the Atlantis of legend was like that, according to Plato. The heart of the design was not a throne or king, however, but a literal heart-a carving of the human organ where the petals joined. At the center of this universe was the universal human pump of blood. A carved artery sprouted from it like the tube of a flower.
“That looks Aztec, too,” said Muller. “Remember how the ancient Mexicans plucked out hearts? Is that a symbol of blood sacrifice and worship?”
“It’s a way in,” Raeder said.
“Why did they delve underground at all?” asked Muller.
“Because invention is not the same as wisdom,” said Keyuri. “What these people were doing was dangerous. They hid it down here. They were seeking to protect themselves, or others.”
“Was dangerous, in ancient times,” said Raeder. “Dangerous before the rise of science. Dangerous before the rise of National Socialism. Dangerous before the research of the Ahnenerbe.” He addressed them as a group. “We have a chance, comrades, to change world history. All it takes is courage.”
“Providence rewards the bold,” Kranz seconded.
“Not,” said Muller with more practicality, “unless we have a key to this gate.”
The barrier weighed many tons but had no handle or keyhole. The joint where the sections met was at the heart, but the means of opening was unclear. Diels pushed on the gate. It was as firm as a mountain.
“It’s a blood lock,” said Raeder.
“What does that mean?”
“Tell them, Keyuri.”
She looked at Raeder with unease, surprised that he had guessed this. “The Shambhala legends say the ancients had keys that only one person on earth could open, the person with the correct blood. The mechanism could detect the worthy from the unworthy.”
“That’s nonsense,” said Diels.
“On the contrary, isn’t that what National Socialism teaches?” said Kranz. “Race is real. Blood is real. Heredity is real. Perhaps there’s some code in blood that tells one man from another.”
“Which we don’t have,” said Muller.
“Which is why I in fact may have the necessary key,” said Raeder. He withdrew from his shift the silver vial, slightly bigger than a rifle shell. A small chain was attached to a metal cap. “I’ve been carrying this for ten thousand miles.”
“What is it?” Diels asked.
“Before we left Germany, Reichsfuhrer SS Himmler entrusted me with a relic that has been brought to the Nazi Party by German scholars of the medieval period. For eight hundred years it has been guarded, passed from custodian to custodian, as ‘The Shambhala Key.’ No one understood what that meant, until the research of the Ahnenerbe. It’s Aryan blood from the mists of history, brought from here to Europe after being taken from the veins of our great German ancestor Frederick Barbarossa.”
“Barbarossa?” said Muller. “Are you mad?”
“If I am, then so is Heinrich Himmler. Barbarossa didn’t die in the Third Crusade, comrades. He secretly came here.”
“Came for what?”
“To learn. And perhaps to lock this door until the time was right, until National Socialism had been created by Adolf Hitler and our people were ready to receive Shambhala’s secrets.”
“Wait,” said Diels. “Barbarossa went to Tibet and back?”
“Maybe not back. But his blood did. And locked the door until his rightful descendants returned to make sense of what he’d found. See the hole in the heart, that artery?” He uncapped the vial and stepped forward. The stone artery gaped like a little mouth, leading into the stone heart. “This is where I pour, don’t I, Keyuri?”
She said nothing.
Raeder shrugged, carefully tipped the vial, and emptied the bright red contents into the gate. “As Wilhelm said, scholars of our Ancestral Heritage Research and Teaching Society contend that Shambhala’s doors read something individual in blood, some code that we do not yet understand but which differentiates each of us from the other. This code is too tiny for even microscopes to see. Keyuri is right; only chosen individuals, somehow programmed by nature like the numbers of a combination lock, can gain access. And in reading, the door responds.”
Indeed, there was a sudden whir and growl like the sound of a machine. Gears and levers clunked at the sides of the tunnel. Then the great stone gates groaned and an aperture began to slowly open. Dust puffed out to settle around them. The air that blew out was musty.
“This is crazy,” Muller said. “Barbarossa was an old man by the time of the Crusade. How could he have come here?”
“A better question is why. What did he know or seek? I suspect he heard tales of this place in the Holy Land. Who knows who else visited here. Abraham? Jesus? Mohammed? A key to its entrance was our king’s last gift to Germany. Perhaps this door was locked when he left. Or perhaps his bones are here and not in the Holy Land.”
“You believe that?”
Raeder pointed. “The doors believe it.” The massive petals had mostly receded into the tunnel walls, just a small portion of each still jutting out like the curved teeth of a shark. A circular entry led to more tunnel. The way was clear.
Raeder cautiously stepped through. Nothing happened.
The broad avenue sloped down as before, but this time the way ahead was dark; there was no green glow. The Germans hesitated.
“What does legend say is down there?” Raeder asked Keyuri.
“Revelation. And the danger that comes with it, like the apple in your Bible. Everything you believe is counter to my own religion, Kurt. Everything you strive for, my religion teaches is illusory. Go down that road, and you’ll only bring misery to yourselves and the world.”
“And I say everything that is wrong with your religion can be seen in the medieval barbarity of your country, Keyuri. You teach acquiescence and despair. We teach hope and triumph.” He turned to the others. “This door has been waiting for the right men to open it: the triumphant heirs of Frederick Barbarossa. And it opened! That’s the lesson here.”
“Kurt, we can’t go down there without lights,” warned Kranz.
“Maybe we can make torches,” said Diels. “Look, there’s a rack of staffs to the side here. They must be antique weapons or tools. We tie on some brush, light a match, and proceed. If we carry several we can light the next with the last one and have some time to look about.”
“Good idea,” said Kranz. He strode and seized one, and…
It lit.
The upper third of the staff glowed. The German almost dropped the staff in surprise and then raised it higher, in wonder. When he lifted his arm, the tip shone brighter. In bright daylight the output would seem modest, but in the gloom just beyond the massive gate, it sent shadows fleeing. “What magic is this?” Kranz gasped.
“Shambhala,” Keyuri said.
“See?” said Raeder. “It’s a sign from God-our God-that we’re on the right path. A sign that our nun’s fears are groundless.”
The others picked up staffs as well. With the touch of a human hand, each glowed. The light staffs tingled the palm as they illuminated, and there was an odd energy to the air, a feel like an approaching thunderstorm.
“I hope it’s not black magic,” said Muller.
“No more magical than a battery torch would be to a medieval knight,” Raeder said. “We’re encountering what we came for, a technology more sophisticated than our own. Our theosophist philosophers dubbed it Vril, but under any name it’s the power that girds the universe. We can’t detect it, but these staffs absorb it from the air or the cave walls. We’re going to find it, comrades. We’re going to control it. And when we control it, we control the world.”
“Then where is everybody?” Muller asked. “Why were the doors sealed, opened only by special blood? I sense a wickedness about this place.”
“You’ve turned into an old woman, Julius. We’ve got two nuns, not one!”
The other Nazis laughed.
