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got his head through it, but certainly there was no room for his

shoulders. By turning sideways Leifr managed to squeeze through and

found himself standing in the shadow of a massive arched gateway.

Beyond was the north court, with its walls jeweled with small fires. It

was the place where Gotiskolker had joined them at dusk, seeming to

come from nowhere.

A small group of men stood around the mouth of the well with

burning torches, which lit up the billowing clouds of mist and

spume rising from the well. Muffled creaking and groaning sounds

came from the well, punctuated by shattering crashes as the ice released

its grip on the walls and fell to the bottom. From the watchers on the

walls came no sound, except from an old woman who began a wailing

lament, sung to commemorate fallen warriors.

Thurid lit his staff with a burst of white light to announce

their arrival without startling anyone into thinking it was Ognun

creeping up behind them.

“Halloa, Borgar,” he called. “Why the lament? Has someone

died, or are you grieving for Ognun?”

A gasp rippled around the walls of the court as Thurid led a short

triumphant procession to the well, stopping beside one of the standing

stones.

Borgar, Lesandi, and the other warriors gathered around them

with a torrent of excited questions, unable to grasp the news that Ognun

was dead until Leifr held the necklace of bones and teeth over his head

so everyone watching could see it. Then the shouts and cheers began,

and the entire settlement converged on the hall for the telling and

retelling of the tale until the sun rose that morning. The furor died

down somewhat by necessity, since there were animals to care for

and food to be hunted or fished for and prepared. Leifr found a quiet

corner in the old hall and went to sleep, sharing his eider with the three

exhausted troll- hounds.

When he awakened, there were more questions and more

retelling of the battle with Ognun. Gotiskolker’s popularity among the

youths and children was magnified tenfold when he passed out a

handful of the smaller pebbles from Ognun’s petrified carcass. Thurid

basked quietly in the glory, smoking his pipe and looking on with a

benevolent, superior air.

When Borgar found an opportunity, he approached Leifr alone

and said in a low voice, “You are Fridmarr, aren’t you? Isn’t it time

you confessed it?”

In the midst of the heady wine of acclaim and admiration, Leifr

wavered a moment, caught between knowing he was not Fridmarr

and the unworthy feeling that he was donating the most heroic deed of

his life to a ghost named Fridmarr if he allowed them to honor him

under Fridmarr’s name.

Regretfully he shook his head. “One day I’ll send you a

message,” he said. “Then you can tell everyone the truth about me.

Until then, I will remain nameless.”

Borgar shook his head, mystified. “I don’t understand it,” he said.

Then a conspiratorial gleam came into his eye. “Perhaps it has

something to do with Elbegast, eh? A spy for our king must maintain his

secrecy, I suppose?”

“I suppose,” Leifr replied with an uneasy smile, amazed

that he had explained himself so well.

After another day at Bjartur, Leifr grew impatient to set out for

the next point of the Pentacle—Dokholur, the fifth and final station. As

they wound down the fell, they passed several trains of ponies, all

loaded with household possessions and farming gear, with smaller

children rocking on the tops of the bundles while the larger ones ran

behind with exultant shouts. Compared to the barren, rocky fortress,

the valley was a green and spacious paradise.

“There are still Dokkalfar around,” Leifr cautioned Borgar, who

was accompanying them as far as the last house.

“We’re not afraid of the Dokkalfar,” Borgar replied. With a

significant side wise glance at Leifr he added, “The Dokkalfar won’t be

bothering us much longer, when you finish the task you have begun.

When the alog is broken, they’ll take to their heels, or risk their lives on

the sharp new steel of the Ljosalfar.”

Later, when they were well away from Bjartur, Thurid began to

grumble. “I don’t know why you wanted to be so secretive, Fridmarr,

especially when they were almost certain they knew who you were

anyway. You don’t need to be ashamed of what happened so long ago.”

“I don’t, eh? Well, you’re mistaken,” Leifr retorted, with a

resentful scowl in Gotiskolker’s direction. “As the Fridmarr

who committed such crimes, I don’t feel like being praised now for

mending something I shouldn’t have ever broken in the past.”

“Were you spying for Elbegast, Fridmarr?” Thurid demanded. “Is

that why you’re so devious and evasive now?”

“Maybe,” Leifr replied warily.

Thurid snorted in disgust and rode his horse closer to Leifr’s

stirrup. “I practically raised you, Fridmarr, and somehow you’ve always

remained a complete stranger, hiding behind your secrets and facades

and keeping everyone away with your insults and suspicion. Even now,

after I’ve saved your life and you’ve saved mine, you still refuse to tell

me if you’ve got connections with Elbegast or not.”

Leifr darted Gotiskolker a haunted look, feeling himself totally

beyond his depth. “Thurid, you wouldn’t want to know the truth, and

wouldn’t accept it if I told you,” he said in exasperation, ignoring

Gotiskolker’s covert choking motions and frantic grimaces.

“I dare you to try me,” Thurid challenged.

“All right. To begin with, I’m not a spy for Elbegast, and I’d

never even heard of Elbegast until this spring.”

“I don’t believe you,” Thurid said immediately, sputtering

incredulously. “This is a perfect example of another of your insults,

Fridmarr. What kind of fool do you take me for? No, don’t answer!

Just forget 1 ever spoke to you, and I’ll try to forget I saved you from

Ognun by throwing the whetstone over his head. What I won’t forget

is that you’re Fridmarr, through and through, and you’ll never change.”

He spurred his horse into a canter and left Leifr and

Gotiskolker behind, avoiding each other’s eyes.

“I’ve had just about all of Fridmarr I can stand,” Leifr muttered.

“I’m getting more like him every day. When and how are we going to

end this masquerade, Gotiskolker?”

Gotiskolker rode along in silence for a few moments, his hood

drooping over his face. “We’d better do it before my time is up, or

you’ll be stuck here forever as Fridmarr, like it or not.”

“I can tell you right now that I won’t like it,” Leifr snapped.

“You’d better not die before you get me back to my own realm. How

much time is left?”

Gotiskolker pulled out his notched stick and counted.

“Thirty-two,” he said. “Plenty of time. How’s the torque, by the

way? Does it seem any tighter yet?”

Leifr slipped his finger under the ring. “I feel as if it’s strangling

me every moment.”

“Perhaps you’ll die before I do.”

“Then you’d better watch out for a vicious and vengeful draug,

because I’ll not rest until I’ve wrung your neck with my own hands,”

Leifr snarled. “I’ll make you regret you ever brought me here.”

Leifr dropped behind, sunk in an angry silence made more

painful by thoughts of Ljosa waiting to be released from Hjaldr.

Bleakly, he stared at Gotiskolker’s bony carcass, sagging wearily in his

saddle, and wondered if he would be able by himself to convince

Ljosa that he was not Fridmarr. But as Fridmarr, at least he would be

entitled to inherit Dallir, in case he managed to survive the next thirty-

two days and the coming battles.

Thurid waited impatiently near the summit of the next ridge,

motioning for them to hurry. He tied his horse to a dead thicket and

crept up to the skyline to peer warily around a stone pylon someone had

erected there long before.

Leifr tied his horse and started up the hill. Gotiskolker

dismounted and sat down to rest on a mossy rock, waving Leifr away

when he turned and started to come back down to see what was wrong

with him.

“Go on,” he rasped. “I’ll wait for you here.”

Leifr climbed up the rocky ridge to Thurid’s position and

gazed down into the next valley, disbelieving his eyes until he began to

comprehend the method behind the destruction below.

The valley lay desolate and barren, heaped with mounds of rock

and dirt like the massive skeletons of extinct monsters. One large fell

seemed to have been blasted with some poisonous blight, clawed from

top to bottom with gouges and craters and fans of sliding scree. Roads

traversed the once-green face of the mountain, leading from one gaping

cavern to the next. Around the portals, the rocks were blackened with

soot, and wisps of smoke still issued from the openings in lazy black

puffs. In the silence of the fells, the muffled clangor of the working of

the mines sounded an ominous note.

Leifr knew by instinct that the feeling of dread and gloom

hovering over the place signaled a location associated with evil—and

Sorkvir. He knew without asking that they had arrived at Dokholur.

“This used to be a holy hill,” Thurid said finally, his voice

choking slightly. “In the winter, no snow would stay on its summit. No

blood was ever shed here, and no night-farer dared to attack anyone

sheltering here. This mountain, according to old legend, is actually a

giant who lay down and went to sleep so long that the dirt covered him

up and trees started to grow on him. Perhaps that was just a way of

explaining the frequent earthquakes near Dokholur. I do know that the

mountain is a site of special powers, and Sorkvir knows it too. This

must be his most ambitious destruction project yet—the complete

leveling of Dokholur, and the gutting of its valuable minerals. There

used to be a river that surfaced here, but you see that Sorkvir has done

something to change its course. Underground water seems to be the

secret for much of the Pentacle’s powers.”

He dangled a dowsing pendulum as he talked, shaking his head

and scowling over its behavior before stowing it in his satchel once

more, adding as an afterthought, “Enough disturbance of this kind can

destroy an important site forever. We’ll have to find the aquifer first and

consider the damage to the mountain second.”

Leifr stared at him in horror. “No one could fix this wreckage,”

he said. “The Dokkalfar have spent years digging up the mountain and

hauling it down to the valley. The mountain is destroyed, and the valley

is full of rocks. Dokholur does not exist anymore.”

“So it would appear,” Thurid replied wearily. “But the least we

can do is stop any further destruction. Perhaps all the magic and power

is not diverted.”

“How many Dokkalfar do you suppose it takes to dig away that

much of a mountain?” Leifr asked suspiciously.

“Quite a lot, I imagine,” Thurid answered with an evasive shrug.

“Let’s get a bit closer, to see what we’re up against.” He pointed with

his staff to the ruins of a house at the foot of the slope. “We’ll get down

to there, where there’s some cover. Where’s Gotiskolker?”

“He’s staying with the horses,” Leifr replied, with an uneasy

glance over his shoulder down the hillside. “He wasn’t looking too

good.”

“I daresay he’d like another swallow of eitur,” Thurid said.

“We ought to keep an eye on him, in case he decides to go in

search of Sorkvir and his poison.”

“Don’t be any more of a fool than you can help,” Leifr retorted.

“He’d rather die than go on with that poison.”

Thurid smiled darkly. “You might be surprised how a man’s

mind changes when he comes eye to eye with dying. I hope you’re not

wrong about your unsavory friend.”

By the time they had crept down the hillside to the ruined house,

slithering from one scanty cover to the next, the sun was touching the

horizon. Nothing occupied the house except a family of owls, who

seemed undiscomfited by the growing heap of scree that had come

down the mountain to build up against the side of the house.

As the sky darkened, the excavation came to life. Pony trains,

loaded with sacks of earth and rock, wound their way down the

mountain to dump their cargo in the valley, with rivalrous shouts from