The initial novelty wore off fast. Grey carpet stretched ahead of me no wider than the tip of one outstretched arm to another, with little to break up the scene. Baldr and his goons couldn’t have been that far ahead, but of them I found no immediate sign. If it hadn’t been for the devil standing calmly in the distance, I’d have started to worry I’d been duped after all.

I warped ahead a few times to help speed things up, but all it did was distance me from Lucy faster and ram home the hallway was long. I’d taken it for a straight line, but as my view of Lucy was swallowed by the distant walls, I realised it was on a subtle sideways curve.

Not for the first time, I wished I could read Akkadian. The decorative inscription acted as a vaguely reassuring companion and continued to grow at a steady rate as it twisted all over the passage. By the time it hit the size of my hand, I could no longer see Lucy at all.

Committed, I moved faster, shifting to gas to pick up the pace. Carvings slid by in a dreamlike blur, the curvature of the structure more obvious the further I spread. Somehow I didn’t think it would be due to shoddy building design.

The edict – it couldn’t be anything else – kept expanding, its position progressively curtailed. It reached the height of the corridor wall and kept growing, taking over the ceiling and walls until each syllable bent at right angles in multiple places. Soon, unless it started taking over the carpet, it would run out of places to go.

Instead, it left the floor alone and went somewhere else. It wasn’t a direction that usually existed. I brought myself to an abrupt halt trying to process it, failed, and transformed back into Odin for a better look.

The corridor still appeared to be straight, identical ahead and behind. But there was no denying a third wall had appeared, bending the script at three right angles. It sat where the carpet should be in any sane universe, although I was still walking on the floor, which also sat at right angles to the new wall.

I stared at the physical impossibility, somehow put my hand on the new section without my brain imploding, and resumed my quest at a brisk walk.

Five right angles became six, then seven. I tried to let my body configure itself to the new environment, but it kept snapping back to the regular three dimensions. The corridor was likely acting as some kind of environmental incursion. Much like a tunnel of air built through an aquarium, it protected its inhabitants with safe passage.

Which begged the question: what was outside?

Hand on the fifth wall, I followed the gentle twists of the edict in a straight line. Grey office carpet softened my footfalls. Understanding Akkadian wouldn’t have helped much at this point, because the text had grown beyond my capacity to read it. Inscriptions sunk cavities into the walls, only the tips of the lettering, bending back around until they blended back into unbroken seamlessness.

I began to get the odd feeling the path I traversed was itself the furrow of an enormous, imperceptible glyph, and perhaps had been all along.

Shivers ran down my arms, and I suddenly felt very small.

Ahead, something changed. It resolved into a glimmer of darkness among the light; a shadowy hole in the office architecture, more than welcome after the confining trek. The number of walls began to decrease the closer it came, collapsing in from the original set until only the new remained and the world – if this could be classed as one – reverted to standard spatial capacity.

A figure I sadly recognised stepped in front of the opening, blocking a clear view of the space beyond. I gripped my circlet in one hand and tested the waters, but no other dimensions were to be found. Not even Yggdrasil or the void managed to coax its window into action. Wherever we were now, this was it.

I wondered what would happen if we died. Ideally I was about to find out. If I had to, I was prepared to strangle Baldr with the halo even if its active powers had fled.

Not yet, Lucy’s voice said in my head.

“Hello, Odin,” Baldr greeted me, stepping aside with his beautiful unsettling smile. He wore a combination of silver, cream and soft forest green in a flowing tunic tied and trimmed.

I couldn’t bring myself to fawn over my nemesis, and instead peered past him in Odin’s characteristic curiosity.

There were four people left at the end of the world. Baldr, whose power was currently an unknown. Myself. Janus, sitting cross-legged on the edge of a high platform in jeans and T-shirt with all four faces on display, and Enki with his back turned, one hand against something his body obscured.

There were no walls, only a distant, endless blackness. Through it twined the syllables of the edict, still expanding, its curls spiralling unfettered into the vastness of eternity until they became too large and distant to perceive. No discernible light source illuminated the immediate area, but somehow it remained clearly visible.

The opening I’d emerged from was a trapezoid groove in a cuneiform inscription. The platform we stood on made up part of a larger symbol, its accompanying marks floating beside us on separate blocks of unProvidence-like fired clay. Mercifully, the office carpet continued a few metres and then stopped at Enki’s feet. It felt like we were someplace none of us were supposed to be.

I walked forwards until I came level with Enki. The Sumerian god was busy at work carving more symbols into a plinth. These ones were normal-sized, if delivered inefficiently. I’d seen Lucy inscribe surfaces with a thought; this might have been a stalling measure.

“A little late, aren’t you?” Baldr’s voice sounded behind me with more petulance than I expected. I looked back and saw anger.

“If that’s what it takes to get you back,” I answered noncommittally.

“Oh, no,” he replied, stepping back into my personal space. I resisted the urge to fill his belly with halo. “You barely tried. All you had to do was disobey one self-serving idiot, and the rest would have taken care of itself. Sometimes I don’t think you love me at all.”

“Of course I love you,” I lied, though it came out less than convincing. When was Lucy going to give me the all-clear? I turned back to Enki’s writing and wondered where the time reversal was supposed to come in.

“He doesn’t love you,” Janus uttered from the platform’s edge. All four mouths spoke in unison. “He never has.”

Argue, Lucy said.

“Oh, come on,” I said, swinging into gear. “You’re going to listen to Ugly? He wants you for himself; it’s blindingly obvious. I’m looking out for your best interests. We play the long game, and for us, that means long. That means patience.”

“You left me,” Baldr growled, “in the void. For centuries. You didn’t even have Hel killed. I could have been out within minutes, and you left me to rot.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“She’s a death god,” I explained with a shrug. “She’d just come back. Really very inconvenient. I tried to bargain with her, but some people are very set in their ways. Meanwhile, I prepared a world for us. One I can’t help but notice you’ve utterly destroyed. Brilliant work, there. Truly insightful.” I let the sarcasm drip from my lips.

“Just as well it can be reset, then,” Baldr announced, recovering. He shot me a slightly confused look. “You’re not invited. I’m going to take your powers – yes, I can do that – and handle it myself. It’s going to happen. I’ve already seen it, courtesy of Janus.”

I shot Lucy, as Janus, an alarmed glance.

Let it happen, he confirmed with a nod.

That’s insane, I argued. If he goes back, we lose by default. You’re not seeing this clearly.

“Speaking of Janus,” Baldr continued blithely, “he’s more of a hindrance now than anything. I’ve got his powers and access to this place. About time I removed the interference. Janus, I’d love you to do me a favour.”

Janus rose to his feet. “Gladly. How may I help?”

If he goes back, Lucy added privately, he goes back into the void. He doesn’t know this; I fed him a lie. He thinks it’ll be physical travel.

If he goes back, I insisted, everything still resets. Nothing might change at all; we could start a loop. We could be playing this week out forever. And what if he talks to someone while in the void? What if he talks to Legba? I won’t let it happen.

“Hmm,” Baldr said, elongating the hum. “Your existence distresses me. It makes me anxious, thinking about another seer introducing uncertainty into our plans. Already I can see you making minor changes. We can’t let them become major. Surely you can understand the problem here.”

“I’ll leave immediately,” Janus said. He moved towards the corridor.

“But where to?” Baldr replied, wide-eyed and innocent. “It’s all gone, and there’s nowhere left far enough away. Which means the solution must be more permanent. I’m sure you catch my drift.”

Janus hesitated. “Is this not an extreme reaction?” he queried. Let it happen, he repeated to me again in private. Fly under the radar.

Shit, Lucy, I argued, gripping the halo hard enough it bit into my palm. No! Where’s the reversal device? I need to be first. Why even bring me here, if you’re just going to sabotage –

I’m trusting you, he responded. Now do the same for me.

“No,” I said aloud.

“See?” Baldr directed at Janus. “Odin agrees, and he’s a seer. Now, that’s a thought.” He smiled. “But not a very good seer. So we prioritise. Janus, I need this. The world needs this. Do you need me to do it for you? I can oblige.”

“Where’s the device?” I snapped. “The thing we’re all here for. Remember that?”

“This is your problem, Odin,” Baldr snapped, façade dropped in an instant. “You’re so greedy. Sometimes you just need to enjoy something for what it is. That’s what I’m here for, to make you do it. You’ll thank me, I promise.”

This is your last chance, Lucy told me. We’re about to lose our eyes. “I understand,” he said to Baldr a second later. “I will be waiting for you to release me in the past.”

He stepped off the lip of the platform.

I hurried to the edge, careful not to trip and follow him in. For a while his body descended rapidly away in the strange non-light of the place. Then I lost sight of it, and he was gone.

My eyes moved to Enki, still poring over his script.

Baldr approached me, a pale hand extended. “I know you want to go in my stead,” he said, as I sidled out of arm’s reach. “But what you think is best for me is a shallow farce. I decide what’s best for you, that’s how it’s always been. But I don’t know if I can forgive you after this. I’ve come to realise you’re a sad old man playing at power games like the rest of them.”

“Rest of them?” I echoed with a short laugh. “Look in the mirror. You’re exactly the same.”

“Why bother, when everyone else does the looking for me? If this is your best defence, you may as well follow Janus off the cliff now.” He stepped forward again, and I warped away in response to the far edge of the floating glyph.

Any minute now, Lucy, I growled impatiently.

I’m removing the failsafe’s activation marker, he explained. Otherwise it will be discovered immediately.

He was right. The counter would tick up and alarms would ring. Vishnu would instigate a freeze and someone would be dispatched. Whether to me or Baldr, both spelled disaster.

I glanced at the halo. There were no other dimensions here for me to spring it from, making a killing blow useless. Yes, Baldr would come back again through someone’s resurrection, but hopefully not before I made it to the rewind. And if he could tell the future, he’d predict my attack.

“And how many powers have you copied, exactly?” I evaded, watching his hands as Lucy drew. My muscles itched to dart into god-ending motion.

“Oh, I’m sure you already know. Yours will be an exciting garnish. Imagine, being able to spot all the dirty secrets before they come to light! There’s endless fun to be had; I won’t waste it like you did.”

“I don’t waste anything,” I argued on reflex, only to pause slightly at the jarring realisation I was defending Odin, and somehow, some of it was genuine. I ignored the past tense set by Baldr’s narrative, as if the ex-CIO was already yesterday’s problem. Preferably, I wouldn’t have been on the defensive end of the conversation at all, but Lucy’s delays required me to maintain a thin wafer of plausible deniability. I was still supposed to be mind controlled, no matter how poor a parent.

“I invest,” I continued on form. “Just as I did in you. And was it not a wise investment? Are you not poised to take over as intended?”

For a brief moment, Baldr’s confident leer transitioned into confusion before making it to recovery. “I’ll know if you’re lying soon enough,” he announced. The confusion returned and he frowned, tilting his head. “I couldn’t care less, besides.” His voice changed, shifting to a higher, more cajoling pitch. “Father, I need your aid. Empower me so that I may rule in peace and wisdom.”

Mockingly, he held out an arm.

Of course, I didn’t really need another universe anymore. Not when I could create my own.

There was no need to dignify my enemy with a response. Instead, I reached into the interstices of the world. Here in this place they felt strange and multifaceted, folds that seemed flat until viewed from the side. Drawing them around me would take more hands than I could possibly make, so I changed them into a form I could grasp. Lustre thus dampened, I carved within myself a rift, a desolate, abstract seed from the inside out, and pushed myself through until nothing remained.

Baldr’s beautiful features faded into startlement as I melted from the world.

I’d thought I might find myself somewhere like the void.

Instead, I was the void. Or a void; the idea of a universe before anything existed to fill it. I thought about becoming a bird, and there I was: the complete totality of everything in my tiny corner of the still-extremely-truncated multiverse, just bird-shaped. Unlike last time, when the pressure of an entire full-grown dimension had borne down on me, there was nothing here to squeeze me into submission.

I was something new, and could be as grand as I wanted. Which I didn’t. Being a universe was far too encumbering and raised a lot of moral questions I wasn’t comfortable with.

I made myself into the halo and peered through into other worlds. From here I could access them, the path restored. Though there was only really one, now: Yggdrasil, the source of everything. I could feel myself tethered to it, its fibres growing inside me and binding my edges to its bark as surely as if it was my own skin. Strangely, this didn’t bother me. When I moved, a fragile twig moved with me. When I grew, it became a young branch.

Elsewhere – a very small elsewhere – lurked the edict. From the inside, it appeared infinite and vast. From the Yggdrasil end, it resembled a delicate yet dull helix of vines, inconspicuous and unobtrusive compared to its neighbours bursting with avenging life.

Around it, gods still fought in their thousands. From within, Baldr spun confounded, head snapping from side to side as he hunted my disappearance.

I wanted to take careful aim with the halo and slice him open. The pristine god of joy and beauty should have crumpled before me, his divine blood dribbling over the edge of the edict’s drop.

But prophecy would see it coming. The tool I’d poured myself into – that had promised a desperate solution – might as well have no effect. I had to stay strong on the follow-through.

Inaction burned. I existed now at the peak of my capability, more potent than I’d ever likely be again, with Baldr vulnerable and unaware in my crosshairs. And it still wasn’t enough.

Beyond the window, Baldr fumbled in discomposure, perfect façade cracking for just a second. Shaking back a delicate sleeve, he brought a thumb and forefinger together and rubbed them, raising them to the air. A slight dimensional shimmer ruffled through the forms of the edict.

Baldr’s eyes locked onto it and followed it back to its source. Then he looked through.

Crap.

There was nowhere for me to move; I encompassed it all. I reacted by attempting to pull back to Yggdrasil, abandoning my form. Impossibly, Baldr’s hand reached through the circlet into my isolated world – into me – and held on, anchoring the boundary in liminal place.

“I see you now,” he said, and smiled.