The Deal
The Örvænta Bar is always quiet. Soft music plays, cutting through the fug of cigarette smoke and the stink of alcohol. The clientele all seem oddly reticent, cowed somehow. Most of them, roughnecks and workers from the factories and the farms, are gathered around the bar downing shots of brennivín and muttering to each other. Iceland is a quiet country at the best of times, but there's something unusual about this atmosphere.
One woman sits in the corner, away from the workers. She cradles a glass awkwardly in her left hand, as if it would break were she to move. She gazes at the door.
A boy walks in, swaggering yet gangly, still stuck between awkward youth and maturity. He orders a beer, then takes a table near the woman.
"Trainee mage, lad?"
He gawps at here, as if old women weren't previously capable of speech.
"Well, son?"
"Uh... Yes. How did you tell?"
"A mage always recognises a mage, no matter her age."
He gawps again.
"What? You think mages were invented the minute you were born?"
He inspects her.
"You're not as old as I thought...?"
"Mirjam. And you?"
"Pjetur, ma'am. Trainee Mage, 2nd Class."
"Mage-at-Arms, 1st Class, retired. Nice to meet you, Pjetur. But I have to tell you something."
He sneers. "What could you tell me, old woman?"
"Less of the attitude, I'm not old, I'm wounded. Now listen. You're too young to remember it, but did anyone ever tell you about the Kastrup expedition?"
"What's Kastrup?"
It's her turn to sneer.
"Evidently not, youngling. Listen.
Kastrup was a Danish suburb, part of Copenhagen, the capital. Denmark? Surely you weren't stupid enough to forget it. You only need to know five countries nowadays. Anyway, it was a major city, but was totally overrun by trolls. Most of the population either died from the off or as they tried to escape over the Oresund Bridge. Some were gunned down by the Swedish military, to prevent infection. This was in the early days of the Rash. In any case, it was awful. Thousands of deaths, thousands more infected. The whole city was abandoned for a long, long time."
The boy looks bemused.
"Look, you impatient fool, you need to know this. Temper your short attention span. Now, Copenhagen was a big deal for all those Danish soldiers and citizens stranded on Bornholm or in Sweden and Norway. It was a symbol of hope. A long time after the city was lost, a huge expedition was mounted to retake it. All five nations pledged support, freelancers came swarming for the money, and Danish citizens came for the glory. It took months to organise, but with all that influence and money it moved swiftly."
The boy expresses a modicum more interest.
"We were divided into platoons, which divided into divisions which in turn divided into squads. I was in Platoon B, Division A, Squad 2. We were mainly scouts and cleansers with a few combat-ready skalds, sent in supposedly after the heavy-duty cleansing was done, but still very much at the tip of the spear. Our squad was a small one. Three scouts, four cleansers, two skalds and two mages, me and my Finnish colleague Hollo. I can only remember him, Bjornsen the cleanser and Bryndísarson the scout. The rest of us didn't make it."
The boy's eyes widen; "What happened?"
"Trolls, son. Trolls. More of them than you'll ever see. Kastrup was infested, and the generals hadn't properly briefed us. We'd already seen a giant wipe out two squads across the river, and heard screaming and that awful, awful static on the radio. As soon as we were in the suburb, it was clear that we were in a deathtrap. Almost every building contained a nest. They sent in the tanks first, but they made so much noise, they were being overwhelmed with trolls or destroyed by giants the moment they fired their guns. Kastrup had many pockets of shade for trolls to lurk in, and there was barely a day of sun. "
The boy, at this point, genuinely looks interested.
"So why were you sent in?"
The woman takes a long drink. She moves jerkily, awkwardly, grimacing with every movement.
"Glory. The generals couldn't back out for fear of ridicule, so they sent us poor footsoldiers unto the breach. One hundred and three squads were sent in over the course of a month. Know how many came out intact? Forty-six. All the others lost people. Most died."
She stops, eyes misting over with the effort of memory.
"My squad was one of the worst hit. Of the eleven people who went into Kastrup, three came out, all injured."
She looks at the boy's expression.
"It was a slaughter, kid. And it was mostly my fault."
She drains her glass.
"One of the skalds wandered too far into the shade, and a beast, a dog, ripped out her throat. Hollo didn't warn her in time, and for that I will never forgive him. I can still remember her face as it ripped her to pieces. The cleansers went to help, and a much larger troll came from the shade and killed them. I didn't see how. All I saw was the blood. One of them managed to unlimber his flamethrower and burn the thing, but he was too late to stop it ripping his leg off."
The boy starts to look queasy.
"Look, kid, you wanted to be a combat mage, you gotta face the bad bits too. Sure, magic's impressive, but it takes a toll. You accrue a debt. My old trainer compared it to a deal with the Devil; it's the best thing in the world until the Devil takes his due. And he always has his due. On that day, my wards failed. The beast took my left leg off at the knee and clawed my face half off. I wouldn't be sitting here had Bjornsen not blown its head off. Him and Hollo dragged me away as I watched the rest of the squad, doomed, attempt to fight the trolls. When a giant came screeching from the next street and simply crushed them, I stopped caring. I passed out."
The boy is looking distinctly unhappy now.
"What, you thought you'd just wave your hands and scare the trolls away? I told you, magic isn't a gift. It's not an ability. It's a debt that you accrue. The lives I previously saved with my wards and runes were paid for with the lives of my squad."
She gets up. The boy notices, for the first time, her scarred face and stiff limbs.
"I also lost my right eye, both legs and right arm, boy. That's what your magic did. Still proud?"
She limps to the door, turning to balefully gaze at him with her one working eye.
"Be careful with the Devil, son. He's devious and cruel. He'll promise you glory and power, then whisk it away and give you pain and sorrow."
She turns to leave, tossing over her shoulder one last bitter sentence:
"He always, always gets his due."
