He was afraid. Because they had always been there.
* * *
From the outside Svartiskóli was a monumental building, a pitch black and windowless fortress that more resembled a dwelling from another world rather than anything designed by human minds. Inside everything was more familiar and down to earth. Institutional hallways, lit up by high-tech and power-demanding fluorescent lighting, stretched onwards like a maze, every turn too perpendicular, every plain door too identical to the other. Sæmundur knew from experience that this mundane front said nothing of its contents. A closed door could lead to the laboratory of a biological seiðskratti, filled with unnatural mutants, stitched-together ghouls, trees that bore organs instead of fruit – or it could just be a regular lecture hall, with half-sleeping students trying to jot down the notes from a lecturer speaking in a monotonous drone. Every room was marked with only its own, unique cipher. It was nobody’s concern what was in each room unless they had business there.
He knew where he was going, even though he had only been there once. On the day of his expulsion, she had wanted to deliver the news to him personally. She’d wanted to see him squirm in private. And he had made a point of memorising her office cipher.
At Professor Thorlacius’ door he knocked curtly, twice, then let himself in. He was surprised at the lack of security, especially as there didn’t appear to be any wards in place, either. The complacent arrogance of it.
Tall bookshelves lined the walls, filled with neat rows of leather-bound books. A sofa and two chairs, upholstered with the finest imported materials, were on his left, and Almía’s desk stood at the end of the office. It was a massive thing, grown out of the floor in the same manner as Svartiskóli’s massive front doors, a huge, malformed trunk of gnarled birch, shaped with seiður into a desk, its surface flat and polished to a lustrous sheen. The shelves behind the desk were stacked with curios, bones, some lightly tainted with faded blue, tattered manuscripts in glass cases, pale things in jars of formaldehyde that twitched or swirled lethargically, arcane galdrastafir etched into obsidian plates. Treasures and tools of a high master of galdur, the galdramaður sitting in front of him behind her desk. Professor Almía Dröfn Thorlacius glanced up from a pile of documents at her desk, not seeming the slightest bit surprised to see Sæmundur shambling into her office.
“Sæmundur,” she said in an exasperated voice. “By all means, invite yourself in. You are no longer a student of Svartiskóli. What do you think you’re doing here?’ She dipped her pen in the inkwell and scribbled something down, then stamped the document. “If this is regarding your expulsion, then I assure you there’s nothing further to discuss. You’ve dug your own grave, Sæmundur. Do not come begging to me, expecting me to help you out of it.”
“No, professor,” Sæmundur said in a strained voice. The books were overflowing with words; forbidden, cursed mutterings poured into his mind. He had difficulty hearing what Almía was saying as the whispers intensified. “I have not come here to beg.”
He reached the end of her desk. She looked up to him with an annoyed glare. Sæmundur felt inside his coat for the right leather pouch. It took him a while. He felt odd, ill but somehow well, his hands as rigid as crab’s claws.
“Wait a minute,” she said, as she watched him fidgeting around for the right pouch. She flashed a loathsome smirk as she took in his overall condition. “Sæmundur – oh, Sæmundur. Did you seriously show up here intoxicated?’
Sæmundur stuck his gloved hand into the pouch and pulled out a handful of fine dust. Before Professor Almía could go on, he leaned over her desk towards her, holding out his hand with a flat palm, and blew the dust right into her shocked face as the whispers in the room reached a violent crescendo.
“What the hell!’ Almía shouted.
Sæmundur leaped backwards, partly because he feared Almía might lash out with galdur, but mostly because he was absolutely terrified of the mushroom spores that covered her. He ripped off his gloves and tossed them away. Almía stood up, dusting herself off, coughing uncontrollably.
“This is the … the last time that I … that I … What the fuck is this?’
Her breathing was becoming ragged. The cough became more intense and rough. Almía stopped dusting herself off and looked at Sæmundur, into his dilated pupils.
“Oh, no. You didn’t. Even you wouldn’t—”
“Almía, I’m sorry. I just … I just had no choice.”
Almía started chanting a powerful galdur, her hands trembling weakly as she tried to reach for an obsidian dagger on her shelf, but the cough tore deep into her lungs, not allowing her a chance to speak clearly. None of that registered to Sæmundur. He stared dumbfounded at the glowing creature that blossomed inside her chest and started spreading. He knew he wasn’t hallucinating. In front of his eyes the mushroom spores spread through Almía’s lungs. She’d stopped chanting to focus on being able to breathe. Sæmundur saw the lethal roots of the fungus, of which he’d just drunk moments before, move through Almía’s body like oil through clean water.
She collapsed on her knees, heaving, trying to soundlessly breathe like a fish on dry land. The black-glowing infestation reached Almía’s spine and coiled tightly around it, spreading up and down. A piercing headache hit Sæmundur and he grabbed his head, feeling as if he was splitting open from the inside. Almía mimicked him and for a moment they moved like marionettes controlled by the same hand. Their agony was completely in sync, and then the fungus reached Almía’s brain and anything went
