I looked into the monster’s eyes and spoke the message in my mind. I am going now to fetch what you need. Do no harm while I am gone. Wait. Only wait. I am a friend. I showed him Svala embracing me, her tall form close to engulfing my far slighter one. I showed the serpent’s dance of joy in the bay when we first sailed in and he saw that she had come home. I made a picture of the men waiting in the tunnel, and the serpent sleeping where he was, and Cathal and me coming back, holding the blanket—the skin—between us. Then I stepped away. The creature was quiet. He hunkered down in the shallow water, closing his eyes to slits, but behind them he was watchful.

We ran. I fixed my thoughts on the cave; I concentrated on staying on my feet. Here and there we slowed, and Cathal took my hand to help me. Once or twice we stopped to get our breath back, though Cathal did not seem in the least breathless, only rather paler than usual. We did not waste our energy in talk, for reaching the cave was only half the journey. Eventually we came under the arch and into the space where the lost men had sheltered. Beyond the cave mouth the ravine was dim; it was close to dusk.

I bent to pick up the covering that had kept three men from death all through the lonely days from Freyja’s departure to Liadan ’s arrival.

“By the Dagda’s manhood,” breathed Cathal, “I think you’re right. If this isn’t a skin, I don’t know what it is. Great gods, Sibeal, that poor creature. I wonder if Knut knew what he’d done to her.”

I was examining the skin more closely. It was all in dull duns and grays, and curiously patterned in even, eight-sided shapes. And here, at the very edge, was a damaged patch, as if a clumsy hand had wielded a knife without due care. “He had an idea, at least,” I said. “He cut off a strip of it and put it around his neck—see here, it’s torn at this edge. He hung his lucky charm from it. Not quite the same as taking the whole skin, but enough to keep her under his control, at least while she was far away from here and could not reach the missing part of herself. No wonder she ripped the cord from his neck with such violence. Perhaps it was being close to him—the creature, I mean—that made her bold enough at last.”

We regarded each other across the dimming cavern, awestruck by the strangeness of it. Then Cathal said, “You amaze me, Sibeal. You are truly remarkable. Now, how are we going to carry this?”