He gave her a crooked smile.
Garún wanted to believe him. It would be a comforting thought, to imagine that all she had to do was wait.
“The time for revolution won’t come by itself, Hrólfur. We have to create it.”
Then she went out into the rain.
* * *
The sound of rainfall was deafening. The air inside was humid and heavy. Sæmundur wanted nothing more than to open the window and let the fresh air in, to feel the cold spray of rain on his face. Bury his fingers in the wet earth.
For a long time they stared each other down, Sæmundur and the demon. It never stopped smiling and never blinked.
“Master,” the creature repeated, “what is your command?’
Sæmundur kept looking at the imp and Mæja’s shredded skin, discarded on the floor. It surprised him how devoid of feeling he was. About Mæja’s fate, about the spore-induced killing. No lump in his throat, no regret. Nothing.
“What is your name?’ he said, after a long silence.
“I have countless names, master. Which one would you choose?’
“Your own.”
The demon laughed. “Your knowledge of my kin is lacking. Pseudonyms and falsehoods are all I have, none of them of my own making, all of them given to me.”
“And by what name did Gottskálk call you?’
“That one called me Kölski.” The imp took a deep bow. “And what should I call the master?’
Sæmundur was not about to fall for that. He’d rather die than give a demon his true name.
“You shall never hear my name when anyone speaks it. Grákufl you shall call me and never remember any other name.”
“As you wish.”
One of the tallow candles crackled. Grákufl – grey robe. Not the best name, but it would have to do.
“What is your command?’ the demon repeated.
“Step outside of this circle.”
Kölski’s smile wavered for a split second.
“Master, you know that very well to be impossible for me.”
“Do as I command,” said Sæmundur with a heavy air of authority.
The demon immediately walked towards the edge of the circle on the floor. As its foot was about to cross the boundary it was as if Sæmundur’s eye twitched. Kölski flickered, his vision vibrated, and suddenly the demon was again in the middle of the circle.
Sæmundur nodded, satisfied. The ritual had succeeded, to some extent at least, but the outcome was vastly different from what he had expected. This tiny imp, this gremlin, was not the noble and all-powerful transmundane being he had envisioned would be summoned from the forbidden pages of Rauðskinna.
“I assure you, master, that I am the one you seek,” Kölski said suddenly, as if Sæmundur had just voiced his concerns. “The one who can give you the answers you so deeply desire. All your life you have been met only by locked doors, crawling in the dark in search of truth. Only for a fleeting moment you have seen shadowy figures on the cavern wall, distorted falsehoods and illusions. Others will be satisfied with that, but you want more. You want to cast away your chains, you want to witness the one, true source. You walk the narrow but straight path, but you have reached a hindrance on the road. An insurmountable hindrance.” The demon’s smile widened. “Until now. I assure you, I am the one you seek. I am the gate on your path, I am the key to the lock of your mind, I am the road upon which you walk.”
Sæmundur’s heartbeat buzzed in his ears. The demon had read him like an open book, whispered to him all that he most deeply wanted to be true. He knew better than to trust the imp. But he had come this far. He had to try.
“Very well, Kölski. Show me what lies beyond the threshold.”
“As the master commands.”
Kölski melted down into the floor, slid down into a shadowy form that stretched the ink-black void, casting itself upon the wall. Unnatural lights came from beyond the heavy curtains. Outside, thunder could be heard, so rare in Hrímland, and even stranger sounds merged with the cacophony of the storm.
Þrettán
The world was different now. Sæmundur felt like a mountain-top overlooking a village, its denizens small, fragile and uniform. If he cleared his throat, they’d be killed by a rockslide; if he shivered, an avalanche would wipe them out. He saw the strings that held people upright and he understood that with only a few vowels he could pluck them and make each person dance to a tune he chose. What had once been hidden behind a closed door in his mind, something only hinted at when he used galdur, was now everywhere around him. Behind buildings, windows, his own flesh, the sky itself, was something else, something that was simultaneously everywhere and nowhere, always remaining just beyond sight. Something he could almost see in the corner of his eye, but not comprehend. Not yet.
He spent his days with Kölski. He sat opposite the demon on the floor, his eyes shut, reaching out into the abyss. He practised new incantations Kölski had taught him, and with the demon’s close instruction he tried altering them and distorting their sounds. The results were remarkable. With a small amount of practice he managed to make the cloth-golem, which had before been a barely sentient pile of clothes, unravel and weave itself into a new being that spoke, thought and was capable of making independent decisions. He made branches grow out of the floorboards and bear fruit. When he ate these yellow-blue appleberries an overwhelming high infused with seiður hit him. The world lay open before him.
Despite these small miracles, which would have caused his colleagues and professors to gasp in terror and admiration, he wasn’t satisfied. Too often he hit some kind of wall, some restriction, that kept him from progressing further. He better understood the connection between sound and galdur, how these two
