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 same 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
