Shadows of the Short Days

by Alexander Dan Vilhjálmsson

  One of the concrete walls had been split in two. The crack was tight, but enough for a person to squeeze through. This was it.

  Her foot touched the ground on the other side of the wall and the unforgiving red glow of the Forgotten Downtown gave way to the fading winter light of Reykjavík. It was afternoon and the sun was low in the sky. She wasn’t squeezing herself through a crack in a concrete wall, but a tall wooden fence where one of the boards had fallen off. She was surrounded by apartment buildings. She was disoriented, confused as always after having gone so quickly between places and worlds. Was this the right place? Yes, those were the student apartments. And there, in between houses, she saw a glimpse of the city walls. She was in Seljamýri, a bit further north than she had hoped for, but close enough.

  Katrín stumbled through the portal in the fence. Garún caught her, supported her.

  “Are you all right? How is your arm?’

  “It stings, in a strange way, but more like pins and needles. I hope it’s only bruised, or broken.”

  Katrín looked to Garún for some form of comfort or reassurance that everything was going to be fine, but when Garún didn’t respond she looked away.

  “Worst case scenario, it comes off,” she said in a cold voice.

  The man fell through next, right on his face. Garún yanked him to his feet. He didn’t make a sound, didn’t even moan, and it worried her. Why was he so calm when faced with terrifying circumstances such as these? Styrhildur and Hraki went through last. Hraki was fortunate that the portal had been simple enough to carry an unconscious person through.

  Garún took off her backpack and got the white masks, handing them to Katrín and Hraki. They were rough but fitted them well enough. She’d spent some time down in the cavern making them out of pulped paper and glue. Kryik’traak hadn’t asked her anything when she requested him to provide the materials she needed. She’d mixed a considerable amount of delýsíð into the white paint she coated the masks with. One layer with a heavily diluted delýsíð mix, another with regular paint, again and again. The masks could only be worn for a short amount of time, since the delýsíð fumes could potentially prove lethal. This in itself was cutting it close enough.

  She put on her own mask and pulled another over the prisoner’s covered head. It surprised her how close it was to the effect she had been hoping for. The assistant now looked more like a form rather than an individual, ill-defined and out of focus, like a single person lost in a mob of people. The masks themselves made their faces distorted and strange, completely forgettable. The eye couldn’t capture any details, not the length of their hair, the colours or cut of clothing, barely anything besides roughly the shape of them. She could only tell the difference between Katrín and Hraki because he was tending to Styrhildur, putting on her mask, and Katrín was clearly wounded. The assistant was quite similar to Katrín, and if his hands hadn’t been bound she wouldn’t have been able to spot the difference. The only uncertainty was how noticeable this would be in a group of people. Would it make them disappear into the crowd or stand out?

  The air raid sirens were still sounding. Smoke rose from nearby houses, numerous black columns rose in the distance. Garún stood in cover by the fence, waiting for a chance to sprint towards the ocean. She held her pistol tight against the assistant’s back, making it clear in no uncertain terms what would happen if he tried to run. The street was crowded with people, most of them human students at the university. Some were carrying buckets filled with water, others dragged injured people between themselves or on makeshift stretchers; panicked horses drew wagons filled with trunks and valuables. She wondered how many of them had been at the protests, if they’d lost someone to the uncolour or if they’d been wearing white armbands. Many were injured or covered in the blood of others, their faces filthy with soot.

  There was no time to waste. Sæmundur’s galdur had been greater and more dreadful than they had ever imagined. All they could now hope for was that the chaos would conceal them. Garún sprinted. The prisoner almost fell over, but Hraki held him under his other arm, keeping him up. They only had three guns up and ready. Three shots. Not much, but enough to get to the shoreline. Hopefully.

  People stopped in their tracks and stared. At first they hesitated, frozen from fear and surprise. The masks, the prisoner, the pistols in the air. It was clear that the people saw that they had something to do with the attack on the city, but how? There was no way of knowing if they were agents of the Crown or someone else. After that fretful moment of initial hesitation, people ran out of their way or ducked into hiding, letting go of whatever they had been carrying. Tried to hide until this unprecedented pandemonium had passed.

  They ran down the street. Screams and sirens filled the air, gunfire and explosions in the distance. Houses were on the verge of collapse, with gaping, open wounds after Loftkastalinn’s crazed bombardment. Smoke flowed out of them as fires roared. The roads were blasted to pieces in this area, which had been heavily hit. The tram that went between the residential student district and Svartiskóli was lying on its side in a deep crater. It had been going along the tracks and had gone right off the rails as they abruptly came to an end at the crater’s edge. People were standing on top of the tram, helping to drag passengers out, dead or alive. At the edge of the crater was a line of bodies. Only a few of them stirred, holding on to life, fighting their severe injuries.

  There was not a soldier in sight. They were presumably all in defensive positions in the garrison on Seltjarnarnes or the Viðey fortress. Defending against the attack on them, not on Reykjavík. A storm of conflicting emotions raged inside Garún. Their not being there worked to their advantage, but Hrímland was supposed to be under Kalmar’s protection. Their city had faced demonic invasion and the denizens were left to fend for themselves. A demonic invasion caused by her. Garún’s anger was transformed into a deep self-loathing that welled up in her like black, sour bile, and no matter how hard she tried she could not swallow it back down.

  They heard a volley of gunfire as they crossed an intersection. In all the chaos they had not noticed a police squadron down the road. The officers all had their backs turned to them, facing a monstrosity from another world. It was the size of a small building, its flesh a molten horror of iron and broken bodies. It gave a blood-curdling roar, sounding like a cross between a furnace and a dying man, and the officers let loose a volley from the skorrifles. It hissed and spat as the wounds transformed into new orifices on its flesh, spewing out greenish smoke at the riflemen, who filled the air with their screams as the gas made contact with their bodies. Náskárar dived out of nowhere, attacking the horror from all sides at once, using their massive wingspan to blow the lethal gas away. Garún sprinted as the demon grew new, sharp limbs and impaled several of the blóðgögl at once on spikes of bone fused with iron. The others followed her, running as fast as they could, not stopping anything or anyone.

  Kryik’traak was waiting on the beach, just like he had promised. He was visibly agitated. It was almost impossible for Garún to read his piscine face, but she thought she saw a mixture of horror and profound betrayal.

  They waded into the ocean to the marbendill. The prisoner started to wail and squirm, but Katrín hit him and spat at him that they did not intend to drown him. Without speaking a word Kryik’traak handed them a watertight skin, into which they tossed their weapons along with Garún’s backpack and the remaining ammunition. Kryik’traak had also brought the whale blubber, which they spread on themselves as quickly as they could.

  Garún tore the black hood off the prisoner. Hraki had started to tie a rope to his bound hands. The man saw the marbendill and the jellyfish, swimming lazily in a nearby net. Now was the first time that a true sense of fear showed in his eyes.

  “This is going to be very simple,” said Garún. “You’re going to get one of those things on your face and our friend here –’ she nodded towards the marbendill – “is going to tow you through the deep. If you resist or
somehow remove the jellyfish, you will drown. And we will not try to save you. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  He nodded. She removed his gag and, before he could get a word in, she pushed a jellyfish on to his face and submerged him.

  Kryik’traak took the leash from Garún and coiled it tightly around his hand.

  “This is not the stiftamtmaður,” he said when he handed her the rope.

  “I know,” she said. “Things went wrong.”

  “Wrong. You could say that.”

  The marbendill looked towards Reykjavík. In the distant glow of the city lights, columns of smoke could be seen rising into the twilight sky, all over the city.

  “You’ve committed an atrocity. There was nothing said of demons.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. We never intended for the people to suffer.”

  “But still you did. With nothing to show for it but a grásleppa instead of a rauðmagi.”

  Garún’s temper flared. She didn’t need this, not now, not from this fish-faced son of a bitch.

  “Loftkastalinn disappeared, do you understand that? It vanished and it’s never coming back! The only one in the world! Do you think that the Crown won’t feel that?’

  The marbendill grunted. “They will build another. Better. Their warships will be here in great numbers.” He turned away from her, walking into the open sea. “It’s over. Our collaboration is terminated. Do not look to us again for help.”

  He dived into the deep.

  The deep was freezing and dark, but after the chaos and the horrors on the surface it was a welcome change. All sounds were muted and distant, the light from the surface quiet and calming. Kryik’traak swam ahead of them with the prisoner under one arm. Hraki and Garún pulled Styrhildur together, while Katrín braved through the pain. They had tied the glowing anemones to their waists, giving them some small light in the rapidly darkening ocean. The marbendill’s tail, so useless and cumbersome on the surface, sent him flying through the water with effortless elegance. The small feet that lay along its side acted as fins, providing better and quicker manoeuvring.

  The city walls went right over Fossvogur, sealing the bay off. A tall iron grate shut off a massive tunnel that let ship traffic through, similar to the one in Kópavogur.

  The wall appeared from the deep, a murky, dark form that slowly came into view. The weight was supported by great black pillars, between them a gigantic iron grating. Between the bars was a net of reinforced barbed wire, made so the sea could glow through, but little else. Seaweed and a green film of algae covered the net, as if the ocean was trying to dull the sharp bite of the barbed wire.

  They dived deeper and deeper, until the wall ended on the rough ocean floor. The whale blubber only reduced the cold – without it they would have gone into shock already. The stones on the bottom were sharp and coarse. Kryik’traak dived down and disappeared into the ocean floor. Hraki and Garún followed and saw a deep crack hidden behind the rock. The opening was surrounded by green algae. They followed him into the freezing darkness.

  Þrjátíu og tvö

  Once the earth was alive. In ceaseless permutation. The entire world was charged with seiðmagn, pregnant with energy and possibility. But now there are only a handful of places left in the world where more than the dregs of this power can be found. Some say it’s because life itself has manifested this energy and bound it into a different form. Others theorise that millennia ago a sorcerous war raged, completely changing the world and using up all thaumaturgical stores of power.

  Some say it is because the earth is dying.

  * * *

  Sæmundur came to in creaking, salty darkness. A weight was over his chest. He couldn’t breathe or move. It took all the willpower he could muster to force his eyelids open. Kölski sat on his chest and stared at him.

  “Master,” the demon said. “Your humble servant welcomes you back to the world of the material.”

  “What?’

  He spat out the word but didn’t have the energy for anything else.

  Kölski quietly shushed him. “You must rest, master, rest and gather strength. You have gone further than any human before you. You must regain your foothold in this world, or else become lost for all eternity.”

  Sæmundur refused to listen. His mind flooded with memories, of Loftkastalinn and the níðstangir, the shocking force that had roiled within him. After that: nothing. A dreamlike void that was just out of reach, a fleeting dream that can’t be explained but still remains for a long time, deep within the soul.

  “Where … are we?’

  His voice was dry, altered. He almost didn’t recognise it.

  “All according to your plan, master. You are on a ship heading to the channel of Suðurnes, where you will disembark at Bæjarháls. From there you will seek that which can lead you onwards, the Stone Giant that awaits in the living lava fields. As I promised, master, I will show you the way.”

  His vision darkened as Kölski spoke to him. A nightmare woven together with waking. He felt as if he was dreaming, that living was a fleeting hallucination, a thin film he could now see and tear through, if only he could find the strength to move. There were so many things burning on his lips. The darkness overwhelmed him and he faded back into the nothingness.

  * * *

  The waves crashed on the unsightly cliffs that towered on both sides. The ship rose and fell smoothly, rhythmically, moving slowly but surely through the channel. Waterfalls poured down the cliffs, waterfalls that had perhaps been rivers or lakes before Suðurnes split from Hrímland hundreds of years earlier. He stood in the prow, looking out into the gloom. The wind stung and carried the promise of frost. Salty spray washed over him as the ship cut through the waves. Even though he sensed the cold and the wetness, he didn’t feel it. Not truly. He didn’t feel much else besides thirst. An unworldly thirst for knowledge, power and understanding of galdur. In his cabin he had tried to scribble down in his notebook the beginning of his theory of the nature of galdur, language and sound, but found that he couldn’t possibly put his experience and knowledge into words. He was beyond words and incantations, beyond organised systems of knowledge. There was no way to communicate this with teaching and academic terms. The only way was to experience it and seek ever further.

  The crew kept to themselves and didn’t speak a word to him. Sæmundur had no idea how Kölski had got him on board, or what had really happened in Öskjuhlíð after he’d blacked out. It didn’t matter, it was all petty details. His sole focus was the Stone Giant, sitting and waiting for him somewhere in the volcanic fields of Reykjanes, a stoic transcendent in the wastes. This was what he’d been preparing for from the beginning – he understood this now. It had always been his goal, even though he had perhaps not fully understood it until now. This wasn’t about Svartiskóli or theories or something so insignificant. It was about an absolute connection to the outside.

  Kölski had advised him to cover his head with a scarf or some cloth, which he had done. There was no mirror on board but he suspected that something had happened to him – something had changed, similar to when Bektalpher had manifested in his bones and flesh. When he put on his shoes he noticed that one of his feet was as black as obsidian and hard, completely numb and without any sensation, but the skin on the other foot seemed to be peeling off in big flakes, giving way to some sort of scales. Interesting changes, whose purpose was still not clear to him. He wished that there was a mirror on board so that he could see what was so interesting about his face, if anything. The terror he had experienced when manifesting Kölski, and especially Bektalpher, was so insignificant to him now. This was not an invasion or infestation, but symbiosis, without which he would have been insane or dead a long time ago. Humans cannot breathe in water, so if they intend to explore the depths they dress themselves in isolating protective clothing, heavy boots, a helmet connected to an oxygen hose, or they use creatures such as the marbendlar’s jellyfish. Was he not in that exact sam
e position, using the helpful tools he needed to explore that which was beyond the limits of human nature?

  In the distance faint lights came into sight on top of the eastern cliff edge, on the Suðurnes side. Dots of light went from the top down to the ocean where the docks were located, steps cut into the cliff itself. The dock was the only one operational in Suðurnes, a short stop on the way to Vestmannaeyjar or out along the southern shore. Few ships bothered to dock at all.

  A large crowd of people waited by the pier. They were competing in assisting the ship to tether itself to the dock and put out the plank. The captain commanded the crew not to let anyone on board; they did not intend to trade.

  “Are you heading to Eyjar?’ asked a gawky man, with bad teeth and covered in grime. “I’m a capable sailor, work faster than anyone and never tire. I could work my way to Eyjar and then some.”

  Two women competed in showing off torn sheepskin and badly made clothing.

  “Good wool, fine skin, and the best sailor’s coat you can find.”

  Someone had dragged barrels of salted fish up to the pier and opened them. Flies swarmed around the reeking fish.

  “Do you have any meal or wheat to trade? Or soured meats?’

  “We’re not here to trade, but to unload a passenger!’ the captain shouted. “Step away from the plank!’

  The villagers retreated slightly, but didn’t stop trying to peddle their wares to the crew. The captain glanced at Sæmundur for the first time. He was visibly uncomfortable.

  “Grákufl – isn’t this where you disembark? What are you waiting for?’