"But as soon as Papa touches the hilt, won't Rasalom lose control over him?"
Glenn shook his head sadly. "You must realize by now that he's helping Rasalom willingly ... enthusiastically. Your father will be able to handle the hilt with ease because he'll be acting of his own free will."
Magda felt dead inside. "But Papa doesn't know! Why didn't you tell him?"
"Because it was his battle, not mine. And because I couldn't risk letting Rasalom know I was here. Your father wouldn't have believed me anyway—he preferred to hate me. Rasalom has done a masterful job on him, destroying his character by tiny increments, peeling away layer after layer of all the things he believed in, leaving only the base, venal aspects of his nature."
It was true. Magda had seen it happening and had been afraid to admit it, but it was true!
"You could have helped him!"
"Perhaps. But I doubt it. Your father's battle was against himself as much as against Rasalom. And in the end, evil must be faced alone. Your father made excuses for the evil he sensed within Rasalom, and soon he came to see Rasalom as the answer to all his problems. Rasalom started with your father's religion. He does not fear the cross, yet he pretended to, causing your father to question his entire heritage, undermining all the beliefs and values derived from that heritage. Then Rasalom rescued you from your would-be rapists—a testimony to the quickness and adaptability of his mind—putting your father deep in his debt. Rasalom went on to promise him a chance to destroy Nazism and save your people. And then, the final stroke—the elimination of all the symptoms of the disease your father has suffered with for years. Rasalom had a willing slave then, one who would do just about anything he asked. He has not only stripped away most of the man you called 'Papa,' but has fashioned him into an instrument that will effect the release of mankind's greatest enemy from the keep."
Glenn struggled to a sitting position. "I must stop Rasalom once and for all!"
"Let him go," Magda said through her misery as she contemplated what had happened to Papa—or rather, what Papa had allowed to happen to himself. She had to wonder: Would she or anybody else have been able to withstand such an assault on one's character? "Perhaps that will free my father from Rasalom's influence and we can go back to the way we were."
"You will have no lives to go about if Rasalom is set free!"
"In this world of Hitler and the Iron Guard, what can Rasalom do that hasn't been done already?"
"You haven't been listening!" Glenn said angrily. "Once free, Rasalom will make Hitler seem a suitable playmate for whatever children you might have planned on having."
"Nothing could be worse than Hitler!" Magda said. "Nothing!"
"Rasalom could. Don't you see, Magda, that with Hitler, as evil as he is, there is still hope? Hitler is but a man. He is mortal. He will die or be killed someday ... maybe tomorrow, maybe thirty years from now, but he will die. He only controls a small part of the world. And although he appears invincible now, he has yet to deal with Russia. Britain still defies him. And there is America—if those Americans decide to turn their vitality and productive capacity to war, no country, not even Hitler's Germany, will be able to stand against them for long. So you see, there is still hope in this very dark hour."
Magda nodded slowly. What Glenn said paralleled her own feelings—she had never given up hope. "But Rasalom—"
"Rasalom, as I told you, feeds on human debasement. And never in the history of humankind has there been such a glut of it as there is today in eastern Europe. As long as the hilt remains within the keep walls, Rasalom is not only trapped, but is insulated from what goes on outside. Remove the hilt and it will all rush in on him at once—all the death, misery, and butchery of Buchenwald, Dachau, Auschwitz, and all the other death camps, all the monstrousness of modern war. He'll absorb it like a sponge, feast on it and grow incredibly strong. His power will balloon beyond all comprehension.
"But he'll not be satisfied. He'll want more. He'll move swiftly around the world, slaying heads of state, throwing governments into confusion, reducing nations to terrified mobs. What army could stand against the legions of the dead he is capable of raising against it?
"Soon all will be in chaos. And then the real horror will begin. Nothing worse than Hitler, you say? Think of the entire world as a death camp!"
Magda's mind rebelled at the vista Glenn was describing. "It couldn't happen!"
"Why not? Do you think there will be a shortage of volunteers to run Rasalom's death camps? The Nazis have shown that there are plenty of men more than willing to slaughter their fellows. But it will go far beyond that. You've seen what has happened to the villagers today, haven't you? All the worst in their natures has been drawn to the surface. Their responses to the world have been reduced to anger, hate, and violence."
"But how?"
"Rasalom's influence. He has grown steadily stronger within the keep, feeding on the death and fear there, and on the slow disintegration of your father's character. And as he has gained strength, the walls of the keep have been weakened by the soldiers. Every day they tear down a little more of the internal structure, compromising its integrity. And every day the influence of Rasalom's presence extends farther beyond those walls.
"The keep was built to an ancient design, the images of the hilt placed in a specific pattern in the walls to cut Rasalom off from the world, to contain his power, to seal him in. Now that pattern has been tampered with and the villagers are paying the price. If Rasalom escapes and feeds on the death camps, the whole world will pay a similar price. For Rasalom will not be as selective as Hitler when it comes to victims: Everyone will be targeted. Race, religion, none of that will matter. Rasalom will be truly egalitarian. The rich will not be able to buy their way out, the pious will not be able to pray their way out, the crafty will not be able to sneak or lie their way out. Everyone will suffer. Women and children the most. People will be born into misery; they will spend their days in despair; they will die in agony. Generation after generation, all suffering to feed Rasalom."
He paused for breath, then: "And the worst of it all, Magda, is that there will be no hope. And no end to it! Rasalom will be untouchable ... invincible ... deathless. If he is freed now, there will be no stopping him. Always in the past the sword has held him back. But now ...with the world as it is ... he will grow too strong for even this blade reunited with its hilt to stop him. He must never leave the keep!"
Magda saw that Glenn meant to go into the keep. "No!" she shouted, her arms reaching to hold him back. She couldn't let him go. "He'll destroy you in your condition! Isn't there anybody else?"
"Only me. No one else can do this. Like your father, I have to face this alone. After all, it's really my fault that Rasalom still exists at all."
"How can that be?"
Glenn didn't answer. Magda tried another approach.
"Where did Rasalom come from?"
"He was a man ... once. But he gave himself over to dark power and was forever changed by it."
Magda felt a catch in her throat. "But if Rasalom serves a 'dark power,' who do you serve?"
"Another power."
She sensed his resistance, but she pressed on.
"A power for good?"
"Perhaps."
"For how long?"