Someone stepped up on to the back of the wagon and tore off the tarp. Before she had time to react the skins were yanked off and she was blinded by light.
The farmer stood over her and she sat up. The girl peeked, smiling, from the gap she’d been hiding in. At first Garún thought it was the city wall towering over her, somehow all around, but then she realised they were houses. Buildings larger than she’d ever seen, solidly and beautifully built, with many floors. They were in a small alley, which was not a trampled muddy path but paved with stones. She jumped down from the wagon.
“Thanks.” She didn’t know what else to say. The farmer rumbled something in return. “Do you know how to get to Starholt?’
“Down here to the right, then onwards until you get to Hverfisgata. There right again and onwards east towards the apartment buildings. Hverfisgata leads all around the city, heavy with traffic, but if I were you I’d lie low. People are not as friendly as I am towards the likes of you.”
It can’t be worse than in Huldufjörður, she thought to herself, but kept quiet.
“Goodbye. Thanks again.”
She turned around and started to walk away, but the girl chased after her and ran in front of her.
“Come live with us at Bægi— I mean Ægisá. I’m lonely.”
“Sóllilja!’ the farmer shouted. “Not this cursed damn nonsense and hysteria!’
“I can’t. I’m sorry, but I’m going to live in Reykjavík now.”
The little girl nodded, her face downcast. Then she added, “Are you my sister?’
The girl’s words wounded her deeper than she knew was possible. She swallowed the lump in her throat, forced her eyes not to well up with tears. Were they sisters? Why not? How could she be sure? She knew nothing of her father, except that he’d called himself Liljurós. It could just as well be that man. Sóllilja. Liljurós. It would at least explain where her stubbornness came from.
“I’m not your sister. But I’ll tell you something. Let’s swear ourselves into blood sisterhood with each other and we’ll never stand alone. No matter what happens, we’ll always have each other. Deal?’
The girl nodded in triumph as she took Garún’s outstretched hand.
“Deal,” she said, smiling from ear to ear.
She never saw the farmer from Ægisá or his daughter again.
Sautján
Garún had contacted Diljá a few days earlier. She had trained a select number of people in using extremely diluted delýsíð spray and had to talk to the others about it. Their efforts had already made their mark on the city. She met Diljá late in the night, at an illegal bar in a cellar in the Hlíðar neighbourhood. She had to bribe the thuggish bouncer to get in, and the landi for sale was seriously overpriced – for her, that is. Diljá and, to her surprise, Katrín were waiting for her. Katrín looked pale and tired, with dark circles under her eyes. It wasn’t like her to venture outside her comfort zone, let alone take any real risks. She must be really pissed off to interject herself into this. Or afraid of what Garún might do on her own.
The bar was dimly lit with flickering tallow candles, dripping off counters and tabletops in cascades of wax, forming over the years like glacial icicles. Garún and Diljá were the only non-humans in there. It made her uncomfortable. Depressing and dangerous as the Forgotten Downtown might be, at least it was a safe place to talk.
“They’ve shut down Thorvaldsen’s,” Diljá said as Garún sat down with her expensive tumbler of landi. The moonshine was clear, obviously quality stuff, but still smelled almost like terpentine. “A group of huldufólk were refused entry, and the human clients apparently took their side. The heated argument exploded and they just started looting the place. Police shut it down yesterday.”
Garún couldn’t help but grin. The graffiti was working.
“Unfortunate. But now you see it works.”
“Perhaps,” Katrín said in a low voice, “but you’re not going to start an uprising by hypnotising people.”
Garún scowled. “It doesn’t hypnotise them, Katrín. It only pulls away their blinkers to the injustice all around them and helps them find the courage to do something about it. People need to know they can make a difference.”
“I’m not interested in a few riots. I’m interested in making a real change.” She placed a folded up newspaper on the table. “Have you seen this?’
She picked up the paper. It was Ísafold, a known mouthpiece for the Citizens’ Party, of which Katrín’s father, Valtýr Melsteð, was an affluent member. Ísafold was conservative, human-centric and known for avoiding controversy. The Citizens’ Party was slightly opposed to Kalmar, wanting more autonomy, the same as the other big four parties, except the royalists. It still played by the rules, which were stacked in Count Trampe’s favour, making for a fairly toothless political force against the stiftamtmaður, the Crown’s royal authority manifest in Hrímland.
The front page featured a big picture of the City Hall protest showing people running, and others on the ground bleeding out, being dragged by their comrades. Garún recognised herself in the image. She was dragging a wounded man, a malevolent growth sprouting clearly from his body. A flower made from flesh and bone. The headline read in large, bold letters:
TRAMPE’S EXECUTION OF KALMAR’S CITIZENS
She turned the page to the main article. Another picture of the protest, showing the seiðskratti. And a portrait of Jón. It stung to see that.
“There are goðar in Lögrétta who have been pushing against the Crown for decades,” Katrín said in an excited, hushed voice. “But the parliament can only do so much. They see what’s going on, and they don’t like it. The Crown has betrayed them every step of the way. Kalmar built Perlan to harvest the seiðmagn in Öskjuhlíð, which they said was to power the city and improve our
