The Men of War

by Damon Alan

  Harry could see through it. People were on the other side, in a stone hallway.

  “Hagirr,” Cylethe growled, then began casting.

  A young human male, no more than his early twenties, stood on the other side with an elf female. Other figures behind them were less focused, apparently being further away from the gate mattered to how much detail one could see.

  “I am Hagirr, yes,” the young man said, speaking to them from the other side of the gate. “I want the Templar-wizard.”

  “Take aim!” Harry ordered his men. Rifles rose to the ready, pointed at the gate. For a moment Harry thought he heard the exclamation of a German woman on the other side.

  “Stand ready,” Cylethe ordered Miller. “Roll the syllables, as I taught you.”

  Miller was chanting something. His hands glowed a baleful orange, as if power sat uncomfortably beneath the skin.

  “Not today, wizard,” Cylethe replied to Hagirr.

  “I see you’re teaching him,” Hagirr said. “I’ll correct your mistakes when I take him from you, dek whore.”

  The elf with him laughed, and her own hands began to glow as her lips moved rhythmically.

  Hagirr put his hands on hers, stopping the spell. “We can’t risk killing the Templar, dearest. For now the whore can keep him.” He looked back toward Cylethe. “I doubt she intends to eat him. But she will have to die for defying me.”

  Hagirr waved his hands and the gate vanished in a burst of blue sparks.

  For fifteen seconds everything was silent except for the wind and Miller’s chant. Cylethe stopped him much as Hagirr had stopped the elf.

  “Stand down,” Harry ordered his men. “Return to your watch schedule.” He looked at Cylethe. “How did he know where to find us?”

  “He’s sensed Miller,” she replied. “The youngster doesn’t know how to hide his power yet.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Cylethe looked at him and thought a moment before answering. For the first time Harry saw fear in her eyes. “It means Hagirr will be watching us. He will come for Miller when he thinks we are vulnerable, and we will have to be ready if we want to have even a sliver of a chance at living.”

  Chapter 26 - The Hall of Gates

  July 19, 1940

  “My first gift to you today, dear friends, are these.” Hagirr waved his hand and two of the guards handed golden amulets to Ernst and Herta. “Wear them, you’ll be able to understand any spoken language and others will understand you as well. They are yours to keep.”

  Ernst and Herta put them on, he spoke to her in French, she said it sounded like German to her. Fantastic gifts. “Will they work on Earth?” Herta asked.

  “I assume so,” Elianna told her, “mine does.”

  “Let’s turn here,” Hagirr said. He waved his hand at a section of wall adorned with carved images much like any other. The stone vanished as if it were never there.

  “Amazing,” Herta said. “More secure than any door.”

  “Indeed, lady,” Hagirr replied. “This is but the first of many wonders you will see today.”

  Herta’s grin was a mile wide, her fear from the last evening replaced with wonder. Ernst struggled valiantly to match her demeanor. He didn’t want his host to think him ungrateful, and certainly didn’t want Hagirr to think he didn’t trust the wizard.

  They passed a series of what looked like empty picture frames. Most of the walls in this hall were also carved, but inside the picture frames was flat stone. The frames, some sort of metal, extended floor to ceiling.

  “This one,” Hagirr told them. “I’d like you to see the plane of existence we call Acheron.”

  “That’s from Greek mythology,” Ernst said. “The river Acheron, in Hades, the flow of pain.”

  “Maybe someone in your ancient world actually saw the place,” Elianna said. “It’s possible to travel from Earth to Acheron.”

  “That is a possibility,” Ernst agreed.

  Hagirr danced an awkward dance in front of the frame, waving his fingers and chanting in words that felt evil and dangerous. Whatever language it was, the amulet translated none of it.

  The frame flickered, then shimmered silverish like liquid mercury. A moment later the silver color turned to an image.

  A red sky sat angrily over a blackened landscape. Volcanoes erupted in the distance, feeding black clouds that rained ash down on the land. Streaks of smoke littered the air, but the scene had an orderliness to it.

  Until Hagirr moved the picture closer to the ground. At first it seemed as if insects covered the landscape, a series of rolling hills, but as the image drew even closer the skittering insects resolved into fighting creatures. Humans, dwarves, elves, and a host of other less seemly beings. Great machines of war hurled stones into enemy lines, many of the munitions on fire and trailing smoke.

  Two great armies clashed. As men and creatures died their bodies vanished, leaving their gear to rattle empty to the soil. On both sides the combatants pressed forward, eager to earn their fate.

  “The armies fighting here come from warrior cultures. For some this is Hell, and only great bravery can redeem them into a place of reward. For others this is Heaven, they fight until they die, then return to feasting halls full of ale and women. The next day they fight again.” Hagirr spat at the frame, and to Ernst’s surprise the spit went through to be lost in the wind that blew on the other side. “Barbarians, all of them.”

  “Why show us this?” Ernst asked.

  “Two reasons. The first is to let you know that this is where I banish my enemies. And as my friends, if you have need, I can banish your greatest enemies here as well.”

  The threat of Acheron was better than work camps, Ernst felt. And an effective yet unspoken threat from Hagirr to keep Ernst and Herta in line.

  “The second is that I have a gift for your lovely wife and I can only find it here.”

  What manner of reward would be found in a land of the damned?

  Elianna giggled. A very disarming and melodic sound. “Hagirr, you honor her beyond what she has earned!”

  Herta frowned at Elianna, who smiled and waved a hand, dismissing Herta in a jovial manner.

  Hagirr gestured with his hands and the image moved again. “Nonsense. You picked these two. I will honor them as trusted friends.”

  Ernst looked at Elianna. “If we’re now trusted friends, then I have a question for you. When you found us you told me you wanted to find the Ark of the Covenant to close the gate.” He lowered his face in a look of accusation. “That was never your plan, was it?”

  She smiled at him. “Forgive me, Ernst, but I had to know the sort of man you were. Closing the gate would be a terrible mistake for you, for Germany, for Aerth.”

  “If we had found the Ark?” Ernst asked.

  “I would have destroyed it. Killing you if you stood in the way.”

  Ernst nodded. He understood such tactics. “Well done.”

  Elianna curtsied, a remarkably human gesture. “A compliment from the future ruler of Earth.”

  He studied her face for sarcasm. Seeing none he asked her, “What do you mean?”

  “She and I will discuss this with you later,” Hagirr admonished. “But it suffices to say that you’ve made friends wisely, Ernst Hoffmann.”

  Friends he was certain kept him and Herta alive because they needed something. But if it benefited the Hoffmanns, then it was something that might happen. Ernst could be practical.

  “Aha,” Hagirr cried out. “I’ve found one.”

  The image was now underground, Ernst hadn’t followed it during the conversation, so he didn’t know how they’d arrived there. He was looking at a cavern wall now, however, and a small ledge jutted outward. A nest of sorts, made from bones, rested on the small flat surface.

  Hagirr drew the image closer.

  A baby bird lay in the bone pile, a severed arm of some creature lay next to it partially eaten.

  “An Acheron raptor,” Elianna whispered.


  One of the creatures Ernst had seen flaming in the sky? Outrageous!

  “Reach through and get it Herta,” Hagirr told Ernst’s wife. “It must imprint on you and you alone. Use these.”

  One of Elianna’s relatives handed Herta a glove that looked to be made of asbestos, and a pillow made of the same material.

  “I can just reach through?” Herta asked. “Look what the beast did to that arm.”

  “It is resting,” Hagirr explained. “When it opens its eyes, you must be the first eyes it looks into. It will imprint immediately.” He shrugged. “Of course, if you don’t want it then I can—”

  “No! I want it.” Herta slipped on the glove and quickly reached for the bird.

  “Gently,” Elianna counseled.

  Herta put her fingers around the bird and gently lifted it. The fledgling, tired, lay its head down on the glove material. She carefully lifted it and brought it back through the frame. She lay the bird, gently and with great care, on the pillow that was offered to her.

  “Name it,” Hagirr advised.

  “Adolf,” Herta purred. “I name it Adolf.”

  Ernst rolled his eyes.

  “What?” Herta scowled. “If not for Herr Hitler you and I would not have met, and you’d do well to remember that. He may be dead, but he cared for the Fatherland as I do.”

  “Of course, dear,” Ernst said, pacifying her. Hitler was a madman and a psychopath. But he was also dead, and Ernst didn’t care to shatter Herta’s illusions on the topic.

  The bird opened an eye, it glowed orange. Herta stared straight into it. Without taking its eye off her, the bird stood up on the pillow, maybe twenty centimeters tall. The feather smoldered, the eyes burned, the creature squawked, and smoke rolled from its beak.

  “Adolf,” Herta named it.

  The creature seemed satisfied with the new situation it found itself in. The fires died down, the smoldering stopped. It climbed up Herta’s arm and perched on her shoulder.

  “Is it hot?” Ernst asked, drawing closer.

  The bird squawked and blew a smoke ring at him, and Ernst backed off.

  “It is imprinted,” Hagirr said, happily. “It will never burn you, Lady Hoffmann, even when it is engorged in flame. The same cannot be said for those around you if it is displeased.”

  Herta was smitten with the creature, a thing that was plain to see. A guard handed Herta a piece of meat that would have made a meal for Ernst, and she held it up to the creature. It took an engorging bite, the meat sizzled as the bird choked it down. Surprisingly, it ate the entire piece, which was half the bird’s size.

  “I have another gate to show you,” Hagirr told Ernst. “This one will show you something I want.”

  This man, so powerful and overwhelming, had unmet wants?

  “This way,” Elianna told them as she started further down the hall.

  The next frame they stopped at was different than the first. Similar in size, but instead of a rock face, behind it there was a mirror-like sheet of copper. Hagirr chanted and drew on the copper with various colored inks.

  Ernst looked at Herta, then they both looked at Elianna for an explanation.

  “There is a fledgling wizard on Aerth, a refugee from Earth. He’s in the hands of a witch, Hagirr would like to save him and educate him properly.”

  Ernst nodded. A professional want, that he could understand. Hagirr likely had no material wants.

  As they waited, the creature on Herta’s shoulder purred not unlike a cat. Occasionally it would look evilly at one of the elves who grew too close, and a flame would smolder within the creature’s eyes. It didn’t react the same toward Ernst, although it did watch him cautiously. Maybe it smelled Ernst on Herta’s skin and recognized him as her mate. Whatever was going on in the tiny brain of the raptor, Herta would have the best guard Ernst could imagine once the bird was grown. At the rate it was able to eat meat, that might be soon.

  “Stand back,” Hagirr warned, done with his drawing that was both complex and unintelligible. “We will look first.”

  The copper shimmered and the drawings vanished. Clouds raced past the frame, images of snow and foul weather. Coldness seeped into the hallway, making everyone shiver. The raptor snuggled closer to Herta and she smiled. Maybe it was giving her warmth?

  The image swept groundward, and Ernst spied a camp on a narrow road by a small strip of trees. A cliff rose above the camp, and a steep slope fell away from the other side of the road. A small fire burned in a circle of logs. Two guards stood watch.

  With rifles?

  The frame settled on the road, and the men, the humans with rifles, raced to rouse their peers. They all wore primitive armor, but one of them appeared with a helmet that Ernst recognized.

  These were British soldiers. And a tattooed monstrosity of a woman who drove fear into the heart with her very appearance. The witch Elianna spoke of.

  Hagirr chanted and danced with his fingers, and suddenly it was clear that the British could now see into the hallway. Cold gusts blew in from the frame. The raptor squawked in displeasure.

  “Was sehen wir? Woher kamen diese Soldaten?” Herta asked.

  “You’re seeing humans who have escaped into the wilds of Aerth,” Elianna replied. “They overwhelmed their guides and fled, undoubtedly out of fear. We will try to deal with them gently, but the most important thing is we recover the Templar.”

  Hagirr was speaking to the others. The Brits raised their rifles, aiming into the frame. Ernst held his breath and pushed Herta behind him. The wizard and the witch exchanged insults, and Hagirr made threats. Then he wiped his hand across the frame, smearing the invisible writings and ruining the magic. The frame closed, returning to a now dirty sheet of copper.

  The wizard looked enraged. He stood there for a moment, his hand resting on the copper, stained with the colors of the inks.

  After a minute or so, he regained his composure. Ernst understood completely. He’d raged similarly before, and the true measure of a man was gaining control and pressing on.

  Hagirr did just that.

  “I have one more thing to show you in the pyramid,” he told them. “I have a gift for you that will make the raptor and the amulets look like a pittance for beggars.”

  They followed him down the hall the way they came, but when they came to the original hall, they turned right, deeper into the pyramid. At the end of the main hall, they arrived at a large room with a very high ceiling. On one end of the room was a dais with a crystal on it. The crystal looked to be quartz, flawless, and cut into a hexagonal shape. It was amazing.

  “When I tell you to stand in the black circles on the floor, you will stand in the two that appear where you’re standing now,” Hagirr told Ernst and Herta. “How old are the both of you?”

  “I was born in 1897, I am forty-three,” Ernst answered.

  “Thirty-seven,” Herta replied.

  “Do your bones ache after all the walking we’ve done today?” Hagirr asked them. “Or every day?”

  Ernst was getting very curious. Was Hagirr about to cure their aches and pains? “Some. And on most days. But that is life.”

  Hagirr laughed. “I am over twelve thousand years old.”

  “So Elianna said. It seems a ridiculous brag,” Ernst told the wizard, then immediately wondered if it would be taken as an insult when Herta looked at him crossly.

  “But a true one.” Hagirr laughed, seeming to take no offense at all. “And you, my two newest friends, will benefit as I have.” He turned to Herta. “There is a small cage over there on the wall I had brought for your raptor. Put Adolf in it, please.”

  Once she’d done so and returned to her spot, he turned and cast a spell into the quartz. Lights began pulsing on the other side of the glass wall. From below the edge of the window in front of him, so Ernst couldn’t see what was going on. The pulses went on for a few minutes, then Hagirr cast another spell.

  Black circles appeared on the floor. Long crystalline rods dr
opped down from holes that opened in the ceiling. Everyone in the room stepped into the circle nearest them.

  Hagirr cast more spells, and the pulses in the other room quickened. Flashes of light appeared in irregular patterns, and suddenly Ernst’s world was filled with light. He couldn’t see, and a pleasure filled him like nothing he’d ever experienced before. He was afraid he’d drop to his knees, but an invisible hand held him in place.

  Then, a minute after it began, the process was over. He looked over at Herta to see if she was okay.

  Then he did drop to his knees, as the invisible hand had released him.

  She looked sixteen again. Or at least how he assumed she looked then. She looked at him in astonishment. “Ernst, you’re a baby!”

  He felt his face. It was true. The blemishes of age were gone. He stood up from his knees without so much as an ache. They gasped in joy as they realized what just happened.

  “We’re young!” Ernst exclaimed as he lifted Herta from the floor.

  “I will do this for you every twenty years, as long as our friendship holds,” Hagirr said. He looked unchanged by the process, although he too had bathed in the light.

  “Friendship holds?” Herta asked as Ernst put her down.

  “I have helped you, now I have a small task for you in return,” the wizard replied. “One critical to our worlds, and for the continuation of the magic that allows this,” he waved his hand back and forth toward Ernst then Herta, “to happen.”

  A task. There was always a task.

  Chapter 27 - Outer Barrier

  It’s hard to tell exactly when day and night happen underground. Luckily dwarves have the innate ability to know how much time has passed. None of Irsu’s soldiers had even seen the sun of Aerth since they returned, but they knew they’d rested forty-eight hours in the underground oasis they’d found.

  The sickly dwarves either hadn’t followed them or went the wrong way up a side branch of the river. Either way, the dwarves had two days of rest and recovery. Clothes were dry, armor polished, bones warmed and bellies full. The only thing missing was a good tavern, but beggars can’t be choosers.