by Amy B. Nixon
I took a step back, then another, walking backwards blindly, because it was impossible to tear my eyes away from the magnificence of it all.
As I kept going back, more and more of the castle filled my view. Towers, more towers than I could count, reached for the skies. Some had smaller turrets protruding from them, others stood lonely and isolated. Through the centuries, the ashy walls had clearly browned in some places, but the rooftops pierced the heavens above them with rich, evenly colored dark greys. Everything seemed otherworldly for such an ancient castle.
Above all of this sublimity, dozens of floating islands roamed the skies. I blinked several times, making sure my imagination wasn’t fooling me. The same floating islands I’d seen earlier were still there in daylight. Flat and muddy on the bottom, they weren’t like the ones I’d seen in video games.
I kept moving backwards, thirsting for a wider range of vision, for more of the breathtakingly beautiful sight. More islands appeared, and I was overtaken by a sudden dilemma. Half of me wanted to keep going backwards to see more. The other half wanted to spring forward and find a way to climb on the floating islands.
Before either part could take over, my vision became obstructed by a large shadow.
It belonged to a tall, extremely tall male figure. The guy had light brown hair, was probably around my age, and stood a few steps away. Yet, I still had to painfully throw my head backwards to meet his eyes. I was barely five-foot-four, and he had to be at least six-foot-eight! His towering height and bear-like masculine body heavily contrasted with a boyish grin.
“Hi. I’m Maksim Larsen, Monika’s brother,” he said, holding out his hand to me. “I take it it’s my duty to show you around?”
I shook his hand, blinking vigorously. If he was Monika’s twin, these two were the most non-identical twins on the globe!
“Sorry, I thought I told her I don’t want to waste anyone’s Sunday with babysitting me. I already cut her sleep short. There’s no need to impose further on other family members.”
“Trust me, you’re not wasting anything. As I was saying, it’s my duty to give you a full tour of the grounds. You’re free now, right?”
He didn’t look hungover. In fact, he looked as if he’d woken up hours ago and had more than enough time to fully lose his sleep. Was there a magical cure for hangovers?
I studied his face for a flirty, hitting-on-you look.
“Thanks, but I can’t take you up on that offer. I, uh, actually have to take care of something, so… I guess I’ll be seeing you around.”
He laughed, taking a step forward. “Are you trying to get rid of me? That wasn’t a very convincing attempt.”
I fixed my eyes on his with the most convincing stare I was capable of producing, having in mind I had to twist my neck like crazy. “Look, dude, I already met your gang. I’m not up for a one, or two, or three night stands, and I’m most definitely not looking for a boyfriend. There’s no point in trying. See ya!”
What I wanted to say was cut the shit and fuck off. But he was Monika’s sibling. She’d been really nice to me. Her brother didn’t deserve the full severity of my post-ex-boyfriend feisty attitude towards guys and people in general.
“My gang? Oh, you’ve obviously met Axel.” He rubbed the back of his neck with a frown. “I apologize for whatever he’s done or said, but I’m not trying to get in your pants. Monika has some things to take care of, which is why I agreed to show you around. You know, make you feel more welcome and help you learn your way around the castle.”
“Thanks, but I don’t need a tour guide. And from what I’ve heard, you have some training thing today. Don’t waste your day with me.”
“I’m not the type of person who spends his Sundays indulging in laziness. As for my training thing – I have lots of free time before then. How about we start over? Hi, my name is Max, and you look like you’ll need someone to at least show you the main paths. By the way, I’ll be sure to tell Axel you’re not dating or looking to hook up with anyone. He’s just… His puberty hits all over again each time he sees a new girl who also happens to be pretty.”
Maybe this guy wasn’t like his buddies. Maybe my ex had gotten the best of me. Maybe if I kept going like this, I would condemn myself to a reclusive, friendless, probably angst-ridden life. Just what I had made of my previous human life, sans the magic.
“I’m sorry, Maksim. I’m kinda reserved towards guys who see me as nothing more than a pretty girl since I just got out of a nasty relationship, and I don’t want a new one in my life right now.”
He didn’t need to know that just got out meant almost a year ago.
“We’ve all been there, right?” He winked with a reassuring grin and shook my hand again.
Something about the Larsen siblings made me ease down, feel calmer and reassured. Suddenly, I wasn’t as irritated as I had been earlier. My annoyance had simply vanished. It was almost… supernatural?
“Come on, rookie,” he cut off my string of strange thoughts, “let’s start from the bottom and work our way up.”
He led me back through the entrance, which extended to an inner entry, vast enough to hold at least several dozens of people. A stony arch stood at the end, branching to a three-way fork. Wide corridors expanded on both sides, whereas another corridor stretched farther straight ahead.
There was a weird swirly symbol above the arch in the main entryway. It resembled a circle inside a stretched letter M, but then I noticed it was a circle connecting two mirroring halves of the letter N. Taking a step back in horror, I refused to believe my eyes. A human skull was carved inside the circle. What was worse, two perfectly shaped bare bones guarded each side of an inscription positioned under the symbol.
En mann er ikke død med mindre hans sjel går tapt.
My mind instantly translated it.
A man is not dead unless his soul is lost.
“Nordstrøm’s family motto,” Maksim explained.
“That’s sexist!”
“Maybe so, but that’s not the point.”
“Then what is? The crude typography? The obscene skull? Or the creepy bones? And if that wall decoration is your idea of making people feel at home, then your interior designer’s ignorance level is abysmal!”
A startling laughter echoed through the halls, bouncing off every stony surface.
I looked around for its source, and saw someone I had missed earlier. Slender body, arms folded over his chest. He was leaning against a wall in the distance ahead of us. Dressed in black from head to toe, with short strands of messy blond hair falling over his forehead, he almost blended with the shadows.
The velar, raspy, baritone note of his laughter awoke every irritant receptor on my skin. The way he had stood there, watching us for who knew how long, and the fact that he had laughed at my words made me want to stomp over there and give him a piece of my mind. Fucking creeper!
The creeper grew silent, nodded towards Maksim, spun around and walked away.
“Meet Dann Nordstrøm.” Maksim’s words raised me from the low gutter of my angry thoughts. “He’s usually chattier.”
“You mean Nordstrøm, like… the island was named after his family or something?”
“Nordstrøm, like the family who originally settled on this island in the eleventh century and built this castle as their residency.”
Icy shivers crept down my spine as I grasped the full spectrum of the situation. My heart sped its rhythm, as if to melt the tiny icicles stinging my skin. My Spidey senses had awoken, whispering how I needed to keep my problem with authority in line.
“He owns this place?” I whispered with bated breath.
“His family does.”
“Can he throw me in the dungeons for that remark I made earlier?”
Maksim laughed cheerfully, swerving to the right.
“Of course not, the dungeons aren’t used for incarceration. To be honest, if I were you, I wouldn’t get on his bad side. He’s an excellent lecturer, and you don�
�t want to miss out.”
“Miss out on what?”
“Monika said you’re making the transition from the human world to the supernatural one only now. From what I’ve gathered, you’re not familiar with your lineage, so you should attend the History of the Nine Realms lectures he’s giving every week.”
“What, is this a school or something? Like a special supernatural academy for necromancers?”
“No, but there are such places in Midgard. Dann taught in two, and decided to bring the teaching back with him.”
Before coming here, I was taking a year off the University of San Francisco to deal with my emotional baggage. I sure as hell wasn’t going to waste my time attending History lectures.
“Marvel taught me all I need to know about the Nine Realms.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Not a history buff, eh?”
“Nope.”
“Give it a try. Dann’s only twenty-six, so his lectures are anything but conservative and boring.”
Trying to keep up with Maksim’s stride, I made a mental note to be more careful in the future. My problem with authority had landed me in deep waters on more than one occasion.
“What are the dungeons used for? Severus Snape’s Potions classes?”
“Mostly for storage and Húsvættir sleeping grounds.”
“Húsvættir? Meaning house spirits?”
“Exactly. They do all the chores around here – cleaning, cooking, laundry, polishing…”
I rushed to get ahead, and barred his way, taking a stand with arms over my chest.
”Like Dobby? You’re keeping house elves here to do the dirty work for you?”
His head dropped to the side with a heavy sigh.
“Would you please stop it with the Harry Potter references? No, not like Dobby; and they’re called house spirits, not house elves with deformed Chihuahua ears. They look like humans, only smaller in size. Húsvættir aren’t slaves. Every house spirit gets rewarded for housekeeping. Besides, they can leave on their own whenever they want, no questions asked.”
“Uh-huh. It sounds like you’re dividing magical creatures into a hierarchy, with them being the lower class.”
His hands shot up, waving off my statement.
“Not at all! Housekeeping is simply rooted into their nature so deeply, that sometimes they live in uninhabited houses and still tend to them.”
I shook my head. “This is so fucking weird.”
“That’s just your transition phase talking.”
By noon I had seen and memorized – hopefully – the main pathways to my bedroom, the castle’s main entryway and the library. Or at least I thought I had memorized them, because as soon as Maksim showed me said library, everything else disappeared.
I had never considered myself an avid reader, let alone a bookworm. Yet, once we entered the library, I was convinced we had ascended into magical heaven. I liked the roomy Gleeson at my university, but this? Places like this didn’t exist in real life. They couldn’t.
Standing high on a small staircase landing that ended with a sunken floorplan, I could make out hundreds of rows of bookcases, divided in a way that left space for a huge aisle in the middle. At the far end ahead, a wall supported nine gigantic arched windows, arranged on top of each other and columned in a perfect vertical line. Golden sunrays streamed from them, soaking everything in bright, natural light.
Nine levels of mezzanine balconies with even more books graced the impossibly tall sidewalls. Open staircases with ferric railings curved around each level, connecting it with the others. Reddish mahogany beams and girders adorned the foundations of every balcony, shelf and sideboard, while countless volumes’ spines contrasted against the dark wood.
“Cool, eh?” Maksim’s voice sounded distant.
“More like freaking fantastic,” I whispered, taking in the architectural beauty. “How big is this place?”
“It takes an entire wing of the castle. You can look up the library’s history later if you want to. Let me show you how to navigate through it.”
Navigate? I was pretty sure even my smartphone’s trusty navigation would get lost here. Maksim nudged me to the right, pausing next to the row of bookcases closest to the aisle.
“Larsen,” he spoke out.
Before I could blink, three books appeared in front of him, standing freely in the air without any support. Wide-eyed, I watched him pick one and give each of the others a light push with his fingers. Both books flew back to the bookcase, returning to their shelves.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me!”
Once he let go of the final book, it also hung freely in the air instead of submitting to the basic laws of gravity. He gave it a push, and it flew away.
“The library’s enchanted. Go to the correct section and tell it the subject you need information on or the exact name of the book you want. If you’re done with the book, take it back to the proper section, and push it on the spine. It will return home safe and sound. All you have to do is go to the correct section and floor level, otherwise the library won’t show you the correct books.”
“Section and floor level?”
“The very first rows on the right are called Section A and are dedicated to necromantic family trees and chronicles. They are labeled RA1, as you can see from the engravings on the side of the bookcases. Meaning right side of the aisle, Section A, floor level one. Here, in RB1, which is significantly larger, you can see some reading material for necromancers-in-learning. Mostly spells and historical books. As you progress on upper floor levels, you’ll find books on more advanced magic, though it’s best to stick to this section for now.”
“For the love of Chris Hemsworth!” I groaned and grabbed his arm to prevent him from going deeper into the library. “All of these shelves are for newbie magical practitioners like me? I have to go through every single book here during my… transition?”
“No. Many of them are old books from past centuries, which nobody uses anymore. The Nordstrøms pride themselves on having the largest magical library in the Northern Hemisphere.”
I sighed with relief and let go of him.
The third part, called RC1, was filled with reading “rooms” separated with gorgeous screens made of carved mahogany wood. The back of a hooded figure protruded from behind a reading desk. My eyes caught a glimpse of the person’s hand when he or she flipped the pages of an open book, and that hand had purple – yes, purple – skin. I listened to my common sense. It had to be a weird refraction of light.
By the time we got back and moved over to the left part of the library, I already saw quite a few figures here and there. Some seemed in their twenties, others were older people. Many of them greeted Maksim, and I couldn’t keep my mouth shut about it for long.
“Okay, are you the captain of the local magical sports team or something? Why are you so popular? And don’t you have something better to do on a Sunday than deal with newcomers?”
He burst into uncontrollable laughter. We passed an older man who shushed us.
“Again with the Harry Potter references,” Maksim said quietly, adding “I’m sorry” to the guy. “Younger necromancers have the luxury of attending some practical exercises with older, more experienced casters, but this isn’t a school. We don’t have magical sports here, and I’m not wasting anything. As I said earlier, I’m happy to show you around.”
“Do you have any sports? Or at least Pilates?” I asked hopefully, because my old Pilates classes were among the few things keeping me somewhat calm. “And you didn’t answer my popularity question.”
“Stop by the training grounds with Monika later to get your popularity question answered.” His face suddenly darkened. “We don’t have any sports. Casters, who are still learning how to control their magic, can get injured in more than enough ways as it is. There’s no need to add up to the pile of danger.”
“I thought this was a safe place for necromancers.”
“It is and it isn’t,” he
replied vaguely, rubbing his neck. On the bright side, at least I wasn’t the only one feeling uncomfortable. “Disasters can occur when you stuff a few hundred people together and some of them haven’t fully mastered the black magic they were born with. To top it off, we have a plethora of other supernatural creatures here. That’s why our older residents prefer spending their time on the floating parcels, away from most of the drama. Spells go wrong, emotional outbursts lead to destructive magical outbursts… Evocation might be the worst for someone like you.”
The idea of bringing someone from the dead was crazy enough without the whole postmortem stages deal.
There was no way I’d tell him about the freezing chills I felt, repulsed by the sole idea of seeing a corpse. My almost necrophobia-like state of mind was the reason I couldn’t bring myself to visit my parents’ and uncle’s graves years after we had buried them. I preferred not to think about what evocation meant.
Maksim turned to me, placing his large palm on my shoulder.
“Hey, in case no one said it – you’ll do fine.”
But I didn’t do fine. All I did was plunge his world into terror.
The Draugar
I spent my day with a few books we had taken from the library, so I could get a basic understanding of how my kind had come to exist.
While Monika was off doing her thing, I sat on my bed and read about Freya – a Vanir goddess of fertility, nature, love, wisdom, foresight and sorcery – and how she had given life to me.
Freya was born in Vanaheim, the realm of the most beautiful gods and goddesses, but she ruled over Sessrúmnir. It was her own personal fragment of the divine realm Asgard, where she served as a possessor of the ones who had fallen in battle, taking their souls under her protection.
According to one of the books, back in the ninth century Freya made an attempt to put an end to rampant bloodshed and restore the balance on Midgard, our planet Earth. By using eitr essence, she created three maidens – Aia, Linnea and Minora – and bestowed upon them the gift of necromancy. It was a dangerous form of sorcery that meddled with men’s fates and gods’ will, because it gave Aia, Linnea and Minora power over any deceased being’s soul, spirit and body.
