The Spear of Destiny Read Online Free PDF

the cross, a Roman soldier
     called Longinus wanted to see if he was really dead, and drove
     his spear into Christ’s side.
    ‘That spear became known as the
     Spear of Destiny, but it soon went missing. We simply don’t know
     what happened to it. But, despite that, stories about its power
     began to circulate. It was said that the army that possessed it
     would be invincible. Not so very long before your own time, Jo,
     another man craved the Spear, which by then had turned up in a
     museum in Vienna. That man was Adolf Hitler. The very day he
     invaded Austria in 1938 he drove straight to the museum to
     capture the Spear. He took it back to Berlin and believed he
     was, from that time on, invincible.’
    ‘But the Nazis lost the war,’ said
     Jo. ‘It didn’t work.’
    ‘There are two possibilities.
     First, some people believe that the spear he captured was a
     thirteenth-century fake, not the real thing. Or, second, there
     is a simpler explanation: the spear
was
the real thing, but Hitler made a
     mistake. In order for a PTN to work, you have to actually
hold
it. Hitler
     put it in another museum in Berlin and then got on with invading
     the rest of Europe.’
    ‘My goodness!’ said Jo. ‘If he’d
     only known …’
    ‘Quite so, my dear, quite
     so.’
    ‘But wait a minute. What’s this
     got to do with Gungnir?’
    ‘Jo, I believe Gungnir and the
     Spear of Destiny are one and the same.’
    ‘But we’re in Sweden. How did the
     Spear end up here?’
    ‘I told you, the Vikings raided
     far into the Mediterranean. Odin must have got lucky and found
     it there.’
    ‘I see,’ said Jo. ‘That makes
     sense. But if Hitler had the Spear in the war, how was it dug up
     in Sweden just now and put in the Moxon Collection in
     London?’
    ‘Yes, well, that’s what’s worrying
     me the most,’ said the Doctor, and his voice sank dark and low.
     ‘We only have the word of that leaflet that it
was
recently found in a dig
     in Sweden, don’t we?’
    ‘You mean the museum was lying?
     Why would they do that?’
    ‘Why indeed, Jo? And how do we
     know that the spear in the museum is not, in fact, another
     fake?’
    ‘There were temporal anomalies.
     Small disturbances in time.’
    ‘There were indeed. But those can
     also sometimes be the result of the presence of a poorly
     shielded TARDIS.’
    ‘Doctor?’
    ‘Jo, this man Frey that Njord
     spoke about. He has a ship called
Skithblathnir
, yes? Do you know what
     Norse myth says about
Skithblathnir
?’
    Jo shook her head, and suddenly
     didn’t feel so warm any more.
    ‘It was said that Frey could make
     his ship any size he wanted. That he could fit as many men on
     board as he wished. Does that sound familiar? A ship that’s
     bigger on the inside?’
    ‘Doctor! You think…?’
    ‘Jo, the name Frey. In Old Norse
     it means Lord. Or –’
    ‘Master!’ cried Jo. ‘Frey is the
     Master!’
    Before the Doctor could reply
     there was a laugh from outside the hut’s door. It was pushed
     open, and in he came, laughing and clapping his hands.
    ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘it’s been such
     fun listening to you two work it out. Well done! Well
     done!’
    He stood over them, looking down,
     leering.
    The Master.

10
    ‘You’ve been busy,’ said the
     Doctor.
    The Master stood in the doorway.
     In his hand he held a burning torch that cast a flickering fiery
     light across his face.
    ‘You know,’ said the Doctor. ‘I
     always thought you looked a little like the Devil with that
     beard. Now I know it.’
    ‘Doctor, Doctor,’ said the Master
     mockingly. ‘Such a bad loser. Come on now, admit it! You’ve been
     plodding around in the dark. Talking of which, the sky tonight
     will be illuminated most wonderfully by the comet. You’ll enjoy
     that.’
    ‘Yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘Yes, I
     see now. You could have just gone to Judea in 33 AD to find the spear.
     Taken it right out of Longinus’ hands, no doubt. But that date
     is not