Magda began to sob, as much for Glenn as for her own overwhelming sense of loss. She despised herself for that selfishness, yet it would not be denied. Thoughts of all the things they would never do together rushed in on her. After thirty-one years she finally had found a man she could love. She had spent one full day at his side, an incredible twenty-four hours immersing herself in the true magnificence of life, only to have him torn from her and brutally murdered.
It's not fair!
She came to the rubble fall at the end of the gorge and paused to glare across the rising mist that filled it. Could you hate a stone building? She hated the keep. It held nothing but evil. Had she possessed the power she would have willed it to tumble into Hell, taking everyone inside—Yes! Even Papa!—with it.
But the keep floated, silent and implacable, on its sea of fog, lit from within, dark and glowering without, ignoring her.
She prepared to descend into the gorge as she had two nights ago. Two nights ... it seemed like an age. The fog was right up to the rim, making the descent even more dangerous. It was insane to risk her life trying to find Glenn's body in the dark down there. But her life did not matter as much now as it had a few hours ago. She had to find him ... had to touch his wounds, feel his still heart and cold skin. She had to know for certain he was beyond all help. There would be no rest for her until then.
As she began to swing her legs over the edge she heard some pebbles slide and bounce down the slope beneath her. At first she thought her weight had dislodged a clump of dirt from the edge. But an instant later she heard it again. She stopped and listened. There was another sound, too—labored breathing. Someone was climbing up through the fog!
Frightened, Magda backed away from the edge and waited in the brush, ready to run. She held her breath as she saw a hand rise out of the fog and claw the soft earth at the gorge's rim, followed by another hand, followed by a head. Magda instantly recognized the shape of that head.
"Glenn!"
He did not seem to hear, but continued struggling to pull himself over the edge. Magda ran to him. Gripping him under both arms and calling on reserves of strength she never knew she possessed, she pulled him up onto level ground where he lay face down, panting and groaning. She knelt over him, helpless and confused.
"Oh, Glenn, you're"—her hands were wet and glistened darkly in the moonlight—"bleeding!" It was inane, it was obvious, it was expected, but it was all she could say at the moment.
You should be dead! she thought but held back the words. If she didn't say it, maybe it wouldn't happen. But his clothing was soaked with blood oozing from dozens of mortal wounds. That he was still breathing was a miracle. That he had managed to pull himself out of the gorge was beyond belief! Yet here he was, prostrate before her ... alive. If he had lasted this long, perhaps...
"I'll get a doctor!" Another stupid remark—a reflex. There was no doctor anywhere in the Dinu Pass. "I'll get Iuliu and Lidia! They'll help me get you back to the—"
Glenn mumbled something, Magda bent over him, touching her ear to his lips.
"Go to my room," he said in a weak, dry, tortured voice. The odor of blood was fresh on his breath. He's bleeding inside!
"I'll take you there as soon as I get Iuliu—" But would Iuliu help?
His fingers plucked at her sleeve. "Listen to me! Get the case ... you saw it yesterday ... the one with the blade in it."
"That's not going to help you now! You need medical care!"
"You must! Nothing else can save me!"
She straightened up, hesitated a moment, then jumped to her feet and ran. Her head started pounding again but now she found it easy to ignore the pain. Glenn wanted that sword blade. It didn't make sense, but his voice had been so full of conviction ... urgency ... need. She had to get it for him.
Magda did not slacken her pace as she entered the inn, taking the stairs up to the second floor two at a time, slowing only when she entered the darkness of Glenn's room. She felt her way to the closet and lifted the case. With a high-pitched creak it fell open—she hadn't closed the catches when Glenn had surprised her here yesterday! The blade slipped out of the case and fell against the mirror with a crash. The glass shattered and cascaded onto the floor. Magda bent and quickly replaced the blade in its case, found the catches, closed them, then lifted the case into her arms, groaning under its unexpected weight. As she turned to leave, she pulled the blanket from the bed, then hurried across to her room for a second blanket.
Iuliu and Lidia, alerted by the commotion she was making on the second floor, stood with startled expressions at the foot of the stairs as she descended.
"Don't try to stop me!" Magda said as she rushed by. Something in her voice must have warned them away, for they stepped aside and let her pass.
She stumbled back through the brush, the case and the blankets weighing her down, snagging on the branches, slowing her as she rushed toward Glenn, praying he was still alive. She found him lying on his back, weaker, his voice fainter.
"The blade," he whispered as she leaned over him. "Take it out of the case."
For an awful moment Magda feared he would ask for a coup de grace. She would do anything for Glenn—anything but that. But would a man with his injuries make so desperate a climb out of the gorge just to ask for death? She opened the case. Two large pieces of the shattered mirror lay within. She brushed them aside and lifted the dark, cold blade with both her hands, feeling the shape of the runes carved in its surface press against her palms.
She passed it to his outstretched arms and almost dropped it when a faint blue glow, blue like a gas flame, leaped along its edges at his touch. As she released it to him, he sighed; his features relaxed, losing their pain, a look of contentment settling on them ... the look of a man who has come home to a warm and familiar room after a long, arduous winter journey.
Glenn positioned the blade along the length of his battered, punctured, blood-soaked body, the point resting a few inches short of his ankles, the spike of the butt where the missing hilt should be almost to his chin. Folding his arms over the blade and across his chest, he closed his eyes.
"You shouldn't stay here," he said in a faint, slurred voice. "Come back later."
"I'm not leaving you."
He made no reply. His breathing became shallower and steadier. He appeared to be asleep. Magda watched him closely. The blue glow spread to his forearms, sheathing them in a faint patina of light. She covered him with a blanket, as much for warmth as to hide the glow from the keep. Then she moved away, wrapped the second blanket around her shoulders, and seated herself with her back against a rock. Myriad questions, held at bay until now, rushed in on her.
Who was he, really? What manner of man was this who suffered wounds enough to kill him many times over and then climbed a slope that would tax a strong man in perfect health? What manner of man hid his room's mirror in a closet along with an ancient sword with no hilt? Who now clasped that sword to his breast as he lay on the borderland of death? How could she entrust her love and her life to such a man? She knew nothing about him.
Then Papa's ranting came back to her: He belongs to a group that directs the Nazis, that is using them for its own foul ends! He's worse than a Nazi!
Could Papa be right? Could she be so blinded by her infatuation that she could not or would not see this? Glenn certainly was no ordinary man. And he did have secrets—he had been far from totally open with her. Was it possible that Glenn was the enemy and Molasar the ally?