Yrsa Sigurdardóttir - The Day Is Dark

‘Funny you should ask, Matthew,’ said Finnbogi, smug as ever. ‘They did in fact allow me to examine him more closely, and although there is much to suggest that he died from that huge wound, there’s some likelihood that he suffered the same kind of illness as the other two.’ He shook his head thoughtfully. ‘However, I discovered something quite alarming when I looked at him under better light.’

Thóra didn’t think Finnbogi was just talking about the giant hole in the man’s chest. ‘What did you find out?’

‘The man has been dead for years. Even decades.’

Igimaq stood as if petrified, staring into the forbidden area. It repulsed him to stay there for long, but the unrest in his mind prevented him from turning back. The dogs were all whining, each more loudly than the next. They could not understand why they’d been forced to stop in this place, where there was nothing. Only a black hole in the cliff-face where the heart of evil beat. Now it was clearly visible that it was a cave. It became more visible with each year that passed, though at first only a very thin streak of black had distinguished it from the grey surrounding rock. This was the place that people had to be kept away from; the place that pulled anyone who came too close down into the abyss. The spirit would be dragged out of the body leaving behind an empty, hollow carcass, like the sea-conch shells Igimaq discarded after he’d sucked out the meat. But it was not the small cave that disturbed him most. He had seen it many times before and always made sure to keep himself at a suitable distance, like now. No, it was not the expanding opening in the cliff wall that made his heart ache and filled him with despair.

Usinna’s cairn was gone. Where the low stone pile had been there was now a path that the snow was not able to hide completely. Tyre tracks were visible running up to it, indicating that someone had driven there only a short time ago. Tracks in loose snow, whether from animals, men or vehicles, were blown away like foam on the waves as soon as the breeze picked up, so the biting wind of the preceding days would have made all but the most recent tracks disappear. But it had been longer than that since the cairn had vanished. Igimaq jumped off the sled and took several steps in the direction where it had been. He did not need to rely on landmarks or locate the cairn in any other way. He simply knew where it had been and could never forget it. It was enough for him to see the low stones on both sides out of the corners of his eyes to come to precisely where Usinna had been laid to rest. He stopped there and stared down at his feet. When had this track been laid? He had been here several months earlier to ensure with his own eyes that the people in the camp kept themselves away from this area. He had felt lighter after turning his sled around, not only because he was leaving a place where he felt bad, but also because of the false hope that it raised in his heart, that his lifelong friend Sikki had been true to his word. Igimaq had gone the way of other men – believing what he wanted to believe. Yet he also remembered having considered himself deserving of some honour, since the area was still devoid of human activity at that time; the vandalism he had committed on the equipment that had to be moved out of the dangerous area had perhaps frightened the people away.

The dogs’ whining grew louder and to Igimaq it sounded as if it were accompanied by a different, human sound, the piteous weeping of tormented souls who had waited more than a man’s lifetime to be freed from the clutches of the land. They wanted to soar with the birds of the sky, watch the land from above; not from within, where eternal darkness ruled like a winter’s night in the farthest corner of the north, but worse, because down under the rock neither moonlight nor stars could mitigate the darkness and make it more tolerable. Maybe it had been the weeping of only one soul; the soul that was closer to his heart than any other. He was not certain, but he had to get away from here. The weeping sounded uncomfortably similar to the beseeching voice of his daughter when she had died here in the sight of her father and brother. The two of them had stood here, in this very same place, trying to ignore her pleas and not let her see that they were on the verge of giving in and extending a helping hand. Igimaq did not regret having stood by and observed from a safe distance, but when Sikki had demanded his presence there he could not conceive of watching his own offspring die from a place of hiding. Of course he could have done it that way – there were enough crags here to hide behind – but his pride had prevented him from watching from out of sight. He was fulfilling his obligations to his ancestors and those who demanded revenge for their deaths. If Igimaq had lost his courage he would have brought an even worse fate upon himself and the village. He could not heal his daughter and sacrifice others. In any case, that would only have been a temporary respite. His daughter bore the mark, and for that she was killed. She would only have dragged him and Naruana to death with her. The message was clear: those upon whom death places his mark will die, and they must do so alone and uncomforted, because any who try to ease their passing will suffer the same fate. And Igimaq had no intention of dying here.

Now the dogs had fallen quiet in the still, frozen air, and Igimaq could hear every sound. The peace here was very different from the silence around his tent, more complex. The gift of being able to read the unknown was vanishing; just as the ice thinned, the knowledge that had been in this country for centuries was disappearing, and one day, when he and his generation had passed on, it would have melted away as completely as the ice. The silence encouraged him to get moving, not to hang about there any longer than necessary. It told him that the dogs awaited his command and were growing restless and suspicious of his intentions. They wanted to go farther out into the wilderness, run until nothing mattered but the horizon. Igimaq breathed quickly through his nose and looked at the snow-covered track beneath his feet. He would find out later which had happened first, the removal of the cairn or the laying of the track – or whether it had happened at the same time. It didn’t really matter. The damage had already been done. What could not happen had happened. Usinna was gone from the resting place that was supposed to have kept her until there was nothing left of her. The only tiny positive note was that the police had obviously had nothing to do with it. The evidence showed that the track was older than that. In fact only the people at the camp could have removed the cairn.

The hunter had to remedy this. Usinna had to have her final repose back here, in this place. It was not a question of his opinion – he had given his father his word, and that he could not betray. When, as a young man, he had sworn his oath, it had not occurred either to him or to his father that Igimaq’s own child would end up violating the prohibitions of past generations and call down upon herself the eternal restlessness of her own soul, which would never find a refuge. Usinna was childless, like her brother. As things stood, it seemed unlikely that Naruana would do his duty in that regard, which meant Usinna’s soul had scarcely any hope. Its only escape would be to settle in a newborn child fathered by her brother. Until that happened her bones would have to rest here in the vicinity of her soul, and also far from the living, to whom she could do many types of harm, even drag them to their death. Igimaq knew this well; wandering souls were to be feared and dreaded. They could not be stopped with a bullet, or even a volley of them. What was already dead could not be killed again. Igimaq wasn’t actually scared of death, nor did he understand those who said they wished to live longer than was natural. To create the conditions for a new life, you had to clear space, and it would soon be his turn. He accepted this completely, but nevertheless wanted to have some say in his own death. He wanted to die as he had lived, under the open sky with his rifle in his hand, in harmony with nature, which could strip him of his flesh after he drew his final breath. He did not want to die with his heart in his throat, fleeing something nameless as it snapped at his heels. That, he could not accept. He would have to bring Usinna back to this place. And he knew how he would go about it. If there was one thing the hunter was good at, it was trading, which he had done from a young age. The people in the camp would get the people they were searching for, or a clue to where they could be found, in exchange for Usinna’s remains. Igimaq let his eyes wander to the entrance of the cave and stared for a moment at the black hole. It looked like the mouth of a monster that had been buried under snow and ice and was now trying to eat its way up from the cold, white hell. He turned on his heel and walked back to the sled. The dogs pricked up their ears and the harness tightened. Igimaq watched them stand up, one after the other, and although he knew they were looking forward to getting moving, he could not avoid the thought that they wanted to get away from there because of something that had crawled out of the cave as soon as he’d turned around and that was now creeping along the snow towards him. He didn’t know what souls looked like, and he didn’t want to find out. And so he chose not to look back, but instead stared at the dogs and took increasingly larger strides towards them and the sled that could carry him away from here, as quickly and safely as possible.