The Wheel of Osheim

Snorri moves to stand by Tuttugu’s side, reaching for his own axe.

Tuttugu shakes his head, closing his faceplate. “You didn’t come here for this.” He turns away. “Neither of us can count the number of battles you saved me in. Now it’s my turn. Go.”

Snorri looks once more at his friend and nods.

“We’ll meet again in Valhalla.” Tuttugu grins. “I’m not facing Ragnarok without you beside me.”

“Thank you.” Snorri inclines his head, eyes full once more.

Tuttugu squeezes Snorri’s shoulder a last time and leaves the house.

As the long silence wore on I began to glimpse the tunnel, Kara’s orichalcum light throwing our shadows across the curve of the wall, no sound, our footsteps deadened by the dust of a thousand years.

“Did you speak to them?” My voice came rough and echoed ahead, following the arc of the Wheel, vanishing into the darkness.

“I did,” Snorri said. “And it gave me peace.” The Viking paced a hundred yards before he spoke again, and while he held quiet I started to hear distant hints of pursuit from behind us.

Snorri cleared his throat. “When I came out of the house Tuttugu was waiting for me. He said he would guard them as long as he could. I told him I would stop the Wheel’s engines and free Freja and my children from Hel. Or die trying.”

“Where will they go?” I hadn’t quite followed that part, or thought Tuttugu capable of delivering such a speech. But then, I’d underestimated the man time and again.

“To whatever has always waited for us beyond life,” Snorri said. “They will be free of the Wheel. Released from man’s dreams and stories and lies. You’ve seen it yourself, Jal. Is that where you want those you love to spend eternity?”

My mother was assuredly in Heaven, but on the other hand my father, cardinal or not, was definitely in Hell if the rules he occasionally preached held any truth. Most importantly though, it was not where I wished to spend forever.

“What’s this?” Hennan pointed to a sign fixed to the wall, so covered in grime that we had nearly passed it by.

“We don’t have time!” I stared back into the darkness, ears straining for those sounds again. At any moment Cutter John could race into view.

“International . . .” Kara was already rubbing dirt away from the sign with her sleeve. “Kollaboration . . .”

“It looks like gibberish to me, come on!” The lettering was alien, though faintly familiar.

“It’s an old version of Empire tongue, very corrupted.” She rubbed away more of the dirt. The sign seemed to be enamelled metal and in many places corrosion had broken up the surface beneath the grime. “I can’t read the rest. The first letters are bigger though. I.K.O.L. That last word might be ‘Laboratory’.”

“What’s a laboratory?” Hennan asked, looking up at me for some reason.

“It’s something that wastes your time while monsters creep out of the dark to kill you,” I said.

“There’s a picture here too.” Kara wiped at it with her filthy sleeve. “It can’t be . . .”

Despite my fears I moved to join her. Beneath the large title running several feet across the top of the sign were three pictures, side by side, head-and-shoulders portraits, painted with exquisite detail. A balding grey-haired man with glass lenses over his eyes; a middle-aged man, black-haired and serious, his face divided by a beak of a nose; and a young man with a wild shock of brown hair, his features narrow, eyes large and dark.

“Professor Lawrence O’Kee,” I read, puzzling through the twisted lettering. “Dr. Dex—no, Fexler Brews, and Dr. Elias Taproot!”

“Taproot was in charge of the Wheel?” Snorri asked, looming over us as Hennan wriggled between Kara and me for a closer view.

“Important enough to be on this sign,” Kara said. “I’m guessing this one is in charge, though.” She set her finger to the oldest of the three, the professor.

The sound of running brought an end to the questions, feet pounding the dusty tunnel, coming up fast behind us. I started off without the others, sprinting into the darkness and got about twenty paces before hitting something very solid. I saw a dim outline with just enough time to get my arms up—even so, the next thing I knew was being helped up off the floor by Snorri.

“Where is he?” I threw my head left and right, hunting the gloom for Cutter John.

“The footsteps vanished when you hit the bars.” Kara stood behind me with the light.