The Liar's Key (The Red Queen's War 2)

“Hmmm. Perhaps the evil old witch got what she deserved after all.” It sounded as though looking into the future might be as much of a pain as looking into the past. The moment was clearly the place to be. Except this moment which was wet and cold.

•   •   •

An hour later Tuttugu returned carrying a makeshift sailcloth sack into which he’d loaded his salvage. There wasn’t much of it, and nothing to eat save a tub of butter that had already been rancid when purchased in Haargfjord more than a week back.

“We should go!” Snorri slapped his thighs and stood.

“Better than starving here, I suppose.” I set off, unburdened with sword, pack, rations, or any other defence against danger and privation other than the knife at my hip. A fine knife it must be said, also purchased in Haargfjord, a brutal bit of sharp iron, intended for intimidation, and not yet used in any more deadly endeavour than peeling fruit.

Snorri and Tuttugu followed in my wake.

“Where are you going?” Kara remained where we’d left her.

“Um.” I squinted at the sun. “South . . . east-ish?”

“Why?”

“I . . .” It had seemed right. It occurred to me as I considered the question that something good waited for us in the direction I’d led off in. Something very good. We should probably hurry.

“It’s the draw of the Wheel,” she said.

Snorri frowned. Tuttugu ferreted about in his beard, hunting inspiration.

“Crap.” Nanna Willow had told us this one a dozen times. Nanna Willow had come to us from my grandmother’s personal staff, a stick of a woman, dry as bones, and not given to taking any shit from unruly princes. When the mood took her she’d tell us fairy tales—some so dark they’d even have Martus wanting a nightlight and a kiss to ward off the spirits. And practically every victim in the abattoir of Nanna Willow’s bedtime tales was led into Osheim by the draw of the Wheel.

“This is the right way.” Tuttugu nodded as if to convince himself and pointed ahead.

For my part I turned on a heel and hurried back to Kara’s side. “Crap,” I repeated myself. Part of me still wanted to follow the line Tuttugu indicated. “It’s all true, isn’t it? Tell me there aren’t boggen and flesh-mauls too . . .”

“The path to the Wheel grows strange.” Kara spoke the words as if quoting them. “And then more strange. If a man ever reached the Wheel he would find all things are possible. The Wheel gives anything a man could want.”

“Well . . . that doesn’t sound too bad.” And so help me my feet started taking me south again. South and a little east. Tuttugu set off again too, just ahead of me.

“It’s the monsters that stop them reaching the Wheel.” Kara’s voice, an unwelcome nagging behind me. Even so, the word “monsters” was enough to stop both me and Tuttugu. We’d both seen more monsters than we ever wanted to.

“What monsters? You said anything a man could want!” I turned back, unwilling.

“Monsters from the id.”

“From the what?”

“The dark places in your mind where you make war on yourself.” Kara shrugged. “That’s how the sagas have it. You think you know what you want, but the Wheel reaches past what you think you know into the deep places where nightmares are born. The Wheel grows stronger as you get closer. At first it answers your will. As you get closer it answers your desire. And closer still it dances to your imagination. All your dreams, each shadowed corner of your mind, each possibility you’ve considered . . . it feeds them, makes them flesh, sends them to you.”

Tuttugu joined us. I caught a whiff of him as he drew close. Old cheese and wet hound. It was only when we had a moment apart that you noticed it. We probably all reeked after too long in that little boat and it would take more than a quick sinking to wash it off. “You lead us, völva,” he said.

Only Snorri remained where he was, out on the moor with long grass dancing to the beat of the wind all about him. He stood without motion, still staring south where the sky held a purplish taint, like a fading bruise. At first I’d thought it was clouds. Now I wasn’t sure.

“After you.” I gestured for Kara to lead us. My imagination proved torment enough to me from one day to the next. Absolutely no way was I heading somewhere that could put flesh on any bone I dreamed up. Men are dragged down by their fears all the time, but in Osheim apparently that had to be taken far more literally.

Snorri remained where he’d first stopped, close enough to hear our conversation but making no move to return or go on. I knew what he would be thinking. That the great Wheel of the Builders might turn for him and bring his children back. They wouldn’t be real though, just images born of his imagination. Even so—to Snorri the exquisite pain of such torture might be something he couldn’t step away from. I opened my mouth to make some remonstration . . . but found I had no words for it. What did I know of the bonds that bind father to son or husband to wife?