That was the fountain galdur drew its power from. When galdur worked, it was only because a minor harmonisation occurred with that original sound, the tone of creation which was the source of everything. Planets, dimensions, life and darkness itself. Everything. Only a side effect of whatever end the greater score was working towards.
He could hear them. All the worlds, together, sounding. Nothing but echo that is thrown back and forth until it fades away.
But behind that was the beginning and the end. That which Kölski had talked about. That which is and is not. Was never and has always been.
The almighty overwhelmed him completely.
* * *
Life is chaos. An incomprehensible pandemonium. We try to place events in context, understand cause and effect, but behind each incident is a meeting of endless threads into one possibility, which then multiply. How can the infinite multiply itself ? It is impossible. The human mind cannot fathom infinity. Not in a real sense.
But time had unwound itself in Sæmundur’s mind, spread out and poured over him in its true image. That which had been a linear and comprehensible form, stretched out and mutated. Became incomprehensible. Time did not exist. Had always existed.
There was no cause and effect. No past or future. That which living beings experienced as fundamental change – every death and every birth, revolutions, supernovas burning out, galaxies colliding, entire dimensions collapsing – all of this was drowned out in the background and blended into one constant.
* * *
She couldn’t move.
Katrín, Styrhildur and Hraki were standing in front of her and shaking their heads in disappointment. They were covered in terrible wounds.
“We should never have trusted her.”
“I am so glad she’s dead.”
“She deserves worse.”
“Selfish bitch. Stupid, selfish bitch.”
“You deserve this.”
Then they set her on fire. But she couldn’t die. She was alive and she felt the flames cover her, the fat crackling and the eyes bursting.
* * *
He could send planets off their orbits. Make suns pull his chariot. Let ocean and sky change their place. Remove the force of gravity. Rewrite the laws of nature.
But none of that mattered. The entire work of creation was an insignificant detail, a speck in a microscope, completely without significance. So many things moved before his eyes, in his mind. Greater and more important than anything he had ever imagined.
* * *
In the beginning was the word.
Tone.
Sound.
But before the tone of creation sounded, the same which still resounded and created reality itself, there had been silence. And after the tone would fade, silence would still remain.
Emptiness. Nothing.
Silence. Sound.
Hljóð.
Galdur.
* * *
They were robbing her of herself. It was not enough for them to simply execute her – no, they had to reach back in time and kill her there as well. Murder her memories and her along with them.
The same thing she had done to Hálfdán. She felt as if he now took up more room in her head that she herself did. They’d mostly let him be once they realised what had taken place. What would happen if it kept on like this? When would Garún disappear and this other element take over?
She held on dearly to those good memories she had left. They had no reason to take them away from her, but she was certain that Viður was sneaking into them and feeding upon them like delicacies. But she could not be certain. She could not know what she had lost. She only knew that it happened, had to have happened, because she remembered the interrogation. But there were also some things in her life that didn’t fit together any more. She couldn’t remember how she’d met Sæmundur. Why they’d broken up. Where he was. What she’d asked him to do.
But she remembered when she was painting in the living room one summer evening, and he was playing some ditty on his guitar and singing along with it. Just making something up. She had been so happy. She held on to this memory with all her might, reliving it again and again in her mind.
She tried killing herself by beating her head against the rock. There was nothing else in the cell. The only things she accomplished were new wounds and being unconscious for a vague amount of time.
The beatings had stopped. She didn’t know how long she’d been kept here. Time had no meaning to her any more. But she wished that they’d kept on. Perhaps they would have accidentally killed her.
* * *
It didn’t add up. The same man she’d seen overpowered by living darkness. Þráinn Meinholt. Sæmundur had killed him. At first she thought she had gone insane. Had imagined it all along. But the next interrogation happened in the same bright room, and he was always there. Him and Viður. She screamed at him, demanded answers, said it wasn’t him, she would not fall for this trick, but he never did anything except to smile in return. Then, when Viður drew closer her words of hate immediately evaporated. She begged for mercy. She would tell them everything. Anything they wanted to know. So long as they did not take anything further from her.
She hated herself for breaking down like this. Being turned into this wreck. After every interrogation, she decided to never beg them again, but she broke down each time. It kept on happening faster and faster.
* * *
She was tied to the chair when she came to. She was alone in the interrogation room. No officer, no Viður, not even the table was there. Perhaps it was a different room. Opposite her was an empty chair.
The sound of steps, behind her. Someone walking down the hall outside. The sound of keys jingling and then
