Keepers of the Secrets

'Cousin George Edward!' Caliban said.

'Grandpa!' Pauncho said, sulking to one knee and spreading his arms out wide. 'Grandpa!'

Iwaldi stared at him and then smiled thinly.

'Very well! Clown away to the last minute! Very admirable! I wouldn't like to think that my great-grandson was a coward, though it doesn't really matter.'

'And you'd kill your own flesh and blood?' Pauncho said, rising.

'Why not? It wouldn't be the first time. An ephemeral is an ephemeral.'

A man appeared at the outside bars. The grizzly growled but did not move from the corner. The man said, 'Pardon, sir, but the invaders are getting closer. They'll soon be on the third level.'

Iwaldi said, 'In a moment the servants of the Nine will find out they will have to keep on going down. A river of flame will appear behind them. Napalm is being forced by pumps into the tu

'In the meantime, I've opened a vein of water, and the tu

He stopped. Caliban, van Veelar, and Banks returned his gaze. He said, 'I like spirit in a man except when it's turned against me, and even then it affords me a challenge, however brief - a break from the boredom of mundane life. Do you see that?'

He pointed at a metal box protruding from the corner of the ceiling and the right wall.

‘That's a movie camera. It will record your last moments, and then the front end will be automatically covered by a metal plate. When I return, I'll recover it and run off the film. It'll be a pleasure to review your deaths.'

He gestured at the two men with the boxes directed at the grizzly. They stepped backward, and the men with the rifles followed them. Iwaldi walked backward for a few steps, too.

'I've made a little arrangement here. Possibly even given you a chance to escape from this cell, though I don't really think so. But if you should get out, Caliban, you will then only have the choice of throwing yourself into the flames or into the water. You can't get past them.'

He turned and walked through the outer door, which a man clanged shut. The grizzly roared and charged the men behind the bars. They flinched, but Iwaldi did not move back, though the grizzly's paw was slashing the air only a few inches from his face. He said something, and the men with the boxes turned the ante

'Caliban, at any time you wish, you can slide your door aside and enter the cell with the bear! But the moment you move that door, a mechanism will radiate a frequency which will cause the bear to become insane with a desire to kill. Nor can you all go through the door and then shut it with the hopes that the grizzly won't attack you once the stimulus is removed. That frequency will keep operating even if the door is shut again.

'This outer door can be opened by you, if you can get to it. But it won't open immediately when you pull on it. A delay mechanism will keep it closed until five minutes have passed after pressure is applied. Which means that two of you can't keep the bear occupied while one opens the door and then all of you escape. The bear will be driven with the desire to kill every living thing in sight. He's nine and a half feet long and weighs one thousand one hundred and twenty pounds.

'You can stay in your cell and wait to be burned or drowned. Or you can fight your way out, and then be burned or drowned, but you'll have a choice. And this time, you'll have nothing but your bare hands and feet, Caliban! Use them well!'

He was silent for a moment as he stared at them and, doubtless, was hoping for a reaction of some sort. But the three were stony-faced.

'I'm going now,' Iwaldi said. 'It can't hurt to tell you that I'll be in Stonehenge for the winter solstice to attend XauXaz's funeral!'

Doc Caliban was surprised when he heard this, but he did not show it.

'Yes, XauXaz's funeral!' Iwaldi snarled. 'You didn't know that, did you! His body has been kept in a big box in a London warehouse. It'll be shipped to Salisbury and then taken to the ruins of Stonehenge, where the Nine will hold the funeral ceremonies for him! And I'll be there, though uninvited! I'll kill all of them! Old Anana! Ing! All of them!

'And then I'll be free to release my biobomb! While the mortals are starving to death and also gasping for oxygen, I'll be in my mountain retreat, snug and safe, eating well, breathing a rich air! After it's over for the mortals, then I and a few of my servants, mostly female, and my stock of beasts and plants, will come out!

'What do you think of that?'

The prisoners continued to stare without expression.

'You can pretend to be unconcerned!' he shouted.

'But you are naked, and I can see your hearts thumping! A long goodnight to you, mortals!'

He spat and walked away, two men preceding him, the others trailing.

Pauncho broke the long silence. 'Maybe the invaders will take pity on us.'

'Yeah,' Barney said. They might shoot us. At that, they'd be doing us a favour.'

Pauncho looked at Doc and said, 'I didn't know we were related. That makes me several cuts superior to this proletarian peasant, heh, Doc? I got the blood of English nobility in my veins, right? And the blood of ancient Viking sea kings. And what's more, the blood of men and women that were once gods and goddesses to the common herd, lowly swine like Barney. Say, Doc, what about that hero stuff? Who do you think were those ancient Germanic heroes he was talking about?'

'I don't know. Maybe the men whose exploits formed the basis of the Volsunga and Nibelungenlied epics. Or maybe the man or men who were the originals of the Beowulf stories. I'm more concerned about his descendants, three in particular.'

Pauncho's small eyes widened. ‘Three?'

'Yes. That man's descendants have to include most of the present populace of north Europe or anybody descended from north Europeans and probably from south Europeans, and many Africans and Asiatics, too. Figure it out mathematically, if you ever get a chance.'

Barney haw-hawed but quit when the grizzly, roaring, hurled himself against the bars.

Doc said, 'Iwaldi didn't say whether or not pressure has to be maintained on that door. We can't afford to take a chance, so one man should keep pulling on it.'

'If I had a pocket, I'd pull out a coin and we could flip it to see who's the lucky guy,' Pauncho said. 'But I'll be magnanimous, Barney. I'll handle the door while you help Doc with the bear.'

Pauncho's voice was steady and he was gri

'No,' Caliban said firmly. 'We'd be stupid to reduce our strength by one-third. We either put the grizzly out of commission and then open the door - provided Iwaldi wasn't lying to us - or we don't make it at all.'

'Well, Barney, you always said you might be ski

'I said cats not bears,' Barney replied. 'Anyway, the three of us total about seven hundred and seventy so that gives the grizzly an edge of three hundred and fifty pounds. And he's got teeth and claws a hell of a lot sharper than ours.'

‘Tell me something I don't know,' Pauncho said. 'Like how're we going to take him?'

He pressed his blobbish nose against a bar and stared at the grizzly. It was pacing back and forth, its head low and swinging, the brownish silver-tipped fur beautiful but the beauty lost on the watcher. There was fat under that loose glossy hide but there were also giant bones and the strength of two gorillas.