The Liar's Key (The Red Queen's War #2)(25)

“Do not.”

A tall man stood between Snorri and me, in the shadow of the cave, in the space through which Snorri had just walked. A young man, clad in a strange white robe, sleeved and open at the front. He watched us through stony grey eyes, unsmiling. All the other voices retreated when the man spoke—my woman with her dead child, and the others behind her, not gone but reduced to the pulsing hiss you can hear in a seashell.

Snorri turned, taking the axe from his back. “I need to find a door into Hel.”

“Such doors are closed to men.” The man smiled then—no kindness in it. “Take a knife to your veins and you will find yourself there soon enough.”

“I have a key,” Snorri said, and made to resume his descent.

“I said, do not.” The man raised his hand and we heard the bones of earth groan. Plates of stone shattered away from the cavern roof, dust drifting in their wake.

“Who are you?” Snorri faced him again.

“I came through the door.”

“You’re dead?” Snorri took a step toward the man, fascinated now. “And you came back?”

“This part of me is dead, certainly. You don’t live as long as I have without dying a little. I have echoes of me in Hel.” The man tilted his head, as if puzzled, as if considering himself. “Show me your key.”

“Who are you?” Snorri repeated his first question.

Across from me Tuttugu stopped pressing the heels of his hands to his ears. His eyes widened from the slits they had been. He grabbed up his axe from the rocks and crawled to my side.

“Who? Who was I? That man is dead, an older one wears his skin. I’m just an echo—like the others echoing here, though my voice is the strongest. I am not me. Just a fragment, unsure of my purpose . . .”

“Who—”

“I won’t bandy my name before a light-sworn warrior.” The dead man seemed to gather himself. “Show me your key. It must be the reason I am here.”

Snorri pursed his lips then released one hand from the axe to draw Loki’s key from beneath his jerkin. “There. Now, if you won’t help me, shade, begone.”

“Ah. This is good. This is a good key. Give it to me.” A hunger in him now.

“No. Show me the door, ghost.”

“Give me the key and I’ll allow you to continue along your path.”

“I need the key to open the door.”

“I thought that once. I had many failures. I called myself door-mage but so many doors resisted me. The key you hold was stolen from me, long ago. Death was the first door I opened without it. Some doors just require a push. For others a latch must be lifted, some are locked, but a sharp mind can pick most locks. Only three still resist me. Darkness, Light, and the Wheel. And when you give me the key I will own those too.”

Snorri looked my way and beckoned me. “Jal, I need you to lock the door after me. Take the key and give it to Skilfar. She will know how to destroy it.”

“I have something you want, barbarian.”

The door-mage had a child at his side, gripping her neck from behind. A small girl in a ragged woollen smock, bare legs, dirty feet, her blond hair thrown across her face as the man forced her head down.

“Einmyria?” Snorri breathed the name.

In one hand the child held a peg doll.

“Emy?” A shout. He sounded terrified.

“The key, or I’ll break her neck.”

Snorri reached into his jerkin and tore the key from its thong. “Take it.” He strode forward pressing it carelessly into the mage’s hand, eyes on his daughter, bending toward her. “Emy? Sweet-girl?”

Two things happened together. Somehow the mage dropped Loki’s key, and in reaching to catch it as it fell he let go of the child’s neck. She looked up, hair falling to the sides. Her face was a wound, the dark red muscle of her cheeks showed through, stripped of skin and fat. She opened her mouth and vomited out flies, thousands of them, a buzzing scream. Snorri fell back and she leapt on him, black talons erupting from the flesh of her hands.

I glimpsed Snorri amid the dark cloud, on his back, struggling to keep the child-thing from ripping out his eyes. Tuttugu lumbered forward, shielding his face, swinging his axe in an under-arm looping blow. Somehow he missed Snorri but caught the demon, the force of the impact knocking her clear. For a second she scrabbled at the muddy slope, shrieking at an inhuman pitch, then fell away, wailing, into the consuming blackness. The flies followed her, like smoke inhaled by an open mouth.

With that deafening buzz receding I noticed the laughter for the first time. Looking away from the cave’s throat I saw that the mage remained crouched on the ground, the key still before him on the rock. He wasn’t looking at Snorri, just the key. He tried again to pick it up but somehow his fingers passed through it. Another awful, bitter laughter broke from him, a noise that ran through my teeth and made them feel brittle.

“I can’t touch it. I can’t even touch it.”

Snorri scrambled to his feet and rushed the man, throwing him back with a roar. The mage went tumbling, fetching up hard against a rock. Snorri scooped up the key and rubbed his shoulder where he’d barged his foe aside, an expression of disgust on his face, as if the contact sickened him.

“What have you done with my daughter?” Snorri advanced on the mage, axe raised.