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.
“Well,” the professor said behind me. “There’s always this . . .”
“A stick?” Hennan said. “How will—”
Something cracked around the back of my head. I saw two pieces of splintered walking stick fly by, one to either side of my face. After that it was all falling.
THIRTY-ONE
“Ouch!” Something hit me in the face. And again. “God damn it!” I lifted my head and another metal rung passed within a finger of my nose. “Where the hell . . .” I appeared to have been slung over someone’s back. “Put me down!”
“If you want.” Snorri’s voice, very close to my ear. “But it’s probably better if I wait until we’re at the top. It’s a long drop from here and you might damage something important.”
I looked around, immediately regretting moving my head. When the white flashes of pain faded I could see we were in a vertical metal pipe, dimly lit by a glowing strip running its length. Below me Kara and Hennan were climbing, and below them the shaft ran perhaps another ten yards. I tightened my arms around Snorri’s neck, despite the fact that my wrists already appeared to be tied together.
“That old bastard hit me!”
“He said it was the only way to get rid of the one-armed man you keep conjuring up. Well, he said killing you would work too.”
“You don’t even recognize him, do you?”
“Who?”
“The one-armed man!”
“Should I?”
“Well, you’re the reason he’s one-armed!”
With a grunt Snorri heaved himself over the top of the ladder and shrugged me off onto the floor of a small chamber. I lay groaning as Kara and Hennan joined us. Screens and access panels dotted the walls, the remaining space being thick with pipework. Three narrow tunnels ran off, one vertically.
“Where are we?” What I really meant was where was Cutter John?
“Inside the machine,” Kara said. “The professor gave me a map to the place where we can use the key.” She peered down the shaft we’d just come up. “He said that the shielding is stronger in here, so your friend might take a bit longer to find us.”
“Except where it’s not,” Hennan added.
“Sorry?” I had a quick glance over the edge myself. Nothing.
“The shielding is stronger in most places. But there are unshielded areas too,” Kara said. “They’re marked with yellow warning signs.”
I clambered to my feet, using the wall for support, and pulled my hands free of their bindings. “Let’s get on with it then.” I gestured for Kara to lead on. She consulted the paper in her hand and led off down the passage to the left.
I walked at the rear, rubbing the back of my head. If having a walking stick broken over my skull hadn’t given me a headache then the pulsing of the dim lighting and the pervasive throb of the hidden machinery would have. The cramped conditions were claustrophobic on their own but it managed to be much worse than that. The still air held a sickly-sweet stink and the walls pressed close, as if at any moment the Builders’ engine might flex its muscles, snapping shut the already-tight voids within it.
Up ahead the passage opened into a chamber just big enough for the four of us to stand together, then led on. As I squeezed in Kara had just set her fingers to an irregular-shaped mirror panel set into the wall. The reflection it offered seemed fuzzy at the edges and several smaller reflections of Kara jumped into being where her fingers made contact. Without warning her face vanished from the mirror to be replaced by the professor’s.
“Ah, I see young Jalan has recovered! Let him be the one to use the key. An imagination as overactive as his has . . . drawbacks . . . as we’ve seen, but it should allow a strong bond with the key and enhance the effects of—”
“What is this thing?” I interrupted.
“What thing?”
“This!” I leaned past Kara and jabbed at the professor’s image. “It was a mirror.”
“Well.” The professor puffed himself up like a tutor about to dispense wisdom. “It would take very long time to list all its functions, but it serves a variety of important uses in the main analysis suite, perhaps communication being the most minor. You’ll see numerous such panels as you follow the route to the central processor, but they’re all actually the same object. It’s very difficult to explain . . . we call it a fractal mirror—”
“Break it, Snorri! Quick!”
Convinced by my tone, for once Snorri did as he was told, and with a violent thrust drove the horns of his axe into the professor’s face.
“You can’t break it!” The professor favoured us with an indulgent smile as the axe slid over his image, leaving no mark. “Why would you even want to?”
“The Lady Blue is going to use the mirror to come here . . . if she’s not here already. She can watch through mirrors and if she sees us, well, we’re in trouble: she doesn’t want the Wheel stopped.”