“So it’s you again! Abigail told me you’d be back—and I wasn’t to let you in under any conditions. I shouldn’t have let you in yesterday. Go away!”
Moreland forced a smile. “I’ll go in a few moments, Miss Lowry. I just want to know why you insist on saying that your collection belongs to your sister Abigail—and that she continues to speak to you. You know, as I know, that she died ten years ago.”
The woman’s reaction was startling. She fell back as sharply as though he had struck her. Her pallid face became even more parchment-like, and she grimaced with utter fury.
“Don’t you dare say that! She’s more alive than you are! And it is her collection—she adds to it constantly. Why must you come here to make trouble?” Her voice grew shrill and her breath came in great gasps. “She doesn’t harm anyone. These things are buried in the ground and she finds them. That’s what archeologists do. Why did you come? Go—go—”
The worlds trailed off and an expression of sharp pain contorted Amelia Lowry’s face. Her hands fluttered to her breast—and abruptly she collapsed in a gray heap.
In consternation Moreland froze. A heart attack! He should have known with her troubled breathing. He had triggered this. He looked about wildly—saw a neighbor a half block away brooming her walk.
Cupping his hands he shouted, “Call an ambulance! Miss Lowry has had an attack!” He saw the woman hurry into her house, then he bent over the pathetic figure, pressing his ear to her breast. He detected a heart-beat, faint and irregular. Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation—it was all he could do. His fault—his fault! When the ambulance arrived there still was life in the frail body.
As the medics drove away with Amelia Lowry, Moreland made sure that the door was locked and followed in his own car. At the hospital he signed the woman in, since there was no one else to do so. To his relief he learned that she had been there before with a cardiac problem, so her physician was known. Assured that everything possible was being done, he drove to Police Headquarters and reported what had happened, minimizing his own part in the incident.
Deeply troubled, Rob Moreland returned to the Good Samaritan Hospital and inquired about her condition. He was able to speak with her physician. She was in the intensive care section, of course, and she was conscious. She was in stable condition, but her advanced years and congenital heart trouble made recovery very unlikely. When he asked to see her he was told only immediate family was permitted in intensive care. He told them there was no family and he was her attorney, and reluctantly permission for a brief visit was granted, with the admonition that he avoid any excitement.
He found the little gray woman awake, but very weak, equipped with all the wiring and tubing associated with emergency cardiac care. He spoke quiet words of regret, and apparently her earlier wrath had dissipated for she smiled faintly and weakly shook her head. He gained the impression that she wanted to speak, so he leaned over with an ear close to her mouth.
Her words came in a faint whisper.
“Sister Abigail tells me—I’ll soon join her. We’ll be—closer than ever. And we’ve decided—what to do—with—the collection.”
“Why not leave it to the Cumberland Museum in memory of your father?” Moreland suggested. “And you still have one living relative, you know—Greta Lowry.”
Her reply came haltingly. “The museum—for some larger things—the things that were father’s. But other things—we wouldn’t want to—give up. The house—to Greta. You’re a lawyer. Would you write—a will?”
“Of course.” Moreland drew a note pad from an inner pocket. “Now you relax. It won’t take long.”
The language was as familiar as the back of his hand. He wrote rapidly, keeping it simple. The house and furnishings with the land to the distant cousin. The contents of the artifact room at the rear of the first floor, “consisting of archeological specimens and gems, as designated by my attorney, Robert Moreland, to the Cumberland Museum as a memorial to my father, Jonathan Lowry.” There was more, to make everything clear, but it was confined to the bare essentials.
Slowly he read it to Amelia Lowry, asking if she understood and approved. She nodded. Moreland then rang for a nurse and when she responded explained what was wanted. She left and returned immediately with an associate. Very shakily and faintly, assisted by a nurse, Amelia Lowry signed the impromptu will and the nurses witnessed the signature. Moments later, with the document in an inner pocket, after words of encouragement, and after leaving his home address and phone number, Moreland headed for the parking lot.
He had barely reached his den, dropping into the desk chair, when Amelia Lowry’s physician phoned to tell him she had died. Mechanically he gave instructions that her body be sent to the Stafford Funeral Home; as mechanically called his secretary with the directive that she notify Greta Lowry in Sellersville about her relative’s death, and that she notify Lane Stafford. He’d see him the next day to make the funeral arrangements.
As he cradled the phone Moreland wearily leaned back in his desk chair, scowling in self disgust. He certainly had made a complete mess of things today. He had brought on Amelia Lowry’s heart attack and death—no amount of rationalizing would change the fact. He had displayed the finesse of a gorilla. As he thought of the tirade which led up to the tragedy, one statement rang in his memory.
“These things were buried in the ground and she finds them. That’s what archeologists do.”
He fingered the pendant through his shirt. “Buried in the ground.” Found by a twin sister dead ten years! A ghostly grave robber. An archeologist plying her trade after her death! His frown deepened. The occult was one area about which he knew almost nothing, had no interest. There was little in his library that would shed light on the subject—probably the Encyclopedia Britannica was his best bet. Starting with “apparition” he began his research. He found little of interest until he reached “poltergeist.”
There were almost three pages of comment, the writer citing instances of various objects moving without apparent cause, of things from a second storey room crashing to the floor in a room directly below. The reported occurrences were world wide. This brought to mind something he had read somewhere. A well-known Methodist—or was it Episcopalian—bishop receiving communications from his dead son. The son supposedly had transmitted objects halfway around the world, had transferred things from one closed drawer to another. Would this be called a poltergeist? But what matter a name!
One thing was evident. Now he’d never know the answer to mystery of the jewel that refused to remain buried. He was conscious of its weight against his chest. He could conjecture, but that was not knowledge. He thought of the invisible barrier that had blocked his entry into that incredible treasure room. Had it been real, and if so, had it vanished with Amelia Lowry’s death? In any event, the local museum would get an amazing windfall bequest.
A sound overhead interrupted his thoughts, brought him stiffly erect. It was a dull, metallic thud, as though a heavy object had been dropped. It appeared to come from the rear of the second floor, a little used storage area. Instantly it was followed by a distinctly metallic clang.
He started to his feet, half crouching, the hair on his body bristling with instinctive dread. He stood erect—halted, waiting, scarcely breathing, listening for a repetition of the sound. It came with other noises of moving things. Stealthily he slid from behind his desk.
Then stopped.
He felt a sudden rush of frigid air, miasmic, lingering, passing within inches of his face, As though something invisible had brushed against him. A hint of motion in the corner of his eye drew his unwinking gaze to a hazy something forming above his desk. He held his breath, his body rigid.
It solidified—became the familiar age-browned human skull encrusted with turquoise. It dropped with a dull thud to the desk top.
The cold touched him, drawing a suppressed cry to his lips, sending an icicle of fear up his spine. And suddenly beside the skull materialized the opal-and-jad
e pendant on its chain, its pressure gone from his chest. Overhead the clanging and thudding sounds continued unabated. Rob Moreland’s thoughts whirled insanely, bits and pieces tumbling over each other. Amelia Lowry saying, “We’ve decided what to do with the collection.” That will—in his handwriting, witnessed—giving him disposal of the jewelry and artifacts. And dominating everything, pounding in his brain, the single thought, the certainty that at that very moment, piece by piece, his storage room was being filled with Sister Abigail’s collection.
1989
WODAN’S ARMY
Lloyd Arthur Eshbach has been an SF enthusiast, writer, and publisher for most of his life. His first story sale, “A Voice from the Ether,” originally appeared in Amazing® Stories in 1931; it has recently been anthologized in Amazing™ Science Fiction Anthology: The Wonder Years 1926-1935 (TSR, Inc., 1987). He completed an unfinished E.E. Smith novel, Subspace Encounter (Berkley, 1983), left in a fragmentary state at Smith’s death in 1965. Currently, he is in the midst of completing a four-book fantasy series for Del Rey Books: The Land Beyond the Gate (1984), The Armlet of the Gods (1986), The Sorceress of Scath (1988), and The Secret of the the Scroll.
With a furtive glance behind him to be certain he was unobserved, Luther Schlacht darted into the deeper shadows of the alleyway that led off dingy Schleierstrasse. He halted briefly to let his eyes adjust to the greater darkness, taking shallow breaths in a vain attempt to avoid inhaling the sour stench that rose from the stagnant, acidic fluid filling the pocked surface of the narrow way. With eyes adjusted, he moved stealthily along the rough wall, feeling his way, counting his carefully measured steps.
At one hundred nine he halted, hands groping, fining a knob in a scarred wooden door. It turned, the door opening silently on well-oiled hinges, closing quietly behind him. He moved ahead in utter darkness, met another solid barrier, rapped twice, and waited. The rush of cooler air alone revealed the opening of the door, and an intense, narrow light flashed blindingly in his eyes.
“Valhalla!” Quickly, he uttered the password.
A hand grasped his arm, and the guard closed and locked the door behind him. “You are the last, Komrad Schlacht. You are late. Were there problems?”
Schlacht answered quietly as they moved along a dark corridor toward a dimly lighted cellar room from which came a hubbub of voices.
“My regrets, Hans. That pig-dog Kleinert gave me an extra work detail. I had to come without supper. Wodan speed the day when we need no longer hide.”
As they entered the room, the Leader moved to the front, and conversation died. They found seats on one of the long backless benches among the two-score men and women already there. Intently, they watched the tall, military figure, the only one among them in uniform, impressive even in the flickering light of the candles. Suddenly, he stiffened, his heels clicking together.
“Ach-tung!” he snapped, and as one, all sprang erect. The Leader turned to face the front wall where four candles illuminated a tattered lithograph of a black-haired man with a shapeless black mustache. As one, every right arm thrust up and out in salute, and from forty throats came the single word:
“Heil!”
They held their position for several seconds, then simultaneously their hands dropped to their sides and they resumed their seats.
Luther Schlacht tried to concentrate on what the Leader said, but he had heard it so often that it blurred into so much sound. It was repeated at each meeting for new recruits just introduced into their ranks. It was the condensed history of two wars, of the first Leader who had come to power during that conflict, the ordained Saviour of the Aryan race, who through betrayal had been sacrificed. Of the true religion, the worship of the Elder Gods, that had had its reawakening during that war. Then the War of the Hammer and Sickle with its sudden, unbelievable end, with the Greater Berlin Wall now enclosing a great prison camp holding those who had fought on the losing side. Of the slow re-creating, forbidden and clandestine, of the Army of Wodan.
The Leader concluded his memorized speech, and Luther Schlacht opened his ears to his concluding words.
“After we dismiss, you will report to the drill field and join your squad. We will complete the exercise by marching to the temple where we will be addressed by the commander.”
He halted, clicked his heels, and called out sharply, “Achtung!”
Instantly, all snapped erect and, facing the poster, briskly saluted with the cry, “Heil!”
As arms snapped to sides, the Leader exclaimed, “Dismissed!”
Quickly, they moved to the rear of the room, down a flight of narrow concrete steps that led into a broad tunnel where they joined other men and women heading in the same direction. Flowing with the crowd, Luther Schlacht thought of the coming assembly in the temple. This was not a regular thing; like target practice with the stolen laser weapons, it happened infrequently. He wondered what it meant. He was tired, but weariness disappeared in the excitement of anticipation.
The tunnel led into a great chamber, signs of past splendor still evident in the remnants of mosaic tiling which clung here and there to the cracked concrete walls. This had been a central terminal of the underground rail system in the days before the war. The open space had been leveled, and this was the drill field.
He went to his assigned area, joined his squad. The squads formed into platoons, the platoons into a company; and to recorded music blaring from loudspeakers they marched.
An hour of brisk drilling ended with their marching four abreast along one of the tunnels, this one paved with slabs of slate. Rank upon high-stepping rank they swept through the shadowed corridor to another onetime terminal. The rhythm of military music followed them, coming from speakers suspended overhead.
Now he could see the arena with its gently sloping floor, at its center the altar. With sudden mechanical precision the right hands of the platoon ahead extended as one in stiff-armed salute, as all heads turned sharply to the right. Then it was his turn—and there stood a statue of the Leader. Luther Schlacht caught a glimpse of the familiar face with its shapeless mustache and lock of wayward hair, and a vague question began forming in his mind. He smothered it instantly.
This was the Great Leader.
The hands dropped swiftly as other hands rose behind them. And Luther Schlacht, with eyes fixed rigidly on the man before him, thought of what was to follow. There would be a ceremony, then the sacrifice of an animal; and finally every man of the regiment would bow in prayer to the Elder Gods, the Gods who lived since the world was young. Gods of power, warrior gods—Wodan, Allfather, and his sons, Ziu and Donar. Then, dismissed, they would move upward through scores of exits and melt into the half-life of a loosely controlled prison city.
The strains of brisk music throbbed in his ears. His feet rose and fell . . . rose . . .
And fell. And as suddenly as though he had been stricken deaf, there was no music!
Luther Schlacht faltered, looking wildly around. The music was gone, the tunnel gone, everything gone; he stood alone. He looked down at his feet, his bare feet. Mighty Allfather, he was as naked as one newborn.
He ran a hand through his short, bristling hair, his mind groping sluggishly.
He stood on a wide, wide road, a highway so broad hundreds might march abreast upon it. It was marble, polished as smooth as a rifle’s bore. To right and left of the road stretched an emerald plain, and in the distance he saw great castles rising into a flawless sky, glittering against the blue with the brilliance of polished gold. He looked behind him, and he saw the beginning of the road. A gate barred its end, merging with a mighty wall like the ramparts of a giant’s fortress, a gigantic gate, tall as a mountain, and gleaming with golden light like the distant castles. And beyond it stretched a bridge, a bridge of crystal, rainbow-bright and rainbow-shaped, arching across the world.
Luther Schlacht slowly turned away from the awesome spectacle, dread growing in his numbed mind. Surely he was dead, and this was Asgard, the home of th
e Gods! That great arch must be the bridge Bifrost over which the Valkyries bore the souls of the valiant dead. Had he been so borne? He closed his eyes and strove mightily to remember, but he only knew that one moment he had been marching past a statue of the Leader, and the next he was here.
He stood in indecision in the middle of the road. Should he follow the highway or cross the green toward the nearest castle? Something like an undertow drew him along the road, deciding for him. He shrugged, relieved. This was like an order, and orders were to be followed. He started walking.
In moments his stride fell mechanically into a rhythmic march, and he moved briskly ahead looking neither to right nor to left. He thought of Frieda. With permission they were to have been joined; now that could never be. He felt sad, yet the memory seemed unreal. As though all was a dream.
Asgard—if this were Asgard, where were the Gods? Where was—anyone? Here was nothing but the complete stillness. He checked an impulse to glance over his shoulder.
At last he saw ahead a castle looming large on the crest of a hill, the road climbing to meet it, and now he thought only of the wonder of this creation of the Gods. It was vast beyond understanding, its great towers beyond counting, its walls dazzling, its portal smaller only than the gate at the end of Bifrost.
He passed through a grove of great trees with leaves of shimmering gold, and he cowered like a dwarf at the foot of a mountainous stairway. The castle walls seemed to be fashioned of interwoven golden spears; he sensed this only dimly as the open portal held his gaze. He looked up and up to see at the apex of the doorway a great boar’s head upon which perched a sleeping eagle.
This must be Valhalla, Hall of the Chosen Slain!
But the eagle—it should not be asleep! It should be looking out over all the world, keeping watch for the Allfather, Wodan! Only half-realized in the wonder of this mystery did he see the great green limb of a colossal tree stretched protectingly above Valhalla.
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