armory.
Scenes of mayhem were everywhere. Blood was everywhere. But no corpses. And no cup.
Where was the Grail? All the evidence indicated it was never removed from Bek. But did Klosterheim somehow take it?
Oona gestured to me to wait for her as she slipped away into the deserted castle.
I felt Elric's hand on my shoulder again, an affectionate brotherly gesture.
'We must find Klosterheim.' I turned and started to make my way back up the stairs.
'No! ' Elric was emphatic. 'What? It's my duty to follow him, ' I said. 'I'll follow Klosterheim, ' said Elric. 'If I'm successful you'll never see him again. I'll return to Melnibone. These young dragons have done good work and must be rewarded.' 'And Oona? Your daughter?'
'The dreamthief's daughter stays here.' With a cold crack of his cloak he turned his back on me and strode for the steps leading from the chamber. I wanted to ask him to return. I had much to thank him for. But, of course, I had served him also. We had been of mutual help. I had saved him from eternal slumber and he had turned the tide of war. The Luftwaffe was crushed. By the courage of a few and with the help of a powerful legend.
Britain would gather strength. America would help her. Eventually the fascists would be ousted from power and democracy restored.
But before that moment came, the blood of millions would be spilled. It was hard to see who would win anything from that terrible conflict.
I looked helplessly around at our old armory. So much violence had taken place here. How would it ever feel like home to me again?
How much I'd lost since Gaynor's first visit to Bek! When he tried to get the Raven Sword from me in order to kill my doppel-ganger's daughter! I had certainly lost a kind of innocence. I had also lost friends, servants. And a certain amount of self-respect.
What had I gained? Knowledge of other worlds? Wisdom? Guilt? A chance to turn the tide of history, to stop the spread of Nazi tyranny? Many yearned to be able to do that. Circumstances of blood and time had put me in a position to change the course of the war in favor of my country's enemy.
The guilt grew more intense as Allied bombing increased. Cologne. Dresden. Munich. All the beautiful old cities of our golden past gone into rubble and bitter memory. Just as we had blown the memory and pride of other nations to smithereens and defiled their dead. And all for what?
What if this pain, this pain of all the world, could be stopped? By the influence of one object? By the thing they called the Runestaff, the Grail, Finn's Cauldron-the object that created a field of serenity and balance all around it. Sustaining its own survival and the survival of the multiverse. Where was it, this panacea for the grief of nations?
Where was it, but in our own hearts?
Our imaginings?
Our dreams?
Had all I experienced in Mu Ooria been a complex but unreal nightmare into which the dreamthief's daughter lured me? An illusion of magic, of the Grail, of unending life? Once I was in no doubt of the Grail's properties or of its power for good. But now I wondered if the thing actually was a power for good? Or was it self-sustaining and not interested in questions of human morality?
Was Gaynor right? Did the Grail demand the blood of innocents to be effective? Was that the final irony? No life without death?
Oona came through the ruined doorway, a shaft of sunlight behind her. She had found her bow and arrows where she had hidden them.
She looked at me and realized that Elric, was gone.
She ran for the old staircase.
'Father! '
She disappeared up the steps before I could reach the door. I called after her, but she ignored me or did not hear.
I went up the stairs rapidly, but something made me slow when I reached the top of the tower and the narrow corridor which led to the roof. I moved reluctantly and looked out at the battlements where Elric held his daughter in a tender embrace.
Behind him the dragons muttered and stamped, anxious to be aloft again. But Elric was slow to leave. When he lifted his face those troubled eyes were weeping.
I watched him place a gentle kiss on his daughter's forehead. Then he strode over to the impatient Blacksnout and stood scratching the great beast under her scales. With a quick, graceful movement, he climbed into his saddle and called in his musical voice, called to his dragon sisters. With a massive crash of wings the two great reptiles mounted the evening air. I watched their dark shapes circling against the great red disk of the setting sun.
They banked with slow grace into a dark shadow and were suddenly gone. Oona turned, dry-eyed, her voice unnaturally low. 'I can see him anytime I choose, ' she said. She held something in her hand. A small talisman. 'In his dreams?' I asked.
She stared at me for a moment.
Then I followed her inside.
Epilog
The rest of the story is a matter of public record. Neither Oona nor myself, of course, remained in Germany. Indeed, we were certain of arrest. And, if arrested, we had a clear idea of our likely fate. So Prince Lobkowitz helped us get to Sweden and from there to London. Having helped in the destruction of my own country's air fleet and begun the process of Hitler's defeat, I continued the war against the Nazis. I joined the BBC as a broadcaster for a while and worked as an interpreter with a Red Cross psychiatric unit when the Allies started moving into Germany and Austria. Even I, with my experience of Nazi brutality, could scarcely bear the scenes which every new day brought.
I saw little more of Lobkowitz, who was busy with the War Crimes people, and nothing of Bastable. Oona went to Washington when the United States entered the war and joined a special operations unit.
I saw Bek once more before the Russians took it over. The Red Army had billeted its officers there. Even they remarked on the sense of peace the old place had. I was bound to agree. Though its recent history had scarcely been tranquil, tranquillity is what that house radiated for a mile or more around it in the old Bek estates. I heard that the local authorities eventually turned Bek into a rest home for mental patients, and I was pleased.
When at last the Wall came down and I reclaimed my home, I allowed it to continue in its most recent function, asking only that I have a few rooms in the old part of the house, along with the armory and the tower. Here I study quietly in the sure knowledge that somewhere I will discover a clue to the Grail's current incarnation. That it lies at Bek, there is no doubt. Here all wounds seem eventually to heal. This is all we saved from the Nazis.
In May 1941 it became clear that the Luftwaffe was no longer capable of conquering Britain. Disturbed that Hitler was attacking the Soviet Union without first securing the alliance of her 'natural brothers in arms, ' Rudolf Hess flew single-handed to Scotland. He parachuted out of his Messerschmitt and landed safely. He spent a few hours at Castle Auchy, the traditional home of the Clan McBegg, which had a bad reputation in those parts. He then set off to find the Marquess of Clydesdale, whom he wrongly believed to be a Nazi sympathizer. What Hess told the marquess and those sent to arrest him was that he had the secret of the Wessex Dragons who rose from their secret caverns under England's most beautiful downs to serve her in her hour of need. He claimed that he knew how to contact King Arthur, Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere, and that he also knew the whereabouts of the Holy Grail. He proposed that the Grail was the catalyst to reunite the Nordic peoples against the common Bolshevik/Asian threat. He asked several times to speak to Churchill, but published documents show that MIS was of the firm opinion that Hess had completely lost his mind. All reports confirm this view. Churchill steadfastly
