It is the 13th of June. The waves pound furiously on the black volcanic sand. Stefán has been here before – when the sun cast a golden sheen on the basalt, infusing it with warmth. Today, in the sun’s absence, this shore littered with lava rocks is as dull and lifeless as a phantom’s kingdom.
His stomach knots with anxiety as he draws closer to the shore where the natural chiaroscuro of the scene appears before him like an etching. There on the black sand and clinging to a smoky fog, a schooner has run aground, split down the middle.
Empty barrels, their rims encrusted with the precious and expensive salt they once held, float in and out of the tide. As he draws closer a horrific tableau paints a beach littered with bodies. The shore’s tiny, black pebbles are embedded in the men’s bare chests. No. He sees they are not pebbles at all, but coffee beans studded into their lifeless skin. Shards from wooden planks protrude from limbs and stomachs. Everything is covered in black ash.
Stefán stumbles, searching through the haze. The wreckage continues on down the beach. A young man’s purple face looks up to the hidden sun; his head rests on the rock that split his skull. Stefán is almost delirious with joy – it isn’t Pétur’s face.
He wipes the ash from his face without thinking. Moving faster now, he combs the shore. Then he stumbles and falls next to the body of a young man whose mouth is open and filled with sand. Stefán focuses on the hair, then the face. A sand crab crawls out of his son’s mouth.
The great magistrate lifts his son in his arms and with his knees shaking and his body sinking into the sand, he carries him away from the shipwreck, away from the crashing, horrible sea.
Stefán sits in this corner by the sea and nurses a low moan that gradually builds into a rage. It is said that once, during the crashing of rocks and sharp snaps of thunder, while the lava flowed in its hot fury, there were those in the low country who heard a wail that transcended nature. It echoed through the hills from the beach that became a graveyard. Stefán is unaware that it is he who owns this moment of grief, for he is lost to the pain of it.
Somehow, though he is spent, he wraps the body of his son in a vagabond shroud of sailcloth, linen and cotton remnants he scavenges from a wooden box that was no doubt meant for the wealthiest in the country. He binds the makeshift shroud, which he fashions like an envelope, with straps removed from his packsaddle. Gently, gently, he drapes his swaddled son over Vinda’s back.
He is anxious to be away from this place of death and walks Glossi, and Vinda with her awful load, away from the beach. The boy’s body undulates with each step forward.
A new wave of fear rises and lodges in his throat. The kittiwakes, auks and skuas – where are they? The cliffs are empty, there are no winged scavengers preying upon the wreckage. The fulmars should be out at sea circling the fishing boats, feeding off their discards. Something is wrong. Never could Stefán fathom that he is on the precipice of the fury the subglacial volcano has wrought.
He thought the eruption would be confined to the north – everyone in the south thought the same. But he was wrong, they were all wrong. In the midst of heat and haze he is struck by a raging thirst, which grows like a thorny vine with each crack of thunder. Neither he, nor his horses have taken water since morning and suddenly nothing is more important than finding it. He follows the path his horses’ hooves made in the sand only hours ago that lead to a large stream on the route home, which he should have reached by now. But there is no stream, and the path that was previously so clearly laid has come to an unexpected end, swept away, leaving no trace.
Another path appears that leads away from the beach to a sudden change in landscape from sand to grass, then to a brilliant green moss that grows over stones. This area is marshy, boggy, with large rock formations jutting out from the steaming ground. Stefán almost weeps when Glossi’s upper lip curls and he pricks up his ears.
‘Good, good. Water? Do you hear it? Do you smell it? Where is it?’
He allows his horses to lead the way until he hears it, too. A grouping of surface springs and underground hot boiling pools are just ahead of him. A small waterfall gurgles. The benevolence of precious, precious water.
The overall symmetry looks completely normal, yet here in this marshy spot of wetlands the air is too still. The ducks should be moulting, the fulmars nesting, and in their absence the land lies eerily empty and far too quiet. When Stefán lifts his son’s stiff body from Vinda’s back she makes a hoarse grunt that echoes. As gently as he tries to place the shrouded body on the ground, it thumps. Never was there an obscener sound.
Stefán directs the horses to the pools, but they will not drink. One of the water sources is the same colour as the pale blue ground mist. He looks closer. The water teems with insects he doesn’t recognize; dark-red flying insects, and yellow-and-black striped pests swimming, long and thick on the surface. He recoils from the sight of it.
The other streams and pools emit a strong sulphurous odour. Stefán dips his fingers in to find it tepid, and the taste sour and bitter. Undrinkable.
Glossi turns his head towards the small waterfall.
‘All right, you be the guide. We’ll try to drink from this waterfall.’
But Glossi inches forward and past the waterfall. Another pool of water shimmers almost completely hidden from view. An iridescent, green hue skims the surface of the pool. Stefán is so thirsty and impatient to reach the traveller’s hut that he doesn’t care about the water’s green glow and takes a quick sniff. Relieved to find it odourless, he touches the surface with his fingertips to gauge its temperature and then licks his fingers. Finding the water pleasant and with no aftertaste, he drinks a small mouthful. Glossi drinks beside him, while Vinda shies away and turns instead to the run-off from the waterfall, where she drinks greedily.
Stefán fills his travelling cup when he hears something rustling behind him. Startled by a swishing sound, he drops the cup and breathes heavily as he strains to hear it again. He senses someone watches him.
‘Do not be alarmed.’ A voice comes from the rocks.
‘Show yourself.’
‘I do not take commands.’
Nevertheless, a man steps out from a large, craggy rock formation where he had crouched unseen. Rising to his full height, Stefán staggers at the sight of him. An elderly man, taller than any he had ever seen, towers over him.
‘Drink no more from the green pool today. Only two drops must be taken after the long sleep that will come twice yearly. Two drops. Any more than that, you will die. But you must ingest the two drops. You will understand. Tell no one of this place. Follow me.’
‘What …’
‘I entertain no questions. Come.’
Stefán looks back to where his son lies.
‘He will come to no harm.’
Stefán takes four steps for the giant’s one stride. He cannot make out in which direction they tread, the fog is too thick. The great man stops and raises his arm. Like a wraith he points to turf-covered burial mounds. The green-carpeted humps are too numerous to count and the thick air disguises how far the area extends.
‘They died so that you might live. For most, the sacrifice was their choice. These dead provided our knowledge. Two drops.’
He turns and leads Stefán back to the pool.
‘Fill your flask. Mark this place in your memory. You will come here again to replenish and store the pool’s liquid.’ He points to the ground. ‘Beneath your feet lies something foul and aberrant, full of death – and yet it brings life. When nature has its way it is inexplicable. But the pool will not bring your son back. Remember this in the future when you think on this day.’
At the mention of his son, Stefán’s grief renews like the sky’s black smoke.
‘How did you know who …?’
The mountainous man lumbers away until the rocks hide him once more.
Stefán turns back to the pool. He cannot drink another drop anyway; his thirst is queerly sated. His once parched lips are soft and moist. When he steps away from the pool he hears the same rustling, like clothing brushing against the rock. He stands motionless, waiting. Now there is only thunder.
‘Let’s be on our way,’ he says to his dead son.