The Magicians of Night - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,142
it,” he said softly. “Did he think I would bow meekly to that imbecile Himmler’s insistence that you were headed west to England? That I couldn’t come up with enough of my own men to follow him to the ends of the earth to recover the Spiracle and avenge its theft?”
“I thought he’d made it to begin with,” Tom said, and the frosted quicksilver gaze turned upon him.
“The Spiracle is the property of the Reich’s destiny, the tool of its ultimate triumph. As I am its tool.” Saltwood wasn’t fooled by the well-bred calm of his voice: it was the voice of a man insane with jealousy, quietly citing every rational reason why his woman had no right to leave him—to leave HIM. He could see von Rath almost visibly trembling with hate.
“We are all its tools,” said that shiningly beautiful youth—whose name was apparently Baldur, too—who dogged at his elbow in the same fashion Baldur Twisselpeck had back in Berlin. And where was Twisselpeck, anyway? Saltwood wondered obliquely.
The young man sniffled and put a hand on von Rath’s elbow, then went on in a curiously familiar whining voice, “And he’ll pay for it, P-Pauli. Don’t worry. Let me do it this time instead of Gall—I’ll see to it.
“Indeed.” This time von Rath’s smile was genuine. “And the Resonator can run for years, I expect, on the power we will raise from that—payment. The soul of a wizard, trained and empowered...”
Madre de Dios! Saltwood thought, shaken by what he saw in that dreamy smile. He really BELIEVES it!
“A pity we won’t be able to take him until nearly midnight,” Gall said, coming up to join the other two, like a demented patriarch with his flowing locks and silver beard. “Between the old Jew and the forces of the equinox itself I should be able to raise the energies to make quite a tolerable talisman of power—although not as much as if you yourself were to be officiating—but it does seem a waste.”
But if von Rath believes it’s magic, Saltwood thought, groping in confusion for some thread of rationality in all this, and Rhion believes it, and evidently Gall and Twisselpeck and this other Baldur, whoever HE is... Then who IS the scientific brains behind this—this device, whatever it is? How can they make it work if they’re ALL nuts?
Von Rath turned and studied them by the dreary glow of the hallway lamps. The fading of the smile he’d worn when contemplating Rhion’s death under the knife—and Sara had told Saltwood during the drive of how these self-styled mages “raised power”—left his face completely inhuman again, as if the only emotion of which he was capable were inseparably connected to the Spiracle—as if to him, only the Spiracle and the powers it gave him were real.
He reached out and cupped Sara’s chin with his hand. “Where will he be?”
She pulled back angrily and the gloved black grip tightened, the guard who held her handcuffed wrists behind her shoving her forward again. Saltwood was aware that any struggle on his part would be useless, for there were two guards holding his arms, besides the dozen or so ranged around the wood-paneled hallway with guns. But he was aware of an overwhelming desire to smash in that scarred, godlike face.
Sara said, “I don’t know, goy.”
As calmly as he had struck Saltwood for mouthing off at Himmler, von Rath slapped her, keeping hold of her chin with his other hand to prevent her head from giving with the blow. Tom gritted his teeth and looked away, knowing a struggle wouldn’t help Sara and might get him hurt badly enough to prevent later escape. When he looked back, he saw the red welt puffing up on the girl’s cheekbone and the involuntary tears of pain in her eyes.
“I know he’s in the neighborhood by the fact that the Resonator has come to life,” von Rath went on softly. “Ironic, isn’t it? Had he not been approaching—though to be sure, with the power from the temple here the field of magic is nearly eighty kilometers wide—I would not have been able to use my powers to capture you with such ease. I shall have to tell him that, as he watches you die. And having captured you, I think taking him will be an easy matter. Surely he isn’t fool enough to come here with any kind of silly notion of reopening the Dark Well—I’m sure he knows as well as I do that it cannot