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word of a Dvergar, you may as well have gold in your pocket.”

“And when you have his anger,” Gotiskolker added, “you have

an enemy forever.”

Hjaldr stood up, signaling to his attendants. “You must want to

rest, so you can start your journey at daybreak. The lady will be taken to

her abode.” He nodded to a couple of dwarfs who led Ljosa away

through a side door. She looked back once, fleetingly, and then she

was gone, leaving a fierce emptiness in Leifr’s soul that seemed to

crave some sort of violent action to fill the void. Instead of sleeping,

when they were shown their spaces on the platform around the

walls, Leifr honed his sword, hand axe, and his knives, cut a new set

of boot laces, and went over his saddle and bridle, looking for weak

leathers to fix. Thurid slept, and Gotiskolker watched Leifr with

obvious irritation.

“Save your energy,” he advised dryly. “You’re going to need it

for more important things.”

Leifr favored him with a slow, baleful stare and went back to his

restless oiling of his boots. “Couldn’t” you have helped me get her out

of this?“ he demanded. ”Was it all you could do to sit there with a

smirk on your face? I don’t know anything about dealing with dwarfs.“

“Then you’ve learned a lesson. You can’t beat them at their

own game. I don’t blame them, considering what you did to them.”

“Me! I didn’t do anything to them! I’m not Fridmarr. How

could he have been such a fool?”

Gotiskolker smiled wickedly. “You should know how easy it is.

You’ve done it often enough. What a ridiculous display over Ljosa

Hroaldsdottir. Do you love her?”

Leifr grabbed a handful of Gotiskolker’s cloak, not at all

minding that his fingers were digging into one of the thin shoulders. He

glowered at Gotiskolker dangerously. “I’d fight these sour-minded

Dvergar for her until I’d killed them all, and the rest of you could rot

with Sorkvir forever. I might do it yet. I can’t leave her in this place!”

He released his grip and flung himself down on the platform to stare at

the fire.

“I urge you to do nothing so foolish,” Gotiskolker said.

“You are on a turning wheel now which can’t be stopped on a whim.

You’ll have to see this thing through to the end or perish in the attempt.

For Ljosa to be yours one day, you have to finish this journey you’ve

begun.”

Leifr shifted his sinister stare to Gotiskolker and considered him

for a long moment. “Keep reminding me,” he said at last, “that we

are old and dear friends, or I fear I’m going to begin hating you. I

wasn’t doing that badly back in my own realm. I would have got away

from those thief-takers. I could have had a relatively pleasant life as a

viking. I might never have known that a wizard like Sorkvir existed.“

Gotiskolker shrugged. “Then you might never have known that a

woman like Ljosa existed either.”

Leifr grunted in reply. Stretching out on the platform, he tried to

ignore the brooding presence of Gotiskolker, still sitting and gazing at

the meager fire.

Gotiskolker waited until Leifr seemed to be asleep; then he

brought a notched stick from his pouch and began counting the

notches. Dissatisfied with the result, he counted again and seemed to

find no comfort in his computations. With a gloomy sigh, he glanced

around the dwarfs’ hall as if he had abandoned all hope. Then he

quickly counted the notches again before taking his knife and gouging

away one of the marks. Surveying it a moment, he shoved it back into

his pouch, as if he didn’t care for the looks of the stick with one notch

less.

In the morning, Leifr was supplied with not only a map of the

Pentacle, but a decent supply of traveling provisions, which he realized

must have cut into the limited stores of the dwarfs. Hjaldr accompanied

them to the outer doors, where he stopped to give Leifr the map without

offering a word of explanation, warning, or assistance.

“Each station is a day’s journey apart,” was all he said. “In the

old days, a supplicant could make it back here in five days, if all went

well. A number of them were killed along the way or otherwise

delayed. I don’t expect you soon, considering what you will have to

deal with. I wish you luck, however, and I wish to offer you a gift

before you depart.”

He drew a soft, doeskin pouch from his pocket and removed

from it a neck torque of solid silver, made to look like a multitude of

twisting strands forming a single rope.

“This is the best craftsmanship of the Dvergar,” Hjaldr said as he

fastened it around Leifr’s throat. “I hope it will bring you luck.”

Leifr touched the two interlocking hooks that fastened it at the

base of his throat, astonished that the dwarf had wished to honor him

with a gift, when they were not parting on the friendliest of terms.

“I’m honored—although the gift I’m leaving behind is far more

valuable, I’m afraid.“ He let his voice remain stiff and grim, reminding

Hjaldr of his resentment.

The Dverg bowed his head in assent, watching Leifr mount his

horse before speaking again. “The torque will bring you luck and is

yours to wear with honor for the rest of your life if you are successful

in returning the grindstone. It will assist you in your battle with

Sorkvir. But if you prove unfaithful to our agreement, it will be your

death. It is obedient to my commands, and I have put it on your neck

with a spell so you can’t remove it. In forty days, it will begin to shrink,

unless I stop the spell; so if you try to evade your duty, you will be

choked. And don’t attempt to remove it by wizardry, or you may hasten

your own demise. Farewell, my friends. I hope I see you returning soon

with the grindstone.”

Leifr scarcely believed his own ears. Before he could leap off his

horse and grab Hjaldr, the dwarf dived between the doors, and they

slammed shut with a thundering boom in Leifr’s face. Sensing the

futility of attacking that much- besieged and assaulted door, he next

tried to pry the hooks of the torque over each other so he could get out

of it, but to no avail. The metal might as well have been cast as one

piece. He strained at it, grimacing and feeling as if he were already

choking.

Gotiskolker sat on his horse watching bleakly. Finally, with

an impatient sigh, he picked up the reins and led Leifr’s horse over to

him.

“Outwitted again,” he said. “You should know better than to

accept a gift from a person who has a low opinion of you.

It’s bound to be something you don’t like or can’t use. Let’s get

going. We can get well along the road to Kerling-tjorn before dark.“

Leifr glared around at him, still trying to pull the torque apart.

“This is a fine time for your advice,” he snarled. “You might have

warned me.”

“You should have known when you saw what a fine piece of

work it was. You saw what supper was like last night. Why would a

pinchfisted miser like Hjaldr want to give you a fortune to hang around

your neck? Because he’s taken a sudden liking to you?”

Leifr answered with a churlish growl. “I feel as if it’s choking

me already,” he gritted. “He isn’t going to give me forty days. It’s

starting right now.”

“Nonsense. Take your hands out of it and you’ll have plenty

room,” Gotiskolker said unsympathetically. “Just leave it

of breathing

alone and try to forget about it. There’s no sense in trying to get it off,

if a Dvergar spell is holding it on.”

Thurid tried to bend down to get a look at it, but Leifr aimed a

kick at him. “Get away from it, Thurid, or you might get it started.

You’re not going to touch it.”

“There’s no harm in looking, is there?” Thurid demanded.

“If you have to ask, there probably is,” Leifr snapped. “I guess

there’s no sense in asking Hjaldr to change his mind and take this thing

off, is there?”

“If you have to ask— ” Gotiskolker mimicked.

:

Thurid turned on him, his staff smoking and his eyes blazing.

“This is a tragedy, you fool, and you sit there laughing. What a heathen

you are, Gotiskolker. Don’t you realize what a predicament Fridmarr

is in? Don’t you care in the least what happens to him?”

“You’ll grieve if he dies?” Gotiskolker demanded sarcastically.

“Yes, I will,” Thurid replied with dignity.

Gotiskolker snorted softly and muttered something about

buffoons and humbug.

“I don’t like all this talk about dying,” Leifr protested,

grabbing his reins from Gotiskolker and swinging aboard his horse.

Taking one last vituperative glance at Hjaldr’s doors, he said grimly,

“We won’t talk about it for the next thirty-nine days.”

“That suits me,” Gotiskolker answered. “We’ll have won by then.

After that, you can talk about anything you wish.”

Leifr recovered the map, forgotten in the confusion. The route

they were to take formed a five-pointed star, beginning with a trek

directly northeast to a place called Kerling-tjorn. Hjaldr’s Grindstone

Hall was marked with a large number 1, and Kerling-tjorn with a 2. To

his surprise, Luster was the third stop, the place Ljosa had mentioned.

Glumly Leifr reflected that she might have been on her way there, if

not for his interference. It was straight west of Kerling- tjorn, and

the fourth stop was to the southeast, Bjartur. The northmost point was

Dokholur, and from there they would have to come back to

Hjaldrsholl. Thoughts of what he would say to Hjaldr when they next

met sustained him for most of the day.

Using a pendulum, Thurid dowsed the straight way they were

supposed to follow. In places, rocks and dirt had been brought to build

up the roadway slightly, so it showed as a low green ridge across the

valleys, and a series of stone markers on the rocky fellsides. From the

word
tjorn
, Leifr knew their destination was a lake, and he looked for

it from every rocky prominence in their way. When it was nearly

evening and they had still spied no lake, Leifr began to wonder if

they had somehow strayed off the track, but Thurid steadfastly assured

him that the pendulum did not lie and they were very near to Kerling-

tjorn.

The green track led them gently downward, under the sharp noses

of some overhanging skarps, and gradually faded away into clumps of

rank black tules, hummocks, and grass that seemed too tantalizingly

green and lush. At intervals, the way was still marked by stones heaped

into cairns, but the stones became fewer as the twilight became deeper,

and still there was no sign of the lake.

Leifr halted his horse, who did not like to stand still for long on

the quaggy earth, which quivered at each step. Frequently a hoof

would strike a thin place in the turf and sink over the fetlock in fetid-

smelling mud.

“We ought to go back to solid ground for the night,” Leifr said in

disgust. “We can find the lake tomorrow. I don’t want to be in this when

it gets dark.”

“We must be on the edge of the lake,” Thurid said hopefully.

“It’s a marshy lake, I suppose.”

“Let’s go back,” Gotiskolker cocked his head, listening. “It’s

been twilight for hours. I daresay every troll between here and

Hjaldrsholl knows where we are. Those cliffs we passed offered some

decent cover.”

Leifr tried to peer over the rules and reeds toward their goal, but

he saw only black clumps of rank vegetation and bright green grass,

with a few rocky islands that offered no comfort for camping. As he

gazed, one of Jolfr’s hooves sank through the turf. With difficulty, the

horse pulled it out again and showed his opinion of the situation by

shaking his head adamantly and starting away in the direction they had

come, lashing his long tail angrily at the clouds of horse- eating

mosquitoes and gnats.

When they were perhaps halfway back to the start of the mires,

Jolfr’s ears flicked forward attentively, and he raised his head from his

weary slogging to listen; but he was unwilling to stand still on the

unsteady ground, so Leifr could not hear anything but the squelch of

hooves. Urging a little more speed from his tired horse, Leifr managed

to pick up the pace for a short while, but the horses had already

jogged along most of the day and weren’t eager for more.