“We fucked up,” Katrín blurted out. “This isn’t Trampe.”
Of course she had never seen him with her own eyes, much like the majority of Hrímlanders, but there was a statue of him somewhere downtown and low quality images of him were regularly printed in the newspapers. He was unsightly, but carried a stern look, with strong wrinkles from worry. He seemed the type of man who only smiled on special days of celebration. When he sat in Lögrétta the balconies were closed for security reasons, but usually his seat stood vacant, a clear message of what he thought of Hrímland’s little parliament. He was a representative of the king, his powers were beyond reproach.
Count Trampe. Frederik Ditlev Trampe.
When she took a closer look at the man, she saw that he looked nothing like Trampe. He was huddled as far away from Katrín as he possibly could, like a terrified mouse. A thin face and a delicate, weak chin beneath large, teary eyes. His shoulders were square and bent, his chest seemed almost caved in. He looked like a common scribe or a petty criminal, not a nobleman. He clenched his eyes shut when Garún came into his view, quietly trembling. In all the excitement she hadn’t got a proper look of him. Had barely spared him a second glance. She’d only seen what she wanted to see.
He wasn’t the stiftamtmaður. But he was someone. He had to be.
“It’s his assistant,” said Katrín. “He’s inner circle, at least.”
Good enough.
Garún gagged him, dragged a black cloth sack over his head and pushed him down to the ground. She forced his hands behind his back and quickly tied them.
“Get up.”
The man didn’t move, just kept lying on the ground. She grabbed under his armpits and yanked him up.
“Get on your fucking feet!’
They pushed him back up the stairs and to the rooftop. The portal to the Forgotten Downtown wasn’t far. Explosions sounded in the distance and the air stank of acrid smoke.
“Garún.” Katrín stopped and looked at something in the distance. She pointed forward with her good hand. “Look.”
In the sky floated a horror from another world. An unthinkable nightmare, forged from malevolence and dread. Its very existence was a crass violation of the natural order. Loftkastalinn squirmed with detestable life. Its cannons were gaping maws with hanging tongues, its chimneys spouted bile and blood, inhuman abominations crawled on its every surface like insects. Around the fortress swarmed a cloud of demons, some like bloated beetles, others slithering through the air like serpents. Every part of its surface squirmed, covered in eyes and mouths, hands and claws. An enormous fissure cut across the fortress and Garún realised that these were lips, which separated and showed a glint of enormous, terrifyingly human-looking teeth.
Loftkastalinn flickered like candlelight. Garún blinked, feeling as if her eyelid was twitching. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from it, even though every second of looking at it burned into her some irreversible, unseen wound. Writhing, unworldly tentacles took hold of the unrecognisable fortress, a warped nightmare of what it used to be. The flying fortress now belonged to other masters.
It flickered more rapidly, faster and faster. Garún’s eyes hurt but she couldn’t look away.
Then it disappeared. Erased. Nothing remained but the grey sky.
* * *
The Forgotten Downtown had changed.
They ran a risk going through it, but they still figured that it would be safer than going through the chaotic city streets. It was likelier that the patrolling officers in Rökkurvík would be caught unawares, and if they encountered trouble they could jump back and forth as they needed.
That part of the plan quickly changed as Garún realised that the number of portals connecting Reykjavík and Rökkurvík had significantly decreased. It was a lot harder than she recalled to listen for a potential gate, and she quickly started to worry that she might not make it back so easily.
They ran down muddy paths, past decrepit houses, some of them practically ruins. Those houses which had been usable had been reduced to charred remains or broken, miserable wrecks. The sky was lit by a swarm of red lights, bathing everything in crimson. The hrævareldar were nowhere to be seen, and the streets were completely empty as well. Rökkurvík had regressed into a literal ghost town.
Katrín and Garún held the man upright between themselves, so he wouldn’t fall when he lost his footing. The black sack over his head decreased his humanity, making it easier to treat him like an object. Katrín carried a stiff look of pain, but she didn’t complain. Garún hoped that the arm was merely broken, not infected with the unleashed seiðmagn. She knew well what fate would await Katrín if it was. It would be better to go like Styrhildur, who remained motionless in Hraki’s arms. She might already be dead.
To wander at the limits of the Forgotten Downtown is like being lost in a fog. You’re uncertain where the town ends until you cross the boundaries, and the change is sometimes quick and abrupt, at other times slow and gradual. Garún had spent considerable time mapping out the Forgotten Downtown in her mind, as much as she possibly could, since nothing at the edge appeared to be exactly the same two times in a row.
They had started to run in the opposite direction without realising it. Garún was the first to notice and stopped.
“We’re heading back the way we came. We won’t get much further than this.”
Katrín was out of breath, and coughed nastily. She tried to hide it, but Garún noticed her teeth were stained with blood. If she was coughing blood because of her injuries or from smoking sorti, she didn’t know, but it hardly mattered. She held the prisoner while Garún looked for a nearby portal.
The path they were on could hardly be considered a road – a muddy trail that crossed the mire, almost
