Net in hand, I left the cave and went to explore the Under-sea. I found myself a cavern, lit by a long, vertical shaft that led back to the World Above, and cast the net into the sea. I happened to know that the Tunnel Folk had cousins all over World Below, and that one of them – Andvari, his name was – liked to mine the sea bed, which was rich in all kinds of minerals. With Ran’s net of woven runes, it didn’t take me long to sense Andvari’s presence, then to snare him and haul him out, totally at my mercy.

Of course he’d changed his Aspect. I cast the rune Bjarkán and saw that a massive pike was caught in my net, flailing and thrashing and showing its teeth.

I spoke a little cantrip – a named thing is a tamed thing – and, using his true name, made him resume his true Aspect. Within seconds, the little guy was sitting on the cavern floor, whining in the folds of the net.

‘What are you doing here? What do you want?’

He sounded both aggrieved and scared. I wasn’t surprised; Andvari’s folk were a lot less aggressive than Ivaldi’s brood. They were smaller, too; more like the goblins that came to infest the Undersea and World Below after the end of the Winter War.

‘I want your gold,’ I told him. ‘Yes, I know you’ve got a stash down here. Red gold, and lots of it, or I’ll wring you like a rag.’

He took a little persuasion. But I can be pretty persuasive, and with the help of Ran’s drowning-net I managed to convince him. Still snivelling, he led me to his secret smithy, where I packed his supply of red gold into a number of leather sacks. When I had finished, there wasn’t a scrap of gold left in the chamber – except for a little ring on Andvari’s finger, which I saw him trying to conceal.

‘That too. Hand it over,’ I said.

Andvari snivelled and protested, but I wasn’t taking no for an answer. I added the ring to the pile.

‘It’s cursed,’ said Andvari sullenly. ‘You’ll never live to enjoy your theft. Bad luck will follow you everywhere.’

I grinned. ‘So much the better,’ I said. ‘As I’m not planning to keep it myself.’ And then I picked up my sacks of gold and set off on foot back to Inland.

‘You took your time,’ said Odin, when I got back to Hreidmar’s place. The prisoners were still bound fast; they looked dishevelled and hungry and tired. It would make a good story, I thought, knowing that Honir would spread the tale; and then there was Ran, who would tell it to Aegir and all their cronies; how Loki had bravely come back into the wolf’s lair to ransom his friends . . .