Astronomy(58)
“All those dead bodies, we might do quite nicely,” a sullen one at the front pointed out.
“Your kind might do nicely,” Malmagden replied. “If the human race dies, I will ensure that you four are not around to enjoy the largesse.”
One of the larger monsters turned his head at his fellows, to ensure a consensus. He stepped forward. Susan detected a petulant droop to his mouth.
“You humans will use the Angle Web to make your way into the Summoning Tower. You leave us with the task of getting a pack of mindless dead through the sewers of Totenburgen Island. We will be lucky if some don’t wander off in the dark.”
“I am experienced in these matters. The dead will follow you wherever you go.”
“One never knows; you might get a rogue now and then. We may arrive a few dead short.”
Malmagden addressed the sullen one directly. “I count seventy-eight dead heroes of the Reich,” he said. “I expect seventy-eight dead heroes of the Reich to arrive at the tower. I do not want to hear how this chubby one ‘escaped.’ Or that little dumpling with the gimpy leg ‘ran away.’ Do I make myself clear?”
The creature straightened indignantly. “Your insinuations are hurtful and unwarranted.”
“Perhaps,” suggested the one behind him, “our new master would care to have his cadre of dead soldiers bathed and tended by the Red Cross.”
“Enough.” Malmagden cut short the debate with an aggravated swipe of his hand; he had heard all this in Berlin. It had not improved with age. “Half an hour,” he called. “Or I select one of you for my next example.”
Susan took a bit of charcoal from the smoldering heap of a guard shack. Under Malmagden’s direction, she drew an Angle Web into the summoning castle, to a point where Malmagden himself had stepped out on numerous occasions.
Susan remembered the journey that had brought her to this island. She thought of that smothering black presence that had pursued her through the spaces between reality. The charcoal wavered in her hand. Someone nearby was whispering, I can handle this, repeating it over and over like a prayer.
* * *
The moment she stepped over the perimeter, she felt something latch itself onto her consciousness. She closed her mind to it. She whispered the words. She forced her hands to rise. She forced her fingers to form the signs of Voor and Kish.
The awareness dug in deeper. She felt herself draining away into the vastness. She could see the space around her grow rich and murky, like water around a bleeding fish. She could see the portal ahead of her, glowing and warm with light—but too far. Too far by just a step. But that step could have been a mile.
She closed her arms around herself, lowered her head, and willed herself toward the warmth.
As she fell across the threshold, she was barely conscious.
Charley was nearby. She heard him gasping for breath.
“Are you all right?”
She heard some sort of grunt of assent, and then a groan, and then, “Ohh damn . . .”
Her thoughts exactly.
She found herself on a ledge overlooking a darkened amphitheater. Charley was bent over on his knees as if to keep his stomach from lurching at the noisome contact he had endured. Malmagden? She didn’t see him anywhere. She hoped he was simply across the amphitheater, trying to open a door for his dead to come through.
But maybe Malmagden had slipped away. Or maybe he simply hadn’t made it.
She took her surroundings in with a quick glance. The ledge was some sort of transit point for Zentralbund coming in from around the island. Hundreds of quick-scribbled Angle Webs glowed faintly in the dusky light. Most returned their users to points on the island. A few went to Germany. Susan recognized them from the ones she had seen in the Four Winds Bar in Kiel. One of them even reminded her of Conrad Hartmann’s back-slanted scrawl.
The amphitheater was huge and dark. It spread out beneath a perfect crystal lens large as a zeppelin. A circular vault stood beneath the opening. Susan realized it was an astronomical observatory. Real-time images of the sky were projected onto a blank section of wall at the center of the amphitheater.
Just under the giant circle of stars stood an altar. Thirteen men in gray robes with wan faces and black eyes read from a profane text Susan recognized as the Daemonalateria of Remigius.
The array of sorcerers were going into the final arguments in the summoning of Azathoth. The chant echoed off the stone walls of the chamber with a ringing edge that got Susan’s teeth grinding.
They seemed to adjust the pace of their entreaties according to the instructions of a Nazi officer wearing headphones and, around his neck, a pair of binoculars.
Susan pegged him for some sort of liaison officer standing warlock watch. He would press his fingers to his headphones as data came in from the observatory. Susan guessed this to be Azathoth’s heading and arrival time.