Dreamthief's Daughter toa-1

by Michael Moorcock

  "He will know what Prince Gaynor will tell him, " said Klosterheim. He was careless of Hess's words. He hardly heard them. "Believe me, Deputy Fuhrer Hess, we are acting entirely in the interests of the Third Reich. Ever since he was denounced as a traitor and his property confiscated, we have been expecting this madman to make an attempt on the Fiihrer's life-"

  "This is nonsense! " I began. "You know it is a lie! "

  "But is the rest a lie, Count?" His voice grew softer, more intimate. "Do you think we expected you to give up pursuit? Wasn't it obvious that you would make some attempt to reach this place? All we had to do was wait for you to bring us the Black Sword. Which I note you have kindly done."

  Hess was inclined to trust to rank. This was my only hope of buying time. As he looked to me for confirmation I shouted in my best Nazi-bark: "Captain Klosterheim, you are overstepping the mark. While we applaud your vigilance in protecting the Fuhrer, we can assure you there is nothing in this room which offers him any danger."

  "On the contrary, " agreed Hess uncertainly. His eyes, never steady at the best of times, flickered from me to Klosterheim. He was impressed by Klosterheim's handpicked storm troopers. "But perhaps, given the circumstances, we should all step outside this room and settle any confusion?"

  "Very well, " said Klosterheim. "If you will lead the way, Count von Bek ..." And he gestured with his Walther.

  "Von Bek?" Hess was startled. He looked hard at me and began to think. I had no more time. I pulled the protective fabric away from my sword. Ravenbrand was all that could save me now.

  Klosterheim's gun cracked. Two distinct shots.

  He had the sense to know when to stop me.

  The sword was only half out of the case as I felt sharp pains in my left side and began to stumble backwards under the impact of the bullets. I struggled to stay on my feet. I wanted to vomit but could not. I fell heavily against the mysterious granite altar and slipped to the flagstones. I tried to get back to my feet. My dark glasses fell off. My cap was kicked away from my head revealing my white hair. I looked up. Klosterheim was standing with his legs straddled over my body, the smoking PPK .38 still in his right hand. I do not think I have ever seen such an expression of gloating satisfaction on a human face.

  "God in Heaven! " I could hear Hess gasping. He peered down at me, his eyes widening. "Impossible! It is the Bek monster! The bloodless creature they were said to keep in their tower. Is it dead?"

  "He's not dead. Not yet, Your Excellency." Klosterheim stepped back. "We'll save him for later. We have an experiment to perform. A demonstration the Fiihrer has requested."

  "The Fiihrer, " began Hess, "surely would have told me if..." The pointed toe of a boot kicked me efficiently in the side of my head and I lost consciousness.

  Dimly, as was constant with me now, I had been sensing what was happening to my alter ego. Suddenly my nostrils were filled with a pungent, reptilian stink and looking up I stared into the familiar eyes of a huge dragon. All the wisdom of the world flickered in those eyes.

  I spoke to the dragon in a low, affectionate voice that had no real words to it, that was more music than language, and the dragon responded in the same tones. A thrumming purr came out of its monstrous throat and from its nostrils a few wisps of steam. I knew the creature's name and it remembered me. I had been a child and had changed a great deal. But the dragon remembered me, even though my body was covered in cuts and I was helplessly bound. I smiled. I began to speak a name. Then the pain in my side swept through me like a swift tide and I gasped, going down again into blackness that engulfed me like a blessing. Had Prince Lobkowitz set this trap for me? Was he now in league with Klosterheim, Gaynor and the Nazi hyena pack?

  And did Elric's fate, in his world, mirror my own? Was he, too, dying in the ruins of his old home?

  I was aware of pain, rough hands, but could not bring myself out of sleep. I woke up to the smell of oily smoke. I opened my eyes, thinking at first that the armory was on fire. But the old flambeaux brackets had been utilized and a flaming brand guttered in every holder, casting huge shifting shadows.

  I felt the tight cloth of a gag in my mouth, my hands were bound in front of me and my feet were free. I was relieved that most of my Nazi uniform had been stripped off me. I wore only a shirt and trousers. My feet were bare. I had been prepared for some kind of special treatment. I moved and agony flooded through me. I felt the wadding of a crude dressing on my wounds. My captors were not famous for administering pain relief to their victims.

  At that moment they were not interested in me and I was able to watch what was happening. I saw Hitler, a rather short man in a heavy leather military coat, standing next to the plump, frowning Goring. Nearby, SS Commander Himmler, with the prissy severity of a depraved tax inspector, was talking to Klosterheim. The two men had a similar quality about them I couldn't immediately identify. Members of Hitler's crack SS guard stood at key points in the hall, their machine guns at the ready. They looked like robots from Metropolis.

  Gaynor was nowhere to be seen. Hess was talking intensely to a rather boredlooking SS general whose attention was everywhere but on him. Oona was not here. It could mean that she had become alerted to the danger in time. Were her weapons still in the car? Could she at least get the Grail out of Hitler's clutches?

  I knew suddenly that I was dying. I had no hope of recovering unless Oona could save me. Even unbound I could not reach my sword, which now lay on the altar like some kind of trophy. While the Nazis were careful not to touch it, they peered at it as if it were a dangerous dormant snake, which might rear up to strike at any moment.

  I guessed the sword to be my only hope of life and that a slim one. I was not Elric of Melnibone, after all, but a mere human being caught up in natural and supernatural events far beyond his understanding. And about to die.

  From the dampness of the heavy dressing against my side I could tell that I was losing a great deal of blood. I could not tell if any vital organs were damaged, but it scarcely mattered. The Nazis were not about to send for a doctor. I could not imagine the nature of the "experiment" Klosterheim had in mind for me.

  The group had the air of men waiting for something. Hitler, who seemed almost as twitchy as Hess, gave the impression of an impatient street vendor, forever on the lookout for trouble. He spoke in that affected German one associates with the Austrian lower middle class and even though he was the most powerful man in the world at that moment, there was a sense of weakness about him. I wondered if this were the banality of evil which my friend Father Cornelius, the Jesuit priest, used to talk about before he went to Africa.

  I could hear very little of what was said and most of it sounded like nonsense. Hitler was laughing and slapping his leg with his gloves. The only thing I heard him say clearly was "The British will soon be begging for mercy. And we shall be generous, gentlemen. We will let them keep their institutions. They are ideal for our purposes. But first we must destroy London, eh?"

  I was surprised that this was the object of their meeting. I had thought it to do with the "objects of power" Gaynor had brought with him from the Grey Fees. The door opened and Gaynor stood there. He was dressed all in black, with a great black cloak over his armored body. He had the look of a knight from one of those interminable historical films the Nazis loved to watch. A copper swastika was emblazoned on his breastplate and another on his helmet. He looked like a demonic Siegfried. His hands were clasped around the hilt of the great ivory runesword. He stepped aside with a dramatic gesture as two of his men bundled in a struggling woman.

  My heart sank. Our last hope gone. They had Oona.

  She was no longer dressed in the Nazi uniform but wore some kind of heavy, oatcolored dress that engulfed her from head to toe. It, too, had a vaguely medieval appearance. Its collar and cuffs were decorated with red and black swastikas. Her wonderful white hair was contained by a filet of silver and her eyes blazed like dark garnets from the pale beauty of her face. She was helpless, bound hand and
foot. Her face was expressionless, her mouth set. When she saw me a look of horror came into her furious eyes. Her mouth opened in a silent scream. Then closed more firmly than ever. Only her eyes moved.

  I wanted to comfort her, but there was no comfort.

  It was clear we were meant to die.

  After greeting the others, Gaynor announced with some triumph: "Thus the game I planned reaches its conclusion. Both of these treacherous creatures have been brought to book. Both are guilty of numerous crimes against the Reich. Their fate will be a noble one, however. Nobler than they deserve. The Grail and the Black Sword are now back in our keeping. And we have the sacrifice we need to begin the final sorcery." With a nicker of mockery in his smile, he glanced at Oona. His disgusting appetite was about to be satisfied. "And strike our bargain with the Higher Worlds."

  He intended to kill us both-and in pursuit of the Nazis' obscene, half-crazed supernatural nonsense.

  The firelight reflected in the eager faces of Hitler and his comrades as they admired the struggling girl. Hitler turned to Goring and made some leering remark to which his lackey responded with a fat chuckle. Only Hess seemed ill at ease. I had the feeling he preferred fanciful daydreams to the actuality of what was evidently to be a bloody ritual.

  Goebbels and Himmler, on either side of their Fiihrer, both had tight, chilling smiles on their faces. Himmler's little round eyeglasses positively glinted with hellish glee. With the sword in one hand, Gaynor reached down and grasped Oona by her mooncolored hair. He dragged her towards the altar.

  "The chemical and the spiritual marriage of opposites, " he announced, like a showman taking the stage. "My Fuhrer, gentlemen, I promised you I would return with the Grail and the Swords. Here is the white sword of Charlemagne-and there, unwittingly returned to its proper place by this wretched half-corpse"-he indicated me-"is the black sword of Hildebrand, Theodoric's henchman. The sword called Son Slayer, with which he killed Hadubrand, his eldest child. The sword of good" - he lifted the ivory sword and pointed towards the altar - "and the sword of evil. Brought together, they will baptize the Grail with blood. Good and evil will mingle and become one. The blood will bring the Grail to life again and bestow its power upon us. Death will be banished. Our great bargain with Lord Arioch will be struck. We shall be immortal amongst immortals. All this King Clovis the Goth predicted upon his deathbed as he gave the Grail into the keeping of his steward, Dietrich von Bern, who in turn entrusted it to his brother-in-law Ermanerik, my ancestor. When the Grail is washed at last with innocent blood, virgin blood, the Nordic peoples will be united in a common bond and come together as one folk, to take their rightful place as rulers of the world."

  Insane nonsense, a farrago of myths and folktales typical of the Nazi rationalizers and with scarcely any historical basis. But Hitler and his gang were entranced by the story. Their existence, after all, depended on myths and folktales. Their political platform might have been written by the Brothers Grimm. It was quite possible Gaynor had made up much of this ritual to impress them, for he had told me that Hitler was merely his means to a greater goal. If so, his strategy was proving effective. He was using their power to summon Arioch. Even the most gullible Nazis would not be able to absorb the actuality. Little comfort to me. Whether they were delusory or not, these ideas would not help me accept my coming fate-or avert Oona's bloody death!

  Goring, grossly fat, uttered a nervous rumble of laughter. "We shall not rule the world, Colonel von Minct, until we defeat the Royal Air Force. We have the numbers. We have the ordnance. What we need now is the luck. A little magic would help."

  "The luck has held. Because it is not mere luck, but the workings of destiny." This was Hitler muttering. "But there is no harm in ensuring our victory."

  "It's always a help, " said Goring dryly, "to have a god or two on your side. By this time next week, I assure you, Colonel, we'll be dining with the king at Buckingham Palace, with or without your supernatural aid."

  Hitler seemed buoyed by his Reichsmarschall's confidence. "We shall be the first modern government to reinstitute the scientific use of the ancient laws of nature, " he said. "What some insist on denigrating as 'magic.' It is our destiny to restore these marginalized disciplines and skills to the mainstream of German life."

  "Exactly, my Fiihrer! " Hess beamed, as if at an outstanding student. "The old science. The true science. The pre-Christian Teutonic science, untainted by any hint of southern decadence. A science which depends upon our beliefs and which can be manipulated by the power of the human will alone! "

  All this I heard in the distance as my life began to ebb away from me.

  "Nothing will convince me, Colonel von Minct, " said Hitler with sudden coldness, as if taking charge of the situation, "until you demonstrate the power of the Grail. I need to know that you really have the Grail. If it is the actual Grail it will possess the power of which all legends speak."

  "Of course, my Fiihrer. The virgin blood shall bring the cup to life. Von Bek is dying even now. In a short while he will be thoroughly dead. With the Grail, I will restore him to life. So that you may kill him again at your pleasure."

  Hitler waved this last away. A distasteful necessity. "We must know if it has the power to restore the dead to life. When this man is dead, we shall expose him to the Grail's influence. If it is the real thing, he will return to life. Immortal, perhaps. If its power can then be channeled to help our air fleet defeat the British, so much the better. But I will only believe that if its most famous property is displayed. And you have yet to produce the Grail, Colonel." Gaynor laid the white sword beside the black sword, end to end, upon the stone altar.

  "And the cup?" asked Goring, borrowing authority from his master.

  "The Grail takes many forms, " Gaynor told him. "It is not always a cup. Sometimes it is a staff."

  Reichsmarschall Goring, in pale Luftwaffe blue and many trimmings, brandished his own elaborate mace of office. His was encrusted with precious stones and looked as if it had been made, with his uniform, by a theatrical costumier. "Like this one?"

  "Very similar, Your Excellency."

  For a few moments I lost consciousness. Bit by bit my spirit was leaving my body. I made every effort I could to hang on to life, in the hope I might find a way to help Oona. I knew I had only minutes left. I tried to speak, to demand that Gaynor spare Oona, to say that this ritual of virginal sacrifice was savage, bestial-but I would be talking to savage, bestial men, who embraced the monstrous cause. Death called to me. She seemed my only possible escape from all this horror. I never realized until then how easily one can come to long for death.

  "You have still to produce the Grail, Colonel von Minct." Goring spoke precisely, mockingly. Plainly he thought this whole thing a nonsense. Yet neither he nor any other member of the hierarchy dare express skepticism to Hitler, who clearly wanted to believe. Hitler needed the confirmation of his own destiny. He had already presented himself as the new Frederick the Great, the new Barbarossa, the new Charlemagne, but his entire career had been based on threats, lies and manipulation. He no longer had any idea of his own reality, his own effect. But should these ancient objects of Teutonic power respond to him, it would prove that he was indeed the true mystical and practical savior of Germany. Something he did not always believe himself. All his actions were now determined by this need for affirmation.

  Suddenly, as if he realized I was looking at him, Hitler turned his head. His eyes met mine for an instant. Staring, hypnotic eyes. Hideously weak. I had seen them in more than one obsessed lunatic. He dropped his gaze as if he were ashamed. In that moment I understood him to be a creature thoroughly out of its depth, fascinated by its own luck, its own rise from obscurity, its successful dalliance with oblivion.

  I knew he could destroy the world.

  Through a haze of death I saw them throw Oona onto the altar. Gaynor raised a sword in either hand.

  The swords began to descend. She struggled, trying to fling herself off the granite blo
ck.

  I remember thinking, as I lost consciousness again: Where is the Cup? My mental turmoil was not made better by the knowledge that this scene, or a variant of it, was being played out on every plane of existence. A billion versions of myself, a billion versions of Oona, all dying horribly in violence at the same moment.

  Dying so that a madman could destroy the multiverse.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Hidden Virtues

  I had not expected to return to consciousness. Dimly I was aware of other forces struggling within me, of ! some commotion at the altar. For a moment I had the delusion I stood in the doorway of the armory, the Black Sword in my hand. And I called Gaynor's name. A challenge.

  "Gaynor! You would slay my daughter! So no doubt you understand how much you have angered me."

  I forced my head up. Gradually I opened my eyes.

  Ravenbrand was howling. She was giving off her weird black radiance. Red runes formed agitated geometries within her blade. She hovered over Oona and refused to carry out Gaynor's actions. The runeblade shook and writhed in his hand, trying to wrench itself free. Stormbringer lusted to kill, but Ravenbrand could not kill certain people. The idea of harming Oona was repulsive. Its semisentient constitution did not permit it to harm an innocent. In this it differed from Elric's Stormbringer, which more closely matched the attitudes of Melniboneans.

  Gaynor snarled. The light from the swords and torches painted the watching faces into Bosch grotesques. Those faces turned to look in astonishment at the man who stood in the ruined doorway-an identical black sword in his right hand, a sprawl of brown-shirted bodies behind him. The black blade ran with crimson. He wore torn armor and his own blood-soaked silks. He had the death heat in his wolf's eyes. He must have been through several battles single-handed, but Stormbringer was still in one bloody fist and his face betrayed the memory of a million deaths.