At Sword's Point by Katherine Kurtz, Scott MacMillan Page B

oak door studded with iron nails. "They thought they'd found everything, when they broke into the great hall and the crypt beneath, but the true inner sanctum was never violated."
    He fitted a large key into the lock, turned it, then swung the door open. The shining lights revealed a damaged toilet and a couple of old mops and buckets.
    "This is the inner sanctum?" Anton asked.
    "No," Karl replied. "This is the landing at the bottom of the stair that leads to it. When my uncle bricked up the stair, it made this little room, which he finished off to look like a toilet. When the British came, they didn't think to knock down the walls, so they never found Himmler's secret knights' chamber."
    He sat down on the floor and, placing his feet against one corner of the wall, gave a mighty push. The bricks tumbled in, revealing a hole in the wall just big enough to crawl through.
    "Okay, follow me."
    The three young men scuttled through the opening and found themselves at the base of a wide turnpike stair that spiraled up and to their right. Leading the way, Karl continued his story.
    "Once things settled back to normal, my Uncle Stephen became the caretaker of the castle, waiting for the day when the SS knights would return." They had reached another locked door, and it took Karl several tries to find the right key. Unlocking the door, he turned to Anton and Erik before entering the room.
    "Erik, give me your lighter. You and Anton wait here, I'll be right back."
    Taking Erik's lighter, Karl eased himself past the door and vanished into the knights' chamber. Erik switched off his flashlight and sat down on the stone steps.
    "You'd better turn off your torch if you want to be able to see on the way back down."
    Obediently Anton turned off his flashlight, and at once they were plunged into darkness.
    "Anton." Erik's deep voice was low, barely more than a softly spoken whisper. "You were talking about the SS knights back in the dorm. What do you know about them?"
    In the darkness, Erik could see Anton shake his head as clearly as if they were sitting outside in the moonlight.
    "Just what I've already told you," Anton said. "I guess the war ended the order."
    "Well, you're wrong." It was Karl's voice coming through the darkness and Anton jumped at the sound of it. "Sure, Himmler and most of the original knights didn't survive the war, but a few did. And they preserved the order. See for yourself." Swinging wide the door to the knights' chamber, Karl revealed an oak paneled room illuminated by the glow of a dozen thick candles.
    For a moment, Anton von Tupilow was speechless.
    "My God, it's beautiful."
    In the middle of the room, surrounded by twelve high-backed chairs, stood the round table of Himmler's order of knighthood, its edge inlaid with runes picked out in ivory. SS daggers lay on the polished wood before each place, the flickering candlelight shimmering off more runes damascened on the blades in gold, the tips pointing toward the gold- and jewel-encrusted chalice from which the knights drank their blood-oath of communion. In the dim shadows beyond the table, Anton could make out the black-and-silver labrium of the SS and the blood-red flag of the Third Reich, with its black swastika on a white roundel. He did not know if it was the original Blutfahne , but it should have been, in this holy place.
    "This is fantastic," Anton said softly, stepping closer to the table. "I had no idea such a place existed."
    "That's why we're here," Karl said. "To see to it that our order lasts for all eternity."
    "Are you telling me that the SS still exists?" Anton asked in disbelief.
    "Not the SS," Erik said, "but the order it founded. The Blutorden"
    "That's right, Anton: the Knights of the Blood," Karl added.
    "But aren't they one and the same?" Anton asked.
    "Not at all. The Blutorden was an inner order, like a religion within a religion. Their ties weren't to Hitler, but to the blood and soil of Germany, to the soul of our race." Karl stepped up