F. Paul Wilson - The Keep

Magda slowly put her arms around his shoulders, holding him gently but firmly. She wanted to hold him to this spot, root him here where he'd be safe outside the keep.

After a long moment he spoke into her ear. "Help me to my feet, Magda. I've got to stop your father."

Magda knew she had to help him, even though she feared for him. She gripped his arm and tried to lift him but his knees buckled repeatedly. Finally, he slumped to the ground and pounded it with a closed fist.

"I need more time!"

"I'll go," Magda said, half wondering where the words came from. "I can meet my father at the gate."

"No! It's too dangerous!"

"I can talk to him. He'll listen to me."

"He's beyond all reason now. He'll listen only to Rasalom."

"I have to try. Can you think of anything better?"

Glaeken was silent.

"Then I'll go." She wished she could have stood there and tossed her head in defiance to show him she wasn't afraid. But she was terrified.

"Don't cross the threshold," Glaeken warned her. "Whatever you do, don't step across into the keep. That's Rasalom's domain now!"

I know, Magda thought as she broke into a run toward the causeway. And I can't allow Papa to step across to this side, either—at least not if he's holding the hilt to a sword.

Cuza had hoped to be done with the flashlight after reaching the cellar level, but all the electric lights were dead. He found, however, that the corridor was not completely dark. There were glowing spots in the walls. He looked more closely and saw that the images of the crosslike talisman set in the stones were glowing softly. They brightened as he neared and faded slowly after he had passed, responding to the object he carried.

Theodor Cuza moved along the central corridor in a state of awe. Never had the supernatural been so real to him. Never would he be able to view the world or existence itself as he had before. He thought about how smug he had been, thinking he had seen it all, yet never realizing the blinders that had limited his vision. Well, now his blinders were off and there was a whole new world all around him.

He hugged the wrapped talisman snugly against his chest, feeling close to the supernatural... and yet far from his God. But then, what had God done for his Chosen People? How many thousands, millions, had died in the past few years calling out his name, and had never been answered?

Soon there would be an answer, and Theodor Cuza was helping to bring it.

As he ascended toward the courtyard he felt a twinge of uneasiness and paused halfway up. He watched trailers of fog ooze down the steps like white honey while his thoughts whirled.

His moment of personal triumph was at hand. He was finally able to do something, to take an active role against the Nazis. Why, then, this feeling that all was not quite right? He had to admit to some nagging doubts about Molasar, but nothing specific. All the pieces fit...

Or did they? Cuza could not help but find the shape of the talisman bothersome: It was too close to the shape of the cross Molasar feared so. But perhaps that was Molasar's way of protecting it—make it resemble a holy object to throw his pursuers off the track, just as he had done with the keep. But then there was Molasar's seeming reluctance to handle the talisman himself, his insistence that Cuza take charge of it immediately. If the talisman were so important to Molasar, if it were truly the source of all his power, why didn't he find a hiding place for it himself?

Slowly, mechanically, Cuza took the final steps up to the courtyard. At the top he squinted into the unaccustomed gray light of predawn and found the answer to his questions: daylight. Of course! Molasar could not move around in the day and he needed someone who could! What a relief it was to erase those doubts—daylight explained everything!

As Cuza's eyes adjusted to the growing light, he looked across the foggy ruin of the courtyard to the gate and saw a figure standing there, waiting. For a single terrified moment he thought one of the sentries had escaped the slaughter; then he saw that the figure was too small and slim to be a German soldier.

It was Magda. Filled with joy, he hurried toward her.

From the threshold of the keep, Magda looked in on the courtyard; it was utterly silent and deserted but showed signs of battle everywhere: bullet holes in the fabric and the metal of the lorries, smashed windshields, pock marks in the stone blocks of the walls, smoke rising from the shattered ruins of the generators. Nothing moved. She wondered what gore lay beneath the fog that floated knee deep over the courtyard floor.

She also wondered what she was doing here shivering in the predawn chill, waiting for Papa, who might or might not be carrying the future of the world in his hands. Now that she had a quiet moment to think, to calmly consider all that Glenn—Glaeken—had told her, doubt began to insinuate its way into her mind. Words whispered in the dark lost their impact with the approach of day. It had been so easy to believe Glaeken while she was listening to his voice and looking into his eyes. But now that she was away from him, standing here alone, waiting... she felt unsure.

It was mad—immense, unseen, unknowable forces ... Light ... Chaos ... in opposition for control of humanity! Absurd! It was the stuff of fantasy, the deranged dream of an opium eater!

And yet...

... there was Molasar—or Rasalom or whatever he was truly called. He was no dream, yet certainly more than human, certainly beyond anything she had ever experienced or wished to experience again. And certainly evil. She had known that from the first time he had touched her.

And then there was Glaeken—if that was his true name—who did not seem evil but who might well be mad. He was real, and he had a sword blade that glowed and healed wounds that were enough to kill a score of men. She had seen that with her own eyes. And he cast no reflection...

Perhaps it was she who was mad.

But oh, if she was not mad. If the world truly stood on the brink here in this remote mountain pass ... whom was she to trust? Trust Rasalom, who by his own admission and confirmed by Glaeken had been locked away in some sort of limbo for five centuries and, now that he was free, was promising to put an end to Hitler and his atrocities? Or trust the red-haired man who had become the love of her life but had lied to her about so many things, even his name? Whom her own father accused of being an ally of the Nazis?

Why is it all coming to rest on me?

Why did she have to be the one to choose when everything was so confused? Whom to believe? The father she had trusted all her life, or the stranger who had unlocked a part of her being she never even knew existed? It wasn't fair!

She sighed. But nobody ever said life was fair.

She had to decide. And soon.

Glenn's parting words came back to her: Whatever you do, don't step across into the keep. That's Rasalom's domain now. But she knew she had to step across. The malignant aura around the keep had made it an effort merely to walk across the causeway. Now she had to feel what it was like inside. It would help her decide.

She edged her foot forward, then pulled it back. Perspiration had broken out all over her body. She didn't want to do this but circumstances left her little choice. Setting her jaw, she closed her eyes and stepped across the threshold.

The evil exploded against her, snatching her breath away, knotting her stomach, making her weave drunkenly about. It was more powerful, more intense than ever. She wavered in her resolve, wanting desperately to step back outside. But she fought this down, willing herself to weather the storm of malice she felt raging about her. The very air she was breathing confirmed what she had known all along: No good would ever come from within the keep.