Part 40 (1/2)
”Great Gruad! What's that?” cried Werner.
”It's the Old Woman!” shouted Wolfgang, his lips falling away from his teeth in a snarl.
The sudden cry ”Kallisti!” ”Kallisti!” reverberated through the Bavarian hills louder than the music of the Ingolstadt festival had been. Trailing a cometlike cloud of sparks, the golden apple fell into the center of the advancing army. reverberated through the Bavarian hills louder than the music of the Ingolstadt festival had been. Trailing a cometlike cloud of sparks, the golden apple fell into the center of the advancing army.
The Supern.a.z.is might have been the living dead, but they were still human. What each man saw in the apple was his heart's desire. Private Heinrich Krause saw the family he had left behind thirty years ago-not knowing that his living grandchildren were at this moment on the pontoon bridge across Lake Totenkopf, fleeing his advance. Corporal Gottfried Kuntz saw his mistress (who in reality had been raped and then disemboweled by Russian soldiers when Berlin fell in 1945). Oberlieutenant Sigmund Voegel saw a ticket to the Wagner festival at Bayreuth. Colonel-SS Konrad Schein saw a hundred Jews lined up before a machine gun that awaited his hand on the trigger. Obergruppenfuehrer Ernst Bickler saw a blue china soup tureen standing in an empty fireplace at his grandmother's house in Ka.s.sel. It was brimful of steaming brown dogs.h.i.+t into which was plunged a silver spoon. General Hanfgeist saw Adolf Hitler, his face blackened, his eyes and tongue bulging out, his neck broken, spinning at the end of a hangman's rope.
All of the men who saw the apple, in whatever form, began to fight and kill one another for possession. Tanks smashed into one another head-on. Artillerymen lowered the barrels of their guns and fired point-blank into the center of the melee.
”What is it, Wolfgang?” said Winifred imploringly, her arms thrown in panic around his waist.
”Look into the center of the battle,” said Wolfgang grimly. ”What do you see?”
”I see the throne of the world. One single chair twenty-three feet off the ground, studded with seventeen rubies, and brooding over it the serpent swallowing its tail, the Rosy Cross, and the Eye. I see that throne and know that I alone am to ascend it and occupy it forever. What do you see?”
”I see Hagbard Celine's teufelscheiss teufelscheiss head on a silver platter,” Wolfgang snarled, thrusting her from him with trembling hands. ”Eris has thrown the Apple of Discord, and our Supern.a.z.is will fight and kill each other until we destroy it.” head on a silver platter,” Wolfgang snarled, thrusting her from him with trembling hands. ”Eris has thrown the Apple of Discord, and our Supern.a.z.is will fight and kill each other until we destroy it.”
”Where did she go?” asked Werner.
”She's lurking about somewhere in some other form, no doubt,” said Wolfgang. ”As a toadstool or an owl or some such thing, cackling over the chaos she's caused.”
Suddenly Wilhelm stood up, his fingers clawing at empty air. In a frightfully clumsy fas.h.i.+on, as if he were deaf, dumb, and blind, he clawed and clamored his way over the side of the Mercedes that had belonged to von Rundstedt. Once out of the car, he took a position about ten feet away from his brothers and sister, turned, and faced them. His eyes stared-every muscle in his body was rigid-the crotch of his trousers bulged.
The voice that came out of his mouth was deep, rich, oleaginous, and horrid: ”There are long accounts to settle, children of Gruad.”
Wolfgang forgot the sounds of battle that raged around him. ”You! Here! How did you escape?”
The voice was like crude petroleum seeping through gravel, and, like petroleum, it was a fossil thing, the voice of a creature that had arisen on the planet when the South Pole was in the Sahara and the great cephalopods were the highest form of life.
”I took no notice. The geometries ceased to bind me. I came forth. I ate souls. Fresh souls, not the miserable plasma you have fed me all these years.”
”Great Gruad! Is that your grat.i.tude?” Wolfgang stormed. In a lower voice he said to Werner, ”Find the talisman. I think it's in the black case sealed with the Seal of Solomon and the Eye of Newt.” To the being that occupied Wilhelm's body he said, ”You come at an opportune time. There will be much killing here, and many souls to eat.”
”These around us have no souls. They have only pseudo-life. It sickens me to sense them.”
Wolfgang laughed. ”Even the lloigor can feel disgust, then.”
”I have been sick for many hundreds of years, while you kept me sealed in one pentagon after another, feeding me not fresh souls but those wretched stored essences.”
”We gave you much!” cried Werner. ”Every year, just for you, thirty thousand-forty thousand-fifty thousand deaths in traffic accidents alone.”
”But not fresh. Not fres.h.!.+ Perhaps, though, you can settle your debt to me tonight. I sense many lives nearby- lives you have somehow lured here. They can be mine.”
Werner handed Wolfgang a stick with a silver pentagon at the tip. Wolfgang pointed it at the possessed Wilhelm, who shrieked and fell to his knees. For a moment there was silence, broken only by the sound of Winifred's terrified sobbing and the crack of rifles and the chatter of machine guns in the background.
”You shall not have those lives, Yog Sothoth. They are for the transcendental illumination of our servants. Wait, though, and there shall be lives in plenty for all of us.”
Werner said, ”While we parley our army is destroying itself, and there will be no lives for anyone.”
”Really?” said the thick voice. ”How has your plan gone astray? Let me read you and learn.” Wolfgang felt goose pimples break out all over his body. He shuddered as coa.r.s.e, boneless fingers dripping with slime turned the pages of his mind.
”Mmm-I see. She She is here, then. My ancient enemy. It would be good to meet her in battle once again.” is here, then. My ancient enemy. It would be good to meet her in battle once again.”
”Are your powers equal to hers?” said Wolfgang eagerly.
”I yield to none” came the proud reply.
”Ask him why he's always getting trapped in pentagons, then,” said Werner in a low voice.
”Shut up!” Wolfgang whispered savagely. To the lloigor he said, ”Destroy her golden apple and release my army to move ahead, and I will withhold the power of this pentagon and give you all the lives you seek.”
”Done!” said the voice. Wilhelm suddenly threw his head back, mouth wide open. A choking sound came from his throat. He collapsed on his back, spread-eagled. A strange, greenish, glowing gas rose from his throat.
Werner jumped from the car and rushed over to Wilhelm. ”He's alive.”
”Of course he's alive,” said Wolfgang. ”The Eater of Souls simply took possession of his body to communicate with us.”
Winifred screamed, ”Look!”
The same phosph.o.r.escent gas, a huge cloud of it, now obscured the heart of the battle. It seemed to take a shape like a spider with an uncountable number of legs, arms, antennae, and tentacles. Gradually the shape changed, glowing brighter and brighter. A nearby tower on the festival grounds was as visible in the reflected light as if it were day. Then the glow faded, and the tower was silhouetted in moonlight. A great silence fell over the hills around Lake Totenkopf, broken only by the glad cries of the last contingent of festivalgoers as they made it safely to the opposite sh.o.r.e.
”There's no time to lose,” Wolfgang said to Werner and Wilhelm. ”Round up some officers. See if you can find Hanfgeist.”
Hanfgeist had disappeared. The highest-ranking officer surviving was Obergruppenfuehrer Bickler, visions of dog t.u.r.ds sadly fading in a mind that possessed only a horrid semblance of life. A quick survey showed the four Illuminati Primi that the Apple of Discord had cost them half their army.
”Onward!” roared Wolfgang, and, tanks in the van, they smashed through the festival fence, raced over the hills, troops trotting double-time, and unhesitatingly charged out onto the bridge. Wolfgang stood in the back seat of the von Rundstedt Mercedes, his black-gloved hands gripping the back of the front seat, the wind blowing through his crew cut like a field of wheat. Suddenly, beside him, Wilhelm screamed.
”What is it now?” yelled Wolfgang over the roar of his advancing army.
”The lives we are about to take,” the voice of the lloigor grated. ”They are mine, yes? All mine?”
”Listen to me, you energy vampire. We have other debts to discharge, and other projects to complete. There are twenty-three of our faithful servants waiting in the Donau-Hotel to be transcendentally illuminated. They come first You'll get yours. Wait your turn.”
”Farewell,” said the lloigor. ”I shall see you at the hour of your death.”
”I will never die!”
”Fool!” the voice shrieked with Wilhelm's mouth. Suddenly Wilhelm stood up, threw open the door of the car, and hurled himself out into the lake. He struck with a huge splash, then sank like a stone. A greenish glow spread in the black water where he had gone down.
And then there were four.
Hagbard stood atop a hill, watching the tanks roll across the bridge, followed by the black Mercedes, followed by troop carriers and artillery, followed by trotting foot soldiers. He knelt beside a detonator and shoved down the handle.
From end to end the bridge and those upon it disappeared in geysers of white water. The thunder of the explosions-demolition charges placed by the porpoise horde under the direction of Howard-re-echoed through the hills around the lake.
The tanks went under first. As the front end of the command car sank under water, Werner Saure screamed, ”My foot's caught!” He went down with the car, while Wolfgang and Winifred, their tears mingling with the water of Lake Totenkopf, splashed about in the water with the few remaining Supern.a.z.is.
And then there were three.