The Keep

"You must! Nothing else can save me!"

She straightened up, hesitated a moment, then jumped to her feet and ran. Her head started pounding again but now she found it easy to ignore the pain. Gle

Magda did not slacken her pace as she entered the i

Iuliu and Lidia, alerted by the commotion she was making on the second floor, stood with startled expressions at the foot of the stairs as she descended.

"Don't try to stop me!" Magda said as she rushed by. Something in her voice must have warned them away, for they stepped aside and let her pass.

She stumbled back through the brush, the case and the blankets weighing her down, snagging on the branches, slowing her as she rushed toward Gle

"The blade," he whispered as she leaned over him. "Take it out of the case."

For an awful moment Magda feared he would ask for a coup de grace. She would do anything for Gle

She passed it to his outstretched arms and almost dropped it when a faint blue glow, blue like a gas flame, leaped along its edges at his touch. As she released it to him, he sighed; his features relaxed, losing their pain, a look of contentment settling on them ... the look of a man who has come home to a warm and familiar room after a long, arduous winter journey.

Gle

"You shouldn't stay here," he said in a faint, slurred voice. "Come back later."

"I'm not leaving you."

He made no reply. His breathing became shallower and steadier. He appeared to be asleep. Magda watched him closely. The blue glow spread to his forearms, sheathing them in a faint patina of light. She covered him with a blanket, as much for warmth as to hide the glow from the keep. Then she moved away, wrapped the second blanket around her shoulders, and seated herself with her back against a rock. Myriad questions, held at bay until now, rushed in on her.

Who was he, really? What ma

Then Papa's ranting came back to her: He belongs to a group that directs the Nazis, that is using them for its own foul ends! He's worse than a Nazi!

Could Papa be right? Could she be so blinded by her infatuation that she could not or would not see this? Gle

She drew the blanket closer around her. All she could do was wait.

Magda's eyelids began to droop—the aftereffects of the concussion and the rhythmic sounds of Gle

Klaus Woerma

He clearly remembered his dying. He had been strangled with deliberate slowness here in the subcellar in darkness lit only by the feeble glow of his fallen flashlight. Icy fingers with incalculable strength had closed on his throat, choking off the air until his blood had thundered in his ears and blackness had closed in.

But not eternal blackness. Not yet.

He could not understand his continued awareness. He lay on his back, his eyes open and staring into the darkness. He did not know how long he had been this way. Time had lost all meaning. Except for his vision, he was cut off from the rest of his body. It was as if it belonged to someone else. He could feel nothing, not the rocky earth against his back or the cold air against his face. He could hear nothing. He was not breathing. He could not move—not even a finger. When a rat had crawled over his face, dragging its matted fur across his eyes, he could not even blink.

He was dead. And yet not dead.

Gone was all fear, all pain. He was devoid of all feeling except regret. He had ventured into the subcellar to find redemption and had found only horror and death—his own death.

Woerma

—and into light.

Woerma

He was dropped to the floor. His field of vision was now limited to a section of the partially dismantled ceiling directly above him. At the periphery of his vision, moving about, was a dark shape. Woerma

... upward...

... until his feet left the ground and his lifeless body began to sway and swing and twist in the air. A shadowy figure melted into a doorway down the corridor and Woerma

He wanted to scream a protest to God. For he now knew that the dark being who ruled the keep was waging war not only against the bodies of the soldiers who had entered his domain, but against their minds and their spirits as well.

And Woerma

He could not allow that to happen. And yet he could do nothing to alter the course of events. He was dead.

Was this to be his penance for closing his eyes to the monstrousness of the war? If so, it was too much—too much to pay! To hang here and watch his own men and the einsatzkommandos come and gawk at him. And the final ignominy: to see Erich Kaempffer smiling up at him!