Shadows of the Short Days

by Alexander Dan Vilhjálmsson

  The walls towered overhead. They jumped ship and carried the boat up to shore. The beach was rocky, but Garún knew where it would be the sandiest, making the least noise. They carried the boat all the way to the wall, minimising the chance that it would be spotted from above. It slowed down their escape, but if they were outed before having a chance to strike, then it would all be for nothing.

  The entrance was a few minutes on foot along the wall. Garún went over her weapons, felt the spot where the bone was cradled up close to her. Everything was in place.

  “Ready?’ Katrín asked. Garún nodded.

  They started to make their way along the bottom of the wall. The Stone Giant was human.

  Or at least, a humanoid being. Sæmundur couldn’t be certain. The torrents of galdur that raged around it and aggravated the seiðmagn in the land still disturbed him, despite hours of sitting still in calm, focused contemplation. He hummed multi-voiced tones with Bektalpher’s mouths, letting them reverberate around him so he became like a vibrating tuning fork. Synchronised. Focused. Nothing.

  The landvættur did not react to any of his experiments. No matter how he called out – with a ritual, incantation or pure tones – the being showed no reaction. It was deaf and dumb, bound in some cursed sleep. He started to chant a spell of awakening, trying to rouse the giant from its coma.

  It was after some considerable time when Kölski said, unprovoked, “You cannot wake him, for he is already awake.”

  Sæmundur ceased his chanting. So, the demon had dropped his formal tone, no longer addressing him as master. He didn’t know if it was an improvement or to his detriment.

  “If he is awake, why does he not respond?’

  “Because he cannot find the strength to.”

  “What do you mean?’

  The demon ignored his question.

  “You cannot converse with him,” Kölski said after a while. “Even if you could, it would accomplish nothing. You will only comprehend his power by wielding it yourself. This much, you already know.”

  He knew where Kölski was heading. But he did not want to believe it.

  “You must take over his burden.”

  Sæmundur looked down at himself. Looked into himself. Every bone in his body was cerulean blue. Saturated with raw galdur. Demons. It was still nothing when compared to the forces bound within the stone giant.

  “Impossible. I’ve already absorbed all the power I can wield – there is no room for more. You might as well ask me to drink the oceans away, or pull the moon down to the earth.”

  “All those things are possible, and even more. You are still thinking like a man.” Kölski grimaced. “Rigid. Limited. Bound in flesh and clay.” Sæmundur did not respond. The demon snorted. “No space is as infinite as the gulf between the mind of a living being and the reality outside it. Infinity is the most common size in the universe, and eternity is the only temporal unit.”

  An arm fell off one of the seiðskrattar. They were floating in the air behind him and Kölski. Their bodies were decomposing. The wind suddenly picked up. There was no shelter from the wind on Suðurnes. He found himself staring at a straw, bending in the wind. Its roots were shallow, barely gripping the volcanic earth. But still it held fast. Still it did not break.

  “What do I have to do?’

  “You only need to ask.”

  * * *

  Biðja.

  A word that could mean to pray or to ask for something. Two meanings in the same word, both acts humble in their nature.

  Sæmundur had never been freely handed anything when it came to galdur. In Svartiskóli secrets were hoarded, like a dragon hoarded gold, guarded with envy and greed. Every grain of truth he had acquired was something he’d had to fight for – something he’d had to take, with cunning, trickery, or brute force.

  The possibility had not even come to his mind.

  In the distance a buzzing sound grew in volume. Dark dots moved in the sky. Biplanes. He could not afford any further distractions. The two seiðskrattar floated up to meet them, crackling with seiðmagn. Two birds with one stone.

  Sæmundur cleared his mind. Shut off the noise, the vibration in everything. Focused on the being inside the stone.

  A calm fell over his consciousness. A stillness of the like he had never experienced before.

  He reached out his hand. Without words, without galdur or anything at all. Just him, alone out in the lava fields.

  Gravel crumbled down the pillar. The earth trembled. With a colossal effort the Stone Giant tore its foot from the ground, breaking it away. First one, then the other. It turned towards Sæmundur. The giant was like an ancient statue, a vague human form without hands. Two legs, an unshapely body, a roughly shaped head. The land made flesh.

  The giant bent down until its head was right in front of Sæmundur. He saw the creature glowing inside the rock. It twitched like a child in the womb.

  A crack erupted down from the top of the head, opening the stone. There, in the middle of the wound, like a flower found on the highland heath, was an ivory hand. It seemed human, but in an artificial manner. Shaped, like a marble statue. It listlessly reached out its fingers.

  Sæmundur reached out towards it.

  Their fingertips met.

  And he became inflamed with might.

  * * *

  The stone wall was completely smooth. The stones were so closely fitted that only faint lines remained where they interlocked. It was as if the wall had been slightly melted. Garún felt around the wall, trying to find the right spot. Hálfdán’s memories were vague when it came to the exact location. He had only tried the pathway once.

  “What is it?’ Katrín asked in a low voice.

  “Nothing, hold on.”

  Her fingertips threaded delicate lines, diagonal and vertical, crooked and straight, feeling for the symbol of release. They didn’t have much time – too many errors or too much time spent trying to open it and the defensive seiður of the portal would be unleashed.

  Something clicked and a hexagonal shape sank into the wall. On it was carved an esoteric symbol. Garún leaned up against it.

  “Rögnezkjar máttreilíf rekmírum.”

  The hexagon twisted and disappeared into the wall. The stones slid back and to the sides, silently forming a pathway wide enough for two people. Inside was a steep spiral stairway leading up into the darkness.

  Katrín lit a small oil lamp. They moved as quickly and quietly as they could. Inside the spiral tower the pitch blackness was absolute, oppressing the tiny light. Garún counted the floors in her mind.

  Armoury. Soldiers’ barracks. Servants’ quarters. Pantry and kitchen. The main hall. The large banquet hall. Drawing room. Bedrooms.

  Here.

  They were out of breath once they reached the right place, but there was no time to rest. With every minute that passed it was more likely that some soldier would look down and notice the boat. Garún headed right towards the wall and mumbled the chant, drew on it three runes of power: the secret emblems of the king, the state and the royal family.

  The wall opened with a low click. Katrín hurriedly turned off the lamp.

  Ever so slightly, Garún pushed the false wall and took a look inside. A dark living room, richly decorated. So neat and tidy that it seemed completely untouched, as if no one had ever been in there. In the air was a faint fragrance of summer flowers mixed with cigars. In stark contrast, Garún found herself to stink. Like a vagrant.

  The heart was pounding in her chest. Beating up against the bone, which pushed back with an unworldly chill. The audioskull was set low, so she could barely hear it. She held one end of the headphones up against her ear. The electronic music was soft and calm.

  She moved quietly inside. Katrín stood behind, keeping the wall open, making sure that their exit remained accessible.

  She leaned up against a door at the end of the room, leading into the stiftamtmaður’s private office, and listened. Two sitting rooms for one man, on a fl
oor which was completely set aside for him alone. The excess was despicable.

  Everything was quiet. She carefully grabbed the doorknob and risked taking a look inside. The private office was considerably more lived-in. Papers and documents covered the tables, the ashtrays were full, filthy glasses and an unclean plate were left to the side. By the doors was a dirty pair of boots. The golden baroque grandfather clock showed a quarter past four. She was dying to go through the papers. Without a doubt they were about Loftkastalinn and all of them, every details of their lives. She unplugged the audioskull to better take in the stillness.

  The door to the bedroom was halfway shut. The room was fit for a king, after all housing the holder of his power, but it was so excessively decorated that it would normally have driven Garún to a rage. But she did not pay it any attention. The only thing she saw was the man lying at the end of a wide bed, large enough for five people. He was fully dressed, but his chest fell and rose with the calming rhythm of deep sleep.

  Not a sound was heard as she walked up to the lying man. Stood over him. Watched him sleeping.

  Frederik Ditlev Trampe. Hrímland’s appointed stiftamtmaður. Count Trampe. Appointed by King Jörundur and the wielder of his earthly powers.

  The jawbone was like frozen steel in her hand. This was the moment. This was the spark which would bring down the Crown colonial government.

  She held the bone over him like a sacrificial dagger. She wanted to wake him up. Drag him out of there. Change history. She wanted to scream at him. She wanted to make him understand what he and those like him had done to her.

  But he did not deserve understanding.

  Only suffering.

  She stabbed him in the chest with the bone, using all the force she could muster. The bone slid effortlessly through flesh and bone, like a sharp dagger. He jumped awake, opening his eyes with a startled look – but he did not scream.

  They stared into each other’s eyes.

  She smiled and broke the bone in the wound.

  That was when the screaming started.

  * * *

  She was supposed to be escaping. The guards would be here in a moment. But she could not move. She could not stop watching. She’d never felt so good. About herself, about life, about the order of the world in its entirety.

  Everything was just as it was supposed to be. Justice could be attained, or at least, the only justice that truly mattered. Justice which demanded blood, which required hatred to fuel it. Which boiled and seethed and burned. Justice with a blood sacrifice, with a baptism in fire.

  Trampe rolled down to the floor. He was on all fours, like a beast. She’d never heard a man scream like that. As if he never needed to draw in breath. Or – he did not draw in breath. He wasn’t truly screaming.

  Not with his lungs.

  Unnatural waves moved through his flesh. Up the back, down his thighs, the calves. Dark blotches of blood grew on his clothes. Like a photograph slowly coming to light.

  Church bells sounded in the distance. Rapid, as if a lunatic was ringing in the Mass.

  He arched and twisted, then turned and slammed himself down on his back. Twitched and slammed himself down again and again, as if he had something on his back and was trying to kill it.

  No, those weren’t church bells. Something else. Alarms.

  A geyser of blood erupted from his bowels. Frantic tendrils sprouted rapidly, swinging back and forth. Smelling. Sensing.

  He arched his head unnaturally far back. His face was locked in a silent scream, the jaw open as far as it could go. She saw something crawl from his mouth. Something with eyes and teeth. He kept on flailing his arms the entire time, battling invisible spirits. It was rather funny, in fact. The flesh ran off him like overcooked meat off a bone.

  He was dead. Worse than dead. It was over. She had to go – now.

  But she could not bring herself to look away.

  She was so happy.

  * * *

  It was seconds, minutes or hours later that the trance broke. She was hit in the temple with the stock of a rifle and fell limp to the ground. More beating followed, in her stomach, back, her head. Iron locked itself around her hands and muddy boots pushed her head against the carpet. Drops of blood were leaking into it. From her. She thought.

  Trampe would not stop screaming. No matter how completely ruined and unrecognisable his body became. He screamed after the jaw fell off him, after the skull collapsed into itself and was sucked into the torso.

  A black sack covered her vision and she was pulled to her feet.

  She could not stop smiling. They dragged her down, outside. The screams of Trampe could be heard just as clearly as inside the bedroom. Resounding in her head, along with the bells. And some other sound, which she could not quite recognise.

  It sounded like laughter.

  Þrjátíu og sjö

  Darkness is the only constant in the world. The only thing which is not fleeting. It was before everything else, and will remain after everything vanishes. Darkness is eternal.

  Even in bright daylight, in a well-lit home, darkness is there. You simply cannot see it for all the light. It is misleading, interfering. But it’s there, behind everything.

  Waiting.

  * * *

  It was not pain which awoke her. Not the swelling and the wounds. But her guilt. Guilt reaches deeper than any cut. It pierces your soul. Dissects you alive.

  She told herself Katrín might have got away. There was a chance. Katrín had not come inside after the screaming started. That was good. That was according to plan. She might have escaped. How long had she stood there? Hypnotised by the horror she had manifested. She had no way of knowing.

  A part of her felt as if she was still standing there. Frozen in the same tracks. Felt as he was still screaming, forever and relentless. That she was still laughing hysterically.

  It was pitch black. Completely and absolutely dark. It did not matter if she opened or closed her eyes. A dreamless sleep came and left, but she was never certain if she’d fallen asleep at all. What was the difference? The nightmare and the guilt never left her side.

  The cell was around a metre and a half on each side. It was made from stone. There was no door, at least none that Garún could find with her searching fingers. No bed, no chair, no toilet, no bucket, or anything else. Just her and the darkness.

  She was not confused. She knew exactly where she was.

  She was in the Nine.

  * * *

  There was no end to the gossip about Hegningarhúsið on Skólavörðustígur. That its dungeons went hundreds of metres down into the ground. Kept on going until they encountered lava, and that was where the worst criminals ended up. In a man-made hell. Others said that those who ended up in the Nine were brainwashed and turned into the agents of the Crown. That was why no one ever returned. They were serving the Commonwealth somewhere else entirely. One story went that criminals were sentenced to carry demons in their bones. They were then slaughtered and harvested, the blue bones weaponised and sent to the front lines, to hidden arcane armouries. Others said that there was nothing in there. The house was completely empty. Except for one cell, which held nothing but a chair and a noose hanging from a ceiling beam.

  None of this mattered. They were only rumours. The only thing that mattered was the truth:

  No one returns from the Nine.

  * * *

  The darkness shuts you off. Pushes up against you, into every nook and cranny. Locks you inside your own body. You sense nothing but your own heartbeat, the buzz in your ears, your own foul breath.

  She never heard them coming. The pain was not the worst part. The worst part was how absolutely shut off inside herself she was, which made every single blow that much heavier.

  * * *

  The guilt gnawed at her like a worm on the root of a tree. Nothing but hatred and poison. She should be trying to get herself out of there. She’d failed them.

  Sometimes she let herself hope. That K
atrín and Hraki were safe and, if not, that the people had risen up against their oppressors. Diljá and Hrólfur would still be in Reykjavík, working towards that goal. Regardless of everything that had happened. They might not understand why, but they would still keep fighting for what they believed. They’d accomplished their task, after all, and so much more than that. They’d brought down Loftkastalinn. She’d executed the stiftamtmaður.

  Reykjavík was like a powder keg. And she was the spark. She had to believe that someone had taken her torch from her.

  * * *

  The light was like an electric shock. It paralysed her. She could not move. Had she been asleep? Was she still in her cell? She closed her eyes, tried to adjust to the light, but she just saw a blinding whiteness.

  Slowly her eyes adjusted to the light.

  On the table in front of her was an electric lamp shining directly into her face. She was tied to a chair. She could only see out of one of her eyes. The other was too swollen. She was only realising this now.

  Someone was sitting at the other end of the table. It was impossible to see his face, but she saw his neat suit, the sheen of his polished cuff links.

  “I’m not talking,” she said eventually. “Not a word.”

  She was surprised by how weak and raw her voice had become.

  “You won’t have to speak at all,” the man said.

  There was something familiar about his voice. She heard a door close behind her. Someone walked up to them. She tensed up. Prepared herself for the coming pain.

  But it never came. The person who’d walked in dragged a chair along the floor and sat at the table. A thin huldumaður. Viður.

  She had no words. There was too much she wanted to say, so much that the weapons turned in her hands and fell to the ground.

  “How much do you want, Þráinn? All of it?’ asked Viður in a casual voice. He did not look directly at Garún.

  “Not all of it,” the man named Þráinn responded. “Not yet, anyway. The commissioner was quite clear on that. Let’s start with the bone, then the galdramaður. This Sæmundur.”