Shadows of the Short Days

by Alexander Dan Vilhjálmsson

  “I have a method. That’s all.” She struck a match and lit the cigarette. “There are plenty of portals through. Many more than the ones I’ve shared with the taggers. Which means that we don’t have to always rely on the same ways back and forth.” She blew out smoke. “Which, as I’m sure you remember, has proven to be quite dangerous.”

  Diljá still persisted. “You’ve been working on something else, haven’t you? You said Styrhildur was managing the group.”

  Garún nodded, unsure of how much she should say. She had been working on a new type of symbol, an eye-shaped rune made from clear delýsíð. It connected to a central symbol, elaborate graffiti she’d painted in the room where she squatted in Rökkurvík. It allowed her to remotely perceive things through the eye-runes, although what she could see of their surroundings was very haphazard and her control rudimentary. It was often hard to locate where the graffiti was located. Finding good spots to tag on was also another challenge. Finding places where they could perceive something useful, but still not be immediately spotted by a passing seiðskratti, was a problem. When the connection worked, however, it was like standing there in the flesh.

  “I’m mostly just dealing with the group,” she said. “Not all of them can get the hang of using delýsíð.”

  Which was true enough. Not everyone had a natural affinity for channelling seiðmagn, no matter how slight a trace, and they didn’t have time to refine that instinct.

  Katrín returned with a round of drinks. Normally Garún would protest – who the hell buys people entire rounds? Fucking showoff. But she was as good as broke, and Katrín was flush. Let her pay for it.

  “You should tell those journalists to get into hiding,” Garún downed the drink Katrín had just handed her. “I can find a place for them in the Forgotten Downtown.”

  “I just told you – it will be fine. They know people, most of them are married to or are related to a goði in Lögrétta. Like I said, one of them is married to Sheriff Skúli’s cousin, for crying out loud.”

  “Trampe will be coming for them. He won’t stand for this. They should go to ground before it’s too late.”

  Katrín shrugged. Diljá remained silent.

  “What have you been up to?’ She changed the subject.

  Katrín reached into her purse and pulled out a couple of new copies of Black Wings. A striking cover in black and red, showing silhouettes of two humanoids and a marbendill raising their fists in unison, above and behind them a silhouette of a flying náskári with spread wings and three claws outstretched. In the background a coarse yellow outline of Perlan could be seen. The headline read in stark white letters:

  UNITED WE STAND! RISE UP AND FIGHT!

  It was a bit more daring than their usual fare. Hrólfur had apparently found an illustrator worth his salt.

  “Hrólfur did it himself,” Diljá said, almost as if she was reaching out and reading her thoughts.

  “I never knew he had it in him,” said Garún. “Are these out yet?’

  “Freshly printed last night,” said Katrín proudly.

  “These will go out tomorrow,” Diljá continued. “I’ve secured distribution around the city, especially in Starholt and central Reykjavík. The marbendlar will smuggle copies out to Huldufjörður and the coral cities. It’s unprecedented. People want to hear real, uncensored news, read real, unfiltered opinions.” She smiled. “People are finally listening.”

  “Wait, sorry, just a second. Do you think we could add in a small leaflet?’

  Her brow furrowed. “For what?’

  “Listen. I wanted to meet up because I’ve been thinking about something. And now, seeing Jón’s picture in Ísafold … Well, it makes me doubly sure that it’s something we have to do. We need to rally people. Get them into one place and get them talking. More than what we’ve been doing lately. We need to make a stand.”

  “Where are you going with this?’

  “We need to remember who we’ve lost, and why. We need to keep their memory alive. We’re going to have a memorial concert in Rökkurvík. For those who died in the City Hall protest. And we’re going to use that as a stepping stone to stage a massive protest.”

  She reached for Diljá’s drink and threw it back.

  “We’re going to overthrow the government.”

  Átján

  The empty beer bottle shattered on the pavement. Everything was quiet, the streets empty. The last beer bottle foamed when Garún opened it. She drank the foam, sucked the warm beer off her hands. That six-pack had evaporated fast. She’d have to go back into Gómorra to get more. The thought of tonight’s concert made her sick with anxiety. She’d rather jam her hand in a náskári’s beak than have to go through with this. The alcohol’s numbness flowed over her, as if she was stepping into a hot bath.

  Styrhildur had reported to her early the morning before. Not that the concept of morning made any difference in this place. It required a surprising effort on her part to keep up with Reykjavík’s time. Styrhildur told her that a group of taggers had been arrested. They’d grown cocky. They had been tagging Hlemmur train station, mere metres away from the massive police headquarters. Hlemmur station’s decrepitude was an anomaly in Reykjavík. The station was one of the busiest travel hubs in the city, and the one where hobos most frequently spent their time drinking or sleeping. It was almost as if the police station being so close placed the station in a blind spot.

  Maybe that’s what the group had thought: they’ll never think to look right under their noses. Although the occasional tagger might get away with scribbling, and the police might turn a blind eye to human vagrants – emphasis on human – that didn’t mean that they’d stood a reasonable chance of pulling this off.

  Rumours about the arrest all conflicted with one another. Some said that bystanders had gone berserk, which led the police to the taggers. Some said that a seiðskratti had set them ablaze, the police arresting the survivors. But the most reliable rumour that Styrhildur had heard was that a gang of young people had been quietly arrested in the early morning, under the judgemental glares of the day’s first commuters.

  They were in the Nine now. And eventually, they would talk. They’d already moved houses, but that wouldn’t be enough. They’d be coming for them. Maybe they would raid the concert tonight. Perhaps they already knew, if they’d got their hands on Black Wings.

  She wanted to throw up.

  To add on top of this was Sæmundur. Fucking Sæmundur. He’d told her everything and explained nothing. He’d stolen something from Svartiskóli. He’d summoned it. Now the Crown was after him and seemed to think he belonged to their little revolutionary cell. Garún couldn’t decide if that was a good or a bad thing. What she knew was that those soldiers had been killed in a horrific way – another thing that left her conflicted; they had intended to take her to the Nine – and that Sæmundur refused to tell her how or why or what had exactly happened. He wielded galdur differently now. That was all he said. And that he wanted to help.

  So she had let him. Maybe losing those soldiers to that horror would give the Crown some pause. Maybe Sæmundur was unknowingly saving their skin tonight. Or he was dooming them all with this suicidal meddling in svartigaldur.

  She downed the rest of the beer and threw the bottle. It broke with a satisfying crash. Tonight she was alive and she thirsted. Thirsted for life and wine. Come what may.

  * * *

  Faded lights lit the tables where people sat and chain-smoked between talking over each other. A small group of people had gathered in front of the stage. They looked young and insecure. Human college kids who wanted to brag about sneaking into Gómorra in Rökkurvík. She was surprised by how much she resented them for seeming happier and more carefree than she had ever been. When she was their age she’d already been working for a living for years in Reykjavík.

  On one table sat a group of huldufólk, all dressed in clothes that looked like old heirlooms from the vanished world. In reality the clothes were n
ew and incredibly expensive. They were smoking imported pre-rolled cigarettes, talking and laughing with more fervour than anyone else. Diljá, Styrhildur and Hraki were sitting with them and they waved to Garún as she spotted them. Diljá was dressed in a beautiful sequined dress that Garún had never seen her wear before, Styrhildur was in a similar, but more practically cut dress, and Hraki was in a suit that seemed authentically antique. She knew the kids didn’t have a lot of money. Diljá must have helped them out. To Garún this kind of almost formal wear wasn’t really something she thought one should wear to a memorial concert and revolutionary rally. It seemed vain and out of place. But to them it was a statement, a source of pride. The vanity of the old world was something Garún was brought up to consider a disgrace, a symptom of the hubris that had led them to ruin. It also reminded her of going to church, when people wore their best to Mass. The image stirred up bad memories she’d rather leave behind.

  The rest were the regular patrons of Gómorra on any given day. People who had no other place to go. In one corner a man was lying in a puddle of beer, blackout drunk. Her people stood out. They carried themselves differently. They stood up straight, had a determined look in their eyes. She wondered if this difference was perceptible by the people from Reykjavík. Most likely the people of Rökkurvík all looked the same to them.

  It wasn’t surprising that no náskárar or marbendlar showed up. The náskárar would never venture to this cursed place, where they’d lose the advantage given to them by flight. There were no open skies here, nowhere to fly to. Garún had no idea what would await them up in the flat, dark sky. The marbendlar didn’t want anything to do with Rökkurvík, for some unknown reason. When Garún asked Diljá about it, she’d said that Kryik’traak had only shaken his head in a human gesture and said that it was forbidden.

  The first job Garún had got in Reykjavík had been as a porter at the river-docks in Elliðaárdalur, moving cargo for the marbendlar. They had always remained a mystery to her for the couple of years she worked there, but this revelation of a secretive taboo was a familiar feeling to her. So it went, in the Coral Spires. It was a completely different world. She hoped she could visit, one day. She had been so unnerved by the marbendlar the first time she saw them. They looked like monsters to her. But then she’d found out that they didn’t differentiate her from the huldufólk and humans. To them, all these bipedal land-dwellers looked the same. It had been a tremendous weight off her shoulders. Something she’d grown so accustomed to carrying that she’d stopped feeling it weighing her down. Throwing that weight off had felt like flying.

  Diljá excused herself from the crowd of huldufólk and came over to Garún, smiling widely to her. She looked glamorous in her dress.

  “Hi, Garún! All by yourself in the corner, as usual, I see. Would you like to join us?’

  She glanced over at the group. She considered her own worn jacket, the paint-spotted trousers.

  “No, I’m fine. Thanks, though.”

  “Just thought I’d ask.”

  Diljá tentatively reached out, and Garún reached back. She felt excitement, hopefulness – Diljá’s sincere desire for Garún to join them. She relaxed. She let the other woman through, let her feel the waves of her anxiety, loneliness, old memories, washing over her.

  “I wanted to give you this.” Diljá reached into her purse and pulled out a bracelet. “My mother made this the other day, and I thought of you.”

  It was handmade, a fine tangle of interwoven silver circles that held between them tiny gleaming jewels. Like sparkling frost on winter branches. It looked so light and delicate that it had to have been crafted with the aid of some kind of seiður. In the middle was the symbol of Láternýð, the Mountain Built from Sunlight, a mask of friendship, hope, solidarity. Diljá grabbed Garún’s hand and put it on her wrist.

  “For luck,” she said.

  Garún could only nod her thanks. She felt overwhelmed. Like she wanted to cry out in joy, or cry in earnest from how deeply this had touched her, but she didn’t know how. She didn’t know what to say. And with their connection still open, the two of them still reaching out to each other, she didn’t really need to. Diljá hugged her briefly before returning back to her table.

  Some noise-band started to play. Screams and rhythmic distortion washed over Garún and she found herself enjoying it. The singer was tattooed from head to toe. She got herself a beer. Then another one. The songs were all incredibly short, really only a few riffs stitched together that allowed the audience to lose themselves in a chaotic pit out on the dance floor. They smashed into each other, pushed and hit and banged their heads, but as soon as someone dropped to the floor they were picked up immediately by the others. In between songs the singer ranted about Kalmar, the police, the military and warmongering, their brothers and sisters killed and imprisoned after the protest.

  Garún stood and watched. A part of her wanted to jump in and join the unruly crowd as another song blasted off. Would they help her get back up if she was pushed down to the floor? Would she be able to stop hitting once she started? She didn’t want to know the answers to these questions. She absent-mindedly touched the bracelet on her wrist. It made her feel warm.

  The crowd throbbed and someone bumped into her, pushing her so she spilled half her beer. She turned around, ready to sound off, her defences already up and ready to fight whatever shit this bastard would try to shovel over her for doing nothing but being in his way.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, before she could get a word in. “I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry, Garún, I’ll get you another one.”

  Sæmundur looked even worse than the last time she’d seen him. His eyes were sunken. His skin was sagging slightly. He was just as big and tall as before, but Garún got the impression that there wasn’t much keeping this tattered coat of his hanging upright. Something was missing.

  This entire scene of bumping into her reminded her of how they had first met. It had happened almost exactly like this. The memory came flooding over her and she felt ill.

  “Hi,” she finally said. “Don’t worry about it. So you got the band to play?’

  “Yeah. We’re next up.”

  They went quiet. Looked uncomfortably at each other. They didn’t know how to bridge the rift that had appeared between them. It had felt stupid to ask him to play the concert. But she had been too afraid to ask him for anything else. She had no idea of what he was capable of. He’d said he wanted to help, that they could cancel some previously arranged gig and play here instead.

  “Everything worked out?’ he asked. “The planning and so on.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Listen, you said some náskárar had shown up at the last protest?’

  “Yeah. Rotsvelgur’s tribe. Or … Well, I assume it was his people.”

  “I think so too. I’ll have to check on Rotsvelgur soon. We have some business to attend to. I can talk to him, if you want. Get their full support.”

  “I should go with you.”

  She had meant it as a means to show support, but it was clear by the look on his face that Sæmundur had gleaned her real intention. She didn’t trust that he wouldn’t botch the task.

  “It’ll be fine. Don’t worry. You stay safe.”

  “I will.”

  She didn’t know what to say. It felt like no matter what question she asked, she wouldn’t get any real answers.

  “How’s Mæja?’

  Something moved over his face. Something dark and unclear.

  “She … She’s fine. She goes out a lot. Still purrs as loudly as ever.”

  “Good.” She forced herself to smile. “I miss her, you know.”

  “I know.”

  The band finished up to rowdy applause. Diljá and Hrólfur got up on stage and took the microphone. They were about to give the speech about the people who had fallen in the fight against the Commonwealth, the oppression they were facing, the dangers of harnessing the dormant power in Öskjuhlíð for war and destruct
ion.

  “Sæmundur …’ Garún started, but he stopped her.

  “I have to get backstage and set up. Don’t leave, watch us play. It’s going to be … It’s going to be different.”

  She nodded.

  * * *

  He was about to break. All his willpower went into holding Kölski back. He kept mumbling incantations and words of power, low enough that others couldn’t hear what he was saying. They were sitting together on a stack of pallets in the fisherman’s hut, talking quietly together. Sæmundur stood by the window and looked out. He had to support himself on the windowsill so he could stand. Kölski was not resisting, wasn’t trying to break out, but Sæmundur couldn’t contain him much longer.

  Every hour that passed was harder than the last. It had come to the point where Sæmundur had to constantly recite the incantation to prevent Kölski from breaking out of his shadow-bound form. He hadn’t slept. His lessons with Kölski had been intense, and partly unleashing control of the demon bound in shadow had placed a great strain upon him. It sickened him how willing Kölski was to serve him. How easily he had dispatched those soldiers. Pliant and humble, a misleading smile that waited for the next instruction. He’d thought of bailing on the concert, which seemed so insignificant in the greater context of things, but after having Garún witness that he couldn’t just abandon her.

  Everything had changed. So much of what he knew about galdur was based on false pretences, ancient misinterpretations and misunderstandings that had become even more convoluted and warped everything. After only the initial few hours with Kölski, that much had been made clear.

  He felt like a child being let behind the scenes after a play. He saw the ropes and switches, trapdoors and mirrors, and slowly he was realising this was all a trick. An illusion. But at the same time he better understood the greater context, the obfuscated meaning. How the illusion worked. How you could make a new trick out of an old one. How you could mix two together to make up something new. And just as a child would, he had to try pulling the strings. See the puppets dance. He wanted to share this perspective on reality with others. He had to know if he could somehow impart this gnosis. The concert was the perfect opportunity.