“And hard to control,” said a German who seemed unhappier than the others. “Why are all those bones there, Kurt? Where are all the inhabitants?”
“We’ve discovered exactly what the Reichsfuhrer sent us here for,” Raeder said, ignoring his question. “What matters is Germany.”
Hood looked to the shadows beyond the twisted door. There was a great, ghastly pile of human bones, the dead of this civilization in a macabre tableau. What the devil had gone on here? Why was this place so secret, so remote, so buried?
“Touching the staff may be like touching a hot wire,” another of the Germans cautioned.
“Or like holding the butt of a gun,” said Raeder. “Most savages would be afraid to pick up a firearm. But not all.” He hesitated just a moment, looking at the others. Then he strode decisively under the brow of the machine, stooped, and reached for the cradled staff.
“Kurt, no!”
“Stop sounding like an old woman, Julius.”
Yet as he reached, the humming died with a sigh, and all the lights from the staffs they held dimmed. He paused.
“Somehow you’ve turned it off,” one of the Germans called. “Like blowing a fuse.”
“Or cooling a candle so you can touch it. This wand wants to be held.” So Raeder hesitated just a moment more and then seized the staff and lifted it clear. It shone like amber, a beautiful six-foot-long staff of honeyed crystal, pulsing like life itself.
Unlike the other staffs, this new one didn’t cast light but instead purred with it, honey and amber flowing up and down its length. “I can feel its energy,” Raeder reported. “From my hands to my toes.”
“Energy for what?” one of the Germans asked.
“It’s an elixir.” Tentatively, Raeder moved the staff through the air. It gave a hum. When he swept it in an arc it hummed louder, an odd chord that echoed in the vast room. “It makes music!” He laughed.
“Unearthly music,” one said.
“The music of the spheres, perhaps,” Raeder told them. “The music of the cosmos. It isn’t wicked. It’s beautiful!”
“We’ve come ten thousand miles to a hole in hell for a toy?” the grumpiest German said. “This is what Franz died for, Kurt? This is what you blew up our only route of retreat for? A music stick? We’re going to starve in this cellar while you wave your baton around?”
Raeder looked annoyed. “We make a greater discovery than King Tut and you call it a toy. A machine bigger than a battleship and you think we’ve come for nothing. You’re a coward, Julius.”
The German flushed. “But what does it do, Kurt?” The man named Julius pointed toward the bones and Hood shrank into the shadows. “Why is Shambhala a catacomb?”
“Every city has bones. Look at Rome.”
“Why is no one left to attend the machine?”
“We’re attending it. Maybe the builders got what they wanted-Vril-and left, locking it for the return of the descendants of Barbarossa. Preserving it for us.”
“You’re risking our lives without careful consideration. Let’s be cautious here. Experiment. Test. Use the scientific method.”
“I’m seizing what I need because the Buddhist bitch here fetched her American boyfriend. This is not an archaeological dig, it’s a treasure hunt, and we may be in a race with the Americans. And I’m tired of your criticism, Muller.” He pointed the staff at his companion.
“I’m tired of your reckless leadership.”
And then there was a flash, bright as lightning, a terrifying crack, and with a cry the complaining German went flying across the machine room and crashed into the far wall, sliding down.
He was grotesquely burnt, clothes smoking.
Everyone froze in shock. The man named Julius had been killed. His flesh had blackened and peeled. The corpse sat on the floor, mouth frozen in a gasp of pain, and then huge parts of him sloughed off bone. He’d not just been blasted, he’d half disintegrated.
“Great God!” one of the other Germans cried. “You murdered Muller!”
Raeder was white with shock. “I did nothing…” His protest hung in the air.
Keyuri stepped back from him.
“… except think it,” he finished in wonder. He stared at the staff in his hand. “But I didn’t mean for it to happen. It reached out for him at its own accord.”
“Like your wife, eh, Kurt?” one of the other Germans said shakily.
Raeder rounded on him. “Don’t you dare mention Lotte.”
The man swung a submachine gun around. “You’re going to fry me, too?”
“No. No! Dammit, I don’t know what happened!”
“It’s wicked, I told you,” said Keyuri. “A sword or gun from ancient Shambhala. Its power comes from the deepest pits of the earth, the core of the universe, and you’ve no idea how to control it.”
Raeder let the staff fall to the floor where it clattered. “It fired on its own.” He stepped away. “I never meant to harm Muller. I needed him, dammit. It’s his fault, his criticism, his whining…” He glared at the others. “None of you can tell Himmler. I won’t have my career ruined.”
“It won’t be if it’s really a weapon, Kurt,” one of the other Germans said. “You’re still a hero, if this is what Himmler wanted us to find.” He looked at the disintegrating corpse. “It’s too bad about Muller, but I’m sorrier about Franz. If only we had his camera to document this! My God, a handheld lightning bolt? A ray gun? Imagine an army of these! No nation could stand before us.”
Hood had been calculating the odds. One German had let his submachine gun drop, dangling from his shoulder, and another had rested a hunting rifle on the floor. Raeder had shed his own rifle. All had pistols on their hips. But would he ever have a better chance than this, when the Nazis were in turmoil over their own fiasco?
He stepped out from the shelter of the wrecked door, pistol leveled, and closed the distance as quickly and quietly as he could.
Then Raeder fastened on Keyuri. “This is your fault. You knew this was going to happen.” He was tired of moralizers. Everyone was always questioning, whereas his need was to act.
“I did not point the staff.”
He pulled his pistol. “You should have been a better lover.”
“Because I don’t enjoy your assaults? You’re going to murder me, too?”
He blinked. “I don’t need you anymore.”
Hood was within twenty feet. “Freeze!” He aimed at Raeder. The Germans whirled.
The muzzle of Hood’s. 45 was pointed at his enemy’s head.
Raeder looked at him in bewilderment. “But I blew up the path.”
“I dropped in anyway. Keyuri, take the staff!”
She hesitated.
“Hurry, pick it up! And if they go for their guns, use that witchcraft on them!”
“I don’t know how.”
“Neither did Kurt, but a man that dared talk back to him is dead. How did it feel, Kurt, to have the finger of God?”
“He’s alone,” the German said to his companions. “He can’t escape us. We outnumber him. When I give the word, use your weapons.”
“Keyuri, now!”
“Hans!” Raeder shouted. The archaeologist jumped and Hood instinctively swung his gun toward him. And as Keyuri bent for the amber staff, Raeder grabbed for her and it.
Shots blazed.
All their light abruptly vanished.
31
