was gone. The corpses had begun to move then, filing out behind the miraculous being who controlled them.

Cuza was left alone with the cold, the rats, and the talisman. He wished he could have gone along. But he supposed what really mattered was that soon they would all be dead, officers and enlisted men alike. Yet he would have enjoyed seeing Major Kaempffer die, seeing him suffer some of the agonies he had inflicted on countless innocent and helpless people.

But Molasar had said to wait here. And now, with the faint echoes of gunfire seeping down from above, Cuza knew why: Molasar had not wanted the man to whom he had entrusted his source of power to be endangered by any stray bullets. After a while the shooting stopped. Leaving the talisman behind, Cuza took his flashlight and climbed to the top of the pit where he stood among the clustered rats. They no longer bothered him; he was too intent on listening for Molasar's return.

Soon he heard it. Footsteps approaching. More than one pair. He flashed his light toward the entrance to the chamber and saw Major Kaempffer round the corner and approach him. A cry escaped Cuza and he almost fell over into the pit, but then he saw the glazed eyes, the slack expression, and realized that the SS major was dead. Woermann came filing in behind him, equally dead, a length of rope trailing from his neck.

"I thought you might like to see these two," Molasar said, following the dead officers into the chamber. "Especially the one who proposed to build the so-called death camp for our fellow Wallachians. Now I shall seek out this Hitler and dispose of him and his minions." He paused. "But first, my talisman. You must see to it that it is hidden securely in the hills. Only then can I devote my energies to ridding the world of our common foe."

"Yes!" Cuza said, feeling his pulse begin to race. "It's right here!"

He scrambled down into the pit and grabbed the talisman. As he tucked it under his arm and began to climb up again, he saw Molasar step back.

"Wrap it up," he said. "Its precious metals will attract unwanted attention should someone see them."

"Of course." Cuza reached for the wadded wrapper and packing. "I'll tie it up securely when I get into the better light upstairs. Don't worry. I'll see to it that it's all—"

"Cover it now!" The command echoed through the chamber.

Cuza halted, struck by Molasar's vehemence. He didn't think he should be spoken to in such a manner. But then, one had to make allowances for fifteenth-century boyars.

He sighed. "Very well." He squatted in the bottom of the pit and folded the coarse cloth packing over the talisman, then covered it all with the tattered wrapper.

"Good!" said the voice from above and behind him. Cuza looked up and saw that Molasar had moved to the other side of the pit, away from the entry. "Now hurry. The sooner I know the talisman is safe, the sooner I can depart for Germany."

Cuza hurried. He crawled from the pit as swiftly as he could and began to make his way through the tunnel to the steps that would take him upward to a new day, not only for himself and for his people, but for all the world.

"It's a long story, Magda ... ages long. And I fear there's no time left to tell it to you."

His voice sounded to Magda as if it were coming from the far end of a long, dark tunnel. He had said Rasalom predated Judaism ... and then he had said he was as old as Rasalom. But that couldn't be! The man who had loved her could not be some leftover from a forgotten age! He was real! He was human! Flesh and blood!

Movement caught her eye and brought her back to the here and now. Glenn was attempting to rise to his feet, using the sword blade for support. He managed to get to his knees but was too weak to rise farther.

"Who are you?" she said, staring at him, feeling as if she were seeing him for the first time. "And who is Rasalom?"

"The story starts long ago," he said, sweating and swaying, leaning on the hiltless blade. "Long before the time of the Pharaohs, before Babylonia, even before Mesopotamia. There was another civilization then, in another age."

" 'The First Age,' " Magda said. "You mentioned that before." It was not a new idea to her. She had run across the theory now and then in the historical and archeological journals she had read at various times while helping Papa with his research. The obscure theory contended that all of recorded history represented only the Second Age of Man; that long, long ago there had been a great civilization across Europe and Asia—some of its apologists even went so far as to include the island continents of Atlantis and Mu in this ancient world, a world they claimed had been destroyed in a global cataclysm. "It's a discredited idea," Magda said, a defensive quaver in her voice. "All historians and archeologists of any repute condemn it as lunacy."

"Yes, I know," Glenn said with a sardonic twist to his lips. "The same type of 'authorities' who scoffed at the possibility that Troy might have truly existed—and then Schliemann found it. But I'm not going to debate you. The First Age was real. I was born into it."

"But how—"

"Let me finish quickly. There isn't much time and I want you to understand a few things before I go to face Rasalom. Things were different in the First Age. This world was then a battleground between two..." He appeared to be groping for a word. "I don't want to say 'gods' because that would give you the impression that they had discrete identities and personalities. There were two vast, incomprehensible ... forces ... Powers abroad in the land then. One, the Dark Power, which was called Chaos, reveled in anything inimical to mankind. The other Power was..."

He paused again, and Magda could not help but prompt him.

"You mean the White Power ... the power of Good?"

"It's not so simple as that. We merely called it Light. What mattered was that it opposed Chaos. The First Age eventually became divided into two camps: those who sought dominion through Chaos and those who resisted. Rasalom was a necromancer of his time, a brilliant adept to the Dark Power. He gave himself over to it completely and eventually became the champion of Chaos."

"And you chose to be champion of Light—of Good." She wanted him to say yes.

"No ... I didn't exactly choose. And I can't say the Power I serve is all that good, or all that light. I was ... conscripted, you might say. Circumstances too involved to explain now—circumstances that have long since lost any shred of meaning for me—led me to become involved with the armies of Light. I soon found it impossible to extricate myself, and before long I was at their forefront, leading them. I was given the sword. Its blade and hilt were forged by a race of small folk now long extinct. It was fashioned for one purpose; to destroy Rasalom. There came a final battle between the opposing forces—Armageddon, Ragnarök, all the doomsday battles rolled into one. The resulting cataclysm—earthquakes, fire storms, tidal waves—wiped out every trace of the First Age of Man. Only a few humans were left to begin all over again."

"But what of the Powers?"

Glenn shrugged. "They still exist, but their interest waned after the cataclysm. There was not much left for them in a ruined world whose inhabitants were reverting to savagery. They turned their attention elsewhere while Rasalom and I fought on across the world and across the ages, neither one gaining the upper hand for long, neither one sickening or aging. And somewhere along the way we lost something..."

He glanced down at a broken fragment of mirror that had fallen out of the blade case and now lay near his knees.

"Hold that up to my face," he told Magda.

Magda lifted the fragment and positioned it next to his cheek.

"How do I look in it?" he asked.

Magda glanced at the glass—and dropped it with a tiny scream. The mirror was empty! Just as Papa had said of Rasalom!

The man she loved cast no reflection!

"Our reflections were taken away by the Powers we serve, perhaps as a constant reminder to Rasalom and me that our lives were no longer our own."

His mind seemed to drift for a moment "It's strange not to see yourself in a mirror or a pool of water. You never get used to it." He smiled sadly. "I believe I've forgotten what I look like."

Magda's heart went out to him. "Glenn...?"

"But I never stopped pursuing Rasalom," he said, shaking himself. "Wherever there was news of butchery and death, I would find him and drive him off. But as civilization gradually rebuilt itself, and people began to crowd together again, Rasalom became more ingenious in his methods. He was always spreading death and misery in any way he could, and in the fourteenth century, when he traveled from Constantinople throughout Europe, leaving plague-ridden rats in every city along his way—"

"The Black Death!"

"Yes. It would have been a minor epidemic without Rasalom, but as you know, it turned out to be one of the major catastrophes of the Middle Ages. That was when I knew I had to find a way to stop him before he devised something even more hideous. And if I'd done the job right, neither of us would be here right now."

"But how can you blame yourself? How can Rasalom's escape be your fault? The Germans let him loose."

"He should be dead! I could have killed him half a millennium ago but I didn't. I came here looking for Vlad the Impaler. I had heard of his atrocities and they fit Rasalom's pattern. I expected to find him posing as Vlad. But I was wrong. Vlad was just a madman under Rasalom's influence, feeding Rasalom's strength by impaling thousands of innocents. But even at his worst, Vlad could not match by one tenth what is happening every day in today's death camps. I built the keep. I tricked Rasalom by luring him inside. I bound him with the power of the hilt and sealed him in the cellar wall where he would stay forever." He sighed. "At least I thought it would be forever. I could have killed him then—I should have killed him then—but I didn't."

"Why not?"

Glenn closed his eyes and was quiet for a long time before replying. "This isn't easy to say ... but I was afraid. You see, I've lived on as a counterbalance to Rasalom. But what happens if I'm finally victorious and kill him? When his threat is extinguished, what happens to me? I've lived for what seems like eons, but I've never grown tired of life. It may be hard to believe, but there's always something new." He opened his eyes again and looked squarely at Magda. "Always. But I fear Rasalom and I are a pair, the continued existence of one dependent on the other. I am Yang to his Yin. I'm not ready to die yet."

Magda had to know: "Can you die?"

"Yes. It takes a lot to kill me, but I can die. The injuries I received tonight would have done me in had you not brought the blade to me. I had gone as far as I could ... I would have died right here without you." His eyes rested on her for a moment, then he looked over to the keep. "Rasalom probably thinks I'm dead. That could work to my advantage."

Magda wanted to throw her arms around him but could not bring herself to touch him again just yet. At least now she understood the guilt she had seen in his face at unguarded moments.

"Don't go over there, Glenn."

"Call me Glaeken," he said softly. "It's been so long since someone called me by my real name."

"All right... Glaeken." The word felt good on her tongue, as if saying his true name linked her more closely to him. But there were still so many unanswered questions. "What about those awful books? Who hid them there?"

"I did. They can be dangerous in the wrong hands, but I couldn't let them be destroyed. Knowledge of any kind—especially of evil—must be preserved."

There was another question, one which Magda hesitated to ask. She had come to realize as he spoke that it mattered little to her how old he was—it didn't change him from the man she had come to know. But how did he feel about her?

"What of me?" she said finally. "You never told me..." She wanted to ask him if she were just a stop along the way, another conquest. Was the love she had sensed in him and seen in his eyes just a trick he had learned? Was he even capable of love anymore? She couldn't voice the thoughts. Even thinking them, was painful.

Glaeken seemed to read her mind. "Would you have believed me if I had told you?"

"But yesterday—"

"I love you, Magda," he said, reaching for her hand. "I've been closed off for so long. You reached me. No one has been able to do that for a long time. I may be older than anyone or anything you've ever imagined, but I'm still a man. That was never taken away from me."

Magda slowly put her arms around his shoulders, holding him gently but firmly. She wanted to hold him to this spot, root him here where he'd be safe outside the keep.

After a long moment he spoke into her ear. "Help me to my feet, Magda. I've got to stop your father."

Magda knew she had to help him, even though she feared for him. She gripped his arm and tried to lift him but his knees buckled repeatedly. Finally, he slumped to the ground and pounded it with a closed fist.

"I need more time!"

"I'll go," Magda said, half wondering where the words came from. "I can meet my father at the gate."

"No! It's too dangerous!"

"I can talk to him. He'll listen to me."

"He's beyond all reason now. He'll listen only to Rasalom."

"I have to try. Can you think of anything better?"

Glaeken was silent.

"Then I'll go." She wished she could have stood there and tossed her head in defiance to show him she wasn't afraid. But she was terrified.

"Don't cross the threshold," Glaeken warned her. "Whatever you do, don't step across into the keep. That's Rasalom's domain now!"

I know, Magda thought as she broke into a run toward the causeway. And I can't allow Papa to step across to this side, either—at least not if he's holding the hilt to a sword.

Cuza had hoped to be done with the flashlight after reaching the cellar level, but all the electric lights were dead. He found, however, that the corridor was not completely dark. There were glowing spots in the walls. He looked more closely and saw that the images of the crosslike talisman set in the stones were glowing softly. They brightened as he neared and faded slowly after he had passed, responding to the object he carried.

Theodor Cuza moved along the central corridor in a state of awe. Never had the supernatural been so real to him. Never would he be able to view the world or existence itself as he had before. He thought about how smug he had been, thinking he had seen it all, yet never realizing the blinders that had limited his vision. Well, now his blinders were off and there was a whole new world all around him.

He hugged the wrapped talisman snugly against his chest, feeling close to the supernatural... and yet far from his God. But then, what had God done for his Chosen People? How many thousands, millions, had died in the past few years calling out his name, and had never been answered?

Soon there would be an answer, and Theodor Cuza was helping to bring it.

As he ascended toward the courtyard he felt a twinge of uneasiness and paused halfway up. He watched trailers of fog ooze down the steps like white honey while his thoughts whirled.

His moment of personal triumph was at hand. He was finally able to do something, to take an active role against the Nazis. Why, then, this feeling that all was not quite right? He had to admit to some nagging doubts about Molasar, but nothing specific. All the pieces fit...

Or did they? Cuza could not help but find the shape of the talisman bothersome: It was too close to the shape of the cross Molasar feared so. But perhaps that was Molasar's way of protecting it—make it resemble a holy object to throw his pursuers off the track, just as he had done with the keep. But then there was Molasar's seeming reluctance to handle the talisman himself, his insistence that Cuza take charge of it immediately. If the talisman were so important to Molasar, if it were truly the source of all his power, why didn't he find a hiding place for it himself?

Slowly, mechanically, Cuza took the final steps up to the courtyard. At the top he squinted into the unaccustomed gray light of predawn and found the answer to his questions: daylight. Of course! Molasar could not move around in the day and he needed someone who could! What a relief it was to erase those doubts—daylight explained everything!

As Cuza's eyes adjusted to the growing light, he looked across the foggy ruin of the courtyard to the gate and saw a figure standing there, waiting. For a single terrified moment he thought one of the sentries had escaped the slaughter; then he saw that the figure was too small and slim to be a German soldier.

It was Magda. Filled with joy, he hurried toward her.

From the threshold of the keep, Magda looked in on the courtyard; it was utterly silent and deserted but showed signs of battle everywhere: bullet holes in the fabric and the metal of the lorries, smashed windshields, pock marks in the stone blocks of the walls, smoke rising from the shattered ruins of the generators. Nothing moved. She wondered what gore lay beneath the fog that floated knee deep over the courtyard floor.

She also wondered what she was doing here shivering in the predawn chill, waiting for Papa, who might or might not be carrying the future of the world in his hands. Now that she had a quiet moment to think, to calmly consider all that Glenn—Glaeken—had told her, doubt began to insinuate its way into her mind. Words whispered in the dark lost their impact with the approach of day. It had been so easy to believe Glaeken while she was listening to his voice and looking into his eyes. But now that she was away from him, standing here alone, waiting... she felt unsure.

It was mad—immense, unseen, unknowable forces ... Light ... Chaos ... in opposition for control of humanity! Absurd! It was the stuff of fantasy, the deranged dream of an opium eater!

And yet...

... there was Molasar—or Rasalom or whatever he was truly called. He was no dream, yet certainly more than human, certainly beyond anything she had ever experienced or wished to experience again. And certainly evil. She had known that from the first time he had touched her.

And then there was Glaeken—if that was his true name—who did not seem evil but who might well be mad. He was real, and he had a sword blade that glowed and healed wounds that were enough to kill a score of men. She had seen that with her own eyes. And he cast no reflection...

Perhaps it was she who was mad.

But oh, if she was not mad. If the world truly stood on the brink here in this remote mountain pass ... whom was she to trust? Trust Rasalom, who by his own admission and confirmed by Glaeken had been locked away in some sort of limbo for five centuries and, now that he was free, was promising to put an end to Hitler and his atrocities? Or trust the red-haired man who had become the love of her life but had lied to her about so many things, even his name? Whom her own father accused of being an ally of the Nazis?

Why is it all coming to rest on me?

Why did she have to be the one to choose when everything was so confused? Whom to believe? The father she had trusted all her life, or the stranger who had unlocked a part of her being she never even knew existed? It wasn't fair!

She sighed. But nobody ever said life was fair.

She had to decide. And soon.

Glenn's parting words came back to her: Whatever you do, don't step across into the keep. That's Rasalom's domain now. But she knew she had to step across. The malignant aura around the keep had made it an effort merely to walk across the causeway. Now she had to feel what it was like inside. It would help her decide.

She edged her foot forward, then pulled it back. Perspiration had broken out all over her body. She didn't want to do this but circumstances left her little choice. Setting her jaw, she closed her eyes and stepped across the threshold.

The evil exploded against her, snatching her breath away, knotting her stomach, making her weave drunkenly about. It was more powerful, more intense than ever. She wavered in her resolve, wanting desperately to step back outside. But she fought this down, willing herself to weather the storm of malice she felt raging about her. The very air she was breathing confirmed what she had known all along: No good would ever come from within the keep.

And it was here inside the threshold where she would have to meet Papa. And stop him here if he carried the hilt to a sword.

A movement across the courtyard caught her eye. Papa had emerged from the cellar entry. He stood staring about for a moment, then spotted her and ran forward. After adjusting to the sight of her once-crippled father running, she noticed that his clothes were caked with dirt. He was carrying a package of some sort, something heavy and carelessly wrapped.

"Magda! I have it!" he called, panting as he stopped before her.

"What do you have, Papa?" The sound of her own voice was flat and wooden in her ears. She dreaded his answer.

"Molasar's talisman—the source of his power!"

"You've stolen it from him?"

"No. He gave it to me. I'm to find a safe hiding place for it while he goes to Germany."

Magda went cold inside. Papa was removing an object from the keep, just as Glaeken had said he would.

She had to know what it looked like. "Let me see it."

"There's no time for that now. I've got to—"

He stepped to the side to go around her, but Magda moved in front of him, blocking his way, keeping him within the boundary of the keep.

"Please?" she pleaded. "Show it to me?"

He hesitated, studying her face questioningly, then pulled off the wrapper and showed her what he had called "Molasar's talisman."

Magda heard her breath suck in at the sight of it. Oh, God! It was obviously heavy, and appeared to be gold and silver—exactly like the strange crosses throughout the keep. And there was even a slot in its top, the perfect size to accept the spike she had seen at the butt end of Glaeken's sword blade.

It was the hilt to Glaeken's sword. The hilt ... the key to the keep ... the only thing that protected the world from Rasalom.

Magda stood and stared at it while her father said something she could not hear. The words would not reach her. All she could hear was Glaeken's description of what would become of the world should Rasalom be allowed to escape the keep. Everything within her revolted at the decision that faced her, but she had no choice. She had to stop her father—at any cost.

"Go back, Papa," she said, searching his eyes for some remnant of the man she had loved so dearly all her life. "Leave it in the keep. Molasar has been lying to you all along. That's not the source of his power—it's the only thing that can withstand his power! He's the enemy of everything good in this world! You can't set him free!"

"Ridiculous! He's already free! And he's an ally—look what he's done for me! I can walk!"

"But only as far as the other side of this gateway. Only far enough to remove that from the keep—he can't leave here as long as the hilt remains within the walls!"

"Lies! Molasar is going to kill Hitler and stop the death camps!"

"He'll feed on the death camps, Papa!" It was like talking to a deaf man. "For once in your life listen to me! Trust me! Do as I say! Don't remove that thing from the keep!"

He ignored her and pressed forward. "Let me by!"

Magda placed her hands against his chest, steeling herself to defy the man who had raised her, taught her so much, given her so much. "Listen to me, Papa!"

"No!"

Magda set her feet and shoved with all her strength, sending him stumbling backward. She hated herself for doing it but he had left her no alternative. She had to stop thinking of him as a cripple; he was well and strong now—and as determined as she.

"You strike your own father?" he said in a hoarse, hushed voice. Shock and anger roiled on his face. "Is this what a night of rutting with your red-headed lover has done to you? I am your father! I command you to let me pass!"

"No, Papa," she said, tears starting in her eyes. She had never dared to stand up to him before, but she had to see this through—for both their sakes and for all the world.

The sight of her tears seemed to disconcert him. For an instant his features softened and he was himself again. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it with a snap. Snarling with fury, he leaped forward and swung the hilt at her head.

Rasalom stood waiting in the subterranean chamber, immersed in darkness, the silence broken only by the sound of the rats crawling over the cadavers of the two officers which he had allowed to tumble to the dirt after the crippled one had left with that accursed hilt. Soon it would be gone from the keep and he would be free again.

Soon his hunger would be appeased. If what the crippled one had told him was true—and what he had heard from some of the German soldiers during their stay seemed to confirm it—Europe had now become a sinkhole of human misery. It meant that after ages of struggling, after so many defeats at Glaeken's hands, his destiny at last was about to come to pass. He had feared all lost when Glaeken had trapped him in this stone prison, but in the end he had prevailed. Human greed had released him from the tiny cell that had held him for five centuries. Human hate and powerlust were about to give him the strength to become master of this globe.

He waited. And still his hunger remained untouched. The expected surge of power did not come. Something was wrong. The crippled one could have journeyed through that gate twice by now. Three times!

Something had gone wrong. He let his senses range the keep until he detected the presence of the crippled one's daughter. It was she who must be the cause of the delay. But why? She couldn't know—

—unless Glaeken had told her about the hilt before he died.

Rasalom made a tiny gesture with his left hand, and behind him in the dark the corpses of Major Kaempffer and Captain Woermann began to struggle to their feet again, to stand stiffly erect, waiting.

In a cold rage, Rasalom strode from the chamber. The daughter would be easy to handle. The two corpses stumbled after him. And after them followed the army of rats.

Magda watched in dumb awe as the gold-and-silver hilt swung toward her head with crushing force. Never had it occurred to her that Papa might actually try to harm her. Yet he was aiming a killing blow at her skull. Only an instinctive reflex for self-preservation saved her—she stepped back at the last moment, then dove forward, knocking her father to the ground as he tried to recover his balance after the wild swing. She fell on top of him, clutching at the silver crosspiece, finally gripping it with one hand on each side and twisting the hilt out of his grasp.

He clawed at her like an animal, scratching the flesh of her arms, trying to pull her down again to the point where the hilt would be in reach, screaming:

"Give it to me! Give it to me! You're going to ruin everything!"

Magda regained her feet and backed away to the side of the gateway arch, holding the hilt with both hands by its golden handle. She was uncomfortably close to the threshold, but she had managed to retain the hilt within the bounds of the keep.

He struggled to his feet and ran at her with his head down, his arms outstretched. Magda dodged the full force of his charge but he managed to catch her elbow as he went by, twisting her around. Then he was on her, striking at her face and screeching incoherently.

"Stop it, Papa!" she cried, but he seemed not to hear. He was like a wild beast. As his ragged dirty fingernails raked toward her eyes, she swung the hilt at him; she didn't think about what she was doing—it was an automatic move. "Stop it!"

The sound of the heavy metal striking Papa's skull sickened her. Stunned, she stood and watched as his eyes rolled back behind his glasses and he slipped to the ground and lay still, tendrils of fog drifting over him.

What have I done?

"Why did you make me hit you?" she screamed at his unconscious form. "Couldn't you trust me just once? Just once?"

She had to get him out—just a few feet beyond the threshold would be enough. But first she had to dispose of the hilt, put it somewhere well inside the keep. Then she would try to drag Papa out to safety.

Across the courtyard lay the entrance to the cellar. She could throw the hilt down there. She began running toward the entrance but stopped halfway there. Someone was coming up the steps.

Rasalom!

He seemed to float, rising from the cellar as a huge dead fish might rise from the bottom of a stagnant pond. At the sight of her, his eyes became twin spheres of dark fury, assaulting her, stabbing her. He bared his teeth as he seemed to glide through the mist toward her.

Magda held her ground. Glaeken had said the hilt had the power to counter Rasalom. She felt strong. She could face him.

There was movement behind Rasalom as he approached. Two other figures were emerging from the subcellar, figures with slack, white faces that followed Rasalom as he stalked forward. Magda recognized them: the captain and that awful major. She did not need a closer look to know that they were dead. Glaeken had told her about the walking corpses and she had been half expecting to see them, but that did not keep her blood from running cold at the sight of them. Yet she felt strangely safe.

Rasalom stopped within a dozen feet of her and slowly raised his arms until they were spread put like wings. For a moment, nothing happened. Then Magda noticed stirrings in the fog that blanketed the courtyard and swirled about her knees. All around her, hands rose out of the mist, clutching at the air, followed by heads, and then torsos. Like loathsome fungal growths sprouting from moldy soil, the German soldiers who had occupied the keep were rising from the dead.

Magda saw their ravaged bodies, their torn throats, yet she stood firm. She had the hilt. Glaeken had said the hilt could negate Rasalom's animating power. She believed him. She had to!

The corpses arrayed themselves behind Rasalom and to his right and left. No one moved.

Maybe they're afraid of the hilt! Magda thought, her heart leaping. Maybe they can't get any closer!

Then she noticed a curious rippling in the fog around the corpses' feet. She looked down. Through gaps in the mist she glimpsed scuttling forms, gray and brown. Rats! Revulsion tightened her throat and swept over her skin. Magda began to back away. They were moving toward her, not in a solid front, but in a chaotic scramble of crisscrossing paths and squat, bustling bodies. She could face anything—even the walking dead—anything but rats.

She saw a smile spread over Rasalom's face and knew she was responding just as he had hoped—retreating from his final threat, edging ever closer to the gateway. She tried to stop, to will her legs to be still, but they kept backing her away from the rats.

Dark stone walls closed around her—she was back within the gate arch. Another yard or two and she would be over the threshold ... and Rasalom would be set loose upon the world.

Magda closed her eyes and stopped moving.

This far will I go, she told herself. This far and no farther ... this far and no farther... repeating it over and over in her mind—until something brushed her ankle and skittered away. Something small and furry. Another. Then another. She bit her lip to keep from screaming. The hilt wasn't working! The rats were attacking her! They'd be all over her soon.

In a panic, she opened her eyes. Rasalom was closer now, his depthless eyes fixed on her through the misty half-light, his legion of the dead fanned out behind him, and the rats massed before him. He was driving the rats forward, forcing them against her feet and ankles. Magda knew she was going to break and run any second now ... she could feel the overpowering terror welling up inside her, ready to drown and wash away all her resolve ... the hilt isn't protecting me! She started to turn and then stopped. The rats were brushing against her, but they didn't bite or claw her. They made contact and then ran. It was the hilt! Because she held the hilt, Rasalom lost control over the rats as soon as they touched her. Magda took heart and calmed herself.

They can't bite me. They can't touch me for more than an instant. Her greatest horror had been that they might crawl up her legs. Now she knew they could not. She stood firm again.

Rasalom must have sensed this. He scowled and made a motion with his hands.

The corpses again began to move. They parted around him, then rejoined into a near-solid moving wall of dead flesh, scuffling, stumbling forward, crowding up to where she stood, stopping within inches of her. They gaped at her with slack, expressionless faces and glazed, empty eyes. There was no malevolence in their movements, no hatred, no real purpose. They were merely dead flesh. But they were so close! Had they been alive, their breath would have wafted against her face. As it was, a few of them smelled as if they had already begun to putrefy.

She closed her eyes again, fighting the loathing that weakened her knees, hugging the hilt against her.

... this far and no farther... this far and no farther ... for Glaeken, for me, for what's left of Papa, for everyone... this far and no farther...

Something heavy and cold slumped against her. She staggered back, crying out in surprise and disgust. The corpses nearest her had begun to go limp and fall against her. Another one slammed into her and she was rocked back again. She twisted to the side and let its slack bulk slip by her. Magda realized what Rasalom was doing—if he couldn't frighten her out of the keep, then he would push her out by hurling the physical bulk of his dead army against her. He was succeeding. There were only inches left to her.

As more corpses pressed forward, Magda made a desperate move. She grasped the gold handle of the hilt firmly with both hands and swung it out in a wide arc, dragging it against the dead flesh of those closest to her.

Bright flashes of light and sizzling noises erupted upon contact with the bodies; wisps of acrid, yellow-white smoke stung her nostrils ... and the corpses—they jerked spasmodically and fell away like marionettes with severed strings. She stepped forward, waving the hilt again, this time in a wider arc, and again the flashes, the sizzle, the sudden limpness.

Even Rasalom retreated a step.

Magda allowed a small, grim smile to touch her lips. Now at least she had breathing room. She had a weapon and she was learning how to use it. She saw Rasalom's gaze shift to her left and looked to see what had caught his attention.

Papa! He had regained consciousness and was on his feet, leaning against the wall of the gateway arch. It sickened Magda to see the thin trickle of blood running down the side of his face—blood from the blow she had struck.

"You!" Rasalom said, pointing to Papa. "Take the talisman from her! She has joined our enemies!"

Magda saw her father shake his head, and her heart leaped with new hope.

No!" Papa's voice was a feeble croak, yet it echoed off the stone walls around them. "I've been watching! If what she holds is truly the source of your power, you do not need me to reclaim it. Take it yourself!"

Magda knew she had never been so proud of her father as at that moment when he stood up to the creature who had tried to plunder his soul. And had come so close to succeeding. She brushed away tears and smiled, taking strength from Papa and giving it back to him.

"Ingrate!" Rasalom hissed, his face contorted with rage. "You've failed me! Very well, then—welcome back your illness! Revel in your pain!"

Papa slumped to his knees with a stifled moan. He held his hands before him, watching them turn white and lock once again into the gnarled deformity that until yesterday had rendered them useless. His spine curved and he crumpled forward with a groan. Slowly, with agony seeping from every pore, his body curled in on itself. When it was over he lay whimpering in a twisted, tortured parody of the fetal position.

Magda stepped toward him, shouting through her horror. "Papa!" She could almost feel his pain herself.

Yet he suffered through it all with no plea for mercy. This seemed to incite Rasalom further. Amid a chorus of shrill squeaks, the rats started forward, a dun wave that sluiced around Papa, then swept over him, tearing at him with tiny razor teeth.

Magda forgot her loathing and rushed to his side, batting at the rats with the hilt, swatting them away with her free hand. But for every few she swept away, more sets of tiny jaws darted in to redden themselves on Papa's flesh. She cried, she sobbed, she called out to God in every language she knew.

The only answer came from Rasalom, a taunting whisper behind her. "Throw the hilt through the gate and you will save him! Remove that thing from these walls and he lives!"

Magda forced herself to ignore him, but deep within she sensed that Rasalom had won. She could not let this horror go on—Papa was being eaten alive by vermin! And she seemed helpless to save him. She had lost. She would have to surrender.

But not yet. The rats were not biting her, only Papa.

She sprawled across her father, covering his body with her own, pressing the hilt between them.

"He will die!" the hated voice whispered. "He will die and there will be no one to blame but you! Your fault! All you—"

Rasalom's words suddenly broke off as his voice climbed to a screech—a sound full of rage, fear, and disbelief.

"YOU!"

Magda twisted her head upward and saw Glaeken—weak, pale, caked with dried blood, leaning against the keep's gate a few feet away. There was no one in the world she wanted more to see right now than him.

"I knew you would come."

But the way he looked, it seemed a miracle he had made it across the causeway. He could never stand up to Rasalom in his present condition.

And yet he was here. The sword blade was in one hand, the other he held out to her. No words were necessary. She knew what he had come for and knew what she must do. She lifted herself away from Papa and placed the hilt in Glaeken's hand.

Somewhere behind her, Rasalom was screaming, "Nooooo!"

Glaeken smiled weakly at her, then in a single motion, smooth and swift, he stood the blade point down and poised the top of the hilt over the butt spike. As it slid home with a solid rasping click, there came a flash of light brighter than the sun at summer solstice, intolerably bright, spreading in a ball from Glaeken and his sword to be caught and amplified by the images of the hilt inlaid throughout the keep.

The light struck Magda like a blast from a furnace, good and clean, dry and warm. Shadows disappeared as everything within sight was etched in blinding white light. The fog melted away as though it had never existed. The rats fled squealing in all directions. The light scythed through the standing corpses, toppling them like stalks of dry wheat. Even Rasalom reeled away with both arms covering his face.

The true master of the keep had returned.

The light faded slowly, drawing back into the sword, and a moment passed before Magda could see again. When she could, there stood Glaeken, his clothes still ripped and bloodied, but the man within renewed. All fatigue, all weakness, all injury, had been wiped away. He was a man made whole again, radiating awesome power and implacable resolve. And his eyes were so fierce, so terrible in their determination that she was glad he was a friend and not a foe. This was the man who led the forces of Light against Chaos ages ago ... the man she loved.

Glaeken held the reassembled sword out before him, its runes swirling and cascading over the blade. His blue eyes shining, he turned to Magda and saluted her with it.

"Thank you, my Lady," he said softly. "I knew you had courage—I never dreamed how much."

Magda glowed in his praise. My Lady ... he called me his Lady.

Glaeken gestured to Papa. "Take him through the gate. I'll stand guard until you're safe on the causeway."

Magda's knees wobbled as she stood up. A quick glance around showed a jumble of fallen corpses. Rasalom had disappeared. "Where—?"

"I'll find him," Glaeken said. "But first I must see you where I know you'll be safe."

Magda bent and grabbed Papa under the arms and dragged his pitifully light form the few feet that took them across the threshold and onto the causeway. His breathing was shallow. He was bleeding from a thousand tiny wounds. She began dabbing at them with her skirt.

"Good-bye, Magda."

It was Glaeken's voice and it held a terrible note of finality. She looked up to see him staring at her with a look of infinite sadness on his face.

"Good-bye? Where are you going?"

"To finish a war that should have been over ages ago." His voice faltered. "I wish..."

Dread gripped her. "You're coming back to me, aren't you?"

Glaeken turned and walked toward the courtyard.

"Glaeken?"

He disappeared into the maw of the tower. Her cry was half wail, half sob.

"Glaeken!"

TWENTY-NINE

There was darkness within the tower. More than mere shadow—it was the blackness that only Rasalom could spawn. It engulfed Glaeken, but he was not entirely helpless against it. His rune sword began to glow with a pale blue light as soon as he stepped through the tower entrance. The images of the hilt laid into the walls responded immediately to the presence of the original and lit with white-and-yellow fire that pulsated slowly, dimly, as if to the rhythm of a massive and faraway heart.

The sound of Magda's voice followed Glaeken within and he stood at the foot of the tower stairs trying to shut out the pain he heard as she called his name, knowing that if he listened he would weaken. He had to cut her off, just as he had to sever all other ties to the world outside the keep. There was only he and Rasalom now. Their millennia of conflict would end here today. He would see to that.

He let the power of the glowing sword surge through him. It was good to hold it again—like being reunited with a lost part of his body. But even the power of the sword could not reach the growing knot of despair tangled deep within him.

He was not going to win today. Even if he succeeded in killing Rasalom, the victory would cost him everything ... for victory would eliminate the purpose of his continued existence. He would no longer be of use. to the Power he served.

If he could defeat Rasalom...

He pushed all that behind him. This was no way to enter battle. He had to set his mind to victory—that was the Only way to win. And he must win.

He looked around. He sensed Rasalom somewhere above. Why? There was no escape that way.

Glaeken ran up the steps to the second-level landing and stood there, alert, wary, his senses bristling. He could still sense Rasalom far above him, yet the dark air here was thick with danger. The replicas of the hilts pulsed dully from the walls, cruciform beacons in a black fog. A short distance to his right he saw the dim outline of the steps to the third level. Nothing moved.

He started for the next set of steps, then stopped. Suddenly, there was movement all around him. As he watched, a crowd of dark shapes rose from the floor and the shadowed corners. Glaeken swiveled left and right, quickly counting a dozen German corpses.

So ... Rasalom wasn't alone when he retreated.

As the corpses lurched toward him, Glaeken positioned himself with the next flight of stairs to his rear and prepared to meet them. They didn't frighten him—he knew the scope and limits of Rasalom's powers and was familiar with all his tricks. Those animated lumps of dead flesh could not hurt him.

But they did puzzle him. What did Rasalom hope to gain by this grisly diversion?

With no conscious effort on his part, Glaeken's body set itself for battle—legs spread, the right slightly rearward of the left, sword held ready before him in a two-handed grip—as the corpses closed in. He did not have to do battle with them; he knew he could stroll through their ranks and make them fall away to all sides by merely touching them. But that was not enough for him. His warrior instinct demanded that he strike out at them. And Glaeken willingly gave in to that demand. He ached to slash at anything connected with Rasalom. These dead Germans would feed the fire he would need for his final confrontation with their master.

The corpses had gained momentum and were now a closing semicircle of dim forms rushing toward him, arms outstretched, hands set into claws. As the first came within reach, Glaeken began to swing the sword in short, slicing arcs, severing an arm to his right, lopping off a head to his left. There was a white flash along the length of the blade each time it made contact, a hiss and sizzle as it seared its way effortlessly through the dead flesh, and a rising curl of oily yellow smoke from the wound as each cadaver went limp and sank to the floor.

Glaeken spun and swung and spun again, his mouth twisting at the nightmarish quality of the scene around him. It was not the pale voids of the oncoming faces, gray in the muted light, that disconcerted him, or the stench of them. It was the silence. There were no commands from officers, no cries of pain or rage, no shouts of bloodlust. Only shuffling feet, the sound of his own breathing, and the sizzle of the sword as it did its work.

This was not battle, this was cutting meat. He was only adding to the carnage the Germans had wrought upon one another hours earlier. Still they pressed toward him, undaunted, undauntable, the ones behind pushing against those closest to Glaeken, ever tightening the ring.

With half of the cadavers piled at his feet, Glaeken took a step backward to give himself more room to swing. His heel caught on one of the fallen bodies and he began to stagger back, off balance. In that instant he sensed movement above and behind him. Startled, he glanced up to see two cadavers come hurtling down off the steps leading to the next level. There was no time to dodge. Their combined weight struck him with numbing force and bore him to the floor. Before he could throw them off, the remaining cadavers were upon him, piling on one another and pinning Glaeken under half a ton of dead flesh.

He remained calm, although he could barely breathe under the weight. The little air that did reach him reeked with a mixture of burnt flesh, dried blood, and excrement from those cadavers with gut wounds. Gagging, grunting, he marshaled all his strength and forced his body upward through the suffocating pile.

As he raised himself to his hands and knees, he felt the stone blocks of the floor beneath him begin to vibrate. He did not know what it meant or what was causing it—Glaeken knew only that he had to get away from here. With a final convulsive heave, he threw off the remaining bodies and leaped to the steps.

Behind him there came a loud grinding and scraping of stone upon stone. From the safety of the steps he turned and saw the section of the floor where he had been pinned disappear. It shattered and fell away, taking many of the cadavers with it. There was a muffled crash as the tumbling stone and flesh struck the first-floor landing directly below.

Shaken, Glaeken leaned against the wall to catch his breath and clear the stench of the cadavers from his nostrils. There was a reason behind these attempts to hinder his progress—Rasalom never acted without a purpose—but what? As Glaeken turned to make his way up to the third level, movement on the floor caught his eye. At the edge of the hole a severed arm from one of the corpses had begun dragging itself toward him, clawing its way along the floor with its fingers. Shaking his head in bafflement, Glaeken continued up the steps, his thoughts racing through what he knew of Rasalom, trying to guess what was going on in that twisted mind. Halfway up, he felt a trickle of falling dust brush against his face. Without looking up, he slammed himself flat against the wall just in time to avoid a stone block falling from above. It landed with a shattering crash on the spot he had occupied an instant before.

An upward glance showed that the stone had dislodged itself from the inner edge of the stairwell. Rasalom's doing again. Did Rasalom still harbor hopes of maiming or disabling him? Rasalom must know that he was only forestalling the inevitable confrontation.

But the outcome of that confrontation ... that was anything but inevitable. In the powers each of them had been allotted, Rasalom had always had the upper hand. Chief among his powers were command over light and darkness, and the power to make animals and inanimate objects obey his will. Above all, Rasalom was invulnerable to trauma of any kind, from any weapon—save Glaeken's rune sword.

Glaeken was not so well armed. Although he never aged or sickened and had been imbued with a fierce vitality and supernal strength, he could succumb to catastrophic injury. He had come close to succumbing in the gorge. Never in all his millennia had he felt death's chill breath so close on the nape of his neck. He had managed to outrun it, but only with Magda's help.

The scales were nearly balanced now. The hilt and blade were reunited—the sword was intact in Glaeken's hands. Rasalom had his superior powers but was hemmed in by the walls of the keep; he could not retreat and plan to meet Glaeken another day. It had to be now. Now!

Glaeken approached the third level cautiously. It was deserted—nothing moving, nothing hiding in the dark. As he walked across the landing to the next flight of stairs, he felt the tower tremble. The landing shook, then cracked, then fell away, almost beneath his feet, leaving him pressed against a wall with his heels resting precariously on a tiny ledge. Peering over the toes of his boots, he saw the crumbling stone block of the floor crash down to the landing below in a choking cloud of dust.

Too close, he thought, allowing himself to breathe again. And yet, not close enough.

He surveyed the wreckage. Only the landing had fallen away. The third-level rooms were still intact behind the wall against his back. He turned around and inched his way along the ledge toward the next set of steps. As he passed the door to the rooms, it was suddenly jerked open and Glaeken found himself facing the lunging forms of two more German cadavers. They flung themselves against him as one, going slack as soon as they made contact with him, but striking with enough force to knock him backwards. Only the fingertips of his free hand saved him from falling by catching and clinging to the doorjamb as he swung out in a wide arc over the yawning opening below.

The pair of corpses, unable to cling to anything, fell limp and silent through the darkness to the rubble below.

Glaeken pulled himself inside the doorway and rested. Much too close.

But he could now venture a guess as to what his ancient enemy had in mind: Had Rasalom hoped to push him into the opening and then collapse all or part of the tower's inner structure down on him? If the falling tons of rock did not kill Glaeken once and for all, they would at least trap him.

It could work, Glaeken thought, his eyes searching the shadows for more cadavers lying in wait. And if successful, Rasalom would be able to use the German corpses to remove just enough rubble to expose the sword. After that he would have to wait for some villager or traveler to happen by—someone he could induce to take the sword and carry it across the threshold. It might work, but Glaeken sensed that Rasalom had something else in mind.

Magda watched with dread and dismay as Glaeken disappeared into the tower. She yearned to run after him and pull him back, but Papa needed her—more now than at anytime before. She tore her heart and mind away from Glaeken and bent to the task of tending her father's wounds.

They were terrible wounds. Despite her best efforts to stanch its flow, Papa's blood was soon pooled around him, seeping between the timbers of the causeway and making the long fall to the stream that trickled below.

With a sudden flutter his eyes opened and looked at her from a mask that was ghastly in its whiteness.

"Magda," he said. She could barely hear him.

"Don't talk, Papa. Save your strength."

"There's none left to save ... I'm sorry..."

"Shush!" She bit her lower lip. He's not going to die—I won't let him!

"I have to say it now. I won't have another chance."

"That's not—"

"Only wanted to make things right again. That was all. I meant you no harm. I want you to know—"

His voice was drowned out by a deep crashing rumble from within the keep. The causeway vibrated with the force of it. Magda saw clouds of dust billowing out of the second- and third-level windows of the tower. Glaeken...?

"I've been a fool," Papa was saying, his voice even weaker than before. "I forsook our faith and everything else I believe in—even my own daughter—because of his lies. I even caused the man you loved to be killed."

"It's all right," she told him. "The man I love still lives! He's in the keep right now. He's going to put an end to this horror once and for all."

Papa tried to smile. "I can see in your eyes how you feel about him ... if you have any sons..."

There was another rumble, much louder than the first. Magda saw dust gush out from all the levels of the tower this time. Someone was standing alone on the edge of the tower roof. When she turned back to Papa his eyes were glazed and his chest was still.

"Papa?" She shook him. She pounded his chest and shoulders, refusing to believe what all her senses and instincts told her. "Papa, wake up! Wake up!"

She remembered how she had hated him last night, how she had wished him dead. And now ... now she wanted to take it all back, to have him listen to her for just a single minute, to have him hear her say she had forgiven him, that she loved and revered him and that nothing had really changed. Papa couldn't leave without letting her tell him that!

Glaeken! Glaeken would know what to do! She looked up at the tower and saw that there were now two figures facing each other on the parapet.

Glaeken sprinted up the next two flights to the fifth level, dodging falling stone, skirting sudden holes in the floors. From there it was a quick vertical climb out of the darkness to the tower roof.

He found Rasalom standing on the parapet at the far side of the roof, his cloak hanging limp in the expectant hush before sunrise. Below and behind Rasalom lay the mist-choked Dinu Pass; and beyond that, the high eastern wall of the pass, its crest etched in fire by the awakening sun, as yet unseen.

As he started forward, Glaeken wondered why Rasalom waited so calmly in such a precarious position. When the roof suddenly began to crumble and fall away beneath his feet, he knew. In a purely reflexive move, Glaeken made a headlong lunge to his right and managed to fling his free arm over the parapet. By the time he had pulled himself up to a crouching position, the roof and all the inner structure of the third, fourth, and fifth levels had fallen away to crash onto and break through the second level with an impact that shook the remaining structure of the tower. The tons of debris came to rest on the first level, leaving Glaeken and Rasalom balanced on the rim of a giant hollow cylinder of stone. But Rasalom could do nothing more to the tower. The images of the hilt laid into the outer walls made them proof against his powers.

Glaeken moved counterclockwise around the rim, expecting Rasalom to back away.

He did not. Instead, he spoke in the Forgotten Tongue.

"So, barbarian, it's down to the two of us again, isn't it?"

Glaeken did not reply. He was feeding his hatred, stoking the fires of rage with thoughts of what Magda had endured at Rasalom's hands. Glaeken needed that rage to strike the final blow. He couldn't allow himself to think or listen or reason or hesitate. He had to strike. He had weakened five centuries ago when he had imprisoned Rasalom instead of slaying him. He would not weaken now. This conflict had to find its end.

"Come now, Glaeken," Rasalom said in a soft, conciliatory tone. "Isn't it time we put an end to this war of ours?"

"Yes!" Glaeken said through clenched teeth. He glanced down at the causeway and saw the miniature figure of Magda bending over her stricken father. The old berserker fury reared up in him, pushing him to run the last four paces with his sword poised for a two-handed decapitating blow.

"Truce!" Rasalom screamed and cowered back, his composure shattered at last.

"No truce!"

"Half a world! I offer you half a world, Glaeken! We'll divide it evenly and you can keep whomever you wish with you! The other half will be mine."

Glaeken slowed, then raised the sword again. "No! No half measures this time!"

Rasalom ferreted out Glaeken's worst fear and flung it at him. "Kill me and you seal your own doom!"

"Where is that written?" Despite all his prior resolve, Glaeken could not help but hesitate.

"It doesn't need to be written! It's obvious! You continue to exist only to oppose me. Eliminate me and you eliminate your reason for being. Kill me and you kill yourself."

It was obvious. Glaeken had dreaded this moment since that night in Tavira when he had first become aware of Rasalom's release from the cell. Yet all the while, in the back of his mind, there had been a tiny hope that killing Rasalom would not be a suicidal act.

But it was a futile hope. He had to face that. The choice was clear: Strike now and end it all or consider a truce.

Why not a truce? Half a world was better than death. At least he would be alive ... and he could have Magda at his side.

Rasalom must have guessed his thoughts.

"You seem to like the girl," Rasalom said, looking down toward the causeway. "You could keep her with you. You wouldn't have to lose her. She's a brave little insect, isn't she?"

"That's all we are to you? Insects?"

" 'We'? Are you such a romantic that you still count yourself among them? We are above and beyond anything they could ever hope to be—as close to gods as they'll ever see! We should unite and act the part instead of warring as we do."

"I've never set myself apart from them. I've tried all along to live as a normal man."

"But you're not a normal man and you can't live as one! They die while you go on living! You can't be one of them. Don't try! Be what you are—their superior! Join me and we'll rule them. Kill me and we'll both die!"

Glaeken wavered. If only he could have a little more time to decide. He wanted to be rid of Rasalom once and for all. But he didn't want to die. Especially not now after he had just found Magda. He couldn't bear the thought of leaving her behind. He needed more time with her.

Magda ... Glaeken dared not look, but he could feel her eyes on him at this very moment. A great heaviness settled in his chest. Only moments ago she had risked everything to hold Rasalom in the keep and give him time. Could he do any less and still deserve her? He remembered her glowing eyes as she had handed him the hilt: "I knew you would come."

He had lowered his sword while battling with himself. Seeing this, Rasalom smiled. And that smile was the final impetus.

For Magda! Glaeken thought and lifted the point. At that moment the sun topped the eastern ridge and poured into his eyes. Through the glare he saw Rasalom diving toward him.

Glaeken realized in that instant why Rasalom had been so talkative, why he had tried so many seemingly fruitless delaying tactics, and why Rasalom had allowed him to approach within striking range of the sword: He had been waiting for the sun to crest the mountains behind him and momentarily blind Glaeken. And now Rasalom was making his move, a last, desperate attempt to remove Glaeken and the hilt from the keep by pushing them both over the edge of the tower.

He came in low under the point of Glaeken's sword, his arms outstretched. There was no room for Glaeken to maneuver—he could not sidestep, nor could he safely retreat. All he could do was brace himself and lift the sword higher, dangerously high until his arms were almost straight up over his head. Glaeken knew it raised his center of gravity to a precarious level, but he was no less desperate than Rasalom. It had to end here and now.

When the impact came—Rasalom's hands ramming against his lower rib cage with numbing force—Glaeken felt himself driven backwards. He concentrated on the sword, driving the point down into Rasalom's exposed back, piercing him through. With a scream of rage and agony, Rasalom tried to straighten up, but Glaeken held on to the sword as he continued to fall backwards.

Together they toppled over the edge and plummeted down.

Glaeken found himself unnaturally calm as they seemed to drift through the air toward the gorge below, locked in combat to the very end. He had won.

And he had lost.

Rasalom's scream wavered to a halt. His black, incredulous eyes bulged toward Glaeken, refusing to believe even now that he was dying. And then he began to shrivel—the rune sword was devouring him body and essence as they fell. Rasalom's skin began to dry, peel, crack, flake off, and fly away. Before Glaeken's eyes, his ancient enemy crumbled into dust.

As he approached the level of the fog, Glaeken looked away. He caught a glimpse of Magda's horrified expression as she watched from the causeway. He began to lift his hand in farewell but the fog engulfed him too soon.

All that remained now was the shattering impact with the stones invisible below.

Magda stared at the two figures atop the tower parapet. They were close, almost touching. She saw the red of Glaeken's hair turn to fire as it caught the light of the rising sun, saw a flash of metal, and then the two figures grappled. They twisted and teetered on the edge. Then they fell as one.

Her own scream rose to join the fading wail from one of the struggling pair as their intertwined forms fell into the ebbing mist and were lost from sight.

For a long frozen moment time stood still for Magda. She did not move, did not breathe. Glaeken and Rasalom had fallen together, and had been swallowed up by the fog in the gorge. Glaeken had fallen! She had watched helplessly as he plunged to certain death.

Dazed, she stepped to the edge of the causeway and looked down at the spot where this man who had come to mean everything to her had disappeared. Her mind and body were completely numb. Darkness encroached on the periphery of her vision, threatening to overwhelm her. With a start she shook off the awful lethargy, the creeping desire to lean farther and farther over the edge until she, too, toppled forward and joined Glaeken below. She turned and began to run along the causeway.

It can't be! she thought as her feet pounded the timbers. Not both of them! First Papa and now Glaeken—not the two of them at once!

Off the causeway, she ran to the right toward the closed end of the gorge. Glaeken had survived one fall into the gorge—he could survive two! Please, yes! But this fall was so much farther! She scrambled down the wedge of rocky debris, unmindful of the scrapes and bruises she collected along the way. The sun, although not high enough yet to shine directly into the gorge, was warming the air in the pass and thinning the mist. She made her way swiftly across the floor of the gorge, stumbling, falling, picking herself up and pushing on, as close to a run as the broken, rutted terrain permitted. Passing under the causeway, she blotted out the thought of Papa's body lying up there alone, unattended. She splashed across the stream to the base of the tower.

Panting, Magda stopped and turned in a slow circle, her frantic eyes searching among the boulders and rocks for some sign of life. She saw no one... nothing.

"Glaeken?" Her voice sounded weak and raspy. She called again, "Glaeken?"

No answer.

He has to be here!

Something glittered not far away. Magda ran over to look. It was the sword ... what was left of it. The blade had shattered into countless fragments; and among the fragments lay the hilt, bereft of its glossy gold and silver hues. An immeasurable sense of loss settled over Magda as she lifted the hilt and ran her hands over its dull-gray surface. A reverse alchemy had occurred; it had turned to lead. Magda fought against the conclusion, but deep within her she knew that the hilt had served the purpose for which it had been designed.

Rasalom was dead, therefore the sword was no longer necessary. Neither was the man who had wielded it.

There would be no miracle this time.

Magda cried out in anguish, a formless sound that escaped her lips involuntarily and continued for as long and as loud as her lungs and voice could sustain it. A sound full of loss and despair, reverberating off the walls of the keep and the gorge, echoing away into the pass.

And when the last trace of it had died away, she stood with bowed head and slumped shoulders, wanting to cry but all cried out; wanting to strike out at whoever or whatever was to blame for this, but knowing everyone—everyone but her—was dead; wanting to scream and rage at the blind injustice of it all but too dead inside to do anything more than give way to deep, dry, wracking sobs from the very core of her being.

Magda stood there for what seemed like a long time and tried to find a reason to go on living. There was nothing left. Every single thing she had cherished in life had been torn from her. She could not think of one reason to go on...

And yet there had to be. Glaeken had lived so long and had never run out of reasons to go on living. He had admired her courage. Would it be an act of courage now to give up everything?

No. Glaeken would have wanted her to live. Everything he was, everything he did, had been for life. Even his death had been for life.

She hugged the hilt against her until the sobs stopped, then turned and began walking away, not knowing where she would go or what she would do, but knowing she would somehow find a way and a reason to keep going.

And she would keep the hilt. It was all she had left.

EPILOGUE

I'm alive.

He sat in the darkness, touching his body to reassure himself that he still existed. Rasalom was gone, reduced to a handful of dust flung into the air. At last, after ages, Rasalom was no more.

Yet I live on. Why?

He had plummeted through the fog, landing on the rocks with force enough to shatter every bone in his body. The blade had broken, the hilt had changed.

Yet he lived on.

At the moment of impact he had felt something go out of him and he had lain there waiting to die.

Yet he hadn't.

His right leg hurt terribly. But he could see, he could feel, breathe, move. And he could hear. When he had picked up the sound of Magda approaching across the floor of the gorge, he had dragged himself to the hinged stone at the base of the tower, opened it, and crawled within. He had waited in silence as she called out his name, covering his ears to shut out the pain and bewilderment in her voice, longing to answer her, yet unable to. Not yet. Not until he was sure.

And now he heard her splashing away through the stream. He swung the stone open all the way and tried to stand. His right leg wouldn't support him. Was it broken?—he had never had a broken bone before. Unable to walk, he crawled down to the water. He had to look. He had to know before he did another thing.

At the edge of the stream he hesitated. He could see the growing blue of the sky in the rippled surface of the water. Would he see anything else when he leaned over it?

Please, he said in his mind to the Power he had served, the Power that might no longer be listening. Please let this be the end of it. Let me live out the rest of my allotted years like a normal man. Let me have this woman to grow old with instead of watching her wither away while I remain young. Let this be the end of it. I have completed the task. Set me free!

Setting his jaw, he thrust his head over the water. A weary red-haired man with blue eyes and an olive complexion stared back. His image was there! He could see himself! His reflection had been returned to him!

Joy and relief flooded through Glaeken. It's over! It's finally over!

He lifted his head and looked across the gorge to the slowly receding figure of the woman he loved like no other woman in all his long life.

"Magda!" He tried to stand but the damn leg still wouldn't hold him up. He was going to have to let it heal like anybody else. "Magda!"

She turned and stood immobile for an eternity. He waved both his arms over his head. He would have sobbed aloud had he remembered how. Among other things, he would have to learn how to cry again.

"Magda!"

Something fell from her hands, something that looked like the hilt to his sword. Then she was running toward him, running as fast as her long legs would carry her, her expression a mixture of joy and doubt, as if she wanted him to be there more than anything in the world but could not allow herself to believe until she had touched him.

Glaeken was there, waiting to be touched.

And far above, a blue-winged bird with a beak full of straw fluttered to a gentle perch on a window ledge of the keep in search of a place to build a nest.