The Keep

She sighed. But nobody ever said life was fair.

She had to decide. And soon.

Gle

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.

And it was here inside the threshold where she would have to meet Papa. And stop him here if he carried the hilt to a sword.

A movement across the courtyard caught her eye. Papa had emerged from the cellar entry. He stood staring about for a moment, then spotted her and ran forward. After adjusting to the sight of her once-crippled father ru

"Magda! I have it!" he called, panting as he stopped before her.

"What do you have, Papa?" The sound of her own voice was flat and wooden in her ears. She dreaded his answer.

"Molasar's talisman—the source of his power!"

"You've stolen it from him?"

"No. He gave it to me. I'm to find a safe hiding place for it while he goes to Germany."

Magda went cold inside. Papa was removing an object from the keep, just as Glaeken had said he would.

She had to know what it looked like. "Let me see it."

"There's no time for that now. I've got to—"

He stepped to the side to go around her, but Magda moved in front of him, blocking his way, keeping him within the boundary of the keep.

"Please?" she pleaded. "Show it to me?"

He hesitated, studying her face questioningly, then pulled off the wrapper and showed her what he had called "Molasar's talisman."

Magda heard her breath suck in at the sight of it. Oh, God! It was obviously heavy, and appeared to be gold and silver—exactly like the strange crosses throughout the keep. And there was even a slot in its top, the perfect size to accept the spike she had seen at the butt end of Glaeken's sword blade.

It was the hilt to Glaeken's sword. The hilt ... the key to the keep ... the only thing that protected the world from Rasalom.

Magda stood and stared at it while her father said something she could not hear. The words would not reach her. All she could hear was Glaeken's description of what would become of the world should Rasalom be allowed to escape the keep. Everything within her revolted at the decision that faced her, but she had no choice. She had to stop her father—at any cost.

"Go back, Papa," she said, searching his eyes for some remnant of the man she had loved so dearly all her life. "Leave it in the keep. Molasar has been lying to you all along. That's not the source of his power—it's the only thing that can withstand his power! He's the enemy of everything good in this world! You can't set him free!"

"Ridiculous! He's already free! And he's an ally—look what he's done for me! I can walk!"

"But only as far as the other side of this gateway. Only far enough to remove that from the keep—he can't leave here as long as the hilt remains within the walls!"

"Lies! Molasar is going to kill Hitler and stop the death camps!"

"He'll feed on the death camps, Papa!" It was like talking to a deaf man. "For once in your life listen to me! Trust me! Do as I say! Don't remove that thing from the keep!"

He ignored her and pressed forward. "Let me by!"

Magda placed her hands against his chest, steeling herself to defy the man who had raised her, taught her so much, given her so much. "Listen to me, Papa!"

"No!"

Magda set her feet and shoved with all her strength, sending him stumbling backward. She hated herself for doing it but he had left her no alternative. She had to stop thinking of him as a cripple; he was well and strong now—and as determined as she.

"You strike your own father?" he said in a hoarse, hushed voice. Shock and anger roiled on his face. "Is this what a night of rutting with your red-headed lover has done to you? I am your father! I command you to let me pass!"

"No, Papa," she said, tears starting in her eyes. She had never dared to stand up to him before, but she had to see this through—for both their sakes and for all the world.

The sight of her tears seemed to disconcert him. For an instant his features softened and he was himself again. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it with a snap. Snarling with fury, he leaped forward and swung the hilt at her head.

Rasalom stood waiting in the subterranean chamber, immersed in darkness, the silence broken only by the sound of the rats crawling over the cadavers of the two officers which he had allowed to tumble to the dirt after the crippled one had left with that accursed hilt. Soon it would be gone from the keep and he would be free again.

Soon his hunger would be appeased. If what the crippled one had told him was true—and what he had heard from some of the German soldiers during their stay seemed to confirm it—Europe had now become a sinkhole of human misery. It meant that after ages of struggling, after so many defeats at Glaeken's hands, his destiny at last was about to come to pass. He had feared all lost when Glaeken had trapped him in this stone prison, but in the end he had prevailed. Human greed had released him from the tiny cell that had held him for five centuries. Human hate and powerlust were about to give him the strength to become master of this globe.

He waited. And still his hunger remained untouched. The expected surge of power did not come. Something was wrong. The crippled one could have journeyed through that gate twice by now. Three times!

Something had gone wrong. He let his senses range the keep until he detected the presence of the crippled one's daughter. It was she who must be the cause of the delay. But why? She couldn't know—

—unless Glaeken had told her about the hilt before he died.

Rasalom made a tiny gesture with his left hand, and behind him in the dark the corpses of Major Kaempffer and Captain Woerma

In a cold rage, Rasalom strode from the chamber. The daughter would be easy to handle. The two corpses stumbled after him. And after them followed the army of rats.

Magda watched in dumb awe as the gold-and-silver hilt swung toward her head with crushing force. Never had it occurred to her that Papa might actually try to harm her. Yet he was aiming a killing blow at her skull. Only an instinctive reflex for self-preservation saved her—she stepped back at the last moment, then dove forward, knocking her father to the ground as he tried to recover his balance after the wild swing. She fell on top of him, clutching at the silver crosspiece, finally gripping it with one hand on each side and twisting the hilt out of his grasp.

He clawed at her like an animal, scratching the flesh of her arms, trying to pull her down again to the point where the hilt would be in reach, screaming: