send for a doctor. I could not imagine the nature of the 'experiment' Klosterheim had in mind for me.
The group had the air of men waiting for something. Hitler, who seemed almost as twitchy as Hess, gave the impression of an impatient street vendor, forever on the lookout for trouble. He spoke in that affected German one associates with the Austrian lower middle class and even though he was the most powerful man in the world at that moment, there was a sense of weakness about him. I wondered if this were the banality of evil which my friend Father Cornelius, the Jesuit priest, used to talk about before he went to Africa.
I could hear very little of what was said and most of it sounded like nonsense. Hitler was laughing and slapping his leg with his gloves. The only thing I heard him say clearly was 'The British will soon be begging for mercy. And we shall be generous, gentlemen. We will let them keep their institutions. They are ideal for our purposes. But first we must destroy London, eh?'
I was surprised that this was the object of their meeting. I had thought it to do with the 'objects of power' Gaynor had brought with him from the Grey Fees.
The door opened and Gaynor stood there. He was dressed all in black, with a great black cloak over his armored body. He had the look of a knight from one of those interminable historical films the Nazis loved to watch. A copper swastika was emblazoned on his breastplate and another on his helmet. He looked like a demonic Siegfried. His hands were clasped around the hilt of the great ivory runesword. He stepped aside with a dramatic gesture as two of his men bundled in a struggling woman.
My heart sank. Our last hope gone. They had Oona.
She was no longer dressed in the Nazi uniform but wore some kind of heavy, oat-colored dress that engulfed her from head to toe. It, too, had a vaguely medieval appearance. Its collar and cuffs were decorated with red and black swastikas. Her wonderful white hair was contained by a filet of silver and her eyes blazed like dark garnets from the pale beauty of her face. She was helpless, bound hand and foot. Her face was expressionless, her mouth set. When she saw me a look of horror came into her furious eyes. Her mouth opened in a silent scream. Then closed more firmly than ever. Only her eyes moved.
I wanted to comfort her, but there was no comfort.
It was clear we were meant to die.
After greeting the others, Gaynor announced with some triumph: 'Thus the game I planned reaches its conclusion. Both of these treacherous creatures have been brought to book. Both are guilty of numerous crimes against the Reich. Their fate will be a noble one, however. Nobler than they deserve. The Grail and the Black Sword are now back in our keeping. And we have the sacrifice we need to begin the final sorcery.' With a nicker of mockery in his smile, he glanced at Oona. His disgusting appetite was about to be satisfied. 'And strike our bargain with the Higher Worlds.'
He intended to kill us both-and in pursuit of the Nazis' obscene, half-crazed supernatural nonsense.
The firelight reflected in the eager faces of Hitler and his comrades as they admired the struggling girl. Hitler turned to Goring and made some leering remark to which his lackey responded with a fat chuckle. Only Hess seemed ill at ease. I had the feeling he preferred fanciful daydreams to the actuality of what was evidently to be a bloody ritual.
Goebbels and Himmler, on either side of their Fuhrer, both had tight, chilling smiles on their faces. Himmler's little round eyeglasses positively glinted with hellish glee.
With the sword in one hand, Gaynor reached down and grasped Oona by her moon-colored hair. He dragged her towards the altar. 'The chemical and the spiritual marriage of opposites,' he announced, like a showman taking the stage. 'My Fuhrer, gentlemen, I promised you I would return with the Grail and the Swords. Here is the white sword of Charlemagne-and there, unwittingly returned to its proper place by this wretched half- corpse'-he indicated me-'is the black sword of Hildebrand,
Theodoric's henchman. The sword called Son Slayer, with which he killed Hadubrand, his eldest child. The sword of good'-he lifted the ivory sword and pointed towards the altar-'and the sword of evil. Brought together, they will baptize the Grail with blood. Good and evil will mingle and become one. The blood will bring the Grail to life again and bestow its power upon us. Death will be banished. Our great bargain with Lord Arioch will be struck. We shall be immortal amongst immortals. All this King Clovis the Goth predicted upon his deathbed as he gave the Grail into the keeping of his steward, Dietrich von Bern, who in turn entrusted it to his brother-in-law Ermanerik, my ancestor. When the Grail is washed at last with innocent blood, virgin blood, the Nordic peoples will be united in a common bond and come together as one folk, to take their rightful place as rulers of the world.'
Insane nonsense, a farrago of myths and folktales typical of the Nazi rationalizers and with scarcely any historical basis. But Hitler and his gang were entranced by the story. Their existence, after all, depended on myths and folktales. Their political platform might have been written by the Brothers Grimm. It was quite possible Gaynor had made up much of this ritual to impress them, for he had told me that Hitler was merely his means to a greater goal. If so, his strategy was proving effective. He was using their power to summon Arioch. Even the most gullible Nazis would not be able to absorb the actuality. Little comfort to me. Whether they were delusory or not, these ideas would not help me accept my coming fate-or avert Oona's bloody death!
Goring, grossly fat, uttered a nervous rumble of laughter. 'We shall not rule the world, Colonel von Minct, until we defeat the Royal Air Force. We have the numbers. We have the ordnance. What we need now is the luck. A little magic would help.'
'The luck has held. Because it is not mere luck, but the workings of destiny.' This was Hitler muttering. 'But there is no harm in ensuring our victory.'
'It's always a help,' said Goring dryly, 'to have a god or two on your side. By this time next week, I assure you, Colonel, we'll be dining with the king at Buckingham Palace, with or without your supernatural aid.'
Hitler seemed buoyed by his Reichsmarschall's confidence. 'We shall be the first modern government to reinstitute the scientific use of the ancient laws of nature,' he said. 'What some insist on denigrating as 'magic.' It is our destiny to restore these marginalized disciplines and skills to the mainstream of German life.'
'Exactly, my Fuhrer!' Hess beamed, as if at an outstanding student. 'The old science. The true science. The pre-Christian Teutonic science, untainted by any hint of southern decadence. A science which depends upon our beliefs and which can be manipulated by the power of the human will alone!'
All this I heard in the distance as my life began to ebb away from me.
'Nothing will convince me, Colonel von Minct,' said Hitler with sudden coldness, as if taking charge of the situation, 'until you demonstrate the power of the Grail. I need to know that you really have the Grail. If it is the actual Grail it will possess the power of which all legends speak.'
'Of course, my Fuhrer. The virgin blood shall bring the cup to life. Von Bek is dying even now. In a short while he will be thoroughly dead. With the Grail, I will restore him to life. So that you may kill him again at your pleasure.'
Hitler waved this last away. A distasteful necessity. 'We must know if it has the power to restore the dead to life. When this man is dead, we shall expose him to the Grail's influence. If it is the real thing, he will return to life. Immortal, perhaps. If its power can then be channeled to help our air fleet defeat the British, so much the better. But I will only believe that if its most famous property is displayed. And you have yet to produce the Grail, Colonel.'
Gaynor laid the white sword beside the black sword, end to end, upon the stone altar.
'And the cup?' asked Goring, borrowing authority from his master.
'The Grail takes many forms,' Gaynor told him. 'It is not always a cup. Sometimes it is a staff.'
Reichsmarschall Goring, in pale Luftwaffe blue and many trimmings, brandished his own elaborate mace of office. His was encrusted with precious stones and looked as if it had been made, with his uniform, by a theatrical costumier. 'Like this one?'
'Very similar, Your Excellency.'
For a few moments I lost consciousness. Bit by bit my spirit was leaving my body. I made every effort I could to hang on to life, in the hope I might find a way to help Oona. I knew I had only minutes left. I tried to speak, to demand that Gaynor spare Oona, to say that this ritual of virginal sacrifice was savage, bestial-but I would be talking to savage, bestial men, who embraced the monstrous cause. Death called to me. She seemed my only possible escape from all this horror. I never realized until then how easily one can come to long for death.
'You have still to produce the Grail, Colonel von Minct.' Goring spoke precisely, mockingly. Plainly he thought this whole thing a nonsense. Yet neither he nor any other member of the hierarchy dare express skepticism to
