Thus he followed little of what she did in the twilight and heard merely snatches of what she sang. When full night had fallen, starless, moonless, and sightless, high flames shot up. He saw her black against their icy white. The dolmen groaned. Something trod out of it to stand before her. She cried her wish aloud. Hadding could barely make out that a horrible whisper answered.

The thing went back into its mold, the fire died away, and Hardgreip returned to him. “Let us be off,” she said in a thin voice. They pushed blind through thickets that lashed and tore at them, until they found a stream and a cleanly rushing waterfall. There they stopped, toppling into a sleep full of nightmares.

Afterward, on the way home, Hardgreip told him only, “I never awaited a good word from the drow, nor did I get any. I do not well understand what he did say, and do not think my father will either. But he spoke of dooms to come upon us.” She gave him a long look. “And he said you are not what you seem, Hadding, and your lot is still more strange. I know not what that means.”

Shaken, he kept silent.

Later, though, as they regained their own woods, the darkness lifted from their breasts. “Well, I knew already that no one, man or thurs or god, lives forever, nor the worlds themselves,” she said, “and whatever our weird may be, we shall not meet it this year.” For his part, when they reached his beloved lake he drew strength and cheer from the beholding, and wondered more keenly than ever when he could go find the sea.

These jotuns were, indeed, wonted to magic. They were not deeply learned in it, but they could cast spells of some power for help, harm, or the searching out of what was hidden. They tried to teach Hadding. He showed no gift for it, and what must be done was too often loathsome to him.

“As you wish.” Vagnhöfdi sighed, like a wind through tall pines. “The craft is tricky enough for those who have skill, so best if you leave it be. I will show you a bit, however. In time you’ll go from us, and we know now you’ll fare on wild ways. Let me give you the words that will bring me to your side, though you be halfway across Midgard. Use them in your direst need, for only once can I come to you thus.”

Aside from that, Hadding picked up no more than loose-floating scraps of witchy knowledge. He might cast runes for guidance or carve them for luck, he might take warning from a happenstance that struck others merely as odd, but he never became a warlock.