Sæmundur gnashed his teeth, clenching his fists so his knuckles whitened. His former teachers at Svartiskóli had been wrong about so many things. Their ignorance was limitless. He had sacrificed so much for just the taste of true power – he would be a fool to stop here.
“Again you stand at the threshold, master. The choice is yours.”
“I abide no limits. I will call upon him.”
Kölski smiled. “As you wish.”
* * *
For the first time for years, a pale column of smoke rose from the chimney of the temple at Landakot. It slithered up, merging with the grey clouds. Sæmundur sat inside the smoke-filled temple, his face shining with sweat. The smoke stung his eyes and made them well up with tears. Carved idols of vættir burned in the fire. On the other side of the flames stood Kölski, nearly obfuscated by the smoke, chanting galdur with him. Sæmundur chanted long and deep rhythmic tones, drawing forth every syllable for as long as his lungs could in all the smoke. Kölski was at the opposite of the spectrum, spitting out forbidden names and incomprehensible invocations. The demon’s pitch-black chitinous shell seemed to move in the flickering light, to become liquid.
Calling forth a demon was not easy. Any hack could lose his guard and attract malevolent entities that spread like mould through the bone marrow, but to summon forth a certain being from the abyss and bind it was a heresy known to few and rarely mastered. That is why Sæmundur had been so surprised to read the page he’d stolen from Rauðskinna. It had been way too simple for its intended purpose, and that was the source of its true power and danger. Almost any fisherman could have performed it, given that they knew the foundations of a few common fishing charms and invocations of fortune. But this was entirely different. This was like bleeding into the ocean to attract a specific shark. Sæmundur would have had no chance of attracting the demon he needed by himself. But he had Kölski. A guiding lighthouse in the void. Now he had to place his trust entirely in him.
He felt a distant pull, on the edge of his consciousness. A sound, a scattering of dissonant whispers on the wind. He ignored it. His attention could not waver at this moment.
Sæmundur pulled out a razor-sharp knife and warmed the blade in the fire. His invocations became faster, weaving his galdur tighter in with Kölski’s chanting.
Gögll’mín err þat vera, keyrrtrak vit óberðk, heyrit funakraðak, ódreyil að vittk.
They chanted in unison. Suddenly their rhythm was off, then brought back together, their words the anvil and the rhythm a hammer, fluctuating in an endless improvised struggle. With these tools they shaped the knife into a key. A key to flesh and blood and the internal void. Sæmundur raised the red-glowing knife from the fire and held it in front of himself.
Vomgeifl lýs drunheima, rák mót blótrauna, vit mín sker at þurrð, bit mitt sker at kumlum!
Then – silence.
Sæmundur turned the knife to himself, let the point touch his chest. It burned.
And he carved a portal into his flesh.
As soon as the blood touched the knife’s edge, Kölski started to mumble, keeping away the forces that desired to break in. Those carrion feeders which swarmed around the bloody trail.
There are many other aspects to galdur besides words. Symbols. Movement. Intent. Supporting instruments, helping to manifest something unimaginable. His eyes were closed as he carved, letting the burning pain guide him onwards, rather than relying on sight. Sæmundur carved into himself a roughly elliptical symbol. He focused all his energy into this symbol, a gate which he retraced circle after circle, again and again, carving it into his mind as well as his flesh. He couldn’t focus on guarding himself – that was entirely up to Kölski now. He couldn’t even permit himself to worry about the imp at this moment – it would all be for nothing. He carved and carved and when the symbol was complete, when the portal stood fully open in a bloody, shredded wound, he filled his lungs with smoke and shadow and called out into the beyond.
“Bektalpher!’
He turned the knife’s edge down, placed it at the top of the elliptical wound. Slowly he flayed the bloody skin back, cutting down, revealing red and shiny meat. The wound was like an open eye on his chest.
“Bektalpher!’
Again he turned the knife’s point to himself and with a single, quick movement, he cut a horizontal, deep cut into the meat. Blood poured down his chest, his stomach, but it was not warm – it was glacial.
“Bektalpher!’
The red flesh on his chest twitched and Sæmundur gasped as he felt something moving, a cavity forming inside himself. The meat spread apart and formed gruesome lips. A voice that belonged to neither Sæmundur nor Kölski spoke.
“Sæmundur.”
Tuttugu og fimm
The sky was a clear azure, in the south a spread of tattered clouds. The low winter sun was out, casting its thin light over the crowds of people swarming from train stations, down streets, flocking towards the centre of the city. Garún tugged on the collar of her jacket and tried to blend in with the crowd. Kryik’traak had kindly supplied them with fresh clothes. Garún had snagged an imported denim jacket, so new it was still stiff. It was designed for labourers, but had recently become a fashionable item with teenagers, who were commonly seen wearing them while out drinking at Ingólfstorg Square every weekend. She’d decided against tagging it with delýsíð. The seiðmagn would make her stand out to any possible seiðskrattar, marking her as an obvious
