He awoke as intended, rolled quickly to his feet, slung the pack frame on one shoulder, relieved his bladder, then padded to the schloss. The corridor was clear, and listening at the party room door, he heard nothing. Working steadily, he packed two more loads of TNT to his stash in the woods, before stopping to rest.
Was it enough? Was it possible to destroy the gate with any amount? "Wrong damn question, Macurdy," he muttered. The operating assumption had to be that it was possible. And as for how much it would take, the only rational response was to use all he could while still doing it that day, that morning at 0857, when the weather office had said the moon would cross the local meridian. The explosive had to be there at the gate, waiting-he had to be there waiting-before it opened.
And it was doubtful he could even lug what he had up the mile of truck trail to the gate between dawn and 0857. Yet to start lugging it now, in utter darkness, would be stupid, even coming a slow, groping 200 feet up the ridge road had involved stumbling, straying off the rocky road, even bumping into trees. And he would not risk it all by using the pen light. He'd wait for dawn.
Still driven by the urgency of his mission, he went back to the schloss and hauled more TNT to his new stack beneath the Voitar's wing, till he had 1,800 blocks stacked there-nearly a metric ton. For good measure, he loaded another sackful to take with him, then returned to his stash in the forest. There, with the deadly burden still on his shoulders, he sat back against his pack to doze, with the strict admonition to be on his feet at the first dawnlight that reached him through the trees.
He half-wakened various times over the next hours, till he became aware that the darkness was thick gray, not black, and he could make out, vaguely, the tree trunks around him. With a lurch he got to his knees, then his feet, found the rough road, and started uphill for the gate. Twice he stumbled, not quite falling, but charged hard nonetheless, jogging on the easy stretches, sweating profusely in the chill morning. By the time he reached the crest, it was light enough to see that the SS had no guards there. He recognized the gate itself by memory, and by a psychic buzz so faint, he'd have missed it had he not been concentrating.
He unloaded his burden, not taking time to stack or cloak it, then shouldered the pack frame again and started back down at a lope, not concerned with falling or the noise of his descent. Subsequent trips were even faster, Macurdy drawing energy from the Web of the World to keep up his furious pace. The Last load was less than full, and he made it in a shambling run, driven by the fear that the gate would activate before he arrived, yet unwilling to leave any of the explosive behind. When he arrived at the loose heap of TNT at the gate, he dumped his load, then ran back to the place he'd chosen earlier in passing. Facing the heap, he looked at his watch: 0854.
Within a minute he felt activation begin, and concentrated on the TNT 120 feet away-close enough that he could see it clearly, sharply, but far enough that the gate wouldn't suck him in. If he didn't time it right-if it blew too soon it seemed unlikely he'd survive. That was an awfully big stack of explosive.
He raised both arms in front of him, palms forward, level with his shoulders, saw the margins of the heap begin to waver, blur, made himself hold back for brief seconds. Then the heap shimmered, and he pumped plasma spheres at it, almost too swift to see in the morning light.
Abruptly the field collapsed and was gone, as if it hadn't been, leaving not even a psychic echo. There was no shock wave, and to his eyes, nothing had changed-except that the heap had disappeared. There wasn't even a hole where it had been.
He collapsed on the ground, and for several minutes lay exhausted, unseeing, numb with relief. He'd timed it right. But there was nothing resembling jubilation. For one thing, he couldn't be sure-not really sure-that he'd actually destroyed the gate. He might simply have interrupted it, or altered the timing again.
At any rate, the more dangerous task remained.
35
Points of View
Greszak had long since lost any real interest in the training project. Life had grown monotonous, boring, to the point that al looked forward to--all any of them looked forward to was returning to Hithmearc. Next to the boredom, the worst thing about this place was being cut off from the hive mind- except for the fragment consisting of their own small group. One got used to it, but only to a degree.
For him, the high point had come to be the spring birds caroling in the new day-he'd been getting up at daybreak to hear them-and the low point, this week, been the antics of the human guardsmen bouncing and shouting on the -dawn in some grotesque rite of spring. Watching through a window, he wished them ill as they filed back into the building.
At first, training Germans in magic had seemed a challenge, but had become essentially a defeat. In Hithmearc, training humans in magic had never even been contemplated, of course; first it was undesirable, and secondly, few showed talent. Even in the two races that had-the Saanit and the Ylver-the talent had been quite limited. As a precaution, both peoples had been dispersed-destroyed so far as possible. The remnants of the Saanit had f led into the vast harsh taiga east of the grasslands. While the Ylver who'd survived-the island Ylver-had fled west across the ocean sea, an escape his people would never forgive.
The Germans had no more talent than usual for humans: A few showed one or another ability, but always minor. Still, it had been interesting for a while to see what could be spade of them. Some had gained modestly, but soon reached a limit, perhaps because they lacked the hive mind. The most successful had been the one named Montag-amusing to be named for a calendar day-but even Montag had reached his limit well below adept.
Nonetheless it had heartened Landgraf and Kupfer to send him off against their enemies, and in fact, Montag should prove useful to them. But overall, as a magician he was no more powerful than the Ylvin magicians of ancient record.
Meanwhile Greszak's staff went through the motions of teaching, while looking forward to going home. The Crown Prince would arrive through the gate shortly, bringing a circle of seven adepts and a power master, and after two days of acclimation and briefing, would send them with the Germans to some meaningless place on the northwest coast, to repel invaders.
And when they'd been sent, the Germans would complete their part of the bargain. They'd already delivered detailed diagrams for building large sailing vessels-their most vital contribution-and had tried to deliver powerful explosives. Now they would deliver tools, models, and less utilitarian artifacts, along with a medicine they claimed to have against seasickness.
It would be interesting to go north themselves, he and his staff, and in an early stage of planning, it had been considered But the Crown Prince had decided otherwise. There were risks, and they all were masters, well beyond the level needed by the Germans; adepts would serve nicely.
A sensation touched Greszak: The gate had begun its daily activation. He felt its energy rising, shaping. In perhaps half an hour, the Crown Prince and the team he was bringing would arrive at the schloss on foot, their disorientation and queasiness repaired by the run.
A bird landed on the window sill and looked in at Greszak. The baron didn't know the names of Bavarian birds, but this one looked rather like the speckled thrush at home. He grinned at it, and it cocked its head as if to say, "Who are you?"
"I am Baron Greszak," the Voitu replied, "and who are you?"
its answer was to flirt its tail and fly. Probably, Greszak thought, it had a nest close by, perhaps under the eaves.
He returned his attention to the gate energy. Activation involved frequency acceleration, and he sensed it culminate. Then, after the brief and customary waver, it stabilized-and at that same moment cut sharply off.