C1 Chapter 1

Dimmuborgir is the name of a region in northern Iceland. The mysticism of the place can make even the most level-headed person shudder. The name means “black castles” or “dark citadels”, and if you go there on a rainy day, you might imagine that you are in the most frightening fairy-tale world. The whole region is filled with grotesque stone formations and tall columns covered in moss, which will make you believe that this was where the trolls turned into black pillars of rock when the rays of the sun or a lava-spewing volcano caught them in prehistoric times.

Dimmuborgir is situated in a rural part of Iceland. Its closest neighbours are the equally enigmatic and strange Mývatn, a lake, and Námaskard, a bubbling lava bog. Not many people live near Dimmuborgir. A barren landscape surrounds the “black castles”, while not far away mountains and open expanses seethe and spew red-hot lava into the air.

Between Dimmuborgir’s lava pillars lurk dangerous grottos, in which deep, dark water glints at the bottom. Nobody knows the temperature of the water: in some parts of the region it can be three hundred degrees, while in other places you can take a nice hot bath. Around Mývatn, and as far as you can see, columns of steam rise from the surface of the earth. The beauty of the place is like an echo from primeval and pagan times – in fact, from right back when the world was created, when neither human beings nor animals existed, only the rocks, the silent wind and infinity.

Something happened in Dimmuborgir one spring during the nineteenth century. No one could any longer say exactly when – perhaps some time between 1840 and 1870 – or what it had been. Only vague anecdotes survived.

Those who lived near Mývatn spoke of a deep discord, which they didn’t have a name for. They spoke of large, shrieking flocks of birds. Those who knew most about it were two men who had been riding across the wide plain on their small, sturdy horses. In fact, people said that they hadn’t been terribly close to Dimmuborgir. Anyway, they had seen something, because their horses had reared and they had had to rein them in.

After this, the old accounts differed. Some said that the men saw large flocks of black birds circling over the region. Others spoke of a dark fire that coloured the lava pillars blood-red. Yet others described a tremor in the ground, or a scream of pain that seemed to come from the earth itself.

We have to remember that fires and tremors were commonplace in this region. This would have been one of many earth tremors that people built the story on. Rumours have the habit of growing and changing over the years.

So why believe in it?

Because everyone spoke of the same tense anxiety. It wasn’t the usual unsettled feeling that follows the eruption of a volcano or a hot spring. This was something that went much deeper. Something that went right to the very core of people’s souls. Nothing tangible had happened, so the enigma remained unsolved for most people. But not for all. There were some who knew ...

The fire spluttered. It was nice and cosy in the house where Kol and Anna Maria lived near Värnberg in Uppland. It was a lovely evening. Anna Maria was darning stockings in the dwindling daylight and their only daughter, Saga, was reading a book, as she usually did.

Kol was away on business for young Axel Oxenstierna, who owned Värnberg. He was often in Stockholm, where he held the office of lord in waiting to the crown prince. This was why part of the work concerning the running of Värnberg devolved on Kol. It wasn’t all that onerous, because Kol was no longer a young man, but he liked to feel useful. Axel Oxenstierna probably understood that.

Saga really lived up to her name, because in Swedish a saga is a fairy tale.

As a child, she had looked like a young fairy-tale princess. Her hair was jet-black, with thick curls – she had inherited her dramatic colouring from her Walloon father, Kol. Except that her eyes were different. Kol’s brown eyes were so dark that they looked black, but Saga’s eyes were greenish. Not yellow like a cat’s, like those of the cursed Ice People – Saga was one of the chosen, not one of the stricken. This was something they had known ever since her birth. No one could tell for sure how you identified one of the chosen. Perhaps there was some kind of aura around them that people could sense but not see?

Of course, it was something that worried Kol and Anna Maria. The chosen ones always had a calling. There was something that they were destined to do and for which they were especially gifted. However, it was always a difficult calling that would cost them a great deal – sometimes even their lives. This was why Kol and Anna Maria were anxious.

Saga didn’t have any such worries: she took life with a lofty indifference that impressed and almost scared her parents. She was a very curious child, eager to learn. She asked one question after another, often driving her parents to despair. But they answered her as best they could. Her mother, Anna Maria, was very intellectual – she had been a teacher in her younger days, and she had continued to study because she enjoyed it.

Saga was also strange in the sense that she seemed fearless – as if she didn’t know what fear was. So she would find herself in situations that could have been dangerous if her parents hadn’t kept an eye on her. She was immensely good and kind, and couldn’t bear the idea of hurting anybody. It was important to her that both people and animals led a happy life. But many people didn’t understand or see the empathy she felt for others. The first thing they noticed in Saga was her dignity. She struck people as very poised – a quality underlined by her green eyes. Strangers would often take her for a noble young lady who wasn’t interested in other people, cold and stiff. That wasn’t true. Saga had a delightful, dry sense of humour, which you could see in her eyes – if you looked closely – but never on her lips. She rarely smiled. The corners of her eyes might pucker but that was all. But her swift, sharp replies showed that she had a sense of humour and was very intelligent.

She was however, quite unable to conjure.

As a child she had been a fairy-tale princess. As a young girl, with her dark colouring, she was a real beauty. She was sixteen years old now, and she had not yet stopped asking questions. So far, her curiosity was unlimited. That evening, sitting by the fire, she looked up from her book and raised her finely shaped eyebrows: “Tell me, Mother: who is Lucifer?”

Anna Maria had finished her darning, and was carefully putting away the stockings, having rolled them up into a neat ball. Her dark-brown hair was now quite silvery – she had had her daughter late in life and was now fifty-six years old.

“I suppose you mean who was Lucifer? He doesn’t exist. However, people tend to call villains and evil men by the name of Lucifer, but it’s just a nickname.”

Saga replied: “That’s what it says in this book: ‘You’re crazy! You’re Lucifer personified, you wretch!’”

Anna Maria said thoughtfully: “It’s a bit unfair on the real Lucifer ...”

“Oh, please tell me! I want to know!”

Anna Maria smiled tenderly. She glanced at her daughter’s profile and her lovely colouring and felt as if she could die with love for her only child.

“You know, Saga, many legends and myths have been spun about the characters in the Bible through the ages. The same can be said about Lucifer.”

“Well, who was Lucifer, really?”

Anna Maria wrinkled her brow slightly for a moment. “He’s a bit difficult to define. He appears in so many guises and has so many names. If you want to get a proper impression of him, you also need to read the Quran, which has many people and characters in common with the Bible.

Saga put her book away and pulled her chair closer to the open fire. She sat with her legs tucked up, ready to listen. Her mother was her most important source of information.

Anna Maria went on: “If you gather all the fragments about him in the Bible and the Quran, and the many myths that exist about him, you’ll get something like this. The Lord had many angels. (I’ll call him the Lord because it’s easier: it will have to be a generic term for God and Allah.)”

Saga nodded. That sounded fair enough to her.

“The Lord, the highest, had made Lucifer – the most beautiful of all creatures and appointed him to an elevated position in the realm of angels.”

“So he was an angel then?”

“Yes, he was made to rule over their realm. Lucifer carried out that task so well that the Lord also made him treasurer in Paradise.

“Lucifer belonged to a tribe of angels created by the fire of the desert wind. All angels were created from fire and that also went for this tribe. However, it was created from a flame without any smoke – the way they appear at the extreme edge of a bonfire. So those angels were slightly different from the others. In the Quran they are called djinn.

“Then the Lord created the earth. The djinn were the first creatures that were allowed to live there. However, they were unable to live together in peace. They killed each other so that their blood ran into the earth and soiled it. Then the Lord sent Lucifer with an army of angels and Lucifer made war against the djinn, driving them out to islands in the sea or to remote mountainous, barren regions. After this, Lucifer felt that he was better and more exalted than the other angels. He had fulfilled a major task, and was unable to forget it.”

Saga was listening intently. She adored legends and fairy tales.

“Then the Lord created man from clay, because somebody would have to live in the paradise that the djinn had been forced to leave. And He ordered all the angels to bow to this human being, whom he called Adam. Lucifer refused to do so. Was he, one of the highest of the angels, supposed to laud a creature made of clay?

“Then the Lord said: ‘My hand created him. You must praise everything that I have created!’

“Lucifer – whose name means ‘Carrier of Light’ – refused to go down on his knees before Adam. He said proudly: ‘I am more valuable than he is, and far more powerful. You created me from fire, and he’s merely made of clay.’

“The Lord wouldn’t tolerate this. He became angry, because Lucifer’s words were treacherous: by refusing to praise what the Lord had created he was refusing to worship the Lord. This offended the vanity of the Lord because He had never tolerated other gods beside Himself ...”

This wasn’t how Anna Maria would have expressed herself if Kol had been at home. Kol was a fervently devout Catholic, and Anna Maria and Saga respected his faith completely. But even though Anna Maria went to church every Sunday and prayed to God in her lonely hours, she regarded certain aspects of His work with some distrust.

Anna Maria continued: “Therefore, the Lord said to Lucifer: ‘Your arrogance and your disobedience shall be your undoing. Henceforth, I deprive you of all your privileges!’ And the Lord plunged Lucifer into the abyss.”

Saga said slowly: “Oh, now I understand.”

“Yes,” replied Anna Maria. “Lucifer became Satan.”

“Well, yes. Of course,” said Saga, nodding.

“This is the fundamental account of Lucifer. However, there are a great many other legends about him, and how his handsome appearance slowly changed so that he became repulsive to look at. Over the years, artists have been inspired by oriental demons, and have developed his physiognomy in the most horrible ways. He had to become as grotesque and hideous as possible.”

Saga said: “I suppose Christianity has been happy to borrow from other religions, hasn’t it?”

Anna Maria replied: “All religions borrow from one another. Take, for instance, the account of the Flood! It appeared as a historic account in ‘Gilgamesh’, the epic of the Sumerians and Babylonians. Then the Old Testament borrowed it and made it its own. The prehistoric Utnapishtim became Noah!”

Saga smiled her quiet smile, which was only just perceptible. “That was a distraction, though. Go back to Lucifer!”

“He became the evil power of Christianity and Islam. People were quick to blame him for all mistakes, great and small. Then the Old Testament caused confusion by naming the fallen king of Babel after the morning star, which is called Lucifer in Latin. The people of Israel tended to give the name Lucifer to all their enemies, whom they believed their ruler, Yahweh, would plunge into the abyss. This was very practical wishful thinking when their enemies’ power was very great. Anyway, those enemies were of this world, and had very little to do with the Lucifer in Genesis.”

Anna Maria fell silent for a while, and her gaze became distant. “There’s also a less well-known legend – the one about Lucifer’s love ...”

Saga said: “That sounds exciting! Tell me about it!”

Anna Maria replied: “If I can remember it, because it’s such a long time since I read it. That was at home in Skenäs, ages ago ...”

Saga smiled. “Now, now, don’t exaggerate.”

Anna Maria collected her thoughts and went on. “In the time when Lucifer was still the angel of the Lord and had the task of watching, trying and punishing humans, he saw a beautiful woman on earth. This is where the myths differ, as they often do, because according to the original myth he was plunged into the abyss before human beings arrived. Either the beautiful woman was a djinni, or Lucifer remained an angel for some time after human beings had been placed on earth. But that’s enough quibbling – after all, it’s just a fairy tale. They say that Lucifer fell very much in love with her.”

Saga nodded. It sounded romantic.

Anna Maria continued: “However, the angel couldn’t consort with humans on earth. He could only gaze at her in silence, without her knowing anything about it. Then, when he was plunged into the abyss, he could no longer even see her. One of the archangels had noticed Lucifer’s love for this woman while he was still among them. The angel asked the Lord for mercy for his former friend.

“The Lord was adamant – He would permit nobody to challenge Him! But when all the archangels prayed for the fallen angel, the Lord gave in, knowing that it wouldn’t make a big difference.

“This was because the Lord had decided that Lucifer was to walk on the earth once every century. Take note of that, Saga: in this legend Lucifer isn’t the Devil who can insinuate himself among human beings as he wishes. He really is ‘the fallen one’ – one who can exist only in the abyss. Or Gehenna, as it is called in the Bible.

“Now it’s a fact that Gehenna is a dry, barren valley southeast of Jerusalem. It was the site of a topheth, a place where the ancient Jews sacrificed children to the god Moloch. Later, it became a place where they burned the bodies of criminals and dead animals, which is why Gehenna came to mean hell, the place of the doomed after death.”

“I see,” said Saga slowly. “So the mystery of hell’s existence is no more than that.”

“No,” Anna Maria said, “but it’s good for the priests to frighten people with. The legend goes that Lucifer walks about on earth for a short time every hundred years. He never saw the woman he desired again, because how could she have gone on living, let alone maintained her youth, for so long? Yet the Lord let him keep his yearning and his pain, knowing that his wanderings would forever be in vain. That was how the Lord sought to take his revenge on Lucifer.”

Anna Maria had finished her narrative. She got up to put away the stockings. Saga remained crouched in the chair. Night was falling and Anna Maria lit lamps all over the house.

“Mother,” Saga shouted “Why is it that nothing is happening with me?”

Anna Maria entered the room again. She knew exactly what her daughter meant.

“Shira was also one of the chosen. And she had to wait for a very long time. When she was summoned, she knew exactly what she was to do. She was no longer in any doubt.”

Anna Maria went over to Saga, who was staring into the dying flames of the open fire. She put her hand on her daughter’s shoulder: “Are you scared?”

Saga looked up. “Scared? No, not at all. Just rather impatient. I don’t want to be old before it happens.”

Anna Maria smiled. “I don’t think you need to fear that. I believe that your father and I are more scared than you are.”

Saga took her mother’s hand, where it lay on her shoulder. “You mustn’t be. My task can’t possibly be more difficult than Shira’s. If she could handle it, I ought to be able to do the same.”

“But we’re terrified of Tengel the Evil – that you may have to fight him. Heike once said that he didn’t think you were the strong person that the Ice People are waiting for. He believed that your task would be a different one. But you just don’t know, do you? Have you never had any contact with our dead relatives in the way that Heike and others have had? Our guardian spirits?”

Saga replied: “I’ve never experienced anything out of the ordinary. I must be the most boring member of our whole clan.”

Anna Maria smiled: “That’s something you’re not, but you’re definitely the most enigmatic member. Neither your father nor your mother knows you.”

“That sounds very amusing,” said Saga with a wry smile, getting up from her chair to make herself useful. She thought for a while about the legend of Lucifer’s love and laughed at herself. After all, she had thought that it was all very romantic: the dark angel ... who was so tragically plunged down into the abyss, suffering eternal longing for a woman he would never be able to have because she had passed away thousands of years ago.

What if Lucifer wasn’t Satan, but merely a fallen angel? Then he would still be just as handsome as he had always been.

He was bound to be immensely handsome.

Romantic as she was by nature, Saga began to fantasize about consoling the dark angel. Making him forget that woman from a bygone age. Descending into a gloomy abyss would be nothing to Saga. She was already there in her thoughts – where Lucifer crouched with his hands over his sad face. Then she would come and gently remove his hands and look him in the eyes with all the love that she was capable of. And his face would brighten; he would regard her incredulously, letting his hands glide over her face as if he couldn’t believe that she was real.

Then she would say to him: “I’ve come to be with you. If you want me?”

“Here?” Lucifer would reply. “Among these fearsome crags?”

“Yes. I don’t want you to be lonely any longer.”

“Saga, you are the one I’ve been awaiting for thousands of years! Welcome!”

“Saga, will you help me lay the table for supper? Your father will be back shortly.” Her reverie was interrupted and she shook her head as if to convince herself that she really was back in her humdrum, everyday life. “Yes, of course, Mother. I’ll be right there!”

She chuckled as she was laying the table. Anna Maria asked her what she was laughing at.

Saga replied: “Oh, nothing. I’m just so surprised at how silly and stupid I can be sometimes.”

“That’s only natural,” said Anna Maria.