And then, it ended. The malevolent force, which just a minute before had felt all-encompassing and all-powerful, faded into nothingness. He was crouched on his hands and knees, sweating as if he had been running for days, grovelling before a presence no longer in his presence. Before him, the ribs were laid out in the armour shell, coloured a deep, ocean blue. Whether or not the demon had been manifested as Sæmundur intended, he had no way of knowing. He sure as hell had no interest in casting further galdur to find out. Whatever this was, it would have to do for Rotsvelgur.
The náskári landed on iron talons in front of Sæmundur.
“Is it done?’ he growled. “Was the fell ritual effective?’
Sæmundur wiped his face with his sleeve.
“See for yourself.”
He pointed towards the bones. With slow, cautious movements, Rotsvelgur leaned in and inspected the armour and bones, leaning his head to the side like a raven.
“Good,” Rotsvelgur said. “Seal the bones up. Hide them.”
“And my end of the deal?’
Sæmundur was not about to finish the job until he knew he had what he wanted.
Rotsvelgur removed a leather pouch from his belt. It had been firmly sealed with wax.
“Do not open it in my presence.”
“How will I know if it’s the real thing?’
Rotsvelgur stood silent, his feathers ruffling in the wind.
“All right, I suppose you’ve never let me down so far.”
Sæmundur took the pouch and hid it inside his coat. Even with the demon-infested bones in front of him, he still felt that he carried a greater force of malevolent destruction in that pouch. He started speaking to the iron and made it seal the bones within.
This ritual had almost cost him his life. But soon that would all be behind him. Soon he would gain true understanding. No matter the price.
Átta
Garún looked up towards Haraldskirkja. The split church tower loomed over the city. The stars were out in multitudes, the faint shimmer of the aurora moved lethargically in the east like streaks of oil on water. Electronic skylights lit the church up from below, bathing the twin spires in an amber light so it stood like a beacon in the dark, with a foundation reminiscent of rows of basalt columns. To Garún it had always looked like carcass split halfway down the middle, as in the violent old sagas, the forked crevice between the towers a jagged wound.
Haraldskirkja’s bell tower rang. It was a quarter to midnight. She shuffled her feet and tried to rub herself warm through the leather jacket. She was standing at the end of Skólavörðustígur, leaning up against a concrete garden wall on the side of the road where she wouldn’t be noticed. Bare branches hung over her head, the autumn leaves already gone. The colours hadn’t bothered to stay. Fucking Hrímland. The autumn barely lasted a week, it was just summer and then winter. Although calling it summer sometimes felt like a stretch. There was no good weather to be had, no matter the time of year. Or that’s what it felt like. Everlasting night or ceaseless day. Both exhausting and thrilling in their different ways. Yet, Garún felt a sense of elation. She preferred the long shadows of winter, the nights stretching into late morning and falling again in the afternoon. It made for better cover when tagging.
Garún killed time by rolling a cigarette. She preferred hand-rolled over the manufactured factory crap that the colonial stores sold. Tobacco was supposed to have character, a soul. The cigarette was ready and she licked the paper carefully, making sure the tobacco didn’t come loose. Lit it. Six minutes. The cigarette was rolled too tight, just like she preferred it. Smoking wasn’t worth it if you didn’t have to work for each drag.
There weren’t many people around and no one spared her a second glance. Trains rattled past on elevated tracks behind the church at regular intervals. In the distance they sounded like old toy trains. The electronic music buzzing in her headset was muted, calm, the audioskull hidden in her backpack. Everything was still. On a corner in the distance she saw a woman standing in the shadows by a couple of bare trees. Diljá. Styrhildur and Hraki remained out of sight, ready to warn her of any sign of trouble.
It was a calculated risk to sneak into the Forgotten Downtown. This wasn’t like shoplifting from the store. If you were caught at the grocer’s you only risked losing a finger, maybe a hand. If you were caught going in or out of the Forgotten Downtown you would vanish. There were a handful of people that she knew of who she suspected the police had caught. It was still just guesswork. They could have escaped or moved, perhaps they were hiding in Huldufjörður or out in the country. Maybe they’d made it to the mainland. There was no way of knowing for sure. But Garún was pretty sure that no one could vanish so completely and unexpectedly without the assistance of the Crown.
Two minutes.
She threw away the stub and walked determinedly to the statue in the centre of the square, right in front of the church. She glanced around. The great square was empty, not a soul in sight. The majestic buildings of the háborg, the city’s acropolis, were dark and silent. The neoclassical buildings lining the square felt to Garún like a different kind of wall, a fortified citadel in the heart of the city that watched her from all directions. A prison within a prison. She felt trapped.
The statue was a powerful piece of art, a bronze sculpture of Hrafna-Flóki. He carried an axe in one hand and from the other a raven was taking flight. The king had brought it as a gift for the Hrímlanders and
