Mark Lawrence - The Wheel of Osheim

“Loki is you?” I asked unnecessarily-my lips just wanted something to say.

“Not me, a copy of me. I don’t control him and we have . . . grown apart. But we share the same core and many of the same goals. His power to influence events is both enhanced and constrained by the trap into which he has fallen though.”

“Trap?” Becoming a god was a trap I would happily step into.

“The myth of Loki. It pre-dates me by a very long way, however old I may appear to you, young man. I fear my . . . let’s call it my ‘spirit-echo’ may have fallen into that particular trap owing to something as puerile as word-play.”

“I don’t follow.”

“My contemporaries at school used to call me Loki. I suppose I might have been somewhat of a joker back in those days, but really it was just how my name appeared on the register. Lawrence O’Kee. You see? L. O’kee. Simple as that.”

“So your spirit copy thinks he’s Loki . . .” Kara said.

“Yes.”

“And he isn’t.”

“No. But because he’s trapped in stories that a great many people believe, he has access to the power of their belief, which in turn is backed by what you call the Wheel. The changes our machines here have made to reality allow the belief of all those people to give Loki real power. Just as immediately above us those changes allow each of you to summon fire or fly or accomplish whatever it is you wish to accomplish. Before your imagination creates monsters to kill you of course.”

“What about the key?” I asked, holding it up.

The professor tapped it with a finger. For an instant it became a small silvery key of peculiar design and no more than an inch long. I nearly dropped it. By the time I stopped fumbling it the key was back to its usual black glassy appearance, reaching from the base of my palm to the tip of my index finger.

“It’s the authorization key for the manual control panel on the central processor complex. I gave it to my projection-to Loki-as a kind of back-up plan if my efforts to terminate the IKOL project didn’t succeed in the time available. To be honest it started off as more of a joke than a serious attempt to solve the problem. At that point I thought it might take me six months to close down the accelerator ring. I hadn’t imagined that I would spend the next ten years of my life working at it . . . and run out of time before the damn thing went critical.” The old man ran a hand through his thinning white hair. Exhaustion lurked in the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. “Now the key looks as if it’s our only hope. I sent the key out with Loki to gather belief. The idea was to weave it into stories, to make it part of mythology. The more deeply it became embedded in the consciousness of the people the more strength it could draw from their collective will, from their sleeping imaginations. So, you see, the key has become a symbol that indirectly draws on the Wheel’s own power. If it works, the Wheel will effectively turn itself off.”

“Give him the key, Jal.” Snorri stepped up close, looking down on both of us. “The professor will know what to do with it to turn the machine off.”

My hand closed of its own accord, fingers clenched about the coldness of the key. Giving up the key at this point felt like having my options taken from me. Turning the Wheel’s engines off now would supposedly give Snorri’s family a chance to slip into the unknown that awaited dead people in Builder times. Snorri wanted that . . . but an afterlife on this Holy Mountain didn’t sound so bad. And turning off the engine wouldn’t stop the Wheel turning, only slow it. Without the engines at Osheim the only thing to turn the Wheel and keep changing the way reality works would be us-every time a mage used magic it tore at the fabric of the world. The cracks would spread, the Wheel would turn, more slowly than before, but turn none the less, carrying us all toward the end. The world would still shatter-just in a few years’ time rather than a few weeks. Turn the key the other way and those last few weeks would compress into a last few seconds and, according to the Lady Blue, I’d face the end of the all things standing in the single most secure place, guaranteed safe passage into a new world, poised to rule not as a king or emperor but as a new god. The Blue Lady might have lied: I didn’t trust the bitch further than I could spit her, but she had made this her last hidey-hole for a reason.

“Jal?” Snorri smacked my shoulder.

“Sorry-drifted off there.” I uncurled my fingers, eyes on the key. “Well-”

“Access to the central processor complex is rather awkward.” The professor pressed both palms against his chest as if to preclude the possibility of anyone placing the key in his hand. Perhaps when he poked it the thing bit him back. “The real work was always done remotely in the control room.” He nodded toward somewhere high above us. “But for the super-fine control we need it’s best to be right there where the main processors are.”

I nodded as if any of that made sense.

“To reach the right chamber requires climbing seven or eight ladders and several tight squeezes. If I were a younger man . . . Besides, I’m not sure I could last long enough out of my slo-time to reach it.” His gaze fixed on a point over my shoulder. “I’m rather afraid it’s already started.”

I turned, following the professor’s stare, and found myself looking at a large black rat which was perched on a ledge on the side of the engine, a few yards above us. It watched us, unmoving, its eyes gleaming.

A loud thud behind me drew my attention from the rat.

“Shit.”

Cutter John uncurled from the hunched ball into which he’d been compacted by the fifty foot drop from the tunnel edge. I backed into the alcove, hauling Hennan with me by the shoulder. The professor moved to join me. Larry took a few paces forward and stood guard before the alcove. Kara drew her knife, sliding to one side as Snorri stepped forward to intercept. Cutter John ran straight for me at a flat sprint.

The Viking waited, perfectly still, until in the last split second he spun aside, bringing Hel round in a rising arc to take the monster beneath the chin.

The shout of triumph died in my throat as instead of hitting the floor in two pieces Cutter John was simply lifted by the force of the blow, the axe blade failing to bite into him. He landed heavily, but rose even as Snorri brought Hel overhead for a second chop.

“Larry is very reliable, but I would feel safer if . . .” The professor reached over to a nearby panel and tapped a glowing square. “There.”

I didn’t have time to say, “There what?” Immediately the scene outside accelerated to a pace that would have seemed comical if the contents weren’t so disturbing. With blinding speed Cutter John fended off a flurry of blows and struck one of his own that sent Snorri sprawling boneless across the floor. Somewhere in all that Kara must have come in from behind to have her own stab at Cutter John. I spotted her lying in his wake as he blurred toward us. The fight with Larry lasted a while longer, fists flying, neither man giving an inch. For a second, that must have been a minute or more outside, the two were locked together in a test of strength. Suddenly, in a blaze of sparks, Larry’s arm flew across the chamber. Cutter John backhanded him into the metal wall of the engine, and there he was, the torturer, his face pressed against the wall of our slo-time bubble.

I had been holding Hennan back. Now I didn’t have to. Cutter John’s face held an ugliness in it that would unman anyone.

“Oh this is bad,” the professor said. “Very bad.”

“Can’t you do anything?” Hennan yelled. “We need to help them!”

I echoed the sentiment-though it was mainly me I was thinking of when it came to help. I couldn’t speak, though. Fear had stolen my voice. And I couldn’t look away.