p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 20.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Dragonbones BB'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The Dark occurences of Svartediket/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The tarn which had devoured the last sigh of the dead, should now swallow the thirst of the living./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 324.0pt;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Just Bing, 1916 /span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Prologue: Innferd/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Bergen/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Bryggen/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"1857/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Autumn/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Friday/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The life on the Western coast of Norway had always had me relaxed. Sure, it was one of the biggest cities in the country, and there is sounds of people everywhere – which is something I hate by the way -, whether it's from the docks, where ships and boats of various shapes and sizes come by almost every day to deliver their fish to the Hanseatic warehouses, or chanting children in the courtyard during the day, switched by cutthroats and low-lives during the night. But there is something by the Western coast that has always enchanted me. Maybe it's the smell? The thick black tar smeared into the wooden planks of every board in the docks, the salt coming from the ocean, and the humid air, the constant raining… It does something to you. It calls to you. Wants you back where you belong. I had tried having an office in the midst of the capital, Kristiania, but he had to give up after two months. It was too stressful. First of all, the office was too far off into the heart of the city. The weather was too stable; too much sun and too much heat, and the chanting of people was triple the amount than here in Bergen. It was just too chaotic. I could barely focus on my investigations. I was about to go mad in the end, and had to walk out every day, and take a walk down to the fjord just to get a taste of what I once knew. My old days of being a small boy, growing up near Fimreite, playing outside with my childhood friends during the summers reappeared. Even though those days seems so far away from me now, and I barely can remember anything of it, I knew I had to return to it. Stay there. It's strange, really. So much of what my life once was has begun to vanish from me. It's like… I hold my life dearly, but can barely remember it. But I digress./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanSo therefore, I decided to move back to the West. This little loft I am renting here in the newly named "Unicorn courtyard" isn't much, but it's just enough to room a slim bed, a desk, and a small window leading out towards the docks. I've been here for a couple of days, and It seems very relaxed around here. What has stricken me the most, however, is the number of prostitutes there is here. Poor souls, they are. May our lord promise them a better life in the halls of the fallen. If anyone, they are fighting the grandest of all battles. No one to tend for them. No one to care for them, and no one to help them. Abused to the unrecognizable, even by authorities. I swore to myself I would never lay hands on them in such a matter. Show them some dignity. That's why, while I was outside during the night lighting my pipe, when one of them came up to me, instead of doing what most shameless men in this town would do, I just gave her a pouch of 4 speciedaler. She was flabbergasted. Can't blame her, as she only looked like she was 17 years of age, and given the conditions you'd have to grow up in to become such a thing, you'd have never seen such amounts of money./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Long story short, I offered her to take shelter at the loft for the night, but curiously enough, she didn't leave the next morning. She wanted to stay. So because of that, I took her in as my assistant. She's a bright mind, I give her that. Her name is Amalie./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"It was one of those typical heavy rainy days, usually experienced in the city engulfed by the seven mountains. Not that it Bothered Basil the least. In fact, it seemed to soothe him. Sitting behind his desk, suckling on his pipe, while writing in his diary what had occurred during these first few days in his new residence. The big rain drops splashed against the roof, making a sort of rhythm, and it caught Basil. Making him close the diary, and take down his guitar hanging over the door. Sitting there in his chair, he would start composing another one of his spontaneous, but equally beautiful melodies. Something he would do when he was bored and had nothing else to do. As a detective, it would seem contradictory to settle down in a calm place, but that was how Basil was as a person, liking both action, and calmness. Amalie, lying opposite to him, seemed to be at peace as well, sleeping very heavily. Since he had settled in, no reports had been handed to him by the police or by the local townsfolk. Everything seemed to be at peace./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Until suddenly, loud stomping that would have been able to awaken the Jotun himself could be heard in the wooden staircase, causing Basil to strike a false chord. He put the guitar away and stood up from the chair. Then a bombardment of heavy knocks came onto the door, causing Basil's ears to stand right up, and Amalie to sit up in her bed, rubbing her eyes. "What's going on, Mr. Ikum?" She asked with her soft voice. "I don't know." Basil replied. "But whatever it is, it sounds like whomever is behind that door is running from the Devil himself. Let's see what this is all about now in the middle of the night." /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He walked over to the door and opened it. In came a soaking wet man with his ears hanging low from the water, clutching his wool jacket that was wet through and through, with his tail hanging after him like a rope. "Detective Ikum, is it?" The man stammered out in panic, almost choking on the words. "So, so, now, mister." Basil said calmly, trying to calm down the panicked man who shivered from the cold rain. He helped him off with the jacket, and offered him a blanket made from very crude, but warming wool. "Sit down here, try to relax, and I will find something to calm the nerves." Basil went over to the cabinet beside his bed, opened it, and took out a bottle with a clear liquid, named aquavit, alongside with a small glass./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Here. Have this." He said, offering the man a drink. He took it, but he was still shivering so much that he was near to spill it all over himself. Eventually he managed to swallow it down. It made him cough a little, and his throat burned a little. However, it made him relax a bit more, and the shivering started to recede. Basil sat down opposite to him, and lit his pipe, bringing forth his big case book, fresh from the department. "Now, good mister, please tell me your name and age." Still stammering a little, the man told him so. "Jakob…D-Deinaren. I-I'm 35." Basil calmly wrote it down with his pencil, taking his time, before looking up at Jakob, saying: "Well, Mr. Jakob. What can I help you with at this hour, when the entire city is asleep?" Poor Jakob, a grown man, was on the brink of crying. But he tried to hold it back as good as he could. But it was an odd type of crying, and Basil recognized it almost instantly. Jakob wouldn't have needed to tell him what had happened. He knew it already. "My son…Oh, my little son…My only son…is gone!"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The tarn which had devoured the last sigh of the dead, should now swallow the thirst of the living./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 324.0pt;"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Just Bing, 1916 /span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Prologue: Innferd/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Bergen/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Bryggen/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"1857/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Autumn/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Friday/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"The life on the Western coast of Norway had always had me relaxed. Sure, it was one of the biggest cities in the country, and there is sounds of people everywhere – which is something I hate by the way -, whether it's from the docks, where ships and boats of various shapes and sizes come by almost every day to deliver their fish to the Hanseatic warehouses, or chanting children in the courtyard during the day, switched by cutthroats and low-lives during the night. But there is something by the Western coast that has always enchanted me. Maybe it's the smell? The thick black tar smeared into the wooden planks of every board in the docks, the salt coming from the ocean, and the humid air, the constant raining… It does something to you. It calls to you. Wants you back where you belong. I had tried having an office in the midst of the capital, Kristiania, but he had to give up after two months. It was too stressful. First of all, the office was too far off into the heart of the city. The weather was too stable; too much sun and too much heat, and the chanting of people was triple the amount than here in Bergen. It was just too chaotic. I could barely focus on my investigations. I was about to go mad in the end, and had to walk out every day, and take a walk down to the fjord just to get a taste of what I once knew. My old days of being a small boy, growing up near Fimreite, playing outside with my childhood friends during the summers reappeared. Even though those days seems so far away from me now, and I barely can remember anything of it, I knew I had to return to it. Stay there. It's strange, really. So much of what my life once was has begun to vanish from me. It's like… I hold my life dearly, but can barely remember it. But I digress./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanSo therefore, I decided to move back to the West. This little loft I am renting here in the newly named "Unicorn courtyard" isn't much, but it's just enough to room a slim bed, a desk, and a small window leading out towards the docks. I've been here for a couple of days, and It seems very relaxed around here. What has stricken me the most, however, is the number of prostitutes there is here. Poor souls, they are. May our lord promise them a better life in the halls of the fallen. If anyone, they are fighting the grandest of all battles. No one to tend for them. No one to care for them, and no one to help them. Abused to the unrecognizable, even by authorities. I swore to myself I would never lay hands on them in such a matter. Show them some dignity. That's why, while I was outside during the night lighting my pipe, when one of them came up to me, instead of doing what most shameless men in this town would do, I just gave her a pouch of 4 speciedaler. She was flabbergasted. Can't blame her, as she only looked like she was 17 years of age, and given the conditions you'd have to grow up in to become such a thing, you'd have never seen such amounts of money./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Long story short, I offered her to take shelter at the loft for the night, but curiously enough, she didn't leave the next morning. She wanted to stay. So because of that, I took her in as my assistant. She's a bright mind, I give her that. Her name is Amalie./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal"em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"It was one of those typical heavy rainy days, usually experienced in the city engulfed by the seven mountains. Not that it Bothered Basil the least. In fact, it seemed to soothe him. Sitting behind his desk, suckling on his pipe, while writing in his diary what had occurred during these first few days in his new residence. The big rain drops splashed against the roof, making a sort of rhythm, and it caught Basil. Making him close the diary, and take down his guitar hanging over the door. Sitting there in his chair, he would start composing another one of his spontaneous, but equally beautiful melodies. Something he would do when he was bored and had nothing else to do. As a detective, it would seem contradictory to settle down in a calm place, but that was how Basil was as a person, liking both action, and calmness. Amalie, lying opposite to him, seemed to be at peace as well, sleeping very heavily. Since he had settled in, no reports had been handed to him by the police or by the local townsfolk. Everything seemed to be at peace./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"Until suddenly, loud stomping that would have been able to awaken the Jotun himself could be heard in the wooden staircase, causing Basil to strike a false chord. He put the guitar away and stood up from the chair. Then a bombardment of heavy knocks came onto the door, causing Basil's ears to stand right up, and Amalie to sit up in her bed, rubbing her eyes. "What's going on, Mr. Ikum?" She asked with her soft voice. "I don't know." Basil replied. "But whatever it is, it sounds like whomever is behind that door is running from the Devil himself. Let's see what this is all about now in the middle of the night." /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"He walked over to the door and opened it. In came a soaking wet man with his ears hanging low from the water, clutching his wool jacket that was wet through and through, with his tail hanging after him like a rope. "Detective Ikum, is it?" The man stammered out in panic, almost choking on the words. "So, so, now, mister." Basil said calmly, trying to calm down the panicked man who shivered from the cold rain. He helped him off with the jacket, and offered him a blanket made from very crude, but warming wool. "Sit down here, try to relax, and I will find something to calm the nerves." Basil went over to the cabinet beside his bed, opened it, and took out a bottle with a clear liquid, named aquavit, alongside with a small glass./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;""Here. Have this." He said, offering the man a drink. He took it, but he was still shivering so much that he was near to spill it all over himself. Eventually he managed to swallow it down. It made him cough a little, and his throat burned a little. However, it made him relax a bit more, and the shivering started to recede. Basil sat down opposite to him, and lit his pipe, bringing forth his big case book, fresh from the department. "Now, good mister, please tell me your name and age." Still stammering a little, the man told him so. "Jakob…D-Deinaren. I-I'm 35." Basil calmly wrote it down with his pencil, taking his time, before looking up at Jakob, saying: "Well, Mr. Jakob. What can I help you with at this hour, when the entire city is asleep?" Poor Jakob, a grown man, was on the brink of crying. But he tried to hold it back as good as he could. But it was an odd type of crying, and Basil recognized it almost instantly. Jakob wouldn't have needed to tell him what had happened. He knew it already. "My son…Oh, my little son…My only son…is gone!"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;" /span/p