Three hearts and three lions

NOTE

I HAD A LETTER from Holger Carlsen right after the war, to say he’d come through alive. After that I didn’t hear from him until one day two years later, when he sauntered into my office.

I thought he’d changed a lot, grown more quiet and much older-looking, but wasn’t too surprised considering what he must have experienced as an undergrounder. He explained that he’d gotten an American job again. “Just a money earner,” he said. “What I really want to do is haunt your bookstores. I’ve located stuff in London and Paris and Rome, but not enough yet.”

“What on earth?” I said. “You, a bibliophile?”

He laughed rather harshly. “Not quite. I’ll tell you some other time.” He went on to ask about mutual friends from the old days. His London stay had improved his English.

The other time wasn’t long about coming, though. I imagine he wanted a sympathetic audience quite badly. He’d been received into the Catholic Church—a datum which, knowing him, I advance as important evidence in favor of this story—but of course the confessional booth doesn’t serve the same purpose. He needed to tell the whole thing, as it had been for him. “Not that I expect you to believe a word of this,” he said, over beer and sandwiches one midnight in my apartment. “Only listen, will you?”

He finished in the darkness before morning, when the streets lay empty beneath us and the city’s lights were so muted we could see a few stars. He poured himself more beer and stared at it for a long while before he drank.

“And how did you get back?” I asked, most quietly, so as not to jar him. He looked like a sleepwalker.

“Suddenly I was back,” he said. “I rode out and scattered the hosts of Chaos, driving them before me. And somehow it began to seem as if I were also fighting on that beach, in another night and another world. And then I was. I rushed forward, naked. My clothes hadn’t made the transition with me, you see, and lay in a heap at my feet. A bullet or two grazed me, but nothing worse. I was moving so damn fast. Faster than human flesh has a right to move. The doctors say that can happen under conditions of extreme stress. Adrenalin or something. Anyhow, I got in among the Germans, took his gun away from one of them, clubbed it, and went to work. The business was soon over.”

He grimaced at an unpleasant recollection, but said doggedly, “Those two worlds—and many more, for all I know—are in some way the same. The same fight was being waged, here the Nazis and there the Middle World; but in both places, Chaos against Law, something old and wild and blind at war with man and the works of man. In both worlds it was the time of need for Denmark and France. So Ogier came forth in both of them, as he must.

“Here, in this universe, the outward trappings were less picturesque, I suppose. A man in a boat, escaping to help the Allies. But his escape was necessary. In the light of what happened since, you can maybe guess why. So Holger Danske arose to see that he did get free. I was... weeks?... gone in that Carolingian world, and returned to the same minute on this. Time is a funny thing.”

“What became of you afterward?” I inquired.

He chuckled. “I had a devil of a time explaining why and how I’d peeled to the buff before charging the enemy. But we were in a hurry, and went our separate ways before the strain on my wits got too great. Since then I’ve been plain Holger Carlsen. What else could I do?” He shrugged. “When I came to the knowledge of myself as the Defender, I broke the hosts of Chaos in that world. Then, because of the spell, I was drawn back to finish my task on this side. Once the crisis was past in both worlds, the job done... well, equilibrium had been re-established. There was no unbalanced force to send me across space-time. So I stayed.”

He looked wearily at me. “Of course, I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “Delusions and so on. I don’t blame you. But thanks for the use of your ear.”

“I’m not quite sure what to think,” I answered. “Tell me, though, why are you hunting books?”

“Old books,” he said. “Grimoires. Treatises on magic. Morgan sent me here once.” His fist crashed on the table. “And I’ll find the way back for myself!”

I haven’t seen or heard from him for years. No one has. Well, people do disappear. Perhaps he disappeared to the place he spoke of—always assuming the story true, a matter in which I suspend judgment. I hope he did.

But meanwhile new storms are rising. It may be that we shall need Holger Danske again.