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absolutely quiet and meditating upon the inner reserves of power that

conjoin us with the influence of the Rhbus.”

Thurid passed his hands over the stones and began in a loud

voice, “I am turning the stones against Sorkvir of Gliru-hals. May all

the land-vaettir rise up against Sorkvir and his house and bring him

misfortune. May his powers fail, may his springs turn to poison, and

may the earth be blighted to his touch. I am turning the stones against

Sorkvir of Gliru-hals. May all the land-vaettir—” He droned the words

over and over, while the standing stones grumbled in their sockets

and the air crackled with energy.

Leifr eyed the stones uneasily, noting that the bases glowed dull

red, and the nearby grass was slowly turning black, forming wide rings

around each stone.

“It looks as if it’s going to work,” Gotiskolker whispered in

amazement.

The sky still gleamed with the harsh, green light, deepening to

cobalt at the zenith. The marsh disappeared into shadows and silence,

broken only by the infrequent yelp of the troll-hounds and the distant

mutter of Dokkalfar voices. Inside the stone ring, the objects at ground

level were bathed in red light from the steady glow of the stones,

interspersed with sparks that leaped from Thurid’s fingers. Low and

hoarse, his voice chanted on with deadly intensity, hypnotic in its

monotony.

“There they are,” Gotiskolker whispered, pointing with his

shoulder toward the edge of the marsh.

The eyes of the hounds gleamed with the light from the circle.

For a while, they milled around indecisively, then they spread out along

the far edge of the marsh.

“I am turning the stones against Sorkvir of Gliru-hals,” Thurid

whispered, his voice almost gone, his sharp features lurid in the red

light. Then the sound of his words was lost in the sudden, hissing

roar of an ice bolt arcing up from the marsh and shattering overhead

with a thunderous explosion.

“It’s done,” Thurid croaked, collapsing on the altar among the

staring stones.

“This place is no longer Sorkvir’s domain.”

More ice bolts exploded overhead, showering them with harmless

raindrops. Thurid leaned on his staff, still weakened by his effort, but

his expression was one of great satisfaction.

Then Sorkvir in his human form, with Raudbjorn skulking along

in his wake, rode his horse from the mists of the swamp to the edge of

the water, his staff trailing greenish vapor. He stood and stared across at

Thurid, Leifr, and Gotiskolker.

“Thurid, you’ve crossed me again,” he rumbled in a tone of

menace. “My patience wears thin. Give me Fridmarr, and I shall let you

escape from Solvorfirth.”

Thurid’s nostrils flared as he stepped forward. “Never, I say.

Your offer is an insult to my honor. You won’t dismiss me so easily

when we obtain the grindstone.”

“The grindstone! You’ll never find it, you fools!” Sorkvir

laughed, raising his staff. An ice bolt thundered across the marsh,

shattering in mid-air against Thurid’s counterspell.

Raudbjorn started forward, swinging his halberd and mouthing

threats, but Sorkvir called him back.

“I’d like to see him come across,” Leifr said.

“I’ll make a whale blubber lamp out of him, if he does,” Thurid

said with a dire chuckle. “They don’t suspect what power I have here at

my fingertips.”

Steadying himself by leaning against the altar, he pointed his staff

in the direction of Sorkvir and Raudbjorn and uttered a spell. At once

the marsh was bathed in blinding white light. The Dokkalfar threw

up their hands to protect their faces, but the brilliance melted their

hands before their eyes. With despairing shrieks, they crumpled,

reduced to nothing but black puddles.

The beam raked over Raudbjorn with no effect except to blind

him temporarily, sending him staggering away into the swamp

with plaintive bellows for help. The remaining Dokkalfar wasted no

time with foolish heroics; they took to their individual heels and left

Raudbjorn to his fate. The troll- hounds slunk away, wincing at the

painful glare. There was no trace of Sorkvir. In a few moments all

that remained of Sorkvir’s advancing army were dark spots on the

ground and heaps of empty clothing and armor.

Throughout the rest of the night, the marsh rustled with uneasy

footsteps and whispering voices, interspersed at irregular intervals by

shouting. Unable to sleep, Leifr wrapped his - cloak around him and sat

down near the altar stone. Gotiskolker rested against a stone just inside

the ring of standing stones, while Thurid spent most of the night pacing

restlessly from the altar to each of the upright stones. The standing

stones still radiated heat from their bases, which felt good to Leifr

during the cool, misty night.

“Where is Sorkvir?” Thurid at last exclaimed in exasperation,

when the pale glow in the east could no longer be denied. “I’ve got the

power now to destroy him. Why doesn’t he attack?”

Gotiskolker grunted, “He probably went home and slept

peacefully, knowing he has nothing to fear from you. It’s Fridmarr

who will destroy him with the powers of the Dvergar woven into that

sword. If you could kill him with vanity, I dare say he might have

something to worry about, since I have seen few engines of

destruction half as large as your pride, Thurid.“

“The voice of envy,” Thurid sniffed, averting his gaze after a

scathing survey of Gotiskolker’s ragged attire. “One day I’ll be a

member of the Fire Wizards’ Guild, and a lot of people will be glad to

know me then. Including you.”

“I doubt it.” Gotiskolker carved another notch out of his

calendar stick and shoved it into his pouch without counting the

remaining notches.

While they argued, Leifr listened with only half an ear, trying to

identify an unfamiliar sound that chattered softly in the chill air,

seeming to come from all around him. As the light increased steadily to

dim morning, he got up and began to investigate.

It was the sound of running water, Leifr realized, that had

tantalized him for so long during the night. Incredulous, he followed the

sound around the rocky edge of the island and discovered a spring

cascading down the stones into the marsh water below. Farther

beyond, he found another spring pouring clear, bright water into a

sludgy pool, and the four nisses were there, bathing in the showering

water or sitting on the rocks to dry their hair in the sun.

At first Leifr was certain they were four different nisses,

much younger nisses with long, shining hair of gold and copper. Their

voices were young and mirthful as they bathed in the waterfall and

frolicked in the pool. By degrees, it dawned upon him that Thurid’s

stone-turning had rejuvenated the springs that had once fed the lake,

and the nisses also had been rejuvenated, as Thurid had promised. With

the springs flowing again, the rank marshlands would soon be covered

by clear water. At last, something had worked out the way they had

planned.

Seeing him, the nisses swam across the pool, their bright hair

mingling with the moss and duckweed like rays of sunlight. Seldom had

Leifr seen women so fair and radiant; their beauty was the untrammeled

beauty of wild things, unassisted by studied arts and unembellished

by fine jewels or sumptuous that seemed to repel the water like fish

scales or duck feathers.

“Thurid’s magic has rescued us,” Eydis greeted him,

recognizable only by her solemn air of leadership as the eldest of the

sisters. “The springs are flowing again and soon our beautiful lake will

cover this swamp. Our days of misery and bondage are over. We owe

our gratitude to you and Thurid. I wish our means of repayment were as

great as our debt to you, but we have little to offer, except safe passage

out of the swamp—”

“And ourselves,” Finna added with her chilling chuckle, tossing

her damp, coppery tresses. Of all the nisses, she possessed the greatest

beauty, with dark, flaring brows arching over slanting green eyes, wide

cheekbones, and full lips that pouted with a soft, secret smile.

She continued, “Choose one of us, Fridmarr. Nisses make good

wives, once you take them away from their water and keep them from

it. The only trouble is their feet, which will persist in looking more

like big fins, but that’s easy enough to hide.”

“Finna! Be silent!” Eydis commanded, seconded by the other

sisters with devastating frowns.

Leifr felt the enchantment of Finna’s green eyes and knew how

easy it would be to forget all caution and to allow himself to be

trapped. With difficulty, he reminded himself of the other adventurers

who had forsaken all care and abandoned themselves to Finna’s wiles,

only to die for it.

“Is it true?” he asked Eydis, tearing his gaze away from Finna’s.

“Can a niss be happy away from her lake, once she is taken away by

someone?”

“She may be taken away, yes, and made into a wife who will

serve you diligently, but happy—” Eydis paused, and the nisses looked

wistful a moment, except for Finna, who smiled connivingly.

“I’d be happy,” she said sweetly. “I’d be glad to leave with

you, Fridmarr. You’d never regret it for a moment.”

Velaug gave her a small shove while she was simpering her

prettiest. “She kills them quickly, so it’s true they don’t experience

much regret. Don’t take her, Fridmarr; you know what she is. I’m not

the prettiest, but at least I’m sensible. I know I’d make a very practical

and thrifty housewife.”

Finna’s simper turned to an enraged scowl. “Sensible!

Practical! Thrifty! Who cares for all that? A man wants something to

look at, not a face like a toad’s!”

“Finna! That’s enough from you,” Eydis interrupted, giving

Finna’s hair a good hard yank. “A man doesn’t want a temper,

either—even if you were willing to leave the lake and forsake all your

evil ways, which I doubt. You are far too lazy, besides.”

Finna retired in defeat, swimming away with murderous scowls

over her shoulder at her sisters.

“You’ll have to pardon her,” Goa said. “She can’t help being as

she is. We are used to forgiving her, since everyone must accept a

certain amount of danger in this life. Perhaps Finna is not happy with

her fate, either.”

“Well spoken, Goa,” Eydis said. Turning to Leifr she added,

“You couldn’t go far wrong to choose Goa. You’d never hear a harsh

word from her lips.”

Goa paled under such praise. She murmured, “I’ll accept

whatever lot life deals me. One must expect changes.”

Leifr took a deep breath, aware that he must tread with utmost

care or he might offend the nisses into retaliatory anger. With a

regretful sigh, he began, “I wish that I had the freedom to choose

among you, but another’s life hangs upon my ability to restore the

Pentacle to its former power. I wear this torque as a constant reminder

of her in her imprisonment. May I die a miserable death by choking if I

allow her to remain without her freedom.“

Eydis and the others nodded their heads in approval, their

expressions thoughtful and cautious.

“I’m glad to see you have some honor,” Eydis said. “Is your heart

quite taken up by her, then?”

“Quite,” Leifr replied, with a rather gloomy sigh.

“Ah! You seem sad,” Velaug said. “Doesn’t she return your

affection?”

“I fear not,” Leifr answered. “Not yet, but I haven’t given up

hope entirely.”

“Well, if she doesn’t come to her senses, you must come back

tjorn and choose one of us for your wife,” Eydis said.

to Kerling-

“We owe you a great debt. What is the name of this haughty

creature you are devoted to, perhaps unworthily?”

“Ljosa Hroaldsdottir. You may have heard of her.”

“Yes, I believe she’s reputed to be something of a

beauty,” Eydis said. “Although I’ve never seen her, I’m sure her

looks can’t compare even to poor, practical Velaug, with that crooked

place in her nose. We nisses have claimed almost all of the beauty

among women, and there’s precious little left over for the rest of them.”

Leifr sighed uncomfortably. “I never knew about nisses when