Then without warning or sound, before them near the hearth a head came out of the floor. It rose until half a woman’s body was there. They could not see whether she had the uncovered hair of a maiden or wore the kerchief of a wife, for a hooded blue cloak darkened sight of her face. But she seemed to be tall and gaunt. What showed of her dress sheened ghostly. Her arms held up her front apron panel. In it lay a sheaf of hemlocks with green leaves and white flower heads.

A roar went up. Men sprang to their feet. None moved farther. They stared, stiff and daunted. As cries died away, hard breathing rasped through the fire-crackle. Hounds that had hunted wild boar cringed back. One howled.

Hadding stood lynx-taut. The woman’s head turned. Her eyes found his. For a span they two were thus frozen, and stillness deepened throughout the hall. She showed the hemlocks forth to him as if she asked where in the world such fresh herbs might grow at the dead of winter.

He made a step toward her. “She beckons me,” he mumbled. Ragnhild gripped his arm. He shook her off and moved on over the strewn rushes. Afterward he said he felt himself adream, bound off with no thought of doing otherwise. Yet he knew by every red glimmer of firelight, whiff of smoke, rustle underfoot, that this was real.

“Yes,” he said aloud, his look never leaving the woman’s, “I would like to know.”

Helpless, Ragnhild saw him reach her. She rose up fully; her height matching his, and cast her cloak about than both. They sank from sight. The floor there bore no mark of having been touched.

He came to rest in thick gloom. Fog swirled cold. Unseen, the woman nudged his elbow. At that slight urging, he walked forward beside her. She strode as if they were not blinded. He• thrust aside fear of stumbling and kept beside her. Their footfalls sounded hollow.

It seemed to him that they went a long way, slowly downward, before the mist thinned out. When they were clear of it, he found himself under a gray overcast. Dull light seeped across a waste of rocks. Air lay windless, without heat or cold. The path they were on was dry but deeply worn. He thought that many feet must have trodden it before him.

Still she walked unspeaking. He thought he had better not say anything either. Stealing a look at her, he saw a bony face, unsmiling, ivory white, as if she had never been out beneath the sun. She herself always gazed straight ahead.