“You – are,” it replied. “This world – is. We are not. We have always been, and never will be.”
“So you come from beyond, like the huldufólk?’
“No. The huldufólk came from another world. Not us. We are there, but also here, but in truth we are nowhere. We are in between, behind. Seiður is here. Not galdur. It is nowhere, as I am.”
“Show me more.”
“That is impossible, master. Already you have gained more power and understanding of the higher order than I have ever seen a mortal man accomplish.”
The demon flashed an oily smile.
Too often he’d been told that something was impossible. Foolish. Heresy. Mad.
“This was a command, Kölski, not a request.”
The demon sighed, but its smile did not waver.
“As the master commands.”
* * *
Kölski tried, but it wasn’t enough. The demon could teach him new galdur, new words of power and methods of distorting sounds, but he never achieved results comparable with that initial revelation. That leap into blinding enlightenment. Sæmundur tried to push through his own limitations, but he always ended up losing control. When he kept pushing, the galdur would twist in his hands and leave him exposed and vulnerable to the beyond, to possession and disaster. Despite being significantly more powerful, and with an understanding that was in some sense profound, he was still as trapped as before. He still found something holding him back.
“It is a common delusion of your kind to view the world in a structured framework of order and laws,” Kölski said after another failed galdur. “What is keeping you back is your very world-view. Something I cannot change.”
“What do you mean?’
“You try and try to understand the nature of galdur, to comprehend the nature of a thing which does not exist. It is an impossible task.” For a moment Kölski’s smile was replaced by a look of utter contempt, which vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. “You are thinking on the terms of your reality about something that exists without it. You can’t help but to think in a causal context, where the same cause always yields the same results. That is not the nature of galdur. Galdur is untamed chaos. Yes, what you are doing is harnessing the untamable and bringing it under your will – but that is only temporary, and only a minor fraction of the true power that lies in galdur. With all due respect, master, no mere mortal creature can reach the source of galdur unharmed or unchanged, let alone being able to understand or wield its true primal form. I can hardly explain to you why it is an impossible task – the concept itself is incomprehensible to causal beings. There are no reasons – do you see?’
“So how are creatures of your kind capable of doing so, if not through understanding? You are teaching me these spells and rituals, opening my mind to new vistas of reality – how is that not making me better control and understand galdur?’
The demon laughed. “Still, you misunderstand. Always trying to understand, or misunderstand. We do not understand galdur. That is impossible – as I said. We do not use galdur. We are galdur. It’s only here that we break out in a formed, logical image, because those are the demands your fracture of a world places upon us. You are still so filled with the delusions of reality. You probably still believe that the ritual you performed had exorcised me from whatever dimension I dwell in, that one moment I had been a demon cackling in hell, the next being born on your living room floor. Master.”
The imp added the last word hastily, its tone having grown increasingly harsh as it spoke.
Sæmundur hesitated. What Kölski described was more or less what he had thought, it was one of the fundamental theories about transmundane beings.
“Was that not the case?’
“No, master. Why do you believe that careless and inferior galdramenn risk that so-called demons possess their bones, so they turn blue and their minds are driven to madness? Do you think that there are demons and vættir outside this world, malevolent sentiences waiting for a foolish kuklari to accidentally open the gates to the in-between, so they can charge in and cause chaos and terror in this world? Do you think that is the reason these entities exist? To destroy and corrupt this world?’
He didn’t know how to reply to the imp. He’d never doubted this truth, which had been repeated to him from his very first day of school. Kölski’s patience wore out.
“When you summoned me,” it said gruffly, “it was not a being from another world that cracked out of the poor cat you sacrificed, no – it was the ritual itself. When kuklarar mess up their incantations or push their limits so hard that the galdur escapes their weak grasp, it is the galdur itself that settles into their bones, takes form, not some demon from whatever hell you have imagined.” The demon scowled. “That is why you will never completely understand galdur,” it spat out. “Because it does not belong to this cage that you call a world.”
Sæmundur found himself unable to speak. The demon’s speech had suddenly taken on an angry, almost hateful tone. For a moment he felt as if Kölski would have attacked him, if he had been able to, and he found himself shaken by the dreadful feeling.
Kölski’s toothy grin returned quickly.
“So you see, master,” the demon continued, “that you cannot complete the task you’ve set yourself. You certainly have a unique aptitude for galdur, for a human being, and trust me when I tell you that. You have reached further than any other man who has studied the ancient poetry, as they call it. But you’ve reached your limit. No mortal was meant to go further.”
* * *
Sæmundur
