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Gotiskolker suddenly stopped his horse. “What’s that?” he

called. “Stand still and listen!”

“Trolls,” Thurid said, after hearing a guttural grunt from a distant

fell. “No. Something else.” Gotiskolker threw off his hood to hear

better.

A yelping howl sounded from the direction of the cliffs, followed

by another.

“Troll-hounds!” Gotiskolker cried.

“Hunting trolls, maybe?” Thurid asked, without much hope. He

listened to the eager baying scarcely a mile away, shaking his head in

answer to his own question. “No, and where there are troll-hounds,

there are usually Dokkalfar. What a miserable place for a battle.”

Leifr turned Jolfr off the marked track, his eyes upon an island

that looked steady enough to offer them some slight protection. Jolfr

stretched out his neck, picking each step with caution. The others

followed silently, while the chorus of the hounds gathered in volume.

Suddenly Jolfr’s front quarters sank almost to his shoulders

in soft mud. Leifr jumped off so the horse could struggle free, and

the other two horses began backing and turning to go back the way

they had come.

“This is no good,” Gotiskolker said. “We’ll have to stay with the

track. It’s more solid than this. We’ll have to go deeper into the mires

and hope for solid ground.”

They passed the point where they had turned around before.

Dimly, Leifr could see the white marking stone ahead. Wondering how

many others were completely obscured by moss or tules, he sent Jolfr

plunging ahead, hoping he was taking a straight line.

The baying of the hounds grew louder. Twice Jolfr plunged off

the safe track up to his neck in slime. Looking back through the

twilight, Leifr could see the dark, moving line of the troll-hounds

streaking through the reeds, intent upon their prey.

“What a rotten place to die,” Gotiskolker observed.

“Who’s dying?” Thurid snapped. “I’ll stay behind and blast the

creatures while you two go ahead. They’re not much different from

trolls.”

“It’s time to make a stand,” Leifr said grimly. “I’m not leaving

anyone behind. Is that understood?”

“Perhaps there will be something left of us for the Dokkalfar,

when the hounds are done with their work,” Gotiskolker added wryly.

“Sorkvir wouldn’t want to miss his opportunity either. By all means,

let’s stop, put up a good show, and hope that none of us live to be

captured. I, for one, do not intend to go back to Gliru-hals.”

They dismounted, and Thurid took the foremost position on

the path, gripping his staff and mumbling the words of a spell. Leifr

drew his sword and stood behind him, while Gotiskolker armed himself

with Bodmarr’s ruined sword and stood waiting and listening with

stoic calm.

To the left, Leifr heard something splashing quietly toward

them. “What’s that?” he demanded sharply. “Are they slipping up on

us?”

Thurid responded with a brilliant flare of alf-light, and several

large figures lurking in the marsh beside the path crept warily into the

shadows of the reeds.

“Who’s there?” Leifr demanded. “If you’re going to fight, come

out here and make yourselves known. Brave men don’t skulk in the

dark to do their murdering.”

The skulkers conferred a moment, then crept out of their hiding

places, approaching the path and stopping just before they reached it.

“We’re not interested in any murdering,” a hoarse voice said.

“We want to help you escape. If you’ll follow us, we’ll take you to a

safer place, where the hounds can’t surround you so easily.”

“Who are you?” Leifr demanded, trying to see them better in

the flaring glow, but the dark figures turned their faces away from the

light. All he could tell for certain was that there were four of them.

“Never mind who we are. Just let us help you. Enough evil has

been done in this cursed place. Come off the path and follow us.

We’ll lead you to a safer place.”

“No, indeed,” Thurid declared. “I know who you are. You’re

nisses, and what you delight in most is leading lost travelers astray so

they drown.”

“Be silent, Thurid,” Gotiskolker snapped. “Perhaps they will help

us, if you don’t make me angry.”

“It’s your decision,” the niss said, sloshing away a few steps in

the marshy water. “We could help you or we could leave you here for

the hounds and the foul creatures hunting with them. Our chances for

thwarting Sorkvir’s plans are not many, but at least we offered to help.”

The baying of the hounds burst upon them with ferocious

clamor as the beasts sighted their prey. Leifr grabbed Jolfr’s reins and

started forward into the water.

“Help us then,” he said. “We all know there’s nothing to lose.

Come on, Thurid, this may be our chance.”

“This will be our doom,” Thurid said, following Gotiskolker

reluctantly into the water. “I know nisses. They’ll lead us to some

deep spot or some particularly sticky mire and they’ll drown us.”

“Be quiet or you’ll get drowned for sure, and it might not be a

niss that does it,” Gotiskolker retorted. “I’d like to find out what

pleasure they get from it.” “You probably shall, from a very close point

of view,” Thurid answered.

Leifr tried to keep his full attention on the four dark shapes that

floated just ahead of him, scarcely breaking the surface of the water

with a ripple. The ground underfoot seemed firm enough, although he

occasionally stepped into a soft spot and floundered around noisily,

trying to regain his footing. Each time, he wondered if Thurid’s gloomy

prognostication was correct.

The baying of the hounds took on a frustrated note, and the beasts

seemed to be running up and down the track searching for the scent.

Presently the Dokkalfar caught up to the hounds and stood arguing.

“They’ve gone off the track,” a voice called in disgust.

“We’ll never get them before the bog does.”

“Let the nisses have them.”

“Sorkvir won’t be pleased if we don’t find them. We’ll have to

go into the bog after them.”

Leifr saw the four nisses gather, whispering, and he glimpsed

long hair streaming over their ragged shoulders, speckled with

duckweed and bits of peat. Filled with sudden misgivings, he stopped

sloshing along, wondering where the nearest patch of solid earth

might be. The nisses looked back briefly, then floated on. One

called back, “Either follow us, or stay where you are forever.”

He followed, listening to the shouts of the Dokkalfar all around

them. The huntsmen shouted at the hounds and exchanged signals with

harsh blasts on horns. Over it all, the hounds filled the night with

frustrated howling.

Finally, incredibly, Leifr’s feet touched solid rock, and he hauled

himself out of the marsh onto an island of stones, trees, and solid turf.

Jolfr almost knocked him down in his rush to get out of the water, and

Thurid lurched face forward when he trod upon his sodden cloak, but he

didn’t seem to mind. Putting his arm around a smooth rock, he patted it

affectionately, then looked more closely at its surface. Hoisting himself

to his feet, he went to investigate the dim, rounded shapes of other

stones.

Gotiskolker sat down on a rock to wring himself out. Leifr

discarded his wet cloak, keeping his eyes upon the nisses. They crept

out of the water and sat down on some nearby rocks, pulling bits of

refuse out of their long hair and squeezing the water from their ragged

skirts. In the Scipling realm, Leifr had heard that nisses were

beautiful ladies who lured travelers into lakes and streams, where

they invariably tried to drown them. These nisses, however, were

shapeless old women, stout and darkened by years of floating around

in the peaty water of the marsh. Their arms were long and spidery, their

straggling hair matted from years of disinterest.

Spying him almost immediately, one of the nisses said, “Well

now, here’s our laddie. Not much to look at are we, my dear?”

“Come and sit down with us,” invited another, whose hair was

mostly white. “Let’s get better acquainted. We don’t have guests every

evening.”

“Especially of the young and handsome variety,” added another

niss with a great, sly cackle.

“Finna,” the eldest reproved, shaking her head. “She’s rather

playful, I’m afraid, in spite of everything. I am Eydis, and these are my

sisters, Goa, Velaug, and—” She sighed impatiently. “—Finna. In her

day, I’m afraid she was something of a minx.”

“Enchantress, you old harridan,” Finna interrupted. “I was the

most beautiful of us all. It was me they all came to see.”

“Hush, witling. You have little to boast about,” Eydis snapped.

“Especially now. It serves you right, considering what you used to do to

those young and handsome travelers who were foolish enough to be

swayed by your charms.”

“Why is it,” Velaug asked, turning to Leifr, “that young men

always teach for the thing that’s going to hurt them?”

Leifr shrugged. “I don’t know—perhaps the forbidden and

dangerous has a certain attraction.”

Finna cackled again. “Forbidden and dangerous—that’s exactly

what I used to be. The rest of you were good girls, and where did it

get you?“

“Finna, be quiet,” Eydis commanded. “You are the sort to give

all nisses a fearfully bad reputation. A necessary evil, and nothing

more, do you hear? Your evil days have been supplanted with a greater

evil for us all, so stop your preening and cackling about it, you old

goose.”

“Something good may come of all this after all,” Goa said gently.

“I haven’t given up hope yet.”

“Something good?” Finna snorted. “Three good nisses and one

bad one, and the travelers always chose the bad one. So what is good?

Something you hope for and worship—and never get?”

“Finna!” Eydis rose to her feet, rather stiffly. “I don’t know how

we’ve tolerated you all these years. If we hadn’t been under a

compulsion to endure your presence, we would have gotten Hjaldr to

give you away to a husband who would beat you.”

“But she is our sister,” Velaug said. “We will take care of our

own, even if our own is just a bit mad.”

“Mad! Not I!” Finna declared furiously. “You’ve always been

jealous, all of you!”

“Let’s not quarrel in front of guests,” Goa reproved. “Besides, we

all know Finna was only doing what the Rhbus needed done. Just a

predator, you realize, to reduce the numbers of the weak ones trying to

make it through the Pentacle. Everyone isn’t supposed to make it, of

course.”

“Of course,” Leifr echoed faintly, casting an apprehensive glance

at Finna, who cackled as if she were reminiscing about the most

treasured part of her past.

“It’s the weak ones who are the most interesting,” she said,

turning her long eyes speculatively in Leifr’s direction. “I wonder if our

friend here is strong and single-minded or if he could be tempted away

from his objective.”

“Finna, hold your tongue,” Eydis commanded. “Speaking of

objectives, however, reminds me that it has been quite some time since

anyone has attempted the Pentacle. Since the removal of the Dvergar

grindstone, the power of the Pentacle is not what it used to be.”

Leifr tried to ignore Finna. “Since you mentioned the

grindstone,“ he said, ”I hope you’ll pardon my curiosity, but I’d like

to know if you can tell me anything about it.“

Eydis folded her hands in her lap. “There’s not much to tell. It

was stolen from the dwarfs’ hall inside the mountain by a young acolyte

of Sorkvir. Where he took it no one knows, but since its theft, the

Pentacle has lost much of its power. Sorkvir desecrated this place.” She

pointed with her chin to the surrounding stones and stumps. Leifr

looked around him more closely, and felt his gooseflesh rising as he

recognized Sorkvir’s spiral mark on the stones behind him. Eydis

continued, “He made an insulting pole with a goat’s head on it, and he

left its hooves and horns with it to drive our powers astray.”

Thurid came around the side of a large, upright stone in time to

hear her. “Insulting pole, and much more,” he said indignantly. “He’s

left his mark on every stone. That’s what caused the lake to turn into a

swamp and the nisses into old hags. What we need to do is change the