Shadows of the Short Days

by Alexander Dan Vilhjálmsson

  The musty air was heavier in there. The faint light trickling through the vents on the door faded. She heard nothing except her own breathing. Then she was there. She could smell it before she could see it.

  One moment she was inside a locker, trapped with the stale darkness, the next she stumbled around a corner and found herself in the middle of a market.

  Oil lamps cast a yellow light on booths lining crooked, twisting paths. It was crowded, making her feel as if she was actually in Reykjavík proper. The market was in a large building, probably a warehouse, but the windows had been bricked over. Nobody paid her any mind, despite her being the only blendingur in sight. It smelled of old books, stockfish and dusty heirlooms, lost trinkets and family baubles that nobody wanted any more. People who might have seemed quite normal in Reykjavík became undesirables in Kolaportið, odd and fetid; here new clothes were as worn-out rags. Gaunt paupers tried to pawn an odd mismatch of junk and knickknacks, stern marbendlar offered lumpfish, shark and other peculiar creatures from the deep. Kuklarar sold illegal, homemade magical solutions and sorcerous artefacts, eccentric collectors displayed stamps, books and collectibles. Hunched náskárar patrolled from booth to booth in their odd, three-legged walk. They carried no decorations, but were fully armed with leaden skrumnisiron, fused to their beaks and claws. They stood a head taller than everyone else, who made sure not to be in their way. Garún realised that they were korpar, warriors without clan or honour. Two walked past her, their iron talons hitting the floor like swords dragged over stone. Everything was for sale but nothing was priced, and a shiver crawled down Garún’s spine as she considered that perhaps some wanted something besides krónur for their wares. Just like Feigur.

  She wandered aimlessly around the market. Beside the occult items and a few illegal books, she did not find much that aroused her interest. She bought a used oil painting set cheap and a few ragged brushes with it. At another booth she bought old and torn sheets. She knew that she was being fleeced for these common items because she was a blendingur. Haggling was no use – the prices were as set in stone as in the finest colonial store. But at least she got to shop. Here, among the dregs of society, she belonged. More or less. Garún had very little money left, only a few krónur. She thought it more important to paint than to eat, however. Before she headed out she bought herself a long, sharp knife in a sheath for two krónur, discarding her old, dull dagger which was more useful for threatening rather than an actual confrontation. It was a soldier’s knife and she got it cheap. Being found in possession of stolen loot from the royal army was not desirable.

  Kolaportið had only one door. A golem made from whitewashed driftwood stood guard and let people out, sometimes in groups, sometimes one at a time. The eyes of the golem were conches; inside each was a drooping growth similar to a sea anemone. Garún stood in line until it gestured to her to approach. As soon as the door shut behind her she found herself outside the factory, the steel door rusted shut behind her. She waited for a while before going home, but she saw no one else come out or go in.

  * * *

  When she got back home she hung one of the sheets up on the wall. The oil paints were in various condition, but by stirring them up a bit most of them were usable. She put thick blotches of colour on the sheet and spread them with strong brushstrokes. The sheet wasn’t taut enough and sagged, but that just demanded a different approach from painting on a canvas. Once she’d made decent progress with the painting she filled a dropper with delýsíð and put two drops in the linseed oil. The effects were much stronger and sharper than she’d experienced before, and she found the reflections of her own emotions even more honest than before. Purer.

  When the painting was finished she could barely manage to look at it. It was a dark brown, chaotic mess with coils in crimson and white, a forming galaxy. Conflicting emotions collided with each other and confused her, supercharged by the delýsíð.

  Useless. She tore down the sheet and tossed it into the corner. The feeling emanating from it was faint but still lingering, like shards of a broken mirror covering the floor. She strung up another sheet.

  She put more drops of delýsíð into the paint. Her head felt groggy. This time she painted a much simpler image. A crude dragon with nine heads, a crown sitting on each one. She put a skull in one of the dragon’s talons, a dagger in the other one. Garún didn’t spare any attention to detail, intentionally making the painting coarse and ugly. She poured a lifetime of hate and resentment into the painting. Every moment she had felt powerless or small or afraid. She let the feelings she’d grown so accustomed to suppressing rise to the surface, bringing them to an unbearable, scathing boil. She let herself hate until it became exhausting. On the stomach of the dragon she wrote J IX in large letters. The initials and insignia of King Jörundur, the ninth of his name – the ruler of Kalmar. It was a bit too direct, but she didn’t care. Ambiguity and propaganda mixed like oil and water.

  As the painting dried its initial effects became stronger. Garún forced herself to stand in front of the painting, exposing herself to the torrent of emotions that threatened to overpower her with each minute that passed. Her fists whitened and her nails dug into the palms. Streams of sweat crawled down her back. She felt her heart beating faster and faster and her face getting scorching hot. Her jaw clenched shut, teeth grinding, the hatred radiating from the painting about to tear her apart. Her own hatred, multiplied tenfold.

  She spent her time painting. It was almost impossible to tell how long she spent on each painting. The only measurement was when she got tired or hungry, but even those sensations quickly became insignificant. Sleep, eat, paint, sleep. She had no idea how often she went through this cycle each twenty-four hours.

  She kept the sheet with the nine-headed dragon under her mattress. Each night was a sweat-covered struggle and she woke up with half-coagulated clots of blood in her nose. The emotional radiation from the delýsíð painting seeped into her mind, keeping her anger flaring hot. She would not let this place drain her of her anger, turn her into an apathetic zombie. She would never give up the fight. As she woke, she could never remember the nightmares, but they gnawed at her subconscious every waking moment.

  Her hatred multiplied each time she rested, so she had to let it out. When she felt sociable enough, she went to Gómorra. Jón-not-reverend-Jón kept his distance after their last interaction. To her surprise she found other people approaching her. Outcasts with sunken eyes and strained faces, who looked at her hungrily for hope and direction. One way or another they had been pushed to the edge of society by the powers that be. A middle-class woman who had fallen in love with a soldier. Her family had sent her to Kleppur, the insane asylum, from which she had escaped before her scheduled lobotomy and hysterectomy. A man who had written a column for one of the newspapers and summarily found himself unemployable. A couple who had refused to hide that they were dating – her being human and him a huldumaður. There were also drunks and addicts, having succumbed to their addictions before or after they found themselves here. It didn’t matter to Garún. She told them about the protest, about the people who had died fighting to make things better. She told them about their network of cells, spread around and outside the city, fighting for a free and equal Hrímland. Garún gave them a few wrinkled copies of Black Wings that she’d found in the recesses of her backpack, and they devoured each word. At first they hesitated, but the huldufólk of the group reached out to her and she opened herself to them, ignoring the intrusive feeling of having someone reach deep into your emotional core, and after that they trusted her. Talking to them and thinking about the masked band that had been playing earlier, an idea started to take shape. This could become a new frontier. A rallying point.

  When she couldn’t stand the company of others she walked restlessly on the streets of the Forgotten Downtown, which were empty more often than not. Without fully realising it she had started searching for a way out of the labyrinth, but Rökkurvík’s streets always led he
r back to where she started. The audioskull’s music was faint and incomprehensible, useless most of the time, but in certain places she could hear a weak noise, a static similar to when she had crossed over at Haraldskirkja. The sound was stronger or weaker in certain places. Garún hunted down the static until it reached a climax. By intuition she pushed a loose brick that looked out of place and found herself pulled over into Reykjavík in an instant, standing on the roof of a building in the central area. She was completely blinded for a few good minutes. It was daytime. She hadn’t seen the sun for such a long time. It took her a while to figure out how to get back, but when she walked backwards three times around the chimney she suddenly stepped back over into the midnight of the Forgotten Downtown. She started to hunt down other portals.

  Few of these seemed to be in use. Most likely they were naturally formed cracks bridging the gap between worlds, accidental fractures in reality. Sometimes she couldn’t find exactly the correct method, or the right place, but more often than not she found a way to cross in both directions. She designed a delýsíð symbol intended to keep people away from the place where it was painted. She tagged useful portals on both sides with thinned-out, clear delýsíð spray.

  She’d only meant to map these hidden gates and find out where they brought her, but she found that she couldn’t stop there. With a can of paint in her hand, Garún started spraying powerful and militant staves all over Reykjavík, a few militant lines that in unison screamed out anger, discord, revolution.

  Fimmtán

  She was shrouded by the early morning darkness, tagging a symbol in clear delýsíð in an alley off Hverfisgata. Through the thaumaturgic goggles the graffiti looked vibrant and alive, writhing with raw, sorcerous energy. In Reykjavík seiðmagn was everywhere, as naturally a part of the city as clouds were a part of the sky. In some places it would shatter into forms, like esoteric symbols, frozen lightning charged with incomprehensible secrets. This was especially true if seiðskrattar had recently done their dark work in the vicinity. The fractured traces lasted for days. The thaumaturgic power plant in Perlan emitted heavy, huge currents, unnatural aurorae thick with power and sorcery.

  Garún focused her will and made the seiðmagn in the delýsíð form in the shape of her intent. Dissent. Discord. Uprising. The noisefiend was buzzing steadily on, emitting rhythmic music, not exactly calming, but stable enough. Danger was just around the corner, police and soldiers patrolling the streets in greater numbers than she’d ever seen before. But she was hidden here. For now.

  A man cleared his throat behind her. She spun around, spray can raised like a weapon, not knowing if it would even help her at all, but ready to fight for her life by any means necessary. Someone was there without her knowing. She was being ambushed.

  She turned around and saw a man made out of darkness, glowing with unsettling colours unlike any she had ever seen before. She’d never seen transmundane influence truly manifested in the real world, only faint shadows of their real power, like the audioskull and the jawbone. Still, she recognised their influence when she saw it. This was a demon. She shouted in surprise, holding out the delýsíð can like a pistol, one hand held behind her back. Reaching for the blue bone tucked away. Her last resort. This would be her last stand. She was going to die.

  “Garún, relax, it’s me. Please, it’s just me.”

  Sæmundur. Big, clumsy Sæmundur with his wild man’s beard. The words stuck in her throat and her mind went blank.

  Sæmundur?

  She slid off the goggles and saw him standing in the dark alley, hands held up in a soothing gesture, his body where the man-shaped darkness had stood a second before. He had been possessed, she thought. He’d lost control and doomed himself. With a heavy heart she realised that she had been waiting for this for quite some time. A doom as unstoppable and irreversible as the sunrise.

  Then, she realised: no. Possessed bones would glow in an unnatural blue seen through the thaumaturgical goggles. Sæmundur had been untouched. It was the darkness itself that had been shining. The shadows surrounding him radiated a maddening, other-wordly light, casting him in an abyssal silhouette.

  “Sæmundur – what the hell? Are you trying to give me a heart attack?’ She relaxed a bit, then tensed up again. “Wait – how did you sneak up on me without the audioskull hearing you?’

  She lowered her arm and let out a breath that made her knees weak with the crash of adrenaline that followed.

  He breathed out a sigh of relief.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I’ve been trying to find you, but every time I got close your signature just vanished.” He hesitated awkwardly. “I figured the noisefiend was somehow being triggered by my presence. So I … uh … masked my approach.”

  Now that she had somewhat relaxed, she realised with a shock what a terrible state he was in. She barely recognised him. Dark shadows underneath faded and glassy eyes, his skin pale as a ghost and stretched over his bones. He was like a scarecrow emptied of its straw. Sæmundur had always been tall and big. Now he was like a walking coat hanger.

  “The noisefiend only picks up hostile intent,” she said warily. “Isn’t that what you said?’

  “Well, I mean, it’s not pinpoint accurate. It can pick up a lot of variables. And I guess something triggered a signal that made you think it was best to get moving.”

  She nodded. The audioskull had saved her skin several times now. The city was crawling with police and military patrols. Sometimes they were escorted by a seiðskratti. They were trying to hunt her down. Or maybe it had just been Sæmundur trying to find her.

  “How did you get past the noisefiend? Can other people do that? And what do you want?’

  “I just want to talk, Garún. It’s … ah … well … Things are getting a bit complicated. I don’t think that other galdramenn could mute the noisefiend. They’d have to know exactly what they’re dealing with and they’d have to wield considerable power and understanding. I just blanketed the demon’s entire perception, so it wouldn’t know I was coming. I couldn’t pinpoint only myself, you see.”

  “Turn it off.”

  “What? Garún, don’t worry about that now, just listen. I—”

  “I said turn it off ! Now!’

  She was yelling at him now, holding one headphone speaker up to her ear. Only calm, soothing tones were emitted by the audioskull. Sæmundur sighed and mumbled a single word of power. The air around him twitched, or perhaps it was just her eyes. Immediately the music flared up violently, screaming danger, run, surrounded, fear, run, now.

  “Something’s wrong. We have to—”

  A hollow, tinny voice interrupted her from the back of the alley.

  “Do not make any sudden movements. Turn around – slowly – and raise your hands in the air.”

  Sæmundur turned around and Garún saw behind him a line of soldiers blocking off their exit. In front of them was a sharply dressed man holding a megaphone. Her heart sank. It was him. The officer who had almost arrested her the other day.

  His face twisted in a victorious grin. He recognised her as well. He looked pleasantly surprised, as if some suspicion had been confirmed. She realised that he had not been expecting her at all. They had been trailing Sæmundur.

  “You fucking idiot,” she hissed as she slowly raised her hands. “You’ve led them here.”

  “Garún, relax,” he said in a deep, calm voice. There was nothing comforting about his tone. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

  “Sæmundur Sigfússon –’ the man cracked a predatory smile – “you are under arrest for double homicide, illegitimate and immoral use of sorcerous materials, breaking and entering, robbery of forbidden texts, summoning a malevolent transmundane entity and conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism against the Commonwealth of Kalmar and its peoples. Raise your hands, hold out your fingers, and don’t move. Co-operate and no one need get hurt, Sæmundur.”

  “Homicide?’ She stared at him incredulously. “What the fuck
did you do?’

  The soldiers advanced carefully down the street, their rifles raised and readied. The officer was in front of them.

  “Can you see it, Garún?’ he said to her quietly. “The seiðmagn he’s drawing in? I can almost see it. It’s like a whirlwind of smog, except …’

  He trailed off. Garún didn’t know what to say. Her heart was beating so fast she thought she would collapse. Whatever had happened to him, apparently the extent of the transformation was unknown to even him.

  “Don’t come any closer,” Sæmundur said to the officer. “I mean it.”

  “Should you start muttering an incantation, or do any other activities that might be considered an act of svartigaldur, then we will be forced to shoot to kill. Do you understand me? This is the end of the line. Reach up your hands, Sæmundur, so we can see them. Should you reach for any fetishes or artefacts we will fire. Do you understand?’

  Sæmundur raised his hands.

  “You don’t have to do this. I don’t want to harm you.”

  The officer nodded. “I understand. Whatever you stole worked, didn’t it? That’s of great interest to us, Sæmundur. Listen, we only want to talk. All right? My name is Þráinn Meinholt. Are you co-operating with this terrorist? We can overlook that as well, we only want information. All right? Should you be unco-operative, then, well … Then you will force our hand.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “That’s right.”

  A gap opened in the soldiers’ ranks. A small, robed figure stepped through. A galdramaður, highly indoctrinated according to the sigils on their robes. A black veil covered their face. A large femur, faintly azure in colour, was grasped in their skeletal hand, tightly wound around the hand and lower arm with string and barbed wire.