The Iron Dream (13 page)

The various lesser public buildings were constructed on only a slightly smaller scale, and no effort had been spared in embellishing the least of them with heroic statuary, bronzes, and ornately worked stone, marble, or metallic facades. Each building faced an open square across the Emerald Promenade, so that the whole gave an effect of vast spaciousness as well as heroic scale.

Feric longed for the day when Party parades would fill this great boulevard from walkway to walkway and for miles in length, bearing scarlet forests of Party flags, marching to the beat of martial music and chanting patriotic songs. Soon enough that day would come, but, for now, the massed howl of motorcycle engines and the flash of flags and steel at speed were song and spectacle enough to set this stately boulevard vibrating with energy as workers and officials poured out of the buildings to observe its passage.

The column swept up the full length of the Emerald Promenade, drawing an ever-growing comet's tail of vehicles and bicycles along and then headed away from the center of the city in a northwesterly direction. The sun was waning, and Feric's plan was to tour through the western section of the city before returning at dusk to the site near the center of Walder which had been chosen for 87

the first mass rally, for surely sunset would be the most dramatic hour for what was planned.

This course carried the convoy through another bustling commercial district, then an area of tasteful apartment dwellings; slowly and subtly these well-maintained and spotless environs gave way to a neighborhood where the architecture of the dwellings was similar, but the facades rife with unrepaired damage, the walls begrimed, the plantings gone to seed and ill-tended, and the streets mired in rubbish and filth. Here the people in the streets wore soiled and worn garments and bad sullen, vacant expressions; they lined the streets silently, an unhealthy-looking and altogether sorry spectacle all too reminiscent of the dull rabble of Borgravia. To Feric's trained nostrils, the reek of Dominators hung fetid and heavy in this air.

Feric leaned forward and questioned Bogel: "What is this place?"

Bogel turned to face him with a distasteful grimace on his thin features. "This foul warren is known as Graytown. It's a notorious den of Universalists; the rabble here have been thoroughly infected with the pestilence of Zind. Periodically, they erupt from this cesspool in riots, demanding such obscenities as open borders, and the breeding of subhuman slave creatures with the aid of advisers from Zind. When our colors are known to all, we dare not show ourselves in these precincts."

"On the contrary," Feric informed him, "in the near future our storm troops must sweep through this area and slay the hidden Doms responsible for this blight on true humanity."

"No one has ever succeeded in rooting all the Doms out of this maze," Bogel said. "They are everywhere and nowhere."

'"Then we must simply crack heads here until improvement in the situation proves that we have eradicated them all. The only way to destroy well-entrenched dominance patterns is with ruthless force enthusiastically and somewhat indiscriminately applied."

As the column sped through the filthy streets past the unkempt gardens and grimy dwellings, Feric vowed to save as many of these poor wretches as he could from their Dom masters and Yetum them to their true Helder inheri-

tance. As for those too deeply enmeshed to be extracted 88

from the dominance patterns short of death, to slay them would be a mercy, when one considered their present state.

As the last rays of the sun fired the western hills with purple and orange and the lights of the city came on, Feric's command car led the motorized column up the broad avenue which entered Brammer Park from the south. Here, on the flat crest of a gently rolling hill in the southern end of the park, Feric would address the first mass rally of the Sons of the Swastika.

Up the avenue, this hillside was clearly visible now, and Feric could see the blazing twenty-foot swastika of faggots that crowned the crest like a proud beacon. Cupping this breathtaking Party ensign was a great semi-circle of ten-foot torches; as the command car approached within a few blocks of the Park, Ferie could make out the low speaker's platform flanked by giant scarlet swastika flags immediately in front of the swastika bonfire, the massed Party officials in black leather to the right of the platform, and the hired military band in Knight's uniforms to the left. All seemed in readiness.

Looking behind, Feric saw the twin columns of motorcycles, scarlet swastika flags and cloaks snapping in the wind like a great red forest fire; the earth-shattering roar of the engines set the very molecules of the air to dancing.

Far down the avenue behind this storm troop, he could make out a vast commotion of roadsteamers, gas cars, steamtrucks and bicycles blocking the roadbed from walkway to walkway, and behind these vehicles a multitude of Helder scurrying along in the wake of the spectacle on foot. Truly the stage was set for a turning point in history!

As Feric's car approached the base of the hill, the Knights of the Swastika executed a smart maneuver: the two columns of motorcycles sped up while Feric's driver slackened his pace somewhat, so that the command car was now flanked on either side by a precise line of motorized storm troops. When the procession reached the very base of the hill where the giant fiery swastika and the line of torches stood out in bold relief against the blackening sky, another drill was performed. The two flag-bearing motorcyclists at the head of the column fell backward and inward, so that they became a color guard directly in front of the gleaming black command car. At 89

once the flanking columns of motorcycles dashed ahead of the car and color guard, straight off the avenue, and up the slope of the hHl toward the fire at its peak. As they roared up the grassy slope, (hey spaced themselves out evenly. When the two lead motorcycles had reached a spot about ten yards from the speaker's platform, they came to a smart halt; the others instantly stopped in their tracks so that the two columns of idling motorcycles formed an aisle of honor from the base of the hill to its summit.

At the bottom of this corridor, the color guard and command car waited at idle for the great press of people boiling up the avenue to arrive on the scene. From this vantage, Ferio could clearly make out Bluth, Haulman, Decker, and Parmerob standing together to the right of the speaker's platform in a tight press, resplendent in their black-and-chrome Party uniforms. Stopa stood out clearly in his brown Knight's uniform, separated from this group by several yards of open space.

It was not very long before the entire avenue behind Feric's car was a scene of good-natured pandemonium, as first the motor vehicles arrived and disgorged their passengers, then the bicyclists pulled up and dismounted, and finally a great crowd of pedestrians, ten thousand at the very least, pressed forward, filling every inch of standing space. All were shouting and speculating to each other, raising a great hubbub, but no one dared set foot on the empty hillside where the aisle of motorized Knights stood gunning their engines now and then, a metallic sound that cut through the human tumult like a knife.

When he deemed that the psychologically appropriate moment had arrived, Feric tapped Bogel on the shoulder.

Bogel, in turn, tapped the Knight beside the driver of the black car, who raised his arm in the Party salute.

Instantly, the band on the hilltop struck up a heady martial tune, and the two color-guard motorcycles started up the hill through the aisle of honor, bearing the two swastika flags before the command car. As Feric's car followed the color guard up the slope toward the crescent of fire, each pair of Knights gave the Party salute as the car passed, then fell in behind it, so that by the time the color guard had reached the summit, wheeled, and halted facing the command car, the original twin column of mounted Knights had reformed behind it, with two more Party flags bringing wp the rear. As Feric's car halted before the color guard, the two columns divided and 90

formed a semi-circle of motorcycles twenty yards down the slope from the crescent of torches, a wall of safety between the speaker's area and the great mob of citizens that had now begun to roil up the hill.

With a minimum of ceremony, Bogel and Dugel got down from the car and joined the other Party functionaries by the speaker's platform. For his part, Feric waited in the car until the press of the mob had reached the picket circle of motorcycles.

He then slowly stepped out of the car. The moment his foot touched the soil, every Party functionary and Knight shot out his right arm in the Party salute, and the hearty massed roar of "Hail Jaggar!" filled the air.

The salutes were held until Feric had reached the speaker's platform, and the car had been driven behind the great swastika bonfire, where it would not spoil the spectacle. Instead of mounting the platform, Feric turned to face the great multitude of Helder who choked the hillside; an audience of sufficient size to suit his purpose.

He paused for dramatic effect, as if inspecting the people massed below him and finding them fit. Then he himself gave the Party salute.

Instantly, there was another massed shout of "Hail Jaggar!" a click of heels, and then the arms of Knights and Party functionaries alike were returned smartly to their sides.

Feric stood by the speaker's platform with his right hand resting lightly on the hilt of the Steel Commander, gazing resolutely at the great throng while Bogel mounted the platform and made a short introductory speech.

"I do not speak to you tonight as leader of the Human Renaissance Party, for that party is no more. Like the legendary phoenix, there now arises from its ashes something grander and far more glorious, the true and ultimate expression of the racial will of Heldon, a new party, a new crusade, a new cause—the Sons of the Swastika! And to lead this mighty new force, a new leader, a new man, a hero in the finest sense of the word, I give you the Commander of the Sons of the Swastika, Feric Jaggar!"

Bogel finished his introduction with a click of his heels and a Party salute. At once, every Knight and Party official responded in kind, and shouted "Hail Jaggar!"

Moreover, the scores of Party members scattered strategi-cally throughout the great crowd did likewise, initiating a certain number of spontaneous salutes and salutations 91

among the good folk of the audience, quite a lively response, in fact.

While the cheering went on, Bogel left the speaker's platform; after a proper interval, Feric gave a hand signal, and a sudden blare of trumpets cut through the hubbub. With this, Feric himself mounted the platform; a swastika of flame twenty feet high stood out in glory against the night sky behind him, bathing him in heroic red firelight, flashing highlights off the brightwork of his gleaming black leather uniform, setting his powerful eyes ablaze.

He could feel the uncanny silence in the air over the great throng as a physical force; thousands of people standing shoulder to shoulder as far as his eyes could see, every fiber of each soul focused on his being and his being alone, waiting for him to speak. He felt the irresistible power of destiny flow through his body, merging seamlessly with the energy of his own mighty will. He was the fleshly incarnation of the race's greatest cause, the embodiment of the racial will, and he sensed that the multitude before him knew it. He was the will of Heldon; he could not and would not fail.

Spontaneously, the words sprang to his lips. "It has been more than a thousand years since the Time of Fire and still mutants prowl the earth contaminating true humanity with their foul and twisted genes. Who can deny that Heldon is a bastion of racial purity in a worldwide sea of pestilence? To the south is Borgravia, a state rich in genetic potential and therefore a rightful part of the Helder domain, but ruled at present by vile mutants and mongrels who seek by racial mingling to eradicate all traces of the pure human genotype from their territory.

To the west are Vetonia and Husak, dunghills of genetic filth not one whit less foul, where the true human genotype is persecuted and reviled. Beyond these political obscenities are the genetic cesspits of Cressia, Arbona, Karmath and their ilk, where the gene pools are fit only for total extermination, and beyond that, naught but radioactive wastelands. All of these mutants and mongrels are our implacable racial foes—and that is not the worst of it!"

Feric paused for dramatic effect, and in that moment was nearly overwhelmed by the great wave of psychic power and rapt approval that washed over him from the ten thousand pairs of eyes that blazed up at him like 92

gleaming coals in the darkness. He could all but taste their bottomless hunger for more of the same: the Helder people had a racial longing for the plain unvarnished truth which had been too long unappeased. They were totally with him.

"No, that is not nearly the worst of it!" Feric roared.

"For to the east, lurking behind political jokes like Wolack and Malax, is the unimaginable vastness and unparalleled putrescence of the slave pits of Zind! Half the mutant population of the world under the control of a handful of Dominators! Vast resources and a gigantic population at the command of foul Doms whose grandest desire is to exterminate the last vestiges of true humanity from the face of the earth and rule a worldwide soulless slave rabble for all time! And that is not the worst of it!"

Once again Feric paused, and, as he did, the intake of breath among the multitude before him was actually audible. He was awakening their dormant instincts of racial will and righteous indignation. He was setting their spirits aflame by daring to utter the simple truth. He was forming a juggernaut of racial power.

"The worst of it is right here in Heldon!" he continued.

"Here we have a government of cowards and weaklings who lick the boots of the feckless rabble by hinting at the breeding of brainless slaveys and relaxing the rigor of the genetic purity laws. Thus do they hope to preserve their own worthless hides against the day of reckoning that must surely come. In Heldon, the last hope of the true human genotype, we have a government of imbeciles who flirt with the stinking Universalists while knowing full well that Universalism is the cynical •concoction of the Dominators of Zind. In Heldon, the fatherland of human purity, we are infested with an unknown number of secret Doms dedicated with inhuman fanaticism to our total destruction!"