The Wheel of Osheim (The Red Queen's War 3)

“Oh God. It’s Cutter John.” Fear’s cold hand knotted its fingers in my innards.

“Whoever that bogey-man is, he’s your creation. He can only hurt you in ways you can imagine. I, on the other hand, am going to hurt you in worse ways. Ways you can’t imagine.”

I turned on legs almost too weak to hold me up. Edris Dean stood there, devilish in the pulsing red glow, the dark crest of his hair night-black between widows’ peaks. The pale scar, horizontal below his right eye, seemed to underscore his words. A darker scar, thick and ridged, ran along the side of his neck where Kara had nearly taken his head from his shoulders.

Motion at the corner of my eye drew my gaze to the window for a moment. Dead men were emerging from the twisting corridors that ran into the depths of the machine in the chamber behind me. I could see Snorri’s mouth open in a roar, Kara shouting, or screaming, but no hint of the sound reached me.

“The Blue Lady sent me through the mirror ahead of her . . . with some friends . . . to secure the Wheel and make sure nobody tried anything foolish, like turning it off.” Edris smiled. He held a curved sword of black iron, its point resting lazily on the floor between us. It reminded me of the blades the Ha’tari carried in the depths of the Sahar.

I glanced at the window once more. There were a lot of dead men. All in leather armour trimmed with blue. They moved with worrying quickness, faces full of fury and dark with old blood. Snorri’s axe carved a path through two of them, splattering the window.

“They’re the Lady Blue’s men,” I said. “You killed them.”

Edris inclined his head. “Dead men are better at obeying orders.”

In the mirror the Lady Blue thrust her hands toward the Silent Sister and the Red Queen. “You were foolish to bleed your army here for so many weeks, Alica.” She hissed the words as if forcing them past gritted teeth. Grandmother fell to her knees with a cry, hands before her, wrestling with the invisible. The Sister went to her knees slowly, by degrees, first to one, then to both, as if a great weight were upon her, increasing from one moment to the next. “You spent so many lives and so much of your strength . . . and for what? To die at my feet.” The Lady Blue shook her head. “You were not the only one the years made stronger.”

“You should have defended the mirror,” I told Edris, and set my hand to the hilt of my sword—the blade I’d taken from Edris back in Frauds’ Tower in Umbertide. “Now your mistress is locked away.”

“I thought you might make it here,” he said. “You and the Northman.” He nodded to the blood-spattered window. Not much could be seen through it save the outlines of men, all in violent motion. “And the bitch.” He rubbed absently at his neck and the black scar above the collarbone. “Thought you might break it for me, so I did. You see, I never did much care for the Lady, and she never did quite trust me, what with my refusal to show in any future the wise can read. I’m for her plan, and all. It’s just I’d rather see myself at the head of the table when the new gods meet in the world that comes after this one. Edris, Lord of Creation. It has a nice ring to it, so it does.” He raised his wicked sword, its point a hand-span from my belly. “If you could pass over that key now, and I’ll do the honours.” He nodded beyond the pillars. The light from the mirror revealed the back wall, projecting its own cracks across the many screens set there, cracks that were still healing, perhaps halfway now to a full repair. In the middle of the back wall was the silver plate the professor described, the legend “Manual Over-ride” above it. A dark line in the middle that must be the key slot.

I looked down at the sharp point level with my navel then glanced back at Grandmother and the Silent Sister, on their knees, straining to stand but being pressed inexorably down, blood starting to leak from the corners of their eyes. I thought of Hennan in Frauds’ Tower with Edris Dean’s blade against his neck. I’d given the boy Loki’s key to give to the necromancer and he’d thrown it back at me. Refusing to let me purchase his freedom. My eyes returned to the sword point before me. At the last it always comes down to the sharp end. Edris had threatened me with horrors I couldn’t imagine. I couldn’t properly imagine seeing that black iron slide into my gut.

A sharp cry of agony rang out behind me. An old woman’s hurt. Something dark and bloody hit the window beside me, sliding away without a sound. It had been a slight figure . . . perhaps Hennan . . .

I threw the key and, the Lord have mercy on my impious soul, I prayed to Loki, even though I knew him to be nothing more than an imprint of an old professor, stamped onto the stuff of the world and shaped by legend. I prayed and followed the key’s rotation through the air with a single word, “Off!,” chosen for no better reason than that I wanted the opposite of whatever Edris Dean wanted. We would all still be bound for Hell in a handcart if the engine shut down: the Wheel would continue to roll, albeit more slowly, driven by man’s inability not to use power for personal gain. But more than anything I wanted Edris Dean to go to Hell first.