Death of the Gods

by Rex Baron

  “You’re hurt,” he said. “Why didn’t they take you to a hospital?”

  “I am a soldier. It is my duty to fight,” the teenager replied adamantly.

  “But you are only a boy. Surely they could have…”

  “I am nearly eighteen,” the boy protested, cutting short Sebastiaan’s comment.

  “My father was a Hitler Jugend Leader in Bayreuth, when it was first organized, and my mother once worked for a very famous woman who is now high up in the Party, a confidant to the Fuhrer himself. So, you see, I am meant to be here. I was born to serve the Fatherland and I am destined to die for my country.”

  Sebastiaan held his palms up in the space in front of him as a signal of truce. He did not want to pressure the boy soldier into justifying his role in a war that had its foundations on an idealized and fanatical belief in national superiority.

  “I am tired,” Sebastiaan said, “I’m sure you must be too.”

  In spite of the mitigating words that he had spoken, the young fighter continued to train his rifle on him, hoping that some of his fellow soldiers would soon appear to help him with his prisoner.

  A half-mile away, three members of the Resistance forces searched the brush for the missing parachutist.

  One of them had sighted the open chute as it descended, but the wind had taken it out over some tall trees and they had lost it in the darkness.

  “Look, over there,” one of them whispered, pointing toward the edge of the forest across the road. “There, among the trees… you see… someone is waving.” Carefully, they made their way in a crouched position toward the forest line of trees, across the open roadway, and back into the safe cover of the high brush.

  “I saw someone just there through the trees, a young man wearing a woolen motoring cap, waving to us to follow, but he seems to have disappeared.”

  They cautiously entered the wood, knowing that they were heading in the direction heavily occupied by the Germans, moving toward the spot where the stranger in the cap had been spotted. Once inside, he was seen again. The figure remained just ahead, out of reach of the loudest whispers they dared call out in this hostile territory. He stayed out front, waving them onward, deeper and deeper into the underbrush.

  “Why doesn't he stop?” one of the men asked. “Where is he taking us?”

  Finally, just ahead of them, through the trees, he stood very still and smiled. He drew his finger to his lips to instruct them to silence, then extended his arm to point to a nearby clearing.

  White parachute silk hung in tatters from the tall bushes, and nestled in the deep folds of fabric, they saw the dark silhouette of a prisoner held at gunpoint, a tableau vivant of men at war, like a harmless statue of frozen figures cast in bronze.

  For a split second, Sebastiaan's gaze was diverted, as he caught sight of the Resistance fighters creeping stealthily toward the unsuspecting guard.

  The young soldier caught the slight movement in the eye of his prey, and spun on his heels to face a firing squad of weapons trained in his direction. In his surprise, he clumsily dropped his rifle and instinctively moved to raise his hands over his head. He grimaced in pain as his left arm failed to cooperate and he cried out in agony. One of the Underground members cocked his weapon, ready to shoot in reaction to the boy’s erratic movement, but Sebastiaan shouted for him to hold his fire. The boy made a half-hearted attempt to reach again for his rifle, intent on making good his promise to die for the Fatherland, but instead, he stumbled and fell to the ground and, covering his face from view, began to cry. The fighters stared down at him, keeping him within the sights of their weapons.

  Sebastiaan raised himself up as best he could, and slowly moved over to where the exhausted boy lay. He reached out and touched him on the shoulder with a reassuring hand.

  “There is no shame in what you have done,” he said softly. “You have been a valiant soldier, but now it is time that you go someplace where they will take care of you and make you well.”

  The professor turned to his rescuers, offering a tense grin of gratitude.

  “You can't imagine how glad I am to see you,” he said. “How ever did you find me? I wasn't even close to the touchdown point.”

  “We followed your friend, the young man with the woolen motoring cap,” one of the rescuers said with a welcome smile.

  “Who do you mean? I came alone,” Sebastiaan replied.

  The four men exchanged a puzzled glance, then stared blankly into the open space where Mischa had last stood, but he was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  England

  Miss Auriel steadied Lexi, keeping her from toppling into the dried grass of the churchyard, as she questioned her about what she saw in her mind's eye. The steady stream of power from those rotating at the periphery of the circle grew in intensity, causing sparks of electrical energy to pass between the human links of the chain. Like a miniature storm, it passed from body to body, increasing in wattage as the circle gyrated to full capacity.

  “What's happening now?” Ellen called out.

  A thin vapor of cold night air trailed from her lips as Lexi tried to formulate concrete words.

  “I can't quite make out what you're saying,” Miss Auriel said. She held the other woman by the shoulders and shouted past the closed eyes into her trance, like someone calling down a deep and unexplored cave. Lexi's parched lips moved, issuing a slight, hardly audible sound.

  “Louder,” Miss Auriel demanded, shaking her in frustration.

  Lexi's head rolled back and her body seemed to go limp.

  “I see the army, their weapons drawn against us. I see Helen and the Hand clutched in her grasp. She has lighted the candle in its palm and has employed it to open a doorway into the minds of the helpless.”

  “There is not a moment to lose,” gasped Ellen. “We must turn the tide of their sinister intent.”

  The cone of power generated by the circle of those turning round was physically visible now. It stretched up from the outer edge of the ring of people, a translucent shaft of energy rising to a single fixed point of brilliance, like the diamond at the top of an ancient pyramid.

  Lexi's eyes fluttered. Behind herclosed lids she saw Helen riding in her chariot, pulled by legions of lifeless followers. The decayed Hand she carried sent forth a shaft of light from the candle in its center that cut the darkness of the unformed astral world like a steel blade, laying open an unobstructed path down into the realm of the physical world and the minds of humanity.

  Lexi knew there was no turning back. She must do as the apparition of her brother had urged. She must try and destroy the Hand and the woman who triumphed in its power.

  With a single thought, she deployed her sister of light, the doppelgänger that was her agent of retribution in this formless netherworld, down into the fray. Without hesitation, the unnamed one who was the essence of Lexi in her purest form swooped in on Helen and snatched the sinister Hand of Glory from her grasp. She dashed it under the wheels of the chariot as Helen turned on her in superhuman fury.

  The two etheric beings struggled in violent combat, clawing at each other, while Lexi's consciousness strained to keep focus. It was a deadly game of chess, wherein every thought of hatred and anger in the human brain produced a corresponding act of violence on the astral plane.

  Helen overpowered her assailant and struck her hard, sending her reeling against the guardrail of the speeding chariot. Valiantly, Lexi's counterpart lunged back at her, opening a wide cut across Helen's forehead with her powerful hand. But Helen was not to be outmaneuvered. She caught her attacker by the throat and slowly tightened her grip, choking the life from the radiant figure. The body of the unnamed one arched backward, then went limp in the hands of the powerful Helen. A burst of light exploded from the top of her head, and the luminescence that seemed to make up her actual form burst forth in a blinding glow before it gently dissipated and was reclaimed into the misty atmosphere. Lexi's etheric double had been destroyed.


  • • •

  Ellen caught Lexi as she slumped forward into her arms. Her unconscious face was ashen and her chalky lips mouthed words that had no sound or purpose.

  “She seems to have fainted,” Miss Auriel muttered aloud.

  She laid the motionless figure on the black grass and bent over her to listen to her heart. Her own heart raced as she strained to find the elusive, mechanical sound. Quickly, she pushed back a sleeve of the woman's coat to uncover her wrist and pressed her fingers into the flesh to find its pulse. The body was silent and still. The radiant light that had taken its leave during the astral battle had silently stolen away in the physical realm as well.

  “My God, she's dead,” the American occultist gasped, covering her open mouth with her hand. “I'm sorry, my dear. I never intended that you give your very life for us, but so it seems you have.”

  Miss Auriel looked up in awe at the silvery cone of energy rising above her head. Now, she alone stood at the center of its fiery vortex. She felt a surge of anger pass through her as she returned her gaze to the dead woman, stretched out on the dark colorless grass of night.

  “It is wrong!” she said, shaking her fist toward the heavens. “It is wrong to use the Hand to open the door to where evil dwells, allowing all the terror possible in the human psyche to pour through into our reality. It is using the old unevolved fears of mankind to manipulate us on planes that are long past our remembering and better left forgotten. That door must remain closed. If need be, it must be sealed with the blood of those who aspire to rightness and good.”

  Once again, she looked down at Lexi's body, lying pale but yet beautiful on the grass.

  “This evil must be stopped!” she shouted. She rose to her feet and clenched her fists at her sides. Her eyes closed and inside her head she saw a swirling mist of yellow light and heard, in the distance, the din of battle.

  The army poured through the tear in the veil of reality that separated the astral plane from the physical world. At the forefront stood the perfect mirror image of Kurt, brandishing his sword and shouting commands to his soldiers.

  Suddenly, Ellen Auriel appeared as Lexi had seen her in her dream, dressed in the guise of Saint George, the hilt of a sword held upward in front of her like a crucifix.

  She shouted above the rattle of noise, addressing Kurt where he stood, blocking his path.

  “You have set yourself up as the one who directs the energy generated by the fear and hatred of your propaganda. You believe that you may direct it into whatever despicable thing you choose. That is not so. I have come to stop you and your horde of unholy dead.”

  Kurt threw his head back and laughed a thundering laugh.

  “Go back to your world, woman,” he shouted, waving his sword to frighten her. “I am the Magician, the one who makes a puppet of the stupid little Chancellor, the one who directs the light of mass murder toward the heavens in order to arouse the attention of the long sleeping gods of power. I, the Magician, fathered this numberless army with my own seed, to march on your world of tedious righteousness and hypocrisy, to bring it to its knees and usher in the new world of superior beings according to the Thule plan. It shall be as I have seen, as it was foretold and as it must be.”

  His eyes glowed like the coals of Hell, his face illumined with a sinister green light. It was a sight that would cause a mortal being to wake from a nightmare with screams of terror, but Ellen held her ground unmoved.

  “It is true that I would be no match for you on the earthly plane,” she said. “But here, we are both perfect and equal beings. I only have the reflected appearance of who I am in life. Here I am neither man nor woman. I too am a Magician, and at this moment, somewhere in time and space, across that veil into the physical world, there are many valiant Souls engaged in risking their lives to generate the power I need to stop you and your filthy tribe. We shall not let you pass into the consciousness of the helpless.”

  With that, she jumped into the breach, blocking the way of the soldiers into the opening in time and space. She took a firm stance and held the hilt end of the sword up to Kurt's face, as if the image of the cross alone would weaken him.

  “As above, so below,” she shouted, as she held the hilt of her sword high. “It is the true meaning of the cross. It must be the will of the Divine Creator that is carried out on Earth, not the separate will of the few, even if they believe themselves to be Chosen.”

  • • •

  Ellen stood fast in the center of the churchyard circle, watching this confrontation in her head. Above her, a great cone of energy, like the spiral of a unicorn's horn, stretched up into the night sky. Around the circumference of its base, the faithful wearily churned counter-clockwise, sounding from the depths of their throats the open vowel sounds of the forest at night, the howl of the wolf, the shriek of the bat and the indescribable hum of a swarm of bees in flight. She urged them on with a wave of her arm.

  “It takes energy to mount and move energy,” she transmitted to them, unspoken, through her brain. “We are correct in our intent. The Reich concerns itself with power… and power is nothing more than a force that is able to act on matter, pushing it around, trying to make it conform to its will. But energy creates matter. Energy is constantly in motion and cannot be stopped. The laws of nature are the laws of energy. Everything is intertwined, every action, every movement changes the universe. One is obliged to understand harmlessness, to not change one grain of sand until it is known what good and evil will result from the act. Love is our energy. It is the Word of God, and love is the greatest force of creation possible.”

  In her mind's eye, Ellen stood in a stalemate with the great black Magician of the Reich. He thrust his glistening blade of light up under her chin, pressing down on her exposed throat.

  “NOW, RELEASE IT NOW,” she called to those generating the energy of the cone.

  Without fail, the stalwart group in St. Margaret's churchyard dropped backward to the ground, releasing the grasp of each other’s hands and letting loose the spiral of energy. It lifted from the ground like a great transparent rocket soaring upward, piercing the heavens, then disappearing in time and space.

  The elderly men and women lay sprawled in the grass. Some only crouched down in fear of their brittle bones and stiff backs, but each of them felt a sense of elation at having contributed something toward a true and noble purpose.

  Miss Auriel clenched her eyes tight, trying to get a last glimpse of the realm from which she was now slowly detaching.

  The cone had set that world in chaos. The numberless soldiers seemed to crumble into ash and bone as they ran, and the triumphant cry of the collective warrior's voice became screams of horror and anguish. The army was defeated, dissolving into a shadowy realm, reclaimed in time by the specter of death that reminded each of them that they had long since passed from being.

  Ellen saw herself still frozen in deadlock with Kurt, the Magician of the Reich. Dispassionately, she turned the hilt of her sword upright and effortlessly plunged it into his gleaming chest. An expression of disbelief froze on his face as the light within his body surged to the surface of his skin, making him totally luminous for an instant before it escaped into the air, like a pale golden swarm of fireflies, swirling upward toward the place where all thoughts of form originate.

  In the background, Helen clung to the rail of her golden chariot and shrieked in anger.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Germany

  “We've got to get out of here,” Helen shouted, as she ran toward the automobile.

  The night sky overhead resonated with the explosions of allied bombs. The countryside and nearby forest shone as bright as day as the bombs crashed about them, tearing up trees and scattering debris from the wooden outbuildings of Kurt's country house, like a hurricane of light destroying whatever lay in its path.

  Kurt reeled in confusion. He was stunned and lost, as if he could not comprehend that his world was in its last moments. He blinked up at the sk
y ablaze with light and rumbling with the sound of Allied planes. He was without his alter ego, the dream form that existed to maneuver and carry out his work on the astral plane. He had been destroyed in that other realm, and now would have no being, ever again, to command in his thoughts or as he lay sleeping. He stumbled aimlessly, and Helen was forced to come back for him, guiding him toward the auto and escape.

  She placed him into his seat, climbed behind the wheel and drove toward the city, illuminated at intervals by bombs in the distance. Those of the High Command would know what was happening, what the next step must be to hold the line against the encroaching enemy, she thought.

  As she drove, Kurt muttered the word “Gotterdamerung” again and again. To Helen it was nothing more than the title of an opera, The Twilight of the Gods, but to Kurt it was a prophecy laid out half a century before by the Reich's chosen composer.

  “The gods have chosen that the little men shall triumph,” he said laughing.

  He spoke to her lucidly for the first time since the bombing raid had started.

  “It's funny… don't you see. We have built an empire resurrecting the greatness of Rome, fashioned it from ancient myths of superiority and the nobility of sacrifice and death. We have replicated the grand buildings and adopted the pagan rituals of those great civilizations that are now gone. Don't you see… we have glorified death and romanticized that which is no longer. We have duplicated the exact tonal vibrations of power and glory that was attached to those now-vanished high cultures, and have inherited a destiny equal to theirs. We have created a world with its own demise built into it, like a time-bomb ticking, a belief in death and glory, the romance of final destruction. What more could we want in our hearts than to see it come to pass, to see our superior world, filled with superior men, nobly sacrificed before it had the chance to become mundane and populated with the little men? Germany has fulfilled her dream, to die a fallen knight, a searcher for the Holy Grail cast untimely down. The nature of the German people is as Herr Wagner predicted. It has come to pass, this twilight of the gods. We have created and fulfilled our own destiny of self-destruction, our own Gotterdamerung.”