The Wheel of Osheim

“Before?”

The professor knotted his fingers into a single tight fist. “I would hurry.”

“Kara?” I turned to the völva, cold in my sweat.

She looked up from the map. “Follow me.”

I kept close to her heels, urgency nipping at my own. Three tight corridors, one left turn, two right, a ladder up, a ladder down. We passed facets of the mirror at three points, each time with the professor’s nervous face watching us pass. Each time my heart beat out the rhythm of my panic against my chest. Each facet was a window through which any number of horrors could be watching.

“We’re close,” Kara said, crouching to edge beneath another of the mirror facets.

“I need to see,” I said.

“What?” Kara’s mouth was a tight line.

To be observed and not know whether you are being studied or not is to be prey. The predator stalks from cover. “I need to see,” I repeated, taking the key. I moved to the mirror. For a moment it showed scattered images of Prince Jalan shimmering about the main reflection, each as pale with fear as the next, vanishing down the scale into insignificance. The professor’s face reappeared, frowning. Before he could speak, I set the key to the mirror. “Show me.”

The scene changed, from the alcove at the base of the engine and the bare stone floor beyond, to a luxurious room deep with woven carpets, lined by elegant sideboards, an inlaid box on one vomiting strings of pearls and golden chains across the polished top. And on every wall, mirrors, dozens of them, all sizes, all shapes, framed in silver, in wrought iron, elaborately carved timber gilded and gleaming, in bleached pine, splintered with misuse . . . nearly all of them shattered, their shards hanging like broken teeth, littering the floor.

“That’s her tower. Now we can see her too, if she comes in to spy on us.” I felt a little better. Not much.

Kara grabbed my arm and jerked me past the mirror. “Come on.”

Another corridor and a short descent brought us to a locked silversteel door. I tapped it with the key. Nothing happened.

“What’s wrong?” Snorri stepped off the last rung, cramming himself in behind us.

“I don’t know.” I looked for a keyhole. Normally the key made its own.

“Try again.” Hennan hissing from behind me.

“Really?”

“Yes.” Sarcasm is wasted on children.

I pressed the key against the door, flat between my palm and the steel. “Open!”

The portal shuddered and a noise like a giant grinding his teeth started up beneath us, vibrating through the soles of my boots. “Open, damn you! In the name of Loki!”

I felt a sharp pain deep between my eyes and somewhere in the thickness of the wall an unbreakable something broke. The door grated back into a recess in the wall.

“Builder locks were made to hold,” Kara said and pushed me forward.

The room beyond lit as I stepped over the threshold. A great mirror dominated the far wall. I say it was a mirror, though it showed only the Lady Blue’s sanctum, and nothing in that room moved, so one might think it a painting. It stood maybe nine feet tall and as wide across as my spread arms. The edges fractured in strange patterns, breaking into tendrils of mirror and finally into a peculiar sparkling dust or smoke.

I took one more step before stopping, arms pinwheeling as I tried not to take another—not easy with the others crowding behind me. “Stop!”

“Why?” Kara at my shoulder.

I swept my arm around in answer, index fingers extended to point at the bright yellow crosshatching painted in a band across the floor, following up each wall and across the ceiling. “It’s not shielded.”

“How bad can that be?” Snorri grabbed my shoulder and thrust me forward.

In a heartbeat I found myself face to face with Cutter John, his face broken by his skull-grin that was far more terrifying than rage. Iron-hard fingers closed on my upper arm and collarbone. Snorri jerked me back and I came free with a scream, flesh torn and bruised where Cutter John’s grip had almost got a proper hold.

Snorri and I both fell back, the Viking stumbling into the wall while managing to slow my descent to the floor. Cutter John threw himself forward . . . and flattened against the invisible shields, spreading and dissipating like a liquid against glass.

“He’s gone,” Snorri said, heaving me up.

“What the hell were you doing?” I screamed.

“Testing.”

“Well test with your own damn self next time!” I straightened my shirt, then rubbed tentatively at the scrapes Cutter John’s fingers had left on me. They hurt. Wincing, I looked up to see Snorri taking my advice, stepping forward, axe-haft held across his chest like a bar to ward off attack.