Mark Lawrence - The Wheel of Osheim

“Well . . .” Reading out the list of things I would do to live another day would consume all of the extra day in question.

“The point is that there are things I’m prepared to die for. Times when it is right to make a stand, whatever the odds. And if Tuttugu and I would do what we did for Hennan’s grandfather-an old man we didn’t, as you rightly say, know. Then what do you think I’m prepared to do for my children? For my wife? Whether I can win is not a factor.”

We have had this conversation before. I didn’t expect him to have changed, but sometimes you owe it to a friend to try.

“Good luck!” I slap a hand to Snorri’s shoulder and I’m off. The dark behind him looks thicker as if a storm is rolling down on us. She’s there at the heart of it, the one whose mouth knows my name-my nameless sister and the lichkin who wears her soul.

I’m five yards away when he says, “Show me the key.”

I stretch out my hands, one toward Snorri, the other toward the door into the judges’ hall. “I’ve got to go!” The hell-night is boiling blackness behind him, the howl coming again so loud it drowns out my objections. Every hair I own tries to stand on end.

Even so, I pull the key from my shirt on the thong about my neck and run back to him. Snorri takes the knife from his belt and puts the blade to his palm.

“Jesus, no!” I wave my hand in what I hope is a negative pattern. “What is it with you northmen and cutting yourselves? I remember what happened last time you tried this Viking shit on me. How about we just shake hands?”

Snorri grins. “The key will be our link. You back in the world. Me here. Blood will bind us.” He cuts his palm and I wince to see it done, the blood welling up where the point of the knife passed.

“How do you know any of this?” I’m still hoping there’s a way out of this without having to slice myself open. A dark mist is rising now, pushing back the light. The souls scatter. They know a bad thing is coming. Suddenly I find myself ready to cut my damn hand off if it means I can leave. Even so, I stay, Snorri’s friendship holding me just the same way it very nearly pulled me through the door into Hell. “Blood will bind us? You’re just making it up as you go, aren’t you?”

Snorri meets my gaze, a slight shrug in his shoulders. “If I learned anything from Kara it’s that in magic it is will that counts. The words, the spells, scrolls, ingredients . . . it’s for show, or perhaps better to say they’re like a warrior’s weapons, but it’s the strength of the warrior’s arm that is what truly matters. He can kill you with his hands, weapon or no weapon.” He reaches out and folds his bloody hand about the key. “This will be our link. When you open the door you’ll find me.”

The dark has grown thick about us, and cold. It’s as if Snorri doesn’t see it, though: there’s no fear in him. Me, I have enough for both of us. A howling rises with the midnight, the sort a thousand wolves might make . . . if you set fire to them. Close now. Close and closing fast.

“How will I even find the door? How will I know you’re ready to return? Christ, look, I’ve got to go-”

“You need to will it to be so.” Snorri takes his hand back. There’s no blood on the key though it drips scarlet from his clenched fist. “It will work-or it won’t. Kara was to open the way for my return. Kara, or Skilfar, if she had taken the key back to her grandmother as she promised her. Now all I have is you, Jal. So keep the key safe and listen for my call.”

I tuck the key away. “I’ll listen.” It’s not much of a lie. I don’t even know what “listen” means. On my chest the key grows warmer as if falsehoods please it. I try to think of some last words for Snorri. “Farewell” sounds pompous. “Stay safe” is obviously not going to happen.

“Give them hell.”

The howl sounds so loud and close it’s like a punch. I’m running, running toward the light, that marvellous, living light, my sights set on the doorway.

“Be careful!” Snorri shouts after me. “They will test you.”

I don’t like the sound of that, but test or no test, I’m going home.

I close on the doorway racing past the soul of a young woman just coming out. I can see her terror in the faint lines of her. She runs, cowering, as if some great eagle might swoop upon her at any moment. I do pretty much the same thing, only in the opposite direction.

The darkness washes after me like a wave racing up the beach, outpacing me to either side, freezing my heels. I fly through the doorway, contriving to trip on the doorstep, and sprawl headlong into the corridor beyond. Looking back in terror I see the blackness slam into the building, the doorway becomes a rectangle of night and a tremor runs through the floor, but not a wisp of the dark enters the passage where I lie and no hint of the horror outside can be seen. If she’s howling out there-I can’t hear her.

I stand up, brushing the dust off me, still eyeing the darkness outside nervously. Steeling myself I risk a glance away, into the judges’ hall. It’s not what I expect. No courtrooms, no souls queuing for the verdict on their lives, no trio of Zeus’s bastards sitting in judgment. There’s nothing but a long corridor, too long to fit within the building, though the structure is huge. At the far end something burning and bright-a blue, a green, a promise. All I need do is walk forward and I’ll be home. I sense it in my bones. I don’t even need the Liar’s key. This is a true path, one the just may walk.

I take a step forward and doors appear along both walls. A plain wooden door every ten yards, scores of them. I take another step and each one swings open, the closest ones first, then the next an instant later, and so on, creating a wave rippling off toward the distant blue-green promise.

It’s easy to pass by the rooms behind the first doors. The first to the left is empty save for a discarded purse in the middle of the floor, to the right also empty but for a scattering of silver coins. The next pair are empty save for a discarded sword and a small closed casket.

“Are you trying to tempt me?” The laugh comes easy and I pick up the pace, not even looking in the rooms as I pass.

A hundred doors on and I stop as if I’d hit a wooden post. The most delicious smell ever in the history of aromas has fastened itself to my nose and turns my head without permission. A table has been set in the room to my left. A simple table without cloth or silver, and on it rests a wooden plate where half a roasted chicken sits and steams. Instantly my mouth is full of drool, my stomach a tight and demanding knot. Every part of me screams with desire for that hot roasted meat. I’ve lived with famine in Hell for so long that my body literally howls in answer to the call of a good meal.

Sobbing, I turn away, only to see in the room opposite a simple goblet of clear glass, brimming with water. I know in the moment I lay eyes upon it that this will be the purest of spring waters, gurgling free from beneath ancient rocks, and that gulping it down, letting it flow into my parched and death-touched throat, would take the thirst from me in a moment. To anyone who has not known the desiccation of death’s drylands the idea that a man might sacrifice himself for just a glass of water may seem insane. But it must be experienced to be understood. I have been dry in the desert of the Sahar. It is a small thing compared to the thirst that a day in Hell will put in a man.

Even so, I tear myself away and stumble on, my body aching with the life awakened in it so suddenly by the proximity of the world after so very long walking the deadlands.

More scents assault me, each more delicious than the one before. Apples, caramel, fresh baked bread . . . beer. Young beer, fragrant with hops, the sound of it pouring from the spigot . . . that nearly turns me. I catch glimpses of the rooms: one a meadow in sunlight, another a horse ready to ride, a magnificent beast, muscles bunched under dark hide, ready to gallop all day. There are rooms where treasure lies in drifts, gold enough to buy kingdoms whole. I focus my vision on that distant rectangle of green grass and blue sky, coming closer with each stride. My will is iron. I understand the test and will not be turned.