The Wheel of Osheim

TWENTY-NINE

“Jal!” A tug at my arm. “Jal!”

“What?” I shook off the vision of Snorri and Karl. A desolate heath surrounded us, the horses plodding on, the wind blustery and promising rain. Just ahead of me Snorri rode with head lowered, wrapped in memory, still telling his story. I wanted to follow him back into it. “Jal!” Hennan’s voice at my ear.

Above us the sky had become a purple wound, a gyre that drew the eye. The dreary landscape about us hung thick with maybes, all of them bad. I turned in the saddle. Hennan, immediately behind me, pulled my sleeve again. “What?”

“We’ve passed over the Wheel!” He pointed back to a low ridge in the heath, like an ancient earthwork, stretching off in both directions in a straight line . . . though as I followed it with my eyes a slight curve revealed itself.

“You’ve been watching?” My gaze flitted to the monstrous shapes already starting to gather in the middle distance. They looked uncomfortably close to the demons Snorri had described. “How come you’re not . . .”

“Dead?” Hennan shrugged. “This place doesn’t trouble my family the way it does other people.”

“Well it scares the shit out of me.” I closed my eyes, trying to get back into Snorri’s tale. “We’re heading to the heart of the Wheel. Let me know when we get there.”

“The centre of the Wheel is nothing but chaos.” Urgency coloured Hennan’s voice and that note of worry kept me with him despite the pull of Snorri’s words. “The heart of the Wheel is in the ring, the place where the machine is controlled from.”

I scowled. “How do you know all this?”

“Stories my grandfather told m-”

“Goat-herders’ tales?” I spat, angry that the boy had risked my life for this. Already my imagination was conjuring fiends in the darkness behind my eyelids and very soon the Wheel would make them real. “You never asked me who Lotar Vale was!” A shout now. “Who?”

Hennan punched me in the kidney. Me! A prince of Red March, punched by some heathen peasant! “My grandfather’s grandfather. Lotar Vale. He was the most famous wrong-mage of his time. He managed to return to the margins and raise a family there. He knew this place!”

“Shit! Snorri!” I turned Murder. “Snorri!”

Glancing back I saw Snorri lifting his head as if from a dream, Kara shaking herself free.

In the distance, about a quarter mile along the curve of the Wheel, a blocky shape broke the monotony of the landscape: a small building of some sort. “We need to get there!” I pointed. “Hold tight.” I kicked Murder into a canter. Cold terror washed me, and rising with the fear came grey shapes, lifting from the heath like mist and congealing into more substantial forms as I looked. “Ride!”

Demonic shapes, dead men, clockwork devils with knives for fingers, witches, black and dripping tentacles reaching from tar pits, pine-men, vast devil-dogs, burning wolves, djinn . . . the products of my over-fertile imagination populated the heath so thickly there was scarcely room for them all.

“Jal!” Snorri from behind. “Jal! It’s all you!”

He was right. There wasn’t room enough in the Wheel for all my fears-no one else’s nightmares stood a chance of gaining elbow room. “Clear your mind!” Kara shouted. Advice as useless as any I’d heard.

They should take away her cauldron.

The horrors converged on all sides, removing any clear path. I tried to ride down a half-formed Fenris wolf, but the thing, though misty, proved solid enough to shoulder Murder aside and we went down screaming. Falling off a horse is a quick way to get yourself a broken neck. Having a horse fall under you will often add a broken thigh-bone to your injuries. Fortunately I’ve had a fair bit of practice falling off horses and the heather provided an almost soft and quite bouncy landing. I ended up sprawled across a spiky green gorse bush, whimpering, more in fear than pain.

“Jalan Kendeth.” A cold and sibilant voice.

I looked up. Cutter John stood above me, pincers in hand, that same skull’s grin he wore when Maeres Allus told him to take my lips. Something whirled above my head, its passage terminating in a meaty thunk. Snorri’s axe jutted at an angle from Cutter John’s chest, one of the twin blades buried up to the haft.

Cutter John took three quick steps back, then stopped. He looked down at the axe, curious, then bringing up the ugly elbow stump of the arm Snorri severed so long ago, he knocked the axe free. “No interruptions this time, Jalan.” Cutter John returned his pale, overlarge eyes to me, the wound in his chest bloodless.

On all sides the monsters from the dark corners of my mind stood waiting, bleeding mist, one into the next. They walled away Snorri and Kara. I couldn’t see Hennan among the press of them. I couldn’t even see Murder, though I heard his panic. Of all of them only Cutter John seemed truly solid, as real as the ground he stood upon.

I hadn’t the strength to get up. I’d come halfway across the world to be gruesomely murdered by my own worst fears. Everything I’d predicted had come true. The Wheel had given me the rope and here I was, hanging myself.

“. . . yourself . . .” Kara’s voice, growing further away, almost drowned out by Murder’s whinnying, half-fear, half-anger.

Cutter John raised the pincers in his hand again and stepped aside to reveal the stained wooden table to which I had once been tied in Maeres Allus’s poppy-filled warehouse.

“. . . defend . . .” Kara, strident and penetrating despite the distance. Defend? I staggered to my feet, drunk with terror, and drew my sword. Cutter John knocked it to the ground with a backhand blow. I’d need an army to stop him! For some reason an image of Skilfar’s army of plasteek guardians flashed into my mind. “Christ! Help me!” A despairing wail, and one that expected no answer. But all of a sudden there she stood, a plasteek mannequin, nude, pink, stiff-armed, between me and Cutter John.

“Pathetic.” A swipe of his arm and she was flying away, her torso separating from her legs.

I backed away, arms raised to shield my head. I needed more. And in an instant there were half a dozen more mannequins between us, arrayed in a variety of nonchalant poses. “More!” I moved away at speed, concentrating on creating more of them, remembering how it had been in the train den where all the tunnels met.

In an instant all the half-formed horrors were gone and I stood at the centre of Hemrod’s plasteek army, hundreds of them radiating out from where I stood; the only disturbances in the pattern being Snorri and Kara on their horses fifty yards back, looking amazed, Murder, who had already knocked over a dozen of the statues in temper, and Cutter John striding toward me, knocking my useless guardians aside.

“Defend me!” I dug deep for whatever it was that made the Wheel answer my call.

As one the plasteek army turned their heads toward Cutter John, and wordlessly those closest to the torturer threw themselves upon him, grappling his arm and legs, clawing at his eyes with hard plasteek fingers. He went down beneath them with an animal scream, more and more of my naked defenders throwing themselves upon the mound of bodies, burying him completely.

As the bulk of the army streamed toward the growing mound the heath cleared sufficiently for me to see Hennan standing close by and gazing at my faithful warriors striding past him. Snorri and Kara rode up, following the mannequins.

“Only you, Jal.” Snorri shook his head, trying to hide a grin. “What?”

“The power of the Wheel at your beck and call . . . and you make five hundred nude women?”

“You could have made a dragon,” Kara said. “Anything you can think of is possible.”

“Why didn’t you?” I may have sounded a little cross. “Here, boy!” I went across to Murder, making the tutting noise that calms him. Kara nudged her mare along behind me. “It’s much easier for you to fight your own creations. It’s very dangerous for two people to set their imaginations loose against each other. That’s how most wrong-mages die.” I looked around feeling inordinately pleased with myself. “I imagine I could do with a drink.”

The closest of the mannequins still guarding me turned to face us, holding out a golden goblet brimming with dark wine.

A faint grinding sound escaped the mound of warriors heaped upon Cutter John. I imagined they were reducing his bones to powder. “This doesn’t feel right.” Snorri dismounted beside me, staring at the confusion of bodies where Cutter John went under.

“I think I need to sit down.” I turned around to discover a richly upholstered reclining couch, rather like one I used not to be allowed to sit on as a child in Roma Hall. I fell into it, sinking in thick red velvet. “Ha! We’re like gods here!” I could have anything. The mannequin approached with my wine. She grew more like Lisa moment by moment.

She had long black hair now, falling around her shoulders, and her flesh looked softer, less like plasteek. I took the goblet. “Come here, Hennan!

I’ve got cake.” And I did, a towering edifice on five silver tiers, decorated with sugar paste and white almonds. I grabbed a handful and crammed it into my mouth.

Hennan joined me, returning my sword.

“We should go.” Snorri reached to pull me up.

I slid aside. “Calm down. You’ve got this place wrong.” I raised my palms, both cake-smeared. “I’ll admit I was a little worried back there too.

But look.” I paused to swallow sugary goodness, and nodded to the mannequin approaching with his axe. I’d modelled her on one of the dancers we met at Taproot’s circus.

One of the mannequins from the pile shot back, turning over twice in the air before it landed.

“Get on your damned horse, Jal. We need to go.” Kara gestured irritably toward Murder.

I sipped my wine and watched her. They’d made such a song and dance about the Wheel bringing your fears to life that I’d quite forgotten the good side of the equation. If this was any kind of taster for what things would be like after the Wheel had turned past the breaking point, then I was all for it.

The grinding noise from the pile had grown louder so I had to raise my voice over it. “Come on down, Kara. Let’s enjoy ourselves. It’s not often the world does what you want for once.”

Two more of the mannequins were blasted away from the mound, both snapped into several pieces. A torso landed close by, thumping down amid the heather. I patted the couch and the Lisa-quin sat beside me.

She was perhaps more generously proportioned than the original but one can’t control one’s imagination.

Kara moved her big, smelly horse right up to us. “We have to go now!

People die here because however wonderful the things they can imagine, the bad things are always worse. The self-destruction in us always wins out.” A roar interrupted her and the heaped mass of my mannequin soldiers heaved and began shedding plasteek bodies. A moment later Cutter John emerged from it, half a dozen perfectly-formed plasteek women still clinging to him.

“Shit!” I pictured a dragon, all gleaming scales and gouting flame, swooping down on my enemy. A moment later a column of orange-white fire hammered down on the spot where Cutter John stood. The heat of it washed over us. The horses bolted, whinnying in panic, I dropped my wine into my lap, and the couch went over backwards.

I crawled back to the couch, knees squishing on the damp ground, and peered over it. Cutter John stood scorched and blackened, rivulets of molten plasteek running down him, the coils of my huge dragon hemming him in. It opened jaws wide enough to encompass a shire horse, and scooped him up. Teeth like short swords, bright as silver-steel, crunched down. In moments the bastard was gone, swallowed away into the gullet of a vast serpent scaled in fire-bronze and gold.

I should have felt safe-but I saw how those oh so fine and shiny teeth failed to shear Cutter John into pieces, and just before he slid away down that throat, he met my gaze, his pale eyes unafraid and full of awful promise.

Looking around, I saw Snorri and Kara had regained control of their steeds and were veering toward the building I’d seen. Hennan was running for the same place and had covered about a third of the distance. I pursed my lips, thinking that he might have shown a little more faith in the Marshal of Vermillion. I did oversee a successful defence of an entire city against an army of the dead . . . Behind me my dragon collapsed, falling onto its side and scraping at the shiny scales over its stomach as if it had eaten something that disagreed with it. Actually I suspect dragons tend to eat everyone that disagrees with them . . . but by the time that thought popped into my head I was already running.

I got to the blockhouse moments after Hennan, my stomach churning with a mixture of cake and raw fear. Kara had caught Murder’s reins on her way to the building and led him along with her. Snorri had dismounted and set his strength against a large slab of Builder stone that looked as if it might be covering a doorway. If it wasn’t then the place had no entrances-for all we knew it might just be a solid block of poured stone put there to waste people’s time while their own imaginations plotted to kill them.

I glanced back. A familiar and unwelcome figure was running toward us. Behind him the heath still burning fitfully where my dragon had scorched it. The beast itself lay on its side, an ugly hole torn in its stomach.

“What are you doing?” I shouted at Snorri.

He looked around, red-faced with effort, his expression dangerous. “Get out of the way,” I said, and, without waiting for him to do so, waved my hand, willing the slab to slide. “Damn Wheel’s trying to kill us-may as well make it work for us too.” Nothing happened. With gritted teeth I tried harder, staring at the door, feeling the blood pound in my head and prickle in my eyes.

“Not working very well, is it?” Snorri growled.

“If it wasn’t shielded from the wrong-mages it wouldn’t have lasted long, would it?” Kara said. “Why don’t both of you try?”

Normally I try to leave physical labour to the peasant classes, but with Cutter John bearing down on me I didn’t need a second invitation. Hennan and I joined Snorri, throwing our weight against the slab. I strained hard enough to rearrange several internal organs. Panic lends a man strength though and something gave with an unpleasant combination of snap and squelch. For a moment I was sure it was part of me that had broken, but it turned out to be the slab moving. Once started it moved more smoothly and moments later the slab stood a yard to the left in the muddy furrow it had cut through the sod. Revealed behind it was a dark rectangular opening.

Kara jumped down, orichalcum in hand, and entered the building. I spared a glance back at Cutter John. He ran with a degree of awkwardness due to his shortened arm, steady rather than sprinting, as if wanting to milk as much terror from me as possible.

“We’re going to have to leave the horses.” I hated to say it, and not just because Murder was so good at running away.

“I know.” Snorri ducked through the doorway, Hennan behind him.

I raised my hands, turning my palms up in a mixture of outrage and astonishment, but nobody was left to see it. Just me, and Cutter John, a hundred yards off now. “They’re not just fucking cows that you ride, you know!” I shouted at the Norses’ backs. No response. “Ah, shit on it!” I waved one hand at the horses, blinking my eyes to focus. A screeching eagle dived out of nowhere, sending all three bolting. I had the bird swoop again and turn them so they ran away from the Wheel. The other hand I held toward Cutter John and opened my fingers. A huge pit yawned underneath him and he vanished into it. I closed the hand again and the pit walls slammed together. It wouldn’t delay him long. With a last look at the fleeing horses I turned and followed on in to the blockhouse.

“It’s a hole.” I meant it on several levels. The blockhouse was a bare box, its corners dark with wind-blown detritus, bits of twig, grey rags, small bones. A stink of old urine hung about the place. Directly before us a ragged hole had been hacked through a yard of steel-reinforced Builder stone, and through it I could just make out the top of a circular shaft leading down.

“Wrong-mages must use this place for something, otherwise the years would have covered it over long ago.” Kara stepped to the edge of the shaft and peered down, holding the orichalcum out. “There are rungs.”

Kara went down first and I was happy to let her. Snorri followed, then Hennan.

“Why am I last?”

“It’s your imagination that’s trying to kill us,” Snorri called back from the shaft.

Kara’s illumination reached past the other two, casting a confusion of light and shadow on the ceiling above the hole. I shuffled my feet and waited for the boy to get out of the way so I could join them in the shaft. “Why is that?” I called after them. “Why me?”

I couldn’t make out the reply but I knew the answer already. My imagination had been attacking me my whole life-only here it had the weapons it needed. A vast underground machine, the crowning glory of the Builders, and all those engines deep below us now waking from their slumbers and devoting their energies to allowing my fears to make war on my hopes.

A quick look through the doorway showed the ground starting to heave in the spot where I buried Cutter John. Moments later I was on that ladder down into the unknown, with Hennan complaining I was stepping on his fingers.

“Are we safe here?” I peered around the tunnel, suspicious of every shadow.

We stood a little over a hundred yards beneath Osheim’s surface in a pipe-like tunnel perhaps six yards in diameter. Running along the centre, above our heads, a black pipe just a yard wide, stretched away into the darkness. I could see no means of support for it. Bands of silver-steel ringed the tunnel every few paces, each six inches across, like some kind of reinforcement. A hum, at first barely audible, filled the whole place, though after at short while, even though it grew no louder, you could feel it in your bones.

I coughed to check that everyone hadn’t gone deaf. The sound echoed away into the darkness. “I said-”

A sound from above cut me off. Someone missing a foothold.

“No,” Kara answered.

“How’s he even climbing? He’s only got one fucking arm!” It wasn’t fair. I’d escaped Cutter John twice, against all odds, only to deliver myself to him on the third occasion. Not even to him-to my own worst fears concerning him, wrapped up and made flesh by the power our idiot ancestors had left us.

“I left Karl and walked up the valley where he had stood guard,” Snorri said, moving away into the shadows. “In places the bones were heapedchest-high.”

Kara and Hennan followed. I stood for a moment, ears straining for Cutter John’s descent but heard only Snorri’s voice and that old magic of his folded about me, drawing me on. I walked after them, my feet pursuing the ancient passage the Builders had left us, while my mind followed the Norseman back into Hel, too busy with his tale for the moment to bother plotting its own destruction.