Adversary Cycle 01 - The Keep

by F. Paul Wilson

  "Without you?"

  "Of course without me!"

  "Put it out of your mind, Papa! Where you stay, I stay."

  "Magda, I'm commanding you as your father to obey me!"

  "Don't! I will not desert you. I couldn't live with myself I did!"

  As much as he appreciated the sentiment, it did nothing to lessen his frustration. Clearly the commanding approach was not going to work this time. He decided to plead. Over the years he had become adept at getting his way with her. By one method or another, by browbeating or twisting her up with guilt, he could usually make her accede to whatever he desired. Sometimes he did not like himself for the way he dominated her life, but she was his daughter, and he, her father. And he had needed her. Yet now, when it was time to cut her free so that she could save herself, she would not go.

  "Please, Magda. As one last favor to a dying old man who would go smiling to his grave if he knew you were safe from the Nazis."

  "And me knowing I left you among them? Never!"

  "Please listen to me! You can take the Al Azif with you. It's bulky I know, but it's probably the last surviving copy in any language. There isn't a country in the world where you couldn't sell it for enough money to keep you comfortable for life."

  "No, Papa," she said with a determination in her voice that he could not recall ever hearing before.

  She turned away and walked into the rear room, closing the door behind her.

  I've taught her too well, he thought. I've bound her so tightly to me I cannot push her away even for her own good. Is that why she never married? Because of me?

  Cuza rubbed his itching eyes with cotton-gloved fingers, thinking back over the years. Ever since puberty Magda had been a constant object of male attention. Something in her appealed to different sorts of men in different ways; she rarely left one untouched. She probably would have been married and a mother a number of times over by now—and he, a grandfather—if her mother had not died so suddenly eleven years ago. Magda, only twenty then, had changed, taking on the roles of his companion, secretary, associate, and now nurse. The men about soon found her remote. Magda gradually built up a shell of self-absorption. Cuza knew every weak spot in that shell—and could pierce it at will. To all others she was immune.

  But there were more pressing concerns at the moment. Magda faced a very short future unless she escaped the keep. Beyond that, there was the apparition they had encountered last night. Cuza was sure it would return with the passing of the day, and he did not want Magda here when it did. Something in its eyes had caused fear to grip his heart like an icy fist. Such an unspeakable hunger there . . . he wanted Magda far away tonight.

  But more than anything else he wanted to stay here by himself and wait for it to return. This was the moment of a lifetime—a dozen lifetimes! To come face to face with a myth, with a creature that had been used for centuries to frighten children. Adults, too. To document its existence! He had to speak to this thing again . . . induce it to answer. He had to learn which of the myths surrounding it were true and which false.

  The mere thought of the meeting made his heart race with excitement and anticipation. Strangely, he did not feel terribly threatened by the creature. He knew its language and had even communicated with it last night. It had understood and had left them unharmed. He sensed the possibility of a common ground between them, a place for a meeting of minds. He certainly did not wish to stop it or harm it—Theodor Cuza was not an enemy of anything that reduced the ranks of the German Army.

  He looked down at the littered table before him. He was sure he would find nothing threatening to the being in these despicable old books. He now understood why they had been suppressed—they were abominations. But they were useful as props in the little play he was acting out for those two bickering German officers. He had to remain in the keep until he had learned all he could from the being that dwelt here. Then the Germans could do what they wished with him.

  But Magda . . . Magda had to be on her way to safety before he could devote his attention to anything else. She would not leave of her own accord . . . but what if she were driven out? Captain Woermann might be the key there. He did not seem too happy about having a woman quartered in the keep. Yes, if Woermann could be provoked . . .

  Cuza despised himself for what he was about to do.

  "Magda!" he called. "Magda!"

  She opened the door and looked out. "I hope this is not about my leaving the keep, because—"

  "Not the keep; just the room. I'm hungry and the Germans told us they'd feed us from their kitchen."

  "Did they bring us any food?"

  "No. And I'm sure they won't. You'll have to go get some. "

  She stiffened. "Across the courtyard? You want me to go back out there after what happened?"

  "I'm sure it won't happen again." He hated lying to her, but it was the only way. "The men have been warned by their officers. And besides, you'll not be on any dark cellar stairway. You'll be out in the open."

  "But the way they look at me . . ."

  "We have to eat."

  A long pause as his daughter stared at him, then she nodded. "I suppose we do."

  Magda buttoned her sweater all the way to the neck as she crossed the room, saying nothing as she left.

  Cuza felt his throat constrict as the door closed behind her. She had courage, and trust in him . . . a trust he was betraying. And yet keeping. He knew what she faced out there, and yet he had knowingly sent her into it. Supposedly for food.

  He wasn't the least bit hungry.

  SIXTEEN

  The Danube Delta, Eastern Romania

  Wednesday, April 30

  1035 hours

  Land was in sight again.

  Sixteen unnervingly frustrating hours, each one like an endless day, were finally at an end. The red-haired man stood on the weathered bow and looked shoreward. The sardiner had chugged across the placid expanse of the Black Sea at a steady pace, a good pace, but one made maddeningly slow by the sole passenger's relentless sense of urgency. At least they had not been stopped by either of the two military patrol boats they had passed, one Russian, one Romanian. That could have proved disastrous.

  Directly ahead lay the multichanneled delta where the Danube emptied into the Black Sea. The shore was green and swampy, pocked with countless coves. Getting ashore would be easy, but traveling through the bogs to higher, drier land would be time consuming. And there was no time!

  He had to find another way.

  The red-haired man glanced over his shoulder at the old Turk at the helm, then forward again to the delta. The sardine boat didn't draw much—it could move comfortably in about four feet of water. It was a possibility—take one of these tiny delta tributaries up to the Danube itself, then chug west along the river to a point, say, just east of Galati. They would be traveling against the current but it had to be faster than scrambling on foot through miles of sucking mire.

  He dug into his money belt and brought out two Mexican fifty-peso pieces. Together they gave a weight of about two and a half ounces of gold. Turning again, he held them up to the Turk, addressing him in his native tongue.

  "Kiamil! Two more coins if you'll take me upstream!"

  The fisherman stared at the coins, saying nothing, chewing his lower lip. He already had enough gold in his pocket to make him the richest man in his village. At least for a while. But nothing lasts forever, and soon he would be out on the water again, hauling in his nets. The two extra coins could forestall that. Who knew how many days on the water, how many hand cuts, how many pains in an aging back, how many hauls of fish would have to be unloaded at the cannery to earn an equivalent amount?

  The red-haired man watched Kiamil's face as the calculations of risks against profits played across it. And as he watched, he, too, calculated the risks: They would be traveling by day, never far from shore because of the narrowness of the waterway along most of the route, in Romanian waters in a boat of Turkish registry.

&nbs
p; It was insane. Even if by some miracle of chance they reached the edge of Galati without being stopped, Kiamil could not expect a similar miracle on the return trip downstream. He would be caught, his boat impounded, and he imprisoned. Conversely, there was little risk to the red-haired man. If they were stopped and brought into port, he was sure he could find a way to escape and continue his trek. But Kiamil at the very least would lose his boat. Possibly his life.

  It wasn't worth it. And it wasn't fair. He lowered the coins just as the Turk was about to reach for them.

  "Never mind, Kiamil," he said. "I think it might be better if we just keep to our original agreement. Put me ashore anywhere along here."

  The old man nodded, relief rather than disappointment showing on his leathery face at the withdrawal of the offer. The sight of the gold coins held out to him had almost turned him into a fool.

  As the boat nosed toward shore, the red-haired man slipped the cord that tied the blanket roll with all his possessions over his shoulder and lifted the long, flat case under his arm. Kiamil reversed the engines within a foot or two of the gray mixture of sand and dirt overgrown with rank, wiry grasses that served for a bank here. The red-haired man stepped onto the gunwale and leaped ashore.

  He turned to look back at Kiamil. The Turk waved and began to back the boat away from shore.

  "Kiamil!" he shouted. "Here!" He tossed the two fifty-peso gold pieces out to the boat one at a time. Each was unerringly snatched from the air by a brown, callused hand.

  With loud and profuse thanks in the name of Mohammed and all that was holy in Islam ringing in his ears, the red-haired man turned and began to pick his way across the marsh. Clouds of insects, poisonous snakes, and bottomless holes of quicksand lay directly ahead of him, and beyond that would be units of Iron Guard. They could not stop him, but they could slow him down. As threats to his life they were insignificant compared to what he knew lay half a day's ride due west in the Dinu Pass.

  SEVENTEEN

  The Keep

  Wednesday, 30 April

  1647 hours

  Woermann stood at his window and watched the men in the courtyard. Yesterday they had been intermingled, the black uniforms interspersed with the gray ones. This afternoon they were separated, an invisible line dividing the einsatzkommandos from the regular army men.

  Yesterday they had had a common enemy, one who killed regardless of the color of the uniform. But last night the enemy had not killed, and by this afternoon they were all acting like victors, each side claiming credit for the night of safety. It was a natural rivalry. The einsatzkommandos saw themselves as elite troops, SS specialists in a special kind of warfare. The regular army men saw themselves as the real soldiers; although they feared what the black uniform of the SS represented, they looked on the einsatzkommandos as little more than glorified policemen.

  Unity had begun to break down at breakfast. It had been a normal mess period until the girl, Magda, had shown up. There had been some good-natured jostling and elbowing for a place near her as she moved past the food bins, filling a tray for herself and her father. Not an incident really, but her very appearance at morning mess had begun to divide the two groups. The SS contingent automatically assumed that since she was a Jew they had a preemptive right to do with her as they wished. The regular army men did not feel anyone had a preemptive right to the girl. She was beautiful. Try as she might to cover her hair in that old kerchief and bundle her body in those shapeless clothes, she could not conceal her femininity. It radiated through all her attempts to minimize it. It was there in the softness of her skin, in the smoothness of her throat, the turn of her lips, the tilt of her sparkling brown eyes. She was fair game for anyone as far as the regular army troops were concerned—with the real fighting men getting first chance, of course.

  Woermann hadn't noticed it at the time but the first cracks in the previous day's solidarity had appeared.

  At the noon mess a shoving match between gray and black uniforms began, again while the girl was going through the line. Two men slipped and fell on the floor during the minor fracas, and Woermann sent the sergeant over to break it up before any serious blows could be struck. By that time Magda had taken her food and departed.

  Shortly after lunch she had wandered about, looking for him. She had told him that her father needed a cross or a crucifix as part of his research into one of the manuscripts. Could the captain lend her one? He could—a little silver cross removed from one of the dead soldiers.

  And now the off-duty men sat apart in the courtyard while the rest worked at dismantling the rear of the keep. Woermann was trying to think of ways to avoid certain trouble at the evening mess. Maybe the best thing to do was to have someone load up a tray at each meal and bring it to the old man and his daughter in the tower. The less seen of the girl, the better.

  His eyes were drawn to movement directly below him. It was Magda, hesitant at first, and then with straight-backed, high-chinned decisiveness, marching bucket in hand toward the cellar entry. The men followed her at first with their eyes, then they were on their feet, drifting toward her from all corners of the courtyard, like soap bubbles swirling toward an unstoppered drain.

  When she came up from the cellar with her bucket of water, they were waiting for her in a thick semicircle, pushing and shoving toward the front for a good close look at her. They were calling to her, moving before, beside, and behind her as she tentatively made her way back to the tower. One of the einsatzkommandos blocked her way but was pushed aside by a regular army man who grabbed her bucket with exaggerated gallantry and carried it ahead of her, a clown footman. But the SS man who had been pushed snatched at the bucket; he succeeded only in spilling the contents over the legs and the boots of the one who now held it.

  As laughter started from the black uniforms, the face of the regular army man turned a bright red. Woermann could see what was coming but was helpless to stop it from his position on the third level of the tower. He watched the soldier in gray swing the bucket at the SS man, saw the bucket connect full force with the head, then Woermann was away from the window and running down the steps as fast as his legs would carry him.

  As he reached the bottom landing, he saw the door to the Jews' suite swing shut behind a flash of skirt fabric, then he was out in the courtyard facing a full-scale brawl. He had to fire his pistol twice to get the men's attention and had to threaten to shoot the next one who threw a punch before the fighting actually stopped.

  The girl had to go.

  As things quieted down, Woermann left his men with Sergeant Oster and headed directly for the first floor of the tower. While Kaempffer was busy squaring away the einsatzkommandos, Woermann would use the opportunity to start the girl on her way out of the keep. If he could get her across the causeway and into the inn before Kaempffer was aware of what was happening, there was a good chance he could keep her out.

  He did not bother to knock this time, but pushed the door open and stepped inside. "Fräulein Cuza!"

  The old man was still sitting at the table; the girl was nowhere in sight. "What do you want with her?"

  He ignored the father. "Fräulein Cuza!"

  "Yes?" she said, stepping out of the rear room, her face anxious.

  "I want you packed to leave for the inn immediately. You have two minutes. No more."

  "But I can't leave my father!"

  "Two minutes and you are leaving, with or without your things!"

  He would not be swayed, and he hoped his face showed it. He did not like to separate the girl and her father—the professor obviously needed care and she obviously was devoted to caring for him—but the men under his command came first, and she was a disruptive influence. The father would have to remain in the keep; the daughter would have to stay in the inn. There was no room for argument.

  Woermann watched her cast a pleading look at her father, begging him to say something. But the old man remained silent. She took a deep breath and turned toward the back room.


  "You now have a minute and a half," Woermann told her.

  "A minute and a half for what?" said a voice behind him. It was Kaempffer.

  Groaning inwardly and readying himself for a battle of wills, Woermann faced the SS man.

  "Your timing is superb as usual, Major," he said. "I was just telling Fräulein Cuza to pack her things and move herself over to the inn."

  Kaempffer opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by the professor.

  "I forbid it!" he cried in his dry, shrill voice. "I will not permit you to send my daughter away!"

  Kaempffer's eyes narrowed as his attention was drawn from Woermann to Cuza. Even Woermann found himself turning in surprise to see what had prompted the outburst.

  "You forbid, old Jew?" Kaempffer said in a hoarse voice as he moved past Woermann to the professor. "You forbid? Let me tell you something: You forbid nothing around here! Nothing!"

  The old man bowed his head in resignation.

  Satisfied with the result of his vented anger, Kaempffer turned back to Woermann. "See that she's out of here immediately. She's a troublemaker!"

  Dazed and bemused, Woermann watched Kaempffer storm out of the room as abruptly as he had arrived. He looked at Cuza whose head was no longer bowed, and who now appeared to be resigned to nothing.

  "Why didn't you protest before the major arrived?" Woermann asked him. "I had the impression you wanted her out of the keep."

  "Perhaps. But I changed my mind."

  "So I noticed—and in a most provocative manner at a most strategic moment. Do you manipulate everyone this way?"

  "My dear Captain," Cuza said, his tone serious, "no one pays much attention to a cripple. People look at the body and see that it is wrecked by an accident or wasted by illness, and they automatically carry the infirmity to the mind within that body. 'He can't walk, therefore he can't have anything intelligent or useful or interesting to say.' So a cripple like me soon learns how to make other people come up with an idea he has already thought of, and to have them arrive at it in such a way that they believe it originated with them. It's not manipulation—it's a form of persuasion."