Shadows of the Short Days

by Alexander Dan Vilhjálmsson

  Instantly a violent fight broke out in every corner on the upper floor. A couple who were flirting a moment before were now tearing each other’s hair out; co-workers were trading punches; girlfriends were scratching each other bloody. The suit-wearing officer appeared in the window, his face dark red with rage as he screamed at people to control themselves. It was not a good sign that he could restrain himself. Wild-eyed, he scanned for her and saw her making her way across the roof.

  “Stop!’ he screamed.

  He was punched in the face before he could do anything else.

  The roof was small and steep, too high to be able to jump down from. She moved down the roof until she reached the top of a garage. The officer had somehow managed to escape the clutches of the frenzied guests and was now out the window. Garún lowered herself down but instinctively let go when a resounding crack broke out between the houses. She hit the concrete, hard. Drunken people let out horrified screams in the distance and Garún realised he was armed.

  She jumped to her feet and sprinted as fast as she could. Another bang echoed and she could feel the bullet as it flew past her ear.

  Garún ran until she could taste blood. She took a sharp turn into an alleyway between houses. She tried to quieten her breathing and listen for the officer’s footsteps, but it was almost impossible. When she no longer felt as if she had inhaled dozens of razor blades, she risked checking if she had been pursued.

  Electric lamps illuminated the sombre night. Trees spread their bare claws towards the sky. A cat sneaked noiselessly across the street. Everything was still. Garún let herself slowly sink, her back against the wall. She noticed the graffiti all around her, the esoteric messages left by teenagers, gangs and kuklarar. She breathed a sigh of relief. Had Viður known that the exit was compromised? Did he betray her, making sure that she’d be ambushed on her way back?

  A clammy hand gripped her throat, so quick and unexpected that her head was knocked against the wall. Her vision darkened. It was him. Blond, oil-slicked hair and a cruel look on his face. The audioskull hadn’t warned her until she’d felt his fingers around her throat. This was no regular police officer. He was using seiður to hide his presence. Garún cursed and spat. She tried to struggle, but he was immovable, his hand like an iron ring around her throat.

  “I could smell your stench all the way out to Grandi,” he said. His nostrils flared. “Delýsíð. So you’re the one who’s been busy all over Reykjavík? And you’re crossing over to Rökkurvík?’ His laugh was hollow. “How did you possibly think that you could …’

  He leaned in closer, focusing. He sniffed her. The whites of his eyes became slightly illuminated.

  “Is that a demon I smell?’

  He looked down, towards the audioskull.

  She kneed him in the groin as hard as she possibly could. He didn’t move. She could just as well have kicked a wall.

  “You really are one stupid bitch.” He started to smile, slowly. “You have no idea what kind of shit you’ve got yourself into.”

  He grabbed her by the hair and banged her head hard against the wall, once, twice. He tugged at her hair, forcing her to look at him. Warm blood ran down to her neck.

  “You are now under arrest. You’ll be coming with me down to the Nine, for a private interview. If you co-operate, we might be merciful. Your execution will be expedited. You—”

  There was a movement from the edge of her vision and then dark blood spattered Garún’s face as something bashed the officer in the head. She twisted herself out of his grip. Another hit to the body lying on the ground, with a sickening crack, then another.

  Styrhildur stood over the body on the ground, a bloody crowbar in her hand. Hraki and Diljá came running, putting their arms around Garún, helping her up. Her legs were weak, giving in with every shaky step. Everything was a blur: the man, bleeding on the street; running through the dark alleys; the sounds of footsteps fading in the distance; the crazed music of the noisefiend in her headphones.

  Sirens in the distance.

  Níu

  Sæmundur stood by the sink. The tap dripped at a steady pace. He was stuck in a loop, going around and around on a problem, always arriving at the same result, no matter what different approaches he tried. There were no other ways, no other solutions. Rauðskinna had the answers he wanted, it was as simple as that.

  He was faced with only two real choices: give up and admit defeat, or seek the answers he needed.

  Simpletons. Sheep. Ants.

  They had forced his hand. They had left him no choice. Nobody would call Sæmundur “mad’ again. They would witness what it meant to be truly learned.

  He went to the cabinets and pulled out the ingredients he had prepared. After lighting the stove he started warming up the leftover stock from the night before. He lifted the lid of the pot and smelled its contents, stirring it. It was a thin kind of soup, just slightly thicker than water, with herbs and powders that would protect his digestive system from what was to come.

  Sæmundur fetched a ceramic jug from the cupboard. He filled another pot with water and lit the stove. While the water rose to a boil he put on thick cloth gloves, took a handful of dried mushrooms from the jug, deathly pale in colour, and put them in a coffee press. The gloves went in the bin. When bubbles started forming in the water he poured it into the press. A potent stench of mud rose from the broth and the water became brown and murky, as if it had been fetched from the marsh. Sæmundur picked up the manuscript he’d been reading and gave it another read, tried to chisel it into his mind. He didn’t dare mumble it out loud to practise.

  He pressed the mushrooms and poured the brown liquid into the broth on the stove. He lifted the pot and held it up so the foul steam would rise to his face.

  For a brief moment he was assailed by doubt. It wasn’t too late to stop. He didn’t have to go through with this. For that short moment he allowed himself to feel that doubt; he let the weight of the decision he stood in front of to fully settle in. Either because of his certainty or his foolishness, the doubt could not sway him. He wasn’t sure if this obsession came from a place of weakness or strength. It was too late to stop now. He had started down this path a long time ago.

  He started to chant in a low, steady voice. He pulled out a large clump of dried highland moss from the bag the cloth-golem had brought and ground it over the now bubbling broth on the stove. Communicating with and controlling the fungus would require some seiður mixed with the galdur he was about to weave. The moss sizzled and dissolved immediately. He felt his body resonate with the galdur he was chanting. The foul-smelling mushroom broth was ready.

  If he didn’t go through with this, he was just a waste. A waste of talent, intellect, emotions, meat, bone, life. He told himself this, over and over again.

  Sæmundur took a large swig of the broth, forcing himself to chug until he almost threw up. He focused on drawing in the seiðmagn from the moss and fungus, weaving it into the galdur connecting his own body to the gandreið fungus. When the bowl was empty he tossed it in the sink and put on his coat. It was a grey woollen coat, large and bulky like Sæmundur himself, all the buttons torn off and the ends worn. Mæja rubbed against his legs when he was putting on his shoes. He felt nauseous. He pushed her away, surly, but somewhere in his groggy mind he realised that she was probably very hungry. Who cares, that was not his problem right now. He didn’t have much time.

  A dim afternoon gloom covered the city. Light had started to fade, it would be dark soon. Sæmundur walked hurriedly towards the University’s main building. Electric lamps flickered with amber light, turning on one after the other, as they prepared for the coming darkness.

  The university was less than fifteen minutes’ walk from Sæmundur’s apartment. The main building was a huge, grey concrete mass, planted where the land rose the highest. A curved road led up to the main building, as if it was a noble manor rather than an official government building. Along the road were ragged tracks and a small tram platform
in front of the main entrance. The tram was just a few minutes from arriving when Sæmundur came along. It was a considerable distance to Svartiskóli from the main campus and its surrounding university facilities. A few students were waiting at the platform.

  The mushrooms were starting to kick in, but with the power of the incantation and the amplifying effect of the moss he could contain the effects. He tried to remain inconspicuous as he kept his distance from the others waiting. The tram rattled up to the platform and stopped.

  He didn’t recognise anyone on board, but their suppressed glares indicated that he was not a total stranger to at least some of them. He didn’t care if he was looked down upon for using and selling moss to students, or if they thought he looked like a vagrant. Dealing moss was probably more of an advantage, since it could be hard to get to a reliable source of seiðmagn besides what the university supplied. What did incense him with a shameful rage was when he was looked down upon for his delusional ideas. For foolishness. When they called him Sæmundur the mad.

  The tram jolted down the small incline, past the great, flat university grounds where geese sat in the dwindling autumn light. The route went on with regular stops in the student apartments in Vatnsmýrin, right towards the looming hill of Öskjuhlíð where Svartiskóli loitered by the edge of the forested hill, crowned by the thaumaturgical power plant in Perlan. It was a behemoth of dark steel, its glass dome illuminated from within with eerie, pulsating lights.

  Svartiskóli was newer and more fortress-like than the other university buildings, as if it was purposefully designed to dominate the more traditional main building. Sæmundur saw ripples move over the school’s pitch-black walls and pseudopods stretch out from it. He forced his eyes shut, rubbed them and didn’t look towards the school again. Svartiskóli had been constructed from the same obsidian pillars that were mined to make the apartment towers in the nouveau riche district of Skuggahverfið. Obsidian was especially useful as an insulation against seiðmagn and so it was by necessity that almost the entire school was made from it. Every edge, corner or ledge was razor sharp. Wounds caused by obsidian cuts would not heal without the assistance of a seiðskratti or a galdramaður. Even then a thaumaturgical infection could still flare up, which could have grotesque consequences. In those cases it would usually have been preferable to die from exsanguination.

  The tram stopped and everyone departed, aside from the few students of seiður who were heading up towards Perlan. A considerable number of people stood waiting at Svartiskóli’s tram platform, it being Fárday and classes generally over. Sæmundur tried to be inconspicuous but knew it probably just made him look all the more questionable. A thick haze of paranoia was settling over his mind as the mushroom broth in his body dissipated into his blood, his flesh. Everything felt off kilter.

  The gigantic birch wood doors of the main entrance were open wide and students flowed outside. The doors had been grown by the head seiðskrattar of the university, rumour had it that they were fused with a potent seiður of protection. Sæmundur felt he could see bloated eyes in every crack of the knotty natural wood. Large and deep pupils, all pointing directly at him. He jumped when the eyes all blinked simultaneously, and he almost lost his composure. A mumbled word of protection subdued the hallucinations somewhat. He moved away from the main entrance and followed the smooth obsidian wall until he came to a side entrance, a short flight of concrete stairs leading down to a heavy iron door. Before he knocked he put on a pair of leather gloves. He only managed to get one knock in before the door opened with a jerk.

  “You’re late. Do you have the moss?’

  Kári glared at him through the crack in the door.

  “It’s not my fault you didn’t assume that I’d be late as usual. Aren’t you going to let me in?’

  Sæmundur made a show of looking around nervously, even though he knew there wasn’t another person in sight, to encourage Kári’s neurosis. It actually wasn’t that hard to fake paranoia when the entire sky was boiling and undulating. Whispering.

  Kári grimaced. “Sæmundur, come on. You know I can’t.”

  “Oh, all right, I’ll just sell you the illegal narcotics infused with seiður right here in the open, for all to see.”

  “Quiet!’ Kári hissed at him. “Are you out of your damn mind?’ Sæmundur could hear Kári grinding his teeth from frustration. “All right, get in.”

  The door opened enough for Sæmundur to slip in. Gangly and pale, his chin as weak as his handshake, Kári was a stereotypical student of Svartiskóli. But this weakness was only an illusion. Given a few years he could reshape the world. If he had the constitution and ability needed to survive his studies and graduate as a powerful seiðskratti.

  Kári was one of the many students that Sæmundur regularly sold highland moss to at a grossly inflated price. Most students at Svartiskóli weren’t exactly able to hold their own in Reykjavík’s underworld and the demand for moss was always high. Many of them came from wealthy families as well, like Kári. Occasionally Sæmundur would offer moss in return for access to manuscripts, essays and scientific articles that were not available to the general public. Moss gave users a hit of seiðmagn beyond what they could summon alone, which could be the difference between a student passing or failing. The risk was considerable, it being an illegal narcotic after all, but there was hardly an exceptional student to be found who didn’t find some method of empowering their seiður.

  Sæmundur had got the gram of moss for two hundred krónur straight from Rotsvelgur, and sold it for four hundred or more. Kári’s family was from old money in Reykjavík, or so Sæmundur believed, and he was a very regular customer. Sæmundur always charged him more than others. When he never complained, Sæmundur started raising the price regularly, claiming that the Crown’s security around the city gates was more rigid than before. No objections came from Kári, not a peep. This was why Sæmundur felt terrible having to jeopardise their relationship, potentially sacrificing the golden calf who’d kept him going for months. But it would all pay off in the end.

  Kári pulled a fat leather wallet from his back pocket and started counting the money.

  “What was it, three grams for fifteen hundred, right?’

  “Yeah, adds up.”

  Kári looked at him worriedly with the stack of bills in his hands.

  “Are you all right? You seem odd. Odder than usual.” He squinted his eyes behind the thick glasses. “Look at the state of you. Your pupils are all—”

  Sæmundur punched him in the jaw and followed up with a headbutt. Kári lay dazed on the floor, blood spilling from his mouth and nose. Sæmundur grabbed his head with both hands, muttering words of galdur over him as he flailed around weakly, before finally succumbing to deep, restful sleep. With luck he wouldn’t remember having met Sæmundur at all.

  He was standing in a small concrete room, part of the maintenance network in the basement. Hissing pipes covered the ceiling. The walls breathed, slick with sweat – no, moisture. Sæmundur pinched his eyes shut. He had to get his shit under control. He moved into the next room, along a maintenance corridor, stumbling around until he found a metal staircase leading into Svartiskóli proper. He climbed on weak knees, feeling as if the stairs pulsated up and down in sync with the breathing of the walls. Everything moved. Everything was alive. Discordant notes echoed in the distance, a maddening cacophony of flutes. The dizzying mushroom high had sunk its claws deep into Sæmundur, holding him in the palm of its hand. The hissing of the pipes became louder, whispering, the sound echoing in his mind. He was in the belly of the beast. It knew he was there, inside it. He didn’t see the eyes staring at him, but knew they were all around him. Hidden, invisible.

  He was afraid. Because they had always been there.

  * * *

  From the outside Svartiskóli was a monumental building, a pitch black and windowless fortress that more resembled a dwelling from another world rather than anything designed by human minds. Inside everything was more familiar
and down to earth. Institutional hallways, lit up by high-tech and power-demanding fluorescent lighting, stretched onwards like a maze, every turn too perpendicular, every plain door too identical to the other. Sæmundur knew from experience that this mundane front said nothing of its contents. A closed door could lead to the laboratory of a biological seiðskratti, filled with unnatural mutants, stitched-together ghouls, trees that bore organs instead of fruit – or it could just be a regular lecture hall, with half-sleeping students trying to jot down the notes from a lecturer speaking in a monotonous drone. Every room was marked with only its own, unique cipher. It was nobody’s concern what was in each room unless they had business there.

  He knew where he was going, even though he had only been there once. On the day of his expulsion, she had wanted to deliver the news to him personally. She’d wanted to see him squirm in private. And he had made a point of memorising her office cipher.

  At Professor Thorlacius’ door he knocked curtly, twice, then let himself in. He was surprised at the lack of security, especially as there didn’t appear to be any wards in place, either. The complacent arrogance of it.

  Tall bookshelves lined the walls, filled with neat rows of leather-bound books. A sofa and two chairs, upholstered with the finest imported materials, were on his left, and Almía’s desk stood at the end of the office. It was a massive thing, grown out of the floor in the same manner as Svartiskóli’s massive front doors, a huge, malformed trunk of gnarled birch, shaped with seiður into a desk, its surface flat and polished to a lustrous sheen. The shelves behind the desk were stacked with curios, bones, some lightly tainted with faded blue, tattered manuscripts in glass cases, pale things in jars of formaldehyde that twitched or swirled lethargically, arcane galdrastafir etched into obsidian plates. Treasures and tools of a high master of galdur, the galdramaður sitting in front of him behind her desk. Professor Almía Dröfn Thorlacius glanced up from a pile of documents at her desk, not seeming the slightest bit surprised to see Sæmundur shambling into her office.