Free Vienna Blood by Frank Tallis

nodded, and Von Triebenbach took a seat (next to Professor Foch) at the very end of the pew nearest the throne.
    “First steward of the Order Primal Fire, friends, and brothers, I thank you,” said the bandaged man, his voice sounding a little dry and hoarse. He raised his palm.
    “Heil und Sieg.”
    “Heil und Sieg,” came the response.
    “My dear friends,” said List, opening his arms as if in supplication. “You look upon a man diminished. I am blind—and may never see again. But do not be deceived. To be sightless is not to be without vision. And although my body may be weak, in truth I have never felt so strong, so powerful, and so much in command of my faculties. I have never been more certain of the fundamental truths that must guide our thinking. …”
    List's head moved from left to right, as if he were surveying the scene and taking in—one by one—the attentive expressions of his audience.
    “There is a theme which many of our great stories share.” His voice became a little louder. “The promise of redemption, through suffering. I have been cast into darkness. But I have also been redeemed. I have been granted such revelations …”
    Olbricht and Aschenbrandt leaned forward; the pew creaked.
    “When I was still a boy,” List continued, “in my fourteenth year oflife, I experienced a presentiment of my destiny. My father permitted me to join him and a party of friends on a visit to the catacombs under St. Stephen's. We climbed down, and everything I saw excited me with a strange galvanic energy. … When we descended to the fourth level, we discovered a ruined altar. I was overwhelmed by an emotion that, even now, I can barely find the words to describe. I proclaimed, ‘When I am a man, I will build a temple of Wotan.’ Of course, I was laughed at … and in truth, I knew nothing more of Wotan than I had read in Vollmer's Wörterbuch der Mythologie. But the atmosphere of the catacombs had aroused in me a religious sentiment, and my instinct was to turn not to Christ but to the gods of our fathers. The old gods …”
    The speaker paused. Once more, his head movements gave the eerie impression that he could see through the bandages and was inspecting his audience. Olbricht and Aschenbrandt both leaned back, as though repelled by some strange power, when they came into the purview of his hidden, sightless eyes.
    “I am indebted to the first steward,” List began again, “for his kind and generous words concerning my novel Carnuntum. I am often asked, ‘From where did such a work come?’ In some respects, I feel it fraudulent to claim authorship, because I was nothing but a vessel through which Carnuntum came into the world. The work grew, however, from a seed, and I can attest to when that seed was planted. …” A faint smile hovered around his lips. “When I was a young man, about twenty-seven or so, I traveled—some twenty-five miles east of Vienna—with a small group of companions, to celebrate the summer solstice at the ruined Roman city of Carnuntum. It is a place of great significance for the German people. For it was at Carnuntum that the Quadi, a Germanic tribe, brave and morally pure, conquered the decadent Roman garrison and, in the fullness of time, pressed on to establish a new Teutonic empire. The Quadi were not barbarians but a noble race, reclaiming lost territories.
    “Our so-called scholars have paid scant attention to the script of our German ancestors—the runes. They have based all their works on a false and baseless assumption that the Germanic peoples had no script of any kind, and that their writing signs had been imperfectly copied from the Latin script. But they are woefully wrong!”
    During this pedagogic digression, List's voice had become whiny and querulous. Perhaps realizing that he had departed from his intended narrative, he sighed, and resumed his story.
    “It was an arduous journey, but we persevered. We climbed steadily until I could see the