Duke Elric - Michael Moorcock [115]
“We have perfected this plan together with Herr Klosterheim's involvement,” said Hess, his strange eyes shifting back and forth from one member of the group to the other. “By Sunday Europe will have accepted the reality of a new Germany. We are already certain that many Frenchmen as well as English aristocrats will flock to our standard!”
“Klosterheim uses you for his own purposes,” said Begg quietly. “He has beguiled you, as he has beguiled so many others. He has no interest in reviving Nazi Germany or, indeed, doing anything but gaining control of the Cosmic Balance. Mrs. Persson. You know this to be true!”
“I have no reason to disbelieve him, Sir Seaton.” With a giggle the adventuress turned away.
Once again they could hear the rhythmic booming as of a great drum. Some shivered at the sound, waiting at the beginning of the moonbeam roads. Motioning again with their pistols, the Nazis forced Begg and Co. to move ahead. Each second they moved closer to the noise of the great Regulator. And the vision of the multiverse grew more vivid, the roads more vivid and detailed.
The detectives gasped. Once again on every side of them, the distance was filled with glowing silvery roads, twisting in all directions, forming an extraordinary labyrinth. Unconscious of the drama being played between the Nazis and their enemies, travelers walked between a million realities.
“Where are they going, Begg?” muttered Dr. Sinclair.
Klosterheim read the bewilderment in Taffy's eyes. “Do not fear, Doctor. You will soon have the whole of eternity to contemplate this puzzle. Now, move on! There are still more wonders to greet you …”
LeBec groaned, feeling himself weakening. He was the only one of the prisoners not to be bound. His injured arm hung limp at his side, and he staunched the blood from his wounded shoulder with his right hand. He seemed dazed, unable to accept the actuality of these events. He looked up through the swirling, scintillating colour which filled the great ether, the shimmering lines of light cutting between them, the distant figures, the immense beauty of it all, then back at the grotesquely grinning uniformed men training their Lugers on the captured detectives.
Behind them, having removed the black diamond mask he affected, Klosterheim stood stock-still. He had wrapped his great cloak around him, as if against a chill, though the temperature was moderate. Within his head cold eyes shifted from face to face, displaying no expression, no empathy, no sense of humanity.
To Begg's certain knowledge, the former priest was virtually indestructible. Like Zenith, like Mrs. Persson herself, he was an eternal, one of those whose longevity was considerably greater than that of an ordinary human being. He was accustomed to life in the semi-infinite. Some said they sustained their long lives by dreaming a thousand years for every day of their ordinary existence and that what we witnessed of them were dream projections rather than the actual person. That most of them lived for ever was, in Begg's opinion, debatable. Yet those who had encountered Klosterheim over the centuries had come to believe the tale of his being one of Satan's favourite accomplices until the time when Satan himself sought reconciliation with their former lord. Then, it was said, Klosterheim had turned against Satan, too. As he perceived it, he had been betrayed by the two mightiest masters in his universe. For all his well hidden spirituality, Begg was not a man to accept superstition or supernatural explanation but he certainly entertained the truth in the stories as he stared back at Klosterheim. Begg's own face was expressionless as he considered ways and means of turning the tables on their captors.
Step by remorseless step they moved along the opaque, silvery causeway towards the sonorous booming