Her name was Edda. Like the halls of Svartiskóli, she was uncannily mundane, so amicable that it was disturbing, especially in contrast with the library itself that lurked beyond the door. Her smile was warm and her manner calm and caring. Despite that, nobody could stand her – and everyone feared her.
“Can I help you, dear?’ Her voice was soft and kind.
Sæmundur was wholly unfamiliar with the terms on which the librarian and the head lecturer of galdur spoke. He tried to dig around in her memories, but found himself reeling from the disorienting cacophony that threatened to overwhelm him. Only noise.
“Edda, this is a matter of urgency,” he ventured, in a similarly harsh tone that Almía had taken with him before. “I’m here to enter the inner sanctum.”
The librarian leafed through a large logbook that lay open in front of her and searched it carefully.
“I can’t see that you are signed up today, Professor Thorlacius, and neither tomorrow or the next day. Is it possible that you forgot to apply for access?’
He tried to smile at her, but felt like an ape in a zoo baring his teeth.
“Enough of the act, Edda. Not today. You will find that I can be a considerable thorn in your side, if I decide you’re worth the effort.”
“Is that so?’ Neither Edda’s face nor voice implied anything but helpfulness. “For what work was this regarding?’
“Rauðskinna.”
Sæmundur made Almía put as much weight behind the word as possible. It didn’t cut it. He could just as well have asked to be seated on the king’s throne.
“Impossible. Simply impossible. Such an application would never have been lost or misplaced, and besides, it is simply unthinkable that permission for a viewing has been acquired without my knowing.”
“I am aware of the seriousness of the matter, please spare me your little lecture. As I said, this is a matter of considerable urgency. I will remind you that I am head lecturer of galdur at this university.”
“And I will remind you who the librarian of this facility is. No one, do you hear me, no one can show up here and expect to leaf through the inner sanctum manuscripts as they were today’s issue of Þjóðviljinn!’
Her face became red as she spoke, with spots flaring up on her throat.
“Let me through, Edda,” Sæmundur said in Almía’s gravest voice, “or I will let myself through.”
The librarian stared at her, stunned for a moment. Then an eerie calm descended upon her.
“Almía,” she said in sincere disappointment, “what has got into you?’
Sæmundur was starting to panic. This was not what he had expected. How did Professor Thorlacius herself not have ready access to the inner sanctum? Had he overestimated her power at the university? Or underestimated the paranoia and security surrounding the closed library department?
“I can not find any permission for this kind of access, nor even the application for it, and so I simply cannot let you pass. Almía, please, this is pure folly. And furthermore, this must be reported!’
Edda pinched her lips together and spat out the last word as if it were toxic. One by one his options were being taken off the table. She’d cornered him. So there was only one thing left to do.
He relinquished control over Almía.
Sæmundur was thrown back into his body, suddenly not aware of Almía any more. The mushroom high was unexpectedly potent now that his consciousness was only inhabiting his own flesh. Everything was crooked and wrong, the background filled with inexhaustible noise, and the feeling that he was now experiencing the world for what it truly was had become even stronger than before. As if he were closer to some kind of truth. Time passed oddly. It was hard for him to gauge for how long he’d left Almía out of control. He mumbled a word and—
—his hands were around her throat, his maw wide open, the jaw dislocated, his face right up against hers and when he released his grip on her neck and she drew in a quick breath, a cloud of spores erupted from him—
Sæmundur cried out and left the professor behind, let the merciless, wild fungus do what was in its nature.
* * *
The spores took control of Edda with frightening speed, just like with Professor Thorlacius. The shock of splitting his perception of reality and self into three parts was even greater than before, even though he kind of knew what to expect. Sæmundur got Almía to crawl under the librarian’s desk and remain there. While he manoeuvred her body, Edda sometimes moved in the same grotesque, stuttering jerks as Almía and Sæmundur himself. It was almost more than he could manage to be simultaneously in control of three bodies. Almía’s corpse had been transformed into a walking horror. Toadstools erupted from her open mouth and every ragged breath now spewed out spores, her lungs having blossomed into fertile mushrooms. Sæmundur looked at the librarian with Almía’s eyes. His brain could hardly manage to process the three perspectives at the same time. She looked terrible. Her hair was now a mess and her glasses were bent; her neck was red and bruised after Almía’s iron-grip stranglehold. He managed to straighten the glasses, but the hair became even more ragged after he made a mess of fixing it with jittery motions, so he left it as it was. He hid her injuries by throwing a shawl around her neck. It didn’t do much but it would have to do.
He opened the door to the library and entered an enormous vault. Tall and dusty bookshelves reached up into the dark, powerful monuments of knowledge. Only the bibliognosts knew how many volumes the library held. The only source of lighting was from torches and candelabra on
