The Magicians of Night - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,21

to erecting the fence and cutting down all the trees that surrounded the lodge itself, it had rigged floodlights to drench the grounds in a harsh white electrical glare. The sentry at the gate furthermore shined the beam of an electric torch—a flashlight, they called such things—into the back of the open car before passing it on through, presumably, Rhion thought, to assure himself that no “enemies of the Reich” were hidden under the lap rugs.

Von Rath was waiting for them in the library. The voices of Baldur and Gall were audible—arguing as usual—as Rhion and Poincelles ascended the wide, wood-paneled stairs.

“I still say that electricity must have something to do with the disappearance of m-magic! There is no d-documented, authenticated case of magical operancy—of the human will being converted to physical instrumentality—after the middle of the eighteenth century, and that was just when experiments with electricity were becoming p-popular. Benjamin Franklin...”

“Nonsense! Magic is a quality of the vril, the mystical power inherited by the Aryan Race from the men of Atlantis whom Manu, the last the Atlantean Supermen, led across Europe to the secret fastnesses of Thibet. It is not electricity, but the slow race pollution by mutants and Jews after the fall of the third moon that has robbed the race of its power. In Thibet the Hidden Masters and Unknown Supermen still hold this power...”

“And it’s in Thibet that this c-curse of electricity does not exist!”

“Nor does any way of verifying the reports one hears of magic and Hidden Masters,” Poincelles added maliciously, lounging in the doorway.

Baldur looked up swiftly from a huge mass of notes, his weak, piggy eyes slitted with irritation and cocaine; Gall merely sniffed. “That is the sort of argument one would expect from a Frenchman,” he remarked.

Von Rath, from the depths of his red leather armchair, raised a finger for quiet. Though the Schloss had been fitted with electricity thirty years ago, the wizards—for varying reasons—avoided using it, and the library, like the Temple of Meditations in what had been the ballroom of the north wing and the workshop above it, was illuminated by candles. They made a soft halo of his ivory-pale hair and caught sparks of molten gold in the silver buttons and collar flashes of his black uniform as he leaned forward to speak.

“You’ve been listening to the news, I suppose,” he said, and Poincelles folded his long arms and grinned.

“Yes—it looks as if the Luftwaffe’s botched the job pretty thoroughly and let the English army get clean away.”

Baldur jerked to his feet furiously. “The German Air Forces are mo-more than capable of d-d-destroying those d-d-debased b-b-b...” Rhion knew from past outbursts that the youth’s stutter was infinitely exacerbated both by anger and by cocaine, and the present combination was deadly. Poincelles’ grin widened at the boy’s blazing-eyed frustration and he was about to speak again when von Rath’s soft, level voice cut him off.

“I’ve had a call from Himmler. The German Armies will invade England before the summer is out.”

“Of c-course we must,” Baldur declared, sitting clumsily down again and knocking a sheaf of his notes to the floor. “The destiny of the Reich demands that all of Europe be ours,” he went on rather thickly as he spoke while bending over to collect them. “It is obvious that...”

“What is obvious,” von Rath said with a quick sidelong glance at Rhion’s impassive face, “is that the Jews and Communists who run the government of America from behind the scenes aren’t going to permit that country to mind its own business. If we don’t have England secured for our own defenses before they force the government into a declaration of war, the Americans will use it as a base to overrun us.”

When Rhion did not dispute this he turned to him more fully, his gray eyes grave in the deep shadows of his brows. “Himmler was quite emphatic in his demand that we of the Occult Bureau have something to contribute to this final battle, something to tip the scales in our favor to resolve the conflict in Europe once and for all. And I believe Baldur may have arrived at a way to solve the problem of the raising of magical power.”

Young Twisselpeck sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve, then rooted around in his notes again. Rhion settled himself on the red leather hassock beside von Rath’s chair, his mind still half preoccupied with the problem of how to gain the magical assistance he needed without