When Sæmundur moved to the city he’d quickly started smoking moss, which is what led to his connection to Rotsvelgur. They’d done a lot of business while Sæmundur attended the Learned School. He started selling to the students, who were mostly too afraid or prejudiced to deal directly with a náskári. The náskárar were prolific up north, where a clan ruled over each fjord, their power struggles constantly in motion but rarely interfering with human society. Mostly they left the farmers alone; the humans had picked up a few of their customs and knew how to approach the ravenfolk with honour and respect. Sæmundur used that to his advantage in Reykjavík, where the náskárar remained elusive and threatening. When Sæmundur graduated and moved abroad, Rotsvelgur had just made his way to power in Those-who-pluck-the-eyes-of-the-ram, after months of internal fighting. Rotsvelgur had slain his own father, a great bird of prey and hersir of many decades. To fall to your own offspring was not a disgrace among náskárar, it was a noble and good fate. It meant that the young were worth something, that the future was theirs to claim – not to suggest that the parents wouldn’t fight for their lives with iron and claw. Many great tribal leaders killed their offspring in droves, but they never attacked them first. The initiative to murder and coup belonged to the youth.
After many years of study abroad, Sæmundur came back to Reykjavík and attended Svartiskóli. Rotsvelgur had stamped the other tribes down into the muck. Greater Reykjavík belonged to him, there was no denying it. Sæmundur had started selling for Rotsvelgur again, dealing directly with him as if nothing had changed, which was unique. Only his underlings dealt with humans and huldufólk directly, like Hræeygður, who had apparently sold Katrín sorti. Sæmundur didn’t know why he’d been deserving of this exception and hadn’t given it a great deal of thought. Until Rotsvelgur had demanded galdur of him. Now, as he clambered up the unforgiving cliffs of Hræfuglaey, blowing in the unpredictable wind, he wished he’d asked himself that sooner.
A gust of wind grabbed hold of his coat and he almost lost his footing. Despite appearances the ladder was sturdy, although in bad condition and rarely used.
He hoisted himself to the top of the cliff and lay there for a moment, exhausted. Pale yellow grass sprouted between the rocks, spattered with moss and bird droppings. The two náskárar were waiting for him, silent and motionless. Their feathers ruffled in the wind. Sæmundur started to get up, but started coughing so badly that he collapsed back into the grass. The coughing fit tore at his lungs deeply and he tasted blood. He thought of Bektalpher, of the wound on his chest which was even now whispering curses with a voice from another world than this one. He wondered if they shared lungs or if the demon had grown its own. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that it worked.
Finally he got a hold on himself and breathed normally. He looked into his hand and expected to see blood. Instead there was a thick, black ichor, which he quickly wiped into the earth. He didn’t know if it was caused by the demon in him or the amount of highland moss he had smoked, and he didn’t care to know.
The náskárar led him to the centre of the island, toward a gaping cavern. At first it looked to be naturally formed, but when Sæmundur looked closer he saw that its edges were too curved, its form too regular. A circular staircase went down into the darkness. One náskári started walking down the stone stairs with loud clunks. Sparks flew with each step. Sæmundur looked up at the swarm of náskárar in the sky, over to the other island cliffs where they hung in droves like black soot. He wondered if any man had made it back alive from these catacombs.
“Move!’ the iron beak spat.
When Sæmundur didn’t move immediately the náskári jabbed him with his beak, causing him to stumble and almost fall down the steep staircase, where he would definitely have broken his neck. The other náskári was already out of sight, around the corner.
The tunnels were just wide enough for two náskárar to meet and pass each other. Small holes were carved into the walls where tallow candles burned. The tunnels were perfectly round, seeming rather to have been shaped like clay than carved out. Dense rows of incomprehensible hrafnaspark were etched into its surface, covering the entire circumference of the tunnel. Sæmundur had intended to learn the náskárar script but had given up when he realised how alien their method of writing was. Every letter was a sound, but also a specific word, which could be read from right to left, left to right, up, down, diagonally, however you wanted, constantly and consistently revealing new meanings its author had intended. He was surrounded by a woven tapestry of words, a dense net he neither felt or understood.
The air carried with it the potent stench of rotten meat and wet animals. The tunnels split several times, but each path looked the same, dark and empty, every inch of surface covered with writing. Sæmundur could not keep count of how often they turned, one náskári ahead of him and the other just behind him. All he knew was that they were heading down.
The tunnels suddenly ended in a sheer drop. He was faced with grey daylight and the sound of crashing waves and the shouts of the ravenfolk. A
