I steel myself and prepare to play the role of Sejdmann Arnesson. Once again, I repeat what I am going to say in my head. We bring out the first prisoner, the one from the boat who is unharmed, with only scratches and superficial light injuries. He fled when he could, so I guess he is the most suitable. Not because I think he's a coward, but because he understood it was hopeless and tried to escape, and not in a panic, and then he gave up instead of commiting suicide. Survival instinct.

Even with the blindfold and gag on he has a defiant look on his face. I sit in my chair and wait as they tie him to the chair. Arms. Legs. Around his stomach. Rope around his neck and down behind the back of the chair. Raneigh, who understands and speaks the Daes dialect best, is present at this interrogation instead of Hillevi. She has been warned about what is going to happen, but I don't think she really understands yet - I don't think anyone really understands except Jane - but Raneigh remembers the pain in her hand. The prisoner has copper wire wrapped around his wrists and ankles, but thick leather restraints are tied over them so they can't be seen, and he sure can't see the one around his neck. We will start with only the wrists but I don't know how well this will work, so the other connections are to have options. When it's done, Raneigh takes off his blindfold, but not the gag in his mouth, and she stands behind him. He looks around but only sees shapes in the darkness behind me, squinting at the lights.

"I am Sejdmann Robert Arnesson. I want to know who you are, about your family, where you come from, and if someone sent you here. I want to know everything. And you're going to tell me."

Raneigh translates, and the man seems to be gathering courage and steel himself. I let him have that hope, because it should only make his fall worse.

"You will soon tell me everything you think I want to know. Every little detail you think I might want to know, and you won't dare to lie. When you boarded the longship, hoisted the sail and set off on your raid, you surely dreamed of riches and glory, but I doubt you even guessed that it was the beginning of a real Saga. But a saga usually have greedy, violent fools or dishonest scoundrels who don't know any better and incur the wrath of the Gods, and not even in your wildest nightmare did you think that you would have that role. You will be known and remembered for your foolishness in attacking me!"

The man looks puzzled, and he seems to understand my Norse well enough without translation. This is probably not how he imagined the interrogation would go, and sagas are important. I just lean forward a little and stare at him. I continue to speak in the same normal voice while I stare into his eyes, but I put on an increasingly evil smile as I go on.

"Let me clarify who you have attacked. Do you remember last summer when Bifrost coloured the whole sky? That was when I came here to Alfheimr. Look at my round ears. Look at my beard and my hairy arms. I am not an Elf. Do you now understand what kind of saga this will be?"

The man's eyes have grown wide and his jaw has dropped, so he clearly understands my Norse well enough.

"I don't need to torture your body with fists, whips, knives or fire like an elf does. There are so many ... fascinating ways I can torture you with sejd and galdr and spirits that I could spend weeks subjecting you to one experience after the other - something new several times a day - and pray as much as you want to whatever Gods you wish, because even your prayers to die will be ignored! I don't even need to move from this chair to make you suffer! With just a word, tought or a simple gesture, I can torment and torture your soul! Your pathetic soul that is already mine! Odin does not want a bastard like you in Valhalla! Freya - the goddess of magic, war and death - will not welcome you to Folkvang! You will not even go to Niflheim or Helheim because your soul is mine and you will suffer until I am satisfied!"

The man has long since gone from steeling himself to fearing exactly who or what they have attacked, and my smile as I've explained his fate does not make it any better. I can only guess his thoughts about what I am, because I speak as if Odin and Freya have taken their hands off them. So I lean back, raise a finger and continue:

"You will get one chance to speak. One! Then your life will be forfeited and your soul mine to torment until I am satisfied. One chance to speak so that your family may have a chance to live, otherwise they will join your soul in its suffering. If you thought this would end here on my islands, that is just another in a long line of your enormous mistakes, for you have motivated me to leave my islands for a personal visit to your homes! This is the third time someone has tried to kill me since I came here to Alfheimr, so now it's time for something worthy of a Saga so that others learn and no one tries it again! If you remain silent or lie, it will be a completely different and more ... epic ... Saga that is created, because then I will be ... angry! The souls of your relatives will join you in suffering as I exterminate the bloodline that created you several generations back in many creative ways. So many ideas! You will have one chance to talk!"

The man mumbles as he tries to speak behind his gag, and his large eyes just stares into mine. He has already wet himself, and it smells like he has shit himself too. Considering how some Sagas are, especially when they involve gods and other beings, I can only guess what his thoughts are, but I ignore his desperate mumbling as he tries to speak, and just put on an evil smile.

"But first, you'll get a little taste of what you deserve. So you have no doubt in who you attacked, and understand what I can do with just a gesture. What Sejdmann truly means!"

I raise my left hand in a gesture that every Darth Vader fan knows. Then I squeeze my hand a little and Ciara starts cranking. The man spasms against the restraints, and I see the pain and panic on his face as I silently count the seconds. So I loosen my grip, and Ciara stops. I let him sit there and recover for maybe 15 seconds. Then I repeat the gesture and he screams around the gag. I let him recover a little. He shakes, jerks and tears stream down his face. He tries to talk and I think he is far beyond dread and fear. He tries to signal that I should stop, that he wants to talk, but I steel myself and Sejdmann Arnesson just looks at him with cold eyes. He stares with wide-eyed fear at Sejdmann Arnesson's hand as it slowly rises again. Sejdmann Arnesson repeats it again and again, and he has absolutely nothing left in his bladder or bowels when Sejdmann Arnesson stop, and his whole body shakes and jerks. Tears are streaming down his face, and snot and vomit hang from his chin and nose.

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When Raneigh removes his gag, the man begins to speak. He desperately tells us everything he knows about the raid. He asks for my forgiveness and understands what Sejdmann means. He repeats everything to make sure he has told us everything, every little thing he thinks I might want to know. He desperately jumps back and forth between facts and names. In the dark behind the lights Kari writes down important names, but we have cameras recording.

It's a simple story. Jarl Mikkel Arkanes in the Daes kingdom has sent a force of volunteers and some of his men to conduct a night raid here. The aim is to try to obtain the valuable sejd that exists here, the knowledge and possessions, and to 'discreetly' weaken the kingdom by preventing me from strengthening King Aeriksson and making sejd weapons for King Aeriksson. Jarl Mikkel Arkanes also hopes to gain advantages and favour with Daes King Magnbjorn, as well as, of course, making himself richer and more powerful.

The plan was to kill me, my bodyguards and most of my staff, and capture my women and those of the maids who can perform sejd, in order to force them to reveal their knowledge or force them to work for Jarl Mikkel in secret. They would plunder my home for valuables such as gold, silver, weapons, northern arrows, oil lamps and books, and leave after setting fire to everything so that what could not be taken would be destroyed. And they would kill all witnesses so that no one would know where the force came from.

They came from the south and in the darkness they landed on the wrong island, but found a lonely farm with an older couple. The couple revealed where Sejdmann's manor house were, what it looked like inside, the number of bodyguards and where the bodyguards were likely to be, and where I was. He wishes they had listened when the couple warned them that they were fools who did not understand whose wrath they would arouse, and that it would have been best to flee to the ends of the earth. But they were told to kill any witnesses, so that's what they did.

In the dark they moved the longship so that the plundering and retreat would be quicker. The scouts who had sneaked ahead returned and reported how easy it would be. No castle. No palisade or wall. No guards outside. Just a large wooden house with huge, easily accessible glass windows everywhere. They didn't even bother to arrange a battering ram or anything like that, and only took a couple of bows with them. It would be so easy. The plan was for one group to get in via the balcony, so they could quickly get in that way and kill me, and quickly reach the women on the second floor and split up and surround the defenders. There was even a long ladder by a couple of barns on the way. Most of them would attack over the courtyard and get in through the windows into the main building. The gods smiled on them because the moon had come out and gave them more light to move around in. But the gods only wanted more light to better see the massacre.

Somehow they were discovered, as suddenly they heard bells ringing inside the house. The first ones had just begun to approach the front door. But that would not affect the attack. They were prepared and many more while we slept. They were wrong. The windows were not leaded. They were iron-framed. Then the thunderbolts began to strike. Repeated thunderbolts that went straight through the shields, causing terrible damage without arrows. Just wounds, blood and pain. They saw the balcony was no longer attached to the house. Like the building had discarded a piece of itself to get rid of them. Incredibly bright lanterns lit up the courtyard like nothing they had ever seen before. A terrible, angry, screeching began to sound from the mansion, and the sound echoed between the mountains as they hid by the walls of the house, as if the mansion itself was angry with them for hurting it and calling for help. He took cover at the corner and the wall where it was a little darker. The terrible screeching just continued, and continued, and continued. Spirits don't need to catch their breath. Their leader, who was shouting and directing, was killed by a strange glowing red dot. Then a bright light came from the side and the head of the man next to him just burst in pieces and he was covered in blood and gore. He ran away. The mansion fell silent when they had gotten far enough away. Ready and on guard in case they dared to return, and proof that everyone else was dead or dying.

The man continues to talk, slightly incoherent. We get the names of everyone who took part in the raid. He gives us the names of his wife and children. The names of the other men's wives and children. He describes what Arkanes society and the village is like, and everything he knows about the Jarl's fortified farm and where his own farm is located. Where everyone else's farms are located. We learn how many animals he has, and what his dog's name is. He just keeps rambling on, so I tell him that I will not kill his family because he has spoken well, and the man is so grateful for that.

He is gagged and tied up outside under guard, lying on the pavilion with his hands and feet tied behind him to one of the beams supporting the roof. We clean up the worst of the piss, shit and vomit. We interrogate another who is already terrified as he is brought out, so they have heard some of their friends sounds and talk. More or less the same experience and story, and he breaks down even faster, if possible. The big difference is that it was probably Jarl Mikkel's wives, Sasgaerda and Adallaug, who persuaded him to carry out the attack, as the man is more angry with them than with Jarl Mikkel, especially Sasgaerda, who, according to the man, is the real power in Jarl Arkanes' family. This man was still on the boat when Iselin's parents were interrogated and killed. The man I shot who was standing in the background by the road is the one who killed Iuli and was Jarl Mikkel's right hand man; he who had been at the auction and could recognise me and the important women. But the man who killed Iselin's mother Gyra is in the prison cell, and not already dead as I had hoped.

Iselin's voice is ice cold when she says that man is next. She does not want to be present for the rest of the interrogations, but he will suffer and die by her hand. Kari lets us know that she has heard rumours about Jarl Arkanes wife Sasgaerda, but mainly that she is really beautiful with enormous breasts.

I repeat the same thing as the others, but Iselin is the one who operates the lightning machine when I make gestures. When it is his turn to speak, he says the same thing as the others, and again that Jarl Mikkel's wives probably incited their husband, and says, among other things, that he was the one who killed the woman. He also talks about his children, his wife and his home etc, but of course we have heard those names before. I am worried that Iselin is cold-blooded and vengeful enough to want to torture them too, and I feel relieved when Iselin whispers that he has played his part, and his family does not need to be tortured to death in front of him. Even if he deserves it, his family does not. She cannot torture children. It is enough that he suffers to the end at her hands, and that they become slaves scattered around the world.

I tell Raneigh to put the gag back on, but the man desperately tries to continue talking, so I silence him with a gesture and a glance. Iselin has stepped into the light and is standing next to me.

"Look at me!" She activates her necklace, and the man's eyes widen as it flashes green while she continues with ill-concealed anger: "I am Furstessa Iselin Robertsfru of Ackerek. The couple you killed were my parents, Gyra and Iuli! You tortured and killed my mother! MY!! MOTHER!!"

The man stares at her, and his eyes and posture make it clear that he understands he is doomed and accepts it. Accepts that his soul will suffer for his sins. His chance to speak is not enough for him to survive what he has done. Ciara wants to stay, but Kari follow with me up from the basement, and I try to avoid thinking about my wonderful, cute, enthusiastic, nerdy wife torturing the man who killed her mother to death. She can speed it up by cranking faster, and by not giving his body, nerves and heart breaks to try to recover. I hope she does.

It takes far too many long minutes before Iselin and Ciara comes up. Iselin is crying and just wants to hug me, and Ciara hugs us both. Raneigh comes up and tells us that she have made sure he is dead, even though Iselin had continued cranking long after his death. His body continued to twitch. Even though he was dead. Raneigh obviously has even more respect for the lightning machine.

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