Duke Elric - Michael Moorcock [121]
“You two had planned all this?” Sinclair found himself torn between rage and relief. “All of it?”
“Most of it,” declared Mrs. Persson, advancing towards the famous pathologist. “Really, Dr. Sinclair, we had no intention of deceiving you or your colleagues. Neither did I expect to be detained by them, so very likely you saved my life by arriving when you did. But from then on, I thought it the best strategy to pretend to ally myself with Klosterheim, at least until Monsieur Zenith made his somewhat belated appearance. We really did not know you would have either the powers of deduction or the sheer courage to reach this place. Then, when you did turn up, I for one was rather baffled. Everything Monsieur Zenith and myself had worked out was threatened.” She drew a deep breath. “Happily, as you see—”
“Klosterheim, for all his evil, does not deserve such a fate,” declared Begg gravely. “And neither do those others.”
“Oh, I assure you, dear cousin, they do indeed deserve everything.” Zenith looked down into the void to where the great Balance still swayed. “And this affair is probably not yet over, though your part is certainly done.” And with a casual flick of his wrist, he threw his swordstick after the man on whom he had just conferred both life and a kind of death. He turned to guide the rest of the party back in the direction from which they had come. “Quickly. The thing that is my sword is not so easily defeated in its ambitions.”
Begg hesitated, demurring as Zenith's face became a mask of urgency. “Hurry man! Hurry! If you value your soul!”
From somewhere below there now sounded a voice more terrifying than anything they had yet heard and blossoming upwards they saw a huge, bloody black cloud rising, roiling forward like a wave, which Begg knew must soon engulf them. The noise became deafening, bringing bile to their throats. With some alacrity Begg obeyed his cousin. Grabbing Dr. Sinclair's arm, he turned and ran, the Frenchmen, their prisoner, Mrs. Persson and Zenith the Albino immediately behind him.
As in a powerful earthquake, the moonbeam road quivered and trembled beneath their feet. They ran on, knowing that not only their lives but their eternal souls would be the price of any further hesitation …
… Until suddenly a deep calm settled over them and a silvery whiteness sprang up ahead, forming a kind of wall. They were once again in the catacombs they had seemingly left behind millennia before.
Monsieur Zenith straightened his silk hat. “I shall miss that cane,” he said. “But I know the exact place I can buy another in the Galerie d'Baromètre. Come, Mrs. Persson, gentlemen. Shall we return to the Arcades de l'Opera? I think we have a rather extraordinary adventure to celebrate.”
EPILOGUE
His shoulder thoroughly bandaged, LeBec joined the four men and one woman who shared an outside table at L'Albertine the following day. He was received with a round of muted applause and a great sense of celebration as the hero of the hour. “Without you, my dear LeBec, we should perhaps even now be enjoying the fate of our Nazi antagonists. As it is, the arrest of Colonel Hitler took the wind out of the Freikorps insurgents, who were indeed massing to enter the tunnel into Paris. The Hindenburg made a successful mooring at the Eiffel Tower and spent a tranquil night there. The Star of Judea was returned, and even now negotiations to found a new Jewish homeland in Bavaria are proceeding. It is fully expected that the exodus to Southern Germany will begin some time towards the end of next year!” Seaton Begg clapped his French colleague on his good shoulder and ordered him an Armagnac.
The autumn sun was rising high in a golden sky, and the great fountain in the centre of the arcade spread dark blue and green sheets of water over the verdigris, marble and tile of the statuary. There was a tranquil, leisurely quality to the day which Begg agreed he had not