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without touching Leifr with their weapons. Alof uttered a maddened

shriek and plunged forward, whirling the deadly mace, her features

contorted by rage. Leifr parried her blows and drove her back with swift

feints.

“Why don’t you escape while you can?” he demanded, as the

baying hounds burst over a nearby hilltop. The. common trolls

melted away silently into the fells and ravines above.

“Escape to what?” Alof sneered. “Back to caves and filthy rags

and stealing sheep? I’m not one of them any longer. I’ve learned that

there are better ways.”

“Sorkvir’s way is not a better way,” Leifr said in disgust. “Now

get away while you can. You’re better off as a free troll than a cringing

vassal of Sorkvir’s.”

From the hillside, some trolls yelped in alarm as three dark

shadows streaked toward the stone circle. Alof saw them coming and

abruptly abandoned all pretense and reverted to her troll nature.

Dropping her weapon, she scuttled through the fence and raced for

the shadows of the nearest ravine. The troll- hounds altered their course

immediately and raced after her. In a moment, Leifr heard a brief, brutal

battle in the ravine, then silence.

Leifr sank down beside Thurid’s inert form. Glancing up, he

saw the little owl perched on the standing stone. It fluffed out its

feathers and clacked its beak at him.

“Come on, Thurid,” he muttered, scowling at the owl. “Get

yourself back together. I want to get out of here.”

The hounds came bursting into the circle, their jaws red from

their night’s work, panting and pawing to get Leifr’s attention. Leifr

commanded them to lie down and watch for any trolls foolhardy enough

to return. He heard plenty of them grunting questioningly from the

fells, but not one ventured into the meadow surrounding the spring.

Near dawn, he heard the snort of a horse. Arming himself

with the stone mace and the Dokkalfar sword, he took a defensive

stance and waited to see who it was, with the dogs sniffing attentively

and wagging their tails.

To Leifr’s enormous gratification, it was Gotiskolker, riding out

of a ravine and leading two saddled horses, one of them being Jolfr.

“I wondered where you’d gone,” Leifr greeted him as he tied

his horse to a whale rib and came through the gap made by Leifr’s

precipitate arrival.

Silently Gotiskolker looked at the dead half-trolls, as yet

untouched by sunlight.

“You’ve done quite a job of work for one night,” he observed

finally in a gruff tone. “I slipped out after you disappeared, thinking I’d

take the horses and hide them, in case any of us survived and wanted to

escape. Where’s Alof?”

Leifr nodded toward the troll hounds. “Ask them.”

“The brutes. But to them she was a troll. I suspected her from the

beginning, when I saw the hall in darkness.”

“Have you seen any Dokkalfar?” Leifr asked.

Gotiskolker nodded. “Gathering their horses, about an hour

ago. I saw Sorkvir in bear form, slinking away to lick his wounds.

What did you do to cause such a furor?”

Leifr told him about the staff, and Gotiskolker uttered a ghost

of a chuckle.

“I hope it felt like eitur in his veins,” he said with a bitter smile.

The sun rose on a misty day of perfect calm, silently transforming

the dead trolls into piles of rocks. As its warming influence touched

Thurid’s body, he uttered a faint sigh. After a while, he began to twitch,

like a sleeper awakening, and finally, with a great snort, he opened his

eyes and gazed around with a startled expression until he

recognized Leifr and Gotiskolker, who were watching from a

rather cautious distance. Stiffly, Thurid sat up, wincing at the

movement of long-undisturbed muscles.

“Where’s my staff and satchel?” he grunted, by way of greeting.

Gotiskolker nodded toward the horses. “They’re here, safe

enough, considering what’s happened.”

“Fetch them,” Thurid growled irascibly. “There’s something

I’m going to do.”

Leifr went to the horses and brought back the satchel and the

staff, noting the blackened places where Sorkvir’s hands had touched

the wood. Thurid rubbed his hand along his staff with a scowl. “I

couldn’t have done better myself,” he said with a fiery gleam in his eye.

“I saw it all from the smoke hole in the roof, cursing myself all the

while for being stuck in that fylgja form because of a hastily executed

escape spell—one mistake I shan’t make again soon.”

He rummaged through his rune sticks, finally selecting an old

blackened one and reading it over with a satisfied, grim expression.

Then he walked through the gap in the fence and faced Luster in the

valley below. “No unsuspecting traveler will ever be murdered at

Luster again,” he said, and began the words of a spell, holding his staff

extended before him.

After the third repetition of the spell, the earth responded with a

low and menacing grumble far down below. Thurid dashed the sweat

off his face with his sleeve and raised his arms, trembling slightly, still

repeating the words of a mighty incantation.

The earth trembled under the assault of a series of subterranean

explosions. With a ripping, rending sound, a fissure opened up in the

greensward, widening and lengthening as it slowly approached

Luster. Thurid gritted his teeth, his arms shaking, urging the fissure

onward, until it reached the front door of the hall and disappeared

beneath the porch. In a moment the porch sagged into the gap; the rest

of the house followed by slow degrees as it collapsed gracefully into

the black maw of the great crack with a belch of dust.

Thurid staggered back and sat down on a rock, leaning on his

staff for support, as he gasped for breath and wiped his face again with

his sleeve.

“No one humiliates Thurid,” he muttered.

Leifr gazed at the wreck of the house in awe, but Gotiskolker

seemed unimpressed.

“If you’re done with your spate of temper,” he suggested to

Thurid, “why don’t you get on with your business at the spring? We

ought to have been on our way hours ago.”

Thurid stood up. “I’ll be glad to turn my back upon this place,”

he said. “It’s enough to sour one’s outlook on women entirely, when

one of them tries to drown you, and the next one is a troll hag in

disguise, who wants to parcel your flesh out like smoked mutton. I

suppose Alof believed she could ingest my powers by the most obvious

means, true to the troll’s obnoxious obsession with their gullets. Filthy,

vile brutes.” He booted the stones that had been trolls out of his path

and stalked around the circle of standing stones, keeping a wary

distance from the one that had nearly fried him before. He dowsed and

muttered over several more rune sticks and stood still for a long time

with his eyes rolled up in a trance. Finally he was ready to begin.

Raising his arms, he blasted the first stone with fire until the spiral was

obliterated, and a brilliant, glowing pentacle took its place.

“That’s for the real Alof,” Thurid said balefully.

After blasting the next stone, he stood back away from its

glowing heat as if to admire his handiwork.

“That’s for Luster, the house of safety which Sorkvir fouled

with the blood of innocent travelers,” he said. “And the next one is for

me and my wretched owl fylgja, for all the time we spent in each

other’s company.“

He blasted two stones in succession and darted a wary glance at

Gotiskolker.

“That one was yours, for all you’ve suffered at Sorkvir’s hands.”

Gotiskolker’s black brows knit together as he seemed to be

pondering some acrid reply, but all he said was, “Thank you, wizard,

I’m grateful.”

Thurid blasted the final stone ferociously, blackening the grass

and moss growing around it. When he was done, he turned and looked a

long moment at Leifr, then he said simply, “Ljosa.”

Leifr nodded grimly, silently hoping that one day she would be

safe from the actions of evil wizards like Sorkvir and the painful

consequences that seemed to swarm around Fridmarr like a cloud of

vampire bats.

Gotiskolker watched from a distance, perched on a whale rib like

a rusty old vulture. When all the spirals were gone and Leifr and Thurid

began packing up for travel, he stood up and walked to the edge of the

pool. After a few moments, he beckoned silently to Thurid and pointed

at the water.

“Something is happening to the spring,” he called.

The slow bubbling of the spring had halted, and the level of the

water on the stones was much lower, leaving a slimy mark. As they

watched, a whirlpool began turning slowly in the center of the pool,

gathering speed and sucking the vile contents of the pool down into a

black maw. In a short while, nothing remained but a basin of stinking

mud and a litter of rotting bones.

Thurid gripped his staff, staring at the demise of the spring.

Then he heaved a deep sigh and turned away, muttering, “This is a

dismal place. Let’s get away from here before we lose our spirits

entirely.”

“But what about the spring?” Leifr asked. “Will the Pentacle

work without it?”

“I don’t know,” Thurid replied. “Perhaps the spring will surface

someplace else. Perhaps the underground water current is enough. I

don’t know everything about earth magic yet. All we can do is go on to

the next point.”

Before they departed, Leifr collected several of the half-trolls’

weapons for his own use. In particular he liked the mace made from

the tree root, and he also claimed a hand axe made by lashing a stone

into a forked handle.

By the following midday, they came into view of Bjartur, a small

settlement gathered around the base of a ruined hill fort.

“I don’t know why they call it Bjartur,” Leifr said. “It doesn’t

look bright or shining. Bleak and desolate is nearer the truth.”

“It wasn’t always a ruin,” Thurid replied. “Less than a thousand

years ago, it was a Ljosalfar outpost. One day, soon perhaps, Elbegast’s

troops will occupy it again.”

Gotiskolker shook his head. “You dream, Thurid. Elbegast will

never come back to this part of Skarpsey. His embattled kingdom grows

smaller every day. His spies and warriors are becoming fewer and

fewer.” He cast Leifr a dark scowl. “You could have become a spy for

Elbegast. You boasted about it like a fatuous young fool at one time.”

“Oh yes, I remember,” Thurid chimed in. “You were

insufferable, Fridmarr. A pity Sorkvir was easier to find than Elbegast,

or you might have accomplished something to your credit. And I

wouldn’t be here now, half-starved and half- frozen from sleeping on

the damp ground.”

“Nor would you be a practicing wizard,” Leifr retorted, slightly

nettled. “If I hadn’t pulled you out of your books, you’d be mildewing

there now.”

Still feeling irritable and pettish, Thurid replied, “But if you

hadn’t shown Sorkvir all the secrets of the Pentacle, Sorkvir’s alog

would not be so difficult to break.”

Gotiskolker interrupted, “How else was he to learn Sorkvir’s one

great weakness?”

Thurid’s eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. “What a price to

pay for that knowledge, Fridmarr? It’s Rhbu magic, isn’t it? You

planned this since you gave me that satchel. You didn’t trust me

with your secret. I can always tell when you’re hiding something.

From the moment you returned to Dallir, I sensed something

nervous and guilty about you, as if you weren’t telling me all the truth.

Why have you kept this a secret so long, when I could have helped

you immeasurably?”

Leifr glowered at Gotiskolker a moment in helpless perplexity,

searching in vain for an appropriate response. “I don’t want to talk

about it,” he growled, taking refuge in a display of bad temper and

urging his horse forward to remove himself from any more questions,

accusations, and alarming revelations.

As they approached the nearest of the handful of scattered

houses, Leifr perceived with a sinking heart that it was an

unoccupied ruin. The door had been wrenched off its hinges, and the

inside was completely plundered and smashed. Not liking to linger in