“Sons of the Aesir, we ride!” stabbed her silvery voice.
Three thousand voices crashed answer through the thunderous din, and the trumpets clamored as the yelling host spurred forward.
Fallon felt lifted out of himself by superhuman emotion as he galloped beside Brynhild down the snowy slope toward the milling enemy. He heard the blood-chilling, squalling scream of the white lynx as it leaped ahead of the racing steed of Thor’s daughter.
His sword was in his hand and he was leaning far out over the neck of his mount as they rushed down through the lightning and hail and darkness. And over all the uproar rose the stabbing cry of Brynhild and the Valkyries.
“Yo to ho!”
They smashed down into the hosts of Nazi infantry like a thunderbolt. Fallon, seeking to spur ahead of Brynhild for her protection, glimpsed scared, desperate German faces and striking bayonets everywhere.
He hacked furiously down with his sword at men who sought to swing up their rifles to shoot. He saw Nazi soldiers recoiling with screams of horror from the leaping white lynx, and glimpsed Tyr shouting fiercely as he struck. And close by in the press, Helverson rode and whirled his heavy axe, blood-mad with heat of battle.
But try as he might, Fallon could not spur ahead of Brynhild. The slim sword of the daughter of Thor leaped in blurringly swift and deadly stabs. And always, it seemed, the sheeted lightning struck just ahead of her galloping horse, and advanced with her.
Out of the phantasmagoric, lightning-lit battle, a furious and wolfish face rushed toward Fallon. All Victor Heysing’s handsomeness was gone as he came riding toward the American with a leveled automatic spitting fire from his hand.
Fallon felt the tug of the bullets at his jacket and through the uproar heard Heysing’s raging shout.
“Gott, I’ll at least take you—”
Lightning rocked the crazy scene as Fallon spurred into the spitting pistol with his sword extended straight toward the German.
He felt the stinging sear of one bullet along his thigh, and then his outstretched blade tore into Heysing’s body and he felt its hilt smack hard against the German’s ribs. The onward rush of his steed tore loose his sword, and he looked back to see the Nazi fall from the saddle.
The Nazi troops were everywhere fleeing in confusion, now. And after them rode the raging Aesir warriors.
Within the half hour, it was all over.
The storm was muttering away, and Fallon was almost glad that darkness veiled the scattered hosts of German dead on the snowy slope.
He sat his horse beside Brynhild on the crest as the Aesir host re-gathered and came riding back up the slope. A wild shout crashed from them as they raised red swords and axes in salute to Thor’s daughter.
“Homage, princess! Thanks to your storm-magic, we have left no German living here!”
“Aye, but there are others of the butchers in the northland,” Brynhild reminded them. “And now we Aesir shall not rest until they are driven back from whence they came. We shall ride forth again and again from our valley and strike them wherever we find them, until the land is clean of them.”
“We hear and we will follow you, princess!” came the fierce answer.
“And I will follow you, if you let me,” Helverson rumbled, his face flaming.
But Fallon was silent. And Brynhild looked at him in sudden anxious earnestness. “I know that you come with us, too.”
He shook his head heavily, and pointed down at the distant village where the two ships had now reached dock and were embarking the refugees.
“Those ships go to England, Brynhild,” he said slowly. “And I must go with them.”
“But you cannot!” she cried. Her brilliant eyes burned into his. “Outlander, you know that I love you. Even when I was angry for what I thought your deception, I still loved you and was sure that you loved me.”
He leaned in the saddle to put his arms close around her and to feel the thrilling contact of her lips.
“Girl or goddess, I do love you, Brynhild,” he said hoarsely. “But I swore an oath of duty that I must keep. I must go back to England to take up again my part in the war in the sky.” Her white face yearned toward him. “But you will come back, Outlander?”
“I’ll come back, Brynhild. Nothing can keep me from coming back.”
Fallon stood at the rail of the crowded little British freighter as it and its sister ship struggled doggedly out through the ice to open sea. He stood looking back achingly at the wilderness of snowy mountains that stretched awesome and forbidding beyond the shore. The joyful Norwegian refugees who crowded the deck behind him were still excitedly discussing the mystery of their salvation. All they knew was that some terrific battle had taken place on the distant slopes which had destroyed the Nazis who had been on the point of conquering them. Storm had veiled that battle, and the mystery of their saviors’ identity was unsolved.
“They must have been a large force of Norwegian guerillas, who went back into the mountains after they destroyed the Nazis,” said a man.
A tall Norse woman, her eyes glowing with a strange light, shook her head.
“They were the old gods, come back from Asgard to help our people. Only Thor or his daughter could have blasted the invaders by storm like that.”
Fallon, in the months to follow, was to hear that half-eager, half-doubtful assertion time and again, in the strange stories that were to drift out of embattled Norway.
Stories were to come of the old gods reappearing to aid their invaded land, of the mighty Aesir coming down again and again in night and storm in raids upon German posts; stories of the mystification and anger and fear of the Nazis, of the whisper of hope running through that northern land that Thor’s daughter and her Valkyries were riding again, a whisper and hope that would keep Norway’s people fighting until the tyrants could be overthrown.
Some day, Fallon knew, that overthrow would come. And some day, he would come back again to that wild, weird northern land, and would ride up into the mountains to the valley where the daughter of Thor would be waiting.
THE WALTZ, by Morris W. Gowen
Originally published in All-Story, September, 1913.
Toward the end of May, high up in an attic room of a tumble-down house in Paris, a young man stood at the open window. He held in his hands a violin and a bow. The last colors of a glorious sunset were fading away into night over the skyline of chimneys and black roofs.
The room was littered by what was left of the musician’s worldly goods, very few, for that day a sale had taken place of his poor effects to satisfy the landlord’s demand for rent.
All that was left were some few sheets of manuscript-music, a bed, a chair, and some cooking utensils.
It was the end of hope, ambition, of all—complete failure having met the composer’s efforts.
His face showed plainly his suffering for the past month or so. Thin, so as to be only skin and bone, it was of a terrible paleness.
Only his eyes had fire in them. They were awful to see.
His left hand grasped the neck of the violin tightly, and his eyes wandered about the bare room.
Then, as the sky darkened, the first breath of summer crept in at the window. A warm south breeze so soft as to be barely felt, but bringing with it the first tidings of brighter days to those who had felt the long winter’s cold. It was the forewarner of gladness and sunshine.
Unheedingly the young man lifted the violin to his chin, and his right hand crossed the bow over the strings. He hesitated a minute; then cast a look at the sky, and with a bold sweep of the bow began to play.
It was a waltz, throbbing with passion, full and harmonious. The sad notes of the bass strings in a minor key followed each other to the time, crying sadly like the lament of a lost soul far away.
Ever chang
ing in melody, the waltz carried in it the first four thrilling notes. They crossed, repeated; retreated, and returned.
The first breath of summer caught these notes, carried them out of the attic window over the smoky roofs of Paris, held them, played with them, sent them to the wondering ears of other poor people who lived in attics and in lodgings nearby. Women stopped sewing. Children ceased playing. Men dropped their forks and leaving their evening’s meal, crept on tiptoe to the open windows and listened
Suddenly the music grew louder, more intense, and the time quickened to madness. Then four long-drawn notes, the same as at the beginning, rang out and—there was silence.
As the last note was sounded the composer fell dead from the intense effort and the past months of starvation.
The little summer breeze carried with it his grand composition and his soul.
A man sat in an office before a richly carved desk.
He was a plain-looking business man, fat, in a white waistcoat. Before him on the desk lay much money.
His fat hands, sparkling with valuable rings, gathered up the crisp notes and slipped them into rubber bands, packing them into packets of ten thousands. He then got up and carried these packets to a large safe set into the wall of the office, placed them in a drawer, and locked the safe, sighing when he had done, like a person does, having lifted a heavy weight.
He then switched on the light and threw open the big office window, looking out onto a busy square filled by hurrying people and vehicles.
He stood at the window some minutes, following with his cunning small eyes the figure of a smart little woman whose figure interested him. As he tried to keep her in sight while she crossed the square the summer breeze crept into the office, touching his cheek with its warm caress.
It held music in its impalpable vapor—that heartrending waltz with its deep chords and simple harmony leading up to the fantastic finale, infernal in its throbbing recklessness and the four simple notes of its sudden ending.
The banker drew his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow, his hand trembling as he did so. A chill passed over him.
He hastily closed the window and then sank into a chair. He felt unnerved and weak. His eyes wandered about the office in a troubled way. He grasped the arms of the chair tightly as his gaze became fixed in the direction of the locked safe.
As he did so the music again caught his ear, holding him breathless in his eagerness not to miss a single note.
The music had full possession of him. It held him in its cruelly irresistible power while, standing before the safe, he saw a poorly clad figure holding a violin to its chin, its pale face looking upward, its right arm swinging the bow.
The figure was no ghost in the banker’s eyes. To him it lived. He could see the bow swing back and forth and his left foot beat time almost imperceptibly.
He saw the aristocratic profile of the player, as clearly cut as a cameo. The neck and profile brought a vague, far-off memory to the banker.
He was young again. Very young, at his father’s country-place. In his mind he saw the old trees, the lawns, and moonlight nights of June. He saw Lucille, the farmer’s daughter, as she crept in her pretty bare, white feet over the moonlit grass to meet him under the shadow of the oaks.
He remembered his father’s anger, the hurried departure, the long sea voyage to foreign lands. The return, and the news of Lucille’s trouble and death.
As the music got hold of his heart these visions became so clear that while the violin sighed he lived again all that summer of love and passion.
He rose to his feet, trembling; for in that white neck and pure profile he recognized his own flesh and blood.
The waltz was drawing near the end.
As the last four notes filled the office with their magic harmony, the banker held his arms out toward the figure and cried, his voice full of longing:
“Speak! Speak! My son!”
But it was too late.
As the last note left the ghostly violin the figure of the player vanished.
WHITE LADY, by Sophie Wenzel Ellis
Originally appeared in Strange Tales, January 1933.
Brynhild knew that something had waked her, something pleasant and exhilarating, which was to be expected on this strange island in the most remote corner of the warm Caribbean sea, where André Fournier, her fiancé, experimented fantastically with tropical plant life.
Presently she heard it again, music so wild and delicate that she felt its rapturous vibrations in her nerves, rather than heard them.
Below her, from the house to the placid sea in the distance, spread an unnatural panorama, lighted by the sun’s gaudy hood just coming out of the water. She looked, and was glad that she had accepted the invitation of Madame Fournier, André’s gracious mother, to visit their lonely Ile-de-Fleur.
In a few minutes she was dressed and on the trail of the puzzling music. When she closed the back door behind her, she was immediately in a curious maze of floral wonders, unreal as a painting by Doré. The jungles of the sun-warmed lands had given to André their rarest treasures, which now sucked a richer life from the black soil of the Ile-de-Fleur.
Nature, in her most whimsical mood, had not been permitted to rule here; everywhere, among frond and spray and giant runner, bloomed hybrid blossoms whose weird forms and colors suggested André’s tampering with Nature.
Brynhild heard the music clearer now, long notes that had an eerie, half-human sound, like the tuneless music of a demented savage. It baffled her, teased her into wilder plunges through the flower thickets, all jeweled with liquid beads.
When she mounted a hillock and saw, just beyond, a tiny cage built of copper screen, she knew that she had reached her goal. The music seemed to come from this little bower, which was puzzling, for the sole occupant was a blooming plant.
A golden gauze seemed to drop suddenly from the sky, which was the tropical sun’s first rays shooting from the sea. The stronger light brought a gasp from Brynhild, for now she could see that even in this land of queer vegetation, the imprisoned plant was a monstrous alien.
From a mass of thick frondage, white and fleshy as her own bare arms, reared a flower whose round, pallid petals formed a face like the caricature of a woman. Draped around this eldritch flower-face and flowing down to meet the colorless foliage, was a mass of gauzy matter that had the startling appearance of a bridal veil.
But what brought a cry from Brynhild was not the human look of this fantastic plant, but what it was doing. Just below the head, almost as large as her own, protruded two slender, dagger-pointed white spines, set in sockets in such a manner that they could be moved like arms. These two spines, rubbing together, produced the music that had captivated her.
After the first frightful moment of comprehension, she longed to see the spectacle closer. She pressed her forehead against the copper screen.
Instantly the spines ceased their serenade, the white flower-face turned and fronted her, and she felt eyes watching her, eyes she could not see. For a moment, flower and foliage remained rigid; then a spasm passed through the entire plant, the arms came together again, and hideous discord shrieked out.
Brynhild, sensing that her presence had caused the change from elfin music to the blood-freezing dissonance, dropped behind a concealing thicket and watched.
While she waited, footsteps approached. André was coming. Like a tall young pagan priest he came forward, arms and shoulders naked, sunshine splashing his bronze curls. He had a beautiful, poetic face and a luminous smile that was now turned on the strange plant.
Instantly the flower music commenced again, louder and more seductive than ever, the queer blossom reeling on its stem as though animal excitement quivered through its pallid flesh.
André called out in his soft French:
“Bonjour, White Lady. Are you happy this morning, eh?”
The woman-face swayed toward him; the dagger arms caressed each other rapturously.
Brynhild crouched lower behind her hiding place, each moment more astonished and horrified. André lifted the latch on the door and went inside.
The music sank to a low, plaintive throbbing, tender as a bird’s love song. André came closer to the flower and touched the white foliage with gentle fingers. Down drooped the flower head until the fleshy cheeks brushed his face.
“Ah, ma petite!” André whispered. “My own White Lady! If I could but bridge the gap!”
Brynhild could endure no more.
“André!” she shrieked, leaping from her hiding place.
Instantly the flower-head stiffened, and turned toward her with a gesture so human that the girl sickened. As André called out an impulsive greeting and came toward her, the unnatural foliage quivered violently and the daggers came together with a piercing din.
André laughed. “She’s jealous, the White Lady!” His English had the barest accent. “Did you ever imagine such a flower, Brynhild? Should you have believed if someone had told you of this?”
“It is a nightmare!” She covered her eyes with soft, beautifully formed hands.
“No, Brynhild. She is my dream materialized.”
“Stop! I can’t bear to hear you speak of it as though it were a woman.” Her face had blanched until it was as pale as the flower before her.
In the cage, a terrific noise was going on, shocking in its metallic harshness.
André turned around and looked at the flower. “I’d better go to it for a moment, dear. Come! White Lady is like a dog: if you are good to her, she’ll respond with love that is almost human.” Hesitant, as though she feared something evil, Brynhild entered the cage behind André. André caressed the leaves and put his face against the humanlike head. The daggers, rubbing together, gave forth a feline purr.
The Fantasy MEGAPACK ® Page 27
